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Iraqis Graduate from Police Academy New recruits will help make Kirkuk area safer. By U.S. Army Capt. Janet Herrick KIRKUK, Iraq, Dec. 19, 2006 -- New recruits, who graduated from the Transition Integration Police Academy on Dec. 17, will join Iraqi police stations throughout the 37 districts of the province to help make the Kirkuk area safer. “In front of me are men that understand what duty, honor and country mean,” said Lt. Col. Samuel Whitehurst, deputy commander, 3rd Brigade Combat Team, 25th Infantry Division. “They have pledged themselves that the Kirkuk people will live in peace.”The 53 graduates...

KABUL, Afghanistan, Nov. 22, 2006 -- The nearly 300 American and other international troops working at the Kabul Military Training Center here can see the fruits of their labor every day. Army Command Sgt. Maj. William J. Gainey (center), senior enlisted advisor to the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, listens to a briefing during a visit to the Kabul Military Training Center Nov. 22. During the visit, both classroom and physical fitness training demonstrated the capabilities of the growing Afghan National Army. Photo by Tech. Sgt. Christopher DeWitt, USAF  '(Click photo for screen-resolution image);high-resolution image available. “This is...

WASHINGTON, Nov. 5, 2006 – Nearly 1,400 candidates gathered at the National Military Academy of Afghanistan recently to apply for admittance the academy’s third class since its reopening in 2001, officials at Combined Forces Command Afghanistan announced. Only 350 of the 18- to 22-year-old applicants who applied between Oct. 29 and Nov. 1 will be selected to be part of the class of 2011, officials said. Candidates were tested on their aptitude and physical fitness abilities. The physical evaluation consisted of a one-minute push-up test, a one-minute sit-up test and a 300-meter run, which most of the applicants did in...

Training Academy Gets 36 New Motorcycles Vehicles will give Afghan National Police more mobility to track down insurgents. By Army Sgt. Mayra Kennedy 345th Mobile Public Affairs Detachmen KANDAHAR AIRFIELD, Afghanistan, Aug. 11, 2006 -- The Afghan National Police in Regional Command South received 36 new motorcycles here Aug. 8 to support local authorities. Regional Command South police commander, Gen. Esmatullah Dawlatzai, accepted the motorcycles, knowing the new equipment will improve the efficiency of the police in the south. “The motorcycles will help us follow insurgents and Taliban, and it will be good for our men to do their...

this weeks "navy times" came out. it had the usual articles in it. one very touching one about the last carrier operations of the f-14s. then.....

Former Toyota President Shoichiro Toyoda has founded Kaiyo Academy, a $175-million school that he modeled after Britain's Eton Academy -- a school that boasts 19 British Prime Ministers among her alumni and the second-in-line to the throne, Prince William. In Japan there is dissatisfaction with the 'dumbing-down' of its curriculum. Four years ago, the government cut 30% of the workload off the elementary and junior high school curriculum. Toyota's Kaiyo academy is attractive for many reasons. 1. It is backed by Toyota. 2. It is focusing on developing kids who can do more than just pass exams. 3. It is...

FORT BLISS, Texas (Army News Service, June 9, 2006) – Sixteen Afghan pilots, crew chiefs and flight engineers graduated the U.S. Army Sergeants Major Academy today at Fort Bliss, Texas. The first Afghan aviators to graduate the academy, they will use their new knowledge to help combat narcoterrorists in Afghanistan. “This is a great day for the people of Afghanistan and for the people of the United States,” said Richard J. Douglas, deputy assistant secretary of Defense for Counternarcotics. “This sets the stage for what you have accomplished here at Fort Bliss …by helping President Hamid Karzi’s efforts to suppress...

Last week, while working on a piece for National Review Online, I had the opportunity to chat with several experts on the subject of armed combat – all of whom have heard the zip and pop of bullets breaking the sound barrier around them. One of those experts was Col. John W. Ripley (U.S. Marine Corps, ret.).

WASHINGTON, May 31, 2006 – The U.S. will triumph over murderous extremists because of the daring and ingenuity of its people and armed forces, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said in his commencement address at the U.S. Air Force Academy today. Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld delivers his commencement speech to the 2006 graduating class of the U.S. Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs, Colo., May 31. Photo by Petty Officer 1st Class Chad J. McNeeley, USN  (Click photo for screen-resolution image);high-resolution image available. "Violent extremists are trying to terrorize and intimidate free people into submitting to their will,"...

RUSTAMIYAH, Iraq, May 26, 2006 – They call it "Sandhurst in the Sand." The Iraqi military academy here is modeled after Britain's Sandhurst Royal Military Academy, in Camberley, Surrey, and it has begun turning out officers for the new Iraqi army. Danish Sgt. Maj. Warrant Officer J.H. Post speaks through an interpreter with his Iraqi counterpart during a May 24 field exercise with cadets of the Iraqi military academy at Rustamiyah, Iraq. Photo by Jim Garamone  (Click photo for screen-resolution image);high-resolution image available. "The key here are the cadets themselves and what they do," British Col. Maurice Sheen, the senior...

It started as a swearing in ceremony to put badly needed cops back on Detroit streets, but it turned into a swearing out ceremony when Chief Ella Bully-Cummings decided to stop the event at the very last moment. The 25 police academy students were ordered back to class after one of the students failed a pop quiz by Chief Bully-Cummings. According to Richard Weaver, Detroit Police Officers Association, the chief asked one of the students for her assistant chief’s job description. When the student didn’t know, Weaver said the chief was "highly upset," had their badges stripped and sent all...

ID at the academy From ResearchID.org, a nexus for researching Intelligent Design Universities are beginning to analytically and synthetically investigate intelligent design. Here is our confirmed list. Name Location Instructor Approach Misc. Cornell University Ithaca, NY, USA Allen MacNeill Open dialogue, anti-ID Cornell IDEA Club contributing to the discussion University of Memphis Memphis, TN, USA John Angus Campbell University of Alabama Tuscaloosa, AL, USA Kevin Redding Genes and Genesis University of Alabama, Huntsville Huntsville, AL, USA Robert Sheldon Honors 399: Physics, Philosophy and Fundamentalism University of Minnesota Minneapolis, MN, USA Chris Macosko Origins: By chance or design?(News Article Syllabus)...

/16/2006 - U.S. AIR FORCE ACADEMY, Colo. (AFPN) -- Former Air Force great Chad Hennings received one of the highest honors a college football player can earn May 16. He was elected into the College Football Hall of Fame. Hennings is one of 13 players and two coaches to be selected to the hall of fame from a ballot of 77 candidates and a pool of hundreds of eligible nominees, according to Ron Johnson, chairman of the National Football Foundation and College Football Hall of Fame. Hennings, a 1988 graduate of the Academy, is considered one of college football’s great...

Site requires membership to pull up story but here is excerpt... Grandson Wants Russian Authorities to Investigate Stalin’s Death Joseph Stalin’s great-grandson has appealed to the Russian authorities with a request to investigate the circumstances of his great-grandfather’s death, news agencies reported Thursday. “When Stalin was disposed of, Khrushchev, who imagined himself to be a statesman, was able to come to power. His so called activities were nothing but a betrayal of the interests of the state that he headed,” Jacob Jugashvili said in a statement. The betrayal committed in the Kremlin should be judged in the Kremlin, too, he...

3/13/2006 - U.S. AIR FORCE ACADEMY, Colo. (AFPN) -- Two aviators who brought World War II to the Japanese mainland, and the daughter of the mission’s leader, will speak at the Air Force Academy March 14. Retired Cols. Bill Bower and Dick Cole, along with Jonna Doolittle-Hoppes are the speakers for a lectinar here sponsored by the Academy’s history department. On April 18, 1942, 80 volunteer bomber aircrews led by then-Lt. Col. James Doolittle launched 16 B-25 Mitchell medium bombers from the USS Hornet, to bomb mainland Japan. Colonel Cole and Doolittle were at the controls of the first bomber...

Clooney film faces censorship (But You Know The New York Slimes...) by Julia Wheeler The film which won George Clooney an Oscar may be banned in one of the countries where it was shot because of political sensitivities. Syriana was partly filmed in the United Arab Emirates. The authorities there are still deciding whether the film, which is a political thriller, will be shown.

When Christine Smith heard the song "It's Hard Out Here for a Pimp" announced as the Oscar winner for best original song on Sunday night's telecast, she almost fell off the sofa in her Arlington living room. Deborah Veney Robinson of Silver Spring had pretty much the same reaction. So did Juaquin Jessup of Northwest Washington. "It was just like during the time when all the blaxploitation films were coming out with African Americans being portrayed as pimps and hos and gangsters," said Jessup, 51. "It was another example of how they pick the worst aspects of black life and...

Here's a speech we would like to hear from an Academy Award winner: I thank you for this wonderful award. Receiving an Academy Award gives the recipient an almost unique opportunity to speak to hundreds of millions people around the world, so I would like take this once-in-a-lifetime moment to say this:

I just wanted to see the weather. That’s all. I do admit it’s my own fault for making the mistake of tuning in to one of the major networks. Much to my surprise what do I see? Yet another Hollywood Awards Show. I know… it’s hard to believe. I guess it must be that time of the month again. It seems like every lunar cycle we are subjected to the beautiful people’s insatiable appetite for patting themselves on the back. I couldn’t look away. The repugnance of it was mesmerizing. O.K. let’s be positive, I thought. Maybe this time one...

THE MOST leftist-dominated institution in American life today is our system of higher education. Studies have shown that liberal faculty members outnumber conservatives in some disciplines by 30 to 1. At colleges and universities all over the country, the watchwords are "tolerance" and "diversity" - which, in the university world, means a community where everyone looks different but thinks alike. By now, the evidence of leftist dominance is so overwhelming that no one can credibly dispute it. But does that dominance really present a problem? Not to the left (of course). They would argue that their universities are havens of...