The U.S. embassy in Kabul also announced that the senior management team for ArmorGroup North America, the contractor responsible for ensuring the security of the embassy, will be replaced immediately. Earlier this week, the Project on Government Oversight wrote a letter to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton detailing its investigation into weird Lord of the Flies-style hazing among guards at the embassy, including "eating potato chips out of ass cracks."

According to the Associated Press, all of the departing contractors appeared in the photos, which POGO provided to us (and anyone else who asked for them—but because we published them first, some people credited us with launching a State Department investigation, which is pretty funny).

POGO has released a statement worrying that some of the contractors may have been wrongly fired and that the State Department is simply canning everyone in the photos: "We have been told people are being fired for simply being in the photographs. We do know a number of those were unwilling participants."

Peters, who never saw combat, knows from his rich experience writing foreign policy fanfic that this American soldier is a liar and a deserter. Fox News just openly hates America, and the troops, and they should all be charged with treason.

This is Lt. Gordon J. Klingenschmitt, an evangelical Episcopal Navy chaplain who got himself court-martialed and kicked out of the Navy for appearing in uniform at a political rally, against orders.

Here is last Saturday's One-Minute prayer:

7. Saturday 25 Apr 09 One-Minute Prayer:

IMPRECATORY PRAYERS AGAINST ANTI-JESUS BARRY LYNN AND MIKEY WEINSTEIN

Let us pray. Almighty God, today we pray imprecatory prayers from Psalm 109 against the enemies of religious liberty, including Barry Lynn and Mikey Weinstein, who issued press releases this week attacking me personally. God, do not remain silent, for wicked men surround us and tell lies about us. We bless them, but they curse us. Therefore find them guilty, not me. Let their days be few, and replace them with Godly people. Plunder their fields, and seize their assets. Cut off their descendants, and remember their sins, in Jesus' name. Amen.

**Listen below! And call & ask your local Christian radio station to broadcast this 60-second prayer many times throughout the day on Saturday, 25 Apr 09.

Yes, that sounds a bit like praying for Barry Lynn and Mikey Weinstein to die, right? What did they ever do?

Barry Lynn is the head of Americans United for Separation of Church and State. Mikey Weinstein, hero of the Harper's piece, is the president of the Military Religious Freedom Foundation. Even though he helped defend Regan during Iran-Contra and worked for Ross Perot, he is pretty awesome.

He is the most prominent voice fighting the growing influence of evangelical nutcases in the military, who believe in making holy war and think the Constitution establishes a Christian nation. How did this happen, exactly? Didn't you think chaplains were all boring milquetoast mainstream protestants, like Chaplain Tappmann? They used to be. Then:

The next turning point occurred in the waning days of the Reagan Administration, when regulatory revisions helped create the fundamentalist stronghold in today's military. A longstanding rule had apportioned chaplains according to the religious demographics of the military as a whole (i.e., if surveys showed that 10 percent of soldiers were Presbyterian, then 10 percent of the chaplains would be Presbyterian) but required that all chaplains be trained to minister to troops of any faith. Starting in 1987, however, Protestant denominations were lumped together simply as "Protestant"; moreover, the Pentagon began accrediting hundreds of evangelical and Pentecostal "endorsing agencies," allowing graduates of fundamentalist Bible colleges-which often train clergy to view those from other faiths as enemies of Christ-to fill up nearly the entire allotment for Protestant chaplains. Today, more than two thirds of the military's 2,900 active-duty chaplains are affiliated with evangelical or Pentecostal denominations. "In my experience," Morton says, "eighty percent
of the Protestant chaplaincy self-identifies as conservative and/or evangelical."

So. This Mikey guy. Back when he was an 18-year-old freshman at the Air Force Academy, he got the shit beat out of him for reporting antisemitic comments. Thirty years later, his son Curtis was still dealing with getting called a "fucking Jew" by cadets and officers. And now he fights prominent military officials who promote crazy Holy War ideas and forcefully proselytize to underlings. He foolishly thought he might get a Pentagon job in the Obama administration but instead we still have Petraeus and Gates.

Palestinians and their terrorist sympathizers streamed into Second Life Israel last week, as Real Life Israel launched missiles at Real Life Gaza. The aggrieved protesters promptly began destroying the quiet peace of the digital holy land, carrying signs and shouting obscenities at passing Jewish furries.

Second Life Israeli officials promptly beat back the threat.

Ms. Odets helped create SL Israel, so she maintains land permissions to the region. She began ejecting the most obstreperous protesters. "I had to be careful not to boot people who didn't actually do anything wrong," as she puts it. But the protesters kept coming, and eventually she felt forced to close all of SL Israel to outsiders. "Just shut it down for a little while. Just to make it stop. 'Cause people weren't wanting to be logical, or talk."

An intrepid reporter—truly a Second Life Joe the Plumber—ventured into the disputed territories and brought back reports of impassioned political debate between a Jew, a Muslim, and a rabbit named Shmoo Snook.

Brian Stelter reported on the lack of reporting from Iraq in today's Times. The problem? "Iraq has been, according to some executives, the most expensive war ever for TV news organizations." Because it is the deadliest country in the world for journalists, so they need massive security teams, so the networks are all cutting back on covering the country, which is ok because it's obviously much safer and more secure now, unless, apparently, you are unlucky enough to be a journalist.

So none of the networks have full-time correspondents in Iraq. NBC has a roving foreign correspondent, ABC is quietly sharing resources with the BBC, and CBS just doesn't give a shit.

Not that it's all that bad. The best work a full-time TV correspondent can do in a war zone is cut through government propaganda and expose how shitty the situation is (most wars are shitty). That job was finished about three years ago (two years too late, but still), forcing a change of strategy and hopefully slightly hastening the eventual withdrawal of most of our combat troops there. Now, of course, the networks could go ahead and waste cash on war correspondents, but why bother when nothing they file will end up in the nightly news? Unless a shoe is thrown at the president, obv. But sectarian politicking and turf battles do not good television make. The medium itself is ill-suited to intelligently covering whatever the hell the Iraq situation is.

But here is the good news! Afghanistan and Pakistan are "heating up," as they say, so they will get correspondents! In the new Barack Obama era, we are taking our eyes off the ball and giving into the terrorists in Iraq, and focusing on the intractable problems of these two other unstable nations. One of them has The Bomb!

The dead-quiet week between Christmas and New Year's is the perfect time to rattle sabers, knowing they will dominate headlines. Journalists in the West, having gorged themselves on carols of peace, are primed to report on the shock of war.

Even though these wars are not particularly shocking. Pakistan and India have been shooting at each other across a Kashmiri glacier on and off for decades; a mere movement of troops to their common border, while attention-getting, is not particularly notable. And not long ago, Israel was engaged in an actual war in Lebanon, compared to which the rocket launches and airstrikes in Gaza don't amount to much. The deaths, while horrible, are not more horrible than the many that preceded them. Gaza is in agony, but, sad to say, its agony is an eternality.

There will be handwringing about the many challenges that face President-elect Barack Obama, who sits, literally powerless, in Hawaii, isolated in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. But are these challenges really any worse than what has gone before? They make a handy tale of overcoming the odds after Obama takes office next month. But a troubled world is not news. It is just the world.

Now I don't hate them any more—not these particular guys. I hate and detest the leaders. Some guards would just come in and do their job. When they were told to beat you they would come in and do it. Some seemed to get a big bang out of it. A lot of them were homosexual, although never toward us. Some, who were pretty damned sadistic, seemed to get a big thrill out of the beatings.

Yes, ok. What?? How did POW McCain know they were gay if they weren't gay "toward him"? Were the homosexuals the ones who enjoyed the beatings or were the sadists a separate category? We have lots of unanswered questions here. Like—how come he mentions how gay the North Vietnamese were but leaves out that inspiring tale of the cross on the floor he mentioned last weekend?

John McCain, Prisoner of War [USNews via Queerty]

Both Logan and Burkett were married (and both also reportedly separated, though the Enquirer glossed over that point), both are divorcing, and Logan, according to Kurtz, expects to marry Burkett eventually.

We're happy that things seem to be working out for Lara, though Burkett does not actually sound like much of a catch. Between the fact that he's a mysterious "civilian contractor" and the fact that his other marriage ended in the bitterest divorce ever on account of him spending the entirety of it—including the pregnancy and birth bits—war profiteering in Iraq, maybe he is not the marrying kind? Or maybe that's just his psycho ex-wife, who took the story to the Enquirer in the first place.

We just feel bad for CNN reporter Michael Ware, the other other man, for being totally overshadowed in all this.

Logan did not even think she was able to get pregnant, because she is missing a fallopian tube, so this homewrecking Baghdad warzone baby is truly a miracle. Once it is born it can take over Meet the Press.

The ENQUIRER has learned exclusively that CBS Evening News and 60 Minutes foreign correspondent, Lara Logan, has been named as the “other woman” in a Texas couple Joe and Kimberly Burkett's bitter divorce.

Burkett’s wife Kimberly, 32, was so distraught with his cheating that she took an overdose of Valium

Kimberly Burkett's attorney Susie Chmielowiec told The ENQUIRER, “Kimberly believes Lara stole her husband – and now they’re trying to steal her little girl."

And in a twist that’s as shocking as any story Lara has covered, sources are charging she also had another affair, and her two lovers got into a brutal battle over her in Baghdad!

Sources charge that the Emmy winning Logan began her affair with 36-year-old U.S. State Department contractor, Burkett in war-torn Baghdad.

And yet another scandal brews in the steamy mix: Lara’s reported romance with a star CNN correspondent – whose jealousy exploded in a battle royal with Burkett in a Baghdad “safe house.”

“Not only is Lara having a torrid affair with a married man – she apparently has more than one lover!” Chmielowiec charged to The ENQUIRER.

When CBS Evening News anchor Katie Couric heard about Lara’s sexual shenanigans, she blew a gasket!

What is your favorite part of that story? Katie Couric blowing a gasket is good, but we particularly enjoy the bit where an affair is "as shocking as any story Lara has covered." Because, like, she reports from war zones, where people are fighting wars and stuff.

Of course none of this is really shocking at ALL because foreign correspondents basically all sleep with everyone they can. It's stressful work and adrenaline runs high. Though some war zones are more conducive to this sort of thing. It depends on heat, relative humidity, and availability of showers.

Update: SO the print Enquirer further claims that Logan's second affair is with CNN reporter Michael Ware, and that Ware fought Burkett over it in Baghdad.

Then the contractor dude who announced in court that he's having this affair with Logan told his wife that he killed people in Iraq. Which is maybe not true?

Finally, Lara was "entertaining" some people in Baghdad when Ware came in and then him and Burkett fought for HOURS and even ended up in the CNN safehouse! It's amazing they had time to cover the war, what with all this drama.

Lara supposedly "sputtered" something when an Enquirer reporter inquired about her husband, and her husband is said to have had no comment. Whee. We're still not clear on how Katie Couric is involved?

CBS NEWS LARA LOGAN DIVORCE WAR [Enquirer]