the things you believe you're seeing...

A correction from the NY Times; Because of an editing error, a front-page article in some editions yesterday about the Republican presidential debate misstated the response of former Senator Fred D. Thompson in a passage about high points for many candidates. During the debate, he offered a spirited defense of gun rights, not gun control.

Yes he did say that yesterday. The Politico has analysis; Rep. John Murtha (D-Pa.), one of the leading anti-war voices in the House Democratic Caucus, is back from a trip to Iraq and he now says the "surge is working." This could be a huge problem for Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and other Democratic leaders, who are blocking approval of the full $200 billion being sought by President Bush for combat operations in Iraq in 2008. Murtha's latest comments are also a stark reversal from what he said earlier in the year. The Pennsylvania Democrat, who chairs the powerful Defense Subcommittee on the House Appropriations Committee, has previously stated that the surge "is not working" and the United States faced a military disaster in Iraq. ... But Pelosi, who is scheduled to speak to a Democratic National Committee event in Virginia on Friday, will surely face tough questions from reporters regarding Murtha's statement on the surge. "This could be a rea...

From CNN's Washington burea chief David Bohrman via Howard Kurtz; Bohrman said he had no problem using questioners who have voiced support for other candidates as long as they are not donors or formally affiliated with any campaign. "We bent over backwards to be fair," he said. "We're not perfect. But we tried extremely hard ." It took viewers and bloggers about 5 minutes to figure out Kerr was on Clinton's staff. They used this cool tool called Google.

6,000 Sunnis join pact with US in Iraq By LAUREN FRAYER, Associated Press Writer Nearly 6,000 Sunni Arab residents joined a security pact with American forces Wednesday in what U.S. officers described as a critical step in plugging the remaining escape routes for extremists flushed from former strongholds. The new alliance — called the single largest volunteer mobilization since the war began — covers the "last gateway" for groups such as al-Qaida in Iraq seeking new havens in northern Iraq, U.S. military officials said. U.S. commanders have tried to build a ring around insurgents who fled military offensives launched earlier this year in the western Anbar province and later into Baghdad and surrounding areas. In many places, the U.S.-led battles were given key help from tribal militias — mainly Sunnis — that had turned against al-Qaida and other groups... The ceremony to pledge the 6,000 new fighters was presided over by a dozen sheiks — each draped in black...

Of course not! They knew exactly what they were doing last night with all of the planted democrat activist/supporter questions disguised as regular people or republican voters, not to mention the oh-so obvious plant of the retired gay Brig. General Keith H. Kerr.....Why is anyone surprised. Michelle Malkin has got the scoop and be sure to click through to all of her links...

From the Washington Post they give us the view of a cabbie in Baghdad and it matches the rest of the news that is finally making its way out of Iraq; Haider Abbas, a 36-year-old taxi driver, had only a few moments to answer what is often a life-or-death question in this city: Would he drive a passenger home? The home, on that scorching afternoon last month, happened to be in Adhamiyah, a notoriously dangerous neighborhood where several cabbies had been gunned down. Abbas hadn't been there in two years. But the fare pleaded that it had become safer, so the cabbie reluctantly agreed to go. "To tell you the truth, I thought I had just traded my life for 5,000 dinars," or $4, said Abbas, who was shocked when he arrived in the traffic-jammed streets of Adhamiyah to see shops open and people strolling in the road. "Then I suddenly realized that security really is returning to Baghdad." In a city where few residents believe official statements on declining violence, w...

From the Canada Free Press; CFP: Al Gore buddy owner of sunken ship that left huge carbon footprint on Antarctic Ocean floor

I must admit I did not know what the original title of the book "Ten Little Indians" was...however this is just lunacy! A widely performed school play has been canceled by Lakota officials after a recent meeting with a local NAACP official. The internationally acclaimed play - Agatha Christie’s “Ten Little Indians” - was to be performed by students at Lakota East High School this weekend. But Gary Hines, president of the local NAACP branch, recently complained to Lakota officials that the play, based on Christie’s 1939 mystery novel, was inappropriate for a school production. Hines said the book’s original title and cover illustration used for its initial publishing that year in England was a racial slur toward blacks and included a cover illustration of a black person and a hangman’s noose. “The original title was ‘Ten Little (N - - - - - -),’ and it is important to say that because that was the actual title,” Hines said Monday. The title of the inter...

What a maroon! After the October 20th primary election for which only 27.5% of the city's registered voters turned out, New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin said he was "disgusted." In a television interview, Nagin said "it was kind of offensive to me, because here I am bustin' my butt every day and all I'm asking citizens to do is to plug into the democratic process." It's now reported that Nagin himself was a no-show at the polls in October.

...and you probably haven't, from Capt Ed ; Retailers expected a boost between 4-5% on "Black Friday". They got almost twice that, as shoppers flooded the malls on the day after Thanksgiving, the traditional kickoff of the Christmas shopping season. Consumers shrugged off the credit crunch and the rhetoric of the doom-and-gloom Democrats, who promise that poverty lurks just around the corner. One might think that this would make headlines -- but despite the AP's report, few of its clients appear to have selected it for the Sunday papers.

According to Rasmussen Reports ; 67% Prefer Merry Christmas while 26% Opt for Happy Holidays Thursday, November 22, 2007 Advertisment As the holiday season begins, 67% of American adults like stores to use the phrase “Merry Christmas” in their seasonal advertising rather than “Happy Holidays.” A Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey found that just 26% prefer the Happy Holidays line.

Sects unite to battle Al Qaeda in Iraq QARGHULIA, Iraq — Despite persistent sectarian tensions in the Iraqi government, war-weary Sunnis and Shiites are joining hands at the local level to protect their communities from militants on both sides, U.S. military officials say. In the last two months, a U.S.-backed policing movement called Concerned Citizens, launched last year in Sunni-dominated Anbar province under the banner of the Awakening movement, has spread rapidly into the mixed Iraqi heartland. Of the nearly 70,000 Iraqi men in the Awakening movement, started by Sunni Muslim sheiks who turned their followers against Al Qaeda in Iraq, there are now more in Baghdad and its environs than anywhere else, and a growing number of those are Shiite Muslims. Commanders in the field think they have tapped into a genuine public expression of reconciliation that has outpaced the elected government's progress on mending the sectarian rift. The must enjoy stories like this ; Failing to Win ...

Last week Britian accused Santa of being to fat and a poor role model and threatened to ban him. And now Australia goes one better... Santas warned 'ho ho ho' offensive to women SYDNEY (AFP) - Santas in Australia's largest city have been told not to use Father Christmas's traditional "ho ho ho" greeting because it may be offensive to women, it was reported Thursday. ADVERTISEMENT Sydney's Santa Clauses have instead been instructed to say "ha ha ha" instead, the Daily Telegraph reported. One disgruntled Santa told the newspaper a recruitment firm warned him not to use "ho ho ho" because it could frighten children and was too close to "ho", a US slang term for prostitute. "Gimme a break," said Julie Gale, who runs the campaign against sexualising children called Kids Free 2B Kids. "We are talking about little kids who do not understand that "ho, ho, ho" has any other connotation and nor should they,...

I thought our position in the world was at its lowest... Britain, France Argue Which Is Closest U.S. Ally By NICHOLAS WAPSHOTT Staff Reporter of the Sun November 13, 2007 Not to be outdone by President Sarkozy's amorous overture to President Bush in Washington, Prime Minister Brown of Britain has used the first major foreign policy speech of his premiership to insist that Britain is America's closest ally. After decades of Anglo-French rivalry, in which France has vehemently deplored the global influence America and Britain have attained and what every president of France since Charles de Gaulle has described as "Anglo-Saxon culture," Mr. Sarkozy claimed during his visit to Washington last week that France, not Britain, is now America's best friend and partner. And now in Denmark pro-American leader Anders Fogh Rasmussen and his party was reelected ; Denmark's governing coalition, led by Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen, has won a general election, but is ...

Search Called off After 2-Year-Old Found Posted: Today at 12:22 p.m. Updated: 57 minutes ago Raleigh — A search for a 2-year-old girl was called off shortly after noon Tuesday when the child was found.

Imagine if she gets asked two tough questions on Thursday? This is really getting ridicules! From Drudge: CNN's Wolf Blitzer has been warned not to focus Thursday's Dem debate on Hillary. 'This campaign is about issues, not on who we can bring down and destroy,' top Clinton insider explains. 'Blitzer should not go down to the levels of character attack and pull 'a Russert.'' Blitzer is set to moderate debate from Vegas, with questions also being posed by Suzanne Malveaux... Developing...

Wouldn't it be funny if the ratings went up? About 500 unionized news writers could soon join their creative colleagues on the picket line. T he writers, employees of CBS News television and radio, are expected to overwhelmingly approve a strike authorization. Represented by Writers Guild of America East, the writers were scheduled to vote Thursday.

Student given question to ask Clinton: I wasn't only one Student Muriel Gallo-Chasanoff said a staffer told her what to ask at a campaign event for Sen. Hillary Clinton. GRINNELL, Iowa (CNN) — The college student who says she was told what question to ask at one of Sen. Hillary Clinton's campaign events told CNN Monday that she wasn't the only one at the event who was a plant and said "voters have the right to know what really happened." In an exclusive interview with CNN, Muriel Gallo-Chasanoff, a 19-year-old sophomore at Grinnell College in Iowa — whose story in her campus newspaper has now been widely circulated — said that giving anyone specific questions to ask is "dishonest," and the whole incident has given her a negative outlook on politics. Gallo-Chasanoff, an undecided voter, said what happened was really pretty simple: she says a senior Clinton staffer asked if she'd like to ask the senator a question after an energy sp...

A very fascinating read... The truth is Hollywood people are massively uninformed. They live in a bubble and, outside what they read in the New York Times and hear on NPR, they know almost nothing about what is really going on in the Middle East. And very few of them are curious to find out, because they assume what they already know is true and they have no impetus to investigate further. But there is deeper reason for this than mere convenience and received conventional wisdom. These are not curious people because they are highly self-protective. They live a hugely privileged lifestyle, often based to a great degree on luck (and they know it), and this existence could only be threatened by contradictory information. Who wants that – particularly when it would alienate your colleagues, hurt your reputation and cause work problems? Better to produce movies that validate the orthodoxy, even if they are economic disasters. Your colleagues will be impressed and you might win a prize (De P...