OUR COLUMNISTS Democrats -- The GOP's Best Friends? Commentary by Matt Friedeman Democrats have assumed that being merely livid will be enough to overtake the Republicans. Alas, the party of reaction isn't going to get it done -- at least not this year. Still Golden After All These Years Commentary by Jane Jimenez We are the most highly educated civilization in the history of the world...and the most lacking in the basic knowledge that secures our life. Guilty of Quick Judgment Commentary by Brad Locke When faced with questions of someone's guilt -- that someone usually being a total stranger, mind you -- we should remember our own guilt. What if our misdeeds were aired in public? Actually, they will be one day. Why Such a Hard Time with Miracles? Commentary by Mark Creech The fact that some miracles -- such as those found in Greek and Roman mythology -- are counterfeits doesn't mean all are a sham. It's incredibly unscientific to throw out the miracles of the Bible based on "guilt by association."

...A U.S. military advisor and former combat officer is troubled by recent reports that the Army has had to lower recruiting standards to meet its quotas. Retired Lieutenant Colonel Bob Maginnis says after missing last year's goal by 7,000 recruits, the Army is going to have a tough time reaching is fiscal year 2006 goal of 80,000 new soldiers. Still, he is not happy about what the branch has had to do to fill its ranks. "It means that 2,500 of the people this year that we'll recruit are getting in basically with waivers of the old standards," the Pentagon advisor says. "However, in order to fill the ranks of 80,000 this year, it's become necessary to take some action. We're also recruiting an older population -- bringing in people in their early 40s to basic training. I don't understand why this nation has to revert to that." Although these older recruits are "probably reasonably healthy," Maginnis notes, "by the time you're that old, you're older than most of the drill sergeants that are trying to run you through basic training, and the idea that we're going to be fighting wars with 45-year-old infantry privates just seems to be a bit ludicrous to me." It is unfortunate that the U.S. Army has had to "change the standards in order to get the numbers," the Lt. Colonel says, "but that's what happens in a volunteer force." Maginnis also points out that, besides accepting older recruits, the Army has lately been issuing recruits more waivers for criminal convictions, drug use, and medical conditions. [Chad Groening]

...A black Christian activist says school voucher programs can help give America's poor children an improved education within a moral framework. Star Parker, whose latest book is White Ghetto: How Middle Class America Reflects Inner City Decay, says, "We should allow the religious community to come to the table and help us educate children in more than just academics." She says vouchers help the nation's most vulnerable children attend schools that teach more than just how to "acquire wealth and pleasure." [AP]

...A former homosexual says he is not surprised that homosexual activists led by the group Family Pride Coalition showed up at yesterday's annual White House Easter Egg Roll in Washington, DC. Stephen Bennett, a Christian entertainer and speaker who left the "gay" lifestyle over a decade ago, says the Family Pride Coalition's effort at the April 17 Easter Egg Roll is a typical expression of the mentality behind the homosexual agenda. "Homosexual activists today are looking for any public venue to get affirmation and acceptance of the homosexual lifestyle -- to do anything that they can to normalize it," Bennett contends. "I think it's tragic that they would use something like the White House Easter Egg Roll, which is a children's event, for political means," he says, "but the whole idea behind the entire homosexual activist movement is 'Get them while they're young.' And what I mean by that is [they want] to start indoctrinating people into believing gay is okay, to normalize it as much as they can." It is regrettable that children were exposed to the homosexual activists at the White House Easter event, Bennett says; however, he asserts, such people routinely target children in order to shape their view of homosexuality. [Bill Fancher]

...An atheist group and a Detroit man have filed a federal lawsuit alleging that it was unconstitutional for the city and its Downtown Development Authority to pay churches for cleanup work before the Super Bowl. Central United Methodist Church and Second Baptist Church received seven grants totaling $690.000 to fix up church buildings and parking lots. The lawsuit filed by Steve West and American Atheists maintains that the payments violated "the plaintiffs' rights to be free of taxation for the support of religious organizations." [AP]

...A recent study has concluded that pornography has "gone mobile," as a high percentage of wireless phone and PDA users continue to employ their technology in the pursuit of "adult" content. Arstechnica.com reports that the study conducted by Maryam Kamvar and Shumeet Baluja, two computer science professors affiliated with Google, found that more than 20 percent of all mobile phone queries and five percent of personal digital assistant (PDA) queries they examined were searches for porn. The researchers speculate that, despite their relatively large costs and small screens, such devices offer an advantage to porn-seekers that personal computers cannot provide to the same extent -- namely, privacy. The study by Kamvar and Baluja notes that "many people may feel more comfortable querying adult terms on private devices ... perhaps even more so than their computer -- the probability of others discovering their search behavior (through cached pages, auto-completion of query terms or URLs) is smaller." Although some in the industry doubt whether porn images are really suited to the ultra-small screens of mobile phones and PDAs, virtually all of the larger content providers are looking for ways to turn mobile porn into major profits. But whether or not streaming wireless adult video content turns out to be a big revenue source, experts say porn on mobile devices is probably here to stay. [Jenni Parker]

...Georgia's Republican governor has put his signature to a new state law aimed at cracking down on illegal immigrants. That new law, the Georgia Security and Immigration Compliance Act, denies many taxpayer-funded services to people who are in the United States illegally. According to Reuters News, the law also forces contractors doing business with the state to verify the legal status of new workers and requires police to notify immigration officials if people charged with crimes are illegal immigrants. [Fred Jackson]

...A pro-democracy activist says when it comes to dealing with Communist China, the George W. Bush administration simply does not recognize the threat that regime poses. D.J. McGuire is president of the China Support Network, which was organized in 1989 following the brutal Tiananmen Square Massacre. He says while America's trade deficit with China is a major problem, he doubts President Bush will push the issue of China's deliberate devaluing of its currency in his talks with Hu Jintao. "There was supposed to be a vote in the Senate on a currency-corrective tariff," McGuire notes. "That got shelved until September, basically, after Charles Schumer flew over to Beijing and heard some nice things from some cadres and suddenly decided things were on the mend. So the Bush administration probably isn't looking for a whole lot of stuff concrete." The concern is that the president is not willing to confront China's economic and military expansionism, the China Support Network spokesman says. "The word out of Washington on Communist China," he explains, is U.S. government officials "want the Communists to be a stakeholder in the current global order. The idea is that the Communists would have an incentive to maintain stability as much as is humanly possible." The problem, McGuire asserts, is that "Communist China is not interested in the current world as it is." What the Bush administration fails to see, he says, is that the Chinese want to replace the present order with one in which they are the world's leading superpower. [Chad Groening]

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