Outside the Beltway

Washington D.C.’s 34 year-old Metro system is about to become the latest stage for Security Theater.

Santa Claus and Osama bin Laden both rely on the power of belief.

One has to love the Telegraph headline “Drone kills white al-Qaeda pair in Pakistan mountains.”

Marine Commandant James Amos is going all-out to keep gay Marines in the closet, saying allowing them to serve openly could get men killed.

A new poll shows that the American public is discontented, nervous about the economy, not entirely sure they can trust the new GOP majority in Congress, and has no idea what it wants from Washington. Sounds like a recipe for disaster.

The archaic practice of calling one’s seniors by titles rather than their first name is actually quite useful.

Is the West’s string of luck about to end?

There’s been much talk recently about treason charges in the Wikileaks case, an most of it has been entirely wrong.

WikiLeaks’ reveals that DynCorp, a government contractor, provided drugs and child sex slaves to Afghan police–and the State Department helped cover it up.

The hunters in Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Michigan, and West Virginia alone would comprise the largest army in the world.

Those of us who think we’re overreacting to terrorism should remember that we’re in a tiny minority.

The Obama administration is banning hundreds of thousands of federal employees from calling up the WikiLeaks site on government computers because the leaked material is still formally regarded as classified.

The editors of the Washington Post want you to know that “Fair Game,” the new movie about the Valerie Plame affair, is “Hollywood myth making.” Propaganda and lies is more like it.

The commander-in-chief, secretary of defense, and chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff all support removing the ban on gays in the military without further delay. A long-awaited Pentagon study showed no reason not to do so. But three of four Service chiefs disagree.

Michael Yon provides a digital copy of PFC Bradley Manning’s Charge Sheet, dated 29 May. It makes for interesting reading.

Despite the Defense Department releasing its study showing that the effects of allowing gays to serve openly would be minimal, Senator John McCain isn’t convinced.

The Pentagon could have taken down WikiLeaks but decided not to. Out of kindness, I suppose.

Is there really anyone who can credibly argue at this point that the policy regarding homosexuals openly serving in the armed services is anything other than basic discrimination?

The Pentagon has spoken. Repealing Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell would not cause any real harm to the military, they have said. Now, the ball is in the court of the United States Senate.

Sarah Palin has taken to her Facebook page to raise “Serious Questions about the Obama Administration’s Incompetence in the WikiLeaks Fiasco.” They’re more interesting than I’d expected.

A crippling, and technologically advanced, computer virus and attacks against Iranian nuclear scientists lead to only one conclusion; someone is doing everything they can short of military action to make sure Iran doesn’t develop nuclear weapons.

The choice is between a world in which officials can share information and carry out reasoned debates with one another and a world in which nothing can be written down.

The two English language newspapers who have been Julian Assange’s accomplices in disseminating stolen secrets defend themselves.

Another FBI sting operation results in the arrest of a “terrorist,” or did it create a crime where none existed before?

A new round of Wikileaks documents is out, and it opens the door on diplomatic correspondence previously hidden from the public.

McCain brings up “regime change” in re: the DKRP and China apparently isn’t doing enough.

Somali-born teenager plotted to carry out a car bomb attack at a crowded Christmas tree lighting ceremony in downtown Portland on Friday, but the bomb turned out to be a dud supplied by undercover agents as part of a sting.