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http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2006/09/27/05whatif.h26.html?levelId=1000&rale2=KQE5d7nM%2FXAYPsVRXwnFWYRqIIX2bhy1%2BKNA5buLAWGoKt77XHI2terRpWBSgktL4bXgTCDsilGw%0AZfzBOXMobf7Vv9N2Kq%2BmOGCox4W7qofh%2F9BFEakU7ZHII%2Fmu01CUEpLNhfZ%2FY5RTSAFMoROfwTsH%0AAsyDLJnT9czpjKHi7khQUPRB5iYdt6fp1MhabDAuoZ2%2Fu1v4j%2BovPf1Z12DHP%2BH%2F0EURqRTtkcgj%0A%2Ba7TUJQeYmNFXnHsAfaK7IXNewERJkjOda2rzSA%2B3OCj%2BvO831s9poYBSvNcyXJfTSjmSJkJQm4G%0AxM3OrIrUticW1tX8tv3FV8fLj4%2FDOMwUxgylH3j2RbdxlZAjMat8lInXJPumlvegeQ08Fkg9Nmau%0APZcuuq%2FYEhd1uWiRyCP5rtNQlGQmorKkjSeK4aSRVu4LyeXkqhiUNhQ1QoSrVNOpQdeB6jlajB%2Bj%0AR9SpXoVp1Aki6OSqGJQ2FDVChKtU06lB14GCeFRRf7HABAJGR9q9MpaKBn%2FILJyqNlEPFqQ0Z3Lk%0Au72SAxxsAEIoYw0RSPzBxmb6ewGJ%2B%2BewBivZOjy%2B5jseZcIr8XhnUJRjyse%2BCh1lIokPLUVQ0QpL%0AzzogQK5mBM%2F%2BrUwRBTlgSL%2FEO40ulCl1iiyeTqzq%2F5aIaU7N9NI4HmTNf8cR7eCI7gdvrDVpxzrj%0AwgWBXz9rgG7XAbarHH1gNEhtI7A0smyMBXJHsro%2B0A%3D%3D
Published: September 27, 2006
Political Shift Could Temper NCLB Resolve
If Democrats Take House or Senate, Uncertainty Ahead
By Alyson Klein
The two top Democratic lawmakers on education policy have signaled that if their party regains control of one or both houses of Congress in November, they will seek to retain the core accountability features of the federal No Child Left Behind Act.
Sen. Edward M. Kennedy of Massachusetts and Rep. George Miller of California would likely support more funding for the law, while seeking to keep its requirements that schools test students annually and be held accountable for the results.
The two, who were among the architects of the bipartisan law five years ago, have continued to champion its central provisions in the face of vocal opposition. A big question is whether rank-and-file Democrats, as well as some senior members who would likely assume other key education posts in a Democratic takeover, share Sen. Kennedy's and Rep. Miller's commitment to keeping the law largely intact.
"The bloom has come off the rose for many Democrats and Republicans since the law was signed" by President Bush in January 2002, said Michael D. Casserly, the executive director of the Council of the Great City Schools, a Washington group representing more than 60 large urban school districts. "Support for the legislation in Congress appears to be not as great as it was when the initial votes were taken."
Political analysts suggest that the 2006 midterm elections offer Democrats their best chance in years of retaking one or both chambers of Congress. If the Democrats assume control of the House of Representatives or the Senate, these members are poised to take on leadership roles on education policy over the next two years.
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http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/news/special_packages/5min/15617003.htm?template=contentModules/printstory.jsp
HEALTHCARE
Health insurance cost hikes drop, but still twice pay raises
Healthcare insurance increases slower -- but still twice as high as salary increases and inflation.
BY JOHN DORSCHNER
jdorschner@MiamiHerald.com
The expensive growth in employers' health insurance premiums continues to slow, but it is still twice the inflation rate, the Kaiser Family Foundationreported Tuesday in its annual survey.
After years of double-digit increases, hitting 13.9 percent in 2003,premiums in 2006 went up only 7.7 percent, the third straight year ofdeclining increases, according to Kaiser's national survey of more than2,000 employers.
The national findings appear to mirror what's happening locally.
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http://insidehighered.com/news/2006/09/27/spellings
Sept. 27
The Sounds of Conciliation
Maybe it was because she was facing a room full of college presidents and higher education association types. Maybe Margaret Spellings bought into the adage that you get more flies with honey than with vinegar. Or maybe, just maybe, college leaders were prepared for the worst and got something better.
Whatever the case, the education secretary's eagerly awaited speech Tuesday laying out her agenda for carrying out the work of the federal commission she appointed last year - arguably the most significant higher education speech thus far in the Bush administration - was warmly received by many if not most college leaders, who said they were struck by its conciliatory tone and a plan that put cooperation ahead of confrontation. (An article focused on the content of the speech appeared on Inside Higher Ed yesterday.)
"I saw it as a reaching out, and I'm confident the higher education community will reach out" in return, said David Ward, president of the American Council on Education, who was the only member of Spellings's Commission on the Future of Higher Education not to sign its final report. Ward said Tuesday that he had made that decision partly because its work and its final report had left him concerned that when Spellings and other policy makers got their hands on it, they would "rush to some implementation" of ideas that were not ready for prime time and it would become a question of "who would do what to whom."
But the education secretary's speech, which offered a relatively short list of "action items" and, Ward noted, made repeated references to "dialogue" and "discourse," set out on a very different path, he said, and is likely to make college leaders much less fearful of having unpopular dictates imposed on them. "I feel I can bring a lot more people into the tent than I did after the commission finished its report," Ward said.
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http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/09/26/AR2006092601137_pf.html
The Big Question Democrats Are Ducking
By David Ignatius
Wednesday, September 27, 2006; A27
No matter how you slice it, the National Intelligence Estimate warning thatthe Iraq war has spawned more terrorism is big trouble for President Bushand his party in this election year. It goes to the heart of Bush's argument for invading Iraq, which was that it would make America safer.
Many Democrats act as if that's the end of the discussion: A mismanaged occupation has created a breeding ground for terrorists, so we shouldwithdraw and let the Iraqis sort out the mess. Some extreme war critics areso angry at Bush they seem almost eager for America to lose, to prove apolitical point. Even among mainstream Democrats, the focus is "gotcha!"rather than "what next?" That is understandable, given the partisanship ofRepublican attacks, but it isn't right.
The issue raised by the National Intelligence Estimate is much grimmer thanthe domestic political game. Iraq has fostered a new generation ofterrorists. The question is what to do about that threat. How can Americaprevent Iraq from becoming a safe haven where the newly hatched terroristswill plan Sept. 11-scale attacks that could kill thousands of Americans? Howdo we restabilize a Middle East that today is dangerously unbalanced because of America's blunders in Iraq?
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http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/09/26/AR2006092601138_pf.html
The 'Moderate Republican' Scam
By Harold Meyerson
Wednesday, September 27, 2006; A27
Sen. Lincoln Chafee, Republican of Rhode Island, is seeking reelection in his heavily Democratic state by insisting he's not really a Republican, orat least not part of the gang responsible for the decade's debacles. Hedidn't even vote for George W. Bush in 2004, he protests. He cast his votefor George H.W. Bush -- a kinder, gentler, more prudent, less strident Republican.
Big deal.
It matters not a damn whom Lincoln Chafee chose to support for president. His vote was one of roughly 435,000 cast in Rhode Island in the 2004presidential election, and roughly 122 million cast nationwide. The electionin which his vote did matter was that for majority leader of the Senate.There, he was one of just 100 electors, in a Senate nearly evenly divided.After this November's elections, control of the Senate may well hang by a single vote.
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http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/09/26/AR2006092601765_pf.html
West Point Mourns a Font Of Energy, Laid to Rest by War
By Joshua Partlow and Lonnae O'Neal Parker
Washington Post Staff Writers
Wednesday, September 27, 2006; A01
WEST POINT, N.Y., Sept. 26 -- They remember Emily Perez in her many bursts of motion: the diminutive young woman calling out orders to the freshmancadets on the castled military campus of West Point.
They see her sprinting the third leg for Army's 400-meter relay team. Or inthe school's gospel choir, filling her lungs and opening her mouth to sing.
Emily J.T. Perez, a determined 23-year-old from Prince George's County, roseto the top of her high school class and then became the first minorityfemale command sergeant in the history of the U.S. Military Academy.
Now she has another distinction. The second lieutenant was buried Tuesday atthe academy, the first female graduate of West Point to die in Iraq. Perez,a platoon leader, was killed while patrolling southern Iraq near Najaf onSept. 12 when a roadside bomb exploded under her Humvee.
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http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/27/education/27spellings.html?pagewanted=print
September 27, 2006
Secretary Vows to Improve Results of Higher Education
By SAM DILLON
WASHINGTON, Sept. 26 - Saying she hoped to jolt American higher educationout of a dangerous complacency, Secretary of Education Margaret Spellingsvowed Tuesday to help finance state universities that administerstandardized tests, establish a national database to track students'progress toward a degree and cut the red tape surrounding federal studentaid.
In a speech, Ms. Spellings emphasized those and a few other measures fromamong dozens of recommendations issued recently by a federal panel, theCommission on the Future of Higher Education.
"This is the beginning of a process of long-overdue reform," Ms. Spellingstold a crowd of university presidents, business executives, lobbyists andjournalists in a speech that her department billed as one in which she wouldoutline her agenda for change at the nation's colleges and universities.
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http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/09/26/AR2006092600530_pf.html
Sobering Conclusions On Why Jihad Has Spread
By Karen DeYoung and Walter Pincus
Washington Post Staff Writers
Wednesday, September 27, 2006; A21
In announcing yesterday that he would release the key judgments of acontroversial National Intelligence Estimate, President Bush said he agreedwith the document's conclusion "that because of our successes against theleadership of al-Qaeda, the enemy is becoming more diffuse and independent."
But the estimate itself posits no such cause and effect. Instead, while it notes that counter terrorism efforts have seriously damaged and disruptedal-Qaeda's leadership, it describes the spreading "global jihadist movement"as fueled largely by forces that al-Qaeda exploits but is not activelydirecting. They include Iraq, corrupt and unjust governments inMuslim-majority countries, and "pervasive anti-U.S. sentiment among most Muslims."
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http://www.suntimes.com/lifestyles/health/72296,CST-NWS-gaygene26.article
Antarctic Ozone Hole Nears Record, U.N. Agency Says
September 25, 2006 - By Reuters
GENEVA - The hole over Antarctica's ozone layer is bigger than last year and is nearing the record 29-million-square-km (11-million-sq-mile) hole seen in2000, the World Meteorological Organisation said on Friday.
Geir Braathen, the United Nations weather agency's top ozone expert, saidozone depletion had a late onset in this year's southern hemisphere winter,when low temperatures normally trigger chemical reactions that break downthe atmospheric layer that filters dangerous solar radiation.
"The ozone depletion started quite late, but when it started it came quiterapidly," Braathen told journalists in Geneva.
"It (the hole) has now risen to a level that has passed last year's, and isvery close to, if not equal to, the ozone hole size of 2003, and also approaching the size of 2000," he said.
The Antarctic ozone hole was at its second-largest in 2003.
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http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/27/washington/27ballots.html?_r=1&oref=slogin&pagewanted=print
September 27, 2006
Bill Would Reimburse States for Printing Alternate Ballots
By IAN URBINA
WASHINGTON, Sept. 26 - Three Senate Democrats proposed emergency legislationon Tuesday to reimburse states for printing paper ballots in case of problems with electronic voting machines on Nov. 7.
The proposal is a response to grass-roots pressures and growing concern bylocal and state officials about touch-screen machines.An estimated 40 percent of voters will use those machines in the election.
"If someone asks for a paper ballot, they ought to be able to have it," saidSenator Barbara Boxer of California, a co-sponsor of the measure withSenators Christopher J. Dodd of Connecticut and Russell D. Feingold ofWisconsin.
Republican leadership aides were skeptical about the prospects for themeasure. It would have to advance without opposition from any senator andthen make it through the House in the short time available before ElectionDay.
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http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/27/washington/27hillary.html?pagewanted=print
September 27, 2006
Clinton Defends Husband's Tack, Adding That All Democrats Should Take a Hint
By RAYMOND HERNANDEZ
WASHINGTON, Sept. 26 - The war of words between the Bush administration and the Clintons intensified on Tuesday as Senator Hillary Rodham Clintonsuggested that her husband would have reacted differently as president if hehad heard the same warnings about Osama bin Laden's plans that PresidentBush had access to before 9/11.
In unusually blunt terms, Senator Clinton questioned the currentadministration's response to an intelligence briefing President Bushreceived about a month before the 9/11 attacks. It mentioned that Al Qaedawas intent on striking the United States using hijacked planes.
"I'm certain that if my husband and his national security team had beenshown a classified report entitled 'Bin Laden Determined to Attack Insidethe United States,' he would have taken it more seriously than historysuggests it was taken by our current president and his national securityteam," she said during an appearance on Capitol Hill.
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http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/09/26/AR2006092600158_pf.html
Enron's Fastow Gets 6 Years
Finance Chief's Sentence Reflects His Help Convicting Lay, Skilling
By Carrie Johnson
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, September 27, 2006; D01
HOUSTON, Sept. 26 -- Andrew S. Fastow, the finance chief who helped Enron Corp. mislead investors at the same time he stole millions of dollars from the company, was sentenced Tuesday to six years in prison by a judge who said Fastow deserved mercy because of "exceptional" government cooperation and the toll on his family.
U.S. District Judge Kenneth M. Hoyt significantly discounted the 10-year prison term spelled out in Fastow's plea deal with the Justice Department two years ago. The judge said that Fastow, 44, had been "the subject of great persecution," including threats and religious slurs, as the primary scapegoat for an accounting fraud that cost thousands of employees of the Houston energy company their jobs and retirement savings.
Disclosures nearly five years ago about Fastow's questionable business partnerships foreshadowed not only Enron's bankruptcy but also a string of corporate fraud cases across the country. Federal prosecutors said Tuesday that the Enron debacle remained the largest such investigation in history and that Fastow's help unlocked the case, giving them a priceless window onto the 50th floor of the company's gleaming office tower.
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http://www.toledoblade.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=2006609260303
Article published September 26, 2006
Abuse by military recruiters
"WAR is hell," the saying goes. But what happens when even the road to war is paved with hellish intentions?
Women who want nothing more than to serve their country in the armed forcesof the United States have to deal with a frontline menace more immediatethan al-Qaeda. According to an investigative report by the Associated Pressand studies by the Government Accountability Office, sexual misconduct bymilitary recruiters is a bigger problem than many imagine.
More than 100 women who showed an interest in joining the military werevictimized last year by their recruiters. At the same time, according to theAP, 80 recruiters were disciplined for sexual misconduct with potentialenlistees.
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vhttp://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-military25sep25,0,5555967.story?coll=la-home-headlines
Army Warns Rumsfeld It's Billions Short
An extraordinary action by the chief of staff sends a message: The Pentagon must increase the budget or reduce commitments in Iraq and elsewhere.
By Peter Spiegel
Times Staff Writer
September 25, 2006
WASHINGTON - The Army's top officer withheld a required 2008 budget planfrom Pentagon leaders last month after protesting to Defense SecretaryDonald H. Rumsfeld that the service could not maintain its current level ofactivity in Iraq plus its other global commitments without billions inadditional funding.
The decision by Gen. Peter J. Schoomaker, the Army's chief of staff, isbelieved to be unprecedented and signals a widespread belief within the Armythat in the absence of significant troop withdrawals from Iraq, fundingassumptions must be completely reworked, say current and former Pentagonofficials.
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http://www.rawstory.com/printstory.php?story=3323
Senior intel official: Pentagon moves to second-stage planning for Iran strike option
09/21/2006 @ 10:55 am
Filed by Larisa Alexandrovna
The Pentagon's top brass has moved into second-stage contingency planningfor a potential military strike on Iran, one senior intelligence official familiar with the plans tells RAW STORY.
The official, who is close to the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the highest rankingofficials of each branch of the US military, says the Chiefs have startedwhat is called "branches and sequels" contingency planning.
"The JCS has accepted the inevitable," the intelligence official said, "andis engaged in serious contingency planning to deal with the worst casescenarios that the intelligence community has been painting."
A second military official, although unfamiliar with these latest scenarios,said there is a difference between contingency planning -- which hedescribed as "what if, then what" planning -- and "branches and sequels,"which takes place after an initial plan has been decided upon.
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Subject: Bush's Hypocrisy - Keith Olbermann Commentary On Countdown, MSNBC
A Textbook Definition Of Cowardice & Bill Clinton's Fox News Interview
Date: Tue, 26 Sep 2006
From: The Whimsy LOOPS
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/15004160/
MSNBC News
September 26, 2006
A textbook definition of cowardice
Keith Olbermann comments on Bill Clinton's Fox News interview
SPECIAL COMMENT
By: Keith Olbermann, Anchor, 'Countdown' MSNBC
The headlines about them are, of course, entirely wrong.
It is not essential that a past president, bullied andsandbagged by a monkey posing as a newscaster, finallylashed back.
It is not important that the current President's portablepublic chorus has described his predecessor's tone as"crazed."
Our tone should be crazed. The nation's freedoms areunder assault by an administration whose policies cando us as much damage as al Qaida; the nation's marketplaceof ideas is being poisoned by a propaganda company soblatant that Tokyo Rose would've quit.
Nonetheless. The headline is this:
Bill Clinton did what almost none of us have done infive years.
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