NATIONAL & WORLD DIGEST January 7, 2007

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The Washington Post

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/01/06/AR2007010601096_pf.html

Democrats Face Hurdles in Bid to Close Medicare Gap

Eliminating Hole in Drug Coverage Would Require Tax Increases or SpendingCuts to Avoid Expanding Budget Deficit

By Christopher Lee
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, January 7, 2007; A08



Democrats face a difficult time delivering on their pledge to eliminate the"doughnut hole" in Medicare's drug benefit, despite having used theunpopular coverage gap as a rhetorical club against Republicans in regainingcontrol of Congress in the fall elections.

Requiring Medicare to negotiate lower drug prices from pharmaceuticalcompanies -- a popular idea that nevertheless faces significant politicalhurdles -- will not produce enough savings to fill the doughnut hole,experts say. And making up the difference would require big tax increases orspending cuts elsewhere if Democrats are to keep another campaign promise,to be fiscally responsible and avoid increasing the federal budget deficit.

"I think the Democrats are going to shy away from it because it's verycostly," said Sen. Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa), who was chairman of theSenate Finance Committee when it crafted the Medicare drug benefit in 2003."I think you'll find out that closing the doughnut hole would have justabout doubled what we were going to put into the whole program. So you'retalking about hundreds of billions of dollars."




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The Washington Post

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/01/05/AR2007010502112_pf.html


I'm Tortured by Doubt

By Scott Adams
Sunday, January 7, 2007; B01


Lately I've moved from "pretty certain" to "doubtful" about theeffectiveness of torture.

Today I'm addressing only whether torture sometimes works better thanconventional interrogation. If torture doesn't work better than thealternatives, not ever, then you don't need to discuss morality or worldopinion because torture doesn't even pass the first filter. I'm not sayingthat morality and world opinion aren't important -- you just don't need toworry about them unless torture at least produces good results.

But in all the news about interrogation techniques at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba,and other U.S. prisons in the fight against terrorism, there has never beenany offer of proof that torture is the way to go. Even the latest FBIreport, released last week, just lists the extreme methods interrogatorsused on their subjects. It never says whether they produced anything.




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The Washington Post

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/01/05/AR2007010501807_pf.html


The Ebb of Prejudice

By David S. Broder
Sunday, January 7, 2007; B07

It was, superficially, pure coincidence that Nancy Pelosi and Deval Patricktook their precedent-setting oaths of office at almost the same hour onThursday.

Pelosi became the first female speaker of the House of Representatives,second in line to the presidency. And Patrick became the first AfricanAmerican governor of Massachusetts, only the second black state chiefexecutive elected in the history of the United States.

Impressive as their individual r?sum?s are, what's more significant is whattheir elevation signals: a growing sense of inclusiveness and opportunity inthis society.

The United States has many challenges and shortcomings, but occasionally itis appropriate to take note of the ways in which this country is overcomingprejudices. Thursday was such a day.




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The New York Times

http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/world/international-iran-reformers.html
January 7, 2007
Iran Reformists Slam Government's Nuclear Policy
By REUTERS
Filed at 7:41 a.m. ET

TEHRAN (Reuters) - Iranian reformist parliamentarians on Saturday blamedPresident Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's government for failing to prevent UnitedNations sanctions.

The U.N. Security Council voted unanimously on December 23 to imposesanctions on Iran's trade in sensitive nuclear materials and technology inan attempt to stop uranium enrichment work that could produce material thatcould be used in bombs.

Iran says it wants nuclear power to generate electricity.

Reformist former President Mohammad Khatami suspended Iran's nuclear workfor more than two years in an effort to build confidence and avoidconfrontation with the West, but Ahmadinejad's government resumed uraniumenrichment in February last year.




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The New York Times

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/07/opinion/07sun1.html?pagewanted=print


January 7, 2007
Editorial
The Imperial Presidency 2.0


Observing President Bush in action lately, we have to wonder if he actuallywatched the election returns in November, or if he was just rerunning the2002 vote on his TiVo.

That year, the White House used the fear of terrorism to scare Americanvoters into cementing the Republican domination of Congress. Mr. Bush andVice President Dick Cheney then embarked on an expansion of presidentialpower chilling both in its sweep and in the damage it did to theconstitutional system of checks and balances.

In 2006, the voters sent Mr. Bush a powerful message that it was time torein in his imperial ambitions. But we have yet to see any sign that Mr.Bush understands that - or even realizes that the Democrats are now incontrol of the Congress. Indeed, he seems to have interpreted his party'sdrubbing as a mandate to keep pursuing his fantasy of victory in Iraq and topress ahead undaunted with his assault on civil liberties and the judicialsystem.


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The New York Times

http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/world/AP-Cuba-Guantanamo-Protest.html
January 7, 2007
Sheehan in Cuba to Protest Gitmo Prison
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 7:37 a.m. ET

HAVANA (AP) -- American ''peace mom'' Cindy Sheehan called for the closureof the U.S. military prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, as she and otheractivists arrived here Saturday to draw attention to the nearly 400 terrorsuspects held at the remote site.

Sheehan is among 12 human rights and anti-war activists who will travelacross this Caribbean island next week, arriving at the main gate of theGuantanamo base in eastern Cuba on Thursday -- five years after the firstprisoners were flown in.

''Anyone who knows me, knows that I am not afraid of anything,'' Sheehansaid when asked about the possibility of U.S. sanctions for traveling tocommunist-run Cuba, which remains under an American trade embargo.


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The New York Times

http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/world/AP-Poland-Archbishop.html?ei=5094&en=a4037bfc2700e564&hp=&ex=1168232400&partner=homepage&pagewanted=print

January 7, 2007
Bishop Tied to Poland's Former Secret Police Resigns
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 7:11 a.m. ET

WARSAW, Poland (AP) -- Warsaw's new archbishop resigned amid a scandal abouthis cooperation with the communist-era secret police, Poland's RomanCatholic Church said Sunday.

Archbishop Stanislaw Wielgus, who took the office on Friday, has submittedhis resignation, Poland's Episcopate said in a statement.

The church said Pope Benedict XVI asked the outgoing archbishop, CardinalJozef Glemp, to administer the archdiocese until a replacement is found.

A furor had grown around Wielgus since the allegations were first raisedDec. 20 by a Polish weekly, with demands that he step down from his post.



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The New York Times

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/07/technology/07net.html?_r=1&th=&oref=slogin&emc=th&pagewanted=print


January 7, 2007
Attack of the Zombie Computers Is Growing Threat
By JOHN MARKOFF


In their persistent quest to breach the Internet's defenses, the bad guysare honing their weapons and increasing their firepower.

With growing sophistication, they are taking advantage of programs thatsecretly install themselves on thousands or even millions of personalcomputers, band these computers together into an unwitting army of zombies,and use the collective power of the dragooned network to commit Internetcrimes.

These systems, called botnets, are being blamed for the huge spike in spamthat bedeviled the Internet in recent months, as well as fraud and datatheft.

Security researchers have been concerned about botnets for some time becausethey automate and amplify the effects of viruses and other maliciousprograms.



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The Washington Post

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/01/06/AR2007010601185.html

Iraq Will Be Petraeus's Knot to Untie
General Known to See Peace as Still Possible

By Rick Atkinson
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, January 7, 2007; A01



Lt. Gen. David H. Petraeus, who is President Bush's choice to become the topU.S. military commander in Iraq, posed a riddle during the initial march toBaghdad four years ago that now becomes his own conundrum to solve: "Tell mehow this ends."

That query, uttered repeatedly to a reporter then embedded in Petraeus's101st Airborne Division, revealed a flinty skepticism about prospects inIraq -- and the man now asked to forestall a military debacle.

Long recognized as one of the Army's premier intellectuals, with a PhD fromPrinceton to complement his West Point education, Petraeus, 54, will inheritone of the toughest assignments handed any senior officer since the VietnamWar. He takes command of 132,000 U.S. troops in a country shattered byinsurgency and sectarian bloodletting, with a home front that is divided anddisheartened after 3,000 American combat deaths. If his riddle of 2003remains apt, so does the headline on a Newsweek cover story about Petraeusin July 2004: "Can This Man Save Iraq?"



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The New York Times

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/07/washington/07drug.html?_r=1&ei=5094&en=d689f5362d1dd592&hp=&ex=1168146000&oref=slogin&partner=homepage&pagewanted=print


January 7, 2007
Democrats' Drug Plan Has Pitfalls, Critics Say
By ROBERT PEAR


WASHINGTON, Jan. 6 - Democrats want the government to negotiate lower drugprices for Medicare beneficiaries, but insist that the government should notdecide which drugs are covered.

Many economists and health policy experts see this as a paradox. The onlyway to get big savings and discounts, they say, is to steer patients tocertain preferred drugs.

The debate on this issue, bubbling for several years, will come to a boil inCongress next week as the House votes on a Democratic proposal to requirethe secretary of health and human services to negotiate with drugmanufacturers on behalf of Medicare beneficiaries.



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The New York Times

http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/world/AP-Jordan-Saddam-Aides.html

January 7, 2007
Aide Wishes He Were Executed With Saddam
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 7:39 a.m. ET

AMMAN, Jordan (AP) -- Two of Saddam Hussein's top aides were taken fromtheir cells and told they were going to be executed on the same day as theformer Iraqi dictator, and they have been mourning his death while awaitingtheir own delayed executions, their lawyer said Sunday.

Barzan Ibrahim -- Saddam's half-brother and former intelligence chief -- andAwad Hamed al-Bandar -- former head of Iraq's Revolutionary Court -- wereboth sentenced to die after being found guilty along with Saddam ofinvolvement in the killing of nearly 150 Shiites in the town of Dujail in1982.

Issam Ghazawi, a member of Saddam's defense team during the last two years,told The Associated Press he has power of attorney from the two, along withtwo other top Saddam aides, to follow up on their cases and represent someof them in Iraqi courts.




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The Washington Post

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/01/06/AR2007010601094.html


Justices Continue Trend of Hearing Fewer Cases

By Robert Barnes
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, January 7, 2007; A04



Only a handful of decisions each year define the Supreme Court for theAmerican public, and that might be especially appropriate this year.

After decades of decline in its caseload, the court is once again on trackto take its fewest number of cases in modern history. The justices went on arelative shopping spree when they returned from their holiday break, onFriday, agreeing to hear seven additional cases before this year's termends. Before that they had accepted only 60 petitions, as opposed to 80 atthis point last year.

Even a caseload in the 80s would have been considered extraordinarily skimpy20 years ago. In William H. Rehnquist's first term as chief justice in 1986,the court disposed of 175 cases. That had dwindled to 82 cases last yearafter Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. took over.

Roberts himself said during his 2005 confirmation hearings that the courtshould be doing more.



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The Washington Post

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/01/06/AR2007010601215_pf.html
March in January! Or Is It Mayday?
It's Nice Out There, But Global Warming Dampens the Fun


By Joel Achenbach
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, January 7, 2007; D01



Never has good weather felt so bad. Never have flowers inspired so muchfear. Never has the warm caress of a sunbeam seemed so ominous. The weatheris sublime, it's glorious, it's the end of the world.

January is the new March. The daffodils are busting out everywhere. It'sporch weather. Put on a T-shirt and shorts, fire up the grill, blast"Rastaman Vibration" into the back yard. Everyone out for volleyball! Thenormal high for this time of year is 43 degrees; yesterday's high at ReaganNational was a record-breaking 73. And yet it's all a guilty pleasure.Weather is both a physical and a psychological phenomenon. Meteorology, meeteschatology. We've read the articles, we've seen the Gore movie, we'vecalculated our carbon footprint, and we're just not intellectually capableanymore of fully enjoying warm winter weather. Just ain't right. Ain'tnatural. Cherry blossoms during the NFL playoffs? Run for your lives.


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The Sun-Sentinel

http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/opinion/editorial/sfl-edittdquranjan07,0,5580349,print.story?coll=sfla-news-editorial

Oaths

South Florida Sun-Sentinel Editorial Board

January 7, 2007

Congressman sworn in on Jefferson's Quran

Maybe now the silliness will stop. If the Quran was good enough for ThomasJefferson, it ought to be good enough for Keith Ellison -- and Virgil Goode.

U.S. Rep. Ellison, D-Minn., was sworn into Congress on Thursday using aQuran once owned by Jefferson. Before that Quran surfaced at the Library ofCongress, Ellison had drawn scathing criticism from Goode, a RepublicanHouse member from Virginia, and others who considered it un-American not touse a Bible.

But shouldn't a person be sworn in on a book that the person considerssacred? Otherwise what meaning would such an oath have?

Ellison, a Muslim, was right on the mark in pointing out that Jefferson'sownership of a Quran "shows that religious tolerance is the bedrock of ourcountry, and religious differences are nothing to be afraid of."

Amen.


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