As newspaper companies come under increasing pressure from investors to unload assets and otherwise improve their performance, the Boston Globe has become the latest target of wealthy locals seeking to put their stamp on their hometown paper through ownership.
Former General Electric Co. Chairman Jack Welch has been talking to a group of Bostonians about the possibility of launching a bid for the Boston Globe, according to people familiar with the matter. Its parent, the New York Times Co., has said the paper isn’t for sale, but because of Mr. Welch’s corporate stature and the larger newspaper landscape, the report could put the paper in play. A report of the discussions first appeared in a front-page story in the Globe.
[Jack Welch]
No approaches yet have been made by Mr. Welch and his potential partners, who include Jack Connors, a prominent Boston ad executive; and Joseph O’Donnell, whose business is theater concessions. The partnership was brokered by Mike Barnicle, a former Globe columnist who left the paper amid allegations he fabricated information in one of his columns. Mr. Barnicle, who denied the allegations at the time, currently hosts a radio talk show.
Mr. Connors’s interest in the Globe dates back several months and was sparked by the purchase of the Philadelphia Inquirer by Brian Tierney, chief executive officer of Tierney Media Holdings LLC, from McClatchy Co. over the summer, according to people familiar with the situation.
I guess it’s becoming the latest “in” thing…buy a newspaper so you can fire all the “liberals” and control what it says.
A protégé of White House political guru Karl Rove produced the controversial Republican National Committee ad targeting Tennessee Democratic Senate candidate Rep. Harold Ford Jr., that some have called racist, CBS News has learned.
I just hope Rove et al have overestimated the power of hatred at the voting booth this time around.
[..] “Somebody needs to say enough is enough,” he said to worshippers who stood, waved and called out in support. . . Paul, who claimed to support conservative political leaders in the past, is launching “a crusade to save America from the wrath of God and Republicans abusing their power,” according to his press materials. . . “God is mad at this country,” Paul told the congregation. He described the war in Iraq as “unnecessary genocide.”
I agree. I think Rove and the rest of them are scared to death of what’s coming. I heard an audio clip of Rove arguing on NPR about those polls and how Repubs are going to win… he sounded awfully shrill. Didn’t convince me at all.
A wee observation: a friend of mine points to the typically doll-like texture of Rove’s facial skin — sans the lines, creases, marks of an actual human face — as evidence of his utter vacuity, devoid of emotion.
However, I noted via KO clippet last night that there are, in fact, some deep creases across the forehead now — sometimes referred to as ‘worry lines’.
I’ll admit, however, that long-term exposure to bright light will decay some synthetic materials.
· Report says 10 states not ready for electronic vote
· Scientist hacks into new polling machine on TV
Six years after the emergence of the now infamous “hanging chad” in the 2000 presidential elections, monitoring groups warn that technological glitches and hackers could throw next month’s mid-term elections into chaos.
With polling day less than two weeks away, a report this week by electionline.org, a non-partisan organisation, anticipates problems at the ballot box in as many as 10 states.
“Machine failures, database delays and foul-ups, inconsistent procedures, new rules and new equipment have some predicting chaos at the polls at worst, and widespread polling place snafus at best,” the report says.
It drives me up a wall to see local news fluff about new voting machines, how folks are learning that they’re not so difficult, oh, it’s such a big change… you know you can’t stop change. Never a word about how dangerous these machines are to the basic pillars of our democracy. Yet a majority of people in the US have doubts about their own votes being counted. Last election I mentioned a few sorry facts about Diebold to the older (Republican, rural conservative) women manning the polls who looked at me as if to say “ACK! A real liberal troublemaker here… I wonder if she’s going to spout horns and throw up green!” Totally oblivious, living in a conservative bubble. Makes me nuts.
The use of a form of torture known as waterboarding to gain information is a “no-brainer”, the US vice-president, Dick Cheney, told a radio interviewer, it was reported today.
Mr Cheney implied that the technique – a form of simulated drowning – was used on the alleged September 11 mastermind, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, who is being held at Guantánamo Bay.
In an interview with Scott Hennen, a conservative radio show host in Fargo, North Dakota, on Tuesday, Mr Cheney agreed with the assertion that “a dunk in water” could yield valuable intelligence from terror suspects.
Are there any Latin scholars in the house? I’m wondering if the origin for “lupa” (prostitute) is from the feminine form for wolf (“lupus”). Which would make the term literally the Latin equivalent of the English word with similar double meanings, “bitch.”
Prostitutes were called meretrix, “earner”, and lupa, “she-wolf”; a brothel was a lupanar; these words referred to the mercantile and perceived predatory activities of prostitutes. The Latin word prostituo had a root meaning simply of “to expose for public sale.” The word glubo, glubere, glupsi, gluptus meant “to peel”, and by extension, “to rob”; it was often used of prostitutes; compare English she took him to the cleaners.
British troops in Iraq. We’re reducing our forces by half. On our mission, “we’re just short of that tipping point”; but really, truth be told, “our military are near to breaking point due to long deployments.”
Judge Orders Release of Abu Ghraib Child Rape Photos
A federal judge ruled today that graphic pictures of detainee abuse at Iraq’s Abu Ghraib prison must be released over government claims that they could damage America’s image. Last year a Republican senator conceded that they contained scenes of “rape and murder” and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld said they included acts that were “blatantly sadistic.”p>
U.S. District Judge Alvin K. Hellerstein ordered the release of certain pictures in a 50-page decision that said terrorists in Iraq and Afghanistan have proven they “do not need pretexts for their barbarism.”
The ACLU has sought the release of 87 photographs and four videotapes taken at the prison as part of an October 2003 lawsuit demanding information on the treatment of detainees in U.S. custody and the transfer of prisoners to countries known to use torture.
Gen Abizaid, another mouthy little parrot on Rummy’s shoulder, has said that releasing the photos would make his job oh soooo hard. The judge thinks otherwise. The gov’t has 20 days to appeal. Let’s be clear: these photos show rape of children and outright murder. Even Rummy who has icewater in his veins called them “blatantly sadistic, cruel and inhumane” We won’t actually see these photos any time soon, but the fight goes on.
The same series of British ocean probes discussed yesterday discovered a very alarming event in 2004, perhaps an omen of things to come: Part of the Gulf Stream shut down for 10 days in 2004. Researchers are not sure yet what to make of the 10-day hiatus. “We’d never seen anything like that before and we don’t understand it. We didn’t know it could happen,” said Harry Bryden, at the National Oceanography Centre, in Southampton, who presented the findings to a conference in Birmingham on rapid climate change. Is it the first sign that the current is stuttering to a halt? “I want to know more before I say that,” Professor Bryden said. Lloyd Keigwin, a scientist at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, in Massachusetts, in the US, described the temporary shutdown as “the most abrupt change in the whole [climate] record”. He added: “It only lasted 10 days. But suppose it lasted 30 or 60 days, when do you ring up the prime minister and say let’s start stockpiling fuel? How can we rule out a longer one next year?”
One of the world’s rarest wildcats tests Japan’s resolve to protect the environment: A cat so rare, it was discovered only in 1965. So threatened, only about 100 exist. So singular, it lives only on this 110-square-mile (282-square-kilometer) Pacific island. Yet the elusive Iriomote cat is more than just an endangered species. Heroic efforts to save it from extinction symbolize an about-turn in Japan’s long-tortured relationship with Mother Nature. Not only does the struggle underline the country’s newfound determination to redress decades of environmental devastation at the hands of unbridled industrialization, it proves just how tough reversing the damage can be.
Deforestation in the Amazon rain forest has declined to its lowest level since 1991 due to strict enforcement of environmental regulations, the Brazilian government said Thursday. Preliminary figures released by the environmental ministry showed 5,057 square miles of the rain forest were destroyed this year — the lowest level since 4,258 square miles were lost in 1991. The government last month announced the forest lost 6,450 square miles this year but the result was revised after additional data was analyzed [and because of the current tight runoff election for president?]. The numbers released Thursday are estimates based on satellite images. The final results are expected before the end of the year. Last year, the rain forest lost 7,250 square miles.
NASA is DEBATING whether to repair Hubble? Well, if it could shoot a laser would they even think about not repairing it? Can good science still come from Hubble? If yes, what’s to freakin’ debate? NASA is descending into Bushlike incompetence and it’s painful to watch.
They’re worried that if a problem happens aboard the shuttle, there would be no way to save the astronauts (in a mission to the space station, if there’s a problem they just sit tight in the station until another shuttle or a Russian rescue craft is launched).
The astronauts are eager to repair the shuttle, it’s the management, which doesn’t want a second shuttle disaster on W’s watch (not that anyone does).
There’s plenty of good science to be done with the Hubble; as new discoveries are made with some of the other orbiting observatories in X-ray, infrared, UV, etc. it’s not uncommon for someone to suggest “Hey, let’s have a look at that in visible light too, using the Hubble.” Plus there are occasionally unpredictable events like stellar explosions or comets they can use it on…
Fitzgerald’s target in the witness box was Elizabeth F. Loftus, a professor of criminology and psychology at the University of California at Irvine. For more than an hour of the pretrial hearing, Loftus calmly explained to Judge Reggie B. Walton her three decades of expertise in human memory and witness testimony. Loftus asserted that, after copious scientific research, she has found that many potential jurors do not understand the limits of memory and that Libby should be allowed to call an expert to make that clear to them.
But when Fitzgerald got his chance to cross-examine Loftus about her findings, he had her stuttering to explain her own writings and backpedaling from her earlier assertions. Citing several of her publications, footnotes and the work of her peers, Fitzgerald got Loftus to acknowledge that the methodology she had used at times in her long academic career was not that scientific, that her conclusions about memory were conflicting, and that she had exaggerated a figure and a statement from her survey of D.C. jurors that favored the defense.
Her defense-paid visit to the federal court was crucial because Libby is relying on the “memory defense” against Fitzgerald’s charges that he obstructed justice and lied to investigators about his role in the leaking of a CIA operative’s identity to the media. Libby’s attorneys argue that he did not lie — that he was just really busy with national security matters and forgot some of his conversations.
I’ve been waiting too long for this man.
There were several moments when Loftus was completely caught off guard by Fitzgerald, creating some very awkward silences in the courtroom.
One of those moments came when Loftus insisted that she had never met Fitzgerald. He then reminded her that he had cross-examined her before, when she was an expert defense witness and he was a prosecutor in the U.S. attorney’s office in New York.
Horror at the bloodshed accompanying the U.S. effort to bring democracy to Iraq has accomplished what human rights activists, analysts and others say Syrian President Bashar al-Assad had been unable to do by himself: silence public demands for democratic reforms here.
The idea of the government as a bulwark of stability and security has long been the watchword of Syrian bureaucrats and village elders. But since Iraq’s descent into sectarian and ethnic war — and after Israel’s war with Hezbollah in Lebanon, on the other side of Syria — even Syrian activists concede that the country’s feeble rights movement is moribund.
Advocates of democracy are equated now with supporters of America, even “traitors,” said Maan Abdul Salam, 36, a Damascus publisher who has coordinated conferences on women’s rights and similar topics.
“Now, talking about democracy and freedom has become very difficult and sensitive,” Salam said. “The people are not believing these thoughts anymore. When the U.S. came to Iraq, it came in the name of democracy and freedom. But all we see are bodies, bodies, bodies.”[snip]
“If democracy brings such chaos in the region, and especially the destruction of society, as it did in Iraq and in Lebanon, it’s absolutely normal, and I think it’s absolutely a wise position from the people to be afraid to imagine how it would be in Syria,” Amiralay said. “I think that people at the end said, ‘Well, it is better to keep this government. We know them, and we don’t want to go to this civil war, and to live this apocalyptic image of change, with civil war and sectarianism and blood.’ “
Bush has virtually guaranteed that democratic reform is shunned in the Middle East like a disease.
We will be measuring Bush’s collosal failures for years to come, probably decades.
I wanted to take a moment to thank all of you who contribute to the News Bucket. I check it out most every day without making comment or even dropping 4s for which I apologize.
I find I both dread reading what will be posted and looking forward to what I will find. The quotes, your repartee, and the jewels of funny, beautiful, and hopeful news make it possible for me to learn more about what is happening on and to this planet.
An American teacher exiled to Canada after his conviction on sexual abuse charges in the United States then arrested at the border faces an immigration hearing on Friday.
Canadian border guards arrested Malcolm Watson, 35, on Wednesday as he returned from a court appearance in Buffalo, N.Y.
(…)
Public Safety Minister Stockwell Day has said the federal government wants Watson out of the country.
“We don’t want to see Canada become a haven for, whether it’s pedophiles or any other person committing a serious crime, and we don’t want U.S. courts getting the notion that we just take people here that they would have put in jail but instead they sent him to Canada,” Day said Thursday.
The U.S. Coast Guard announced plans in September to conduct training exercises on the lakes, and decided to hold public consultations in American communities after an outcry from concerned citizens.
Senator Hugh Segal, a Kingston resident, said the lack of Canadian consultation is an affront to the naval history the two countries share.
“While the Americans may be within their rights to initiate fire-range activities, I think normative diplomatic relations between the two countries should call for, and demand, that there be consultation,” Segal said Thursday.
The proposal would lead to 34 live-fire practice ranges, which would host ships that have machine-guns firing up to 650 rounds a minute. One of the ranges is 20 kilometres south of Wolfe Island.
(…)
American test ranges are a touchy issue in the Trenton area, as a stretch of the community’s Lake Ontario waterfront was rendered useless after being used as a bombing range through the 1950s.
“We are still trying to clean up live ammo,” he said. “That’s ongoing and it’s still off limits.”
of the Philly Inquirer? WSJ
I guess it’s becoming the latest “in” thing…buy a newspaper so you can fire all the “liberals” and control what it says.
Not: CBS
I just hope Rove et al have overestimated the power of hatred at the voting booth this time around.
Rove is desparate. He has lost the evangelicals down from 70% to 58%.
Professor Cole finds Pastor K. Paul crusading the USA.
[..] “Somebody needs to say enough is enough,” he said to worshippers who stood, waved and called out in support. . . Paul, who claimed to support conservative political leaders in the past, is launching “a crusade to save America from the wrath of God and Republicans abusing their power,” according to his press materials. . . “God is mad at this country,” Paul told the congregation. He described the war in Iraq as “unnecessary genocide.”
Oh. my.
I agree. I think Rove and the rest of them are scared to death of what’s coming. I heard an audio clip of Rove arguing on NPR about those polls and how Repubs are going to win… he sounded awfully shrill. Didn’t convince me at all.
A wee observation: a friend of mine points to the typically doll-like texture of Rove’s facial skin — sans the lines, creases, marks of an actual human face — as evidence of his utter vacuity, devoid of emotion.
However, I noted via KO clippet last night that there are, in fact, some deep creases across the forehead now — sometimes referred to as ‘worry lines’.
I’ll admit, however, that long-term exposure to bright light will decay some synthetic materials.
Some of you may be too young to remember Donald Segretti, the political trickster who was the guy behind some of Nixon’s dirtier tricks.
He had a protege in the early 70s. The protege’s name was Karl Rove.
So whoever this new enfant terrible is, let’s buy him a one-way ticket to Antarctica and a lifetime supply of parkas. Now.
US warned of ballot box chaos as elections near
It drives me up a wall to see local news fluff about new voting machines, how folks are learning that they’re not so difficult, oh, it’s such a big change… you know you can’t stop change. Never a word about how dangerous these machines are to the basic pillars of our democracy. Yet a majority of people in the US have doubts about their own votes being counted. Last election I mentioned a few sorry facts about Diebold to the older (Republican, rural conservative) women manning the polls who looked at me as if to say “ACK! A real liberal troublemaker here… I wonder if she’s going to spout horns and throw up green!” Totally oblivious, living in a conservative bubble. Makes me nuts.
Cheney endorses simulated drowning
Free speech online ‘under threat’
Pompeii’s erotic past revealed
Are there any Latin scholars in the house? I’m wondering if the origin for “lupa” (prostitute) is from the feminine form for wolf (“lupus”). Which would make the term literally the Latin equivalent of the English word with similar double meanings, “bitch.”
Apparently so. Googling “latin lupa prostitute” turns up a bunch of sites, not the least of which is Wikipedia’s entry on Latin profanity:
Martyrs of the web
Amnesty launches a campaign to free the bloggers jailed for telling the truth about repressive regimes.
And, and the US is not averse. (H/T:Huffpost) US Military in Iraq blocking liberal blogs. Only conservative blogs allowed!
The real price of coffee
Reparations that are now an absurdity …….. 15 years on, Kuwaitis still getting payouts for damage of 1990 Iraqi invasion
Don’t Blame me: I have no say over my troops, no weapons.
Iraqi PM sees peace in 6 months – if US cooperates.
British troops in Iraq. We’re reducing our forces by half. On our mission, “we’re just short of that tipping point”; but really, truth be told, “our military are near to breaking point due to long deployments.”
A lasting monument to the US invasion of Iraq? with all the talk of cut and run stay the course in Iraq who are they kidding? Bush said we’re staying the course.
Go read this expose: ‘A peek behind Fortress US’ – the new Vatican..where deceptions abound, the fu…ed up US embassy project where workers are beaten, labor trafficking and more.
Link
A federal judge ruled today that graphic pictures of detainee abuse at Iraq’s Abu Ghraib prison must be released over government claims that they could damage America’s image. Last year a Republican senator conceded that they contained scenes of “rape and murder” and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld said they included acts that were “blatantly sadistic.”p>
U.S. District Judge Alvin K. Hellerstein ordered the release of certain pictures in a 50-page decision that said terrorists in Iraq and Afghanistan have proven they “do not need pretexts for their barbarism.”
The ACLU has sought the release of 87 photographs and four videotapes taken at the prison as part of an October 2003 lawsuit demanding information on the treatment of detainees in U.S. custody and the transfer of prisoners to countries known to use torture.
Gen Abizaid, another mouthy little parrot on Rummy’s shoulder, has said that releasing the photos would make his job oh soooo hard. The judge thinks otherwise. The gov’t has 20 days to appeal. Let’s be clear: these photos show rape of children and outright murder. Even Rummy who has icewater in his veins called them “blatantly sadistic, cruel and inhumane” We won’t actually see these photos any time soon, but the fight goes on.
NASA is again debating whether to send a shuttle to perform maintenance on the Hubble space telescope. Without such a visit, the Hubble will likely give out in another 2-3 years. The problem is that should a mishap occur, the shuttle likely could not make it to the space station due to differences in the orbits of the spacecraft.
The same series of British ocean probes discussed yesterday discovered a very alarming event in 2004, perhaps an omen of things to come: Part of the Gulf Stream shut down for 10 days in 2004. Researchers are not sure yet what to make of the 10-day hiatus. “We’d never seen anything like that before and we don’t understand it. We didn’t know it could happen,” said Harry Bryden, at the National Oceanography Centre, in Southampton, who presented the findings to a conference in Birmingham on rapid climate change. Is it the first sign that the current is stuttering to a halt? “I want to know more before I say that,” Professor Bryden said. Lloyd Keigwin, a scientist at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, in Massachusetts, in the US, described the temporary shutdown as “the most abrupt change in the whole [climate] record”. He added: “It only lasted 10 days. But suppose it lasted 30 or 60 days, when do you ring up the prime minister and say let’s start stockpiling fuel? How can we rule out a longer one next year?”
One of the world’s rarest wildcats tests Japan’s resolve to protect the environment: A cat so rare, it was discovered only in 1965. So threatened, only about 100 exist. So singular, it lives only on this 110-square-mile (282-square-kilometer) Pacific island. Yet the elusive Iriomote cat is more than just an endangered species. Heroic efforts to save it from extinction symbolize an about-turn in Japan’s long-tortured relationship with Mother Nature. Not only does the struggle underline the country’s newfound determination to redress decades of environmental devastation at the hands of unbridled industrialization, it proves just how tough reversing the damage can be.
Deforestation in the Amazon rain forest has declined to its lowest level since 1991 due to strict enforcement of environmental regulations, the Brazilian government said Thursday. Preliminary figures released by the environmental ministry showed 5,057 square miles of the rain forest were destroyed this year — the lowest level since 4,258 square miles were lost in 1991. The government last month announced the forest lost 6,450 square miles this year but the result was revised after additional data was analyzed [and because of the current tight runoff election for president?]. The numbers released Thursday are estimates based on satellite images. The final results are expected before the end of the year. Last year, the rain forest lost 7,250 square miles.
When elephants go bad, the ongoing problem: A rogue elephant in eastern Nepal has killed five people and injured three others by trampling houses in night-time attacks in remote villages during the past week, officials said Thursday. A UN representative sent to discuss the matter with Colonel Hathi, leader of the pachyderm insurgents since 1967, was not well received.
Your moment of Zen: When Saturn recently eclipsed the sun from the perspective of the Cassini spacecraft, the orbiter snapped this breathtaking image.
NASA is DEBATING whether to repair Hubble? Well, if it could shoot a laser would they even think about not repairing it? Can good science still come from Hubble? If yes, what’s to freakin’ debate? NASA is descending into Bushlike incompetence and it’s painful to watch.
They’re worried that if a problem happens aboard the shuttle, there would be no way to save the astronauts (in a mission to the space station, if there’s a problem they just sit tight in the station until another shuttle or a Russian rescue craft is launched).
The astronauts are eager to repair the shuttle, it’s the management, which doesn’t want a second shuttle disaster on W’s watch (not that anyone does).
There’s plenty of good science to be done with the Hubble; as new discoveries are made with some of the other orbiting observatories in X-ray, infrared, UV, etc. it’s not uncommon for someone to suggest “Hey, let’s have a look at that in visible light too, using the Hubble.” Plus there are occasionally unpredictable events like stellar explosions or comets they can use it on…
Finally some good news from Patrick Fitzgerald
I’ve been waiting too long for this man.
And it sure ain’t freedom or democracy
Horror at the bloodshed accompanying the U.S. effort to bring democracy to Iraq has accomplished what human rights activists, analysts and others say Syrian President Bashar al-Assad had been unable to do by himself: silence public demands for democratic reforms here.
The idea of the government as a bulwark of stability and security has long been the watchword of Syrian bureaucrats and village elders. But since Iraq’s descent into sectarian and ethnic war — and after Israel’s war with Hezbollah in Lebanon, on the other side of Syria — even Syrian activists concede that the country’s feeble rights movement is moribund.
Advocates of democracy are equated now with supporters of America, even “traitors,” said Maan Abdul Salam, 36, a Damascus publisher who has coordinated conferences on women’s rights and similar topics.
“Now, talking about democracy and freedom has become very difficult and sensitive,” Salam said. “The people are not believing these thoughts anymore. When the U.S. came to Iraq, it came in the name of democracy and freedom. But all we see are bodies, bodies, bodies.”[snip]
“If democracy brings such chaos in the region, and especially the destruction of society, as it did in Iraq and in Lebanon, it’s absolutely normal, and I think it’s absolutely a wise position from the people to be afraid to imagine how it would be in Syria,” Amiralay said. “I think that people at the end said, ‘Well, it is better to keep this government. We know them, and we don’t want to go to this civil war, and to live this apocalyptic image of change, with civil war and sectarianism and blood.’ “
Bush has virtually guaranteed that democratic reform is shunned in the Middle East like a disease.
We will be measuring Bush’s collosal failures for years to come, probably decades.
I wanted to take a moment to thank all of you who contribute to the News Bucket. I check it out most every day without making comment or even dropping 4s for which I apologize.
I find I both dread reading what will be posted and looking forward to what I will find. The quotes, your repartee, and the jewels of funny, beautiful, and hopeful news make it possible for me to learn more about what is happening on and to this planet.
Thank you.
Seconded! Well said.
Link: CBC
Link: CP
Ah yes…here we go…energizing the nutzoid base: G.O.P. Moves Fast to Reignite Issue of Gay Marriage…from the NYT, Chimpy interjects it into the campaign as an issue again…too little, too late?
We shall see.
H/T to the Rude One