I understand the science behind it, but the notion that there should be a military ban on smoking doesn’t make any sense to me. When you sign up you put yourself in peril, and in many cases these men and women make the ultimate sacrifice in service of the country. In light of that, like selling Playboy magazines on base, we should allow them to use the cancer sticks if they want to.

Just do it.

Unlike 16 years ago, the US is waging two wars and ‘Don’t ask, don’t tell’ is no longer supported by the majority of the American people. The percentage of Americans that support allowing gay people to serve openly has risen from 44 percent in 1993 to 75 percent last year, according to Washington Post-ABC News polls.. While a 2006 Zogby International poll of returning Iraq and Afghanistan service members found that only 26 percent agreed that gays and lesbians should be allowed to serve in the military, 73 percent were personally comfortable around gays and lesbians.

There is also no credible evidence supporting the underlying arguments for retaining the law – namely that it would undermine unit cohesion and military effectiveness. In fact, government studies over the past 50 years demonstrate just the opposite.

Moreover, 24 other countries, including our closest allies, such as Britain, Israel, and Canada, allow openly gay people to serve. In fact, the British, whose military is most similar in design and function to our own, found that six months after they were forced to change their policy by the European Court of Human Rights, sexual orientation became a nonissue.

In other words, allowing openly gay men and women to serve proved more difficult in theory than in practice. Even an architect of ‘Don’t ask, don’t tell,’ Rear Adm. John Hutson, has acknowledged that the policy was ‘based on nothing’ but ‘our own prejudices and our own fears.’

Let’s get this done.

And as a recent Defense Department study revealed, the number of overweight active-duty troops has more than doubled during the past 10 years.

‘We have a crisis in this country,’ Gilroy said during a March 3 hearing before the House Armed Services Committee’s military personnel subcommittee. He cited obesity among other shortcomings such as physical fitness deficiencies and lack of a high school diploma that disqualify about three-quarters of 17-to-24-year-olds from serving.

Americans United reminds McCain where Walter Reed is.

A House panel weighed overturning the military’s ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ policy Wednesday, the first time Congress has considered the rule since it was implemented 15 years ago.

The policy, adopted in 1993, allows gay and lesbian individuals to serve in the armed forces as long as they do not publicly engage in homosexual behavior. The law also prevents military leaders from asking a service member about his or her sexual orientation.

In the near future some kid is going to ask his dad: “You mean they really stopped people for serving their country, not because they couldn’t perform the job but because they were gay? That’s dumb.”

Take better care of the ones who are back.

Ted Kennedy – who just got out of the hospital
Tom Coburn
John McCain

3/4 of the Senate voted for the bill. All the votes against the bill were Republicans.

The most senior US general in Iraq has said he has evidence that Iran was behind Sunday’s bombardment of Baghdad’s heavily fortified Green Zone.

Gen David Petraeus told the BBC he thought Tehran had trained, equipped and funded insurgents who fired the barrage of mortars and rockets.

He said Iran was adding what he described as “lethal accelerants” to a very combustible mix.

There has as yet been no response from Iran to the accusations.

In similarly credible news, I’m totally Jessica Alba’s baby daddy.

You gotta figure that at Casa Bozell when they play Clue it’s always Bill Clinton with the Candlestick and never Miss Scarlet.