"The federal government intends to invoke the rarely used 'State Secrets Privilege' -- the legal equivalent of a nuclear bomb -- in the Electronic Frontier Foundation's class action lawsuit against AT&T that alleges the telecom collaborated with the government's secret spying on American citizens."
| Stones | Neil Diamond |
| Baby It's You | Elvis Costello And Nick Lowe |
| Stalin Malone | Elvis Costello |
| I Believe In Music | Mac Davis |
| Mannix | Lalo Schifrin |
| 6060-842 | The B-52's |
| The Tiding | Blues Traveler |
| Cross Wires | XTC |
| New Speedway Boogie | Grateful Dead |
| Maria Lando | Susana Baca |
Renzo Piano's answer to the Morgan's contemporary demands for space restores this architecture to its former prominence. His design integrates three new structures into the site. Constructed of glass and steel and scaled to the historic buildings, the modern structures defer to the traditional architecture.
"XM Satellite Radio Holdings Inc. reported a wider first-quarter loss Thursday and disclosed that federal regulators were probing its marketing practices. Its shares fell 8 percent in premarket trading.
XM, the larger of the nation's two satellite radio providers, lost $151.4 million, or 60 cents per share, in the three months ended March 31 versus a loss of $122.1 million, or 58 cents per share, in the comparable period a year ago.
XM also disclosed in a regulatory filing that the Federal Communications Commission found that one of its products, the Delphi XM SKYFi2, wasn't in compliance with transmitter emission standards.
It also said the Federal Trade Commission was investigating whether its marketing practices were in line with rules governing telemarketing, the Truth in Lending Act and other statutes. XM said it was cooperating fully with both inquiries."
"Tatuyan spent the next seven years in charge of 5,000 mostly young army reservists - drafted in from Azerbaijan, Lithuania, Chechnya, Kazakhstan and elsewhere in what was the Soviet Union - working 22 days on, eight days off, digging great holes, demolishing villages, dumping high-level waste, monitoring hot spots, testing the water, cleaning railway lines and roads, decontaminating ground and travelling throughout some of the most radioactive regions of Ukraine, Belarus and southern Russia.
He survived the worst environment disaster in history, he says, because he knew the danger and could monitor the radioactivity that varied from yard to yard and from village to village depending on where the plume descended to ground level, and on where the deadly bits of graphite from the core of the reactor were carried by the wind.
He took precautions but he also kept meticulous - albeit illegal - records of his own accumulating exposure. Every year the authorities told him he was 'fit for duty', and when he left Chernobyl they gave him a letter saying he had received just under the safe lifetime dose of radiation. He knew he had received more than five times that amount."
"Late Tuesday, Democrats were already circulating, via e-mail messages, a link to a blog affiliated with the Center for American Progress, which features a list of Mr. Snow's critical comments about the president in his columns."
"April 25,2006 | LONDON -- British police responding to a call about a possible break in at a pub in northern England Monday found themselves in the middle of a ghoulish riddle.
Officers arrived at the Low Valley Arms pub near Barnsley in South Yorkshire, 250 miles north of London, after being told the alarm had been set off, but instead of finding any signs of a robbery, they were faced with a shaken landlord convinced he had encountered a ghost with half a face missing in the ladies washroom.
Though they saw no ghoul-- described as a woman in flowing white gown-- officers were shocked to find toilets flushing themselves, said Inspector John Bowler of South Yorkshire Police.
Pub landlord Roger Froggat, 55, and his wife Kathryn, 49, moved in a year ago and said they had seen nothing before, despite rumors of a resident specter.
'I heard the alarm go off for a second time, went into the pub and all the television screens had turned on,' the pub owner said.
'I went to check the rest of the pub and standing in the women's lavatories was a woman with half her face missing. I was petrified.'
Officers found no signs of forced entry and were left quite scared, Bowler added.
Since the ghost story became public, the pub has become the talk of the town, attracting everyone from mediums to a national television film crew determined to catch a glimpse of the mystery woman should she appear again.
Despite their shock, the Froggats said they have no plans to leave their village pub."
"House Republican leaders have quietly scaled back their plan to limit the political influence of lobbyists, dropping proposed requirements that lobbyists disclose which lawmakers and aides they have contacted and how they have raised money for politicians.
Let's hope that, come November, the GOP Congress finds that it has completely misread public sentiment on this issue, and the voters kick their asses out into the cold street.
The changes were made public in an amended bill posted on the House Rules Committee website Friday while Congress was wrapping up a two-week recess. Even before the latest move, political ethics experts had called the House plan weaker than a lobbying bill the Senate passed last month.
The legislation is to be considered this week as Congress returns to address a political influence scandal that has gripped Washington. The House bill would leave unchanged current rules that allow members of Congress and their staffs to accept gifts from lobbyists.
In addition, the measure would:
• Freeze junkets paid for by private interests, but only until after the November elections.
• Place no new restrictions on lawmakers and aides who leave Capitol Hill to become lobbyists.
• Leave enforcement of the rules in the hands of a House ethics committee that is paralyzed by partisan tensions."
"There was a thing about dull book titles in the Spectator about a decade and a half ago:are the ones I remember. (All genuine, apparently.) Champion bore Glenn Reynolds has a new book out, but you have to admit that the title is pretty good: An Army of Davids. No doubt the rest of it is the most frightful tosh."
- The Street Names of Thatcham
- With Rod and Reel in Northern Bechuanaland
- Teach Yourself Practical Concreting...
"KILDUFF [video clip]: They are willing to do business with a lot of countries that the U.S. would find repugnant.
MITCHELL: Hot spots like Iran, Venezuela, Nigeria, and Sudan.
RICE [video clip]: There are places that have oil that are using oil as a weapon or using oil as a carrot for -- for certain policies, and that's troubling."
| Give Thanks And Praise | Bob Marley And The Wailers |
| Pouring Water On A Drowning Man | Elvis Costello |
| How To Be Dumb | Elvis Costello |
| Across The Antheap | XTC |
| Dead Beat Descendant | The Fall |
| Super Bad | James Brown |
| God Loves His Children | Flatt & Scruggs |
| Full Time Lover | The Fabulous Thunderbirds |
| Unheard Music | X |
| Althea | Grateful Dead |
"Meanwhile, a new role, or at least a new title, for Mr. Rove, the brilliant strategist feared and reviled by Democrats, signalled a deeper shakeup. But Mr. Rove's survival, albeit with a nominally reduced role, also reflects Mr. Bush's diehard devotion to his loyalists.
What began late last month with the abrupt resignation of long-serving chief of staff Andrew Card reached Mr. Rove yesterday. He will no longer have a policy role. Instead, 'Turd Blossom,' as the President calls his top political adviser, will focus on salvaging sagging Republican fortunes in this fall's midterm elections."
"At the same time, the president's chief political adviser, Karl Rove, will be shedding his duties as a policy adviser in the White House -- a role that Rove assumed after serving as 'the architect'' of Bush's reelection in 2004, when Rove became deputy chief of staff."
The chief of staff, Joshua Bolten, told the staff people that "this is a time to re-energize and renew our commitments to help the president advance his agenda," the chief White House spokesman, Scott McClellan, said today.
"Industry experts have speculated that the refusal by Apple Corps owners Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr, John Lennon's widow Yoko Ono, and George Harrison's widow Olivia Harrison to authorize online downloads has resulted in millions of illegal downloads from which they have been unable to profit."
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| Give It Up (Pt. 2) | Junior Tucker & Galaxy P |
| Tennessee Red | Zion Crossroads |
| Blue Heaven | The Pogues |
| Is This Love | Bob Marley And The Wailers |
| Masquerade | The Fall |
| Your Phone’s Off the Hook, But You’re Not (Live) | X |
| Welcome To The Working Week | Elvis Costello |
| Spoonful | Howlin' Wolf |
| I Started A Joke | Bee Gees |
| Over The Moon | Pere Ubu |
"It was a Democratic media consultant's dream. The colors were crisp, the well-behaved crowd was effusive, and the chants were patriotic ('U.S.A., U.S.A.'). Members of the nation's fastest growing ethnic voting bloc had gathered to sing the praises of a political party that they had been deserting for a decade. In 2004, George W. Bush pulled off a little-noticed coup among Hispanics, by winning 40 percent of the Hispanic vote, according to exit polls, about twice as much as GOP nominee Bob Dole earned in 1996."
"Rapadas' nomination has become a national media issue because of allegations he was nominated to remove Frederick Black, the acting U.S. Attorney on Guam at the time, from an investigation into the Superior Court of Guam's nearly $400,000 in payments to Abramoff. Abramoff is awaiting sentencing in an influence-peddling case in Washington and has been sentenced to more than five years in prison in connection with an unrelated fraud case in Florida."
"After years of turning the other cheek, the United Church of Christ, among the most liberal of the mainline Protestant denominations, has recently staked out a more pugnacious stance toward the Christian right."
| The Lady Don't Mind | Talking Heads |
| Very Very Hungry | Brian Eno & David Byrne |
| Sweet Caroline | Neil Diamond |
| Springtheme | Ween |
| Complete Control | The Clash |
| The Crying Marshal | The Fall |
| Filthy Habits | Frank Zappa |
| I Dreams Of Jeannie | Various Artists |
| Bob Dylan Wrote Propaganda Songs | Minutemen |
| Till | Tom Jones |
"April 06,2006 | WASHINGTON -- Federal health officials on Thursday dismissed a recent study suggesting a link between long-term use of cellular and cordless telephones and brain tumors but said they will continue to monitor the safety of the wireless devices.
The study, a combined analysis of two studies published in 2003 and 2005, found an increased risk of malignant brain tumors associated with use of the phones over a decade or more in populations in Sweden.
The Food and Drug Administration said that finding was inconsistent with the conclusions reached by other studies and pointed out several shortcomings, including the design of the study, which was conducted by surveys distributed by mail, and the lack of supporting data from laboratory animals. That makes the conclusion 'difficult to interpret,' the FDA said on its Web site.
Scientists do not consider retrospective questionnaires the most accurate method of determining a link between behavior and disease."
"To put it simply, the document suggests that the president and the vice president knew a lot more than they've let on in the past; it directly contradicts the White House's assertion that there was no high-level effort to fight back against Wilson's claims. We now know that, according to Libby, Bush and Cheney were aware that he was going to meet with a reporter to discuss why the administration believed that what Wilson was saying was bogus. Indeed, Bush, according to Libby, took the step of specifically declassifying information so that Libby could present a stronger case to the reporter. This doesn't mean that Bush authorized the leaking of Plame's identity, but it does suggest he wasn't sitting on the sidelines when the White House was fighting Wilson's claims.
Indeed, the document indicates that the White House viewed Wilson's claims as very damaging to public support for the war, and that the steps it took to fight back were extraordinary. Libby testified that 'this July 8th meeting was the only time he recalled in his government experience when he disclosed a document to a reporter that was effectively declassified by virtue of the President's authorization that it be disclosed,' the court filing states.
The document sheds particular light on Cheney's role in the administration's fight against Wilson's claims: Cheney was deeply involved. For instance, on July 12, 2003, Cheney asked Libby to replace Cathie Martin, who usually handled communications for the vice president, and talk to reporters personally 'regarding the NIE and Wilson.' The court document says: 'Defendant was instructed to provide what was for him an extremely rare 'on the record' statement, and to provide 'background' and 'deep background' statements, and to provide information contained in a document defendant understood to be the cable authored by Mr. Wilson.' ('Defendant' here means Libby.)"
Main Entry: tad
Pronunciation: 'tad
Function: noun
Etymology: probably from English dialect, toad, from Middle English tode -- more at TOAD
1 : a small child; especially : BOY
2 : a small or insignificant amount or degree : BIT
- a tad : SOMEWHAT, RATHER
"Top-ranked sites growing the most, ComScore's data showed, were Blogger.com, a personal publishing site; MySpace.com, where young people do virtual preening and share musical tastes; Wikipedia, an open reference site jointly edited by millions of people; and Citysearch, a network of local guides focused on cities.
The number of monthly visitors to each site rose at rates ranging from 185 percent (Citysearch) to 528 percent (Blogger.com) between February 2005 and February 2006. Their growth far exceeded the 4 percent increase in overall Internet visitors in the United States during that period."
"The hecklers accused the president of breaking his word. 'No I'm not lying to the American people,' Clinton declared. 'Do we have 10 million more jobs than we did under the previous president or not? Yes.'
When his detractors wouldn't quit, the president quipped, 'You know, we believe in the First Amendment here. I'll be glad to answer your questions, but they came here to hear me.' "
"While multiple cable networks have accepted 'ejector seat,' all the major broadcast networks -- CBS, NBC, ABC, Fox and WB -- have thus far rejected it, claiming it's a controversial, issue advocacy ad. Church leaders, meanwhile, disagree. "
"The probability of a hurricane hitting the Gulf Coast, from the Florida Panhandle west to Brownsville, Texas, is 47 percent; the average during the last century was 30 percent."
"'He's an avowed enemy, and he's made this very clear that he's going to get me and take me down,' Pianka said."
Nonetheless, the outcome was not the unalloyed victory for the Bush administration that it might have appeared to be.
Three justices who voted not to hear the case — Justices Anthony M. Kennedy and John Paul Stevens, along with Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. — filed an unusual opinion explaining their position. They noted that Mr. Padilla, who is now out of military custody and awaiting trial in federal district court in Miami on terrorism-related charges, was entitled to a criminal defendant's full range of protections, including the right to a speedy trial.
Most significant, the three justices warned the administration that the federal courts, including the Supreme Court, stood ready to intervene "were the government to seek to change the status or conditions of Padilla's custody."
Justices Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas and Samuel A. Alito Jr., who voted against hearing the appeal, neither signed Justice Kennedy's opinion nor offered an explanation of their own. It is possible that they objected to the language in the Kennedy opinion about the court's readiness to intervene "promptly to ensure that the office and purposes of the writ of habeas corpus are not compromised" if the administration were to change Mr. Padilla's status once again.
The silence of these three justices was only one of several mysteries surrounding the court's disposition of the case, among the most prominent of the cases generated by the administration's handling of those it has labeled enemy combatants.
