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Protesters disrupt press conference on lobbying reform

House Democrats tried to unveil their lobbying reform package today, but their press conference was drowned out by chants from anti-war activists who want Congress to stop funding the Iraq war before taking on other issues.

Led by Cindy Sheehan, the mother of a slain soldier, the protesters chanted "De-escalate, investigate, troops home now" as Democratic Caucus Chairman Rahm Emanuel, D-Ill., began outlining the Democrats' plans to ban lobbyist-funded travel and institute other ethics reforms. The press conference was held in the Cannon House Office Building in an area open to the public.

Emanuel finally gave up trying to be heard over the chants, and retreated to a caucus room where Democrats were meeting.

Sheehan says she has nothing against lobbying reform, but she and her fellow anti-war activists want Democrats to know they will keep pressuring Congress to end the war in Iraq.

"We wanted the Democrats to know they're back in power because of the grass roots," Sheehan says.

The anti-war activists held their own Capitol Hill press conference earlier in the day before deciding to attend the lobbying reform press conference as well.

Before the chanting started, Sheehan got a hug from Rep. John Conyers, D-Mich., the new chairman of the House Judiciary Committee.

VIDEO: Fox News ** Sheehan, Iraq War Protesters Break Up Dems' Press Conference

Washington Business Journal ~ Kent Hoover ** Protesters disrupt press conference on lobbying reform

Posted by yaahoo_ at 8:50 AM EST

Updated: Thursday, 4 January 2007 9:50 AM EST

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Pressure to Democratic Leaders

Liberals Seek Bolder Approach to War, Spying

By Jonathan Weisman

Democratic leaders set to take control of Congress tomorrow are facing mounting pressure from liberal activists to chart a more confrontational course on Iraq and the issues of human rights and civil liberties, with some even calling for the impeachment of President Bush.

The carefully calibrated legislative blitz that Democrats have devised for the first 100 hours of power has left some activists worried the passion that swept the party to power in November is already dissipating. A cluster of protesters will greet the new congressional leaders at the Capitol tomorrow. They will not be disgruntled conservatives wary of Democratic control, but liberals demanding a ban on torture, an end to warrantless domestic spying and a restoration of curbed civil liberties.

The protest will be followed by an evening forum calling for the president's impeachment, led by the Center for Constitutional Rights, antiwar activist Cindy Sheehan and a pro-impeachment group called World Can't Wait.

Those priorities will not be in evidence inside the Capitol, where the newly sworn-in Democratic Congress will immediately begin work on new ethics rules, the reinstitution of federal deficit controls and new policies designed to increase civility in House proceedings. In the coming weeks, Democrats plan to pass bills designed to raise the minimum wage, lower prescription drug costs for Medicare recipients and interest rates for student borrowers, bolster homeland security and boost alternative energy research.

Nowhere in the Democrats' consensus-driven agenda is legislation revisiting last year's establishment of military tribunals and suspending legal rights for suspected terrorists. Nor is there a revision of the civil liberties provisions of the USA Patriot Act, a measure curbing warrantless wiretapping by the National Security Agency or an aggressive confrontation of the president on his Iraq war policies.

To Democratic activists and some lawmakers, the agenda skirts the larger issues that damaged the president's approval ratings and torpedoed Republican control of Congress.

"We've been told for many years, 12 years now, 'Wait until we get in power. Then you'll see things change,' " said Debra Sweet, national director of World Can't Wait, a pro-impeachment group helping to organize the protest. "We'll give them a couple of months or a few weeks to see what they come up with, but if they don't do something very decisive around the war and these other issues, I think there will be trouble."

"If the first 100 hours is going to be characterized by an increase in the minimum wage and improved health and education benefits for Americans, that's fine," said Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio), a liberal firebrand who ran for president in 2004 and has announced for 2008. "But then let's talk about the second hundred hours, because we cannot let this war be lost. We cannot abandon the troops in the field to temporizing."

To most Democratic lawmakers, such activism presents a quandary. House Republican leaders spent years trying to placate their conservative base with agendas built around opposition to same-sex marriage, antiabortion votes and tax cuts, said Sen.-elect Benjamin L. Cardin (D-Md.). The partisan tone enraged Democrats and ultimately alienated moderates and independents, who swept the GOP from power in November after a dozen years in control.

"The Democrats have to be careful not to fall into these traps that I think paralyzed the Republicans," Cardin said.

But Democratic lawmakers -- especially the freshmen who capitalized on voter discontent -- said their core supporters' anger is real and must be acknowledged.

"Those people protesting on Thursday care deeply about their country," said Carol Shea-Porter of New Hampshire, an incoming House freshman who ran as an ardent opponent of Bush and the war. "I think we do need to pay attention. People are begging us to remember the Constitution, what made this country great."

One lawmaker, who spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of alienating such voters, said wherever he goes, he hears from activists calling for Bush's impeachment. Cutting off funding for the Iraq war comes in a close second.

"For most progressive activists, there is generally speaking, an open mind but also a real fear that the 110th [Congress] will not be as aggressive as many of us want it to be," said Ralph G. Neas, president of the liberal People for the American Way. "On the other hand, there is a lot of pragmatism as we go into the 2008 election season. There's this high-wire act for everybody, not only for the House and Senate leadership but for the progressive community, too."

The high-wire act will be on display almost as soon as the new Congress is sworn in. The first motion from the House floor will be a parliamentary inquiry from Rep. Rush D. Holt (D-N.J.) on the disputed election to replace retired Rep. Katherine Harris (R-Fla.). In November's balloting, Republican Vern Buchanan beat Democrat Christine Jennings by 369 votes.

But more than 18,000 ballots that day did not record a vote in the closely contested race, an "undervote" rate of nearly 15 percent, mainly from the Democrat's stronghold of Sarasota County. An academic study, commissioned by the company that made the electronic voting machines, found "that there is essentially a 100 percent chance that Jennings would have won" had Sarasota voters cast their votes with different machines and ballots.

Holt's inquiry will make clear that Buchanan's swearing-in tomorrow should not prejudice or compromise a House investigation or ongoing legal challenges to his election. But that falls well short of activist demands that the seat be left vacant, or even that the House simply seat Jennings.

Holt said he is willing to take the heat for that decision.

"There are some Democrats who say we should seize that seat any way we can," he acknowledged. "But if in a heavy-handed way, we just say we've got the votes and we're going to throw out Vern Buchanan, we would undermine the principle we say we are fighting for."

Washington Post ~ Jonathan Weisman ** Activists on the Left Applying Pressure to Democratic Leaders

Posted by yaahoo_ at 11:53 AM EST

Updated: Wednesday, 3 January 2007 12:20 PM EST

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This was received via email. I don't know if it was really in the Post or not. It is wonderful to read though!

THINK ABOUT THIS FOR A MOMENT.

Denver Post:

This text is from a county emergency manager out in the central part of Colorado after todays snowstorm.

WEATHER BULLETIN

Up here, in the Northern Plains, we just recovered from a Historic event--- may I even say a "Weather Event" of "Biblical Proportions" --- with a historic blizzard of up to 44" inches of snow and winds to 90 MPH that broke trees in half, knocked down utility poles, stranded hundreds of motorists in lethal snow banks, closed ALL roads, isolated scores of communities and cut power to 10's of thousands.

FYI:

George Bush did not come.

FEMA did nothing.

No one howled for the government.

No one blamed the government.

No one even uttered an expletive on TV

Jesse Jackson or Al Sharpton did not visit.

Our Mayor did not blame Bush or anyone else.

Our Governor did not blame Bush or anyone else, either.

CNN, ABC, CBS, FOX or NBC did not visit - or report on this category 5 snowstorm. Nobody demanded $2,000 debit cards.

No one asked for a FEMA Trailer House.

No one looted.

Nobody - I mean Nobody demanded the government do something.

Nobody expected the government to do anything, either.

No Larry King, No Bill O'Rielly, No Oprah, No Chris Mathews and No Geraldo Rivera.

No Shaun Penn, No Barbara Striesand, No Hollywood types to be found.

Nope, we just melted the snow for water.

Sent out caravans of SUV's to pluck people out of snow engulfed cars.

The truck drivers pulled people out of snow banks and didn't ask for a penny.

Local restaurants made food and the police and fire departments delivered it to the snowbound families.
Families took in the stranded people - total strangers.

We fired up wood stoves, broke out coal oil lanterns or Coleman lanterns.

We put on extra layers of clothes because up here it is "Work or Die".

We did not wait for some affirmative action government to get us out of a mess created by being immobilized by a welfare program that trades votes for 'sittin at home' checks.

Even though a Category "5" blizzard of this scale has never fallen this early, we know it can happen and how to deal with it ourselves.

"In my many travels, I have noticed that once one gets north of about 48 degrees North Latitude, 90% of the world's social problems evaporate."

It does seem that way, at least to me.

And that my friends is the very essential difference between folks who acknowledge the concept of personal responsibilty, and libtards. I hope this gets passed on. Maybe SOME people will get the message. The world does NOT owe you a living.

Related: National Guard helicopters are dropping bales of hay for cattle and MREs to rural residents. They are also going door-to-door and evacuating residents to shelters, particularly the elderly and people with medical problems.
Hay Drop -- it's a far cry from evacuating all these farmers/ranchers to a city in another state while someone else is expected to come in and care for the ranch.

There are major differences between the two disasters. I just loved the parallel between the responses of the people. There was so much crime and looting (and I don't mean people just getting food and necessities either) in NO. So far, it sounds like the folks in CO are at least helping each other instead of robbing and raping each other.

Reminds me of the farmer up in the Smoky Mountains. Several years ago there was a very cold and snowy winter that stranded a lot of people in their homes and destroyed crops and cattle. The Red Cross came in to deliver food. They knocked on this farmer's door and announced; "we're from the Red Cross." "I have had a tough year." replied the farmer. "I won't be able to give much this time."

Posted by yaahoo_ at 10:46 AM EST

Updated: Wednesday, 3 January 2007 10:59 AM EST

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Anti-cheese campaign is seen as 'nannying gone mad'

New advertising rules which will brand cheese as "junk food" were yesterday criticised as "dietary nannying gone mad" by a leading farming industry figure.

"To suggest there is anything inherently harmful about cheese is absurd," said the National Farming Union's national director of communications, Anthony Gibson.

He said the rules would be "thoroughly unhelpful to farmers" at a time when the dairy industry had been going through a very difficult 12 months.

"Any wounds inflicted by our own authorities we can very well do without," said Devon-based Mr Gibson.

"It is not going to do anything to encourage the sales of cheese."

The new regulations, being introduced this month by the television regulator Ofcom, will ban broadcasters from advertising cheese during children's TV programmes, or shows with a large number of child viewers.

They are part of a government clampdown on junk- food TV adverts and aimed at reducing the exposure of children to food high in fat, salt and sugar.

•

The ban comes in the wake of evidence that television commercials have an indirect influence on what children eat and are contributing to obesity in the young.

The Food Standards Agency used a nutrient profiling model to distinguish junk food from healthy food.

The model officially labelled cheese as more unhealthy than sugary cereals, full-fat crisps and cheeseburgers.

It assessed the fat, sugar and salt content in a 100g or 100ml serving of food or drink. But the British Cheese Board said the typical portion size of cheese was between 30g and 40g - not the 100g used in the FSA model.

The Scotsman - UK ~ Chris Court **
Anti-cheese campaign is seen as 'nannying gone mad'

Dang cheese conspiracies!!!

Posted by yaahoo_ at 4:08 PM EST

Updated: Tuesday, 2 January 2007 4:48 PM EST

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LIBTARD'S "NEW ERA OF BI-PARTISANSHIP" INDEED...

Democrats To Start Without GOP Input

Quick Passage of First Bills Sought

By Lyndsey Layton and Juliet Eilperin

As they prepare to take control of Congress this week and face up to campaign pledges to restore bipartisanship and openness, Democrats are planning to largely sideline Republicans from the first burst of lawmaking.

House Democrats intend to pass a raft of popular measures as part of their well-publicized plan for the first 100 hours. They include tightening ethics rules for lawmakers, raising the minimum wage, allowing more research on stem cells and cutting interest rates on student loans.

But instead of allowing Republicans to fully participate in deliberations, as promised after the Democratic victory in the Nov. 7 midterm elections, Democrats now say they will use House rules to prevent the opposition from offering alternative measures, assuring speedy passage of the bills and allowing their party to trumpet early victories.

Nancy Pelosi, the Californian who will become House speaker, and Steny H. Hoyer of Maryland, who will become majority leader, finalized the strategy over the holiday recess in a flurry of conference calls and meetings with other party leaders. A few Democrats, worried that the party would be criticized for reneging on an important pledge, argued unsuccessfully that they should grant the Republicans greater latitude when the Congress convenes on Thursday.

The episode illustrates the dilemma facing the new party in power. The Democrats must demonstrate that they can break legislative gridlock and govern after 12 years in the minority, while honoring their pledge to make the 110th Congress a civil era in which Democrats and Republicans work together to solve the nation's problems. Yet in attempting to pass laws key to their prospects for winning reelection and expanding their majority, the Democrats may have to resort to some of the same tough tactics Republicans used the past several years.

Democratic leaders say they are torn between giving Republicans a say in legislation and shutting them out to prevent them from derailing Democratic bills.

"There is a going to be a tension there," said Rep. Chris Van Hollen (Md.), the new chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. "My sense is there's going to be a testing period to gauge to what extent the Republicans want to join us in a constructive effort or whether they intend to be disruptive. It's going to be a work in progress."

House Republicans have begun to complain that Democrats are backing away from their promise to work cooperatively. They are working on their own strategy for the first 100 hours, and part of it is built on the idea that they might be able to break the Democrats' slender majority by wooing away some conservative Democrats.

Democrats intend to introduce their first bills within hours of taking the oath of office on Thursday. The first legislation will focus on the behavior of lawmakers, banning travel on corporate jets and gifts from lobbyists and requiring lawmakers to attach their names to special spending directives and to certify that such earmarks would not financially benefit the lawmaker or the lawmaker's spouse. That bill is aimed at bringing legislative transparency that Democrats said was lacking under Republican rule.

Democratic leaders said they are not going to allow Republican input into the ethics package and other early legislation, because several of the bills have already been debated and dissected, including the proposal to raise the minimum wage, which passed the House Appropriations Committee in the 109th Congress, said Brendan Daly, a spokesman for Pelosi.

"We've talked about these things for more than a year," he said. "The members and the public know what we're voting on. So in the first 100 hours, we're going to pass these bills."

But because the details of the Democratic proposals have not been released, some language could be new. Daly said Democrats are still committed to sharing power with the minority down the line. "The test is not the first 100 hours," he said. "The test is the first six months or the first year. We will do what we promised to do."

For clues about how the Democrats will operate, the spotlight is on the House, where the new 16-seat majority will hold absolute power over the way the chamber operates. Most of the early legislative action is expected to stem from the House.

"It's in the nature of the House of Representatives for the majority party to be dominant and control the agenda and limit as much as possible the influence of the minority," said Ross K. Baker, a political scientist at Rutgers University. "It's almost counter to the essence of the place for the majority and minority to share responsibility for legislation."

In the Senate, by contrast, the Democrats will have less control over business because of their razor-thin 51-to-49-seat margin and because individual senators wield substantial power. Senate Democrats will allow Republicans to make amendments to all their initiatives, starting with the first measure -- ethics and lobbying reform, said Jim Manley, spokesman for the incoming majority leader, Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.).

Those same Democrats, who campaigned on a pledge of more openness in government, will kick off the new Congress with a closed meeting of all senators in the Capitol. Manley said the point of the meeting is to figure out ways both parties can work together.

In the House, Louise M. Slaughter (D-N.Y.), who will chair the Rules Committee, said she intends to bring openness to a committee that used to meet in the middle of the night. In the new Congress, the panel -- which sets the terms of debate on the House floor -- will convene at 10 a.m. before a roomful of reporters.

"It's going to be open," Slaughter said of the process. "Everybody will have an opportunity to participate."

At the same time, she added, the majority would grant Republicans every possible chance to alter legislation once it reaches the floor. "We intend to allow some of their amendments, not all of them," Slaughter said.

For several reasons, House Democrats are assiduously trying to avoid some of the heavy-handed tactics they resented under GOP rule. They say they want to prove to voters they are setting a new tone on Capitol Hill. But they are also convinced that Republicans lost the midterms in part because they were perceived as arrogant and divisive.

"We're going to make an impression one way or the other," said one Democratic leadership aide. "If it's not positive, we'll be out in two years."

House Republicans say their strategy will be to offer alternative bills that would be attractive to the conservative "Blue Dog" Democrats, with an eye toward fracturing the Democratic coalition. They hope to force some tough votes for Democrats from conservative districts who will soon begin campaigning for 2008 reelection and will have to defend their records.

"We'll capitalize on every opportunity we have," said one GOP leadership aide, adding that Republicans were preparing alternatives to the Democrats' plans to raise the minimum wage, reduce the interest on student loans, and reduce the profits of big oil and energy companies.

Several Blue Dog Democrats said they do not think Republicans can pick up much support from their group.

"If they've got ideas that will make our legislation better, we ought to consider that," said Rep. Allen Boyd Jr. (D-Fla.), leader of the Blue Dogs. "But if their idea is to try to split a group off to gain power, that's what they've been doing for the past six years, and it's all wrong."

To keep her sometimes-fractious coalition together, Pelosi has been distributing the spoils of victory across the ideological spectrum, trying to make sure that no group within the Democratic Party feels alienated.

Blue Dogs picked up some plum committee assignments, with Jim Matheson (Utah) landing a spot on Energy and Commerce and A.B. "Ben" Chandler (Ky.) getting an Appropriations seat. At the same time, members of Black and Hispanic caucuses obtained spots on these panels, as Ciro Rodriguez (Tex.) was given a seat on Appropriations and Artur Davis (Ala.) took the place of Democrat William J. Jefferson (La.) on Ways and Means.

Democrats acknowledge that if they appear too extreme in blocking the opposing party, their party is sure to come under fire from the Republicans, who are already charging they are being left out of the legislative process.

"If you're talking about 100 hours, you're talking about no obstruction whatsoever, no amendments offered other than those approved by the majority," said Rutgers's Baker. "I would like to think after 100 hours are over, the Democrats will adhere to their promise to make the system a little more equitable. But experience tells me it's really going to be casting against type."

"The temptations to rule the roost with an iron hand are very, very strong," he added. "It would take a majority party of uncommon sensitivity and a firm sense of its own agenda to open up the process in any significant degree to minority. But hope springs eternal."

Washington Post ~ Lyndsey Layton, Juliet Eilperin ** Democrats To Start Without GOP Input

Haven't these same libtards been whining for six years, that they have been excluded from all sorts of things? That Bush, the supposed "Unifier" hasn't been working with them in a "bipartisan" fashion (meaning, of course, that he do what they want, and never the opposite)?
And so now they're going to act without GOP input? So its not OK for the GOP to supposedly do it, but its fine and dandy for the Dems to do it?
My reply to this would be to tell President Bush to do two things... Veto Early, and Veto Often.

Posted by yaahoo_ at 6:09 AM EST

Updated: Tuesday, 2 January 2007 6:41 AM EST

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Somali PM: Islamic Stronghold Captured

KISMAYO, Somalia -- Somali government troops backed by Ethiopian tanks and fighter jets captured the last major stronghold of a militant Islamic movement Monday, while hundreds of Islamic fighters - many of them Arabs and South Asians - were seen fleeing the town.

Hundreds of gunmen, who apparently deserted from the Islamic movement, began looting the warehouses where the Council of Islamic Courts had stored supplies, including weapons and ammunition.

Gangs skirmished in the streets and the southern coastal city was descending into chaos, businessman Sheik Musa Salad said.

"Everything is out of control, everyone has a gun and gangs are looting everything now that the Islamists have left," he said.

Well-armed troops drove into Kismayo after clearing roads laced with land mines that had been left by Islamic fighters fleeing a 13-day military onslaught by government troops backed by Ethiopian tanks and MiG fighter jets.

"We have entered and captured the city," Maj. Gen. Ahmed Musa told The Associated Press while riding aboard a truck into Kismayo, where an estimated 3,000 hardline Islamic fighters had vowed to make a last stand but melted away under artillery fire.

Prime Minister Ali Mohamed Gedi offered amnesty to hundreds of Islamic fighters if they gave themselves up, but made no such offer to leaders of the group. He also ordered a countrywide disarmament that goes into effect Tuesday, an immense task in Somalia, which is awash with weapons after a 15-year civil war.

"The warlord era in Somalia is now over," Gedi said at a news conference in the recently captured capital, Mogadishu, giving a three-day deadline for the handover of all weapons.

Among those sought were three al-Qaida suspects wanted in the 1998 bombings of U.S. embassies who were being sheltered by the Islamic group. The government hoped to catch them before they slipped out of the country.

Government spokesman Abdirahman Dinari said the government had asked the United States to provide air and sea surveillance to prevent suspected extremists from escaping.

The Islamic forces have a base near the Kenyan border on a small peninsula called Ras Kamboni, where there is a pier and traditional oceangoing boats known as dhows. Ethiopian MiG fighter jets flew low over the ocean looking for boats that might be carrying the escaping Islamic fighters.

Meanwhile, senior Western diplomats were pushing for the deployment of an African-led peacekeeping force in Somalia as soon as possible to help stabilize the country, said a U.S. government official on condition of anonymity because the official was not authorized to speak to the media.

Kenyan President Mwai Kibaki, in his New Year's message, called for an urgent summit of the east African regional body IGAD to discus the Somali crisis.

The Islamic forces began to disintegrate after a night of artillery attacks at the front line and following a mutiny within its ranks, witnesses said.

Islamic leaders had vowed to make a stand against Ethiopia, which has one of the largest armies in Africa, or to begin an Iraq-style guerrilla war.

"Even if we are defeated we will start an insurgency," said Sheik Ahmed Mohamed Islan, the head of the Islamic movement in the Kismayo region. "We will kill every Somali that supports the government and Ethiopians."

Gedi said three al-Qaida suspects wanted in the 1998 bombings of U.S. embassies in east Africa that killed more than 250 people were hiding in Kismayo.

Somalia's interim government and its Ethiopian allies have long accused Islamic militias of harboring al-Qaida, and the U.S. government has said the 1998 bombers have become leaders in the Islamic movement in Africa.

"If we capture them alive we will hand them over to the United States," Gedi told the AP. "We know they are in Kismayo."

Islamic movement leaders deny having any links to Osama bin Laden's al-Qaida terror network.

But in a recorded message posted on the Internet Saturday, deputy al-Qaida leader Ayman al-Zawahri called on Somalia's Muslims and other Muslims worldwide to continue the fight against "infidels and crusaders."

Gedi accused al-Zawahri of trying to destabilize Somalia and its neighbors.

In the past 10 days, the Islamic group has been forced from the capital, Mogadishu, and other key towns in the face of attacks led by Ethiopia.

The military advance marked a stunning turnaround for Somalia's government, which just weeks ago could barely control one town - its base of Baidoa - while the Council of Islamic Courts controlled the capital and much of southern Somalia.

The Council of Islamic Courts, the umbrella group for the Islamic movement that ruled Mogadishu for six months, wants to transform Somalia into a strict Islamic state.

Islamic officials said they still had fighters in the capital and were ready for warfare. Late Saturday, an unexplained blast in the capital left one woman dead and two others wounded and stirred fears of a guerrilla war.

News Max.com ~ Associated Press ** Somali PM: Islamic Stronghold Captured

Posted by yaahoo_ at 8:26 PM EST

Updated: Monday, 1 January 2007 8:41 PM EST

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Middle School Girls Gone Wild

It’s hard to write this without sounding like a prig. But it’s just as hard to erase the images that planted the idea for this essay, so here goes. The scene is a middle school auditorium, where girls in teams of three or four are bopping to pop songs at a student talent show. Not bopping, actually, but doing elaborately choreographed re-creations of music videos, in tiny skirts or tight shorts, with bare bellies, rouged cheeks and glittery eyes.

They writhe and strut, shake their bottoms, splay their legs, thrust their chests out and in and out again. Some straddle empty chairs, like lap dancers without laps. They don’t smile much. Their faces are locked from grim exertion, from all that leaping up and lying down without poles to hold onto. “Don’t stop don’t stop,” sings Janet Jackson, all whispery. “Jerk it like you’re making it choke. ...Ohh. I’m so stimulated. Feel so X-rated.” The girls spend a lot of time lying on the floor. They are in the sixth, seventh and eighth grades.

As each routine ends, parents and siblings cheer, whistle and applaud. I just sit there, not fully comprehending. It’s my first suburban Long Island middle school talent show. I’m with my daughter, who is 10 and hadn’t warned me. I’m not sure what I had expected, but it wasn’t this. It was something different. Something younger. Something that didn’t make the girls look so ... one-dimensional.

It would be easy to chalk it up to adolescent rebellion, an ancient and necessary phenomenon, except these girls were barely adolescents and they had nothing to rebel against. This was an official function at a public school, a milieu that in another time or universe might have seen children singing folk ballads, say, or reciting the Gettysburg Address.

It is news to no one, not even me, that eroticism in popular culture is a 24-hour, all-you-can-eat buffet, and that many children in their early teens are filling up. The latest debate centers on whether simulated intercourse is an appropriate dance style for the high school gym.

What surprised me, though, was how completely parents of even younger girls seem to have gotten in step with society’s march toward eroticized adolescence -- either willingly or through abject surrender. And if parents give up, what can a school do? A teacher at the middle school later told me she had stopped chaperoning dances because she was put off by the boy-girl pelvic thrusting and had no way to stop it -- the children wouldn’t listen to her and she had no authority to send anyone home. She guessed that if the school had tried to ban the sexy talent-show routines, parents would have been the first to complain, having shelled out for costumes and private dance lessons for their Little Miss Sunshines.

I’m sure that many parents see these routines as healthy fun, an exercise in self-esteem harmlessly heightened by glitter makeup and teeny skirts. Our girls are bratz, not slutz, they would argue, comfortable in the existence of a distinction.

But my parental brain rebels. Suburban parents dote on and hover over their children, micromanaging their appointments and shielding them in helmets, kneepads and thick layers of S.U.V. steel. But they allow the culture of boy-toy sexuality to bore unchecked into their little ones’ ears and eyeballs, displacing their nimble and growing brains and impoverishing the sense of wider possibilities in life.

There is no reason adulthood should be a low plateau we all clamber onto around age 10. And it’s a cramped vision of girlhood that enshrines sexual allure as the best or only form of power and esteem. It’s as if there were now Three Ages of Woman: first Mary-Kate, then Britney, then Courtney. Boys don’t seem to have such constricted horizons. They wouldn’t stand for it -- much less waggle their butts and roll around for applause on the floor of a school auditorium.

NY Times (Jihad Journal) ~ Lawrence Downes ** Middle School Girls Gone Wild

Posted by yaahoo_ at 12:01 AM EST

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Oops! Unruly flier slaps undercover air marshal

WASHINGTON -- A US Airways passenger faced charges of interfering with a flight crew Thursday after he apparently unknowingly slapped an undercover federal air marshal, said an official familiar with the case.

The man, who'd been drinking liquor, threw a mid-air temper tantrum Wednesday night after attendants refused to serve him any more alcohol during his flight from Washington's Reagan National Airport to Fort Myers, Florida, the official said.

The passenger then slapped a fellow passenger, who happened to be an undercover air marshal assigned to the flight, said the official.

"He had a bad night last night," said the official, who asked to remain anonymous and isn't authorized to reveal specifics of the case. The passenger is expected to be arraigned Thursday.

The air marshal detained the man for the remainder of the flight and arrested him after the aircraft arrived in Fort Myers. The man is expected to be charged with interfering with a flight crew.

CNN.com ~ Jeanne Meserve **
Oops! Unruly flier slaps undercover air marshal

Yikes all mighty --
Flight attendants refused to serve him any more so he slapped a fellow passenger??? 
What was that all about? Guess he picked the wrong guy. It just cracks me up how some people aren't aware of the limits of their own stupidity.

Posted by yaahoo_ at 9:06 AM EST

Updated: Friday, 29 December 2006 9:51 AM EST

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Intern in Obama's office linked to indicted fundraiser

CHICAGO -- An intern in Sen. Barack Obama's office last year was recommended by an Illinois Democratic fundraiser later indicted for seeking kickbacks on government deals.

Obama has denied doing any favors for Antoin "Tony" Rezko, who has pleaded not guilty to the charges brought against him. The internship was one of 98 Illinois spots filled from a pool of 350 applicants.

John Aramanda, a 20-year-old student, served in Obama's Capitol Hill office from July 20 to Aug. 26, 2005, and was paid an $804 stipend, Obama spokesman Robert Gibbs told the Chicago Tribune and the Chicago Sun-Times in reports published Sunday.

Gibbs said Rezko recommended the intern to Obama but contended that the internship did not contradict Obama's statements about not doing any favors for Rezko.

"I think that it's fairly obvious that a few-week internship is not anything of benefit to Mr. Rezko or any of his businesses," he said.

The intern's father, Joseph Aramanda, a businessman in the Chicago suburb of Glenview, once served as chief operating officer of a Rezko company and had a long-term business relationship with Rezko, according to court records and business filings.

The intern's father said there was no relationship between the internship and his business with Rezko.

Rezko has pleaded not guilty to charges he plotted to squeeze millions of dollars in kickbacks out of investment firms seeking state business. He also has pleaded not guilty to obtaining a $10.5 million loan from GE Capital through fraud and swindling a group of investors.

Rezko's wife bought a vacant lot next door to Obama on the same day last year that Obama and his wife, Michelle, closed on their home, according to published reports last fall. In January, Obama paid Rezko $104,500 for part of the lot to balance the space between his house and the fence.

Obama, who is weighing a run for president, has said the arrangements were ethical, but he also acknowledged he "misgauged" the implications suggested by his purchase of the additional land.

Messages left Tuesday by The Associated Press for Obama's representatives and Rezko's attorney, Joseph J. Duffy, were not immediately returned.

USA Today ~ Associated Press ** Intern in Obama's office linked to indicted fundraiser
Also at:
Discover The Network.org ** Former Intern in Sen. Obama's Office Linked to Indicted Fundraiser

Posted by yaahoo_ at 3:14 PM EST

Updated: Thursday, 28 December 2006 3:19 PM EST

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Mood:  cheeky

Lonely, I'm Mr. Lonely

By Michelle Malkin

I linked to this photo of lonely John Kerry spurned by the troops in Iraq last night via Power Line, but the photo is going viral and it's worth re-posting as a stand-alone.

Thank radio talk show host Scott Hennen for sharing the image. He tells Power Line he'll be talking more about the picture and the story behind it during his guest stint for Sean Hannity today and tomorrow. More background at Ben of Mesopotamia's blog:

On Saturday night, a colleague emailed me and told me to bring my camera, as Senator Kerry was scheduled to give a press conference here in the Palace. At 2100, he entered a conference room wearing his leather flight jacket. Unfortunately, there was no media there, except for the enlisted soldiers from AFTN (Armed Forces Television Network) who had to be there. His aide looked around, saw that this just wasn't happening, and quickly escorted Kerry out before I could take a picture.

Finally, the next morning, Senator Kerry ate chow at the Dining Facility. Normally when a Senator/Representative visits, he is joined by a contingent of soldiers/Marines/airmen from his home state. Despite the fact that the MP unit responsible for Green Zone security is an Army Reserve unit from Massachusetts, not a single soldier went to sit with him. (By contrast, Bill O'Reilly, host of that terrible shoutfest on Fox, had over 400 soldiers waiting in line to meet him on Saturday).

Blackfive has more on Kerry's visit.

Bryan Preston sums it up: "I've never seen a snubbing so richly deserved."

I'm sure the Wall Street Journal will call this another of the blogosphere's "second-order distractions." But the troops think it's newsworthy and snort-worthy. And so do I.

Words have consequences.

***
Speaking of the Wall Street Journal blog-bashers, you really must read/listen to Hugh Hewitt's interview with--and schooling of--WSJ journalism expert, Joseph Rago. It's simply brilliant. Almost as good as the Joel Stein interview.

Michelle Malkin.com ** Lonely, I'm Mr. Lonely

Posted by yaahoo_ at 6:11 PM EST

Updated: Wednesday, 27 December 2006 6:49 PM EST

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