Between the weather, aircraft availability and mechanical problems, this week's training program has been a bust. Aircraft availability because they pulled everything that could fly and sent it into North Waziristan last week. *Huge* op going on there. [Anybody told Senator Obama 'bout that? -the Armorer]

Tuesday, forty terrs bailed out of three trucks approaching a Pak checkpoint and assaulted -- fifteen killed, two captured after the Cobras and checkpoint troops were finished with them. Eight more KBA when two carloads zipping away from a foiled IED-planting expedition tried to outrun a pair of AH-1s and four more scratched when they tried to kamikaze a Pak convoy and failed to look *up* before they made their move.

There are at least three suicide boomers laying low in Islamabad. Two of the ones that went off in mid-July had remote detonators stitched into their belts as "insurance" in case they weren't sufficiently motivated -- they were; cops found the remotes intact. The ISI guys think they were 15-to-17-year-old kids trained in the Lal Masjid who were launched on time-delay before the cops blockaded it.

The MSM here is wondering WTF is going through Barry Obama's brain with that "we'll send US troops into Pakistan" pronouncement. They're contrasting it with Cheney's "emphasis on Pakistan's status as a sovereign state" and his reminder that the US and Pakistan "continue to collaborate successfully in counterterrorism operations."

In other news, security in Shangri-La is getting tighter -- they're installing scanners in the usual locations, pairs of MPs are working the streets on Hondas and the guys manning the checkpoints are actually *behind* the sandbags instead of sitting alongside them. Brown sandbags=MPs, blue sandbags=cops. Last but not least, all foreign diplomats have been instructed to notify the gummint if they plan to go visiting outside their compounds so the gummint can provide gun truck escorts. The gummint also hinted that this would be an excellent time for all of them to stay in and catch up on their reading.

All of the above from the front pages of yestiddy and today's "The Nation"...

And the wireless has gone kerflooey. It keeps insisting the UserID and password it downloaded from its parent site during setup are "incompatible."

Damn ChiCom red plastic POS...

And while these aren't quite the right model of Cobra - this clip's for you, Bill - if that ChiCom POS will allow you to view it, ever.

Ya might wanna kill yer volume or wear head-phones - the music is pretty raucous.