Maybe it's just that I should have stayed in bed.

Iraqi Troops Battle Shiite Militiamen In Southern City:

Roadside bombs, too, decreased by 50 percent last week to a total of eight, making for the lowest monthly average in nearly eight months, he said. However that figure dramatically changed with the spike in roadside bombs over the weekend, he added.

But oh, no, I'm sitting here bleary-eyed instead, trying to imagine any American city of any size in which eight “roadside bombs” in one day wouldn't be considered at least as newsworthy as, say, JonBenet Ramsey. And I'll be damned, I can't. But in Baghdad this is way under the average, and good news.

The eight roadside bombs are only part of the 23 “attacks” per day, also far less than the recent average and, according to one US Maj. Gen. William B, Caldwell (thanks to WIIIAI for noticing), just “ongoing operations” and nothing to get much excited about.

“It was always expected that there would be this extremist element that would get out and try to discredit the operations that are ongoing by striking at areas where civilians are readily available, where they can inflict some casualties,” Caldwell said.

Always expected. Ho hum.

Meanwhile in the southern Iraq city of Diwaniyah...

“The city is fully controlled by the militia of Jaish al-Mahdi now,” said Ahmed Fadhil, 45, a school teacher living in the center of Diwaniyah, using the Arabic term for Sadr's militia. “There are no police or Iraqi army in the streets of the city. I can see only the gunmen of Mahdi Army in the streets.”

There's a notion floating around on the internets that this recent JonBenet reprise, pulled out of the cable news hat like yesterday's rabbit, was just some sort of fortuitous diversion, but who could believe an idea like that?

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