Cash-Strapped Bronx Zoo Lays Off Animals

by JOSH LANDIS, CBS 2 News
NEW YORK (CBS) ―

 For the two million people who visit the Bronx Zoo each year, the view is about to change.

A bunch of animals are getting fired!

If these animals could talk, they would have something to say, because their days at the zoo are numbered.

"We had decisions that needed to be made about old exhibits, and at the same time we needed to deal with the fiscal reality which is upon us," John Cavalli, of the Wildlife Conservation Society, says.

...etcetera. This nitwit story excludes the question that ought to be on the tip of everyone's tongue: What's going to happen to the animals?

Consider the choices: euthanasia; sending them to some other zoo; sending them back to the wild (where their chances of survival would be slim); turning them over to some private "rescue" farm.

These are not trivial choices, and why the hell would a major-league TV station run this story without answering such an obvious question?

By the way, I emailed WCBS to ask, and as you might expect, have been ignored.

In 2002, near the end of his five years as president of the NRA, Heston disclosed he had symptoms consistent with Alzheimer's disease.

The disclosure was soon followed by an unflattering appearance in Moore's 2003 best documentary winner "Bowling for Columbine," which took America to task for its gun laws.

Moore used a clip of Heston holding aloft a rifle at an NRA rally and proclaiming "from my cold, dead hands." The director flustered the actor in an interview later in the film by pressing him on his gun-control stance. Heston eventually walked out on Moore.

Moore's Web site, http://www.michaelmoore.com, on Sunday featured a photo of Heston, the date of his birth and death and a note from the actor's family requesting that donations be made to the Motion Picture and Television Fund in lieu of flowers.

There was no other reaction on the site from Moore about Heston's death.

Saturday's news of Heston's death was accompanied by some footage of an interview he gave--I forget to whom--in which he was asked whether he had any fear over the Alzheimer's diagnosis. The gist of his reaction was no, it's just another part of this big adventure called life.

It struck me as I watched that bit of footage, with the actor in his late seventies, that if ever there were an actor suited to portray Ronald Reagan during his Presidential years, it would have been Chuck Heston.

Among this morning's email was a transcript of a speech that Heston gave at Harvard Law School a few years ago, before his illness. The speech contained a few bon mots that bear repeating here:

I fear you no longer trust the pulsing lifeblood of liberty inside you . . . the stuff that made this country rise from wilderness into the miracle that it is. ...

As I have stood in the crosshairs of those who target Second Amendment freedoms, I've realized that firearms are not the only issue.

No, it's much, much bigger than that.

I've come to understand that a cultural war is raging across our land, in which, with Orwellian fervor, certain acceptable thoughts and speech are mandated.

For example, I marched for civil rights with Dr. King in 1963 - long before Hollywood found it fashionable. But when I told an audience last year that white pride is just as valid as black pride or red pride or anyone else's pride, they called me a racist.

I've worked with brilliantly talented homosexuals all my life. But when I told an audience that gay rights should extend no further than your rights or my rights, I was called a homophobe.

I served in World War II against the Axis powers. But during a speech, when I drew an analogy between singling out innocent Jews and singling out innocent gun owners, I was called an anti-Semite.

Everyone I know knows I would never raise a closed fist against my country.

But when I asked an audience to oppose this cultural persecution, I was compared to Timothy McVeigh.

From Time magazine to friends and colleagues, they're essentially saying, "Chuck, how dare you speak your mind like that? You are using language not authorized for public consumption!"

But I am not afraid. If Americans believed in political correctness, we'd still be King George's boys - subjects bound to the British crown.

In his book, The End of Sanity, Martin Gross writes that "blatantly irrational behavior is rapidly being established as the norm in almost every area of human endeavor. There seem to be new customs, new rules, new anti-intellectual theories regularly foisted on us from every direction.

Underneath, the nation is roiling. Americans know something without a name is undermining the country, turning the mind mushy when it comes to separating truth from falsehood and right from wrong. And they don't like it." ...

If you talk about race, it does not make you a racist.

If you see distinctions between the genders, it does not make you sexist.

If you think critically about a denomination, it does not make you anti-religion.

If you accept but don't celebrate homosexuality, it does not make you a homophobe.

Don't let America's universities continue to serve as incubators for this rampant epidemic of new McCarthyism.

But what can you do? How can anyone prevail against such pervasive social subjugation? The answer's been here all along.

I learned it 36 years ago, on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington D.C., standing with Dr. Martin Luther King and two hundred thousand people.

You simply ... disobey.

Peaceably, yes. Respectfully, of course. Nonviolently, absolutely.

But when told how to think or what to say or how to behave, we don't. We disobey social protocol that stifles and stigmatizes personal freedom. ...

In that same spirit, I am asking you to disavow cultural correctness with massive disobedience of rogue authority, social directives and onerous laws that weaken personal freedom.

But be careful ... it hurts. Disobedience demands that you put yourself at risk. Dr. King stood on lots of balconies.

You must be willing to be humiliated ... to endure the modern-day equivalent of the police dogs at Montgomery and the water cannons at Selma.

You must be willing to experience discomfort. ...

So that this nation may long endure, I urge you to follow in the hallowed footsteps of the great disobediences of history that freed exiles, founded religions, defeated tyrants, and yes, in the hands of an aroused rabble in arms and a few great men, by God's grace, built this country.

Powerful words. Words that I suspect will be omitted from the eulogizing that all the neocons will indulge themselves in, thinking they know something of this man.

Now Ellen DeGeneres, the Other Famous Hollywood Lesbian, is having a go at this practice.

It seems that DeGeneres adopted a dog from a nonprofit rescue organization, then decided that the dog did not fit in with her other pets; cats, I believe.

Language in the adoption agreement required DeGeneres to notify the rescue organization if any problem occurred, and by signing it, she had agreed to return the dog to them in the event of a problem. Instead, she chose to give it to the family of a friend, without notifying the rescue people. When they learned of this, they visited the new household, and found it unsuitable for the dog, at least in part because of young children there.

Degeneres then compounded her mistake by going on her national TV show, sobbing into the camera about how poor Iggy was literally ripped from the arms of three bawling children who had come to love him so. Never mind her own responsibility for having created this mess.

Now, a "Free Iggy" movement has appeared, with a petition circulating among all the hapless nitwits who have discovered the Worldwide Web of late. According to a TownHall article, the pet-adoption folks have received death and arson threats.

To give you an idea of the level of stupidity at work among the "Free Iggy" crowd, consider this excerpt from on web site hawking the petition:

Oct. 17th, 2007 02:31 am (UTC)

(Anonymous) wrote:

Oct. 17th, 2007 03:36 pm (UTC)

I wouldn't call you "horrible"

...but I wish you would take more responsibility for your cats than to let them roam. There is a feline form of AIDS going around, largely because of people who believe their cats' lives are somehow incomplete if they don't get to prowl outside.

And my dogs, who are almost never outdoors unsupervised, end up with fleas that are spread by the cats roaming freely in our backyard.

Beside which, how would you feel if you found one of those stupidly-named cats of yours squashed in the road? Would you feel the slightest pang of guilt about your irresponsibility? Or would you be able to rationalize and tell yourself that the cat had lived a full and happy life before having its body burst open under the wheels of a truck?

missymango wrote:

Oct. 17th, 2007 03:47 pm (UTC)

Re: I wouldn't call you "horrible"

I have heard it all before, thank you.

And for the record, I don't take unsolicited advice from people who a) don't know my situation, and b) don't have the balls to post under their real user name.

blogger1947 wrote:

Oct. 17th, 2007 04:07 pm (UTC)

Re: I wouldn't call you "horrible"

OK. If that satisfies you, I have registered on LiveJournal.

As for my balls, if they were any bigger, I would not be able to wear trousers.

My name is Stan, I reside in Gwynn Oak, Maryland.

I don't need to "know your situation" any more than to know you admit that you let your cats roam outdoors.

That, from decades of experience, tells me you are one of those people who anthropomorphize their pets. I have known owners who refuse to spay or neuter, because they don't want to deprive the pet of a fulfilling sex life. That's projecting your own needs on the dog or cat.

And I have picked up enough "sail cats" off the highway to appreciate that there is absolutely no excuse for allowing an animal under your care to roam, thereby risking this horrible kind of death.

Of course, my years of experience with dog training, animal rescue, and being married to a former breeder and judge of show cats don't count for anything in your eyes. Nor does my experience of having lived among a colony of feral cats, I suppose.

It's amazing how many people like you are around, and how every one of you thinks he or she is an exception to the proven wisdom.

missymango wrote:

Oct. 17th, 2007 04:28 pm (UTC)

Re: I wouldn't call you "horrible"

As much as I enjoy a good flame war with strangers, the comments section of my friend's Live Journal is not the appropriate venue. As such, this will be my last post on this subject.

I don't care about the qualifications you may or may not actually have regarding the care of animals. My decision has been made, and you Stan of Gwynn Oak, Maryland, the Diane Fossey of the feral cat colony, may continue to sit pretty on your high horse and judge me all you want, you are not changing my mind.

Unfortunately, not everyone adopting a pet has the purest motives, and in other cases, unforseen changes occur that are not in the animal's best interest. Here in Maryland, a springer spaniel was adopted out to a single woman whose household later became shared with a live-in boyfriend. The boyfriend beat and abused the dog to the point that he was prosecuted and jailed for animal cruelty.

Mutts and Mom has chosen to temporarily inactivate their website on Petfinder.com because their email inbox and voice mail are overwhelmed. Petfinder has 11,000 shelters and rescue groups posting over 260,000 pets that need homes. We do not dictate the adoption policies of our members. We do work with them to educate their volunteers and hope to professionalize the industry as a whole, providing a positive experience for adopters. Petfinder advocates for all parties: the pets, the adopters, and the shelter and rescue group workers and volunteers.

Pet Return Policies

Many shelters and rescue groups insist, through their adoption agreements, that if a pet cannot stay with his adoptive family, the adopters must return him to the group. Why do they do this?

Between 500,000 and 1 million pets adopted from shelters and rescue groups find themselves homeless and in the shelter once again.

One foster mom said it best, "I found the dog on the street, starving. I nursed her back to health. She slept in my bed. I sang her back to sleep when she had nightmares when she first came to me. Then I adopted her to a wonderful family. A year later, I got a call from animal control because she was at the shelter and she was going to be euthanized. The family had gotten divorced and she ended up on death row!"

This too-common experience leads rescue groups and shelter to put strict policies in place governing what happens if the adoption doesn't work out. In effect, the rescue group and shelters are promising to always be there as a safety net for the pets. This can be very comforting to adopters.

Finding a New Home for Your Pet

Some pet parents, who have the best intentions for their pets, feel that they can do a better job of finding a new home for their beloved pet than a shelter or rescue group. Their rationale is that they know their pet best, they can keep it in their home until the perfect new home is found, and they can help ease the transition for the pet. Often times, this is a natural transition - a family member, trusted friend, or a colleague gets to know the pet, falls in love, and the ownership of the pet is unofficially transferred to them.

This is a controversial point of view, even amongst shelters and rescue groups who may feel that they have more experience identifying pitfalls and risk factors when identifying new families. Research, however, suggests that there is no difference in the success rates of the adoptions between organizations that screen heavily versus those that have more open adoption policies.

It also bears noting that shelters and rescue groups, understandably, want to keep in contact with new families to be able to lend their support and continue to get updates about the pets they cared for. So we have two groups, the shelter and the pet parents, who both want what is best for the pet, but who may have very different points of view. The silver lining is that everyone really wants the best home possible for the pet. If we could ensure that same future for all the pets available on Petfinder.com, our job would be accomplished.

Desperate Housewives racial slur: Philippines wants apology

The Philippine government is to seek an apology from the producers of the hit US television series "Desperate Housewives" for a racial slur against Filipino medics, the Philippine Daily Inquirer said on its web site Wednesday.

The officials cited a recent episode where actress Teri Hatcher, who plays Susan Mayer, asked whether the person attending to her during a medical consultation "can I check those diplomas because I want to make sure that they're not from some med school in the Philippines."

Asked if the government would seek an apology from the producers of the show, and ABC television network that carries it, executive secretary Eduardo Ermita said: "Yes, I think we should, on behalf of our Filipino professionals."

"On the face, we can look at it as a racial slur. We are looked down upon too much, considering the number of our medical professionals in the US," the Inquirer quoted Ermita as saying.

Ermita likewise appealed to civil society groups and other Filipino organisations in the US to "call the attention" of the show producers, and Hatcher, to the "racial slur."

Filipino consul in Los Angeles Mary Jo Bernardo Aragon wrote a letter of complaint to the ABC network saying that Filipino medical workers were in demand all over the world.

"The US recognises the students of Philippine medical and nursing schools and in general, does not require additional schooling in the US for Filipino healthcare professionals," she added.

Aragon also said many Americans go to the Philippines for medical services that they cannot afford at home, the foreign department said in a statement.

The Philippine GOVERNMENT is making a fuss about this? Good grief. It would be silly enough if some medical association there squawked, but to turn a throw-away line in a TV show into a diplomatic incident simply reveals that the Filipino government has people with too much time on their hands.

Imagine a world in which every Polack joke you've ever heard brought down the wrath of Lech Walesa...

We are probably headed there.

And, by the way, I don't think even the most sensitive soul would see this as a "racial slur against Philippine medics." It was a bad joke about Philippine medical colleges. Or categorically about US physicians who have degrees from offshore medical schools because they couldn't cut it at Hopkins or Mass. General.

Fools.

Iran is pressing on with one of its toughest moral crackdowns in years, warning tens of thousands of women over slack dress, targeting "immoral" cafes and seizing illegal satellite receivers, local media reported on Monday.

The Iranian police launched the crackdown in April in a self-declared drive to "elevate security in society" that encompassed arrests of thugs, raids on underground parties and street checks of improperly dressed individuals.

Reza Zarei, commander of police in Tehran province, said that since the drive began police in his region have handed out 113,454 warnings to women found to have infringed Iran's strict Islamic dress rules. "Of these 1,600 cases have been given to the judiciary" for further investigation, he said. He added that 5,700 people -- including 1,400 men -- have been sent to "guidance classes" on how to behave in society.

Zarei said police have been targeting billiard halls and coffee shops -- the latter hugely popular in Tehran as a meeting place for men and women -- as certain establishments promoted immorality. "One of the main grounds for the creation of social and ethical crimes are billiard halls and coffee shops," he said.

The student news agency ISNA and the Kargozaran newspaper quoted Zarei as saying that police had shut down 3,000 coffee shops and billiard halls although the official IRNA news agency said the establishments had merely been given warnings. "I am pleased to have carried out this plan to elevate security in society," Zarei said.

Watching satellite television is illegal in the Islamic republic as it is deemed to spread decadence and has long been the target of periodic crackdowns by the police.

Zarei said police had closed down 68 warehouses selling satellite equipment, seized 27,000 receivers and arrested 535 people linked to the underground industry.

Some reformists in Iran have argued that the authorities would be better off combating poverty or traffic rather than moral laxity but conservatives have applauded the police for seeking to restore revolutionary Islamic values.

Gosh, this sounds drearily familiar. Is this what the USA would look like, if Focus on the Family and other "Christian Conservative" organizations had their way?

News of the departure of these two talk hosts surfaced in the Baltimore Sun back on July 25th. Franklin has moved to KOGO in San Diego, a smaller station. Douglas, we are told, has gone back to his security consulting business in Colorado.

What makes these changes so curious is that Franklin's exact departure date was not publicized, and so far as I know there was no attempt at a "farewell" show. That's quite out of character with the kind of show he ran, where every Friday's program was a free-for-all including a number of in-studio guests.

Douglas was ostensibly relieved of his contract, with no explanation. He had arrived here from Colorado only four months ago and had purchased a house in Federal Hill. Not exactly the actions of someone who was expecting to stay only a short time.

Of greater suspicion is the way all traces of both Douglas and Franklin were so quickly removed from the WBAL web site. Yesterday, Douglas' name was off the line-up of show hosts, and a site search for his name revealed references to dozens of pages that had been removed. Today, Franklin got the same treatment, and tuning in during his time slot, listeners were treated to the execrable "C4"--former senator Clarence Mitchell, IV.

As of this moment, the line-up of shows and hosts on the web site reveals nothing about who will fill Franklin's 9 to noon time slot or Douglas' noon to 3 PM one. The prospects do not look encouraging. The station could move up one of its B-list talents such as Mitchell or Sherry Elliker, but both of them are recent additions, weak on radio experience, and certainly not of the quality you would expect Beauchamp to program against the local veteran Tom Marr and national powerhouse Rush Limbaugh on WCBM (which happens to be WBAL's closest competition).

It is highly arrogant of station managers to expect listeners to embrace radio personalities and become loyal listeners, then simply have them slip away in the dead of night with no explanation. I have sent exploratory emails to both Franklin and Douglas at their WBAL addresses, and thus far (merely hours later), there have been no replies, nor have the messages bounced. So presumably there are more sneaky plans in the works, if the two email accounts have not been cancelled or re-directed to management.

You expect this sort of haughty indifference from "public" broadcasting managers, who have always maintained that they are above the Arbitron fray, and who derive their financial support from a combination of government grants and sweetheart deals with major corporations.

Stations such as WBAL, who portray themselves as a part of the community, and who seek advertising dollars from individual local businesses, should know better than to pull this kind of stunt. Shame on them.

UPDATE, AUGUST 5

Chip Franklin, at least, was receiving his emails from WBAL. This morning he sent a message saying that he will start his show in San Diego on September 4th, and that it will be webcast live, on www.KOGO.com.

The good news for Franklin fans here is that his California time slot is earlier than was his slot on WBAL, so the show will be heard from 8 AM to noon, Eastern time.

Chip also advises that his email address is Chip@NOiQ.com, for those who want to stay in touch.

Rob Douglas is still unaccounted-for.

 CHEYENNE, Wyo. (AP) - Police were searching Sunday for a National Guardsman with sniper training who they suspect shot his wife to death while she sang with a band in a restaurant and bar.

Robin Munis was shot in the head just after midnight Saturday as she sang with the classic rock and country group Ty and the Twisters.

Customers of the Old Chicago ran - to a bathroom, a walk-in refrigerator and anywhere else they could find cover - as a black pickup truck drove slowly out of the parking lot, then sped away.

"At first we thought it was just a speaker blowing up or something. I looked over and saw her on the floor," said Travis Brooks, who had been sitting at the bar.

Brooks said he wasn't sure where the gunshot came from when he saw the glass door break. He and others crawled toward the kitchen and took cover in a small bathroom."Everyone was in shock," he said. "I don't know what to think."

Munis, 40, had recently separated from her husband, David Munis, 36. She had complained about receiving a harassing telephone call from her husband Friday, police Capt. Jeff Schulz said.Police suspect Munis was the shooter, Schulz said, though no one has reported seeing the shot fired."We're not certain where he was when he took the shot," Schulz said. "It could have been in the parking lot. It could have been a long ways away. We don't know that."

Munis joined the Wyoming Army National Guard in April 2003 and came from the regular Army, where he went to sniper school,

Guard spokeswoman Deidre Forster said.Forster said Munis' job is to promote Camp Guernsey, a military training area about 100 miles north of Cheyenne. He is due to become a second lieutenant next month, she said.

We got the call because the USAF band was unable to make the date, in spite of the fact that the Air Force drill & ceremonies team was the main attraction.

When our booking manager got the call, his first response was to ask how many other bands had turned down the gig, after the Air Force. The ranger in charge of the place said we had been recommended by someone on the staff who had heard us perform, just as they learned the AF band was unavailable. We were told that we would be the first civilian band to play at McHenry, ever.

As it happens, we were the first to play there in over a generation, but not the first ever. On September 14, 1961 the Baltimore City Post Office band played there, with my father filling in on sousaphone. (That in itself is another story.) 

We had only about ten days notice, and we were thrilled.  

For those who don’t know, or have forgotten, Fort McHenry sits at the mouth of the Baltimore Harbor, and it’s  the place that Francis Scott Key observed under attack while detained aboard a British warship in 1812. This was when he wrote “The Star-Spangled Banner,” which became the national anthem of the USA in 1931. The fort is a national historical site. The flag that Key wrote about was a huge banner, 30 by 42 feet, with fifteen stars and fifteen stripes. The over sized flag had been expressly ordered by General Armistead, commandant of the fort, knowing that a British attack was imminent. In the audacious spirit of the day, Armistead decided that he wanted a flag big enough that the Brits would make no mistake about identifying it. The original flag is on display in Washington, and the Fort flies a full-sized replica of it. 

Saturday was a perfect day for this kind of event, temperature in the upper seventies, low humidity, and a constant breeze off the harbor. A crowd of close to a thousand people had gathered at the parade ground, enclosed by the fort. Three fife-and-drum groups in vintage costume performed ahead of us. The main act, to follow our set, was the USAF drill team.  

The emcee for the ceremony was Alan Walden, a local radio newsman with a voice like 30-year-old single malt scotch. Alan is semi-retired, and has emceed all the Fort McHenry events for years, as a labor of love. He is one of a rare breed among broadcasters—a newsman who is unabashedly and sentimentally patriotic. Alan announced each of our numbers, leaving a little less time for chops-recovery than our band announcer generally gives us, so it was a real workout. But between the great acoustics of the place and an enthusiastic crowd, we were supercharged, and gave what was perhaps the best performance ever for this band. Here was the program: 

• Stars and Stripes Forever (featuring five piccolo players)
• Armed Forces Salute (a medley of all the service songs)
• The Fairest of The Fair March (Sousa)
• Battle Hymn of the Republic (a nice concert arrangement)
• The Liberty Bell March
• America The Beautiful (Carmen Dragon’s arrangement for symphonic band)
• The Star-Spangled Banner 

But just before the National Anthem, we had the opportunity to play the centerpiece of our set—The Fort McHenry March. This unpublished march had been written in the early 1970s by Betty Hocker, a woman who sang with the Baltimore Civic Opera, and had been arranged by one of the local band leaders. It was played at Orioles games for a year or so and forgotten. We were given the manuscript of the march about two years ago by the composer, who is now 96 years old, and living at one of the retirement communities where we play. We’ve been performing it here and there ever since, and the park officials were thrilled to learn of its existence. To our great delight the composer, Mrs. Hocker, was on hand for this performance, and got a huge ovation. 

After our concert, lasting about half an hour, the drill team performed. This group of airmen do a half hour of close-order drill featuring not only the normal manual of arms, but a number of daring and precision maneuvers using the M1 “Garand” rifle, with fixed bayonets. (A lot of sharp steel whirling around in the air.)  

These guys are nothing short of amazing, handling those rifles weighing over eleven pounds, a bit more than four feet long with fixed bayonets.  At the end of the drill team performance, the active-duty Air Force officer who had been appointed adjutant of the day did a quick inspection ceremony of the drill team and the fife and drum outfits, which were still on the field. 

Now it was up to me to play “Taps” as the ceremony ended. I have performed this bugle call perhaps six times, never before this kind of audience, much less in such a sacred setting. All went well, and as I played those 24 notes, I was aware of nothing other than the sound of my bugle and that wonderful big flag filling the sky in front of my eyes. 

Finally it was time for the fort’s last official function of the day, “retiring the flag.” The big banner is flown only during daylight hours, and each evening it is exchanged for a smaller flag that’s flown during the night (by Presidential proclamation). Folding the big flag requires at least twenty people, and the custom at McHenry is to invite anyone who is interested to participate. As the lanyard was undone, at first about two dozen children came forward, at the urging of their parents. But as the flag began to descend, a wave of several hundred people started moving towards it. At one moment, what you saw from my vantage point was this larger-than-life flag lowered to about shoulder level, as hundreds of hands reached up to touch it.

Across the field, my wife watched as a space opened up along one edge of the flag, and out of the audience rushed an elderly, diminutive Asian couple, who ran up and seized the hem of that flag as though it was the most important moment of their lives. 

I can’t precisely describe the feeling I’m left with after all this. Somehow, I feel “light,” as though some nasty burden has been lifted off my shoulders.

Those of you who know me well know that I read, and blog about political news, most of which is just shot full of tragedy, outrage, hostility and cynicism.

Of everything I have done in the sixty years I’ve been on this Earth, nothing has been quite so transcendent as this two hour event last week.

I hope each of you has your own opportunity to have such an experience.

God Bless The USA. 

Aside from the fact that they are both film directors, and both are egotistical, fat, white guys, I fail to see the resemblance.

Cameron's bag raises a few eyebrows

Prison inmates escape

By John Grant Emeigh, of The Montana Standard - 06/09/2007

The man accused in the kidnapping plot of late-night talk show host David Letterman’s infant son escaped along with another inmate from Montana State Prison in Deer Lodge Friday afternoon.

Authorities are looking for Kelly Allen Frank, 45, and John Willcutt, 22, who were discovered missing around 4:20 p.m.

Frank was arrested in an alleged 2005 plot to abduct CBS Late Show host David Letterman’s son and the child’s nanny in Teton County. That charge was later dismissed and Frank was sentenced to 10 years in state prison on a lesser charge for overcharging the talk show host for painting work at his ranch.

...Frank, who worked as a house painter, was working on Letterman’s ranch in Teton County before his arrest. Frank was alleged to have discussed the kidnapping plan with another person, who later told authorities.

 WASHINGTON - Karl Rove's debate with singer Sheryl Crow and producer Laurie David about global warming heated the atmosphere at a black-tie Washington dinner.

On the eve of Earth Day, Crow and "Inconvenient Truth" producer David walked over to the presidential adviser's table at the White House Correspondents' Association dinner Saturday night at the Washington Hilton.

Their differences on global warming quickly bubbled over, the Washington Post reported Sunday.

"I am floored by what I just experienced with Karl Rove," David said later. "I went over to him and said, I urge you to take a new look at global warming. He went zero to 100 with me. ... I've never had anyone be so rude."

Rove said: "She came over to insult me and she succeeded."

As the debate intensified, Crow tried to calm things down but was drawn into the debate with Rove instead.

"You work for me," she told Rove, according to the Post column "The Reliable Source."

"No," was his response. "I work for the American people."

Heather Lylis, a spokeswoman for Crow and David's global warming tour, said Sunday that Crow's response for Rove was: "Yes, and I'm an American citizen."

The AP wryly slugged this story "Rove, Crow debate global warming."

The more accurate slug line would have been "Singer & movie producer assault Rove at social gathering."

The way to start a productive discussion in a social setting is to say, "Mr. Rove, I'd like to talk with you about [whatever]. I will be available to meet with you on [give the date] at [name a place]. Would [this time] be good for you or would you prefer [another time that day]?"

To take the approach that David took, abetted by Crow, is guaranteed to raise the hackles of the person being approached, and the two women knew that. This was not meant to open a discussion, but to be a grandstand play calculated to make Rove look bad. He should have had the two twits removed from the event, if not arrested. Had this been two ordinary Americans, rather than two of Hollyweird's self-anointed, you can make book that an arrest would have occurred.

And since Sheryl Crow has just publicly announced that she is sacrificing her, um, personal hygiene on the altar of environmental sensitivity, who would want to stand next to her, in any event?

It is predictable that Al Sharpton and his fellow attention-whores weighed in heavily on the recent "sins" of Don Imus. For the redoubtable Michael Steele to have done so disappoints me.

One guy utters some vaguely offensive remarks on radio, and every black person in the USA claims the right to feel insulted.

If this were true in the reverse--that is, if for example all whites or all Jews were offended by every speck of verbal filth emanating from the mouths of black entertainers--we would find ourselves in the throes of mob violence. But the black hate-mongers depend upon Whitey and Hymie being superior enough to simply absorb the insult without violent reaction. It's a curiously self-loathing attitude on their part.

is being represented

with the U.S. tax dollars

that go to support

"Public" broadcasting?

Producer: PBS dropped 'Islam vs. Islamists' on political grounds

Dennis Wagner
The Arizona Republic
Apr. 10, 2007 12:00 AM

Debate about bias

Commentary from the Arizona Republic:

Controversial program meets cutting-room floor

Doug MacEachern
The Arizona Republic
Apr. 10, 2007 12:00 AM

Thompson has more experience in the Senate than Barack Obama, the darling of the US left. And he has all the other factors people list as desirable when they're talking about Obama. Hell, I'd even bet that he is "clean."

 "Not another actor in politics," they say. Of course when they say that, they're referring to Ronald Reagan, who became a politician after his acting career had faded. And they are neglecting all the entertainers who, without making the commitment to run for office will blather on endlessly and tastelessly with their political opinions. Sean Penn, for example, or (blech) Barbra Streisand.

Thompson is at least as qualified as Obama, and he doesn't have that "funny name" problem.

I'll not abet any of their producers by naming them or their product, but cannot resist asking this question:

• Aren't those houses built right on the ocean at Malibu Beach an environmental "insult?"
• And what about the ones built in canyons that are always catching fire, and those built on unstable hillsides and smack atop fault lines?

It has been only recently that some of us plebeians have had the audacity to mention little inconsistencies between the global-warming crowd's message and their "lifestyles," such as Albert Gore, Jr's $30,000 annual utility bill, and his wasteful limousine and private jet travel.

Yet even as I am writing this, Los Angeles' KNBC-TV has broadcast another story of wildfire in the Anaheim hills. Where are these stewards-of-the-Earth when it comes to cleaning up their OWN excesses?

All-star global concerts planned on climate

Thu Feb 15, 2007 3:29pm ET

QUESTION: While the rest of us proletarians are being urged to lead "carbon-neutral" lives, i.e., shivering in the dark, and forced to drive rolling death-traps, how will the limousine liberals participating in this proposed concert series travel, and treat themselves? Mr. Gore has exhibited quite an appetite for jet air travel and motorcades. Can we expect that any of these socially-conscious musicianers will, for example, use mass transit to get from place to place?