Documents obtained by The Examiner show, however, that MoveOn.org’s complaint to Google was part of a broader effort by the advocacy group to silence its critics through threats and intimidation and had nothing to do with preventing fraud.

MoveOn.org filed its trademark complaint with Google on Sept.19 in the midst of the bitter public debate generated by the Petraeus ad. On the same day, MoveOn.org’s Carrie Olson sent a “cease and desist” letter to CafePress.com demanding that the online merchandiser stop selling anti-MoveOn.org T-shirts designed by “Waitress Polly,” a blogger from a military family who created the T-shirts to protest the “General Betray Us” ad.

None of the complaints filed by MoveOn.org with Google or CafePress.com asserted that a “third party” was making fraudulent use of MoveOn.org’s name to collect financial contributions.

Olson, who is MoveOn.org’s chief operating officer, alleged trademark infringement and threatened legal action against CafePress.com if it did not take down the critical ads. She also demanded contact information for ‘Waitress Polly’ and that all orders the anti-MoveOn.org T-shirt be stopped. CafePress.com did as demanded.

Also on Sept. 19, MoveOn.org’s Erik Olson — husband of Carrie Olson — filed a trademark complaint with Google seeking to block any mention of MoveOn.org by any advertiser for any reason, including ads that criticize MoveOn.org by name.

It was this complaint that Google cited as the basis for banning Sen. Collins’ anti-MoveOn.org ads. Google’s complaint form used by MoveOn.org required that the trademark owner make a legal affirmation that the complainant has a “good faith belief” that the use of the trademark is not “permissible under law.”

MoveOn.org, however, did not cite any specific ad, nor did it provide Google with any evidence of trademark infringement. The advocacy group has since said publicly that the Collins ads are permissible under the law.

Google told Collins campaign officials that the company’s “trademark team” was still investigating MoveOn.org’s complaint when The Examiner’s Oct. 11 story was published.

Google hasn’t said how the Collins’ ads were flagged for removal if Google had not yet made a decision on the validity of MoveOn.org’s sweeping trademark claims.

Google also hasn’t explained how MoveOn.org knew Google had a policy that permits trademark owners to implement a universal ban on use of the advocacy group’s name in any Google ad when no such policy is described on the Google Web site.

Likewise, Google could not say how the Collins campaign, or any advertiser, would be expected to know that “MoveOn.org” was a “banned” term since Google does not make such information available to advertisers and does not “auto-reject” ads with banned trademark terms.

Finally, Google hasn’t explained why the Collins campaign was informed Oct. 8 that its anti-MoveOn.org ads were removed due to a “trademark policy violation” when there is no such policy contained in Google’s “terms of service.”

In a study published in October's Experimental Neurology, Dr Paul Kingham and his team at the UK Centre for Tissue Regeneration (UKCTR) isolated the stem cells from the fat tissue of adult animals and differentiated them into nerve cells to be used for repair and regeneration of injured nerves. They are now about to start a trial extracting stem cells from fat tissue of volunteer adult patients, in order to compare in the laboratory human and animal stem cells.

Following that, they will develop an artificial nerve constructed from a biodegradable polymer to transplant the differentiated stem cells. The biomaterial will be rolled up into a tube-like structure and inserted between the two ends of the cut nerve so that the regrowing nerve fibre can go through it from one end to the other.

This 'bionic' nerve could also be used in people who have suffered trauma injuries to their limbs or organs, cancer patients whose tumour surgery has affected a nearby nerve trunk and people who have had organ transplants.

With a clinical trial on the biomaterial about to be completed, the researchers hope the treatment could be ready for use in four or five years.

Dr Kingham said: "The differentiated stem cells have great potential for future clinical use, initially for treatment of patients with traumatic injuries of nerves in the arms and legs.

"This work will also help to develop a similar surgical approach for organ transplant, to give full functional recuperation to the transplanted tissue.

The Committee for Economic Development proposes replacing the current system with one that would provide universal coverage and remake the way health insurance is bought and sold.

"What we need is not to tinker at the edges," said Robert Chess, co-chair of the group's subcommittee on health care and chairman of Nektar Therapeutics, a drug-delivery company based in San Carlos, Calif. "We need to look at a fundamentally different solution."

• Establish a system of mandatory coverage in which people would receive a fixed-dollar credit from the government to buy health insurance from a menu of approved health plans. People could buy a more expensive plan by paying the extra cost.

• Prohibit insurance companies from setting rates based on age or pre-existing medical conditions. The "fine print" in the plans also would be standardized to protect consumers.

• Finance the new system through payroll taxes or other taxes.

There also are significant differences in the proposals.

Healthy Wisconsin included an option in which the state would set up a plan similar to Medicare.

The Committee for Economic Development, in contrast, contends that a single-payer, or "Medicare for all," plan run by the government would not work.

....

The Committee for Economic Development came to the same conclusion. But the group also said that merely expanding coverage under the current system would not solve the core problem: the unsustainable rise in health care costs.

At the same time, the report was critical of the contention that high-deductible health plans combined with health savings accounts - commonly called consumer-driven health care - will solve the problems facing the health care system.

....

Giving people incentives to choose less-expensive health plans could prod health plans to contract with hospitals and doctors that offer the best combination of price and quality.

"We are not letting market forces do their job now in the way they do in every other industry," said Chess, the co-chair of the group's subcommittee on health care.

The group's report notes that the health care market doesn't work to close the large gaps between the most efficient providers of health care and the inefficient ones, something that takes place in the rest of the economy.

If there is any fixed star in our constitutional constellation, it is that no official, high or petty, can prescribe what shall be orthodox in politics, nationalism, religion, or other matters of opinion or force citizens to confess by word or act their faith therein. If there are any circumstances which permit an exception, they do not now occur to us.

We think the action of the local authorities in compelling the flag salute and pledge transcends constitutional limitations on their power and invades the sphere of intellect and spirit which it is the purpose of the First Amendment to our Constitution to reserve from all official control.

In 2005, Emily Brooker, a social work student at Missouri State University, was enrolled in a class taught by a professor who advertised himself as a liberal and insisted that social work is a liberal profession. At first, a mandatory assignment for his class was to advocate homosexual foster homes and adoption, with all students required to sign an advocacy letter, on university stationery, to the state Legislature.

When Brooker objected on religious grounds, the project was made optional. But shortly before the final exam she was charged with a "Level 3," the most serious, violation of professional standards. In a two-and-a-half-hour hearing -- which she was forbidden to record and her parents were barred from attending -- the primary subject was her refusal to sign the letter. She was ordered to write a paper ("Written Response about My Awareness") explaining how she could "lessen the gap" between her ethics and those of the social work profession. When she sued the university, it dropped the charges and made financial and other restitution.

But there's a big difference between people who believe that a nation's population ought to be all dedicated to a common cause in order to be a part of it—"Love it or leave it"—and people who believe that a "nation" consists solely of a set of arbitrary borders and the people that happen to be born inside them.

It's the latter model that says "diversity" is the most commendable thing in a nation, that there should be multiculturalism rather than a "melting pot", and that nationalism is an embarrassing relic of the past. A world built of this model ends up being homogenous, an endless litany of dysfunctional parliamentary democracies with state-funded health care and human-rights guarantees that are hardly worth the paper they're "granted" on. It's mediocre, but at least it's something everyone is too apathetic to be dissatisfied with.

But for those who believe in the former model, where the pull of the Constitution is in and of itself enough to make you want to change your nationality, there's something better to aspire to. It's not perfection, it can be destructive, but it's a belief that humanity can do better than the status quo.

A three-word rule change quietly made to Congress’s newly-enacted lobby reform package was recently discovered that significantly reduces disclosure requirements for the earmarks each senator requests.

The new ethics bill, which was signed into law in September, purported to require members of both the House and Senate to make public a signed letter that included the name and address of the intended recipient, or location of any requested earmark.

The final bill, however, contained an exception for members of the Senate. Instead, senators who request earmarks are only required to make public a letter that verifies he or she has “no pecuniary interest” their request

1. The world will have a billion millionaires by 2025.

2. Fashion will go wired as technologies and tastes converge to revolutionize the textile industry.

3. The threat of another cold war with China, Russia, or both could replace terrorism as the chief foreign-policy concern of the United States.

4. Counterfeiting of currency will proliferate, driving the move toward a cashless society.

5. The earth is on the verge of a significant extinction event.

6. Water will be in the twenty-first century what oil was in the twentieth century.

7. World population by 2050 may grow larger than previously expected, due in part to healthier, longer-living people.

8. The number of Africans imperiled by floods will grow 70-fold by 2080.

9. Rising prices for natural resources could lead to a full-scale rush to develop the Arctic.

10. More decisions will be made by nonhuman entities.

"Whatever right the Second Amendment guarantees, it does not require the District to stand by while its citizens die."

Petitioners correctly note that the Second Amendment “does not require the District to stand by while its citizens die.” Pet. at 30 (emphasis added). Yet the city consistently fights to secure its right to stand by while its citizens are victimized by crime.

For example, the city has successfully defended its right to “stand by while its citizens” are raped, kidnapped from their homes, and further abused. Warren v. District of Columbia, 444 A.2d 1 (D.C. 1981) (en banc). The city has likewise successfully defended its right to “stand by” in the face of the worst urban rioting in our nation’s history. Westminster Investing Co. v. G.C. Murphy Co., 434 F.2d 521 (D.C. Cir. 1970).The city has even defended its right to “stand by while its citizens die” when the perpetrator is a police officer. Morgan v. District of Columbia, 468 A.2d 1306 (D.C. 1983) (en banc).

Indeed, the city has asserted its right to “stand by while its citizens die” in the course of volunteering their assistance to the police. Butera v. District of Columbia, 235 F.3d 637 (D.C. Cir. 2001).

Petitioners cannot be begrudged their arguments that they are under no general obligation to protect citizens from violent crime. As a matter of tort law, Petitioners’ position is consistent with accepted notions of sovereign immunity and the public duty doctrine. And as a matter of constitutional law, citizens do not enjoy any positive right to police protection. DeShaney v. Winnebago County Dep’t of Social Servs., 489 U.S. 189 (1989); Castle Rock, 545 U.S. 748.

Bush, who wanted a $5 billion increase, told Lancaster-area business leaders that he would offer more money if Congress agrees to focus the program strictly on low-income children.

"Poor kids first," Bush said. "I believe in private medicine, not the federal government running the health care system."

In a message to Congress, Bush wrote that the government's role should be to promote private coverage, "not to move children who already have private health insurance to government coverage."

On Capitol Hill, lawmakers from both parties bemoaned Bush's veto and vowed to work together to bypass him. "If we're truly compassionate, it seems to me we will want to endorse this program," said Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah.

Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, accused the White House of not working with Congress. "Every effort was made to bring them in," he said. "I think they decided to veto the bill before it was written."

What Long thought was a snapping turtle slithering through the upper reaches of the Milwaukee River in Washington County was actually a nearly 4-foot-long alligator, which he promptly shot.

"At first, I thought it was turtle tail," said Long, 31, of Greenfield, who was in the river hunting for duck Saturday. "Then it turned and came back at me. I seen the eyes come up out of the water, but my brain didn't click. This is Wisconsin. There's not supposed to be gators in Wisconsin."