France this week became the first country to open all of its government UFO files to researchers. French authorities unveiled an online site that thoroughly documents some 1,600 sightings over five decades. About 25 percent of the evidence reportedly received a "type D" classification, meaning that despite credible witnesses and good evidence, no explanation for the phenomena could be found.
The file probably won’t either convince skeptics or dissuade UFO believers, but it is a laudable exercise in open government and scientific cooperation.
The United States should follow suit. Back in 2002, former Clinton White House chief of staff John Podesta called on the Pentagon to release all of its UFO files, saying, "It is time for the government to declassify records that are more than 25 years old and to provide scientists with data that will assist in determining the real nature of this phenomenon."
And while they’re at it, they should release the bodies of those aliens in Hanger 18.
Posted by Randy Scholfield
Washington Post columnist Charles Krauthammer sees nothing wrong with firing the eight U.S. attorneys and thinks that Attorney General Alberto Gonzales is a decent and honorable man. "But," he wrote, "in time, and the sooner the better, Gonzales must resign. It’s not a question of probity but of competence. Gonzales has allowed a scandal to be created where there was none. That is quite an achievement. He had a two-foot putt and he muffed it."
Krauthammer’s complaint is that Gonzeles allowed his aides to "go to Capitol Hill unprepared and misinformed and therefore give inaccurate and misleading testimony." And that he allowed his deputy to say that "the prosecutors were fired for performance reasons when all he had to say was that U.S. attorneys serve at the pleasure of the president and the president wanted them replaced."
The “Bong hits 4 Jesus” case made it to the U.S. Supreme Court this month. Now another First Amendment case is in the news, as a federal judge in Philadelphia reversed a 1998 law that made it a crime for commercial Web sites to let children under 17 access “harmful” material. Judge Lowell Reed Jr. ruled that First Amendment rights shouldn’t be stifled for the protection of minors.
The decision puts the responsibility mostly on parents for keeping harmful online material away from children by using such things as Internet filters.
Posted by Ross Stewart
Time magazine columnist Joe Klein notes that the GOP presidential contenders farthest to the right, Kansas Sen. Sam Brownback and former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, “spend far more time talking about good works than about sin,” calling them “Second Commandment Republicans.” Klein writes that because they continue to languish in the polls and must do well in Iowa, though, “The temptation will be to slouch back to hellfire and brimstone to unite conservative Christians.”
Posted by Rhonda Holman
Secretary of State Ron Thornburgh (in photo) is “still hopeful” that Kansas will hold a presidential primary in 2008, he told The Eagle editorial board Thursday. The Senate has approved the funding, and Thornburgh thinks he can get enough votes in the House. But he said that House Speaker Melvin Neufeld, R-Ingalls, “is going to make me work for it.”
Thornburgh hasn’t decided yet on the possible date but said that Feb. 12, 2008, might be attractive. Most of the big-population states likely will hold primaries on Feb. 5, but Thornburgh doesn’t think only one candidate from each party will survive, given the political diversity of those states. “I think that next week,” he said, “may, in fact, be the kingmaker. Or queenmaker.”
Posted by Phillip Brownlee
