Category: News

Come up with a gimick site that makes folks submit all the content for you and then turn it into a book. And then work on the sequal that deals with the response to your initial gimick.

Hopefully they follow through with their FAQ’s take on what to do with the profits:

What happens to the money from T-shirts, ads and donations?
We understand that we have to tread carefully in the waters of commerce, as this site is about message and not merchandise. Each of these measures was taken in order to cover expenses. After careful consideration, we also figure a T-shirt is a message.

In case you’re wondering if we’re profiteering, all our man-hours have been pro bono so far. If this ever takes up enough of our time that we deem it necessary to pay ourselves, we’ll do it by other means. However, so far, we are barely breaking even on costs. At the time of this writing, we are pushing 350GB/day down the wire. Should any income be left that does not go to our hosting providers (the inimitable and superlative Rackspace), it will be donated to charity.

We are planning to post a complete breakdown of income and expenses on the site, so any doubts left can be resolved. In case there is money to donate, we will investigate a list of charities for how they spend their money and what they stand for, and we’ll publish the list of those selected before we give.

And maybe they’ll work on a follow up and explain how much worse off the world really is now, six months after the re-election.

Probably not, but still…

Did Martha break house arrest?

The U.S. Probation Department is investigating whether Martha Stewart violated the terms of her house arrest when she attended a Time magazine dinner last week, The New York Post reported Sunday.

“We’re going to do some investigating to see if this event was directly related to her employment,” Chris Stanton, chief federal probation officer for the Southern District of New York, told the Post.

Stanton’s office, the Post said, had originally approved Stewart’s request to go to the event, which celebrated Time’s 100 Most Influential People issue, a list that included Stewart.

Investigators, the Post said, will want to review the nature of the event and the program and compare it to Stewart’s written request to attend.

The affair included a 90-minute cocktail party; many celebrities were in attendance. Stanton told the Post that Stewart’s attendance must have a “specific and concrete” link to her employment and added that going to a high-profile party simply for publicity or to be seen is “not good enough” justification.

Email destroys the mind faster than marijuana – study

Modern technology depletes human cognitive abilities more rapidly than drugs, according to a psychiatric study conducted at King’s College, London. And the curse of ‘messaging’ is to blame.

Email users suffered a 10 per cent drop in IQ scores, more than twice the fall recorded by marijuana users, in a clinical trial of over a thousand participants. Doziness, lethargy and an inability to focus are classic characteristics of a spliffhead, but email users exhibited these particular symptoms to a “startling” degree, according to Dr Glenn Wilson.

The deterioration in mental capacity was the direct result of the trialists’ addiction to technology, researchers discovered.

Duuuhhhh….. *drool*

Is anyone really surprised that this is not just a Tom Delay thing? This kinda activity is as old as the nation itself. Is it right? Well, if the family member is actually WORKING for the politician and they’re being paid competitively within the position, then, yes, it’s very right. If they’re just getting money for the hell of it, well, then you have a problem.

The DCist said it best:

First in War, First in Peace, First in the National League

Sure it’s early. But I’ll take it.

My biggest issue is the only way I can listen to Nationals’ games is if they’re playing the Braves. Stupid Richmond radio.

President Clinton rebuked Couric for repeating Republican claim of Democratic “obstructionism” of judicial nominees

COURIC: Right now it seems the most effective thing that Democrats are doing on Capitol Hill is blocking various nominations, at least from their perspective. Like, you know, John Bolton, or — U.S. ambassador to the U.N. — or head of the EPA [Environmental Protection Agency], or the head of the FDA [Food and Drug Administration]. How can the Democratic Party retool itself so they’re not simply seen as obstructionist in terms of the president’s agenda?

CLINTON: Well, first of all, I don’t think that’s fair. I don’t think Mr. [John] Negroponte [nominee for national intelligence director] will be blocked. I’m not sure Mr. Bolton will be blocked. There are policy reasons on the environment and food safety for debates on the others. And on judges, that’s just a hoax. I mean, the Democrats blocked 10 out of over 200 judges. The Republicans wouldn’t even give a vote to 40 of my Court of Appeals judges — four times as many, just on the Court of Appeals, never mind all the others that they wouldn’t have voted. So, this image that, I’m sad to say, you know, you just perpetrated it, it’s ridiculous. The Democratic Senate has been nowhere near as obstructionist to President Bush on judges as the Republican Senate was to me. Not even close.

So then the question becomes more of a rewording of Couric’s question:

How can the Democratic Party retool it’s publicity so they’re not simply seen as obstructionist in terms of the president’s agenda?

It’s all about spin and the Democrats have been losing in that area for years.

A great panorama shot of St. Peter’s Square at the time of the Pope’s death.

It’s official, baby! Baseball is returning to DC. Now there’s the little question about what to call the team and while I am a strong supporter of the Senators, the Washington Greys would be a nice touch (name of the Negro League team).

But welcome back, baseball. I have a new favorite team.

EDIT: Oh, so the Va. Baseball folks want to blame Governor Warner for losing the bid:

But the deal derailed when Warner, a longtime baseball supporter who was once an investor in Collins’ ownership group, balked at a financing plan that would have pledged the state’s “moral obligation” to support the bonds, said Collins.

“It killed any chance we had of dealing with Major League Baseball,” Collins said in an interview Wednesday.

I’m sorry, the state would have had a “moral obligation” to support bonds to build this man a stadium? When the alternative was DC’s plan, which Mayor Williams summed up:

“It’s the team owners, business owners, the stadium users who are paying for this _ and not one dime of a D.C. resident is covering this important investment in our city.”

(See first article)

So it’s the Governor’s fault for showing some fiscal restraint and that the Va. Baseball group was unable to come up with funding of their own? Huh.

Ultimately, if baseball was coming back to the DC area, it was going to go in DC. It’s the hub of the market and, really, who’s going to go all the way out to Dulles for baseball when DC is Metro accessable? The only thing a Northern Virginia team helped was Peter Angelos and the Baltimore Orioles’ market. Dulles is even more out of the way for anyone in Maryland, might as well go to Baltimore.

Collins (the Va guy bitching) has spent a lot of money and time on trying to get a Virginia team and that’s commendable, but DC put more on the table and won out. Sorry Warner wasn’t willing to promise baseball the moon for your efforts, man.

Embedded journalists get their asses kicked. Na na na na…. na na na na….. hey hey hey…. good bye!

Hooters Girl butt signing Geraldo Rivera has been escorted out of Iraq after drawing a map on television and pointing out where his unit was and where it was heading. Smart man, that Geraldo. They should have broken a chair over his face, would have been just like old times.

Celebrity TV journalist Geraldo Rivera kicked out of Iraq: Pentagon

US Military Moves Reporter Geraldo Rivera from Iraq

Of course, he denies his removal.

Geraldo Denies Being Kicked Out of Iraq

And he’s not the only one in trouble.

NBC Fires Arnett After Iraq TV Interview

NBC fired journalist Peter Arnett on Monday, saying it was wrong for him to give an interview with state-run Iraqi TV saying that the American-led coalition’s first war plan had failed because of Iraq’s resistance. Arnett himself called the interview a “misjudgment.”

Arnett, on NBC’s “Today” show on Monday, said he was sorry for his statement but added, “I said over the weekend what we all know about the war.”

“I want to apologize to the American people for clearly making a misjudgment,” Arnett said.

NBC had defended him on Sunday, saying he had given the interview as a professional courtesy and that his remarks were analytical in nature. But by Monday morning the network switched course and, after Arnett spoke with NBC News President Neal Shapiro, said it would no longer work with Arnett.

“It was wrong for Mr. Arnett to grant an interview to state-controlled Iraqi TV, especially at a time of war,” NBC spokeswoman Allison Gollust said. “And it was wrong for him to discuss his personal observations and opinions in that interview.”

Oops. Guess I should say America screwed up on the enemy’s television station. Better luck next time.

But, wait, he’s not going down without a fight!

This War Is Not Working

I am still in shock and awe at being fired. There is enormous sensitivity within the US government to reports coming out from Baghdad.

They don’t want credible news organisations reporting from here because it presents them with enormous problems.

I reported on the original bombing for NBC and we were half a mile away from those massive explosions. Now I am really shocked that I am no longer reporting this story for the US and awed by the fact that it actually happened.

That overnight my successful NBC reporting career was turned to ashes. And why?

Because I stated the obvious to Iraqi television; that the US war timetable has fallen by the wayside.

I have made those comments to television stations around the world and now I’m making them again in the Daily Mirror.

I’m not angry. I’m not crying. But I’m also awed by this media phenomenon.

The right-wing media and politicians are looking for any opportunity to be critical of the reporters who are here, whatever their nationality. I made the misjudgment which gave them the opportunity to do so.

I gave an impromptu interview to Iraqi television feeling that after four months of interviewing hundreds of them it was only professional courtesy to give them a few comments.

That was my Waterloo – bang!

Yep, you just keep telling yourself that.

God, these people are blowing golden opportunities over there.

Appellate Court Rules Media Can Legally Lie

On February 14, a Florida Appeals court ruled there is absolutely nothing illegal about lying, concealing or distorting information by a major press organization. The court reversed the $425,000 jury verdict in favor of journalist Jane Akre who charged she was pressured by Fox Television management and lawyers to air what she knew and documented to be false information. The ruling basically declares it is technically not against any law, rule, or regulation to deliberately lie or distort the news on a television broadcast.

On August 18, 2000, a six-person jury was unanimous in its conclusion that Akre was indeed fired for threatening to report the station’s pressure to broadcast what jurors decided was “a false, distorted, or slanted” story about the widespread use of growth hormone in dairy cows. The court did not dispute the heart of Akre’s claim, that Fox pressured her to broadcast a false story to protect the broadcaster from having to defend the truth in court, as well as suffer the ire of irate advertisers.

Fox argued from the first, and failed on three separate occasions, in front of three different judges, to have the case tossed out on the grounds there is no hard, fast, and written rule against deliberate distortion of the news. The attorneys for Fox, owned by media baron Rupert Murdock, argued the First Amendment gives broadcasters the right to lie or deliberately distort news reports on the public airwaves.

In its six-page written decision, the Court of Appeals held that the Federal Communications Commission position against news distortion is only a “policy,” not a promulgated law, rule, or regulation.

Fox aired a report after the ruling saying it was “totally vindicated” by the verdict.

Huh. Public service my ass.