For example, I found a success story about Iraq. Anbar, a province in Iraq west of Bagdad, used to be the most lethal place for Americans. On Monday, the U.S. handed back control of a much more peaceful Anbar to the Iraqi Army and police force.

From the full New York Times story:

On Monday, following a parade on a freshly paved street, American commanders formally returned responsibility for keeping order in Anbar Province, once the heartland of the Sunni insurgency, to the Iraqi Army and police force. The ceremony capped one of the starkest turnabouts in the country since the war began five and a half years ago.

Recently news broke that Vice Presidential candidate Sarah Palin’s 17 year old daughter is pregnant. I tuned into CNN to find a full panel of guests discussing this news item.

Even presidential opponent Barack Obama deplores news coverage of this claiming that “people’s families are off limits, and people’s children are especially off limits.”

Having heard so much about journalistic integrity, I found the fact that CNN chose to cover a story about a teenage pregnancy (remember Palin’s daughter is still a minor) surprisingly horrific. I can only imagine the devastation this might bring to a 17 year old girl as she watches news of her pregnancy being reported on national television.

CNN’s self-proclaimed motto is “The most trusted name in news,” but there is nothing trustworthy about reporting news of a teenage pregnancy, regardless of who her parents might be. Shame on CNN for representing a very low and unethical level of journalism.

I’ve seen other football players play with casts and be just fine. My question is, why would it matter if a kicker has a broken arm? For one thing, a kicker shouldn’t need his arm to kick. Secondly, a kicker should never be touched on the field.

Medal count
United States: 3 Golds
Australia: 1 Silver, 2 Bronze
Japan: 1 Silver, 1 Bronze
China: 1 Silver

2004 Medalists
United States: Gold
Australia: Silver
Japan: Bronze

Appearances at all 4 Olympic Games (including 2008)
Australia, Canada, China, USA, Japan
Chinese Taipei has appeared at 2 previous Olympic Games and will appear in Beijing.

See also: Wikipedia for 2008 Softball Schedule.

2000 Olympic Medalists
Gold: USA
Silver: Cuba
Bronze: Korea

All-time medal leaders
Cuba (3 Gold, 1 Silver)
USA (1 Gold, 1 Bronze)
Japan (1 Silver, 2 Bronze)

And some background information from Wikipedia:

Baseball became an official sport at the 1992 Summer Olympics, with the familiar eight team tournament. Players were required to be amateurs. The tournament consisted of a round-robin, in which teams played each of the other teams, followed by semifinals and finals. The format of the competition has remained the same since then, with the only major change being that starting in 2000 players were not required to be amateurs.

2004 Medalists:
Gold: Denmark
Silver: South Korea
Bronze: Ukraine

All-time top medal leaders:
Denmark (3 golds)
South Korea (2 golds, 3 silvers)
Soviet Union (2 golds, 1 bronze)
Yugoslavia (1 gold, 1 silver)
Norway (2 silver, 1 bronze)
Hungary (1 silver, 2 bronze)

NBC Predictions
Gold: Norway
Silver: Russia
Bronze: Romania

After your recent announcement about opening Knol, I’m excited to share a few suggestions.

First of all, let me say how excited I am to see Knol come out to play. I’ve got nothing against Wikipedia, but just like there are different vendors for traditional book encyclopedias, I think it is great to have different sources for online encyclopedias. I think Knol will be a good supplement to Wikipedia.

I really like how you can choose different licenses for a knol, work and collaborate in groups, and receive adsense revenue for knols written. I’ve often wondered why I should spend time adding content to someone else’s site, when I could add content to my own and collect advertising revenue for it. With the revenue sharing model of Knol, I feel more comfortable putting forth efforts.

As a suggestion, I think you should also allow Google Analytics to be used on the pages to track traffic, similar to the way you allow Google Analytics to be used on Google Code projects.

One of the things I found confusing when I started using Google Knol is what the policies are for copying other sources, such as copying Wikipedia articles or copying other Google Knol articles. Although I’ve been able to figure this out, if you were to have a Google Groups discussion group for authors to discuss best practices, it would have been a valuable resource for beginning authors.

Finally, Google Knol is unique from Wikipedia in that it can allow multiple articles on the same topic. This can be a valuable incentive to allow more people practice writing articles. For example, I think Google should work with educational institutions, especially high schools, to provide opportunities for students to write knols for their school projects. Allowing high school students to write scholarly articles and reports which can then be peer reviewed online would be valuable preparation for collegiate studies.

Thank you for hosting Knol,
Jacob

BTW - From what I’ve been able to discover about copying articles, Wikipedia articles cannot be copied for use in Knol because Wikipedia articles are licensed under an license incompatible with Creative Commons licenses used by Knol. Knol articles can be copied with attribution, but if a knol uses the Creative Commons non-commercial license, then it cannot be copied to a knol displaying adsense. At least, that is how I read things.

Feb 11, 2008: A female Wymount resident received a suspicious phone call in her home at 1:30 p.m. The male caller claimed to be from the psychology department and said he could try to help her relax. He got her to turn off the lights and lay down on her bed. The phone call ended when the girl’s cell phone battery died. BYU Police told her she should notify her phone company next time she receives a call so that they can trace it. (Source)

Nov. 7-9, 2007: Nine female students, living in Heritage Halls, reported receiving suspicious calls from a man who claimed that he was a BYU student doing an experiment for a psychology class. The police think this man is from California and is the same man who has been making these calls for the last four years. (Source)

Oct. 23, 2007: A 19-year-old female student, living in Taylor Hall in Helaman Halls, received a suspicious phone call from a man claiming to be a psychology student who asked her to participate in an experiment for his psychology class. She had read the police beat tip of the week in The Daily Universe on October 12, and hung up on him. (http://newnewsnet.byu.edu/story.cfm/66075)

Oct. 17, 2007: A female student living in Wyview Park received a phone call from a suspicious man. The suspect claimed to be a psychology student conducting a project, and attempted to put her in a hypnotic trance. She gave him a false name when he asked for her name. When she finally told him she had had enough, he immediately hung up. (http://newnewsnet.byu.edu/story.cfm/65969)

October 12, 2007 Tip of the week: Over the last three years, several students, mostly female students, have been receiving calls from a suspicious male individual. He calls at night, asks what they are doing, how they are dressed and if they will participate in an experiment, a study for his psychology class. He asks them to lie down on the floor then asks a series of questions and tells them to relax. An investigator from the police department has talked to a professor on campus, who is an expert in hypnotism. He says it is not possible to hypnotize someone over the phone. Some students have fallen asleep, woken up and weren’t sure what happened but whether they were really hypnotized or not is questionable. (Source)

July 4, 2007: A man was reported making a suspicious phone call to a female in Helaman Halls in which he claimed he was doing a psychology project and then proceeded to hypnotize the female student on the other end of the line. The roommate of the female came home to find her asleep on the floor. The female is reported of reacting strangely when certain words are spoken. Incidents of a similar nature have occurred about two dozen times in the past. There are no suspects, but the incident is still under investigation. (http://newnewsnet.byu.edu/story.cfm/64793)

Feb 9, 2006: A female student living in Hinckley Hall, in Helaman Halls, received a phone call from an unidentified male claiming to be conducting a survey for a psychology class Feb. 9. The caller asked the student if she was relaxed and if she was doing homework. The student hung up after the caller asked her to lie down on her bed to get more comfortable. The police suspect the call is connected to numerous similar calls made over the last two years. (Source)

May 19, 2004:Two females living at WyView reported separate accounts of attempted hypnotism on the telephone from a male suspect May 19 at 9 p.m. and Saturday at 2 p.m., respectively. The victims reported a male-voiced caller representing himself as a psychology major conducting a survey. The victim of the second incident said she became suspicious when the caller said he was going to hypnotize her. Both victims hung-up the phone on the caller.

Never once did he call anyone in Deseret Towers, according to these limited reports.