PunditGuy

Ace.

Via AP: Italy says Agent Shooting Not Deliberate

Italian investigators blamed U.S. military authorities for failing to signal there was a checkpoint ahead on the Baghdad road where American soldiers killed an Italian agent, and concluded that stress, inexperience and fatigue played a role in the shooting, according to a report released Monday.

The probe found no evidence that the March 4 killing of intelligence agent Nicola Calipari was deliberate.

The Italians challenged the American contentions that the car was traveling more than 50 mph, saying it was going half that speed. But, despite their refusal to sign off on the U.S. report that the soldiers bore no blame for the death, the Italian investigators didn’t object to many of the American findings of fact.

So, they still can’t admit it.

While this new revelation could be seen as mere political ‘face-saving’ on the part of the Italians, it’s not. Their failure to face facts leads them to dig the hole of distortion deeper and deeper. Their report contains deliberate falsehoods that slander our soldiers.

Let’s be real for a moment. The car was traveling at over 50 mph as it approached the checkpoint. Italy had failed to notify our military of the operation. To our men on the line, the approaching vehicle resembled a suicide bomber. Did they think the guy was late for a doctor’s appointment? No way. For all they knew, this car was a loaded weapon and the logical choice was to kill or be killed.

Our soldiers did the right thing.

Did you know that Afghanistan’s premier female soccer team is now practicing at the very stadium the Taliban once used for public executions? Arthur Chrenkoff has more good news from Afghanistan.

Her vocabulary was as bad as, like, whatever.

He ain’t mine.

Via The Arizona Republic: Springsteen captivates Glendale crowd with acoustic show.

When Bruce Springsteen announced that he would perform for more than 5,000 people at Glendale Arena in the third concert of his solo acoustic tour, it raised the question: Could even a Rock and Roll Hall of Famer keep the attention of such a large crowd for a quiet show running more than two hours?

Springsteen quelled any doubts Saturday night with a brisk, masterful performance that kept the well-mannered audience mesmerized with the best storytelling songs in rock music today.

After asking for “as much quiet as I can get” at the start of the concert, Springsteen let his catalog of American tales, including a generous sampling from his strong new “Devils & Dust” album, do most of the talking in the arena for the next few hours.

The report goes on to talk about what a god Springsteen is and all the rest of the crap that usually goes along with  worshiping of the guy. Don’t get me wrong – I like Bruce’s music. Not all of it, but some of it. What I don’t go for though, is the deification of the man, especially when he does things like this:

Springsteen ad-libbed a ‘That’s right’ after one audience member yelled ‘(Expletive) the president’…(via Drudge)

That’s cheap Bruce.

Sing your songs about how you identify with the New Jersey union worker (right, Mr. Multi-Millionaire), the AIDS stricken male, the guy who gets shot by NYC cops 90+times. Whatever. I don’t care.

When it comes down to it, you’re just another left wing wacko.

What a shame.

Today, in my inbox, I received the following “Breaking News” alert from Yahoo:

Pope Benedict XVI makes first Sunday window appearance of his papacy.

How does this qualify as breaking news? A few weeks ago, when Ratzinger was elected, there was a lot of legitimate news that came out on that day and the days following. This though, in my opinion, doesn’t merit a “breaking news” label.

What’s next?

‘Pope, wearing funny hat, heads to woods in search of a bear to put an age old question to rest.’

Enough already.

All the action is in New Mexico these days, as a Junior High student created a school lockdown with SWAT teams on nearby roofs by bringing a 30-inch burrito into school. Evidently, someone called police saying they observed a student walk into school with a long object wrapped in a t-shirt. The burrito was an extra-credit assignment to create a new product.

“We had to make up a product and it could have been anything. I made up a restaurant that specialized in oddly large burritos,” Morrissey said.

I can not emphasize this enough, if you ever get to Albuquerque, on business or just running away from your nuptials, you must visit Sadies for the best carne adovada burritos and sopapillas ever. Prologue- a burrito can be legally considered a weapon only after it’s been consumed, the offense typically classified as involuntary nasal slaughter.

Call me crazy (actually, she looks crazy), but if my fiancee put me through this crap of riding a Greyhound to Albuquerque, I’m getting her help and I’m getting a new girlfriend. Though if she said she only went there for a carne adovada burrito at Sadies, I might cut her some slack. But don’t hate Jennifer Wilbanks just because she had cold feet and briefly lied about being abducted, hate her because she worried all her loved ones and distracted the 24-hour news channels from this story. UPDATE: Meanwhile, the idiot groom still wants to marry her.

If you have a smartphone or cell phone with a WAP browser (here’s mine), check out the BBC’s real life tribute to The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. The movie opened this week. The mobile (stripped down) address can be found here and both addresses get you access to over 7000 common and eclectic encyclopedia articles. The BBC partnered with HG2G author Douglas Adams to create the site back in 1999.Thumbtype “tipping”, click ‘search’ and voila, the top two articles are “international guidelines for tipping” and “cow tipping”. Both useful when you’re in the field on business. Give the Surprise Me! link a try; I was treated to a random article on Scuba Diving in Croatia. Much like Wikipedia, users can contribute and edit entries, though h2g2 (someone’s domain squatting hg2g.com) is more random and unique with articles ranging from stuffed pork chop recipes to sign language etiquette. Sure, wikipedia has 520,000+ more articles than h2g2, but until wiki has a mobile site, h2g2 loads quick and is a great time waster while your wife is trying on clothes or you’re waiting the requisite 45 minutes for your doctor’s appointment.

It was a busy Friday, so that’s the reason for the lack of posts today. Lots of job related stuff, then UPS delivered a new computer for my work, so there was a lot of software reinstallation, configuring, tweaking, and “trying out” to do. Once I got home, I had to unpack one of these, set it up, and tweak more.

On Tuesday, FedEx will deliver one of these. I also picked up one of these so I can run both platforms from the same Keyboard, Monitor and Mouse. Should be fun.

See? I’ve been busy!