Terrorism Or Something Worse?

Our story takes us to New Haven, Connecticut, where two members of an offbeat running club did some trail-marking with flour and chalk.

Someone took note of their activities, called the police, and a nearby IKEA store was evacuated.

The runners were arrested on charges of a felony breach of the peace.

And in typical whew-thank-god-it-wasn't-terrorism fashion, a spokeswoman for the city said,, �You see powder connected by arrows and chalk, you never know. It could be a terrorist, it could be something more serious. We�re thankful it wasn�t, but there were a lot of resources that went into figuring that out."

A lot of resources? To check out a chalk line and a pile of flour? ("Uh, yup, it's chalk all right.") What's next, arresting little girls playing hopscotch? After all, there are chalk lines and numbers, which could be code!

I suppose the fear was that the flour was some kind of weaponized toxin. That the people dispersing it weren't wearing filter masks or gloves might have been a giveaway. And if they're spreading it about the parking lot of a store, it makes real sense to evacuate that store and put people in closer proximity to an unidentified substance, yes?

God forbid someone should spill instant coffee creamer near a park bench. ("The water touched it and it became this milky substance, and I was just so scared!")

But instead of admitting they overreacted, the city is charging the two runners with a felony.

Come on, people, everything can't be a potential terrorist incident! It's time to take a deep breath, put down the kool-aid, and get a grip on ourselves.

Suicide bombers have been plying their trade in the Middle East for decades, and not once have they gone about making little piles of flour and chalk arrows. Nor have they posted light-up boxes with cartoon characters flipping the bird.

It's because we're stupid with fear that President Bush can issue dire warnings about Iran, and people think he's making sense, instead of pitching another pre-emptive war on flimsy pretenses.

�Iran�s actions threaten the security of nations everywhere, and the United States is rallying friends and allies to isolate Iran�s regime, to impose economic sanctions. We will confront this danger before it is too late,� Bush said.

Sound familiar?

It's time for Congress to stop playing follow-the-bouncing-ball and rescind the Authorization to Use Military Force before this irresponsible moron in the White House kicks off another ill-conceived war.

In the 'It's Somebody's Fault, But It's Not Mine Department' comes word that a former aide to none other than General David Petraeus may be involved in the missing weapons scandal.

Why we should trust this man's judgment when it comes to Iraq is beyond me.

There's also talk that Petraeus 'softened' the National Intelligence Estimate to present a more positive picture.

Let's be real. Iraq is not going to be won or lost if you're not being honest with yourselves. Period. If you're getting your asses kicked, acknowledging that you need to change your strategy is the necessary first step to achieving something other than defeat. It's time to stow the just-six-more-months crap fest and give an honest appraisal of what it is we're doing in Iraq, and why it is � or isn't - working.

By the way, we're arming local militias because they can supposedly help us keep certain areas secure.

We're arming insurgents and undermining the legitimate authority of the government we helped install.

So we can't trust the Iraqi military or the Iraqi police, but we can trust local tribal bands that may or may not be the very people we've been trying to quash?

Somewhere in a cave in Afghanistan (or perhaps a condo in downtown Kabul), Osama bin Laden is laughing his ass off.

Rocker Ted Nugent invites Senator Barack Obama to suck on the muzzle of his machine gun, and Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton to ride one off into the sunset.

FOX News' Sean Hannity lauds Nugent's words, because, y'know, Obama insulted the troops. (He didn't, but I guess those reporting standards that Chris Wallace accused Bill Moyers of lacking don't apply to 'commentary' staff at FOX.)

Opinion and commentary aside, is it crossing the line when you applaud someone threatening two sitting U.S. senators with assault weapons and thus endorse it? And why is it that conservative commentary so often includes wishes for harm? (It's wrong no matter which side of the fence it's coming from.)

MSNBC has chosen not to air ads from the pro-war group Freedom's Watch. The group has drawn notice for their ads in areas where Republican candidates are facing re-election.

The ads, which feature the faces of soldiers injured in Iraq, exhorts voters to not forget their sacrifices.

Except Ari Fleischer, former White House spokesman and now representing Freedom's Watch, when asked, couldn't remember the name of the soldier featured in their ads.

Oops.

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