] LOS ANGELES (AP) - Julia Child, whose warbling,
] encouraging voice and able hands brought the intricacies
] of French cuisine to home cooks in North America through
] her television series and books, has died. She was 91.

Why is there not a death category in memestreams?

News | canada.com network

The creator of the hit "Super Freak" RICK JAMES has died, a Los Angeles Police Department spokesperson confirmed to ET. No details regarding his death were immediately available and the investigation is ongoing. The 56-year-old funk star was best known for his 1981 hit "Super Freak." He later fell victim to a crack cocaine addiction that led to a conviction for assaulting and holding a woman against her will. In 1998, James suffered a stroke. Just two months ago, James took the stage to receive a special ASCAP Rhythm & Soul Music Awards in Beverly Hills.

Ow.

'Super Freak' RICK JAMES has died

k wrote:
] ] "Our enemies are innovative and resourceful, and so
] ] are we," Bush said. "They never stop thinking
] ] about new ways to harm our country and our people, and
] ] neither do we."
]
] [ Oh wow... i know it's just a mis-speak, but it's just too
] good to pass up. Ha! -k]

"You're either with us or against us"
Uh-oh...

RE: MSNBC - A new 'Bushism': We're gonna get us

Mike the Usurper wrote:

] Not anymore.
]
] So, what happens now is anyone's guess. The only two options
] are strike the rule, or abolish government recognized
] marriage. Marriage is a mostly religious institution anyway,
] so maybe what the step is, government can only recognize civil
] unions, and leave marriage to the church. (The IRS would go
] nuts trying to fit that on a 1040, but no one likes the IRS
] anyway) I don't think that solution makes anyone very happy
] because it means changes for all kinds of people. Insurance
] companies would be forced to retool all their rules because
] just like the government, companies can't discriminate on
] religious grounds (which marriage would now be) and states
] would not be able to do both marriages and civil unions
] because that falls into the category of "separate but equal"
] which was struck down under Brown v Board of Education.
]
] I would deeply like to thank the current administration for
] this pile of crap. They've chosen to make screwing over hate
] and discrimination a centerpiece of American daily life and
] are doing their best to make it the law.

I think the problem lies with the word "marriage" which has religous significance. Rather aboloshing, ammending the word so its definition in law has nothing to do with a sacrament, or changing it to something else which means a legal pairing. That way people can do whatever they want in front of their god, but the government should look at all of it as silly. It should be something else in law. If this is done, however, it will be a major restructuring of our society and after a fashion, laws regarding gender roles and lifestyle issues will probably start to work properly. But that will take a while. I think that most of the reluctance has more to do with the mess it will create for a significant amount of time until all the other equal-sorta we have work themselves out.

RE: Marriage is over

] Today, the only way for media companies to survive is to
] own everything up and down the media chain--from
] broadcast and cable networks to the sitcoms, movies, and
] news broadcasts you see on those stations; to the
] production studios that make them; to the cable,
] satellite, and broadcast systems that bring the programs
] to your television set; to the Web sites you visit to
] read about those programs; to the way you log on to the
] Internet to view those pages. Big media today wants to
] own the faucet, pipeline, water, and the reservoir. The
] rain clouds come next.

'My Beef With Big Media' by Ted Turner

Ouch.

Yahoo! News - Crazed surgeon amputates patient's penis, chops it up

"TORONTO -- A man caught driving naked from the waist down while watching kiddie porn on his laptop computer has become the first man in Toronto charged with allegedly stealing an Internet connection. Toronto police laid a theft of communications charge after busting a man driving the wrong way down a one-way street, downloading child porn using stolen wireless Internet signals"

Winnipeg Sun: NEWS - Man takes wrong turn

Having finally had time to sit down and read Hamdi v. Rumsfeld its clear to me that the press reports so far have been confusing at best and misleading at worst. While I am heartened that the court has decided that there are some limits to the power of our executive, their decision is far from the stalwart defense of our traditional understanding of civil liberties that it has been presented as. I must express that I share the cynicism of the Russian commentator whose article I posted in spite of that commentator's hypocrisy.

My (apparently incorrect) understand of how things work in this country is that the legislative branch makes the laws (within the framework of the constitution), the executive enforces them, and the judicial interprets, applies, and upholds them. In this case the legislative passed a vague authorization for the use of military force against Al'Q and the T. From this the executive invented an entirely unprecedented and undefined legal status for prisoners. We'll call this "legislating from the Oval Office." In this decision the judicial has upheld the existence of this undefined status and invented a vaguely defined and unprecedented legal standard to go along with it. We'll call this "legislating from the bench."

From now on, as long as Congress has authorized the President to use "force" against an "enemy" the President may name any citizen an "enemy combatant" and place them in prison. The President is required to present its case against these individuals to a neutral decision maker (which need not be a civilian court), but the standard in these cases is "guilty until proven innocent." This is an enormously important precedent that will continue to impact our history forever.

I do not recall "guilty until proven innocent" ever being a part of how Americans view justice. Nor do I recall that the Supreme Court has the power to invent standards like this for cases of this sort. Missing from every event leading up to this moment (the solidification of a new legal standard for certain prisoners in our justice system) is the explanation of why. Why won't standard POW processes work for "combatants" in Afghanistan? Why do we need a new standard? Why is this situation so significantly different from any we've faced in the past? Justification is what you'd get if this new creation was the product of a normal legislative process. Instead what we have is the technical assertion of power by the executive and the judicial, with no more explanation then "these are bad people."

Maybe the court has reached the right balance here and this is the standard we ought to have. Its certainly preferable to me then Justice Thomas's unsaid statement that the only recourse that you have against unreasonable executive detention is to Impeach him. (If Thomas's well referenced dissent is correct, then I would say we are in need of new laws immediately!) However, I think it ought to have gone through the legislature, and that it ought to have been birthed in the open, with the traditional discussion of ends and means that is typically afforded a democracy when creating a new basic legal framework.

Repeating my basic point to ram it home: A new legal standard has been created in our justice system. It applies to enemies of the state. The standard is guilty until proven innocent. Its use requires Congressional authorization, but that authorization need not be specific. This is a watershed event that will inform future generation's basic understanding of what the Constitution means.

Hamdi v. Rumsfeld - Now THATS legislating from the bench!

] A police officer stops you on the street, then taps
] something into a device in the palm of his hand.
]
] The next minute, he knows who your relatives are, who
] lives in your house, who your neighbors are, the kind of
] car you drive or boat you own, whether you've been sued
] and various other tidbits about your life.

"Sir, what is your name?"

CNN.com - Cop on the beat now a walking database - Jul 1, 2004

In a move sharply criticized both by religious leaders and civil libertarians, the Bush-Cheney campaign has issued a guide listing about two-dozen "duties" and a series of deadlines for organizing support among conservative church congregations.

Bush Seeks to Mobilize Religious Conservatives