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Show Friday, Aug. 28, 2009 Page 2 World&Nation Utah State University • Logan, Utah • www.aggietownsquare.com ClarifyCorrect The policy of The Utah Statesman is to correct any error made as soon as possible. If you find something you would like clarified or find unfair, please contact the editor at statesmaneditor@aggiemail.usu.edu Celebs&People NEW YORK (AP) — Beyonce is set to give a dreamy performance at the MTV Video Music Awards. MTV announced Thursday that the superstar singer will sing her latest hit, “Sweet Dreams,” at the Sept. 13 Beyonce event. Beyonce is nominated for nine trophies, tying Lady Gaga for the most nominations. Among the performers already announced are Jay-Z, Green Day, Taylor Swift and Lady Gaga. NewsBriefs Authorities remove Tooele marijuana farm TOOELE, Utah (AP) — Authorities are removing hundreds of marijuana plants from a farm in Ophir Canyon in Tooele County. Investigators estimate the plants have a street value of about $800,000. Tooele County sheriff’s authorities say officers spent time in the canyon Thursday dismantling the farm and tearing up the plants. Tooele County Sheriff Frank Park says the operation included two growing areas with hundreds of marijuana plants. Police are still searching for a suspect. LateNiteHumor David Letterman, August 25, 2009 - Top Ten Least Popular Things 10. Blood-engorged ticks 9. Tank tops on fat guys 8. Anything ingrown 7. Glourious basterds 6. Mets season tickets 5. Gentlemen’s club sushi 4. Goo 3. You know when you go to the Cheesecake Factory and they tell you it’s like a 30minute wait and they give you that thing that lights up and vibrates when your table is ready? That thing 2. Swine flu/Paper cuts (tie) 1. Lame Top Ten Lists Obama nod linked Kennedy to younger generation CHICAGO (AP) — For young Americans unfamiliar with terms like Chappaquiddick, Ted Kennedy was always a rotund, grandfatherly figure, a living link to the storied family they knew only from history books and tales from their parents. A few might have known him as the bad boy, or the last Kennedy brother to mount a presidential bid. But when he endorsed Barack Obama and later gave a stirring convention speech, Kennedy truly raised his profile with a generation wholly removed from Camelot. “I gained more respect for him because he wasn’t afraid to say, ‘Hey, I like this guy,’” says Jason Webber, a 17-year-old freshman at Eastern Michigan University who wants to run for office someday. “I think it’s hard for people of a different generation to understand what we’re going through — our lives and how things are changing for us. It’s great that he could connect with us on that level. Most politicians of that generation can’t do that.” Generation Xers, who range from their early 30s to mid-40s, are generally more aware of Kennedy’s triumphs, and his foibles. He was both revered by that generation and the butt of their jokes. But a lot of people Webber’s age, known as Generation Y or millennials, have never heard of the Chappaquiddick car accident that dogged Kennedy, much less the details of his decades in the Senate. “And most of them don’t understand all the bills he was involved in or all the skirmishes. They wouldn’t see all that,” says Eric Greenberg, author of “Generation We: How Millennial Youth Are Taking Over America and Changing Our World Forever.” But in endorsing Obama in January 2008, at a critical moment in Obama’s primary fight with Hillary Rodham Clinton, Kennedy did a very Kennedy thing — he validated the nation’s youth and encouraged them to get involved. “I don’t think it turned them into ‘Kennedy-ites’ or anything,” Greenberg says. “But they thought, ‘Cool, the old guard is catching on.’” Or, as Robert Alexander, an associate professor of SEN. EDWARD “TED” KENNEDY, D-MASS., acknowledges the crowd at the end of his speech in August 2008 at the Democratic National Convention in Denver. Political pundits say that Kennedy’s early endorsement of Obama for president went a long way in raising his stature among younger Americans, many of whom had little idea who he was before that. political science at Ohio Northern University, says: Kennedy managed to put “the Kennedy mystique back into focus.” In receiving the endorsement that day, Obama, then 46, made note of the generational gap. “I was too young to remember John Kennedy, and I was just a child when Robert Kennedy ran for president,” he said. “But in the stories I heard growing up, I saw how my grandparents and mother spoke about Gov. Herbert: No protected class for gay and transgender people SALT LAKE CITY (AP) — Utah Gov. Gary Herbert said Thursday that discriminating against gay people shouldn’t be illegal, although he would prefer it if everyone were treated with respect. In his most definitive comments yet on gay rights, Herbert told reporters he doesn’t believe sexual orientation should be a protected class in the way that race, gender and religion are. “We don’t have to have a rule for everybody to do the right thing. We ought to just do the right thing because it’s the right thing to do and we don’t have to have a law that punishes us if we don’t,” Herbert said in his first monthly KUED news conference. In Utah, it is legal to fire someone for being gay or transgender. The gay rights advocacy group Equality Utah has been trying to change state law for several years but has always been rebuffed by the Republican-controlled Legislature. Twenty-one states already have laws prohibiting workplace discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation, and 12 extend those laws to gender identity — California, Colorado, Iowa, Illinois, Maine, Minnesota, New Jersey, New Mexico, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont and Washington. Several other states protect public employees who are gay or transgender. Will Carlson, Equality Utah’s public policy director, said Herbert’s comments show he doesn’t understand how prevalent discrimination is against gay and transgender people in Utah. “I agree that we ought to be able to just do the right thing. Unfortunately, the Salt Lake City Human Rights Commission makes it clear that not all employers are doing the right thing,” he said, referencing a city report released earlier this summer that said discrimination was rampant. Salt Lake City is considering an anti-discrimination ordinance, but conservative state lawmakers already are eyeing passage of a state law that would trump it. “Where do you stop? I mean that’s the problem going down that slippery road. Pretty soon we’re going to have a special law for blueeyed blondes ... or people who are losing their hair a little bit,” Herbert said. “There’s some support for about anything we put out there. I’m just saying we end up getting bogged down sometimes with the minutiae of things that government has really no role to be involved in.” Carlson said he wants to arrange a meeting with Herbert to help him understand the problems gay Utahns face. “We don’t have an epidemic of blonde-haired, blue-eyed people getting fired or evicted. We do have a situation where gay and transgender people are being evicted and losing their jobs, not for job performance, but because they’re gay or transgender,” he said. them, and about that period in our nation’s life — as a time of great hope and achievement.” The senator from Massachusetts also had a reputation for connecting with young people in person, even when he was older and in failing health. Jennifer Donahue, political director at the New Hampshire Institute of Politics, observed that when he spoke with Obama at an appearance in her state. July and August deadliest months of Afghan war for US KABUL (AP) — A roadside bomb and gunfire attack killed a U.S. service member in southern Afghanistan on Thursday, a death that pushed August into a tie with July as the deadliest months of the eight-year war. The death brought to 44 the number of U.S. troops who have died in Afghanistan this month with four days left in August. More than 60,000 U.S. troops are in the country — a record number — to fight rising insurgent violence. The number of roadside bombs deployed by militants across the country has skyrocketed, and U.S. forces have moved into new and deadlier areas this summer, in part to help secure the country’s Aug. 20 presidential election. The top U.S. commander in Afghanistan released his new counterinsurgency strategy Thursday, telling troops that the supply of militants is “effectively endless” and that U.S. and NATO forces need to see the country through the eyes of its villagers. Gen. Stanley McChrystal said troops “must change the way that we think, act and operate.” McChrystal hopes to install a new approach to counterinsurgency where troops will make the safety of villagers the top priority, above killing an endless supply of militants. “An insurgency cannot be defeated by attrition; its supply of fighters, and even leadership, is effectively endless,” the new guidelines say. When U.S. and NATO troops battle a group of 10 militants and kill two of them, the relatives of the two dead insurgents will want revenge and will likely join the insurgency, the guidelines say, spelling out the formula: “10 minus 2 equals 20 (or more) rather than 8. Violence is on the rise in Afghanistan even as it falls in Iraq, where nearly twice as many U.S. troops are still based. Five U.S. troops have died in Iraq this month, three fewer than in July. Try Our Specials! Monday: Family Night, Feed 4 for $30 Tuesday: Kids Eat FREE! Wednesday: Free Coke product with meal Thursday: USU Students get 20% off Friday: Date Night Special- 2 for $25! Saturday: Watch games on one of 3 Students always get 10% off with ID! Saturday Night on the Screen! |