Signs of the season

Some things occur in regular, predictable cycles.

As Thanksgiving and Christmas approach, we'll start hearing soon from Bill O'Reilly, John Gibson and the rest of the FOXists about how Jews are waging a "war on Christmas" to stamp out the Christian religion in America.  I don't know what it will take to shame them into shutting up about that particular kookoo conspiracy theory.

And the year end is coming, so we have the regular annual predictions about how *next* year, we're going to pull out several tens of thousands of troops from Iraq.  The latter, at least, is already starting.  From Shift coming in US policy on Iraq by Howard LaFranchi Christian Science Monitor 11/08/06:

The point of even a temporary increase in US troops, from the current number of about 144,000, would be to win decisively the battle for Baghdad security. Many in the military now consider this the key to keeping Iraq back from the precipice of outright civil war.

Still, many experts expect the contrary: a decision to gradually draw down US troops to the 40,000-60,000 level over the coming year.  (my emphasis)