Commentary

By STAR PARKER
Wednesday, November 08, 2006
Recent polls done by AP/Ipsos Public Affairs/AOL do not paint a pretty picture regarding the current disposition of black voters toward the state of the country and toward the Republican Party.

Fifteen percent of blacks, as compared with 29 percent of the general population, say that the country is on the right tract.

An editorial / By Dale McFeatters
Wednesday, November 08, 2006
Be grateful that the birds that infest our parks are pigeons. They may be dopey and mildly annoying but at least they don't run you down and eat you as would a recent discovery in Argentina.

There, paleontologists identified the fossils of the world's largest known bird, a 400-pound, 10-foot tall meat eater with a head the size of horse's, most of which is a really nasty looking hooked beak.

By JOHN HALL
Wednesday, November 08, 2006
There was no October surprise _ on the order of a few peaceful weeks in Baghdad that President Bush might have interpreted as good news.

Instead, Iraq was in such turmoil in the final days leading up to Tuesday's midterm election here that some are saying control of both houses of the American Congress could be affected.

The U.S.

An editorial / By Dale McFeatters
Wednesday, November 08, 2006
The National Park Service is soliciting suggestions from the public about the National Mall in Washington, D.C., and it's worth responding because _ who knows? _ even though it's the federal government they may actually listen.

The Mall, 600 acres in the heart of the capital _ indeed, it is the heart of the capital, is both our national village green and one of the world's greatest public spaces.

By JAY AMBROSE
Tuesday, November 07, 2006
In this campaign season, during which both major parties, news outlets and more than a few commentators have gone to great depths to be shallow, it is perhaps appropriate that a top story as the end approaches is what John Kerry may have meant or not meant when he said something that could be interpreted in a variety of ways.

"Education, if you make the most of it, you study hard, you do your homework and you make an effort to be smart, you can do well," the Democratic senator mused in a speech, adding, "And if you don't, you get stuck in Iraq."

Now maybe he was trying to say that all our soldiers in Iraq are dumb _ I doubt it _ and maybe, to use his words, this was just a "botched joke," which I also doubt, seeing as how there's nothing the least bit funny going on here.

By ANN McFEATTERS
Tuesday, November 07, 2006
Hey, hey, hey, as Bill Cosby's Fat Albert says. It's just about all over but the voting.

The graveyard of negative attack ads is about to be filled.

An editorial / By Dale McFeatters
Tuesday, November 07, 2006
Two years after the 2000 Florida vote count debacle Congress passed the Help America Vote Act to insure that the embarrassment of hanging chads never returned by replacing paper ballots with electronic voting.

Next Tuesday's election is the first real nationwide test of HAVA because somewhere around 80 percent to 90 percent of the vote will be cast or counted electronically through such devices as optical scanners and touch-screen voting.

By BETSY HART
Tuesday, November 07, 2006
The only thing that for me might beat this week's big health news would be to find that coffee loaded with half-and-half prevents cancer.

But this is a close second: A substance found in red wine, resveratrol, might make us live longer.

By DAN K. THOMASSON
Tuesday, November 07, 2006
There is the story of the man who approaches the window at the train station where the ticket agent is an absolutely gorgeous, well-endowed young lady.

By DEROY MURDOCK
Monday, November 06, 2006
If Democrats take Congress Tuesday, hide your wallet. Tax hikes and spending increases are right around the corner.

A Democratic House most likely would feature California's Nancy Pelosi as speaker and New York's Charles Rangel as chairman of the tax-writing Ways and Means Committee.