The world is talking about sanctions and these idiots are putting 'Iraq II' before the public as if it's a reality.
To speak to a 'timely' issue based in reality we have to turn to The Arab News. Kyoto is not about completely replacing oil energy resources, it's about limiting it. Limiting enough to stop the deadly trend and reverse it to a tolerable level that doesn't destroy Earth's icecaps. It's the icecaps that provide a livable planet.
Kingdom Supports Kyoto, but ‘Green Power’ Can’t Meet Demand: Al-Naimi
http://www.arabnews.com/?page=1§ion=0&article=86830&d=20&m=9&y=2006
RIYADH, 20 September 2006 — Riyadh Governor Prince Salman called on the business community yesterday to take advantage of opportunities that await them in the energy sector, especially in the area of clean development mechanism (CDM), which provides a new investment avenue. The governor made his remarks while inaugurating the three-day first international conference on CDM organized by the Ministry of Petroleum and Mineral Resources here last night.
CDM is an arrangement under the Kyoto Protocol that allows for industrialized countries to contribute to reducing greenhouse gases not by reducing their own emissions but by investing in the construction of modernized, energy-efficient technologies in developing countries.
1008
Gergan hasn't said anything worthwhile yet. As if Bush is the only leader in the world that can speak harshly about other countries. Jerks.
Carolina's Kristi Eveland Named ACC Player Of The Week Freshman was named Defensive MVP of Duke adidas Classic.
http://www.cstv.com/sports/w-soccer/stories/091806abj.html
Sept. 18, 2006
GREENSBORO, N.C. - North Carolina's Kristi Eveland was tabbed Atlantic Coast Conference Women's Soccer Player of the Week after leading the Tar Heels to a pair of wins at the 2006 Duke adidas Classic in Durham, N.C., this past weekend.
Eveland was named the Defensive Most Valuable Player of the tournament as the Tar Heels posted shutouts in back-to-back games beating Marquette 2-0 and Florida 1-0 to improve to 8-1 on the season. The freshman from Southlake, Texas anchored a defensive effort which limited the competition to just four shots, two of which were on goal, over the weekend.
In Friday's contest against Marquette, North Carolina outshot the Golden Eagles 21-1 and followed that performance by outshooting the Gators 14-3 on Sunday. It was the fifth straight shutout registered by the Tar Heels and the seventh in nine games this year. Eveland has started all nine games for UNC this season, playing in 916 of the team's 920 total minutes.
Eveland and the Tar Heels will open conference play this Thursday, September 21, as North Carolina welcomes Florida State to Chapel Hill in a game shown live on the Fox Soccer Channel at 8:00 pm. The Tar Heels will wrap-up the weekend facing Miami at home on Sunday.
House of Cards: How job loss, lack of education and creative financing steal the dream of home ownership
http://www.yesweekly.com/main.asp?SectionID=18&SubSectionID=44&ArticleID=1713&TM=70085.83
He shuffles around the corner clutching a typed notice in his hand, making his way past the Guilford County Clerk of Court's administrative suite and down the long hallway where a continuous bulletin board stretches the length of the wall, subdivided into columns headed with numbers for the day of the month, each one containing a headache-inducing array of sale notices.Wearing a chestnut-colored snap-cap and sensible slacks, heavy black-framed glasses focusing quizzical eyes, 80-year-old Govan Tate looks all of an old-school man of the world, and the stoop in his walk and smooth skin stretched over hollowed cheeks do not detract from his obvious pride. With a curt "excuse me" he positions himself in front of the column marked "13" and examines the notices, glancing from the jumble of papers on the wall to the one in his hand. After a moment he shakes his head and walks down to the end of the hallway and back before accepting the assistance of a stranger.
Suicide, homicide ruled out in death of Anna Nicole Smith's son
http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/world/20060919-1330-annanicolesmith-son.html
By Michael Melia
ASSOCIATED PRESS
1:30 p.m. September 19, 2006
NASSAU, Bahamas – More than a week after her son mysteriously died beside her hospital bed, Anna Nicole Smith remained out of sight in the Bahamas as officials said only that his death was not a suicide or homicide.
With toxicology tests pending, the official cause may not be publicly known before a jury inquest starting Oct. 23. The 38-year-old former reality TV star, who gave birth to a baby girl three days before her son's death, is expected to be summoned.
Daniel Smith, 20, died the morning of Sept. 10. By all accounts, he flew into the Bahamas the night before and went directly to the private Nassau Doctors Hospital, where staff saw him tending to his mother and newborn half-sister in the hours before his death.
Two autopsies – one by the Bahamas coroner's office, another by celebrity pathologist Cyril Wecht – have ruled out suicide, foul play and several potential natural causes. Both have sought further tests to detect drugs or chemicals.
Wecht, who was hired by Anna Nicole Smith to perform a follow-up autopsy, said Daniel had been taking a “quite low” dosage of prescription anti-depression medication.
Frank Rich on Global Warming
The Cannes Landslide for Al Gore
By FRANK RICH
LET it never be said that the Democrats don't believe in anything. They still believe in Hollywood and they still believe in miracles. Witness the magical mystery comeback tour of Al Gore.
Like Michael Moore's ''Fahrenheit 9/11'' before it, Mr. Gore's new documentary about global warming, ''An Inconvenient Truth,'' has wowed the liberal caucus at Cannes (who needs landlocked Iowa?) and fueled fantasies of political victory back home. ''Al Gore Takes Cannes by Storm -- Will the Oval Office Be Next?'' Arianna Huffington asks on her blog, reporting that the former vice president was hotter on the Croisette than Tom Hanks, Bruce Willis and Penelope Cruz. In a ''fantasy'' presidential poll on the liberal Web site Daily Kos, Mr. Gore racks up a landslide 68 percent, with the closest also-ran, Russ Feingold, at 15. Liberal Washington pundits wonder whether the wonkishness that seemed off-putting in 2000 may actually be a virtue. In choosing a president, Margaret Carlson writes on Bloomberg.com, maybe ''we should give a rest to that old saw about likeability.''
Still, the unexpected rebirth of Al Gore says more about the desperation of the Democrats than it does about him. He is most of all the beneficiary of a perfect storm of events, the right man in the right place at the right time. It was just after Mr. Gore appeared on ''Saturday Night Live'' to kick off his movie's publicity campaign that long-rumbling discontent with the party's presumptive (if unannounced) presidential front-runner, Hillary Clinton, boiled over. Last week both New York magazine and The New Yorker ran lead articles quoting party insiders who described a Clinton candidacy in 2008 as a pox tantamount to avian flu. The Times jumped in with a front-page remembrance of headlines past: a dissection of the Clinton marriage.
If Senator Clinton is the Antichrist, might not it be time for a resurrected messiah to inherit (and save) the earth? Enter Mr. Gore, celebrated by New York on its cover as ''The Un-Hillary.''
There's a certain logic to this. Mrs. Clinton does look like a weak candidate -- not so much because of her marriage, her gender or her liberalism, but because of her eagerness to fudge her stands on anything and everything to appeal to any and all potential voters. Where once she inspired passions pro and con, now she often induces apathy. Her most excited constituency seems to be the right-wing pundits who still hope to make a killing with books excoriating her. At least eight fresh titles are listed at Amazon.com, including my own personal favorite, ''Liberal Fascism: The Totalitarian Temptation From Mussolini to Hillary Clinton.'' (Why settle for Il Duce when you can go for Hitler?)
Since no crowd-pleasing Democratic challenger has emerged at this early date to disrupt Mrs. Clinton's presumed coronation, the newly crowned movie star who won the popular vote in 2000 is the quick fix. Better the defeated devil the Democrats know than the losers they don't. Besides, there are at least two strong arguments in favor of Mr. Gore. He was way ahead of the Washington curve, not just on greenhouse gases but on another issue far more pressing than Mrs. Clinton's spirited crusade to stamp out flag burning: Iraq.
An anti-Hussein hawk who was among the rare Senate Democrats to vote for the first gulf war, Mr. Gore forecast the disasters lying in wait for the second when he spoke out at the Commonwealth Club in San Francisco on Sept. 23, 2002. He saw that the administration was jumping ''from one unfinished task to another'' and risked letting Afghanistan destabilize and Osama bin Laden flee. He saw that the White House was recklessly putting politics over policy by hurrying a Congressional war resolution before the midterm elections (and before securing international support). Most important, he noticed then that the administration had ''not said much of anything'' about ''what would follow regime change.'' He imagined how ''chaos in the aftermath of a military victory in Iraq could easily pose a far greater danger to the United States than we presently face from Saddam.''
At the time, the White House professed to ignore Mr. Gore's speech, but on cue in the next five days Condoleezza Rice, Ari Fleischer, Donald Rumsfeld and the president all stepped up the hype of what Mr. Rumsfeld falsely called ''bulletproof'' evidence of links between Saddam and Al Qaeda. Democratic leaders in Congress, meanwhile, blew off Mr. Gore for fear that talk of Iraq might distract the electorate from all those compelling domestic issues that would guarantee victory in the midterms. (That brilliant strategy cost Democrats the Senate.) On CNN, a representative from The New Republic, a frequent Gore cheerleader, reported that ''the vast majority of the staff'' condemned his speech as ''the bitter rantings of a guy who is being politically motivated and disingenuous in his arguments.''
But in truth, as with global warming, Mr. Gore's stands on Iraq (both in 1991 and 2002) were manifestations of leadership -- the single attribute most missing from the current Democrats with presidential ambitions. Of the potential candidates for 2008, only Senator Feingold raised similar questions about the war so articulately so early. The Gore stand on the environment, though still rejected by the president and his oil-industry base, has become a bipartisan cause: 86 evangelical Christian leaders broke with the administration's do-nothing policy in February.
If this were the whole picture, Mr. Gore would seem the perfect antidote to the Democrats' ills. But it's not. The less flattering aspect of Mr. Gore has not gone away: the cautious and contrived presidential candidate who, like Mrs. Clinton now, was so in thrall to consultants that he ran away from his own administration's record and muted his views, even about pet subjects like science. (He waffled on the teaching of creationism in August 1999, after the Kansas Board of Education struck down the teaching of evolution.) That Gore is actually accentuated, not obscured, by ''An Inconvenient Truth.'' The more hard-hitting his onscreen slide show about global warming, the more he reminds you of how much less he focused on the issue in 2000. Gore the uninhibited private citizen is not the same as Gore the timid candidate.
Though many of the rave reviews don't mention it, there are also considerable chunks of ''An Inconvenient Truth'' that are more about hawking Mr. Gore's image than his cause. They also bring back unflattering memories of him as a politician. The movie contains no other voices that might upstage him, not even those of scientists supporting his argument. It is instead larded with sycophantic audiences, as meticulously multicultural as any Benetton ad, who dote on every word and laugh at every joke, like the studio audience at ''Live With Regis and Kelly.''
We are also treated to a heavy-handed, grainy glimpse of Katherine Harris, Michael Moore-style, and are reminded that Mr. Gore is not a rigid blue-state N.R.A. foe (he shows us where he shot his rifle as a farm kid in Tennessee). There's even an ingenious bit of fearmongering to go head to head with the Republicans' exploitation of 9/11: in a worst-case climactic scenario, we're told, the World Trade Center memorial ''would be under water.'' Given so blatant a political context, the film's big emotional digressions -- Mr. Gore's tragic near-loss of his young son and the death of his revered older sister from lung cancer -- are as discomforting as they were in his 1992 and 1996 convention speeches.
If ''An Inconvenient Truth'' isn't actually a test drive for a presidential run, it's the biggest tease since Colin Powell encouraged speculation about his political aspirations during his 1995 book tour. Mr. Gore's nondenial denials about his ambitions (he has ''no plans'' to run) are Clintonesque. Told by John Heilemann of New York magazine that his movie sometimes feels like a campaign film, Mr. Gore gives a disingenuous answer that triggers an instant flashback to his equivocation about weightier matters during the 2000 debates: ''Audiences don't see the movie as political. Paramount did a number of focus-group screenings, and that was very clear.'' You want to scream: stop this man before he listens to a focus group again!
Even so, let's hope Mr. Gore runs. He may not be able to pull off the Nixon-style comeback of some bloggers' fantasies, but by pounding away on his best issues, he could at the very least play the role of an Adlai Stevenson or Wendell Willkie, patriotically goading the national debate onto higher ground. ''I think the war looms over everything,'' said Karl Rove this month in bemoaning his boss's poll numbers. It looms over the Democrats, too. But the party's leaders would rather let John Murtha take the heat on Iraq; they don't even have the guts to endorse tougher fuel economy standards in their ''new'' energy policy. While a Gore candidacy could not single-handedly save the Democrats from themselves any more than his movie can vanquish ''X-Men'' at the multiplex, it might at least force the party powers that be to start facing some inconvenient but necessary truths.
1021
Any country that takes CNN off the aire has my loyalty.
Everyone is excited about Katie on CBS, but, one is talking about Rosie except Chuck Scarborough.
Rosie O'Donnell's Lively 'View' Debut
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/09/05/AR2006090500574.html
Rosie O'Donnell's Lively 'View' Debut
By FRAZIER MOOREThe Associated PressTuesday, September 5, 2006; 2:16 PM
NEW YORK -- "My name is Meredith Vieira, and welcome to 'The View,'" said Rosie O'Donnell, introducing herself _ as if that were necessary _ on the ABC women's chat show Tuesday.
Filling the moderator slot vacated in June by Vieira (who went to NBC's "Today" show), O'Donnell was greeted by a rousing standing ovation from the studio audience. And she coyly suggested that her longtime crush, Tom Cruise, had sent the huge flower arrangement on the floor beside her.
1026
Union takes issue with state's performance pay rules for teachers
http://www.gainesville.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060919/LOCAL/209190327/1078/news
TALLAHASSEE - The Florida Education Association is challenging state guidelines for developing local teacher performance pay plans because they were written without going through required rule-making procedures, officials of the statewide teachers union said Monday.The union contends the Florida Department of Education has cut teachers out of the guideline-writing process for the new program dubbed Special Teachers are Rewarded, or STAR. The challenge is aimed at invalidating several interpretations of the plan the department has made."Through proper rule-making, all parties have an opportunity to address concerns, identify problems and perhaps arrive at a workable solution," union general counsel Pam Cooper said in a statement.Gov. Jeb Bush said teachers have had an ample opportunity to be heard in hearings held around the state."Basically the union does not want to pay teachers over and above the increases that we've given them on an annual basis for performance based on student learning," Gov. Jeb Bush said.
Union president Andy Ford said his group doesn't oppose the concept of performance pay, a form of merit pay that gives more money to those teachers deemed to be doing a better job than their peers. It is premature, though, until all Florida teachers can be paid a salary at or above the national average, Ford said.
1029
Human Rights Watch Urges Governor Jeb Bush to Postpone the Execution of Clarence Hill
http://www.allamericanpatriots.com/m-news+article+storyid-16412.html
1034
"Hamid Karzi is the elected president of Afghanistan." states Andy.
Yet.
President Ahmadinejad is a 'regime.' Although he was elected by the people of Iran.
No hatred there of course.
1037
Citizens Property Insurance ordered to hold customer service hearings
Tallahassee, Florida - The state is putting new requirements on the state-created company that is the largest home insurer in the state.
Governor Jeb Bush and the state Cabinet ordered Citizens Property Insurance to hold three public hearings on its customer service by the end of the year.
Citizens, which insures homes for which people can't get private coverage, was seeking approval of its business plan for the coming year, one written mostly by the Legislature.
But Bush and the Cabinet rejected the plan.
The company must also present a new plan with more details on how it will do better in that area and can't use outside attorneys to sue the state over some disputes without approval from the company's board and the governor and Cabinet.
A Citizens spokesman says they take the recommendations seriously and will comply with them.
1044
Alabama Ferry Shut by Racism is Revived
September 19, 2006
The Associated Press
Chicago Tribune
A ferry service that was shut down 44 years ago in what was seen as an attempt by whites to prevent blacks from registering to vote reopened Monday, dedicated as an example of what the ballot box can bring. "I'm mighty happy," said 89-year-old Ollie Pettway, who christened the new Gee's Bend Ferry by breaking a bottle of champagne over the boat's railing. The ferry over the Alabama River carries people between the isolated, poor and mostly black community of Gee's Bend and the Wilcox County seat of Camden.
http://www.civilrights.org/issues/voting/details.cfm?id=47052
enough
