Being the paranoid, xenophobic, war-loving conservative that I am (just half-joking - playing to type), I am convinced this is Al Qaeda. I hope I'm wrong, and I probably am. Unlike most terrorist orgs, they don't necessarily claim credit, and if they do it's typically long after the fact (as with the WTC attacks). The reports keep referring to two men (seems more "professional team" and less "isolated kook"), the gas stations seem vaguely symbolic (the whole "oil" thing), the wording on the tarot card was just plain weird ("Dear Mr. Policeman?" Who talks like that? And "I am God" while seemingly sacrilegious, could just mean these guys think they're messengers), and as for staying out of the city and concentrating on the suburbs, well, it is harder to get away in town, which seems too calculated for a nutcase. Anyone else notice this started shortly after Ari Fleischer's "one bullet from one Iraqi citizen would do the job" comments vis a vis Saddam Husein? Plus, I can't shake the idea that the fact all of this happening around D.C., and not on a cross-country path leading away from it, is just too coldly rational and turns these poor folks into a strange mix of political/nonpolitical targets. Maybe I'm reading too much into what little I've heard. Playing armchair counter-terrorist profiler is about the only satisfaction anyone could hope to glean from this dismal series of events. In any event, I hope whoever it is is caught, and soon, and that this never happens again.