Morning Quick Picks

Blogging will be intermittent next week as we travel to visit family, ski and attend a conference - in three different places. The latter may provide for some veeeery interesting blogging this weekend of the kind that 'real' reporters do. I.e., excerpts from these tapes from Saddam are going to be played live. We're officially excited, though sorely embarassed to admit that our flaky wireless connection will not be facilitating live-blogging. Watch for reports tomorrow and Sunday.

This makes me want to take up smoking just to spite the intrusive mandarins of Calabasas, CA. We run marathons and we're on the other coast, but hey... an airline ticket, a Zippo and a pack of Lucky's seem like they're in the spirit of Henry David Thoreau, doncha think?

As we've noted twice before, ("keep an eye on France"), we should not assume that those whom Lance Armstrong has routinely crushed and embarassed each July will behave towards the Iranian situation as they did towards the U.S. on Iraq. The incentives are very different: the lack of an established financial gravy train, two weeks of rioting and being... in range are tending to focus the collective French mind.

Speaking of Iraq, consider how much worse this would be if we were not there...

The U.S. military confirmed yesterday that it had uncovered its own first direct evidence that a death squad was operating from Iraq's Shia-run Interior Ministry, targeting Sunni Muslims.

...which is not how the MSM is likely to see it.

A loyal reader points us to this wonderful, serendipitous find (turn on your audio)... from those days long long ago when even entertainers (other than Bruce Willis, Dennis Miller and Arnold) understood that basic patriotism was acceptable, even socially responsible.

Finally, this makes us very nervous. Very nervous indeed.

The Bush administration on Thursday rebuffed criticism about potential security risks of a $6.8 billion sale that gives a company in the United Arab Emirates control over significant operations at six major American ports.

The company's owners may all wear nice suits and have degrees from American universities and speak flawless English. That does not mean that the second cousin of the Saudi brother-in-law of one of them (who happens to be a jihadist) is not now more able to get a job overseeing U.S. port operations than he was before.

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And one complete shift of gears for a postscript. Fourteen months ago, our friend 'S' from chuch lost his wife and two nearly-viable twins very suddenly, leaving him (a traveling salesman with a startup) with a two year old and a six year old to care for on his own. The following month, his mother-in-law required extensive cancer surgery - the same month that his own mother contracted a rare virus that left her nearly paralyzed. Now we get word that his father is being tested for cancer and will require a quadruple bypass this weekend. We've taken to calling him 'Job' for his steadfastness through these trials. But even Job needed help. Please find a place in your prayers today for our friend Steve that he may find meaning and strength and peace on his difficult path. There but for the grace of God...

UPDATE: We will be working late tomorrow morning via cell phone to try and get the basic facts from the Intelligence Summit and Saddam's WMD out via our friend Chester.