Video, Internet the key to Iranian Protest Movement

It is the Internet, that posts the video and pictures, that has made possible the popular uprising in Iran. Without those things there will be no revolution. The Iranian government knows that. The popular media in the West doesn't care about bloodshed or injustice if there is no video.

Protesters and security forces gather. They collide in a cloud of tear gas and a shower of rocks and bottles.

In most cases — when the battles are big and the stakes are high — journalists from around the world are there. But in the possibly history-shaping struggles now unfolding in Iran, the international media has been blocked from its normal front-line role and is quickly making adjustments to counter an official ban on firsthand reporting.

Instead of the main dispatches coming from the scenes, the equation has been greatly reversed. Many major news outlets now rely on phone calls, e-mails and Web chats — and other methods — to contact Iranian protesters and officials for information that bolsters the reports from colleagues in Tehran, who must remain in their offices.

The media clampdown also has been a test on other fronts: challenging the ability of authorities to control information in the Internet age and requiring editors and journalists to quickly decide what to pursue from the avalanche of rumors, tips and observations on social networking sites.

Some news organizations have added Farsi-speaking staff members to their usual coverage teams and stepped up attention to Web sites such as Twitter for comments and images that — if deemed credible — offer a wider view on the unfolding events.

Thomas Warhover, an associate professor at the Missouri School of Journalism, calls the social networks a "counterpart" to traditional reporting rather than a competitor.

"It's democratic impulses," he said. "People are going to find a way to be heard — new and exciting ways. That civil function is pretty incredible."

An international media corps remains in Tehran — mostly Iranians who work as reporters, photographers and camera operators for international or non-Iranians news organizations. But they are now being restricted to their offices, allowed only to conduct phone interviews or cite official sources such as state broadcasters.

The role of Twitter:

Social networking, a distinctly 21st-century phenomenon, has already been credited with aiding protests from the Republic of Georgia to Egypt to Iceland. And Twitter, the newest social-networking tool, has been identified with two mass protests in a matter of months — in Moldova in April and in Iran last week, when hundreds of thousands of people took to the streets to oppose the official results of the presidential election.

But does the label Twitter Revolution, which has been slapped on the two most recent events, oversell the technology? Skeptics note that only a small number of people used Twitter to organize protests in Iran and that other means — individual text messaging, old-fashioned word of mouth and Farsi-language Web sites — were more influential. But Twitter did prove to be a crucial tool in the cat-and-mouse game between the opposition and the government over enlisting world opinion. As the Iranian government restricts journalists’ access to events, the protesters have used Twitter’s agile communication system to direct the public and journalists alike to video, photographs and written material related to the protests.

McCain: Obama has "Done Well" - Face the Nation Transcript (6-21-09)

Read the complete transcript of McCain's interview on Face the Nation. Excerpt below:

SCHIEFFER: So you want to see more detail. How do you think President Obama is doing so far?

MCCAIN: I think he’s done well. I think he has been -- If you want to look at a legislative scorecard, he has achieved literally every one of his legislative accomplishments. Unfortunately, it’s by picking off a couple of Republicans. It’s not been bipartisan.

So there really hasn’t been that change in the climate in Washington. But elections have consequences. On the issue of national security, I think the president is facing a major challenge here, North Korea and others. And it’s sort of an incomplete. Health care is another major challenge.

SCHIEFFER: What about health care?

MCCAIN: I’m on the health committee. We have been having these endless conversations and some amendments without two major portions of the bill -- with two major portions of the bill being blank. I’ve never seen anything like it since I’ve been in the Senate.

One on whether there will be government plan and whether employers will have to provide -- will be required to provide insurance to their employees. I mean, those are two major fundamental problems with the issue. The Finance Committee, the other committee as you know, has now said that they won’t come to a decision on how you pay for it until after the election. A real devastating blow to their plans was a Congressional Budget Office report last week that said the present plan -- the one we’re considering in the health committee -- would only ensure one-third of the uninsured and would cost $1 trillion.

On Iran:

What does the United States do then?

MCCAIN: Well, I think we’re faced with the same dilemma that we were during the Cold War, throughout centuries. If I could -- very briefly, Daniel Webster, one of the great senators in history, spoke about the Greek revolution in 1823.

MCCAIN: And he said when he was responding to people that said that mere rhetorical support would do no good, and I quote him, he said “I hope it may. It may give them courage in spirit. It may assure them of public regard, teach them that they’re not wholly forgotten by the civilized world, and inspire them with constancy in the pursuit of their great end.” And then he said, “whether it helped or not,” he said, “it was due to our character and called for by our own duty.”

Daniel Webster was right then. Ronald Reagan was right. Harry Truman was right. Scoop Jackson was right. Jack Kennedy was right when he said we’ll go anywhere and bear any burden.

The fact is that America has been and will be the beacon of hope and freedom. And we are not saying that the people who are now risking their lives and some giving them in the streets in cities -- of cities and towns in Iran, but we are saying we’re on their side as they seek freedom.

NY Times Reporter Escapes from Taliban Captivity

A small victory against the Taliban. This reporter is lucky not to be beheaded.

A New York Times reporter known for making investigative trips deep inside dangerous conflict zones escaped from militant captors after more than seven months in captivity by climbing over a wall, the newspaper said Saturday.

David S. Rohde was abducted Nov. 10 along with an Afghan reporter colleague and a driver south of the Afghan capital, Kabul. He had been traveling through Logar province to interview a Taliban commander, but was apparently intercepted and taken by other militants on the way.

The Times reported that Rohde and Afghan reporter Tahi Ludin on Friday climbed over the wall of a compound where they were held captive in the North Waziristan region of Pakistan.

The two then found a Pakistani army scout, who led them to a nearby base, the Times said. On Saturday, the two were flown to the U.S. military base in Bagram, the Times reported.

A U.S. military spokeswoman, Lt. Cmdr. Chrstine Sidenstricker, said the military had not been involved. She could not say whether the State Department or CIA had flown the two to the military facility.

Rohde, reported to be in good health, said his driver remained with their captors.

In Washington, White House press secretary Robert Gibbs said the U.S. is "very pleased" that Rohde is safe and returning home. He said the escape "marks the end of a long and difficult ordeal."

Afghan officials confirmed the kidnapping in the days after the abduction, but The Associated Press and most other Western news outlets respected a request from the Times to not report on the abductions because the publicity could negatively affect hostage rescue efforts and imperil Rohde's life.

"From the early days of this ordeal, the prevailing view among David's family, experts in kidnapping cases, officials of several governments and others we consulted was that going public could increase the danger to David and the other hostages. The kidnappers initially said as much," Bill Keller, the Times' executive editor, said in a story posted on the Times' Web site.

"We decided to respect that advice, as we have in other kidnapping cases, and a number of other news organizations that learned of David's plight have done the same. We are enormously grateful for their support."

"We are very relieved that our New York Times colleague escaped safely, and this episode has ended happily," said AP Senior Managing Editor John Daniszewski. "It was an unusual and difficult news judgment to withhold reporting on his abduction, but our practice is to avoid transmitting stories if we believe they endanger someone's life."

The Times said there had been "sporadic communication" from Rohde and his kidnappers during the last seven months but that no ransom money had been paid.

Kristen Mulvihill, Rohde's wife, told the Times that the two had been married for nine months, "and seven of those David has been in captivity." She thanked the Times, the U.S. government and "all the others" who helped the family during the kidnapping.

Rohde was on leave from the Times when he was taken. He had traveled to Afghanistan to work on a book about the history of American involvement in Afghanistan when he went to Logar to interview a Taliban commander. Before setting out, he notified the Times' bureau in Kabul on whom to notify if he did not return, the Times said.

Judge to review Cheney interview with FBI

Will anyone have the courage and sense of honor to do the right thing and bring Cheney to justice? We can not allow 8 years of fascist criminality escape without the architects of that tyranny being punished for their treason:

A federal judge said Thursday that he wants to look at notes from the FBI's interview with former Vice President Dick Cheney during the investigation into who leaked the identity of a CIA operative.

U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan's decision to review the documents followed arguments by Obama administration lawyers that sounded much like the reasons the Bush administration provided for keeping Cheney's interview from the public.

Justice Department lawyers told the judge that future presidents and vice presidents may not cooperate with criminal investigations if they know what they say could become available to their political opponents and late-night comics who would ridicule them.

"If we become a fact-finder for political enemies, they aren't going to cooperate," Justice Department attorney Jeffrey Smith said during a 90-minute hearing. "I don't want a future vice president to say, `I'm not going to cooperate with you because I don't want to be fodder for 'The Daily Show.'"

Sullivan said the Justice Department must give him more precise reasons for keeping the information confidential than they had in previous court filings.

Cheney agreed to talk to FBI agents in June 2004 as they were investigating the leak of former CIA operative Valerie Plame's identity to reporters the year before. Her name was revealed after her husband, former Ambassador Joseph Wilson, criticized the Bush administration's prewar intelligence on Iraq.

Bush's Legacy: VA Approaches 1 Million Soldier Claims

George W. Bush was total disaster as President. But the worst victims of all are the ones he praised the most--our troops. He sent thousands to their deaths needlessly. And many of those who survived are physically and financially harmed for life:

The Veterans Affairs Department appears poised to hit a milestone it would rather avoid: 1 million claims to process.

The milestone approaches as the agency scrambles to hire and train new claims processors, which can take two years. VA officials are working with the Pentagon under orders from President Barack Obama to create by 2012 a system that will allow the two agencies to electronically exchange records, a process now done manually on paper.

Meanwhile, veterans, some of whom were severely wounded in Iraq and Afghanistan, continue to endure financial hardship while their claims are processed. They wait more than four months on average for a claim to be processed, and appealing a claim takes a year and a half on average.

Adding to the backlog are factors ranging from the complexity of processing mental health-related claims of Iraq veterans, to a change that made it easier for Vietnam veterans exposed to the Agent Orange herbicide to qualify for disability payments. The VA says it's receiving about 13 percent more claims today than it did a year ago.

The VA's Web site shows the department has more than 722,000 claims and more than 172,000 appeals it currently is processing, for a total of about 900,000. That is up from about 800,000 total claims in January, according to the site.

Since early 2007, the VA has hired 4,200 claims processors and with that has seen improvements in the number of claims it's processing. It's also working to modernize its system.

Last year, Congress passed legislation that sought to update the disability rating process. A hearing Thursday by a House Veterans Affairs subcommittee will look into whether the law's changes are being implemented and whether the VA will be able to handle a million claims.

Veterans advocates acknowledge there have been improvements in the claims process, but say it still is too cumbersome. They say some injured veterans from the recent wars are paying bills with credit cards, pending their first disability payments, at a time when it is challenging enough to recover from or adapt to their injuries.

U.S. Report: Global Warming is Impacting Environment Now

This report confirms what we see around us on a daily basis. The extremes in weather are apparent to everyone. You have to be a fool not to realize that. Global warming is a reality that must be dealt with now:

The harmful effects of global warming are being felt "here and now and in your backyard," a groundbreaking US government report on climate change has warned.

"Climate change is happening now, it is not something that will happen decades or centuries in the future," Jerry Melillo of the Marine Biological Laboratory in Massachusetts, one of the lead authors of the report, told AFP.

Climate change, which the report blames largely on human-induced emissions of heat-trapping gases, "is under way in the United States and projected to grow," said the report by the US Global Change Research Program, a grouping of a dozen government agencies and the White House.

The report is the first on climate change since President Barack Obama took office and outlines in plain, non-scientific terms how global warming has resulted in an increase of extreme weather such as the powerful heatwave that swept Europe in 2003, claiming tens of thousands of lives.

Hurricanes have become fiercer as they gather greater strength over oceans warmed by climate change.

Global warming impacts everything from water supplies to energy, farming to health. And those impacts are expected to increase, according to the report titled "Global Change Impacts in the United States."

Areas of the country that already had high levels of rain or snowfall have seen increases in precipitation because of climate change, says the report, which focuses on the United States but also tackles global climate change issues.

It's even affecting the wind:

A new study shows that winds in the United States have slowed down from 15 to 30 percent over the past 30 years. Scientists are saying that global warming, something that wind power is supposed to be helping, maybe the cause. The report might not be as big a shock to wind farming, because the study also shows that wind speeds in certain parts of the country are actually speeding up.

The wind reduction seems to be taking place more in the eastern part of the country and predominantly in the great lakes. Scientists note that wind moves faster over ice than it does over water, because of the friction. This would confirm climate change as a possible candidate for the slowing winds. As the ice caps continue to melt, the increased friction of water will slow down the air flow. Eugene Takle, one of the leaders of the study and professor of atmosphere at Iowa State University, said that a drop in temperatures at the poles will lower the differential pressure over the earth’s surface. Takle said that this could be a cause of the slowing wind speeds.

Another Republican Politician Involved in a Sex Scandal

Another one bites the hypocritical dust:

Sen. John Ensign of Nevada, a conservative Republican with evident presidential ambitions, abruptly announced Tuesday he carried on an extramarital affair for much of last year with a woman on his campaign staff, a confession that jarred his scandal-weary state as well as his party.

"It is the worst think I have ever done in my life," Ensign said in a brief appearance before reporters. He provided few details other than to say he does not intend to resign from Congress, and he did not disclose what prompted his decision to declare his infidelity. "If there was ever anything in my life that I could take back, this would be it," he added.

Ensign, 51, belongs to the men's group Promise Keepers, a Christian ministry. A member of the Senate Republican leadership, he was chairman of the party's campaign committee leading up to the 2008 elections in which Republicans lost eight seats to Democrats.

His announcement drew no public reaction from Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., the party's leader in the Senate, or other members of the leadership.

[...]At home, Ensign's admission comes on top of a string of disclosures and allegations about Republican Gov. Jim Gibbons. Since his election in 2006, Gibbons has been accused of sexual assault, sending love notes on a state phone and improperly firing a state employee. In recent court documents related to divorce proceedings, his wife, Dawn, accused him of a history of infidelity.

Within the Senate, Ensign's admission of an affair placed him in a lengthening line of Republicans to grapple with such issues. Sen. Larry Craig, R-Idaho, retired at the end of his term last year, several months after pleading guilty in connection with charges resulting from an airport bathroom sex sting operation.

Last summer, Sen. David Vitter, R-La., apologized for a "very serious sin in my past" after it was disclosed that his Washington phone number was among those called several years ago by a Washington-area escort service that prosecutors have said was a front for prostitution.

The list is long and shocking:

• Randal David Ankeney is the Republican activist who was arrested on suspicion of sexual assault on a child with force. He was charged with six counts related to getting a 13-year-old girl stoned on pot and then having sex with her. Ankeny has also been accused of sexually assaulting another girl. Source: Denver ABC Article
• Bob Barr is the Republican Congressman from Georgia who sponsored the anti-gay Defense of Marriage Act, saying "The flames of hedonism, the flames of narcissism, the flames of self-centered morality are licking at the very foundation of our society, the family unit." He was married three times, and paid for his second wife's abortion (she also suspected he was cheating on her). he failed to pay child support to the children of his first two wives and while married to his third and present wife and was photographed licking whipped cream off of strippers at his inaugural party.
• Parker J. Bena was a Republican activist and a key player in the campaign to elect George W. Bush as President. Bena was charged and later pleaded guilty to possession of child pornography and lying to the FBI. Bena reportedly told the feds that he had received an unsolicited e-mail containing pictures of children (some as young as three years old) performing various sexual acts, but agents learned that he had in fact voluntarily entered a number of child pornography websites and downloaded the images himself. This is said to have involved acts with children as young as 3 years old, on his home computer. Parker J. Bena was sentenced to 30 months in federal prison and fined $18,000. Source: DemocracyUnderground.com
• Louis Beres is a past chairman of the Christian Coalition of Oregon. Three of his family members accuse him of molesting them as children, when they were pre-teens. In an Editor and Publisher article, in August 2006, Beres confessed to the accusations facing him. The Portland Mercury

Obama wants Financial Watchdog to Protect Consumers

What we really need is a revolutionary consumer bill of rights. Buyer beware is still the law of the land. We need comprehensive laws that protect consumers. But the lobbies won't allow it. But the President gets credit for trying:

When President Obama takes the podium on Wednesday to talk about his proposals for avoiding the next financial crisis, he is expected to unveil one idea that speaks directly to consumers and their pocketbooks.

Obama will call for the creation of a new financial watchdog agency. Its mission will be to protect consumers from deceptive or dangerous mortgages, credit cards and other financial products.

Proponents have dubbed it a "financial products safety commission" akin to the federal agency that oversees safety of toys and other products. Obama himself broached the subject on Jay Leno's "The Tonight Show" in March.

"When you buy a toaster, if it explodes in your face, there's a law that says, 'Your toasters need to be safe,' " Obama said. "When you get a credit card or you get a mortgage, there's no law on the books that says, 'If that explodes in your face, financially, somehow you're going to be protected.' "

The consumer protection idea is one of a series of legislative proposals Obama will lay out on Wednesday -- from beefing up the power of the Federal Reserve to giving regulators authority to wind down big banks.

The consumer protection plan is the only one that already has broad support among key Democrats and could gain a consensus in Congress.

And it's also the only one that so far the banking industry uniformly doesn't like.

"It's bad for the consumers," said Steve Bartlett, president of the Financial Services Roundtable, a lobbying group for banks.

Financial industry advocates object to the idea of carving out the enforcement of consumer protection from the mandates of existing regulatory agencies that oversee companies. They argue that consumer protection is intertwined with ensuring that a financial firm is on stable footing.

Obama AMA Speech: Transcript, Video (6-15-09)

Watch the complete video or read the transcript of President Obama's speech before the American Medical Association. Excerpt below:

From the moment I took office as President, the central challenge we've confronted as a nation has been the need to lift ourselves out of the worst recession since World War II. In recent months, we've taken a series of extraordinary steps, not just to repair the immediate damage to our economy, but to build a new foundation for lasting and sustained growth. We're here to create new jobs, to unfreeze our credit markets. We're stemming the loss of homes and the decline of home values.

All this is important. But even as we've made progress, we know that the road to prosperity remains long and it remains difficult. And we also know that one essential step on our journey is to control the spiraling cost of health care in America. And in order to do that, we're going to need the help of the AMA. (Applause.)

Today, we are spending over $2 trillion a year on health care -- almost 50 percent more per person than the next most costly nation. And yet, as I think many of you are aware, for all of this spending, more of our citizens are uninsured, the quality of our care is often lower, and we aren't any healthier. In fact, citizens in some countries that spend substantially less than we do are actually living longer than we do.

Make no mistake: The cost of our health care is a threat to our economy. It's an escalating burden on our families and businesses. It's a ticking time bomb for the federal budget. And it is unsustainable for the United States of America.

It's unsustainable for Americans like Laura Klitzka, a young mother that I met in Wisconsin just last week, who's learned that the breast cancer she thought she'd beaten had spread to her bones, but who's now being forced to spend time worrying about how to cover the $50,000 in medical debts she's already accumulated, worried about future debts that she's going to accumulate, when all she wants to do is spend time with her two children and focus on getting well. These are not the worries that a woman like Laura should have to face in a nation as wealthy as ours. (Applause.)

Stories like Laura's are being told by women and men all across this country -- by families who've seen out-of-pocket costs soar, and premiums double over the last decade at a rate three times faster than wages. This is forcing Americans of all ages to go without the checkups or the prescriptions they need -- that you know they need. It's creating a situation where a single illness can wipe out a lifetime of savings.

Our costly health care system is unsustainable for doctors like Michael Kahn in New Hampshire, who, as he puts it, spends 20 percent of each day supervising a staff explaining insurance problems to patients, completing authorization forms, writing appeal letters -- a routine that he calls disruptive and distracting, giving him less time to do what he became a doctor to do and actually care for his patients. (Applause.)

Iran Election: A Gift to the Israeli Lobby, Neocons

The apparent stolen election in Iran is a victory for those who want to bomb that country. Israel plans on bombing Iran sometime in the near future. A victory for Moussavi would've made it more difficult to argue for an attack on Iran. Now we face more disaster in that region.

Iran's supreme leader may have ordered an investigation into allegations of election fraud, but a near-clampdown on information and conflicting reports from Tehran make it unclear what Ayatollah Ali Khamenei's stance really is.

If confirmed, the order would mark a stunning turnaround by the country's most powerful figure and offer hope to opposition forces who have waged street clashes to protest the re-election of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

CBS News correspondent Elizabeth Palmer says, however, that the reports of an investigation being ordered can not be confirmed, and may be premature.

What CBS News can confirm is that the Guardian Council has received pro-reform candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi's official complaint of fraud, and has said it will report back within 10 days.

The President's hands are tied now:

The re-election of Iran's hard-line president and a tough speech by Israel's hawkish prime minister signaled an increasingly difficult road ahead for President Obama's hopes for ending Tehran's nuclear threat and brokering peace between Israel and the Palestinians.

A setback on either foreign policy front would have been unwelcome in the Obama White House, but difficulties on both issues - which are deeply entangled - were likely to slow progress on the president's ambition of changing the landscape across the Middle East.

Vice President Joe Biden said Sunday that Mr. Obama's effort to engage Tehran after a nearly three-decade estrangement would continue, nevertheless. Mr. Obama, shifting course from his predecessor, has said he wants to talk to the theocratic regime in Tehran, with the central goal of stopping it from producing a nuclear weapon. He has set a year-end deadline for a positive response to his overture.

AMA Resists Obama's Plan to Reform Health Care Industry

It is the American Medical Association that is responsible for the sad state of the health care industry. And if the President wants to reform it he's got a war on his hands. The Clinton administration learned, to the chagrin of the Democrats, that taking on the AMA is risky politically. And those Congresspeople bought off by the AMA will resist any reform of the health care industry:

President Barack Obama, continuing to barnstorm for his health care proposals, will urge doctors gathered in Chicago to support wider insurance coverage and targeted federal spending cuts.

Obama planned to tell the American Medical Association's annual meeting in his hometown on Monday that overhaul cannot wait and that bringing down costs is the most important thing he can do to ensure the country's long-term fiscal health, a senior administration official said.

The official spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the president's remarks before they were delivered.

The nation's doctors, like many other groups, are divided over the president's proposals to reshape the health care delivery system. The White House anticipates heavy spending to cover the almost 50 million Americans who lack health insurance and has taken steps in recent days to outline just where that money could be found.

For instance, Obama wants to cut federal payments to hospitals by about $200 billion and cut $313 billion from Medicare and Medicaid. He also is proposing a $635 billion "down payment" in tax increases and spending cuts in the health care system.

To an audience of doctors Obama plans to say the United States spends too much on health care and gets too little in return. He says the health industry is crushing businesses and families and is leading to millions of Americans losing coverage, the administration official said.

Obama's turn before the 250,000-physician group in his latest effort to persuade skeptics that his goal to provide health care to all Americans is worth the $1 trillion price tag it is expected to run during its first decade.

The president plans to acknowledge the costs. But he also will tell the doctors it is not acceptable for the nation to leave so many without insurance, the official said.

Unified Republicans and some fiscally conservative Democrats on Capitol Hill have said they are nervous about how the administration plans to pay for Obama's ideas.

The New York Times reported Monday that Obama has been quietly making a case for reducing malpractice lawsuits to help control costs, long a goal of the AMA and Republicans. Obama has not endorsed capping jury awards

Obama has got a battle ahead of him:

Obama is up against powerful interests -- with diverse standpoints, and strong messaging and money behind them. (Quick -- list three things the opponents of health-care reform will say about the Obama plan? Now tell us what the Obama plan is.)

He could use the AMA doctors to get it all done. With a 12:15 pm ET address, the president brings a sense of urgency with him to Chicago.

“The president will use this address to the American Medical Association to outline why health care reform that brings down costs can't wait another year or another administration,” a senior administration official tells ABC’s Jake Tapper.

“The president will address the heart of problem of rising costs: that we're spending too much money on treatments that don't make Americans any healthier, and that our system equates more expensive core with better care. He'll lay out his vision for a system that replicates best practices, incentivizes excellence, and closes cost disparities -- and he'll ask for our medical professionals' help in getting the job done.”

He’ll reiterate that his plans “include a health insurance exchange where private plans compete with a public option that drives down costs and expands choice. The president will be clear about what a public option does and doesn't mean for patients, physicians, and our broader health care system.”

A recent series of hate crimes can be attributed to several factors. The large number of guns out there in America makes it easy to commit hate crimes. Additionally, we live an increasingly morally and intellectually deteriorating society where reason is being crowded out by hate. That is the legacy of the Bush years. Lowering standards of living with no hope in site leave many alienated and frustrated. Those are the ones willing to through their lives away by seeking vengeance against some scapegoat. Further inflaming them is the hateful rhetoric of one party that is willing to incite this element. And most of that hate is directed at Barack Obama.

This concerns me greatly. And it should you. It is a culture of hate reminiscent of the Kennedy years. And it could end up the same way. And if it does, the Republicans will be largely to blame.
Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry

Update: This article by the well known NY Times columnist, Frank Rich, echoes my words. I did not read it until after I had written the above.

H.I.V. Found in 22 Actors in Sex Films Since 2004

This is another reason why the porn industry should be shutdown. Porn "actors" should be treated like regular prostitutes under the law. And porn producers should be treated like pimps:

Health officials in Los Angeles said Friday that 22 actors in adult sex movies had contracted H.I.V. since 2004, when a previous outbreak led to efforts to protect pornography industry employees.

The officials accused an industry-supported health clinic of failing to cooperate with state investigations and of failing to protect not only industry workers but their sexual partners as well.

“We have an industry that is exposing workers to life-threatening diseases as part of their employment,” said Dr. Jonathan Fielding, director of public health for Los Angeles County. “That is outrageous and anachronistic. These infections are virtually entirely preventable.”

They are breaking the law. Shut them down:

Occupational health officials have long argued that failing to require that performers wear condoms during intercourse and other acts is a violation of safe-workplace regulations.

But Deborah Gold, a senior safety engineer with the California occupational health department, said violations in the pornography industry were so widespread that the state had a difficult time cracking down.

“Many of these companies have two sound stages where they do two to four scenes a day with actors hired from talent agencies,” Ms. Gold said. “In that case, it’s clearly a violation” to have performers have sexual intercourse without condoms.

Six Flags Files for Bankruptcy

A sign of the times:

Six Flags, the big theme park operator, filed for bankruptcy in early Saturday morning in Delaware after failing to reach an agreement with lenders over a plan to reorganize its debt outside of court.

Six Flags became only the latest company to prove unable to cope with its debt load at a time when previous solutions like refinancings are largely unavailable. The theme park operator, which had $2.4 billion in debt, faced nearly $300 million in payments to preferred stockholders due in August.

But the company is hoping to make its ride through bankruptcy a short one. In a statement, Six Flags said that it is seeking court approval for a pre-negotiated restructuring plan, one that has the unanimous approval of its lenders. That proposal would eliminate $1.8 billion in debt and slice off the $300 million in preferred stock payments.

“The current management team inherited a $2.4 billion debt load that cannot be sustained, particularly in these challenging financial markets,” Mark Shapiro, Six Flags’s chief executive, said in a statement. “As a result, we are cleaning up the past and positioning the Company for future growth.”

In its bankruptcy filing, Six Flags said that 37 of its subsidiaries, including parks like Great Adventure and Hurricane Harbor, had also sought court protection. The parks will continue to operate normally, but analysts have questioned whether attendance would fall off as some consumers shun waiting in line for roller coasters at a bankrupt theme park operator.

Afghan Violence hits Highest Level since 2001

There will be no military victory in Afghanistan. And it is likely that the Taliban will prevail. The unstable situation in Pakistan guarantees defeat for us there. Unfortunately, the President will continue to pursue a military solution with the loss of more American lives. The solution is what was done in Serbia and in our own country. Vice President Biden offered it for Iraq. But it won't happen. We do not have the necessary leadership or vision to solve the problem:

The violence that has surged for two years in Afghanistan reached a new high last week, and more difficulty lies ahead, the United States' top war zone commander said Thursday.

Gen. David Petraeus said the number of attacks in Afghanistan over the last week hit the highest level since the December 2001 fall of the Taliban.

"Some of this will go up because we are going to go after their sanctuaries and safe havens as we must," Petraeus, head of U.S. Central Command, said during a speech at the Washington think-tank Center for a New American Security.

"But there is no question the situation has deteriorated over the course of the past two years in particular and there are difficult times ahead," he said.

WHO Declares 1st Flu Pandemic in over 40 Years

Why isn't this getting more media coverage. Why aren't politicians calling for action to be taken. Do you trust them to protect us? We should be demanding the government start taking more measures to insure greater preparedness. The 9-11 and the economic meltdown happened because we are not vigilant. Wake up before it's too late.

The World Health Organisation declared an influenza pandemic on Thursday and called on governments to prepare for a long-term battle against an unstoppable flu virus.

The United Nations agency raised its pandemic flu alert to phase 6 on a six-point scale, indicating the first influenza pandemic since 1968 is under way.

"With today's announcement, WHO moves from an emergency to a longer-term response. Based on past experience, this pandemic will be with us for some months, if not years, to come," WHO Director-General Dr Margaret Chan said in a letter to staff, a copy of which was obtained by Reuters.

People aged 30-50, pregnant women or people suffering from chronic conditions such as asthma, diabetes or obesity are deemed at highest risk, she told a news conference.

Countries from Australia to Chile and the United States are also reporting that the new virus, commonly known as swine flu, is "crowding out" seasonal flu, becoming the predominant influenza strain, she said.

In fact the government is doing the opposite when they should be protecting us.

Well, as it turns out, volcano monitoring wasn't the only worthwhile public safety program that was deemed extravagant in the stimulus package, funding for pandemic preparation was axed as well. And playing a critical role was Susan Collins -- for whom the necessity of obtaining her vote is in inverse proportion to the intelligence she shows in policy making.

Via The Nation:

Famously, Maine Senator Collins, the supposedly moderate Republican who demanded cuts in health care spending in exchange for her support of a watered-down version of the stimulus, fumed about the pandemic funding: "Does it belong in this bill? Should we have $870 million in this bill No, we should not."


Even now, Collins continues to use her official website to highlight the fact that she led the fight to strip the pandemic preparedness money out of the Senate's version of the stimulus measure.

But we should not panic. Just prepare:

It's official: We're in a swine flu pandemic, the World Health Organization declared today.

"The world is now at the start of the 2009 influenza pandemic," WHO Director-General Margaret Chan, MD, said at a news conference.

That sounds scary. But neither the H1N1 swine flu virus nor the disease it causes are any worse today than they were weeks ago.

The only thing that's changed is that the WHO now officially acknowledges that H1N1 swine flu is circulating in communities in widespread parts of the globe, and that all nations can eventually expect to see cases.

"This does not mean there is any difference in the severity of the flu. This is not, at this point, a flu pandemic that is anywhere as severe as the 1918 pandemic," said Thomas R. Frieden, MD, in his first news conference since taking over as director of the CDC.

The announcement also triggers the pandemic preparedness plans of nations not yet affected by swine flu. It will have little or no effect on the U.S., which since mid-April has been aggressively putting national pandemic plans into action.

"For all intents and purposes, the U.S. has been in a flu pandemic for some time," Frieden said. "But this means the virus is here and is here to stay, and we must prepare our response."

You would think Iran, given all the propaganda, was an Islamo-dictatorship. It turns out that country has a thriving democratic electoral process. We are constantly bombarded with the quotes of the current President Ahmadinehad. We are led to believe that he is the next Hitler. It turns out he is no different a politician than the typical Republican nowadays. The language could be equated with the utterances of Dick Cheney. And it comes down to the same thing, pandering to neo-fascist elements in both countries. The Islamo extremists want to destroy Israel and their benefactors the U.S. In this country the Bush-Cheney administration was controlled by the neocons, a powerful pro-Israel clique. The Iranian people are just as victimized at the hands of politicians as are Americans.
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Russia urges U.S. to Drop Missile Shield to help ties

If President Obama is really smart (he is quite smart) he will give the Russians what they want on this issue. Pursuing the shield matter has a disaster for relations between our two countries. We need Russia as a bulwark against the rapidly growing threat from China.

Russia said on Thursday that full dialogue with the United States on missile threats could only begin if Washington dropped its plans to deploy a missile defense system in Europe.

"Only a rejection by the United States of plans to create a ... missile defense system in Europe could lay the groundwork for our fully fledged dialogue on questions of cooperation in reacting to potential missile risks," Russian Foreign Ministry spokesman Andrei Nesterenko told reporters.

He said that Moscow viewed the U.S. missile plans as a way to counter Russia's strategic forces, but he added that Moscow hoped to find a way to reach a compromise with Washington.

2 Japanese Carrying $134 bil. Worth of U.S. Bonds Detained in Italy

Very suspicious:

Two Japanese nationals were detained by Italian financial police last week after trying to enter Switzerland with $134 billion worth of undeclared U.S. bonds, mostly Treasury bonds, an Italian daily said Wednesday.

The Japanese consulate general in Milan confirmed that the detention had taken place and said it was trying to confirm with Italian authorities whether the two were indeed Japanese nationals and their identities.

According to the report in il Giornale, two unidentified Japanese in their 50s concealed the bonds, including 249 U.S. Treasury bonds each worth $500 million, in a suitcase with a false bottom that was searched by the Italian authorities June 3 when they were in Chiasso, at the border with Switzerland, about 50 kilometers north of Milan.

I'm for tasing individuals who resist arrest. It gives cops more options. But using it against a 70+ year-old great grandmother? That's just plain stupid. And the fact that the brass defended that trooper is doubly insane. The woman was resisting but the officer could have easily subdued her and placed cuffs on the tiny woman. This case makes it more difficult for legitimate uses of the tactic to be employed by other police departments. The result will be a backlash. Congress might have to step in and provide guidance. You canno use excessive force against the citizenry and expect there not be consequences. This will ultimately undermine our ability to fight real crime. It also undermines the publics' trust in law enforcement.
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