"CELEBRATIONS burst out among the non campaigners gathered in Paris’s Place de la Bastille at 10pm on Sunday May 29th, when the last polling booths closed and France’s television networks broadcast exit polls predicting that voters had decisively rejected the proposed new constitution for the European Union. And the official result, announced in the early hours of Monday, closely matched those exit polls: some 54.9% had said non, with just 45.1% voting oui.
Just as impressive as the ten-percentage-point margin of victory for the constitution’s opponents was the scale of the turnout—almost 70%. This is far higher than might have been expected when the referendum was first called, though perhaps unsurprising given how fiercely the debate over the constitution had been raging across France in the final weeks of the campaign. The atmosphere in French homes, bars, campuses and television studios has been electric, as supporters, opponents and the confused and undecided argued furiously over the 191-page document. "
"The Democratic Party has long cast itself as the party of the little guy fighting against the party of big business, privilege, and wealth. So why has it been unable to capitalize on these anxieties and connect its version of progressivism with American life? The roots of disenchantment lie in the 1960s and 1970s when Democrats began to focus less on economics than on liberal social programs to promote the interests of blacks, women, gays, and other groups. This pushed a lot of traditional Democrats into the Republican column--blue-collar workers, construction workers, homemakers, military veterans, cops, evangelicals, rural residents, and ethnics. They saw the efforts of the New Left to weaken oppressive authority as corroding all authority. Woodstock and Hollywood came to epitomize what was seen as a narcissistic assault on conventional values played out daily in the coarsening of our culture in gangsta rap, cable ranters, and pornographic websites, accompanied by the delegitimization of the sanctity of marriage, drug abuse, and recasting wrongdoers as victims of society instead of the reverse. There was a sense that the Democrats had become dominated by elitist, highly educated, progressive classes who believed they knew better than average folks."
"As with many citizens who attempt to navigate the complicated and often adversarial process of obtaining public records, requesters in the national audit were confronted with an array of barriers, from fees that reached into the thousands of dollars to bureaucratic intransigence to outright denials.
"There's still a very strong culture of secrecy in these organizations," says federal Information Commissioner John Reid. "They all run on the basis of loyalty and that means not rocking the boat."
"The words transparency, access, openness and accountability fairly spill from the lips of Canada's savvier politicians in these politically correct times. Everyone acknowledges the public has a right to know.
But just try to invoke that right, and see what happens"........
"Rice on Friday called him a "pretty tough person" but added, "There are many people who work for him who would walk through a wall for him."........
Answering questions at the Commonwealth Club during a long weekend trip here, Rice cited the U.N. Human Rights Commission as a key example of why the world body needs an overhaul.
"When you have a commission on human rights and Sudan is on it, nobody can take it seriously," Rice said, referring to a country the Bush administration has accused of engaging in genocide.
"We need to send a strong voice for reform of the United Nations to the United Nations," Rice said. "
