ECHIDNE OF THE SNAKES

Cheney, as described in a breathtakingly detailed series in The Post this week by reporters Barton Gellman and Jo Becker, is something else.

What they discovered, in a year of work that reveals more about the inner workings of this White House than any previous reporting, is a vice president who used the broad authority given him by a complaisant chief executive to bend the decision-making process to his own ends and purposes, often overriding Cabinet officers and other executive branch officials along the way.

Cheney used his years of experience, as a former White House chief of staff, as the secretary of defense and as the House Republican whip -- and all the savvy that moved him into those positions -- to amass power and use it in the Bush administration. He was more than a match for the newcomers to the White House, and he outfoxed even the veterans of past administrations when it came to the bureaucratic wars.

President Bush openly anticipated the death of ailing Cuban President Fidel Castro today, picturing it as an opportunity to bring freedom to the Caribbean island after nearly a half century of iron-fisted rule by the fiery Communist leader.

"One day, the good Lord will take Fidel Castro away," Bush said during a question-and-answer session at the U.S. Naval War College here. As the audience laughed and began to applaud, Bush seemed to realize that cheering the death of another head of state, even an enemy, might appear unseemly and quickly quieted the crowd. "No, no, no," he told them.

But he then imagined what it would be like once Castro is gone and forecast a debate over how aggressively the United States should try to open up the totalitarian system in Havana. "The question is, what will be the approach of the U.S. government?" he said. "My attitude is that we need to use the opportunity to call the world together to promote democracy as the alternative to the form of government they have been living with."

Anti-American sentiments are on the rise in many parts of the world, driven by concerns that U.S. leaders are prone to act unilaterally and have widened the gap between rich and poor nations, a new international survey found.
At the same time, global attitudes about China have also declined, with residents of many countries expressing concerns about China's growing economic and military power, the survey concluded.
The survey of 45,239 people in 47 countries by the Washington-based Pew Research Center found ``worldwide support'' for a U.S. withdrawal from Iraq and substantial opposition to U.S. and NATO military operations in Afghanistan.
``There is a question as to whether we are living up to our own values, which is what is making people question what our policies are,'' former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright said at a news conference today announcing the poll's findings.
America's image ``has plummeted throughout much of the world'' over the last five years, the center said in its report on the survey, which was conducted April 6 through May 29.
It found ``sharp drops in favorability among traditional allies in Western Europe, as well as substantial declines in Latin America, the Middle East and elsewhere.''

In a decision of sweeping importance to educators, parents and schoolchildren across the country, the Supreme Court today sharply limited the ability of school districts to manage the racial makeup of the student bodies in their schools.

The court voted, 5 to 4, to reject diversity plans from Seattle and Louisville, Ky., declaring that the districts had failed to meet "their heavy burden" of justifying "the extreme means they have chosen — discriminating among individual students based on race by relying upon racial classifications in making school assignments," as Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. wrote for the court.

Today's decision, one of the most important in years on the issue of race and education, need not entirely eliminate race as a factor in assigning students to different schools, Justice Anthony M. Kennedy wrote in a separate opinion. But it will surely prompt many districts to review and perhaps revise programs they already have in place, or go back to the drawing boards in designing plans.

The opinion's rationale relied in part on the historic 1954 decision in Brown vs. Board of Education that outlawed segregation in public schools — a factor that the dissenters on the court found to be a cruel irony, and which they objected to in emotional terms.

In the now familiar lineup, Justices Kennedy, Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas and Samuel A. Alito Jr. sided with the chief justice on most points.

Today's Supreme Court decision striking down Louisville's and Seattle's race-based student assignment plans will surely lead to much gnashing of teeth, recriminations, and accusations of America slipping back to the era of Jim Crow. Politically correct experts, educators, and advocacy types will express outrage and declare their intent to find a way — any way — to ensure that the remaining handful of white students in urban districts attend schools otherwise populated by black and Hispanic children.

They're wrong. Not because we shouldn't feel guilty that so many of our urban schools are racially isolated. Of course we should. And not because Martin Luther King Jr.'s vision of an integrated society isn't compelling. Of course it is. But the surest route to such a society is to help all children achieve academically, prepare for higher education as well as jobs with futures, and enter the great American middle class. Because here's the good news: Middle-class black children living in suburbs are much more likely to attend racially diverse schools than poor black children are. The way forward is through progress — which starts with academic progress. That means shaking up the urban school systems that are producing such abysmal results.

Ann Coulter's Pointed Remarks Draw Edwardses' Pointed Reply
By ADAM NAGOURNEY

THE FBI IS visiting the nation's top technical universities in a bid to stop students taking their holidays outside the country.

MIT, Boston College, and the University of Massachusetts, have all had a visit from the spooks to warn them about the dangers of foreign spies and terrorists stealing sensitive academic research.

The FBI wants the universities to impose rules that will stop US university students from working late at the campus, travelling abroad, showing an interest in their colleagues' work, or have friends outside the United States, engaging in independent research, or making extra money without the prior consent of the authorities.

The American Civil Liberties Union today applauded the Senate
Appropriations Committee's decision to cut funding for the Community Based Abstinence
Education (CBAE) program and raise funding for the family planning program Title X. In a
markup Tuesday, subcommittee members voted to decrease CBAE by $28 million and increase
Title X by $16 million, a move the full committee ratified today.

On June 22, 2007, Representative George Miller (D-Calif.) and 23 other House co-sponsors introduced H.R. 2831, the "Ledbetter Fair Pay Act of 2007," a bill aimed at fixing a recent Supreme Court decision undermining protections against wage discrimination that have been bedrock principles of civil rights laws for decades.

...

H.R. 2831, which addresses wage disparity based on race, color, religion, sex, national origin, age, and disability clarifies that such discrimination is not a one-time occurrence that starts and ends with the first paycheck, but that each paycheck represents ongoing discrimination by the employer. This bill reaffirms the fundamental principle that our civil rights protections are intended to have a broad remedial purpose – to addres and correct injuries suffered because of unlawful employment discrimination.

Rita Moran is the Chair of the Kennebeck County Democratic Committee in Maine. She runs a local bookstore, Apple Valley Books, that sells Pagan books, including books related to Pagan parenting, a popular topic among Pagans, most of whom converted to Paganism as adults and are now having families that they want to raise in their religion. Moran is also a member of the Immanent Grove, a gnostic circle.

A group that goes by what I consider to be the un-American name The Christian Civic League has put up a web page with information about Moran's political position and her religious beliefs, including the terrifying fact that she sells books for Pagan parents. The Christian Civic League helpfully provides lots of contact information, including Moran's address, phone numbers, and e-mail addresses. We all know the purpose of that.

After learning of what occurred, the WWE canceled its live Monday Night RAW, and USA Network aired a three-hour tribute to Benoit in lieu of the scheduled wrestling telecast.

"WWE extends its sincerest thoughts and prayers to the Benoit family's relatives and loved ones in this time of tragedy," the federation posted in a statement on its Web site.

In a series of 5 to 4 decisions, the United States Supreme Court today veered sharply to the right. The Court voted along strict ideological lines to side with the Bush administration in deciding four contentious, high-profile cases.

The four cases ran the jurisprudential gamut. They included challenges to the McCain-Feingold campaign finance law, the Endangered Species Act, and taxpayer-funded faith-based initiatives, as well as a free speech case involving an Alaskan student who waved a sign reading "Bong Hits 4 Jesus" in front of television cameras during an Olympic ceremony. In the end, the Court opened loopholes in McCain-Feingold and in the Endangered Species Act, dismissed a suit objecting to publicly-funded religious programs, and upheld the suspension of the Alaskan student.

In all four cases, the majority consisted of the same conservative bloc and the minority of the Court's left wing. The conservative majority in all four cases included Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas, Anthony Kennedy and the two Bush appointees, Samuel Alito and Chief Justice John Roberts. John Paul Stevens, David Souter, Ruth Bader Ginsberg and Stephen Breyer dissented.

The boyfriend of a missing pregnant woman was arrested on two counts of murder charges Saturday, and a body believed to be hers was found nearly a week after she vanished from her home, authorities said.

A suburban Chicago man found shot near the bodies of his wife and their three children in the family sport utility vehicle earlier this month was charged Saturday in their shooting deaths.

Australia's prime minister announced plans Thursday to ban pornography and alcohol for Aborigines in northern areas and tighten control over their welfare benefits to fight child sex abuse among them.

Some Aboriginal leaders rejected the plan as paternalistic and said the measures were discriminatory and would violate the civil rights of the country's original inhabitants. But others applauded the initiative and recommended extending the welfare restrictions to Aborigines in other parts of the country.

Prime Minister John Howard was responding to a report last week that found sexual abuse of children to be rampant in indigenous communities in the Northern Territory. The report said the abuse was fueled by endemic alcohol abuse, unemployment, poverty and other factors causing a breakdown in traditional society.

'This is a national emergency,' Howard told Parliament. 'We're dealing with a group of young Australians for whom the concept of childhood innocence has never been present.'

Howard announced the measures for the Northern Territory, an Outback region where the federal government retains powers it doesn't have over Australia's six states. He urged state leaders to apply similar tough rules in their jurisdictions.

The federal government can change laws in the territory with an act of Parliament, where Howard has a majority that ensures he can implement his policy.

The plan angered some Aboriginal leaders, who said it was the kind of government behavior that has disenfranchised Aborigines and created the problems in the first place. They also complained they had not been consulted; the government had not previously indicated it was considering such action.

Okay, when I first read about this Trojan ad, I thought it would probably be at least mildly offensive. But I found it vaguely amusing.

It trades in the same gender stereotypes common to ads like this, but overall, I didn't think it hit on them too hard. The ad doesn't argue that men are de facto pigs, but it does suggest that men who push for condom-less sex are pigs, and that's a pretty fair assessment of that behavior. But the stereotype issues aside, the issue with this ad is that Fox and CBS rejected the ad and not because it peddles in the same stereotypes that their programming uses. No, they took issue with advertising condoms as being used for what they are used for.

"We're going to end the war in Iraq and finally bring home the troops," she said as a number of Code Pink protesters stood up in the audience. When she declared, "The American military has done its job," boos began to be heard around the room. As the boos increased, Sen. Clinton raised her voice. "The American military has succeeded," she said, to more boos. "It is the Iraqi government that has failed to make the tough decisions." Still more boos.

That's flat wrong. The Politics on the Hudson blog gets it right: "They jeered the Democratic presidential hopeful when she blamed the Iraqi government for the continued violence that has bogged down U.S. troops."

U.S. Citizen Illegally Deported From Jail Is Missing in Mexico

ACLU and Law Firm Seek Federal Help to Find Developmentally Disabled Man

Monday, June 11, 2007

LOS ANGELES — Federal immigration officers and the L.A. County Sheriff's Department illegally deported a U.S. citizen last month, the ACLU/SC has learned. He is missing in Mexico, and today the ACLU/SC and the law firm of Van Der Hout, Brigagliano & Nightingale file a lawsuit in U.S. District Court seeking his safe return.

Pedro Guzman, 29, was born in Los Angeles and raised in Lancaster, California. He was serving time at Men’s Central Jail for trespassing, a misdemeanor offense, when he was deported to Tijuana May 10 or 11. Mr. Guzman is developmentally disabled, does not read or write English well, and knows no one in Tijuana. He declared at his booking that he was born in California.

He spoke to his sister-in-law by telephone from a shelter in Tijuana within a day of his deportation, but the call was interrupted. Family members traveled to the city in an attempt to find him and have remained there, searching shelters, jails, churches, hospitals, and morgues.

There are no circumstances under which government officials may deport a U.S. citizen. Federal officials have refused requests by family members and a private lawyer to assist in the search for Mr. Guzman.

"This is a recurring nightmare for every person of color of immigrant roots," said ACLU/SC legal director Mark Rosenbaum. "Local jail officials and federal immigration officers deported the undeportable, a United States citizen, based on appearance, prejudice, and reckless failure to apply fair legal procedures."

"What has happened to Pedro Guzman is a tragedy," said Stacy Tolchin of Van Der Hout, Brigagliano & Nightingale. "His life may be in danger, and the government must act immediately to locate him and return him to the United States."

Jail and Department of Homeland Security officials failed to identify Mr. Guzman’s disability and improperly obtained his signature for deportation from the United States. "The procedures for determination of legal status implemented by Los Angeles County deputy sheriffs … fail even minimal criteria for constitutional due process," the lawsuit states.

Sheriff's deputies trained by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement conduct immigration checks at L.A. County jails. The ACLU and immigrant-rights groups warned that involving local law enforcement in immigration policing would lead to mistaken deportations and violate the due-process rights of inmates.

Anyone with information about Mr. Guzman can call the ACLU/SC at (213) 977-9500.

Guzman, a Southern California native, was abandoned in a place where he knows absolutely no one, with no money and without cognitive ability to get himself back to his home. As of right now our government won't even formally ask Mexican officials to search the morgues. That's how little care is extended for someone who is not a missing white girl.

There are no circumstances in which government officials may deport a U.S. citizen.

Every time the courtroom doors opened during Jack Kevorkian’s weeklong trial in 1999, security guards allowed two wheelchair users to enter and sit in designated spaces, as well as three disabled but walking advocates, all representatives of the group Not Dead Yet. We rotated the opportunity to be in the courtroom among about 40 disability activists who came from several states to represent the majority of Kevorkian’s body count, people with non-terminal disabilities.

Kevorkian had been quoted in Time Magazine to say he would love to debate the critics who charge that he is too hasty in deciding who may die. “I will argue with them if they will allow themselves to be strapped to a wheelchair for 72 hours so they can’t move, and they are catheterized and they are placed on the toilet and fed and bathed. Then they can sit in a chair and debate with me.”

In response, our leaflets simply stated, “We’re here, and we demand the equal protection of the law: Jail Jack.”

Kevorkian claims involvement in over 130 deaths, and it’s been irrefutably documented in such respected publications as the New England Journal of Medicine that over 70% were not terminally ill, and 70% were women. Many disability rights advocates view him as a serial killer of people with disabilities.

The Dodge La Femme was a product of the Chrysler Corporation's Dodge division between 1955 and 1956. The La Femme's Raison D'être stemmed from Chrysler's marketing department's observation that more and more women were taking interest in automobiles during the 1950s, and that women's opinions on which color car to buy was becoming part of the decision making process for couples buying an automobile. The La Femme was an attempt to gain a foothold in the women's automobile market.

...

The interior of the car also received attention and features. La Femme interiors were upholstered in a special tapestry material featuring pink rosebuds on a pale pink background and pale pink vinyl trim. The La Femme also came with a rectangular purse that coordinated with the interior of the car. The purse could be stowed in a special compartment built into the back of the passenger seat. Each purse was outfitted with a matching set, which included a compact lipstick case, cigarette case, lighter and change purse, all by designed and made by "Evans".

Dedicated teams of senior prosecutors are to be deployed in the UK's honour killing hotspots in the wake of the failings exposed this week by the case of a young Kurdish woman murdered by her family.

The prosecutors, who have all had experience of complex organised crime cases, will start work this month as part of an overhaul of how cases are handled. The move is designed to boost conviction rates and improve protection for victims.

...

The changes come after Banaz Mahmod, a 20-year-old Kurd, was murdered by her father and uncle because they disapproved of her boyfriend who was not a strict Muslim and was not of their tribe.

She was found dumped in a suitcase, with the shoelace used to kill her around her neck. She had repeatedly told police her family were trying to kill her. In one instance where she had escaped from her father, she was not taken seriously, and described as melodramatic and manipulative by an officer who interviewed her.

From the June 11 edition of MSNBC's Morning Joe:

SCARBOROUGH: You know, Dan, the thing that Chris Licht [executive producer of MSNBC's Scarborough Country] was talking about -- maybe you read in the Times, or I don't know where you read it -- but there was, seemed to me, this terrible miscalculation by Rome Hartman and a couple of CBS News execs that they were going to soften up the news, and that way they could expand their viewership. Yeah, I would think that if I'm sitting down at 6:30 to get the news, to see what's happened in the day, I don't want fluff stories. Do you think that's one of the problems that Katie Couric's had coming in -- that maybe they tried to re-brand the Evening News in a way that Americans just didn't want to accept?

RATHER: Well, I totally agree with you, Joe. That -- I want to make very clear that I have nothing against Katie Couric at all. She's a very nice person, and I have a lot of friends at CBS News. However, it was clear at the time -- and I think it's become even clearer -- that the mistake was to try to bring the Today show ethos to the Evening News and to dumb it down, tart it up in hopes of attracting a younger audience. And I just don't think people at 6:30 or 7 o'clock at night, or even 5:30 in the Central Time Zone or 6 o'clock when it's seen, that that's what they want. This is the continuation of a trend that we've talked about before, Joe and Mika [Brzezinski] and John [Ridley], and that is the combination of what I call the corporatizing of the news, has led to the trivializing the news.

LIMBAUGH: Yeah, this is a clever technique, folks. I myself have used this technique. I love Katie Couric! Oh, I love CBS -- I've got friends at CBS News. A lot of respect for what goes on over there. And then you slam them. Tarting up the news. Dumbing it down and tarting up the news. The Today show ethos.

Now, when I saw this last night -- I was talking about this -- I said this is -- that's sexism. Dan Blather [sic], this is pure sexism -- dumb it down and tart it up. So we went back today. Here's a montage of Dan Rather on the air on election night November 2000. This is a montage of Dan Rather's coverage. And let's listen to dumbing it down and tarting it up.

A senior Vatican cardinal said yesterday that Catholics should stop donating to human rights group Amnesty International because of its new policy advocating abortion rights for women if they had been raped, were a victim of incest or faced health risks.

Cardinal Renato Martino, president of the Vatican's Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace, accused Amnesty of turning its back on its mission to defend human rights.

"The inevitable consequence of this decision, according to the cardinal, will be the suspension of any financing to Amnesty on the part of Catholic organisations and also individual Catholics," said a statement from Cardinal Martino's office yesterday.

"AI has betrayed its mission," Cardinal Martino told the US National Catholic Register in an interview.

Amnesty changed its neutral stance on abortion in April, but its Italy chairman Paolo Pobbiati insisted its new position had been misinterpreted by the cardinal.

"This has nothing to do with legitimising abortion as part of a campaign for human rights, it is to do with combating violence against women," he said.

"It was partly inspired by our experience in Africa where soldiers rape women in communities they attack to force them to have their children. We also believe women who have had abortions should benefit from medical care regardless of the reason for the abortion. Moreover we aim to promote education and contraception to reduce abortion rates."

HERE'S A GOOD question for you: Why have public schools at all?

OK, cue the marching music. We need public schools because blah blah blah and yada yada yada. We could say blah is common culture and yada is the government's interest in promoting the general welfare. Or that children are the future. And a mind is a terrible thing to waste. Because we can't leave any child behind.

The problem with all these bromides is that they leave out the simple fact that one of the surest ways to leave a kid "behind" is to hand him over to the government. Americans want universal education, just as they want universally safe food. But nobody believes that the government should run 90% of the restaurants, farms and supermarkets. Why should it run 90% of the schools — particularly when it gets terrible results?

Consider Washington, home of the nation's most devoted government-lovers and, ironically, the city with arguably the worst public schools in the country. Out of the 100 largest school districts, according to the Washington Post, D.C. ranks third in spending for each pupil — $12,979 — but last in spending on instruction. Fifty-six cents out of every dollar goes to administrators who, it's no secret, do a miserable job administrating, even though D.C. schools have been in a state of "reform" for nearly 40 years.

In a blistering series, the Post has documented how badly the bureaucrats have run public education. More than half of the District of Columbia's kids spend their days in "persistently dangerous" schools, with an average of nine violent incidents a day in a system with 135 schools. "Principals reporting dangerous conditions or urgently needed repairs in their buildings wait, on average, 379 days … for the problems to be fixed," according to the Post. But hey, at least the kids are getting a lousy education. A mere 19 schools managed to get "proficient" scores or better for a majority of students on the district's Comprehensive Assessment Test.

The two minarets of the al-Askari shrine in Iraq, one of the holiest sites in Shia Islam, have been damaged by two explosions, officials say.

According to witnesses the minarets collapsed completely after being hit by bomb blasts around 0900 (0500 GMT).

The shrine houses one of two tombs in Samarra for revered Shia imams.

The bombing of the dome at the mosque in 2006 is widely believed to have set off a continuing spiral of sectarian violence in which many thousands died.

The BBC's Jim Muir in Baghdad says there are obvious fears now that this might give it yet further impetus.

Some might say KYTX president and general manager Phil Hurley has decided to pull his station's news ratings out of the toilet by stepping into the gutter.

The Tyler, Texas, CBS affiliate will premier its latest news anchor next week – Lauren Jones, an actress, bikini model and former World Wrestling Entertainment wrestler with no journalism training or experience.

While Hurley admits his decision to hire Jones will attract criticism, he sees it as a smart business move.

"We think this will accelerate our growth and that people will see this as entrepreneurial," he told the Longview, Texas, News-Journal.

A Georgia Superior Court judge today ordered the release of Genarlow Wilson, who has served two years of 10-year prison sentence for having consensual oral sex with another teenager at a party when he was 17. Prosecutors said they would appeal the order.

...

The case began three years ago when Mr. Wilson was arrested for having consensual oral sex with a 15-year-old girl at a New Year's Eve party in 2003. Under Georgia law, that offense qualified as aggravated child molestation, a felony charge largely intended for use against adult sexual predators, not teenagers like Mr. Wilson, who was 17 at the time of the incident. He had no prior criminal record and was an honors student and star athlete.

Critics pointed out that if Mr. Wilson had engaged in full sexual intercourse with the girl instead of oral sex, under Georgia law he could have been charged only with a misdemeanor, because of an exemption written into the molestation law specifically to cover contact between minors. But because that exemption did not mention oral sex, when Mr. Wilson was convicted, he received a mandatory sentence of ten years in prison without possibility of parole.

Mr. Wilson was also charged with rape for being one of several people at the party to have sex with a 17-year-old girl, but he was acquitted of those charges.

The 10-year sentence was widely criticized — including by former President Jimmy Carter — as disproportionate, and Ms. Bernstein likened it to "cruel and unusual punishment."

Not so long ago, pink was a colour reserved for little girls. It was the colour of Barbie and bubblegum, of plastic tat that parents were pestered into buying, of pre-teen bedrooms and pocket-money accessories.

Then, suddenly, it was everywhere - and being targeted at grown women. Next month, for instance, sees the launch of Fly Pink, a "boutique airline designed especially for women" which plans to operate from Liverpool's John Lennon airport. The airline will offer flights to Paris for "shopping breaks" in customised pink planes, and, to complete the experience, will also provide pink champagne and complementary manicures before take-off.

Which just underlines the fact that it is now possible for women to experience their entire day in pink. You can work out with a pink yoga mat and weights; adorn your windscreen wipers with pink wiper wings; cook dinner on a pink George Foreman grill and style your hair with hot-pink hair straighteners. You can even see off would-be attackers with a powder-pink Taser gun.

The Bush administration increasingly emphasized partisan political ties over expertise in recent years in selecting the judges who decide the fate of hundreds of thousands of immigrants, despite laws that preclude such considerations, according to an analysis by The Washington Post.

At least one-third of the immigration judges appointed by the Justice Department since 2004 have had Republican connections or have been administration insiders, and half lacked experience in immigration law, Justice Department, immigration court and other records show.

Two newly appointed immigration judges were failed candidates for the U.S. Tax Court nominated by President Bush; one fudged his taxes and the other was deemed unqualified to be a tax judge by the nation's largest association of lawyers. Both were Republican loyalists.

Justice officials also gave immigration judgeships to a New Jersey election law specialist who represented GOP candidates, a former treasurer of the Louisiana Republican Party, a White House domestic policy adviser and a conservative crusader against pornography.

These appointments, all made by the attorney general, have begun to reshape a system of courts in which judges, ruling alone, exercise broad powers -- deporting each year nearly a quarter-million immigrants, who have limited rights to appeal and no right to an attorney. The judges do not serve fixed terms.

A few months earlier, another failed tax court nominee, Francis L. Cramer, a former campaign treasurer for Sen. Judd Gregg (R-N.H.), was appointed as an immigration judge. Cramer's bid for a seat on the tax court foundered after the American Bar Association's taxation section wrote a rare letter to the Senate Finance Committee, saying: "We are unable to conclude that he is qualified to serve."

Cramer was then hired by the Justice Department's tax division and was briefly lent to the department's Office of Immigration Litigation. Ashcroft approved him as an immigration judge in March 2004. The Government Accountability Office, a legislative watchdog, criticized the appointment, saying, "Converting a Schedule C [political] appointee with less than 6 months of immigration law experience to an immigration judge position raises questions about the fairness of the conversion."

"Rape is terrible. Rape is awful. Is it made any better by killing an innocent child? Does it solve the problem for the woman that's been raped?" the Kansas Republican asked at the St. Joseph's Covenant Keepers gathering.

"We need to protect innocent life. Period," Brownback said, bringing the crowd of about 500 to its feet.

The Ark easily had room for the dinosaurs (as you can see in other articles in this issue). First, the Ark was the size of a huge cargo ship (at least 450 ft [137 m] long). Second, there weren't many different kinds of dinosaurs (only about 50 "kinds"). Third, God most likely brought the smaller juvenile dinosaurs, not the aging adults, because they would be better suited for the voyage and the responsibilities of reproducing rapidly after the Flood.

The man who plays Adam in a video aired at a Bible-based creationist museum has led a different life outside the Garden of Eden, flaunting his sexual exploits online and modeling for a clothing line that promotes free love.

After learning about his activities Thursday, the Creation Museum in Kentucky pulled the 40-second video in which he appears.

But the smart stuff is being drowned out by a fierce, bullying, often witless tone of intolerance that has overtaken the left-wing sector of the blogosphere. Anyone who doesn't move in lockstep with the most extreme voices is savaged and ridiculed—especially people like me who often agree with the liberal position but sometimes disagree and are therefore considered traitorously unreliable. Some of this is understandable: the left-liberals in the blogosphere are merely aping the odious, disdainful—and politically successful—tone that right-wing radio talk-show hosts like Rush Limbaugh pioneered. They are also justifiably furious at a Bush White House that has specialized in big lies and smear tactics.

California Attorney General Jerry Brown will now look at the De Anza College rape case after the Santa Clara County District Attorney made the request.
A deputy in the office of DA Dolores Carr says she is confident Brown will reach the same conclusion, that there is insufficient evidence to file charges in the case.

In a move experts call unusual but not unprecedented, the Santa Clara County DA has asked the state attorney general to review her decision not to charge two De Anza baseball players in the alleged rape of a 17-year-old girl.

The victim told deputies it happened at the South Buena Vista home of one of the players. The National Organization for Women, which rallies for and counseled the alleged victim, says it's a victory.

Mandy Benson, CA National Organization for Women: "I think it means that they really heard the victim. The victim has asked for this."

Jerry Brown, Calif. Attorney General: "Just got the request. We're going to take a very hard look at this case, make an independent review, and when we've completed that I'll make an announcement, either take some action or to validate what's been done"

Findings indicate that the youth in the program group were no more likely than control group youth to have abstained from sex and, among those who reported having had sex, they had similar numbers of partners and had initiated sex at the same mean age.

Abortion is an act that takes the life of an innocent human child," said Erik Whittington, American Life League's youth outreach director. "It is shameful that Christians would rally around the physical needs of the poor and ignore the deaths of untold millions of babies. Abortion is poverty and the number one priority of our day should be its demise."

This past weekend, Sojourners opened Pentecost 2007: Taking Vision to the Street, a conference aimed at placing "poverty at the top of our nation's agenda." Today, Sojourners will host a march that will run from National City Christian Church to the Upper Senate Park. American Life League, through its youth outreach project Rock for Life, will be there to present to conference attendees the importance of putting abortion, not poverty, at the top of the list of social concerns.

"Mother Teresa, the universal icon for fighting poverty once said, 'It is a poverty to decide that a child must die so that you may live as you wish.' While we commend Christians for working towards eliminating poverty," said Whittington, "we must not forget that abortion kills a human person, and leaves the mother spiritually and psychologically broken. Abortion ends the lives of more than 3,500 American babies a day. This bloodshed dwarfs any other issue, including poverty."

ALL is opposed to all abortion, contraception and other threats to the human person and the family. This total protection approach separates us from many of the other major groups. ALL will not support abortion-related legislation that contains exceptions for rape, incest, life of the mother, fetal deformity or other such condition.

Using the Thomistic Principle of Totality (removal of a pathological part to preserve the life of the person) and the Doctrine of Double Effect, the only moral action in an ectopic pregnancy where a woman's life is directly threatened is the removal of the tube containing the human embryo. The death of the human embryo is unintended although foreseen. Put another way, if there were a way to save both lives, which, of course, are of equal value, one would be obliged morally to do so. At this time, this is not possible.

It is acknowledged that it has become commonplace even in Catholic hospitals to open the tube and "suction out the human embryo" or administer methotrexate either via mouth or laparoscopy. Both of these procedures directly attack an innocent human life and are intrinsically immoral and never can be justified. In fact, they violate the Fifth Commandment, which under all circumstances prohibits a direct attack on innocent human life. There are absolutely no exceptions to the 5th Commandment as described.

While removing the tube containing the human embryo results in the death of a human being as does suctioning out the human embryo or administration of methotrexate, one cannot ethically conclude that all the actions have the same intended end result. The reason for this is that the "means" used to accomplish the "end" are not the same.

Refusal to make this distinction results in a Machiavellian approach employing any "means" to the "end" including the direct assault on the human being intended to result in his death. While it is acknowledged that removal of the tube containing the human embryo may result in sterility, it is not morally justified to directly attack human life by suctioning out the human embryo or administering methotrexate even though fertility is preserved.

Biggest dust-up: "Let's take a closer look at those breasts," a post about a female blogger who posed for a photo in front of Bill Clinton. Jessica Valenti, who runs and blogs on feministing.com, is standing at an angle with a slight arch in her back, making the focal point of the photo, whether intentional or not, her breasts.

Valenti isn't shy about her body; she just published a book called "Full Frontal Feminism: A Young Woman's Guide to Why Feminism Matters." Althouse riffed on the relationship between accentuated breasts and feminism, and Valenti and the rest of the blogo-feminist world lashed back at her. "That's still going on. That started like last year. I still get stuff about that," said Althouse. "But I don't regret it."

Compulsory waltzing will be added to the Chinese national curriculum in September under a new campaign to reduce childhood obesity.

From the start of the new school year, teachers across the country will be expected to put hundreds of millions of pupils through their paces every day, the state-run China Daily said today.

In preparation, a team of pioneering ballroom and folk instructors started training this month and video demonstrations of the mandatory breaktime routines have been filmed for DVD distribution to regional education departments.

The routines - which will supplement rather than replace regular physical education classes - are reportedly aimed at turning a generation of chubby cheeks into twinkle toes. Student waistlines have expanded almost as fast as the Chinese economy. Studies suggest one in five children are obese. Rising affluence, reduced exercise and the growing popularity of fast food such as Kentucky Fried Chicken and McDonalds have hit school fitness levels badly. The average pupil today is slower and weaker than 10 years ago.

The Agriculture Department regulates the test and argued that widespread testing could lead to a false positive that would harm the meat industry.

"As discussed previously, the vast majority of cattle that are processed into beef in the United States are less than 24 months old. See Ferguson Decl. ¶ 5. However, the average incubation period for the BSE disease is five years, meaning that on average it takes five years from the date a cow is infected with BSE for the cow to show any outward clinical signs of the disease, such as abnormal posture, inability to walk, or other impaired coordination. See id. Given that the earliest point at which current BSE testing methods can detect a positive case of BSE is only two to three months before a cow would demonstrate clinical signs of the disease, see id. ¶ 10; Rippke Decl. ¶ 9, testing all young normal-looking cattle for slaughter, as proposed by plaintiff, is not practical and offers no animal health or food safety value because testing a young infected animal with the current methodology would likely produce false negative results, Ferguson Decl. ¶ 10.23.

All 15 women presenters reported for work at the official Palestine Television station in Gaza yesterday, in defiance of death threats by a radical Islamic group that is believed to have links with al-Qa'ida. The Righteous Swords of Islam warned that it would strike the women with "an iron fist and swords" for refusing to wear a veil on camera.

"It is disgraceful that the women working for the official Palestinian media are competing with each other to display their charms," it said in a leaflet distributed in Gaza at the weekend. "We will destroy their homes. We will blow up their work places. We have a lot of information about their addresses and we are following their movements."

The fringe group threatened to "slaughter" the women for corrupting Palestinian morals. "The management and workers at Palestine TV should know," it warned, "that we are much closer to them than they think. If necessary, we will behead and slaughter to preserve the spirit and morals of our people."

About half the women TV journalists wear the traditional hijab head covering, but all show their faces and wear makeup. They mounted a vigil yesterday outside the Gaza City office of the Palestinian President, Mahmoud Abbas, demanding protection and respect.

You know, I've studied history, I've read about America and you know something, if it weren't for liberals, we'd be living in a dark, evil country, far worse than anything Bush could conjure up. A world where children were told to piss on the side of the road because they weren't fit to pee in a white outhouse, where women had to get back alley abortions and where rape was a joke, unless the alleged criminal was black, whereupon he was hung from a tree and castrated.

What has conservatism given America? A stable social order? A peaceful homelife? Respect for law and order? No. Hell, no. It hasn't given us anything we didn't have and it wants to take away our freedoms.

The Founding Fathers, as flawed as they were, slaveowners and pornographers, smugglers and terrorists, understood one thing, a man's path to God needed no help from the state. Is the religion of these conservatives so fragile that they need the state to prop it up, to tell us how to pray and think? Is that what they stand for? Is that their America?

April Grolle, Lauren Chief Elk and Lauren Breayans never expected to be called heroes. But they never expected to be called names either.

The three, all soccer players on the highly regarded De Anza College women's soccer team, were thrust into the national spotlight when they rushed in and rescued a 17-year-old girl who was, they say, being sexually assaulted at a March 3 party in San Jose. They say the victim was so intoxicated she appeared to be comatose, and that eight or more men stood around watching one of them sexually assault her.

The three broke in, grabbed the girl and carried her out. They took her to the hospital, notified authorities and volunteered to testify in any court proceedings. What more could you ask?

To keep their mouths shut. To butt out. To mind their own business.

That's the message the soccer players got from the men accused in the case.

"People I didn't even know were coming up to me and saying, 'Stop your lying. Shut your f -- mouth,' " Chief Elk said in an interview last week. "We'd be walking around, and people would actually come up and get in our face."

It reached the point where they felt threatened. Cmdr. John Hirokawa of the Santa Clara County Sheriff's Department confirms that deputies were called to the campus on a complaint of harassment.

Lauren Chief Elk and April Grolle are 20-year old De Anza College students and teammates on the school's soccer squad. They were leaving a party at a house when they realized something wrong was going on in a back room where the doors were closed and the lights were off.
"We heard and saw a girl tapping on this door in the kitchen saying 'There is a girl in there with eight guys," explains Chief Elk.
They say they tried to get into the room, but were confronted by a baseball player.
"[He said] 'Mind your own business; she wants to be in here' and slams the door," says Grolle.
What they saw through a crack in the door horrified them.
"When I looked in, I saw about ten pairs of legs surrounding a girl, lying on the mattress on the floor and a guy on top of her with his pants down and his hips thrusting on top of her," recall Chief Elk. "And when I saw that I knew immediately something wasn't right. It just didn't look right."
"I saw that this young girl did not want to be in there, and that's when we just went 'We're getting this girl out of there,'" says Grolle.
April and Lauren -- along with a third soccer player named Lauren Breayans -- broke down the door and were shocked with what they found.
"This poor girl was not moving. She had vomit dribbling down her face. We had to scoop vomit out of her mouth [and] lift her up. Her pants were completely off her body," says Chief Elk. "She had her one shoe one, her jeans were wrapped around one of her ankles and her underwear was left around her ankles. To the left of the bed there was some condom thrown on the ground."
"When they lifted her head up, her eyes moved and she said 'I'm sorry,'" says Grolle. "One of the guys who was in the room said 'This is her fault. She got drunk and she did this to herself.'"
Lauren Chief Elk didn't believe him: "You have to be conscious to consent to something, and that was not the case at all."

Is it sexual assault when a victim is too intoxicated to consent to sex? Yes, but we must prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the victim was so impaired that she could not understand what she was doing. We must also prove that the defendant should have known that she was incapable of consenting. This can be very difficult when the defendant and witnesses offer competing versions of the victim's condition.
This case fits that mold. Many of the witnesses had been drinking, some heavily, and their stories were not always consistent. But most important, the victim told investigators that she did not remember anything that happened from shortly after the time she arrived at the party. The victim would be unable to counter claims that she had consented. The trial would be fought over differing versions of the victim's sobriety and behavior, with several witnesses and potential defendants motivated to paint her in an unfavorable light.
The result would be such a confusing and conflicting account of what happened that we would be unable to convince 12 jurors to convict. For example, the media reported that the victim vomited. But lab tests showed that the vomit did not come from her. The defense would challenge any account which depended upon the vomit to prove that the victim was too intoxicated to consent.