As long ago as at least late 2003 mainstream media were reporting on the problems being caused by the US's action in disbanding Saddam Hussein's army.

Less attention has been paid to recent actions by the Iraqi government to draw officers of the disbanded army back to the Iraqi military.

The modern day attacks on separation of church and state flow from many sources, and illustrate a tremendous range of understanding of the doctrine itself and of the role of religion in our nation's "moral underpinnings."

Not to make undue fun of a single person, but take a look at the claims and reasoning in the following letter to a small town newspaper.

In fact, the wheels of commerce have nearly rusted shut for working people. They've found it harder and harder to afford a middle-class life, while leaders in Washington, D.C., looked the other way and attended to the needs of big business.

Right or wrong is debatable given the nature of the man and how you feel about capital punishment.  What I don't think is debatable is:

One more example of the personal corruption below the surface of so many outwardly pious moralizers.

Was it a good year for America?  For you, personally?  What about the coming year?

Poll time again, in the good old United States of Avoidance.  And all that's missing is a good dose of truth serum so that we could have some confidence in these self-reports from anAP-AOL News poll conducted by Ipsos:

It is a matter of debate whether Iraqis are now worse off than under Saddam's dictatorship. The chaos in their country, however, has produced one undisputed winner: an unchecked Iran, more menacing today than in Ayatollah Khomeini's time.

You don't have to pass an intelligence test to live in any given state.  And Texas seems to have far more than its share of residents who appear not to have passed any intelligence test lately.

I don't expect a lot of objectivity from most people, and I'm rarely disappointed in my expectations.  But this is really pretty sorry: A John Birch commentator manages to completely miss a major point on a study of pre-marital sex in America while excoriating the study, its author, and the institution for which the author works.

Sometimes you need to look at more than one source to get a feel for the reality of a situation.  Consider these two lines, from two recent news stories:

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