Mood:  d'oh

Americans snub invitation to pay $500,000 for Clinton birthday party

When America's liberal elite were offered the chance to pay up to $500,000 each (about £260,000) to attend Bill Clinton's 60th birthday extravaganza tonight - with the added promise of a private Rolling Stones concert - a packed house was expected.

Wife Hillary and daughter Chelsea sent out about 10,000 invitations to Hollywood tycoons, movie stars, captains of industry and Wall Street - with all proceeds to go to the former President's charitable foundation.

Those who pledged the top price were promised the 'Birthday Chair Package', with the best seating for the concert as well as a chance to have photographs taken with Mr Clinton during a round of golf and a three-day series of cocktail, brunch and dinner parties.

The minimum price, with inferior concert seats and no brunch, was set at $60,000 (£31,000). But with many rich Democrats sending their regrets, The Mail on Sunday can reveal that last Wednesday the Clintons drastically slashed prices to $12,500 (£6,500) for one reception and the concert, or $5,000 (£2,600) for just the Stones.

With the looming possibility of Bill and his long-suffering wife and daughter finding themselves amid a sea of empty chairs at the 2,900-seat Manhattan venue, tickets then went on sale to the public for as little as $1,710 (£900).

And there is a danger that the Clintons' plans may end in a total fiasco, after the Stones cancelled Friday's show in Atlantic City when Mick Jagger complained of a sore throat and was ordered to rest by a doctor.

The supergroup has flown to New York in preparation for today's concert but an insider said it was too soon to know whether Jagger will be fit enough to perform.

A friend of the Clintons said last night: "It is all highly embarrassing for Bill and Hillary. When they created the idea, they thought it would go like wildfire. What's not going to please some who did come up with $500,000 is finding regular Stones fans there who got last-minute tickets on the internet."

A spokesman for the Stones insisted it was always intended that the public could attend and that some seats were left unsold because director Martin Scorsese is making a film about the band. He said: "Scorsese didn't know where he wanted to put the cameras. It wasn't until that was decided that the unfilled seats could be put on sale."

Mr Clinton's Press spokesman declined to comment.

Reader comments
UK Daily Mail ~ Sharon Churcher ** Americans snub invitation to pay $500,000 for Clinton birthday party

ROFLMFAO!
Come on down To Bubba's Cut-rate Birthday Party!
Prices Slashed Drastically!
Save $$THOUSANDS$$ on a Real Rubber Chicken Dinner!

Posted by yaahoo_06iest at 11:47 AM EDT

Updated: Sunday, 29 October 2006 11:55 AM EDT

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Brand new substance created from water

If you think we know all there is to know about water, think again. Scientists claim they have created a totally new alloy of hydrogen and oxygen molecules by splitting water.

It takes high-energy X-rays and an extremely high pressure, but the end result is a solid mixture of H2 and 02 that has never been identified before, they say. The discovery could change our understanding of the complex chemistry of water.

The new alloy is "a highly energetic material", says Wendy Mao at Los Alamos National Laboratory, US, who led the research. "It may help us find a way of storing energy."

Mao’s team subjected water to a pressure 170,000 times greater than atmospheric pressure at sea level. Then they bombarded it with X-rays, causing the water molecules to split and reform into a previously unknown crystalline solid made of H2 molecules and 02 molecules.

Just right
The phenomenon has been missed by hundreds of previous experiments, researchers say, because it only happens after several hours of exposure to 10-kiloelectronvolt-X-rays. "We managed to hit on just the right level of X-ray energy input," says team member Russell Hemley, at the Carnegie Institution’s geophysical laboratory in Washington DC, US.

"Any higher, and the radiation tends to pass right through the sample. Any lower, and the radiation is largely absorbed by the diamonds in our pressure apparatus," he explains.

After making several nanograms (10-9 of a gram) of the new alloy, researchers tested its properties by subjecting it to a range of temperatures and pressures, and further bombardment by X-rays and laser radiation. As long as it remained under a pressure 10,000 times greater than at sea level, it was "surprisingly stable", they say.

Fresh avenues
Under pressure, water is known to form 15 different types of ice, with a variety of crystal structures. But in all of them hydrogen and oxygen atoms remain bound to each other.

The discovery that molecules of oxygen and hydrogen can form an alloy opens up fresh avenues of research, including new possibilities for studying molecular interactions between oxygen and hydrogen, the researchers say.

"The existence of this new alloy is very interesting but not hugely surprising," says Sean McWhinnie, at the Royal Society of Chemistry in London, UK.

"Given high enough pressures, even hydrogen will behave as a metal. All, the other heavier elements in hydrogen's group of the periodic table are metals," she points out.

New Scientist.com ~ Rob Edwards **
Brand new substance created from water

Related: The diamond anvil used to create the new substance.
Science Now Daily News ~ Phil Berardelli ** Putting Hydrogen on Ice

Posted by yaahoo_06iest at 2:42 AM EDT

Updated: Saturday, 28 October 2006 2:47 AM EDT

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Shell to develop three fields in Gulf's ultra-deep waters

Perdido hub will operate in 8,000 feet of water

Shell announced plans Thursday for a major outpost on the frontiers of the ultra-deep waters of the Gulf of Mexico, making it the latest major oil company to commit billions to turn discoveries there into producing fields.

From its high-tech Perdido hub, which will sit about 200 miles south of Freeport in an area known as Alaminos Canyon, Shell will tap three deep-water oil fields it co-owns with BP and Chevron.

Shell said Perdido will begin pumping "around the turn of the decade" from the Great White, Tobago and Silvertip fields. At full capacity, the platform will pump the equivalent of 130,000 barrels of oil per day and is being built with a life expectancy of 20 years, the company said.

"This is a very expensive development, so it shows they have great confidence in what they're doing," said Zoe Sutherland, a North American energy sector analyst with Wood Mackenzie. "This is a big step."

While Shell did not disclose the cost of developing Perdido, Sutherland believes it could surpass $4 billion, given the size and complexity of the project and the relative costs of other deep-water projects.

The Perdido announcement comes as global energy demands are on the rise and as major oil companies are pushing farther and deeper into the Gulf of Mexico to find oil and natural gas resources.

Although offshore exploration has been going on for decades, the Gulf has been reinvigorated by new deep-water discoveries in recent years.

The trend began to materialize in the early part of the decade when discoveries were made in the Lower Tertiary region, an area with oil-rich formations up to 65 million years old estimated to be 300 miles wide and a couple of hundred miles off the coast of Texas and Louisiana.

Exploration in the deepest waters gained international attention in September when Chevron and Devon Energy discovered its five-mile deep "Jack" field 270 miles southwest of New Orleans, which was hailed as the biggest find since Alaska's North Slope a generation ago.

But the Perdido project is notable because it marks one of the first times an oil company has moved beyond the discovery and planning stages to commit to actual production in super deep water. "This is a major development even by Shell's historical standards," Russ Ford, a Shell vice president with the company's exploration and production division, said in a conference call Thursday with the news media.

The Perdido hub design is known as a "spar," -- the platform will float on a huge sunken cylinder that is moored to the sea floor. It will sit in 8,000 feet of water, making it the deepest spar production facility in the world, Shell said.

Perdido will be operated by Shell, but will be jointly owned with Chevron and BP. The three companies also hold ownership stakes in the oil fields themselves.

Ford said that while the Great White field was discovered in 2002, the companies only recently agreed to move forward with the investment on the Perdido project.

Construction of the Perdido platform will begin immediately in Finland, he said.

The announcement is good news for the Gulf, which has been passed over for more lucrative projects abroad in recent years, said Amy Jaffe with Rice University's Baker Institute of Public Policy.

"A lot of the companies are starting to bring the money home," she said.

brett.clanton@chron.com
Houston Chronicle ~ Brett Clanton ** Shell to develop three fields in Gulf's ultra-deep waters

Posted by yaahoo_06iest at 5:08 PM EDT

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Webb Says His Novels 'Inappropriate' for News Radio

(Editor's note: Corrects quote in the 10th paragraph.)

In an interview on Washington Post Radio Friday morning, Jim Webb, the Democratic candidate for U.S. Senate in Virginia, said excerpts of his novels are "a little bit inappropriate" to be read on news radio.

"I don't know why you're reading that on WTOP," Webb told host Mark Plotkin. "I think it's a little bit inappropriate."

Plotkin was reading an excerpt from Webb's novel "Something to Die For," in which Webb describes a female stripper performing sexual acts with a banana.

"I don't think that's appropriate for you to read on WTOP," Webb said again as Plotkin finished the excerpt. (Washington Post Radio is WTOP's sister station.)

The campaign of Republican Sen. George Allen on Thursday released excerpts from some of the war novels Webb wrote between 1978 and 2002. The books include some graphic sexual passages, as well as frequent uses of a racial slur for blacks and descriptions of Vietnamese women as "monkey-faced."

Among the excerpts is a scene from the 2002 novel "Lost Soldiers," in which a man embraces his four-year-old son and places the boy's penis in his mouth.

Webb said the release of the excerpts was "a Karl Rove campaign tactic" and a "classic example of the way this campaign has worked. It's smear after smear."

He defended his fiction as "illuminative."

"It's not a sexual act," Webb told Plotkin regarding the "Lost Soldiers" excerpt. "I actually saw this happen in a slum in Bangkok when I was there as a journalist."

"The duty of a writer is to illuminate the surroundings," he added.

Coincidentally, a Cambodian woman in Las Vegas is facing sexual assault charges for performing a similar act on her young son, according to an Oct. 14 report in the Las Vegas Review-Journal.

The article quotes an office manager for the Cambodian Association of America, who described the act as a sign of respect or love.

"It's an exception," Thira Srey told the Review-Journal of the practice. According to the report, the act is usually performed by a mother or caretaker on a child who is one year old or younger. In Webb's novel, the child is four years old.

Webb criticized the Allen campaign for focusing on excerpts from his novels.

"The most important issue facing the country, he hasn't got a statement to make on it," Webb said of the Iraq war. "This country's been breaking into pieces economically ... they've got no position on that.

Cybercast News Svc. ~ Nathan Burchfiel ** Webb Says His Novels 'Inappropriate' for News Radio

The N-word and "Monkey-faced?" Whew! Thank God he didn't say something horrible like "macaca."

Related: VIDEO: SEN. DODD TO IMUS: DON'T READ IT TO ME
Libtard Jim Webb's Underage Sex Scenes in Novels Make Foley Messages Look Tame

Posted by yaahoo_06iest at 3:22 PM EDT

Updated: Friday, 27 October 2006 3:43 PM EDT

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ALLEN'S REVENGE:
EXPOSES UNDERAGE SEX SCENES IN OPPONENT'S NOVELS

Sen. George Allen, R-VA, unleashed a press release late Thursday that exposed his rival's fiction writing, which includes graphic underage sex scenes.

The press release, as provided by the Allen Campaign:

WEBB’S WEIRD WORLD

The Author’s Disturbing Writings Show a Continued Pattern of Demeaning Women

 Some of Webb’s writings are very disturbing for a candidate hoping to represent the families of Virginians in the U.S. Senate.

 Many excellent books about the United States military and wartime service accomplish their purposes, and even win awards, without systematically demeaning women, and without dehumanizing women, men and even children.

 Webb’s novels disturbingly and consistently – indeed, almost uniformly – portray women as servile, subordinate, inept, incompetent, promiscuous, perverted, or some combination of these. In novel after novel, Webb assigns his female characters base, negative characteristics. In thousands of pages of fiction penned by Webb, there are few if any strong, admirable women or positive female role models.

Why does Jim Webb refuse to portray women in a respectful, positive light, whether in his non-fiction concerning their role in the military, or in his provocative novels? How can women trust him to represent their views in the Senate when chauvinistic attitudes and sexually exploitive references run throughout his fiction and non-fiction writings?

 Most Virginians and Americans would find passages such as those below shocking, especially coming from the pen of someone who seeks the privilege of serving in the United States Senate, one of the highest offices in the land:

– Lost Soldiers: “A shirtless man walked toward them along a mud pathway. His muscles were young and hard, but his face was devastated with wrinkles. His eyes were so red that they appeared to be burned by fire. A naked boy ran happily toward him from a little plot of dirt. The man grabbed his young son in his arms, turned him upside down, and put the boy’s penis in his mouth.”

Bantam Books, NY, 1st Edition, 2001, (hard cover), page 333.
Quote is from para. 10,.Chap. 34.

– Something to Die For: "Fogarty ... watch[ed] a naked young stripper do the splits over a banana. She stood back up, her face smiling proudly and her round breasts glistening from a spotlight in the dim bar, and left the banana on the bar, cut in four equal sections by the muscles of her vagina."

William Morrow and Company, Inc., NY 1991, 1st Ed. (hardcover), p. 36.
Avon Books, New York, 1992 (Mass-Market paperback edition), p. 35
Quote is from para. 29, Chap. 2 “The South China Sea,”, Section 2

– A Country Such as This: "[He] could see Jawbone and Ashley Asthmatic [two guards at a Vietnamese prison camp] napping together in the grass. They faced inward, their arms entwined. It looked like they were masturbating each other. It didn't surprise him. … It was common to see men holding hands, embracing, playing with each other. Some of them [the guards] had wanted him. He could tell in those evanescent moments between his bao cao bow, the obligatory deference when a guard entered his cell, and the first word or blow that followed it… Quick, grinding voices, turgid with repressed passion. An exploratory reaching of the hand near his groin…”

Doubleday & Co., Garden City, NY, 1983 (hardcover); page 396.
Bluejacket Books, 2001 (Trade paperback edition), page 396
Page numbers are the same in the Naval Institute Press (paperback) edition, 1983.
Quote is from fifth para, Part 5 “A Country Such As This,” Chap. 24, Section 1

– A Sense of Honor: “Nurse Goodbody, dark and voluptuous (Lenahan had forgotten her actual name, it was something long and Italian), was a bedtime friend to many of the doctors in Bethesda. She had hinted to Lenahan that she simply could not contain herself. Doctors tending to patients, she explained, aroused her. Morphine Mary (again Lenahan could not remember her exact name) was a thin, nervous drill sergeant type, a disciplinarian who did not allow her patients even to complain. Lenahan was convinced that Morphine Mary did not even sleep with her husband. She wasn’t bad looking, he mused again, staring at her thin frame. If she’d just get laid every now and then she’d mellow out and stop being such a damn witch.” (p. 164) (Lenahan brings Goodbody home with him and has sex, pp. 188-190)

Prentice-Hall, New York, 1981 (hardcover)
Bantam, New York, 1982 (Mass-Market paperback edition), p. 164
Trade paperback edition, Bluejacket Books, 1995, p. 164
Quote is from fourth para in Part 3, “Chapter 4:1600”

– Something to Die For: "[Fogarty] has been thinking of the firm, springy skin and the sweet smells of a young Filipina woman named Maria in whose bed he had spent three nights almost twenty years ago. . . . She was a deliciously bad young woman. . . . On the second night, he had brought her a box of Godiva chocolates . . . . he had awakened to find her in the bathroom, sitting on the toilet with her knees underneath her chin, eating chocolates and counting her rosary beads as she prayed."

William Morrow and Company, Inc., NY 1991, 1st Ed. (hardcover), p. 32.
Avon Books New York, 1992 (Mass-Market paperback edition), p. 30
Quote is from third para in Chapter 2 “South China Sea,”, Part 2

– Something to Die For: "We're on our way to becoming the world's recreational center, a nation [USA] not to be taken seriously. Where are we still the undisputed leader? Music. Movies. Fast food. Drugs. ... the billboards fifty years from now as you come over the bridge and stop at the tollbooths outside Manhattan: A smiling beautiful naked woman, and the sign saying AMERICAN ASS IS OUR MOST IMPORTANT PRODUCT."

William Morrow and Company, Inc., NY 1991, 1st Ed. (hardcover), p. 199.
Avon Books New York, 1992 (Mass-Market paperback edition), p. 237
Quote is from para. 38, Chap. 13, Part 1, (five paras before Part 2).

– Fields of Fire: Snake (the protagonist) sees his mother on the bed: "She looked as if she were carefully attempting to re-create a picture from some long-forgotten men's magazine . . . . She was naked underneath the robe . . . . and the robe fell loosely away, revealing her. Snake shrugged resignedly."

Prentice-Hall, New York, 1978 (Hardcover, 1st edition), p. 8
Bantam Books "mass market [paperback] edition" published in Sept. 2001. p. 9.
Quote is from paragraphs 18-23, Part 1 “The Best We Have”, Section 1
(NOTE: Part 1 is after the Prologue)

– Fields of Fire: "He saw the invitation with every bouncing breast and curved hip. . . . He was thirteen. . . . She was fifteen . . . . In a few moments she drew him to her and he murmured in his quiet voice, 'I am still small.' 'You are large enough,' she answered. And he found he was."

Prentice-Hall, New York, 1978 (Hardcover, 1st edition), pp. 211-212
Bantam Books "mass market [paperback] ed." published in Sept. 2001, pp. 280-81.
Quote is from paragraphs 8-20, Part 2 “The End of the Pipeline,” Chapter 24

– A Sense of Honor: “… that is, if you knew who your sister was, Brustein, and if she’d been born with anything between her legs except an asshole, I’d be happy to bring some class to your low-rent name by knocking the bitch up.” (p. 223)

Prentice-Hall, New York, 1981 (hardcover)
Bantam, New York, 1982 (Mass-Market paperback edition), p. 223
Trade paperback edition, Bluejacket Books, 1995, p. 223
Quote is from 17th para in Part 4, “Chapter 7:1930”

– A Sense of Honor: “You wouldn’t have believed it, Swede. She just dropped her britches and lifted up her skirt and pissed like a man. Didn’t lose a drop, either. Not a drop.” (p. 183)

Prentice-Hall, New York, 1981 (hardcover)
Bantam, New York, 1982 (Mass-Market paperback edition), p. 183
Trade paperback edition, Bluejacket Books, 1995, p. 183
Quote is from 23rd para in Part 3, “Chapter 8: 2300”

Drudge Report Exclusive ** Allen's Revenge: Exposes Underage Sex Scenes in Opponent's Novels

Posted by yaahoo_06iest at 8:57 AM EDT

Updated: Friday, 27 October 2006 9:18 AM EDT

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Germans feel the clutch of terrorist threat

61% surveyed believe Islamic extremists are targeting nation

Munich, Germany -- Early this month, Ibrahim R, an Iraqi who has lived in Germany since 1996, became the first person to be arrested for allegedly disseminating propaganda over the Internet for a foreign terrorist group.

The 36-year-old immigrant posted videos and tape recordings of Osama bin Laden and his deputy Ayman al-Zawahiri threatening the West in an online chat room. German officials have pledged to monitor more Islamic Web sites and make more arrests.

In years past, the harsh response by officials in Lower Saxony state might have spurred criticism of state violation of privacy laws. But many Germans no longer see the war on terror as a British-American problem over Iraq.

"The case of that Iraqi suspect just proves we are not living in a safe island anymore," said Heinz Bruckmoser, a retired mechanical engineer from Duesseldorf. "It ties in with that failed train attack."

In July, Islamic extremists tried but failed to blow up two trains in northern Germany. If successful, they could have killed hundreds of people. The plot not only triggered a heated debate on national security but also sparked an upsurge of fear in a nation with some 3.5 million Muslims residents.

"We are threatened by terrorism, and that threat has never been so close," Interior Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble said after the attempted train attacks. "This time we were lucky."

According to a survey this month by the Demoskopie Institute, the nation's leading pollster, 61 percent now believe Germany is a target for Islamic militants.

Such fears lay behind the Berlin Opera House's cancellation of Mozart's opera, "Idomeneo" after an anonymous threat over a scene that included the severed head of the prophet Muhammad. In less publicized, seemingly absurd reactions, a local school in the central German town of Dillenberg ordered a gymnasium to be darkened when Muslim girls work out there, while law enforcement officials in the state of North Rhine-Westphalia ordered a woman to change the name of her horse from "Muhammad" to "Momi."

False bomb alerts have become an almost daily routine at many train stations. Sprawling railroad terminals in major cities, including Hamburg, Bonn, Koblenz and Mannheim, have been temporarily sealed off.

"We keep getting calls from worried citizens about what they presume to be terrorist activities," said a Hamburg police official who spoke on the condition of anonymity in accordance with department policy.

Last month, a two-year dialogue program initiated by the interior minister to integrate German Muslims into mainstream society began between prominent Muslims and government officials.

But anti-Muslim sentiment appears to be growing. "We are already beginning to knuckle under to Islam," said a recent headline in Bildzeitung, Germany's largest-circulation newspaper, protesting the number of mosques being built in the downtowns of German cities.

Two Lebanese students studying at German universities were identified in August as the main suspects in the failed train attacks. Yousef Mohammed El Hajdid, 21, was arrested in the northern town of Kiel, while 19-year-old Jihad Mamad was detained in Lebanon. Both were identified by video cameras installed at all train stations.

No formal charges have been filed, but investigators say both harbored deep hatred toward Israel, and the West.

And while authorities stress that the overwhelming majority of the Muslim population opposes violence, the domestic intelligence agency Verfassungsschutz, or Guardians of the Constitution, has classified 32,000 Muslims as "Islamic radicals," including 4,000 described as "violence prone."

Manfred Murck, a top official of the agency in Hamburg, recently said that 30 of Hamburg's 100 mosques are being monitored for "suspicious activity," including the Al-Khuds mosque where Mohammed Atta and his Hamburg cell met daily before the Sept. 11 attacks. These mosques serve as meeting places for "clandestine agencies for Islamic extremist networks," Murck said.

Elmer Thevessen, a senior editor at ZDF national television network who has worked on numerous documentaries on terrorism, says the most likely converts to radical Islam in Germany are, like elsewhere in Europe, young, second-generation Muslims.

"They often feel isolated, don't know where they really belong, and often feel contempt for their immigrant parents, accusing them of being interested only in earning a decent living and adapting to German life," Thevessen said.

Thevessen says they are influenced by radical ideas spread on the Internet and Arabic language satellite TV networks such as Al-Manar, operated in Lebanon by Hezbollah.

"Thanks to Al-Manar, we know all about the horrible crimes committed by Israeli soldiers in Lebanon -- the murders of small babies and old sick people -- and the massacres by American soldiers of pregnant woman in Iraq and Afghanistan," said a young man who gave his name only as Mustafa as he played soccer in a parking lot in Freilassing, a commercial center in southern Bavaria.

Norbert Schneider, head of the Broadcasting Regulation Authority in North Rhine-Westphalia state, said he finds Al-Manar's programs "sordid" and "very alarming." While Al-Manar is banned in the United States and from a French-based satellite distribution network, there is no legal basis to stop its programs being broadcast in Germany. "They operate in a lawless sphere, and there is nothing we can do about it," said Schneider.

San Francisco Chronicle ~ Eric Geiger ** Germans feel the clutch of terrorist threat --
61% surveyed believe Islamic extremists are targeting nation

Posted by yaahoo_06iest at 12:01 AM EDT

Updated: Friday, 27 October 2006 2:44 PM EDT

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Tom Athans, Senator Debbie Stabenow, Liberal Talk Radio

NOT ANOTHER ONE!

Senator's Husband Planning New Libtalk Network

Here we go again!

Air America Radio's high- profile failure to deliver popular and financially successful liberal talk radio programming obviously hasn't deterred other "progressives" from initiating their own efforts.

Instead, with the recent announcement by former AAR exec Tom Athans regarding his new libtalk operation, Talk USA Radio, we will soon have at least four suppliers of lefty programming ready to fight over a tiny listening audience.

After Air America's debacle, do any of them stand a chance?

Athans, Air America's former executive vice president of the syndication division, is a controversial figure even inside the so- called "progressive" community. He's made some enemies on the left and as a result, some have been eager to tip us off to his latest antics.

And as the husband of US Senator Debbie Stabenow (D-MI), who is running for a second term this year, it's a wonder Athans hasn't at some point become a campaign liability.

During his time at Air America, we often wondered what he did during the day, in what proved to be a short tenure there. Hired (for whatever strange reason) to set up a Washington DC office for the network, Athans was to oversee its syndication efforts, which never really got off the ground. Previously, he ran Democracy Radio, another liberal talk radio upstart, which folded in 2005.

Having signed a contract in October, 2005, Athans was to have remained in his position until the end of 2006, but left in July. Compensation for the full calendar year was set at $165,000. Nice work if you can get it!

But providing a questionable contribution to Air America hasn't stopped him from attacking his now- former employer. As he told one publication, "There simply needs to be a credible alternative to Air America to ensure that Progressive Talk has a chance for success."

While Athans has already announced the formation of his new libtalk venture, he hasn't said what programs will air or who will back it. Apparently, that will be revealed soon.

Of course, the bigger question remains why it is so seemingly important for liberals to succeed at commercial talk radio, despite such a substantial track record of failure to date. What compels these people to beat a dead horse again and again?

Technorati tags: tom athans debbie stabenow air america radio mi michigan us senate liberal talk radio talk radio democracy radio

Photos: Stabenow's website
The Radio Equalizer ~ Brian Maloney ** Senator's Husband Planning New Libtalk Network

Posted by yaahoo_06iest at 12:28 AM EDT

Updated: Wednesday, 25 October 2006 12:38 AM EDT

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Howard Dean Explains Why He Won’t Debate RNC Chair Ken Mehlman on TV

By Noel Sheppard

This one is too good, folks, and requires all drinking vessels to be placed at safe distances from computer terminals (hat tip to Drudge). For many months, DNC Chairman Howard Dean has been refusing to do joint interviews with RNC Chairman Ken Mehlman. Instead, he has insisted that when the two are on the same show, they be questioned separately.

This morning, he was asked why on MSNBC. Frankly, his answer was hysterical (video here): “The spectacle of the debate overwhelms the desire to get messages out, and talk about policy and serious issues.” He then stated, with a straight face no less:

A lot of what happens on television is what I call infotainment, and I don’t think that’s a particularly good thing. Interviews like this give us a chance to talk about our message. Debates with Ken simply inflame things, and it looks like a gladiatorial (stammer, stammer) contest.

Well, Howard, I guess we shouldn’t have candidates debate each other either. Let’s just allow folks to say whatever they want about their opponents without ever having to face them. Sound good?

Of course, in reality, the networks shouldn’t allow Dean to dictate such terms. If he’s not interested in being interviewed along with the RNC chairman, they ought to decline him the opportunity. After all, this would certainly be the ultimatum given to any Republican who tried to get away with this nonsense.

News Busters ** Howard Dean Explains Why He Won’t Debate RNC Chair Ken Mehlman on TV
Noel Sheppard's blog | login or register to post comments
Categories: 2006 Congressional | Howard Dean

Posted by yaahoo_06iest at 2:06 PM EDT

Updated: Tuesday, 24 October 2006 2:12 PM EDT

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Tesco condemned for selling pole dancing toy

Tesco has been forced to remove a pole-dancing kit from the toys and games section of its website after it was accused of "destroying children's innocence".

The Tesco Direct site advertises the kit with the words, "Unleash the sex kitten inside...simply extend the Peekaboo pole inside the tube, slip on the sexy tunes and away you go!

"Soon you'll be flaunting it to the world and earning a fortune in Peekaboo Dance Dollars".

The £49.97 kit comprises a chrome pole extendible to 8ft 6ins, a 'sexy dance garter' and a DVD demonstrating suggestive dance moves.

The kit, condemned as 'extremely dangerous' by family campaigners yesterday, was discovered by mother of two Karen Gallimore who was searching for Christmas gifts for her two daughters, Laura 10, and Sarah, 11.

Mrs Gallimore, 33, of Ellesmere Port, Cheshire, said yesterday: "I'm no prude, but any children can go on there and see it. It's just not on."

Dr Adrian Rogers, of family campaigning group Family Focus said yesterday that the kit would "destroy children's lives".

He said: "Tesco is Britain's number one chain, this is extremely dangerous. It is an open invitation to turn the youngest children on to sexual behaviour.

"This will be sold to four, five and six-year olds. This is a most dangerous toy that will contribute towards destroying children's innocence."

He added: "Children are being encouraged to dance round a pole which is interpreted in the adult world as a phallic symbol.

"It ought to be stopped, it really requires the intervention of members of Parliament. This should only be available to the most depraved people who want to corrupt their children."

Tesco today agreed to remove the product from the Toy section of the site, but said it will remain on sale as a Fitness Accessory, despite the fact that the product description invites users to "unleash the sex kitten inside".

Also on sale on the Tesco website is a strip poker game, "Peekaboo Poker" which is illustrated by a picture of a reclining woman in underwear.

The card game is is described as a game that "risks the risque and brings a whole lot of naughtiness to the table.

"Played with a unique pack of Peekaboo Boy and Girl playing cards, the aim of the game is to win as many Peekaboo chips as possible and turn them into outrageously naughty fun."

The pole dance kit is the latest item to fuel allegations that major retailers increasingly sell products which "sexualize" young children such as T-shirts with suggestive messages.

In recent years Asda was forced to remove from sale pink and black lace lingerie, including a push-up bra to girls as young as nine.

Next had to remove t-shirts on sale for girls as young as six with the slogan "so many boys, so little time."

And BHS and others came under fire for selling padded bras embellished with a "Little Miss Naughty" logo and t-shirts with a Playboy-style bunny that said "I love boys...They are stupid."

Tesco last night denied the pole dancing kit was sexually oriented and said it was clearly marked for "adult use".

A spokesman added: "Pole dancing is an increasing exorcise craze. This item is for people who want to improve their fitness and have fun at the same time."

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UK Daily Mail ~ Colin Fernandez ** Tesco condemned for selling pole dancing toy

Posted by yaahoo_06iest at 1:15 PM EDT

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This Blog ~ Pic on File ** Pumpkin Killa  HAPPY HALLOWEEN !  

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Posted by yaahoo_06iest at 11:01 AM EDT

Updated: Tuesday, 24 October 2006 1:44 PM EDT

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