To the editor,

Foreign terrorism suspects held at the Guantánamo Bay naval base in Cuba have constitutional rights to challenge their detention there in United States courts, the Supreme Court ruled, 5 to 4, on Thursday in a historic decision on the balance between personal liberties and national security.

This is exactly what the opponents of President Bush are looking for. They are more interested in "civil liberties" than in our security. Their next move will be to stop our electronic surveillance of messages from foreign terrorists to those in our country. With this we are in effect commiting suicide.

This action will do more harm to the American people than to President Bush.

To the editor,

Headline in Union Advocate newspaper: "Political leaders stand with striking Teamsters at St. Paul liquor distributor". Mayor Chris Coleman, senate candate Al Franken ,Betty McCollum and attorney General Lori Swansn rallied with the members of teamsters local 792.

As expected Democrats would naturally support unions who give 91% of their political donations to the Democratic party. This can be seen at www.opensecrets.org. Now Franken intends to co-sponsor the Employee Free Choice Act that would take away a workers fundamental right to a secret ballot when organizing a union. This would lead to union leaders intimidating workers who do not want to be unionized

Having been on both side as a drug store owner and as a union member I see this as an unfair advantage for unions.

Surgery to create a return to virginity. The patient, a 23-year-old French student of Moroccan descent from Montpellier, the 30-minute procedure represented the key to a new life: the illusion of virginity.

Like an increasing number of Muslim women in Europe, she had a hymenoplasty, a restoration of her hymen, the vaginal membrane that normally breaks in the first act of intercourse.

“In my culture, not to be a virgin is to be dirt,” said the student, perched on a hospital bed as she awaited surgery on Thursday. “Right now, virginity is more important to me than life.”

The latest political crusade is the crusade to replace ordinary light bulbs with the new CFL light bulb that is supposed to save electricity, reducing the need for fossil fuels and helping the fight against global warming.

Since crusaders seldom stop to weigh the cost of what they are advocating, it is especially important that the rest of us do so before we get swept along by rhetoric and emotions.

With the CFL light bulb, the initial cost — several times that of a regular light bulb — is only the financial cost. A bigger problem is what to do if a CFL light bulb breaks.

Yet so many people are so fascinated by Barack Obama's rhetorical skills that they don't care about his voting record in the U.S. Senate, in the Illinois state senate, the causes that he has chosen to promote over the years, or the candidate's personal character and values, as revealed by his actions and associations.

Despite clever spin from Obama's supporters about avoiding "guilt by association," much more is involved than casual association with people like Jeremiah Wright and Father Pfleger.

In addition to giving $20,000 of his own money to Jeremiah Wright, as a state senator Obama directed $225,000 of the Illinois taxpayers' money for programs run by Father Pfleger. In the U.S. Senate, Obama earmarked $100,000 in federal tax money for Father Pfleger's work. Giving someone more than 300 grand is not just some tenuous, coincidental association.
I report,U decide.