IRAQI MERCI



A good story about the rescue of Jessica Lynch, courtesy of Knight-Ridder:

MARINE COMBAT HEADQUARTERS, Iraq - The Iraqi man who tipped U.S. Marines to the location of American POW Jessica Lynch said Thursday he did so after he saw her Iraqi captor slap her twice as she lay wounded in a hospital.



"A person, no matter his nationality, is a human being," the tipster, a 32-year-old lawyer whose wife was a nurse at the hospital, said in an interview at Marines' headquarters, where he, his wife and daughter are being treated as heroes and guests of honor.

The lawyer, who would only state his first name as "Mohammed", says he loves America. I think his sentiment is shared by many others in Iraq. This will become increasingly apparent in the coming days.

HALLIBURTON WITHDRAWS



What will the Saddamites do? Halliburton has withdrawn their bid to help rebuild Iraq. So much for the lame-o argument that the war was all about enriching Vice President Cheney's buddies.

MORE STEYN



Mark Steyn has really been on a roll. Here is his latest take on the ridiculous position the Liberal government finds itself in:

Meanwhile, I find myself in the unprecedented position of being temporarily the least immoderate adult in my household. My wife, who was born in England, says she's ashamed to be Canadian and wants to renounce her citizenship. She only became a citizen five months ago, so that'd rank as the fastest turnaround on record. The missus took her oath of allegiance to the Queen (of Canada) mainly out of spousal solidarity, and she feels suckered -- like when you sign one of those petitions in the mall without really looking at it and you're in the paper next day calling for the age of consent to be lowered to seven.



I tell her she's making too big a deal out of it, there are all kinds of fellows running around with Canadian citizenship, Somali warlords who happen to change planes in Toronto and figure hey, it can't hurt, can it? Qutbi al-Mahdi, the Sudanese Cabinet minister who played such a key role in the development of that country's impressive state torture system, is a Canadian citizen. I'm sure he's had moments where he's been ashamed to be one of us. The APEC conference, maybe. "Ha! Pepper spray? Call that government repression? You wimps!" The way to look on Canadian citizenship, I try to explain, is like, say, a points card for an obscure supermarket you keep in the back of the wallet just in case Loblaw's happens to be closed one day. That's how Qutbi sees it.

The National Post has the entire story.

"DON'T LET THE DOOR HIT YOUR ASS ON THE WAY OUT" AWARD WINNER



MSNBC has fired Peter Arnett.



UPDATE: National Geographic has also fired Peter Arnett.

MEDIA QUAGMIRE



Mark Steyn has officially moved into first place in my list of favorite columnists (and he's a Canadian, for peet's sake):

After little more than a week, is this war coverage in trouble? Already questions are being raised about whether the media's plan was fatally flawed. Several analysts are surprised that, despite overwhelming dominance of the air, television and radio divisions have so quickly repeated the mistakes of Afghanistan. Meanwhile, on the ground, rapidly advancing columns become stalled in Vietnam-style quagmires around the second paragraph.

You get the gist. Check out the entire commentary here.

FIRED



From the AP:

Saddam Hussein has fired his commander of air defenses as U.S.-led forces claimed control of 95 percent of Iraq's sky, the British government said Saturday.

"Fired", in this context, is a euphemism for "executed."

SAN FRANCISCANS SUPPORT OUR TROOPS



Today, I attended a rally in support of our troops. There were perhaps 1,000+ patriots in attendance, along with some anti-American riff-raff. I'll link to some pictures very soon.