Wednesday, June 17, 2009

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Major Military Academies Report Significant Rise in Applicants Top
The nation's three major military academies said Wednesday that applications for the incoming Class of 2013 were up significantly from previous years, citing aggressive marketing, declining casualties in Iraq and the economic downturn as factors.
 
Cocaine Smuggled Inside Dead Sharks Top
MEXICO CITY — Mexico says it found nearly one ton of cocaine hidden inside frozen shark carcasses. Prosecutors says hundreds of packages stuffed in the bellies of dozens of dead sharks seized in the Gulf port of Progreso contained 1,965 pounds (893 kilograms) of cocaine. The Attorney General's Office says the sharks were found in two containers on Tuesday. The containers had been shipped from Costa Rica. There was no immediate information on its intended destination. The 870 packages were found wrapped in plastic and inserted in the sharks. Drug traffickers are increasingly shipping drugs bound for the U.S. market through Central America. The prosecutors comments were made on Wednesday.
 
33 premature babies feared exposed to swine flu Top
GREENSBORO, N.C. — Thirty-three infants born prematurely at a North Carolina hospital are receiving precautionary swine flu treatment after possibly being exposed to the virus by a respiratory therapist. Moses Cone Health System officials said Wednesday that none of the infants in a neonatal intensive care unit at the Women's Hospital of Greensboro has symptoms of the disease. The infants are being quarantined from other babies. Medical Director Dr. Tim Lane said the therapist treated a patient who later tested positive for the virus. The therapist worked a shift in the babies' unit several days later. It's common for the therapists to treat patients of all ages. The staffer is at home, and swine flu test results for her are expected Thursday or Friday. More on Swine Flu
 
Diane Tucker: Iranian Women: We Feel Cheated, Frustrated, And Betrayed Top
Look closely at the images of mass demonstrations taking place in Iran this week and you will see them: thousands of brave Iranian women taking to the streets to protest an election they feel was stolen. "We feel cheated, frustrated and betrayed," said an Iranian woman in a message widely circulated on Facebook. For these wives, mothers, sisters and daughters, the drive to oust Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has everything to do with their demand for equal rights. These women had invested their hopes in presidential candidate Mir-Hossein Mousavi, who pledged to reform laws that treat women unfairly. Currently, an Iranian woman's testimony in court carries only half the weight of a man's, and women do not have equal divorce, child custody, or inheritance rights either. Mousavi is popular with many female voters, but his wife Zahra Rahnavard might have even more fans. Iran's top-ranking female professor is a crowd-pleaser at political at events, where she is anything but invisible and not afraid to speak her mind. For example, when Ahmadinejad accused Rahnavard of skirting government rules to earn her advanced degrees -- a masters in art, and a masters and a doctorate in political science -- she publicly reprimanded him. The Los Angeles Times reported Rahnavard's won't-back-down rebuttal: Either [Ahmadinejad] cannot tolerate highly educated women, or he's discouraging women from playing an active role in society. Thousands have heeded Rahnavard's call to take to their rooftops and chant " Allahu Akbar " -- a rallying cry of the 1979 Islamic Revolution. In this unforgettable late night video, the woman speaking during the chanting is saying, "Take our phones, our internet...all our communication away, but we are showing that by saying alloho akbar we can find each other." The current regime feels threatened by peaceful female activism. They have branded as illegal the One Million Signatures Campaign initiated by women's rights activists in Iran to demand changes to discriminatory laws against women in that country. Dozens of women involved in the campaign have been harassed and jailed by the government. One of Iran's leading women's rights activists Sussan Tahmasebi told NPR that this election marks the first time that reform of women's rights has been addressed in such detail. "Candidates have moved beyond vague slogans that emphasize the high cultural and religious value placed on women, to addressing specifically the demands voiced by women's right activists. This shift demonstrates the importance and vitality of the Iranian women's movement and in particular the achievements of the One Million Signatures Campaign." Before the current government blackout, Iranian women were a force in the country's blogosphere -- the largest in the Middle East. This photo posted as a TwitPic on Twitter received more than 82,788 views on just one of the many sites it is on: The courage of these women to confront Iran's patriarchal theocracy -- in which morality police still roam the streets looking for women wearing make-up -- may have been a "big reason why the regime rigged the vote count -- and why supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was forced to make a show of ordering a probe of the fraud," said the editorial board of the Christian Science Monitor in an op/ed posted on Monday. More on Iran
 
Yoani Sanchez: Iranians Denounce Injustice, Provide Lessons to Cuban Bloggers [VIDEO] Top
What is happening in Iran and its dissemination through the Internet is a lesson for Cuban bloggers. The authoritarians of the court also must be taking note of what great dangers result from--in these events--Twitter, Facebook, and mobile phones. Seeing those young Iranians use all the technology to denounce the injustice, I notice everything that we lack to support those who maintain blogs from the island. The acid test of our incipient virtual community has not yet arrived, but maybe it will surprise us tomorrow... with the aggravation of low connectivity. In our blogger meetings, which we hold every week, we watched a small video about the Iranian cybernauts. I watched it again today in lieu of the images of the demonstrations that our official television refuses to show. I haven't contemplated the faces painted green, nor heard any announcer speak of the seven dead, but with this brief animated short I can imagine everything. I visualize an entire generation weary of old structures that it wants to change, a people--like me--who has ceased to believe in enlightened leaders who lead us like cattle. In the midst of all this, to our satisfaction, are the bytes and screens modifying the form of protest. On days like this I greatly regret not being able to be online; I feel like I'm choking having to wait to hear all the news. If there's still time for me to extend my solidarity to the Iranian bloggers, then here is a post to tell them: "Today it's you, tomorrow it could well be us." More on Twitter
 
Louise McCready: The Barefoot Contessa Discusses Entertaining the First Family and Shopping Like the French Top
Ina Garten, better known as the Barefoot Contessa has spent her culinary career emphasizing simple meals and quality ingredients. Today, as Americans debate whether local or organic is better, the Obamas planted a vegetable garden on the White House lawn, and Slow Food is gaining popularity, Garten's philosophy seems prescient. Recently, she took time from her busy schedule to discuss how she evolved from spending a week preparing for a dinner party to making edible centerpieces. LM: I read that your mother always insisted you focus on schoolwork rather than have you help in the kitchen. Do you remember cooking anything in particular before your inspirational four-month camping trip with your husband around France. IG: When I got married, I hadn't cooked a thing. The camping trip was a few years after we got married but I do remember when I started cooking I wanted to make very complicated things. If a recipe didn't have 2 ingredients that were recipes themselves, I wasn't interested. I loved making my own challah just to prove that I could! I had dinner parties that took a week to make—and I was in heaven. LM: After moving back to D.C. after the camping trip, you bought volumes 1 and 2 of Julia Child's Mastering the Art of French Cooking . What other cookbooks did you either find inspirational or helpful early on? IG: The first cookbook I ever bought was Craig Claiborne's New York Times Cookbook , which is extraordinary because there are two or three recipes on every page and they're all wonderful. That was my basic cookbook. I particularly loved that some of the recipes are classics like southern fried chicken and apple crisp but many are international—I think it was the first time I made chicken liver pate and moussaka. LM: Lydie Marshall taught you to respect the essence of ingredients, and then many decades later, having an apartment in Paris, you learned how to shop for groceries like a French woman—buying what's in season. You've said that people always ask you what the new food trends are, but food trends don't interest you because you'd like to get back to basics. I doubt you'd consider basics trendy, but Americans now call people who shop and eat like Parisians "locavores." Why are people increasingly drawn to going back to the basics and a more simple way of cooking? IG: I think there are two ways of eating, or cooking. One is restaurant food and one is home food. I believe that people have started making food that is easy that you want to eat at home. When you go out to a restaurant, you want to be challenged, you want to taste something new, you want to be excited. But when you eat at home, you want something that's delicious and comforting. I've always liked that kind of food—and frankly, that's also what I want to eat when I go out to restaurants, but maybe that's me. LM: You talk about the integrity of ingredients and working to bring their intrinsic, natural flavor out. What chefs do you feel highlight the natural flavors of their ingredients? IG: I love Danny Meyer's restaurants Union Square Cafe and Gramercy Tavern . I also love Eli Zabar's Taste and Dan Barber 's Blue Hill. They all believe in serving the most delicious food from the best quality ingredients, and in season. Daniel Boulud 's Cafe Boulud is the same thing—I could eat there every night. It's stunningly delicious but also simple. I never want to be served something weird that makes me ask, "What is this?" LM: For the novice who wants to start cooking, what basic utensils would you suggest they start with? IG: A set of good sharp Wusthof knife. A KitchenAid mixer. A Cuisinart food processor. All-clad and Le Creuset pots. And a whole stack of half sheet pans. LM: What one cooking tool or appliance do you use most often in your cooking? IG: My knives. LM: What are the most versatile ingredients that you keep on hand? IG: My go-to ingredients to add flavor to things are: salt, pepper, Parmesan cheese, freshly squeezed lemon juice plus good vinegars and a drizzle of olive oil. LM: What dish would you recommend to a greenhorn cook who is trying to master one dish, would you suggest any one dish to start with? IG: Roast chicken. It's in my first book, The Barefoot Contessa Cookbook , with carrots, fennel and potatoes cooked in the roasting pan—it's an entire meal and it's absolutely delicious. LM: If you were entertaining President Barack Obama and his family at your home, what would you serve? IG: I would make something really simple that I can make without breaking a sweat. My favorite meal right now is roasted capon, which I'd serve with tagliarelle with white truffle butter—it's in my new book, Barefoot Contessa Back to Basics , plus lots of roasted carrots. I would finish with a wow dessert like Red Berry Pavlova. LM: That sounds delicious. IG: It's not fancy, but it's still very special and I wouldn't have a melt-down making it. I'd want to be relaxed so I could have a good time with the Obamas! LM: I know you also talk about setting a table and flowers, is there any sort of special arrangement or place setting? IG: It's easy to spend as much time setting the table as you do making dinner! I keep it easy—fresh flowers cut short in drinking glasses, votive candles, and dishes with good chocolates and fresh strawberries all casually placed in the middle of the table. It's simple, it's pretty, and then have treats to eat with dessert! LM: How has increased awareness of food and new movies, such as Food, Inc. and Fresh , which look at the food industry in the U.S., will affect the style of cooking in the U.S.? IG: With more and more fast food available, it takes an extra effort to cook delicious, healthy meals. I have always been a proponent of simple, easy food that doesn't take forever to cook so you really can eat well at home. Michael Pollen and all the other books about the subject have made us even more keenly aware of how important it is—not to mention that it's so much more pleasurable to eat with friends and family around a dinner table rather than wolfing down a take-out hamburger alone in front of a computer screen. 
 
 More on Barack Obama
 
Derek Flood: Iran's Elections: Dear Supreme Leader... Top
Tehran is burning. No, not with the odd motorcycle or public bus melting into the asphalt in the aftermath of thousands-strong demonstrations. Tehran is burning with the desires and aspirations of its burgeoning post-revolutionary youth who cannot stand to chafe under the stagnant "Revolution" one moment longer. This is not about America or its beloved Israel. Nor is about about proxy warriors in Lebanon or proxy sufferers in Gaza. This is about the people of Iran attempting to forge a way forward despite four years of abysmal Ahmadinejad leadership, a global recession and a litany of tired foreign policy cliches. It gets quite old chanting "Death to America" when the opposition candidate has the same middle name as the American President. Mir Hossein Mousavi is not exactly a child of the Enlightenment. He presided as Prime Minister over an eight year grudge match with Iraq over a patchwork of berms, mud brick villages and oil slicked waterways that ruined both Iran and Iraq and killed approximately a million people. But he has reconfigured his platform as that of a Khatami-allied reformist. Iran does not appear to be in the midst of another revolution. It is doubtful prostitutes will be burned alive or Basiji leaders executed by firing squad. Those violent hallmarks of the Khomenist takeover thirty years ago that helped to entrench a begrudging Ayatollah have little relevance today. What we are seeing is an attempt at transformation, a post-revolution, by an intelligent and decent populace that has become exhausted at its pointless isolation. It turns out that Ayatollah Ali Khameni, Khomeni's bespectacled and much less charismatic successor, is not irrefutable. Nor is is he, as it turns out, infallible. The boulevards of Tehran and Esfahan, Shiraz, Tabriz, and probably every other large city are filling with people seeking change rather than an overthrow. Vocal GOP members aside, America has virtually no credibility to make a stand here. After eight years of pseudo-democratic evangelism by the Bush White House and its rogue's gallery of champions at places like the American Enterprise Institute, our rhetoric on human rights is still running on the fumes. With skeletons still in our closet from the Muhammad Mossadegh overthrow in 1953 and our cooperate support of Shah Reza Pahlavi and his despised SAVAK internal intelligence apparatus during the Cold War, America barely has a leg to stand on when the Iranian opposition would enjoy our support the most. The Iranian power structure, headed by the Supreme Leader, seems to flailing in its response to the 6/12 crisis. It cannot simply crush this e-revolt. As we have now seen, the Iranian leadership is not the stolid Shia monolith it has been painted to be from afar. Among the flowing cloaks and binary white or black turbans, dissent is showing through. Ayatollah Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, a former Iranian President, Islamic scholar and Persian pragmatist, lost the last election to Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in 2005. Understatedly, Rafsanjani is no acolyte of Ahmadinejad's shirtsleeves politicking and third world pandering. Both Ahmadinejad and Khamenei realize that Rafasanjani, by heading the Assembly of Experts, wields enormous backstage power. The Assembly of Experts is the Shia religious body that elects the Supreme Leader through consensus in Iran's Shia spiritual capital of Qom. Though unconfirmed, the notion of a meeting of the Assembly of Experts in Qom, could reverberate through the halls of the seminaries and ministries to great effect. Ayatollah Ali Khamenei occupies a key role in both American and Israeli policy by default. His implacable place as an unelected leader with ultimate veto power over the President and the majlis(parliament) provides the perfect rationale for those with aggressive and fear mongering views on Iran's nuclear program and its neighboring guerrilla clients in the Levant and the rest of Islamic Asia who have strengthened Iran's external hand. Ahmadinejad staying in power provides a perfect negative pole for defense hawks looking to retread the Axis of Evil. A Mousavi win would put discredited neoconservatives into a grey area in their Iran policy prescriptions and would require a difficult rethink that many pundits and think tankers (including those who've literally never set foot in Iran, you know who you are) are not inclined to do. But can even a man who refers to himself as the "Supreme Leader" withstand a sustained, non-violent insurrection of millions of his subjects in the leafy, carbon clogged boulevards of every major Iranian city without being affected? It remains to be seen if this tension will be dispersed with mass violence like that of Tiananmen Square in 1989 or whether an accord will be reached altering Iran's trajectory away from its millenarian dogma captained by the Mahdi -ist Ahmadinejad toward a true dialogue of civilizations. So Dear Supreme Leader Khamenei, it may be wise to reconsider while you have the opportunity. The world is waiting. Visit my site: The War Diaries More on Iranian Election
 
Jon & Kate Spotted TOGETHER With The Kids Top
Jon and Kate Gosselin reunited Wednesday for a playdate with their kids. The two were photographed together outside their $1.1 million home in Wernersville, Pa. Jon was spotted kissing two of his daughters on the head as Kate (with her staple cup of Starbucks) played with the others. The couple did not show any affection toward each other. More on Jon & Kate Plus 8
 
Ryan Reynolds Shirtless For EW: Calls Sex Symbol Status "Really Embarrassing" Top
Ryan Reynolds is helping promote his Sandra Bullock romantic comedy "The Proposal" (opening June 19) by gracing the cover of Entertainment Weekly with four differently themed covers, just one of which is seen below. Inside, the newlywed (to Scarlett Johansseon) opens up about being a sex symbol, a working actor and not playing videogames. On being a sex symbol: "Really embarrassing. I think I fear more than anything just sounding like a complete a-hole when I have to answer that question. If you take any of that seriously, you need to be euthanized, ASAP." On being an actor: "I've always just liked working. I like being a working actor. There's an old saying that you don't ever finish a movie, you abandon it, and I really believe that. I never walk away from a take and pat myself on the back. You always walk away going, 'Damnit, I should have tried this!' It's that possibility that keeps me coming back for more." On favorite TV Show, A&E's Intervention: "Real schadenfreude stuff. The first season or two is all about alcoholics and heroin addicts, but then as the seasons progress, they feel the need to sensationalize it a bit. So by Season 5, you get to people who are chemically unable to experience joy unless they're smoking a cat, or something equally disturbing. I love it." On video games: I don't really play video games. Is there a way to waste more f--ing time? The internet's enough. The last videogame I played was Ms. Pacman." More on Celebrity Skin
 
James Boyce: MATISYAHU, K'NAAN, AND (RED)NIGHTS HIT LOS ANGELES Top
Last night in Los Angeles, I had a chance to go to my first (RED)NIGHTS show at the Wiltern Theatre. This particular date of the new concert series from (RED) featured performances by hasidic hip-hop/reggae star Matisyahu and recent up-and-comer K'naan, who enthralled the audience with plenty of positive and up tempo music, as well as reminding them exactly why they were there in the first place: to save lives. During a short break halfway through his set, Matisiyahu paused to thank the audience for contributing to (RED) by attending the show, explaining that a portion of each ticket sale helps people suffering from HIV in Africa get the medicine they need to stay alive. This action did not slip under the radar of the concertgoers in the room, as they cheered and applauded loudly the moment (RED) was mentioned. The (RED)NIGHTS shows are a part of an effort from (RED) to donate $130 million to The Global Fund, an organization that currently provides a quarter of all international financing for AIDS worldwide. In 2009 they will collaborate with artists such as Fall Out Boy, Katy Perry, The All-American Rejects and many more to turn 26 shows (RED). To find out where you can attend a (RED)NIGHT close to you, there is a list of upcoming shows here . Here I am backstage with Matisyahu and K'naan, as well as Spencer Kent who also works at Common Sense NMS . The show was great, and the atmosphere in the Wiltern was unreal. The crowd was physically responsive to all the performers who took the stage throughout the night, dancing and singing along to almost every song that was played. As the lights dimmed before each musician came on, the only light still visibly shining was the (RED)NIGHTS logo illuminated on the walls, a symbol that even amongst something as bleak and devastating like AIDS and HIV, there is still hope. More on HIV/AIDS
 
'Angels & Demons' The #1 Film This Year Worldwide Top
Sony's "Angels and Demons" is the latest striking example of a title that works much better overseas. The sequel to "The Da Vinci Code" has grossed $319 million at the international box office. That's nearly $200 million more than the film's $123.2 million domestic gross (through Sunday).
 
Rohrabacher: Obama Is A "Cream Puff" For Not Interfering In Iran Top
Yesterday, President Obama explained his relative public silence with regard to the situation in Iran, saying, "It's not productive, given the history of U.S.-Iranian relations, to be seen as meddling, the U.S. president meddling in Iranian elections." Later in the day, on Radio America's Dateline Washington, Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-CA) responded to Obama's measured statements on Iran by calling him a "cream puff" and predicting that under Obama's leadership "things" will get "very bad, very quickly":
 
City Backs Off Bears Fans Over Taxes Top
Bears fans who bought permanent seat licenses for the right to buy season tickets at Soldier Field are off the hook for back taxes -- at least for now.
 
David Horton: Get Yourself a Gun Top
Whenever the madness of massive gun ownership is challenged you can bet one of the first responses will be "How dare you libruls try to stop us enjoying the healthy and natural sport of hunting with our children", or words to that effect. But this is one of those many issues on which I find it hard to empathize with my conservative fellow human beings. I can't imagine ever training a gun on an animal peacefully going about its business, getting on with its life, and then squeezing the trigger and blowing its brains out or bursting its heart, blood spattered over the great outdoors. This is at its most obscene in the practice of "Internet hunting" where you can do the same thing from the comfort of your home at the click of a mouse button. But it has no less horror for coming at the end of a long healthy hike through the woods with your oldest son clutching his first hunting rifle and chatting happily about the meaning of life. How does it enter the soul, this comfortable, but triumphant, death-dealing? How do hunters get away with the euphemism that slaughter of other living beings is not only "sport", but an essential part of being human, and not to be restricted in any way? At least some of the blame goes to the religious ideology that trumpets human dominion over all living things. If we have some kind of supreme authority over the world, then, rather like a prison guard and his inmates, we can do anything we like to that world. Animals, in this view, live only so long as we choose to allow them to do so. They have no right to life of their own, all of their rights are given by us and can be instantly revoked at a whim. But there is even more to it I think. Even if you believe that your imaginary friend made you a lord of the universe, it still remains that pressing that trigger, shooting that crossbow, ending that life, requires a complete absence of empathy with another living being. Requires that you not even consider the pain and then oblivion of the animal itself, or the pain and grief of the family and other group members left behind. And such lack of empathy can only come, surely, if you recognize no kinship between yourself and that wolf, that moose, that seal, that duck, that gorilla, that kangaroo. Recognize no shared emotions, feelings, ideas, sensations; no commonality of life. And for that to be true you must, surely, see yourself as having been created separately. For even the most cursory knowledge of evolution would make you unable to pull that trigger on creatures who, being your relatives, have so much in common with you. Is the "intelligent design" movement just an alibi for killing? Plenty of empathy, though not for hunters, at The Watermelon Blog .
 
Carol Felsenthal: Obama Girls' Godmother Among Members Of Prestigious White House Commission Top
As Lynn Sweet reports in her Sun-Times blog , the list of the 28 members of the President's Commission on White House Fellows is out. Among the Chicago names are Facing History guru Judy Wise, the founder of the group's Chicago office, formerly its executive director, an early supporter of Barack Obama, and a member of his National Finance Committee (and a close friend of mine) and Bryan Traubert, an ophthalmologist, member of many nonprofit boards, and husband of Obama campaign finance chairman Penny Pritzker. Another Chicago name on the list, Eleanor Kaye Wilson, caught my eye. When I was writing a profile of Michelle for Chicago magazine , I tried but failed to land an interview with Ms. Wilson, known affectionately by the Obamas as "Mama Kaye." Ms. Kaye's bio on the White House press release describes her as an educator whose work has included stints at DePaul University's School for New Learning and at the Chicago City Colleges system, "where she developed ... a welfare-to-work education and training program for General Assistance participants." Ms. Wilson, who lives in Olympia Fields, is the Obama girls' godmother as well as a friend and contemporary of Michelle's mother, Marian Robinson. Yvonne Davila, a friend of Michelle's since their days working in City Hall, told me that when Michelle and Barack were on the campaign trail, the Obama girls would often stay with with Mama Kaye, whom she describes as "the Martha Stewart of our group. ... She does foods that are amazing. She also does arts and crafts and it's such a great [treat] for our kids to go over there." I posted earlier about Cindy Moelis , another Chicago name--one of Michelle's closest Chicago girlfriends since their days together working for Mayor Richard M. Daley--whom Obama previously named as director of the Fellows program. She and her husband, Bob, named counsel to the transportation department, are in the midst of moving their family from Chicago to Washington. The commission is loaded with big names: former Senator Tom Daschle, slated to be HHS secretary and health czar but forced to drop out over a controversy involving unpaid taxes, Maya Soetoro-Ng, the President's half sister, Tom Brokaw, Vartan Gregorian, a former president of Brown University, Ruth J. Simmons, the current president of Brown University, and Laurence Tribe, an influential professor at Harvard Law School. More on Barack Obama
 
Jimmy Tingle: Jimmy Tingle on Public Transportation Top
www.jimmytingle.com More on Funny Videos
 

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