Rosie O'Donnell left "The View" with a bang, not a whimper, following her on-air smackdown with co-host Elisabeth Hasselbeck on Wednesday. Yesterday, Rosie's chief writer, Janette Barber, was allegedly escorted from the building after she was caught drawing moustaches on photographs of Hasselbeck that hang in the "View" studios.
The Post's Adam Buckman reports ABC confirmed in a statement only that "photographs at 'The View's' offices were defaced. Rosie O'Donnell was not in the building. ABC Legal and Human Resources are investigating the matter." Barber is an old friend of O'Donnell who worked with her years ago on "The Rosie O'Donnell Show." There were also rumors O'Donnell was so angry after her argument with Hasselbeck that she trashed her dressing room, although ABC denied the tantrum.
Meanwhile, "The View" went on yesterday without O'Donnell, who was taking a previously planned day off to celebrate partner Kelli Carpenter's 40th birthday.
Hasselbeck - who had tangled with O'Donnell before about President Bush's handling of the Iraq war - was on the show with Joy Behar, Barbara Walters and guest host Kathy Griffin. The four discussed the blowup only briefly before switching topics. As for O'Donnell, she's been posting comments on her personal Web site, rosie.com, fueling speculation she might not return to "The View" ever again. Her scheduled last day is Wednesday, June 20.
When one fan wrote, "Work isn't worth that battle," Rosie replied, "Agreed." Another wrote, "Please walk away. It's not worth it." Rosie replied, "Well, you know when it's time to go." To a fan who asked when she would return, O'Donnell answered, "No idea."
Yesterday, O'Donnell posted a video that may have symbolized how she's feeling about "The View." The tape consisted of ducks swimming in a pond accompanied by an audio track of the John Mayer song "Vultures," whose lyrics include "How will I hold my head to keep from going under?" Officially, "The View" expects O'Donnell to return to work on Tuesday.
#2
Janette Barber, was allegedly escorted from the building after she was caught drawing moustaches on photographs of Hasselbeck that hang in the "View" studios.
Thus confirming people who work in infotainement, and in media more generally, are noted for their maturity and staid character. Certainly not ego-freaks and narcissists, nope, nope.
#5
It's good that this overstuffed garbage bag has people on the payroll to do the small stuff that's beneath her like draw mustaches on pictures. What's next, Rosie? Janette drops off the flaming bag of dogshit at the Hasselbeck house, rings the doorbell and runs?
Heeheehee...heeheehee...
Posted by: Dave D. ||
05/25/2007 12:37 Comments ||
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#7
Such is the only response of the left - and muslims - when anyone stands up to their bullsh*t. If she had the chance, Rosie would act on her emotions and have Elizabeth put to death. As it stands, America is still free and Rosie is forced to retreat into the other posture the left shares with muslims so well: Wounded impotence.
President Viktor Yushchenko said on Friday he was taking control of interior ministry troops loyal to Ukraine's prime minister, a direct challenge to the rival he has confronted for months.
Yushchenko issued his decree hours after riot police controlled by the interior minister took over a key building in Kiev following scuffles. Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovich's supporters planned a rally in the city centre later in the day. The decree concerns troops largely responsible for maintaining public order and not the army, which is controlled by one of pro-western Yushchenko's few allies in the cabinet.
Tensions boiled over on Thursday when Yushchenko dismissed Ukraine's prosecutor general and accused riot police who rushed to his office to defend him of breaking the law.
Interior Minister Vasyl Tsushko, who oversaw the seizure by riot police of the prosecutor general's office, remained defiant and said he alone would control his forces. "I am told that I am interfering in politics. Well, I will keep interfering because I can no longer tolerate lies and nonsense," he told parliament which is hostile to the president.
Yushchenko said baldly that Tsushko had committed a crime. Yanukovich said Svyatoslav Piskun's dismissal as prosecutor general was groundless and assured Ukrainians he would allow neither anarchy nor civil war.
Yushchenko and Yanukovich, closer to Moscow in outlook, have been unable to agree on a date for a snap parliamentary election nearly two months after the president dissolved parliament. The president invited the prime minister to new talks, but it was unclear whether they would take place. He conferred with security officials, as he did late into the night, and scheduled a meeting of the powerful National Security council.
Police loyal to Tsushko maintained a standoff through the night in the prosecutor general's office with a separate security unit charged with guarding government buildings. Periodic scuffles broke out. As dawn approached, members of parliament allied with Yanukovich, backed up by riot police, evicted the other unit from the office. Thousands of the prime minister's supporters gathered outside.
The newly appointed prosecutor general, unable to enter his office, said legal action had been launched against Tsushko. Television footage on Thursday showed riot police, accompanied by Tsushko, clambering over a fence and smashing their way into the building to enable Piskun to gain entry.
Both Yushchenko and Yanukovich called this week for quick action to break the deadlock over the election date. The president, who wants a poll as quickly as possible, said a deal to stage the vote had collapsed at the last minute. The prime minister says no election can be held before October.
Jacques Chirac came under renewed pressure yesterday to respond to allegations that he held a secret £30m account with a Japanese bank, amid reports that documents had emerged linking the former French president to the funds.
Judges quizzed a retired senior intelligence officer for nine hours over documents, described as "explosive", linking Mr Chirac to the account.
Police had swooped on the home of General Philippe Rondot, former head of the DGSE intelligence service, as part of another inquiry but found files labelled Japanese affair, PR1 affair and PR2 affair. PR stands for President of the Republic.
The judges were unable to consult the documents until Mr Chirac handed over power to Nicolas Sarkozy on May 16. After opening the files - two days after he left the Elysée - they called an immediate emergency meeting and ordered Gen Rondot to appear for questioning. Inside the files they reportedly found details of an account allegedly opened in Mr Chirac's name at the Tokyo Sowa Bank in the 1990s and copies of statements.
When allegations first emerged a year ago, Mr Chirac categorically denied having a bank account in Japan. His representatives continue to deny the allegations. However the former president, already facing questioning as part of an inquiry into corruption and abuse of public funds during his time as mayor of Paris from 1977-95, is likely to face fresh investigations when his immunity from prosecution as head of state expires on June 17.
Judges had ordered raids on Gen Rondot's home and questioned the former head of France's DGSE - the equivalent of Britain's MI6 - last year as part of the Clearstream dirty tricks political scandal.
When questioned then, Gen Rondot said intelligence agents had come across the Sowa Bank accounts in 1996 when investigating a Japanese businessman and friend of the president who wanted to invest in France. The general later retracted this, but among his copious handwritten notes, the judges stumbled across papers allegedly showing he had been asked by Mr Chirac in 2001 to find out if French intelligence was looking into claims of a Japanese account.
A source told the French weekly paper Le Canard Enchainé that the two investigating judges were "persuaded of the existence of Chirac's Japanese account". The paper added: "Meticulous as he was, the general wasn't content just to collect these embarrassing documents; he also analysed their contents over 112 pages."
No consensus has yet been reached on France's proposal of a simplified treaty to drag the European Union out of its constitutional crisis, a European Commission spokesman said Thursday. "There is an emerging consensus but that doesn't mean that consensus is already there," said spokesman Johannes Laitenberger. "The work we are undertaking has a positive dynamic but we haven't completed the talks yet," and much remains to be done before an EU summit on June 21-22, he told a press conference in Brussels. Laitenberger was talking the day after new French President Nicolas Sarkozy visited Brussels to champion his idea of a simplified treaty, which would obviate the need for more unpredictable referendums. Sarkozy told a press conference here that the idea of a simplified treaty was "the only possible solution" to the bloc's institutional gridlock.
...Governor Darrell Flyingman of the Cheyenne and Arapaho Tribes of Oklahoma put things in realistic perspective when he arose to speak. He talked about the thousands of acres of land either ceded or stolen by hook and crook from the people of his nation over the years (in Oklahoma).
He said, "I consider this to be a site of a massacre (Washita battlefield, OH) and not a battlefield as it is named and I will do everything within my power to see that the site is renamed as the Washita Massacre rather than Battlefield. Gov. Flyingman said that he felt great sorrow for the friends and family members of the massacre at Virginia Tech, but he was sad the television reporters kept referring to this tragedy as the worst massacre in American history.
"The massacre of American Indians at Washita, Sand Creek and Wounded Knee were just as horrible and many more died at each massacre site as what happened at Virginia Tech, but I suppose the fact that it was 'just Indians' being slaughtered meant that it was not a part of American history," he said. A 10 minute video of what really happened there, and why, can be found at http://custer.over-blog.com/categorie-10018053.html
McCain responds to Obama in tough enough, if predictable, language:
"While Senator Obama's two years in the U.S. Senate certainly entitle him to vote against funding our troops, my service and experience combined with conversations with military leaders on the ground in Iraq lead me to believe that we must give this new strategy a chance to succeed because the consequences of failure would be catastrophic to our nation's security."
But, McCain being McCain, he can't help himself and goes the next step in the statement's kicker:
"By the way, Senator Obama, it's a 'flak' jacket, not a 'flack' jacket."
Which is to say, "there is only one of us in this argument who has ever worn the uniform." (my words)
And if you still don't get it, a McCain aide blows away the anthill with, well, a rocket.
"Obama wouldn't know the difference between an RPG and a bong."
Howard Wolfson, a campaign spokesman, pointed to previous reports on some of the elements in the books to make the point that there was nothing new. "The news here is that it took three reporters nearly a decade to find no news," he said. He added: "Two overwhelming Senate victories in the toughest media market in the country demonstrated that voters have put these issues behind them."
Had these books reported incontrovertable proof that Hillary is actually a space alien, the response from Wolfson would be pretty much the same. "This is old news... voter have gotten past this... they're much less concerned that she's from Nebulon-IV than who is going to ensure they get the health care they need."
So what are the new charges? The one that stands out to me the most is:
"Her Way: The Hopes and Ambitions of Hillary Rodham Clinton," by Jeff Gerth and Don Van Natta Jr., reports that during her husband's 1992 campaign, a team she oversaw hired a private investigator to undermine Gennifer Flowers "until she is destroyed." Flowers had said publicly that she had an affair with Bill Clinton while he was governor of Arkansas.
See, after the Monica mess, Hillary was the recipient of enormous amounts of public sympathy. It fueled her 2000 Senate run - "justice for a woman done wrong!"
After a story like this, those who hate her will see confirmation of their views. Those who love her will, as her Senate spokesman does in the story, dismiss it as "trash for cash" or "cash for rehash." (Attack the motives, particularly with a rhyming phrase and you'll never have to respond to the substance of the charges.)
But those Democratic primary voters who were iffy on her, who wondered if she could win a general election... well, they may dread the Republican candidate turning every discussion of the Patriot Act and respecting people's constitutional rights into a discussion of why the Democratic nominee hires private investigators to "destroy people."
Hmmm. I wonder what prosecutors think of this mentality...
Mark Fabiani, who as White House special counsel played a key role in defending the Clintons, said she was "so tortured by the way she's been treated that she would do anything to get out of the situation. . . . And if that involved not being fully forthcoming, she herself would say, 'I have a reason for not being forthcoming.' " Her logic, he said, was: "If we do this, they're going to do this to me. If we say this, then they're going to say this. You know, [expletive] 'em, let's just not do that."
Didn't Martha Stewart get nailed on obstruction of justice for not being forthcoming with investigators? How is this different, exactly? Wouldn't Martha Stewart and just about every other subject of an investigation believe that they're being treated unfairly? Does this mean it's okay for them to not be forthcoming, too?
The women who also figured in Bill Clinton's life in Arkansas make a return appearance in the book, most notably Marilyn Jo Jenkins, a power company executive he fell in love with and almost left his wife over, according to Bernstein. Jenkins has been linked to Clinton before she was spirited into the governor's mansion at 5:15 a.m. for a final, furtive meeting with him the day he left for Washington to assume the presidency but Bernstein's account makes clear her pivotal role.
Bill Clinton wanted to divorce his wife to be with Jenkins in 1989, Bernstein reports, but Hillary Clinton refused. "There are worse things than infidelity," she told Betsey Wright, the governor's chief of staff. The crisis frayed Wright's relationship with Bill Clinton too, and she told Bernstein that she arranged for the two of them, Wright and Clinton, to see a therapist together.
Man... you hear a story like that, and you just want to keep a safe distance from that marriage. How many guys need "couples therapy" with their chief of staff?
In a lot of these cases, staying together for the sake of the child is the honorable course of action, putting the best interests of others ahead of your own. But one can't help but wonder whether Hillary would have been better off without him at some point...
Posted by: Mike ||
05/25/2007 12:50 ||
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MEET Queensland's first carbon farmer. Peter Allen, pictured, a third-generation farmer from Moura, has signed a $1 million deal for doing nothing at all. Sounds great. Where do I apply?
In a historic transaction, mining company Rio Tinto bought the rights to carbon dioxide stored in 3500ha of Mr Allen's heavily vegetated property, 575km northwest of Brisbane. Instead of clearing the land to run cattle, Mr Allen will preserve the trees for 120 years to ensure they soak up carbon dioxide.
When you hear talk of carbon offsets, this is where the money goes. Many of the state's farmers stand to reap multimillion-dollar incomes from selling carbon rights to large corporations or individuals wishing to become carbon neutral.
"It's not like I have won the lotto or that I'm a tree-hugger. It was a purely financial decision," Mr Allen said. "We looked at the return on developing that land for grazing, compared to the return from the carbon rights.
"We had to think hard before we decided to lock that land up for the next 120 years.
"If it had been any less money, we wouldn't have done it."
This time last year, Mr Allen had eight bulldozers ready to knock down a swathe of trees on an investment property just outside Charleville. Bulldozers! That would have produced much carbon! Horror!
Under the State Government's moratorium on land clearing, farmers were given until December last year to enact one final clearing permit.
Rio Tinto stepped in, offering Mr Allen and five other farmers money in exchange for their inaction. A total of 12,060ha was spared, the carbon rights secured under a legally binding contract. It is believed to be Australia's biggest carbon-trading deal.
The carbon industry is expected to boom after the Prime Minister's Task Group on Emissions Trading hands down its blueprint next Thursday.
But as the carbon industry gears up, questions have been raised about the lack of regulation over the voluntary offset market - the system through which airline passengers, rock festival patrons and motorists can pay for their pollution. Green watchdogs say the voluntary market is open to exploitation, with no controls on who can sell carbon and no checks on the work carried out. Again, where do I apply? I can hold my breath for you, Mr. Gore, and for a very reasonable fee.
Further questions have been raised about the effect of tree-planting, the popular method used by most carbon offsetters.
#2
Of course, since much of Australia is suffering from drought, the whole forest could burn down at any time.
"Nice forest youse got there. Be a shame if anything happened to it"
COLOMBO - Tamil Tiger rebels blew up an army bus in Sri Lankas capital on Thursday, killing at least one soldier, just hours after the guerrillas said they had stormed a naval base and killed 35 sailors.
Initial investigations suggested that a Tiger suicide bomber on a rigged motorcycle had rammed into the army bus, but a police spokesman said the bomb could have been detonated by remote control. We are now looking at the possibility that the motorcycle was placed by the side of the road and detonated as the bus passed, the spokesman said from the scene of the blast, just outside the capitals sea port.
National Hospital spokeswoman Pushpa Soysa said the driver of the bus died from his injuries and another soldier was in a critical condition. Four soldiers and three civilians were brought in for treatment following the blast.
Posted by: Steve White ||
05/25/2007 00:00 ||
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Mia Lazarus put her chips and juice down on the counter and prepared to pay. But in the midst of the lunchtime rush, the cashier's eyes wandered to Lazarus's T-shirt, which expressed a political message that proved to be overwhelming for the clerk. One glance at the words "Baltimore Zionist District" on Lazarus's "I Stand for Israel" T-shirt, and the cashier at the Maryland Food Collective, a crunchy grocery and sandwich shop in the student union on the University of Maryland's College Park campus, blurted: "Your shirt offends me. I won't ring you up." The cashier told Lazarus she could go to the back of the store to find another clerk.
In this odd political climate, when many people find their worth and identity in the fine art of taking offense, this confrontation at a campus lunch spot has blossomed into a seminar on constitutional rights. The loser is free speech.
Lazarus got her food; another cashier at the independent, worker-owned co-op was willing to take the student's money. But the incident led to the creation of a Facebook site on which some students called for a boycott of the food co-op; an hours-long, teary meeting at which Lazarus and her friends hashed things out with the collective; and then an agreement.
Continued on Page 49
#5
Fill your tray up with about $50 worth of food. Accidentally sneeze on it when you are waiting in line. When they refuse to serve you, put the tray down, turn around and walk out. Rinse and repeat for a couple of weeks. Of course, if they do agree to serve you, you just bought a $50 lunch.
#9
This echos the rationale of southern slave owners in the early 19th century who wished to ban abolitionist speech because it "inflicted emotional injury" on slave owners. It's the same mindset.
Posted by: Deacon Blues ||
05/25/2007 18:27 Comments ||
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#10
I find it encouraging that the director of the student union stepped up and tried to explain common sense to these students, and threatened sanctions if they didn't wake up and smell the coffee. At least somebody on campus knows what the law means.
Police who obliged half a dozen leftist radicals to give samples of their body odour faced an outcry in Germany Wednesday, with critics charging it was a "police state" idea devised by the communist Stasi.
Federal prosecutors said the samples were taken as part of an inquiry into more than 15 attacks with petrol bombs on cars and homes of German industrialists, officials and the editor of the country's biggest-selling daily, Bild. They said they wanted to see if sniffer dogs noticed a resemblance to odours at the crime scenes or on letters claiming responsibility. The night-time attacks, linked to the June 6-8 G8 summit, have only damaged property.
Newspapers said a 68-year-old hardline leftist was one of those asked May 9 to hold a bundle of metal tubes in his clenched fist for several minutes to absorb his odour.
Wolfgang Thierse, a deputy speaker of the German parliament, said the "police-state" method reminded him of what the Stasi used to do when he lived in East Germany. A veteran Green, Hans-Christian Stroebele, said it was "the essence of a nosy state."
Prosecutions spokesman Andreas Christeleit denied the samples would be used to set police dogs on the leftists if they took part in protests against the G8 (Group of Eight) summit on Germany's Baltic coast. He said "five or six" samples were taken and this was a "normal forensic method" to study bombings.
The keeper of the former Stasi archives in Berlin said most of the repressive communist police's body-odour collection had been kept in glass preserving jars. Only 21 of the jars were still in existence.
#6
Sounds like some cops just breaking balls on some old derelict hippies. Should've made them hop on one foot while they were doing it. Enhances the results...
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.
No consensus has yet been reached on France's proposal of a simplified treaty to drag the European Union out of its constitutional crisis, a European Commission spokesman said Thursday. "There is an emerging consensus but that doesn't mean that consensus is already there," said spokesman Johannes Laitenberger. "The work we are undertaking has a positive dynamic but we haven't completed the talks yet," and much remains to be done before an EU summit on June 21-22, he told a press conference in Brussels. Laitenberger was talking the day after new French President Nicolas Sarkozy visited Brussels to champion his idea of a simplified treaty, which would obviate the need for more unpredictable referendums. Sarkozy told a press conference here that the idea of a simplified treaty was "the only possible solution" to the bloc's institutional gridlock.
Had these books reported incontrovertable proof that Hillary is actually a space alien, the response from Wolfson would be pretty much the same. "This is old news... voter have gotten past this... they're much less concerned that she's from Nebulon-IV than who is going to ensure they get the health care they need."
MEET Queensland's first carbon farmer. Peter Allen, pictured, a third-generation farmer from Moura, has signed a $1 million deal for doing nothing at all. 
COLOMBO - Tamil Tiger rebels blew up an army bus in Sri Lankas capital on Thursday, killing at least one soldier, just hours after the guerrillas said they had stormed a naval base and killed 35 sailors.
Police who obliged half a dozen leftist radicals to give samples of their body odour faced an outcry in Germany Wednesday, with critics charging it was a "police state" idea devised by the communist Stasi. 
