The greatest thing ever: Bengals receiver Chad Ochocinco has a skill for finding controversy, but on Thursday he stumbled into one in a most unusual fashion: by way of a misprinted phone number on boxes of cereal that bear his name. A phone number on OchocincO’s Cereal that was supposed to connect callers to a [...]

IMMEDIATE RELEASE No. 894-10 September 30, 2010 DOD Identifies Air Force Casualty The Department of Defense announced today the death of an airman who was supporting Operation Enduring Freedom. Senior Airman Mark Forester, 29, of Tuscaloosa, Ala., died Sept. 29 in Uruzgan province, Afghanistan, while conducting combat operations in the area. He was assigned to [...]

Abdallah Umar al-Qurayshi, a top al-Qaeda operative in eastern Afghanistan, made the mistake earlier this week of hanging out in the Korengal valley, where a NATO airstrike ended him. My friend James Gordon Meek of the New York Daily News, an absolute beast of a reporter, overthinks it a bit: But taking Al-Qurayshi off the [...]

I’m unaccustomed to thinking of Eliot Cohen as a hack, but this op-ed is pure hackwork. Any number of valid critiques of the Obama administration’s decisionmaking on Afghanistan/Pakistan are available for the making, particularly after reading Obama’s Wars. But it’s cheap to simply imagine how Karzai, Ahmadinejad, Netanyahu, the father of a Marine, Mullah Omar [...]

New America has a fascinating new poll out surveying the Pakistani tribal areas for what the drone strikes look over there. On first blush, it’s bleak, as you can learn from write-ups at Danger Room (cough) and from Adam Serwer. But there are also some hopeful signs. I wrote about some of them for the [...]

No real point I want to make with this, except that if I’m going to play “Only Shallow,” I need to follow up with “You Made Me Realise.” I could try to find some Thing In The News to shoehorn into this, but shhhhh already this song is incredible and you’re making my head hurt.

If you’ve got the time, it’ll be well spent by reading this excellent Quilliam Foundation report into the Islamic-extremist internet. When Thomas Hegghammer tells you something on the subject is worthy, pay attention. One of my favorite parts: The self-sufficient Jihadist bubble that consequently exists within these sites not only serves as a safe space [...]

IMMEDIATE RELEASE No. 888-10 September 29, 2010 DOD Identifies Marine Casualty The Department of Defense announced today the death of a Marine who was supporting Operation Enduring Freedom. Lance Cpl. Ralph J. Fabbri, 20, of Gallitzin, Pa., died Sept. 28 while conducting combat operations in Helmand province, Afghanistan. He was assigned to the HeadquartersBattalion, 1st [...]

Via Jesse Singal, Muslim communities yet again defend free speech, the right to peacefully disagree and all that other stuff non-Muslims so assuredly and sanctimoniously declare that they never defend: Islam calls for vigorous condemnation of both hateful speech and hateful acts, but always within the boundaries of the law. It is of the utmost [...]

Long story short: Ben West thinks doing a Mumbai in Europe is too difficult, owing the greater capabilities of Euro-intel and law enforcement and the tactical obstacles to pulling one off. Plus, the basis for believing the plot is real is a single intelligence source. Also, did everyone catch that the Euroterror plot is, in [...]