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THe INTeRNATIOAL ATOMIC AOENCY THAT irozofzisrAITACKS ON NuctzAtz POW RANTS M# NO ;HANCE oF laItiCifRINe A NUCLEAR eY.FIC6tor ,I! woR5r CASE 15 mm a8 A CONVeNT10NAL. ExPLOWN AND A RADIATION RELEASE. YoDin Nat SLIKOSED it KNOW NAT, Hay COULD You POSIBLY “MAT WELL-FROM 74E News WE FEED You PI, continued from page 17 frequent crossers were issued special visas with laser-readable strips to speed up the document review process. Unfortunately, as The New York Times reported October 29, although some four million cards have been issued, the laser readers have yet to be installed. PERRY, FALWELL PRAY FOR PALESTINE. If you thought -that after making those ill-considered declarations about how the country’s going to Sodom in a saddlebag, Jerry Falwell was going to lay low for awhile, think again. He’s gone back to lamenting our fallen nation, while lending his support to Governor Rick Perry’s surprise endorsement of organized prayer in schools. Perry, for those of you who missed it, recently took a trip out to the burg of Palestinewhere Supreme Court decisions are evidently about as important to the churchgoing citizenry as those official notices they stick in with the classifiedsand attended a middle-school assembly that opened with a prayer led by a Baptist minister. When questioned about the apparently illegal act by a reporter from the godless city of Austin, Perry opted for a best-defense-is-agood-offense strategy, saying he favors a return to organized prayer in public school. \(“Why not?” he told a reporter. “They took it out. They can sure put it Events took a further discouraging turn, as Democratic gubernatorial candidate Tony Sanchez announced he also favors returning prayer to public school. Many people who thought this issue had been resolved back in 1963, when the Supreme Court ruled against school prayer, contemplated moving to New Mexico. Meanwhile, in a statement praising Perry, Falwell denounced the 1963 decision as having “launched the onset of descent in American education!’ \(Again schools and it is obviously time for a change’ ,’ Falwell wrote. After all, religion in schools .has worked wonders for the Taliban. Wheat, continued from page 16 $14 billion endowment. The Houston Chronicle reported that UTIMCO’s board \(which is appointed by the governor’s handpicked UT System tracts to firms close to Wincluding Carlyle. As of May 2001,.Carlyle controlled more than $15 million of University of Texas public endowment funds. This includes $10.5 million that is commingled in the same Carlyle Partners II Fund where the bin Ladens parked their money. It.is a daunting task to unravel the ties between Texas and Saudi oil money, as well as the ties between the Saudi royal family, the bin Laden clan and Osama bin Laden. In this regard, the people of Saudi Arabia and the United States may share a common fate. We may never know the half of it. Andrew Wheat is research director of Austin-based Texans for Public Justice, a non-partisan, non-profit organization that follows money in Texas politics \(www.tp j.org Editorial, continued from page 3 Aguayo and Edgar Cortez, the current director of the Pro. In a bizarre twist, the anonymous authors . demanded the government pay a ransomto whom?of over $3 million by October 31 as protection money. In recent weeks we have all become numbed by images of death in the United States. Our president has declared a vague, peculiar war against terror. But we need to pay attention to Mexico and a single, terrifying murder. We need to see Digna Ochoa’s death for what it isan act of terror that recalls death squads and dirty wars. And we need to add our voice to those in Mexico and around the worked in urging the Mexican government to ensure the safety of Sergio Aguayo, Edgar Cortez, Miguel Sarre, Juan Antonio Vega, and Fernando Ruiz, and see that it is not repeated. BB 11/9/01 THE TEXAS OBSERVER 31