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The Washington Post
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/10/26/AR2006102601521_pf.html
Cheney's Remarks Fuel Torture Debate
Critics Say He Backed Waterboarding
By Dan Eggen
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, October 27, 2006; A09
Vice President Cheney said this week that dunking terrorism suspects inwater during questioning was a "no-brainer," prompting complaints from humanrights advocates that he was endorsing the use of a controversial techniqueknown as waterboarding on prisoners held by the United States.
In an interview Tuesday with Scott Hennen, a conservative radio show hostfrom Fargo, N.D., Cheney agreed with Hennen's assertion that "a dunk inwater" may yield valuable intelligence from terrorism suspects. He alsoreferred to information gleaned from Khalid Sheik Mohammed, the capturedarchitect of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, but stopped short of explicitlysaying what techniques were used.
"Would you agree a dunk in water is a no-brainer if it can save lives?"Hennen asked.
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The Washington Post
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/10/26/AR2006102601253.html
Winning by Losing
By Charles Krauthammer
Friday, October 27, 2006; A23
When, just a week ago, Barack Obama showed a bit of ankle and declared themere possibility of his running for the presidency, the chattering classesswooned. Now that every columnist in the country has given him advice,here's mine: He should run in '08. He will lose in '08. And the loss willput him irrevocably on a path to the presidency.
Obama's political challenge is to turn his current fame and sizzle, whichwill undoubtedly dissipate, into something concrete. In physics, it's theproblem of converting kinetic energy into potential energy: Use the rocketfuel behind his current popularity to propel him to a higher national planefrom which he would eventually move almost laterally to the presidency.
The reasons for running are clear.
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The Washington Post
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/10/26/AR2006102601257_pf.html
In Michigan, a Sale the GOP Can't Close
By E. J. Dionne Jr.
Friday, October 27, 2006; A23
HOUGHTON, Mich. -- While Republicans scratch their heads over why aseemingly good economy is not helping them nationally in this year'selections, Michigan is where the party once hoped a bad economy would helpit seize a governorship.
The heavy hits sustained by the auto industry's Big Three have left thestate with a 7.1 percent unemployment rate, just below the 7.2 percent ratefor Mississippi, which endured Hurricane Katrina. The job hemorrhage seemedthe ideal issue for billionaire businessman Dick DeVos, the Republicannominee, against Gov. Jennifer Granholm. She is a nationally respectedDemocrat who many think would have made a fine presidential candidate ifonly she had not been born in Canada.
DeVos, a conservative whose wealth comes from his family company, Amway, isauditioning for her job by insisting, Kennedy-style, that Michigan can dobetter. "We have gone backward while the country has gone forward," he saidduring a debate on Monday. "It's just unacceptable."
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The New York Times
http://select.nytimes.com/2006/10/27/opinion/27krugman.html?pagewanted=print
October 27, 2006
Op-Ed Columnist
The Arithmetic of Failure
By PAUL KRUGMAN
Iraq is a lost cause. It's just a matter of arithmetic: given the violenceof the environment, with ethnic groups and rival militias at each other'sthroats, American forces there are large enough to suffer terrible losses,but far too small to stabilize the country.
We're so undermanned that we're even losing our ability to influence events:earlier this week, Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki brusquely rejectedAmerican efforts to set a timetable for reining in the militias.
Afghanistan, on the other hand, is a war we haven't yet lost, and it's justpossible that a new commitment of forces there might turn things around.
The moral is clear - we need to get out of Iraq, not because we want to cutand run, but because our continuing presence is doing nothing but wastingAmerican lives. And if we do free up our forces (and those of our Britishallies), we might still be able to save Afghanistan.
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The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/27/opinion/27fri2.html?_r=1&oref=slogin&pagewanted=print
October 27, 2006
Editorial
Compounding a Political Outrage
The sleazy way in which campaigns and the political parties use loopholes inthe campaign finance laws to evade responsibility for their attack ads is onfull display in the Tennessee Senate race. Slick as a leer, pernicious as avirus, a campaign commercial transparently honed as a racist appeal toTennessee voters has remained on the air, despite assurances from Republicansponsors that it was pulled down.
The ad is directed at Representative Harold Ford Jr., the Democraticcandidate for the Senate, who is African-American. It includes abare-shouldered white woman claiming to have met the candidate at a Playboyparty and signing off with a close-up, whispered come-on: "Harold, call me."
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http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/nationworld/ats-ap_top13oct27,0,2743798,print.story?coll=sns-newsnation-headlines
Poll: Middle Class Voters Abandoning GOP
By LIZ SIDOTI and TREVOR TOMPSON
Associated Press Writers
October 27, 2006, 7:29 AM EDT
WASHINGTON -- The 2006 election is shaping up to be a repeat of 1994. Thistime, Democrats are favored to sweep Republicans from power in the Houseafter a dozen years of GOP rule.
Less than two weeks before the Nov. 7 election, the latest AssociatedPress-AOL News poll found that likely voters overwhelmingly prefer Democratsover Republicans. They are angry at President Bush and theRepublican-controlled Congress, and say Iraq and the economy are their topissues.
At the same time, fickle middle-class voters are embracing the DemocraticParty and fleeing the GOP -- just as they abandoned Democrats a dozen yearsago and ushered in an era of Republican control.
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The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/27/washington/27taxes.html?ei=5094&en=3533f4b89afc2a0c&hp=&ex=1162008000&partner=homepage&pagewanted=print
October 27, 2006
I.R.S. Going Slow Before Election
By DAVID CAY JOHNSTON
The commissioner of internal revenue has ordered his agency to delaycollecting back taxes from Hurricane Katrina victims until after the Nov. 7elections and the holiday season, saying he did so in part to avoid negativepublicity.
The commissioner, Mark W. Everson, who has close ties to the White House,said in an interview that postponing collections until after the midtermelections, along with postponing notices to people who failed to file taxreturns, was a routine effort to avoid casting the Internal Revenue Servicein a bad light.
"We are very sensitive to political perceptions," Mr. Everson saidWednesday, adding that he regularly discussed with his senior staff memberswhen to take actions and make announcements in light of whether they wouldannoy a powerful member of Congress or get lost in the flow of news.
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The Washington Post
Drop in Smoking Rates Stalls
CDC Reports Cigarette Use Among Adults Holds Steady
By Rob Stein
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, October 27, 2006; A10
The battle against tobacco in the United States appears to have stalled,with the number of adults who smoke cigarettes hitting a plateau afterdeclining steadily for eight years, federal health officials reportedyesterday.
The proportion of adults who smoke held steady at 20.9 percent in the mostrecent national survey of cigarette habits, conducted in 2005. It was thefirst time the rate did not fall from one year to the next since 1997, thefederal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta reported.
The stall coincides with a similar leveling-off in smoking rates amongteenagers, suggesting that the steady progress against the leading cause ofpreventable death has hit a wall.
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http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/nationworld/ats-ap_top13oct27,0,2743798,print.story?coll=sns-newsnation-headlines
Poll: Middle Class Voters Abandoning GOP
By LIZ SIDOTI and TREVOR TOMPSON
Associated Press Writers
October 27, 2006, 7:29 AM EDT
WASHINGTON -- The 2006 election is shaping up to be a repeat of 1994. Thistime, Democrats are favored to sweep Republicans from power in the Houseafter a dozen years of GOP rule.
Less than two weeks before the Nov. 7 election, the latest AssociatedPress-AOL News poll found that likely voters overwhelmingly prefer Democratsover Republicans. They are angry at President Bush and theRepublican-controlled Congress, and say Iraq and the economy are their topissues.
At the same time, fickle middle-class voters are embracing the DemocraticParty and fleeing the GOP -- just as they abandoned Democrats a dozen yearsago and ushered in an era of Republican control.
"I don't think the Republican Party represents what I stand for. The guys Igolf with, we're in the middle class, we're getting hurt," says JosephAltland, 73, a retired teacher in York, Pa. He is a registered Republicanbut says he is considering becoming an independent.
The AP-AOL News telephone poll of 2,000 adults, 970 of whom are likelyvoters, was conducted by Ipsos from Oct. 20-25.
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The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/27/business/27econ.html?pagewanted=print
October 27, 2006
New-Home Prices Fall Sharply
By JEREMY W. PETERS
Home builders, struggling to keep ahead in a weakening market, cut pricesand offered a variety of other discounts in September to help sell theirnewly constructed houses, the latest government and industry statisticsshow.
The Commerce Department reported yesterday that the median price of a newhome plunged 9.7 percent last month, compared with September 2005, fallingto $217,100, the biggest such drop since December 1970.
Statistics from the National Association of Home Builders showed a similarslide. Builders reported cutting prices in September by 5 percent, accordingto the association's most recent data.
Just two months ago, prices of new homes were still on the rise.
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MIT Technology Review
http://www.technologyreview.com/printer_friendly_article.aspx?id=17667
Firefox 2.0: The Honda Civic of Web Browsers
Updated and improved, Firefox remains excellent but breaks little new
ground.
By John Borland
Tapping once again into the collective talents of the open-source community,the new Firefox 2.0 Web browser is unambiguously a success.
Released late Tuesday, the Mozilla Foundation's latest Net-surfing tool isalmost everything Web denizens have come to expect from the popular InternetExplorer alternative. Firefox 2.0 offers a handful of obvious improvementsin searching and security and a couple of new features, and it largely keepsdoing well what it has done well before.
This said, it breaks little genuinely new ground.
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MIT Technology Review
http://www.technologyreview.com/read_article.aspx?id=17668&ch=infotech
A Dangerous Step toward Space Warfare
Experts say the new U.S. National Space Policy will push the world closer to
a space arms race.
By Brittany Sauser
The Bush administration's announcement of a more unilateral approach tospace may put American satellites orbiting Earth (such as the one in thisimage) in grave danger should a space arms race begin. (Credit:Istockphoto.com/Cristian Matei)
The release of the U.S. National Space Policy (NSP) on October 6 has worriedmany experts, who say the policy marks a strategic shift toward a moremilitary-oriented, unilateral approach to space for the United States. Theyfear that the policy, if followed, could begin an arms race leading tocatastrophic space warfare.
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http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2006/10/27/clergy_warned_on_partisan_preaching?mode=PF
Clergy warned on partisan preaching
Several faiths act to keep tax status
By Michael Paulson, Globe Staff | October 27, 2006
In the face of increased federal scrutiny of politics in the pulpit,religious denominations are warning clergy against overtly partisanpreaching.
As Election Day approaches, with the Massachusetts governorship and bothhouses of Congress up for grabs, the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Bostonhas sent a memo to all priests instructing them not to provide parishdirectories to political candidates, not to allow the distribution ofcampaign literature on church property, and not to express support oropposition for political candidates.
The memo warns explicitly that the tax-exempt status of the Archdiocese ofBoston could be at risk if those rules are violated.
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http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-money27oct27,1,5277670.story?coll=la-headlines-nation
Business groups woo Democrat
positions after Nov. 7.
By Richard Simon
Times Staff Writer
October 27, 2006
"Some people have discovered virtues in me that they had previouslyoverlooked," Rep. Barney Frank of Massachusetts, who stands to becomechairman of the Financial Services Committee if Democrats control the House,mused recently. "The prospect of the chairmanship seems to have been a verygood introduction."
Frank was referring to a surge in campaign contributions from pro-businessgroups - groups whose members would have to deal with the liberal Democratinstead of a probably-more-congenial Republican. (Rep. Michael G. Oxley, theOhio Republican who now heads the committee, is retiring after this term.)
Issues involving the financial services industry fall under the committee'sjurisdiction. And the New York Life Insurance Co.'s political actioncommittee has contributed $10,000 to Frank this election season, up from$1,000 in the 2003-'04 cycle, according to PoliticalMoneyLine, which trackspolitical donations. The National Assn. of Insurance and Financial AdvisorsPAC contributed $10,000 to Frank this election season, up from $3,000 in thelast cycle.
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http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/10/27/ap/entertainment/mainD8L0QCTO0.shtml
Fox: Not Off Medicine in Political Ads
Michael J. Fox tells Katie Couric he was not off medication in political ads
NEW YORK, Oct. 27, 2006
By FRAZIER MOORE Associated Press TV Writer
(AP) In a response to charges by conservative talk-show host Rush Limbaugh,Michael J. Fox defended his appearance in recent political campaign ads,saying he was neither acting nor off his medication for Parkinson's disease.
On the contrary, he had been overmedicated, the actor said during aninterview aired on Thursday's "CBS Evening News with Katie Couric."
"The irony of it is that I was too medicated," Fox told Couric, adding thathis jumpy condition as he spoke to her reflected "a dearth of medication _not by design. I just take it, and it kicks in when it kicks in."
"That's funny _ the notion that you could calculate it for effect," he said.
"Would that we could."
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