general
Reggie Bush To (Not) Be Stripped Of Heisman: Reports
Sep 8th
by Frank James
Dave Martin/AP
New Orleans Saints running back Reggie Bush.
First, there was the report Tuesday on Yahoo.com that Reggie Bush, the New Orleans Saints star running back who allegedly started his pro football career at USC, would be stripped later this month of his Heisman Trophy, the most prestigious award for individual achievement in college football.
Then came the counterreport from ESPN that no decision had been made by the Heisman Trust officials, indeed that they have scheduled no meeting to decide on whether to ask him for the famous hardware back. The NCAA sanctioned USC in part after a probe indicated that during Bush’s college career he and his family accepted illegal gifts from sports agents.
I really don’t know what to believe at this point about the Heisman.
Also, I don’t know if it really matters. As he enters his fifth pro season Bush may not be the beast of a back that, say, Minnesota Vikings Adrian Peterson (who is?) But he has a Super Bowl championship which many great players never get.
While the Heisman no doubt looks impressive in Bush’s home, it’s not the ownership of a Heisman that ultimately dictates how a football player is viewed. Football is the ultimate what-have-you-done-for-us-lately enterprise, just ask Bush’s fellow USC Trojan and Heisman winner Matt Leinart.
There are many fans who would agree with Ben Steigerwalt who writes on bleacherreport.com:
The Heisman itself has been irrelevant for years. In fact, you can draw a comparison between winning the Heisman Trophy and Reggie Bush’s NFL career. There’s a ton of hype, some statistical justification, then disappointment.
Bush’s NFL career has been diminished due to injury. Still, he has had a productive NFL career even if it hasn’t lived up to all the hype that preceded it.
And the money that’s till pouring in from the $52.5 million, six-year contract he signed when he joined the league in 2006 doesn’t hurt either.
Tags: Heisman Trophy, Reggie Bush
Judge Upholds His Stem-Cell Federal Funding Ban
Sep 8th
by Frank James
CHARLES DHARAPAK/AP
U.S. District Court Judge Royce Lamberth in his office, Nov. 2005.
The federal judge who imposed a ban on federal funding of human embryonic stem cell research rejected the Obama Administration’s request that he lift the prohibition as the winds its way through the appeals court process.
U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth was unmoved by the administration’s urgent warning that the ban would seriously damage efforts by U.S. scientists to find cures for diseases for which such cells hold great promise.
As Sciencemag.org reported:
“Defendants are incorrect about much of their ‘parade of horribles’ that will supposedly result from this Court’s preliminary injunction,” Lamberth wrote. He’s referring to concerns expressed by DOJ that stopping the research is profoundly disruptive to labs and will delay progress in developing new treatments for a variety of diseases. The National Institutes of Health halted all research within its walls last week, although already funded work outside NIH can continue, for now.
The order, while not a surprise considering how forceful the judge’s opinion was, was another setback for the Obama Administration and victory for the opponents of such research.
The administration had hoped Lamberth might be persuaded to at least allow U.S. financing of human embryonic stem cell research to continue while federal appeals court judges heard the case.
Among their arguments was one meant to have special resonance in a time of high unemployment; the National Institutes of Health director, Francis Collins, had argued that the ban could lead to job losses among scientists.
Because human embryonic stem cell research requires the destruction of embryos, the technique has been opposed by abortion foes who view it as little different than abortion.
Lamberth’s rejection of the Obama Administration request could therefore be viewed as another victory for abortion opponents.
The Obama Administration’s now has to stake its hopes on appellate judges overturning Lamberth in a case that is likely to go to the Supreme Court because the stakes are seen as so high.
Meanwhile, Congress could still come up with new legislation to make federal funding for such research clearly legal. There is bipartisan support on Capitol Hill for such research.
But with congressional elections now less than two months away and the expectation that, at a minimum, Republicans will capture the House, the pathway is unclear to a legislative fix that would satisfy supporters of federal funding.
Tags: U.S. Judge Royce Lamberth, NIH, National Institutes of Health, human embryonic stem cells
Iraqi Kills 2 U.S. Soldiers, Wounds 9
Sep 8th
by Frank James
ALI AL-SAADI/AFP
An Iraqi soldier, part of a patrol in Baghdad on September 6, 2010, a day before another uniformed Iraqi turned his weapon on U.S. solders, killing two and wounding 9.
A deadly attack against U.S. troops in Iraq Tuesday underscores the risk that still faces Americans there despite the end of combat operations.
An Iraqi dressed in a soldier’s uniform shot and killed two U.S. soldiers and wounded nine, according to news reports.
The Associated Press reports:
BAGHDAD (AP) – According to an Iraqi police chief, today’s fatalshooting of two U.S. troops by an Iraqi soldier followed anargument at an Iraqi army compound.
They were the first American servicemen killed since the U.S.declared an official end to combat operations in the country last week.
The Americans were providing security for a U.S. commander who was meeting with Iraqi forces at the compound when the Iraqi opened fire.
A military statement says nine other U.S. soldiers were wounded. The gunman was shot and killed.
This attack highlights the point many critics were making as the Obama Administration marked what it called the end of combat operations, that Iraq remains a dangerous place for troops providing force protection to their units or civilians.
Clearly a nerve racking event for U.S. troops who have to wonder anew about their security when in the presence of armed Iraqi troops or police.
Chicago’s Mayor Daley Won’t Run For Re-Election
Sep 8th
by Frank James
John Smierciak/AP
Chicago Mayor Richard Daley, October 2009.
Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley dropped something of a political bombshell Tuesday announcing he won’t run for re-election next year for personal reasons.
Daley has been mayor since 1989 and could probably have been mayor for life like his father, the legendary Richard J. Daley who died in the job.
Daley the younger obviously decided he wanted a different ending for himself.
The Chicago Tribune reports the mayor made the announcement at a City Hall press conference.
“The truth is I have been thinking about this for the past several months,” Daley said at a City Hall news conference. “In the end this is a personal decision, no more, no less.”
The announcement opens the door to Rahm Emanuel, President Barack Obama’s White House chief of staff who has openly said he would like to occupy the Fifth Floor in Chicago which is how Chicagoans refer to the mayor’s office.
Obama had to really lobby Emanuel to take the chief of staff’s job because the former congressman, who has children, was reluctant to take on the kind of hours required by the White House job.
Being mayor would be a lot less taxing especially since Chicago as a city under Daley has maintained the reputation for efficiency it gained when Daley the elder managed it.
It was, after all, known as the City That Works and that moniker still seemed to fit under the son.
Of course, some of the reason why the city worked was because Daley had virtually no opposition. Any opposition that rose up, he stomped on it.
The City Council under Daley the Younger was essentially a rubber stamp, as it was under his father.
The younger Daley consolidated power in a way that would have made his father proud, co-opting many of those who could have been part of the political opposition against him by hiring them.
He maintained the backing of many black ministers, for instance, by making sure they knew they had friends in City Hall who could help their churches get projects requiring permits or other assistance through the local bureaucracy.
Of course, Chicago being a place where historically, political corruption was raised to high art, Daley’s administration had its issues with scandal.
There was the Hired Truck program in which the city contracted private trucks to do government work. Problem was, an investigation by the Chicago Sun Times indicated that some of the trucks weren’t doing any work and that taxpayer money was going to some with mob ties. That Daley didn’t initially seem as scandalized as the public by some of what was revealed didn’t help matters.
Daley was also capable of some moves that would have seemed more typical of democracy in the Middle East than the Midwest.
For instance, when he decided to close Meigs Field, the small downtown airport which he wanted to turn it into a park, he decided to present his opposition with a fait accompli. He sent bulldozers out at night to destroy the runways. End of debate.
But Daley will also be known for accomplishments other big-city mayors have since patterned themselves on. For instance, he took over the public school system to force changes in an institution that had long failed its students.
While the school system still has many troubles linked to the poverty of neighborhoods, it improved enough so that Arne Duncan, its former head, could be a credible choice by the president to be his Education Secretary.
Chicago’s downtown, one of the most beautiful in the nation, has become even more so under Daley, who will likely be remembered long after he leaves office, for Millenium Park, a new treasure in a city full of them.
Daley will also be remembered for his earthy, unusual and sometimes disjointed way he had of getting his ideas across.
Under tough questioning by reporters once, Daley said to members of the Fourth Estate “What else do you want me to do? Take my pants off?”
And then there was this doozy from May 2010 told from the perspective of Mike Dumke, a reporter for the Chicago Reader who had the temerity to question the effectiveness of the city’s strict gun ban. After all, it wasn’t like people still weren’t getting shot to death in Chicago.
He grabbed a rifle, held it up, and looked right at me. He was chuckling but there was no smile.
“If I put this up your—ha!—your butt—ha ha!—you’ll find out how effective this is!”
For a moment the room was very, very quiet. I took a good look at the weapon. It had a long bayonet. (Was it seized during the Civil War?)
“If I put a round up your—ha ha!”
The photographers snapped away. Suddenly everybody started cracking up.
That might have caused some other mayor problems. But not Daley in Chicago.
He will be a tough act to follow. But Emanuel is definitely among the select group of politicians who could give Daley the Younger a run for the money in terms of colorfulness.
President Of Russian Republic Wants To Be President Of World Chess Federation
Sep 8th
Alexander Zemlianichenko/Associated Press
Kirsan Ilyumzhinov, the former president of Russia’s Kalmykia region in a photo dated Aug. 29, 2003.
To paraphrase Sayre’s Law, the politics of chess are the most vicious and bitter form of politics, because the stakes are so low.
Kirsan Ilyumzhinov was the president of Kalmykia, a Russian republic on the Caspian Sea, for the past seventeen years. Until today that is. Today he resigned. In order, he said, to concentrate on his race to retain his seat as President of the World Chess Federation, known as FIDE (for Fédération Internationale des Échecs). Here’s what he said:
I made this decision because I realize that promoting and developing chess around the world is a full-time job and it requires all of my attention.
Which I guess is better than saying he wants to spend more time with his family.
There have been rumors for a while that Ilyumzhinov would step down. The Kremlin has forced a number of other regional leaders to step down as well.
But Ilyumzhinov has been chess mad for years, leading FIDE since 1995. He even built a “chess City” in Kalmykia.
But now he is facing a bruising fight for the presidency of FIDE. He’s running against former Chess world champion Anatoly Karpov. Karpov has filed suit against Ilyumzhinov, saying he doesn’t have the standing to run, that he really isn’t a member of the chess federations he says he’s a member of.
Ilyumzhinov released this statement on the FIDE website yesterday:
From the very beginning their actions have been destructive, aimed at the schism of the chess world and National Federations to serve their political ambitions, which have nothing to do with chess life.
The elections are to be held in Siberia on September 29th.
While perhaps unrelated (though you can never tell for sure) you just can’t write about Ilyumzhinov without mentioning the last time he came to attention of the Western media earlier this year:
The aliens came for him on September 18, 1997. Kirsan Ilyumzhinov was at home in his Moscow apartment when they came in and abducted him, taking him to their space ship where they communicated with him telepathically.
That’s the tale Ilyumzhinov told a popular Russian television host in a program that aired last week.
But Ilyumzhinov isn’t simply one of the thousands who claim to have been abducted by aliens, he’s also the governor of the Russian republic of Kalmykia and a former president of the World Chess Federation.
Now a Russian parliamentarian wants Ilyumzhinov questioned, fearing he may have given the aliens “secret information,” according to the Echo of Moscow radio station.
And not just interrogated by anybody, but by Russian President Dmitry Medvedev.
Burning Quran Perhaps Not The Best Idea, Says General David Petraeus
Sep 8th
Shah Marai/AFP/Getty Images
International Security Assistance Force commander and the head of NATO in Afghanistan General David Petraeus says a planned “Koran burning” in Florida could endanger U.S. troops.
As we reported earlier, this Weekend, on Sept. 11 no less, the Dove World Outreach Center is planning on burning a whole bunch of Quran. On their website they helpfully state they are doing it as an “act of love nor of hate,” but rather because the “world is in bondage to the massive grip of the lies of Islam.”
On their website they then go on to offer ten reasons that burning Korans is a very, very good idea.
Not so much, according to the commander of US and international forces in Afghanistan, General David Petraeus. Yesterday, just rumors of the burning led to hundreds of Afghans burning American flags, an effigy of the pastor calling for the book burning, and throwing rocks at a US convoy.
Today, Petraeus issued a statement saying basically, this is a really, really bad idea:
Images of the burning of a Quran would undoubtedly be used by extremists in Afghanistan — and around the world — to inflame public opinion and incite violence. Such images could, in fact, be used as were the photos from Abu Gharyb. And this would, again, put our troopers and civilian in jeopardy and undermine our efforts to accomplish the critical mission here in Afghanistan.
In 2005, 15 people died and scores more were injured in Afghanistan after rumors spread — false ones, mind you — that interrogators at Guantanamo Bay had flushed a Quran down a toilet. Actual images of actual Korans being set aflame may have an even more powerful impact.
And this at a time when the whole thrust of the American adventure in Afghanistan is trying to woo the Afghan populace over to our side. At least General Petraeus seems to think burning their holy book is most likely not the quickest path to winning their hearts and minds.
The Dove Center does provide a handy list of “ten reasons to burn a Koran” on it’s website. They also offer “Islam is of the Devil” t-shirts for sale.
But while most of their top ten list veers into the theological debate over interpretations of Islam which is certainly beyond the scope of this blog, there is one bit that leaps out, reason number four to burn a Koran:
The earliest writings that are known to exist about the Prophet Mohammad were recorded 120 years after his death. All of the Islamic writings (the Koran and the Hadith, the biographies, the traditions and histories) are confused, contradictory and inconsistent. Maybe Mohammad never existed. We have no conclusive account about what he said or did. Yet Moslems follow the destructive teachings of Islam without question.
Interestingly scholars of the Christian Gospels say that they weren’t written until 40-60 years after the death of Jesus.
Professor Elaine Pagels, a religion professor at Princeton University, says that, while scholars are divided on the issue, many think that we don’t know who wrote the gospels, and we don’t know if they had any personal contact with Jesus.
Scenes From An Iraqi Checkpoint: ‘Put ‘em In Camp Bucca!’
Sep 8th
Iraq is a land of checkpoints. Just driving around town you go through them constantly. They’re even more intense at secured areas, with grim faced Iraqi guards searching your vehicle while others point weapons at you. Even when you know you’re authorized to go where you’re going, when you’re an invited guest it’s nerve wracking.
Obviously a scene made for laughs. Al Baghdadia, a TV channel in Iraq, has decided to go at it, Punk’d style.
Here’s how it works: The TV station invites a celebrity to appear on one of their shows. The celebrity pulls up at an Iraqi Army checkpoint. And a fake bomb is planted in their car. Then the bomb is “discovered” and the terrified celebrity confronted angrily by the guards, who tell them they are headed to “Camp Bucca,” a maximum security prison deep in the desert.
While Iraqis have been protesting the show, that hasn’t hurt it’s popularity any, according to NPR’s Baghdad Bureau staff. They all hate the show, but they can’t stop watching.
The New York Times posted one exchange from the show:
Soldier: “Which group you are working for?”
Television Host: “Al Qaeda for sure.”
Guest: “I am an actor. What are you saying? Is this a game or what?”
Soldier: “This a military checkpoint. What do you think we are playing here? You have got a bomb in your car.”
Television Host: “Why are you doing this? Why are you putting me in such trouble?”
Guest: “I am a family man. I have two kids. How could I do this to my family? I am telling you the truth, it’s not me who planted the bomb.”
Despite outrage from many Iraqis, who say it cuts too close to the real life of many Iraqis, the show is planned to run until the end of Ramadan.
Obama’s Labor Day Plan: Where Would He Get $50 Billion? How Fast Would It Work?
Sep 8th
by David Gura
David Banks/Getty Images
President Obama gives a speech at a Labor Day rally in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
Yesterday, during a visit to Milwaukee, Wisconsin, President Obama called for a $50 billion investment in infrastructure.
“This will not only create jobs immediately,” he said. “It’s also going to make our economy hum over the long haul.”
It’s a plan that history tells us can and should attract bipartisan support. It’s a plan that says even in the aftermath of the worst recession in our lifetimes, America can still shape our own destiny.
Another quotation from the president’s address caught my eye: “This is a plan that will be fully paid for and will not add to the deficit over time — we’re going to work with Congress to see to that.”
The president’s proposal raises a couple of questions: Where would the money come from? How long would it take to have any tangible effect on employment numbers?
According to The New York Times, “the spending could come over the next six years, but would require Congress to approve an initial investment of $50 billion.”
The plan is to rebuild 15,000 miles of roads, construct and maintain 4,000 miles of railway and rehabilitate or reconstruct 150 miles of airport runways.
The surface transportation infrastructure bill would supply additional funding, if congress chooses to renew it. (As POLITICO points out, it ”has been overdue for reauthorization for a year.”)
There would be an “infrastructure bank,” “to leverage federal dollars and focus on the smartest investments,” the president said.
We’re going to continue our strategy to build a national high-speed rail network that reduces congestion and travel times and reduces harmful emissions. We want to cut waste and bureaucracy and consolidate and collapse more than 100 different programs that too often duplicate each other. So we want to change the way Washington spends your tax dollars. We want to reform a haphazard, patchwork way of doing business. We want to focus on less wasteful approaches than we’ve got right now. We want competition and innovation that gives us the best bang for the buck.
The Washington Post reports it is “a more formal version of a long-standing pledge to improve the nation’s crumbling infrastructure.” (On the campaign trail, Obama advocated for new spending on transportation and green energy.)
The White House says that, if it did away with several subsidies and tax breaks afforded to the oil and gas industry, it would have $50 billion to finance the plan, no problem.
The odds of congress passing such a spending bill probably aren’t great. At least not in the short-term.
According to The Times, “though transportation bills usually win bipartisan support, hasty passage of Mr. Obama’s plan seems unlikely, given that Congress has only a few weeks of work left before lawmakers return to their districts to campaign and that Republicans are showing little interest in giving Democrats any pre-election victories.”
Yesterday, House Minority Leader John Boehner said that, “if we’ve learned anything from the last 18 months, it’s that we can’t spend our way to prosperity.”
All that is a nice segue into the second of those two questions: How long would it take to have any tangible effect on employment numbers?
“We’re not like trying to put out an idea today that, in October 2010, this is going to create a lot of jobs,” a senior administration official told McClatchy News Service. “This is not what this is.”
If the proposal gets through congress, chances are it won’t lead to any new hires until next year.
We’ll probably learn more details tomorrow, when Obama is scheduled to speak at Cuyahoga Community College in Cleveland, Ohio.
Planned Quran Burning Has Whiff Of 2009 Bible Stunt
Sep 8th
by Frank James
Some of us who have been following the story about a Florida preacher’s plan to burn the Quran as part of an anti-Muslim protest on 9/11 can’t help but be reminded of another stunt by a different clergyman which drew publicity last year.
Last year, Marc Grizzard, the pastor of a 14-member church in Canton, N.C. announced that on Halloween 2009 his flock would burn a pile of books they considered evil.
That included every version of the Bible that wasn’t the King James Version since only the KJV was “God’s preserved, inspired, inerrant, infallible word of God… for English-speaking people” Grizzard said.
He and his followers also planned to burn the works of “heretics,” Mother Teresa and Billy Graham.
Just as has happened with the Florida church that promises to burn the Quran, Grizzard was warned by local officials that his church could be slapped with a huge fine, in his case as high as $25,000, because book burning would violate local ordinances.
So Grizzard and his people reconsidered; they had a non-book burning party, instead shredding the Bibles and other books that drew their ire if not their fire.
The few media who showed up had to take their word for it since it all happened inside the little church. Grizzard proclaimed the event a great success. And it was. A church with a membership of 14 got world-wide publicity.
Now it’s the turn of the Dove World Outreach Center in Gainesville, a church with a purported membership of 100.
By announcing his church’s plan to burn the Quran, pastor Terry Jones has gotten more attention than even Grizzard, with no less than Gen. David Petraeus weighing in to urge Jones to reconsider since the backlash in the Muslim world could wind up getting some American soldiers and civilians killed. Jones has so far rebuffed Petraeus.
Doing so means the media attention should certainly continue for the rest of the week, along with the attendant protests overseas in nations with large Muslim nations.
All of this is enough to make me wonder if maybe a small North Carolina newspaper wasn’t on to something when it decided to largely ignore Grizzard’s stunt.
Explaining its decision, The Mountaineer of Waynesville, N.C. wrote:
As regional, national and international media outlets spread news of the coming display, Grizzard was told his plans ran afoul of state law, and by Saturday night, Grizzard’s spectacle was reduced to an invitation-only book shredding for a handful of congregants while a few media outlets and protesters stood outside in the rain.
Could the weather have been a sign of divine intervention?
The promise of someone burning Bibles gets plenty of attention and raises plenty of ire, a point that we’re sure wasn’t lost on Grizzard when he crafted the book burning. We take comfort in the outcome and give credit to the Haywood County community that Grizzard’s publicity grab passed with barely a whimper.
Grizzard told us of the book burning in September. We chose not to give this publicity stunt the attention other media outlets gave it because we felt our resources would be better spent elsewhere.
Burning the Quran in Florida
Sep 7th
Lots of talk this morning and today about Pastor Terry Jones and Dove World Outreach Center in Gainesville, Florida, where there is a planned burning of the Quran on Saturday as a commemoration of the anniversary of the Sept. 11 terror attacks.
First, it’s a stupid and offensive thing to do, and nothing good can come of it. But what I really wonder about is how Gen. David Petraeus heard about it and why he felt the need to comment on it. This is a church that has 50 members. I can’t imagine that this event was making much of a ripple in the Muslim world prior to the general saying something. And, who knows, it may not be making a ripple now. But it seems if he would have let this event go by uncommented on then it would have passed with very little notice.