"There was a guy in Darrel's unit that when Darrel got wounded by the roadside bomb, this guy got so freaked out that every time they went out on a mission they left him there playing video games," Dennis said.

Bad to worse? I'm not a fan of using this sort of one off story to show larger trends, but a couple lines later is

Dennis said her son's commanders refused because giving him treatment would be an admission that things weren't going well.

"So they left him there for three months playing video games," Dennis said.

That tells me something else entirely is going on.

HEALTH-US: Sick, Literally, of Fighting in Iraq

These measures would lead to an exit from a no exit situation. They would salvage our moral position and actually help the Iraqi people, who so far have been pawns in an immoral military adventure.

I don't normally like Chopra's touchy feely crap, but this one actually makes some sense.

The Blog | Deepak Chopra: Exit and No Exit | The Huffington Post

After the trap doors opened, al-Bandar could be seen dangling from the rope. Ibrahim's body was lying on the floor, chest down, his severed head resting several yards away.

Oops. Rope was too long.

Iraq hanging video shown to reporters - Yahoo! News

It is as likely that this escalation will lead to an Iraq that can govern itself, sustain itself and defend itself as it is that it will lead to an Iraq that can levitate itself, fellate itself and book itself on a cruise to Bermuda.

The best description for the "surge" I've yet seen. Ouch.

The Blog | Marty Kaplan: There Is No Itself There

And so the make-believe winter collided with reality: People wore T-shirts as they ice-skated on the wet and slushy rink at Rockefeller Center, and the Polar Bears held a moment of silence, turned their backs on the Atlantic and headed toward the boardwalk, a protest, albeit an underdressed one, against global warming, they said.

This is both hilarious and scary.

72-Degree Day Breaks Record in New York - New York Times

Whether the name of the game was liberation or dominion, Iraq was a crucial test case. Iraq's transformation into the first Arab democracy — or (depending on your point of view) its conversion into a compliant protectorate — promised to validate the Bush administration's concept of global war.

Victory in Iraq would also affirm key assumptions underlying that concept: that U.S. forces are invincible and unstoppable; that preventive war works; that the concerns of other major powers or the absence of a UN Security Council mandate need not constrain American freedom of action.

In short, Iraq constituted step one. Success there would pave the way for the Bush administration to proceed along similar lines to steps two, three and four.

The disappointments and frustrations resulting from that first step now leave the entire project in a shambles. If the United States cannot democratize Iraq, then to imagine that democracy will emerge from the barrel of an American gun in Iran, Syria, Egypt or Saudi Arabia is simply fanciful. If U.S. troops cannot pacify Iraq, then only the truly deluded would court a further military showdown that could oblige American forces to pacify Iraq's neighbors as well. The United States already has too much war for too few soldiers.
...
As if tacitly acknowledging that they have spent all their ammunition strategically, Bush and his lieutenants now preoccupy themselves with operational matters that ought to fall within the purview of field commanders. Will sending another half-dozen combat brigades into Baghdad secure the Iraqi capital? How about if we make it 10? That issues like these should now command presidential attention testifies to the administration's disarray. It's as if Franklin Roosevelt had tried to manage the Battle of the Bulge from his desk in the Oval Office.

Fighting the Battle of Baghdad does not qualify as presidential business. Devising an effective response to the threat posed by Islamic radicalism does. On that score, however, the most pressing question is this: Does open-ended global war provide the proper framework for formulating that response? Or has global war, based on various illusions about American competence and American power, led to a dead end?

Bacevich is known for solid analysis out of BU. No dummy, and no friend of W (although I'm not sure anyone still is these days).

Bush's illusions - Opinion - International Herald Tribune

U.S. growers produce nearly $35 billion worth of marijuana annually, making the illegal drug the country's largest cash crop, bigger than corn and wheat combined

'nuff said.

Marijuana top US cash crop, analyst says - Yahoo! News

Militiamen grabbed six Sunnis as they left Friday worship services, doused them with kerosene and burned them alive as Iraqi soldiers stood by

Things are going so well in Iraq, we can only lose if we... Who is the administration trying to kid? Is the idea that we're the ones who dropped the crate of eggs so we have to be the ones to put them back together? Into something we can stick back under the chickens to hatch? Welcome to impossible, and the only ones left who don't get that are the ones who make the policy.

Shiites burn 6 Sunni worshippers alive

Though nearly 79,000 families have applied to the program, called the Road Home, only 1,721 have been told how much grant money they will receive. And just 22 have received access to the cash

In the meantime of course, they're on their own, and have been for months now.

Slow Home Grants Stall Progress in New Orleans - New York Times

One woman was photographed partially clad in a military uniform, and a last name is visible on the blouse. Seitz said the Kentucky Guard wouldn't confirm whether a woman with that name works in the unit.

Lt. Col. Rich Steele, a spokesman for the First Army at Fort Gillem, Ga., said that if the allegations are proved, punishment could range from informal reprimands to courts-martial. He said the investigation is being conducted in Iraq.

Wait, having your picture taken naked can get you thrown out of the army? Think if they told the troops that you might see an increase in greenporn?

Louisville Paper Gets Disc With 232 Photos of Nude National Guard Women