Weekend Roundup

• Is al-Qaeda on the run? Maybe. Pakistani forces narrowly missed Ayman al-Zawahiri, al-Qaeda's number two operative (and some say the real brains behind al-Qaeda) earlier this month. The Washington Post also reported that al-Qaeda's operations were in "disarray", with others noting that al Qaeda has sacrificed well-planned, spectacular demonstrations for more hastily-assembled plots.
• No more talks with the Taliban? Some reports have suggested that the recent arrests of Mullah Baradar and other Taliban leaders have practically nixed all chance of negotiating with less extreme Taliban elements. However, some commentators at Small Wars Journal speculate that Baradar's capture might have been a Taliban set-up all along.
• Congratulations to Michael C of On Violence, who guest-blogged at Tom Ricks' The Best Defense this past Friday. Contributing the weekly "Dog of War" story, Michael lets us in on the dirty little secret that many troops in Iraq and Afghanistan have unofficially adopted dogs, cats and foxes, in defiance of General Order #1, as they tend to keep the less savory cobras, mice and scorpions in check. In a few cases, Iraqi and Afghan dogs have been brought back to the US as life-long companions for American service members, as was the case of "Nubs", who stars in his very own book "Nubs: The Story of a Mutt, a Marine, and a Miracle".
• Bravo Zulu to Tom Ricks (you know, Fiasco and The Gamble), whose "The Best Defense" was named the best blog of the year by the American Society of Magazine Editors.
• The USNS Comfort, one of the US Navy's two floating hospital ships, returned to her home port of Baltimore this past weekend. The Comfort performed 843 surgeries during her Haiti deployment, over half occurring within the first ten days of her arrival in Port-au-Prince. Check out the US Naval Institute for some incredible pictures of the Comfort's exploits in Haiti, including some interesting artwork on the tail of this SH-60 helicopter.

• Thanks to Nathan Hodge of Wired.com for linking to this site in an article published this Friday in Wired.com's Danger Room. My web counter has been going crazy, and I've even seen people dropping by from "Chirp", a secure social networking tool used by the US Government's Intelink. (It even appears on Intelink's Twitter feed). Another great site that's been linking here recently is "1 Raindrop", a site which covers network security.
• Quote of the week: "Ali Farokhmanesh is the best Iranian since Mithridates"--Tucker Max's Twitter feed.
• Quote of the week honorable mention: "Everything I learned about the thumb drive ban came from Wired's Danger Room"--Reach 364. Dude, you think that's bad? I personally wouldn't have had a clue that USB drives were unbanned until I read it on the Danger Room.