Tuesday, March 28, 2006

Anderson Cooper 360, Bush Familiy Politics

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Where are the MDs? Where are the Medical Ethicists? This is all about keeping a political storm alive.

This is typical of the Bush political 'jazz' that goes on at CNN. There is no solid basis to this discussion except 'emoting.'


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I knew this was coming. It's priority on the CNN e-front page.

Government investigators smuggled radioactive materials into U.S.

Anderson said it was scary. I find it pathetic. Never once does anyone state Bush's National Security Czar at Homeland Security is a failure.

He used this article to lead into the testimony by Moussaoui.

CNN is not a good source of news so much as programming attempting to qualify for a Daytime Emmy.

Jerks.

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This is a predictable story. Regarding the father deadlocked over a battle for children in a divorce. At least that is my understanding. The family turned him into authorities because of fear for the well being of his children.

Rahman was arrested two weeks ago when his family reported him to the police after his conversion, Agence France-Presse cited Afghan Supreme Court Judge Ansarullah Mawlavizada as saying March 19. Sharia law provides for capital punishment for any Muslim who converts to another religion and refuses to revert to Islam, AFP cited the judge as saying.

I believe the news media is missing 'the point' to the issue. It goes beyond religious bigotry to the fear of Islam losing it's religion which is the basis to much of the clash between the West and Muslim nations. Cartoons, etc. It is a lot bigger issue than a barbaric and oppressive law.

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Ah, yes, the death of a preacher. She'll plead 'not guilty.' I have a feeling there are extenuating circumstances and a possible abuse issue.

Lawmaker Revives Plan For "Road Rage Reduction Act"
POSTED: 6:18 pm EST March 27, 2006
UPDATED: 6:21 pm EST March 27, 2006
TALLAHASSEE, Fla. -- A state lawmaker is reviving his plan to help reduce road rage by forcing slower drivers to stay out of the fast lanes on Florida's highways. The so-called "Road Rage Reduction Act" easily passed in the House and Senate last year, but Governor Jeb Bush vetoed the bill.


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An abuse segment. Recapping high profile cases. The celebrity cases were left out.

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"Murder 'R' Us.' and Forensics. No, thank you.


Attorney: CIA case to have profound impact on reporters

By BETH L. JOKINEN
419-993-2093
03/25/2006

bjokinen@limanews.com

ADA — The attorney representing two reporters during the high-profile Valerie Plame in-vestigation said Friday that the case will have a profound effect on the future of journalism.
“I have to believe that it has a chilling effect on reporters and on sources,” Kurtzberg told The Lima News Friday.

Joel Kurtzberg of New York City was one of eight law experts to speak Friday during Ohio Northern University’s 29th annual Law Symposium. This year’s topic was “Would You Be a Source? Reporter Privilege in the Post 9-11 World.”

Kurtzberg represented New York Times reporter Judith Miller and Time magazine reporter Matthew Cooper during the investigation involving Plame being publicly named as a CIA op-erative.

Miller spent 85 days in jail last year for refusing to testify to the grand jury. She later agreed to testify after saying her source, Vice President Dick Cheney’s chief of staff Lewis “Scooter” Libby, had voluntarily released her from her promise of confidentiality.

“The real story behind this is her decision to protect her sources in the first place and her willingness to sacrifice her own liberty to fight for a cause that she believes is of paramount importance,” Kurtzberg said. “I think what Judith Miller did, she should be revered. What she did was a very important thing and a very gutsy thing, and I believe it needed to be done.”

Kurtzberg said the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Washington, D.C. Circuit has said that in a grand jury context, there is no reporter privilege under the First Amendment. The court though, left open the possibility that there may be one under federal common law.
While he believes the case is and will continue to impact both reporters and sources, Kurtzberg said it will be hard to ever know just how much.

“It is also very hard to measure the number of stories that don’t get written,” he said. “It is impossible to figure out how many sources don’t go to a reporter with something that is news-worthy out of fear that it may later be disclosed.”

Kurtzberg specifically spoke at the symposium about a test for the reporter’s privilege put forth by D.C. Circuit Judge David Tatel during the Miller case. Kurtzberg said courts have traditionally applied a two-prong test to reporter privilege questions: whether the information being sought is central to the case, and whether the people seeking the information from the reporter have exhausted all reasonable alternatives.

Judge Tatel says that those two prongs are not enough in leak cases where the focus is on who leaked information to the press, but that there needs to be an additional hurdle.
“And that hurdle would require a balance between the harm caused by the leak and the value of the leak itself,” Kurtzberg said. “And it is only if the harm outweighs the value of the leak that disclosure should be permitted.”

http://www.limaohio.com/story.php?IDnum=23939

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A Preacher Feature

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The News Secretary

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New Website Offers Virtual Experience at John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum: www.jfklibrary.org

OF COURSE Rove is cooperating. He has made four testimonies before now. He doesn't want to go to jail. They are all liars in the Bush White House. Meeting Patrick Fitzgerald is like finally meeting God for the Bush White House.

Rove said cooperating in CIA leak inquiry

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There is the LA Hour and Frankstein, Anderson's Boy Toy. I am wondering if he has his own room at the 100 year old hour in New Orleans.

Oh, good, a Cruise Ship fire.

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First the immigration issue. After all it's the west coast.

The lack of real news regarding the security of this nation is appauling. No one is following the Plame case on a regular basis and their is no 'real truth' coming out of Iraq. The best of the reporters from Iraq are burned out but at least they are writing books.

Bush should fire war brain trust


TOO little, too late. President Bush is going to the nation to bolster his plummeting credibility because the war in Iraq is going badly. He's even admitting the original war plans weren't so great and that it won't be on his watch that troops can be withdrawn. Out of desperation, he's trying candor or a limited version of it. It's not enough.


There is one thing Bush has thus far refused to do, and it's crucial: Fire the people who made the key decisions on whether and how to fight this war. I'm talking about Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley. Along with Vice President Dick Cheney, they brought on this foreign policy disaster. Cheney ought to get the boot, too, but he was elected with Bush.


I thought I had a pretty good appreciation of how poorly these people had prepared for the war and its consequences. But recently I've been reading excerpts from a new book, "Cobra II: The Inside Story of the Invasion and Occupation of Iraq," by Michael Gordon, The New York Times military correspondent, and Bernard E. Trainor, a retired Marine lieutenant general and former Times military correspondent.


The lack of preparation for the postwar period was even more appalling than I had believed. And those early failures haunt us every day. The book reveals that military commanders on the ground warned the Pentagon early on that an insurgency was quickly developing, and different tactics and many more troops would be needed.

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THERE are civil rights issues in New Orleans up coming elections. It's a good and valid point.

Federal judge to hold hearing on legality of New Orleans election


NEW ORLEANS The first election in New Orleans since Hurricane Katrina is less than a month away. But it will be the subject of another court hearing today.Civil rights groups are trying to block the election, arguing that too many black residents scattered by Katrina will be unable to take part.


A federal judge who earlier turned aside pleas for a postponement of the April 22nd mayoral election has agreed to hold a hearing to reconsider the dismissal.


The state is implementing an emergency plan that includes polling stations set up in ten Louisiana cities, a national ad campaign to inform displaced voters, and an easing of voting rules to allow displaced residents to cast ballots. But critics say the plan doesn't go far enough.
Mayor Ray Nagin has nearly two-dozen challengers.

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Gaza and the Palestinians by Christiana Amanpour

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WE IMPORT FROM India. Inspections at container ports sailing into USA ports has to be part of the vigilance. Of course, ending terrorism would be better, but, that isn't on Bush's agenda so much as just doing business as usual.

DP World steams into controversial waters again
March 27 2006
DUBAI Ports World (DP World), which caused a political storm in the US when it acquired P&O's ports in that country, has now sailed into controversy in India.
DP World, which has already been forced to put the US assets that came with its STG4 billion (STG1 = RM6.45) purchase of P&O up for sale, has run into political flak in India. The P&O deal would give DP World, which already has operations in India, some 50 per cent of India's container shipping traffic. Critics of the transaction have suggested that this would amount to a monopoly and have called on central and regional governments to block the deal.Dubai Ports is pressing ahead with expansion plans in India and is confident of winning over critics of a deal that has put 40 per cent of the country's container traffic in the company's hands.

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Puppy peril as illegal imports.

200 rally in support of stricter border controlBy:

BRIAN ECKHOUSE - Staff Writer


TEMECULA ---- Though the 200-plus supporters of stricter border control who packed a Temecula park Saturday couldn't compare numbers to the 500,000 immigrants' rights activists who jammed downtown Los Angeles, many of the local participants said their staunch opposition to extending rights to illegal immigrants was shared by a majority of Americans.A few speakers at Pala Community Park, however, acknowledged that they were upset that law enforcement didn't arrest the thousands of illegal immigrants marching the streets of Los Angeles on Saturday.
Tim Donnelly, a leader of the Minutemen of California, said he "dreamed" that all Border Patrol cruisers stationed in Campo had been relocated to Los Angeles on Saturday to deal with the illegal immigrants and their supporters who marched "on our streets."
The Minutemen voluntarily monitor the U.S.-Mexico border, and report any curious activity to law enforcement officials.Ralliers in Temecula ---- particularly the Minutemen ---- support the Border Protection, Anti-Terrorism, and Illegal Immigration Control Act, which was passed by the House of Representatives, but oppose some senators' campaign to add a guest-worker/amnesty plan to the bill.Assemblyman Ray Haynes, R-Murrieta, said it is "time to stop rewarding the lawbreaker" with reduced college tuition, food stamps and limited health care.Some speakers issued a warning to President Bush should he ultimately back the guest-worker addendum."If he thought the Dubai ports things was a challenge, he hasn't seen anything yet," said Arne Chandler, referring to Dubai Ports World, a United Arab Emirates company, which had been granted federal approval to manage a half-dozen major American ports ---- but withdrew following a public outcry.

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Mexico plans backup ports

Nation could get spillover cargo from crowded California sites
By WILL WEISSERTAssociated Press
M EXICO CITY - Mexico and major shipping interests are bolstering Pacific ports south of the border, hoping to catch future runoff as an increasing tide of Asian cargo sails toward already clogged ports in California.
Mexican officials in coming weeks plan to study the feasibility of turning Punta Colonet — a sparsely populated, windblown bay on the Baja Peninsula 150 miles south of the U.S. border — into a super-port on par with twin facilities at Los Angeles and Long Beach, the largest western port complex in North America.

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Security shored up at local ports with 24-hour command center


A large screen broadcasts information about approaching cargo ships as part of the security operation at the Joint Harbor Operation Center on Craney Island in Portsmouth.

JOHN H. SHEALLY II / THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT By TIM MCGLONE, The Virginian-Pilot © March 25, 2006


PORTSMOUTH - In 2001, surveillance of the p ort of Hampton Roads consisted of two people with binoculars atop a tower at Norfolk Naval Station.

After the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11 that year, and with the October 2000 bombing of the Norfolk-based destroyer Cole still fresh in their minds, defense and homeland security officials knew they needed to develop a state-of-the-art port monitoring system.

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Macao steps up border temperature checks amid bird flu scare
www.chinaview.cn 2006-03-25 15:37:36
MACAO, March 25 (Xinhua) -- The Macao authorities have upgraded the body temperature checks at ports out of avian-flu concerns, according to an official press release issued Saturday.
The release from the Information Bureau said medical task forces have been assigned to main ports including the Macao-Hong Kong ferry, the Macao International Airport and the land border linking the mainland city of Zhuhai.
The body temperature checks will be focused on arrivals from nations including Azerbaijan, Iraq, Turkey and Egypt, where the human-infected cases were recently reported, said the release.
The release stressed that if any suspected cases are disclosed by the temperature surveillance, the medical teams will transfer the person suspected of infection to hospital for further checks.

Enditem

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The second cyclone has arrived in Australia.

Wati whips up water warning

SURFERS have been warned to stay out of the water as rough seas generated by Cyclone Wati continue to batter almost the entire length of the NSW coast.Waves up to 8m have been seen off beaches from southeast Queensland to far-southern NSW since Sunday.
The biggest have been reported in the Sydney metropolitan region, the Hunter and Illawarra.
The conditions have been caused by a low following Cyclone Wati, which moved down from the Coral Sea into the Tasman Sea on Sunday.

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Firm defends plans for it to screen U.S.-bound ships
Hong Kong -- A Hong Kong conglomerate that has won a federal contract to screen U.S.-bound cargo in the Bahamas for terrorism threats defended the plan Saturday, saying it would not be feasible for American officials to work in ports across the globe.
Some U.S. lawmakers and security experts have expressed concern about the contract for Hutchison Whampoa Ltd. because American customs agents will not be working with the screening equipment, designed to detect smuggled radioactive materials.
The Hong Kong company is in the final stages of being awarded a no-bid, $6 million contract from the United States for screening at the Freeport Container Terminal in the Bahamas, just 65 miles from the American shoreline.
John Meredith, group managing director for Hutchison Port Holdings, the maritime subsidiary of Hutchison Whampoa Ltd. and the world's largest ports company, said it would be impractical for American agents to work in every port that handles U.S.-bound cargo.

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The port administrators have a tough time selling some container shipping lines on using the Baltimore port because of its location up the Chesapeake Bay, well off the Atlantic Ocean, but they landed new service last week. They did so, in part, by touting the efficiency of the longshoremen who move up to 37 containers an hour and, after some contentious debate over work rules years ago, continue on the job rain or shine.

As a last resort, Royster said, he could seek to nullify P&O's contract if the health of the port appears in jeopardy, although there is little enthusiasm for a move that could bring more instability - and litigation - to the waterfront.

P&O has been holding regular meetings to provide information and reassure workers - some who have been there for decades - said Mark Montgomery, P&O's senior vice president of East Coast operations. Montgomery has survived other company sales since coming to Baltimore in 1980.

The anxiety is being felt in all of the nearly two dozen U.S. ports, from New York to Miami, affected by DP World's pending sell-off of the U.S. operations it bought from Peninsular & Oriental Steam Navigation Co., the British parent of P&O Ports.

The port of New Orleans had begun to recover from the Gulf Coast hurricanes last summer and fall when its workers were faced with the ownership question, said Matt Gresham, a port authority spokesman.

"We reached 100 percent of our pre-Katrina ship activity in mid-February," he said. "We had a goal of getting to 60 to 80 percent at the six-month mark and we surpassed that goal. We just want to get word out that we're open for business."

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No one else is covering the progress of freeing American Ports from the hands of foreign influence, I may as well.

Enough.