HOLLYWOOD, Florida (CNN) -- With an autopsy ongoing, a California judge ruled Anna Nicole Smith could not be buried until at least February 20, when a hearing will be held to resolve a paternity dispute over Smith's 5-month-old daughter.
Posted by: Fred ||
02/09/2007 10:41 ||
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#1
When the left whines about conservatives mixing politics with religion, I just think about this guy (and Rev. Coffin). I also remember him giving cover to Bill Clinton during the impeachment hearings. He was a man of faith in only the most technical sense. Nevertheless, RIP.
Posted by: Jonathan ||
02/09/2007 11:50 Comments ||
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#2
...and he was replaced by Barney Frank, so there's something else you can be pissed at him for.
#4
So, if'n I read his obit right, he was basically a lefty who went to law school. Became a lawyers, and then, and only then, did he become a priest?
Rrriiiigggghhhhttt. And, Watada had no agenda in joining the Army right before Iraq and then making a big fuss about it. Uh-huh.
Posted by: BA ||
02/09/2007 13:18 Comments ||
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#5
Reminder to self: Remember to send God the street address of the Westboro Baptist Church - along with a suggestion that he do little "smiting" practice by striking down Fred Phelps and his evil spawn.
#6
My criteria for God striking people dead is a bit tighter than Fred's.
*sigh*
Ever since I've read the comments on the post of Maureen Dowd's passing, I've come to the belief that ONLY a miracle worker is capable of saving the U S of A.
Solely for the sake of argument, suppose I get into the US Senate with a sniper rifle and manage to cap Pelosi, Clinton, Kennedy, Kerry, and Murtha. I can picture a whole lot of clucking and shaking of heads and a lot of disapproval from all political sides about how I screwed up the climate of healthy debate and injected violence into what is a political process. I'll be in jail, and the Democrats take the White House on the sympathy vote.
On the other hand, if I stood up in the gallery, denounced the above as traitors, and they dropped dead, pow, just like Ananias and Sapphira, what would your response be?
For the sake of argument, if I planted a bomb in the elevator shaft of the New York Times building and it went off and killed the entire editorial staff, I can imagine a lot of dissapproval, tounge clucking, "rest in peace", and all that charitable stuff. And you'd politely golf-clap if I got The Chair.
If, on the other hand, I had enough faith to move mountains, and ACTUALLY moved one, and decided to move it to the top floor of the New York Times building (it's gotta go SOMEWHERE), what would you say of me turning the entire staff into clones of St. Rachel Corrie Pancake?
My point? I'm all bark and no bite: I'll never take a gun to any senator, nor bomb any building infested by traitorous lefties. I'm too law abiding, and am committed to the political system as idealized here, to take any actions against people who pervert that system to their ends. They'll keep gnawing away at a system that protects them from the above kind of retaliation.
In short, we're gonna need bona-fide REAL miracles of destruction to save The Union. If I got appointed the Job, I would think that the Rantburg atheists and agnostics will cut me some slack, but I honestly expect a lot of moaning, bitching, and ankle biting if Pat Robertson got the nod for the job.
#10
Molly was a bitter shrew, but never had the pretentions of MoDo, and could actually write a W-hate-filled paragraph cleanly. Still and all, the world is a better place without her
Posted by: Frank G ||
02/09/2007 18:23 Comments ||
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PTAH, if you pull off the sniper bit I'd at least send you some smokes while you're in the hooskow....
According to a credible source, an employee of Anna Nicole Smith found her in her room in the Hard Rock Hotel and Casino in Hollywood, Florida. The employee pulled back a sheet and discovered that she appeared to have choked on her own vomit. "There's some doubt it was her own vomit..."
The same source claims that Smith took what was referred to as a "children's sedative," Laudanum?
and had "kept passing out" before her death. AccessHollywood.com has learned from this same source that one of the attending physicians at Memorial Regional Hospital was Dr. Randy Katz. When we contacted Dr. Katz, he acknowledged that he was indeed an attending physician, but Dr. Katz would not comment on any specifics related to his care of Smith. "I can say no more!"
"But you ain't said nothin'!"
Posted by: Fred ||
02/09/2007 07:59 ||
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(Channeling Spinal Tap here)
Well it would be damned odd if it turned out to be someone elses' vomit!
LOS ANGELES - The husband of actress Zsa Zsa Gabor said Friday that he had a decade-long affair with Anna Nicole Smith and may be her infant daughter's father.
The claim by Prince Frederick von Anhalt comes amid a paternity suit over Smith's 5-month-old daughter, Dannielynn. The birth certificate lists Dannielynn's father as attorney Howard K. Stern, but former Smith boyfriend Larry Birkhead is waging a legal challenge, saying he is the father.
Ah, he's a "prince'... He said he would file a lawsuit if Dannielynn is turned over to Stern or Birkhead.
I wonder if I should get my lawsuit ready? Von Anhalt, 59, and Gabor, 90, have been married for more than 20 years.
Eww... ...He said the two started an affair soon after, meeting over the years in Los Angeles, San Francisco and New York. For much of that time, he said, Smith urged him to make her a princess like his wife.
Oooooooh, make me a princess, Snookums! But short of divorcing the actress, he said the only solution would have been adopting Smith. Von Anhalt said he did consider that and even filled out adoption papers, but Gabor refused to sign them.
Yeah, you don't sound too creepy, do ya, Princey?
Posted by: Keith Moon ||
02/09/2007 14:20 Comments ||
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#16
the only loser in this is the baby; as for Anna, she was just another gold bricking bitch that had a snatch for hire. who really gives a flying phuque anyway? (not me, get on with the important stuff, baseball season is only a month and a half away)
#17
My wife pointed out last night that just this week the courts ordered a paternity test on the baby - something the mother had been resisting. She speculated it might reveal something that Ms. Smith just could not face being public - that perhaps her son was the baby's father.
#21
Watched press conference with med examiner, who seems to be a mad german scientist with a hump on his head. Short version:
No knife, gunshot or other wounds.
No choking on vomit.
No pills found in stomach.
No illegal drugs in hotel room.
Legal perscription drugs found in hotel room.
Tests continue.
Posted by: Steve ||
02/09/2007 17:04 Comments ||
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FOX > besides Prince Frederick, a National Inquirer reporter claims Smith also may had affairs wid up to 20-30 differ men. Overdose by prescription drugs thus far leads the speculation.
AND THEN THERE'S "LUST/SEX IN SPACE"...
#23
I'm sure we'll see more prospective fathers as the days go on, due to her little girl's projected inheritance.
Sorry, can't snark on Anna Nicole. I'm the same age, and my little Tsarevich is about the same age as her little girl. My heart goes out to them both....hope the mother has found peace, and that the little one will have someone in her life who will care for her, and not just her $.
Researchers report discovering the receptor through which a group of life-threatening hemorrhagic fever viruses enter and attack the bodys cells, and show that infection can be inhibited by blocking this receptor. The findings, to be published online by the journal Nature on February 7, give a clue to the high lethality of New World arenaviruses, suggest a way of reducing the severity of infection, and point the way toward a sorely needed treatment strategy.
The receptor, identified in Choes lab by Jonathan Abraham, PhD, an MD-PhD student at HMS, turned out to be transferrin receptor 1 (TfR1), a well-known protein that is key in enabling cells to take up iron. Additional studies, performed in Farzans lab by HMS graduate student Sheli Radoshitzky, confirmed that TfR1 is also the receptor for the other three New World arenaviruses. (Abraham and Radoshitzky are both first authors on the study.) Expertise from Nancy Andrews, MD, PhD, an expert in iron metabolism at Childrens, sped up the work.
Although not all hemorrhagic fever viruses use TfR1 to enter the bodys cells, the discovery may help explain why these viruses wreak such havoc, damaging multiple organs and causing bleeding under the skin, in internal organs, and from orifices like the mouth, eyes or ears.
Because of TfR1s essential function in transporting iron into cells, it is found on the surface of virtually every cell of the body. It is abundant on endothelial cells, which line blood vessels, a fact that may help account for the bleeding and organ damage caused by the viruses. TfR1 is also especially abundant on activated immune cells the very cells that mobilize to fight the viruses making them especially vulnerable to infection.
Choe now hopes to translate these findings into treatments to contain natural or intentional outbreaks of New World hemorrhagic fever. Serendipitously, several anti-TfR1 antibodies have already been developed as anticancer therapeutics (cancer cells are also high in TfR1), and some have already been through clinical trials. Choes lab will test these antibodies, hoping to find one that inhibits virus entry without compromising TfR1s essential function in cellular iron uptake.
The findings of Choe and colleagues also suggest that iron supplements may reduce the severity of New World virus infections. Past studies have shown that when the iron level in the body is low, the number of transferrin receptors in tissues increases. Consistent with these findings, Choes team found that New World arenaviruses infect cells more efficiently when iron levels are low, and that adding iron to cultured cells makes them less susceptible to infection. Choe notes that New World hemorrhagic fever outbreaks mostly occur in poor rural areas, where people are often deficient in micronutrients, including iron, possibly predisposing them to more severe infection when exposed to the rodents that carry the viruses.
Posted by: DanNY ||
02/09/2007 06:23 ||
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It's more complicated than it looks. Tuberculosis has been a much more common and virulent infection in past centuries -- giving iron to iron deficient patients with TB can actually make their infections worse! This basic research is definitely worth doing, although the end results are not known at present. The ultimate treatment may well have nothing to do with giving patients extra iron.
#2
You miss the point Anguper Hupomosing9418: Abraham & Radoshitzky just secured their tenures. As to aplicability, remember how they used to declare a "solution" to a whole range of deseases (HIV first & foremost) every time they found a new Th1 or Th2 cytokine?
Temperatures are rising on Earth, which is heating up the debate over global warming and the future of our planet, but what may be needed most to combat global warming is a greater focus on adapting to our changing planet, says a team of science policy experts writing in this weeks Nature magazine.
While many consider it taboo, adaptation to global climate change needs to be recognized as just as important as mitigation, or cutting back, of greenhouse gases humans pump into Earths atmosphere. The science policy experts, writing in the Feb. 8, 2007 issue of Nature, say adapting to the changing climate by building resilient societies and fostering sustainable development would go further in securing a future for humans on a warming planet than just cutting gas emissions.
New ways of thinking about, talking about and acting on climate change are necessary if a changing society is to adapt to a changing climate, the researchers state in Lifting the Taboo on Adaptation.
Sarewitz and his colleagues argue that the time to elevate adaptation to the same level of attention and effort as the more popular mitigation of greenhouse gases is now, and that the future of the planet demands realistic actions to help the survival of humans.
The obsession with researching and reducing the human effects on climate has obscured the more important problems of how to build more resilient and sustainable societies, especially in poor regions and countries, Sarewitz said.
Adaptation has been portrayed as a sort of selling out because it accepts that the future will be different from the present, Sarewitz added. Our point is the future will be different from the present no matter what, so to not adapt is to consign millions to death and disruption.
Adaptation is the process by which societies prepare for and minimize the negative effects of a variety of future environmental stresses on society, Sarewitz said. Mitigation is the effort to slow and reduce the negative impacts of climate change by slowing the accumulation of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.
The key difference is that adaptation is the process by which societies make themselves better able to cope with an uncertain future, whereas mitigation is an effort to control just one aspect of that future by controlling the behavior of the climate, Sarewitz said.
Posted by: DanNY ||
02/09/2007 06:19 ||
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These people are partially correct.
Tes, there is climate change: the climate theories based on actual facts point to a combination of several cycles related to solar activity.
Yes, we need to adapt to the change. "Adapting" is humankind's middle name.
HOWEVER, "sustainable" development often means forgoing high tech equipment in favor of low-tech equipment that supports a smaller population.
You cannot get around the fact that these people think, implicitly or explicitly, that there are too many people on the planet, and that THEIR survival means that OTHER people have to disappear.
#2
Adapt to climate change - when it gets hot, have a cold beer; when it gets cold, Irish coffee; on those 'in-between' days, a glass of sherry is good.
#3
You cannot get around the fact that these people think, implicitly or explicitly, that there are too many people on the planet, and that THEIR survival means that OTHER people have to disappear.
Now there's a thought...
Posted by: DanNY ||
02/09/2007 8:39 Comments ||
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And, yet, I'd bet this "moderate" approach will recieve an eco-fatwa from Gore, "Dr." Heidi Cullen et al.
Posted by: BA ||
02/09/2007 10:57 Comments ||
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Something about adapting to one's environment, where have I heard that before? Amazing the number of 'scientists' that have never hear of Darwin, isn't it?
#6
THEIR survival means that OTHER people have to disappear.
Oddly enough, I think the same, you need to vanish while I survive.
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
02/09/2007 13:28 Comments ||
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Energy consumption is so intricately linked with economic activity that the only ways to substantially reduce energy use and hence Co2 emissions is drastic reductions in either economic activity (i.e. make people a lot poorer) or numbers of people.
As a practical matter, the choice is between NORK style socialism and a bird flu pandemic.
#8
FOX + CNN > HONEYBEES are disappearing. How is Radical Enviro-beloved NATIONAL-GLOBAL ANTI-MATERIALISM/CONSUMERISM [Global Toga] coupled by big Big BIG B-I-G BBBBBIIIIIGGGGGG GUBMINT going to save us since even Big/Hyper-Gubmint needs lotsa revenues + resources, also known as $$$, to save Milyuhns and Zilyuhns of registered voters??? HOW ARE 500,000 - 500M TOGA-WEARERS, WHOM BY DEFINITION DON'T = HAVE NO $$$, PROPERTIES, PLUS NO LONGER USE INDUSTRIAL MACHINES, GONNA STOP THE SUN, STOP THE ASTEROID, ANDOR BUILD HI-TECH SPACE ARKS IN CASE "DA PLAN" DOESN'T WORK; OR THE SUN + ASTEROID(S) REFUSE TO UNILATERALLY SURRENDER???
The largest climate change in central North America since the age of the dinosaurs 65 million years ago, a temperature drop of nearly 15 degrees Fahrenheit, is documented within the fossilized teeth of horses and other plant-eating mammals, a new study reveals.
The overwhelming majority of previous climate-change studies on the 400,000-year transition from the Eocene to the Oligocene epochs, about 33.5 million years ago, focus on marine environments, but University of Florida vertebrate paleontologist Bruce MacFadden and his colleagues turned their attention to fossils from the Great Plains.
If a temperature change of this magnitude occurred today, Florida would have weather similar to Washington, D.C., or even farther north, said MacFadden, a curator at the Florida Museum of Natural History.
The Eocene-to-Oligocene transition is known in the fossil record as the Grande Coupure, the Big Cut in French, because it marks a massive extinction of life in both marine and land environments. Scientists believe the drop in temperature was likely due to changes in oceanic currents, MacFadden said.
Posted by: DanNY ||
02/09/2007 06:16 ||
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When I first saw the headline, I thought that they meant that the current warming trend is the largest in 65 million years.
#9
This study has no merit until I get my ouijy board out and try to make contact with my great, great, great ,great, ,great....(shish)great,great uncle.
#10
So Global Warming is worse than even Al Gore thought?
Posted by: Bobby ||
02/09/2007 12:51 Comments ||
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I find the article (and yes, I read it all) uncompelling, though probably accurate as far as it goes. What we really need is an estimate of how long it took for that temperature drop, what triggered it, and how it affected those animals that were studied.
When I was in Panama, I took a geography course that said the Ice Ages were caused by the disruption of the land bridge between North and South America, causing shifts in global sea currents. I haven't read anything since then about the subject. Since there are several parts of Central America that are less than 100 feet above sea level, I guess it could happen.
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
02/09/2007 13:03 Comments ||
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#12
I have personaly seen a highway cut-bank in Rome, A good 2oo feet above the harbor, with a heavy shoal of clamshells embedded in it(Some form of Bivalve, I don't know one kind from another, either the water subsided, or the land rose (Rome is fairly near Vesuvius)
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
02/09/2007 13:17 Comments ||
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#13
Not to worry - NET > "PLANET X" still incoming, + SOLAR CHANGES + Years 2009-2012. That only leaves "WAR IS NOT ONLY POSSIBLE/REALISTIC BUT DESIRED" USA-China war starting after Year 2014 [minima], and USA-Russia war after Year 2015, not counitng mixed scenarios. * HEAR US, SUN, JUST TO SHOW YOU WE MEAN BUSINESS WE'RE GONNA LET PLANET X + 2012 SMASH INTO THE EARTH DELIBERATELY - SURRENDER NOW, D *** YOU, OR YOU WILL BE HELD DIRECTLY RESPONSIBLE FOR OUR SUICIDE.
President Hugo Chavez's government nationalized Venezuela's largest private electric company on Thursday, buying a controlling stake in Electricidad de Caracas from its US-based owner, AES Corp. The sale was made official as Paul Hanrahan, president and CEO of AES, signed a document during a ceremony at the presidential palace in Caracas passing the company's 82-percent stake in the utility to the Venezuelan government. Signing for the Venezuelan government was Rafael Ramirez, the president of state oil company Petroleos de Venezuela SA. The sale price was not disclosed.
Posted by: Fred ||
02/09/2007 00:00 ||
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"still got that software backdoor? We want to limit supply to between 2AM-3:30..er....make it 4AM. F*ck Hugo"
Meat cuts vanished from Venezuelan supermarkets this week, leaving only unsavory bits like chicken feet, while costly artificial sweeteners have increasingly replaced sugar, and many staples sell far above government-fixed prices.
Chavez's administration blames the food supply problems on unscrupulous speculators, but industry officials say government price controls that strangle profits are responsible.
President Hugo Chavez's administration blames the food supply problems on unscrupulous speculators, but industry officials say government price controls that strangle profits are responsible. Authorities on Wednesday raided a warehouse in Caracas and seized seven tons of sugar hoarded by vendors unwilling to market the inventory at the official price.
Major private supermarkets suspended sales of beef earlier this week after one chain was shut down for 48 hours for pricing meat above government-set levels, but an agreement reached with the government on Wednesday night promises to return meat to empty refrigerator shelves.
Shortages have sporadically appeared with items from milk to coffee since early 2003, when Chavez began regulating prices for 400 basic products as a way to counter inflation and protect the poor.
Yet inflation has soared to an accumulated 78 percent in the last four years in an economy awash in petrodollars.
Shortages have sporadically appeared with items from milk to coffee since early 2003, when Chavez began regulating prices for 400 basic products as a way to counter inflation and protect the poor. Yet inflation has soared to an accumulated 78 percent in the last four years in an economy awash in petrodollars, and food prices have increased particularly swiftly, creating a widening discrepancy between official prices and the true cost of getting goods to market in Venezuela. "Shortages have increased significantly as well as violations of price controls," Central Bank director Domingo Maza Zavala told the Venezuelan broadcaster Union Radio on Thursday. "The difference between real market prices and controlled prices is very high."
Most items can still be found, but only by paying a hefty markup at grocery stores or on the black market. A glance at prices in several Caracas supermarkets this week showed milk, ground coffee, cheese and beans selling between 30 percent to 60 percent above regulated prices. The state runs a nationwide network of subsidized food stores, but in recent months some items have become increasingly hard to find.
At a giant outdoor market held last weekend by the government to address the problems, a street vendor crushed raw sugar cane to sell juice to weary shoppers waiting in line to buy sugar. "They say there are no shortages, but I'm not finding anything in the stores," grumbled Ana Diaz, a 70-year-old housewife who after eight hours, had managed to fill a bag with chicken, milk, vegetable oil and sugar bought at official prices. "There's a problem somewhere, and it needs to be fixed."
In four years the government has barely raised the price of beef, which now stands at $1.82 per pound. Simply getting beef to retailers now costs $2.41 per pound without including any markup, he said. "They want to sell it at the same price the cattle breeder gets for his cow," he said. "It's impossible."
Gonzalo Asuaje, president of the meat processors association Afrigo, said that costs and demand have surged but in four years the government has barely raised the price of beef, which now stands at $1.82 per pound. Simply getting beef to retailers now costs $2.41 per pound without including any markup, he said. "They want to sell it at the same price the cattle breeder gets for his cow," he said. "It's impossible."
After a meeting with government officials Wednesday, supermarkets association head Luis Rodriguez told the TV channel Globovision that beef and chicken will be available at regulated prices within two to three days. He did not say whether the government would be subsidizing sales or if negotiations on price controls would continue. The government has urged Venezuelans to refrain from panic buying and is looking to imports to help.
Jorge Alvarado, trade secretary at the Bolivian Embassy in Caracas, told the state news agency that Venezuela's government plans to import 330 tons of Bolivian beef next week, eventually bringing that to 11,000 tons a year. It also plans to import 8,250 tons of beans, chicken, soybeans and cooking oil, Alvarado said.
Government officials dismiss any problems with price controls, while state TV has begun running tickers urging the public to "denounce the hoarders and speculators" through a toll-free phone number. "The weight of the law will be felt, and we demand punishment," Information Minister Willian Lara said Wednesday.
Postscript: I now realize this story is completely fabricated by the enemies of Hugo and the enemies of Venezuela. Everything is hunky-dory and food production could not be better! Just ask the BBC!
#2
This is the first comment to a post about Zimbabwe's inflation problem, but I though it was (a) applicable to Venezuela, (b) breathtakingly ignorant, and (c) f*ing hysterical:
Pres. Mugabe is right. Prices do not rise automatically. Humans play a vital role in raising prices. There may be some plots to destabilise Zimbabwe's economy. No need to surrender for reforms. Mr. Gono is also correct: a social contract is essential to end corruption. Let the solutions to the problems come from within zimbabwe itself. No need to prescribe Western ready made remedies.
#9
They will soon be just like their best friend the NORK's. We will stand by and watch them fail as a nation and they will blame the West for everything bad. Thousands will starve, their economy will collaps, Chavez will name himself ruler for life. Then as a last resort they will attack one of their neighbors blaming them as a puppet to the US. Not a bright future, but it is predictable.
Posted by: 49 Pan ||
02/09/2007 8:36 Comments ||
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Yet inflation has soared to an accumulated 78 percent in the last four years
¡ñ Wonder if you saw a story out of Taipei: ¡°President Chen Shui-bian said Thursday the name ¡®Taiwan¡¯ would soon replace ¡®China¡¯ on the island¡¯s stamps, a move likely to anger Beijing.¡±
Yeah, what doesn¡¯t anger Beijing? Taiwan¡¯s very existence angers Beijing, as does the existence of anything not controlled by those brutes. One day, Beijing will swallow Taiwan, that plucky little democracy. And, until it does, Taiwan might as well live a little. And living includes determining your own frickin¡¯ stamps.
By the way, I suspect that the world will gasp for, oh, about two and a half days after Beijing swallows Taiwan (violently, in all probability). And how long will the world gasp if Iran obliterates Israel with nuclear weapons? Three days? Four?
Perhaps a ghoulish contest could be held.
¡ñ And did you read this glorious, glorious story, out of Grenada ¡ª tiny Grenada (liberated by Reagan et al. in 1983)?
A diplomatic gaffe marred Saturday¡¯s inauguration of a China-financed stadium on this Caribbean island when a band performed the national anthem of Chinese rival Taiwan.
Oh, marvelous, just marvelous ¡ª play it again, Grenada.
¡ñ This, I¡¯m afraid, is a less funny story. The PRC prevented 20 Chinese writers from attending an International PEN conference in Hong Kong ¡ª Hong Kong, mind you, which is under the control of Beijing.
Some were warned not to go, while others who had permits to travel to Hong Kong . . . had their documents seized at the border.
The travel restrictions came after China¡¯s recent ban of eight books, most of them works of history, including one about the outbreak of severe acute respiratory syndrome, or SARS, in 2003. . . .
The crackdown came just weeks after the government relaxed decades-old restrictions on foreign media, giving them greater freedom to report the 2008 Beijing Olympics ¡ª a move that it hoped would burnish its international image.
Oh, yeah.
But Chinese writers said the tolerance granted foreigners does not extend to those who write for a Chinese audience.
¡°It¡¯s all for show,¡± said Yu Jie, a writer who has been blacklisted and unable to publish under his own name for more than two years. ¡°They¡¯re actually tightening their grip on China¡¯s writers.¡±
¡°It¡¯s all for show.¡± You¡¯re exactly right, Mr. Yu.
Posted by: Mike ||
02/09/2007 09:40 ||
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Fred,
What character encoding does this story take? Neither ISO-Latin-1 nor UTF-8 work.
Posted by: Eric Jablow ||
02/09/2007 10:27 Comments ||
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Eric, my browser, Mozilla Firefox, is set to Western (ISO-8859-1). The text is still a little gunked up but readable.
NBC's Tim Russert deflected criticism of his ethics and credibility as he completed a heated second day of cross-examination Thursday in the trial of former White House aide I. Lewis "Scooter Libby.
Russert, who testified that he never discussed outed CIA operative Valerie Plame with Libby, was the final prosecution witness before Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald rested his three-week perjury and obstruction case. Libby's attorneys will begin calling witnesses Monday.
The journalist was subjected to the kind of interrogation he usually gives guests on his Sunday television show "Meet the Press," as attorneys flashed excerpts of his previous statements on a video monitor and asked him to explain inconsistencies.
A law school graduate, Russert avoided several traps defense attorneys laid before him. He seemed uncomfortable at times, however, as they asked him to explain why he willingly told an FBI agent about a July 2003 conversation with Libby, then gave a sworn statement saying he would not testify about that conversation because it was confidential.
"Did you disclose in the affidavit to the court that you had already disclosed the contents of your conversation with Mr. Libby," asked Theodore Wells, one of Libby's attorneys.
"As I've said, sir ... "Russert began.
"It's a yes or no question," Wells interrupted.
"I'd like to answer it to the best of my ability," Russert said.
"This is a very simple question. Either it's in the affidavit or it's not?" Wells asked. "Did you disclose to the court that you had already communicated to the FBI the fact that you had communicated with Mr. Libby?"
"No," Russert said.
Wells wants to cast Russert as someone who cannot be believed, who publicly championed the sanctity of off-the-record conversations but privately revealed that information to investigators. Russert said he viewed the FBI conversation and testimony to prosecutors differently.
Russert's credibility is under fire because he and Libby tell very different stories about a July 2003 phone call that is at the heart of the case. The question of which to believe could be a critical jury room issue.
Both men agree that Libby called Russert to complain about a colleague's news coverage. Libby says at the end of the call, Russert told him "all the reporters know" that Plame, the wife of a prominent war critic, worked for the CIA. Russert testified that part of the conversation never occurred.
"That would be impossible," Russert testified Wednesday. "I didn't know who that person was until several days later."
Libby subsequently repeated the information about Plame to other journalists, always with the caveat that he had heard it from reporters, he has said. Prosecutors say Libby concocted the Russert conversation to shield him from prosecution for revealing classified information from government sources.
Libby's attorneys say Russert knew about Plame from colleagues David Gregory and Andrea Mitchell. Mitchell said in an interview that she and other reporters knew Plame worked for the CIA but she later recanted that statement. Wells had hoped to play clips of Mitchell discussing her statements on the Don Imus morning show on MSNBC.
Fitzgerald successfully argued that the tapes not be played.
"We might as well take 'Wigmore on Evidence' and replace it with 'Imus on Evidence,'" Fitzgerald said, referencing the classic treatise on evidentiary law. "There's no Imus exception to the hearsay rule. This has no business in a federal court."
Wells has questioned Russert about other phone conversations he couldn't remember, inconsistencies between his current account and FBI notes of an agent's original interview with him, and the likelihood that he would've let such a high-ranking official off the phone without fishing for some news.
Suggesting that Russert was eager to see Libby face charges, Wells played a video of Russert discussing the impending indictment with Imus. Russert sounded giddy at times in the discussion, laughing and describing the anticipation as "like Christmas Eve."
Russert said he was eager for the story to unfold like any big event.
"Did you take joy in Mr. Libby's indictment?" Fitzgerald asked during follow-up questioning.
"No, not at all," Russert said. "And I don't take joy in being here."
Libby's attorneys also will try to undercut the credibility of former New York Times reporter Judith Miller, who testified that Libby revealed Plame's identity to her. Defense attorney William Jeffress said he intends to call Miller's former boss, Times managing editor Jill Abramson, to try to refute Miller and question her credibility.
Posted by: Bobby ||
02/09/2007 06:06 ||
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Tim Russert deflected criticism of his ethics and credibility
His ethics and credibility--that's a stretch. Russert is another dipwad with an MSM agenda.
#2
Saw the news yesterday, they painted Russert as Volunteering to testify, and isn't he a good citizen for doing so.
I seem to remember the feds said "Testify or prison". A fact totaly ignored in the newscast.
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
02/09/2007 12:34 Comments ||
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Former Sen. John Edwards on Thursday stood by two bloggers after a conservative Catholic group demanded they be fired for posting what it called "anti-Catholic" blog entries before joining his presidential campaign.
Catholic League President William Donohue issued a statement this week calling the two bloggers -- Amanda Marcotte and Melissa McEwen -- "anti-Catholic, vulgar, trash talking bigots." In response to the criticism, the North Carolina Democrat said that "the tone and the sentiment of some of Amanda Marcotte's and Melissa McEwen's posts personally offended me."
"I've talked to Amanda and Melissa; they have both assured me that it was never their intention to malign anyone's faith, and I take them at their word."
"It's not how I talk to people, and it's not how I expect the people who work for me to talk to people," Edwards said in a statement. "But I also believe in giving everyone a fair shake. I've talked to Amanda and Melissa; they have both assured me that it was never their intention to malign anyone's faith, and I take them at their word." In statements also released by the Edwards campaign, Marcotte and McEwen said they did not mean to offend anyone's personal beliefs.
Continued on Page 49
Posted by: Fred ||
02/09/2007 00:00 ||
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Link ||
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#1
She asked, "Can't a few white boys sexually assault a black woman anymore without people getting all wound up about it? So unfair."
Liberals always claim they are against racism. If that isn't racist and sick, I don't know what is.
#2
From the Corner at National Review: Amanda wrote: "What if Mary had taken Plan B after the Lord filled her with his hot, white, sticky Holy Spirit?"
I guess she doesn't believe in immaculate conception.
#5
I can only think that Edwards thought it might be better to have them inside his tent p*****g out, then outside it, p*****g in.
Gonna love seeing him cope with the Catholics in his campaign, once they start reading what Marcotte and McEwen have in their archives.
#6
Most likely hired by a campaign staffer. Edwards probably didn't know who they were until it blew up.
Posted by: ed ||
02/09/2007 7:23 Comments ||
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#7
Hit submit too soon. By keeping them on staff, it does show bad judgment. At this point there is no down side to dumping the gals while there is 100% certainty the gals will get him into more trouble.
Posted by: ed ||
02/09/2007 7:26 Comments ||
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#8
Plan B is the kinder, gentler brand name for RU-486.
Amanda's next sentence after that was "Youd have to justify your misogyny with another ancient mythology." This suggests that she doesn't accept the divinity of Christ or the accuracy of Scripture either.
And then John-Boy says, "I talked personally to the two women who were involved. They gave me their word they, under no circumstances, intended to denigrate any church or anybody's religion and offered their apologies for anything that indicated otherwise. I took them at their word."
Either (1) John Edwards lacks the common sense God bestowed on a rubber duck and is therefore extremely gullible, or (2) his PR staff is painfully incompetent at spin-doctoring.
Jim Geraghty has the last word: Good luck, whoever the ultimate coordinator for "Catholics For Edwards" is.
Posted by: Mike ||
02/09/2007 8:25 Comments ||
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#9
"I've talked to Amanda and Melissa; they have both assured me that it was never their intention to malign anyone's faith, and I take them at their word."
So whaddya gonna say the next time when it happens again, Breck Boy?
And there'll be a next time...
#11
Mike, I wouldn't expect the ladies to accept the tenets of any of the classic religions, as a matter of principle. Lots of people don't, though, without being so outright rude about it.
Treasury member Ali Akbar Wains on Thursday broke a taboo in the National Assembly (NA) by suggesting that the government relax the ban on alcohol to wean young men from addiction to drugs like heroin and morphine.
In my personal opinion, the government should relax the ban on liquor to arrest the rising trend of the use of drugs like heroin, morphine and hashish among the youth of the country."
Parliamentary Affairs Minister Sher Afgan Niazi seconded Wains suggestion, and only Environment Minister Tahir Iqbal and treasury member Zulfiqar Dillon opposed the proposal. In my personal opinion, the government should relax the ban on liquor to arrest the rising trend of the use of drugs like heroin, morphine and hashish among the youth of the country. Most drug addicts are between the ages of 20 and 30 years, Wains said. By banning the minor evil of alcohol, the government had given the major evil of drugs to flourish in the country, he added.
Niazi said he supported Wains suggestion. It is a fact that restrictions on liquor have resulted in a surge in the use of deadly drugs in Pakistan, he said. He added: I am not going to mention how many members of this honourable house drink. The speaker expunged his remarks, but Niazi insisted that he stood by them.
Iqbal opposed the suggestion, saying that alcohol was prohibited in Islam, while Dillon accused Wains of lobbying for liquor traders.
Posted by: Fred ||
02/09/2007 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[9 views]
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#1
I always thourght Pakistan based itself on Islamic utopia?????Why need drugs when you live in an Islamic state????
Billions of dollars are being wasted in the international carbon trading system owing to a loophole in the Kyoto protocol, according to a study to be published on Thursday in the journal Nature. It's not a loophole at all. It's how carbon credits were meant to work, although even the FT can't admit that.
The Financial Times revealed last month that a few Chinese factories and carbon traders were making large profits by exploiting the regulations in the protocol surrounding a potent greenhouse gas, HFC-23.
By installing cheap equipment, the companies could gain carbon credits which they could sell for hundreds of millions of dollars.
According to the study, about 4.6bn ($5.9bn, £3bn) could have been saved through closing this loophole, and instead spending 100m on a simple measure that would eliminate large quantities of the gas.
Under the Kyoto protocol, developed countries must cut their emissions by an average of 5 per cent compared with 1990 levels by 2012. As well as reducing their own emissions, they can invest in projects in developing countries that reduce emissions there through a system of carbon trading.
These projects, ranging from wind farms and hydro-electric dams to systems that capture methane from pig farms, are granted carbon credits for each tonne of carbon dioxide, or its equivalent, that is avoided. The idea is that global emissions are reduced and developing countries benefit by gaining access to technology they would not otherwise be able to afford.
But chemical factories producing the HFC-23 gas can reduce their emissions using a simple piece of equipment called a scrubber. This is cheap it can cost a few million dollars for an average-sized factory but because HFC-23 is so potent, companies receive thousands of carbon credits for reducing a few tonnes of the gas. One tonne of HFC-23 is thought to have the same warming impact on the climate as 11,700 tonnes of carbon dioxide.
As a result, HFC-23 projects have been the biggest single source of credits on the carbon market although, as there are a limited number of factories producing the gas, they will make up a smaller share in future.
Thursdays study is the first to put a figure on how much that has cost, and to work out an alternative. Michael Wara, formerly of Stanford University and author of the study, said that instead of including HFC-23 in the Kyoto protocol, development banks or other funders could have funded the installation of scrubbers at a global cost of 100m, thereby saving 4.6bn that could have been invested in projects to generate clean energy.
Mr Wara concluded that the carbon markets had failed to persuade China to switch from coal to gas, or to more efficient coal power stations.
Future emissions scenarios suggest that unless China and India can be convinced to build mostly efficient, low-carbon-emitting electricity generating plants from natural gas rather than coal over the next one to two decades, little can be done to stem the tide of global climate change, he said.
#1
The law of Unintended Consequences strikes again.
Posted by: DanNY ||
02/09/2007 6:16 Comments ||
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#2
a few Chinese factories and carbon traders were making large profits by exploiting the regulations in the protocol surrounding a potent greenhouse gas, HFC-23.
#1
Thought this was a weird one...sure enough, another story on the site says "Did Bush Jets Influence Hurricane Katrina?" with a Reuters-quality photoshop job.
#6
A great new feature should be the "New Presidential Candidates for 2008" or the famous " This is another loopy idea of Candidate X ". Of course, there is always the great "Bagdad News Without Leaving the Hotel Bar", with the theme song "We lost a war without ever losing a battle". Perhaps the news would be better if the reporters did more drinking. If not, perhaps all listeners should do more drinking.
#9
lol, whomever's behind the EcoEnquirer seems to be the environmental (skeptic) equivalent of Scott Ott (over at scrappleface).
Posted by: BA ||
02/09/2007 10:53 Comments ||
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#10
It is Friday noon out here on the Northwest coast, within the shadow of the pending Vancouver Island Earthquake and the ground is as stable as Anna Nicole's heartbeat. Lest I enrage patron saint Murphy, I predict nothing will happen with regard to that tectonic plate over the weekend.
Owners of urban blight property amongst those hardest hit...
CACTUS, Tex. - The streets of this small, isolated city in the Texas Panhandle are virtually empty nowadays, and "For Rent" signs decorate dilapidated trailers and shabby 1940s-era military barracks that just weeks ago were full of tenants.
Sales of tortillas and other staples are down. Money wire transactions to Central America have mostly dried up. The "Guatemalas," as local residents call them, are almost all gone, and so are a significant number of Mexican nationals. An estimated 12 to 18 children are now living with only one parent since the other was arrested in a massive immigration raid at the biggest employer in town.
On Dec. 12, hundreds of Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents clad in riot gear and armed with assault rifles descended on the Swift & Co. meatpacking plant in a coordinated raid of six of the company's facilities nationwide. The operation was the government's largest single work-site enforcement operation ever. The plant in little Cactus -- a town better known in the state of Chihuahua, Mexico, and in the department of Quiché, Guatemala, where workers came from, than in Texas -- was the largest one raided. Almost a quarter of the 1,282 suspected illegal immigrants arrested in the raids were removed from the Cactus plant.
That an obscure town 600 miles north of the border and in the middle of High Plains country once owned by Anglo ranchers and farmers was a haven for illegal Mexican and Central American immigrants was no surprise to anyone here. The draw to Cactus has existed since American Beef Packers opened the meat-processing plant in 1974. Swift's predecessor company bought the plant in 1975, and it became known as Swift & Co.'s Cactus Beef Plant in 2002.
Although opened with local hires, Vietnamese and Laotian refugees became the dominant workforce by the late-1970s. By the mid-'80s the workforce was overwhelmingly Mexican immigrants, and by 2000 the Guatemalans, speaking the Mayan language of Quiché, had started to arrive. Before the Dec. 12 raid, Swift employed 3,050 workers in Cactus at a starting wage of $11.50 an hour to slaughter, process and package several thousand head of cattle daily.
Work inside the plant is hard, dirty, stinky and dangerous, and it is where Cactus's biggest business owner and mayor, Luis Aguilar, and Cactus's largest landlord, Thanh Nguyen, got their starts in the United States. Ahh, the owners of the "dilapidated trailers and shabby 1940s-era military barracks that just weeks ago were full of tenants", aka local slumlords. Let's hear what they have to say, shall we? Aguilar, a native of Chihuahua, began working at the plant in 1976 using false identity papers, he admits. In 1986, he was able to legalize his status in the United States, along with 2.7 million illegal workers, under the amnesty program authorized by the federal Immigration Reform and Control Act.
Previously criticized by some local officials who thought he aided and even encouraged illegal immigrants to settle in Cactus, Aguilar took the raids almost personally. Considering how he got his start, that looks like a fair assumption.... He canceled the annual city Christmas party because so many residents, including City Council members, had spouses or other relatives who had been arrested by immigration authorities. Aguilar subsequently lent one of his buildings to be used as a food and used-clothing pantry for residents whose relatives were caught in the raid.
"These are my people," said Aguilar, 50, who today owns the largest house in Cactus, a nearby 575-acre ranch, a laundromat and the town's only full-fledged grocery store. About half of his 26 run-down rental units are empty now.
Nguyen and his family, part of the mass exodus of "boat people" who left Vietnam after the fall of Saigon, arrived as legal refugees in nearby Dumas, Tex., in 1979 under the sponsorship of a restaurant owner who wanted cheap labor. Within six months, Nguyen and his wife left for the better-paying meatpacking plant in Cactus, said Nguyen's son Phuong, 37, who is also known as Ben.
Except for the Nguyens, Asian immigrants moved out of Cactus, which is now 99.5 percent Hispanic. Some local officials recently said that 75 percent of the city's estimated 5,000 residents before the raid were illegal immigrants. Aguilar disputes that, saying it was only 15 percent.
To Ben Nguyen, that number is not important. His father usually offered a few weeks of free rent to immigrants until they got a job at the meat plant and their first paycheck and provided thrift store mattresses and clothes, if necessary, Nguyen said. Now only eight of his father's 60 rental units are occupied. No wonder he's upset, too. Some were vacated the day of the raid, but the majority were abandoned within weeks, when frightened immigrants moved away. Since then, vandals have been kicking in the doors of the empty apartments, looking for any items of value that might have been left behind.
"I do believe in punishment for the crime, but this is costing me too much," Ben Nguyen said. "You scare kids; you push people so far away that you destroy the economy of the town. . . . This town is built by immigrants. They were just like me when they come over here. They didn't have anything. They came over here just to work and start their lives."
But authorities charge that these immigrants had false identity documents, enabling them to get driver's licenses and jobs illegally, victimizing U.S. citizens and fueling the fraudulent document industry. Traffic stops or crime reports became confusing events in Cactus in recent years. Immigrants would offer two names, said former Cactus Police Chief Tim Turley. They had "el verdadero," as they called it -- the true name -- and their work name.
You didn't think they were going to have an article like this without showing a "victim" of the immigration raids, did you? Of course not....
Mario Lux, 26, from the town of Canilla in Quiché, said the piece of paper that gave him his work name cost him $1,400 and was obtained for him by a friend in Cactus. With that document, Lux said he got an identification card in nearby New Mexico and then a job at the Swift plant in March 2006, cutting fat and gristle off meat for $11.90 an hour. He was not working the day of the raid but now will not return for fear of being discovered and arrested. He says that he still owes $3,200 to the smuggling network that got him to Cactus and that he has been unable to send money to his wife and three children back home. He is also three weeks behind in his rent. He and his three roommates pay $120 a week for their small apartment.
"I have no idea how I will pay that now," Lux said as he stood in the food and clothes pantry established in the Cactus town center.
So slam him with accessory and conspiracy for felony convictions and strip him of his naturalization, then ship him 'home' to his 'people'.
When you become an 'American' you give up loyalty to blood and buy into the loyalty to a concept greater than that. Now for those you think the forgoing was racist or nativist, tell me how you can then NOT round up people because of their ethnic background if they are permitted loyalty to blood over countrymen. It doesn't sell both ways.
#3
Aguilar disputes that, saying it was only 15 percent. [illegal immigrant residents before the raid].
But after the raid the town is nearly deserted. With an estimate such as that, it's safe to assume Aguilars financial records and tax statements have a similar level of accuracy.
#6
1. Cry me a river
2. Remember your oath to your new country
3. If you can't do 1 or 2, get the fuck out and leave your citizenship at the border for someone else who really deserves it.
#7
Mario Lux, 26, from the town of Canilla in Quiché, said the piece of paper that gave him his work name cost him $1,400 and was obtained for him by a friend in Cactus. With that document, Lux said he got an identification card in nearby New Mexico and then a job at the Swift plant in March 2006, cutting fat and gristle off meat for $11.90 an hour. He was not working the day of the raid but now will not return for fear of being discovered and arrested. He says that he still owes $3,200 to the smuggling network that got him to Cactus and that he has been unable to send money to his wife and three children back home. He is also three weeks behind in his rent. He and his three roommates pay $120 a week for their small apartment.
"I have no idea how I will pay that now," Lux said as he stood in the food and clothes pantry established in the Cactus town center.
That bolded part is interesting. I was wondering from where these guys where getting their money to pay the smugglers. I had discounted a credit arrangement, but it now becomes clear: the family stays behind as insurance. The guy doesn't pay the smugglers back directly: they get a cut of the remittances this guy sends back by visiting the wife and kids left behind.
No wonder the mexica immigration groups demand an end to deportations: the guy runs up a debt with unsavory characters to get him into the country, with the understanding that he will pay the debt from work he does while in the country. If the place gets raided and he gets arrested, no money sent back, and the debt doesn't get paid. If the guy is deported back, no money is sent back, the debt doesn't get paid, AND he's the one they'll lean on, instead of the wife and kids.
So let's suppose we continue, or even step up, deportations. Suppose we repeately deport the same guy back to the same town where he has to deal with the same coyotes every time to get him back across the border. Will "I hocked my entire soul to Coyotes and they'll break my legs, or my head, if I don't get into the United States and send more money!" count as a reason for asking for asylum?
Some have suggested that repeat offenders spend a month or two in the pokey before being returned to Mexico. How would the coyotes back home, charged with getting the "low monthly payments" for their services from the family left behind interpret THAT?
#9
Ptah---good comments. I would think that you would have to ask for asylum outside of the country, like at an embassy, or, if you were here legally, like with a valid passport and possibly a visa. If you broke laws getting into the country, you kinda blew it, I would think.
The real problem with illegal aliens is that they bring the culture of corruption to this country. It is a system buried in our system like a cancer. The dems and the republicans ignore this long term threat to our very existance as a republic in favor of their short term gains, i.e., new source of votes for the dems and a source of cheap labor for the republicans.
In this story, look how the so-called victimized landlord sunk down into this culture of corruption. The actions of illegal aliens is destroying the very fabric of our country and its institutions.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
02/09/2007 15:09 Comments ||
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#10
Awesome, 1 town down, only about 2,000 more to go.
#11
Sales of tortillas and other staples are down.
How un,un,un, ummm Mexican?
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
02/09/2007 19:41 Comments ||
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#12
JFM-I am not sure about this, but I think that oath applies to citizens only. Resident aliens appear to make it under that limbo bar, and if that is true, that is ANOTHER reason that the proposed guest worker problem is a bad idea (or at least, it SHOULD be to politicians who truly give a damn about the security of the US.)
Found this link, pertaining to employment with UCLA in California:
http://www.payroll.ucla.edu/Alien/e5a-employ.asp
"Oath & Patent - U.S. Permanent Resident Alien
Note: The State Oath of Allegiance is signed by United States citizens only. The Patent Acknowledgment is signed by all University employees... "
Activists fighting illegal immigration are using a time-proven method public shame to target employers who may hire undocumented workers, angering some business owners and federal authorities.
Instead of just protesting at day labor sites, activists around the country are posting on a website photos of people hiring the workers and the names of their companies, if that can be determined. The website, http://www.wehirealiens.com , which reports 1 million hits a month, lists 2,920 employers in 47 states, including nearly 700 in California.
Founder Jason Mrochek, a 32-year-old Riverside County software developer, said the website was developed in 2005 because he and other activists were frustrated by the lack of action by the federal government in stemming illegal immigration. Mrochek's idea is to bring unwanted attention to those who hire illegal immigrants. For instance, he and others spent a recent Saturday in Capistrano Beach, snapping photos of anyone who tried to hire dayworkers congregating on Doheny Park Road.
Mrochek said there was a "vetting" process that allows only postings with "reasonable suspicion" of wrongdoing. Critics contend that the website activists, armed with flimsy evidence, act as judge and jury to punish a company that may have committed no crime by hiring Spanish-speaking workers. Mrochek said he would remove information from the website if an employer called and proved the allegations wrong.
Republic Services, a trash collection company in Clark County, Nev., is listed on the site, which president Bob Coyle said was "very frustrating" because he participates in a federal program to check employees' immigration status. Coyle said he believed a disgruntled employee made a post that says "almost all if not all the workers are working with false documents."
Mrochek, who was raised in San Diego, said he decided to become an anti-illegal immigration activist when he returned to Southern California after graduating from West Point and serving as a U.S. Army officer for two years. He said he noticed an increased number of illegal immigrants in the area, a trend he linked to most of the state's problems in such areas as healthcare, education and pollution. He is also an activist with Federal Immigration Reform and Enforcement, a coalition that routinely participates in protests around Southern California.
#2
angering some business owners and federal authorities.
Shouldnt this article have a quote from a federal authority to substantiate that claim. Fercriesakes, even the usual CatPuke stories at least have a bogus anonymous source.
#4
Colorado did this but instead of for illegal hiring, it was for prostitution. They put up photos of the guys paying for the services to hookers down on Colfax avenue.
It did make a dent, as no one wants their pix posted like this ;)
To tell you the truth I don't know what ever happened to this program. It was publicized greatly then it kind of petered out.
lol pun intended.
Posted by: Jan from work ||
02/09/2007 22:25 Comments ||
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A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
According to a credible source, an employee of Anna Nicole Smith found her in her room in the Hard Rock Hotel and Casino in Hollywood, Florida. The employee pulled back a sheet and discovered that she appeared to have choked on her own vomit. 
President Hugo Chavez's government nationalized Venezuela's largest private electric company on Thursday, buying a controlling stake in Electricidad de Caracas from its US-based owner, AES Corp. The sale was made official as Paul Hanrahan, president and CEO of AES, signed a document during a ceremony at the presidential palace in Caracas passing the company's 82-percent stake in the utility to the Venezuelan government. Signing for the Venezuelan government was Rafael Ramirez, the president of state oil company Petroleos de Venezuela SA. The sale price was not disclosed.
Former Sen. John Edwards on Thursday stood by two bloggers after a conservative Catholic group demanded they be fired for posting what it called "anti-Catholic" blog entries before joining his presidential campaign.
Treasury member Ali Akbar Wains on Thursday broke a taboo in the National Assembly (NA) by suggesting that the government relax the ban on alcohol to wean young men from addiction to drugs like heroin and morphine.
