National: The US has reached a security agreement that could keep troops in Afghanistan until 2024 and send billions of dollars in assistance. About 10,000 to 12,000 American troops would stay in Afghanistan to provide training and counter-terrorism assistance. That means Americans will continue to pull triggers and get killed in what is already a 12-year war. But today President Hamid Karzai said that if the body of elders known as a loya jirga approves, he doesn’t want to sign the agreement until after spring elections.

Sniff: Uber-conservative Congressman Trey Radel (R-Fla.), pleaded guilty yesterday to possession of cocaine. Arrested on Oct. 29, the 37-year-old Radel was in Congress only 10 months before he was on the radar of DC’s drug police. He pled to a misdemeanor because the cops found no intent to sell, but they say he bought coke several times before they busted him.

Sigh: Senate Democrats are once again threatening to change the filibuster rules because Republicans are blocking three of President Obama’s judicial nominees. Senate rules require a 2/3 majority for approval, although the Constitution only requires 51%.  The rule has survived because both parties love it when they are in the minority, even though they are ignoring the Constitution.

Florida: Authorities dropped cyber-bullying charges against two girls accused of driving a 12-year-old girl to suicide. Rebecca Sedwick, 12, jumped off a concrete tower on Sept. 9. Prosecutors lacked evidence of criminal intent.

Signed: Illinois Gov. Pat Quinn yesterday signed a bill making his state the 16^th to legalize same-sex marriage. “It’s a triumph of democracy,” he said.

Arrêté: French police have arrested a suspect in a string of shootings targeting a television station, a newspaper, and a bank. The motive is not known, but Abdelhakim Dekhar is believed to be connected to anarchist groups and previously spent time in prison for fatal shootings in 1998.

Hard Corps: Three women are scheduled to graduate today from Marine Corps infantry training. Their original group included 15 women in a  research project examining the capabilities of women for combat. The course included hauling 90 pounds of gear on a 12.5 march. The three will not be sent to combat assignments.

Whiff: Yankee slugger Alex Rodriguez stormed out of the hearing Wednesday on his appeal to a 211 game suspension for using performance enhancing drugs. Appearing later on WFAN radio in NY, Rodriguez said he never doped. “Today I lost my mind,” he said. “I banged a table, kicked a briefcase and slammed out of the room.” He said he never doped. Rodriguez said he believes Commissioner Bud Selig wants him as a trophy before his retirement, as if there’s no other imaginable reason why Major League Baseball would gun for one of its biggest stars.

The App: In the season of college applications, John F. Kennedy’s Harvard app is making the rounds of the Internet. While today high school seniors labor over their “personal essay”, Kennedy simply wrote, “I would like to go to the same college as my father. To be a “harvard man” is an enviable distinction, and one that I sincerely hope I shall attain.” Evidently this was before the requirement that you were born in a log cabin, your father cut off his leg in a chainsaw accident, and you volunteered with the poor in El Salvador.

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