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FOXNews.com - Top Stories - Iran to Sign Nuke Protocol 'in the Next Few Days'
TEHRAN, Iran — Iran will sign an agreement in the next few days allowing unfettered inspection of its nuclear facilities, Iran's foreign minister said Saturday.
posted by TAotB at 1:01:00 PM
posted by TAotB at 1:56:00 PM
Constitution Deadlock Plunges EU Summit Into Gloom
BRUSSELS (Reuters) - The European Union's landmark summit to agree a first constitution was plunged into gloom almost as soon as it began Friday as leaders stood their ground in a bitter battle over their nations' voting rights.
A last-ditch meeting between British Prime Minister Tony Blair, French President Jacques Chirac and German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder to seek a way out of the impasse brought "no breakthrough, no real movement," diplomats said.
"The positions are a long, long way apart," Blair told reporters. "It is important to try and get an agreement. It may well not be possible."
Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, who as EU president for the past six months has struggled to steer the 25 bickering present and future member states to agreement on the historic draft treaty, conceded that the deadlock over power stakes in an enlarged union could sink the whole project.
"The voting system is the obstacle that can block the whole agreement, and that is a pity," he told reporters.
The stand-off pitting France and Germany on one side and Spain and Poland on the other could drag the two-day meeting into Saturday night, but Berlusconi said the leaders had set themselves a deadline of Sunday morning to get a deal. . . .
Spain and Poland, the fifth and sixth biggest countries, are determined to hang on to voting rights that give them almost as many votes as the big four inside EU councils. Germany and France are leading the battle to get those rights pegged back.
Britain, meanwhile, is fighting to prevent Brussels having the final say on issues ranging from foreign policy to taxation.
posted by TAotB at 1:45:00 PM
FOXNews.com - Politics - Debate Swells Over Leaked Memos
Released to the Wall Street Journal in November, the memos date back to 2001 and reflect an ongoing discussion among Democratic staffers and senators regarding how they planned to stall, derail and ultimately kill the nominations of several of President Bush's judicial nominees, who were referred to in one missive as "Nazis."
The memos also suggest the intimate role special interest groups like the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (search) and People for the American Way (search) had in plotting the nominees' failure, with staffers intimating that the groups' opinions held sway with Judiciary Committee Democrats in determining hearing schedules and strategy.
Worst of all, say critics, is an April 17, 2002, memo from staff to Sen. Ted Kennedy, D-Mass., endorsing a personal request by NAACP National Defense League President Elaine Jones to stall the confirmation of conservative Judge Julia Gibbons (search) to the 6th Circuit Court of Appeals until that panel ruled on the University of Michigan affirmative action case.
"Elaine [Jones] will ask that no 6th Circuit nominee be scheduled until after the Michigan case is decided," wrote a staff member — whose name was redacted — in a memo to Sen. Kennedy.
"The thinking is that the current 6th Circuit will sustain the affirmative action program, but if a new judge with conservative views is confirmed before the case is decided, that new judge will be able, under the 6th Circuit rules, to review the case and vote on it," the memo reads.
Though "concerned about the propriety of scheduling hearings based on the resolution of a particular case," the staffer nevertheless recommended that Jones be told they will indeed take up another judge's confirmation before Gibbons'.
posted by TAotB at 10:41:00 PM
Here's a story from an AP writer who apparently was absent the day the Kool-Aid was handed out concerning Bush and his administration.
Democrats Criticize Bush, but Sometimes Leave Out the Facts - from Tampa Bay Online
WASHINGTON (AP) - The Democratic presidential candidates criticized President Bush's record on the economy and fighting terrorism in a debate Tuesday night, but some of their jabs left out important facts.
posted by TAotB at 9:43:00 AM
Iraqis demonstrate against terrorism - The Washington Times: United Press International
Thousands of Iraqis took to Baghdad's streets Friday condemning terrorism and urging a halt to political violence.
The demonstrators shouted "death to terrorists" and called for confronting and uprooting "this evil trend which is foreign to Iraqi society."
The march, in which an estimated 4,000 protesters took part, was organized by 30 minor political parties which are not represented in the U.S.-sponsored Iraq Governing Council.
posted by TAotB at 9:33:00 AM
Last week, Federalist No. 03-49 provided a link (http://federalist.com/news/04lotto.asp ) to a few of the 2004 Pork Lotto Winners in the just-passed omnibus spending bill. "The number of pork projects skyrocketed from under 2,000 five years ago to 9,362 in the 2003 budget," noted Heritage Foundation researchers Brian Riedl and Thomas Roe. To wit, here are a few of our favorites. (We searched and searched but could find nothing in our nation's Constitution authorizing any of these expenditures. In fact, that venerable old document's primary author, James Madison, once proclaimed, "I cannot undertake to lay my finger on that article of the Constitution which granted a right to Congress of expending, on objects of benevolence, the money of their constituents....")
$400,000 Speed Art Museum -- just made a fast buck!
$2,000,000 First Tee program -- next year it will be the second tee!
$270,000 Sustainable olive production -- way to go Popeye!
$725,000 Please Touch Museum -- (insert your own joke here)
$5,000,000 Kennedy Center/Potomac River Pedestrian and Bike Path -- hope there are no narrow bridges!
$400,000 Davenport Music History Museum -- Davenport always comes to mind when we think of Music
$1,800,000 2003 Women’s World Cup Tournament -- something to do with java?
$5,000,000 Project SOCRATES -- next, project Hippocrates
$500,000 Traffic Signal Replacement Program -- with what, crossing guards?
$2,000,000 Parents Anonymous -- aren't there already enough of these?
$600,000 Web Wise Kids -- cuz they aint larnin nuthn in skoo.
$800,000 Mammoth (Lakes) Bus Purchase -- it’s a big one!
$1,400,000 Translational Genomics Research Institute -- what?
$450,000 Johnny Appleseed Heritage Center, Inc. -- bet the pie is good!
$750,000 Intelligent Transportation Systems -- then why do they need my money?
$1,500,000 Operation Streetsweeper -- cleaned up on this one!
$500,000 Bike path, St. Petersburg, Florida -- isn't that special!
$450,000 Trout Genome Mapping -- improved fish sticks!
$500,000 LOVE Social Services -- what the world needs now!
$750,000 Broken Bow rail spur -- that's going to require surgery!
$2,000,000 Tools for Tolerance program, California -- wonder what they will be "tolerating"?
And last, one expenditure that all Federalists can agree on:
$400,000 for the National Center for American Revolution.
Tea Party, anyone?
posted by TAotB at 11:41:00 AM
FREE SPEECH! Yeah! (And the crowd goes wild . . . .)
Seriously though, we should all bow our heads for a moment in recognition of the passing of yet another portion of our rights. Rights *snort* guaranteed by the Constitution. Remember the Constitution? That old piece of paper no one seems to give a damn about anymore?
You might also note the incredible slant of this particular article. The views of supporters and reasons why this decision is a good idea are mentioned over and over again throughout the piece. The opponents views are not mentioned.
AT ALL.
NOT ONCE.
EVEN A LIITLE BIT.
Ok, ok. They are mentioned. Here is the entirety of the opponents take as presented in this article:
" The Supreme Court's 300-page ruling on the 2002 campaign finance overhaul settles legal and constitutional challenges from both the political right and the left. Although the reform effort was passed by Congress and signed into law by President Bush, many politicians and others in the business of politics were leery of it."This is what happens when you sign a patently bad law for politically expedient reasons and hope that the courts will strike it down.
Here's the original ruling in PDF form: McConnell v. FEC (warning - 2.17 Mb file)
Excerpt from Justice Kennedy's dissent in McConnell v. FEC, pp. 213-215.
JUSTICE KENNEDY, concurring in the judgment in part and dissenting in part with respect to BCRA Titles I and The First Amendment guarantees our citizens the right to judge for themselves the most effective means for the expression of political views and to decide for themselves which entities to trust as reliable speakers. Significant portions of Titles I and II of the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002 (BCRA or Act) constrain that freedom. These new laws force speakers to abandon their own preference for speaking through parties and organizations. And they provide safe harbor to the mainstream press, suggesting that the corporate media alone suffice to alleviate the burdens the Act places on the rights and freedoms of ordinary citizens.
Today’s decision upholding these laws purports simply to follow Buckley v. Valeo, 424 U. S. 1 (1976) (per curiam), and to abide by stare decisis, see ante, at 27 (joint opinion of STEVENS and O’CONNOR, JJ. (hereinafter Court or majority)); but the majority, to make its decision work, must abridge free speech where Buckley did not. Buckley did not authorize Congress to decide what shapes and forms the national political dialogue is to take. To reach today’s decision, the Court surpasses Buckley’s limits and expands Congress’ regulatory power. In so doing, it replaces discrete and respected First Amendment principles with new, amorphous, and unsound rules, rules which dismantle basic protections for speech.
A few examples show how BCRA reorders speech rights and codifies the Government’s own preferences for certain speakers. BCRA would have imposed felony punishment on Ross Perot’s 1996 efforts to build the Reform Party. Compare Federal Election Campaign Act of 1971 (FECA) §§309(d)(1)(A), 315(a)(1)(B), and 323(a)(1) (prohibiting, by up to five years’ imprisonment, any individual from giving over $25,000 annually to a national party), with Spending By Perot, The Houston Chronicle, Dec. 13, 1996, p. 43 (reporting Perot’s $8 million founding contribution to the Reform Party). BCRA makes it a felony for an environmental group to broadcast an ad, within 60 days of an election, exhorting the public to protest a Congressman’s impending vote to permit logging in national forests. See BCRA §203. BCRA escalates Congress’ discrimination in favor of the speech rights of giant media corporations and against the speech rights of other corporations, both profit and nonprofit. Compare BCRA §203, with Austin v. Michigan Chamber of Commerce, 494 U. S. 652, 659-660 (1990) (first sanctioning this type of discrimination).
To the majority, all this is not only valid under the First Amendment but also is part of Congress’ steady improvement of the national election laws. Ante, at 6. We should make no mistake. It is neither. It is the codification of an assumption that the mainstream media alone can protect freedom of speech. It is an effort by Congress to ensure that civic discourse takes place only through the modes of its choosing. And BCRA is only the beginning, as its congressional proponents freely admit:
This is a modest step, it is a first step, it is an essential step, but it does not even begin to address, in some ways, the fundamental problems that exist with the hard money aspect of the system. 148 Cong. Rec. S2101 (Mar. 20, 2002) (statement of Sen. Feingold).Id., at S2097 (statement of Sen. Wellstone) ([P]assing this legislation . . . will whet people’s appetite for more); id., at S2101 (statement of Sen. Boxer) ([T]his bill is not the be-all or the end-all, but it is a strong start); id., at S2152 (statement of Sen. Corzine) ([T]his should not and will not be the last time campaign finance reform is debated on the Senate floor. We have many more important campaign finance issues to explore); id., at S2157 (statement of Sen. Torricelli) (Make [BCRA] the beginning of a reform, not the end of reform); id., at H442 (Feb. 13, 2002) (statement of Rep. Doggett) (Mr. Chairman, if [BCRA] has any defect, it is that it does too little, not too much).
posted by TAotB at 11:02:00 AM
An overwhelming majority of Americans supports allowing nativity scenes on public property. However, a smaller number — but still a clear majority — thinks if Christian holiday symbols are placed on public property that other religious symbols, such as a Jewish menorah (search), must also be displayed.
The latest FOX News poll finds that fully 87 percent of Americans say nativity scenes should be allowed on public property and only nine percent disagree. The poll, conducted by Opinion Dynamics Corporation, also finds 61 percent believe that if Christmas symbols are displayed that symbols from other religions should also be included. Less than a third of Americans (28 percent) approve of displaying Christian symbols on public property without recognizing other religions.
posted by TAotB at 10:42:00 AM
Yahoo! News - U.S. Shuts Out France, Germany for Iraq Work
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Citing national security reasons, U.S. Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz has ruled that prime contracts to rebuild Iraq (news - web sites) will exclude firms from nations such as France and Germany that opposed the U.S. war.
In a policy document released on Tuesday, Wolfowitz said he was limiting competition for 26 reconstruction contracts worth up to $18.6 billion that will be advertised in coming days.
"It is necessary for the protection of the essential security interests of the United States to limit competition for the prime contracts of these procurements to companies from the United States, Iraq, coalition partners and force contributing nations," Wolfowitz said in a notice published on the web site www.rebuilding-iraq.net.
The move is likely to anger France and Germany and other traditional allies in NATO (news - web sites) and the U.N. Security Council who are being blocked out of prime contracts after their opposition to the war. They may bid for sub-contracts.
posted by TAotB at 9:18:00 AM
Steve Milloy's JunkScience column from FoxNews.com.
FOXNews.com - Views - Junk Science - Eco-Imperialism's Deadly Consequences
The treaty’s scientific and economic shortcomings are both excellent reasons for rejecting it. Another reason not mentioned nearly often enough, however, is exposed in compelling fashion by Paul Driessen in his new book "Eco-Imperialism: Green Power, Black Death."
Driessen, a senior fellow at the Atlas Economic Research Foundation (search) and a former member of the Sierra Club (search) and Zero Population Growth (search), reveals how the ideological environmental movement -- essentially comprised of wealthy, left-leaning Americans and Europeans -- wants to impose its views on billions of poor, desperate Africans, Asians and Latin Americans.
Eco-imperialism (search) violates these people’s most basic human rights, maintains Driessen, and denies them economic opportunities, the chance for better lives, and the right to rid their countries of diseases that were vanquished long ago in the U.S. and Europe.
posted by TAotB at 4:08:00 PM
Seems to me that the mayor should look to his own "leadership" before complaining about the officer.
YES - the ticket for window tinting that is too dark is no big deal.
YES - the officer should have shown more respect for the mayor.
BUT - shouldn't the mayor, especially a mayor that wants to address issues like "leadership", have had more respect for the laws than to let his passenger have an open container?
FOXNews.com - Politics - Mayor Files Complaint After Being Called 'Dude'
posted by TAotB at 11:04:00 AM
The French are apparently trying to decide which they appreciate more: religious freedom, including the freedom to wear a headscarf, or forcing others to follow their sense of morality. Hmmmm. Tough choice for the Frenchies.
On the one hand you have people trying to exercise religious freedom. On the other hand you have the French penchant for seeking gov't control over everything and their misguided sense of moral superiority over everyone who does not agree with them. Even on little things like religious freedom.
Thank God we don't have anything like that here in the US!
France split by proposal to ban Islamic headscarves and crucifixes in schools
President Jacques Chirac must make a potentially explosive decision in the next few days whether to demand a new law banning Islamic headscarves and other religious symbols from French state schools. . . .
The women's magazine Elle published a petition, signed by leading French feminists and actresses, attacking the Islamic headscarf as "an intolerable discrimination against women" and calling for a law to reinforce the principle of a "lay" republic but also the principle of equality between the sexes. . . . [ed. note: unless, of course, they want to wear them, right Elle?]
Under a 1989 ruling by the administrative appeal court, the Conseil d'Etat, headscarves and other signs of religious faith are allowed in state schools so long as they are not "obtrusive". Responsibility for interpreting this judgment falls on individual schools and school districts. There have been a number of confrontations between parents, pupils and schools in recent years - growing in intensity with the rise of militant Islam.
The debate is further confused by the habit of the French media and politicians of talking about la voile or "the veil". The real issue is whether Islamic girls and women can wear foulards (headscarves) in state institutions - principally schools but also hospitals and government offices - and, if so, how ostentatious the scarves can be.
The committee of inquiry, run by the centre-right politician Bernard Stasi, must decide whether to recommend a law banning all religious symbols and, if so, where that law should apply. There is no question of banning headscarves in public places, just in state institutions.
posted by TAotB at 8:35:00 AM
Vonage is able to undercut traditional telecoms services partly because its service piggybacks on existing broadband internet connections, and because internet telephony is free from the regulations and fees that push up the price of traditional telephony.
posted by TAotB at 8:23:00 AM
Less than half the population in the European Union's member states now support the EU project, according to polling results yesterday.
The latest Eurobarometer to be released this week found that just 48 per cent of EU citizens viewed membership as a "good thing", down from 54 per cent last spring.
Britain was by far the most negative state, with positive feelings tumbling to 28 per cent, but even the French were below half for the first time after months of battles with Brussels over tax cuts and illegal aid to ailing firms.
The results emerged as EU leaders converge on Brussels this week to push through a European constitution that creates a full-time EU president and foreign minister and establishes EU control over most areas of national life, including justice, the environment, transport, energy and economic management.
posted by TAotB at 8:16:00 AM
posted by TAotB at 1:16:00 AM
