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MiamiHerald.com
http://www.miamiherald.com/889/v-print/story/312682.html
Motor City named nation's most dangerous
By DAVID N. GOODMAN
Posted on Mon, Nov. 19, 2007
In another blow to the Motor City's tarnished image, Detroit pushed past St.Louis to become the nation's most dangerous city, according to a privateresearch group's controversial analysis, released Sunday, of annual FBIcrime statistics.
The study drew harsh criticism even before it came out. The American Societyof Criminology launched a pre-emptive strike Friday, issuing a statementattacking it as "an irresponsible misuse" of crime data.
The 14th annual "City Crime Rankings: Crime in Metropolitan America" waspublished by CQ Press, a unit of Congressional Quarterly Inc. It is based onthe FBI's Sept. 24 crime statistics report.
The report looked at 378 cities with at least 75,000 people based onper-capita rates for homicide, rape, robbery, aggravated assault, burglaryand auto theft. Each crime category was considered separately and weightedbased on its seriousness, CQ Press said.
Last year's crime leader, St. Louis, fell to No. 2. Another Michigan city,Flint, ranked third, followed by Oakland Calif.; Camden, N.J.; Birmingham,Ala.; North Charleston, S.C.; Memphis, Tenn.; Richmond, Calif.; andCleveland.
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MiamiHerald.com
http://www.miamiherald.com/news/americas/v-print/story/313174.html
Puerto Rico in shock over fake doctors
BY SUSAN ANASAGASTI AKUS
Posted on Mon, Nov. 19, 2007
SAN JUAN-- When 14-month-old Yadriel Yadid González showed up at a clinicwith a high fever, the doctor on duty gave him an antibiotic and sent himhome.
Seven hours later the boy was taken to an emergency room where he died ofdengue fever, a mosquito-borne disease.
The doctor who treated the boy, Richard Pietri Sepúlveda, is now one of 113people indicted in an expanding federal probe that has rocked Puerto Rico'smedical community since August, when charges of doctors obtaining theirmedical licenses through fraud or bribery first surfaced.
''We did everything we could as parents. We put our son's life in his [thedoctor's] hands,'' said the boy's father, Carlos Francis González, who alongwith wife Yaira has filed a $6 million lawsuit in the case against Pietriand others.
'I fought with him. I said, `Please do something.' I knew something waswrong with my son,'' González said. ``We thought he was a real doctor so Ilet my guard down.''
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NYTimes.com
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/technology/tech-china-movie-virus.html?_r=1&oref=slogin&pagewanted=print
"Lust, Caution" Prompts Virus, Medical Warnings
By REUTERS
November 19, 2007
Filed at 3:33 a.m. ET
BEIJING (Reuters) - A Chinese anti-virus company has warned against freedownloads of Ang Lee's steamy spy thriller, "Lust, Caution," saying severalhundred sites offering the service were embedded with viruses.
And Chinese doctors have warned moviegoers not to try some of the moreambitious sexual positions featured in the uncut version of the film.
The movie has been a big hit in China, reaping 90 million yuan ($12.12million) in its first two weeks, despite losing seven minutes to thecensors, and has been tipped by some to be the year's biggest box officesuccess.
"People should be wary of Web sites that offer free downloading servicesbecause their personal passwords can be stolen," Li Ting, of RisingInternational Software Co. Ltd., told Reuters.
She said several hundred Web sites promoting "Lust, Caution" were embeddedwith viruses and 15 percent of download links were contaminated.
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WashingtonPost.com
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/11/18/AR2007111800949_pf.html
Philadelphia Gives Boy Scouts Ultimatum
City Solicitor Tells Branch to Renounce Its Ban on Gays or Lose Rent Subsidy
By Dafna Linzer
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, November 19, 2007; A03
PHILADELPHIA -- This may be the last free Thanksgiving dinner for the BoyScouts of Philadelphia.
Citing a local 1982 "fair practices" law, the city solicitor has given theScouts until Dec. 3 to renounce its policy of excluding homosexuals orforfeit the grand, Beaux-Arts building it has rented from the city for $1 ayear since 1928.
"While we respect the right of the Boy Scouts to prohibit participation inits activities by homosexuals," the solicitor, Romulo Diaz, said last weekin an interview, "we will not subsidize that discrimination by passing onthe costs to the people of Philadelphia."
The city has yet to complete an official assessment of the property. But ithas tentatively placed the market value at $200,000 a year and has invitedthe Boy Scouts to remain in the nearly 100-year-old building as payingtenants.
The confrontation between the city and the nation's third-largest Scoutschapter has been building for four years, with each side blaming the otherfor backing out of previous agreements and for escalating tensions.
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The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/19/opinion/19mon1.html?_r=1&ref=opinion&oref=slogin
Editorial
Keeping Americans in Their Homes
November 19, 2007
The nation's housing market is in a deep recession, and further declines innew construction, sales and prices are imminent. By the end of next year,falling home values, combined with rising payments on adjustable mortgages,tighter lending conditions and, in all probability, a faltering job market,will have unleashed mass foreclosures - estimated at several hundredthousand to two million - unless something is done to help keep Americans intheir homes.
The Bush administration has no relief plan that is up to the frighteningscale of this problem. And no one in the administration seems to feel muchurgency. Administration officials often lowball the number of imminentforeclosures and question the significance of statistics on the housingdownturn.
In a speech last week extolling the economy's strength, President Bush madejust one reference to the battered housing market, calling it "challenged,"and asserted that we can "deal with it" and other economic uncertainties,"particularly if we keep the taxes low."
Fortunately, some members of Congress do have a plan to help.
Senator Richard Durbin, Democrat of Illinois, recently introduced a billthat would allow bankruptcy courts to modify repayment terms on mortgagesfor primary homes. That could keep an estimated 600,000 troubled borrowersin their homes, paying off their mortgages, albeit over longer terms, atlower interest rates or on lower principal balances.
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The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/19/opinion/19krugman.html?ref=opinion
Op-Ed Columnist
Republicans and Race
By PAUL KRUGMAN
November 19, 2007
Over the past few weeks there have been a number of commentaries aboutRonald Reagan's legacy, specifically about whether he exploited the whitebacklash against the civil rights movement.
The controversy unfortunately obscures the larger point, which should beundeniable: the central role of this backlash in the rise of the modernconservative movement.
The centrality of race - and, in particular, of the switch of Southernwhites from overwhelming support of Democrats to overwhelming support ofRepublicans - is obvious from voting data.
For example, everyone knows that white men have turned away from theDemocrats over God, guns, national security and so on. But what everyoneknows isn't true once you exclude the South from the picture. As thepolitical scientist Larry Bartels points out, in the 1952 presidentialelection 40 percent of non-Southern white men voted Democratic; in 2004,that figure was virtually unchanged, at 39 percent.
More than 40 years have passed since the Voting Rights Act, which Reagandescribed in 1980 as "humiliating to the South." Yet Southern white votingbehavior remains distinctive. Democrats decisively won the popular vote inlast year's House elections, but Southern whites voted Republican by almosttwo to one.
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The Washington Post
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/11/18/AR2007111800945.html
Chávez and the King
By Jackson Diehl
Monday, November 19, 2007; A17
For the past week, the press of the Spanish-speaking world has been abuzzabout a verbal slapdown of Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez by King JuanCarlos of Spain. Incensed by Chávez's ceaseless insults and interruptionsduring an Ibero-American summit meeting in Chile, the normally temperateJuan Carlos turned to Latin America's self-styled "Bolivarian" revolutionaryand blurted: "Why don't you shut up?"
The story might have lasted a day, while everyone chuckled over somethingthat, as one Spanish newspaper put it, "should have been said a long timeago." That it has lasted a week is the work of Chávez. He called a newsconference last Monday in which he recounted the history of Spanishcolonialism and compared himself to a persecuted Jesus Christ. He heldanother news conference Wednesday to announce that he was reviewing all tiesbetween Venezuela and Spain. He demanded a royal apology. He even coined hisown phrase: "Mr. King, I will not shut up."
Crude and clownish, si, but also disturbingly effective. Borrowing thetried-and-true tactics of his mentor Fidel Castro, Chávez has found anotherway to energize his political base: by portraying himself as at war withforeign colonialists and imperialists. Even better, he has distracted theattention of the international press -- or at least the fraction of it thatbothers to cover Venezuela -- from the real story in his country at acritical moment.
In 13 days, abetted by intimidation and overt violence that has included thegunning down of student protesters, Chávez will become the presumptivepresident-for-life of a new autocracy, created by a massive revision of hisown constitution. Venezuela will join Cuba as one of two formally"socialist" nations in the Western hemisphere. This "revolution" will beratified by a Dec. 2 referendum that Chávez fully expects to win despitemultiple polls showing that only about a third of Venezuelans support it.Many people will abstain from voting rather than risk the retaliation of aregime that has systematically persecuted those who turned out againstChávez in the past.
Venezuelans are not giving up their freedom without a fight. Tens ofthousands of students have been marching in the streets of Caracas, and thefew independent media outlets that still exist have been trying to combatthe unrelenting propaganda campaign being waged on state-controlledtelevision. Some of Chávez's longtime supporters have defected, includingthe recently retired defense minister, Gen. Raúl Isaías Baduel, who callsthe constitutional rewrite "a coup d'etat." The president's response was topublicly lead a chant about Baduel that promised he "will end up before afiring squad."
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The Washington Post
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/11/18/AR2007111800948.html
A False Choice for Pakistan
By Salman Ahmad
Monday, November 19, 2007; A17
As Pakistan descends into political chaos, much attention has been given totwo leaders competing for power -- the current dictator, Gen. PervezMusharraf, and the media-savvy former prime minister, Benazir Bhutto. TheWhite House appears to be backing Musharraf as its best bet in the "war onterror," while much of the world's media and Western liberal elite seeBhutto as a democratic savior for a country mired in Islamic fundamentalism.
Both fail to recognize the core problem plaguing Pakistani society: Withouta strong and independent judiciary, Pakistan, a nuclear-armed state, willforever be at the mercy of dictators and power-hungry politicians. Lack ofoversight and institutional accountability leads to coups, counter-coups andperpetual instability.
As an artist and social activist, I have worked with the governments of bothMusharraf and Bhutto on peace initiatives and socially uplifting themes. Ihave been disillusioned by their lack of commitment to getting real workdone; they appear to spend most of their time consolidating their powerbases.
On several occasions after Sept. 11, 2001, I was invited to Musharraf'shouse in Islamabad, and he even joined me onstage at a concert to helpsupport a united front against extremism. I, like many members of mygeneration, initially believed Musharraf's commitment to introducing an eraof "enlightened moderation" in Pakistan, a nation that was hijacked byreligious fanatics during the American-backed military dictatorship of Gen.Mohammed Zia ul-Haq in the 1980s.
We supported Musharraf because of his promises to fight extremism, bring accountability into politics, open up an independent media and reduce theimmoral gap between Pakistan's rich and poor. But no amount of governmentalfear-mongering can make us look the other way while he imposes emergencyrule, intimidates the media, dismantles the judiciary and muzzles dissent.Without respect for civil institutions, his flawed government is doomed tofail.
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The Washington Post
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/11/18/AR2007111800946.html
The Democrats' Iran Dilemma
By Robert D. Novak
Monday, November 19, 2007; A17
Sen. Barack Obama, desperate to cut down front-running Sen. Hillary Clinton,did not take advantage of one opening during Thursday night's Democraticpresidential debate in Las Vegas. Obama pulled his punches regardingClinton's September vote for a resolution that he had earlier said could beused to go to war against Iran. His reticence can be traced to hisco-sponsorship of a similarly hawkish amendment in March.
Obama was softer toward Clinton than he was last month when he called her"reckless" for voting to name the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps aterrorist organization, claiming such a vote would give President Bush apretext to attack Iran. For her part, Clinton did not raise Obama'sinconsistency and was uncharacteristically silent about Iran. The twoleading candidates for the Democratic nomination were muzzled by mutuallyassured destruction, reflecting a Democratic dilemma.
Democrats want to assume a strong anti-terrorist position while deploringU.S. military action against Iran as it develops nuclear weapons. While theprospect of such an attack before Bush leaves office is reviled on the left,no Democrat can be seen as soft on an Islamist Iranian regime whosepresident denies the Holocaust and calls for the destruction of Israel. Thetrick is to condemn both Dick Cheney and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
This balancing act was upset on Oct. 11, when the Manchester (N.H.) UnionLeader published an op-ed by Obama assailing Clinton's vote for theresolution sponsored by Republican Sen. Jon Kyl and independent DemocraticSen. Joseph Lieberman. By designating the Revolutionary Guard a terroristorganization, wrote Obama, "we're still foolishly rattling our sabers" inpassing "this reckless amendment." Obama contended that "the BushAdministration could use the language in Lieberman-Kyl to justify an attackon Iran as part of the ongoing war in Iraq." Obama missed the vote.
Obama energized Washington lawyer Lanny J. Davis, a longtime supporter ofthe Clintons. In an Oct. 16 letter to the New York Times, Davis noted thatObama was one of 68 senators -- including Clinton -- who on March 22co-sponsored Senate Resolution 970, using language similar to Lieberman-Kylin branding the Iranian Revolutionary Guard. On his Web site, Davis wrote onOct. 24: "It is a complete mystery why Sen. Obama or his campaign managersthought he could get away with criticizing Sen. Clinton on the Kyl-Liebermanresolution and calling it reckless while knowing about his ownco-sponsorship of S. 970."
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The Washington Post
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/11/18/AR2007111800947.html
The Right Kind of Hand Up
By Douglas J. Besharov
Monday, November 19, 2007; A17
In his Oct. 31 op-ed, " Open-Arms Conservatism," Michael Gerson argued that"the Republican Party is in the midst of an ideological identity crisis."Perhaps because of his experiences within the Bush administration, Gersonfalsely portrayed the choice as between libertarianism (or "anti-governmentconservatism") and the "social teachings of the Jewish and Christiantraditions," arguing that the former ignores the plight of the mostdisadvantaged. But that misunderstands the nature of the true conservative'sreluctance to rush headlong into large, new government programs.
Most Americans want to help their fellow citizens, want an end tounnecessary suffering and racial discrimination, want to see greaterequality of opportunity -- and recognize government's vital role inadvancing these and other social goals.
But compared with liberals -- and here's the point that Gerson did notmake -- conservatives are more sensitive to the limits of government'sability to ameliorate social problems. I say "more sensitive," for intensityis the point. Many liberals are concerned about the size and efficacy ofgovernment programs; they are just less worried about them thanconservatives are, or they may feel more strongly about the need to "dosomething."
With that in mind, consider six principles that underlie a conservativeapproach to social problems.
¿ A preference for limited government. Most conservatives are prepared touse government to further social goals but only in the absence of viableprivate solutions. They expect government programs to be less efficient,less effective, difficult to terminate and more likely to have unforeseen(and possibly harmful) consequences.
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The Washington Post
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/11/18/AR2007111800902.html
Polling and Trolling
Instead of blaming McCain-Feingold, Mr. Romney should look in the mirror.
Monday, November 19, 2007; A16
PUSH POLLING -- asking voters questions designed to spread negativeinformation about a candidate rather than to elicit voters' views -- is adespicable technique. It's even more distasteful when used, as it apparentlyhas been in the case of Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney, tosmear a candidate's faith. Voters in New Hampshire and Iowa have reportedreceiving calls about Mr. Romney's Mormon faith, including queries as towhether callers knew he received U.S. military deferments as a missionary inFrance or that Mormons did not accept African Americans as bishops until the1970s. Mr. Romney is right to denounce this tactic. He is wrong to blame theMcCain-Feingold campaign finance reform law for the development.
"I think the real fault here is McCain-Feingold . . . and the monster thatit is," Mr. Romney told CNBC's Kudlow & Company. "It's just wrong, it'sun-American and it's one reason McCain-Feingold ought to be repealed." Whois behind the push polls and who is funding them, Mr. Romney said, are "hardto know because, under McCain-Feingold, there's no requirement that thesegroups identify who they are or that we know what kind of financing is beingprovided and what kind of organizations they might be affiliated with. It'sreally -- it's really a very unfortunate piece of legislation."
But Arizona Sen. John McCain -- not coincidentally one of Mr. Romney'sopponents in the GOP race -- championed a law requiring disclosure of donorsand spending by the kind of groups about which Mr. Romney complains. And thesubsequent McCain-Feingold measure reflected an effort, if anything, torequire additional disclosure and put additional limitations on such groups.Mr. Romney may argue that an unintended consequence of the law was to divertmoney to shadowy groups, but we don't see him endorsing further changes.
Indeed, it has been opponents of the statute, chief among them NationalRight to Life Committee general counsel -- and key Romney adviser -- JamesBopp Jr., who have fought the law's efforts to crack down on these groups.Mr. Bopp won a Supreme Court victory last year that may well haveeviscerated the ability of the Federal Election Commission to require thatthese groups comply with the contribution limits and reporting requirementsof federal election law. As the FEC considers regulations implementing theSupreme Court ruling, Mr. Bopp has argued for giving outside groups moreleeway to run sham issue ads attacking candidates. Mr. Bopp contends thatthe agency's after-the-fact efforts to crack down on groups such as SwiftBoat Veterans for Truth are no longer valid after the Supreme Court rulingand that labor unions and corporations that run last-minute ads mentioningcandidates shouldn't even have to disclose their funding. Mr. Romney'scomplaint isn't with McCain-Feingold, it's with his own campaign.
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The Washington Post
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/11/18/AR2007111801539.html?hpid=topnews
A Murder Conviction Torn Apart by a Bullet
In a 1995 Maryland Case, Key Testimony and the Science Behind It Have BeenDiscredited
By John Solomon
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, November 19, 2007; A01
Former Baltimore police sergeant James A. Kulbicki stared silently from thedefense table as the prosecutor held up his off-duty .38-caliber revolverand assured jurors that science proved the gun had been used to killKulbicki's mistress.
"I wonder what it felt like, Mr. Kulbicki, to have taken this gun, pressedit to the skull of that young woman and pulled the trigger, that coldsteel," the prosecutor said during closing arguments.
Prosecutors had linked the weapon to Kulbicki through forensic science.Maryland's top firearms expert said that the gun had been cleaned and thatits bullets were consistent in size with the one that killed the victim. Thestate expert could not match the markings on the bullets to Kulbicki's gun.But an FBI expert took the stand to say that a science that matches bulletsby their lead content had linked the fatal bullet to Kulbicki.
The jurors were convinced, and in 1995 Kulbicki was convicted offirst-degree murder in the death of his 22-year-old girlfriend. He wassentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.
For a dozen years, Kulbicki sat in state prison, saddled with the image ofthe calculating killer portrayed in the 1996 made-for-TV movie "DoubleJeopardy."
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The Washington Post
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/11/18/AR2007111800501.html?hpid=topnews
Facing a Threat to Farming and Food Supply
By Rick Weiss
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, November 19, 2007; A06
Fifth in a monthly series
Climate change may be global in its sweep, but not all of the globe'scitizens will share equally in its woes. And nowhere is that truth moreevident, or more worrisome, than in its projected effects on agriculture.
Several recent analyses have concluded that the higher temperatures expectedin coming years -- along with salt seepage into groundwater as sea levelsrise and anticipated increases in flooding and droughts -- willdisproportionately affect agriculture in the planet's lower latitudes, wheremost of the world's poor live.
India, on track to be the world's most populous country, could see a 40percent decline in agricultural productivity by the 2080s as record heatwaves bake its wheat-growing region, placing hundreds of millions of peopleat the brink of chronic hunger.
Africa -- where four out of five people make their living directly from theland -- could see agricultural downturns of 30 percent, forcing farmers toabandon traditional crops in favor of more heat-resistant and flood-tolerantones such as rice. Worse, some African countries, including Senegal andwar-torn Sudan, are on track to suffer what amounts to complete agriculturalcollapse, with productivity declines of more than 50 percent.
Even the emerging agricultural powerhouse of Latin America is poised tosuffer reductions of 20 percent or more, which could return thrivingexporters such as Brazil to the subsistence-oriented nations they were a fewdecades ago.
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The Washington Post
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/11/18/AR2007111801415.html?hpid=moreheadlines
A Troubling Case of Readers' Block
Citing Decline Among Older Kids, NEA Report Warns of Dire Effects
By Bob Thompson
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, November 19, 2007; C01
Americans are reading less and their reading proficiency is declining attroubling rates, according to a report that the National Endowment for theArts will issue today. The trend is particularly strong among older teensand young adults, and if it is not reversed, the NEA report suggests, itwill have a profound negative effect on the nation's economic and civicfuture.
"This is really alarming data," said NEA Chairman Dana Gioia. "Luckily, westill have an opportunity to address it, but if we wait 10, 20 years, Ithink it may be too late."
Titled "To Read or Not to Read," the report is a significant expansion ofthe NEA's widely cited 2004 study, "Reading at Risk." The NEA based thatearlier study exclusively on data from its own arts surveys, and as aresult, that analysis focused mainly on so-called literary reading --novels, stories, plays and poems. This led some critics to downplay itsimplications.
The new report assembles much more data, drawing on large-scale studies doneby other government agencies (such as the Department of Education) and bynon-government organizations. These studies tend to use broader definitionsof reading, said Sunil Iyengar, the NEA's director of research and analysis,with many looking at "all kinds of reading," a category that includesreading done online.
The story the numbers tell, Gioia said, can be summed up in about foursentences:
"We are doing a better job of teaching kids to read in elementary school.But once they enter adolescence, they fall victim to a general culture whichdoes not encourage or reinforce reading. Because these people then readless, they read less well. Because they read less well, they do more poorlyin school, in the job market and in civic life."
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The Washington Post
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/11/19/AR2007111900121.html?hpid=sec-world
Bangladesh Cyclone Death Toll Tops 3,100
The Associated Press
Monday, November 19, 2007; 9:10 AM
BARGUNA, Bangladesh -- The death toll from Thursday's cyclone in Bangladeshis now more than 3,100, and officials say that number could reach 10,000once rescuers get to outlying islands. Rescuers are struggling to reachthousands of survivors, and relief items have been slow to reach many.Survivors grieved and buried their loved ones Monday as they waited for aidto arrive.
The death toll from the Thursday cyclone reached 3,113 after reports finallyreached Dhaka from storm-ravaged areas which had been largely cut offbecause of washed-out roads and downed telephone lines, said Lt. Col. MainUllah Chowdhury, a spokesman of the army coordinating the relief and rescuework.
In Galachipa, a fishing village along the coast in Patuakhali district,Dhalan Mridha and his family had ignored the high cyclone alert issued byauthorities.
"Nothing is going to happen. That was our first thought and we went to bed.Just before midnight the winds came like hundreds of demons. Our small hutwas swept away like a piece of paper, and we all ran for shelter," saidMridha, a 45-year-old farm worker, weeping.
On the way to a shelter, Mridha was separated from his wife, mother and twochildren. The next morning he found their bodies stuck in a battered bushalong the coast.
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The Washington Post
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/11/18/AR2007111800876.html?hpid=sec-religion
$50M Priest Abuse Deal Reached in Alaska
By MARY PEMBERTON
The Associated Press
Sunday, November 18, 2007; 8:28 PM
ANCHORAGE, Alaska -- A Roman Catholic religious order has agreed to pay $50million to more than 100 Alaska Natives who allege sexual abuse by Jesuitpriests, a lawyer for the accusers said Sunday.
The settlement with the Oregon Province of the Society of Jesus is thelargest one yet against a Catholic religious order, said Anchorage lawyerKen Roosa, who called it "a great day" for the 110 victims.
"These are people who were altar boys and altar servers and altar girls,"Roosa said. "These are people who tried to tell their story and in manyinstances were beaten or told to shut up and told, 'How can you say suchthings about a man of God?'"
The settlement does not require the order to admit fault, Roosa said. Noneof the priests were ever criminally charged.
The settlement announcement is premature because some issues need to befinalized, said the Very Rev. John Whitney, provincial superior of theSociety of Jesus, Oregon Province, which covers Oregon, Washington, Idaho,Montana and Alaska.
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Boston Globe
http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2007/11/17/kerry_accepts_swift_boat_challenge/?rss_id=Boston+Globe+--+Today%27s+paper+A+to+Z
CAMPAIGN NOTEBOOK
Kerry accepts Swift Boat challenge
November 17, 2007
Senator John F. Kerry, whose 2004 presidential campaign was torpedoed bycritics of his Vietnam War record, said yesterday he has personally acceptedTexas oilman T. Boone Pickens' offer of $1 million to anyone who candisprove even a single charge of the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth.
In a letter to Pickens, who provided $3 million to bankroll the group duringKerry's race against President Bush, the Massachusetts Democrat wrote:"While I am prepared to show they lied on allegation after allegation, youhave generously offered to pay one million dollars for just one thing thatcan be proven false."
Kerry, a Navy veteran and former prosecutor, said he was willing to presenthis case directly to Pickens and would donate any proceeds to the ParalyzedVeterans of America. Pickens issued his challenge Nov. 6 in Washington,while serving as chairman of a 40th anniversary gala for American Spectatormagazine, according to two Internet accounts of the gathering and Kerry, whosaid he spoke to people who were there.
ASSOCIATED PRESS
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Boston Globe
http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2007/11/17/heavy_on_the_congressional_pork/?rss_id=Boston+Globe+--+Today%27s+paper+A+to+Z
Heavy on the congressional pork
By Derrick Z. Jackson, Globe Columnist
November 17, 2007
HILLARY CLINTON talks of "our effort to change America." Barack Obama'srallies are nicknamed "Countdown to Change." John Edwards latest mantra is,"Money is corrupting our democracy. We can either accept it or demandchange." Whatever change these presidential candidates are talking about isa mystery. As they pontificate in Iowa and New Hampshire, their fellowDemocrats in Washington oink-oink away.
A year after regaining control of the Senate and the House by railingagainst "George Bush's war" in Iraq, the Democrats show no sign of changingthe war machine. In the summer, I noted how four of the top five senatorswho earmarked money in their states for defense contracts were notRepublican hawks but liberal and centrist Democrats - Carl Levin ofMichigan, Clinton and Charles Schumer of New York, and Jack Reed of RhodeIsland.
Six of the top 10 senators in defense campaign contributions in the 2006election cycle were Democrats - Ted Kennedy of Massachusetts, Clinton, ChrisDodd of Connecticut (another presidential candidate), Dianne Feinstein ofCalifornia, Bill Nelson of Florida, and Democrat-turned-independent JoeLieberman of Connecticut. Last summer, Kennedy requested $100 million for aGeneral Electric fighter engine the Air Force said it did not need.
With the possibility that a Democrat will take the White House in 2008, thedefense industry is already throwing its weight behind the Democrats. In the1992 election of Bill Clinton, the industry gave 54 percent of itscontributions to Democrats. But the industry soured on his administration,giving 68 percent to Republicans in 1996 and giving at least 60 percent toRepublican causes up to and including the ill-fated (for Republicans) 2006midterms.
In the 2008 election cycle, the industry is giving 52 percent of itscontributions to Democrats. According to the Center for Responsive Politics,Democrats now make up eight of the top 10 defense recipients. Dodd andClinton are first and third, respectively, ahead of Republican presidentialcandidates John McCain (fifth), Mitt Romney (16th) and Rudy Giuliani (20th).Dodd and Clinton have taken in $171,300 and $125,583, respectively, toMcCain's $118,450, Romney's $82,050, and Giuliani's $69,100.
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