The Good News Flower Hour #10 The week that was in just five minutes, read by a stoned daisy that sounds uncannily like me.
NPR FOR THE DEAF: We Hear It Even When You Can’t
FRESH AIR Journalist Jane Mayer expects that an upcoming Supreme Court case will force the Obama administration to clarify its policy towards fighting terrorism — and to define its stance on preventative detention of suspected terrorists. In her article, “The Hard Cases”, which appears in the Feb. 23 issue of The New Yorker, Mayer details the case of Ali Saleh Kahlah al-Marri, an alleged Al Qaeda sleeper agent who has been held for more than five years in an isolation brig, despite the fact that he never stood trial or was convicted of a crime. Though Marri was seized and […]
HASSAN CHOP: Founder Of TV Network Designed To Improve Islam’s Image In U.S. Beheads Wife
[“Judith Beheading Holofernes” by Carravagio] ASSOCIATED PRESS: ORCHARD PARK, N.Y. — The crime drips with brutal irony: a woman decapitated, allegedly by her estranged husband, in the offices of the television network the couple founded with the hope of countering Muslim stereotypes. Muzzammil “Mo” Hassan is accused of beheading his wife last week, days after she filed for divorce. Authorities have not discussed the role religion or culture might have played, but the slaying gave rise to speculation that it was the sort of “honor killing” more common in countries half a world away, including the couple’s native Pakistan. Funeral services for […]
A-ROID: Yes He Did
NEW YORK TIMES: Every time Alex Rodriguez defaulted Tuesday to saying he was stupid, naïve or ignorant for taking steroids, I thought of Dean Wormer’s words to the flunking frat boy Flounder in “Animal House:” “Fat, drunk and stupid is no way to go through life, son.” And pleading youthful amateurishness to actions taken at 25, 26 and 27 is no way to go through baseball, either, if you’re injecting yourself, or your cousin is injecting you, with boli, believed to be the street name in the Dominican Republic for Primobolan. “He kept using the excuse of naïveté and curiosity […]
HOT DOC: What Kind Of Man Reads Phawker?
Hi, phawker (phawker). Barack Obama (BarackObama) is now following your updates on Twitter. Check out Barack Obama’s profile here: http://twitter.com/BarackObama Best, Twitter PCMAG: Is it finally time to take the Twitter plunge? The free service that lets users micro-blog 140 characters at a time had accumulated around 1.9 million users as of December 2008, according to comScore. If you are just now jumping on the Twitter bandwagon, or are intimidated by your inexperience with Twitter etiquette and acronyms, allow us to share some Twittery tips that will make your experience easier and more enjoyable. MORE HOPE: Let The Stimulation Begin! […]
GALLUP: 71% Of Americans Want Bush Investigated
AOL NEWS: Despite President Obama’s “inclination to look forward,” repeated gain at Monday’s press conference, a new USA Today/Gallup poll finds that as many as 71% of Americans want investigations of the Bush administration. Respondents were asked about investigations into Bush administration use of torture, warrantless wiretaps, and politicization of the Justice Department. While a significant majority in each case wanted investigations, a minority portion of them wanted investigations without criminal charges. Somewhat surprising is the fact that even Republicans show significant support for investigations, with 52% favoring investigations of the politicization of the DOJ, 44% on torture, and 41% […]
WAITING TO EXHALE: Sheriff Declines To Prosecute Michael Phelps For Violating Stupid Pot Laws
[Illustration by ALEX FINE] BLOOMBERG NEWS: Olympic swimmer Michael Phelps, who won a record eight gold medals in Beijing in 2008, won’t be prosecuted in connection with his admission that he smoked from a bong at a South Carolina college party in November. The Richland County, South Carolina, sheriff’s department announced the decision at a news conference. Sheriff Leon Lott said there wasn’t enough evidence to charge Phelps. “We had a photo and him saying he was sorry for inappropriate behavior,” Lott said during a televised press conference. “He never said, ‘I smoked marijuana.’ We didn’t have physical evidence.” Lott […]
BUSH DOCTRINE: Anal ‘Rape By Instrumentality’
HARPERS: Army Private Brandon Neely served as a prison guard at Guantánamo in the first years the facility was in operation. With the Bush Administration, and thus the threat of retaliation against him, now gone, Neely decided to step forward and tell his story. “The stuff I did and the stuff I saw was just wrong,” he told the Associated Press. Neely describes the arrival of detainees in full sensory-deprivation garb, he details their sexual abuse by medical personnel, torture by other medical personnel, brutal beatings out of frustration, fear, and retribution, the first hunger strike and its causes, torturous […]
POLL OF PREZ SCHOLARS: Lincoln Simply The Best
REUTERS: Abraham Lincoln ranks first in leadership skills among the 42 former White House occupants, according a C-SPAN survey of 65 presidential historians released on the eve of the Presidents Day holiday. It’s a repeat performance for the 16th U.S. president, who also took the top spot in the first ”Historians Presidential Survey” by the cable television network in 2000. At No. 36, George W. Bush ranks near the bottom of the 2009 survey. MORE THE NATION: Abraham Lincoln has always provided a lens through which Americans examine themselves. He has been described as a consummate moralist and a shrewd political operator, a lifelong foe of […]
WEEK IN REVIEW: The Good News Flower Hour
The Good News Flower Hour #9 The week that was in five minutes. Read by a flower that sounds an awful lot like me. Just do it, people.
PERSPECTIVE: How High Is $789 Billion?
Using $100 bills, $789 billion would create a pile 57 miles high. Note that the atmosphere begins seven miles above the Earth’s surface. RELATED: The House approved a $787 billion economic stimulus package Friday afternoon, with Democrats successfully promoting it as a boost for middle-class Americans and Republicans countering in vain that it will only stimulate wasteful government spending.The vote was 246 to 183, reflecting the Democrats’ considerable majority in the House and the Republicans’ deep dissatisfaction with the measure, whose estimated price tag has fluctuated daily and was finally placed at $787 billion on Friday. Not a single Republican […]
NO SURVIVORS: Buffalo Commuter Jet Crash Kills 48
NEW YORK TIMES: A Continental flight from Newark to Buffalo crashed into a house about five miles from Buffalo Niagara International Airport on Thursday night, killing 49 people, officials said. The plane carried 44 passengers and a crew of 4, according to the Federal Aviation Administration. All the people aboard the plane and one person in the house were killed in the crash. David Bissonette, the emergency coordinator for Erie County, speaking at a news conference about 4 a.m., said the plane made “a direct hit” on the house. “It’s remarkable that it only took one house,” he said. “It […]
STAR WARS: U.S. And Russian Satellites Collide
BLOOMBERG NEWS: U.S. and Russian satellites collided over Siberia yesterday in the first crash between such objects at orbital speed, space agencies from both countries said. The collision occurred 491 miles (790 kilometers) above Siberia at 11:55 a.m. New York time yesterday, destroying an Iridium Satellite LLC communications satellite and a defunct Russian Cosmos 2251 craft, National Aeronautics and Space Administration spokesman John Yembrick said in an e-mail, without identifying the cause. It was the first crash between two intact space craft traveling at orbital speed, about 17,500 miles per hour, NASA spokeswoman Beth Dickey said by phone. While the […]