Ever wonder what’s appearing on the front pages of newspapers across the country and around the world? Now you can, thanks to Washington, D.C.’s new Newseum, which opens its doors to the public tomorrow. The Newseum’s website features 584 front pages from 59 countries.

In response to Washington state’s Republican party chairman calling his state’s extremely close race in favor of John McCain before all the votes were counted, Mike Huckabee told CNN this morning, “That is not what we do in American elections. Maybe that’s how they used to conduct it in the old Soviet Union, but you don’t just throw people’s votes out and say, ‘well, we’re not going to bother counting them because we kind of think we know where this was going.’”

Booth Gardner, former governor of Washington state, has a new campaign: “death with dignity.” Largely because of his own struggle with Parkinson’s disease, Gardner advocates the legalization of assisted suicide for the terminally ill. His logic, according to an article in the New York Times Magazine: “My life, my death, my control.”

Gardner hopes to put an assisted suicide bill on the November 2008 ballot. He needs 225,000 signatures for this to happen, which shouldn’t be difficult when the campaign gets funds from Gardner’s own large fortune and other right-to-die groups.

A similar bill but failed in 1991 after a series of television advertisements helped generate public opposition. Gardner hopes this particular law will be a starting place. Since Parkinson’s is not terminal, this law would not affect him or others with disabilities. He believes they should have the same option.

Both secular and religious groups oppose the bill. Wesley J. Smith, senior fellow of the Discovery Institute and an attorney for the International Task Force on Euthanasia and Assisted Suicide, said the practice is anti-liberal as much as it is anti-religious. Susan Wolf, for instance, told New York Times Magazine that women are especially vulnerable to the view that their lives are no longer valuable. A disproportionate number of women sought Jack Kevorkian’s help to commit suicide. State Senator Margarita Prentice worries that the law will pressure minorities and promote the unequal medical treatment of Latinos.

Smith also discussed the faith-based argument: “All life is a gift from God and engaging in assisted suicide interferes with their obligation to care for the vulnerable and the weak.”

A broad-based coalition must oppose the bill for it to fail, Smith said. This kind of coalition has successfully blocked similar bills in the UK, California and Hawaii. The only state to currently allow the practice is Oregon.

Haven’t heard much about newish Defense Secretary Bob Gates?  That’s because people like him: “On the job for less than a year, Defense Secretary Bob Gates is winning widespread praise for building a bipartisan approach to handling the war and military issues. ‘It’s a breath of fresh air,’ said Sen. Carl Levin, chairman of the Armed Services Committee. ‘He’s far more open minded. He welcomes other ideas, he solicits ideas.’”

Now, I think that constitutes news.