Paul E. Ester's Flogger

An estimated 800 California child molesters will have their convictions overturned or their pending cases dropped following a U.S. Supreme Court ruling barring states from retroactively erasing statutes of limitations, the state’s top prosecutor says. … Rest of Article

In the Fallouja area, many troops assigned to the 3rd Infantry Division are incensed that they weren’t sent home after spearheading the attack on Baghdad in April, months after their deployment to the region last fall. Making matters worse is the precarious nature of their duties in the region, where attacks by people wielding anything from rocks to rifles to rocket-propelled grenades are common. Soldiers recently discovered a booby-trapped shell near a roadside soft-drink stand frequented by U.S. troops.

“This duty is absolutely ridiculous,” said Sgt. 1st Class Richard Edwards, a 42-year-old from Brooklyn who was on night patrol in the rural area between Baghdad and Fallouja. “We are combat troops. We are trained in combat. We are not trained in peacekeeping. We should all be home by now…. It’s like we won the Super Bowl but we have to keep on playing.”

His partner, Sgt. 1st Class Andre LeGrant from Georgia, said the psychological strain has been immense.

“We fought and fought to survive, and we thought we were going home,” LeGrant said as he guided his Humvee through a warren of rural alleys and along stands of palm and brush Ñ ideal ambush sites, he noted. “You’re not really fighting an enemy anymore. You’re more or less fighting terrorism…. We thought we would go home as heroes after taking Baghdad. Now look at us.”

… Rest of Article

They will be pissed when they find out the road home goes through Tehran.

The most bizarre snippet of gerbil trivia relates to their role in covert security operations. In 2001, it was revealed that MI5 had attempted to turn gerbils into secret agents during the cold war. Gerbils have a strong sense of smell and can be trained to identify a really sweaty person. The idea was that gerbils would be able to whiff out suspicious characters.

The Israeli security service tested these espionage rodents in Tel Aviv airport. It turned out, however, that gerbils are unable to distinguish between someone who’s sweating profusely because they’ve got too many knick-knacks in their luggage and someone who’s about to hijack a plane. MI5 quickly decided that gerbils were an inadequate tool in the fight to save the world from communism. … Rest of Article

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – In an unorthodox step, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld has picked a general who retired three years ago to return to duty and become the Army’s new chief of staff, senior defense officials said on Tuesday.

The officials said Rumsfeld asked President Bush to nominate retired four-star Army Gen. Peter Schoomaker, 57, who previously headed elite U.S. Special Operations forces, to succeed retiring Gen. Eric Shinseki as the Army’s top officer.

Shinseki departs on Wednesday. Rumsfeld’s choice of a retiree to vault past top active Army generals to head the service and become a member of the Joint Chiefs of Staff comes against a backdrop of strained relations between Rumsfeld and the Army. … Rest of Article