A380 - Singapore Airlines A380 Maiden Flight

Singapore Airlines' A380 completed it's maiden flight this week. Here's video of that event and video of the cabin interior. Business class is particularly interesting.

Landing in Sydney:



Interior Video:



Singapore Airlines Crew Training Video:

Hillary Clinton > Did DCCC Violate FEC Laws In Emailer For Her Birthday?

It's spreading all over the Internet. This email letter you see is from Bill Clinton and asking receivers to help celebrate her 60th birthday. This has got many non-Clinton supporters in an uproar, as the email was sent through the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, or "DCCC".

This news first hit my attention via the Obama listserv and was the focus of a blog post on DailyKos today. To get to the bottom of this, I called the DCCC, and the receptionist told me, in response to my question on this that "The DCCC does not support anyone for president; we were just trying to expand our email list. You should talk to Nick Jeffrey, who runs the email campaign."

So I called Mr. Jeffrey, but got his voicemail.

Even if the DCCC's not taking a position, it sure looks that way and seems to be another example of "triangulation politics" where a person says they're for or against something in word, but not in deed. I call it being dishonest myself.

The question for me is this: does this count as an FEC violation? I don't know the answer. But it seems that if the DCCC is raising money and working on behalf of Congressional democratic candidates, this move is against their mission, as it looks like the DCCC's supporting a single Presidential candidate. They didn't do this for Senator Obama's birthday August 4th.

More on this.

Pier 39 Fleet Week 2007 San Francisco Party - Video

I'll get back to politics, but here's some fun. My good friend Beth Schnitzer invited me to Pier 39s Fleet Week Party held October 5th 2007 on the roof of the parking lot at Pier 39 in San Francisco. It's a killer event that drew over 600 people and provided a great backdrop for products and events from various sponsors from Bauer's Limousines -- http://www.bauerslimousines.com -- to Sheri's Berries. There's great food and music and people, like Movie Critic Jan Wahl. This is the first movie in a series.

Hillary Clinton - Iowa Pork: The Other White Meat

Well, that's what it reads if you look at the photo. It features Hillary Clinton flipping burgers while wearing an apron that reads "The Other White Meat" and standing just in front of an under a sign that reads "Iowa Pork."

Man, I can't make this one up!

Microsoft Buys 1.6 Percent Stake In Facebook - TechCrunch

Well, it a story of numbers and eyeballs equaling investment value. In this case, to the tune of a 1.6 percent stake that causes Facebook to be valued at $15 Billion.

The buyer of that portion of the company is Microsoft -- not Google -- and for $240 million. What Microsoft will do with Facebook is another guess. But for the present, Michael Arrington at TechCrunch liveblogged the press conference today. Here's the result:

Call Notes

Call is beginning at 2:07 pm

Viveck Varma, MS, Owen Van Natta, Facebook, Kevin Johnson, Facebook, Brandee Barker, Facebook are on the call.

Viveck is saying the press release below has minor errors and will be re-issued. We will update it as it becomes available. He’s actually reading the entire release to the call participants.

200,000 new users register for Facebook every day.

Microsoft ad deal was extended to 2011 early this year.

Owen and Kevin:

Owen is saying this investment will help Facebook grow. They have nearly 50 million active users. This alliance will help them create the best user experience.

Kevin - “this deal signals a major advertising syndication win for Microsoft.” This is a “win-win-win.”

Now taking questions


Q: How do you support valuation?

Vivech: Online advertising is $40b/year, will grow to $80b per year. Equity stake in facebook is a strong statement of confidence in MS’ ad platform and in facebook. If you look at FB growth and think that they will get to 200 million users in future, combine that with monetization opportunity along with modest rev/user/year, the valuation is supported.

Q: Signal a bigger partnership around other products?

A: Nothing specific, but the partners will be doing a lot more together over time.

Q: Why Microsoft over Google?

A: (Owen) We were fortunate to choose from partners. We have existing relationship with MS and we had the opportunity to expand it.

Q: Any new restrictions on platform developers?

A: No new restrictions

Q: (mine) Any other investors in this round?

A: No comment, not saying one way or the other (JMA note: this suggests there may be other investors even beyond existing ones).

Q: Will we see any reciprocity? Any FB apps integrated into any MS properties?

A: Not announcing anything right now.

Q: Josh Quitner - who else was interested in investing?

A: Not announcing anything.

Q: Why did MS only take a 1.6% stake? Does this money affect FB IPO plans?

A: No real answer. Investment was the best fit for both companies.

Q: Is this deal just for banner ads?

A: partnership extends across adcenter platform for MS, not disclosing anything around web search advertising. Deal does not include web search ads like Google/Myspace deal.

Q: Any minimum payment that is guaranteed under ad deal? If so, will it be disclosed?

A: Viveck is saying they are very pleased with current deal, but strategic deal, way collaborating together, equity position provides economic and strategic value of overall partnership. “We feel very good about the deal.” Owen is saying that they want to focus on innovation and user experience, and this deal allows them to do this.

Q: (Om Malik) What kind of performance on FB from previous ad efforts? What will FB use the money for?

A: Viveck: we continue to see monetization improve, many initiatives underway to drive it higher. We’re seeing great progress on deal so far. Won’t discuss specifics on click throughs, etc., both parties have agreed to keep that confidential. At a high level, both parties see monetization on an eCPM basis improve. Owen: We’ll use the capital to continue to fund innovation and growth; we plan to expand employee base dramatically next year to 700 employees; doubling user base every six months; international growth is very important.

Q: How did deal come together? Also, what kind of collaboration between two companies? How deep will it be?

A: Owen: we’ve been working with MS for over a year, constantly talking about evolving partnership. MS is doing a huge amount of building around adcenter.

MS is Facebook’s exclusive advertising partner, expanding from U.S. to global in today’s announcement.

Q: Does adcenter have access to profile data in serving ads?

A: user trust is core, as is providing highly relevant ads. want users to feel like trust is not violated in any way.

Call is ending at 2:38 pm PST.

Donnie McClurkin Not Anti-Gay - Barack Obama Not To Attend "Embrace The Change" Tour

After much yelling and screaming from some bloggers, Senator Barack Obama decided not to attend the "Embrace The Change" tour the campaign is sponsoring. But the tour goes on.

The idea of the concert tour was to reach out to the religious community, but the opponents to the idea of the concert looked at the record of Donnie McClurkin. The claim of these bloggers is that Donnie McClurkin is anti-gay.

The problem is they're wrong.

This is what the Chicago Tribune wrote:

Gospel singer says he is not anti-gay
By Kelley L. Carter | Tribune staff reporter
7:13 PM CDT, October 23, 2007

Gospel music superstar Donnie McClurkin says he was surprised to wake up Tuesday morning to a media firestorm.

The 47-year-old Grammy Award-winning musician is scheduled to perform this weekend at Sen. Barack Obama's three-day concert series in South Carolina. But in the wake of accusations by a gay-rights group that McClurkin falsely asserts that homosexuality is a choice, bloggers are calling for the Democratic presidential candidate to cancel the singer's Sunday night appearance, saying McClurkin's views are anti-gay and incite hate.

McClurkin told The Associated Press on Monday that "sexuality, everything is a matter of choice." But on Tuesday he told the Tribune that his ideals, and most importantly his ministry, were severely misconstrued.

"I don't believe that even from a religious point of view that Jesus ever discriminated toward anyone, nor do I," McClurkin said in an exclusive interview with the Tribune. "Most of the things that were said were totally out of context and then other things weren't true."

"My only concern is to be in place with Sen. Obama in unity and bring all the factors together for the sake of change," he said. "That's my only thing. Of course some agents have twisted it as though he [Obama] were embracing a racist or a Nazi, and that is anything but true."

McClurkin and Obama first connected last month in California at an Oprah Winfrey fundraiser for the Illinois senator.

"I believe in his stance. I believe in his platform and his agenda. So when they asked me if I would be a part of it, there was no problem," said McClurkin, who has performed at both parties' conventions and identifies himself as a Democrat. "We don't have to agree on everything, but we do have to agree on the main thing: that there needs to be change and I believe he is the candidate to bring it."

For years, McClurkin has talked from the pulpit about how he was raped by a male family member as a child. It was that act, he has said, that sent him into living as a gay man for the better part of 20 years. He now says he is straight and that his ministry is open to those who say they no longer want to live as a gay person. What he doesn't do, he says, is crusade against homosexuality.

"There's never been a statement made by me about curing homosexuality. People are using that in order to incite anger and to twist my whole platform on it. There's no crusade for curing it or to convert everyone. This is just for those who come to me and ask for change."

I think what's happened is some of these liberal bloggers are just plain stupid, and don't look into things. They just shoot off their mouths. This is combined with some Gay activists who struggle to compare themselves with those who are Black, using a "Straight White Male Centric" point of view.

That's where a Straight White Male is viewed as normal, and everyone else is not, so from that perspective, a Gay person can compare themselves to someone Black.

But it's a crock.

The simple fact is that being Gay is a choice. Being of a skin color is not. Just because a person choses to be Gay does not mean their civil rights should be violated. But it is a choice.

I've dated women who said they were Lesbian, has sex, then got married, or in one case, was married, then Lesbian, then dated me.

If your head's spinning, think about mine!

After Seeing Mark Cuban Dance, Marie Osmond Faints - Video

Well, if you saw Mark Cuban's nerdie dance number, you'd faint too. He was booted. Here's the video...

Barack Obama Rally Boston 10/23/07

Barack Obama Rally Boston 10/23/07
Originally uploaded by stevegarfield

Senator Obama was endorsed by Mass Governor Deval Patrick at a huge rally in Boston Common. Here's the video of Governor Patrick's speech:

Patriotism Gives President Bush A Bellyache!

I guess even President Bush gets a stomach ache from the Iraq War he started. In this photo, he's holding his hand down on his belly rather than on his heart. Now, if he just ended the War In Iraq, he'd feel a lot better.

San Diego Hills Fire - Is President Bush "Disaster Challenged?"

According to White House Press Secretary Dana Perino and the AP:

"The last thing California needs right now is a trip from the president to take away assets." Later, she said Bush and California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger agreed during a phone call that Thursday was the best day for Bush to come.

Geez. First, the famous 9-11 delay, then the failed Katrina Response, and now the San Diego Hills Fire . It seems we have a President who's disaster challenged. In events like this, a proactive president would send in the troups.

What's that you say? They're in Iraq?

Oh.

One more reason to end the war.

San Diego Fire - 1,750 Homes Destroyed or Damaged, 100 Businesses Effected

This is the forth day of the raging series of fires that have destroyed or damaged 1,750 homes, closed 100 businesses, and scorched 263,000 acres of land. All of this has resulted in over 500,000 people being displaced from their homes over this time.

I've heard reports of people coming down just to volunteer to help. If you're anywhere but there, it's hard to understand exactly what's going on or the enormity of it, untill you see something like this Google Map here.

The map shows that it's not one fire but many fires spread around a vast area. I count 20 in all, and raging in size from the 200,000 acre Witch Fire to the 160 acres Walker Fire. Whatever the case, the fires -- even the small ones -- are very large in size.

So large, they dwarf the 1991 Oakland Hills Fire. That disaster covered 1,520 acres; this one consists of several blazes, all save for three between 10 and 100 times larger than the Oakland Hills Fire.

It's a series of fires too large for standard fire fighting systems to tackle.

In a mess that really can be traced back to Proposition 13, San Diego County has no fire department, only "a hodgepodge of operations". LA Biz Observed explains this problem in more detail:

Expect a bunch of stories over the next few days about how San Diego was not prepared for this week's firestorms - despite the area having gone through the Cedar Fire disaster in 2003. Steve Erie, the prominent UC San Diego political science professor, tells the WSJ that "the only lessons applied were those that don't cost any money. ...In terms of new fire prevention or fighting capabilities, we have barely made any progress." One central problem, Erie says, is that unlike L.A. County, San Diego doesn't have a countywide fire department. That leaves what he calls a “hodgepodge” of operations.

And while the region tries to cope with a giant disaster without the tools needed to do so properly, Qualcomm Stadium fills with evacuees, seen as a "constant panorama of families in pain and kids trying to figure out why their worlds were grabbed from them.”

So are we.

More on this, but for now, let's watch this video made by Cory Williams, "Mr. Safety" on YouTube, who lives in the fire area:

Chertoff: Lessons from Katrina being applied to fire response

Finally,some sense of competence has returned to the White House.

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said Tuesday that lessons learned from Hurricane Katrina will be used in the federal government's response to wildfires in Southern California.

"I think there's no question that [there were] a couple of the lessons from Katrina which we have put into effect here," Chertoff said.

"First of all, planning and preparation in advance for these kinds of challenges, so that we have worked together and planned together with the Defense Department and with state authorities well in advance of the crisis. That's been a big help here," Chertoff said before boarding a California-bound Coast Guard jet with Federal Emergency Management Agency Director David Paulison; Mark Everson, president and CEO of the American Red Cross; and Matt Bettenhausen, homeland security adviser to California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger.

"Second, we have really flooded the zone as quickly as possible by staging assets to deal both with the firefighting issue and with the response issue," Chertoff said.

Federal emergency agencies and the White House were heavily criticized for their slow response to Katrina. But White House spokeswoman Dana Perino said that since then "integration, additional communication and cooperation amongst the state, local and federal governments have improved."
Chertoff said federal officials began discussing over the weekend the need to have FEMA ready, "and as we saw the evacuation issue becoming more prominent, and the number of people seeking shelter becoming more prominent, we sprang into action yesterday.

"So we've been monitoring the situation continuously. The president's been on top of it. We've been on top of it. And we're going to continue to stay ahead of this as far as we can."

After speaking with Schwarzenegger late Monday, President Bush early Tuesday declared an emergency for seven California counties. He said the order "opens up the opportunity for us to send federal assets to help the governor and those who are fighting these fires."

Chertoff said Tuesday that he hadn't waited for the paperwork to be signed before staging assistance.

"We have been moving cots, blankets, other supplies into the area of San Diego so that we can handle any necessity for additional sheltering capacity," he said. "We've also moved air assets to be poised to take flight when we do have the opportunity to deal with the fire, once the winds begin to die down."

Bush said he is sending Chertoff and Paulison to "listen, develop an inventory of supplies and help we can provide."

The Pentagon has set up a plan to help provide shelter for evacuees and offered a battalion of 800 Marines from Camp Pendleton, north of San Diego, to help fight fires. The Navy has offered an Aegis cruiser, a guided missile destroyer and two fast frigates to support evacuation efforts. The Air National Guard and Air Force Reserve have also sent six C-130 aircraft specially set up to drop water and fire suppressant on the fires.

FEMA is using Naval Air Station Moffett Field, a former naval air station in the San Francisco area, as a staging area for supplies and equipment.

Paulison said his agency is shipping 25,000 more cots and blankets and has 130 generators there.

Off Base? Giuliani Roots For Red Sox To Win WS

Mr. wishwasher continues to show his lack of credibility and committment to a common cause.

Yankees Diehard Says He's Pro-American League

BOSTON (CBS) ― Brace yourselves, Yankees fans.

Former New York City mayor and devoted Yankees fan Rudy Giuliani says he will be rooting for the Red Sox during the World Series.

Giuliani made the admission during a campaign stop at a Boston restaurant. "I'm rooting for the Red Sox," the Republican presidential contender said in response to a question, sparking applause.

"I'm an American League fan, and I go with the American League team, maybe with the exception of the Mets," he said. "Maybe that would be the one time I wouldn't because I'm loyal to New York."

Which raises the question -- if you're loyal to New York, why would you root for the enemy?

Many New Yorkers aren't quite sure, and are quite stumped by his comments.

"Sellout, traitor," one New Yorker told CBS 2. "He's a traitor. You always go with your home team."

Some think Giuliani said he will be rooting for the Sox because he is in Boston. But the Republican presidential candidate said he would make the same admission when he heads to Colorado in the next week or so. "In Colorado you will see, I will have the courage to tell the people of Colorado the same thing -- that I am rooting for the Red Sox in the World Series."

But the whole rooting for the American League squad just doesn't good enough for most Yankee fans.

"How can he go against the Yankees like that? It's unbelievable," another fan told CBS 2.

So does it bother you that Giuliani will root for the Red Sox? Vote in our online poll on the right and tell us what you think!

San Diego County Fire - First-Hand Blogger Accounts

Having went into the Oakland Hills Fire area to help my friend and her parents move out of that area, I can only immagine what San Diego and Malibu dwellers are going through. Here's the first-hand accounts of bloggers on the scene:

Spinnerdude


Ryanstask


Howlingpoint (gave me the idea for this post)


A Life In The Day


Grrrrrrl


Hey Freak


Tenth Muse


Nate Ritter

(also on Twitter with up-to-the-minute info)

Renetto Is A Loose Cannon Knife-Wielding Killer Cop In Video

You've got to see this wild and crazy JibJab video featuring Renetto as -- yep -- a kind of Drity Harry cop.

Republicans Who Skipped Black Debate Took Money From Allegedly Racist Firms

This news is from a blog over at "Off The Bus", a Hull Post section devoted to news from non-journalist sources. Here's most of the post:

While the four top Republican presidential contenders missed the Sept 27 debate at Morgan State University in Baltimore organized to address minority issues, they were busy raking in cash from dozens of business and professional elites, including a top Wall Street banking firm that was sued that same week for racial discrimination.

All in all, it was a grand and enriching week for the four white males most likely to represent the Republicans in the 2008 presidential race. Among them, they amassed over $9 million while they were too "busy" to attend the debate at Morgan State.

The most egregious case is that of the banking house of Morgan Stanley that gave money to the three top Republican contenders during the same week of the minority debate. The National Community Reinvestment Coalition (NCRC) filed a civil rights complaint against Morgan Stanley and its mortgage lender subsidiary Saxon Capital three days before the debate. It was the first challenge against a Wall Street mortgage bundler that alleges redlining in minority communities throughout the United States under the Federal Fair Housing Act.

But Romney, McCain, Thompson and Giuliani weren't a bit inhibited from passing the hat at a company that saddled the gullible with sure-fail housing loans while bypassing qualified minority borrowers. While they didn't feel up to engaging black and Latino questioners at the debate, all but McCain eagerly vacuumed up a total of at least $40,000 that week from Morgan Stanley employees, according to campaign finance reports filed with the FEC (Morgan Stanley executives have given to McCain on other occasions.)

Meanwhile, those succulent sums came from an entity charged in the complaint with having "intentionally structured underwriting to deny homeownership to qualified African American, Latino, Pan-Pacific and Native American communities across the country," according to according to NCRC President & CEO John Taylor.

Hillary Clinton and Rudy Giuliani Spend Donor Money On Five-Star Hotels - Yahoo!

Senator Clinton and Former Mayor Rudy Giuliani should be very careful how they spend their money. Take a look at this Yahoo! report.

WASHINGTON (AFP) - Doughnut eateries, stationery chains and purveyors of private jets are cashing in as White House campaigns open their warchests leading into the make-or-break weeks of primary voting.

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Financial data released by the candidates shows they have raised collectively a staggering 420 million dollars this year, led by Democratic frontrunner Hillary Clinton, who has taken in just under 91 million.

Voluminous reports filed with the Federal Election Commission for the third quarter of 2007 also provide a snapshot of how, for the poorer second tier of candidates, it is a tale of two campaigns.

Clinton and her chief Republican rival Rudolph Guiliani spent a fortune on five-star hotels, spa retreats and chartered jets as they pursued their presidential quests in style.

But Texas Representative Ron Paul from the libertarian wing of the Republican Party (campaign issues: scrap income tax, the Federal Reserve and gun control) saves his pennies at motel chains.

"You know, we don't travel around with a retinue of media in a private jet," said Mike Gravel, a rank outsider for the Democratic nomination who has raised just 239,000 dollars overall.

"And, of course, I pay a price for that, because they don't cover me on a continuous basis like they do the other candidates, but that's the nature of the beast," the former Alaska senator told PBS television.

Through the services of a company called Flight Options, Republican John McCain had planned to head to electioneering stops by private jet.

But as he burned through cash, the Arizona senator took more commercial flights and recouped more than 420,000 dollars from canceling charters with Flight Options.

Humble aides for all the candidates were to be found in the cheap eats that dot the United States, such as the IHOP pancake chain, McDonald's and Dunkin' Donuts.

Nothing was too small to be itemized: someone in Team Clinton spent 24.07 dollars at a Krispy Kreme branch in South Carolina on September 29. Paul listed all his gasoline receipts from refueling stops on lonely highways.

Fedex did a roaring trade from printing and delivering campaign materials, Staples was the favored supplier of the stationery, and American Express was raking it in from charges on the candidates' hefty credit card bills.

With this campaign on course to top the billion dollar mark by the time the next president is elected next November, some of the contenders are spending freely to raise their exposure before the first primaries.

Among the Republicans, former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney spent over 21 million dollars from July to September -- over double the amount he raised. But then Romney is a multi-millionaire who can afford to dip into the red.

Much of the cash from the man bidding to be America's first Mormon president went on a television advertising blitz in New Hampshire and Iowa, which will hold their first nominating contests in less than three months.

"Because the calendar is not yet fixed the strategies are in constant flux," said Costas Panagopoulos, a politics professor at Fordham University who specializes in elections research.

"At the end of the day all candidates will spend heavily on TV but other media are on their plates as well," he said, noting that radio and the Internet are playing a bigger role than ever in grassroots campaigning.

Clinton's main Democratic rivals, Barack Obama and John Edwards, are banking on early advances in this packed election cycle as a springboard to the party's nomination.

Both contenders have lavished millions on building up campaign operations across the flatlands of Iowa, and are more active on the airwaves than the former First Lady, who does not lack for name recognition.

Obama is not too far behind Clinton in the cash stakes, and the Democrats' fundraising take as a whole has dwarfed the Republican effort.

But Giuliani -- who spent about 13 million dollars in the third quarter -- is campaigning harder in more populous states such as Florida, New Jersey and Illinois that will vote later.

For some Giuliani backers, the style in which the former New York mayor travels is no problem.

"I don't give a damn whether he's staying at Motel 6 or Ritz Carlton," one unidentified donor to Giuliani told the Washington Post. "What I care about is where he is in the polls."

San Diego County Fire Disaster - AP and SF Gate

Fire capt: 'A lot of people are going to lose their homes today'

By ALLISON HOFFMAN and GILLIAN FLACCUS, Associated Press Writers
Monday, October 22, 2007

(10-22) 11:29 PDT SAN DIEGO, (AP) --

Nearly 250,000 people were forced to flee their homes in San Diego County Monday as about a dozen blazes pushed by hurricane-force winds burned throughout Southern California.
The fires have burned about 100,000 acres in San Diego County, said county Supervisor Ron Roberts. "This is a major emergency," he said.
"We have more houses burning than we have people and engine companies to fight them," said San Diego Fire Captain Lisa Blake. "A lot of people are going to lose their homes today."
About a dozen blazes erupted over the weekend, churned up by the strong Santa Ana winds and made worse because of drought-parched land from the high desert to the Pacific Ocean. Things got worse Monday, when several new fires sprouted and other fires merged, adding to the 40,000 acres — or 62 square miles — that burned over the weekend in seven counties, including Los Angeles, Orange and San Diego.
In northern San Diego County, hundreds of patients were evacuated Monday from a hospital and nursing homes in the path of the so-called Witch Creek fire. Pomerado Hospital and neighboring nursing homes in Poway, a San Diego suburb, were evacuating patients in ambulances and school buses, said sheriff's spokeswoman Susan Knauss.
All San Diego Police Department officers and off duty detectives were ordered to return to work to help with evacuations and other fire-related emergencies.
In many cases, crews were slowed fighting fires because they were too busy rescuing residents who refused to leave, fire officials said.
"They didn't evacuate at all, or delayed until it was too late," said Bill Metcalf, chief of the North County Fire Protection District. "And those folks who are making those decisions are actually stripping fire resources."
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has declared a state of emergency in seven counties.
"Its a tragic time for California. The devastating fires have killed so far one person and injured four firefighters," the governor said at a press conference in Malibu, where a church, homes and historic castle were destroyed.
One person died in a fire near San Diego, which burned more than 14,000 acres — or about 22 square miles — about 70 miles southeast of San Diego, just north of the Mexican border town of Tecate, California Department of Forestry spokesman Matt Streck said.
More than a dozen people have been hospitalized with burns and smoke inhalation, including four fighters — three were in critical condition — at the UC San Diego Medical Center Regional Burn Center, officials said. Some of the injured were hikers, and others may be illegal immigrants.
Mandatory evacuations were ordered in several communities in the San Bernardino mountains, where 1,500 homes were threatened. Two fires were burning about 400 acres west of Lake Arrowhead and in the Green Valley area.
Firefighters said they were unable to send air power to the mountains because of the velocity of the winds.
A wildfire in Orange County that grew to 8,800 acres was believed to be caused by arson, Orange County Fire Authority spokeswoman Lynnette Round said. It was 30 percent contained. A 1,049-inmate jail was being evacuated because of heavy smoke, said sheriff's spokesman Jim Amormino. Inmates were being bused from the James A. Musick Facility in Irvine.
Twenty-five structures in the suburbs around Santa Clarita were destroyed, Los Angeles County Deputy Fire Chief Glenn Massey said. That blaze, called the Buckweed Fire, had burned about 25,000 acres.
About 120 people spent the night on cots in the gymnasium of Saugus High School, according to principal Bill Bolde.
Michele Beard fled her Hasley Canyon home with her husband, mother-in-law and three older children.
"It just lit up the whole mountainside fiery red," said Beard, 48. "I had never seen anything like that so close before."
In San Diego, where seven fires were burning, the Witch Creek Fire, which has been burning since Sunday, jumped Interstate 15 into the densely populated Rancho Bernardo neighborhood as authorities ordered hundreds of thousands of residents to leave their homes. It merged with a smaller fire that broke out near the San Diego Wild Animal Park and moved toward the wealthy suburb of Rancho Santa Fe. By late morning, more than 30,000 acres had burned. Authorities said an untold number of homes had also burned.
Qualcomm Stadium, home to the NFL Chargers, was added to a growing list of evacuation centers.
San Diego County spokeswoman Lesley Kirk said fire crews were stretched thin and were anxiously awaiting reinforcements from other parts of the state.
"The winds are up, it's very, very dangerous conditions," Kirk said. "Fires are popping up all over the place."
Flames also forced the evacuation of the community of Ramona, which has a population of about 36,000.
Several structures were burned on the edge of town and sheriff's deputies called residents to alert them the fire was approaching the city, said San Diego sheriff's Lt. Phil Brust.
The fires were affecting border security operations, said Col. David Baldwin, director of operations for the California National Guard.
Guardsmen assigned to the border were forced to evacuate one of their barracks and troops were aiding evacuations, Baldwin said.
"The border is still secure, but agents are evacuating the threatened areas and the Guard is supporting that operation," Baldwin said.
Baldwin said four California National Guard UH-60 helicopters were fighting the fire and the state had requested help from the New Mexico National Guard in the form of two heavy-lift helicopters. Marines from Camp Pendleton also may be called in, he said.
In Malibu, about 700 firefighters worked to protect hundreds of homes in several upscale communities nestled in the hills. About 1,500 people were evacuated and the blaze destroyed a church and several homes, one of them the landmark Castle Kashan, a stately fortress with turrets and arched windows.
The castle belonged to Lilly Lawrence, the daughter of a former Iranian oil minister. She said she was able to gather a few things before the fire engulfed her home, including some jewelry and memorabilia that included Elvis Presley's Army fatigues.
In all, five homes and two commercial buildings had been confirmed lost throughout the Malibu area, Los Angeles County Fire Chief P. Michael Freeman said. Nine more homes were damaged, he said.
The fire is expected to burn for another two to three days, he said. Until the blaze is extinguished, "there will literally be thousands of homes that will be threatened at one time or another," he said.
___

Ron Paul Searches Rank High On Technorati Again Today

The appearance of searches for Ron Paul blog posts has become a daily affair on Technorati.com, and today's no exception at all.

Many are writing about Paul's performance in Sunday's Republican Debate, which I did not see. Plus it seems that Fox News is at war with Ron Paul, blocking any positive news about his debate performance, or reporting that he won the post-debate poll Fox established.

Board Results CPA A Big Deal Today

For some weird reason "Board Results CPA" is a large lookup on Technorati, but not for any one reason. The articles are all over the place.

It may be a totally random development.

Rescues strain fire resources as California wildfires rage

RAMONA, California (CNN) -- Helping residents who ignored evacuation orders diverted fire crews away from firefighting efforts Monday as wildfires burned out of control in the San Diego area, officials said.

"We've been unable to do any suppression effort because, in most cases, the fire resources are being used ... to do rescues," said Bill Metcalf, chief of the North County Fire Protection District in Fallbrook.

Metcalf said the wildfire situation in the San Diego area "has gotten dramatically worse overnight."

As the sun rose in Southern California, "we're faced with a situation ... which is worse than many of us could've imagined," Metcalf said.

Authorities ordered thousands of Southern Californians to evacuate Sunday and Monday as at least 12 wildfires, driven by hurricane-force winds, set trees, cars and buildings on fire.

Officials reported at least one death and 17 injuries Sunday.

A long line of vehicles streamed westward out of Ramona, northeast of San Diego, on Monday morning after the mandatory evacuation order as flames of the Witch wildfire closed rapidly on the San Diego County community of 10,000 homes.

The 2003 Cedar fire remains fresh in residents' memories. It killed a dozen people south of Ramona four years ago this week, consuming more than 280,000 acres near the town.

The Witch fire was one of several major wildfires to ignite Sunday around Los Angeles and San Diego, fueled by hot, dry conditions and pushed by fierce Santa Ana winds. The blaze threatened thousands of homes.

Large fires bore down on Malibu, Santa Clarita and two rural communities east of San Diego early Monday as thousands of firefighters battled the blazes.

California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger declared a state of emergency in seven counties.
The Witch fire moved much faster than expected, San Diego Mayor Jerry Sanders said, and it penetrated the San Diego city limits early Monday.

Sanders urged San Diegans in the fire's potential path to "collect important belongings so they can evacuate immediately." He said San Diego police would make reverse 911 calls to inform residents to leave their homes.

The Harris fire straddling Highway 94 east of San Diego caused the death and injuries -- including burns to four firefighters. Starting Sunday morning, the blaze had spread more than 20,000 acres by late Sunday, a spokesman for the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection said. It was 5 percent contained, he said.

Thirteen civilians had burns from the Harris fire, said spokeswoman Roxanne Provaznik.

While smaller fires burned late Sunday around Los Angeles, major wildfires threatened the beach community of Malibu and the city of Santa Clarita.

About 1,400 firefighters battled the Malibu fire that started Sunday morning. By late evening, it had spread more than 2,200 acres, destroying 25 structures -- including five homes, a glass company and Malibu Presbyterian Church. Several hundred homes -- including those of movie director James Cameron of "Titantic" fame and singers Olivia Newton-John and Tanya Tucker -- were evacuated.

"All my stage clothing, boots, belts and wardrobe is in that house," Tucker said. "I have so much memorabilia since I just moved from Nashville to Malibu."

The Malibu flames "laid down" a bit, slowing their spread overnight, a Los Angeles Fire Department spokesman said.

The Pacific Coast Highway remained shut down in Malibu.

A larger fire, fueled by wind gusts up to 80 mph, spread more than 12,500 acres around Santa Clarita about 35 miles northwest of downtown Los Angeles.

Officials deployed at least 400 firefighters to battle the fire, which destroyed an estimated 17 buildings and threatened 3,800 Santa Clarita Valley homes. Several communities faced mandatory evacuations.

Taxi Drivers To Strike Tomorrow, Again

Still Protest GPS Systems, Credit Card Machines In Cabs

NEW YORK (CBS) ― For the second time in two months, some taxi drivers are planning to walk off the job.

The 24-hour strike will begin Monday morning.

The drivers are angry with the city requirement mandating all cabs have GPS and credit card machines installed.

The city has a contingency plan in place, which includes zone pricing and riders sharing taxis.

Stay with CBS 2HD for all the late-breaking developments on the second taxi strike.

Tennessee 38, Houston 36- Bironas sets mark for field goals in a game

By KRISTIE RIEKEN, AP Sports Writer
October 21, 2007

HOUSTON (AP) -- With Vince Young on the sidelines, the Tennessee Titans couldn't finish drives. With the day Rob Bironas had, it didn't matter.

Bironas kicked an NFL-record eight field goals, including the game-winner as time expired, to lead the Titans to a 38-36 win over the Houston Texans on Sunday.

Backup Kerry Collins led the offense while Young missed playing in his hometown because of a strained quadriceps. Collins didn't make many mistakes, but the offense couldn't capitalize in the red zone, ushering Bironas into the record book.

The record-setting kick foiled a spirited comeback by the Texans (3-4), who scored 29 points in the fourth quarter, capped by a 53-yard touchdown pass from Sage Rosenfels to Andre' Davis to take a 36-35 lead with 57 seconds to play.

The Titans (4-2) faced a third-and-10 at their 37 when Collins found Roydell Williams on a 46-yard pass that set up the winning kick.
Bironas said he didn't realize he was closing in on the mark.

"I knew we'd hit quite a few, but I try not to count," Bironas said. "I try not to know the distances when I go out there, so I'm always concentrating on making the same kick. I've never really counted. I'll remember this one, though."

Bironas' last two field goals were from 29 yards and he connected from 52, 43, 25, 21, 30 and 28 yards to break the previous record of seven field goals held by Billy Cundiff, Chris Boniol, Rich Karlis and Jim Bakken.

He doubled his field goal total for the season Sunday after kicking eight field goals in the five previous games combined. When someone pointed out that he had five field goals by halftime, he found it strange.

"I was like: `I've almost kicked as many as we've kicked the whole season,"' he said. "I'll take them when we need them."

Bironas also kicked two extra points and set the NFL record for most points by a kicker with 26. Cundiff's 23 points on Sept. 15, 2003, was the previous high.

Young was active, but didn't play and Collins got his first win as a starter in Tennessee after losing the first three games of last season. Coach Jeff Fisher said Young could have played if Collins had been injured, but that he wasn't at "full speed."
"I wasn't going to play at all because I didn't have any preparation or practicing," Young said. "I really feel like I need to practice to play. I can't just go out there and go off just off talent. That's not the type of guy I am."

Houston's offense stalled throughout the first three quarters before the furious rally began with a 7-yard touchdown catch by David Anderson early in the fourth quarter. Before that 70-yard drive, the Texans had managed just 34 yards of offense. A two-point conversion by Davis made it 32-15.

Texans coach Gary Kubiak blamed the offensive woes on himself.

"I'm just very disappointed in this guy you're looking at right here," Kubiak said. "For us to go out there and play offensively that way for that long, there's no excuse. That's my job."

Houston Starter Matt Schaub missed big chunks of the first half and the entire second half with ankle and hip injuries. Kubiak said Schaub would have an MRI on his hip but that X-rays on his ankle were negative.

Rosenfels accounted for four of Houston's six turnovers by throwing three interceptions and losing a fumble in Schaub's place.

"If we just convert on a couple of those turnovers that we got, deep in their territory and got touchdowns instead of field goals, we wouldn't have been in the situation we were in at the end," Collins said. "That's obviously going to be a point of emphasis for us and one we need to keep working on."

The Texans cut the lead to 32-22 on a 6-yard touchdown reception by Kevin Walter with about eight minutes left. The Texans forced a punt, but Anderson fumbled it and Tennessee recovered, putting a damper on Houston's comeback hopes.

Bironas seventh field goal made it 35-22 with 3:47 remaining.

But Jeb Putzier's 7-yard touchdown catch with less than two minutes remaining cut the lead to 35-29. The Texans recovered their first onside kick attempt but had to re-kick after an illegal formation penalty.

They recovered the second one, too, to set up Davis' touchdown.

Rosenfels four touchdown passes in the fourth quarter tied an NFL record. He finished 22-for-35 for 290 yards.

Chris Henry and LenDale White scored Tennessee's only touchdowns and White finished with 27 carries for 104 yards.

DeMeco Ryans sacked Collins, causing a fumble which he returned 26 yards for a touchdown that gave Houston a 7-3 lead in the first quarter.

The Texans managed 24 yards and two first downs in the first half, with the second one coming on a penalty. Jacoby Jones fumbled early in the first quarter and Rosenfels threw an interception and lost a fumble before halftime.

Rosenfels replaced Schaub midway through the first half after he injured his ankle on a sack. He threw the interception to Nick Harper on his first play.

Schaub returned in the second quarter, but was knocked out of the game just before halftime by a helmet-to-helmet hit by Albert Haynesworth. Rosenfels fumbled on the next play to set up a 28-yard field goal by Bironas, his fifth of the half.

Haynesworth said he didn't think it was a helmet-to-helmet hit and said it would have been better if Schaub would have stayed in.

"Well, heck, I mean we probably would have won this game 35-7 if he stayed in," Haynesworth said. "It was good to knock him out I guess, but he's going to come back and I don't think there'll be any kind of quarterback controversy because they pay that guy a lot of money."

Notes

The Texans had just 39 yards rushing. ... Titans fullback Ahmard Hall has a broken arm and will have surgery, Fisher said.

New England 49, Miami 28

By STEVEN WINE, AP Sports Writer
October 21, 2007

MIAMI (AP) -- Tom Brady emerged from the locker room Sunday wearing a suit and tie complemented by a pocket scarf, his stylish look marred only by a few small drink stains on one side.

So he's not perfect.

But he and the New England Patriots are awfully good.

Flawless at the start and off the bench, Brady threw a team-record six touchdown passes to help the unbeaten Patriots rout the winless Miami Dolphins 49-28.

With his team comfortably ahead, Brady came out early in the fourth quarter, then re-entered and threw for New England's final score. His TD total exceeded his career high of five, set last week against Dallas.
"He's looking awesome," Dolphins linebacker Zach Thomas said. "He has always been awesome. That's where it all starts for them. But he has more talent to work with now."

The Patriots, who led 42-7 at halftime, improved to 7-0 for the first time in their 48-year history.

"We've got a long way to go," Brady said. "Our goals are bigger than winning seven games this year."

Brady completed his first 11 passes for 220 yards and four scores, including throws of 35 and 50 yards to Randy Moss. His other touchdown passes covered 14 and 16 yards to Wes Welker, 30 to Donte Stallworth and 2 to Kyle Brady.

"Those guys are making the plays," Brady said. "I'm just throwing it. They're making my job awful easy."

Brady has 27 touchdown passes after seven games and is on pace for 61. The NFL record is 49 set by Peyton Manning in 2004.

The drubbing was the biggest downer yet for the Dolphins, who fell to 0-7 for the first time in their 41 seasons. They next play the New York Giants in London.

"We can't win in America," defensive end Jason Taylor said. "Maybe we can win overseas."

Miami also lost running back Ronnie Brown to a knee injury in the third quarter. Brown, who came into the game leading the NFL in yards from scrimmage, is scheduled to undergo an MRI exam Monday.

The Patriots have won all seven of their games by at least 17 points, matching a league record to start a season. They showed little letup until backup quarterback Matt Cassel entered the game with 11 minutes left.

When Taylor intercepted Cassel's second pass and returned it 36 yards for a touchdown to make the score 42-21, Patriots coach Bill Belichick sent Brady back in.

"I did it because of the score," Belichick said. "One more turnover, and then it's a 14-point game in the middle of the fourth quarter."

"Coach Belichick looked back over at me and goes, `Yep, you're going back in,"' Brady said. "By that time I had taken all my stuff off, so I suited back up."

Brady then drove New England 59 yards in four plays, the last a touchdown pass to Welker.

The Patriots were that relentless all afternoon, dominating even on special teams. Willie Andrews returned a kickoff 77 yards for a touchdown. The first time the Patriots punted, Chris Hanson's kick pinned the Dolphins at their 1.

Even when Miami forced New England into a third-and-18 situation, Brady hit Moss for a touchdown. Moss outfought defenders in the end zone for both of his scores, making one of the catches one-handed.

"If you want to know why we're 0-7, you look at plays like that, and it says a lot," Miami cornerback Andre Goodman said.

But the entire NFL is struggling to stop Moss, who has 10 touchdown catches in his first season with the Patriots.

"You give him a chance, he usually comes down with it," Brady said. "He's such a mismatch. He has a size and speed advantage on every defender he plays against."

Brady finished 21-for-25 for 354 yards and no turnovers. For the second game in a row, the Patriots scored their highest points total in 23 years. Their 42 points by halftime were a franchise record for a half.

Notes: S Renaldo Hill hurt his right knee on Moss' second touchdown pass. S Courtney Bryan hurt his thigh, further depleting Miami at a position plagued by injuries. ... Taylor's touchdown was the eighth of his career, breaking the modern career NFL record for a defensive lineman he shared with George Martin. ... Patriots RB Laurence Maroney returned after missing three games with a groin injury. He carried six times for 31 yards.

77 Percent Of Americans Approve Of Marriage Between Blacks And Whites

That's according to a video by The Gallup Group and presented by Dr. Frank Newport, editor and chief of the Gallup Group. The video also reports that Independents are more supportive over Democrats or Republicans. It also says that Blacks are more supportive than Whites. Additionally, the older a person is over 50 years of age, the more likely they are not to support marriage between Blacks and Whites.

MacBook and Coffee - Two Friends Talk About The Mac

Bill Maher Goes Off On 9-11 Conspiracy Theorist Hecklers

Part of me thinks Bill's jumping into the audience was to use YouTube to boost his show's ratings by generating buzz. He's got the buzz; let's see how the ratings do in the future.

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Bill Maher can add "security guard" to his job description alongside comedian and political commentator.
Maher helped security give the boot to a rowdy protester from the studio of his weekly HBO show Real Time with Bill Maher on Friday night, and it was all captured on live television.

Maher was talking science during one of his weekly panel discussions when a protester in his audience stood, held up a smuggled-in sign reading "9/11 is a cover up fraud" and shouted comments to the same effect.

The host tried to shout down the audience member, who only became more agitated.

"Do we have some (expletive) security in this building," Maher yelled, "or do I have to come down there and kick his (expletive)?"

FIND MORE STORIES IN: HBO | Television | Elizabeth | Bill Maher | Maher, Bill | John Lovell
When security reached the man's aisle and he resisted leaving, Maher ran into the seats and helped them push him out the door, shouting "Out! Out! Out!"

Several other protesters, sprinkled throughout the audience, then stood up and shouted.

"This isn't the Iowa Caucus, OK, we're not here to debate," Maher shouted with most of his audience cheering him on. "This is the problem with live television."

The incident was shown live on the East Coast, and the network appeared to show the entire affair unedited for the taped-delayed West Coast version.

After the instigators were ejected, Maher told his panelists — MSNBC's Chris Matthews, Los Angeles Times columnist Joel Stein and Congresswoman Sheila Jackson — that they often linger outside his studio to share 9/11 conspiracy theories with him and try to get into the show.

"It's the only time I defend Bush," he said.

"I'm thinking about firing my audience department," he added.

Regular audience members found the ruckus thrilling.

"We picked a very exciting night to be here," Eliot Stein, a 54-year-old high school teacher, said via cellphone. "There's few live TV shows anymore, and here you got to see, it was like a movie. it was great."

Stein's friend John Lovell said "It was positively surreal."

Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards and wife Elizabeth had been in the studio for an interview before the panel discussion and dustup.

Elizabeth Edwards was shown in the audience after her husband's interview, but it was not clear whether she remained in the seats during the incident.

Phone and e-mail messages left with HBO officials late Friday were not immediately returned.

Second Life Focus Of CSI: NY Episode Wednesday

According to TechCrunch , CSI: NY will go to Second Life:

Second Life is bracing itself for an influx of new members this coming week with the long awaited episode of CSI:NY does Second Life to be shown in the United States on Wednesday.
The episode will see Mac Taylor (Gary Sinise) entering Second Life to pursue a killer who has killed a Second Life user in a case of virtual stalking gone too far.

CSI:NY fans will be encouraged to join Second Life and investigate the case by following a link on the CBS website. CSI:NY will have three options for CSI-related inworld activities. The first option will allow viewers to walk around virtual New York buildings and visit a CSI lab and play forensic games.

The second option consists of a game called “Murder by Zuiker,” a unique murder plot which can be solved by users finding clues. The 100 people who come closest to solving the murder will win virtual gifts.

Here's the CBS preview on YouTube:

Top Clinton Aids Have Lobbied and Worked For Iowa Ememy Monsanto

Currently, Hillary Clinton's being hammered for holding her "Rural Americans For Hillary" party at a lobbying firm's office in Washington DC, and for Monsanto, which has a terrible record with Iowans and even that state's Attorney General's investigating their business practices.

But I learned that Clinton herself has ties to Monsanto. In 1998 top aides to her husband President Bill Clinton lobbied for Monsanto in Europe -- including President Clinton and Al Gore. According to Commondreams.org...

Top Clinton aides--including U.S. Trade Rep. Charlene Barshevsky, Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, Secretary of Agriculture Dan Glickman and Secretary of Commerce William Daley--also have lobbied their European counterparts on Monsanto's behalf.

Even Bill Clinton and Al Gore got in on the act, engaging in some last minute arm-twisting of Irish Prime Minister Bertie Ahren and French President Lionel Jospin. Both the French and the Irish caved in to the pressure.

Indeed, Monsanto's well-known for hiring former aids to Bill Clinton. The most famous example is Mickey Kantor, who after representing President Clinton as trade representative, became a Monsanto Board member .

Senator Clinton's got herself in a real pickle this time. This is so bad, she should issue a formal appology to Iowa voters for her conduct in associating with Monsanto.

Hillary Clinton Uses Lobbiyst Troutman Sanders To Meet Iowa Alledged Violator Monsanto

Troutman Sanders is hosting a party for Hillary Clinton and "Rural America"

First, who's Troutman Sanders? Well, their website reports a huge client list of large corporations . which is listed below in this blog post.

What Hillary Clinton's doing is using their office space to meet Monsanto, one of Troutman Sanders' major clients. The title of the event is "Rural Americans for Hillary." Monsanto is under investigation by office of Iowa Attorney General Tom Miller regarding its business practices in Iowa and how they impact Iowa farmers. Monsanto's also the focus of a patent dispute with Iowa State University.

What's weird is that the event is not only entitled "Rural Americans for Hillary" but is being held in Washington DC and that Monsanto is judged as the most unethical investment in the World by one website.

Hillary's getting bashed by Iowans over this story, and it could be the nail in the coffin of her chances to win in Iowa. Meanwhile, let's look at the lobbying firm Troutman Sanders. It's no surprise that Hillary Clinton's not taking questions from Iowa voters at press conferences.

They are listed and seen as lobbyists. As stated, Monsanto's one of Troutman Sanders' top clients, but in addition, former aids to President Bill Clinton have lobbied for Monstanto in the recent past.

TSPAG representative client list:

Aetna
AFLAC
American Insurance Association
American Lawyer Media, Inc.
Anheuser-Busch Companies, Inc.
Assurant Health
BellSouth Corporation
Branded Pharmaceutical Association
Camp, Dresser & McKee, Inc
CarMax
Cerner
CIGNA Healthcare
Citigroup Global Markets, Inc.
City of Atlanta
City of Forsyth, Georgia
City of Sacramento City Manager's Office
City of Sacramento Department of Utilities
City of Watsonville
Coastal Heritage Society
The Coca-Cola Company
Columbus Community Services
County Sanitation Districts of Los Angeles County
Digimarc ID Systems
Entertainment Software Association
First United Ethanol, LLC
General Electric Company
General Motors Corporation
Georgia Crown Distributing Company
Georgia Southern University
Gilbane Building Company
Gulf Coast Waste Disposal Authority
Home Builders Association of Georgia
Lewis & Clark Rural Water System, Inc.
Long Fence
L. R. Wechsler, Ltd.
Medco Health Solutions, Inc.
Merck & Company
Metropolitan Water District of Southern California
Microsoft Corporation
Mid-Dakota Rural Water System, Inc.
Monterey County Administrative Office
Monterey County Water Resources Agency
Monsanto
Novartis Pharmaceuticals
Outfitters Association
Pajaro Valley Water Management Agency
Paulding County Airport Authority
Pharmaceutical Research Manufacturers of America
Press Ganey Associates
Property Casualty Insurers Association of America
Prudential Financial, Inc.
Recording Industry Association of America
Schwan's Global Supply Chain, Inc.
Southern Company
Synovus Financial Corp.
USA Rice Federation
University of Arkansas, School of Agriculture
Verizon Wireless
Virginia Bar Association
Virginia Economic Developers Association
Vitech
Walter Industries

Teachers Having Sex With Students: 2,500 Cases Since 2001 - AP Report

We all knew there was a problem, but this study shows just how large it really has been.

AP: Sexual Misconduct Plagues US Schools

By MARTHA IRVINE and ROBERT TANNER
AP National Writers

The young teacher hung his head, avoiding eye contact. Yes, he had touched a fifth-grader's breast during recess. "I guess it was just lust of the flesh," he told his boss.

That got Gary C. Lindsey fired from his first teaching job in Oelwein, Iowa. But it didn't end his career. He taught for decades in Illinois and Iowa, fending off at least a half-dozen more abuse accusations.

When he finally surrendered his teaching license in 2004 - 40 years after that first little girl came forward - it wasn't a principal or a state agency that ended his career. It was one persistent victim and her parents.

Lindsey's case is just a small example of a widespread problem in American schools: sexual misconduct by the very teachers who are supposed to be nurturing the nation's children.

Students in America's schools are groped. They're raped. They're pursued, seduced and think they're in love.

An Associated Press investigation found more than 2,500 cases over five years in which educators were punished for actions from bizarre to sadistic.

There are 3 million public school teachers nationwide, most devoted to their work. Yet the number of abusive educators - nearly three for every school day - speaks to a much larger problem in a system that is stacked against victims.

Most of the abuse never gets reported. Those cases reported often end with no action. Cases investigated sometimes can't be proven, and many abusers have several victims.

And no one - not the schools, not the courts, not the state or federal governments - has found a surefire way to keep molesting teachers out of classrooms.

Those are the findings of an AP investigation in which reporters sought disciplinary records in all 50 states and the District of Columbia. The result is an unprecedented national look at the scope of sex offenses by educators - the very definition of breach of trust.

The seven-month investigation found 2,570 educators whose teaching credentials were revoked, denied, surrendered or sanctioned from 2001 through 2005 following allegations of sexual misconduct.

Young people were the victims in at least 1,801 of the cases, and more than 80 percent of those were students. At least half the educators who were punished by their states also were convicted of crimes related to their misconduct.

The findings draw obvious comparisons to sex abuse scandals in other institutions, among them the Roman Catholic Church. A review by America's Catholic bishops found that about 4,400 of 110,000 priests were accused of molesting minors from 1950 through 2002.

Clergy abuse is part of the national consciousness after a string of highly publicized cases. But until now, there's been little sense of the extent of educator abuse.

Beyond the horror of individual crimes, the larger shame is that the institutions that govern education have only sporadically addressed a problem that's been apparent for years.

"From my own experience - this could get me in trouble - I think every single school district in the nation has at least one perpetrator. At least one," says Mary Jo McGrath, a California lawyer who has spent 30 years investigating abuse and misconduct in schools. "It doesn't matter if it's urban or rural or suburban."

One report mandated by Congress estimated that as many as 4.5 million students, out of roughly 50 million in American schools, are subject to sexual misconduct by an employee of a school sometime between kindergarten and 12th grade. That figure includes verbal harassment that's sexual in nature.

Jennah Bramow, one of Lindsey's accusers in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, wonders why there isn't more outrage.

"You're supposed to be able to send your kids to school knowing that they're going to be safe," says Bramow, now 20. While other victims accepted settlement deals and signed confidentiality agreements, she sued her city's schools for failing to protect her and others from Lindsey - and won. Only then was Lindsey's teaching license finally revoked.

As an 8-year-old elementary-school student, Bramow told how Lindsey forced her hand on what she called his "pee-pee."

"How did you know it was his pee-pee?" an interviewer at St. Luke's Child Protection Center in Cedar Rapids asked Jennah in a videotape, taken in 1995.

"'Cause I felt something?" said Jennah, then a fidgety girl with long, dark hair.

"How did it feel?" the investigator asked.

"Bumpy," Jennah replied. She drew a picture that showed how Lindsey made her touch him on the zipper area of his pants.

Lindsey, now 68, refused multiple requests for an interview. "It never occurs to you people that some people don't want their past opened back up," he said when an AP reporter approached him at his home outside Cedar Rapids and asked questions.

That past, according to evidence presented in the Bramow's civil case, included accusations from students and parents along with reprimands from principals that were filed away, explained away and ultimately ignored until 1995, when accusations from Bramow and two other girls forced his early retirement. Even then, he kept his teaching license until the Bramows took the case public and filed a complaint with the state.

Like Lindsey, the perpetrators that the AP found are everyday educators - teachers, school psychologists, principals and superintendents among them. They're often popular and recognized for excellence and, in nearly nine out of 10 cases, they're male. While some abused students in school, others were cited for sexual misconduct after hours that didn't necessarily involve a kid from their classes, such as viewing or distributing child pornography.

They include:

- Joseph E. Hayes, a former principal in East St. Louis, Ill. DNA evidence in a civil case determined that he impregnated a 14-year-old student. Never charged criminally, his license was suspended in 2003. He has ignored an order to surrender it permanently.

- Donald M. Landrum, a high school teacher in Polk County, N.C. His bosses warned him not to meet with female students behind closed doors. They put a glass window in his office door, but Landrum papered over it. Police later found pornography and condoms in his office and alleged that he was about to have sex with a female student. His license was revoked in 2005.

- Rebecca A. Boicelli, a former teacher in Redwood City, Calif. She conceived a child with a 16-year-old former student then went on maternity leave in 2004 while police investigated. She was hired to teach in a nearby school district; board members said police hadn't told them about the investigation.

The overwhelming majority of cases the AP examined involved teachers in public schools. Private school teachers rarely turn up because many are not required to have a teaching license and, even when they have one, disciplinary actions are typically handled within the school.

Two of the nation's major teachers unions, the American Federation of Teachers and the National Education Association, each denounced sex abuse while emphasizing that educators' rights also must be taken into account.

"Students must be protected from sexual predators and abuse, and teachers must be protected from false accusations," said NEA President Reg Weaver, who refused to be interviewed and instead released a two-paragraph statement.

Kathy Buzad of the AFT said that "if there's one incident of sexual misconduct between a teacher and a student that's one too many."

The United States has grown more sympathetic to victims of sex abuse over recent decades, particularly when it comes to young people. Laws that protect children from abusers bear the names of young victims. Police have made pursuing Internet predators a priority. People convicted of abuse typically face tough sentences and registry as sex offenders.

Even so, sexually abusive teachers continue to take advantage, and there are several reasons why.

For one, many Americans deny the problem, and even treat the abuse with misplaced fascination. Popular media reports trumpet relationships between attractive female teachers and male students.

"It's dealt with in a salacious manner with late-night comedians saying 'What 14-year-old boy wouldn't want to have sex with his teacher?' It trivializes the whole issue," says Robert Shoop, a professor of educational administration at Kansas State University who has written a book aimed at helping school districts identify and deal with sexual misconduct.

"In other cases, it's reported as if this is some deviant who crawled into the school district - 'and now that they're gone, everything's OK.' But it's much more prevalent than people would think."

The AP investigation found efforts to stop individual offenders but, overall, a deeply entrenched resistance toward recognizing and fighting abuse. It starts in school hallways, where fellow teachers look away or feel powerless to help. School administrators make behind-the-scenes deals to avoid lawsuits and other trouble. And in state capitals and Congress, lawmakers shy from tough state punishments or any cohesive national policy for fear of disparaging a vital profession.

That only enables rogue teachers, and puts kids who aren't likely to be believed in a tough spot.

In case after case the AP examined, accusations of inappropriate behavior were dismissed. One girl in Mansfield, Ohio, complained about a sexual assault by teacher Donald Coots and got expelled. It was only when a second girl, years later, brought a similar complaint against the same teacher that he was punished.

And that second girl also was ostracized by the school community and ultimately left town.

Unless there's a videotape of a teacher involved with a child, everyone wants to believe the authority figure, says Wayne Promisel, a retired Virginia detective who has investigated many sex abuse cases.

He and others who track the problem reiterated one point repeatedly during the AP investigation: Very few abusers get caught.

They point to several academic studies estimating that only about one in 10 victimized children report sexual abuse of any kind to someone who can do something about it.

Teachers, administrators and even parents frequently don't, or won't, recognize the signs that a crime is taking place.

"They can't see what's in front of their face. Not unlike a kid in an alcoholic family, who'll say 'My family is great,'" says McGrath, the California lawyer and investigator who now trains entire school systems how to recognize what she calls the unmistakable "red flags" of misconduct.

In Hamburg, Pa., in 2002, those "red flags" should have been clear. A student skipped classes every day to spend time with one teacher. He gave her gifts and rides in his car. She sat on his lap. The bond ran so deep that the student got chastised repeatedly - even suspended once for being late and absent so often. But there were no questions for the teacher.

Heather Kline was 12, a girl with a broad smile and blond hair pulled back tight. Teacher Troy Mansfield had cultivated her since she was in his third-grade class.

"Kids, like, idolized me because they thought I was, like, cool because he paid more attention to me," says Kline, now 18, sitting at her mother's kitchen table, sorting through a file of old poems and cards from Mansfield. "I was just like really comfortable. I could tell him anything."

He never pushed her, just raised the stakes, bit by bit - a comment about how good she looked, a gift, a hug.

She was sure she was in love.

By winter of seventh grade, he was sneaking her off in his car for an hour of sex, dropping in on her weekly baby-sitting duties, e-mailing about what clothes she should wear, about his sexual fantasies, about marriage and children.

Mansfield finally got caught by the girl's mother, and his own words convicted him. At his criminal trial in 2004, Heather read his e-mails and instant messages aloud, from declarations of true love to explicit references to past sex. He's serving up to 31 years in state prison.

The growing use of e-mails and text messages is leaving a trail that investigators and prosecutors can use to prove an intimate relationship when other evidence is hard to find.

Even then, many in the community find it difficult to accept that a predator is in their midst. When these cases break, defendants often portray the students as seducers or false accusers. However, every investigator questioned said that is largely a misconception.

"I've been involved in several hundred investigations," says Martin Bates, an assistant superintendent in a Salt Lake City school district. "I think I've seen that just a couple of times ... where a teacher is being pursued by a student."

Too often, problem teachers are allowed to leave quietly. That can mean future abuse for another student and another school district.

"They might deal with it internally, suspending the person or having the person move on. So their license is never investigated," says Charol Shakeshaft, a leading expert in teacher sex abuse who heads the educational leadership department at Virginia Commonwealth University.

It's a dynamic so common it has its own nicknames - "passing the trash" or the "mobile molester."

Laws in several states require that even an allegation of sexual misconduct be reported to the state departments that oversee teacher licenses. But there's no consistent enforcement, so such laws are easy to ignore.

School officials fear public embarrassment as much as the perpetrators do, Shakeshaft says. They want to avoid the fallout from going up against a popular teacher. They also don't want to get sued by teachers or victims, and they don't want to face a challenge from a strong union.

In the Iowa case, Lindsey agreed to leave without fighting when his bosses kept the reason for his departure confidential. The decades' worth of allegations against him would have stayed secret, if not for Bramow.

Across the country, such deals and lack of information-sharing allow abusive teachers to jump state lines, even when one school does put a stop to the abuse.

While some schools and states have been aggressive about investigating problem teachers and publicizing it when they're found, others were hesitant to share details of cases with the AP - Alabama and Mississippi among the more resistant. Maine, the only state that gave the AP no disciplinary information, has a law that keeps offending teachers' cases secret.

Meanwhile, the reasons given for punishing hundreds of educators, including many in California, were so vague there was no way to tell why they'd been punished, until further investigation by AP reporters revealed it was sexual misconduct.

And in Hawaii, no educators were disciplined by the state in the five years the AP examined, even though some teachers there were serving sentences for various sex crimes during that time. They technically remained teachers, even behind bars.

Elsewhere, there have been fitful steps toward catching errant teachers that may be having some effect. The AP found the number of state actions against sexually abusive teachers rose steadily, to a high of 649 in 2005.

More states now require background checks on teachers, fingerprinting and mandatory reporting of abuse, though there are still loopholes and a lack of coordination among districts and states.

U.S. Supreme Court rulings in the last 20 years on civil rights and sex discrimination have opened schools up to potentially huge financial punishments for abuses, which has driven some schools to act.

And the National Association of State Directors of Teacher Education and Certification keeps a list of educators who've been punished for any reason, but only shares the names among state agencies.

The uncoordinated system that's developed means some teachers still fall through the cracks. Aaron M. Brevik is a case in point.

Brevik was a teacher at an elementary school in Warren, Mich., until he was accused of using a camera hidden in a gym bag to secretly film boys in locker rooms and showers. He also faced charges that he recorded himself molesting a boy while the child slept.

Found guilty of criminal sexual conduct, Brevik is now serving a five- to 20-year prison sentence and lost his Michigan license in 2005.

What Michigan officials apparently didn't know when they hired him was that Brevik's teaching license in Minnesota had been permanently suspended in 2001 after he allegedly invited two male minors to stay with him in a hotel room. He was principal of an elementary school in southeastern Minnesota at the time.

"I tell you what, they never go away. They just blend a little better," says Steve Janosko, a prosecutor in Ocean County, N.J., who handled the case of a former high school teacher and football coach, Nicholas J. Arminio.

Arminio surrendered his New Jersey teaching license in 1994 after two female students separately accused him of inappropriate touching. The state of Maryland didn't know that when he applied for teaching credentials and took a job at a high school in Baltimore County. He eventually resigned and lost that license, too.

Even so, until this month, he was coaching football at another Baltimore County high school in a job that does not require a teaching license. After the AP started asking questions, he was fired.

Victims also face consequences when teachers are punished.

In Pennsylvania, after news of teacher Troy Mansfield's arrest hit, girls called Kline, his 12-year-old victim, a "slut" to her face. A teacher called her a "vixen." Friends stopped talking to her. Kids no longer sat with her at lunch.

Her abuser, meanwhile, had been a popular teacher and football coach.

So, between rumors that she was pregnant or doing drugs and her own panic attacks and depression, Kline bounced between schools. At 16, she ran away to Nashville.

"I didn't have my childhood," says Kline, who's back home now, working at a grocery cash register and hoping to get her GED so she can go to nursing school. "He had me so matured at so young.

"I remember going from little baby dolls to just being an adult."

The courts dealt her a final insult. A federal judge dismissed her civil suit against the school, saying administrators had no obligation to protect her from a predatory teacher since officials were unaware of the abuse, despite what the court called widespread "unsubstantiated rumors" in the school. The family is appealing.

In Iowa, the state Supreme Court made the opposite ruling in the Bramow case, deciding she and her parents could sue the Cedar Rapids schools for failing to stop Lindsey.

Bramow, now a young mother who waits tables for a living, won a $20,000 judgment. But Lindsey was never criminally charged due to what the former county prosecutor deemed insufficient evidence.

Arthur Sensor, the former superintendent in Oelwein, Iowa, who vividly recalls pressuring Lindsey to quit on Feb. 18, 1964, regrets that he didn't do more to stop him back then.

Now, he says, he'd call the police.

"He promised me he wouldn't do it again - that he had learned. And he was a young man, a beginning teacher, had a young wife, a young child," Sensor, now 86 years old, said during testimony at the Bramows' civil trial.

"I wanted to believe him, and I did."

---

John Parsons, special projects manager for the AP's News Research Center, contributed to this story.

© 2007 The Associated Press.

BARACK OBAMA CATCHES HILLARY CLINTON - $2.1 MILLION RAISED!

Senator Barack Obama has quickly caught Senator Hillary Clinton in the presidential election fundraising race, adding $2.1 million via an email campaign in just four days. This closes a gap said to be created by Washinton lobbyist's money going to Clinton.

Presidential Polls - "Eligible Voter" v. "Most Likely Voter" Important

How many times this year have you seen a presidential poll that says it surveyed "most likely voters"? Chances are you've seen or heard this a lot -- almost every day. But think. How many times have you listened to someone use the term "eligible voter"?

Chances are, not a lot.

This difference reflects poll manipulation in action. Eligible Voters are those people old enough to voter. Period. But the designation "Most Likely Voter" blocks young people from consideration in polls because only older people are considered. It's a very important difference because...

" In A Journalist’s Guide to Public Opinion Polls, another 1992 situation is described in which additional changes in eligibility procedures dramatically altered the polls. In this example, the authors document how CNN’s change from "eligible voter" to "most likely voter" in the latter days of the ‘92 campaign, impacted the Bush-Clinton numbers by a full six percentage points... overnight!

It's also interesting that CNN's matched with Clinton in the example above. CNN uses the term "most likely voter" today, in what seems to me like an attempt to skew the polls toward people who are more conservative and thus more likely to vote for Senator Clinton over Senator Obama.

Then CNN reports on the results of such out-of-wack reports nationwide, making people think that she's got it in the bag.

Nope.

This is because the "Most Likely Voter" approach consistently avoids surveying new voters, according to Ruy Teixeira, at the Joint Fellow at the Center For American Progress, and who claimed that the Gallup Poll's design benefited more older, more conservative voters who were more likely to vote for Bush in 2004 and Hillary Clinton in this election.

The polls also don't pick up cell phone users. Again, according to Teixeira,...

"Cell phones are yet another thing that pollsters are scrambling to try to figure out how to deal with. The thing that mitigates the cell phone problem is that most people who have cell phones also have landlines. The number of pure cell phone users is relatively small, though it is growing fast. However, even if you confine your intention to that group, there is some evidence that by excluding the cell phone-only users, it is a group with a fairly distinct demographic profile which leads to a certain kind of politics. They tend to be poor, they tend to be renters. There is some evidence that excluding them from polls does skew the polls slightly."

In addtion, there's every indication to believe that cell-phone-only homes are near 25 percent of the voting population now.

One dynamic is clear in the 2008 Presidential Election to this point. While the youth vote is driving campaigns, especially Senator Obama's effort with its reliance on social networking online tools commonly used by young people, and Ron Paul's almost totally internet-based campaign surge, the polls and the mainstream media are all but ignoring the youth vote, thus creating the climate for what will be the most suprising election in history.

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.