New York Post Online Edition: gossip

January 31, 2005 — EVEN in death, Rodney Dangerfield gets no respect. The late comedy legend’s longtime publicist, Kevin Sasaki, got a call from a booker at CNN last week asking him if “Rodney would be available to share his comments on the passing and legacy of Johnny Carson.” Sasaki replied that unless CNN had a new way of linking up to the afterlife via satellite, that would be impossible. Dangerfield, of course, passed away last October. Ironically, his new DVD set, “Rodney Dangerfield — The Ultimate No Respect Collection,” was posthumously released last month, and includes clips culled from his more than 70 appearances on “The Tonight Show.”

Yahoo! News – U.S. students say press freedoms go too far
U.S. students say press freedoms go too far

Mon Jan 31, 7:20 AM ET

By Greg Toppo, USA TODAY

One in three U.S. high school students say the press ought to be more restricted, and even more say the government should approve newspaper stories before readers see them, according to a survey being released today.

The survey of 112,003 students finds that 36% believe newspapers should get “government approval” of stories before publishing; 51% say they should be able to publish freely; 13% have no opinion.

Asked whether the press enjoys “too much freedom,” not enough or about the right amount, 32% say “too much,” and 37% say it has the right amount. Ten percent say it has too little.

The survey of First Amendment rights was commissioned by the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation and conducted last spring by the University of Connecticut. It also questioned 327 principals and 7,889 teachers.

The findings aren’t surprising to Jack Dvorak, director of the High School Journalism Institute at Indiana University in Bloomington. “Even professional journalists are often unaware of a lot of the freedoms that might be associated with the First Amendment,” he says.

The survey “confirms what a lot of people who are interested in this area have known for a long time,” he says: Kids aren’t learning enough about the First Amendment in history, civics or English classes. It also tracks closely with recent findings of adults’ attitudes.

“It’s part of our Constitution, so this should be part of a formal education,” says Dvorak, who has worked with student journalists since 1968.

Although a large majority of students surveyed say musicians and others should be allowed to express “unpopular opinions,” 74% say people shouldn’t be able to burn or deface an American flag as a political statement; 75% mistakenly believe it is illegal.

The U.S. Supreme Court (news – web sites) in 1989 ruled that burning or defacing a flag is protected free speech. Congress has debated flag-burning amendments regularly since then; none has passed both the House and Senate.

Derek Springer, a first-year student at Ivy Tech State College in Muncie, Ind., credits his journalism adviser at Muncie Central High School with teaching students about the First Amendment, which guarantees freedom of speech, press and religion.

Last year, Springer led a group of student journalists who exposed payments a local basketball coach made to players for such things as attending practices and blocking shots. The newspaper also questioned requirements that students register their cars with the school to get parking passes.

Because they studied the First Amendment, he says, “we know that we can publish our opinion, and that we might be scrutinized, but we know we didn’t do anything wrong.”

Yahoo! News – The Master of His Domain….

OTTAWA (Reuters) – A Canadian who masturbated at a window in his house won his appeal against a conviction for indecency on Thursday after Canada’s top court ruled there was no evidence of intent to commit an indecent act, and a home was not a public place.

The Supreme Court of Canada noted that British Columbian, Daryl Clark, had agreed it was an indecent act to have masturbated “in an illuminated room near an uncovered window visible to neighbors.”

But Justice Morris Fish, writing the 9-0 decision, said such acts have to be done in public places to be a crime — and a home was not a public place. The law also says indecent acts are only crimes in every location if the person intends to give offense.

Imagine that conversation? Upon arrest, the RCMP can just ask nicely, “Excuse me, Mr. Wanker… Did you intend to cause offense by wacking your bag in front of a portrait window?”

I guess you can always except an honest answer. I mean, who intends to be seen while gratuitously wacking oneself in front of a window? Certainly not this gentleman…

Clark was convicted of an indecent act in a public place and given a four-month sentence after a prosecution that followed complaints from his neighbor, named in court documents only as Mrs. S.

The woman said she spotted Clark while she was watching television with her two young daughters in their family room.

Now had she just gone over to her window and closed the shades, all would be fine. Instead of just ignoring it and shielding her kids, she did what every normal mother would do… She drew even more attention to it:

She alerted her husband, and the couple observed Clark from their darkened bedroom for 10 or 15 minutes — also using binoculars and a telescope — before summoning the police, who said the upper part of Clark’s body was visible from just below the navel.

So they went to their darkened bedroom, took out binoculars and a telescope (!) and continued to watch this guy go at it for an additional 15 offensive minutes!? They were so offended by it that they only called the police after watching it for 15 minutes from their bedroom after already realizing that the guy was visible from the family room!

Some people would do better to just indulge their voyeurism rather than cover it up…

“In my respectful view, the trial judge … erred in concluding that the appellant’s living room had been converted by him into a public place simply because he could be seen through his living room window and, though he did not know this, was being watched by Mr. and Mrs. S. from the privacy of their own bedroom 90 to 150 feet away,” Fish wrote.

You know, with all due respect, this case is one big CF (look it up). The guy wacks his bag, offends a neighbor who then proceeds to grab her husband, go in her bedroom and watch for another 15 minutes before calling the police.

Surely someone here has to think this woman and her husband, and Mr. Wanker have lost their collective frigging minds.

(source)

Debra Lafave stands accused of banging one of her students. In a recently aired interview on the Larry King Show, her husband Owen made this obvious statement in reaction to Larry King’s question on how the conversation at her parents went after he posted bail. In it, this insightful piece of quotability:

…obviously, I wasn’t happy.

Surrounded by a disclaimer that he couldn’t discuss the conversation, that was, in essence the meat of his answer.

Thanks for clarifying that, Owen.

(source)

And that was how I strode into the piercing store, sauntered up to the counter, cockily eyed the bored employee at the counter, and declared, “Hey there – I’d like my labia pierced.”

It just gets better from there. Read on here.

So today, in what can by even the most conservative estimates be called a success for the beginnings of democracy in Iraq, millions of Iraqis voted today to determine their own fate, taking the first steps toward becoming an independent democracy.

By now, you’ve seen the pictures, and heard the commentary. While millions of Iraqis voted to decide their future, poiliticians in this country rushed to get in front of the cameras and downplay them. Presidential loser John Kerry, whose had more opinions on Iraq than the entire blogosphere combined rushed to tell everyone today that the elections should not be overhyped. On Meet the dePressed, he said the following to Tim Russert:

Massachusetts Senator John Kerry (news – web sites), who lost the November presidential election against Republican President George W. Bush, described the Iraqi elections as “significant” and “important” but said they should not be “overhyped.”

“It is significant that there is a vote in Iraq,” Kerry said in an interview with NBC television’s Meet the Press. “But … no one in the United States should try to overhype this election.

“This election is a sort of demarcation point, and what really counts now is the effort to have a legitimate political reconciliation,” Kerry said. “And it’s going to take a massive diplomatic effort and a much more significant outreach to the international community than this administration has been willing to engage in.

“Absent that, we will not be successful in Iraq,” he said.

Instead of heralding free elections in a country that has historically been repressed by its leadership, the most John Kerry who voted for against for against for the war can come up with is that it’s significant.

Well, you hypocritical flip flopping bastard, you’re damned right it’s significant.

It’s significant because it took the deaths of 1200 american soldiers who you voted not to fund when given the opportunity to bring it about, despite the best laid efforts of certain elements in this country to stop it from happening.

It’s significant because the President has already said that when the new Iraqi government takes over, we will leave if asked, ending speculation on numerous fronts that we were going to be there forever and the government would be a puppet of the US.

It’s significant because for the first time in its history, Iraq will have a Shi’ite majority that won’t be murdered in the street for the simple crime of having ancestors who came from a different mountain than Mr. Hussein al Tikriti. It’s significant because in spite of the violence, the dire predictions, Al Zarqawi’s al Qaeda connections, weapons from Syria and Iran, and everything else, there was a higher percentage of registered voters turning out than has turned out in a US election in at least 50 years if not longer. It’s significant because despite the automatic claim that everyone was going to be disenfranchised, that percentage mentioned above plus millions of Iraqis around the world who originally left Iraq to escape the tyranny that was going on in their home country. It’s significant because in spite of the hurdles thrown in the way of the coalition government, the lack of funding and support from those who promised it, and so on, all of this still happened.

You would think that someone like John Kerry who loves freedom so much that he fought in Vietnam and earned three purple hearts, a bronze star, and a silver star would understand that this is much more than significant; it’s historic. Instead, his own partisanship, along with that of Kennedy and the other bastards who call themselves our leaders, can’t put politics aside for one day and admit that something really good has come out of Iraq.

They can’t do it. Instead, they keep reminding the country that these elections are not the be all and end all in Iraq.

Well, Senator, nobody said they were. But what it is is a start, and from the crying of people who cast their vote something they haven’t had in years: hope.

And despite the best efforts of some, Iraq realizes that it’s much more than significant, something all the higher education, foreign policy experience, and marrying multiple rich women couldn’t teach you and in doing so, the illiterate uneducated farmers and peasants of Iraq have spoken with more clarity, determination, and hope than we’ll ever find in the hopeless slum that is our Senate.

Good job giving the “support” of elections all that lip service guys, but in reality it means as much as the old Dinar with Saddam’s mug on it.

Not a God-damned thing.

Just. Wow.

(source)

Drew Curtis’ FARK.com

“The vice president looked like an awkward child amid the well-dressed adults,” writes fashion-covering reporter at commemoration of liberation of Nazi death camps

Need I say more?

Every year on my birthday I do two posts. The first post is the one with that cake on it that’s a bit below this one (I totally love that cake!).

But the second one is a quick reminder that today isn’t just my birthday, but the anniversary of the first space shuttle accident in history.

In 1986, the crew of the Challenger was killed when the shuttle exploded shortly after takeoff.

On this anniversary, keep them in and their families in your thoughts and prayers.

Here’s the list of attendees for the Auschwitz Liberation Anniversary ceremony… See if you notice anything, er, “missing.”

Albania: Prime Minister Fatos Nano
Armenia: Prime Minister Andranik Margaryan
Austria: President Heinz Fischer
Azerbaijan: Speaker of Parliament Murtuz Alasgarov
Belgium: King Albert II; Prime Minister Guy Verhofstadt
Bosnia-Hertzegovina: Chairman of the Presidency of Bosnia and Herzegovina Borislav Paravac
Bulgaria: President Georgi Parvanov
Croatia: President Stjepan Mesić, Prime Minister Ivo Sanader
Czech Republic: President Vaclav Klaus
Estonia: President Arnold Rüütel
Denmark: Prince Joahim
Finland: Speaker of Parliament Paavo Lipponen
France: President Jacques Chirac
Spain: Speaker of Upper Chamber of Parliament Javier Rojo
Greece: President Kostis Stephanopoulos
Ireland: President Mary McAleese
Israel: President Moshe Katsav
Lithuania: Prime Minister Algirdas Brazauskas
Luxembourg: Grand Duke Henri
Latvia: President Vaira Vike – Freiberga
Netherlands: Queen Beatrix; Prime Minister Jan Peter Balkenende
Germany: President Horst Kőhler
Norway: Prime Minister Kjell Magne Bondevik, Prince Haakon
Russian Federation: President Wladimir Putin
Romania: President Traian Basescu
Serbia and Montenegro: President Svetozar Marović
Slovakia: President Ivan Gaąparovič
Slovenia: President Janez DrnovƒÖek
Switzerland President Samuel Schmid
Sweden: Speaker of Parliament: Björn von Sydow, Princess Victoria, Prime Minister Deputy Bosse Ringholm
Ukraine: President – elect Wiktor Juszczenko
European Union: President of the European Commission Manuel Barroso; President of the European Parliament Joseph Borrell Fontenelles
Vatican: Cardinal Jean-Marie Lustiger
Hungary: President Ferenc Mădl
United Kingdom: Prince Edward, Earl of Wessex
USA: Vice President Dick Cheney
Canada: Minister of Foreign Affairs Pierre Pettigrew

Hmmmm… Zero Muslim countries. Nothing in the Middle East.

All these “world leaders” and none of them made it.

No Musharraf.

No delegation from “Palestine.”

No Saudis, Kuwaitis, UAE Representatives, Indonesians, Egyptians.

No Sumatrans, or Sri Lankans.

And the list goes on.

You would think with billions of people in the population, one rep could find his way to Auschwitz.

But instead of that interesting tidbit being the topic of discussion, what is? What Dick Cheney, the pacemaker-wearing heart patient wore to stay warm in the middle of winter.

29 today. I can officially say I’m pushing 30 now!

Of mice, men and in-between

Scientists debate blending of human, animal forms
By Rick Weiss
Updated: 1:14 a.m. ET Nov. 20, 2004

In Minnesota, pigs are being born with human blood in their veins.

In Nevada, there are sheep whose livers and hearts are largely human.

In California, mice peer from their cages with human brain cells firing inside their skulls.

These are not outcasts from “The Island of Dr. Moreau,” the 1896 novel by H.G. Wells in which a rogue doctor develops creatures that are part animal and part human. They are real creations of real scientists, stretching the boundaries of stem cell research.

I have to say that if this is the kind of “life-saving” research being done with regards to stem cells, I want no part of it. There are certain things that are not to be fucked with, and life is one of them. To me it sounds like a bunch of scientists with God complexes trying desperately to prove that they can become gods of their own, and I don’t like it one single solitary bit.

Yahoo! News – Beyonce Starts Clothing Line
Beyonce Starts Clothing Line

By SAMANTHA CRITCHELL, AP Fashion Writer

NEW YORK – Beyonce is planning a new release — her own fashion collection. The Destiny’s Child singer has signed a licensing agreement with the Tarrant Apparel Group to produce a line of apparel for young women. She named the House of Dereon collection after her grandmother Agnes Dereon, who worked as a seamstress.

Now… Since Beyonce isn’t an evil white man corporation like Wal Mart or Target, do you think she’ll catch shit for having her clothing line manufactured in Hong Kong or Mexico?

Just so you know, from Tarrant’s Website:

United States – Tarrant Apparel Group
Tarrant’s world headquarters in Los Angeles is home to corporate planning and development, financial and computer operations, and customer service departments. In order to address the specific needs of its clients, each account is assigned a team of designers, quality assurance technicians, trackers, and sample makers. Tarrant also maintains a showroom in New York City and customer service offices in Columbus, Ohio and in Bentonville, Arkansas.

MEXICO – Tag Mex
Tarrant owns and leases out a substantial portion of the manufacturing facilities and operations in Mexico. They include a denim mill, a group of seven sewing and washing plants, a 1,500,000 square foot twill mill, garment processing facility, and distribution center. These facilities are capable of handling washing, finishing and packaging of garments.

HONG KONG – Tarrant Company Limited
Tarrant’s Hong Kong operation produces thousands of samples each month that are delivered to retailers for in-store testing, before rapidly and cost-effectively producing bulk orders of these items. Tarrant further developed its Hong Kong sourcing network and opened an office in Thailand and a sample-making facility in Guangdong Province, China.

Nice. Notice no US manufacturing jobs.

Way to give back to the community, Beyonce!

Yahoo! News – Murder Charges for Suspect in Train Crash

Juan Manuel Alvarez, 25, left his sport utility vehicle on a railroad track Wednesday after changing his mind about committing suicide, authorities said. He was held without bail at a hospital’s jail ward after apparently slitting his own wrists and stabbing himself in the chest.

How are they gonna punish him?

GLENDALE, Calif. – The suicidal man who authorities say caused the chain-reaction train derailment that killed 11 people has been charged with multiple counts of murder and could face the death penalty, the district attorney said Thursday.

Could face the death penalty.

What better way to handle someone who tried to commit suicide and chickened out?

Anyone notice something, er, improved about Alanis’ appearance here?

Have I just not been paying attention, or is something, er, “better”?

Yahoo! News – “Trading Spaces” Host Makeover
“Trading Spaces” Host Makeover
By Kimberly Potts

Valentine’s Day (news – web sites) is still a few weeks away, but Trading Spaces host Paige Davis already knows there’s going to be a little less TLC in her life.

The perpetually perky host of TLC’s popular home-redo series has been axed from the show, the network said Monday. Davis, who joined the series for its second season in 2001, will continue to appear in new episodes through March, before Trading Spaces switches to a new host-less format.

I wonder how they’re doing on their switch to a listener-less format. Seriously. Since they changed the format from $1,000 to whatever budget the house warrants, and hired the all new designers, and move Genevieve and Doug to their own shows, and bagged Vern Yip…

I mean…

Who can even watch that show anymore anyway?

And before you ask who watched it before, I watched that show religiously every single week. Oh well, yet another show that was once great and jumped the shark.

Good luck Paige. You were better than the show anyway.

Right Voices – Just FYI

Barbara Boxer, D-Calif.
Robert Byrd, D-W.Va.
Edward Kennedy, D-Mass.
John Kerry, D-Mass.
Carl Levin, D-Mich.
James Jeffords, I-Vt.
Jack Reed, D-R.I
Mark Dayton, D-Minn.
Daniel Akaka, D-Hawaii
Evan Bayh, D-Ind.
Frank Lautenberg, D-N.J.
Tom Harkin, D-Iowa
Richard Durbin, D-Ill.

Let me guess… No one finds it odd one bit that the man who voted against Thurgood Marshall and Clarence Thomas found a need to vote against Condi Rice, while he’s also a former KKK operative.

Hmmmm…

How many “coincidences” does it take to define a pattern?

Well, the company who fired some employees for not submitting to a urine test to determine if they were smoking is now targeting overweight workers.

News
Next on the firing line: overweight workers.

“We have to work on eating habits and getting people to exercise. But if you’re obese, you’re (legally) protected,” Weyers said.

He has brought in an eating disorder therapist to speak to workers, provided eating coaches, created a point system for employees to earn health-related $100 bonuses and plans to offer $45 vouchers for health club memberships.

The 71-year-old Weyers, who said he has never smoked and pronounced himself in good shape thanks to daily runs, said employees’ health as well as saving money on the company’s own insurance claims led him to first bar smokers from being hired in 2003.

Last year, he banned smoking during office hours, then demanded smokers pay a monthly $50 “assessment,” and finally instituted mandatory testing.

Well, at least you can’t say he’s picking on smokers anymore. I’d be curious to see an employment contract from the company and see if all these great little stipulations were actually included.

I think it’s a really screwed up situation, but that’s why I don’t work in a company like that.

Then again I don’t smoke, I ride my bike regularly, and I’ve lost 76 pounds in a year. By this company’s standards, I’d be a damn hero.

(Thanks to Kricket for the update)

Two kids were arrested for drawing this picture:

“When an adult or even myself look at the picture looked at it at first I was thinking there is really not much to the picture or I would not be that scared by the picture those children drew,” Ocala police spokesman Russ Kearn said. “However, we have to put ourselves in his mind and that’s the bottom line here. It is his well-being and the way he perceived that picture to be. It actually put him in extreme fear and he was in fear for his life.”

They were nine and ten.

Frankly, I’d be more concerned that that drawing represents the extent of their artistic ability, but that’s just me.

(Source)

The Butterfly Effect

Reading those reviews, you would think this movie was attrocious. Trust me; it’s one of the most interesting and riveting movies I’ve seen in a long time.

Then again, who would listen to reviewers? They friggin’ loved Chocolat and the English Patient.

Ugh.

Out of touch douchebags.