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Other News For The Week Of Mar 1 - Mar 7

This thread is for the busy bees at S&L to post news items themselves.

In order to make the articles as readable as possible, please try to stick to the format described in the first of these weekly editions here.

Of course articles that fit under the topic of a recent thread should be posted there. As always, remember to excerpt heavily and to provide a link to the original source.

Related Articles:

This article was posted by Steve Gilbert on Saturday, March 1st, 2008 at 12:01 am. Comments are currently closed.

83 Responses to “Other News For The Week Of Mar 1 - Mar 7”

BillK
March 1st, 2008 at 12:26 am
From the Las Vegas Review-Journal:

Toxic substance ricin is found in LV hotel room

By Lawrence Mower

A toxic biological agent was found in a suite on Valley View Boulevard near Flamingo Road on Thursday afternoon, but Las Vegas police said they were not searching for a suspect and nobody was harmed by the substance.

Ricin, a substance used for cancer research that has “no other medical use,” was discovered about 3 p.m. by a man who was cleaning out a suite at the Extended Stay America at 4270 S. Valley View Blvd., Joseph Lombardo, a Las Vegas police captain and Homeland Security Bureau chief, said at a news conference about 9:30 p.m.

The man, who told police the toxic agent did not belong to him, took the powdery substance to the manager’s office, and the manager called police.

Lombardo did not elaborate on who the man was.

The man, along with three employees of the long-term stay hotel, were taken to a hospital as a precaution, although they had no signs of being affected by the substance, police said.

Police were not sure about the origin of the substance or why it was in the room. The ricin and castor beans, from which ricin is derived, were found in the suite, although Lombardo did not say how much of the substance was found.

Preliminary tests showed that the substance was ricin, a deadly toxin that can be a powder, a mist or a pellet, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Web site. It also can be dissolved in water.

“Ricin is very serious,” Lombardo said. “Something the size of the head of a pin can be deadly.”

Officials were downplaying the significance of the discovery late Thursday.

http://www.lvrj.com/news/16105692.html

With an update:

Police rule out terrorism as motive in Ricin incident

The Las Vegas hotel suite where vials of the deadly toxin ricin were found Thursday also contained guns and books about anarchy. At a press conference tonight, Las Vegas police said, however, that they have ruled out terrorism as a possible motive. “The Las Vegas Valley is safe,” said Las Vegas police Capt. Joseph Lombardo.

Ruled out terrorism?!?!

Why of course, deadly nerve toxins are always found in Las Vegas hotel rooms. Why not?

“The room also contained guns and books about anarchy” - oh that’s right, according to the left, only events linked to al Qaeda are terrorism.

So the fact that books about anarchy were found in a room with a nerve toxin doesn’t say “domestic terrorism” to anyone?

I can hardly wait to see how the LVPD will spin things if the next Timothy McVeigh parks his rental truck filled with explosives outside a Strip resort.

Could it be the LVPD is downplaying the event because it might speak favorably to the War on Terror (as yes, domestic terrorism is included in that…)

More, from the AP:

Guns, ‘Anarchist Book’ Found in Motel

By Ken Ritter

LAS VEGAS (AP) — Firearms and an “anarchist type textbook” were found in the same motel room where several vials of the deadly toxin ricin was found, police said Friday.

The room was most recently occupied by a 57-year-old man who has been in critical condition with breathing problems at a hospital for more than two weeks.

Las Vegas police said there was no apparent link to terrorist activity, and no indication of any spread of the deadly substance beyond the several vials of powder found in a plastic bag in the man’s room on Thursday. But what the ricin was doing there remained a mystery.

A pinprick of ricin is enough to kill.

“Six to eight hours, you’re going to start showing symptoms,” said Greg Evans, director of the Institute for Biosecurity at Saint Louis University in Missouri.

Capt. Joseph Lombardo said at a press conference late Friday that the book was tabbed at a spot with information about ricin. Lombardo did not give more information about the book or specify what kinds of weapons were found.

A friend or relative of the sick man found the vials after going to the Extended Stay America motel, several blocks west of the Las Vegas Strip, to retrieve his belongings, police Deputy Chief Kathy Suey said.

Tests by police homeland security officers, the Nevada National Guard and a laboratory in Las Vegas came back positive for ricin, she said. A cleanup of the motel has been completed, she added.

Seven people, including the man who found the ricin, the manager, two other motel employees and three police officers, were decontaminated at the scene and taken to hospitals for examination, but none have shown any signs of being affected by ricin, Suey said. All were released overnight.

“There is no information to lead us to believe that this is the result of any terrorist activity or related to any possible terrorist activity,” Suey said. “We don’t have any reason to believe any of it left the property.” …

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/s.....TE=DEFAULT

Wow, just wow.

Suey said the manufacture of ricin is a crime, but it was not clear the substance found belonged to the man, who was hospitalized in critical condition Feb. 14 after summoning an ambulance to the motel and complaining of respiratory distress.

The man was unconscious and unable to speak, Suey said, adding that he was not currently a suspect.

“We don’t know an awful lot about him,” Suey said. “We don’t even know that it was him that was in possession of the ricin.” She said she could not say how much ricin was in the vials.

Cancer research is the only legitimate reason for anyone to have ricin, Evans said.

Ricin is made from processing castor beans, and can be extremely lethal. As little as 500 micrograms, or about the size of the head of a pin, can kill a human, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta.

Castor beans also were found in the man’s room, officials said.

An American Medical Response paramedic crew that took the man to the hospital about 11 a.m. Feb. 14 had no indication of ricin poisoning, AMR general manager John Wilson said.

Wilson would not say whether the two paramedics who handled the call entered the man’s room, but said neither have shown symptoms of exposure.
BillK
March 1st, 2008 at 1:15 am
I generally abstain from posting this idiot’s missives, as they’re from his blog, but his blog is carried on sfgate.com, the official website of the San Francisco Chronicle.

How to hate Barack Obama

Right now, deep in the GOP dungeons, they’re planning their racist, disgraceful assault. Whatever will it be?

By Mark Morford

The name thing is just too damn easy. Childish, sophomoric, a given.

Of course, this doesn’t mean they won’t use it. A lot.

I mean, my God, his middle name is the same as Dubya’s irrelevant little dead arch-enemy and his last name rhymes with that of the most-wanted terrorist in the world and this one’s pretty much already in the can, nothing much for the right to do with Barack Hussein Obama’s moniker except “accidentally” mispronounce it as “Osama Hussein” over and over again on Fox News and at McCain rallies and across Wal-Mart’s loudspeakers so trailer park denizens across Bush’s ‘Merka will get even more confused and panicky and start loading up the bunker with Ding-Dongs and Coors just in case the Muslim radicals take over.

No, the problem for GOP strategists is not how to inflame the troglodytic, Limbaugh/Coulter-grade sects of the party who, assuming Obama goes the distance, are already hugely terrified of the notion of a black liberal president, given how he’ll surely be a slippery slope straight to gay marriage and rampant lesbianism in schools and hourly shriekings to Allah as everyone’s forced to give up their guns and drive a hybrid moped to the tofu store.

The true difficulty facing the GOP’s henchmen in the coming months will be how to get those who are just a tiny bit smarter, calmer, less easily swayed, those on the right who might actually be a bit impressed and charmed by Obama’s obvious intelligence and oratory power, to hate him, fear him, find his genuinely moving brand of hope and inspiration to be suspicious and problematic and even deeply dangerous.

It won’t be easy. Because at the same time, they must make their own unlikely candidate, a feisty but fuzzy 71-year-old war hawk whose entire campaign is apparently now being fueled by a giant hunk of Cold War phlegm, the nauseating notion that not only is a perpetual state of war and aggression desirable for America, but is actually essential to a healthy and functioning nation, they must make John McCain’s musty, patriarchal brand of regurgitated Republicanism seem fresh and visionary and not horribly regressive and embarrassing.

Wish them luck. Or, you know, don’t.

So then, here’s the fun little game all progressives can play until the election itself. Assuming Obama gets the nod, just how will they attack him, smear him, paint him as an evil and untrustworthy force for the nation, the way they did Al Gore and John Kerry? How nefarious, racist, draconian will they get?

We have a few hints, the first one allegedly (if you believe the Drudge Report, which you should almost never do) coming from the Hillary Clinton campaign. That old photo of Obama wearing a traditional head-wrap and robe while visiting Kenya, looking vaguely like a terrorist because as everyone knows, only terrorists wear traditional tribal garments? Not bad. That sort of thing has potential, something the right normally would hurl all over the airwaves as fast as possible, though it mostly just reeks of the same kind of ignorance-baiting as the “Osama Hussein” name game. They’ll have to do better.

What about the shocking lapel-pin scandal, wherein Obama allegedly refused to wear an American flag button, causing a bunch of angry fat white men in the GOP to grumble and pretend to be outraged over his “lack” of patriotism? Sure, it was deeply stupid reaction. Yes, the minor furor was merely meant to enrage the gun-rack-on-the-pickup-truck crowd. But the patriotism angle might be something they can poke at. Hell, they just don’t have much else.

See, unlike Hillary, Obama can’t be effortlessly demonized. He doesn’t have Hillary’s infamous laundry list of faults and transgressions, the enormous built-in wall of hate the right already has for her, her gender, her husband, everything she represents and carries forward from the Bill Clinton era. Smart as she is, Hillary has truckloads of baggage. Obama has but a tiny carry-on.

At the moment, the McCain camp is spinning like mad, trying to find its footing and apparently basing his entire run on permanent tax cuts (the same ones he voted against, twice) and war war war. McCain himself ain’t exactly the world’s sharpest tack, and, given how he’s the presumptive GOP nominee only through a rather astonishing series of flukes and lucky breaks, he has enough trouble of his own just trying to articulate a coherent message that doesn’t offend the entire planet. He’s far short of a master strategist.

What’s more, he has yet to hire one. There’s no true genius hate artist like Karl Rove around anymore to attempt to unify the racists and the white evangelicals and the Latinos and the war-lovers into one giant, seething, Obama-fearing voting bloc. Which might be impossible, but given the deeply fractured nature of the conservative wing, it might be McCain’s only hope. …

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/.....022908.DTL

It just gets worse from here.

I used to think people like Michael Savage were bad, but really, the left has an endless supply of pure hate for anyone to the right of Barbra Streisand.

Of course this idiot would hide behind his “First Amendment rights” all the while spouting that to use a man’s given middle name is somehow hate speech.

One can only imagine what will occur should Obama win, when “hate speech” is redefined to be anything Daily Kos disapproves of.

The worst part of it all? His hate is the same old trite cr*p:

Because here’s the thing: When they stole two elections for Bush, the brutal, homophobic conservative machine was tightly organized, had focus, mountains of cash, Karl Rove, the backing of a very nefarious, deeply inbred team of ultra-wealthy war hawks hell-bent on taking over the nation and ruling with a flaccid peni- … er, iron fist. But now, this monstrous machinery has collapsed, failed, fractured into so many warring factions. There is much foment. There is enormous discord. Iraq is a disaster. Amid the smoking wreckage, McCain stumbles.

Nevertheless, one thing seems certain: We have yet to see the worst — and most deviously racist — of the attacks on Obama. The sad news is, there are simmering pockets of racist hate in this nation that have never really been tested, pockets of such vehement intolerance and power that it’s impossible to know what demons lurk, what sort of outrage will erupt. After all, there is simply no historical precedent for what we are about to get into. No one with Obama’s uniquely appealing makeup has ever made it this close to the White House.

And hence, it’s almost a sure bet that the remnants of Bush’s Republican machine, mangled and disgraced though it is, will still struggle mightily to find a hugely shameful, pitiful pathway toward playing on Middle America’s darkest fears. All puns, unfortunately, intended.
BillK
March 1st, 2008 at 1:23 am
More opinion from the San Francisco Chronicle:

The hidden ‘ism’

By Christine Craft

America feigns pride these days as it prepares to ditch sexism and racism by nominating a woman or a black man as a serious contender for the presidency. Pundits on the left predict that, finally, in 2008 voters will vitalize the constitutional dream that any American can achieve the top office. From the right, we hear, “Just not these two!”

But hold the cuddly feeling.

While sexism hasn’t had the same hideous history of lynchings as its companion “ism,” the case can be made that gender bias is even more prevalent, more accepted, more insidious and more likely to die a drawn-out death. The presidential campaign of Hillary Rodham Clinton is this thesis writ large.

It goes way beyond the insults about Hillary’s un-anorectic ankles if she wears skirts and guffaws when she favors pantsuits. It goes beyond Chris Matthews’ open misogyny on the aptly named “Hardball” when he claims Hillary owes her Senate elections to her husband’s womanizing. He says it accusingly as if Hillary had been the one on her knees. I don’t know what it means when Matthews claims to get “tingling” up his leg when he hears Obama speak.

It goes beyond the criticism leveled at Hillary when her talk turns tough and passionate. That’s the cue to decry her “shrillness,” a polite wink-wink way of saying she is a shrew and a bitch. If she gets a watery eye, it’s either phony or a sign of weakness, not just being human. She is amazingly controlled as a top executive should be, but that’s “coldness.” When her desire to win is the topic, she is sneeringly called “ambitious” as if a would-be president could be anything but.

The debate this week in Cleveland contained examples of the hidden “ism.” Hillary took just umbrage at Obama’s characterization of her supposed cheerleading for NAFTA, a cruel policy for Ohio. On CNN, when former Reagan and Clinton communications director David Gergen defended her as being part of the internal debate he observed at the White House and said she had been a strong voice warning of its potential dangers, the rest of the media and Obama paid no attention. What? Do we expect that the then first lady should have called a press conference to denounce her husband’s NAFTA advocacy? What would she have been called then? Uppity? Obama is of course no fool in any of this. If the hidden, insidious “ism” benefits him, he won’t be objecting.

The next day, I watched a quartet of Fox News women in their stilettos and push-up bras pretend to be enraged feminists when discussing Hillary’s “whining” to NBC’s Brian Williams about always being asked the first question. The Fox anchor-ettes said it was an insult to their hard-won position as professional women. They missed the point that those hosting presidential debates have always varied the order of questions to male contenders out of fundamental journalistic fairness.

It is further alarming when the hidden “ism” flourishes in the voice of a female national radio host. Randi Rhodes of “progressive” Air America blithely jokes about Hillary’s reproductive equipment and the size of her necklace beads. I see also the faux outrage over superdelegates because this long tradition may benefit Sen. Clinton. Time to change the rules. Then there’s the age thing. The early 60s have long been thought to be the perfect age for an American president, not too old, not too young. Suddenly we have to change the rules. Hillary is too old.

History will record whether American women seize their moment or not. But no one should pretend that gender bias isn’t alive and well. Hillary’s campaign has shown it, and I salute her resilience, knowing as she must that many who would reject any scintilla of overt racism would and do easily accommodate the other hidden “ism.”

I was taken aback years ago when I had a conversation with Anita Hill. She told me the most disheartening turn of her righteous objection to the coronation of Clarence Thomas had been the attacks she bore from women. She saw all too clearly then that women were the last n-words, conditioned to denigrate their own kind.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/.....NVAGCM.DTL

At least she’s an equal opportunity ranter, railing against Fox News and Air America.

But don’t you realize, it’s sexist to criticize Hillary. She deserves the job, dammit, even if she got to the position she’s in largely on the coattails of her husband.

Whoops.
The Redneck
March 1st, 2008 at 1:25 am
hat old photo of Obama wearing a traditional head-wrap and robe while visiting Kenya, looking vaguely like a terrorist because as everyone knows, only terrorists wear traditional tribal garments? Not bad. That sort of thing has potential, something the right normally would hurl all over the airwaves as fast as possible,

I thought that was an evil ploy from Hillary. Now we find out it’s the GOP?

if you believe the Drudge Report, which you should almost never do

Only one liberal ever had the guts to sue Drudge for libel. He ended up paying Drudge money.

Otherwise, it’s one of the oldest tricks in the Democrat playbook. When you have nothing for substance, just call your opponent racist.
BillK
March 1st, 2008 at 1:27 am
From the San Francisco Chronicle:

California lost 20,300 jobs in January

By Sam Zuckerman

California employers trimmed payrolls by a seasonally adjusted 20,300 positions in January, the state Employment Development Department reported Friday, the latest sign that a slowing economy is taking a toll on jobs.

The state’s unemployment rate was 5.9 percent in January, unchanged from a revised 5.9 percent in December.

The jobless rate stayed steady largely because the number of people counted in the labor force declined. Workers must be employed or actively looking for jobs to be considered part of the labor force.

The housing slump is undermining the job market throughout the state. But so far, San Francisco has dodged most of the damage.

The metropolitan area, which includes San Mateo and Marin counties, lost only 100 jobs in the finance, insurance and real estate category in the year ended in January 2008. By contrast, the San Jose metro area, which includes Santa Clara and San Benito counties, lost 1,200 such jobs. The Oakland metro area, which includes Alameda and Contra Costa counties, shed 4,400 such jobs.

Now, though, job growth is slowing throughout the region, signaling that a weakening economy is acting as a drag even in the state’s strongest economic region.

In the last six weeks, the San Francisco office of Spherion Corp., a staffing firm that specializes in administrative, technical and financial jobs, has seen assignments drop from about 40 a week to about 25. The slowdown is concentrated among administrative and clerical positions, senior branch manager Stephanie Zeppegno said.

“There are a lot of budget cuts right now,” Zeppegno said. “Things have been put on hold, but most say they’ll give us more business in the second quarter.”

Workers “are not worried about losing their jobs, but they’re leery about leaving their jobs,” Zeppegno added.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/.....PVBJGU.DTL

Schwarzenegger’s plan to eliminate tax breaks for R&D funding aren’t going to help this any.

But now we should be worried because workers are afraid to leave their current jobs?

We’ve certainly come a long way from our fathers and fathers’ fathers who, in the wake of the Great Depression, were actually grateful to be given a job?
BillK
March 1st, 2008 at 1:34 am
From the fans of “time outs” at the AP:

Study: Spanking Can Bring Problems Later

New research by a University of New Hampshire domestic abuse expert says spanking children affects their sex lives as adults. Professor Murray Straus concludes that children who are spanked are more likely as adults to coerce partners to have sex, to have unprotected sex and to have masochistic sex.

Other studies have shown the link between spanking and physical violence, but Straus said his research is the first to show a link between corporal punishment and sexual behavior.

“My underlying motive was to bring this to the attention of parents and of more people,” Straus said, “in the hope it will help continue the decrease in the use of corporal punishment.”

Straus, co-director of UNH’s Family Research Laboratory, conducted a study in the mid-1990s in which he asked 207 students at three colleges whether they’d ever been aroused by masochistic sex. He also asked them if they’d been spanked as children. He found that students who were spanked were nearly twice as likely to like masochistic sex.

He has bundled that study with three new ones that explore the connections between corporal punishment, coerced sex and risky sex. He presented all four studies this week at the American Psychological Association’s Summit on Violence and Abuse in Relationships in Bethesda, Md.

Straus said his study found adults who were spanked as children are more likely to coerce their partners to have sex. …

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/.....546S97.DTL

Oh, please.

Unless there’s a lot more S&M going on than has been generally reported, I dare say most everyone over the age of 45 or so, given the “anti-spanking” trend started taking hold in the mid-1960s, would be deeply into S&M and coercive sex.

Yeah.

The real reason for the study? Of course, dollars:

Previous studies have shown that 90 percent of parents strike their toddlers, a statistic that’s held steady throughout the 30 years Straus has researched corporal punishment. Meanwhile, the number of parents who hit older children has drastically decreased. Straus said it’s unclear why, though he has some theories. One is that 2- and 3-year-olds are less likely to respond to repeated verbal warnings.

Straus said he would like more pediatricians and child-rearing experts to warn against spanking. He’d also like lawmakers to take a stand by dedicating state money to teaching parents about the dangers of corporal punishment.

“The best-kept secret in child psychology is that children who were never spanked are among the best behaved,” Straus said.

Dare we tie this into the recent Pew study regarding the percentage of Americans now in prison?
DW
March 1st, 2008 at 9:09 am
From Cybercast News Service:

Planned Parenthood Agreed to Accept Race-Motivated Donations

By Josiah Ryan
February 28, 2008

(CNSNews.com) - According to telephone conversations taped by a student pro-life publication, The Advocate, at the University of California-Los Angeles (UCLA), Planned Parenthood locations in Ohio and Idaho agreed to accept money targeted at minorities even when racist intentions were expressed.

Planned Parenthood of Central Ohio confirmed to Cybercast News Service that the telephone conversation with a presumed donor occurred in mid-summer 2007, adding that it was not the policy of Planned Parenthood to accept donations specifically to underwrite abortions among minority women.

James O’ Keefe, a first-year law student and an advisor for the The Advocate, made the telephone call posing as a potential donor to Planned Parenthood of Ohio.

Planned Parenthood:”Planned Parenthood Administration, this is Lisa.”
O’Keefe:”Hi. I am interested in making a donation today.”
Planned Parenthood:”Let me put you through to Tim in our development office.”
O’Keefe:”Is there anyone I can speak to now?”
Planned Parenthood:”Me.”
O’Keefe: “Who am I speaking with now?”
Planned Parenthood: “My name is Lisa Hutton.”
O’Keefe: “Lisa, what is your position?”
Planned Parenthood: “Administrative assistant.”
O’Keefe: “When I underwrite an abortion, does that apply to minorities too?”
Planned Parenthood: “If you specifically want to underwrite it for a minority person, you can target it that way. You can specify that that’s how you want it spent.”
O’Keefe: “Okay, yeah, because there’s definitely way too may black people in Ohio. So, I’m just trying to do my part.”
Planned Parenthood: “Hmm. Okay, whatever.”
O’Keefe: “Blacks especially need abortions too. So, that’s what I’m trying to do.”
Planned Parenthood: “Well, for whatever reason, we’ll accept the money.”
O’Keefe:”Great, Thank You.”
Planned Parenthood:”Mmmm, hmmm.”

In another recording given to Cybercast News Service by The Advocate, O’Keefe placed a call to Planned Parenthood of Idaho also on July 10, 2007. A woman answers the phone and identifies herself as Autumn.

She tells the caller it is possible to target African-Americans with their donation. The caller says, “Okay, the abortion … I can give money specifically for a black baby. That would be the purpose.”

Autumn, who apparently is Autumn Kersey, then-director of development at the office, says: “Absolutely. If you wanted to designate that you wanted your gift be used to help an African-American woman in need, then we would certainly make sure that gift was earmarked specifically for that purpose.” Listen to Audio

The caller then says, “Good, because I really face trouble with affirmative action and I don’t want my kids being disadvantaged, you know, against black kids. I just had a baby. I want to put it in his name, you know.” Autumn answers, “Mmmm, absolutely. … Always, always.”

The caller goes on to say: “You know, we just think, the less black kids out there, the better.” And Autumn answers: “Understandable, understandable.”

“All right, excuse my hesitation,” says Autumn. “This is the first time I have had a donor call and make this kind of request, and so I’m excited, and I want to make sure I don’t leave anything out,” she said.

The Advocate has a history of conducting investigations. In May 2007, it released a YouTube video in which Rose, posing as a 15-year-old impregnated by her 23-year-old boyfriend, was accepted for an abortion and encouraged to lie on her paperwork about her true age…

http://www.cnsnews.com/ViewCul.....0228b.html
U NO HOO
March 1st, 2008 at 10:15 am
“Obama’s obvious intelligence”

Say what bro?

It is only March 1, not April 1.

Obama is a lawyer! Not even a hedge fund manager!
DW
March 2nd, 2008 at 9:47 am
From the AP:

Thousands help christen USS New York, new navy ship built with WTC steel

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

AVONDALE, La. - The USS New York, an amphibious assault ship built with scrap steel from the ruins of the World Trade Center, was christened Saturday as a source of strength and inspiration for the country.

Thousands of people, including friends and families of those who died in the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, gathered near the hulking grey ship, trimmed in red, white and blue banners.

The bow stem, which contains about seven tonnes of steel from the site, bore a shield with two grey bars to symbolize the twin towers and a banner over that declaring “Never Forget,” a slogan among New Yorkers.

“May God bless this ship and all who sail on her,” Dotty England said before smashing a bottle of champagne against it, producing a loud thump to go with the spurting liquid and flying streamers.

Full story:
http://cnews.canoe.ca/CNEWS/Wo.....28-ap.html

“May God bless this ship and all who sail on her,”…
Amen.
JohnMG
March 2nd, 2008 at 1:08 pm
“…….How to hate Barack Obama……..”

His list isn’t all-inclusive, though. Any one of us here could add a few more items he neglected to mention.
texaspsue
March 2nd, 2008 at 2:43 pm
“Thousands help christen USS New York, new navy ship built with WTC steel
“May God bless this ship and all who sail on her,”…
Amen.”

Outstanding… I second that sentiment…. AMEN.
U NO HOO
March 2nd, 2008 at 3:32 pm
http://www.wcax.com/Global/sto.....p;nav=4QcS

Winter canceled in New Hampshire, too much snow.
SG
March 2nd, 2008 at 7:38 pm
For all you “March Of The Penguin” fans:

The biggest creche on earth - and surely also the coldest for these king penguins | the Daily Mail
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pag.....ge_id=1811
BillK
March 2nd, 2008 at 7:39 pm
Update, from the AP:

Feds search Utah home in ricin case

RIVERTON, Utah (AP) — FBI agents wearing protective suits searched Sunday for the deadly poison ricin at a suburban home where a man possibly sickened by the deadly poison had once lived.

Authorities believed they had found all of the ricin in several vials recovered Thursday from a Las Vegas motel where Roger Von Bergendorff had been staying, but they wanted to also check the home in Riverton, outside Salt Lake City.

“We are taking all the precautions necessary to ensure public safety,” FBI agent Timothy Fuhrman said at a news conference Sunday.

Roger Von Bergendorff, the focus of the investigation, had lived in the Riverton house for more than a year before moving to Las Vegas about a year ago, said Tammy Ewell, who lives across the street.

“He just barely got by in life. He’d just barely make it,” Ewell said Saturday of the 57-year-old Von Bergendorff.

He lived there with his cousin Thomas Tholen and his wife, said Ewell, who described the couple as close friends.

Officials secured Tholen’s home, but did not immediately search it because they were awaiting court approval for a warrant, FBI spokesman Juan Becerra said later Saturday.

In a brief telephone interview, Thomas Tholen told The Associated Press that Von Bergerdorff was “holding his own” in the hospital.

Tholen, 53, wouldn’t say much more about his cousin or the discovery Thursday of several vials of ricin — which is deadly in minuscule amounts — at Von Bergendorff’s extended-stay motel room on the Las Vegas Strip.

Authorities have not said how much ricin was involved but expressed confidence they have seized all of it. …

Once again, I have to ask, isn’t creation and possession of a nerve toxin in and of itself a terrorist act?

After the vials were taken to the motel office, Tholen and six other people were decontaminated at the scene and taken to hospitals for examination. None have shown any signs of being affected by ricin, officials said.

As little as 500 micrograms of ricin, about the size of the head of a pin, can kill a human, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The only legal use for ricin is cancer research.

What’s next, someone will cook up some Sarin or Tabun and also just be dismissed as an “anarchist type?”

As I mentioned above, I guess by this token McVeigh wasn’t a “terrorist” either.
BillK
March 2nd, 2008 at 8:56 pm
From the Los Angeles Times:

Supreme Court may rethink broadcast indecency

Awards shows have revived the issue of what may be indecent on the public airwaves. The jurists haven’t ruled on the matter in 30 years.

By David G. Savage and Jim Puzzanghera

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court this week may reopen for the first time in more than 30 years the debate over what qualifies as an “indecent” broadcast.

The media environment has changed dramatically since 1978, when the court last ruled on this issue: Today’s viewers and listeners are exposed to the more freewheeling cable TV, Internet and “shock jocks” on satellite radio.

The issue before the court now is delicately described as the problem of “fleeting expletives” in over-the-air broadcasts, which are still regulated. TV viewers who watch the entertainment industry’s awards shows may be familiar with the phenomenon.

“This is really, really f—ing brilliant,” rock singer Bono exclaimed when accepting a 2003 Golden Globes Award for the best original song. His comment went live on NBC.

Upon receiving a Billboard Music Award for career achievement, Cher said the honor proved her critics wrong. “So f— ‘em. I still have a job and they don’t,” the singer-actress said on Fox TV.

After receiving complaints from viewers, the Federal Communications Commission moved to crack down on broadcasters who air “isolated or fleeting expletives” during daytime and early evening hours.

Last year, Fox and the other networks sued to block the new policy, and an appeals court in New York put it on hold.

Now, the FCC is asking the high court to clear the way so the crackdown can be enforced. The justices may act on the agency’s appeal as soon as Monday. If they vote to hear FCC vs. Fox TV, arguments will be heard in the fall.

The appellate judges in New York said the new policy was arbitrary and vague. It does not, for example, say all expletives will trigger fines from the FCC regardless of the circumstances. News programs and movies such as “Saving Private Ryan” have been given exemptions. Including profanity from soldiers on the D-day beaches was not intended to shock or titillate, the FCC said, but help “convey the horrors of war.”

At the same time, the appellate judges hinted that a true ban on all broadcast expletives would violate the 1st Amendment’s free-speech guarantee.

With the agency handcuffed, U.S. Solicitor Gen. Paul D. Clement asked the Supreme Court to intervene and to revive the FCC’s new rule. Unless the high court acts, he said, the TV industry will have complete freedom to air expletives during the hours children and families typically are watching.

If the justices do take on this dispute, they will be obliged to ponder the many meanings of what the lawyers call the f-word and the s-word. Federal law does not provide much guidance. It forbids the broadcasting of “any obscene, indecent or profane language.” Congress has left it to the FCC to decide what that means.

In 1978, the court agreed with the FCC that comedian George Carlin’s “seven dirty words” monologue, when broadcast on the radio at midafternoon, was indecent. But the 5-4 decision in FCC vs. Pacifica Foundation was narrow. As one justice said, Carlin used words that “to most people are vulgar and offensive,” and he repeated them “over and over again as a sort of verbal shock treatment.”

Afterward, the FCC adopted this distinction. It described “indecency” as words or pictures that focus on “sexual or excretory organs” and which “dwell on or repeat at length” the descriptions. That rule seemed to leave a loophole for the occasional vulgar word that slipped into a broadcast.

The FCC changed course after it was flooded with complaints from grass-roots groups over vulgarities on entertainment awards shows. In March 2004, a month after an outcry over the brief exposure of Janet Jackson’s breast during the Super Bowl’s halftime show, the FCC commissioners adopted a near zero-tolerance policy for fleeting expletives. Their new rule said “any use of [the f-word] or a variation, in any context, inherently has a sexual connotation.”

FCC Chairman Kevin J. Martin said certain words were so offensive that children needed to be shielded from them on the public airwaves between 6 a.m. and 10 p.m.

“Can’t a television network wait until 10 p.m. to say [the f-word]?” asked Timothy Winter, president of the Parents Television Council, whose group has pressed for a crackdown on indecency. If the courts block the new rule from taking effect, “it absolutely would open the floodgates,” he said.

But broadcasters said they have no desire to air expletives, noting that they don’t allow them even after 10 p.m., when they are permitted under FCC rules. They’re simply trying to make sure that when an unscripted expletive is used — most often by a celebrity who is not a network employee — it does not result in a large fine. …

http://www.latimes.com/news/na.....5069.story

It’s hilarious that these LA Times writers would dare to make this comment about broadcasters, when the trade rags have been reporting for years that the broadcast networks “can’t compete” with cable because cable can show nudity and use profanity - the most prominent example being network execs claiming if they could show something like The Sopranos on broadcast TV, the networks wouldn’t be hurting. Yeah.

What I find most hilarious is that these authors always claim profanity is no big deal, yet big liberal papers like the Los Angeles Times and New York Times remain afraid, even today, to use the offending words in print, resorting to “f—ing” and referring to George Carlin’s “seven dirty words.”

So why, precisely, if your management won’t allow you to print those words, should television stations be allowed to broadcast those words?

Just asking.
BillK
March 2nd, 2008 at 8:59 pm
From the Los Angeles Times:

A $68 million sale in Malibu

News item: Ruth Ryon’s Hot Property reports that Nancy Daly Riordan (pictured), the estranged wife of former L.A. Mayor Richard Riordan, has sold a Malibu beach house for an estimated $68 million. “It is believed to be the highest-priced home sale in Malibu, dwarfing the sale last year of the former Johnny Carson estate at $35 million.”

“The 12,785-square-foot house, which stands out from its neighbors because it is so large, sits on slightly more than three lots with more than 200 feet of beach frontage along exclusive Carbon Beach — also known as ‘Billionaires Beach.’ The mansion, built in 2002, has eight bedrooms, seven bathrooms and a tennis court.”

More: “The buyer was described as ‘a rich Canadian’ by area real estate agents.” …

http://latimesblogs.latimes.co.....on-sa.html

Forgive me for daring to ask, but I don’t care who bought it or where the money came from.

Isn’t the fact that a Mailbu home sold for a record $68 million a sign that the real estate market is working as it should?

Oh that’s right, that’s economics, and we shouldn’t worry our heads about such things, the Federal Government will take care of that for us.
BillK
March 2nd, 2008 at 9:05 pm
Shocker: Putin’s hand-picked successor wins in a landslide.

From the AP:

Putin, Medvedev Pledge Unified Path

By Vladimir Isachenkov

Dmitry Medvedev, the man Vladimir Putin hand-picked to be his successor, scored a crushing victory in Russia’s presidential elections Sunday, a result that was long anticipated but that still raises questions about who will run this resurgent global power.

With ballots from 80 percent of the precincts counted, Medvedev had more than 69 percent of the vote, according to the Central Election Commission. Communist Party chief Gennady Zyuganov had 18 percent, it said.

Medvedev was on course to win about 70 percent, according to a poll by the All-Russia Opinion Research Center, or VTsIOM.

He is expected to rule in concert with his mentor, an arrangement that could see Putin calling the shots despite his constitutionally subordinate position as Russia’s prime minister.

Medvedev, 42, the youngest Russian ruler since the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution, is expected to heed Putin’s advice, continue his assertive course with the West, maintain state control over Russia’s mineral riches and freeze out real opposition movements.

“We will increase stability, improve the quality of life and move forward on the path we have chosen,” Medvedev said Sunday, appearing alongside Putin at a celebration at the Red Square outside the Kremlin. “We will be able to preserve the course of President Putin.”

Putin said Medvedev “has taken a firm lead” and congratulated his protege.

“Such a victory carries a lot of obligations,” Putin said. “This victory will serve as a guarantee that the course we have chosen, the successful course we have been following over the past eight years, will be continued.”

Medvedev ran against three rivals apparently permitted on the ballot because of their loyalty to the Kremlin line. But the two candidates — Zyuganov and ultranationalist Vladimir Zhirinovsky — still alleged violations after the voting ended.

Zyuganov said he would dispute the result, and Zhirinovsky threatened to do so as well, before backing down.

Some voters complained of pressure to cast ballots for Medvedev, and critics called the election a cynical stage show to ensure unbroken rule by Putin and his allies.

Sunday’s vote came after a tightly controlled campaign and months of political maneuvering by Putin, who appeared determined to keep a strong hand on Russia’s reins while maintaining the basic trappings of electoral democracy and leaving the constitution intact.

Medvedev has said he would propose making Putin his prime minister, and Putin has said he would agree. But in Russia, the premier wields significantly less power than the president, and Putin may find his new chair narrow and confining.

At a news conference early Monday, Medvedev was asked who would run foreign affairs — him or the prime minister. “Under the constitution, the president determines foreign policy,” he said. …

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/.....&tsp=1

Sort of reminds one of the questions regarding Bill’s role in a Hillary Clinton administration.
JohnMG
March 2nd, 2008 at 9:40 pm
….” Medvedev was asked who would run foreign affairs — him or the prime minister. “Under the constitution, the president determines foreign policy,” he said. …”

We didn’t have to go half way around the world to find this. It be the same-o, same-o as 90 miles from Florida. You’d swear this was the Castro & Castro show!

I fear for the future.
candy
March 3rd, 2008 at 2:44 pm
From the Associated Press:

NYC Cabbie Says He Was Trying to Help

March 03, 2008 8:54 AM EST

NEW YORK - A livery cab driver initially hailed as a hero said he was just trying to do “the right thing” when he told a tale of finding a baby girl abandoned in his car.

Driver Klever Sailema was commended after he took the 6-month-old girl to a Queens firehouse Thursday and told authorities an unknown man had left her in his car and disappeared. But Sailema, who prosecutors say faces charges, said he lied to save the girl.

Under questioning by detectives, he admitted he knew the mother’s family in the Bronx and had participated in the plan to abandon the baby.

“I feel bad, but ultimately I feel like I did the right thing,” the Ecuadorean immigrant told the Daily News for Monday’s editions. “My intentions were not to lie to the police.”

Sailema was arraigned late Saturday on charges of falsely reporting an incident and criminal facilitation, prosecutors said. His girlfriend, Maria Siavichay, was arraigned on a charge of criminal facilitation.

A judge released Sailema and Siavichay, 21, without bail and ordered them to appear in court April 7.

The baby’s 14-year-old mother probably would not be charged because of her age, police said. The baby’s father, identified by police only as Siavichay’s 27-year-old brother, was being sought. The baby has been placed in a foster home.

Sailema and Siavichay’s lawyer, Kevin Faga, said the driver had “acted responsibly for the welfare of the child.”

“These are good people, and this was a case of people doing their best to do what they thought was right for the child,” he said. “Unfortunately, what they thought was right appears to be contrary to what the law allows.”

A state safe haven law allows parents unable to care for newborns to leave them anonymously at hospitals, police stations or firehouses without risking prosecution, but it applies only to children up to 5 days old.

Sailema said he was asked to drop off the girl, Daniella, for the overwhelmed family at the firehouse because he was the only one in the country legally. He said Siavichay pleaded with him to drop off the girl. Finally, he said he relented.

“I was afraid the baby might end up abandoned in the bitter cold,” Sailema told the News. “I knew the baby would be taken care of and be in good hands. There was nothing else to be done.”

http://enews.earthlink.net/art.....-856919637

Yeah, a 27 year old illegal immigrant got a 14 year old illegal girl pregnant, but the real story is about how they leave the baby on the firemens doorstep,

These people dont know any better, but at least they did the right thing by abandoning their illegitimate child to be cared for by the loving government and taxpayers dollars, they didnt know it was illegal but their hearts were in the right place

Makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside.
BillK
March 3rd, 2008 at 4:49 pm
The left in action.

From CBS News and the AP:

Eco-Terror Eyed In Washington State Arson

4 Multimillion-Dollar Show Homes Set Ablaze; Earth Liberation Front Sign Left At Scene

Explosive devices were found inside multimillion-dollar show homes that burned in a suburb north of Seattle Monday, fire officials said. Authorities also found a spray-painted sign purportedly left by a radical environmental group at the scene.

Fire Chief Rick Eastman of Snohomish County District 7 said fire crews discovered the devices inside the houses and were able to remove them.

A total of five devices were found, reports CBS affiliate KIRO-TV in Seattle. A device in one home apparently didn’t go off.

The FBI said the fires in the four homes were being investigated as a potential domestic terrorism act. Agents from the FBI and Federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms were assisting local authorities in the investigation.

No injuries were reported from the fires, which began before dawn in the wooded subdivision and were still smoldering by midmorning.

The sign, a white sheet that had the initials of the Earth Liberation Front in scraggly red letters, mocked claims the luxury homes on the “Street of Dreams” were environmentally friendly, according to video images of the sign aired by KING-TV.

“Built Green? Nope black!” the sign said.

The fires started at a strip of unoccupied, furnished luxury model homes where developers show off the latest in high-end housing, interior design and landscaping. The homes are later sold.

The blazes were set in multiple places in separate houses, Eastman said. He confirmed that the ELF sign was found at the scene of the fires in the community north of Woodinville, where some homes were still under construction.

The ELF, or Earth Liberation Front, is a loosely organized collection of radical environmentalists authorities say is responsible for other arsons in the Northwest.

ELF is considered a domestic terrorist organization by the FBI, reports CBS News correspondent Bob Orr.

A woman is currently trial in Tacoma for a suspected ELF fire at the University of Washington in 2001. Briana Waters, a 32-year-old violin teacher, is accused of serving as a lookout while her friends planted a devastating fire bomb.

The fire is one of the most notorious in a string of arsons that investigators say were perpetrated from the mid-1990s to 2001 by ELF. …

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories.....9035.shtml

You know, the funniest thing about these ELF attacks here, and of course at Vail a few years back, is that the attacked structures inevitably get rebuilt, often larger and better than before, meaning they’ve just doubled the resources used.

But then again I’m assuming the left uses logic, which is where the argument falls on its face.

I’ll also draw attention to the “4″ used in the subhead above, showing that the author and editor were of course asleep in grammar class. Not surprising.
BillK
March 3rd, 2008 at 4:53 pm
The AP tries to nail Bush to the wall, but just can’t:

Bush: No Promises On Troop Withdrawals

Declines To Repeat Administration Promises Of Bringing U.S Troops From Iraq Before Term’s End

President Bush declined Saturday to repeat promises made by others in his administration that more U.S. troops will return home from Iraq than scheduled before he leaves office.

Decisions about troop cuts beyond those now planned through July would be based on generals’ recommendations, the president said.

“There is going to be enormous speculation,” he said in a joint appearance at his ranch with Denmark’s prime minister, Anders Fogh Rasmussen. But, Bush said, “My sole criteria is that whatever we do, it ought to be in the context of success.”

He did suggest strongly that Iraq’s provincial elections in October will require bringing more troops home to wait until after the voting.

“I think our generals ought to be concerned about making sure there’s enough of a presence so that the provincial elections can be carried out in such a way that democracy advances,” he said.

A senior administration official had told reporters during a briefing Friday at the White House, “I fully expect there to be more reductions this year — and so does the president.”

Troop withdrawals are scheduled to bring the U.S. force presence in Iraq down to 15 brigades by July, for a troop total of about 140,000. …

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories.....6087.shtml

Notice the key phrase above:

President Bush declined Saturday to repeat promises made by others in his administration that more U.S. troops will return home from Iraq than scheduled before he leaves office.

“Others in his administration” can promise anything they like.

It’s ultimately the President’s call.

Pity that Obama may well be in that position next January.
BillK
March 3rd, 2008 at 5:12 pm
From Television Week, more tears and fearmongering over the FCC:

FCC Has Chilling Effect on Shows

By Punishing On-Air Indecency, Agency Affects What Airs

By Ira Teinowitz

Federal Communications Commission Chairman Kevin Martin may be winning the fight he has picked with TV networks that air racy programming.

Mr. Martin’s agency lost the last major indecency court case in federal appeals court and he’s awaiting the Supreme Court’s decision on whether it will resuscitate that action against Fox.

But the FCC’s legal setbacks aside, groups that represent show creators say the agency’s crackdown is affecting which shows end up on broadcast TV, and which shots or lines get pulled.

Does that mean that without winning a decisive battle, the FCC is winning the war?

“Look at what happened to Ken Burns’ documentary [“The War”], re-edited and bleeped for language,” said Jonathan Rintels, executive director of the Center for Creative Voices in Media. “When you see a PBS station refusing to air a documentary about Marie Antoinette [because of a suggestive drawing in one scene], this is truly impacting broadcast television.”

Center supporter Steven Bochco’s “NYPD Blue” is the subject of the FCC’s latest obscenity push. Last month the agency fined ABC and some of its stations more than $1.2 million for a 2003 episode of the show that showed an actress’s bare buttocks.

In another case brought last week, 13 Fox stations were fined a total of $91,000 for a 2003 episode of “Married by America” that featured pixelated strippers at a bachelor and bachelorette parties.

ABC is appealing the fine in court. Fox hasn’t yet decided whether to appeal.

Meanwhile, hanging over these cases is the most notorious case of recent years, Janet Jackson’s 2004 Super Bowl halftime “wardrobe malfunction.” An appellate court is expected to rule shortly on the FCC’s fining 20 CBS stations a total of $550,000 for indecency.

Dan Isett, director of public policy for the Parents Television Council, a group that has pushed some of the indecency complaints, said he is hopeful the actions are making broadcasters think twice before they air indecent content. But he’s not convinced it has had a significant effect.

He cited a recent “Las Vegas” episode that had three women stripping in the middle of a casino, as well as segments of “Good Morning America” and “Today” on which Diane Keaton and Jane Fonda used obscenities on the air.

“Make no mistake. The [five-year] delay in acting is disappointing, but the most important thing is that the law is being applied,” said Mr. Isett. “It sends a message to broadcasters and the entertainment industry that they must abide by broadcast decency.” …

http://www.tvweek.com/news/200.....on_sho.php

Isn’t “By Punishing On-Air Indecency, Agency Affects What Airs” an apt description of what the FCC is supposed to be doing?!?!

The article closes with:

Robin Bronk, executive director of the Creative Coalition, agreed that the FCC is changing how TV programmers do business.

“I keep having members coming up to me saying ‘I wanted to use that line or I wanted to take on that issue and I can’t because it would be taken out,’” said Ms. Bronk, whose group was formed in 1989 by Hollywood stars including Alec Baldwin, Ron Silver and Susan Sarandon to spotlight First Amendment issues.

Adam D. Thierer, a senior fellow at the Peace & Progress Foundation, suggested the FCC’s indecency’s enforcement action could push content not only to cable but to the Web. He questioned the logic of limiting content on broadcast TV but providing it on other platforms.

“The real follow about this is that the ‘NYPD Blue’ fine probably drove more young eyes to see it on YouTube than on television,” he said. “Increasingly, broadcast decency enforcement is more about protecting adults from themselves than it is about protecting their kids. Kids aren’t in the broadcast audience. They’ve flocked to alternative platforms.”

Mr. Thierer also speculated that the wave of FCC indecency actions could signal that the Bush era at the FCC is ending. Mr. Martin, a champion of indecency enforcement, wouldn’t remain chairman under a Democratic president and is unlikely to remain under a John McCain presidency. The agency may be moving quickly to further its agenda before a change in staff, he said.

Compare the comments above from an industry publication with the article I posted above from the Los Angeles Times, in which broadcasters are described as:

But broadcasters said they have no desire to air expletives, noting that they don’t allow them even after 10 p.m., when they are permitted under FCC rules.

Hmmm, little dichotomy there, no?

This is like the B.S. a few years back with some stations refusing to show Saving Private Ryan because it was unedited; those stations could have avoided issues by simply delaying the start time of the film, but instead they refused to show it altogether and blamed the “environment” at the FCC.

Note also that The War was produced in two versions - an edited and unedited version, with the edited version intended for early showings and school use and the latter for showings after 10:00 PM.

It matters not whether the unedited bits are available on the Internet; what matters is if they’re broadcast into viewers’ homes.

If parents’ children are viewing the content on the net, that’s a failing of the parents.
SG
March 3rd, 2008 at 6:31 pm
From Arab News:

Man Butchers 15-Month-Old Nephew in Jeddah Supermarket

JEDDAH, 3 March 2008 — Early morning shoppers at a supermarket in Jeddah were left reeling yesterday, with some falling unconscious, after a well-built Syrian man clinched a knife and decapitated his 15-month-old nephew in front of his mother in the store’s fruit and vegetable section.

In a brutal murder that has shocked the city, the 25-year-old man beheaded the boy, who was out shopping with his mother — in full glare of shoppers and staff at Al-Marhaba supermarket on Sari Street around 9.30 a.m. The man, who is the boy’s maternal uncle, apparently killed the boy following a dispute with his sister and brother-in-law.

Eyewitnesses said that the man picked up a knife from inside the store and severed the boy’s head. The mother and a shopper standing close by fainted, while several other stood in shock and disbelief over what had happened.

A police officer, who spoke on condition of anonymity, told Arab News, “The murderer was in a dispute with the boy’s mother and her husband. He chopped off the boy’s head in front of the mother to get back at her.” He added that the mother has been left traumatized and is in hospital. The boy’s father was at work at the time of the incident.

Following the murder, police sealed off the supermarket while forensic experts gathered evidence. Ambulances were also called to the scene. The supermarket reopened for business at around 1.15 p.m. “It happened so quickly. Before people could intervene, the man had cut more than half way through the child’s neck,” said Abu Muhammad, a grandfather in his mid-60s.

A Saudi till attendant at a nearby cafe said, “One of my colleagues went to see what was going on and returned shivering. He saw the kid’s body and so we gave him the day off. He was in a bad state.”

An eyewitness, who lives in the neighborhood, said that the victim’s family lived close by and frequented the supermarket. “I’ve seen the murderer carrying the same child and playing with him on a number of occasions,” he added.

“No one could bear the gruesome sight of the boy’s decapitated body lying on the floor,” said Muneer, a Turkish car mechanic, who works at a garage close by. “How could someone do such a thing? I just can’t understand it… I still can’t believe it,” he said, shaking his head.

When the store reopened, employees were still in a state of shock. A guard, standing at the entrance, stood frozen and oblivious to the rush of shoppers. Pain and anguish were writ large on his face.

http://tinyurl.com/27eb7u
BillK
March 3rd, 2008 at 7:27 pm
From the AP:

Unexpected Soap Protest Favors Gay Kiss

By David Bauder

NEW YORK — The love affair between two young men on the venerable CBS soap opera “As the World Turns” has triggered a protest campaign by angry viewers.

It’s just not the sort of protest you’d expect.

Fans of the fictional romance between Luke Snyder and Noah Mayer are baffled about why the two characters haven’t kissed on-screen since September, wondering whether it’s a sign of squeamishness by CBS or show sponsors Procter & Gamble Co.

The fans have started a letter-writing campaign, posted an online petition and even have a Web site that counts the days, hours, minutes and seconds since Luke and Noah last locked lips.

“We totally support this show and applaud the show for doing this story line,” said Roger Newcomb, a computer worker from New York’s northern suburbs and the man behind the campaign. “We just don’t understand why they have to be censored or treated differently.”

“As the World Turns,” which premiered in 1956, had the first gay male character in daytime drama in 1988. Last August was another milestone — believed to be the first time two gay men kissed on a soap — when Luke surprised Noah with the sign of affection.

They kissed again in September, at a time Noah was still coming to grips with being gay. But since officially becoming a couple, their lips have been sealed.

Fans first sensed the new attitude around Christmas, during a tender scene where the two men proclaimed their love for one another. It was clear they were about to kiss, but the camera instead panned up and focused on some mistletoe.

“I’ve been watching soaps for decades,” Newcomb said, “and that doesn’t happen.”

Valentine’s Day featured fantasy sequences involving several of the show’s couples. All the stories ended in a kiss, except for Luke and Noah’s. They hugged.

That’s when the campaign started.

“There are some people who want to see sex between Luke and Noah,” said 34-year-old Theresa Webber, who lives north of Boston. “I’ve been watching soaps long enough to know that they’re a teenage couple, so it’s not going to happen anyway. But for them to not kiss at all, it’s a little extreme.” …

http://www6.comcast.net/tv/art.....ng.Kisses/

No agendas being pushed here.
BillK
March 3rd, 2008 at 7:35 pm
From the Times of London, proof foreign-born actors are also loons:

Marion Cotillard ‘in shock’ over 9/11 row, but will not apologise

By Charles Bremner

Marion Cotillard, the Oscar-winning French actress, will not apologise over remarks she made describing the 9/11 attacks as a conspiracy and believes that the comments had been taken out of context and misunderstood.

Cotillard, who won the Best Actress statuette last week for her portrayal of Edith Piaf in La Vie en Rose, has claimed that the September 11 atrocity had been orchestrated by the owners of the Twin Towers.

The comments, made in an interview first broadcast a year ago, have resurfaced on the internet since her Oscar victory.

Cotillard said that the towers were destroyed not as part of a terrorist plot, but because it would have been too expensive to rewire them. She also reheated an old conspiracy theory about the 1969 moon landing never having happened.

The actress’s agent, Bastien Duval, told The Times that Cotillard, who charmed the crowd with her emotional acceptance speech after winning her Oscar, was “still in shock” at the angry reaction to her comments in the United States.

Mr Duval said that the interview was filmed after a broadcast on Coluche, a French comedian killed in a motorcycle accident in 1986, and she had simply made clear that she intended to form her own opinion about the events of September 11 rather than follow the official version, that it was a terrorist attack led by al-Qaeda.

“This reportage has been taken out of context and one can only condemn such practices,” he said. …

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/t.....477645.ece

Cool, the “truthers” have a new pinup girl:

The New York Post has said that the 32-year-old actress had jeopardised the goodwill created by her Oscar win with her comments about the “money-sucking” towers.

It pointed out that she was soon to start filming her biggest role yet, in Public Enemies with Johnny Depp.

Readers of the Post’s online edition were less charitable, dozens of them posting comments attacking Cotillard.

“She’s just another moron talking about a subject she knows nothing about,” said one. “The fact the she’s also French adds insult to injury.”

An AFP report summarizes:

Oscar winner Cotillard backs 9/11 conspiracy theories

French actress Marion Cotillard, who picked up an Oscar for best actress in Hollywood last week, has admitted to having doubts about the official version of the September 11 attacks in the US.

“I think we’re lied to about a lot of things,” she said during a television programme first broadcast last year which has resurfaced on the Internet.

The actress, who picked up the award for playing Edith Piaf in the French film “La Vie En Rose,” cited the attacks on New York and Washington in 2001 as one example, adding: “I tend to believe in the conspiracy theory.”

Cotillard could not be reached Sunday but her lawyer, Vincent Toledano, told AFP she had “never intended to contest nor question the attacks of September 11, 2001, and regrets the way old remarks have been taken out of context.”

In the video, the 32-year-old Parisian talks about watching films on the internet challenging the official version of the September 11 attacks, saying “its fascinating, even addictive.”

She continues: “Did man really walk on the moon? Me, I’ve seen a fair few documentaries on the subject. That, really, I question. In any case I don’t believe everything people tell me, that’s for sure.”

http://www.breitbart.com/artic....._article=1
BillK
March 4th, 2008 at 2:42 am
From an excited AP:

Buffett: We’re already in recession

OMAHA, Neb. — Billionaire Warren Buffett said today that the U.S. economy is essentially in a recession even if it hasn’t met the technical definition of one yet.

Buffett said in an interview with cable network CNBC the reports he gets from the retail businesses his holding company owns show a significant slowdown in purchases.

The chairman and CEO of Omaha-based Berkshire Hathaway Inc. said millions of people have also lost equity in their homes because home prices have dropped.

“I would say, by any commonsense definition, we are in a recession,” Buffett said on CNBC.

But Buffett said it’s not clear how far the recession will go because that is difficult to predict.

The technical definition of a recession most economists use is two consecutive quarters of negative growth in the nation’s gross domestic product.

On Thursday, the Commerce Department reported that the gross domestic product increased at a low 0.6 percent pace in the quarter that ended Dec. 31. …

http://www.madison.com/tct/business/275318

So it doesn’t matter what the actual definition of a recession is, or if government statistics show we aren’t even half way there (the definition being two quarters of negative growth and we haven’t even had one) - if Buffett says it it must be true.

Hell, let’s let Buffett and Soros define everything.

Ever notice the rich aren’t evil when they’re liberals?

Of course those beloved retail businesses Buffett speaks of are suing him:

DQ legal challenge spreads to 10 states

EDINA , Minn. (Feb. 28, 2008) Three Dairy Queen franchisee groups have joined the lawsuit that was filed against franchisor American Dairy Queen by an association of Michigan licensees, echoing the first plaintiff’s allegations that the company is forcing them to convert their units into new concepts at a cost of as much as $450,000 per store.

ADQ denies that it’s forcing the franchisees to revamp their conventional DQ outlets into either a DQ Grill & Chill or a DQ/Orange Julius Treat Center. The former is a fast-casual update of the DQ concept, featuring a broader menu and limited table service. The latter is a combination store that requires the retrofit of an Orange Julius drink outlet.

The lawsuit says that about 105 Grill & Chill units have opened to date in the United States and that two have closed.

Chuck Mooty, chief executive of ADQ operating company International Dairy Queen, also refuted the Grill & Chill conversion price of $450,000 that was stated in the lawsuit. He said the changeover cost averages $15,000 to $20,000, and he stressed that the expenditure is voluntary.

According to ADQ, contracts with franchisees do require them to modernize their restaurants periodically but they cap required investments at $75,000 for 2008, $85,000 for 2009 and $95,000 for 2010. The contracts do not require franchisees to change their concepts, Mooty said.

The lawsuit was originally filed by the Michigan Dairy Queen Operators’ Association. The new plaintiffs are the Arizona Dairy Queen Operators’ Association, the Heartland Dairy Queen Operators’ Association and the North Eastern Shore Operators’ Association. The new plaintiffs represent franchisees in Illinois, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Maryland, Arizona, West Virginia, Virginia, Kentucky and Missouri. The four franchisee groups participating in the suit represent a minority of the chain’s franchisees.

The suit was filed in the U.S. District Court in the Western District of Michigan.

Dairy Queen and its corporate parent, Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway, oversee about 5,700 units worldwide, including some 4,700 in the U.S.

http://www.nrn.com/breakingNews.aspx?id=351134 (Note: Article may go subscription-only at any time)

Buffett’s such a smart, wise man - who apparently doesn’t see any harm in forcing those retail businesses with reduced sales to modernize their businesses to the tune of $75K+/year.
BillK
March 4th, 2008 at 4:27 am
A great piece from a columnist in the Denver Post:

Where have all the superheroes gone?

By David Harsanyi

In a world crawling with merciless terrorists, corrupt politicians and sociopath hedge-fund managers, we need a fictional hero to save us.

Or are we so unsure of ourselves, so morally conflicted, that we can’t even win in fantasy?

Back in 1941, Captain America, a purely political creation, was charged with a single task: to kick Nazi butt. The Captain, in fact, confronted the Germans before the United States did, in one issue punching Adolf Hitler’s lights out.

One of Captain America’s creators claimed that during the late ’30s and early ’40s, “the opponents to the war were all quite well organized. We wanted to have our say, too.” And soon enough, Wonder Woman and scores of other fictional champions of the American Way employed guile and fists — unilaterally — to confront the depraved Axis powers. And Captain America went about his business without permission from Congress.

Comic book heroism wasn’t exclusively about warfare, of course. Superman, the über-superhero, was defined by another distinct notion of patriotism. Comic-book scholar Roger Sabin contends that the Great Depression and “the liberal idealism of Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal” formed Superman’s left-leaning ethos. As the “savior of the helpless and oppressed,” Clark Kent’s alter-ego rarely concerned himself with international threats. Instead, he pursued shady cigar-chewing corporate magnates, devious politicians and even went toe-to-toe with the Ku Klux Klan in one famous radio broadcast. In his spare time, naturally, he was a journalist.

Later, American kids had GI Joe. There were at one point four GI Joe figures, each representing a different branch of the armed forces. GI Joe, though, wasn’t completely fictional. The Marine figure for a time actually celebrated wartime heroism. The doll was based on Mitchell Paige, a recipient of the Medal of Honor during World War II, who single-handedly stopped an entire Japanese regiment by himself.

For my generation, superheroes morphed from comic books to larger-than-life cinematic action heroes. These pugilists fought crime without being hampered by annoyances like Miranda rights or double jeopardy. John Rambo, after fighting the war at home in his first movie, assisted Afghans in taking down the entire Soviet invasion force by his third. Former karate champ Chuck Norris traveled to Vietnam to avenge the lost war and rescue prisoners left behind by a nation too weak to care.

All of it was cathartic.

Revenge and justice, in fact, could be unearthed everywhere in pop culture. When the detective duo of “Lethal Weapon 2″ shot a South African diplomat — who was not only a racist, but also a drug dealer — in the head, all those who oppose apartheid could feel just a little better about the world.

This brand of moral absolutism is frowned upon these days. Our nation seems unable to serve up fictional characters without weighing them down with moral ambiguity and layers of complex emotional baggage. Our cinematic heroes are most often tortured, imperfect souls, even when they do good. We’ve become so cynical, in fact, that we can’t even imagine ourselves as unconditionally in the right. Sure, we still have Rambo, but at 60 and with a questionable grasp of his mental facilities, no one is overly confident.

Nowadays, movies are more likely to offer portents of destruction and a disturbing future. We are faced with environmental disasters in “The Day After Tomorrow.” Or “Cloverfield,” wherein a monster tears the head off the Statue of Liberty, then terrorizes a gaggle of hipsters in Manhattan. Ultra-sadistic horror and disaster flicks — a staple of another decade of unease, the ’70s — are the flavor of the day.

The only mainstream politically escapist entertainment we can find today is the television show “24,” which follows the adventures of counterterrorist agent Jack Bauer, played by Kiefer Sutherland. Each season, Bauer untangles terrorist schemes jeopardizing the lives of thousands. Incredibly, in a 24-hour span — over and over again — Bauer rescues the unsuspecting public from colossal catastrophe.

Bauer, to be kind, isn’t tethered to the tenets of the Geneva Conventions or overly concerned about the FISA court. Bauer has an imaginary job to do, after all. And to extract valuable information from suspects, he tortures them. Occasionally, he tortures them emotionally, but mostly he tortures them physically. He almost always gets what he needs.

The problem is that the show’s sixth season saw ratings fall. Producers claimed they had difficulty recruiting actors, many of whom, according to The Wall Street Journal, “disapproved of the show’s depiction of torture.” Head writer Howard Gordon told the paper that, “The fear and wish-fulfillment the show represented after 9/11 ended up boomeranging against us. We were suddenly facing a blowback from current events.”

Now, I oppose torture. And by torture, I mean listening to moralizing actors who can’t differentiate between an escapist action show and reality. Playing a role on “24″ is no more an endorsement of torture than playing a run-of-the-mill, misogynistic murderer is an endorsement of serial killers. At least in this sort of fiction, the public can forget we have an incompetent CIA and for 24 hours pretend that someone somewhere is actually on top of global terrorism.

In any event, “24″ producers were told to “re-imagine” the show, so we can look forward to a kinder, gentler Jack Bauer.
And GI Joe? He reportedly no longer takes orders from the U.S. government. In a movie due out next year, Joe is commanded by a “European-based military unit known as Global Integrated Joint Operating Entity (GIJOE).” Perhaps he’ll track down global warming deniers and copyright infringers.

Last we heard from the real Captain America, he was protesting a new federally mandated law requiring all “super-powered” individuals to register with the government. Such laws, he believed, were an assault on civil rights of the “superhero community.” He was killed by an assassin’s bullet soon after. I kid you not.

Some say that popular culture is typically a reflection of our national psyche.

http://www.denverpost.com/opinion/ci_8401191

He’s so right. In a mere twenty years we’ve gone from the pride of being American (once again) at the end of the Reagan era to seeming malaise even worse than was in place at the end of the Carter administration, due largely to the constant browbeating from the MSM, media and all other things left.

Captain America? Nope, it’s Captain Planet, battling the evil Americans and their nefarious plans spread by big corporations to warm the Earth and kill the Polar Bears.

Somehow Reagan’s America has been soundly defeated and in its place Obama will make Carter seem like, well, Reagan. The Shining City on the Hill is now the waster of Global Resources to produce that shine and the enslaver of the Honest Peasants who work to maintain that shine day to day.

How did this happen? How did our youth get indoctrinated? (Liberal teachers in liberal schools paid for with government money? Nah. Religion shall have no place in public schools except should one dare blaspheme by speaking against the Gods of Darwin and Gore.)

The question is, has the pendulum swung too far for us to ever recover?

As James Lileks has said, I too fear for Indiana Jones 4 - I suspect that it will turn out that Indy was mistaken in the first film and by defeating the Nazis and turning the Ark of the Covenant over to the United States he completely destroyed any chance for the world to know peace by strengthening the world’s true enemy; the Nazis were only trying to keep the West in check and were misunderstood.
texaspsue
March 4th, 2008 at 7:10 am
“Where have all the superheroes gone?”

They’ve turned into globalists? How sad.

We always have Rambo. :-)
GuppyNblue
March 4th, 2008 at 10:35 am
I noticed in the last Superman movie that when it came to him saying the “truth, justice and the American way” line, he left out “American way”. I think we live in a time desperate for a hero but often that same time is ripe for a tyrant as well. I only see the tyrants so far.
BillK
March 4th, 2008 at 4:50 pm
texaspsue, did you even see the latest Rambo film in which he spouts some decidedly anti-American opinions and mentions that fighting any pre-emptive war is the very definition of evil?

GuppyNblue, the “rationale” from the Hollywood Observer, June 30, 2006:

But in the latest film incarnation, scribes Michael Dougherty and Dan Harris sought to downplay Superman’s long-standing patriot act. With one brief line uttered by actor Frank Langella, the caped superhero’s mission transformed from “truth, justice and the American way” to “truth, justice and all that stuff.”

“The world has changed. The world is a different place,” Pennsylvania native Harris says. “The truth is he’s an alien. He was sent from another planet. He has landed on the planet Earth, and he is here for everybody. He’s an international superhero.”

In fact, Dougherty and Harris never even considered including “the American way” in their screenplay. After the wunderkind writing duo (”X2: X-Men United”) conceived “Superman’s” story with director Bryan Singer during a Hawaiian vacation, they penned their first draft together and intentionally omitted what they considered to be a loaded and antiquated expression. That decision stood throughout the 140-day shoot in Australia, where the pair remained on-set to provide revisions and tweaks.

“We were always hesitant to include the term ‘American way’ because the meaning of that today is somewhat uncertain,” Ohio native Dougherty explains. “The ideal hasn’t changed. I think when people say ‘American way,’ they’re actually talking about what the ‘American way’ meant back in the ’40s and ’50s, which was something more noble and idealistic.”

While audiences in Dubuque might bristle at Superman’s newfound global agenda, patrons in Dubai likely will find the DC Comics protagonist more palatable. And with the increasing importance of the overseas boxoffice — as evidenced by summer tentpoles like “The Da Vinci Code” — foreign sensibilities can no longer be ignored.

“So, you play the movie in a foreign country, and you say, ‘What does he stand for? — truth, justice and the American way.’ I think a lot of people’s opinions of what the American way means outside of this country are different from what the line actually means (in Superman lore) because they are not the same anymore,” Harris says. “And (using that line) would taint the meaning of what he is saying.”

http://www.hollywoodreporter.c.....1002764635

Because of course outside the U.S. the “American Way” means what CNN and the American MSM have taught them it means - Corporate Greed, death to Palestinians, and so on.

Is it any wonder even Americans have bought into the “Americans are evil” philosophy?
GuppyNblue
March 4th, 2008 at 5:09 pm
BillK
Thanks for that and I agree with your assessment. The America-hating msm like to blame Bush for negative world opinion but they’ve been tainting our reputation long before he was elected.
texaspsue
March 4th, 2008 at 6:13 pm
BillK… No, not Rambo too! (I haven’t seen the film.)
BillK
March 4th, 2008 at 6:25 pm
John Coleman continues to fight the good fight.

From the Business & Media Institute:

Weather Channel Founder Blasts Network; Claims It Is ‘Telling Us What to Think’

TWC founder and global warming skeptic advocates suing Al Gore to expose ‘the fraud of global warming.’

By Jeff Poor

The Weather Channel has lost its way, according to John Coleman, who founded the channel in 1982.

Coleman told an audience at the 2008 International Conference on Climate Change on March 3 in New York that he is highly critical of global warming alarmism.

“The Weather Channel had great promise, and that’s all gone now because they’ve made every mistake in the book on what they’ve done and how they’ve done it and it’s very sad,” Coleman said. “It’s now for sale and there’s a new owner of The Weather Channel will be announced – several billion dollars having changed hands in the near future. Let’s hope the new owners can recapture the vision and stop reporting the traffic, telling us what to think and start giving us useful weather information.”

The Weather Channel has been an outlet for global warming alarmism. In December 2006, The Weather Channel’s Heidi Cullen argued on her blog that weathercasters who had doubts about human influence on global warming should be punished with decertification by the American Meteorological Society.

Coleman also told the audience his strategy for exposing what he called “the fraud of global warming.” He advocated suing those who sell carbon credits, which would force global warming alarmists to give a more honest account of the policies they propose.

“[I] have a feeling this is the opening,” Coleman said. “If the lawyers will take the case – sue the people who sell carbon credits. That includes Al Gore. That lawsuit would get so much publicity, so much media attention. And as the experts went to the media stand to testify, I feel like that could become the vehicle to finally put some light on the fraud of global warming.”

Earlier at the conference Lord Christopher Monckton, a policy adviser to former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, told an audience that the science will eventually prevail and the “scare” of global warming will go away. He also said the courts were a good avenue to show the science.

http://www.businessandmedia.or.....75301.aspx

Note that Lord Monckton is one of those responsible for the court decision in the UK that stated Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth is full of scientific inaccuracies and if used in the classroom must be balanced with other materials refuting Gore’s thesis.
BillK
March 5th, 2008 at 3:15 am
From the Boulder (CO) Daily Camera:

Boulder County’s house-size battle nears an end

Opponents worry their voices will be ignored

By Laura Snider

Katrina Peterson doesn’t think Boulder County should limit house sizes. She’s said it at public meetings, she’s written it in letters and she’s called the land use department to express her concerns.

And even with a landslide of public opinion on her side — or at least the vast majority of people who show up at public meetings on her side — she’s worried her voice isn’t being heard.

Starting today, the county commissioners will hold three public meetings to discuss the county’s controversial proposal to limit house sizes in unincorporated Boulder County. On Monday, it’s likely the commissioners will decide on the final form of the regulations.

“I won’t be s

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