Donovan
Universal Soldier

I asked the Answer Man…..how should I bet on the SuperBowl. Here’s his answer:

Bet the under on the first half. Bet the over on the second half. And the Colts to win.

If you have any questions, send them into us and we’ll get them to the Answer Man. He can answer anything about anything……..cause he’s the Answer Man!!

Best thing I read all day…..

RICHMOND, Va., Feb. 1 - In a series of probing and sometimes testy exchanges with a government lawyer, two of three judges on a federal appeals court panel here indicated Thursday that they might not be prepared to accept the Bush administration’s claim that it has the unilateral power to detain people it calls enemy combatants.

The case was brought by Ali al-Marri, a citizen of Qatar who is the only person on the American mainland being held as an enemy combatant, at the Navy brig in Charleston, S.C. Mr. Marri, a legal resident whom the government calls a sleeper agent for Al Qaeda, was arrested in Peoria, Ill., on Dec. 12, 2001, where he was living with his family and studying computer science at Bradley University.

“What would prevent you from plucking up anyone and saying, A-You are an enemy combatant?- ” Judge Roger L. Gregory of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit asked the administration’s lawyer, David B. Salmons.

Mr. Salmons said the executive branch was entitled to make that judgment in wartime without interference from the courts. “A citizen, no less than an alien, can be an enemy combatant,” he added.

Read more at the New York Times

Charlie Crist is doing some good……

GOVERNOR CHARLIE CRIST ANNOUNCES PLANS FOR PAPER BALLOTS

DELRAY BEACH, Fla., Feb. 1 - Gov. Charlie Crist announced plans on Thursday to abandon the touch’screen voting machines that many of Florida’s counties installed after the disputed 2000 presidential election. The state will instead adopt a system of casting paper ballots counted by scanning machines in time for the 2008 presidential election.

Where Voters Will Find a New Type of Ballot Voting experts said Florida’s move, coupled with new federal voting legislation expected to pass this year, could be the death knell for the paperless electronic touch’screen machines. If as expected the Florida Legislature approves the $32.5 million cost of the change, it would be the nation’s biggest repudiation yet of touch’screen voting, which was widely embraced after the 2000 recount as a state-of-the-art means of restoring confidence that every vote would count.

Several counties around the country, including Cuyahoga in Ohio and Sarasota in Florida, are moving toward exchanging touch’screen machines for ones that provide a paper trail. But Florida could become the first state that invested heavily in the recent rush to touch screens to reject them so sweepingly.

“Florida is like a synonym for election problems; it’s the Bermuda Triangle of elections,” said Warren Stewart, policy director of VoteTrust USA, a nonprofit group that says optical scanners are more reliable than touch screens. “For Florida to be clearly contemplating moving away from touch screens to the greatest extent possible is truly significant.”

Read more at the New York Times

CRIST BACKS LIMITED STEMCELL RESEARCH

It’s a start……

Gov. Charlie Crist said he would recommend $20 million in the state budget for a program to fund grants for stem cell research.

In an appearance at the University of South Florida College of Medicine in Tampa, Crist said the grant program he is proposing would support research within the parameters of federal law, including adult stem cells, umbilical cord blood and placental stem cells, amniotic fluid stem cells and embryonic stem cells from lines permissible for use under federal law.

Earlier in the day, Crist told newspaper editors at the Associated Press Florida Legislative Planning Session in Tallahassee that he would not recommend including research that requires the destruction of human embryos.

Some scientists have argued human embryonic stem cells hold the most promise for finding new treatments and cures for diseases, although not all scientists agree.

Read more here

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NEW YORK (Reuters) - Viacom Inc. (NYSE:VIAB - news) on Friday demanded that Google Inc.’s (Nasdaq:GOOG - news) online video service YouTube remove more than 100,000 video clips after they failed to reach a distribution agreement.

Viacom said it sent a notice to YouTube on Friday morning, asking the popular video’sharing site to remove clips from Viacom-owned properties including MTV Networks and BET.

The media company controlled by Sumner Redstone said its pirated programs on YouTube has generated about 1.2 billion video streams, based on a study from an outside consultant.

A YouTube representative could not immediately be reached for comment.

“Filtering tools promised repeatedly by YouTube and Google have not been put in place, and they continue to host and stream vast amounts of unauthorized video,” Viacom said in a statement.

The company is taking a hard stance against the Internet’s most popular video service, which is renowned for its quirky, viewer-contributed video clips as much as for being a repository for unauthorized television shows.

“This is a negotiating tactic,” UBS analyst Ben Schachter said. “We think a deal gets done … The terms have major implications for the value of content online.”

Read more at YahooNews

H/T Bat for sending this one to me, too.

I love Dave Barry. Thanks to Bat for sending me this link! If you’ve ever lived in the area, you know the Golden Glades is NOT somewhere you want to have to drive through. It is the most fucked up link of highway I’ve seen anywhere in the country……add to that the horrifically bad Florida drivers……and you’ve got disaster.

Put down your drink and listen up, South Florida, because it is time to talk Super Bowl security.

It is a known fact that the Super Bowl is a major target for terrorism. The terrorists HATE the Super Bowl, because (a) it is a symbol of corrupt Western decadence, and (b) the terrorists lost a giant bet in 2004 when the Patriots failed to cover the spread.

So we have every reason to believe the terrorists will try to attack this Super Bowl. In fact, it can now be revealed that they have ALREADY MADE ONE ATTEMPT.

Yes. On Wednesday, a group of terrorists flew into Miami International Airport Construction Zone, carrying a large quantity of powerful explosives, which they were able to get onto their plane because they put them in clear, one-quart, zip-top plastic bags, in accordance with Transportation Safety Administration rules.

“These guys really knew what they were doing,” a TSA spokesperson said. “They also removed their shoes.”

The terrorists then rented a car and were headed toward Originally Joe Robbie Stadium when they made a fatal mistake: They tried to get through the Golden Glades Interchange.

“They never had a chance,” a police source said. “We picked them up in Atlanta.”

Full article at the Washington Post

From 2004, Molly Ivins is interviewed on Democracy Now and she gives her opinion on the Rupert Murdoch British type of “news” and how it works. The last part of the clip is an excerpt of Molly’s last column.

H/T Joe for the post!

I’m still wondering, do they publish deaths of wounded soldiers who die out of Iraq? I know during the VietNam war, they were not counted in the final count. They actually had a hard time getting their names on the wall. Just wondering……Also, as an example, a Major Gloria Davis was found shot in her room in Iraq. Does she not count as a casualty? If she were not there, she wouldn’t have been murdered. She’s a casualty of war, even if she was killed by one of our own. Just askin…..

Statistics on a Pentagon Web site have been reorganized in a way that lowers the published totals of American nonfatal casualties in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Dr. Michael Kilpatrick, deputy director of force health protection and readiness at the Defense Department, said the previous method of tallying casualties was misleading and might have made injuries and combat wounds seem worse and more numerous than they really were.

The old method lumped many problems under the label “casualties,” including illnesses, minor injuries and injuries from accidents, as well as wounds sustained in combat. But the public may assume that every casualty is a war wound, Dr. Kilpatrick said, so the site was changed to avoid misunderstandings.

On Monday, the bottom line of the Defense Department’s Web page on casualties in Iraq listed a total of 47,657 “nonmortal casualties.”

Read more at the New York Times

(crossposted at Vagabond Scholar)

LONDON (AFP) - A right-wing American think tank is offering 10,000 dollars (7,700 euros) to scientists and economists to dispute a climate change report set to be released by the UN’s top scientific panel, media reported.

The American Enterprise Institute (AEI), which receives funding from oil giant ExxonMobil according to the Guardian, sent letters to scientists in the United States, Britain and elsewhere offering the payments in exchange for articles emphasising the shortcoming of the UN’s report.

AEI also reportedly offered additional payments, and to reimburse travel expenses.
(more…)

If the American middle class and poor are doomed to carry more and more of our tax burden, then what’s the point? Wouldn’t it make more sense to toss out this legislation and offer up one that increases the wages of the American wealthy? Same damn difference! Even more pathetic than that, I know poor republicans who agree that a minimum wage increase is a bad idea, and that the wealthy deserves more breaks! Brainwashing at it’s finest.

Bush’s pledge of bipartisanship at work; “I strongly encourage the House to support this combined minimum wage increase and small business tax relief.”

Minimum wage bill heads to negotiations

WASHINGTON - Republicans are warning Democrats not to tamper with Senate-passed minimum wage legislation, saying the bill’s mix of $8.3 billion in tax breaks and a $2.10 an hour wage hike offers the right economic and political balance.

The Senate, in a 94-3 vote Thursday, passed an increase in the minimum wage from $5.15 to $7.25 an hour over two years. The bill also would extend small business tax cuts, close off some corporate tax loopholes and rein in executive compensation.

Labor leaders and many Democrats, however, would like to strip the tax provisions from the bill and only send the minimum wage increase to President Bush for his signature. A House version, passed last month, contains no tax measures.

“I strongly encourage the House to support this combined minimum wage increase and small business tax relief,” Bush said in a statement following the Senate vote.

Democrats and Republicans already were blaming each other for any obstacles to reconciling the House and Senate bills.

“Republicans are demanding billions in corporate tax breaks in exchange for a $2 bump in the minimum wage,” said Gerald W. McEntee, president of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees. “As they play their political games, low-income workers continue to wait for their first raise in a decade.”

Source: Yahoo! News