dawgma

April Simpson just said on air to Santa she wants a man for Christmas.

Well, here I am.

April is gorgeous and I call shotgun on being her man.  Anybody who wants to rumble for this better just give up now. 

Call me, April.   : ^ )

New York Times: NBC's Tim Russert Dead At 58 NEW YORK (CBS)

 

The New York Times is reporting that NBC Senior Vice President and Washington Bureau Chief Tim Russert has died from an apparent heart attack. They are citing family reports. He was 58-years-old.

 

According to the MSNBC biography on Russert, he was the Managing Editor and Moderator of "Meet the Press" and political analyst for "NBC Nightly News" and the "TODAY" program. He anchors "The Tim Russert Show," a weekly interview program on MSNBC. Russert also serves as senior vice president and Washington bureau chief of NBC News. (© MMVIII, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)

Hey folks, another example of our basic freedoms being ripped completely from us!
3 suspended for not standing for Pledge of Allegiance

By PAUL WALSH, Star Tribune

May 9, 2008

Three small-town eighth-graders in Minnesota were suspended by their principal for not standing Thursday morning for the Pledge of Allegiance, violating a district policy that the principal now says may soon be reworded to protect free speech rights.

"My son wasn't being defiant against America," said Kim Dahl, mother of one of the students, Brandt, who attends Dilworth-Glyndon-Felton Junior High School in northwestern Minnesota.

Brandt told the Forum newspaper in Fargo that Thursday's one-day in-school suspension, "was kind of dumb because I didn't do anything wrong. It should be the people's choice."

Kim Dahl said the "punishment didn't fit the crime. If they wanted to know why he didn't stand, they should've made him write a paper." She said her son has been declining to stand all school year, offered no reason for sitting and was not obligated to explain his actions.

The school's handbook says all students are required to stand but are not required to recite the pledge. The same is true for all four schools in the district, a school official said.

"These three [students] didn't, and they got caught," said Mel Olson, the district's community education director. He said he backs the punishment, "being a veteran and a United States of America citizen, absolutely." Olson served in the Marines in Japan during the Vietnam War.

The head of the Minnesota American Civil Liberties Union said that the school's actions against the students are unconstitutional, and his office informed the district of that today in a strongly worded letter.

"The school can't do that; that's illegal," said Chuck Samuelson, the civil liberties group's executive director. "Wow."

Samuelson said that numerous U.S. Supreme Court rulings dating to the 1940s say in "well-settled constitutional law" that "students who refuse to participate in the pledge cannot be punished for refusing to participate."

Samuelson said he's surprised that any public school district would have such a pledge requirement, given that state law allows for students and teachers to decide not to participate. Most states have the same "opt-out" provision.

In St. Paul, said district spokesman Howie Padilla, "Students can respectfully not participate in the Pledge of Allegiance." Minneapolis schools treat pledge participation the same way.

Colleen Houglum, the principal who suspended the three, acknowledged in a statement late this morning that the policy requirement that " 'all students will stand' may need to be modified to address the protection of the individual's form of expression."

Kim Dahl said Houglum called her this morning and informed her of the possible accommodation. "I think they are handling it quite professionally," Kim Dahl said, adding that Houglum told her that school officials "are taking some steps to take the [suspensions] off their records."

That possible shift was met with disappointment from Olson. While he said he'll fall in line with whatever change may occur, "I still have my beliefs."

Earlier today, Olson said that a "very nice announcement" was made at the start of the junior high school day reminding the students that they must stand for the pledge.

Houglum said that all students this morning were "involved in some fashion" during the pledge, adding that no additional suspensions were needed.

However, the family of 14-year-old Bishop Edens told the Forum that he was suspended from school today (Friday) because he wouldn't stand for the pledge, but he was quickly invited back once Houglum said a policy change might be needed. Edens had said Thursday that he would sit in support of the other three. "Our social studies teacher led the pledge, and that was kind of a nice change of pace," Houglum said.

Kim Dahl asked Brandt why he has been remained seated all school year, but "he didn't have an answer ... he doesn't get in trouble; he's just a normal 13-year-old."

As for today, she told Brandt to take his cell phone with him to school and text her should he run into trouble again. "I said you should probably just stand if you're not protesting something."

Huge controversy I'm not going into, but I just wanted to share a post that was in one of my political groups...

"My cousin in the FDNY was at ground zero searching for his dead brothers and found the columns of the WTC literally burnt off. I've talked to some of the very people down there that day and they're all convinced we're not being told the whole truth. One guy was in the North Tower 10 minutes before it fell. He said they had the fire UNDER CONTROL. He was standing in the lobby taking a break before going back up and they heard BOOM... BOOM... BOOM, the lobby floor began to shake and they ran like hell up West Broadway and got covered with soot and ash and almost died."

Act to Remove Federal Penalties for the Personal Use of Marijuana by Responsible Adults
 Congressmen Barney Frank and Ron Paul have introduced the first marijuana decriminalization legislation in a generation - HR 5843, the Personal Use of Marijuana by Responsible Adults Act of 2008. 
http://www.opencongress.org/bill/110-h5843/show 

But with George Bush in office I don't see how this is going to be passed! But yet, this still proves how freakin' awesome Ron Paul really is!

America's Most Hated Family 

This is incredible! Louis Theroux from the BBC has a documentary out in which he lives with the members of the Westboro Baptist Church. Truly epic and watching these people live everyday lives while being completely and utterly ignorant is quite amazing. 

I am going to provide the link to this YouTube member because they have all parts of the series split up in 10 minute increments. So obviously, click Part 1 first... ;^) 

http://youtube.com/user/suppressiveelite

(CNN) -- Eight Florida teenagers -- six of them girls -- will be tried as adults and could be sentenced to life in prison for their alleged roles in the videotaped beating of another teen, the state attorney's office said Thursday.

The suspects, who range in age from 14 to 18, all face charges of kidnapping, which is a first-degree felony, and battery, said Chip Thullbery, a spokesman for the Polk County state attorney. Three of them are also charged with tampering with a witness.

Everyone involved in the case was under a gag order imposed by a judge. The only attorney for the teens who has been publicly identified did not return calls from CNN, and his assistant cited the gag order as the reason. The teens are scheduled for their first appearance in court Friday.

The video shows a brutal scene: The 16-year-old victim is punched, kneed and slapped by other girls. She huddles in the fetal position, or stands and screams at her attackers, but the assault continues. Authorities say the eight teens said they were retaliating for insults posted on the Internet by the attack victim.

Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd called the March 30 attack "animalistic."

"I've been involved in law enforcement for 35 years, and I've seen a lot of extremely violent events, but I've never seen children, 14 to 18 years of age, engage in this conduct for a 30-minute period of time and then make these video clips," he said. Police say the teens planned to post the video on YouTube. 

The victim, a 16-year-old from Lakeland, Florida, was hospitalized, and still has blurred vision, hearing loss, and a swollen face, her mother told CNN on Wednesday.

The video shows only girls doing the beating; Judd said the boys acted as lookouts.

The idea of girls administering a vicious beating so they can post the video online may seem shocking, but it's becoming an increasingly common scenario, according to experts and news reports.

Another example was also in the news this week: A high school art teacher in Baltimore told police a female student beat her up last week, and a video of the attack was posted on YouTube, according to CNN affiliate WBAL.

A search for "girl fight" on YouTube gets thousands of results, and a suggestion to also try "girl fight at school, boy girl fight" and other search terms. There's at least one Web site devoted exclusively to videos of girls fighting.

In 2003, 25 percent of high school girls said they had been in a physical fight in the past year, according to a survey by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (The figure for boys was 40.5 percent.)

A Justice Department report released in 2006 showed that by age 17, 21 percent of girls said they had assaulted someone with the intent to cause serious harm.

Frank Green is executive director of Keys to Safer Schools, a group that studies and tries to prevent school violence. He said he's not sure whether girls have actually become more violent, or whether there's just more awareness of their fights.

"In one respect, girls have always been more vicious than boys," Green said. "Their violence is of a personal nature." He said boys usually have some focus and a concrete goal when they fight. "But girls want to cause pain and make the other girl feel bad," he said.

Judd, the Polk County sheriff, said an important part of the plan in the Lakeland attack was to post the video of the beating on YouTube to humiliate and embarrass the victim.

"It's the next stage of cyberbullying," psychologist Susan Lipkins said. "They want to show what they're doing."

"Our kids are being peer pressured, in another sense of a trend, to put these shock videos out there at other peoples' expense," said Talisa Lindsay, the victim's mother. "And I hope that it doesn't come to the point where there's more people's lives that are being affected by having to take a beating for entertainment, or possibly being killed." 

The suspects didn't have a chance to post the video online before police moved in and seized it, Judd said. The Sheriff's Department made it public, and it wound up on YouTube anyway. Judd recognizes the irony.

"In a perverted sense, we were feeding into exactly what the kids wanted," he said. "But according to Florida law, [the video] is public record, and it's going to be in the public domain whether we agree with that or not."

Judd said the suspects showed no remorse when they were arrested and booked.

"They were laughing and joking about, 'I guess we won't get to go to the beach during spring break.' And one ... asked whether she could go to cheerleading practice," he said.

Lipkins, the psychologist, says there's a "disconnect between their actions and their thoughts."

"They think the entire society is doing it, and they think it's funny. So they put it on YouTube. And I don't think they expect kids to get really hurt, and they also don't expect to get really caught."

CNN's Rich Phillips contributed to this report.

... did they do the right thing BECAUSE it was the right thing to do, or did they do the right thing because the backlash from the public might cause problems? Potentially a Wal-Mart boycott? Haha, I know there's no way I could stop shopping at Wal-Mart. That's sad.

(CNN) -- A former Wal-Mart employee who suffered severe brain damage in a traffic accident won't have to pay back the company for the cost of her medical care, Wal-Mart told the family Tuesday.

"Occasionally, others help us step back and look at a situation in a different way. This is one of those times," Wal-Mart Executive Vice President Pat Curran said in a letter. "We have all been moved by Ms. Shank's extraordinary situation."

Eight years ago, Debbie Shank was stocking shelves for the retail giant and signed up for Wal-Mart's health and benefits plan.

After a tractor-trailer slammed into her minivan, the 52-year-old mother of three lost much of her short-term memory and was confined to a wheelchair. She now lives in a nursing home.

She also lost her 18-year-old son, Jeremy, who was killed shortly after arriving in Iraq. When Debbie Shank asks family members how her son is doing and they remind her that he's dead, she weeps as if hearing the news for the first time.

Wal-Mart's health care plan lets the retail giant recoup the cost of its expenses if an employee collects damages in a lawsuit. And Wal-Mart set out to do just that after Shank and her husband, Jim, won $1 million after suing the trucking company involved in the wreck. After legal fees, the couple received $417,000.

Wal-Mart sued the Shanks to recoup $470,000 it paid for her medical care. However, a court ruled that the company could only recoup about $275,000 -- the amount that was left in a trust fund for her care.

The Shanks appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, but the court declined in March to hear the case. CNN told the couple's story last week, prompting thousands of angry blog responses and at least two online petitions to boycott the company.

On Tuesday, Wal-Mart said in a letter to Jim Shank that it is modifying its health care plan to allow "more discretion" in individual cases.Watch Wal-Mart reverse its decision »

"We wanted you to know that Wal-Mart will not seek any reimbursement for the money already spent on Ms. Shank's care, and we will work with you to ensure the remaining amounts in the trust can be used for her ongoing care," Curran said.

"We are sorry for any additional stress this uncertainty has placed on you and your family."

Wal-Mart's reversal came as shock to Shank.

"I thought it was an April Fool's joke," he told CNN.

"I (would) just like to let them know that they did the right thing. I just wish it hadn't taken so long," Shank said. "But I thank them and I hope they come through with all that they said they're going to do.

Pubdate: Sat, 22 Mar 2008
Source: AlterNet (US Web)
Copyright: 2008 Independent Media Institute
Website: http://www.alternet .org/
Author: Paul Armentano
Note: Paul Armentano is deputy director of NORML and the NORML Foundation.

CALLING B.S. ON THE IDEA OF 'MARIJUANA ADDICTION'

The U.S. government believes that America is going to pot --
literally. Earlier this month, the U.S. National Institute on Drug
Abuse announced plans to spend $4 million to establish the nation's
first-ever "Center on Cannabis Addiction," which will be based in La
Jolla, Calif. The goal of the center, according to NIDA's press
release, is to "develop novel approaches to the prevention, diagnosis
and treatment of marijuana addiction."

Not familiar with the notion of "marijuana addiction"? You're not
alone. In fact, aside from the handful of researchers who have
discovered that there are gobs of federal grant money to be had
hunting for the government's latest pot boogeyman, there's little
consensus that such a syndrome is clinically relevant -- if it even
exists at all.

But don't try telling that to the mainstream press -- which recently
published headlines worldwide alleging, "Marijuana withdrawal rivals
that of nicotine." The alleged "study" behind the headlines involved
all of 12 participants, each of whom were longtime users of pot and
tobacco, and assessed the self-reported moods of folks after they
were randomly chosen to abstain from both substances. Big surprise:
they weren't happy.

And don't try telling Big Pharma -- which hopes to cash in on the
much-hyped "pot and addiction" craze by touting psychoactive
prescription drugs like Lithium to help hardcore smokers kick the
marijuana habit.

And certainly don't try telling the drug "treatment" industry, whose
spokespeople are quick to warn that marijuana "treatment" admissions
have risen dramatically in recent years, but neglect to explain that
this increase is due entirely to the advent of drug courts sentencing
minor pot offenders to rehab in lieu of jail. According to state and
national statistics, up to 70 percent of all individuals in drug
treatment for marijuana are placed there by the criminal justice
system. Of those in treatment, some 36 percent had not even used
marijuana in the 30 days prior to their admission. These are the "addicts"?

Indeed, the concept of pot addiction is big business -- even if the
evidence in support of the pseudosyndrome is flimsy at best.

And what does the science say? Well, according to the nonpartisan
National Academy of Sciences Institute of Medicine -- which published
a multiyear, million-dollar federal study assessing marijuana and
health in 1999 -- "millions of Americans have tried marijuana, but
most are not regular users [and] few marijuana users become dependent
on it." The investigator added, "[A]though [some] marijuana users
develop dependence, they appear to be less likely to do so than users
of other drugs (including alcohol and nicotine), and marijuana
dependence appears to be less severe than dependence on other drugs."

Just how less likely? According to the Institute of Medicine's
267-page report, fewer than 10 percent of those who try cannabis ever
meet the clinical criteria for a diagnosis of "drug dependence"
(based on DSM-III-R criteria). By contrast, the IOM reported that 32
percent of tobacco users, 23 percent of heroin users, 17 percent of
cocaine users and 15 percent of alcohol users meet the criteria for
"drug dependence."

In short, it's the legal drugs that have Americans hooked -- not pot.

But what about the claims that ceasing marijuana smoking can trigger
withdrawal symptoms similar to those associated with quitting
tobacco? Once again, it's a matter of degree. According to the
Institute of Medicine, pot's withdrawal symptoms, when identified,
are "mild and subtle" compared with the profound physical syndromes
associated with ceasing chronic alcohol use -- which can be fatal --
or those abstinence symptoms associated with daily tobacco use, which
are typically severe enough to persuade individuals to reinitiate
their drug-taking behavior.

The IOM report further explained, "[U]nder normal cannabis use, the
long half-life and slow elimination from the body of THC prevent[s]
substantial abstinence symptoms" from occurring. As a result,
cannabis' withdrawal symptoms are typically limited to feelings of
mild anxiety, irritability, agitation and insomnia.

Most importantly, unlike the withdrawal symptoms associated with the
cessation of most other intoxicants, pot's mild after-effects do not
appear to be either severe or long-lasting enough to perpetuate
marijuana use in individuals who have decided to quit. This is why
most marijuana smokers report voluntarily ceasing their cannabis use
by age 30 with little physical or psychological difficulty. By
comparison, many cigarette smokers who pick up the habit early in
life continue to smoke for the rest of their lives, despite making
numerous efforts to quit.

So let's review.

Marijuana is widely accepted by the National Academy of Sciences, the
Canadian Senate Special Committee on Illegal Drugs, the British
Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs and others to lack the severe
physical and psychological dependence liability associated with most
other intoxicants, including alcohol and tobacco. Further, pot lacks
the profound abstinence symptoms associated with most legal
intoxicants, including caffeine.

That's not to say that some marijuana smokers don't find quitting
difficult. Naturally, a handful of folks do, though this
subpopulation is hardly large enough to warrant pot's legal
classification (along with heroin) as an illicit substance with a
"high potential for abuse." Nor does this fact justify the continued
arrest of more than 800,000 Americans annually for pot violations any
more than such concerns would warrant the criminalization of booze or
nicotine.

Now if I can only get NIDA to fork me over that $4 million check.

WAYCROSS, GA (AP) -- Police say a group of third-graders plotted to attack their teacher, bringing a broken steak knife, handcuffs, duct tape and other items for the job and assigning children tasks including covering the windows and cleaning up afterward.

The plot by as many as nine boys and girls at Center Elementary School in south Georgia was a serious threat, Waycross Police Chief Tony Tanner said Tuesday.

"We did not hear anybody say they intended to kill her, but could they have accidentally killed her? Absolutely," Tanner said. "We feel like if they weren't interrupted, there would have been an attempt. Would they have been successful? We don't know."

The children, ages 8 and 9, were apparently mad at the teacher because she had scolded one of them for standing on a chair, Tanner said.

They could be expelled, but a prosecutor said they are too young to be charged with a crime under Georgia law.

Tanner said school officials alerted police Friday after a pupil tipped off a teacher that a girl had brought a weapon to school.

Police seized a broken steak knife, handcuffs, duct tape, electrical and transparent tape, ribbons and a crystal paperweight from the students, who apparently intended to use them against the teacher, Tanner said.

The alleged target is a veteran educator who teaches third-grade students with a range of learning disabilities, including attention deficit disorder, delayed development and hyperactivity, friends and parents said.

Tanner said the scheme involved a division of roles. One child's job was to cover windows so no one could see outside, he said. Another was supposed to clean up after the attack.

"We estimate between six to nine students were involved. ... We're not sure at this point in the investigation how many of the students actually knew the intent was to hurt the teacher," Tanner said.

The parents of the students have cooperated with investigators, who aren't allowed to question the children without their parents' or guardians' consent, he said. Authorities have withheld the children's names.

Police expected to forward the results of their investigation to prosecutors, Tanner said.

Children in Georgia can't be charged with a crime unless they are at least 13, District Attorney Rick Currie said.

Theresa Martin, spokeswoman for the Ware County school system, told The Florida Times-Union of Jacksonville, Fla., that administrators would follow school system policy and state law in disciplining the students.

"From what I understand, they were considered pretty good kids," Martin said. "But we have to take this seriously, whether they were serious or not about carrying this through, and that's what we did."

Four mothers of other third-grade students at Center Elementary called for the immediate expulsion of the suspected plotters.

Stacy Carter and Deana Hiott both cited school system policy stating that any student who brings "anything reasonably considered to be a weapon" is to be expelled for at least the remainder of the school year.

"We don't want our children around them," Carter told the Times-Union. "The one with the knife could have stabbed my child or someone else's child at lunch or out on the playground."

"This is an isolated incident, an aberration. ... We have good kids," Center Principal Angie Coleman told the newspaper.

DARDENNE PRAIRIE, Mo. (AP) -- A teenager involved in an Internet hoax blamed for a 13-year-old Missouri girl's suicide says the mother of a friend was more active in the ruse than she's admitted.

Ashley Grills told ABC's "Good Morning America" that Lori Drew called it "a good idea" when Grills and Drew's daughter suggested communicating with Megan Meier over the Internet. Grills says Drew even wrote some of the messages. They wanted to learn what Megan was saying about the daughter, a former friend.


Megan hanged herself in October 2006, after mean-spirited online comments from what she thought was a boy she'd befriended.

The boy was fictional. At first "Josh" flirted online with Megan, but eventually the messages turned mean. Grills says she wrote the message that the "world would be a better place without
you" that was sent to Megan, who committed suicide not long afterward.

Grills says she tried to commit suicide in the wake of Megan's death.

Drew has denied sending messages or directing anyone to send them.

Okay, so now when I leave my dart league on Thursday nights, I can go into work and not smelling like an ashtray.  I don't know about the rest of you, but I love it.
So why is that so many of my fellow Southern Illinoisers complaining?  Yeah, Fats bar in Sanodval IL and the owner of Becky's Bar in Salem were on the news last week.  Oh no, their sales have gone down.  Hey, how about the health and welfare of all your customers?
Smoking is going to kill off so many of the people who give you money, plus consider the ones suffering from all the nasty smoke in the air.  But... not anymore!  Everything is clean and fresh, but all these bar owners are angry because their sales are going down.
Maybe it's time to rely on better business ideas than just to have a place people can smoke at?