Dec
30
DJ Ted Stevens
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Someone has put together a mix with “DJ Ted Stevens” (as in the VERY senior Senator from Alaska) doing a techno remix of “A Series of Tubes.” (You can watch it below.) The reference, of course, is to the boneheaded comments that Stevens used when he tried to describe the internet to us young’ens. Stevens was head of the Commerce Committee, which is charged with regulating the Internet. Mercifully he’s out of that job now that the Democrats have taken over.
Dec
30
Saddam and the networks
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The cable news networks broke with Saddam’s execution first–followed by the big three–NBC, CBS and finally ABC. CBS gave it 3:20 of airtime, interrupting Numbers. NBC interrupted Law & Order, ironically, and gave Campbell Brown 2:08 of time, getting out just in time for the start of a herpes medicine commercial.
NBC made it clear from the beginning that they would not show video of Saddam being hanged. Fox News, on the other hand, put up anything they could get their hands on. The weirdest part was when the Fox News anchor was trying to describe the video of Saddam’s body, which was on the screen for everyone to see, so we didn’t really need the commentary. Still he persisted in telling viewers what they were seeing was Saddam’s body with “his neck twisted a sharp angle.”
The video released so far is of the moments immediately before the execution as well as footage of Saddam’s body laying on a stretcher. It’s only a matter of time before the video of Saddam actually dropping through the trap door winds up on the internet. And Fox, probably.
I’m not going to put execution video on my blog, but if you want you can watch what’s been released so far on the FNC website.
Here’s how CBS & NBC broke the story:
Dec
29
I’ve been meaning to put this up all day—it’s not quite as close a resemblance as Gibson/Brockman, but there is a remarkable similarity between CNN’s Glenn Beck and the Michael Nifong, the prosecutor in the Duke rape case.
Dec
29
Death, gloom and doom
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Maybe this is a little bit of SAD creeping on (I really need to find one of those full spectrum lights) but is it just me or is the news awfully depressing lately?
James Brown’s death is upstaged by Gerald Ford’s, who’s is about to be upstaged by Saddam Hussein’s. Polar bears may be endangered and pieces of Canada the size of Neverland are breaking off into the ocean because of global warming. Lance Armstrong and Sheryl Crow split up and Donald Trump became even more famous. It seemed like nothing was right with the world. It seemed like…oh, I don’t know….like the planets weren’t lined up right.
I think that’s why, when a friend sent me this horoscope a few weeks ago on my birthday, I thought to myself “maybe there is something to this astrology business.” One of the highlights:
What’s so special about December? You will have SIX heavenly bodies in Sagittarius at once, including Jupiter, Mars, Mercury, Pluto, the Sun, plus the new moon on December 20. You also will have Venus in Sagittarius at the start of December. We have not had THIS many heavenly bodies in one sign in years, and it will not happen again in the sign of Sagittarius in our lifetime. This all means that this month you’ll have many planets staunchly protecting your interests. The best part about this is that this month it will provide you with a preview of what’s to come in your year ahead in 2007 - your most exciting year of the decade!
The most exciting year of the decade! That is encouraging, even exciting. But check this out: I’m in such a grim mood my first thought was “that’s an awful lot of pressure.” My reasoning is this–if 2007 isn’t a fantastic year, it will mean I’ve squandered the astrological peak of my entire life, and it will be all downhill from there. Good grief.
Anybody seen my Wellbutrin?
Dec
29
The Mills-McCartney row
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This kind of thing must happen all the time during a contentious divorce–an argument ensues over who owns the DVD player and who the Kitchen Mixer really belongs to. Then one spouse shows up when the other isn’t home and just takes the damn DVD player.
It sounds like that’s what happened between Paul McCartney and his estranged wife. Except it was $19.5 million worth of paintings including a Picasso and a Renoir. Heather “Drama Queen” Mills McCarthy called police to say she had been robbed. After a little chat the police decided it was a “domestic matter.”
McCartney was said to have gone to an estate house they used to share, took the paintings, reprogrammed the security code and sent Mills a text message to tell her about it.
Yoko Ono is starting to look like June Cleaver.
Dec
29
As Willie Nelson said, “it’s just a little old fashioned Karma coming down.” The prosecutor in the Duke rape case is the subject of a 17 page ethics complaint filed by the North Carolina Bar Association. A disciplinary commission will look into the charges against Michael B. Nifong and if they find them to have substance he could be disbarred.
At issue are public statements Nifong made. A long list of them:
Telling reporters that the Duke players were refusing to cooperate with the investigation and that the players were refusing to make statements to local law enforcement authorities. It also says he improperly commented on tests involved in the investigation.
It further accuses him of improperly commenting on evidence and testimony he expected would be presented in trial; improperly giving his opinion about the guilt of the players; improperly trying to explain the absence of incriminating evidence; and improperly commenting on the character, credibility and reputation of the accused. Nifong’s comments risked prejudicing any criminal trial, the complaint said.
The worst part is that he tried to explain away the lack of physical evidence (semen) on the alleged victim by saying the defendants probably used a condom. He made those statements after reading a medical report indicating a condom was not involved. It was just one case of Nifong refusing to acknowledge evidence that seems to exonerate the entire Duke lacrosse team. Maybe Nifong will have to resign and a new DA can step in and drop the charges once and for all.
Dec
29
Ice shelf collapses
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Yet another story about climate change that contains a line or two about how scientists are surprised with how fast things are changing. This time the surprise involves how fast the Ayles ice shelf collapsed into the sea. In the course of an hour a chunk of ice the size of 11,000 football field slid into the ocean just 500 miles south of the North Pole. The new island of ice is nine miles long and two or three miles wide. In some places it’s 120 feet thick and, as you can imagine, some scientists are worried that it might present a hazard to oil platforms when it starts drifting around in the spring.
To Canadians, it’s more than just a chunk of ice. The Edmonton Journal calls it a “Prehistoric Canadian landmark.” That chunk of ice, scientists say, was between 3,000 and 4,500 years old.
The ice shelf was one of six that still exist in Canada. Since Admiral Robert Peary explored the Arctic in the early 20th century, about 90% of the sea ice has disappeared.
I’ve found the latitutde and longitude of the Ayels Ice Shelf and you can look at a satellite view of the location here on Google Maps.
Dec
29
CNN explains hanging
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If I were a TV reporter and found myself delivering the line “but we wanted to know what hanging would feel like” I think I would take a serious look at my choice of careers.
CNN continues the media (and public?) fascination with executions:
Dec
29
New Orleans Cops indicted
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New Orleans police officers say 40 year old Ronald Madison was running toward them on the Danziger Bridge and reached into his waistband as if he was pulling a gun. Prosecutors, though, say the police were making that up and yesterday a grand jury indicted seven officers on charges of murder or attempted murder.
The incident, in the chaotic days after Hurricane Katrina, began when police responded to what they initially said was a report of an officer down. The police started shooting, apparently into an unarmed group, killing Madison and a nineteen year old high school student. Survivors say they were just who were trying to cross the bridge and started running after the shooting began.
The New Orleans Police Department did an investigation which sounds more like a whitewash. Even though an autopsy (image above) showed that Madison, a mentally retarded man who had refused to leave his dogs alone during the hurricane, was shot in the back several times and despite the testimony of survivors, the Department said the officers did nothing wrong. A grand jury and the DA found otherwise.
“We cannot allow our police officers to shoot and kill our citizens without justification like rabid dogs,” Orleans Parish Dist. Atty. Eddie J. Jordan Jr. said in a statement Thursday. “The rules governing the use of lethal force are not suspended during a state of emergency. Everyone, including police officers, must abide by the law of the land.”
The Danziger Bridge incident is one of the most notorious examples of the anarchy that ruled after the storm–but not the only one. In the days following Katrina I talked to Lori Beth Slonski and Larry Bradshaw, EMTs from San Francisco who were in New Orleans for a conference. They told me a chilling story of their attempt to cross the bridge into the mostly white suburb of Gretna. They were with a group of mostly black residents and soon found themselves being threatened and chased back into New Orleans by Gretna police officers.
Let’s be clear about one thing: it’s probably true that most of the cops in New Orleans performed admirably, some even heroically. But there also seems to be a not-insignificant number of officers who are violent and corrupt, and the Department doesn’t seem interested in doing much to protect the public from them.
Here’s my interview with Slonski and Bradshaw as they tell their story.
Dec
28
He’s no POTUS.
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After hearing that a British Airways 747 carrying Tony Blair overshot the runway in Miami I had to go find out why he wasn’t flying on the official Prime Minister’s jet. It turns out the answer is simple: there isn’t one. The Brits have had an odd mashup of various airplanes that they have used to fly both the PM and the Royal Family around. The closest thing to an official plane would be one that they borrow from the RAF’s No. 32 Squadron, which will lend the Prime Minister or the Royal Family a plane only if there happens to be one free.
I saw “The Queen” yesterday–a surprisingly good movie about the way the Royal Family dealt with Princess Diana’s death–and there is a scene where this comes up. Prince Charles wants to go to France right after Diana’s accident and he has to call a travel agent in New York to book a commercial flight. Finally the Queen allows him to use the “Royal Flight”– a plane from the No. 32.
The movie gives you a real glimpse into how different the British Prime Minister’s office is from that of the President of the United States. In one scene Cherie Booth, Blair’s wife, burns a skillet of fish sticks for the family for lunch. In others, staff members at 10 Downing Street wander in and out of Blair’s office calling him “Tony.” Hard to imagine any of that going down at the White House.
So when Tony Blair wanted to take his family to Miami for a vacation this week, he had to book seats on a commercial airline and pay for them out of his own pocket.
Not that being the Prime Minister doesn’t carry with it a certain amount of privelage. Blair was on his way to be a guest at Robin Gibb (as in the Bee Gees) mansion in Miami.
Not surprising, really. If the guy who played Tony Blair in “The Queen” was any indication, you can tell by the way he uses his walk, he’s a woman’s man. No time to talk.
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