Thursday, June 29, 2006
Tuesday, June 27, 2006
Democrats vow to block pay raises until minimum wage increased
From Ted Barrett
Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nevada, says he has the votes to block any congressional pay raise.
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- A week after the GOP-led Senate rejected an increase to the minimum wage, Senate Democrats on Tuesday vowed to block pay raises for members of Congress until the minimum wage is increased.
"We're going to do anything it takes to stop.... the congressional pay raise this year, and we're not going to settle for this year alone," Democratic Leader Harry Reid of Nevada said at a Capitol news conference.
"They can play all the games the want," Reid said derisively of the Republicans who control the chamber. "They can deal with gay marriage, estate tax, flag burning, all these issues and avoid issues like the prices of gasoline, sending your kid to college. But we're going to do everything to stop the congressional pay raise."
The minimum wage is $5.15 an hour. Democrats want to raise it to $7.25. During the past nine years, as Democrats have tried unsuccessfully to increase the minimum wage, members of Congress have voted to give themselves pay raises -- technically "cost of living increases" -- totaling $31,600, or more than $15 an hour for a 40-hour week, 52 weeks a year, according to the Congressional Research Service.
In floor debate last week Republicans argued the raise for low-income workers would hurt small businesses. They offered an alternative measure to raise the minimum wage that was tied to tax breaks for small businesses.
The main proposal fell eight votes short of the 60 it needed to pass with 46 opposing; the alternative measure mustered only 45 votes in favor, while 53 senators opposed.
Reid wouldn't spell out the specific tactics he would employ to block the congressional pay raise -- which is triggered each year with the passage of an appropriations bill not by a vote on a stand alone bill to increase pay for members.
But he warned, "I know procedure's around here fairly well."
Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nevada, says he has the votes to block any congressional pay raise.
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- A week after the GOP-led Senate rejected an increase to the minimum wage, Senate Democrats on Tuesday vowed to block pay raises for members of Congress until the minimum wage is increased.
"We're going to do anything it takes to stop.... the congressional pay raise this year, and we're not going to settle for this year alone," Democratic Leader Harry Reid of Nevada said at a Capitol news conference.
"They can play all the games the want," Reid said derisively of the Republicans who control the chamber. "They can deal with gay marriage, estate tax, flag burning, all these issues and avoid issues like the prices of gasoline, sending your kid to college. But we're going to do everything to stop the congressional pay raise."
The minimum wage is $5.15 an hour. Democrats want to raise it to $7.25. During the past nine years, as Democrats have tried unsuccessfully to increase the minimum wage, members of Congress have voted to give themselves pay raises -- technically "cost of living increases" -- totaling $31,600, or more than $15 an hour for a 40-hour week, 52 weeks a year, according to the Congressional Research Service.
In floor debate last week Republicans argued the raise for low-income workers would hurt small businesses. They offered an alternative measure to raise the minimum wage that was tied to tax breaks for small businesses.
The main proposal fell eight votes short of the 60 it needed to pass with 46 opposing; the alternative measure mustered only 45 votes in favor, while 53 senators opposed.
Reid wouldn't spell out the specific tactics he would employ to block the congressional pay raise -- which is triggered each year with the passage of an appropriations bill not by a vote on a stand alone bill to increase pay for members.
But he warned, "I know procedure's around here fairly well."
Democracy in chains
Greg Palast
US Republicans are planning to change the law to stop black, Hispanic and Native American voters going to the polls in 2008.
Greg Palast
June 23, 2006 05:03 PM | Printer Friendly Version
Don't kid yourself: the Republican party's decision yesterday to "delay" the renewal of the Voting Rights Act has not a darn thing to do with objections of the Republican's white sheets caucus.
Complaints by a couple of good ol' boys to legislation have never stopped the GOP leadership from rolling over dissenters.
This is a strategic stall that is meant to decriminalise the Republican party's new game of challenging voters of colour by the hundreds of thousands.
In the 2004 presidential race, the GOP ran a massive, multi-state, multimillion-dollar.... operation to challenge the legitimacy of black, Hispanic and Native American voters. The methods used breached the Voting Rights Act, and while the Bush administration's civil rights division grinned and looked the other way, civil rights lawyers began circling, preparing to sue to stop the violations of the act before the 2008 race.
So Republicans have promised to no longer break the law - not by going legit but by eliminating the law.
The act was passed in 1965 after the Ku Klux Klan and other upright citizens found they could use procedural tricks - "literacy tests", poll taxes and more - to block citizens of colour from casting ballots.
Here is what happened in 2004, and what's in store for 2008.
In the 2004 election, more than 3 million voters were challenged at the polls. No one had seen anything like it since the era of Jim Crow and burning crosses. In 2004, voters were told their registrations had been purged or that their addresses were "suspect".
Denied the right to the regular voting booths, these challenged voters were given "provisional" ballots. More than 1m of these provisional ballots (1,090,729 of them) were tossed in the electoral dumpster uncounted.
A funny thing about those ballots: about 88% were cast by minority voters.
This isn't a number dropped on me from a black helicopter: they come from the raw data of the US election assistance commission in Washington DC.
At the heart of the GOP's mass challenge of voters was what the party's top brass called "caging lists" - secret files of hundreds of thousands of voters, almost every one from a black-majority voting precinct.
When our investigations team, working for BBC TV, got our hands on these confidential files in October 2004, the Republicans told us the voters listed were their potential "donors". Really? The sheets included pages of men from homeless shelters in Florida.
Donor lists, my ass. Every expert told us, these were "challenge lists" meant to stop these black voters from casting ballots.
When these "caged" voters arrived at the polls in November 2004, they found their registrations missing, their right to vote blocked or their absentee ballots rejected because their addresses were supposedly "fraudulent".
Why didn't the GOP honchos fess up to challenging these allegedly illegal voters? Because targeting voters of colour is against the law. The law in question is the Voting Rights Act of 1965.
The act says you can't go after groups of voters if you choose your targets based on race. Given that almost all the voters on the GOP hit list are black, the illegal racial profiling is beyond even Karl Rove's ability to come up with an alibi.
The Republicans target black folk not because they don't like the colour of their skin; they don't like the colour of their vote: Democrat. For that reason, the GOP included on its hit list Jewish retirement homes in Florida. Apparently, the GOP was also gunning for the Elderly of Zion.
These so-called "fraudulent" voters, in fact, were not fraudulent at all. Page after page, as we have previously reported, are black soldiers sent overseas. The Bush campaign used their absence from their US homes to accuse them of voting from false addresses.
Now that the GOP has been caught breaking the voting rights law, it has found a way to keep using its expensively obtained "caging" lists: let the law expire next year. If the Voting Rights Act dies in 2007, the 2008 race will be open season on dark-skinned voters. Only the renewal of the Voting Rights Act can prevent the planned racial wrecking of democracy.
Before the 2000 presidential ballot, then Jeb Bush purged thousands of Black citizens' registrations on the grounds that they were "felons" not entitled to vote. Our review of the files determined that the crime of most people on the list was nothing more than VWB -- Voting While Black.
That "felon scrub", as the state called it, had to be "pre-cleared" under the Voting Rights Act. That is, the US justice department must approve "scrubs" and other changes in procedures.
The Florida felon scrub slipped through this "pre-clearance" provision because Katherine Harris's assistant assured the government the scrub was just a clerical matter. Civil rights lawyers are now on the alert for such mendacity.
The burning cross caucus of the Republican Party is bitching that "pre-clearance" of voting changes applies only to southern states. I have to agree that singling out the old confederacy is a bit unfair. But the solution is not to smother the voting rights law but to spread its safeguards to all 50 of these United States.
Republicans argue that the racial voting games and the threats of the white-hooded Klansmen that kept African-Americans from the ballot box before the 1965 passage of the Voting Rights Act no longer threaten black voters.
That's true. When I look over the "caging lists" and the "scrub sheets", it's clear to me that the GOP has traded in white sheets for spreadsheets.
US Republicans are planning to change the law to stop black, Hispanic and Native American voters going to the polls in 2008.
Greg Palast
June 23, 2006 05:03 PM | Printer Friendly Version
Don't kid yourself: the Republican party's decision yesterday to "delay" the renewal of the Voting Rights Act has not a darn thing to do with objections of the Republican's white sheets caucus.
Complaints by a couple of good ol' boys to legislation have never stopped the GOP leadership from rolling over dissenters.
This is a strategic stall that is meant to decriminalise the Republican party's new game of challenging voters of colour by the hundreds of thousands.
In the 2004 presidential race, the GOP ran a massive, multi-state, multimillion-dollar.... operation to challenge the legitimacy of black, Hispanic and Native American voters. The methods used breached the Voting Rights Act, and while the Bush administration's civil rights division grinned and looked the other way, civil rights lawyers began circling, preparing to sue to stop the violations of the act before the 2008 race.
So Republicans have promised to no longer break the law - not by going legit but by eliminating the law.
The act was passed in 1965 after the Ku Klux Klan and other upright citizens found they could use procedural tricks - "literacy tests", poll taxes and more - to block citizens of colour from casting ballots.
Here is what happened in 2004, and what's in store for 2008.
In the 2004 election, more than 3 million voters were challenged at the polls. No one had seen anything like it since the era of Jim Crow and burning crosses. In 2004, voters were told their registrations had been purged or that their addresses were "suspect".
Denied the right to the regular voting booths, these challenged voters were given "provisional" ballots. More than 1m of these provisional ballots (1,090,729 of them) were tossed in the electoral dumpster uncounted.
A funny thing about those ballots: about 88% were cast by minority voters.
This isn't a number dropped on me from a black helicopter: they come from the raw data of the US election assistance commission in Washington DC.
At the heart of the GOP's mass challenge of voters was what the party's top brass called "caging lists" - secret files of hundreds of thousands of voters, almost every one from a black-majority voting precinct.
When our investigations team, working for BBC TV, got our hands on these confidential files in October 2004, the Republicans told us the voters listed were their potential "donors". Really? The sheets included pages of men from homeless shelters in Florida.
Donor lists, my ass. Every expert told us, these were "challenge lists" meant to stop these black voters from casting ballots.
When these "caged" voters arrived at the polls in November 2004, they found their registrations missing, their right to vote blocked or their absentee ballots rejected because their addresses were supposedly "fraudulent".
Why didn't the GOP honchos fess up to challenging these allegedly illegal voters? Because targeting voters of colour is against the law. The law in question is the Voting Rights Act of 1965.
The act says you can't go after groups of voters if you choose your targets based on race. Given that almost all the voters on the GOP hit list are black, the illegal racial profiling is beyond even Karl Rove's ability to come up with an alibi.
The Republicans target black folk not because they don't like the colour of their skin; they don't like the colour of their vote: Democrat. For that reason, the GOP included on its hit list Jewish retirement homes in Florida. Apparently, the GOP was also gunning for the Elderly of Zion.
These so-called "fraudulent" voters, in fact, were not fraudulent at all. Page after page, as we have previously reported, are black soldiers sent overseas. The Bush campaign used their absence from their US homes to accuse them of voting from false addresses.
Now that the GOP has been caught breaking the voting rights law, it has found a way to keep using its expensively obtained "caging" lists: let the law expire next year. If the Voting Rights Act dies in 2007, the 2008 race will be open season on dark-skinned voters. Only the renewal of the Voting Rights Act can prevent the planned racial wrecking of democracy.
Before the 2000 presidential ballot, then Jeb Bush purged thousands of Black citizens' registrations on the grounds that they were "felons" not entitled to vote. Our review of the files determined that the crime of most people on the list was nothing more than VWB -- Voting While Black.
That "felon scrub", as the state called it, had to be "pre-cleared" under the Voting Rights Act. That is, the US justice department must approve "scrubs" and other changes in procedures.
The Florida felon scrub slipped through this "pre-clearance" provision because Katherine Harris's assistant assured the government the scrub was just a clerical matter. Civil rights lawyers are now on the alert for such mendacity.
The burning cross caucus of the Republican Party is bitching that "pre-clearance" of voting changes applies only to southern states. I have to agree that singling out the old confederacy is a bit unfair. But the solution is not to smother the voting rights law but to spread its safeguards to all 50 of these United States.
Republicans argue that the racial voting games and the threats of the white-hooded Klansmen that kept African-Americans from the ballot box before the 1965 passage of the Voting Rights Act no longer threaten black voters.
That's true. When I look over the "caging lists" and the "scrub sheets", it's clear to me that the GOP has traded in white sheets for spreadsheets.
Friday, June 23, 2006
Charles Darwin's Tortoise Dies (nothin' gets past me)
From: AAP
June 23, 2006
THE world's oldest animal in captivity has died on the Sunshine Coast at the ripe old age of 176.
Giant Galapagos tortoise Harriet has died of a suspected heart attack.
She was a star attraction at Steve Irwin's Australia Zoo since the 1980s and.... even features in the Guinness Book of Records for her longevity.
Her history is as colourful as the hibiscus flowers she lovingly munched on.
It is believed Harriet was one of three animals naturalist Charles Darwin brought back from his trip to the Galapagos Islands in 1835 and which led to his theories of evolution and natural selection.
A few years later, Sir Charles gave them to a Brisbane-bound friend.
For about 100 years Harriet was mistakenly thought to be a male.
At 176, Harriet was recognised as the world's oldest living chelonian - a reptile with a shell or bony plates.
Mr Irwin said he considered Harriet a member of the family.
"Harriet has been a huge chunk of the Irwin family's life," he said.
"I have grown up with this gorgeous old girl and so have my kids.
"She is possibly one of the oldest living creatures on the planet and her passing today is not only a great loss for the world but a very sad day for my family.
"She was a grand old lady."
June 23, 2006
THE world's oldest animal in captivity has died on the Sunshine Coast at the ripe old age of 176.
Giant Galapagos tortoise Harriet has died of a suspected heart attack.
She was a star attraction at Steve Irwin's Australia Zoo since the 1980s and.... even features in the Guinness Book of Records for her longevity.
Her history is as colourful as the hibiscus flowers she lovingly munched on.
It is believed Harriet was one of three animals naturalist Charles Darwin brought back from his trip to the Galapagos Islands in 1835 and which led to his theories of evolution and natural selection.
A few years later, Sir Charles gave them to a Brisbane-bound friend.
For about 100 years Harriet was mistakenly thought to be a male.
At 176, Harriet was recognised as the world's oldest living chelonian - a reptile with a shell or bony plates.
Mr Irwin said he considered Harriet a member of the family.
"Harriet has been a huge chunk of the Irwin family's life," he said.
"I have grown up with this gorgeous old girl and so have my kids.
"She is possibly one of the oldest living creatures on the planet and her passing today is not only a great loss for the world but a very sad day for my family.
"She was a grand old lady."
Thursday, June 22, 2006
Take Your Dog to Work Day -- what a howl!
Your chance to get Fido into the rat race
H.J. Cummins, Star Tribune
Last update: June 21, 2006 – 10:45 PM
You might call it the dog day of summer.
Friday, June 23rd is Take Your Dog to Work Day, a chance for dog lovers to.... commute with their cockers, lunch with their Lhasa apsos and take a break with their border collies.
"It's quirky, but in the end it does what it's supposed to do," said John Long, spokesman for Pet Sitters International, which created the annual event eight years ago.
And that is: Show that dog ownership is so wonderful that colleagues will go out and adopt canines.
If you want to include your workplace, Long advises some preparation -- such as ruling out that any nearby colleagues have allergies or dog phobias.
Pet Sitters estimates that about 10,000 employers in the United States and Canada participated last year. So far, on the official website -- www.petsit.com/dogday -- about a dozen Minnesota companies have registered.
And then there are Minnesota workplaces where every day could be Take Your Dog to Work Day. Such as the PetSmart store in Plymouth, where operations manager DeeDee Bergquist sometimes brings in Daphne, her Italian greyhound puppy.
"She just chills out in the office, and I check on her," she said. "She goes on break with me, and our trainer spends a little extra time with her."
Why is it good to allow dogs at work?
"It's good for socializing the dog," Bergquist said.
Uh, no, we meant why is it good for people?
"I think it loosens everybody up," she said. "Animals are calming. They lower stress levels."
H.J. Cummins, Star Tribune
Last update: June 21, 2006 – 10:45 PM
You might call it the dog day of summer.
Friday, June 23rd is Take Your Dog to Work Day, a chance for dog lovers to.... commute with their cockers, lunch with their Lhasa apsos and take a break with their border collies.
"It's quirky, but in the end it does what it's supposed to do," said John Long, spokesman for Pet Sitters International, which created the annual event eight years ago.
And that is: Show that dog ownership is so wonderful that colleagues will go out and adopt canines.
If you want to include your workplace, Long advises some preparation -- such as ruling out that any nearby colleagues have allergies or dog phobias.
Pet Sitters estimates that about 10,000 employers in the United States and Canada participated last year. So far, on the official website -- www.petsit.com/dogday -- about a dozen Minnesota companies have registered.
And then there are Minnesota workplaces where every day could be Take Your Dog to Work Day. Such as the PetSmart store in Plymouth, where operations manager DeeDee Bergquist sometimes brings in Daphne, her Italian greyhound puppy.
"She just chills out in the office, and I check on her," she said. "She goes on break with me, and our trainer spends a little extra time with her."
Why is it good to allow dogs at work?
"It's good for socializing the dog," Bergquist said.
Uh, no, we meant why is it good for people?
"I think it loosens everybody up," she said. "Animals are calming. They lower stress levels."
Wednesday, June 21, 2006
Dobbs: Congress stiffs working Americans
By Lou Dobbs
CNN
Wednesday, June 21, 2006; Posted: 11:12 a.m. EDT (15:12 GMT)
NEW YORK (CNN) -- Without much fanfare, the House of Representatives last week voted to give members of Congress yet another pay raise, as it has done almost every year for nearly a decade.
For some reason, our elected officials decided against holding a news conference. Maybe that's because they didn't want to draw attention to the fact that they raise their own salaries almost every year while refusing to raise the pay of our lowest-paid workers.
Corporate America, the Bush administration and the national economic orthodoxy with which they're in league have consistently ....argued against helping working men and women at the lowest end of the wage scale by raising the minimum wage. Big business groups like the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and Business Roundtable say it will harm the economy and eliminate jobs. As is so frequent with the faith-based economics that grips both political parties in Washington, such concerns have absolutely nothing to do with reality.
For example, it's impossible to deny the national minimum wage of $5.15 is not enough for a family to live above the poverty line. The annual salary for workers earning the national minimum wage still leaves a family of three about $6,000 short of the poverty threshold.
Raising the minimum wage to $7.50 would positively affect the lives of more than 8 million workers, including an estimated 760,000 single mothers and 1.8 million parents with children under 18. But even this 46 percent increase would get them only to the poverty line. Don't you think these families just might need that cost-of-living increase a bit more than our elected officials who are paid nearly $170,000 a year?
With no Congressional action on raising the minimum wage since 1997, inflation has eroded wages. The minimum wage in the 21st century is $2 lower in real dollars than it was four decades ago and now stands at its lowest level since 1955, according to the Economic Policy Institute and Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.
Also, since the last time Congress increased the minimum wage for our lowest-paid workers, buying power has fallen by 25 percent. Yet over that time our elected representatives have given themselves eight pay raises totaling more than 23 percent.
Raising the minimum wage isn't simply about the price of labor. It's also about our respect for labor. One of this country's greatest business innovators, Henry Ford, made history almost a century ago by raising the salaries of his production-line workers far beyond the prevailing wage. Ford not only paid his employees well enough to buy the products they built, but he kept his employees loyal and productive. That's also very good business.
The myth that raising the minimum wage will lead to job cuts is just that: a myth. In fact, research suggests just the opposite. According to the Fiscal Policy Institute, since 1998, states with higher minimum wages experienced better job growth than states paying only the federal minimum wage. Among small retail businesses in those higher minimum-wage states, job growth was double the rest of the country.
The House Appropriations Committee has passed a $2.10 increase as part of a spending bill, but the business lobby pressured the House leadership to hold up the measure.
"I think it's disgraceful that we waited nine years to do this," says Rep. David Obey, a Democrat from Wisconsin. "We have seen gas prices go up by 140 percent since the minimum wage was increased. We have seen home heating oil go up by 120 percent. We have seen health care go up by almost 45 percent."
This administration, our Republican-led Congress and the dominant corporate interests in this country want cheap labor. And to achieve that goal they're outsourcing middle-class jobs, importing illegal labor and cutting retirement and health-care benefits.
It's time for the federal government to reverse the trend, to at least substantially raise the minimum wage in this country, and by doing so express how much we value all working Americans.
CNN
Wednesday, June 21, 2006; Posted: 11:12 a.m. EDT (15:12 GMT)
NEW YORK (CNN) -- Without much fanfare, the House of Representatives last week voted to give members of Congress yet another pay raise, as it has done almost every year for nearly a decade.
For some reason, our elected officials decided against holding a news conference. Maybe that's because they didn't want to draw attention to the fact that they raise their own salaries almost every year while refusing to raise the pay of our lowest-paid workers.
Corporate America, the Bush administration and the national economic orthodoxy with which they're in league have consistently ....argued against helping working men and women at the lowest end of the wage scale by raising the minimum wage. Big business groups like the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and Business Roundtable say it will harm the economy and eliminate jobs. As is so frequent with the faith-based economics that grips both political parties in Washington, such concerns have absolutely nothing to do with reality.
For example, it's impossible to deny the national minimum wage of $5.15 is not enough for a family to live above the poverty line. The annual salary for workers earning the national minimum wage still leaves a family of three about $6,000 short of the poverty threshold.
Raising the minimum wage to $7.50 would positively affect the lives of more than 8 million workers, including an estimated 760,000 single mothers and 1.8 million parents with children under 18. But even this 46 percent increase would get them only to the poverty line. Don't you think these families just might need that cost-of-living increase a bit more than our elected officials who are paid nearly $170,000 a year?
With no Congressional action on raising the minimum wage since 1997, inflation has eroded wages. The minimum wage in the 21st century is $2 lower in real dollars than it was four decades ago and now stands at its lowest level since 1955, according to the Economic Policy Institute and Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.
Also, since the last time Congress increased the minimum wage for our lowest-paid workers, buying power has fallen by 25 percent. Yet over that time our elected representatives have given themselves eight pay raises totaling more than 23 percent.
Raising the minimum wage isn't simply about the price of labor. It's also about our respect for labor. One of this country's greatest business innovators, Henry Ford, made history almost a century ago by raising the salaries of his production-line workers far beyond the prevailing wage. Ford not only paid his employees well enough to buy the products they built, but he kept his employees loyal and productive. That's also very good business.
The myth that raising the minimum wage will lead to job cuts is just that: a myth. In fact, research suggests just the opposite. According to the Fiscal Policy Institute, since 1998, states with higher minimum wages experienced better job growth than states paying only the federal minimum wage. Among small retail businesses in those higher minimum-wage states, job growth was double the rest of the country.
The House Appropriations Committee has passed a $2.10 increase as part of a spending bill, but the business lobby pressured the House leadership to hold up the measure.
"I think it's disgraceful that we waited nine years to do this," says Rep. David Obey, a Democrat from Wisconsin. "We have seen gas prices go up by 140 percent since the minimum wage was increased. We have seen home heating oil go up by 120 percent. We have seen health care go up by almost 45 percent."
This administration, our Republican-led Congress and the dominant corporate interests in this country want cheap labor. And to achieve that goal they're outsourcing middle-class jobs, importing illegal labor and cutting retirement and health-care benefits.
It's time for the federal government to reverse the trend, to at least substantially raise the minimum wage in this country, and by doing so express how much we value all working Americans.
Tuesday, June 20, 2006
All work and no play for government of Kyrgyzstan
Jun 19, 10:29 AM (ET)
BISHKEK (Reuters) - Kyrgyzstan's leader banned top officials in his Central Asian state from taking holidays until later this year as a punishment for not doing a good job.
Kyrgyzstan, a mountainous nation to the west of China, has been plagued by violence and crime since President Kurmanbek Bakiyev came to power in a revolution last year.
"I'll take measures if I find out that even one of the ministers has gone on holidays before December," Bakiyev told top government officials during a meeting on Monday, according to a statement on the presidential Web site.
"I think it's not time to rest, it's time to work."
Kyrgyz ministers were not available for comment.
Bakiyev also ordered officials to cut the number of foreign trips and focus on domestic issues such as the 2007 budget and crop harvesting, the presidential statement said.
Most government officials in former Soviet states like Kyrgyzstan usually take up to a month off in July or August, bringing political life to a standstill during summer months.
Monday, June 19, 2006
Jason DeRusha
Reporting
(WCCO) When a young St. Paul boy got to pick the theme for his third birthday party, he didn't pick Nemo or the Wiggles or Dora the Explorer. He didn't even pick his favorite sports team.
Henry Schally picked "The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer".
His mother, Jennifer Schally, designed party hats complete.... with pictures of the PBS news program's regular contributors.
"I think most kids get their favorite show for their birthday party theme," Jennifer Schally said.
Henry's father, Troy Schally, explained he and his wife have watched the show during dinner since their son was an infant. He believes the show's distinctive theme caught his son's attention.
"I don't know if it's a fluke this year and he'll be into something next year or if it's a sign of things to come and he wants to go into broadcast journalism, who knows?" Troy Schally said.
The party was over Memorial Day weekend, and the Schallys made all their guests wear the hats Jennifer Schally designed. They got a cake with the photo of the show's correspondents and Jennifer Schally arranged for Jim Lehrer to send an autographed photo for a birthday present.
It read, "To my youngest fan" and was signed, "Jimmy Jimmy BoBo", which is the nickname Henry gave Lehrer.
The unusual party got nationwide attention in Thursday's Washington Post, with the headline, "'Jimmy Jimmy BoBo' Lehrer Makes Birthday Party Newsworthy".
Henry clearly enjoys watching the program. When the anchor came on screen, he burst into a huge smile and yelled out, "Jim!"
Henry later noticed a change in the theme orchestration saying, "It's new music!"
When correspondent Kwame Holman started delivering his report, Henry yelled out "Kwame Holman!"
"He's really a normal kid," Jennifer Schally said. "I think beyond this, he's pretty fun-loving."
"Outside of 6 to 7 o'clock every weekday night, he's pretty normal," Troy Schally clarified.
(© MMVI, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)
Reporting
(WCCO) When a young St. Paul boy got to pick the theme for his third birthday party, he didn't pick Nemo or the Wiggles or Dora the Explorer. He didn't even pick his favorite sports team.
Henry Schally picked "The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer".
His mother, Jennifer Schally, designed party hats complete.... with pictures of the PBS news program's regular contributors.
"I think most kids get their favorite show for their birthday party theme," Jennifer Schally said.
Henry's father, Troy Schally, explained he and his wife have watched the show during dinner since their son was an infant. He believes the show's distinctive theme caught his son's attention.
"I don't know if it's a fluke this year and he'll be into something next year or if it's a sign of things to come and he wants to go into broadcast journalism, who knows?" Troy Schally said.
The party was over Memorial Day weekend, and the Schallys made all their guests wear the hats Jennifer Schally designed. They got a cake with the photo of the show's correspondents and Jennifer Schally arranged for Jim Lehrer to send an autographed photo for a birthday present.
It read, "To my youngest fan" and was signed, "Jimmy Jimmy BoBo", which is the nickname Henry gave Lehrer.
The unusual party got nationwide attention in Thursday's Washington Post, with the headline, "'Jimmy Jimmy BoBo' Lehrer Makes Birthday Party Newsworthy".
Henry clearly enjoys watching the program. When the anchor came on screen, he burst into a huge smile and yelled out, "Jim!"
Henry later noticed a change in the theme orchestration saying, "It's new music!"
When correspondent Kwame Holman started delivering his report, Henry yelled out "Kwame Holman!"
"He's really a normal kid," Jennifer Schally said. "I think beyond this, he's pretty fun-loving."
"Outside of 6 to 7 o'clock every weekday night, he's pretty normal," Troy Schally clarified.
(© MMVI, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)
Wednesday, June 14, 2006
Tuesday, June 13, 2006
Father's Day Breakfast This Saturday
Jenny and I are planning a Fathers Day Breakfast on Saturday June 17 from 10:30-1:00 at Jenny's house.
On the menu: pancakes, eggs, meat of some sort, fruit, coffee, juice etc.....
Please RSVP by Friday June 16th.
Hope to see you there.
Sara
Sara Jorde Photography
612-338-6923
www.jorde.com
Thursday, June 08, 2006
A word of warning to asthma sufferers
By Nancy Shute
Posted 6/7/06
Are long-acting beta-agonists a lifesaving drug for people with asthma, or do they harm more than help? That's a question that has bedeviled asthma patients and their doctors almost since the powerful inhaled drugs came into use more than 50 years ago. Since 2003, spurred by evidence that some people who used the drugs to reduce the frequency of asthma attacks actually had their attacks become severe, the Food and Drug Administration has issued increasingly stern warnings about the risks posed by salmeterol and formoterol, sold as Advair Diskus, Foradil Aerolizer, and Serevent Diskus.
But the agency has kept the drugs on the market. Now a study in the June 6 online Annals of Internal Medicine, which analyzed existing data from 19 clinical trials involving 33,826 patients, suggests... the drugs shouldn't be used at all. The study, led by Shelley Salpeter, a clinical professor of medicine at the Stanford University School of Medicine, found that patients using long-acting beta-agonists were twice as likely to have life-threatening asthma attacks as patients on a placebo and 2.5 times more likely to be hospitalized. Death from asthma was rare, with only 16 patients studied dying. But those using LABAs were 3.5 times more likely to die, with 13 deaths as opposed to three in the placebo group.
What really snapped wide the eyelids of asthma researchers, however, was Salpeter's estimate that one LABA, salmeterol, could be responsible for 4,000 of the 5,000 asthma deaths in the United States each year. That conclusion seems "a little strong," says Thomas Platts-Mills, head of the department of asthma and allergic disease at the University of Virginia. If salmeterol were responsible for 80 percent of asthma deaths, Platts-Mills says, the mortality rate from asthma should have risen in recent years, as the drugs have been aggressively marketed. Instead, death rates have fallen in the past three to five years. That's not to say there aren't serious concerns about the drugs' safety, he says.
"I don't think it changes where we were when the FDA put a black box on any drug with salmeterol in it," Platts-Mills says. "But the idea that there's a national problem seems very unlikely." Patients should stick with current treatment guidelines for using LABAs, in the opinion of Jeffrey Glassroth, vice dean for academic and clinical affairs at Tufts University in Boston, who wrote an editorial accompanying the Salpeter study. That is, use inhaled corticosteroid drugs first to control asthma; these drugs help reduce inflammation that contributes to asthma. If symptoms don't improve, increase the dosage of corticosteroids before turning to LABAs. For many people, particularly those with severe asthma, LABAs, which relax muscles around the lung's airways, are very effective, Glassroth says. But for some, LABAs can make symptoms worse. "We don't have a way of predicting who's in that group," he says.
In the past, doctors worried that patients might be trying to use LABAs as rescue inhalers, which they are not. In its November 2005 health alert, the FDA urged patients to use only short-acting bronchodilators such as albuterol to treat wheezing during attacks, and to let their doctors know if wheezing got worse while using a LABA. Another theory is that LABAs mask asthma symptoms, and that patients taking them without corticosteroids may not realize their asthma is worsening in time to seek treatment. Many patients worry about using big doses of corticosteroids indefinitely, because the drugs can have serious side effects, particularly in children.
Other recent research suggests that people with a specific genetic variation may be less able to tolerate LABA drugs, but a test doesn't yet exist that makes it easy to screen people for that susceptibility.
Posted 6/7/06
Are long-acting beta-agonists a lifesaving drug for people with asthma, or do they harm more than help? That's a question that has bedeviled asthma patients and their doctors almost since the powerful inhaled drugs came into use more than 50 years ago. Since 2003, spurred by evidence that some people who used the drugs to reduce the frequency of asthma attacks actually had their attacks become severe, the Food and Drug Administration has issued increasingly stern warnings about the risks posed by salmeterol and formoterol, sold as Advair Diskus, Foradil Aerolizer, and Serevent Diskus.
But the agency has kept the drugs on the market. Now a study in the June 6 online Annals of Internal Medicine, which analyzed existing data from 19 clinical trials involving 33,826 patients, suggests... the drugs shouldn't be used at all. The study, led by Shelley Salpeter, a clinical professor of medicine at the Stanford University School of Medicine, found that patients using long-acting beta-agonists were twice as likely to have life-threatening asthma attacks as patients on a placebo and 2.5 times more likely to be hospitalized. Death from asthma was rare, with only 16 patients studied dying. But those using LABAs were 3.5 times more likely to die, with 13 deaths as opposed to three in the placebo group.
What really snapped wide the eyelids of asthma researchers, however, was Salpeter's estimate that one LABA, salmeterol, could be responsible for 4,000 of the 5,000 asthma deaths in the United States each year. That conclusion seems "a little strong," says Thomas Platts-Mills, head of the department of asthma and allergic disease at the University of Virginia. If salmeterol were responsible for 80 percent of asthma deaths, Platts-Mills says, the mortality rate from asthma should have risen in recent years, as the drugs have been aggressively marketed. Instead, death rates have fallen in the past three to five years. That's not to say there aren't serious concerns about the drugs' safety, he says.
"I don't think it changes where we were when the FDA put a black box on any drug with salmeterol in it," Platts-Mills says. "But the idea that there's a national problem seems very unlikely." Patients should stick with current treatment guidelines for using LABAs, in the opinion of Jeffrey Glassroth, vice dean for academic and clinical affairs at Tufts University in Boston, who wrote an editorial accompanying the Salpeter study. That is, use inhaled corticosteroid drugs first to control asthma; these drugs help reduce inflammation that contributes to asthma. If symptoms don't improve, increase the dosage of corticosteroids before turning to LABAs. For many people, particularly those with severe asthma, LABAs, which relax muscles around the lung's airways, are very effective, Glassroth says. But for some, LABAs can make symptoms worse. "We don't have a way of predicting who's in that group," he says.
In the past, doctors worried that patients might be trying to use LABAs as rescue inhalers, which they are not. In its November 2005 health alert, the FDA urged patients to use only short-acting bronchodilators such as albuterol to treat wheezing during attacks, and to let their doctors know if wheezing got worse while using a LABA. Another theory is that LABAs mask asthma symptoms, and that patients taking them without corticosteroids may not realize their asthma is worsening in time to seek treatment. Many patients worry about using big doses of corticosteroids indefinitely, because the drugs can have serious side effects, particularly in children.
Other recent research suggests that people with a specific genetic variation may be less able to tolerate LABA drugs, but a test doesn't yet exist that makes it easy to screen people for that susceptibility.
Wednesday, June 07, 2006
Gay marriage amendment sheer nonsense
By Lou Dobbs
CNN
Wednesday, June 7, 2006; Posted: 9:09 a.m. EDT (13:09 GMT)
NEW YORK (CNN) -- President Bush this week urged Congress to pass a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage, at a time when the United States faces some of the greatest challenges in our nation's history.
So, logically, what could possibly better ensure the prosperous and bright future of working men and women and their families than for the Senate to work on a constitutional amendment that is guaranteed to fail?
It's clear that cynical, patronizing White House political strategists are... trying to rally a conservative base that they believe is more base than conservative. They're wrong on all counts.
We're fighting a war against radical Islamist terrorists with ongoing campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan, we're drowning in debt from our growing record trade and budget deficits and we're watching our public education system fail a generation of students. Congress has yet to act on an effective solution to our illegal immigration crisis as millions of illegal aliens flood our borders every year, and our nation's borders and ports are still woefully insecure, four and a half years after the September 11 attacks.
I believe most Americans are far more concerned about their declining real wages and the lack of real creation of quality jobs than the insulting insertion of wedge issues into the national dialogue and political agenda.
But President Bush and the Senate have decided they should take up a constitutional ban of gay marriage. Polls tell us most of us oppose gay marriage. Those same polls are also shouting to our elected representatives in Washington that we want real leadership and real solutions to real problems.
The president and the Senate's Republican leadership are now claiming that an amendment to our Constitution is necessary to save the American family. No matter how you feel about the issue, and many of us feel deeply, a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage is utter and complete nonsense. It's an insult to the intelligence of every voter, Republican or Democrat, liberal or conservative.
The president and the Senate are focusing on one of the few reasons that has not been proven to cause divorce. They instead should look to financial hardships, and the lack of communication about family finances. The median family income is stagnating while gasoline costs and higher interest rates are eating up the family budget.
Nor is the Senate looking at the national tragedy of out-of-wedlock births: In seven states, more than 40 percent of our children are born out of wedlock. Nationally, more than one out of three of our children are born to unmarried parents.
Both political parties love to excite and enliven their so-called "bases" by focusing on wedge issues like gay marriage, abortion, gun control, school prayer and flag burning. Both the Republicans and Democrats raise these issues to distract and divert public attention from the pressing issues that affect our way of life and our nation's future.
Are these wedge issues really how Congress should be spending its time, especially given how little time politicians spend in Washington, D.C., these days? I'd rather see our 535 elected representatives and this president use their time to combat poverty, fix our crumbling schools, secure our broken borders and ports and hold employers accountable for hiring illegal aliens. And like millions of Americans, I am desperate for a resolution to our wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
How can we tolerate elected officials who press wedge issues when 37 million people in the United States live in poverty, one in every eight Americans? Almost 18 percent of children under the age of 18 live in poverty -- 13 million children.
Nearly 46 million people live without health insurance, about 16 percent of the population, a number that has risen by 6 million since 2000. More than one in 10 children are uninsured, and one-quarter of people with incomes below $25,000 also lack any health insurance.
College costs are skyrocketing. There's been a 40 percent jump (inflation-adjusted) in tuition and fees at public four-year colleges and universities over the past five years, according to the College Board. The costs for brand-name prescription drugs have also increased twice as fast as the rate of inflation. In fact, over the past six years, the average rise in the price of brand-name drugs is 40 percent, according to the AARP.
But while these increases in the price of the basics make it harder for hard-working men and women to make ends meet, the president and Congress would rather drive wedge issues than work toward real solutions.
I wonder if the president's political advisers know just how ill-advised and smarmy this wedge issue looks to the millions of us who want solutions to the critical, urgent problems facing this nation. Worse, I wonder if they even care.
CNN
Wednesday, June 7, 2006; Posted: 9:09 a.m. EDT (13:09 GMT)
NEW YORK (CNN) -- President Bush this week urged Congress to pass a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage, at a time when the United States faces some of the greatest challenges in our nation's history.
So, logically, what could possibly better ensure the prosperous and bright future of working men and women and their families than for the Senate to work on a constitutional amendment that is guaranteed to fail?
It's clear that cynical, patronizing White House political strategists are... trying to rally a conservative base that they believe is more base than conservative. They're wrong on all counts.
We're fighting a war against radical Islamist terrorists with ongoing campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan, we're drowning in debt from our growing record trade and budget deficits and we're watching our public education system fail a generation of students. Congress has yet to act on an effective solution to our illegal immigration crisis as millions of illegal aliens flood our borders every year, and our nation's borders and ports are still woefully insecure, four and a half years after the September 11 attacks.
I believe most Americans are far more concerned about their declining real wages and the lack of real creation of quality jobs than the insulting insertion of wedge issues into the national dialogue and political agenda.
But President Bush and the Senate have decided they should take up a constitutional ban of gay marriage. Polls tell us most of us oppose gay marriage. Those same polls are also shouting to our elected representatives in Washington that we want real leadership and real solutions to real problems.
The president and the Senate's Republican leadership are now claiming that an amendment to our Constitution is necessary to save the American family. No matter how you feel about the issue, and many of us feel deeply, a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage is utter and complete nonsense. It's an insult to the intelligence of every voter, Republican or Democrat, liberal or conservative.
The president and the Senate are focusing on one of the few reasons that has not been proven to cause divorce. They instead should look to financial hardships, and the lack of communication about family finances. The median family income is stagnating while gasoline costs and higher interest rates are eating up the family budget.
Nor is the Senate looking at the national tragedy of out-of-wedlock births: In seven states, more than 40 percent of our children are born out of wedlock. Nationally, more than one out of three of our children are born to unmarried parents.
Both political parties love to excite and enliven their so-called "bases" by focusing on wedge issues like gay marriage, abortion, gun control, school prayer and flag burning. Both the Republicans and Democrats raise these issues to distract and divert public attention from the pressing issues that affect our way of life and our nation's future.
Are these wedge issues really how Congress should be spending its time, especially given how little time politicians spend in Washington, D.C., these days? I'd rather see our 535 elected representatives and this president use their time to combat poverty, fix our crumbling schools, secure our broken borders and ports and hold employers accountable for hiring illegal aliens. And like millions of Americans, I am desperate for a resolution to our wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
How can we tolerate elected officials who press wedge issues when 37 million people in the United States live in poverty, one in every eight Americans? Almost 18 percent of children under the age of 18 live in poverty -- 13 million children.
Nearly 46 million people live without health insurance, about 16 percent of the population, a number that has risen by 6 million since 2000. More than one in 10 children are uninsured, and one-quarter of people with incomes below $25,000 also lack any health insurance.
College costs are skyrocketing. There's been a 40 percent jump (inflation-adjusted) in tuition and fees at public four-year colleges and universities over the past five years, according to the College Board. The costs for brand-name prescription drugs have also increased twice as fast as the rate of inflation. In fact, over the past six years, the average rise in the price of brand-name drugs is 40 percent, according to the AARP.
But while these increases in the price of the basics make it harder for hard-working men and women to make ends meet, the president and Congress would rather drive wedge issues than work toward real solutions.
I wonder if the president's political advisers know just how ill-advised and smarmy this wedge issue looks to the millions of us who want solutions to the critical, urgent problems facing this nation. Worse, I wonder if they even care.
Friday, June 02, 2006
Wildfire nears famed Arizona town--Sedona
Friday, June 2, 2006; Posted: 12:18 p.m. EDT (16:18 GMT)
A forest fire burns Thursday night south of Sedona, Arizona.
SEDONA, Arizona (AP) -- Firefighters battled a 1,500-acre wildfire Friday that had burned at least four buildings and forced the evacuation of about 30 homes near the scenic northern Arizona town of Sedona.
Investigators said early Friday that the fire appeared to have been started by sparks from the grinder of a fencing company that was working on a fence post Thursday afternoon.
U.S. Forest Service officials said the company... could be held responsible for some of the cost of fighting the blaze.
Thirty homes out of about 200 in the Pine Valley subdivision near the Village of Oak Creek were evacuated because of the fire, which quickly grew from 40 acres. Some homeowners were allowed to return midmorning Friday.
"It could have been much worse," said Sedona Fire District Chief Matt Shobert. "Once it hit the forest, it took off."
Two homes, a small shed and an outbuilding burned before the fire moved into the wilderness Thursday night, Shobert said.
Copyright 2006 The Associated Press.
Snake Bites Woman Walking Through The Wal-Mart There Then
POSTED: 12:33 pm EDT June 1, 2006
UPDATED: 12:36 pm EDT June 1, 2006
JACKSONVILLE, Fla. -- All she wanted was a flower, but instead a woman said she got a snake bite.
Delaine Jarrell was looking through the plants in the garden center at a Jacksonville Wal-Mart on Wednesday, when a snake sunk its fangs into her arm and didn't let go without a fight.
"He finally broke loose and, thank goodness for sweat pants with elastic on them, because he tried to climb up my britches' leg," Jarrell said.
Jarrell went to the emergency room two days later when she noticed red streaks running down her arm.
Fortunately, the snake wasn't poisonous.
Copyright 2006 by wftv.com. All rights reserved.
UPDATED: 12:36 pm EDT June 1, 2006
JACKSONVILLE, Fla. -- All she wanted was a flower, but instead a woman said she got a snake bite.
Delaine Jarrell was looking through the plants in the garden center at a Jacksonville Wal-Mart on Wednesday, when a snake sunk its fangs into her arm and didn't let go without a fight.
"He finally broke loose and, thank goodness for sweat pants with elastic on them, because he tried to climb up my britches' leg," Jarrell said.
Jarrell went to the emergency room two days later when she noticed red streaks running down her arm.
Fortunately, the snake wasn't poisonous.
Copyright 2006 by wftv.com. All rights reserved.
Thursday, June 01, 2006
Coma woman mix-up pains US family
Whitney Cerak and Laura VanRyn
Whitney Cerak (left) was mistaken for Laura VanRyn (right)
A US family has spent weeks caring for a comatose crash victim only to learn their daughter died in the crash and the survivor is someone else.
The family of Laura VanRyn realised a mistake had been made as the.... crash victim emerged from her coma.
Tests showed the woman in hospital was not their daughter but a college mate of hers, Whitney Cerak, who was in the same accident and resembled Ms VanRyn.
The Cerak family had buried Ms VanRyn's body, thinking it was their daughter.
The two women looked similar.
She's been saying and doing things that made us question whether or not she was Laura
VanRyn blog
Both were students at Taylor University, Indiana, and were travelling together on 26 April when their vehicle was involved in a collision that left five people dead.
Ms VanRyn was among those killed. Ms Cerak was rescued alive from the crash and taken to hospital, where she was incorrectly identified as Ms VanRyn.
She had suffered facial swelling, cuts and bruises and fractures and her neck was held in a brace.
'A fairy tale'
A web journal posted by the VanRyns documented their vigil by the hospital bedside of the woman they thought was their daughter.
On Monday, the journal described how the woman was beginning to regain her memory but "still has times where she'll say things that don't make much sense".
On Wednesday, a journal entry said: "Our hearts are aching as we have learned that the young woman we have been taking care of over the past five weeks has not been our dear Laura but instead a fellow student of hers, Whitney Cerak."
"As Whitney had been becoming more aware of her surroundings, she'd been saying and doing things that made us question whether or not she was Laura," the journal said.
Ms Cerak's grandfather told the Associated Press news agency he was shocked by the news of her survival.
"I still can't get over it," he said. "It's like a fairy tale."
A spokesman for Taylor University told the agency: "We rejoice with the Ceraks. We grieve with the VanRyns."
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