Quick Hits

Australia Boosts Iraqi Forces By 450: You are buying Australian wine, right?

They'll partly make up for the 1,400 Dutch soldiers going home.

Anchorage Woman Cuts Off Boyfriend's Penis: And the thing is, she did so pre-emptively:

Surgeons reattached an Anchorage man's penis over the weekend after his girlfriend, apparently upset over a pending breakup, cut it off with a kitchen knife...

Did you catch that? A pending break-up? Sheesh!

But the whole story is shot through with weirdness:

Weird: A city wastewater utility worker recovered the penis from a toilet down which the woman had flushed it. It was rushed to Providence Alaska Medical Center, where doctors performed reattachment surgery...

Weird: The woman drove the man to the hospital after the attack.

Very Weird: The man, whom police would not identify, was married to Tran's aunt, Shell said. All three had lived together for a while, during which time Tran and the man had a relationship for at least a year, Shell said. The man moved out of the home on Moose Run Circle sometime recently, but Tran and the aunt still live together, she said.

"The aunt was aware of the relationship, and it was causing problems," Shell said.

Um, yeah. I can see that.

Not So Much Weird As Just Common Male Stupidity: The two were arguing about the [impending break-up] sometime before midnight Saturday, but at some point they decided to have sex.

After he allowed Tran to tie his arms to the window handle above the bed, she pulled the kitchen knife and severed his penis...

A guy is fighting heatedly with a woman he wants to break up with. She says she wants to have sex. The guy, of course, says yes. The woman wants to tie his hands up, rendering him helpless.

They guy, of course, says yes again.

The woman takes out a kitchen knife.

The guy asks, "How long is this going to take before we start having that sex we were just talking about?"

I feel bad for the guy. I don't see myself doing a single thing differently, even if I'd caught the gleam of sharp steel peeking out of the chick's underpants.

Iraqi Terrorists Target... Hairstylists: For the outrage of trimming beards.

Sad for the barbers, but it's a sign that they're losing the war.

Updated Terrorist To-Kill List

American Soldiers Too tough!
Iraqi Police Officers Starting to fight back!
Iraqi Civilians Also starting to fight back!
Hairdressers -- Aaaah, by Allah's Grace, here is victory ripe for the taking! Oh, wait, shit! They're all armed with scissors!

I don't know if there's much hope for a political movement that puts so much emphasis on facial-hair grooming.

German Man Shoots Self In Neck With "James Bond" Style Pen-Gun: Fell out of his pocket when tying his shoes, plugged him right in the neck.

He lived. I suppose it was one of Q's numerous failed prototypes.

When asked from where he'd gotten the gun, the man claimed he "found" it.

Okay. Not a good story, but then, he'd just been shot in the neck.

John McCain: Hillary Would Make a "Good President" Part of John McCain's long-term strategy to piss off each and every Republican voter in America. I'd say he's about three quarters of the way there.

Um, does this guy realize there are only about 10,000 reporters in America? He knows that at some point he'll have to start reaching out beyond "his base," right?

CSI Shows Give Public "Unrealistic" Expectations About Power and Certainty of Forensic Science: In related news, Gilligan's Island misleads the public about the feasibility of constructing a short-wave radio out of three coconuts and an epileptic gibbon as a power-source.

This is an old phenemon, though. In David Simon's outstanding Homicide, the cops he interviewed complained the the public had gotten the idea that every case would have smoking-gun evidence for every part of the crime from TV shows, too. Like, if a suspect confesses that he shot a bartender and then ditched the gun in the river, the jury would still want that submerged murder weapon.

Which proves my longstanding thesis: People are fucking stupid.

And finally:

Tapes Indicate Bush May Have Smoked Marijuana: I haven't been this shattered since I found out 1) that Jeff Gannon was gay and 2) who the hell Jeff Gannon was in the first place.

But seriously-- didn't we know this? I'm 100% positive that Bush previously used this answer publicly-- "I don't want to say, because I don't want kids to say, 'He's the President, so it's okay'." So what the hell is the "news" here?

The media pretty much already declared Bush to have been a cokehead, anyhow.

That's the good thing about having a liberal media-- there really aren't too many big bad surprises for Republicans. They report everything bad they can come close to proving and what they can't prove they just sort of speculate about, with the strong hint that this is more than mere speculation.

Which immunizes Republicans from these sorts of "shocking" revelations later on.