Fox effectively fired Montel Williams after he stated during a televised interview that we ought to be at least as concerned about the 28 boys of ours who have died in Iraq since January, as we are about Heath’s death. He also shared the idea that the media community shouldn’t be discussing Ledger as an object in order to drive up ratings. This “young man . . . has not even been buried yet,” Williams admonished. He was, “somebody’s child, somebody’s father.”
How the Rabbi beat City Hall
Fair Lawn, Dec. 9 – An 8-foot-tall menorah has been placed in a yard across from Borough Hall, but even after all its electric candles are lighted, it will not outshine the Borough Hall and its tree, which have hundreds of lightbulbs.
A sign on the menorah – symbol of the Jewish festival of Hanukkah, which began Tuesday night – reads, “There will be liberty and justice for all when I am across the street.” Rabbi Levi Neubort of the Anshei Lubavitch Outreach Center in Fair Lawn has erected what he calls a “defiant menorah” on private property facing the municipal building, because borough officials have consistently refused to allow the menorah on town property.
No more free Salon pass
I wanted to read a Salon article today that I bookmarked a while back, and was disappointed to find that there’s no more free lunch in the Salon.
Today, Salon allows me to choose to give one of 100 companies sponsoring its website, my personal contact information plus credit card information. And after a few days, I’ll qualify for premium membership, valued at $29.99.
In the mean time, my personal information will have been bought and sold between major retailers at least 100 times. I_couldn’t_bring_myself_to_do_it. Eventually, I’m going to have to think about shelling out the $29.99 fee. I know my privacy’s worth at least that much. I just need to figure out whether Salon is.
Nashville citizen’s data stolen. Too close to elections?
Thursday, 01/03/08
Data loss shakes voter trust. Facility guarded half-time on weekends
By MICHAEL CASS, Staff Writer
The Metro Nashville building from which thieves stole two computers containing sensitive voter data does not have security guards on duty for half of the day on weekends, and it has no alarm system or video surveillance.
The Metro Office Building on Second Avenue South has had one guard on duty 12 hours a day on Saturdays, Sundays and holidays for about 10 years, said Velvet Hunter, Metro General Services’ assistant director for administration. She declined to specify the hours, citing concerns that publicity could make the facility more vulnerable.
NJ joins California lawsuit against EPA
by Star Ledger Staff and wire reports
January 02, 2008, 5:07 PM
California sued the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency today for denying its first-in-the-nation greenhouse gas limits on cars, trucks and SUVs, challenging the Bush administration’s conclusion that states have no business setting emission standards.
New Jersey joined the lawsuit and other states were expected to follow. The legal challenge was anticipated after the EPA on Dec. 19 denied California a waiver it needs under the federal Clean Air Act. The lawsuit was filed in the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco.
Why Bush wants children to lack insurance
Paul Krugman writes
Now, why should Mr. Bush fear that insuring uninsured children would lead to a further “federalization†of health care, even though nothing like that is actually in either the Senate plan or the House plan? It’s not because he thinks the plans wouldn’t work. It’s because he’s afraid that they would. That is, he fears that voters, having seen how the government can help children, would ask why it can’t do the same for adults.
And there you have the core of Mr. Bush’s philosophy. He wants the public to believe that government is always the problem, never the solution. But it’s hard to convince people that government is always bad when they see it doing good things. So his philosophy says that the government must be prevented from solving problems, even if it can. In fact, the more good a proposed government program would do, the more fiercely it must be opposed.
Cigna guilty in teen client’s death?
The family of a California teenager plan to sue her health insurer which refused to pay for a liver transplant until hours before and she died on Thursday night. Â
Her family . . . will ask the Los Angeles district attorney to press murder or manslaughter charges against Cigna HealthCare, arguing that the firm “maliciously killed” Nataline Sarkisyan by its reluctance to pay for her treatment. Although she was fully insured and had a matching donor, Cigna refused to pay . . . .Â
The company recently posted figures for its third-quarter performance this year, which showed profits up 22%. Next year it expects to earn an income of up to $1.2bn.
Making it isn’t all about hard work.
The myth is simply this: that if an individual will work hard, follow the rules, and be patient that they can be successful. . . The truth is that in accumulating wealth hard work plays a very small role . . . no group has worked harder than the slaves that built this country, the Chinese that built the railroad, or the Mexicans that continue to do the menial labor that drives our information society.
Today, as Tim Wise writes in “The Mother of All Racial Preferences” white baby boomers are benefiting from the largest transfer of wealth in American history as they inherit their parents’ estates. Some of that wealth dates back to the years of slavery, when Blacks were forced to work for free while their white owners and the American economy accumulated the benefits of their toil. Another large category of the transferred wealth is land, much of it stolen by the American government from Native Americans and Mexicans and sold for a pittance to white settlers. For the average white family, however, some of the largest sources of wealth are the result of racial preferences in government policies that were started in the 20th century.
E-waste trash problem. Chemicals are entering our air!
[Rogers], too, addresses obsolescence’s worst form of fallout, e-waste, and provides some arresting numbers: In 2004, “about 315 million working PCs were retired in North America.” Most went “straight to the trash heap.” As did more than 100 million cell phones in 2005, creating 50,000 tons of e-waste. These all add up to a “toxic time bomb,” . . .
How did we come to this almost surreal conjuncture? The first phase involved “psychological obsolescence,” the carefully choreographed arousal of dissatisfaction with the old and irrepressible desire for the new and fashionable. It didn’t take carmakers long to discover that cosmetic changes induced consumers to “trade up for style, not just for technological improvements, long before their old cars wore out.” The fashion imperative, the need to have the latest thing, has worked with any number of products over the years. Slade relates amazing lore regarding the success of disposable razors, the invention of the wristwatch, the cutthroat battle for the radio market and the advent of the calculator, the gadget that jump-started the electronics revolution.
The Economic Consequences of Mr. Bush
The next president will have to deal with yet another crippling legacy of George W. Bush: the economy. A Nobel laureate, Joseph E. Stiglitz, sees a generation-long struggle to recoup.
by JOSEPH E. STIGLITZ, December 2007
The American economy can take a lot of abuse, but no economy is invincible.
When we look back someday at the catastrophe that was the Bush administration, we will think of many things: the tragedy of the Iraq war, the shame of Guantánamo and Abu Ghraib, the erosion of civil liberties. The damage done to the American economy does not make front-page headlines every day, but the repercussions will be felt beyond the lifetime of anyone reading this page.
I can hear an irritated counterthrust already. The president has not driven the United States into a recession during his almost seven years in office. Unemployment stands at a respectable 4.6 percent. Well, fine. But the other side of the ledger groans with distress: a tax code that has become hideously biased in favor of the rich; a national debt that will probably have grown 70 percent by the time this president leaves Washington; a swelling cascade of mortgage defaults; a record near-$850 billion trade deficit; oil prices that are higher than they have ever been; and a dollar so weak that for an American to buy a cup of coffee in London or Paris—or even the Yukon—becomes a venture in high finance.
Kids’ toy putting kids in coma
Aqua-dots, which were supposed to be the latest and greatest kid toy, are putting kids in coma and their lives at risk.
The toys were supposed to be made using 1,5-pentanediol, a nontoxic compound found in glue, but instead contained the harmful 1,4-butanediol, which is widely used in cleaners and plastics.
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The Food and Drug Administration in 1999 declared the chemical a Class I Health Hazard, meaning it can cause life-threatening harm.
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Both chemicals are manufactured in China and elsewhere, including by major multinational companies, and are also marketed over the Internet. Â
Adobo [dry seasoning/rub] for meat
Adobo – rub over meat and let it sit for a while or overnight before cooking.
Adobo Paste
2 t olive oil
2 cloves garlic, minced
3 t oregano
juice of 1/2 lime
2 t sea salt
1/2 t fresh ground black pepper
From Daisy Martinez
Adobo Seco [Dry Adobo]
Makes 1 cup
6 tablespoons salt
3 tablespoons onion powder
3 tablespoons garlic powder
3 tablespoons ground black pepper
1 ½ teaspoons ground oregano
Place all ingredients in a jar with a tight fitting lid. Shake well and store for up to 2 months in a cool dry place.
You can add 1 teaspoon of any or all of the following to customize your dry adobo: Ground cumin Dried citrus zest (orange, lemon, or lime) Saffron Achiote powder.
Verizon tinkers with dns & search settings
Overrides Internet Searches With Its Own Results
by Martin H. Bosworth, November 3, 2007
Subscribers to Verizon’s high-powered fiber-optic Internet service (FiOS) are reporting that when they mistype a Web site address, they get redirected to Verizon’s own search engine page — even if they don’t have Verizon’s search page set as their default.
“It was the very first thing I noticed when Verizon finally got FiOS installed here the other day. Very annoying and hardly in the spirit of net neutrality, eh?,” wrote one Webmaster World user, who originally had Google set as his default search engine.
Are candidates telling the truth?
If you want to know, look it up at Politifact
PolitiFact is a project of the St. Petersburg Times and Congressional Quarterly to help you find the truth in the presidential campaign. Every day, reporters and researchers from the Times and CQ will analyze the candidates’ speeches, TV ads and interviews and determine whether the claims are accurate.
Mr. Huckabee! 1 out of 56 isn’t ‘most’.
In a Republican presidential debate in Orlando on Sunday, October 21st, 2007, Republican candidate Mike Huckabee stated, “The signers of the Declaration of Independence were “brave people, most of whom, by the way, were clergymen.” ”
Politifact.com says that’s not true. Here’s the real truth:
Mike Huckabee said he believes one of the defining issues facing the country is the sanctity of human life. Arguing that the issue is of historical importance, he invoked the Declaration of Independence . . . and said that most of the signers of the declaration were clergymen.