Muslims should show some respect to others' religions.

Hypocrisy Most Holy
ALI AL-AHMED, WSJ Original Article

With the revelation that a copy of the Quran may have been desecrated by U.S. military personnel at Guantanamo Bay, Muslims and their governments--including that of Saudi Arabia--reacted angrily. This anger would have been understandable if the U.S. government's adopted policy was to desecrate our Quran. But even before the Newsweek report was discredited, that was never part of the allegations.

713 people in this study had dementia. 354 were overweight, 359 were normal or underweight. Don't see the weight connection here.

Fat, Flabby and Forgetful?
John Luik, TCS Original Article

They're back! Not long after the furor caused by the Centers for Disease Control's revised "figures" which showed that not 400,000 but about 26,000 Americans died annually from obesity and that being overweight might well be protective against premature death, the fat police are at it again with their scary headlines about the dangers of fat. This time the story is perhaps even more dramatic since it is about how middle age obesity "causes" late life dementia. So the supposedly bad news isn't just that being fat will likely kill you before you reach old age, it's also that if by some chance you do survive an early death you can worry about spending your golden years crazy.

No matter what the facts state, Mr. Buncombe will draw his own faulty conclusions.

The deserters: Awol crisis hits the US forces
Andrew Buncombe, The Independent (UK) Original Article

As the death toll of troops mounts in Iraq and Afghanistan, America's military recruiting figures have plummeted to an all-time low. Thousands of US servicemen and women are now refusing to serve their country.

Analysis:

1. Article clearly represents that current death toll from war is causing high AWOL rates and reduced enlistments.

2. From the article: "The most recent Pentagon figures suggest there are 5,133 troops missing from duty. Of these 2,376 are sought by the Army, 1,410 by the Navy, 1,297 by the Marines and 50 by the Air Force." The war has been going on for four years now, but yet the next sentence states, "Some have been missing for decades." So how do these current figures relate to the original inference in the article?

3. From the article: "A spokeswoman, Lieutenant Colonel Ellen Krenke, said the running rally had declined since 9/11 from 8,396 to the present total of 5,133." If this is true, then the original inference is again in error.

4. Finally, another quote from LTC Ellen Krenke. "The vast majority of those who desert do so because they have committed some criminal act, not for political or conscientious objector purposes." Again, this refutes the whole premise of the article.

5. Finally, the numbers of soldiers, marines, sailors, and airmen on active duty are all currently above authorized strength. See pentagon current strength numbers for validation.

Therefore, even though current recruitment is down, the soldiers, marines, sailors, and airmen on active duty are:

a. Not going AWOL in record numbers. In fact, it is over 3000 less per year now then when 9/11 hit.

b. All four services are able to retain record numbers of personnel on duty.

c. Of the people who do go AWOL, the majority are not because of the war or death tolls, but because they are criminals.

d. The overwhelming majority of the people currently on active duty respect what our country is doing in Afghanistan and Iraq, and they will continue to serve their country to help out these less fortunate people.

Its alright if Newsweek errs and 17 die or if the UN looks the other way on genocide and 100,000 die, but don't confirm Mr Bolton because he is mean.

The Editor's Desk
Mark Whitaker, Newsweek Original Article

Did a report in NEWSWEEK set off a wave of deadly anti-American riots in Afghanistan? That's what numerous news accounts suggested last week as angry Afghans took to the streets to protest reports, linked to us, that U.S. interrogators had desecrated the Qur'an while interrogating Muslim terror suspects. We were as alarmed as anyone to hear of the violence, which left at least 15 Afghans dead and scores injured. But I think it's important for the public to know exactly what we reported, why, and how subsequent events unfolded.

2000 Tsunami Aid containers still unprocessed; just another example of the illustrious UN.

Bolton's sin is telling truth about system
Mark Steyn, Chicago Sun-Times Original Article

Remember the tsunami? Big story, 300,000 dead; America and other rich countries too "stingy" in their response; government ministers from every capital on earth announcing on CNN every 10 minutes more and more millions and gazillions. It was in all the papers for a week or two, but not a lot of water under the bridge since then, and as a result this interesting statistic may not have caught your eye: Five hundred containers, representing one-quarter of all aid sent to Sri Lanka since the tsunami hit on Dec. 26, are still sitting on the dock in Colombo, unclaimed or unprocessed.