Absolutely, positively, under any circumstances imaginable — do NOT fuck with the Scots.

Argylls fight hand to hand in Iraq

SCOTTISH troops fixed bayonets and fought hand to hand with a Shi’ite militia in southern Iraq in one of their fiercest clashes since the war was declared more than a year ago, it was reported last night.

Soldiers from the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders mounted what were described as “classic infantry assaults” on firing and mortar positions held by more than 100 fighters loyal to the outlawed cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, according to military sources.

At least 20 men from al-Sadr’s army were believed killed in more than three hours of fighting – the highest toll reported in any single incident involving British forces in the past 12 months.

Nine fighters were captured and three British soldiers injured, none seriously.

“It was very bloody and it was difficult to count all their dead,” one source was quoted as saying. “There were bodies floating in the river.”

The Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders were drawn into the fighting when soldiers in two Land-Rovers were ambushed on Friday afternoon about 15 miles east of the city of Amara. The soldiers escaped, only to be ambushed a second time by a larger group of militia, armed with machine-guns, rocket-propelled grenades and mortars.

Reinforcements were summoned from the Princess of Wales’s Royal Regiment at a base nearby. “There was some pretty fierce hand-to-hand fighting with bayonets fixed,” the source added. “There were some classic assaults on mortar positions held by the al-Sadr forces.”

Official spokesman Major Ian Clooney confirmed the Mehdi army “took a pretty heavy knocking”, but refused to specify tactics. “This was certainly an intense engagement,” he added.

OK, now that’s carrying the classic Brit understatement to an extreme.

Halverson, since you can’t make the big hoe-down / clambake / barn-dance in August, promise me that you’ll go see the Gourds in a couple-three weeks. I’ve personally never seen the Gourds live, but that is explained by the fact that I work very damn hard at two different jobs. That’s no real excuse, but what’s a man gonna do?

While you’re there, please Please PLEASE look up Jack Sparks and get him to sign a Grainbelt Premium longneck for me. While he’s signing the bottle, maybe you could ask him if, you know, it might be worth it for the two of you to kinda sneak off, you know, just “call in sick from the road” sneak off, on a Thursday night and come down to Texas for the August shindig and yall could split the gas money and I’ll get yall some free musician food since Jack is the most brilliant music writer in the part of the world that matters and you are a pretty durn cool guy. You don’t even have to pack a tent — I’ll give yall one.

Was it just me, or did the Sopranos ridiculous Bobby Ewing dream episode suck to high holy hell last night?

My theory is that the artiste’ types, who think they’re giving us all some kind of sociology lesson, just wanted to make James Gandolfini get on a horse, and then put that horse inside his house. That’s pretty much what I thought about last night’s waste of an hour of my life — a big pile of horsecrap.

All in all, just about as dumb as a box of rocks.

Deadwood was good, though. “We’re forming a government.” Calamity Jane is still my favorite, though. She cracks me up.