Daily Archives: Aug. 26, 2007

Open thread 8/26

Aug. 26, 20071:05 a.m.

By Phillip Brownlee | Filed under Open thread | Comments (153)

Something to think about before you flush

Aug. 26, 20071:04 a.m.

Given the willingness of the Bush administration to push against personal privacy rights in the war on terrorism, it probably shouldn’t be a surprise that two federal agencies have experimented with testing wastewater samples as a possible way of monitoring people’s drug use. That revelation was part of a story on Oregon State University researchers’ drug testing of untreated sewage water of 10 unnamed U.S. cities. The “community urinalysis,” as one researcher put it Tuesday at a meeting of the American Chemical Society in Boston, naturally found that caffeine was most prevalent. But it also found that cocaine and affluence go together, that cocaine and ecstasy peak on weekends, and that a gambling town registered meth levels more than five times higher than other cities.
Posted by Rhonda Holman

By Phillip Brownlee | Filed under American life | Comments (41)

Afterthoughts on Iowa straw poll

Aug. 26, 20071:02 a.m.

Here’s how Time magazine columnist Joe Klein described Brownback’s digs at the Aug. 11 Iowa GOP straw poll: “a massive air-conditioned tent that looked something like the Denver airport and featured nonstop evangelical preachers and a Christian rock band that strip-mined Stevie Wonder for songs like ‘Signed, Sealed, Delivered, Jesus, I’m Yours.’” When it was over, third-place Brownback and second-place Mike Huckabee won 33 percent of the straw poll vote to Mitt Romney’s 31.5 percent, noted another Time scribe, “suggesting that a single social-conservative candidate could be the one to beat when the Iowa caucuses take place in January.”
Posted by Rhonda Holman

By Phillip Brownlee | Filed under Presidential race | Comments (34)

Leavenworth not rolling out welcome mat for terrorists

Aug. 26, 20071:01 a.m.

“I think I speak for a lot of people in town when I say that we don’t want hundreds of terrorists brought in here.”
— Donna Raymond, quoted in a Chicago Tribune article about how Leavenworth residents are uneasy about the prospect of detainees at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba being moved to the military prison at Fort Leavenworth
Posted by Phillip Brownlee

By Phillip Brownlee | Filed under Homeland security | Comments (146)

Preliminary results for USD 259 look good, Brooks said

Aug. 26, 20071:00 a.m.

The state’s latest student achievement reports aren’t scheduled to be released until October, but preliminary reports on the Wichita school district look “really, really good,” superintendent Winston Brooks told The Eagle editorial board. He said the district’s elementary schools made “huge gains” and that high schools also improved. For example, 84 percent of high school students were proficient in writing. The district also significantly narrowed the achievement gap between white and minority students in elementary schools, Brooks said. Middle schools were “a little disappointing,” Brooks said. He attributed the difficulty in raising achievement in middle school to such factors as parents becoming less engaged, peer pressure and a lack of extracurricular activities that help connect kids to school.
Posted by Phillip Brownlee

By Phillip Brownlee | Filed under Education | Comments (193)