Though Expelled dropped on its second weekend--typical for most movies--it continued to do well for a documentary film swimming with the big romance, horror, and adventure flicks. According to Box Office Mojo, Expelled (starring Richard Dawkins, pictured at right) was 13th overall. However, with an average of $1,340 per theatre it was only a dollar out of 8th place. On Monday, Expelled moved up to 7th position on the per theatre chart besting "21" and "Prom Night" among others. So far, in just a 10 day run, Expelled has already become the 6th most popular political documentary of all time.

Already the 7th most popular political documentary of all-time, Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed is continuing to surge at the box office. In a historical comparison, Expelled's take on opening weekend was second only to Fahrenheit 9/11 which had scores of positive reviews and loads of pre-opening hype--a stark contrast to Expelled. Expelled's opening weekend numbers were more substantial than Michael Moore's Sicko, Bowling for Columbine, and Al Gore's An Inconvenient Truth combined. After an excellent opening weekend, Expelled is still going strong and is currently fourth nationally in per screen income averaging better than $220 per screen since the weekend.

Amy Proctor has 2 great reports up on Iraq: "Iraqis are Returning Home in Droves": BAGHDAD — With security improving, local economies flourishing and community reconstruction underway, Iraqis who once fled their South Baghdad homes in fear are now returning to the villages they deserted. This is a good sign, said Maj. Mark Bailey, the officer in charge of the Multi-National Division – Center governance cell. “Once people are convinced that security is good in their area, they come back,” said Bailey, who is with 401st Civil Affairs Battalion, attached to 3rd Infantry Division. “If they own a business, they re-open their business, which helps the economy.” Out of the approximate 18,700 Iraqis who left their homes, it is estimated that ...

One would expect that with today’s gasoline prices, the recent discoveries of massive oil reserves in the Bakken Shale region of North Dakota, USA, would be met with soaring optimism about America’s struggle for energy independence. Geologists have discovered oil reserves that may amount to more than one hundred billion barrels of oil; it is probably the largest discovery of oil in the history of the United States. Consider that Saudi Arabia, which has the largest oil reserves in the world, has only 264 billion in proven reserves. In years gone by, such a discovery would have been major sustained news for months in the United States. Industries would be ignited, fortunes made. Large groups ...

Joining the French-looking John Kerry and the effete, well-coifed John Edwards, Kathleen Parker points out that Barack Obama has now joined the Faux Bubba Club: Bowling for Obama Annie got her gun and Obama got his boot stuck in his mouth. By Kathleen Parker Barack Obama seemed to have survived the blasphemous rants of his preacher and remained relatively untarnished by the perceived dissatisfactions of his privileged wife. But he may be less lucky with remarks he made recently about embittered, small-town Americans, who “cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren’t like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.” Those words now cling to Obama ...

As usual, Thomas Sowell is on the money: A Living Lie Obama's controversial statements in San Francisco are perfectly in line with his Senate record. National Review Online April 15, 2008 By Thomas Sowell An e-mail from a reader said that, while Hillary Clinton tells lies, Barack Obama is himself a lie. That is becoming painfully apparent with each new revelation of how drastically his carefully crafted image this election year contrasts with what he has actually been saying and doing for many years. Senator Obama’s election-year image is that of a man who can bring the country together, overcoming differences of party or race, as well as solving our international problems by talking with Iran and other countries with which we are at odds, and performing other miscellaneous miracles as needed. There is, of course, not a speck of evidence that Obama has ever transcended party differences in the U.S. Senate. Voting records analyzed by the National Journal show him to be the farthest left of anyone in the Senate. Nor has he sponsored any significant bipartisan legislation — nor any other significant legislation, for that matter. Senator Obama is all talk — glib talk, exciting talk, confident talk — but still just talk. Some of his recent talk in San Francisco has stirred up controversy because it revealed yet another blatant contradiction between Barack Obama’s public image and his reality. Speaking privately to supporters in heavily left-liberal San Francisco, Obama let down his hair and described working class people in Pennsylvania as so “bitter” that they “cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren’t like them.” Like so much that Obama has said and done over the years, this is standard stuff on the far Left, where guns and religion are regarded as signs of psychological dysfunction —

Barack Obama fought hard to see that full-term, partially born babies could be murdered in Illinois. And he's proud of it. Now this: As a law professor, he put Roe at the center of his constitutional law course. That says it all: Roe is ahead of Marbury v. Madison, Dred Scott, and Brown v. Board of Education. The right to kill the most innocent among us is, in his mind, the centerpiece of the Constitution. If the Constitution means anything, it is that the least among us have the right to life and liberty. Some people argue that in ...

Great interview of Michael Yon on The Glen and Helen show here. Get the book here. God bless and protect Michael Yon--and those whom he is reporting on in Iraq.

After watching the bluster of Hagel, Hillary, Obama, and the rest of the anti-Iraq war senators, Joe Lieberman's questions on Iran's proxy war against us were a breath of fresh air and focus: The Dems (and Sen. Hagel) seem to be oblivious to the implications of pulling out. I'm with Cliff May. I'd rather fight for a hundred years in Iraq than surrender to the radical Islamists. A Hundred Years of War? There is a worse scenario. National Review Online April 10, 2007 By Clifford D. May A growing number of Democrats have falsely accused Sen. John McCain of “promising” 100 years of war in Iraq. In fact, McCain’s point was that the presence of American forces promotes stability. That’s been the case in Europe and Asia, where Americans have been stationed for more than half a century. It’s been true in the Balkans since the 1990s, when President Clinton sent troops there. America’s military plays a beneficial role when it eliminates America’s enemies; it does so also when it stays on to prevent those enemies from reemerging. But there is a hard truth that McCain did not state: A hundred years from now, Americans might still be fighting militant Islamists in Iraq and other places. What could be worse than that? A hundred years from now, America and the West could have been defeated by militant Islamists. Al-Qaeda, Iran’s ruling mullahs, Hezbollah, and others militant jihadis have told us what they are fighting for. The well-known Islamist, Hassan al-Banna, described the movement’s goals succinctly: “to dominate . . . to impose its laws on all nations and to extend its power to the entire planet.” He said that in 1928. Who would have believed then that his heirs would acquire the wealth, power, and lethality they enjoy today? Who can say where they may be 100 years from now? Who can say where the West will be? Survival is not an entitlement. Freedom must be earned by every generation. So the most important question not asked of General David Petreaus when he testified before Congress this week is how to maximize our chances of winning the long, global war in which we are engaged. Retreating from key battlefields would not appear to be the most promising strategy.

With the British trying to pull out of Basra, the impression one gets from reading the MSM is that we are now alone, or almost alone, in Iraq. Does anyone know this? More than 30 nations still have "boots on the ground" in Iraq. From a soldier who regularly checks in at Powerline: (H/T Instapundit) I'm back over here for my fourth Army Reserve stint since 2004. What a difference a year makes. In late 2006 and early 2007, just after surge had been announced, many commentators and thinkers -- in uniform and out -- thought that Anbar was hopeless, a lost cause. Just google "Anbar Lost" to see what I mean. Nowadays, it has been weeks since we lost a ...