Is There No Choice? But the Israeli government view ignores facts that loom large among Palestinians. Israel has repeatedly failed to carry out promises and negotiated agreements � to make further redeployments from occupied territory, for example. Israel has made a two-state solution to the conflict less and less attractive by continuously building and enlarging settlements on land that would be part of the Palestinian state. The Palestinian view at the time of the Camp David conference last year was well described in The New York Review of Books by Robert Malley, a special assistant to President Clinton who was at Camp David, and Hussein Agha. "Seen from Gaza and the West Bank," they wrote, "Oslo's legacy read like a litany of promises deferred or unfulfilled. Six years after the agreement, there were more Israeli settlements, less freedom of movement and worse economic conditions. Powerful Palestinian constituencies � the intellectuals, security establishment, media, business community . . . � whose support was vital for any peace effort were disillusioned . . ., doubtful of Israel's willingness to implement signed agreements." http://www.nytimes.com/2001/08/04/opinion/04LEWI.html?todaysheadlines

Senate Republicans Boycott Vote on Election Reform "The message is unfortunate. This ought not be a partisan issue. There ought to be discussions on both sides.'' McConnell is angry that Sen. Chris Dodd, D-Conn., who chairs the committee, is pushing through his own election overhaul bill. McConnell wanted the committee also to consider a bill he and several other senators prepared. Dodd's bill would provide $3.5 billion to help states adopt uniform standards for voting machines by 2004. It would also take steps to improve voter education and ensure that people who are properly registered aren't deprived of the right to vote. Rep. John Conyers, D-Mich., has prepared a House version. Thursday's session "mocks the bipartisan promise of election reform,'' McConnell said in a letter to Dodd. Dodd said he was saddened by McConnell's comments. He said he asked McConnell in November, when Republicans still controlled the Senate, to work with him on an election reform bill. ``I never did receive a reply,'' Dodd said in a letter to McConnell Wednesday. Thursday, Dodd said Republicans could have come to the hearing and tried to offer amendments. "The idea that you do not show up to a vote is not exactly what I call a good civics lesson,'' Dodd said. Congress is considering election improvements to avoid problems such as those that plagued last fall's presidential elections. President Bush was declared the winner over Al Gore 36 days after the voting, enabled by a 5-4 Supreme Court decision that effectively halted a partial recount in Florida. "You get the impression they (Democrats) sort of want to stick their thumb in President Bush's eye,'' McConnell said Wednesday. Just Tuesday, a commission chaired by former Presidents Ford and Carter offered a number of broad changes to improve the nation's voting system. http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/politics/AP-Electoral-Changes.htm

Oregon Democrats Seek to Oust Justices The Oregon Democratic Party endorsed a drive today to impeach five United States Supreme Court justices for the decision that effectively gave George W. Bush the presidency last year. The party's central committee voted overwhelmingly to begin a campaign it hoped would take the issue to the House of Representatives, which has the authority to impeach justices. The resolution passed today by Oregon party leaders called for the "immediate investigation of the behavior" of the five justices who voted to stop hand recounts of Florida ballots. http://www.nytimes.com/2001/07/23/politics/23OREG.html

Figures About Recent Global Summits Facts, figures about recent global summits: Genoa, Italy: Summit of wealthy industrial nations, July 2001 --One protester killed. --About 500 people injured. --Nearly 180 arrested. --About 20,000 police officers, paramilitary police and soldiers deployed. --Cost: about $145 million, including $25 million for security and $120 million for refurbishing the city. http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Summits-Numbers-Box.html

Hamas Threatens Suicide Bombers After Child's Death The militant Islamic group Hamas threatened to unleash 10 suicide bombers against Israel in revenge for the killing of an 11-year-old Palestinian boy who was buried in the Gaza Strip on Sunday. ``There are 10 martyrs waiting inside Israel. They are ready at any moment to get revenge on the Israeli killers,'' shouted members of Hamas's military wing during Khalil Mughrabi's funeral. He was killed by Israeli troops on Saturday. ``If the Israelis have big bombs, we have human bombs,'' they chanted through loudspeakers during the funeral at Rafah, along Gaza's border with Egypt, near where the child was shot dead. Mughrabi became the 17th Palestinian killed since a cease-fire drawn up by U.S. CIA Director George Tenet was supposed to have taken effect on June 13. Nine Israelis have also been killed since the truce was brokered. http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/world/international-mideast.html

Arafat Criticizes U.S., Saying It Should Do More As evidence of what he contends is his "100 percent effort" to clamp down on terrorism, Mr. Arafat pulled from his jacket pocket, which seemed to contain a wealth of documents, a typed report in Arabic from the Palestinian intelligence service. The report, he said, held detailed information that was provided to the Israelis a day after the June 1 suicide bombing outside a Tel Aviv discoth�que that killed 21 young people. It said the Palestinians had learned that the man who drove the suicide bomber to the beachside disco was a longtime informant for Israeli intelligence, Mr. Arafat said, a Palestinian who had been granted Israeli citizenship and resettled in Israel like many "collaborators." The bomber himself was a Palestinian with a Jordanian passport. Mr. Arafat appeared to be trying to make the point that the Tel Aviv bomber and his driver had no connection to the Palestinian Authority while they had at least indirect links with Israel. He also made reference to another deadly terrorist attack, years ago, in which he said Palestinian collaborators also played a key role. Asked to spell out what he was suggesting, he said, "I'm giving you facts and leaving it for everyone to arrive to realities." Nabil Shaath, a senior minister who has objected repeatedly to Israeli demands for a Palestinian roundup of Islamist militants, added, "At the very least, this means that looking for the usual suspects will not work in these cases." Ahttp://www.nytimes.com/2001/07/08/world/08ARAF.html?pagewanted=all

The E.E.O.C. Is Short of Will and Cash Throughout corporate America, complaints of discrimination and harassment remain stubbornly high, despite the decade-long economic boom that forced many employers to scramble for workers. Some 80,000 individual complaints are made annually to the commission, a number that has held steady in recent years. A growing proportion are accusations of harassment of women and minorities: factory floors where some men feel free to expose themselves and work places where supervisors don Ku Klux Klan hoods or fellow employees hang nooses. Claims of retaliation by employers against workers who have complained of discrimination have nearly tripled in the last decade, to about 22,000 a year. "There are thousands of establishments that appear to be discriminating," said Alfred W. Blumrosen, a professor at the Rutgers School of Law in Newark, who was an official at the agency in its early years and has maintained ties there. With a Ford Foundation grant, Mr. Blumrosen is analyzing the agency's own data, without identifying specific companies, to determine the breadth of discrimination in the United States. He plans to release his results this fall. Through much of its history, the E.E.O.C. has been plagued by a lack of resources and a combination of internal politics and inefficiencies that have prevented it from accomplishing much more than isolated victories. While it has recently taken stands on some controversial issues � it has sought to prohibit employers from using genetic testing on employees and to force companies to cover the cost of prescription contraceptives � its critics say it is too cognizant of how the political winds are blowing to pursue its mission aggressively. "There is not a huge national will to have the agency be more effective," said John Rowe, a district office director in Chicago who has worked for the E.E.O.C. for nearly 30 years. "It shows itself not only in the want of resources and want of political appetite for radical change but also down in the trenches. It's unwise to upset anybody too much." http://partners.nytimes.com/2001/07/01/business/01EEOC.html?pagewanted=all

U.S. Report Finds Flaws in Study of California Power Companies An investigative arm of Congress faulted federal regulators today for claiming that there was no evidence to support accusations that power companies manipulated California's electricity market. The General Accounting Office reviewed a study by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission issued in February. The energy agency found no evidence that companies withheld power to drive up prices. Politicians in California and some economists have been asserting for months that power companies withheld available electrical generating capacity to create or worsen shortages. Generating companies had cited the energy agency's report to rebut those accusations. The accounting office said the agency's work looked only at physical reasons for outages and did not explore the possibility that generating companies used bidding strategies to withhold supplies. Moreover, the office found that the study did not prove that cutoffs had occurred for unavoidable physical reasons. "FERC's study was not thorough enough to support its overall conclusion that audited companies were not physically withholding electricity supply to influence prices," the accounting office said. http://www.nytimes.com/2001/06/30/national/30POWE.html?pagewanted=all

Senators Hear Bitter Words on Florida Vote One of the dissenting members, Abigail Thernstrom, presented her rebuttal to the report today. Relying on a statistical analysis by John Lott, an economist at Yale Law School, Ms. Thernstrom said that "voter error was the central problem in Florida, not disenfranchisement" and that the committee report was flawed and prejudicial. "One of the dissenting members, Abigail Thernstrom, presented her rebuttal to the report today. Relying on a statistical analysis by John Lott, an economist at Yale Law School, Ms. Thernstrom said that "voter error was the central problem in Florida, not disenfranchisement" and that the committee report was flawed and prejudicial. In another tense exchange, Senator Charles E. Schumer, Democrat of New York, took on the credibility of Mr. Lott, Ms. Thernstrom's statistician. Mr. Schumer, a proponent of gun control, first belittled Mr. Lott in passing as the person who had found, in Mr. Schumer's words, "The more guns, the less violence." In prosecutorial tones, Mr. Schumer then wrung out of Mr. Lott a defeated "yeah" to the question of whether "a greater percentage of black and Hispanic people are turned away than, or don't get to vote, than white people?" The packed hearing room broke into applause at Mr. Lott's concession, prompting Senator Christopher J. Dodd, Democrat of Connecticut, to gavel the room to order, saying, "It's not a rally; it's a hearing." http://www.nytimes.com/2001/06/28/politics/28VOTE.html

Senators Hear Bitter Words on Florida Vote Ms. Berry affirmed the findings of the report and said she was "surprised that people are so exercised" about it. She said it was clear that black voters had higher rates of problems than others, regardless of whether they were intentional. "If I ran over you at 90 miles an hour and killed you, it doesn't matter whether I intended to or not, I still killed you," Ms. Berry said. http://www.nytimes.com/pages/national/index.html?todaysheadline

2 Judges Do Battle in an Immigration Case �something extraordinary has happened in the case of a 46-year-old man from Trinidad, detained since last summer in a county jail here, whose wife seeks such a visa for him. First an immigration judge here, William Van Wyke, suspended an effort by the Immigration and Naturalization Service to deport the man, and pressured officials to act quickly on the visa application. Then, in an even more unusual twist, Judge Van Wyke's decision was overruled by the nation's chief immigration judge, Michael J. Creppy, after what Judge Van Wyke and his supporters call a series of improper contacts between I.N.S. lawyers and Judge Creppy's office. The reversal, and Judge Van Wyke's denunciation of his boss, are the talk of the immigration circuit, whose union of administrative judges has filed a formal protest against Judge Creppy and a top aide, accusing them of unethical behavior. "The actions of the office of the chief immigration judge raise profoundly troubling questions about the integrity of the deportation process and the independence of the chief immigration judge from the I.N.S.," said Lucas Guttentag, director of the American Civil Liberties Union's immigrants' rights project. http://www.nytimes.com/2001/06/21/national/21JUDG.html?todaysheadlines&pagewanted=all

How Do You Consider Someone Spending Decades In Prison, Sentenced to Death, Then Released Minus Years of His Life Proof That the System Is Working?

Death Penalty Falls From Favor as Some Lose Confidence in Its Fairness Some said that what persuaded them was the news that 13 prisoners on death row in Illinois were discovered to be innocent � a revelation that led Gov. George Ryan, a Republican, to declare a statewide moratorium on the death penalty last year. Others said they were troubled by reports that the death penalty may be disproportionately imposed on blacks and Hispanics. "I've slowly been changing my mind about the death penalty," said Fredrica Hicks, a mother of three who works in a Social Security office in Chicago, where the exonerations of prisoners in her state gave her pause. "What would happen if something went wrong and someone accused me of something and there was no way for me to prove my innocence, or evidence was lost and I was sitting on death row? If it has happened to someone else, it could happen to anyone. It could be me." But Charlotte Stout, a retired nurse in Greenfield, Tenn., rebutted that, saying: "To me, that is the system working. If it hadn't been working, the innocent people wouldn't have been released." "Today to be raising questions about capital punishment is to be in the company of the pope, Governor Ryan, the Legislatures of Nebraska and New Hampshire, the columnist George Will, Pat Robertson and William Sessions, the former director of the F.B.I., all of whom have come out in favor of a moratorium, said Mr. Sarat, the author of "When the State Kills: Capital Punishment and the American Condition" (Princeton University Press, 2001). "Go down to the police department and look at the police blotter and you'll be convinced it's not deterring anything," said Jerry Jones, an election worker in Chicago. http://www.nytimes.com/2001/06/17/national/17VOIC.html?pagewanted=all

China Said to Sharply Reduce Carbon Dioxide Emissions In the debate on global climate change it has long been a given that China, with its huge population and endless coal reserves, would overtake the United States early this century as the biggest source of the atmospheric pollution that scientists believe is warming the planet. That specter of runaway Chinese emissions has been cited by President Bush as a major reason for describing as "fatally flawed" the 1997 Kyoto agreement to protect the climate. The treaty exempts developing countries, including China, from its initial, binding limits on the output of carbon dioxide and other so-called greenhouse gases that scientists believe are causing traumatic changes in the climate. But treaty obligation or not, China has already achieved a dramatic slowing in its emissions of carbon dioxide in the last decade, Chinese and Western energy experts say. That record of progress has pushed further into the horizon the day that China will surpass the United States as the lead culprit, and it is something that Mr. Bush seems to have overlooked in his harsh appraisal. http://www.nytimes.com/2001/06/15/world/15CHIN.html?pagewanted=all

A Skeptical Europe Awaits Bush on 5-Day Trip It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle," began an opinion piece in the conservative daily ABC, "than for a rich man to be executed in the United States." http://www.nytimes.com/2001/06/11/world/11EURO.html

The Backslap Backlash The political incompetence that led to Mr. Jeffords's defection hardly squares with the prevailing Beltway view of the Bush White House during its first 100 days. That view, as usual, is best articulated by Washington's Dean, the pundit David Broder, who in February gave the new administration high grades for having "a cabinet of C.E.O.'s, made up mainly of men and women who have run large enterprises." But of course it's exactly the C.E.O.-itis exemplified by Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld and Paul O'Neill that led the administration to be blindsided, taking the Jeffords rebellion seriously only days after it had been reported by such obscure news outlets as CNN. As one veteran of past administrations and the corporate world puts it: "C.E.O.'s are used to flying their own planes, seeing only their own subordinates and being accountable to no one. They are profoundly certain of their own value system. They have contempt for the public and the press. They have none of the accountability required of a president of the United States." Such arrogance is the real story of this White House thus far. The administration proceeds on the belief that no one would possibly question its wisdom and that anything can be sold with the proper marketing strategy and enough repetition of an unvarying script. If the president is known for "reaching out" and "building bridges," as we're constantly told, it must be so, even if the Jeffords fiasco proves it wildly false. If he says it's possible to have a huge tax cut while building a missile shield and without dipping into the Social Security and Medicare piggy banks, it must be so, even if the numbers don't remotely add up. So goes this cognitive-dissonance presidency. Perhaps it's the ease with which the White House walked over the Democrats on the way to the tax cut that has accelerated this brand of subterfuge. These days, with impressive brazenness, almost every Bush photo op belies what his administration is actually up to. � In a five-day period the president appeared at two national parks, Sequoia and the Everglades, dressed in more earth tones than Al Gore at his most craven. The message, of course, is that Mr. Bush likes hugging trees almost as much as he does African-American schoolchildren. But in fact his environmental record remains unchanged. He shows no signs of opposing drilling off Florida's Gulf Coast (though even his brother is against it) or of opposing the development of a commercial airport not far from the Everglades' border. The National Parks Conservation Association gives his record a D thus far, noting that his modest increase in the parks budget is more for buildings and roads than for preserving nature. � In his commencement address at Notre Dame, among other religious venues, Mr. Bush has repeatedly praised the power of faith-based charities. But according to The Washington Post, the administration very quietly stopped pushing its promised boon to charities in the tax bill: a deduction for charitable contributions for those taxpayers who don't itemize on their returns. Not only did the White House let that provision die to preserve its main goal, a top-heavy reduction of tax rates, but in fighting for an end to the estate tax it has also eliminated an added incentive for the wealthy to donate to charity. � In Philadelphia in mid-May, Mr. Bush posed in front of a sea of police officers to push a plan to hire more prosecutors to enforce existing gun laws. But three days later Attorney General John Ashcroft wrote a letter to the National Rifle Association endorsing an interpretation of the Second Amendment that could in fact gut existing gun laws. Some of those cops standing behind the president may also be gutted, for in its budget the administration has asked for a 17 percent decrease in COPS, the federal program that provides money for police salaries. � Mr. Bush has repeatedly visited various Boys and Girls Clubs, touting them as an example of how the government can "facilitate programs" for kids and promote "the universal concept of loving a neighbor." In his budget, federal money for Boys and Girls Clubs is eliminated entirely. Even the first lady has been enlisted in these bait-and-switch shenanigans. Laura Bush appeared at a Washington public library in April to kick off "the Campaign for America's Libraries" � just one week before her husband's budget cut the federal outlay for libraries by $39 million. http://www.nytimes.com/2001/06/09/opinion/09RICH.html?pagewanted=all

Floyd Norris: Bush's Tax Shuffle The alternative tax is supposed to hit the rich. It forces taxpayers with substantial deductions to compute their tax bill twice. First they do it the regular way, and then they calculate it again, and apply a lower tax rate, without being able to take advantage of a substantial number of exemptions. Then, they pay whichever tax is higher. The new tax law promises higher deductions late in this decade. Married couples will get a bigger deduction, and higher-income taxpayers will get a larger standard deduction. But those deductions don't count for the alternative tax. Tens of millions of taxpayers will see their savings largely vanish after the alternative tax kicks in. The tax-bill writers understood this, and even threw in a provision to reduce the impact � up until the next presidential election. As a result, the official estimate is that the number of taxpayers paying the alternative minimum tax in 2004 will be 5.3 million, up from 1.4 million this year but fewer than the 5.6 million who would have paid it under the old law. http://www.nytimes.com/2001/06/01/business/01NORR.html?pagewanted=all

Jeffords Defects, Forcing Shift in Agenda Later in an interview he said the critical issue that led to his defection was education, specifically the decision by Senate leaders and the White House to drop $300 billion in school spending from the final budget resolution. "When they took that all out," he said, "that was it." http://www.nytimes.com/2001/05/25/politics/25CHAN.html?pagewanted=all

While a Restless Senator Stirred, the Bush Team May Have Slept The strategist said that when Mr. Jeffords refused to give White House officials unconditional love, they responded in a fashion that left him feeling "constantly dissed, ignored, embarrassed, not treated with the kind of respect you would accord a senator, let alone a Republican." http://www.nytimes.com/2001/05/24/politics/24BUSH.html?pagewanted=all

Nuclear Power Gains in Status After Lobbying In mid-March, a cadre of seven nuclear power executives sought and won an hourlong meeting in the White House with Karl Rove, Mr. Bush's top political adviser. Also attending were Lawrence B. Lindsey, the president's top economic adviser, Andrew Lundquist, the executive director of Vice President Dick Cheney's energy task force, and others involved in devising the energy plan. "We said, Look, we are an important player on this energy team and here are our vital statistics, and we think that you should start talking about nuclear when you talk about increasing the nation's supply," Christian H. Poindexter, chairman of the Constellation Energy Group, recalled today. And then a surprising thing happened. "It was shortly after that, as a matter of fact I think the next night, when the vice president was being interviewed on television, he began to talk about nuclear power for the first time," Mr. Poindexter said. http://www.nytimes.com/2001/05/23/politics/23NUKE.html?pagewanted=all

Con�cept The Standard: Don't Know Much About a Science Book