On this day in
1923–The First Issue of “Time” Magazine hit the newsstands.
1927–Babe Ruth signs 3-year-contract with the New York Yankees for $70,000 per season.
Babe Ruth 1930 Contract for $80,000
1999 – Singer Dusty Springfield (Wishin’ and Hopin’, The Look of Love, Son of a Preacher Man) lost her battle with breast cancer. She was 59 years old.
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A German lawmaker proposed on Monday a novel and high-tech way of dealing with the menace of dog poo on the streets: DNA testing to identify the canine culprit and fine its owner.
Peter Stein, a conservative politician in eastern Germany, told AFP that under his proposal, officials would test the excrement and then match it up to the offending dog using a DNA database of all pooches.
"That's a good girl...you saved us a lot of money. Good dog!"
German dog owners are fined 30-40 euros (40-50 dollars) if they fail to clean up after their pets, but very few are caught, with only four fines given out in Stein’s hometown of Rostock — human population 200,000 — last year.
“Just saying ‘it wasn’t my dog’ will not wash any more,” Stein said.
B.S. What they need is doggie port-o-potties, you know, like Andy Gumps for dogs, placed strategically around the city.
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Fertility Clinic Allows Parents To Select Sex And Traits
The LA Fertility Institutes run by Dr Jeff Steinberg, a pioneer of IVF in the 1970s, expects a trait-selected baby to be born next year.
His clinic also offers sex selection.
UK fertility experts are angered that the service will distract attention from how the same technology can protect against inherited disease.
The science is based on a lab technique called preimplantation genetic diagnosis, or PGD.
This involves testing a cell taken from a very early embryo before it is put into the mother’s womb.
Doctors then select an embryo free from rogue genes – or in this case an embryo with the desired physical traits such as blonde hair and blue eyes – to continue the pregnancy, and discard any others.
"Thank you Doctor, thank you! You got my order perfect...just perfect! One large boy, bluish-green skin, and deep-set eyes. I can't thank you enough!"
Dr Steinberg said couples might seek to use the clinic’s services for both medical and cosmetic reasons.
For example, a couple might want to have a baby with a darker complexion to help guard against a skin cancer if they already had a child who had developed a melanoma. But others might just want a boy with blonde hair.
His clinic is offering this cosmetic selection to patients already having genetic screening for abnormal chromosome conditions in their embryos. (Read more.)
B.S. Report–I thought this has already been around for a while. Wasn’t there a clinic that went even further where you could purchase the DNA from the genetic line of some famous person or some Nobel Prize-winning scientist? Maybe that was just talk.
If you’re not happy with your order are you allowed to make an exchange?
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1904–Dr. Seuss, Theodore Geisel was born.
1933–Premiere of King Kong (1933)
1944–First Televised Academy Awards…hosted by Jack Benny
1962–Wilt Chamberlain scores 100 points in a game.
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If we are to keep our country safe then one of these guys should be an FBI agent.
SANTA ANA, Calif. (AP) — The revelation that the FBI planted a spy in a Southern California mosque was explosive news in a Muslim community that has long suspected the government of even broader surveillance.
Muslim-American organizations have demanded an inquiry. Some say the news has rattled their faith in American democracy.
B.S.–I’m crushed that they’ve lost their faith in our democracy…maybe they should go back home and develop a democracy of their own.
Despite the reaction, former FBI agents and federal prosecutors say spying on mosques is still one of the government’s best weapons to thwart terrorists and that the benefit to national security is likely to far outweigh any embarrassment to the agency.
“What matters to the FBI is preventing a massive attack that might be planned by some people … using the mosque or church as a shield because they believe they’re safe there,” said Robert Blitzer, the FBI’s former counter-terrorism chief.
“That is what the American people want the FBI to do,” he said. “They don’t want some type of attack happening on U.S. soil because the FBI didn’t act on information.”
B.S. Report–Of course we should allow the FBI to infiltrate mosques…that’s where many of the plots are hatched. Keeping our country safe by finding potential terrorists before they strike is the most important goal.
This really shouldn’t even be an issue–are we supposed to fight fairly? Are we supposed to warn them and give them a heads-up that we’re looking for terrorists in a particular mosque? If you are out to exterminate rats you have to go to where the rats hang out-whether that’s a place of worship or not.
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School Officials In Hot Water For Using Student In Drug Sting
LA Times–Porter Middle School administrators believed a boy was dealing pot on campus. So they allegedly sent a student to buy some.
The sting worked — to a point. The student successfully bought drugs and the administrators at the Granada Hills campus reported the incident to authorities.
But although Los Angeles Police Department officers are investigating the suspected marijuana dealer, they also are scrutinizing the three administrators who allegedly orchestrated the buy, said Michel Moore, an LAPD deputy chief, on Wednesday.
It is a felony to ask a minor to buy drugs.
The administrators have also been reassigned by the Los Angeles Unified School District to positions away from the Granada Hills campus, which was named a California Distinguished School in 2007, while the investigation is ongoing. In a letter to parents, Supt. Ramon C. Cortines said the school’s principal, an assistant principal and dean had been removed. (Read more.)
B.S. Report–Who do these school officials think they are: The Hardy Boys? Hey you guys, I heard one of the girls in the class is a prostitute…I know, lets get one of the students to pose as a “john” and we’ll catch her in the act!” Sounds like a great plan!
Did the student get extra credit for his participation in a drug sting operation. That should be worth at least a few “life-experience” credits.
Here they are, celebrating on the golf course after their drug bust:
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Maverick Specter’s toughest vote could be ahead
HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) — Twenty-nine years into his U.S. Senate career, Arlen Specter cast what he calls his most difficult vote – a “yes” on the $787 billion economic stimulus bill that made him the only Republican facing re-election in 2010 to support it.
The Democrats Favorite Phony Republican
Now, with GOP anger still simmering, Specter is under pressure to buck the party again and support “card check” legislation to make it easier for workers to form unions.
It is the latest tight spot for the 79-year-old Specter, a moderate and maverick who is used to being on the political rack, stretched between the wishes of an increasingly conservative party and an increasingly liberal state.
He is in meetings every day about the card check bill, he said, but isn’t revealing to anybody which way he is leaning.
“I’ve been in this line of work long enough that people … know my arm’s not twistable,” Specter said in an interview Thursday with The Associated Press.
It is that streak of independence that the fifth-term Specter flaunts and Republicans fear.
Republicans appear to be otherwise unified against the card check bill, which is expected to surface later this year. They worry that Specter could exert influence over its final form and whether it comes up for a vote, as he did on the stimulus.
“I think he again could be the swing vote on the issue,” said Bill Darr, chairman of the Pennsylvania Republican Party’s 11-county southwest caucus.
The stimulus won support from no House Republicans and just two other Republican senators: Maine’s Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins.
Many Pennsylvania party elders have been unwilling to criticize Specter and have not forsworn him as the party’s candidate in 2010.
Yet they are not endorsing him enthusiastically, either. (Read more.)
B.S. Report–Notice that whenever the AP refers to traitorous Republicans they always joyfully refer to them as “mavericks” or “independents.” That means, of course, that they agree with them.
If there ever comes a day when key Democratic legislation is defeated because a Democrat dares to vote against Obama and his plans, you can rest assured that they will not describe that voter as a “maverick” or an “independent.”
The card-check bill is an anti-American piece of legislation that favors Unions by eliminating the secret ballot. It needs to be defeated, but with so many “faux-Republicans” that isn’t likely.
Republicans, always be wary of Specter. He will stab you in the back…Et tu, Specter? Why, of course. Don’t I always?
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Sure, Lets Share Our Misfortune With Our Friends
Wants to join the Obama "Spend-a-thon"
GORDON BROWN hopes to forge a partnership with President Barack Obama in Washington this week, to call for a “global new deal” to lift the world out of recession.
B.S. Report–Nobody ever seems to care that all the other “New Deals” failed miserably.
As he prepares for his first White House visit since the president’s inauguration, the prime minister has hinted that he is ready to make further tax cuts to boost the UK economy.
Brown will meet Obama on Tuesday and address a joint session of Congress on Wednesday. Aides say he has both to demonstrate to a skeptical British public that he commands the respect of the president, and to persuade the American political establishment that global action is needed to rescue the US economy.
B.S. Report–Brown will command Obama’s respect for as long as it enables the president an excuse to spend more taxpayer money.
Brown is under pressure to persuade American political leaders to sign up to bold aims for the G20 summit of industrial and leading developing nations, which is to be held in London next month.
Many US politicians believe economic policy should put America first, and have shown little interest in concerted global action. Brown will argue for a renewal of the transatlantic relationship, with the two powers working together to solve global economic problems.
B.S. Report–When has concerted global action done anything effectively? The U.N. is a disaster that should have been abandoned long ago. Everyone should look out for their own interests–if they don’t, who will?
The prime minister will borrow from the rhetoric of Franklin Roosevelt, who introduced the government-financed New Deal to tackle the US Depression of the 1930s. He will argue that his 21st century “global new deal” will also require public spending on a huge world-wide scale.
B.S. Report–Many economists who have studied FDR’s actions feel that his “New Deal” programs may have extended the ‘Great Depression’ by as many as 8 years.
Obama has already spent 2 trillion dollars that we don’t have and he’s already planning for a government take-over of health care. Now he wants to share our lack of largess with the rest of the world. Be careful what you ask for Gordon Brown…because if you rest your economic welfare on the plans of Barack Obama, you’ll be going to the basement with us.
The world wants to share in Obama's "stimulus."
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TEHRAN, Iran — (AP)-Iran angry over ‘The Wrestler’ and ‘300’
Without an apology, members of Iran’s film industry should refuse to meet with representatives from the nine-member team, said Javad Shamaqdari, the art and cinema adviser to President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
The little dictator doesn't need another reason to hate us.
“In my viewpoint, it is a failure to have an official meeting with one who is insulting,” Shamaqdari told The Associated Press.
The film “300,” portrays the battle of Thermopylae in 480 B.C., in which a force of 300 Spartans held off a massive Persian army at a mountain pass in Greece for three days. It angered many Iranians for the way Persians are depicted as decadent, sexually flamboyant and evil in contrast to the noble Greeks.
Iranians also criticized “The Wrestler” starring Mickey Rourke as a rundown professional wrestler who is preparing for a rematch with his old nemesis, “The Ayatollah.” During a fight scene, “The Ayatollah” tries to choke Rourke with an Iranian flag before Rourke pulls the flagpole away, breaks it and throws it into the cheering crowd.
Neither movie was shown in Iran.
B.S. Report–So I guess Hollywood is schmoozing these guys so they’ll someday show our movies…and will they have to then guarantee that the Iranian will be the hero?
While American actors such as Sean Penn have traveled to Iran, it is rare for such a large group to visit. In February, Iran denied visas to a U.S. women’s badminton team that had been invited to compete in a tournament in Iran.
The group includes the President of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, Sid Ganis; actors Bening, and Alfre Woodard; producer William Horberg; AMPAS Special Events Programmer and Exhibitions Curator Ellen Harrington; and Tom Pollock, the former Universal Pictures chairman.
According to the Web site of Iran’s Cinema Association, the group arrived Friday in Iran. They met a group of Iranian artists on Saturday, and will be holding educational seminars in directing, screenwriting, acting, producing, marketing and film distribution. (Read more.)
B.S. Report–So let me get this straight…Hollywood kiss-ups are going there to hold seminars to help and instruct them–and yet the Iranians don’t want to see them because they feel they’ve been insulted. To tell you the truth, I feel insulted every time we try to make nice with those thugs.
Who cares? It’s funny, though, because much of Hollywood would rather show empathy towards Iranian hoodlums than they would with mainstream Americans. Iran should realize that these are their friends; their kindred spirits, they’re more than willing to sell out to them.
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LOS ANGELES (AP)– Pay no attention to that eerie silence in the nation’s most populous county this week; it will simply be the sound of 10 million people not cussing.
At least that’s the result McKay Hatch is hoping for once his campaign to clear the air is recognized by the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors.
On Tuesday, the board is scheduled to issue a proclamation by Supervisor Michael Antonovich making the first week in March No Cussing Week.
That would mean no blue language from the Mojave desert, where it gets hot as $&*# in the summer, to the Pacific Ocean, where on a winter’s day it can get colder and nastier than *%$#!
Not that 15-year-old Hatch expects complete compliance. When his No Cussing Club meets at South Pasadena High School on Wednesdays it’s not unusual for a nonmember to throw open the door and fire off a torrent of four-letter words. He’s also been the target of organized harassment by pro-cussers.
And Antonovich’s county motion carries no penalties. (Read more.)
B.S. Report–You guys have so destroyed Los Angeles and now you want to take away the only recourse we have for stomaching what you’ve done–cursing you guys out?
I’m sure if you could figure out how to slap a tax on the use of curse words you would have done so…and that would have cleared up this budget problem within a week!
I wonder if the L.A. County Board of Supervisors would object if the curse word was used strictly in an instructional video like…well, this? (*Warning* Very Graphic F-Word History.)
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THE B.S. REPORT 