Reason

Chimp, White Tiger Become Best Friends

noreply@blogger.com (Anthony Nunez) — Mon, 13 Oct 2008 14:40:00 +0000

Loving Anjana cradles the white tiger cub after acting as surrogate mother to him and his twin brother.

And the two-year-old chimpanzee clearly isn't monkeying around, she has also raised LEOPARDS and LIONS.

Read the full story here.

See more photos here.

Rain or Shine

noreply@blogger.com (Anthony Nunez) — Sun, 28 Sep 2008 16:23:00 +0000

Saturday evening in Fredricksburg, Virginia, despite rain, Obama and Biden join 26,000 people for a rally. The following reports are by an NBC affiliate and a FOX affiliate, respectively, reporting on the rally and interviewing the many veterans for Obama/Biden.

Front-page of Free-Lance Star:

Slideshow:

Science Visualized As Art: 2008 Winning Images

noreply@blogger.com (Anthony Nunez) — Sun, 28 Sep 2008 04:14:00 +0000

The New Scientist has a gallery of gorgeous images that visualize science as artwork. The images are the winners of the 2008 International Science and Engineering Visualization Challenge: "The awards are given to the best photographs, illustrations and interactive media that visualize science and technology."

Scroll down to see some of this year's winners (see the whole gallery here).

"Squid Suckers: The Little Monsters That Feed the Beast, awarded an Honorable Mention in Photography, is a false-colour microscope image of the suction cups on the arm of the Loligo pealei squid. The 400 micrometer suckers have chitin "fangs" and were photographed by Jessica D. Schiffman and Caroline L. Schauer, Drexel University."

"Mad Hatter's Tea, winner of the Informational Graphics award, is taken from a book called Alice's Adventures in a Microscopic Wonderland. Colleen Champ and Dennis Kunkel, at Concise Image Studios, carefully built scenes from Lewis Carroll's story using microscope images of insects and other small animals."

"The Glass Forest, winner of the photography prize, depicts a community of microscopic diatoms - unicellular algae with a peculiar glass-like cell wall - attached to a marine invertebrate (Eudendrium racemosum). Mario De Stefano, 2nd University of Naples, captured the image with a scanning electron microscope."

Bruno at it Again!

noreply@blogger.com (Anthony Nunez) — Fri, 26 Sep 2008 17:59:00 +0000

Comedian Sacha Baron Cohen caused another security alert when he stormed the catwalk at Milan Fashion Week.

Cohen interrupted the fashion show of designer Agatha Ruiz de la Prada in Milan making it onto the catwalk dressed as his Austrian model Bruno. Dressed in a black cloak, and a bizarre bundle of clothing, Cohen strutted down the catwalk past the shows' models.

But the police were called when he refused to leave to restore order.

Scantily clad models screamed and security guards dived on him and several others with him and bundled them away. TV footage screened on Italian TV showed Cohen dressed as his creation Bruno, a flamboyant Austrian fashionista.

Cohen is in Milan working on a new film called Bruno: Delicious Journeys Through America for the Purpose of Making Heterosexual Male.

Truth Test: Lincoln Diaz-Balart Ad Makes Claims About Raul Martinez

noreply@blogger.com (Anthony Nunez) — Wed, 24 Sep 2008 00:57:00 +0000

MIAMI -- A new 30-second political ad from the campaign of incumbent Republican Rep. Lincoln Diaz-Balart makes claims about his opponent that are factually correct, but not the whole story.

The spot opens with images of a mug shot of former Hialeah Mayor Raul Martinez taken after his 1990 indictment on bribery and extortion charges.

“Convictions from bribery and extortion,” says the announcer over images of 1991 headlines from the Miami Herald and Chicago Tribune.

The conviction headlines are authentic, but the ad does not show the headlines that followed. Martinez won an appeal. His convictions were overturned. And in 1996, a jury acquitted Martinez on one of the corruption charges and hung on the others. Martinez, under U.S. law, is innocent until proven guilty.

The spot alleges Martinez used his public office to become “a millionaire." The context, according to the Diaz-Balart campaign, is back pay and legal fees the Hialeah City Council voted to grant then-Mayor Martinez after his acquittal.

Legally, Martinez was entitled to those. Martinez recently said he also made money during his mayoral tenure from real estate to supplement his city salary.

The Diaz-Balart campaign insinuates Martinez was involved in the drug trade in the 1980s.

"Martinez is featured in the investigative documentary ‘Cocaine Cowboys’ about drug trafficking in South Florida," the announcer says.

The statement is false, according to the dictionary definition of “feature” as “main attraction." Martinez appears in exactly two seconds of the two-hour film in a clip that has nothing to do with drugs. [Local10]

Barack Obama's New Ad

noreply@blogger.com (Anthony Nunez) — Wed, 17 Sep 2008 15:46:00 +0000

This spot, which lasts two-minutes, takes no shots at McCain. Instead it defines Obama's Plan for Change. A two-minute ad will consume many expensive points to play around the country and as many political strategist know, it takes at least five views to make the ad sticky in the mind of a voter. Well worth it I believe. Lately I've been throwing around the same idea on the premise that a longer ad will catch the voters by surprise and delight that a politician isn't just throwing catchy phrases and potshots, instead taking the time and money to reveal a more thorough explanation of their views and values.

Hawkish GOP Delegate with His Pants Down

noreply@blogger.com (Anthony Nunez) — Wed, 17 Sep 2008 00:47:00 +0000

Reported by Pioneer Press

He met her in the bar of the swank hotel and invited her to his room. Once there, the woman fixed the drinks and told him to get undressed.

And that, the delegate to the Republican National Convention told police, was the last thing he remembered.

When he awoke, the woman was gone, as was more than $120,000 in money, jewelry and other belongings.

The thief’s take stunned cops.

“It’s very, very, very rare,” Minneapolis Police Sgt. William Palmer said. “I can think of a couple of burglaries where we had that much stolen, but it’s the first time I’ve heard of this kind of deal.”

The Pioneer Press posted the following video which includes intelligent statements what makes you consider, “How could this happen to him?” Including how the US should “bomb the hell out of [Iran].” When asked how the US would pay for such a strike, he continues, “We should plant a flag, take the oil, take the money. We deserve reimbursement.”

What’s Spanish for ‘Lies’?

noreply@blogger.com (Anthony Nunez) — Tue, 16 Sep 2008 19:44:00 +0000

Senator John McCain’s truth-deficient campaign hit another low last Friday with a fraudulent new ad, this time about immigration.

The ad, in Spanish, accuses Senator Barack Obama and his Congressional allies of killing immigration reform.

It’s a gross distortion.

Here is an English translation:

Announcer: Obama and his Congressional allies say they are on the side of immigrants. But are they?
The press reports that their efforts were “poison pills” that made immigration reform fail.
The result:
No guest worker program.
No path to citizenship.
No secure borders.
No reform.
Is that being on our side?
Obama and his Congressional allies ready to block immigration reform, but not ready to lead.
John McCain: I’m John McCain and I approve this message.

Block immigration reform? The Democrats?

Mr. Obama opposing a path to citizenship?

Welcome to the night-is-day, down-is-up, world of the McCain campaign.

Some history:

Last year’s Senate immigration bill was a big, fat compromise that had a lot in it to please both sides in the debate. Among other things, it added tough layers of enforcement at the border and in the workplace, and included a (long and torturous) path to citizenship for illegal immigrants.

The bill was a right-of-center compromise. Back in the day, Mr. McCain — who once drafted a comprehensive immigration bill with Senator Edward Kennedy — would have led the charge for a bill like this. Back when he was still an independent thinker on immigration.

But by the time this bill came along, Mr. McCain was eager to win over the right-wing base of his party, which has never trusted him on immigration (or a number of other issues). Rather than continue to play the maverick, Mr. McCain largely absented himself from negotiations — and slipped meekly back into the herd.

The bill that emerged from that process was a mess. Advocates of comprehensive reform held their noses and supported it, hoping it could be improved in conference. Republicans attacked it, egged on by talk-radio hosts waging an all-out assault on what they called an “amnesty bill.”

Hundreds of amendments were proposed to kill it or improve it, depending on your point of view, and some were called “poison pills” by the “grand bargainers” who had assembled the unwieldy compromise.

So, here is what that misleading Spanish ad is referring to.

Mr. Obama supported an amendment from Senator Byron Dorgan, backed by unions, that would have phased out a guest-worker program after five years. The amendment passed, 49 to 48, but it was no poison pill.

“Not one member of Congress stood up and said, ‘I’m voting against the bill because of that Dorgan amendment,’” said Frank Sharry, executive director of America’s Voice, an organization supporting comprehensive immigration reform. “It’s preposterous. Not even close.”

In the end, it wasn’t that amendment or any others supported by Mr. Obama that caused the fragile coalition to fall apart. The bill was killed by Mr. McCain’s party. Its supporters were hoping to attract 25 to 30 Republican votes, but they could only round up 12, in the wake of all of those right-wing attacks.

Mr. McCain once was a moderate on immigration — and steadfast. Now he’s slippery. Marching in step with the Lou Dobbs crowd, he talks of border security first and foremost. He says he would have voted againsthis own McCain-Kennedy bill. He leads a party whose convention platform pushes a hard restrictionist line.

But at the same time Mr. McCain panders to Latino immigrants, in Spanish, accusing Mr. Obama of not being on “our side” — the pro-amnesty side.

Does this mean that Mr. McCain truly regrets the demise of the “path to citizenship”? That he really supports it, and will push for it harder than Mr. Obama will? Is he willing to stand up to his own party on that?

If he is, let’s hear him say so — in English, too. [NYTimes]

New Joe Garcia Ad: "93%"

noreply@blogger.com (Anthony Nunez) — Mon, 15 Sep 2008 22:04:00 +0000

Obama Ad Targets McCain's "Vile," "Truth Be Damned" Distortions

noreply@blogger.com (Anthony Nunez) — Mon, 15 Sep 2008 15:40:00 +0000

Greenspan: No McCain tax cuts without reduction

noreply@blogger.com (Anthony Nunez) — Sun, 14 Sep 2008 17:22:00 +0000

WASHINGTON (AP) — Alan Greenspan says the country can’t afford tax cuts of the magnitude proposed by Republican presidential contender John McCain — at least not without a corresponding reduction in government spending.

“Unless we cut spending, no,” the former Federal Reserve chairman said Friday when asked about McCain’s proposed tax cuts, pegged in some estimates at $3.3 trillion.

“I’m not in favor of financing tax cuts with borrowed money,” Greenspan said during an interview with Bloomberg Television. “I always have tied tax cuts to spending.”

Speed-campaigning... all your negative ads in 5 seconds

noreply@blogger.com (Anthony Nunez) — Sat, 13 Sep 2008 21:11:00 +0000

US Poll Says Miami Residents 'Most Attractive'

noreply@blogger.com (Anthony Nunez) — Sat, 13 Sep 2008 03:22:00 +0000

As if the nice weather and sandy beaches weren't enough to put Miami residents in a good mood, they were called the nation's "most attractive" by a new poll released on Friday.

According to an online survey of "America's Favorite Cities" by Travel + Leisure magazine, Florida's metropolis has the most beautiful people, while Philadelphia came in last at No. 25.

"I'm not surprised at all, but I'm not in that group" joked Bill Talbert, president of the Greater Miami Convention and Visitors Bureau, about the city's attractive people rating.

San Diego ranked No. 2 on the survey followed by Austin, Charleston and Honolulu.

The online survey of 125,000 people ranked 25 U.S. cities in 45 categories ranging from most affordable to friendliest people.

In 2008, Miami was ranked as "America's Cleanest City" by Forbes Magazine for its year-round good air quality, vast green spaces, clean drinking water, clean streets and citywide recycling programs.

Travel + Leisure Magazine's Rankings:

Miami
San Diego
Austin
Charleston
Honolulu
Los Angeles
San Francisco
Minneapolis/St. Paul
New York
Denver
Phoenix/Scottsdale
Las Vegas
Portland, Ore.
Seattle
Nashville
Chicago
Boston
Dallas/Fort Worth
Sante Fe
San Antonio
Washington, D.C.
Orlando
Atlanta
New Orleans
Philadelphia

[Local10]

The Thrasher Residence in Los Angeles, California

noreply@blogger.com (Anthony Nunez) — Sat, 13 Sep 2008 02:13:00 +0000

This home sits on its perch among the bird themed streets of the Hollywood Hills overlooking Sunset Boulevard in Los Angeles. From its unassuming entrance at 9191 Thrasher Avenue, it welcomes visitors into a 5 bedroom/5 bathroom home of contemporary luxury with features that include polished concrete floors, 13 foot ceilings, and a large terrace with stunning city views.

Back in June, the home was listed for sale at $12.85 million, but according to MLS, it has recently been reduced to $10.5 million. Bennett Carr is the agent, visit his website - here.

More Pictures...

Cuba: Thanks but no thanks.

noreply@blogger.com (Anthony Nunez) — Fri, 12 Sep 2008 03:10:00 +0000

The Cuban government rejected the U.S. State Department's offer to send a disaster relief team to western Cuba to assess damages from last week's Hurricane Gustav, the Cuban government announced in a statement by the Foreign Ministry Saturday.

Four days after Hurricane Gustav trounced western Cuba, the U.S. State Department offered $100,000 in aid through nongovernmental groups and offered to send a disaster assessment team. The offer came verbally from Thomas Shannon, assistant secretary of state for Western Hemisphere affairs to the head of the Cuban Interests Section in Washington, the Cuban government said.

On Saturday morning, the Cuban government responded: no thanks, lift the U.S. embargo instead.

"Cuba does not need a humanitarian evaluation group to evaluate the damages and needs, since it already has sufficient specialists who have practically concluded said work,'' the Cuban government said in a statement posted Saturday on the Cubadebate web site. "We request that the government allow the sale to Cuba of indispensable materials and suspend restrictions which impede American companies from offering our country private commercial credits to buy food in the United States.''

The statement pointed out that even Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama publicly said that the restrictions on family travel and remittances to the island should be lifted for at least 90 days in wake of the widespread damages in western Cuba.

The only ethical and moral thing to do, Cuba said, would be to lift the U.S. trade embargo, the statement said.

- Frances Robles

[Cuban Colada]

Record 13 Presidential Candidates On Florida Ballot — Let The Confusion Begin

noreply@blogger.com (Anthony Nunez) — Thu, 11 Sep 2008 21:40:00 +0000

Florida will have a record 13 Presidential candidates on the ballot for this year. Yes, the state of the hanging chad, penalized convention delegations and Democrats who almost failed to put up an Electoral College slate this year for Obama, have now cluttered the ballot as never before. It is as if Florida is priming itself for another fiasco.

One more thing, just so it does not get to easy to vote, an empty slot is open for Gary Nettles and Brad Krones, certified as write-in candidates. Here is the ballot listing:

John McCain and Sarah Palin, Republican

Barack Obama and Joe Biden, Democrat

Gloria La Riva and Eugene Puryear, Party for Socialism and Liberation - Florida

Chuck Baldwin and Darrell Castle, Constitution Party of Florida

Gene Amondson and Leroy Pletten, Prohibition Party

Bob Barr and Wayne A. Root, Libertarian

Thomas Robert Stevens and Alden Link, Objectivist Party

James Harris and Alyson Kennedy, Florida Socialist Workers Party

Cynthia McKinney and Rosa Clemente, Green Party

Alan Keyes and Brian Rohrbough, America’s Independent Party

Ralph Nader and Matt Gonzalez , Ecology Party of Florida

Brian Moore and Stewart Alexander, Socialist Party of Florida

Charles Jay and John Wayne Smith, Boston Tea Party/Personal Choice Party

The previous record was 10 Presidential candidates in 2000. We know what happened that year. Now the ballot is even more complicated. Somehow, I bet we have not heard the last of this. [Foolocracy]

Miami Schools Chief to Leave Amid Discord

noreply@blogger.com (Anthony Nunez) — Wed, 10 Sep 2008 20:51:00 +0000

The Miami-Dade County School Board and Rudy Crew, the onetime New York City schools chancellor who came here four years ago promising to overhaul education, have agreed to part ways.

Rudy Crew

The board voted Monday to begin negotiations on a severance package for Dr. Crew, the district’s superintendent, capping more than a year filled with racial recriminations and rising tensions over the school budget.

“Right now we have irreconcilable differences,” the board’s chairman, Agustin J. Barrera, said at a special meeting to discuss Dr. Crew. “There are board members that, no matter what the superintendent does, will never support him.”

Dr. Crew, who did not attend Monday’s meeting, declined to comment. In an interview published Sunday in The Miami Herald, he said, “I feel like I did the best I could.”

The departure brings to a close Dr. Crew’s second stint as a big-city schools chief. He spent four years leading the New York City schools, leaving in 1999 with a mixed record after a dispute with Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani over Mr. Giuliani’s desire to use tax money to send children to private school.

Dr. Crew went on to become director of district reform initiatives at the Stupski Foundation, a private philanthropic organization, and arrived in Miami in 2004. Promising to raise achievement in the nation’s fourth-largest school district, with 353,000 students, he seized control of the worst schools from local administrators and raised salaries for teachers who agreed to work in them.

He had some success. More Miami students now take Advanced Placement courses, a measure of college preparedness, and scores on state achievement tests have increased slightly but steadily in math, reading and writing since 2004.

The district initially seemed pleased. In 2006, Dr. Crew’s contract was extended through 2010, when his salary was to peak at $360,000 plus as much as $80,000 in a bonus. But over the last year, with Miami-Dade schools struggling under the strain of state budget cuts and declining enrollment, he has increasingly come under fire.

A growing mood of racial distrust has also poisoned the debate. In 2006, two members of Dr. Crew’s staff accused Ralph Arza, a white Cuban-American who was then a member of the Florida House, of using racial epithets to describe the superintendent, who is black. The episode ultimately led to Mr. Arza’s resignation from the Legislature.

Dr. Crew, meanwhile, has been accused of discrimination by several former employees, including a white woman who says she was demoted for the sake of diversity. (Dr. Crew has denied any bias.)

The volatile situation peaked at a school board meeting last week when a Hispanic member of the board severely criticized the superintendent’s proposal to balance the district’s $5.5 billion budget by reducing spending on bilingual education, prompting Dr. Crew to respond, “Do not talk to me like a dog!”

Monday’s meeting was quieter with Dr. Crew absent. But several of the board’s nine members maintained that he deserved much of the blame for what is now a $66 million budget shortfall for the 2008-9 school year. One member, Renier Diaz de la Portilla, said Dr. Crew should be fired or resign, without severance.

“I think we have an obligation to seek every possible remedy that does not involve giving Rudy Crew more money,” Mr. Diaz de la Portilla said. “We haven’t explored any other options other than giving Rudy Crew a golden parachute, and I think that’s wrong. That’s not what I was elected to do.”

A settlement seems likely, though. Murray A. Greenberg, outside counsel for the board, pointed out that Dr. Crew’s contract allowed for his firing without severance only if the district could prove “gross insubordination,” a difficult task.

Wilbert Holloway, one of the few members who support Dr. Crew, said the board and the superintendent just wanted to move on. “I think that today’s effort is a material way of stopping and saying, ‘The time has come that we part,’ ” Dr. Holloway said. “Let’s try to stop the attacks and the charges against this individual and move forward.” [NYTimes]

Progressive Accountability New Documentary - 'Third Term"

noreply@blogger.com (Anthony Nunez) — Wed, 10 Sep 2008 20:05:00 +0000

The McCain-Palin Lies and the Neil Armstrong Principle

noreply@blogger.com (Anthony Nunez) — Wed, 10 Sep 2008 14:59:00 +0000

By Paul Begala

If John McCain and Sarah Palin were to say the moon was made of green cheese, we can be certain that Barack Obama and Joe Biden would pounce on it, and point out it's actually made of rock. And you just know the headline in the paper the next day would read: "CANDIDATES CLASH ON LUNAR LANDSCAPE."
Why doesn't somebody call Neil Armstrong? He's been there. Or go to the Smithsonian and open the glass case that contains a piece of the moon. The moon is a rock. That's a fact, Jack.
Facts are indeed stubborn things, but the McCain-Palin lies are more stubborn still.
In the face of demonstrable, provable, incontrovertible evidence to the contrary, McCain and Palin continue to assert that Gov. Palin opposed the infamous "Bridge to Nowhere." They do so in their speeches and ads, and their supporters say so on television until their pants are on fire. McCain and Palin also claim the Alaska governor opposes earmarks -- despite the fact that she's gotten her state so much pork she's at risk for trichinosis.
I was in the middle of a Neil Armstrong Moment when I was on CNN Tuesday morning. Rather than let McCain and Palin get away with their lie, anchor John Roberts played a videotape of Sarah Palin in a 2006 gubernatorial debate in which she endorsed the bridge from Ketchikan to Gravina Island saying, "I'm not going to stand in the way of progress that our congressional delegation and the position of strength that they have right now." Perhaps her supporters, noting Palin's support for banning books, teaching creationism and doubting global warming will argue that for her, calling the bridge "progress" was her way of saying she was against it.) But the Anchorage Daily Newsforecloses that option, reporting, "In September, 2006, Palin showed up in Ketchikan on her gubernatorial campaign and said the bridge was essential for the town's prosperity."
After the videotape ran, I said the media was at fault for letting Palin and McCain get away with "flat out lies." GOP strategist Alex Castellanos manfully tried to shine a cow patty, saying, "The amazing thing about Sarah Palin is when she became governor she actually stood up and said no."
Increasingly frustrated, I pointed out that just was not true, and the "debate" continued.
Most of political debate is subjective: who's more qualified, who's more compassionate, whose experience is more relevant, who has better ideas on health care or energy or global warming or the economy? There is no Objective Truth on those matters, and debate -- even when voices are sometimes raised -- can help voters decide who they agree with. On those matters of subjective judgment it's perfectly appropriate for the media to hold the coats of the candidates and let them fight it out.
But facts ought not be debatable. The media have an obligation to point out when a politician is lying about a matter of fact, but the right-wing attack machine has so cowed some of them you can almost hear them moo. Steve Schmidt, McCain's top dog, is a brilliant and audacious strategist. His candidate has had the most favorable press coverage of any politician of the last century -- fawning, adoring, sycophantic press coverage. And yet he is brutalizing the press, waterboarding them into pretending that whether Gov. Palin supported the "Bridge to Nowhere," or hired an Abramoff-connected lobbyist to secure massive earmarks are somehow debatable.
The real debate is over whether the media will be vigilant watchdogs, sounding the alarm when McCain and Palin lie, or fall back to the role they've played for most of McCain's career: lapdog.

Sarah Palin a Reformer? Simply Laughable!

noreply@blogger.com (Anthony Nunez) — Tue, 09 Sep 2008 04:10:00 +0000

WHOA, McCain Ain't No Maverick

noreply@blogger.com (Anthony Nunez) — Mon, 08 Sep 2008 23:28:00 +0000

George Bush In Lipstick

noreply@blogger.com (Anthony Nunez) — Mon, 08 Sep 2008 01:13:00 +0000

A core Democratic talking point against Sarah Palin is beginning to take shape: she is, critics say, the female counterpart of the current President of the United States, not only in terms of policy and social conservatism, but even personality.

"She's not a pitbull in lipstick," said one female Democratic operative, referencing a line from Palin's convention speech. "She's George Bush in lipstick."

From her hard-right stances on abortion and contraception and the deep affection she engenders from conservative evangelical leaders, to her involvement in a possible "abuse of power" scandal in Alaska and even her charming demeanor, some see in Palin the second coming of the 43rd president.

The Palin-as-Bush theme comes just in time: with less than two months before election day, Democrats have a limited window to define McCain's vice presidential pick in the eyes of voters. Her relatively sparse record, particularly on key national issues, made finding a line of attack more difficult. And the McCain campaign's efforts to paint the media coverage of Palin as sexist, and to link the Obama campaign to that coverage, only complicated matters further.

Obama himself made the Palin-Bush comparison during his Sunday appearance on ABC's This Week, calling her "somebody who may be even more aligned with George Bush - or Dick Cheney, or the politics we've seen over the last eight years - than John McCain himself is."

Later, Robert Gibbs, senior aide to the Democratic nominee, fleshed out the case in an interview on CNN. "Sarah Palin doesn't think climate change is man made. Both John McCain and Sarah Palin want to outlaw abortion, even in the case of rape and incest. I'll let you decide who you think is extreme, but you've got a candidate in Sarah Palin who says she's against the bridge for nowhere, but she campaigned on it. She says she's against lobbyists getting pork for her state when she hired a lobbyist to get pork for her state. And now she stands in the way of an ethics investigation to look into her actions that was approved by the Republican legislature. I'm telling you...she's going to fit in just great at Washington because that's what happening right now."

Moreover, on a relatively high-profile environmental issue, Palin actually went to court to take on the Bush administration from the right, objecting to the president's decision to list polar bears on the endangered species list. (The UK Independent, in its understated form, noted that Palin "has an environmental policy so toxic it would make the incumbent, George Bush, blush.")

The McCain campaign's reply to this message was summed up by Nancy Pfotenhauer, who responded to Gibbs on CNN: "That is a total crock, Robert, and you know it." McCain staffers say the ethics investigation in Alaska will find Palin did nothing improper, and that she has worked against earmarks as governor.

Unfortunately for McCain, however, it is not only Democrats who see ties between Palin and the current President.

On Saturday, former Bush speechwriter David Frum wrote on his National Review blog, "George W. Bush had very slight executive experience before becoming president. His views were not well known. He won the nomination exactly in the same way that Palin has won the hearts of so many conservatives: by sending cultural cues to convince them that he was one of them, understood them, sympathized with them. So that made everything else irrelevant in 2000 - as it seems again to be doing in 2008."

But in the end, Frum wrote, Bush lacked "important aspects of leadership which is how we got into the mess from which he needed to rescue the country and himself."

Sarah Palin, John McCain and Earmarks

noreply@blogger.com (Anthony Nunez) — Sat, 06 Sep 2008 03:06:00 +0000

The truth is out. Sarah Palin may have posed as an opponent of congressionally mandated earmarks, but when the slop was in the bucket, she was one of the first at Senator Ted Stevens’ (R-AK) trough.

The Seattle Times reported yesterday that she submitted 31 earmark requests totaling $197 million in the current (FY2009) budget cycle. According to that paper, it was “more, per person, than any other state.”

The Washington Post reports that in 2000, Palin took an extraordinary step as the mayor of Wasilla, Alaska, a town that had fewer than 5,500 residents—she hired a Washington lobbyist to seek congressional earmarks. According to thePost, she won a total of $6.1 million in earmarks for the city of Wasilla in 2002.

A review of the Taxpayers for Common Sense database from which the Post derived that number indicates that 2002 was actually a subpar year for Palin. Over the course of her four years she sought earmarks as city mayor and won an average of $6.7 million a year.

Both numbers need to be placed in some perspective. Fiscal year 2008 was the first year for which there was a complete listing of all earmarks contained in all appropriation bills. That information was loaded into several databases, including the one developed by Taxpayers for Common Sense. According to that data, the average state got about $50 per person in earmarked funds in 2008. Alaska, represented by Ted Stevens, the Senate’s earmarker-in-chief, got $506 per person—about 10 times the national average. Wasilla between 2000 and 2003 was getting well over $1,000 per person—twice the Alaska state average in 2008.

There is nothing particularly wrong with any of these actions. Yet Palin has advertised herself as a reformer and a skeptic of earmarking while maneuvering to become the earmark queen of the earmark state. The energy she has put into finding resources to help solve problems in her hometown and her state is admirable. She didn’t create the rules about how federal money is distributed—by competitive grants, formulas, or congressional earmarks—but once the rules were in place, she used them to the maximum advantage of those she was elected to represent.

That creates an odd juxtaposition between her and the man with whom she shares the ticket. Unlike most of his colleagues in Congress, Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) has not only tried to change the rules governing the use of earmarks—he has refused to pursue them on behalf of needy constituencies he was elected to defend even when it was clear that the rules would not be changed and millions of dollars that might go to Arizona would be headed to other parts of the country.

While Sara Palin’s constituents in Wasilla were getting about 20 times the national average in earmarked federal funding, McCain’s constituents in Arizona were getting less than half the national average. The data indicates that if Arizona had matched the national average, the state would have, in the current fiscal year, received more than $133 million dollars in additional federal investments in schools, hospitals, roads, and so forth. In fact, the database indicates that Arizona rates dead last among the 50 states in per capita earmarked funds at $18.70 per person. This is despite the best efforts of Senator Jon Kyl (R-AZ), who is also an opponent of the earmarking process, but unwilling to give up earmarked funds to other states just to protect rhetorical high ground.

A review of the earmarks that Kyl and others in the delegation brought home to Arizona in 2008 tells an interesting story. Kyl reached across the aisle to help Congressman Raul Grijalva (D-AZ) with a project for the community of Nogales, Arizona—a project intended to resolve a long festering safety and public health issue.

Nogales is a town of about 20,000, or roughly three times the size of Wasilla, but a third of the residents live in poverty compared to 12 percent nationally and 10 percent in Wasilla. Overall, per capita income in Nogales is about a third of the national average. But perhaps the biggest problem facing Nogales is its geography. It is one of the few places on the U.S.-Mexican border where the watershed flows north, and when tropical storms from the Pacific Ocean come raging across the Sonoran dessert as they do every couple of years. Nogales, Arizona, is inundated not only in water but animal waste, raw sewage, and debris from Mexico.

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has worked with the U.S. Geological Survey and the Environmental Protection Agency to develop a flood control plan for Nogales, but no money has been included in recent presidential budgets for such an effort. Kyl and Grijalva’s efforts added $4.6 million to the FY2008 budget to begin to address this critical need.

Kyl also worked with fellow Republican Rick Renzi (R-AZ) to add $750,000 to the Transportation and Housing Appropriation bill to repair a road on the Navajo Reservation running from Hardrock to Pinon. The current quality of the road is so poor that it is often impassible in winter months, residents are cut off from the outside world, and food and medical supplies must be airlifted to avert starvation.

This is not to say that everything that Kyl or others in the Arizona delegation do with respect to earmarking is perfect or even laudable. I am certain they directed funds at less urgent needs. But it does demonstrate that Arizona, like many states, has communities that desperately need help, and that McCain, unlike his running mate, has had the power to help those communities and has refused to do so. That is a rather remarkable decision, even if it makes one’s campaign message a little crisper. Perhaps there are things that John McCain can learn from Sara Palin during the course of the coming campaign.[CenterforAmericanProgressActionFund]

Biden Rips McCain Speech

noreply@blogger.com (Anthony Nunez) — Sat, 06 Sep 2008 02:59:00 +0000

The Sound of Luxury Cars Rev A Woman's Engine

noreply@blogger.com (Anthony Nunez) — Fri, 05 Sep 2008 03:18:00 +0000

A British psychologist said his study indicates the revving of a luxury car's engine tends to have a sexually arousing effect in women.

Psychologist David Moxon said his study, which was commissioned by auto insurer Hiscox, involved 40 adults listening to recordings of engines from a Maserati, a Lamborghini and a Ferrari along with the more pedestrian Volkswagen Polo, The Daily Telegraph reported Tuesday.

He said his team took saliva samples from the study participants to measure levels of testosterone, a hormone that indicates sexual arousal, before and after they listened to recordings of the cars.

Moxon said a full 100 percent of the women involved in the study had a significant increase in testosterone levels after listening to the Maserati engine, while only half of the men marked an increase.

However, 60 percent of the men showed an increase in testosterone after listening to the Lamborghini.

"We saw significant peaks, particularly in women," Moxon said of his study. "The roar of a luxury car engine does cause a primeval physiological response."

However, he noted the sound of the more common Volkswagen Polo led to a decrease in testosterone for some participants.