Torture

Entering the third week of the General Assembly, Sen. Tom Buford, R-Nicholasville, has high-hopes that two bills he's sponsored will gain Senate approval. "I've got two bills up on the orders to be voted on today (Wednesday) on the Senate floor," he said. Senate Bill 68 is designed to bring all 50 states on board when dealing with transfers of students whose families are in the military. "This bill is an agreement between the states that they'll work together in an agreement or pact that will allow grades to transfer faster and smoother," Buford said.

It's time to celebrate Halloween in Winchester, and there's plenty to do, even for those past trick-or-treating age. Haunted houses, hay rides, caramel apples and ghost stories are all in high demand, as families have a lot to choose from this year. FFA Corn Maze This Halloween, Winchester residents have the opportunity to help out the community while having a good time. The George Rogers Clark High School FFA created a corn maze, located at 3500 Colby Road, to raise money for scholarship funds and the Feed the Hungry program.

LEXINGTON - John Calipari couldn't say enough about Alex Poythress following Kentucky's 75-70 triumph over LSU on Saturday at Rupp Arena. Calipari had plenty of reasons to gloat after Poythress scored 20 points and grabbed 12 rebounds, securing his fourth double-digit outing in the team's past five games. Poythress had just six points in the Wildcats' 59-55 loss at Alabama last week, but made a strong recovery with a dominating performance against the Tigers. “I was so proud of Alex, I can't begin to tell you,” Calipari said afterward.

A lot of words have been written and spoken over the last several weeks about "The Passion of the Christ" by people who haven't seen the controversial movie. Eric Woolridge saw it Wednesday afternoon but had a hard time uttering a single word about it. Wooldrige, a Stanford man who is in his early 20s, was walking slowly with a couple of friends from the Danville Cinemas 4 to his pickup truck when he was asked what he thought about the film. He held the door to the truck he had just opened for his friends, looked skyward and paused for almost a minute.

Dear Editor, Thanks to Brian Cooney for his illuminating editorial concerning waterboarding on Jan. 18 in The Advocate-Messenger. Personally, I'm appalled that our government, in our name, would drown people (repeatedly). Whether you are conservative, liberal, Protestant, Catholic, Jewish, Evangelical, charismatic, Mormon or Muslim, don't your values tell you that something is wrong here? How can we think of ourselves as the "good guys" while we're practicing torture? The president's repeated assurances that the United States does not practice torture are strikingly parallel to another president's emphatic claim that he, "Didn't have a sexual relationship with that woman," true only in a legally twisted sense of the word.

A New York City grand jury has indicted Danielle Thomas' ex-boyfriend on first-degree murder charges in connection with her death, officials announced today. Jason Bohn, 33, of New York City, now faces life in prison without the possibility of parole for allegedly beating and torturing Thomas to death last month, said Queens District Attorney Richard A. Brown. Thomas was a Weight Watchers executive and a graduate of Boyle County High School. Read more in Sunday's edition of The Advocate-Messenger and online.

On Friday, Oct. 18, one of the shabbiest events in recent American political history played out in hearings before the Senate Judiciary Committee. Michael Mukasey, President Bush's nominee for attorney general, refused to answer repeated questions about whether waterboarding is torture. In a Dec. 19 reprise of the Mukasey hearing, Bush's nominee for deputy attorney general, Mark Filip, also refused to classify waterboarding as torture. Like Mukasey, he said that the matter is still "under review.

Dear Sen. McConnell, On April 16, President Obama released memos from the Bush Office of Legal Counsel authorizing various torture techniques to be used on detainees. At a press conference on April 20, the president said these memos "reflected, in my view, us losing our moral bearings. " Former Vice President Dick Cheney has been emerging lately to tell the American public that the torture ordered by his administration was the right thing to do. He remains faithful to what he said right after 9/11: America had to work on the "dark side," "quietly, without any discussion," using "any means at our disposal.

TODAY ? Home school program, 1 p.m., Clark County Public Library. All home-school families welcome. ? Field of Torture haunted house, 237 Cook Ave., 6-10 p.m. SATURDAY, OCT. 17 ? Tiny Tots, 10 a.m., Clark County Public Library, ages 6 months-2 years. ? Story time, Clark County Public Library, ages 3-7 years. ? Field of Torture haunted house, 237 Cook Ave., 6-10 p.m. MONDAY, OCT. 19 ? Teen Read Week. Attend programs to enter for a chance to win a $50 Hibbett's gift card.