HI, We are thinking about you today in this terrible snow storm. Hope you are keeping warm, and safe in this weather. I was election Judge yesterday, and got home last night before the storm got too bad. When I am an election judge I have to be at the poll by 5:00 a.m. and get home about 9:00 p.m. Obama had the most votes for the Dems. This is a very republican county. I know I handed some democratic ballots to some republicans, so he did very well here. When is Wisconsin Primary? We also want to know Obama's age, and is his mother dead?

"The Capital Times was founded in 1917 with the modest purpose of promoting peace and economic and social justice. We also hoped to gather all the news that mattered and to sell some papers."

Senate Approves Economic Aid Plan With Rebates for Older People, Disabled VeteransWASHINGTON (AP) -- The Senate passed an economic rescue plan Thursday that would speed $600 to $1,200 in rebates to most taxpayers and $300 checks to low-income people, including disabled veterans and the elderly...

Bush indicated he would sign the measure and said the Senate made changes "in ways I can support."...

The Senate plan would rush rebates -- $600 for individuals, $1,200 for couples -- to most taxpayers and cut business taxes in hopes of reviving the economy. Individuals making up to $75,000 a year and couples earning up to $150,000 would get rebates.

If the House follows suit as expected and Bush shortly thereafter signs the measure, the rebate checks would be expected to begin arriving in May. The rebates would be based on 2007 tax returns, which are not due until April 15.

“Proponents of affirmative action just want to justify their existence. It’s absurd,” [Sen. Glen] Grothman (R - West Bend) told me. “Just a bunch of affirmative action bureaucrats looking for a job, advancing their racist agenda.”

Berlusconi: Italy's 'comeback kid'?

By Christian Fraser BBC News, Rome

Italians are bracing for fresh elections in April - less than two years after they elected the last parliament.

The country is set to go to the polls with the same system of proportional representation that was widely blamed for the fragmentation of Italian politics.

The Speaker of the Senate, Franco Marini, has tried to find support among all the parties for an interim government, with a mandate to reform the electoral laws.

But in the end he failed to convince the centre-right parties that reform should come first. There are currently 39 parties in parliament.

Where are the young politicians, the Barack Obamas, the David Camerons of Italian politics? There are precious few

The collapse of Romano Prodi's centre-left government opened the door, once again, to the irrepressible Silvio Berlusconi, the former prime minister and billionaire businessman who controls three of Italy's commercial television channels.

His current lead in the polls ranges from 10 to 16 points.

Centre-left split

The centre-left, reeling from their collapse in the Senate vote of confidence last month, now have an enormous challenge ahead.

Walter Veltroni, the 52-year-old mayor of Rome, is widely expected to replace Mr Prodi as the centre-left's candidate for prime minister, but he has indicated he would have liked more time to prepare his new Democratic Party for the elections.

He had supported President Giorgio Napolitano's efforts to reform the electoral laws.

Mr Veltroni has said he wants his party to run alone, without the support of the other parties in the centre-left coalition.

If he does that, some analysts predict he will win a greater share of the vote - but running alone would almost certainly ensure victory for the opposition.

If Mr Berlusconi wins - as the polls suggest he will - it will be his third term as prime minister.

From 2001-2006 he led the longest-serving government since World War II. It is the only post-war government to have seen out a full five-year term.

But he was criticised over that period for his handling of the economy. There was a marked downturn in economic growth, with increasing unemployment and rising debt.

Many have said it was a wasted opportunity, with his government failing to live up to many of its promises.

'Comeback kid'

Mr Berlusconi's lead in the polls is not necessarily a matter of personal popularity. Italy is frustrated with the instability and chaos brought about by the centre-left.

Even though Mr Prodi's government presided over a period of economic stability, a fall in unemployment, and started paying off public debt, it is the perception that counts.

Mr Prodi spent most of his time reconciling differences between the nine parties of his coalition, rather than selling the achievements of his government.

Mr Berlusconi has been labelled by some papers as the "comeback kid". Perhaps, but many Italians express dismay that the same faces keep reappearing.

Where are the young politicians, the Barack Obamas, the David Camerons of Italian politics?

There are precious few. And that is because under the system as it stands, each party puts forward its own list of candidates chosen by the party leaders. In Italy voters have little choice over individual candidates.

Mr Berlusconi would be 76 at the end of another five years in office. His cosmetic surgery (hair implants and a face-lift) give him a much younger complexion, but there have been scares over his health. He had minor heart surgery in 2006 after fainting on stage.

Court battles

On top of that, he has been tried 11 times for corruption - and some of these trials are still running. The allegations mostly relate to his business activities before he entered politics, when he made his fortune in property and television.

He is still on trial in Milan on a charge that he paid his former British lawyer David Mills, the estranged husband of the British Olympics Minister Tessa Jowell, $600,000 (£300,000) to lie for him in a previous court case.

Mr Berlusconi denies all the charges and has accused the judges of conducting a politically-motivated witch-hunt.

To reassure some of the wavering voters, Mr Berlusconi has put a very British stamp on his comeback campaign, promising to govern for three years if elected, before handing control to a unnamed successor.

He has modelled this approach on former British Prime Minister Tony Blair.

Supporters within his Forza Italia party say Mr Berlusconi still has plenty to offer. Certainly his election manifesto will prove attractive to some voters.

He says he has a plan for the first 100 days in government and is promising to cut taxes, including tax on property.

By contrast, Mr Prodi's coalition cracked down on tax evasion in Italy and pushed up the high rate of tax for top earners. Never a vote winner.

Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/europe/7229045.stm

Published: 2008/02/06 07:29:44 GMT

© BBC MMVIII

WARNING: EXIT NUMBERS EARLY AND DO NOT REPRESENT ACTUAL VOTES:OBAMA:
Alabama: Obama 60, Clinton 37... Arizona: Obama 51, Clinton 45... Connecticut:
Obama 53, Clinton 45... Delaware: Obama 56, Clinton 42... Georgia: Obama 75,
Clinton 26... Illinois: Obama 70, Clinton 30... Massachusetts: Obama 50, Clinton
48... Missouri: Obama 50, Clinton 46... New Jersey: Obama 53, Clinton 47...
CLINTON: Arkansas: Clinton 72, Obama 26... California: Clinton 50, Obama 47...
New York: Clinton 56, Obama 43... Oklahoma: Clinton 61, Obama 31... Tennessee:
Clinton 52, Obama 41...

Back in November, I wrote a column on Clinton’s response to a question about giving driver’s licenses to illegal immigrants. My reward was to pick up an e-mail pal who has to date sent me 24 lengthy documents culled from what he calls his “Hillary File.” If you take that file on faith, Hillary Clinton is a murderer, a burglar, a destroyer of property, a blackmailer, a psychological rapist, a white-collar criminal, an adulteress, a blasphemer, a liar, the proprietor of a secret police, a predatory lender, a misogynist, a witness tamperer, a street criminal, a criminal intimidator, a harasser and a sociopath. These accusations are “supported” by innuendo, tortured logic, strained conclusions and photographs that are declared to tell their own story, but don’t.

Concern mounts over rising troop suicides

• Story Highlights
• Average of 5 soldiers per day tried to commit suicide in 2007, Army figures show
  
• Sen. Jim Webb introduces legislation to improve care for soldiers
  
• Army psychiatrist says soldiers must overcome stigma of treatment
  
• Psychiatrist: "We know that soldiers don't want to go seek care"
  

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Every day, five U.S. soldiers try to kill themselves. Before the Iraq war began, that figure was less than one suicide attempt a day.

The dramatic increase is revealed in new U.S. Army figures, which show 2,100 soldiers tried to commit suicide in 2007.

"Suicide attempts are rising and have risen over the last five years," said Col. Elspeth Cameron-Ritchie, an Army psychiatrist.

Concern over the rate of suicide attempts prompted Sen. Jim Webb, D-Virginia, to introduce legislation Thursday to improve the military's suicide-prevention programs.

"Our troops and their families are under unprecedented levels of stress due to the pace and frequency of more than five years of deployments," Webb said in a written statement. Watch CNN Senior Pentagon Correspondent Jamie McIntyre on the reasons for the increase in suicides »

Sen. Patty Murray, D-Washington, took to the Senate floor Thursday, urging more help for military members, especially for those returning from war.

"Our brave service members who face deployment after deployment without the rest, recovery and treatment they need are at the breaking point," Murray said.

She said Congress has given "hundreds of millions of dollars" to the military to improve its ability to provide mental health treatment, but said it will take more than money to resolve the problem.

"It takes leadership and it takes a change in the culture of war," she said. She said some soldiers had reported receiving nothing more than an 800 number to call for help.

"Many soldiers need a real person to talk to," she said. "And they need psychiatrists and they need psychologists."

According to Army statistics, the incidence of U.S. Army soldiers attempting suicide or inflicting injuries on themselves has skyrocketed in the nearly five years since the start of the Iraq war.

Last year's 2,100 attempted suicides -- an average of more than 5 per day -- compares with about 350 suicide attempts in 2002, the year before the war in Iraq began, according to the Army.

The figures also show the number of suicides by active-duty troops in 2007 may reach an all-time high when the statistics are finalized in March, Army officials said.

The Army lists 89 soldier deaths in 2007 as suicides and is investigating 32 more as possible suicides. Suicide rates already were up in 2006 with 102 deaths, compared with 87 in 2005.

Cameron-Ritchie, the Army psychiatrist, said suicide attempts are usually related to problems with intimate relationships, but they are also related to problems with work, finances and the law.

"The really tough area here is stigma. We know that soldiers don't want to go seek care. They're tough, they're strong, they don't want to go see a behavioral health-care provider," Cameron-Ritchie said.

Multiple deployments and long deployments appear to exact a toll on relationships, thereby boosting the number of suicide attempts, she said.

Traditionally, the suicide rate among military members has been lower than age- and gender-matched civilians. But in recent years the rate has crept up from 12 per 100,000 among the military to 17.5 per 100,000 in 2006, she said. That's still less than the civilian figure of about 20 per 100,000, she said.

The "typical" soldier who commits suicide is a member of an infantry unit who uses a firearm to carry out the act, according to the Army.

Post-traumatic stress disorder also may be a factor in suicide attempts, Cameron-Ritchie said, because it can result in broken relationships and often leads to drug and alcohol abuse.

"The real central issue is relationships. Relationships, relationships, relationships," said U.S. Army Chaplain Lt. Col. Ran Dolinger. "People look at PTSD, they look at length of deployments ... but it's that broken relationship that really makes the difference."

To reduce suicides, the Army said it is targeting soldiers who are or have been in Iraq for long periods and teaching them to notice signs that can lead to suicide.

That training came too late for Army Specialist Tim Bowman. The 23-year-old killed himself in 2005 after returning from Iraq.

"As my family was preparing for a 2005 Thanksgiving meal, our son Timothy was lying on the floor, slowly bleeding to death from a self-inflicted gunshot wound," said his father, Mike Bowman, in testimony to a House Veterans' Affairs committee hearing in December. "His war was now over."

He said veterans return home to find an "understaffed, under-funded, under-equipped" Veterans Affairs mental health system.

"Many just give up trying," he said.