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March 30, 2007
"You and I could walk through those neighborhoods today"
Posted by Mike at 01:07 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
March 29, 2007
"You, the Queen, should be ashamed!"
Mr Agbetu was shuffled towards the quire, in the direction of the exit. But he pointed at the Queen and yelled: "You, the Queen, should be ashamed!" The monarch did her national duty by remaining icy calm.Mr Agbetu was now directly beneath the prime minister. He turned to face him and Mr Blair glared back. The thousands of guests watched in hushed anticipation, wondering what would come next, wondering if Mr Agbetu might even leap on him. Instead the protester screamed: "You should say sorry!"
Mr Agbetu continued walking and shuffling, still resisting the hands being placed on him, still shouting his dissent. Hundreds more guests in the nave got to witness the spectacle. The abbey's ushers still looked unsure quite how to handle him. Finally, outside the building, Mr Agbetu was not bundled away as might be expected. Instead, he gave an impromptu press conference.
"I had always planned to make this demonstration," he said. "The Queen has to say sorry. It was Elizabeth I. She commanded John Hawkins to take his ship. The monarch and the government and the church are all in there patting themselves on the back."
Well, he does have a point:
Sir John Hawkins
Queen Elizabeth’s Slave TraderAlthough his cousin Sir Francis Drake is more famous, Sir John Hawkins (1532–1595) was a more successful seaman and played a pivotal role in the history of England and the emergence of the global slave trade. Born into a family of wealthy pirates, Hawkins became fascinated by tales of the riches of foreign lands. Early in his career he led an illegal expedition in which he captured three hundred slaves in Sierra Leone and transported them to the West Indies. There he traded them for pearls, hides, and sugar--thus giving birth to the British slave trade. His voyages were so lucrative that Queen Elizabeth herself sponsored subsequent missions.
Discouraged from his career as a pirate by a near-fatal encounter with angry Spanish troops, Hawkins spent much of his later life in England at the service of the queen. Although he committed treason, murder, and adultery at various points in his career, he was nonetheless knighted in 1588 for his role in defeating the Spanish Armada.
The Queen is Elizabeth II after all.
Posted by Mike at 06:51 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
March 28, 2007
Circuit City prefects the wage cut
For years corporate titans have struggled with the dilemma. How can you encourage employees to go the extra mile for your company and its customers, but cut their wages and benefits to give yourself a raise?
Now in a move that has left CEOs nationwide in awe, Circuit City realized that if you fire people then offer them their jobs back at half the pay, they should be happy just to have a pay check at all:
The electronics retailer, facing larger competitors and falling sales, said Wednesday that it would lay off about 3,400 store workers - immediately - and replace them with lower-paid new hires as soon as possible.
The laid-off workers, about 8 percent of the company's total workforce, would get a severance package and a chance to reapply for their former jobs, at lower pay, after a 10-week delay, the company said.The news of the layoffs came as a surprise to Rachelle Gouled, who earns about $7.75 an hour working on the sales floor at a Circuit City in Roseville, Minn. She said she was spared, but 10 people were laid off Wednesday at her store.
"For some of them, I could see them being OK without this job," she said. "For others, it was their only job."
Posted by Mike at 11:20 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
Senator McNeverland
Maybe they could just call it the "Neverland Doctrine"?
BLITZER: Here's what you told Bill Bennett on his radio show on Monday. "There are neighborhoods in Baghdad where you and I could walk through those neighborhoods today. The U.S. is beginning to succeed in Iraq."Everything we hear, that if you leave the so-called Green Zone, the international zone, and you go outside of that secure area, relatively speaking, you're in trouble if you're an American.
MCCAIN: You know, that's where you ought to catch up on things, Wolf. General Petraeus goes out there almost every day in a non-armed Humvee. I think you ought to catch up. You see, you are giving the old line of three months ago. I understand it. You certainly don't get it through the filter of some of the media.
But I know for a fact that much of the success we're experiencing, including the ability of Americans in many parts. Not all. We have got a long, long way to go. We have only got two of the five brigades there to go into some neighbors in Baghdad in a secure fashion.
BLITZER: Let me refer to a few of your colleagues in the Senate and the House. Chuck Hagel, John Murtha, former Senator Max Cleland, the current Senator Jim Webb, they're all like you, Vietnam War veterans. You say this is potentially a worse situation if the U.S. were to withdraw from Iraq as opposed to when the U.S. withdrew from Vietnam.
Why are -- because they're saying, just get out, basically, and you're saying you have got to say. Why do you think these Vietnam War veterans, decorated just as you are, disagree?
MCCAIN: Well, because I hope that all of our experience, knowledge, background and decision-making is not driven by the experience of the Vietnam War. I hope it's an accumulation of all the training, experience and knowledge I had, including 22 years in the military and 24 years in the Congress and the Senate. But, look, don't take my word for it that they'll follow us home. Look at what they say. Look what bin Laden says. Look what Zarqawi says. Look at what Khalid Sheikh Mohammed said at his tribunal down in Guantanamo. They all say the same things. Go on their Web sites. They'll tell you. They want to follow us home. We're their enemy. They're the ones we want to destroy.
They win in Iraq the way they won in Beirut and the way that they won in Somalia, then they will be following us home.
Again, it's not my stated -- not from anything I've written or said. It's what they're saying and writing.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BLITZER: So is Baghdad really getting safer? A very different view of the reality there from our own reporter on the ground who says Senator McCain couldn't be more wrong. Let's go back to CNN's Michael Ware.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
BLITZER: Michael, you've been there, what, for four years. You're walking around Baghdad on a daily basis. Has there been this improvement that Senator McCain is speaking about?
MICHAEL WARE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, I'd certainly like to bring Senator McCain up to speed, if he ever gives me the opportunity. And if I have any difficulty hearing you right now, Wolf, that's because of the helicopter circling overhead and the gun battle that is blazing just a few blocks down the road.
Is Baghdad any safer? Sectarian violence, one particular type of violence, is down. But none of the American generals here on the ground have anything like Senator McCain's confidence.
I mean, Senator McCain's credibility now on Iraq, which has been so solid to this point, has now been left out hanging to dry. To suggest that there's any neighborhood in this city where an American can walk freely is beyond ludicrous. I'd love Senator McCain to tell me where that neighborhood is and he and I can go for a stroll.
And to think that General David Petraeus travels this city in an unarmed Humvee? I mean, in the hour since Senator McCain has said this, I've spoken to some military sources and there was laughter down the line. I mean, certainly, the general travels in a Humvee. There are multiple Humvees around it, heavily armed. There are attack helicopters, Predator drones, sniper teams, all sorts of layers of protection.
So, no, Senator McCain is way off base on this one -- Wolf.
BLITZER: Michael, when Senator McCain says that there are at least some areas of Baghdad where people can walk around and whether it's General Petraeus, the U.S. military commander, or others, are there at least some areas where you could emerge outside of the Green Zone, the international zone, where people can go out, go to a coffee shop, go to a restaurant, and simply take a stroll?
WARE: I can answer this very quickly, Wolf. No. No way on Earth can a Westerner, particularly an American, stroll any street of this capital of more than 5 million people.
I mean, if al Qaeda doesn't get wind of you, or if one of the Sunni insurgent groups don't descend upon you, or if someone doesn't tip off a Shia militia, then the nearest criminal gang is just going to see dollar signs and scoop you up. Honestly, Wolf, you'd barely last 20 minutes out there.
I don't know what part of Neverland Senator McCain is talking about when he says we can go strolling in Baghdad.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BLITZER: And we have just learned that two Americans were killed tonight in the heavily fortified Green Zone in Baghdad.
Posted by Mike at 12:21 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
March 26, 2007
Another lonely Bill?
As for "24," which was co-created by noted Republican Joel Surnow, Clinton said he enjoys the fact that conservatives and liberals alike can be the bad guys in the show."They're trying to be fair," Clinton said.
His other must-see TV shows include "All in the Family," "I Love Lucy," "The Andy Griffith Show" and "Bonanza" -- all of which air on TV Land, which sponsored his appearance at the cable network's "upfront" presentation to advertisers at Jazz at Lincoln Center in the Time Warner Building.
"As you know, my wife is away, so I'm home alone a lot," Clinton said of Sen. Hillary Clinton, who is running for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2008. "I'm particularly grateful to TV Land for giving me something to do at night."
Once upon a time kids learned many of their school lessons in the three-minute episodes of Schoolhouse Rock. These educational cartoons came on during the commercial breaks of the less-than-edifying Saturday morning fare in the 1970s, and despite their healthy content, kids stayed glued to the screen to sing along to the somewhat psychedelic cartoons. Countless children hummed their way through social studies. The Preamble to the Constitution is much easier to remember when it's set to music. And everyone who saw the cartoon remembers how a bill becomes a law ("Oh, I'm just a bill, a lonely old bill, sitting here on Capitol Hill"). These and eight other shorts make up America Rock, a 30-minute program that will stir patriotism and teach kids a bit of history. Whether you're an adult who remembers fondly his Schoolhouse Rock days or a parent trying to help a child with school, this selection will have you singing that "knowledge is power." A bonus cartoon of "My Hero Zero," performed by the Lemonheads, is included at the end. --Jenny BrownFrom the Back Cover
Learning about American history and government is easy when you sing along with America Rock!
No More Kings (The founding of America)
Fireworks (The Declaration of Independence)
The Shot Heard 'Round the World (The start of the Revolution)
The Preamble (The Constitution)
Elbow Room (The pioneers opening the West)
The Great American Melting Pot (The ethnic diversity of America)
Mother Necessity (Great American inventors)
Sufferin' till Suffrage (Women's right to vote)
I'm Just a Bill (How a bill becomes a law)
Three-Ring Government (The judicial, legislative, and executive branches)
Bonus video: My Hero Zero (performed by the Lemonheads)Schoolhouse Rock takes children on a fantastic scholastic learning adventure! The same great songs you knew and loved as a kid are now available to a whole new generation. Each volume in this special collection features exclusive bonus programming of some of today's hottest rock stars singing their favorite Schoolhouse Rock song! 30 minutes.
Posted by Mike at 04:10 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
March 13, 2007
About Time
Illinois retires Chief logo and name
The University of Illinois swept aside the last vestiges of Chief Illiniwek on Tuesday, voting to retire the mascot's name, regalia and image.The school will continue to call its sports teams the Fighting Illini under the resolution. Chancellor Richard Herman is to decide how and when Chief Illiniwek's name and image will stop being used and licensed to apparel makers and others.
Activists and some American Indians have long complained the chief is demeaning. Backers defend him as an honorable tradition.
The school decided in February to end performances of the chief, leading the NCAA to lift sanctions that had barred Illinois from hosting postseason sports since 2005. The NCAA had deemed Illiniwek - portrayed since 1926 by buckskin-clad students who danced at home football and basketball games and other sports events - an offensive use of American Indian imagery.
Posted by Mike at 07:26 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
March 11, 2007
Immigration raids split families
HOUSTON - They are the hidden side of the government's stepped-up efforts to track down and deport illegal immigrants: Toddlers stranded at day care centers or handed over to ill-equipped relatives. Siblings suddenly left in charge of younger brothers and sisters.When illegal-immigrant parents are swept up in raids on homes and workplaces, the children are sometimes left behind — a complication that underscores the difficulty in enforcing immigration laws against people who have put down roots and begun raising families in the U.S.
Three million American-born children have at least one parent who is an illegal immigrant; one in 10 American families has mixed immigration status, meaning at least one member is an immigrant here illegally, according to the Pew Center for Hispanic Research and the office of U.S. Rep. Jose Serrano (news, bio, voting record). Children born in the U.S. are automatically American citizens and are not subject to deportation.
This past week in Massachusetts, most of the 361 workers picked up in a raid at a New Bedford leather-goods factory that made vests and backpacks for the U.S. military were women with children, setting off what Democratic Gov. Deval Patrick called a "humanitarian crisis."
Community activists scrambled to locate the children, offer infant-care tips to fathers unfamiliar with warming formula and changing diapers, and gather donations of baby supplies. One baby who was breast-feeding had to be hospitalized for dehydration because her mother remained in detention, authorities said.
Child-care arrangements had to be made for at least 35 youngsters.
Officials of the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement division released at least 60 of the workers who were sole caregivers to children, but more than 200 were sent to detention centers in Texas and New Mexico.
"What is going to happen to the children? These children are American-born," said Helena Marques, executive director of the Immigrant Assistance Center in New Bedford. "There are hundreds of children out there without their moms, in tremendous need. These babies have become the victims of a problem that legislators can't seem to fix."
Posted by Mike at 06:28 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
March 07, 2007
C-SPAN grudgingly endorses open democracy
This is actually the best news I've heard all day, perhaps all week.
C-SPAN liberalizes its copyright policies
by kosWed Mar 07, 2007 at 12:08:37 PM PST
We've been trashing C-SPAN for its restrictive copyright policies. While its coverage of floor debate is in the public domain (the cameras they use are owned by the government), C-SPAN has asserted copyright ownership over committee hearings. In fact, it sent Nancy Pelosi a cease-and-desist letter after she posted a clip of a committee hearing speech on her site.
The blowback must've been tremendous, and C-SPAN claims it is adopting a Creative Commons license, effective immediately, for all coverage of governmental proceedings. From an email release:
Advancing its longstanding mission of bringing government closer to the people, C-SPAN announced today two major initiatives designed to greatly expand citizen access to its online video of federal government activities, such as congressional hearings, agency briefings, and White House events. These actions are intended to meet the growing demand for video about the federal government and Congress, in an age of explosive growth of video file sharers, bloggers, and online ‘citizen journalists.’ The policy change is effective immediately.C-SPAN is introducing a liberalized copyright policy for current, future, and past coverage of any official events sponsored by Congress and any federal agency-- about half of all programming offered on the C-SPAN television networks--which will allow non-commercial copying, sharing, and posting of C-SPAN video on the Internet, with attribution.
In addition, C-SPAN also announced plans to significantly build out its capitolhearings.org website as a one-stop resource for Congressionally-produced webcasts of House and Senate committee and subcommitte hearings [...]
The new C-SPAN policy borrows from the approach to copyright known in the online community as “Creative Commons.” Examples of events included under C-SPAN’s new expanded policy include all congressional hearings and press briefings, federal agency hearings, and presidential events at the White House. C-SPAN's copyright policy will not change for the network's studio productions, all non-federal events, campaign and political event coverage, and the network’s feature programming, such as Book TV and original history series.
Posted by Mike at 07:13 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
March 04, 2007
Bandar in the dog house?
Ruh-roh!
So much for our secret plans to work with the Saudis against Iran. It appears they have found the real enemy and the enemy is us. Leave it to the US to unite the Arab world (in hatred of America).
RIYADH (AFP) - The leaders of regional heavyweights Iran and and Saudi Arabia agreed at talks in Riyadh to fight growing Sunni-Shiite strife, warning that it was the greatest danger facing the region.Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said he and Saudi King Abdullah agreed at their meeting on Saturday that their two countries would work together to thwart "enemy" plots seeking to divide the Islamic world.
"The two leaders affirmed that the greatest danger presently threatening the Islamic nation is the attempt to fuel the fire of strife between Sunni and Shiite Muslims, and that efforts must concentrate on countering these attempts and closing ranks," Saudi Arabia's official SPA news agency added.
The meeting between the regional Shiite and Sunni Muslim oil powers was held against a backdrop of mounting fears that the sectarian bloodshed engulfing Iraq could spill over into the region.
Posted by Mike at 01:13 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)