Apparently, an unnamed, unconfirmed source on the ground in Baqouba says, "U.S. troops may have beaten wounded al-Zarqawi before he died". I actually made a joke about this happening, when I was watching the news conference. And I was right.

The witness, who lived near the scene of the bombing, claimed in an interview with AP Television News to have seen U.S. soldiers beating an injured man resembling al-Zarqawi until blood flowed from the man's nose.

Can you imaging getting 1000 lbs. (907kg 453kg) of TNT dropped on you, and then the guys who dropped it run up and punch you in the nose? What a bunch of dicks!

I guess this is the point where we're supposed to curb our enthusiasm, look at the ground in shame, and then kind of snigger unter our breath when the Sanctimonious Sympathy Club at the AFP isn't looking. I feel horrible about the whole thing.

If I learned anything from watching old cop shows, it's this: If you know something about a crime, and you don't reveal the information to the police, you're guilty of aiding and abetting a criminal. Of course, there are ways around that. For instance, you could just blog it!

Why are journalists, and now bloggers, above the law? Shouldn't they be liable for illegal knowledge they receive from sources? What exactly are the limitations? If someone is planning, say, to assassinate the president, and gives a journalist the information beforehand without saying where or how, is the journalist required by law to reveal his identity to the police? It certainly doesn't seem like it nowadays. Anybody with a Myspace account apparently has carte blanche.