Photos of Military Personnel Back Up at Paso Robles Post Office

Now some fresh pickings from the Political Grapevine:

Now Showing

The pictures of U.S. military personnel that were ordered removed from the Paso Robles Post Office are back up. The display — which had been in the post office for several years — was taken down Friday after a complaint by one customer that the photos were pro-war.

But local media report a postal service spokesman said Monday that Deputy Postmaster General Pat Donohue ordered the photos returned after an outpouring of protests in Paso Robles and across the country.

There was no further word as to why the decision was made and the rule against displaying non-postal business materials is still on the books.

Not Fair and Balanced?

There is another round in the verbal tug-of-war over Al Gore's "Inconvenient Truth" movie. You'll recall a British judge ordered the film must be accompanied by opposing views when shown to students and he cited nine scientific errors in the movie.

A Gore spokeswoman responded to that by saying the movie had, "thousands and thousands of facts" and by asserting the judge never used the word "errors."

Now former adviser to Margaret Thatcher — Christopher Monckton — has published a 21-page rebuttal to the Gore response. He says there are actually 35 errors or exaggerations in the film and he points out the British judge did in fact use the word "errors" throughout his ruling.

As for the contention that the movie contains thousands of facts, Monckton points out that even if the 93-minute film had just 2,000 facts they would have had to be recited at a rate of one every three seconds.

Fielding Questions

You have probably heard news reports that the southeastern U.S. is enduring a drought of historic proportions. Which is why many people in North Carolina are puzzled when they learn that Duke University and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill are continuing to water their synthetic field hockey turf.

The Charlotte News Observer reports the international field hockey federation requires the fields to be watered before each practice and game — drought or no drought — in order to give players a better grip on the surface and minimize injuries.

The assistant athletic director at North Carolina admits he's received a lot of flack, saying, "People want to know why in the world we're watering an Astroturf field."

Fallen Hero

A footnote to Monday's story about the posthumous awarding of the Medal of Honor to Navy SEAL Micheal Murphy — who died during a mission in Afghanistan.

Before the emotional ceremony, Lieutenant Murphy's parents met with President Bush and gave him a gold dog tag in tribute to their son.

Dan Murphy says, "What we were most touched by was that the president immediately put that on underneath his shirt, and when he made the presentation of the Medal of Honor, he wore that against his chest."

— FOX News Channel's Martin Hill contributed to this report.