But first...
From The Ed Sullivan Theater in New York, with Paul Schaffer and The CBS Orchestra, friend of The Connecticut State Police, proud owner of the worst shave in America...
David Letterman.
I wish to be perfectly clear about this-
Jon and Stephen
While they may be contractually obligated to show up, I am under no obligation to watch them or talk about them at all. Stephen has a big board titled "Dead To Me" and I have better uses for my time than to sit around looking at cheap imitations of inferior quality.
It is absolutely my intent to be as noisy and public as possible, to make it as difficult as I can for people not to notice that the producers are putting out scab content so they can continue making the big bucks while writers are disenfranchised.
I am absolutely promoting alternative viewing as a message of public support.
Laugh if you like at the sight of Jon or Stephen having a shave (done already by Dave) your conscience does not concern me.
Mine does and I have chosen to be an activist on this issue. It seems such a trivial, petty, selfish thing to cross a line for mere entertainment.
I am actively encouraging action. I'm asking you to change your lazy habits to the extent it takes to push a button on your remote and reward a talented and brave man doing the right thing. For the first 18 months David led Leno all the time!
I write a column in a corner of the largest circulation daily in the USA except for 11 (if you go by most estimates of page hits). I have lots of competition for attention. I can hardly expect your collective action can move a millimeter on a Nielsen needle.
I'm not going to be roaming the halls of dKos Catoesque muttering Jon and Steve delando est. They wake up and look in the mirror every morning just like anyone else and I'm not staring back at them, they have their own portraits of Dorian Gray.
I am going to be providing a clear contrast in content for the duration of the WGA strike. This is in fact NOT The Daily Show/The Colbert Report/Olbermann Spoiler Chat Thread specifically so the message is clear.
I welcome contributions, I'm a busy guy and I'll take all the help I can get. I strive only to be a consistent conveyor of crap. |
Now some cheap tricks and theatrics which is all a clown like I can offer for your amusement (I'm not WGA approved).
First, the Hypnotoad.
Take a look-
PBS- Charlie Rose (Muhammad Yunus) | A&E- Parking Wars, Parking Wars |
ABC Family- 700 Club | AMC- Blazing Saddles |
Animal- Stuart Little 3: Call of the Wild | Cartoon- Family Guy, Family Guy |
CNBC- Mad Money | CNN- Anderson Cooper 360 |
truTV- Forensic Files, Hollywood Heat | Discovery- Mythbusters |
Disney- Suite Life of Zack & Cody, Hannah Montana | E!- E! News, Chelsea Lately |
ESPN- Sports Center | ESPNC- Classic Bull Riding 2005: PRCA Xtreme Bulls |
ESPN2- College Gamenight, World Series of Poker | Food- Good Eats, Unwrapped |
Faux Noise- Insanity & Moans Post Thug Debate Propaganda | FX- The Core |
Golf- Golf Postgame Show, Golf Central | History- History's Mysteries |
HGTV- Property Virgins, Over Your Head | Lifetime- Will & Grace, Will & Grace |
MSNBC- Unnatural Death | National Geographic- Extreme Alaska: Building the Wild |
Vs.- Outdoor Adventures, World of Beretta | Oxygen- Janice Dickinson Modeling Agency |
Sci Fi- Dinocroc | Speed- NASCAR Pre Season, NOPI Tunervision |
Style- Clean House | TBS- Sex And The City, Sex And The City |
TCM- Wuthering Heights | TLC- American Chopper |
TNT- NBA Basketball: Suns at Jazz | Travel- Seven Wonders |
USA- Law & Order: Criminal Intent | |
Now look away from the Hypnotoad and follow me over to Worldwide Pants land where Dave will be hosting Howard Stern and Ayo. ("The name has to be written with a dot below or behind the o – without it, it would refer to a pitted board game popular among the Yorubas."); Craig will have Val Kilmer and Michael Gates Gill.
Over on Leno and Jimmy, Jay and Kimmel will be comparing the scabs that come from social disease and vigorous self abuse. Could I bring myself to cross a line their daisy chain of mutual masturbation might provide some of the fascination I used to reserve for 'Lesbian Dial A Date'.
I hope I will not date myself to say I remember an afternoon in October when a big wind was blowing through Stars Hollow toppling a cherry tree that had the temerity to root itself in a retaining wall, a perch that turned out to be perilous as it was doomed to descend to the doberman pen in the neighbors yard.
Nice doggie.
Other big wind was blowing through the halls of 30 Rock as the final fateful confrontation raged between Howard and Pig Vomit.
Since then Howard has dropped off my scope other than his autobiographical movie- Private Parts (you'll note Howard is a member of the WGA). His move to mornings hurt him more with me than the loss of his 50,000 watts of clear channel. I can get K-Rock when the stars are smiling and the wind in a favorable direction, but dragging my sorry ass out of bed at dawn takes a kind of connection Howard never achieved with me.
So I had to ask my brother the activist who's still a big fan and a much earlier riser than I. Jackie the Jokeman is gone. Robin Quivers is still part of the team. Boy Gary is still around and my brother and I got into a big fight over whether he ever got his teeth fixed. People still prank call and finish with "Babba Booey, Babba Booey, Howard Stern Rulz!" He still does 'Lesbian Dial A Date'.
Nice to know a new generation is getting exposed to the classics.
Howard is seriously into Sirius or XM or whatever the mergers have made them. His cable show left to it's own devices has gotten too raunchy for E! and since I'm unwilling to fork out another fifty bucks a month for 300 more channels of crap it will forever be a mystery to me. He's probably shilling Porky's 2009 which will leave me cold since I never saw the need for the original.
I hope he never cut his hair.
Thank goodness we'll finish up with the heart warming story of a high-level advertising executive with J. Walter Thompson who gives it all up to become a barista at Starbucks. Upward mobility baby, his story has been optioned by Tom Hanks. Who says LA is not the City of Dreams and is instead a cruel and shallow money trench, a long plastic hallway where thieves and pimps run free, and good men die like dogs. There's also a negative side.
Next your boatload of O, a job I hate and despise because it interrupts my day-
Olbermann Spoilers-
#5 The Race For 2008, In And Out, Primary Motive- Richard Wolffe
Richardson On The Race- Biil Richardson
#4 How To Win, Super Tuesday Stakes- Chuck Todd
#3 Reality On The Ground, Victory Lapse, Surge In General- Thomas Ricks
Lack of Conviction
#2 Keeping Tabs
#1 Rudy's "Noise" (worth watching if you haven't seen it, five minutes from the end)
Bushed - No Bid-Gate
- Waterboarding-Gate
- Wiretap-Gate
World's Best Persons - Sen. John McCain
- Diego Palacios
- Oscar & Arthur
World's Worst - Bill Cunningham
- BillO
- Comedian Rush Limbaugh
|
Hate and despise? ek... Keith's our hero!
Mine too, but there are other things I can do between 8 and nine and still catch the repeat at 12 which would fit right into the vestiges of my phantom limb schedule. Here it's only purpose is the spoilation of the second half of Dave, but if I didn't feel compelled to report it...
Well I'd probably hardly talk at all, shy like I am.
But my job is to say "follow me" and change that dial on your TV. Put the fear of revolution and solidarity into the souls of the droning Villager types who forget that we're out here and they need us a lot more than we need them.
C'mon. I double dog dare you.
Hear now the news-
From Yahoo News Top Stories |
1 New security rules for driver's licenses
By DEVLIN BARRETT, Associated Press Writer
21 minutes ago
WASHINGTON - Americans born after Dec. 1, 1964, will have to get more secure driver's licenses in the next six years under ambitious post-9/11 security rules to be unveiled Friday by federal officials.
The Homeland Security Department has spent years crafting the final regulations for the REAL ID Act, a law designed to make it harder for terrorists, illegal immigrants and con artists to get government-issued identification. The effort once envisioned to take effect in 2008 has been pushed back in the hopes of winning over skeptical state officials.
Even with more time, more federal help and technical advances, REAL ID still faces stiff opposition from civil liberties groups. |
2 FBI wiretaps dropped due to unpaid bills
By LARA JAKES JORDAN, Associated Press Writer
2 hours, 13 minutes ago
WASHINGTON - Telephone companies have cut off FBI wiretaps used to eavesdrop on suspected criminals because of the bureau's repeated failures to pay phone bills on time.
A Justice Department audit released Thursday blamed the lost connections on the FBI's lax oversight of money used in undercover investigations. In one office alone, unpaid costs for wiretaps from one phone company totaled $66,000.
In at least one case, a wiretap used in a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act investigation "was halted due to untimely payment," the audit found. FISA wiretaps are used in the government's most sensitive and secretive criminal and intelligence investigations, and allow eavesdropping on suspected terrorists or spies. |
3 Edmund Hillary, first atop Everest, dies
By RAY LILLEY, Associated Press Writer
4 minutes ago
WELLINGTON, New Zealand - Sir Edmund Hillary, the unassuming beekeeper who conquered Mount Everest to win renown as one of the 20th century's greatest adventurers, died Friday. He was 88.
The gangling New Zealander devoted much of his life to aiding the mountain people of Nepal and took his fame in stride, preferring to be called Ed and considering himself an "ordinary person with ordinary qualities."
Hillary died at Auckland Hospital at 9 a.m. Friday, New Zealand Prime Minister Helen Clark's office said. Though ailing in his later years, he remained active, but no cause of death was immediately given. |
Hmm... first? That was known by him and wealthy-fortunate-follower-of-religion. Until Norgay's death Hillary denied it.
4 Kenya crisis talks fail as crisis deepens
by Bogonko Bosire, AFP
Thu Jan 10, 5:15 PM ET
NAIROBI (AFP) - African Union-led crisis talks on Kenya failed Thursday but mediators said President Mwai Kibaki and the opposition had agreed to work with former UN chief Kofi Annan to end unrest that has left hundreds dead.
AU chief and Ghanaian President John Kufuor left Nairobi with little to show for two days of talks aimed at resolving a bitter standoff between Kibaki and opposition leader Raila Odinga over disputed presidential elections.
He did say, however, that both men had agreed to work with an Annan-led panel "towards resolving their differences and all other outstanding issues". |
Crisis crisis? Need a new headline writer? I work cheap.
From Yahoo News Most Popular, Most Recommended |
5 Army clears officer court-martialed for Abu Ghraib
By David Morgan, Reuters
Thu Jan 10, 5:20 PM ET
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The only U.S. Army officer to face a court-martial over the scandal at Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison has been cleared of any criminal wrongdoing in the case, the Army said on Thursday.
A court-martial convicted Lt. Col. Steven Jordan in August of disobeying an order not to discuss the investigation of abuse at the jail and issued him a criminal reprimand as penalty.
But Maj. Gen. Richard Rowe, commanding officer for the Army Military District of Washington, on Tuesday disapproved of both the conviction and the reprimand, the Army said.
The decision by Rowe wipes Jordan's record clean of any criminal responsibility. |
6 Africanized honeybees found in Louisiana
By JANET McCONNAUGHEY, Associated Press Writer
1 hour, 57 minutes ago
NEW ORLEANS - Africanized honeybees have been found near Tioga, about eight miles north of Alexandria and 140 miles southeast of the Caddo Parish town where they were first discovered in Louisiana.
At their current speed, they're likely to cover most of the state by the end of next year, said Allen Fabre, coordinator for nursery and bee programs for the Louisiana Department of Agriculture and Forestry.
"I think they'll be to the Mississippi line by end of 2009," Fabre said in an interview Thursday. "Some beekeepers from Mississippi were in California for a meeting last week. I told them they're knocking on their door, and they know it." |
From Yahoo News Most Popular, Most Viewed |
7 Plan to reroute jets may mean more noise
By DAVID B. CARUSO, Associated Press Writer
Thu Jan 10, 5:11 PM ET
NEW YORK - For years, jets taking off from Newark Liberty International Airport have performed an act of mercy as they roar south.
Moments after leaving the ground, the planes bank left, out over an industrial port district, and away from the residential streets of Elizabeth, N.J., the working-class city that sits right up against the busy airport.
Maneuvers like this are a common method of sparing citizens from the window-rattling noise of jets passing overhead.
But now such practices are being dropped in some places in the Northeast as part of a federal plan to ease record flight delays. And some neighborhoods that fear they will be subjected to more noise are fighting back in court. |
From Yahoo News Most Popular, Most Emailed |
8 FBI wiretaps dropped due to unpaid bills
By LARA JAKES JORDAN, Associated Press Writer
2 hours, 36 minutes ago
WASHINGTON - Telephone companies have cut off FBI wiretaps used to eavesdrop on suspected criminals because of the bureau's repeated failures to pay phone bills on time.
A Justice Department audit released Thursday blamed the lost connections on the FBI's lax oversight of money used in undercover investigations. In one office alone, unpaid costs for wiretaps from one phone company totaled $66,000.
In at least one case, a wiretap used in a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act investigation "was halted due to untimely payment," the audit found. FISA wiretaps are used in the government's most sensitive and secretive criminal and intelligence investigations, and allow eavesdropping on suspected terrorists or spies. |
9 Massive US air attack south of Baghdad
By HAMZA HENDAWI, Associated Press Writer
Thu Jan 10, 3:57 PM ET
ZAMBARANIYAH, Iraq - U.S. warplanes unleashed one of the most intense airstrikes of the Iraq war Thursday, dropping 40,000 pounds of explosives in a thunderous 10-minute onslaught on suspected al-Qaida in Iraq safe havens in Sunni farmlands south of Baghdad.
The mighty barrage — recalling the Pentagon's "shock and awe" raids during the 2003 invasion — appeared to mark a significant escalation in a countrywide offensive launched this week to try to cripple remaining insurgent strongholds.
But it also fits into the endgame strategy of last year's U.S. troop buildup, which seeks to regain control of Baghdad and surrounding areas as a buffer zone for the capital. U.S. commanders are now attempting to subdue the last insurgent footholds around Baghdad before the Pentagon faces a possible reduction in troop strength. |
10 Suicide bombing kills 24 in Pakistan
By ASIF SHAHZAD, Associated Press Writer
Thu Jan 10, 2:26 PM ET
LAHORE, Pakistan - A suspected Islamic militant walked into a crowd of police guarding a courthouse and blew himself up Thursday, killing 24 others and wounding dozens in the first major attack in Pakistan since the assassination of Benazir Bhutto.
The blast at Lahore High Court, minutes before a planned anti-government rally by lawyers, was a bloody reminder of the security threats facing this key U.S. ally ahead of Feb. 18 parliamentary elections.
Echoing an extremist tactic in Iraq, suicide attacks have become as commonplace in Pakistan as in neighboring Afghanistan, adding to rising pressures on President Pervez Musharraf as he struggles to stay in office eight years after seizing power in military coup. |
11 Sarkozy soap opera has sex, diamonds and rivalry
By Kerstin Gehmlich, Reuters
Thu Jan 10, 2:29 PM ET
PARIS (Reuters) - Sex, diamonds and rivalry swirl in the latest chapter of the soap opera gripping France -- the story of President Nicolas Sarkozy's love life.
Adding new spice to the unfolding tale, one magazine, Gala, said Sarkozy had offered the same kind of pink, heart-shaped, diamond ring to new girlfriend Carla Bruni as his ex-wife Cecilia had been seen wearing only a few months ago.
And Cecilia tried to block on Thursday the publication of one of three new books into her life that quoted her making a string of disparaging remarks about Sarkozy. |
12 Pakistan warns against unilateral action on rebels
By Sanjeev Miglani, Reuters
22 minutes ago
SINGAPORE (Reuters) - Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf has said any unilateral action by U.S.-led coalition forces against militants in the border region with Afghanistan will be regarded as an invasion, a newspaper reported on Friday.
Musharraf told Singapore's The Straits Times that Islamabad will resist any entry by coalition forces in the tribal areas to hunt down Islamic militants, regarding that as a breach of Pakistan's sovereignty.
"I challenge anybody coming into our mountains. They would regret the day," he told the newspaper in an interview conducted in the garrison city of Rawalpindi. |
Yes. That is the same Rawalpindi Benazir Bhutto was assassinated in. Why do you ask?
13 U.S. counterfeiting charges against N. Korea based on shaky evidence
By Kevin G. Hall, McClatchy Newspapers
Thu Jan 10, 6:00 AM ET
WASHINGTON — Two years ago, as he was ratcheting up a campaign to isolate and cripple North Korea's dictatorship financially, President Bush accused the communist regime there of printing phony U.S. currency.
"When someone is counterfeiting our money, we want them to stop doing that. We are aggressively saying to the North Koreans just that— don't counterfeit our money," Bush said on Jan. 26, 2006 .
However, a 10-month McClatchy investigation on three continents has found that the evidence to support Bush's charges against North Korea is uncertain at best and that the claims of the North Korean defectors cited in news accounts are dubious and perhaps bogus. One key law enforcement agency, the Swiss federal criminal police, has publicly questioned whether North Korea is even capable of producing "supernotes," counterfeit $100 bills that are nearly perfect except for some practically invisible additions.
Also- |
14 Toting Up Civilian Deaths in Iraq
By MARK KUKIS/BAGHDAD, Time Magazine
2 hours, 18 minutes ago
The five severed heads left on a road leading to Baquba each bore a message written in blood, a warning in Arabic to would-be volunteers for the new grassroots security forces supported by the Americans: "Join the concerned citizens and you will end up like this."
Residents in the area found the mutilated remains Monday, according to Maj. Gen. Mark Hertling, the commander of U.S. forces in northern Iraq. Speaking to reporters in Baghdad, Hertling also showed U.S. documentation of another brutal murder in the Baquba area, where U.S. forces have in recent days launched a major offensive aimed at routing extremists who have been terrorizing the territory for months. Grainy video from a flying drone showed several men emerge from a car parked in a field. The figures opened the trunk and pulled out a struggling victim, who was then thrown into a ditch and shot multiple times. |
15 Will Sarkozy Tax the Internet?
By BRUCE CRUMLEY/PARIS, Time Magazine
Thu Jan 10, 3:05 PM ET
Never slow to burnish his reputation as an iconoclast, French President Nicolas Sarkozy has proposed funding France's state-owned television stations by taxing an activity economists and communications experts have come to consider almost sancrosanct: the use of the internet.
The announcement came Tuesday during Sarkozy's first full-blown solo press conference at the ElysÉe palace. As part of his plan for rationalizing the state's sprawling audiovisual empire, the President suggested "we consider the total suppression of advertising on public channels", and that income lost from the ad ban be compensated in part by "an infinitesimal sales tax on new communication methods, like internet access and mobile telephony." Freeing state television stations from ratings-sensitive advertising, Sarkozy said, would allow public TV to quit trying to match the popular but mind-numbing game shows and reality television that now dominate the schedules of private broadcasters for what Sarkozy called "purely mercantile" reasons. Instead, public broadcasters could focus on quality documentary, educational, and fiction programming. "This is a revolution that, by changing the economic model of public television, would change the entire nature of cultural policy in our communication society," Sarkozy said. |
From Yahoo News U.S. News |
16 Documents: Missing Marine claimed rape
By MIKE BAKER, Associated Press Writer
Thu Jan 10, 5:52 PM ET
JACKSONVILLE, N.C. - A pregnant Marine who vanished last month before she was to testify in a military probe had claimed that a superior officer raped her and that the investigation had "gone sour," according to court documents.
The woman complained about the investigation to her stepmother, who also told authorities that the 20-year-old lance corporal had bipolar disorder, once known as manic-depression, and a history of lying, the documents say.
Authorities said Thursday that they plan to question the Camp Lejeune officer she accused of rape, as well as a roommate of hers who was ordered to return to the base from a training mission. They stressed the case remains a missing-person investigation. |
17 Schwarzenegger presses spending cuts in Calif budget
Reuters
Thu Jan 10, 3:23 PM ET
SACRAMENTO, California (Reuters) - California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger unveiled on Thursday a $141.04 billion budget and declared a fiscal emergency, allowing him to call a special legislative session to focus on slashing spending.
Schwarzenegger's proposed budget plan for the fiscal year beginning in July includes an across-the-board spending cut of 10 percent and the sale of $3.3 billion in economic recovery bonds to help plug the deficit, which is expected to total $14.5 billion.
The Republican governor said at a news conference that the state urgently needs to cut spending in its current-year $145.54 billion budget amid a slowing state economy, brought in part by the slumping housing market, and flat state revenues. |
18 Michigan could be key to Republican presidential nomination
by Charles Crumm, AFP
Thu Jan 10, 10:28 AM ET
DETROIT, Michigan (AFP) - The generally Democratic state of Michigan is shaping up to be a key state in the Republican race for the White House, as mixed results in Iowa and New Hampshire place new emphasis on its upcoming primary.
While the Democrats have largely refrained from campaigning in Michigan because of a dispute over the timing of the state's January 15 primary, Republican candidates John McCain and Mitt Romney look set for a showdown.
"Michigan will be an interesting indicator. Whoever wins will get a good piece of momentum," said former representative Joe Schwarz, who ran McCain's Michigan campaign in 2000 and plans to volunteer for him this year. |
19 New York state opens antitrust probe of Intel
AFP
Thu Jan 10, 3:30 PM ET
NEW YORK (AFP) - New York state Attorney General Andrew Cuomo announced Thursday an antitrust probe into semiconductor giant Intel Corp. for possible illegal actions that hurt its main rival, Advanced Micro Devices.
Cuomo said in a statement his office "served a wide-ranging subpoena seeking documents and information on Intel Corporation" in the investigation into "whether Intel violated state and federal antitrust laws."
The probe focuses on whether Intel was "coercing customers to exclude its main rival, Advanced Micro Devices (AMD), from the worldwide market for x86 computer processing units (CPU)," Cuomo said. |
20 Huckabee aims for evangelicals in SC
By ERIC GORSKI, AP Religion Writer
2 hours, 23 minutes ago
Propelled in Iowa by evangelicals' support, Mike Huckabee is trying for a repeat victory in South Carolina, where religion is woven even more tightly into the fabric of life.
A win there in the Jan. 19 primary would keep the former Southern Baptist minister and Arkansas governor in strong contention for the Republican presidential nomination, no matter how he does in the Michigan voting that comes first.
"He is tailor-made for South Carolina voters, better so than Bush in 2000," contends former South Carolina Gov. David Beasley, a Huckabee backer. But Huckabee's hardly alone in seeking — and gaining — support from evangelicals. |
21 Stakes are high at tonight's GOP debate
By LIZ SIDOTI, Associated Press Writer
Thu Jan 10, 6:21 PM ET
MYRTLE BEACH, S.C. - Six Republican candidates, one strikingly jumbled GOP race and a ton at stake in the heat of the primary season.
It's the recipe for Thursday night's debate.
Arizona Sen. John McCain, the big winner in New Hampshire, and former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, the Iowa caucus victor, looked for solid performances to keep momentum they earned with the victories. A misstep could undercut either of them.
Mitt Romney, the former Massachusetts governor, wanted to do well to help revive his campaign after disappointing second-place finishes in both states. Three candidates — former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, former Sen. Fred Thompson of Tennessee and Texas Rep. Ron Paul — sought a boost for their flagging campaigns.
The debate was being held as a new poll showed McCain got a bounce from his New Hampshire triumph; he now leads the field in South Carolina after trailing for months. The Fox News/Opinion Dynamics survey showed McCain with the support of 25 percent, Huckabee with 18 percent, Romney 17 percent; the other three candidates were in single digits. |
22 McCain unplugged on the campaign trail
By Steve Holland, Reuters
Thu Jan 10, 11:24 AM ET
CHARLESTON, South Carolina (Reuters) - It takes less than an hour with Republican presidential candidate John McCain to find out that he is a tad superstitious, does not like the number 13 and has grown weary of the phrase "war on terrorism."
He gets along better with Republican rivals Fred Thompson, Rudy Giuliani and Mike Huckabee than Mitt Romney, mostly because of Romney's campaign attack ads against him.
He teases unmercifully a close friend, South Carolina Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham, his biggest supporter in the state that McCain is seeking to win on January 19, one of the next big contests on the way to the November U.S. presidential election. |
23 Giuliani wants to cut corporate, capital gains taxes
Reuters
Thu Jan 10, 1:34 PM ET
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Republican presidential hopeful Rudy Giuliani has proposed what he called a multitrillion-dollar tax cut that would lower the corporate tax rate from 35 percent to 25 percent and reduce the capital gains tax from 15 percent to 10 percent.
The proposal, unveiled by Guiliani's campaign on Wednesday, would preserve the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts enacted by President George W. Bush, eliminate the estate tax and give taxpayers the option of choosing a simplified tax form with three tax brackets with a maximum bracket of 30 percent.
"Giuliani's tax plan makes all the Bush tax cuts permanent, including full repeal of the death tax," the former New York mayor's campaign said in an appeal to fiscal conservatives. |
24 Asian Americans voters face discrimination: report
By Matthew Bigg, Reuters
Thu Jan 10, 4:47 PM ET
ATLANTA (Reuters) - Asian American voters fear the discrimination some faced at polling stations in 2006 could resurface as they cast ballots in November's presidential election, a civil rights group said on Thursday.
Laws that enable Asian Americans from countries including China, Korea, Vietnam and the Philippines to get language and other kinds of assistance with voting were often flouted at the 2006 mid-term congressional elections, according to the Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund.
The group cited examples of Asian Americans being asked to provide more identification than other citizens, in contravention of federal law. Those not on voter rolls but still eligible to vote were often not given provisional ballots to complete, it said in a report. |
25 Moves to beef up forces reflect growing concern over Afghanistan: analysts
by Jim Mannion, AFP
1 hour, 28 minutes ago
WASHINGTON (AFP) - A move to beef up US forces in Afghanistan with some 3,000 marines reflects growing concerns about rising insurgent violence and turmoil in neighboring Pakistan, analysts said Thursday.
But the proposed deployment is seen as a stop-gap measure at a time when some experts say a revamped, unified strategy is needed to halt a worrying two-year slide in public confidence in the government of President Hamid Karzai.
"It's not a radical change in strategy, it's a selective application of power," Michael O'Hanlon, a military expert at the Brookings Institution, said of the proposal to send more troops. |
26 Analysis: Bernanke adopts Greenspan tone
By MARTIN CRUTSINGER, AP Economics Writer
Thu Jan 10, 5:43 PM ET
WASHINGTON - Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke borrowed a page from Alan Greenspan's crisis playbook when he promised emphatically to cut interest rates further if the weak economy needs the help.
The response from Wall Street on Thursday showed that the former Princeton economics professor is improving but still has a few things to learn before he can match Greenspan's magic in wowing financial markets.
Still, the effort rated at least a "B+" while previous Bernanke attempts to handle the first major crisis in his two-year tenure at the Fed have gotten far lower grades. |
27 Retailers had weak sales in December
By ANNE D'INNOCENZIO, AP Business Writer
Thu Jan 10, 5:16 PM ET
NEW YORK - If anyone is looking for signs that we may be headed into a recession, look no further than the dismal December sales results turned in by the nation's retailers.
Many merchants who reported sales figures Thursday failed to meet already lowered sales projections, making this the weakest holiday season since 2002. Their performance led a string of stores to reduce earnings outlooks for the fourth quarter.
The weak results crossed all retail categories. Particularly hard hit were apparel sellers including Limited Brands Inc. and AnnTaylor Stores Corp., as well as department stores including Macy's Inc. Among the few bright spots were low-price operators like Wal-Mart Stores Inc., which posted results that exceeded Wall Street expectations, as it benefited from shoppers trading down to cheaper stores amid higher gas prices and a slumping housing market. |
28 India's Tata unveils world's cheapest car
by Penny MacRae,AFP
Thu Jan 10, 12:46 PM ET
NEW DELHI (AFP) - India's Tata Group unveiled Thursday the world's cheapest car costing 2,500 dollars amid predictions the no-frills vehicle could revolutionise how millions in India and elsewhere travel.
The launch of the Tata Nano was a landmark in the history of transportation, claimed 70-year-old tycoon Ratan Tata, the head of the giant conglomerate, while rejecting fears the spartan car would add to congestion and pollution.
The four-door, five-seat sporty-looking car, which defied pre-launch predictions that it would be little more than a "motorised bullock cart on wheels", is due to hit the roads later this year at just 100,000 rupees (2,500 US dollars), excluding tax, after the Tata Group cut costs to the bone. |
29 NYC decides to clone 'historical' trees
By RICHARD PYLE, Associated Press Writer
1 hour, 7 minutes ago
NEW YORK - Squat, homely, dwarfed by the stately oaks and poplars nearby and unnoticed by the tourists passing in horse-drawn carriages, it's a tree that only birds and nut-hungry squirrels could love.
But on Thursday, the 100-year-old European beech on Central Park's Cherry Hill was the center of attention — chosen by city officials as the first of 25 "historical" trees to be cloned as part of a plan to add a million new trees to streets, parks and public spaces over the next decade.
Agriculture students from a Queens high school rode hydraulic-powered tree-trimmers' buckets to upper branches of the 60-foot tree and snipped off 6- to 12-inch sections of new growth, to be sent to a scientific tree nursery in eastern Oregon. If all goes well, the genetic-match saplings will be back in two years, to be replanted as part of the "Million Trees NYC" project, announced last year. |
30 Ants, plants mutually benefit each other
By RANDOLPH E. SCHMID, AP Science Writer
1 hour, 13 minutes ago
WASHINGTON - Call it the rule of unintended consequences — drop your guard because one threat goes away and an unexpected menace jumps up and smacks you. And new research shows it even applies to African acacia trees.
For thousands of years these thorny shrubs have provided food and shelter to aggressive biting ants, which protect the trees by attacking animals that try and eat the acacia leaves.
Called mutualism, it's a good deal for both the trees and the ants. |
Them!
31 NASA probe to fly past little, sun-baked Mercury
By Will Dunham, Reuters
Thu Jan 10, 4:04 PM ET
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A NASA probe next week will become the first spacecraft in 33 years to fly by Mercury, a sojourn scientists hope will unlock the secrets of the small sun-baked planet.
NASA's car-sized MESSENGER spacecraft is scheduled to zip about 124 miles above the cratered, rocky surface of the closest planet to the sun on Monday, part of a mission designed to place it into orbit around Mercury in 2011.
"I think we're in for some big surprises," Faith Vilas, one of the scientists involved in the mission, told reporters during a conference call on Thursday. |
32 Cloning-for-food growth seen slow if FDA approves
By Missy Ryan, Reuters
Thu Jan 10, 1:04 PM ET
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Regulatory approval could catalyze the nascent U.S. cloning industry, but leading firms say growth would come slowly as they battle to win consumers over to the concept of food from cloned animals.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration could issue a final ruling as early as next week that meat and milk from cloned animals poses no special risks to consumers.
Mark Walton, president of Texas-based ViaGen, which clones cows and other animals, is hoping the ruling will finally open the door for greater cloning in animal agriculture. |
33 Sarkozy mulls decision to bar transgenic corn
AFP
Thu Jan 10, 4:23 PM ET
PARIS (AFP) - French President Nicolas Sarkozy on Thursday was facing a decision whether to bar a strain of genetically-modified corn after a watchdog authority said it had "serious doubts" about the product.
Sarkozy told a press conference Thursday he was working with Prime Minister Francois Fillon towards a decision on suspending the Monsanto 810 maize, and would make an announcement in the "coming few days".
His task was complicated however after most of the scientists involved in the report complained that the authority had misrepresented their position. |
34 Threat to African wildlife could upset delicate ecosystem balance: study
AFP
Thu Jan 10, 3:53 PM ET
CHICAGO (AFP) - The pressures on elephants, giraffes and other big mammals could have far-reaching effects on the ecosystem of the sub-Saharan savannah, including disrupting the relationship between acacia trees and insects, researchers said Thursday.
In an experiment that simulated the extinction of these animals, researchers fenced off patches of land with the umbrella-shaped whistling thorn tree, or Acacia drepanolobium, on the Kenyan savannah in eastern Africa so that the animals could not graze on them.
Over time, they found that the absence of these plant-eating animals upset the relationship between the tree and its ant parasites, ultimately compromising the health of the tree, and increasing tree mortality by half. |
35 Global warming could make Australia's outback tougher: study
AFP
Thu Jan 10, 2:04 AM ET
SYDNEY (AFP) - Life in Australia's rugged outback could get even tougher when the effects of global warming bite, with extreme weather and outbreaks of exotic diseases in unexpected places, a new study suggests.
The world's driest inhabited continent is predicted to be among the regions worst hit by climate change and is already grappling with a long-running drought thought by some researchers to be linked to global warming.
As well as droughts, the study, says the outback can expect to face floods and cyclones as temperatures rise. |
36 New Plumbing System Found Inside Earth
Andrea Thompson, LiveScience Staff Writer
Thu Jan 10, 9:40 AM ET
Seismologists have used tiny earthquakes to make the first images of the inside of a deep sea vent — and it doesn’t look like anyone thought it would.
Sea floor vents (often called "black smokers" because of the cloud of chemicals they ooze) are the outflow channels of vast plumbing systems that exist under the Earth's mid-ocean ridges, which run across some 37,000 miles (60,000 kilometers) of the seafloor.
...
The hypothetical image scientists had drawn of these vent systems had cold, deep-ocean water being forced down by overlying pressure through large faults along the ridges. The water was then thought to be superheated by shallow volcanism, eventually rising toward the middle of the ridges where the vents tend to be clustered.
But the new images, detailed in a study in the Jan. 10 issue of the journal Nature, paint a different picture: Ocean water appears to descend through tiny cracks in the ridge, instead of large faults, then runs below the ridge along its axis in a tunnel-like zone just above a magma chamber for several kilometers. As the water gets heated, it rises back to the sea floor (like a pot of boiling water) and bubbles out through a series of vents. |
37 Scientists: Earth Barely Supports Life
Jeanna Bryner, LiveScience Staff Writer
Wed Jan 9, 4:25 PM ET
AUSTIN, Texas—If Earth had been slightly smaller and less massive, life might never have gained a foothold.
They key to life on Earth as we know it, scientists figure, is plate tectonics — the forces that move continents and build mountains. And the more massive a world is, the thinner its plates are. Thinner plates are weaker and more easily moved and so able to support the kinds of crucial planet-shaping plate tectonics experienced on this planet over the billions of years that life evolved from simple one-celled organisms to complex creatures that can fly, swim and read.
"Plate tectonics are essential to life as we know it," said Diana Valencia of Harvard University, who presented research on the topic here Wednesday at a meeting of the American Astronomical Society. "Our calculations show that bigger is better when it comes to the habitability of rocky planets."
The study reveals Earth has been on the edge of habitability from the beginning, and just eked by to allow life-friendly conditions. |
Magnifico's section...
- The Washington Post: "Jose Rodriguez, the former CIA official that ordered the CIA torture tapes to be destroyed, is refusing to testify before the House intelligence committee "unless he is granted immunity from prosecution for his statements". Also, U.S. District Judge Henry H. Kennedy Jr. wrote "in a three-page ruling that a group of inmates held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, 'offer nothing to support their assertion that a judicial inquiry' is necessary into the tape destruction. He said neither of the detainees whose interrogations were taped and later destroyed has an apparent connection to the prisoners who were demanding the review. Kennedy also wrote that he expects the Justice Department 'will follow the facts wherever they may lead and live up to the assurances it made to this court.'"
- The New York Times: "The United Nations top peacekeeping official told the Security Council on Wednesday that obstructionism by the Sudanese government, the failure of other countries to supply needed transportation equipment, and continued violence threatened to doom the mission of the freshly deployed peacekeeping force in Darfur."
- The New York Times: "The recent clashes in eastern Congo between the army and the troops of the dissident general have exacted a grievous toll on a region ravaged by a decade of war. Around 400,000 people have been forced to flee their homes, thousands of women have been raped and hundreds of children have been press-ganged into militias... The fighting is also rekindling the kind of ethnic hatred that previously dragged this region into the most deadly conflict since World War II. It began with the Rwandan genocide, in which Hutu extremists killed 800,000 Tutsi and moderate Hutu in 1994."
- The L.A. Times: U.S. bombers and fighter jets continued an aggressive attack on the southern outskirts of Baghdad this morning, unleashing 38 bombs in 10 minutes on suspected havens of the militant group Al Qaeda in Iraq. In all, they dropped 40,000 pounds of bombs on Arab Jabour, in an area of mostly farmland, the U.S. military said in a statement... A booby-trapped home exploded Wednesday, killing six American soldiers and an interpreter and injuring nine others. The U.S. military also reported that three service members were killed by small-arms fire the day before. The two-day toll makes the latest effort to flush out Al Qaeda in Iraq the deadliest operation in months.
- The New York Times: In May 2005, a Blackwater helicopter "dropped CS gas, a riot-control substance the American military in Iraq can use only under the strictest conditions and with the approval of top military commanders. An armored vehicle on the ground also released the gas, temporarily blinding drivers, passers-by and at least 10 American soldiers operating the checkpoint. 'This was decidedly uncool and very, very dangerous,' Capt. Kincy Clark of the Army, the senior officer at the scene, wrote later that day. 'It's not a good thing to cause soldiers who are standing guard against car bombs, snipers and suicide bombers to cover their faces, choke, cough and otherwise degrade our awareness.'"
- The Guardian: "George Bush today called on Israel to end its 41-year occupation of Palestinian land and predicted a peace treaty would be signed by the time he leaves office. Speaking after a meeting with the Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, Bush said: 'There should be an end to the occupation that began in 1967. An agreement must establish Palestine as a homeland for the Palestinian people, just as Israel is a homeland for the Jewish people.'"
- The Washington Post: "In a challenge to the U.S. version of events, Iran today released a video of the confrontation Sunday between five small Iranian speedboats and three U.S. warships in the Persian Gulf. The five-minute video does not include the confrontation or threatening language described by U.S. officials... It also shows the Iranian patrol boats near but not closing in on the USS Port Royal and two accompanying vessels and captures a radio exchange in English."
- The New York Times "A suicide bomber approached a crowd of police officers outside a courthouse in Lahore on Thursday and set off a powerful explosion, killing at least 23 people and wounding 58, police officials said. Twenty-two of the dead were police officers, and the police said many of the wounded were in critical condition."
- The Washington Post: "The U.S. military is planning to deploy about 3,000 Marines to Afghanistan this spring to counter an expected offensive by Taliban insurgents, a Pentagon spokesman said yesterday, citing NATO allies' failure to provide additional combat troops. The reinforcements would be in place by April and stay for about seven months to try to bring down violence, which rose significantly last year".
- The New York Times: Sir Edmund Hillary, the lanky New Zealand mountaineer and explorer who with Tenzing Norgay, his Sherpa guide, won worldwide acclaim in 1953 by becoming the first to scale the 29,035-foot summit of Mount Everest, the world's tallest peak, has died, New Zealand Prime Minister Helen Clark announced Friday in Wellington. He was 88.
- The Christian Science Monitor: Colombian leftist guerrillas released two of their most prized hostages Thursday, in a deal brokered by Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez that could pave the way for a broad agreement for the liberation of dozens of others being held in rebel camps. Politicians Clara Rojas and Consuelo Gonzalez were whisked from the jungles of southern Colombia where they had been held for six years to the Venezuelan capital, Caracas, into the embrace of their families.
Cold eh? I think we've discovered a new photon virus that travels the tubz. My advice is hot toddies, they don't help anything but your head. Get well soon boss.