BAGHDAD, Iraq, Feb. 25 - The United States military command on Friday announced the deaths of five American soldiers and the wounding of at least nine others. The day's biggest attack, a roadside bomb blast in a town outside Baghdad, struck a patrol on what was to be one of the last combat missions for some members of the First Cavalry Division before they returned home.

The bombing, in Tarmiya, 30 miles north of Baghdad on the Tigris, killed three soldiers and wounded nine. Witnesses said the soldiers had dismounted from a convoy of Humvees and had begun a foot patrol when the bomb detonated. Tarmiya is in the heart of the so-called Sunni Triangle, which has been hit by a new wave of insurgent attacks since the Jan. 30 elections.

New York's Congressman Maurice Hinchey has his sights trained on the sexy scheming hindquarters of White House master-of-all-he-surveys Karl Rove, according to report from a community forum in Ithaca:

    Rep. Hinchey launched into a barking moonbat conspiracy rant worthy of Democratic Underground, telling the audience he believed the fake CBS memos were planted by Karl Rove to discredit Dan Rather, and divert attention from President Bush's "draft dodging."

God that Rove character is busy! Running White House hustler rings, cloning little Cheneys, making Hillary Clinton get bad haircuts, flying planes into the Pentagon... --C.S.