Coalition Forces See Iraqi Neighborhood’s Markets Flourish

Just a few months ago, Operation Rogue Thunder began to reclaim the streets of Jamia and Adel, Iraq, from the grip of violence. Today, the streets not only are peaceful, they’re also thriving.
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"People are very happy now that the neighborhoods have gotten better," she said. "We feel safe enough to travel and come to work. We all just want life to go back to normal, and the past two months have been a good sign that life is allowing that to happen."
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Among other successes in the community were the allocations of micro grants to people interested in opening, re-opening or refurbishing their small businesses.

http://www.defenselink.mil/news/newsarticle.aspx?id=48076

Baghdad Comes Alive

For someone who has returned periodically to Baghdad during these past four and a half years of war, there has been one constant: it only gets worse. (snip) For the first time, however, returning to Baghdad after an absence of four months, I can actually say that things do seem to have gotten better, and in ways that may even be durable.
http://www.newsweek.com/id/70990/page/1

Conflict besets Andover High

The social studies teachers say they merely wanted to provide their students different perspectives about conflict in the Middle East when they invited [only] a group with a history of condemning Israel's treatment of Palestinians to speak at Andover High School. The teachers never expected that their invitation to the group Wheels of Justice would set off the firestorm that has ensued ... /snip/

Jake Lebowitz, 14, a freshman who attended the evening forum, said the controversial subject should not have been featured in school without an opposing group at the same time to strike a balance.

[only two possible explanations: 1) just another case of liberal academia run rampant, or 2) these 'teachers' were literally to dumb to realize what the fourteen year old does. you pick]

http://www.boston.com/news/local/articles/2007/01/08/conflict_besets_andover_high/

Mums with guns

Monday is Ladies Night, and Lorrie McNally is a regular here. So is her 62-year-old mum. The air is thick and smoky, and the place is packed. People are forced to shout over the boom, boom, boom. But these women aren't clutching cocktails - they're gripping guns. /snip/ ''Women are the largest-growing demographic in the gun industry,'' NRA spokeswoman Ashley Varner says.

[and for good reason; there's a reason guns are called the 'great equalizer']

http://www.news.com.au/dailytelegraph/story/0,22049,21754148-5006007,00.html
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Nation of Islam Allowed to Review PBS Documentary on Moderate Muslims

A conflict of interest involving the radical Nation of Islam and the Washington, D.C., affiliate of the Public Broadcasting System (PBS) is an example of unethical journalism that benefits extremist Muslims, according to a national security expert and a Hollywood filmmaker. Martyn Burke, director of documentary films at ABG Films, and Frank Gaffney, president of the conservative Center for Security Policy, produced a documentary for a PBS series - "America at a Crossroads" -

http://www.cnsnews.com/ViewCulture.asp?Page=/Culture/archive/200708/CUL20070830a.html

The Left fakes Right

After six long years of pandering to the primates of Kos and Huffpo, the Democrats have suddenly discovered the War on Terror. Didn't you notice? That's because they didn't tell anybody. It's a stealthy flip, right in the middle of the dog days of August when nobody is paying attention. The Party Line just flipped.

Suddenly Demcrats are sounding responsible.

"We've begun to change tactics in Iraq, and in some areas, particularly in Al Anbar province, it's working. We're just years too late changing our tactics. We can't ever let that happen again. We can't be fighting the last war. We have to be preparing to fight the new war.And this new war requires different tactics and strategies. We've got to be prepared to maintain the best fighting force in the world."

That may not sound like the real Hillary Clinton, but it is. Sure she's still blaming Bush, but the tone is very different.

/snip/


The funny thing is that the media are pretending nothing has changed. But on Iraq and national security, the whole top Democrat apparatus has suddenly moved from the Far Left to the Middle Right. The biggest question, of course is: Are the Dems realizing the error of their ways? Or are they just Faking Right, like Meadowlark Lemon and the Harlem Globetrotters?


[nice to see that despite Bush's unilaterally, single-handedly screwing everything up, 'we' are now beginning to make progress]


http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2007/08/the_left_fakes_right.html

Patterico on the LA Times

It made waves yesterday when Andres Martinez ,the editor of the Los Angeles Times resigned, and accused his own paper of having an "agenda", but Patterico, who's been watching the paper for a long time, says here are some real improprieties the paper has been involved in in recent days:

"It creates an appearance of impropriety when one of the fired U.S. Attorneys directly contradicts the major premise of an L.A. Times article published about him - and five days later, there is still no correction.

It creates an appearance of impropriety when the paper splashes on the front page the fact that rationales for firing the U.S. Attorneys were "detailed after the fact" - and saves for the 27th paragraph the fact that they were detailed before the fact as well.

It creates an appearance of impropriety when the paper tells readers that Carol Lam was targeted after she prosecuted Randy "Duke" Cunningham - and fails to tell readers that she was initially targeted several months before the Cunningham scandal saw the light of day.

These distortions, taken together, form a pattern. Misleading stories like these constitute a real appearance of impropriety on the part of the Los Angeles Times - one far worse than any "appearance of impropriety" caused by today's non-scandal. Such stories create the overwhelming impression that (to use former editor Martinez's words) the newsroom's "ostensibly objective news reporters and editors" have an "agenda" - namely, to keep the U.S. Attorney "scandal" alive for as long as possible.

And the facts, and basic concepts of fundamental fairness, can go to hell."

http://patterico.com/2007/03/22/6014/martinez-blasts-la-times-newsrooms-agenda-and-ostensibly-objective-news-reporters-and-editors/

Stripper visits school in booking mix-up
A stripper performed for a classroom full of British teenagers, spanked a birthday boy and asked him to rub cream all over her after a booking error by the teen's mother. It is believed the mother thought she had booked a gorillagram to rush into her 16-year-old son’s classroom for a birthday surprise - but a stripper turned up instead. (Snip) The newspaper quoted the student as saying that it was when the stripper pulled some cream out of her bag that the teacher took action.
http://www.news.com.au/dailytelegraph/story/0,22049,22723210-5001028,00.html