The decision by local conservative pastors Joe Wright and Terry Fox to end their talk radio program, “Answering the Call,” is the latest setback for Fox in his aim of reaching a larger audience with his fire-and-brimstone political message.
The duo say their top-rated weekly radio program, launched two years ago, can’t find enough financial supporters willing to underwrite the $10,000 monthly needed to stay on the air.
The cancellation seems to be yet more fallout from Fox’s departure from Immanuel Baptist Church, where he was blamed, among other things, for diverting mission money to the radio program.
Posted by Randy Scholfield
A leaked British intelligence document reportedly supports the findings of the U.S. National Intelligence Estimate: that the war in Iraq has increased extremism. “Iraq has served to radicalize an already disillusioned youth, and al-Qaida has given them the will, intent, purpose and ideology to act,” the BBC quoted the document as saying. The document also accuses Pakistan’s intelligence agency of indirectly supporting terrorist groups including al-Qaida — a claim that Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf and a representative of Britain’s ministry of defense denied.
Meanwhile, Musharraf and Afghan President Hamid Karzai met with President Bush Wednesday night and pledged increased cooperation in fighting terrorism. The two neighboring leaders had been blaming each other for not doing enough to combat extremism and to find Osama bin Laden, who each thinks is hiding in the other’s country.
Posted by Phillip Brownlee
The Kansas Sierra Club isn’t endorsing either Gov. Kathleen Sebelius or Republican challenger Jim Barnett in the upcoming election, our editorial today reported. Neither has exhibited “environmental leadership,” according to the group’s latest Planet Kansas newsletter.
The group is especially disappointed in Sebelius’ lack of action in developing Kansas’ wind power potential, which is rated among the highest in the nation. Among other things, it would like to see her push for a renewable energy portfolio, which would require utility companies to develop a percentage of their energy from renewables such as wind and solar by a target date.
The governor recently told The Eagle editorial board that she is a big supporter of renewable energy, including wind, but what has she actually done during her term? Nothing bold. Her efforts to moderate the controversy over siting wind power in the Flint Hills by setting up a regional buffer zone is a modest accomplishment at best.
“She needs to lead the way,” said Sierra Club spokesman Craig Wolfe.
Barnett met with the group and expressed support for renewables as an economic development opportunity for Kansas, but his record wasn’t impressive enough to warrant support.
Would the club — often associated with liberals and Democrats — be comfortable endorsing a Republican? Absolutely, said Wolfe. It would and has in other state races.
Posted by Randy Scholfield
The federal judge who struck down the decision by the Dover, Pa., school board to teach intelligent design in science classes, John E. Jones III (in photo), told a Lawrence audience Tuesday that he spent a week under protection of federal marshals due to death threats — a “sad statement,” he said, on the lack of public understanding of the role of judges. “These criticisms point at something in the way that both the pundits and the public tend to perceive judges. It is false, it is debilitating and if unchallenged, I believe it will ultimately tear at the fabric of our system of justice in the United States.”
Jones added another good caution: “As we spend time, as we did in the Dover case, debating what to put in the science curriculum in our schools, we had better start paying attention to the curriculum of civics and government, as well as history.”
Posted by Rhonda Holman
Here’s a sad testament to these politically testy times: Of the 30 or so campaign ads rolled out across the country Tuesday in contested congressional races, three are positive. According to the New York Times, the unflattering subject matter goes beyond voting records and campaign donations into personal finances, business histories and even old student writings, presented with lots of “shadowy images, breathless announcers, jagged music and a dizzying array of statistics, counterstatistics and vote citations.” By comparison, Kansas’ air wars in the gubernatorial and attorney general races seem pretty tame so far.
Rep. Todd Tiahrt, R-Goddard, doesn’t appear to have been included in the Times’ review, likely because his race isn’t considered to be competitive. But Tiahrt has a positive commercial up this week that emphasizes jobs and his efforts to keep the U.S. economy competitive.
Meanwhile, Gov. Kathleen Sebelius’ new ad expresses her disappointment with Jim Barnett’s anti-immigration commercial.
Posted by Rhonda Holman
Revelations that former Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage, not some partisan gun-slinger, outed CIA agent Valerie Plame to columnist Robert Novak have people wondering what will become of special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald’s related perjury case against Vice President Dick Cheney’s former top aide, Lewis “Scooter” Libby, which goes to trial early next year. If the investigation by Fitzgerald (in photo) now fizzles out, at least it will have been comparatively cheap. According to NBC News, the three-year probe has cost $1.5 million, compared with independent counsel David Barrett’s decade-long, $23 million probe of former Housing Secretary Henry Cisneros, and Ken Starr’s $64 million investigation of Whitewater and Monica Lewinsky.
Posted by Rhonda Holman
The good news is that the 7.7 percent increase this year in health insurance premiums is the lowest increase since 2000. The bad news is that it is still twice the annual rate of inflation.
Currently, the average annual family premium is $11,480. This is too much for many employers to absorb. As a result, since 2000, the percentage of firms offering health benefits has fallen to 61 percent from 69 percent.
Some employers are trying to help themselves and their employees by offering plans with high deductibles and employee health savings plans to place more of the burden upon the employee. This may be an answer for some, but many can’t afford to get sick with a $2,000 annual deductible.
Posted by Angie Holladay
http://www.kansas.com/mld/kansas/news/nation/15616192.htm
doctorout photo
