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http://www.salon.com/opinion/feature/2006/10/11/keillor/print.html
Salon
The all-time worst president
We should change Columbus Day to Bush Day, a cautionary holiday encouragingAmericans to meditate on the hazards of ambition.
By Garrison Keillor
Oct. 11, 2006 |
Oct. 12, the traditional Columbus Day, is a day to reflect on the nature ofcelebrity. Columbus was a pirate and tyrant who sailed off and bumped intothe Bahamas, had no idea where he was, and to his dying day believed he hadreached the Indies. By the time he arrived in the New World, America was oldnews to the Vikings. They already had that T-shirt.
Five hundred years before, the Vikings had been sailing the Atlantic withconfidence, making new friends and influencing people. Thorvald Asvaldssonsailed to Iceland in the 10th century with his son Erik the Red, afterthey'd been banished from Norway for manslaughter -- if you've ever been inan argument with Norwegians, you probably considered manslaughter too -- andfrom Iceland, Erik explored the icebound continent to the west, which henamed Greenland, for promotional purposes.
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Forwarded from Victoria Lavin
Daily Queer News
dailyqueernews@yahoo.com
http://www.toledoblade.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=2006610110353
The Toledo Blade
Article published October 11, 2006
Few youths opt out of military recruit lists
But number rising at area high schools
By IGNAZIO MESSINA
BLADE STAFF WRITER
Area school districts are reporting that more high school students than last year have chosen to keep their personal information out of the hands of military recruiters, but not in great numbers.
Toledo Public Schools, the region's largest at more than 29,500 students, sent letters to the homes of 9,000 high school students detailing their right to "opt out" of being on lists provided to the military under federal law.
The No Child Left Behind Act requires high schools to give military recruiters student phone numbers and addresses unless a parent files a written request to opt out.
Emilio Ramirez, director of pupil placement, said the response was not overwhelming.
The district received letters from 659 high school students. Of those, 527 wished to be excluded from any solicitation and 132 asked specifically to be kept off lists given to the military.
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Forwarded from Victoria Lavin
Daily Queer News
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http://www.ajc.com/news/content/shared-gen/ap/Middle_East/Iraqi_Death_Toll.html?cxntnid=amn101106e
2,660 Iraqi Civilians Killed in Sept.
By QASSIM ABDUL-ZAHRA and LEE KEATH
Associated Press Writers
BAGHDAD, Iraq - More than 2,660 Iraqi civilians were killed in the capitalin September amid a wave of sectarian killings and insurgent attacks, anincrease of 400 over the month before, according to figures from the IraqiHealth Ministry.
The increase came despite an intensified U.S.-Iraqi sweep of Baghdad thatwas launched in mid-August to try to put down the wave of violence that hasswept over the capital. The violence consists of a deadly combination ofbombings and shootings by Sunni insurgents, and slayings by Shiite and Sunnideath squads.
The September numbers come as a controversial new study contends that nearly655,000 Iraqis have died in the three-year-old conflict in Iraq - more than10 times higher than other independent estimates of the toll.
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Forwarded from Victoria Lavin
Daily Queer News
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http://ap.thekansan.com/stories/state/ks/20061011/107957970.shtml
Sebelius attacks Board of Ed, comparing it to Phelps
The Associated Press
TOPEKA, Kan. - Suggesting the state school board is like the Rev. Fred Phelps Sr. in the bad publicity it brings Kansas, Gov. Kathleen Sebelius is promising to push for constitutional changes to strip it of its power to set education policy.
Sebelius, a Democrat seeking a second term this year, criticized the Board of Education's 6-4 conservative majority - which will change next year because of elections this year - for drafting science standards seen as anti-evolution.
She said she will propose a constitutional amendment to allow the governor to appoint a secretary to oversee the Department of Education and make the 10-member board advisory. The constitution now says the board's 10 members are elected, and they appoint a commissioner of education to run the department.
Speaking on Tuesday to The Topeka Capital-Journal's editorial board, Sebelius said the board's actions on evolution last year embarrassed Kansas, just as the anti-gay picketing of Phelps and his Westboro Baptist Church does.
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http://www.newswithviews.com/Vieira/edwin48.htm
THE TIME TO ASSERT CHECKS AND BALANCES IS NOW
Dr. Edwin Vieira, Jr., Ph.D., J.D.
October 11, 2006
NewsWithViews.com
From every sector of America's political spectrum that contains people still capable of thinking rationally arise denunciations of the recently enacted Military Commissions Act. Beyond any doubt, major portions of that statute are blatantly unconstitutional.
Beyond any doubt, through those portions of the statute the individuals now controlling Congress and the Executive Branch have in effect declared war on constitutional government in this country. But the question remains: NOW WHAT?!
Exactly what are the American people going to do--what can they do--to reverse this latest outrage?
America's federal system is a government of checks and balances. If Congress and the Executive Branch are temporarily in the clutches of the Forces of Darkness, there remain the Supreme Court, the States, We the People as the Electorate, and We the People as "the Militia of the several States".
We the People cannot turn to "the Militia of the several States", because the Militia remain unorganized. My first book-length treatment of that problem is now close to publication. But, even if it were already in general circulation--and received with more than the yawns of disinterest that follow most calls for fundamental reform in this country--a long time would pass before its recommendations could be put into practice through statutes enacted in enough of the States.
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The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/12/opinion/12thu1.html
October 12, 2006
Editorial
The Age of Impunity
Sudan's leaders sent out a letter last week warning governments against volunteering their troops for a United Nations peacekeeping force for Darfur. Khartoum was obviously feeling cocky. But why shouldn't it? The Security Council - or more to the point, the big powers that run the Security Council - made clear that it won't send in troops to stop the genocide unless Sudan first agrees.
Then there's Iran, which is still defiantly enriching uranium. And the North Koreans, who blew off the rest of the world when they blew off what they said was a nuclear weapon this week.
Welcome to the new age of impunity.
It wasn't supposed to be this way. The Iraq war and President Bush's with-us-or-against-us war on terrorism was supposed to frighten the bad guys so much that they wouldn't dare cross the United States. But the opposite has happened. President Bush has squandered so much of America's moral authority - not to mention our military resources - that efforts to shame or bully the right behavior from adversaries (and allies) sound hollow.
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The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/12/us/politics/12cong.html?pagewanted=print
October 12, 2006
Foley Case Snags Incumbent in Ohio Race for House Seat
By ADAM NAGOURNEY
COLUMBUS, Ohio, Oct. 11 - Representative Deborah Pryce is a former municipal court judge, a Republican and a member of the House leadership who has represented her central Ohio district for 14 years. She is also friends with Mark Foley, the congressman who resigned in the page scandal, as she told Columbus Monthly for a feature it published just last month.
Ms. Pryce always thought she would have a difficult re-election campaign this year in a state raked by Republican scandals. But since Mr. Foley quit, she said in an interview on a tense day of campaigning here, her own internal polls have measured a steady drop in support under the weight of attacks by Mary Jo Kilroy, her Democratic opponent.
Ms. Kilroy has emphasized Ms. Pryce's connections to Mr. Foley, who was on a list of five people Ms. Pryce said she considered Washington friends in the Columbus Monthly interview.
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http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/10/11/AR2006101100317_pf.html
The Washington Post
Student Rebellion Boils Over At Gallaudet
Campus Shut Down; Arrests Threatened
By Susan Kinzie
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, October 12, 2006; A01
Protests over the next president at Gallaudet University intensified yesterday when the football team decided after midnight to join the demonstrations by blocking the campus gates, shutting down the school for the deaf.
As faculty pressure tightened on incoming president Jane K. Fernandes to resign before she takes office in January, she repeated her refusal to do so. Students angrily confronted longtime President I. King Jordan, alumni flocked to the campus and a counter-protest movement grew during a day of upheaval.
"I can't imagine a worse scenario," said David Ward, president of the American Council on Education. "I see nothing but an unhappy ending here."
The day forced a question: Just how much chaos can a school take?
Last night, Jordan issued a statement saying, "This illegal and unlawful behavior must stop," and he warned protesters that they face possible suspension and arrest.
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http://www.opednews.com/articles/opedne_thom_har_061010_how_the__22cons_22_are_s.htm
OpEdNews.Com
October 10, 2006
How the "Cons" Are Screwing Middle Class Children, Parents and Our Nation'sFuture by Destroying Public Education
By Thom Hartmann
Knowledge Is Power
One of the primary elements of a true, functioning, representativedemocratic republic, like we aim for here in the United States, is that itscitizens be well informed.
When Thomas Jefferson wrote a letter to his friend J. Correa de Serra onJanuary 28, 1786, and said, "Our liberty depends upon the freedom of thepress and that cannot be limited without being lost," he was assuming thatAmericans knew how to read their daily newspapers.
Not anymore. A 2005 study by the National Center for Education Statisticsrevealed that about 5 percent of the adults in the United States are notliterate in English, meaning 11 million people lack the skills to handlemany everyday tasks. Some 30 million adults, or 14 percent of thepopulation, have "below basic" skills in prose.
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The Washington Post
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/10/11/AR2006101101596_pf.html
Will Voters Pull the Trigger?
By David S. Broder
Thursday, October 12, 2006; A27
The old theater adage demands that if you show a pistol in Act 1, you'd better fire the gun in Act 3. That same wisdom applies to politics.
The voters have been pointing a symbolic gun at the Republican regime in Washington for many months now. All that remains is for them to pull the trigger on Election Day.
When you examine the latest round of preelection polls, what is striking is the stability of public attitudes over the preceding months. In this week's Post-ABC News poll, for example, President Bush has a job approval score of 39 percent, with 60 percent disapproving. Eleven months earlier, in November 2005, the scores were identical.
In between, Bush got up as high as 47 percent and fell as low as 33 percent. But at no time did more Americans approve of his job performance than disapprove.
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http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/printstory.mpl/metropolitan/4253295
Oct. 12, 2006, 5:39AM
CAMPAIGN 2006
'Foley fallout' forecast here, too
Some experts from both parties say races will be affected, but they disagree on how
By PEGGY FIKAC
Copyright 2006 Houston Chronicle Austin Bureau
AUSTIN - Disgraced Republican former Congressman Mark Foley of Florida maynot be mentioned by name in Texas campaign ads, but he will be a factor inthe upcoming election anyway, say some experts from both parties.
"It's not a matter of just one or two races. Every race. Because what itreally does is suppress turnout," said GOP consultant Royal Masset. "Ireally figure that Foley is probably at this point taking about 3 percentout of our vote. ... If people are just mad at Republicans, they're notgoing to vote."
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http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/12/us/12felons.html?pagewanted=print
October 12, 2006
States Are Growing More Lenient in Allowing Felons to Vote
By ERIK ECKHOLM
Legislatures in 16 states have loosened voting restrictions on felons overthe last decade, according to a new report, a trend hailed by some rightsadvocates as a step toward democratic principles and fairness, especiallyfor black Americans.
Because of their high incarceration rate, blacks are most affected by thevoting bans that vary widely among the states, with many barring currentinmates and parolees from voting until they have fulfilled their sentences,and some barring felons for life.
In recent years, Iowa, Nebraska and New Mexico have repealed their lifetimebans on voting by people who have been convicted of felonies, and severalother states made it easier for freed prisoners or those on probation tovote, according to the report, issued yesterday by the Sentencing Project, aliberal advocacy group in Washington.
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http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/10/11/AR2006101101640_pf.html
Reid Land Deal Under Scrutiny
Senator Confers With Ethics Panel on Disclosure Requirements
By Jeffrey H. Birnbaum
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, October 12, 2006; A03
Harry M. Reid of Nevada, the Senate's top Democrat, said yesterday that hewas in discussions with the chamber's ethics committee to determine whetherhe should amend his financial disclosure forms to include details of a realestate transaction that allowed him to collect $1.1 million.
The Associated Press reported that Reid gained a windfall from that sale ofland in 2004 even though he had not personally owned the property for theprevious three years. Reid also did not divulge the 2001 transfer of theland to a company he co-owned with a friend, a transaction that wouldnormally call for a mention in Senate financial disclosure documents, the APsaid.
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http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/10/11/AR2006101101672_pf.html
Scandal Sidelines Hastert, Reynolds
GOP Leaders Cut Campaign Appearances
By Juliet Eilperin
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, October 12, 2006; A06
Weeks before the Nov. 7 elections, the Mark Foley scandal and its aftermathhave already had a visible effect on Republican prospects: Speaker J. DennisHastert (R-Ill.) and Rep. Thomas M. Reynolds (R-N.Y.), the two men leadingthe GOP efforts to keep power in the House, have both been largely sidelinedfrom the public campaign.
Under normal circumstances, the House speaker and the chairman of theNational Republican Congressional Committee, currently Reynolds, would be ina full sprint in the closing weeks of an election campaign -- raising moneyand rallying partisans to help House members in the most competitive races.Both leaders, however, have drastically curtailed their appearances thismonth after coming under fire for what critics have called an inadequateresponse to early warnings about Foley's behavior with House pages.
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