If you need a rage fix this AM, go here to Kim and the Hawaiians (shown at left cheering and singing in a salute to twenty foot waves on Sunset Beach...)


If you want to get depressed about Iraq and Baghdad go here to Iraq the Model. It ain't good there folks.

I've been too busy to read Michael Yon's pages for the past month and a half. If you have been put off by his main page, one that seems to be whining self aggrandizing crap, click to the stuff on the right side of the page. A small sample:

I have spoken with many Special Forces soldiers about Iraq and Afghanistan. Most agree that we are making serious progress in Iraq, but those same Special Forces soldiers say that Afghanistan is a disaster. One soldier had done two tours in Afghanistan, and he said it plainly. “Mike, when we build a schoolhouse in Iraq, the Iraqis make a school out of it and use it to study. When we build a schoolhouse in Afghanistan, an Imam comes in and teaches people to hate us. Building a schoolhouse is not the same as building a school. A schoolhouse is just a building. Iraqis believe in learning and progress. Afghans walk in circles.”

Go HERE and read the whole thing this weekend. Those of us trying to find the reality in Iraq and Afghanistan come to learn that there are a million realities over there, most of them thousands of years old and many of them bad.

Ace of Spades tags this post with the question: "Wanna bet the New York Times has this story for a year but sat on it, deeming it too damaging to the French Government to reveal?"