MIchael Vick out of prison...taken to jail for more charges

Vick arrived Thursday afternoon from the federal penitentiary in Leavenworth, Kan., where he's serving a 23-month sentence for a federal dogfighting conspiracy.

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Favre senses good karma in Jets huddle

Brett Favre began the celebration of his 501st career touchdown pass in signature fashion, giddily running around in a wide circle like an airplane waiting to land. Shortly thereafter, the Tennessee Titans officially crashed back to earth.

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ESPN - Back in saddle: Pacman Jones returns to Dallas Cowboy

Pacman Jones returned to Cowboys practice on Monday. One more misstep gets him a lifetime ban from the NFL.

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Feathers Fly: Eagles Go Back to McNabb for Starting QB

Donovan McNabb will start when the Eagles host the Cardinals Thursday night. The five-time Pro Bowl quarterback was benched for the first time in his career at halftime of Philadelphia's 36-7 loss at Baltimore Sunday. Second-year pro Kevin Kolb played poorly against the Ravens, and coach Andy Reid said yesterday he's going back to McNabb.

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Los Angeles Unveils World’s Largest Solar Plan

San Francisco is usually designated the green capital of California, but now LA is trying to take the City by the Bay’s crown with the world’s largest solar plan. Yesterday, Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa announced a long-range plan to gather enough solar power to meet 10 percent of LA’s energy needs by 2020

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Danny Cipriani Is Now On Bench Duty

Danny Cipriani has been relegated to the bench for the autumn international with New Zealand after his error-strewn display during England’s humiliating defeat to South Africa.

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Blockbuster Launches Internet Movie Downloads

To better compete with Netflix and others, Blockbuster video will debut a new service today that will allow customers to download movies from their computer via the internet.

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15 Ways to Overcome Anger

Can you recall the last time you were really angry at someone? So much so that you were physically shaken just at the thought of them? Rarely does this feeling of anger help us in getting what we want.

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Welcome To A Paper Economy

The Fed is opening up another 800 billion dollars of loans. This puts its balance sheet at about 3 trillion, supposedly (I have my doubts about that number). For reference, before the crisis, the Fed's balance sheet was about 800 billion. In the old days this would have been called what it is: running the printing press hot.

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Florida's Gay Adoption Ban Overturned

Miami judge rules against Florida's ban on adoptions by gay people, finds 'no rational basis'

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Bowoto v. Chevron: White Guilt Clouds The Truth

Today features jury instructions and closing arguments in the trail of Bowoto v. Chevron. In the accounts of the trial, I've noticed an interesting pattern of the perspective of what I know call "White Activist Guilt". From that perspective, Chevron is the rich, bad "white" company, and the Nigerian militant groups attacking that company's employees and facilities are all good, non-violent folks.   This is the kind of view that has been presented by blogger Scott Gilmore, and others.  But his blog's arguably the best one solely dedicated to the Bowoto trial, so I'll start there.

The story he tells of a peaceful demonstration by Bowoto is just not true. But the real story of this case is the poor Nigerian economic development and that government's neglect in making life better for Nigeria's poor, who've formed militant groups to take whatever wealth they can.  

Obama’s Economic Team May Push for Deeper Role in Economy, Markets

Barack Obama will today unveil an economic team steeped in fighting crises and likely to push for an unprecedented government role in reviving growth and stabilizing the financial system.

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Last Secrets of the Bush Administration - Charles Homans

Iin March 2001, U.S. Archivist John W. Carlin received a letter from Alberto Gonzales, then counsel to the newly inaugurated president George W. Bush. It concerned an important deadline that was looming—one that Bush owed to Richard Nixon.In 1974, Congress ordered a lockdown on all records kept by the Nixon White House, afraid that the....

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Dow's biggest 2-day run since '87

Citigroup rescue and Obama economic team picks propel stocks. Dow sees its biggest two-session point gain ever and biggest two-session percentage gain in 21 years.

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Is George Bush off the wagon? Or was he ever really on it?

George Bush caught imbibing at the APEC summit. Time to get to AA, George, and start working on that fearless moral inventory. . .

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Report Finds Katrina Kids Have Poor Health

Even before the storm, they were some of the country's neediest kids. Now, the children of Katrina who stayed longest in ramshackle government trailer parks in Baton Rouge are "the sickest I have ever seen in the U.S.," says Irwin Redlener, president of the Children's Health Fund.

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White House chefs look for sensitivity, not a star

Speculating about a new chef at the White House has become — as one culinary insider puts it — fantasy football for foodies. But as tempting as it may be to see the Obama family's choice as the ultimate "Top Chef" competition, former White House chefs say the job is about selfless service, not star power.

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Top 7 Absolute Worst Books to Buy Someone for X-Mas

Nascar holiday? Jesus' love life? From romantic cheese to sheer horror and, yes, Thomas Friedman, we won't be curling up with these at all this holiday season--and neither should you, or anyone you care about in the slightest.

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President-Elect Barack Obama Introduces Economic Team Today - Video

President-Elect Barack Obama introduced his Economic Team today.   I have an earlier post on it, but this one features a two-part video: the presentation and the press conference after it.






Press Conference:


 

Alan Colmes Leaves Hannity & Colmes For Liberal Pastures

Realizing I think that liberalism is back and "in" and "green", Alan Colmes of Hannity & Colmes on Fox News, is leaving at the end of the year .  He's already got a blog up called "Liberland" under the URL http://www.alan.com -- I'm not kidding.

Alan Colmes Leaves Hannity & Colmes For Liberal Pastures

Realizing I think that liberalism is back and "in" and "green", Alan Colmes of Hannity & Colmes on Fox News, is leaving at the end of the year.  He's already got a blog up called "Liberland" under the URL http://www.alan.com -- I'm not kidding.

J.J. Abrams Star Trek: More On The May 9th 2008 Movie

I just happened upon this account of a Star Trek Movie press event attended by Dave Itzkoff of the New York Times.  J.J. Abrams was the host, and four clips from the upcoming blockbuster were shown.  This is the "meat" of what Itzkoff reported (spoilers):  

1. The young James T. Kirk (played by Chris Pine) is drinking forlornly at a bar in 23rd century Iowa (where they still serve Budweiser). Without much success, he flirts with a young Starfleet recruit named Uhura (Zoe Saldana) and picks a fight with four Starfleet grunts who clobber him. Kirk’s bravado impresses another Starfleet officer, Captain Christopher Pike (Bruce Greenwood), who knew Kirk’s late father, and goads Kirk into joining the Starfleet Academy. “Your father was the captain of a starship for 12 minutes,” Pike tells him. “He saved 800 lives, including your mother’s. Including yours. I dare you to do better.”

2. A medical officer named McCoy (Karl Urban) helps smuggle Kirk aboard the starship Enterprise by injecting him with a vaccine that induces the symptoms of a mysterious disease. While his hands and tongue swell up, Kirk races around the ship, trying to convince the crew they’re about to enter a trap set by the nefarious Romulans. We get our first glimpse of the young Mr. Spock (Zachary Quinto of television’s “Heroes,” in a mop-top haircut and pointy ears), as well as Spock’s human mother (Winona Ryder) and the Romulan bad guy Nero (Eric Bana, in heavy-duty prosthetic makeup).

3. The Enterprise jettisons Kirk on a remote ice planet, where he meets the aged, future incarnation of Spock (ladies and gentlemen, Mister Leonard Nimoy!) as well as a young Starfleet engineer named Montgomery Scott (Simon Pegg). With Old Spock’s help, Scotty completes a mathematical formula that permits living beings to be teleported onto vessels moving at warp speed. (Of course.) As Kirk and Scotty prepare to beam back onto the Enterprise, Kirk wonders if time-traveling and peeking into the future is cheating; Old Spock tells him it’s “a trick I learned from an old friend.”

4. In a lengthy action sequence, Kirk, Sulu (John Cho) and a third, red-shirted Starfleet recruit (don’t get too attached to him) parachute from the upper atmosphere of the planet Vulcan onto a giant drill that is burrowing a hole to the center of the planet. Kirk and Sulu disable the drill, but not before it drops a charge into the planet’s core. Back on the Enterprise, Spock realizes that the charge, when detonated, will create a black hole where his home world used to be – and he now has mere minutes to evacuate the planet’s entire population.

The second trailer was introduced last week.  Here's my review of the movie thus far, based on what I saw:

Richard Farina On Hacking Airport Wi-Fi

Richard Farina booted up his computer on an American Airlines flight in October from New York to San Francisco. It was one of the first commercial flights to offer wireless Internet service. Within a couple minutes of reaching 10,000 feet, Farina was snooping the airwaves with the ability to see what his fellow pass

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Trade group: video output limits will hit millions of HDTVs

20 million HDTV sets could be adversely affected by Selectable Output Control, a trade association warns. Another group calls that estimate low.

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Despite Oklahoma's win, Texas moves up to No. 2 in new BCS

After its dominating win over Texas Tech Saturday night in Norman, Oklahoma made a compelling case to be playing for the national title in Miami.But it's the team that handed the Sooners their only loss of the season who would be playing in the BCS championship game against No. 1 Alabama if the season ended Sunday.

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Charles Barkley, D. Manning, D. Vitale Join the Hall of Fame

Barkley was honored with a 2008 class that included former Kansas star Danny Manning, Arkansas coach Nolan Richardson and longtime Mount St. Mary's coach Jim Phelan. Former Utah All-American Arnie Ferrin also entered the college hall, as did announcers Dick Vitale and Billy Packer as contributors.

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Jets Beat Titans 34-13 - Five things we learned: Titans-Jets

Five things we learned from the Jets 34-13 dismantling of the previously undefeated Titans (Recap | Box Score) at LP Field on Sunday.....

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Bruce Lee Plays Ping Pong with Nunchucks - Video

All I can say is AMAZING. You've got to see it to believe it.

OFFBEAT: University of Illinois Coach Alledgedly Does Something He Should Not Have Done

This is certainly offbeat news away from the depressing economic information we're being bombarded with.  According to the Associated Press and Fan I.Q , a now former gymnastics coach at the University of Illinois was rumored, but not confirmed to have placed a camera in the women's gymnastic team's locker room.  


Yikes!  And he was the coach!  

Why do that?  If he wanted to date one of them, yes they're young but not that young, but reportedly so was he -- all in their 20s for the most part and well over 18 and in college -- just ask for a date.  U.S.A Soccer star Brandy Chastain dated her coach and now they're married!  It's not an unusual happening by any stretch in college -- sorry, it's not.  And it's far better than dating a student who's class he teaches because he's not giving her a grade.  Believe me, it happens more than you think.  But this?  WFT was he thinking?  (If it's true; I hope not.)  


Geez.  

Obama Economic Team: Tim Geithner, Christine Rohmer, Lawrence Summers

President-Elect Barack Obama's just annouced his new economic team this morning :  New York Federal Reserve head Tim Geithner as Treasury Secretary, UC Berkeley Professor Christine Rohmer as chair of his Council of Economic Advisers, and former Harvard President Lawrence Summers as head of National Economic Council.


Geithner and Summers have been much-talked about. Summers, even with his mistatements on women, is considered a bright and effective economic policy-maker. Geithner is so well respected on Wall Street that the Dow jumped 200 points after Friday's news leak of his selection as Treasury Secretary.



The surprise is Christine Rohmer, who's well-known in the San Francisco Bay Area as a professor of Economics at Cal-Berkeley. I personally met Professor Rohmer during my second year as a graduate student at UC Berkeley. I found her to be a delightful mix of the personable and the intellectual. A great mix to advance policy points and ideas. On that, Dr. Rohmer was well-regarded and popular with students, and I think if memory serves, won an award for teaching. The point is she can take complex economic matters and explain them in such a way that people can learn them.

MyBO Grassroots Inauguration Ball WDC 1/19/2009

Official website of the Grassroots Inauguration Ball set for January 19, 2009 - for celebration of our Victory - and the Inauguration of Our President Barack Obama as President of Our United States of America. We Did It!

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Obama Eyes $500 Billion in Stimulus

Obama and Bush are rushing to craft measures to bolster financial markets and prevent a policy vacuum during the transition. Meanwhile, Paulson is considering tapping the second half of the government's rescue fund.

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Citigroup Saw No Red Flags Even as It Made Bolder Bets

“Our job is to set a tone at the top to incent people to do the right thing and to set up safety nets to catch people who make mistakes or do the wrong thing and correct those as quickly as possible. And it is working. It is working.”

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Bloomberg: US could lend as much as $7.4 trillion

Financial institutions have purportedly already tapped $2.8 trillion in credit lines from the Treasury. The loans are the largest provided in an economic emergency since the New Deal of the 1930s, in the wake of the Great Depression.

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Barack Obama Reveals Two-Year Plan to Create 2.5m Jobs

Spending programme to target roads, schools and renewable energy

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Swedish CEO says he will work for free

Lars G. Nordstrom isn't the only CEO being criticized these days for earning too much money during the world financial crisis. But he may be one of the few who has reacted by deciding to work for free.

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IMF chief: Worst yet to come for global financial crisis

The IMF's chief economist has warned that the global financial crisis is set to worsen and that the situation will not improve until 2010, a report said Saturday.

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Why Unemployment Could Be Worse This Time

This fall a number of economists began predicting unemployment would rise to 8% during this recession, up from a reading of 6.5% in October. It would be the highest jobless rate in years.

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BREAKING: U.S. Provides Massive Bailout to Citigroup

The U.S. federal government on Sunday announced a massive rescue package for Citigroup, saying it would guarantee more than $300 billion in company assets, while injecting an additional $20 billion in capital into the embattled bank.

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Obama Inaguration Talk On Zennie62 BlogTalkRadio December 1st - 2:30 PM PST

I'm annoucing my first online radio broadcast.  This one is on the "Obama Inauguration" and set for December 1st.  I'm also expecting great special guests from various organizations to help us all get ready for this great event.  Question about hotels and loging?  What about events both paid and free?  What should you prepare for in the matter of the weather?  Safety?  Budget?   This show will help answer those questions.  


I've moved the recording time up to 2:30 PM Pacific Standard Time, 4:30 PM Central , and 5:30 PM Eastern to make sure we can have more people engaged in hearing and responding to this conversation.  The call in phone number is 646-929-0855, or you can talk through your computer.  The FAQ page reports: "BlogTalkRadio includes a feature on the show page which allows listeners to select the "Click to Talk" button during any live show and, through a microphone connected to the listener's computer, join the show as a caller. This service is free to listeners."  

Here's the show link, or you can go to http://www.zennie62.com and
click on the link there.

http://www.blogtalkradio.com/Zennie62

"Meet The Press" 11/23/08 James Baker, William Daley, On Obama Economic Plan, Sen. Joe Liberman Full Video

This is today's full "Meet The Press" episode covering the Obama Economic Plan and featuring an interview with Senator Joe Liberman regarding how he campaigned against Barack Obama.

Barack Obama On Meet The Press More Proof Mark Halperin's Wrong About The Media Being "Pro-Obama"

I'm still not believing TIME Magazine political director Mark Halperin's comment that now-President-Elect Barack Obama was given a "free-pass" by the "pro-Obama" media.  And to prove my point that Halperin's wrong, I dug up this "Meet The Press" interview done early this year where the now-late Tim Russert grills Obama about the "Reverend Wright Issue" right off the start of the show.  


No other candidate faced such a potentially withering negative PR storm and came out the better for it. Perhaps that's missing -- deliberately? -- in Halperin's thoughts on the matter.  If so, he should reconsider.  See the full "Meet The Press" interview held May 4th, 2008 and just before the Indiana and North Carolina primaries, below:


Part One





Part Two

Joe Liberman On Meet The Press Does Not Apologize To Obama

As the Huffington Post pointed out, Senator Joe Liberman (I) Conneticut failed to say "I'm sorry" to President-Elect Barack Obama for the way Liberman went against the candidate and with Senator John McCain.

I think Liberman's darker devil believed that the American people would not elect an African American as President and so made a calculated bet -- and lost.

Here's Liberman doing the old Washington two-step:

Mark Halperin Thinks Election Coverage Was Pro-Obama? That's Nuts

I just read on Politico.com's Forum page that Mark Halperin's wining and moaning that the media was "in the tank" or "pro" Obama.


That's nuts.


For two years with "Obama Rapid Response" I've worked to counter Fox News coverage, the Washington Posts line of dirty "Why did you run this and keep bringing up Rev. Wright" articles, and a constant slew of "Obama is Muslim" crap that even the Associated Press played into.


All of that, and more, and Halperin thinks the media was "pro-Obama".


That's just plain false. I'll write more on this soon. But there's your warning.

Zennie's Zeitgeist Blog is now "Zennie62" Blog

I made a decision to make a big change: "Zennie's Zeitgeist", the name I gave my blog in 2005 to explain that I was trying to chronicle the events of our time, is giving way to "Zennie62". The effort is to have one brand name for all of my social network platforms, and since all of them have Zennie62, changing the flagship blog in the SBS Media network just seemed to the logical thing to do.

Yes, the focus will remain the same, but what I want is to avoid confusing people with different "Zennie" names -- now there's just one. Yes, we will still have the 86 blogs, but Zennie62 is the main blog in the system and takes readers to the other blogs and to the SBS world of games and content.

Zennie62. On Twitter. YouTube. iReport. The upcoming BlogTalkRadio. And here.

Abraham Biggs Webcam Suicide On Justin.tv - Blame American Culture

Abraham Biggs decided to take a lot of pills and basically kill himself on Justin.tv and at this now unused page while others -- a lot of people -- watched. I'm not so sure which is worse, the fact that he did it or the fact that the public just watched and let him do it without calling for help sooner.

Equally disturbing is the reaction of Justin.tv, which wrote:

As for the broadcaster incident last night, we don’t comment on individual videos, however, our policy prohibits inappropriate content on Justin.tv. We rely on the community to flag videos that they feel are objectionable. Once a video is flagged, it is reviewed and quickly removed from the system if it violates our Terms of Use.

You know, who cares about the "objectionable" aspect of the video, what about the fact that no one, not even Justin.tv took action to prevent that as it was happening?! That's sick. And sicker still is the news that some moderator on Bodybuilding.com egged Abraham on to take his own life!

Biggs' sister said it best:

"Joking about it, laughing about it, watching somebody breathe and then not breathe," the victim's sister, Rosalind Biggs, 27, said through tears. "It just would have taken one phone call."

One phone call. That's all. Hell, reportedly they were watching him for 12 hours ! 12 hours!

It's sad. He's just 19 years old and his MySpace page shows a person with a zest for life. But this note he left shows the inner pain he had just below the surface, and not to far down at that:

Ask a guy who is gonna OD (again) tonight anything
To Whom It May Concern,
I am going to leave this for whoever stumbles across my bookmarks later on.
I hate myself and I hate living. I think that if someone who knows me
reads this they will know who I am. So I will leave this unsigned. I am
an a@#hole. I have let everyone down and I feel as though I will never
change or never improve. I am in love with a girl and I know that I am
not good enough for her. I have come
to believe that my life has all been meaningless. I keep trying and I
keep failing. I have thought about and attempted suicide many times in
the past. I used to think of my failure as some mystical way of telling
me that I was really meant for something meaningful. The only thing I
dread, besides the pain, is the way my family will suffer. I do not want
my mother or father to think that it was anything they did that lead me
to kill myself. I never really had any plans of leaving a note. I
thought that I would not be able to describe why I want to do this and I
am right. There is no way to tell you or anyone else why I dread every
new day. My father had such high expectations for me and tried to give
me every opportunity to improve upon myself. I let him down. I think
that I am a major disappointment to him. I have a job but I?m always broke
and I am in college but barely, I show up to class but that?s about it.
I want my life to end. I am tired of f@#$ing up everything. I
am tired of people always telling me that they do not like me. I am
tired of trying to be decent. I hope that someone finds this post and I
hope that my parents know that I f@#$ed up not them. It is my fault I
screwed up my own life.
The hate that rages within me, rages not for those I love so dearly or
those who have crossed my path.
This hate rages full force towards me and only me.
I have long forgiven those who've hurt me, but I have not and cannot
come to terms to forgive myself for the things I have done to myself, and
the things I've done to hurt those in my life.
You have all touched my life in one way or another,
especially those whom I call family.
I cannot tell you how sorry I am for ending my life the way I did. I
hope that you can all find it in your heart to see it as way for me not
suffering anymore and that I am finally at rest with myself, for being at
rest with the guilt that constantly ate at me for so long.
Please forgive me all for taking my own life so early. I tried so hard
to fight against this strong battle. I have reached out for help so many
times, and yet I believe, I was turned away because of the things I did,
that it is a punishment I am willing to take, for I know that being who I am
has only brought myself and others pain.
I love you all and will forever live within the memories we created.
Forgive me.
Love always and forever,
As for my signature I will leave you with a quote so that if anyone
reads this they will know it's me, "Can?t feel pain if your dead? Just Saying"

What this says to me is Abraham was receiving a lot of negative voices and he took them to heart. There's a saying "See a man for what he is and he will be that, but see a man for what he can become and he will reach his potential."

Abraham, it seems, was surrounded by people who could not -- or would not -- see his potential. But why?

I think far too many Black men, young men, get the voices of hate and negativity, as well as the images of the same. It's why Barack Obama's election was so very important but also why it came too late for Abraham. Apparently the die was already cast for this.

The bottom line: if you ever hear of a person talking about taking their own life take it seriously. Period.

Google's SearchWiki Roll your own search results with Google's new SearchWiki

Google's SearchWiki—the feature that allows people to annotate, add, delete, and move around search results—will soon be available to all users logged in with a Google account. The company's not sure yet what it plans to actually do with the data, though.

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Bush Pushing To Relax Endangered Species Regulations

Animals and plants in danger of becoming extinct could lose the protection of government experts who make sure that dams, highways and other projects don't pose a threat, under regulations the Bush administration is set to put in place this week Friday.

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EU opens Europeana digital library to public with over 2 million works

The EU has finally launched Europeana, a digital online library that hosts more than 2 million books, maps, recordings, photographs, paintings, and documents from cultural institutions in its 27 member states. The EU hopes to have 8 million more works added by 2010.

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Jobless claims surge to a 16-year high

Initial unemployment filings rise to 542,000 and number of Americans continuing on benefits nears 26-year high.

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