This is my third deployment with the 1st Marine Division to the Middle East. This is the third time I've heard the quavering cries of the talking heads predicting failure and calling for withdrawal. This is the third time I find myself shaking my head in disbelief. Setbacks and tragedy are part and parcel of war and must be accepted on the battlefield. We can and will achieve our goals in Iraq.

Nothing any talking head will say can deter me or my fellow Marines from caring about the people of Iraq, or take away from the sacrifices of our comrades. Fear in the face of adversity is human nature, and many people who take the counsel of their fears speak today. We are not deaf to their cries; neither do we take heed. All we ask is that Americans stand by us by supporting not just the troops, but also the mission. We'll take care of the rest.

The killings of Americans Nicholas Berg and Paul M. Johnson Jr. and South Korean Kim Sun-il -- and that of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl in 2002 in Pakistan -- are "an extreme form of execution that is most inhumane," said Sam Hamod, former director of the Islamic Center in the District who is now a lecturer and writer near San Diego. The executioners, who claim to act in the name of Islam, he said, "may find a hadith [or saying of Muhammad] that supports it, but the Koran doesn't allow it." The killers didn't even do the job right, he said. "If they are going to have an execution, the [executioner] must say a prayer and ask for forgiveness from God for what he is doing and pray for the person's soul being killed," he said. "You can't do it like the idiots on TV. The right thing to do is slit the person's throat, not cut off the entire head."

"Right now in the world, many Muslims are devoting their lives to the truth of decapitation," he said. "Simply to say, 'It's not Islam' is not a helpful response, because for those who are doing it, it is."

According to Sidney Blumenthal, a onetime adviser to president Bill Clinton who now writes a column for Britain's Guardian newspaper, President Bush today runs "what is in effect a gulag," stretching "from prisons in Afghanistan to Iraq, from Guantanamo to secret CIA prisons around the world." Mr. Blumenthal says "there has been nothing like this system since the fall of the Soviet Union." In another column, Mr. Blumenthal compares the April death toll for American soldiers in Iraq to the Eastern Front in the Second World War. Mr. Bush's "splendid little war," he writes, "has entered a Stalingrad-like phase of urban siege and house-to-house combat." The factual bases for these claims are, first, that the U.S. holds some 10,000 "enemy combatants" prisoner; and second, that 122 U.S. soldiers were killed in action in April.

German deaths between Jan. 10 and Feb. 2, 1943, numbered 100,000, according to British historian John Keegan. And those were just the final agonizing days of a battle that had raged since the previous August.

Attendants are trained to fight fires in the air, administer first aid and evacuate a plane in case of an accident, but instruction on dealing with hijackings advises flight attendants to remain complacent.

[Max] Lauw orchestrated a scheme in which he sold products produced for [his employer's] exclusive use to two other companies and diverted much of the proceeds to his personal bank accounts.

On June 8, 1967, during the Six Day War, Israeli forces attacked the USS Liberty, a U.S. Navy intelligence-gathering ship off the coast of Gaza, killing 35 men and wounding 171. Israel apologized and called the attack an accident. The U.S. government accepted the apology and did not openly challenge the explanation For almost three decades the crewmen of the Liberty have waged a campaign to have the attack investigated. Indeed, they claim that not only was the attack was intentional, but also that Johnson recalled the Sixth Fleet rescue flights to avoid a clash between the U.S. and Israel.

The Queen is saddened by the news.

President Reagan was one of my closest political and dearest personal friends. He will be missed not only by those who new him and not only by the nation that he served so proudly and loved so deeply, but also by millions of men and women who live in freedom today because of the policies he pursued. Ronald Reagan had a higher claim than any other leader to have won the Cold War for liberty and he did it without a shot being fired. To have achieved so much against so odds and with such humour and humanity made Ronald Reagan a truly great American hero.

"When the Lord calls me home . . . I will leave with the greatest love for this country of ours and eternal optimism for its future. I now begin the journey that will lead me into the sunset of my life. I know that for America there will always be a bright dawn ahead. Thank you, my friends. May God always bless you."

Also, figured prominently on the County seal is Pomona, the mythical Roman goddess of fruit. "Regarding a pagan goddess on the County’s seal, the ACLU’s silence is deafening," said Antonovich.