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AUSTIN - A proposed detention facility for suspected illegal immigrants was labeled a "holding pen for wetbacks" on a public meeting agenda written by a rural city council member.Charles Laws, 75, apologized Thursday for using the derogatory term but defied calls from state lawmakers and officials in nearby Austin for him to resign as Mustang Ridge's mayor pro tem and as general manager of a local water supply company. "If I hadn't been in such a hurry I would have said ‘illegals' or something like that, but that's a term that I grew up with out here and everybody said...

Denver could face a "dangerous situation" on the eve of the Democratic National Convention, war protesters said Thursday, after losing a coveted permit for Civic Center to the convention host committee. "When things blow up because the police have to enforce a permit that the Democrats got, don’t blame us for that," said Glenn Spagnuolo, an organizer for the Re-create 68 Alliance. "Blame the Democrats for trying to silence dissent in the city of Denver." when Jenny Anderson, event planner for the Denver 2008 Convention Host Committee, won the permit for Civic Center for a kick-off Aug. 24, Spagnuolo accused...

Gov. David A. Paterson reimbursed his campaign committee this week for two stays at a Manhattan hotel that he has acknowledged using to carry on an extramarital affair, his aides said Friday. Mr. Paterson used his campaign’s American Express Platinum Card to pay for the hotel stays — one night in November 2002 and another in April 2003, totaling $253 — but he has no recollection of the circumstances, and no records could be found to shed light on them, according to the aides. Henry T. Berger, an election lawyer for Mr. Paterson, also told reporters that the governor used...

The Christian Century Magazine News March 25, 2008 IRS probes appearance by Obama at UCC convention The Internal Revenue Service has notified the United Church of Christ that it has opened an investigation into possible "political activities" connected with Senator Barack Obama's speech at the denomination's national convention last year. UCC president John H. Thomas termed the investigation "disturbing," but said that church officials took great care to see that Obama's appearance at the UCC General Synod meeting last June in Hartford, Connecticut, "met appropriate legal and moral standards." Engaging in partisan political acts can endanger a church body's tax-exempt...

Dozens of sexual predators nationwide are benefiting from a federal aid program for low-income college students and they often use the money for living expenses already being covered by taxpayers or buy stereos and television sets. Although still confined by the courts to treatment centers they qualify for Pell Grants, the federal financial program created to give the poor access to a college education. The taxpayer-funded institutions that house the offenders report that the financial aid is often used to buy clothes, stereos and music compact discs long after they DROP OUT OF COLLEGE. This has allowed some of the...

For many of us, the memory of the student-led, pro-democracy Tiananmen Square protest of 1989 is still very fresh and vivid. It served as an indication that, no matter how tightly China tries to restrict the flow of information and ideas from outside their influence, they can’t control everything (keep in mind – 1989 happened before the internet revolution). It also served as a reminder that the Chinese communist regime was still as lethal and cold as ever. They are still the people who supported and fought with the Korean and Vietnamese communists against American forces.....

Editor's Introductory Note: Our planet has been slowly warming since last emerging from the "Little Ice Age" of the 17th century, often associated with the Maunder Minimum. Before that came the "Medieval Warm Period", in which temperatures were about the same as they are today. Both of these climate phenomena are known to have occurred in the Northern Hemisphere, but several hundred years prior to the present, the majority of the Southern Hemisphere was primarily populated by indigenous peoples, where science and scientific observation was limited to non-existent. Thus we can not say that these periods were necessarily "global". However,...

Elkins School District faces suit over bus driver incident BY SCOTT F. DAVIS Northwest Arkansas Times Posted on Saturday, March 22, 2008 Email this story | Printer-friendly version The Elkins School District and Superintendent Robert Allen face a federal lawsuit involving an incident in which a school bus driver reprimanded a special-needs elementary school student last year. Crystal Kirk, the student's parent, filed the suit Feb. 20, seeking compensatory and punitive damages against the district and Allen for failing "to create and implement a policy and practice of properly training bus personnel and employees to protect (her son )." Kirk,...

What happens in a town when the privileged move in Town Meeting and elections have been held here in NH over the last couple of weeks (with more voting in some towns still to come).  I've been helping one group of people, the Moultonboro Citizens Alliance, with their site as they advocate for implementing SB2 style of voting and for keeping taxes lower.Well, while they did not achieve their goal of getting SB2 implemented, they came REAL CLOSE!  And they did defeat a contentious issue of a new edifice in town.During that time, lots of Letters to the Editors were...

SAIPAN, Northern Mariana Islands — The U.S. credit crisis has extended far out into the Pacific territories. Sixty percent of homeowners under a 10-year-old government-backed loan program in the U.S. Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands are in default on their loans, The Marianas Variety newspaper reported, citing the Marianas Public Housing Trust and the Marianas Housing Corp. Lawmakers say many homeowners could be forced to move into smaller homes or move out of the territory because they cannot make loan payments. The loans were issued under a $10 million program set up in 1998. Republican Sen. Paul A. Manglona...

The State Department investigation of improper computer access to passport records of three presidential candidates is focusing on one remaining employee — a contract worker with a company headed by an adviser to the presidential campaign of Sen. Barack Obama The probe by State's inspector general will include polygraph tests for supervisors in the passport section to find out whether the three contract employees who accessed the records had a political motive or were part of a political operation to obtain personal data on Mr. Obama, Sen. John McCain or Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton. Two of the three contract employees...

The State Department investigation of improper computer access to passport records of three presidential candidates is focusing on one remaining employee — a contract worker with a company headed by an adviser to the presidential campaign of Sen. Barack Obama....

Article published Mar 22, 2008 Passports probe focuses on worker March 22, 2008 By Bill Gertz and Jon Ward - The State Department investigation of improper computer access to passport records of three presidential candidates is focusing on one remaining employee — a contract worker with a company headed by an adviser to the presidential campaign of Sen. Barack Obama The probe by State's inspector general will include polygraph tests for supervisors in the passport section to find out whether the three contract employees who accessed the records had a political motive or were part of a political operation to...

A new film on Jesus, told from an Islamic perspective, has drawn mixed reactions from the Christian community over its claim that Jesus did not die on the cross but was replaced by Judas Iscariot. “The Messiah” – written, produced and directed by Iranian filmmaker Nader Talebzadeh - was filmed in the Islamic Republic of Iran with Iranian actors to portray how Muslims understand the life of Jesus based on the teachings of the Qur’an and the Gospel of Barnabas – a book not included in the Christian Bible and in which the Prophet Mohammed appears. The movie features two...

Cuban President Raul Castro's recently revealed economic "reforms" brought to mind two quite unrelated characters: Lewis Carroll's White Queen, and an old Cuban exile acquaintance of mine named Ignacio. President Raul, the sprightly 76-year-old who was "elected" to the presidency of Cuba on February 24, thus replacing his ailing octogenarian brother, Fidel, is reportedly planning to grant his enslaved nation access to more consumer goods. Citing "the improved availability of electricity," the new Maximum Leader will offer for sale computers, DVD players, pressure cookers and microwave ovens. However, air conditioners are not to be made available until next year, and...

Floating A Big Idea: Ancient Use Of Rafts To Transport Goods DemonstratedMIT students built a small-scale replica of an ancient oceangoing sailing raft to study its seaworthiness and handling. (Credit: Donna Coveney/MIT) ScienceDaily (Mar. 22, 2008) — Oceangoing sailing rafts plied the waters of the equatorial Pacific long before Europeans arrived in the Americas, and carried tradegoods for thousands of miles all the way from modern-day Chile to western Mexico, according to new findings by MIT researchers in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering. Details of how the ancient trading system worked more than 1,000 years ago were reconstructed...

A Superior Court judge....

The release of former Symbionese Liberation Army member Sara Jane Olson from prison has angered Jon Opsahl, whose mother was gunned down in a Carmichael bank by the SLA. Myrna Opsahl was shot to death in the lobby of a Carmichael bank during an April 21, 1975, SLA bank robbery. After serving six years in prison for his mother's death and for trying to bomb police cars, Olson is now free. She was released Monday from the Central California Women's Facility in Chowchilla. "She's out of prison too soon by far," Jon Opsahl said Friday. "It's another in a series...

SCHOOL children playing a "catch" game in which they mimic rape. A seven-year-old raped and murdered by a family member. An actor killed by would-be hijackers trying to steal his neighbour's bakkie. A man, his wife and their teenage son shot at home by armed robbers. A single woman stripped naked and assaulted by drivers at a taxi rank. While overall crime is falling in SA, the rising incidence of violent crimes people report anecdotally is backed up by figures. National figures supplied by the South African Institute of Race Relations, based on police statistics, show that in the 12...

Are Evangelicals Obama-Curious? Over the past month we have witnessed the emergence of a veritable sub-genre of political reportage: the don’t-count-Hillary-out-just-yet story. With its Yes She Can! effusions this type of journalism does not lack in counter-intuitive charms. But I think prudence (and a glance at the polls) dictates that we start thinking concretely about Barack Obama’s prospects in a general election. Any discussion of these prospects must take into consideration the good Senator’s ability to reverse trends that doomed the Democrats in the last election. In 2004 Kerry/Edwards lost nearly four out of every five votes cast by White...