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http://www.heraldtribune.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?Date=20060926&Category=NEWS&ArtNo=609260313&SectionCat=SPORTS04&Template=printart
Sierra Club backs Davis over Crist for governor
By LLOYD DUNKELBERGER
TALLAHASSEE BUREAU
TALLAHASSEE -- A major environmental group Monday endorsed Democratic gubernatorial candidate Jim Davis in Nov. 7 general election, while saying Republican Charlie Crist has been pretty good for the environment, too.
Meanwhile, Davis is scheduled to make his first appearance today with his Democratic challenger, state Sen. Rod Smith of Alachua.
Their joint appearance in Gainesville will come three weeks after the Sept.5 primary, with some suggesting Smith's failure to appear previously is asign of disunity in the party that followed a bitter race between the twoDemocratic candidates for governor.
Davis' aides said that notion will be dispelled in a rally featuring Davis,Smith and Democratic Party Chairwoman Karen Thurman in front of theGainesville City Hall.
During the primary campaign, the Sierra Club, which has 33,000 paid membersin the state, endorsed both Davis and Crist in their party contests.
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http://www.dallasnews.com/cgi-bin/bi/gold_print.cgi
Kathleen Parker: Axis of oil and nuts
12:02 AM CDT on Tuesday, September 26, 2006
George Bush owes Hugo Chavez a thank-you note. The Venezuelan president'sgoofy performance at the U.N. General Assembly on Wednesday made Bush looklike Winston Churchill.
Waving a Noam Chomsky book about America's quest for global dominance,Chavez railed against Bush:
Balance of Opinion
In addition to the syndicated national columnists who regularly appear onViewpoints, we are offering readers more voices in this twice-weeklyroundup, on Tuesdays and Fridays, of comments from the country's leadingpolitical commentators.
Columns by writers of The New York Times require registration. "Yesterday the devil came here," he said, referring to Bush's address to the U.N."Right here. Right here. And it smells of sulfur still today, this tablethat I am now standing in front of."
Then he made the sign of the cross, looked heavenward and put his handstogether as if to pray. I think we can fairly conclude that the weird haveofficially gone pro.
Chavez would be a hoot if he weren't so dangerous. As the leader ofAmerica's fourth-largest foreign-oil supplier, he has undeserved power, bothin the world and over the U.S. When he's feeling grumpy, he threatens to cutus off. Wouldn't we love not to have to entertain his mood shifts?
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http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/09/26/ap/entertainment/printableD8KC8N500.shtml
Wallace-Clinton Combat Draws Big Ratings
NEW YORK, Sep. 26, 2006
(AP) Political combat pays: "Fox News Sunday" drew its best ratings innearly three years for this weekend's electric confrontation between formerPresident Clinton and newsman Chris Wallace.
Both men's words were being dissected in the aftermath on Monday, with aClinton spokesman saying Fox and Wallace had attacked Clinton with "anaccusation," not a question.
"I think the interview speaks for itself," Wallace said. "They can spin allthe conspiracy theories they want."
The Sunday talk show had its best ratings since the capture of SaddamHussein in December 2003, according to Nielsen Media Research's measurementof the top media markets. It even outrated the morning's dominant show,"Meet the Press," although the NBC show was displaced from its usual timeslot by golf. (Two versions of the interview were the two most-watched clipson YouTube on Monday, totally more than 800,000 views.)
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The Miami Herald
http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/living/columnists/leonard_pitts/15600888.htm?template=contentModules/printstory.jsp
Posted on Mon, Sep. 25, 2006
IN MY OPINION
Radicals are the ones who should say they're sorry
BY LEONARD PITTS JR.
lpitts@MiamiHerald.com
I'm probably going to have to apologize for this column, so let's get that out of the way:
I'm sorry. I did not intend to offend Islam or its followers. I respect Islam and, indeed, all the ways humanity worships and seeks its Maker.
With that taken care of, let us get right to the point: Would somebody tell the pope to stop explaining himself?
We are, for those of you who haven't been keeping count, up to the fourth clarification and/or expression of regret from Pope Benedict XVI for comments he made recently that inflamed much of the Islamic world. The apologias began with a Vatican statement issued Sept. 14 which said in part, ''It was certainly not the intention of the Holy Father . . . to hurt the feelings of Muslim believers.'' From there, you can trace the evolution of papal regret through headlines from The New York Times.Sept. 17: Vatican Says Pope Benedict Regrets Offending Muslims
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The Washington Post
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/09/25/AR2006092500154_pf.html
Pope Assures Muslims, Envoys Of His Commitment to Dialogue
By Robin Pomeroy
Reuters
Tuesday, September 26, 2006; A18
CASTEL GANDOLFO, Italy, Sept. 25 -- Pope Benedict XVI assured Muslims on Monday that he respected them and was committed to dialogue, in an unprecedented encounter designed to defuse anger over his use of a quotation suggesting their faith was spread by the sword.
In a speech to diplomatic envoys from about 20 Muslim countries, as well as Italian Muslim leaders, the pope said both Christians and Muslims had to reject violence.
"Christians and Muslims must learn to work together . . . in order to guard against all forms of intolerance and to oppose all manifestations of violence," the 79-year-old pope said at a meeting at his summer residence south of Rome.
Several of the envoys who attended said they felt the meeting had gone a long way toward ending the controversy that began two weeks ago with a speech by the pope at a university in his native Germany.
"I think this meeting has resolved many problems," said Khalil Altoubat, a member
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The Washington Post
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/09/25/AR2006092501021_pf.html
Wiretap Bill Moves Closer to Passage
After Changes, Senate Holdouts Pledge Support
By Jonathan Weisman
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, September 26, 2006; A03
Last-minute changes to legislation authorizing the National Security Agency's warrantless wiretapping program have won the support of three balking Senate Republicans, improving the chances that a bill expanding the Bush administration's surveillance authority will pass Congress this week.
The Senate Judiciary Committee approved a bill this month that would allow, but not require, the administration to submit its warrantless wiretapping program to a secret national security court for constitutional review. But three Republicans who last year helped delay the renewal of the USA Patriot Act -- Sens. Larry E. Craig (Idaho), John E. Sununu (N.H.) and Lisa Murkowski (Alaska) -- combined forces again to express strong misgivings about the bill's implications for civil liberties.
The senators announced yesterday that those concerns had been met by three changes to the bill, although critics said the changes would not have the impact that the lawmakers claimed.
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The Washington Post
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/09/25/AR2006092500880.html
Baghdad Isn't Birmingham
By Eugene Robinson
Tuesday, September 26, 2006; A21
"Nobody can go back and reinvent the past," Condoleezza Rice told Katie Couric on "60 Minutes" Sunday night. But this nugget of truth came amid a flood of retrospective reinvention in which Rice equated the war in Iraq with the civil rights struggle of the 1960s -- and left me wondering whether I was hearing polished sophistry or a case of total denial.
That quote from the secretary of state came in response to a question about whether the administration would handle Iraq the same way if it had known then what it knows now -- that there were no weapons of mass destruction, among other inconvenient facts. Rice has acknowledged that mistakes were made in the conduct of the war, but she made clear Sunday that even now she would support the decision to invade.
The interview was prerecorded, so Couric didn't get to ask about the new National Intelligence Estimate -- representing the consensus view of the government's 16 spy agencies -- concluding that the Iraq war has poured fuel on the jihadist fire worldwide and that the threat from terrorism is rising, not ebbing. But we can assume that this obvious fact has not escaped Rice's attention, and I wouldn't expect one of the officials who ordered the invasion (she was national security adviser at the time) to confess that the whole thing was a tragic misadventure.
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The Washington Post
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/09/25/AR2006092500876_pf.html
The Hardest Word
By Anne Applebaum
Tuesday, September 26, 2006; A21
"We have screwed up. Not a little, but a lot. . . . If we have to give an account to the country of what we have done in four years, what are we going to say?"
I wish I could gleefully report that the words quoted above had been spoken by an American politician, preferably at a large public gathering with lots of media. But, alas, they were pronounced by a foreign politician with an unpronounceable surname: Ferenc Gyurcsany, the prime minister of Hungary. For those readers who don't follow Hungarian politics on a daily basis, he also said that "we lied, morning, noon and night" and conceded that his country had stayed afloat during his government's first term thanks to "divine providence, the abundance of cash in the world economy and hundreds of tricks."
Gyurcsany made these refreshingly frank comments during a private meeting.
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The Washington Post
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/09/25/AR2006092500912_pf.html
More Leaks, Please
Questioning the Iraq Intelligence Report
By Robert Kagan
Tuesday, September 26, 2006; A21
It's too bad we won't get to see the full National Intelligence Estimate on "Trends in Global Terrorism" selectively leaked to The Post and the New York Times last week. The Times headline read "Spy Agencies Say Iraq War Worsens Terrorism Threat." But there were no quotations from the NIE itself, so all we have are journalists' characterizations of anonymous comments by government officials, whose motives and reliability we can't judge, about intelligence assessments whose logic and argument, as well as factual basis, we have no way of knowing or gauging. Based on the press coverage alone, the NIE's judgment seems both impressionistic and imprecise. On such an important topic, it would be nice to have answers to a few questions.
For instance, what specifically does it mean to say that the Iraq war has worsened the "terrorism threat"? Presumably, the NIE's authors would admit that this is speculation rather than a statement of fact, since the facts suggest otherwise. Before the Iraq war, the United States suffered a series of terrorist attacks: the bombing and destruction of two American embassies in East Africa in 1998, the terrorist attack on the USS Cole in 2000, and the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. Since the Iraq war started, there have not been any successful terrorist attacks against the United States. That doesn't mean the threat has diminished because of the Iraq war, but it does place the burden of proof on those who argue that it has increased.
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The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/26/world/asia/26afghan.html?pagewanted=print
September 26, 2006
Gunmen Kill Afghan Official Who Backed Women's Rights
By CARLOTTA GALL
KANDAHAR, Afghanistan, Sept. 25 - A senior Afghan official specializing in women's rights was gunned down here on her way to work on Monday morning by suspected Taliban gunmen. It was the highest-level assassination of a woman in Afghanistan in the five years since the Taliban were ousted from power.
Safia Amajan, 65, had served as chief of the women's affairs department in Kandahar Province for five years, working for women's rights and education and vocational training. A former teacher and high school principal, she was well known and much liked in Kandahar.
"It is a very tragic loss," said Sonja Bachmann, a United Nations political officer who knew Ms. Amajan well. "She did a good job, she worked in a very low-key way and worked hard to raise awareness about women's issues."
A spokesman claiming to speak for the Taliban claimed responsibility for the killing in a telephone call, Reuters reported.
Hundreds of women gathered at the city's main Shiite mosque, where Ms. Amajan's body lay wrapped in a white shroud decorated with golden Koranic script, to mourn her loss. "There is no security for anyone now in Kandahar," one woman said, sobbing through her veil.
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The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/us/AP-Rice-Clinton.html?pagewanted=print
September 26, 2006
Rice Challenges Clinton on Terror Fight
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 7:38 a.m. ET
NEW YORK (AP) -- Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice challenged former President Clinton's claim that he did more than many of his conservative critics to pursue Osama bin Laden, and she accused President Bush's predecessor of leaving no comprehensive plan to fight al-Qaida.
''What we did in the eight months was at least as aggressive as what the Clinton administration did in the preceding years,'' Rice said Monday during a meeting with editors and reporters at the New York Post.
The newspaper published her comments Tuesday, after Clinton appeared on ''Fox News Sunday'' in a combative interview in which he defended his handling of the threat posed by bin Laden and said he ''worked hard'' to have the al-Qaida leader killed.
''That's the difference in me and some, including all of the right-wingers who are attacking me now,'' Clinton said in the interview. ''They ridiculed me for trying. They had eight months to try, they did not try.''
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The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/26/us/politics/26voting.html?ei=5094&en=b3af93a4c8e03f4d&hp=&ex=1159329600&partner=homepage&pagewanted=print
September 26, 2006
Stricter Voting Laws Carve Latest Partisan Divide
By JOYCE PURNICK
MESA, Ariz. - Eva Charlene Steele, a recent transplant from Missouri, has no driver's license or other form of state identification. So after voting all her adult life, Mrs. Steele will not be voting in November because of an Arizona law that requires proof of citizenship to register.
"I have mixed emotions," said Mrs. Steele, 57, who uses a wheelchair and lives in a small room in an assisted-living center. "I could see where you would want to keep people who don't belong in the country from voting, but there has to be an easier way."Russell K. Pearce, a leading proponent of the new requirement, offers no apologies.
"You have to show ID for almost everything - to rent a Blockbuster movie!" said Mr. Pearce, a Republican in the State House of Representatives. "Nobody has the right to cancel my vote by voting illegally. This is about political corruption."
Mrs. Steele and Mr. Pearce are two players in a spreading partisan brawl over new and proposed voting requirements around the country. Republicans say the laws are needed to combat fraud, especially among illegal immigrants. Democrats say there is minimal fraud, if any, and accuse Republicans of suppressing the votes of those least likely to have the required documentation - minorities, the poor and the elderly - who tend to vote for Democrats.
In tight races, Democrats say, the loss of votes could matter in November.
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The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/26/opinion/26tue3.html
Where Congress Is Soft on Criminals
Published: September 26, 2006
House sycophants of the National Rifle Association are aiming this week to hobble the federal government's power to revoke the licenses of rogue gun dealers who arm the underworld. A shameless proposal would replace existing law with wrist-slapping penalties and an impossible definition of "willful intent" that would hamstring efforts to close lawless marketeers.
The rhetoric of the approaching debate will undoubtedly invoke sportsmen's rights, but the real issue is the rights of sociopaths and terrorists to make future purchases at their friendly local AK-47 dealer. The House proposal, in fact, would have stopped federal agents from ever revoking the license of Lou's Loans, the Pennsylvania dealer that sold battlefield weapons to one of the co-conspirators in the 1993 assault on the World Trade Center.
What makes this gun decontrol measure truly brazen is recent data from the Justice Department, which reported a startling jump of nearly 50 percent last year in gun crime victims, to 477,000. No one can yet say whether this is related to an earlier N.R.A. "victory" - the decision of the Bush administration and Republican leaders in Congress not to renew the 10-year-old ban on the sale of military assault weapons to civilians. Any analysis is hampered by another gun lobby "victory" - Congress's barring the federal gun control agency from searching out criminal trends in its own records of weapon sales.
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The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/26/world/middleeast/26iraq.html?ei=5094&en=d98d83019abeea71&hp=&ex=1159329600&partner=homepage&pagewanted=print
September 26, 2006
Qaeda Operative, an Escapee in '05, Is Killed in Iraq
By SABRINA TAVERNISE
BAGHDAD, Sept. 25 - A senior operative of Al Qaeda who brazenly escaped from a high- security American prison in Afghanistan last year was killed Monday in a predawn raid by British soldiers in a quiet, wealthy neighborhood in southern Iraq, an American official and an official in Basra said.
About 250 soldiers wearing night-vision goggles and carrying specially equipped rifles stormed a house in the Junainah neighborhood of Basra, intending to capture the operative, whom the spokesman for the British military in Iraq identified as Omar al-Faruq, an Iraqi. They were fired upon as they entered, and shot back, killing Mr. Faruq.
The British military spokesman, Maj. Charles Burbridge, said Mr. Faruq was "a terrorist of considerable significance" who had been hiding in Basra, but declined to say whether he was the same man who had escaped from the American military detention center in Bagram, Afghanistan, in July 2005. An American official in Washington and an official in Basra, neither of whom was authorized to speak publicly on the subject, said Mr. Faruq was the same man.
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The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/26/nyregion/26pataki.html?pagewanted=print
September 26, 2006
With Eye on Presidency, Pataki Is to Open Office in Iowa
By PATRICK HEALY
Gov. George E. Pataki plans to head back to Iowa on Friday to open an office for his political action committee - not only to help candidates in November, members of his staff said yesterday, but also to lay more groundwork for his own possible presidential bid in 2008.
With plans in the works to open a second office soon in New Hampshire, Mr. Pataki is planting his flag in two states that have significant influence in the presidential nominating process. Iowa holds the first caucuses in the nation in 2008, on Jan. 14, and New Hampshire holds the first primary the following week.
The new office, in West Des Moines, will house about five paid staff members of the 21st Century Freedom PAC and coordinate volunteers for 2006 campaigns, according to Rob Cole, the executive director of the political action committee. He said the office would remain open at least through the end of the year - well past Election Day on Nov. 7.
Mr. Pataki, who is leaving office at the end of the year after three terms as New York's governor, is seriously considering a run for the White House, confident that there will be a receptive audience for a Republican candidate who blends socially moderate positions with a message of fiscal conservatism and tough foreign policy, his aides say.
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The Washington Post
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/09/25/AR2006092500357.html
Prices of Existing Homes Fell in Aug.
Drop Is First in 11 Years as Supply Swells
By Tomoeh Murakami Tse
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, September 26, 2006; D01
The median price of existing homes fell in August, compared with a year earlier, the first year-over-year drop in 11 years, according to an industry report released yesterday.
The report by the National Association of Realtors also said that home sales fell to the slowest pace in more than two years and that the supply of unsold homes ballooned to the highest level in 13 years.
After a year of cooling activity, the latest signals from the weakening U.S. housing market came as no surprise to analysts, who had expected a slightly larger drop in sales. Many said they expected the market to decline further in coming months, although they differed on the extent.
Existing-home sales dropped 13 percent, compared with August 2005, to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 6.3 million units from 7.2 million. At the slower sales rate, the 3.9 million homes on the market would take seven and a half months to sell, the largest supply since April 1993.
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The Washington Post
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/09/25/AR2006092500878.html
No Silent Majority for Bush
By E. J. Dionne Jr.
Tuesday, September 26, 2006; A21
What could prove to be the most important factor in the 2006 elections is overlooked because it is unseen: The Republicans cannot try to curry favor with a "silent majority" that favors the Iraq war because a majority of Americans, both vocal and quiet, have come to see the war as a mistake.
President Bush's defenders have cast opponents of the war as weak on terrorism. Yesterday, Vice President Cheney accused Democrats of "resignation and defeatism." But the charges have not taken hold, because most Americans don't agree with the premise linking the war on terror with the war in Iraq.
And blame for the failures in Iraq has fallen not on some liberal coterie supposedly holding our generals back but on the choices of civilians in a conservative administration. Those civilians, and their allies outside the administration, find themselves under increasing fire from leaders of the military and the intelligence services for bad planning, flawed analysis and unrealistic expectations.
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http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/09/25/AR2006092501310_pf.html
The Washington Post
Democrats Focus on Terrorism Report in Attacks on Bush
Conclusion of Rising Extremism Since Iraq Invasion Is Used to Counter Assertion That the World Is Safer
By Michael Abramowitz and Jonathan Weisman
Washington Post Staff Writers
Tuesday, September 26, 2006; A03
Democratic lawmakers yesterday seized on elements of a new classified intelligence assessment as validation of their long-standing position that the Iraq war has been a distraction from the broader war against terrorists, seeing the new study as an opportunity to undermine President Bush's determined offensive to turn terrorism to political advantage in the midterm elections.
A classified National Intelligence Estimate, completed in April but disclosed in news reports over the weekend, offers the U.S. intelligence community's first formal evaluation of global trends in terrorism since the April 2003 invasion of Iraq. U.S. officials said the report concludes that the Iraq war has fueled the growth of Islamic extremism and terror groups, but White House officials responded that the reports reflected a selective and distorted interpretation of the study.
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Forwarded from Victoria Lavin
Daily Queer News
dailyqueernews@yahoo.com
http://www.usnews.com/usnews/news/articles/060924/2america.htm
A Nation in Full
Within days, America will pass the 300 million mark in population. Behindthe numbers, the changes are dramatic. A look at the biggest:
By Silla Brush
Posted Sunday, September 24, 2006
It took the United States 139 years to get to 100 million people, and just52 years to add another 100 million, back in 1967. Now, one day inOctober-after an interval of just 39 years-America will claim more than 300million souls. The moment will be hailed as another symbol of America'sboundless energy and unique vitality. It is that, of course. But it is alsotrue America has grown every time the Census Bureau has taken a measurement,starting in 1790, when the Founders counted fewer than 4 million of theircountrymen-about half the population of New York City today.
The recent growth surge has been extraordinary. Since 2000 alone, the nationhas added some 20 million people. Compared with western Europe, with birthrates plunging, or Japan, its population shrinking, America knows onlygrowth, growth, and more growth. It now has the third-largest population inthe world, after China and India. "Growth is a concern that we have tomanage," says Kenneth Prewitt, former head of the Census Bureau, "but it'smuch easier to manage than losing your population."
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Forwarded from Victoria Lavin
Daily Queer News
dailyqueernews@yahoo.com
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/09/22/AR2006092201432.html?referrer=email
More Journalists Facing Jail
Time to pass a federal shield law
Saturday, September 23, 2006; A18
UNLESS A federal appeals court steps in, two reporters for the San Francisco Chronicle will head to jail for as long as 18 months. Lance Williams and Mark Fainaru-Wada broke an important story: the grand jury testimony of baseball superstars, including Barry Bonds, concerning the steroid-dealing BALCO lab and their use of its products. They have properly refused to identify their sources, despite a subpoena from federal authorities. And as has become distressingly common in investigations and lawsuits around the country, the journalists are facing jail time for doing their jobs.
Any reasonable balancing of the interests that clash when law enforcement needs to know a reporter's sources would, in this case, favor letting Mr. Williams and Mr. Fainaru-Wada honor their commitments of confidentiality. The public service they did by exposing steroid use among top athletes was significant. As Mr. Fainaru-Wada put it in court this week: "A fraud was being perpetrated on sports fans -- with athletes using illegal performance-enhancing drugs to manufacture records and achievements that were, at best, deceitful, and, at worst, an illusion." It's hard to see how the public's interest in getting to the bottom of a routine leak outweighs its interest in access to such stories.
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Forwarded from Victoria Lavin
Daily Queer News
dailyqueernews@yahoo.com
http://www.usnews.com/usnews/news/articles/060924/2supreme.htm
The new Supreme Court term will focus on issues that have bitterly divided the nation for many years
By Liz Halloran and Bret Schulte
Posted Sunday, September 24, 2006
The battle over a woman's constitutional right to medically end her pregnancy has convulsed the nation for more than a generation. But since the U.S. Supreme Court's 1992 decision to reaffirm Roe v. Wade, at least one thing has remained constant: If pregnancy threatens a woman's life or health, she can't be prevented from seeking a legal abortion.
That assurance is now on shaky ground. When the U.S. Supreme Court reconvenes next week after its summer break, justices will be asked to decide whether health risks alone should guarantee women access to controversial late-term abortions, typically-though rarely- performed when pregnancies have progressed beyond 20 weeks.
That, in and of itself, is significant-"one of the key cases of the term," says Leonard Leo of the conservative Federalist Society. But when the court considers the constitutionality of Congress's Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act of 2003-which has no exception for a mother's health-it will also shine a light on the emerging dynamics of the newly formulated and deeply divided panel. And the most closely watched jurist won't be Chief Justice John G. Roberts or his fellow sophomore, Justice Samuel Alito, but Justice Anthony Kennedy, on whose vote these decisions will most likely turn.
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http://www.huffingtonpost.com/gary-hart/the-october-surprise_b_30086.html
The October Surprise
By Gary Hart
HuffingtonPost.com
Saturday 23 September 2006
It should come as no surprise if the Bush Administration undertakes a preemptive war against Iran sometime before the November election.
Were these more normal times, this would be a stunning possibility, quickly dismissed by thoughtful people as dangerous, unprovoked, and out of keeping with our national character. But we do not live in normal times. And we do not have a government much concerned with our national character. If anything, our current Administration is out to remake our national character into something it has never been.
The steps will be these: Air Force tankers will be deployed to fuel B-2 bombers, Navy cruise missile ships will be positioned at strategic points in the northern Indian Ocean and perhaps the Persian Gulf, unmanned drones will collect target data, and commando teams will refine those data. The latter two steps are already being taken.
Then the president will speak on national television. He will say this: Iran is determined to develop nuclear weapons; if this happens, the entire region will go nuclear; our diplomatic efforts to prevent this have failed; Iran is offering a haven to known al Qaeda leaders; the fate of our ally Israel is at stake; Iran persists in supporting terrorism, including in Iraq; and sanctions will have no affect (and besides they are for sissies). He will not say: ...and besides, we need the oil.
Therefore, he will announce, our own national security and the security of the region requires us to act. "Tonight, I have ordered the elimination of all facilities in Iran that are dedicated to the production of weapons of mass destruction....." In the narrowest terms this includes perhaps two dozen targets.
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Forwarded from Paul Harris
The Independent
http://www.ourindy.com/
John Danforth on MEET THE PRESS
with Tim Russert
Welcome back to MEET THE PRESS.
(Sunday, Sept. 24, 2006)
MR. JOHN DANFORTH: Thank you.
MR. RUSSERT: You are a former United States senator, a former ambassador tothe United Nations, an ordained Episcopal priest, and you've written a bookon "Faith and Politics." And we take particular note of it this morningbecause of things that you have said. Let's share that with our viewers. "Bya series of recent initiatives, Republicans have transformed our party intothe political arm of conservative Christians. The elements of thistransformation have included advocacy of a constitutional amendment to bangay marriage, opposition to stem cell research involving both frozen embryosand human cells in petri dishes, and the extraordinary effort to keep TerriSchiavo hooked up to a feeding tube. Standing alone, each of theseinitiatives has its advocates, within the Republican Party and beyond. Butthe distinct elements do not stand alone. Rather they are parts of a largerpackage, an agenda of positions common to conservative Christians and thedominant wing of the Republican Party." You're suggesting the Christianright has taken over the Republican Party?
MR. DANFORTH: Yeah, I think it has. This is the base of the RepublicanParty, and the nature of politics in America now is to appeal to thepolitical base, to the exclusion of everybody else. I think that's what's-it'shappened in both parties, the Democrats have their base, our base is theChristian conservatives.
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Forwarded from Ron Mills
http://www.RonMills.us
Clinton V. Wallace Part Two
WALLACE: One of the main parts of the Global Initiative this year isreligion and reconciliation. President Bush says that the fight againstIslamic extremism is the central conflict of this century. And his answer ispromoting democracy and reform.
Do you think he has that right?
CLINTON: Sure. To advance - to advocate democracy and reform in the Muslimworld? Absolutely.
I think the question is, what's the best way to do it? I think also thequestion is, how do you educate people about democracy?Democracy is about way more than majority rule. Democracy is about minorityrights, individual rights, restraints on power. And there's more than oneway to advance democracy.
But do I think, on balance, that in the end, after several bouts withinstability - look how long it took us to build a maturedemocracy.
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http://www.local10.com/health/9927584/detail.html?treets=mia&tid=2655619429813&tml=mia_health&tmi=mia_health_1_11150209252006&ts=H
Survey Finds People Want Low-Cost, Guaranteed Health Care
POSTED: 10:05 am EDT September 25, 2006
WASHINGTON -- So what do Americans want when it comes to health care? Two
things, according to a citizens group created by Congress: protection forall from high medical expenses and guaranteed coverage for specific checkupsand treatments.
The group's call for universal health benefits will be delivered toPresident George W. Bush on Monday. But in many ways the recommendationsclash with Bush's stance that consumers should bear more responsibility fortheir initial medical expenses.
"Americans clearly want a system that guarantees health care for everyone,"said the Citizens' Health Care Working Group, whose 15 members representconsumers, the disabled, business, organized labor and health careproviders. Health and Human Services Secretary Mike Leavitt also is amember.
The president is expected to respond to the report, and five congressionalcommittees are to hold hearings on its findings.
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Forwarded from Ken's List <Kenneth.Sherrill@hunter.cuny.edu>
To: kenslist@groups.queernet.org
http://www.dfw.com/mld/dfw/news/local/states/texas/arlington/15600078.htm?source=rss&channel=dfw_arlington
Mansfield may get tough on adult businesses
MANSFIELD - The City Council will consider tougher regulations Monday nightthat would force adult businesses to close earlier, require their employeesto have work permits and make it easier for the city to define businesses assexually oriented.
The ordinance amendment would also ban nudity at businesses that servealcohol and forbid customers to tip performers directly.
The city currently has no topless bars, adult video stores or other such
businesses, but the city staff has drafted revisions, many from court-tested
ordinances of other cities, that would tighten city control over any that
try to move into Mansfield.
The changes were sparked by several residents who have spoken at councilmeetings since May, when an adult business was rumored to have inquiredabout a Mansfield site. Resident Barton Scott, who said he has researchedordinances of about 30 Texas cities, said the draft includes about 90percent of the provisions he suggested to city staff.
City Councilman Greg Kunasek said he welcomes the amendment and pointed toit as an example of how influential residents can be.
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