Thursday, May 14, 2009

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Johann Hari: So John Edwards Had An Affair. Grow Up. Adultery Is Not a Political Issue. Top
And so America has finally stumbled on a political issue of real significance. No, not the trifling matters of economic collapse, global warming, or two wars. No - the issue of the day is John Edwards' dick. Since Elizabeth Edwards published a book about the supremely trivial fact that her husband had an affair, the cable shows have been endlessly debating the "issue" once again. Memo to America: Grow. Up. Have you forgotten the lesson of Lewinsky so soon? While al-Qa'ida plotted a murderous attack on the US, the twice-elected president was busy being impeached over a few bouts of consensual oral sex. It meant nothing. It was nothing. But it skewed your politics for years. A politician's willingness to commit adultery is irrelevant. Does Franklin Roosevelt's adultery undermine the New Deal? Does Martin Luther King's extra-marital shagging puncture the cause of civil rights? Does Adolf Hitler's fidelity to Eva Braun tell you what an honourable man he really was? Does Dick Cheney's ability to keep his cock in his pants reveal that he is secretly decent? In the long term, a fixation on politicians' penises reinforces existing power structures, because the implicit message of sex stories is simple and reactionary. Politics in the scandal-hungry world isn't about ideas or redistributing wealth and power. It's about who can control their sexual urges best while running a political show which just happens to be rigged in favour of the rich. Does anyone remember now that John Edwards was the most eloquent campaigner against poverty and corruption in mainstream politics for a generation? You might remember him as the plastic vice-presidential candidate standing at John Kerry's wooden side in 2004. Back then, he offered anodyne Clintonian soundbites and centrist platitudes but losing to Bush yet again did something strange to him. It turned him into an angry whistle-blower, exposing the corruption consuming both of Washington's parties. He explained: "I have seen the seamy underbelly of what happens in Washington every day. If you're Exxon Mobil and you want to influence what's happening with the government, you go and hire one of these big lobbying firms. This is what you find. About half the lobbyists are Republicans, and about half the lobbyists are Democrats. If the Republicans are in power, the Republican lobbyists take the lead, passing the money around. If the Democrats are in power, the Democratic lobbyists take the lead. They're pushing the same agenda for the same companies. There's no difference." He announced that "the system in Washington is rigged and our government is broken" - and proposed hard ways to change. A smattering have been picked up by President Obama, and many more need to be. Is all that wiped out by a brief and meaningless ejaculation? But even if Edwards had a foul agenda - even if he was Rush Limbaugh - adultery would be lousy grounds to drum him out of public life. It. Means. Nothing It doesn't have to be this way. Continental Europe has a mature model where politicians' affairs are considered irrelevant. The idea a French President would be debarred from office for sleeping with somebody other than his wife is preposterous. Talking about "a right to know" about affairs is silly. We no more have a right to know about Edward's sex life than we have a right to know what he looks like naked. This isn't about whether you like John Edwards or not. It's about a choice we all have to make: do we want our political debate to be conducted at the level of the National Enquirer, or does a serious democracy deserve better? Johann Hari is a writer for the Independent newspaper. To read more of his articles, click here .
 
Diann Rust-Tierney: The 132nd death row exoneree: implications for the Troy Davis case Top
One of the many disturbing aspects of capital punishment is that it has no guarantee against mistaken convictions and executions. This risk of mistakes was driven home again on May 12th, just days ago, when a Tennessee District Attorney dropped all charges against former death row inmate Paul House, who was convicted of murder and sentenced to death in 1986. House spent 22 years on death row and was scheduled to be retried next month. In 2006 the U.S. Supreme Court, because he had raised a colorable claim of innocence, granted House the opportunity to challenge the legality of his conviction and death sentence on other grounds. That ruling merely gave him the opportunity to have a federal court decide whether he should be given a hearing on the question of a new trial. A federal court ultimately did determine that House was entitled to a new trial. House was released from prison in July 2008 pending his new trial. And DNA testing has excluded House as the murderer. Now that the District Attorney has dropped all charges against Paul House, he is the second exoneree this year, and the 132nd individual to be exonerated from death row since 1973. The exoneration of Paul House ironically came on the 16th anniversary of the execution of Leonel Herrera, a Texas man, who was sentenced to death for the shooting deaths of two police officers. Herrera like, Paul House, had insisted he was innocent; affidavits indicated that his brother actually committed the crime. Herrera asked the U.S. Supreme Court to rule that existing procedural barriers not deny him the opportunity for a court to hear his strong claim of innocence but the Court ruled against him. In his dissenting opinion in Herrera v. Collins , Justice Harry Blackmun said, in part, "Just as an execution without adequate safeguards is unacceptable, so too is an execution when the condemned prisoner can prove that he is innocent. The execution of a person who can show that he is innocent comes perilously close to simple murder." If the nuanced distinction between why the legal system would provide an avenue for one prisoner to prove his innocence and spare his life where no such route existed for the other is lost on you, you are not alone. To make Justice Blackmun's point more bluntly, fidelity to the rule of law demands that strong claims of innocence not be denied a fair hearing -especially when the punishment is death. Now comes the case of Troy Anthony Davis, where the high court will again be presented with a strong claim of innocence. Troy Anthony Davis was sentenced to death in Georgia in 1991 for the murder of police officer Mark Allen MacPhail- a crime for which there is no physical evidence linking him to the shooting, in which seven of nine witnesses who named him as the killer have since recanted their testimony, saying in sworn affidavits that they were coerced or pressured into implicating Davis, and for which no murder weapon has been produced. Davis, like House and Herrera, has been fighting for years for a new trial through which to prove his innocence. Last month the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals rejected that effort, saying that the affidavits from the witnesses who recanted were introduced "too late" in the process. In her dissenting opinion, Circuit Court Judge Rosemary Barkett wrote, "To execute Davis, in the face of a significant amount of proffered evidence that may establish his actual innocence, is unconscionable and unconstitutional." If there is any lesson that should be learned from these cases it is that our capital punishment system has some serious flaws. Not the least of which is a sufficiently adequate process for assuring that no innocent man or women is executed. The route to safety is too obscured by technicalities. The Troy Anthony Davis case presents another test for the system. We must be as determined as the lawyers and other advocates who worked tirelessly to save the life of Paul House to prevent the execution of Troy Anthony Davis. While it should not be true--it is - it will take an extraordinary effort to prevent a miscarriage of justice here. The Paul House case is a chilling reminder of just how often the system makes mistakes. It should strengthen our resolve in the Davis case. (A Global Day of Action in support of Davis has been scheduled for May 19th. For more information on scheduled events of that day, and what can be done to obtain clemency for Davis, visit http://www.aiusa.org./troydavis.)
 
Stroger On His Unpaid Tax Bill: Too Big To Pay At One Time Top
CHICAGO (AP) -- Cook County Board President Todd Stroger is explaining why the Internal Revenue Service slapped a lien on his home for nearly $12,000 in back taxes. Stroger told WVON-AM host Cliff Kelley on Thursday that he was hit with a tax bill "too big for him to handle at one time." He says he filed an amended return and has gotten on a payment plan to settle his debt. The Chicago Democrat said he would never shirk his responsibility to pay his taxes. The Sun-Times broke the story this week and Stroger called it an effort to "drag him through the mud." Stroger blamed the higher-than-normal tax bill on a withdrawal from deferred compensation. The lien was for the 2007 tax period. -ASSOCIATED PRESS
 
Stimulus Spending: Detroit Airport Repairs Finished In One Year Instead Of Two Top
Reconstruction of one of Detroit Metropolitan Airport's two crosswind runways will be finished in one year instead of two thanks to a $15 million federal stimulus grant awarded to the authority that oversees the airport. More on Stimulus Package
 
Blagojevich's Lush Locks Inspire 'Bleep'n Golden' Hair Care Products Line Top
Rod Blagojevich's hair is the stuff of legend-- and late night punchlines. And now the disgraced former governor's lush locks have inspired a line of hair care products. "Blago: It's Bleep'n Golden Volumizing Shampoo and Conditioner" was launched by a the owner of a suburban Chicago company after the idea came to him in a dream. "We're swamped," Dennis Fath, the owner of Delta Laboratories Inc. in Elk Grove Village, told the Huffington Post Thursday. "I don't know what to do. We're a very small company, and we've had over 200 orders today. And they're still coming in every minute." Fath said the idea for the Blago-branded shampoo came to him in a dream. It was essential, he said, that the product be volumizing in order to be faithful to the voluminous coif that inspired it. This is the first time Delta, which makes hair care products for other companies, has retailed its own brand. "We made the bottles golden, so it's bleepin' golden," Fath said. "And we made them volumizing so you could look more like him. He has great hair -- no one can deny that." Blagojevich publicist Glenn Selig told the Huffington Post that his client has yet to try them. "He's aware of it, yes, but he has not used it," Selig said. "We hope it passes the smell test." Selig said Blagojevich will not be endorsing the products, but has no plans to put the kibosh on them, either. The bottles sell for $8 each or $15 for two on blagohair.com . Delta Labs joins a long line of companies hoping to make a buck off of the indicted former governor, as NBC Chicago's Andrew Greiner noted . NBC wanted Blagojevich for its reality show "I'm a Celebrity ... Get Me Out of Here" and the income-seeking ex-gov was all set to join the cast before a federal judge blocked him from leaving the country for filming. The owner of a Nevada brothel invited Blagojevich to serve as his apprentice-- and appear on an HBO show about life at the prostitution palace-- and Second City's satire "Rod Blagojevich Superstar" has been wildly successful. Local burger haven Kuma's Corner briefly offered the tastiest of Blago-pegged products: the #!@%¿ Blagojevich Burger . More on Rod Blagojevich
 
Martha St Jean: Social Work and Politics: What's Happening in America Top
I plan on bringing you, my dear reader, conversations with 10 women who are changing the world and rocking their fields. For this first conversation, I spoke to Dr. Patricia Reid-Merritt, who is a Professor of Social Work and Africana Studies at Richard Stockton College in Pomona, New Jersey. She has a forthcoming book, "Righteous Self-Determination: The Black Social Work Movement in America," due out in time for the fall 2010 semester. What attracted you to social work? The desire to be a social activist, the desire to work to uplift Black community and the desire to change the world in such a way that others wouldn't have the childhood experiences that I had. What were those childhood experiences? We had plenty of love but there was poverty and need. I was raised by a single parent, mother of nine, in urban America, exposed to an educational system that had no faith in my abilities. One of the reasons why I have been able to achieve what I have, thus far, is a result of the civil rights and black power movement. What do you say to black children growing up today who feel what you felt, that the educational system has no faith in them? They have to explore other opportunities that are available... Young students need to look for those opportunities outside of their limited social environment. To connect to those opportunities they need to have a plan. Dream big, maintain their focus on academic achievement. We all have to be lifetime learners. How do we use social work and Africana Studies in this year, 2009, to advance society? Well, social work is a field that is dedicated to the advancement of humanity. One of the things that attract people to social work is the desire to uplift people, to improve the quality of their lives. Social work when practiced at its best is about social change and social justice. Africana Studies is about the exploration of the African studies in the Diaspora. For us in the States, Africana studies are about understanding the African-American experience here in the States. It gives us the tools to understand America's contemporary experience of race. It's important that we have the foundation to help us understand, interpret and analyze the black experience in the States and in the world. What is happening to Black culture in America? There are subcultures within the African Diaspora. Subcultures have different values and different people. People see black people, they don't see "Haitian-American." Culture gets lost in this racial dichotomy. Here in America we see black and white. We don't see Irish-American, Italian-American, Polish-American -- we see white. America doesn't have appreciation for culture. The other thing that is important is that we have always seen ourselves as black people... Some people are just now discovering that when we talk about what Black-American culture is we have to talk about the many contributions made by some of these subcultures. The thing we all have in common, from our ancestors' point of view, is that we were oppressed. We came from the West Coast of Africa and the boat just happened to land in Barbados or Cuba. That doesn't deny that other groups weren't oppressed. Can you discuss the intersection of social work and politics? When I think of social work, I think of people on a noble quest. I don't always get the same feel about politics. However, so much of what social workers attempt to do is based on actions taken in the political arena. The nation's support for housing, health care, childcare, education and other valuable social welfare services are all made by politicians and government officials. Many of these decisions result in those with the least amount of resources carrying the heaviest social and economic burdens. Social workers should be active participants in the political arena. They should run for office and accept leadership roles. Social workers should remember that their commitment to social advocacy and social activism should be equal if not greater than their commitment to direct service. And social workers must work to achieve political empowerment for the populations that they serve. How has Jim Crow affected the interaction between social work, politics and Africana studies? The legacy of Jim Crow is not just something that you teach about. As social workers, many of us see the lasting affects of racism, prejudice and segregation in the lives of everyday people and in the communities that we serve. And many of our agencies and social institutions are not yet free of racial biases. Social work provides us with valuable skills that can be used in combating these problems. For both undergraduates and some graduates schools, a generalist approach is utilized, with emphasis on cultural competency. However, most schools do not devote the time and course work needed for social workers to develop in-depth knowledge about large ethnic and racial populations. You learn a little bit about everybody. It is the reason why so many students will graduate with professional degrees and still feel as though something is missing when they attempt to address the specific challenges in ethnic communities. Africana Studies has provided me with the depth and breath of knowledge needed to perform effectively in the African-American community. I understand the history, culture, heritage, values, practices and social customs of African descended community, and community, which is far from being monolithic. And if, for example, I had decided to practice social work in Native American communities, I would have studied long and hard before entering their homes and suggesting that I was culturally competent to do so. What do you say to people who say we live in an era that is post race? We are a society where race still matters, the burden of race is still with us. We have to very aggressively address the remnants of our past, including the holocaust of enslavement. What about those who are saying we live in a post-race, post-racism society because Barack Obama is president? We should view the world as a place that still needs to achieve freedom, equality and social justice for all. We have not met those goals. In this "age of Obama," his administration needs to define and clarify their civil rights agenda. Why do you think he has not defined a civil rights agenda? I think he has been a careful politician, who has been concerned about Americans perception of his role as America's first black president. He feels a need to prove, as he pledged on his campaign, that he will be the president of all America. But, we too are America. I think there is no need to sacrifice our vision of a future that is rewarding and satisfying to us as a people just because a black man is in the White House. We have goals and aspirations and dreams. We would like those dreams to be achievable in America without the burden of race, discrimination and prejudice that's been a part of the American history for hundreds of years. What role should Michelle Obama play in this administration? I think Michelle Obama should play the role of First Lady for the nation and I think she is doing that very well. In the Black community she has become a model of inspiration for what is possible for black women of every hue. She's doing what she's doing well, in that she is providing a new contemporary role for the First Lady. What do you say to women trying to keep it all together? Always have a plan, burn the candle at both ends; but in this fast paced world keep the middle for yourself. More on Michelle Obama
 
Peru Firing 'Scandalous' Gays From Police Force Top
LIMA, Peru — Peruvian police officers who "damage the image" of law enforcement by engaging in homosexual behavior can lose their jobs under a new law designed to overhaul an unpopular national police force. The new law that went into effect Tuesday also says officers will be fired for taking bribes and abusing detainees. In sexual matters, however, distinctions are made between heterosexual and homosexual police officers. Those who commit adultery only face suspension, but expulsion is required for those who engage in "sexual relations with people of the same sex that cause a scandal or damage the image of the institution." Peru's Supreme Court in 2004 overturned a ban on homosexuality in the police and military. But like the U.S. military's "don't ask, don't tell policy" _ which bans homosexuals from disclosing their sexual orientation _ the new law tries to sidestep the issue without banning homosexuality outright. "The only thing that is penalized now are the scandals that can be caused by a scandalous relationship, if they are homosexuals," Interior Ministry spokesman Fransisco Ugarteche said Thursday. But Jorge Chavez, president of the Lima Homosexual Movement, said the law appears to violate constitutional guarantees against discrimination based on sexual orientation. "Heterosexuality isn't scandalous but homosexuality is? It's discriminatory," Chavez said. Former Interior Minister Fernando Rospigliosi said the courts probably would overturn measures that try to regulate homosexuality and adultery if challenged. "Under this administration's watch corruption in the police force has grown, but they are more worried about these type of things," Rospigliosi told The Associated Press. In February, Peru's interior minister suspended four female police officers without pay after a video of the women dancing seminude in a police barracks surfaced on a local video-sharing Web site. The women said someone stole the cell phone that recorded the video and uploaded it without their consent. They have yet to rejoin the force. More on Latin America
 
Michael Sigman: Evolution Devolution Top
"De-evolution/self-execution/ no solution/I'm a potato and I'm so hip." - Devo I once had a promising first date with an intelligent, engaging woman who explained she was on a spiritual quest. This made me a little nervous -- if you're on such a quest, I figure you should take a cue from the greatest writers -- don't tell it, show it. Next time I saw her, we had dinner at a veggie restaurant in Santa Monica, after which she offered to show me her place -- a very good sign, I thought. We took a walk down Montana Avenue, and there on a leafy side street was a modest house, which upon closer inspection turned out to be an Ashram. My nervousness doubled -- was I being recruited? Before we entered, she made it clear that sex was out of the question -- not that I'd asked! -- as her guru preached abstinence. I wondered aloud how that worked over the long term, and she acknowledged that from time to time the guru slept with one or another of his subjects. No harm, no foul, though -- he also was big on forgiveness, and they forgave him. When I suggested that there might be a touch of hypocrisy there, I learned that gurus are people with whom you do not fuck -- unless, apparently, they ask you first. She coldly replied that I was incapable of understanding, because I wasn't as evolved as she. Of course, there is a sense in which evolution is a contest -- survival of the fittest and all that. But if you have to brag about how evolved you are, how evolved can you be? According to a 2007 Gallup poll, 68 percent of Republicans don't believe in evolution at all. Politicians on the Right have been scrambling to show solidarity with this cohort. A truly bizarre moment in that effort came during a 2008 Republican debate when the candidates were asked, "Who doesn't believe in evolution?" Three of the Republican candidates -- Mike Huckabee, Tom Tancredo and Sam Brownback -- raised their hands. I wasn't quick enough to notice whether they had opposable thumbs. John McCain, who was willing to say lots of things he patently disbelieved (who can forget his claim that Obama was referring to Sarah Palin when he talked about "lipstick on a pig"?), couldn't quite bring himself to deny evolution. So he chose Palin to cover his right flank. Addressing the question of evolution versus creationism in schools, she opined, "You know, don't be afraid of information. I am a proponent of teaching both." Apparently, no one asked for her position on misinformation. Creationism is anything but evolved. Webster's says it's "the doctrine that the true story of the creation of the universe is as it is recounted in the Bible, especially in the first chapter of Genesis." Ken Ham, a leading "young Earth creationist," (that's a guy who thinks the earth is a relative toddler) believes that the entire universe was created about 6,000 years ago and that Noah's flood occurred a mere 4,500 years ago. Ham's favorite response when presented with facts that contradict a strict interpretation of Genesis: "Were you there?" Well, no. But no one alive today was there for the American Civil War, so it's just as plausible that God put the Gettysburg Address in our heads just a few minutes ago. Come to think of it, not one of us was "there" a year before we were born, so maybe we don't exist at all! Last week on Hardball , Republican Conference Chairman Mike Pence -- who presents himself as a voice of reason -- changed the subject every time host Chris Matthews asked about evolution. Finally, Chris stated the obvious: "I think you believe in evolution, but you're afraid to say so because your conservative constituency might find that offensive." Then there's Fox News. Not wanting to appear to be complete idiots, they treated the question as Palin did, with an "on the one hand, on the other hand" attitude and last week teased their morning show thusly: "Evolution? Creation? Evolution? Creation?" At the core of the discussion about evolution, of course, is the scientific method. Evolution isn't something you choose to believe in, like Jesus or your Little League coach. It's a hypothesis with so much evidence to support it, we call it a "fact." That doesn't mean our knowledge of it is absolute. As the late, great Stephen Jay Gould put it in his classic 1994 paper, "Evolution as Fact and Theory in Science," "fact" can only mean "confirmed to such a degree that it would be perverse to withhold provisional assent." So what's next for evolution deniers? The Republicans need a bold initiative to revitalize their party. They did well in 1994 with Newt Gingrich's "Contract with America." How about a couple of Constitutional amendments? One could proclaim that evolution never happened, that schools must teach that humans rode dinosaurs and that God can rewrite the past any time He chooses. The second could stipulate that any country who wants to do business with America must enact a similar measure. I mean, isn't America the greatest country in the world? If we say evolution didn't happen, it didn't happen. And when it's clear that we're wrong, well, forgive us. We're on a spiritual quest. More on Sarah Palin
 
John Bruhns: Torture Debate May Not Go in Our Favor Top
The torture issue isn't as black and white as Cheney (from the right) or the bleeding hearts (from the left) make it out to be. Lawmakers must ignore political pressure and carefully examine the interpretations of established law and precedent. Laws that the United States signed onto. If we jump to conclusions and rush this debate through to appease political interests groups we'll never get the truth. We can beat the dead horse until we're blue in the face going after Bush and Cheney for their past practices regarding the treatment of detainees or we could close the door on that dark page of history, learn from our mistakes, and take the necessary corrective action to get this thing right once and for all. If we put 10 lawyers in a room and asked them if Bush and Cheney had the legal authority to torture members of Al-Qeada it's quite possible that we'd receive ten different opinions. Even if it went to the Supreme Court the laws are so ambiguous that we would likely get another 5-4 ruling. It's just too hard to nail down. Despite my liberal views on most issues I don't give a damn that Abu Zubayda and Khalid Sheikh Mohammed were waterboarded x amount of times. All those out there playing the violin for them should remember if the tables were turned these two psychopaths would behead their American fan base in a heartbeat. What concerns me is making sure this doesn't happen to our citizens, innocent people, or future prisoners of war from conventional armies belonging to sovereign nations. Many keep asking for transparency. Asking the same questions over and over again. Yet we all know the answers already. There is no doubt the Bush Administration engaged in acts of torture, enhanced interrogation techniques, or whatever you wish to call it. Cheney and his daughter are on a media blitz bragging and begging for investigations. Playing the media like a fiddle as they take the bait. The media cares more about this story than most Americans do for the simple reason they need news to print. After all, they make a living at the expense of others. I love our free press. I just wish it hadn't turned into celebrity entertainment. I want the story not the spin. I'm very thankful that President Obama chose not to disclose the thousands of unseen photographs of detainee abuse. I hated being in Iraq . I would hate it even more if I were there now and those repulsive pictures surfaced. The backlash from the Arab world would be a disaster. I'm not joining the right-wing on this issue. They feel we should keep conducting the same harsh practices that we're ashamed of letting the rest of the world see. That Bush and Cheney were just scared men trying protect America -- how naive. It makes me think of the "dooms day" or "ticking time bomb" scenario that keeps getting shoved down our throats from Cheney and his minuscule following. As if that's their ace in the hole. Sorry but it's shared by many others. Most people agree that our leaders should do whatever is necessary to stop an imminent attack on American soil. Most people also agree that hooking someone up to electrical wires won't generate accurate intelligence. In addition, we didn't didn't waterboard Abu Zubayda or Khalid Sheikh Mohammed to stop an imminent attack on America. It had to be done a hundred times over a lengthy period of time to get their cooperation. And presently we really don't know if we got them to cooperate or if they just told the interrogators what they wanted to hear. We're always looking for someone to blame. The Bush Administration, Congress, and the Justice Department. Look at the Congressional hearings on C-SPAN. You'll see the same cast of characters in the audience protesting. Not a big following. So they blame Congress and the Speaker too -- loving the circular firing squad. However, it doesn't matter what Speaker Pelosi knew at the time. Surely she wasn't the only member of Congress privy to classified information. The key word is "classified." In fact, after Abu Ghraib we all knew what was going on. Even worse, the American people (with that knowledge) elected Bush in 2004 fair and square. After he started the Iraq war and after Abu Ghraib. The American people empowered them to continue. We've since learned from our mistakes -- hence the 2008 election. That's all that will happen here -- us learning from the past. And maybe a few sacrificial lambs like the authors of the torture memos being disbarred or impeached from judge ships. This "torture" debate shows just how clueless many people are to how Washington operates. Washington is nothing more than a very powerful well oiled political machine with uncountable moving parts. So forget about integrity and morality. We're talking about political power here. So go ahead and be as cynical as you want to be. In 2008, Barack Obama and 111th Congress were elected to change the course of the Bush Administration's policies. Not avenge a bunch of socialists and anarchists who didn't vote for them or support them in the first place. Our current leadership in Washington needs to choose their battles wisely. Not expend all their political capital on trials that will only produce inadequate results. As we've learned the law can be interpreted multiple ways by multiple legal experts. More on Barack Obama
 
Paste Magazine Asks Readers For Donations To Save Magazine Top
ATLANTA — The music monthly Paste is asking readers to donate money to keep the magazine afloat. The magazine, hurt by a sharp drop in advertising revenue that already has killed several other publications, won't be able to publish its next issue without the help, editor-in-chief Josh Jackson said Thursday, the day after Paste posted a donation page to its Web site. Jackson said he is hoping to raise "in the low six figures," though he declined to give a specific number. In exchange for a donation, the magazine is doing what it does best: giving out exclusive, rare tracks donated by artists like the Indigo Girls, Josh Rouse, Matthew Sweet and The Decemberists. "We've just seen so many magazines go under," Jackson said in a telephone interview from his office in Decatur. "Rather than shutter the doors, we needed to at least try this." So far, the average donation is $29 _ a promising sign for Jackson, who called the magazine a "labor of love." Paste has a circulation of 205,000, but draws nearly 1 million viewers online, he said. In 2007, the magazine offered a pay-what-you-want subscription deal _ following in the steps of rock group Radiohead, which asked fans to pick how much they wanted to shell out for the band's latest album, "In Rainbows." Jackson said the promotion help boost subscriptions, but advertising sales began drying up later that year. A subscription currently costs $19.95. Paste, which is published independently by a staff of 15 of mostly 20- and 30-somethings, started as a Web site in 1998 and was first published on paper in 2002. Each monthly edition includes articles and photos on music, film and culture, plus a CD with songs from up-and-coming artists. A rival music magazine, Blender, stopped publishing a print product in March and is now only online. Others, like Country Home, Domino, CosmoGirl and PC Magazine have all either shut their doors or converted to entirely online content. ___ On the Net: Paste Magazine: http://www.pastemagazine.com More on Magazines
 
Steven Hutchison : 60-Year-Old US Soldier Oldest Killed In Iraq Top
PHOENIX — A 60-year-old reservist from Arizona has become the oldest Army soldier killed in combat in Iraq. An Army spokesman confirmed Thursday that Maj. Steven Hutchison is the oldest member of that branch to be killed in combat. According to The Associated Press' database of soldiers killed in Iraq, Hutchison is the oldest member of any branch killed in combat operations. Hutchison, of Scottsdale, died on Sunday after a homemade bomb went off near his vehicle in Al Farr, Iraq. He was assigned to the 2nd Battalion, 34th Armor Regiment, 1st Brigade Combat Team, 1st Infantry Division at Fort Riley in Kansas. ___ On the Net: Department of Defense: http://www.defenselink.mil More on Iraq
 
Alberto Gonzales: Empathetic Judges "Dangerous" Top
Following Supreme Court Justice David Souter's announcement that he planned to retire, conservatives have attacked and mocked President Obama's statement that he is seeking a replacement who has "empathy" for "the daily realities of people's lives." "I'll give you empathy. Empathize right on your behind!" bellowed RNC Chairman Michael Steele last Friday. More on Supreme Court
 
Lingerie Football League Tryouts (PHOTOS) Top
Aspiring Lingerie Football League (LFL) players participated in an open tryout session on Thursday to join the New York Majesty team. The LFL has ten teams nationwide and will start its new season in September. About two dozen young women participated. PHOTOS: All images Getty More on Sports
 
Sri Lankan Civilians Now Able To Flee Safely, Government Says Top
At least 1,500 civilians who had been trapped in Sri Lanka's shrinking war zone managed to flee on Thursday, the country's military said, as its forces claimed to further squeeze the Tamil Tiger separatists in a drive to end the quarter-century long conflict. More on Sri Lanka
 
Paul Armentano: Don't Believe the Hype! Potent Pot, So What? Top
"This ain't your grandfather's or your father's marijuana. This will hurt you. This will addict you. This will kill you ."- Mark R. Trouville, DEA Miami, speaking to the Associated Press (June 22, 2007) Government claims that today's pot is more potent, and thus more dangerous to health, than ever before must be taken with a grain of salt. Federal officials have made similarly dire assertions before. In a 2004 Reuters News Wire story, government officials alleged , " Pot is no longer the gentle weed of the 1960s and may pose a greater threat than cocaine or even heroin ." (Anti-drug officials failed to explain why, if previous decades' pot was so "gentle" and innocuous, police still arrested you for it.) In 2007, Reuters again highlighted the alleged record rise in cannabis potency, proclaiming , "U.S. marijuana grows stronger than before: report." Quoted in the news story was ex-Drug Czar John Walters, who warned , "This report underscores that we are no longer talking about the drug of the 1960s and 1970s -- this is Pot 2.0 ." Predictably, in 2008 the mainstream news media ran with yet another set of 'news' stories alleging that the pot plant's strength had reached all-time highs. According to a June 12, 2008 Associated Press story : "The latest analysis from the University of Mississippi's Potency Monitoring Project tracked the average amount of THC, the psychoactive ingredient in marijuana, in samples seized by law enforcement agencies from 1975 through 2007. It found that the average amount of THC reached 9.6 percent in 2007 , compared with 8.75 percent the previous year." Or not. An actual review of the 2008 U-Miss data revealed this nugget of information: The average THC in domestically grown marijuana -- which comprises the bulk of the US market -- is less than five percent, a figure that's remained unchanged for nearly a decade. (See: http://www.whitehousedrugpolicy.gov/pdf/FullPotencyReports.pdf , page 12) Which brings us to this year. Naturally, the Feds are once again sounding the alarm, as reported today by CNN : " Marijuana potency surpasses 10 percent, U.S. says ." I suppose, if nothing else, the government's annual "new and improved pot" claims are good advertising for marijuana dealers. As for the rest of the public, it's time for a reality check. First, it's worth noting that police and lawmakers made these same alarmist claims about the suddenly not-as-dangerous-or-strong -as-we-once-said-it-was pot of the 1960s, '70s, and 80s. These allegations were false then and they are still false now. Second, THC -- regardless of potency -- is virtually non-toxic to healthy cells or organs, and is incapable of causing a fatal overdose . Currently, doctors may legally prescribe a FDA-approved pill that contains 100 percent THC, and curiously, nobody at the University of Mississippi or at the Drug Czar's office seems to be overly concerned about its potential health effects. Third, survey data gleaned from cannabis consumers in the Netherlands -- where users may legally purchase pot of known quality -- indicates that most cannabis consumers prefer less potent pot , just as the majority of those who drink alcohol prefer beer or wine rather than 190 proof Everclear or Bacardi 151. When consumers encounter unusually strong varieties of marijuana, they adjust their use accordingly and smoke less . Finally, if US lawmakers and government researchers were truly concerned about potential risks posed by supposedly stronger marijuana, they would support regulating the drug, so that its potency would be consistent and this information would publicly displayed to the consumer. (Anyone ever been to a liquor store that sold a brand of booze that didn't post its alcohol content marked on the label? Didn't think so.) So let's review, shall we? Our federal government ostensibly wants fewer Americans to consume pot. So they spend billions of dollars outlawing the plant and driving its producers underground where breeders, over time, clandestinely develop stronger and more sophisticated herbal strains than ever existed prior to prohibition. The Feds then inadvertently give America's marijuana growers billions of dollars in free advertising by telling the world that today's weed is more potent than anything Allen Ginsberg, Tommy Chong or Jerry Garcia ever smoked in their heyday. In response, tens of millions of Americans head immediately to their nearest street-corner in search of a dealer (or college student) willing to sell them a dimebag of the new, super-potent cannabis they've been hearing about on TV. The Feds then demand more of your hard-earned tax dollars so they can get more Americans "off the pot." Then next year we do it all over again: same time, same station. Any questions? More on CNN
 
Obama: Deficit 'Unsustainable' Top
President Barack Obama, calling current deficit spending "unsustainable," warned of skyrocketing interest rates for consumers if the U.S. continues to finance government by borrowing from other countries. "We can't keep on just borrowing from China," Obama said at a town-hall meeting in Rio Rancho, New Mexico, outside Albuquerque.
 
2 adult students taken into custody at White House Top
WASHINGTON — Two people facing deportation from the United States have been taken into custody at the White House gate. They had arrived for a tour of the executive mansion. The pair was part of an adult education program, and a routine background check showed they had an outstanding immigration order against them. White House spokesman Nick Shapiro says they were taken into custody Thursday morning before they entered the compound. All White House visitors are required to undergo a U.S. Secret Service background check. Shapiro says agents discovered the problems and informed immigration officials, according to protocol.
 
Stephen H. Dinan: The Next Evolution of Green Top
Last Saturday night, an innovative new green iPhone application launched at an event in Hollywood entitled "The Evolution of Green: From Hype to Habit." The 3rdWhale iPhone app is a product of a partnership between two green Internet companies - 3rdWhale (which builds green apps) and Creative Citizen (which offers a solutions engine). The partners built the application on a fully open architecture that invites radical collaboration with other groups. The deeper question the event posed about the "evolution of green" goes beyond specific products or partnerships. With Obama in the White House and a top green swat team at his side, the green movement has matured in remarkable ways and now we have access to power and influence. Our central task moves from hype, as the subtitle of the event puts it, to shifting our habits on every level, from personal to corporate to political. I believe a number of things will be required to make this shift real, a few of which may be controversial in the green movement: Full integration of spirituality and religion To shift our behaviors requires motivation and, in turn, our strongest motivations are tethered to our core sense of meaning and purpose. As spirituality and religion offer the vast majority of Americans their core purpose for life, an effective green movement needs to celebrate, integrate, and harness the full power of spirituality and religion or it will never succeed in changing behaviors on a wide enough scale. Imagine the power if mainstream Christian denominations were to embrace sustainability as an essential part of our divinity? Green living then becomes a form of worship and carries with it a moral imperative as well as a deep sense of reverence for the planet God has entrusted us with. Similarly, those with a more personal or eclectic spirituality can begin to see green decisions as expressions of their spiritual essence. Spiritual awakening often leads to a deep understanding of our interconnectedness. Making green choices then becomes a way to honor the interconnected web of life and the Spirit that animates it. Parts of the green movement have had an allergic reaction to fully embracing spirituality for fear of becoming seen as "woo-woo" or not intellectually grounded. In an earlier stage, this might have built credibility and allowed more atheistic scientists to go green, as well as giving green leaders a seat at the table of power. However, if green is perceived as anti-religion or anti-spirituality, that creates a major barrier to the widespread shifting of habits. When the green movement is fully embraced in mainstream churches, a true evolution will have occurred. Becoming psychologically sophisticated The Obama team is keen on using behavioral psychology to design solutions and policies, which is a great thing. Too often, the green movement has been strident and polarizing, which creates "green guilt" and not a lot of change. Far more effective (and often more fun) is designing green systems that harness our competitive instincts, social quirks, habitual ways of thinking, and intrinsic laziness. The key is artful design so that we get people to make green shifts by working with their existing psychology rather than the noble-minded ideals we believe should drive them. Feedback is key, as is social reinforcement. For instance, if people have a meter in their house that is visually tracking their electricity usage, they are likely to reduce their use somewhat. However, the real power comes if they are also seeing the average use in their neighborhood. The competitive drive and social pressures of keeping up with the Joneses makes it far more likely they will make a deeper reduction in their electricity usage. Dissolving the silos The green movement has sometimes isolated itself and its goals from other change movements. This allowed it to gain access to power because it wasn't lumped with a wide variety of other work, which might have triggered partisan sensitivities. But now that we are moving into a new phase as a movement, it's vital to see that the green movement and social justice movement are intertwined (as Van Jones' Green for All demonstrates) and that the green movement and the peace movement need each other, since we can't actually solve our planetary ecological problems while we waste our creative energies on conflict. The human potential/personal growth movement provides an important key to unlocking the quality of leadership required to go green. And finally, a robust entrepreneurial economy is required for making the shift to green, which is where green makes common cause with more conservative groups. That's why I'm increasingly interested in a larger "meta-movement" that integrates these other movements under a single umbrella -- a "shift" movement that aims to create a healthy, peaceful, sustainable, and prosperous world and one which recognizes that we need a foundational shift in our consciousness in order to achieve that goal. Making it simple We're in the early phase of developing a new green media company called GreenShifters and we're looking at what can we deliver in a few minutes each day that is informative, entertaining, and effective at helping people make green shifts. Our goal is to empower positive green choices in five minutes or less, harnessing high production media and solutions that have been streamlined, vetted, and made remarkably easy to participate in, as well as bundling multiple solutions together in a membership program. For example, offsetting one's personal carbon is a way to reduce our contribution to global warming but it often takes time to research, calculate, and register. What if it took less than a minute to sign up for an average American's carbon offset (at a group discount) and it was charged automatically every month? Simple. This monthly "green fee" then contributes to the development of a carbon offset market that can encourage more green entrepreneurship. Harnessing technology 3rdWhale and Creative Citizen are working together to make green fully mobile and far more accessible. Their goal is for anyone with a smart phone to have fingertip access to a full database of green businesses, restaurants, events, products, and solutions they can engage in their immediate vicinity. This will help shift green from something that requires extra work to something that is woven effortlessly into our daily lives. As the delivery technology gets better and the database of information more extensive, companies that can compete on their green credentials will be rewarded with far more business, creating a virtuous cycle. This also makes conservatives happier because it allows the market to drive solutions and innovations rather than focusing heavily on top-down governmental regulation. Radical collaboration Scott Badenoch, the CEO of Creative Citizen, is firmly committed to "radical collaboration." This stance goes beyond the usual competitive mindset of business to allow an accelerated evolution of new ideas and novel combinations. While it may seem opposed to the more proprietary mentality of intellectual property, competitive positioning, and branding, it's proving to be a great business model for companies such as Twitter, whose open API has allowed hundreds of innovative services to spring up around it and drive its success. The deeper truth of the green movement is that we live in an ecosystem and that our health is dependent on that ecosystem thriving. Radical collaboration is a stance that flows naturally from an ecosystem viewpoint. It doesn't waste energy. It begins with a deep understanding that we are all interconnected as allies to each other. When we do business (or create social movements or policies) with a commitment to radical collaboration, we can better liberate the full potential of green. Radical collaboration even means reaching across partisan divides, national boundaries, and industries -- always seeking the place of synergy and alignment that allows something better to emerge. As we learn to translate this idea into full practice, we'll have a far more effective and catalytic green movement. While that is far from a comprehensive list of what the next evolution of green entails, those six elements begin to point us in the right direction -- towards fully integrating green into our lives and value systems rather than seeing it as something separate we do. Now is the time to integrate green into our deepest beliefs, most cherished institutions and in every simple choice we make. It's a stance that marries inner wisdom and outer collaboration, with no parts (or people or movements) left behind. This paradigm shift can then fuel work that makes greenshifting fast, simple, fun, and profitable, all infused with a sense of reverence for this precious world we've been given. P.S. On a similar note, take a look at the article, " 10 Ways to Change the World Through Social Media ." MaxGladwell, in an unprecedented collaboration, posted the article to 100 blogs all at once, including the Huffington Post. More on Green Living
 
Scott Dodd: Bike to Work Day: Motivation for Getting Back on the Bike Top
Tomorrow is National Bike to Work Day , which is part of National Bike Month , coinciding with Bike Month NYC here in the Big Apple, and I have to admit that it's all making me feel a bit guilty. Last summer, after I started working at NRDC's midtown Manhattan offices, I reveled in the ability to ride my bike to work (even when I had a minor accident soon after my pedal commuting began). I felt healthier, happier, more in touch with myself and my city, and certainly more alert to speeding taxi cabs. There are plenty of good reasons to bike to work: It's good for our health : An estimated two-thirds of American adults are overweight or obese, increasing their risk of heart disease, stroke and diabetes. Simply riding 30 minutes to work provides the kind of exercise needed to reduce weight, improve fitness and relieve the burden on our health care system. It's good for our communities : If more commuters cycled, it would reduce the burden on taxpayers of road building, street maintenance, parking spaces and police services, while losses from car accidents, pollution and congestion would go down. It's good for our planet : If Americans who live within 5 miles of their office rode their bike to work once a week -- only once a week -- we could save nearly 5 million tons of global warming pollution every year. That would be like taking a million cars off the road. It's good for our wallets : Bicycle commuting saves on parking fees, parking tickets, fuel costs, auto maintenance costs and transit fares. In some large urban areas, the League of American Bicyclists says, it's possible to save more than $200 a month on parking alone. (In New York, I think that would be even higher.) After getting off to a good start last summer, I kept riding right on through the fall, even braving bad weather and getting thoroughly soaked on more than one ride. Then came snow and the holidays and several nasty colds (all the usual excuses), and my bike pretty much stayed in the basement through the dead of winter. By the time spring came around -- and it took its sweet time this year -- I had a newborn baby at home, and biking through New York traffic while exhausted from late-night feedings and diaper changings didn't seem like the best idea, so I mostly stuck to the subway. I've biked a few times this spring, but nowhere near the regularity of last summer and fall. Bike Month is just what I've needed to get me motivated and back to my regular riding routine. (Whoever scheduled Bike Month for May knew what they were doing.) I wonder, though, if the streets and bike paths will feel different this year. Last summer, high gas prices led to a surge in bike sales and commuting across the country. Biking has been on the rise for several years in New York City, but despite improvements to bike lanes and more bike racks, cycling still seems impractical to many. I'm sure that a lot of those bikers who took up riding to work last year, around the same time that I did, also took the winter off. Will they be back this year? Do they still feel the lure of the spoke, or is the dip in gas prices enough to keep them in their cars? Alex Marshall wrote a memorable column for Streetsblog last year asking if biking in the winter was like eating Spanish tortillas. He enjoyed them all the time when he was living in Spain, but stopped making them when he moved back to the U.S. -- even though he still loves the taste, they're easy to whip up and the ingredients are close at hand. It's the same thing with winter biking, he postulated. In Amsterdam, for instance, people ride regardless of the weather. In New York, despite the brave and admirable few, most people stop riding in cold weather, and so did he. "Culture matters," Marshall wrote. "I'm not shirking the fact of my own laziness; it's a real observation about how the world works. If my friends and family members were riding off to work in the cold, I likely would to, without complaint. But alone, when few other people are, it's easy to decline the invitation my bicycle offers me, or not even see it." Then, of course, there's the safety-in-numbers argument. Plenty of studies show that as biking increases, accidents actually decrease . The theory is that drivers get more used to seeing bikers on the road and know how to deal with them. So it might actually be a smart strategy not to be out there by yourself. Regardless, I'm glad for the extra push that Bike Month gives me to pump up my tires and start riding more regularly again. I'm lucky to live and work in a city where biking is more practical and accepted all the time, and I aim to enjoy it and all the benefits that bike commuting has to offer. Hope to see you out there! This post also appears on NRDC's Switchboard blog . More on Health
 
AmazonEncore's First Novel Acquired Top
In its most significant foray into publishing, Amazon has acquired world English rights to a self-published novel by a midwestern teenager called Legacy. The acquisition is the first for the e-tailer's newly launched publishing banner, AmazonEncore.
 
How TARP Began: An Exclusive Inside View Top
When it first came into existence last September, TARP--the troubled assets relief program--sounded like just another ungainly government acronym. But since then, it has become an integral--and controversial--part of America's recession economy. More on The Bailouts
 
Rabbi Shmuley Boteach: Miss California's Real Issue is Posing Topless, Not Opposing Gay Marriage Top
Miss California, Carrie Prejean, says that she should not be penalized for her opposition to gay marriage and that America is a place for freedom of speech. She is absolutely right. People should not be penalized for their opinions. But what puzzles me is how she believes that gay marriage would harm the institution of marriage and is anti-Christian but that her posing topless is none of those things. Huh? The real danger to marriage in our time is the rampant culture of male womanizing, lack of commitment, and the assault on women's dignity which treats women as masturbatory material for men. Women who engage in pornographic offerings become complicit in their own degradation and further the male view that a woman is not to be respected as an equal but rather, is a means to salacious male ends. Miss California also reportedly accepted breast implants for the Miss Universe pageant. Now, aside from the silly relic of beauty pageants still existing in a time when women ought to be appreciated for their minds and not just their legs, surely dissatisfaction with one's body and implanting foreign objects to enhance one's perceived physical shortcomings somewhat negates the Christian and spiritual message that beauty is something more than skin deep. Surely, if asked, Jesus would have said that women are more than male eye-candy. Whether people oppose or support gay marriage, one thing is certain: since the gay population in the U.S. is approximately ten percent, and the heterosexual divorce rate is about fifty percent, we straight people ought to be blaming ourselves for the destruction of marriage instead of finding scapegoats. Rabbi Shmuley Boteach achieved worldwide recognition from bestsellers like Kosher Sex, radio and TV shows like TLC's "Shalom in the Home", and syndicated columns in the international press. In 2000 he was the London Times "Preacher of the Year". For more information contact Kennia Ramirez on 201 816 3540 or write to Kennia@shmuley.com. More on Religion
 
Jesse James Hollywood 'Alpha Dog' Murder Trial Set To Begin Top
LOS ANGELES — The murder case against Jesse James Hollywood read like a screenplay even before it was turned into the 2007 movie "Alpha Dog." A 15-year-old boy was kidnapped and killed over a $1,200 drug debt owed by his half-brother. A 4 1/2-year manhunt ended on a beach in Brazil. And allegations of misconduct by a prosecutor prompted a ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court. Now, the ending of the real-life story is about to be written. Nine years after the killing, the trial of Hollywood is finally set to begin Friday to determine if he ordered the kidnap-murder of Nicholas Markowitz. If convicted, Hollywood could face the death penalty. The case has become a distant memory for many observers _ lost among school shootings, salacious celebrity trials and other high-profile crimes across the country. But back in the summer of 2000, Southern California and much of the nation were intrigued by the brazen daylight kidnapping of Nicholas and the discovery of his body in a shallow grave in the hills above tony Santa Barbara. Karen Sternheimer, a sociologist at the University of Southern California, said people were interested because the clean-cut players came from middle-class families and appeared to have been swept up in something unusually sinister. "A case like this, unfortunately, people can relate to a little bit more," Sternheimer said. Prosecutors believe Nicholas was kidnapped by Hollywood and his cohorts in August 2000, presumably to put pressure on his half-brother Ben Markowitz to repay money he owed Hollywood for marijuana. For the next few days, authorities said Nicholas partied with his captors and felt he wasn't in any danger. He was even left unattended by his kidnappers at one point but didn't try to leave or call anyone. Prosecutors said Hollywood decided to get rid of Nicholas after learning from an attorney that he could face life in prison for kidnapping. The witness list includes Ben Markowitz and the victim's parents, Susan and Jeff Markowitz, who declined to comment about the upcoming trial. Three co-defendants who already have been convicted, Hollywood's ex-girlfriend and the attorney who advised him are also on the list of possible witnesses. Defense attorney James Blatt said Hollywood is innocent. "There is no question Mr. Hollywood was not present at the time of the shooting, and we are going to prove he did not give any direct or indirect order to commit this murder," Blatt said. For Hollywood, now 29, nearly a third of his life has either been spent in jail or on the run after the Markowitz slaying. Though small in stature _ he stands 5 feet, 5 inches _ prosecutors said Hollywood once lived large supplying marijuana to dealers in the San Fernando Valley area of Los Angeles. Prosecutors claim he enlisted Ryan Hoyt, one of his dealers, to kill Nicholas and delivered a gun and car for Hoyt to use in exchange for erasing his drug debt. "Hoyt understood that he had to take care of the problem, i.e, that he was to kill Nicholas," Santa Barbara County Deputy District Attorney Joshua Lynn said in court documents. "Hoyt would have his $1,200 debt to Hollywood extinguished if he did so." Prosecutors said Hoyt hit Nicholas over the head with a shovel and then shot him nine times before burying him with the gun, which they said belonged to Hollywood. Hikers discovered the body several days later. Hoyt was found guilty of kidnapping and murder and sentenced to death. He will not be called as a prosecution witness, Lynn said. Hollywood fled soon after the killing, stopping in Las Vegas and Colorado before heading to Canada. He was finally captured by authorities on a beach in Brazil, using a different name, and brought back to the United States. The case stalled for years after it was learned that Deputy District Attorney Ron Zonen had turned over probation reports, police files and other documents to Nick Cassavetes, who directed "Alpha Dog," starring Bruce Willis, Sharon Stone and Justin Timberlake. Zonen said in court documents that he gave the files to Cassavetes to help publicize the hunt for Hollywood. Blatt, however, claimed Zonen acted unethically and the resulting movie demonized his client. An appeals court removed Zonen, but the state's highest court and the U.S. Supreme Court eventually ruled that he and the district attorney's office could stay on the case. Still, Zonen's bosses assigned another prosecutor to try Hollywood. Blatt also unsuccessfully tried to block the release of "Alpha Dog," arguing that a jury pool could be tainted by the film, hurting Hollywood's chances of a fair trial. During a break this week in jury selection, Blatt said he was encouraged because only about 25 percent of the prospective panelists had seen the movie. "The defense team is confident we will receive a fair trial," he said. More on Crime
 
Kristin Cavallari Officially Joining 'The Hills' Top
NEW YORK — Lauren Conrad's "Laguna Beach" nemesis is heading for "The Hills." Now that Conrad has left the hit MTV reality series, Kristin Cavallari (Cahv-UH'-lahr-ee) is taking her place. MTV publicist Emily Yeomans (YOH'-muhns) confirms Cavallari will replace Conrad on the show. The season-five finale on May 31 marks Cavallari's "Hills" debut. The 22-year-old aspiring actress caught the bouquet at the April 25 wedding of the series' duo, Heidi Montag and Spencer Pratt. The event was filmed by MTV. Cavallari became a celebrity in 2004 when MTV tracked her high school love life and rivalry with Conrad on the reality show "Laguna Beach." ___ On the Net: http://www.mtv.com/ontv/dyn/the_hills/series.jhtml
 
John Sauer: Water for the World Act of 2009: Stopping the Second Biggest Killer of Children Top
Two new reports out this week by WaterAid and PATH remind us what we have shamefully forgotten: diarrhea is the second biggest killer of children worldwide. This is a wake-up call because even those of us in the international development field have pretty much neglected the fact that diarrhea is still fatal in many parts of the world. It kills 1.6 million children each year . The WaterAid report " Fatal Neglect " reveals that diarrhea prevention and treatment programs are woefully under-funded when compared to programs for HIV/AIDS and malaria. For example, HIV/AIDS receives over $10 billion a year in global health financing, while diarrhea receives well under $2 billion. These funding levels grossly misrepresent the disease burden as both these diseases are responsible for roughly the same death toll. However, the WaterAid report also makes very clear that adequately addressing diarrheal diseases should not come at the expense of funding needed for tackling other diseases. The PATH report " Solutions to Defeat a Global Killer " highlights that during the 1980s and 1990s incredible progress was made through a variety of interventions in preventing and treating deaths from diarrheal dehydration but the momentum ceased when the issue fell off the radar in the 2000s. The report states: Extraordinary improvements were made in access to safe drinking water and sanitation. In total, development efforts during the International Drinking Water Supply and Sanitation Decade (1981 to 1990) and the following decade (1991 to 2000) provided water to more than 2 billion people and sanitation to more than 1.5 billion. A 2008 research study conducted by PATH to evaluate the global health funding and policy landscape found that diarrheal disease ranked last among a list of other global health issues. Fortunately, two recent initiatives in Congress give some hope that political attention is shifting back to diarrhea and other sicknesses that inadequate water and sanitation trigger. New bipartisan legislation called " The Senator Paul Simon Water for the World Act of 2009 "--if passed--would be one way to increase the financing to stop fatal diarrhea and to put progress back on track. The Act would commit the U.S. government to extending safe, affordable and sustainable supplies of water and sanitation to 100 million people by 2015. This Act--building on earlier landmark legislation (The Senator Paul Simon Water for the Poor Act of 2005)--could ratchet up interventions such as building latrines, promoting handwashing with soap, constructing water wells and providing point of use water treatment, all of which reduce fatal diarrhea. Another bipartisan Act, " The Global Child Survival Act of 2007 " would also have an impact on eradicating fatal diarrhea if it were signed into law. Appropriations for this Act would fund both prevention (water and sanitation programs) and treatment (oral reyhdration therapy and zinc tablets). Together these two pieces of legislation are an incredible opportunity for the U.S. government to take a leadership role in addressing the imbalance in priority and funding that the WaterAid and PATH reports uncover. A " Call to Action " that PATH organized has been signed so far by 80 groups from the health, corporate, environmental and water and sanitation sectors. They represent the breadth of support that is needed to push these two pieces of legislation through Congress and get them signed into law by President Obama. If the U.S. government were to take the lead on tackling diarrheal diseases and other illness connected to unsafe water, inadequate sanitation and poor hygiene, it could shift global priorities on this issue and save millions of lives each year. Stay tuned. More on Health
 
Norm Stamper: New Drug Czar: "We're Not at War With People in This Country" Top
Gil Kerlikowske, the president's new head of the Office of National Drug Control Policy, scored big points when he told the Wall Street Journal he wants to put an end to the "war on drugs." Which he daringly described as a war on people. Of course, banishing a phrase amounts to a hollow gesture if it's not backed by deeds. President Truman insisted on calling the military conflict in Korea a "police action" but I'm guessing it felt pretty much like war to its casualties and survivors. So, in retiring the phrase from the federal lexicon will we really be ending the "War on Drugs"? Hardly. We can reasonably expect in the face of Kerlikowske's pronouncement, an expression of shock and a circling of the wagons from key institutional forces, from frontline drug warriors to profiteering drug traffickers; from well-meaning but naïve PTAs to patronizing, fear-mongering politicians; from Big Pharma to the prison industrial complex. There's just too much at stake, financially and ideologically, to end this remarkably divisive and durable war. Is the Obama administration serious about implementing drug policy reform? We all know the significance of a presidential budget. It's essentially dollars and cents representing policies and priorities. What does the administration's "National Drug Control Budget" tell us about the Obama approach to drug issues? In the 2010 budget, prevention takes a 10.6 percent hit while domestic law enforcement gets a boost of 2.3 percent, with "interdiction" (military and police actions designed to stem the flow of drugs into and about the country) gaining 4.4 percent. On the positive side of the ledger, treatment shows a 4.4 percent increase. And what of the never-ending seesaw battle between supply and demand initiatives? Unfortunately, demand reduction efforts (education, prevention) are down 0.8 percent, while (generally futile) supply reduction initiatives (enforcement, burning or poisoning crops) gets a 2.7 percent bump. Still, it's way too early to dismiss the Obama/Biden/Kerlikowske approach as just so much smoke and mirrors. The country is a-rumble with signs of change. In his confirmation hearing, Kerlikowske came out in strong support of needle exchange programs as part of an overall public health approach, a position he affirmed in the WSJ interview. The new government's putative hands-off policy on DEA raids on medical marijuana dispensaries is most encouraging, especially in light of the Bush administration's punitive, heavy-handed tactics. And there's been an early, unmistakable shift in rhetoric from an enforcement orientation to one favoring treatment of drug offenders. Drug policy reformers of every stripe are abuzz. They recognize, after lo these many decades that agitation for reform is multiplying exponentially at both the state and federal levels. The prospect of real change is palpable. Which means the many and varied special-interest proponents of the drug war (which has been very, very good to them) will fortify their positions, enrich their treasuries, and emit a sustained howl of protest. Which means this is precisely the time that reform activists must step up the pace, adding fresh energy, dollars, and creativity to the campaign for sane and humane drug laws. More on Obama's Budget
 
6 Movies Based On A True Story (That Are Actually Full Of Shit) Top
It seems the least we can ask of a movie that's based on a true story is that it, you know, be based on a true story. We don't expect them to stick with every boring fact, but time and time again we find out that the entire point of the story has been totally fabricated. So what's the point of basing it on a true story at all?
 
Rocky Mountain Independent: Former Rocky Mountain News Staffers To Launch Online Magazine Top
DENVER — After splitting from financial backers of one online news venture, some former staffers of the defunct Rocky Mountain News plan to launch an online news magazine this summer. The Rocky Mountain Independent would have free original content but would be supported by advertising and members who pay for benefits like premium content and live chats, co-founder Steve Foster said. Content would come from a staff of about a dozen, plus freelancers and partner blogs that would share content and revenue. "Our goal is to partner with the people of Denver and serve as the hub of an ongoing conversation between those who cover the news and those who read it," Foster said. Details will be announced in coming weeks. Foster said the Independent will try to fill a void left by the closure of the Rocky Mountain News. The E.W. Scripps Co. closed the newspaper after its Feb. 27 edition, citing losses that reached $16 million last year. "We're going to look for stories that aren't being told, stories that are going unreported or underreported since our newspaper closed," Foster said. Foster and other founding journalists who are investing time or money upfront are getting an ownership interest in the magazine. He would not disclose how much money is being invested. The main founders were among former Rocky Mountain News staffers who volunteered to work on InDenverTimes, envisioned as an online newspaper with a staff of about 30 former News editors and reporters and supported with subscriptions and ads. Several of those staffers have since parted ways with three Colorado businessmen who pledged to financially back it, after InDenverTimes missed a goal of signing up 50,000 paying subscribers by April 23. Instead, it had about 3,000. The future of InDenverTimes is still being decided. ___ On the Net: http://www.rmindependent.com More on Newspapers
 
Arlene Holt Baker: The Stars Align for Employee Free Choice Act Top
From the big screen to the Broadway stage, a stellar lineup of stars is joining the fight for working families. Amy Brenneman, Nancy Giles, Esai Morales and Mike Farrell are among 47 performing artists who have taped a new video in support of the Employee Free Choice Act. Brenneman, one of the television actors appearing in the video, says the freedom to form a union gives working families the economic security they need: People associate actors with fame and glory. The truth is for a long time my union contract was the reason I could support my family. That's why I support the Employee Free Choice Act. Because each worker, regardless of their field, deserves the freedom to bargain for a contract, for a better life. Released today, the video and list of performing artists and their bios are available at the new website Artists for Workers' Choice . These artists -- including Oscar, Emmy, Grammy and Tony award winners and nominees -- together with veteran writers and technicians, have created a clear, impassioned explanation of why America's workers need the Employee Free Choice Act to restore balance in the workplace and have the bargaining power they need to rebuild a strong middle class. The project came together through the incredible coordination of eight entertainment unions: Actors’ Equity , American Federation of Musicians ( AFM ), American Federation of Television and Radio Artists ( AFTRA ), Directors Guild of America ( DGA ), Theatrical Stage Employees ( IATSE ), Screen Actors Guild ( SAG ), Writers Guild of America, East ( WGAE ) and Writers Guild of America, West ( WGAW ). The presidents of the eight unions have released a joint statement about why the Employee Free Choice Act matters to them: The members of all our unions are standing together to support the Employee Free Choice Act because we know that if workers don't have the freedom to bargain, it affects all of us -- our livelihoods, our rights as professionals and our strength to create an economy that works for all. Got to Facebook and Twitter? Spread the word.
 
Doree Lewak: "The Panic Years Push-Up" Top
If you're a single woman pushing 30 and it's almost pushing wedding season, it can only mean one thing: you're in need of a little pick-me-up. Luckily, that's where the matrimonial miracle bra comes in: a push-up bra guaranteed to elevate your assets and chances at reaching the altar all at once. A bra manufacturer gravely concerned about the Japanese singles' crisis has taken matters into their own, um, hands, in creating the Konkatsu bra (loosely translated as desperate marketing gimmick designed to exploit single women more in need of a strait jacket than they are this wonder bra ). Triumph International execs just couldn't sleep at night knowing lovelorn Japanese women's fun bags were missing all the fun, so they engineered a bra with ever-so-subtle reminders that it's time to make the marriage thing happen -- like strapping on a ticking clock that plays "The Wedding March." See -- subtle, yet effective! The konkatsu bra: for women who don't want to take their singleness lying down any more. A tricked-out "husband-hunting" bra fashioned to trick some guy into marrying you? Hmm... I'll take two in a 34C, please! OK, who are we kidding? If I had a perfect pair of 34Cs, I wouldn't be in the Panic Years http://www.thepanicyears.com predicament to begin with... So if this bra is truly guaranteed to make your mammaries more marriageable than they already are, by all means -- any boost can't hurt! Unfortunately, marital bliss may have to be put on hold that much longer: the konkatsu bra isn't on the market, essentially letting the air out of every single girl's knockers and deflating her every hope and dream of happiness after all. Guess we'll have to go back to the "Bridal Belt" -- the corset-like device designed to minimize any "waist" of time to meeting our betrothed. Catch you ladies during the bouquet toss, if I don't catch you at the loony bin first! More on Marriage
 
Caption This Photo, Vote For Thursday's Best, See Wednesday's Winner! Top
Original Caption: Heidi Montag arrives at Maxim's 10th Annual Hot 100 Celebration Presented by Dr Pepper Cherry, True Religion Brand Jeans, Stolichnaya Vodka and Corona held at Barker Hangar on May 13, 2009 in Santa Monica, California. THURSDAY'S FAVORITES: WEDNESDAY'S WINNER: "What can Brown do for you?" By chown. More on Caption Contest
 
Michael Giltz: Cannes 2009 Day Two: Precious, Vampires, Genocide and Despair! Top
I could be seeing Francis Ford Coppola's new movie Tetro , but instead I'm talking to you. That's often the dilemma at the Cannes Film Festival, where there are so many movies playing on so many different screens that it's impossible to see them all and invariably the film you skip becomes the one everyone is talking about. So you have to choose: should you sleep past 7:30 or catch the new movie by UK director Andrea Arnold? Grab a bite or see Korean vampires bite each other? Take a nap in your apartment or take a nap during a documentary on Rwanda's post-genocide society? (Tacky, but I've seen worse happen.) Usually, with me, the movies win. The economy has definitely impacted the fest. There's a notable lack of hoopla: very few parties, very few big Hollywood blockbusters hoping to stir up buzz, very few announcements of new projects. But I don't like hoopla so that suits me well. Some people come to Cannes and do nothing but go to parties. Some people come to Cannes and never see the sun. That's me. So here are my first reactions to the four movies I saw today. FISH TANK *** (out of four) -- This British film is set in the "fuck you!" world of lower class England. it's a rundown setting where indifference is the closest anyone gets to affection. Our young heroine head-butts another local girl in the first few minutes, curses out her hapless mother, gets cursed out by her foul-mouthed little sister and generally stomps about. If you've seen a number of these kitchen sink movies in recent years (or perhaps tenement sink-hole would be more accurate), then this milieu feels awfully familiar. Director Andrea Arnold showed promise with her first film, "Red Road," a technically assured film with strong performances that was emotionally distant and went off the rails plot-wise. She improves here with a story that's far more involving and still marvelously subtle. When the mum's new boyfriend tucks our girl in for the night, it's a quiet surprise that he doesn't fondle her in some way -- in other words, you're constantly kept on edge and well aware of all the emotions churning away unspoken. Everyone dances in this movie -- the girl, her mom, their friends, the people on TV and it even seems like a way out: our hero is staking it all on an audition for a local club, too clueless to realize they're looking for exotic dancers. Clueless isn't quite fair. She's so far out of the loop that clues simply aren't on the agenda, much less hope or succor. There's a very unnerving twist later in the film that is suspenseful and completely earned: unlike Red Road, mysteries aren't withheld from the audience to create false tension. Real tension arises because we are so invested in the characters that we can believe they'd do almost anything, even if they are basically just confused and angry, rather than bad. It's not a triumph, but Fish Tank proves the Cannes programmers are right to have faith in Arnold. MY NEIGHBOR, MY KILLER *** -- This absorbing documentary is about the gacaca trials in Rwanda. These unprecedented attempts at justice gathered people in local villages to let the relatives or victims of genocide confront the people who slaughtered their families. As Philip Gourevitch has written, it's probably unprecedented in history for the surviving victims of genocide to be expected to live side by side with the people who did it. But that's the almost surreal situation in Rwanda, where filmmaker Anne Aghion interviews mostly women who describe the horrors they saw and then strolls a few huts away where the men who did them blithely or self-consciously deny it. In fact, it's surprising that anyone was killed at all in 1994 since virtually every single person Aghion speaks to maybe saw the slaughter or helped in a minor way but denies completely actually murdering anyone. I'm speaking to the director on Sunday and will have more on this film later. I will say something about the half-empty screening: everyone says "never again" but even at a film festival devoted to high art, so many people would rather see anything BUT a movie that tackles such a terrible deed head on. THIRST ** -- It's a vampire flick and anyone who has seen the Swedish vampire movie Let The Right One In will find it hard to enjoy this or any other similar film for a while. Let The Right One In just set the bar too high. Still, it's a modest step in the right direction for Korean director Park Chan-wook, who had a success with the oddball thriller Old Joy and then delivered two flops. This isn't much better, but at least it feels more like a real film. In it, a priest volunteers for a medical experiment and accidentally gets vampire blood. As if feeding on flesh wasn't bad enough (he tries to stick to people in comas and other "easy blood" sources), he falls for a girl and breaks that vow too. Not that priests take a vow to avoid becoming vampires, but you know what I mean. Concurrently, he becomes a source of veneration by Christians who find out he was the only one of 500 to survive that experiment. That already makes Thirst sound more interesting than it deserves: it's sort of funny, sort of creepy, sort of religious, sort of gothic, sort of hip but not REALLY any of these things. Just unsatisfying. PRECIOUS ** 1/2 -- This film by director Lee Daniels received a ton of acclaim at Sundance, so I'm in the minority for not being blown away by it. However, I do think this story of a large teenage girl pregnant with her second child (both fathered by her biological dad) and finding a ray of hope in an alternative school is a serious leap forward by Daniels. It captures the pugnacious, dreaming, hopeful tone of the book by Sapphire very well and contains a clutch of good performances, including the lead (Gabourey Sidibe), Mariah Carey (!) and especially Mo'Nique as Precious's hateful mother. She's so good it's possible she'll even get an Oscar nomination. I can't wait to see the next film by Daniels. It's called Tennessee and it stars Carey. So there.
 
Northwestern Student Has Swine Flu Top
EVANSTON, Ill. (AP) -- Northwestern University health officials say a student has a confirmed case of swine flu. Officials announced Thursday that the sick undergraduate student has returned home and is recovering without complications. The university is following federal guidelines for dealing with the virus and does not plan to close. The student will be allowed to return to the Evanston campus in suburban Chicago 24 hours after she no longer has symptoms, or seven days after the illness began, whichever is longer. The school is notifying students who share the same residence as the ill undergrad. The state of Illinois has confirmed 618 cases of swine flu. Most of the cases are in and around Chicago. --- On the Net: NU health services, Evanston campus: http://www.nuhs.northwestern.edu/evanston/default.aspx NU health services, Chicago campus: http://www-chicago.nuhs.northwestern.edu/ -ASSOCIATED PRESS More on Swine Flu
 
Joel Whitney: My Interview with the Columbia Professor Who Says There is No Genocide in Darfur -- It's an Environmental Crisis Top
"The Save Darfur movement claims to have learned from Rwanda," writes Mahmood Mamdani in his new book, Saviors and Survivors: Darfur, Politics, and the War on Terror . "But what is the lesson of Rwanda? For many of those mobilized to save Darfur, the lesson is to rescue before it is too late, to act before seeking to understand." His book, he writes, is an argument "against those who substitute moral certainty for knowledge, and who feel virtuous even when acting on the basis of total ignorance." Thus begins the most drastic rewrite of a foreign policy issue which, here in the United States, has brought together left and right, secular and religious, and which many hope will attract still greater government attention during the Obama era. If it does, Mamdani's book could serve as an indispensable counterweight to the prevailing wisdom about Darfur and Sudan that could help bring about a workable peace agreement. Such is his aim, though he is likely to be accused of much worse. In Saviors and Survivors , Mamdani frames his argument with a pair of comparisons. First, he briefly examines death rates in Iraq and Darfur: violent deaths in Iraq during the U.S. invasion and occupation far surpass death rates in Darfur during its ongoing conflict. While Mamdani doesn't deny atrocities in Darfur, he seeks to contextualize them against those of other regions. In that vein, Saviors and Survivors closes with an extended look at Mamdani's native Uganda, where a costly conflict between the Lord's Resistance Army and the Uganda government has claimed many thousands of lives, and was cited by Oxfam in 2006 as having three times as high a death rate as Iraq's. But why aren't these other trouble spots given the same dire attention, the same rejoinder that we all must do something, as with Darfur? Is it because of the role played by race in Darfur? Is it the word genocide? "But how do we know it is a genocide?" writes Mamdani. "Because we are told it is." In my interview with Mamdani, I sought to clarify how someone could go against such a broadly held consensus that Darfur meets the legal definition of genocide perfectly. The body of Saviors and Survivors is made up of a long meditation on the history of Sudan, including its period as a land of sultanates, its emergence as a British colonial possession, and its having been armed to the teeth during the Cold War. Named the homeland, or dar , of the Fur people, the region is made up of sedentary and nomadic tribes who have long formed a patchwork of groups inhabiting land traditionally open for shared use. The people of Darfur have long treated "racial" identities as fairly fluid, writes Mamdani, welcoming intermarriage as a means of transferring between groups. But the designation of "Arab" versus "African" was given a particularly virulent, and unprecedented, authority under a land system set up by the colonial British; land previously shared was now assigned a more rigid "native" group who oversaw its use, and non-native groups who had to pay tribute. What compounded this were two further conditions that turned the region into a powder keg. First, a decades-long drought turned fertile lands in the north of Darfur into desert (in a process known as desertification), which made land use and land rights much more contentious. Then U.S. President Ronald Reagan armed rebel groups from Chad, in his attempt to "contain" Libya during the Cold War. This meant that, along with the Soviets and Libya, on one side, and Israel and France on the other, President Reagan helped arm a region on the verge of erupting over a series of growing administrative and territorial disputes. What resulted was a civil war, says Mamdani; the first phase, in the late 1980s, began with savvy opponents who accused each other of atrocities in a somewhat sophisticated PR war. Phase two began with a 2003 insurgency that was met with a fierce response from the government. An ongoing massacre? Massacres occurred early in the conflict, admits Mamdani. But starting in 2005, death rates sank drastically. Save Darfur had no interest in this decline in direct killings, having staked their campaign on the story of ongoing genocide. Arabs hoping to wipe out Africans? Not really. Rather, a land war amidst the throes of desertification. The first genocide of the 20th century, or one of the world's most deadly land disputes following extreme incidents of global climate change? That's the real question, according to Mamdani—whether this is an ecological disaster amidst a land divided on paper by colonial rulers, and militarized by the Cold War, rather than a crisis directly about race. In fact, Mamdani argues, the language of genocide further exacerbates the conflict, and keeps key groups out of peace talks by demonizing them, as happened during peace talks in Abuja in 2005. I spoke with Professor Mamdani in his office at Columbia University in New York City. Named by Foreign Policy magazine as one of the top 100 public intellectuals, he wore a blazer, a bright red polo shirt with a Nehru collar, round-rimmed glasses and a five-o'clock shadow; his eyes showed a tired face—from the end of a semester and the middle of a book tour. On his right hand, he wore a silver ring fit with turquoise. A handsome man born in Uganda to parents with roots in India, he spoke quietly, breaking his sentences with long pauses. Sitting atop his coffee table amidst a slew of other books and journals was The Crisis of Islamic Civilization , by Ali Allawi (who made a similar charge against the U.S. acting before understanding, in The Occupation of Iraq ). It is this very framework that initially divided the left over Darfur and Iraq alike. Does human rights intervention trump anti-imperialism, or national sovereignty? Is intervention itself a kind of human rights abuse? If you look at the history of how victims become perpetrators, as Mamdani does in other books like When Victims Become Killers , you begin to understand a pattern that is clear: nothing substitutes for actually listening to the grievances of all sides involved in a conflict; nothing is more indispensable than history and understanding, especially understanding of the cast off debates about colonialism and the Cold War. Which is why Mamdani favors reconciliation, South Africa-style, over prosecution, ICC-style. The solution must come from within Africa, he insists. He is likely to be accused of minimizing the deaths or veering off-script from the consensus—which is ironically the kind of charge Bush supporters would have made against dissenters in the buildup to the Iraq war. If Save Darfur shuns him, they risk proving his assertion that the Save Darfur Coalition is a moral (as opposed to political) offshoot of the war on terror. In addition to teaching in the anthropology department at Columbia, Mamdani served for a year as consultant for the Darfur-Darfur Dialogue and Consultation (DDDC) of the African Union. He is married to the filmmaker Mira Nair; they live in New York and Uganda and have a son, Zohran. Read the interview here . More on Darfur
 
Graham: CIA Gave Me False Information About Interrogation Briefings Top
In testimony that could bolster Speaker Nancy Pelosi's claim that the CIA misled her during briefings on detainee interrogations, former Senator Bob Graham insisted on Thursday that he too was kept in the dark about the use of waterboarding, and called the agency's records on these briefings "suspect." In an interview with the Huffington Post, the former Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman said that approximately a month ago, the CIA provided him with false information about how many times and when he was briefed on enhanced interrogations. "When this issue started to resurface I called the appropriate people in the agency and said I would like to know the dates from your records that briefings were held," Graham recalled. "And they contacted me and gave me four dates -- two in April '02 and two in September '02. Now, one of the things I do, and for which I have taken some flack, is keep a spiral notebook of what I do throughout the day. And so I went through my records and through a combination of my daily schedule, which I keep, and my notebooks, I confirmed and the CIA agreed that my notes where accurate; that three of those four dates there had been no briefing. There was only one day that I had been briefed, which was September the 27th of 2002." As for the one briefing he did attend, the Florida Democrat said that he had "no recollection that issues such as waterboarding were discussed." He was not, per the sensitive nature of the matters discussed, allowed to take notes at the time. But he did highlight what he considered to be pretty strong proof that the controversial technique was not discussed. "What struck me...was the fact that in that briefing, there were also two staff members," he said. "As you know, the general rule is that the executive is to brief the full committees of the House and Senate Intelligence committees about any ongoing or proposed action. The exception to that is what is called "covert action," where the president...only briefs the Gang of Eight, which is the four congressional leaders and the four intelligence committee leaders. Those sessions are generally conducted at an executive site, primarily at the White House itself. And they are conducted with just the authorized personnel, not with any staff or any other member of the committee.... Which leads me to conclude that this was not considered by the CIA to be a Gang of Eight briefing. Otherwise they would not have had staff in the room. And that leads me to then believe that they didn't brief us on any of the sensitive programs such as the waterboarding or other forms of excessive interrogation." The remarks made by Graham bolster the comments offered by Pelosi on Thursday. The Speaker told reporters that during her briefing session in the fall of 2002 she was not just kept in the dark about the issue of waterboarding, she was assured that it had not been used. "Yes, I am saying that the CIA was misleading the Congress," she said. However, records and testimony do show that high-ranking aides were present during a February 2003 briefing when waterboarding was discussed by the CIA with Reps. Porter Goss and Jane Harman. Graham declined to speculate as to what took place during Pelosi's briefings, noting that the House and Senate had two entirely different sessions. But he did point out that, at the time, the "the whole credibility of the intelligence committee, particularly the CIA, was pretty much in question" -- giving credence to Pelosi's claims that she was given faulty information. "The irony," said Graham, "is that the whole series of events in late September of '02 were concurrent with the CIA's release of the first classified version of the National Intelligence Estimate, which was one of the key factors that led me to vote against the war in Iraq because I thought that their case was so weak. And they were making to the public these very bold statements about how we were in extreme danger if we didn't move quickly to eradicate Saddam Hussein. The whole, 'a smoking gun may appear in the form of a mushroom crowd' kind of argument." Get HuffPost Politics On Facebook and Twitter!
 
Hoyt Hilsman: Torture Commission: A Gift to the Republican Right? Top
I support a truth commission on torture. There are certainly sound moral and even political reasons to discover the truth about the outrageous abuses of the Bush era. While many people in the country -- including everyone in the White House -- would like the issue to go away, some sort of truth commission, or at least Congressional committee hearings, is probably inevitable. This is the 800-pound gorilla that is unlikely to disappear, especially with the constant drumbeat from the Republican right, and after Speaker Pelosi's less than stellar performance in her press conference this week. But we should also be aware that the likely beneficiaries of torture hearings will be none other than the Republicans, especially those on the far right. How can that be? After all, it was the neo-cons and their conservative allies who drove the Bush administration policies that led America to a disastrous war in Iraq and lied to the public and Congress about everything from WMD's to torture policies. How could they possibly benefit from a full airing of the truth of their misdeeds? Simple. Americans by a wide margin already hold the Bush administration and their Republican allies in Congress responsible for the terrible abuses of human rights, the Constitution and national security, not to mention the meltdown of the economy. There is almost nothing that will come out in truth commission hearings that will shock the country about the Bush crowd. If it were suddenly revealed, for example, that Dick Cheney personally gnawed off the leg of a detainee, most people would likely shrug and consider that well within the character of the former Vice President. However, what will be an eye-opener for Americans is the news that leading Democrats were briefed on the torture policies, however obliquely, and didn't raise a fuss at the time. The fact that they knew about the torture at the time and are now protesting loudly about it, will make them appear not only complicit, but also hypocritical. Never mind the fact that the Democratic leadership had virtually no influence over the Bush administration policies. It has morphed into a case of "what did they know and when did they know it?" And we all understand where that is going. Add to the mix a heavy dose of fuel provided by Speaker Pelosi when she accused the CIA of lying to her and others in Congress about the torture program. Rest assured that the CIA will aggressively push back against that charge. Now the question becomes "who is telling the truth?" And, again, we can predict how that scenario will unfold. Here is how the Republicans benefit from all this. First, the Republicans have nowhere to go but up. America blames them for everything from the disaster in Iraq to the economic mess. If they manage to dirty the Democrats' previously clean hands on torture, it's a win for them. And if they can force the White House into taking sides in the debate, then it's an even bigger win, since anything President Obama says on the subject will either lose him support from the left or further alienate the right, and possibly even cost him votes in the middle of the political spectrum. While this won't derail his domestic agenda, it could distract him or slow down his efforts moving forward on the economy, health care, education and other pressing issues. The other big win for the Republicans is that the truth commission shifts the national debate back to national security, and more specifically terrorism. This is a winning issue for the Republicans -- witness the recent presidential election when McCain, champion of national security issues, was inching ahead of Obama in the polls right before the October economic meltdown. A bright focus on terrorism is red meat for the Republicans. And if, more likely when there is another terrorist attack, the Republicans can expect to reap big political gains as they castigate the Democrats and White House for being "hypocritical pansies" in the war against terror. As critical as a truth commission on torture would be for America in restoring its moral compass, we should also recognize that it will also be a gift to the Republican party, one that will keep on giving for years to come. While it is perhaps axiomatic that truth is more important than political gain, it is a bitter pill to swallow that those most responsible for the terrible abuses of the past decade are those who are most likely to benefit from an investigation into the truth. More on GOP
 
Harry Moroz: Swiped! Did The Credit Card Industry Just Hijack Credit Card Reform Legislation? Top
The prevailing wisdom in this week's press reports about credit card reform legislation now being debated in the Senate is that Senator Dodd's version is stronger than the Credit Cardholders' Bill of Rights , which passed the House easily last month. The New York Times ' Carl Hulse concluded : [The Senate bill] goes farther than a measure already easily passed by the House in imposing an array of new restrictions on credit card companies. Politico 's Victoria McGrane was slightly more accurate : The compromise [between Banking Committee mates Senator Dodd and Republican Senator Richard Shelby] softened some provisions in Dodd's original bill -- which came out of committee without a single Republican vote -- but still would give the industry a stronger dose of medicine than the bill passed by the House last month. As far as they go, these reports are not inaccurate, but they tell far from the whole story. Indeed, the current version of the Dodd bill is significantly weaker than the version that was passed by the Banking Committee. Indeed, the Dodd-Shelby compromise looks very, very similar to Rep. Maloney's bill of rights. The real story is the direction in which compromising with Senator Shelby pulled Senator Dodd. That is, in the direction of the credit card companies. The Credit Card Accountability, Responsibility, and Disclosure Act, though an important milestone in consumer protections, exhibits the signs of the credit card industry's powerful influence. Unlike the previous version , the bill likely to be passed by the Senate does not explicitly prohibit universal default, the practice whereby a credit card company uses information unrelated to a consumer's credit card as the basis for increasing the interest rate. Instead, card companies are left to decide for themselves when improvements in a cardholder's credit warrant a rate reduction. The previous version, like the House version , limit the number of over-the-limit fees - fees applied when a cardholder charges more than their card limit - that card companies can apply. This version does not. Instead of outright prohibition of abusively high fees, the Credit Card Accountability, Responsibility, and Disclosure Act requires that fees be reasonable and proportional; the card industry, with easy access to political power, will determine what "reasonable and proportional" mean. Though the Act improves oversight of the credit card industry, the previous version required the collection of comprehensive and detailed information about an industry whose practices are at best opaque and at worst purposefully deceptive. While compromise is necessary to the legislative process, in this case compromise seems to have been largely one-sided.
 
Daytime Emmy Nominations Snub Susan Lucci, "The View" Top
NEW YORK — Often snubbed for a Daytime Emmy in the past, Susan Lucci has been jilted as a nominee this year. Missing along with the "All My Children" veteran is "The View," overlooked as a best talk nominee, though that ABC show's five panelists (Whoopi Goldberg, Joy Behar, Elisabeth Hasselbeck, Sherri Shepherd and Barbara Walters) are sharing a nomination for best host, competing against Ellen DeGeneres, Rachael Ray and "Live!" co-hosts Regis Philbin and Kelly Ripa. Nominations for the 36th Annual Daytime Emmys were announced Thursday by the National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences, which administers them. Overall, PBS led in nominations with 56, followed by ABC (50), syndicated programming (49), CBS (30) and NBC (20). Vanessa Williams will host the awards broadcast, which will air live from Los Angeles on Aug. 30 on the CW network. Debbi Morgan ("All My Children"), Maura West ("As the World Turns"), Susan Haskell ("One Life to Live"), Susan Flannery ("The Bold and the Beautiful") and Jeanne Cooper ("The Young and the Restless") are the nominees for lead actress in a drama series. Thorsten Kaye ("All My Children"), Peter Reckell ("Days of Our Lives"), Anthony Geary ("General Hospital"), Christian LeBlanc ("The Young and the Restless") and Daniel Cosgrove (the soon-to-be ending "Guiding Light") are nominated in the lead dramatic actor category. Public Broadcasting Service dominated the outstanding children's show category with "Fetch! With Ruff Ruffman," "From the Top at Carnegie Hall" and "Postcards From Buster," which also included Discovery Kids' "Adventure Camp." The lifetime achievement award goes to PBS' "Sesame Street." ___ On the Net: http://www.emmyonline.org/ More on The View
 
Half Of Israelis Unhappy With Netanyahu: Poll Top
Half of Israeli voters are unhappy with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu after he agreed tax hikes and spending cuts in a two-year budget, according to a poll on Channel 10 network on Thursday. More on Israel
 
Neil Cole: How the Candie's Foundation and Bristol Palin Created a National Dialogue on Teen Pregnancy Top
For the first time in my life, I am inclined to write a blog, based on the outpouring of articles, debates and strong responses on the Huffington Post and other news organizations regarding The Candie's Foundation, myself, Bristol Palin and the reaction to the town hall meeting we hosted last week. I founded The Candie's Foundation in 2001 as an organization to raise awareness about teen pregnancy prevention during a time in which one million girls were getting pregnant each year. Over the past eight years the Foundation has created series of television, print and online public service announcements featuring celebrities whom teens admire and respect to educate teens about the issue. I am proud of the work the Foundation has completed and am proud of the town hall meeting and the results it has produced. Last Wednesday, May 6th (the National Day to Prevent Teen Pregnancy) was an amazing day for The Candie's Foundation where America was bombarded by a media initiative on teen pregnancy that made over 100 million impressions. In appointing Bristol Palin as a teen ambassador to The Candie's Foundation, teen pregnancy was discussed on ABC, NBC, and CBS's national morning shows and over 300 television broadcasts across America as well as in newspapers and online; consequently accomplishing the goal of the Foundation. On talk shows the topic was debated with some experts speaking about abstinence as the safest way to prevent a pregnancy, and others speaking about protection. I truly believe a huge number of parents and teens talked about the issue at home as well. By grabbing share of mind from kids last week it is my belief we will have prevented or delayed many kids from having babies. At the town hall meeting, Bristol was one of six panelists that spoke about the issue. Bristol's message was that abstinence is the only way to prevent a pregnancy. Bristol was courageous enough to speak out publicly with the message of "do as I say, not as I did." Each panelist had a different view. Actress, Hayden Panettierre spoke of safe sex as an option as did others. Other members of the panel included MLB starting pitcher for the Tampa Bay Rays and teen parent, Matt Garza, Editor-in-Chief of Seventeen Magazine, Ann Shoket, CEO of the National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy, Sarah Brown and myself. It was moderated by Good Morning America 's Chris Cuomo. When the question is asked, what does The Candie's Foundation believe in -- abstinence or safe sex? We believe the answer is both. Whether we, as Americans can agree on safe sex vs. abstinence is not the issue here; the issue is educating teens about pregnancy prevention. Teen pregnancy and parenthood cannot be ignored; after a 14-year decline, teen births are on the rise. This year, nearly 750,000 girls in the United States will get pregnant before age 20, having a catastrophic impact on each girl's life. Nearly half of teen mothers will not finish high school and fewer than two percent will earn a college degree by age 30. I urge all of us to continue the national dialogue that has been started on teen pregnancy. This has been the mission of The Candie's Foundation for the past eight years and will continue to be our mission going forward.
 
Earl Ofari Hutchinson: Washington Times Fanned Stereotypes with Obama Daughter's Picture Top
The Washington Times quickly yanked the picture of Malia and Sasha Obama juxtaposed with the screaming headline "36 Chicago area kids killed sets record." Times editor John Solomon blamed it on a computer auto file error. No word from Editor Solomon who or what programmed the computer, and no formal apology either for the slander. No matter, the Times blunder (?) dumped back on the table the sensitive, troubling, and polarizing issue of racial stereotyping. And that's the issue of the blanket typecasting of young blacks, as crime and violence prone no matter who they are. The plague of gang killing and violence and murders in Chicago that stirred the Obama-murder connection has stirred even more vivid, and lurid images of young blacks as lawbreakers. The relentless media and public tagging of young black males as gangsters hasn't helped matters. When some young blacks turn to gangs, guns and drugs, and terrorize their communities, much of the press busily titillates the public with inexhaustible features on the "crime prone," "crack plagued," "blood stained streets" of the ghetto. TV action news crews routinely stalk black neighborhoods filming busts for the nightly news. The explosion of gangster rap and the spate of Hollywood ghetto films convinced many Americans that the gang lifestyle is the black lifestyle. They had ghastly visions of the hordes of gang members heading for their neighborhoods next. The overwhelming majority of the victims of gang attacks are blacks, and the violence almost is exclusively confined to battles over drugs and turf control in poor urban neighborhoods. But with public panic over gangs, and with few accurate numbers on just how many urban youth are actually gang members, some police and city officials play fast and loose with the numbers. In Los Angeles, police claim that more than 700 gangs with 40,000 members ply the streets of the city committing murder and mayhem. Police and city officials have tossed similar colossal figures on gang affiliation around in other big cities, Chicago included. The Washington Times juxtaposition of the Obama girls with crime and violence, no matter how fleeting, was just another in the long litany of sorry examples of how crime and violence are inextricably woven in the brain cells of far too many with blacks. That is even blacks named Malia and Sasha Obama. Earl Ofari Hutchinson is an author and political analyst. His weekly radio show, "The Hutchinson Report" can be heard on weekly in Los Angeles on KTYM Radio 1460 AM and nationally on blogtalkradio.com
 
Steve Clemons: The New Evita? Obama's Political Outreach by Lottery Top
When I first saw how the Obama campaign team was taking the Joe Trippi-fashioned IT architecture of political outreach a few notches higher, I was really pleased. I saw that Obama was building a much larger political pie of constituents engaged in American politics and policy and that sensible progressives were going to own a larger chunk of it. To some degree, what Joe Rospars -- of course along with David Axelrod and David Plouffe -- did is to do the Internet-based version of the 20th century social network machine that Ralph Reed built out in the form of the Christian Coalition . I remember being quite impressed that in late 2007, one could already see Barack Obama's web-based political muscles in action by looking at Facebook and many other social network sites oriented to different ethnic-American communities. On Facebook, Obama had then about 80,000 Facebookitizens linking to his " fan page " (compared to 6,271,125 today). Hillary Clinton had roughly 40,000 fans -- but led him in all the polls. John Edwards had 20,000. On the Republican side of the ledger, John McCain had about 20,000 fans; Mitt Romney was at 15,000; Huckabee at 10,000. Somewhat as a standout in the Republican field, Ron Paul had 22,000 fans -- and later, Paul really built out his Internet-based network. The trends were clear way back then on Facebook. And what this Internet based outreach in a lot of different mediums has created is the reality that Barack Obama -- and really the entire Democratic political machine -- can now chase the $5.00 donor at a scale that is effective and nearly cost-free, whereas just a few years ago, chasing the $5.00 donor was practically impossible. But what has come along with this new Obama-driven network is the constant spam of the $5.00 request -- promising dinner with the Obamas, or a seat at a major speech by the President, or a grin-and-grip photo op with the President -- if that person's donation is selected among the millions of other donors to receive the reward of Barack Obama's personal attention and smile. This is the Evita approach to politics . The winners of the lottery will have fortune rain down upon them. Evita. Evita . Today, I received the note from Senator Bob Menendez (D-NJ) promising Obama-time for a select few picked from those who kick in five bucks to the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee. Evita. Evita. Evita. Senator Menendez writes: Dear Steve, Meet President Obama! Contribute $5 today and be automatically entered to win! [Click here.] This June, the DSCC is holding a dinner to celebrate the promise of Barack Obama's new presidency and recommit ourselves to giving him an overwhelming Senate majority. It's going to be a one-of-a-kind event for Democrats everywhere. You've been a huge part of our success over the last two election cycles, and I want to make sure you're a part of this historic night. If you make a contribution to the DSCC today, you will be automatically entered into a contest that could win you and a guest a trip to Washington (airfare and hotel included) for our special dinner with President Obama. You'll even get your photo taken with the President to commemorate what promises to be an extraordinary night. Click here to make a contribution of $5 or more to the DSCC, and you will automatically be entered to win dinner and a photo with President Obama. For each additional contribution, you will get another chance to win. When you make a contribution today, you're not only earning a chance to win, you're also helping the DSCC give President Obama everything he needs to pass his visionary agenda for change - an expanded Senate majority that can't be blocked by Republican filibusters. Senate Republicans have made it plain that they will force us to find 60 votes for each and every aspect of our agenda. They'll do everything in their power to obstruct, delay, and deny the change we desperately need. That's why expanding our majority in 2010 is so critical. That's why we urgently need your help to build the foundation for victory. Click here to make a contribution right now, and you'll be automatically entered to win. Dinner and a photo with President Obama is a memory that will last a lifetime. Finally, I know it's said a lot, but it's the truth. We cannot succeed without you. Thank you for all your support. Sincerely, Bob Menendez I may be overstating things here because of my own bias against lotteries -- which I have always felt in the state level education sham were more like extra taxes imposed on the poor to support institutions catering largely to the children of folks who didn't buy lottery tickets. But at some point, someone is going to say we've reached a point of diminishing returns on the asks for $5.00 -- and need to do something different and less Evita-ish with this amazing new network of outreach and political mobilization that the Obama team has constructed. -- Steve Clemons publishes the popular political blog, The Washington Note More on Barack Obama
 

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