Archive for April, 2007

Muslim Women Regain Their Virginity in Clinics.

Published by
Gene Shinai
April 30, 2007 in Foreign, Government, Health, Human Interest/Society, Military, Newz and Religion. 0 Comments

From LA Times:

By Alexandra Steigrad

PARIS (Reuters) — Sitting in a cafe near the Champs Elysees, the 26-year-old French-born woman of Algerian descent looks like any other Parisian. But two months ago, she did something none of her friends have done.

She had her hymen re-sewn, technically making her a virgin again.

“I’m glad I had it done,” said the woman, who spoke to Reuters on condition of anonymity. “I wanted to reconstruct part of my life, to reconstruct myself so that I could feel better about myself.”
This 30-minute outpatient procedure, called “hymenoplasty” and costing between 1,500 and 3,000 euros ($2,000-$4,000), is increasingly popular among young women of North African descent in France.

No exact figures exist to say how many such operations are done, but the woman’s surgeon says he gets three to five queries and performs one to three hymenoplasties each week. Demand has been rising for the past three or four years.

Doctor Marc Abecassis, whose office is near the chic Champs Elysees, sees the rise in religion among France’s five million Muslims fuelling this trend. His patients are between 18 and 45 years old, Muslim, born both in France and in North Africa. -MORE-

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Animal Extinction - The Greatest Threat to Humankind.

Published by
Gene Shinai
April 30, 2007 in Health, Newz and The Environment. 0 Comments

From The Independent in the UK:

By Julia Whitty
Published: 30 April 2007
In the final stages of dehydration the body shrinks, robbing youth from the young as the skin puckers, eyes recede into orbits, and the tongue swells and cracks. Brain cells shrivel and muscles seize. The kidneys shut down. Blood volume drops, triggering hypovolemic shock, with its attendant respiratory and cardiac failures. These combined assaults disrupt the chemical and electrical pathways of the body until all systems cascade toward death.

Such is also the path of a dying species. Beyond a critical point, the collective body of a unique kind of mammal or bird or amphibian or tree cannot be salvaged, no matter the first aid rendered. Too few individuals spread too far apart, or too genetically weakened, are susceptible to even small natural disasters: a passing thunderstorm; an unexpected freeze; drought. At fewer than 50 members, populations experience increasingly random fluctuations until a kind of fatal arrhythmia takes hold. Eventually, an entire genetic legacy, born in the beginnings of life on earth, is removed from the future.

Scientists recognise that species continually disappear at a background extinction rate estimated at about one species per million per year, with new species replacing the lost in a sustainable fashion. Occasional mass extinctions convulse this orderly norm, followed by excruciatingly slow recoveries as new species emerge from the remaining gene-pool, until the world is once again repopulated by a different catalogue of flora and fauna.

From what we understand so far, five great extinction events have reshaped earth in cataclysmic ways in the past 439 million years, each one wiping out between 50 and 95 per cent of the life of the day, including the dominant life forms; the most recent event killing off the non-avian dinosaurs. Speciations followed, but an analysis published in Nature showed that it takes 10 million years before biological diversity even begins to approach what existed before a die-off. -MORE-

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Trial By Jury going the Way of the Dodo.

Published by
Gene Shinai
April 30, 2007 in Human Rights, Law and Justice and Newz. 1 Comment

From Rawstory/NYT:

According to a story in tomorrow’s New York Times (reg. req.), trials by jury are “on the verge of extinction” and are being “replaced by settlements and plea deals, by mediations and arbitrations and by decisions from judges.” In fact, “only 1.3 percent of federal civil cases ended in trials last year, down from 11.5 percent in 1962.”

The Times points out in particular that “in criminal cases, the vast majority of prosecutions end in plea bargains” and quotes a judge as complaining that defendents “who have the temerity to ‘request the jury trial guaranteed them under the U.S. Constitution’ … face ’savage sentences’ that can be five times as long as those meted out to defendants who plead guilty and cooperate with the government.”

Excerpts: -MORE-

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Bush Given Purple Heart Medal

Published by
Gene Shinai
April 30, 2007 in Foreign, Health, Military, Newz and Uncategorized. 2 Comments

!WARNING! The follow article may induce crying, fits of rage resaulting in an uncontrolable to throw things, and/or Vommiting. Proceed at your own risk.

From Alternet:

Did you know that George W. Bush was a war hero? I know that this development comes as a shock and surprise to many progressives who are familiar with Bush’s military career, but he received a Vietnam-era Purple Heart award a few weeks ago in the Oval Office. Seriously.

28%-er Bill Thomas of Copperas Cove, Texas, decided recently to give George Bush one of the three purple hearts that he had been awarded in Vietnam. Bush was so blown over by this gesture that he invited Thomas and his wife, Georgia, to the Oval Office for the presentation…

The medal was presented to Bush, and Thomas said:

…he and his wife came up with the unprecedented idea to present the president with the Purple Heart over breakfast one morning a few months ago as they discussed the verbal attacks, both foreign and domestic, the commander in chielf has withstood during his time in office.

“We feel like emotional wounds and scars are as hard to carry as physical wounds.”

Soak that all in for a moment. -MORE-

When I first saw this story, I thought some sicko Freeper was playing a really horrid Prank on Alternet. But its NOT a prank. If you all saw this already, sorry to be the Johny come lately. But I have one question, what planet is this guy living on?!

->NeoN—–

Courtesy: KDHNews.

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Washington Reporters In Meltdown, Damage-Control Freak Out Mode

Published by
susan
April 30, 2007 in Government, In Defense of Democracy, Law and Justice and Newz. 0 Comments

Sirotablog

Real-world wisdom from outside the beltway.

In the lead up to and wake of Bill Moyers’ much-anticipated mega-dunk on the Washington press corps this week, we are seeing the ugliest side of Beltway culture - the meltdown, damage-control freak out. Only what’s new is that instead of politicians melting down, it’s reporters themselves. And never underestimate the desperation that comes when Establishment Washington unifies to try to defend itself.

Over here we have professional power-worshiper Chris “It Doesn’t Matter Where Political Money Comes From” Cillizza attempting to defend Tim Russert, and in the process insulting the recently deceased journalistic hero David Halberstam. Yes, Cillizza - clearly begging for an invite on a Meet the Press panel - is out there saying that “modern journalists are doing their very best to emulate that sort of reporting” that came from Halberstam, and that “Tim Russert is one of the best examples of that kind of accountability journalism.” I guess turning over NBC’s airwaves to a Vice President spewing lies, ignoring the solid reporting of Knight Ridder that debunked those lies, and having panel discussions laughing hysterically with fellow pundit friends over predictions for when the war would start is, under Cillizza’s warped Beltway definition, “accountability journalism” from Russert (who, I’m sure, Cillizza would also have us believe is just a “blue collar guy from Buffalo,” despite Russert’s multi-million-dollar salary and quaint Nantucket summers). MORE

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The White House Scales Back Talk of Iraq Progress

Published by
susan
April 30, 2007 in Foreign, Military, Newz and The War in Iraq. 0 Comments

From the NY Times

By DAVID E. SANGER

WASHINGTON, April 27 The Bush administration will not try to assess whether the troop increase in Iraq is producing signs of political progress or greater security until September, and many of Mr. Bush’s top advisers now anticipate that any gains by then will be limited, according to senior administration officials.

In interviews over the past week, the officials made clear that the White House is gradually scaling back its expectations for the government of President Nuri Kamal al-Maliki. The timelines they are now discussing suggest that the White House may maintain the increased numbers of American troops in Iraq well into next year.

That prospect would entail a dramatically longer commitment of frontline troops, patrolling the most dangerous neighborhoods of Baghdad, than the one envisioned in legislation that passed the House and Senate this week. That vote, largely symbolic because Democrats do not have the votes to override the promised presidential veto, set deadlines that would lead to the withdrawal of combat troops by the end of March 2008.

(continues)

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Political Appointees No Longer to Pick Justice Interns

Published by
susan
April 30, 2007 in Government, In Defense of Democracy and Newz. 0 Comments

By Dan Eggen and Amy Goldstein
Washington Post Staff Writers
Saturday, April 28, 2007

The Justice Department is removing political appointees from the hiring process for rookie lawyers and summer interns, amid allegations that the Bush administration had rigged the programs in favor of candidates with connections to conservative or Republican groups, according to documents and officials.

The decision, outlined in an internal memo distributed Thursday, returns control of the Attorney General’s Honors Program and the Summer Law Intern Program to career lawyers in the department after four years during which political appointees directed the process.

The changes come as the Justice Department is scrutinized for its hiring and firing practices because of the dismissal of eight U.S. attorneys. Some of the fired prosecutors were removed because they were not considered “loyal Bushies” by senior Justice and White House officials.

Justice officials said the change was prompted by a contentious staff meeting in early December, which included complaints that political appointees led by Michael J. Elston, chief of staff for Deputy Attorney General Paul J. McNulty, had rejected an unusually large number of applicants during the most recent hiring period. Last year, about 400 applicants were interviewed for the honors program –the primary path to a Justice Department job for new lawyers — down from more than 600 the year before. MORE

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Halberstam, Moyers: A reporter’s passing and a scathing documentary spotlight the best and worst of American journalism

Published by
susan
April 30, 2007 in Newz, Opinion and The War in Iraq. 0 Comments

April 26, 2007, 8:50PM

A reporter’s passing and a scathing documentary spotlight the best and worst of American journalism.

Copyright 2007 Houston Chronicle

The death of Pulitzer Prize winner David Halberstam, 73, in a car accident has drawn a flood of tributes. A prolific writer of more than 20 books, the lanky, gruff-voiced Halberstam made his fame as a hard-nosed 29-year old Vietnam War correspondent for The New York Times whose dispatches exposed the false optimism of U.S. officials and commanders about that conflict.

Halberstam’s refusal to take officials at their word and insistence on questioning every available source made him a hero to a generation of journalists who followed. His landmark examination of what went wrong in Vietnam — The Best and the Brightest — was published in 1972 and profiled how ostensibly brilliant statesmen led the country into a bloody, ultimately losing fight in Southeast Asia.

Two days after Halberstam’s death, PBS aired a segment of Bill Moyers’ Journal called “Buying the War,” an examination of the failure of many journalists to adequately question the Bush administration’s justification for invading Iraq. The emotional outpouring after the 9/11 attacks pushed media outlets into self-censorship and suppressed critical analysis.

Phil Donahue’s talk show had high ratings, but because he allowed guests to voice antiwar opinions NBC canceled the program weeks before the war began.

Moyers, who was President Johnson’s press secretary for two years during the Vietnam War, cites a number of examples in which reporters allowed themselves to be used by government sources to spread misinformation or failed to challenge information that later proved erroneous. Particularly disturbing is a prewar news conference by President Bush. Reporters went along with the charade of raising their hands, even though the questioners and their queries already had been selected by Bush’s aides. Instead of questioning Bush’s attempt to falsely link 9/11 and Iraq, reporters settled for softball questions such as how the president’s faith guided him.

In another instance, officials planted a false story in The New York Times indicating that Iraq had purchased aluminum tubes to be used to process uranium for nuclear weapons. Vice President Dick Cheney and others then went on Sunday talk shows citing the story as confirmation of Saddam Hussein’s efforts to produce weapons of mass destruction. MORE


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US Officials Exclude Car Bombs in Touting Drop in Iraq Violence

Published by
susan
April 30, 2007 in Politics and The War in Iraq. 0 Comments

By Nancy A. Youssef
McClatchy Newspapers

Thursday 26 April 2007

 

Washington - U.S. officials who say there has been a dramatic drop in sectarian violence in Iraq since President Bush began sending more American troops into Baghdad aren’t counting one of the main killers of Iraqi civilians.

 

Car bombs and other explosive devices have killed thousands of Iraqis in the past three years, but the administration doesn’t include them in the casualty counts it has been citing as evidence that the surge of additional U.S. forces is beginning to defuse tensions between Shiite and Sunni Muslims.

 

President Bush explained why in a television interview on Tuesday. “If the standard of success is no car bombings or suicide bombings, we have just handed those who commit suicide bombings a huge victory,” he told TV interviewer Charlie Rose.

 

Others, however, say that not counting bombing victims skews the evidence of how well the Baghdad security plan is protecting the civilian population - one of the surge’s main goals.

 

“Since the administration keeps saying that failure is not an option, they are redefining success in a way that suits them,” said James Denselow, an Iraq specialist at London-based Chatham House, a foreign policy think tank.

 

Bush administration officials have pointed to a dramatic decline in one category of deaths - the bodies dumped daily in Baghdad streets, which officials call sectarian murders - as evidence that the security plan is working. Bush said this week that that number had declined by 50 percent, a number confirmed by statistics compiled by McClatchy Newspapers.

 

But the number of people killed in explosive attacks is rising, the same statistics show - up from 323 in March, the first full month of the security plan, to 365 through April 24. MORE

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Exxon Mobil 1Q profit rises 10 percent; Valero profit spikes

Published by
susan
April 30, 2007 in Business/Finance, Government and In Defense of Democracy. 0 Comments

By JOHN PORRETTO
AP Business Writer

NEW YORK (AP) — Oil giant Exxon Mobil Corp. kicked off 2007 with a 10 percent rise in profits, its best-ever first quarter, as higher margins on refining and chemical operations offset lower prices for crude oil and natural gas.

Exxon Mobil, the world’s largest publicly traded oil company, said Thursday it earned $9.3 billion in the January-March period, beating Wall Street expectations, even as revenue slipped and fell well short of analysts’ forecasts.

The Irving, Texas-based company was the third major oil company to report earnings in as many days. BP PLC, Europe’s second-largest oil company, on Tuesday reported a 17 percent drop in first-quarter earnings on lower oil prices and declining production. On Wednesday, ConocoPhillips said its first-quarter profit rose 7.7 percent as a result of asset sales that offset lower year-over-year commodity prices.

Also Thursday, Valero Energy Corp., the nation’s largest independent oil refiner, said its first-quarter profit jumped 35 percent on the back of stronger gasoline and distillate margins.

The market price for crude oil was off more than $5 a barrel in the first quarter versus a year ago. The comparable price for natural gas also was down.

Still, given the rise in gasoline prices at the pump in recent weeks, oil majors like Exxon Mobil and BP were getting little sympathy from U.S. consumers for not earning as much as they could have if market prices for their products had been higher to start 2007.

“They’re hurting me all the way around,” Bill LoGerfo of Staten Island said Thursday as he paid $3.27 a gallon for premium unleaded to fill up his car at a BP station in Manhattan. Regular unleaded was selling for $3.03 a gallon.

“I’m in the construction business, so it makes it more expensive to get materials shipped to me,” LoGerfo said. “These prices really trickle down to the little guy.”

In response to the new round of oil profits, Sen. Bob Casey, D-Pa., introduced legislation Thursday that he hopes will curtail rising gas prices. Casey’s bill would impose a windfall profits tax and close certain tax loopholes for big oil companies and use the money for research into biofuels and other related projects.

Investors, however, pushed Exxon Mobil shares up 63 cents to close at $80.55 on the New York Stock Exchange after sending them to a new 52-week high of $80.86. They’ve traded as low as $56.64 in the past year.

Exxon Mobil’s profit amounted to $1.62 per share, up from $8.4 billion, or $1.37 per share, a year ago. Analysts polled by Thomson Financial were looking for a profit of $1.52 per share.

Revenue fell to $87.2 billion from $88.9 billion a year earlier, well below the $100 billion analysts had forecast.

Last year, the company posted the largest annual profit by a U.S. company - $39.5 billion. That result topped the previous record, also by Exxon Mobil, of $36.13 billion set in 2005. MORE

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