THE TENSION: The Decline and Fall of Western Civ. for 22 Sep

Heads up folks, this news rolls downhill.

President Bush said Friday that if a U.S. official tried to strong-arm Pakistan into fighting the war on terror after the Sept. 11 attacks, he didn't know about it, reports AP. Here is the text of the President Bush and Pakistani President Gen. Pervez Musharraf news conference on Friday also from AP.

AFP reports the Space Shuttle Atlantis's return flight prompted panic in a Mayan village in Mexico, with local residents inundating police with phone calls about a "ball of fire" in the sky and the "sound of an explosion," authorities said. In related news, AP reports that an astronaut from the space shuttle Atlantis collapsed twice Friday during a welcome home ceremony, a wobbly return that officials attributed to the adjustment from 12 days at zero gravity.

Two more deaths were under investigation Friday for possible links to tainted spinach, one in Maryland and one in Idaho, according to AP and the Washington Post. Federal health officials have reported 157 cases of E-coli in 23 states and one death. No cases have been confirmed in Maryland. I'm surprised conspiracy theorists have yet to attribute the the whole mess to terrorists, Bush, illegal immigrant farm workers or all three working together.

AP also reports California produce growers and processors hope to salvage what's left of the spinach season and stop millions of dollars in losses by drafting new food-safety measures. Where is Popeye when you need him?

AP reporter Calvin Woodward writes, "Now the death toll is 9/11 times two. U.S. military deaths from Iraq and Afghanistan now match those of the most devastating terrorist attack in America's history, the trigger for what came next. Add casualties from chasing terrorists elsewhere in the world, and the total has passed the Sept. 11 figure." I guess it wouldn't help to add that in the five years since terrorists attacked on 9/11, there remains but a hole in ground where the World Trade Center once stood. Five years after Japan's sneak attack on Pearl Harbor, the U.S. fielded armies on two fronts, defeated tyrannical regimes whose goals were global domination, invented the atomic bomb, and built the nation into a superpower. The combined toll in U.S. lives lost for WWII was 418,500. If FDR had to put up with the same divisive partisan politics and egotistical media which have currently disabled the country's will, the probable end result would have been the creation of a no-fly zone over Hawaii.

Senate Democrats on Friday said legislation that would require voters to show proof of U.S. citizenship to vote in federal elections was little more than a poll tax, compared the bill to segregation-era measures aimed at disenfranchising Southern blacks, and urged Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist to stop the bill, according to Reuters. It's interesting to note that segregation is not an issue when a valid photo ID is required for other things including check cashing, the operation of a motor vehicle, and to buy beer and smokes.

A scorching internal review of the Bush administration's billion-dollar-a-year reading program says the Education Department ignored the law and ethical standards to steer money how it wanted, reports AP. The news seems to prove the notion that a Republican administration will have problems corralling a mostly Democratic controlled segment such as public education. It would seem the main problem with the program has been in it's execution.