Thursday News Bucket

25 Comments

1. 

   rba on June 22, 2006 at 8:49 am

   We don’t have a “resources” box, but you can add PLAN here.  Yeah, pimpin’ these folk because they do good work.  Coupla examples are this week’s (6/19) Stateside Dispatch coverage of TABORs (Taxpayer Bill of Rights) insidious spread; last week’s (6/5) was on the Minimum Wage.  Both include full resource boxes.  Matt Singer & Nathan Newman, with a very few others.

   Like we used to say:  they’re little, but they’re wound tight.

   • 

     Nag on June 22, 2006 at 9:46 am

     Excellent links, RBA. Glad you posted them here.

2. 

   CabinGirl on June 22, 2006 at 8:59 am

   over book banning: AP/Yahoo

   The ACLU and the Miami-Dade County Student Government Association argued in a lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court in Miami on Wednesday that the school board should add materials with alternate viewpoints rather than remove books that could be offensive.

   Last week, the board voted 6-3 to remove “Vamos a Cuba” and its English-language version, “A Visit to Cuba” from 33 schools, stating the books were inappropriate for young readers because of inaccuracies and omissions about life in the communist nation.

   The book, by Alta Schreier, targets students ages 5 to 7 and contains images of smiling children wearing uniforms of Cuba’s communist youth group and a carnival celebrating the 1959 Cuban revolution. The district owns 49 copies of the book in Spanish and English.

   Wow.  They must have gotten a lot of negative feedback from parents and teachers to warrant banning that book, right?

   The school board also decided to remove 24 other books in the series, including ones on Greece, Mexico and Vietnam, “despite not having received a complaint about those books and without having reviewed the books in its administrative process,” the suit said.

   The ACLU noted the books have received favorable reviews in nationally recognized publications including Publishers Weekly and the School Library Journal. The suit also cites staff recommendations to keep the books.

   • 

     Nag on June 22, 2006 at 9:52 am

     I saw the original book banning story last weekend and was appalled. Banning books in schools for violence is about the only legitimate reason I can think of… but banning a book because it focuses too much on smiling Cuban children and not the politics of Cuba is outrageous. Gradeschool books about far away places are ALWAYS about smiling children and the particulars of their lives, not politics. I’m glad I joined the ACLU earlier this year.

     • 

       CabinGirl on June 22, 2006 at 9:54 am

       I wonder if they would have been so anxious to ban the book if the Cuban kids had been depicted as poor, downtrodden, unhappy victims of their government policies…

3. 

   boran2 on June 22, 2006 at 9:15 am

   What, only one news bucket today?  😉

   • 

     CabinGirl on June 22, 2006 at 9:18 am

     Well, if you want to put up another one…but I’m having trouble finding anything interesting to put in this one, let alone two!  🙂

     • 

       Knoxville Progressive on June 22, 2006 at 9:59 am

       People like your news buckets better than mine.  Sniff, sniff, pout.

       🙁

   • 

     Knoxville Progressive on June 22, 2006 at 9:43 am

     Hey, there was only one yesterday, wise guy!  ;-D

4. 

   CabinGirl on June 22, 2006 at 9:34 am

   AP/Yahoo

   For the first time, scientists have proof that condoms offer women impressive protection against the virus that causes cervical cancer.

   A three-year study of female college students — all virgins at the start — found that women whose partners always wore a condom during sex were 70 percent less likely to become infected with the human papilloma virus, or HPV, than those whose partners used protection less than 5 percent of the time.

   “That’s pretty awesome. There aren’t too many times when you can have an intervention that would offer so much protection,” said Dr. Patricia Kloser, an infectious-disease specialist at University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey who was not part of the study.

   “There aren’t too many times when you can have an intervention that would offer so much protection”…unless of course, the new cervical cancer vaccine is able to get approval.  Given the article about the Christian right’s opposition to the vaccine published today in TIME online, that approval is likely to be a long battle…

   …the Family Research Council’s Bridget Maher warning that “giving the HPV vaccine to young women could be potentially harmful, because they may see it as a licence to engage in premarital sex.” Others warned of promoting false confidence, since the vaccine does not protect against all strains of HPV or the many other sexually transmitted diseases. Reginald Finger, a former medical advisor to Focus on the Family who sits on the CDC advisory committee, told The Hill that “if people begin to market the vaccine or tout the vaccine that this makes adolescent sex safer, then that would undermine the abstinence-only message.”

   Yeah Reggie, let’s worry about stepping on the abstinence-only message, instead of saving women’s lives.

   • 

     Knoxville Progressive on June 22, 2006 at 9:57 am

     Oh CG, bless your heart, don’t you know god created HPV for the same reason he created AIDS – so that people would remain virgins until joining in strict heterosexual monogamy.  You know this “tough love” thing hurts him more than it hurts you.  How may diseases will he have to create before you liberals figure it out?  ;-D

5. 

   boran2 on June 22, 2006 at 9:41 am

   This is dedication.

   ENS Link

   Virunga Elephants Recovering Thanks to Heroic Park Guards

   NEW YORK, New York, June 21, 2006 (ENS) – Numbers of elephants and other large mammals have increased in the Democratic Republic of Congo’s Virunga National Park since the last census three years ago, conservation groups in the United States and DRC report. […]

   Efforts to curb poaching have come at a high cost. Since 1996, more than 100 park guards in Virunga National Park have been killed while trying to prevent poaching, and one was killed as recently as May.

   Currently, park guards receive only $1 per month as a salary from the DRC government, although this amount was increased to $30 per month with funds from UNESCO from 2002-2005.

    

   • 

     CabinGirl on June 22, 2006 at 10:06 am

     That’s pretty amazing.

6. 

   Nag on June 22, 2006 at 9:43 am

   Link

   Defense Department Disavows Santorum’s WMD Claims

   Today, Sen. Rick Santorum (R-PA) and Rep. Peter Hoekstra (R-MI) held a press conference and announced “we have found weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.” Santorum and Hoekstra are hyping a document that describes degraded, pre-1991 munitions that were already acknowledged by the White House’s Iraq Survey Group and dismissed.

   Fox News’ Jim Angle contacted the Defense Department who quickly disavowed Santorum and Hoekstra’s claims. A Defense Department official told Angle flatly that the munitions hyped by Santorum and Hoekstra are “not the WMD’s for which this country went to war.”

   Santorum is my creepy Senator, but hopefully not much longer.

   • 

     Knoxville Progressive on June 22, 2006 at 9:52 am

     Santorum is my creepy Senator, but hopefully not much longer.

     I feel your pain.  My creepy senator is Frist.  Meouch!

7. 

   Knoxville Progressive on June 22, 2006 at 9:48 am

   Hi, I’m from Microsoft and I’m here to help you:  Microsoft showed off a software kit for robot builders on Tuesday that it said will free inventors to make creations limited only by their imaginations. Microsoft pulled the curtain back on its Microsoft Robotics Studio at the RoboBusiness and Exposition 2006.  Anyone wanting to test-drive the software can download it without charge here.  (You should follow the link if just to see the graphic at the top of the page – part ET, part Michelangelo – and give me your feedback in the comments.)  And here’s a clue as to what Elroy will want as a gift this winter solstice multi-tradition holiday:  “Microsoft, together with the upcoming Lego Mindstorms NXT, will help further amplify the impact of robotics,” said Soren Lund, director of Lego’s Mindstorms unit.

   While scientists cannot predict when an earthquake will occur, a new study documents how pressures are building up along the San Andreas Fault‘s southern section in California, indicating a quake may come sooner rather than later – this part of the fault is at about the maximum level of strain it can take before releasing it in a major quake.

   The numbers don’t match the measurements:  New data indicate several governments (prominently including England and France) are under-reporting their emissions under the Kyoto protocol, and a few are over-reporting (Ireland and Finland).  This has serious implications for the carbon emissions trading market being set up.

   Meanwhile, in Washington…

   Congressional leaders reached an agreement on the proposed Nantucket Sound wind farm that would give the head of the Coast Guard – but not the governor of Massachusetts – the power to order changes or scuttle it entirely if he finds it would interfere with navigation.  While creating another hurdle for creation of wind farms there, the agreement is seen as a victory for wind farm advocates.

   Facing angry lawmakers from both political parties, executives from three major oil companies (Shell, Chevron, and ConocoPhillips) indicated on Wednesday that they might be willing to give up sizable taxpayer subsidies for drilling in the Gulf of Mexico.  But one of the most active players in the gulf, the Kerr-McGee Corporation, showed no signs of compromise and told a House hearing that it was entitled to the subsidies — known as royalty relief — even if oil prices remained above $70 a barrel. And Exxon Mobil said it saw no reason for the subsidies to be changed.

   A congressional investigative agency warned yesterday that the federal government still has no realistic ability to make sure that high-risk chemical plants are protected against terrorist attack.

   And the greenwashing of BushCo continues, as we’ve commented on the last several days:  Is this developing into an election-year trend?  The Bush administration Wednesday approved requests from three Eastern governors to bar commercial logging in remote sections of national forests in their states.  The petitions from Virginia, North Carolina and South Carolina, covering a total of 555,000 acres, were the first submitted to the administration since it eased logging restrictions on what are known as roadless tracts. “We’ve always been green,” Agriculture undersecretary Mark Rey said. “We just haven’t gotten credit for it.”  [Gag me.]

   Question from the SAT exam, 2012:  Based on your comprehension of the first story above, complete the following analogy:  Microsoft : Robots :: MSM : (blank)

   (a)    news anchorpersons
   (b)    reality TV show contestants
   (c)    guests on news programs
   (d)    the public
   (e)    all of the above

   • 

     Nag on June 22, 2006 at 10:07 am

     The greenwashing of Bushco … I love it! Great description of what’s been happening.

     Of COURSE the oil execs don’t see any reason to hand back billions in taxpayers money… why is congress even having that discussion? Just pass the legislation and force them to fork it over. To the oil companies a few billion is just chump change these days.

     About that graphic on the Microsoft page… it’s a pretty creative use of a familiar image. The best I’ve seen is local; there’s a local billboard advertising an MRI/Medical Imaging service that uses an xray type image of the two hands with fingers almost touching. It’s a striking image and very effective. (I immediately wanted an MRI even though I didn’t need one) 🙂

     • 

       Knoxville Progressive on June 22, 2006 at 10:12 am

       I’ve had an MRI and it was kind of creepy, but maybe I’m mildly claustraphobic…  but not nearly as creepy as Santorum and Frist, LOL.  Given the choice of being caught in a stuck elevator with Santorum and/or Frist and having an MRI, I’d definitely take the MRI.

8. 

   Real History Lisa on June 22, 2006 at 9:57 am

   From Salon:

   In a pivotal network operations center in metropolitan St. Louis, AT&T has maintained a secret, highly secured room since 2002 where government work is being conducted, according to two former AT&T workers once employed at the center.

   In interviews with Salon, the former AT&T workers said that only government officials or AT&T employees with top-secret security clearance are admitted to the room, located inside AT&T’s facility in Bridgeton. The room’s tight security includes a biometric “mantrap” or highly sophisticated double door, secured with retinal and fingerprint scanners. The former workers say company supervisors told them that employees working inside the room were “monitoring network traffic” and that the room was being used by “a government agency.”

   More at http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2006/06/21/att_nsa/index.html

   • 

     Knoxville Progressive on June 22, 2006 at 10:08 am

     And here I thought Gannon/Guckert was the “mantrap.”

     ;-D

9. 

   Man Without A Country on June 22, 2006 at 12:46 pm

   I agree with Kenneth Grahame!  I have the summer off (guess my occupation) and I spend lots of time on my four boats:

   My “weekend cabin” (my 42-foot wooden motor yacht, which usually stays docked because securing it for travel takes hours);
   My “cruising boat” (a 24-foot sloop, and the one I use on the open water most of the time);
   My “visit the neighbors” boat (a 10-foot hybrid motor/sailing dinghy);
   My sea kayak, which is the one that helps keep me in shape in between boating parties.

   Cruising on the open water on a summer’s night, under a full moon?  Pure joy.  Nobody can take that away from me.

   • 

     CabinGirl on June 22, 2006 at 1:02 pm

     I knew I liked you for a reason… 🙂

     I have a kayak (mostly creeks and rivers), inherited a canoe, and am coveting one of these, but have to content myself with demo-ing the kevlar version whenever I get the chance.  

     I love the feeling of leaving the world behind with a few strokes of the paddle.  

   • 

     mary4 on June 22, 2006 at 2:19 pm

     Sailin…perhaps this has been covered elsewhere but I just found it last night. The suicide of Philip Merrill.  All kinds of intrigue here, found in the water, anchor tied on his ankle..shotgun wound in head..ruled suicide.  Good friend of cheney, former pres of import/export bank, too many ironies to discuss here but the fact that ‘they’ really want ‘us’ to believe this was a suicide shows me how stupid ‘they’ think ‘we’ are.

     • 

       dada on June 22, 2006 at 3:03 pm

       Pretty stupid…you’d think they would have gotten more creative over time.

       Chesapeake Bay is dangerous water, I guess…

       John Paisley, a top NSA-CIA spook reportedly involved in both the John F. Kennedy assassination and Watergate , was “retired” in 1978 when he went sailing solo on his 31-foot boat in Chesapeake Bay.

       He never returned home that night, and the sailboat was found the next day … loaded with a treasure trove of classified documents that convinced New York Times’ reporters that Paisley was deeply involved in the most clandestine activities of the U.S. government.

       “Several days later Paisley’s body was found floating in the bay,” according to WikiPedia’s entry on Paisley . “The body had a single gunshot wound to the left side of the head and had been strapped and weighed down with diving weights. Eventually the death would be deemed a suicide.”

       • 

         Man Without A Country on June 22, 2006 at 6:34 pm

         Well, actually…I don’t know if these particular fellows were murdered or committed suicide, but I do know that a lot of avid sailors who are also “old salts” have told me that if they were ever diagnosed with terminal cancer, or just wanted to end it all, they’d take their boats out on the high seas and just step off.  

         You’d freeze to death quite quickly in all but the most tropical waters, or drown unless the ocean was unusually becalmed.  

         I know, cheery conversations we have dockside, eh?  That’s what happens when you hang out with old duffers.  And anybody who’s been sailing enough times has developed a fatalistic attitude about death and the sea, because if the sea wants you, she’ll take you and there’s not a damned thing you can do about it.  And we’re Pacific Ocean sailors; the Atlantic is far stormier and has claimed many more lives than its relatively calm sister.

         Wanting to die in the waters is, for sailors, a tribute to Mother Ocean.  Life came from there and there’s something in human beings that draw us back there.  Why do you think 70% of the world’s population lives in coastal areas?  It’s not just for commercial reasons; we are drawn to the sea.

         As for me, I want to live just long enough to witness the impeachment of President Bush.  President Jenna Bush, in the year 2032.