Almanacs “Continued: Almanac: Bobcat attack on dog causes stir - Minneapolis Star Tribune” plus 4 more |
- Continued: Almanac: Bobcat attack on dog causes stir - Minneapolis Star Tribune
- Almanac, Forecast - The Keene Sentinel
- Board of Education sets bad example for students - Everything Alabama Blog
- After a year in office, Lee is "a rising star' - Buffalo News
- The Almanac - OfficialWire
| Continued: Almanac: Bobcat attack on dog causes stir - Minneapolis Star Tribune Posted: 24 Jan 2010 03:40 AM PST Talk about unusual: A bobcat recently slipped through a garage "doggie door'' in Littlefork, Minn., and killed the small dog inside. "I've been doing this for 30 years, and that was a first,'' said Department of Natural Resources conservation officer Lloyd Steen, who responded along with two sheriff's deputies. The homeowner blocked the cat's exit with some bags and called authorities. After hearing a report earlier about a bobcat in Littlefork that showed little fear of humans, the officers decided to kill the animal. They couldn't see it when they peered through a garage window, so Steen, armed with his .40 caliber Glock handgun, stepped inside. "I shined my flashlight under a four-wheeler and saw two green eyes,'' Steen said. "I could tell it was a bobcat. I shot between the tires and hit it between the eyes; it died right there. It was about a 30-pound female bobcat.'' The cat had killed and partially eaten the homeowner's 20-pound dog. Steen skinned the cat to check its condition. "In my opinion, it was starving," he said. "There wasn't a speck of fat on it.'' It's fairly common for Steen to get calls about wolves killing dogs. "This is the first time I've ever had a dog killed by a bobcat,'' he said. Hunt for vetsThe idea was to do something special for veterans returning from Iraq. "We thought, why not a pheasant hunt?'' said Mike Polehna, an avid hunter and Stillwater City Council member. So he and Chuck Haas, a Hugo City Council member, launched a "Welcome Home Red Bulls Pheasant Hunt'' for members of the Army National Guard's 34th Infantry Division, the "Red Bulls,'' headquartered in Rosemount. The pair was hoping to treat 50 soldiers to a pheasant hunt and sporting clays shoot March 14 at Wild Wings Hunting Club in Hugo. Eighty have signed up, and donations have rolled in to help pay for the event, which will include a wild game dinner. Five Filters featured article: Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction. |
| Almanac, Forecast - The Keene Sentinel Posted: 24 Jan 2010 04:16 AM PST Sunset today: 4:51 p.m. Sunrise Monday: 7:12 a.m. Today: Partly sunny. A chance of rain and snow. Highs in the mid 30s. Tonight: Rain and freezing rain. Not as cool with lows in the lower 30s. Monday: Rain. Breezy and not as cool with highs in the upper 40s. Monday night: Mostly cloudy. A chance of rain showers. Lows in the upper 20s. Tuesday: Mostly cloudy. A chance of rain and snow showers. Highs around 40. Tuesday night: Mostly cloudy. A chance of snow showers. Lows in the lower 20s. Wednesday: Partly cloudy. Highs in the lower 30s. Wednesday night: Mostly cloudy. Lows around 10 above. Thursday: Mostly cloudy with a chance of snow showers. Cold. Highs in the mid 20s. Thursday night: Mostly cloudy. Lows around 10 above. Five Filters featured article: Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction. |
| Board of Education sets bad example for students - Everything Alabama Blog Posted: 24 Jan 2010 03:33 AM PST By Tom Scarritt -- The Birmingham NewsJanuary 24, 2010, 5:37AMEducation informs and protects democracy. Our public education leaders should honor that responsibility not only in the classroom, but also in the example they set by the way they conduct our business. Our Founding Fathers were very clear in expressing the need for civic education. "I know of no safe depository of the ultimate powers of the society but the people themselves; and if we think them not enlightened enough to exercise their control with wholesome discretion, the remedy is not to take it from them, but to inform their discretion by education," Thomas Jefferson wrote. "This is the true corrective of abuses of constitutional power." Civic education also was on George Washington's mind when he proposed a national university, saying, "a primary object . . . should be the education of our youth in the science of government. In a republic, what species of knowledge can be equally important and what duty more pressing on its legislature than to patronize a plan for communicating it to those who are to be the future guardians of the liberties of the country?" Another American leader saw schools playing an important role in instilling "reverence for the laws." Speaking of that reverence, Abraham Lincoln said, "let it be taught in schools, in seminaries, and in colleges; let it be written in Primers, spelling books and in Almanacs . . . And, in short, let it become the political religion of the nation." The lessons of democracy are taught not only by what we say, but what we do. That is why it is so distressing to see education leaders undermining the lessons of the classroom with the lessons of their behavior. What should a Birmingham student learn from the Birmingham Board of Education? That it is OK to exclude the people from government we say is of the people, by the people and for the people? That open-meetings and open-records laws are just obstacles to overcome, not essential safeguards of the people's role in government? That a judge's willingness to approve a temporary restraining order against the board over the issue of open meetings is merely a technical puzzle to be solved and not a warning its process might be flawed? The board's attempts to skirt the open-meetings law with informal gatherings and telephone polls are well-documented. The attitude of the board majority is clear in April Williams' advice to her colleagues at a school board work session Tuesday. She said any board members who wanted to see job evaluations of superintendent candidate Craig Witherspoon should request them individually, because "if the whole board gets them, they become public." As if public disclosure of a public official's job performance was a bad thing. Birmingham is not alone. Too many school boards seem to forget they are teaching a civics class every time they meet, and one of their responsibilities is to show students and citizens how democracy works. Respect for the people and reverence for the laws must be part of that lesson plan. Tom Scarritt is editor of The News. E-mail:tscarritt@bhamnews.com.Five Filters featured article: Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction. |
| After a year in office, Lee is "a rising star' - Buffalo News Posted: 24 Jan 2010 02:57 AM PST Freshman congressman has forged alliances with members of both partiesShare this story: WASHINGTON — A year after arriving in Congress as a virtual unknown, Rep. Chris Lee finds himself in the same place his predecessors — Jack Kemp, Bill Paxon and Thomas M. Reynolds — were after a year in office. Lee is "a rising star," said National Journal's Almanac of American Politics, a must-read guide for those inside the Beltway, in its new online profile of the Clarence Republican. Politico, a Capitol Hill newspaper, named Lee one of its congressional "rookies of the year." And Lee's Republican and Democratic colleagues alike tout him as a standout first-year lawmaker. It's all heady stuff for a novice politician who cuts a very different image from typical House backbenchers, who often spend their first year in office spouting partisan platitudes and hoarding cash to survive the next election. In contrast, Lee has forged alliances with members of both parties, broken with the GOP on a handful of important votes and established himself as a strict fiscal conservative on the Financial Services Committee. "He is an outstanding member of Congress," said Rep. Spencer Bachus of Alabama, who, as the top Republican on the Financial Services Committee, has worked more closely with Lee than any other senior House member. "Whether he chooses to be in committee leadership or a House leadership position, that very well could happen," Bachus said. "He's very intelligent, he's the type of guy who interacts well with people. He can help us build our party back." Bachus is by no means alone in saying such things about the 45-year-old former businessman. "Lee's business sense has evolved into a political acumen that has caught the eye of party leaders," the Almanac of American Politics said. Lee "looks like a veteran lawmaker when he's interacting with colleagues on the House floor," Politico said. In an interview, Lee, characteristically, downplayed all the praise he's getting. "I'm pleased people are saying these things because it means we're hopefully doing the right things," he said. "Overall, I think it's been a pretty good year. I learned a lot, made a few mistakes, but I think we're starting to figure out who we are and what we want to do and what we want to be known as while we're here in Congress." Summing up his approach in a sentence, Lee said: "It's less about politics and more about trying to get something accomplished." A fiscal conservative To that end, Lee teamed with Rep. Brian Higgins, D-Buffalo, to persuade the State Department to open a passport office in Western New York. With Higgins and Rep. Louise M. Slaughter, D-Fairport, he passed legislation requiring the Government Accountability Office to do a study on pilot training after the crash of Continental Connection Flight 3407 in Clarence last February. And now, with centrist Democrats such as Reps. John Boccieri of Ohio and Frank M. Kratovil of Maryland, he's pushing bills that would make permanent a tax credit for corporate research and that would boost tax breaks for small business. "Chris and I are friends," Boccieri said. "We don't agree on all the issues, but we work very well together when we can to push our country forward." The same is true with Lee and Kratovil. "Chris is one of those members on the other side of the aisle whom we've reached out to and who has reached back," Kratovil said. "He's reasonable. Our legislation is one of a number of things where he's crossed party lines." Most notably, Lee backed President Obama's decision to fund stem cell research and voted with Democrats to expand a key children's health program. Make no mistake about it, though: on fiscal issues, Lee is more conservative even than most Republicans. In fact, he voted against not only the Democratic leadership's 2010 budget plan, but also the GOP alternative, saying it was not parsimonious enough. "I'm a cheapskate," said Lee, adding that Republicans "lost their way" in the last decade when their defense build-ups and Medicare prescription drug plan vastly increased the federal deficit. A sense of caution and a passion for small government cut through Lee's record. No challenger in sight He's against the Democratic health care reform effort, saying it's "too risky" to try to fix all at once an industry that makes up nearly a fifth of the U.S. economy. He fought against creation of a new Consumer Financial Protection Agency, saying markets would be regulated better if government agencies were consolidated rather than expanded. And he pushed unsuccessfully for an amendment that would bar the government from requiring that businesses provide financial disclosures in languages other than English, calling such mandates "an added tax" on business. Those stances have left Leonard R. Lenihan, the Erie County Democratic chairman, criticizing Lee as someone who's building a career by voting no. "They say you can't be hurt by voting no," said Lenihan — who acknowledged that no Democrat has yet surfaced to challenge Lee in the GOP-leaning 26th District, which stretches eastward from Amherst to the Rochester suburbs. Despite the praise he's earned and the lack of an apparent challenger, you can't say Lee's first year in Congress has gone off entirely without a hitch. While building allies in Congress, Lee's relationship with Erie County Executive Chris Collins remains "nonexistent," several GOP sources said. They attribute the distance between the two Republicans to the fact that Collins at first supported another candidate for Congress, and to the fact that the low-key, unfailingly polite Lee just doesn't mix well with the brash county executive. Asked to comment, Collins' spokesman, Grant Loomis, said: "The county executive has a good working relationship with Congressman Lee on the issues that matter most to local taxpayers. It is the same relationship the county executive shares with Congressman Higgins and other leaders." The personality differences between the two Chrises spelled themselves out further in the interview with Lee. Lee admits mistakes Asked to discuss the mistakes he had made in his first year in office, Lee did two things that are hard to imagine coming from the self-assured Collins. Lee stared off into the distance in a long awkward silence. And he blushed. Finally, upon prodding, Lee acknowledged it was a mistake to send constituents a highly partisan mailing on health care — which included a claim that Brooks Jackson, director of FactCheck.org, deemed "misleading." "In retrospect," Lee said, "what I never want to be known for is sending out a piece that is too partisan. And I think that is a good example. ... It was probably one area where we learned a good lesson." Lee acknowledged, too, that he still has a lot to learn. During his 2008 campaign, he sometimes struggled to discuss issues in depth. But since then, he's set up boards of community leaders to advise him on issues ranging from agriculture to small business to energy. And the result is that he's getting a reputation among colleagues as a lawmaker who delves into the details of issues. "A year ago, by no means was I an expert in any of these fields, and I'm still not there," Lee said. "But where I am today from where I was 12 months ago is dramatically improved. And a lot of it is because of these advisory boards." Lee modeled the advisory boards after issue panels he had set up at the family company, Enidine Inc. That's not the only impact Lee's business background has had on his record as a lawmaker. In fact, he talks about constituents as if they were customers. To that end, he's held more than 20 telephone town hall discussions, while his staff has answered 85,000 pieces of correspondence, typically answering within a week. "It's like sales," he said. "If you have a customer and you don't get back with them, you might lose the order." Lee acknowledged he's interested in moving up the congressional ladder "if it will ultimately help my constituents," but he sounded equally comfortable with the diametrically opposite result. "If I'm not doing the job," he said, "they should throw me out."  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| Posted: 24 Jan 2010 12:48 AM PST In 1999, the International Olympic Committee expelled six IOC members amid charges that money and other compensation had been accepted from officials whose cities were bidding to host the Games.
Also in 1999, Jordan's King Hussein, who was seriously ill, named his son Abdullah crown prince. Abdullah replaced his father's younger brother as successor to the throne. In 2002, John Walker Lindh, the 20-year-old American seized with the Taliban in Afghanistan, appeared in an Alexandria, Va., court to hear charges he had conspired to kill Americans and help terrorist groups. In 2003, a report said the global economic slowdown that began about two years previously had wiped out 20 million jobs, bringing total world unemployment to perhaps 180 million people. Also in 2003, a U.S. government program to vaccinate 500,000 front-line healthcare workers in case of bioterrorist attack began. In 2004, after years of denials, Pakistan admitted scientists may have sold nuclear designs to other nations probably "for personal financial gain." In 2005, the U.S. Supreme Court rejected an attempt by Florida Gov. Jeb Bush to prevent the husband of Terri Schiavo from removing her life support system. Lower court rulings said the severely brain-damaged woman was in a "persistent vegetative state." In 2007, three precision raids on predominantly Sunni-controlled areas of Baghdad allowed Iraqi and U.S. troops to regain control of the city. Also in 2007, European defense officials said North Korea was is sharing its nuclear data on 2006's test explosion with Iran. In 2008, Societe Generale, one of France's largest banks, blamed a $7 billion loss on what it called "fraudulent" stock dealings in European stock futures by an unauthorized employee. Also in 2008, Italian Prime Minister Romano Prodi resigned after losing a confidence vote in the Senate. In 2009, U.S. President Barack Obama said his proposed $825 billion economic stimulus plan will be a major investment in important American domestic priorities such as energy, education, healthcare and infrastructure.
A thought for the day: Words from William Blake, "When I tell the truth, it is not for the sake of convincing those who do not know it, but for the sake of defending those that do."
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