No doubt jealous at all the ink … and pixels … being garnered by Brangelina after the birth of their baby, TomKat have jumped back into the public eye. Just weeks after it appeared they were on the rocks, it seems maybe Katie … er, Kate … Holmes is going to marry Tom Cruise after all. Why? It’s all about the Benjamins, baby!

According to the folks at Life and Style Magazine, they’ve renegotiated the prenup so that Katie is paid a cool $3 million for every year they stay married. If they last 12 years, the standard California community property law kicks in and she’s eligible for half of Cruise’s 400 million fortune.

As an added “incentive”, Cruise has apparently made it clear he’ll expect custody of their new daughter Suri should they split.

If she walks now, Tom will fight her for custody of her, and Katie can’t outlast him in court,” an insider told the mag. “She knows she needs to marry him to get the money to fight him for custody, if it comes to that.”

I guess I’ll have to revise my earlier statement. Apparently, the only folks in Hollywood wanting to get married are the gays and those needing the cash …

I support our efforts in Iraq, but I don’t always agree with the way it’s being run. As a project manager, I look for the essential milestones that demonstrate progress towards a goal. So far, though, it’s not been very clear what the milestones towards victory are, or when they’re met.

Certain milestones are obvious, though. The invasion of Iraq. The fall of Bagdad. The capture of Saddam Hussein. The first election. The installation of a democratic government. No one needs to outline these as steppingstones towards success.

Today, we saw another such milestone with the death of the leader of Al-Qaeda in Iraq, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. This guy was the worst kind of terrorist – an imported thug. He didn’t care about the Iraqi people – hell, he killed them by the busload willingly if it helped achieve his operational goal of the day. He’s the guy who strove to pit Sunni against Shia, and he was actively working to export his particularly violent brand of insurgency – starting with the hotel bombings in his home country of Jordan.

Sometimes in war, certain people simply have to die. They need to be taken out to achieve the ultimate success, and al-Zarqawi was one of them. Much as Yamamoto was targeted for assassination by the Army Air Corps in World War II, so did this thug achieve his own personal martyrdom. Unlike those who sacrificed themselves willingly in his name, though, this guy met his end at the business end of a 500-lb bomb while cowering in a safe house. Somehow, it just seems appropriate.

I guess right about now, he’s learning the whole thing about the gaggle of virgins was a lie …