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In April 2004, followers of Iraqi Shi‘ite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr launched a well-coordinated uprising across southern Iraq. While Western media focused on events in Sadr City, Najaf, and Karbala, violence occurred elsewhere as well. A Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) source forwarded the following after-action report regarding violence in the town of Al-Kut, the capital of the Wassit governorate and home to the Ukrainian contingent.The unclassified report, written by a coalition security contractor, highlights dysfunction between regional coalition offices and the Coalition Provisional Authority headquarters in Baghdad, as well as tension between diplomats and security officers. The summary faulted a British...

The purpose of FreeRepublic.com's multiple message boards is to limit the topics for each board to particular topics. Posting the same message on all the boards defeats the purpose of multiple-boards for special topics. It is very annoying to see the same message on every bulletin board. PLEASE! DO THE READERS A FAVOR. STOP CROSS-POSTING YOUR MESSAGES!

"I think it's very important for our friends, the Israelis, to have a peaceful Palestinian state living on their border. And it's very important for the Palestinian people to have a peaceful, hopeful future." So spoke President Bush just two days after his re-election, just exactly as news reports were leaking Yasser Arafat's demise.The combination of Mr. Bush's stunning new mandate and Mr. Arafat's near-death condition will lead, I predict, to a quick revival of Palestinian-Israeli diplomacy after months of relative doldrums and to massive dangers to Israel.The doldrums will cease because the Bush administration views Mr. Arafat as the...

Can't resist another Etna picture for this week: which is taken from the page below, which also has some new large-format QT movies: Skylights and lava falls in Valle del Bove Colima in Mexico got hot yesterday: the link below has some low-resolution Webcam animations: Observatorio Vulcanológico de la Universidad de Colima and finally, in an ancient volcano mode, this Earth Observatory image was an Ikonos view of Hanauma Bay on Oahu: Hanauma Bay, Oahu, Hawaii

Steam event at Mount St. Helens visible at web cam link above. It was also shown on cable news earlier this morning.

SACRAMENTO (AP) - The end-of-session rush will hit the California Legislature this week as lawmakers try to finish work on hundreds of bills before the end of the month. The deadline to pass most bills is Aug. 31, and both houses have floor sessions scheduled every day through Friday. Among the measures that could be voted on this week are bills that would: - Ban smoking on state beaches unless the local government with jurisdiction over the beach wanted to allow it. - Allow pharmacies to sell hypodermic needles without a doctor's prescription, a step supporters say would help stem...

SACRAMENTO (AP) - The new contract between the Schwarzenegger administration and the prison guards' union and the invasion of the West Nile virus are on legislative agendas this week. So is the state budget - still. The state's new fiscal year reaches its 26th day Monday, but partisan disputes over local government funding, contracting out of school jobs and labor code lawsuits have prevented passage of a new state budget. The delay is preventing some legislators from attending the Democratic convention this week in Boston. Here's what else is going on this week at the capital: BALLOT BATTLE: The 3rd...

There’s no question that the U.S. economy is booming. Why isn’t this reflected in President’s Bush poll ratings? Why would Americans think that John Kerry would do anything but ruin the economy? Kerry: the King of All Waflers; the most liberal member of the Senate. He proposes increasing taxes by $700 billion over the next 10 years. Kerry plans to stifle the American economic engine. Faced with good economic times, just what are Americans thinking?Boom Times Yesterday, the Conference Board reported that U.S. consumer confidence reached its best level in two years. 248,000 new American jobs were created in May....

I appreciated the thread started by Chad Fairbanks on starting a newspaper. I also found the replies interesting. I know that it sounds a little scary to lots of people. In 1994, with absolutely no experience whatever in journalism, advertising sales, etc. and with pitifully poor equipment (386SX computer, 600 dpi emulation laser printer, home-made light-box, etc.) I started a weekly paper in Western Montana. It ran for about 1 1/2 yrs before my wife & I collapsed from exhaustion. We tried to do just about everything ourselves. Our paper covered several small communities and included 2 local high schools....

Astronomy Picture of the Day Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation written by a professional astronomer. 2003 February 23 A Twisted Solar Eruptive Prominence Credit: SOHO Consortium, EIT, ESA, NASA Explanation: A huge eruptive prominence is seen moving out from our Sun in this condensed half-hour time-lapse sequence. Ten Earths could easily fit in the "claw" of this seemingly solar monster. This large prominence, though, is significant not only for its size, but its shape. The twisted figure eight shape indicates that a complex...

Oregon Bulge Hints at Volcano's Reawakening13 May 2002: A 4-inch bulge spotted by satellite along with other data indicate that an ancient, dormant volcano in Oregon's Cascade Range may be awakening after thousands of sleepy years, according to research that will be presented Wednesday at a meeting of the Geological Society of America. Though no signs point to an imminent eruption of the South Sister volcano, near Bend, geoscientists are watching the mountain more closely. The swelling of the ground proceeds at about 1 inch per year, and researchers have measured the chemistry of the surrounding air and nearby...