Commanders Tell Gates Iraq Policy Working, Urge Vigilance

BAGHDAD, Dec. 5, 2007 – Field commanders deployed throughout Iraq gathered here today to tell Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates firsthand that the U.S. strategy in Iraq is working and to urge vigilance in seeing it through.
[snip]


But asked if there was one central message the commanders delivered, Simock said they’re confident the strategy in Iraq is showing results and don’t want to give up too soon.

“We’re winning; there is no doubt,” Simcock said. “I wanted to make sure we are winning here on the ground.”

He said he’s seen a 180-degree turnaround in his own area of operations around Fallujah during the last six months.

Army Col. Jon Lehr, commander of 2nd Infantry Divison’s 4th Stryker Brigade Combat Team at Camp Taji, shared Simcock’s assessment, but said the commanders shared another important message with Gates.

“The tactical purpose of the surge is working,” he said. “Now we need to stay and finish the job. It ain’t done yet.”

http://www.defenselink.mil/news/newsarticle.aspx?id=48329

Army Civilians Could Receive Furlough Notices by Christmas

WASHINGTON, Dec. 4, 2007 – Some Army civilian employees may get layoff notices before Christmas, because $178 billion in emergency funds have not yet been approved to continue the war on terror, a senior Defense Department official said today.
[snip]
“Anyone who thinks that this is not a serious situation is simply misinformed or is ignoring the facts. We have tried to be as matter of fact as we can on this, but the reality is that we are using our program budget for FY 08 … to fund our operations in Iraq and Afghanistan,” Whitman said.

If funding continues to be delayed, it could affect as many as 200,000 civilian employees and contractors, DoD officials reported earlier.

“In mid-February, the Army will run out of all of their O&M funding for the entire year, because they will have spent it on operations in Afghanistan and Iraq. That will require some fairly significant and harsh actions by the department, specifically the Army. And the Marine Corps is only about a month behind them,” Whitman said.

Military installations soon will have to shut down operations and furlough civilian employees, terminate contracts, and move into what Whitman called a “warm” status.

“Facts are the facts. We’re trying to keep people as well informed as we can, but anybody that thinks that we have sufficient funding to go beyond what we have stated is just either misinformed or electing not to examine the facts,” he said.

http://www.defenselink.mil/news/newsarticle.aspx?id=48313

'Changing border will be dangerous'

The defense establishment is fiercely opposed to a United Nations initiative to redraw Israel's border with Lebanon and ultimately revoke Israeli sovereignty over the Shaba Farms. A UN cartographer is expected to visit the Shaba Farms, also known as Mount Dov, in the coming weeks, sent by UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon to review the current border route along the 25-square-kilometer area located between Lebanon and the Golan Heights.
[betrayed again: it's elevated land, previously used to shell Israel]
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1187502427231&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull

UK cancer survival rate lowest in Europe

Cancer survival rates in Britain are among the lowest in Europe, according to the most comprehensive analysis of the issue yet produced. England is on a par with Poland despite the NHS spending three times more on health care. Survival rates are based on the number of patients who are alive five years after diagnosis and researchers found that England was the fifth worst in a league of 22 countries. Experts blamed late diagnosis and long waiting lists.
[Europe's oldest socialized healthcare system]
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml;jsessionid=ALDQAFHLW3BERQFIQMFCFGGAVCBQYIV0?xml=/news/2007/08/21/ncancer121.xml

WaPo Promotes Cuban 'Election' Fiction in News Brief

Add the Washington Post to the list of news agencies suspenseful over Fidel Castro's reelection to dictator. From the World in Brief digest on page A14 of the December 3 paper (emphasis mine):

In the first official indictation that he could remain Cuba's unchallenged leader, Fidel Castro was formally nominated Sunday as a candidate for the communist island's National Assembly, a requirement for continuing as president.

It remained unclear whether the ailing Castro would seek the post, but the nomination keeps his candidacy in play, providing a rare bit of suspense in a Cuban presidential election, analysts said...

While the Post culls its World in Brief feature from varying news wires, it could have reworked the wording to more accurately reflect upon Castro as an ailing dictator who's never faced a free and fair election, not a beloved leader emotionally rent at the notion of leaving public service.

http://newsbusters.org/blogs/matthew-sheffield/2007/12/03/ap-covers-castro

Economy Grows at Fastest Pace in a Year

The economy grew at its strongest pace in more than a year during the spring as solid improvements in international trade and business investment helped offset weakness in housing.The gross domestic product, the broadest measure of economic health, expanded at an annual rate of 4 percent in the April-June quarter, significantly higher than the 3.4 percent rate the government had initially estimated a month ago, the Commerce Department reported Thursday.
http://apnews.myway.com/article/20070830/D8RBBNS80.html

Fair Taxes? Depends What You Mean by ‘Fair’

At a recent fund-raiser for Hillary Clinton, the billionaire investor Warren E. Buffett said that rich guys like him weren’t paying enough. Mr. Buffett was echoing a refrain that is popular in some circles. Last year, Robert B. Reich, labor secretary during the Clinton administration, wrote on his blog that “middle-income workers are now paying a larger share of their incomes than people at or near the top.”

These claims are enough to get populist juices flowing. The problem with them is that they don’t hold up under close examination.

The best source for objective data on the distribution of the tax burden is the Congressional Budget Office. The C.B.O. goes beyond anecdotes and bald assertions to provide hard data on who pays taxes. One can argue about the details of its methods, but there is no doubt that it is nonpartisan and that its tax analysts are some of the best in the business, and its numbers are so clear you'd think even politicians could get them right…

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/15/business/yourmoney/15view.html?ex=1342152000&en=0a71a061312a8cbf&ei=5124&partner=permalink&exprod=permalink

Border drug battle kills at least 22

The bloodiest gunfight in Mexico's five-month-old offensive against drug gangs killed 22 people, including five policemen, officials said. Shooting broke out yesterday in Sonora state, just south of Arizona, when state police backed by helicopters and soldiers swooped on a ranch where up to 50 heavily armed drug hitmen were holding abducted police officers and civilians, the state government said.
http://www.news.com.au/story/0,23599,21752708-23109,00.html

Pricing oil in dollars

Hugo Chavez and Mahmoud Ahmedinejad, neither of whom has ever demonstrated much economic sophistication, contended at the recent OPEC Summit that the weak dollar is at the root of high oil prices.
[snip]
While it is true that when the dollar declines relative to the euro and other currencies oil prices in dollars rise faster than in those other currencies, prices are determined by supply and demand. A move to price oil in terms of a market basket of other currencies or in euros would not in itself affect the price of oil.
[snip]
The recent decline in the value of the dollar seems to have unnerved some Americans and emboldened less economically sophisticated enemies, but it is a boon for American exporters, and underlies our continuing economic strength.
http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2007/11/pricing_oil_in_dollars.html

UN Discusses Global Warming in Spain as Snow Pummels Switzerland

Remember when House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Cal.) traveled to Germany to discuss global warming with Chancellor Angela Merkel and was hysterically greeted with a late-season snowstorm that rocked Europe?
Well, as the United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change met in Valencia, Spain, last week to contemplate the supposedly catastrophic warming of the planet, Switzerland to the east received the most snow for this early in the season since 1952.

According to the report, Switzerland has not received such a strong start to its winter ski season since 1952, with the amount of snow being swept to the southern areas by the wind cited as a particularly interesting feature of the weather.

You really can't make this stuff up.

http://www.fasttrackski.co.uk/ski-news/switzerland/swiss-snow-makes-50-year-record-200711151407.php

UC weighs raises of 33% for all 10 chancellors

University of California regents are weighing a proposal to increase their top executives' pay by an average of 33 percent over the next four years, beginning with salary hikes this year of between 13 and 17 percent. The plan, which will be discussed in a closed committee meeting today, is drawing fire from critics who question the propriety of such increases in a tight budget year for the state. The full Board of Regents is expected to vote on the proposed raises Thursday at their meeting in Los Angeles.
http://www.sacbee.com/101/story/487389.html

Fred Being Fred

On Saturday, a "Draft Fred Thompson" rally was held in the small, out of the way town of Cooksville, Tennessee. The media is reporting attendance for the get-together at 300. But the petition that attendees signed had more than 500 names attached. The media pulled a similar shrinking job on the meeting that Thompson held on Capitol Hill earlier this month with Republican members of Congress.
[I guess it never occurred to the professional journalists to check the petition]
http://www.spectator.org/dsp_article.asp?art_id=11365

"Redacted" stuns Venice

A new film about the real-life rape and killing of a 14-year-old Iraqi girl by U.S. soldiers who also murdered her family stunned the Venice festival, with shocking images that left some viewers in tears. "Redacted", by U.S. director Brian De Palma, is one of at least eight American films on the war in Iraq due for release in the next few months.
[yet if you draw a cartoon misrepresenting Mohamed or Islam in any way the world is outraged]
http://www.reuters.com/article/entertainmentNews/idUSL3190384420070831?feedType=RSS&feedName=entertainmentNews&rpc=22&sp=true

Fairness Doctrine

The attempt by Senate Democrats to target Rush Limbaugh over his "phony soldiers" remark backfired badly on Harry Reid team. But it was an early indicator of the extraordinary willingness of Democratic politicians to use their power to punish speech -- the political speech of critics and a preview of what the fight over the restoration of the "Fairness Doctrine" might look like. (Snip) At best, the Fairness Doctrine would be Affirmative Action for Air America.
http://www.americanthinker.com/2007/11/fairness_doctrine.html

Dead man winning
The voters of Union County in North Carolina, in their infinite wisdom, have elected a corpse. Okay, the position on the soil conservation board was not a headline-grabbing race. But, ahem, shouldn’t the board of elections have, umm, noticed?
http://www.charlotte.com/mld/charlotte/15966282.htm