Thursday, June 4, 2009

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Denise Richards: I Had Three Boob Jobs Top
Denise Richards was on Howard Stern Wednesday morning and for the first time opened up about her three boob jobs. The former Bond girl, ex-wife of Charlie Sheen and flailing reality star told Stern about her chest to warn other girls not to get them done, despite having a career based largely on her comely looks. "They're natural on the outside. I've never talked about it but I'll talk about it with you because I can't lie to you." She went on to explain that she had them done three times to get them done right, starting when she was a teenager. "I was 19, and my roommate had the best boobs ever, and she had just had hers done," Richards told Stern. "I was flat as a board, and I thought 'Whoa, you can just buy them' and stupidly had them done!" But the first ones were not right and looked "way too big for my body." So she had a second ones put in. "The next guy put bigger ones in, and it was not good -- they were a D!" But the third pair, apparently, were just right and she has overcome her youthful mistakes. "I was young and should have researched better. You know, it was a big mistake. Young girls, don't do it!"
 
Daniel James Murray Charged With Making Threats Against Obama In Utah Top
SALT LAKE CITY — Federal prosecutors have charged a man with making threats against President Barack Obama after he allegedly told a bank employee in Utah he was on a mission to kill the president. The Salt Lake Tribune reported on its Web site Thursday that Daniel James Murray allegedly made the remark to a teller at a bank in St. George on May 27 as he withdrew $13,000 from an account. Murray's whereabouts are unknown. A court affidavit says Murray is from New York and has recently been in California, Utah, Georgia, Oklahoma and possibly Texas. The U.S. Secret Service says Murray has at least eight registered firearms, the Tribune reported. Malcolm Wiley, a spokesman for the Secret Service in Washington, told The Associated Press he had no comment Thursday.
 
Ashlee Simpson Trashes Hubby's Ex Top
ASHLEE Simpson is married to Pete Wentz and she's the mother of his child, but she's apparently still insecure when it comes to her man's former flames. An out-of-control Simpson loudly trash-mouthed "Gossip Girl" actress Michelle Trachtenberg on Monday night at the "DJ Hero" video game party at LA's Wiltern Theatre,
 
Lucy Wolvert: George Clooney Dating Waitress For Months Top
Lucy Wolvert, 23, has been enjoying a seaside romance with the hunky bachelor since being introduced to him in Miami Beach, Florida, two months ago. And she is the second cocktail waitress to have grabbed the actor's attention. The pair reportedly got together while Clooney, 48, was filming his new movie Up In The Air and have been quietly dating ever since. More on George Clooney
 
Audrina Partridge's Carl's Jr. Ad: Bikini Babe Sells Burgers Top
Hungry for more Audrina Patridge? Well, the Hills star - making headlines recently for getting her own reality show - will surely make mouths water with a steamy new spot for the Carl's Jr. Teriyaki Six Dollar Burger. "I had an absolute blast shooting. It was my first experience shooting a spot with food, and when I pulled up, I was literally salivating looking at all the rows and rows of perfect burgers waiting for me!" she recalls of the sandwich, available at Carl's Jr. on June 24, the same day that the TV spot launches. More on Celebrity Skin
 
GOP Ignites Firestorm By Revealing Classified Info From Closed-Door Intel Briefings Top
Republicans ignited a firestorm of controversy on Thursday by revealing some of what they had been told at a closed-door Intelligence Committee hearing on the interrogation of terrorism suspects. More on GOP
 
David Carradine Death Mystery Deepens Top
After a maid found David Carradine's body in a closet in his Bangkok hotel room, police called it a suspected suicide. But the actor's manager refuses to believe it. "I can tell you 100 percent that he would have never committed suicide," Tiffany Smith, who along with Chuck Binder managed the Kill Bill star, tells PEOPLE. "He was too full of life."
 
Krist Novoselic For Office: Nirvana Bassist Running For County Clerk Top
CATHLAMET, Wash. — Nirvana's former bassist is running for clerk of a rural county to protest Washington state's method of letting candidates name their own party affiliation. Krist Novoselic (noh-voh-SEL'-ik) is running for clerk of Wahkiakum (wah-KAI'-ah-kum) County in western Washington. Novoselic is head of his local chapter of the Grange, a civic organization. His election paperwork declares that he's running under the "Grange Party" banner, even though the Grange isn't a political party. Novoselic tells The Daily World newspaper that he's protesting the state's system that lets candidates say what party they prefer when running for office. He says that's confusing for voters and lets candidates appropriate the names of private associations. ___ Information from: The Daily World, http://www.thedailyworld.com More on Celebs Talk Politics
 
$10,000 To Twitter About Wine Top
Reporting from New York -- Are you a "people person"? How about an "excellent communicator"? More on Twitter
 
Richard Laermer: Paper Of Record Is No Longer Interesting Top
Newspapers strive to be viewed as the defenders of society - holding government and industry accountable for their actions in instances where the everyman may not have the opportunity to speak for himself. The power wielded by the American press is mighty. For what seems like eons, select newspapers have been lionized - mostly by themselves - as "papers of record." These are the cornerstones of journalism in America, and today include New York Times , Los Angeles Times , and Wash Post . There may be others, depending on who you ask. (The San Jose Mercury-News has become very prominent of late by the tech set.) The point is there are newspapers, and then there are newspapers . We have to wonder now - just 18 months short of my favorite year - 2011 - whether the distinction even matters. An old guard employs talented journalists (their definition), because they are well trained and paid for it. The newer guard - found in the great blogs and online more accessible publications - are beloved because they are the most admired writers , and are able to convey thoughts about what's in the news are saying without sounding like a typical reporter. This is the Daily Show analysis: You don't get your news from Jon Stewart, you get your news in a form that makes sense to you, cutting through any and all pretext. You have to know something about the latest obscure news from earlier that morning in order to get the joke at 11:00 pm. I think the big newspapers are too concerned with style. There is too much insistence on being "our way." Each time a paper of record says "This reporter was..." instead of "I was," I cringe. In the news about the MTV Movie Awards, they avoided the words dick and fuck. I get it: it's a familiy newspaper. Then don't write about awards on a crass teen network! When papers like the NYT start worrying less about being keystones of ancient nridges, with more concern toward being servants of the people who want to know what's up without fuss or muss, then they will be seen as remarkable products once again. Until then, a newpaper is worth a scan in the morning, since my news is being served to me all day long, quick and dirty (sans newsprint), and with a good belly laugh in the late evening. ******* I'm author of 2011: Trendspotting . And am Twittering stuff you might like: www.twitter.com/laermer More on Newspapers
 
Bachelor Surplus Inspires Scams By Runaway Brides In China Top
XIN'AN VILLAGE, HANZHONG, China -- With no eligible women in his village, Zhou Pin, 27 years old, thought he was lucky to find a pretty bride whom he met and married within a week, following the custom in rural China.
 
Steve Jobs Returns? On Track To Take Back Helm Of Apple Top
After months of uncertainty about Steve Jobs's health, the Apple Inc. chief executive appears on track to return from medical leave this month, said people familiar with Apple. More on Apple
 
Jill Keto: A Resume Is Not Enough: How To Elevate To The Top 1% Top
The souring economy and rising unemployment need not intimidate people forward-thinking enough to actually protect themselves from it. Those brave enough to face the recession head on, and go above and beyond to advance their careers creatively will thrive. A recession survivor and personal friend of mine recently said to me, "If a bear is chasing me, I'm going to stop and put on my running shoes. I don't need to run faster than the bear, I just need to run faster than the rest of the people." For your career or business, this translates into implementing unusual tactics, unimaginable to 99% of the population, to advance your brand. Yes, your personal brand. Most people never think of themselves as a brand, but you have one whether or not you realize it. Your reputation is part of your brand, and your resume and business card are marketing tools. LinkedIn, with it's testimonial sharing and reference recommendations is popular tool in personal brand enhancement. But the most impressive enhancement to your personal brand, and most often overlooked, occurs from writing a book. A book is the ultimate business card. It establishes credibility, wins clients from competitors, and lands jobs. Writing a book sends a strong message that no brochure, reference, or resume can compete with, silently claiming, "I am the expert in this field. Period." It shows your existing employer you are a valuable asset in your field. It instills confidence in an existing or future client or customer. But book writing is not for sissies. It requires work. It takes time spent writing, editing, cover designing, and interior layout, just to name a few. But the up-front work pays handsome dividends in the long run. Years from now, it's something your career will thank you for. With new print-on-demand technology, there are very little up-front costs in producing a book, since books are printed one at a time as they are purchased. With print-on-demand industry leader, CreateSpace (owned by Amazon.com), for about $40, you can upload your book via PDF file, and print one copy of your 100-page book for $2.15, glossy cover and all. You can buy them when you need them, one at a time or hundreds at a time. If you choose to sell your books to the public, rather than just handing them out like business cards, you can do that too. CreateSpace will automatically post your book on Amazon.com, making your book available for sale to the public world-wide, and you earn 60% of the list price, which is set by you. This is an excellent source of incremental income, particularly if you market the book to your target market. Simply stated, we have seen the barriers to entry in the book world completely eliminated. Anyone with drive, a message, and willingness to work can produce a book for almost no up-front costs. Fortunately for you, your competition will likely take the easy route, and avoid going the extra mile that book writing requires. But you don't need to hang back with the pack of 99%. Stop, put on your running shoes, and you'll outrun that bear. More on Careers
 
Joseph A. Palermo: President Obama Hits All the Right Notes in Cairo Top
President Barack Obama's speech today in Cairo hit all of the right notes and was exactly what he needed to say after eight years of saber rattling, racist diatribes about "Crusades," and Biblical quotes affixed to "Worldwide Intelligence Updates." For years we've heard mouthpieces from the American Right uttering every offensive slur against Arabs and Muslims imaginable. Obama's contrast in tone as he addressed directly the world's 1.2 billion Muslims could not have been further from the toxic mixture of arrogance and incompetence that characterized the Bush-Cheney years. Elliot Abrams emerged from Dick Cheney's dark nether regions of the federal government to write an op-ed in The Washington Post -- cited as important "news" by The New York Times' Ethan Bronner -- that Obama is betraying some kind of weird pact that Bush made with Ariel Sharon that allows for more Israeli settlements on Palestinian land, longer apartheid walls, and more lethal repression. Obama's reaching out to Arabs and Muslims, Abrams predictably sees, as undermining a set of failed policies he sees as sacrosanct. Abrams will probably end up on the right-wing talk show circuit pitching his bastard critique of Obama's needed shift in Middle East policy. And why not? He lied to Congress about his role in the Iran-contra scandal and along with John Bolton, Michael Ledeen, and others did all he could to yoke American foreign policy to the perceived interests of the Israeli Far Right. President Obama today telegraphed to the world that he understands that history is not on the side of neo-colonialism and the neo-conservatives who serve it. No nation -- not the United States, not Great Britain, and certainly not Israel -- can afford the pretense of remaking the world in its own image through military violence. Colonialism is dead. And no matter what Abrams or Ledeen or Bolton say about the matter, Obama recognizes that someday apartheid walls and military occupations will be seen as relics from a past era on par with the Berlin Wall and the Warsaw Pact. President Obama has taken the first tiny step today toward building a new mutually respectful relationship between the United States and the Arab and Muslim worlds. If they understand our point of view maybe they'll be more likely to help us guard against the religious nihilists who wage jihad against the West. But also perhaps Obama can begin to inoculate ourselves from the religious extremists in our own country -- people who assassinate abortion doctors or people in Israel who believe "god" gave them all the Palestinians' land. Obama has called for a "new beginning" in U.S. relations with the peoples of the Middle East and those who practice Islam worldwide. He seeks to move the world into the 21st Century and pull it out of the Bush-Cheney years that were characterized by the very 12th Century practices of torture, denial of habeas corpus, and aggressive war. More on Egypt
 
Sotomayor's Criminal Rulings Tilt To Right Of Souter Top
WASHINGTON -- While Judge Sonia Sotomayor stands in the liberal mainstream on many issues, her record suggests that the Supreme Court nominee could sometimes rule with the top court's conservatives on questions of criminal justice. More on Sonia Sotomayor
 
Johann Hari: Could We Be the Generation that Runs out of Fish? Top
In the babbling Babel of 24/7 news -- where elections, bailouts and beheadings blur into one long shriek -- the slow-motion stories that will define our age are often lost. An extraordinary documentary released next week, The End of the Line , forces us to stop, and see. Its story is stark. In my parents' lifetime, we have killed 90 percent of the world's fish. In my lifetime, we will finish off the rest -- unless we change our ways, fast. We are on course to be the people who wiped fish from the earth. The story begins in the sleepy Canadian resort of Newfoundland. It was the global capital of cod, a fishing town where the scaly creatures of the sea were so abundant they could be caught with your hands. But in the 1980s, something strange happened. The catches started to wane. The fish grew smaller. And then, in 1991, they disappeared. It turned out the cod had been hoovered out of the sea at such a rapid rate that they couldn't reproduce themselves. But the postscript is spookier still. The Canadian government banned any attempts at fishing there, on the assumption that the few remaining fish would slowly repopulate the waters. But fifteen years on, they haven't. The population was so destroyed that it could never recover. A growing number of scientists are warning that we could all be living in Newfoundland soon. Professor Boris Worm of Dalhousie University published a detailed study in the prestigious peer-reviewed journal Nature saying that at the current rate, all global fish populations will have collapsed by 2048. He says: "This isn't some horror scenario, it's a real possibility. It's not rocket science if we're depleting species after species. It's a finite resource. We'll reach a point where we run out." The species in the frontline is bluefin tuna, the pinnacle of the evolutionary chain for fish. This little creature can swim at 50 mph, and accelerate faster than the swishest sports car. It has even developed warm blood. Yet every year, a third of the remaining population is ripped from the seas and slapped onto our plates. Soon, it will be gone. All over the world, from the Bay of Bengal to Lake Victoria to the shores of South America, I have heard fishermen say their catches are shrinking, in size and in number. Industrial-scale fishing only began in the 1950s. By the standards of the news cycle, this is slow -- but by the standards of the planet or of settled fishing communities, this is a click of the fingers. The effects of the new industrial fishing are uniform. Professor Ransom Myers found that whenever the vast industrial trawlers are sent in, it takes just fifteen years to reduce the fish population to a 10 percent shadow of its former self. This process of trawlering is an oceanic weapon of mass destruction, ripping up everything in its path. Charles Clover, who wrote the book on which the documentary is based , has a good analogy for it. Imagine a band of hunters stringing a mile of net between two massive all-terrain vehicles and dragging it at speed across the plains of Africa. Imagine it scooping up everything in its way: lions and cheetahs and hippos and wild dogs. The net has a massive metal roller attached to its leading edge, smashing down every tree that gets in its way. And in the end, when the hunters open up the net, they pick out the choicest creatures and dump the squashed remains in the sun as carrion for the vultures. But we need fish. Our brains don't form properly without their fatty Omega-3 acids. So why do our governments allow this process of destruction to continue? Why do they actively encourage it, with $14 billion of subsidies for fishermen to keep on trawling every year? A small number of people are making a lot of short-term profit out of this destruction -- and they are using this cash to ensure they can carry on hunting, down to the last fish. In 1992, an attempt to get the bluefin tuna listed as an endangered species was scuppered by the US and Japanese governments at the urging of the tuna lobby -- who happen to give large campaign donations to all parties. A similar corruption has eaten into European politics. Add to this the fact that fishermen are a determined and demanding constituency with an equally short-term agenda. They demand the maximum quotas today -- even if that means no quotas tomorrow. Our societies are structured to put these short-term cries for money for a few ahead of the long terms needs of us all. A small determined group with hard cash almost always beats a diffuse group with good intentions -- until they get angry and fight back. Yet today, ordinary people in rich countries are being insulated from the fish crisis. As we exhaust our own fish stocks, our corporations are sailing out across the world to steal them from the poor. Today, there are armadas of industrial European and American fishing boats across the coast of West Africa, leaving the small fishermen who live on its coasts to starve. (A lot of the "piracy" we are fighting is in fact a desperate attempt to fight back against this .) Professor Daniel Pauly says: "It is like a hole burning through paper. As the hole expands, the edge is where the fisheries concentrate, until there is nowhere left to go." We are not only stealing fish from Africans; we are stealing them from future generations. In the age of limits, we are hitting up against the capacity of the planet to provide for us -- yet we are reacting with blank denial. This story is unfolding, in one from or another, in the rainforests , the air, and in the planet's climate itself. It has left us at a strange crossroads. We will either be a despised generation who left behind a depleted husk-planet -- or a heroic generation who, at five minutes to ecological midnight, turned back to the light. With fish, the solution is even simpler and more straightforward than with the other ecological crises ensnaring us. The scientific experts say we need to follow two steps. First, expand the 0.6 percent of the area of the world's oceans in which fishing is banned to 30 percent. In these protected areas, fish can slowly recover. Second, in the remaining 70 percent, impose strict quotas on fishermen and police it properly, as they do in Alaska, New Zealand and Iceland. The cost of this programme? $14 billion a year -- precisely the sum we currently spend on subsidising fishermen. At no extra cost, we could turn them from the rapists of the oceans into their guardians. Yet The End of the Line has one flaw -- and it is one that riddles current environmental thought. It presents us with a great earth-altering crisis, and then says our primary response should be to change our own personal consumption habits. It urges people not to buy from Nobu, which shamefully still sells bluefin tuna, and to ask if the fish we buy is sustainably produced. It's like the end of An Inconvenient Truth , where the primary response Al Gore presses on us is to shop green and change our lightblubs. Of course this is valuable -- but it is only an anemic and minor first step. It is rather like, in 1937, reacting to the rise of Nazism by urging people to make sure that they personally weren't killing any Jews or gays or Jehovah's Witnesses, or buying from any Nazi-owned companies. We needed collective action that would stop other people from killing these minorities -- just as today we need collective action that prevents anyone from irreparably trashing the means of life. At the moment, many good people get anxious about environmental issues, and hear the message that The Response is to scrub their own lifestyle clean. Yet individual voluntary action by a minority of nice people will not save the bluefin tuna, never mind the ecosystem. But if all these honorable people act together -- by volunteering for, and donating to, organizations like Greenpeace, Friends of the Earth and Plane Stupid -- they can change the law, so everybody will be required to change their behavior, not just a benevolent ten percent. It was just such determined minorities armed with the facts that spurred the fights against slavery, colonialism and fascism. When you respond as a consumer, you are weak; when you respond as a citizen, you are strong. The voice of millions of people can drown out the concentrated power of the fishing industry -- and all the other industries with a vested interest in trashing our planet -- but not with the swipe of a credit card. The alternative to collective action today is catastrophe tomorrow. As Charles Clover explains: "When the human population comes under pressure on land because of global warming, when we are running out of ways to feed ourselves, we [will] have just squandered one of the greatest resources on the planet -- wild fish." The epitaph for the human species would turn out to have been scripted by Douglas Adams: so long, and thanks for all the fish. Johann Hari is a writer for the Independent. To read more of his articles, click here or here.
 
Never-Before-Published Photo Of Tank Man Top
Terril Jones had only shown the photograph to friends.
 
AKMuckraker: "Screw Political Correctness" - Sarah Palin in Her Own Words. Top
When the call came a couple days ago, and my friend asked me the question, I immediately imagined myself in one of those ads that try to get you to join the Marines. "I wanted to see if I had what it takes. I wanted to prove to myself that I had the stuff ." You know the ones. The question? "Hey, do you want to go see Michael Reagan? I got tickets!" Now, I had already recently been to the Anchorage screening of John Ziegler's "Media Malpractice - How Obama Got Elected and Pain was Targeted," and I was still working out the toxins. If that was the obstacle course in my Conservative Boot Camp, then surely this would be the part where they take you into the back room for the waterboarding. Why? Sarah Palin was presenting the opening words. Last week when conservative talk show ignoramus Mancow said that waterboarding wasn't torture, and then volunteered to be waterboarded, they gave him a little plastic cow to hold; his safety cow. If it got to be too much, they told him, he could just toss the cow and they'd stop. He lasted 6 seconds. I knew I could do better than that. So off I went to the Alaska Center for the Performing Arts. It was 70 degrees and the sky was blue. As I took a deep breath and headed in to the darkened theatre, I wondered why I was doing this. Thoughts of aborting the mission ran through my mind. But, I settled in. I looked at the crowd. I spotted Lt. Governor Sean Parnell, and several State Legislators who had also come to this dark room, and bypassed soaking up the sun to soak up the words of wisdom from Ronald Reagan's eldest son. Finally the lights went down. First up, right wing radio personality Rick Rydell who told us that his love affair with Ronald Reagan started when he was a teenager and he was lying on the couch "in a drunken stupor," saw Reagan on TV and thought to himself, "I matter to somebody!" I'll file that away under "way too much personal information." It wasn't the first time that evening I would feel like the person on the stage should have been lying on a couch, and I should have my glasses on the end of my nose, scribbling in a notebook for $80 an hour. Then he started quoting Thomas Jefferson, and John Locke. I had a mind movie of raising my hand and hollering out, "You know Jefferson wasn't a Republican, right? Just sayin'!" Next up, Eddie Burke, the rightest of the right, and golden boy radio shock jock of the Palin administration. He introduced the governor. "Mother, wife, and fearless leader of the State of Alaska, Sarah Palin!" OK, I confess, I looked at the shoes. They were the giant cork wedge-heeled shiny red leather numbers she wore to the Memorial Day service in Fairbanks....with a black suit. She must really like those things. [/caption] I have, out of some sense of morbid fascination, typed for your reading displeasure, almost the entire text of what she said. It was 17 minutes long. (Emphasis on "long.") Everyone got your plastic cows? Let the waterboarding begin. (I'll make a couple interjections now and then so you're not in there all alone. You can just imagine sitting next to me in the theatre, and me leaning over and whispering into your ear, via a pair of parentheses, now and again...) We have an awesome guest, a guest who is affecting our culture in such a positive way. We need him to keep on being bold and we're counting on Michael Reagan to help educate America. (Should we keep count of how many times she says "bold?" I bet it's at least three.) I want to welcome tonight our good Lieutenant Governor Sean Parnell who I can't see, but I know he's here. (applause) My brother Chuck Heath is here, and my husband Alaska's First Dude Todd Palin is here somewhere. (applause) (I thought we weren't calling him that anymore. I guess "First Dude" is back in the lexicon.) So I have the honor of getting to speak with you for a bit here before I get to introduce to you Michael Reagan, and what I want to do in introducing Michael is to continue to encourage him to continue to be bold (I elbow you in the ribs) and to call it like he sees it, and to screw political correctness that some would expect him to have to adhere to. (Oh my God....did she just say "Screw Political Correctness?" Will there be t-shirts? Bumper stickers?) We want him to be bold . We need him to be bold . (We are stifling laughter) Mr. Reagan, we need your voice to be loud and strong, and we appreciate him. He doesn't shy away from the tough issues and that is so good. He never lets anyone tell him to sit down and shut up, and I would hope Alaska our voice too will be heard across this nation. I look forward to hearing from Michael Reagan tonight because America must learn from him, from his remarkable father, and that remarkable presidency. ("You're going to transcribe this, right?" you whisper. "Yeah, looks like I'm going to have to," I answer.) First, I think what we're going to learn tonight via Michael is that Ronald Reagan's ideas were the right ideas and all we have to do is look back at his record, his economic record and his national security record to know that his ideas were right. It was common sense conservativism. It was right then. It's right now. Recently, Newt Gingrich, he had written a good article about Reagan. He said, regarding your dad Michael, he said that we need to learn from his example that courage and persistence are keys to historic achievement and with Reagan's example, D.C. politicians calling the shots for our country, they had better rely on the good sense of the American people and bag their alliance on the entrenched beaurocrats and the elite self-proclaimed intellectuals, and the smug lobbyists who dominate Washington, and the liberal media that is imposing its will on Washington, embracing that status quo, that business as usual. It's not good for our country. (Did you bring a flask?) But, we have to remember first that Ronald Reagan never won any arguments in Washington. He won the arguments by resonating with the American people. Those of us so proud to be Americans, and willing to acknowledge that no, we're not a perfect nation, but never never do we have to apologize for being proud of our country. (applause) (What does that even mean??) So Ronald Reagan spoke to us then with us here in our hearts is where he reached us, and that's where he won the arguments and then, this was, this was the good part, we the American people through him, we imposed our will on Washington, and that is the way it's supposed to be. (I think that sentence may get the "Word Salad Award.") Our government is supposed to be working for us, we are not to be working for our government. It's our will to be imposed on them . (applause) He captured our hearts so he could affect positive change by what he did. He focused on our kids, on our children, on their future, on the future of America. And when he fought socialism and any sort of tyranny that he knew would ruin us, he stood strong on his knowing that the framework through which he believed that positive change that framework for our kids, it was freedom. (Wait.....no....maybe it was that one) Today the things that some in Washington would do to take away our freedoms, it's absolutely astounding, and we would do so well to look back on those Reagan years as he championed the cause for freedom and then he lived it out as our president - cheerfully, persistently and unapologetically. Reagan knew that real change and real change requiring shaking things up and maybe takin' off the entrenched interest thwarting the will of the people with their ignoring of our concerns about future peril caused by selfish short-sighted advocacy for growing government and digging more debt, and taking away individual and state's rights and hampering opportunity to responsibly develop our resources, and coddling those who would seek to harm America and her allies. (Nope. It's definitely THAT one!) What Newt had written in this article, he wrote "remember how refreshing it was with his outrageous directness that Americans loved, and praised and deserved" that Reagan dealt with, with then the troublesome Soviet Union, remember this? His vision for the Cold War? We win, they lose. (I snap a photo when she says "They lose," presumably pointing at "them." See above.) And with detente, speaking of detente, he used two words - "Evil Empire." He called it like he saw it, and now why today, I have to ask why today do we feel we have to pussyfoot around our troublesome foes, saying for example, the terrorists who still seek to kill Americans and destroy our allies. They haven't changed their tune. Terrorists are still dead set against us, and are set on destroying Israel, and against our freedoms, against our security and I've got a kid over there fighting for our country and our country's freedom right now. It is war over there so it will not be war over here, and it had better still be our mission that we win, they lose! (applause) (Hair raises on the back of my neck due to flashback of angry rallies during the presidential campaign. This is starting to feel oogy.) Now, on the economy, remember Reagan used to remind us that America was built on freedom and free enterprise, reward for strong work ethic. Some in Washington would approach our economic woes in ways that absolutely defy Economics 101, and they fly in the face of the principles providing opportunity for industrious Americans to succeed or to fail on their own accord. Those principles that we teach our children and employ in our own businesses and our own households to balance our budgets , and live within our means and financially secure our futures, and it makes you wonder what the heck some in Washington are trying to accomplish here? (I find my brain starting to feel a little dazed and sleepy... Talking points are starting to feel like verbal Xanax....) It's all really so backwards and skewed as to sound like absolute nonsense when some of this new economic policy is explained... (I pop back into alertness for a moment to commiserate with you about how hilarious that "it's really so backwards and skewed as to sound like absolute nonsense" would be on a t-shirt with her face on it. But then I slip back into semi-consciousness and only get every other sentence fragment.) [paraphrasing] Disincentivize businesses with threats of taking them over...bla bla...new administration is going to increase taxes...bla bla ... outrageous government growth...more taxes... "shooing away the jobs to foreign countries"...makes us more reliant on other countries....can't sustain new government 'largesse'... our kids and their kids and their kids and their kids kids...we need to employ "Reaganism" or we're all doomed..bla bla...erosion of free market opportunities...this shift is economically preposterous and immoral ...[end of paraphrasing] (Rubbing face briskly with hands, shaking out arms, and stretching in chair) Does anyone remember life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness? Because socialism...any kind of hint towards socialism, it takes away freedoms and opportunity and hope and then we do forget that life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness is inherent rights that God has provided us. (There she goes quoting that Democrat again. And I wonder if she thinks that the public library, the highway system, the police, the fire department and public schools take away our freedom and opportunity? Too bad she's not doing a Q&A.) I want to hit on one thing specific that I'm suggesting here and that's with the stimulus package. Alaskans have heard me talk a lot about this. (Oh, here we go.) You gotta ask yourself, what is this all about? The process even of creating the stimulus package. Congress being expected to vote on it without even knowing what was in it, but conservatives and Republicans in Congress, they looked at this debt-ridden gargantuan government growth plan and they voted against it. They didn't like it. They warned states that there were fat fat strings attached to these dollars, and there were strings, there are strings because that's inherent in federal spending. That's the nature of the beast. Of course there are strings attached, and so there were lots of warnings given to all the states that hey, unless your state is ready to chuck the 10th amendment, and you're going to hand over willingly more power control to big centralized government and to D.C. politicians who are going to tell you what to do in your state, the warning was, legislatures be careful with the temptation with the stimulus package dollars. They didn't like it then, but then when a bunch of us elected local officials we agreed with them, and you know we started seeing the press releases kinda braggin' up the bacon (Braggin' up the bacon?) that these hundreds of millions of billions of dollars, almost a trillion dollars total were going to bring into our states, the buckets of money, the borrowed money that would pour into the states. [long explanation about how it's all about the governors with "brave concerns" who tried to reject money and how they were painted like bad guys] And let's be honest... (Oh yes, please....let's.) states were made to look incompetent, almost unethical if they were staying consistent, and were still saying no to accepting some of those federal funds that don't necessarily stimulate the economy or create private sector jobs, as was being fed to us as. ( Made to look incompetent? Alas, I think the executive in this state didn't need much help in that department.) These are short-term expectation-building new beaurocratic growth spurts, and legislatures ended up resolving to take the money which it was contributing to more dizzying national debt. The mixed messages then the confusion and now frustration, disenchantment with the disenchantment from our own government, and look what happened when here in Alaska my administration, I vetoed the stimulus package, some of the dollars with obvious big government strings attached, and shoot, I just about got run out of town by some. (Maybe "some" will try harder next time...or have they become disenchanted with the disenchantment?) Friends, we need to be aware of the creation of a fearful population, and of fearful lawmakers being led to believe that big government is the answer to bail out the private sector because then goverment gets to get in there and control it and, mark my words, this is going to happen next I fear, (Be aware of fear!) bail out next debt-ridden states, then government gets to get in there and control the people, and watch what happens there. Michael, maybe you want to talk about your home state California. We'll see what happens there but you know it's.... aaaaa!.... for the love of God you've got to ask yourself where we got off track? (Well, that was quite dramatic....)
 
Andy Worthington: Death at Guantanamo Hovers Over Obama's Middle East Visit Top
In his speech in Egypt on Thursday, in which he promised "A new beginning," Barack Obama did not specifically mention the death of a prisoner at Guantánamo on Monday -- and the extent to which the prison's existence has soured relations between the United States and the Muslim world -- except to repeat his most concise promise to move on from the lawlessness of the Bush years: "I have unequivocally prohibited the use of torture by the United States, and I have ordered the prison at Guantánamo Bay closed by early next year." And yet, Guantánamo -- and recent events at the prison -- hovered unnervingly over the President's visit to the Middle East. A death at Guantánamo is always felt keenly in the Muslim world, and is also uncomfortable for the Obama administration, which, since reviewing conditions at the prison in January, claims that it is running a "humane" facility . Behind the rhetoric, however, the truth is still bleak. Guantánamo may look, more than ever, like a regular U.S. prison , with half of the remaining 239 prisoners now sharing communal facilities, and others, in two maximum security blocks, allowed limited opportunities to socialize, but the prisoners held there have, for the most part, been imprisoned without charge or trial for over seven years, unlike even the most hardened convicted criminals on the U.S. mainland. In addition, the widespread euphoria that greeted Obama's election victory, and the hope that it would result in the prison's swift closure, has turned to frustration, as only two prisoners ( Binyam Mohamed and Lakhdar Boumediene ) have been released in the last four months. Shane Kadidal, a lawyer with New York's Center for Constitutional Rights, explained that the prisoners were now saying, "At least Bush sent some people home," and further frustration has greeted news that Obama is considering proposing new legislation authorizing "preventive detention" for up to a hundred of the remaining prisoners, effectively legitimizing the Bush administration's detention policies. As a result, many of the prisoners, like Muhammad Salih, the Yemeni prisoner who died on Monday , apparently by committing suicide, have resorted to hunger strikes as the only means of protesting against their arbitrary and seemingly endless imprisonment. For these men, strapped into a restraint chair twice a day, and force-fed against their will via a tube that is thrust up their noses and into their stomachs, the prison is anything but "humane." Muhammad Salih was the fifth prisoner to commit suicide at Guantánamo, but the first under Obama's watch. In keeping with the president's desire to portray the prison in the best possible light, it is unlikely that anyone in the administration will make a comment to compare with a statement made by Rear Admiral Harry Harris, the commander of Guantánamo at the time of the first three deaths in June 2006, who said, "I believe this was not an act of desperation, but an act of asymmetric warfare committed against us." However, it is also unlikely that the government will come clean about Muhammad Salih's status, and concede that there is no evidence that he even remotely resembled one of the fabled "terror suspects" whom the prison was ostensibly established to hold. Salih himself admitted that he had traveled to Afghanistan many months before the 9/11 attacks, to fight as a foot soldier for the Taliban against the Muslims of the Northern Alliance in Afghanistan's long-running civil war. When the U.S. military reviewed his case at Guantánamo in 2004, he acknowledged being a member of the Taliban, but made a point of adding, "Yes, but that doesn't mean I supported Osama bin Laden." With no information to indicate that Muhammad Salih was connected to al-Qaeda's terrorist activities, his death should serve as another important reminder that the Bush administration's policy of subjecting prisoners to arbitrary detention as "enemy combatants" has been a wretched failure. Had the former regime obeyed domestic and international laws, it would have held those regarded as terrorists as criminal suspects, to be prosecuted in federal courts, and, after adequate screening (which never took place ) would have held other combatants as prisoners of war, according to the Geneva Conventions. If this had happened, we would now be discussing whether it was feasible to imprison someone until the end of hostilities in a "war" whose supporters regard it as a struggle that might last for generations, and the answer, of course, would be no. Muhammad Salih, a foot soldier in another war, which preceded the 9/11 attacks, and had nothing to do with international terrorism, had been imprisoned for longer than the duration of the Second World War when his life ended in Guantánamo, even though the circumstances in which he was captured -- during the overthrow of the Taliban and the establishment of a new Afghan government -- came to an end no later than 3 November 2004, when Hamid Karzai was elected as President . Although the response to Muhammad Salih's death has been muted in the West, and did not surface publicly in the Middle East during President Obama's visit, the ripples from the latest death in Guantánamo -- and, no doubt, rumors that Salih was killed, or, perhaps more convincingly, that he died as a result of years of brutal force-feeding -- surely made themselves felt behind the scenes. If Obama truly wishes to distance himself from the lawless initiatives of his predecessor, he needs to think deeply about an appropriate response, and will, I hope, reflect on the distinction between terror suspects and foot soldiers, rethink what "preventive detention" really means, and, above all, move swiftly to release more prisoners before there are any other deaths at Guantánamo. Andy Worthington is the author of The Guantánamo Files: The Stories of the 774 Detainees in America's Illegal Prison (published by Pluto Press), and maintains a blog here . More on Obama Mideast Trip
 
Christal Smith: Lisa Ling on her Sister's dentention in North Korea Top
By Christal Smith and Angela Shelley in Santa Monica Friends and family of the detained US journalists Laura Ling and Euna Lee--reporters who were detained in North Korea three months ago--are finally speaking out. The two women were on assignment for Current TV on the North Korea/China Border when they were detained by North Korean border guards and they have been held in isolation since then. The families stayed silent until now, hoping that diplomacy would prevail, but on the eve of the journalists' trial an impassioned phone call from Laura to her sister Lisa Ling brought them to action. Yesterday rallies were held across the nation-- in Birmingham, Chicago, New York, Portland, San Francisco Santa Monica and Washington DC-- and this time the families' message was loud and clear: keep this issue separate from any geopolitical standoffs and send the women home safely. Lisa Ling-Laura's older sister - a well known journalist has also done reporting for a show I work on called SoCal Connected which airs on PBS affiliate KCET. Yesterday our colleague, KCET producer Angela Shelley, was at the Santa Monica candlelight vigil and was able to interview Lisa about the only phone call she got from her sister: AS: How did you get that phone call? LL : The call came completely unexpected.....I of course instantly recognized my best friends' trembling voice and she said 'I need help.' She sounded really scared. And even in this extremely emotional state she very specifically asked for diplomacy between our two countries. She said, 'look I know you have been trying to ask other countries to help, but the only thing that could possibly help us is if our two countries communicate.' And I said, 'we have been really quiet.' And she said, 'maybe it's been too quiet.' We specifically were not talking to the press because the situation is so sensitive and we have been trying to allow diplomacy to take its course. AS: It's been hard to be quiet hasn't it? LL: It's been really hard to be quiet because all the news reports just kind of said two U.S. journalists...and I don't think people realized that one is my little sister who has a serious medical condition. She's had a recurring ulcer for almost two years now and you know Lee is the mother of an extraordinarily beautiful four-year-old daughter who misses her mother desperately. That has been the hard thing--we haven't been able to just let people know who they are. Laura is incredibly smart and selfless and kind. She is the one person in the family that people just kind of gravitate to... I think--although my cousins will get jealous--that she was my grandmother's favorite. Just because she spent that time that, you know, we all find ourselves too busy to spend and that's how Laura is. She is just a very selfless person. AS: Do you think Laura would be surprised right now by everything that is going on? What do you think she would make of all of this? LL: I think if my sister came right now and saw all of this going on for her she would almost be really embarrassed because she is someone who does not have a very overt personality ..but now given the nuclear tensions; we just felt it was time. AS: Were you yourself surprised by how she sounded? Have you ever heard her sound like that before? LL: No. I've never heard my sister in...that kind of anguish. I mean it was clear that she has just have been so lonely and isolated and hearing her voice so unexpectedly you know it was so...I was so thrilled to just hear her voice but by the same token hearing her so scared and feeling so helpless was one of the most debilitating feelings I've ever had. AS: Could you have ever imagined that this would happen to you yet it happened to her? LL: My parents actually thought that something like this would happen to me before it would happen to her... and being the big sister it is devastating. I mean my sister is my best friend on earth. And so to not be able to protect her is a really difficult thing. AS: You think she is also--without even knowing-- probably trying to follow in your footsteps? Don't you think? LL: Well, she is a really strong girl. She and I have been fortunate to be able to be exposed to incredibly important stories in the world and we feel very strongly about it. And I know that my sister had only the most earnest intent in all of the work that she does and we know-- our family knows definitively--that when they left the United States they never intended to cross the border into North Korea. Absolutely not--and if at any point they did, then we apologize on their behalf; we profusely apologize. AS: Do you know if any of this is getting through to the North Koreans? LL: I hope that we are able to communicate to them our deep, deep apology for whatever may have happened on that border. If at any point the girls did cross into North Korea then we are so sorry and we beg the North Korean government to allow the girls to come home to their families. AS: Has there been any ray of hope? Anything officially from the Korean government? LL: You know it goes back and forth and until our governments are able to communicate directly, we are not going to know. We are hoping they are trying to communicate but at this point we don't know. We are still hopeful though. We are hoping that there will be a positive resolution to all of this. AS: What does it mean to you to see all of this support today? LL: Well this is amazing. You know this vigil and all of the vigils that happened all over the country today were the result of this grassroots movement that started on Facebook. And our family just felt like today, when the girls are standing trial. we wanted to be amongst people who are showing support for them. AS: When she gets home, what's going to happen? What are you going to do? LL: When Laura comes home we are going to lock her up in her home; her brand new home that she and her husband had been saving for for twelve years--that she has only spent three months in. And just allow her to get reacclimated very slowly and just love her...deeply. As of this posting the only news out of North Korea is that the trial did indeed begin on Thursday. If convicted the women could be sentenced to up to 10 years in a labor camp. For updates: Bring Laura and Euna Home Reporters Without Borders Korean Central News Agency Photos: Anne Lilburn More on North Korea
 
Zainab Salbi: An Update: President Obama's Speech and the Struggle of Iraqi Women Today Top
In 1951, Ali Al-Wardi, one of Iraq's most respected historians and social anthropologists, wrote about the need to lift women's seclusion and the necessity of women's full inclusion in all aspects of the public life in Iraq. He argued that gender equality was one of the major prerequisites for a healthy Iraqi society that eliminates the dualism caused by the seclusion of women and systematic encouragement of segregation and separation of men and women. Nearly 60 years later, Iraq is witnessing more seclusion of women than ever, more suppression of women's rights than ever, and the near total disappearance of a female presence in the public sphere. This is a dangerous phenomenon that should not be taken lightly. Women are a bellwether for society and no progress can be achieved in any country, let alone Iraq, if women are continually suppressed and hidden from the public sphere with little or no rights or freedoms. In my recent visit to Iraq in May of this year, I was saddened to learn the extent to which women status has detracted in the country. Legally, women's rights remained unprotected. The Family Status Law, written in 1959 and shaped by legal scholars of a similar mind to Al-Wardi, had been practically erased by the new Iraqi constitution of 2004. Those who wrote the 1959 Family Status Law wrote about the need for a consistent, centralized law that ensured the protection of all women in Iraq as a vision for progress in the country. While the 1959 legislation and its Hussein-era amendments left much room for improvement, the Family Status Law protected Iraqi women's rights in many ways from establishing the legal marriage age at 18, to creating barriers, polygamy, specifying a woman's right to maintain her lifestyle upon her marriage, and asserting a women's right divorce her husband. The Family Status Law was written under the auspices of Islamic law with an intent to gear away from sectarian laws that suppressed women's public participation and basic human rights established in many other Muslim countries at the time. I must admit that Women for Women International was one of the leading organizations advocating for a radical improvement of the law during the constitutional writing process of 2004. Learning from different experiences in working in conflict and post-conflict environments, we have always been well aware that war and its rebuilding process present a window of opportunity for improvements in women's access to resources and representation in the public sphere generally articulated in Family Status Law. As an organization, we made sure to introduce members of the Iraqi constitutional writing committee to those who participated in the writing of the Malaysian Family Law, Egyptian, Moroccan, South African and even post-genocide Rwandese law with the hope that cross-cultural collaboration would facilitate the protection of women's rights within an Islamic context. Little did we know that all the training and the sharing of experiences would have no impact on the writing of the new constitution; the constitutional writing committee executed a decentralized Family Law that leaves every Iraqi woman's status vulnerable to varied interpretations by men in different provinces of Iraq. In my opinion, decentralization overlooked the historic importance of centralization of the 1959 Family Status Law, which in 2004 was erased and replaced with different versions from one province to another. This has many implications. It means that different women in Iraq have different access to their rights depending on where they are living. In the absence of a unified vision for Iraq's future and a central government with qualified lawmakers who understand how the law can learn from other Muslim countries, it means Iraqi women have been left vulnerable to the consequences of a young nation suffering from a weakened legal infrastructure and a institutionalized role for religious leaders never before realized in modern Iraqi history. Finally, according to Hana'a Edwar, a leading Iraqi women's rights activist, the new law expressed in article 41 contradicts the specification of equality for women and men in the new Iraqi constitution. While I am not necessarily qualified to comment on the relative merits of legal decentralization, I have seen with my own eyes the consequences it has had on the women of Iraq when it allows laws to be blindly applied without consistency. Unfortunately, the protection of women's rights is rarely seen as a vital element of nation building, though women represent between 55 and 65 percent (depending on various data). I fail to see how Iraq can have a strong economy, strong democracy or strong nation overall while over half its population remains excluded from public participation without access to resources. President Obama's speech in Cairo yesterday illustrates that it is prudent that the United States help Iraqi women in their struggle for a centralized Family Status Law that balances between respect of Islam as a religion, all the religious groups of Iraq, and women's rights as equal citizens. The connection the president made to women's rights, access to education, economic opportunity and building peace, stability, and stronger nations in the Muslim world underscores the importance of this. We cannot fail Iraqi women in this particular time in history, for they have lost too much ground over the last six years in terms of rights, mobility, access to and representation in the public sphere, employment opportunities, and personal security and stability. It is time to help Iraqi women, to support them as they move toward leadership and to enshrine their rights in the Iraqi constitution. More on Iraq
 

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