Does anyone remember that corruption sting at Johnson Space Center over a decade ago? It turns out that the FBI agent in charge manufactured the evidence, ruining the lives of several NASA contractor employees.

And the hits just keep on coming.

OK, everyone who thinks that Bill Lockyer is positioning himself to attempt to become governor of California in a couple months, by announcing in less than a couple weeks, raise your hands…

Apparently Christopher Hitchens, ever the iconoclast, doesn’t buy that old bit about “de mortuis nil nisi bonum” (don’t speak ill of the dead). He decided that this was a good week to write a column in Salon about how unfunny Bob Hope was.

Boy, first Mother Theresa and now this. Apparently Christopher never learned that other old bit–friends come and go, but enemies are forever.

Apparently Christopher Hitchens, ever the iconoclast, doesn’t buy that old bit about “de mortuis nil nisi bonum” (don’t speak ill of the dead). He decided that this was a good week to write a column in Salon about how unfunny Bob Hope was.

Boy, first Mother Theresa and now this. Apparently Christopher never learned that other old bit–friends come and go, but enemies are forever.

Apparently Christopher Hitchens, ever the iconoclast, doesn’t buy that old bit about “de mortuis nil nisi bonum” (don’t speak ill of the dead). He decided that this was a good week to write a column in Salon about how unfunny Bob Hope was.

Boy, first Mother Theresa and now this. Apparently Christopher never learned that other old bit–friends come and go, but enemies are forever.

Yeah, we used to make jokes about having to go down to Huntspatch to give briefings to the folks at Marshall Space Flight Center, but, as Bill O’Reilly would say, here’s the most ridiculous item of the day.

I’d be embarassed to work with the kinds of folks who thought this was funny.

For the record, I’m not a citizen of the United States of the Offended, as I’ve heard conservative commentators call our PC society. But I have to admit that one e-mailer had a good point when he wondered what the theme for the party might have been if Marshall had been transferred to one of Boeing’s offices in Harlem or San Francisco.”

And as Glenn would say, indeed.

As usual, Iowahawk has scooped the rest of the media in the biggest political story of the year. A new, dark-horse charismatic candidate has emerged in the race for the Democratic nomination for president.

If I were the White House, I’d be worried. After all, this guy’s a proven vote getter–last time he won with almost a hundred percent. The only thing that could hold him back is that pesky Constitutional business about having to be native born here…

Actually, I suspect that this piece is going to enrage Democrats.

Hmmmm…just as an aside, I wonder if this is going to become the updated, twenty-first century version of Godwin’s Law?

Or perhaps both. Ralph Peters has it exactly right. We have to completely overhaul our notions of national “legitimacy” and come up with some higher values than sovereignty when applied to tyrants.

Now here’s an interesting article from the WaPo.

It describes an Iraqi father who kills his son, because he’s collaborating with the Americans. He has the support of many in his town.

I’m not sure what the purpose of this article is, but if it’s to tell us how hopeless the situation is over there, and that we should just throw in the towel, and get back on track, figuring out why they hate us, and just try to understand them, let’s put things in a little perspective.

I mean, it’s not like we have no experience with guerrilla wars, or civil wars here. The notion of brother against brother, or father against son, is not exactly a foreign concept to an American, unless that American is utterly innocent of his or her American history.

Has anyone ever heard of William Quantrill, or Jesse James, or Cole Younger?

They were the prototypical terrorists, fighting for their “cause.” There was a reason that, in the years running up to the War Between The States, that the word “Kansas” was often prefixed by the adjective “Bloody.” Some of the most brutal fighting in the war (albeit not major battles) was in Missouri, and after the war, yes, months and years after the surrender at Appomattox, guerrillas (aka “The James Gang”) in Missouri fought on, and atrociously. If we’re to take the reporting of the press at face value, we should, of course, conclude that the situation in Iraq is hopeless, and that we will never pacify the region, any more than we could hope that Missouri is now a tranquil state, no longer with people literally at each others’ throats.

Well, I feel a new parody of modern reporting coming on, casting back all the way to almost a hundred forty years ago, perhaps even from the St. Louis Dispatch, which existed even then, but I’m tired. Perhaps, having provided some hints, someone else can take up the cudgel…

[Update on Friday afternoon]

Well, it’s not exactly what I had in mind, but Victor Davis Hanson’s column today is about Lincoln’s quagmire.