"On October 17, with little fanfare, the unitary decider signed H.R.5122, or the John Warner Defense Authorization Act of 2007...
"According to a press release from the office of Senator Patrick Leahy, however, the bill takes a 'sizable step toward weakening states authority over their [National] Guard units...'
"As if having their National Guard units on the other side of the world, in Iraq and who knows where the next stop may be, doesn't weaken the states authority over their National Guard units as it is. And, as is the norm now, the list of situations and scenarios in which the Decider is able to 'employ the armed forces, including the National Guard in Federal service' ends in the all too familiar any 'other condition in any State or possession of the United States, the President determines that domestic violence has occurred to such an extent that the constituted authorities of the State or possession are incapable of (refuse or fail in) maintaining public order, in order to suppress, in any State, any insurrection, domestic violence, unlawful combination, or conspiracy'."
"In a stealth maneuver, President Bush has signed into law a provision which, according to Senator Patrick Leahy (D-Vermont), will actually encourage the President to declare federal martial law. It does so by revising the Insurrection Act, a set of laws that limits the President's ability to deploy troops within the United States. The Insurrection Act (10 U.S.C.331 -335) has historically, along with the Posse Comitatus Act (18 U.S.C.1385), helped to enforce strict prohibitions on military involvement in domestic law enforcement. With one cloaked swipe of his pen, Bush is seeking to undo those prohibitions."
"The US defence department has set up a new unit to better promote its message across 24-hour rolling news outlets, and particularly on the internet. The Pentagon said the move would boost its ability to counter 'inaccurate' news stories and exploit new media.
"Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said earlier this year the US was losing the propaganda war to its enemies.
"On Monday, Vice-President Dick Cheney said insurgents had increased attacks in Iraq to sway the US mid-term polls.
"The Bush administration does not believe the true picture of events in Iraq has been made public, the BBC's Justin Webb in Washington says.
"The administration is particularly concerned that insurgents in areas such as Iraq have been able to use the web to disseminate their message and give the impression they are more powerful than the US, our correspondent says.
"The newly-established unit would use 'new media' channels to push its message and 'set the record straight', Pentagon press secretary Eric Ruff said...
"The unit would reportedly monitor media such as weblogs and would also employ 'surrogates', or top politicians or lobbyists who could be interviewed on TV and radio shows.
"Mr. Rumsfeld said earlier this year that he was concerned by the success of US enemies in 'manipulating the media. That's the thing that keeps me up at night.'"
"In 2005, Congress passed the Real ID Act, a counter-terrorism measure recommended by the 9/11 commission. The act sets national standards for drivers licenses. The bill requires states to link databases containing sensitive personal information such as Social Security numbers. State databases must contain a digital image and a paper copy of each birth certificate and other identifying documents.
"Although issued by the states, through the Department of Motor Vehicles, the Real ID is a national identification card system. States must comply with federal guidelines by May, 2008. If states fail to meet that deadline, then drivers licenses from non-complying states will not qualify as official identification and so cannot be used to get on airplanes or obtain services from the federal government, including medical care.
"Without authorized federal identification, access to voting booths may be denied. Many states now use computerized voting machines. In those states, a voters name is now issued a bar code and permanent identification numbers on registration lists. Unless everything matches up, one cant be allowed in the voting booth.
"As the Real ID Act is fully implemented, the drivers license will be essential for one to be a full participant in American society. Failure to have it will literally shut one out from opening a bank account, getting a loan, gaining employment, marriage license medical care and purchase of firearms.
"Yet, the government continues to deny that the Real ID Act is a National ID..."
"Having no choice but to comply, most American people will accept their new national/international ID card. It is my understanding that without the card, we will be denied bank accounts in the United States of America, a drivers license, and the right to fly on airplanes unless we have been issued a Real ID card. One might imagine that global retailers might require the Real ID to purchase food and gasoline. Take a look at your current drivers license. Check the expiration date. 2008 would be a good global guess."
Your Answers to the Last Stupid Question of the Week
Give examples of cause and effect that might actually be the reverse of common knowledge.
Overindulgence in unnecessary wars causes your back-to-the-future self to avoid war and use cocaine in a manner not prescribed. It's a little-known space/time continuum conundrum. - Dwight Burke
Voting for Republicans causes stupidity. Pollution causes people to buy bigger and more uneconomical cars. Steve Irwin stung a stingray. - Anna
The contemplation of stupid questions causes stolen pResidential elections ... or maybe perhaps ... stolen pResidential elections cause the contemplation of (very) stupid questions -- WTF, when you select the goat-ropin' scion of a Yankee carpet-bagger as your "precious" leader, well, as our dear Gumpster says, "Fool me once, shame on me, Fool you twice, and Diebold will still appoint me master of the galaxy! (Poppy, can I turn Paris into a green glass parking lot now?) - DanD
Headaches cause women to not want to have sex. - Locke Milholland
1) Drinking doesn't cause loss of coordination associated with inebriation. Loss of coordination causes the body to seek the natural cure of alcohol. 2) Sex doesn't cause pregnancy. Fear of pregnancy leads to an overwhelming desire to find a reason to live. Some people opt for sex. - mj
Since its inception, it has universally been feared that the excessive viewing of television caused intellectual stagnation. It was recently discovered that the opposite is true. The intellectually stagnant are attracted to television like the proverbial flies to steaming excrement. - Herr Bookmonger
My answer, Jamaican reggae style: The aluminum, she cause the Alzheimer's Just like the bad brain cause the street mimers Jokes must cause the weisenheimers Just like youth she cause the old timers Illiteracy she caused by the Dick 'n' Jane primers Being rich she cause the tight nickel and dimers Truth -- did she cause the Swift Boat slimers? We know Republicans cause the money crimers Just like poetry she cause these terrible rhymers. - RS Janes
Resistance to tyranny is obedience to God. - Susan B. Anthony
Space elevators using a cable stretching thousands of kilometres from Earth's surface into space would kill passengers because of the radiation they would receive passing through the Van Allen radiation belts.
Don't Take My Word For It
"Now and then an innocent man is sent to the legislature." - Kin Hubbard -
"Setting a good example for children takes all the fun out of middle age." - William Feather -
"It's no longer merely liberals versus conservatives, or Democrats versus Republicans. The neoconservative Bush supporters have created an environment where it's honesty versus dishonesty, fact versus fiction and reality versus delusion -- in short: sanity versus insanity." - Laverne Williams -
"Hershey's Kisses. Nestle's Crunch bars. M&Ms... it is no exaggeration to say that forced child labor went into the making of much of these chocolates. Illegal child labor is a major problem on the West African cocoa farms from which companies like Hershey, Nestle and M&M Mars buy their cocoa beans.
"Even the chocolate companies admit there's a problem. After a media expos by Knight Ridder in 2001, and under pressure from members of Congress, the major chocolate companies agreed to a voluntary protocol to ensure US chocolate products aren't made using illegal child labor. But the protocol expired in July 2005, and the chocolate industry failed to fulfill its own promise to monitor cocoa imports and certify that the cocoa is not made by forced child labor.
"According to the International Labor Organization, the US Department of State and UNICEF, tens of thousands of children work on cocoa farms in West Africa, particularly in the Ivory Coast. What does child labor on cocoa farms look like? Ask the child workers who are suing Nestle, Cargill, and Archer Daniels-Midland for trafficking, torture, and forced labor of children who cultivate and harvest cocoa beans. The children are from Mali, and they say in the lawsuit they were trafficked from Mali to the Ivory Coast and forced to work 12- to 14-hour days with no pay, little food and sleep, and frequent beatings.
"Here's how a child cocoa laborer described his situation in the Knight Ridder expos that brought an avalanche of negative publicity down on the chocolate companies in 2001: 'He tied me behind my back with rope and beat me with a piece of wood,' Siaka said, peeling back his shirt to show the scars on his left shoulder and arm. 'Then he took a small gun and said I'm going to kill you and dump you in a well.' Fourteen-year-old Siaka Traure was bought by a slave trader in Ivory Coast for just $28, made to work unending days on the cocoa plantations and imprisoned in a windowless mud hut."
"The essence of all slavery consists in taking the produce of another's labor by force. It is immaterial whether this force be founded upon ownership of the slave or ownership of the money that he must get to live."
- Leo Tolstoy -
"Society must accept the practice of involuntary servitude into its norms and/or laws for it to endure in whatever form. The effectiveness of various employment arrangements influences the self-interested to choose the most advantageous form from what is available. Society thus tends to develop rules of cooperation between people, including those with different time preferences that work well enough. Until they don't. Then they are changed, altered, or abolished. Leaders with the most power and influence over collective action will seek to incorporate their gains. The masses typically become resigned to their perceived lot in life.
"Desperate conditions foster anger, fear and violence leading to hungry slaves attacking gluttonous masters. Elites recognize this historical fact and seek ways to maintain their economic power over the masses. When the number of slaves reaches a point significantly greater than the number of elites, then the fear of the masters leads to greater use of force and fear to keep the masses in line. This leads to decreasing efficiency for each slave and for the overall economic system based on slave labor. The existing slave-labor system then declines until it falls apart and a more subtle form of slavery takes its place. Therefore, the more free a slave believes that they are, the more productive is the slave-labor system he participates in.
"The moral standing of economic servitude seems to depend on what side of the relationship one stands. Relationships based on force require some form of tether. Men can be trained to obey verbal commands that do not require physical restraint devices. Tradition, faith and law must work together for an injustice like slavery to prevail for long periods of time. Chattel, land and political slavery have all lasted many millennia. The justification of these conditions has come from clergy, political leaders and even the slaves themselves.
"Though the evolution from slavery to serfdom to tax-paying appears to have led to increased personal freedoms, the reality is the chains have just gotten longer and lighter. Many do not even notice them...
"Masters observed long ago the difficulty of labor under the heavy burden of manacles and chains. A happy slave who accepts his place is far more productive than the disgruntled slave who does the least possible amount of labor. The political slave has generally bought into the story that since they get to choose their overseers (masters and monarchs are not chosen), then they are truly free. The percentage of happy slaves to total slaves today is higher than it has ever been in history. This can change very quickly.
"Democracy is today equated with freedom. If you think that choosing those who control a major portion of your labor and make laws as to what you may and may not do with your own person and property is really freedom, then consider how democracy would affect the status of the older forms of bondage. If you were a slave on a Roman estate or an Old South plantation and you got to choose who was given the power to control the fruits of your labor and tell you what to do and what not to do, would you be any less a slave? What if you were a serf on a French or German lords manor and you got to choose who was given the power to control the fruits of your labor and tell you what to do and what not to do, would you be any less a serf? Is being a taxpayer really that much better of a deal?"
"Time was a resource. You could learn to let it move fast or slow, so that a monk could walk easily through a crowd and yet be moving so fast that no one could see him. Or he could stand still for a few seconds, and watch the Sun and Moon chase one another across a flickering sky. He could meditate for a day in a minute."
- Terry Pratchett -
"A dead woman won re-election to a school board in rural Alaska after her opponent lost a coin flip meant to break an electoral tie.
"Katherine Dunton, who died of cancer on October 3, the day of the local election, was re-elected to the Aleutian Region School District board after her opponent, Dona Highstone, called 'heads' on a coin toss that landed 'tails,' state and local officials said.
"The coin toss was held on Friday, in accordance with state law, to break the tie since both candidates had 19 votes.
"The school district, which covers an island region stretching 600 miles and has jurisdiction over about 50 students, has not yet decided how to fill Dunton's seat."
"The real measure of your wealth is how much you'd be worth if you lost all your money." - Bernard Meltzer -
"When a cause comes along and you know in your bones that it is just, yet refuse to defend it--at that moment you begin to die. And I have never seen so many corpses walking around talking about justice."
- Mumia Abu-Jamal -
"But I know now that there is not a chance in hell of America becoming humane and reasonable. Because power corrupts us, and absolute power corrupts us absolutely. Human beings are chimpanzees who get crazy drunk on power. By saying that our leaders are power-drunk chimpanzees, am I in danger of wrecking the morale of our soldiers fighting and dying in the Middle East? Their morale, like so many lifeless bodies, is already shot to pieces. They are being treated, as I never was, like toys a rich kid got for Christmas."
- Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. -
"In a show trial whose theatrical climax was clearly timed to promote George W Bush in the American midterm elections, Saddam Hussein was convicted and sentenced to hang. Drivel about 'end of an era' and 'a new start for Iraq' was promoted by the usual false moral accountants, who uttered not a word about bringing the tyrant's accomplices to justice. Why are these accomplices not being charged with aiding and abetting crimes against humanity?
"Why isn't George Bush Snr. being charged? In 1992, a congressional inquiry found that Bush as president had ordered a cover-up to conceal his secret support for Saddam and the illegal arms shipments being sent to Iraq via third countries. Missile technology was shipped to South Africa and Chile, then 'sold' to Iraq, while US Commerce Department records were falsified. Congressman Henry Gonzalez, chairman of the House of Representatives Banking Committee, said: '[We found that] Bush and his advisers financed, equipped and succored the monster...'
"Why isn't Donald Rumsfeld being charged? In December 1983, Rumsfeld was in Baghdad to signal America's approval of Iraq's aggression against Iran. Rumsfeld was back in Baghdad on 24 March 1984, the day that the United Nations reported that Iraq had used mustard gas laced with a nerve agent against Iranian soldiers. Rumsfeld said nothing. A subsequent Senate report documented the transfer of the ingredients of biological weapons from a company in Maryland, licensed by the Commerce Department and approved by the State Department."
"You don't supply madmen with plausible excuses to go to war."
- me -
"Just as Bush followers seemingly never stop to think about the fact that the limitless powers they are eager to vest in their Leader might one day be wielded by a President who is hostile towards them, advocates of hate speech laws always think that the power to punish 'hateful' opinions will only be wielded in benevolent ways in order to punish the opinions they think are dangerous. For some reason, the thought doesn't seem to occur to advocates of these laws that if the State is given the power to deem certain ideas to be so 'wrong' or 'dangerous' that they should be outlawed, the ideas these advocates like may very well one day make its way onto the prohibited list. Who would ever trust government officials or majorities of citizens to create lists of Prohibited Ideas?...
"One of the tricks which all governments use when they seek oppressive powers is to justify the power by first using it against particularly reviled individuals, so that hatred for the individual drives people to endorse the power being used against them. When the Bush administration wanted to obtain the power of unlawful detention of U.S. citizens, they first vigorously branded Jose Padilla as the 'Dirty Bomber' so that everyone would focus on the evil of Padilla and therefore acquiesce to the powers to be used against him (who would oppose the detention of someone who wants to detonate radiological bombs in our cities?). When the Bush administration wants to justify torture or infinite detention or warrantless eavesdropping or black prisons, it does so by hyping on the evil of Khalid Sheikh Mohammad (who would oppose detention and surveillance of the 9/11 mastermind?).
"And those who want to justify hate speech laws do so by focusing on the evils of the 'discriminatory' or bigoted speech they want to outlaw (who would oppose punishment of racists and Nazis and other assorted bigots?). But to endorse a government power due to one's hatred towards the individual against whom it is being exercised is, by definition, to endorse the government power generally. And the power that ends up being endorsed is never confined to those initial, emotionally appealing cases, but instead always expands."
"Enthusiasm is one of the most powerful engines of success. When you do a thing, do it with all your might. Put your whole soul into it. Stamp it with your own personality. Be active, be energetic, be enthusiastic and faithful, and you will accomplish your objective. Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm."
- Ralph Waldo Emerson -
"If mankind minus one were of one opinion, then mankind is no more justified in silencing the one than the one - if he had the power - would be justified in silencing mankind."
- John Stuart Mill -
"Not thinking about anything is Zen. Once you know this, walking, standing, sitting, or lying down, everything you do is Zen. To know that the mind is empty is to see the Buddha... Using the mind to look for reality is delusion. Not using the mind to look for reality is awareness. Freeing oneself from words is liberation."
- Bodhidharma -
"My religion consists of a humble admiration of the illimitable superior spirit who reveals himself in the slight details we are able to perceive with our frail and feeble mind."
- Albert Einstein -
"It is not that anger and desire are inherently evil or that we should feel ashamed when they arise. It is a matter of seeing them as the delusions that they are: distorted conceptions that paint a false picture of reality. They are negative because they lead to unhappiness and confusion."
-Kathleen McDonald: How to Meditate -
"A bore is a man who deprives you of solitude without providing you with company."
- Gian Vincenzo Gravina -
"Save a little money each month and at the end of the year you'll be surprised at how little you have."
dIsInFoTaInMeNt ToDaY is free and may be reproduced in any form, preferably parchment. It consists of information from dozens of sources, cut up, thrown in the air, and recycled randomly. It is sent all over the place, so I apologize if you're seeing the same thing twice. If you see a joke, graphic, or news item that came from or through you, thanks, send more, and please accept the fact that much of dIsInFoTaInMeNt ToDaY is unacknowledgeable, and if I sought permission from everyone whose bastardized material showed up here, I'd never get anything else done. Please note that I don't even put my own name on it. If you're still pissed off, hey, it's either satire or fair use.
Craig Whitlock: Cleric Details CIA Abduction, Torture (The Washington Post)
In an account smuggled out of prison, a radical Muslim cleric has detailed how he was kidnapped by the CIA from this northern Italian city and flown to Cairo, where he was tortured for months with electric shocks and shackled to an iron rack known as "the Bride."
Arianna Huffington: Jack Murtha for Majority Leader... and "Person of the Year" (huffingtonpost.com)
Election Day 2006 is over, but there are still a couple of races yet to be decided. And Jack Murtha is a contender in both of them. One is mostly fun: the contest to see who will be chosen as TIME Magazine's "Person of the Year". The other is incredibly significant: the battle to see who House Democrats will choose as their new Majority Leader.
Gary Wolf: The Church of the Non-Believers (wired.com)
A band of intellectual brothers is mounting a crusade against belief in God. Are they winning converts, or merely preaching to the choir? ...
No Congressman or Senator admits being an atheist, says Richard Dawkins: "It just doesn't add up. Either they're stupid, or lying"...
Faces of the New Atheists: The Illusionists: Penn & Teller (wired.com)
Penn & Teller got famous catching bullets in their teeth, eating fire, and making rabbits vanish. But now they're trying something even more ambitious: They want to make religion disappear. Never shy about their atheism (Penn's got the Nevada license plates ATHEIST and GODLESS), the two have been raising their voices - even the oft-silent Teller - to decry the muddying line between church and state. "Atheists are saying, 'All right, we've had enough,'" Teller says.
Bringing up my very own bad girl (guardian.co.uk)
Will Hatchett was driven to the verge of a breakdown after his wayward 14-year-old daughter arrived to live with him. Desperate, he decided that something had to be done ...
CBS begins the night with a FRESH'NCIS', followed by a FRESH'The Unit', then the SERIES PREMIERE'3LBS'.
Scheduled on a FRESHDave are Jack Black, Fred Travalena, and Tenacious D.
Scheduled on a FRESHCraig are Steven Weber, Emily Deschanel, and Phil Rosenthal.
NBC starts the night with a FRESH'Friday Night Lights', followed by a FRESH'Law & Order: Criminal Intent', then a FRESH'Law & Order: Special Victims Unit'.
Scheduled on a FRESHLeno are Rachel Weisz, Nick Cannon, and Il Divo.
Scheduled on a FRESHConan are Robin Williams, Christian Slater, and Panic! at the Disco.
Scheduled on a FRESHCarson Daly are Sue Johanson and Radio 4.
ABC opens the night with a FRESH'Dancing With The Stars', followed by the SERIES PREMIERE'Show Me The Money'.
Scheduled on a FRESHJimmy Kimmel are Tracy Morgan, Jerry Springer, and Akon.
The CW offers a FRESH'Gilmore Girls', followed by a FRESH'Veronica Mars'.
Faux has a FRESH'Standoff', followed by a FRESH'House'.
MY has a FRESH'Desire', followed by a FRESH'Fashion House'.
A&E has 'CSI: The 2nd One', another 'CSI: The 2nd One', 'Dog The Bounty Hunter', another 'Dog The Bounty Hunter', still another 'Dog The Bounty Hunter', and one more 'Dog The Bounty Hunter'.
AMC offers the movie 'Jaws', followed by the movie 'Butch Cassidy And The Sundance Kid', then the movie 'Bend Of The River'.
BBC -
[2:00 pm] As Time Goes By - Episode 9;
[2:40 pm] Are You Being Served - Mrs. Slocombe Expects;
[3:20 pm] Keeping Up Appearances - Episode 2;
[4:00 pm] The Avengers - The Correct Way to Kill;
[5:00 pm] Footballers Wives - Episode 3;
[6:00 pm] BBC World News;
[6:30 pm] Cash in the Attic - Lovell;
[7:00 pm] The Benny Hill Show - Episode 37;
[8:00 pm] Whose Line Is It Anyway? - Episode 14;
[8:30 pm] Whose Line Is It Anyway? - Episode 2;
[9:00 pm] Essex Boys;
[11:00 pm] Whose Line Is It Anyway? - Episode 9;
[11:30 pm] Whose Line Is It Anyway? - Episode 6;
[12:00 am] The Benny Hill Show - Episode 38;
[1:00 am] Essex Boys;
[3:00 am] Murder Prevention Unit - Episode 4;
[4:00 am] Murder Prevention Unit - Episode 5;
[5:00 am] Murder Prevention Unit - Episode 6;
[6:00 am] BBC World News. (ALL TIMES EST)
Bravo has 'AFIs 100 Years - 100 Cheers', and 'Kathy Griffin'.
Comedy Central has 'Scrubs', another 'Scrubs', last night's 'Jon Stewart', last night's 'Colbert Report', 'Chappelle's Show', 'South Park', 'Mind Of Mencia', and another 'Mind Of Mencia'.
Scheduled on a FRESHJon Stewart is Sen. John Edwards.
Scheduled on a FRESHColbert Report is Jeff Swartz.
History has 'Modern Marvels', 'Rogue Waves', 'Mega Disasters', and 'Man Moment Machine'.
IFC -
[06:25 AM] Dinner For Five #27;
[06:50 AM] Max;
[08:40 AM] Widows' Peak;
[10:25 AM] Me Myself and I;
[12:10 PM] Max;
[02:00 PM] The Empty Mirror;
[04:00 PM] Widows' Peak;
[05:45 PM] Me Myself and I;
[07:30 PM] Jet Lag;
[09:00 PM] The White Sheik;
[10:30 PM] Mr. Hulot's Holiday;
[12:00 AM] Loves of a Blonde;
[01:25 AM] Jet Lag;
[02:55 AM] The White Sheik;
[04:25 AM] Mr. Hulot's Holiday;
[05:55 AM] Loves of a Blonde. (ALL TIMES EST)
SciFi has 'Dead Like Me', another 'Dead Like Me', 'Eureka', and 'ECW'.
Sundance -
[07:45 AM] Fried Green Tomatoes;
[10:00 AM] Femi Kuti, Live at the Shrine;
[11:30 AM] The Incredible Shrinking Woman;
[01:00 PM] 200 Motels;
[02:45 PM] Fried Green Tomatoes;
[05:00 PM] In This World;
[06:30 PM] Fela Kuti - Music is the Weapon;
[07:30 PM] Femi Kuti, Live at the Shrine;
[09:00 PM] City of Men - Season 3: Episode 1: Opening Night;
[09:30 PM] The Nominees: Episode 5;
[10:00 PM] Brazil;
[12:15 AM] Face (1997);
[02:00 AM] The Nominees: Episode 5;
[02:30 AM] City of Men - Season 3: Episode 1: Opening Night;
[03:00 AM] Six Shooter;
[03:30 AM] House of Boateng: Episode 5;
[04:00 AM] Resist. With the Living Theatre;
[05:30 AM] Fela Kuti - Music is the Weapon. (ALL TIMES EST)
Film critic and actor Rex Reed pauses for photographers outside Broadway's Cort Theatre, Monday, Nov. 13, 2006, in New York, as he arrives for opening night of 'The Little Dog Laughed,' Douglas Carter Beane's comedy.
Photo by Kathy Willens
Levy County's public libraries are struggling to get books checked out or reshelved because retirees who usually handle many of those chores have balked at a requirement that they "pee in a cup" as part of a mandatory drug test for all county volunteers.
"It's not like we are a high-risk group for coming in drunk or high or stoned or whatever," said one volunteer. "This is just a common-sense issue - why are we spending tax money to test 75-year-old grandmothers for marijuana? We should be using that money to buy more books and computers."
The situation has gotten to the point where the pool of 55 volunteers has dwindled to two and the number of hours worked by volunteers in the county's five libraries plunged from 330 in September 2005 to 11 this September, according to county library records. None of the former volunteers contacted by The Sun wanted to be publicly identified in a story about drug-testing.
Most of the volunteers are between the ages of 60 and 85. Under the county's year-old contract with First Lab, all drug tests are done on urine samples that are collected in plastic cups while a lab employee stands within hearing distance of the person providing the sample.
Two former '60s rock stars appeared before a music-loving judge on Monday for a showdown over authorship of one of the decade's most iconic songs.
The organ strains of Procol Harum's "A Whiter Shade of Pale" sounded through Court 56 of Britain's High Court as the band's former organ player, Matthew Fisher, sued an ex-bandmate for a share of copyright in the multimillion-selling song.
Fisher's lawyer, Iain Purvis, said Fisher had composed the organ melody, and particularly the eight-bar Hammond organ solo, which gives the song its distinctive baroque flavor.
Fisher is suing Procol Harum singer Gary Brooker and publisher Onward Music Ltd. for a co-author credit and a share of the song's copyright and royalties.
Brooker, who is credited as the song's author with lyricist Keith Reid, says the pair wrote the song before Fisher joined the band in March 1967.
Actor Danny DeVito, right, and his wife Rhea Perlman arrive for the premiere of the movie 'Deck the Halls,' Sunday, Nov. 12, 2006, in Los Angeles.
Photo by Danny Moloshok
Hundreds of Israeli peace activists, joined by three foreign Nobel laureates, asked the nation's high court to rule against targeted assassinations carried out by the army in the Palestinian territories, saying the attacks were killing civilians.
The petition, signed by 10 peace groups and 200 individuals, urged the supreme court to rule immediately on the issue in light of last week's Israeli fire in Gaza's Beit Hanun that killed 19 people, mostly women and children.
The signatories included Harold Pinter, winner of the Nobel literature prize in 2005, and Betty Williams and Mairead McGuire, the founders of an organization that promoted peace in Northern Ireland and who won the Nobel peace prize in 1976.
There will be a little less "Free Speech" and more news on Katie Couric's "CBS Evening News."
The controversial conservative opinion segment will be cut back to a couple of times a week, sometimes less, and feature more people whose opinions aren't already well known, Rome Hartman, the broadcast's executive producer, said Monday. The cutback was first reported in the Washington Post.
Drug-addict/draft dodger/sex tourist Rush Limbaugh was featured on "Free Speech" during Couric's first week, and Sean Hannity has also appeared.
NBC News began late last week to make the first cuts as part of its NBCU 2.0 overhaul, laying off about 15 "Dateline NBC" employees.
Sources said the cuts were made Thursday and Friday at the NBC News bureaus in New York, Chicago and Washington. It was unclear whether those included on-air personnel.
The most sweeping changes will come at NBC News, where the most personnel cuts will be made. "Dateline" is only one of the units that will be pruned, though it apparently was the first, according to one source.
Andy Warhol's iconic image of Mao Zedong is seen in this picture supplied by Christie's auction house. Considered one of Warhol's most sensational pieces of the 1970s, the silk-screen portrait is set to be auctioned at Christie's Rockefeller Center galleries as part of its evening sale of postwar and contemporary art on Wednesday, Nov. 15, 2006.
Yusuf Islam, the artist formerly known as Cat Stevens before he became a Muslim in the 1970s, has released his first commercial album for nearly three decades -- but reviewers seemed unimpressed.
"An Other Cup" went on sale in Britain along with a single, "Heaven/Where True Love Goes", while the album was to be released in the United States on Tuesday.
Initial reviews of the new album were not over-enthusiastic, however.
ABC has ordered a full season of "What About Brian," a sophomore drama about a group of close-knit friends.
So far this season, the ensemble drama has improved slightly over its performance last season in the Monday 10 p.m. slot among total viewers (6.7 million vs. 6.3 million).
The Supreme Court on Monday handed a victory to the author of the "The Da Vinci Code," refusing to consider a case alleging copyright infringement.
Author Lewis Perdue contends that Dan Brown's megathriller is substantially similar to his book, written years before the 2003 publication of "The Da Vinci Code.
Perdue argues that affidavits detailing similarities between his book, "Daughter of God," and Brown's book should have been considered by a federal judge, who rejected them. The judge ruled that no reasonable juror could find parts of Perdue's work substantially similar to "The Da Vinci Code." An appeals court upheld the ruling.
In this photo released by China's Xinhua news agency, members of the Chinese Art Ensemble of the Handicapped perform a dance named 'Mother Buddha' at the Xinjiang People's Hall in Urumqi, northwest China, on Saturday November 11, 2006. Consisting of hearing-impaired dancers, the art troupe, set up in 1987, has given performances in more than 30 countries and won sound reputations, Xinhua said.
Photo by Wang Min
NBC said Monday it has ordered a full season's worth of "Friday Night Lights" episodes, its second endorsement in a week of a freshman series that so far has attracted more attention from critics than viewers.
The drama, based on the book and film of the same name, focuses on the coach and football players from the high-school team in rural Dillon, Texas.
The show has averaged 6.1 million viewers this season. It stands at No. 81 in Nielsen Media Research's season ratings, or just below ABC's Friday-night rerun of "Grey's Anatomy."
Body artist Huit Huit from Angola performs during a dress rehearsal of the show 'Africa-Africa' produced by Austrian multi-media artist Andre Heller in Vienna, November 13, 2006.
Photo by Leonhard Foeger
Aboriginal communities in Ontario's far north are becoming increasingly isolated as rising temperatures melt their winter route to the outside world and impede their access to supplies.
"The ice doesn't have its solid blue color any more," said Stan Beardy, the grand chief of Nishnawbe Aski Nation, which represents Ontario's remote First Nations. "It's more like Styrofoam now, really brittle."
During the coldest months between January and March, "winter roads" are cleared on the frozen network of rivers and lakes to let trucks deliver bulk supplies like fuel and building materials.
But average temperatures have warmed over the past decade, weakening the ice and shrinking the bulk-shipping season by several weeks, aboriginals say.
This image supplied by the Metropolitan Museum of Art shows the Otto Dix's 'Metropolis,' wall-sized triptych in pencil and charcoal is the centerpiece of 'Glitter and Doom: German Portraits from the 1920s' exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. It's the first broad survey of German verist portraits of the Neue Sachlichkeit (New Objectivity), a school of ultra-realist modernism. This artwork is from the Kunstmuseum Stuttgart,which has it on permanent loan from the German state of Baden-Wurtemberg.
Photo by Uwe H. Seyl
Singer Jimmy Buffett filed suit on Monday asking a U.S. federal judge to stop a Web site operator from infringing Buffett's trademarks.
The lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court in Galveston, Texas, accused Robert Akard of operating a Web site, underonehut.com, that sells Buffett-trademarked items without permission.
Buffett won a previous court order in Nevada, but it "wasn't comprehensive enough," and Akard has since surfaced in New York, Florida and Texas, Buffett's lawyer, Tony Buzbee said.
A large chalk rendition of Da Vinci's 'The Last Supper' drawn by artist Tracy Lee Stum is displayed in the lobby of the Trump Towers in New York City November 13, 2006.
Photo by Lucas Jackson
A plan to stage a fantasy wedding between Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt proved a little too hot to handle for a wax museum on the Las Vegas Strip.
Madame Tussauds nixed the plan after a representative for Pitt protested that recreating a wedding that never really happened seemed a little, well, disturbing.
The Brangelina "wedding" had been scheduled Wednesday to mark the unveiling of a Jolie figure at the museum at The Venetian resort.
Visitors are silhouetted in front of an illuminated bamboo grove at Shorenin temple in the ancient capital of Kyoto, western Japan November 13, 2006.
Photo by Issei Kato
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