http://online.wsj.com/article/SB119369951717475558.html
Can Google-Powered Phones Connect With Carriers?
By AMOL SHARMA
October 30, 2007; Page B1
Google Inc. is close to unveiling its long-planned strategy to shake up the wireless market, people familiar with the matter say. The Web giant's ambitious goal: to make applications and services as accessible on cellphones as they are on the Internet.
In a move likely to kick off an intense debate about the future shape of the cellphone industry, Google wants to make it easier for cellphone customers to get a variety of extra services on their phones -- from maps to social-networking features to video-sharing. To get its way, however, the search giant will have to overcome resistance from wireless carriers and deal with potentially thorny security and privacy issues.
Google-powered phones would have applications like Google Maps that are already in some handsets.
Google is trying to loosen the grip wireless carriers have over the software and services consumers can access on cellphones. Carriers have considerable clout, especially in the U.S., where they control distribution of phones to consumers through their retail stores.
Within the next two weeks, Google is expected to announce advanced software and services that would allow handset makers to bring Google-powered phones to market by the middle of next year, people familiar with the situation say. In recent months Google has approached several U.S. and foreign handset manufacturers about the idea of building phones tailored to Google software, with Taiwan's HTC Corp. and South Korea's LG Electronics Inc. mentioned in the industry as potential contenders. Google is also seeking partnerships with wireless operators. In the U.S., it has the most traction with Deutsche Telekom AG's T-Mobile USA, while in Europe it is pursuing relationships with France Télécom's Orange SA and Hutchison Whampoa Ltd.'s 3 U.K., people familiar with the matter say. A Google spokeswoman declined to comment.
The Google-powered phones are expected to wrap together several Google applications -- among them, its search engine, Google Maps, YouTube and Gmail email -- that have already made their way onto some mobile devices. The most radical element of the plan, though, is Google's push to make the phones' software "open" right down to the operating system, the layer that controls applications and interacts with the hardware. That means independent software developers would get access to the tools they need to build additional phone features.
Developers could, for instance, more easily create services that take advantage of users' Global Positioning System location, contact lists and Web-browsing habits. They also would be able to interact with Google Maps and other Google applications. The idea is that a range of new social networking, mapping and other services would emerge, just as they have on the open, mostly unfettered Web. Google, meanwhile, could gather user data to show targeted ads to cellphone users.
"The most likely scenario from a Google perspective is to build some, if you will, inspirational platform [applications]; but primarily focus on getting third parties to do it because that's where the innovation will come from," said Google CEO Eric Schmidt, speaking at the All Things Digital conference in May. He said that "the new model of these phones is going to be person-to-person" with people exchanging videos and other types of data.
While many software developers are likely to cheer Google's open wireless platform, there are some potential risks for consumers. If Google isn't careful, sensitive user information could end up in the wrong hands, leading to spamming, stalking or other invasions of privacy.
There is broad momentum already to make software development on mobile phones easier and more open. Apple Inc. initially limited the kinds of applications it allowed outside developers to make for its iPhone, but the company recently said it would release tools next year to broaden the range of features allowed. (Handset maker Nokia Corp. said its new Internet and multimedia platform, Ovi, is open to third-party applications.)
Microsoft Corp.'s Windows Mobile operating system already gives software developers access to a range of tools to build programs for consumers, though the company does put all new services through a certification process to screen for programs that could hack into a customer's phone or pose other risks.
Microsoft executives question what impact Google will have. "The idea that there are all these things software developers can't do -- it's just not true," said John O'Rourke, general manager of Microsoft's Windows Mobile unit said. "It's hard to imagine what huge breakthroughs [Google] is going to have."
Google's push comes as carriers are under pressure on other fronts to relax their hold on the wireless market. They face litigation over "locking" of phones, which prevents people from transferring devices from one provider to another.
Sprint Nextel Corp. agreed this month to unlock the phones of departing customers as part of a settlement in a California class-action lawsuit. Google and others, meanwhile, have criticized carriers for being a bottleneck on what software and services consumers can access.
Google helped push through controversial rules for a coming spectrum auction at the Federal Communications Commission that would result in a new cellular network open to all devices and software applications, even those not favored by an operator. Google has said it will probably bid for the frequencies.
For now, the company knows it has no choice but to work with operators to make its open platform successful. D.P. Venkatesh, CEO of mPortal Inc., which makes software for wireless operators, puts it this way: "There are a few things carriers control that will always keep them in charge at the end of the day."
--Kevin J. Delaney, Cassell Bryan-Low and Jane Spencer contributed to this article.
Write to Amol Sharma at amol.sharma@wsj.com
Tuesday, November 6, 2007
Electronic Voting Bill Update November 2007
Dear Voting Activists,
As most of you know, one of the main objections to Rush Holt’s bill was that it still allowed for DRE – Direct Recording Electronic – machines to be used to count our votes. The danger of these is that, even if a paper record is produced, people may not sufficiently check their own vote, so an audit of those would be meaningless.
Today, Sen. Bill Nelson (D-Fla.), along with Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.), introduced a bill that closely mirrors Rush Holt’s bill in terms of the audit provisions, but makes an outright ban against using DRE machines after 2012.
As soon as I have a bill number, I’ll forward so we can contact Boxer and Feinstein re this. Feinstein put forward her own bill, which is dreadful – allows election officials to count votes in secret, does not require paper records, ‘nuff said.
Thanks for all you do. Stay tuned!
Lisa Pease
lpease@gte.net
Blog: http://realhistoryarchives.blogspot.com/
Site: http://www.realhistoryarchives.com/
Book: The Assassinations
"Nothing can now be believed which is seen in a newspaper. Truth itself becomes suspicious by being put into that polluted vehicle. The real extent of this state of misinformation is known only to those who are in situations to confront facts within their knowledge with the lies of the day." - Thomas Jefferson
As most of you know, one of the main objections to Rush Holt’s bill was that it still allowed for DRE – Direct Recording Electronic – machines to be used to count our votes. The danger of these is that, even if a paper record is produced, people may not sufficiently check their own vote, so an audit of those would be meaningless.
Today, Sen. Bill Nelson (D-Fla.), along with Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.), introduced a bill that closely mirrors Rush Holt’s bill in terms of the audit provisions, but makes an outright ban against using DRE machines after 2012.
As soon as I have a bill number, I’ll forward so we can contact Boxer and Feinstein re this. Feinstein put forward her own bill, which is dreadful – allows election officials to count votes in secret, does not require paper records, ‘nuff said.
Thanks for all you do. Stay tuned!
Lisa Pease
lpease@gte.net
Blog: http://realhistoryarchives.blogspot.com/
Site: http://www.realhistoryarchives.com/
Book: The Assassinations
"Nothing can now be believed which is seen in a newspaper. Truth itself becomes suspicious by being put into that polluted vehicle. The real extent of this state of misinformation is known only to those who are in situations to confront facts within their knowledge with the lies of the day." - Thomas Jefferson
CAMPAIGN SLOG 371 Days to Go!
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/10/30/AR2007103002049_pf.html
CAMPAIGN SLOG 371 Days to Go!
Wednesday, October 31, 2007; C01
For you state officials still wrangling over the dates of your primaries, lay down your swords. The presidential tickets already have been decided, and not by the mainstream media:
Hillary Clinton will be the Democratic Party presidential nominee, with retired Gen. Wesley Clark as her running mate. They will oppose Republicans Rudy Giuliani and Mike Huckabee in the general election.
Says? A poll of 355 "statistically representative" witches conducted by the New York Center for the Strange, which was established in the early '70s, associate director Lewis Scott said yesterday as a way to "upgrade the perception of witches."
"Witchcraft is a legitimate religion," Scott says. "Why should it be maligned any more than any other religion?"
Or denigrated below your garden-variety polling operation? After all, the witches accurately called the 2000 presidential election, "narrowly," for President Bush.
-- Sridhar Pappu
CAMPAIGN SLOG 371 Days to Go!
Wednesday, October 31, 2007; C01
For you state officials still wrangling over the dates of your primaries, lay down your swords. The presidential tickets already have been decided, and not by the mainstream media:
Hillary Clinton will be the Democratic Party presidential nominee, with retired Gen. Wesley Clark as her running mate. They will oppose Republicans Rudy Giuliani and Mike Huckabee in the general election.
Says? A poll of 355 "statistically representative" witches conducted by the New York Center for the Strange, which was established in the early '70s, associate director Lewis Scott said yesterday as a way to "upgrade the perception of witches."
"Witchcraft is a legitimate religion," Scott says. "Why should it be maligned any more than any other religion?"
Or denigrated below your garden-variety polling operation? After all, the witches accurately called the 2000 presidential election, "narrowly," for President Bush.
-- Sridhar Pappu
Halloween Picture of the Year
Thanks to Rense.com for the following:
http://www.rense.com/1.2007halloween/SpiritofHalloween-Rense.jpg
http://www.rense.com/1.2007halloween/SpiritofHalloween-Rense.jpg
Freakies V Waffelos
The Golden Age of Freakies
Found at Adam Gorightly's Untamed Dimensions on 10-31-07 http://gorightly.wordpress.com/2007/10/31/the-golden-age-of-freakies/
http://www.mysteryisland.net/freakiesarticleWhat's that you say? Not enough cereal in the Cartoons & Cornflakes archives? All right, well, my absolute favorite childhood cereal was FREAKIES, not so much for its generic "crunchy, sugary" breakfast cereal goodness, but for its overall A+ packaging and cereal treasure delivery.
Freakies had the best commercials, best cereal icons (the Freakies family themselves), and the absolute best cereal prizes, again, the Freakies themselves!
The first prizes were the best, hard plastic (PVC) figures of the Freakies.
Seven Freakies existed: Boss Moss (the leader), Cowmumble, Gargle, Hamhose, Grumble, Goody-Goody, and Snorkeldorf (my favorite for unknown reasons).
They just looked really cool, small monsters you could carry inside your pocket. Hey, the original "pokemon" so to speak. Pocket monsters.
After the PVC figures, rubber versions showed up in the boxes, then Freakies in cars ...
then boats, then magnets, and the budget seemed to dissolve into mushy cereal nothingness from there.
Freakies, a unique brand of cereal, a terrific gimmick, only lasted three years: (1973-1975), but a very magical time period from my perspective, my key comic book buying days, skateboard and bicycle riding, and living in a perpetual world of imagination inside my 9 to 11-year old head.
I wrote a poem about the Freakies a few years back. The strange tribute was published in Robert Berry's pop culture book: Frankenberry Uber Alles and can now be found at retroCRUSH, featured in the TOP 100 Monsters list.
***
Freakies, a unique brand of cereal, a terrific gimmick, only lasted three years: (1973-1975), but a very magical time period from my perspective, my key comic book buying days, skateboard and bicycle riding, and living in a perpetual world of imagination inside my 9 to 11-year old head.
I wrote a poem about the Freakies a few years back. The strange tribute was published in Robert Berry's pop culture book: Frankenberry Uber Alles and can now be found at retroCRUSH, featured in the TOP 100 Monsters list.
***
Thanks for the piece on Freakies, Adam, but personally my favorite cereal from yesteryear, hands down, was Waffelos. The koolest thing about Waffelos: you could collect the boxes, as there were nine different buildings which made up the Old West town of Waffeloville!
Here's more on Waffelos:
http://neatocoolville.blogspot.com/2006/11/waffelos-cereal-howdy-pardners-to-start.html
Friday, November 17, 2006
WAFFELOS CEREAL
“Howdy Pardners! To start the day right you need the right kind of breakfast. So here’s one breakfast that fills the bill.
First. You get yourself a bowl, fill it with Waffelos cereal, and pour on some milk.
Second. Have some fruit or juice.
Third. Try a little warm toast with butter or margarine.
Fourth. Wash it all down with a glass of milk.
My horse reminded me to tell you that Waffelos with 1/2-cup of milk give you 25% of the recommended daily allowance of 8 essential vitamins plus iron.
There’s a lot more to Waffelos than great Taste!”
Waffelo Bill
This good advise from the one and only Waffelo Bill was found on the side of each cereal box of Waffelos.
Introduced in 1979 by Ralston, this cereal was mighty tasty and a real hoot to boot! Waffelos came in two flavors Maple or Blueberry. Waffelo Bill rode into the sunset with his guitar playing horse in 1982, but luckily he left behind some nifty premiums.
Reminiscent to the 1948 Lone Ranger Frontier Town cut-out buildings on the backs of Cheerios boxes was Waffelos own version called Waffeloville. (You know, that’s just down the road from Neato Coolville)
You had the opportunity to collect all nine buildings off of the backs of Waffelos cereal. To have the complete town you needed Bill’s Milk Bar, Waffeloville School, General Store, Waffeloville Bank, Railroad Station, Blacksmith, Livery Stable, Waffeloville Hotel, and the Stage Coach Office.
Also as a bonus, each box came with one of five Waffeloville stand-up characters!
Some of the other premiums that were made available was a maze game, a belt buckle, Wacky Packages stickers, and two Wacky Packages posters (box panels). You can see those and a scan of the Blueberry Waffelos box over at Wacky-PackagesAlso there were these three glass decals for drinking glasses, windows or mirrors.
Now I think I’ll go an fix me up some waffles then break off the squares into a bowl, pour in some maple syrup and milk and relive a childhood memory.
Hmm... You know that sounds like a bad idea. I’ll just go buy some of that new Eggo cereal instead.
Posted by Mayor Todd Franklin
Neato Labels: 1970's, cerealville
***
Oddly, X-Entertainment.com, that hip repository for retro-cool pop kulture, pretty much rips the cereal in it's review:
http://www.x-entertainment.com/messages/200.html
Waffelos -- Mmmmm! Waffelos! Now, cereal designers, a question for you. Does this tagline suggest a premium product? 'A Sweetened Cereal With Artificial Maple Flavor'. I'd be more inclined to think this cereal was good for me if they wrote 'Cereal is Made Entirely From Sugar & Evil Glucose Concentrate'. We also run into a bit of a problem with the choice of mascot - this ugly cowboy dude. I'm sure I speak for all of us - who would want to look at that while eating the most important meal of the day? See the horse in the background? Tell me he doesn't look guilty for supporting such an inferior product.
Waffelos was one of many in a string of cereal brands which felt the best way to go was to simply pour sugar syrup over unflavored toasted corn. It's a simple formula, actually, and it'd work if you'd make even the slightest effort to promote it as anything but that. Waffelos didn't do that, and when you compile that in with the ridiculous cowboy idiot on the box, you've got a real loser.
***
Perhaps the final word of Waffelos, though, comes from the great author Don DeLillo, who, in his 1985 novel White Noise includes it on his riff on modern korporate kuisine: "the junk food still in shopping bags -- onion-and-garlic chips, nacho thins, peanut crème patties, Waffelos and Kabooms, fruit chews and toffee popcorn; the Dum-Dum pops, the Mystic mints."
Kaboom (or more properly, Kaboom!) got a greater claim of pop culture fame in 2003, when Vivica A. Fox used a box of the breakfast treat to conceal a gun she was using in a attempt to blow away Uma Thurman. That was the problem with Waffelos, unlike Kaboom: it was just too intellectual to be appreciated by someone like Quentin Tarantino...
Has success spoiled Robert Sterling?
Has success spoiled Robert Sterling?
Kenn Thomas
SteamshovelPress.com
Has success spoiled Robert Sterling? Ever since his recent move to Las Vegas, the former gadfly darling of the konspiracy set has paraded his debauchery before the serious students of parapolitics; held former cohorts up to ridicule and scorn; has done little more than cut and paste lefty opinion rags to present as part of "his" newsletter and has mumbled incoherently about how the konspiracy world has "changed". How is this different than it ever was? In subtle ways, perhaps, but clearly Mr. Sterling has been emboldened by his displacement from the celebrated center of all American kulture (LA) and has taken on the corrupt characteristics of the land of Bugsy Siegel. Rumor has it that these recent charges against Greg Bishop come from the descended remnants of the Meyer Lansky's organization in an attempt to deflect its co-optation of this former great kommentator on konspiracy. This also goes a long way in explaining where Rob is now getting his bucks AND his babes.
Robalini's response: Hopefully, the answer is "Yes!"
Kenn Thomas
SteamshovelPress.com
Has success spoiled Robert Sterling? Ever since his recent move to Las Vegas, the former gadfly darling of the konspiracy set has paraded his debauchery before the serious students of parapolitics; held former cohorts up to ridicule and scorn; has done little more than cut and paste lefty opinion rags to present as part of "his" newsletter and has mumbled incoherently about how the konspiracy world has "changed". How is this different than it ever was? In subtle ways, perhaps, but clearly Mr. Sterling has been emboldened by his displacement from the celebrated center of all American kulture (LA) and has taken on the corrupt characteristics of the land of Bugsy Siegel. Rumor has it that these recent charges against Greg Bishop come from the descended remnants of the Meyer Lansky's organization in an attempt to deflect its co-optation of this former great kommentator on konspiracy. This also goes a long way in explaining where Rob is now getting his bucks AND his babes.
Robalini's response: Hopefully, the answer is "Yes!"
Sunday, November 4, 2007
A Magnificent Catastrophe
http://www.buzzflash.com/store/reviews/809
THOM HARTMANN'S "INDEPENDENT THINKER" BOOK OF THE MONTH REVIEW
A Magnificent Catastrophe
by Edward J. Larson
Reviewed by Thom Hartmann
One of the most startling things we learn from history is how little we've learned -- and how often that failure to learn causes history to repeat itself. The election of 2008 may well -- depending on who is the Democratic nominee -- end up being a startling replay of the election of 1800. In that election, Thomas Jefferson, who along with James Madison founded what is today's modern Democratic Party (known then as the Republican Party), challenged sitting president and ardent conservative Federalist (what today would be called "Republican") John Adams.
In the first chapter, Larson provides the lay of the political landscape, startlingly similar to that of today's debates between conservatives and liberals:
The differences dividing Adams and Jefferson reflected a deepening ideological rift that divided mainstream Americans into factions. ... Adams and those calling themselves Federalists saw a strong central government led by a powerful president as vital for a prosperous, secure nation. Extremists in this camp, like Alexander Hamilton, who favored transferring virtually all power to the national government and consolidating it in a strong executive and aristocratic Senate, became known as the ultra or High Federalists. At the Constitutional Convention, Hamilton had unabashedly depicted the monarchical British government as "the best in the world" and famously proposed life tenure for the United States President and senators.
Jefferson and his emerging Republican [today called Democratic] faction viewed such thinking as inimical to freedom. A devotee of enlightenment science, which emphasized reason and natural law over revelation and authoritarian regimes, Jefferson trusted popular rule and distrusted elite institutions. Indeed, like French philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Jefferson instinctively revered man in nature. "Those who labor in the earth," such as farmers and frontiersmen, possess "substantial and genuine virtue," he wrote in his 1787 book, Notes on the State of Virginia. "The will of the majority, the natural law of every society, is the only sure guardian of the rights of men," Jefferson affirmed three years later. He instinctively favored the people over any institution.
In contrast, Adams and the Federalists tended to distrust the common people and instead to place their faith in the empowerment of what they saw as a natural aristocracy, though one that should be restrained by civil institutions such as those provided by a written constitution with checks and balances. "The voice of the people has been said to be the voice of God, and however generally this maxim has been quoted and believed, it is not true," Hamilton reportedly told the Constitutional Convention regarding a popularly elected legislature. "The people are turbulent and changing; they seldom judge or determine right. Give therefore to the first [or upper house] a distinct, permanent share in the government. They will check the unsteadiness of the second [or lower house]."
Although more moderate in his Federalism than Hamilton, but still unlike the [Democratic] Republican Jefferson, Adams thought that every nation needed a single, strong leader who could rise above and control self-interested factions of all classes and types. Neither an aristocratic Senate nor a democratic House of Representatives would safeguard individual rights, he believed. Indeed, Adams once complained to Jefferson about "the avarice, the unbounded ambition, [and] the unfeeling cruelty of a majority of those (in all nations) who are allowed an aristocratic influence; and ... the stupidity with which the more numerous multitude not only become their dupes but even love to be taken in by their tricks." Only a disinterested chief executive -- the fabled philosopher-king of old -- would protect liberty and justice for all. Adams thus combined a Calvinist view of humanity's innate sinfulness with an Old Testament faith that a Moses-like leader could guide even such a fallen people through the wilderness into the promised land of freedom.
Due to these beliefs, Adams supported a strong American presidency.
And, as president, Adams had acted much like the kings of old. Through the "XYZ Affair," in which he alleged that foreign agents were attempting to solicit bribes to swing French foreign policy, Adams whipped up a nationwide fear of a foreign power. He used this and the threat of other terrors -- including the assertion of cells of foreign agents within our own nation -- to push through Congress by a single vote the Alien & Sedition Acts, which he then used to imprison dozens of his political "enemies" -- particularly the editors and publishers of newspapers who were friendly to Jefferson's party and hostile to Adams's. He even threw into prison a member of the House of Representatives, Vermont's independent-minded Matthew Lyon (the first occupant of the House seat now-Senator Bernie Sanders would occupy for nearly two decades in the recent past), who then ran for re-election from an unheated jail cell in Vergennes, Vermont and won re-election.
Jefferson, who was Adams's estranged Vice President (the president and vice-president were the top-two vote getters in the Electoral College, and did not run together on a ticket like today), was so horrified by the Alien & Sedition Acts that he left town the day Adams signed them. When he won the election of 1800, he allowed them to expire (the day before he was inaugurated) and then issued formal apologies and, in some cases, reparations, to the journalists he freed.
But all of that is background and side-story to the front-and-center focus of this brilliant book, which is the election of 1800. Using the election -- with a thousand fascinating details (I've dog-eared and highlighted at least 100 of the 300+ pages in this book!) -- Larson brings alive the issues of that day, which are startlingly consistent with the issues of this day. From the role of religion in government (and vice versa) to the power of the presidency to issues of privacy and free speech to fears of terrorism and foreign wars, the election of 1800 was such an overlay with today that one is inclined to believe that at least a few of the characters in this book have fully and perhaps even consciously reincarnated to play out their identical roles in today's election. From the stalwart New York liberal George Clinton to the conservative marionette John Adams (and his team), you won't be able to stop turning the pages of this incredible tale.
Larson, who won the Pulitzer prize for his book,Summer for the Gods: The Scopes Trial and America's Continuing Debate Over Science and Religion, writes like James Michener. Yet this is not fiction, and it deserves to bring Larson a second Pulitzer. This is one of the most readable, vital, fascinating, and rip-roaring books of the past decade, and -- while he makes not a single reference to modern politics and is scrupulously non-partisan -- brings alive today's politics in a way that is rich in historical context.
In the battle for the presidency in the election of 1800, Larson writes:
"[Jefferson's Democratic] Republicans pounded the Federalists' record of high taxes, rising national debt, a standing army and excessive navy, hostilities with France, and repressive domestic policies. They condemned the Sedition Act as unconstitutional and warned of monarchies afoot.
"The measures of the present [Adams] administration were conceived in wisdom and executed with firmness, uprightness, and ability ... to ensure justice from abroad and tranquility at home," replied Supreme Court Justice Samuel Chase, a Maryland native who participated in local debates on behalf of his cousin, a Federalist candidate for elector. Appealing to moderates, Chase's cousin, the candidate, praised Adams as "a tried, firm, dedicated patriot [who will] resist the influence of party and will pursue that line of conduct which will best support the rights and liberties of the people." Times are good, various Federalists declared. "You may be certain never to be more happy than you have been under Mr. Adams's administration," one partisan declared.
Not so, a Republican statement countered. "If ever an occasion justified public addresses and individual exertions to rouse the people to a sense of duty, the present is undoubtedly such an occasion," it claimed. "You will plainly see and feel that your present rulers have exercised unauthorized powers and undue influence over you."
There were even members of Adams's Federalist Party who were trying to suppress the vote in Jefferson-leaning [Democratic] Republican areas. This, Larson notes, "nicely reinforced the image of Federalists as monarchists. 'The right of election is the very essence of our constitution,' one [Democratic] Republican candidate declared. 'Yet ... there are men among us who, to answer party purposes, are mediating a plan to deprive us of it.'" Shades of Florida and Ohio ...
A Magnificent Catastrophe provides one of the finest insights ever written into the history of the founding -- and sometimes faltering -- first steps of our modern democratic republic. Absorbing its story is an essential step toward a deeper and broader understanding of America and the issues being raised in the election of 2008. And it's a damn good read!
Thom Hartmann is a New York Times bestselling author and the host of "The Thom Hartmann Program" syndicated nationally by Air America Radio. His website is ThomHartmann.com.
THOM HARTMANN'S "INDEPENDENT THINKER" BOOK OF THE MONTH REVIEW
THOM HARTMANN'S "INDEPENDENT THINKER" BOOK OF THE MONTH REVIEW
A Magnificent Catastrophe
by Edward J. Larson
Reviewed by Thom Hartmann
One of the most startling things we learn from history is how little we've learned -- and how often that failure to learn causes history to repeat itself. The election of 2008 may well -- depending on who is the Democratic nominee -- end up being a startling replay of the election of 1800. In that election, Thomas Jefferson, who along with James Madison founded what is today's modern Democratic Party (known then as the Republican Party), challenged sitting president and ardent conservative Federalist (what today would be called "Republican") John Adams.
In the first chapter, Larson provides the lay of the political landscape, startlingly similar to that of today's debates between conservatives and liberals:
The differences dividing Adams and Jefferson reflected a deepening ideological rift that divided mainstream Americans into factions. ... Adams and those calling themselves Federalists saw a strong central government led by a powerful president as vital for a prosperous, secure nation. Extremists in this camp, like Alexander Hamilton, who favored transferring virtually all power to the national government and consolidating it in a strong executive and aristocratic Senate, became known as the ultra or High Federalists. At the Constitutional Convention, Hamilton had unabashedly depicted the monarchical British government as "the best in the world" and famously proposed life tenure for the United States President and senators.
Jefferson and his emerging Republican [today called Democratic] faction viewed such thinking as inimical to freedom. A devotee of enlightenment science, which emphasized reason and natural law over revelation and authoritarian regimes, Jefferson trusted popular rule and distrusted elite institutions. Indeed, like French philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Jefferson instinctively revered man in nature. "Those who labor in the earth," such as farmers and frontiersmen, possess "substantial and genuine virtue," he wrote in his 1787 book, Notes on the State of Virginia. "The will of the majority, the natural law of every society, is the only sure guardian of the rights of men," Jefferson affirmed three years later. He instinctively favored the people over any institution.
In contrast, Adams and the Federalists tended to distrust the common people and instead to place their faith in the empowerment of what they saw as a natural aristocracy, though one that should be restrained by civil institutions such as those provided by a written constitution with checks and balances. "The voice of the people has been said to be the voice of God, and however generally this maxim has been quoted and believed, it is not true," Hamilton reportedly told the Constitutional Convention regarding a popularly elected legislature. "The people are turbulent and changing; they seldom judge or determine right. Give therefore to the first [or upper house] a distinct, permanent share in the government. They will check the unsteadiness of the second [or lower house]."
Although more moderate in his Federalism than Hamilton, but still unlike the [Democratic] Republican Jefferson, Adams thought that every nation needed a single, strong leader who could rise above and control self-interested factions of all classes and types. Neither an aristocratic Senate nor a democratic House of Representatives would safeguard individual rights, he believed. Indeed, Adams once complained to Jefferson about "the avarice, the unbounded ambition, [and] the unfeeling cruelty of a majority of those (in all nations) who are allowed an aristocratic influence; and ... the stupidity with which the more numerous multitude not only become their dupes but even love to be taken in by their tricks." Only a disinterested chief executive -- the fabled philosopher-king of old -- would protect liberty and justice for all. Adams thus combined a Calvinist view of humanity's innate sinfulness with an Old Testament faith that a Moses-like leader could guide even such a fallen people through the wilderness into the promised land of freedom.
Due to these beliefs, Adams supported a strong American presidency.
And, as president, Adams had acted much like the kings of old. Through the "XYZ Affair," in which he alleged that foreign agents were attempting to solicit bribes to swing French foreign policy, Adams whipped up a nationwide fear of a foreign power. He used this and the threat of other terrors -- including the assertion of cells of foreign agents within our own nation -- to push through Congress by a single vote the Alien & Sedition Acts, which he then used to imprison dozens of his political "enemies" -- particularly the editors and publishers of newspapers who were friendly to Jefferson's party and hostile to Adams's. He even threw into prison a member of the House of Representatives, Vermont's independent-minded Matthew Lyon (the first occupant of the House seat now-Senator Bernie Sanders would occupy for nearly two decades in the recent past), who then ran for re-election from an unheated jail cell in Vergennes, Vermont and won re-election.
Jefferson, who was Adams's estranged Vice President (the president and vice-president were the top-two vote getters in the Electoral College, and did not run together on a ticket like today), was so horrified by the Alien & Sedition Acts that he left town the day Adams signed them. When he won the election of 1800, he allowed them to expire (the day before he was inaugurated) and then issued formal apologies and, in some cases, reparations, to the journalists he freed.
But all of that is background and side-story to the front-and-center focus of this brilliant book, which is the election of 1800. Using the election -- with a thousand fascinating details (I've dog-eared and highlighted at least 100 of the 300+ pages in this book!) -- Larson brings alive the issues of that day, which are startlingly consistent with the issues of this day. From the role of religion in government (and vice versa) to the power of the presidency to issues of privacy and free speech to fears of terrorism and foreign wars, the election of 1800 was such an overlay with today that one is inclined to believe that at least a few of the characters in this book have fully and perhaps even consciously reincarnated to play out their identical roles in today's election. From the stalwart New York liberal George Clinton to the conservative marionette John Adams (and his team), you won't be able to stop turning the pages of this incredible tale.
Larson, who won the Pulitzer prize for his book,Summer for the Gods: The Scopes Trial and America's Continuing Debate Over Science and Religion, writes like James Michener. Yet this is not fiction, and it deserves to bring Larson a second Pulitzer. This is one of the most readable, vital, fascinating, and rip-roaring books of the past decade, and -- while he makes not a single reference to modern politics and is scrupulously non-partisan -- brings alive today's politics in a way that is rich in historical context.
In the battle for the presidency in the election of 1800, Larson writes:
"[Jefferson's Democratic] Republicans pounded the Federalists' record of high taxes, rising national debt, a standing army and excessive navy, hostilities with France, and repressive domestic policies. They condemned the Sedition Act as unconstitutional and warned of monarchies afoot.
"The measures of the present [Adams] administration were conceived in wisdom and executed with firmness, uprightness, and ability ... to ensure justice from abroad and tranquility at home," replied Supreme Court Justice Samuel Chase, a Maryland native who participated in local debates on behalf of his cousin, a Federalist candidate for elector. Appealing to moderates, Chase's cousin, the candidate, praised Adams as "a tried, firm, dedicated patriot [who will] resist the influence of party and will pursue that line of conduct which will best support the rights and liberties of the people." Times are good, various Federalists declared. "You may be certain never to be more happy than you have been under Mr. Adams's administration," one partisan declared.
Not so, a Republican statement countered. "If ever an occasion justified public addresses and individual exertions to rouse the people to a sense of duty, the present is undoubtedly such an occasion," it claimed. "You will plainly see and feel that your present rulers have exercised unauthorized powers and undue influence over you."
There were even members of Adams's Federalist Party who were trying to suppress the vote in Jefferson-leaning [Democratic] Republican areas. This, Larson notes, "nicely reinforced the image of Federalists as monarchists. 'The right of election is the very essence of our constitution,' one [Democratic] Republican candidate declared. 'Yet ... there are men among us who, to answer party purposes, are mediating a plan to deprive us of it.'" Shades of Florida and Ohio ...
A Magnificent Catastrophe provides one of the finest insights ever written into the history of the founding -- and sometimes faltering -- first steps of our modern democratic republic. Absorbing its story is an essential step toward a deeper and broader understanding of America and the issues being raised in the election of 2008. And it's a damn good read!
Thom Hartmann is a New York Times bestselling author and the host of "The Thom Hartmann Program" syndicated nationally by Air America Radio. His website is ThomHartmann.com.
THOM HARTMANN'S "INDEPENDENT THINKER" BOOK OF THE MONTH REVIEW
Elvis Is Forbes' Richest Dead Celebrity
http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5gr3BZsZW6SqIbRymEzRx_7Wx8rRQD8SJNLIO1
Elvis Is Forbes' Richest Dead Celebrity
10-30-7
NEW YORK (AP) — Elvis Presley is still the King. Presley, who earned an estimated $49 million in the past 12 months, has reclaimed the No. 1 spot on Forbes.com's list of Top-Earning Dead Celebrities. He last topped the list in 2005.
John Lennon ranks second with earnings of $44 million, followed by Charles M. Schulz ($35 million), George Harrison ($22 million), Albert Einstein ($18 million), Andy Warhol ($15 million), Theodor Geisel (Dr. Seuss) ($13 million), Tupac Shakur ($9 million), Marilyn Monroe ($7 million), Steve McQueen ($6 million), James Brown ($5 million), Bob Marley ($4 million) and James Dean ($3.5 million).
Presley died in 1977. His estate continues to generate millions from music royalties, DVDs, licensing deals and tourism at Graceland, the rocker's mansion in Memphis, Tenn.
Forbes said the celebrities on the list, posted Monday, earned a combined $232 million in the past 12 months.
On the Net:
Forbes: http://www.forbes.com/
Elvis Is Forbes' Richest Dead Celebrity
10-30-7
NEW YORK (AP) — Elvis Presley is still the King. Presley, who earned an estimated $49 million in the past 12 months, has reclaimed the No. 1 spot on Forbes.com's list of Top-Earning Dead Celebrities. He last topped the list in 2005.
John Lennon ranks second with earnings of $44 million, followed by Charles M. Schulz ($35 million), George Harrison ($22 million), Albert Einstein ($18 million), Andy Warhol ($15 million), Theodor Geisel (Dr. Seuss) ($13 million), Tupac Shakur ($9 million), Marilyn Monroe ($7 million), Steve McQueen ($6 million), James Brown ($5 million), Bob Marley ($4 million) and James Dean ($3.5 million).
Presley died in 1977. His estate continues to generate millions from music royalties, DVDs, licensing deals and tourism at Graceland, the rocker's mansion in Memphis, Tenn.
Forbes said the celebrities on the list, posted Monday, earned a combined $232 million in the past 12 months.
On the Net:
Forbes: http://www.forbes.com/
Sleeping pills for kids top global list of bad products
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20071030/ts_afp/consumerhealthfoodchildren
Sleeping pills for kids top global list of bad products
Tue Oct 30, 2007
Sleeping pills advertised for children, dangerous toys and bottled water taken from local reservoirs are among the world's worst products, a global consumer group said Monday.
In announcing its bad products awards for 2007, Consumers International said the top prize went to the US subsidiary of Japanese firm Takeda Pharmaceuticals for promoting a sleeping drug for children.
The company ran a television advertisement in the United States which used images of children, chalk boards and a school bus to sell its drug Rozerem.
The "back-to-school" advertisements, which complied with US law, promoted the sleeping pills to parents without including health warnings for children, Consumers International said.
"This case demonstrates the lengths to which some drug companies will go to increase sales of their products, how direct to consumer advertising can promote irrational drug use, and how weak regulation can foster irresponsible corporate behaviour," the group said.
Another award went to drinks giant Coca-Cola for pushing marketing "into the realms of the ridiculous" in the United States and South America with its Dasani bottled water which is sourced from the same reservoirs as local tap water.
Kellogg's, best known for its cereals, was given a bad food award for the worldwide use of cartoon characters and marketing aimed at children despite the high levels of salt and sugar in some foods.
"Kellogg's are one of a number of international food companies that make money by selling products high in fat, sugar and/or salt," Consumers International said.
"Threatened with litigation in the US, Kellogg's have agreed to change some of their marketing practices, however we believe they are doing too little, too late."
Toymaker Mattel was also named over the global recall of more than 19 million products made in China because of high lead levels and small magnets.
Last month the US toymaker apologised to China, saying the vast majority of recalls were due to design flaws and had nothing to do with where the toys were manufactured.
"This is a classic case of avoiding accountability and shifting responsibility on a global scale," Consumers International said.
"Wherever the fault lies, the safety of consumers was compromised and this should be the full focus of Mattel's attention, not finger pointing and not blame dodging."
Consumers International, a global federation of consumer advocate organisations, said the awards aimed to highlight the abuse of consumer trust.
"These multi-billion dollar companies are global brands with a responsibility to be honest, accountable and responsible," the group's director general Richard Lloyd said.
"In highlighting their shortcomings, Consumers International and its 220 member organisations are holding corporations to account and demanding businesses take social responsibility seriously."
The awards, which were announced at Consumers International's World Congress in Sydney, were whittled down from submissions by consumer organisations around the world.
Criteria for final selection included the size of the company, the scale of sales and marketing, the impact on consumers, and the potential for change by the corporation.
Sleeping pills for kids top global list of bad products
Tue Oct 30, 2007
Sleeping pills advertised for children, dangerous toys and bottled water taken from local reservoirs are among the world's worst products, a global consumer group said Monday.
In announcing its bad products awards for 2007, Consumers International said the top prize went to the US subsidiary of Japanese firm Takeda Pharmaceuticals for promoting a sleeping drug for children.
The company ran a television advertisement in the United States which used images of children, chalk boards and a school bus to sell its drug Rozerem.
The "back-to-school" advertisements, which complied with US law, promoted the sleeping pills to parents without including health warnings for children, Consumers International said.
"This case demonstrates the lengths to which some drug companies will go to increase sales of their products, how direct to consumer advertising can promote irrational drug use, and how weak regulation can foster irresponsible corporate behaviour," the group said.
Another award went to drinks giant Coca-Cola for pushing marketing "into the realms of the ridiculous" in the United States and South America with its Dasani bottled water which is sourced from the same reservoirs as local tap water.
Kellogg's, best known for its cereals, was given a bad food award for the worldwide use of cartoon characters and marketing aimed at children despite the high levels of salt and sugar in some foods.
"Kellogg's are one of a number of international food companies that make money by selling products high in fat, sugar and/or salt," Consumers International said.
"Threatened with litigation in the US, Kellogg's have agreed to change some of their marketing practices, however we believe they are doing too little, too late."
Toymaker Mattel was also named over the global recall of more than 19 million products made in China because of high lead levels and small magnets.
Last month the US toymaker apologised to China, saying the vast majority of recalls were due to design flaws and had nothing to do with where the toys were manufactured.
"This is a classic case of avoiding accountability and shifting responsibility on a global scale," Consumers International said.
"Wherever the fault lies, the safety of consumers was compromised and this should be the full focus of Mattel's attention, not finger pointing and not blame dodging."
Consumers International, a global federation of consumer advocate organisations, said the awards aimed to highlight the abuse of consumer trust.
"These multi-billion dollar companies are global brands with a responsibility to be honest, accountable and responsible," the group's director general Richard Lloyd said.
"In highlighting their shortcomings, Consumers International and its 220 member organisations are holding corporations to account and demanding businesses take social responsibility seriously."
The awards, which were announced at Consumers International's World Congress in Sydney, were whittled down from submissions by consumer organisations around the world.
Criteria for final selection included the size of the company, the scale of sales and marketing, the impact on consumers, and the potential for change by the corporation.
Who needs a Prius anyway?
http://www.salon.com/mwt/good_life/2007/10/29/prius/
Who needs a Prius anyway?
Plenty of new fuel-efficient cars pollute less than trendy hybrids, without draining your bank account.
By Rebecca Clarren
Oct. 29, 2007 More than a cloth grocery bag or a Nalgene bottle, today's accessory for any hot-blooded environmentalist is a hybrid car. For anyone who can afford the $22,000 price tag, a Toyota Prius and other hybrids announce to the world that you are someone who cares about melting glaciers and the fate of polar bears. People have always bought cars as status symbol. Where would the sports car be without the midlife crisis?
So if you want to pay more than $20,000 to reduce your carbon footprint, brag about your part in reducing dependence on foreign oil, and garner esteem from friends at the natural food store, go right ahead. Just don't be too smug. If hybrids are driving a revolution, it's a televised road trip to marketing heaven.
Hybrids aren't necessarily the most environmentally friendly car on the market, says Jim Kliesch of Greenercars.org. The Web site, sponsored by the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy, rates cars based on tailpipe emissions, gas usage and factory emissions associated with manufacturing. While the Prius and Honda's hybrid Incite get reported averages of 40 miles per gallon, they're far from the 60 mpg promised on the sticker for city driving. The disconnect is due to an outdated Environmental Protection Agency calculation for fuel economy estimates that fails to include air conditioning, cold-weather driving and high freeway speeds. In October, the EPA implemented its new calculation method for 2008 models. It now claims the Prius gets 45 mpg on the highway.
Part of the hybrids' green allure is that when they idle in traffic or at a stoplight, the battery kicks in and shuts down the polluting gas engine. Even so, several cars on the market, such as the Honda Accord and Volkswagen's Beetle and Rabbit, emit less than hybrids. In fact, Honda's non-hybrid Civic GX (it's natural-gas powered) tops Greencars.org's "Greenest Vehicles of 2007."
Some hybrids don't deserve any kind of green bragging rights. The Lexus RX SUV is designed not for fuel efficiency but for speed and power, and gets an average 30 mpg. That's not bad for an SUV but a host of non-hybrid cars get better gas mileage. So why do hybrid owners deserve tax credits and access to high-occupancy lanes? Such tax credits are window dressing that allow politicians to appear as if they're doing something to help the environment, says Jamie Kitman, the New York bureau chief for Automobile magazine. Congress hasn't increased the federal mileage standard in new trucks and cars since 1985. While the Senate has proposed requiring new automobiles to deliver 35 mpg by 2020; the effort is being derailed not only by Detroit's Big Three but by Prius-maker Toyota, the company that claims to be "moving America forward."
In reality, the cheapest and simplest way to cut carbon emissions is with small, lightweight cars that get good gas mileage. This is good news for me. I'm a journalist. This means I can look forward to a life of small paychecks, and for now hybrids are too expensive for me. So I set out to find a hybrid alternative that can still get me to the mountains, soccer games and, yes, the natural food store.
Daniel Jerzag, a Polish immigrant with a polyester shirt and a sprayed-on salesman smile, was my appointed ambassador to the Honda fleet of non-hybrid cars. A patient man, he took it in stride when I hopped in the back of the Honda Fit, a model that's about a foot shorter than my Subaru, to see if I would be able to sleep in back if I were camping and a torrential downpour caused my tent to feel as watertight as a colander and I needed to sleep in my car. This has happened. It could happen again.
I folded down the back seats and if I lay horizontally, I could just fit (get it!). This probably won't be a viable option for most people: I am only 5 feet tall. However, when I loaded my bike, a cruiser from the 1950s with a basket and fenders, into the back, it fit no problem. "This, ugliest car we've got," said Daniel with his charming broken English.
With a sales pitch like that, clearly he doesn't have to work too hard. Honda Fits are sprinting off the lot. Dealerships report they're mostly sold before they arrive. All sorts of people -- 20-somethings, families, a lot of women in their mid-50s -- buy these cars, said Daniel. While the Honda hybrid gets around 40 mpg, the Fit, for $6,000 less, gets 37 mpg.
Like the Fit and the Civic, the Nissan Versa gets a high score from Greenercars. A joint venture between Nissan and Renault, this $12,000 sedan has a certain French stylish interior with tons of space for a family of four on a road trip to the Grand Canyon. The trunk is small, however; there's no way you'd fit a bike or snowboard inside the car. But during the week I test-drove the Versa, it got me to trails in the forest, my yoga class and, yes, the natural food store, with gas mileage in town that neared 40 miles to the gallon. If I needed extra space, I could always use one of those Kayak or Thule removable roof trunks.
Tom Dwyer, my mechanic in Portland, whose automotive business is eco-certified, says "hybrids are a short-term step to where we need to be, which is a full plug-in." But plans for fully electric cars, thanks in large part to auto industry lobbying against them, and now the popularity of hybrids, have been relegated to the back burner by Detroit and Tokyo.
At best, hybrids remain a relatively expensive option for drivers who want to cut their gas use and emit less pollution; at worst, they're a way for the automotive industry to stall development of something closer to a zero-emission vehicle. So if status isn't at the top of your buying list for a new car, you might be better off indulging your driving vice in a Versa.
-- By Rebecca Clarren
Who needs a Prius anyway?
Plenty of new fuel-efficient cars pollute less than trendy hybrids, without draining your bank account.
By Rebecca Clarren
Oct. 29, 2007 More than a cloth grocery bag or a Nalgene bottle, today's accessory for any hot-blooded environmentalist is a hybrid car. For anyone who can afford the $22,000 price tag, a Toyota Prius and other hybrids announce to the world that you are someone who cares about melting glaciers and the fate of polar bears. People have always bought cars as status symbol. Where would the sports car be without the midlife crisis?
So if you want to pay more than $20,000 to reduce your carbon footprint, brag about your part in reducing dependence on foreign oil, and garner esteem from friends at the natural food store, go right ahead. Just don't be too smug. If hybrids are driving a revolution, it's a televised road trip to marketing heaven.
Hybrids aren't necessarily the most environmentally friendly car on the market, says Jim Kliesch of Greenercars.org. The Web site, sponsored by the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy, rates cars based on tailpipe emissions, gas usage and factory emissions associated with manufacturing. While the Prius and Honda's hybrid Incite get reported averages of 40 miles per gallon, they're far from the 60 mpg promised on the sticker for city driving. The disconnect is due to an outdated Environmental Protection Agency calculation for fuel economy estimates that fails to include air conditioning, cold-weather driving and high freeway speeds. In October, the EPA implemented its new calculation method for 2008 models. It now claims the Prius gets 45 mpg on the highway.
Part of the hybrids' green allure is that when they idle in traffic or at a stoplight, the battery kicks in and shuts down the polluting gas engine. Even so, several cars on the market, such as the Honda Accord and Volkswagen's Beetle and Rabbit, emit less than hybrids. In fact, Honda's non-hybrid Civic GX (it's natural-gas powered) tops Greencars.org's "Greenest Vehicles of 2007."
Some hybrids don't deserve any kind of green bragging rights. The Lexus RX SUV is designed not for fuel efficiency but for speed and power, and gets an average 30 mpg. That's not bad for an SUV but a host of non-hybrid cars get better gas mileage. So why do hybrid owners deserve tax credits and access to high-occupancy lanes? Such tax credits are window dressing that allow politicians to appear as if they're doing something to help the environment, says Jamie Kitman, the New York bureau chief for Automobile magazine. Congress hasn't increased the federal mileage standard in new trucks and cars since 1985. While the Senate has proposed requiring new automobiles to deliver 35 mpg by 2020; the effort is being derailed not only by Detroit's Big Three but by Prius-maker Toyota, the company that claims to be "moving America forward."
In reality, the cheapest and simplest way to cut carbon emissions is with small, lightweight cars that get good gas mileage. This is good news for me. I'm a journalist. This means I can look forward to a life of small paychecks, and for now hybrids are too expensive for me. So I set out to find a hybrid alternative that can still get me to the mountains, soccer games and, yes, the natural food store.
Daniel Jerzag, a Polish immigrant with a polyester shirt and a sprayed-on salesman smile, was my appointed ambassador to the Honda fleet of non-hybrid cars. A patient man, he took it in stride when I hopped in the back of the Honda Fit, a model that's about a foot shorter than my Subaru, to see if I would be able to sleep in back if I were camping and a torrential downpour caused my tent to feel as watertight as a colander and I needed to sleep in my car. This has happened. It could happen again.
I folded down the back seats and if I lay horizontally, I could just fit (get it!). This probably won't be a viable option for most people: I am only 5 feet tall. However, when I loaded my bike, a cruiser from the 1950s with a basket and fenders, into the back, it fit no problem. "This, ugliest car we've got," said Daniel with his charming broken English.
With a sales pitch like that, clearly he doesn't have to work too hard. Honda Fits are sprinting off the lot. Dealerships report they're mostly sold before they arrive. All sorts of people -- 20-somethings, families, a lot of women in their mid-50s -- buy these cars, said Daniel. While the Honda hybrid gets around 40 mpg, the Fit, for $6,000 less, gets 37 mpg.
Like the Fit and the Civic, the Nissan Versa gets a high score from Greenercars. A joint venture between Nissan and Renault, this $12,000 sedan has a certain French stylish interior with tons of space for a family of four on a road trip to the Grand Canyon. The trunk is small, however; there's no way you'd fit a bike or snowboard inside the car. But during the week I test-drove the Versa, it got me to trails in the forest, my yoga class and, yes, the natural food store, with gas mileage in town that neared 40 miles to the gallon. If I needed extra space, I could always use one of those Kayak or Thule removable roof trunks.
Tom Dwyer, my mechanic in Portland, whose automotive business is eco-certified, says "hybrids are a short-term step to where we need to be, which is a full plug-in." But plans for fully electric cars, thanks in large part to auto industry lobbying against them, and now the popularity of hybrids, have been relegated to the back burner by Detroit and Tokyo.
At best, hybrids remain a relatively expensive option for drivers who want to cut their gas use and emit less pollution; at worst, they're a way for the automotive industry to stall development of something closer to a zero-emission vehicle. So if status isn't at the top of your buying list for a new car, you might be better off indulging your driving vice in a Versa.
-- By Rebecca Clarren
Did GOP Operatives Expose Whistleblowers?
http://politicsplus.blogspot.com/2007/10/did-gop-operatives-expose.html
Politics Plus
Sunday, October 28, 2007
Did GOP Operatives Expose Whistleblowers?
...This summer the House Judiciary Committee launched an effort to collect tips from would-be whistleblowers in the Justice Department. The U.S. attorney firings scandal had shown that much was amiss in the Department, and with the danger of retaliation very real, the committee had set up a form on the committee's website for people to blow the whistle privately about abuses there. Although the panel said it would not accept anonymous tips, it assured those who came forward that their identity would be held in the "strictest confidence."
But in an email sent out today, the committee inadvertently sent the email addresses of all the would-be whistleblowers to everyone who had written in to the tipline. The committee email was sent to tipsters who had used the website form, including presumably whistleblowers themselves, and all of the recipients of the email were accidentally included in the "to:" field -- instead of concealing those addresses with a so-called blind carbon copy or "bcc:".
Only the email addresses were exposed; none of the names or other identifying information of the whistleblowers was revealed. The blunder, however, was noticed by a number of people who had used the website form and received today's email. One disgruntled recipient replied to the entire list of whistleblowers angrily complaining about the snafu; two others forwarded the committee email to TPMmuckraker with similar complaints.
Compounding the mistake, the committee later sent out a second email attempting to recall the original email; it, too, included all recipients in the "to:" field, according to a recipient of the emails.
A committee spokesperson emailed the following statement in response to TPMmuckraker's questions:
The tip line was created to be a confidential method for Justice Department employees to provide the Judiciary Committee with information that might aid the Committee in its ongoing investigation of politicization at the Justice Department. Because of the confidentiality agreement, the Committee will not discuss any emails sent on this tip line. A technological error in a recent communication inadvertently disclosed certain email addresses. The Committee has not begun its review of the emails, and does not know if any of them are in fact from Justice Department employees as opposed to private citizens expressing more general views. The Committee apologizes for any concern this error may have caused, and is making every effort to protect the confidentiality of those who chose to provide information on the tip line.
It's not immediately clear whether the mistake will lead to the exposure of those who had contacted the committee. There are more than 150 recipient addresses revealed in the email. Some of the email addresses appear to be transparently fake, but there's also, much more troubling, a vice_president@whitehouse.gov carbon copied on the email, which is the public email address for Vice President Dick Cheney. In other words, an email containing the email addresses of all the whistleblowers who had written in to the committee tipline was sent to public email address of Vice President Cheney... [emphasis added]
Inserted from
It matters not that only the email addresses were exposed. The Reich is more than capable of tracing email addresses. If it was an error at all, it was not technological. It was human. I forward items to friends daily, and I always use the Bcc: field, with a dummy address in the To: field. This is not rocket science folks! The committee replying that they are making every attempt to protect the confidentiality of those who chose to provide information on the tip line is meaningless. The cat is already out of the bag. But was this a blunder?
When I first saw this, I thought "What Idiots!", but the more I mull it over, that explanation makes no sense to me. Why would a professional in the Judiciary Committee staff not use Bcc: as automatically as I do? And why would they Cc: Cheney? I don't think so. I think this is a deliberate attempt by a Republican on the Judiciary committee to derail the DOJ investigation by leaking the identities of whistleblowers to Cheney to expose them to intimidation and revenge.
Here is the list of suspects:
Sensenbrenner Jr. (R) Wisconsin, 5th
Coble (R) North Carolina, 6th
Gallegly (R) California, 24th
Goodlatte (R) Virginia, 6th
Chabot (R) Ohio, 1st
Lungren (R) California, 3rd
Cannon (R) Utah, 3rd
Keller (R) Florida, 8th
Issa (R) California, 49th
Pence (R) Indiana, 6th
Forbes (R) Virginia, 4th
King (R) Iowa, 5th
Feeney (R) Florida, 24th
Franks (R) Arizona, 2nd
Gohmert (R) Texas, 1st
Jordan (R) Ohio, 4th
Posted by TomCat
Labels: Ethics, GOP Hypocrites, Investigations, Oversight, Politics, Scandal
Politics Plus
Sunday, October 28, 2007
Did GOP Operatives Expose Whistleblowers?
...This summer the House Judiciary Committee launched an effort to collect tips from would-be whistleblowers in the Justice Department. The U.S. attorney firings scandal had shown that much was amiss in the Department, and with the danger of retaliation very real, the committee had set up a form on the committee's website for people to blow the whistle privately about abuses there. Although the panel said it would not accept anonymous tips, it assured those who came forward that their identity would be held in the "strictest confidence."
But in an email sent out today, the committee inadvertently sent the email addresses of all the would-be whistleblowers to everyone who had written in to the tipline. The committee email was sent to tipsters who had used the website form, including presumably whistleblowers themselves, and all of the recipients of the email were accidentally included in the "to:" field -- instead of concealing those addresses with a so-called blind carbon copy or "bcc:".
Only the email addresses were exposed; none of the names or other identifying information of the whistleblowers was revealed. The blunder, however, was noticed by a number of people who had used the website form and received today's email. One disgruntled recipient replied to the entire list of whistleblowers angrily complaining about the snafu; two others forwarded the committee email to TPMmuckraker with similar complaints.
Compounding the mistake, the committee later sent out a second email attempting to recall the original email; it, too, included all recipients in the "to:" field, according to a recipient of the emails.
A committee spokesperson emailed the following statement in response to TPMmuckraker's questions:
The tip line was created to be a confidential method for Justice Department employees to provide the Judiciary Committee with information that might aid the Committee in its ongoing investigation of politicization at the Justice Department. Because of the confidentiality agreement, the Committee will not discuss any emails sent on this tip line. A technological error in a recent communication inadvertently disclosed certain email addresses. The Committee has not begun its review of the emails, and does not know if any of them are in fact from Justice Department employees as opposed to private citizens expressing more general views. The Committee apologizes for any concern this error may have caused, and is making every effort to protect the confidentiality of those who chose to provide information on the tip line.
It's not immediately clear whether the mistake will lead to the exposure of those who had contacted the committee. There are more than 150 recipient addresses revealed in the email. Some of the email addresses appear to be transparently fake, but there's also, much more troubling, a vice_president@whitehouse.gov carbon copied on the email, which is the public email address for Vice President Dick Cheney. In other words, an email containing the email addresses of all the whistleblowers who had written in to the committee tipline was sent to public email address of Vice President Cheney... [emphasis added]
Inserted from
It matters not that only the email addresses were exposed. The Reich is more than capable of tracing email addresses. If it was an error at all, it was not technological. It was human. I forward items to friends daily, and I always use the Bcc: field, with a dummy address in the To: field. This is not rocket science folks! The committee replying that they are making every attempt to protect the confidentiality of those who chose to provide information on the tip line is meaningless. The cat is already out of the bag. But was this a blunder?
When I first saw this, I thought "What Idiots!", but the more I mull it over, that explanation makes no sense to me. Why would a professional in the Judiciary Committee staff not use Bcc: as automatically as I do? And why would they Cc: Cheney? I don't think so. I think this is a deliberate attempt by a Republican on the Judiciary committee to derail the DOJ investigation by leaking the identities of whistleblowers to Cheney to expose them to intimidation and revenge.
Here is the list of suspects:
Sensenbrenner Jr. (R) Wisconsin, 5th
Coble (R) North Carolina, 6th
Gallegly (R) California, 24th
Goodlatte (R) Virginia, 6th
Chabot (R) Ohio, 1st
Lungren (R) California, 3rd
Cannon (R) Utah, 3rd
Keller (R) Florida, 8th
Issa (R) California, 49th
Pence (R) Indiana, 6th
Forbes (R) Virginia, 4th
King (R) Iowa, 5th
Feeney (R) Florida, 24th
Franks (R) Arizona, 2nd
Gohmert (R) Texas, 1st
Jordan (R) Ohio, 4th
Posted by TomCat
Labels: Ethics, GOP Hypocrites, Investigations, Oversight, Politics, Scandal
Skylaire.com
10-30-7
Hi all... apologies if you've already been directed to this monstrosity, but Skylaire.com is up... and running slowly uphill... let me know what you think, and have a wonderful Halloween!
--
Skylaire Alfvegren
"yellow journalism, elfin magic"
P.O. Box 291842
Los Angeles, CA 90029
Skylaire.com, yo
Hi all... apologies if you've already been directed to this monstrosity, but Skylaire.com is up... and running slowly uphill... let me know what you think, and have a wonderful Halloween!
--
Skylaire Alfvegren
"yellow journalism, elfin magic"
P.O. Box 291842
Los Angeles, CA 90029
Skylaire.com, yo
Mag Pairs Hot Chicks With Cold Stiffs
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Friday, November 2, 2007
Leonardo's "Last Supper" Goes HiDef Online
Leonardo's "Last Supper" Goes HiDef Online
MILAN, Italy, Oct. 27, 2007
(AP) Can't get to Milan to see Leonardo Da Vinci's masterpiece "The Last Supper?"
As of Saturday, all you need is an Internet connection. Officials put online an image of the "Last Supper" at 16 billion pixels - 1,600 times stronger than the images taken with the typical 10 million pixel digital camera.
The high resolution will allow experts to examine details of the 15th century wall painting that they otherwise could not - including traces of drawings Leonardo put down before painting.
The high-resolution allows viewers to look at details as though they were inches from the art work, in contrast to regular photographs, which become grainy as you zoom in, said curator Alberto Artioli.
"You can see how Leonardo made the cups transparent, something you can't ordinarily see," said Artioli. "You can also note the state of degradation the painting is in."
Besides allowing experts and art-lovers to study the masterpiece from home, Artioli said the project provides an historical document of how the painting appears in 2007, which will be valuable to future generations of art historians.
The work, in Milan's Church of Santa Maria delle Grazie, was restored in a painstaking effort that wrapped up in 1999 - a project aimed at reversing half a millennium of damage to the famed artwork. Leonard painted the "Last Supper" dry, so the painting did not cleave to the surface in the fresco style, meaning it is more delicate and subject to wear.
"Over the years it has been subjected to bombardments; it was used as a stall by Napoleon," Artioli said. The restoration removed 500 years of dirt while also removing previous restoration works that masked Leonardo's own work.
Even those who get to Milan have a hard time gaining admission to see the "Last Supper." Visits have been made more difficult by measures to protect it. Twenty-five visitors are admitted every 15 minutes to see the painting for a total of about 320,000 visitors a year. Visitors must pass through a filtration system to help reduce the work's exposure to dust and pollutants.
"The demand is three of four times higher, but we can't accommodate it because of efforts to preserve the painting," Artioli said.
On the Web: http://www.haltadefinizione.com/
By Associated Press Writer Colleen Barry
MILAN, Italy, Oct. 27, 2007
(AP) Can't get to Milan to see Leonardo Da Vinci's masterpiece "The Last Supper?"
As of Saturday, all you need is an Internet connection. Officials put online an image of the "Last Supper" at 16 billion pixels - 1,600 times stronger than the images taken with the typical 10 million pixel digital camera.
The high resolution will allow experts to examine details of the 15th century wall painting that they otherwise could not - including traces of drawings Leonardo put down before painting.
The high-resolution allows viewers to look at details as though they were inches from the art work, in contrast to regular photographs, which become grainy as you zoom in, said curator Alberto Artioli.
"You can see how Leonardo made the cups transparent, something you can't ordinarily see," said Artioli. "You can also note the state of degradation the painting is in."
Besides allowing experts and art-lovers to study the masterpiece from home, Artioli said the project provides an historical document of how the painting appears in 2007, which will be valuable to future generations of art historians.
The work, in Milan's Church of Santa Maria delle Grazie, was restored in a painstaking effort that wrapped up in 1999 - a project aimed at reversing half a millennium of damage to the famed artwork. Leonard painted the "Last Supper" dry, so the painting did not cleave to the surface in the fresco style, meaning it is more delicate and subject to wear.
"Over the years it has been subjected to bombardments; it was used as a stall by Napoleon," Artioli said. The restoration removed 500 years of dirt while also removing previous restoration works that masked Leonardo's own work.
Even those who get to Milan have a hard time gaining admission to see the "Last Supper." Visits have been made more difficult by measures to protect it. Twenty-five visitors are admitted every 15 minutes to see the painting for a total of about 320,000 visitors a year. Visitors must pass through a filtration system to help reduce the work's exposure to dust and pollutants.
"The demand is three of four times higher, but we can't accommodate it because of efforts to preserve the painting," Artioli said.
On the Web: http://www.haltadefinizione.com/
By Associated Press Writer Colleen Barry
Dubai strike threatens building boom
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20071028/ap_on_re_mi_ea/dubai_labor_unrest_4
Dubai strike threatens building boom
By BARBARA SURK, Associated Press Writer
Sun Oct 28, 2007
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — Thousands of South Asian construction workers went on strike Sunday over harsh working conditions in the latest threat to a spectacular building boom already endangered by a falling currency and labor shortage.
While laborers have long complained about working conditions in this Gulf city known for its avant-garde skyscrapers, luxury dwellings and archipelagoes of artificial islands, their recent action comes as contractors are struggling to find workers to complete their ambitious projects.
Dubai is home to the world's tallest building — the Burj Dubai, expected to be completed in 2008 — and the first Armani luxury hotel. Authorities report an annual average growth rate of 12 percent over the past decade, largely driven by construction.
The boom has been possible due to plentiful investment from oil-rich neighbors and armies of non-unionized south Asian workers whose fear of deportation, until recently, kept them from voicing discontent over low wages.
"The cost of living here has increased so much in the past two years that I cannot survive with my salary," said Rajesh Kumar, a 24-year-old worker from the south Indian state of Andhra Pradesh who earns $149 a month.
The laborers ignored the threat of deportation and refused to go to work, staging protests at a labor camp in Dubai's Jebel Ali Industrial Zone and on a construction site in Al Qusais residential neighborhood.
They demanded pay increases, improved housing and better transportation services to construction sites. On Saturday, workers threw stones at the riot police and damaged to police cars.
Emirates' Minister of Labor Ali bin Abdullah al-Kaabi described workers' behavior as "uncivilized," saying they were tampering with national security and endangering residents' safety.
They could have registered their complaints peacefully but instead "turned themselves into rioters," he told state news agency WAM. Those who damaged public property will be deported, the labor minister said.
Companies, however, do not want more workers to leave as they struggle to find enough to complete existing projects following an overwhelming response to a government amnesty program to persuade illegal laborers to leave.
In June, the government offered, no questions asked, a free one-way plane tickets to illegal workers hoping to leave. They have since been swamped by 280,000 workers who, fed up with a rising cost of living and low wages, were ready to go home.
A booming economy in India also means that many there no longer see the need to travel to Dubai and the Gulf, said Bernard Raj, managing director of the Dubai-based Keith International, which supplies Indian workers.
"In the past, when we go for recruitment of workers we were able to choose whomever we wanted. Now the turnout of candidates is very low," he said, estimating that at least 40 percent more workers were needed for the city's projects.
With the usual labor markets like India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka drying up, labor companies are turning to less traditional places like Tibet and North Korea.
At the root of the problem is the Emirati Dirham's close connection to the U.S. dollar, which has seen it plummet in value, further decreasing laborers' already low salaries.
Kumar and his fellow workers said they asked their employer, Al Habtoor Engineering Enterprises, for a pay increase several times, but management was not willing to address the issue.
"We were left without any choice but to stage the protest," Kumar said.
Other workers said similar requests to the other main labor company, Al Mussa Contracting, were unsuccessful.
"I can not save anything," said Sunder Raj, a 32-year-old worker who at the end of the month has nothing to send to his family in India from his salary of $162.
"We are working hard for nothing and there is no way for us to continue like this," said Mohammed Hussein, a Bangladeshi worker.
K.V. Shamsudheen of the Pravasi Bhandu Welfare Trust, a group that helps workers, said it is the unskilled labor force that has been especially hard hit, with many no longer able to send money home.
"The low exchange rate of dirham against Indian Rupee left laborers without any savings," he said. "The only way for the UAE to attract workers is to set competitive salaries and assure better living conditions."
While Mohammed al-Shaiba, a UAE-based labor analyst, criticized the strikes, saying they could only harm an economy gripped by a labor shortage, he acknowledged that the government had to do something.
"Now it's the right time to set a minimum wage," he said, adding that government should require companies to pay workers at least $272 a month.
"If they allow a strike today, tomorrow there will be another one," he added.
Dubai strike threatens building boom
By BARBARA SURK, Associated Press Writer
Sun Oct 28, 2007
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — Thousands of South Asian construction workers went on strike Sunday over harsh working conditions in the latest threat to a spectacular building boom already endangered by a falling currency and labor shortage.
While laborers have long complained about working conditions in this Gulf city known for its avant-garde skyscrapers, luxury dwellings and archipelagoes of artificial islands, their recent action comes as contractors are struggling to find workers to complete their ambitious projects.
Dubai is home to the world's tallest building — the Burj Dubai, expected to be completed in 2008 — and the first Armani luxury hotel. Authorities report an annual average growth rate of 12 percent over the past decade, largely driven by construction.
The boom has been possible due to plentiful investment from oil-rich neighbors and armies of non-unionized south Asian workers whose fear of deportation, until recently, kept them from voicing discontent over low wages.
"The cost of living here has increased so much in the past two years that I cannot survive with my salary," said Rajesh Kumar, a 24-year-old worker from the south Indian state of Andhra Pradesh who earns $149 a month.
The laborers ignored the threat of deportation and refused to go to work, staging protests at a labor camp in Dubai's Jebel Ali Industrial Zone and on a construction site in Al Qusais residential neighborhood.
They demanded pay increases, improved housing and better transportation services to construction sites. On Saturday, workers threw stones at the riot police and damaged to police cars.
Emirates' Minister of Labor Ali bin Abdullah al-Kaabi described workers' behavior as "uncivilized," saying they were tampering with national security and endangering residents' safety.
They could have registered their complaints peacefully but instead "turned themselves into rioters," he told state news agency WAM. Those who damaged public property will be deported, the labor minister said.
Companies, however, do not want more workers to leave as they struggle to find enough to complete existing projects following an overwhelming response to a government amnesty program to persuade illegal laborers to leave.
In June, the government offered, no questions asked, a free one-way plane tickets to illegal workers hoping to leave. They have since been swamped by 280,000 workers who, fed up with a rising cost of living and low wages, were ready to go home.
A booming economy in India also means that many there no longer see the need to travel to Dubai and the Gulf, said Bernard Raj, managing director of the Dubai-based Keith International, which supplies Indian workers.
"In the past, when we go for recruitment of workers we were able to choose whomever we wanted. Now the turnout of candidates is very low," he said, estimating that at least 40 percent more workers were needed for the city's projects.
With the usual labor markets like India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka drying up, labor companies are turning to less traditional places like Tibet and North Korea.
At the root of the problem is the Emirati Dirham's close connection to the U.S. dollar, which has seen it plummet in value, further decreasing laborers' already low salaries.
Kumar and his fellow workers said they asked their employer, Al Habtoor Engineering Enterprises, for a pay increase several times, but management was not willing to address the issue.
"We were left without any choice but to stage the protest," Kumar said.
Other workers said similar requests to the other main labor company, Al Mussa Contracting, were unsuccessful.
"I can not save anything," said Sunder Raj, a 32-year-old worker who at the end of the month has nothing to send to his family in India from his salary of $162.
"We are working hard for nothing and there is no way for us to continue like this," said Mohammed Hussein, a Bangladeshi worker.
K.V. Shamsudheen of the Pravasi Bhandu Welfare Trust, a group that helps workers, said it is the unskilled labor force that has been especially hard hit, with many no longer able to send money home.
"The low exchange rate of dirham against Indian Rupee left laborers without any savings," he said. "The only way for the UAE to attract workers is to set competitive salaries and assure better living conditions."
While Mohammed al-Shaiba, a UAE-based labor analyst, criticized the strikes, saying they could only harm an economy gripped by a labor shortage, he acknowledged that the government had to do something.
"Now it's the right time to set a minimum wage," he said, adding that government should require companies to pay workers at least $272 a month.
"If they allow a strike today, tomorrow there will be another one," he added.
Second 'Gone With the Wind' sequel ready
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20071028/ap_en_ot/rhett_butler_book
Second 'Gone With the Wind' sequel ready
Sun Oct 28, 2007
Rhett Butler, the fictional Southern charmer who walked out of Scarlett O'Hara's life in "Gone With the Wind," returns to Georgia next weekend — on a book tour of sorts.
The book, to be unveiled Saturday, is a kind of retelling of Margaret Mitchell's masterpiece from Rhett's perspective and traces Butler from his roots in South Carolina to Georgia, where he met the dramatic Scarlett.
An Atlanta committee charged with protecting Mitchell's novel authorized the book, "Rhett Butler's People."
The novel begins long before Scarlett ever uttered her first "fiddle-dee-dee" and goes on for nearly 100 more pages beyond where Mitchell ended things with "Tomorrow is another day."
The book was written by little-known Civil War novelist Donald McCaig, 67. Though his occasional use of the N-word in his manuscript initially gave the committee pause, it accepted the manuscript.
This is the second companion novel authorized by the Mitchell committee. The first, "Scarlett" by Alexandra Ripley, released in 1991, was a financial success but unpopular with critics.
"Scarlett" sold more than 6 million copies and spawned a CBS miniseries.
Much has changed since then, though. "Scarlett" was splashed cross the pages of the now-defunct Life magazine, but Rhett Butler and his book have a MySpace page.
"The public itself wanted another sequel," said Paul Anderson Jr., part of the three-lawyer committee that advises the Mitchell estate on protecting and exercising the original book's copyright.
"But this is not like 'Rocky.' We're not coming back every time we think we can make another book," Anderson told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
Second 'Gone With the Wind' sequel ready
Sun Oct 28, 2007
Rhett Butler, the fictional Southern charmer who walked out of Scarlett O'Hara's life in "Gone With the Wind," returns to Georgia next weekend — on a book tour of sorts.
The book, to be unveiled Saturday, is a kind of retelling of Margaret Mitchell's masterpiece from Rhett's perspective and traces Butler from his roots in South Carolina to Georgia, where he met the dramatic Scarlett.
An Atlanta committee charged with protecting Mitchell's novel authorized the book, "Rhett Butler's People."
The novel begins long before Scarlett ever uttered her first "fiddle-dee-dee" and goes on for nearly 100 more pages beyond where Mitchell ended things with "Tomorrow is another day."
The book was written by little-known Civil War novelist Donald McCaig, 67. Though his occasional use of the N-word in his manuscript initially gave the committee pause, it accepted the manuscript.
This is the second companion novel authorized by the Mitchell committee. The first, "Scarlett" by Alexandra Ripley, released in 1991, was a financial success but unpopular with critics.
"Scarlett" sold more than 6 million copies and spawned a CBS miniseries.
Much has changed since then, though. "Scarlett" was splashed cross the pages of the now-defunct Life magazine, but Rhett Butler and his book have a MySpace page.
"The public itself wanted another sequel," said Paul Anderson Jr., part of the three-lawyer committee that advises the Mitchell estate on protecting and exercising the original book's copyright.
"But this is not like 'Rocky.' We're not coming back every time we think we can make another book," Anderson told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
Guitar Hero III: Five Reasons to Rock
http://videogames.yahoo.com/events/guitar-hero-3/guitar-hero-iii-five-reasons-to-rock/535232
Guitar Hero III: Five Reasons to Rock
Gaming's biggest arena tour is about to hit your town. Here are some details to chew on while you stand in line for a ticket.
by Russ Fischer
1. Better Than A New Drummer
Tony Hawk developers Neversoft were so into Guitar Hero while creating Project 8 that they were hired to make this third game after original publisher Harmonix was snapped up by EA. With loads of experience pushing established ideas forward, Neversoft has kept the game's classic elements and added new details to the user interface and player characters.
2. Mode-tacular!
Co-op gameplay has been given its own career mode, and you can finally play co-op online as well. Contentious players can check the Battle Mode, where axe-handlers face off playing identical tracks and earning attacks with Star Power. Unleash these devious deals against your opponent to break their concentration. You can make single notes appear as chords, overload the amp to make their screen shake, or even force the dreaded (rightys to) lefty flip.
3. SoundScan
Complaints against some of Guitar Hero II's song choices were heard loud and clear, and while there's still plenty of metal (Slayer, oh yeah!) there are also more genuine guitar hero choices like Eric Johnson, Sonic Youth, Living Color, and the reappearance of Stevie Ray Vaughn. More than 70 percent of the tracks are performed by the original artist. Of the three "holy grail" bands, AC/DC Metallica and Led Zepplin, one is finally on board. You'll be able to rock the master track to Metallica's 'One' along with all the other goodness.
4. Play The Pros
Guitar Hero is no longer confined to the realm of pure fantasy; now it's only partial fantasy with the inclusion of real-world rockers like Slash and Tom Morello. (Oh, and Brett Michaels.) Slash and Morello will be two of the game's three bosses, against whom you'll have to face off in the biggest battles of your career. They even recorded new music for their confrontations. The third battle will be against the most pro player of all, the guy that everyone from classic blues legends to Ralph Macchio have taken on: the Devil. If you can guess that battle, you're probably a Charlie Daniels fan.
5. It's All Wireless
No more being tethered to the amp, er, console, by a cord that's too short for rocking. Activision broke through Microsoft's resistance to third-party wireless controllers and so the Gibson Les Paul controller, with a removable neck for easier travel, will be wireless on all consoles. (The PS2 gets its own wireless controller modeled on the Kramer Pacer.) Special bonus for Wii players: by slotting the remote into the guitar, you'll hear extra sounds pumped through the remote's speaker.
Posted: 24 Oct 2007
Guitar Hero III: Five Reasons to Rock
Gaming's biggest arena tour is about to hit your town. Here are some details to chew on while you stand in line for a ticket.
by Russ Fischer
1. Better Than A New Drummer
Tony Hawk developers Neversoft were so into Guitar Hero while creating Project 8 that they were hired to make this third game after original publisher Harmonix was snapped up by EA. With loads of experience pushing established ideas forward, Neversoft has kept the game's classic elements and added new details to the user interface and player characters.
2. Mode-tacular!
Co-op gameplay has been given its own career mode, and you can finally play co-op online as well. Contentious players can check the Battle Mode, where axe-handlers face off playing identical tracks and earning attacks with Star Power. Unleash these devious deals against your opponent to break their concentration. You can make single notes appear as chords, overload the amp to make their screen shake, or even force the dreaded (rightys to) lefty flip.
3. SoundScan
Complaints against some of Guitar Hero II's song choices were heard loud and clear, and while there's still plenty of metal (Slayer, oh yeah!) there are also more genuine guitar hero choices like Eric Johnson, Sonic Youth, Living Color, and the reappearance of Stevie Ray Vaughn. More than 70 percent of the tracks are performed by the original artist. Of the three "holy grail" bands, AC/DC Metallica and Led Zepplin, one is finally on board. You'll be able to rock the master track to Metallica's 'One' along with all the other goodness.
4. Play The Pros
Guitar Hero is no longer confined to the realm of pure fantasy; now it's only partial fantasy with the inclusion of real-world rockers like Slash and Tom Morello. (Oh, and Brett Michaels.) Slash and Morello will be two of the game's three bosses, against whom you'll have to face off in the biggest battles of your career. They even recorded new music for their confrontations. The third battle will be against the most pro player of all, the guy that everyone from classic blues legends to Ralph Macchio have taken on: the Devil. If you can guess that battle, you're probably a Charlie Daniels fan.
5. It's All Wireless
No more being tethered to the amp, er, console, by a cord that's too short for rocking. Activision broke through Microsoft's resistance to third-party wireless controllers and so the Gibson Les Paul controller, with a removable neck for easier travel, will be wireless on all consoles. (The PS2 gets its own wireless controller modeled on the Kramer Pacer.) Special bonus for Wii players: by slotting the remote into the guitar, you'll hear extra sounds pumped through the remote's speaker.
Posted: 24 Oct 2007
G.I. Joe was just a toy, wasn't he?
http://www.lvrj.com/opinion/10849526.html
Oct. 28, 2007
Las Vegas Review-Journal
VIN SUPRYNOWICZ: G.I. Joe was just a toy, wasn't he?
Hollywood now proposes that in a new live-action movie based on the G.I. Joe toy line, Joe's -- well, "G.I." -- identity needs to be replaced by membership in an "international force based in Brussels." The IGN Entertainment news site reports Paramount is considering replacing our "real American hero" with "Action Man," member of an "international operations team."
Paramount will simply turn Joe's name into an acronym.
The show biz newspaper Variety reports: "G.I. Joe is now a Brussels-based outfit that stands for Global Integrated Joint Operating Entity, an international co-ed force of operatives who use hi-tech equipment to battle Cobra, an evil organization headed by a double-crossing Scottish arms dealer."
Well, thank goodness the villain -- no need to offend anyone by making our villains Arabs, Muslims, or foreign dictators of any stripe these days, though apparently Presbyterians who talk like Scottie on "Star Trek" are still OK -- is a double-crossing arms dealer. Otherwise one might be tempted to conclude the geniuses at Paramount believe arms dealing itself is evil.
(Just for the record, what did the quintessential American hero, Humphrey Bogart's Rick Blaine in "Casablanca," do before he opened his eponymous cafe? Yep: gun-runner.)
According to reports in Variety and the aforementioned IGN, the producers explain international marketing would simply prove too difficult for a summer, 2009 film about a heroic U.S. soldier. Thus the need to "eliminate Joe's connection to the U.S. military."
Well, who cares. G.I. Joe is just a toy, right? He was never real. Right?
On Nov. 15, 2003, an 85-year-old retired Marine Corps colonel died of congestive heart failure at his home in La Quinta, Calif., southeast of Palm Springs. He was a combat veteran of World War II. His name was Mitchell Paige.
It's hard today to envision -- or, for the dwindling few, to remember -- what the world looked like on Oct. 25, 1942 -- 65 years ago.
The U.S. Navy was not the most powerful fighting force in the Pacific. Not by a long shot. So the Navy basically dumped a few thousand lonely American Marines on the beach at Guadalcanal and high-tailed it out of there.
(You old swabbies can hold the letters. I've written elsewhere about the way Bull Halsey rolled the dice on the night of Nov. 13, 1942, violating the stern War College edict against committing capital ships in restricted waters and instead dispatching into the Slot his last two remaining fast battleships, the South Dakota and the Washington, escorted by the only four destroyers with enough fuel in their bunkers to get them there and back. By 11 p.m., with the fire control systems on the South Dakota malfunctioning, with the crews of those American destroyers cheering her on as they treaded water in an inky sea full of flaming wreckage, "At that moment Washington was the entire U.S. Pacific Fleet," writes naval historian David Lippman. "If this one ship did not stop 14 Japanese ships right then and there, America might lose the war. ..." At midnight precisely, facing those impossible odds, the battleship Washington opened up with her 16-inch guns. If you're reading this in English, you should be able to figure out how she did.)
But the Washington's one-sided battle with the Kirishima was still weeks in the future. On Oct. 25, Mitchell Paige was back on the God-forsaken malarial jungle island of Guadalcanal.
On Guadalcanal, the Marines struggled to complete an airfield that could threaten the Japanese route to Australia. Admiral Yamamoto knew how dangerous that was. Before long, relentless Japanese counterattacks had driven the supporting U.S. Navy from inshore waters. The Marines were on their own.
As Platoon Sgt. Mitchell Paige and his 33 riflemen set about carefully emplacing their four water-cooled .30-caliber Brownings on that hillside, 65 years ago this week -- manning their section of the thin khaki line that was expected to defend Henderson Field against the assault of the night of Oct. 25, 1942 -- it's unlikely anyone thought they were about to provide the definitive answer to that most desperate of questions: How many able-bodied U.S. Marines does it take to hold a hill against 2,000 armed and motivated attackers?
But by the time the night was over, "The 29th (Japanese) Infantry Regiment has lost 553 killed or missing and 479 wounded among its 2,554 men," historian Lippman reports. "The 16th (Japanese) Regiment's losses are uncounted, but the 164th's burial parties handled 975 Japanese bodies. ... The American estimate of 2,200 Japanese dead is probably too low."
You've already figured out where the Japanese focused their attack, haven't you? Among the 90 American dead and seriously wounded that night were all the men in Mitchell Paige's platoon. Every one. As the night of endless attacks wore on, Paige moved up and down his line, pulling his dead and wounded comrades back into their foxholes and firing a few bursts from each of the four Brownings in turn, convincing the Japanese forces down the hill that the positions were still manned.
The citation for Paige's Medal of Honor picks up the tale: "When the enemy broke through the line directly in front of his position, P/Sgt. Paige, commanding a machine gun section with fearless determination, continued to direct the fire of his gunners until all his men were either killed or wounded. Alone, against the deadly hail of Japanese shells, he fought with his gun and when it was destroyed, took over another, moving from gun to gun, never ceasing his withering fire."
In the end, Sgt. Paige picked up the last of the 40-pound, belt-fed Brownings and did something for which the weapon was never designed. Sgt. Paige walked down the hill toward the place where he could hear the last Japanese survivors rallying to move around his flank, the belt-fed gun cradled under his arm, firing as he went.
Coming up at dawn, battalion executive officer Major Odell M. Conoley was the first to discover how many able-bodied United States Marines it takes to hold a hill against two regiments of motivated, combat-hardened infantrymen who have never known defeat.
On a hill where the bodies were piled like cordwood, Mitchell Paige alone sat upright behind his 30-caliber Browning, waiting to see what the dawn would bring.
The hill had held, because on the hill remained the minimum number of able-bodied United States Marines necessary to hold the position.
And that's where the unstoppable wave of Japanese conquest finally crested, broke, and began to recede. On an unnamed jungle ridge on an insignificant island no one ever heard of, called Guadalcanal.
When the Hasbro Toy Co. called some years back, asking permission to put the retired colonel's face on some kid's doll, Mitchell Paige thought they must be joking.
But they weren't. That's his mug, on the little Marine they call "G.I. Joe." At least, it has been up till now.
Mitchell Paige's only condition? That G.I. Joe must always remain a United States Marine.
But don't worry. Far more important for our new movies not to offend anyone in Cairo or Karachi or Paris or Palembang.
After all, it's only a toy. It doesn't mean anything.
Vin Suprynowicz is assistant editorial page editor of the Review-Journal and author of the books "Send in the Waco Killers" and "The Black Arrow."
www.abebooks.com/servlet/SearchResults?kn=arrow&vci=51238921
Oct. 28, 2007
Las Vegas Review-Journal
VIN SUPRYNOWICZ: G.I. Joe was just a toy, wasn't he?
Hollywood now proposes that in a new live-action movie based on the G.I. Joe toy line, Joe's -- well, "G.I." -- identity needs to be replaced by membership in an "international force based in Brussels." The IGN Entertainment news site reports Paramount is considering replacing our "real American hero" with "Action Man," member of an "international operations team."
Paramount will simply turn Joe's name into an acronym.
The show biz newspaper Variety reports: "G.I. Joe is now a Brussels-based outfit that stands for Global Integrated Joint Operating Entity, an international co-ed force of operatives who use hi-tech equipment to battle Cobra, an evil organization headed by a double-crossing Scottish arms dealer."
Well, thank goodness the villain -- no need to offend anyone by making our villains Arabs, Muslims, or foreign dictators of any stripe these days, though apparently Presbyterians who talk like Scottie on "Star Trek" are still OK -- is a double-crossing arms dealer. Otherwise one might be tempted to conclude the geniuses at Paramount believe arms dealing itself is evil.
(Just for the record, what did the quintessential American hero, Humphrey Bogart's Rick Blaine in "Casablanca," do before he opened his eponymous cafe? Yep: gun-runner.)
According to reports in Variety and the aforementioned IGN, the producers explain international marketing would simply prove too difficult for a summer, 2009 film about a heroic U.S. soldier. Thus the need to "eliminate Joe's connection to the U.S. military."
Well, who cares. G.I. Joe is just a toy, right? He was never real. Right?
On Nov. 15, 2003, an 85-year-old retired Marine Corps colonel died of congestive heart failure at his home in La Quinta, Calif., southeast of Palm Springs. He was a combat veteran of World War II. His name was Mitchell Paige.
It's hard today to envision -- or, for the dwindling few, to remember -- what the world looked like on Oct. 25, 1942 -- 65 years ago.
The U.S. Navy was not the most powerful fighting force in the Pacific. Not by a long shot. So the Navy basically dumped a few thousand lonely American Marines on the beach at Guadalcanal and high-tailed it out of there.
(You old swabbies can hold the letters. I've written elsewhere about the way Bull Halsey rolled the dice on the night of Nov. 13, 1942, violating the stern War College edict against committing capital ships in restricted waters and instead dispatching into the Slot his last two remaining fast battleships, the South Dakota and the Washington, escorted by the only four destroyers with enough fuel in their bunkers to get them there and back. By 11 p.m., with the fire control systems on the South Dakota malfunctioning, with the crews of those American destroyers cheering her on as they treaded water in an inky sea full of flaming wreckage, "At that moment Washington was the entire U.S. Pacific Fleet," writes naval historian David Lippman. "If this one ship did not stop 14 Japanese ships right then and there, America might lose the war. ..." At midnight precisely, facing those impossible odds, the battleship Washington opened up with her 16-inch guns. If you're reading this in English, you should be able to figure out how she did.)
But the Washington's one-sided battle with the Kirishima was still weeks in the future. On Oct. 25, Mitchell Paige was back on the God-forsaken malarial jungle island of Guadalcanal.
On Guadalcanal, the Marines struggled to complete an airfield that could threaten the Japanese route to Australia. Admiral Yamamoto knew how dangerous that was. Before long, relentless Japanese counterattacks had driven the supporting U.S. Navy from inshore waters. The Marines were on their own.
As Platoon Sgt. Mitchell Paige and his 33 riflemen set about carefully emplacing their four water-cooled .30-caliber Brownings on that hillside, 65 years ago this week -- manning their section of the thin khaki line that was expected to defend Henderson Field against the assault of the night of Oct. 25, 1942 -- it's unlikely anyone thought they were about to provide the definitive answer to that most desperate of questions: How many able-bodied U.S. Marines does it take to hold a hill against 2,000 armed and motivated attackers?
But by the time the night was over, "The 29th (Japanese) Infantry Regiment has lost 553 killed or missing and 479 wounded among its 2,554 men," historian Lippman reports. "The 16th (Japanese) Regiment's losses are uncounted, but the 164th's burial parties handled 975 Japanese bodies. ... The American estimate of 2,200 Japanese dead is probably too low."
You've already figured out where the Japanese focused their attack, haven't you? Among the 90 American dead and seriously wounded that night were all the men in Mitchell Paige's platoon. Every one. As the night of endless attacks wore on, Paige moved up and down his line, pulling his dead and wounded comrades back into their foxholes and firing a few bursts from each of the four Brownings in turn, convincing the Japanese forces down the hill that the positions were still manned.
The citation for Paige's Medal of Honor picks up the tale: "When the enemy broke through the line directly in front of his position, P/Sgt. Paige, commanding a machine gun section with fearless determination, continued to direct the fire of his gunners until all his men were either killed or wounded. Alone, against the deadly hail of Japanese shells, he fought with his gun and when it was destroyed, took over another, moving from gun to gun, never ceasing his withering fire."
In the end, Sgt. Paige picked up the last of the 40-pound, belt-fed Brownings and did something for which the weapon was never designed. Sgt. Paige walked down the hill toward the place where he could hear the last Japanese survivors rallying to move around his flank, the belt-fed gun cradled under his arm, firing as he went.
Coming up at dawn, battalion executive officer Major Odell M. Conoley was the first to discover how many able-bodied United States Marines it takes to hold a hill against two regiments of motivated, combat-hardened infantrymen who have never known defeat.
On a hill where the bodies were piled like cordwood, Mitchell Paige alone sat upright behind his 30-caliber Browning, waiting to see what the dawn would bring.
The hill had held, because on the hill remained the minimum number of able-bodied United States Marines necessary to hold the position.
And that's where the unstoppable wave of Japanese conquest finally crested, broke, and began to recede. On an unnamed jungle ridge on an insignificant island no one ever heard of, called Guadalcanal.
When the Hasbro Toy Co. called some years back, asking permission to put the retired colonel's face on some kid's doll, Mitchell Paige thought they must be joking.
But they weren't. That's his mug, on the little Marine they call "G.I. Joe." At least, it has been up till now.
Mitchell Paige's only condition? That G.I. Joe must always remain a United States Marine.
But don't worry. Far more important for our new movies not to offend anyone in Cairo or Karachi or Paris or Palembang.
After all, it's only a toy. It doesn't mean anything.
Vin Suprynowicz is assistant editorial page editor of the Review-Journal and author of the books "Send in the Waco Killers" and "The Black Arrow."
www.abebooks.com/servlet/SearchResults?kn=arrow&vci=51238921
'It’s all my fault’
http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/books/biography/article2759391.ece
From The Times
October 29, 2007
He went into the garden and began muttering ‘Iraq’ and ‘it’s all my fault’
Tony Blair’s election victory in 2005 was immediately followed by rebellion, a new biography reveals
Philip Webster, Political Editor
Tony Blair virtually regarded the result of the 2005 general election as a defeat for which he blamed himself and the Iraq war, according to a new biography.
As the early results suggested a much-reduced Labour majority, Mr Blair went into the garden and started muttering “It’s all my fault” and “Iraq”, the book reveals.
He accepted that it weakened his authority as Prime Minister to make the changes to the machinery of government that he wanted and to appoint the Government that he needed. And it further enfeebled him in his relationship with Gordon Brown, who had been persuaded late on to take a full part in the election campaign and grabbed most of the credit for winning a third term – albeit with the Labour majority cut from 167 to 64.
Astonishing revelations in Blair Unbound by Anthony Seldon suggest that Mr Brown regularly told Mr Blair to “F off” as the Prime Minister put forward possible ministerial changes in the reshuffle after the election, and that plans drawn up by his advisers to revamp the Treasury were blocked immediately. The biography paints an extraordinary picture of a prime minister impotent to do what he desired, despite having given Labour a record third term, as he crumbled in front of John Prescott and Mr Brown when they resisted his planned changes.
Before the election Mr Blair had again considered moving Mr Brown to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO), but the Chancellor’s price for returning to the centre of the election campaign was to stay in his job, the book says.
It reveals that as the election results came in, a deeply depressed Mr Blair –who was with his family and friends at Myrobella, his constituency home – was completely unnerved when Labour lost Putney to the Conservatives at 12.35am. “If we lost this we are going to lose the lot,” he said to Jonathan Powell, his chief of staff.
Later he went out into the garden in the “freezing cold” with his long-time aides Alastair Campbell and Sally Morgan. According to the book, “he started muttering things such as ‘It’s all my fault’ and ‘Iraq’”. “It was a pretty grim hour or so,” Ms Morgan said.
The book describes how before the election Andrew Turnbull, the Cabinet Secretary, and John Birt, the former BBC Director-General who was brought in as a “blue skies” thinker by Mr Blair, drew up plans to reform the “overmighty Treasury”.
One plan was the creation of an Office of Management and Budget (OMB), which would be distinct from the Treasury and have responsibility for productivity and domestic spending, while the Treasury would be left in control of macroeconomic policy. Under this option the Treasury would be compensated for its loss by the sweetener of absorbing trade and competition policy from the Department of Trade and Industry.
According to the book: “The ultras hoped that Blair would not only adopt such a plan but also move Brown out to the FCO. Some saw this as setting Brown up for a fall, believing that he would not be able to make a success of running foreign policy. Blair certainly gave serious consideration to the OMB plan and of moving Brown. He ‘licensed and encouraged this work’, said one No 10 aide, ‘and was highly interested in where it was going’.”
As his Sedgefield result was declared in 2005 Mr Blair was attacked by an antiwar candidate who said he hoped that Mr Blair would visit wounded soldiers in hospital.
The book says: “With Cherie on the edge of tears ‘it clearly impacted very badly on him; it was the most visibly weak I had ever seen him,’ said one close aide. What was not known was that Blair had already visited and would continue to visit the wounded from Afghanistan and Iraq. He had, however, taken steps to ensure that the media did not report this information. ‘I don’t want it to become political,’ he told one military officer, ‘and because I don’t want it to become political I’m prepared to take the hit from people that think I don’t visit.’ He did it ‘for the sake of his own conscience,’ said one official.”
The following extract picks up the election story on the day after polling. “‘The Prime Minister was dog-tired and felt very bad about the result,’ said one of his close team. It was Friday, May 6, his birthday, but not his happiest. He rallied himself in an effort to put his stamp on the reshuffle and to show who was in charge. Letters to ministers, including some significant switches, had been drafted and were ready for him to sign.
“The first meeting that morning was with Prescott. Blair planned to tell him that he would relinquish the communities and local government briefs in their entirety but he could remain as Deputy Prime Minister. Prescott refused point-blank. He took advantage of the Prime Minister feeling politically weak, said an observer. ‘Blair did not have the stomach for a fight’.
“His second meeting was with Brown. He put to him a watered-down plan of splitting the Treasury, but with the OMB reporting up through him. Brown rejected the idea outright. Blair’s much-reduced majority had squashed once and for all his hopes of doing anything to Brown against his will. Powell told a colleague that because of the results ‘you can forget the plans now. They won’t work’.
“Blair still had some leeway, however, and was adamant that he was going to promote modernisers in the reshuffle. This would be a Blairite government. The dual leadership of the preceding three weeks was now over. No 10 became enraged on Friday after the Brownites briefed the press that the results were bad for Labour and for Blair. ‘There was a pretty big rubbishing of it from the Brownites. That is what they do,’ said one of the Blair team who even went as far as to speculate that Brown wanted the reshuffle to fail. Brown had expected to be consulted fully in the reshuffle, and considered it to be part of the deal of him returning to the front line. ‘He really believed he had been told in the general election campaign that it was going to be different from now,’ said a Treasury official. He was right. He had been. Before the election results were known, Brown’s office had phoned No 10 to offer his services in the reshuffle.
“That Friday a number of subsequent phone calls took place between Blair and Brown. They were not the conversations Brown had been expecting. Blair had decided that he was going to move in on the Treasury appointments. ‘Isn’t it at last time to sack Dawn Primarolo [the Treasury minister, now Minister for Public Health]?’ Blair asked him. Brown reacted strongly to protect her. According to one official, their conversation followed the typical pattern at the time. ‘The Prime Minister would start off the conversation on the front foot and Gordon would respond simply by saying ‘F off’. Blair said he wanted his own nominee, John Hutton, to become Chief Secretary to the Treasury. Brown flatly refused, considering it an affront as Hutton was such a Blairite. He also rejected John Denham for the job. ‘I thought you said you [would] consult me over the whole government. You promised me. So this is it?’ said an indignant Brown.
“‘Gordon, it’s got to be my reshuffle,’ Blair responded. ‘I am the Prime Minister.’ In fact Blair’s team had never even discussed whether Brown should have been involved in the construction of the new Government. The Treasury very quickly got the message that the Chancellor was not going to be involved at all. ‘Their response was, “You bastards. We can’t trust you and we won’t trust you ever again,” kind of territory,’ said an official. ‘After the election Brown defaulted to “betrayal mode”’, said one observer. “Brown, not Blair, emerged as the primary victor of the 2005 election. At the PLP (Parliamentary Labour Party) meeting the following Monday, for the first time MPs stood up and challenged his leadership, saying that MPs had lost their seats because of his continuation as leader. Former minister Peter Kilfoyle put it to him directly that ‘the sooner he stood down the better off the party would be as he had become a negative factor’. There was a deadly silence. The mood was sombre. Blair responded that he needed time and space and MPs owed it to him to be loyal until the handover.
“But the stories began about how long he could and should survive. Coming on top of the unemphatic election results and the halfcock reshuffle, it was the worst possible start to the third term.”
From The Times
October 29, 2007
He went into the garden and began muttering ‘Iraq’ and ‘it’s all my fault’
Tony Blair’s election victory in 2005 was immediately followed by rebellion, a new biography reveals
Philip Webster, Political Editor
Tony Blair virtually regarded the result of the 2005 general election as a defeat for which he blamed himself and the Iraq war, according to a new biography.
As the early results suggested a much-reduced Labour majority, Mr Blair went into the garden and started muttering “It’s all my fault” and “Iraq”, the book reveals.
He accepted that it weakened his authority as Prime Minister to make the changes to the machinery of government that he wanted and to appoint the Government that he needed. And it further enfeebled him in his relationship with Gordon Brown, who had been persuaded late on to take a full part in the election campaign and grabbed most of the credit for winning a third term – albeit with the Labour majority cut from 167 to 64.
Astonishing revelations in Blair Unbound by Anthony Seldon suggest that Mr Brown regularly told Mr Blair to “F off” as the Prime Minister put forward possible ministerial changes in the reshuffle after the election, and that plans drawn up by his advisers to revamp the Treasury were blocked immediately. The biography paints an extraordinary picture of a prime minister impotent to do what he desired, despite having given Labour a record third term, as he crumbled in front of John Prescott and Mr Brown when they resisted his planned changes.
Before the election Mr Blair had again considered moving Mr Brown to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO), but the Chancellor’s price for returning to the centre of the election campaign was to stay in his job, the book says.
It reveals that as the election results came in, a deeply depressed Mr Blair –who was with his family and friends at Myrobella, his constituency home – was completely unnerved when Labour lost Putney to the Conservatives at 12.35am. “If we lost this we are going to lose the lot,” he said to Jonathan Powell, his chief of staff.
Later he went out into the garden in the “freezing cold” with his long-time aides Alastair Campbell and Sally Morgan. According to the book, “he started muttering things such as ‘It’s all my fault’ and ‘Iraq’”. “It was a pretty grim hour or so,” Ms Morgan said.
The book describes how before the election Andrew Turnbull, the Cabinet Secretary, and John Birt, the former BBC Director-General who was brought in as a “blue skies” thinker by Mr Blair, drew up plans to reform the “overmighty Treasury”.
One plan was the creation of an Office of Management and Budget (OMB), which would be distinct from the Treasury and have responsibility for productivity and domestic spending, while the Treasury would be left in control of macroeconomic policy. Under this option the Treasury would be compensated for its loss by the sweetener of absorbing trade and competition policy from the Department of Trade and Industry.
According to the book: “The ultras hoped that Blair would not only adopt such a plan but also move Brown out to the FCO. Some saw this as setting Brown up for a fall, believing that he would not be able to make a success of running foreign policy. Blair certainly gave serious consideration to the OMB plan and of moving Brown. He ‘licensed and encouraged this work’, said one No 10 aide, ‘and was highly interested in where it was going’.”
As his Sedgefield result was declared in 2005 Mr Blair was attacked by an antiwar candidate who said he hoped that Mr Blair would visit wounded soldiers in hospital.
The book says: “With Cherie on the edge of tears ‘it clearly impacted very badly on him; it was the most visibly weak I had ever seen him,’ said one close aide. What was not known was that Blair had already visited and would continue to visit the wounded from Afghanistan and Iraq. He had, however, taken steps to ensure that the media did not report this information. ‘I don’t want it to become political,’ he told one military officer, ‘and because I don’t want it to become political I’m prepared to take the hit from people that think I don’t visit.’ He did it ‘for the sake of his own conscience,’ said one official.”
The following extract picks up the election story on the day after polling. “‘The Prime Minister was dog-tired and felt very bad about the result,’ said one of his close team. It was Friday, May 6, his birthday, but not his happiest. He rallied himself in an effort to put his stamp on the reshuffle and to show who was in charge. Letters to ministers, including some significant switches, had been drafted and were ready for him to sign.
“The first meeting that morning was with Prescott. Blair planned to tell him that he would relinquish the communities and local government briefs in their entirety but he could remain as Deputy Prime Minister. Prescott refused point-blank. He took advantage of the Prime Minister feeling politically weak, said an observer. ‘Blair did not have the stomach for a fight’.
“His second meeting was with Brown. He put to him a watered-down plan of splitting the Treasury, but with the OMB reporting up through him. Brown rejected the idea outright. Blair’s much-reduced majority had squashed once and for all his hopes of doing anything to Brown against his will. Powell told a colleague that because of the results ‘you can forget the plans now. They won’t work’.
“Blair still had some leeway, however, and was adamant that he was going to promote modernisers in the reshuffle. This would be a Blairite government. The dual leadership of the preceding three weeks was now over. No 10 became enraged on Friday after the Brownites briefed the press that the results were bad for Labour and for Blair. ‘There was a pretty big rubbishing of it from the Brownites. That is what they do,’ said one of the Blair team who even went as far as to speculate that Brown wanted the reshuffle to fail. Brown had expected to be consulted fully in the reshuffle, and considered it to be part of the deal of him returning to the front line. ‘He really believed he had been told in the general election campaign that it was going to be different from now,’ said a Treasury official. He was right. He had been. Before the election results were known, Brown’s office had phoned No 10 to offer his services in the reshuffle.
“That Friday a number of subsequent phone calls took place between Blair and Brown. They were not the conversations Brown had been expecting. Blair had decided that he was going to move in on the Treasury appointments. ‘Isn’t it at last time to sack Dawn Primarolo [the Treasury minister, now Minister for Public Health]?’ Blair asked him. Brown reacted strongly to protect her. According to one official, their conversation followed the typical pattern at the time. ‘The Prime Minister would start off the conversation on the front foot and Gordon would respond simply by saying ‘F off’. Blair said he wanted his own nominee, John Hutton, to become Chief Secretary to the Treasury. Brown flatly refused, considering it an affront as Hutton was such a Blairite. He also rejected John Denham for the job. ‘I thought you said you [would] consult me over the whole government. You promised me. So this is it?’ said an indignant Brown.
“‘Gordon, it’s got to be my reshuffle,’ Blair responded. ‘I am the Prime Minister.’ In fact Blair’s team had never even discussed whether Brown should have been involved in the construction of the new Government. The Treasury very quickly got the message that the Chancellor was not going to be involved at all. ‘Their response was, “You bastards. We can’t trust you and we won’t trust you ever again,” kind of territory,’ said an official. ‘After the election Brown defaulted to “betrayal mode”’, said one observer. “Brown, not Blair, emerged as the primary victor of the 2005 election. At the PLP (Parliamentary Labour Party) meeting the following Monday, for the first time MPs stood up and challenged his leadership, saying that MPs had lost their seats because of his continuation as leader. Former minister Peter Kilfoyle put it to him directly that ‘the sooner he stood down the better off the party would be as he had become a negative factor’. There was a deadly silence. The mood was sombre. Blair responded that he needed time and space and MPs owed it to him to be loyal until the handover.
“But the stories began about how long he could and should survive. Coming on top of the unemphatic election results and the halfcock reshuffle, it was the worst possible start to the third term.”
Kirchner claims Argentine victory
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/7066776.stm
Kirchner claims Argentine victory
2007/10/29
Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner has claimed victory in Argentina's presidential elections.
Her claim comes after early official results, based on 15% of ballots being counted, gave her 42% of the vote.
The count backs up earlier exit polls and such a margin would be enough to elect her without a run-off poll.
If confirmed by the full count, she will succeed her husband Nestor Kirchner and become Argentina's first elected female president.
"We've won by a wide margin," she told supporters in a speech at her campaign headquarters at a hotel in Buenos Aires.
ELECTION ARITHMETIC
27m eligible voters
14 candidates running for president
Winner needs 45%, or 40% plus 10-point lead
If needed, second round on 25 November
New president to be sworn in on 10 December
As her husband, the outgoing president, stood at her side, she said she would build on his work.
"We have repositioned the country, fought poverty and unemployment, all these tragedies that have hit Argentines," she said, referring to the country's recovery from the 2001 economic crash.
The early count put her nearest rivals as Mr Kirchner's ex-Economy Minister Roberto Lavagna with 21% and former beauty queen Elisa Carrio with 18%.
If Mrs Kirchner takes more than 45% of the full vote, or 40% with a 10 point lead over the next nearest candidate, she will win the presidency without facing a second round of voting.
Mr Kirchner has governed for the past four years, but surprised the nation by deciding not to seek a fresh term.
Polling was extended by one hour in some parts of the country to 1900 local time (2200 GMT) to accommodate a late rush of voters.
Besides a new president, voters were choosing eight provincial governors, a third of the Senate and about half of the Chamber of Deputies.
Some 27 million people were eligible to vote.
Economy and crime
The economy and rising crime have been the two main issues in campaigning.
Mr Kirchner has overseen a return to stability and some prosperity since the economy collapsed six years ago, plunging thousands into poverty, the BBC's Daniel Schweimler reports from Buenos Aires.
But there are fears over how strong the economy really is and general scepticism over official statistics suggesting inflation is under control.
Ms Carrio, the candidate of the centre-left Civic Coalition, is running on an anti-corruption platform and has promised to reduce economic inequality.
She urged the poorest to vote for her in order to take the election to a second round on 25 November.
The other 12 candidates include Mr Lavagna of the centrist Coalition for an Advanced Nation and a well-known free-market economist, Ricardo Lopez Murphy.
Mrs Kirchner's critics have attacked her for failing to outline exactly what her policies are, but voters who spoke to the BBC's Will Grant in Buenos Aires said the opposition had failed to offer any real alternative.
Surprise candidate
Just a few months ago, Mr Kirchner was riding high in the opinion polls and looked set to continue for a second term.
However, it was announced in July that his wife Cristina, senator for Buenos Aires province, would stand in his place. No explanation was given.
As candidate for the governing Front for Victory, she has promised to continue her husband's centre-left policies.
As well as facing comparisons with Eva Peron, Argentina's legendary former first lady, Mrs Kirchner has been compared to former US First Lady Hillary Clinton, who is also a lawyer and senator seeking to become the first elected female president of her country.
"I don't want to be compared with Hillary Clinton or with Evita Peron, or with anybody," she said recently.
"There's nothing better than being yourself."
Kirchner claims Argentine victory
2007/10/29
Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner has claimed victory in Argentina's presidential elections.
Her claim comes after early official results, based on 15% of ballots being counted, gave her 42% of the vote.
The count backs up earlier exit polls and such a margin would be enough to elect her without a run-off poll.
If confirmed by the full count, she will succeed her husband Nestor Kirchner and become Argentina's first elected female president.
"We've won by a wide margin," she told supporters in a speech at her campaign headquarters at a hotel in Buenos Aires.
ELECTION ARITHMETIC
27m eligible voters
14 candidates running for president
Winner needs 45%, or 40% plus 10-point lead
If needed, second round on 25 November
New president to be sworn in on 10 December
As her husband, the outgoing president, stood at her side, she said she would build on his work.
"We have repositioned the country, fought poverty and unemployment, all these tragedies that have hit Argentines," she said, referring to the country's recovery from the 2001 economic crash.
The early count put her nearest rivals as Mr Kirchner's ex-Economy Minister Roberto Lavagna with 21% and former beauty queen Elisa Carrio with 18%.
If Mrs Kirchner takes more than 45% of the full vote, or 40% with a 10 point lead over the next nearest candidate, she will win the presidency without facing a second round of voting.
Mr Kirchner has governed for the past four years, but surprised the nation by deciding not to seek a fresh term.
Polling was extended by one hour in some parts of the country to 1900 local time (2200 GMT) to accommodate a late rush of voters.
Besides a new president, voters were choosing eight provincial governors, a third of the Senate and about half of the Chamber of Deputies.
Some 27 million people were eligible to vote.
Economy and crime
The economy and rising crime have been the two main issues in campaigning.
Mr Kirchner has overseen a return to stability and some prosperity since the economy collapsed six years ago, plunging thousands into poverty, the BBC's Daniel Schweimler reports from Buenos Aires.
But there are fears over how strong the economy really is and general scepticism over official statistics suggesting inflation is under control.
Ms Carrio, the candidate of the centre-left Civic Coalition, is running on an anti-corruption platform and has promised to reduce economic inequality.
She urged the poorest to vote for her in order to take the election to a second round on 25 November.
The other 12 candidates include Mr Lavagna of the centrist Coalition for an Advanced Nation and a well-known free-market economist, Ricardo Lopez Murphy.
Mrs Kirchner's critics have attacked her for failing to outline exactly what her policies are, but voters who spoke to the BBC's Will Grant in Buenos Aires said the opposition had failed to offer any real alternative.
Surprise candidate
Just a few months ago, Mr Kirchner was riding high in the opinion polls and looked set to continue for a second term.
However, it was announced in July that his wife Cristina, senator for Buenos Aires province, would stand in his place. No explanation was given.
As candidate for the governing Front for Victory, she has promised to continue her husband's centre-left policies.
As well as facing comparisons with Eva Peron, Argentina's legendary former first lady, Mrs Kirchner has been compared to former US First Lady Hillary Clinton, who is also a lawyer and senator seeking to become the first elected female president of her country.
"I don't want to be compared with Hillary Clinton or with Evita Peron, or with anybody," she said recently.
"There's nothing better than being yourself."
BURN BABY BURN – The California Celebrity Fires
BURN BABY BURN – The California Celebrity Fires
The ‘Boo ain’t no N.O.
Plus: George Bush, Flame Retard
By Greg Palast
What color is your disaster? It makes a difference. A life and death difference.
Dig:
Population of San Diego fire evacuation zone: 500,000
Population of the New Orleans flood evacuation zone: 500,000
White folk as a % of evacuees, San Diego: 66%
Black folk as % of evacuees, New Orleans: 67%
Size counts, too. Size of your wallet, that is:
Evacuees in San Diego, in poverty: 9%
Evacuees in New Orleans, in poverty: 27%
The numbers would be even uglier, though more revealing, if I included evacuees of the celebrity fire in Malibu.
The President didn’t do a photo-strafing of the scene from 1700 feet this time. Instead, we have the photo op of George, feet on the ground, hanging with Arnold the Action Man. (However, I’m informed that the President was a bit disappointed that he didn’t get to wear one of those neat fireman hats like Rudi G got at Ground Zero.)
In 2005, while the bodies were still being fished out of flooded homes in New Orleans, Republican Congressman Richard Baker praised The Lord for his mercy. “We finally cleaned up public housing in New Orleans. We couldn’t do it, but God did,” he said about the removal of the poor from the project near the French Quarter much coveted by speculators.
But as this week’s flames spread, no Republican Congressman cried, “Burn baby burn!” to praise the Lord for cleaning up the ‘Boo, the sin-and-surf playground of Hollywood luvvies.
In New Orleans, God’s covenant with real estate developers has been very profitable. Over 70,000 families remain, two years after the waters receded, in mobile home concentration centers far away from the N.O. re-building boom. Let’s see how long it takes to get Tom Hanks back on his beach towel.
Standing next to Governor Schwarzenegger, a smug little Bush said, “It makes a big difference when you have someone in the statehouse willing to take the lead” – a snide attack on the former Democratic Governor of Louisiana on whom the White House successfully dumped the blame for the horror show in New Orleans.
Mr. Bush never mentioned – and the media would never give away his secret – that 15 hours before the levees broke, the White House and FEMA knew the flood barriers were cracking, yet failed to inform the Governor and state police. Nor did Mr. Bush mention that his Department of Homeland Security’s FEMA trolls took away evacuation planning from the state and gave it to a crew of crony contractors who, for a million bucks, came up with a plan that came down to, “If a hurricane comes, get in your car and drive like hell.”
In California, plans were in place, money poured down with the flame retardant, and no one is suggesting that Mel Gibson move his swastika collection to a FEMA trailer.
Not comparable, the ‘Boo and the N.O.? You can say that again. But as a kid who grew up in the ass end of Los Angeles, I can tell you that disaster apartheid applies on the local scale as well. Look at the tarry filth of Compton and Long Beach shores versus the panicked reaction when a bit of garbage or oil sheen hits Malibu sands. (I remember, standing on the crude-covered shore of an Alaska Native village in March, 1991, the day Exxon announced it would end the clean-up from the Exxon Valdez spill. That same day, the papers showed the careful scouring that week of every pebble on Malibu beaches hit by dinky spill incident.)
Please don’t get the idea I’m slap-happy about the California inferno. My parents live in San Diego - and one of my favorite Air America hosts had to evacuate from her Del Mar hot tub, poor dear. (I’ve heard, however, that billionaires well done taste just like chicken.)
What I’m saying is: Besides the flames, there’s a class war raging in America. Or, should I say, Class Massacre. Because only one side is taking all the bullets. Malibu, Beverly Hills, Santa Monica are “incorporated communities” – islands of privilege politically fenced off from the riff-raff sea of Los Angeles. These self-incorporated Bantustans of the wealthy have their own fire departments and schools. The money islands are relieved of having to pay for the schools and hospitals of the city where their gardeners live. (I can’t tell which is the worst disaster that can befall an Angelino – a fire, an earthquake or the LA public school system.)
Now, it’s easy to say it’s just George Bush who’s the class clown of the class war. But it’s an old story. When a flood took out the tony homes at Westhampton Dunes, the Clinton Administration picked up the full tab for rebuilding these summer hideaways of investment bankers. While today, death-by-poison stalks the environment of Black townships of Louisiana (the FEMA ‘guests’ are parked in a zone called Cancer Ally), Al Gore can’t be found. But when speaking of rising sea levels that can take out the homes of his buddies in ‘Boo or the Hamptons, Gore goes ga-ga.
The one thing I’ll say in favor of that vile little Louisiana Republican cheering the drowning of public housing residents, at least he's honest about how the system works. He’s not afraid to remind us of the gods’-honest truth: disaster response is class war by other means.
So let me not forget to report the war’s body count:
New Orleans flood deaths: 1,577.
California celebrity fire deaths: 5.
Tonight and this weekend, listen to “The Fire Next Time,” on the Palast Report, aired each week on Air America’s Clout with Richard Greene, on the Nova M network with Cynthia Black (from KPHX), on the Solution Zone with Christiane Brown (KJFK) – and live, in Chicago, this weekend, for Buzzflash.com, The Chicago Committee to Defend the Bill of Rights and WCPT, Chicago’s Progressive Talk – and, on this Sunday morning on the Bree Show, KTLK Los Angeles, with host/evacuee Bree Walker, slightly charred (or is that a tan?) but undaunted.
Greg Palast is the author the New York Times bestselling book, Armed Madhouse: From Baghdad to New Orleans - Sordid Secrets and Strange Tales of a White House Gone Wild.
Sign up for Palast’s investigative reports at http://www.gregpalast.com/
The ‘Boo ain’t no N.O.
Plus: George Bush, Flame Retard
By Greg Palast
What color is your disaster? It makes a difference. A life and death difference.
Dig:
Population of San Diego fire evacuation zone: 500,000
Population of the New Orleans flood evacuation zone: 500,000
White folk as a % of evacuees, San Diego: 66%
Black folk as % of evacuees, New Orleans: 67%
Size counts, too. Size of your wallet, that is:
Evacuees in San Diego, in poverty: 9%
Evacuees in New Orleans, in poverty: 27%
The numbers would be even uglier, though more revealing, if I included evacuees of the celebrity fire in Malibu.
The President didn’t do a photo-strafing of the scene from 1700 feet this time. Instead, we have the photo op of George, feet on the ground, hanging with Arnold the Action Man. (However, I’m informed that the President was a bit disappointed that he didn’t get to wear one of those neat fireman hats like Rudi G got at Ground Zero.)
In 2005, while the bodies were still being fished out of flooded homes in New Orleans, Republican Congressman Richard Baker praised The Lord for his mercy. “We finally cleaned up public housing in New Orleans. We couldn’t do it, but God did,” he said about the removal of the poor from the project near the French Quarter much coveted by speculators.
But as this week’s flames spread, no Republican Congressman cried, “Burn baby burn!” to praise the Lord for cleaning up the ‘Boo, the sin-and-surf playground of Hollywood luvvies.
In New Orleans, God’s covenant with real estate developers has been very profitable. Over 70,000 families remain, two years after the waters receded, in mobile home concentration centers far away from the N.O. re-building boom. Let’s see how long it takes to get Tom Hanks back on his beach towel.
Standing next to Governor Schwarzenegger, a smug little Bush said, “It makes a big difference when you have someone in the statehouse willing to take the lead” – a snide attack on the former Democratic Governor of Louisiana on whom the White House successfully dumped the blame for the horror show in New Orleans.
Mr. Bush never mentioned – and the media would never give away his secret – that 15 hours before the levees broke, the White House and FEMA knew the flood barriers were cracking, yet failed to inform the Governor and state police. Nor did Mr. Bush mention that his Department of Homeland Security’s FEMA trolls took away evacuation planning from the state and gave it to a crew of crony contractors who, for a million bucks, came up with a plan that came down to, “If a hurricane comes, get in your car and drive like hell.”
In California, plans were in place, money poured down with the flame retardant, and no one is suggesting that Mel Gibson move his swastika collection to a FEMA trailer.
Not comparable, the ‘Boo and the N.O.? You can say that again. But as a kid who grew up in the ass end of Los Angeles, I can tell you that disaster apartheid applies on the local scale as well. Look at the tarry filth of Compton and Long Beach shores versus the panicked reaction when a bit of garbage or oil sheen hits Malibu sands. (I remember, standing on the crude-covered shore of an Alaska Native village in March, 1991, the day Exxon announced it would end the clean-up from the Exxon Valdez spill. That same day, the papers showed the careful scouring that week of every pebble on Malibu beaches hit by dinky spill incident.)
Please don’t get the idea I’m slap-happy about the California inferno. My parents live in San Diego - and one of my favorite Air America hosts had to evacuate from her Del Mar hot tub, poor dear. (I’ve heard, however, that billionaires well done taste just like chicken.)
What I’m saying is: Besides the flames, there’s a class war raging in America. Or, should I say, Class Massacre. Because only one side is taking all the bullets. Malibu, Beverly Hills, Santa Monica are “incorporated communities” – islands of privilege politically fenced off from the riff-raff sea of Los Angeles. These self-incorporated Bantustans of the wealthy have their own fire departments and schools. The money islands are relieved of having to pay for the schools and hospitals of the city where their gardeners live. (I can’t tell which is the worst disaster that can befall an Angelino – a fire, an earthquake or the LA public school system.)
Now, it’s easy to say it’s just George Bush who’s the class clown of the class war. But it’s an old story. When a flood took out the tony homes at Westhampton Dunes, the Clinton Administration picked up the full tab for rebuilding these summer hideaways of investment bankers. While today, death-by-poison stalks the environment of Black townships of Louisiana (the FEMA ‘guests’ are parked in a zone called Cancer Ally), Al Gore can’t be found. But when speaking of rising sea levels that can take out the homes of his buddies in ‘Boo or the Hamptons, Gore goes ga-ga.
The one thing I’ll say in favor of that vile little Louisiana Republican cheering the drowning of public housing residents, at least he's honest about how the system works. He’s not afraid to remind us of the gods’-honest truth: disaster response is class war by other means.
So let me not forget to report the war’s body count:
New Orleans flood deaths: 1,577.
California celebrity fire deaths: 5.
Tonight and this weekend, listen to “The Fire Next Time,” on the Palast Report, aired each week on Air America’s Clout with Richard Greene, on the Nova M network with Cynthia Black (from KPHX), on the Solution Zone with Christiane Brown (KJFK) – and live, in Chicago, this weekend, for Buzzflash.com, The Chicago Committee to Defend the Bill of Rights and WCPT, Chicago’s Progressive Talk – and, on this Sunday morning on the Bree Show, KTLK Los Angeles, with host/evacuee Bree Walker, slightly charred (or is that a tan?) but undaunted.
Greg Palast is the author the New York Times bestselling book, Armed Madhouse: From Baghdad to New Orleans - Sordid Secrets and Strange Tales of a White House Gone Wild.
Sign up for Palast’s investigative reports at http://www.gregpalast.com/
Black Listed Cancer Treatment Could Save Your Life
http://www.isecureonline.com/Reports/FCBK/W680H804/
Black Listed Cancer Treatment Could Save Your Life
by Meryl Ratzman
BALTIMORE -- As unbelievable as it seems the key to stopping many cancers has been around for over 30 years. Yet it has been banned. Blocked. And kept out of your medicine cabinet by the very agency designed to protect your health -- the FDA.
In 1966, the senior oncologist at a prominent NY hospital rocked the medical world when he developed a serum that "shrank cancer tumors in 45 minutes!"
Headlines hit every major paper around the world. Scientists and researchers applauded. Time and again this life-saving treatment worked miracles, but the FDA shut him down, ignoring the research he had done and the hope he had given to many.
You read that right. He was not only shut down -- but also forced out of the United States where others may have benefited from his discovery. That was 32 years ago. How many other treatments have they been allowed to hide? Just as in the case of this miracle serum, these too go unmentioned.
Two-Nutrient Cancer Breakthroughs...
Decades ago, European research scientist Dr. Johanna Budwig, a six-time Nobel Award nominee, discovered a totally natural formula. It not only protects against the development of cancer, but fights existing cancer as well. People all over the world who were diagnosed with incurable cancer and sent home to die have greatly benefited from this research and went on to lead normal lives-- thanks to this amazing formula.
After 30 years of study, Dr. Budwig observed that the blood of seriously ill cancer patients was deficient in certain nutrients. It was the lack of these nutrients that allowed cancer cells to grow out of control.
By simply eating a combination of two natural and delicious foods (found on page 134) not only can cancer be prevented -- but in case after case it was actually healed! "Symptoms of cancer, liver dysfunction, and diabetes were completely alleviated." Remarkably, what Dr. Budwig discovered was a totally natural way for eradicating cancer.
However, when she went to publish these results so that everyone could benefit -- she was blocked by drug manufacturers who stood to lose a lot of money. Since natural substances cannot be patented, drug companies won't make money by marketing them. For over 10 years now her methods have proved effective -- yet she is denied publication -- blocked by the giants who don't want you to read her words.
What's more, the world is full of expert minds like Dr. Budwig who have pursued cancer remedies and come up with remarkable natural formulas and diets that work for hundreds and thousands of patients. How to Fight Cancer and Win author William Fischer has studied these methods and revealed their secrets for you -- so that you or someone you love may be spared the horrors of conventional cancer treatments.
As early as 1947, Virginia Livingston, M.D., isolated a cancer-causing microbe. She noted that every cancer sample analyzed (whether human or other animal) contained it.
This microbe -- a bacteria that is actually in each of us from birth to death -- multiplies and promotes cancer when the immune system is weakened by disease, stress, or poor nutrition. Worst of all, the microbes secrete a special hormone protector that short-circuits our body's immune system -- allowing the microbes to grow undetected for years. No wonder so many patients are riddled with cancer by the time it is detected. But there is hope even for them...
Turn to page 82 of How to Fight Cancer and Win for the delicious diet that can help stop the formation of cancer cells and shrink tumors.
They walked away from traditional cancer treatments... and were healed!
Throughout the pages of How to Fight Cancer and Win, you'll meet real people who were diagnosed with cancer -- suffered through harsh conventional treatments -- turned their backs on so called modern medicine -- only to be miraculously healed by natural means! Here is just a sampling of what others have to say about the book.
"We purchased How to Fight Cancer and Win, and immediately my husband started following the recommended diet for his just diagnosed colon cancer. He refused the surgery that our doctors advised. Since following the regime recommended in the book he has had no problems at all, cancer-wise. If not cured, we believe the cancer has to be in remission." -- Thelma B.
"I bought How to Fight Cancer and Win and this has to be the greatest book I've ever read. I have had astounding results from the easy to understand knowledge found in this book. My whole life has improved drastically and I have done so much for many others. The information goes far beyond the health thinking of today." -- Hugh M.
"I can't find adequate words to describe my appreciation of your work in providing How to Fight Cancer and Win. You had to do an enormous amount of research to bring this vast and most important knowledge to your readers.
My doctor found two tumors on my prostate with a high P.S.A. He scheduled a time to surgically remove the prostate, but I canceled the appointment. Instead I went on the diet discussed in the book combined with another supplement. Over the months my P.S.A. has lowered until the last reading was one point two." -- Duncan M.
If anyone you love has cancer, don't let them fight it alone. Claim your copy of "How to Fight Cancer and Win" and discover the most powerful cancer survival kit ever assembled.
Black Listed Cancer Treatment Could Save Your Life
by Meryl Ratzman
BALTIMORE -- As unbelievable as it seems the key to stopping many cancers has been around for over 30 years. Yet it has been banned. Blocked. And kept out of your medicine cabinet by the very agency designed to protect your health -- the FDA.
In 1966, the senior oncologist at a prominent NY hospital rocked the medical world when he developed a serum that "shrank cancer tumors in 45 minutes!"
Headlines hit every major paper around the world. Scientists and researchers applauded. Time and again this life-saving treatment worked miracles, but the FDA shut him down, ignoring the research he had done and the hope he had given to many.
You read that right. He was not only shut down -- but also forced out of the United States where others may have benefited from his discovery. That was 32 years ago. How many other treatments have they been allowed to hide? Just as in the case of this miracle serum, these too go unmentioned.
Two-Nutrient Cancer Breakthroughs...
Decades ago, European research scientist Dr. Johanna Budwig, a six-time Nobel Award nominee, discovered a totally natural formula. It not only protects against the development of cancer, but fights existing cancer as well. People all over the world who were diagnosed with incurable cancer and sent home to die have greatly benefited from this research and went on to lead normal lives-- thanks to this amazing formula.
After 30 years of study, Dr. Budwig observed that the blood of seriously ill cancer patients was deficient in certain nutrients. It was the lack of these nutrients that allowed cancer cells to grow out of control.
By simply eating a combination of two natural and delicious foods (found on page 134) not only can cancer be prevented -- but in case after case it was actually healed! "Symptoms of cancer, liver dysfunction, and diabetes were completely alleviated." Remarkably, what Dr. Budwig discovered was a totally natural way for eradicating cancer.
However, when she went to publish these results so that everyone could benefit -- she was blocked by drug manufacturers who stood to lose a lot of money. Since natural substances cannot be patented, drug companies won't make money by marketing them. For over 10 years now her methods have proved effective -- yet she is denied publication -- blocked by the giants who don't want you to read her words.
What's more, the world is full of expert minds like Dr. Budwig who have pursued cancer remedies and come up with remarkable natural formulas and diets that work for hundreds and thousands of patients. How to Fight Cancer and Win author William Fischer has studied these methods and revealed their secrets for you -- so that you or someone you love may be spared the horrors of conventional cancer treatments.
As early as 1947, Virginia Livingston, M.D., isolated a cancer-causing microbe. She noted that every cancer sample analyzed (whether human or other animal) contained it.
This microbe -- a bacteria that is actually in each of us from birth to death -- multiplies and promotes cancer when the immune system is weakened by disease, stress, or poor nutrition. Worst of all, the microbes secrete a special hormone protector that short-circuits our body's immune system -- allowing the microbes to grow undetected for years. No wonder so many patients are riddled with cancer by the time it is detected. But there is hope even for them...
Turn to page 82 of How to Fight Cancer and Win for the delicious diet that can help stop the formation of cancer cells and shrink tumors.
They walked away from traditional cancer treatments... and were healed!
Throughout the pages of How to Fight Cancer and Win, you'll meet real people who were diagnosed with cancer -- suffered through harsh conventional treatments -- turned their backs on so called modern medicine -- only to be miraculously healed by natural means! Here is just a sampling of what others have to say about the book.
"We purchased How to Fight Cancer and Win, and immediately my husband started following the recommended diet for his just diagnosed colon cancer. He refused the surgery that our doctors advised. Since following the regime recommended in the book he has had no problems at all, cancer-wise. If not cured, we believe the cancer has to be in remission." -- Thelma B.
"I bought How to Fight Cancer and Win and this has to be the greatest book I've ever read. I have had astounding results from the easy to understand knowledge found in this book. My whole life has improved drastically and I have done so much for many others. The information goes far beyond the health thinking of today." -- Hugh M.
"I can't find adequate words to describe my appreciation of your work in providing How to Fight Cancer and Win. You had to do an enormous amount of research to bring this vast and most important knowledge to your readers.
My doctor found two tumors on my prostate with a high P.S.A. He scheduled a time to surgically remove the prostate, but I canceled the appointment. Instead I went on the diet discussed in the book combined with another supplement. Over the months my P.S.A. has lowered until the last reading was one point two." -- Duncan M.
If anyone you love has cancer, don't let them fight it alone. Claim your copy of "How to Fight Cancer and Win" and discover the most powerful cancer survival kit ever assembled.
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