Part 3, Letter 6, Lands of the Bible -- J.W. McGarvey: "When, as once happened to me, it is your neighbor's tent which is blown about his ears, while your own canvas is motionless, there is a great satisfaction to be derived from witnessing this strange atmospheric phenomenon. "

And look, it's the Tabernacle..

Oh, you thought we meant "sovereignty" !

What the hell happened to Radio Prague's English press review?

I know you didn't come to this blog to read job listings, but if you know somebody who'd like to be something between an office assistant and a business manager in a restaurant, please let me know. I need somebody who's really good with numbers, proficient in Excel, and super-dooper organized and detail-oriented. In other words, all the things that I'm not. Responsibilities will run from ordering new office supplier to budgets planning. Not full time, maybe 20 hours a week tops. Basically I need somebody to help me deal with paperwork so I can focus on the big picture. That's the ticket. P.S. It should really be a Czech person.

Reuters, citing no sources, says that the Jordanian-American "peacekeeper" shoot-out resulted from "emotions over Iraq." Speculation? In any case, this is seriously, seriously weird news.

Random Prague connection: My partner Dan Butler recently met some tourists at Tulip Cafe who needed help with directions. They were two women, one from Oregon and another from an Arkansas-like state, both in law enforcement, and both on a short holiday from a Kosovo deployment. With Marines seemingly in a rut outside Karbala, Fallujah and Najaf, it's easy to forget we still have plenty of cops and troops in relatively-nearby Kosovo.

Speaking of Balkan-style unpleasantness, I just found out that al-Sadr's Mahdi Army -- you know, that rag-tag militia -- leveled a village in March. But don't worry, it was only a Gypsy village.

"They provided a fertile land for sinning."