Barack Obama has often said he'd consider putting Repbulicans in his cabinet and even bandied about names like Sens. Dick Lugar and Chuck Hagel.

Forget that this is a cliche appeal to hack Washington bipartisanism, that Sen. Hagel's reputation seems to have been built on the substitution of good looks and agonizing passion for coherent, articulated thought, that the press mainly loves him because he's always ready to go on television and stab his party in the back. Why would you promote Hagel at the very moment when his prediction that the Surge was "the most dangerous foreign policy blunder in this country since Vietnam" appears to have been humiliatingly wrong? Disastrously wrong, potentially, if it had been heeded. Disqualifyingly wrong, you'd think. Obama is saying, in effect, that his need for respectable approval trumps reality.

DATS outrageous

Questions over safety are being raised after city police charged a DATS driver with sexually assaulting a disabled woman who functions at the level of a 10-year-old.

The woman alleges that once in late December and once in late January a Disabled Adult Transit Service driver sexually assaulted her in a DATS minivan.

Police have charged a 44-year-old man with two counts each of sexual assault and an indecent act, and one count of sexual exploitation of a person with a disability.

Transportation systems can sometimes leave disabled women more vulnerable, says the executive director of the Alberta Committee of Citizens with Disabilities.

"We've done research papers here on women with disabilities and the incidents of abuse and one of the things that did come up was the transportation system and how it can increase the vulnerability in some cases," said Beverley Matthiessen.

L.A.'s upscale downtown delayed

The downtown Los Angeles skyline is still dotted with construction cranes, but not as many as developers once promised.

More than a third of the approximately 110 residential projects proposed for downtown -- including the 50-story Zen tower on 3rd and Hill streets, the Mill Street Lofts in the industrial district, the multitower Metropolis off the 110 Freeway and the conversion of the former Herald Examiner building -- have been delayed or put on hold amid the rocky real estate market.

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Bonner buyer: Scott Cooney says he wants to be part of community's ...

Scott Cooney stands on a bluff above West Riverside, Bonner and the Blackfoot River last week. The Missoula businessman will soon own much of Bonner, having bought the houses near the Stimson Lumber Co. mill and the old log yard near West Riverside from Stimson.
Photo by TOM BAUER/Missoulian .

COTTM gears up as Chinese outbound tourism soars

As China continues to establish itself as the world's new major global economic power, the country is demonstrating a very assertive stance in the development of its industries, travel and tourism included. Chinese outbound tourism peaked to an incredible 700% increase compared with the data of 10 years ago.

The economic boom has provided the Chinese with higher disposable income; better diplomatic relations and relaxed travel regulations have given the Chinese more opportunities to travel to many foreign destinations. According to the World Tourism Organisation, by the end of year 2007 there will be nearly 37.5 million of Chinese tourists to travel abroad, a remarkable 17% increase since year 2006, and it is set to reach a staggering 100 million per year by 2020. This current growth rate of outbound Chinese tourists has now outpaced the average world travel.

Dems: What About the Military Budget?

I remember in Oct. or Nov., 2002, we were in San Jose, Ca. listening to www.kpfa.org on the car radio and Michael C. Ruppert was talking about our government massing a hugh military force in the Middle East to invade Iraq. I pulled over and listened to him for the rest of the show. He knew! Mike was loaded with facts and figures, not theories.