Every now and then I check the news from back home.

According to a police report, Philbrook shouted at his wife just before shooting her that she had spent all their money on “scratch tickets.”

Middlesex Assistant District Attorney Suzanne Kontz said today George Philbrook overheard his wife call police Friday night. He then confronted her outside the couple’s Sea Street home shooting her four times before standing over her body saying, “Now call the (expletive) police,” Kontz said.

Police found the ex-wife outside her home Friday night around 8:15 with bullet wounds to her chest and head. She was still alive and crawling for help up a neighbor’s front steps, authorities told the Herald. Police say she died on her neighbor’s porch. An hour later and a mile away, Malden police spotted the ex-husband inside a liquor store with the .380 semiautomatic he used to gun down his ex-wife, police said. He was arrested after a struggle with police.

Authorities say the couple had been divorced for a few years but were still living in the same house.

and I need money, but would you eat glass and undergo a colonoscopy for it?

Ronald Evano, 49, no address available, pleaded guilty Wednesday in U.S. District Court to 20 counts of conspiracy, mail fraud, wire fraud and identity theft in a joint scheme with his wife, Mary, in which they allegedly collected more than $200,000 in compensation.

Prosecutors allege that Evano and his wife collected more than $200,000 in insurance claims and left more than $100,000 in unpaid medical bills in several states between 1997 and 2005.

On Aug. 19, 1998, prosecutors say Mary Evano, using the alias of Nancy Stevens, claimed she ate glass that was in a plate of beans at an unnamed restaurant in Burlington. Three days later, she was admitted to Saints Medical Center in Lowell, claiming to be injured by the glass she swallowed. Doctors at Saints performed a variety of procedures, including a colonoscopy, resulting in medical bills of more than $10,000, which remains unpaid.

Six months after the fraudulent incident, the restaurant paid Nancy and Ronald Stevens of Weymouth $11,745. While Mary Evano is still being sought by police*, her husband is in custody. He faces up to 100 years in prison at his sentencing hearing next month in U.S. District Court.

*beanery owners are on the lookout.

I can’t really add much more to this luminous commentary (click on the link — a must read) rescued from the memory hole by Digby, of which the climactic paragraph reads:

President Bush can fail in his duty to himself, his country, and his God, by becoming “ex-president” Bush or he can become “President-for-Life” Bush: the conqueror of Iraq, who brings sense to the Congress and sanity to the Supreme Court. Then who would be able to stop Bush from emulating Augustus Caesar and becoming ruler of the world? For only an America united under one ruler has the power to save humanity from the threat of a new Dark Age wrought by terrorists armed with nuclear weapons.

Except this: If Gaius Julius Caesar had been such a fucking moron he thought “disassemble” means “not tell the truth,” in those pre-heimlich days he never would have conquered eating prandium without choking to death, let alone Gaul.

If you put Bush in a Counsel’s garb and put him in charge of the legions, you get this:

Right Blogostan has seven more Scott Thomases to tackle.

Even as Faux News is pimping its latest “the surge is working” angle, seven paratroopers from the 82nd Airborne at the tail end of a 15th deployment pour icy water on the wingnut war pimp circle jerk, and efficiently deconstructs the latest attempt to build a case for Mission Accomplished.

The Iraq war as we see it

Counterinsurgency is, by definition, a competition between insurgents and counterinsurgents for the control and support of a population. To believe that Americans, with an occupying force that long ago outlived its reluctant welcome, can win over a recalcitrant local population and win this counterinsurgency is far-fetched.

As responsible infantrymen and noncommissioned officers with the 82nd Airborne Division soon heading back home, we are skeptical of recent press coverage portraying the conflict as increasingly manageable and feel it has neglected the mounting civil, political and social unrest we see every day. (Obviously, these are our personal views and should not be seen as official within our chain of command.)

~~~~

A few nights ago, for example, we witnessed the death of one American soldier and the critical wounding of two others when a lethal armor-piercing explosive was detonated between an Iraqi Army checkpoint and a police one. Local Iraqis readily testified to American investigators that Iraqi police and army officers escorted the triggermen and helped plant the bomb. These civilians highlighted their own predicament: Had they informed the Americans of the bomb before the incident, the Iraqi Army, the police or the local Shiite militia would have killed their families.

As many grunts will tell you, this is a near-routine event. Reports that a majority of Iraqi army commanders are now reliable partners can be considered only misleading rhetoric. The truth is that battalion commanders, even if well meaning, have little to no influence over the thousands of obstinate men under them, in an incoherent chain of command, who are really loyal only to their militias.

~~~

Given the situation, it is important not to assess security from an American-centered perspective. The ability of, say, American observers to safely walk down the streets of formerly violent towns is not a resounding indicator of security. What matters is the experience of the local citizenry and the future of our counterinsurgency. When we take this view, we see that a vast majority of Iraqis feel increasingly insecure and view us as an occupation force that has failed to produce normalcy after four years and is increasingly unlikely to do so as we continue to arm each warring side.

~~~

Four years into our occupation, we have failed on every promise, while we have substituted Baath Party tyranny with a tyranny of Islamist, militia and criminal violence. When the primary preoccupation of average Iraqis is when and how they are likely to be killed, we can hardly feel smug as we hand out care packages. As an Iraqi man told us a few days ago with deep resignation, “We need security, not free food.”

The piece is on the International Herald Tribune’s website. Read the whole thing.

One by one, the false assumptions and misleading memes being used by the “serious” people in Washington to fabricate a scenario where Iraq is a success are shredded like so much confetti.

Having been the youngest middle-school student in my hometown to ever win the spelling bee, I can attest to the deadliness of using just one wrong letter:

BELGRADE, Serbia (Reuters) — A 23-year old Serb was found dead and half-eaten in the bear cage of Belgrade Zoo at the weekend during the annual beer festival.

The man was found naked, with his clothes lying intact inside the cage. Two adult bears, Masha and Misha, had dragged the body to their feeding corner and reacted angrily when keepers tried to recover it.

“There’s a good chance he was drunk or drugged. Only an idiot would jump into the bear cage,” zoo director Vuk Bojovic told Reuters.

Local media reported that police found several mobile phones inside the cage, as well as bricks, stones and beer cans.

Bad puns aside, why was there a beer festival in a zoo?

He will be missed.

Alex: Nice one, Doughy, but I’m not falling for it. That obviously is Bruce Jenner, not Edward G.

A little younger, and not wearing as much make up, but still obviously the same surgeon person.

lethal: um, you’re both wrong.

That people can be completely wasted and still play great music.

What a band.

Brush up on your Gaelic.

Serial killer Francis Dolorhyde & GOP candidate Fred Thompson

John Coltrane and Stan Getz

I know that putting that in a blog is going to invite all sorts of spam, but I’m not joking. And I can’t stop listening. Luckily there are only three clips.

“It begins with a sexual content warning. A man follows a woman of Latina descent through a strip mall …” (all delivered in a monotone:) ” … to reveal two breasts that have clearly been augmented and are silicone implants.”

Sadly, it’s not like those party records of the 70s. It’s purely descriptive, with no slang, in a man’s voice. God, it’s bad enough to be blind, but you have to have this as your porn? How horrible!

one of my favorite Bruce tunes.