Meathead Goes Back To Grinding ‘em Out

Photo Credit: LA Times

Well, after having a very heady and protected run at political influence and power, Rob Reiner runs back into familiar heady, protected, and powerful territory - film direction and production.

It is said that he has taken on two projects. One is designed to be a box office hit with Jack Nicholson, and the other is designed to bang people over the head in a political statement saddled smartly against war, go figure.

All of this movie making activity will be going on while the audit of the California Children and Families, "Commissioner Reiner" headed, is underway. Word on the results of the audit are expected anywhere from as early as August to sometime this fall. This mix is never far from the front burner.

Excerpts from Bill Bradley's New West Notes (LA Weekly)-

Rob Reiner's Next Projects Not Political
By Bill Bradley - June 3, 2006

On the night of the landslide defeat of his tax-the-rich for universal preschool initiative, Proposition 82, movie director Rob Reiner declared that it was only the beginning of his drive for preschool and he would continue to be heavily involved in politics. But now, going on four weeks from California’s June 6th primary, it looks like his next project is cinematic, rather than political, and will engage him heavily during this fall’s general election campaign.

Various Hollywood sources say that Reiner will direct a film called The Bucket List, tentatively starring Jack Nicholson and Morgan Freeman. In the movie scenario, two terminally ill patients break out of a cancer ward and endeavor to live out all those things on a list they have of what they would like to do before, as the saying goes, they kick the bucket. These adventures include driving race cars, dating models, scarfing down plates of caviar, gambling in Monte Carlo, and so on.

Reiner also has another movie project in development, one with more of a political theme and a very current political connection. Whiskey River is, according to the Internet Movie DataBase, a story in which “an American soldier injured in Iraq is called back into action before he's fully recovered, prompting his father to kidnap his son in order to save his life.”

The writer is one James Webb, one of the most highly decorated Marine Corps officers of the Vietnam War, Ronald Reagan’s Secretary of the Navy, and an acclaimed novelist. But Webb is somewhat busy just now. Due to his opposition to the Iraq War, he re-registered as a Democrat. In fact, last month he became the Democratic nominee for U.S. Senate in Virginia. Last fall, he trailed incumbent Senator George Allen -- a 2008 presidential hopeful -- by 15 percent. Now he’s cut the incumbent’s lead to five percent.

Webb’s connection with Rob Reiner is somewhat problematic, of course, in what was the most dominant of the Southern colonies prior to the American Revolution. So we should not expect to see the erstwhile “Meathead” -- Reiner’s Emmy Award-winning acting role on the classic sitcom All In The Family -- surfacing in a very closely fought Virginia Senate race with major national implications, both for the Presidential primaries of 2008 and the Iraq War today.
Read All>>

Those Wacky North Koreans

Photo Credit: China Rail by Allen Zagel

Honestly, what else can be said?

This from the Stategy Page -

Forget the Missiles, This is Even More Bizarre
The Strategy Page - July 5, 2006

While everyone's attention was focused on North Korean missiles, the real story is the North Korean economy. It continues to fall apart, and more North Koreans are unhappy about that. Worse yet, more North Koreans are finding out how badly they have been screwed by their leaders.

Meanwhile, North Korean officials engage in even more bizarre behavior. For example, food and fuel supplies sent to North Korea have been halted, not to force North Korea to stop missile tests or participate in peace talks, but to return the Chinese trains the aid was carried in on.

In the last few weeks, the North Koreans have just kept the trains, sending the Chinese crews back across the border. North Korea just ignores Chinese demands that the trains be returned, and insists that the trains are part of the aid program.

It's no secret that North Korean railroad stock is falling apart, after decades of poor maintenance and not much new equipment. Stealing Chinese trains is a typical loony-tune North Korean solution to the problem.

If the North Koreans appear to make no sense, that's because they don't. Put simply, when their unworkable economic policies don't work, the North Koreans just conjure up new, and equally unworkable, plans.

The Chinese have tried to talk the North Koreans out of these pointless fantasies, and for their trouble they have their trains stolen. How do you negotiate under these conditions? No one knows.

The South Koreans believe that if they just keep the North Korean leaders from doing anything too destructive (especially to South Korea), eventually the tragicomic house of cards up north will just collapse. Not much of a plan, but so far, no one's come up with anything better.
Link Here>>

S2 Mile Marker Mystery Tour – follow-on #1

TOP - One of the watering stations (mile marker 52) – BOTTOM - One of the six one gallon bottles of water – Contents maintained by____(?) in the blue drum watering stations found along the westside of southern most part of a 15 mile stretch of San Diego County road “S2” inside Anza Borrego Desert (California) State Park. Image Credit: Edmund Jenks (2006)

S2 Mile Marker Mystery Tour – follow-on #1

As for the S2 Mile Marker Mystery Tour, the research is by no means complete … but I have found a few clues.

The mile marker mystery source – ie. the large blue drums that contain approximately six, one gallon sealed containers of water resourced from the Borrego Springs Bottled Water – may be an immigration support organization that goes by the name “Border Angels”.

I was watching a local news special by the title “State Divided” on KNBC-4 (July 4, 2006 – 5:00 PM) and the founder of the Border Angels, Enrique Morones was interviewed. What he stated as the purpose and the cause of the organization seemed to match up with the effort required to place and maintain these watering stations.

A Google search was enjoined and turned up the following information:

The following excerpt is from Indy Media –

Saving Peoples’ Lives: Border Angels At Work’, Special Guest: Enrique Moronoes.
By Indy Media

“Since the advent of Operation Gatekeeper and the installation of the steel wall at the Border in 1994, migrant persons have been forced to move through the perilous mountain and desert areas of Imperial Valley. Since October of 1994, 2,750 migrant persons have died and thousands more are ill or missing. Enrique Morones founded the Border Angels, a non-profit organization of extraordinary individuals, to help prevent the unnecessary deaths of these migrant persons. Along with other groups, the Border Angels have set up rescue stations with water, food, and blankets in the most hazardous areas of Imperial Valley.”
Read All>>

This led to looking into the Border Angels website and to the "LETTERS" page.

Excerpts and edits from Border Angels -

LETTERS
By Louis Vilml

In 1985 while the U.S. and Soviet Union was competing for the hearts and minds of the non-aligned nations, President Reagan stood in front of the Berlin Wall, the symbol of a divided Europe, and said ‘General Secretary Gorbachev, if you seek peace, if you seek prosperity for the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe…tear down this wall’.

At home Mr. Reagan had launched the largest peace-time military budget in U.S. history spending 2.4 trillion dollars including the infamous SDI-the placing of weapons in outer-space.

American politicians are renowned for their double standards. Worshipping at the altar of self-righteousness and superiority brings out the worst in the areas of denial and contradictions. Supremacy breeds fear and insecurity while words do not reflect action.

From the European colonization of North America, where newly arrived settlers displaced millions of the indigenous populations by building fences, forts, and reservations, to the deadly and warlike trade embargoes against such countries as Japan, China, Cuba, Libya, Iraq, Iran, and North Korea, the U.S. has become enslaved to a vast network of bulwarks and military complexes.

This fortress mentality trickles down and spans across America to the thousands of high-tech security and gated communities in which every home has a ’panic room‘.

Several of America’s foremost politicians are now leading the charge to build a parallel multi-billion dollar, two-thousand mile long fence between Mexico and the U.S. President Fox is right in claiming the fence would be disgraceful and shameful to the people of Mexico.

Unfortunately, past and present U.S. policy makers have erected other walls that still remain hidden to this day.”
----
As a result of 9-11, the mantra by the Bush Administration is that security is the means by which America will achieve fundamental freedoms.

On the contrary, intelligence, economic justice for all, and cooperation with other countries is the means by which the U.S. will achieve fundamental freedoms.

On 9-11, the terrorists did not attack the Statue of Liberty. They attacked the Pentagon, WTC, and attempted to attack Washington DC where the U.S. government resides.

The terrorists do NOT dislike our freedoms but instead abhor the U.S. for its foreign militarism, violent interventions, destructive economic policies, and an ill-advised government that is sheltered from the realities and sufferings of the underprivileged and exploited.

Therefore, it is these words and the policies on the base of the Statue of Liberty that America should continue to abide by…
Read All>>

For one who believes in the pursuit and protection of United States sovereignty, the political posture shown in the “LETTERS” section of the Border Angels website is troubling, indeed.

Back to the mystery, the one linkage I have not been able to establish, however, is the tie between the S2 Mile Marker watering stations and the "how & why" these stations exist on California State Park land and NOWHERE ELSE throughout the park (again, not just there for general park visitors).

Further, when people try to cross our borders legally at border crossing check-points, they are patted down, frisked, and asked to take off parts of their clothing, but when it comes to the rest of the border, our federal government will not put up a fence, let alone have our National Guard stationed there be allowed to touch or detain those who walk across illegally. WHY?

By myself, I am not an Army Of Davids … I am but one person with questions.

The how & why - may be an official link between the “Border Angels” and Anza Borrego Desert State Park officials.

The how & why - is that the stations may have been placed without permission by outside interests (unlikely).

The how & why - may be an official program, supported through the use of tax dollars, of the State Park to assist immigrants.

The how & why is … (?).

So, this is where the discussion of this issue and posts continue – any helpers?

Academic Freedom - A Current Oxymoron

Photo Cartoons - GOP Playing Cards - David Horowitz. Image Credit: Internet Weekly

It's time to open up the academic "tent"!

It is easy to tell when someone is goring (not Al) the ox of the status quo when in intellectual honesty; one puts himself at risk of ridicule.

It sure seems funny how tradition based religion and academia has swapped their traditional approaches to the value each brings to the human pursuit to life.

Religion helps to anchor the human experience with strong unwavering cultural values direction to living as a rudder would give a vessel, whereas academia helps to explore the human intellect by broadening ones point of view through dialog as sails give a vessel power.

Why is it that we humans want our cultural experience to become "Sails" while our academic experience becomes a "Rudder" on which it may run the risk of getting stuck in the mud?

Enter David Horowitz and the Academic Bill of Rights ...

Excerpts from The Washington Times -

Academic manifesto takes root
By Valerie Richardson - THE WASHINGTON TIMES - July 3, 2006

DENVER -- Three years ago, David Horowitz came to Colorado to promote his newly inked Academic Bill of Rights, a plan the radical-turned-conservative activist said was needed to liberate students from an oppressive atmosphere of liberal groupthink at the nation's universities.

Critics had scoffed at the assertion by Mr. Horowitz -- who in the 1960s had been a prominent left-wing student activist -- that freedom on 21st-century campuses was being crushed by a tyrannical regime of political correctness.

But as then-state Senate Majority Leader John Andrews listened to Mr. Horowitz over breakfast at the Brown Palace Hotel, he agreed the time was ripe for an intellectual revolution.

"We were finishing each other's sentences, because this has been a concern for conservatives for such a long time," Mr. Andrews recalled. "I started working on and researching legislation right away."

A few months later, the Colorado legislature became the first to broker a deal with state universities on policies to protect students from political discrimination.

Since then, the Academic Bill of Rights, which says students should be graded and faculty should be hired and promoted without regard to their political or religious beliefs, has inspired the introduction of legislation in 18 states. Ohio and Tennessee struck deals with their universities on protecting academic freedom in lieu of legislation.
----
In April, Princeton University became the first institution of higher learning to pass a version of the Student Bill of Rights by a vote of the entire student body, surprising even Mr. Horowitz, who had no hand in the election.
----
Of course, it hasn't all been good news. A well-known conservative writer and activist, Mr. Horowitz was never the most popular guy on campus, and the academic freedom movement has cemented his status as a persona non grata.

Demonstrators greet Mr. Horowitz's every college appearance. At Duke University, associate professor Diane Nelson urged students to pull off their T-shirts to protest his March 7 speech. During a talk last year at Butler University in Indiana, he was hit in the face with a pie.
----
"The left knows there's a battle on, and they're in it," Mr. Horowitz said. "Conservatives are still hung up on this legislation thing -- they don't want to do anything that requires legislation. It's going to take a little time."
----
In February, a coalition of teachers unions and civil-liberties groups, including the center, founded Free Exchange on Campus, an organization designed to counter Mr. Horowitz and his quest.

Jamie Horwitz, who acts as a spokesman both for Free Exchange on Campus and the American Federation of Teachers, said the opposition was slow to react because "we dismissed it at first as the rantings of an ideologue."
----
On its face, few would disagree with the Academic Bill of Rights, a two-page document that outlines principles protecting the free-inquiry and free-speech rights of professors and students while stressing the importance of intellectual diversity.

It says that professors should use their class time for education -- not indoctrination -- and that neither the political nor religious beliefs of students and faculty should be a factor in grades or promotion.

Despite the document's political neutrality, critics fear that if it becomes state law, it will be used as a hammer to promote conservative thought and squelch liberal dissent.

"I think what they're doing is curtailing academic freedom," said Adam Jentleson, policy and advocacy manager of Campus Progress. "I don't think they're really making that much progress because every state that's considered it has either voted it down or referred it to committee."
----
Indeed, university professors have been the document's biggest critics, arguing that the cure is worse than the purported disease. Already, they say, the debate has created a climate of self-censorship on campus as professors increasingly steer clear of politically charged topics, such as global warming.

"Wouldn't it be worse to have laws that restrict free speech in the classroom?" Mr. Horwitz said.
----
To those who ask for evidence of liberal bias in academia, Mr. Horowitz has two words: Ward Churchill. The University of Colorado ethnic-studies professor transformed the debate in February 2005, when it was publicized that he wrote an essay comparing victims of the September 11 terrorist attack to Nazi war criminal Adolf Eichmann.

"Churchill is huge," Mr. Horowitz said. "I don't think this movement would have happened without Ward Churchill. I know I wouldn't have written 'The Professors' if it hadn't been for Ward Churchill."
----
Nowhere was his influence greater than in Colorado, where Mr. Churchill literally rescued the movement. After the Democrats took back the legislature in November 2004, state Sen. Bob Hagedorn introduced a bill that would have erased the state's groundbreaking Memorandum of Understanding with the state universities on academic freedom.

A few weeks later, the Churchill story broke, and Mr. Hagedorn, a Democrat, withdrew the bill.

"Everything changed," recalled Mr. Andrews, now a fellow with the Claremont Institute. "Churchill became the poster boy for abuse in the classroom and destroyed whatever chance Hagedorn thought he had to pass this protective layer on university professors."
----
"This is something people are talking about, on talk radio, on the street, in the papers," Mr. Schuberth said. "I think it's a winning issue for us, to be honest. It's playing well, and any candidate who talks about academic freedom is going to win support."
Read All>> (free suscription)

Some Documents Are Much Too Important

Mexican emigrant Dario Ibarra, 74, shows his electoral card before heading to Tijuana, Mexico, on a bus leaving from Huntington Park, Calif., to vote in the Mexican presidential election Sunday July 2, 2006. This is the first time in which Mexicans living abroad are able to vote. Image Credit: AP Photo/Stefano Paltera

Do you ever stop and ask yourself -- just how many people that are immigrants, like Dario Ibarra (photo), have managed to register and receive thair electoral card to vote in Mexico, but will NEVER bother to get proper documentation to reside here in the United States?

If photographers can find people who are hopping busses and planes to get to the border to vote, how come our government officals and the people we are paying to manage immigration into the United States can't find these same "target rich" environments?

Excerpts from AP via Yahoo! News -

Mexican migrants in U.S. head to polls
By OLGA R. RODRIGUEZ, Associated Press Writer - 50 minutes ago

TIJUANA, Mexico - Thousands of Mexicans living in the United States traveled by plane, bus and car to Mexican border cities to vote in Sunday's hotly contested presidential election.

The Mexican government set up 86 polling places along the 2,000-mile border, mostly for migrants who missed out on the country's historic absentee ballot campaign.

Across the border from San Diego in Tijuana, a sprawling city of more than 1 million people, out-of-town voters arrived Sunday by bus from Los Angeles and other California cities. Many said they made the trip because they received little information about how to request absentee ballots, lacked the correct voting card, or did not fill out their applications correctly.

Maria Salome Rodriguez, a 38-year-old farm worker, drove eight hours with her husband from Fresno, Calif., and waited for two hours to vote at a polling booth outside Tijuana's airport. She and her husband decided to make the trip to the border after their applications for absentee ballots were rejected because they wrote down the wrong address.
----
Lawmakers approved a law last year to allow the estimated 11 million Mexicans living in the United States to vote by mail for the first time. But the effort was thrown together to beat electoral deadlines, and only about 32,632 absentee ballots from 71 countries were mailed to the Federal Electoral Institute.

Of those, 479 did not meet requirements and were rejected, electoral officials said.
Read All>>

Episcopal Bishops Not In A Gay Mood

General Convention 2006 Logo – Image Credit: Episcopal Church

Anyone who is familiar with tradition based religion would know that the fallout from the Episcopal Convention of a little less that two weeks ago would be quick in coming.

In a move to break away from the U.S. Branch of the Anglican Communion, several bishops ask to be assigned on a trial basis, to report to some one other than the newly elected presiding bishop, Katharine Jefferts Schori.

Excerpts from Reuters via NewsMax -

Anglicans Set for 'Divorce' over Gay Issue
NewsMax.com Wires - Sunday, July 2, 2006

SAN FRANCISCO -- Six conservative Episcopalian bishops opposed to the liberal drift in the U.S. branch of the Anglican Communion are asking for a trial separation, a move hinting at an eventual divorce over irreconcilable differences, some analysts say.

The bishops of the dioceses for Pittsburgh, Fort Worth, Texas, South Carolina, Central Florida, Springfield, Illinois, and San Joaquin, California, appealed this past week to Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams to be assigned somebody other than Katharine Jefferts Schori as their leader.

Conservative Episcopalians say Schori, presiding bishop-elect of the Episcopal Church, would continue to steer the church away from its traditional teachings. She backs church blessings of gay relationships and voted to confirm Gene Robinson, the Episcopal Church's first openly gay bishop.

The move by the bishops underscores the tension within the 2.4 million-member Episcopal Church USA between its conservative and liberal clergy, a schism rooted in views on scripture and church politics concerning homosexuality.

Their appeal suggests the gap between the two sides has grown too wide to bridge.

"It's overdue," said Steven Randall, who resigned as an Episcopalian priest in Maryland to protest Robinson's election. "They believe completely different things."

The appeal coincided with the nomination of the Rev. Canon Michael Barlowe, who is gay, as a finalist to become bishop of the Diocese of Newark, New Jersey, and came as Williams proposed conservative dissenters in the U.S. church be allowed to stand apart from it as associate members.

"We've essentially got two different churches living in the same house," said the Rev. Van McAlister of the San Joaquin diocese. "We're identifying that there is a problem and it needs to be addressed."
----
Introspection may only harden divisions, said Archbishop Robert Morse, who helped found the conservative Anglican Province of Christ the King in the late 1970s in a break with the U.S. church over scriptural and cultural issues.

"What's happening today is an increasingly confused picture," Morse said. "Thirty years ago, we predicted this would happen."

The U.S. church may again be "pruning" itself, said Rev. Susan Russell of All Saints Church in Pasadena, California and president of Integrity, a group for gay Episcopalians. "Episcopalians like to think of themselves as being a broad, generous church," she said. "We may have reached the point where some can no longer live within the tent."
Read All>>

Some might suggest it is not so much that some could no longer live within the same tent ... it just may be that a hoard has moved into the tent and have allowed some of the support poles and the fabric to deteriorate to the point that the tent has become a space where no one is able to live.

The Episcopal Church in the United States isn't a tent; it is just the concept of a tent!

Lost In Translation, Missing Since WWII, Not A Soldier

Yoshiteru Nakagawa, on wheel chair, is greeted by his sister Tomiko Orui, right, as he arrives at Shin Chitose airport, in Chitose, northern Japan, Sunday, July 2, 2006. A 79-year-old Japanese man who was left behind at the end of World War II and recently surfaced in Russia returned to his homeland Sunday for the first time in 67 years to be reunited with his relatives. Image Credit: AP Photo/Kyodo News, Takuro Yabe

This is reminiscent of the time in the late 1970's when a couple of Japanese soldiers "gave themselves up" on Guam, making them the last soldiers fighting WWII to end hostilities.

It is important to note the soldiers on Guam hid out underneath a remote waterfall area in the jungle on the 7 mile by 37 mile island and did not make themselves known to the inhabitants, many of whom were military enjoying a day off swimming in the blue atoll lagoons that surround the island.

This man was hiding in plain sight. It was erroneously recorded that he was missing when, at the age of 12, he was left behind through the exodus from the northern island of Sakhalin (an island about 1/3 the size of the main island of Japan). The Japanese had inhabited this island until Soviet Russia seized control of Sakhalin in the closing days of WWII.

Excerpts from AP via Yahoo! News -

Man missing since WWII returns to Japan
Associated Press - 2 hours, 37 minutes ago

TOKYO - A 79-year-old Japanese man who went missing at the end of World War II and resurfaced nearly six decades later in Russia went back to his homeland Sunday to be reunited with relatives.

Yoshiteru Nakagawa, who disappeared on Sakhalin island in 1945 when the Soviets took it over from Japan, arrived at New Chitose Airport on Japan's northern island of Hokkaido for the first time since he left Japan in 1939, when his family settled on Sakhalin.

"Little did I dream of being able to come back to Japan," Nakagawa, who still lives on Sakhalin, said in halting Japanese as he was escorted to the airport arrival hall, where his relatives greeted him with applause and hugs.

"I'm so overwhelmed with joy I don't even know how to express it in words," he added in Russian.
----
He came forward five years ago and notified the Japanese embassy in Moscow of his intention to visit Japan.

About 400,000 Japanese lived on Sakhalin until the Soviet takeover in the closing days of the war. The majority returned to Japan, but many others were detained in prisons in Siberia.

During his two-week visit hosted by his younger sister Toyoko Chiba, Nakagawa plans to meet with other relatives and visit his parents' grave.
Read All>>

This from Interactive Russia -

Sakhalin Island

Sakhalin (Karafuto in Japanese) is a very long (c.a. 1000 km) but narrow island located between Japanese and Russian maritime territory.

It is separated from Asian continent by a narrow strait of 6 km in width, leading early explorers to record it as a peninsula.

The native people who settled thousands of years ago on Sakhalin Island are the Nivkhi (current population 2,000), the Ul'la or Oroche (population 500) and the Evenki (population 180).

The Nivkhi maintain the allegoric belief that Sakhalin is a giant seal, whose mountains and forests are ruled by the deity, Palis, and whose seas are ruled bu the god, "Tolis".

Rare birds include the white tailed sea eagle, Steller sea eagle, spotted greenshank and Blackston's fish owl.

Brown bears, sable, river otters, musk deer and foxes all live in the forests. Whales, dolphins, sea lions, walruses and a variety of seals feed off Sakhalin's shore line and that of the Kuriles.
----
Travel to the place where the world ends. Or begins. Sakhalin and Kuril Islands are so close to Japan, that they are the first region of Russia to see the new day. Visit these marvelous locations for unforgettable experience of exploring wild and untouched land of pristine nature and magnificent volcanoes. This is a tour of exploration, adventure and relaxation from urban life.
Link Here>>

Ahhh! Island living, time to don the swimsuits!

A Stick In The Spokes At "le Tour de France"

T-Mobile rider Jan Ullrich of Germany, sitting inside a car, leaves the T-Mobile team hotel in Blaesheim, near Strasbourg, eastern France, Friday, June 30 2006. Favorites Jan Ullrich, Ivan Basso and dozens of other cyclists were barred Friday from the Tour de France in a doping scandal, causing a massive upheaval on the eve of cycling's premier race. Tour director Christian Prudhomme said team managers had agreed that riders implicated in a Spanish drug scandal would not be allowed in the race that starts Saturday. Image Credit: AP Photo/Peter Dejong

In what amounts to be a serious move to serve notice that performance enhancing drugs and the practice of doping will not be tolerated in the cycling world, Tour de France officials remove nearly 27% of the starting field one day before the start of the race.

The Tour de France is expected to start Saturday with 50 less riders from a slated starting field of 189. Saturday's prologue of the Tour de France features a 4.4-mile individual time-trial around Strasbourg.

Excerpts from AP via Yahoo! Sports -

Doping scandal strips Tour de France of its favorites
By JAMEY KEATEN, Associated Press Writer - Updated on Friday, Jun 30, 2006 1:11 pm EDT (Associated Press Writers Mar Roman in Madrid and John Leicester in Strasbourg contributed to this report.)

STRASBOURG, France (AP) -- A doping scandal knocked Tour de France favorites Jan Ullrich and Ivan Basso out of the race Friday and threw the world's most glamorous cycling event into chaos.

The decision to bar Ullrich, Basso and others implicated in a doping probe in Spain also sent a strong signal that cheating, or even suspicions of cheating, will not be tolerated.

Tour director Christian Prudhomme said organizers' determination to fight doping was "total."

"The enemy is not cycling, the enemy is doping," he said the day before the start of the Tour.

Riders being excluded will not be replaced, meaning a smaller field than the 189 racers originally expected. And that's not even counting the absence of Lance Armstrong, who retired after winning his seventh straight Tour last year.

It is the biggest doping crisis to the hit the sport since the Festina scandal in 1998 nearly derailed the Tour. The Festina team was ejected from the race after customs officers found a large stash of banned drugs in a team car.

Basso, winner of the Giro d'Italia, and Ullrich -- the 1997 Tour winner and a five-time runner-up -- were among more than 50 cyclists said to have been implicated in the probe that has rocked the sport for weeks.
----
Basso and Ullrich's teams said Friday that because their names had come up in the probe they were being withdrawn from the Tour. Ullrich's T-Mobile squad said it also suspended rider Oscar Sevilla and sporting director Rudy Pevenage because of their involvement.

Ullrich insisted he was innocent, and vowed to fight the allegations.

"The only thing I can say so far is that I'm shocked, that I still have nothing to do with this, that I'm a victim now and that I'm prepared (for the Tour) in this year like never before," Ullrich told reporters outside his hotel near Strasbourg, before leaving for home.
----
The Spanish scandal erupted in May when police carried out arrests and raids, seizing drugs and frozen blood thought to have been readied for banned, performance-enhancing transfusions.

Since then, the names of riders said to have had contacts with Eufemiano Fuentes, a doctor among those arrested, have leaked in Spanish media.
Then, after more leaks on Thursday, Spanish authorities released details from the probe to Tour organizers and other cycling bodies, showing which riders were implicated in the investigation. It was on the basis of that official information that Tour teams decided to act.
----
"It would be big chaos if those riders remain in the race," said the manager of Basso's team, Bjarne Riis. "We have to protect cycling."
Read All>>

Here A Penny, There A Penny, No More?

Image Credit: USAToday

Oil is up, Gold is up, it turns out that the prices of the common metals that make up our coinage are up as well.

It now costs more to manufacture and distribute a penny (or a nickel) than it is worth as money. This turn of events has some in Congress wondering if they should vote to scrap these coins altogether.

Don't try melting down the hoard you may have in the coin jar though, it will cost you more in effort and energy, not to mention marketing than the metals you have at the end of the process ... so just keep the jar, it makes a good paperweight/doorjamb.

Excerpts from USAToday via Yahoo! News -

Coins cost more to make than face value
By Barbara Hagenbaugh, USA TODAY

WASHINGTON — The next time someone offers you a penny for your thoughts, you might want to take them up on it.

For the first time in U.S. history, the cost of manufacturing both a penny and a nickel is more than the 1-cent and 5-cent values of the coins themselves.

Skyrocketing metals prices are behind the increase, the U.S. Mint said in a letter to members of Congress last week.

The Mint estimates it will cost 1.23 cents per penny and 5.73 cents per nickel this fiscal year, which ends Sept. 30. The cost of producing a penny has risen 27% in the last year, while nickel manufacturing costs have risen 19%.

The estimates take into account rising metals prices as well as processing, labor and transportation costs. Based on current metals prices, the value of the metal in a nickel alone is a little more than 5 cents. The metal in a penny, however, is still worth less than a penny.
----
Metals prices have been soaring this year as a strong economy worldwide has led to an increase in demand. The prices of metals used in coins are all rising: Zinc is up 76% this year, copper is up 68%, and nickel is up 42%, according to the London Metal Exchange.
----
The Mint is one of the few government agencies that makes a profit.

The Federal Reserve, which distributes money to banks, pays face value for coins. If a coin costs less to manufacture than the face value, the Mint makes a profit.

Last year, the Mint's coin-making profit was $730 million. Mint officials estimate the added penny and nickel expenses will reduce the Mint's profit this year by $45 million.

Coin compositions, which are set by Congress, have been changed in the past because of rising costs. The penny has been altered several times since it was first changed from pure copper in 1837 to add other metals.
Read All>>

You guessed it, as usual, the Government still "makes a profit" through a ponzi scheme supported by the law of the people!

Privacy And Convenience Go Head To Head

Image Credit: Google

Google believes that it has the answer for the convenience of online shopping with its release of its new service - Google Checkout.

eBay’s PayPal and Microsoft's former attempt at streamlining the online checkout process, Passport, have tried to address the security and convenience concerns of retailers and buyers alike, but neither have been able to make the processes deliver sales at the end of the shopping experience.

Google is banking on the trust built through owning the private information of the online shopper and insuring its privacy, they can deliver valuable purchasing information to retailers so that the retailer can market more directly to its potential target market.

What is the convenience to the online shopper? To be able to purchase online as if one had a "Mobile SpeedPass", in that the shopper would not need to enter private purchasing information for every shopping experience at every online retailer.

The rub is this -- Can shoppers trust Google to treat the information and its potential monopolistic power with a strong enough respect over time? There lay many strong temptations to play with this information and its collective power to the detriment of the user of the service.

Excerpts from Reuters via Yahoo! News -

Google Checkout to make debut
By Lisa Baertlein Thu Jun 29, 12:46 AM ET

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Google Inc. (Nasdaq:GOOG - news) on Thursday will launch a long-awaited service called Google Checkout, which some analysts said could help online merchants boost sales and convince them to commit more advertising money to the Web search leader.

Analysts were mixed on whether the product, initially available only in the United States, puts eBay Inc.'s (Nasdaq:EBAY - news) PayPal online payment system in Google's competitive sights.

The new offering, referred to in news and analyst reports as GBuy or Google Wallet, promises online sellers an easy way to add a checkout to their sites and can be used in addition to other options such as PayPal or a merchant's own pay system.

Google said Checkout stores names, shipping and credit card information and eliminates the need for consumers to resubmit that data with each purchase. Google is responsible for processing the credit card payments and keeping data safe.

"We think we're making e-commerce a lot more efficient and easier to use," Salar Kamangar, Google's vice president of product management, told Reuters.

Google charges merchants 2 percent of the value of each sale plus 20 cents per transaction -- a fee that early users said was in line with other options. The company rewards its advertisers by offering them $10 in free sales processing for every dollar they spend on its advertising program, AdWords.
----
Forrester analyst Charlene Li and early users such as Buy.com said it will expand the market by giving consumers another way to pay.
----
If Google helps Web retailers sell more, they could be persuaded to spend more money on AdWords, Li said.

"It's a win, win, win all around."
----
"Google is looking at exactly the right problem," said John Bresee, president of Backcountry.com, which specializes in high-end outdoor gear and had $52 million in revenue in 2005.

The company, along with online stores run by Starbucks Corp. (Nasdaq:SBUX - news), Timberland (NYSE:TBL - news), Levi Strauss & Co. and underwear seller Jockey, is among the first to try Checkout.
----
"What we may discover is that Google knows a lot about search, but they don't know a lot about the way consumers are shopping. We just don't know," Bresee said.

In storing personal data, Google Checkout is reminiscent of Passport, Microsoft's online wallet, which bumped into security and privacy issues and failed to live up to the software titan's expectations after its launch about seven years ago.
----
Li predicted an eventual backlash as Google pushes ahead with its goal to be the world's information clearinghouse and encounters inevitable customer service problems.

"Whereas Microsoft wanted to own the desktop, Google wants the monopoly on your information," she said, noting Checkout also provides buyers with a purchase history that shows where they spend their money. "I'm concerned that they could fall into a situation where they're the next Microsoft."
Read All>>

Laptop Records Employee Identity Theft Is Epidemic

At a conference in Japan, a Dell laptop suddenly exploded into flames, and lucky for its owner the fiery blast occurred while the PC was sitting on a table and not in his lap. An onlooker reported that the notebook continued to burn, producing several more explosions over the course of about five minutes. It’s only a matter of time before something like this happens on an airplane. [editor's note: at least the records will not be comprimised] Photo Credit: Charlie White – 6-21-2006 (HT: Gizmodo)

The U.S. Military is not the only organization to suffer from personnel records being compromised when a laptop is stolen. This stuff happens in the private sector as well. In fact it has happened twice to a major food marketing company this month alone.

Why are public and private employee records allowed to be transported on laptop computers that can be stolen and possibly compromised? Why aren’t these records kept on database media that is encrypted and locked down much like PDF documents while they are being moved around from location to location?

Forgive me if I am wrong, but in our society, don’t we take better care of our copyrighted sales brochure and procedure manuals data than we take care of our employee identity data?

Excerpts from Progressive Grocer -

Laptop with Ahold Employees' Confidential Info Swiped -- Again
Progressive Grocer, JUNE 27, 2006

QUINCY, Mass. -- In the second such incident to occur this month involving one of Ahold USA's external service providers, a laptop computer containing the personal information of current and former company employees was stolen during a domestic commercial airline flight.

Ahold USA spokesman Barry F. Scher told Progressive Grocer that Ahold here wasnít responsible for either of the security breaches. "We're the victims," Scher said.

A Deloitte Accountants spokesman told PG that the information on the stolen computer was password-protected. Deloitte spokesman Jeff Zack confirmed that one of its employees had violated company policy by checking the computer as luggage on an airline flight. According to Zack, the incident has been reported to airline and law enforcement authorities.

The information was about current and former associates who received or exercised stock options last year, Scher told PG. Ahold and Deloitte Accountants would not disclose any further details about what kind of personal information was stored on the computer, when the laptop was stolen, or how many current and former employees were affected.

There so far has been no evidence that information relating to any current or former associate has been misused, Ahold noted in a written statement.

"While our company has substantial policies and procedures concerning data confidentiality, both internally and with external service providers, we are undertaking a comprehensive review of such policies," Scher said in the statement. "We plan to evaluate and, if appropriate, implement additional safeguards upon completion of this review, and we will require our external service providers to confirm their compliance."

Earlier in June, an employee of Electronic Data Systems who was boarding a commercial flight had checked a laptop containing former Ahold employees' pension information, and the computer was also reportedly subsequently stolen. Current employees' information wasn't stored on the first stolen computer, officials said.
Read All>>