Issue

TAMPA, Fla. - Police in the 1970s urged citizens to "drop a dime" in a pay phone to report crimes anonymously. Now in an increasing number of cities, tipsters are being invited to use their thumbs — to identify criminals using text messages.

Police hope the idea helps recruit teens and 20-somethings who wouldn't normally dial a Crime Stoppers hot line to share information with authorities.

"Former U.S. Rep. Bob Barr of Georgia, now running for president on the Libertarian ticket, told a Portland crowd today he got into the race to offer an option for those who want less government intrusion in their lives.

NEW YORK (Reuters) - U.S. congressional leaders agreed late last year to President George W. Bush's funding request for a major escalation of covert operations against Iran aimed at destabilizing its leadership, according to a report in The New Yorker magazine published online on Sunday.

(Cleveland) - Prepare for a steep rise in your utility bills. So says Richard Lubinski, president of Think-Energy Management in Silver Lake, near Akron.

WASHINGTON, June 24 (UPI) -- U.S. congressional leaders are pressing the Bush administration to block deals to be signed between the Iraqi federal government and the world's largest oil companies and to cancel deals between the Iraqi Kurdish region and smaller U.S. oil firms.

WASHINGTON - A massive foreclosure rescue bill cleared a key Senate test Tuesday by an overwhelming margin, with Democrats and Republicans both eager to claim election-year credit for helping hard-pressed homeowners.

COLUMBUS - State Rep. Tyrone Yates (D., Cincinnati) and Rep. Shawn Webster (R., Hamilton) stand at polar opposite points in their ideas as to how to deal with pit bulls, those muscle-bound dogs with jaws of steel.

GARDEZ, Afghanistan - Mohammed Naim Farouq was a thug in the lawless Zormat district of eastern Afghanistan . He ran a kidnapping and extortion racket, and he controlled his turf with a band of gunmen who rode around in trucks with AK-47 rifles.

WASHINGTON: More than 400 real estate industry players have been indicted since March — including dozens over the last two days — in a Justice Department crackdown on incidents of mortgage fraud nationwide that have contributed to the country's housing crisis.

The FBI put the losses to homeowners and other borrowers who were victims in the schemes at over $1 billion.

Up and down the flood-ravaged river valleys of the upper Midwest, high water has inflicted billions of dollars of damage to homes, businesses, and crops. It has displaced tens of thousands of families and brought immeasurable suffering. It has also brought a new concern for the region’s river towns and cities: Flooding in the Midwest seems to be getting worse.

OTTAWA, June 11 (Reuters) - Canada, addressing one of the darkest chapters in its history, formally apologized on Wednesday for forcing 150,000 aboriginal children into grim residential schools, where many say they were sexually and physically abused.

The nation, which subsidizes fuel costs, is expected to boost prices as the cost of crude oil soars.
By Don Lee, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
June 9, 2008
SHANGHAI -- The lines are getting longer, and Tang Yao is finding fewer gasoline stations open in his neighborhood here. But the 48-year-old motorist has no gripes about the price at the pump.

SYDNEY, June 6, 2008 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Dying to save the planet?
The Australian Broadcasting Company (ABC) has spent countless carbons
building a website to let all human beings guilty of contributing
carbon dioxide to global warming know how long they deserve to live and
what they can do to "live forever."

The actions of the Toledo Public Schools these past two weeks has been anything but exemplary. Let’s start with the Start High school graduation. The Start graduates were given instructions concerning graduation that included the following. “This is still a school event and a dignified ceremony, not a ball game. No gestures, dancing, hand signs, hooting, hollering, yelling.

Barack Obama made history Tuesday night when he became the first African-American in U.S. history to clinch a major party's presidential nomination.

http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/06/04/race.analysis/index.html?section=...

A federal judge yesterday sided with a group of
carry-out owners and ruled that the city of Toledo cannot begin
enforcing its new convenience store licensing law.

May 30 (Bloomberg) -- The U.S. Commodity Futures Trading
Commission, the watchdog for commodity transactions, is
investigating U.S. crude oil trading to determine whether the surge
in prices to record levels is the result of manipulation or fraud.

Fuel protests triggered by rising oil prices have spread to more countries across Europe, with thousands of fishermen on strike.

Union leaders said Portugal's entire coastal fleet stayed in port on
Friday, while in Spain, 7,000 fishermen held protests at the
agriculture ministry.

The wx-press secretary was asked if he had lied at the podium. Well, yeah.

An interesting article in the Toledo Journal. Some interesting parts:

It’s perfectly fine for a white homosexual official at the University of Toledo to make disparaging remarks about religious peoplem, Crystal Dixon says.
...
It’s another matter, though, when an African American UT official with strong religious beliefs expresses an opinion on homosexuality, she says

This week on the Toledo View...
Interviews with:

Anita Lopez, Lucas County Auditor

Vallie Bowman-English, Clerk of Toledo Courts

Ben Konop, Lucas County Commisioner

Read the hot editorial's on the Citizens View...

THEY SHOOT BLACK MEN, DON'T THEY?

DO YOU KNOW A HATER?

And on the Anonymous View...

POLICE AND RACIAL PROFILING

INDIANS AND RACISM

With food prices soaring, it takes some gall to force Americans to pay billions of dollars to millionaire agribusinesses. Yet that's what the latest farm bill would do.

Nowhere is the opinion divide on gay marriage sharper than in the nation's religious communities. And last week's same-sex marriage ruling will do little to bring agreement on the definition of marriage, a social and religious touchstone that has torn apart families, congregations and entire dioceses.

Michigan and Florida alone can't save Hillary Rodham Clinton's campaign. Interviews with those considering how to handle the two states' banished convention delegates found little interest in the former first lady's best-case scenario. Her position, part of a formidable comeback challenge, is that all the delegates be seated in accordance with their disputed primaries.

READ MORE HERE:

I've been told that some people seem to think I have attacked their faith. I don't believe I attacked people's faith - I took issue with, questioned, and challenged those points they made - but I have never attacked their faith or religion.