Clear Channel earnings drop 54% As it lobbies shareholders to vote for an $18.7 billion buyout proposal, Clear Channel Communications Inc. today announced that its fourth-quarter 2006 earnings fell 54 percent. Beating analyst expectations, the nation’s largest radio station operator reported fourth-quarter 2006 net income of $211.3 million, or 43 cents a share, down from $461.6 million, or 86 cents a share, including income from discontinued operations, for the same quarter in 2005. Fourth-quarter 200... (more)
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While you slumber, your brain puts the world in orderEver wondered why sleeping on a problem works? It seems that as well as strengthening our memories, sleep also helps us to extract themes and rules from the masses of information we soak up during the day.
Bob Stickgold from Harvard Medical School and his colleagues found that people were better able to recall lists of related words after a night's sleep than after the same time spent awake during the day. They also found it easier to recollect themes that the words had in common ... (more)
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Florida Bill Would Make It Legal To Falsify Court RecordsHere's a good one from last week's Miami Herald: Prosecutors seek OK to create phony files:Florida's prosecutors are floating a proposal to the Legislature to give them the power to secretly falsify public court records -- with a judge's approval -- for undercover law enforcement purposes.
Spurred by Miami-Dade State Attorney Katherine Fernandez Rundle, the draft bill would limit the authority to manufactu ... (more)
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The "Value" of Public SchoolingThere are two major values of public schooling, from the perspective of government officials. One, this institution provides the means by which government officials can slowly but surely, over a period of 12 years, mold the mindsets of children into one of conformity and obedience to authority. Second, public schooling enables government officials to fill children’s minds with officially approved political, historical, and economic doctrine.
Public schooling is much like the... (more)
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Schools to bring in 'airport screening'Teachers are being told to search children suspected of carrying knives and guns in a new move against teenage violence.
Staff will be trained in how to "pat down" pupils' clothing and check the pockets of those suspected of smuggling weapons. Teachers will also be able to use "reasonable force" to search unco-operative individuals. Schools are also advised to randomly screen entire classes or year groups using airport-style security scanners.
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Exquisite Corpus: Judges Junk Great Writ for Bush's GulagGuantanamo Detainees Lose Appeal (Washington Post) Excerpt: A federal appeals court ruled yesterday that hundreds of detainees in U.S. custody at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, do not have the right to challenge their imprisonment in federal courts, a victory for the Bush administration that could lead to the Supreme Court again addressing the issue.
In its 2 to 1 ... (more)
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Prosecutors seek OK to create phony filesFlorida's prosecutors are floating a proposal to the Legislature to give them the power to secretly falsify public court records -- with a judge's approval -- for undercover law enforcement purposes.
Spurred by Miami-Dade State Attorney Katherine Fernandez Rundle, the draft bill would limit the authority to manufacture and plant fake documents in court files to 180 days. But it also provides for an unlimited number of 30-day extensions.
''Judges would be very involv... (more)
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From Afghanistan to Iraq: Connecting the Dots with OilIn the Caspian Basin and beneath the deserts of Iraq, as many as 783 billion barrels of oil are waiting to be pumped. Anyone controlling that much oil stands a good chance of breaking OPEC's stranglehold overnight, and any nation seeking to dominate the world would have to go after it.
The long-held suspicions about George Bush's wars are well-placed. The wars in Afghanistan and Iraq were not prompted by the terrorist attacks in New York and Washington. They were not waged to spre... (more)
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US ratchets up 'psy-ops' against Tehran Psychological warfare is fast emerging as the key component of the conflict between Iran and the United States. It is being used extensively by the latter to influence Iranian behavior in Iraq and secure a climbdown by the Islamic Republic in the intricate negotiations over the country's controversial nuclear program.
As the Iranians analyze and react to this carefully crafted psychological-warfare campaign, they run the risk of miscalculating broader developments in the region. T... (more)
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US Iran intelligence 'is incorrect' Much of the intelligence on Iran's nuclear facilities provided to UN inspectors by US spy agencies has turned out to be unfounded, diplomatic sources in Vienna said today.
The claims, reminiscent of the intelligence fiasco surrounding the Iraq war, coincided with a sharp increase in international tension as the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) reported that Iran was defying a UN security council ultimatum to freeze its nuclear programme.
That report, delive... (more)
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New OKC Revelations Spotlight FBI Involvement In BombingNew claims by Oklahoma City Bombing conspirator Terry Nichols that Timothy McVeigh was being steered by a high-level FBI official are supported by a plethora of evidence that proves McVeigh did not act alone and that authorities had prior warnings and were complicit in the bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah building.
The Salt Lake Tribune reported yesterday,
Oklahoma City bombing conspirator T ... (more)
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Attorney: Ashcroft Gagged Nichols From Exposing McVeigh's OKC Bombing ConspiratorsSalt Lake City attorney Jesse Trentadue dropped more bombshells on the U.S. government's involvement in the Oklahoma City bombing and its cover-up today, including the revelation that Timothy McVeigh's co-conspirator Terry Nichols was gagged from talking to the media years ago by John Ashcroft, in an attempt to silence Nichols from exposing the men who were directing McVeigh's attack on the Alfred P. Murrah building.
Trentadue joined ta... (more)
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William Rodriguez on BBC's Look North
For all of those who are still sick to their stomachs over the BBC's corrupt hit-piece last Sunday, don't despair... the BBC's regional news program 'Look North' (based in Leeds, Yorkshire) offered 9/11 survivor & hero William Rodriguez a fair and steady pl... (more)
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Osama wants your mortgageGeorge W. Bush has pulled no punches in describing how he feels about his enemies. "Our war against terror is a war against individuals whose hearts are full of hate," he says, brimming with sincerity. Why are those hearts full of hate, you ask? As always, Dubya's got the answers: "People say, well, why-and I know a lot of kids are probably asking, well, why America? And you've just got to understand that the enemy hates us because of what we love."
So, we wonder, what do "we" lov... (more)
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US Dismisses Iranian Nuclear Offer As Warships ArriveThe United States on Tuesday dismissed an Iranian offer to suspend uranium enrichment work if Western countries did the same, as a second US aircraft carrier took up position in the region. The offer came ahead of a Friday report by the UN nuclear watchdog expected to confirm that Iran has defied the calls for a halt to its sensitive uranium enrichment program. Washington and many Western nations believe Iran wants to develop nuclear weapons. Tehran insists the program is peaceful.
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Prison Growth Could Cost Up to $27.5 Billion Over Next 5 YearsWashington, DC -- February 14, 2007 -- By 2011 one in every 178 U.S. residents will live in prison, according to a new report released today by the Public Safety Performance Project of The Pew Charitable Trusts. Public Safety, Public Spending: Forecasting America’s Prison Population 2007-2011 projects that by 2011 America will have more than 1.7 million men and women in prison, an increase of more than 192,000 from 2006. That increase could cost taxpayers as much as $27.5 billion over the ... (more)
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Officer Took 24 Minutes to Respond to a Call 3 Miles AwayJACKSONVILLE, FL -- A Jacksonville Sheriff's Officer has been suspended for failing to take "prompt action" to a child abuse call.
First Coast News broke the story last December when police arrested two Navy sailors for aggravated child abuse.
Police arrested Brittane Dominique Stanard, 22, and her boyfriend, 25-year-old Kahlil Mabuyi, December 4 at their Arlington Apartment.
Neighbors heard a little girl being beaten and called 911.
Ca... (more)
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Boy, 11, released from jail after detention over 'deadly' home-made slingshotAfter spending nearly 72 hours in an Ocala juvenile jail, the 11-year-old Lake County boy detained for his 'deadly' makeshift slingshot returned home to his parents Tuesday night.
Kevin Cottle said he didn't deliberately try to hit another student at Tavares Middle School with his home-made slingshot.
'I wasn't trying to hit him. It was an accident to shoot him,' he said soon after he was released from the Marion Regional Juvenile Detention Center Tuesday night. 'I ... (more)
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HPV Vaccine: The Fine PrintYesterday, Jacque Reid, former BET personality, spoke about the newly approved HPV vaccine on the Tom Joyner Morning Show. Can I say I wasn't satisfied with the media's diluted version of the vaccine? And it surely didn't help that Sybil, one of the morning show personalities, seemed to give her approval of such a vaccine with no formal research?
Not one to allow the fine print to sit idle in the background, I shot off an e-mail to Tom at blackamericaweb.com. So far, I haven't rec... (more)
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Texas Governor Perry took Merck money before mandating cervical vaccineTexas Gov. Rick Perry (R) says that it's just a coincidence that he and eight other lawmakers received donations of $5,000 each from Merck lobbyists just a few days before mandating the drug giant's HPV cervical cancer vaccine for all females in Texas ages 12 and up.
"There's been a lot of pressure about the implications of vaccinating young girls against sexually-transmitted diseases," says CNN's Ali Velshi in the video below, "some people thinking that that encourages promiscuit... (more)
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UK: 1.8 Million Protest Congestion TaxAn official petition against the UK government's proposed congestion tax program closed on Tuesday with 1,802,962 signatures. Yesterday, Prime Minister Tony Blair emailed an extensive reply to those who registered opposition to the tax on his website.
"We have not made any decision about national road pricing," Blair wrote. "We are, for now, working with some local authorities that are interested in establishing local schemes to help address local congestion problems."
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