The World Around You

As is being reported all over this morning,

BEIT LAHIYA, Gaza Strip (AP) — A massive explosion ripped apart a U.S. diplomatic vehicle Wednesday, killing three Americans and wounding one in the first attack on a U.S. target in three years of Israel-Palestinian fighting.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility. The attack was condemned by Palestinian officials who said those killed were members of a U.S. monitoring team sent to the region to supervise implementation of a U.S.-backed peace plan.

Wednesday’s attack could deal a major blow to Palestinian efforts to bring more international monitors to the region.

The blast went off around 10:15 a.m. Wednesday as a three-car U.S. diplomatic convoy with a Palestinian police escort drove near a gas station on the outskirts of the town of Beit Lahiya in the northern Gaza Strip, along the main north-south road. Israeli reports said the U.S. cars were armored.

U.S. diplomatic sources said the people in the car were security guards for the U.S. diplomats traveling in the other vehicles. In Washington, State Department officials declined to comment.

I can’t wait to see the White House reaction to this. There may not be any Palestinians left when GW is done with them.

Seriously, the violence was bound to spill over to Americans eventually. I’m surprised it has taken this long. The key will come in our official reaction to the incident. More then…

The plot thickens in the HealthSouth case,

The allegations deal primarily with whether agent Gerald Kelly had an improper relationship with a witness and leaked information about the investigation to her.

Kelly may have had a relationship with Hope Launius, a witness in the case against HealthSouth. Launius knew the wife of former chief executive Richard Scrushy and also was romantically involved with Bill Massey, the former personal accountant for private company.

Massey committed suicide in July 2002.

There is a soap opera aspect to this story that cannot be ignored. Richard Scrushy denies he knows what his subordinates were doing, but he sure seemed to have a lot of interest in what the investigators knew. I wonder why?

Mayor Bobby Bright of Montgomery was able to avoid a run-off with a strong showing in last night’s mayoral election. Defeating his leading challenger, Scott Simmons, by a 2 to 1 margin.

Mayor Bernard Kincaid of Birmingham, running in a field of 18 candidates, received 32 percent of the vote and will face City Councilwoman Carole Smitherman in a run-off on November 4.

Neither one of these results is surprising. However, both races reflected extremely disappointing voter turn-out figures. With as much complaining as you hear in both these cities about the Mayor’s office, you would think people would have seized the opportunity to make their voice heard.

As Steven pointed out in a comment yesterday, is it the American way to vote anymore. It seems that anymore to be American means you don’t vote unless it’s an election for President. This is an unfortunate apathy (something I was a part of for a period of time) with few evident solutions.