The "it" it might kill could also mean "boatloads of Chinese immigrants." It looks like this thing has a 2 inch draught, so maybe it could even make it in the Rio Grande in the wet season. Used to make sure "bad people don't get in" (that's a technical term), in the words of its salesman, in this inexplicably long and needlessly dumb TV news clip from the 6th Annual Border Security Expo in sunny downtown Phoenix.

Things we already knew but it sure is nice to have it down in black and white: U.S. Army doctors are told not to diagnose PTSD in soldiers, because they don't want to pay for disability.

"We do not run this story or show this image either in support of the U.S. war effort or in opposition to it." That's Time editor Rick Stengel on his new cover story…. which is coverlined "What Happens if We Leave Afghanistan," and has a portrait of a woman brutalized by the Taliban. The story contains this: "As the war in Afghanistan enters its ninth year, the need for an exit strategy weighs on the minds of U.S. policymakers. Such an outcome, it is assumed, would involve reconciliation with the Taliban. But Afghan women fear that in the quest for a quick peace, their progress may be [...]

A tantalizing Twitter from @Wikileaks went up on Saturday morning: "Real change begins Monday in the WashPost. By the years end, a reformation. Lights on. Rats out."

The series to which they referred, "Top Secret America," by Dana Priest and William Arkin, began today and is certainly a barn-burner. It features an enormous database detailing the thousands of complex connections between private business and the evidently-misnamed intelligence community. The story has been tearing up the Internets all day long, even though Priest and Arkin don't really reveal much that we didn't already know, or at least that we didn't suspect: the government is a mess! 9/11 persuaded [...]