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211
3DHS / FBI, IRS Raid Sen. Stevens's Home
« on: July 30, 2007, 09:35:26 PM »
FBI, IRS Raid Sen. Stevens's Home

By Dan Eggen and Paul Kane
Washington Post Staff Writer and Washingtonpost.com Staff Writer
Monday, July 30, 2007; 8:20 PM

Agents from the FBI and the Internal Revenue Service yesterday raided the Alaska home of Sen. Ted Stevens (R), as part of a broad federal investigation of political corruption in the state that has also swept up his son and one of his closest financial backers, officials said.

Stevens, a 39-year veteran who is the longest-serving Republican senator in U.S. history, is under scrutiny from the Justice Department for his ties to an Alaska energy services company, VECO, whose CEO pleaded guilty in early May to a bribery scheme involving state lawmakers.

Contractors have told a federal grand jury that in 2000, VECO executives oversaw a lavish remodeling of Stevens' home in Girdwood, an area on the outskirts of Anchorage, according to statements by the contractors.

Stevens said in a statement that his attorneys were advised of the impending search yesterday morning. He said he would not comment on details of the probe to avoid "any appearance that I have attempted to influence its outcome."

"I urge Alaskans not to form conclusions based upon incomplete and sometimes incorrect reports in the media," Stevens said. "The legal process should be allowed to proceed so that all the facts can be established and the truth determined." Brendan Sullivan, a prominent white-collar defense attorney representing Stevens, declined to comment.

The afternoon raid was conducted by FBI and IRS agents as part of a "court-authorized search warrant," according to FBI spokesman Richard Kolko in Washington, who declined to provide further details.

Stevens, 83, has been considered one of the most powerful members of Congress for more than a decade, including six years in which he held wide sway over nearly $1 trillion in federal spending as chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee. He is now the top Republican on the Commerce committee, which has oversight of fisheries and other industries critical to his home state.

Earlier this spring, both Republicans and Democrats celebrated on the Senate floor when Stevens, who joined the chamber in 1968, became the longest serving Republican in chamber history. He has said he planned to run in 2008 for another six-year term.

A few weeks after that celebration, one of Stevens's closest political allies--Bill Allen, formerly the CEO of VECO--pleaded guilty to bribing several members of the state legislature, including an unidentified former state senator whose consulting payments cited in the plea agreement specifically matched payments reported by Ben Stevens, a state lawmaker who is the senator's son. He left the state Senate last year.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/07/30/AR2007073001427_pf.html

212
3DHS / What punishment when child dies in hot car?
« on: July 30, 2007, 08:12:34 PM »
What punishment when child dies in hot car?

    * Story Highlights
    * Number of children dying in hot cars has risen since mid-1990s
    * July is the deadliest month for this type of incident
    * Temperatures in cars can rise 40 degrees in one hour
    * Penalties vary widely; mother treated more harshly than fathers

MANASSAS, Virginia (AP -- Kevin Kelly is a law-abiding citizen who, much distracted, left his beloved 21-month-old daughter in a sweltering van for seven hours.

Frances Kelly had probably been dead for more than four hours by the time a neighbor noticed her strapped in her car seat; when rescue personnel removed the girl from the vehicle, her skin was red and blistered, her fine, carrot-colored hair matted with sweat. Two hours later, her body temperature was still nearly 106 degrees.

What is the appropriate punishment for a doting parent responsible for his child's death? A judge eventually spared Kelly a lengthy term in prison. Still, it is a question that is asked dozens of times each year.

Since the mid-1990s, the number of children who died of heat exhaustion while trapped inside vehicles has risen dramatically, totaling around 340 in the past 10 years. Ironically, one reason was a change parent-drivers made to protect their kids after juvenile air-bag deaths peaked in 1995 -- they put them in the back seat, where they are more easily forgotten.

An Associated Press analysis of more than 310 fatal incidents in the past 10 years found that prosecutions and penalties vary widely, depending in many cases on where the death occurred and who left the child to die -- parent or caregiver, mother or father:

? Mothers are treated much more harshly than fathers. While mothers and fathers are charged and convicted at about the same rates, moms are 26 percent more likely to do time. And their median sentence is two years longer than the terms received by dads. Read unequal justice for two fathers in hot car deaths

? Day care workers and other paid baby sitters are more likely than parents to be charged and convicted. But they are jailed less frequently than parents, and for less than half the time.

? Charges are filed in half of all cases -- even when a child was left unintentionally.

In all, the AP analyzed 339 fatalities involving more than 350 responsible parties. July is by far the deadliest month, accounting for nearly a quarter of the total.

A relatively small number of cases -- about 7 percent -- involved drugs or alcohol. In a few instances, the responsible parties had a history of abusing or neglecting children. Still others were single parents unable to find or afford day care. Many cases involved what might be called community pillars.

"But no one thinks it's going to happen to them," says Janette Fennell, founder and president of Kids and Cars, a nonprofit group that tracks child deaths and injuries in and around automobiles. The AP's analysis was based largely on a database of fatal hyperthermia cases compiled by Fennell's organization.

Some of these children crawled into cars or trunks on their own, but most were left to die by a caregiver. Most often, it was a parent who simply forgot the child was inside.

There were deaths recorded in 44 states -- most in the Sun Belt, but many in places not known for hot weather.

The correlation between the rise in these deaths and the 1990s move to put children in the back seat is striking.

"Up to that time, the average number of children dying of hyperthermia in the United States was about 11 a year," says Jan Null, an adjunct professor of meteorology at San Francisco State University who has studied this trend. "Then we put them in the back, turned the car seats around. And from '98 to 2006, that number is 36 a year."

Few understand just how quickly a car can heat up, even on a moderate day.

According to one study, the temperature inside a vehicle can rise more than 40 degrees in the span of an hour. And researchers found that cracking the windows did little to help.

Children, often too young to escape, are particularly vulnerable because their immature respiratory and circulatory systems do not manage heat as efficiently as adults'. Already this year, at least 16 children have died in hot vehicles from Hawaii to Virginia.

Since 1998, charges were filed in 49 percent of cases. In those that have been decided, 81 percent resulted in convictions or guilty pleas, and half of those brought jail sentences -- the median sentence being two years. Parents were only slightly less likely to be charged and convicted than others, but the median sentence was much higher -- 54 months.

In cases involving paid caregivers, 84 percent were charged, with 96 percent of those convicted. But while they are jailed at about the same rate as parents, the median sentence in those cases was just 12 months.

Women were jailed more often and for longer periods than men. But when the AP compared mothers and fathers, the sentencing gap was even wider.

Mothers were jailed 59 percent of the time, compared to 47 percent for fathers. And the median sentence was three years for dads, but five for moms.

"I think we generally hold mothers to a higher standard in the criminal justice context than in just family life generally," says Jennifer M. Collins, a professor at the Wake Forest University School of Law who has studied negligence involving parents and such hyperthermia cases.

In 27 percent of the cases the AP studied, the children got into the vehicles on their own. Those cases are much less likely to be prosecuted.

The AP identified more than 220 cases in which the caregiver admitted leaving the child behind. More than three-quarters of those people claim they simply forgot.

It's easy to forget your keys or that cup of coffee on the roof. But a child?

The awful truth, experts say, is that the stressed-out brain can bury a thought -- something as trite as a coffee cup or crucial as a baby -- and go on autopilot. While researchers once thought the different parts of the brain worked in conjunction with each other, they now realize that different portions dominate at different times.

"The value of the item is not only not relevant in these competing memory systems," says memory expert David Diamond, an associate psychology professor at the University of South Florida. "But, in fact, we can be more complacent because we tell ourselves, 'There's no way I would forget my child."'

Nationwide, about 60 percent of cases where the child was left unintentionally result in charges. But policies vary wildly from one jurisdiction to the next.

At least nine children in Las Vegas have died in hot vehicles since 1998, but charges were filed in only two of those cases. For several years, it has been the policy of the Clark County prosecutor's office not to file charges unless there is proof of "some general criminal intent ... to put the child in harm's way," says chief deputy DA Tom Carroll.

But in Memphis, Tennessee, District Attorney General William L. Gibbons scoffs at the notion that he wouldn't charge someone -- especially a parent -- who claims to have simply forgotten a child.

"We're not talking in most cases about sending anyone to prison," says Gibbons, whose office has prosecuted five cases involving nine parents and day-care workers since 1998. "We are talking about placing someone on probation, maybe requiring them to go to some parenting classes or something like that, and giving them a felony record as a result of what happened."

Not surprisingly, the harshest treatment is reserved for those who intentionally left their children. According to the AP's analysis, those people are nearly twice as likely to serve time than people who simply forgot the child. And on average, they received sentences that were 51/2 years longer.

But in many cases, police, prosecutors and judges must wrestle with whether to charge, try and punish an already grieving parent.

In Lexington, Kentucky, Fayette Circuit Judge James Ishmael said the question of what to do with Leon Jewell was perhaps the toughest of his career.

According to police, Jewell admitted buying beer and vodka at a liquor store on August 1, 2005, and drinking in his SUV on the way home. When his wife returned home from work later that day, she found 9-month-old Daniel still strapped in his car seat.

Jewell pleaded guilty to second-degree manslaughter. Ishmael placed him on probation and ordered alcohol treatment.

But six months later, on what would have been Daniel's second birthday, Jewell got drunk and was kicked out of his treatment program. Ishmael revoked the probation and sent Jewell to prison for seven years.

"Where ever I am is the worst place in the world," Jewell wrote to Ishmael. "I have violated man's laws. I have violated God's laws."

So what did Kevin Kelly deserve?

Would it influence your opinion to know that the day Frances died, May 29, 2002, the Manassas engineer was watching 12 children alone while his wife and oldest daughter were abroad visiting a cancer-stricken relative?

Does it matter that when he returned home that day, he'd asked two teenage children -- both of baby-sitting age -- to attend to their younger siblings while he went back to school for another daughter who was late getting out of an exam?

Or that during the next seven hours, he was accosted by an air conditioning repairman with news that he was going to have to spend several thousand dollars on a new unit? That he fixed lunch, did laundry, mended a gap in the fence that the little ones were using to escape the yard, drove to the store for parts to fix his air conditioner, took a son to soccer practice and fixed a leaking drain pipe in the basement?

A jury convicted Kelly of involuntary manslaughter and child endangerment, and recommended a year in prison. But the judge instead ordered Kelly to spend one day a year in jail for seven years and to hold an annual blood drive around the anniversary of his daughter's death.

"The judge was very, very merciful," Kelly said recently while waiting in line at All Saints Catholic Church to donate blood. "I have always loved life. And this is an opportunity to honor my daughter and save lives."


Find this article at:
http://www.cnn.com/2007/LIVING/wayoflife/07/26/left.2.die.ap/index.html

213
3DHS / Russian youths encouraged to procreate at camp
« on: July 30, 2007, 01:55:25 PM »
Sex for the motherland: Russian youths encouraged to procreate at camp
By EDWARD LUCAS - More by this author ?
 
Last updated at 08:35am on 29th July 2007
 
Remember the mammoths, say the clean-cut organisers at the youth camp's mass wedding. "They became extinct because they did not have enough sex. That must not happen to Russia".

Obediently, couples move to a special section of dormitory tents arranged in a heart-shape and called the Love Oasis, where they can start procreating for the motherland.

With its relentlessly upbeat tone, bizarre ideas and tight control, it sounds like a weird indoctrination session for a phoney religious cult.

But this organisation - known as "Nashi", meaning "Ours" - is youth movement run by Vladimir Putin's Kremlin that has become a central part of Russian political life.

Nashi's annual camp, 200 miles outside Moscow, is attended by 10,000 uniformed youngsters and involves two weeks of lectures and physical fitness.

Attendance is monitored via compulsory electronic badges and anyone who misses three events is expelled. So are drinkers; alcohol is banned. But sex is encouraged, and condoms are nowhere on sale.

Bizarrely, young women are encouraged to hand in thongs and other skimpy underwear - supposedly a cause of sterility - and given more wholesome and substantial undergarments.

Twenty-five couples marry at the start of the camp's first week and ten more at the start of the second. These mass weddings, the ultimate expression of devotion to the motherland, are legal and conducted by a civil official.

Attempting to raise Russia's dismally low birthrate even by eccentric-seeming means might be understandable. Certainly, the country's demographic outlook is dire. The hard-drinking, hardsmoking and disease-ridden population is set to plunge by a million a year in the next decade.

But the real aim of the youth camp - and the 100,000-strong movement behind it - is not to improve Russia's demographic profile, but to attack democracy.

Under Mr Putin, Russia is sliding into fascism, with state control of the economy, media, politics and society becoming increasingly heavy-handed. And Nashi, along with other similar youth movements, such as 'Young Guard', and 'Young Russia', is in the forefront of the charge.

At the start, it was all too easy to mock. I attended an early event run by its predecessor, 'Walking together', in the heart of Moscow in 2000. A motley collection of youngsters were collecting 'unpatriotic' works of fiction for destruction.

It was sinister in theory, recalling the Nazis' book-burning in the 1930s, but it was laughable in practice. There was no sign of ordinary members of the public handing in books (the copies piled on the pavement had been brought by the organisers).

Once the television cameras had left, the event organisers admitted that they were not really volunteers, but being paid by "sponsors". The idea that Russia's anarchic, apathetic youth would ever be attracted into a disciplined mass movement in support of their president - what critics called a "Putinjugend", recalling the "Hitlerjugend" (German for "Hitler Youth") - seemed fanciful.

How wrong we were. Life for young people in Russia without connections is a mixture of inadequate and corrupt education, and a choice of boring dead-end jobs. Like the Hitler Youth and the Soviet Union's Young Pioneers, Nashi and its allied movements offer not just excitement, friendship and a sense of purpose - but a leg up in life, too.

Nashi's senior officials - known, in an eerie echo of the Soviet era, as "Commissars" - get free places at top universities. Thereafter, they can expect good jobs in politics or business - which in Russia nowadays, under the Kremlin's crony capitalism, are increasingly the same thing.

Nashi and similar outfits are the Kremlin's first line of defence against its greatest fear: real democracy. Like the sheep chanting "Four legs good, two legs bad" in George Orwell's Animal Farm, they can intimidate through noise and numbers.

Nashi supporters drown out protests by Russia's feeble and divided democratic opposition and use violence to drive them off the streets.

The group's leaders insist that the only connection to officialdom is loyalty to the president. If so, they seem remarkably well-informed.

In July 2006, the British ambassador, Sir Anthony Brenton, infuriated the Kremlin by attending an opposition meeting. For months afterwards, he was noisily harassed by groups of Nashi supporters demanding that he "apologise". With uncanny accuracy, the hooligans knew his movements in advance - a sign of official tip-offs.

Even when Nashi flagrantly breaks the law, the authorities do not intervene. After Estonia enraged Russia by moving a Sovietera war memorial in April, Nashi led the blockade of Estonia's Moscow embassy. It daubed the building with graffiti, blasted it with Stalinera military music, ripped down the Estonian flag and attacked a visiting ambassador's car. The Moscow police, who normally stamp ruthlessly on public protest, stood by.

Nashi fits perfectly into the Kremlin's newly-minted ideology of "Sovereign democracy". This is not the mind-numbing jargon of Marxism-Leninism, but a lightweight collection of cliches and slogans promoting Russia's supposed unique political and spiritual culture.

It is strongly reminiscent of the Tsarist era slogan: "Autocracy, Orthodoxy and Nationality".

The similarities to both the Soviet and Tsarist eras are striking. Communist ideologues once spent much of their time explaining why their party deserved its monopoly of power, even though the promised utopia seemed indefinitely delayed.

Today, the Kremlin's ideology chief Vladislav Surkov is trying to explain why questioning the crooks and spooks who run Russia is not just mistaken, but treacherous.

Yet, by comparison with other outfits, Nashi looks relatively civilised. Its racism and prejudice is implied, but not trumpeted. Other pro-Kremlin youth groups are hounding gays and foreigners off the streets of Moscow. Mestnye [The Locals] recently distributed leaflets urging Muscovites to boycott non-Russian cab drivers.

These showed a young blonde Russian refusing a ride from a swarthy, beetle-browed taxi driver, under the slogan: "We're not going the same way."

Such unofficial xenophobia matches the official stance. On April 1, a decree explicitly backed by Mr Putin banned foreigners from trading in Russia's retail markets. By some estimates, 12m people are working illegally in Russia.

Those who hoped that Russia's first post-totalitarian generation would be liberal, have been dissapointed. Although explicit support for extremist and racist groups is in the low single figures, support for racist sentiments is mushrooming.

Slogans such as "Russia for the Russians" now attract the support of half of the population. Echoing Kremlin propaganda, Nashi denounced Estonians as "fascist", for daring to say that they find Nazi and Soviet memorials equally repugnant. But, in truth, it is in Russia that fascism is all too evident.

The Kremlin sees no role for a democratic opposition, denouncing its leaders as stooges and traitors. Sadly, most Russians agree: a recent poll showed that a majority believed that opposition parties should not be allowed to take power.

Just as the Nazis in 1930s rewrote Germany's history, the Putin Kremlin is rewriting Russia's. It has rehaabilitated Stalin, the greatest massmurderer of the 20th century. And it is demonising Boris Yeltsin, Russia's first democratically-elected president. That he destroyed totalitarianism is ignored. Instead, he is denounced for his "weak" pro-Western policies.

While distorting its own history, the Kremlin denounces other countries. Mr Putin was quick to blame Britain's "colonial mentality" for our government's request that Russia try to find a legal means of extraditing Andrei Lugovoi, the prime suspect in the murder of Alexander Litvinenko.

Yet the truth is that Britain, like most Western countries, flagellates itself for the crimes of the past. Indeed, British schoolchildren rarely learn anything positive about their country's empire. And, if Mr Putin has his way, Russian pupils will learn nothing bad about the Soviet empire, which was far bloodier, more brutal - and more recent.

A new guide for history teachers - explicitly endorsed by Mr Putin - brushes off Stalin's crimes. It describes him as "the most successful leader of the USSR". But it skates over the colossal human cost - 25m people were shot and starved in the cause of communism.

"Political repression was used to mobilise not only rank-and-file citizens but also the ruling elite," it says. In other words, Stalin wanted to make the country strong, so he may have been a bit harsh at times. At any time since the collapse of Soviet totalitarianism in the late 1980s, that would have seemed a nauseating whitewash. Now, it is treated as bald historical fact.

If Stalin made mistakes, so what? Lots of people make mistakes.

"Problematic pages in our history exist," Mr Putin said last week. But: "we have less than some countries. And ours are not as terrible as those of some others." He compared the Great Terror of 1937, when 700,000 people were murdered in a purge by Stalin's secret police, to the atom bomb on Hiroshima.

The comparison is preposterous. A strong argument can be made that by ending the war quickly, the atom bombs saved countless lives.

Franklin D Roosevelt and Harry Truman-may have failed to realise that nuclear weapons would one day endanger humanity's survival. But, unlike Stalin, they were not genocidal maniacs.

As the new cold war deepens, Mr Putin echoes, consciously or unconsciously, the favourite weapon of Soviet propagandists in the last one.

Asked about Afghanistan, they would cite Vietnam. Castigated for the plight of Soviet Jews, they would complain with treacly sincerity about discrimination against American blacks. Every blot on the Soviet record was matched by something, real or imagined, that the West had done.

But the contrasts even then were absurd. When the American administration blundered into Vietnam, hundreds of thousands of people protested in the heart of Washington. When eight extraordinarily brave Soviet dissidents tried to demonstrate in Red Square against the invasion of Czechoslovakia, in 1968, they were instantly arrested and spent many years in labour camps.

For the east European countries with first-hand experience of Stalinist terror, the Kremlin's rewriting of history could hardly be more scary. Not only does Russia see no reason to apologise for their suffering under Kremlin rule, it now sees the collapse of communism not as a time of liberation, but as an era of pitiable weakness.

Russia barely commemorates even the damage it did to itself, let alone the appalling suffering inflicted on other people. Nashi is both a symptom of the way Russia is going - and a means of entrenching the drift to fascism.

Terrifyingly, the revived Soviet view of history is now widely held in Russia. A poll this week of Russian teenagers showed that a majority believe that Stalin did more good things than bad.

If tens of thousands of uniformed German youngsters were marching across Germany in support of an authoritarian Fuhrer, baiting foreigners and praising Hitler, alarm bells would be jangling all across Europe. So why aren't they ringing about Nashi?

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=471324&in_page_id=1770

214
3DHS / Paying for Aging Baby Boomers
« on: July 30, 2007, 01:49:13 PM »
Samuelson: Paying for Aging Baby Boomers
By Robert J. Samuelson
Newsweek
Aug. 6, 2007 issue - If you haven't noticed, the major presidential candidates?Republican and Democratic?are dodging one of the thorniest problems they'd face if elected: the huge budget costs of aging baby boomers. In last week's CNN/YouTube debate, New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson cleverly deflected the issue. "The best solution," he said, "is a bipartisan effort to fix it." Brilliant. There's already a bipartisan consensus: do nothing. No one plugs cutting retirement benefits or raising taxes, the obvious choices.

End of story? Not exactly. There's also a less-noticed cause for the neglect. Washington's vaunted think tanks?citadels for public intellectuals both liberal and conservative?have tiptoed around the problem. Ideally, think tanks expand the public conversation by saying things too controversial for politicians to say on their own. Here, they've abdicated that role.

The aging of America is not just a population change or, as a budget problem, an accounting exercise. It involves a profound transformation of the nature of government: commitments to the older population are slowly overwhelming other public goals; the national government is becoming mainly an income-transfer mechanism from younger workers to older retirees.

Consider the outlook. From 2005 to 2030, the 65-and-over population will nearly double to 71 million; its share of the population will rise to 20 percent from 12 percent. Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid?programs that serve older people?already exceed 40 percent of the $2.7 trillion federal budget. By 2030, their share could hit 75 percent of the present budget, projects the Congressional Budget Office. The result: a political impasse.

The 2030 projections are daunting. To keep federal spending stable as a share of the economy would mean eliminating all defense spending and most other domestic programs (for research, homeland security, the environment, etc.). To balance the budget with existing programs at their present economic shares would require, depending on assumptions, tax increases of 30 percent to 50 percent?or budget deficits could quadruple. A final possibility: cut retirement benefits by increasing eligibility ages, being less generous to wealthier retirees or trimming all payments.

Little wonder politicians stay silent. But think tanks ought to be thrilled, because these changes pose basic questions about government. What should it do? For whom? Why? How big can it grow without weakening the economy? Does that matter? Is social justice more important than economic growth? Do gains in life expectancy and the well-being of the elderly justify significant changes in Social Security and Medicare?


Over the years, the major think tanks have published tens of thousands of words on Social Security and Medicare. Most of the reports are technical, though some propose major (even radical) changes. But the two programs are usually treated separately, and the larger questions of adjusting to an aging society are mostly evaded. I think I know why: wrenching honesty might be deeply embarrassing.

Liberals might have to concede that government could grow too large and that spending and benefit cuts are needed. Conservatives might have to concede that, even with plausible benefit and spending cuts, tomorrow's government would be bigger than today's. For think-tank scholars, brutal candor might offend friends and political mentors. For the ambitious, it might jeopardize future appointments to top government jobs.

As an antidote to this timidity, I propose that some public-spirited sugar daddy (the MacArthur Foundation? Warren Buffett?) sponsor a short book. A possible title: "Facing Up to an Aging America." Six leading think tanks would be invited to participate: three liberal?the Brookings Institution, the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities and the Urban Institute?and three conservative?the American Enterprise Institute, the Cato Institute and the Heritage Foundation.

After an introduction describing America's aging, each think tank would receive 35 pages to respond to questions and to present its vision. Are the looming budget changes good for America? If so, how would they be financed? If not, why not? How could adverse consequences be avoided? The think tanks would be expected to be specific. Higher eligibility ages? Well, how much and when? Higher taxes? Which ones and how much? If think tanks rejected the invitation, the publisher would run 35 blank pages and an explanation: "The Heritage Foundation [or Urban Institute] declined to participate."

This approach would force think tanks to compete. They'd have to make their vision of the future explicit within the untidy framework of government's past commitments. It would illuminate the connections between defense spending, retirement benefits, health care, economic growth and much more. Writing for a general audience, it would favor plain English, not the usual technobabble. If published in April, the book might prod the presidential candidates to address the future. If they didn't, it would measure the enormity of their evasion.

URL: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20010728/site/newsweek/?from=rss


215
3DHS / Top Fall Pilots Leaked Online
« on: July 30, 2007, 01:46:37 PM »
Top Fall Pilots Leaked OnlineBy James Hibberd

At least half a dozen highly anticipated broadcast network fall pilots have been leaked online.

Copies of NBC?s ?Bionic Woman,? ABC?s ?Pushing Daisies,? The CW?s ?Reaper? and several other shows were available Friday for illegal download via sites such as Torrent Spy, The Pirate Bay and Mininova.

Most of the titles appear to have been uploaded within the past week. The first copy of ?Bionic? was listed as uploaded two days ago, while the earliest ?Reaper? file was date-marked seven days ago. Other leaked shows include Fox?s midseason ?The Terminator? spin-off ?The Sarah Connor Chronicles,? ABC?s ?Cavemen,? and NBC?s ?Chuck? and ?Lipstick Jungle.?

Network representatives expressed surprise that the full-length pilots were on the Web and alerted their studio partners. Some said they were anticipating that critic and industry screener copies would leak eventually as smattering of fall pilots have found their way online during the past few years. All networks contacted declined official comment.

TelevisionWeek downloaded and confirmed the content of several pilot files. The videos were of reasonably high quality, akin to the streaming programs on broadcast network Web sites.

?This baby is real and nice quality,? one user posted about "Connor" on Pirate Bay. ?Wish I could say more about the content, but there is potential.?

Another user wrote, ?A lot better than I'd expected ? a bit weird though -- this isn't supposed to air until 2008.?

Most of the leaked shows are among the more anticipated, buzz-heavy titles of the fall (there are many copies of ?Bionic? and ?Connor? online, for example, but no copies of ABC?s ?Carpoolers? or The CW?s ?Life is Wild? were found). Given the selection, some downloaders wondered if the networks and studios leaked the programs themselves. Network and studio representatives, however, denied uploading the shows.

?We?re doing everything we can to fight piracy,? said one major studio representative who declined to be identified. ?Our piracy department is playing whack-a-mole with these things.?

In recent years, some networks have begun to distribute premiere episodes online in advance of their debuts. Such promotional previews are often carefully timed to hit right before the regular broadcast of the show. Also, network previews are typically streamed via the network?s own Web site, or through other controlled environments such as popular portal and business partners like AOL or MSN.

The copies found online so far will probably be joined by lower-quality versions soon, according to one studio representative who was attending the Comic-Con convention in San Diego. Networks at the comic book convention are currently screening several popular pilots. Judging by the number of handheld video recorders in the audience, the executive said he expected to see more unauthorized copies of network shows online.


216
3DHS / Surveillance Cameras Win Broad Support
« on: July 30, 2007, 01:45:18 PM »
Surveillance Cameras Win Broad Support
Majority of Americans Favor Extra Safety Factor of Cameras
ANALYSIS by MICHELLE LIRTZMAN
July 29, 2007 ?


Crime-fighting beats privacy in public places: Americans, by nearly a 3-to-1 margin, support the increased use of surveillance cameras  a measure decried by some civil libertarians, but credited in London with helping to catch a variety of perpetrators since the early 1990s.

Given the chief arguments, pro and con  a way to help solve crimes vs. too much of a government intrusion on privacy  it isn't close: 71 percent of Americans favor the increased use of surveillance cameras, while 25 percent oppose it.

London's surveillance network, known as the "Ring of Steel," is said to have aided in the capture of suspects, including those accused of a pair of attempted car bombings in June.

A similar system is coming to New York City, which plans 100 new surveillance cameras in downtown Manhattan by year's end and 3,000  public and private  by 2010. Chicago and Baltimore plan expanded surveillance systems as well.

Critics, such as the American Civil Liberties Union, have opposed such systems, arguing that they invade privacy, and could be used to track innocent people.

Nonetheless, majority support for surveillance cameras crosses political, ideological and population groups, albeit with differences in degree.

Seniors are most apt to support the increased use of these cameras, with under-30s, least so; Republicans more than Democrats; women more than men; higher educated people more than the less educated; and whites more than African-Americans.

Through a political lens, support for increased use of surveillance systems is lowest, 62 percent, among Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents who support Barack Obama for president  and highest of all, 86 percent, among Republicans who support Rudy Giuliani, who made his name as New York City's crime-fighting mayor.

METHODOLOGY  This ABC News/Washington Post poll was conducted by telephone July 18-21, 2007, among a random national sample of 1,125 adults.

Additional interviews were conducted with an oversample of randomly selected African-Americans for a total of 210 black respondents.

The results have a three-point error margin. Sampling, data collection and tabulation by TNS of Horsham, Pa.


217
3DHS / Create Public Service Academy
« on: July 29, 2007, 09:42:34 PM »
Clinton: Create Public Service Academy

Jul 28, 4:04 PM (ET)

By PAGE IVEY
 
(AP) Democratic presidential hopeful Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-N.Y., shakes hands with delegates...
 
COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) - Presidential candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton told college Democrats on Saturday she would create a national academy to train public servants.

"I'm going to be asking a new generation to serve," she said. "I think just like our military academies, we need to give a totally all-paid education to young men and women who will serve their country in a public service position."

An older woman carrying a sign that said "She doesn't care, all she wants is the power" yelled at Clinton while the New York senator was speaking in a ballroom on the University of South Carolina campus. Students attending the College Democrats of America convention shouted down the woman down and pushed her from the room.

"One of the things I love about politics, you never know what the day will bring," Clinton said.

Several people at the convention said they were inspired by Clinton's speech and her experience in public service after law school.

Clinton was an intern with the Children's Defense Fund, which advocates for minority, poor and disabled children.

"I loved her personal stories. ... It wasn't her generic speech," said Katelyn Porter, president of the College Democrats chapter at Roger Williams University in Rhode Island.

Porter, who is from Boston and works for a nonprofit organization that helps low-income families, said she has not decided which Democratic candidate she will support. "But Hillary is definitely at the top of the list," she said.

Clinton spoke about her conversion during college from a born and raised Republican to a Democrat.
 
"I woke up in my dorm one day and I thought, 'Well, I'm not sure I am a Republican,'" she said to enthusiastic cheers. "I was at the time, embarrassingly enough, the president of the Wellesley College young Republicans."

Later, in Beaufort, she told supporters she was running for president "because I think we can set big goals again. There is still so much to be done."

She mentioned universal health care, ending dependence on foreign oil, expanding early childhood education and safely withdrawing troops from Iraq.

Helen Gilbert, a retired government worker originally from Virginia, said she believes women - especially older women - may be Clinton's biggest hurdle.

"We're brought up to believe the men know it all," said Gilbert, 75. But Clinton's track record is what has earned Gilbert's support.

"She knows so much and she's done so much and she's been involved so much," Gilbert said. "She's going to be the president. I think it's about time, don't you?"

http://apnews.myway.com/article/20070728/D8QLQ3880.html

218
3DHS / Gingrich Predicts Clinton-Obama Ticket
« on: July 29, 2007, 09:04:35 PM »
Gingrich Predicts Clinton-Obama Ticket
 
Jul 29, 11:17 AM (ET)

 
(AP) Democratic presidential hopeful U.S. Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., speaks during a gathering of...
 
WASHINGTON (AP) - Democrats will nominate Hillary Rodham Clinton for president in 2008 and Barack Obama will be her running mate, former Republican House Speaker Newt Gingrich predicts.

The GOP will have three "formidable" choices in Mitt Romney, Rudy Giuliani and Fred Thompson, said Gingrich, who is considering whether to get into the race.

Gingrich is ruling out John McCain's chances among the Republican contenders.

The Arizona senator "has taken positions so deeply at odds with his party's base that I don't see how he can get the nomination," Gingrich said Sunday in a broadcast interview.

 
(AP) Democratic presidential hopeful Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-N.Y., address delegates at the...
Full Image
 
 
Gingrich said he had dinner recently with Thompson, the former Tennessee senator and actor who has set up a political committee that allows him to raise money for a presidential bid. An official launch is likely in September, after the Labor Day holiday.

Gingrich said he expects Thompson will enter what is shaping up as a competitive race for the GOP nomination against Romney, a former Massachusetts governor, and Giuliani, a former New York City mayor.

"I think that either Mayor Giuliani or Governor Romney or Senator Thompson would be a very formidable opponent for what I expect will be a Clinton-Obama ticket, and I think that there's a possibility that will work," Gingrich said.

In the fall, Gingrich might decide to jump in, depending on how the Republican candidates are faring against Clinton, the New York senator.

"If there is a vacuum and if there's a real need for somebody to be prepared to debate Senator Clinton, then I would consider running. I think we'll know that in October," Gingrich said.

"But these three are serious people," Gingrich said, referring to Romney, Giuliani and Thompson. "They're working very hard. And if they can fill the vacuum, I don't feel any great need to run."

Gingrich spoke on "Fox News Sunday."

www.drudgereport.com.

219
3DHS / Bill Would Let States Force Drug Discounts
« on: July 29, 2007, 07:59:39 PM »
Bill Would Let States Force Drug Discounts
Proposal Aimed at Low-Wage Workers Could Offer Challenge to Bush Policies

By Lisa Rein
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, July 29, 2007; A07



U.S. Rep. Chris Van Hollen is preparing legislation that would allow states to make prescription drugs more affordable for low- and moderate-income Americans, a challenge to Bush administration policies that have thwarted such efforts in Maryland and elsewhere.

Van Hollen (D-Md.) said he will introduce a bill early this week allowing states to use their purchasing power to require drug companies to provide discounts on medications for low-wage workers. Under the proposal, states could negotiate the same breaks they get for people on Medicaid, the state-federal health-care program for the poor.

The savings -- about 40 percent on the retail price -- would be passed on to those with no drug coverage and incomes less than three times the federal poverty level, which is $10,210 for an individual or $20,650 for a family of four. Patients would get discount cards to present at their pharmacies. States could penalize nonparticipating drug makers by making their medicines less available.

Those with insurance but with limited or no prescription drug coverage could participate. The program also would cover elderly residents on Medicare whose coverage runs out.

The proposal is modeled on a bill introduced by Sen. Paul D. Wellstone (D-Minn.) shortly before he died in a plane crash in 2002. The bill then languished in committee.

Maryland and a handful of other states, including Maine, Vermont and Minnesota, have tried in recent years to address rising costs with laws forcing drug makers to cut prices. About 40,000 Marylanders would benefit from the discount under a law signed by then-Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich (R) in 2005.

But the price breaks were challenged by the pharmaceutical industry and blocked by the Bush administration. The Department of Health and Human Services denied Maryland's application for a Medicaid waiver on the grounds that the state was not going to provide enough money toward the cost of the discount.

John Folkemer, the state's Medicaid director, said the federal government asked for a contribution of 15 percent, which state officials said was unrealistic.

A spokesman for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, which denied waivers to Maryland and other states, said the agency would not comment on Van Hollen's bill until it is introduced.

A spokesman for Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, a trade group representing the drug industry, declined to comment on the bill. More generally, drug manufacturers say they are concerned about excessive government regulation of drugs and the potential for price controls.

Van Hollen said the waiver was denied "for reasons I don't think anybody found credible."

The discount would benefit "a group that's often forgotten," the three-term congressman said. His stature is rising on Capitol Hill, with a seat on the powerful House Ways and Means Committee and his appointment last year as the House Democrats' chief recruiter and fundraiser.

The bill is likely to be a factor in the battle over health care between Democrats and President Bush, who has threatened to veto Democratic initiatives to expand insurance coverage for low-income children and cut Medicare payments to private health plans.

As Congress and presidential candidates consider ways to help the uninsured, broader health coverage has eluded Maryland. A law requiring Wal-Mart and other large employers to provide health insurance was struck down in the courts this year. And an ambitious plan to extend Medicaid to 200,000 low-income residents, offer subsidies to small businesses to provide coverage and require insurance companies to offer a bigger menu of policies at affordable premiums died in the General Assembly this winter, a victim of the state's budget shortfall.

Maryland House Speaker Michael E. Busch (D-Anne Arundel), who was behind the health-care expansion, said the Van Hollen bill "would have an immediate effect for people classified as the working poor."

"They're trying to make ends meet to pay for their homes, their utilities, their cars," he said. "Many people without drug coverage just do without care."

Maryland offers Medicaid coverage only to those earning 40 percent or less of the federal poverty level, creating an additional burden for paying for prescription drugs, say supporters of the discount plan.

"We think this should be a wake-up call to the Bush administration," said Vincent DeMarco, president of the Maryland Citizens' Health Initiative, an advocate for broader health coverage. "It would be easy to let us do this."

www.pravdaonthepotomac.com

220
3DHS / Fisherman arrested for stabbing bait-stealing sea lion
« on: July 28, 2007, 07:14:09 PM »
Fisherman arrested in stabbing of bait-stealing sea lion

Story Highlights
Fisherman stabbed sea lion after it stole bait off his fishing pole, police say
Six-foot female sea lion was stabbed in heart, had to be euthanized
Witnesses called police; fisherman arrested, held on $20,000 bond

He's expected to be charged next week with felony animal cruelty
NEWPORT BEACH, California (AP) -- A fisherman accused of stabbing a sea lion with a steak knife after the animal stole his bait has been arrested.

The sea lion, a six-foot female weighing about 150 pounds, was stabbed in the heart and was euthanized, said Dean Gomersall, animal care supervisor at the Pacific Marine Mammal Center.

"It's a horrible thing," Gomersall said. "My crew is extremely upset, and we're just glad the person was caught."

Hai Nguyen, 24, was fishing off a Newport pier about 12:30 p.m. Friday when the sea lion snatched the bait from his fishing pole.

"It was close enough so he could just reach out and stab it in the water," said Sgt. Evan Sailor, a police spokesman. "A number of people witnessed it and called police."

Nguyen was arrested without incident at the pier and held at Newport Beach Jail on $20,000 bail. He was expected to be arraigned next week on a charge of felony cruelty to animals, authorities said.

The case also was being investigated by the U.S. attorney's office for possible federal charges under the Marine Mammal Protection Act.

Nguyen could face a $25,000 fine and up to a year in prison if convicted on the animal cruelty charge. A conviction on federal charges of violating the Marine Mammal Protection Act could add $12,000 in civil penalties, criminal fines of up to $20,000 and additional jail time, authorities said.


www.cnn.com

221
3DHS / $20 billion arms sale to Saudis in the works
« on: July 28, 2007, 05:35:50 PM »
Official: $20 billion arms sale to Saudis in the works

Story Highlights
"It's all about Iran," official says of Saudi arms package under consideration
Deal not closed; will be discussed next week by top U.S., Saudi officials
For the first time, Saudis may get satellite-guided bombs called JDAMs
Israel expected to raise concerns about the proposed arms deal
From Barbara Starr
CNN

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The United States is developing a proposed $20 billion, 10-year arms sales package for Saudi Arabia, a senior administration official confirmed on Saturday.

The proposed sale, first reported in The New York Times, is intended to upgrade the Saudi military's ability to counter possible Iranian aggression in the Persian Gulf region, the official said.
"This is all about Iran," said the official, who spoke to CNN on condition of anonymity because discussions with the Saudis are still going on and the arms sale deal has not been completed.

Israel is expected to raise objections to the arms package, and has expressed concerns about previous Saudi arms deals.

The official said the Bush administration is mindful that Israel must maintain its "qualitative edge" in the region.

One of the more controversial proposals will probably be selling the Saudis, for the first time, satellite-guided bombs known as JDAMs. The sale may include a 500-pound and a 2,000-pound version of the aerial bomb.

The Israelis are said to be very concerned about the Saudis having that precision-strike capability, so the United States will discuss basing the weapons as far away from Israel as possible, the official said.

Other elements under discussion are new naval vessels, an advanced version of air-to-air missiles already used by the United States, and advanced Patriot missiles.

The proposed sale is expected to be a major topic of discussion next week when U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates and U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice meet with Saudi officials.

The sale would have to be approved by Congress.

Find this article at:
http://www.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/meast/07/28/saudi.arms/index.html 

222
3DHS / A Libertarian Approach to Schooling
« on: July 27, 2007, 08:51:11 PM »
A Libertarian Approach to Schooling
July 24, 2007


I wonder whether the time for compulsory racial integration of the schools hasn?t passed. It doesn?t seem to accomplish anything that anyone wants.

The lunge toward integration of course began after 1953, and made a certain moral and intellectual sense at the time. Regardless of denials and justifications, blacks were indeed oppressed until then, and did indeed have schools hopelessly underfunded in comparison to those of white children. (I was a kid in small-town Alabama in 1956-57. Don?t even try to tell me that it wasn?t so.)

Things being very bad, some form of remediation was morally desirable, and the various solutions proposed were both well-intentioned and at least superficially plausible. If whites persisted in giving blacks wretched schools and ignorant teachers, which they did, then, it was thought, putting all children in the same school would settle that. Blacks had never amounted to much scholastically, but then they had always been slaves or serfs; it was not implausible to hope that with better schools they might rise. Certainly it was worth a try.

Southerners said it wouldn?t work, and it didn?t. This failure was probably the greatest misfortune ever to afflict the US. A half-century later, a yawning gap persists between the scholastic performance of blacks and whites. The gap has proved intractable under every nostrum, program, fad, or form of social shuffling. Nobody in his right mind can argue that the country hasn?t tried. The gap doesn?t close.

What now?

Distinctions exist between segregation, desegregation, and integration. Segregation is compulsory separation. Integration is compulsory togetherness. Desegregation is freedom of choice. That is, parents send their children to schools of their choosing. This, I submit, should be the law of the land. The result would be voluntary segregation since the races don?t much want to be together, but why isn?t it their business?

It seems to me that we should ask: What is better for the children? Has integration benefited the kids? If so, which kids? How? Or has it harmed them?

Integration does not appear to have helped black kids, who almost always end up at the bottom scholastically. The reasons can perhaps be debated, but it is what happens, and it shows no signs of changing. Further, being with white kids is not necessary to the advancement of blacks. The best schools I have encountered for blacks in terms of academics are the Catholic schools of downtown Washington, DC, almost entirely black.

However, compulsory integration does hurt white children. Whatever the reasons, whites have a greater interest in studying. White parents tend to want their progeny to learn mathematics, history, the sciences, occasionally the English language, literature, and the arts. White parents, or many white parents at any rate, want rigor in these courses. The enstupidation of America has reached the point that much of the population ruts and gobbles at the moo-cow level, yes. Still, the aspirations of whites remain much higher than those of blacks.

Blacks do not seem interested in European history, or literature, or languages, or the sciences, or mathematics. Neither in integrated schools nor in de facto black schools does one hear them demanding thicker books with bigger words and smaller pictures. I would happily provide these things, but they don?t ask. Perhaps the current policy of trying to impose on them a European culture that isn?t theirs, and that they show no signs of wanting, should end.

Since it has not proved possible to raise black children to the levels preferred by whites, the schools have sought to disguise the failure by diminishing academic rigor for all. This harms whites.

Why not let black parents decide what should be taught to their children? It is their business. I am perfectly content that black kids study physical chemistry and classical Greek, or Swahili and Ebonics, or anything they choose, or nothing at all. It is neither my business nor my problem. Should blacks ask me, I would suggest that in my view being able to read well should be an aim. I would recommend for them the course of study that I want for my own children. But if they did not want these things, as they seem not to, I would suggest that they manage their own schools as they saw fit.

Would it not be better to offer the races a choice and let things settle out as people chose? You could call this policy something like, say, ?democracy,? or even ?freedom.? Note please that I am specifically not suggesting reinstitution of compulsory segregation anywhere, and particularly not in the schools. A black child who wanted to go to an academically rigorous, predominantly white school should be permitted to do so.

My interest here is partly selfish?to avoid condemning white children to schools dumbed down and unable to insist on standards of schooling and behavior that, as a white, I regard as important. To avoid charges of consigning black children to poor schools, I would happily agree to provide black schools with twice the money per student of the white schools. They could set standards as they chose, choose such courses as they chose, and hire such teachers as they chose. I do not see how this could be called mistreatment.

It could, however, be called ?multiculturalism.?

One hears much chatter about ?diversity? and its never-explained virtues. But I note that those who most promote it least practice it. How many professors at Harvard bus their own progeny to deep black schools in downtown Boston? Do congressmen in Washington send their budding gifts to eternity to schools in, say, Anacostia? Any city has large regions of almost pure diversity to which these rich white kids might be consigned, and I promise that they would learn a great deal from it. Almost instantly. Oh yes. Do we have any takers?

Let me have my culture, and I will let you have yours. I do not question your right to teach your children as you think best. Do not question my equal right. In fact, whatever your culture, if you want to attend the schools of my children, I will require no more than minimal criminality, civilized comportment, and academic compatibility. Welcome, whatever your color. If you are, say, Chinese, and want to maintain your Chineseness at home, or want egg rolls served in the school cafeteria, or want Chinese taught along with French and Spanish, I say, ?Great.? We can do this. When diversity means learning something instead of screwing up the schools, sign me on. But it usually doesn?t.

One thing seems certain: You cannot have in the schools two readily distinguishable groups, one of them being politically sensitive, the two differing utterly in academic intentions and achievement, in behavior and language, without shortchanging one and probably both. Differences in outcome are invidious and invariably engender lower standards. Experience shows that when the races can separate, they do. The benefits desired from forced integration have not materialized. Perhaps it is time to try something else.

http://www.fredoneverything.net/Desegregation.shtml

223
3DHS / Is it really worth it?
« on: July 27, 2007, 05:47:06 PM »
Is it really worth it to deal with "stars" like this? There are hundreds of suitable alternatives out there...

Does Lindsay Lohan have a future?
    * Story Highlights
    * Because of troubles, Lindsay Lohan likely difficult to insure
    * Lohan supposed to appear in Shirley MacLaine film "Poor Things"
    * Insurance rates may cost 1 to 3 percent of film's production budget

LOS ANGELES, California (Reuters) -- "To insure or not to insure?" It isn't Shakespeare, but it is the dramatic question Hollywood filmmakers are asking about Lindsay Lohan following her legal troubles this week.

It is an important question, too, because whether companies insure Lohan's future movies may determine whether she will quickly fall off Hollywood's A-list.

But Lohan fans have little to fear because no actor is uninsurable, say underwriting experts. While some producers may balk at conditions for hiring problematic stars, experts say that unless an actor is serving time in prison, even the most volatile can be covered -- albeit at a high cost.

"For a price, anything can be done, although an insurance carrier can make things so unpalatable that at times the makers of the film just won't be interested," said Ross Miller, partner with insurance brokerage D.R. Reiff & Associates Inc.

Lohan'sarrest this week in Los Angeles on suspicion of drunken driving and cocaine possession has left Hollywood wondering if the actress, who shot to fame as a child in Disney films like "The Parent Trap," is too risky to cast in a film. Timeline: Lindsay Lohan's troubles ?

It remains to be seen whether her latest relapse and brush with the law will cost her a role in "Poor Things," a film produced by and starring Oscar-winner Shirley MacLaine. PhotoSee a gallery of Lohan's films ?

A statement was expected early next week on whether the movie, already delayed this spring due to an earlier rehab stint by Lohan, will proceed with or without her.

Insurance experts say the industry has long dealt with similar situations, although they may seem more frequent with the recent heavy media scrutiny of Lohan and fellow troubled party girls Paris Hilton and Britney Spears.

"I don't think it (a problematic artist) is any more of an issue," said Wendy Diaz, entertainment underwriting director at Fireman's Fund Insurance Co., the leading film underwriter. "It's pretty standard year to year."

But Diaz did say the terms for covering Lohan would likely be "serious at this point."

She said Fireman's Fund, in such a case, would likely put in higher deductibles, or ask the star to put their salary into escrow to pay for any losses if production was disrupted.

Last July, a producer on Lohan's last film, "Georgia Rule," scolded her publicly for repeatedly showing up late on the set, costing the movie's makers hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Brian Kingman, a managing director with entertainment insurance broker Aon/Albert G. Ruben said covering situations like Lohan's required a lot of calculation and risk management.

Insurance rates for errant actors can range anywhere from 1 percent to 3 percent of a movie's production budget, which can range from $5 million to $100 million or more, he said.

"Filmmakers fall in love with certain actors for certain roles and my job is to find risk-takers to take on the risk," Kingman said.

He said actors were always required to undergo a medical exam before getting insurance. In certain circumstances, drug screening is conducted and actors are required to provide blood and urine samples. In cases of known drug abuse, "minders" are sometimes required on set to keep an eye on the actor.

Kingman said he had even helped craft policies for actors in the event they risked the possibility of incarceration.

"I have been successful in finding and creating incarceration coverage for certain actors on probation which can be revoked if they break certain rules," he said, citing the case of Robert Downey Jr., another high-profile star with a history of legal, drug and alcohol problems.

224
3DHS / Sharpton Backs Pulling Investments From Firms That Record Nasty Rap
« on: July 24, 2007, 10:49:55 PM »
Reverend Al Sharpton Backs Pulling Investments From Companies That Record Nasty Rap
Tuesday , July 24, 2007

BUFFALO, N.Y. ?

The Rev. Al Sharpton, who has challenged the entertainment industry on denigrating lyrics, on Monday supported a state senator's idea to pull public investments from companies that won't clean up their act.

Holding the entertainment industry accountable will be a primary goal of the newest chapter of Sharpton's National Action Network, said the activist minister, who announced the formation of the Buffalo-Niagara branch while in town to address a convention of black criminal justice professionals.

Roughly $3 billion from New York's state pension fund is invested in the entertainment industry, according to state Sen. Antoine Thompson, who requested an inventory of entertainment industry investments from the state comptroller earlier this year.

Thompson suggested leveraging the investments to open dialogue with industry executives.

"We just want to have more responsible entertainment where we're not using language that's offensive to anybody," the Buffalo Democrat said.

"The idea of divesting New York State taxpayers' money from record companies that have a double standard when it comes to language is something that will be a priority," said Sharpton, who led the drive to have Don Imus fired from his syndicated radio show for calling the Rutgers University women's basketball team "nappy-headed hos."

In April, hip-hop mogul Russell Simmons said the recording and broadcast industries should consistently ban three racial and sexist epithets from all so-called clean versions of rap songs and the airwaves. Expressing concern about the "growing public outrage" over the use of such words in rap lyrics, Simmons said the words "bitch," "ho" and "nigger" should be considered "extreme curse words."

Sharpton said the Buffalo chapter of NAN also would consider town hall forums and other venues to steer young blacks toward positive goals, especially now that the city has elected its first black mayor and has a black schools superintendent and police commissioner.

"I remember many years ago when I would come to Buffalo, we dreamed of days of black empowerment," Sharpton said. "Now we have to make sure the conduct of our black citizens complements that achievement. We cannot undermine them with the conduct of killing each other, selling drugs to each other and really celebrating a culture of depravity and decadence."

The Buffalo-Niagara Falls chapter is the 36th branch of NAN, which Sharpton founded to protect civil rights for minorities.

http://www.foxnews.com/printer_friendly_story/0,3566,290611,00.html

225
3DHS / Muslims Around World Rejecting Islamic Extremism
« on: July 24, 2007, 10:46:09 PM »
Good news!

Survey: Muslims Around World Rejecting Islamic Extremism
Tuesday , July 24, 2007

Muslims around the world increasingly reject suicide bombings and other violence against civilians, according to a new international poll dealing with how the world's population judges their lives, countries and national institutions.

A wide ranging survey of international attitudes in 47 countries by the Pew Research Center also reported that in many of the countries where support for suicide attacks has declined, there has also has been decreasing support for Al Qaeda leader Usama Bin Laden.

The 95-page survey found that surging economic growth in many developing countries has encouraged people in these countries to express satisfaction with their personal lives, family income and national conditions, said Andrew Kohut, the center's director.

"It's a pro-globalization set of findings," Kohut said.

Most notably, the survey finds large and growing number of Muslims in the Middle East and elsewhere rejecting Islamic extremism. Ten mainly Muslim countries were surveyed along with the Palestinian territories, as well as five African nations with large Muslim populations.

For example, the percentage of Jordanian Muslims who have confidence in bin Laden as a world leader fell 36 percentage points to 20 percent since 2003 while the proportion who say suicide bombing is sometimes or always justified dropped 20 percent points to 23 percent. Other countries where support for bin Laden declined are Lebanon, Indonesia, Turkey, Pakistan and Kuwait.

The report said support for such bombings and terror tactics has dropped since 2002 in seven of the eight countries where data were available. In Lebanon, the proportion of Muslims who say suicide attacks are often or sometimes justified fell to 34 percent from 79 percent while just 9 percent of Pakistanis believe suicide bombings can be justified often or sometimes, down from 33 percent in 2002 and a high of 41 percent in 2004.

But support for suicide bombings is widespread among Palestinians, the report said, with 41 percent saying such attacks are often justified while another 29 percent say they can sometimes be justified. It found that only six percent of Palestinians ? the smallest in any Muslim public surveyed ? say such attacks are never justified.

Amid continuing sectarian violence in Iraq, the survey found there is broad concern among Muslims that tensions between Sunni and Shiite Muslims are not limited to that country and represent a growing problem for the Muslim world more generally.

Eighty-eight percent of Lebanese and 73 percent of Kuwaitis ? along with smaller majorities or pluralities of Muslims elsewhere in the Middle East ? said Sunni-Shiite tensions represent a growing problem for the Muslim world, the report said.

Globally, Pew's survey shows a clear linkage between economic conditions and views of national conditions.

"A rising tide really does lift all boats," Kohut said.

This trend is particularly evident in Latin America and Eastern Europe, but China and India also stand out, the report said.

While Africans now express a greater sense of personal progress than in 2002, personal contentment remains low in all African countries relative to other parts of the world.

In Western Europe, Swedes and Spaniards express broad satisfaction with national conditions as well as with their governments and leaders.

"In contrast," the report said, "people in France and Italy, which have experienced little economic growth since 2002, are critical of their nation's course and their governments."

The French were polled before Nicolas Sarkozy replaced Jacques Chirac as president in May and gave jobs to several opposition Socialists in his Cabinet.

In China, where per capita gross domestic product, has increased 58 percent since 2002, its people expressed much more satisfaction than in 2002 ? 83 percent now compared to 48 percent. The Chinese also give near universal support for the national government, 89 percent, and say the government has a very good or somewhat good influence on the way things are going.

But the pollsters in China were not able to ask respondents to express opinions about President Hu Jintao.

The polls ? with a sampling error of 2 to 4 percentage points, depending on the sampling size ? were taken in various countries from mid-April to the end of May, and involved about 1,000 samples in most countries. More interviews were conducted in India and China while fewer than 1,000 were carried out in European countries.


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