Vote for Sean Feeney and he will actually listen to your views: No staffer firewall!
The West Side Democratic & Civic Club in South Bend, IN will be throwing its usual Dyngus Day bash today, the Monday after Easter. It's a must stop for Democratic candidates who are introduced to the crowd at noon. Republican candidates are also welcome as well, although they won't be introduced during the program.
From the Kentucky Enquirer:
FRANKFORT - Miriam Kannan is worried about the future of science education in
Kentucky.
At least three students, she said, have quit the biology program at Northern
Kentucky University because their religious beliefs made them uncomfortable
learning about evolution.
In his State of the Commonwealth address this year, Gov. Ernie Fletcher
encouraged schools to teach about "intelligent design" - the notion that some
intelligent force was involved in the creation of complex life.
And last month, the governor appointed five new members to the state Board of
Education, at least three of whom say they are open to public-school students
learning alternatives to evolution.
The trend alarms Kannan, an NKU biology professor and president of the Kentucky
Academy of Science.
It's fine to teach about intelligent design in non-science classes, she said.
But if public figures are putting it on equal footing with evolution, science
instruction is bound to get muddled, Kannan said. The two cannot be taught
side-by-side, because evolution is a testable theory - the basis of scientific
inquiry - and intelligent design is not, she said.
"The moment that you train a person in creationism, that person cannot be a
scientist. And the world is going forward on science," she said.
Members of the Kentucky Academy of Science voted to oppose efforts by Kentucky
governments to mandate content in science courses.
Brett Hall, the governor's spokesman, said the concern is overblown.
In a Feb. 13 letter to the academy, Fletcher said the existence of a creator is
a "self-evident truth" akin to two plus two equals four. The United States was
founded on this understanding, he wrote.
"Schools should be able to approach this subject from a historical perspective,
not a religious one, without offending anybody," Fletcher wrote.
Scientists shouldn't worry, because Fletcher never suggested intelligent design
be taught in science classes per se, Hall said.
Besides, Kentucky law already gives teachers the right to do so. Under KRS
158.177, they can instruct students in the Bible's creation theory whenever
evolution is mentioned. Students who believe in the Bible's version are even
allowed to write it on exams without losing points.
Chairman Keith Travis, a Marshall County Republican and the only current member
reappointed by Fletcher, said he would oppose any mandate to teach intelligent
design. It's a divisive subject that would only distract the board from its
mission to improve education, he said.
The governor did not ask any of his recent appointees for their views on
intelligent design, said Hall. And in public interviews with legislators, none
of them said they would force it on teachers.
Some did, however, support the idea of exposing students to the subject.
In a March 15 meeting of the House Education Committee, the three appointees
present were asked whether intelligent design should be taught in science
classes.
Jeanie Ferguson and Joe Brothers said they weren't sure.
Kaye Baird, a former teacher from Pikeville, said such decisions are up to the
site-based councils at each school. But she also said:
"Intelligent design and evolution - why don't we give students the choice, or
let them have facts about both of them? ... Don't we want our young people to be
open-minded and be thinkers?"
State Rep. Kathy Stein, D-Lexington, spoke against the three on the House floor,
but they were confirmed anyway. State Rep. Dennis Keene, D-Wilder, was among the
few who joined Stein in voting no. He said he was concerned about the
possibility of more demands on teachers.
"If you want your religious beliefs taught, you need to send your children to a
school and pay for that. Public schools have to appeal to everybody," Keene
said.
E-mail kgutierrez@nky.com
http://news.enquirer.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060409/NEWS0103/604090392/1077
From CNET:
A partisan divide pitting Republicans against Democrats on the question of Internet regulation appears to be deepening.
A Republican-controlled House Energy and Commerce subcommittee on Wednesday defeated a proposal that would have levied extensive regulations on broadband providers and forcibly prevented them from offering higher-speed video services to partners or affiliates.
By an 8-to-23 margin, the committee members rejected a Democratic-backed "Net neutrality" amendment to a current piece of telecommunications legislation. The amendment had attracted support from companies including Amazon.com, eBay, Google, Microsoft and Yahoo, and their chief executives wrote a last-minute letter to the committee on Wednesday saying such a change to the legislation was "critical."
Before the vote, amendment sponsor Rep. Ed Markey, a Massachusetts Democrat, assailed his Republican colleagues. "We're about to break with the entire history of the Internet," Markey said. "Everyone should understand that."
This philosophical rift extends beyond the precise wording of the telecommunications legislation. It centers on whether broadband providers will be free to design their networks as they see fit and enjoy the latitude to prioritize certain types of traffic--such as streaming video--over others. (In an interview last week with CNET News.com, Verizon Chief Technology Officer Mark Wegleitner said prioritization is necessary to make such services economically viable.)
After a day of debate, the committee went on to vote 27-4 in favor of approving the final bill--minus the Democrats' amendment--sending it onward to full committee consideration, expected in late April. The vote on the amendment itself did not occur strictly along party lines, with one Republican voting in favor and four Democrats voting against it.
Leading Republicans have dismissed concerns about Net neutrality, also called network neutrality, as simultaneously overblown and overly vague.
"This is not Chicken Little, the sky is not falling, we're not going to change the direction of the axis of the earth on this vote," said Rep. John Shimkus, an Illinois Republican. He said overregulatory Net neutrality provisions would amount to picking winners and losers in the marketplace and discourage investment in faster connections that will benefit consumers.
Last week, Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Joe Barton said: "Before we get too far down the road, I want to let the market kind of sort itself out, and I'm not convinced that we really have a problem with Net neutrality."
Barton and other Republican leaders of the House panel did, however, offer some modest changes to a telecommunications bill in response to concerns from Internet and software companies.
Their replacement bill would require the Federal Communications Commission to vet all complaints of violations of Net neutrality principles within 90 days. It gave the FCC the power to levy fines of up to $500,000 per violation.
It also contained explicit language denying the FCC the authority to make new rules on Net neutrality. Democrats charged that lack of enforcement power would mean the FCC would be unable to deal with the topic flexibly.
Rep. Charles Pickering, a Mississippi Republican, backed that less-regulatory approach, saying that a "case-by-case adjudicatory process" is the best way to address Net neutrality concerns while ensuring competition in the marketplace.
Democrat's failed proposal
The amendment that was rejected on Wednesday took a similar approach to strict Net neutrality legislation introduced in the Senate last month by Democratic Sen. Ron Wyden.
It said that any content provider must be awarded bandwidth "with equivalent or better capability than the provider extends to itself or affiliated parties, and without the imposition of any charge." That would likely prohibit any plans by Verizon or other former Bell companies to offer their own video services that would be given priority over other traffic (video is bandwidth-intensive and intolerant of network delays).
"I think this walled garden approach that many network providers would like to create would fundamentally change the way the Internet works and undermine the power of the Net as a force of innovation and change," said Rep. Anna Eshoo, a California Democrat.
Markey warned: '"There is a fundamental choice. It's the choice between the bottleneck designs of a...small handful of very large companies and the dreams and innovations of thousands of online companies and innovators."
By "very large companies," Markey was not referring to Microsoft, which has a market value of $287 billion, but its much smaller political rival Verizon, which has a market value of $101 billion and has opposed Net neutrality mandates. Markey did not appear to be referring to Google, which has a value of $121 billion and has been lobbying on behalf of federal regulations, but to AT&T, which has a value of $105 billion and has opposed them.
A CNET News.com report published last week, however, showed that the Internet industry is being outspent in Washington by more than a 3-to-1 margin.
AT&T, Comcast, Time Warner, and Verizon spent $230.9 million on politicians from 1998 until the present, while Amazon, eBay, Google, Microsoft and Yahoo spent only a combined $71.2 million. (Those figures include lobbying expenditures, individual contributions, political action committees and soft money.)
In the last week, the Net neutrality debate in Washington has spread beyond the circles of lobbyists for telecommunications and e-commerce companies.
A network of conservative and free-market groups has begun warning Congress that Net neutrality regulations are not consistent with Republican laissez-faire principles and protection of private-property rights.
The American Conservative Union, the National Taxpayers Union, former House Majority Leader Dick Armey's FreedomWorks, and Citizens Against Government Waste were among the signers of a letter Friday that said the Democrat-backed proposal would let the FCC "exercise complete discretion over the Internet."
"At the very least," the letter cautioned, "the vague terminology could lead to an explosion of litigation, which would, in turn, deter capital investments in technology and thwart the evolution of the Internet."
Republican insider Grover Norquist of Americans for Tax Reform, which opposes tax hikes, added in a letter on Tuesday that "a network neutrality provision in any form would begin down the dangerous path of Internet regulation.
