Another Powerpoint plan. They haven't learned anything. 

U.S. to Hand Iraq a New Timetable on Security Role
By DAVID S. CLOUD

WASHINGTON, Oct. 21 — The Bush administration is drafting a timetable for the Iraqi government to address sectarian divisions and assume a larger role in securing the country, senior American officials said.

Details of the blueprint, which is to be presented to Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki before the end of the year and would be carried out over the next year and beyond, are still being devised. But the officials said that for the first time Iraq was likely to be asked to agree to a schedule of specific milestones, like disarming sectarian militias, and to a broad set of other political, economic and military benchmarks intended to stabilize the country.

Blackwell steps up attack
BY JON CRAIG | ENQUIRER STAFF WRITER

Ken Blackwell’s gubernatorial campaign today distributed harsh comments by radio talk show host Bill Cunningham related to Ted Strickland’s sexuality and about a former campaign aide arrested in 1994 for public indecency.

In a news statement emailed to Statehouse reporters, the campaign reprinted a transcript from Wednesday night’s Fox News’ Hannity and Colmes television show. The show’s co-host, Sean Hannity, is a Blackwell supporter, who will be in Blue Ash for a Blackwell rally today. They also sent out a digital video version.

Cunningham, who hosts a talk radio show on WLW radio, was a guest on the program. During the TV broadcast, Cunningham questioned the Democratic congressman’s sexuality -- even after Strickland declared Wednesday: “No, I am not gay, although it is none of their business in the first place.”

And thank you for making it clear that choice has to be purchased. 

Education can be as much about whom your children sit beside as what they learn, said Christopher Lubienski, a University of Illinois professor. A study he released this year reported that, once demographic characteristics are controlled for, fourth- and eighth-graders in public school performed as well as or better than students at private schools on math tests.

“In a sense, you’re not purchasing a type of school,” Mr. Lubienski said. “You’re purchasing a peer group who your kid goes to school with.”

Relax, It’s Just Preschool
By HILLARY CHURA

DON’T tell anyone, but my husband and I plan to send our toddler to a public prekindergarten program.

It’s not just the outrageous cost — about $17,000 a year for a 4-year-old to learn his letters, or more on a per-pound basis than Harvard. Our neighborhood public schools on Manhattan’s Upper East Side are some of the finest in the city (a factor when we relocated) and we just don’t think exclusive for the sake of exclusive is necessary. Still, the fear is that you really do get what you pay for, and no parent wants to gamble with their child’s future.

At a series of public hearings in recent years, backers of the coliseum pitched redevelopment plans. But toward the end of a 2003 gathering, Mayor John DeStefano Jr. took the microphone. "Be realistic," he implored. "It never created any economic activity around it. It didn't even sustain a bar on the corner."

As in many Northeastern cities that were once industrial centers, the coliseum's plight was but one symptom of the city's economic crisis. Even the gun manufacturer that made New Haven famous -- the U.S. Repeating Arms Co., producers of Winchester, "the gun that won the West" -- has finally ended a 140-year association with the city by closing a factory that was once the largest local employer. It was New Haven's last remaining major manufacturer.

Urban Renewal's Final Implosion
By Jonathan Finer
Sunday, October 22, 2006; B04

But Rumsfeld rejected the suggestion that this means the U.S. strategy of "clear, hold and build" is failing.

Bush, Rumsfeld Defend Strategy
They Say Surge In Violence Won't Change Iraq Goals
By Ann Scott Tyson and Michael A. Fletcher
Washington Post Staff Writers
Saturday, October 21, 2006; A01

President Bush and Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld yesterday defended the U.S. strategy in Iraq, saying the ultimate goals remain unchanged despite escalating violence and increasingly somber assessments from military leaders on the ground.

Speaking at a Washington fundraiser, Bush said the U.S. goal in Iraq "is clear and unchanging": creating a country that can govern and defend itself and "that will be an ally in the war against these extremists."

Unendorsed

We've been following Ken Blackwell's career for years. Our file on him is more than an inch thick. We've talked with him personally and come away impressed with his intelligence and commitment to change -- both of which are much needed in this state.But while Blackwell may still get some of our individual votes, he's lost our endorsement, for whatever it's worth. His total nastiness at the Monday debate with his opponent, Democrat Ted Strickland, has proven that he's really not the kind of man we need as our next governor. Personal attacks of dubious accuracy should have no place in a political campaign. As Strickland said, "Mr. Blackwell, you should be ashamed of yourself."

Both Blackwell and Strickland have campaigned as religious people. Blackwell is an evangelical Christian and Strickland an ordained Methodist minister. The Monday debate showed which one has a greater understanding of Christian conduct.

I'm actually retraining myself. I used to be pretty good at this, and it was more relaxing than politics.

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Iraq Aims to Limit Mortality Data
Health Ministry Told Not to Release Civilian Death Toll to U.N.
By Colum Lynch
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, October 20, 2006; A16

 

UNITED NATIONS, Oct. 19 -- Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's office has instructed the country's health ministry to stop providing mortality figures to the United Nations, jeopardizing a key source of information on the number of civilian war dead in Iraq, according to a U.N. document.

A confidential cable from the United Nations' top official in Baghdad, Ashraf Jehangir Qazi of Pakistan, said the Iraqi prime minister is seeking to exercise greater control over the release of the country's politically sensitive death toll. U.N. officials expressed concern that the move threatens to politicize the process of counting Iraq's dead and muddy international efforts to gain a clear snapshot of the scale of killing in Iraq.

Court Told It Lacks Power in Detainee Cases
By Karen DeYoung
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, October 20, 2006; A18

Moving quickly to implement the bill signed by President Bush this week that authorizes military trials of enemy combatants, the administration has formally notified the U.S. District Court here that it no longer has jurisdiction to consider hundreds of habeas corpus petitions filed by inmates at the Guantanamo Bay prison in Cuba.

In a notice dated Wednesday, the Justice Department listed 196 pending habeas cases, some of which cover groups of detainees. The new Military Commissions Act (MCA), it said, provides that "no court, justice, or judge" can consider those petitions or other actions related to treatment or imprisonment filed by anyone designated as an enemy combatant, now or in the future.

That's not quite what it says.

The RNC's latest GOTV ad is deep...

It's below the fold because I can't figure out how to kill the autoplay thing.

LATER: Okay, it was calling home to www.gop.com, so off it goes...but the url is http://www.gop.com/media/RNC1019.swf 

Has Being Married Gone Out of Style?

What we're really seeing in all these numbers is that America still loves family — we just don't want to live under the same roof. We have the financial resources to live apart, and in fact money is the driving factor behind all of these choices. Moving to Florida is expensive; so is living in a nursing home. We do it because we can afford to. Divorce is also expensive — it's a decision to maintain two households, rather than one. Women have their own careers and their own source of income — so they can afford to leave crappy marriages. In the same way, our 20-somethings can live with roommates rather than at home because their jobs pay them enough to do so; they don't have to live with Mom and Dad. This financial emancipation has lead to a dispersion of family into separate households, allowing us to be close when we want (like at Thanksgiving), or put some distance between us when we want.

“I hurt more than anyone could imagine,” Cunningham wrote from federal prison in North Carolina.

Ex-congressman lashes out
In prison letter, he blames contractor for downfall, reporter for his pain
By George E. Condon Jr.
COPLEY NEWS SERVICE
October 7, 2006

WASHINGTON – In a handwritten letter to the reporter who exposed his corruption, former Rep. Randy “Duke” Cunningham portrays life in prison as an agonizing time of regret, anger and bitterness toward those he blames for his downfall.

“I hurt more than anyone could imagine,” Cunningham wrote from federal prison in North Carolina.

In the letter, the former Rancho Santa Fe Republican lashes out at the The San Diego Union-Tribune, which broke the story on June 12, 2005, but aims his sharpest barbs at one of his co-conspirators.

I was looking forward to reading Republican Woes Lead to Feuding by Conservatives. Tacky, I know...but you gotta love stuff like this.

In recent weeks, Mr. Armey has stepped up a public campaign against the influence of Dr. James C. Dobson, founder of Focus on the Family and an influential voice among evangelical protestants. In an interview published last month in “The Elephant in the Room,” a book by Ryan Sager about splits among conservatives, Mr. Armey accused Congressional Republicans of “blatant pandering to James Dobson” and “his gang of thugs,” whom Mr. Armey called “real nasty bullies” — arguments he reprised on the editorial page of The Wall Street Journal and in an open letter on the Web site organization FreedomWorks.

Not really...I'm convinced Second Life is how they got everyone into those Matrix tubes.

Players buy and sell goods and services using a virtual currency, known as Linden Dollars. An online marketplace allows users to convert the currency into real U.S. dollars, enabling users to earn real money from their activities.

Lawmaker opposes taxing online virtual economies
Wed Oct 18, 2006 7:26 PM ET

LONDON (Reuters) - The Republican head of a U.S. congressional committee said it would be a mistake if the Internal Revenue Service introduced regulations to tax virtual economies such as Second Life and World of Warcraft.

Oh, I thought I was done with Hastert and Foley, but that one word...

Former Clerk Tells Panel He Alerted Speaker’s Office to Foley Concerns
By JEFF ZELENY

WASHINGTON, Oct. 19 — Jeff Trandahl, the former House clerk who supervised the Congressional page program, testified Thursday before the House ethics committee that he had periodically advised senior Republican leadership aides of complaints about Representative Mark Foley’s behavior on Capitol Hill.

Mr. Trandahl, whose account is seen by investigators as crucial to determining whether Speaker J. Dennis Hastert knew about Mr. Foley’s conduct, took questions for four hours in a closed session. He declined to comment as he left the Capitol, but people familiar with his testimony said Mr. Trandahl recounted how he informed the speaker’s office about concerns that Mr. Foley was spending too much time with young pages.

It’s Voter-Fooling Time in America

The homestretch of the campaign season historically puts treacherous distortions of the truth before the voters, none more so this year than a mysterious California letter informing thousands of Latino-Americans that immigrants have no right to vote. “You are advised,” begins the Spanish-language letter, dripping with authority, that if “you’re an immigrant, voting in a federal election is a crime that can result in incarceration.” It now appears that someone in a Republican Congressional campaign conjured a contemporary spin on a classic scare tactic from torchlight politics.

Comparable outrages surface daily now, with an ad for black voters in six states misrepresenting the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.’s politics in a staged chat between two black women: “Dr. King was a real man,” says one actress. “You know he was a Republican,” the other chimes in.

[P6: This paragraph was composed entirely of anti-troll pixie dust. It was the necessary gesture implying a moral equivalency between the two national party's campaigns. It was not appropriate in this otherwise fine editorial.

These distortions of truth...no, why soft-pedal it, these lies are in a whole different class than the personal attack ads run by either party. They should be treated as such...that all the perpetrators are Republicans is just a convenient heuristic.]

LATER: They wimped out...which means Texas' rules mean nothing.

But the commission, citing rules it said had been devised by Justice Hecht’s own court, argued that the judge had improperly lent the prestige of his office to advance someone else’s “private interests,” illegally used his name to endorse “another candidate” for “public office,” and violated the State Constitution by conduct discrediting the judiciary.

Texas judges themselves had asked for the prohibition against political endorsements to fend off requests from fellow party candidates. Judges in Texas run for election on party lines.

Ruling Is Due for Justice Who Lobbied for Bush Pick
By RALPH BLUMENTHAL

HOUSTON, Oct. 18 — A year after the Bush administration enlisted a Texas Supreme Court justice in its unsuccessful bid to put Harriet E. Miers on the United States Supreme Court, a special state court is to announce Friday whether the judge was guilty of “willful and persistent” violations of judicial ethics for his role in that effort.

It IS an unregulated insurance company, but that's not really the problem. The idea strikes me as a pure attempt to do the right thing as efficiently as possible. The problem is the circumstances that made someone come up with the idea...the circumstances that make the idea necessary.

Mr. Reinhold, who formed Christian Care in 1993, says it is an efficient way for Christians to fulfill the admonition of Galatians 6:2, which tells them to “carry each other’s burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ.”

But over the years, some state officials have looked at ministries like Christian Care and seen what they would call unregulated health insurance. Their concern is that confused consumers looking for low-cost coverage will rely on these groups as if they were insurance companies, even though the groups may lack the resources to pay claims.

Sharing the Health Bills
By DIANA B. HENRIQUES

It looks like a business and, in many ways, acts like one. But it is beyond the reach of most of the rules and government oversight that apply to businesses — because it is a church mission.

This is the “medical bill sharing ministry” known as Christian Care Ministry, based in Melbourne, Fla., the largest of a handful of similar ministries around the country.

The Complete Works of Charles Darwin Online  

WELCOME to the largest collection of Darwin's writings ever assembled. For a basic, non-academic, entryway click here. For a complete list click contents.

This site currently contains more than 50,000 searchable text pages and 40,000 images of both publications and handwritten manuscripts. There is also the most comprehensive Darwin bibliography ever published and the largest manuscript catalogue ever assembled. More than 150 ancillary texts are also included, ranging from secondary reference works to contemporary reviews, obituaries, published descriptions of Darwin's Beagle specimens and important related works for understanding Darwin's context.

Toolkit to Disable Automatic Delivery of Internet Explorer 7

Brief Description
The Internet Explorer 7 Blocker Toolkit enables IT Administrators to disable automatic delivery of Internet Explorer 7 as a high-priority update via Automatic Updates and the Windows Update and Microsoft Update sites.

OC GOP urges candidate whose campaign sent letter to withdraw
- By PETER PRENGAMAN, Associated Press Writer
Thursday, October 19, 2006

(10-19) 14:53 PDT Garden Grove, Calif. (AP) --

Orange County Republican leaders on Thursday called for the withdrawal of a GOP congressional candidate who has acknowledged that his campaign sent a letter threatening Hispanic immigrant voters.

County Republican Chairman Scott Baugh told The Associated Press that the party's executive committee voted unanimously to ask candidate Tan D. Nguyen to pull out.

Earlier Thursday, Nguyen said in an interview that he has fired a campaign staffer who may have been the source of a letter that falsely told Hispanics that immigrants can go to jail if they try to vote.

Eventually the labour surpluses in the emerging countries will be used up and competition for workers will drive wages up. The question that faces the rich countries is “when?”

Globalisation depresses western wages
By Samuel Brittan
Published: October 19 2006 19:11 | Last updated: October 19 2006 19:11

There is a long-standing debate about whether the middle-income US employee has suffered a fall in living standards or merely achieved modest gains. At best he has had a meagre share of the rise in the US national income, not merely under President George W. Bush but in the past 40 years.

On February 10, I summarised a paper by a leading US authority, Robert J. Gordon, who concluded that the pressures on the ordinary citizen came from an enormous increase in the share of the top 10 per cent of earners in the national pay bill. I would hesitate to take issue with Professor Gordon’s numbers; but even the best of econometric studies is inevitably backward looking. There is surely a case for a more speculative discussion of what may lie ahead.

Did you try duct tape?

So far in October, 72 US troops – including a soldier killed in fighting near Balad on Thursday – and hundreds of Iraqis have been killed. Gen Caldwell said attacks on US and Iraqi forces in Baghdad shot up 22 per cent in the first three weeks of Ramadan, the Muslim holy month.

US army concedes failure in Baghdad
By Demetri Sevastopulo in Washington and Steve Negus, Iraq Correspondent
Published: October 19 2006 19:00 | Last updated: October 19 2006 19:00

American and Iraqi efforts to improve security in Baghdad have failed to reduce bloodshed in the increasingly violent Iraqi capital, the senior US military spokesman in Iraq acknowledged on Thursday.

It is more than possible to get ahead of me. One way is to check out these free access offers from SAGE. In particular, you may want to consider these offers

Online Access to SAGE Race Studies journals

Race Studies Cluster - Free Online Access to SAGE Race Studies journals.

...which are actually the same offer. There's several others you may find interesting too.

Prosecutors said the Web site alerted subscribers that its content was illegal and urged them to be discreet about their purchases.

"When I say `hard-core' pornography, I am talking about child pornography that includes images of children as young as six months involved in bondage and sodomy," U.S. Attorney Christopher Christie said. "This type of depraved conduct is something a civilized society cannot tolerate."

Feds Net 125 Nationwide in Kid-Porn Case
By WAYNE PARRY
Associated Press Writer

NEWARK, N.J. — A Bible camp counselor and a Boy Scout leader were among 125 people arrested nationwide in an Internet child pornography case in which subscribers purchased photos and videos of children engaged in sex acts with adults, federal authorities said Wednesday.

I believe the fact that we were right on every point is sufficient vindication.

Jonah Goldberg: Iraq Was a Worthy Mistake
We know now that invading Iraq was the wrong decision, but that doesn't vindicate the antiwar crowd.
October 19, 2006

THERE'S A STRICT taboo in the column-writing business against recycling ideas. So let me start with something fresh.

The Iraq war was a mistake.

I know, I know. But I've never said it before. And I don't enjoy saying it now. I'm sure that to the antiwar crowd this is too little, too late, and that's fine because I'm not joining their ranks anyway.

US internet addicts 'as ill as alcoholics'
12:55 18 October 2006
NewScientist.com news service
New Scientist Tech staff and AFP

The US could be rife with "internet addicts" who are as clinically ill as alcoholics, according to psychiatrists involved in a nationwide study.

The study, carried out by researchers at Stanford University School of Medicine in California, US, indicates that more than one in eight US residents show signs of "problematic internet use".

The Stanford researchers interviewed 2513 adults in a nationwide survey. Because internet addiction is not a clinically defined medical condition, the questions used were based on analysis of other addiction disorders.

Congressman Faces Questions Over Who Paid for Pacific Trip
By RAYMOND HERNANDEZ

WASHINGTON, Oct. 18 — Representative John E. Sweeney, an upstate Republican who is in a fierce fight to keep his seat, is facing questions about a trip he took to a western Pacific island with an associate of Jack Abramoff, the powerful Washington lobbyist at the center of an extensive corruption scandal.

The Times Union of Albany reported yesterday that Mr. Sweeney might have violated House ethics rules when he failed to disclose who paid for a trip that he made in January 2001 to one of the Northern Mariana Islands with Tony Rudy, who worked for Mr. Abramoff.

Some talking points are only for the grunts because no recognized pundit want people to think them THAT stupid. A biggie on talk radio and other call-in shows is, "At least our guys have the decency to quit when they're caught!"

Not Bob Ney, though...

Bob Ney, Guilty but Still at Capitol
By PHILIP SHENON

WASHINGTON, Oct. 18 — Representative Bob Ney is headed to prison early next year after pleading guilty to charges of accepting tens of thousands of dollars in illegal gifts from lobbyists. Until then, Mr. Ney, a six-term Republican from Ohio, has a comfortable place to bide his time.

So apparently that's his answer to O'Reilly's excellent and important question: Democrats are pro-terrorist.

A Question Bush Can't Answer
By Dan Froomkin
Special to washingtonpost.com
Wednesday, October 18, 2006; 12:16 PM

There are a lot of questions -- about a lot of things -- that President Bush can't seem to answer.

But Fox News's Bill O'Reilly, of all people, asked Bush one of the most important ones in an interview aired last night.

This one was about torture.

Here's the transcript; here's the video.