Resolve! Not giving in to terrorists!
I guess that kind of chatter is easy to offer when you’re a politician who isn’t getting shot at:

After more than a year of fighting, U.S. troops have stopped patrolling large swaths of Iraq’s restive Anbar province, according to the top American military intelligence officer in the area.
Most U.S. Army officers interviewed this week said the patrols in and around the province’s capital, Ramadi – home to many Iraqi military and intelligence officers under Saddam Hussein – have stopped largely because the soldiers and commanders there were tired of being shot at by insurgents who’ve refused to back down under heavy American military pressure.
. . .
After losing dozens of men to a “voiceless, faceless mass of people” with no clear leadership or political aim other than killing American soldiers, the U.S. military has had to re-evaluate the situation, said Army Maj. Thomas Neemeyer, the head American intelligence officer for the 1st Brigade of the 1st Infantry Division, the main military force in the Ramadi area and from there to Fallujah.
. . .
In the wreckage of the security situation, Neemeyer said, U.S. officials have all but given up on plans to install a democratic government in the city, and are hoping instead that Islamic extremists and other insurgent groups don’t overrun the province in the same way that they’ve seized the region’s most infamous town, Fallujah.

Seems like that’s pretty much our game plan in all of Iraq: hoping things don’t all fall apart. At least not until November 3.

Just received one of the Nigerian scam e-mails (yes, I’m behind the times). I guess there must still be some Internet un-savvy people who fall for this kind of thing. But you’d think the frauds behind this would mix things up to try to catch a few more people off guard. You know like changing the country and plot to something fewer people have been tipped off on.

Nope. No signs of our armed forces being stretched too thin here:

Seven years ago, Lexington psychiatrist Charles Ham retired from the Army.
Or at least he thought so.
Then, the other day, he got a call telling him to report to Fort Jackson for a physical examination.
Ham, who wore a U.S. Army uniform for 41 years, knew 5,600 veterans who recently had left the service were being called up. But he never thought he would be on the list.
“You know, I’m 67 years old. Why do you need me?” Ham asked.
The caller explained the Army needed psychiatrists to counsel troops.

I’m glad we’ve had almost four years to repair the military Clinton decimated.

Authorities in Texas have allowed a suspicious shutterbug slip thorugh the net:

Law enforcement officials said on Monday they are looking for a man seen taking pictures of two refineries in Texas City, Texas.
. . .
The man, described as white with dark hair, was seen taking pictures outside the refineries, all located on the same highway, at about 5 p.m. CDT on Saturday, said Bruce Clawson, emergency management and homeland security director for Texas City.
While it is not illegal to take pictures of a refinery from a highway or street, officials would like to talk to the man to find out his reason for taking the photographs.

And lest you have any questions concerning this operative’s culpability, this ought to quash all doubt:

The man was seen driving a white van.

Bingo.
On the other hand, police in New York seem to be more on their game.
Oy. Do pictures I took at the Fort Loudoun dam make me a fugitive?

Going to downtown Boston soon? Don’t forget to smile for the cameras:

An unprecedented number of video cameras will be trained on Boston during the Democratic National Convention, with Boston police installing some 30 cameras near the FleetCenter, the Coast Guard using infrared devices and night-vision cameras in the harbor, and dozens of pieces of surveillance equipment mounted on downtown buildings to monitor crowds for terrorists, unruly demonstrators, and ordinary street crime.
For the first time, 75 high-tech video cameras . . . will be linked into a surveillance network to monitor the Central Artery, City Hall Plaza, the FleetCenter, and other sensitive sites.

Of course the authorities need this spyware to deal with any incidents that may arise during the convention. That’s why the video feeds are being piped to a central facility . . . in Washington D.C.?

Their feeds from cameras mounted on various downtown buildings will be piped to monitoring stations in the Boston area and in Washington, D.C., and officials will be able to zoom in from their work stations to gather details of facial descriptions or read license plates.

This is a great opportunity for Senator Kerry to at least make a token statement against the exponential growth of government intrusion. But thanks to the media-fueled “war on terror” hype we rarely hear such statements from politicians, regardless of how ineffectual a measure actually is preventing terrorism. Fortunately, not everyone is so constrained:

”What this demonstrates is that ‘1984’ is now technologically possible,” said Barry Steinhardt, director of the American Civil Liberties Union’s Technology and Liberty Program, referring to George Orwell’s vision of an all-seeing totalitarian state. ”This is really a situation where we are really being asked to blindly trust the government. There is no oversight of this. There are no safeguards.”

Good point. Who is watching the watchers here? How about some publicly-accessible surveillance cameras in the surveillance rooms?