A SWAT team bags a Maryland Mayor, shooting his two dogs in the process. Turns out they didn't have a valid warrant which legally speaking turns the 'no knock' raid into what amounts to the standard run of the mill drug turf battle between rival gangs.

Balloon Juice's lapsed conservative John Cole is on the case and he's not happy.

Brought to you by the commentariat, since the site's elected leadership seems to have forgotten how to do it, or in the case of our newest overlord, managed to completely b***s it up at the 1st attempt.

Couple a things to get us started:

Hagiography alert John McCain war hero - who knew? What has Barack Obama “sacrificed” for America?

Billmon's back - courtesy of the Orange Satan, game on!

BERLIN (Reuters)

Well it finally happened. Nuri al-Maliki reads the tealeaves and responds accordingly, speaking his mind on the issue of US withdrawal:

Everybody's sick of debating the Iraq war and the positions of each camp have hardened to the point that not much usefully discussion now ensues whenever the subject is raised.

However we should all be able to agree on one thing, that civilian control of the military is paramount and the question of who gets to set national policy and the military mission in Iraq or wherever, does not devolve to the military. Nor do the decisions of a predecessor necessarily bind the discretion of their successor.

Jobs for America: The McCain Economic Plan, page 4.

Per the McCain campaign:

or oil supply security premium? (Iraq and saber rattling at Iran)

What is causing the current destructive spike in crude oil and gas prices?

How about the VP? Why?

These questions were posed some time back before the primaries started in earnest in a survey of their readership by Professional Pilot magazine.

Following are a choice selection of replies from self identified conservatives (sorry no link).

Continuing fallout from the August 2006 crash of Comair Flight 191 has resulted in a recent decision by a Kentucky judge which sets up an interesting dilemma, one with the potential for a conflict of interests between air accident victims seeking redress and aviation consumers (passengers) who presumably would like to avoid the prospect of becoming future accident victims themselves.

I may have been a little premature in my earlier diary in casting aspersions on the automation while lauding the flight crew's ability to get this bird down in one piece.

According to the most recent update from the AAIB, the automation would appear to have been given a clean bill of health and isn't thought to have had any direct or indirect involvement in causing the accident. Far from it. Indeed it would appear that it was the automation and not any disclosed or reported intervention by the flight crew, that brought BA038 to rest via a full stall onto the only piece of forgiving real estate within miles of the airport on that fateful day.