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.
Saturday, October 20, 2007
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.
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.
Friday, October 19, 2007
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.
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.
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.
Thursday, October 18, 2007
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.
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.
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.
Wednesday, October 17, 2007
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Tuesday, October 16, 2007
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.
Chambers headed to Chargers in trade with Dolphins
Smart move by the Chargers to strengthen their porous receiving core. As for the woeful Dolphins, they lose their primary target on offense and will have a difficult time replacing stabilizing what is a volatile offense.
Associated Press
SAN DIEGO -- The San Diego Chargers acquired wide receiver Chris Chambers from the Miami Dolphins on Tuesday in exchange for a 2008 second-round draft pick.
The Chargers have been without No. 1 wide receiver Eric Parker since June and needed to bolster their passing game.
"We are very excited to add Chris to our team," San Diego General Manager A.J. Smith told chargers.com. "He brings a wealth of experience and outstanding production. He is an extremely talented football player and we have held him in high regard throughout his career."
Chambers has 31 receptions for 415 yards and no touchdowns this season. He was a second-round choice by Miami in 2001 and enjoyed his best season in 2005, when he made 82 catches for 1,118 yards and 11 scores.
Chambers is signed through 2009.
"This trade will give some of our younger players at that position, such as Ted Ginn and Derek Hagan, more of an opportunity this year," Dolphins general manager Randy Mueller said in a statement. "Chris did everything we asked of him and represented this organization in a first-class manner. We wish him and his family the best of luck in San Diego."
To make room for Chambers on the active roster, the Chargers placed Parker on the Injured Reserved List. Parker had not played this season while recovering from August surgery to repair a cracked bone near his right big toe he injured during June minicamp. The Chargers originally expected Parker to be out up to 10 weeks.
The trade suggests the Dolphins are looking to the future following an 0-6 start, which matches the worst in franchise history.
The Dolphins are in their first season under Cam Cameron, the former offensive coordinator of the Chargers.
San Diego (3-3) has its bye this Sunday. Miami plays unbeaten New England.
Copyright 2007 by The Associated Press
Associated Press
SAN DIEGO -- The San Diego Chargers acquired wide receiver Chris Chambers from the Miami Dolphins on Tuesday in exchange for a 2008 second-round draft pick.
The Chargers have been without No. 1 wide receiver Eric Parker since June and needed to bolster their passing game.
"We are very excited to add Chris to our team," San Diego General Manager A.J. Smith told chargers.com. "He brings a wealth of experience and outstanding production. He is an extremely talented football player and we have held him in high regard throughout his career."
Chambers has 31 receptions for 415 yards and no touchdowns this season. He was a second-round choice by Miami in 2001 and enjoyed his best season in 2005, when he made 82 catches for 1,118 yards and 11 scores.
Chambers is signed through 2009.
"This trade will give some of our younger players at that position, such as Ted Ginn and Derek Hagan, more of an opportunity this year," Dolphins general manager Randy Mueller said in a statement. "Chris did everything we asked of him and represented this organization in a first-class manner. We wish him and his family the best of luck in San Diego."
To make room for Chambers on the active roster, the Chargers placed Parker on the Injured Reserved List. Parker had not played this season while recovering from August surgery to repair a cracked bone near his right big toe he injured during June minicamp. The Chargers originally expected Parker to be out up to 10 weeks.
The trade suggests the Dolphins are looking to the future following an 0-6 start, which matches the worst in franchise history.
The Dolphins are in their first season under Cam Cameron, the former offensive coordinator of the Chargers.
San Diego (3-3) has its bye this Sunday. Miami plays unbeaten New England.
Copyright 2007 by The Associated Press
Trade - Michael Bennett from Kansas City Chiefs To Tampa Bay Buccaneers
From ESPN.com
The Tampa Bay Buccaneers have acquired seventh-year veteran tailback Michael Bennett from the Kansas City Chiefs.The Chiefs received an undisclosed draft pick in the trade.
"We believe that the addition of Michael Bennett will strengthen our running back position," Bucs general manager Bruce Allen said in a statement.
Although Bennett does not fit the model of the kind of running back that the club had been attempting to add in trade talks over the past week, the swap provides the Bucs a veteran back who was a starter in the league early in his career, and who was named to the 2002 Pro Bowl after rushing for 1,296 yards that season.
"It really caught me off-guard," Bennett told the Kansas City Star. "I heard the speculation for the past few days, but nobody from the Chiefs said anything to me, so I guessed it wasn't going to happen. I was wrong. It's a business. It's just one of those things that happen.
The departure of Bennett from the Chiefs could mean that Kansas City tailback Priest Holmes, who hasn't played in two years because of a neck condition, is ready to return to the practice field. Holmes is on the non-football injury list, and players on that reserve list are eligible to start practicing again on Tuesday, by league rule.
Kansas City coach Herm Edwards told local reporters Monday that Holmes would rejoin the team when it practiced on Wednesday in preparation for this week's game. Many felt that Holmes would retire in the offseason, but he surprised even Chiefs officials by reporting to training camp this summer.
"He's been here," Edwards said of Holmes. "I've been talking to him, about every other day or so. We talk about where he's at, how he's doing, what we're thinking. He knows what I expect and I know where he's at right now."
If Holmes does resume practice this week, the Chiefs, by NFL rule, would have a three-week window in which to evaluate him.
Tampa Bay has been beset by injuries in its backfield. The team lost veteran fullback Mike Alstott in the preseason and starting tailback Carnell "Cadillac" Williams suffered a torn patella tendon three weeks ago that ended his 2007 season. Most recently, Michael Pittman, who replaced Williams as the starter, sustained an ankle injury that could sideline him for two months, according to club officials.
Veteran free agent Zack Crockett was signed last week by the Bucs, but he is more of a short-yardage specialist. Tampa Bay, which is tied for the lead in the NFC South, used fourth-year veteran Earnest Graham as the starter last week, but he rushed for only 29 yards in the team's victory over the Tennessee Titans.
With the resurgent Bucs sensing a chance to steal the division, particularly given the struggles of the defending NFC South champion New Orleans Saints, many in the league felt that Tampa Bay general manager Bruce Allen would try hard to add a veteran tailback before the Tuesday 4 p.m. trade deadline. Allen was rebuffed in his attempts to acquire fourth-year veteran Mewelde Moore from the Minnesota Vikings, but was active in discussions on several fronts the past few days.
A Bucs officials said late Monday afternoon that the team was definitely pursuing a back and hoped to make a deal. Asked specifically about Bennett, who was being shopped by the Chiefs, the official noted that the club was looking for more of a physical runner. A former Olympic sprint candidate, Bennett is more noted for his speed than his power. But the Bucs almost had to make a move given their situation, and Bennett was the best option.
Bennett was the first-round pick of the Vikings in the 2001 draft. The former Wisconsin standout played his first five seasons in Minnesota (2001-2005), then signed with New Orleans to be the backup to Deuce McAllister in 2006. But the Saints then selected Reggie Bush in the 2006 draft, making Bennett expendable, and he was dealt to Kansas City last summer to fill the Chiefs' need for a backup to Larry Johnson.
He played sparingly in 2006, as Johnson established a league record with 416 carries. This season, Bennett carried 20 times for 52 yards and no touchdowns and had 10 receptions for 47 yards and no scores.
For his career, Bennett has 769 rushes for 3,426 yards and 12 touchdowns and 145 catches for 1,164 yards and five touchdowns. Since rushing for 1,296 yards in 2002, he has never gained more than 500 yards on the ground. Bennett has appeared in 81 games. He is in the final year of his contract, with a base salary of $1.2 million, and Tampa Bay will now be responsible for the prorated portion of that.
Len Pasquarelli is a senior NFL reporter for ESPN.com. Information from The Associated Press was used in this report.
The Tampa Bay Buccaneers have acquired seventh-year veteran tailback Michael Bennett from the Kansas City Chiefs.The Chiefs received an undisclosed draft pick in the trade.
"We believe that the addition of Michael Bennett will strengthen our running back position," Bucs general manager Bruce Allen said in a statement.
Although Bennett does not fit the model of the kind of running back that the club had been attempting to add in trade talks over the past week, the swap provides the Bucs a veteran back who was a starter in the league early in his career, and who was named to the 2002 Pro Bowl after rushing for 1,296 yards that season.
"It really caught me off-guard," Bennett told the Kansas City Star. "I heard the speculation for the past few days, but nobody from the Chiefs said anything to me, so I guessed it wasn't going to happen. I was wrong. It's a business. It's just one of those things that happen.
The departure of Bennett from the Chiefs could mean that Kansas City tailback Priest Holmes, who hasn't played in two years because of a neck condition, is ready to return to the practice field. Holmes is on the non-football injury list, and players on that reserve list are eligible to start practicing again on Tuesday, by league rule.
Kansas City coach Herm Edwards told local reporters Monday that Holmes would rejoin the team when it practiced on Wednesday in preparation for this week's game. Many felt that Holmes would retire in the offseason, but he surprised even Chiefs officials by reporting to training camp this summer.
"He's been here," Edwards said of Holmes. "I've been talking to him, about every other day or so. We talk about where he's at, how he's doing, what we're thinking. He knows what I expect and I know where he's at right now."
If Holmes does resume practice this week, the Chiefs, by NFL rule, would have a three-week window in which to evaluate him.
Tampa Bay has been beset by injuries in its backfield. The team lost veteran fullback Mike Alstott in the preseason and starting tailback Carnell "Cadillac" Williams suffered a torn patella tendon three weeks ago that ended his 2007 season. Most recently, Michael Pittman, who replaced Williams as the starter, sustained an ankle injury that could sideline him for two months, according to club officials.
Veteran free agent Zack Crockett was signed last week by the Bucs, but he is more of a short-yardage specialist. Tampa Bay, which is tied for the lead in the NFC South, used fourth-year veteran Earnest Graham as the starter last week, but he rushed for only 29 yards in the team's victory over the Tennessee Titans.
With the resurgent Bucs sensing a chance to steal the division, particularly given the struggles of the defending NFC South champion New Orleans Saints, many in the league felt that Tampa Bay general manager Bruce Allen would try hard to add a veteran tailback before the Tuesday 4 p.m. trade deadline. Allen was rebuffed in his attempts to acquire fourth-year veteran Mewelde Moore from the Minnesota Vikings, but was active in discussions on several fronts the past few days.
A Bucs officials said late Monday afternoon that the team was definitely pursuing a back and hoped to make a deal. Asked specifically about Bennett, who was being shopped by the Chiefs, the official noted that the club was looking for more of a physical runner. A former Olympic sprint candidate, Bennett is more noted for his speed than his power. But the Bucs almost had to make a move given their situation, and Bennett was the best option.
Bennett was the first-round pick of the Vikings in the 2001 draft. The former Wisconsin standout played his first five seasons in Minnesota (2001-2005), then signed with New Orleans to be the backup to Deuce McAllister in 2006. But the Saints then selected Reggie Bush in the 2006 draft, making Bennett expendable, and he was dealt to Kansas City last summer to fill the Chiefs' need for a backup to Larry Johnson.
He played sparingly in 2006, as Johnson established a league record with 416 carries. This season, Bennett carried 20 times for 52 yards and no touchdowns and had 10 receptions for 47 yards and no scores.
For his career, Bennett has 769 rushes for 3,426 yards and 12 touchdowns and 145 catches for 1,164 yards and five touchdowns. Since rushing for 1,296 yards in 2002, he has never gained more than 500 yards on the ground. Bennett has appeared in 81 games. He is in the final year of his contract, with a base salary of $1.2 million, and Tampa Bay will now be responsible for the prorated portion of that.
Len Pasquarelli is a senior NFL reporter for ESPN.com. Information from The Associated Press was used in this report.
"Seven Days" Barack Obama Letter Makes Zennie Abraham Famous In Vermont
Seven Days, the alternative weekly of Vermont, published my letter to the editor, which I wrote in response to an article on Barack Obama's fundraising efforts out there. This is what I wrote and Seven Days posted:
THE NOVEL PRIZE
I’m responding to your article on Senator Barack Obama’s fundraiser [“Obama’s Vermont Appearance Raises Hopes — and More Than $250,000,” August 15] . . . and the idea that some of your readers express of the “novelty of a minority candidate.”
First: Being President of the United States means understanding that, at times, the military is an option that must be employed, but only intelligently. Senator Obama knows this. Second: Senator Obama is running to be President of the United States, which means he’s working for all of us.
Some people are so fixated on skin color they can’t see logic or fact. Logic tells us to vote for the best candidate, period. And the fact is that Senator Obama comes from a black father and a white mother. Big deal! The reason why Barack Obama is so popular is for reasons unique to who he is as an individual. Intelligent Americans know this, and there are a lot of us.
Zennie Abraham, Jr.
OAKLAND, CA
Abraham recently visited Vermont on business.
THE NOVEL PRIZE
I’m responding to your article on Senator Barack Obama’s fundraiser [“Obama’s Vermont Appearance Raises Hopes — and More Than $250,000,” August 15] . . . and the idea that some of your readers express of the “novelty of a minority candidate.”
First: Being President of the United States means understanding that, at times, the military is an option that must be employed, but only intelligently. Senator Obama knows this. Second: Senator Obama is running to be President of the United States, which means he’s working for all of us.
Some people are so fixated on skin color they can’t see logic or fact. Logic tells us to vote for the best candidate, period. And the fact is that Senator Obama comes from a black father and a white mother. Big deal! The reason why Barack Obama is so popular is for reasons unique to who he is as an individual. Intelligent Americans know this, and there are a lot of us.
Zennie Abraham, Jr.
OAKLAND, CA
Abraham recently visited Vermont on business.
Brady Quinn's Private Big Bus
Apparently you can always tell when Brady Quinn comes to town because he's got this huge-ass bus. Have you ever seen a player with wheels like this? I haven't.
Google Acquires Jaiku, But What Are They Gonna Do With It?
Jaiku's like Twitter but a bit more flexible, they say. Still what's Google doing to do with a less popular version of Twitter? We'll see. To me, the idea is not to take over, but what you do after the take over that matters.
Hillary Clinton Is "Two-Faced" To National Black Chamber Of Commerce - Clinton Voted Against Bill To Help Blacks With AIDS
Is Hillary Clinton Flip-Flopping Blacks?
Hillary Clinton's painted as two-faced to African Americans.
In a letter that was totally ignored by the mainstream media, Harry Alford, President of The National Black Chamber of Commerce, wrote directly to Senator Hillary Clinton that he was "stunned" that she appeared at Howard University for a debate before an African American audience acting as the champion of approving funding for HIV / AIDS treatment in low income Black communities, when she herself voted against a bill that would have improved monies and help for HIV / AIDS treatment in those same communities.
This is the letter Mr. Alford wrote below. It's a hell of a damning read:
July 11, 2007
The Honorable Hillary Clinton
United States Senate
428 Dirksen Senate Office Bldg.
Washington, DC 20510
Dear Senator Clinton:
I watched the June 28th Democratic presidential candidates’ debate at Howard University with great interest, and in particular I wanted to address your comments about HIV/AIDS.
I found it interesting that you chose a presidential debate, held before a largely African American audience, to speak out on the fact that HIV/AIDS funding does not fairly reach African Americans with HIV. I only wish you had voted the same way last year in the United States Senate, when we really needed you.
In fact, as was reported in the Washington Post on August 23, 2006, you led the effort to gut provisions in the Ryan White HIV/AIDS Treatment Modernization Act of 2006 (S. 2823) which would have fixed the increasingly unfair and outdated formulas that hurt African Americans, particularly in the rural South. The bipartisan remedy to this problem, which would have ensured funding would follow the caseload instead of short-changing African Americans, had been supported by 19 of the 20 Senators on the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee – and you were the lone “no” vote.
I was stunned to see you, less than a year later, performing before a black audience as if you had led the fight for these changes instead of being the lone warrior against them. Indeed, due to your efforts, these desperately needed remedies had to be cut from the bill or you would not have allowed the Ryan White program to be renewed.
African Americans have overtaken every other ethnic group to become the face of HIV/AIDS in America, and we all have a duty to ensure that every black American living with HIV/AIDS has equal access to the care and support services needed from the federal Ryan White CARE Act to stay healthy and stay alive.
I am glad that at least now, unlike last year, you recognize that women of color in the South are 26 times more likely to be HIV-positive than white females. But thanks to your determined fight against reforms last year, a large portion of Ryan White CARE Act funding is still set aside for large metropolitan areas, and most of the states in the South will never qualify for it. African Americans make up 19% of the South’s population, but accounted for over 60% of all new AIDS cases in 2003. Eight southern states have had to treat the same number of people with HIV/AIDS as other states which have gotten more funding under the outdated formulas. You blocked the changes we needed to fix that.
In fact, as Congressional action dragged on without resolution last year, three people died in South Carolina among some 300 HIV/AIDS patients sitting on an AIDS Drug Assistance Program waiting list at the time because the state’s Ryan White funding had once again run out too early.
It is distressing to see the person who single-handedly defeated the most recent effort to get equitable HIV/AIDS funding formulas for African Americans appear today as if she is their greatest champion. Sadly, our community has seen far too much pandering in presidential campaigns and far too little getting delivered that will make a difference for all of us, no matter where we live.
African Americans with HIV/AIDS need visionary leaders with innovative ideas. We need someone who will finally win the fight to make health care funding follow the need in this country, instead of leaving entire communities out in the cold. We don’t need ever-changing candidates who know how to pander, but don’t know how to lead.
I respectfully ask that you bolster your newfound enthusiasm for correcting the growing disparities in HIV/AIDS funding by actively working to undo the damage of your efforts last year. If you’re truly seeking to lead, please introduce new legislation that would ensure that the Title I funding formulas in the Ryan White CARE Act follow the HIV/AIDS caseload with no more unfair set-asides and end the injustice that has cost lives and harmed the nation’s integrity.
Sincerely,
Harry Alford
President/CEO
cc: The Honorable Barack Obama
With all of this, one wonders why Senator Clinton gets as much support from the Black community as she does. Perhaps it's because people -- in general -- just don't know what's going on.
Monday, October 15, 2007
Barack Obama - The Journal Of Blacks In Higher Education Endorses Obama For President
The Journal Of Blacks In Higher Education Endorses Obama For President and in so doing Theodore Cross, representing The Journal, wrote an article that calls into question Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton's genuine commitment to African Americans.
If you read it, it's damning of Clinton, for example..
In her campaign to lock up black support, there are no qualms about playing the race card. Senator Clinton scored with black voters when she declared in a June debate at Howard University that the country would be more worried about HIV/AIDS if the disease were disproportionately affecting whites instead of blacks. The powerful political impact of her statement was not diminished by the circumstance that her facts were incorrect. The annual federal budget for HIV research is $3 billion. This is more than the nation’s entire appropriation for research on either heart disease, Alzheimer’s disease, or breast cancer. But Clinton’s assertion that racism drives white-controlled government decisions on the allocations of disease research stoked anti-white anger and won her acclaim among black voters.
And if that's not enough, there's this....
Probably no one at the Howard University event, black or white, was aware of the fact that in August 2006 Hillary Clinton was the only one of 20 senators of the Republican-controlled Senate Health, Education, and Labor Committee to vote to gut a plan that would have redirected more AIDS funds to heavily black communities in the South. Her vote prompted the National Black Chamber of Commerce to publish full-page newspaper advertisements denouncing Clinton as being “two-faced” on the issue.
And Cross points to Senator Obama's more clearly defined set of urban policies:
Here in more detail are the Obama proposals as outlined in his campaign position paper:
• Increased funding for the Community Development Block Grant program which provides housing, job training, and other services to impoverished urban areas.
• A $1 billion, five-year expansion in job and career training programs for low-income Americans.
• The creation of a series of “Promise Neighborhoods” across America patterned after the Harlem Children’s Zone in New York City. Low-income families in these promise neighborhoods will be offered parent counseling, childcare, job training, healthcare, financial advice, afterschool programs, technology training and other services to help them escape the cycle of poverty.
• An expansion of the Head Start program for preschool children in high-poverty areas.
• An increase in the maximum Pell Grant award for low-income college students.
• Expansion of the Nurse-Family Partnership where nurses visit low-income expectant mothers at home to ensure that they receive proper prenatal care.
• An increase in the earned income tax credit which will allow low-income working families to keep more of the money they earn.
• A proposal to increase funding for the Jobs Access and Reverse Commute program so that low-income workers can get to their jobs at a reduced cost and the children of these workers can receive free public transportation to childcare facilities.
• The establishment of an affordable housing trust fund that will produce 14,000 new units of affordable housing for low-income families each year.
• Increased access to capital for blacks and other minorities through Small Business Administration programs.
• Job training, substance abuse and mental health counseling, and employment opportunities for people who have been incarcerated. Since blacks are five times as likely as whites to have been in prison, these programs will disproportionately benefit African Americans.
• To further raise the minimum wage rate and the child tax credit.
Makes one wonder why Oakland Mayor Ron Dellums endorsed Clinton over Obama! Oh, I forgot, Clinton made a promise to Dellums! Excuse me!
Geez!
I could go on, but you should read what Cross has put together. It's a doozy!
If you read it, it's damning of Clinton, for example..
In her campaign to lock up black support, there are no qualms about playing the race card. Senator Clinton scored with black voters when she declared in a June debate at Howard University that the country would be more worried about HIV/AIDS if the disease were disproportionately affecting whites instead of blacks. The powerful political impact of her statement was not diminished by the circumstance that her facts were incorrect. The annual federal budget for HIV research is $3 billion. This is more than the nation’s entire appropriation for research on either heart disease, Alzheimer’s disease, or breast cancer. But Clinton’s assertion that racism drives white-controlled government decisions on the allocations of disease research stoked anti-white anger and won her acclaim among black voters.
And if that's not enough, there's this....
Probably no one at the Howard University event, black or white, was aware of the fact that in August 2006 Hillary Clinton was the only one of 20 senators of the Republican-controlled Senate Health, Education, and Labor Committee to vote to gut a plan that would have redirected more AIDS funds to heavily black communities in the South. Her vote prompted the National Black Chamber of Commerce to publish full-page newspaper advertisements denouncing Clinton as being “two-faced” on the issue.
And Cross points to Senator Obama's more clearly defined set of urban policies:
Here in more detail are the Obama proposals as outlined in his campaign position paper:
• Increased funding for the Community Development Block Grant program which provides housing, job training, and other services to impoverished urban areas.
• A $1 billion, five-year expansion in job and career training programs for low-income Americans.
• The creation of a series of “Promise Neighborhoods” across America patterned after the Harlem Children’s Zone in New York City. Low-income families in these promise neighborhoods will be offered parent counseling, childcare, job training, healthcare, financial advice, afterschool programs, technology training and other services to help them escape the cycle of poverty.
• An expansion of the Head Start program for preschool children in high-poverty areas.
• An increase in the maximum Pell Grant award for low-income college students.
• Expansion of the Nurse-Family Partnership where nurses visit low-income expectant mothers at home to ensure that they receive proper prenatal care.
• An increase in the earned income tax credit which will allow low-income working families to keep more of the money they earn.
• A proposal to increase funding for the Jobs Access and Reverse Commute program so that low-income workers can get to their jobs at a reduced cost and the children of these workers can receive free public transportation to childcare facilities.
• The establishment of an affordable housing trust fund that will produce 14,000 new units of affordable housing for low-income families each year.
• Increased access to capital for blacks and other minorities through Small Business Administration programs.
• Job training, substance abuse and mental health counseling, and employment opportunities for people who have been incarcerated. Since blacks are five times as likely as whites to have been in prison, these programs will disproportionately benefit African Americans.
• To further raise the minimum wage rate and the child tax credit.
Makes one wonder why Oakland Mayor Ron Dellums endorsed Clinton over Obama! Oh, I forgot, Clinton made a promise to Dellums! Excuse me!
Geez!
I could go on, but you should read what Cross has put together. It's a doozy!
Bauer's SF Limo's Green Initiative - Blog Action Day
On Blog Action Day, we are all concerned about the environment. But the real heroes are those people and organizations that have actually made and effort to "Go Green."
Bauer's Transportation is one of those heroes.
On it's website, Bauer's explains...
What is Bauer's iCars division? -- As Limousine Digest "Operator of the Year", Bauer's has continually addressed the need to be an industry leader in looking to the future. Because of it's large fleet of over 120 vehicles, Bauer's takes its environmental impact very seriously and has always been conscientious in working with corporate America to provide solutions.
The Hybrid sedans are only one of many vehicles in the fleet that are environmentally friendly:
Bauer's has been in the clean air business since 1999 with its airport shuttle fleet of electric buses.
Bauer's partnered in 2005 with Google to add an additional 33 bio-diesel shuttles to the fleet to service Google employees.
Bauer's is the first limousine company to team up with community partners to address clean air issues with it's park enhancement initiative. A portion of every dollar goes back into local community park efforts to continue the Bauer's legacy of corporate responsibility.
The RX 400H SUV is the third generation of Lexus hybrids, which works by seamlessly integrating a gas engine, an electric motor and a high-powered battery. The battery provides power for the electric motor and is recharged by recapturing energy that would normally be lost when decelerating or coasting. This recapturing of energy is called regenerative braking. If needed, power from the hybrid's gas engine can be diverted to recharge the battery as well. Because of these charging strategies, hybrid cars never need to be plugged in.
But Bauer's is so serious about this initiative, it's President even owns a Lexus Hyrbid!
Nice work for the environment. To learn more, call Bauer's at 1-800-LIMO-OUT
Bauer's Transportation is one of those heroes.
On it's website, Bauer's explains...
What is Bauer's iCars division? -- As Limousine Digest "Operator of the Year", Bauer's has continually addressed the need to be an industry leader in looking to the future. Because of it's large fleet of over 120 vehicles, Bauer's takes its environmental impact very seriously and has always been conscientious in working with corporate America to provide solutions.
The Hybrid sedans are only one of many vehicles in the fleet that are environmentally friendly:
Bauer's has been in the clean air business since 1999 with its airport shuttle fleet of electric buses.
Bauer's partnered in 2005 with Google to add an additional 33 bio-diesel shuttles to the fleet to service Google employees.
Bauer's is the first limousine company to team up with community partners to address clean air issues with it's park enhancement initiative. A portion of every dollar goes back into local community park efforts to continue the Bauer's legacy of corporate responsibility.
The RX 400H SUV is the third generation of Lexus hybrids, which works by seamlessly integrating a gas engine, an electric motor and a high-powered battery. The battery provides power for the electric motor and is recharged by recapturing energy that would normally be lost when decelerating or coasting. This recapturing of energy is called regenerative braking. If needed, power from the hybrid's gas engine can be diverted to recharge the battery as well. Because of these charging strategies, hybrid cars never need to be plugged in.
But Bauer's is so serious about this initiative, it's President even owns a Lexus Hyrbid!
Nice work for the environment. To learn more, call Bauer's at 1-800-LIMO-OUT
Blog Action Day Is Today
This is the day where we're supposed to write something on the environment. Many blogger can make a big difference. I love it. Here' a look at the traffic for this effort.
Russian President Vladimir Putin Target Of Assassination Plot On Trip To Iran
From Aljazeera's english version
Putin to visit Iran despite threats
Putin is travelling to Iran for a summit of leaders from the five states around the Caspian Sea [AFP]
Russian special services have confirmed they received intelligence about a plot against President Vladimir Putin.
Citing an unnamed security service source, Interfax had reported on Sunday that Putin had been warned by his special services of a possible assassination plot during his visit to Tehran this week.
"The competent authorities are actively working with foreign partners on the information received yesterday about a terrorist threat in relation to Russia's head of state," the source was quoted on Monday as saying by RIA, Itar-Tass and Interfax news agencies in virtually identical reports.
Putin said he would not call off his trip but he acknowledged the intelligence reports, adding that the security services "must do their work".
"Of course I am going to Iran," Putin told a news conference after talks with Angela Merkel, the German Chancellor.
"If you react to various threats and recommendations of the security services, then you should sit at home".
Iran denial
But Tehran has described as "totally baseless" the report, which said Russian security services had been told suicide bombers and kidnappers were training to kill or capture Vladimir Putin.
The Russian president is travelling to Tehran to attend a summit of the five states that surround the Caspian Sea, and Mohammad Ali Hosseini, Iran's foreign ministry spokesman, said this would go ahead as planned.
"Reports published by some media are totally baseless and are in line with the psychological war launched by enemies who want to harm Iran and Russia's relationship," Hosseini said.
Putin is the first Kremlin leader to travel to Iran since Josef Stalin, the former Soviet leader, attended a wartime summit with Winston Churchill, former British prime minister, and Franklin Roosevelt, former US president, in 1943.
Fox Launches Business Channel Today
Rupert Murdock owns The Wall Street Journal, MySpace, and now has launched The Fox Business Channel today. It's only a matter of time before we see all three merged.
Vatican Monsignor Says He Was Pretending To Be Gay
From the Huffington Post
VATICAN CITY — A Vatican official suspended after being caught on hidden camera making advances to a young man said in an interview published Sunday that he is not gay and was only pretending to be gay as part of his work.
In an interview with La Repubblica newspaper, Monsignor Tommaso Stenico said he frequented online gay chat rooms and met with gay men as part of his work as a psychoanalyst. He said that he pretended to be gay in order to gather information about "those who damage the image of the Church with homosexual activity."
Vatican teaching holds that homosexual activity is a sin.
Vatican teaching holds that homosexual activity is a sin.
"It's all false; it was a trap. I was a victim of my own attempts to contribute to cleaning up the Church with my psychoanalyst work," La Repubblica quoted Stenico as saying.
The Vatican after acted Vatican officials recognized Stenico's office in the background of a television program on gay priests that was broadcast on Oct. 1 on La7, a private Italian TV network. Stenico was secretly filmed making advances to a young man and asserting that gay sex was not sinful.
VATICAN CITY — A Vatican official suspended after being caught on hidden camera making advances to a young man said in an interview published Sunday that he is not gay and was only pretending to be gay as part of his work.
In an interview with La Repubblica newspaper, Monsignor Tommaso Stenico said he frequented online gay chat rooms and met with gay men as part of his work as a psychoanalyst. He said that he pretended to be gay in order to gather information about "those who damage the image of the Church with homosexual activity."
Vatican teaching holds that homosexual activity is a sin.
Vatican teaching holds that homosexual activity is a sin.
"It's all false; it was a trap. I was a victim of my own attempts to contribute to cleaning up the Church with my psychoanalyst work," La Repubblica quoted Stenico as saying.
The Vatican after acted Vatican officials recognized Stenico's office in the background of a television program on gay priests that was broadcast on Oct. 1 on La7, a private Italian TV network. Stenico was secretly filmed making advances to a young man and asserting that gay sex was not sinful.
Rudy Giuliani - Giuliani To Protect Us From Aliens
According to this article, Republican Presidential Candidate Rudy Giuliani will make sure we're prepared to defend ourselves from an attack by alien beings.
Ok.
I guess that means we have a laser defense system.
The pure idea of this is interesting because 1) we have no freaking idea how we'll be attacked, and 2) it proves how we think -- some of us -- that because something's different, it's bad.
Geez.
Ok.
I guess that means we have a laser defense system.
The pure idea of this is interesting because 1) we have no freaking idea how we'll be attacked, and 2) it proves how we think -- some of us -- that because something's different, it's bad.
Geez.
Political television advertising to reach $3 billion
Isn't this discretionary spending wasteful and unnecessary?
By Mark Preston
CNN Washington Bureau
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- A wide-open presidential race and a willingness by candidates, interest groups, unions and corporations to buy TV time will lead to historic spending for political and issue-advocacy advertising in the 2008 election cycle, an analysis shows.
The cost to try to influence the 2008 election could exceed $3 billion, according to TNS Media Intelligence/Campaign Media Analysis Group, CNN's consultant on political television advertising.
This is nearly twice as much than what was spent in 2004 when political and issue-advocacy television advertising rang in at $1.7 billion. In 2006, $2.3 billion was spent on political and issue-advocacy TV commercials.
Just about every candidate running for an office from dogcatcher to president is spending the money, said Evan Tracey, CMAG's chief operating officer.
The costs to produce a TV commercial are no longer prohibitive for local and state candidates, who are turning more and more to the airwaves to reach voters. See how spending breaks down for this year »
And interest groups have spent $6.2 million on TV ads so far this year for state and local ballot measures.
On the national level, the cost of issue-advocacy television ad spending was $270 million in the first nine months of this year. Subjects ranged from the Iraq war to telecommunications reform. Television ads on health care alone total $60 million.
CMAG estimates more than $3 million of the $270 million spent to air issue-advocacy ads this year has gone for commercials in states and districts that are likely to have competitive House and Senate races in 2008.
Tracey said he thinks this is just the beginning of interest groups "pivoting from legislative advocacy mode to political mode."
"What we expect to see between now and the end of the primaries, and through the general election, is groups will take a more aggressive stance on their advertising and actually target candidates," he said.
With 17 Democratic and Republican candidates running for president, CMAG predicts that more than $800 million will be spent on TV ads in the battle for the White House.
Up to now, the political commercials have been largely focused on the early states of Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina. Voters in some of the 20-plus states holding nominating contests on February 5 will start seeing ads in the coming months.
Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney leads all candidates in TV spending, having aired his commercials more than 11,000 times this year at a cost of nearly $8.6 million. This is a record for the number of airings at this point in a presidential election cycle. In contrast, one of Romney's chief rivals for the GOP nomination, former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, has spent nothing on television ads, but Giuliani leads in the national polls and is within striking distance of the lead in several state surveys.
Giuliani enjoys widespread national name recognition, while Romney does not.
In the race for the Democratic nomination, Illinois Sen. Barack Obama has spent more than $2.3 million on television commercials, while New York Sen. Hillary Clinton has spent $1 million less and leads in both national and early state polls.
New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson has probably benefited the most in the Democratic contest from the $2 million he has invested in his television commercials.
Richardson's humorous TV ads effectively stated his experience as a lawmaker, diplomat and executive, and positioned him as a solid second-tier candidate.
Romney used his $8.6 million in television ads to introduce himself as a social and fiscal conservative to Republican voters. These voters might otherwise not know much about him other than that he was the governor of the traditionally liberal Massachusetts.
Romney is leading polls in the early voting states of Iowa and New Hampshire.
Further evidence of how Romney's television commercials have helped is in South Carolina.
An American Research Group poll of South Carolina Republicans in August showed Romney registering at 9 percent with these influential primary voters. A month later, and with $350,000 worth of commercials aired in the two weeks leading up to the next poll, Romney was up 17 percentage points.
Romney's latest ad began airing Friday in Iowa, and in it he vows to stop Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons, to boost the military by 100,000 people, to strengthen U.S. intelligence capabilities and to monitor calls into the U.S. from al Qaeda.
All of these issues should play well with conservatives who participate in the Iowa caucuses.
While only a handful of Democratic candidates and Romney have used the airwaves until now, Tracey said he expects this to change.
"Before the end of October, I suspect all the frontrunner candidates will be on the air," Tracey said. "As we get closer to primary day, the frontrunners will be joined by all the candidates in the race who are taking their last, best shot."
In the fight for Congress, CMAG predicts that as much as $639 million could be spent on television advertising.
Democrats control the House and Senate.
Tracey noted that CMAG's 2008 election cycle forecast does not take into account unforeseen events such as former Florida Rep. Mark Foley's House page scandal or the September 11 terrorist attacks.
"Politics is completely beholden to events," he said. "Events will ultimately determine how much is spent, where and when."
What television advertising challenges do candidates and interest groups face in the coming months?
"Chances are, just as what happened in 2006, voters will be numb after watching hundred and hundreds of ads," said Stuart Rothenberg, editor of the non-partisan Rothenberg Political Report. "The sheer number of ads probably dilutes their importance. After a while, the ads just become lots of chatter and an ad will have to be really good to cut through the noise.''
By Mark Preston
CNN Washington Bureau
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- A wide-open presidential race and a willingness by candidates, interest groups, unions and corporations to buy TV time will lead to historic spending for political and issue-advocacy advertising in the 2008 election cycle, an analysis shows.
The cost to try to influence the 2008 election could exceed $3 billion, according to TNS Media Intelligence/Campaign Media Analysis Group, CNN's consultant on political television advertising.
This is nearly twice as much than what was spent in 2004 when political and issue-advocacy television advertising rang in at $1.7 billion. In 2006, $2.3 billion was spent on political and issue-advocacy TV commercials.
Just about every candidate running for an office from dogcatcher to president is spending the money, said Evan Tracey, CMAG's chief operating officer.
The costs to produce a TV commercial are no longer prohibitive for local and state candidates, who are turning more and more to the airwaves to reach voters. See how spending breaks down for this year »
And interest groups have spent $6.2 million on TV ads so far this year for state and local ballot measures.
On the national level, the cost of issue-advocacy television ad spending was $270 million in the first nine months of this year. Subjects ranged from the Iraq war to telecommunications reform. Television ads on health care alone total $60 million.
CMAG estimates more than $3 million of the $270 million spent to air issue-advocacy ads this year has gone for commercials in states and districts that are likely to have competitive House and Senate races in 2008.
Tracey said he thinks this is just the beginning of interest groups "pivoting from legislative advocacy mode to political mode."
"What we expect to see between now and the end of the primaries, and through the general election, is groups will take a more aggressive stance on their advertising and actually target candidates," he said.
With 17 Democratic and Republican candidates running for president, CMAG predicts that more than $800 million will be spent on TV ads in the battle for the White House.
Up to now, the political commercials have been largely focused on the early states of Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina. Voters in some of the 20-plus states holding nominating contests on February 5 will start seeing ads in the coming months.
Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney leads all candidates in TV spending, having aired his commercials more than 11,000 times this year at a cost of nearly $8.6 million. This is a record for the number of airings at this point in a presidential election cycle. In contrast, one of Romney's chief rivals for the GOP nomination, former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, has spent nothing on television ads, but Giuliani leads in the national polls and is within striking distance of the lead in several state surveys.
Giuliani enjoys widespread national name recognition, while Romney does not.
In the race for the Democratic nomination, Illinois Sen. Barack Obama has spent more than $2.3 million on television commercials, while New York Sen. Hillary Clinton has spent $1 million less and leads in both national and early state polls.
New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson has probably benefited the most in the Democratic contest from the $2 million he has invested in his television commercials.
Richardson's humorous TV ads effectively stated his experience as a lawmaker, diplomat and executive, and positioned him as a solid second-tier candidate.
Romney used his $8.6 million in television ads to introduce himself as a social and fiscal conservative to Republican voters. These voters might otherwise not know much about him other than that he was the governor of the traditionally liberal Massachusetts.
Romney is leading polls in the early voting states of Iowa and New Hampshire.
Further evidence of how Romney's television commercials have helped is in South Carolina.
An American Research Group poll of South Carolina Republicans in August showed Romney registering at 9 percent with these influential primary voters. A month later, and with $350,000 worth of commercials aired in the two weeks leading up to the next poll, Romney was up 17 percentage points.
Romney's latest ad began airing Friday in Iowa, and in it he vows to stop Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons, to boost the military by 100,000 people, to strengthen U.S. intelligence capabilities and to monitor calls into the U.S. from al Qaeda.
All of these issues should play well with conservatives who participate in the Iowa caucuses.
While only a handful of Democratic candidates and Romney have used the airwaves until now, Tracey said he expects this to change.
"Before the end of October, I suspect all the frontrunner candidates will be on the air," Tracey said. "As we get closer to primary day, the frontrunners will be joined by all the candidates in the race who are taking their last, best shot."
In the fight for Congress, CMAG predicts that as much as $639 million could be spent on television advertising.
Democrats control the House and Senate.
Tracey noted that CMAG's 2008 election cycle forecast does not take into account unforeseen events such as former Florida Rep. Mark Foley's House page scandal or the September 11 terrorist attacks.
"Politics is completely beholden to events," he said. "Events will ultimately determine how much is spent, where and when."
What television advertising challenges do candidates and interest groups face in the coming months?
"Chances are, just as what happened in 2006, voters will be numb after watching hundred and hundreds of ads," said Stuart Rothenberg, editor of the non-partisan Rothenberg Political Report. "The sheer number of ads probably dilutes their importance. After a while, the ads just become lots of chatter and an ad will have to be really good to cut through the noise.''
Sunday, October 14, 2007
Poll: Clinton Has Large Lead in N.H.
But the poll has a huge problem. And Senator Obama's more popular than Clinton with voters under 45.
By The Associated Press
Sun Oct 14, 7:40 AM ET
Hillary Rodham Clinton is holding a commanding lead over Barack Obama for the Democratic presidential nomination in New Hampshire, a poll released Sunday found.
Clinton had the support of 40 percent of those surveyed compared to 20 percent for Obama, Marist College Institute for Public Opinion said.
John Edwards was third (12 percent) and Bill Richardson fourth (7 percent).
On the Republican side, Mitt Romney held a slight edge over Rudy Giuliani (25 percent to 21 percent). John McCain was third (18 percent) and Fred Thompson fourth (10 percent).
Clinton was the overwhelming choice among those polled who want a strong leader or someone who will bring about change — 44 percent chose her compared with 20 percent for Obama and 11 percent for Edwards.
Clinton also drew the most support — 33 percent — from those questioned who ranked the Iraq war as their top issue. And the New York senator was seen as the most likely Democrat to win in November, getting the nod from 58 percent in the survey.
On the GOP side, when people were asked to pick a strong leader, Romney got 29 percent, compared with 23 percent for McCain and 22 percent for Giuliani.
Security against terrorism was the most important issue for GOP voters; on this issue, Romney was picked by 29 percent, and Giuliani and McCain by 21 percent each. Giuliani, the former New York mayor, was picked by more people in the survey as having the best chance of winning in November — 36 percent versus 30 percent for Romney.
The poll was conducted from Oct. 4-9 and involved telephone interviews with 1,512 registered voters and New Hampshire residents likely to register in time to vote in the presidential primary.
The poll has a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 4 percentage points for Democratic primary voters and 4.5 percentage points for Republican primary voters.
By The Associated Press
Sun Oct 14, 7:40 AM ET
Hillary Rodham Clinton is holding a commanding lead over Barack Obama for the Democratic presidential nomination in New Hampshire, a poll released Sunday found.
Clinton had the support of 40 percent of those surveyed compared to 20 percent for Obama, Marist College Institute for Public Opinion said.
John Edwards was third (12 percent) and Bill Richardson fourth (7 percent).
On the Republican side, Mitt Romney held a slight edge over Rudy Giuliani (25 percent to 21 percent). John McCain was third (18 percent) and Fred Thompson fourth (10 percent).
Clinton was the overwhelming choice among those polled who want a strong leader or someone who will bring about change — 44 percent chose her compared with 20 percent for Obama and 11 percent for Edwards.
Clinton also drew the most support — 33 percent — from those questioned who ranked the Iraq war as their top issue. And the New York senator was seen as the most likely Democrat to win in November, getting the nod from 58 percent in the survey.
On the GOP side, when people were asked to pick a strong leader, Romney got 29 percent, compared with 23 percent for McCain and 22 percent for Giuliani.
Security against terrorism was the most important issue for GOP voters; on this issue, Romney was picked by 29 percent, and Giuliani and McCain by 21 percent each. Giuliani, the former New York mayor, was picked by more people in the survey as having the best chance of winning in November — 36 percent versus 30 percent for Romney.
The poll was conducted from Oct. 4-9 and involved telephone interviews with 1,512 registered voters and New Hampshire residents likely to register in time to vote in the presidential primary.
The poll has a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 4 percentage points for Democratic primary voters and 4.5 percentage points for Republican primary voters.
Barack Obama Leads In NH With Voters Under 45 Years Old - Pollster Mentions That In Fine Point
The so-called latest New Hampshire Poll says that Senator Hillary Clinton has a 20-point lead in that state.
But a look at the actual poll data that Marist College Institute for Public Opinion has released so far shows this -- in fine print:
Barack Obama does better among independents than Democrats. He receives the support of 29% of independents but just 14% of Democrats. Senator Obama is also more popular with younger voters than voters forty-five years of age or older. 29% of likely Democratic presidential primary voters under age forty-five support him compared with 15% of voters who are forty-five or older.
This opens a major-league can of worms for the credibility of reporting that Senator Clinton has any kind of real lead in New Hampshire.
The last NH poll also reported a Clinton lead, but only 17 percent of the people contacted bothered to respond, which means that a whopping 83 percent were undecided. Plus, there was no age breakdown given in the poll data released.
Still, the Clinton people, especially their campaign leaders , are acting like they're ahead, setting the stage for what could be a major surprise.
But a look at the actual poll data that Marist College Institute for Public Opinion has released so far shows this -- in fine print:
Barack Obama does better among independents than Democrats. He receives the support of 29% of independents but just 14% of Democrats. Senator Obama is also more popular with younger voters than voters forty-five years of age or older. 29% of likely Democratic presidential primary voters under age forty-five support him compared with 15% of voters who are forty-five or older.
This opens a major-league can of worms for the credibility of reporting that Senator Clinton has any kind of real lead in New Hampshire.
The last NH poll also reported a Clinton lead, but only 17 percent of the people contacted bothered to respond, which means that a whopping 83 percent were undecided. Plus, there was no age breakdown given in the poll data released.
Still, the Clinton people, especially their campaign leaders , are acting like they're ahead, setting the stage for what could be a major surprise.
Saturday, October 13, 2007
Web 2.0 Summit Has "Web Bowl" - Tuesday Oct 16th.
This is from CMP and the Web 2.0 website
Sold Out Web 2.0 Summit Announces First Web Bowl: Challenges World to Stump the Luminaries
Competition Offers Everyone the Chance to Participate
SAN FRANCISCO -- September 25, 2007 -- O'Reilly Media, Inc. and CMP Technology, co-producers of the annual Web 2.0 Summit, today jointly announced the launch of the Web Bowl, a live trivia competition about the Internet, taking place during the sold out event this year. Conference organizers are reaching out to the general public and attendees to pool together the most challenging (and fun) questions about the World Wide Web for the first annual Web Bowl.
Web 2.0 Summit's Web Bowl asks people to match wits with Internet luminaries, bringing the toughest questions about the Web on stage. The biggest names of the Web community will be able to prove themselves in real time amidst the gunfire of questions on industry trivia, history, and personalities. Hosted by Web 2.0 Summit's chair, John Battelle, the Web Bowl was modeled on the Computer History Bowl to entertain, inform, and inspire the Web community.
"We are pleased to announce the first annual Web Bowl at the Summit," said John Battelle, Web 2.0 Summit's Program Chair. "The game show format will create an entertaining opportunity to both celebrate the history and future of the Web among the leading members of the Web community. Even those not able to make it will be able to participate virtually, in true 2.0 spirit."
Web Bowl is challenging the world to submit the toughest questions about the Internet to use in the Web Bowl. Questions could range from what the first instant messaging service was to who created the first blog, and more. Acknowledgement will go to the person who submits a question used on-stage at the event.
To sign up for this, click here.
Sold Out Web 2.0 Summit Announces First Web Bowl: Challenges World to Stump the Luminaries
Competition Offers Everyone the Chance to Participate
SAN FRANCISCO -- September 25, 2007 -- O'Reilly Media, Inc. and CMP Technology, co-producers of the annual Web 2.0 Summit, today jointly announced the launch of the Web Bowl, a live trivia competition about the Internet, taking place during the sold out event this year. Conference organizers are reaching out to the general public and attendees to pool together the most challenging (and fun) questions about the World Wide Web for the first annual Web Bowl.
Web 2.0 Summit's Web Bowl asks people to match wits with Internet luminaries, bringing the toughest questions about the Web on stage. The biggest names of the Web community will be able to prove themselves in real time amidst the gunfire of questions on industry trivia, history, and personalities. Hosted by Web 2.0 Summit's chair, John Battelle, the Web Bowl was modeled on the Computer History Bowl to entertain, inform, and inspire the Web community.
"We are pleased to announce the first annual Web Bowl at the Summit," said John Battelle, Web 2.0 Summit's Program Chair. "The game show format will create an entertaining opportunity to both celebrate the history and future of the Web among the leading members of the Web community. Even those not able to make it will be able to participate virtually, in true 2.0 spirit."
Web Bowl is challenging the world to submit the toughest questions about the Internet to use in the Web Bowl. Questions could range from what the first instant messaging service was to who created the first blog, and more. Acknowledgement will go to the person who submits a question used on-stage at the event.
To sign up for this, click here.
Amanda Congdon Supports Barack Obama
I just got a Facebook News Flash from my Facebook friend Amanda Congdon, who reports that she's behind Barack Obama for President!
Awesome!
I wonder if that has something to do with 1) his authetic politics, 2) the need for real change, and 3) the fact that Barack's, Amanda's, and my birthday are all the same day -- August 4th?
Hmmm..
Vimeo's HD Online Videos May Make Joost Days Numbered
Ok, here's an example of what TechCrunch's Shonfeld was writing about. Vimeo has high quality HD online videos on its site already.
Check it out. Watch out Joost!
Check it out. Watch out Joost!
TechCrunch's Schonfeld Thinks Joost Days Are Numbered
Eric Schonfeld of TechCrunch thinks Joost, the online video streaming site, may be seeing the end of a good run as more and more competitors crowd the field.
Anna Nicole Smith | Jerry Brown Suspects She May Have Been Killed
Former Governor and Oakland Mayor and now Attorney General Jerry Brown is all over the death of Anna Nicole Smith and released this statement, which I got from TMZ.com:
"Brown's Statement
Posted Oct 12th 2007 2:24PM by TMZ Staff
"The California Department of Justice today served search warrants at various doctors' offices, billing locations, and residences in both Los Angeles and Orange Counties, related to the death of Anna Nicole Smith. The locations searched today are related to doctors who provided medical treatment or prescribed drugs for Anna Nicole Smith or her associates.
On March 30, 2007, the California Department of Justice Bureau of Narcotic Enforcement commenced an investigation into circumstances surrounding the death of Anna Nicole Smith, including the prescribing and dispensing practices of several California licensed doctors and pharmacies. To date, agents have reviewed over 100,000 computer images and files, analyzed patient profiles and pharmacy logs and interviewed witnesses throughout the country and abroad.
The California Department of Justice is spearheading this investigation with the cooperation of regulatory agencies, medical professionals and law enforcement agencies, including: The California Department of Insurance, the California Medical Board, the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, the Seminole Tribal Police and the Royal Bahamian Police Force.
In view of the fact that the investigation is ongoing, we will not provide further details or report any findings at this time. The California Department of Justice will conduct a fair and thorough investigation and wishes to protect the identity of cooperating witnesses. When our investigation is complete, you will be provided as much information as possible about any suspects, arrests or criminal charges.
Beyond this statement, no one involved in this investigation will have further comment at this time. Thank you for your cooperation."
"Brown's Statement
Posted Oct 12th 2007 2:24PM by TMZ Staff
"The California Department of Justice today served search warrants at various doctors' offices, billing locations, and residences in both Los Angeles and Orange Counties, related to the death of Anna Nicole Smith. The locations searched today are related to doctors who provided medical treatment or prescribed drugs for Anna Nicole Smith or her associates.
On March 30, 2007, the California Department of Justice Bureau of Narcotic Enforcement commenced an investigation into circumstances surrounding the death of Anna Nicole Smith, including the prescribing and dispensing practices of several California licensed doctors and pharmacies. To date, agents have reviewed over 100,000 computer images and files, analyzed patient profiles and pharmacy logs and interviewed witnesses throughout the country and abroad.
The California Department of Justice is spearheading this investigation with the cooperation of regulatory agencies, medical professionals and law enforcement agencies, including: The California Department of Insurance, the California Medical Board, the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, the Seminole Tribal Police and the Royal Bahamian Police Force.
In view of the fact that the investigation is ongoing, we will not provide further details or report any findings at this time. The California Department of Justice will conduct a fair and thorough investigation and wishes to protect the identity of cooperating witnesses. When our investigation is complete, you will be provided as much information as possible about any suspects, arrests or criminal charges.
Beyond this statement, no one involved in this investigation will have further comment at this time. Thank you for your cooperation."
Barack Obama | Barack Obama Is Not Muslim | Clinton Backers Said To Spread Rumor
HAVE HILLARY CLINTON SUPPORTERS AND STAFFERS BEEN BEHIND THESE FALSE RUMORS? FOX NEWS SAYS "YES."
For some reason, some total nutcases out there who call themselves Americans no doubt are sending out emails that say Senator Barack Obama is Muslim. It's an effort to play what some call "The Muslim Phobia Card" (Everything has a card these days.)
There are also indications that people connected with Senator Hillary Clinton are spreading this rumor. That's the ultimate dirty pool tactic.
It's not true and also panders to the worst fears and bad aspects of America. Don't believe it - and do your own homework on this. The Politico.com did ...
Obama, in fact, is not a Muslim.
The assertion that he is one is based on his paternal ancestry from a Muslim family in Kenya, his living in Indonesia with a Muslim stepfather and, briefly, as a child, attending a public school there which reportedly offered some religious instruction to its predominantly Muslim study body.
But he was raised primarily by his mother, who eschewed organized religion.
He has written and spoken at length about his path to Christianity and the black church as a community organizer in Chicago.
In recent months, Obama has been talking more openly about his faith, especially in the South.
He has worshipped at three large South Carolina churches over the past two Sundays. Last weekend, he raised eyebrows at the Redemption World Outreach Center in Greenville by saying he was “confident that we can create a kingdom right here on Earth."
Indeed, on www.snopes.com — the site that fashions itself as the place where urban legends go to die — there is a lengthy page devoted to debunking the myth that Obama is a “radical, ideological Muslim” that includes a reference to a 2004 Chicago Sun-Times story where he talks of his “personal relationship with Jesus Christ.”
Obama’s aides are aware of the theme, but it’s far harder to respond to faceless whispers than to open assertions.
“We've got to be vigilant to knock down any untruth out there about us,” said spokesman Bill Burton.
Hey, evaluate Senator Obama on his merits and not untruths. Don't be stupid.
Quincy Carter Arrested For Drug Possession - Sad Story
This is someone I've been rooting for and it's sad to see that drugs have overtaken him. I hope he gets the real help he needs and sees the wake-up call. He was a real talent that -- for a while -- had the World on a string.
Here's the story...
Former Cowboys QB Arrested On Drug Charge
FORT WORTH, Texas -- Former Dallas Cowboys quarterback Quincy Carter was arrested in Shreveport on a drug charge early Friday morning.
Carter was booked into the Shreveport City Jail at about 4 a.m. after being charged with possession of marijuana. Carter was later transferred to the Caddo Correctional Center.
In a news release, police said the incident began at about 1:30 a.m. when an officer stopped a silver car that was reported to have been involved in selling drugs at the Circle K convenience store at Youree and Southfield.
Here's the story...
Former Cowboys QB Arrested On Drug Charge
FORT WORTH, Texas -- Former Dallas Cowboys quarterback Quincy Carter was arrested in Shreveport on a drug charge early Friday morning.
Carter was booked into the Shreveport City Jail at about 4 a.m. after being charged with possession of marijuana. Carter was later transferred to the Caddo Correctional Center.
In a news release, police said the incident began at about 1:30 a.m. when an officer stopped a silver car that was reported to have been involved in selling drugs at the Circle K convenience store at Youree and Southfield.
In Iowa, Hillary Clinton Backer Terry McAuliffe Says Clinton Iraq Vote Flip-Flop Due To Gender
Folks, I'm not making this up. It comes from the Iowa Independent newspaper. On August 30th, Clinton Campaign President Terry McAuliffe opened his mouth and stuck his foot deep in it, pissing off the people in attendance and possibly damaging the Clinton effort in Iowa.
On top of that, McAuliffe's act is upsetting other Iowans as well, and one person just plain wrote "I'm sick of Terry McAuliffe." Yes, the person who will stand in a photo with a Panda -- a costumed Panda -- for a vote, is proving to be a major liability in the state Clinton needs to prove she's unstoppable.
And what's so funny is he's the head of the campaign. He's walking around acting like they've got the election in the bag and thus not being affaid to make stupid statements, like this doozy of a running-off-at-the-mouth you're about to see below.
According to Chase Martyn, ....
Terry McAuliffe, who serves as Chair of Clinton's presidential campaign and was Chair of the Democratic National Committee from 2001 to 2005, helped shed light on why Clinton will not admit her vote was a mistake during an August 30 appearance at a coffee shop in Grinnell, IA. Abby Rapoport, editor-in-chief of Grinnell College's Scarlet & Black student newspaper, was the only reporter present for McAuliffe's candid conversation, and she quoted him this way in the September 7 issue of the paper:
McAuliffe declared that under no circumstances would she take back her vote. “A woman?” he almost yelled. “Can you imagine?”
Iowa Independent has verified from three other attendees of the event that McAuliffe was quoted accurately. Ironically, those attendees also told us that before discussing the connection between Clinton's position on her war vote and her gender, McAuliffe noted that he could only speak so candidly because there were no reporters present -- or so he thought.
Grinnell Coffee Company has a hip, artsy vibe with its black walls and its Venus Rising painting with a French coffee press. But I walked straight to the back, where a small beige room stands in stark contrast to the warm and friendly coffee shop. In the room, Grinnell community members talked in small clusters, awaiting the arrival of yet another politico to plead for their vote.
Suddenly a wholly alien force took over the room. Terry McAuliffe, former Democratic National Committee Chair and long time friend of the Clintons, arrived with an air of dominance, as all eyes focused on him.
McAuliffe is tall, with a booming voice and a slick, used-car-salesman type charm. His smiles and greetings, not to mention his slaps on the back of Wayne Moyer, Political Science, felt too self-congratulatory. You guys haven't won yet, I thought.
As if on command, we all sat down at once, waiting to hear what McAuliffe would say. Yet no one seemed more excited to hear him speak than McAuliffe himself. I guessed it would have something to do with voting for Hillary, given the posters taped to the wall and the stacks of lawn signs in the corner. But his tone was not quite what I imagined.
After asking who in the room would be supporting Hillary and finding only four of the twelve attendees to be loyal, McAuliffe began by emphasizing the campaign's currently successes, and its domination of the polls. He almost seemed to gloss over the nomination process, eager to talk about the general election.
"A lot of people ask me, `Can she win the general election?'" he boomed. The sweet older woman next to me seemed to perk up and nod at the question; presumably, she was asking it too. "Well," he continued, "that's the dumbest question I've ever heard." The woman seemed to stop nodding along.
McAuliffe spoke for almost forty-five minutes, focusing mainly on the general election, an election, he announced, that the Clinton campaign was already fundraising for.
"Anyone in the room who doesn't think this isn't going to be the most vicious campaign is nuts," he proclaimed. He seemed ready for the viciousness though. Later, he declared that "If you defame this woman … we will hit you back so hard your head will spin."
I kept trying to remind myself, undecided that I was, that in fact McAuliffe was not Hillary Clinton and his pushy, aggressive style did not necessarily discount his candidate. And at least he wasn't attacking other candidates, a trait I find particularly frustrating. Hear him all the way through, I thought. Give Hillary a chance.
And apparently Hillary needs my help. "Hillary is going to get elected," he proclaimed, "and I'll tell you why folks, because of women." 18 through 35 year-old women, he specified. ME.
But it was another 18 to 35 year old woman that caused a stir. McAuliffe asked those of us who were not supporters at the beginning of his little talk if any of us had changed out minds. When he found that none of us were swayed, he asked someone to come forward with their objections to his candidate, Jordan Levine '10 , one of the leaders of the Students for Hillary, pointed to Hannah Garden-Monheit '08, leader of Students for Obama. McAuliffe pushed her. "I don't mean to put you on the spot but…"
Garden-Monheit said she disliked Clinton's war vote. McAuliffe declared that under no circumstances would she take back her vote. "A woman?" he almost yelled. "Can you imagine?"
Carol Kramer, one of the four in the room supporting Clinton, echoed Garden-Monheit's concerns about Clinton's war vote.. "I want her to apologize," she explained.
"And I don't," McAuliffe retorted. Supporters could still incur his condescension. He reminded us that "[Republicans] are killers …. They're gonna lie, they're gonna steal-they're good at it."
But his parting words were more unifying. "We all come together in the end," he said. Fine, I thought. I'll vote for any of them-as long as I don't have to vote for you.
Whatever the reasons for Terry's behavior, it's clear he thinks the campaign's so far ahead it can survive his display of arrogance and stupidity.
Big mistake.
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)