NPR: NPR has learned that Supreme Court Justice David Souter is planning to retire at the end of the court’s current term. The court has completed hearing oral arguments for the year and will be issuing rulings and opinions until the end of June. Souter is expected to remain on the bench until a successor has been chosen and confirmed, which may or may not be accomplished before the court reconvenes in October. At 69, Souter is nowhere near the oldest member of the court, but he has made clear to friends for some time now that he wanted to […]
HEADS UP: You Have Just One Hour Left To Talk On Your Cellphone While Mowing Down Pedestrians
INQUIRER: At 4 p.m. today Mayor Nutter is slated to sign a bill that would ban the use of hand-held cellphones while driving, as well as bicycling or skating. First-time offenders would get hit up with a $150 fine, with a $300 fine for second offenses. The law will go into effect immediately, but the city will delay enforcement while it launches an information campaign of unspecified duration, a spokeswoman said. Citing a Harvard University study, the National Safety Council estimates that drivers using cell phones are about four times more likely to get into a wreck. Five states, including […]
LIVE AND LET DIE: Chrysler Goes Bankrupt
WASHINGTON POST: Chrysler, one of the three pillars of the American auto industry, will file for bankruptcy after last-minute negotiations between the government and the automaker’s creditors broke down last night. U.S. officials had offered Chrysler’s secured lenders $2.25 billion in cash if they would agree to writedown the $6.9 billion in secured debt that the company owed. But a small group of hedge funds refused the 11th-hour deal, forcing an imminent bankruptcy. An administration official this morning expressed disappointment, saying the holdouts had failed to “do the right thing,” but that “their failure to act in either their own […]
AT WAR WITH THE DIPSHITS: Flaming Lips’ ‘Realize’ Voted Official Okie State Rock Song Despite Red Scare
GUARDIAN: The Flaming Lips’ 2002 song, Do You Realise?, will be named the “official state rock’n’roll song of Oklahoma”. And Wayne Coyne wants everyone to know that the band are not communists. “Some minority of religious wackos are trying to make it seem like [we have a communist] agenda, which we don’t,” Coyne told Rolling Stone. His comments came after two whirlwind months, when “Do You Realise?” was chosen as the state’s official rock song, rejected due to the band’s “communism”, then finally reinstated by governor Brad Henry. The saga began in early March, when 20,000 internet voters chose from […]
CAREFUL WHAT YOU WISH FOR: Pew Poll Says Majority Of Philadelphians Actually Want Casinos
PHILLY CLOUT: A poll by the Pew Charitable Trusts shows that city residents support bringing casinos to Philadelphia by a margin of 53 percent to 41 percent. In addition, 60 percent support the current proposal to locate one of the two casinos planned for the city on the Delaware riverfront while 35 percent oppose that. The plan to place the second casino on East Market Street was not so popular, with just 39 percent of the respondents in favor while 57 percent are against it. MORE
OBAMA NATION: 100 Days Of Change
President Barack Obama marks his hundredth day in office on Wednesday, but it’s hardly the only digit that matters to the new administration.Here are some highlights of Obama’s first 100 days, by the numbers: $3.6 trillion — Total spending in Obama’s proposed federal budget for 2010. $1.75 trillion — Total projected deficit in Obama’s proposed federal budget for 2010. $787 billion — Cost of tax cuts and new spending in economic stimulus package approved by Congress. $558.4 billion — Increase in the public debt, from Jan. 20 through April 24. $235 billion — Tax dollars spent to bail out failing […]
GENERATION OF SWINE: Flu Epidemic’s Global Creep
[Photos via SACRAMENTO BEE] UPDATE: Delaware health officials say four students at the University of Delaware have influenza that meets the probable definitions for swine flu. Jay Lynch, communications director for the Delaware Department of Public Health, said Tuesday night that cultures from the four students were sent to the Centers for the Disease Control. The students had flu tests Monday at the campus health center, and preliminary results showed they met the conditions for swine flu. Lynch says none of the students had traveled to Mexico, although one had recently been to New Jersey, where there is an outbreak. […]
Sen. Arlen Specter To Switch Parties; Could Give Democrats Filibuster-Proof Congressional Majority
WASHINGTON POST: Pennsylvania Sen. Arlen Specter [pictured above, with Cookie Monster] will switch his party affiliation from Republican to Democrat and announced today that he will run in 2010 as a Democrat, according to a statement he released this morning. Specter’s decision would give Democrats a 60 seat filibuster proof majority in the Senate assuming Democrat Al Franken is eventually sworn in as the next senator from Minnesota. (Former senator Norm Coleman is appealing Franken’s victory in the state Supreme Court.) “I have decided to run for re-election in 2010 in the Democratic primary,” said Specter in a statement. “I […]
AND THEN THERE WAS MAUDE: Bea Arthur RIP
LOS ANGELES TIMES: “God will get you for that, Walter.” Nobody could do more with these words than Beatrice Arthur as Maude Findlay on the marital warpath. She could slingshot them in fury or release them in a chilling deadpan, but however she delivered them you could be sure they’d hit their mark with a prizefighter’s pop. All the tributes that will be lavished on Arthur, who died Saturday at 86, will extol her impeccable comic timing. Her ability to detonate a joke, to momentarily harness a punch line before releasing at full force, brought her Emmy-winning success in two […]
WEEKEND UPDATE: The Good News Flower Hour
The Good News Flower Hour #18 Oh noes!
WORTH REPEATING: What He Said
[via The New Republic via U.S. Department Of State] “Torture anywhere is an affront to human dignity everywhere. We are committed to building a world where human rights are respected and protected by the rule of law. Freedom from torture is an inalienable human right. The Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment, ratified by the United States and more than 130 other countries since 1984, forbids governments from deliberately inflicting severe physical or mental pain or suffering on those within their custody or control. Yet torture continues to be practiced around the world by rogue regimes […]
Who Approved What & When Did They Approve It
MCCLATCHY: A newly declassified narrative of the Bush administration’s advice to the CIA on harsh interrogations shows that the small group of Justice Department lawyers who wrote memos authorizing harsh interrogation techniques were operating not on their own but with direction from top administration officials, including then-Vice President Dick Cheney and National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice. At the same time, the narrative suggests that then-Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and then-Secretary of State Colin Powell were largely left out of the decision-making process. The narrative, posted Wednesday on the Senate Intelligence Committee’s Web site and released by its former chairman, Sen. […]
YOU ARE BEING WATCHED: You Cannot Hide
ASSOCIATED PRESS: Two FBI workers are accused of using surveillance equipment to spy on teenage girls as they undressed and tried on prom gowns at a charity event at a West Virginia mall. The FBI employees have been charged with conspiracy and criminal invasion of privacy. They were working in an FBI satellite control room at the mall when they positioned a camera on temporary changing rooms and zoomed in for at least 90 minutes on girls dressing for the Cinderella Project fashion show, Marion County Prosecutor Pat Wilson said yesterday. Gary Sutton Jr., 40, of New Milton, and Charles […]