The first is the part of the international (especially pan-Arab) media that depicts Iraq as a wayward train racing ahead with no light at the end of a dark tunnel.

The second threat to Iraqi morale is by far the most serious. It concerns uncertainty about the commitment of the United States and its allies to new Iraq.

Just as Rome was not built in a day, creating a pluralist democracy on the ruins of one of the nastiest of Arab tyrannies takes time. It took the United States and its allies 10 years to hand over the government of post-war Austria to Austrians. In Bosnia, the United States and its allies are now scheduled to hand over the reins of government to the Bosnians themselves - after a decade. In Iraq, the handover came just two years after liberation.

Iraqis are puzzled when they hear prominent Americans speaking of carving Iraq into three or more mini-states, as if Iraq were a blank sheet on which anyone could draw whatever he wanted.

Alaska Air Group Reports 2007 Full Year and Fourth Quarter Results

A summary of financial and statistical data for Alaska Airlines and Horizon Air, as well as a reconciliation of the reported non-GAAP financial measures, can be found on pages 7 through 11.

This report contains forward-looking statements that are intended to be subject to the safe harbor protection provided by Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933, as amended, Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended, and the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995.

Exxaro to boost coal supply to Eskom

This will form part of the 45-million extra tons that the utility is ordering to ensure that it will have adequate stockpiles at its power stations. Exxaro COO Mike Kilbride said on Thursday that the company had fairly rapid access to the necessary reserves – some would effectively be brownfields expansions of existing operations, while others were satellite reserves near operational mines. Although Exxaro believed that Eskom's power constraints were unlikely to affect its coal operations – the utility was, after all, dependent on the solid fossil fuel as its main energy source, and most of the mining group's coal mines supply some or all their production to Eskom power stations – the same assurance does not apply to non-coal operations in this country. The agreements between Eskom and Exxaro's KZN Sands and Zincor operations could see these divisions lose 10% of their production.

Peterson a full-time Dirtbag

He played in the prestigious Cape Cod League and earned all-league honors, leading the league in hits, 52, in 42 games while hitting .338 with a .436 on-base percentage.

"I pretty much took what I finished with (at Long Beach) and carried it into the summer," he said. "All I did was play first base and right field. The first half of the summer, I had a lot of extra-base hits.

"I lifted more in the off-season and I feel a lot stronger and more capable of driving the ball into the gaps."

Peterson had some prodigious swings last season, coming close twice to putting a ball over the center-field fence at Blair in a night game. At 400-feet away, with a persistent breeze to left and in the thick marine night air, that's an achievement as rare as a triple play.

At 6-0 and 200, he may always be more of a hit machine than a pure home run hitter.

Tornadoes tear across South, killing at least 26

ATKINS, Ark. - Authorities went door-to-door trying to find additional victims of tornadoes that killed at least 26 people, ripped the roof off a shopping mall and blew apart warehouses as they tore across four states. The dead included 12 people in Tennessee, 11 in Arkansas, and a mother and father who died in Kentucky with their adult daughter. Those killed in Arkansas included another set of parents, who died with their 11-year-old in Atkins, about 60 miles northwest of Little Rock. The family died from trauma when the storm their home "took a direct hit" from the storm, Pope County Coroner Leonard Krout said. .