So I was home in TX, and in a strip mall I saw a rather unusual bumper sticker. What was unusual about this bumper sticker was not the sticker itself--it was a McCain 2008 sticker--but that it was on a Toyota Prius. As everyone knows, a Prius usually comes with a pre-installed Obama sticker.

Not only was it unusual, but it signified something deeper.

A SWAT team bags a Maryland Mayor, shooting his two dogs in the process. Turns out they didn't have a valid warrant which legally speaking turns the 'no knock' raid into what amounts to the standard run of the mill drug turf battle between rival gangs.

Balloon Juice's lapsed conservative John Cole is on the case and he's not happy.

From ABC News and Radley Balko

For those of you who are unfamiliar, during a drug raid last January, police officer Joseph Chavalia shot and killed Wilson and wounded her infant son. Wilson was unarmed and was holding the child in her arms at the time. It's probably no surprise to anyone that Wilson is Black and Sgt. Chavalia is white.

It happens, way more often than I care to admit. But Bruce Ivins' suicide (you don't need links, it's everywhere by now) seems to conclusively indicate that it was he who terrorized my city with anthrax mailings immediately after 911. Instead of Saddam Hussein's operatives acting through the 911 terrrorists, as I have stoutly maintained for the past 7 years. I was wrong. That doesn't get posted here much, but I'll say it again just for dramatic effect: I was wrong.

Nick Kristof shows once again why he's a step above (and ahead) of other columnists in raising awareness of mass cruelty that should disturb our conscience and compel us to act. http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/31/opinion/31kristof.html?_r=1&ref=opinio...

traveller felt it. I felt it. Who else felt it? It was one of those long, swaying rollers in my neighborhood.

Ho hum. Often my first thoughts are of elsewhere. Is the epicenter in NorCal? That would be very bad. Missouri? That would be much worse. I usually wish for the epicenter to be nearby. But hey, I've got two earthquake scars, one from a NorCal roller, and one from a harsh *snap* that happened during the Northridge quake.

Well. So P. Z. Meyers finally got hold of a consecrated host, nailed it to some torn out pages from the Qur'an, threw some coffee grounds and a banana peel on top, and announced that his long-awaited "great desecration" is "finished."

Or so he claims. Personally, I think the pic looks distinctly photo-shopped.

And they get you going.

Therefore they get you.

Case in point:

In 2007, the EEOC sued the Salvation Army when it tried to enforce its "English-only" rule - i.e., its rule requiring employees to speak only English while on the job - in its Thrift Store in Framingham, Massachussetts.

So why not, you may ask? Isn't that just being nasty? If you have employees who are more comfortable communicating with one another in Spanish, then why not let them? Who does it hurt?

I've never liked Bob Novak. I've run across him a few times (so to speak) over the years and have had a hard time understanding how he ever acquired a reputation as a 'nice guy'--other than the fact that we cheer for the same basketball team. So this story comes as no surprise: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0708/11985.html

BlaiseP's recent diary on the the problems in this region gives a flavour of the importance of the drug trade in this part of the world.