Tuesday, March 21, 2006

Helen Thomas. Please call your keeper.

Some of the most mentally alert and politically astute people I know are in their seventies and eighties. Helen Thomas is not one of them.
Everybody!
Say it with me now.
'Sit down & shut up. Sit down & shut up. Sit down & shut up.
...Ohmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm.'

I don't know if I have mentioned this before (ha!), but my kid is stationed in Tal Afar in northern (kurdish) Iraq.
And guess who just posted to me about being newly qualified on the M-240 Bravo machine gun?
She brags about being the only female gunner in her company and assures me that this is only 'routine' as women are not assigned out on search and destroy missions.
Yeah, right.
I'm still scared witless for her. The army is legendary for changing its mind and while it is pretty quiet up around Tal Afar for now, things can change into a bloody mess over night in that country.
I love you. Did you know it is snowing here?

Elsewhere in this region, Iraqis increasingly take the lead in anti-terrorist operations and several weapons caches are discovered near Tal Afar.
Bill Roggio, over at the Fourth Rail, has more details on independent Iraqi operation in the Haditha Triad, U.S. operation in Ramadi and an update on Swarmer & north-central Iraq.
http://billroggio.com/MT/mt-tb.cgi/1069