Show Posts

This section allows you to view all posts made by this member. Note that you can only see posts made in areas you currently have access to.


Topics - The_Professor

Pages: 1 ... 17 18 [19]
271
3DHS / Man offers to sell wife for $50
« on: May 05, 2007, 01:59:21 PM »
I wondered how often this is thought of but not actually done, by BOTH sides.

Man offers to sell wife for $50

Story Highlights• Brazilian authorities demand removal of Internet advertisement
• Man praised wife but said "I really need the money"
• Not clear if advertisement was a joke, Estado news agency reported

RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil (AP) -- The government has ordered an Internet auction site to remove an advertisement in which a Brazilian man offered to sell his wife for about $50.

The Secretariat of Public Policies for Women announced late Friday it had ordered Mercado Livre, partially owned by eBay Inc., to remove the ad and warned it was violating a law banning the offer or sale of "human organs, people, blood, bones or skin."

The advertisement was no longer visible on the site Saturday.

It was posted by a man who gave his name as Breno and said: "I sell my wife for reasons I prefer to keep short ... I really need the money."

The described his wife physically and listed her qualities as a homemaker and companion. He reportedly said she was 35 and "worth her weight in gold."

The Estado news agency said it wasn't clear if the ad was meant as a joke. It said Mercado Livre told it the ad hadn't been noticed earlier because of the large number of products offered on the site -- nearly 1 million.

There was no answer Saturday at phone numbers for Mercado Livre or its public relations agency.

 
Find this article at:
http://www.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/americas/05/05/wife.sale.ap/index.html 

272
3DHS / Giuliani gambles on abortion stance
« on: May 04, 2007, 02:23:47 PM »
Giuliani gambles on abortion stance
Former NYC mayor calculating a libertarian stance may not be a liability


By Tom Curry
National affairs writer
MSNBC
Updated: 7:59 a.m. ET May 4, 2007
SIMI VALLEY, Calif. - Former New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani went into the Republican presidential debate at the Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley, Calif., as the distinctly different candidate.

He emerged even more so.

For those who think supporting the reversal of the Roe v. Wade decision is essential to winning the Republican nomination, Giuliani had a matter-of-fact, take-it-or-leave it answer: That’s not me, so deal with it.

“Will the day that Roe v. Wade is repealed be a good day for America?” asked moderator Chris Matthews to all ten contenders.

All except Giuliani answered in the affirmative.

Sen. Sam Brownback of Kansas said, “It would be a glorious day of human liberty and freedom.”

“It’d be OK,” said Giuliani, conveying a kind of nonchalance about what some Republican conservatives see as a defining moral issue of the age.

“It would be OK to repeal it. It would be OK also if a strict constructionist judge viewed it as precedent and I think a judge has to make that decision…. The court has to make that decision and then the country can deal with it,” Giuliani said. “We’re a federalist system of government and states can make their own decisions.”


Giuliani's 'Issue of conscience"
Pressed further on his views, Giuliani said he hated abortion and supported the Hyde Amendment which bars federal funding of abortion under the Medicaid program.

Each state should decide whether or not it wants to pay for abortions for low-income women, he argued. He added that he had supported taxpayer funding of abortion in New York, but “in other places people can come to a different decision.”

Later Giuliani went so far as to use the language of the abortion rights movement: “Ultimately, since it is an issue of conscience, I would respect a woman’s right to make a different choice… You have to respect a woman’s right to make that choice differently than my conscience.”

Giuliani’s calculation seems to be that, post-Sept. 11, a libertarian stance on abortion may not be the liability it was before in seeking the GOP nomination. It’s a big gamble, but one that, on stage Thursday at least, he seemed to be quite serene in making.

Romney's threshold
“I felt sorry for Mayor Giuliani; I think he was trying to articulate two different positions on abortion,” said former Minnesota congressman Vin Weber, a Mitt Romney ally who was working the press in the spin room for the former Massachusetts governor. “My guess is that he has generated more questions about his position on abortion that he has supplied answers.” 

The Romney forces emphasized in the post-debate spin room that their man had met the threshold test of appearing presidential.

And Romney did seem to come up with the smoothest, most seamless extemporaneous answers of the ten rivals for the nomination.

Confronted with an out-of-left-field question about what he disliked most about America, Romney answered, “Gosh, I love America. I’m afraid I’m going to be at a loss for words….” But of course he wasn’t, and he went on to give a paean to America’s natural and spiritual beauties.

Romney’s reply was worthy of Reagan himself as he and the other contenders tried to summon up the spirit of the former president. 

“He looked like a president of the United States,” said Weber. “He was comfortable and familiar and in command of every issue and every question put in front of him…. He looked good, he sounded good.”

Weber said Romney had met the test of introducing himself to those viewers who didn’t know him and coming across as the person a typical American would want to have in his living room for the next four years.

Weber said that while Romney did not explain how he’d extricate America from Iraq, no one else on the stage did. “Everybody basically said we’ve got one commander in chief at a time.” Weber indicated Romney would wait and see how Bush’s surge strategy worked and Romney would “have plenty of time to address any changes candidates need to make.”

McCain's passion
The other top-tier candidate, Arizona Sen. John McCain, used his allotted time to give short bites from his standard stump speech. For example, he warned of genocide in Iraq if U.S. soldiers were to withdraw. The Islamic terrorists in Iraq would “follow us home” if the U.S. forces withdrew.

McCain’s spin room surrogates coped with questions about his age and his being the most familiar of the ten-man field.

McCain ally Charlie Black said, “I’ve actually had some people recently ask me, did he have his heart in the race, that he didn’t seem passionate enough. I think he showed tonight that he was, especially on those issues that are top priority to him –  the war in Iraq, the war on terror, and federal spending – he showed that passion.”

Another McCain surrogate, Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, said the most memorable phrase of the 90-minute debate was McCain’s vow that he would “follow Bin Laden to the gates of hell” to capture or kill the al Qaida leader.


“John has been out there, almost literally by himself, standing by the idea that we need to win this war. No matter what the polls said about the surge, he was the biggest advocate of the surge,” Graham said. “John has risked everything to make sure that (Gen.) Petraeus has a chance to turn this around….He understands the consequences of failure better than anybody on that stage. He has risked everything to try to win a war that we can’t afford to lose.”

The debate and the spin from the McCain team was another reminder that to a large extent, as Iraq goes, so goes McCain’s candidacy.

URL: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/18486103/


273
3DHS / 5 reasons the GOP faces an uphill climb in '08
« on: May 03, 2007, 11:03:30 AM »
5 reasons the GOP faces an uphill climb in '08

By Susan Page, USA TODAY

WASHINGTON — The political landscape for the 2008 presidential election is shaping up with a decided tilt in the direction of Democrats.
Long before either party has settled on a presidential candidate, fundamental factors that lay the groundwork for next year's election — from anti-war sentiment to a drain in GOP-leaning voters to the simple patterns of history — are creating significant hurdles for the Republicans who hope to succeed President Bush.


USA TODAY ON POLITICS: And the sixth reason is ...
Republicans' main hope: that the strengths of their particular nominee and the weaknesses of the Democratic one will offset their uphill climb.

"A Democratic candidate could go out there and muck it up and raise questions about his or her competence or judgment," says Andy Kohut, director of the non-partisan Pew Research Center. "But the landscape really is tilted in a Democratic direction."

As the Republican contenders gather tonight at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley, Calif., for their first debate, some of them acknowledge that the nominee who emerges from their ranks isn't likely to be as fortunate as President Reagan. His campaign for the White House in 1980 was boosted by a political climate that had soured toward Democratic incumbent Jimmy Carter amid angst about inflation, energy supplies and American hostages held in Iran.


IT'S ON: Underdogs wait for 3 heavyweights to trip
This time, setbacks in the Iraq war and ethics scandals ensnaring Republican members of Congress "really demoralized a lot of our electorate" in the 2006 congressional elections, says Kansas Sen. Sam Brownback, one of the GOP hopefuls. "We've got to come up with big ideas. If the Democrats did (that) and the war deteriorated between now and the 2008 election, I think we'd have a really tough circumstance."

In one of the best-known formulas to predict presidential elections, devised in 1981 by historian Allan Lichtman, six of 13 "keys" have turned against the GOP, enough to forecast defeat of the party that holds the White House.

The formula — which takes into account economic data, midterm election results, foreign policy developments, domestic unrest and candidates' charisma — has accurately forecast the popular-vote winner in the past six elections. Applied to previous contests, it points to the winner in every election back to 1860, according to Lichtman, a professor at American University.

He and other analysts say the political landscape the year before a presidential election hasn't so overwhelmingly favored one party over the other in a generation or more, at least since Reagan won a landslide re-election over Democrat Walter Mondale in 1984.

Democrats aren't assured a victory in 2008, but they almost certainly face an easier task ahead than their Republican opponents.

Here are five reasons why — and one factor that just might boost Republicans anyway:

1. It's mostly about Iraq

One issue dominates the national agenda: Iraq.

In a USA TODAY/Gallup Poll last month, 43% of Americans called the war in Iraq one of the most important issues in determining their vote for president in 2008. That's nearly triple the issue that ranked second, the economy.

Concern about Iraq is overwhelming even such traditionally powerful concerns as health care, which ranked third at 10%.

There's more evidence: In a Gallup Poll last month, 38% identified the Iraq war as the most important problem facing the country. Over the past half-century, only inflation in 1980 and the Vietnam War in 1968 reached higher levels of dominance during a presidential election year.

In both those years, the party in power lost the White House.

"At this point in time, it's the ballgame," Rich Bond, a GOP strategist and former Republican national chairman, says of Iraq.

The Democratic presidential field has lined up against the war while the leading Republican contenders — former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani, Arizona Sen. John McCain and former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney — defend the invasion and endorse this year's increase in U.S. troop levels.

That's fine with Republican voters, who by 3-1 support the war. But it has cost the GOP support among political independents, who by nearly 2-1 call the invasion a mistake. And it's united and energized Democrats, who oppose the war by more than 4-1.

It's also helped push President Bush's job-approval rating below 40%, where it's stayed for the past seven months. That's the longest stretch of such dismal ratings for any president since the beleaguered Jimmy Carter.

Republican prospects in 2008 depend on the situation in Iraq turning around, says political scientist James Ceaser of the University of Virginia. "If we can't see a light at the end of the tunnel in Iraq," he says, "it's going to be very difficult to imagine a Republican winning."

2. Excitement is contagious

Democrats are more excited about next year's election than Republicans are: 59% of Democratic-leaning voters call themselves extremely or very enthusiastic about the election, compared with 50% of Republicans.

That enthusiasm gap, if it persists, would be an asset for Democrats when it comes to turning out voters next year.

"You go to a Democratic event and they've got more people and more enthusiasm, even for the second-tier candidates," says David Yepsen, political columnist for TheDes Moines Register in Iowa, which holds the first presidential caucuses. (The Register is owned by Gannett, which also publishes USA TODAY.) "If you took a decibel meter to a Democratic event and a Republican event, you could measure it: The Democrats make more noise."

Former Republican national chairman Ed Gillespie says that with a president in his second term, the "out party" is "hungry to get back in. That was the case for us in 2000 after two terms with (President) Clinton, and they're feeling that with Bush."

Gillespie predicts partisan enthusiasm will "equalize" as the election gets closer and Republicans unite behind a candidate.

At the moment, though, Democrats are happier with their choices.

In the USA TODAY poll, one in three Republicans say they "wish someone else would get into the race," a level of dissatisfaction that has fueled questions about former Tennessee senator Fred Thompson or former House speaker Newt Gingrich jumping into the race.

Among Democrats, fewer than one in five are pining for someone else to run.

3. Fewer say they're with GOP

In 2004, when Bush won re-election, those interviewed for Gallup polls through the year were slightly more likely to call themselves Republicans than Democrats.

In 2006, however, Democrats outnumbered Republicans by nearly 4 percentage points in the year's combined Gallup polls. Add the partisan leanings of independent voters and the Democratic edge rose to 10 points — the biggest edge for either party since 1991, when Gallup began tracking which way independents "leaned."

"The Republican brand is a drag right now on their party's candidates," non-partisan pollster Scott Rasmussen says.

The Republican Party now has a net negative rating of 9 percentage points: 42% viewed it favorably, 51% unfavorably. The Democratic Party has a net positive rating of 13 points, 55%-38%.

The shifts in partisanship mean Democrats have gained a clear edge in such key states as Ohio, Florida and Missouri, according to an analysis by Jeff Jones, managing editor of the Gallup Poll.

He concluded that 33 states have electorates with a Democratic advantage outside the survey's margin of error. Six have a Republican edge.

In 2003, Republican-leaning states outnumbered Democratic ones, 20 to 14.

In Ohio, Democrats have nearly sold out the 5,000 tickets to their annual fundraising dinner next week at the state fairgrounds, featuring New York Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton and costing $150 to $2,000 a plate. Another 1,500 standing-room-only tickets are being offered.

That breaks all records for the event, says Chris Redfern, state Democratic chairman and a member of the Ohio legislature.

"We're seeing what we missed in the last 16 years in Ohio," he says, "a great deal of enthusiasm and energy."

4. Money flowing to Democrats

Republicans traditionally have been able to count on one sure advantage over Democrats: money.

Not this time.

During the first three months of the year, Republican presidential candidates took in $53.4 million in contributions. That would have been a record for this stage of a campaign except that Democratic candidates took in $78.4 million — nearly 50% more.

Since the Federal Election Commission began to track contributions in the 1976 campaign, a Republican candidate always has been the top money-raiser.

But at least to this point, Democrats Hillary Rodham Clinton and Illinois Sen. Barack Obama have surpassed Mitt Romney, the best-funded Republican.

Democratic candidates have received contributions from more individuals and shown more success tapping the Internet to raise money.

The totals reflect both the enthusiasm of Democratic partisans and the calculations of some donors who are interested in currying favor with the side they believe is likely to prevail on Election Day.

"The enthusiasm in the donor community for Democratic candidates, party ID, presidential job approval are all indicators that point to a better ground for the Democrats at this time," GOP strategist Rich Bond says.

He sees a "turnaround point" for Republicans in fundraising and other factors early next year, when a nominee emerges.

5. Hunger for change growing

In modern American politics, control of the White House has swung like a pendulum.

Since World War II, the presidency generally has switched from one party to the other every two terms: eight years of Democrat Harry Truman followed by eight years of Republican Dwight Eisenhower followed by eight years of Democrats John Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson, and so on.

The exceptions were Jimmy Carter's failure to win a second Democratic term in 1980 and the elder George Bush's success in holding the White House for a third straight Republican term in 1988. Bush won by capitalizing on Reagan's popularity and Democratic nominee Michael Dukakis' missteps.

That relatively steady pattern reflects not some conscious effort by the electorate to take turns. Rather, after eight years in power, administrations tend to run thin on fresh ideas, become enmeshed in scandal or be forced to deal with the unexpected consequences of controversial decisions made earlier.

The appetite for change may be the strongest tide running against the GOP. "This country is so unhappy with the presidency of George W. Bush that that is the central dynamic in the 2008 election," Democratic pollster Peter Hart says. "That is what gives the Democrats an open opportunity."

By 2-1, those surveyed by Gallup say they are dissatisfied with the way things are going in the USA. That's the sourest climate in a presidential election year since 1992, when the elder Bush lost his bid for a second term.

Asked in the USA TODAY poll who they would want to see win the White House if the election were today, 51% of registered voters said the Democrat, 38% the Republican — a landslide.

... But it's still a race to the finish

What sobers Democratic strategists and encourages Republican ones is that the nameless Democratic contender does better than the actual ones, at least for now.

While the generic Democratic candidate wins by 13 points in the USA TODAY poll, Hillary Rodham Clinton loses to Rudy Giuliani by 5 points, 46%-51%, in a hypothetical head-to-head between the two front-runners.

"It takes a horse to beat a horse," says Jack Citrin, a political scientist at the University of California, Berkeley.

In fact, Clinton defeated Fred Thompson by only 46%-40% in a NBC News-Wall Street Journal Poll in April even though only 45% of those surveyed knew who Thompson was. Views of Clinton are so polarized that a significant number of voters will choose even someone they don't know over her.

"Democrats have a tremendous advantage," says Peter Hart, the Democratic pollster. Even so, he says, Democratic candidates "have special obstacles they will have to overcome to take advantage of the Democratic landscape."

After seeing her for eight years as first lady and two terms as a U.S. senator, for instance, voters have set perceptions of Clinton. Of 1,007 adults surveyed by USA TODAY last month, 45% had a favorable view, 52% an unfavorable one.

To compare, Giuliani's favorable-unfavorable rating was 57%-29%.

Some Democrats, remembering the optimism many felt during the 2000 and 2004 elections, worry the party will find some way to lose even in a friendly climate.

"As Democrats we'll work hard to fight with each other, and the wheels will fall off," Chris Redfern, the Ohio Democratic chairman, predicts jokingly. "We've got a lot of experience at losing nationally."

"For sure, it's going to be a tight election, as it has been in the past," says Ana Iparraguirre, an analyst with the Democracy Corps, a liberal-leaning research organization. "But all the other measures indicate that when the electorate starts breaking, the Democrats have the advantage."
 
Find this article at:
http://www.usatoday.com/news/politics/2007-05-02-gop-landscape_N.htm 
 

274
3DHS / Imus reportedly poised to sue CBS Radio
« on: May 02, 2007, 02:22:49 PM »
Imus reportedly poised to sue CBS Radio
Fired radio host seeks to collect $40 million remaining on his contract
MSNBC staff and news service reports

Updated: 1:09 p.m. ET May 2, 2007
Shock jock Don Imus reportedly plans to sue CBS Radio in an effort to collect the $40 million balance left on his contract, according to Fortune.com. Imus was fired by CBS on April 12 after making racially insensitive remarks about the Rutgers University women’s basketball team.

According to Fortune.com, Imus has hired Martin Garbus, a New York-based First Amendment attorney. The report says that Imus’ five-year contract, which was signed in 2006, paid him $10 million per year. A source told Fortune.com that Imus’ lawsuit will be based on language in the contract that encouraged the radio host to be confrontational and irreverent on the air. The source said Imus’ contract stipulates that the host must receive a warning before being fired.

CBS and Imus both declined to be interviewed by Fortune.com.

Imus had a long history of inflammatory remarks. But something struck a raw nerve when he targeted the Rutgers team — which includes a class valedictorian, a future lawyer and a musical prodigy — after they lost in the NCAA championship game.

The cantankerous Imus, once named one of the 25 Most Influential People in America by Time magazine and a member of the National Broadcasters Hall of Fame, issued repeated apologies as protests intensified. But it wasn’t enough as everyone from Barack Obama to Oprah Winfrey joined the criticism. After initially giving the radio host a two-week suspension, CBS President Les Moonves fired him on April 12.

URL: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/18439618/


275
3DHS / The Fear of foreigners
« on: May 01, 2007, 05:23:43 PM »
Commentary: Fear of foreigners drives immigration debate
By Ruben Navarrette Jr.
Special to CNN

SAN DIEGO, California (CNN) -- This week marks the first anniversary of a series of major demonstrations over immigration reform. And while an entire year has gone by, Americans really haven't learned that much about the subject matter.

For instance, some immigration restrictionists are still playing pretend. They are still insisting that the only thing that people are concerned about is illegal immigration and that, with regard to legal immigration, America is as welcoming as ever.

What? Maybe that's true ... if we agree that -- despite the brochure -- America has never really welcomed immigrants, even the legal kind.

Those who insist otherwise point out that the United States takes in about 2 million legal immigrants annually.

Big deal. In a country of 300 million people that bills itself as the land of immigrants, taking in less than 1 percent of your population in legal immigrants is nothing to brag about.

Besides, the history is clear. In the late 1700's, Benjamin Franklin fretted over Pennsylvania becoming "a colony of aliens" thanks to German immigrants. In the mid-1800's, concerned that immigrants from the Far East wouldn't assimilate, Congress passed the Chinese Exclusion Act to keep out ... guess who. And in the early 1900's, Congress targeted Italians, Jews and Greeks by creating quotas that limited immigration by country of origin.

In each of those cases, those who tried to shut the door didn't care a whit that the people they were keeping out were coming legally. All they cared about was that the immigrants on the other side of that door were foreigners with weird languages, strange religions, and peculiar customs.

Not much has changed. Much of what's driving the current debate is the same fear of foreigners and the changes they bring.

Some groups pushing the restrictionist agenda -- such as NUMBERS USA, the Federation for American Immigration Reform and the Center for Immigration Studies, all of them started with the help of nativist John Tanton -- want to limit legal immigration as well. And Congress can't seem to debate immigration reform without declaring English the national language, even though one has nothing to do with the other.

In public opinion polls, a majority of Americans now say they want to limit all immigration, including the legal kind.

Some pundits claim that legal immigration leads to illegal immigration because, once people come to the United States legally, their relatives will follow even if it means coming illegally. On the flip side, there are those who oppose offering illegal immigrants a path to legal residency because it could make it easier for millions of additional immigrants to come into the country legally through policies that push family unification.

Others insist that the cultural concerns that come with having too much immigration -- people not learning English, changing neighborhoods, etc. -- don't go away when the immigrants in question come legally.

So let's stop pretending that it's only illegal immigration that has Americans worked up. It's immigration -- period. Along the way, we should have at least learned that much.

Ruben Navarrette Jr. is a member of the editorial board of The San Diego Union-Tribune and a nationally syndicated columnist.You can read his column here.
 
Find this article at:
http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/05/01/navarrette/index.html 
 

276
3DHS / I want it and so you MUST give it to me!
« on: May 01, 2007, 09:48:08 AM »
Venezuela pulls control from big oil companies
President Hugo Chavez makes an attempt to reclaim resources by taking operational control of the Orinoco Belt.
May 1 2007: 6:24 AM EDT

PUERTO PIRITU, Venezuela (Reuters) -- Venezuela will strip the world's biggest oil companies of operational control over massive Orinoco Belt crude projects Tuesday, a vital move in President Hugo Chavez's nationalization drive.

The May Day takeover comes exactly a year after Bolivian President Evo Morales, a leftist ally of Chavez, startled investors by ordering troops to seize his country's gas fields, accelerating Latin America's struggle to reclaim resources.

"The importance of this is that we are taking back control of the Orinoco Belt which the president rightly calls the world's biggest crude reserve," said Marco Ojeda, an oil union leader before a planned rally led to mark the transfer.

The four projects are valued at more than $30 billion and can convert about 600,000 barrels per day (bpd) of heavy, tarry crude into valuable synthetic oil.

U.S. companies ConocoPhillips (Charts, Fortune 500), Chevron (Charts, Fortune 500), Exxon Mobil (Charts, Fortune 500), Britain's BP (Charts), Norway's Statoil (Charts) and France's Total (Charts) have agreed to obey a decree to transfer operational control, although the OPEC nation has complained ConocoPhillips has resisted.

Big Oil's money machine
In Puerto Piritu, near the facilities that refine Orinoco crude, workers prepared to celebrate the takeovers, displaying Venezuelan red, blue and yellow flags and painting a wall with Chavez's slogan: "Homeland, Socialism or Death".

The anti-U.S. leader has vowed to take at least 60 percent of the projects, radicalizing a self-styled leftist revolution in which he is ruling by decree and politicizing the army, state oil company and judiciary.

He is also quickly nationalizing power utilities and the country's biggest telephone company.

In the oil projects, negotiations over continued shareholding and compensation could prove contentious.

Oil Minister Rafael Ramirez has said there may not be compensation in some cases and that Venezuela will only consider agreements on the booked value of the projects rather than their much larger current net worth.

Industry analysts fear Venezuela's state oil company could ultimately run into production and safety problems when it loses the management and technology of the experienced majors. Although Venezuela claims output of more than 3 million bpd, analysts reckon it strains to pump 2.6 million bpd. U.S. data peg it as the world's No. 8 exporter.

Chavez was in a festive mood on the eve of the takeover to celebrate what he called the end of an era of policies dictated by Washington that gave away Venezuela's resources.

"The wheel has turned full circle," he said to cheering supporters at a workers' event.

http://money.cnn.com/2007/05/01/news/international/bc.venezuela.nationalization.reut/index.htm?cnn=yes

277
3DHS / Iran Could Have Nuclear Bomb in Three Years
« on: May 01, 2007, 09:22:19 AM »
Iran Could Have Nuclear Bomb in Three Years, Report Says
Julie Stahl

Jerusalem (CNSNews.com) - Iran could obtain nuclear weapons in less than three years - sooner than previously anticipated -- according to a new U.S. Intelligence assessment, CBS News reported late Thursday.

Previous assessments suggested Iran would not be able to obtain atomic weapons for about eight years, but the new report says Iran has overcome technical difficulties in enriching uranium that could speed up the process.

Iran has defied a United Nations Security Council demand to halt uranium enrichment, a key step in producing either nuclear fuel or nuclear bombs. Although Iran denies it, the West believes that nuclear bomb-making is Iran's ultimate goal.

The CBS report quoted former CIA officer Bruce Riedel as saying that the three-year time frame puts pressure on Israel to make a preemptive strike sooner rather than later.

Israel was the first to warn that Iran was planning to build a nuclear bomb under cover of its civilian nuclear program. The U.S. and Europe eventually adopted Israel's viewpoint, but it took more than a year for the U.S. to persuade U.N. Security Council members to impose sanctions on Iran.

Although Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has publicly called for Israel to be wiped off the map, Israel has not taken the lead in trying to stop Iran. Israeli officials argue that a nuclear Iran (which has many terrorist groups at its disposal) not only threatens Israel but the entire region and the world.

All along, Israel has believed that Iran was much closer to obtaining a nuclear weapon than the U.S. did, said Dr. Zvi Stauber, director of the Institute for National Security Studies in Tel Aviv.

"The implication is that everything is more pressing," said Stauber in a telephone interview on Friday.

If they are saying that Iran could have a bomb in three years, that means that the Iranians would master the technology much earlier and that is the big threshold for Iran to cross, said Stauber.

Stauber cautioned that no one really knows when Iran will master the technology that would enable it to obtain nuclear weapons. Western intelligence agencies are trying all the time to disrupt Iran's progress by clandestine means, he added.

Washington has said that it prefers to resolve the standoff with Tehran diplomatically, but it has not ruled out a military strike. Many Westerners have looked to Israel to take action like it did in 1981, when it bombed an Iraqi nuclear reactor shortly before it became operational.

Analysts say that an operation in Iran would be much more complicated since Iranian nuclear facilities are located in fortified, underground bunkers and dispersed throughout the country.

Stauber said there are still many options in terms of sanctions that could be applied to Iran before a military option is considered.

Former Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu has been campaigning in the U.S. and Europe for economic sanctions - having companies, pension funds and countries to voluntarily withdraw their investments in Iranian interests. Such a scheme, he said, could greatly - and quickly -- impact the Iranian economy.

Earlier this week, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, who has previously said that Iran poses an existential threat to Israel, said that he is "hopeful" that the threat of a nuclear Iran could be resolved "without a military operation."

Nevertheless, Stauber said, the Iranians are determined to continue with their nuclear policy.

Several weeks ago, Iran announced that it had already started enriching uranium on an industrial scale -- a boast that many analysts said was intended to force the West to accept the idea of a nuclear Iran.

Ahmadinejad and other Iranian officials repeatedly have said that the country will not abandon its nuclear program. Iran's deputy Interior Minister Muhammad Baqer Zolqadr warned on Thursday that Iran would attack American interests and Israel if its nuclear sites were targeted.

Stauber said that sanctions are not likely to be very effective, and sooner or later a military option will have to be considered. "It's a momentous decision," said Stauber. "Everybody is trying to avoid arriving at the junction [of making] that decision."

Find this article at: http://www.crosswalk.com/news/11539332/

278
3DHS / Hillary Clinton Drops Her 'Rodham'
« on: April 30, 2007, 06:37:07 PM »
Monday, April 30, 2007 11:42 a.m. EDT

Hillary Clinton Drops Her 'Rodham'


 
While she is known to millions simply as "Hillary," New York's junior senator is having something of an identity crisis in her official life.

When it comes to running for president, she is "Hillary Clinton," according to her campaign Web site. But when it comes to her official Senate releases, she is still "Hillary Rodham Clinton."

The Clinton camp appeared to be at a loss to come up with an explanation when the Albany Times Union newspaper asked about it.

"I haven't, I haven't," Clinton said with laugh when asked about her apparent name change.

A strategic decision? Clinton campaign spokesman Howard Wolfson told the newspaper: "That's a fair question, but there's no plan behind it."

The name game has been going on for some time in Clinton's world.

When Hillary Rodham married Bill Clinton in 1975, she kept using her maiden name as he pursued his political career in Arkansas and she built her reputation as a lawyer in Little Rock. But, in the wake of his loss in a re-election race for governor, she began using "Hillary Clinton." He won back the governorship.

"Hillary Rodham Clinton" became the standard in 1993 as the Clintons moved into the White House. She continued to use that when she ran for Senate from New York in 2000.


279
3DHS / The Waning of the GOP
« on: April 30, 2007, 02:13:54 PM »
The Waning of the GOP

By William F. Buckley Jr.


The political problem of the Bush administration is grave, possibly beyond the point of rescue. The opinion polls are savagely decisive on the Iraq question. About 60 percent of Americans wish the war ended — wish at least a timetable for orderly withdrawal. What is going on in Congress is in the nature of accompaniment. The vote in Congress is simply another salient in the war against war in Iraq. Republican forces, with a couple of exceptions, held fast against the Democrats’ attempt to force Bush out of Iraq even if it required fiddling with the Constitution. President Bush will of course veto the bill, but its impact is critically important in the consolidation of public opinion. It can now accurately be said that the legislature, which writes the people’s laws, opposes the war.

Meanwhile, George Tenet, former head of the CIA, has just published a book which seems to demonstrate that there was one part ignorance, one part bullheadedness, in the high-level discussions before war became policy. Mr. Tenet at least appears to demonstrate that there was nothing in the nature of a genuine debate on the question. What he succeeded in doing was aborting a speech by Vice President Cheney which alleged a Saddam/al Qaeda relationship which had not in fact been established.

It isn’t that Tenet now doubts the lethality of the terrorists. What he disputed was an organizational connection which argued for war against Iraq as if Iraq were a vassal state of al Qaeda. A measure of George Tenet’s respect for the reach and malevolence of the enemy is his statement that he is puzzled that Al Qaeda has not, since 2001, sent out “suicide bombers to cause chaos in a half dozen American shopping malls on any given day.” By way of prophecy, he writes that there is one thing he feels in his gut, which is that “Al Qaeda is here and waiting.”

But beyond affirming executive supremacy in matters of war, what is George Bush going to do? It is simply untrue that we are making decisive progress in Iraq. The indicators rise and fall from day to day, week to week, month to month. In South Vietnam there was an organized enemy. There is clearly organization in the strikes by the terrorists against our forces and against the civil government in Iraq, but whereas in Vietnam we had Hanoi as the operative headquarters of the enemy, we have no equivalent of that in Iraq, and that is a matter of paralyzing importance. All those bombings, explosions, assassinations: we are driven to believe that they are, so to speak, spontaneous.

When the Romans were challenged by Christianity, Rome fell. The generation of Christians moved by their faith overwhelmed the regimented reserves of the Roman state. It was four years ago that Mr. Cheney first observed that there was a real fear that each fallen terrorist leads to the materialization of another terrorist. What can a “surge,” of the kind we are now relying upon, do to cope with endemic disease? The parallel even comes to mind of the eventual collapse of Prohibition, because there wasn’t any way the government could neutralize the appetite for alcohol, or the resourcefulness of the freeman in acquiring it.

General Petraeus is a wonderfully commanding figure. But if the enemy is in the nature of a disease, he cannot win against it. Students of politics ask then the derivative question: How can the Republican party, headed by a president determined on a war he can’t see an end to, attract the support of a majority of the voters? General Petraeus, in his Pentagon briefing on April 26, reported persuasively that there has been progress, but cautioned, “I want to be very clear that there is vastly more work to be done across the board and in many areas, and again I note that we are really just getting started with the new effort.”

The general makes it a point to steer away from the political implications of the struggle, but this cannot be done in the wider arena. There are grounds for wondering whether the Republican party will survive this dilemma.

280
3DHS / Lawmakers Want PBS to Air Spiked Film on Islam
« on: April 30, 2007, 10:18:52 AM »
Lawmakers Want PBS to Air Spiked Film on Islam

Fred Lucas
(CNSNews.com) - Members of Congress are weighing in on public broadcasting executives' decision to shelve a documentary on the struggles moderate Muslims in the West face at the hands of radicals.

A special screening of the film "Islam vs. Islamists: Voices from the Muslim Center" for members of Congress was sponsored Wednesday evening by Sens. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) and James Inhofe (R-Okla.) and Reps. Trent Franks (R-Ariz.) and Brad Sherman (D-Calif.). The screening drew about 150 people, said Martyn Burke, one of the producers.

"People came up to us afterward asking 'how can we help,'" Burke told Cybercast News Service.

On Thursday, Franks drafted a letter, which he hopes other members of Congress will sign, urging the Public Broadcasting Service to air the documentary that it chose to keep out of the series "America at Crossroads."

The letter won't be critical of PBS but will urge the station to air the documentary, said Franks' spokesman, Bethany Barker.

The film - co-produced by Burke, a Hollywood producer, and Frank Gaffney and Alex Alexiev of the Center for Security Policy - deals with the experiences of moderate Muslims who have fallen foul of Islamists.

It also reveals an Islamist agenda including a push to build "parallel societies" in the West governed by Islamic law.

Burke, Gaffney and Alexiev have said PBS decided to shelve the documentary - which cost $675,000 in taxpayers' money to produce - because of censorship. ( )

"This is classic writer versus editor. This is classic producer versus studio conundrum," said Michael Leavy, spokesman for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which helps fund PBS programming but plays no role in content. "An impasse has been reached."

Still, PBS has publicly been vague about the reason for the decision. The clearest indication from a PBS spokesman was Robert MacNeil telling the "Diane Rehm Show" that the documentary was "one-sided" and "alarmist."

Spokesmen have also claimed that the film was unfinished, while maintaining it could be aired on a later date.

While calling the film alarmist is a subjective view, to say the film wasn't completed on time is simply wrong, Burke said.

"It's under contract we have final control of the film," Burke said. "We tried to satisfy them. We re-edited. But it became apparent that we were working in a corrupt journalistic environment."

It wasn't censorship, Leavy told Cybercast News Service. Rather, he said, the film violated PBS standards and the grant agreement.

As far as what aspects of the documentary fell short of the standards, Leavy said he was not authorized to say, because the CPB is only responsible for funding programs, not their content. He deferred comment on the matter to PBS and WETA of Washington, both of which backed the "America at Crossroads" series.

Yet earlier this week, PBS spokesman Joe Deplasco referred Cybercast News Service queries to the CPB. Spokespersons from PBS and WETA did not return phone calls Thursday.

The PBS standards say, "Respect for the process demands that producers be allowed the freedom required for creativity to flourish." They add, "Content diversity furthers the goals of democratic society by enhancing public access to the full range of ideas."

However, PBS brass reportedly sent Burke a note, asking him, "Don't you check the politics of the people you work with?" - apparently a reference to Gaffney, who is president of the conservative think tank, the Center for Security Policy.

The standards also say, "PBS may condition acceptance of content on the producer's willingness to further the goal of balance by deleting designated footage or by including other points of view on issues presented or material from which the public might draw a conclusion different from the suggested by the content."

PBS executives reportedly sent notes to the producers, saying their film would "demonize Islam."

Leavy told Cybercast News Service that the documentary could yet be distributed on local PBS stations that may be interested. However, alternate distribution wouldn't provide national coverage.

"We are looking at alternate distribution as a pathway to public television and our member stations," he said.

But Burke was unimpressed with the suggestion.

"That means it would be in Albuquerque at 3 in the morning or on Sunday morning when no one is watching," he said. "It's farcical to even say that."

Find this article at: http://www.crosswalk.com/news/11539326/

281
3DHS / Dems could consider impeachment
« on: April 29, 2007, 10:25:49 PM »
Murtha says Dems could consider impeachment
By: Josh Kraushaar
April 29, 2007 02:08 PM EST
 
Rep. John P. Murtha (D-Pa.) said Sunday that Democrats in Congress could consider impeachment as a way to pressure President Bush on his handling of the war in Iraq.

“What I’m saying, there’s four ways to influence a president. And one of them’s impeachment,” Murtha, chairman of the House Appropriations defense subcommittee, said on CBS’ “Face the Nation.”

Murtha has been one of the most outspoken members of Congress on the administration's handling of the war in Iraq; others who have strongly criticized Bush have stopped short of calling for impeachment.

Murtha also expressed doubt that Congress and the Bush administration would be able to work out a compromise soon in negotiations on the $124 billion war spending bill. Congress' emergency funding measure contains a timetable for the withdrawal of U.S. combat troops from Iraq.

“They say we’re willing to compromise, and then we don’t get any compromise,” said Murtha. “We’ve already compromised. And we need to make this president understand, Mr. President, the public has spoken.”

Murtha said the Democratic-controlled Congress will pass another war funding bill with similar benchmarks for progress in Iraq after President Bush vetoes the legislation, as he has vowed to do.

“If he vetoes this bill, he’s cut off the money. But obviously, we’re going to pass another bill,” Murtha said. “It’s going to have some stringent requirements. ... I'd like to look at this again in two months.”

282
3DHS / Why Women Hate Hillary
« on: April 29, 2007, 05:12:55 PM »
Why Women Hate Hillary
By Susan J. Douglas

Hillary wants to be more like a man in her demeanor and politics, leaving some basic tenets of feminism in the dust. She is like patriarchy in sheep's clothing. Share   Digg del.icio.us Reddit Newsvine We sat around the dinner table, a group of 50-something progressive feminists, talking to a friend from England about presidential politics. We were all for Hillary, weren’t we, he asked. Hillary? We hated Hillary. He was taken aback. Weren’t we her base? Wasn’t she one of us? Why did we hate Hillary?

Of course, a lot of people seem to hate Hillary. According to some polls, anywhere from 39 to 50 percent of respondents claim they’d vote against her no matter what; her “negatives” continue to be high. Many of these are Republicans and men. But many are not. According to a Harris poll in March, 52 percent of married women said they would not vote for her. Nearly half of adults say they dislike her personality and her politics. Unlike her husband, people seem to find her cold and don’t see her connecting with everyday people, and this is especially true for married women. Ironically, it is Gen Xers, those between 31 and 42, who give her the most support.

So what gives? For people like my friends and me, her hawkish position on Iraq and her insistence that the U.S. maintain a military presence there even after the troops are withdrawn have been very disappointing. But it’s more than any specific position. Women don’t trust Hillary. They see her as an opportunist; many feel betrayed by her. Why?

Baby boomer women grew up with the Feminine Mystique and then came of age with the Women’s Liberation Movement. As a result, millions of us have spent our lives crafting a compromise—or a fusion—between femininity on the one hand and feminism on the other. And for many of us feminism did not mean trying to be more like men. It meant challenging patriarchy: trying to bring equity to family life, humanizing the workplace, prioritizing women’s issues in politics, and confronting the dangers of militarism and imperialism. And millions of us fought (and continue to fight) these battles wearing lipstick, skirts and a smile: the masquerade of femininity we are compelled to don.

Hillary, by contrast, seems to want to be more like a man in her demeanor and politics, makes few concessions to the social demands of femininity, and yet seems to be only a partial feminist. She seems above us, exempting herself from compromises women have to make every day, while, at the same time, leaving some of the basic tenets of feminism in the dust. We are sold out on both counts. In other words, she seems like patriarchy in sheep’s clothing.

One of progressive feminism’s biggest (and so far, failed) battles has been against the Genghis Khan principle of American politics: that our leaders must be ruthless, macho empire builders fully prepared to drop the big one if they have to and invade anytime, anywhere. When Geraldine Ferraro ran for vice president in 1984, the recurring question was whether she had the cojones to push the red button, as if that is the ultimate criterion for leading the country. And while American politics has, for years, been all about the necessity of displaying masculinity, Bush, Cheney and Rove succeeded in upping the ante after 9/11 so that the sight of John Kerry windsurfing meant he wasn’t man enough to run the country. But now, with the massive failures of this callous macho posture everywhere—a disastrous war, a deeply endangered environment and more people than ever without health insurance—millions are desperate for a new vision and a new model of leadership.

All of this frames many women’s reactions to Hillary. If she’s a feminist, how could she continue to support this war for so long? If she’s such a passionate advocate for children, women and families, how could she countenance the ongoing killing of innocent Iraqi families, and of American soldiers who are also someone’s children? If it would be so revolutionary to have a female as president, why does she feel like the same old poll-driven opportunistic politician who seems to craft her positions accordingly?

Maybe women like me are being extra hard on Hillary because she’s a woman. After all, baby boomer women couldn’t be “as good” as men in school or the workplace; we had to be better, to prove that women deserved equal opportunities. And this is part of the problem too. We don’t want the first female president to be Joe Lieberman in drag, pushing Bush-lite politics. We expect something better.

Clearly, Hillary and her advisors have calculated that for a woman to be elected in this country, she’s got to come across as just as tough as the guys. And maybe they’re right. But so far, Hillary is not getting men with this strategy, and women feel written off. After the dark ages of this pugnacious administration, many of us want to let the light in. We want a break with the past, optimism, and a recommitment to the government caring about and serving the needs of everyday people. We want what feminism began to fight for 40 years ago—humanizing deeply patriarchal institutions. And, ironically, we see candidates like John Edwards or Barack Obama—men—offering just that. If Hillary Clinton wants to be the first female president, then maybe, just maybe, she should actually run as a woman.

Susan J. Douglas is a professor of communications at the University of Michigan and author of The Mommy Myth: The Idealization of Motherhood and How it Has Undermined Women.

http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/3129/why_women_hate_hillary/

283
3DHS / Would this work in the U.S.? Is it effective THERE?
« on: April 29, 2007, 04:53:02 PM »
Britain becoming a Big Brother society, says data watchdog
By Sophie Goodchild
Published: 29 April 2007
Britain is in danger of "committing slow social suicide" as such Big Brother techniques as surveillance cameras and recording equipment spread into every aspect of our lives, the nation's information watchdog will warn this week.

A new report from Richard Thomas, the information commissioner, will say that the public needs to be made more aware of the "creeping encroachment" on civil liberties created by email monitoring, CCTV and computer tracking of our buying habits.

It is understood that one of the concerns in Mr Thomas's report is the use of special listening devices which can be placed in lamp posts, street furniture and offices. These are already widely used in the Netherlands to combat crime and anti-social behaviour.

More than 300 of the cameras with built-in microphones have been fitted in benefit offices and city centres. The equipment can pick up aggressive tones on the basis of decibel level, pitch and speed at which words are spoken.

Westminster council has already started piloting the listening devices, but experts say the use of these microphones raises questions about how surveillance can be used to intrude into the private lives of citizens.

He will also call for greater regulation of companies that supply surveillance technology which provides "convenience or safety for the more affluent majority", but not for the vulnerable such as children, immigrants and the elderly.

His warning comes as MPs launch their first inquiry into the impact of surveillance in Britain. The Home Affairs Select Committee will investigate the use of video cameras to monitor high streets and residential areas as well as the holding of personal information on both government and commercial databases.

On Tuesday, Mr Thomas, who last year warned that Britain was "sleepwalking into a surveillance society", will tell the committee at its first hearing that new safeguards must be introduced to protect the public from the increasing intrusion of surveillance into their daily lives.

Civil liberty campaigners have already warned that Britain is becoming a Big Brother society where its citizens are increasingly being watched. There are more than four million CCTV cameras in this country, one for every 14 people, and the national DNA database which was set up by police to combat crime now holds 3.5 million profiles.

284
3DHS / BS Jobs: anyone have any of these?
« on: April 27, 2007, 03:09:18 PM »

Pages: 1 ... 17 18 [19]