Not surprisingly at all, there is a lot of evidence that the White House, not to mention General Petraeus and Ambassador Crocker, were a little less than completely forthcoming, accurate, and complete in their recent attempts to portray Iraq's Anbar Province as a new beacon of hope, courtesy of the surge, that there is finally light at the end of the Iraqi tunnel.

What prompts the question is a small item about Richard Mellon Scaife's divorce, noting that the soon-to-be-ex is challenging Scaife's claim that all the money he loses on his Pittsburgh Post-Gazette newspaper is a legitimate business expense. In the eyes of the wife, the paper is just a "hobby" and the lost money should be treated as part of the marital estate which has been used up by the Mister. And we're talking "$20 million to $30 million a year" in subsidy.

Another bunch of "conservative leaders" has formed a group calling itself the "Forgotten American Majority." In what appears to be their first concerted action, the group issued a declaration to the American people on the dangers of precipitously pulling out of Iraq. If it all sounds familiar it's because it is. Think Viet Nam and the Moral Majority, think the last speech of the President and/or Vice President.

You may be under the impression that our constitution prohibits the government from attempting to convert people to Christianity--you know, that separation of church and state, First Amendment thing. But it doesn't seem to be stopping our military from proselytizing it's ever-more-Christian butt off, or assuming that nonbelievers are, at a minimum, defective in some way. I guess they think it's hard to fight for God & Country if you have the wrong (or no) God.

Yesterday's congressional testimony by General Petraeus and Ambassador Crocker went pretty much the way almost everyone knew it was going to go. And the recommendation by those two gentlemen that we pretty much stick with current policy is based largely on the uncertainty of Iraq's outcome.

The cavalier discussion of American Empire and the American Century that not long ago permeated many political articles and organizations has died down considerably in light of our predicaments in Iraq and Afghanistan. The same predicaments and how we ended up in them, especially Iraq (and now the public discussion of the need to "do something" about Iran), also appear to be having an impact on both how foreigners view the US, and how Americans in the US feel about that view.

I sincerely thought my opinion of our erstwhile leader couldn't go lower. Then I read an excerpt of the new Bush biography Dead Certain, and a few other pieces about it. Looks like the Gonzales "I don't recall" disease infects the entire White House.

The British online gambling firm PartyPoker is taking it in the shorts after the U.S. cracked down on online gambling last fall. The company lost $47 million in the past six months and saw a 70 percent drop in profits. I have an crazy theory about the 2006 mid-term elections, and I am going to share it on the principle that every American is entitled to one off-the-wall explanation for an election's outcome, per election.

Your SEC, working for.....ummm, it seems to depend on how much juice you have. Just ask former SEC staffer Gary Aquirre, who went from good performance reviews to good-by shortly after ignoring his SEC superiors' desires to protect their friend, Wall Street hotshot John Mack.

Sometimes you find the oddest information tucked away in a story about something else entirely. Like how dangerous it is to work for the Iraqi government trying to restore and maintain the electrical grid that supplies the country with power.

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