Tuesday, April 21, 2009

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Obama's Inspirational Speech: What Starfish, Service, And Senator Ted Kennedy Have In Common Top
On Tuesday afternoon, President Barack Obama signed a $5.7 billion national service bill that will triple the size of the AmeriCorps program over the next eight years. Amid lauding the efforts of AmeriCorps founder Bill Clinton and service champion Senator Ted Kennedy, President Obama shared some inspiring thoughts on his own experience with service as well as recounting a little story that Sen. Kennedy likes to tell about a young man, an old man, and some starfish. On the act of serving: "People who love their country can change it." "[That's] the beauty of service: anybody can do it. You don't need to be a community organizer, a senator, a Kennedy or even a president to bring changes to people's lives." On his own experience: "I wouldn't be standing here today if not for the service of others or for the purpose that service gave my own life. " "I wasn't just helping people, I was receiving something in return. Through service I found a community that embraced me, citizenship that was meaningful, the direction that I had been seeking." And finally, the story that says it all: An old man walking along the beach at dawn sees a young man picking up the star fish and throwing them out to sea. "Why are you doing that?" The old man inquired. The young man explained that the starfish had been stranded on the beech by a receding tide. And would soon die in the daytime sun. "But the beach goes on for miles," the old man said. "And there's so many! How can your effort make any difference?" The young man looked at the starfish in his hand and without hesitating threw it to safety in the sea. He looked up at the old man, smiled and said, "It will make a difference to that one." Watch the whole speech, including Sen. Kennedy's opening remarks, below: Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News , World News , and News about the Economy What inspires you to serve? Do you have any similar stories? If so, we'd love to hear them! Share them in the comments below! More on Barack Obama
 
Stuart Whatley: Obama's Dog Day Afternoon Top
At Thursday's meeting this week with President Obama to discuss controversial credit card practices, one hopes that card-issuer CEOs will receive hospitality of the stiff-backed chair variety, rather than, say, plush leather. It will be a standoff similar to the hostage situation Obama dealt with in the Gulf of Aden last week, only this time it's tens of millions of Americans who are endangered (financially speaking). The importance of Thursday's meeting should not be understated. It marks a crucial occasion for Obama to fully uphold the middle-class-championing he promised during the campaign. He will have to stand strong against an industry whose typical defense is to hold a gun to the head of the American consumer. It will probably be a regular old 'dog day afternoon' . In reality, relatively few Americans have any immediate concern for collateralized debt obligations, and their role in the larger economy; or for a relaxed mark-to-market accounting rule , and what it means for frozen credit and the financial impasse. No, what many Americans are abundantly familiar with is the stress-induced insomnia of overwhelming credit card debt. Or the vein-popping rage associated with unexplainable, unprovoked and widespread rate hikes, as Huffington Post's Arthur Delaney has reported on extensively. Or the rebarbative inundation of credit card offers sent to every man, woman, child, invalid or dependent, such as the Chicago family who received 445 offers in one year. Sure, many in this situation dug their own grave with irresponsible spending and living beyond their means. But others did not. And though the irresponsible debtors may deserve their financial prison cells, the others deserve reprieve from a system that condones and invites abuse. This latter group is described by White House economic advisor Larry Summers as, the people who "have been deceived into paying extraordinarily high rates that they wouldn't have paid if they knew what they were getting themselves into." This gets to the heart of the issue, as well as to the heart of the credit card companies' primary argument -- of which the White House will get an earful soon enough. The companies will justify their practices by claiming that they provide an invaluable service to consumers. When questioned about rate hikes and exorbitant, abusive fees, they will insist that such measures are necessary for managing risk. And when changes in their practices are demanded (this is the "hostage situation" part of it), they will threaten more stringent creditworthiness parameters and even higher rates for those who do make the cut as the only way to stay afloat -- thus reducing overall access to credit for everyday Americans. Indeed, the perception that credit card companies are providing a "service" is why most Americans pick one up in the first place -- only to then find themselves in a debtor freefall after the rules spontaneously change. It's true, a more humane credit form, such as from a credit union, does provide an extremely useful service. But most people don't have this luxury. They instead have credit card "service" in the most perverse sense, as if Habitat for Humanity were to build a home for an impoverished family, only to then slather the walls with asbestos, leave the toilets without seats and urinate on the rug (the one that really ties the room together) on the way out -- except with credit card debt, the family in this metaphor has no choice but to inhabit the hell hole forever. So no, in the current system, credit card companies do not provide an essential service anymore; it's more a societal stranglehold -- a gun to the head of the middle class, demanding a fully fueled plane and no cops. In December 2008, the Federal Reserve established more rigorous rules to stymie the rampant increase in consumer exploitation, but these measures will not take effect until July 2010. Moreover, House members returned to the Hill this week with their own anti-credit card rampage, led by New York Democrat Carolyn Maloney. But, at best, the proposed legislation will only slide the Fed's July 2010 date up on the calendar by a few months. Neither effort will put credit card companies in check immediately, hence the crucial need for strong leadership from Obama in the here and now to compel voluntary easing of these practices by the CEOs -- or at least voluntary with a reasonable quid pro quo. So what kind of White House greeting can we expect for some of these other villains of the current era? (We don't yet know who all is invited.) The administration has assumed a strong posture in the days leading up to the meeting, but will it then fold to the credit card companies' usual threatening ploys against providing reasonable credit? Indeed, this is how it's worked with most soft-handed Wall Street policies so far. Everything from Geithner's PPIP toxic asset plan to the mark-to-market relaxation may as well have been decided by the bankers. The 'too big to fail'-systemic cataclysm threat has effectively kept the same people in the driver's seat. So will the same self-important threats of pulling the gum out of the dam continue to work for the credit cards too, or will the administration put its foot down against this coterie of entrenched economic kingpins once and for all? We'll know on Thursday. More on Economy
 
Lionel: What Would You Not Do to Stop a Nuke? Top
Assume, arguendo, this hypothetical. It is Inauguration day. President Obama is about to be sworn is as 44. Virtually everyone in federal office is there. Congressmen, Senators, the Supremes, the new cabinet. Get the picture? You, a federal law enforcement type, have in your custody a man who you reasonably believe knows where a nuclear device is to be detonated nearby. Remember, this isn't just any old nuclear device threat. If this baby is detonated, virtually every aspect and player of and in our government will be vaporized. The device will be detonated within the hour. There's no time to evacuate, no place to run. Any warning will be futile and just inspire mayhem and chaos. Now, the question. What would you not do to locate that nuclear device? Let's get a few things straight. Now, let's be axiomatic, shall we? Torture is bad. It's un-American and violates our values and the provisions of the Geneva Conventions. And when you consider that torture was essentially okayed on Bush's watch by his henchmen, especially that snarling Cerberus, Mr. Potter, big Dick Cheney, I mean, it's certainly enough to enrage you. When I think of John Yoo, advocating torture's praxis, parsing what is and isn't torture (organ failure?), I want to waterboard him myself. Why is it that the biggest advocates of war and torture appear to be the biggest wimps. But let's be real for a moment. You know and I know that there are a few "pundits" whose anti-torture motivation is primarily that of anti-Bush. Deep down inside, they'll tell you that if Obama had authorized the identical treatment of interrogated suspects, they'd be a little more understanding. Fine. And we all know who they are. And, of course, there are Bush acolytes who will rubber stamp anything that feller did. Without exception. And we know who they are as well. But let me repeat this question: What would you not do to locate that nuclear device? Can you honestly say that in this admittedly strained hypothetical that you wouldn't countenance the possibility of torture under any circumstances? I can't. Which leads me to another beef of mine. Everybody's an expert. What most folks don't know when you get a talk radio show, blog site, column, whatever, you become instantly an expert on any and every subject. On my business card, I list under my name, "Logodaedalus & Expert." See, for some reason, for the past twenty years I've been asked occasionally by TV talk shows to comment on subjects that I had absolutely no experience in and where I knew nothing more than anyone else, but because of talk radio host status: Instant expert! This was not the norm, I must advise, especially when it came to legal and constitutional matters. And opinions are fine for anyone to give. But that's not what happens. All of a sudden, say, Monica Crowley is an expert in rendition or weapons systems. Puh-leeze. Oh, by the by, when a guest who's been shoe-horned into a quick TV hit is not a talk radio host, blogger, columnist, whatever, the catchall appellation is "Strategist" preceded by Democratic or Republican. For $50K and a new car, what the ____ is a strategist? Two quick examples: (1) Bill O'Reilly once opined about pregnancy never being lethal to a mother (preeclampsia and ectopic pregnancy notwithstanding) and (2) Sean Hannity diagnosed, diagnosed!, Terri Schiavo as not suffering from PVS and further suggested that she was (I guess) merely stunned (sorry Monty Python fans). So when it comes to matters of war, call me wacky, but I think about my answer and remember that because I've never worn this country's military uniform and, moreover, have never seen war, I will tend to listen to those that have. This also goes for the more bellicose conservative types who saber rattle and practice bar stool diplomacy. The bottom line is that logic would dictate that one should best listen to those who know for any issue discussion and analysis. Incidentally, I've known more than a few progressive and/or liberal (remember liberals?) vets who've made some compelling arguments against allowing gays to serve in combat units. I'm not necessarily persuaded, but their opinion carries more weight than Rush Limbaugh. That was a pun. So, Patton, what would you not do? I repeat: What would you not do to locate that nuclear device? My answer is simple. I wouldn't not do anything to locate and defuse a nuclear devise to avoid its imminent detonation. But first on my list of interrogation techniques would not be torture or insects placed within a confinement box. (Hats off to the sick bastard who thought of that one.) In fact, it was reported that a legal memorandum prepared for the CIA noted that along with said insect placement, approved interrogation techniques included inter alia: attention grasp, walling (hitting a detainee against a flexible wall), facial hold, facial slap, cramped confinement, wall standing, stress positions, sleep deprivation and waterboarding). But would I proscribe Draconian treatment absolutely? In every case? When some experts and military types tell me it's effective? I'll eschew, all right. But how can I say that these techniques, call it "torture," are never to be used? What if it worked? I think I remember a line from the great SCTV where Vic Hedges was running for mayor. Remember, this was the '80s, as I remember. His campaign slogan was "Vic Hedges for Mayor. Sure he's crazy. But what if he's right?" What if torture, some torture, some despicable form, actually worked? Actually produced usable confessions and saved lives? What if psychological torture worked? Psychological, i.e. no actual physical harm, but perceived. And, remember, we're talking of finding out information instanter and not for detainees whose information can best be culled through soft soap methods. Some have referred to it as the "ticking time bomb" scenario, admittedly, a rarity. After all, Saddam's interrogator got to him by offering him his wife's cookies and reading his poetry. Saddam had no place to go, time was not of the essence. Now, I'm adamantly against the death penalty for many reasons, including the fact that we're killing the wrong people. But also because, it doesn't work, stats show. I wonder, if any analysis were different showing it did work, if it did deter murderers and if murders were actually reduced accordingly, would I consider it? As my Hell's Kitchen buddy says, "All's I'm saying is what if it worked?" I don't think it does. Listen to me, there I go again. The expert. No, I intuitively believe that as actual experts have noted, it doesn't work, the results are not trustworthy, it violates international law and tells the world that we haven't a leg to stand on (there's a torture pun somewhere) in complaining when a downed or captured American serviceman is tortured. True. So, let me repeat my question. What would you not do to locate that nuclear device? More on Barack Obama
 
Joe Peyronnin: El Presidente Top
President Barack Obama has not only turned the page with his personal approach to American foreign policy, he is rewriting the book. But this has sent the party of "no" into a tizzy. So Republicans are once again attacking Obama in hopes of driving his popularity down. For one brief moment I thought that the United States had surrendered to Venezuela. At least, that seemed to be the tenor of the reaction from the frenzied fomenters of the right to a handshake and exchange of smiles between President Obama and Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez. Gasp! To be sure, Hugo Chavez is a very bad person whose regime may have been responsible for as many as 6,000 killings according to the U.S. State Department. He has been accused of torture and a 2008 State Department report says, "Reports of beatings and other humiliating treatment of suspects during arrests were common and involved various law enforcement agencies." Chavez has been charged with rigging elections, cracking down on political opponents, and maneuvering a "takeover of the Supreme Court." President Chavez has taken control of virtually all the country's media and he rewrote laws so that insulting the president is punishable by up to 30 months in prison. This past February Venezuelans voted to remove term limits for their president, a similar measure had failed in 2007. If reelected to a third term in 2012, President Chavez will serve until at least 2019. By all means, though, it is not clear sailing for "El Presidente." Annual inflation is about 30%, violent crime is up and weak oil prices have led to unpopular budget cuts. Today there was more bad news, Venezuela's first quarter oil revenues we down 33%. Overall, President Bush's administration did not pay as much attention to Latin America as it should have. This left the door open for Chavez to manipulate governments and exert influence in the region with petrol dollars and a populist-socialist fervor. And now the Chinese are playing an ever growing role. It is time for a change of approach in American foreign policy. Presidents Obama and Chavez met three times during the Fifth Summit of the Americas. Conservative critics accused Obama of looking weak, like President Jimmy Carter! Some people in Venezuela thought Chavez used the meetings to validate his power. But many others believe Chavez looked like a fool giving Obama a book, especially after a decade of anti-American rhetoric. Chavez remains a polarizing figure in his own country as well as throughout Latin America. He has a huge ego, and worse, he is a wily survivor. "We just want to be treated with respect," Chavez is quoted as saying after the summit. "We demand respect for our dignity, our sovereignty, and the self-determination of the Venezuelan people. Therefore, we are willing to pursue better relations with the new government of the United States." Venezuela is a major source of oil for the United States. Unfortunately, Chavez is a democratically elected president. For a long time the countries of Latin America have felt largely ignored and under appreciated by the United States. This vacuum has been exploited by President Chavez and Bush's tough talk and empty diplomacy only encouraged him more. With a handshake and a smile President Obama has signaled his desire for a new beginning in relations between the United States and all Latin American countries. This first step, however, must be followed up with a constant two-way dialog, consistent communications and mutual respect. Most importantly, American diplomacy with Venezuela must have a clear a strategy and firm goals in order to be successful. But the more engaged and successful the United States is in Latin America, the more it diminishes Chavez in the region as well as in the eyes of all Venezuelans. More on Barack Obama
 
Patrick Schuster, Tampa Teen, Pitches 4th Straight No-Hitter (VIDEO) Top
A Tampa-area high school pitcher threw his way into the state record books, pitching a fourth straight no-hitter Monday, reports CBS affiliate WTSP. Patrick Schuster, a senior at Mitchell high school in New Port Richey, Fla., struck out 17 Pasco batters Monday in the 5-0 victory. He broke a 24-year-old state record held by Ben Webb, who threw three straight no-hitters for Gonzales Tate High School in 1985.
 
Harman: "Maybe I'm Even Wiretapped Now" Top
Reportedly wiretapped during an investigation into Israeli agents, Rep. Jane Harman expressed outrage on Tuesday that her phone calls were being overheard by the NSA and wondered if she was even still being targeted. "There is a question about whether [these wiretaps] were legal and there is a question about whether other members of Congress, who also talk regularly to advocacy groups and constituency groups might have been picked up and maybe be wiretapped even now," said the California Democrat in an interview on NPR. "Maybe I'm even wiretapped now." The comments come as Harman seeks to extricate herself from politically dicey accusations over her work on the House Intelligence committee, an alleged quid-pro-quo she offered in exchange for helping Israeli agents, the role she may have played in trying to spike the publication of a New York Times story on warrantless wiretapping, and her own controversial stance on that very same surveillance practice. The latter may be the trickiest of the bunch. Harman, during the NPR interview, said she was "outraged that I may have been wiretapped by my government in 2005 or 2006 while I was ranking member of the House Intelligence Committee." Earlier, on MNSBC, she expressed "disappoint[ment] that my country -- I'm an American citizen just like you are -- could have permitted what I think is a gross abuse of power in recent years." But as pointed out by Think Progress and Glenn Greenwald , that sentiment is rife with contradiction. The very practice that ensnared Harman was the one she previously cheered. The Californian was an early and vocal supporter of the NSA wiretapping policy of the Bush administration. As for the details of the current story, first reported by CQ and then the New York Times , Harman was decidedly vague. She refused to say if a call took place in which she promised to get espionage-related charges against AIPAC officials dropped in exchange for help in her campaign for the chair of the House Intelligence Committee. And she repeated a call for the Attorney General's office to release the transcript of any phone calls of hers that may have been picked up by the NSA. "I can't recall with any specificity a conversation I may have had four years ago," she told NPR. "That is why I have asked Attorney General Holder to release any transcripts that he has that involve wiretaps of me." Later, however, Harman seemed to slip, saying that, "the person I was talking to was an American citizen." Pressed by host Robert Segal how she could know the nationality of the person she was talking to but not remember the conversation itself, the congresswoman replied: "Anyone I would have talked to about the AIPAC prosecution would have been an American citizen." Get HuffPost Politics on Facebook , or follow us on Twitter . More on NPR
 
Matt Littman: How the Media is Exploiting Craigslist Killer's Victim Julissa Brisman Top
Today, maybe even right now, you can turn on the TV and see pictures of Julissa Brisman, shot three times and murdered by the so-called "Craigslist" killer. The pictures of Julissa are not meant to be anodyne. These photos are provocative. They're sexual. And that's why they keep airing the photos on TV. Please, watch the news today. You will see camera shots lingering on Julissa Brisman's body, before the camera makes its way to her face. Can you please tell me why this part of the story is news? It's not. It's exploitation. Sex sells, and in this case, although Julissa Brisman died a horrible, horrible death, the media is still selling her sexual image in order to entice viewers. It's simply wrong. I have no expectation for the tabloid press, but the bigger news outlets should not commit themselves to such exploitation. It's shameful.
 
Lisa Sharkey: Mercury, Like the Planet, Gets Around Top
I opened my closet door the other evening after work and was instantly freaked out. What littered the floor of the closet looked like bits of shredded paper that my dog had chewed up. Unfortunately, it was far more threatening and the clean-up was much more complicated than I had expected. The bits of thin white scraps were actually broken pieces of a compact fluorescent light bulb that had fallen off of a shelf and shattered all over the closet floor. Normally, with a broken light bulb, some sweeping up and perhaps a final vacuuming is all that's required. Not so with a CFL, because as I'm sure all of you already know, the bulbs we're all supposed to be screwing into our sockets to save energy and the planet contain the highly toxic mercury. So what's a freaked-out person to do? I went onto the web and googled "broken CFL bulb" and learned that there are some very strict government guidelines for cleaning up and disposing of the residue from these broken bulbs. For starters, you are not allowed to vacuum up the mess, as it could send mercury vapors into the air. Same goes for sweeping. You'll contaminate the broom. Never mind mopping it up, either. And if it gets on your clothing, you can't put it in the washing machine for the same reasons. Mercury, like the planet, gets around. So if you too suffer from this broken bulb syndrome, here's what the government says you need to do. And by the way, I think I'm switching to candles. ( Click for further instruction . You can also learn more about going green in your own home by clicking here ) Before Clean-up: Air Out the Room Have people and pets leave the room, and don't let anyone walk through the breakage area on their way out. Open a window and leave the room for 15 minutes or more. Shut off the central forced-air heating/air conditioning system, if you have one. Clean-Up Steps for Hard Surfaces Carefully scoop up glass fragments and powder using stiff paper or cardboard and place them in a glass jar with metal lid (such as a canning jar) or in a sealed plastic bag. Use sticky tape, such as duct tape, to pick up any remaining small glass pieces and powder. Wipe the area clean with damp paper towels or disposable wet wipes. Place towels in the glass jar or plastic bag. Do not use a vacuum or broom to clean up the broken bulb on hard surfaces. Clean-up Steps for Carpeting or Rug Carefully pick up glass fragments and place them in a glass jar with metal lid (such as a canning jar) or in a sealed plastic bag. Use sticky tape, such as duct tape, to pick up any remaining small glass fragments and powder. If vacuuming is needed after all visible materials are removed, vacuum the area where the bulb was broken. Remove the vacuum bag (or empty and wipe the canister), and put the bag or vacuum debris in a sealed plastic bag. Clean-up Steps for Clothing, Bedding, etc. If clothing or bedding materials come in direct contact with broken glass or mercury-containing powder from inside the bulb that may stick to the fabric, the clothing or bedding should be thrown away. Do not wash such clothing or bedding because mercury fragments in the clothing may contaminate the machine and/or pollute sewage. You can, however, wash clothing or other materials that have been exposed to the mercury vapor from a broken CFL, such as the clothing you are wearing when you cleaned up the broken CFL, as long as that clothing has not come into direct contact with the materials from the broken bulb. If shoes come into direct contact with broken glass or mercury-containing powder from the bulb, wipe them off with damp paper towels or disposable wet wipes. Place the towels or wipes in a glass jar or plastic bag for disposal. Disposal of Clean-up Materials Immediately place all clean-up materials outdoors in a trash container or protected area for the next normal trash pickup. Wash your hands after disposing of the jars or plastic bags containing clean-up materials. Check with your local or state government about disposal requirements in your specific area. Some states do not allow such trash disposal. Instead, they require that broken and unbroken mercury-containing bulbs be taken to a local recycling center. Future Cleaning of Carpeting or Rug: Air Out the Room During and After Vacuuming The next several times you vacuum, shut off the central forced-air heating/air conditioning system and open a window before vacuuming. Keep the central heating/air conditioning system shut off and the window open for at least 15 minutes after vacuuming is completed. More on Green Living
 
Pentagon's Joint Strike Fighter Project HACKED Top
Computer spies have repeatedly breached the Pentagon's costliest weapons program, the $300 billion Joint Strike Fighter project, The Wall Street Journal reported on Tuesday. The newspaper quoted current and former government officials familiar with the matter as saying the intruders were able to copy and siphon data related to design and electronics systems, making it potentially easier to defend against the plane.
 
Michael Weingartner: President Obama's Earth Day Address (LISTEN) Top
Click below to hear the audio More on Earth Day
 
Mike Malloy: What?! Prosecution?! For war crimes?! Top
As I write this, Obama Press Secretary Robert Gibbs has yet to start his Tuesday briefing. Odds are, he's huddling with top administration officials trying to figure out what answers he'll give to the crack White House press corps when they bombard him with questions about Obama's statement earlier today that any decision to prosecute top Bush Crime Family operatives is up to Attorney General Eric Holder, and any decision to open Congressional hearings is up to, well, Congress. The statement Obama made at a White House photo op with Jordan's King Abdullah concerned the opinions written by top Bush Justice Department Lawyers "legalizing" torture techniques. Having yesterday cleared the actual torturers - who were, um, just following "legal" orders when they hit, stomped, slapped, restrained, partially drowned and otherwise committed acts against "detainees" that shredded whatever myths still exist that the United States respects the rule of law, our own and those found in international treaties we have agreed to - Obama said " . . . with respect to those who formulated the policies, that is going to be more of a decision for the attorney general within the parameters of various laws". He also opened the way for a Congressional inquiry into the issue when he added, " . . . if and when there needs to be a further accounting," he hoped that Congress would examine ways to obtain one "in a bipartisan fashion," from people who are independent and therefore can build credibility with the public. Well, well, well. A move toward justice? An attempt to undo some of the hideous damage the Bush Crime Family perpetrated against the foundations of this republic? A glimmer of light cast over the dark, filthy, sick policies of Cheney, Yoo, Bybee, Libby, Bush, and the rest of the nest of snakes that took this country into what became a slimy, twisted, lawless "reality" they so famously declared they would constantly be creating? If so, there will be no "bipartisan" effort to bring these thugs to justice. In fact, the Republicans in Congress and the Limbots in media will do anything and everything (more tea-bagging? gun rallies? immigrant burnings? lynchings?) to prevent such hearings or investigations ever from taking place. For example, within minutes of Obama's statement, the warped television medium - on which so many Americans rely for "news" - was wetting its collective pants. Reporters began asking questions about the "influence" of "left wing" web sites like moveon.org and the awesome power these sites must wield over Obama's polices. It had to have been them , right? They must have pressed their magic buttons and Obama The Socialist , no, Obama The Communist , no, Obama The Fascist , no Obama The Muslim , no, Obama The Guy Born In Indonesia And Who Shouldn't Be President . . .surely, they chanted almost in unison, surely the president has come under the spell of . . . of . . . these . . . liberals , liberals who want to (gasp!) try to suggest the so-called "rule of law" might be a better method of dealing with the Bush criminals than putting our collective hands over our collective ears and shouting the lyrics to "Onward Christian Soldiers." Rule of Law? Fuck that ! We have to fight the Muslim terrorists ! And, they're everywhere ! Look! There's one now! Eeek! Now it remains to be seen whether or not a committee - any committee with the authority - will move toward hearings that will expose the depth of the criminality under which this country has been managed during the past eight years. It remains to be seen whether or not Attorney General Eric Holder will honor his oath of office and designate a special prosecutor who will then begin the process of discovery that will reveal the Bush swine for what they truly were. Today Obama opened the door just a crack for those type investigations and hearings to begin. It is now up to members of Congress and the nation's law enforcement division to either follow through or turn away . . . from justice. Wanna bet which way it's going to go?? - MDM Mike Malloy can be heard daily on his radio show 9pm - 12pm ET. Visit www.mikemalloy.com to stream live, purchase a podcast or find a station near you More on Barack Obama
 
Hilton, Starwood Spying Suit: Hilton Gets Grand Jury Subpoena Top
NEW YORK (Reuters) -- Hilton Hotels Corp. said Tuesday it received a federal grand jury subpoena for documents related to allegations that the company and two executives stole documents from rival Starwood Hotels & Resorts to develop Hilton's luxury brand, Denizen Hotels. The privately held Hilton also said it has decided to suspend temporarily the development of its Denizen brand. It did not elaborate on why it was suspending development of Denizen
 
Lane Hudson: Mark Penn 'cooks the books' on bloggers Top
Mark Penn has commentary up at the Wall Street Journal. Good heavens. For 1250 words, it sure is an intellectually lazy piece of crap. Penn attempts to assert this: In America today, there are almost as many people making their living as bloggers as there are lawyers. Already more Americans are making their primary income from posting their opinions than Americans working as computer programmers or firefighters. The way he arrives at this assertion is the craziest math I've seen come from Penn since he thought the Democratic Presidential Primaries were winner take all. I'm beginning to think his strategy skills and math skills are on par with each other. Here is his stream of numbers: The best studies we can find say we are a nation of over 20 million bloggers, with 1.7 million profiting from the work, and 452,000 of those using blogging as their primary source of income. That's almost 2 million Americans getting paid by the word, the post, or the click -- whether on their site or someone else's. Let's see if we can make sense of that mess. The source for 'over 20 million bloggers' is here . It conflicts with another source he links to that says 'over 12 million American adults currently maintain a blog. That site is also the source of his claim that 1.7 million are profiting from the work. However, the statistic he is referencing actually says: 1.7 million American adults list making money as one of the reasons they blog. The reason I buy a lottery ticket is to win millions, but that sure as heck doesn't mean it's happening. What a disingenuous effort. The claim that 452,000 are using blogging as their primary source of income appears to be the biggest math trick of all in this cluster f@$&. Penn links to MediaBistro at this point, but that number appears nowhere . But, if you take the 'over 20 million bloggers' number referenced above from an unrelated study (22.6 million is the actual number there) and divide it by 2%, VOILA! The magic number of 452,000 appears. That's how Penn asserts that nearly half a million people earn a living solely by blogging. Fuzzy math at its best. Mark Math, perhaps? The State of the Blogosphere by Technorati seems to me to be the best snapshot of the demographics that Penn is so desperately trying to take command of. The broadest snapshot it captures for this purpose is of US bloggers surveyed from a sample size of 550 that are registered and monitored by Technorati. In that sample, median annual investment is reported at $80 and the median average revenue at $200. While that may be 'profitable', it's hardly gonna support more than a weekend drinking binge. Technorati offers this insight on the data from their survey (emphasis added): The majority of bloggers we surveyed currently have advertising on their blogs. Among those with advertising, the mean annual investment in their blog is $1,800, but it's paying off. The mean annual revenue is $6,000 with $75K+ in revenue for those with 100,000 or more unique visitors per month . Note: median investment and revenue (which is listed below) is significantly lower . They are also earning CPMs on par with large publishers. For those who need a refresher in math terms (ahem, Mr. Penn!), but failed to use the google to jog the memory: The "mean" is the "average" you're used to, where you add up all the numbers and then divide by the number of numbers. The "median" is the "middle" value in the list of numbers. To find the median, your numbers have to be listed in numerical order, so you may have to rewrite your list first. So, when the median (middle) revenue is significantly lower than the mean (average) revenue in your data, it suggests fewer significantly higher values that skew the overall average. The flip side of that would be a far greater number of lower lower values to account for the difference in the value of the median and the mean. Given the broader perspective that Mr. Penn either doesn't get or didn't take the time to understand, his overall thesis that blogging is 'America's newest profession' is overstated and premature. In his commentary, there is an inset that suggests the number of 452,000 bloggers came from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. It didn't. Instead, he had to hyper-extrapolate the numbers to support his argument. As someone who has a strong belief in bloggers and citizen journalists, I'd love to believe that there were nearly half a million of them earning a full time living in this 'new' phenomenon. It's just simply not true. We will move closer to the reality that Mr. Penn attempts to create out of thin air when those who spend advertising dollars realize the value of including blogs in their ad buys. Instead of creating an alternate reality, Mr. Penn would better service the blogosphere by advancing that notion. Instead, he may have done a disservice by countering an ongoing effort by bloggers to win over advertisers. As someone whose political credentials have been questioned because of not taking the time to pay attention to important details that could have made his client President of the United States, he'd do well to take the time to properly understand the context of the subject he is writing on. More on Wall Street Journal
 
Twitter Traffic Soars On Ashton Kutcher, Oprah Buzz Top
As expected, the Twitter insanity last week -- Ashton Kutcher's race against CNN to 1 million followers; Oprah Winfrey joining the site -- sent traffic to all-time highs. More on Twitter
 
Billy Bush vs. Giuliana Rancic In Twitter War Over Gay Marriage, E! Standards Top
The Twittersphere is gettin' nasty -- with a fight brewing between E!'s Giuliana Rancic and Access Hollywood's Billy Bush! The catfight started with Rancic dissing Miss California, and the exchange only got more heated from there.
 
Huff TV: HuffPost's Dave Burdick Explains Clean Coal on Current TV Top
This Earth Day Current TV is asking a team of eco-experts the tough questions about green living. One of these experts, Huffington Post Green Editor Dave Burdick, was tasked with answering the question, "What is the deal with clean coal?" Watch the video below: More on Video
 
Disgrasian: If We're Talking About a Lost "Moral Compass," Yoo Might Be In Trouble Top
President Obama stated today that he would leave open the possibility of criminal prosecution for the members of the Bush administration that constructed legal basis for torture-based interrogation during war-on-terrortime. The choice to take legal action against these policy architects will land squarely in the lap of Attorney General Eric Holder. From CNN : "With respect to those who formulated those legal decisions, I would say that is going to be more a decision for the attorney general within the parameter of various laws, and I don't want to prejudge that," Obama said during a meeting with Jordan's King Abdullah at the White House. It's about time. We're looking forward to seeing who might get called to task, should Holder decide to pursue real legal action against those morally challenged policymakers. We're particularly interested in seeing what might come of John "Torture Memo Shmorture Memo" Yoo, whose " moral compass " while working for the White House seemed not only lost , but shat on twice and destroyed. We can't help but wonder if he's starting to feel just a liiiiiiiiiiiittle bit sorry about some of his actions, for once. Or perhaps a bit nervous about being questioned by the prosecution. More on Barack Obama
 
Iraqi Gays Suffer Atrocities At The Hands Of Iraqi Militias Top
Reports of heinous acts against gays continue to trickle out of Iraq this week, with Towelroad reporting on an Alarabiya translation from the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission (IGLHRC) that reads: "A prominent Iraqi human rights activist says that Iraqi militia have deployed a painful form of torture against homosexuals by closing their anuses using 'Iranian gum.' ... Yina Mohammad told Alarabiya.net that, 'Iraqi militias have deployed an unprecedented form of torture against homosexuals by using a very strong glue that will close their anus.' According to her, the new substance 'is known as the American hum, which is an Iranian-manufactured glue that if applied to the skin, sticks to it and can only be removed by surgery. After they glue the anuses of homosexuals, they give them a drink that causes diarrhea. Since the anus is closed, the diarrhea causes death. Videos of this form of torture are being distributed on mobile cellphones in Iraq.' According to this human rights activist, for the past 3 weeks a crackdown on homosexuals has been going on based on a religious decree that demands their death; dozens have been targeted. She says that the persecution of homosexuals is not confined to the Shiite clerics. Some Sunni leaders have also declared the death penalty for sodomy on satellite channels." However, it is important to note that the Alarabiya report has not been fully verified by the IGLHRC. IGLHRC writes:"The following is a translation of a story from Alarabiya, a UAE-based media network, which was published on its Arabic website a few hours ago. While IGLHRC has not verified all of the allegations, many are consistent with patterns of human rights violations being reported from within the country." Other such reports include Iraqi state death sentences for 100 prisoners accused of homosexuality, from PageOneQ ; a BBC report of the harassment of a young boy found wearing women's underwear; two gay men killed in Sadr city, following a call by clerics to "crack down", from Reuters ; and the kidnapping, rape and terrorizing of a 16-year-old Iraqi boy, reported by CNN last July. More on Iraq
 
Edward J. Murray: Health of Nations Top
If you Google such phrases as "Flu in the U.S." (or similar phrases for the world), you will get hundreds of thousands of listings. Simply scanning those for 10 minutes or so provides a primer on the relationship between infectious disease and the "progress of nations" or the viability of societies. When community health is threatened, the nation itself is threatened. Investigate even briefly the relationship between public health and human progress, and one fact will emerge immediately: humankind's greatest enemy from our earliest days has been disease. War, economic collapse, natural disasters -- none of these can match the devastation wrought by microbes run rampant. Whole clans, tribes, villages, regions, cultures, peoples have been wiped out with incredible "efficiency" by the rapid spread of disease, as well as by the abiding presence of acute and chronic infection coursing endlessly throughout a society. Another fact you'll unearth in your search is that these diseases were not historically (and are not now) usually eliminated by medical science but by changing human behavior and living conditions. So, disease or infection control is primarily a matter of "public health." Consequently, societies with the resources sufficient to create sound public health systems can survive and thrive. Societies lacking those resources risk catastrophic assaults on health, which can result in their total annihilation. The bed net, simple as it may seem, is actually a fundamental public health tool for many millions of people in areas where disease-bearing insects transmit malaria and other infections. But the nets alone are not sufficient against this overwhelming health challenge. Parents and communities must be educated on their necessity and proper use. The prescription is bed nets in the hands of health care workers (often volunteers) who, in many parts of Africa, Asia and elsewhere, enable communities to improve their health in a dramatic way, thus enabling those communities (and by extension the entire nation) to develop and grow culturally, economically, educationally, etc. So when you and I contribute to a mosquito bed net program, we are doing much, much more than preventing the suffering of children, we are helping to create a critical health care "system" that can and will dramatically change for the better the living conditions of countless millions of people. Such help doesn't simply preserve one individual. It actually helps preserve whole societies. For more information on malaria, its prevention, and how you can help, start with a visit to www.odysseynetworks.org .
 
Peter McDermott, Idaho Judge, Orders Defendant's Mouth Taped Shut Top
POCATELLO, Idaho — A state judge who said he lost patience with an unruly defendant ordered court officials to cover the man's mouth with duct tape. The unusual move was ordered Monday by 6th District Judge Peter D. McDermott during a probation violation hearing for Nicklas Frasure. The 23-year-old Frasure was convicted of felony theft in 2008 and recently released from prison. During the hearing, Frasure made repeated outbursts and ignored the judge's orders to refrain from interrupting the court. The judge then ordered bailiffs to silence Frasure. The Idaho State Journal reported that bailiffs found a roll of duct tape, tore off a piece and put it over his mouth. The judge ordered Frasure placed in the custody of the Department of Correction mental health facility in Boise. ___ Information from: Idaho State Journal, http://www.journalnet.com
 
Confessions Of A Bailout CEO Wife Top
I am a TARP wife. In keeping with the unwritten code of this new sisterhood, I have taken a vow of financial abstinence. I returned the presents my husband gave me for Christmas (but didn't tell him, since he's already awash in gloom) and am using my credit balances at all the major department stores for important gifts and other necessities. More on The Bailouts
 
Sword-Waving Ninja Fails At Robbing Two Stores Top
WEYMOUTH, Mass. — Police said a man dressed liked a ninja used a sword in an attempt to rob a Weymouth dry cleaner. A convenience store clerk called police Monday after she noticed a man walking into the store wearing a ski mask and a sword in a sheath on his belt. Police said when the man noticed her, he pulled his mask off and asked if she was calling about him. When she said she was, police said the man left the store and walked into nearby Galaxy Cleaners. There, police said he pointed a sword at the register and asked a clerk to give him all of the money inside. Police said he left after she told him she couldn't open the drawer. Police are still searching for the man, who witnesses said appeared to be in his late 20s. ___ Information from: The Patriot Ledger, http://www.patriotledger.com/ More on Stupid Criminals
 
Sarkozy's Insecurity: Falling A Bit Short Top
This image, taken during President Obama's recent trip to France earlier this month, has been making its way around the Internet, pointing out Nicolas Sarkozy's vertical challenge among his peers and wife. The LA Times points out Sarkozy's Napoleon complex: The European media has highlighted the comical height difference -- in addition to their 13-year age difference -- between Sarkozy and his wife. Bruni, who stands at 5'11", has.... ...switched from heels to flat-bottom shoes to make up for the shorty, who is 5'5", the British Telegraph newspaper reports. Sarkozy was in especially tall company in that photo. Barack Obama is 6'1" and his wife is 5'11" -- and to add insult to injury, she was wearing heels. Earlier this month in an Op-Ed for the New York Times, A. A. Gill characterizes Sarkozy during the G-20 Conference in London: He is a small man, a Gallic in lifts who can't hide the puffed-up, tip-toe insecurities of his shortness. Almost as if he wanted the world to think he has Napoleon syndrome, he postured and pouted and made arbitrary demands, and drew lines in the sand. More on France
 
Paul A. London: A Way to Save Billions and Improve Healthcare Top
April 21, 2009 Does anyone know a way to quickly reduce America's health care costs by billions of dollars while improving the Nation's health? The answer is "yes" and it may be starting to happen. Some prescription drug purchasers, many without drug insurance, are saving billions of dollars already although only a small percentage of Americans currently can take advantage of this approach. The facts are straightforward. In September 2006, Wal-Mart cut prices on a list of over 300 generic prescription drugs at its thousands of pharmacies to $4 for a month's supply at common dosages. This was a 50 percent reduction in Wal-Mart's "usual and customary" prices for these drugs. Two of Wal-Mart's largest competitors, Target and the Kroger grocery chains, quickly followed suite at thousands more pharmacies. Like Wal-Mart, these competitors made the low prices for generics on their lists available to all their customers, those with and those without insurance. Commentators said this was the beginning of a "price war" that would be of great benefit to consumers, and they were right. So far, however, pharmacy outlets with 80 to 85 percent of prescription sales have been able to avoid matching Wal-Mart, Kroger's, Target and the few others who have joined them. Walgreens, CVS, and Rite Aid with about 40 percent of the prescription drug market have not followed because insurers, including Medicaid and Medicare, continue to pay them higher prices for these same drugs. Smaller independents and mail order pharmacies with another 40 percent of the market also have been able to keep prices much above those of their price cutting competitors and insurers have continued to pay them these prices as well. There are signs, however, that the drug chains are feeling the pressure because they are trying to appear to match the low-cost programs. When Wal-Mart announced its low-cost program in 2006, the drug chains said it was not important based on two arguments: one was that most of their customers had either public or private drug insurance and that their insurance co-payments were at most a dollar or two higher than $4, and they said that the prescription drugs on the low-cost lists were older and usually less expensive anyway. But the big drug chains recently have instituted $4 programs that look like those of Wal-Mart, Kroger's and Target, which suggests that competitive pressures are building. Why "look like?" Because the drug chains' do not allow customers with insurance to use the programs and therefore these programs do not lower drug costs for the roughly 85 percent of Americans who have private or public drug insurance. So while the Wal-Mart, Target and Kroger's programs pass on the lower costs to insurers which should lower the cost of drug insurance, the look-alike programs do not. Wal-Mart asked me to study the programs of its competitors and to estimate how much these programs were saving their customers. Wal-Mart's $4 program --- now expanded to include more generics and three month prescriptions for $10 --- has saved its customers over $2 billion through March 2009. Between the end of December 2008 and the end of March 2009, I calculate that savings for Wal-Mart customers were accumulating at the rate of $900 million a year. Based on the rough estimate of market shares that is available, I believe that the programs at Target, Kroger's, and a few other grocery chains are saving consumers another $900 million per year. The total savings of $1.8 billion a year from Wal-Mart and the other programs, however, is just a start. These companies have only about 15 percent of the prescription drug market. If insurers, private companies that insure their employees, Medicaid and Medicare insist that the drug chains, smaller and mail order pharmacies give them deals comparable to the deal they get when their insurees buy at Wal-Mart, the reduction in health care costs could be five or six times as large as $1.8 billion. But savings could be much larger still. If public and private insurers find ways to steer those they insure to low cost drugs at low cost pharmacies, the competition will create pressure to lower prices of hundreds of other generics for the same conditions. Similarly, lower costs for generics will put pressure on the prices of brand name products that often serve the same needs. This is how competition works. And there would be savings even beyond this. Low cost drugs improve patient compliance with doctors' recommendations. Doctors usually will be able to find effective treatments for most conditions on these lists if they know prices make a difference to their patients and their insurers. High prices prevent many people, even those with insurance, from following their doctors' advice. Changing this so that patients are not priced out of doing what their doctors recommend is where the big bonus in health comes. The low-cost lists include effective treatments for allergies, colds and flu, a range of antibiotics, medicines for arthritis, asthma, cholesterol, diabetes, ear health, fungal infections, gastrointestinal health, glaucoma and eye care, heart health and blood pressure, depression and other mental health illnesses, skin conditions, thyroid conditions, viruses, vitamins and nutritional health, women's health and several other medical conditions. Imagine how much money would be saved if Americans with high blood pressure, diabetes and similar chronic diseases could manage them for just a few dollars a month. The bottom line is that there is a way to both improve health care and reduce its costs by tens of billions of dollars. It is already starting to happen, but it needs a push from both private and public insurers to save additional billions. This is a low-hanging fruit of health care improvement and savings, and Americans ought to be picking it.
 
Former Bear William 'The Refrigerator' Perry Hospitalized In South Carolina Top
William "The Refrigerator" Perry -- the former defensive lineman who captured the hearts of Chicago Bears fans in 1985 when he rumbled for a one-yard touchdown in his Monday Night Football debut -- is in serious condition in a South Carolina hospital after suffering from symptoms of a chronic illness. More on Sports
 
Terry Krepel: WorldNetDaily's Obama Falsehoods: The List Top
WorldNetDaily has on a wild anti-Barack Obama rampage for months now, but the only victim thus far is WND's credibility. WND regularly spreads false and misleading claims about Democrats -- as John Kerry found out in 2004 -- and just as regularly refuses to correct those falsehoods unless threatened with a lawsuit, and sometimes not even then. For seven years WND fought a libel suit filed against it by Clark Jones, a Tennessee businessman targeted for his support of Al Gore, before finally admitting as the case was to go to trial its claims about Jones were false -- resulting in the expenditure of untold thousands in legal costs that could have been spared had WND retracted and apologized for its claims about Jones at the outset. WND appears to be taking refuge in the fact that the bar for which it can be found guilty of libeling a public figure like Barack Obama is much higher than for the average American. The standard established by the Supreme Court is that a public figure cannot collect libel damages without proving that "actual malice" was involved in the publishing of inaccurate and defamatory material; the false information must have been published with knowledge that a statement is false or with "reckless disregard" of whether it is false or not. Given the sheer number of falsehoods about Obama published by WND, one can easily make the argument that such a lengthy series of lies while demonstrating no genuine interest in telling the truth can be interpreted as "actual malice" because it demonstrates a deliberate pattern of "reckless disregard" -- and could, thus, be actionable under libel laws. ConWebWatch has compiled a list of 23 falsehoods about Obama or topics related to him published in WND news articles and columns. Columnists are included because opinion pieces should be held to the same standard of factual accuracy as "news" stories. ConWebWatch attempted to find all instances in WND's article in which a falsehood was uncritically repeated, though information debunking it or putting it into proper context was available or could have been found had the writer chosen to seek it out, and for which no correction, clarification or retraction was subsequently published. Look at the list -- admittedly incomplete -- and decide for yourself: Can a "news" organization that has published so many falsehoods about a single person have any credibility whatsoever? If WND can't be bothered to get its facts straight about a single man, why trust it to tell the truth about anything else? WND has more than amply demonstrated that it cannot be trusted, especially in its coverage of Obama. Click here to see the entire list. More on Barack Obama
 
Unmasking The TARP Wife Top
What's fun about reading the sundry "I Used To Be Rich" stories appearing in various publications is that the heroines -- and the writers of these stories are almost always women, for some reason -- aren't actually poor. They're merely worried that they're going to be poor.
 
Yahoo To Cut 600 To 700 Jobs After 1Q Results Fall Top
SUNNYVALE, Calif. — Yahoo says its slump worsened in the first quarter as the recession made it more difficult to sell the ads that generate most of its profits. In releasing results Tuesday, the Sunnyvale-based Internet company says it will cut 600 to 700 jobs, or about 5 percent of its work force, to shore up profits. Yahoo says it earned $118 million, or 8 cents per share, during the first three months of the year. That represents a 78 percent drop from net income of $537 million, or 37 cents per share, in the year-ago period. Last year's results included a non-cash gain of $401 million. But Yahoo's profit this year still would have been lower even after subtracting last year's one-time boost. Revenue fell 13 percent to $1.58 billion. More on Layoffs
 
TARP Wife Confesses All Top
I am a TARP wife. In keeping with the unwritten code of this new sisterhood, I have taken a vow of financial abstinence. I returned the presents my husband gave me for Christmas (but didn't tell him, since he's already awash in gloom) and am using my credit balances at all the major department stores for important gifts and other necessities.
 
UN World Digital Library Goes Live Online Top
The World Digital Library went live on Tuesday, aiming to provide a one-stop shop for researchers, teachers and schoolchildren seeking to find items on one topic together in one place. More on United Nations
 
Smita Satiani: Social Justice Meets Fashion Sense Top
Wednesday, April 22 is Denim Day , in recognition of a 1999 Italian Supreme Court decision that overturned a 45 year old man's rape conviction because the victim was wearing jeans. The opinion stated that: "it is a fact...that it is nearly impossible to remove jeans on another person without the wearers' active cooperation, after all [taking off jeans] is a difficult enough operation for the one wearing them..." The reasoning followed that because jeans were so difficult to remove by another person, the alleged victim must have helped him and therefore granted consent. Yes--this was in 1999. The decision rightfully sparked outrage and disgust in Italy , lead by Alessandra Mussolini, deputy of the National Alliance Party and granddaughter of former dictator Benito Mussolini. Worldwide pressure convinced the Italian Court to eventually reverse their decision . In April, 1999 the first Denim Day took place in the U.S. as a symbol to recognize violence against women everywhere. Encouraging men and women to wear jeans and spread awareness of the misconceptions of sexual assault, this day has now established itself as a worldwide campaign. Let's be clear: Italy is hardly the only country where gender bias and violence still persists. Over the past year, we have seen an escalation of the crisis in the Congo, where sexual violence is being used as a weapon of war against hundreds of Congolese women daily. Just last week, we witnessed Afghan President Hamid Karzai begin to review a law that permitted marital rape in his country. And here in the U.S., domestic violence is the leading cause of death for women aged 15-44 in the U.S according to the Center for Disease Control. Denim Day reminds us of a major setback but also of the positive outcomes that can result from collective resistance. It is about renewing our commitment to end violence against women in all its forms. Rock some denim tomorrow, because equal justice never goes out of fashion. More on Women's Rights
 
Jon Chattman: An Open Letter to Alex Trebek Top
J.R. getting shot. Chris Daughtry being sent home early. Paul Orndorff turning on Hulk Hogan. Throughout the history of television, there have been shocking twists and turns that have left us awestruck, saddened, and speechless. While the aforementioned examples resonate even today, all of them pale in comparison to the boldest and most disturbing plot twist of all: the day Alex Trebek showed up to the "Jeopardy!" set sans mustache. A longtime television treasure and arguably the best Canadian ever (next to the immortal Rick Moranis and ballad machine Bryan Adams), Trebek turned his back on his fanbase by shaving his Trebek trim last decade and, worst of all, he's left it off ever since. Even Cheech Marin has dabbled with putting his East L.A. fur back on his face from time to time. What gives? Seeing Trebek without his mustache is like spotting Flavor Flav without a clock around his neck or Al B. Sure with a Top 40 single currently on the charts. It's just not right. Decades later, the wounds aren't healed. I think back to the good ol' days, when I was in elementary school, middle school, and even high school when I sat down at 7 p.m. EST to watch "Jeopardy!" with my mother. The two of us bonded over questions we didn't have the answers to and a mustache that -- even in its simplicity -- matched even cricket legend David Boon's patch of fuzz. It's not a coincidence that we both stopped watching the game show together after Trebek shaved his 'stache without any warning. Perhaps me entering college played into it, but I doubt it. Would you watch Sajak without Vanna? Over a decade later, I ask myself: Was he ashamed of his pushbroom? Did Trebek sense it was out of style? Did he trim his trim because he thought it'd make him look younger? It only made him look more Canadian. Only Trebek knows the answers, and at some point, he's going to have to form them in a phrase of a question. Mr. Trebek, it's time to grow back your trademark mustache. Bert Convey never dumped his wonderous Caucasian 'fro. Why did you have to turn your back on your best friend? At a time when movie stars are sprouting mustaches again (kudos to Brad Pitt and George Clooney, to name two), it's time Trebek returns to his roots, and -- for the first time since Tommy Lasorda Baseball landed on Sega Genesis -- grows a hairy pickle under his nose again. I'll take sweet stache for $500, Alex.
 
Henson's 11: The Muppet's Take On Soderbergh (VIDEO) Top
A very creative YouTuber took the audio from the trailer of "Ocean's 11" and several video clips from Muppet movies/shows to create "Henson's 11"--an adorable mash-up sure to give George Clooney and Brad Pitt a run for their money. We're not sure Steven Soderbergh would appreciate this sudden recasting of his blockbuster franchise, but the Muppets are cute enough to melt even the coldest of hearts. WATCH: More on Funny Videos
 
Japanese Curry Murderess Sentenced To Hang Top
Japan's most notorious female murderer was condemned to hang today, when the country's Supreme Court rejected the final appeal in the case known as the Wakayama Curry Murders. More on Japan
 
Elizabeth Tillinghast: On Being Susan Boyle Top
Elizabeth Tillinghast is a psychiatrist and psychoanalyst in New York City. Susan Boyle is a frumpy, grey-haired woman who sang last week on Britain Has Talent, the British analogue of American Idol. An unlikely heroine, Susan Boyle tells us she's single and lives with her cat Pebbles. Yet she grabs us by the heart and fills us with hope. By now, millions have watched her on You Tube. What is there about her? Initially Susan Boyle horrifies us; we're embarrassed by her, not for her. She reminds us of the possibilities in each of us that we're desperate to get away from. Obviously middle-aged, and unabashed about it, she says she's 47, and then, as the audience titters, has the effrontery to wiggle her hips with improbable sauciness and remind us, "that's only one side of me." We're not sure whether to laugh at her or with her. One of the judges rolls his eyes. Plain, plump, middle-aged with frizzy grey hair and a double chin which the camera zooms in on, Susan Boyle is "chronically unemployed but still looking," by her own account. She's equally forthright about never having been married. Earlier she said she'd never been kissed, although this turns out to be a joke. Susan Boyle doesn't even have the protective status that having a man - any man - seems to confer on a woman. She's frank about being unwanted. It's terrifying this woman can present herself so openly, with no make-up, and no man. How vulnerable is she? What on earth is she doing up there? Remarkably, Susan Boyle seems unafraid. It's plain she ought to be embarrassed, yet she seems not to realize that. She has an unwavering dignity. The crowd is mocking, incredulous, but she's undeterred. When asked what her dream is, she says flat out she's always wanted to be a professional singer. Simon Cowell asks in a pseudo-respectful but subtly smarmy way why this hasn't worked for her - we all know why it hasn't worked, she's hopelessly unattractive, far too old - and she responds, "I've never been given the chance before, but here's hoping that will change!" Wow. This woman's plucky. She's optimistic despite the odds. Susan Boyle wants to show us what she loves about herself; she's hoping we'll come to care about it too. Susan Boyle has picked a song from Les Miserables , but she's plainly singing about herself. She stands emotionally naked before us and sings, "I Dreamed a Dream." The song begins in a great arc, with the words, "I dreamed a dream in time gone by/When hope was high and life worth living...," and ends with the words, painful but true, "But there are dreams that cannot be/And there are storms that can't be weathered... My life has killed the dream I dreamed." Even before reading about her, we can all see this is true; it's clear this woman has been teased all her life, ridiculed for having dreams; we're doing it to her ourselves! Everyone starts out with hidden dreams and hopes of being a star. How cruelly Susan Boyle must have been treated for allowing herself that. Later we learn she was teased as a child for being learning-disabled, and having frizzy hair; she sang to comfort herself. Susan Boyle sings of having her dreams killed by life - yet her singing is in direct defiance of that. She wants to be a professional singer, and she's out there doing it, putting her heart on the line, daring to try this out right in front of us. She tells us life has killed her dreams, but it hasn't. In fact, the musical and emotional climax of the song is right in the middle, when Susan Boyle sings of losing hope. "But the tigers come at night/ With their voices soft as thunder/ As they tear your hopes apart/ And they turn your dreams to shame." Not her dreams. Susan Boyle is not letting shame stop her. Instead, she stretches out the word "shame" on a rising cascade of notes which brings the audience to its feet. What a voice! What a tremendous sound! Susan Boyle's singing is strong, bold; she reaches out for us with it. As Susan Boyle sings to us of her dreams and loss of hope, she re-awakens that in us too. She draws us in. We're stirred to remember all we've secretly longed for and let drift away; she invites us to remember what we've given up. The audience goes wild. Susan Boyle realizes she's won over this unlikely crowd, and blesses us with a lovely, tender smile, as if she knows this is our song too. Suddenly we can see the beauty in her, not just in her voice, but in her smile. One of the judges smiles back wistfully, with sweetness. The crowd turns softer. By daring to sing in front of us, Susan Boyle set herself a challenge, but she set us one too. We could have flattened her (although maybe not, with this woman!), but we certainly could have humiliated her, killed her dream by refusing to give in to this unlikely temptress. Like Odysseus, we could have bound ourselves to the mast, tempted by the call of her song, but unwilling to throw ourselves in. Instead, we fell for her. We let her take us by storm, and made her dream come true; right there, right on that stage, we changed her into a wildly famous singer. With her stunning voice, her straightforward vulnerability - I am what I am, she seems to say - she won us over. She transformed her past, turned the mocking bullies - all of us - into a wildly admiring crowd. But she changed us too. She gave us a chance. Susan Boyle changed our image of her, but also our image of ourselves. She turned us from a crowd of snickering sophisticates into people with a shared sense of loss and longing. She gave us hope that maybe it's not too late. Most remarkable, she made us kind. She showed us we can help each other. When asked later how she did it, how she hung in there despite the snickering audience in front of her, Susan Boyle said, "I thought of the song." She also said she did it for her mother. Single, the youngest of 9 children, Susan Boyle took care of her mother before she died. This is the job of spinsters; noble, yes - but also a jolting reminder that she's alone, and almost painfully pathetic. Yet Susan's mother loved this show and told her daughter she should sign up for it, adding that if Susan ever sang on the show, she would win. So that was the inner voice Susan Boyle listened to; she chose to hear the one who loved and believed in her, not all the doubting, mocking voices she's been hearing around her for her whole life. Many of us do not want to hold onto the voice of hope. We beat it out of ourselves. As people get older, they may take pride in developing a determined pessimism, as if that means they'll never be caught off guard. The middle-aged may feel it's almost unseemly to show they have dreams. Like the singer in Les Miserable, we've been reduced by living. By the end of her song, Susan Boyle still reminds us of ourselves, but she's invested it with hope. She shows us something we all feel - the unwanted, hidden away, embarrassingly vulnerable part - yet changes its meaning. Maybe this part of us is fine, maybe it's more than fine, maybe it even has a beauty which others could see, if we just had the courage to put ourselves out there. When I was young, some 40 years ago, I had to memorize a poem for school which began, "Hold fast to dreams, for when dreams die/Life is a broken-winged bird which cannot fly." Here's to Susan Boyle. More on YouTube
 
Press Reduce Torture Investigations Into Partisan Warfare Top
News that President Obama is open to having an independent commission investigate the use of torture during the Bush years is undoubtedly the story of the day, with implications extending back to the previous administration and far into the future. In the aftermath of the president's statement, however, the preponderance of attention has been spent on political minutia as opposed to the policy details. The media, in particular, has focused almost exclusively on two specific angles: had Obama cowered to those liberal proponents of prosecuting Bush officials, and had he contradicted his own administration in expressing openness in doing so? In the process, the issue of launching an investigation -- which would have to be bipartisan in nature for Obama to support it -- was reduced into an overtly partisan and cynical frame. Issues of justice and morality boiled down into "the left's" influence compared to "the right." The mood was set even before White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs came to the podium to talk about the president's remarks. "There does seem to be a little bit of a reaction to how this was received on the left," said Chuck Todd, White House correspondent for NBC. "Frankly this feels like a political food fight now. Vice President Cheney on one side, President Obama on the other. The hard left, the hard right, fighting over this in the blogosphere. When he talks about - he fears the politicization - that may be too late." It was continued well into the briefing, where MoveOn.org and two Democratic Senators were trotted out as suspected catalysts for Obama's willingness to investigate. "What changed over the last 24 hours?" asked CNN's Ed Henry. "Because yesterday you were flat in saying that we're not going there, as Rahm was on Sunday. And in the last 24 hours we've seen groups like MoveOn.org on the left come out and write a petition to the Attorney General saying they want accountability from the Bush administration. Is this an example of this White House giving in to pressure from the left?" "I don't -- I have not, and I doubt the President has been on moveon.org in the last 24 hours, so, no," responded Gibbs. Later, another reporter asked whether comments by Sens. Diane Feinstein and Russ Feingold pushing backs on Emanuel's statement "have some influence on what the president said today?" "Not that I'm aware of," Gibbs responded. "No." It was the simplification of a complex legal and political matter that even the folks being credited for moving Obama's hand scoffed at. "Torture is illegal under the laws of our nation--this is not a question of left or right; it's a question of America's moral leadership," Justin Ruben, Executive Director of MoveOn.org Political Action, said in a statement to the Huffington Post. "The only way to be certain that this never happens again is to investigate, and prosecute the leaders responsible, and today our members joined a growing chorus of voices asking the Attorney General to do just that." Indeed, five questions into the hour-long presser, Gibbs had been asked five separate times whether Obama had shifted his position. In one particular sequence, he was pressed in rapid-fire succession whether the president had "learned anything since those previous comments," whether he was saying "there was absolutely no change in policy today," and, for good measure, whether the president has "changed his policy today?" To the fourth estate's credit, Obama did seem to be contradicting members of his own staff. Whereas the president said on Monday that he wanted the Attorney General to make the determination on prosecuting "those who formulated those legal decisions" on torture, his chief of staff insisted on Sunday that, "those who devised the policy... should not be prosecuted..." Moreover, in insisting that it was not the president's purview to weigh into the judicial debates over who may or may not have committed criminal activity during the Bush years, Gibbs did seem to invalidate Obama's prior statements that those officials who were merely following orders didn't do anything criminally wrong. To these points, Gibbs largely floundered, sticking to the talking point that Obama had not changed tracks, favored looking forward not back, but would prosecute crimes when they were exposed. He was correct in one respect: the issue is largely not in the White House's hands. Congress can and likely will create the committee to investigate the matter, with Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy trying to take the lead on that front. And the Justice Department - independent of the president - will be the place where any prosecutions originate. "The president believes and was assured by the Department of Justice that those who have acted in good faith on what they believed was legal won't be prosecuted," Gibbs stressed. "The president still believes that." Become a fan of HuffPost Politics on Facebook , or follow us on Twitter .
 
Communists Win Moldova Election Recount Top
Moldova's ruling Communist Party was again declared the winner on Tuesday in the country's disputed parliamentary elections in a recount ordered after violent protests against the initial result. More on Europe
 
Rep. Todd Tiahrt: Rush Limbaugh "Just An Entertainer" Top
UPDATE 4/21/09: Less than a week after calling conservative radio host Rush Limbaugh a mere "entertainer," the apology from Rep. Todd Tiahrt (R-Ks.) has arrived. Not only did Tiahrt deny any attempt to denigrate Limbaugh, Tiahrt's spokesman called Limbaugh a "great leader." "The congressman believes Rush is a great leader of the conservative movement in America -- not a party leader responsible for election losses," the spokesman said, according to the Wichita Eagle . "Nothing the congressman said diminished the role Rush has played and continues to play in the conservative movement." The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee can barely contain its glee over adding Tiahrt to the I'mSorryRush.com apology generator. EARLIER: Congressman Todd Tiahrt, Republican of Kansas, might have stepped in it this week. In a meeting with the editorial board of the Kansas City Star , Tiahrt was asked if conservative talk radio king Rush Limbaugh is the de facto leader of the Republican party. Tiahrt took the bait: "No, no, he's just an entertainer," the congressman said, according to Star columnist Yael T. Abouhalkah . Similar remarks by Republican politicos have led to abject groveling at the throne of Rush. Congressman Phil Gingrey called Limbaugh's show to say " I regret those stupid comments " after he'd told Limbaugh to "back off." Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele insisted that Limbaugh was not the de facto leader of the Republican party, calling Limbaugh's show "ugly" and "incendiary." On his show two days later, Rush took Steele to the woodshed, and Steele apologized before the day was out . The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee set up an "I'm Sorry, Rush" website with an apology generator . We'll see if Tiahrt changes his tune and joins the list. Get HuffPost Politics on Facebook , or follow us on Twitter .
 
"Recession Proof" Companies Like Campbell Soup Not Performing As Well As Hoped Top
Given that Americans are embracing thrift, cutting corners and getting by on less, one could logically conclude canned-soup sales would be booming, as families opt to eat in rather than out. Logic, however, often fails. According to the Wall Street Journal, consumer spending on food fell an inflation-adjusted 3.7% in the fourth quarter of 2008, the biggest drop since World War II. And it's not just that consumers are turning to lower-priced options - they're buying less, period.
 
Drew Grant: A Blogging Dilemma: When Should I Brush My Teeth? Top
Not to sound crass or anything, but when you work from home, it becomes increasingly harder to figure out a schedule for personal hygiene. Sure, I've been up since 9 (okay, today was 11, but that's because my body needed the rest!) but I still haven't gotten out of bed yet. Which isn't to say I haven't been productive. My Schedule: 9 a.m.-11: Get up, write a bunch of stuff that I cull from the vast resources of the Internet. Spell 90% of things wrong because there is nobody to bring me coffee and I refuse to get out of bed until I've filled an unrealistic, self-made quota of items. Start the day off with a fatalism and self-loathing. Also, still sleepy. 11 a.m.-2: Go to the bathroom, but only because I really have to pee. Bring computer in with me so I can recheck Facebook status updates and see if my friend from middle school is having fun being a PR exec for a liquor company. Gee, that sure sounds like fun...probably sucks though. Heat up some old pasta, get sick of waiting for the microwave to nuke and eat it half cold. Consider brushing my teeth but figure, day is half over anyway. Will brush once I smoke a cigarette. Get back in bed and blog some more. 2 p.m.-5: The computer equivalent of "runner's high" kicks in and I am in the zone. I can write about anything! I am so funny! I am so prolific! Who needs Ritalin when they've got Drew Grant?!!? Who cares if that doesn't make any sense or that I just wrote that "Anne" Wintour is the head of "Vanity Fair"?? 5:00 pm: I notice I've been grinding my jaw for the last four hours. Jittery and irritable. Roommates and boyfriend come home. Sudden, inexplicable urge to leave house because "This might be where YOU guys get to relax, but for me it's my WORK SPACE!" Wonder if the urban legend about dipping a tampon in grain alcohol actually works. 5 p.m.-3 a.m.: ??????? 3:00 a.m.: Wake up confused, in some weird place that smells like downwind of Greenpoint. Reach over and find I still brought my trusty laptop, no one has stolen it yet. Thank god. Write morning articles, schedule them for 9 a.m. so it looks like I was up that early the next day. Want to brush my teeth, but can't figure out where the bathroom is. Fall back asleep until 11 the next day. Rinse, repeat.
 
Zuma Poised To Be South Africa's Next President Top
KWANXAMALALA, South Africa — One-time goat herder Jacob Zuma is poised to lead Africa's strongest economic power after elections Wednesday _ a victor of the fight against white rule, an unabashed polygamist, and a survivor of sex and corruption scandals that threatened his political career. South African voters are projected to give an overwhelming majority to the long-governing African National Congress party and hand the presidency to the ANC's leader, Zuma. The 67-year-old head of the former liberation movement's feared intelligence unit is beloved by the poor, who feel his deprived childhood gives him insight into their painful poverty. His opponents warn that his populism is dangerous for democracy. Zuma says decisions will be made by the collective leadership, indicating there won't be major changes in government policies that are generally friendly to the West and capitalism. Despite the ANC's leftist roots, the succession of governments it has led since the end of apartheid in 1994 has broadly abided by free-market principles. Relations with the U.S. have been prickly at times, notably over the Iraq war, but the new government is likely to remain friendly, especially to President Barack Obama, whose election electrified South Africans. During the campaign, there were hints Zuma would take a tougher line on authoritarian President Robert Mugabe in neighboring Zimbabwe. But now that Zuma's predecessor, Thabo Mbeki, has persuaded Mugabe to share power with the opposition, the focus has shifted to cajoling the West to provide aid. A great showman, Zuma has a strong, deep voice and seldom misses the chance to break into song, often the anti-apartheid "Umshini Wami," which means "Bring Me My Machine Gun." A microphone in his hand, he breaks into a wide tooth-gapped smile and the crowd goes wild as if at a rock concert. "Zuma as president will be much more personable," said Adam Habib, a political analyst at the University of Johannesburg. "He is going to do a jig on the stage far more; he will hug grannies; he will shake people's hands; he will kiss babies in a much more greater way than Mbeki." "In all of those ways, I think he is much closer to (Nelson) Mandela. Does he generate the same sense of integrity? No, he doesn't," Habib said. A frail Mandela, who turned 90 last year, twice appeared at Zuma campaign rallies. On Sunday, tens of thousands of Zuma supporters became nearly hysterical with joy when Mandela and Zuma paraded around a stadium in a golf cart. Critics accuse Zuma of encouraging a personality cult and warn that despite the global recession he is raising expectations impossible to fulfill among supporters who look to him for salvation. "Zuma is Jesus!" declared a poster at Sunday's final campaign rally. Zuma and his supporters also allude to a divine destiny. "God expects us (the ANC) to rule this country. ... That is why we will rule until Jesus comes back," Zuma told The Cape Times in an interview after he became president of the ANC. Zuma's anticipated inauguration as president May 9 will be a remarkable milestone for the man who once herded livestock in the rural Zulu heartland, home to sugar cane plantations, eucalyptus forests and misty mountains. Zuma maintains an isolated, hillside homestead here in Kwanxamalala. His father, who also had multiple wives, was a policeman who died when he was a boy. His mother worked as a maid in the coastal city of Durban. He was denied a formal education and by 15 he was doing odd jobs to help support his family. Zuma joined the ANC in 1959 and by 21 he was arrested while trying to leave the country illegally. He was jailed for 10 years on Robben Island, alongside Mandela and other heroes of the anti-apartheid struggle. In prison, Zuma resumed his schooling and began making a name for himself among ANC prisoners. He left South Africa in 1975 for 15 years of exile in neighboring Swaziland, Mozambique and Zambia, where he was appointed chief of the ANC's intelligence department. Following the lifting of the ANC ban in 1990, Zuma was one of the first of the group's leaders to return to South Africa. Zuma was credited with ending violence pitting ANC members against the main Zulu political party in the troubled province of KwaZulu-Natal before South Africa's first multiracial election in 1994. He was appointed deputy president in 1999 by Mbeki. But Mbeki fired him in 2005, when Zuma was implicated in the corruption trial of a close friend and financial adviser. Mbeki later lost a bitter power struggle with Zuma for the party leadership and was eventually forced last year to yield the South African presidency to an interim successor, Kgalema Motlanthe. Prosecutors lifted the last obstacle in Zuma's path to the presidency earlier this month when they dropped corruption charges, saying the case had been manipulated for political reasons and that criminal charges would never be revived. Some South Africans and the international community worry about the influence of allies who propelled Zuma to power _ leftist trade unions and the South African Communist Party, to which Zuma belonged for most of his life. Habib, for one, sees little to fear from a Zuma presidency and believes he will be "more responsive" to South Africa's most pressing problems _ crime, AIDS and corruption. Zuma is a Zulu traditionalist who proudly took a second wife last year. It was his fourth marriage. He is divorced from Foreign Minister Nkosazana Dlamini Zuma, and another of his wives killed herself more than eight years ago. He is said to have more than 10 children. Questions about his moral choices were raised after Zuma, who was head of the country's AIDS program, acknowledged having unprotected sex with the HIV-positive daughter of a family friend and said he took a shower to protect himself from AIDS. Zuma was acquitted of raping the woman, younger than some of his own children. But he failed to chastise supporters who threatened the woman's life, causing her to flee into exile. The case disturbed Archbishop Desmond Tutu, the Nobel Peace Prize laureate, who called for Zuma two years ago to abandon his political ambitions. Tutu asked: "What sort of example would he be setting?" Zulus believe Zuma sets a proud one _ reveling in his rich heritage, as at home in traditional leopard skins as in a pinstripe suit, a more traditional African leader than any on the continent. ___ Associated Press writers Celean Jacobson and Donna Bryson in Johannesburg contributed to this report. More on South Africa
 
Charles J. Brown: The Torture Memos: McCain's Tortured Contradictions Top
This is a post I did not want to write. For most of his career, John McCain has been an outspoken advocate against torture.  So you would think that Senator McCain would have cheered the White House's decision to release the torture memos. Unfortunately, you would be wrong ( h/t ): McCain says he wishes that the Bush Administration had abided by the Detainee Treatment Act , of which he was the principal sponsor.  He describes waterboarding as "unacceptable" and "torture, period."  He notes that those tortured will tell an interrogator "whatever they want to hear."  He says that it's a great "recruiting tool" for al Qaeda and other terrorist groups.  He says that it doesn't matter whether the Administration got useful intelligence from torture because of the resulting damage to America's reputation around the world. But he also says that the release of the memos "Helps no one."  He says that it "doesn't help America's image."  He says that their release "does not help address the issue."  He believes that "it was a serious mistake to release these memos." So on one hand, Senator McCain believes that torture has hurt America's reputation in the world and that it has encouraged our enemies.  On the other, he believes that offically acknowleging torture will hurt America's reputation in the world and that it will encourage our enemies. I wanted to give Senator McCain the opportunity to clarify his remarks.  I contacted his office, which promptly returned my call.  But despite my repeated efforts to get additional information, his office provided only the following statement, and only on background (meaning that no one was willing to be quoted): Senator McCain's position has been clear, he led the fight on the detainee treatment act, and this sort of conduct shouldn't have happened in the first place. That really doesn't answer the question:  Why has Senator McCain has chosen to criticize the Obama Administration's decision to release the memos as potentially damaging to U.S. interests when he also argues that torture already has damaged American interests? To put it another way, how can acknowledging the truth somehow be worse than the truth itself? Senator McCain's decision to continue to defend the actions of the Bush Administration is especially mystifying given that Administration's past disregard for his opinion. In October 2007, The New York Times obtained two Justice Department memos authorizing waterboarding and other techniques (both of which were among those released by the Obama Administration).  In response, McCain told MSNBC that he was personally assured by administration officials that at least one of the techniques allegedly used in the past, waterboarding, was prohibited under the new law. In a January 2008 statement, McCain said something similar .  It is worth quoting at length: Throughout these debates, I have said that it was not my intent to eliminate the CIA interrogation program, but rather to ensure that the techniques it employs are humane and do not include such extreme techniques as waterboarding. I said on the Senate floor during the debate over the Military Commissions Act, "Let me state this flatly: it was never our purpose to prevent the CIA from detaining and interrogating terrorists. On the contrary, it is important to the war on terror that the CIA have the ability to do so. At the same time, the CIA's interrogation program has to abide by the rules, including the standards of the Detainee Treatment Act." This remains my view today. When, in 2005, the Congress voted to apply the Field Manual to the Department of Defense, it deliberately excluded the CIA. The Field Manual, a public document written for military use, is not always directly translatable to use by intelligence officers. In view of this, the legislation allowed the CIA to retain the capacity to employ alternative interrogation techniques. I'd emphasize that the DTA permits the CIA to use different techniques than the military employs, but that it is not intended to permit the CIA to use unduly coercive techniques - indeed, the same act prohibits the use of any cruel, inhumane, or degrading treatment. . . . This necessarily brings us to the question of waterboarding. Administration officials have stated in recent days that this technique is no longer in use, but they have declined to say that it is illegal under current law. I believe that it is clearly illegal and that we should publicly recognize this fact. In assessing the legality of waterboarding, the Administration has chosen to apply a "shocks the conscience" analysis to its interpretation of the DTA. I stated during the passage of that law that a fair reading of the prohibition on cruel, inhumane, and degrading treatment outlaws waterboarding and other extreme techniques. It is, or should be, beyond dispute that waterboarding "shocks the conscience." It is also incontestable that waterboarding is outlawed by the Military Commissions Act, and it was the clear intent of Congress to prohibit the practice. The MCA enumerates grave breaches of Common Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions that constitute offenses under the War Crimes Act. Among these is an explicit prohibition on acts that inflict "serious and non-transitory mental harm," which the MCA states "need not be prolonged." Staging a mock execution by inducing the misperception of drowning is a clear violation of this standard. Indeed, during the negotiations, we were personally assured by Administration officials that this language, which applies to all agencies of the U.S. Government, prohibited waterboarding. It is unfortunate that the reluctance of officials to stand by this straightforward conclusion has produced in the Congress such frustration that we are today debating whether to apply a military field manual to non-military intelligence activities. It would be far better, I believe, for the Administration to state forthrightly what is clear in current law - that anyone who engages in waterboarding, on behalf of any U.S. government agency, puts himself at risk of criminal prosecution and civil liability. If we are to believe Senator McCain, Bush Administration officials looked him in the eye.  The first time, in October 2007, they told him that such practices had stopped.  The second time, in early 2008, they told him specifically that they no longer waterboarded -- but continued to regard such practices as legal. Let's not beat around the bush here.  On at least two occasions, the Bush Administration flat-out lied to Senator McCain . They told him they weren't doing what they were doing.  And he not only believed them, he publicly defended them. What makes this even odder is that in April 2008, McCain acknowledged to Time magazine's Michael Scherer that that he did not know the details of the Bush Administration's policies "any more than is available to non-members of the Intelligence Committee."  That means that when he was accepting the Bush Administration's assurances, he had no idea what they were doing. I don't know whether Senator McCain is angry about this. I would hope so.  But given his only public statement (and his office's subsequent unwillingness to answer my questions), we have no way of knowing. In the past, critics of the Senator have suggested that his willingness to accept the Bush Administration's promises was a product of his ambitions -- that he was willing to set aside his principled opposition to torture in order to become President. But that theory doesn't explain why Senator McCain continues to defend the Administration now that he no longer is a candidate. Let me repeat my question.  Why does Senator McCain now believe that acknowledging the facts is somehow more damaging than the facts themselves? One possible answer is that this is not about the torture memos. Senator McCain does not want to acknowledge that he was duped.  He does not want to credit the Obama Administration for achieving what he could not -- an end to the Bush Administration's torture regime.  He does not want to admit that he could not prevent our (and his) worst fears from becoming a harsh reality . I sincerely hope that there is another answer, one that will end the contradiction between John McCain the anti-torture champion and John McCain the Bush Administration apologist.  But until we hear more than platitudes and apologies from the Senator himself, we will have to assume the worst. More on Barack Obama
 
Salma Hayek, Uma Thurman Honored At Smart Cookie Awards (PHOTOS) Top
On April 20, 2009, Cookie Magazine honored mothers Salma Hayek, Debra Messing, Uma Thurman, Alicia Ely Yamin, Amy Eldridge, Deborah Koenigsberger, and Judy Woodruff. Read more about the Smart Cookie Awards here . And see what the honorees and other guests wore below. More on Photo Galleries
 

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