http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/2994853.stm

South Asia's two nuclear rivals, India and Pakistan, are to re-establish full diplomatic relations. Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee told the Indian parliament he would restore full Indian diplomatic representation in Islamabad. Hours later Pakistan announced it would reciprocate.

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http://www.nytimes.com/2003/05/02/international/worldspecial/02TERR.html?ex=1052851744&ei=1&en=8379601254ebc020

The Bush administration and leading Senate Republicans sought today to give the Central Intelligence Agency and the Pentagon far-reaching new powers to demand personal and financial records on people in the United States as part of foreign intelligence and terrorism operations, officials said... The surprise proposal was tucked into a broader intelligence authorization bill now pending before Congress... Senator Dianne Feinstein of California and other Democrats succeeded in getting the provision pulled from the authorization bill, at least temporarily, Congressional officials said.

...New figures released today also showed that the Justice Department is relying with increasing frequency on secret warrants that allow the officials to go to a secret court to get approval for surveillance and bugging warrants in terrorism and espionage investigations without notifying the target. Attorney General John Ashcroft said in an annual report that the Justice Department used secret warrants a record 1,228 times last year— an increase of more than 30 percent over the year before. The court that governs the warrants did not turn down any of the Justice Department's applications, officials said.

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http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/pages/ShArt.jhtml?itemNo=289390&contrassID=2&subContrassID=1&sbSubContrassID=0&listSrc=Y

Sixteen Palestinians were killed and nine soldiers injured during Israel Defense Forces operations in the West Bank and Gaza yesterday... The new Palestinian cabinet, which held its first meeting yesterday, condemned the Gaza operation... IDF sources said the operation had been postponed repeatedly... [and] the raid was also necessary to prevent additional attacks.

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http://jang.com.pk/thenews/may2003-daily/02-05-2003/world/w3.htm

ABIDJAN: All sides in Ivory Coast's seven-and-a-half-month-old civil war have agreed to a total ceasefire, Defense Minister Adou Assoa said in a statement received by AFP Thursday. According to the statement, released after a meeting of military leaders from Ivory Coast, its western neighbour Liberia and rebel groups who plunged Ivory Coast into war from September last year, all sides had "agreed to a total cessation of hostilities and an integral ceasefire." The agreement covered all of Ivory Coast.

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http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2003/05/02/wbomb02.xml/

The two British suicide bombers who blew up a seafront bar in Tel Aviv, killing three people, had posed earlier as peace activists, acting as "human shields" for Palestinians, sources in the Gaza Strip said yesterday.

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http://www.iht.com/articles/94978.html

VIEQUES, Puerto Rico Hundreds of protesters broke through a fence at the Vieques bombing range, waving the island’s flag and destroying U.S Navy vehicles as they celebrated the end of nearly 60 years of U.S. bombing exercises. The navy on Wednesday handed its more than 15,000 acres (6,000 hectares) of land on eastern Vieques to the Department of the Interior, which will help transform the range into a wildlife refuge.

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http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=politicsNews&storyID=2668365

MADRID, Spain (Reuters) - Secretary of State [and baldfaced liar] Colin Powell said Thursday U.S. troops appeared to have acted in self-defense when they fired on a hotel in Baghdad, killing two journalists working for Spanish television and Reuters.

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http://www.guardian.co.uk/cyprus/story/0,11551,947117,00.html

Greek Cypriot authorities yesterday effectively abolished the economic blockade of northern Cyprus, announcing an easing of trade restrictions across the UN-monitored "green line" which has divided the island since 1974. The dramatic gesture was a demonstration of goodwill in response to the surprise decision last week by the leader of the breakaway Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus, Rauf Denktash, to open checkpoints on the old ceasefire line.

More than 150,000 people - well over a tenth of the island's population - have crossed the green line in the past eight days, some queuing for up to 18 hours to visit towns and villages they have been forbidden to enter for the past 30 years.

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http://www.canada.com/national/story.asp?id=78A2260B-4770-4682-BE60-E6FE1D3B8144

The United States says the lack of funding for police and restrictive privacy legislation in Canada are frustrating [police] probes.

...The State Department report on global terrorism for 2002... says "some U.S. law enforcement officers have expressed concern" about Canadian privacy laws... [and] "Canadian laws and regulations intended to protect Canadian citizens and landed immigrants from government intrusion sometimes limit the depth of investigations."

...The same report took issue with Canada's move to make possession of small amounts of marijuana a ticketing offence rather than a criminal one. "This will not only harm Canadian society, but have consequences for the United States as well," the report said.

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http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?pagename=thestar/Layout/Article_Type1&c=Article&cid=1051826556490&call_pageid=968332188492&col=968705899037

OTTAWA (CP) - In a new twist on a weedy old political conundrum, Liberal leadership hopeful John Manley... had to concede in an interview today with The Canadian Press that the psychedelic 60s passed him by. "No, never," Manley deadpanned when asked if he'd ever smoked pot. "I regret that, now, because apparently it's `de rigueur.' "

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http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/2994533.stm

Beijing is likely to continue seeing new cases of Sars at the current high rate of more than 100 a day, a city health chief has said... Friday's figures revealed 176 new cases across mainland China, 97 of them in Beijing.

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http://www.nydailynews.com/business/story/80055p-73580c.html

Lea Fastow, the pampered wife of ex-Enron finance chief Andrew Fastow, was charged yesterday with helping her husband steal gobs of cash from the energy giant before its stunning collapse. In a 12-page indictment, federal prosecutors said Lea conspired to steal more than $130,000 from Enron... Beyond Lea, seven other ex-Enron employees were charged for the first time yesterday... Yesterday's roundup brings to 19 the tally of people charged in connection with the $68 billion Enron market crash that cost thousands of people their jobs and retirement accounts. Six have entered guilty pleas... Former CEO Jeffrey Skilling and ex-chairman Ken Lay have so far escaped arrest.

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http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,947946,00.html

A US marine under investigation for war crimes, after he told his local newspaper that he had executed an Iraqi soldier, has... announced his intention to become a policeman.

..."Gunny" Covarrubias, now back in Las Vegas recovering from concussion from the battle, told the Las Vegas Review-Journal that he had tracked down two Iraqi soldiers he believed had fired a grenade at his unit, shooting one in the back of the head and another as he tried to escape. He described his actions as meting out "justice"... The sergeant crept into a house he believed the grenade had been shot from and found a soldier from Iraq's Special Republican Guard next to a grenade launcher. According to the published account, he ordered the Iraqi to stop, turn around, and remove his beret. "I went behind him and shot him in the back of the head," Sgt Covarrubias said. "Twice." Then he saw another Iraqi outside trying to run away, chased him down, and shot him too. It is not clear from his account whether that killing was also carried out execution-style. He took the Iraqis' identity documents as a souvenir and showed them to the newspaper reporter, saying: "This is justice."

Sgt Covarrubias, who served as a sniper in the first Gulf war in 1991, claiming 30 kills, still suffers from dizziness and is hard of hearing in one ear, but maintains that his ambition is to join the Las Vegas police department... In the Review-Journal's internet chatroom, one reader, Steve Steckel, said the marine should be able to join the police if he met the normal requirements, but should be taught to more discreet. "It should also be drummed (beaten, if necessary ) into his head that he should not release the clutch on his mouth unless his brain is also engaged," Mr Steckel argued.

Others were horrified at the idea of a possible vigilante roaming the streets.

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http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2003/05/01/ED268040.DTL

PRESIDENT BUSH had been in office only a few hours in January 2001 when, with the first strokes of his presidential pen, he reinstated the "global gag rule." The rule, instituted by Ronald Reagan and lifted by Bill Clinton on his first day in office, prevents U.S. family-planning money from going to any overseas group that provides abortion services or counseling or lobbies for abortion rights -- even when the group uses its own money for such activities.

On Tuesday, Bush had a change of heart... In asking Congress to swiftly pass his $15 billion global AIDS package, he magnanimously said the money should not be subject to the gag rule.

...The gag rule has never applied to AIDS funds. So Bush is lifting a restriction that never existed. Instead, he is adding some. Under this bill, groups... can take the money, but they can't do AIDS work and family planning in the same facility. If this legislation passes through Congress unchanged, poor and rural communities that have only one clinic would have to build a new one in order to separate their AIDS work from their family-planning work -- an unlikely development, given the depressed economies in the targeted African and Caribbean countries. Or they would have to shut down their family-planning clinic altogether in order to qualify for the AIDS money.

...In Africa... more than half the AIDS victims are women.

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http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?GXHC_gx_session_id_=735941bc27a970fc&pagename=thestar/Layout/Article_Type1&c=Article&cid=1051643359167&call_pageid=968332188854&col=968350060724

AMMAN, Jordan (AP) - A metal device in a suitcase exploded in the hands of a security guard who was inspecting it at Jordan's international airport today, killing the man instantly, authorities said. Police detained the suspected owner of the suitcase, a Japanese journalist, who told authorities he didn't know he had an explosive device in his possession, said officials involved in the investigation. The explosion wounded three other people, said Information Minister Mohammad Affash Adwan. Two of the wounded were guards, and one is in critical condition, Adwan said. The journalist, identified as Hiroki Gomi of the Mainichi newspaper, told authorities he picked up the metal device as a "souvenir from the remnants of war on Iraq," Adwan said.

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http://www.voanews.com/article.cfm?objectID=2038CDA9-A825-44F2-852FCB938DF99178

The Council of Europe has called on the United States to respect the rights of prisoners who were captured in Afghanistan and are being held at the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. The Council's legal affairs committee passed a resolution late Tuesday at a special session in Berlin. The resolution urges Washington to make the conditions of the prisoners' detention conform to internationally recognized legal and humanitarian standards. The resolution also advised member states to seek the extradition of their nationals who being held at the Guantanamo Bay facility and could be in danger of receiving the death penalty. The Council of Europe is the main European human rights monitoring agency. It was founded in 1949 and has 45 member countries. The United States has observer status in the organization.

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http://www.nypress.com/16/18/news&columns/cage.cfm

I have a great story I’m going to write–in 18 months. It requires a little up-front work first. . The first thing I have to do is kidnap New York Times reporter Neil Lewis. Just wait for him as he gets out of work in Manhattan one morning, shoot him with a big net gun. Then, right in front of everybody, throw a sack over his head, tie his hands together with brambles, parade him through the streets like an animal, and finally toss him in the back seat of my ’93 Grand Am, parked in the NYPD zone on 43rd. And head north.

"Where–where are you taking me?" pillowcase-head will ask, once I get on the highway. I pull over and punch him in the balls. That’s where I’m taking you, you fuck. Finally we get up to a spot in the woods outside Plattsburgh. He’s chained to a tree for a few days, and occasionally I blast him with a hose. I keep lights trained in his eyes around the clock, and finally I set him up in a room with a blanket and a mattress. There is a yellow arrow on the floor pointing to Arthur Sulzberger Jr.’s parking spot so that he can pray.

I keep him there for 18 months. Then I write my story.

Lewis’ cover story last week, "Detainees from the Afghan War Remain in a Legal Limbo in Cuba," was one of the most disgraceful pieces of journalism I’ve ever seen... His treatment of the Guantanamo Bay detention camp was journalistically dishonest on almost every level. If intelligent people can read this kind of thing without screeching in terror, this country is in a lot of trouble.

...How can a responsible journalist allow anyone to assert that there can be "disagreement" over the cause of 25 suicide attempts among prisoners who are being held in a permanent stateless limbo, without any rights or any chance at due process, on a rock in the middle of the ocean from which there could never be any escape?

...Lewis’ piece is filled with... details designed to show the comfort and luxury at the camp: the electric-ventilated cells, the high-level military care, the antidepressants given out to those not responding well to confinement, the "lilting Muslim call to prayer" played over the loudspeakers, the bagels and the blue jeans, the "new copies of the Koran" and the additional 13 pounds that, on average, the prisoners have gained.

...Lewis adds nothing to tell the other side. As for the "new copies of the Koran": numerous reports, including one in the Times-owned Boston Globe, describe how... on occasion, guards rounded up their copies of the Koran, threw them in a pile and sat on them, as a sort of amusing joke. And the "lilting Muslim call to prayer"? Those same reports indicate that guards frequently dragged chains on the ground outside cells during prayers. Lewis writes, "There have been no credible reports of abuse or substantial complaints about the physical conditions of the detainees." Again, that should be news to the Times sister paper, the Globe, which apparently was not credible when it reported that a prisoner who protested against the dragging chains was allegedly beaten until his arm was broken.

But most stunning of all in Lewis’ report was the absence of the hot Guantanamo news that broke last week: the fact that there are children at the camp... That’s front-page news–children in stateless military detention without lawyers and without rights.

...Which brings me back to the cabin outside Plattsburgh. Lewis has been there 18 months, say. Occasionally I go into his room and offer him a Snickers bar if he tells me what chickenporn sites Tom Friedman accesses at work. He shits in a hole in the floor, but gets to listen to all the classic rock he wants. And every time he asks when he’s getting out, I punch him in the nuts.

Back in New York, some reporter asks me how Neil is doing up there. I say, "Great! He looks like a million bucks!" The reporter writes in his notebook: "Like…a…million …bucks." And he publishes that.

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http://www.ufenet.org/press/2003/MoreBucksForBang_pr.html

Median CEO pay at the 37 largest defense contractors rose 79 percent from 2001 to 2002, while overall CEO pay climbed only 6 percent, according to a new report from United for a Fair Economy, More Bucks for the Bang: CEO Pay at Top Defense Contractors, by Chris Hartman and David Martin.

Median pay was 45 percent higher in 2002 at defense contractors than at the 365 large companies surveyed by Business Week magazine. The typical U.S. CEO made $3.7 million in 2002, while the typical defense industry CEO got $5.4 million... Compared with an army private’s pay of $19,585, the average CEO at a major defense contractor made 577 times as much in 2002, or $11,297,548. This is also more than 28 times as much as the Commander in Chief’s salary of $400,000.

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http://www.foxnews.com/printer_friendly_story/0,3566,84552,00.html

BILL O'REILLY, HOST: Now for the top story tonight. Is it right to use economic clout to forge policy? Joining us now from Washington is Dr. Mark Weisbrot, co-director for the Center of Economic and Policy Research. What say you, Doctor?

WEISBROT: Yes, I think it's wrong. I mean, first of all, you have to remember that the whole world is against this war. Even the so-called coalition of the willing-- They see it as illegitimate, illegal, and a war of conquest. That's how the world sees us. So, many of them are blaming our government, but not us personally. If consumers try to use another weapon, another economic weapon against them, that just makes it look like the American people are just as bad as their government and are just trying to use their economic power, as well as their military power, to try and rule the world. That's how the rest of the world would see it, and I think they're right.

O'REILLY: I think you're right. The rest of the world wouldn't like us using our economic clout. Now, 75 percent of the American people believe the war was just. So, you are in a minority, and you are not smarter than every one of those people. So, you could be wrong--

WEISBROT: But these people were given--

O'REILLY: But wait a minute. Doctor! All right. Doctor, Doctor!

WEISBROT: Half the people in this country believe--

O'REILLY: Cut his mike! All right, Doctor. Now, you either going listen to me, or you are going to get knocked off the air right now. Ok? That's the deal. Put your mike back on. All right, Doctor? I talk, you talk. That's the way we do it.

You say we've been given false information. That's your opinion, and you're entitled to it. I don't believe that. And I'm as smart as you are. And 75 percent of the American people disagree with you. So, if 75 percent of the American people come to the conclusion that Saddam Hussein is a threat to them, or was a threat, and they resent the fact that other countries are putting they and their families in danger, i.e. France, all right? Don't they have the perfect moral right not to buy French goods?

WEISBROT: Well, it would be a moral right in certain circumstances, but again, half the people in this country believe that Saddam was responsible for September 11th. So, they're basing this decision on false information.

O'REILLY: That's propaganda, and you know it... All right, you're basically saying, in your opinion, if the government's oppressive, i.e. South Africa, then it's ok to use your economic clout.

WEISBROT: Especially if the people--

O'REILLY: But in my opinion, if I feel that France is undermining the United States, has sent -- has sold missiles in violation of the UN mandates against Saddam Hussein, as we know they have now because we captured them, then I don't have a right, in my opinion, to boycott France. You're saying that, right?

WEISBROT: Well, also there you have to remember the French government was responding to an overwhelming majority of their people.

O'REILLY: No, no. They sold missiles in violation of the UN mandate. So, I don't have a right not to buy their stuff now?

WEISBROT: Oh, you have a right. You can not-buy anything you want.

O'REILLY: Yes, and I'm morally right in that, am I not?

WEISBROT: I think anybody should not buy whatever they don't want to buy. But you have to remember the other side can do that, too. They are going to be deciding whether to buy Microsoft or have free open-source software. Open-source software, for example--

O'REILLY: All right. I'm willing to take that chance. I'm willing to take that chance. See, I think the American consumer, number one, isn't as stupid as you think he is because we don't have the information here, a bunch of crap.

WEISBROT: I didn't say they were stupid. I said they were deceived by bad information.

O'REILLY: Yes, I know. But I say that you're crazy, that this is the most open society in the world. They weren't deceived about anything. They got both sides, and they made up their mind, which was opposite from your point of view. So, now you say they're deceived. That's ridiculous. But anyway, Doctor, we respect your point of view. Thanks for coming on.

WEISBROT: Thank you.

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http://www.americas.org/News/Features/200304_MayJune/Crossroads-Weisbrot.htm

by Mark Weisbrot - With all eyes focused on the war in Iraq, the U.S. press and even the foreign policy establishment has seemingly lost interest in the political and social unrest taking place in Latin America. Populist electoral victories beginning with Venezuela’s Hugo Chávez in 1998 and 2000, Luis Inacio Lula da Silva in Brazil (October), and Lucio Gutierrez in Ecuador (November), have already changed the map of Latin American politics. Even if widespread populist and anti-IMF sentiment in Argentina does not end in a similar result there, all signs are that the revolt is spreading.

...The main fear in both [Left and Right] wings of U.S. policy-making is that Latin America might reject the teachings Washington has labored so hard to instill over the last two decades... Almost no one has been willing to acknowledge the magnitude of the economic failure that has occurred in Latin America. This is understandable, because the economists and policy-makers who have advocated opening up to wholesale privatization, foreign trade and investment, and conservative-to-extremist fiscal and interest-rate policies, have staked their careers on the belief that these policies will raise living standards. Often this belief was based on little more than faith and oversimplified economic theory. There was little or no empirical evidence... [And] the region went from 20 years of a reasonable economic growth rate to almost no growth at all. If we take into account that the upper income groups received more than their share of what little economic growth occurred, most people in Latin America are probably worse off than they were in 1980. Most people do not understand how profound and unprecedented a failure this is. In fact there is no twenty-year period in the last century, even including the Great Depression, that registered so dismal an economic performance in Latin America. And per capita income for the region is expected to decline even further this year. Yet Washington insists that everyone stick with the program.

...Washington is pressuring Brazil to adopt policies that are—over the not-so-very-long-run—impossible. In the short run, they will try to squeeze as much debt service from Brazil as possible... But [Brazilian pres.] Lula won his election on a promise to restore economic growth, increase employment, and provide food assistance to the poor. He will not be able to fulfill those promises and keep to IMF policies at the same time.

Venezuela is a different case... The main drag on the economy is the enormous shock it took from the 63-day oil strike and business lockout in December and January, as well as the overall political instability that has resulted from opposition attempts to topple the government... Top officials of the Bush administration met in advance several times with the leaders of the failed Venezuela coup of April 11, 2002. They welcomed the coup when it happened, and then did nothing to discourage their friends in the opposition from carrying their disastrous oil strike to its final conclusion.

...All of these Latin American countries have the ability, should they so choose, to grow and prosper without any "help" from Washington or the international financial institutions it controls, such as the IMF. This is true even for Argentina... The IMF helped maintain Argentina’s disastrous currency board system—where the peso was pegged to the U.S. dollar at a one-to-one rate... The crisis worsened with every shock from the international financial system... The result was an Argentine default at the end of 2001... Then, instead of offering help to get the economy back on its feet, which many people believe is the IMF's function, the IMF strung the Argentine government along for a year, moving the goal posts when an agreement seemed near, and making politically impossible demands.

...Argentina began to show signs of recovery last year, and finally signed an agreement with the IMF this past January... The IMF agreement provides little or no new resources—the money will be used to pay the IMF, World Bank, and other official creditors—yet still demands fiscal and monetary austerity from Argentina that could end the country’s recent moves toward recovery. "The international financial community wants to punish Argentina, but the country has already been sufficiently punished," said Mario Blejer, referring to the painful and ever-changing demands that the IMF placed on Argentina.

...What is true for Argentina is true for Latin America as a whole... Those who insist —from either side of Washington’s narrow political spectrum—that the people should suffer more before they can experience the economic changes they demand, would do well to consider the warning of John F. Kennedy: "Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable."

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http://www.kansascity.com/mld/kansascity/news/breaking_news/5764483.htm?template=contentModules/printstory.jsp

ALEXANDRIA, Va. - Accused terrorism suspect Zacarias Moussaoui included a multiple-choice test for Ashcroft in some of the 17 handwritten motions released Thursday by U.S. District Judge Leonie Brinkema. Ashcroft is asked to check the box that best describes the government's view of the lone U.S. defendant charged as a conspirator with the Sept. 11 hijackers.

The choices are:

_20th hijacker.

_5th plane pilot missing in action.

_I, Ashcroft, don't know.

_Let's kill him anyway.

...The quiz isn't entirely a joke. Moussaoui astutely spotted a line in a recent court order that the government considers him a would-be fifth pilot of a hijacked plane instead of a 20th hijacker of one of the four Sept. 11 planes. "Gone with the wind," Moussaoui said of the 20th hijacker theory, which the government says was never part of its case.

The judge ruled that Moussaoui is entitled to learn the government's prosecution theory. That might explain Moussaoui's quiz, which Ashcroft isn't likely to answer willingly. The government, in fact, contends its prosecution theory is none of Moussaoui's business.

Moussaoui, an acknowledged al-Qaida loyalist who denies a Sept. 11 role... contends the government, the judge and his court-appointed lawyers are conspiring to kill him.

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http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A2639-2003May1?language=printer

At the school [in Fallujah, Iraq] where Monday's shooting [of protesters] occurred [note passive voice-- mrs. h], teachers spent the day cleaning up in preparation for the start of classes on Saturday. The headmaster, Mohammed Ahmed, said that before they left, U.S. soldiers had damaged furniture and classroom supplies and left offensive graffiti on the walls.

In one classroom, "I [love] pork," with the word love represented by a heart, was written on the blackboard, along with a drawing of a camel and the words: "Iraqi Cab Company." In another room, "Eat [expletive] Iraq" was scrawled on a wall. And in Ahmed's office, sexual organs were drawn with white chalk on the back of the door. "They came to liberate us?" Ahmed asked, pointing out the graffiti to a reporter. "What is the point of doing this?"

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mrs. henry will now attempt to find some good news. a google news search of "good news" produced:

http://www.bayarea.com/mld/mercurynews/business/5771438.htm BOISE, Idaho -A lawsuit brought by former shareholders of Washington Group International has been certified as class action by the U.S. District Court in Idaho. The ruling clears the way for thousands of former Washington Group investors to seek damages from the Massachusetts-based Raytheon Co... "This is very good news for the investors because it's their only hope to recover what they lost when the Washington Group went bankrupt," said Boise attorney Philip Gordon, the local liaison for the Hagens Berman law firm in Seattle.

http://www.globeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20030501.wism/BNStory/Business/ ...“The [US] manufacturing sector failed to grow in April for the second consecutive month,” [Institute for Supply Management’s] chairman Norbert Ore said in the report. “The sector continued the lackluster performance that was evident in March, as new orders and production remained weak. The good news is that the prices index appears to have peaked in March, with April showing a significant softening in pricing pressures.”

http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2003/05/02/1051382082243.html ...The good news is that the tide may finally be turning against spammers. Mounting community pressure has pushed the Federal Government into announcing plans to draft legislation for holding spammers accountable and liable to criminal prosecution.

http://www.gainesvilletimes.com/news/stories/20030502/localnews/226384.html "Good News for Good News," a singing to benefit Good News at Noon homeless shelter, is scheduled for 7 p.m. Saturday.

http://rushlimbaugh.com/home/daily/site_050103/content/rush_is_right.guest.html According to Census Bureau figures released last Friday, poverty among blacks declined from 26.4% in '96 to 23% in '02... Now let's turn to an Associated Press story published in the New York Times. Headline: "More Black Kids in Extreme Poverty - The number of black children living in extreme poverty has risen sharply since 1999, according to a report released Wednesday. About 932,000 black kids under 18 lived in extremely poor conditions, up almost 50% from 1999, about 25% since 2000." There's not one reference to the good news from the Census Bureau in this story - not one. It's a classic example of media bias.

http://www.ajc.com/health/content/shared/health/ap/ap_story.html/Health/AP.V4995.AP-SARS-Virus.html ...The new precautions were announced despite a rare bit of good news: Officials said the surge of SARS cases in Beijing appears to have leveled off.

http://www.ukiahdailyjournal.com/Stories/0,1413,91%257E3089%257E1365468,00.html The good news is the city pool is going to open this year on May 31. The bad news is it might not stay open long.

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mrs. henry gives up on google and turns to googlism.com instead.

thirteen excerpts from the googlism for: the good news

.....

the good news is better than you think

the good news is that people are talking

the good news is i don't snore any more

the good news is that it can be controlled

.....

the good news is the bad news is wrong

the good news is of forgiveness

the good news is that you are alive

the good news is it's cancer

the good news is that god has done something about it

the good news is that the government has not

.....

the good news is that several new initiatives are percolating through the system

the good news is that you can change many of these negative situations and outcomes

the good news is less bad news

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