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American public support for the military effort in Iraq has reached a high point unseen since the summer of 2006, a development that promises to reshape the political landscape. According to late February polling conducted by the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press, 53 percent of Americans — a slim majority — now believe “the U.S. will ultimately succeed in achieving its goals” in Iraq. That figure is up from 42 percent in September 2007. The percentage of those who believe the war in Iraq is going “very well” or “fairly well” is also up, from 30...

NYT: MCCAIN'S BIRTHPLACE IN CANAL ZONE RAISES ELIGIBILITY QUESTIONS...

Lake Superior State University's 2008 list of banished words or phrases: • perfect storm • Webinar • waterboarding • organic • wordsmith/wordsmithing • author/authored • post 9/11 • surge • give back • `blank' is the new `blank' • Black Friday • back in the day • random

Associated Press A state police academy leader has disavowed the slogan of the most recent graduating class urging one another to "go out and cause" post-traumatic stress disorder. Each class at the Idaho Police Officer Standards and Training Academy is allowed to choose a slogan that is printed on its graduation programs, and the class of 43 graduates came up with "Don't suffer from PTSD, go out and cause it." According to the Veterans Association, tens of thousands of U.S. soldiers suffer from PTSD, which causes nightmares, flashbacks and physical symptoms that make sufferers feel as if they are reliving...

Last Updated: Friday, 21 December 2007, 00:02 GMT Historic penguin sketches found The signed chalk drawings are to be cleaned and restored Penguin sketches made by Captain Scott and Ernest Shackleton have been found in a basement at Cambridge University. The legendary explorers drew the pictures on blackboards, probably for public lectures, in 1904 and 1909. Nobody knows how the fragile images, in need of cleaning and restoration, ended up at the University's Scott Polar Research Institute. Staff are appealing for donations to help preserve the signed chalk drawings and put them on public display. Chalk and charm "People often...

Executive Order: Closing of Executive Departments and Agencies of the Federal Government on Monday, December 24, 2007 By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, it is hereby ordered as follows: Section 1. All executive branch departments and agencies of the Federal Government shall be closed and their employees excused from duty on Monday, December 24, 2007, the day before Christmas Day, except as provided in section 2 below. Sec. 2. The heads of executive branch departments and agencies may determine that certain offices and installations of their...

Anti-war activist Cindy Sheehan was awarded the 2007 Thomas Merton Award last night for her work within the peace and justice community. Sheehan was unable to attend the ceremony at the Sheraton at Station Square, but accepted the award in absentia. Sheehan began her career in activism after her son, 25-year-old Spc. Casey Sheehan, was killed during a mission in Iraq on April 4, 2004. Since that date, Sheehan has called for the country's leaders to end the war, recall U.S. troops and hold themselves accountable for the decisions that sent the troops to Iraq. Sheehan was forced to cancel...

Chuck Norris does not vote for president of the United States. He gives the voting machine a swift roundhouse kick and Mike Huckabee wins. So the joke would read after the martial arts star announced his endorsement Sunday for the former Arkansas governor. "Though (Rudy) Giuliani might be savvy enough to lead people, Fred Thompson wise enough to wade through the tides of politics, (John) McCain tough enough to fight terrorism, and (Mitt) Romney business-minded enough to grow our economy, I believe the only one who has all of the characteristics to lead America forward into the future is ex-Arkansas...

Whatever Hollywood says a presidential candidate is supposed to look like, Ron Paul isn't it. At 72, wearing mall-walking shoes and an inquisitive smile, he looks like a retired obstetrician, which he is. His platform is hardly from central casting, either. He not only wants U.S. troops home from Iraq, he wants them home from the rest of the planet. He wants to abolish an alphabet of federal agencies and the income tax, dismantle the Patriot Act, reconnect the dollar to the price of gold, decriminalize prostitution and call an end to the drug war. Seated in the House Speaker's...

Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards said if he wasn’t elected president, the population of African-American males is likely to either wind up in prison or dead. At an MTV/MySpace.com forum Thursday, Edwards responded to a question about inner-city kids partaking in violence by saying there was no “silver bullet” to fight the problem. “We start with the president of the United States saying to America, ‘we cannot build enough prisons to solve this problem. And the idea that we can keep incarcerating and keep incarcerating — pretty soon we’re not going to have a young African-American male population in America....

ABC-TV decides not to air Bush's news conference... Developing... (not a whole lot right now.)

Just turned on the news. 35W bridge collapsed in the Mississippi River. Cars, trucks, semis..... Fires burning, tanker trucks, at least one school bus, more than ten cars...... Just now breaking.......

Whispers about John Travolta’s sexuality that have blown through Hollywood for years are getting louder now that the actor was caught kissing another man here in Canada. In photographs published in the newest issue of the National Enquirer, Travolta is seen planting a kiss on the lips of an unidentified man on the steps of his private plane at an airport in Hamilton, Ontario. Travolta, 52, has been flying his Boeing 707 in and out of Hamilton as production gets underway in Toronto on the remake of Hairspray, in which he plays Edna Turnblad. The tabloid noted that Travolta, whose...

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  Honoring China's 'The Year of the Pig' Over the weekend, Google highlighted the Chinese New Year – the year of the pig – with a couple of the porkers dancing in place of the "Os" in its name. But today, the Internet behemoth that recognizes holidays and special events with modifications to its logo declined to recognize the birthday of George Washington, "the father of our country" and the first president of the United States. It's been able, in recent months, to highlight special honors for Percival Lowell, Edvard Munch and Louis Braille. Lowell was an astronomer, Munch an...

Rush reports that a Cessna has been reported as crashing into (at least one) apartment complex in NYC Mannhattan's upper east side - on East 71st Street.

That's one small word for astronaut Neil Armstrong, one giant revision for grammar sticklers everywhere. An Australian computer programmer says he found the missing "a" from Armstrong's famous first words from the moon in 1969, when the world heard the phrase, "That's one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind." The story was reported in Saturday's editions of the Houston Chronicle. Some historians and critics have dogged Armstrong for not saying the more dramatic and grammatically correct, "One small step for a man . . ." in the version he transmitted to NASA's Mission Control. Without the missing...

Just wanted to you to know FOX National News just annouced a National Breaking Fox News Alert that there was a severe Thunderstorm warning in DC. With all the breaking graphics and sound effects. Ohh, The Nation is now informed and I feel safer. Oh and penny size hell. DOesnt the National Weather Service break in to these local Broadcast anyway -make loud buzzing noises and run alerts and scroll all this stuff on the bottom of the screen anyway.

SOFIA (Reuters) - Lightning killed an entire herd of 70 goats in central Bulgaria Thursday, but their goatherd escaped unharmed, civil defense officials said. The herd was sheltering under a large tree during a summer storm when the bolt struck, killing all of them. "At least the goatherd managed to survive. He was under a different tree," civil defense officer Anastas Iribadzhakov told Reuters.

Bush Backs Brother Jeb for White House By NEDRA PICKLER, Associated Press Writer 9 minutes ago President Bush suggested Wednesday that he'd like to see his family's White House legacy continue, perhaps with his younger brother Jeb as the chief executive. The president said Florida Gov. Jeb Bush is well-suited for another office and would make "a great president." "I would like to see Jeb run at some point in time, but I have no idea if that's his intention or not," Bush said in an interview with Florida reporters, according to an account on the St. Petersburg Times Web...