The Army's very strange webpage on "Voice-to-Skull" weapons has been removed. It was strange it was there, and it's even stranger it's gone. If you Google it, you'll see the entry for "Voice-to-Skull device," but, if you click on the website, the link is dead. More...

In the clearest indication yet of how he intends to confront Senator Barack Obama on foreign policy issues in the general election, Senator John McCain on Friday again portrayed the Democratic contender as being the favorite of Hamas, the militant Palestinian group, and implied that he would also be friendly with Iran, a Hamas ally. More...

May 9, 2008 | Genei Nesir Khudair al-Janabi, an Iraqi vegetable farmer, walked down to the ramshackle pump house along the banks of the Euphrates. Each day at midmorning, he would start the seven-horsepower pump to water his crops.

Khudair passed through the tall grass and palm trees of his farm in Jurf as Sakhr, a predominantly Sunni area 30 miles south of Baghdad dominated by sprawling patches of farmland, irrigation canals and regular eruptions of lethal violence. Daytime temperatures had lately been over 115 degrees, and it was already sweltering as he crossed the 500 meters for the last time.

As Khudair approached the pump house on May 11, 2007, he stumbled upon a team of five sweat-soaked U.S. Army snipers, dazed with heat and fatigue, hidden in the grass of a small hill. It's hard to say who was more surprised, the Iraqi or the American troops. The sniper on guard at the "hide" was so shocked to see Khudair wander up to his position that he froze for a moment, staring. Then he approached Khudair and pointed a 9 mm pistol at the farmer's head. More...

It's perhaps a bit premature to write Hillary Clinton's political obituary, but that hasn't stopped members of the media from doing so. Yesterday Time magazine's Karen Tumulty published a pretty thorough list of "The Five Mistakes Clinton Made." More...

May 9, 2008 | As long as Hillary Clinton is willing to spend the money and energy needed to continue her campaign, she certainly can ignore the pundits who insist that the Democratic nominating contest is over. What she should not ignore, however, is the damage that her increasingly reckless behavior is inflicting on her reputation and that of her husband -- especially when she starts to sound like a reincarnation of the late George Wallace. More...

Looks like Sen. John McCain is being endorsed by more than one controversial preacher—the apparent “must-have” of leading presidential hopefuls this election cycle. Meet the Rev. Rod Parsley, whose support McCain sought and won, according to Brave New Films and Mother Jones, which have launched a collaborative effort to expose Parsley’s alarming beliefs about Islam and America’s role on the world stage. More...

There is a lot of talk that Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton is now fated to lose the Democratic nomination and should pull out of the race. We believe it is her right to stay in the fight and challenge Senator Barack Obama as long as she has the desire and the means to do so. That is the essence of the democratic process.

But we believe just as strongly that Mrs. Clinton will be making a terrible mistake — for herself, her party and for the nation — if she continues to press her candidacy through negative campaigning with disturbing racial undertones. We believe it would also be a terrible mistake if she launches a fight over the disqualified delegations from Florida and Michigan. More...

The CIA must let a judge view a 2002 memo purportedly including waterboarding among interrogation methods to be used on prisoners in U.S. custody so he can decide whether it should be made public, the judge ruled Thursday. More...

WASHINGTON — Senator Barack Obama began trying to rally the Democratic Party around him on Thursday and struck a tougher tone against Senator John McCain, saying Mr. McCain was “losing his bearings” in his pursuit of the White House. More...

AFP reports, "25 killed as Rockets Shatter Basra Calm." Shiite guerrillas fired a barrage of rockets at the British base out at the airport in Basra, killing two civilians. There was retaliatory fighting in Basra that left more dead. More...

BAGHDAD (AP) — Shiite militants launched rockets toward the fortified Green Zone on Friday, taking advantage of a sandstorm that gave cover from attacks by U.S. aircraft. Some rockets fell short, including one that damaged the British Broadcasting Corp. bureau. More...

San Francisco
NOTABLE in the Indiana and North Carolina primary results and in many recent polls are signs of a change in the gender weather: white men are warming to Hillary Clinton — at least enough to vote for her. It’s no small shift. These men have historically been her fiercest antagonists. Their conversion may point less to a new kind of male voter than to a new kind of female vote-getter. More...

With McCain likely to face Obama in the general election, it appears his staff has realized they have an uphill marketing battle ahead of them. Obama has some of the best marketing money can buy. He has a brilliant logo, multiple slogans, a pretty face, and he’s even laid claim to the words “change” and “hope.” The following memo by a high level McCain staffer was accidentally leaked to the press. It shows the McCain campaign’s struggle to find the perfect slogan. More...

For all her talk about "full speed on to the White House," there was an unmistakably elegiac tone to Hillary Clinton's primary-night speech in Indianapolis. And if one needed further confirmation that the undaunted, never-say-die Clintons realize their bid might be at an end, all it took was a look at the wistful faces of the husband and the daughter who stood behind the candidate as she talked of all the people she has met in a journey "that has been a blessing for me." More...

On the Saturday before the North Carolina and Indiana primaries, Hillary Clinton stood on the back of a vintage pickup truck in Gastonia, N.C., and let fly in the most impressive fashion — a woman transformed from Eleanor Roosevelt into Huey Long in two short months. More...