Swamp Gas, November 19, 2007

by Frank James

A quick guided tour of some of the morning's most important, most interesting, or both, Washington-related stories.

The U.S. military is hoping to enlist Pakistani tribes in the battle against al Qaeda.

The Pakistani supreme court that was recently reshuffled by President Perviz Musharraf dismissed legal challenges to his continued rule, setting the stage for him to serve another term as a civilian president.

The number of attacks in Iraq has fallen to the level they were at in February 2006 before the bombing of an important Shiite mosque in Samarra led to a worsening of sectarian violence.

Groups representing criminal-defense lawyers say they will review cases nationwide in which convictions resulted from faulty bullet analysis by the Federal Bureau of Investigation which two years ago discarded the faulty technique it was using.

A weak dollar isn't as inflationary as it used to be since exporters to the U.S. are willing ti cut their prices in order to maintain their market shares.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation said that reports of hate crimes rose almost 8 percent last year.

The long and complicated supply chains often used to provide food products from China make it difficult for retailers to know where exactly the food products they sell come from, as was demonstrated in the case of pesticide-tainted ginger from China this summer.

President Bush's top terrorism advisor, Fran Townsend, quit, continuing the departure of important presidential aides as the Bush presidency winds down.

For all the time and attention the presidential candidates lavish on Iowa political caucus goers, the number of people who actually take part in the caucuses is exceedingly small.