York Township is about 35 miles northwest of Columbus. In yards in front of modest two-story houses, signs proclaim in red and white: ‘No More Chicken Factories.’ For almost 2 years, residents have opposed a plan by Hi-Q Egg Products to set up a factory farm here.

The Iowa-based company’s plan would bring at least 6 million more chickens to a community that has 3 million of them already in a 3-mile area. Though Ohio brokered a deal with the Humane Society of the United States in June which could nix the proposal, factory farming continues to be an issue, with or without the Hi-Q 'farm'.

Residents have plenty to deal with just from the existing factory farms. They say there is so much chicken manure it damages local waterways after it runs off saturated fields. They also say the manure generates airborne pathogens and toxic gases such as hydrogen sulfide and ammonia.

"On any day you can come outside and just have this horrible reek in the air that burns and makes you squeeze your eyes shut and tears roll down your face," says local resident and activist Cheryl Johncox.

Like the Founding Fathers, Abraham Lincoln presents scholars, especially African American scholars, with quite a conundrum. On the one hand, here is the man who is given credit for freeing the slaves, the Great Emancipator. On the other, Lincoln was a man who publicly and privately professed a belief that blacks, whether slave or free were inferior to whites–clearly Lincoln must have thought of Frederick Douglass as an exception–and that colonization was a fine idea after all. Which Lincoln should we, especially those of us who are black, believe and admire?

Henry Louis Gates says that in order to answer that question, we might do well to consult a well-used notebook that Lincoln kept on his person dealing with the great issue of the day: slavery. In it were facts and figures he could call upon during a debate, while writing a letter or while wrestling with himself over the so-called Negro question.

They have historic responsibility and personal opportunity to vote on the START treaty before 2010 elections. Please consider calling on Thursday!!! Thursday, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee will approve a treaty that will make all of us safer. The Committee will vote to approve the New START Treaty with Russia and send the treaty to the full Senate for a vote. But the tight Senate schedule means that unless Senators from both major political parties publicly call in the next two weeks for an up-or-down vote on this treaty, the Treaty may not be ratified this year.

Please ask your senators to vote “yes” on the New START Treaty.
Website

Here’s why this New START treaty is important both for national security.:

* The treaty makes us safer. The treaty will reduce the number of deployed nuclear weapons in U.S. and Russian arsenals

It's happening here: mindless nationalism coupled with the acceptance of cold-hearted mass murder. Former mayor of New York Rudolph Giuliani's appearance on Meet the Press underscores the rise of the new American jackboot movement.

Giuliani emerged as an apologist for forces in America that seek the clash of cultures, many driven by a longing for Armageddon and a Christian fundamentalist notion of the rapture. This idea of salvation through apocalypse echoes the Nazi belief that God was on their side during World War II in the holocaust against perceived lesser people.

Giuliani shamelessly attacked Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf for wanting to build an Islamic community center in lower Manhattan. This makes no sense. Should we fight against building Christian community centers in Oklahoma City that are within a few blocks of the old federal building? After all, Tim McVeigh was a member of the racist and radical Christian Identity sect. Shouldn't we suspect all Christians of being terrorists and murderers because McVeigh was a Christian?