Although Bush is unlikely to demonstrate how the desire of gays to formalize extant, long-term, child-rearing relationships with state approval threatens the marriages of straights (much less the moral fabric of the nation), just repeating the phrase "sanctity of marriage" wins points with Bush's base?and leaves the poor Democrats with the tricky task of explaining, for the umpteenth time, why the Constitution goes to such lengths to separate church from state.

Any senator who has cast thousands of votes over a two-decade career would register inconsistencies, as well as what might be considered devolution and evolution (and Kerry certainly fits that bill.) And who better to focus on inconsistency than Bush the Younger?a man who is such a stranger to second thoughts that he boasted he never lost sleep over the 152 executions he authorized while governor of Texas?

These highly-profitable arrangements highlight the predatory character of the operation, which is paving the way for Australian companies to benefit from the program of out-sourcing and privatisation that is being imposed on the Solomons? government. A revealing case in point is the handing over of the management of the Solomons? prisons to GRM International, owned by Australia?s richest individual, media magnate Kerry Packer.

He described as ?very strange? GRM?s appointment to manage the Solomons? prisons. ?If you look at GRM?s web site, you can see that they have no record in providing prisons?none whatsoever. They are into water sanitation in one country and other things in other countries, but not prisons.?

By AusAID?s own estimates, 80 percent of its aid globally is spent on Australian goods and services, including highly-paid consultants. Its contracts are restricted to firms with headquarters in Australia or New Zealand.

The Toronto Globe and Mail Tuesday cited Canadian diplomatic officials describing Washington?s attitude when it was supposedly attempting to broker a power-sharing deal between Aristide and his political opponents. ?US officials made it abundantly clear to their counterparts in Ottawa that Washington had a ?high tolerance? for further Haitian bloodshed and would not be pressured into defending Mr. Aristide in order to prevent it,? the report said.

A disturbing question in the whole affair is why Jack Straw, the foreign secretary, apparently dismissed the view of his own independent legal advisers, preferring to adopt the attorney's more comfortable, pro-war, approach.
More disturbing is that the advice of the attorney became more pro-war precisely at the time new intelligence came in saying that Saddam's WMD programme was not nearly as advanced as the government's September 2002 dossier claimed. Moreover, it suggested Iraq did not pose any threat, let alone an imminent one, to Britain or the US. It is inconceivable, sources say, that Goldsmith did not see this new intelligence.
Ministers say that publishing the attorney's advice would breach a long-standing "constitutional convention". Yet the advice of attorneys has been published before.

The Agriculture Department tested fewer than 21,000 cows last year ? compared with millions in Europe ? but Secretary of Agriculture Ann M. Veneman has repeatedly said that amount is enough to assure that the country's beef is safe because it focuses on downers, which were more likely to be diseased. If the disease was found in a walking cow, the premise behind the testing system would be undermined.
Mr. Louthan noted that the cow in question was the only one on the downer record not having a temperature recorded that day. It was marked "unable to get temp." It is easy to get a rectal temperature from a downed cow, he said, but difficult to do so in a moving, upset one. He called the absence of such a reading the "smoking gun" showing that the records were changed.
A very low temperature indicates an animal is dying. A very high one suggests it has a systemic infection. Both make it unfit for human consumption.