We warned you: 'Armed Madhouse' is a dangerous book.  Yesterday, Andrew Meyers, a University of Florida student was attacked by five cops, zapped with tasers and arrested after demanding that Senator John Kerry answer the question.

Meyers, just released from jail and now facing five years in prison for resisting arrest, held up a copy of the book and began,

Student to John Kerry:  "I want to recommend a book to you. It's called 'Armed Madhouse by Greg Palast.'  He's the top investigative journalist in America."

Kerry:  "I have the book. I've already read it."

Student:  "... In this book, it says there were 5 million votes and you won the election.  ... How could you concede the election on the day?"

Meyers, a telecommunications student at the Gainesville campus, asked related questions including a query as to why Kerry refused to vote for impeachment.  When he passed his alloted one minute mic time, five cops jumped him, threw him to the ground, shot him with taser shockers. 

Kerry, true to character, stood immobile.

COLUMBUS – Mayoral Candidate Bill Todd today filed a lawsuit on behalf of five Columbus City School residents accusing the Ohio Department of Education and the Columbus City School System of maintaining an unfair and inequitable system of education.  

“The State of Ohio and the Columbus City Schools have allowed wide disparities in per pupil funding inside the Columbus schools. This system is unconstitutional in that it falls in the face of the state mandate to maintain a thorough and efficient system of public schools that provide equal educational opportunities to all students,” Todd said.

Todd filed the lawsuit on behalf of five Columbus residents who live in the Columbus School system. He said-

*The average per pupil expenditure for elementary schools in Columbus is $10,684 (2005-06 School Year)

*One of the top spending elementary schools, Winterset Elementary School, spent $12,507 per pupil (2005-2006 School Year)

Osama bin Laden has once again managed to occupy the stage and to insist on his relevance to the story of September 11, 2001. In his most recent video message, released by Reuters a few days before the sixth anniversary of the terrorist attacks on New York and the Pentagon, bin Laden voiced some typically absurd statements, calling on Americans to embrace Islam and so forth.

What is really worth noting in bin Laden's message, however, is not the message itself, but the underlying factors that can be deduced from it. First, bin Laden wished to convey that he is alive and well and thus the US military efforts have failed miserably.

Second, his reappearance - a first since October 2004 - will be analyzed endlessly by hundreds of "experts" who will inundate widespread audiences with every possible interpretation - the fact that he looked healthy, that he dyed his beard, that he dressed in Arab attire as opposed to a military fatigue and a Kalashnikov by his side, that he read from a paper and so on.

The Department of Justice's Voting Section is pressuring 10 states to purge voter rolls before the 2008 election based on statistics that former Voting Section attorneys and other experts say are flawed and do not confirm that those states have more voter registrations than eligible voters, as the department alleges.

Voting Section Chief John Tanner called for the purges in letters sent this spring under an arcane provision in the National Voter Registration Act, better known as the Motor Voter law, whose purpose is to expand voter registration. The identical letters notify states that 10 percent or more of their election jurisdictions have problematic voter rolls. It tells states to report "the subsequent removal from rolls of persons no longer eligible to vote."

"That data does not say what they purport it says," said David Becker, People for the American Way Foundation's senior voting rights counsel and a former Voting Section senior trial attorney, after reviewing the letters and statistics used to call for the purges. "They are saying the data shows the 10 worst voter rolls. They have a lot of explaining to do."

I personally cringe every time I see the freeway packed with single-car SUV drivers.

Sign the petition for more investment in transportation!

America's transportation sector accounts for 1/4 of our total global warming emissions.

If we could clean up transportation, make it more efficient and make sure the systems get the funding they need to operate well, more and more people would ditch their polluting cars for the convenience and stress-free nature of public transportation.

Tell your governor to increase investment in transportation infrastructure as soon as possible!