Sunday, May 17, 2009

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Rachel Weisz Shines On Cannes Red Carpet (PHOTOS) Top
Rachel Weisz glowed in green on the Cannes red carpet at the premiere of her new epic "Agora." Read details about the film here . She costars with Max Minghella, son of the late Anthony Minghella, and has two nude scenes in the film, saying of using a body double, "Absolutely not. It was all me, never even thought of using a double. "Although I was thinking about baby fat - but I think most of it had gone by the time I went before the cameras." She has a two-year-old son Henry with husband Darren Aronofsky. PHOTOS:
 
Chris Rodda: MRFF's Response to Rumsfeld Crusade Memos: We Told You So! Top
While I am as happy as a pig in shit that GQ managed to obtain Donald Rumsfeld's Bible verse riddled Worldwide Intelligence Update cover sheets , and that their release is getting such tremendous attention, I have to admit that I was a bit exasperated by this statement from GQ: "This mixing of Crusades-like messaging with war imagery, which until now has not been revealed, had become routine." Why my exasperation? Because this "routine" mixing of "Crusades-like messaging with war imagery" by the Department of Defense has been revealed over and over by the Military Religious Freedom Foundation (MRFF) since its founding by Mikey Weinstein in the Winter of 2005. The Bible verse on the first slide of GQ's slideshow? Well, that was the theme of Secretary of the Army Pete Geren's commencement address at West Point last year. Geren opened and closed his speech by quoting the verse, and, throughout his speech, painted the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan as a religious struggle. Because of that speech and others like it, as well as Geren's participation in the infamous Pentagon Christian Embassy video , MRFF called last December for the incoming Obama administration to replace him. For more about Secretary Geren and why he should be removed from the office of Secretary of the Army, please read Mr. President-elect: Please Don't Allow Pete Geren To Be Kept On . But, Geren remains the Secretary of the Army, and other participants in the Christian Embassy video, although found guilty of violating ethics regulations by the DoD Inspector General, after MRFF demanded an investigation of the incident, have not only received no punishment whatsoever, but have instead been promoted. Within a year of the IG recommending that "appropriate corrective action" be taken against then Brigadier General Robert Caslen, this general, who, in uniform at the Pentagon, was filmed by Christian Embassy proclaiming that he and his flag officers Bible study group were the "aroma of Jesus Christ" at the Pentagon, was promoted to major general and appointed to the prestigious position of Commanding General of the 25th Infantry Division. Another of the Christian Embassy generals, Vincent Brooks, was also recently promoted from brigadier general to major general, assuming command of the 1st Infantry Division, more widely known as "The Big Red One," in April of this year. Mikey Weinstein, who has been besieged all morning with phone calls and emails from MRFF supporters who are apparently having the same reaction to GQ's "revelation" as I did, just emailed me the following statement: "GQ's seemingly 'sudden' revelation of Defense Secretary Rumsfeld's unconscionable mixing of religious, biblical rhetoric with the 'Bush Doctrine' as applied to America's premptive invasion of Iraq (and it's bloody consequences in painting the U.S. military as modern day Crusaders) is ABSOLUTELY NOT 'sudden' at all! Indeed, it's about as 'sudden' as the FDA dramatically announcing, NOW, a warning about a just-discovered connection between cigarette smoke and lung cancer. The American mainstream press should be ASHAMED that it's GQ which claims to break this story; a 'story' about a war which the Military Religious Freedom Foundation has been fighting every day now for almost four years." Jeff Sharlet's eye opening article, "Jesus killed Mohammed: The crusade for a Christian military," in the May issue of Harper's Magazine, clearly sparked a sudden interest in a battle that MRFF has been fighting for years, leading to things like the recent Al Jazeera report showing footage of U.S. military personnel in Afghanistan with stacks of Dari and Pashtu language Bibles, discussing how to convert Afghan Muslims. The military, of course, claimed that what the Al Jazeera report showed was just an "isolated" incident, that it was taken out of context, and even went as far as accusing Al Jazeera of "irresponsible and dangerous journalism" for reporting the story. But, as we at MRFF know quite well, this was no isolated incident, nor was it taken out of context. Our files are brimming with other verified examples of our military's attempts to convert both Afghans and Iraqis to Christianity, so I gathered a few of these to rebut the military's excuses in my post last week, Code 1, Code 2, Code 3 at Bagram Airfield . For those who want to read more about our military's "holy war," here are links to a few other pieces I've written over the last year or so: The "Great Commission" and Iraq Attention All "Evil-Doers": This Really is a Religious War Who Will Guard the Guards? U.S. Military Now in the Christian Reality TV Business -- Putting Muslim Interpreters in Christmas Pageants U.S. Army Conveniently Loses Records of Embedded Christian-Reality-TV-Show Missionaries Army Chief of Chaplains Promotes Ministry That Called Navy Secretary Satanic Creationism: The Latest in Military Suicide Prevention Gen. Schwarzkopf: If You're Not Too Busy, Could You Please Come Back and Knock Some Heads Around? MRFF to Demand That Pentagon Immediately Cease All Ties to Obama-Bashing Ministry The DoD's Entirely Unsatisfactory Response to MRFF's Letter Regarding TBN 4th of July Special Obsession "Stars" Have Lectured at U.S. Military Colleges; U.S. Navy Uses Film Please also visit MRFF's newsletter archive to see some more of the shocking stories, photos, and videos that MRFF has uncovered. More on Afghanistan
 
Norman Lear: To Arkansas State Senator Kim Hendren's Grandchilden Top
Dear Mark, Jim, Gayle and Hope: I appreciate you love your grandfather, who referred last week to Senator Charles Schumer as "that Jew," and I would hope that love continues even as, on occasion, you know he can be a horse's ass. I grew up with a Dad not that unlike your granddad and never stopped loving him. But that didn't keep me from wanting to throw up when the thick-headed mean clown in him appeared. As a full-grown and full-fledged Jew myself, I confess to wanting to whip the horse's ass part of your grandfather the clown ten ways to Sunday. But I'll let you do that, lovingly. Assuming you are young enough to agree. Sincerely, Norman Lear
 
Mitchell Wiener, Assistant Principal Of School, Becomes First Swine Flu Death In New York Top
The assistant principal of a Queens school who had been hospitalized with swine flu died on Sunday evening. It was the first death in New York State from the outbreak and came as city officials announced that five more Queens schools had been closed.
 
Weisz And Amenabar Preach Enlightenment With Ancient Epic 'Agora' Top
CANNES, France — Rachel Weisz and director Alejandro Amenabar traveled back to ancient times to tell a modern story about a progressive woman standing against religious dogma and persecution. Amenabar's historical epic "Agora" premiered Sunday at the Cannes Film Festival, introducing audiences to the little-known scholar Hypatia, a brilliant astronomer and mathematician working in a man's world in 4th century A.D. Egypt. As the Roman Empire declines, Hypatia struggles to preserve scientific knowledge amid the clash of zealots in Alexandria, whose rising Christian population grows increasingly militant toward Jews and worshippers of the Egyptian gods. No stranger to ancient Egypt, having starred in the first two installments of "The Mummy" franchise, Weisz had never heard of Hypatia before reading the script, but she said the woman's story resonates today. "Really, nothing has changed. I mean, we have huge technological advances and medical advances, but in terms of people killing each other in the name of God, fundamentalism still abounds," Weisz said. "And in certain cultures, women are still second-class citizens, and they're denied education." Amenabar, who also directed the Nicole Kidman ghost story "The Others," said he decided to make a movie about the cosmos after his 2004 drama "The Sea Inside," which won the Academy Award for foreign-language films. He dove into astronomy research but said he did not want to make a movie about a figure such as Galileo because everyone already knew his story. Amenabar's studies eventually led him to Hypatia, a woman dealing with current issues in ancient times. "We realized that this particular time in the world had a lot of connections with our contemporary reality," Amenabar said. "Then the project became really, really intriguing, because we realized that we could make a movie about the past while actually making a movie about the present." Forced to flee the city's library, a storehouse of ancient knowledge and manuscripts, Hypatia rescues a handful of irreplaceable texts from a Christian ransacking and continues her theorizing on the nature of the universe. Christian leaders eventually label her a witch and make her a martyr to scientific reason. "Agora" _ named for the great square at the city's center _ is far from a dusty treatise, though. A lot of stoning and sword-skewering goes on in "Agora" as Amenabar intersperses Hypatia's philosophical musings with bloodletting in the streets. The story also creates a love triangle of sorts among Hypatia and her devoted slave (Max Minghella) and one of her students (Oscar Isaac). Hypatia rebuffs their advances, devoting herself to science. Weisz found inspiration in her own family for the character's chastity. She asked her 85-year-old aunt, a cancer researcher who lived for her work, why she never married or had children. "She said, `I never believed a man when he said that he would allow me to work as hard as I wanted to,'" Weisz said. "And she said, `So over the years, I just realized that I love my work more than anything, and I don't want anyone to get in the way of it.'" If Hypatia is the embodiment of a modern woman, ancient Rome is a symbol of a modern superpower at a turning point, Amenabar said. "I think now the United States is the Roman Empire, and we can tell now more than ever that we are in some kind of crisis. Social crisis, economical crisis. So this is time for change," Amenabar said. "We all can tell that we are going to somewhere else. We don't know exactly what. And since I am an optimist by nature, I don't think we'll go back to something like the Middle Ages, but we can feel that something is not quite fitting right now." ___ On the Net: http://www.festival-cannes.fr
 
FBI Infiltrated Iowa Anti-War Group Before GOP Convention Top
An FBI informant and an undercover Minnesota sheriff's deputy spied on political activists in Iowa City last year before the Republican National Convention in St. Paul, Minn.
 
Holly Madison Joins Topless Revue Top
LAS VEGAS — Reality star Holly Madison is done dancing with the stars, but she's keeping her shoes fresh for a burlesque show on the Las Vegas Strip. Hugh Hefner's ex-girlfriend has signed a contract to replace actress Kelly Monaco in "Peepshow," a topless revue at the Planet Hollywood Resort & Casino. Officials say Madison will replace the "General Hospital" actress and former "Dancing With the Stars" champ starting June 22. Monaco's run in the show was set for three months, with producers planning to continuously rotate the headline star. The show also stars former Spice Girl Mel B. More on Playboy
 
Niall Ferguson: Why We Never Learn The Right Lessons From Financial Crises Top
If financial crises were distributed along a bell curve -- like traffic accidents or people's heights -- really big ones wouldn't happen very often. When the hedge fund Long-Term Capital Management lost 44 percent of its value in August 1998, its managers were flabbergasted.
 
Karla Bell: Solutions to the Draft Waxman Bill Expose Design Flaw in U.S. ETS Top
The Waxman and Markey Climate Change bill has to be finalized by 25th of May on Memorial Day 2009. The House is considering climate change legislation authored by a key subcommittee chairman, Rep. Ed Markey (D-MA). President Obama has said this is, "a rare opportunity to rise above parochial concerns to enact a bill with a profound national impact". The Waxman-Markey Discussion Draft provides for an economy wide cap & trade program: The cap reduces greenhouse gas emissions to 20 percent below 2005 levels by 2020, and 83 percent below 2005 levels by 2050. Offsets, (project based reductions) are limited to 2,000 million metric tons CO2 equivalent (MtCO2e) per year or 30% per cent of U.S emission reduction, split evenly between domestic and international offsets. Domestic offsets does not include Green Buildings offsets. There are provisions for emissions reductions from reduced deforestation through allowance set-asides. Waxman does not yet have support from House Republicans or moderate Democrats like Rep. John Dingell (D-MI) who are opposing the bill. Opposition concerns whether to give away or auction the permits to manufacturers, utilities, and other industrial sectors in a U.S Cap and Trade Emissions Trading scheme. The U.S is coming up against the same opposition from industry and parochial interests that the Europeans came up against, when they decided to give away the majority of permits in the early years of the European Emissions Trading scheme (EU-ETS). The U.S was originally highly critical of the Europeans for going down this path. Al Gore has gone on the front foot calling for unity from the Democrats on Climate Change against the resistance of some Democrats wanting to protect local industry. Similar to the results of the EU-ETS, we found with the Carbonflow carbon game emission reductions were achieved even with giving away the permits in the first period. So, whatever the House decides on auctioning versus giving away permits, that should not block the Draft bill's passage through the house. Some believe that Speaker Pelosi will make the House vote on a version of the Markey bill with 254 House Democrats, but important House Democrats like Mr. Dingell may make a similar case as House Republicans, that the bill should be opposed because of the higher energy costs for consumers. The approach taken by the Waxman-Markey bill does not alleviate the problem whereby household consumers will pay higher energy costs because the regulatory approach to energy efficiency and renewable energy is insufficient. Under the bill energy efficiency and renewable energy is proposed to be achieved through regulation by establishing a renewable electricity standard, a low carbon fuel standard, and energy efficiency programs and standards for buildings, lighting, appliances and additionally further standards for vehicles, stationery sources and fuels. According to Donald Simon, an attorney for Wendel, Rosen, Black and Dean, BOMA International, The Real Estate Roundtable, U.S. Green Building Council and the California Business Properties Association, regulation does not achieve the result intended as, "Building codes typically affect only new construction, because existing buildings are "grandfathered" and new code requirements apply only to substantial renovations, which is hugely problematic. Existing buildings account for the vast majority of real estate sector GHG emissions. Government incentives are helpful but inadequate and unreliable because they do not achieve sufficient market penetration and rely on limited government funding that can disappear in lean budget years". Simon goes on to say that, "in the world of Climate Change regulation, there are two major classifications of GHG emission sources - direct and indirect. Direct sources release GHGs directly into the air, like power plants and other smoke stack industries. Indirect sources are activities that consume what the direct sources produce, like buildings that consume electricity produced by power plants. The conventional wisdom among regulators globally is that market-based programs, like cap and trade, should be restricted to direct industrial sources, because there are fewer of them and they are already heavily regulated. This generally forecloses the possibility for green building projects to generate carbon credits, despite their cost-effectiveness. As a result, a valuable incentive for voluntary GHG reductions is lost, the low-hanging fruit of increasing energy efficiency in buildings goes unpicked, and industrial (direct) sources are required to shoulder a greater share of required GHG reductions, all of which increase the societal cost for addressing Climate Change and make it less politically feasible to accomplish". Not only do Cap and Trade Green Building carbon credits provide a much larger funding source that could partially finance energy efficiency improvements if buildings are allowed to participate, they also actually benefit poorer communities by upgrading the existing building stock with energy efficient and renewable energy technologies at a much more accelerated rate as the private sector is incentivised from the price of carbon to go out and do projects on a large scale, providing whole districts and building owners with clean technologies funded by the credits. Regulatory approaches just take too long to retrofit the existing building stock and leave people stranded with high energy bills. House moderate Democrats and Republicans correctly say ordinary people will incur higher costs of energy over-time because most people will not have had their homes and small businesses upgraded with clean technologies and they know the subsidies to poorer communities for energy costs will be short-lived and once removed all Americans will be left with higher energy costs. A householder or small business faced with a doubling of energy costs from USD 100 - USD 200 a quarter would probably just pay as there is not enough incentive to go out and retrofit the house nor do they have the trades expertise to do it. The better outcome is that Green Building Carbon Credits are allowed and business, construction companies, project developers, engineers, architects do energy efficiency and renewable energy building projects using the funds from the credits and create the Green jobs President Obama is talking about. In short, proposed subsidies to less well off Americans waste money that should be going into making all American homes energy efficient and creating green jobs. Policy-makers can encourage voluntary reductions by structuring carbon markets in a way that allows parties to convert their GHG reductions into carbon credits that they can sell to regulated sources to offset their emissions. Under the current plan the U.S would be in the anomalous situation of accepting international carbon offsets from energy efficiency and renewable energy but not accepting it domestically. This makes no sense. Domestic Green building offsets would allow regulated industries an alternative way to comply with regulatory obligations by letting them choose between reducing their own emissions or purchasing Green Building offsets from others who were able to reduce theirs at lower cost. This reduces the overall cost of Climate Change regulation by letting the free market exploit lowest cost GHG reductions. Green Building carbon credits would be more transparent as they would have to be independently validated and verified, and open to public scrutiny, whereas money going to government agencies for programs may well end up being used on things other than greenhouse gas reductions projects. Even the double-counting issue can be managed as companies like Carbonflow, multi-party software designers for the carbon industry can easily retire end use building credits back to the Cap. I believe however, if the house was not to get too hung up over auctioning or giving away permits in the first phases and secondly, to introduce Green Building Carbon Credits, it could solve all the problems that beset the Draft Waxman-Markey bill before the House on Memorial Day. More on Climate Change
 
Michael Giltz: Cannes 2009 Day Five: Lars Von Trier Is (Unshockingly) Shocking! Top
Day Five of Cannes was slow on the quality front, but did contain the cinematic provocations of Lars Von Trier. When a film is named Anti-Christ , you know you're not in for subtlety. VENGEANCE ** 1/2 (out of four) -- I'm not a big Johnnie To fan, so when I say this is the most enjoyable movie of his I've seen yet, you can take that with a grain of salt. He's the Tarantino-like B movie king who's been churning them out for years but recently been getting lots of notice. And with good reason, in a way. This movie wants to be cool like John Woo's Hard Boiled but it plays more like a spoof. The cast is fun, led by French rock star Johnny Hallyday. But the To film has the usual awful score that sounds like it was composed in a day on a Casio keyboard, silly action sequences that look sort of fun if you completely turn off your mind and a plot that hinges on memory loss and -- I kid you not -- fine tailoring. One ludicrous action sequence sticks in my mind. Our heroes are in a garbage dump of sorts and are surrounded by bad guys who are closing in. How do the bad guys close in? Each gangster is rolling a giant bale compacted of trash end over end, hiding behind them for protection and firing over the top or from the side. The good guys grab their own bales and form a circle. You literally see giant bales careening towards each other across a field, like some clunky, slow-moving video game. The kicker is when the bad guys seem to be mostly destroyed when we see yet ANOTHER ring of bales closing in: the bad guys are actually just getting going. It's certainly supposed to be funny. But surely it's also supposed to be kind of cool and different, rather than just ridiculous. The idiocies pile up the closer to the finale we get, but it's good-natured silliness right down to the goofy last shot of people laughing for no particular reason. Director To certainly has talent and surely it's only a matter of time before Hollywood gives him a big budget to play with. I won't be the least bit surprised if he out Woos Woo in Hollywood. He's actually made for the place whereas Woo's genuinely original talent belongs back in Hong Kong. THE ARMY OF CRIME ** -- After interviewing the director of a documentary on Rwanda and it's post-genocide reaity, I slipped into this French film about the Resistance directed by Robert Guediguian. I'm not familiar with him and a friend insisted he wouldn't go because he's already seen four or five films by Guediguian and each and every one of them was competently dull and middle of the road. Well, he certainly nailed this one in advance. It's based on the true story of the Manouchians -- 30 or so French patriots who wrecked havoc for a while on the Nazis in their midst only to be rounded up and summarily shot. The film could serve as a master class for the obvious. It begins with a voice over naming the names of each beloved patriot. When something tragic happens, classical music is certain to swell on the soundtrack. Or things move in slow motion. Or they move in slow motion AND the classical music swells. And the roll call is repeated at the end. It's always fun to see the Nazis get outwitted. (Sorry, Germany.) And the Manouchians, as portrayed in this film, at least, are certainly the best-looking members of the Resistance imaginable. Thomas Elek (played by Gregoire Leprince-Ringuet) is called a "dirty Yid" by a fellow student but surely the guy is just jealous of how handsome Elek is. There are worse movies at Cannes but few that embody the idea of "pedestrian" more perfectly. LE PERE DE MES ENFANTS * -- Thoroughly French film (much talk, little action) in which a movie producer is swamped in debt and sees his world implode. His wife must pick up the pieces and try and see a few final film projects through to completion. It's typical of this sort of meandering, pointless movie that one of their three daughters vaguely begins to date a boy but we have no sense of their relationship or whether it's important. Also introduced and dropped is the fact that the producer has a son out of wedlock with another woman, whom the daughter goes to meet, doesn't and then is never mentioned again. Nor do we find out if any of the films falling apart financially actually get made. Nor do we care. Their children (especially the two youngest girls) are pretty darn adorable, but that's it for this tiresome affair. ANTI-CHRIST * -- Von Trier's latest scandal will be easily dismissed by many as ludicrous...because it IS ludicrous. I say this as a fan of Breaking The Waves, Dogville, The Five Obstructions and other Von Trier projects. I've never really seen him as misogynist but in this case he seems to have said, "Misogyny? I'll show you misogyny!" It's a difficult film to discuss without giving away too much plot. But in the very opening scene, we see a husband and wife having sex while their little baby boy climbs up onto a window sill and falls to his death. Both are crippled with grief, naturally. But the wife is truly paralyzed and when her husband -- a therapist -- doesn't like how heavily medicated she is, he decides against all standard practice to take over her therapy himself and they retreat to a cabin in the woods called Eden. "Chaos reigns!" as one unexpected character. Grand Guignol hysteria, to be exact. One friend gave a neat defense of the film -- which includes multiple examples of genital mutilation to give you an idea of the craziness that ensues -- by saying it's about the hubris of man in the face of the mystery that is woman. The husband was being egotistical in taking over her therapy himself, and boy does this movie prove that's a bad, bad idea. The only problem with this defense is that it's far more coherent and compelling than the film itself, proving exactly what the movie fails to do. Obviously meant to be button-pushing, albeit with some driving narrative purpose, the movie is ultimately just absurd nonsense. Not "absurdist" nonsense because that might be interesting. Just absurd. A few hardy souls clapped (and a small band of sympathizers stayed through the credits to clap loudly again) but most booed lustily. Heck, people applauded when the films inter-titles said "Epilogue" and we realized the movie was almost over. It's that kind of movie.
 
Smaller US Banks Need Additional $24 Billion Top
Small and medium-sized US banks must raise some $24bn to meet the capital standards set by the government in its stress tests of large institutions, research for the Financial Times shows.
 
Martha Burk: Weak on Women's Rights at Notre Dame Top
A few minutes before President Obama's commencement speech at Notre Dame, the CNN anchor was intoning that he supports stem cell research and he supports abortion rights, and that he would not shrink from his positions on either. In fact, she said, he was going to use an email he had gotten on the subject of abortion as part of his remarks. Good, I thought. It will be from the parent of the mentally retarded high school student who was gang raped, the doctor of an 11 year old incest victim, or possibly a woman with four kids already whose husband has just lost his job and medical benefits along with it. Boy, was I wrong. The letter Obama cited in great detail was from an anti-choice doctor who had taken him to task for a statement on his campaign website saying he would fight "right-wing ideologues who want to take away a woman's right to choose." The president was quick to point out that while he had not changed his fundamental position (though he declined to reiterate it), he had instructed his staff to alter the wording, presumably so that "ideologue" no longer appeared. The rest of the speech, insofar as a woman's most fundamental right to control her own body was concerned, was a big fat silence. Leading off with "Maybe we won't agree on abortion, but we can still agree that this is a heart-wrenching decision for any woman to make, with both moral and spiritual dimensions," the president detailed all the ways we can reduce abortions. He mentioned adoption, support for women who choose to carry their pregnancies to term, and crafting a "sensible conscience clause" (whatever that means) for health care providers as well as "health care policies grounded in clear ethics and sound science, as well as respect for the equality of women." Coming from a pro-choice president who was elected by women - including a significant number of defectors from their rabidly anti-choice Republican party - it was faint support indeed. Instead of merely asking us to agree that abortion is a heart-wrenching decision (we all do anyway), why not ask us to agree on the fundamental moral agency of women? Why not ask us to agree that government should not interfere in a woman's most basic right to autonomy in controlling her life? If he wants to follow that with a statement about reducing the need for abortion, I'll be with him all the way. But the president didn't do that. After brushing quickly by respect for the equality of women (and only in the health care context), he went on to extend an invitation to the anti-choice audience to engage in dialogue, where "differences of culture and religion and conviction can co-exist with friendship, civility, hospitality, and especially love." That all sounds great, but if the president buys the idea that those who would outlaw abortion and send women back to the back alleys are not ideologues, and that they want to co-exist in civil disagreement, he's naive at the very best. And he diminishes women in the bargain. Make no mistake. I support President Obama. I think for the most part he's doing a great job. I know he's pro-choice. But I need to know he is not afraid to say unequivocally that he supports the fundamental rights of his daughters and my granddaughters as strongly as he supports so-called open dialogue and debate. He needs to say it out loud, with conviction and without apology. If they hear that, the women of the world will stand and applaud much longer and much harder than any crowd at Notre Dame. More on Barack Obama
 
Maureen Dowd Admits Inadvertently Lifting Line From TPM's Josh Marshall Top
UPDATE : New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd, in an email to Huffington Post, admits that a paragraph in her Sunday column was lifted from Talking Points Memo editor Josh Marshall's blog last Thursday. Dowd claims that she never read his blog last week but was told the line by a friend of hers. In a follow-up email, she forwarded her desire to apologize to Marshall, writing that had she known, she would have gladly credited Marshall. Dowd notes that the Times is fixing her column online to give proper credit to Marshall and that a correction will run tomorrow; josh is right. I didn't read his blog last week, and didn't have any idea he had made that point until you informed me just now. i was talking to a friend of mine Friday about what I was writing who suggested I make this point, expressing it in a cogent -- and I assumed spontaneous -- way and I wanted to weave the idea into my column. but, clearly, my friend must have read josh marshall without mentioning that to me. we're fixing it on the web, to give josh credit, and will include a note, as well as a formal correction tomorrow. ********************************************* New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd is being accused of plagiarizing from Talking Point Memo's Josh Marshall. This afternoon, a blogger named Joshua (not Marshall) at TPM Cafe claimed that a paragraph in Dowd's Sunday column matches a paragraph from Josh Marshall's story that appeared on TPM last Thursday. Dowd wrote : More and more the timeline is raising the question of why, if the torture was to prevent terrorist attacks, it seemed to happen mainly during the period when the Bush crowd was looking for what was essentially political information to justify the invasion of Iraq. Marshall wrote: More and more the timeline is raising the question of why, if the torture was to prevent terrorist attacks, it seemed to happen mainly during the period when we were looking for what was essentially political information to justify the invasion of Iraq. Blogger Joshua notes that the only difference is that Dowd changed "we were" to "the Bush crowd was." And he concludes: So, if this isn't outright plagiarism by a top NY Times Editorialist, than I'm a happily married, straight man with 4 kids, 2 dogs, a lovely 2nd wife of 15 years with a girl half my age on the side. Which I assure you all, I am not . Back in 1987, Dowd herself is the one who exposed then-presidential candidate Joe Biden's plagiarism of British politician Neil Kinnock's speeches. A spokesperson for the Times and Marshall have not returned emails for comment.
 
Pam Bristow: Web Browser: What Twitter and Facebook are Doing to Retail Shopping Top
Anything plus technology is better. Especially shopping. I think that one of the best ideas ever was the big box stores installing those scanner machines that let you check the prices of items before you check out. I feel like I'm getting a better deal on just about anything if I've scanned it myself at some point in the purchasing process. In 2007, Target (as usual) took things to a new level by launching TargetLists - a system that lets you skip around the store making downloadable wish lists with YOUR OWN little scanner! You could then buy your picks online, send your lists to generous relatives, or print them out and hope for some extra cash at the end of the month. These days 2007 is like twenty years ago. Scanners? Whatever. Retailers have broadened their gaze to include the paradigm-shifting reach of sites like Twitter and Facebook - platforms that have opened up entirely new ways for retail and fashion brands to interact with us. Nimble brands like Diane von Fürstenberg, Lacoste, Barneys New York, American Apparel, and iconic fashion boutique Colette in Paris have realized that daily relevance is key to retaining loyal customers with increasingly shorter-term memories. They communicate every few hours with thousands of Twitter "followers" by broadcasting new designs, sale announcements, and even talk one-on-one with brand fans. Diane von Fürstenberg sends out daily "tweets" about celebrities spotted wearing DVF. The ultra-politically conscious American Apparel reinforces its PC image by peppering their Twitter page with posts about fair trade and First Amendment rights. Even fashion demi-god Karl Lagerfeld maintains a Chanel-centric Twitter account where we get a behind-the-scenes glimpse into one of design's most brilliant minds. Some retailers have even brought the online experience into their stores. Eyewear veteran Sunglass Hut has recently launched Social Sun, an in-store, interactive photo booth that enables customers to see themselves in several sunglass styles at the same time, email pictures, and share images on their Facebook accounts for immediate yea or nay feedback from friends. Do I really want to see pictures of my friends trying on sunglasses? Or know what's going on in Mr. Lagerfeld's head? Not sure, but I never thought I'd buy a luxury car - sight unseen - on eBay either. Let's see where all this goes... More on Twitter
 

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