From NewsMax…

The devices, called Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) machines, allow officials to read remotely any passports, pass cards, and driver’s licenses that contain special chips with personal information.

The RFIDs are so sensitive that, even before a vehicle pulls up at a border checkpoint, agents already will have on their computer screen the personal data of the passengers, including each person’s name, date of birth, nationality, passport or ID number, and even a digitized photo.

The new gadgets are in place, or soon will be, at five border crossings: Blaine, Wash.; Buffalo; Detroit; Nogales, Ariz.; and San Ysidro, Calif. They are slated to have a dramatically expanded presence in June.

Lee Tien of the Electronic Frontier Foundation argues that the technology could make Americans less secure because terrorists or other criminals may be able to steal the personal information off the ID cards remotely.

Tien and other critics warn that people up to no good can use their own RFID machines in a process called “skimming” to read the information from as far as 50 feet.

Of course, the government assures you that only their machines can read the data so you have nothing to worry about.

From the Times….

Water supplies to residents in Harare were cut by the authorities yesterday as Zimbabwe’s cholera epidemic tightened its grip and the city witnessed its worst unrest for a decade.

The Zimbabwe National Water Authority turned off the pumps in the capital after it ran out of purifying chemicals. With cholera cases soaring above 11,000 across the country, and an anthrax outbreak ravaging the the countryside, David Parirenyatwa, the Health Minister, urged Zimbabweans to stop shaking hands to avoid spreading disease.

Companies and government offices, especially those in high-rise buildings, were sending workers home by midday as lavatories became blocked. “My office stinks and the toilet is a disgusting site,” said Mary Sakupwene, a secretary. “I won’t go back until the water’s on again.”

You have to give Islam some credit. No Islamic country has ever been mismanaged to the degree that Zimbabwe and North Korea have been. I don’t want to ever live in Pakistan or Iran, but their leaders are the model of good governance in comparison to the Kims and the Mugabes of the world.

From the New York Times…

An explosion of violence connected with Mexico’s powerful drug cartels has left more than 5,000 people dead so far this year, nearly twice the figure from the year before, according to unofficial tallies by Mexican newspapers. The border region of the United States and Mexico, critical to the cartels’ trafficking operation, has been the most violent turf of all, with 60 percent of all killings in the country last month occurring in the states of Chihuahua and Baja California, the government says. And it has raised fears that violence could spill across the border, because dozens of victims of drug violence have been treated at an El Paso hospital in the last year.

From the Washington Post….

The U.S. military expects to have 20,000 uniformed troops inside the United States by 2011 trained to help state and local officials respond to a nuclear terrorist attack or other domestic catastrophe, according to Pentagon officials.

All the usual suspects are up in arms about how this the end of American Freedom. I don’t have much sympathy for this line of argument. Many of those same people where complaining after 9/11 that there was not enough troop left in American to defend the homeland.

You want to worry about the end of your freedom, worry about SWAT teams that are increasingly being misused to make all sorts of arrests that should not be made using paramilitary tactics.

From the New Yorker….

Lashkar is a big organization with multiple arms and priorities and its leadership is undoubtedly divided over how much risk to take in pursuit of violent operations in India, particularly given the comfort and even wealth the group’s leaders enjoy from their unmolested activities inside Pakistan. If the boys in Mumbai had support from Lashkar, did the group’s leader, Hafez Saeed, who runs Jamat, know of the plan? If so, that would be a radical act that would likely mean the end of his charity’s tenuous legitimacy.

This type of absurdity is why Lashkar is such a problem. No one denies that Lashkar has been behind deaths of many people in India. In fact, it is part of their recruiting appeal.

So why is that it would take proof that they were behind the attacks on Mumbai to de-legitimacies the organization? Because it happened on TV? Because white people died in the attack?

The same thing could be said of Hezbollah. Someday they are going to kill a lot of people in the wrong country. But until they do, they have a sort of “legitimacy.” At least among the people who are not being killed.

From Danger Room…..

Iraq’s parliament on Thursday signed off on a Status of Forces Agreement that paves the way for withdrawal of U.S. forces within three years. The pact — which has been in negotiation for nearly a year — provides legal cover to U.S. troops stationed in the country after a U.N. mandate expires at the end of the year.

But here’s the interesting part: the agreement also makes thousands of U.S. contractors subject to Iraqi law. According to the final version of the text, Iraq will have the “primary right to exercise jurisdiction over United States contractors” and their employees.

Oceans of ink were spilled arguing that it was a mistake for the US to depend so heavily on contractors in Iraq because history has demonstrated that mercenaries were unreliable. One thing that almost no one mentioned was that history also demonstrates that mercenaries are historically the first ones thrown under the bus.

This concession is a poisonous gift from President Bush to the left. On one hand leftest commentators are overjoyed that the hated security contractors might now face “justice.” On the other hand, this concession is going to vastly complicate Obama’s life.

I don’t think Bush approved of this agreement with such machivilian thoughts in his mind. But he could have hardly made Obama’s life harder if he tried.

From the Telegraph….

The commando told how he was shot at trying to save a guide who was gunned down.

“We had a guide with us, a hotel employee, a hostage himself, to lead us through the hotel. He was the one who was opening each room and stepping aside.

“On the third floor a door swung open and he was gunned down. He wasn’t wearing a bullet-proof-vest. I dragged him out of range of the shots, but as I did I received three rounds to my back.”

There are so many things wrong with this account that I could scarcely count them all. I hope it is not true. If it is not, the whole operation was amateurish beyond belief.

This week’s rant of the week is Vanderleun’s The Voice of the Neuter is Heard Throughout the Land.

As Indian’s experience in Mumbai demonstrates, Israel’s tragedy has become the tragedy of the whole world. Therefore we think that it is good to remember how the age of televised terror began.