Clean Sweep in Michigan Deals Major Defeat to American Family Association, Says HRC

Two Major Miami Victories Help Reverse Legacy of Anita Bryant

Houston Voters Barely Reject Health Benefits for Domestic Partners

WASHINGTON - The Human Rights Campaign today applauded state organizations and activists for winning four out of five ballot measures on gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender equality. The encouraging results show that voters are increasingly rejecting discrimination and want to see all citizens treated fairly, says HRC.

"The smashing success of these campaigns signals a trend where voters are increasingly supporting equality and resoundingly defeating discrimination," said HRC National Field Director Seth Kilbourn. "Nowhere was this more apparent than in Michigan, where voters overwhelmingly rejected a divisive anti-gay misinformation campaign by the American Family Association and chose fairness."

Voters went to the polls yesterday to vote on GLBT issues in Houston, Miami Beach, Fla. and the Michigan cities of Huntington Woods,

AUSTIN, Texas -- The fate of Flight 587 is not just a free-standing tragedy, but almost the last thing we needed. Even if the cause remains a mystery, the edginess quotient just shot back up again.

It has seemed to me the media have been engaging in a slightly unseemly amount of navel-gazing concerning our nerves, with perhaps excessive media temperature-taking of anxiety levels, crooning over stress on the home front, etc. Americans on the front lines of this war, including the NYFD, are handling their jobs without swooning, and from my own travels around the country, it seems to me most of the rest of us are managing to comport ourselves with reason and dignity, whatever our anxiety levels.

Unfortunately, the few nincompoops among us now have fresh occasion for hysteria: the always-timely advice THINK comes to mind. The absolute last thing we need is another round of Arab-bashing.

Our most valuable resource against terrorism in the long-run will almost certainly be Arab-Americans. Among them are the bravest of the brave. Look at why many of them are here: They are Iraqis who fought Saddam

Remember the "third degree"? It used to be the standard way many police departments in this country extracted confessions from criminal suspects. The practice was sharply diminished after the 1931 Wickersham Report prepared by the National Commission on Law Observance and Enforcement, which found that the "'third degree' -- the infliction of physical or mental pain to extract confessions or statements -- was 'widespread throughout the country' and was 'thoroughly at home in Chicago.'"

The methods identified in the Report "range from beating to harsher forms of torture. The commoner forms are beating with the fists or some implement, especially the rubber hose, that inflicts pain, but is not likely to leave permanent visible scars ... authorities often threaten bodily injury ... and have gone to the extreme of procuring a confession at the point of a pistol.'" It further found that the practice of police torture in the United States was "shocking in its character and extent, violative of American traditions and institutions, and not to be tolerated."

So the third degree gave way to the jailhouse snitch and other

Agbiotech and corporate special interests in reaction to stubborn global resistance have stepped-up their propaganda and bullying. This aggression is evident in the media, the marketplace, the trade and diplomatic fronts, the legislatures, courts, patent offices, and the streets of the cities where anti-globalization protests have taken place. Recognizing that a critical mass of youth, consumers, farmers, environmentalists, and public interest nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) all over the world are rejecting, not only the biotech and industrial agriculture model, but also the entire "Free Trade" globalization agenda itself, the Gene Giants and their allies know they are losing ground. Reacting to massive demonstrations in Seattle, Washington, Quebec, Sweden, and Genoa--with anti-Frankenfoods concerns often in the forefront-governing elites have clamped down and repressed youthful protestors, and have begun shifting their meetings to inaccessible locations such as the oil sheikdom of Qatar, where the 142 nation members of the World Trade Organization (WTO) are scheduled to hold a ministerial meeting November 9-13.

HARARE -- A showdown is looming between Zimbabwe and the European Union (EU) over the African nation's refusal to allow the European Union to monitor next year's presidential elections.

Zimbabwe's foreign affairs minister, Stan Mudenge, has described as "thoughtless and futile" a demand by the European Union to be allowed to send its election monitors for the elections.

"That is how exactly we feel when people... come to us, even before we ourselves know the date of our elections to urge, insist and demand that they should be allowed to come by such and such a date and start assessing and observing," he said.

"It breeds suspicions and tempts others to ascribe sinister motives," said Mudenge, warning that Zimbabwe is a sovereign and independent state that can never take orders from any country.

Zimbabwean political analysts, however, beg to differ with Mudenge. "Yes, Zimbabwe is a sovereign state, but does it want free and fair elections. No. If they are genuine about holding free and fair elections, they should allow monitors from all over the world.