Random News & Views Roundup

- Bush wants to talk to Iran. Iran doesn't want to talk to Bush. What did Bush expect? If you're going to talk about Iran's nuclear enrichment plan, you don't ask them to suspend it before you'll talk about it.

- Border security tightens on the New England/Canadian border and many people on both sides aren't happy about it.

- Two women, including one who was pregnant, were gunned down in Iraq.

More than 4,000 Iraqis - many of them civilians - have been killed in war-related violence this year, including at least 936 in May alone, according to an Associated Press count. That makes May the second deadliest month for Iraqis over the past year. Only March recorded more fatalities.

The figures show that civilians, not Iraqi security forces, are increasingly the casualties of violence. Eighty-two percent of the war-related Iraqi deaths recorded in May were civilians, compared with 61 percent in May 2005, when 746 Iraqis were killed.

Meanwhile, Bush said he was 'troubled' by the deaths in Haditha. Troubled? That's the best he can come up with? Troubled? Heartless bastard.

- The DoD is now offering online stress screening for members of the military. The testing covers depression, alcoholism, bipolar disorder, generalized anxiety disorder and post traumatic stress disorder. Hopefully, if someone discovers they have a problem, the DoD will also offer the proper resources ASAP to deal with it as well.

- Afghanistan's parliament has called for the prosecution of US soldiers involved in the deadly Kabul car accident on Monday which sparked riots.

Col. Tom Collins, a U.S. military spokesman, said the driver of the truck was not suspected of any wrongdoing and had not been arrested. He said the truck's brakes are believed to have overheated and failed.

However, he said the military was investigating whether the troops involved in the crash fired their guns into a group of violent demonstrators or over their heads. He said some of the rioters who were throwing stones at the U.S. troops also had weapons and were shooting at them.

"Our soldiers used their weapons to defend themselves," he said. Asked if this meant that they fired into or over the crowd, Collins said, "Our investigation is still looking into this."

After all of the incidents that have turned out to be much different from what the US military has declared them to be at first blush, just how long will it take to find out the real truth about this one?