It's worth a try

After all this time, the Defense Department is getting desperate to find Osama bin Laden. While so many of our troops are tied up in Iraq this new approach sounds pretty good to me. Let's hope it works and that any capture of bin Laden, even after he has now had 5 years to set up future attacks against us, will somehow make us safer. I'm not sure any of that will actually happen, but it is worth a try.

An elite group of Native American trackers is joining the hunt for terrorists crossing Afghanistan's borders. The unit, the Shadow Wolves, was recruited from several tribes, including the Navajo, Sioux, Lakota and Apache. It is being sent to Tajikistan and Uzbekistan to pass on ancestral sign-reading skills to local border units. The Pentagon has been alarmed at the ease with which Taliban and al-Qa'ida fighters have been slipping in and out of Afghanistan. Defence officials are convinced their movements can be curtailed by the Shadow Wolves. Harold Thompson, a Navajo Indian, and Gary Ortega, from the Tohono reservation, are experts at "cutting sign", the traditional Indian method of finding and following minute clues from a barren landscape. They can detect twigs snapped by passing humans or hair snagged on a branch and tell how long a sliver of food may have lain in the dirt.

News Roundup

I will be away from the computer all day so here is a round up of some news stories I found interesting this morning.

First of all, you can keep up with the jittery stock market here.

I watched the ABC news special last night with Bob Woodward. It was one of the most touching, sad and informative pieces of journalism I have ever seen. Woodward was badly injured in Iraq by an Improvised Explosive Devise and had half his head blown off. His injury is common among returning veterans and the news special showed his recovery process and, more importantly, that of other soldiers and Marines. My thought while watching it was that President Bush (or any "surge" supporter) should be tied to a chair for an hour and forced to watch the results of their actions. Fortunately, you don't have to be forced. You can voluntarily watch it for free here. Bring some kleenex.

The Washington Post's recent story on the deplorable conditions returning veterans are forced to endure at some parts of the Walter Reed hospital has netted results. Namely, the Bush administration has ordered a daily early morning inspection and now forbidden any injured military personnel there from talking to the media. Think I'm exaggerating? Check it out for yourself here and here.

When the stock market was crashing yesterday everyone knew it stemmed from a change in China's capitalist policies as well as the recession warning by former Fed Chief Alan Greenspan. Everyone, that is, except FOX News who tried to sell it as a reaction to the "assassination attempt" on Dick Cheney. Well, today, they seem to realize that wasn't the best spin to put on it afterall. If it was an assassination attempt - how did they know Cheney was there? It was a secret trip. Is security that bad? If the secret visit was leaked to the Taliban then security in Afghanistan is in grave trouble. Maybe that's why they are now backing off that version of the story. However, if it was not an assassination attempt, as they are now trying to say, but rather just a coincidence, then what's with the lame attempt to turn deep seated economic concerns into an opportunity to create symapthy for Dick Cheney? They'll distort if you oblige.

I read this article in the New York Times yesterday and it really got me thinking. It is about Stewart Brand, one of the originators of the environmentalist movement. He has been on the forefront of many ideas over the past 40 years, that progressives hold dear. Well, he has some interesting things to say that will probably make the hard core liberals a bit uneasy. But to me, it opened my mind a bit. You should read the article to get the full flavor but he is basically saying that even liberals can get stuck in their ways of thinking at their own peril. He is actually advocating (and predicting that liberals will come to agree with him) genetically altered food and nuclear power! He argues that in an ideal world these things would not be welcome. Too dangerous and uncertain. But he now thinks that looking at the world as it is, we have to embrace these technologies in order for the human race to thrive and survive. I won't say he persuaded me overnight to agree with him, but my mind is now open to these ideas where they once were closed. One of my main problems with the right wing is that they seem to completely ignore the truth. I do not want to fall into that trap myself.

Al Gore is now getting hit by Red smears. A 27 year old from AEI (you know them) fed a story to the right wing media critical of the Gore's energy usage. Of course it spread like wildfire through the media and of course it was short on the facts. I know that talking about this story, even to debunk it, falls into the right wings hand. They know it will be debunked but they are also counting on many people not hearing about the falsehoods and only catching the original press release. If you want to find out the truth (and learn once again how the Right spreads their lies) you can see it all here.

I'm guessing that at this juncture, Anna Nicole's funeral will be a closed casket affair. She is still not buried! Come to think of it, either is James Brown.

I hope you get the chance to check out at least some of those stories. But when you are done, get up and go for a walk. I wouldn't want to be responsible for this happening to you.

Lanslide, Sinkhole, Bombing and Crash (oh my!)

It's one of those crazy days today. San Francisco is having a big landslide, consuming buildings but fortunately not any loss of life. There is a gigantic sinkhole forming in Guatemala that has geologists around the world in awe. The security situation in Afghanistan seems more than a little suspect as Dick Cheney's "secret" trip there was interrupted by an assassination attempt. And the stock market is spiraling down at this hour because of troubling financial news out of China. Just another day in paradise.