News Blog @ i66.com

Falwell: Sue, Boycott Christmas Subverts

If there's anybody we like to poke fun at more than Pat Robertson, it's got to be Jerry Falwell. He's baaaaaa-aaack, and now threatening to file lawsuits against those who seek to misinform the public at large about how Christmas can be celebrated in public places:

Falwell fighting for holy holiday / He threatens to sue, boycott groups that subvert Christmas The 8,000 members of the Christian Educators Association International will be the campaign's "eyes and ears" in the nation's public schools. They'll be reporting to 750 Liberty Counsel lawyers who are ready to pounce if, for example, a teacher is muzzled from leading the third-graders in "Hark! The Herald Angels Sing."

An additional 800 attorneys from another conservative legal group, the Alliance Defense Fund, are standing by as part of a similar effort, the Christmas Project. Its slogan: "Merry Christmas. It's OK to say it."

Falwell's got about 24,000 members in his congregation and let's see...aren't there a gazilion + Americans in this country? (Yeah, we know we're exaggerating, but you get the picture.) However, the American Family Association, which has 150,000 members, is calling for a boycott of Target stores next weekend due to a ban Target says it didn't even place stores to refrain from using "Merry Christmas" on in-store advertising. And in what has to be the unlikely pairing of the century with Falwell's views, Fox News' Bill O'Reilly listed the retailers he profess refuse to use the phrase "Merry Christmas" in their store advertising on his show last week. Wal-Mart almost found itself in a bit of a skirmish:

That chain (Wal-Mart) was briefly the target of a boycott called by the Catholic Rights League after an employee described Christmas in an unflattering way in a company e-mail. The employee has since left and the boycott is off, though the Catholic Rights League still criticizes Wal-Mart for tellings its employees to say, "Happy holidays."

Wal-Mart spokesman Dan Fogleman said the "Happy holidays" greeting is "more inclusive. With 130 million customers walking through the door and 1.3 million employees, it's safe to say there are a lot of different faiths out there."

Bit even that isn't good enough for the AFA. AFA President Tim Wildmon wants to see retailers prominently display "Merry Christmas" signage if they expect "Christians to come and buy products during this so-called season." He doesn't give a rats ass if the signs offend any non-Christians either, and says they can just walk right by and all of them need to understand "they are living in a predominantly Christian nation."

That's really the issue, isn't it? Christians wanting to make sure Christianity (in its evangelical incarnation) is recognized as a defacto standard national religion here in the US. While undoubtably the majority are Christian, is it truly and utterly necessary to freak out each time you see a retailer trying to just allow the holiday to be more welcoming for those who aren't of the same faith? The whole attitude of Falwell and the AFA smacks of intolerance - an intolerance bred by Christian evangelical fanaticism. In this, the Europeans are right: evangelicals are using a scud missles when in fact a peace pipe might be more prudent. Falwell and people like him have never understood you catch more flies with honey than vinegar.

They all fail to realize that naturally, as they go to such extremes as suing and boycotting, they will indeed turn even some of their own against them - the reaction is so outrageous, so over the top, that most people will unconsciously shy away from it.

The ACLU has a problem too:

"People are free to worship in their homes and their houses of worship and if they rent out a hall," said the ACLU's Jeremy Gunn, national director of the group's Freedom of Religion and Belief program. "You have to ask, why do they want to worship in the public schools?

"That they're doing this in the name of religion is very, very sad," Gunn said. "It would be one thing if they're talking about consumerism of the season or something, but they're not."

The Founding Fathers created this country so that all could worship as they please. This doesn't mean just one fanatical bunch. Grow up, Falwell. There ARE other people with different beliefs than yours in this country. I'm one of them.

Thanksgiving Eats: It's So Easy To Order In

There's no saying you have to slave like a prisoner on a release program over Thanksgiving dinner, since so many grocers and restaurants now allow you to pre order and pick up your turkeys, hams and fixin's already cooked and ready to eat. On the grocery front, you can choose from your local Weis, Winn Dixie, or Giant Food market. Giant in particular has also teamed up with Boston Market for sides like mashed potatoes, broccoli au gratin, and herb stuffing and also conveniently offers you the ability to order your holiday meal online for pickup. Expect to pay between $45 -$55 for the grocers' Thanksgiving packages. Boston Market, even though they are also supplying Giant with sides, is doing its part for the prepared Thanksgiving meal market, offering a complete dinner for about $70- $80 for pickup at your local store.

For a more upscale grocer, you're going to pay more. Whole Foods has a dinner package which feeds 8 people ($130) or 15 people ($300) and features a free range turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, 2 gourmet veggies, rolls and pumpkin pie. Dean & Deluca, the veritable New York grocers, will ship you a Heritage Turkey for $65 - 85$ depending on the size of the turkey and you pay for shipping. Hickory Farms will ship to you too, either a full turkey or ham dinner for $90 bucks, again plus shipping. Wegmans, one of our personal favorites, precooks and packages full turkey, ham or prime dinners ranging from $70-$100, and giving you an option to order the dinners delux, which we assure you is probably well worth it, as their desserts and extras are literally to die for.

Like your Thanksgiving a little offbeat? Turduckens, semi-boneless turkey stuffed with duck and chicken with layers of different stuffing between each bird, can be had for about $100-$180 (including shipping) from the Cajun Grocer or The Cajun Turkey Company.

If we had our choice, we'd skip the turkey and go straight to Dixie Bones. :)

Happy Thanksgiving!

Bird Flu: HHS Says US IS UnPrepared

Yike, this isn't a good sign. HHS Secretary Mike Leavitt is pointing out the US isn't ready for a pandemic of bird flu, citing the lack of vaccine production in this counrty:

USATODAY.com - U.S. unprepared for super-flu pandemic

"We're not prepared for vaccination, that's why we need to scale up. We are doing studies to extend the value of the vaccine ... allowing us to vaccinate more people with the same doses," so the timeframe might be quicker, she said.

Leavitt said the low supply means state and local governments will have to make tough choices on how best to allocate the vaccine should an outbreak occur. The federal government has suggested top priority be given to first responders.

Harry Potter GoF: Movie Review

We went to see Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire earlier today and during post-theater conversation, we weren't sure what to say. In fact, like or dislike it, several of the film's scenes struck some similarity in current events of today: terrorism, war, death and racism. One did not come away from this film feeling as though Harry "won" with that warm and fuzzy we're used to in the ending of prior Potter movies; on the contrary, Harry is just beginning the battle for what ultimately will be the final conflict with Voldemort. This is much more in-your-face presentation of that fact which only half succeeds in the actual book - a book that doesn't truly manage to hammer home to most readers (be they young or old) just how awful a position in which Harry is placed, nor the magnitude of the evil he'll fight.

There's no doubt in this movie, and the book, Harry, Hermoine, and Ron have begun to grow up; romantic crushes, jealousy, and competition between the trio and other students are prominant. Yep, they're adolescents all right, and this movie above the others reins as the most realistic presentation of teenage angst yet among the Hogwarts students. However, Michael Gambon's portrayal of Dumbledore is beginning to grate on us, as he is no replacement for the subtle, humorous and caring Hogwarts headmaster played by the late Richard Harris in the first 2 movies. Gambon's screen time in Prisoner of Azkaban was limited, but as he has much more exposure in this movie and the deficiencies in his representation of the character reveal a far more aristocratic and aloof Dumbledore than JK Rowling depicts in her books. (We'd suggest reading the books again, Michael. You need a refresher.)

Brendan Gleeson's Mad-Eye Moody was spot on, and his performance during the scene in which he demonstrates to the Defense Against the Dark Arts class the 3 Unforgivable Curses on an engorged spider pointedly reinforced to the class, and the audience, the reasons the curses are, well, unforgivable. Barty Crouch, Jr, played by David Tennant, also managed to hit the mark, with limited screentime no less, of Barty Jr's deranged support for Voldemort and his beliefs. Ralph Fiennes made Lord Voldemort come to life for us all; he's so convincing as Voldemort that frankly, Voldemort in the flesh and in full color on the screen is far more disturbing than one can gain from the books themselves. Voldemort's rebirth into a new body and his torture of and duel with Harry.....ew, stuff of nightmares, that.

Of course as in all Potter flicks, CGI and special effects are supreme. The opening scenes of the Quidditch World Cup campground and stadium provokes us to connect-the-dots with our own fanaticism about professional sports like football and baseball, complete with the wizard equivalent of tailgating, painted faces and souvenirs. The dragons in the first task of the Tri-Wizard Tournament are fantastic, and the set design and special effects for the Riddle graveyard brings JKR's writing to life, underscoring the dark and menacing place it really is in her imagination. The Great Hall set design for the Yule ball will have any December bride-to-be slathering for a location just like it, complete with magical snow which doesn't hit the ground.

All in all, a good movie which stays mostly true to JKR's creation.

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Riehl World View: H5N1 - Possible Human To Human Transmission

H/T to RiehlWorldView for posting a reference to a Bloomberg articlethat 2 Indonesian woman who may have contracted and died from the bird flu virus without contact with infected poultry or birds.

At the moment, it's not definitive how they got the virus, but it's worth keeping an eye on.

CIDRAP >> More avian flu cases in Indonesia, bird outbreaks in China

More Bird Flu cases......

CIDRAP >> More avian flu cases in Indonesia, bird outbreaks in China

Teen Blogs: Privacy In Crisis?

We happened to see a comment from a friend of missing-but-now-found Kara Beth Borden regarding a recent article on a main stream media site which linked to her blog and her boyfriend's, David Ludwig. Now the fact that the site linked those blogs isn't suprising, however what is rather unsettling is the reaction from this friend to the fact that the press have publicized them in their news stories about the murder of Kara's parents and the couple's subsequent 600 mile trek west they took afterwards until apprehended/found outside Indianapolis, IN. Without copying the text of the comment in question, the friend raged at the exposure of the couple's blogs by the media, these blogs and comments which she deemed private and only intended for Kara's friends.

Unfortunately for this friend of Kara's, she's not exactly correct in her conclusions that the blogs were "private." Since Kara nor David elected to make the blogs "friends only", (and many of their friends didn't do so with their MySpace or Xanga accounts, either) those blogs could be read by anyone on the Internet, not just Kara or David's friends. They're also indexed by any search engine which grabs the metadata and adds them to their searchable content automatically; there's no asking "can we do this?", because they surely can and do it all the time.

Sadly, Kara's friend is ranting in the winds of cyberspace and bad judgement - specifically the flawed perception of teenagers who think it's cool to post pictures, posts and have running commentary on sites personally reflective of themselves, yet readable and accessible by anybody with a web browser. That's not the definition of private, now is it?

Lately we seem to have had a "spat" of these types of missing or abducted cases where their personal information is readily accessible via the web and exploited, sometimes for good means and more often then not, for bad. The media Kara Borden 's friend is denegrating are the same people who covered the story to help return her to Lititz, PA. Information garnered from LiveJournal blogs and sites maintained by Taylor Behl and Ben Fawley showed the link between the 2 and helped with Fawley's apprehension. Killer and child molester Joseph Edward Duncan's blog provided valuable insight to his activities during the years after his release from prison and his final murder of Shasta Groene 's family, as well as clues to his mindset related to his abduction and molestation of Shasta and her brother. It's sad fact, which we can prove with our Site Meter referral trackings, that missing people with blogs or sites which establish an Internet presence do generate more exposure by the media, and likewise more intrusive speculation into the private lives of these individuals.

As we said before on our MissingAbducted Blog, we urge parents to recognize that an Internet connection and computer for anyone under the age of 18 is a privilege and just like anything else, needs to have some rules. If you're financially able to afford your kid a computer hooked up to cyberspace, you are brilliant enough to monitor your child's use of this valuable, but sometimes risky, resource. Set your ground rules and expectations for Internet use early, rather than too late.

For full coverage of the Kara Borden case, click here.

Do we really pay too much for healthcare?

I just have one thing to say to any of us who have have ever complained about bad hospital food, rude nurses, or a Doctor with a terrible bed side manor, It could always be worse!!!

Ants eat away woman's eye

From correspondents in Kolkata
15nov05

A WOMAN receiving treatment for diabetes at a state-run hospital in eastern India lost one of her eyes after ants nibbled away at it, officials said today.

The patient recovering from a post-surgery infection shrieked for help as the ants attacked her on Sunday night, but nurses told her it was normal to feel pain from the infection.

Yesterday, the patient's family saw a gaping hole with swarming ants in it when they lifted the bandage on her left eye.

Authorities of the Sambhunath Hospital in Kolkata said they were probing the incident.

"It's not uncommon for ants to attack diabetic patients. We have set up a committee to investigate the unfortunate incident," hospital superintendent A Adhikary said.

Scampering rats and stray cats and dogs sharing bed space with patients are not uncommon sights at India's overcrowded state-run hospitals that are used by millions of poor and middle-class people.

96th Annual Thanksgiving Day Race 2005

For the 96th time, the city of Cincinnati, OH. is hosting its Thanksgiving Day 10k Run & Walk. It is the 3rd oldest race in the country. Starts at 9am Nov. 24th, 2005.

96th Annual Thanksgiving Day Race 2005

Oh. No. Salmon Soda???

From the good folks at Jones Soda Company comes...well, swims, some funky fish soda:

Regular, diet or ... salmon soda? - Food Inc. - MSNBC.com Jones Soda, the Seattle company that scored a hit during the last two holiday seasons with its turkey and gravy-flavored sodas, said it is offering the orange-hued fish-flavored drink this year in a nod to the Pacific Northwest’s salmon catch.

“When you smell it, it’s got that smoked salmon aroma,” said Peter van Stolk, chief executive of Jones Soda.

Jones isn't giving up there, oh no. They're still selling their holiday pack of turkey and gravy, herb stuffing, brussel sprouts, cranberry, and pumpkin soda. (Ack.) (Hurl.) (Hurl Again.) (Spit.)

Sorry, Mr. Van Stolk. Carbonated smoked fish juice just ain't for us. But it does offer practical joke possibilities for those people we just don't like...