Looks like Allah can’t quite get his shit together as a third terrorist attack fails in the United Kingdom.

The United Kingdom raised its terrorism threat level to critical, the highest level possible, Saturday after a vehicle plowed into the terminal building at Scotland’s busiest airport and burst into flames.

Authorities at the highest levels are assuming the fiery incident in Glasgow is directly linked to the discovery Friday of two explosives-laden cars in London.

One of two men who drove the car into the terminal’s main entrance later died of burns at a hospital.

Police and witnesses in Glasgow described an SUV-style vehicle in flames being driven at full speed toward the building.

Few details provided at the moment, but it sounds like yet another explosive device malfunctioned in the hands of radical Islamic incompetence.

I’m thinking this was the act of homegrown extremists, as the Al Qaeda elements in Iraq have only become more agile and complex in their attacks. These idiots seem to be the terrorist equivalent of the Keystone Cops.

It’s easy to point and laugh at these Allahu Akbar yahoos, but even the most unlikely of folks see short-term success every now and again (reference: Lyle Lovett / Julia Roberts).

Never again:

A man armed with two pistols hijacked an Air Mauritania flight Thursday but was subdued by two passengers, a Spanish official said.

The senior Spanish government source said a man had been trying to commandeer the Boeing 737 to Paris…

Abass Bass, a representative of the Mauritanian Embassy in Washington, described the incident as a “tentative hijacking.”

“The information we had from Mauritania is that the passengers fought back and they took the hijacker and now everything is OK,” Bass told CNN.

Apparently sources close to President Bush are part of the cliche-based community:

President Bush is expected to announce his new Iraq strategy in an address to the nation early next week, several sources in Washington told CNN Tuesday.

The president has not yet signed off on any changes, including a possible increase of U.S. troops, according to sources with information about Bush’s deliberations on Iraq.

However, the sources say he is “driving toward a conclusion” and a plan is “taking shape” which is “getting more detailed” as the president puts “on the finer points.”

Well, that’s good news. Maybe now we’ll really have those “evildoers” finally “on the run” so we can, once again, “turn a corner” and have the insurgency “in its death throes.”

It’s like Oval Office MadLibs!

Adding to my worry: the Bush administration didn’t change course based on events on the ground, but on Republicans getting their asses handed to them in the last election. So, either they held onto a losing strategy thinking they would win the election, or they dropped a winning strategy in order to pander to the electorate.

Neither is very honorable, if you ask me.

Bill from INDCJournal is posting new entries while in Iraq, having just wrapped up a day with the Marines of Bravo Company, 2nd Assault Amphibious Battalion (did you know that they’re amphibious because of intelligent design, thus proving God is real?).

Our potential next Secretary of Defense says we’re not winning:

Robert Gates, the White House choice to be the next defense secretary, conceded Tuesday that the United States is losing the war in Iraq and warned that if that country is not stabilized in the next year or two it could lead to a “regional conflagration.”

Gates, 63, said he believes President Bush wants to see Iraq improve to the point where it can govern and defend itself, while seeking a new approach. “What we are now doing is not satisfactory,” Gates said.

“In my view, all options are on the table, in terms of how we address this problem in Iraq,” he added.

Asked point-blank by Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., whether the U.S. is winning in Iraq, Gates replied, “No, sir.”

However, past evidence has shown that this administration doesn’t let bad news get in the way of spin - and this time is no different, to wit:

At today’s meeting with reporters at the White House, the major topics for Press Secretary Tony Snow, as expected, were the pending release of the Iraq Study Group’s report — and today’s surprise, the admission by Robert Gates, at his confirmation hearings as new Pentagon chief, that the U.S., indeed, is not winning the war in Iraq.

Snow said that, as far as he knows, the president has not backed away from his recent statement that the U.S. is actually “winning” in Iraq. He also suggested that Gates, elsewhere in his testimony, seemed to say that maybe we weren’t losing and we weren’t winning. And he charged that the press was being too negative about all this: “What I think is demoralizing is a constant effort to try to portray this as a losing mission,” he said.

“We weren’t losing and we weren’t winning?”

Huh? What’s that then, here I am, stuck in the middle with you?

Good lord, but this administration has become a caricature of what real leadership and real responsibility look like. One would think that the electoral thrashing they received a few weeks ago might have been a wakey-wakey call, but no… they’re going to sleep clear on through 2008 by the look of things.

I don’t look forward to voting for more Democrats, but when the Republicans, even after a defeat, continue to strive for public image idiocy, what’s a boy to do?

Looks like even Donald Rumsfeld found the fortitude to admit the obvious, albeit in secret:

Two days before he resigned as defense secretary, Donald H. Rumsfeld submitted a classified memo to the White House that acknowledged that the Bush administration’s strategy in Iraq was not working and called for a major course correction.

“In my view it is time for a major adjustment,” wrote Mr. Rumsfeld, who has been a symbol of a dogged stay-the-course policy. “Clearly, what U.S. forces are currently doing in Iraq is not working well enough or fast enough.”

Nor did Mr. Rumsfeld seem confident that the administration would readily develop an effective alternative. To limit the political fallout from shifting course, he suggested the administration consider a campaign to lower public expectations.

“Announce that whatever new approach the U.S. decides on, the U.S. is doing so on a trial basis,” he wrote. “This will give us the ability to readjust and move to another course, if necessary, and therefore not ‘lose.’ ”

“Recast the U.S. military mission and the U.S. goals (how we talk about them) - go minimalist,” he added. The memo suggests frustration with the pace of turning over responsibility to the Iraqi authorities; in fact, the memo calls for examination of ideas that roughly parallel troop withdrawal proposals presented by some of the White House’s sharpest Democratic critics.

Obviously the very advanced aliens from the planet Colin Powell have used their mind-control beams to brainwash Rumsfeld.

The real shame here is that, while this administration and its officials knew that Iraq was turning into a disaster, they did nothing about it. They “stayed the course.” They played Pollyanna. They thought they were still politically safe - don’t push for change because it sounds too much like defeat! - and one has to wonder how many Iraqis and Americans died because of it all.

The French government is again protesting American barbarism by refusing to provide any evidence in Zac’s trial that might lead to his being subjected to the death penalty.

We actually agree.

We’d much rather see him convicted and put in general population in a maximum security prison.

Italian authorities are denying American claims that there is a credible terrorist threat against US citizens in Venice, Florence, Milan, and Verona, and are angry that we have the audacity to tell our citizens to be careful. Gabriele Albertini, Mayor of Milan, says, “There is no need for alarmism. There is no concrete evidence of a threat.” That’s why it was characterized as a “possibility,” Gabe. I can think of a couple other unfortunate events of which we had no credible warning, and I’m sure that with a little thought, you can too.

Hey guys, think that if any Americans die in a bomb blast in Milan in the next couple of days, the Italians will start supporting us in this little spat we’re having with Islamic Fundamentalists? Nah, we don’t either.

Researchers have discovered that many New Yorkers - after the tragedy of September 11 - suffer from post-traumatic stress syndome, and that use of alcohol, tobacco, and drugs went up as well.

Gosh, who would have imagined?

Do we pay people to research this?

How touching.

Hold us, please.

Oh, and Ms. Moussaoui?

There’s a reason we “can’t find the people who are truly responsible for this crime” - they are torn to shreds in the wrecked remains of the World Trade Center, the Pentagon, and a crater in Pennsylvania.