National: It's not too soon: White House candidates 2008 By BILL STRAUB - It's been just six months since the last presidential election, and the next showdown is still 42 months away, but already potential candidates on both sides of the aisle are preparing to launch campaigns for the White House.

The 2008 presidential campaign promises to be the most wide-open contest in more than half a century. With President Bush prohibited from seeking a third term under the Constitution, and Vice President Dick Cheney insisting he won't run, the next election could become the first since 1952 that doesn't involve an incumbent from the executive branch.

That's one reason more than 20 contenders, Democrats and Republicans alike, already are jockeying for position, some making pilgrimages to Iowa and New Hampshire and others piecing together the initial hints of a campaign organization.

The list ranges from the well-known - Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-N.Y., and Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz. - to the obscure - Tennessee Gov. Phil Bredesen, a Democrat, and Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty, a Republican. - More...
Sunday - June 05, 2005

National: Runaway children face erratic patchwork of state laws By THOMAS HARGROVE - Frustrated and angry, Regina White ran away from home when she was 17.

"I had an abusive father, very abusive. We had moved to California from Iowa. So I took a Greyhound bus back to Iowa," White said. "There weren't a lot of programs to help me back then. So my only option was to run away. Arresting me would only have made things worse." - More...
Sunday - June 05, 2005

National: Police trainer in Iraq copes with 'gut-wrenching fear' By BARTHOLOMEW SULLIVAN - Getting blown up on the job is constantly on Michael Heidingsfield's mind. As the man in charge of Iraqi police training, he has already had a near miss.

In March, insurgents in a stolen garbage truck killed two guards at the gate of the Iraqi Agriculture Ministry before rolling up and detonating an estimated 3,000 pounds of explosives at the perimeter wall of the Al Sadeer Hotel. On the videotape the insurgents circulated to news organizations, the exchange of gunfire with the hotel's guards is heard before the screen goes white with the flash of the explosion. Then someone in the car filming the carnage shouts, "Allahu Akbar." God is great.

Heidingsfield can't watch it. "It frightens the hell out of me," he says. He was blown out of bed by the blast. Forty-eight people were wounded. - More...
Sunday - June 05, 2005

National: Daily life in Iraq with a police trainer By BARTHOLOMEW SULLIVAN - A red Passat with a suspected suicide bomber handcuffed to its steering wheel is waiting outside the hotel headquarters of America's police training mission in Iraq. As soon as it's spotted, it disappears. It's 6:55 a.m.

The heavily armed security detail taking Contingent Commander Michael J. Heidingsfield to appointments with American police trainers and Iraqi police in Ba'qubah, 35 miles northeast of Baghdad, decides to delay its 7 a.m. start. Twenty minutes pass, then a half hour. - More...
Sunday - June 05, 2005

Viewpoints Opinions/Letters Re: protecting the community By Jessica Mathews - Saturday More Viewpoints/ Letters Publish A Letter May - June 2005 Click on the date for stories and photos published on that day... S M T W T F S 01 02 03 04 05 06 07 08 09 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 01 02 03   Front Page Archives

Dave Kiffer: The beginning - It was a rare sunny summer day in June of 1970 and I was with my father on his trolling boat, the "Gony." We were headed down to the New England Fish Company dock to get ice for a trip to chase salmon on the back side of Gravina.

It was a very low tide and the Bar Harbor breakwater obscured the view down the channel, but as we pulled through the breakwater and into the channel, we saw an amazing sight. Anchored in the harbor not far from the downtown area was the future.
 
The future was 721 feet long. It was 11 stories high. Its smokestack was yellow with a black top and looked sort of like the beehive burner at the Ketchikan Spruce Mill. It was the RMS Arcadia , the largest cruise ship to ever come to Alaska - up to that point.

As we passed it, I was struck the by its immense size. It seemed like we were passing along side it for at least a half a hour. Considering the dear old Gony barely made six knots on a good day, we may have been. - More...
Sunday - June 05, 2005

Jason Love: Di-Ants-Pora - Typically, I don't worry about ants because there is no food in my house, but after recent rains it didn't seem to matter. Ants flocked to my house like I was hosting a world summit.

There were ants in my cupboard, ants in my sink, ants in the pants in my closet. There were ants in places you can't even fit an ant. One of them managed her way into an unopened bottle of Arrowhead. Houdini Ant.

It would be one thing if I could say, "Okay, break it up" and point them to the door, but you just can't reason with an ant. It's like being invaded by dirt. So it goes.

I couldn't face the crisis without caffeine. I reached for the coffeemaker and found the handle covered with ants. The coffeemaker! Is nothing sacred?

I came to detest those insects with an enthusiasm generally reserved for procreation and public lynchings. - More...
Sunday - June 05, 2005

Jay Ambrose: Social Security overhaul is answer to inequality - President Bush has the answer for them, if those worrying loudest about declining equality in income and social mobility would only listen.

They won't, of course, because that would require the kind of objective, non-partisan, non-ideological analysis to which they are mentally allergic. They would rather indulge in exaggerations, preach the sort of governmental intervention that would actually worsen things and spout inanities like this one spotted by me and at least one other writer in a series on inequality that ran in the New York Times.

"Merit has replaced the old system of inherited privilege, but merit is at least partly class-based," the reporters wrote. "Parents with money, education and connections cultivate in their children the habits that the meritocracy rewards. When their children then succeed, the success is seen as earned."

In other words, it's a class thing to preach hard work to your children, to tell them that learning counts in this life, that doing things well has its rewards? - More...
Sunday - June 05, 2005

Dale McFeatters: The next steps in Iraq - Events in Iraq are reaching a "critical mass," Iraq's foreign minister told The Washington Post after meeting with Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. Hoshyar Zebari believes that with a little more help from the United States and its partners we can achieve a positive shift in momentum.

His observation comes in the context of two events.

At the request of the Iraqis themselves, the United Nations extended the mandate for the U.S.-led coalition to stay in Iraq. It would be good if a few other nations jumped in to help out, and maybe Iraq can persuade some at a big donors' conference in Belgium later this month.

And Baghdad also announced that 12,000 civilians had been killed during the 18 months of the insurgency, as the insurgents' tactics have increasingly turned to random massacres of civilians. At some point, there will either be a welcome backlash against the insurgents and their foreign allies or the Iraqi people will be terrorized into passivity. - More...
Sunday - June 05, 2005