"Religious right at political crossroads; Coral Ridge Ministries' decision to disband its political arm has raised questions about how the conservative Christian movement will define its national agenda in the coming years.
Source: The Miami Herald 05/08/2007
When nearly 1,000 Christian activists gathered in Fort Lauderdale two years ago for the Center for Reclaiming America's annual political conference, the mood was triumphant. Speakers hailed President Bush's reelection and the leaders rolled out ambitious plans: launching a Capitol Hill lobbying arm, opening a dozen regional offices and recruiting activists in all 435 congressional districts.
No more. The center -- one of the country's leading Christian grass-roots political organizations -- closed its Fort Lauderdale doors last month, sparking speculation about what its sudden demise means for the future of the religious right.
''It's a big loss,'' said the Florida Prayer Network's Pam Olsen, who led a prayer rally Thursday to mark the National Day of Prayer at the state Capitol. Olsen, who served as the state chairwoman for social conservative outreach for the 2004 Bush-Cheney campaign, vowed a comeback: ``You will see the Christian-values voters rise again.''
Others, however, see a crumbling conservative Christian base deflated by ethical scandals in the Republican Party, the Democratic victory in the 2006 congressional elections and -- perhaps most significantly -- a split between the old guard and new leaders over where to go from here. An increasingly vocal branch has called for expanding the platform to include global warming, HIV/AIDS and poverty.
`BROADEN OUR AGENDA'
''There's a growing constituency in the evangelical movement that says we really do need to broaden our agenda,'' said the Rev. Joel Hunter, senior pastor of Northland Church in Longwood, who last year stepped down as president-elect of the Christian Coalition after the group refused to include climate change and poverty on its agenda. ``We need to be not so narrow and combative.''
The Center for Reclaiming America, founded in 1996 as the political-action arm of the Rev. D. James Kennedy's Coral Ridge Ministries, once stood at the forefront of the fight to ban same-sex marriage, outlaw abortion and promote religion in schools and public life.
SCHIAVO CASE
The center helped rally Christian activists during the Terri Schiavo controversy, gathered thousands of signatures for a statewide referendum on a constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage and sent 196,422 signatures to the U.S. Supreme Court urging the justices to uphold the ban on what is known as partial-birth abortion, which they did last month.
Advancing a conservative Christian agenda remains central to the ministry's mission, but the organization will deliver its message through its media channels rather than lobbying, said John Aman, a spokesman for Coral Ridge Ministries, which had $38 million in revenue in 2005.
''It is a shift in means but not ends,'' he said. ``It's going back to doing what we're best at, which is creating media.''
MEDIA OUTREACH
Coral Ridge officials say they hope to extend the ministry's television, radio and Internet outreach to 30 million by 2012, up from three million today.
Kennedy, 76, who suffered a heart attack last December, was recuperating in a Michigan hospital when the center shuttered its operations. Some have speculated that the closings came about as a result of Kennedy's prolonged absence, although Coral Ridge officials maintained that the two were unrelated.
Kennedy, who founded Coral Ridge in 1974, later emerged as an internationally known evangelist whose Coral Ridge Hour became synonymous with the preacher's slate gray hair, dark suits and robes and commanding voice.
John Green, a senior fellow in religion and politics at the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, said the longevity of conservative Christian organizations is often tied to their leaders.
PERSONALITY FACTOR
''Many of them are based around strong personalities, and many of them grew out of the individual ministries of televangelists,'' he said. ``It's quite plausible and quite likely that these closings have something to do with Rev. Kennedy's illness.''
The closings come at a challenging moment for the religious right.
The Christian Coalition -- founded in 1989 by televangelist Pat Robertson and credited with helping Republicans seize control of Congress in 1994 -- has dwindled financially and politically. It boasted a budget of $26 million in the late 1990s. By last year, the group was $2 million in debt, fighting off creditors and facing defections from some of its strongest state chapters, including those of Iowa, Ohio and Alabama.
Not all religious right groups are struggling. Focus on the Family, James Dobson's Colorado Springs, Colo.-based group, commanded a formidable budget of more than $140 million in 2005, according to GuideStar.org, which monitors nonprofits' tax returns. Tony Perkins' Family Research Council still has considerable influence in Washington. And Kennedy's Coral Ridge Ministries' budget was $38 million in 2005, according to GuideStar's latest records.
But groups that are flourishing may face problems as their base ages, particularly if they fail to court younger evangelicals, said Clyde Wilcox, a professor of government at Georgetown University who has studied the religious right.
Some evangelicals are tiring of electoral politics in the wake of ethical scandals involving lobbyist Jack Abramoff and Christian conservative poster boy Ralph Reed. 'Some of them are beginning to say, `Maybe we've been had in the electoral arena,' '' Wilcox said.
The next generation will likely be less easily swayed by the right's mobilization efforts, he added. ''Younger evangelicals are slightly less partisan, and they tend to be less scared by secularism,'' Wilcox said. ``They're engaging a broader social agenda.''
SOME CONTROVERSY
Last year, pastor Rick Warren, the author of the popular book The Purpose-Driven Life, drew the ire of some conservative Christians for inviting Democratic Sen. Barack Obama to an AIDS conference at his Saddleback Church in California.
And 86 evangelicals, including Warren and Florida's Hunter, backed an initiative on climate change, drawing criticism from James Dobson and other conservatives who oppose Christian involvement on climate issues. Last week, a coalition of evangelical leaders launched an initiative to lobby Congress for immigration reform.
Many Christian conservatives disagree with such efforts, arguing that the Bible speaks more directly on pro-life and marriage issues.
Aman of Coral Ridge said the ministry remains committed to its original moral vision. Other Florida groups -- including the Florida Prayer Network and the Florida Family Policy Council, an affiliate of Focus on the Family -- also say they will stick to their core issues: same-sex marriage and abortion.
CHANGES OPPOSED
''The social conservative movement should not change its agenda,'' said John Stemberger, president of the Florida Family Policy Council. ``While the scripture speaks to all areas, it speaks with more clarity to some areas than others.''
But Northland Church's Hunter, who was among the evangelical leaders who signed the recent statement on immigration reform, said Christian activists must diversify their platform to remain relevant.
''A lot of these religious right organizations are kind of trapped within their original visions right now,'' he said.
''Most movements start off being against something. In order to mature, you have to figure out what you're for,'' Hunter said."
Wednesday, May 09, 2007
Tuesday, May 08, 2007
Tragedy drive folks to fight
Source: The Miami Herald 05/08/2007
TALLAHASSEE
They were average people who watched the news occasionally, too busy with family and work to pay attention to their representatives in Tallahassee.
Then tragedy intervened: A son hanged himself with his backpack strap; a daughter was abducted, raped and buried alive; an undetected eye disease sent a toddler to his grave.
Soon they became advocates, the suitless oddities of the state Capitol, working harder than the well-heeled lobbyists to try to get their legislation passed. After years of driving, telling their stories and begging, they bridged the disconnection between Tallahassee and the real people of Florida, learning more about the Legislature than they ever wanted to know.
''I was always raised to believe in the legal system and in justice,'' said Debbie Johnston, a Cape Coral woman whose son, Jeff, hanged himself in a closet two years ago at age 15 after relentless bullying in school and on the Internet. ``I guess I had a very idealized view of government.''
For two years, she has sought legislation to create a statewide ban on bullying. As the session ended nearly eight hours before deadline Friday and her bill died, she wept in the public gallery above while senators congratulated themselves and their staff for the session's hard work.
Last year, the legislation died as representatives debated whether Key lime pie should be the state's official dessert. She still won't eat it.
REGULAR AT HEARINGS
Johnston, who once thought the lawmaking session lasted all year rather than 60 days, quickly became a regular at committee hearings and in the labyrinthine halls of the Capitol. Last year, her first session, she packed Jeff's friends into a bus, rented two hotel rooms and put it on her credit card. They stared up at the 22-story Capitol building, she said, like ``the Clampetts go to Beverly Hills.''
''I used to ride horses, and they can't see the jump before they come to it,'' she added. ``They say throw your heart over the fence and go for it. I just closed my eyes, gritted my teeth and put $4,000 on my credit card.''
Now she rattles off the names of legislative leadership. Speaker Rubio. President Pruitt. She calls her bill sponsor, Rep. Nick Thompson, a Fort Myers Republican, by his first name. She says she will be back in the special session on property taxes in June, and if that fails, next year.
''We're not quitting,'' she said.
Her tenacity is common for this special class of lobbyists, but not all have had to return year after year.
When Jessica Lunsford was killed in 2005 by her neighbor, sex offender John Couey, it sent her father, Mark, of Homosassa on a crusade to toughen state laws to include electronic monitoring and minimum sentences for child molesters. That was accomplished in one legislative session -- the girl's body was discovered in March 2005, and the bill was signed two months later.
Mark Lunsford wore a tie with 9-year-old Jessica's picture on it as Gov. Jeb Bush signed the legislation into law. Lunsford called the tie his ''hug'' from Jessica.
''Every time I asked for something, from the beginning to now, people did it and they did it quickly,'' he told The St. Petersburg Times after the signing.
Not so for Pam Bergsma, a Lake Worth woman whose grandson didn't have a basic eye test that she says would have saved his life. He died in 2000 at age 3 from a rare cancer that wouldn't have been life-threatening if it had been caught earlier. She has been fighting to pass legislation requiring the eye test for retinoblastoma since the 2002 legislative session -- five years ago.
Bergsma, who can't count the number of times she has been to Tallahassee, used to sleep in her car but now stays in a Motel 6, the cheapest place she can find.
''What I have experienced and what I have seen up there, I never would have believed,'' Bergsma said. ``I always had an open mind.''
She has seen senators fight for her bill and against lobbyists for pediatricians, who don't want the requirement. But she says the lawmakers should feel ''shame'' for lengthening her quest, which she swears she will see to the end.
Every year, she truly believes the bill will pass. After no one sponsored it last year because it had failed so many times before, she believed the support she got this session meant it was time. But the bill died again.
''I was so sure'' it would pass this time, she said, then couldn't speak for sobbing.
MUCH TO LEARN
Jodi Walsh, a newcomer to the process who was ''appalled'' at how lawmakers dealt with her when she first visited them in January, said she took action after her ex-boyfriend encouraged her then-6-year-old son to steal a knife from the kitchen and stab her.
She recorded the conversation, and the boy's father was convicted of child abuse, but the decision was overturned because the judge said the legal definition of child abuse didn't include verbal manipulation. So, this session, she tried to convince lawmakers to include mental abuse in the law.
Her bill failed, too, but Walsh says she has learned a lot about the Legislature, which she used to follow only in the newspapers. She believes citizens should hound their representatives throughout the session to remind them of who really holds the power.
''It's personality that comes into play and not principle or priority or issues,'' Walsh said. ``It's their own personalities at each other's throats. That's what it boils down to. That really sickens me.''
TALLAHASSEE
They were average people who watched the news occasionally, too busy with family and work to pay attention to their representatives in Tallahassee.
Then tragedy intervened: A son hanged himself with his backpack strap; a daughter was abducted, raped and buried alive; an undetected eye disease sent a toddler to his grave.
Soon they became advocates, the suitless oddities of the state Capitol, working harder than the well-heeled lobbyists to try to get their legislation passed. After years of driving, telling their stories and begging, they bridged the disconnection between Tallahassee and the real people of Florida, learning more about the Legislature than they ever wanted to know.
''I was always raised to believe in the legal system and in justice,'' said Debbie Johnston, a Cape Coral woman whose son, Jeff, hanged himself in a closet two years ago at age 15 after relentless bullying in school and on the Internet. ``I guess I had a very idealized view of government.''
For two years, she has sought legislation to create a statewide ban on bullying. As the session ended nearly eight hours before deadline Friday and her bill died, she wept in the public gallery above while senators congratulated themselves and their staff for the session's hard work.
Last year, the legislation died as representatives debated whether Key lime pie should be the state's official dessert. She still won't eat it.
REGULAR AT HEARINGS
Johnston, who once thought the lawmaking session lasted all year rather than 60 days, quickly became a regular at committee hearings and in the labyrinthine halls of the Capitol. Last year, her first session, she packed Jeff's friends into a bus, rented two hotel rooms and put it on her credit card. They stared up at the 22-story Capitol building, she said, like ``the Clampetts go to Beverly Hills.''
''I used to ride horses, and they can't see the jump before they come to it,'' she added. ``They say throw your heart over the fence and go for it. I just closed my eyes, gritted my teeth and put $4,000 on my credit card.''
Now she rattles off the names of legislative leadership. Speaker Rubio. President Pruitt. She calls her bill sponsor, Rep. Nick Thompson, a Fort Myers Republican, by his first name. She says she will be back in the special session on property taxes in June, and if that fails, next year.
''We're not quitting,'' she said.
Her tenacity is common for this special class of lobbyists, but not all have had to return year after year.
When Jessica Lunsford was killed in 2005 by her neighbor, sex offender John Couey, it sent her father, Mark, of Homosassa on a crusade to toughen state laws to include electronic monitoring and minimum sentences for child molesters. That was accomplished in one legislative session -- the girl's body was discovered in March 2005, and the bill was signed two months later.
Mark Lunsford wore a tie with 9-year-old Jessica's picture on it as Gov. Jeb Bush signed the legislation into law. Lunsford called the tie his ''hug'' from Jessica.
''Every time I asked for something, from the beginning to now, people did it and they did it quickly,'' he told The St. Petersburg Times after the signing.
Not so for Pam Bergsma, a Lake Worth woman whose grandson didn't have a basic eye test that she says would have saved his life. He died in 2000 at age 3 from a rare cancer that wouldn't have been life-threatening if it had been caught earlier. She has been fighting to pass legislation requiring the eye test for retinoblastoma since the 2002 legislative session -- five years ago.
Bergsma, who can't count the number of times she has been to Tallahassee, used to sleep in her car but now stays in a Motel 6, the cheapest place she can find.
''What I have experienced and what I have seen up there, I never would have believed,'' Bergsma said. ``I always had an open mind.''
She has seen senators fight for her bill and against lobbyists for pediatricians, who don't want the requirement. But she says the lawmakers should feel ''shame'' for lengthening her quest, which she swears she will see to the end.
Every year, she truly believes the bill will pass. After no one sponsored it last year because it had failed so many times before, she believed the support she got this session meant it was time. But the bill died again.
''I was so sure'' it would pass this time, she said, then couldn't speak for sobbing.
MUCH TO LEARN
Jodi Walsh, a newcomer to the process who was ''appalled'' at how lawmakers dealt with her when she first visited them in January, said she took action after her ex-boyfriend encouraged her then-6-year-old son to steal a knife from the kitchen and stab her.
She recorded the conversation, and the boy's father was convicted of child abuse, but the decision was overturned because the judge said the legal definition of child abuse didn't include verbal manipulation. So, this session, she tried to convince lawmakers to include mental abuse in the law.
Her bill failed, too, but Walsh says she has learned a lot about the Legislature, which she used to follow only in the newspapers. She believes citizens should hound their representatives throughout the session to remind them of who really holds the power.
''It's personality that comes into play and not principle or priority or issues,'' Walsh said. ``It's their own personalities at each other's throats. That's what it boils down to. That really sickens me.''
Monday, May 07, 2007
G.W. Bush Welcomes Queen Elizabeth II
"Our two nations hold fundamental values in common. We honor our traditions and our shared history. We recognize that the strongest societies respect the rights and dignity of the individual. We understand and accept the burdens of global leadership. And we have built our special relationship on the surest foundations -- our deep and abiding love of liberty."
-- President George W. BushMay 7, 2007
Sunday, May 06, 2007
Criticism of the Christian Church
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"Loving the Person Who Isn't "One of Us"
By: Rubel
ShellyThe best way for the church to get clear about our mission in the world is to study the life of Jesus. Our goal is to be in our corporate life the continuation of who Jesus was in his personal life. So naturally we take our cues from him. We watch him break down barriers by taking time for children, affirming the dignity of women, and receiving the people others avoid. He touches lepers and blind people. He receives Gentiles and makes a Samaritan the hero of one of his best-known parables. He rescues a woman about to be stoned for committing adultery. He eats with tax collectors and sinners. As you read those stories from the Gospels, however, you notice that the religious establishment is outraged by his behavior. They don't imitate him. They criticize him -- and eventually murder him!It distresses me greatly that churches generally have the same bad name with the general public today that I have just given the "religious establishment" of Jesus' time. That is, churches are typically viewed more as exclusive clubs than welcoming havens. More people say they find nonjudgmental acceptance in Alcoholics Anonymous than in churches! And if you are inclined to reply in a defensive mode that groups like A.A. are willing to tolerate every point of view and let people get by with doing anything the like, you are exposing the fact that you know nothing about how that group functions."
comments welcome
Political Lesson for Chrisitians
"Closing one door, opening another A lesson in politics for conservative Christians
Source: Orlando Sentinel 05/03/2007
Source: Orlando Sentinel 05/03/2007
Kennedy, who is 76 years old and recovering from a heart attack he suffered in December, is one of the best educated and most compelling of all the cultural conservatives who sought to use the political process to reverse the "moral slide" in America. Most of Kennedy's televised messages in recent years have strayed from traditional preaching and focused primarily on politics and social issues.
Brian Fisher, executive vice president of Coral Ridge Ministries, told the Miami Herald, "We believe that by streamlining the operations we will be able to return to our core focus." One hopes that will be preaching the unadulterated Gospel of Jesus Christ, unencumbered by the allures of the political kingdoms of this world, because that is where the greatest power lies to transform lives and ultimately nations. It does not lie in the Republican Party, with which Kennedy's organization was almost exclusively associated.
Politics is about compromise. The message of the church is about truth. One has to look no further than the Al Sharptons and Jesse Jacksons -- who long ago gave up speaking of another kingdom and another King (if they ever did) in favor of faith in the Democratic Party -- to see how quickly the church and its primary message can be blurred when it enters into a shotgun marriage with politics. Jim Naugle, the mayor of Fort Lauderdale, told the Herald that the last election persuaded candidates to package themselves "in the middle, rather than to the right."
Nearly 30 years after religious conservatives decided to re-enter the political arena -- after abandoning it as "dirty" and leading to compromise -- what do they have to show for it? The country remains sharply divided and the reconciling message they used to preach has been obscured by the crass pursuit of the golden ring of political power. In the end, they got neither the power, nor the kingdom; only the glory and even that is now fading, as these older leaders pass from the scene.
This is not to say there is no role for conservative Christians in the civic life of their nation. There is. But Christians must first understand that the issues they most care about -- abortion, same-sex marriage and cultural rot -- are not caused by bad politics, but are matters of the heart and soul. Some evangelicals wish to broaden the political agenda beyond these issues to poverty, social justice and the environment. Politics can never completely cure the ills of any of these, but the message Christians bring about salvation and redemption can. Besides, they can never "convert" people to their point of view.
Too many conservative Christians have focused on the "seen" rather than the "unseen," thinking appearances at the White House, or on Meet the Press, is evidence that they are making a difference. And too much attention has been paid to individual personalities, rather than to the one these preachers had originally been called to exalt.
Nothing in the Bible commands believers to reform or redeem society through government and politics alone, or even mainly. Neither is there any expectation that non-Christians will be converted to the Christian point of view, which can vary on some topics, through politics.
Corwin Smidt, executive director of the Henry Institute for the Study of Christianity and Politics at Calvin College in Grand Rapids, Mich., told the Herald that evangelical groups that are built around a single charismatic leader often struggle when the leader is gone. "These televangelists are able to generate a fair amount of money," he said, "but in terms of their institutional longevity, it's really at risk."
To paraphrase a verse familiar to most Christians, what shall it profit a man if he gains the White House, but loses his own soul?
Christians are also fond of saying God never closes one door without opening another door. The "door" of the Center for Reclaiming America has closed. The new doors can produce a more effective politics, if what's on the other side is based on a message that has less to do with partisanship and more to do with the one who transcends all politics and who lends His power only to those who will use it as He instructed.
Economic indicator: GM profits down 90%
Economic indicator: GM profits down 90%. U.S. business leaders must apply a common sense. Why has Toyota surpassed GM? Because their cars are more reliable, cheaper, and more fuel-efficient. Personally having owned a Honda, Toyota and several GM cars I know this as a fact. Toyota was the best car I have ever had. In addition, Toyota is already producing hybrid cars while GM is not forecasting turning out any significant number of hybrids for years down the road. The drive for corporate profits in the short run may cripple specific companies in the long run. I believe the price of gas is also having an effect on the market for larger (SUV’s).
"Toyota surpassed GM in car sales in the first quarter of 2007, even as both companies posted record sales numbers. That's the first time that's happened, and it gives Toyota a legitimate claim on the title "World's Largest Automaker." GM has held that title for more than 75 years.
Toyota said it sold 2,348,000 vehicles, which is about 88,000 more than GM. If Toyota maintains its lead throughout the rest of the year, GM will lose its place as the world's No. 1 automaker, a position it has held for more than 75 years.
"Well obviously, it wasn't the news we wanted to hear," said John McDonald, a GM spokesman. "But both GM and Toyota are growing around the world, and GM also had a record first-quarter sales performance in the global market."
McDonald said GM has been doing well lately in emerging markets, especially in China, where it now sells a million cars a year.
It's still not clear whether Toyota will end the year with an edge in total sales, but many analysts expect that it will.
Auto analyst Mary Ann Keller said Toyota is growing faster than GM in much of the world, especially in the highly profitable North American market. Keller said Toyota has made so much money that it's been able to open new plants all over the world, from San Antonio to St. Petersburg, Russia.
Toyota's rapid expansion has its downside. Keller said there is evidence that Toyota may be trying to grow too fast and that its vaunted reputation for high quality may not be as strong as it once was.
"Their quality in the United States is not what it used to be," Keller said. "They have suffered enormous numbers of recalls, their warranties costs are up."
But for now, Keller said, there's a good chance that Toyota will end the year as the world's biggest automaker.
For its part, Toyota tried to downplay the milestone today — perhaps because of political sensitivities in the United States. The company said it doesn't pay attention to rankings and is only interested in improving the quality of its vehicles."
BUSH Finally Defines Iraq Success
Americans have been asking a simple question for years. What is meant by success in Iraq?President Bush finally anwers the question.
Source: Agence France Presse 05/02/2007
WASHINGTON, May 2, 2007 (AFP) -
US President George W. Bush on Wednesday was to host top Democrats to wrangle a truce in the bitter feud over the Iraq war one day after he vetoed their effort to tie funding to a withdrawal timeline.
Hours before White House talks also set to include Bush's Republican allies, each side urged the other to compromise amid increasing talk of agreeing to "benchmarks" for the Baghdad government but no sign of a deal on a pull-out.
"I am confident that, with goodwill on both sides, that we can move beyond political statements and agree on a bill that gives our troops the funds and the flexibility they need to do the job," said the president.
Bush, an unpopular leader waging an unpopular war, signalled some of his strongest support yet for clear "benchmarks" for the Baghdad government as he addressed a very friendly crowd at a national builders' meeting here.
"Iraq's leaders still have got a lot to do," he said. "They've got a lot more to do and the United States expects them to do it, just like I expect them to remain courageous and just like they expect us to keep our word."
But he rejected any "precipitous withdrawal" from Iraq, the chief reason he gave Tuesday for vetoing a 124-billion-dollar spending bill for wars in Iraq and Afghanistan that also set October 1 as the start date for withdrawing the 146,000 US troops in Iraq.
The Democratic majority leader in the House of Representatives, Steny Hoyer, said he hoped the chamber would vote on a new Iraq war budget within two weeks, and signalled that the party would not choke off funding for US troops.
"We will not allow this to languish," he said. "We are going to fund the troops, we are not going to leave our troops in harm's way without the resources that they need."
Such a schedule would allow the Senate to take up its own version and send the new emergency bill to fund the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan to Bush at the end of May, he said.
"What we can do is bring about benchmarks for accountability," Democratic Representative Kendrick Meek told CNN television Wednesday. "It's now going on five years. The president wants another blank check."
Bush, in remarks to a builders' association, defended his decision to send more US troops to Iraq this year and pleaded for patience with his approach amid polls showing that both he and the war are deeply unpopular.
"We are heading in the right direction," he said, telling the friendly audience that signs of progress in Iraq were "not headline-grabbing" and "certainly can't compete with a car bomb or a suicide attack."
Republican Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell told Fox television that benchmarks for the Iraqis government "is the place where compromise could well be achieved."
"There's bipartisan frustration -- frustration in the Congress with the Iraqi government. I think we can reach an agreement on the kinds of requirements of the Iraqi government that they ought to be pursuing," he said.
He cited the Baghdad government's struggle with passing legislation on oil revenue sharing, setting up local elections, and other matters.
"There are a number of other things they know they need to do in order to continue to enjoy our confidence. And most of it has not yet been done," McConnell warned.
Bush also seemed to fine-tune his definition of victory in the war, saying: "The definition of success as I described is 'sectarian violence down.' Success is not, 'no violence.'"
"There are parts of our own country that have got a certain level of violence to it. But success is a level of violence where the people feel comfortable about living their daily lives," he said.
Bush had most recently defined success as creating a government in Iraq that can "sustain itself, govern itself, and defend itself."
Source: Agence France Presse 05/02/2007
WASHINGTON, May 2, 2007 (AFP) -
US President George W. Bush on Wednesday was to host top Democrats to wrangle a truce in the bitter feud over the Iraq war one day after he vetoed their effort to tie funding to a withdrawal timeline.
Hours before White House talks also set to include Bush's Republican allies, each side urged the other to compromise amid increasing talk of agreeing to "benchmarks" for the Baghdad government but no sign of a deal on a pull-out.
"I am confident that, with goodwill on both sides, that we can move beyond political statements and agree on a bill that gives our troops the funds and the flexibility they need to do the job," said the president.
Bush, an unpopular leader waging an unpopular war, signalled some of his strongest support yet for clear "benchmarks" for the Baghdad government as he addressed a very friendly crowd at a national builders' meeting here.
"Iraq's leaders still have got a lot to do," he said. "They've got a lot more to do and the United States expects them to do it, just like I expect them to remain courageous and just like they expect us to keep our word."
But he rejected any "precipitous withdrawal" from Iraq, the chief reason he gave Tuesday for vetoing a 124-billion-dollar spending bill for wars in Iraq and Afghanistan that also set October 1 as the start date for withdrawing the 146,000 US troops in Iraq.
The Democratic majority leader in the House of Representatives, Steny Hoyer, said he hoped the chamber would vote on a new Iraq war budget within two weeks, and signalled that the party would not choke off funding for US troops.
"We will not allow this to languish," he said. "We are going to fund the troops, we are not going to leave our troops in harm's way without the resources that they need."
Such a schedule would allow the Senate to take up its own version and send the new emergency bill to fund the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan to Bush at the end of May, he said.
"What we can do is bring about benchmarks for accountability," Democratic Representative Kendrick Meek told CNN television Wednesday. "It's now going on five years. The president wants another blank check."
Bush, in remarks to a builders' association, defended his decision to send more US troops to Iraq this year and pleaded for patience with his approach amid polls showing that both he and the war are deeply unpopular.
"We are heading in the right direction," he said, telling the friendly audience that signs of progress in Iraq were "not headline-grabbing" and "certainly can't compete with a car bomb or a suicide attack."
Republican Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell told Fox television that benchmarks for the Iraqis government "is the place where compromise could well be achieved."
"There's bipartisan frustration -- frustration in the Congress with the Iraqi government. I think we can reach an agreement on the kinds of requirements of the Iraqi government that they ought to be pursuing," he said.
He cited the Baghdad government's struggle with passing legislation on oil revenue sharing, setting up local elections, and other matters.
"There are a number of other things they know they need to do in order to continue to enjoy our confidence. And most of it has not yet been done," McConnell warned.
Bush also seemed to fine-tune his definition of victory in the war, saying: "The definition of success as I described is 'sectarian violence down.' Success is not, 'no violence.'"
"There are parts of our own country that have got a certain level of violence to it. But success is a level of violence where the people feel comfortable about living their daily lives," he said.
Bush had most recently defined success as creating a government in Iraq that can "sustain itself, govern itself, and defend itself."
FL WRONGLY ACCUSED NOT COMPENSATED
PROCEDURAL TIE-UP IN COMPENSATION BILL MAY LEAVE CLEARED INMATE EMPTY-HANDED
Source: The Miami Herald 05/02/2007
TALLAHASSEE
Alan Crotzer, who is seeking state compensation for the 24 years he spent wrongfully imprisoned, is about to go home penniless this week as he searches for a job and a rational explanation from a state Senate that won't take up his cause.
With just four days to go in the two-month lawmaking session, Senate President Ken Pruitt all but forced his counterparts in the House to kill a measure Tuesday that would have given the St. Petersburg man about $1.25 million for his lost years.
''They call themselves Christians but speak with a forked tongue,'' Crotzer said, referring to Pruitt and the Republican leader of the Senate, Dan Webster.
Pruitt said the ''process'' is to blame, as well as a tight state budget of $72 billion -- which nevertheless has about $1 billion in unspent money.
Pruitt noted the Crotzer measure had stalled in a Senate committee -- in part, because of Pruitt's own rules -- and didn't belong on a separate bill to spend $4.8 million to compensate the family of 14-year-old Martin Lee Anderson, who died after he was violently subdued by Panama City boot camp guards.
Crotzer said he learned how to ''do time'' in prison, but he still reacted angrily to what's happening in the Senate.
Barring a last-minute change, Crotzer, 46, will have to come back to seek state compensation next year. It would mark the third time the former inmate has sought legislation since he was released last year on the strength of DNA evidence showing he didn't commit two rapes.
Many House members were outraged. And Gov. Charlie Crist said ''justice is crying out'' for compensation of both the Anderson family and Crotzer. Nearly all of the 120 House members approved a measure to compensate Crotzer. Then, on Monday, House members tacked Crotzer's language onto the high-profile Anderson relief bill sought by the governor.
But Pruitt insisted the two bills be separated because he and fellow Republican House Speaker Marco Rubio had agreed ahead of time to approve 14 compensation bills, including a measure sought by Rubio to give $8.5 million to former Fort Lauderdale resident Minouche Noel, who was crippled by botched state-paid surgeries when she was an infant 19 years ago.
BACK AND FORTH
In the waning days of the session, when loads of legislation pour on the floor of both chambers, any friction can kill a bill if it has to bounce back and forth between the two chambers as they agree on identical language. The House members then separated Crotzer from the Anderson bill, which passed with just 10 ''no'' votes and heads to the Senate for final approval. The House changed the bill to limit lawyer and lobbyist fees.
''I'm not going to give an opinion on what's fair and not fair,'' Pruitt said. ``The Senate is not going to be put in a position where we're doing it at the last minute. Nothing good ever happens whenever you're rushed or you work late.''
A separate measure compensating Crotzer never made it out of a Senate criminal justice budget committee, whose chairman said he's waiting for Pruitt to bring it to the floor. The Republican leader, Webster, said he prefers the failed bill because it seeks to set up a court-like process that gives all exonerated inmates a flat amount of money based on the number of years wrongfully spent in prison.
Last year, the Legislature awarded $2 million to Wilton Dedge, who spent less time -- 22 years -- wrongfully imprisoned than Crotzer.
The difference between the two: Dedge had a clean record and is white. Crotzer was convicted after stealing beer as a young man and is black.
BUILDING THE FUTURE?
Rep. Terry Fields, a Democratic black caucus leader from Jacksonville, noted that there's about $1 billion in unspent money in the budget and that the Senate wanted to spend half of it on a massive public-works road-paving binge called ``Building Florida's Future.''
''How can you talk about building Florida's future when you don't right the wrongs of the past?'' Fields asked.
Source: The Miami Herald 05/02/2007
TALLAHASSEE
Alan Crotzer, who is seeking state compensation for the 24 years he spent wrongfully imprisoned, is about to go home penniless this week as he searches for a job and a rational explanation from a state Senate that won't take up his cause.
With just four days to go in the two-month lawmaking session, Senate President Ken Pruitt all but forced his counterparts in the House to kill a measure Tuesday that would have given the St. Petersburg man about $1.25 million for his lost years.
''They call themselves Christians but speak with a forked tongue,'' Crotzer said, referring to Pruitt and the Republican leader of the Senate, Dan Webster.
Pruitt said the ''process'' is to blame, as well as a tight state budget of $72 billion -- which nevertheless has about $1 billion in unspent money.
Pruitt noted the Crotzer measure had stalled in a Senate committee -- in part, because of Pruitt's own rules -- and didn't belong on a separate bill to spend $4.8 million to compensate the family of 14-year-old Martin Lee Anderson, who died after he was violently subdued by Panama City boot camp guards.
Crotzer said he learned how to ''do time'' in prison, but he still reacted angrily to what's happening in the Senate.
Barring a last-minute change, Crotzer, 46, will have to come back to seek state compensation next year. It would mark the third time the former inmate has sought legislation since he was released last year on the strength of DNA evidence showing he didn't commit two rapes.
Many House members were outraged. And Gov. Charlie Crist said ''justice is crying out'' for compensation of both the Anderson family and Crotzer. Nearly all of the 120 House members approved a measure to compensate Crotzer. Then, on Monday, House members tacked Crotzer's language onto the high-profile Anderson relief bill sought by the governor.
But Pruitt insisted the two bills be separated because he and fellow Republican House Speaker Marco Rubio had agreed ahead of time to approve 14 compensation bills, including a measure sought by Rubio to give $8.5 million to former Fort Lauderdale resident Minouche Noel, who was crippled by botched state-paid surgeries when she was an infant 19 years ago.
BACK AND FORTH
In the waning days of the session, when loads of legislation pour on the floor of both chambers, any friction can kill a bill if it has to bounce back and forth between the two chambers as they agree on identical language. The House members then separated Crotzer from the Anderson bill, which passed with just 10 ''no'' votes and heads to the Senate for final approval. The House changed the bill to limit lawyer and lobbyist fees.
''I'm not going to give an opinion on what's fair and not fair,'' Pruitt said. ``The Senate is not going to be put in a position where we're doing it at the last minute. Nothing good ever happens whenever you're rushed or you work late.''
A separate measure compensating Crotzer never made it out of a Senate criminal justice budget committee, whose chairman said he's waiting for Pruitt to bring it to the floor. The Republican leader, Webster, said he prefers the failed bill because it seeks to set up a court-like process that gives all exonerated inmates a flat amount of money based on the number of years wrongfully spent in prison.
Last year, the Legislature awarded $2 million to Wilton Dedge, who spent less time -- 22 years -- wrongfully imprisoned than Crotzer.
The difference between the two: Dedge had a clean record and is white. Crotzer was convicted after stealing beer as a young man and is black.
BUILDING THE FUTURE?
Rep. Terry Fields, a Democratic black caucus leader from Jacksonville, noted that there's about $1 billion in unspent money in the budget and that the Senate wanted to spend half of it on a massive public-works road-paving binge called ``Building Florida's Future.''
''How can you talk about building Florida's future when you don't right the wrongs of the past?'' Fields asked.
Law will let you take Fido to the grave
Florida legislators find it more important an issue to debate bills allowing citizens to be buried with their dogs, rather than making legal domestic partnerships. Pets over people. A backward set of priorities in my opinion.
Law will let you take Fido to the grave; Legislators passed a wide-ranging bill on the funeral industry that will give pet owners a new burial option. Source:
The Miami Herald 05/02/2007
TALLAHASSEE
Thanks to a senator's love for his dog, Floridians will soon be able to be buried with the encased ashes of their pets.
A bill in the Legislature that includes wide-ranging provisions on the industry known as ''deathcare'' originally said nothing about dogs and cats. But Sen. Jim King, a Jacksonville Republican, wanted to make sure that he can be buried with the ashes of his favorite black Lab, Valentine, who died about a decade ago.
The Senate voted for the measure 38-1 on Tuesday, sending the bill to the governor.
''Valentine was a very special dog,'' King said, adding that the pet helped him get through the deaths of his parents and was with him in his first campaign for office. ``She was the one living thing that was predictable in my life.''
Besides clearing the way for pet burials, the bill prohibits hospices from owning funeral homes and helps protect funeral directors from lawsuits brought by estranged family members who dispute a cremation. But nothing grabbed more attention than King's ''Felix and Fido'' amendment, which he said has drawn all kinds of comments from constituents.
LOTS OF ATTENTION
''I've got meaningful legislation here that probably never will see the light of day,'' King said, adding that the most praise he's received is for this minor pet amendment.
Sen. Victor Crist, the Tampa Republican and bill sponsor, said he had no problem accommodating King's request.
''The love for your pet is almost as great as the love for the other members of your family,'' Crist said. ``The focus should be on what is important to the deceased.''
Under current law, a licensed cemetery can house only human remains. Burial grounds that have wanted to allow pets usually set aside a plot outside the official cemetery. However, Florida's many unlicensed cemeteries have been allowed to bury pets.
Crist said there's no health issue because the bill allows only remains that have been cremated and encased to lie next to their masters.
A SURGE IN LAWSUITS
The other provisions in the bill are the result of changing societal attitudes on death. Funeral homes have been plagued in recent years by increasingly complex family situations, and cremation is becoming more popular, now accounting for about half of the dispositions in Florida.
The combination has culminated in more lawsuits against funeral homes when they cremate remains based on the wishes of the deceased or family. The bill specifies that funeral homes aren't liable when an estranged family member disputes the decision to cremate.
The hospice provision came out of a scare when a Fort Myers hospice applied for a license to operate a funeral home in December, causing a stir over what many said was a conflict of interest.
The bill passed with just one ''no'' vote. That came from Sen. Steve Oelrich, a Cross Creek Republican, who said he thought the bill placed too many regulations on the industry. To the pet provision, he had no objection.
Actually, he may use it to be buried with his dog, he said: ``Bobby Ray Boykin and I can snuggle up.''
Law will let you take Fido to the grave; Legislators passed a wide-ranging bill on the funeral industry that will give pet owners a new burial option. Source:
The Miami Herald 05/02/2007
TALLAHASSEE
Thanks to a senator's love for his dog, Floridians will soon be able to be buried with the encased ashes of their pets.
A bill in the Legislature that includes wide-ranging provisions on the industry known as ''deathcare'' originally said nothing about dogs and cats. But Sen. Jim King, a Jacksonville Republican, wanted to make sure that he can be buried with the ashes of his favorite black Lab, Valentine, who died about a decade ago.
The Senate voted for the measure 38-1 on Tuesday, sending the bill to the governor.
''Valentine was a very special dog,'' King said, adding that the pet helped him get through the deaths of his parents and was with him in his first campaign for office. ``She was the one living thing that was predictable in my life.''
Besides clearing the way for pet burials, the bill prohibits hospices from owning funeral homes and helps protect funeral directors from lawsuits brought by estranged family members who dispute a cremation. But nothing grabbed more attention than King's ''Felix and Fido'' amendment, which he said has drawn all kinds of comments from constituents.
LOTS OF ATTENTION
''I've got meaningful legislation here that probably never will see the light of day,'' King said, adding that the most praise he's received is for this minor pet amendment.
Sen. Victor Crist, the Tampa Republican and bill sponsor, said he had no problem accommodating King's request.
''The love for your pet is almost as great as the love for the other members of your family,'' Crist said. ``The focus should be on what is important to the deceased.''
Under current law, a licensed cemetery can house only human remains. Burial grounds that have wanted to allow pets usually set aside a plot outside the official cemetery. However, Florida's many unlicensed cemeteries have been allowed to bury pets.
Crist said there's no health issue because the bill allows only remains that have been cremated and encased to lie next to their masters.
A SURGE IN LAWSUITS
The other provisions in the bill are the result of changing societal attitudes on death. Funeral homes have been plagued in recent years by increasingly complex family situations, and cremation is becoming more popular, now accounting for about half of the dispositions in Florida.
The combination has culminated in more lawsuits against funeral homes when they cremate remains based on the wishes of the deceased or family. The bill specifies that funeral homes aren't liable when an estranged family member disputes the decision to cremate.
The hospice provision came out of a scare when a Fort Myers hospice applied for a license to operate a funeral home in December, causing a stir over what many said was a conflict of interest.
The bill passed with just one ''no'' vote. That came from Sen. Steve Oelrich, a Cross Creek Republican, who said he thought the bill placed too many regulations on the industry. To the pet provision, he had no objection.
Actually, he may use it to be buried with his dog, he said: ``Bobby Ray Boykin and I can snuggle up.''
Earth-Like Planet Discovered
"April 25, 2007 · Scientists have discovered a new planet in the constellation Libra. The small, rocky planet is special because it appears to have mild temperatures, like Earth. Researchers believe it looks like the first planet outside of our solar system that could be home to liquid water, and maybe even life.
Our solar system has only eight planets — nine if you count Pluto. But outside of our solar system, around other stars, scientists have found dozens and dozens of planets.
"We have discovered more than 100 planets, here in Geneva," says Michel Mayor, a planet hunter at the University of Geneva.
Almost all of these known "extrasolar" planets are giant balls of gas, much like Jupiter or Saturn. Such massive planets are relatively easy to find. They have a gravitational pull that makes their stars wobble, and when scientists see that wobble, they know there is a planet. Small, rocky planets cause less of a wobble, making them harder to find.
Still, Mayor and his colleagues have had some luck using the European Southern Observatory's big telescope at La Silla, Chile. They recently pointed it at a nearby star called Gliese 581, in the constellation Libra.
"It's one of our closest neighbors in the galaxy," Mayor says.
His team has found three planets around this star, and one of them is particularly interesting. They think the planet is a little bigger than Earth, with about five times the Earth's mass. It orbits very close to its star, going all the way around in just 13 days. The planet isn't super hot though, because Gliese 581 is a red dwarf, which is much dimmer and cooler than our sun.
Scientists calculate that average temperatures on the surface of the planet should be around 32 to 104 degrees Fahrenheit. Mayor says that is a friendly environment for liquid water and maybe even life.
"We do not have any reason to believe that life exists on that planet," Mayor concedes. "We can only say that we have the temperature to permit the development of life. I would say it's one very interesting step in a long process going in the direction to having some major discovery related to life in the universe."
A report on the discovery has been submitted to the journal Astronomy and Astrophysics, and other experts agree that it is a significant find. Alan Boss is a planetary scientist at the Carnegie Institution of Washington.
"This seems to be the first discovery of an Earth-like planet," Boss says. "It's not exactly an Earth but it's close enough that I think it does deserve the title of perhaps the first Earth-like planet."
Other small planets discovered in the past have been very hot, or very cold. In many ways, though, this planet is a mystery.
"We do not know what the composition of the planet is," says Boss, explaining that scientists assume it is made of rock and metal like Earth. "We do not know how much water it may or may not have on it."
Boss says we could learn a lot more if scientists launched a space telescope that is specially designed to look at faraway planets. NASA has one in development called the Terrestrial Planet Finder, but it has been delayed indefinitely by budget woes.
"Things like Terrestrial Planet Finder are no longer really in the active NASA plan," Boss says.
Still, some scientists have a mental picture of the place. Todd Henry, an astronomer at Georgia State University, says that if you were standing on this planet and looked up, its sun would appear to be huge — five times bigger than our sun looks to us.
"It's going to look very different in this sort of alien situation that we're in than what we're used to here on Earth," Henry says. "The star itself is actually going to look sort of the color of Mars — sort of a red, ruddy color. But it would be much bigger in the sky than we're used to."
He says the star is also notable because the Geneva team found those two other planets circling it. They are also relatively small planets, which have been harder to find.
"This is starting to look like a solar system we're familiar with," Henry says. "If you were in a spaceship and you sort of flew into this system, this is one of the most interesting ones there is out there now."
But don't count on visiting anytime soon. Even though Gliese 581 is close, compared with other stars, it still would take over 20 years to get there — if we could travel at the speed of light, which we can't do."
Our solar system has only eight planets — nine if you count Pluto. But outside of our solar system, around other stars, scientists have found dozens and dozens of planets.
"We have discovered more than 100 planets, here in Geneva," says Michel Mayor, a planet hunter at the University of Geneva.
Almost all of these known "extrasolar" planets are giant balls of gas, much like Jupiter or Saturn. Such massive planets are relatively easy to find. They have a gravitational pull that makes their stars wobble, and when scientists see that wobble, they know there is a planet. Small, rocky planets cause less of a wobble, making them harder to find.
Still, Mayor and his colleagues have had some luck using the European Southern Observatory's big telescope at La Silla, Chile. They recently pointed it at a nearby star called Gliese 581, in the constellation Libra.
"It's one of our closest neighbors in the galaxy," Mayor says.
His team has found three planets around this star, and one of them is particularly interesting. They think the planet is a little bigger than Earth, with about five times the Earth's mass. It orbits very close to its star, going all the way around in just 13 days. The planet isn't super hot though, because Gliese 581 is a red dwarf, which is much dimmer and cooler than our sun.
Scientists calculate that average temperatures on the surface of the planet should be around 32 to 104 degrees Fahrenheit. Mayor says that is a friendly environment for liquid water and maybe even life.
"We do not have any reason to believe that life exists on that planet," Mayor concedes. "We can only say that we have the temperature to permit the development of life. I would say it's one very interesting step in a long process going in the direction to having some major discovery related to life in the universe."
A report on the discovery has been submitted to the journal Astronomy and Astrophysics, and other experts agree that it is a significant find. Alan Boss is a planetary scientist at the Carnegie Institution of Washington.
"This seems to be the first discovery of an Earth-like planet," Boss says. "It's not exactly an Earth but it's close enough that I think it does deserve the title of perhaps the first Earth-like planet."
Other small planets discovered in the past have been very hot, or very cold. In many ways, though, this planet is a mystery.
"We do not know what the composition of the planet is," says Boss, explaining that scientists assume it is made of rock and metal like Earth. "We do not know how much water it may or may not have on it."
Boss says we could learn a lot more if scientists launched a space telescope that is specially designed to look at faraway planets. NASA has one in development called the Terrestrial Planet Finder, but it has been delayed indefinitely by budget woes.
"Things like Terrestrial Planet Finder are no longer really in the active NASA plan," Boss says.
Still, some scientists have a mental picture of the place. Todd Henry, an astronomer at Georgia State University, says that if you were standing on this planet and looked up, its sun would appear to be huge — five times bigger than our sun looks to us.
"It's going to look very different in this sort of alien situation that we're in than what we're used to here on Earth," Henry says. "The star itself is actually going to look sort of the color of Mars — sort of a red, ruddy color. But it would be much bigger in the sky than we're used to."
He says the star is also notable because the Geneva team found those two other planets circling it. They are also relatively small planets, which have been harder to find.
"This is starting to look like a solar system we're familiar with," Henry says. "If you were in a spaceship and you sort of flew into this system, this is one of the most interesting ones there is out there now."
But don't count on visiting anytime soon. Even though Gliese 581 is close, compared with other stars, it still would take over 20 years to get there — if we could travel at the speed of light, which we can't do."
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