Then Christopher Hitchens is your man. I mean, who else would write a hit piece on Mother Theresa. And now he's gone after the only American saint and royalty - President Kennedy.

Actually, an interesting piece. But if Hitchens hadn't voluntarily quit the Left, they would have thrown him out for that one.

To help out Kim du Toit. Went to the K-Mart in Herndon, VA, and in the sporting goods area, even though they had a promotional flyer advertising ammo, and hunting gear, and a sign explaining that you couldn't buy ammunition if you were a felon under Virginia law, I find that they no longer sell ammo. K-Mart still does, this particular K-Mart does not. I mean, it's about 11 miles to NRA headquarters from that K-Mart. But then again, maybe its good, because it is only a mile or so from the (former) headquarters of Safa.

At any rate, I failed to acquire 100 rounds of 9mm. I hope Kim doesn't call me a bad name.

I figured the Insta- and Sully-lanche of the Stephen Hayes Weekly Standard article reporting on a leaked classified memo to the Senate Intelligence Committee written by Undersecretary of Defense Doug Feith would gather some notice from the media. But it hasn't, and even Slate wonders why. The Department of Defense released a non-denial denial, and Hayes has responded. He covers much of the same ground, but reproduces more of the memo:

31. An Oct 2002 [U.S. intelligence agency] report said al Qaeda and Iraq reached a secret agreement whereby Iraq would provide safe haven to al Qaeda members and provide them with money and weapons. The agreement reportedly prompted a large number of al Qaeda members to head to Iraq. The report also said that two al Qaeda members involved a fraudulent passport network for al Qaeda had been directed to procure 90 Iraqi and Syrian passports for al Qaeda personnel.

References to procurement of false passports from Iraq and offers of safe haven previously have surfaced in CIA source reporting considered reliable. Intelligence reports to date have maintained that Iraqi support for al Qaeda usually involved providing training, obtaining passports, and offers of refuge. This report adds to that list by including weapons and money. This assistance would make sense in the aftermath of 9-11. The US attack on Afghanistan deprived al Qaeda of its protected base and caused its operatives to disperse to many other regions where they would need weapons to arm themselves against the local government security and police apparatus (i.e. Pakistan, Indonesia, Philippines). And since the US has been targeting al Qaeda's sources of funding, some cells may need additional money to continue operations.

Holy Schneikeys!!!! I wish that Hayes would just reproduce the whole report.

Andrew Sullivan thinks there is some kind of cover-up going on. It is a good question. The Pentagon's non-denial denial verifies that it is an authentic document. If we have reliable reports like that, how could that blow sources and methods to release it? And then there is also the whole unresolved Atta in Prague thing. And of course the anthrax. This is getting curioser and curioser.

I had heard about the Seattle "not in my name" moron protestors that planned to have a demonstration outside a Tacoma Army base where about 3500 reservists were going to be entering for an Iraqi deployment.

I have been down lately about the American populaces understanding of the stakes involved, and I was terribly angry on hearing this story. Some troops about to leave for Iraq, and the last thing they see on US soil are anti-war protestors.

I was overjoyed to the point of having tears in my eyes to see what actually happened. About 30 anti-war protestors showed up, but more then 4000 people showed up to give support.

Analog Kid has incredible pictures and the great story. Instead of these troops leaving thinking that the nation has turned our back on them, they will know that we support them. Great job to those folks.

The right to sodomy recently discovered by the Supreme Court of the United States now makes for a right to gay marriage in Massachusetts. This engineer's eye sees weirdness in the decision that the state cannot forbid marriage between two persons of the same sex, and yet implicitly assumes that marriage is only between two people. I know that legal types can see things in words that us regular folks can't. I emailed Instapundit about it, but as he gets about a zillion emails a day, I don't expect an answer.

I wonder if there are any legal types around here who have an opinion...

Evidently, parents are still sending their kids to stay with Michael Jackson. I hope they enjoy the money.