Civil liberties group investigates arrests at county legislature meeting
A leading civil rights advocacy organization wants to look at documents surrounding the arrests of three community leaders at a Monroe County Legislature committee meeting.
The Genesee Valley Chapter of the New York Civil Liberties Union filed a Freedom of Information request to review legislative records for Feb. 9 and Feb. 12. On Feb. 9, Assemblyman David Gantt, D-Rochester, and Ministers Franklin Florence and Raymond Scott were arrested. Two others were arrested on Feb. 12.
New US spy bill exposes telecoms
A newly-passed US surveillance bill could open the door to lawsuits against telecommunications firms.
The bill, passed on Friday morning by the House of Representatives, would not provide immunity against legal actions to any firm which complied with the NSA's controversial warrantless wiretapping program.
That policy had been challenged by civil rights groups, which claimed that the practice was illegal and that the telecom companies broke the law by turning over records to the agency.
Patriot Act infringes on civil liberties, allows for privacy invasion
In response to the recent figures that put this current war at costing billions of dollars, Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz recently remarked, "For a fraction of the cost of this war we could have put Social Security on a sound footing for the next half-century or more."
To describe this phenomenal cost, New York Times author Bob Herbert declared that this spending was like a "cancer inside the American economy."
White House contenders war over Iraq
WASHINGTON (AFP) — White House hopeful Hillary Clinton insisted Monday that her plans to pull combat troops out of Iraq would represent a triumph for US diplomacy and not defeat at the hands of Al-Qaeda.
The former first lady traded long-distance barbs with Republican John McCain as he visited Baghdad, and also assailed her Democratic rival Barack Obama as failing to match his oratory on Iraq with anti-war action in the US Senate.
5 years after Iraq's 'liberation,' there are worms in the water
BAGHDAD — Iraq's most prominent clerics have ruled that using a water pump on one's own pipes is akin to stealing resources from a neighbor, so what does a person do when it takes half an hour to fill a cooking pot with water from the tap?
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Iraqis pray for forgiveness, then pump away.
There WILL be a public inquiry into Iraq, says Brown
By Andrew Grice and Nigel Morris
Monday, 17 March 2008
Gordon Brown has promised that the Government will hold a full-scale inquiry into the mistakes made in Iraq before and since the invasion five years ago.
His concession marks a significant break from his predecessor, Tony Blair, who steadfastly refused to hold a wide-ranging inquiry into the war.
Afghan blast kills Nato soldiers
A suicide bomber has attacked a Nato military convoy in the southern Afghan province of Helmand, killing two Danish soldiers and a Czech soldier.
Police say an Afghan interpreter was also killed. Correspondents say that there are conflicting reports as to whether civilians were also killed.
WRAPUP 1-Clinton says Iraq war may cost $1 trillion
By Jeff Mason
WASHINGTON, March 17 (Reuters) - Democrat Hillary Clinton charged on Monday the Iraq war may cost Americans $1 trillion and add strain to the buckling U.S. economy as she made her case for a prompt troop pullout from a war "we cannot win."
With the United States this week marking the fifth anniversary of the U.S. invasion of Iraq, the economy's assorted strains competed for attention as the top issue facing voters when they choose their next president in November.
No Child Left Behind doesn't pass the test
My head was pounding by the time I got to the 10th question.
"Mike has only two green apples and three red apples in a bowl. Without looking, he chooses an apple and gives it to his sister. Then he chooses an apple for himself. What's the probability that he and his sister will each get a red apple?"
The choices were 60 percent, 10 percent, 40 percent and 30 percent. I picked one of the numbers and moved on to Question 11, which had to do with a graph and "scatter points."
Say 'no' to No Child
IT NOW SEEMS highly unlikely Congress will re-authorize No Child Left Behind.
The six-year-old federal law stipulates that each year an increasing percentage of students at each school become proficient in language arts and math until, by the year 2014, every single child is grade-level proficient in both subjects.
The act also mandates escalating sanctions for Title 1 schools (those receiving federal funds to assist disadvantaged children) for repeatedly failing to meet those annual proficiency benchmarks.
