Barack Obama Hits Over $2 Million On Way To $2.1 Million Goal

Angered by the knoweldge that a difference of just $2.1 million between his third quarter fundraising tallies and those of his challenger Senator Hillary Clinton was made up of lobbyist's money, Senator Barack Obama embarked on a fund-raising campaign that consisted of a series of emails to supporters. That started on Monday evening.

Now, on Friday, as of this writing, the campaign has raised $2,044,009 and is well on its way toward meeting that $2.1 million objective.

Bills express interest in playing at least one home game in Toronto

Associated Press

ORCHARD PARK, N.Y. -- The Buffalo Bills intend to play a few games in Canada, eh?

That's the plan after the Bills announced on Thursday they are seeking approval to play a preseason and at least one regular-season game in Toronto. It's part of the franchise's attempt to expand its market base beyond western New York.

"The team hopes to capitalize on the increasing interest of fans in the Canadian market by playing a regular-season game in Toronto," the Bills announced in a release.

The Bills hope to play a preseason game at Toronto next summer, with plans to play a regular-season game as early as 2009. The games would be played at Rogers Center, a downtown stadium with a retractable roof that serves as home to baseball's Blue Jays and the Canadian Football League Argonauts.
The Bills require both county and state approval to play "home games" outside of Ralph Wilson Stadium as a condition of their lease, which runs through 2012. The lease requires the team to play half its preseason and all regular-season home games at the Orchard Park facility.

The team began the process by sending a letter of request to Erie County on Wednesday.

The Bills would also need approval from the NFL, considered a formality with the league already scheduling games in international markets. In two weeks, Miami and the New York Giants will play at London's Wembley Stadium in the first NFL game outside North America. In 2005, Arizona and San Francisco played in Mexico City in the first regular-season game outside the United States.

Toronto is the next logical choice as part of the Bills' expansion plans. Canada's largest metropolitan center is a 90-mile drive from Buffalo, boasts a large corporate base that can translate into additional marketing revenue, and the team also draws an average of 15,000 Canadian fans to its home games.

The Bills also consider this an opportunity to lure Toronto companies to purchase corporate suites at Ralph Wilson Stadium. The Bills currently have three suites unsold and, next season, will unveil new prime suites as part of a plan to relocate the existing press box.

The Bills stressed the games at Toronto are part of their regionalization plans and should not be considered a first step for the franchise's relocation. The Bills noted the success they've enjoyed since moving their training camp in 2000 to Rochester, where they've taken advantage of the city's corporate base.

Bills owner Ralph Wilson, who turned 89 on Wednesday, has maintained he has no intention of selling or relocating the franchise. The team's future remains unclear because Wilson has no plans to keep the franchise in his family once he dies, leaving the door open for a new owner to move the team.

Toronto newspapers have published stories speculating whether the city can be a viable NFL market, and most often mention the Bills as a prime candidate.

Bank of America earnings drop 32%

By Ross Kerber, Globe Staff | October 19, 2007

Bank of America Corp., the nation's largest retail bank, reported yesterday that third-quarter earnings plummeted 32 percent because of problems in mortgage and credit markets. But analysts said the bank's woes are unlikely to have an effect on consumers or businesses in Massachusetts, a market the bank dominates.

The dichotomy reflects the vast reach of the Charlotte institution, from global financial services to neighborhood bank branches.

Bank of America stumbled in the first area, suffering growing credit losses and poor results at its investment banking unit. But at the same time the bank's lending to consumers and businesses remained on track. So did results of its big Global Wealth and Investment Management unit, the Boston operation that includes its Columbia mutual funds brand.

Morningstar analyst Jaime Peters said there is no reason the local units would be held back by Bank of America's other issues, or that New England operations would suffer as a result. "They're using the power of their balance sheet to continue to lend," she said. "There's no reason to expect a pullback is going to happen."

Shares of Bank of America fell 2.4 percent to $48.85 in trading yesterday after the company's morning earnings release. For the three months ended Sept. 30 the bank had net income of $3.7 billion, down from $5.4 billion a year earlier.

The chief reason was a $1.3 billion fall in earnings from the bank's Global Corporate and Investment Banking division, largely based in New York. The costs of provisions for bad loans rose $865 million, which the bank partly blamed on a weaker US housing market that required it to add reserves for home equity and home builder loans whose borrowers were falling behind on payments.

Those problems were only partly offset by brighter spots such as its Global Wealth and Investment Management division, whose assets under management rose to $710 billion from $517 billion a year earlier, including the acquisition in July of US Trust, the big private banking company. Net income for the division rose to $599 million for the quarter, from $513 million a year earlier.

Michael Mullaney, a portfolio manager at Fiduciary Trust Co. in Boston that owns 1.2 million Bank of America shares, said he was troubled by the results and that the company likely will review whether to sell the stock.

Before yesterday, Mullaney said, he had considered Bank of America a better bet than the country's two other giant banks, Citigroup and JPMorgan Chase. But now it seems the two New York banks have been able to weather the summer's credit problems more smoothly than Bank of America, he said.

"Clearly they've been able to operate through this a lot better," he said.

Bank of America's results also showed how a bank that held relatively few securities backed by subprime mortgage investments could still suffer financially as equities markets grew volatile this summer over concerns about the insecurity of the instruments held by other banks. The volatility ruined many of the bank's trading strategies and wiped out nearly all the Global Corporate unit's profits of $1.4 billion in the year-ago quarter, even though Bank of America had mostly stopped originating subprime mortgages three years ago, NAB Research analyst Nancy Bush said.

"The problem for them isn't subprime holdings, the problem is what happened in the markets because of subprime," Bush said.

On a conference call yesterday, Bank of America executives struck an apologetic tone with analysts who had expected better results, but indicated overall lending will continue. "Although we are very disappointed at the magnitude of the hit we took, the strength in our other businesses allowed us to maintain our strategic direction," said chief executive Kenneth D. Lewis.

Later Lewis and the bank's chief financial officer, Joe Price, defended the quality of its loan portfolio and dismissed a concern that problems could spread as in previous economic slowdowns. "These are really good-quality numbers" in the lending portfolios, Lewis said. "To say that we're concerned about overall credit quality would be going way too far."

Because of its size, Bank of America's lending terms matter more than most banks in Massachusetts. In a recent survey of business executives here, about 20 percent said they felt access to loans has grown more expensive, according to the Associated Industries of Massachusetts, a trade group representing manufacturers. Its spokesman, Brian Gilmore, said the lending market seems competitive with rivals such as Citizens Bank and Eastern still making loans. "It's a mixed picture," he said.

Bank of America had 198,000 employees worldwide as of Sept. 30, down from 200,220 employees a year earlier. In August, the bank said it had 9,000 Massachusetts employees, a figure a spokesman did not update yesterday.

Web 2.0 Summit - Flickr's New Geotagging Design Seen At Web 2.0 Summit Lunch

As I write this, I'm having lunch at Maxfield's, a nice restaurant in the Sheraton Palace, a place where, according to Attorney General Jerry Brown, a president got shot in. I don't know which one, off the top of my head.

At any rate, it's pretty crowded with people, and all of a sudden. And by their the tags around their necks, they're here for Tim O'Reilly's Web 2.0 Summit. Having just presented my friend Monte Poole with an award from the San Francisco Black Journalists Association, I was hungry and decided to not just stop by but gain some information.

One of the interesting online devices I've seen is what appears to be a new Flickr application. It seems to mate photos with geographic location so that if you press on a part of a map, it matches all of the photos you have for that part of the map into one area called, "San Francisco" for example.

As the people demonstrating this were at a table nearby, I managed to get this video of what they were seeing.




According to Paul Miller over at Nodalities, Flickr was at the Summit to report ...

a replacement for existing geotagging service...

115,000 geotagged photos per day, one every 1.3 seconds.

Merge tagging and locations to deliver a new ui that scales better to handle growth in usage.

“But there's more...”

Current 'interestingness' algorithm for photos can also be applied to the geolocation, creating pages of 'iconic' images at a given location.

That was what I saw, and what you're seeing here. I wish I'd turned the camera over their sooner as there were more interesting screen shots I could have taken.

Bionic Woman - Third and Fourth Episodes Are Terrific!

The Bionic Woman's shaping up to be "must see" TV for me. The last two episdodes -- Sisterhood and Faceoff -- further develop the dysfunctional set of relationshiips surrounding Jamie Sommers, who's played by my new Favorite Actress Michelle Ryan: with her Bionic "sister" Sarah Corvus (Emmy Award-level performed by Katie Sackofff); with Isiah Washington's Antonio Pope, who it seems she both wants to kiss and then killl at the same time; with her little sister Becca, and of course with Jonas, who actually seems to have a heart when it matters most.

What makes the show work is that it's stuffed full of these kinds of relationships. So much so that you can't wait to see what's going to happen next week.

Tom Shales Crits Matt Lauer For Weak Larry Craig Interview

Tom Shales is taking Matt Lauer to the wood shed over his weak interview of Senator Larry Craig.

For Lauer, self-important co-host of NBC's "Today" show, the interview was obviously seen as a potential career- and credibility-builder, but even when he did ask an arguably tough question, he essentially apologized for it. He prefaced a question about whether the senator might be bisexual by saying to Craig, "You're going to have to forgive me for this."

What? This is a journalist practicing journalism? Lauer's like a virgin veteran, an old hand who seems inexperienced. Diane Sawyer, to name one example, would have done a much better interview. Anyone on "60 Minutes," Wallace or another member of the vaunted team, would have done a better one. Lauer's former "Today" co-host, the much-maligned Katie Couric, also would likely have done a more effective job.

Well, at least Matt won't replace Katie Couric over at CBS!

And..Another Case Of A Teacher Having Sex With Her Student

Another Case Of A Teacher Having Sex With Her Student ... One right after the other.

A Roseville High School teacher accused of having sex with her teenaged student aide last school year was arraigned on criminal sexual conduct charges today in a Clinton Township district court.
Janelle Batkins, 42, of Harrison Township, is charged with two counts of third-degree criminal sexual conduct, a 15-year felony. She was released on a $25,000 personal bond under the conditions she doesn’t go on the school grounds and doesn’t have contact with minors unrelated to her.
Batkins, who taught French for 15 years in the district and was named Teacher of the Year in 2002, resigned over the summer.
The married mother of two children, ages 14 and 21, had an affair with the 17-year-old boy from December of 2006 until the end of the last school year, police and prosecutors said.
The Free Press generally does not name victims of alleged sexual assaults.
The boy’s mother brought the allegations to Roseville police in July after finding evidence of the relationship on her son’s computer. Her son told detectives he consented to sex with Batkins when he was 17 in places like her home and a car in Roseville, police said.

Another Case Of A Teacher Having Sex With Her Student

Remember when it seemed that there was a rash of cases of teachers having sex with students? Well, here's another one...

Jessica Ashley Kahal, 22, turned herself in to officers about 11:30 a.m. at the police station with her attorney present.
Kahal resigned from the charter school on Oct. 5, after Douglas D. Smith, the school principal, began investigating her relationship with a 17-year-old boy, police and school officials said.
A teacher from another school told Smith about the relationship, said police Lt. Allen White. A school resource officer then interviewed the boy, a senior, who said he and Kahal had sex about five times in the past two months at various locations in the county, police said.
Police detectives who took over the investigation said they also interviewed other witnesses. In the meantime, Kahal resigned from the school and moved out of the county, police said.

Staph 'Superbug' Deaths May Top AIDS In U.S.

CHICAGO (CBS News) ― More than 90,000 Americans get potentially deadly infections each year from a drug-resistant staph "superbug," the government reported Tuesday in its first overall estimate of invasive disease caused by the germ.

Deaths tied to these infections may exceed those caused by AIDS, said one public health expert commenting on the new study. The report shows just how far one form of the staph germ, called methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, or MRSA, has spread beyond its traditional hospital setting.

Dr. Monica Klevens of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the federal agency that conducted the study, spoke to CBS News medical correspondent Dr. Jon LaPook, putting the numbers into shocking context.

"So what that means," Klevens said, "is that it's the equivalent of having a death related to MRSA about every 30 minutes in the U.S in a year."

The overall incidence rate was about 32 invasive infections per 100,000 people. That's an "astounding" figure, said an editorial in Wednesday's Journal of the American Medical Association, which published the study.

Most drug-resistant staph cases are mild skin infections. But this study focused on invasive infections - those that enter the bloodstream or destroy flesh and can turn deadly.

Researchers found that only about one-quarter involved hospitalized patients. However, more than half were in the health care system - people who had recently had surgery or were on kidney dialysis, for example. Open wounds and exposure to medical equipment are major ways the bug spreads.

In recent years, the resistant germ has become more common in hospitals and it has been spreading through prisons, gyms and locker rooms, and in poor urban neighborhoods.

The new study offers the broadest look yet at the pervasiveness of the most severe infections caused by the MRSA bug. These bacteria can be carried by healthy people, living on their skin or in their noses.

An invasive form of the disease is being blamed for the death Monday of a 17-year-old Virginia high school senior. Doctors said the germ had spread to his kidneys, liver, lungs and muscles around his heart.

The researchers' estimates are extrapolated from 2005 surveillance data from nine mostly urban regions considered representative of the country. There were 5,287 invasive infections reported that year in people living in those regions, which would translate to an estimated 94,360 cases nationally, the researchers said.

Most cases were life-threatening bloodstream infections. However, about 10 percent involved so-called flesh-eating disease, according to the study.

There were 988 reported deaths among infected people in the study, for a rate of 6.3 per 100,000. That would translate to 18,650 deaths annually, although the researchers don't know if MRSA was the cause in all cases.

If these deaths all were related to staph infections, the total would exceed other better-known causes of death including AIDS - which killed an estimated 17,011 Americans in 2005 - said Dr. Elizabeth Bancroft of the Los Angeles County Health Department, the editorial author.

The results underscore the need for better prevention measures. That includes curbing the overuse of antibiotics and improving hand-washing and other hygiene procedures among hospital workers, said the CDC's Dr. Scott Fridkin, a study co-author.

Dr. LaPook spoke to Judy Tarselli, a hygiene specialist at Massachusetts General Hospital, who demonstrated the alcohol-based hand cleansers health workers use there. Tarselli also stressed the importance of this simple precaution.

"Hand hygiene is the single most important thing we can do to stop the transmission of germs that can cause infections in our patients," she said.

Massachusetts General's efforts have paid off. Since their handwashing program started five years ago, Dr. LaPook reports, they've been able to reduce their invasive staph infections - including MSRA - by half.

Some hospitals have also drastically cut infections by first isolating new patients until they are screened for MRSA.

The bacteria don't respond to penicillin-related antibiotics once commonly used to treat them, partly because of overuse. They can be treated with other drugs but health officials worry that their overuse could cause the germ to become resistant to those, too.

Dr. LaPook told CBS Evening News anchor Katie Couric that people should not immediately ask their doctor for antibiotics and when they are prescribed, patients should get in the habit of asking, "Do I really need to take antibiotics?"

A survey earlier this year suggested that MRSA infections, including noninvasive mild forms, affect 46 out of every 1,000 U.S. hospital and nursing home patients - or as many as 5 percent. These patients are vulnerable because of open wounds and invasive medical equipment that can help the germ spread.

Dr. Buddy Creech, an infectious disease specialist at Vanderbilt University, said the JAMA study emphasizes the broad scope of the drug-resistant staph "epidemic," and highlights the need for a vaccine, which he called "the holy grail of staphylococcal research."

The regions studied were: the Atlanta metropolitan area; Baltimore, Connecticut; Davidson County, Tenn.; the Denver metropolitan area; Monroe County, NY; the Portland, Ore. metropolitan area; Ramsey County, Minn.; and the San Francisco metropolitan area.

Airline workers among 18 people charged with drug trafficking at JFK

I discovered this bizarre story while watching the evening news and would like to know if there is anybody left with any resemblance of credibility that we can trust?

By Laura Batchelor
CNN

NEW YORK (CNN) -- Eighteen people, including 10 airline workers at New York's John F. Kennedy International Airport, appeared in federal court Tuesday on international drug smuggling and distribution charges.

The drugs were hidden in luggage on international commercial flights from the Dominican Republic to JFK, the complaint alleges.

Once the luggage arrived, it was relocated to a "safe" area, hidden from law enforcement, it says.

While the diversion was taking place, the defendants used lookouts to watch for law officers.

The leader of the defendants was Henry Polanco, who dealt with the drug suppliers in the Dominican Republic, according to the complaint.

He used employees from Delta, American Airlines and food-services company Aramark to help smuggle the drugs into the United States, the complaint says.

The defendants were arrested earlier Tuesday and gave no comment as they were escorted into a U.S. Marshals Service bus.

The case "illustrates how conspiracy to smuggle drugs into the U.S. among airport employees compromised our border security," said Mark Lorenti, a special agent with Immigration and Customs Enforcement, in a statement.

The charges are a result of a two-year investigation, during which federal agents found 46 kilograms (101 pounds) of cocaine, 25 kilograms (55 pounds) of heroin and 3 kilograms (6 pounds) of MDMA (ecstasy), according to a Justice Department news release.

The Drug Enforcement Administration said the street value of the drugs is $875,000 for the cocaine, $1.1 million for the heroin and $75,000 for the ecstasy.

Delta Air Lines spokeswoman Chris Kelly said the carrier was aware of the investigation and cooperated with authorities.

"The seven Delta employees who are charged are being suspended without pay," she said.


Seven of the suspects are being held without bail, while bail for the remaining 11 was set between $250,000 to $500,000, according to the U.S. attorney's office.

None of the suspects entered pleas Tuesday. It is unclear when they will next appear in court.

CNN's Sarah B. Boxer contributed to this report.

Dr. James Watson Is A Major Racist Idiot Who Needs A Spanking

Yep. You saw the headline. I'm not going to waste a lot of space on some racist idiot who thinks he can judge who's smart and who's not based on his own racism and his ego and arrogance that led him to the "unravelling of DNA." This nut job says that Africans are less intelligent than Westerners. Now think about it. If Watson -- who's "Western" -- found that Westerners were less intelligent, would he report it? Hell no. Not at all. Because it would mean he's less intelligent.

He's not intellectually honest enough to place himself in that position. And while I'm at it, if you follow his belief, you're dumber than he is, and need a lobotomy!

He's such a confused 79-year old twit that he would judge the intellect of a person based on perceived skin color. What a stupid. Part of me wants to go on and on, but the other part wants to stop, knowing that this guy's just plain out of his mind.

Why?

Well, you, him, or I am not capable of judging how smart someone is. Suppose that person knows only French? Does that mean he or she is not smart because they don't know English? That's nuts. Totally stupid. But that's what I've come to expect from James Watson -- acts that pander to racists, because he's a racist.

Ann Coulter - Say She's Part Of A Sick Joke - Admits Bigotry Is Wrong

Political Pundit and all around bomb-thrower Ann Coulter posted this on her site yesterday:

Dear Readers,
I've been participating in a charade for nearly eleven years, now. Quite frankly, I'm sick of it. You have all been a part of a sick joke that I began considering shortly after first getting on the air. At first, it was quite interesting to see how people would react when I would use twisted logic and poorly masked bigotry.

But eleven years is a long time to be living a fake life, and I can no longer tolerate this falsity. Even someone as fake as I tires out eventually.

Here's the truth, I don't care what people believe. Jews don't need to be "made perfect" as I so arrogantly proclaimed to Editor & Publisher not a half week ago.



I don't even care if people are Muslim. Granted, I don't know much about the religion or the people, but they are people. This is something that we cannot forget, they are in an abhorrent situation. These people are in need of education. Perhaps if we did not participate in causing them misery, they would not hate us so.

In fact, does it really matter whether we are Christian, Jewish, Muslim, Atheist, or even Pagan? We are one nation. One. We should not let petty differences separate us, we are all American, and should act in that manner.

And with that, my precious viewers, I bid you adieu. My career as a media figurehead is over.

Signed,

Ann Coulter

That was posted on her site. It's too bad it was not her writing. (Or that's what they say -- it could have been a publicity stunt. ) It's said that her site was "hacked" but I'd like to know by who. I'd like to congratulate them.