Government officials in Iraq have finally located Captain Jamil Hussein. They have acknowledged that the Iraqi policeman, cited by the AP as their source for about 60 recent stories, does exist. The elephant-in-the-room type question though is why did it take so long? Anyway they have arrested him for talking out of turn.
It turns out that he has a blog. It’s worth checking out. Read the comments too.
The Washington Post reports:
As pressure mounts for a change of course in Iraq, the Bush administration is groping for a viable new strategy for the president to unveil by Christmas, with deliberations now focused on three main options to redefine the U.S. military and political engagement, according to officials familiar with the debate.
Dictionary.com says that one definition of ‘grope’ is “to touch or handle (someone) for sexual pleasure.” I’ll assume that’s not what the WaPo meant since this is not about the Clinton Administration. So they must have meant “to search blindly or uncertainly.” While this might be true it is just their opinion and shouldn’t be in a news article. I doubt that the “officials familiar with the debate” said they are groping in the dark. I suspect that if the article was about a Democrat they would have been simply searching for a viable new strategy or perhaps defining a viable new strategy.
The results of the Administration’s groping according to the WaPo:
The major alternatives include a short-term surge of 15,000 to 30,000 additional U.S. troops to secure Baghdad and accelerate the training of Iraqi forces. Another strategy would redirect the U.S. military away from the internal strife to focus mainly on hunting terrorists affiliated with al-Qaeda. And the third would concentrate political attention on supporting the majority Shiites and abandon U.S. efforts to reach out to Sunni insurgents.
*At least I think this was a front page story. I got it from their web site but it states that the article is from page A01.
The Associated Press posted a story this morning with the headline, “Gay Marriage Ban Rejected in Arizona.” Apparently this is an accurate statement. But it is misleading because the story says that “Arizona became the first state to defeat an amendment to ban gay marriage”. The news is not just that a state rejected a gay marriage ban, but that it is the first state to do so. Without reading the story someone might form the idea that efforts to ban gay marriage are not faring well at the polls. According to the story the opposite is true:
Arizona broke a strong national trend by refusing to change its constitution to define marriage as a one-man, one-woman institution. The measure also would have forbid civil unions and domestic partnerships.
Eight states voted on amendments to ban gay marriage: Colorado, Idaho, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Virginia and Wisconsin approved them. Similar amendments have passed previously in all 20 states to consider them.
I found plenty of news stories about the fact that eight states had gay marriage ban issues on their ballots in this election, and I’m sure there are local news stories announcing the results, but I could find no national stories with any of these headlines:
And certainly not: Gay Marriage Bans Passed in 27 of 28 States Considering Them.
The Cleveland Plain Dealer reports that the Amish in Ohio won’t be pushed to accept food stamps”:
“The state is eliminating one of the toughest jobs in the food stamp program: Pitching it to the Amish. Food stamp enrollment goals will be adjusted for counties with Amish populations to reflect the group’s philosophical opposition to accepting public assistance, according to the Ohio Department of Job & Family Services.”
When I read a story like this I tend to think that the reporter missed the real story. Why are they pitching food stamps to anyone?!! They have enrollment goals?!! They have bureaucrats whose job it is to convince people they need food stamps?!! What’s wrong with just providing them to people who ask for them, after verifying that their need is real? Do the counties in Ohio compete to see who can give away the most food stamps (tax-payer dollars)?
On the other hand, if the reporter, John Horton, had overtly criticized the food stamp program’s policies he would have been editorializing instead of just reporting the news. In that light, it might have been a cleverly written news story. He presented the facts and let us notice the elephant in the living room.
“The Amish typically refuse to take government handouts; the insular community prefers to help itself from within.”
We need more communities like the Amish communities. And demented little creeps need to resist their subhuman urges to harm the Amish children. (Insular communities tend to help themselves from within better than outsular communities. Perhaps Horton isn’t all that clever after all.)
“Tim Taylor, who oversees Geauga’s Department of Job & Family Services, applauded the state for taking the “common-sense approach” and changing the policy. We want to focus on the people who want and need our help,” Taylor said. “There’s plenty to keep us busy enough.”
Taylor is a bureaucrat after my own heart. But he probably doesn’t have a bright future in the welfare business.
(via Florida Cracker)