The End Of Commercial Aviation Era In So. Cal.

Boeing assembly mechanic Norman Wade works on a Boeing 717 in Long Beach, Calif. Photo Credit: AP

From Burbank, to Glendale, to Inglewood, and Long Beach, Southern California aviation sees the passing of a major era in comercial aviation. The former McDonnell-Douglas Corporation aircraft company has produced will and deliver its last commercial aircraft next month, leaving only the C-17 Tanker aircraft contract with the military to fulfill.

Excerpts from AP via The Washington Times -

Californian aviation comes in for a landing
By Gary Gentile - ASSOCIATED PRESS - April 27, 2006

LONG BEACH, Calif. -- The last Boeing 717 has left the factory.

The slender airliner, trailed by dozens of the workers who built it, was rolled out before dawn last week and towed across a boulevard to Long Beach Airport.

Its delivery to AirTran Airways next month will mark the end of seven decades of commercial airplane production in Southern California.
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"More aviation history has been made in Southern California than in any other place in the world," said Bill Schoneberger, author of "California Wings," a history of aviation in the state.

"But we've evolved. The aeronautics industry has moved from an airplane business into a systems business," he said.
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Today's workers build satellites, helicopters and unmanned surveillance drones while developing rockets and military jets that are made elsewhere.

Southern California aviation history dates to the early 1900s and features pioneers such as Howard Hughes, Jack Northrop and Donald Douglas, whose Douglas Aircraft built the DC-1 in 1933, one of the first commercial passenger planes made.

The region featured weather that accommodated year-round flying, drawing companies that produced bombers and fighter planes during World War II. Later came jetliners such as the DC-8, DC-9, DC-10, MD-80, MD-90, MD-11 and L-1011 TriStar and space vehicles that included the Apollo capsule and space shuttle. Boeing acquired the Long Beach plant in August 1997 when it bought McDonnell-Douglas Corp.
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Suspend The Tax On Gas NOW!

Oil prices in downtown Los Angeles. Photo Credit: AP

It is first, time to laugh, and then cry.

Senator Charles Schumer (D-NY) calls for the "breakup" of oil companies.

Our political leaders never see the easy answer when it is right there in their direct power to seize the day.

This observation from the Washington Post -

Going a Short Way to Make a Point
By Dana Milbank -Thursday, April 27, 2006; Page A02

Ladies and gentlemen, start your engines.

Gas prices have gone above $3 a gallon again, and that means it's time for another round of congressional finger-pointing.

"Since George Bush and Dick Cheney took over as president and vice president, gas prices have doubled!" charged Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.), standing at an Exxon station on Capitol Hill where regular unleaded hit $3.10. "They are too cozy with the oil industry."

She then hopped in a waiting Chrysler LHS (18 mpg) -- even though her Senate office was only a block away.

Sen. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) used a Hyundai Elantra to take the one-block journey to and from the gas-station news conference. He posed in front of the fuel prices and gave them a thumbs-down. "Get tough on big oil!" he demanded of the Bush administration.

By comparison, Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.) was a model of conservation. She told a staffer idling in a Jetta to leave without her, then ducked into a sushi restaurant for lunch before making the journey back to work.

At about the same time, House Republicans were meeting in the Capitol for their weekly caucus (Topic A: gas). The House driveway was jammed with cars, many idling, including eight Chevrolet Suburbans (14 mpg).

America may be addicted to oil, as President Bush puts it. But America is in the denial phase of this addiction -- as evidenced by the behavior of its lawmakers. They have proposed all kinds of solutions to high gas prices: taxes on oil companies, domestic oil drilling and releasing petroleum reserves. But they ignore the obvious: that Americans drive too much in too-big cars.

Senators were debating a war spending bill yesterday, but the subject invariably turned to gas prices. Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) engaged his deputy, Dick Durbin (Ill.), in a riveting colloquy. "Is the senator aware that the L.A. Times headline reads today, 'Bush's Proposals Viewed as a Drop in the Bucket'?"

"I'm aware of that," Durbin replied.

Sen. Pete Domenici (R-N.M.) responded with an economics lesson. "Oil is worth what people pay for it," he argued.

Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-N.Y.) sounded the alarms. "We are one accident or one terrorist attack away from oil at $100 a barrel!"

Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) made a plea for conservation. "We have to move quickly to increase our fuel efficiency," she urged.

But not too quickly. After lunchtime votes, senators emerged from the Capitol for the drive across the street to their offices.

Sen. John Sununu (R-N.H.) hopped in a GMC Yukon (14 mpg). Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.) climbed aboard a Nissan Pathfinder (15). Sen. Ben Nelson (D-Neb.) stepped into an eight-cylinder Ford Explorer (14). Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) disappeared into a Lincoln Town Car (17). Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.) met up with an idling Chrysler minivan (18).
Next came Sen. Bob Menendez (D-N.J.), greeted by a Ford Explorer XLT. On the Senate floor Tuesday, Menendez had complained that Bush "remains opposed to higher fuel-efficiency standards."

Also waiting: three Suburbans, a Nissan Armada V8, two Cadillacs and a Lexus. The greenest senator was Richard Lugar (R-Ind.), who was picked up by his hybrid Toyota Prius (60 mpg), at quadruple the fuel efficiency of his Indiana counterpart Evan Bayh (D), who was met by a Dodge Durango V8 (14).

As a political matter, Democrats clearly sense that they have the advantage on the high gas prices, judging from the number of speeches and news conferences. "The cost of Republican corruption when it comes to energy is hitting home very clearly for America's middle class," House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) exulted yesterday morning.

Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich.) introduced an amendment to repeal oil-company tax breaks and distribute $500 tax rebates to consumers. It was quickly ruled out of order.

But Republicans were clearly feeling defensive. "We passed an energy bill last year, last July," House Speaker Dennis Hastert (Ill.) pleaded at a morning news conference. "It changes CAFE [corporate average fuel economy] standards. It changes some of the things that we can do -- I'm sorry, changes not the CAFE standards, but changes some of the supply issues, boutique fuels, all these things."

Only Sen. Mark Dayton (D-Minn.), who can speak freely because he is retiring, was willing to note the disconnect between rhetoric and action. "People say, understandably, 'Solve our energy problems right now, but don't make us do anything differently,' " he said on the Senate floor.

If the politics of gasoline favor Democrats at the moment, the insincerity is universal. A surreptitious look at the cars in the senators-only spots inside and outside the Senate office buildings found an Escort and a Sentra (super-rich Wisconsin Democrat Herb Kohl's spot had a Chevy Lumina), but far more Jaguars, Cadillacs and Lexuses and a fleet of SUVs made by Ford, Honda, BMW and Lexus.

A sampling of senators' and staff cars parked along Delaware Avenue NE found that those displaying Democratic campaign bumper stickers had a somewhat higher average fuel economy (23 mpg) than those displaying GOP stickers (18 mpg). A fuel-efficiency rating could not be found for the 1970s-era Volkswagen "Thing" owned by Sen. Richard Burr (R-N.C.).

Maybe, lawmakers are starting to learn. When GOP senators had a lunch Tuesday a couple of blocks from the Capitol, many took cars. Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) emerged from the lunch looking for his ride when he spied The Washington Post's Shailagh Murray. Reconsidering, he set out on foot. "I need the exercise," he reasoned.
Link Here>>

Did you know that the taxes on each gallon of gasoline are greater than the profit received at each level in the petroleum process chain - More than the oil company that finds and processes the oil, more than the distributors that store and move the oil to the gas stations, and more than the gas station itself when they take your money that fills your tank.

The entity that profits the most from high gas prices is the only entity that does nothing to provide the fuel for our cars - and can do the most about cutting the cost of fuel to each of us by suspending the tax on fuel - The U.S. Government (those folks that Dana Milbank observes in the above piece).

Maybe, we all should call for the breakup of the Congress.

Increase In Fuel Costs Alters Food Choices: Study

With the increase in fuel costs hitting our family budgets, our choices for how and where we choose to get our food will change noticeably an ACNielson study finds.

Here in the U.S., Take-Out will be the first to go.

Excerpts from AC Neilson study via Progerssive Grocer -

U.S. Consumers Cut Take-out as Belts Tighten: ACNielsen Study

APRIL 26, 2006 -- NEW YORK -- When the going gets tough, Americans stop going for take-out, according to a new survey conducted by ACNielsen.

The aversion to take-out as belts tighten is apparently a distinctly American phenomenon, according to the world's leading market research and information company, which studied consumer patterns worldwide. In the United States, unlike most markets surveyed, consumers cited cutting down on take-out meals as their most popular cost-cutting method. Just over half of all respondents (57 percent) worldwide claimed they would cut down on out-of-home entertainment, and spend less on new clothes (53 percent) to stay within their budgets, with nearly half (48 percent) also saying they would delay upgrading technology to tighten their belts.
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Across the five regions surveyed, consumer priorities varied, most notably in North America. While out-of-home entertainment was the first thing consumers would cut down on in Latin America (61 percent), Asia Pacific (58 percent) and Europe (54 percent), in North America, the first thing to go for 70 percent of Canadians and 66 percent of Americans would be the take-out meals, ahead of out-of-home entertainment, which ranked second. Moreover, North Americans cited 'trying to save on gas and electricity' as their third preferred cost-saving measure.
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ACNielsen pointed to two findings of particular interest to U.S. food retailers and manufacturers of consumer packaged goods business. First, when asked if they would switch to cheaper grocery brands, 42 percent identified it as a cost saving strategy. Not surprisingly with the rising power of hard-discount retailers in Europe, European consumers scored the highest in this area (France 57 percent, Portugal 52 percent, Austria & the Netherlands 51 percent); but the U.S. just missed cracking the top 10, and was well above the global average of 35 percent. Second, the U.S. was the clear leader in identifying the use of coupons as a cost-saving strategy at 46 percent, far ahead of the global average of 19 percent.
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Drug Use Hits Another Target In TV Pilot

Image Credit: Google Images

In just a few days, at the end of this month as a matter of fact, I will have quit the use of alcohol and tobacco in my life. The "birthday" will be my 14th and, coincidentally, happens just before the Rodney King verdict riots, so the timing is pretty easy to remember.

Addiction is a pretty ugly monster and an equal opportunity horror.

Excerpts from the New York Post, Page Six -

'WING' FOLLOW HAS DRUG TWIST
Page Six - By Richard Johnson, With Paula Froelich and Chris Wilson

April 26, 2006 -- SUPERSTAR scriptwriter Aaron Sorkin is following the adage "Write what you know" for his new NBC series, and borrowing from his own personal history with drugs.

In the pilot for "Studio 60," an award-winning TV writer (played by Bradley Whitford of "The West Wing") loses the chance to direct his first movie when he tests positive for cocaine. That disqualifies him for the job because the studio wouldn't be able to get insurance with him at the helm, according to a copy of the script that's turned up on the Internet.

While that story might not directly parallel Sorkin's own, he is no stranger to the consequences of drug abuse. Sorkin, 45, was arrested in April 2001 at Burbank Airport after cocaine, marijuana and psychedelic mushrooms (and, reportedly, a crack pipe) were found in his carry-on luggage.

He pleaded guilty and was sentenced to drug treatment, which he had also undergone previously in 1995, to kick a crack habit.

In 2003, Sorkin stunned the cast of "The West Wing" - the series he created and which won four Emmys for Best Drama Series - when he suddenly quit.
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And recently, more light was shed on Sorkin's partying past when a former call girl, Dimitra Ekmektsis, claimed in her memoir that Sorkin was a regular customer between 1990 and 1992 and often smoked pot and crack in his sessions with her.
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At MAXINE, we pray that this horror no longer is a part of Aaron Sorkin's present future other than for the cathartic process of sobriety.

We, who have had to go through the process of breaking an addiction, any addiction, are reminded that this issue is never to far away in our lives. May we all know GOD now.

One Day At A Time

PETA And The 3% Solution

Image Credit: Outback Steakhouse, Inc.

When does a shareholder try to hurt the fortunes of a company in the name of making a minority point? When the shareholder is People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals.

In strategy that would make sense, and would be generally be applauded for its ingeniousness, if a large number of like minded individuals believed the same way, PETA has been purchasing shares of target companies so that they can make a point at shareholder meetings.

The latest episode of a targeted grandstanding came today at the Outback Steakhouse, Inc. shareholders meeting. Outback originally tried to block PETA from placing a resolution on the agenda with the Securities and Exchange Commission but the SEC ruled in favor of letting PETA its say.

The problem comes with the vote of this resolution and how little response the response has to be in order to keep the point of view alive.

Excerpts from the Tampa Bay Business Journal -

PETA takes chicken killing to Outback
Tampa Bay Business Journal - 2:41 PM EDT Tuesday
by Larry Halstead

Outback Steakhouse Inc. had a showdown with People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals at its annual shareholders meeting, held Tuesday at the A La Carte Pavilion in Tampa.

PETA, which owns 80 shares of Outback (NYSE: OSI), wants the company's suppliers to begin moving toward using a method called controlled-atmosphere killing by which the chickens are put to sleep. The process is already being used in approximately one-fourth of the European slaughterhouses, said Matt Prescott, spokesman for PETA.

"We're asking for a feasibility study now, not immediate implementation," Prescott said.

Prescott read a statement at the meeting asking Outback to consider PETA's resolution on controlled-atmosphere killing.
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Shareholders voted on the resolution through proxy statements in advance and at the meeting. It received approximately 3.5 percent of the vote, Prescott told the Tampa Bay Business Journal.

When a resolution loses, yet receives at least 3 percent of the vote, a shareholder can resubmit the same resolution for vote at next year's meeting. PETA plans to resubmit the resolution at next year's meeting, Prescott said.

PETA submitted similar resolutions at Kroger, KFC and Hormel, and more than 3 percent voted in favor at all three companies, Prescott said.

In order to propose issues for vote at annual meetings, shareholders must own at least $2,000 of the company's stock, Prescott said. PETA buys shares in companies that deal with animals in their course of business.

"Our real goal here is that the shareholders care about animal rights and that the company moves toward that goal," Prescott said.
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3.5% hardly deserves the title of "shareholders".

With only 3.5% representation of a point of view to be brought up time and time again, is grandstanding pure and simple as MAXINE sees it ... and this is an issue (the method of the killing of chickens purchased from a resource) brought up at a STEAKHOUSE operation.

I suppose they are just "Chicken" to take on the main menu items.

Have tests been run on the chemicals used to put these chickens to "sleep" to ascertain if the residual traces of the chemicals left in the chicken tissue are safe for humans to consume? Just asking! We are, after all, feeding humans here.

This effort by PETA at the Outback shareholders meeting gives a whole new meaning to the phrase "Curbside Take-Away"!

Michael Yon - In The Poppy Fields, Not Kansas

The Sleeping Poppy: Papaver Somniferum. Now I know we’re not in Kansas. People come and go so quickly around here. Photo Credit: Michael Yon

Reporting directly from Afghanistan, Michael Yon continues on his latest journey into the warzone to write the truth as to what is going on - on the ground outside of Kabul.

Excerpts from Michael Yon: Online Magazine -

Tuesday, April 25th, 2006
Desert of Death
Dasht-e-Margo“Desert of Death”
Lashkar Gah to Camp Bastion

As our bags were loaded into the Land Cruiser for the journey toward Dasht-e-Margo, the Desert of Death, a man wearing a bomb closes in. Before striking off, we again visit the PRT in Lashkar Gah, where Steve huddles with some Afghan employees. An entire British Army unit has defected, he said, with their weapons and equipment. The Afghans grow quiet, until Steve says, “And they joined the Taliban.”

After talking with some friendly British soldiers we start the drive into a mostly desolate stretch through scattered villages. Steve needs to get to Camp Bastion where he has about $12 million in current construction contracts, and where his crews are just finishing the new base camps for the British Army.

Business and politics don’t count for much when a brainwashed man wearing a bomb is trying to make some westerners into Humpty Dumpty’s. The human-bomb-delivery-system was lurking close by, and ready to begin tracking a target. To me, suicide bombers are cheap laser-guided-precision-munitions, without the lasers.

Often when an attack is imminent, shops will close and children will vanish from the streets, and such was the case today. Driving away from the PRT down rough unpaved road toward the Desert of Death, a breakdown, flat tire, or a minor accident could be fatal, exposing us to bandits, Taliban or even Al Qaeda, not to mention that man who was packing lots of explosives. He was parked, according to a British soldier, in a red Toyota just near the PRT. The soldier said the man got out of the Toyota just as some Dyncorp contractors came by, and he walked over to the armored SUV and BOOM!
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In many villages there was enough water to grow vast amounts of poppy. I was scanning for ambushes when Steve said, “A lot of times they’ll set up road blocks wearing police or Army uniforms.”

“But that’s not fair.” I chuckled, “That’s cheating.”

Steve laughed, “Sure is Mister. Sure is.”

In fact, hundreds of Taliban would soon mass on the route ahead resulting in a massive firefight that ended with more than 40 killed.

Steve believes it’s safer to travel overland through desert shortcuts where foreigners rarely venture; the various species of bad guys, he says, do not expect crazy foreigners to rocket through, and by the time we get close enough that they might notice, hopefully we are gone.
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Some days earlier I’d read a confidential report saying that 80% of some arable parts of Helmand are growing poppy, but the “good” news is that other areas of Helmand are only 30% under poppy. On average, the report indicated that well over 70% of the cropland in Helmand is yielding poppy. Next week, during harvest, the plants will be dripping and oozing opium. From Afghanistan, it seems obvious why our allies in Europe are concerned even while the U.S. draws down forces here.

No doubt some of the heroin also will land in America. A crop this bountiful is bound to flood the market. The reason most often cited for the Americans’ essential-acquiescence over the poppy is that we do not want to alienate farmers in our search for terrorists, although we contend that opium money funds the terrorists. Some of our European friends see this as, well - they have some choice words. Of those I am willing to convey in writing, the kindest and most diplomatic is that, “You Americans are making a pact with the Devil.” As much as I usually enjoy arguing with Europeans about Americans, there is no fun in it when they are right.”
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The vineyard (above) will not generate positive cash flow for about 3 years, and will not make a profit for perhaps 5-6 years, whereas the poppy fields around it turn profits in months. In the long term, the farmer with the vineyard likely can earn greater profits for less work - and not risk the wrath of an eradication team. But in the short term, where eradication is practically non-existent, the opium is sweet and grapes are sour.
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There is practically no competition for heroin. What Florida is to the citrus tree, Afghanistan is to Papaver somniferum.
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Government offices in some Helmand districts are closing under Taliban pressure. The countryside we saw was obviously not administered by western forces, and did not appear to be controlled by anyone other than, perhaps, the Taliban and the bandits.
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Peering out the car window, knowing that bandits or Taliban might be upon us in a flash, I had no idea that a major, very deadly firefight was brewing nearby.
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The poppy fields of Afghanistan bring us back to Kansas where, once upon a time when everything was black and white, Dorothy imagines a place where there is no trouble, a place very far away, and she starts singing
“S o m e W h e r e O v e r t h e R a i n b o w .”
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We say goodbye to the men who will shortly take to the fields, and we strike out again down Highway 1, away from the Desert of Death, passing by where the trucks were attacked, by the nomads again, through the poppy fields, back to Lashkar Gah, where another suicide attack is unfolding.
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Compelling. If you can support his efforts, please do so at the bottom of the article/post at his site.

Enforcement Of Law Means Enforcement

Image Cerdit: The Minuteman Civil Defense Corps Fence Project

When is an illegal immigrant crackdown more like the response to a natural disaster than the enforcement of laws? When the Department of Homeland Security (through its sub-agency ICE, this time) responds ineffectively to a situation that requires FOLLOWTHROUGH, that's when!

Last week, ICE (the Department of Homeland Security's Immigration and Customs Enforcement department) rounded up almost 1,200 illegal immigrants and seven current or former managers at a Netherlands-based firm that hired them. They were arrested, and most were released on a "notice to appear".

This action has no follow-through. Where does this government think these released individuals are going to go? They all are proven lawbreakers and immediate action is required.

Excerpted opinion from the New York Post -

A 'CRACKDOWN' THAT WASN'T
DUBYA'S IMMIGRATION ARRESTS
By JOHN O'SULLIVAN

April 25, 2006 -- IT happened last Wednesday, and it was nicely timed.

One week later - about now, in fact - the U.S. Senate was scheduled to reconvene to discuss an immigration bill. The bill proposes to amnesty most of the 12 million illegal immigrants in the U.S. and to admit millions more legally as guest-workers. The controversial measure is strongly promoted by the White House and both party leaderships in the Senate - but opposed by most Republican congressmen and a large majority of voters.

Something was needed to break the log-jam of opposition.

And last Wednesday federal agents "swooped" on plants in 26 states belonging to IFCO, a U.S. subsidiary of a Dutch firm supplying wood pallets and plastic containers to industry, and arrested 1,187 illegal immigrant workers. Seven former and current IFCO managers were also charged with employing illegal aliens. The next day, Homeland Security czar Michael Chertoff held a press conference to stress that such tough enforcement of immigration law, internally as well as at the border, would now be the rule.

Having established its willingness to crack down on illegality, the administration's political machine crossed its fingers and hoped that this display would now help passage of the "Not an Amnesty" law.

All this was not only timely; it was powerfully symbolic. What it symbolized, however, was not the tough enforcement of immigration law but its colander-like leaky ineffectiveness.

For even before Chertoff had spoken (but not before blogger Michelle Malkin had predicted it), four-fifths of the illegals arrested had been . . . released.
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I recently suggested - wrongly - that there had been little or no enforcement of employer sanctions since the passage of the 1986 amnesty law; that, once an illegal reached a major city such as Los Angeles, Phoenix or Chicago, he was safe from official interest and could work unmolested. That was not quite accurate. The Clinton administration in fact managed some (albeit patchy) "internal" enforcement of employer sanctions. For instance, the period 1995-1997 saw 10,000 to 18,000 worksite arrests of illegals a year. Some 1,000 employers were served notices of fines for employing them.

Under the Bush administration, however, worksite arrests fell to 159 in 2004 - with the princely total of three notices of intent to fine served on employers. Thus, worksite arrests under President Bush have fallen from Clintonian levels by something like 97 per cent - even though 9/11 occurred in the meantime.

In this dramatic relaxation of internal enforcement is the explanation of the rapidly rising estimate of immigrants living and working illegally in the United States - up by more than a million in just the last year. For if people know that they are likely to be safe from enforcement once they escape the border area and reach L.A. or Chicago, then they'll keep trying even if they were caught and returned to their country of origin any number of times.

Porous borders are not only the cause of uncontrolled immigration; they are its result. You cannot control the borders, however many patrols you hire or fences you build, if you grant an effective pardon to anyone who gets a hundred miles inland. It's as simple as that.
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If the law were enforced more uniformly - rather than with the current 159 worksite raids and three employer fines - then the number of people deported would rise substantially even if (as last week) only one-fifth of those detained were eventually sent back over the border. It would send a message to those considering illegal entry that they could no longer depend on legal immunity and secure employment once inside America. Those illegals already here, finding their opportunities drying up, would have an incentive to return home legally even if only to increase their chances of legal immigration later.

These changes would occur gradually, allowing businesses to adapt to the tighter labor market. And the border would, seemingly by magic, become less porous as interior law enforcement reduced the incentive to cross it.

This is called "the attrition strategy" by Mark Krikorian of the Center for Immigration Studies. It is far more practical than the either an amnesty or a guest-worker program. And it requires neither legislation nor official game-playing to implement it.

By contrast, every time the unpopular Bush-Senate "compromise" bill meets an obstacle, Karl Rove will have to pick up a telephone and utter the famous line from "Casablanca": Round up the usual suspects.
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This "attrition strategy" sounds like a good step but first we need to show that we are serious about attaining respect for our immigration laws and our border.

PUT UP THE FENCE ... deport found illegals ... deeply fine companies hiring known illegals.

Pepsi vs Coke - Who Has More Lead?

Photo Credit: Pepsi-Town.com

It is kind of a trick question. The lead is contained in the printing of the labels applied to the bottles and PEPSI has just settled a lawsuit.

Excerpts from the Los Angeles Times -

Pepsi Agrees to Get the Lead Out of Labels
L.A. and the state sued because bottles from Mexican plants contain the substance and some businesses sell them in Southern California.
By Patrick McGreevy, Times Staff Writer - April 22, 2006

Settling a lawsuit by the city of Los Angeles and the state, PepsiCo Inc. has agreed to eliminate labels containing lead on bottled soft drinks imported from Mexico and will pay a $1-million civil penalty, officials announced Friday.

The lawsuit alleged that the soft-drink maker violated Proposition 65 by failing to warn consumers that the labels contained lead.

"This is a landmark result which will protect the health of our children and make our communities safer," City Atty. Rocky Delgadillo said at a City Hall news conference. "Pepsi is here with us today doing the responsible thing."
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Under the settlement, filed in court Friday, PepsiCo will begin phasing out labels containing lead and will remove existing soda bottled in Mexico from shelves in California.

In addition to the $1-million civil penalty, the company could face an additional $4.25 million in penalties if it fails to phase out 95% of the labels with lead within 10 years.

PepsiCo also will pay $500,000 to a fund for monitoring whether Mexican Pepsi bottles are coming into California and to other programs on lead abatement in food.

The firm also will pay $750,000 to reimburse investigative and attorney costs, Delgadillo said.
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The CocaCola Co. issued a statement saying it "is already — and voluntarily — doing what this settlement requires Pepsi to do in the future, at a cost to the CocaCola system in excess of $25 million."

The firm said all of its bottles made in Mexico are lead-free.
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20th Highjacker Trial Goes To Jury

This artist's rendering shows court appointed physician Dr. Raymond Patterson, center, being questioned by U.S. Attorney David Novak, right, as Zacarias Moussaoui, left, and U.S. District Judge Leonie Brinkema listen in U.S. District Court in Alexandria, Va., Thursday, April 20, 2006. Patterson was called by the prosecution as a rebuttal witness to the defenses psychiatric experts who say that Moussaoui is mentally ill. Photo Credit: AP Photo/Dana Verkouteren

This from AP via Yahoo! News -

Jury Takes Up Moussaoui's Fate
By MATTHEW BARAKAT, Associated Press Writer - 1 hour, 18 minutes ago

ALEXANDRIA, Va. - Zacarias Moussaoui's fate was placed Monday afternoon in the hands of a jury that will decide whether he is executed for his part in the deaths of Sept. 11, 2001.

Jurors opened deliberations at 2:26 p.m. EDT, after final pleadings from the prosecution to "put an end to his hatred and venom" by opting for execution, and from the defense to spare him the martyr's death he seeks and send him to prison for life instead.

The jury decided in 15 hours of deliberations over four days earlier this month that Moussaoui, 37, the only man charged in this country in the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, was responsible for deaths that day even though he was in jail. That qualified him for the death penalty. The question now before jurors is whether he deserves it.
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This story was posted because the watercolor art was compelling.

Oh yeah, Maxine believes that he's goin' down ... to bad it won't be as fast as Flight 93!

UPDATE: This from Reuters -

Moussaoui gets life in jail
By Deborah Charles 40 minutes ago (5-3-2006, 1:40 pm PST)

ALEXANDRIA, Virginia (Reuters) - Zacarias Moussaoui, the only person convicted in a U.S. court in connection with September 11, should spend his life in prison instead of being executed for his role in the hijacked airliner attacks, a jury decided on Wednesday.
"America you lost!" Moussaoui shouted as he left the courtroom after hearing the verdict. He clapped his hands and yelled, "I won!"

The 37-year-old French citizen of Moroccan descent will be formally sentenced on Thursday.
The verdict was read by U.S. District Judge Leonie Brinkema at the courthouse in Alexandria, Virginia, not far from the Pentagon, the site of one of the 2001 attacks. It was read simultaneously before television cameras outside the courthouse by spokesman Edward Adams.

At the White House, President George W. Bush hailed the sentencing of the man he said "openly rejoiced" at the deaths on September 11 and said "evil" had been vanquished.
"The end of this trial represents the end of this case, but not an end to the fight against terror," Bush said. "...And we can be confident. Our cause is right, and the outcome is certain: Justice will be served. Evil will not have the final say."
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Well, we can still hope for a Jeffrey Dahmer type of outcome, otherwise we all can look forward to about 30+ years of having to hear his name.

This from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia -

Dahmer served his time at the Columbia Correctional Institute in Portage, Wisconsin. On 28th November, 1994, fellow inmate Christopher Scarver, a double murderer, beat Dahmer and another inmate, Jesse Anderson, to death with a bench-press bar from the prison's weight room. All three were on work detail cleaning a bathroom in the guards' quarters at the time (Because of this incident, American maximum security prisons no longer have a free-weight room). Scarver stated that he was the "son of God" and was acting out his "Father's" commands to kill Dahmer and the other inmate during cleaning duties.

CIA Leaker Was Clinton Appointee & More

Photo Credit: floppingaces.net

A senior Clinton Administration figure (appointed June 16, 1998) became a "mole" in the CIA and illegally leaked classified material to a Washington Post reporter in order to embarrass the Bush Administration. This is as astonishing as it is troubling. You can not make this stuff up.

CIA leaker was a contributor to the Democrats - The New York Times article on the CIA leak case mentions that the leaker, one Mary O. McCarthy, gave $2,000 to Kerry (which, by the way, is the maximum amount she could give). This in light of the fact that she grossly underplays her political involvement. Look it up.

More links put together at Free Republic.

The Lewis 'Scooter' Libbey defense team must be toasting the out of control Dems and the tainted Pulitzer Prize winning MSM right about now.

UPDATE, 4-24-2006, 6:13 AM: The defense of McCarthy has begun in the MSM. This morning on MSNBC's Don Imus program, Andrea Mitchell speculated clearly that the reporter (Dana Priest) had developed the story from many resources.

Further, that the reporter had earned her Pulitzer in that Mary McCarthy was only one of many resources and that Dana Priest probably contacted Mary McCarthy for confirmation of information developed through these other resources - ("THUD!" - the sound of a jaw hitting the floor in un-speculative disbelief).

WHAT? Thank you Andrea Mitchell. Maybe, she should read the above links?

This quote from the American Digest -

Dana Priest: "Well, actually, the media is not breaking the law by publishing classified information. That's still a safeguard we have in the law. The person/s who turn it over are breaking the law, technically. But the courts and the body politic have always looked at this as the cost of democracy and that is one huge reason why reporters have not be pursued previously." -- National Security and Intelligence

Schumacher Takes 2006 San Marino GP

Lap 25 and the leading players in the San Marino Grand Prix have made their first pit stops. The order is Michael Schumacher leading Fernando Alonso and Jenson Button, with Felipe Massa and Juan Pablo Montoya running close together in fourth and fifth. Photo Credit: UpdateSport.Com

Former 1999 FedEx Championship Auto Racing Teams (CART), and IRL's 2000 Indianapolis 500 champion, Juan Pablo Montoya, posts a podium finish by finishing third for Team McLaren Mercedes.

This from the Official Formula 1 Website -

Schumacher hangs on to victory
23 April 2006

By the end of the San Marino Grand Prix, Fernando Alonso must have been thoroughly sick of staring at the back of Michael Schumacher’s car.

For much of the second half of the race the pair were separated by barely half a second. But however much the Spanish world champion wanted to find a way past, Schumacher’s dogged defence of his position proved impregnable. And by the closing stages of the race, it was clear that Alonso had settled for second place and the eight points that go with it.

Juan Pablo Montoya claimed the third step of the podium for McLaren - but the team will have been demoralised by a relative lack of pace that prevented their drivers from getting on terms with Alonso and Schumacher. Felipe Massa ended the race in fourth place with the second Ferrari, Kimi Raikkonen was fifth and Mark Webber deserves mention for a strong drive to sixth in the Williams.
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This from Reuters -

UPDATE 1-Schumacher a winner again for Ferrari
Sun Apr 23, 2006 3:09 PM BST
By Alan Baldwin

IMOLA, Italy, April 23 (Reuters) - Michael Schumacher won the San Marino Grand Prix for his and Ferrari's first victory of the Formula One season on Sunday.

It was the seven-times world champion's 85th career success, and seventh at Ferrari's home circuit, but he was harried all the way by Renault's world champion Fernando Alonso.

In a repeat of last year's nose-to-tail thriller only in reverse order, with that race won by Alonso with Schumacher failing to find a way past, the German held on to win by 2.0 seconds.

Schumacher's last victory was at the six-car U.S. Grand Prix last June, a race that turned into a fiasco when all the Michelin teams pulled out before the start.

His last real win was the Japanese Grand Prix in October 2004, a season he dominated with 13 victories.

Colombian Juan Pablo Montoya was third for McLaren, ahead of Brazilian Felipe Massa for Ferrari and Kimi Raikkonen in another McLaren.

Australian Mark Webber was sixth for Williams, with Briton Jenson Button seventh for Honda and Italian Giancarlo Fisichella taking the last point for Renault.

Alonso, winner of two of the season's first three races, extended his championship lead by one point to 15 with Schumacher moving up to second overall.

The Spaniard has 36 points, Schumacher 21 and McLaren's Kimi Raikkonen 18. Renault lead the constructors' standings with 51 points to McLaren's 33 and Ferrari's 30.
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