Kids play road hockey, skateboarders practice kickflips on open swaths of pavement, and you may suddenly notice the cawing of blue jays.
The attacks in southern Iraq were so bad in July that the United States military took the unusual step of bombing open swaths of desert with a C-130 gunship and an Apache helicopter in the middle of the night to try and deter the militias.
Republican leaders also plan to give moderates and Democrats a vote to strike a measure from the bill that would open a swath of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, environmentally sensitive land on Alaska's North Slope, to oil drilling.
A bill approved by the House Resources Committee would open a swath of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska to oil drilling and would extend an expiring measure to encourage deep-water drilling by offering some relief from royalties.
In 1996, the Clinton administration and a Republican-led Congress agreed on a new law intended to open vast swaths of the nation's communications network to competition.
Yet Mr. Young persists, even though the new five-year drilling plan of Interior Secretary Ken Salazar would open large swaths of this country's outer continental shelf tonew exploration, including some of the waters off Alaska.
The government's controversial attempt to establish a shale gas industry in the UK took another step forward on Thursday when it handed out new licences for onshore gas and oil exploration in 159 blocks, in a move campaigners say could open up swaths of the countryside to fracking.
The disaster is something of an embarrassment to the President and his administration, coming on the heels of Obama's announcement in April that he would open huge swaths of the Atlantic coast, along with some regions in the Gulf and Alaska, to offshore drilling, touting its safety.
The disaster has been difficult for the broader offshore industry as well, as President Obama has put a hiatus on drilling off the U.S. coast, a move that comes only a few months after the President announced plans to open wide swaths of the eastern seaboard, along with other coastal areas, to drilling.
