VANCOUVER, B.C. – While the United States has been focused on the midterm elections and Iraq for the past several months, Canadians have been focused intently on the question of whether or not Canada should ratify the Kyoto Protocol on Climate Change.The firestorm of debate erupted in September at the Johannesburg “Earth Summit,” where Canadian […]

During the Vietnam War, Vice President Dick Cheney finagled five draft deferments. “I had other priorities,” says the man who would send your boy to die in Baghdad.How nice.Thousands of other boys, the draftees whose names are etched on that granite wall in Washington, D.C., never got the chance to enjoy those “other priorities.” Uncle […]

Football.A sport that plays second fiddle to hockey in the Twin Cities.But not Saturday.Auburn’s Red Eddies and Lewiston’s Blue Devils will take to Walton Field at 1 p.m., the first time they have ever faced each other in a conference championship. This will be a game to watch.Football playoffs are relatively new to Maine. For […]

Back in April, George W. Bush pledged a reconstruction program for Afghanistan on the order of the Marshall Plan.Nothing of the kind happened, as U.S. efforts focused mainly on boosting warlords who might help chase down remnants of al-Qaeda. Rebuilding has barely started, and the lag has undermined the central government of Hamid Karzai.Things have […]

The world can count a small victory Wednesday. One day after Iraq’s parliament voted unanimously to reject the resolution ordering compliance with United Nations’ directives, Saddam Hussein conceded.He would not have done so without enormous pressure from the United Nations and the United States. While the victory is good, it won’t last if this shared […]

Dr. Jan Kippax is the only oral surgeon in the Twin Cities willing to take on Medicaid patients.This doctor, who has a history of not washing his hands between patients, occasionally using unsterilized medical instruments and ignoring patient pain, is the only local option for adults on Medicaid who need care.Patients fortunate enough to have […]

I understand the reasoning. I’ll even admit that it’s practical in a certain sense. Small-town police chiefs, their budgets constrained by a tight economy, find themselves in a bind: not enough patrol cars for their officers.So, Government Acquisitions LLC, a company in Charlotte, N.C., has come to the rescue with an extraordinary offer to donate […]

For the GOP, Washington, D.C., is now Shangri-La.Never before have so many been so clamorous to bury so big a snout in so big a public trough. With the president creating bureaucracies faster than FDR, anyone who ever wrote a letter to the editor for a GOP candidate can probably count on a job.Thus, a […]

The question has loomed for decades: what to do about the sorry state of public schools.It’s a beast of a question.And when the feds get involved, the “solution” can be monstrous.An 1,100-page law called the No Child Left Behind Act was signed by President George W. Bush in January. In a nutshell, it calls for […]

There will be lots to digest about the 2002 election – from Democratic incoherence to President Bush’s savvy to the odds of early war in Iraq – but the most consequential domestic question ahead can already be identified: Is there any limit to the tax cuts Republicans will support? How the GOP answers this question […]