What Caught My Eye Today

Iraq - The Iraq war lumbered into its fifth year Monday with President Bush pleading for patience to let his revised battle plan work and Congress' new Democratic leaders retorting that no patience remains. "The new strategy will need more time to take effect," Bush said in remarks televised from the White House to mark the four years since he ordered the invasion. He challenged Congress to send him a war funding bill "without strings and without delay." He got a swift response from House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. "The American people have lost confidence in President Bush's plan for a war without end in Iraq," said Pelosi, D-Calif. "That failed approach has been rejected by the voters in our nation and it will be rejected by the Congress." This dialogue between the President and Congress is like being stuck in a time warp. We've been listening to the same rhetoric for 3 months.

Iran - South Africa, which holds the rotating presidency of the U.N. Security Council, called Monday for a 90-day "time out" on sanctions against Iran and said a resolution drafted by six world powers should drop an embargo on arms exports and financial sanctions targeting Iran's Revolutionary Guards and an Iranian bank. The five veto-wielding permanent council nations — the United States, Russia, China, Britain and France — and Germany agreed on modest new sanctions Thursday to step up pressure on Iran to suspend uranium enrichment, which can be used to produce nuclear energy or nuclear weapons. The extensive amendments to the draft proposed by South Africa could delay a vote on the resolution, although with support from the five permanent members the resolution is almost certain to be adopted. France's U.N. Ambassador said the South African amendments weren't consistent with the approach of the six powers. Yeah, South Africa keep out of this. If we want your opinion, we'll give it to you.

Israel - Israel formally declared last year's fighting with Lebanon's Hezbollah guerrillas a war on Monday, but it is searching for a name for the 34-day conflict. Talk about poor planning, jeeze. Here you guys go looking for an armed conflict and you don't even have a name for it. Maybe you should take a look at how we do things at the Pentagon. We never sign up for anything unless we have a good name for it.

Sports Marketing - Tiger Woods is the most marketable athlete for North American audiences, according to a poll released by Sports Business Daily, capturing 69.2% of replies. Behind Woods were Peyton Manning (18.5%) in second place and LeBron James (4.6%) in third. Rounding out the top ten were, Derek Jeter, Dale Earnhardt Jr, Tom Brady, Shaquille O'Neal, Maria Sharapova (the only female in the top ten) and a threesome sharing the tenth spot (Kobe Bryant, Sidney Crosby and Brett Favre). Looks like the NFL and NBA reign supreme with 3 entries apiece. The real surprise here is that the NHL managed to snag a spot. Way to go Sidney. Not bad for a 19 year old rookie.