One thing was clear from this exercise, Gingrich said. "The military has done a vastly better job of systematically thinking through the ethics of behavior in a violent environment than the journalists have."

That was about the mildest way to put it. Although Wallace and Jennings conceded that the criticism was fair—if journalists considered themselves "detached,"they could not logically expect American soldiers to rescue them—nevertheless their reactions spoke volumes about the values of their craft. Jennings was made to feel embarrassed about his natural, decent human impulse. Wallace seemed unembarrassed about feeling no connection to the soldiers in his country's army or considering their deaths before his eyes "simply a story." In other important occupations people sometimes face the need to do the horrible. Frederick Downs, after all, was willing to torture a man and hear him scream. But Downs had thought through all the consequences and alternatives, and he knew he would live with the horror for the rest of his days. When Mike Wallace said he would do something horrible, he barely bothered to give a rationale. He did not try to explain the reasons a reporter might feel obliged to remain silent as the attack began—for instance, that in combat reporters must be beyond country, or that they have a duty to bear impartial witness to deaths on either side, or that Jennings had implicitly made a promise not to betray the North Kosanese when he agreed to accompany them. The soldiers might or might not have found such arguments convincing; Wallace didn't even make them.

Why Americans Hate the Media

But any consolidation involving Continental — the No. 4 carrier in the U.S., which holds coveted positions in New York and has a growing international network — would be complicated by the relationship between it and Northwest.

Northwest holds a so-called "golden share" in Continental, which gives it the right to block mergers involving the Houston-based carrier, according to Continental filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

The unusual relationship dates back to 2001 when Northwest agreed to sell its shares in Continental after it was sued for anti-competitive behavior by the U.S. Department of Justice.

The share "forces Continental to negotiate with Northwest if there's a transaction that results in a change in control," said airline industry consultant Robert Mann.

NW's Golden Share in CO: Want to marry Continental? Ask Northwest first - USATODAY.com

The Pentagon entrusted a 22-year-old previously arrested for domestic violence and having a forged driving licence to be the main supplier of ammunition to Afghan forces at the height of the battle against the Taliban, it was reported yesterday.

AEY, essentially a one-man operation based in an unmarked office in Miami Beach, Florida, was awarded a contract worth $300m (�150m) to supply the Afghan army and police in January last year. But as the New York Times reported in a lengthy investigation, AEY's president, Efraim Diversoli, 22, supplied stock that was 40 years old and rotting packing material.

Lord of War

US gave $300m arms contract to 22-year-old with criminal record | World news | The Guardian

That is the difference between a strong president (one who leads) and a strong presidency (one in which ultimate power resides in the hands of a single person). Bush is officially America's "head of state," but he is not the head of government; he is the head of one branch of our government, and it's not the branch that decides on war and peace.

Mickey Edwards - Dick Cheney's Error - washingtonpost.com

A majority of the money, $45 million, was raised online, the campaign said. More than 90 percent of the donations were under $100, and more than half were under $25.

Obama raises $55 million in February, sets new record - CNN.com

Like their counterparts in Japan in the 1990s, American authorities may be deluding themselves into believing they can forestall the endgame of post-bubble adjustments. Government aid is being aimed, mistakenly, at maintaining unsustainably high rates of personal consumption. Yet that's precisely what got the United States into this mess in the first place - pushing down the savings rate, fostering a huge trade deficit and stretching consumers to take on an untenable amount of debt.

A more effective strategy would be to try to tilt the economy away from consumption and toward exports and long-needed investments in infrastructure.

The unwinding of excesses - International Herald Tribune

Cars newer than that were banned from imports as unwelcome competition for Mexican car dealers, and anything more than 15 years old was seen as a potential environmental and safety hazard.

But now, under pressure from Mexico's new car dealers who say "vehiculos chatarra," or jalopies, undercut their sales, the Mexican government is allowing only 10-year-old used cars to be legally imported into Mexico.

All of a sudden, 1998 Luminas, Astro vans and Ranger pickups are sought-after trophies.

Humorous.

Mexico Only Allows 10 Year Old Used Car Imports - 98 Models Only - Salon.com | News Wires

Late at night several times a week, Terrill powers up the 4-foot-tall, 300 pound device and reaches for a remote control packed with two joysticks and various knobs and switches. Standing on a nearby corner, he maneuvers the machine down the block, often to a daycare center where it accosts what Terrill says are drug dealers, vagrants and others who shouldn't be there.

He flashes the robot's spotlight and grabs a walkie-talkie, which he uses to boom his disembodied voice over the robot's sound system.

"I tell them they are trespassing, it's private property, and they have to leave," he said. "They throw bottles and cans at it. That's when I shoot the water cannon. They just scatter like roaches."

OMG, I can't believe he actually built it, and I can't believe it actually works.

Who needs security when you have a robot? | ajc.com

Hating the war, loving the war, hating himself for loving it. For Babchenko, war is like an abusive lover he can't let go of. It's a relationship, he argues, that can be fully understood only by those who have been in battle. "In war a person [becomes] some other kind of creature," he writes. "We don't have just five senses; there is a sixth, seventh, tenth even, growing from our bodies like tentacles and grafting themselves onto the war. And through them we feel the war. You can't talk about war with someone who has never been there, not because they are stupid or dimwitted, but because they don't have the senses to feel it with."

Unfortunately, there are half a million Americans and counting returning from Iraq and Afghanistan today who know exactly what he's talking about. *

'One Soldier's War,' a memoir by Arkady Babchenko - Los Angeles Times

I'm sorry, I just can't stop. Just the language they're using on the news accounts--like, when it's some Special Olympics star who wins a gold medal for finishing the 100-yard dash in under six minutes, nobody'd ever say "retarded." He's "special." But interfere with all the upbeat "surge working" stories and you're just a dead retard.

Then there's the matter of like, how do they know? I mean, "retarded" compared to who--the average suicide bomber? If this proves that Al Q. is "scraping the bottom of the barrel" for recruits, does that mean they had aptitude tests till now? "We are sorry, Rashid, but your SAT scores do not qualify you to wear a vest and pull a string."

...

fast-forward to the grimmest war at all for a frontline soldier: 1914, the Western Front. Now that was a suicide mission, going over the top. After a few months they all knew it was totally pointless, too--machine guns beat charging infantry every single time, but the gung-ho officers refused to admit it.

Take a machine gun bullet in the belly out there and you were going to die all right. But not by nice quick beheading. You were going to (a) die of peritonitis if you were lucky enough to be dragged back to your lines; (b) be forgotten in No-Man's land and bleed out, which means freezing to death as your circulatory system loses the power to keep your body warm; (c) be eaten alive, or half-alive, by the rats that swarmed between the trenches; or (d) lie there until the next bombardment sent a shell--just as likely your own side's as the enemy's--to plow up the blood/mud mush one more time and just by accident blow your infected mess of a body into vapor.

When you compare that death to the one the average Iraqi suicide bomber gets, well my God, even a retard could figure out which is better.

THE EXILE - Not Your Usual High-IQ Suicide Bombers, Huh? - By Gary Brecher - The War Nerd