The Decline and Fall of Western Civ for 22 Mar.

More news from the front...

• France became the first country to open its files on UFOs Thursday when the national space agency unveiled a website documenting more than 1,600 sightings spanning five decades, according to AFP.

• Also from AFP: U.S. sales of music compact discs plummeted 20 percent in the first three months of the year as downloading of songs continued to knock the underpinnings from record studio revenues.
  
  

  Consumers are sending a message to artists that "while you may have put a lot of thought into the sequence of the album, I only like these three songs," said digital music industry analyst Michael McGuire of Gartner Research.

  If fewer than a quarter of songs on an album length CD are worth buying, I'd say the problem lies with the talent (or lack) of the artists making the music.

• House Democrats pulled a bill to grant voting rights to residents of Washington, D.C., after Republicans offered a motion that would repeal the gun ban for the District.
  
  The Politico notes the move is a clear signal that Democrats have lost control of the House floor on the voting rights issue after minority Republicans presented the Democratic majority with a political bomb.
  
  Conservative Democrats have supported the handgun repeal in the past.
  
  Matt Drudge reported that Steny Hoyer was seen yelling at staff on floor and that Speaker Pelosi was absent because she is desperately searching for Iraq supplemental votes (and to perhaps dodge the CODEPINK anti-war protesters arrested at her office).
  
  The Washington Post covers the story from the Democrat's court, dissing the Republicans for playing political games.
  
  As far as granting the District a greater role in its governance, the whole notion that D.C. locals can take care of their domestic problems is a joke. From a boots-on-the-ground perspective, what D.C. really needs the iron fist of federal control. There's no good reason that crime-ridden slums are just a few blocks away from the Hill. It's a national disgrace.
  
  Article 1, Section 8 of the Constitution, which empowers Congress to "exercise exclusive legislation" over the federal capital, means Congress can, if it chooses, give the district voting rights. It also means Congress can bring the hammer down and clean up the mess.
  
  More from AP.

• Democrat John Edwards is plowing ahead with his second bid for the presidency in spite of the news that his wife, Elizabeth, is battling an incurable reappearance of cancer, reports The Associated Press.
  
  Edwards supporters and many in the mainstream media viewed the announcement on strictly political terms. Some folks may find it hard to swallow the politicization of what would be for most of us a very private family matter.

• Former President Bill Clinton yesterday complained that “it’s just not fair” the way his wife, presidential candidate Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.), is being depicted for her controversial Iraq war vote, reports The Hill.

• The Detroit Free Press reports a Republican congressman representing rural southern Michigan is taking heat for saying that most of Iraq is at least as under control as Detroit is.

• Europe's citizens must be on their guard against political correctness and moralising politicians, says the European Commission President José Manuel Barroso in an interview with The Daily Telegraph.
  
  

  "We should be aware of people who, sometimes for good reasons, try to establish what I call private moral codes, for this or that, be it climate change, religious behaviour or any kind of social behaviour," he says.

• In a newsletter to staff, Rochester NY City School District officials say it is OK for students and teachers to speak Ebonics in class, WHAM reports.

• The Associated Press reports, in a new video posted Thursday on the Internet, an al-Qaida militant who escaped from a U.S. prison in Afghanistan urged Sunni militants in Iraq to join the terror group and claimed the U.S. military's security plan for Baghdad has failed.

• From LiveScience: Prolonged exposure to soft drinks can lead to significant enamel loss, even though many people consider soft drinks to be harmless or just worry about their sugar content and the potential for putting on pounds, the study says.

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