More news to make you crawl back between the sheets

The paper of record gives free advertising to another think-tank lunatic who thinks racial profiling is the answer: "Truth be told, commuters need to be most aware of young men praying to Allah and smelling like flower water."

Meanwhile, Norman Solomon dissects the Times' resident thug. In case we'd forgotten, Solomon reminds us that:

• in 1999, Thomas Friedman wrote: "Every week you ravage Kosovo is another decade we will set your country back by pulverizing you. You want 1950? We can do 1950. You want 1389? We can do 1389 too"
  
  
• told CNBC, "there's one thing ... that I do like about Rumsfeld. He's just a little bit crazy, OK?"
• 
  and of course that one of the favorite phrases of the Pulitzer Prize-winner, repeated in conflict after conflict, is "give war a chance."

Also, in Counterpunch Gary Leupp asks, Is Iran being set up?

And Juan Cole comments on the news that The Bush administration is giving up the phrase "global war on terror":

I take it this is because they have finally realized that if they are fighting a war on terror, the enemy is four guys in a gymn in Leeds. It isn't going to take very long for people to realize that a) you don't actually need to pay the Pentagon $400 billion a year if that is the problem and b) whoever is in charge of such a war isn't actually doing a very good job at stopping the bombs from going off.

As always, Cole's take on the situation is well worth reading in full.