Headlines below the fold

Everything is bad: the rebels in the Congo took over Goma (and are probably funded by a nearby country). StrategyPage has the details, but it has more to do with tribes than artificial "countries" devised by Europeans, and more to do with who controls the wealth than with countries per se.

Either an american diplomat or the husband of an American embassy worker was killed at the gate of his gated village in Makati after arguing with unknowns, one of whom was a local university student. This was at 3 am and no reason given for a married man coming home that late alone.

Another Pinoy oil rig worker has died in the Baton Rouge hospital burn center... from an accident on a oil rig off of Lousiana...the company has a history of problem, but the accident occured while doing maintanence on a rig that wasn't working.


 Lots of politics in the news: apparantly if you Criticize someone named Rice, it is racism, but only if her first name is Susan, not Condi. and only if you question her competence, not if you actually call her the "n word"...

 "doxing" is illegal (this is when a blogger etc releases the address of a government employee with the intent that his or her readers harass them). Stacy McCain is on it...

the rocket barrage against Israel was mastermined by Iran, but the world's leftists, even here, are protesting that Israel hit back...and Spengler notes that the "conservative media" is playing nice with Hamas too...

what is really being ignored: It's a deliberate distraction from the Shiite/Iranian attempt to stop a Sunni/Saudi/Alqueda take over of Syria.

And the Kurds are the wild card...



Will the next "new" country be Catalonia?

and what about Texas? Probably a mirage, but remember that Texas, like Hawaii, was once an independent country....