Sorry to those who come here for semi-frequent updates for the lack of posts over the past day or so. I've been busy with various things (including work!) and haven't had the time to write or consider much. By the time I've found the newest headlines, I assume most folks have already seen it and a pointer with no comment from me would be nigh-on redundant. Just a couple of quick thoughts on some of the news, though, in the spirit of some quickly jotted notes (this is a blog, after all).

A further impression on the latest Seymour Hersh "revelation" concerning the Abu Ghraib well-flayed dead horse and the Pentagon denials. What it sounds to me is that Rumsfled et. al., did indeed apply (as far as they apply) the Geneva Conventions to current circumstances and do in fact use coercive techniques on terror suspects when they believe there's a need - something not forbidden by the Geneva Conventions. So yes, they may have started using those techniques in Iraq. But the Pentagon may also be right when they say that what's shown in the pictures is nothing they authorized. I sincerely doubt that Rumsfeld and company would allow such interrogation techniques to be practiced by a bunch of non-professional shlubs - to be blunt.

WMD have apparently been found in Iraq, although having been burned on this before, maybe we should all wait for the final, final, penultimate test results before passing judgment. One artillery shell will hardly make a difference for those who have tried to re-cast the rationale for the war as something akin to "We have pictures of Saddam sitting on a stack of WMD handing them out to Al Qaeda operatives..." Still, there's surely more where that came from...out there somewhere. Wouldn't it be nice if they could catch hold of whoever planted this bomb and subject them to a round of questioning - not that the questioning they've done of the high-ranking officials they've already got in Iraq has done much good (that we know of).