All the news

It’s that time of year again. And being sensible, I treated myself to new boxers. Now we can move on…

For some reason, this bit of news from the Times caught my attention this morning.

"There has never been a military commander in history who wouldn’t like to have more of something or other. That characterizes all of us here. The fact is, frankly, that we have all that our country is going to provide us in terms of combat forces — that is really it, right now." GEN. DAVID H. PETRAEUS, the top American commander in Iraq

Now, doesn’t that say something about the Decider’s plans to open another front in World War III, by attacking Iran? Which army was he planning on using? And has he factored in the distinct possibility that Turkey will probably grow tired of incursions by Kurdish rebels and will invade Northern Iraq? There is a large Turkish army sitting on the border right now and they’re not happy.

And speaking of Generals…

General Says Prison Inquiry Led to His Forced Retirement
By DAVID S. CLOUD
Gen. Antonio M. Taguba, who investigated abuse at Abu Ghraib, has said that in early 2006 he was ordered, without explanation, to retire within a year.

I also spotted some follow-up info on the great ‘Sippy Cup’ fiasco at Washington National airport. Will we ever know the truth? Does it matter? As all veteran airplane passengers know, security is a matter of perception. And TSA knows this best. For passengers to think they are being protected; to really believe it…they must be discomforted and inconvenienced in some way. Otherwise, how would they know that TSA is actually doing something? As someone who has worked at an airport, I know that there are far too many ways to subvert the system, but most are behind the scenes and useless for ‘perception control’.