Open Threads

   Welcome back.

    Our Tuesday agenda:

    Kevin Murphy explains how the Royals and Jackson County will spend $250 million of your money.

    The Kansas Legislature will officially adjourn, after taking up a measure to help Greensburg, Kan.

    Paul Morrison climbs on bandwagon, asking for info on MySpace users with sex violations.

    In national news:

    Everyone's taking shots at the immigration bill.

    The Washington Post talks with fired U.S. attorney David Iglesias.

     (Side note: Monday the Justice Department dumped hundreds of pages of documents on the House Judiciary Committee, related to the U.S. attorney firings. We couldn't find a Todd Graves or Brad Schlozman reference, but they may be coming; the committee has asked for them. Monday's dump included some pretty brutal job performance findings relating to the seven fired U.S. attorneys we know, minus Bud Cummins.)

    Abortion opponents are focusing on the mother's health, not that of the fetus, and that's showing some results, The New York Times reports.

   Tom Grubisich argues in The Washington Post that commenters to Web sites should have to use their real names. He has a proposed solution for whistleblowers. His lead:  

   "These days we want "transparency" in all institutions, even private ones. There's one massive exception -- the Internet. It is, we are told, a giant town hall. Indeed, it has millions of people speaking out in millions of online forums. But most of them are wearing the equivalent of paper bags over their heads. We know them only by their Internet "handles" -- gotalife, runningwithscissors, stoptheplanet and myriad other inventive names.

    More here.  

   Rudy Giuliani, during a campaign stop in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, said that President Bush's response to terrorism will ensure that his legacy is that of "a great president."

    Giuliani: "He will be, I believe, a president who will be viewed by history for this one decision as being a great president. He decided in a flash to put our country on offense against terrorism."

     More: "He reversed years of being on defense. He reversed it immediately. He put us immediately on offense, and we have been safe as a result of that. And he deserves credit for that."

   Reactions: to Giuliani's point, or why he keeps pushing this position?

Should Congress send it back?

    Open for business...

The lead of a Washington Post story: 

     "A female freelance writer who blogged about the pornography industry was threatened with rape. A single mother who blogged about "the daily ins and outs of being a mom" was threatened by a cyber-stalker who claimed that she beat her son and that he had her under surveillance. Kathy Sierra, who won a large following by blogging about designing software that makes people happy, became a target of anonymous online attacks that included photos of her with a noose around her neck and a muzzle over her mouth.

     "As women gain visibility in the blogosphere, they are targets of sexual harassment and threats. Men are harassed too, and lack of civility is an abiding problem on the Web. But women, who make up about half the online community, are singled out in more starkly sexually threatening terms -- a trend that was first evident in chat rooms in the early 1990s and is now moving to the blogosphere, experts and bloggers said."

Comments?

     As The Star reported Sunday, some Americans are re-examining the effectiveness so-called "gun-free zones" established at college campuses, shopping malls, courthouses, stadiums and private workplaces.

     Levels of security in these zones, usually designated in state concealed-carry statutes, is spotty at best. Enforcement often is unclear. No-firearms postings are required in some public areas but not in others.

    So who's safer in a gun-free zone: A madman who confronts no armed resistance (except from police), or the many patrons who don't want law-abiding others packing heat?

    If a Democrat is elected president, Rudy Giuliani said, he feared the country would "go back on defense, like it was in the pre-9/11 era." Here's a Nashua Telegraph story. And one from The Washington Post.

   Is he right or playing his trump card in the presidential race a little early?

   UPDATE: Democrat Barack Obama rebuked Giuliani today for suggesting the United States could face another major terrorist attack if a Democrat is elected in 2008. Obama said the man who served as New York mayor's during the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks should not be making the serious threat that faces the country into ''the punchline of another political attack.''

    Sen. John McCain said that global warming is the real deal, not a "Hollywood myth."

   Another strike against him with conservatives?

   A New Hampshire Union Leader editorial says Attorney General Alberto Gonzales "must go." But according to a Newsweek source, President Bush's support of Gonzales is about saying "screw you" to Democrats.

   Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid says the Iraq war is lost militarily – that it must be won politically, diplomatically and economically. He also says the surge won’t work.

     Take a KC Buzz Blog poll here on whether you agree or disagree.

   A psychiatrist says the showing of Cho's video was a "social catastrophe." He believes that instead of offering insight, these videos merely offer validation of delusional behavior:.

    "I think that's very important for the viewing audience to understand. This is not him.These videos do not help us understand him. They distort him. He was meek. He was quiet. This is a PR tape of him trying to turn himself into a Quentin Tarantino character...This is precisely why this should not be released. Parents, you should cut the pictures out of the newspaper. Do not let your children see it. Take them out of the room when these videos are shown. Because he's paranoid and his agenda of blaming the rest of the world is unedited."

   Unarmed and vulnerable.

    A topic for discussion.

Here it is.

   What now, Mayor-elect Funkhouser?

   Should John Edwards have suspended his presidential campaign to be at his wife's side?

   What's up?

   Four years and counting...

   Is Gonzales toast? If so, when will he go?

    Here it is.