Several local groups are sponsoring an Arkansas River trash clean up Saturday, May 5 from 10 a.m. to noon.
If you want to help out, go to Lawrence-Dumont Stadium, where groups will check in and get gloves and bags.
In the lead-up to the River Festival, this is a great way to enhance public awareness about the need for a clean river.
Posted by Randy Scholfield
While most pundits didn’t seem to want to declare a winner of the rather tame first Republican debate, columnist Roger Simon at Politico.com went out on a limb and declared Mitt Romney the winner.
I think he’s right, with a rejuvenated-sounding John McCain coming in second. Romney, Simon said, "looked and sounded presidential." And he seemed more on message than the others. "Romney was a man with a plan. He knew what points he wanted to make and he made them."
McCain probably had the best line of the night with his vow to follow Osama bin Laden "to the gates of hell."
The worst moment: when Sam Brownback raised his hand when the candidates were asked who doesn’t believe in evolution. Also embracing that astonishingly anti-science worldview were Tom Tancredo and Mike Huckabee.
Posted by Randy Scholfield
Our Thursday editorial, written by Rhonda, was excerpted in USA Today. It was among several editorials on the war-funding bill and whether Congress and the White House should compromise. The edited excerpt might have suggested more support of President Bush and the surge strategy than our full editorial reflected.
Posted by Phillip Brownlee
Here’s an update on the U.S. Justice Department, per the Washington Post:
– The department is conducting an internal investigation into whether former White House liaison Monica Goodling illegally took party affiliation into account in hiring career federal prosecutors for nonpolitical appointments.
– Two of the fired U.S. attorneys said they were threatened by Deputy Attorney General Paul McNulty’s chief of staff and told to not talk publicly about the firings.
– The Senate Judiciary Committee issued a subpoena seeking all the e-mails of presidential adviser Karl Rove in Justice Department custody related to the firings.
Posted by Phillip Brownlee
Many lawmakers are patting themselves on the back for this past legislative session. But one group that isn’t impressed is Americans for Prosperity-Kansas. State director Alan Cobb released a statement lamenting the “second highest spending increase in state history.” His conclusion: “This budget is proof-positive that the Legislature lacks the will for spending restraint.”
Posted by Phillip Brownlee
Different people will interpret the tremendous interest in the open seat on the Wichita City Council differently. But it surely says a lot about the civic engagement in District 1 that 11 residents, including four with experience in elective office, are interested in the job and that each was able to get the requisite 100 petition signatures. It also says something about the public perception of City Hall as a place to make a difference in the wake of last month’s election, which created the vacancy on the bench with Carl Brewer’s mayoral victory. The crowded field will not, however, make the selection easy for the City Council.
Posted by Rhonda Holman
In an editorial defending World Bank president Paul Wolfowitz, the Wall Street Journal noted that big salaries are the norm at the World Bank. About 14 percent of the World Bank’s roughly 10,000 employees are paid more than the U.S. secretary of state makes, which is about $186,000. Plus, the bank reimburses its U.S. employees for U.S. income taxes. “Clearly ‘fighting poverty’ does not mean taking a vow of poverty,” the editorial said.
Posted by Phillip Brownlee
Kansas Agriculture Secretary Adrian Polansky and some researchers say it’s safe. But the Center for Food Safety and the Kansas Rural Center last week called on the U.S. Department of Agriculture to deny a permit by Ventria Bioscience to grow genetically modified rice in Geary County, citing the danger of genetic contamination of other crops.
Ventria’s rice uses synthetic proteins that mimic human genes. The Kansas Rural Center pointed to the inevitability of wind and wildlife carrying seed elsewhere, posing a “high risk” of contamination.
Do state officials fully appreciate the possible unintended consequences?
Posted by Randy Scholfield