Thursday, October 19, 2006

NATIONAL & WORLD DIGEST October 19, 2006

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Quiet Revolution.

Link - Quiet Revolution - an important documentary
http://www.afj.org/
An important documentary produced by Alliance for Justice, titled Quiet
Revolution.



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Forwarded from Kenneth Sherrill - Ken's List
Kenneth.Sherrill@hunter.cuny.edu
kenslist@groups.queernet.org


FBI director wants ISPs to track users

By Declan McCullagh

http://news.com.com/FBI+director+wants+ISPs+to+track+users/2100-7348_3-6126877.html

Story last modified Tue Oct 17 17:38:56 PDT 2006


FBI Director Robert Mueller on Tuesday called on Internet service providersto record their customers' online activities, a move that anticipates afierce debate over privacy and law enforcement in Washington next year.

"Terrorists coordinate their plans cloaked in the anonymity of the Internet,as do violent sexual predators prowling chat rooms," Mueller said in aspeech at the International Association of Chiefs of Police conference inBoston.

ISP snooping time line

In events that were first reported by CNET News.com, Bush administrationofficials have said Internet providers must keep track of what Americans aredoing online.



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The New York Times

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/19/opinion/19thu4.html?_r=1&oref=slogin&pagewanted=print


Behind the Veil


The way the issue of full-face veils has seized Britain, you would thinkveiled women were everywhere. In fact, one has to wonder how many areregularly encountered by Jack Straw, the leader of the House of Commons, orany other Briton.

Yet Mr. Straw's comments that the veil damages relations between people ofdifferent ethnic backgrounds has fired a furious debate, with Tony Blair andRomano Prodi, the British and Italian prime ministers, rising in agreementand Muslim leaders indignantly protesting. The issue in need of seriousdiscussion is not the niqab - the veil that covers all but a woman's eyes - but the larger question of the place of Europe's Muslim minority.

Even if Mr. Straw is correct in describing the niqab (used by a smallminority of European Muslims) as a barrier to assimilation, or tocommunication, it is still not the source of the current anxiety.



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The New York Times

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/19/us/19migrants.html?pagewanted=print


Flow of Immigrants' Money to Latin America Surges
By EDUARDO PORTER


There is a common cycle to immigration from Latin America. Immigrants arrivein the United States and quickly find work. Several months later - in thecase of illegal migrants, as soon as they have finished paying off thesmuggler who brought them across the border - they start sending money home.

According to a new report about immigrants' money transfers to LatinAmerica, the remittances flow from almost every state. Even in states thathad virtually no Latin American immigrants only a few years ago, likeMississippi and Pennsylvania, a growing trickle of money is making its waysouth to places like Tlalchapa, Mexico, or Panajachel, in the Guatemalanhighlands.




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The Washington Post

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/10/19/AR2006101900295_pf.html


One-Day Toll in Iraq Combat Is Highest for U.S. in Months
At Least 12 Killed in Fresh Attacks on Iraqi Police Facilities

By Ellen Knickmeyer
Washington Post Foreign Service
Thursday, October 19, 2006; 9:30 AM


BAGHDAD, Oct. 19 -- A roadside bombing and other attacks killed 10 Americantroops across Iraq on Tuesday, the U.S. military reported Wednesday, makingit the deadliest day of combat for U.S. forces in 10 months.

The one-day toll, part of what the U.S. military has said is a 43 percentincrease in attacks on U.S. and Iraqi forces in the capital since midsummer,occurred as casualties among Iraqi troops and civilians are soaring farhigher than at any previous time in the war, according to U.S. and Iraqitallies.



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The Washington Post

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/10/18/AR2006101801713_pf.html


Religion a Prominent Cloned-Food Issue

By Rick Weiss
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, October 19, 2006; A09


With federal officials close to approving the sale of meat and milk fromcloned livestock and their offspring, experts for and against that policysaid yesterday that such decisions should be based not only on the questionof human safety -- the criterion used by the Food and Drug Administration -- but also on issues of ethics and animal welfare.

"These are animals. They're not just economic units. . . . They're not justmachines," said Michael Appleby of the London-based World Society for theProtection of Animals.

Among the problems raised by the new technologies are how followers of somereligions will manage their strict dietary rules if, say, meat in stores ismade by a process deemed sinful or contains genes from an organism they arenot supposed to eat.



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The Washington Post

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/10/18/AR2006101801522_pf.html


Wal-Mart to Expand Generic Drug Program

By MARCUS KABEL
The Associated Press
Thursday, October 19, 2006; 1:09 AM


-- Wal-Mart Stores Inc. will announce Thursday it is expanding a programoffering $4 prescriptions for some generic drugs to 14 more states, twoweeks after rolling out the low-cost program in Florida.

Wal-Mart said Wednesday it would call news conferences in states fromVermont to Alaska but declined to say what they are about, except that theyinvolved "a major new initiative" for consumers.

One state official familiar with the expansion, who declined to be namedbecause the topic is supposed to be kept confidential, confirmed theannouncements would be about $4 generics coming to those states.



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The Washington Post

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/10/18/AR2006101801503_pf.html


Rummy's Other Role
The Perfect Scapegoat

By Sally Quinn
Thursday, October 19, 2006; A29


Don Rumsfeld is the shrewdest person in Washington. He understands betterthan anyone that somebody has to be in line to take the blame when things gowrong. So far he has been willing to do so. But not much longer.

The drumbeat to get him out of the Pentagon has reached deafeningproportions. Republicans and Democrats, the generals, the media, ColinPowell, Condi Rice, Andy Card, the first President Bush, and even Laura Bushall want him gone. Until now George W. Bush has resisted all of the pressureto get rid of his defense secretary. But those in the know say that thepresident may have reached the point where he realizes that Rumsfeld hasoutlived his usefulness.



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The Washington Post

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/10/18/AR2006101801501_pf.html


The Unlearned Lessons of Abu Ghraib

By Christopher Graveline
Thursday, October 19, 2006; A29


President Bush has signed into law Congress's latest attempt to clarify ourcountry's position on proper treatment of detainees and the boundaries oflegitimate interrogation techniques. Unfortunately, this legislationdemonstrates that both the administration and Congress have failed to learnimportant lessons from what Bush described as the "biggest mistake that'shappened so far" in Iraq: the detainee abuses at Abu Ghraib.

By dissociating potential criminal responsibility from overly aggressiveinterrogation practices that could be classified as "minor" breaches of theGeneva Conventions, and setting up a situation in which differentinterrogation practices can be used by our military and the CIA, ournational leadership has ensured more abuse scandals.

As part of the Army judge advocate general team investigating andprosecuting the Abu Ghraib soldiers, I crisscrossed the globe interviewingwitnesses, collecting documents and studying our national policies,searching for went wrong at that prison. The evidence demonstrated that mostof the photographed abuse had little or nothing to do with interrogation; itwas done for sport by prison guards. But we also found disturbing conduct bymilitary and civilian interrogators.



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The Washington Post

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/10/18/AR2006101801500_pf.html


A Military Path to Citizenship

By Max Boot and Michael O'Hanlon
Thursday, October 19, 2006; A29


America is a land of immigrants. Their spirit of resolve, adventure, hardwork and devotion to an idea bigger than themselves has made this countrygreat. Whatever one thinks of the immigration debate today, particularly theproblem of illegal immigrants, foreigners have played a central role in thebuilding ofAmerica. Many have done so as soldiers, among them Baron von Steuben and theMarquis de Lafayette in the War of Independence.

Now is the time to consider a new chapter in the annals of Americanimmigration. By inviting foreigners to join the U.S. armed forces inexchange for a promise of citizenship after a four-year tour of duty, wecould continue to attract some of the world's most enterprising, selflessand talented individuals. We could provide a new path toward assimilationfor undocumented immigrants who are already here but lack the prerequisitefor enlistment -- a green card. And we could solve the No. 1 problem facingthe Army and Marine Corps: the fact that these services need to grow to meetcurrent commitments yet cannot easily do so (absent a draft) given thecurrent recruiting environment.



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The Washington Post

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/10/18/AR2006101801499_pf.html


Congress's Dismal Grades

By David S. Broder
Thursday, October 19, 2006; A29


The editors of National Journal, a respected and independent Washingtonpublication, had the smart idea of inviting 11 distinguished economists tofill out a score card on the economic performance of the RepublicanCongress. The grades are published in the latest issue of the weeklymagazine.

The economists were asked to score Congress in seven categories, usingletter grades. The composite score of four categories was a C, meaningaverage by historical standards. Two got a B-minus and one a D. Not exactlya huge vote of confidence.

Who were these 11 judges? National Journal describes them as "prominent'nonaligned' economists -- people who, by virtue of their work and longcareers outside of politics, have earned reputations for deliveringunvarnished analysis of economic policy."



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The New York Times

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/19/washington/19ney.html?ei=5094&en=f26a91f8d97bc919&hp=&ex=1161316800&partner=homepage&pagewanted=print


October 19, 2006
Bob Ney, Guilty but Still at Capitol
By PHILIP SHENON
WASHINGTON, Oct. 18 - Representative Bob Ney is headed to prison early nextyear after pleading guilty to charges of accepting tens of thousands ofdollars in illegal gifts from lobbyists. Until then, Mr. Ney, a six-termRepublican from Ohio, has a comfortable place to bide his time.

His Congressional office - the one that he has effectively acknowledgedselling to the highest bidder - is open for business.

"The office of Congressman Bob Ney," his telephone receptionist said in acheery voice Tuesday morning, as if nothing had happened to her boss, thefirst member of Congress to confess to crimes involving the corrupt lobbyistJack Abramoff.

Mr. Ney's brass nameplate still hangs on the wall next to the heavy woodendoors of Room 2438 in the Rayburn House office building, just across thestreet from the Capitol, and it is likely to remain there for at least a fewmore weeks.



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The New York Times

http://select.nytimes.com/2006/10/19/opinion/19herbert.html?pagewanted=print

October 19, 2006
Op-Ed Columnist
Young, Cold and for Sale
By BOB HERBERT
Atlanta

The girl approached me on a desolate stretch of Metropolitan Parkway, abouthalfway between the airport and the clustered lights of the downtownskyline. The night was unusually cold and she was shivering a little. Shetold me she was 15, but she didn't look more than 12.

It was bad enough that the child was outside at all at midnight. The factthat she was turning tricks was heartbreaking. I explained that I was areporter for The New York Times and asked if she would wait while I went toget someone to help her. She looked surprised. "I don't need any help," shesaid.

I had already spent a night traveling with undercover vice cops, and theyhad pointed out the different neighborhoods in which under-age prostitutes,some as young as 10, roamed the streets.



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The New York Times

http://select.nytimes.com/2006/10/19/opinion/19brooks.html


October 19, 2006
Op-Ed Columnist
Run, Barack, Run
By DAVID BROOKS
Springfield, Illinois

Barack Obama should run for president.

He should run first for the good of his party. It would demoralize theDemocrats to go through a long primary season with the most exciting figurein the party looming off in the distance like some unapproachable dream. Thenext Democratic nominee should either be Barack Obama or should have thestature that would come from defeating Barack Obama.

Second, he should run because of his age. Obama's inexperience is his mostobvious shortcoming. Over the next four years, the world could face agenocidal civil war in Iraq, a wave of nuclear proliferation, more Islamicextremism and a demagogues' revolt against globalization. Do we really wanta forty-something in the White House?

And yet in his new book, "The Audacity of Hope," Obama makes a strongcounterargument. He notes that it's time to move beyond the political styleof the baby boom generation. This is a style, he said in an interview lateTuesday, that is highly moralistic and personal, dividing people between whois good and who is bad.



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The New York Times

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/19/opinion/19thu1.html?pagewanted=print


October 19, 2006
Editorial

A Dangerous New Order

Once President Bush signed the new law on military tribunals, administrationofficials and Republican leaders in Congress wasted no time giving Americansa taste of the new order created by this unconstitutional act.

Within hours, Justice Department lawyers notified the federal courts thatthey no longer had the authority to hear pending lawsuits filed by attorneyson behalf of inmates of the penal camp at Guantánamo Bay. They citedpassages in the bill that suspend the fundamental principle of habeascorpus, making Mr. Bush the first president since the Civil War to take thatundemocratic step.

Not satisfied with having won the vote, Dennis Hastert, the speaker of theHouse, quickly issued a statement accusing Democrats who opposed theMilitary Commissions Act of 2006 of putting "their liberal agenda ahead ofthe security of America." He said the Democrats "would gingerly pamper theterrorists who plan to destroy innocent Americans' lives" and create "newrights for terrorists."



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The Boston Globe

http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2006/10/19/us_silence_is_deadly?mode=PF

ROBERT I. ROTBERG
US silence is deadly
By Robert I. Rotberg | October 19, 2006

WASHINGTON needs to learn to talk, listen, and engage more and condemn less.

It understood those wise nostrums in the first phase of Afghan interventionin 2001, when it worked hand-in-glove with the Northern Alliance anddiscreetly and astutely let Afghans organize their own loya jirga and theinterim government that followed. But it has stiffed an initiallycooperative Syria, missed opportunities when a mildly reformist leader waspresident of Iran, and rebuffed President Kim Jong-Il of North Korea at atime when, arguably, he was hungering for reassurance and discussion.

Given their dramatic posturing and generally roguish behavior, the UnitedStates may be unable in the short term to find appropriate ways to engageNorth Korea and Iran in meaningful dialogue. It might still be able toinduce President Bashir al-Assad of Syria to pursue the best interests ofboth Syria and the United States. Indeed, Syria is as anxious about the riseof Iran as the United States is. Nor does it want Hezbollah and Hamas, nowemboldened, to move too far out in front of its own regional policymachinations.




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The Washington Post

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/10/18/AR2006101801100_pf.html

Clinton Lists Differences With GOP, Administration

By Dan Balz
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, October 19, 2006; A04



Former president Bill Clinton said yesterday that the governing Republicanmajority has abandoned the common good in favor of ideologically drivenpolitics that demonize its opponents, has forced ordinary Americans to fendfor themselves and has too often left the United States isolatedinternationally.

Speaking three weeks before the midterm elections, Clinton used a lengthyspeech looking back at his own administration to offer sharp contrastsbetween the approach of Democrats in the 1990s and that of Republicans sincePresident Bush took office more than five years ago.

"They believe the country is best served by the maximum concentration ofwealth and power in the hands of the right people," he told a mostly studentaudience at Georgetown University. "Right in both senses."



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The Washington Post

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/10/18/AR2006101801679.html


Moderates in Kansas Decide They're Not in GOP Anymore

By Peter Slevin
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, October 19, 2006; A01



WICHITA -- Paul Morrison, a career prosecutor who specializes in puttingkillers behind bars, has the bulletproof résumé and the rugged looks of alaw-and-order Republican, which is what he was until last year. That waswhen he announced he would run for attorney general -- as a Democrat.

He is now running neck-and-neck with Republican Phill Kline, an iconicsocial conservative who made headlines by seeking the names ofabortion-clinic patients and vowing to defend science-teaching standardsthat challenge Darwinian evolution. What's more, Morrison is raising moneyfaster than Kline and pulling more cash from Republicans than Democrats.



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The Washington Post


http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/10/18/AR2006101801681_pf.html


Evangelicals Broaden Their Moral Agenda

By Alan Cooperman
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, October 19, 2006; A19



Evangelical Christian leaders are tackling a growing list of domestic andinternational issues, such as genocide in Darfur and global warming, despitedissension in their ranks over whether this broader moral agenda will dilutetheir political power just before crucial elections.

Yesterday, two dozen prominent evangelicals issued a joint appeal forPresident Bush to take the lead in sending a multinational, U.N.-backedpeacekeeping force into the Darfur region of Sudan. They included not justliberal religious leaders but also several notable conservatives, includingthe Rev. Richard Land of the Southern Baptist Convention and the Rev. TedHaggard, president of the National Association of Evangelicals.



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The New York Times

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/19/opinion/19thu1.html?pagewanted=print


October 19, 2006
Editorial
A Dangerous New Order

Once President Bush signed the new law on military tribunals, administrationofficials and Republican leaders in Congress wasted no time giving Americansa taste of the new order created by this unconstitutional act.

Within hours, Justice Department lawyers notified the federal courts thatthey no longer had the authority to hear pending lawsuits filed by attorneyson behalf of inmates of the penal camp at Guantánamo Bay. They citedpassages in the bill that suspend the fundamental principle of habeascorpus, making Mr. Bush the first president since the Civil War to take thatundemocratic step.

Not satisfied with having won the vote, Dennis Hastert, the speaker of theHouse, quickly issued a statement accusing Democrats who opposed theMilitary Commissions Act of 2006 of putting "their liberal agenda ahead ofthe security of America."


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Forwarded from Victoria Lavin
Daily Queer News
dailyqueernews@yahoo.com



http://www.alternet.org/stories/42644/

'Gifted Child Industry' Preys on Parents' Insecurities
By Helaine Olen, AlterNet

Posted on October 18, 2006, Printed on October 18, 2006

http://www.alternet.org/story/42644/

Of all the myriad people I've met through my children, there is still onetype I'm waiting to encounter: The parent of an average child. Kids are allspecial these days, it seems, needing enrichment toys as infants, musicclasses as toddlers and intensive academics when they are in school. How didwe get to this pass?

Alissa Quart takes us on a journey to the dark heart of the parentingmeritocracy in her new book, "Hothouse Kids: The Dilemma of the GiftedChild." In her view, an increased emphasis on the early years of childhoodby sociologists and educators coalesced with parental fears of failingschools and a faltering economy sometime in the mid- to late 1990s. Stir insome astute marketing by firms such as the Baby Einstein Co. and you havethe makings of modern American childhood, a period marked by an increasedemphasis on study and structured activity and less on play. Or at least it'sthat was for upper-middle-class progeny, the ones with parents who have theextra money to buy their kids extra attention and services.




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Forwarded from Victoria Lavin
Daily Queer News
dailyqueernews@yahoo.com

http://www.capitolhillblue.com/content/2006/10/in_the_end_the.html

In the end, the result will be an echo, not a change
October 18, 2006 6:09 AM | Rant | 35 Comments .

By DOUG THOMPSON


Yes, it's true. I don't like Republicans. I used to work for them, evenbelieved in some of their more laudable goals, like smaller, leanergovernment and less intrusion into the private lives of citizens.

But I don't like Democrats either. In fact, I don't much care for anyone whotrumpets affiliation with a political party as a badge of honor. Too manypeople, in my opinion, place political affiliation above country and replacelogic with illogical belief in propagandistic pap from party leaders.

Republicans in 1994 got a chance to prove they could restore some semblanceof integrity to the people's government. They blew it, proving themselveseven worse than the corrupt Democratic leadership they replaced.

Now Democrats are poised to retake control of Congress and they, like theRepublicans 12 years ago, promise to bring honesty and integrity back togovernment.



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Forwarded from Victoria Lavin
Daily Queer News
dailyqueernews@yahoo.com


http://www.cnsnews.com/ViewPolitics.asp?Page=/Politics/archive/200610/POL20061018b.html


Impeachment Drumbeat Grows Louder
By Susan Jones
CNSNews.com Senior Editor
October 18, 2006

(CNSNews.com) - For a variety of reasons, Democrats are criticizing themilitary tribunals bill that President Bush signed into law on Tuesday -- but it's the "stealth pardon" for "war crimes" allegedly committed byPresident Bush and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld that upsets oneDemocrat the most.

Former U.S. Rep. Elizabeth Holtzman, a New York Democrat and a Bushimpeachment advocate, issued a news release on Tuesday, saying thatPresident Bush, by signing the military tribunals bill, "has created a"culture of impunity" for himself and others who allowed the "torture and abuse of detainees," such as that at Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison.



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Forwarded from Victoria Lavin
Daily Queer News
dailyqueernews@yahoo.com

http://www.cnsnews.com/ViewPolitics.asp?Page=/Politics/archive/200610/POL20061018a.html

Military Tribunal Law: 'Stealth Pardon' or 'Standing Tall'?


By Randy Hall
CNSNews.com Staff Writer/Editor
October 18, 2006

(CNSNews.com) - When President Bush signed the Military Commissions Act of2006 into law on Tuesday, he unleashed a firestorm of reaction that rangedfrom accusations that the measure provides Bush administration officialswith "a stealth pardon" for war crimes to comments that the law shows theU.S. is "standing tall in the war on terror."

"It is a rare occasion when a president can sign a bill he knows will saveAmerican lives," the president said before signing the military tribunallaw, which he called "one of the most important pieces of legislation in thewar on terror."


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