The Waterkooler

Immoral Profiteering

2006-05-03T07:10:00.000-04:00

As long as we are attacking people for making immoral profits, how about Archer Daniels Midland reporting a 29% increase in profit after raising the costs of the high-fructose corn syrup, which is a well-known contributor to epidemic obesity

Is Your Boss Spying on You?

2006-04-28T09:00:00.000-04:00

As the number of workers using the Internet for pleasure as well as business grows, so does anxiety among corporate higher-ups worried about productivity and exposure to security risks.

Many executives and managers have turned to computer surveillance. Low-cost technology is making it easier than ever for businesses of all sizes to monitor computer misuse among employees.

The market for this so-called secure content-management software -- which includes applications that monitor Web surfing, e-mail, instant messaging, and even keystrokes -- is expected to grow to $6.4 billion by 2007, more than double what it was just three years ago, according to the research firm IDC.

Lawyer Cracks Judge's Da Vinci Code

2006-04-28T08:39:00.000-04:00

I love the fact that this judge encoded a secret message in his ruling on "The Da Vinci Code" copyright lawsuit.

London lawyer Dan Tench and The Times newspaper on Friday both claimed to have solved the riddle of a code embedded in a judge's ruling in "The Da Vinci Code" copyright lawsuit.

It reads: "Jackie Fisher who are you Dreadnought."

The message was created by Peter Smith, the High Court judge who presided over the copyright infringement suit brought by authors of the nonfiction book "The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail" against the publisher of Dan Brown's mega-selling thriller.

Smith's entry in the society bible "Who's Who" lists him as a fan of John "Jackie" Fisher, a 19th-century admiral credited with modernizing the British navy and developing its first modern warship, the Dreadnought.

Gas Prices - Are we Being Gouged?

2006-04-26T08:56:00.000-04:00

WK OPINION

When gas prices hit record highs, it is not uncommon to look for someone to blame and many people are looking to the oil companies, who made record profits this year. Are they gouging us?

The short answer, is no. They make a lot of their money in gambling on energy markets and this in no way affects the prices of oil - unless you are trading oil on Wall Street. True, that is not where most of the profits come from, but when you factor in research and exploration, the oil companies are not even in the top 40% of companies in terms of profit margin.

If you are looking for an industry that really gouges you, why not go right to the top, where the pharmeceutical companies make 18.5 cents on the dollar, or banks which make 18 cents. Now compare that to the oil companies who make 8 or 9 cents. By the way, the national average of all industries is 6.8 cents per dollar.

Each time accusations of price gouging have come up over the years, the oil companies have come out unscathed.

So why are gas prices so high? Who is to blame? The question is not a difficult one to answer if you think clearly about it.

Blame Mother Nature. Remember Hurricane Katrina? A number of refineries are still offline. Three refineries on the Gulf Coast shut down by last fall’s hurricanes are only now reportedly beginning to return to operation, or soon will be.

Blame the EPA. Can you say MTBE?

Blame China. Global demand has SOARED with the explosive growth in China and India, among other places.

Blame all the SUV-driving folks out there. Everyone has the right to drive what they want, but these decisions have consequences. These vehicles waste a LOT of gas. The consequences are felt at the pump.

But CRUDE prices are at an all-time high, you say. Can't we blame OPEC? Yes and no. Crude prices are high because we are buying more of it to protect possible shortfalls due to our refinery limitations due to Katrina after effects. The cycle always starts with DEMAND.

So when looking for someone to blame, look at yourself first. Look at your neighbor, look at China, look at the EPA, look at Mother Nature, and look at the environmentalists who will not allow us to build any refineries for over 30 years.

WK

Tony Snow on GWB

2006-04-26T08:46:00.000-04:00

Tony Snow On President Bush: ‘An Embarrassment,’ ‘Impotent,’ ‘Doesn’t Seem To Mean What He Says’

Fox News’ Tony Snow is expected to be named White House Press Secretary. Here’s some of what he’s had to say about the President:

– Bush has “lost control of the federal budget and cannot resist the temptation to stop raiding the public fisc.” [3/17/06]

– “George W. Bush and his colleagues have become not merely the custodians of the largest government in the history of humankind, but also exponents of its vigorous expansion.” [3/17/06]

– “President Bush distilled the essence of his presidency in this year’s State of the Union Address: brilliant foreign policy and listless domestic policy.” [2/3/06]

– “George Bush has become something of an embarrassment.” [11/11/05]

– Bush “has a habit of singing from the Political Correctness hymnal.” [10/7/05]

– “No president has looked this impotent this long when it comes to defending presidential powers and prerogatives.” [9/30/05]

– Bush “has given the impression that [he] is more eager to please than lead, and that political opponents can get their way if they simply dig in their heels and behave like petulant trust-fund brats, demanding money and favor — now!” [9/30/05]

– “When it comes to federal spending, George W. Bush is the boy who can’t say no. In each of his three years at the helm, the president has warned Congress to restrain its spending appetites, but so far nobody has pushed away from the table mainly because the president doesn’t seem to mean what he says.” [The Detroit News, 12/28/03]

– “The president doesn’t seem to give a rip about spending restraint.” [The Detroit News, 12/28/03]

– “Bush, for all his personal appeal, ultimately bolstered his detractors’ claims that he didn’t have the drive and work ethic to succeed.” [11/16/00]

– “Little in the character of demeanor of Al Gore or George Bush makes us say to ourselves: Now, this man is truly special! Little in our present peace and prosperity impels us to say: Give us a great man!” [8/25/00]

– “George W. Bush, meanwhile, talks of a pillowy America, full of niceness and goodwill. Bush has inherited his mother’s attractive feistiness, but he also got his father’s syntax. At one point last week, he stunned a friendly audience by barking out absurd and inappropriate words, like a soul tortured with Tourette’s.” [8/25/00]

– “He recently tried to dazzle reporters by discussing the vagaries of Congressional Budget Office economic forecasts, but his recitation of numbers proved so bewildering that not even his aides could produce a comprehensible translation. The English Language has become a minefield for the man, whose malaprops make him the political heir not of Ronald Reagan, but Norm Crosby.” [8/25/00]

– “On the policy side, he has become a classical dime-store Democrat. He gladly will shovel money into programs that enjoy undeserved prestige, such as Head Start. He seems to consider it mean-spirited to shut down programs that rip-off taxpayers and mislead supposed beneficiaries.” [8/25/00]

Sex Drugs and the 1040

2006-04-25T11:51:00.000-04:00

Cheating on your taxes is almost as bad as cheating on your spouse...

Drinking excessively is worse than smoking marijuana...

Engaging in homosexual behavior and having an abortion are equally fraught...

Telling a lie to spare someone's feelings is worse than gambling...

Overeating is almost as objectionable as sex between unmarried adults...

So says the collective judgement of the American Public when asked in a Pew Research Center survey to assess the moral dimensions of different kinds of behaviors.

50 Million Americans Get News Online Every Day

2006-04-25T11:42:00.000-04:00

The daily audience online for news has grown dramatically since 2002 - a surge that has been fueled by the rise in home broadband connections. Some 50 million Americans now seek out news on the internet on a typical day.

In a survey in December 2005, the Pew Internet & American Life Project found that a major segment of broadband users now say the internet is their primary news source, surpassing even television and newspapers as their source of choice. Some 71% of these high-powered online news consumers go online for news on the average day, while 59% get news from local TV. Just more than half get news from national TV and radio on the typical day and about 40% turn to local papers.

Across age groups, the impact of online news is greatest for American adults under the age of 36 who have a high-speed internet connection at home. For this group, the internet is now on par with local TV and newspaper as a daily source for news, and surpasses national TV, radio, and local papers as a news source. Fully 46% of this group gets news online on the typical day, compared with 51% who turn to local TV, 41% who turn to radio, and 40% to national TV news.

Just the Facts 04-25-06

2006-04-25T11:17:00.000-04:00

Just The Facts

FACT: Copyrights are not forever. Typically, a copyright lasts for 50 years past the natural life of the original author.

FACT: The Stradivari Kreutzer violin sold for 946-thousand-dollars in 1988.

FACT: Automobiles built before 1904 are called veteran cars. Those built between 1904 and 1931 are considered vintage, while cars that are at least 20 years old are called classic.

FACT: In 1924, four Douglas World Cruisers and eight American crewmen set out from Seattle to attempt the first around-the-world flight. One-hundred and 75 days later, three of the aircraft completed the flight. Nine years later, another American did it in only seven days.

Future of news debated at Vegas gathering

2006-04-25T10:42:00.000-04:00

LAS VEGAS -- Technology that allows people to get their news faster and in more forms than ever must never supplant scrupulous reporting and careful writing, according to a panel of journalists and media executives.

Journalism is undergoing tremendous change, with blogs and citizen journalists proliferating and news consumers having more control over what they read, hear and see. But those advances do not change the need for media organizations to tackle tough subjects and report what they find, even when it's highly unpopular, the panel told the annual National Association of Broadcasters convention on Monday.

...Ramos said the American press is spending a lot of resources reporting from Iraq and Afghanistan, often at the expense of other important international news.

"There are other parts of the world that we're ignoring," he said.

Tempest in a D-cup as bust sizes grow

2006-04-25T10:37:00.000-04:00

BEIJING (Reuters) - Bra producers have been forced to offer bigger cup-sizes in China because improved nutrition is busting all previous chest measurement records.

The Beijing Institute of Clothing Technology released a report last week saying the average chest circumference of Chinese women has risen by nearly 1 cm (0.4 inch) to 83.53 cm (32.89 inches) since the early 1990s, the daily said.

This phenomenon, it said, was due to women eating more nutritiously and taking part in more sport.

Similar growth in the average height of children prompted a rethink last year in Beijing on the height allowance for free bus rides.

Wanted: New Roommaid - TIME

2006-04-25T10:31:00.000-04:00

Willing to swap free rent for chores? A new living arrangement falls back on old-school gender roles... (warning, this will piss some of you feminists off).

Feminists?! Heck, I'm a GUY and I'd consider cooking all the meals for free rent! I cook all the meals as it is now. You want to pay me $1,000 per month to do what I am already doing? Where do I sign up?

-- Would you hire a live-in maid?
-- Would you BE a live-in maid?

The next wave of drug lawsuits is coming.

2006-04-22T19:44:00.000-04:00

Who do we hate more? The nicotene peddlers, the Drug Pushers, or the lawyers that make a living off of suing them?

Lawsuits over prescription drugs carry perhaps the highest stakes of all product liability litigation, lawyers on each side say. Plaintiffs' lawyers may spend years and millions of dollars to prepare for a single trial, but a victory can come with a verdict of $10 million or more.

...lawyers who defend drug companies say that the rise in pharmaceutical suits is a reflection of changes in the plaintiffs' bar, not a reflection of the dangers of the drugs.

"This is really like cattle moving around a pasture, grazing on the greenest part of the grass," said Peter Bicks, a defense lawyer at Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe. "The greenest part of the pasture now appears to be, in the post-Vioxx era, drugs."

WHAT happens if a penny is worth more than 1 cent?

2006-04-22T19:30:00.000-04:00

That is an issue the United States Mint could soon face if the price of metals keeps rising. Already it costs the mint well more than a cent to make a penny.

This week the cost of the metals in a penny rose above 0.8 cents, more than twice the value of last fall. Because the government spends at least another six-tenths of a cent — above and beyond the cost of the metal — to make each penny, it will lose nearly half a cent on each new one it mints.

...

"What is really new in the commodity world is the extent to which hard commodities have been converted to financial assets through exchange-traded funds and hedge funds," said Ed Yardeni, the chief investment strategist of Oak Associates.

"In the late 90's," Mr. Yardeni added, "my hedge fund friends were all experts in technology. Now all they talk about is zinc, lead and oil. There is a lot of money that has poured into these areas."

That may mean that a bubble is brewing, but Mr. Yardeni thinks the run is not yet over.

Gotta love those day-traders!

Gas Guzzlers Find Price of Forgiveness - NYTimes

2006-04-22T19:22:00.000-04:00

Only in America. Someone has found a way to make a profit off of the guilt we have for driving around in our beloved SUV's.

Just go to one of several carbon-offset Web sites, calculate the amount of carbon dioxide produced when you drive, fly or otherwise burn fossil fuels, and then buy an offset that pays for an equivalent amount of clean energy.

Of course, emissions could be reduced the old-fashioned way — by flying less, turning off the air-conditioning or buying a more fuel-efficient car. But that would probably require some sacrifice and perhaps even a change in lifestyle. Instead, carbon-offset programs allow individuals to skip the sacrifice and simply pay for the right to pollute.

"To some extent, it's a way for people to buy their way into heaven," said Chip Giller, who is president of Grist.org, an online environmental magazine.

Ha! Sounds like a bunch of Bobos in Paradise to me!

Rader's pastor finds his way through uncharted territory

2005-08-18T12:25:00.000-04:00

The Rev. Michael Clark had never even set foot inside a jail before February.

He knew little about that world, though he'd considered criminology as a career when he started college.

But when Wichita police arrested one of his parishioners -- Dennis Rader--nearly five months ago, Clark began a learning journey that continues today.

Harry Belafonte Calls Black Republicans 'Tyrants'

2005-08-08T22:17:00.000-04:00

Celebrity activist Harry Belafonte referred to prominent African-American officials in the Bush administration as "black tyrants" at a weekend march, and he also compared the administration to Adolf Hitler's Nazi Germany.

video

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Related Story: Bush, GOP Labeled 'Thieves' Who 'Need to be Locked Up'

Atlanta (CNSNews.com) - A featured speaker at Saturday's civil rights march in Atlanta said the Bush administration and Republican Party leaders are "thieves" who "need to be locked up" for stealing the past two presidential elections and presiding over federal budget deficits and the war in Iraq. "They all need to be locked up because they are all criminals and they are all thieves," said Judge Greg Mathis, the star of the syndicated television program "The Judge Mathis Show." Mathis made his remarks to an enthusiastic crowd assembled in Atlanta to commemorate the 40th anniversary of the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Participants are launching a two-year campaign to extend and strengthen key aspects of the act when it expires in 2007. "It is indeed criminal to steal an election and within two years run up a federal deficit of half-a-trillion dollars, send our young people over to Iraq to die for an unjust war. What they are doing is criminal," Mathis said to loud cheers.

N.Y. radio station fined $240,000 for 'smackfests'

2005-08-08T22:04:00.000-04:00

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - A popular New York hip-hop radio station has agreed to pay $240,000 after sponsoring "smackfest" contests in which young women took turns slapping each other for a chance to win concert tickets and cash.

In a statement, New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer and State Athletic Commission Chairman Ron Scott Stevens said on Monday that WQHT, an FM station owned by Emmis Communications Corp. , had also agreed to donate $60,000 to a nonprofit group that promotes awareness of domestic violence.

"This agreement should be a wake-up call to all those in the entertainment industry who think outrageousness is a clever marketing strategy," Spitzer said in a statement. "The law establishes set boundaries that cannot be crossed to protect our community's health and safety."

Spitzer and the state Athletic Commission stated that the hip-hop and rhythm and blues station held 24 "Smackfest" contests from April 2004 to January 2005.
Young women took turns "violently slapping" each other for concert tickets and as much as $5,000 in cash, Spitzer said. Images of the slapping then ran on the station's Web site.
"Despite the fact that the contestants voluntarily participated in what was supposed to be harmless entertainment, it was not our finest hour," the Indianapolis-based Emmis Radio said in a prepared statement.
In April, the station was criticized by state Comptroller Alan Hevesi for the "Tsunami Song" written by a producer and broadcast over the air. Hevesi said the parody of the Dec. 26 tsunami disaster that killed at least 126,000 people in Indonesia and 48,000 in 10 other countries in the Indian Ocean basin "cruelly mocks victims ... while shamelessly espousing racial epithets."
"the entire Emmis family is ashamed."

Alou: Radio host's punishment just 'slap on the hand'

2005-08-08T17:19:00.000-04:00

I dont know who Im more pissed at! The host for the comments or the players for acting so immature and not accepting his apology...

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) -- Giants manager Felipe Alou called a one-week suspension given to a radio host for making racial remarks about the team's Latino players ``a slap on the hand'' and said he wouldn't accept an apology from Larry Krueger.

``He came to apologize to me? You have to be kidding me,'' Alou said Saturday, one day after the suspension. ``There's no way to apologize for such a sin.''

Alou said he wasn't in position to accept an apology on behalf of the ``hundreds of millions'' of people offended earlier this week when Krueger went on the Giants' flagship station, KNBR, and went off about the struggling club and its ``brain-dead Caribbean hitters hacking at slop nightly.''

50 Million Consumers Hacked in 2005

2005-08-08T07:26:00.000-04:00

IF the information is not already missing, 2005 might be recorded in the databanks of history as the year of the consumer privacy breach.

So far, American companies including financial services giants like Bank of America, Citigroup and MasterCard, and national retailers like DSW shoes and Ralph Lauren Polo, have announced data compromises. All told, the personal information of more than 50 million consumers has been lost, stolen and even sold to thieves.

Why is this happening here, and not, say, in Britain, Germany or France? One reason may be that every other Western country has a comprehensive set of national privacy laws and an office of data protection, led by a privacy commissioner.

The United States, by contrast, has a patchwork of state and federal laws and agencies responsible for data protection.

"In Europe, the question has been settled: citizens have strong legal rights," said Joel R. Reidenberg, a Fordham University law professor who is an expert on international data privacy rules. "In the United States, we basically have a mess, and we are still trying to sort it out."

More fundamentally, these two systems for dealing with data arise from a cultural divide over privacy itself. In broad terms, the United States looks at privacy largely as a consumer and an economic issue; in the rest of the developed world, it is regarded as a fundamental right.

In the United States, said Trevor Hughes, executive director of the International Association of Privacy Professionals, debates over the privacy of personal data generally occurs piecemeal, when a particular abuse causes harm. "In Europe, " Mr. Hughes said. "data is just protected because it is data - information about you."

The telecommunications industry offers a case study in these two perspectives. In the mid-1990's, an unusual alliance here between privacy advocates and national phone companies, which did not want regional carriers to gain an informational advantage, led to restrictions on the commercial use of phone and billing information in the United States. In France, a similar debate in the 1980's caused phone numbers to be kept private in billing documents out of respect for individual rights.

In general, Americans are far more comfortable than Europeans with business handling their information, and far more skeptical of putting it in government hands. The tradition of making government records - like tax records, mortgage information and census data - easily accessible to the public is uniquely American.

This has helped create the world's largest data collection industry by far, with companies like ChoicePoint and AxiCom to collect and analyze those records. The flourishing consumer data industry spends millions of dollars each year lobbying against more restrictive data policies.

Not surprising, the United States has "many more laws restricting the government collection and use of information than laws restricting corporate use of collection and information," said Bruce Schneier, an expert on computer security issues. "Europe is the reverse," he added. Oversight is the United States is decentralized. Data protection is not a core mission of any government agency. Each of them, from the Health and Human Services Department to the Department of Homeland Security, deals with it as a secondary issue. In addition, each agency has its own internal privacy czars, who protect his agency's data as he thinks best. "What we don't have is a general framework that says these rules apply to everybody," said Peter Swire, an Ohio State University law professor who served as the Clinton administration's chief counselor for privacy.

Most European nations, on the other hand, begin with the idea that data protection is a human right, regulated by a comprehensive set of principles that apply to both business and government. And where American businesses are given relatively free rein to collect and sell information, European companies are severely restricted from those activities without individual consent.

"In Europe, there is much less use data warehousing and data mining because the culture has not been friendly to it," said Alan F. Westin, the director of Privacy Exchange, an advocacy group sponsored by the consumer data industry. "No company in France, Germany or the U.K. has that kind of data-mining capability because they don't have the public record and census data" that American companies have.

Restrictions on the commercial use of private data has also meant that data-mining interest groups never became entrenched in Europe.

This, too, has philosophical and historical roots. European data protection policies emerged in the early 1970's, when the German state of Hesse enacted the first set of data privacy laws.

"This was still a generation with memory of World War II that knew how Nazis and fascists would use personal information against their enemies," said Evan Hendricks, the editor of Privacy Times, an advocacy newsletter. "If you were going to protect liberty, you had to ensure there was fairness in the protection of information."

Privacy protection was also strengthened by the push for European integration. The European Data Protection Directive of 1995 established a framework for national privacy laws in all E.U. countries, and encouraged nearby trading partners to adopt similar measures.

The effect on daily life in the United States and Europe can be seen at the checkout counter. Germany, like most other European countries, restricts retailers to collecting only the personal data directly linked to a sale: ZIP codes and phone numbers cannot be requested during a cash sale, and billing information can be kept only as long as there is a purpose.

Other countries have even more stringent laws. Switzerland, for example, requires every employee who handles sensitive data like credit information to "sign a very draconian document," Ted Crooks, vice president of global fraud solutions for Fair Isaac, a data analytics company, said of data protection laws in that country. "You don't mess with Swiss data," he said.

Most American companies, in contrast, store all sorts of customer information, and often make money selling some of it to others. "American businesses have learned by experience to hang on to the data," Mr. Crooks said. "It's cheap to keep, and maybe you will get some benefit out of it."

Then, too, most Americans are more willing than Europeans to give up personal information.

"If you ask someone from another country, they will resist," said Chris Hoofnagle, a director at Electronic Privacy Information Center, a data protection advocacy group. "Ask a French person their phone number, and they will ask you why. Americans don't ask why at all."

Of course, in Europe, though the laws and the public sentiment against collecting sensitive consumer data may be more rigorous than in the United States, there is less ability to enforce those laws, or to punish corporate wrongdoers through public exposure. Regulators will sometimes quietly discipline a company for being too free with private data, but in general European corporations need not disclose nearly so much about their activities as American ones, and class-action lawsuits and corporate fines are rare.

"We don't know how often or how serious any breach of the E.U. directive actually has been because there is no need to disclose," said John Holland, an executive in charge of Europe and the Middle East regions for Cybertrust, a global security firm.

One thing that both privacy cultures have in common is that it is becoming harder for either to control what is and isn't kept private. Information is increasingly the lifeblood of the global economy, not to mention the global fight against terrorism and the quarry of hackers.

As this year's data breaches and compromises have shown, no one really knows how safe the world's vast pool of confidential data is, and therefore how protected anyone is against an invasion of data privacy.

Mr. Reidenberg, the law professor, compares the current situation to the stock market meltdown after the 1929 crash. America responded then by creating the Securities and Exchange Commission and a host of financial disclosure and accounting reforms. The need to safeguard sensitive data, Mr. Reidenberg said, "will necessitate the United States focusing on the legal way we structure information processing, just like we needed to do in the 1930's to put the economy back on stable footing."

A new video game based on the London Underground terrorist bombings has British officials outraged.

2005-08-05T21:19:00.000-04:00

"Passengers on the Underground and their staff were faced with horrific scenes on July 7, a spokesman for the London Underground tells Britain's Sun newspaper. "Anybody involved in the making or viewing of this game would do well to stop and think about that."

Dubbed "Mind The Bombs," the game features terrorists on board trains moving throughout the London tube system, which is illustrated by the city's official underground map. The object is to stop them from carrying out their missions by defusing the explosives.

"If you fail," the Sun says, the terrorists "blow themselves to smithereens just like on 7/7. Meanwhile, "smoke pours from the carriages and ambulance sirens can be heard in a chilling reminder of the terror attacks which killed 52 people."

A spokeswoman for the London Transport Users Committee told the paper: "I don't think anybody will find it very funny or very pleasant. ... Londoners are just getting on with it and we think people should show this game the contempt it deserves."

Terrorists Target President in New Hollywood 'Comedy'

2005-08-05T20:05:00.000-04:00

Only in Hollywood would a satire be crafted around American 'paranoia' over Pakistani terrorists seeking to assassinate a U.S. president. (After all, what could be funnnier?) London's News24 reports that writer-director Paul
Weitz's film "American Dreamz" will not be rewritten just because of the London terror bombings, during which 56 Londoners were killed by suicide bombers - some of whom were Pakistani in origin. The film stars Hugh Grant,
Dennis Quaid, Richard Dreyfuss, Willem Dafoe, Chris Klein and Mandy Moore.

Although Weitz's script features Pakistani suicide bombers, Weitz remains unconcerned about portraying the terrorist threat in a humorous light.

"The plot of my film has not changed, nor is a change being contemplated," Weitz said. "The film is a comic examination of our cultural obsessions and how they can anaesthetise us to the actual issues of our day."

We're wondering what Mr. Weitz considers to be the "actual issues of our day," from which our War on Terror "obsessions" are distracting us? [Mr. Weitz, like so many of his Hollywood colleagues, appears to be living in
some post-9/11 version of "The Matrix." May we hazard a guess? Poverty, disease, starvation in the Third World, affordable health care, Malibu wildlife, etc.

We're actually losing our ability to satirize people like Mr. Weitz - because Hollywood itself is becoming self-satirizing. And somewhere Paddy Chayefsky is rolling over in his grave.

NYC Sued Over Subway Searches

2005-08-05T19:14:00.000-04:00

Related Story: Congress asked to probe ACLU, Accused of 'widespread use of frivolous lawsuits'

Five city subway riders and a civil liberties group sued the city Thursday to stop random police inspections of bags in subways, calling the searches ineffective, unconstitutional and a publicity stunt that does not enhance safety.

"It's a needle-in-the-haystack approach to law enforcement," said Donna Lieberman, executive director of the New York Civil Liberties Union, which filed the lawsuit in U.S. District Court in Manhattan.

She and other members of the group who spoke at a news conference to announce the lawsuit said they want police to stop terrorists and improve safety, but not with useless measures designed to give subway riders a false sense of security.

Christopher Dunn, the New York Civil Liberties Union's associate legal director, said the policy announced July 21 was akin to a random search of people's bags and packages on public streets and a violation of a fundamental civil right.

But Gail Donoghue, a city lawyer, said the subway searches meet all legal requirements and preserve "the important balance between protecting our city and preserving individual rights."

She added, "We believe the NYCLU is shortsighted in failing to recognize this. We are confident our position will prevail in court."

Spot checks by the NYCLU since the policy began show that police conduct the searches at few stations with little effect since anyone can refuse the search and enter the subway's 468 stations at another point, he said.

As a result, he said, only innocent people are subjected to the unreasonable search and seizure that the Constitution outlaws.

"What is the point of searching a bunch of grandmas going down the subway steps with their Macy's bags?" he asked.

Among five plaintiffs was Brendan MacWade, 32, who escaped the World Trade Center towers after they were struck by hijacked planes on Sept. 11, 2001.

"I want to catch terrorists as much as any politicians or officials but this policy does not work," he said.

The lawsuit comes after the New York Police Department held a briefing Wednesday for city business leaders regarding the July 7 London subway bombings. The NYPD said the London suicide bombers cooked up their explosives using mundane items like hydrogen peroxide, suggesting that "these terrorists went to a hardware store or some beauty supply store" for ingredients.

The briefing — based partly on information obtained by NYPD detectives who were dispatched to London to monitor the investigation — was part of a program designed to encourage more vigilance by private security at large hotels, Wall Street firms, storage facilities and other companies.

NCAA bans Indian mascots, nicknames from postseason events

2005-08-05T17:13:00.000-04:00

Related Story: Florida State to Challenge Ban on Mascots

Related Story: The Fighting Whiteys

INDIANAPOLIS – The NCAA banned the use of American Indian mascots by sports teams during its postseason tournaments, but will not prohibit them otherwise.

The NCAA's executive committee decided this week the organization did not have the authority to bar Indian mascots by individual schools, committee chairman Walter Harrison said Friday.

Nicknames or mascots deemed "hostile or abusive" would not be allowed by teams on their uniforms or other clothing beginning with any NCAA tournament after Feb. 1, said Harrison, the University of Hartford's president.

"What each institution decides to do is really its own business" outside NCAA championship events, he said.

Guidelines were not immediately available on which logos and nicknames would be considered "hostile or abusive."

The NCAA two years ago recommended that schools determine for themselves whether the Indian depictions were offensive.

Among the schools to change nicknames in recent years over such concerns were St. John's (from Redmen to Red Storm) and Marquette (from Warriors to Golden Eagles).

The NCAA plans to ban schools using Indian nicknames from hosting postseason events. Harrison said schools with such mascots that have already been selected as tournament sites would be asked to cover any offensive logos.

Such logos also would be prohibited at postseason games on cheerleader and band uniforms starting in 2008.

Woman Sues City After Alleged Fire Pole Mishap

2005-08-05T16:42:00.000-04:00

SAN ANTONIO -- A 30-year-old USAA employee is suing the city of San Antonio for injuries she received when she fell trying to slide down a fire pole.

Grace Estrada has been out of work for for five months. She had back surgery in December to fuse three of her vertebrae together, all from a night of partying at Fire Station No. 10 on Oct. 29 of last year.

"Certainly, our client, as a 30-year-old, bears some responsibility to the extent that she made a bad choice, but there was some serious, serious bad choices made by the firefighters in the case," said Kevin Stouwie, Estrada's attorney.

Stouwie believes there must be some violation of department rules. The lawsuit claims Estrada and some friends met off-duty firefighters at a bar that night and were invited to the station located on Zarzamora Street.

The woman claims on-duty firefighters served them beer and invited them to try on boots and fire helmets. They also allowed them to sit on the fire truck and slide down the station's fire pole.

"The same on-duty firefighter asked her to climb on his shoulders and basically slide down the pole in tandem with him," said Stouwie.

According to the lawsuit, Estrada lost her grip and fell 12 feet to the ground below.

She also claimed that some of the women spent time in the living quarters of the firehouse that night, engaging in private interludes.

Estrada said she was not encouraged to seek medical treatment immediately and was told not to tell anyone where she was injured.

NRA Boycotts Co. Over Gun Policy

2005-08-05T15:39:00.000-04:00

(AP) The National Rifle Association began a boycott of ConocoPhillips Co. Monday over the energy giant's attempt to block a state law preventing employers from firing workers who keep guns in their cars on company lots.

"Across the country, we're going to make ConocoPhillips the example of what happens when a corporation takes away your Second Amendment rights," NRA Executive Vice President Wayne LaPierre said.

LaPierre called on gun owners and consumers to boycott all Conoco and Phillips 66 products, and asked Conoco and Phillips 66 retailers to urge the corporation to withdraw the federal lawsuit.

Once a Soldier Always a Soldier - Until You're Not a Soldier Any More

2005-08-05T15:29:00.000-04:00

U.S. Army to review Wagner's Arlington placement

U.S. Army leadership is reviewing the placement of an urn last week at Arlington National Cemetery holding the cremated remains of a man they learned Wednesday killed a Hagerstown couple in 1994, Lori Calvillo, cemetery public affairs officer, said Thursday.

Cremated remains of Russell Wayne Wagner, 52, who was an Army Private 1st Class from 1969 to 1972, were placed with standard military honors July 27 at an Arlington National Cemetery columbarium. He died Feb. 2 at the Maryland House of Correction Annex in Jessup, Md., while serving two life sentences for the Valentine's Day 1994 murders of Daniel Davis, 84, and Wilda Davis, 80, at their West Wilson Boulevard home in Hagerstown.

The Davises' bodies were found stabbed repeatedly on Feb. 15. Their hands and feet were bound with black shoelaces and pillowcases were placed over their heads, according to published reports.
The Davises' family is fighting to have Wagner's ashes removed from the columbarium, which is a structure for cremated remains.
Wagner met the requirements for the columbarium service because he was discharged honorably from the military,. Requirements to have a ground burial at the cemetery are more stringent.
In 1996, a Garrett County jury heard Wagner's case, but returned hung. In 2002, the case was heard in Washington County, but the jury in that trial returned with guilty verdicts for two counts of first-degree murder, two counts of felony murder and burglary, according to published reports.
In the 2002 trial, now-Washington County Deputy State's Attorney Joseph Michael, in his argument to the jury, suggested that Wagner and at least one other person entered the Davis home and stabbed the couple to death so that the wife of Ted Monger, the couple's son-in-law, would inherit $50,000, according to published reports.
Three prosecution witnesses testified in the 2002 trial that Wagner said he was at the Davis home when the murder was committed. A hair that a DNA expert for the FBI said possibly was Wagner's was found on a glove with Daniel Davis' blood on it.

Blair vs. Bush: Who's Tougher on Terror?

2005-08-05T09:39:00.000-04:00

New threats from Al Queada prompt tough talk from Bush and Blair...

"What you have seen in New York, Washington and Afghanistan, are only the initial losses," said Osama bin Laden's No. 2 man, Ayman al-Zawahiri, referring to the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the United States for which al Qaeda claimed responsibility. "If you continue the same hostile policies you will see something that will make you forget the horrors you have seen in Vietnam."

video

British Prime Minister Tony Blair, who has called for an international conference on Islamic extremism, is proving far more willing than President Bush to demand that Muslim leaders confront their own failings in the global war on terror. His latest statements indicate willingness to implement new Human Rights and immigration laws.

Quote for Quote:

BLAIR: "Let no one be in any doubt, the rules of the game are changing... Should legal obstacles arise we will legislate further, including if needs arise, amending the Human Rights Act."
BLAIR: "When they try to use Iraq or Afghanistan or Palestinian cause as a means of saying 'we have justification for what we do,' it is a complete obscenity."
BLAIR TALKS TOUGH ON IMMIGRATION: "Coming to Britain is not a right. And even when people are coming here, staying here carries with it a duty. That duty is to share and support the values that sustain the British way of life.

"Those that break that duty and try to incite hatred or engage in violence against our country and its people have no place here."
BUSH: "We will stay on the offense against these people," Bush said of the comments by Ayman al-Zawahri.
BUSH: "On September 11 2001, America felt its vulnerability even to threats that gather on the other side of the Earth. We resolved then, and we are resolved today, to confront every threat from any source that could bring sudden terror and suffering to America."
BUSH: "Our nation is somewhat sad, but we're angry. There's a certain level of blood lust, but we won't let it drive our reaction. We're steady, clear-eyed and patient, but pretty soon we'll have to start displaying scalps."
BUSH: "The terrorists are fighting freedom with all their cunning and cruelty because freedom is their greatest fear - and they should be afraid, because freedom is on the march."

Stem Cell Issue Shows Media's Bias

2005-08-04T23:23:00.000-04:00

Some of the stories written about the issue would lead the average person to believe that there is some sort of Bush-led federal ban on stem cell research - and not just the embryonic kind - despite the fact that George W. Bush has never banned stem cell research of any kind in the United States, and that he is the only U.S. president to have ever authorized federal funding for embryonic stem cell research.

I think it’s fair to say that the individuals who wrote the above stories had an ax to grind over the issue with respect to the current administration. If that is not the case, how then can one explain such headlines, especially in light of the fact that George W. Bush has never banned stem cell research of any kind in the United States, and that he is the only U.S. president to have ever authorized federal funding for embryonic stem cell research?

Related Story: Comparison of Stem Cell Research to Nazi Experiments Stirs Controversy

Is Heaven Populated Chiefly by the Souls of Embryos?

2005-08-04T23:10:00.000-04:00

John Opitz, a professor of pediatrics, human genetics, and obstetrics and gynecology at the University of Utah, testified before the President's Council on Bioethics that between 60 and 80 percent of all naturally conceived embryos are simply flushed out in women's normal menstrual flows unnoticed. This is not miscarriage we're talking about. The women and their husbands or partners never even know that conception has taken place; the embryos disappear from their wombs in their menstrual flows.
If every embryo is "already a human being," does that mean that if we could detect such unimplanted embryos as they leave the womb, we would have a duty to rescue them and try to implant them anyway?
Try this thought experiment. A fire breaks out in a fertility clinic and you have a choice: You can save a three-year-old child or a Petri dish containing 10 seven-day old embryos. Which do you choose to rescue?
If embryos have a soul, that would mean that more than 40 percent of all the residents of Heaven were never born, never developed brains, and never had thoughts, emotions, experiences, hopes, dreams, or desires.

Millions of intelligent people of good will maintain that seven-day-old embryos have the exact same moral standing as do readers of this column. Acting on this sincere belief, they are trying to block biomedical research on human embryonic stem cells that is desired by millions of their fellow citizens.

But there may be a way out of this politico-theological impasse. The President's Council on Bioethics held an extraordinarily interesting session earlier this month in which two different avenues for obtaining human embryonic stem cells were proposed, in ways that would skirt right-to-life moral objections.

William Hurlbut, a consulting professor in the Program of Human Biology at Stanford University and another member of the President's Council on Bioethics, proposed another way to produce cloned human embryonic stem cells that right-to-lifers should not find morally objectionable.
"This process does not involve the creation of an embryo that is then altered to transform it into a non-embryonic entity," explained Hurlbut. "Rather the proposed genetic alteration is accomplished ab initio, the entity is brought into existence with a genetic structure insufficient to generate a human embryo."
These options offer a possible way around the moral blockades that impede promising biomedical research on human embryonic stem cells.

Bush Remarks Roil Debate on Teaching of Evolution

2005-08-04T18:43:00.000-04:00

Related Story: Can You Believe in God and Evolution?

WASHINGTON, Aug. 2 - A sharp debate between scientists and religious conservatives escalated Tuesday over comments by President Bush that the theory of intelligent design should be taught with evolution in the nation's public schools.

In an interview at the White House on Monday with a group of Texas newspaper reporters, Mr. Bush appeared to endorse the push by many of his conservative Christian supporters to give intelligent design equal treatment with the theory of evolution.

Facts and Points of Interest:

Bush said, "I think that part of education is to expose people to different schools of thought," he said, adding that "you're asking me whether or not people ought to be exposed to different ideas, and the answer is yes."
Intelligent design, advanced by a group of academics and intellectuals and some biblical creationists, disputes the idea that natural selection - the force Charles Darwin suggested drove evolution - fully explains the complexity of life.
Intelligent design does not identify the designer, but critics say the theory is a thinly disguised argument for God and the divine creation of the universe.
Critics argue that by giving "a sectarian religious viewpoint" an "equal footing" with the theory of evolution is unfair to "other religious viewpoints."
The Rev. Barry W. Lynn, the executive director of Americans United for Separation of Church and State, called the president's comments irresponsible, and said that "when it comes to evolution, there is only one school of scientific thought, and that is evolution occurred and is still occurring." Mr. Lynn added that "when it comes to matters of religion and philosophy, they can be discussed objectively in public schools, but not in biology class."
Internationally respected creationist and biochemist and one of the world's leading experts in origin of life research, Fazale "Fuz" Rana, PhD, states:

"As currently formulated, Intelligent Design is not science. It is not falsifiable and makes no predictions about future scientific discoveries. At Reasons To Believe, our team of scientists has developed a theory for creation that embraces the latest scientific advances. It is fully testable, falsifiable, and successfully predicts the current discoveries in origin of life research.

The Evolution Debate

The case against evolution: here

The case against creationism: here

Evidence of Evolution: here

Common myths heard from critics of Evolution: here and here

Second Law of Thermodynamics - does the theory of evolution violate this law?

Yes. No.

COMEDY: Steven Wright on God, Origins, and Science

"My theory of evolution is that Darwin was adopted."

"Support bacteria - they're the only culture some people have."

"I intend to live forever - so far, so good."

More evolution Jokes here.

Hoodwinked!

2005-08-03T12:11:00.000-04:00

Sony Pictures Entertainment must pay $1.5 million to settle a class-action lawsuit accusing the studio of citing a fake movie critic in ads for several films.

Moviegoers who saw the films "Vertical Limit," "A Knight's Tale," "The Animal," "Hollow Man" or "The Patriot" during their original theater runs must file a claim to be eligible for a $5 per ticket reimbursement, lawyer Norman Blumenthal said Tuesday. He represented a group of filmgoers who sued Sony Pictures in 2001.

The lawsuit, originally filed by two California moviegoers, claimed the ads fooled the plaintiffs into seeing "A Knight's Tale."

In one ad for the action-comedy, a critic identified as "David Manning of The Ridgefield Press" was quoted calling star
Heath Ledger "this year's hottest new star!"
In an ad for "The Animal," Manning was quoted declaring, "The producing team of 'Big Daddy' has delivered another winner!"
At the time, The Ridgefield Press, a small weekly newspaper in Connecticut, did not have a movie critic named David Manning, the lawsuit said.

Why NASA Can't Get It Right

2005-08-03T11:27:00.000-04:00

Full coverage - more stories

A glorious launch. A wayward chunk of foam. And another black eye for the space agency. Should the shuttle fleet stay grounded?

Bread and salt were waiting for commander Eileen Collins and her crew when they docked the space shuttle Discovery with the International Space Station last Thursday. Station commander Sergei Krikalev had prepared the little ceremony, a Russian tradition intended to bring good luck to a visitor to your home. After the shuttle's stunning lift-off two days earlier--the first since the loss of the Columbia orbiter in 2003--it didn't seem the crew would need such happy charms. But now it appears the shuttle program as a whole--if not the astronauts themselves--may need a lot of luck indeed.

'04 Report Faulted Application of Shuttle Foam. story

An internal NASA report last December warned of deficiencies in the way insulating foam was being applied to sections of the fuel tank to be used on the shuttle Discovery's current mission.
The December 2004 report, by Conley Perry, a retired NASA division chief for quality engineering at the Johnson Space Center here, said it was obvious that Lockheed's external tank engineers "did not do a thorough job" of identifying the quirks and variations that can occur when foam is applied by hand.
According to the report, even after two years of effort to correct the foam debris problem, "there will continue to be a threat of critical debris generation."
"This variable could reasonably be eliminated," the report went on, "and yet it continues."
Nasa responds: "NASA and its contractors have made a number of process and quality improvements in the manual application of foam on the external fuel tank which have resulted in substantially less debris coming off the tank at launch. But as we saw, we still have work to do with the foam."

He continued, "There are still issues that we need to address and we will do that."

Happy News: Back to School - One Mother's Observations

2005-08-02T20:17:00.000-04:00

As the dog days of July come to an end and we're greeted with the month of August, a pervasive thought enters every parent's mind: back to school. Yes, the thought of it brings a smile to the face, doesn't it?

Me: Are you doing the laundry today?
She: I don't know.

Me: It's your scheduled day.

She: Yeah but do you need laundry done?

Me: It's summer. We always need laundry done.

She: I know, but are you out of clothes?

Me: Well, there are a few shirts in there that I would like to wear this week, and I'm almost out of underwear.

She: Yeah, but you don't need them, you work from home.

Me: Your dad doesn't work from home and he needs shirts.

She: Yeah but he's married to you, so there's no one at work he needs to impress.

By the way, teenagers do not have more energy than we do. They simply do a better job at conserving it. Case in point: my step-daughter's schedule for the beginning of the summer:

12 PM - Get up, wash face thoroughly. Brush teeth.
12:30 PM - Have breakfast.
1 PM - Stretch
1:30 PM - Exercise
2:30 PM - Shower
3 PM - Have lunch
3:30 PM - See friends (swimming, suntanning, etc.)
6:30 PM - Have dinner
7 PM - See friends (movies, shopping, etc.)
11 PM - Chat with friends on internet.
1 AM - Go to bed.

Happy News: Iraqi Reality TV

2005-08-02T20:15:00.000-04:00

Reality TV shows are gaining popularity in Iraq, spreading material prosperity to the needy and giving Iraqis some escape from their war-torn world.

The Sharqiya network is leading the way with shows that rebuild bombed houses and deliver money to poor elderly people, the Times of London reports.

The popular show "Best Wishes" provides couples with lavish weddings -- complete with white stretch limousine on streets where tanks and car bombs are more familiar sights.

"We see the happiness on the faces of the people whose houses we have rebuilt and those still waiting because of the American destruction during the war," says Sharqiya senior producer Majid al-Samarrai.

Hollywood's disconnect

2005-08-02T16:50:00.000-04:00

Tinseltown's recent setbacks suggest a crisis of major proportions, with a May USA TODAY/CNN/Gallup Poll showing 48% of adults going to movies less often than in 2000. For 19 consecutive weeks, motion picture releases earned less (despite higher ticket prices) than the year before. Projected ticket sales for all of 2005 indicate a disastrous drop of at least 8% - at a time of population growth and a generally robust economy.

USA TODAY ran a headline, "Where have all the moviegoers gone?" under which insiders discussed their desperate attempts to rebuild the shattered audience: "The lures include providing high-tech eye candy through 3-D digital projection and IMAX versions of movies. ... Stadium seating, which improves views, is just now becoming standard. Other theaters are opting for screenings that serve alcohol to patrons 21 and older."

Related: Coming to a Theater Near You
Bad news at the box office has Hollywood thinking about tomorrow. What the best and brightest predict for 2015.

Related: TV characters going to pot

Low-Cash Diet

2005-08-02T14:49:00.000-04:00

Free ketchup, mustard packets dominate new Atkins weight-loss program.

Aug. 2 - Two days after filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, Atkins Nutritionals Inc. said today that although its low-carb diet had lost its luster, the company was introducing what it called "a low-cash diet guaranteed to melt those pounds away."

At Atkins headquarters, company spokesman Dalton Pankow said that the company's financial woes had inspired the new low-cash diet, which he said was based on a very simple principle: "Essentially, once you're on the diet, you don't eat anything that costs money."

Selling Sickness to the Well

2005-08-02T13:47:00.000-04:00

A new book looks at how pharmaceutical companies are using aggressive marketing campaigns to turn more people into patients.

From headlines that tell us that caffeine addiction is a mental disorder, to the overprescription of ritalin to children, the question arises: are the drug companies and mental health institutions scamming us?

See our previous post on how the CDC was caught red handed earlier this year, lying to us about the dangers of being fat.

'Why Do Men Have Nipples?' answered in new book

2005-08-02T13:33:00.000-04:00

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Have you ever wondered why your teeth chatter when you're cold, or if you could really catch a disease from sitting on a toilet seat?
ADVERTISEMENT

New York physician Billy Goldberg, pestered by unusual questions at cocktail parties and other social gatherings over the years, puts the public's mind at ease in his book "Why Do Men Have Nipples?" which hits the book stores on Tuesday.

Islamic Extremist: London bombings a consequence of Britain's refusal to accept the offer of a "ceasefire" from Osama bin Laden.

2005-08-02T11:27:00.000-04:00

An Islamic extremist said that the London bombings were the consequence of Britain's refusal to accept the offer of a "ceasefire" from Osama bin Laden.

Abu Izzadeen, who described himself as a spokesman for the Al-Ghurabaa organisation, said that bin Laden had made the offer conditional on troop withdrawal, apparently from countries including Iraq and Afghanistan.

Speaking on BBC2's Newsnight, he said: "Sheikh Osama bin Laden offered to the British public and the UK people at large an offer of ceasefire.

"He said if they rolled up against the Government, brought the troops home, he promised not to attack them. But unfortunately, the stiff upper British lip became hard-headed and we saw what took place on July 7."

Abu Izzadeen, who is British-born but of Jamaican origin, and who converted to Islam when he was 17, would not denounce the bombings, which he described as "mujahideen activity".

"I'm sure if you asked those who passed away on July 7, should we negotiate with Osama bin Laden, they would say yes, to bring their lives back, to save themselves from the burning inferno underground," he said.

Another extremist and former member of the Al-Muhahjiroun group, Abu Uzair, had previously said that Britain should not be attacked in the wake of the September 11 atrocities, which he described as "magnificent", the programme said.

This was because it had accommodated Muslims, the programme said.

"We don't live in peace with you any more, which means the covenant of security no longer exists," he said.

"That's why those four bombers attacked London - they believed that there was no covenant of security, and for them their belief was that it was allowed to attack the UK." Seeming to warn of the possibility of further attacks, he added: "For them, the banner has been risen for jihad inside the UK."

TEACHER SEX SCANDAL AT CATHOLIC SCHOOL

2005-08-02T11:16:00.000-04:00

A former Christian Brothers Academy teacher accused of having sex with an underage student turned herself in to police today.

Beth Geisel, a 42-year-old Christian Brothers Academy writing instructor, mother of four and wife of a bank president, said nothing as she surrendered to face charges of raping a 16-year-old male student last May.

Aretakis alleges the teacher's out-of-control sexual behavior was known among students and their parents for months — and had to be known by administrators — yet was kept secret.

"I believe it is similar to what's going on . . . in the Catholic church, that this Catholic school was looking to avoid shame and embarrassment and that they tried to wish these incidents away," Aretakis said.

"They said, 'Let's keep this in the family. Use restraint. We believe this incident is isolated.' I'm angry for them acting irresponsibly."
Geisel allegedly had sex with the boy at the Catholic school's football field within earshot of his snickering pals, authorities said yesterday.

Bail has not been set

Roe's Army Reloads

2005-08-02T10:38:00.000-04:00

They've been dreading this moment for decades. How the pro-choice movement is readying for Roberts—and navigating a critical political crossroads.

Aug. 8, 2005 issue - The day before George W. Bush tapped John Roberts for the Supreme Court, a group of abortion-rights activists gathered around the conference table at NARAL Pro-Choice America. Panicked by the departure of Justice Sandra Day O'Connor—the court's key swing vote on abortion—they pored over lists of potential replacements, sharing alarming facts about each one. "Most of us were against all of them," recalls NARAL president Nancy Keenan. The next night, as news about Roberts leaked out, NARAL issued a statement opposing him even before he appeared in the East Room. Now, two weeks into the fight, defeating the affable judge looks like no easy task. On a conference call with Keenan last Friday, one activist from Minnesota cut to the chase: "People are wondering, are we going to be able to stop this guy? Is there going to be a filibuster?" Keenan, a fly-fishing enthusiast, didn't answer directly. "We have waded into the water," she said. "We have cast the line."

America's Most Dangerous Drug

2005-08-02T10:19:00.000-04:00

It creates a potent, long-lasting high—until the user crashes and, too often, literally burns. How meth quietly marched across the country and up the socioeconomic ladder—and the wreckage it leaves in its wake. As law enforcement fights a losing battle on the ground, officials ask: are the Feds doing all they can to contain this epidemic?

Aug. 8, 2005 issue - The leafy Chicago suburb of Burr Ridge is the kind of place where people come to live the American dream in million-dollar homes on one-acre lots. Eight years ago Kimberly Fields and her husband, Todd, bought a ranch house here on a wooded lot beside a small lake, and before long they were parents, with two sons, a black Labrador and a Volvo in the drive. But somewhere along the way this blond mother with a college degree and a $100,000-a-year job as a sales rep for Apria Healthcare found something that mattered more: methamphetamine. The crystalline white drug quickly seduces those who snort, smoke or inject it with a euphoric rush of confidence, hyperalertness and sexiness that lasts for hours on end. And then it starts destroying lives.

meth video

DEA agent describes Meth war

------------------------------------

Related: Support Groups: 'This Is My Last Chance'
Meth-ravaged mothers in Iowa are finding a new way to heal.

Aug. 8, 2005 issue - It looked like a meeting of the PTA. But these young Iowa mothers were talking about being seduced, and then deeply scarred, by the dark magic of meth. Cory Mathahs, 37, a single mother of three, turned to the drug for weight loss and "the energy to be supermom—doing 10 things at once." Now rail-thin and missing a tooth, she trembled and broke down in tears. "I need help," she said. "I just put myself into treatment." The other women in the room, about two dozen of them, burst into applause. Some wrapped their arms around Mathahs and dried her tears. "There is hope," a voice called out.

Is Middle School Bad For Kids?

2005-08-02T10:16:00.000-04:00

Cities across the U.S. are switching to K-8 schools. Will the results be any better?

t's 10 a.m. on a bright May day, and the arts wing at Gustav A. Fritsche Middle School in Milwaukee, Wis., is hopping. In a band room, 21 members of the jazz ensemble are rehearsing Soul Bossa Nova with plenty of heart and impressive intonation, in preparation for a concert downtown. In another room, woodblocks, timpani and bells are whipping up a rhythmic frenzy as the 75-member Fritsche Philharmonic Orchestra tackles Elliott Del Borgo's Aboriginal Rituals. In an art room, eighth-graders are shaping clay vessels to be baked in the school kiln. Down the hall, students are dabbing acrylic paints on canvas to create vivid still lifes à la Vincent van Gogh. At 10:49, when the 82-min. arts period ends, kids of all sizes, colors and sartorial stripes pour out of classrooms, jostling and joking, filling the hallway with the buzz of pubescent energy. Then it's off to language arts, math, social studies and the array of other subjects offered at this sprawling arena for adolescents.

A few blocks away, at Humboldt Park Elementary School, which serves kindergarten through eighth grade, a charming scene unfolds in Karen Hennessy's classroom. Her kindergartners are enjoying a visit from their eighth-grade "buddies." All around the room, big kids sit knees to chest in miniature chairs or cross-legged on the alphabet carpet. Each little kid has chosen a picture book to share with a big buddy. Some lean on eighth-grade laps as they listen. Logan Wells, a strapping 14-year-old, reads The Little Engine That Could to Alec Matias and Jacob Hill. Jacob, 5, seems mesmerized equally by the bright illustrations and by the eighth-grader turning the pages. He presses against Logan as if to absorb some big-kid magic. The older boy reads on with gentle forbearance.

If you were 13 years old, where would you rather be? Big, frenetic Fritsche, with its thrilling range of arts classes, bands, Socratic seminars and TV studio, all aimed at 1,030 sixth-, seventh- and eighth-graders? Or calm and cozy Humboldt Park, where the teachers seem to know the names and histories of all 585 students, ages 4 to 14? If you're the parent of a 13-year-old, which would you choose for your child? The two schools represent two sides of a debate that has ripped through Milwaukee and other U.S. cities. For the past decade, middle schools have been the educational setting for roughly two-thirds of students in Grades 6 through 8. But increasingly, communities are questioning whether they really are the best choice for this volatile age group.

Related story: Being 13

Condi in Control

2005-08-01T20:49:00.000-04:00

Three weeks after taking office, Condoleezza Rice hosted Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and their Japanese counterparts at the State Department. When Rumsfeld began to speak, Rice gently cut him off. The message was clear: I'll take the lead, Don. Both Japanese and U.S. officials noted the decisive nudge.

Now six months on the job, Rice has clearly wrested control of U.S. foreign policy. The once heavy-handed Defense Department still weighs in, but Rice wins most battles -- in strong contrast to her predecessor, Colin L. Powell. White House staff is consulted, but Rice designed the distinctive framework for the administration's second-term foreign policy.

In short order, she has demonstrated a willingness to bend on tactics to accommodate the concerns of allies without ceding on broad principles, what she calls "practical idealism." She also conducts a more aggressive personal diplomacy, breaking State Department records for foreign travel and setting up diplomatic tag teams with top staff on urgent issues.

U.S. foreign policy has always had "a streak of idealism, which means that we care about values, we care about principle," Rice said in an interview last week. "The responsibility, then, of all of us is to take policies that are rooted in those values and make them work on a day-to-day basis so that you're always moving forward toward a goal."

It is too early to know whether the new tactics will ultimately bring results, and many of Rice's steps so far this year have been limited to overtures or temporary

fixes. But those have at the least created momentum where before there was deadlock.

On North Korea, Rice got the prickly Pyongyang government back to six-nation talks last week on nuclear disarmament by publicly recognizing it as a "sovereign state," then empowering her top aide on East Asia to repeatedly meet privately with the North Koreans -- extended contact forbidden during Powell's era.

On Iran, Rice agreed to offer incentives -- allowing the Islamic republic to apply for eventual membership in the World Trade Organization and buy badly needed spare parts for aging passenger aircraft -- in exchange for a European pledge to support U.N. Security Council action if talks fail. Powell had trouble just getting the White House to drop language including Iran in an "axis of evil," which implied eventual confrontation.

With India, she brokered a deal to sell peaceful nuclear technology that will cement U.S.-India relations, but which may also risk undermining the treaty to halt nuclear weapons proliferation.

On Sudan, Rice found middle ground between the administration's rejection of the International Criminal Court and U.N. efforts to launch a war crimes investigation into violence in the Darfur region. The State Department helped draft a U.N. resolution supporting an international probe that would pass -- but on which Washington could abstain.

High-tech tracked London suspects

2005-08-01T20:35:00.000-04:00

LONDON - "That's definitely him. I'm really scared now," Ana Christina Fernandes told a British policeman Thursday as he showed her a picture. A grainy CCTV (closed circuit television) photo showed a young man in tracksuit pants and a white tank top boarding the No. 220 bus. She identified Osman Hussain as her London neighbor.

A day later, the same man, who police say tried to set off one of four bombs on July 21, was captured by Italian police in Rome. He was betrayed by his mobile phone. Mr. Hussain was using a relative's cellphone as he traveled from Britain to France and Italy. By tracing the phone, Italian police pinpointed Hussain's location. This weekend, police say, they captured all four of the 7/21 London attackers, and technology proved a crucial tool in cracking the cases.

It makes you wonder, if it had happened here, would the villains still be on the loose?

Steroids Headed for Troops in Iraq Seized

2005-08-01T20:10:00.000-04:00

ROME - Italian police seized 215,000 doses of prohibited substances as they smashed a ring that supplied steroids and other performance-enhancing drugs to customers around the world, including American soldiers in Iraq, a police official said Monday.

The U.S. military in Iraq had no immediate comment, but the popularity of steroid abuse has long been discussed as American troops and contractors in Iraq work out in gyms set up in bases and even in the mirrored halls of one of Saddam Hussein's former palaces.

Joe Donahue, program director for the Vietnam Vets of America Foundation, who spent 16 months in Iraq — often lifting weights in the Green Zone gyms — said steroids were on offer for those who wanted them.

CNN Showbiz Tonight: TMI syndrome

2005-08-01T20:05:00.000-04:00

Today's edition of the CNN Headline News program "Showbiz Tonight" will include a segment on the tendency many have to share way more personal / icky / inappropriate details via online communications than they would face-to-face or via phone. You know -- like when you're surfing a business networking service online and you see "Harvard MFA seeking CFO role" "makes excellent vegan burritos", and "likes BDSM play" all in the same user profile. Also, the cc: field is not always your friend, and some things are better left unblogged.

Teens aim for sculpted physique

2005-08-01T17:39:00.000-04:00

Eight percent of girls and 12 percent of boys surveyed said they used supplements in striving to become more buff. Protein shakes and powders were the most commonly used, but teens also listed steroids, growth hormones, amino acids and other potentially unhealthy products among items they had tried in the previous year.

To torture or not to torture, that is the question

2005-08-01T17:38:00.000-04:00

You won't find many people willing to accuse John McCain, John Warner or Lindsey Graham of being soft on terrorism. But the three Republican senators are giving the White House fits with their attempt to get legislation approved that would expressly prohibit cruel, inhumane or degrading treatment of detainees in U.S. custody.

There was a dramatic encounter during the floor debate last week when Senator Jeff Sessions, a Republican from Alabama, spoke out against the legislation, saying there was no need for it because, as he put it, the detainees are not prisoners of war, "they are terrorists."

Senator McCain, of Arizona, argued that the debate "is not about who they are. It's about who we are." Americans, said Mr. McCain, "hold ourselves" to a higher standard.

Muslim decree to oppose terrorism

2005-08-01T17:35:00.000-04:00

In recent weeks, Muslim organizations in the West have stepped up their efforts to condemn violence done in the name of the faith. In part, it is a reaction to criticism that they are not doing enough to oppose violence overseas (see story: Radio talk host suspended for criticizing Islam). But it also follows the London terror bombings and the growth of a new threat: homegrown terrorists.

Because Islam is a decentralized faith, the fatwa, which is defined as a religious and legal decree, would have little binding effect on most Muslims. But it is a significant step by a well-known organization that, through its moral authority, could have reverberations around the world.

Bible Course Becomes a Test for Public Schools in Texas

2005-08-01T17:32:00.000-04:00

HOUSTON, July 31 - When the school board in Odessa, the West Texas oil town, voted unanimously in April to add an elective Bible study course to the 2006 high school curriculum, some parents dropped to their knees in prayerful thanks that God would be returned to the classroom, while others assailed it as an effort to instill religious training in the public schools.

Hundreds of miles away, leaders of the National Council on Bible Curriculum in Public Schools notched another victory. A religious advocacy group based in Greensboro, N.C., the council has been pressing a 12-year campaign to get school boards across the country to accept its Bible curriculum.

The council calls its course a nonsectarian historical and literary survey class within constitutional guidelines requiring the separation of church and state.

But a growing chorus of critics says the course, taught by local teachers trained by the council, conceals a religious agenda. The critics say it ignores evolution in favor of creationism and gives credence to dubious assertions that the Constitution is based on the Scriptures, and that "documented research through NASA" backs the biblical account of the sun standing still.

In the latest salvo, the Texas Freedom Network, an advocacy group for religious freedom, has called a news conference for Monday to release a study that finds the national council's course to be "an error-riddled Bible curriculum that attempts to persuade students and teachers to adopt views that are held primarily within conservative Protestant circles."

The dispute has made the curriculum, which the national council says is used by more than 175,000 students in 312 school districts in 37 states, the latest flashpoint in the continuing culture wars over religious influences in the public domain.

Low-Carb Pioneer Atkins Files Chapter 11

2005-08-01T17:28:00.000-04:00

NEW YORK - The company started by the late nutrition guru Dr. Robert C. Atkins to promote a low-carb lifestyle has filed for bankruptcy court protection, a further sign of the waning popularity of the diet.
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A hearing on the prearranged, Chapter 11 filing by Atkins Nutritionals Inc. was scheduled for Monday in U.S. Bankruptcy Court, spokesman Richard Rothstein said Sunday.

Delray man thinks his lawsuit helped bring Atkins down

More television characters are going to pot

2005-08-01T15:23:00.000-04:00

Is Hollywood going one toke over the line? Marijuana use is cropping up on some critically acclaimed shows, and anti-drug forces fear the glamorization of pot could boost its use among youths.
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Who's lighting up:

• Pot is an ongoing theme on HBO's Entourage (Sundays, 10 ET/PT), which centers on a rising young movie star and his New York buddies who have gone Hollywood. Sunday's episode features two teens getting high at a bat mitzvah.

• Streetwise Maurice "Smoke" Williams (Kirk Jones) lit up on last week's premiere of Over There (Wednesdays, 10 ET/PT), FX's gritty
Iraq war drama.

• Marijuana is the core premise of Showtime dramedy Weeds (Mondays, 10 ET/PT), a dark version of Desperate Housewives suburbia with
Mary-Louise Parker as a pot-dealing soccer mom. In Sunday's special preview, a teen sells pot to grade-schoolers until Parker's character blackmails him to stop.

Related: Marijuana Policy Project

WMAL suspends radio talk host

2005-08-01T10:28:00.000-04:00

Radio talk-show host Michael Graham was suspended by station WMAL-AM yesterday for repeatedly describing Islam as a "terrorist organization" on his program.

The effort to have Michael removed was spear-headed by CAIR (Council for American-Islamic Relations). They are like a PR firm for Muslim terrorists. They make sure that Muslims are portrayed favorably in countries where Muslims do not control the media.

They have defended Osama bin Laden after the 911 attacks and member of their leadership have been in tourble with the law for terrorist related activities. They give money to groups like Hamas and others.

Nevertheless, they were successful in removing Michael Graham from the airwaves for accusing Islam of being a terrorist organization. His remarks came after a number of Ilsmaic leaders around the world (specifically in Europe following the London attacks) refused to categorically denounce suicide bombings.

On the same day that Michael was suspended, CAIR issued a fatwa against terrorism (a little late guys) and produced a television ad denouncing terror.

It is nice to see these denouncements, but we have seen this in the past. The problem with them is that they are just a nother PR campaign designed to use the media to fool us into believing something that is not true.

Japanese develop 'female' android

2005-08-01T10:17:00.000-04:00

She has flexible silicone for skin rather than hard plastic, and a number of sensors and motors to allow her to turn and react in a human-like manner.

She can flutter her eyelids and move her hands like a human. She even appears to breathe...

Posting of 'Johns' on the Web Raises Rights Issue

2005-07-31T20:26:00.000-04:00

Chicago's use of the Internet to humiliate customers of prostitutes, or "johns," has led to concerns that the practice may violate constitutional rights.

At issue is Chicago's recent decision to run a Web site that posts the names and photos of people who have been arrested for soliciting a prostitute -- but not convicted.

Attorneys and law enforcement officials argue that the practice violates a person's constitutional right to a fair trial, and could lead to lawsuits down the road.

New problems with tiles called "uprecendented"

2005-07-31T20:09:00.000-04:00

"The trouble has nothing to do with foam or other launch debris but rather the accidental slippage of ceramic-fiber fabric used to fill the thin gaps between thermal tiles."

Ceramic? Isn't that what they used instead of freon on the World Trade Center?

The buildings are also thought to have been the first buildings to use non-asbestos fireproofing. The fibers of the spray-on fireproofing product were reportedly ceramic rather than asbestos.

When will we learn?

Is Political Correctness killing us? NASA has known of tile problems since 97

2005-07-31T19:42:00.000-04:00

We used to use tiles that worked well. Then we stopped using them because they were not politically correct - they were freon-based. So we changed the tiles and ever since then the tiles have been problematic at best, and for the lives of the Shuttle crew, disasterous. So, why are we still using inferior tiles on the Shuttle?

"You have to admit when you're wrong. We were wrong," said shuttle program manager Bill Parsons. "We need to do some work here, and so we're telling you right now, that the ... foam should not have come off. It came off. We've got to go do something about that."

NASA administrator Michael Griffin said pre-flight safety checks had fallen short. "Everyone has said without any attempt to hide it ... we goofed on that one."

The loss of a chunk of debris, a vexing problem NASA thought had been fixed, represents a tremendous setback to a space program that has spent 2 1/2 years and over $1 billion trying to make the 20-year-old shuttles safe to fly.

"We wont be able to fly again," until the hazard is removed, Parsons told reporters in a briefing Wednesday evening. "Obviously we have some more work to do."

Well, this is nothing new, unfortunately:

Environmentalists ban DDT - millions of deaths over the world.
Environmentalists ban asbestos - the WTCs collapse instead of burning out, resulting in 3000 deaths instead of a few hundred.
Environmentalists ban freon - space shuttle foam and tiles less rugged, resulting in the loss of a shuttle, and its mission, and crew, and even after looking at the problem, another orbiter has suffered damage on take-off.

Steven Milloy, 2003...

Until 1997, Columbia’s external fuel tanks were insulated with a Freon-based foam. Freon is a chlorofluorocarbon (CFC) supposedly linked with ozone depletion and phased out of widespread use under the international treaty known as the Montreal Protocol.

Despite that the Freon-based foam worked well and that an exemption from the CFC phase-out could have been obtained, NASA succumbed to political correctness. The agency substituted an allegedly more eco-friendly foam for the Freon-based foam.

PC-foam was an immediate problem.

The first mission with PC-foam resulted in 11 times more damaged thermal tiles on Columbia than the previous mission with the Freon-based foam.

A Dec. 23, 1997, diary entry on the NASA Web site reported: “308 hits were counted during the inspection, 132 were greater than 1-inch. Some of the hits measured 15 inches long, with depths measuring up to 1.5 inches. Considering that the depth of a tile is 2 inches, a 75 percent penetration depth had been reached.”

More than 100 tiles were damaged beyond repair, well over the normal count of 40. Flaking PC-foam was the chief suspect.

In 2001, the Environmental Protection Agency exempted NASA from the CFC phase-out. Even assuming for the sake of argument that widespread use of CFCs might significantly damage the ozone layer, the relatively small amount used by NASA would have no measurable impact. The bulk of CFC use, after all, was in consumer products such as air conditioners, refrigerators and aerosol cans.

But contrary to the exercise of common sense, NASA didn’t return to the safer Freon-based foam. Instead, NASA knowingly continued to risk tile damage -- and disaster -- with reformulated PC-foam.

This is obviously a potentially embarrassing situation for NASA.

In what smacks of an effort to avoid blame, NASA is now claiming the disintegration of Columbia has turned into a scientific mystery.

NASA says computer modeling fails to show how foam insulation striking the thermal tiles could do enough damage to cause catastrophe -- apparently ignoring that flaking foam substantially penetrated thermal tiles on an earlier flight.

Man Sues after waking to $40,000 escort service bill

2005-07-31T19:36:00.000-04:00

NEW YORK -- A Manhattan man says he can't remember what happened, but his $40,000 credit card bill said he had a wild time with eight young lady escorts.

Leonardo Manfredo's attorney said that's impossible, and that the man is suing Midnight Escorts of Jamaica, Queens.

Attorney Kevin Claffey said his client hired one escort on March 19, but awoke 15 hours later with the credit card charges. One $20,000 charge was denied, but another $20,000 charge was approved.

Monfredo accuses one of the escorts of slipping him a drug and then inviting seven other women to his apartment. Manfredo said he didn't know there were eight women in his apartment until he was told by his doorman the next day.

Manfredo is seeking to have his credit card bill refunded, and he's suing the escort service for $1 million.

In CA, you can sue your boss for NOT sleeping with you

2005-07-31T19:32:00.000-04:00

Phil Horowitz, of the California Employment Lawyers Association, who submitted a brief to the court in support of a lawsuit filed by two women, called the decision "groundbreaking."

"It's the first major decision saying women can sue if they are treated worse because they're not the paramour of the supervisor."

download the ruling here.

Carburetor breast fantasy wins bad writing contest

2005-07-29T21:34:00.000-04:00

"As he stared at her ample bosom, he daydreamed of the dual Stromberg carburetors in his vintage Triumph Spitfire, highly functional yet pleasingly formed, perched prominently on top of the intake manifold, aching for experienced hands, the small knurled caps of the oil dampeners begging to be inspected and adjusted as described in chapter seven of the shop manual," went Dan McKay's winning entry in the Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest.

Eminent Domain Used to Seize Church Property

2005-07-29T17:44:00.000-04:00

Yesterday, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) announced their plans to seize private church property and displace the remains of 1,300 deceased members of St. John’s United Church of Christ in order to “revitalize” and expand O’Hare International Airport.

Tragically, “they acknowledge that the salvation of the deceased at St. Johannes Cemetery depends on their undisturbed remains, but then order them to be bulldozed away,” said Anthony Picarello, president and general counsel of The Becket Fund who is defending the church, cemetery and family members of the deceased. He, along with his clients, are outraged by this gross violation of religious rights. “Our country's founders are also turning in their graves."

Full story here.

The Next Sex and the City

2005-07-29T16:05:00.000-04:00

Called the "Carrie Bradshaw" of bloggers by the New York Times, suburban New Yorker Stephanie Klein's online musings in her personal blog, Greek Tragedy, has gained the attention of Hollywood and the book industry while it draws comparisons to former HBO television series, Sex and the City.

Since January 2004, Klein has written her blog which goes into the intimate details of her life as a 29-year-old professional single woman living in New York City's northwestern suburb of Prospect Park, New Jersey. Since then her blog has become among the top 1 percent most-read blogs in the world, according to Technorati's "net attention" ratings system.

That popularity grabbed the attention of two international media conglomerates, News Corporation and NBC Universal. News Corp.'s HarperCollins book division struck a book deal with Klein valued at more than $500,000. The book is scheduled to debut in April 2006.

Comparisons to Sex and the City may continue. NBC Universal is developing the blog-based book into a fictionalized weekly sitcom version of Klein’s life for its NBC television network.

The Great Ground Zero Heist

2005-07-26T19:10:00.000-04:00

While the International Freedom Center is getting 300,000 square feet of space to teach us how to think about liberty, the actual Memorial Center on the opposite corner of the site will get a meager 50,000 square feet to exhibit its 9/11 artifacts, all out of sight and underground.

More disturbing, the Lower Manhattan Development Corp. is handing over millions of federal dollars and the keys to that building to some of the very same people who consider the post-9/11 provisions of the Patriot Act more dangerous than the terrorists that they were enacted to apprehend--people whose inflammatory claims of a deliberate torture policy at Guantanamo Bay are undermining this country's efforts to foster freedom elsewhere in the world.

The driving force behind the IFC is Tom Bernstein, the dynamic co-founder of the Chelsea Piers Sports and Entertainment Complex who made a fortune financing Hollywood movies.

The public has a right to know that it was Mr. Bernstein's organization, joined by the American Civil Liberties Union, that filed a lawsuit three months ago against Donald Rumsfeld on behalf of detainees in Iraq and Afghanistan.

First drama series about Iraq war hits US television screens

2005-07-26T17:14:00.000-04:00

"Over There," produced by "Hill Street Blues" and "NYPD Blues" creator Steven Bochco, hits the US FX cable network on Wednesday, telling the story of the Iraqi conflict from the viewpoint of eight American soldiers.

The show, heralded by a major advertising campaign, begins with the eight military personnel -- six men and two women -- leaving their homes in the United States to join their units, according to previews.

While FX is part of Australian-born US media tycoon Rupert Murdoch's Fox Television group, which is a vocal supporter of the US military presence in Iraq, the channel denies it is trying to make a political statement.

Woman Bitten By Poisonous Snake Hiding In Toilet

2005-07-26T16:28:00.000-04:00

In one Florida household, a whole family is afraid of the toilet after a poisonous snake used it as a hiding place. Alicia Bailey was bitten by what appeared to have been a large water moccasin that had been hiding in the bowl in the middle of the night.

The snake bit her thigh after she lifted the lid, sending her to the hospital for three days.

No one knows how the snake got in the toilet, or where it went after that.

So the family is a little jumpy these days.

"We're not looking to take it alive," said the victim's husband, Richard Bailey, as he held a shotgun. "I just want it out of here."

"We're currently very uncomfortable in our home," Alicia Bailey said. "And toilet shy, I would say."

The Bailey's 11-year-old son is now staying with neighbors because doctors said he would die if he were bitten by a snake that size.

video

CHICK FLICKS: A MAN'S GUIDE TO WATCHING MOVIES WITH YOUR BETTER HALF

2005-07-26T16:27:00.000-04:00

"Honey? Do you wanna watch a movie?"

Face it, guys. If you're in a relationship, there are few questions (other than, "Do these jeans make my butt look fat?") that are more loaded and riddled with danger. Before you say "yes" to your sweetie, here's a little guide to "Chick Flicks" and their more palpable alternatives.

If you don't want to lose hours of your life that you'll never get back, you need to be careful out there. Hopefully, this helps...

Wildlife Officials Catch Bear With Doughnuts

2005-07-26T16:26:00.000-04:00

BONITA SPRINGS, Fla. -- Wildlife officials say they used doughnuts to catch a bear in Bonita Springs.

The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission says a small young female bear was trapped Monday morning, five days after it was set free.

Wildlife biologists are towing the bear in the trap to the Ocala National Forest. There, the bear will be tranquilized, receive a radio collar, be weighed and then released--again.

Authorities also trapped a 225-pound male bear in the same area two weeks ago.

I Link, Therefore I am

2005-07-26T16:24:00.000-04:00

A WEST NYACK, N.Y. MAN was found dead at his computer apparently the victim of trying to keep up with too many professional forums. Childress H. Wanamaker, 54, an account executive at a New York-based new media company, died of starvation according to the West Nyack coroner's office. Wanamaker's emaciated body was found by Loraine, his wife of 26 years, who told MediaPost she had been bringing her husband meals on plastic trays for weeks, but that he never took the time to eat them.

"He was glued to his computer 24/7," she said tearfully. "He was so afraid he was going to miss an opportunity to contribute a comment or start a discussion, that he just stopped eating." She added that Wanamaker's last words were "OK Picard, stick that in your pipe and smoke it..."

With no Mr. Right in sight, time for plan B

2005-07-26T16:23:00.000-04:00

When Anne-Marie,* the president and CEO of a start-up medical device company in Philadelphia, first began thinking of having a child on her own, she was 37 and her biological clock was ticking loudly.

As much as she wanted to be in a great, loving relationship with a partner, she wanted a baby even more. “If I turned 50 and didn't have children," she says, "I'd be pretty devastated."

So after about a year of weighing her options and considering what it would be like to be a mother on her own, she did something a growing number of single women are doing: She chose an anonymous donor through a sperm bank and started her attempts to get pregnant, using drugs to encourage the growth of egg-producing follicles.

Teacher sawed wife into 9 bits

2005-07-26T16:16:00.000-04:00

London - A British teacher who killed his wife with a punch to the jaw and left nine pieces of her mangled body in a freezer was jailed for five years on Monday.

Paul Dalton, 35, of Kingston, southern England, said he accidentally killed his 38-year-old Korean-born wife, but denied murdering her.

Driving bill upsets smokers

2005-07-26T01:25:00.000-04:00

JERSEY: Assemblyman John F. McKeon, D-West Orange, sponsored a measure that would fine drivers up to $250 if they are found smoking while driving.

McKeon, a tobacco opponent whose father died of emphysema, cited a AAA-sponsored study on driver distractions in which the association found that of 32,000 accidents linked to distraction, one percent were related to smoking.

The smoking while driving ban shifts the smoking debate to private property.

Related Story (Jan 2005): Private Company Fires workers for smoking - at home!

Nico-Nuts?

2005-07-26T00:35:00.000-04:00

Have we gone Nicotine Nuts in this country?

Nationally, some companies, such as Union Pacific, are refusing to hire smokers. At least one Michigan company, Weyco, let four workers go earlier this year when they refused to quit smoking - at home!

From Weyco firing at-home smokers, to a new bill that would outlaw smoking in cars, to the increasing number of tobacco-related lawsuits, to the number of states outlawing smoking in bars and restaurants, the cigarette makers of this country are fast becoming our favorite bad guys.

And as they become increasingly criminalized, cigarettes are fast becoming targetted by gangs for their black market appeal:

"Police and Customs officers seized at least 300kg of manufactured tobacco and 3.8 tonnes of tobacco leaf, along with machinery and equipment used in its manufacture on Tuesday.

The "truck loads" were taken largely from Motueka Valley as part of an ongoing operation, Customs fraud spokesman Terry Brown said.

But insiders say it is just the tip of the iceberg and estimate that more than 20 tonnes is being grown to be hawked in bars.

With the excise on one tonne worth $376,000, millions in potential tax revenue could be being lost."

Tobacco Resources and Stats

Tobacco use remains the leading preventable cause of death in the United States, causing more than 400,000 deaths each year and resulting in an annual cost of more than $50 billion in direct medical costs.
Each year, smoking kills more people than AIDS, alcohol, drug abuse, car crashes, murders, suicides, and fires - combined! (about 430,000)
In addition, smoking costs the U.S. economy at least $100 billion in annual health care expenses and lost productivity.
States with smoking bans in bars and restaurants (Love the fact that in Washington DC, smoking is banned in all government buildings - except in Congress)
Scholarly articles on smoking bans
The United Pro Smokers Rights Newsletter
more stats here and here
more tobacco lawsuits and stories here
tobacco lawsuit timeline
Class Action Fairness Act
Book: For Your Own Good. A chronicle of the Nanny State, this book provides a powerful and provocative case against America's public health crusaders. The debate over smoking is really more about the nature of liberty--how should a society restrict the choices of its members?--than it is about public health, says author.

Lawmakers debate castration as punishment for sex offenders

2005-07-26T00:30:00.000-04:00

MONTGOMERY, Ala. (AP) - Some members of the Alabama House say that violent sex offenders who prey on children should be forced to undergo surgical castration to ensure that they do not hurt another child.

In an effort to strengthen a bill toughening the state's laws against sex offenders, the House added an amendment Thursday by Rep. Steve Hurst, D-Munford, that would require those convicted of violent sex crimes against children under 12 to undergo the operation to remove their sex drive.

---------------------------------------------------------------------

Is chemical castration an acceptable punishment for male sex offenders?

Sex offenders, such as rapists, pedophiles, and exhibitionists, are among the highest reoccurring offense populations in the United States probation system. These offenders commit crimes that put fear into the general public and pose a threat to people that live in their neighborhoods. These offenders should be punished and not let off or forgiven of their crime(s) just because they have gone through a treatment program, most or which cannot show a significant success rate.

Chemical castration is an ideal punishment for sex offenders. When Depo-Provera is administerd, recidivism rates fall to 5%. Their sexual fantasies are lessened as a result of the reduction of testosterone levels. Although men administered this drug are capable of having sexual intercourse, many people argue that chemical castration is cruel and unusual punishment. This argument is countered by the fact that sex offenders are required to get injections only once a month. What is "cruel and unusual" is allowing sex offenders to attack innocent women and children. This effective therapy will protect future victims. It is an "offender friendly" way of reducing sexual violence. [LaLaunie Hayes.]

Recidivism High
A 1989 review of recidivism rates for sex offenders in North America and Europe, published in the Psychological Bulletin, came to the conclusion that "there is no evidence that treatment effectively reduces sex offense recidivism." In fact, the recidivism rate for counseled offenders was often higher than that of untreated ones. In Florida, men who completed counseling were re-arrested for a sex offense at a rate of 13.6%, while men who did not complete the counseling were arrested at only a 6.5% rate. In Philadelphia, those who were not counseled re-offended at less than half the rate of those who were. link
Proponents of castration argue that it is justified and appropriate, that by controlling sex offenders' irresistable urges to rape or molest again, castration allows them to be released without endangering the public. Of more than 700 Danish sex offenders castrated following multiple convictions, relapse rates dropped from between 17% and 50% to just 2%. A Norwegian study showed the same for selected male and female sex offenders (the women had their ovaries removed). In smaller studies in Scandinavia and Italy, chemical castration was equally effective in some groups of volunteer prisoners, with the most dramatic reductions among pedophiles.
Opponents say Castration Inneffective
University of Alabama Criminal Justice Professor Robert Sigler said castration has not proven to be an effective way to stop sex offenders from repeating their crimes.

"Research indicates that sexual abuse is not necessarily sexual. These people are mentally ill and sexual castration often does not solve the problem," Sigler said.

He said a program where convicted sex offenders are required to take polygraph tests once a month is being used in some parts of Alabama and has proved more effective than castration. link

Sex Offender Stories

Child Molester May Have 36,000 Victims

2005-07-26T00:02:00.000-04:00

SAN JOSE, Calif. - Police were hoping Friday that molestation victims would step forward after a convicted child molester was arrested on charges of molesting a boy and authorities found logs suggesting that he abused thousands of children over 30 years across the United States as well as in Mexico and Brazil.

Authorities in this Northern California city said 63-year-old Dean Arthur Schwartzmiller could be the worst child abuser on record in the United States.

Calif. helped pay for 137 sex offenders’ Viagra

2005-07-26T00:00:00.000-04:00

SAN FRANCISCO - California taxpayers helped pay for Viagra and other impotence drugs for at least 137 registered sex offenders in the past year, the state Attorney General’s office said.

An audit found that Medi-Cal — the state Medicaid agency that funds some health services programs for California’s poor — spent $2.6 million to provide 5,855 men with Viagra and other erectile dysfunction drugs, including 137 men who were registered sex offenders, Nathan Barankin, spokesman for Attorney General Bill Lockyer, said Wednesday.

WaterKooler Talk of the Day week of 7-18

2005-07-17T18:13:00.000-04:00

--------------------------WK STORY #1------------------------------

The Story: Smoke and Mirrors. The Game: Get Karl Rove

WELL, of course, Karl Rove did it. He may not have violated the Intelligence Identities Protection Act of 1982, with its high threshold of criminality for outing a covert agent, but there's no doubt he trashed Joseph Wilson and Valerie Plame. We know this not only because of Matt Cooper's e-mail, but also because of Mr. Rove's own history. Trashing is in his nature, and bad things happen, usually through under-the-radar whispers, to decent people (and their wives) who get in his way.

That is part of the commentary we hear from the Left Wing, (a.k.a. Jackass) Party these days... Thank you Frank Rich. Now, it is no secret that the Jackasses like to victimize criminals and n'er do wells and that is exactly how Mr. Rich and the Left want you to view the insidiously deceitful Joseph Wilson - as a victim. Moreover, they want you to believe that this "plot" was "hatched" from the oval office. [read more]

--------------------------WK STORY #1b------------------------------

When I read recently that the Leftcoaster had posted a lament about the London bombings giving Fox News more fodder to scare America with War on Terror hyperbole, "distracting from real issues like global warming," chills ran up and down my spine. This is how this country will come to ruin, I thought. But then I read something slightly more soothing. Thank you, Frontiers of Freedom...

Fox news, conservative radio and now the internet have come under attack for simply being an alternative to what is referred to as ‘mainstream news media.’ Fox news and Claudia Rosette were responsible for breaking the most important news story of the year. Mainstream Media has treated the oil-for-food program like the plague, corruption between Saddam, Chirac, Schroeder, Putin the U.N. and others has not been as important to the mainstream media as ‘who leaked the name of Valerie Plame as a covert CIA operative’ and that’s only important because they see visions of bringing down Karl Rove/Bush Administration (never mind the fact that its only a crime if she were a covert operative at the time and many people have said, she was not)

P.S. Thanks also for the tip that Matt Cooper’s (the journalist who received Rove’s so-called ‘leak’) wife is Mandy Grunwald; media consultant and campaign advisor to both Bill and Hillary Clinton. Read about it here and here and here.

--------------------------WK STORY #2------------------------------

BY Joel Mowbray: While the Washington press corps has been buzzing about the
Rove-Wilson-Plame kerfuffle (as have I), there's been a different scandal
involving mishandling of classified info that few in the media have even
noted. Last week, I broke the story of how the federal prison system has
119 inmates with "specific ties" to international Islamic terrorist
organizations and almost all have outside comminication privileges, yet the
Bureau of Prisons (BOP) has no full-time Arabic translators. The
translators they do use--17 BOP employees who have full-time work unrelated
to translating--undergo no fluency tests or any special background
screening. This means that the translators handling the communications of
terrorists--potentially the most sensitive information imaginable--have no
security clearances whatsoever.

--------------------------WK STORY #3------------------------------

ACLU Sues FBI

"The FBI has thousands of pages of records in its files relating to the monitoring of civil rights, environmental and similar advocacy groups, the Justice Department acknowledges.

"I know for an absolute fact that we have not been involved in anything related to promoting terrorism and yet the government has collected almost 1,200 pages on our activities," Romero said. "Why is the ACLU now the subject of scrutiny from the FBI?"

--------------------------WK STORY #4------------------------------

Sexy Sandra Bulluck ties the knot, marrying bad boy Jesse James of Monster Garage fame. We're still waiting for someone to post the over/under on their breakup.

Speaking of gambling on celebrities, BetWWTS has already posted odds for the Emmy Awards. The news release can be found here.

--------------------------WK STORY #5------------------------------

Should Sex Offenders be jailed for reading Maxim?

Illegal Immigration Fact Sheet

2005-07-16T21:55:00.000-04:00

Recent Immigration Stories

FAIR Fact Sheet

We know that illegals are 5 times more likely to engage in criminal activity, as studies show. It is common sense: You come hear illegally, your first act in this country is to break it's laws; you have to find illegal underground sources for illegal documentation, you live each day a lie, you become desensitized to the law. The simple fact is that illegals coming into this country are taxing our prison systems.

In 1980, our federal and state prisons housed fewer than 9,000 criminal aliens. By the end of 1999, these same prisons housed over 68,000 criminal aliens.1 Today, criminal aliens account for over 29 percent of prisoners in Federal Bureau of Prisons facilities and a higher share of all federal prison inmates.2 These prisoners represent the fastest growing segment of the federal prison population. Over the past five years, an average of more than 72,000 aliens have been arrested annually on drug charges alone.

Privacy Watch - Stories and Resources

2005-07-16T20:09:00.000-04:00

Important Privacy Links For You...

Electronic Privacy Information Center | Privacy Rights Now
Privacy Rights.org | Privacy Rights International | FTC Initiatives

Top 5 Online Scams

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RECENT STORIES (More Privacy News Stories Here and Here)

Who's minding the store (of private data you gave up)?

I accidentally downloaded your identity from the IRS

ID Theft: How Bad Is It?

The Enterprise Strategy Group recently surveyed 229 U.S.- based security professionals from organizations with more than 1,000 employees. The majority of respondents (52 percent) came from organizations with more than $1 billion in annual revenue.

23 percent of respondents reported their organization had suffered an internal security breach in the past 12 months, while 27 percent didn't know if it had or not. Note to self: Make sure the people you do business with know whether they've been hacked or not.

Regarding the damage caused by these internal security events, 40 percent of respondents said that an internal breach led to an interruption of a critical system or service, 38 percent indicated that an internal breach led to data corruption or loss, and 17 percent said that the internal breach led to the theft of intellectual property.

Are you ready to cut up your credit cards yet? It gets worse.

Google's Growth Prompts Privacy Concerns.

"Google is at once a powerful search engine and a growing e-mail provider. It runs a blogging service, makes software to speed Web traffic and has ambitions to become a digital library. And it is developing a payments service.

Although many Internet users eagerly await each new technology from Google Inc., its rapid expansion is also prompting concerns that the company may know too much: what you read, where you surf and travel, whom you write."

Hackers Up the Pressure in June

"A massive run-up in the number of Trojan horses and Trojan horse downloaders, as well as a corresponding jump in the number of malicious sites, over the last three weeks means that a new, large-scale, coordinated phishing campaign is being waged by criminals, a security vendor said Friday.

Websense, a San Diego-based security company, has detected a "four- to five-fold increase in the number of Trojans during the last week of June and especially the first two weeks of July," said Dan Hubbard, Websense's senior director of security."

A Pass on Privacy?
You may love your EZ Pass - that electronic encoder that allows you to zip through toll booths - but now that you have given up a piece of your personal information to yet another database, what vulnerabilites have you exposed yourself to?

Choicepoint Loses 145,000 US Identities
Bank of America Loses 2.1 million gov employee records
Seisint Reports Familiar Story: Hackers Stole 32,000 US Identities

So what is the Senate going to do about it?

-------------------------------------

Learn How to Protect Your Privacy Here.

No Place To Hide, a radio documentary, asks the question, "Has technology outpaced our ability to protect ourselves?

Fight for your Right to Privacy:

Electronic Privacy Information Center
Washington National Office
1718 Connecticut Ave. N.W.
Suite 200
Washington, DC 20009
tel: 202 483 1140

Privacy International

FTC Initiatives

Privacy Rights Now

Privacy Rights.org

CIA Leak Flap

2005-07-16T18:24:00.000-04:00

Novack Curses, walks off set at CNN
The latest: Novack calls ex CIA official liar

The Story: Smoke and Mirrors. The Game: Get Karl Rove

WELL, of course, Karl Rove did it. He may not have violated the Intelligence Identities Protection Act of 1982, with its high threshold of criminality for outing a covert agent, but there's no doubt he trashed Joseph Wilson and Valerie Plame. We know this not only because of Matt Cooper's e-mail, but also because of Mr. Rove's own history. Trashing is in his nature, and bad things happen, usually through under-the-radar whispers, to decent people (and their wives) who get in his way.

That is part of the commentary we hear from the Left Wing (a.k.a. Jackass) Party these days... Thank you Frank Rich. Now, it is no secret that the Jackasses like to victimize criminals and n'er do wells and that is exactly how Mr. Rich and the Left want you to view the insidiously deceitful Joseph Wilson - as a victim. Moreover, they want you to believe that this "plot" was "hatched" from the oval office.

"Bad things happen to decent people" ?? Please. (Talk about trashing people).

So, let me get this straight... in this fairy tale of Mr. Rich's, the "bad thing" is that the truth was told and the decent person is the guy who was lying to reporters.

A Pack of Lies
Look, Wilson lied about the administration sending him to Niger and he lied about what he found there by insisting that he found evidence that the President was lying about uranium. But the Senate Intelligence Committee caught him in this lie.

In fact, the Intelligence Committee report said that "for most analysts" Wilson's trip to Niger "lent more credibility to the original Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) reports on the uranium deal."

So he was lying. This is no surprise, since his book is full of partisan lies (want to guess which party Wilson gives his money to, which Presidential candidate he worked for? - by the way, Kerry fired him because he was such a kook!).

Lie #1
Wilson's main lie was that the Bush admininstration knowingly lied, or misled, the public about Iraq's attempts or desires to obtain uranium from Niger. This has been debunked again and again.

Reports by two official investigations -- Britain's Butler Commission and the Senate intelligence committee -- demonstrated that Mr. Wilson's portrayal of himself as a whistle-blower was unwarranted. It turned out his report to the CIA had not altered, and may even have strengthened, the agency's conclusion that Iraq had explored uranium purchases from Niger. Moreover, his account had not reached Vice President Cheney or any other senior official. According to the Butler Commission, led by an independent jurist, the assertion about African uranium included in Mr. Bush's State of the Union speech was "well-founded."

The Butler Report affirmed what the British government had said about the Niger uranium story back in 2003, and specifically endorsed what Bush said as well.

Butler Report: By extension, we conclude also that the statement in President Bush’s State of the Union Address of 28 January 2003 that “The British Government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa” was well-founded.

Lie #2
So, on top of that lie, comes another lie, about who sent Wilson to Niger. Reporters were told that Ms. Plame recommended Mr. Wilson for the Niger trip -- a fact denied by Mr. Wilson but subsequently confirmed by the Senate investigation.

Enter Karl the Rove
This is where Rove comes in. He simply corrected a reporter who Wilson had lied to, by saying that in fact it was Wilson's wife, an employee of the CIA, who sent him to Niger, not Dick Cheney. The Wall Street Journal thinks Rove should be given an award for this.

Instead, the Jackasses want to use the Intelligence Identities Protection Act of 1982 to indict Rove. Sorry Jackasses, but we spoke to the author of that law, Victoria Toensing, and she assures us that Rove did not come anywhere near a violation. Meanwhile, the White House waits upon the grand jury to come to their decision. (The smart money is on innocent, by the way.)

In Conlusion - Monty Python
So what do we have here? Rove corrected a reporter who was about to publish one of Wilson's many kooky lies. Wow. What a scandal. Only the hatred of the Left and the blood thirst of the media could dream up something so big out of so little. Even the Washington Post editorial thinks this is much ado about nothing.

You can hardly blame them, though. If I were a brain-damaged fiction writer with an overwhelming hatred of George W. Bush and someone handed me a story with the words "CIA," "Karl Rove" and "lies" in the first paragraph... well, who knows what I might start blathering about.

Doesn't the whole thing sound like some silly put-on from a Monty Python episode?

Don't believe the hype. Read the facts here.

Review the facts about the Senate Intelligence Committee report and the Butler Report here.

Read the actual Butler Report here.

More articles here.

Oh, and there seems to still be all this talk of Valerie being an undercover agent...

For the Record: the myth that the Intelligence Identities Protection Act was violated in the Plame case began to unravel in October 2003, when New York Times scribe Nicholas Kristof revealed that she abandoned her covert role a full nine years before the Novak column.

Wikepedia

--------------------

Was Plame a covert agent?

The case is clouded by reckoning on the covert status of Valerie Plame when the leak occurred. Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) called for an FBI probe 10 days after the July 13, 2003 column by Robert Novak identified her as an agent. A Chicago native and appointed special prosecutor, Patrik Fitzgerald took over the case 19 months ago. That the case continues today says something in itself.

Critics of the investigation believe the case is overblown because it was widely known in Washington social power circles that Plame worked for the CIA.

A MediaMatters report on the widely publicized quote by Joseph Wilson, who said, "My wife was not a clandestine officer... ", was misconstrued by the press.

BLITZER: But the other argument that's been made against you is that you've sought to capitalize on this extravaganza, having that photo shoot with your wife [in the January 2004 Vanity Fair magazine], who was a clandestine officer of the CIA, and that you've tried to enrich yourself writing this book and all of that.

What do you make of those accusations, which are serious accusations, as you know, that have been leveled against you?

WILSON: My wife was not a clandestine officer the day that Bob Novak blew her identity.

BLITZER: But she hadn't been a clandestine officer for some time before that?

WILSON: That's not anything that I can talk about. And, indeed, I'll go back to what I said earlier, the CIA believed that a possible crime had been committed, and that's why they referred it to the Justice Department.

In the full context of the above CNN Wolf Blitzer Reports televised broadcast, Wilson was responding to mean that after Robert Novak's column ran, his wife was no longer a clandestine officer. The Vanity Fair coverage given Wilson with wife Plame was a result of the publicity that ensued from the column written by Novack. The photo shoots did not occur before the disclosure, they came in January 2004.

The Associated Press reported the Wilson-Blitzer interview as follows:

...CNN Thursday before the latest revelation, Wilson kept up his criticism of the White House, saying [White House senior adviser Karl] Rove's conduct was an "outrageous abuse of power ... certainly worthy of frog-marching out of the White House."

But at the same time, Wilson acknowledged his wife was no longer in an undercover job at the time Novak's column first identified her. "My wife was not a clandestine officer the day that Bob Novak blew her identity," he said.

Federal law prohobits goverment [sic] officials from divulging the identity...

Media outlets followed the AP lead with their own reporting that mirrored AP report.

Sad But True

2005-07-16T09:22:00.000-04:00

Is Harry Potter Evil?
After all, Harry and his classmates attend the celebrated Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. The real danger is not in the books, but in laughing off those who would ban them.

History of Witchcraft

The Christ-ocrat party gains momentum...
"to be morally consistent is often to be politically unpredictable. 'I'm not a Democrat. I'm not a Republican. I'm a Christ-ocrat.' And that's what we need to be." - Zell Miller

Congressman Says He Doesn't Advocate Bombing Mecca
But why not? Were we joking when we threatened to bomb Moscow? Remember MADD? Or maybe the lives of Russians are worth less than thier middle eastern counter parts?

Ebonics: Blacks in San Bernadino to have future ruined.
You thought the schools were crazy for teaching alternatives to Evolution? How about teaching alternatives to Language?

Anonymity is coming to an end, well known author says.
Is this good or bad? It doesn't really matter – it is inevitable. Once anonymity is gone, it is very likely that we will eliminate crime as we know it today. That will be a very good thing. (see also 1984)

Credit Card Minimums to Double
Within the next month, Bank of America, MBNA and Citigroup will raise minimum monthly payments on their cards from 2 percent of the balance to up to 4 percent, not including interest. Other card issuers are expected to make similar changes by the end of the year.

Speaking of banks, can I have another beer?
HSBC bank says there is no law against Banking While Intoxicated, as outlined in a multi million dollar claim by supermodel Maggie Rizer.

Teen Lauches New Airline - No, really

British Pigeons Becoming Obese
British junk food lovers are having an unhealthy effect on the country's pigeons, which are becoming obese by feasting on litter leftovers.

I got a fever and the only prescription is more cow bell
The governor of Iowa accompanied REO Speedwagon on cowbell at Sunday night's National Governors Association mini-state fair event.

It's up to the Muslim Community

2005-07-08T11:14:00.000-04:00

If It's a Muslim Problem, It Needs a Muslim Solution

Because there is no obvious target to retaliate against, and because there are not enough police to police every opening in an open society, either the Muslim world begins to really restrain, inhibit and denounce its own extremists - if it turns out that they are behind the London bombings - or the West is going to do it for them. And the West will do it in a rough, crude way - by simply shutting them out, denying them visas and making every Muslim in its midst guilty until proven innocent.

And because I think that would be a disaster, it is essential that the Muslim world wake up to the fact that it has a jihadist death cult in its midst. If it does not fight that death cult, that cancer, within its own body politic, it is going to infect Muslim-Western relations everywhere. Only the Muslim world can root out that death cult. It takes a village.

Books We're Reading This Week

2005-06-06T00:43:00.000-04:00

The Copycat Effect: How the Media and Popular Culture Trigger the Mayhem in Tomorrows Headlines

Why do the terrible events we see in the media always seem to lead to more of the same? Noted author and cultural behaviorist Loren Coleman explores how the media's over-saturated coverage of murders, suicides, and deadly tragedies makes an impact on our society.

This guy argues that our media obsession with violence breeds more of the same.

----------------------

In Our Hands: A Plan to Replace the Welfare State

Libertarian Murray's Losing Ground laid the groundwork for controversial welfare reform proposals. His latest volume continues in the same vein, positing that government support has exacerbated dysfunctional underclass behavior, and offering a compromise to social democrats who call starve-the-beast policies cruel. In "The Plan," all the money currently used in transfer programs Murray doesn't deem universal (Social Security, agricultural subsidies, corporate welfare, as opposed to national defense, clean air, etc.) would be redirected into a new program that gives each citizen an annual $10,000 cash grant, beginning at age 21. The plan would slice one Gordian knot: everyone would be required to buy health insurance, insurers would have to treat the entire population as a single pool and changes in tort and licensing laws would enable low-cost clinics for minor problems. But Murray's purposes are larger: to enable the search for a vocation by making it easier to change jobs; to encourage marriage among low-income people; and to move social welfare support from bureaucracies back to Tocquevillian civil society—a nostalgic argument that deserves a more cyber-era analysis. His volume makes an intriguing contrast to 1999's left-meets-libertarian book The Stakeholder Society (unmentioned by Murray), which proposed $80,000 grants, financed by taxing the rich. Given Murray's track record—he coauthored The Bell Curve—and his think tank backing, expect much discussion of this book in print and on air. (Mar.)

----------------------

The End of Poverty: Economic Possibilities for Our Time

"Extreme poverty can be ended, not in the time of our grandchildren, but our time." Thus forecasts Jeffrey D. Sachs, director of The Earth Institute at Columbia University, whose twenty-five years of experience observing the world from many vantage points has helped him shed light on the most vital issues facing our planet: the causes of poverty, the role of rich-country policies, and the very real possibilities for a poverty-free future. Deemed "the most important economist in the world" by The New York Times Magazine and "the world's best-known economist" by Time magazine, Sachs brings his considerable expertise to bear in the landmark The End of Poverty: Economic Possibilities for Our Time, his highly anticipated blueprint for world-wide economic success — a goal, he argues, we can reach in a mere twenty years.

----------------------

Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything

The author of this book has been often deemed the smartest man on the planet. He has won every award imaginable to an economist. If he played golf, his name would be Tiger Woods. This is the one-year anniversary of the book's release and it is STILL a best-seller. Books on economics NEVER become best-sellers, much less for an entire YEAR! You may have seen the recent 20/20 special one-hour program focusing on the book, or the Good Morning America feature. One year after publication, this book is still getting attention. And for good reason. Highly recommended.

----------------------

South Park Conservatives, which reminds us what an uphill battle conservative politicians face in this country due to the incessant liberal agenda in the main stream press.

"Throughout 2004, economists wondered why the public remained grumpy about the Bush economy, whose growth rate matched any twelve-month period of the Clinton presidency. A July AP/Ipsos public Affairs survey, for example, found that 57 percent of the respondents throught that the economy had lost more jobs than it had gained over the previous six months, whin in fact it had added more than one million jobs. Headlines like the Chicago Tribune's, greeting news of a robust 4 percent economic growth during the fourth quarter of 2003 - "GDP Growth Disappoints: Job Worries Linger" - no doubt had something to do with public mystification."

Thank goodness for talk radio, bloggers, and FOX News!

Battle of the Sexes pt 2

2005-05-26T13:35:00.000-04:00

It is the age old question: what do women want? Now, we have delved into the question of why men make more money than women in the workplace - or should I say the myth that men make more money! Because if it were in fact true that women do the same work as men for less money, then why would anyone hire men?

Of course, a more in depth analysis reveals that women are less competitive than men, women are less willing to work overtime, and are less willing to work dangerous, or risky jobs which pay more. Women, as it turns out, are just less preoccupied with making money than men.

So before you lobby your Congressman and Senator to pass that equality in the workplace bill, remember, if women want it they will get it! No one needs more legislation getting in the way - especially women. Less we live in a society where every woman will have to deal with the glances askew that privately ask, "did she earn that promotion or was it affirmative action giving her a leg up?" And you can ask all the hard-working minorites in your workplace how that feels.

The Nuclear Option

2005-05-19T01:29:00.000-04:00

There has been a lot of talk about this issue around the Waterkooler lately. Everyday conservatives and liberals can be seen pointing and gestering angrily at one another and we have to separate them lest they knock over the blessed fountain. There is no fighting at the Waterkooler. Play nice kids.

But the real issue sometimes gets buried beneath the politics. Both parties seem to make their point that the other is violating the constitution or following its great tradition and vice versa when it comes to filibustering judicial nominess and changing senate rules - both parties have done both things and accuse the other of doing something they never have. That's just politics. Pointing fingers at the other guy. But in case you somehow missed it, listen to why the Democrats are opposed to these judicial nominees in the first place. From the NYTimes:

"The two nominees Senator Frist is putting forth first are singularly unqualified: The first, Priscilla Owen, has openly favored big business and flouted abortion rights on the Texas Supreme Court."

Yes, God forbid we support businesses or oppose "abortion rights!"

Well, I could not have said better myself. There you have it ladies and gentlemen, in their own words - the Democratic Party: anti-capitalist, anti-Christian.

Yes, this whole thing is about abortion. As was the 2004 election, won by evangelicals who were promised a reversal of Roe vs. Wade. Sure the Iraq war was the big issue but judicial nominees was the behind the scenes issue that tipped the scales. Christians are mainstream. Abortion is an abomination and your country is telling you that something must be done. So America, what are you going to do?

Senate Debating Data Privacy Changes

2005-05-12T13:35:00.000-04:00

Unless Congress takes quick action against identity theft, Americans will soon find all their personally identifiable information up for sale or in the hands of ID thieves.

That's the sentiment of U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson (D-Fla.). He and Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) want data brokers such as ChoicePoint and LexisNexis to be regulated in the same manner as credit bureaus.

"We must mandate that companies must reasonably protect this information collected on virtually every American," Nelson said. "As a result of what we've seen so far, if we don't do something none of us are going to have any identity left."

Their goal in co-sponsoring new legislation is to require notification to consumers when their data is compromised and crack down on the sale of Social Security numbers.

Nelson's comments came Tuesday as the Senate Commerce Committee began the first of a series of hearings on private data companies that currently have little oversight and few rules that protect public privacy. Hearings are already underway in other Senate and House committees.

"This is a very serious thing with several bills already introduced in Congress. It's going to be a very difficult thing to handle," Chairman Ted Stevens (R-Alas.) predicted.

As they have in three previous appearances before Congressional panels this year, executives from ChoicePoint and LexisNexis headlined Tuesday's hearing. And, as before, they again apologized for their companies' well-publicized data breaches while touting their strengthened security measures.

"Even if they [ChoicePoint and LexisNexis] improve their business practices, there are still hundreds of smaller data brokers who have no incentive to change their ways since there is no law governing their behavior," Stevens said.

Tuned into the current Capitol Hill clamor for federal action, both companies said they support a data breach disclosure law as long as it pre-empts any existing state laws. If forced to accept regulations, the companies prefer to deal with one federal standard as opposed to a patchwork of state laws.

Data breach disclosure to consumers is an integral part of the proposed bill by Nelson and Schumer, as well as legislation sponsored by Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.).

"We desperately need a strong national standard that says whenever a data system is breached, everyone who is at risk of identity theft must be notified," Feinstein told the Senate Judiciary Committee last month.

While Feinstein's bill focuses solely on data breach disclosure requirements, Nelson supports giving the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) the power to develop regulations on the sale of data by brokers. The bill would also allow the FTC to fine violators and give consumers and states the right to civil actions against data brokers who compromise a consumer's personal data.

Both Nelson and Feinstein base parts of their legislation on a recently enacted California law requiring data brokers to inform residents if their personal data is exposed to possible ID theft.
Both ChoicePoint and LexisNexis admitted last month to unreported data breaches prior to the passage of the California law.

A New Breed

2005-05-12T11:49:00.000-04:00

They live a life of luxury. They eat shrimp cocktails and steak frites. They sleep on Burberry beds in their Greenwich Village apartment and until a few weeks ago, they wore matching crystal-studded collars - but then chewed off all the stones.

Oh, and they are illegal - in NY at least, where they are all the rage. What are they? They are Savannahs, a new breed of designer cat. They weigh 35 pounds, look like leopards and walk on leashes and cost $4,000 - $10,000.

In Chicago, Cynthia A. King, a Savannah owner and breeder, said: "I had to wait
two years to get my kittens, and I had cash I was waving in the air. For a
first-generation pet, we're talking a $5,000 minimum expenditure. That's how
popular they are."

A 35 pound cat that likes to take walks through the city? Cool.

A Review of Real ID Facts

2005-05-11T22:48:00.000-04:00

There are three main reasons for which the The Real ID Act has come under fire.

Critics claim it would turn drivers licences into defacto national ID cards, an idea that has been repeatedly rejected in this country due to civil liberties concerns.
Critics claim it would create a national database that would be vulnerable to identity theft and privacy abuses.
Critics claim it would make it more difficult for asylum seekers presently in the country.

THE DMV
The Real ID legislation would change the rules for state issuance of drivers licenses, but it does not mandate that drivers licences become a national ID. In fact it does the opposite. The legislation distinguishes between a drivers license and an identification card and spells out the requirements for each. As such, despite the claims to the contrary this legislation will not prevent ILLEGAL ALIENS from obtaining a drivers license!

Read the definitions in the bill here: Drivers Licence: Definitions

Simply put, the legislation merely states that anyone getting aboard a commercial airplane or entering a federal building or a nuclear power plant or other "official federal purposes" must have identification that meets or exceeds federal standards.

What this means is that a state-issued drivers license won't cut the mustard when trying to board an airplane. The drivers license will cease to be a valid form of identification to any federal agent. But, if you so desire, you would still be able to obtain a license from the DMV that would meet federal identification purposes.

What will happen when you go to the DMV? You will have the option of getting a one-year licence that will allow you to drive but will not be accepted by federal agents as proof of identity. Or, if you have your birth certificate and social security card and your electric bill, you can get an enhanced licence that will be acceptable to federal agents as proof of identity.

A National Database?
So, would the Real ID Act create a national database? According to the legislation, no. But it does require states to keep databases and we know that DMVs and other such warehouses of information are prime targets to hackers. The legislation addresses this by requiring states to enhance their data security and physical security, but does not lay out specifics. The burden rests entirely on the states.

State DMVs Targeted by Identity Thieves
In recent months three state DMVs have been penetrated by identity thieves. In March, burglars rammed a vehicle through a back wall at a DMV near Las Vegas and drove off with files, including Social Security numbers, on about 9,000 people. Last week Florida police arrested 52 people, including 3 DMV examiners, in a scheme that sold more than 2,000 fake driver’s licenses. Two weeks ago Maryland police arrested three people, including a DMW worker, in a plot to sell about 150 fake licenses. These criminal schemes come in the wake of a rash of data broker scandals that have compromised the personal information of millions of Americans.

HISTORY OF THE NATIONAL ID DEBATE National ID cards have long been advocated as a means to enhance national security, unmask potential terrorists, and guard against illegal immigrants. They are in use in many countries around the world including most European countries, Hong Kong, Malaysia, Singapore and Thailand. Currently, the United States and the United Kingdom have continued to debate the merits of adopting national ID cards. The types of card, their functions, and privacy safeguards vary widely.

1977, the Carter Administration reiterated that the SSN was not to become an identifier
1981 the Reagan Administration stated that it was "explicitly opposed" to the creation of a national ID card
1999 Congress repealed a controversial provision in the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996 which gave authorization to include Social Security Numbers on driver's licenses

In response to the tragic events of Sept. 11, 2001, there has been renewed interest in the creation of national ID cards. Soon after the attacks, Larry Ellison, head of California-based software company Oracle Corporation, called for the development of a national identification system and offered to donate the technology to make this possible. He proposed ID cards with embedded digitized thumbprints and photographs of all legal residents in the U.S. There was much public debate about the issue, and Congressional hearings were held. Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich testified that he "would not institute a national ID card because you do get into civil liberties issues."

Perhaps the worst thing about the Real ID Act is that it was never debated on its merits. Instead, it was tied to a must pass military bill for Iraq. Senators Sam Brownback, R-Kan., Joe Lieberman, D-Conn., and 10 other Senators urged Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist to keep the Real ID proposal off the Supplemental Appropriations bill:

The REAL ID Act would make major shifts in immigration and asylum policy, and therefore should be considered carefully and deliberately. Accordingly, we urge you to ensure that the Senate follows normal parliamentary procedures when it takes up the REAL ID Act. Because of its magnitude, this legislation should be referred to the Senate Judiciary Committee on a schedule that provides adequate time for full and careful consideration. Legislating in such a complex area without the benefit of hearings and expert testimony is a dubious exercise and one that subverts the Senate's deliberative process.

Sen. Richard Durbin also expressed concern this week that REAL ID would repeal earlier legislation that contained "carefully crafted language—bipartisan language—to establish standards for States issuing driver's licenses."

Research: epic.org

Washington National Office
1718 Connecticut Ave. N.W.
Suite 200
Washington, DC 20009
tel: +1 202 483 1140

Rice: Gun Rights Important As Free Speech

2005-05-11T22:39:00.000-04:00

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, recalling how her father took up arms to defend fellow blacks from racist whites in the segregated South, said Wednesday the constitutional right of Americans to own guns is as important as their rights to free speech and religion.

In an interview on CNN's "Larry King Live," Rice said she came to that view from personal experience. She said her father, a black minister, and his friends armed themselves to defended the black community in Birmingham, Ala., against the White Knight Riders in 1962 and 1963. She said if local authorities had had lists of registered weapons, she did not think her father and other blacks would have been able to defend themselves.

Privacy Watch

2005-05-11T22:06:00.000-04:00

Hillary Clinton & Newt Gingrich Support Legislation That Could Increase Medical Privacy Risks, Says FTCR

Sen. Hillary Clinton joined former House Speaker Newt Gingrich today in support of medical information technology legislation that could lead to increased risk of invasions of privacy and possibly identity theft if appropriate protections are not provided, according to the Foundation for Taxpayer and Consumer Rights (FTCR).

The legislation, introduced today by Representatives Patrick Kennedy (D-R.I.) and Tim Murphy (R-Pa.), will create huge databases containing a patient's medical information including illnesses and genetic predispositions, alcohol and drug addiction, the medications the patient receives, and most likely, personal identifier information like
Social Security Numbers. The bill requires health information networks funded through new technology grants to allow patients to "opt out" of including their information in medical databases but fails to hold database operators accountable when information is inappropriately accessed.

"While better medical technology can save lives and money, this legislation puts consumers at risk of invasions of privacy and possibly identity theft." said Jerry Flanagan of FTCR. "At a time when information brokers buy and sell our private information to the highest bidder, database managers must be held accountable when identity thieves take advantage of lax security precautions and make our private information public."

To dramatize the risk of privacy invasions and identity theft, in the Fall of 2003 the Foundation for Taxpayer and Consumer Rights purchased on-line for $26 each the Social Security Numbers of top Bush Administration officials including then Attorney General
John Ashcroft, then
CIA Director George Tenet, Labor Secretary Elaine Chao, and FTC Commissioner Timothy Muris. Once an identity thief has obtained a consumer's Social Security Number, the identity thief may open credit accounts in the consumer's name or gain access to bank accounts.

"In light major security breaches at information warehousers like ChoicePoint, any legislation to expand the use of medical databases must have significant protections built-in so that patients are not forced to face new threats to their privacy," said Flanagan.

------

The Foundation for Taxpayer and Consumer Rights (FTCR) is a leading nonpartisan consumer advocacy organization. For more information, visit FTCR on the Web at http://www.ConsumerWatchdog.org.

Bishops Call for Immigration Reform

2005-05-11T22:00:00.000-04:00

The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops announced yesterday that it will "add the voice of the Catholic Church" to the call for major immigration legislation, including a guest-worker program and a path to citizenship for illegal aliens in the United States.

The campaign calls for faster family reunification, a guest-worker program that eventually leads to citizenship, better protections for both immigrant and native-born workers, and a path to citizenship for those in the country illegally.

Minutemen Get Job Done; Homeland Security Fails. Homeland Security Holds Press Conference; Minutemen Denied Access

2005-05-11T21:24:00.000-04:00

Chris Simcox, co-founder of the Minutmen Project, will give testimony to Congress next week, but Homeland Security does not want to talk to him in his own state of Arizona during a press conference on the need for more bordor patrol there.

"[Homeland Security] pulled 50 agents off the line to provide security. While they blocked me, there is no doubt that at the same time, hundreds of illegal aliens had no difficulty gaining access to the United States."

Simcox is considering seeking advice from an attorney and even the American Civil Liberties Union because he believes his First Amendment rights as a member of the press were denied.

Simcox said he believes Nicley refused him admittance because of his connection with the Minuteman Project, which involved volunteers watching the border in Cochise County throughout April. Simcox was a co-organizer of the event with Californian Jim Gilchrist.

Higher Education no Place for Independent Thought

2005-05-11T20:47:00.000-04:00

"After the Vietnam War, a lot of us didn't just crawl back into our literary cubicles; we stepped into academic positions. With the war over, our visibility was lost, and it seemed for a while--to the unobservant--that we had disappeared. Now we have tenure, and the work of reshaping the universities has begun in earnest."

--Jay Parini, Chronicle of Higher Education more

---

Masters student Scott McConnell was enrolled at Le Moyne College in Syracuse, N.Y. Scott was studying to be a teacher. He was doing well, with a 3.78 grade point average and had just written a paper that was critical of multiculturalism and supportive of corporal punishment in the classroom.

His professor gave him an "A" on the paper. The school, however, expelled him from the program.

"I have grave concerns regarding the mismatch between your personal beliefs regarding teaching and learning and the Le Moyne College program goals. Based on this data, I do not believe that you should continue in the Le Moyne M.S.T. (Masters of Science for Teaching) Program. You will not be allowed to register for any additional courses. Your registration for Spring 2005 courses has been withdrawn."

Well, that's the tolerant, open-minded liberal left for you. They are supportive of diversity and free speech - as long as that speech does not diverge from their leftist dogma.

In a related story, read what it takes to get an "A" at an elite private university.

Speaking of openmindedness, this from the Opinion Journal:

I'm Open-Minded, You're a Stupid Jerk
There's something amusing about the obnoxious way in which some people trumpet their own open-mindedness and tolerance. Consider these two passages from an essay by Garrison Keillor in The Nation:

I enjoy, in small doses, the over-the-top right-wingers who have leaked into AM radio on all sides in the past twenty years. They are evil, lying, cynical bastards who are out to destroy the country I love and turn it into a banana republic, but hey, nobody's perfect. . . .

The reason you find an army of right-wingers ratcheting on the radio and so few liberals is simple: Republicans are in need of affirmation, they don't feel comfortable in America and they crave listening to people who think like them. Liberals actually enjoy living in a free society; tuning in to hear an echo is not our idea of a good time.
If this were true, nobody would listen to NPR, watch "Fahrenheit 9/11"--or, for that matter, read The Nation.

NH police use criminal tresspassing against illegal immigrants

2005-05-10T10:32:00.000-04:00

A small-town police chief used a criminal trespassing charge to try to turn back one illegal immigrant, saying he was frustrated that lax federal enforcement means ''if you make it past the border patrol, you're free and clear.''

''It's basically a situation here where right now if you make it past the border patrol, you're free and clear,'' Chamberlain said. ''What I'm hoping to do is find a way that if the feds aren't going to help us out, then local enforcement can take care of it.''

Weekly Winners

2005-05-10T10:16:00.000-04:00

A week of unlikely winners...

Vegas: Las Vegas Area Woman Wins Aristocrat's Millioni$er(R) $1 Million Jackpot Twice in Less Than a Year

Louisville: Matching Giacomo's unbelievable victory in Saturday's Kentucky Derby (gr. I) at 50-1 was Christopher Hertzog's loss of his $864,253 Derby Superfecta ticket Saturday and then having it found 24 hours later at Turf Paradise racetrack in Phoenix, Arizona.

Betting on that Fortune Cookie

MEDIA RELEASE: Website Domain Auction To Help Stop Illegal Immigration

2005-05-10T10:13:00.000-04:00

Website Domain Auction To Help Stop Illegal Immigration.
www.StopIllegalImmigration.com to be auctioned to highest eBay bidder on July 4th.

(Los Angeles, California) - It's one of the hottest political topics in America today -- Illegal Immigration. And it is sure to continue to be a hot-button topic until the problem is solved.

According to FAIR, the Federation for American Immigration Reform, one estimate is that as many as 11 million illegal immigrants are now in the U.S.

But now Adam Christing, a California small business owner, is aiming to help stop illegal immigration by auctioning off the website URL www.StopIllegalImmigration.com
to the highest eBay bidder. Christing will be donating 20% of the money generated by
eBay sale of StopIllegalImmigration.com to the group Americans for Legal Immigration
(ALIPAC). Americans for Legal Immigration supports the right of people to legally enter the U.S. (www.alipac.us)

According to William Gheen, the president of ALIPAC, "We support those that obey our laws and legally immigrate to the US. While at the same time 6 to 10,000 people walk right across the border every night illegally and more must be done to address America's illegal immigration crisis."

Americans for Legal Immigration has a 4-point platform:

1. Secure U.S. borders.

2. Stop giving taxpayer benefits and incentives to illegals.

3. Crack down on employers who intentionally hire illegals.

4. Enforce our existing immigration laws when illegal aliens are arrested
for crimes.

The bidding for domain: www.StopIllegalImmigration.com begins on eBay on June 25th and closes on July 4th. For more information about the website and the auction visit: www.StopIllegalImmigration.com

For more information or to arrange an interview contact:
Todd Brabender - 785.842.8909 or
Adam Christing - 310.770.0116

Talk Show Host Told Media ID Not Good Enough at anti-REAL ID Rally

2005-05-10T09:28:00.000-04:00

Local Washington DC talk show host, Michael Graham of WMAL, was detained in Maryland Monday at an REAL ID protest rally. The rally was attended by hundreds of illegal immigrants and advertised in the Washington Post yet Graham was detained for not having proper identification and told that he was "not invited" to the event.

Michael showed his ABC press pass when confronted at the gate where he was then asked for addition identification. The confrontation led to Michael being detained by the organizers of the event and local police, who said they were there to protect the illegal aliens at the event.

Oganizers say Graham was detained because he was wearing a black T-shirt with the letter INS printed on them. Michael says he was merely making a "political statement at a political rally." He says he was protesting the fact that there were no federal immigration officials at the event to deport the hundreds of illegal aliens there.

Maryland is one of 10 states that issues licenses even if applicants don't prove they are legal residents. Speakers at the event told the illegal aliens in attendance that the time had come to "take the law into their own hands." Although they are not citizens, the illegals claimed that the US government has to answer to them.

Montgomery County police are investigating whether or not to press charges on Michael for inciting violence at a public event.

Meanwhile, on his talk radio show, Michael has been playing audio that he recorded from the event in which men with megaphones were chanting "No licence, no justice; no justice, no peace! No licence, no justice; no justice, no peace!"

It was one of few statements spoken in English, thanks to Spanish to English flyers that were being handed out at the event.

No one is investigating whether or not the police should arrest the hundreds of other federal criminals who were unlawfully present in the country.

Security people stopped Graham and asked for identification.
"Funny for them to ask me for ID," he tells me.
He flashed his ABC credentials and tried to walk in. They jumped him. A struggle ensued. Someone alerted the police officers standing nearby. "Finally," Graham figured, "they're going to pull these illegals off of me." But no. They took him into custody and asked him to leave.

"Makes sense, actually," he says, "if you consider the whack jobs who run the Montgomery County Police."
Monday morning he made verbal mincemeat of the county, the cops and CASA, the group that organized the rally, which he referred to as a front group for illegal aliens. Actually, CASA is a well-respected advocacy group for immigrants of all kinds. They are known, for instance, for rescuing enslaved domestic workers.

Everything was going according to script until the Montgomery County police went to extremes. Lt. Eric Burnett told Graham's boss, WMAL president Chris Berry, that police were planning to "file a complaint against Graham."

I asked Burnett about the charges. Failure to shut up?
"Graham was acting unprofessional as a reporter," Burnett said.
But as Chris Berry says, Michael Graham is an entertainer, not a reporter. The cops did their job on Sunday. Now they are just giving Graham more material.

Make his day:
Arrest him.

Whore College

2005-05-06T16:18:00.000-04:00

Presented in conjunction with the San Francisco Sex Worker Film and Arts Festival, the class Wednesday at an erotic art gallery was billed as away for working girls and guys to polish their skills in a supportive atmosphere.

Headlines

2005-05-05T01:36:00.000-04:00

Drivers Licences Harder to Get

Air travelers to supply birth dates

NYTimes: Ugly Children Get Short Shrift

Should Wal Mart Pay More?

Wash Times: Debating Darwin in Kansas

Evolution War of Words

Ann Coulter inspires another attack.

Ann responds.

Groups Challenge Montgomery County Sex Ed Policy

2005-05-04T21:09:00.000-04:00

Two groups filed suit Tuesday in U.S. District Court to block a Montgomery County health curriculum that includes discussions of homosexuality and a video that has a demonstration of how to use a condom.

Controversy over the new sex ed curriculum includes misleading statements about the effectiveness of condom usage and statements that lump oral and anal sex together with vaginal sex all in one category - and apparently that category is "safe and acceptable."

The curriculum advises teachers who are asked religious or moral questions about homosexuality to quote from Canadian churches that have accepted homosexuality and to remind students that many religions are bigoted and even says that "Jesus never discussed homosexuality." Yeah, he never discussed incest and pedophilia either!

The curriculum for eight graders includes a lesson which teaches that sex play between same sex friends is normal and there is nothing wrong with boys or girls who are sexually active with their same-sex friends.

Eighth graders, folks.

This self-proclaimed "abstinence" program is nothing of the sort. In fact, for bisexuals, homosexuals, and transgendered people, the curriculum stipulates that sex is an integral part of their identity and therefore abstinence would deprive them of an essential aspect of their personhood.

Clearly, homosexuality is part of the culture we live in. Teaching respect for persons with same-sex attraction is appropriate and right. But the new curriculum goes beyond the ethic of tolerance by demanding affirmation of a homosexual orientation and behavior, and in fact violates the value systems of many families.

In the video, which is titled "PROTECT YOURSELF", there could not be a more misleading message given to students than telling them that condoms are 98% effective. The implication given by the video is that condom usage would protect them from both sexually transmitted diseases and pregnancy 98% of the time. The youth were told the condoms should be used for vaginal, oral, and rectal sex. It is clear that the video is implying "safe" protection with each form of sexual activity. The messages of the video minimized the risks of sexually active life styles.

First, the 98% number comes from a study of pregnancy rates among mature women (average age of 35) and does not reflect pregnancy rates among teenagers who use condoms, which are much higher.

Moreover, the curriculum completely obfuscates the dangers of anal sex. One of the questions students are supposed to answer after watching the video is, "When used correctly, how effective are condoms?"

Effective at what? And under what circumstances? The effectiveness of condoms at preventing HIV during anal intercourse is not the same as the effectiveness of condoms at preventing pregnancy with vaginal intercourse. The effectiveness of condoms at preventing HPV? Completely and totally ineffective. The effectiveness at preventing sexually transmitted diseases such as gonorrhea or Chlamydia transmission from men to women and genital herpes, trichomoniasis, chancroid or syphilis? Well, that is still undefined.

Of the dangers of the homosexual lifestyle, the curriculum says nothing. Yet the dangers are well-documented.

Studies have repeatedly confirmed that homosexuals are at substantially greater risk of psychiatric problems than heterosexuals, including suicide, depression, bulimia, antisocial personality disorder, and substance abuse. 1 On the physical side, those who engage in homosexual activity put themselves at risk of a host of debilitating diseases.

The MCPS would not advise a teenager to take a train that is safe only 90% of the time and 10 percent of the time places them in a life-threatening situation. MCPS should also not endorse that all forms of sexual intercourse are equally safe when the increased dangers of rectal sex are well known. MCPS should not tell our children to "protect yourself" with a condom when it has not been shown to work for diseases like herpes and HPV which are lifetime afflictions.

I am deeply disturbed to know that my taxes have been used for such a dangerously misleading message. A video that should have been produced would tell the whole truth about condoms. I would have recommended a title such as "IS SAFE SEX REALLY SAFE-----DEBUNKING THE PROTECTION MYTHS"

On homosexuality, the curriculum refuses to acknowledge an increased danger of disease and in fact will not allow parents attending classes to bring the subject up. The school board tried to prevent parents from attending class at all, tried to prevent parents from seeing the video (when they threatened to sue Citizens for a Responsible Curriculum, the organization that posted the video on their website) and have done everything they can to keep parents in the dark about their "abstinence" sex ed program.

Although the Montgomery County Public Schools were forced to get permission forms from parents, the forms do not go into detail about the nature of the "abstinence" program they are signing. If it were not for Citizens for a Responsible Curriculum none of us would know anything about this "abstinence" curriculum at all.

Read the Washington Post article here.

See the video and learn more here.

Read the lesson plan here.