Pretty funny. Sample:

I. Match that quote:

1) “He got the position himself. I didn’t get it for him.”

A) Donald Trump, on Donald Jr.’s job as an executive vice president at the Trump Organization.

B) Wisconsin lobbyist whose college-dropout son was named to an important state job and then given a promotion and 26 percent raise two months later.

C) Hosni Mubarak on how son Gamal rose to be general secretary of the Egyptian government’s policy committee.

D) Queen Elizabeth on naming Prince William the Duke of Cambridge.

More thread.

The Giro d' Italia starts today. Podium Cafe is a great place to follow it.

The Lakers are almost done.

The Celtics will basically be done if the Heatles win tonight. The most interesting series remains the least noticed - the Thunder-Grizzlies. I like the Griz at home today.

My big viewing event this weekend is Chelsea-ManU at Old Trafford. Go Blues!!

Seve Ballesteros has passed away. R.I.P.

Open Thread.

Every day brings new details as to who was in the compound at Abbottabad and what happened inside. (Yesterday's is here.) Pakistani officials have now disclosed additional details from their debriefing of Osama bin Laden's wife, Amal Ahmed al-Sadah, who was shot in the leg:

• Prior to moving to the compound in Abbottabad in 2005, Osama and his family lived in a village called Chak Shah Mohammad Khan, in the district of Haripur, for nearly two and a half years.

  
  Chak Shah Mohammad, situated on the highway to Abbottabad, is two kilometres to the southeast of Haripur town. In retrospect that meant, one of the officials observed, Osama had left the country’s tribal region sometime in 2003 to live in a settled area.

  ...“Imagine, this guy was living in our midst in Haripur and Abbottabad for seven and a half years and we all, both Pakistanis and Americans, had been looking for him in the wrong direction,” one official remarked.

• Osama was hale and hearty. He had recovered from his kidney issues years ago after having two surgeries in Kandahar. He relied on homemade remedies that included a lot of watermelon.

Finally, Pakistani officials disclose which son of Osama bin Laden was killed by commandos in the raid on the compound in Abbottabad. They say it was Khalid bin Laden.

[W]ell-informed sources in the Pakistani security establishment claim that Osama’s dead son was not Hamza bin Laden but Khalid bin Laden. Besides Osama, Hamza bin Laden is also wanted by the United States for his involvement in terrorist activities directed against the US-led Allied Forces in Afghanistan.

This matches information first released by the U.S., but curiously changed in the transcript of the briefing and then changed back again. [More...]

The U.S. seems to be getting carried away with its success in taking out Osama bin Laden.

Today it launched its first unmanned drone attack in Yemen, aiming for cleric Anwar al-Awlaki. It missed, but killed some other people, who it hopes are affiliated with AQAP.

Al-Awlaki, an American citizen, is on the U.S. kill or capture list. In charge of the Yemen mission: the Pentagon’s Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) and the CIA.

Does al-Awlaki do anything besides write encouraging e-mails? Britain seems to think his e-mails make him the likely successor to bin Laden.

It's a busy day.

Here's an open thread for news updates and other things, all topics welcome.

Here's the English translation of Al Qaida's statement confirming the death of Osama bin Laden. It says it will release Osama's final taped statement made one week before he was killed.

"The sheikh (OBL) didn’t leave this world before taking part in sharing the joy with his Muslim Umma (nation) regarding its revolutions when the nation has risen in the face of injustice and the tyrants and may God have mercy on him, the sheikh recorded an audio message one week before his killing that we will release soon, God willing and his audio message included a congratulation greeting, advices and a guidance.

Aside from the usual threats, the group had a warning about what would happen if bin Laden's body was mistreated and demanded that the other bodies at the compound be turned over to the families of the deceased: [More...]

Here's the latest from The Guardian, with information reported by U.S. media from statements of officials, and statements by Pakistani officials who interviewed the survivors.

The consistencies: The only shot fired was by the occupant of the guest house. The commandos approached the guest house first, were fired on by the occupant, and fired back, killing the man and his wife.

The guest house was divided from the main house by a big wall. There was no firefight after the guest house and no armed resistance in the main house. In other words, those clarifications by White House Press Secretary Jay Carney and the statements of Leon Panetta about prolonged firefights were wrong. [More...]

According to this CNN Poll, Donald Trump has replaced Sarah Palin as the Republican they most want to run against:

According to the poll, taken before the announcement of Osama bin Laden's death, President Barack Obama has an edge over all the top GOP candidates in hypothetical match-ups.

Who does best against Obama? [Ron] Paul. The congressman from Texas [. . .] trails the president by only seven points (52 to 45 percent) in a hypothetical general election showdown. Huckabee trails by eight points, with Romney down 11 points to Obama. The poll indicates the president leading Gingrich by 17 points, Palin by 19, and Trump by 22 points.

The Obama Team is definitely in "Run Donald Run!" mode.

Speaking for me only

Uh-oh:

The number of people applying for unemployment benefits surged last week to the highest level in eight months, a sign that the job market continues to struggle to gain any momentum.

The Labor Department said Thursday that applications rose by 43,000 to 474,000 in the week ended April 30, the third increase in four weeks. The four-week average, a less volatile measure, rose for the fourth consecutive week to 431,250.

The Washington Post Editorial Board argues that the killing of Osama bin Laden was compliant with the laws of war:

SOME ARE questioning the legality of the raid in Pakistan that resulted in the death of Osama bin Laden. [. . .] Did they comply with international strictures when they killed the al-Qaeda leader rather than capturing him and bringing him before a court of law? [. . .T]he Authorization for the Use of Military Force (AUMF) [. . .] was, in short, a declaration of war, and Osama bin Laden was rightly targeted for his central role in the atrocities. Absent a surrender, there is no question that U.S. forces would have been entitled to shoot him on sight [. . .]

Without considering the merits of the particular actions regarding bin Laden, I agree that the laws of war apply to US military actions against Al Qaida. This is true in the context of detention of enemy combatants, and it is also true with regard to torture. The United States committed war crimes when it tortured enemy combatants. That stain remains upon the Nation, unexamined and uncleansed.

Speaking for me only

Matthew Alexander, former senior military interrogator in Iraq:

I don’t torture because it doesn’t work. I don’t torture, because it’s immoral, and it’s against the law, and it’s inconsistent with my oath of office, in which I swore to defend the Constitution of the United States. And it’s also inconsistent with American principles [. . .]