The Real Survivor Fiji – Military Rule Slaps Hard

The Real Survivor Fiji – Military Rule Slaps Hard

This can not be good for a tribal peoples just wanting to be able to pursue and share their lives with others in a modern world.

In the last week, The Commodore dispatches the Council of Chiefs because they felt that they had the right to voice their opinion as to whom the second in command should, or should not be. The Commodore did not like the fact that their opinion would be different than his … but isn’t this the reason why Frank felt he had the right to take charge of a democratically elected Government in the first place? That anyone in a leadership role might actually have thinking powers that were different than HIS own?

The Free World needs to step in and save Fiji before Commodore Frank Bainimarama gets down to firing the “Dog Catcher” … or have the population die from poor Governmental Health management factors!

These excerpts from Bloomberg (Austrailia) -

Fiji Anti-Corruption Body Given `Draconian' Powers, Lawyer Says
By Emma O'Brien - April 23 - Bloomberg

A body set up by Fiji's caretaker government to investigate corruption has powers of arrest and interrogation that break the law and constitution, a spokeswoman for the country's law society said.

The Independent Commission Against Corruption is empowered to issue its own arrest and search warrants and seize people suspected of living beyond their means. Those charged will be considered guilty until they prove themselves innocent.

``It's sinister, the fact they have all these powers which appear to be Draconian,'' Tupou Draunidalo, vice president of the Fiji Law Society said in a telephone interview from the capital, Suva, on April 19. ``It's so fundamental, that you're innocent until proven guilty in this country.''

The decree establishing the commission, approved by the president of the Pacific island nation several weeks ago, was published April 18, President Ratu Josefa Iloilo's spokesman Rupeni Nacewa said last week from Suva. Army chief Commodore Voreqe Bainimarama promised to ``clean up'' Fiji after he overthrew the government of Prime Minister Laisenia Qarase in December, accusing it of corruption.

Iloilo was re-appointed president in January after being deposed in the Dec. 5 coup, the country's fourth takeover in 19 years. Bainimarama became interim prime minister a month after the takeover and said elections may not be held until 2010.

The commission will be made up of a chief investigator assisted by about eight corruption investigators.

Common Law

The power given to the panel ``appears to break various sections of the constitution and common law,'' Draunidalo said.

Fiji's legal system is based on British common law, which enshrines the right to be regarded as innocent until proven otherwise in a court of law.

The interim government is justifying the sweeping powers through the doctrine of necessity, she said. Fiji's constitution allows for decrees to be made by the president if the country is so unstable that parliament can't meet.

``There's no reason the parliament can't meet,'' Draunidalo said. ``The military just won't let it happen.''

Aiyaz Sayed-Khaiyum, Fiji's interim attorney-general said the new commission was based on Hong Kong's anti-corruption body.
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The penalties for engaging in bribery have been stiffened, Sayed-Khaiyum said, with the sentence increased from the current six to nine months to 10 to 15 years under a prevention of bribery promulgation enacted last week.

Holding Elections

Fiji is considering holding elections some time in the next 36 months, following a meeting between European Union and Fijian government officials last week in Brussels, Sayed-Khaiyum said.

In an April 20 statement, the EU called on Fiji to hold a poll within two years and to lift in May a state of emergency in place since the coup. In return, the EU said it expects ``to avoid the loss of development cooperation'' that provides aid to the Fijian sugar industry, the statement said.

The 27-nation body threatened to cut all ties with Fiji following the coup, and scrap a $422 million aid package. Fiji's sugar industry, which employs 45,000 people, would collapse if the aid was withdrawn, the Sugar and General Workers' Union said shortly after the coup.
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Yep! That is what a former freely elected democratic nation needs - More Decrees from Commodore Frank!

The Real Survivor Fiji – Physical Disease Follows Political Disease

Bacteria, contamination, and a general breakdown of the attention to detail just may be the reason for outbreaks of illness and death on Fiji ... or maybe it is just a coincidence.

There is a reason that most all successful governments throughout the world are NOT military. The military may be good as a deterrent of outside forces taking over a government and a Nation State, but the military is almost never any good at caring for the people they were formed to protect. Quite frankly, it requires a different skill set.

Fiji suffers as a selfish (as opposed to serving) military governs.

Excerpts from The Sydney Morning Herald -

Three dead, scores ill in Fiji disease outbreak
Fairfax Digital - April 19, 2007 - 11:16AM

Three people have died and scores have become ill in outbreaks of typhoid and leptospirosis in Fiji

Acting director of Public Health in Fiji, Dr Josaia Samuela, said one person had died and 77 people had been confirmed with typhoid since the beginning of the year, most in recent weeks.

There has also been reports of two deaths and 22 confirmed cases of leptospirosis, a bacterial disease.

Samuela said no tourists had been reported ill with typhoid or leptospirosis, and the outbreaks appeared confined to rural areas where visitors were unlikely to go.

Samuela said a 32-year-old school teacher had died over the Easter weekend and several students had come down with typhoid, probably after a carrier contaminated food at a feast.

"There was probably a gathering, a feast, where food and water is shared. It was all of a sudden, when a group of people fell ill," Samuela said.

He said leptospirosis was normally transferred to people from dogs and rodents.
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Australia yesterday expanded its warnings about travel to post-coup Fiji to cover outbreaks of typhoid and mumps.

The Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade says its overall message remains: "Exercise a high degree of caution when travelling in Fiji due to the volatile political and security situation following the military coup of December 5.

"The security situation remains uncertain and reactions to the coup could lead to violent clashes."

But the advisory now also adds: "An outbreak of typhoid has been reported in Fiji, affecting the areas around Natewa Bay and Buca Bay on Fiji's northern island of Vanua Levu.
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Samuela said it was possible Cyclone Cliff, which tore through Vanua Levu on April 4 and affected water supplies, had worsened the situation.

He said carriers of typhoid were people who had completely recovered from the illness, but could spread infection for the rest of their lives if their urine or faeces contaminated food.
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Samuela said people in Fiji were not vaccinated against mumps because of the cost of the inoculations, but there had been no jump in reported cases.

Symptoms of typhoid varied, but were often confused with influenza and could include a very high fever, headache, loss of appetite, weakness or a cough, he said.

Symptoms of leptospirosis can include high fever, severe headache, chills, muscle aches, vomiting, jaundice, red eyes, abdominal pain, diarrhoea or a rash.
Reference Here>>

So the person who is responsible for keeping track of the health and safety of the people who live and visit the island nation "feels people in Fiji were not vaccinated against mumps because of the cost of the inoculations".

We at MAXINE have this question - So just when does an occupying military have to take responsibility for its actions when the nation it is occupying is its own?

Truth? Fiction? A Sense Or Nonsense Film Premier

“An Inconvenient Truth ... Or Convenient Fiction?” is an entertaining, fact-based look at the climate change issue featuring Dr. Steven Hayward, PRI Director of Environmental Studies and F.K. Weyerhauser, Fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. Image Credit: Pacific Research Institute

Truth? Fiction? A Sense Or Nonsense Film Premier

Today, the film premier of "An Inconvenient Truth … Or Convenient Fiction?" is being presented by the Pacific Research Institute in San Francisco at the Embarcadero Center Cinema - 1 Embarcadero Center, San Francisco, CA 94111.

The film will be premiered at NO COST with the Reception to start at 7:00 pm, with the Screening to begin at 7:30 pm.

Further, two more movie premieres are scheduled for:

April 18, 2007 Movie screening – Washington, D.C.

April 24, 2007 Movie screening – New York City

The movie is the work of Dr. Steven Hayward, PRI Senior Fellow in Environmental Studies, American Enterprise Institute F.K. Weyerhaeuser Fellow. Image Credit: Pacific Research Institute

To provide an additional insight to the work of Dr. Steven Hayward, here is an assay about the alarmist focus being brought to the issue of climate change, and more specifically, the hysteria that is intention of Al Gore's recent Oscar winning film, "An Inconvenient Truth".

This from an opinion essay posted at the Pacific Research Institute -

Gore on the Rocks
by Steven F. Hayward - March 21, 2007

Consensus is reached: Gore’s global-warming alarmism is overblown.

As international celebrity and film star Al Gore prepared to testify about global warming on Capitol Hill on Wednesday, it was already apparent that the hot air may be leaking out of the global-warming balloon.

After a year of concentrated effort that includes a multimillion-dollar p.r. campaign on top of An Inconvenient Truth and slavish media coverage parroting the climate-alarmist line, recent polls show that public opinion has barely budged. Only about a third of Americans, according to a recent Gallup survey, are agitated about climate change, and even people who say the environment is their most important issue rank climate change behind air and water quality in importance.

Meanwhile a backlash in the scientific community has begun. Last week, New York Times veteran science reporter William Broad filed a devastating article about scientists who are “alarmed” at Gore’s alarmism; Gore’s account of global warming goes far beyond the evidence. The dissents from Gore’s extremism, Broad explained, “come not only from conservative groups and prominent skeptics of catastrophic warming, but also from rank-and-file scientists” who have “no political ax to grind.” It appears Gore refused to be interviewed directly for the article; he responded to e-mail questions only.

This backlash has been quietly building for a while. In November, Mike Hulme, director of Britain’s Tyndall Center for Climate Change Research, expressed his unease about climate alarmism to the BBC:

I have found myself increasingly chastised by climate change campaigners when my public statements and lectures on climate change have not satisfied their thirst for environmental drama and exaggerated rhetoric. It seems that it is we, the professional climate scientists, who are now the [catastrophe] skeptics. How the wheel turns. Why is it not just campaigners, but politicians and scientists too, who are openly confusing the language of fear, terror and disaster with the observable physical reality of climate change, actively ignoring the careful hedging which surrounds science’s predictions? To state that climate change will be ‘catastrophic’ hides a cascade of value-laden assumptions which do not emerge from empirical or theoretical science.

Then in December, Kevin Vranes of the University of Colorado, by no means a climate skeptic, commented on a widely read science blog about his sense of the mood of the most recent meeting of the American Geophysical Union, where Gore had made his standard climate presentation. “To sum the state of the climate science world in one word, as I see it right now, it is this: tension,” Vranes wrote. “What I am starting to hear is internal backlash. . . None of this is to say that the risk of climate change is being questioned or downplayed by our community; it’s not. It is to say that I think some people feel that we’ve created a monster by limiting the ability of people in our community to question results that say ‘climate change is right here!’”

Gore and other climate extremists have been hammering away at “consensus” science for years now — especially the assessments produced by the U.N.’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). So it is a highly inconvenient truth that the latest IPCC scientific assessment undermines many of Gore’s most spectacular claims. The IPCC says the worst-case sea-level rise this century would be 23 inches; Gore portrays 20 feet or more in his horror film. Ditto for Gore’s claims about hurricanes and melting ice caps; the new IPCC fails to bolster Gore’s alarmism. Already climate alarmists are starting to mutter under their breath that the IPCC is now “too conservative,” but having built up the IPCC as the gold standard of “consensus” science, the alarmists are in the awkward position of being hoist by their own petard. It could be an inconvenient moment for Gore on Wednesday if someone asks him why he is so far outside the scientific consensus on so many aspects of the issue.

A new anti-alarmist documentary from Britain’s iconoclastic Channel Four, The Great Global Warming Swindle, is attracting Internet viewers by the millions. And the most significant blow to climate alarmism came last week in New York, where in a formal debate MIT’s Richard Lindzen and author Michael Crichton decisively defeated the alarmists in an audience vote. You know there is something fundamentally weak about the case for climate catastrophe when you see an alarmist attributing the skeptics’ victory to Crichton’s height rather than the substance of the arguments.

The biggest blow to the climate catastrophists is not any scientific problem, but the hypocrisy of Gore and his Hollywood cheering section, whose profligate energy use cannot be mitigated in the popular mind through “carbon offsets,” even if such offsets worked as advertised. Liberals in the 1960s and 1970s never comprehended how damaging “limousine liberalism” was to their cause. They seem even more oblivious to the self-inflicted wounds of “Gulfstream liberalism.” Whatever the intricacies of climate science, middle-class citizens understand that Gore wants them to use less energy and pay more for it, while he and his Hollywood pals use as much as they want and buy their way out of guilt, like a medieval indulgence. In the companion book to An Inconvenient Truth, Gore writes that “a good way to reduce the amount of energy you use is simply to buy less. Before making a purchase, ask yourself if you really need it.” Gore decided that he does need it — for all four of his homes and his pool house.

The ultimate sign that climate change is more about politics than science is the repeated “go-slow” statements of Speaker Nancy Pelosi and other Democratic leaders. If climate change is really the greatest threat in mankind’s history, with the catastrophic tipping point less than 10 years away, why go slow in crafting legislation to save the planet? Perhaps Pelosi and other congressional Democrats have paid attention to the overwhelming consensus of economists — one climate consensus that Gore resolutely ignores — that serious greenhouse-gas emission cuts fail every conceivable cost-benefit test. Faced with the climate-policy equivalent of HillaryCare, Pelosi would prefer to save her majority rather than save the planet.
Reference Here>>

We are told at MAXINE, that DVD's and clips of the movie will be made available at the Pacific Research Institute website and that it is expected to be posted on YouTube. When it becomes available at YouTube ... it will be posted here.

UPDATE: Video
(ht: Power Line)

Poverty Pimps Persistent Pop-Offs

Radio personality Don Imus, left, and Rev. Al Sharpton appear face-to-face on Rev. Sharpton's radio show, in New York Monday April 9, 2007. Imus issued another apology for referring to the Rutgers women's basketball team as 'nappy-headed hos' on his morning show last week. Image Credit: AP Photo/Richard Drew

Poverty Pimps Persistent Pop-Offs

Where is the equity?

Where is the context calculation?

Where is their collective gun always aimed?

This is NOT a defense of Don Imus and the general degradation of behavior found throughout our society.

This posting is a calling out of those in the “Poverty Pimp” industry to start aiming their collective gun at the real degradation and objectification of those in their own segment of society as represented by the lyrics written and recorded by the likes of 50Cent, AKON, & SnoopDog as well as the actions of the real pimps that run their game on Hollywood and Sunset boulevards.

Address the REAL COST to society overall when the people do not respect people and this standard is not applied equally between different groups in our society and culture. On this standard, where are the Reverend Jesse Jackson, Reverend Al Sharpton, Marc H. Morial - National Urban League, and the corporate capitulators at NBC-Universal?

At MAXINE, we ask – Where is the outrage and where is the action at calling on Corporate America to hold to the higher standard when they (the Poverty Pimps) allow these recording artists and others in the African-American community to trash people (especially Black Americans) through their actions as they are holding to account Don Imus for his actions?

This opinion found in The New York Daily News -

A dangerous detour
Cycles of outrage and apology distract blacks from confronting many big, chronic problems
BY JOHN McWHORTER - Tuesday, April 10th 2007, 8:34 AM (McWhorter, a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute, is author of the book "Winning the Race.")

You can count on about one a month.

Last August it was Sen. George Allen's (R-Va.) "macaca" comment that led to the usual editorials about the "persistence of racism in America" and the duty of good-thinking people to police the country for "offensive language." Allen apologized.

We were barely past that episode when Michael Richards tossed off the N-word in a meltdown during a standup routine when some black men heckled him. More policing, more talk shows exploring the issue. Richards apologized, with the Rev. Jesse Jackson in tow.

Upon which Sen. Joseph Biden (D-Del.) was dragged through the mud for calling Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) "articulate and bright and clean." Never mind that if you look at the actual transcript, he meant something different from what was reported. This was still water-cooler talk for a couple of weeks, complete with the Op-Eds and the requisite apology.

Not long ago, a radio host in Texas, making fun of Biden, called Obama a "clean darky." The local NAACP was up in arms.

Writing about this kind of thing a little while ago, I predicted that there would be a new episode the following week. I was off by seven days. Now it's Don Imus on the coals for saying that the women on Rutgers' basketball team are "nappy-headed ho's."

We know the drill. Reflective sorts have been tsk-tsking over Imus. Condemning him. Imus, just suspended, will be trotted out as one more example that on racism in America we've come a long way, but we have a ... (need I even finish?).

And what will the point be? What, really, is the goal of these monthly performances over something someone says in passing and usually in jest? If the goal is to stop people from ever uttering anything that can be construed as belittling to people of color, it doesn't appear to be working.

We have already succeeded in making the outright abusive wielding of racial slurs unacceptable in American society. Nicholas (Fat Nick) Minucci, the Howard Beach, Queens, twentysomething who assaulted a black man with a bat while shouting the N-word, deserved to go to prison.

However, the quest for an America where no one ever makes passing observations that are less than respectful of minority groups is futile. And why are so many of us so obsessed with chasing that rainbow anyway? The truth is that black people who go to pieces whenever anyone says a little something are revealing that they are not too sure about themselves.

Imus hosts a radio show and a lot of people listen to it. During a few seconds last week he said something tacky. The show went on, as did life. Black people continued to constitute most new AIDS cases, black men continued to come out of prison unsupervised. And we're supposed to be most interested in Imus saying "nappy-headed ho's"?

What creates that hypersensitivity is a poor racial self-image. Where, after all, did Imus pick up the very terminology he used? Rap music and the language young black people use themselves on the street to refer to one another.

What Imus said is lowdown indeed, but so is the way blacks refer to each other. And life goes on.

Street theater is not strength.

It saps energy better put to other uses. The focus we'll be dedicating to the next gaffe sometime in (this time I'll give myself a little more wiggle room) May will mean that much less commitment to addressing black people's real problems.
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After seeing the reaction on the morning shows, we can not help to think ... that the level of the "outrage" expressed over Don Imus, who has been doing this type of shock degradation for about 30 years on his program, isn't fueled by his open refusal to have Hillary Clinton on his program for an interview.

Hummmmmmmmm?!

UPDATE: Jason Whitlock of Kansas City weighs in with his cultural perspective -

Imus isn’t the real bad guy
Instead of wasting time on irrelevant shock jock, black leaders need to be fighting a growing gangster culture.
JASON WHITLOCK - Kansas City Star - April 11, 2007

Thank you, Don Imus. You’ve given us (black people) an excuse to avoid our real problem.

You’ve given Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson another opportunity to pretend that the old fight, which is now the safe and lucrative fight, is still the most important fight in our push for true economic and social equality.
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Thank you, Don Imus. You extended Black History Month to April, and we can once again wallow in victimhood, protest like it’s 1965 and delude ourselves into believing that fixing your hatred is more necessary than eradicating our self-hatred.

The bigots win again.

While we’re fixated on a bad joke cracked by an irrelevant, bad shock jock, I’m sure at least one of the marvelous young women on the Rutgers basketball team is somewhere snapping her fingers to the beat of 50 Cent’s or Snoop Dogg’s or Young Jeezy’s latest ode glorifying nappy-headed pimps and hos.

I ain’t saying Jesse, Al and Vivian are gold-diggas, but they don’t have the heart to mount a legitimate campaign against the real black-folk killas.

It is us. At this time, we are our own worst enemies. We have allowed our youths to buy into a culture (hip hop) that has been perverted, corrupted and overtaken by prison culture. The music, attitude and behavior expressed in this culture is anti-black, anti-education, demeaning, self-destructive, pro-drug dealing and violent.

Rather than confront this heinous enemy from within, we sit back and wait for someone like Imus to have a slip of the tongue and make the mistake of repeating the things we say about ourselves.
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I’m no Don Imus apologist. He and his tiny companion Mike Lupica blasted me after I fell out with ESPN. Imus is a hack.

But, in my view, he didn’t do anything outside the norm for shock jocks and comedians. He also offered an apology. That should’ve been the end of this whole affair. Instead, it’s only the beginning. It’s an opportunity for Stringer, Jackson and Sharpton to step on victim platforms and elevate themselves and their agenda$.

I watched the Rutgers news conference and was ashamed.

Martin Luther King Jr. spoke for eight minutes in 1963 at the March on Washington. At the time, black people could be lynched and denied fundamental rights with little thought. With the comments of a talk-show host most of her players had never heard of before last week serving as her excuse, Vivian Stringer rambled on for 30 minutes about the amazing season her team had.

Somehow, we’re supposed to believe that the comments of a man with virtually no connection to the sports world ruined Rutgers’ wonderful season. Had a broadcaster with credibility and a platform in the sports world uttered the words Imus did, I could understand a level of outrage.

But an hourlong press conference over a man who has already apologized, already been suspended and is already insignificant is just plain intellectually dishonest. This is opportunism. This is a distraction.

In the grand scheme, Don Imus is no threat to us in general and no threat to black women in particular. If his words are so powerful and so destructive and must be rebuked so forcefully, then what should we do about the idiot rappers on BET, MTV and every black-owned radio station in the country who use words much more powerful and much more destructive?

I don’t listen or watch Imus’ show regularly. Has he at any point glorified selling crack cocaine to black women? Has he celebrated black men shooting each other randomly? Has he suggested in any way that it’s cool to be a baby-daddy rather than a husband and a parent?

Does he tell his listeners that they’re suckers for pursuing education and that they’re selling out their race if they do?

When Imus does any of that, call me and I’ll get upset. Until then, he is what he is — a washed-up shock jock who is very easy to ignore when you’re not looking to be made a victim.

No. We all know where the real battleground is. We know that the gangsta rappers and their followers in the athletic world have far bigger platforms to negatively define us than some old white man with a bad radio show. There’s no money and lots of danger in that battle, so Jesse and Al are going to sit it out.
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'Nuff Said! ... and then, maybe not!

UPDATE 4-11-2007: Imus gets the "Poverty Pimp/Corporate Capitulating" boot

The Rev. Jesse Jackson leads a protest outside Chicago's NBC Studios Monday, April 9, 2007, calling for the firing of radio talk show host Don Imus for his offensive comments about the Rutgers women's basketball team. Image Credit: AP Photo/Charles Rex Arbogast

Imus gets the "Poverty Pimp/Corporate Capitulating" boot

It came down to a New York media mafia moment that had the squinty eyed, scruffy looking Steven Capus, President of NBC NEWS - NBC-Universal, to stand small for selective standards.

This dropping of the Imus In The Morning simulcast comes just before a fund raising marathon for Sudden Infant Death Syndrome and the Imus Ranch for kids with cancer.

Will NBC-Universal now have the backbone to curb the dialog and uplift the conversation throughout the rest of the properties it promotes and makes money from ... like the lyrics and actions found in videos in their many RAP and Hip-Hop stable of artists?

In a style as Don Imus would be fond of saying - It's sad to see Steve Capus become the "butt boy" for the clamoring and attitudes of the Rev. Jesse Jackson, Rev. Al Sharpton, and others who gain in the one way exchange of the shakedown paradigm.

I know Don Imus has hurt people along the way throughout his 30+ year broadcasting career, but if you are going to cancel him because of those feelings (ala Al Roker) then at least be honest about that.

MSNBC's action came after a growing list of sponsors — including American Express Co., Sprint Nextel Corp., Staples Inc., Procter & Gamble Co., and General Motors Corp. — said they were pulling ads from Imus' show for the indefinite future.

Maybe these advertisers would like to pull their ads and call for the removal of Robert Johnson, President of the cable channel - BET?

At MAXINE, we won't be holding our breath.

Final IMUS Update ... the other shoe drops:

Racist remarks cost Imus CBS radio job
By DAVID BAUDER, AP Television Writer - 4-12-2007

NEW YORK - Don Imus' racist remarks got him fired by CBS on Thursday, the finale to a stunning fall for one of the nation's most prominent broadcasters.

Imus was initially suspended for two weeks after he called the Rutgers women's basketball team "nappy-headed hos" on the air last week. But outrage kept growing and advertisers kept bolting from his CBS radio show and its MSNBC simulcast, which was canceled Wednesday.

"There has been much discussion of the effect language like this has on our young people, particularly young women of color trying to make their way in this society," CBS President and Chief Executive Officer Leslie Moonves said in announcing the decision. "That consideration has weighed most heavily on our minds as we made our decision."
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The team met with Imus for about three hours at the governor's mansion in Princeton, N.J. Thursday night. Imus left without commenting to reporters, but C. Vivian Stringer, the team's coach, spoke briefly on the mansion's steps.

"We had a very productive meeting," she said. "We were able to really dialogue. ... Hopefully, we can put all of this behind us."
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Imus was fired in the middle of a two-day radio fundraiser for children's charities. CBS announced that Imus' wife, Deirdre, and his longtime newsman, Charles McCord, will host Friday's show.

The cantankerous Imus, once named one of the 25 Most Influential People in America by Time magazine and a member of the National Broadcasters Hall of Fame, was one of radio's original shock jocks. His career took flight in the 1970s and with a cocaine- and vodka-fueled outrageous humor. After sobering up, he settled into a mix of highbrow talk about politics and culture, with locker room humor sprinkled in.

He issued repeated apologies as protests intensified. But it wasn't enough as everyone from Hillary Clinton to Barack Obama (news, bio, voting record) to Oprah Winfrey joined the criticism.

The Rev. Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson met with Moonves on Thursday to demand Imus' removal.

Jackson called the firing "a victory for public decency. No one should use the public airwaves to transmit racial or sexual degradation."

Said Sharpton: "He says he wants to be forgiven. I hope he continues in that process. But we cannot afford a precedent established that the airways can commercialize and mainstream sexism and racism."
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It's also likely to trigger a wider debate about expression and forgiveness. Some of Imus' fans have pointed to inflammatory statements made by Sharpton and Jackson in the past, or in the lyrics of popular music.

Losing Imus will be a financial hit to CBS Radio, which also suffered when Howard Stern departed for satellite radio. The program earns about $15 million in annual revenue for CBS, which owns Imus' home radio station WFAN-AM and manages Westwood One, the company that syndicates the show nationally. One potential replacement: the sports show "Mike & the Mad Dog," which airs afternoons on WFAN.

The radiothon had raised more than $1.3 million Thursday before Imus learned that he had lost his job. The annual event has raised more than $40 million since 1990.

"This may be our last radiothon, so we need to raise about $100 million," Imus cracked at the start of the event.

Volunteers were getting about 200 more pledges per hour than they did last year, with most callers expressing support for Imus, said phone bank supervisor Tony Gonzalez. The event benefited Tomorrows Children's Fund, the CJ Foundation for SIDS and the Imus Ranch.

Imus, whose suspension was supposed to start next week, was in the awkward situation of broadcasting Thursday's radio program from the MSNBC studios in New Jersey, even though NBC News said the night before that MSNBC would no longer simulcast his program on television.
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The list of his potential guests began to shrink, too.

Newsweek Editor Jon Meacham said the magazine's staffers would no longer appear on Imus' show. Meacham, Jonathan Alter, Evan Thomas, Howard Fineman and Michael Isikoff from Newsweek have been frequent guests.

Imus has complained bitterly about a lack of support from one black politician, Harold Ford Jr., even though he strongly backed Ford's campaign for Senate in Tennessee last year. Ford, now head of the Democratic Leadership Council, said Thursday he'll leave it to others to decide Imus' future.

"I don't want to be viewed as piling on right now because Don Imus is a good friend and a decent man," Ford said. "However, he did a reprehensible thing."

Imus' troubles have also affected his wife, whose book "Green This!" came out this week. Her promotional tour has been called off "because of the enormous pressure that Deirdre and her family are under," said Simon & Schuster publicist Victoria Meyer.

People are buying it, though: An original printing of 45,000 was increased to 55,000.

Imus still has a lot of support among radio managers across the country, many of whom grew up listening to him, said Tom Taylor, editor of the trade publication Inside Radio.
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Bets Placed, Cards Played, Will Power Takes The Pot!

Winner Will Power shares podium with P2-Robert Doornbos and P3-Paul Tracy. Will celebrates by sailing a hat into the crowd. Image Credit: Jalopnik's Las Vegas local, Curtis Walker

Bets Placed, Cards Played, Will Power Takes The Pot!

The race starts on a clear, sunny Las Vegas spring day with the temperature in the mid to upper 80's.

The attitude of game was made at the very beginning of the race when it saw Paul Tracy pass pole winner Will Power and take the lead of the race from the very first turn.

Bobby Rahal's son, Graham, did not fair so well in that he found the wall before he was able to make it to the Start-Finish line.

By lap 11, Will Power found his legs and took the lead back in a clean but contested pass. What would one expect from Tracy?

The races for Champ Car this year are all "timed" races, in that the cars race for a specific period of time as opposed to a specific distance regardless of time.

Las Vegas is a great street course - it has every thing - A wicked fast, curved, 195 MPH front straightaway - Elevation change - Tunnels - Rhythm corners - A great mix of professional international experience rookies and series regulars - Lots of room to pass. The new DP01 car looks very racy as well. The louvered ground effects air escape ports just in front of the rear wheels look intimidating.

At lap 28, Tracy and Power pit while being very close to each other - Tracy played it straight and took full fuel ... Power out a little earlier and may have taken a little less on board to insure a quick turnaround.

Lap 32, after suffering three cut tires early on, Sebastian Bourdais (three time series Champion) goes out after he clips a wall and tucks his wing under the driver’s side front wheel. With that, CCWS' winning-est team, Newman-Haas, folds for good.

Doornbos and Tracy speed past the parked and damaged McDonald's DP01 of Bourdais. Image Credit: Jalopnik's Las Vegas local, Curtis Walker

Tracy in for additional fuel on lap 34 - telemetry indicated that he did not get a full tank. This will put him back but the question remains ... Did Will Power get enough fuel? Reports are that he did.

Lap 40 - Alex Tagliani leads but is getting ready to pit.

Paul Tracy navigates the Las Vegas Grand Prix street course with the Stratosphere looking over his shoulder. Image Credit: Jalopnik's Las Vegas local, Curtis Walker

Lap 41 - Power, Doornbos, Jani, Junqueria, Tagliani, and Tracy

Will Power in the pits on lap 45 so it turns out he did not get a full load of fuel last time in. Power has a sloppy pit stop. These new pit stops on the DP01 car are a lot slower than the previous cars the Champ Car World Series ran last year. What used to be quick 7 second fuel fill-up is taking at least a third longer and it is confusing some of the members of the pit crew. It was causing the pit "captains" to wave drivers out before they were full of fuel.

Lap 50 - Finds Junqueria in for a pit stop and the fuel man indicated that the valve in the fuel tool never opened – Bruno’s Sonny’s BBQ White & Red DP01 is out of contention with a second fuel stop. Paul Tracy leads followed by Power, Tagliani, Doornbos, and Brit Kathryn Legge.

Will Power is fastest on the track and is pacing about one second per lap faster than leader Paul Tracy.

Tracy in on lap 55 for his final fuel with Power taking the lead at 18 minutes left in the race. Power may or may not need fuel to the end.

Tagliani in on lap 59 after 18 laps on the tank. Reports state that Power is running with 13 laps on his tank at this time. Telemetry shows that Paul Tracy is good to the end.

So this is the bet on the table - Does Will Power and the Aussie Vineyards Green & Yellow painted livery have enough to hold off the rest of the field ... Robert Doornbos' Black & Red Muermans machine, Paul Tracy's Dark Blue & White fully fueled Indeck DP01, and Alex Tagliani's Black & Red at eight minutes to go.

Bets placed, cards played, and Aussie Will Power takes the pot and his first win for CCWS 2007 season in the Inaugural Las Vegas Grand Prix temporary street race course!

Next week, the granddaddy of all temporary street race courses, The 33rd Toyota Grand Prix of Long Beach. It will be a rockin' party in LA ... especially if the teams can sort out the fueling procedure required for the new DP01 formula Champ Cars!

Excerpts from Champ Car World Series, Eric Mauk - Sunday, April 8, 2007 -

QUOTES FROM THE TOP THREE FINISHERS

Will Power: After that, I mean, I was pretty much alone. I caught Katherine Legge for a while, she held me up. But after that, it was a pretty cruisy race really. We had a good car. It handled well all day. The only issue I had was a really long brake pedal at the end of the race. But we had an 18-second lead, so we just brought it home and brought Derrick Walker his second win since '99. It's his birthday. So a pole and a win, I think that's a pretty good present for him.

Robert Doornbos: No, I really enjoyed it. A great start to the weekend. Already yesterday to have qualified in the top three, we couldn't have dreamed of a better start really. Was a bit worried this morning because it's a different routine that you have than in European racing with these rolling starts. I'm so pleased for everybody, especially for my sponsors here, they come all the way from Holland. It's been a long winter. Really a good decision to go racing in Champ Car.

Paul Tracy: It went really well. Obviously, to lead the beginning of the race, I made a good start, was able to get by Will on the start. We spent a lot of the first part of the race under yellow. We came in and did our first pit stop. The car didn't take any fuel for us. We spent 15 seconds and ended up getting like four laps of fuel. We came back out and chased, then had to come straight back in and take fuel again. That really took the fight out of the race I think for Will. I think we could have put a lot of pressure on him. It was a good day for the Forsythe team and Monster Energy.

NOTEWORTHY

· Will Power becomes the first Australian driver to win a Champ Car race. Geoff Brabham held the previous mark, having finished second on three occasions, the last of those being at Road America in 1987.

· Robert Doornbos is the first driver to score a podium finish in his Champ Car debut since Nigel Mansell won his debut in 1993.

· Both Robert Doornbos and Tristan Gommendy made their Champ Car debuts with top-five finishes today, marking the first time that has happened since Jim Crawford (4th) and Emerson Fittipaldi (5th) turned the trick at Long Beach in 1984.
[Reference Here]

... notes from The EDJE

CCWS - For Will Power, It's Vegas Baby!

Will Power leads a group of cars through an elevation change before entering the front straightaway. Image Credit: Jalopnik's Las Vegas local, Curtis Walker


CCWS - For Will Power, It’s Vegas Baby!

Will Power - Team Australia edges out series rookie Dutchman, Robert Doornbos - Minardi Team USA (yes, that Formula One team) to grab the pole and line up next to former series champion, Paul Tracy - Forsythe Championship Racing.

So tomorrow, the inaugural Vegas Grand Prix takes off and will be broadcast Apr 08, 3:30 pm ET on NBC TV. Both Will Power and Paul Tracy start the race with one point apiece toward the series championship for 2007.

The race will be run in a newly developed area near the downtown Fremont Street area (to the west and slightly south) on a temporary street circuit ala the Long Beach Grand Prix, which is set to be run the very next weekend.

Inaugural Las Vegas Grand Prix Race Course - Image Credit: Las Vegas Grand Prix


Along the temporary race circuit are new buildings that are part of the revitalization of the civic center part of town. The new World Market Center is at its center and it sponsors semiannual furniture trade shows attended by more than 100,000 national and international furniture buyers and representatives each year. The trade show complex will ultimately open year-round, but for now acts as a great photographic backdrop for the race going into turn one.

The temporary circuit also features a bump that gets the cars airborne.

Taking A Flyer - Bruno Junqueira #19 Sonny's Bar-B-Q Cosworth/DP01/Bridgestone. Image Credit: Jalopnik's Las Vegas local, Curtis Walker


Driver quotes after the days qualifying from Champ Car World Series -

Will Power #5 Aussie Vineyards Cosworth/DP01/Bridgestone -"I think it's going to be important for everybody to get through the first corner and go racing. I think this is the start of a new era for Champ Car. You've got a bunch of new young drivers that are in the series, obviously showing that they're quick. It's not the scenario that everybody thought it was going to be where everybody was saying in the off-season, Sebastien is going to run away with everything. He's starting near the back. It's going to be quite an interesting race. on the red Bridgestone tires, at the end I think the track also gripped up. But our car worked really well on them. I mean, we struggled yesterday with just niggling problems with the car. Not to do with the handling or anything. We were quick yesterday. We just didn't get a fair go. We worked on it, worked on the setup all the way up until qualifying today. Pretty much nailed it at the end, got a good run in traffic. Yeah, we did a mega lap. But it all started in the off-season. I think Craig and Derrick Walker from the end of last year till now; they've been working really hard. They really want to win a championship and I want to help them do that."


Paul Tracy #3 INDECK Cosworth/DP01/Bridgestone - "It was a little tougher for us today. Obviously we made some changes from yesterday. But it just seemed like my car suited going over that big jump in the chicane. We just never really got a chance to capitalize on the tires. We seemed to either catch a red at the end of the first set of tires, then the second set of tires I had some traffic with Pagenaud, which didn't help. That kind of just killed our qualifying effort. I think we didn't have anything for what the time that Will did. I think we could have made a better showing. Really the opportunity didn't come up. We're happy to be on the front row."


Robert Doornbos #14 Muermans/Jumbo Supermarkten/Media Mall Cosworth/DP01/Bridgestone - "First of all, it's great to be in the Champ Car World Series. It's obviously a new category for me and also for my team, Paul with this Minardi outfit. We started the weekend not very competitive. I've been sitting down with my engineer, which is going really well, our relationship. Basically he turned the car to my liking. We improved every session. It's a great feeling to race between the streets of Vegas. I always enjoy driving open street circuits. We only have one really in Europe, which is Monaco, only once a year. I'll be more lucky this season, I think. Yeah, it went really well. Just in the end we pushed hard. The red tires were a new thing for me. I had no chance to try them in winter testing because obviously they were not there. So the first outing wasn't great. Then the second run on the red tires, we made some adjustments to the car and it was a lot better. So, yeah, up in third place. It's good to be here, especially because it's the first weekend. Hopefully I'll be here tomorrow as well."


Alex Tagliani #8 Cosworth/DP01/Bridgestone - "I am quite happy overall. I am just so thankful for the opportunity that Paul (Gentilozzi) and Dan (Pettit) have given me. I feel good about the RSPORTS team, and I think we are on the road to success this season. I feel that I am a good support for Justin (Wilson) and I feel that I have learned a lot from him and the team already. This is only the second time that we (both teams) are working together at a race track, so we still have a lot of catching up to do. But I think that we already have some great chemistry and that we are learning a lot from each other. I get along so well with my engineer Chris Lerch, and overall this whole deal is just a fantastic opportunity. Today's qualifying session went fairly well. I am happy with the #8 LXN2/RSPORTS car, and it is great to be starting in the top five for the first race of this season. The goal is to get lots of points, and obviously finish the race. But what is important is that we are running up front and I feel that we will be able to stay strong tomorrow during the race. I feel that we are in a good position with where we want the car to be, but we will work on making some more improvements tonight in hopes of being even quicker tomorrow."

Bruno Junqueira #19 Sonny's Bar-B-Q Cosworth/DP01/Bridgestone - "I was very happy with a sixth place qualifying run. We made some changes from yesterday and I think we could have gone a little faster. We didn't have an opportunity yesterday to run on the red Bridgestone tires. It is a good place to start tomorrow."

Mario Dominguez #7 Telmex/Cabi Developers Cosworth/DP01/Bridgestone - "Well it was a good day overall, we definitely improved quote a bit from yesterday. The Forsythe Team has done a great job, we've been making a lot of changes and the car has just gotten better and better. Qualifying was a little disappointing because I know we could've been much faster but I caught traffic, the cars in front of me kept slowing down and that prevented me from posting a quicker time. But the good thing is that we know we have a really fast car and we should be able to move up through the grid tomorrow. It's going to be a really exciting race, it's just great to be back in a race car I can't wait for the green flag tomorrow!"



Justin Wilson #9 CDW Cosworth/DP01/Bridgestone - "We just weren't quick enough today. The #9 CDW/RSPORTS car felt OK, but obviously the speed just wasn't there. It's disappointing, because we were up there yesterday, but today it slipped away. We need to look at the data to understand how to improve the car and hopefully we'll be more competitive tomorrow."

Graham Rahal #2 Medi Zone Cosworth/DP01/Bridgestone - "It's been a tough day for the Medi Zone team. I hooked it on the last curb at the end of the chicane and damaged the car so we had to get the backup car out for qualifying. The car was equally prepared. The guys did a great job getting it ready especially since it's never turned a wheel. Qualifying was pretty good but we just can't seem to get that last little bit; we need to find it. I know I'm giving my 100 percent so we need to figure out what it is. It's going to be a tough race. It's really hot out here. I think a lot of guys will fall out of the saddle. For me it will be a learning experience to go out there and figure out what I have to do. It's tough for me to tell if we have a good race setup having not run in a race"

Dan Clarke #4 Ticketmaster/Synapse Power/The Australian Pink Floyd Show Cosworth/DP01/Bridgestone - "Last season I had my first third-place podium finish from a 13th place start, so I'm going for the double and aiming to finish on the podium again tomorrow from my 12th place grid slot. As I've already proved, it's certainly possible, so although I'd prefer to start higher up the grid and it's not going to be easy, it's not impossible. This year's field is very tough, so I reckon it'll be very exciting racing, and I know we have the pace for the race, so we'll be expecting to battle hard and bring home points from Vegas."
Katherine Legge #11 Dale Coyne Racing Cosworth/DP01/Bridgestone - "I felt I could have gone about a second faster on the red Bridgestone tires. I have to improve a little more on my corners. I was very pleased with the results today, but I know I can improve on today's performance."

Sebastien Bourdais #1 McDonalds Cosworth/DP01/Bridgestone - "I screwed up and brushed the wall on the outside of Turn 9. The McDonald's car had too much understeer and I just forced the thing. The car stepped out a little bit on exit and I was already too close to the wall and hit the rear a little bit. It wasn't that bad a hit but it bent the toe link and broke the rim. To aggravate things we had the clutch creeping so I couldn't' get into neutral, couldn't back up, couldn't anything so we were stuck in fourth gear in front of tires and they wouldn't push me back or do anything so I was stuck there until they moved me out of the way. We have 60 seconds of push to pass which isn't a lot here. We are going to have to be pretty darn good to get it (win) done but we'll see. It's a new track so we don't quite know if it's possible to pass or not. I think Turn 1 seems to be pretty difficult because everyone starts braking in the middle of the track so maybe Turn 4 might be the best option. We'll have to try and pull it off. We've done it before but it was a different thing; we don't have the car we knew. It's not the best way to start the season for sure."
[Reference Here]

Bets Placed, Cards Played, Find Out Who Takes The Pot & How Here>>



... notes from The EDJE

The British Military - Stiff Upperlip To Jell-O Backbone

Image Credit and Video Link: NBC News

The British Military - Stiff Upperlip To Jell-O Backbone

After watching the U.K. Sailor news conference on TV this morning, I'm left with a tremendous feeling of speechlessness.

What I observed was, at best, a civilian response to a military situation and the world is upside down. As the graphic from NBC News asks - "Where's The Honor?"

I understand the reality of the impression that "fighting back was not an option" but I really do not understand moving beyond Name, Rank, and Serial Number in an act-of-war military scenario.

Come on, just look at these British Military people in Iranian suits ... disgusting!

British sailors and marines waited at the airport in Tehran Thursday before boarding a commercial flight to London. Image Credit: Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

I just can't imagine being photographed this happy under these "captive" military conditions.

This from the MSNBC Website -

MSNBC News Services
Updated: 12 minutes ago

ROYAL MARINE BASE CHIVENOR, England - The 15 British sailors seized by Iran were kept blindfolded, bound and in isolation by their Iranian captors who threatened them with seven years in jail, they told a news conference Friday.

"From the outset, it was very apparent that fighting back was not an option," Capt. Chris Air said of their capture in the northern Gulf on March 23. Air said they were in Iraqi waters when seized by the Iranians.

"They rammed our boats, and trained their heavy machine guns, RPGs, and weapons on us. Another six boats were closing in on us. We realized our efforts to reason with these people were not making any headway, nor were we able to calm some of the individuals," Air said
Reference Here>>

"Nor were we able to calm some of the individuals" - Disgusting.

Again, this sounds like the recounting of an incident amongst civilians ... not a recounting of an incident involving one military hijacking another.

The British Military's only thought provided throughout the interview this morning was -- what do we do to get back home.

In this picture issued by Britain's Ministry of Defence, Royal Marine Captain Chris Air, left, leads 15 British service personnel release by Iran, across the tarmac at London's Heathrow Airport, Thursday April 5, 2007, from the British Airways aircraft which flew them from Tehran. The 15 British sailors and marines returned home after 13 days in captivity. Man in military uniform seen second from left, was part of the party who meet the 15 service personnel on their arrival. Image Credit: AP Photo/Angie Pearce

Well, they achieved their goal of coming home ... with little honor. As a former member of the U.S. Navy, I am ashamed at the level of representation to the country of England that these military personnel showed under fire.

And I am not the only one who shares this POV, this from Col. Jack Jacobs, Military analyst - MSNBC

British sailors’ conduct was a disgrace
Where is honor? Iran hostages’ handshakes, apologies are ‘reprehensible’
COMMENTARY - By Jack Jacobs - Military analyst – MSNBC - Updated: 1 hour, 32 minutes ago

The capture, internment and repatriation of the British sailors and marines can only be described as a shoddy spectacle. From start to finish, the Brits heaped nothing but ignominy on themselves, and one can recall few instances in recent memory in which a group of uniformed service members acted with less professionalism and more dishonor.

From the start, things were destined to end badly. Although the inevitable investigation by the Ministry of Defence will determine the sequence of events that led to the capture, it seems that the boarding party was not following generally accepted practices for such an operation.
Reference Here>>

Col. Jacobs goes on to quote philosopher John Stuart Mill who wrote extensively about theories of liberty. On the duty of the military to any country, Mr. Mill wrote:

"War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things. The decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks that nothing is worth war is much worse.

The person who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature and has no chance of being free unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself."

With that, Col. Jack Jacobs concluded his thoughts and comments about the recent acts of the British Military in Iran ... and so do we, at MAXINE!

Video Link Here

The Mobile Web Becomes Right Sized

Inn at Craig Farm's phone site - Image Credit: Patrick Conlon

The Mobile Web Becomes Right Sized

As the mobility age becomes more of age, it was only a matter of time that the visual side, the display side of the web, started to deliver content for the small format screens like the ones found in ones pocket.

The cellphone world is beginning to catch on to the fact that pushing buttons to communicate (texting) is tedious at best, so now it is rapidly becoming automated with camera imagers and codes … but where does that take one?

Generally, to a website that is tailored to a computer screen. Scrolling and adjusting the format just sends one back to pushing buttons and tapping screens. Visually, the process is still a nightmare at best. Text is okay but graphics are all over the map.

The match-up between the site and the screen is just around the corner.

Company efforts are dedicating themselves to mobile sized web development for mobile phone users. At MAXINE, with nearly 75% of cellphones in the field having web access capability, we say it’s about time that the mobile web becomes right sized.

This from The Wall Street Journal Online –

Mini Web Sites Target Users of Mobile Phones
New Kits Give Firms A Cellular Presence; Boon for Concertgoers?
By AMOL SHARMA - April 5, 2007 - WSJOnline

Johannes Tromp says the Web site for his South Carolina bed-and-breakfast generates good business. But last fall, he found a way to reach even more potential customers: He made a version of the site for cellphones.

Mr. Tromp signed up for a mobile Web address with the newly available suffix "dot-mobi" and used a self-starter kit from a company called Roundpoint Ltd. to build www.kilburnie.mobi, the mobile site for his Inn at Craig Farm. He says he's gotten a surprisingly good response, with 30 to 40 new calls per month from interested travelers who heard of his inn by accessing the cellphone site.

"For people to find me, I have to make myself available any way I can," says Mr. Tromp, a Dutch native who was general manager of the Windows on the World restaurant in the World Trade Center before moving south for a career in hospitality.

As technology allows consumers to access the Internet with their cellphones, many big companies have launched mobile versions of their Web sites, including big media brands like MTV and ESPN and news sites like USA Today and The Weather Channel. But such projects can be costly and complex and until recently have been out of reach of small businesses.

Now new low-cost tools and services are making it easier to jump onto the mobile Web. Internet registrars such as GoDaddy.com Inc. and Network Solutions, who have helped millions of small businesses set up traditional dot-com sites, are now also beginning to roll out all-inclusive packages that help companies register and build mobile Web sites. And mobile-content specialists like the United Kingdom's Bango Ltd. have their own mobile kits that help companies get a basic Web presence on cellphones.

One way to promote a musician - Image Credit: Fli Digital

The wireless Internet is just beginning to take shape. Most consumers aren't nearly as comfortable with mobile Web surfing as they are with trolling the Web on PCs. Entering URLs can be difficult on many cellphones, and there's a limited amount of content that is well-formatted for a small screen. Cellphone networks are getting faster but still lag behind landlines significantly in broadband speeds.
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Many small companies are planning to build mobile Web sites. Thousands are using dot-mobi domain names, which are administered by mTLD Ltd., whose backers include cellphone companies such as Nokia Corp. and Vodafone Group PLC as well as Internet service providers like those of Google Inc. and Microsoft Corp. The company, which gets a cut of registration fees, hopes that dot-mobi will become the de facto domain for mobile sites, much like dot-com is for the regular Internet.

Dublin-based mTLD says a separate mobile-specific domain is the only way to assure users that the site they will visit will be designed appropriately for a phone, with minimal graphics and verbiage and a format fit for a tiny screen. It has issued guidelines on how to develop appropriate mobile sites, and plans to charge content developers $250 to $300 to certify that they can build sites within dot-mobi standards.
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Dot-mobi isn't the only alternative. Sites that end in dot-com or dot-net can also be designed so they show mobile-specific content when consumers access them through a mobile device. In fact, that is how most major media brands and other companies have built cellphone sites to date.

Internet registrars, who have made a living on small businesses and already offer a variety of tools to help them build basic Web sites, are taking advantage of the new opportunity in mobile.

For example, Harry Boadwee used GoDaddy to set up www.travelosa.mobi, a mobile Web site that provides information for travelers such as flight cancellations, weather and car-rental information. Registering the domain for a year cost him $12 . GoDaddy also provided Mr. Boadwee with site-development tools offered through a partnership with mTLD. Mr. Boadwee developed the site himself using those tools.

Network Solutions, which hosts the Web sites of 3.5 million small businesses, plans to begin selling dot-mobi addresses soon, along with a suite of tools with templates to build simple mobile Web sites. The company already has a tool that lets businesses automatically convert their existing Web sites into mobile versions -- stripping out unneeded verbiage and graphics -- but company executives say they encourage companies to build a mobile site from scratch.

In March, Bango rolled out Bango2Go, which offers small businesses hosting and mobile Web development as well as software that lets companies track who is visiting their site and bill customers for purchases. Bango's introductory package is $1,000, plus ongoing maintenance fees that will usually be a few hundred dollars. For bigger companies who want a more elaborate site with more content, the Bango fee is about $5,000.

Bango has already helped huge brands like News Corp. and World Wrestling Entertainment Inc. build their mobile Web portals, but its new product is aimed at smaller players such as Basin Street Records, a small independent music label in New Orleans.

The label's founder, Mark Samuels, is using Bango and Web-site designer Fli Digital Inc. of Hauppauge, N.Y., to develop cellphone Web sites for the nine artists he works with, beginning with jazz trumpeter Kermit Ruffins, whose new mobile Web page is ruffins.wap.com. Mr. Samuels says mobile sites will give concertgoers the ability to download ringtones or album art or even sign up for newsletters. All a fan needs is access to the mobile Web.
Reference Here>>

(ht: Symblogogy)

Alien Labor Gains Net Hollywood Math

"Sour Grapes" - Grape fields, full of ripe grapes, ready to be picked in the South of the Big Valley (Arvin, CA). Image Credit: Edmund Jenks, Copyright-2005

Alien Labor Gains Net Hollywood Math

We often hear how producers of a successful Hollywood movie, you know, one that had very strong attendance figures (box office) is never is able to turn a profit.

Many joke that what is actually happening is “Hollywood Math” (while others call it creative accounting) where profits are sucked up and losses are recorded so that the production company does not have to pay out on contract deals that were based upon a percentage of profits.

Many argue that the influx of low-skilled alien labor helps our country in that it keeps us competitive in the world economy.

A real study of the gains netted through low-skilled labor contributions develops a different picture, so states a report from The Heritage Foundation.

When one begins to look at the actual cost to the social infrastructure - taking into account the outflow of money from the tax monies collected to these same low-skilled alien workers, one finds that alien labor is a losing proposition.

The joking reality of Hollywood Math has found a home (in reverse) with the logic and policies used by our elected officials. Our country pays out three times as much in Government supports and welfare programs than it collects in taxes derived from the gainful employment of low-skilled alien labor.

Alien labor is not a good deal for America. It just doesn’t add up to good “Box Office”.

Excerpts from The Washington Times -

Low-skilled aliens exact a burden
By S.A. Miller, with contributions from Stephen Dinan - THE WASHINGTON TIMES - April 5, 2007

Immigration reforms that increase the number of low-skilled workers entering the United States threaten to impose a high cost on taxpayers, says a study being released today.

The Heritage Foundation report calculates that for every $1 unskilled workers pay in taxes they receive about $3 in government benefits, including Medicaid, food stamps, public housing and other welfare programs.

It should serve as a warning to President Bush and lawmakers proposing to give illegal aliens a so-called path to citizenship or what critics call amnesty, said Rep. Lamar Smith of Texas, ranking Republican on the Judiciary Committee, which handles immigration bills.
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The report on low-skilled workers, who are defined as those without a high school diploma, did not focus on immigrants, but its authors say 25 percent of legal immigrants and 50 percent of illegal aliens fall into the category. About 9 percent of native-born Americans lack a high school diploma.

Using data from 2004, the report shows the average household headed by a low-skilled worker paid $9,689 in taxes but received $32,138 in benefits a year. The more than $22,000 difference is the "tax burden" which rises to $1.1 million over the worker's lifetime.

Mr. Bush has called for legalizing the estimated 12 million to 20 million illegal aliens in the United States, and for a new program to allow more foreign workers in the future.
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"The Heritage Foundation report proves what we already know, that illegal immigration is a drain to the American people," the California Republican [Rep. Brian P. Bilbray, chairman of the Immigration Reform Caucus] said. "At more than $22,000 a year, it's like having the American taxpayers buy everyone who doesn't have a high school diploma a brand new Ford Mustang convertible."
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In 2004, according to the Heritage Foundation report, the country had 17.7 million low-skilled households that together cost taxpayers $397 billion that year. Those households, without an influx of new unskilled workers, will cost at least $3.9 trillion over the next 10 years.

The Heritage Foundation plans to release a separate analysis focused solely on low-skilled immigrant households in the next few weeks.
Read All (subscription required)>>

Brazil On Collision Course: Ethanol & Environment

Deforestation in Brazil: This image of the southern Amazon uses satellite data from the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on the Terra satellite collected in 2000 and 2001 to classify the terrain into three separate land surface categories: forest (red), herbaceous (non-woody) vegetation like grasses (green), and bare ground (blue). The Amazon’s numerous rivers appear white. Image Credit: Mongabay.com

Brazil On Collision Course: Ethanol & Environment

Ethanol production, "the renewable fuel resource", requires fiber (lots of fibre) and water (lots of water) to become the bio-replacement fuel of the future. If Brazil has its way, it plans to expand its capacity to produce Ethanol by 12 times over the next eighteen years and eclipse all other nations ability to supply the world demand for energy based on something other than petroleum.

This expansion is expected to place additional stresses on the ecosystems that surround the populated portions of Brazil. The decades old practice of slash & burn clear-cutting of the forests may now come full circle to slash & convert putting any vegetation on the production line for Ethanol.

Wither the land is cleared for sugarcane or just being cleared for the fibre due to advances in technology to convert more types of fibre ... rain forests are at a greater risk over the next 20 years.

Excerpts from Tierramérica via Inter Press Service News Agency -

Brazil Aims to Dominate World Ethanol Market
Mario Osava - Tierramérica network (Tierramérica is a specialised news service produced by IPS with the backing of the United Nations Development Programme and the United Nations Environment Programme.)

RIO DE JANEIRO, Mar 31 (Tierramérica) - Brazil is working towards producing enough ethanol to substitute 10 percent of the gasoline consumed worldwide within 18 years. That would mean increasing its current production of 17.3 billion litres a year by a factor of 12, without sacrificing forests, protected areas or food cultivation.

The government called on a group of experts to study the possibilities and impacts of a sharp increase in fuel alcohol production from sugarcane.

The group led by the Interdisciplinary Group for Energy Planning of Campinas University, and coordinated by physicist Rogério Cerqueira Leite, concluded that Brazil could produce 205 billion litres of ethanol by 2025. A comparable volume will be produced by the rest of the world, predict experts.
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Increased ethanol production is essential. The experts' report says there will be a 40-percent hike in output per hectare of sugarcane through a new technology based on hydrolysis. The United States and Brazil agreed to cooperate in developing this approach during the Mar. 8-9 visit by President George W. Bush in Sao Paulo.

Potentially, hydrolysis, which can take advantage of any cellulose material, could double productivity, but the goal was set at 40 percent based on known technologies and because part of the sugarcane waste (pulp and straw) is used in generating electricity, not ethanol, explained Carlos Rossell, a researcher with the group.

Rainforest cleared for maize - Location: Puerto Maldanado - Image Credit: Mongabay.com

This technology involves some complicated challenges, such as breaking down very tough plant structures, which will require a great deal of effort to make it viable on an industrial scale, Rossell told Tierramérica.

U.S. and European scientists are farther along in this research and benefit from much bigger investments, but Brazil has the advantage of the immediate availability of the sugarcane, ready to be processed. The others will have to go into the fields to bring in the stalks and other bio-material, mostly from maize, with additional costs, he said.

For the same reason, the expertise that can come from the United States, whose ethanol production is based on corn, doesn't resolve the Brazilian problem. The raw materials are different, the researcher said.
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For now, the United States produces a little more ethanol than Brazil does, but production costs are 40 percent higher, according to industry leaders in Brazil. The U.S. tariff barrier of 54 cents on the dollar per gallon (3.8 litres) did not prevent the northern giant from importing 1.6 billion litres of Brazilian fuel alcohol last year, when increased demand drove up maize prices.

In addition to destabilising the international market, increasing maize prices and soybean prices (the former's replacement for animal feed), U.S. ethanol is hardly environmentally efficient.

Each unit of energy used in U.S. ethanol production generates just 1.3 to 1.8 units of renewable energy, while sugarcane reaches a minimum of 8.3 units. As such, U.S.-produced ethanol does little to curb emissions that cause climate change, which, along with high-priced petroleum are the main reasons biofuels are being promoted.

In Brazil, ethanol also faces limitations. Peasant farmer movements and many social activists condemn the growth of agro-energy that hurts food production. Environmentalists fear further expansion of the farm frontier into Amazon forests, especially as land prices increase.

Fuel alcohol production has "negative environmental, social and economic impacts for the communities," it generates few jobs, and "consumes a lot of natural resources -- each litre of ethanol requires 30 litres of water," criticises Temístocles Marcelos, environmental policy director at the labour union CUT.

Virtually all forest clearing, by small farmer and plantation owner alike, is done by fire. Though these fires are intended to burn only limited areas, they frequently escape agricultural plots and pastures and char pristine rainforest. Image Credit: Mongabay.com
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The experts' study, however, points to the creation of five million new jobs if the ambitious production plan is implemented.
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In Sao Paulo state, home to more than half of Brazil's ethanol production, 60 percent of the sugarcane fields are burned in order to facilitate cutting, polluting the air and causing a number of illnesses. The sugarcane industrialists are also accused of subjecting their workers to unhealthy and exhausting work conditions, which, according to reports, have also led to death.
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The burns are also legal, and are to be abolished by 2020, he said. The solution would be accelerated if cellulose ethanol production were further advanced, because it uses sugarcane leaves.

Furthermore, ethanol benefits all of humanity by reducing carbon dioxide emissions. Its incorporation into Brazil's national energy matrix and its international marketing -- which should be unrelated to that of petroleum -- "depends only on political will," said Ribeiro.
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Freedom Day Spirit Is An Everyday Event

ART FOR FREEDOM: Artists from around southern California collaborated on a mural during The Freedom Day, One Voice, One Act to End Slavery gathering at Vanguard University in Costa Mesa Sunday. The 8 ft. by 32 ft. mural will be auctioned off with proceeds going towards battling slavery issues. Image Credit: JEBB HARRIS, THE REGISTER

Freedom Day Spirit Is An Everyday Event

Last Sunday (March 25th) was the first of a worldwide recognition event, Freedom Day, to bring attention to the persistent and vexing problem of Humans capturing and selling Humans into efforts that include labor, sex, and even war.

200 years ago on March 25th, the politicians’ of Great Britain, led through the Christian principle based efforts of William Wilberforce, voted to abolish its effort to support and participation in the Trans-Atlantic slave trade. The major efforts that led to this historic moment in time were dramatically portrayed in the recent film release – Amazing Grace.

The modern day efforts of slavery - Human Trafficking – need to stop and the only way to start the effort to reduce and bring an end to this business enterprise (one that generates more dollars and cents than Microsoft Corporation) is through awareness. One day a year is a start, but the spirit of Freedom Day needs to become an everyday event for this practice to end.

In Southern California, Freedom Day was a success.

HELPING HANDS: Mike Hartnov crochets a garment as his group Krochet Kids International demonstrated their project at the Sunday gathering. The nonprofit was founded by a group of young men who crochet and will be going to Uganda in May to teach women to crochet caps and other items which will be imported here for sale. Image Credit: JEBB HARRIS, THE REGISTER

This from the Orange County Register -

Program seeks help in fighting human trafficking
Freedom Day gathered supporters for modern-day abolitionist movement.
By SUSHMA SUBRAMANIAN - The Orange County Register - Sunday, March 25, 2007

COSTA MESA - One of the highest-profile human trafficking cases in Orange County would have never been discovered if it weren't for a neighbor.

A woman in Irvine called authorities when she noticed that a young girl who lived next door never went to school.

The neighbors, former Irvine couple Abdelnasser Eid Youssef Ibrahim and Amal Ahmed Ewis-abd Motelib, admitted in June to forcing a 10-year-old Egyptian girl to work as their domestic servant.

Westminster police Lt. Derek Marsh, a co-director on the Orange County Human Trafficking Task Force, told that story to about 40 people during a workshop at Vanguard University in Costa Mesa Sunday, part of Freedom Day, organized by nonprofits to educate residents about human trafficking.

"I don't see human trafficking driving down the street in a patrol car," Marsh said. "It's not one of those things that are public to check on."

He encouraged audience members to help fight human trafficking by looking for clues in their neighborhoods – people who seem like fish out of water for reasons that might include living with many other people who don't seem to be related or because they get bused to work.

More than 1,000 people attended Sunday's event, which included workshops on different aspects of human trafficking, films, lectures, art booths and music supporting modern-day abolitionist movements.

"When drugs are trafficked, they can be sold just once," presenter Tobi Aclaro said.

"A person can be sold over and over again."

WELCOMING FREEDOM DAY: To kick off the Freedom Day event, organizers asked the more than 1000 people in attendance to put a hand on one another's shoulder and look at them for 30 seconds in silence. The gesture, meant to welcome the dignity and humanity of others, was the starting point for activities to promote awareness of modern day slavery. Image Credit: JEBB HARRIS, THE REGISTER

At the event's opening, people were asked to touch someone standing next to them on the shoulder and to look that person in the face for 30 seconds, an exercise encouraging people to see humanity in others.

"Imagine the change we would welcome if we began to see the worth and dignity of every human being," said Ruthi Hoffman-Hanchett, one of the event organizers.

Nonprofit groups sold bags, hats and jewelry that would benefit human trafficking victims.

Workshop topics included human trafficking related to global poverty, migrant laborers and child pornography.

According to the U.S. Department of State, approximately 600,000 to 800,000 victims are trafficked across international borders worldwide each year. About 14,500 to 17,500 of those victims are brought each year into the United States for forced labor or commercial sex.

"Before today, I didn't even know that this existed," said Tim Zarza, 27, who lives in San Diego. "It's become an industry and it's some people's way of living. And it's terrible."

A Burmese woman who was sold into prostitution in Thailand by her mother when she was 12 told her story. She escaped with the help of missionaries and now is married with two children.

"I have encountered so many problems in my life," said Moon, who gave only her first name. "I'm so thankful for what God has done for me."
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