Alleged cabbie-slasher Michael Enright, besides having a problem holding his liquor, also had a problem holding his bile:

Enright, a senior at the School of Visual Arts in Manhattan, returned from Afghanistan in May after 35 days of filming a documentary about front-line troops.

When he was arrested Tuesday in midtown, Enright had a personal diary filled with pages of “pretty strong anti-Muslim comments,” a police source said.

The source said Enright’s journal equated Muslims with “killers, ungrateful for the help they were being offered, filthy murderers without a conscience.”

Quite honestly, there might be a (non-absolving) case of PTSD at work — we send kids to war all the time, but usually we train them first.

On the other hand, invading countries and calling their citizens ingrates for all the liberating death and destruction we wreak upon them seems to be a habit of our glorious nation.

Muslim cab driver Ahmed Sharif, victim in bloody attack, saw ‘so much hate’ in face of assailant [NY Daily News, via TPM]

The Beeb is reporting that more than 20 million residents in Pakistan have been forced out of their homes due to the widespread flooding that has left more than one-third of the country under water and an estimated 2,000 people drowned.

Cholera and other water-borne illnesses are widespread, with the World Health Organization (WHO) estimating that more than 200,000 people are suffering from acute diarrhea and about that many people also experiencing acute respiratory problems.  Another 3.5 million children are at risk of water-borne illnesses, according to the United Nations.  The UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization estimates that a quarter million farm animals have been killed to date in the flooding and 700,000 hectares of farmland are destroyed.  The Pakistani government has been unable to respond to the crisis, with more than 6 million citizens living in the open countryside with no potable water or food.

The weather forecast for the coming weeks is more rain during the monsoon season. Read more »

We’re not sure what, if anything, to make of the WikiLeaks dump of umpteen-thousand classified documents — complete with coordinated publication by the Times, the Guardian, and Der Spiegel — detailing Pakistan ISI ties to Afghan insurgents (don’t act surprised), but it started burning up Twitter Sunday afternoon, and it was burning up Memeorandum by Sunday night. We’ll let Spencer Ackerman be your guide. [Wired]

I have no idea why this fascinates me:

A new front in the Clash of Civilizations in III… II… I…

The former head of NASA on Tuesday described as “deeply flawed” the idea that the space exploration agency’s priority should be outreach to Muslim countries, after current Administrator Charles Bolden made that assertion in an interview last month…

Bolden created a firestorm after telling Al Jazeera last month that President Obama told him before he took the job that he wanted him to do three things: inspire children to learn math and science, expand international relationships and “perhaps foremost, he wanted me to find a way to reach out to the Muslim world and engage much more with dominantly Muslim nations to help them feel good about their historic contribution to science … and math and engineering.”

There’s only one solution to this dilemma: Convert all our math — and dollars — to Roman numerals. And call them Freedom Numbers.

Former NASA Director Says Muslim Outreach Push ‘Deeply Flawed’ [Fox]

Michael Steele, Thursday:

This was a war of Obama’s choosing. This is not something the United States had actively prosecuted or wanted to engage in… If he’s such a student of history, has he not understood that you know that’s the one thing you don’t do, is engage in a land war in Afghanistan? All right, because everyone who has tried, over a thousand years of history, has failed.

Michael Steele, December 2009:

I am glad the president will finally provide General McChrystal with the troops he needs… If the president remains committed to this crucial fight, Republicans — and the American people — will stand with him.

Read more »

Louie Gohmert (R-We’ll Have What He’s Having): “I talked to a retired FBI agent who said that one of the things they were looking at were terrorist cells overseas who had figured out how to game our system. And it appeared they would have young women, who became pregnant, would get them into the United States to have a baby. They wouldn’t even have to pay anything for the baby. And then they would turn back where they could be raised and coddled as future terrorists. And then one day, twenty, thirty years down the road, they can be sent in to help destroy our way of life.” [TPM]