There are so many eye-catching passages in the news—intriguing tidbits, absurdities, and puzzles. I seldom have time to write about them.

So I thought I'd try something new—simply note certain items and move on.

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Cuban cigars and the airport road

On the front page of the Sunday WaPo Opinion section, Lewis Simons, a former foreign correspondent, does a better-than-average job of what may easily become the most hackneyed topic of the Iraq war—a comparison with Vietnam.

In May Simons went to Iraq to do an article for National Geographic and noticed some improvements for the military since his days in Vietnam—

I was bound this time for the relative security of the walled-in Green Zone, just five miles from the airport. For security reasons, we could not leave immediately. I was assigned one of two dozen canvas cots in a large tent. It was air-conditioned. (This -- along with Internet availability, 30-minute-guaranteed to-your-tent-door Pizza Hut delivery, Cuban cigars at the PX, fresh meals and regularly sanitized portable toilets -- is one of the gains the U.S. military has achieved since Vietnam.)

Jeez! Here we are imposing a trade embargo on Cuba, and they're selling Cuban cigars at the PX? Well, the military has to smoke them out of sight of the public. They would be confiscated if brought back to the U.S.—at least in theory.

Aside from that small wonderment, Lewis makes this telling observation—

If, 2½ years in, you don't control the only road linking your military airport to your headquarters, you don't control much of anything.

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Abramoff and Roberts committing the same crime?

On Page One of Sunday's Post was some breaking news on Abramoff. Susan Schmidt opens the story with,

Indicted lobbyist Jack Abramoff claimed in e-mails sent in 2002 that the deputy secretary of the interior had pledged to block an Indian casino that would compete with one of the lobbyist's tribal clients. Abramoff later told two associates that he was trying to hire the official.

Not much surprise there. We already know what Abramoff is like, while sections of the Interior Department are devoted exclusively to screwing the Indians. It's a natural partnership.

It was the second paragraph that interested me—

A federal task force investigating Abramoff's activities has conducted interviews and obtained documents from Interior Department officials and Abramoff associates to determine whether conflict-of-interest laws were violated, according to people with knowledge of the probe. It can be a federal crime for government officials to negotiate for a job while being involved in decisions affecting the potential employer.

Could that possibly apply if the potential employer happened to be the federal government? As in John Roberts interviewing for a certain Supreme Court position while George Bush had business before the DC Appellate Court? Just wondering.

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How do you prefer your acrylamide?

California Attorney General Bill Lockyer is suing fast-food chains and snack manufacturers. He wants them to label chips and fries to alert consumers that the products may contain acrylamide, a possible carcinogen. Acrylamide is an organic compound formed when starches are cooked at high temperatures.

Frito-Lay is disputing this. They're not disputing that their chips contain the compound; they're disputing whether there is evidence that it causes cancer.

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Another once-in-a-lifetime event in my lifetime

As Hurricane Katrina was bearing down on New Orleans, the mayor was calling it a "once-in-a-lifetime event." I'm wondering how many once-in-a-lifetime events it's going to take in people's lifetimes to force the U.S. government to address global warming.