by Kid Nate on Jan 8, 2010 9:24 AM EST

 

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Interesting behind the scenes account from the new Esquire profile of White:

Visibly angry with the decision — Who cares what I think? I'm only the fuckin' promoter! — White retreats with his entourage to his private dressing room, where he is joined by two financial officers from Zuffa. Along with Lorenzo Fertitta, White decides who should win the bonus money for best submission and the rest. Bonus checks for all the fighters are written out by hand. When they get to Shogun's check, White orders the accountants to “pay the taxes.” Meaning, essentially, that he wants Shogun's previously contracted payday to be doubled.

With a check for $250,000 in hand, White goes off looking for Shogun.

When the defeated challenger sees the boss enter his dressing room, he rises shamefacedly from his bench — his body language says defendant about to be sentenced. His manager stands stolidly at his left elbow; his entourage surrounds him in a semicircle.

White hands Shogun his check. He points to the amount. “Tell him that's the real number,” White instructs the manager.

“Thank you, thank you very much,” Shogun says in heavily accented English. Back home in Curitiba, Brazil, his wife is expecting their first child. He looks appreciative — if not exactly satisfied.

“We paid the taxes,” White reiterates. Maybe he didn't understand? He points to the check again. “That's the real number there. That's take-home pay.”

Shogun listens to the translation. He ratchets his proud, chiseled jaw one crank higher. “Okay, thank you,” he says. “Thank you very much.”

“I know it doesn't erase what happened.”

Resigned: “No, no problem.”

“But it's gotta make you feel a little better.” White elbows the fighter playfully in the triceps — I just gave you an extra hundred grand, dude, lighten up!

Shogun breaks down and smiles for real. White regards him appraisingly. “Do you want a rematch?”

No translation is necessary.

This is Dana White at his best, trying to make things right for a fighter who got screwed by the system.

By WINK News

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE                                                                                                                                 

DECEMBER 13, 2009

Congress Ends Ban on Medical Marijuana in Washington, D.C.

Only Obama’s Signature Now Needed on Historic Measure

CONTACT: Aaron Houston, MPP director of government relations ……………………… 202-420-1031

WASHINGTON, D.C. — The U.S. Senate today passed historic legislation to end the decade long ban on implementation of the medical marijuana law Washington, D.C. voters passed in 1998.

            “This marks the first time in history that Congress has changed a marijuana law for the better,” said Aaron Houston, director of government relations for the Marijuana Policy Project in Washington, D.C.

            The “Barr amendment,” a rider attached to appropriations for the District, has forbidden D.C. from extending legal protection to qualified medical marijuana patients and has long been derided as an unconscionable intrusion by the federal government into the District's affairs. The omnibus spending bill, now approved by both chambers of Congress, removes this onerous provision, allowing the District to finally implement its voter-approved law. President Obama is expected to sign the bill shortly.

          “This is not only a huge victory for medical marijuana patients and for D.C. self-government, it marks a history-making shift on the medical marijuana issue," Houston said. “This is the first time Congress has ever given its assent to a state or local law that permits medical use of marijuana. It shows that Congress is listening to voters, who have supported protection for medical marijuana patients for well over a decade, as well as to the medical community’s growing recognition of marijuana’s medical value.

         “Coming on top of the announcement that the Department of Justice will not interfere with state medical marijuana laws, this shows that the ground has fundamentally shifted. It’s time for the federal government to take the logical next step as the American Medical Association just suggested, and reconsider marijuana’s classification as a Schedule I drug, which bars medical use.”

         Congressman Jose Serrano (D-N.Y.) originally removed the ban from the D.C. appropriations bill back in July after years of working to protect patients in Washington, D.C. Congressman David Obey (D-Wis.) helped ensure that the change made it through the legislative process and into the omnibus spending bill Congress passed today.

         Medical marijuana is legal under the laws of 13 states, with bills under consideration in several others, including New York, New Jersey, and Illinois.

         With more than 29,000 members and 100,000 e-mail subscribers nationwide, the Marijuana Policy Project is the largest marijuana policy reform organization in the United States. MPP believes that the best way to minimize the harm associated with marijuana is to regulate marijuana in a manner similar to alcohol. For more information, please visit http://MarijuanaPolicy.org.

####

remove the rebel

As with teenagers since I was one,anything my parents were against,was my banner. Anything that made you stand beyond the crowd,to be different,had more allure than the common things everyone else was doing.
Add that to the fact that drug dealers don't check ID's,just the money ,and drug control is in the hands of the ones that have them,not in any government agency.
The continued war on drugs does nothing but hurt our nation,and stops nothing.
The federal government and the state governments can't even stop drugs in their prisons ,so what is the next step?
Shall we drop our sham of being a democracy ? Since a majority of Americans believe that the war on drugs is a failure,including our legislature,why are we continuing funding this failed policy?
We are reducing services for medicare,trimming our budget on government programs such as food stamps,and yet we increase the spending on something that isn't working.
Write your elected idiots and remind them that their next election is just around the corner.

By: Dan Spelzmann

Supporters of an initiative that would legalize marijuana in California say they have collected enough signatures to ensure that it will be on the November 2010 ballot.

The petition drive, which was run by a professional signature-gathering firm, collected more than 680,000 signatures, 57% more than the 433,971 valid signatures needed to put it on the ballot, said Richard Lee, the measure’s main proponent.

“It was so easy to get them,” Lee said. “People were so eager to sign.”

The initiative would also allow cities and counties to adopt their own laws to allow marijuana to be grown and sold, and the localities could impose taxes on any aspect of marijuana production and sales. It would make it legal for adults over 21 years old to possess up to an ounce of marijuana and to grow it in a 25-square-foot area for personal use.

It is one of four initiatives circulating that aim to legalize marijuana use.

Lee, who owns Coffeeshop Blue Sky, Oaksterdam University and other pot-related businesses, said he has spent at least $1.1 million so far to put the measure before California voters. He said he expects the campaign to cost between $7 million and $20 million, depending on how much opponents spend. He said he hopes to raise most of that from marijuana legalization supporters across the country and he has already set up an Internet fundraising operation.

“We feel like we’ve done our part,” he said.

Polls have shown that a majority of California voters support legalization. A Field Poll taken in mid-April found that 56% of voters in the state and 60% in Los Angeles County want to make legalize and tax pot as a way to help solve the state’s fiscal crisis. In October, a poll taken by a nonpartisan firm for the Marijuana Policy Project found 54% support in the county.

A poll taken for the initiative’s proponents by EMC Research, an opinion research firm in Seattle, found that 51% of likely voters supported it based on language similar to what will be on the ballot, but support increased to 54% when they were read a more general synopsis.

Some marijuana legalization advocates initially criticized Lee for moving forward with his measure, arguing that they would have a better chance in 2012, a presidential election year.

“I think things have turned our way so much that we have a good chance of winning without having to wait to 2012,” Lee said. “This is the time to bring up the issue and talk about it. Who knows what will be going on in 2012?”

Lee said that the increasing acceptance of medical marijuana has changed the political dynamic. Since the Obama administration announced it would not prosecute medical marijuana providers or users who follow state law, hundreds of dispensaries have opened in California.

“Medical marijuana in California has been accepted as legalization in some ways by a lot of the population,” he said, noting the widespread awareness that it is easy to get a doctor’s recommendation to use it. “To me this is codifying what it happening.”

Lee said he did not think that the backlash against dispensaries, which in many cases have flouted local laws by opening in neighborhoods, would have much effect on his campaign. “It’s tough to say whether it’s more good or bad,” he said. “On one hand, you have your bad apples, on the other hand, it shows the need for better regulation.”

– John Hoeffel

December 11, 2009 C-SPAN

Ten years ago, D.C. residents overwhelmingly passed a medical marijuana ballot initiative, but the law’s implementation was blocked by Congress. The bill released today — a large omnibus spending bill — lifts the ban on medical marijuana in the nation’s capitol. Read more at MPP Blog

The Tax & Regulate Cannabis 2010 campaign has just achieved a major victory in its efforts to legalize marijuana for all adults in California — they have gathered the signatures necessary for inclusion on the state’s November ballot.

“This is the next step to sane cannabis policies and the end to the hypocrisy and unjust prohibition of cannabis,” pot entrepreneur Richard Lee told me Monday morning. He is the co-proponent and a major sponsor of the Tax Cannabis initiative and the force — and money — behind Oaksterdam, the successful marijuana-friendly section of Oakland.

This win means that Californians will be the first in the nation to decide whether they believe marijuana ought be taxed and regulated for all adults over 21, much the same way alcohol is.

The drug reform movement’s eyes will be on California next year, because many advocates believe that if the initiative passes, many other states could follow.

Support for marijuana legalization is at an all-time high, with polls ranging from 44 to 52 percent national support. In California, where marijuana has been legalized for medical use since 1996, 56 percent support legalization.

MORE HERE

Wednesday, December 09, 2009

Friedman Tackles Climategate   [Jonah Goldberg]

I have a piece for the magazine due by Friday (on Richard Ely! Who's he? Wait for it.), so I'm going to be posting lightly today. But everyone keeps sending me Tom Friedman's column. This is not an omnibus response, merely a few thoughts.

First, as a couple readers noted, Friedman talks about Climategate as if it's something everyone knows about. I think he's probably right. But shouldn't that say something to the news “gatekeepers”? If a top columnist at the Times can talk about a controversy without first having to explain it to the reader, then maybe it counts as “news.”

Second, it's a bit hard to take Friedman seriously on the subject since he's already made it clear he doesn't care if it's a hoax.

Third, I don't mind the “precautionary principle” argument he's making as much as some readers do. But he steals quite a few bases in the course of making his case. That we are in a general warming trend isn't hotly disputed by the so-called “deniers” (still a terrible bad-faith word which tells a lot about the people who use it). The question is whether it's outside normal climate variation. We've only had moderately reliable measuring devices for a little while and they might have come on line right at the beginning of a mostly natural warming uptick. We don't know. When we hear that this is the warmest decade “on record” people leave out the reliable record is very short (they also leave out other things).

Then they respond, “Oh, no, the record goes back a thousand years.” And cue the Climategate debate. That thousand-year claim is now officially unreliable. That doesn't mean global warming is untrue — as Jim Manzi has argued many times, we do know that the carbon molecule has certain properties and it is a plausible hypothesis that it is contributing to global warming and (more troubling to me) the acidification of the oceans. But it is still just a hypothesis. The effect is much better understood than the cause.

Fourth, Friedman is still making the even-if-it's-a-hoax-it's-great argument. He writes:

If we prepare for climate change by building a clean-power economy, but climate change turns out to be a hoax, what would be the result? Well, during a transition period, we would have higher energy prices. But gradually we would be driving battery-powered electric cars and powering more and more of our homes and factories with wind, solar, nuclear and second-generation biofuels. We would be much less dependent on oil dictators who have drawn a bull’s-eye on our backs; our trade deficit would improve; the dollar would strengthen; and the air we breathe would be cleaner. In short, as a country, we would be stronger, more innovative and more energy independent.

Again, this is a signal that Friedman — like so many others — really doesn't much care if the science is right or wrong. Because he thinks global warming is a useful Sorellian myth to drive the organization of our society and political economy in directions he favors. That doesn't mean he's wrong, it just means his judgment is not very trustworthy. For Friedman, it's worth doing these things no matter what. For reasonable skeptics, if global warming is either untrue or not a big deal, then  these things might be worth doing either gradually through normal market forces and/or careful reform, or not at all. But in a near-blind panic, spending trillions and exporting much of our economy wholesale to China and India for the sake of a benign hoax is absurd. It's doubly absurd when we would be doing it for naught, since the developing world will never, ever, follow our lead if it means sacrificing development, and even if all this stuff comes online without much trouble, it will still only reduce temperatures by a teeny-weeny amount.

Last, at the bottom of Friedman's column it says “Maureen Dowd is off today.” Question: Why don't they put that disclaimer under Maureen Dowd's column where it belongs?

12/09 09:39 AMShare

Prev: “Miracle Dog” Survives 3 Months on Deserted Island

Fresh from his visit with Obama, climate change warrior Al Gore spoke with Lloyd Grove—about the deniers’ latest charges, his buddy Joe Lieberman’s health care stand, and how it feels to be rich.

In An Inconvenient Truth—the book and the Academy Award-winning documentary—Al Gore described the accelerating man-made apocalypse being created by pollution and global warming. In his latest book, Our Choice: A Plan to Solve the Climate Crisis, the 61-year-old Nobel Peace Prize laureate sketches out some possible solutions.

In an interview with The Daily Beast on Tuesday—the day after he briefed President Obama on this week’s United Nations Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen—the former vice president praised Obama’s environmental ambitions and skewered the climate-change deniers who, in his view, are up to something rotten in Denmark.

“There is a large noise machine that receives a lot of financing from carbon polluters, a lot of support from ideological opponents of government doing anything at all,” says Gore.

“There is a large noise machine that receives a lot of financing from carbon polluters, a lot of support from ideological opponents of government doing anything at all,” Gore told The Daily Beast’s Lloyd Grove, when asked to respond to the mini-scandal over several British scientists’ private emails that are being used to cast doubt on prevailing climate change theory. “I haven’t read all these emails. The most recent one is apparently more than 10 years old, and they’re private expressions between scientists. I haven't seen anything that poses the slightest challenge to the scientific consensus over the prevailing evidence that’s just overwhelming.”

Gore—who’s heading for Copenhagen next week, when Obama attends the climate conference along with dozens of other world leaders—accused the planet’s corporate polluters of cynically raising doubts and spreading disinformation in order to delay the inevitable—strong international action. “They have drawn out the timetable in much the same way the tobacco companies delayed the recommendations from the surgeon general back in 1964, when they dressed up actors as doctors, and gave them cigarettes and told them to look into the camera and tell people that there was no real linkage between smoking cigarettes and lung diseases,” Gore said. “This is exactly the same thing. The stakes are infinitely higher…And we’re in a race against time, because we’re putting 90 million tons of global warming pollution into the atmosphere every day.”

In a wide-ranging conversation, Gore also discussed his evolving relationships with former running mates Joe Lieberman and Bill Clinton; offered measured support for Obama’s Afghanistan surge, talked about becoming a rich man as a founder of Current TV and a partner in Generation Investment Management, an environmentally-oriented investment fund, and explained his newfound penchant for writing “scientific poetry.”

The Daily Beast: This is a very impressive and handsome book. Did you write it?

Gore: Yeah. Every word. It took three years.

What got you into writing the global warming poem that appears in the book?

Well, thanks for asking. You're the first interviewer who has asked the first question about that.

Thank you for pointing that out!

You’re welcome for thanking me! I had a very long outline for the book, and I clustered all of the updates on the impacts of climate change into about 28 pages. An Inconvenient Truth was 90 percent on the crisis, its causes and its impacts, about 10 percent on the solutions. This is the solutions book. Those 28 pages didn’t really fit anywhere. I cut and pasted and it stuck out like a sore thumb, so I went back and squeezed it down to be much shorter and it still didn’t work. I just didn't feel right about having no mention of the updated science, so I tried to squeeze it and squeeze it. Then one night, I went to bed worrying about it, and when I woke up, one line took the place of three paragraphs, then I said, hmm I wonder… So, I spent that day fleshing out, I just took all of the impacts and squeezed them into single lines and played around with it and that’s what resulted.

Al Gore Is A Shmuck

Home – by BigFurHat – December 9, 2009 – 11:18 America/Chicago – 20 Comments

JOANNE SIMPSON 

Dr. Joanne Simpson, the first and only woman ever to be elected president of AMS, in 1989, and Chief Scientist for Meteorology at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, MD, has had NASA’s fastest supercomputer, the CRAY T3E, named for her. Simpson was chosen for the honor for her pioneering work using computers in meteorological research.  Her credits include more than 170 publications in the areas of tropical meteorology, tropical cloud systems and modeling, tropical storms, and tropical rain measurement from space.  attribution

Simpson developed the first cloud model, discovered what makes hurricanes run, and revealed what drives the atmospheric currents in the tropics. During her 40s and 50s, Simpson conducted some unique “weather modification” experiments that continue to have an impact on meteorology today. For the past 24 years, she has been with NASA, leading efforts in cloud modeling and space-based meteorological experiments. attribution

AL GOREAl Gore made a power point slide show which included about a dozen known scientific factual errors. He thinks the earth’s inner core is  a million degrees. He talks like a condescending, drunken, gay robot. 

Here is a partial transcript from a Katie Couric interview:

Couric:  ”… Joanne Simpson, the first woman to recieve a PHD in meteorology doubts humans cause climate change…”

Here is algore’s response. Keep in mind that algore is not worthy to breathe the same air as this woman.

Gore: “… (sigh) … there will still be some (people who have contrarian views) … but there are still some people who believe the moon landing was staged on a movie lot … or that the earth is flat. But that doesn’t lead public policy makers to say, “oh, well we should take both sides of that into account.”

Ya Al, you big load of CO2, Joanne Simpson, a leading figure at NASA, is a flat – earther who believes the moon landing was a hoax. 

Al Gore needs to return to carbon –  dusty, blowin- in- the- wind carbon – as soon as possible. He is the number one most dangerous man in the world right now. When a condescending know-nothing moron, like Al Gore, muscles his way behind the steering wheel of this planet, life has jumped the shark.

Video clip here

You've seen the television ads. They're everywhere for one thing, but also pretty catchy. They're those weirdly compelling Bing TV spots. You may have even paused when they come on, bestowing upon them a generous channel surfing reprieve, before your fingers marched on in their merry couch potato rhythm. The Bing ads entertain like a so bad it's good B horror movie. Everyday folks mind their own business, only to stumble onto family and friends machine gun fire ranting the most mind numbing, factoid babble. What dastardly fate has befallen these poor schmucks?

It's attack of the Google Zombies no doubt, since Microsoft Bing is new kid on the Internet search engine block trying to chip away at Google's vast search dominance. Bing's advertising maestros satirically paint those who use the “other search engine” i.e. Google, as victims of information overload. If you Google, you risk morphing into a vacant eyed data drone. You may sound well read, or even knowledgeable, like you're full of supportive facts, but what use are they if you can't organize them effectively or usefully target the purpose or project you're trying to tackle?

Without bogging down into Mad Men ad speak jargon or marketing mania, Bing ads play as a fun, soft sell. They don't try to educate, inform or strong arm manipulate an intended audience, which I guess is just about everyone who searches the net, but make us laugh and feel good about the product. Sure, by comic implication, the ads tout Bing as better, since it's supposedly more effective at bringing us facts and data we really need, instead of overwhelming us with data zombie overload. However, it's subtle, comical and mocks the competitors, instead of clearly delineating what Bing as a service does so much better than say Google or Yahoo.

I'm usually pretty strong about succumbing to any TV advertising. I'm more vulnerable to store advertising or in person marketing like sales, flyers or specials. The Bing ads though got me typing away and clicking over to Bing to give it a try. While it didn't overly impress me, it was a different search “experience” and I found it a bit more clearly organized than the other search engines. I don't think I'll make Bing my regular search thing for every single net search, but I will visit it every so often. The little Bing jingle plays damn catchy too.

Naples Web Design

Posted on 18 November 2009

Wednesday, 4. November 2009, 11:00:00

Guantánamo suspects want to stay, say officials

As President Barack Obama's deadline to close Guantánamo looms, some occupants of the notorious detention centre would rather prolong their stay than be sent to maximum security prisons on the US mainland, according to camp officials.

By Alex Spillius in Guantánamo Bay
Published: 8:46PM GMT 01 Nov 2009

Detainees in orange jumpsuits sit in a holding area under the surveillence of US military police at Camp X-Ray at Naval Base Guantanamo Bay, Cuba Photo: AFP/GETTY

Despite its reputation, the regime at the Pentagon facility on Cuba's southern coast offers privileges that would not be enjoyed at the federal “supermax” prison at Florence, Colorado, the likely alternative for the most dangerous al-Qaeda suspects.

Sensitive to criticism that the detention centre was not meeting international standards, the Pentagon has gradually improved living conditions at Guantánamo.

Adm Thomas Copeman, the commander, now confidently describes it as a “model detention facility” in terms of environment, though he refused to be drawn on the policy and legality of detentions that have lasted for nearly eight years, in most cases without trial.

Peter King, a Republican congressman who visited earlier this year and wants the prison kept open, said that “if there's any scandal at Guantánamo, it is that the detainees are treated too well”.

The 221 remaining inmates receive between four and 20 hours outdoor recreation in the Caribbean sun and anything from weekly to almost unlimited access to DVDs and receive three newspapers (USA Today, plus one Egyptian and one Saudi Arabian title) twice a week. Every bed has an arrow pointing towards Mecca and every cell a prayer rug.

Adm Copeman said “generally speaking the rules are about the same” for Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the self-confessed mastermind of the September 11 attacks, and the 15 other “high value detainees”, who are held at Camp 7, which is out of bounds to the media.

The detainees' diet is exclusively Middle Eastern and halal, in observance of regional and religious sensitivities. Dates, olive oil and honey are provided daily and pita bread is baked on the premises. They drink the same bottled water as the prison's staff and have the same access as other prisoners to 16,000 books and 1,600 magazines held at the library.

An escorted tour of Guantánamo by the Daily Telegraph revealed that Camp 7's requested reading included Gardens of the World by Mick Hales, Fine Art Flower Photography by Tony Sweet and a copy of Birds and Blooms magazine, material in keeping with nature-bound leisure pursuits approved by conservative Islam. Two volumes of the Tales of the Arabian Nights were also in the pile. Tomes on Islamic theory are in plentiful supply and demand, said library staff.

At the low security Camp 4, detainees could be seen sitting in the yard chatting and hanging up their laundry. A new gravel football field was recently completed.

At Florence, Colorado, prisoners would also spend 22 ½ hours a day in a 9ft by 9ft cell with the only natural light coming from a skylight outside.

Exercise would be limited to an hour and a half indoors five days a week and they would have minimal contact with others, including the 33 other international terrorists held there. An official study found that most inmates suffer psychological trauma from the severe isolation.

Since 2005 an Arab American cultural adviser, who for security reasons is identified only by the name of Zak, has been employed at Guantánamo to liaise with detainees.

He said that some detainees would rather stay put than go on trial in the US, where they would probably receive a life sentence or could wait years for a death sentence to be carried out.

“They know there will not be the same privileges as here,” he said. “Given the choice of being sentenced forever in Guantánamo or moved to supermax, it is 'no, can I stay in Gitmo?'. Here they can be outside, they can smell the sea.”

Camp guards and senior officers said similar feedback had been received from detainees fearing a tougher life in US jails or back home. The claims could not be independently verified as the Pentagon does not allow journalists to interview detainees, while lawyers for several prisoners did not return requests for comment.

Controversy does still surrounds the centre. Detainees' lawyers make repeated complaints about mental illness and force-feeding of hunger strikers, while earlier this year the prison suffered its fifth prisoner suicide. Adm Copeland described a “psychological battleground” where detainees regularly spit at guards or fling faeces and urine.

In May, ethnic Uighur Chinese detainees embarrassed officials by staging a protest in front of visiting reporters, waving art pads asking if Mr Obama was a “communist or a Democrat”.

Despite being cleared for release in 2003, destinations have not been found for most of the Uighurs. Washington refuses to send them and other nationals to home countries where they may face persecution.

The debate now is much less about conditions than a deeply troubled legal process that has prosecuted only three detainees in nearly eight years.

Eric Holder, the US attorney general, is struggling to meet the president's promised Jan 22 closing date. He is expected to refer at least 40 prisoners for transfer to trial in US courts some time next year and to refer the majority for transfer overseas, however difficult that continues to prove.

Treachery!

Embrace the suck.

Call of Duty community manager Rob Bowling, also known as 'fourzerotwo', has confirmed in a podcast that the PC version of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 will not support user-created mods. Worse, it will not support dedicated servers. PC gamers will have to suffer peer-to-peer connections, just like their console-owning cousins.

Mr. Bowling could offer no defence for this move, and simply stated that: “The team's focusing on having it very equal on every platform” and “We're doing a lot of work on the back end.”

Previous PC versions of CoD have supported dedicated servers. Their absence will apparently make the game “much more accessible to the PC community as a whole.”

You can listen to the podcast here; skip forward to around the 1:41 mark for the awful truth…

Check out our follow up story here, where Dice throws its two cents into the debate, as well as details about how you can have your say.

L4D Hacks

The highly anticipated video game of 2009 going into 2010 is Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2. With thousands of people already putting deposits down to make sure they receive their copy of the released game on November 10th, the excitement is starting to rise. Infinity Ward is carefully not releasing to much information of this release to soon or too quick. Gamers are searching the web daily to find any new information on this beloved game. Infinity Ward has hosted contests to entice gamers to watch small clips of the new coming video game and try to figure out what the game will entail. This video game that has stolen the hearts of many gamers around the world has a countdown to the remaining days left until they can get their hands on that beautifully rectangular shaped box from their local gaming store that will be sure to have lines and crowds of people waiting at the doors on the releasing day (or night).

Infinity Ward released the 2nd major trailer of the highly anticipated game title Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 last night during NFL Steelers game. With nothing but intense excitement from the fan base of the game, IW revealed more of what the story line will play out to be, adding to the previously released trailer some months ago. Excitement so intense, fans had a bit of trouble logging on to the Infinity Ward forums to post their opinions, while Robert Bowling, Community Manager at IW tweeted last week “…this is the one I've been waiting for!” While keeping in mind the story line from the 1st Modern Warfare, and the 1st reveal trailer of Modern Warfare 2, the new trailer seems to show what effect the story will have on the U.S. section of the of the battle, ending with an epic scene of what looks to be Washington D.C. in shambles, after what we can only assume Vladimir Makarov, the associate of Imran Zakhaev, has done to bring the battle to U.S. soil. This is a bit different from the 1st reveal trailer which started itself where the 1st story line left off, on the bridge where the main character “Soap” takes out Zakhaev and his personal staff, then showing the fight which proceeded through Rio de Janeiro.

Adding to the intense graphics of the trailer, the dialog throughout the trailer hints to it being spoken by Makarov, and talks about the death of a brother, revenge, and how meaning of combat isn't felt until it's held on familiar soil, supporting more the theory of Makarov trying to get this battle state side to the U.S.

As fans watch, and re-watch the video until they're hearts are content, and yearning for more, the release of Call Of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 on November 10th should be an epic day in the world of gaming.

Hot Air » Blog Archive » Again: Axelrod, Emanuel attack Fox <b>News</b> <b>…</b>

Again: Axelrod, Emanuel attack Fox <b>News</b> on morning shows.

Axelrod, Emanuel Criticize Fox <b>News</b>: &quot;It's Not Really <b>News</b>&quot; (VIDEO)

White House senior adviser David Axelrod and Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel continued the Obama administration's criticism of Fox <b>News</b> during their interviews this morning on ABC and CNN, respectively. Both Axelrod and Emanuel cautioned …

Perez Hilton: Balloon Boy's Father Calls Local <b>News</b> Before 911!

Since 2004, Hollywood's most hated website has been delivering the juiciest celebrity gossip. The blog is The go-to source for daily happenings in Hollywood. Written by the internet's most notorious gossip columnist, Perez Hilton (Mario …

The Times article also reported that Justice Kennedy suggested that the flow of death penalty cases for child rape could overwhelm the country's criminal justice system. He noted that in 2005 there were 5,702 reported rapes of children under the age of 12.

So let us not respond to a crime because it has reached overwhelming proportions? Why not apply that to something else, say elder abuse or crimes in general against the elderly and really get the courts moving again. Even though elder abuse is on the rise we can surely avoid the pursuit of the perpetrators of that crime to save court resources. Considering the relative age of our supreme court though you'll never see justice lagging in the processing of those types of offenders.

If the death penalty is not a deterrent for crime like this then why is Patrick Kennedy, the monster that raped his 8 year old stepdaughter with such violence she needed emergency surgery, appealing his death sentence? Many death penalty opponents claim that life in prison is worse punishment for the offender. Apparently not for Mr. Kennedy who's case Kennedy v. Louisiana brought this decision by the supreme court.

You can fathom the mindset of the readers on the NY Times web site who approve of this decision by some of their comments.

One comment read:
“Let's hope the Court surprises everyone and strikes a blow to guns rights advocates next.”

That's what we need in this country, to go after people who advocate for rights.

Another comment read:
“Capital punishment cannot be justified under any circumstances. It is incompatible with the values of a civilized society. ”

That might apply here, if we were a civilized society. The murder of unborn children by the process of thousands of convenience abortions each year suggests otherwise. This decision is consistent with that abuse of humanity. The powerful abusing the weak and helpless. You were here first, you've taken the genetic ability even unborn children have for speech and developed and coordinated that ability for the purpose of demanding a right to kill the unborn when you see fit and then the right to protect the lives of those who would grievously harm them if they do make it to childhood? That's civilized? A person that had a truly liberal philosophy would recognize their duty to protect the weak and innocent from those who would exploit or harm them. True liberalism appears to be dead in this country and like it or not the left seems to have killed it.

States often need to be protected from Justices Ginsburg, Kennedy and the liberal side of the court as in the eminent domain case Kelo V. New London where the court ruled that private property could be taken for private, not just public use and development. Some states including New Hampshire had to pass their own laws or amend their constitution to protect their resident property owners from this further example of liberalism gone bad where the little guy is victimized again by a supposedly progressive and liberal court. With the child rape ruling, states can't even move to protect their children by punishing offenders with a full measure of justice.

This decision regarding child rape was the third in the last six years to place a categorical limitation on capital punishment. Compare that to Sandra Day O'Connor's position regarding the courts ruling on partial birth abortion where she expressed a reluctance to put a trimester limitation on abortions.

So where the individual has made a conscious decision to commit a heinous crime, the court feels the need to place limitations on their punishment in keeping pace with “the evolving standards of decency that mark the progress of a maturing society.” But where an another individual makes a conscious decision to end the life of an unborn child for nothing more than say, convenience, the court does not feel the need to place limitations on that act. Why? For “the evolving standards of decency that mark the progress of a maturing society.”??? Decency seems to be an ephemeral concept as applied by the contemporary supreme court.

<b>News</b> Ticker: Def Jam, The Killers, Mr. Magic, Mercedes Sosa <b>…</b>

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Adobe MAX 2009, mobile related <b>news</b> | biskero

personal blog about mobile technologies, mobile phones, mobile development and Flash Lite.

A <b>News</b> Startup Fails To Get Traction In Denver | paidContent

Here's another datapoint in the struggles of <b>news</b> organizations to get people to pay for <b>news</b> online: 200. That's how many people were willing to chalk up $4 a month to access premium content on Rocky Mountain Independent, …

The Star

Rosie DiManno

David Dewees died an innocent man.

Maybe that's reason enough to take one's own life – there will never be a finding of guilt on the criminal charges brought against the apparently well-liked Jarvis Collegiate teacher.

But was it guilt of another kind, shame and self-loathing, that made the 32-year-old lie down on the tracks at High Park subway station Saturday morning rather than face trial?

Such a sad tale all around and now students and colleagues, to say nothing of Dewees' family, will have to deal with the consequences. That's also the aftermath of suicide: Anger, a need to cast or shirk blame, questions without answers and the taint of cowardliness.

It is a moot issue, whether suicide is an act of cowardice or courage. Police won't confirm details on the incident, as a matter of policy on suicides. But if Dewees really did lie prone on the rails and wait for an oncoming train to mangle his body, condemning himself to those moments of terrifying anticipation, then he embraced a worse comeuppance than any retribution the courts could impose. This was a ritualistic punishment, a self-mutilation.

At the same time, Dewees shunted the guilt to others: any victim who lodged a complaint, cops who investigated his alleged crimes and laid the charges, the media for publishing his name.

Our law affords no protection from libel to the dead. So we will assume by his actions, and for the purpose of exploring this awful event, that Dewees was guilty as charged; that the Grade 10 English and Latin teacher and volunteer camp counsellor did indeed invite sexual touching – as opposed to actual touching – from boys, luring them on the Internet. Police said he'd been removed from his counselling post at the Christian-based Ontario Pioneer Camp in Port Sydney, Ont., after the emails surfaced.

He was charged on Thursday, out on $25,000 bail.

The Star, it must be acknowledged, got the charges wrong in a Friday digest item that said Dewees had been charged with sexually assaulting two 13-year-olds. There was no assault alleged by police. The distinction is important though it's doubtful – this too can never be ascertained – such an error (corrected) had much impact on Dewees' state of mind.

Some, who knew Dewees, will not accept even the news merit of the story, seeing in the straightforward reporting a malice that didn't exist. In an email to the Star, one associate wrote: “I worked with this totally decent man at Jarvis Collegiate for several years. It was sickening enough to see the police toss the `innocent until proven guilty' concept out the window by publishing his photo before any legal proceedings had begun. It is disgusting to see that your newspaper gleefully contributed to the damn-the-facts sensationalism.”

There was no sensationalism. Neither the Star nor the police treated the incident differently from any other charge that appears on a cop blotter. This is a public record. The police and the media cannot make allowances of sensitivity for an accused.

From all reports, including comments posted on social networking sites, Dewees was a gifted teacher who made learning even so arcane a subject as Latin a lively endeavour. He blew the dust off a dead language. “I don't know which was funnier – when he made up the `Senex Salvius fundum habebat' song to the tune of Old MacDonald on the spot or `domus ambulans' as the Latin word for RV,” one student wrote on RateMyTeachers.com. “What a character.”

Another posted: “Mr. Dewees reads poetry with the most passion and enthusiasm I've ever witnessed.”

Clearly, Dewees had a positive influence on the lives of many students. Some reject outright the idea that he would have sexually interfered with young teenage boys, suggesting a misunderstanding had occurred or that he had been enticed into making a sexual approach.

In fact, it is just this high esteem and loyalty in which Dewees was held by those in his charge that makes the accusation so distressing. And surely Dewees knew that as he orchestrated the final tragic act in his life.

His kink, a sexual attraction to boys, was the nub of the thing and it was out there in the public domain. His reputation was in ruins, even if many students still admired and respected the guy. In the way of these matters, that reputation would not have been resurrected either, in the event of acquittal.

A sexual compulsion for minors is hard-wired in the brain. There's little Dewees could have done to alter his thoughts. While it may be a perversion, fantasizing about sex with children isn't a crime. But acting on those urges is (despite a small constituency of deviants that seeks to take the moral sting out of “intergenerational sex”), even to the extent of owning child pornography. Thus the possession and importing child porn charges laid Friday against 69-year-old Antigonish bishop Raymond Lahey, just two weeks after his diocese reached a $15 million settlement with individuals who said they were abused by priests as children. (Lahey was not implicated in that case.)

If Dewees was aroused by boys, prudence demanded he put himself far from temptation, although there's really no such thing as safe distance in an online universe. Yet he taught pubescent boys and volunteered at a youth camp. He was a figure of trust and authority. That was his betrayal.

In death, with all its deliberate melodrama, Dewees can be pitied. Perhaps he preferred that to scorn. But Dewees was the author of his own torment because he surely knew the danger of such inappropriate conduct as alleged. This was not some romanticized Dead Poets Society. He was flirting with public exposure and disaster.

It must have both thrilled and sickened him.

Now, he's the only one at peace.

Rosie DiManno usually appears Monday, Wednesday, Friday and Saturday

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openSUSE News » openSUSE 11.2 Milestone 8 Released

Actually, I never managed to successfully update to a new release when I tried it some years ago and this hasn't changed. It left me with an unbootable system. I am sure that I could fix it but when these kind of bugs slips through …

White House vs. FOX News: Olympics: The Swamp

In the ongoing struggle between the White House and the FOX News Channel, the Obama administration's direct rebuttal of what FOX's Glenn Beck and a guest have had to say this week about the administration's hand in Chicago's bid for the …

Today and for the past two elections, the Democrat party has been controlled by the radical left segment of the party. Speaking from the Conservative point of view, the old Democrat party had a lot to offer and respect. This included a love of country, respect of religious freedom, respect of equality between men and women, integrity and honesty. Where has that gone? Why do Democrats allow the loudmouth, pro-socialist party activists to run the show?

The result is not more power for Democrats, it's low approval ratings and lost elections. Time to speak up and take back YOUR party. Before it's too late.

Why would I recommend this since I am on the other side? Because I am fed up with the image we are projecting to the world and with the hate mongering in this country. To paraphrase John McCain, I would rather lose the election than lose this war. Because the consequences for us all of losing to the radical left are dire.

Never in my 55 years of life have I seen a party more negative, more wanting to throw the baby out with the bath water, more loud and strident than the Democrat party of 2008.

Howard Dean screams on the campaign trail and he is made head of the DNC. Nancy Pelosi becomes Speaker of the House (I know not why) and she goes marching around the world meeting with Arab heads of state like SHE is President. Barack (the Presidential candidate on a first name basis with the media and all his followers and worshipers) takes a World Tour, bleating his message to a hundred thousand Germans followed by eighty thousand semi-hysterical Americans in his nomination acceptance Barnum and Bailey Show.

Anyone embarrassed yet? My father, a lifelong Democrat, is probably rolling over in his grave. Along with my Grandmother, who worked the polls every Presidential Election. My nearly 80 year old Aunt who has never voted Republican in her life is considering it, and my 91 year old StepMother is just not going to vote at all. My Stepsister has already switched to the Dark Side and says she will never vote Democrat again due to the sheer ugliness of the party.

And there are the attacks on women. Women are too busy taking care of their kids to be Vice President. Or women are too inexperienced to be President. (Spoken by a man with 143 days of legislative experience no less). If it's OK for a man to come in with limited experience and a plan, why not women? And then there are the media members of the Democrat party – who threw Hillary Clinton to the wind in favor of a “redistribution of wealth” socialist.

Please let me ask this question as respectfully as I can — but what the heck are you thinking? As my Father, the lifelong Democrat and a man I respected more than any other on Earth would say, I am not going to get into the who struck John of who did and said what. But if you want to win an election, you need to move to the center.

And there's a fine thing – the Republican party has moved to the center in this election. John McCain is no conservative's dream, and the right wingers just can't stand him. But somehow we Conservatives – Republicans and some Independents – have realized that this is no time to sit on extreme principles. We need balance. We can't have everything we might want. So we looked for a candidate that can appeal to a broader base of Americans. Yet once again the Democrat party is running the most left-leaning member of its party. Deja vu all over again.

I can't tell you how frightening the concept of leftists running this country is to a child of the Cold War. Socialism does not work and communism is death to our society. Are you going to vote with 21 year olds who think youtube is the be all and end all of existence? I love my daughters but if they were running this country I would be afraid — very afraid. It takes wisdom and experience to make tough decisions.

So, wake up and smell the Communist Manifesto when it's in your own back yard. And take back your party. Maybe then we can all get along and save our country and way of life.

Grayson: The GOP is a “lie factory”

The now-infamous Rep. Alan Grayson (D-Fla.) unleashed another verbal tirade against Republicans on Thursday, calling the party a “lie factory” that hoped only to stall the healthcare debate.

Grayson also dismissed calls that he apologize for his remark earlier this week that Republicans' healthcare plan was to “die quickly” — an allegation that has since invoked the ire of the entire GOP.

“America is sick of you, Republican Party; you're a lie factory, that's all you do,” he told MSNBC on Thursday. “Why don't you work together with the Democrats to solve America's problems instead of making stuff up?”

Grayson then called the party a bunch of “no-mongers,” and he chided GOP lawmakers for failing to come up with their own healthcare plan in the 48 hours since he first attacked their strategy.

“The people who should be apologizing are the Republicans, they're the ones who should apologize for dragging us all through the mud here while we're just trying to improve healthcare in America,” he said. “That's all we're trying to do.”

The GOP has since dismissed Grayson's remarks as partisan hackery, and some party members are now calling for Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) to sanction the congressman for his comments — much as Democrats rebuked Rep. Joe Wilson (R-S.C.) for interrupting the president during his address to Congress. But Democrats have grumbled at that suggestion, claiming it is little more than a distraction from the more important debates confronting Congress.

Grayson said Thursday he agreed with that perspective, but he also offered some tough words for his own party, which he said needed to work together to overcome Republicans' stall tactics.

“We've got to get past this point where everything is stalled; where the Republicans are winning just through inertia,” he said. “We have a majority, we have to use it.”

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