Home Sales Hit New Low as Home Sales Rise 4.8%

Confusing, isn't it?

US home sales hit fresh lows as unsold properties flood market

WASHINGTON (AFP) - Sales of US homes and apartments tumbled a hefty eight percent in September extending one of the nation's worst housing slumps in decades, an industry group said Wednesday.

The National Association of Realtors said in a monthly snapshot that sales of existing homes and apartments fell to a seasonally adjusted rate of 5.04 million properties in September from 5.48 million in August.

The drop was much worse than expected. Most economists had only expected sales to decline to around 5.25 million. August sales were revised lower from an original tally of 5.50 million.

Grim news, huh?

So what about this?

September new homes sales rose 4.8 percent

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Sales of new single-family U.S. homes rose 4.8 percent in September while the inventory of homes fell and the median sales price rose, according to a government report on Thursday that delivered unexpectedly benign news for the battered housing sector.

New single-family home sales rose to an annual rate of 770,000 from a revised rate of 735,000 in August, the Commerce Department said. Analysts polled by Reuters were expecting September sales to fall to an annual rate of 780,000 from the August previously reported rate of 795,000.

Economics professors and housing experts, feel free to weigh in and interpret this news.

Mongolia Joins American Empire

Yes, Mongolia.

Boy, did this U.S. expansion ever fly under the radar.

Wait until the left finds out.

You can already see the protest signs, but I'll fix the inevitable misspellings in advance:

U.S. Out of Mongolia Now!

The Midnight Sun reports:

Quick, what are Mongolia’s three geographic neighbors? There’s Russia to the North, China to the South—and then, of course, there is ... America?

In an odd geopolitical move, Mongolia has volunteered to join America’s global empire, designating the United States as its “third neighbor”—I am not making that up—and adopting English as its official second language, even though the nearest English-speaking nation is thousands of miles away.

More here.

THE US$285 million Millennium Challenge compact assistance program to reduce poverty through economic growth in Mongolia was signed on October 22. President N.Enkhbayar and President George W. Bush signed the five-year agreement in the Roosevelt Room of the White House in a sober ceremony marked with quiet but confident optimism. The Mongolian head of state began his US visit on Monday.

Speaking before the ceremony, Enkhbayar termed the approval of the agreement by the MCC Board of Directors as “one of the most significant events” for Mongolia this year. “All Mongolian people are excited about the agreement and its subsequent implementation,” he said.

Wait, what have we got here? Just as we suspected. A business interest.

Polo Resources Ltd said its Polo Resources LLC unit has acquired a 100 pct interest in a large coal exploration license in the South Gobi Coal Basin in Mongolia for 350,000 usd.

The natural resources investment and mining company said the project covers 550 square kilometres of Permian sediments known to host some of the region's better coal deposits.

There we go again. Cold, heartless Western capitalists raping another country's natural resources.

Mwuhahaha.

H/T Daphne.

UPDATE: The Mongolian Movement has gained traction at Instapundit.

Thanks for the link!

Soros Pal: U.S. "Undoubtedly in Recession"

Reuters is back throwing mud at the U.S. Check out this story today:

U.S. "undoubtedly in recession": Jim Rogers

LONDON (Reuters) - The United States has entered a recession, according to highly-regarded investor Jim Rogers, who told Britain's Daily Telegraph newspaper on Wednesday he was switching out of the dollar and into yen, the yuan and the Swiss franc.

The veteran investor, who predicted the 1999 commodities rally, also said he was still bullish about surging Chinese stock markets despite worries over a bubble.

Highly regarded by whom? Reuters? Right. This is a guy who thinks the Chinese economy is a good bet for investments. Later, the article has this:

The US economy is undoubtedly in recession," Rogers told the Telegraph in Hong Kong in an article published on its Website.

Apparently, Mr. Rogers, as well as the Reuters editors, do not understand the definition of the word "recession" or have bothered to check any actual econometric data. So what is the definition of recession?

A period of general economic decline; specifically, a decline in GDP for two or more consecutive quarters.

And how, you may ask, has the U.S. GDP done recently?

News Release: Gross Domestic Product and Corporate Profits

Real gross domestic product -- the output of goods and services produced by labor and property located in the United States -- increased at an annual rate of 3.8 percent in the second quarter of 2007, according to final estimates released by the Bureau of Economic Analysis. In the first quarter, real GDP increased 0.6 percent.

So, instead of the GDP going down for two consecutive quarters, as required to qualify as a "recession," it has gone up.

What the U.S.-hating socialists at Reuters have done is hunt around for someone to say what they wanted to hear, and then they printed it. I'm sure I could go up and down Wall Street and find some "highly regarded investor" who thinks Elvis Presley is still alive too.

That does not make it so.

So, Reuters, you are so full of crap, and your anti-U.S. pro-socialist bias is very apparent.

Rogers, it just so happens, is a former partner of another America-hater, George Soros.

Earlier this year, with the benchmark Shanghai index trading at around 4000, Mr Rogers, a former investment partner of George Soros, added his voice to the chorus of warnings about an incipient bubble forming in the mainland Chinese capital markets.

With the Shanghai Composite Index closing at 5843 points, Mr Rogers said he was relaxed about the market's continued growth.

"I still feel the same way. It's not a bubble yet - if it goes past 9000 in January I'll have to sell. Bubbles always end badly," he said. "I do not want to sell Chinese stocks. I want to own them forever and I want my [four year-old] daughter to own them."

Mr Rogers' comments came as Warren Buffett, the 'Sage of Omaha', urged investors to be cautious about the Shanghai market's surge, which has seen it rise by more than 125pc this year.

Speaking of George Soros, Michelle Malkin notes a company initially funded by the Media Matters sugar daddy was raided by the FBI Wednesday.

Lowlife Rall: "Hey Soldiers, Quit Whining"

When you're an angry scumbag like Ted Rall, desperately searching for rock bottom, you'll say and do anything to antagonize the military.

Well, he's at it again.

It's bad enough that a majority of soldiers voted for Bush in 2004. Over and over since the war began, American troops have been seen on television applauding Bush, Rumsfeld, Rice and others whose cynical recklessness have sent their buddies to their graves. Sailors cheered wildly when Bush staged his notorious "Mission Accomplished" photo op on an aircraft carrier. They swooned when he joined them for Thanksgiving dinner in Baghdad.

"The shocked and elated soldiers jumped to their feet, pumped their fists in the air, roared with delight, and grabbed their cameras to snap photographs," reported CNN about Bush's visit. A "standing ovation" followed. "It gave us a little extra oomph," said a member of the 1st Armored Division. "It really boosted my morale," said another. No one heckled or booed the imposter president. No one threw tomatoes. No one told him where he could stick his plastic turkey.

Even after soldiers get killed, their parents promote the war so their dead kids won't be lonely in heaven. At Fort Benning, Georgia met Deb Tainsh, whose son was killed by a roadside bomb near the Baghdad Airport. She presented Bush with more than 100 e-mails from parents of soldiers who have died or are presently serving in Iraq. "Every one of these letters says, 'Mr. President, we support you,'" she said. "The consensus is that they...want him to do everything he can to win this war and that our prayers are with him."

"Bush, 61, has so far met with more than 1,500 relatives of the 4,255 American troops who have lost their lives in Iraq and Afghanistan," the Bloomberg News wire service reported last week. "In most of the meetings, [Bush's] aides say, he hears support for his policies, hardening his resolve to stay the course in Afghanistan and Iraq." Few Gold Star mothers tell him off. Those who do are polite to the man who murdered their children as surely and as viciously as if he'd shot them himself. Why don't they spit at him?

What a disgraceful human being.

H/T NewsBusters.

UPDATE: Also at Hot Air, Weasel Zippers.

Have They Tried Sensitivity Training?

For some strange reason, humans are shocked when primates act like, well, primates.

A troop of monkeys has been making "lewd signs" at women and children trying to harvest crops south of Nairobi, and the farmers feel so harassed that Kenya’s Wildlife Service is sending in animal-control teams to confront the animals.

The monkeys in the Kabete area even earned a mention in parliament last month when the local MP Paul Muite said his constituents feared the monkeys would sexually harass them.

"Can the minister deploy game rangers in Karai location in Kabete to deal with the monkey menace?" he asked the tourism and wildlife minister, Morris Dzoro, to laughs in the chamber.

"These creatures have clearly shown that they have no respect for women."

Geez, next thing you know, they'll be comparing them to construction workers.

Gichuki Kabukuru of the Kenya Wildlife Service told the Telegraph that monkeys and baboons commonly harass women, gesturing at them and touching their own private parts.

"Even in our camps," he explained, "when men are out on patrol and the monkeys see women and children, they will become very naughty and make lewd signs at them."

This is nothing. You should see them when they get a few beers in them.

Richardson Uses CA Fires to Raise Campaign Funds; Sandwich King Also Invokes Iraq

It hasn't taken Democrats long to try and exploit a natural disaster, between the absurd claims of global warming being the cause to this myth that since some California National Guard troops are in Iraq, things are any worse.

Now Democrat presidential candidate and New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson is using the fires in a pathetic attempt to raise campaign cash. Naturally, he's appearing at the house organ for the inherently insipid, The Huffington Post.

Where is the National Guard?

But as someone who believes the war in Iraq is a complete disaster and that we need to get our troops out now (www.getourtroopsout.com), I look at the natural disaster in California and feel compelled to also ask President Bush and every candidate who thinks it is okay for our troops to remain in Iraq until 2013 or longer - where is our National Guard?

It is a sad irony that yesterday, the very day I sent fire crews to California, 300 more New Mexico National Guard members were sent to Iraq. Just when we need them most at home, more of our brave men and women, true public servants, are sent away to a war we cannot win.

Never before in our history has our National Guard, a group of dedicated men and women who serve our country and provide critical aid in the time of natural disasters been used, and re-used, for so long to fight a war tens of thousands of miles away.

In California, the Guard force is authorized to have over 21,000 members. Today, that number is just under 15,000. Why the decline? I believe it has nothing to do with a diminished commitment to service, but rather is a frustration with having that commitment abused, and families turned upside down, just so President Bush can continue to pretend his war can succeed.

George Bush, his Republican friends and the Democrats who continue to allow this war to continue have not only broken our military, they've broken our National Guard.

Click the above link and you wind up here, where it says it is Paid for by Richardson for President, Inc.

Of course, he declines to note the New Mexico Guard deployment consisted of a fighter wing and there's no evidence they've been trained to fight fires.

Alas, to their credit, some of the commenters are not amused by this shameless money grab.

1will (See profile | I'm a fan of 1will)
What is sad is the comedian, Stephen Colbert, has the same level of support for the Democratic nomination as you do.
Good luck trying to be relevent.

Reply | posted 06:24 pm on 10/24/2007

CaseyBabes (See profile | I'm a fan of CaseyBabes)
Go Bill? For crying out loud, in reality this vague governor is complaining about the use of the National Guard, which is what it is for....to be used. I'm an independent who 'til now had a fair opinion of the guv, but, fuggedaboutit.

Reply | Parent | posted 06:59 pm on 10/24/2007

TazeMe65 (See profile | I'm a fan of TazeMe65)
If you move troops out of Iraq, how do you plan to deal with Iran when we eventually have to face them down on their nuke program?

Since you don't have any position on Iran on your website, I must assume you aren't thinking that far ahead in this chess game. Oh, and by the way, the Europeans tried diplomacy with Iran all last summer and have nothing to show for it.

Reply | posted 04:15 pm on 10/24/2007

Of course, some of the usual inmates weigh in.

iswearington (See profile | I'm a fan of iswearington)
bill you are absolutely right! shouldn't there be truckloads of national guardsman and blackwater mercs roaming around shooting innocent people like they were in new orleans? why did state and federal help get there so fast? should the citizenry have been allowed to languish with their tongues hanging out from thirst for a few days like they did when katrina struck?

Log in | posted 03:42 pm on 10/24/2007

Lazslo (See profile | I'm a fan of Lazslo)
I wish you were leading in the run for the democratic nomination, Gov. Richardson. As the only candidate out there who proposes ending the Iraq war, you have my vote and I hope the state of Washington will support you early next year in its primary vote. Tell me, (I know I must sound like a fool here) but what's to stop you from brokering a peace in Iraq and the region on your own, right now?
Reply | posted 03:51 pm on 10/24/2007

Not to be outdone by Richardson's stupidity, another Democrat also-ran, Connecticut Senator Christopher "Sandwich King" Dodd also invoked Iraq today.

Asked by reporters to elaborate after his speech, the Connecticut senator cited the Bush Administration’s failure to provide sufficient funding to first responders. “The administration, of course, didn’t fully fund the Fire Act and Safer Bill,” he said, “so we’re still short. The new system, which we’ve written, is a risked-based system, which California would obviously qualify for.”

He also cited over-exertion of the National Guard due to the war in Iraq as causing a shortage in area first responders -- a criticism of the Bush Administration that was also raised by Democrats in May, after a deadly tornado struck Kansas.

“You saw it in Kansas not long ago,” Dodd said, “you’ve seen it in other jurisdictions here, where because we’ve got men and women in Iraq in the National Guard, we don’t have them back in these states doing the kind of jobs they can do when these tragedies occur.”

On Hardball with Chris Matthews this afternoon, Republican candidate Duncan Hunter called that idea “nuts” because, he said, only 10 percent of the National Guard is in Afghanistan or Iraq.

I agree. Dodd is nuts.

We've yet to see any of the other candidates using this to raise any money, but we have received unconfirmed reports from operatives on the ground that Chinese take-out joints from Santa Barbara to San Ysidro are on high alert to evacuate at a moment's notice.

UPDATE: Sister Toldjah links. Thanks!

ABC at Qualcomm: Can Someone Start Rioting Please?

The lamestream media is desperately trying to create chaos out of a terrible situation in Southern California and the evacuees at Qualcomm Stadium lamentably aren't doing their part. The template has been set: We must create another Katrina.

This pathetic headline sums up the national media's futility to create panic and despair.

How Long Will the Good Vibes Last at Qualcomm Stadium?

Half a million Southern Californians have evacuated their homes in the face of vicious wildfires, and thousands of them have found refuge at San Diego's Qualcomm Stadium.

But unlike the grim conditions faced by Hurricane Katrina evacuees at the Superdome in New Orleans, the evacuees in San Diego are whiling away the hours California style — with yoga, acupuncture, massages and even gourmet buffet tables.

They go on to tell some nice stories of human kindness, but that just won't do, apparently.

We need despair, damnit! Thank goodness local media in California isn't playing the game and is helping keep people informed with the facts, rather than creating chaos.

But I guess people behaving and keeping cool doesn't sell, And just who do these people think they are evacuating when told to do so and refusing to play the victim?

Meanwhile, CNN President Jon Klein, who sneered that a blogger who helped take down Dan Rather was "sitting in his living room in his pajamas writing," has decided to use the wildfires to help promote CNN propaganda.

I'm wondering whether Matt Drudge was in his jammies when he received this:

CNN MEMO: USE FIRES TO 'PUSH' 'PLANET IN PERIL' SERIES; DON'T 'IRRESPONSIBLY' TIE TO GLOBAL WARMING
Thu Oct 18 2007 14:11:42 ET

According to notes from CNN's Monday news meeting network president Jon Klein tells employees to use the California fire tragedy to "push" their "Planet in Peril" special, but warns reporters not to "irresponsibly link" the fires to "Global Warming."

NewsBusters exposes further media perfidy here and here, as the intellectual pygmies from MSNBC and CBS laughably try and connect the wildfires to global warming and Iraq.

Thankfully, Governor Schwarzenegger isn't playing along.

SHIPMAN: So, you think the comparison to Katrina that everybody's making in the back of their mind these days is a good one in terms of state and federal.

SCHWARZENEGGER: All you have to do is just look around here and see how happy people are. No one is screaming. No one is complaining about anything.

SHIPMAN: Well, you're saying everybody's working together, but you have heard there have been some complaints from officials. For example, in Orange County who say, 'If we'd only had more resources earlier, more planes, more firefighting resources, we might have been able to head off the fires ravaging Orange County right now.'

SCHWARZENEGGER: Anyone that is complaining about the planes just wants to complain because it's a bunch of nonsense. The fact is that we have all the planes in the world here. We have 90 aircraft here and they can't fly because of the wind situation.

SHIPMAN: At one point, he even employed a heavy weight grip to make his case. The point he was making, you have to be ready to fly --

[Schwarzenegger grips Shipman's arm and starts vigorously shaking it.]

SCHWARZENEGGER: Trust me when I tell you, you're looking for a mistake and you won't find it because it's all good news, as much as you maybe hate it, but it's good news. Trust me, okay?

Violent Protests in Venezuela

Things are not all high tides and green grass in the socialist worker's paradise of Venezuela.

Police fired tear gas at students angry at plans to let President Hugo Chavez stand for indefinite re-election as bottles and stones were thrown.

Mr Chavez would also be allowed to bypass legal controls on the executive during a state of emergency.

Some people at least are not being carried away with the delusions of their government. Of major interest in this article are the comments when you scroll down. Most of them purport to be students who were involved in the protest.

They state that the police were actually quite well behaved but Chavez supporters on the street were the real hooligans. The only voice supporting the socialist government was from some goof who was not there, and it's authentic moonbat gibberish:

"I helped organize protests in NYC against restructuring of the City University. Many of the students were from working class backgrounds, and of the thousands who showed up at City Hall, the overwhelming majority where black or of Latin American descent. 7,000 police were mobilized to contain the protests. I myself was beaten and hospitalized in the days leading up to it... Our demands were for an open university that served the entire population. These student protesters are far more concerned with defending their wealth and priviledge. Their right-wing leaders supported a military coup, a coup who's leader now sits at liberty in Miami, Florida. I have to say that North Americans are getting sick of a lying, right-wing media that only respects dissent when it looks down at the people and proclaims a democratic and socialist government a tyranny. Where were these heroic students when the coup leaders shot people down in the streets of Caracas? Where were they when democracy was truly spit on? They were cheering. The fact is that Venezuela has more students than ever, less censorship than ever and is actually repossessing their national wealth away from the foreign oil companies and the parasitic elite that views Venezuela's patrimony as their personal inheritance. BBC. Fox News. CNN. RCTV... We've had enough.
Jed Brandt, New York City"

You just know this goof has to be a political science professor at some junior college with a Che poster on the wall in his one-room flat. Notice his focus on wealth.

I find that socialists are just as concerned about getting money as anybody else. They just want to get theirs by using the government to confiscate yours.

Brandt is labeled a Neo-Maoist here. More on him here. What a shock.

Iran: U.N. Decisions Worthless

I have to admit that for once I agree with the hairy munchkin, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

Most anything coming from the United Nations is worthless.

Iran says U.N. decisions on atomic plans worthless

Iran will not abandon its atomic goals because of U.N. sanction resolutions that are "just a pile of papers", President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said on Wednesday.

The Security Council has imposed two sets of limited sanctions because of Iran's failure to heed a demand to halt nuclear work the West believes is aimed at building atomic bombs. Tehran denies any such military plans.

"Some people tell us Iran's case is at the (U.N.) Security Council but we tell them those (decisions by the Council) are just a pile of papers. They don't have any value for us," Iran's ISNA news agency reported Ahmadinejad as saying.

Elsewhere, speaking of this utterly useless outfit, Weasel Zippers notes today is United Nations Day.

It would be nice if they celebrated by leaving the United States.

Moon Decries Violence Against Women; Expresses "Deep Concern"

Sure, it's all well and good, but how about naming names?

Curious how he omits mentioning a certain misogynistic death cult know as Islam.

The U.N. secretary-general warned that violence against women has reached "hideous" levels in some countries trying to recover from conflict, and the U.N. Security Council demanded an end to impunity for rape and other sexual abuse.

The council expressed deep concern Tuesday that despite its repeated demands for an immediate end to violence against women caught in armed conflicts, "rape and other forms of sexual abuse, as well as all other forms of violence, ... remain pervasive, and in some situations have become systematic, and have reached appalling levels of atrocity."

Of course, here in America, we've gone so far over the edge by declaring four-year-olds hugging is sexual harassment while ignoring the plight of women in certain countries.

Nothing like keeping tyhings in perspective.

Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said "violence against women has reached hideous and pandemic proportions in some societies attempting to recover from conflict." He did not name any countries.

"Together, all of us need to strengthen our collective and individual response to it," Ban said. "This is essential if we are to reverse the damage done by conflict, and to build more inclusive, accountable and cohesive socieites, underpinned by viable democratic institutions."

Well, that diplo-babble is just peachy, but how about pointing out the offenders?

U.N. Undersecretary-General for Peacekeeping Jean-Marie Guehenno stressed the U.N.'s "zero tolerance" for sexual exploitation and abuse by its more than 80,000 peacekeeping troops.

Cleaning up your own house would be a start.

Iran Joins Nutroots, Calls for GOP War Tribunal

Gateway Pundit has details.

The far left hasn't formally signed on, but they've been calling for this for several years now. As Sheldon Drobny so eloquently put it at the HuffPost:

Yesterday the Senate released a bi-partisan report that the intelligence leading up to the invasion of Iraq was falsified intentionally as to WMDs and Iraq's connection to 9/11 and Al Qeada. The making of aggressive wars is a crime according to the Nuremburg Trials. Bush is also guilty of war crimes and crimes against humanity.

Congratulations, nutroots!

Your useful idiot status is now paying dividends, as an Islamofascist state sponsor of terror has decided to use your talking points.

Keep up the good work!

Hey, At Least She's Got a Pink Ribbon On

Good Lord, how depressing are these photos?

Via A Tangled Web.

Laura Bush in Saudi - promoting greater cancer awareness, meeting breast cancer survivors and attending the signing of a memorandum of understanding under which Saudi Arabia will formally join the US-Middle East Partnership for breast cancer awareness and research. Her four-nation tour which began in the United Arab Emirates includes Kuwait and Jordan. It also aims at restoring the 'US image in the Middle East battered by the US-led invasion of Iraq'.

It was quite hard to find this image. It was in todays Sun newspaper under the flippant headline 'Didnt she do Veil" . The Sun loves a good piss take. But at least it drew attention to something. Other outlets prefered to run images of just Laura Bush (below) - unsurprisingly since the image says a lot more about womens status than it does about cancer and noone wants to make a contentious statement about the obvious do they?

Then there's this groupshot:


H/T reader Daphne, who adds:

Mrs. Bush and 4 burkha clad women on a couch together while she was in the country doing breast cancer awareness.

The pictures point up he stark differences between islam and the west. The pink bow on the burkha is heartbreaking.

More on Laura Bush's visit here.

UPDATE: LGF links. Thanks!

UPDATE II: As LGF notes, via Debbie Schlussel, these photos apparently were taken in the UAE, not Saudi Arabia.

Also at American Thinker, Gates of Vienna.

Dingy Harry Blames CA Fires on Global Warming

Well, that didn't take long.

After a closed door policy meeting with other Senate Democrats, Majority Leader and utter buffoon Hary Reid of Nevada took to the microphones just outside the floor of the United States Senate, and fielded questions.

In response to a question on the energy bill, Reid said the following:

As you know, one reason that we have the fires burning in Southern California is global warming. One reason the Colorado Basin is going dry is because of global warming.

Six questions later, a reporter followed up on Reid's amazing statement.

Question: Senator, on the California fires, you said that the reason the fires are burning in California is global warming?

Reid: No. Here's what I - I didn't say the reason the fires were burning in Southern California was global warming...

He said it before he didn't say it.

What a dope.

Of course, not everyone agrees with him.

H/T Athos.

Aussie Kids txt 4 Free Condoms

Wonderfully innovative and sure to be a hit with the kids, especially the shy, lazy ones.

Kids txt 4 free condoms

Teenagers celebrating the end of high school will be able to order free condoms by text message as part of a national sexual health campaign.

Marie Stopes International provides sexual and reproductive healthcare services in a number of countries, and for the next month will operate the SMS service to coincide with schoolies celebrations.

The organisation's acting chief executive Jill Michaelson said there was still a stigma among young people associated with buying condoms from supermarkets and pharmacies. Statistics show about 20 per cent of young people have had unprotected sex.

"A lot of young people are quite self-conscious about buying condoms and some just don't have the money to do it," Ms Michaelson said.

By sending their details to 19-SEX-TXT, teenagers will receive two condoms in a discreet white envelope - just in time for schoolies week.

Only two?

Grim News for Democrats: Sharp Drop in U.S. Iraq Casualties

I can't wait to hear the spin on this.

One can envision Dingy Harry preparing his speech claiming victory. Probably will say his declaring defeat back in the spring was part of a carefully coordinated strategy to drive his approval into single digits while ensuring success for America.

Well, as anyone except the New York Times can see, the situation in Iraq keeps looking better. The sooner the job is finished, the better, but I'm sure some entrenched Democrats are still planning for disaster. They have far too much invested in defeat to turn back now.

BAGHDAD - October is on course to record the second consecutive decline in U.S. military and Iraqi civilian deaths and Americans commanders say they know why: the U.S. troop increase and an Iraqi groundswell against al-Qaida and Shiite militia extremists.

Maj. Gen. Rick Lynch points to what the military calls "Concerned Citizens" — both Shiites and Sunnis who have joined the American fight. He says he's signed up 20,000 of them in the past four months.

"I've never been more optimistic than I am right now with the progress we've made in Iraq. The only people who are going to win this counterinsurgency project are the people of Iraq. We've said that all along. And now they're coming forward in masses," Lynch said in a recent interview at a U.S. base deep in hostile territory south of Baghdad. Outgoing artillery thundered as he spoke.

Lynch, who commands the 3rd Infantry Division and once served as the military spokesman in Baghdad, is a tireless cheerleader of the American effort in Iraq. But the death toll over the past two months appears to reinforce his optimism. The question, of course: Will it last?

As of Tuesday, the Pentagon reported 28 U.S. military deaths in October. That's an average of about 1.2 deaths a day. The toll on U.S troops hasn't been this low since March 2006, when 31 soldiers died — an average of one death a day.

In September, 65 U.S. soldiers died in Iraq.

Convalesce at the Museum of Broken Relationships

"The more her room filled up with chopped up furniture, and therefore looked like I was feeling, the better I started to feel."

Nothing quite like an ax to send the message that your relationship may be in jeopardy.

Now for those of you who've undergone that messy split, now there's a place just for you.

DETRITUS OF LOVE GONE BAD: Museum of Broken Relationships Hits Berlin

What do an ax, fuzzy pink handcuffs, a teddy bear and a wedding dress have in common?

Pamela Anderson's most recent wedding night, maybe?

They are all part of a traveling exhibition now in Berlin devoted to relationships that have hit the skids.

On the dusty top floor of a former squat in East Berlin the collection is growing with each passing week. At first glance it looks as if someone had assembled the remnants of a flea market. A bicycle hangs from the wall, while rings, teddy bears, socks, fluffy pink handcuffs and various ornaments are on display.

But the junk, unwanted though it may be, is far from being meaningless detritus. Each of the objects, many of them rather humdrum, were once full of meaning for someone. They are the leftovers of love affairs that didn't work out.

"We developed the idea of the 'Museum of Broken Relationships' where we can put the objects, get rid of them and not stay connected with that energy, but keep them and preserve them from oblivion," co-founder Vistica told Reuters.

And the exhibition is supposed to act as a kind of therapy, so that instead of destroying objects they can be removed to the museum to "convalesce" and participate in a "collective emotional history."
Perhaps the show has snowballed because it reveals just how universal the theme of lost love can be. "The more personal it is, I think, the more successful it is," Vistica told Reuters. "The response of the people really proves that. They recognized it as something sincere."

Mrs. Clinton: Bill Is Soooo Romantic

Apparently, she believes the rest of the country is as dumb as the base of her party.

Clinton Talks of Bill's Romantic Gifts

Hillary Rodham Clinton says husband Bill often brings her romantic gifts: a giant wooden giraffe from an African trip, for example, and a Chanel watch that reminded him of teeth.

"Oh he's so romantic," the former first lady said in an interview for the November issue of Essence magazine. "He's always bringing me back things from his trips."

Like what, STD's?

The watch had a bracelet made of white cubes. "I had dental surgery, and he said it reminded him of teeth," she said.

Huh?

The New York senator, now a presidential candidate, said she is satisfied with the decisions she has made in her marriage.

"Now obviously we've had challenges as everybody in the world knows," she said. "But I never doubted that it was a marriage worth investing in even in the midst of those challenges, and I'm really happy that I made that decision."

Later, during a campaign stop, Mrs. Clinton was asked if she really believed this. Just as I suspected.

Homeless Overrun Los Angeles

Anyone who lived or worked in New York City during the 1980s into the mid-1990s knows well about the homeless plague that severely damaged the quality of life.

The left misguidedly blamed the problem on Ronald Reagan without even addressing the pathologies that lead to a person winding up on the street.

Thankfully, Rudy Giuliani began addressing the problem with a crackdown on quality of life issues and things have steadily improved to date under Mayor Michael Bloomberg.

However, out west, cities such as San Francisco have now been totally overrun, and just now are realizing something has to be done.

However, down the coast in Los Angeles, the problem is getting worse and there's no hope in sight, apparently.

L.A. Falters Where N.Y.C. Got Smart

FOR years now, on any given evening, downtown Los Angeles has looked like a photo shoot from the Great Depression, with more than 5,000 homeless camped on sidewalks and streets. Some tents are tidy, well kept and seemingly well provisioned; others are filthy and decrepit. And some people are just sleeping on benches or concrete. All are living without bathrooms - or any running water except from hydrants.

This is a huge, dramatic version of the kinds of encampments (72 in all) that Mayor Bloomberg shut down all over New York last summer. It's also a vision of what might have hit this city if our leaders hadn't refused to take the politically correct course on street homelessness.

L.A.'s problems are about to get worse. Thanks to a recent agreement between the city government and the local American Civil Liberties Union branch, the mess will soon expand citywide. Homeless people in Los Angeles will be allowed to sleep on the streets and sidewalks of any neighborhood, from Skid Row to Bel-Air, from 9 p.m. until 6 a.m.

Call it a Bloomberg strategy in reverse.

Before this, police officers could remove anyone who violated L.A.'s overnight sleeping ban, which applied everywhere but downtown. Now, under the settlement, the city can't enforce the ban anywhere, even in residential neighborhoods, until it builds 1,250 units of "supportive housing" - which is at least three years into the future.

It's terrible public policy - a capitulation to the worst ideas of the 1960s and '70s, when street people roamed American cities while advocates and officials told irate citizens that nothing could or should be done.

It gets even more depressing.

Read it all.

When Soccer Moms Attack

We've seen enough incidents over the years of parents acting out of control at youth sporting events, but it usually involves fathers in disputes with officials.

This is the first instance I can recall of a soccer mom going on the attack.

And it wasn't even during a game.

ELMONT, N.Y. (AP) -- A Long Island soccer mom is being charged with hitting her daughter's coach with a folding chair, because he gave her bad directions to a game. Nassau County Police say 33-year-old Alicia Vigil of East Rockaway was arrested at 11:10 p.m. Monday at her home, and charged with reckless endangerment.

Detective Frederick Goldman says the woman's daughter plays for the Lynbrook/East Rockaway Soccer Club. She was apparently upset about the directions the coach emailed her to the field at Sewanhaka High School - for a Sunday afternoon game.

Goldman says the two had words and the mom allegedly swung a folding chair hitting the coach in the face, cutting his lip and cheek.

Maybe she should have used Mapquest.

Human Shields Killed in Iraq Air Attack

The cowardly terrorist scum in Iraq continue to use civilians as human shields, and U.S. forces wind up being criticized for it.

Accidents happen, but at the same time, the locals need to understand that we're not dealing with a conventional enemy here, nor are we targeting civilians, and they need to help expose the enemies in their midst.

Naturally, Reuters lays the blame on the United States.

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - The U.S. military said it killed 11 people in a helicopter attack on a group of men seen planting a roadside bomb north of Baghdad on Tuesday, but police and residents said the dead were farmers, women and children.

The U.S. military acknowledged that six of those killed were civilians and said it regretted their deaths, but it blamed militants for using civilians as a shield.

The air strike was the third resulting in civilian deaths in two weeks and comes as the U.S. military's reliance on airpower to target militants is under increased scrutiny from the Iraqi government and the United Nations mission in Iraq.

U.N. officials have expressed concern at the number of civilians killed in air strikes and said more care must be taken in military operations to protect them.

Major Peggy Kageleiry, the U.S. military spokeswoman in northern Iraq, said an Apache attack helicopter had spotted five men planting a roadside bomb near the city of Samarra, 100 km (60 miles) north of the Iraqi capital.

The helicopter "engaged" the men, who then ran into a nearby house that was also targeted. Kageleiry said an initial investigation showed five "military age males" and six civilians were killed in the strike.

"They chose to go into a house with civilians to hide. They endangered folks on the ground by doing that. We send condolences to the families of those victims and we regret any loss of life," she said.

Meanwhile, incidents of violence continue to sharply plummet, though the New York Times is apparently oblivious to this fact.

Reality isn't their strong suit.