Brits under heavy fire
"British troops faced heavy mortar fire outside Basra amid fierce resistance from loyalist Iraqi troops and irregular militias yesterday.
Securing Basra and the nearby port Umm Qasr is imperative for getting humanitarian aid into Iraq.
A British military spokeswoman last night said coalition forces had still not secured Umm Qasr because of fierce Iraqi resistance.
US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said four days ago that US forces had won control of the town.
"Umm Qasr is not yet secured. There are still people running around shooting at anything and everything," the spokeswoman said."
Today Donald reiterated that Umm Qsar was under control. "What that dumb limey broad doesn't understand is that the people running around shooting at anything and everything are our guys. To avoid further confused misreporting we have arranged for the dame in question to undertake a refresher course in "Embedding 101" at our re-education facility at Guantanamo Bay."
I post this English to American Dictionary link in the hope of greater understanding between the warring British and American factions.
On a more serious note:- Great newspaper corrections of our time:
According to an editorial in The Canberra Times this week, the Prime Minister described Pauline Hanson's supporters as 'average astray aliens'. Only one problem -- he never said it.
(FYI "One Nation" is a right wing, racist grab bag of assorted loonies which makes the correction quite unnecessary.)
The explanation is best left to the following correction that appeared in yesterday's edition. 'Most One Nation supporters are 'average Australians', not 'average astray aliens', as the editorial on Tuesday quoted the PM as saying. The error began with voice-recognition technology, and was missed by the authors and sub-editors.'
