FUNNY: video

Subway ads removed

I need to write more about New York. If I did I would have mentioned this a week or so ago. Some new ads went up in the subway a couple weeks ago. They are tourist ads for the Bahamas. They are colorful but a bit too cute for NYC. They ask you to imagine scuba diving through a subway car or fishing with your scarf on the platform. I wondered why they would allow them since, with millions seeing the ads there bound to be at least one idiot who would to try it.


This week they were ordered down after complaints and concerns.

The ad campaign by the Bahamas Ministry of Tourism is running on at least one out of four subway cars in the city and is potentially in view of as many as five million subway riders. It is standing out, but not necessarily because it's getting people onto planes. Under the heading "Instant Escape No. 1: How to Turn a Subway Seat into a Hammock," one advertisement seems to encourage riders to hog subway seats as if resting in a hammock.
Another ad seems to encourage riders to imitate fishing in the
Caribbean by snagging subway track detritus by putting something sticky on a cellphone and attaching it to a scarf. It's called "Instant Escape No. 2: How to Fly Fish with a Scarf and a Cell Phone." The ads seem to contradict the official rules of conduct of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, which say hands-off trash on the track and no hogging of seats.
Some straphangers have criticized the campaign in blogs. A comment from David Yockelson, 41, an investment banker from Rye Brook, N.Y., was typical. "Possibly the most stupid and flagrant ad was this one, which laughingly suggests that travelers attach their cellphones to their scarves with tape, put more tape on the cellphone, and then cast the scarf-phone-fishing pole into the tracks and see what they can find," he wrote.

Auto design changes save lives

This story is a good example of why we can't let businesses operate without oversight by the public sector. The fact that these changes, which have now been proven to save lives, was resisted by automakers demonstrate that their bottom line is ... threir bottom line! Concern for safety took a back seat (pun intended) and had to be forced upon the auto executives. They were afraid it would effect their bottom line and put a dent in their high salary. Capitalism is great! It is primarily responsible for the great advances society has seen over the past 150 uears. However, without eegulations and oversight, it is a force susceptible to greed. A greed which would hurt many innocent people at the advantage of a very few wealthy and influential individuals.

Design changes that automakers initially resisted and then reluctantly adopted have sharply reduced the number of deaths among drivers
of cars struck by a sport utility vehicle or pickup, according to results
from the first study of the standards. The study, by the Insurance
Institute for Highway Safety, using data from the auto industry and the federal government, found that in side-impact collisions the number of deaths fell by nearly half hen automakers lowered S.U.V.'s by as little as half an inch or equipped them with hollow impact-absorbing bars below the front and rear bumpers. The changes are intended to reduce the frequency of S.U.V.'s and pickups' sliding
over cars' doorsills and bumpers and piercing deep into cars' passenger compartments.
The changes also reduced by a fifth the risk that an S.U.V. would kill a belted car driver in a frontal collision. The same changes in pickups produced smaller but still significant safety gains. Not since the air
bag has a safety standard been so effective in saving lives, experts say.
"To cut somebody's risk of death in half, that's huge," said Ricardo Martinez, the top auto safety regulator during the Clinton administration. "That's almost as good as seat belts. You're lucky if a new regulation gets you a 5 or 10 percent reduction in the death rate."

Joint Chiefs take time out to condemn cartoon

Joint Chiefs Blast Toles’ Cartoon


In a move without precedent in recent memory, all six members of the military’s Joint Chiefs of Staff have signed a letter complaining to Washington Post managing editor Phil Bennett about a recent political cartoon.
The January 29th cartoon by Tom Toles depicts a wounded soldier, missing his arms and legs and with his head bandaged, in his hospital bed. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld is standing next to bed, saying, “I am listing your condition as battle hardened.”
The cartoon is a reference to comments Rumsfeld made last Wednesday, January 25th, in which he blasted critics who said that America’s military was stretched too thin, saying they didn’t understand the state of the “battle-hardened” military.

Bush protected from Free Speech

Not Allowed!

This is the shirt that Cindy Sheehan was dragged out of the State of the Union speech for. About an hour later, in an effort to allow an "equal opportunity*" argument to be made, the capital police also removed Beverly Young, a Republican congressman's wife who was wearing a pro-Bush shirt.

*About 45 minutes into the speech, an officer asked Beverly Young to step outside, where he told her: "We consider you a protester" because of her shirt, she said. She said she angrily challenged officers to explain what law she had violated, and they threatened arrest. She said an officer mentioned that Sheehan was removed earlier and therefore "it was kind of only fair" that she be asked to leave, too."They publicly humiliated me," Young told reporters. "They insulted our troops." When the congressman heard what had happened to his wife, he summoned Gainer to his office and called Karl Rove, the president's deputy chief of staff.

The capitol police later apologized for both incidents.

This story out of Florida...

Mother sues state police after death of baby

A Monticello woman who was having labor pains and being rushed to the hospital is suing the Florida Highway Patrol, alleging that her baby died because she was detained for too long over a speeding ticket.
However, the FHP found the trooper acted appropriately and a complaint later filed by the woman was unfounded. The FHP also says an offer for an ambulance was turned down.
Sharita Denmark filed the lawsuit last week in Leon Circuit Court against the FHP and Cpl. Gary Dawson, the trooper. It states that her mother, Brenda Benjamin, was driving her to Tallahassee Memorial Hospital on May 25 when Dawson stopped the vehicle on U.S. Highway 90 at Interstate 10.
The lawsuit states that despite being told that she was in labor, Dawson detained her for "an extended period of time." By the time she reached TMH, her baby, Bre'Miria Williams Denmark, was no longer moving. The mother had a caesarean section, but the baby died.
"Ms. Denmark was informed that had she gotten to the hospital any faster, the medical doctors could have attempted to save the baby," the lawsuit states.

The Attorney General's (dis)Honesty

Next Monday, attorney General (and Bush Texas crony) Alberto Gonzales come before the US Senate to defend the secret domestic surveillance program recently revealed by the NY Times. When he gets there Senator Russ Feingold will call him out on what appears to be a lie* he made to the congress during his confirmation hearing.
*In Red America Republicans never lie. I am using language from the old USA.

Sen. Russell Feingold (D-Wis.) charged yesterday that Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales misled the Senate during his confirmation hearing a year ago when he appeared to try to avoid answering a question about whether the president could authorize warrantless wiretapping of U.S. citizens. In a letter to the attorney general yesterday, Feingold demanded to know why Gonzales dismissed the senator's question about warrantless eavesdropping as a "hypothetical situation" during a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing in January 2005. At the hearing, Feingold asked Gonzales where the president's authority ends and whether Gonzales believed the president could, for example, act in contravention of existing criminal laws and spy on U.S. citizens without a warrant.

Sen. Russell Feingold asked about warrantless eavesdropping, and the nominee called it "hypothetical.",'Sen. Russell Feingold (D-Wis.) charged yesterday that Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales misled the Senate during his
confirmation hearing a year ago when he appeared to try to avoid answering a question about whether the president could authorize warrantless wiretapping of
U.S. citizens.',Gonzales said that it was impossible to answer such a hypothetical question but that it was "not the policy or the agenda of this president" to authorize actions that conflict with existing law. He added that he would hope to alert Congress if the president ever chose to authorize warrantless surveillance, according to a transcript of the hearing.In fact, the president did secretly authorize the National Security Agency to begin warrantless monitoring of calls and e-mails between the United States and other nations soon after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. The program, publicly revealed in media reports last
month, was unknown to Feingold and his staff at the time Feingold questioned
Gonzales, according to a staff member. Feingold's aides developed the 2005
questions based on privacy advocates' concerns about broad interpretations of
executive power.Gonzales was White House counsel at the time the
program began and has since acknowledged his role in affirming the president's authority to launch the surveillance effort. Gonzales is scheduled to testify Monday before the Senate Judiciary Committee on the program's legal rationale.

Bush propaganda includes the pictures of him you see

"The White House staff photographer's role is to document the president. They have now crossed the line and become public relations photographers for the administration."

Myth of liberal media debunked, for the millionth time

"How does one report the facts," asked Rob Corddry on "The Daily Show," "when the facts themselves are biased?" He explained to Jon Stewart, who played straight man, that "facts in Iraq have an anti-Bush agenda," and therefore can't be reported.

A False Balance
By PAUL KRUGMAN
"How does one report the facts," asked Rob Corddry on "The Daily Show," "when the facts themselves are biased?" He explained to Jon Stewart, who played straight man, that "facts in Iraq have an anti-Bush agenda," and therefore can't be reported.
Mr. Corddry's parody of journalists who believe they must be "balanced" even when the truth isn't balanced continues, alas, to ring true. The most recent example is the peculiar determination of some news organizations to cast the scandal surrounding Jack Abramoff as "bipartisan."

Let's review who Mr. Abramoff is and what he did.
Here's how a 2004 Washington Post article described Mr. Abramoff's background:
"Abramoff's conservative-movement credentials date back more than two decades to his days as a national leader of the College Republicans." In the 1990's, reports the article, he found his "niche" as a lobbyist "with entree to the conservatives who were taking control of Congress. He enjoys a close bond with [Tom] DeLay."

Mr. Abramoff hit the jackpot after Republicans took control of the White House as well as Congress. He persuaded several Indian tribes with gambling interests that they needed to pay vast sums for his services and those of Michael Scanlon, a former DeLay aide. From the same Washington Post article:
"Under Abramoff's guidance, the four tribes ... have also become major political donors. They have loosened their traditional ties to the Democratic Party, giving Republicans two-thirds of the $2.9 million they have donated to federal candidates since 2001, records show."

So Mr. Abramoff is a movement conservative whose lobbying career was based on his connections with other movement conservatives. His big coup was persuading gullible Indian tribes to hire him as an adviser; his advice was to give less money to Democrats and more to Republicans. There's nothing bipartisan about this tale, which is all about the use and abuse of Republican connections.
Yet over the past few weeks a number of journalists, ranging from The Washington Post's ombudsman to the "Today" show's Katie Couric, have declared that Mr. Abramoff gave money to both parties. In each case the journalists or their news organization, when challenged, grudgingly conceded that Mr. Abramoff himself hasn't given a penny to Democrats. But in each case they claimed that this is only a technical point, because Mr. Abramoff's clients — those Indian tribes — gave money to Democrats as well as Republicans, money the news organizations say he directed" to Democrats.

But the tribes were already giving money to Democrats before Mr. Abramoff entered the picture; he persuaded them to reduce those Democratic donations, while giving much more money to Republicans. A study commissioned by The American Prospect shows that the tribes' donations to Democrats fell by 9 percent after they hired Mr. Abramoff, while their contributions to Republicans more than doubled. So in any normal sense of the word "directed," Mr. Abramoff directed funds away from Democrats, not toward them.
True, some Democrats who received tribal donations before Mr. Abramoff's entrance continued to receive donations after his arrival. How, exactly, does this implicate them in Mr. Abramoff's machinations? Bear in mind that no Democrat has been indicted or is rumored to be facing indictment in the Abramoff scandal, nor has any Democrat been credibly accused of doing Mr. Abramoff questionable favors.
There have been both bipartisan and purely Democratic scandals in the past. Based on everything we know so far, however, the Abramoff affair is a purely Republican
scandal.

Why does the insistence of some journalists on calling this one-party scandal bipartisan matter? For one thing, the public is led to believe that the Abramoff affair is just Washington business as usual, which it isn't. The scale of the scandals now coming to light, of which the Abramoff affair is just a part, dwarfs anything in living memory.More important, this kind of misreporting makes the public feel helpless. Voters who are told, falsely, that both parties were drawn into Mr. Abramoff's web are likely to become passive and shrug their shoulders instead of demanding reform.
So the reluctance of some journalists to report facts that, in this case, happen to have an anti-Republican agenda is a serious matter. It's not a stretch to say that these journalists are acting as enablers for the rampant corruption that has emerged in Washington over the last decade.

ABC Anchor Bob Woodruff Seriously Injured in Iraq

ABC News anchor Bob Woodruff and a cameraman were seriously injured Sunday in an explosion while reporting from Iraq, the network said Sunday.
Woodruff and cameraman Doug Vogt were hit by an improvised explosive device near Taji, Iraq, and were in serious condition at a U.S. military hospital, ABC News President David Westin said.
The two were embedded with the 4th Infantry Division and traveling with an Iraqi Army unit.
The U.S. military headquarters in Baghdad confirmed that the ABC News team was involved in an attack but declined to provide further details to The Associated Press. An official military statement was expected to be issued later Sunday.
Woodruff was named co-anchor of ABC News' "World News Tonight" with Elizbeth Vargas this month after the death of Peter Jennings. In an unusual approach to evening news shows, one of the two co-anchors typically reports from the studio in New York while the other reports from the field, as Woodruff was doing in Iraq.