|  |  |  | | | | | The Full Feed from HuffingtonPost.com | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | In politics it is often said that timing is everything and the sudden announcement of the death sentence given to Tariq Aziz smacks of anything but judicial independence. There are a number of reasons to suggest that incumbent Prime Minister Maliki would want to have this announcement made at this particular time. Firstly, after a record breaking seven months of inertia there are reports that Maliki is in the home straight of securing his place as Iraq's next Prime Minister. Politics in Iraq has become increasingly sectarian over the past year and Maliki has been forced to court more radical Shi'a parties in order to get over the finishing line in forming a workable coalition. Therefore being seen as hard line on Sunni parties and in particular the idea of De-Ba'athification is bread and butter tactics to bolster his own powerbase. There is no coincidence that Aziz was found guilty of crimes against Maliki's own Da'wa party and it would seem likely that the former deputy Prime Minister will accumulate several more death sentences for crimes against the Kurds, partners in Maliki's likely coalition, before he finally makes his way to the gallows.
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More on Iraq 
 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | By Jerry Roberts and Phil Trounstine
Calbuzz LONG BEACH -- Handed a splendid opportunity to portray her campaign as an historic event for women in politics, Meg Whitman made a different kind of history on Tuesday.
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More on California Governor Race 
 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | It's over for the U.S. in Afghanistan, but that doesn't mean the death and destruction are about to stop. Quagmires don't just go away. However, the signs are everywhere that the American course in that nation is doomed, that those directing this forlorn attempt at occupation of a country that has never tolerated occupation know there is no positive end in sight, and that the locals from President Hamid Karzai to the competing warlords and the Taliban are cutting their own deals on the assumption that our wishes no longer matter. Predictably, the U.S. media dismissed Karzai's denunciation on Monday of the role of American mercenaries in the wanton destruction of his society. "Karzai rails against America in a diatribe," was the way a New York Times headline summarized his press conference, suggesting that his complaints were nothing more than the temper tantrum of an ungrateful child. But Karzai is right. American mercenaries are spreading mayhem across Afghanistan thanks to enormous U.S. spending on the contractors that he has ordered out of the country. "The money starts in the name of the private security companies in the hallways of the U.S. government," Karzai stated in a clear description of the modern working of our military-industrial complex, adding: "The profits are made and arranged there ... then they send the money to kill people here. ... When this money comes to Afghanistan, it causes insecurity in Afghan homes and causes the killing of Afghan children and causes explosions and terrorism in Afghanistan."
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More on Foreign Policy 
 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |
Dear Davis Guggenheim, Secretary of Education Arne Duncan, President Obama and Others Who Wish to Simplify the Massive Problems of Education by Blaming Teachers: Last night was Back-to-School Night at the Los Angeles public school where I attempt to teach English. BSN is an annual event when teachers meet with parents and conduct five 15-minute sessions explaining the gist of their courses, their classroom and academic expectations; then we field questions.
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More on Barack Obama 
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A Conversation with James "J.Y." Young of Styx Mike Ragogna: J.Y., let's talk about Styx's new album, Regeneration: Volume 1. "Volume 1" implies a "Volume 2" is coming. Will there be an ongoing series of releases?
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 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | It's been a long hard, fall for Las Vegas. With an economy tied to consumer spending and the housing industry, Sin City region has gone from one of America's bright spots to one of its most troubled. The Las Vegas area is among the most economically stressed in the country, according to the Associated Press's monthly ranking. Fully 15 percent of Las Vegas residents -- or a total of 145,000 people -- are unemployed, a local record. (Nationally, the unemployment rate has held steady at 9.6 percent.) On the state level, as HuffPost's Arthur Delaney and Ryan Grim reported in July, there is no greater concentration of economic woe than in Nevada. Factoring in the underemployed and those who have given up looking for work, Nevada's true unemployment rate may be 20 percent, according to the Las Vegas Review-Journal.
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More on Third World America 
 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | By pretty universal agreement, this midterm election has been the worst, the stupidest in memory. "I am not a witch," the campaign ad starring Delaware's tea-partying Christine O'Donnell, states it for jaw-dropping inanity. Rather than itemize the inanities once again---we have the media for that---let's stay with the phenomenon itself. Appalled at the campaign spectacle, and super-mindful that our many crises grow worse despite President Obama's best efforts---a wheezing economy, a Wall Street still more casino than utility, two wars at impasse, a collapsing infrastructure---conscientious Americans, from across the political spectrum, have got to be wondering: Is this a culture that can save itself?
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More on culture 
 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Last weeks little bombshell about Mel Gibson losing his cameo in The Hangover 2 focused on how a (former) megastar could lose an acting gig through the power of the "little people" - and at least one vocal lead actor - even after the studio chief and the director signed off on it. While I'm sure there were plenty of above and below-the-liners relishing their vicarious triumph, their victory dance left an interesting hypocrisy in its wake. If those same crew and cast members were offered to work on a prestigious movie to be directed by Roman Polanski how many of them would have protested about not wanting to work with a child rapist? I'm betting Polanski would still have the job. Actors seem to have no problem working with a man who admitted to raping a child and jumping bail, but the soapbox isn't big enough when there's an alcoholic racist in the cast. Why is that?
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More on Mel Gibson 
 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | I had the opportunity tonight to chat with PBS NewsHour Chief Anchor Jim Lehrer and former Afghanistan Interior Minister and National Defense University professor Ali Jalali about the solvency of Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai given the acknowledgment that he is accepting "bags of cash" from Iran. Interestingly, at a press conference Karzai also acknowledged that his government was getting similar bags of cash from the United States -- which White House spokesman Robert Gibbs denied.
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More on Foreign Policy 
 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | BELIZE CITY — A jaguar that escaped from its cage at a Belize animal rescue center during Hurricane Richard has been blamed in the mauling death of a U.S. citizen whose body was found on Tuesday. The 4-year-old male jaguar named Max escaped when a tree fell on his cage on Sunday, the same day the Category 1 hurricane hit the country's Caribbean coast with howling winds and rain.
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 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | West Virginia Governor Joe Manchin is firing a fierce line of attack against Republican rival John Raese in his quest to capture his state's open U.S. Senate seat. A new television ad out from the Democratic hopeful hammers Raese on a host of his views that have sparked controversy over the course of the campaign. The 30-second spot goes as far as to call his ideas "crazy" after montaging clips of the GOP contender communicating his positions in his own words. "I've already been defeated three times -- that's a pretty good message from West Virginia, I think," says Raese in the compilation of footage. "But I'm going to tell you this. I don't agree with minimum wage. I'm in the business of not providing jobs. I'm in the business of making money." ... "We don't need the Department of Education" ... "We need 1,000 laser systems put in the sky and we need it right now."
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More on Elections 2010 
 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | WASHINGTON -- Alaska Republican Senate candidate Joe Miller gave some of his most extensive comments on gay rights in an interview with MSNBC host Rachel Maddow, with his views often confusing and contradictory. He came out in favor of a constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage while extolling the virtues of issues being handled at the state level and said that being gay was an individual's choice. Maddow's Tuesday show aired from Alaska, where she was able to secure a brief interview with Miller (after weeks of e-mails, phone calls, and in-person requests) while they walked, as she recounted, "from a roof, through a lobby, down another escalator, through another lobby, out a door, into an SUV and then it was over." Miller has generally avoided talking about LGBT issues, but his campaign did pay veteran anti-gay activist Terry Moffitt as a consultant. Moffitt runs a website called HopeForHomosexuals.com, which argues that gay men and women can be "cured."
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More on Elections 2010 
 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | An intense military campaign aimed at crippling the Taliban so far has failed to inflict more than fleeting setbacks to the insurgency or put meaningful pressure on its leaders to seek peace, according to U.S. military and intelligence officials citing the latest assessments of the war in Afghanistan. Escalated airstrikes and special operations raids have disrupted Taliban movements and damaged local cells. But officials said that insurgents have been adept at absorbing the blows and that they appear confident that they can outlast an American troop buildup set to subside beginning next July.
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More on Afghanistan 
 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Artist Jim Campbell has a new installation called Scattered Light, a 50-foot wide sculpture made up of 1,600 lightbulbs which have been outfitted with LEDs. "It's essentially 1,600 pixels that create an image," he says in a video by the website Switched, "but the image has been kind of blown apart." The resulting work is a low-resolution, abstract piece which uses footage from Grand Central station to create the illusion of shadows moving, almost imperceptibly, through a curtain of lightbulbs.
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More on Sculpture 
 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Ive been taking my 37 pages and trying to let them breathe -- to give the material more space, more air, more room to come to life. I'm doing this now, before I move to far into the story, because I have a tendency to cut things too short in my work. I cut chapters short, and conversations, and descriptions -- so I figure I might as well address these problems as I go rather than wait until I have 200 pages that all need to breathe more. I think of the word unfold. The mother of a friend of mine used to always tell her to let life unfold. I love that advice and that image. It makes me think of a flower unfolding from a bud. It's preposterous to think that you could rush that process, or somehow improve upon it. I try to capture that feeling in my stories, as well -- letting them unfold on the page to their own natural rhythm. I think Anton Chekhov's famous writing advice -- "Don't tell me the moon is shining; show me the glint of light on broken glass" (and the Mark Twain quote like it: "Don't say the old lady screamed - bring her on and let her scream.") -- is all about letting things unfold. It's about showing, not telling, obviously. But he's also saying, let the reader see it, and feel it. Let it unfold on the page. Let it breathe.
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 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | On the evening of Dec. 3 last year, the Bureau of Labor Statistics sent an advance copy of the next morning's jobs report to the White House. It's standard procedure for top White House and Federal Reserve officials to get an early look at the numbers, but there was nothing standard about this particular report. It showed that job losses had all but stopped in November, after nearly two years of big declines. White House aides exulted. Christina Romer, a top economist, brought a copy of the numbers to the Oval Office, and President Obama embraced her. A photograph of the moment, with a Christmas tree off to the side, was hung in the office of the Council of Economic Advisers. The good news -- and the optimism -- would continue for the next few months. Today, that brief period of optimism looks like one of the worst things that could have happened to the White House, other Democrats and, above all, the economy. The nascent recovery removed the urgency that the Obama administration and Democratic senators felt in early 2009. They still favored more action, like aid to states and tax cuts, but it was no longer their top priority.
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More on Careers 
 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | U.S. Senate candidate Joe Miller was placed on administrative leave for 15 days and suspended without pay for three days in March 2008 for using co-workers' computers at the Fairbanks North Star Borough in an effort to influence Republican Party politics, according to records released Tuesday by the borough under court order. In March 2008, just days before the Alaska Republican Party's annual convention, Miller was hosting a poll on his personal website, joemiller.us, that was aimed at ousting party chairman Randy Ruedrich. On March 12, while other employees were at lunch and Miller was alone in the office, he used three of his co-workers' computers to vote in his own poll. He tried to cover up the deceit by clearing the caches on the computers, the records show. In a March 17, 2008 e-mail to his borough attorney Rene Broker, Miller admitted to the allegations against him:
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More on Joe Miller 
 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Now famous former JetBlue flight attendant gave his first interview Tuesday night to, who else, Larry King. In response to passengers stating that Slater was rude to them on the flight, Slater quipped "I wouldn't deny that one bit, they got me at a bad, bad time." He talks to King about that fateful flight, including what he was thinking when he jumped down the emergency chute: "I'm free, I'm finally free."
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More on Airlines 
 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | WASHINGTON — The regional airline industry says safety is its top priority, in part because accidents are bad for business. But pilot unions and the families of air crash victims say safety has been sacrificed to cost-cutting at some carriers. The Federal Aviation Administration says it holds all airlines, large and small, to the same standards. But a coalition representing corporate travel managers says business travelers don't believe regional carriers are as safe as larger airlines, and many travelers don't want to fly them.
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 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | In testimony this afternoon that literally had my jaw dropping, a forensic psychiatrist called by the U.S. government testified that Omar Khadr, the Canadian who yesterday pled guilty to a slew of terrorist acts including murder, is too dangerous to be released because he is sincerely religious and became even more devout at the Guantanamo Bay prison. Dr. Michael Welner, a New York psychiatrist presented as an expert by the prosecution, spent most of the afternoon in a military commission hearing today explaining that in his expert opinion, Omar Khadr, captured in 2002 at the age of 15 and imprisoned by the U.S. ever since, is "highly dangerous." Dr. Welner's conclusions were reached, he explained, based largely on his understanding of the work of a psychiatrist in Copenhagen, Dr. Nicolai Sennels, who published a study of young Muslims in prison there. Although Welner admitted that he hadn't actually read Dr. Sennels's book because it was written in Danish, which Welner can't read. He did have a conversation with Dr. Sennels about his theories and about Omar Khadr over the phone. Sennels apparently speaks English. Welner also based his opinion on the written documents in the government's file on Omar Khadr, on television interviews that Khadr's relatives have given on English-language TV, and on one interview with Khadr in the Gitmo prison. And he relied on unspecified data given to him by the government about recidivism among Guantanamo inmates. The numbers of former Guantanamo prisoners who have turned to terrorism is hotly debated.
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More on Guantánamo Bay 
 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | It's truly touching how much interest in America's great democratic experiment that our esteemed men and women of industry, finance, and commerce have shown in the 2010 midterm elections. Elementary school teachers across the land might lead civics lessons by pointing to these salt-of-the-Earth hedge-fund managers, oil tycoons, derivatives traders, and outsourcing zealots who are demonstrating such awe-inspiring civic mindedness. Their love of Jeffersonian democracy runs so deep they're willing to invest millions of dollars in clandestine cash to fill the campaign coffers of some of the most extreme right-wing Senate candidates we've ever seen: Christine O'Donnell of Delaware, Carly Fiorina of California, Joe Miller of Alaska, Rand Paul of Kentucky, Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania, Mike Lee of Utah, Marco Rubio of Florida, Ken Buck of Colorado, Sharron Angle of Nevada, Ron Johnson of Wisconsin. Since they're willing to spend so much money influencing the direction of the nation's politics might they also express this high sense of civic duty in paying their fair share of taxes at a time when their beloved country faces war and recession?
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More on Pat Toomey 
 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Here we are again, and I am reporting to you live, in vintage Dolce & Gabbana, from my basement. I have three different kinds of hummus lined up, and I'm raring to go. We saw P. Stang last week lay it on think to Bryce Gruber (who tweeted at me that I shouldn't have called her a frosty biatch....oopsies!) and stick it to Tabacco and his sloot-mobile. With pleather seats. This is the episode where RHONJ meet P. Stanger, which is an overload of Jerz. And I'm going to brace myself to make jokes about the Turnpike, whacking people, and summer camps where all the cool girls wore braces and had Hardtail pants. sigh. Here we go!
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More on Relationships 
 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | I sat down at the keyboard today intending to write something about the start of the World Series, but no sooner had I begun trying to focus my thoughts when a friend called to tell me the truly stunning news that Bill Shannon had died this morning in a fire at his mother's home in West Caldwell NJ. He was 69. Bill Shannon's name may not be familiar to baseball fans outside of New York. And even in this two-team city, I think it's fair to say that most local baseball fans probably don't know who he is either. But to anyone who's ever spent time in either hometown stadium at any point in the last thirty-plus years - in particular, inside the press boxes - Bill Shannon's name has been synonymous with New York baseball. He was a veteran sportswriter for the Associated Press and, more importantly, he was a longtime official scorer who during the last decade served as the chief scorer for Yankees and Mets games in New York. In that capacity, he not only worked his own games several times a week but also scheduled and supervised the work of the other four official scorers - a small fraternity in which, for the past seven seasons, I've been truly privileged to be a member. To say that Bill was a pretty good official scorer is like saying Ted Williams was a pretty good hitter. From knowing and understanding the sport's vast and intricate rules governing play, to interpreting those rules at the drop of a bat (or ball) to fairly judge what was transpiring on the field in front of him from first pitch to last, Bill Shannon made scoring an art the way Ted Williams made hitting an art.
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 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Amid a political firestorm of controversy surrounding Alaska Senate candidate Joe Miller's ethics violations while working as a government attorney in 2008, new details emerged on Tuesday night revealing that the Republican hopeful himself admitted to lying about his complicity in the matter. "I lied about accessing all of the computers," wrote Miller in an e-mail to Fairbanks North Star Borough attorney Rene Broker in March of 2008 in the wake of allegations he used the office technology for political purposes. "I then admitted about accessing the computers, but lied about what I was doing. Finally I admitted what I did." The remarks from Miller came to light in a 60-page dispatch of records released (PDF) by the Alaska borough after a judge issued a court order for the files to be made public.
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More on Joe Miller 
 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | I had briefly mentioned the International Code of Conduct for Private Security Service Providers when I wrote about the recent IPOA annual summit. But I wan to commend it to your attention. Although I have been skeptical in the past about codes of conduct at a company or trade association level the fact that we are talking about an international one raises the bar for accountability, which is unquestionably a good thing. Let me just highlight a few section that I think merit particular applause.
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 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | WASHINGTON — An audit prompted in part by the loss of the Wright Brothers' original patent and maps for atomic bomb missions in Japan finds some of the nation's prized historical documents are in danger of being lost for good. Nearly 80 percent of U.S. government agencies are at risk of illegally destroying public records and the National Archives is backlogged with hefty volumes of records needing preservation care, the audit by the Government Accountability Office found.
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 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | By Whitney Jones
Religion News Service (RNS) While ghouls, witches and wizards run door-to-door for treats this Halloween, St. Michael, St. Patricia and St. Lawrence will swap candy in their basement, sharing stories of their heroic exploits.
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More on Halloween 
 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | LOS ANGELES â€" Former "Calorie Commando" TV chef Juan Carlos Cruz pleaded no contest Tuesday to a charge that he hired two homeless men in a failed attempt to kill his wife. Cruz, 48, pleaded no contest in Los Angeles County Superior Court to a count of solicitation of murder. The former Food Network chef made the plea as a preliminary hearing was scheduled to begin, prosecutors said.
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 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | By Mark Waller
The Times-Picayune/Religion News Service NEW ORLEANS (RNS) Even with the deep sea oil hemorrhage halted and much of the fishing in the Gulf of Mexico reopened, major charity groups say the needs of impacted families remain dire.
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More on Gulf Oil Spill 
 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Peggy Fletcher Stack
The Salt Lake Tribune/Religion News Service SALT LAKE CITY (RNS) Mormons may not know until the hereafter what causes same-sex attraction, but "God loves all his children" and expects everyone to do the same, a top Mormon leader said Sunday (Oct. 24).
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More on Gay Marriage 
 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | ARMONK, N.Y. — IBM Corp. on Tuesday said its board approved an additional $10 billion in stock buybacks, representing nearly 6 percent of the computer company's outstanding shares. IBM says the new buyback authorization adds to $2.3 billion remaining from a previous $8 billion authorization, issued in April.
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More on Computers 
 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | California Republican gubernatorial candidate Meg Whitman is out with a new Spanish-language ad, attempting to make a last-minute appeal to the state's Latino voters by telling them that she "stood up against" Arizona's controversial immigration law. English translation of the ad: VISUAL: CLIP OF MISLEADING AD AGAINST WHITMAN
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More on Elections 2010 
 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | WASHINGTON — Safety advocates have warned for more than a decade that someday an air shipment of lithium batteries like those used in cameras, cell phones and countless other products would catch fire, causing a plane to crash and people to die. That day may have arrived last month.
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 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Last week brought a full-court press from the right-wingers at WorldNetDaily in support of Art Robinson, a Republican candidate for Congress in Oregon running against incumbent Democrat Peter DeFazio: - David Kupelian wrote that Robinson is a "Ph.D. research scientist of international stature" and "a straight-shooting, problem-solving Reagan conservative who not only loves this country, he understands this country - what makes it work - and is willing to fight the good fight to restore it to greatness and prosperity."
- Joseph Farah praised Robinson, who "was my neighbor for a few years," as "a renowned expert on the issue of so-called 'climate change,'" "an expert on the issue of civil defense," and "the kind of determined tax and budget cutter we need to replace the tax-and-spend Peter DeFazios of the world." Farah added, "Robinson's scientific background makes him highly qualified to challenge Obamacare and the myth of the carbon dioxide crisis."
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| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | LOS ANGELES — The city clerk in the scandal-ridden Los Angeles suburb of Bell says county elections officials have verified enough voter signatures for a recall election targeting three City Council members. Bell City Clerk Rebecca Valdez said Tuesday that the certified petitions will be given to the Council, which must now schedule an election that could oust most of its members.
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 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Really, again? After the surgery seven years ago for a benign brain tumor and chemo four years ago for lymphoma, I thought a breather was due. When I was told a hole had opened in the original craniotomy, and I had to have another brain surgery, my faith was not tested as much as my credulity. Really, again?
My thirteen year old daughter has been sorely tried. Shortly after she was born her mother had cancer. And her father has been a consistent frustration: "Why is it each time you get sick you lose hair?" my daughter demanded, half kiddingly. Between the chemo and the brain surgery you would think I'd just go Vin Diesel on her and save the doctors the trouble for the next time.
Scarecrow like, my brain needed a patch. After the surgery to I was fixed with a plaster bandage that covered my head. For four days I could have played an extra in the Brendan Fraser movies, except that the ancient Egyptian mummies were unencumbered by IV tubes and heart monitors. It was excruciatingly uncomfortable, made bearable only by the contribution it was making to ensuring that I would live. Both the doctors and nurses at UCLA's new Reagan medical center were exemplary, world class. They were caring, expert, solicitous; being there, nonetheless, was horrendous.
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More on Health 
 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Note to reader: I originally wrote this when "Eat Pray Love" was in the movie theaters. But I'm posting it today on what would have been my 8th wedding anniversary. Now, it's just another day on the calendar. And "Jack Ass 3" is number one at the box office. Onward. If I see one more trailer for Eat, Pray, Love, I may throw up. Author Elizabeth Gilbert has somehow managed to turn her messy divorce into a New York Times best-selling, box office-topping, Home Shopping Network accessorized gold mine. She's convinced six million, slightly daft, wayward, Oprahfied, single women across the globe, that the key to repair and regeneration after a monumentally failed relationship lies in exotic globe trotting and carbo loading.
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More on Julia Roberts 
 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | WASHINGTON — The same gun was used to shoot at the Pentagon and the National Museum of the Marine Corps in Northern Virginia earlier this month, the FBI said Tuesday. A third military office – a Marine Corps recruiting station in Chantilly, Va., outside Washington – was shot at overnight Monday; Marines who work there discovered the shooting Tuesday morning, the FBI said. Investigators are conducting ballistics tests to determine whether the recruiting station shooting is related to the previous incidents.
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 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | The constant theme heard in the firing of Juan Williams is that "it was coming" - National Public Radio was aiming to do this all along. This leaves the whole affair abundantly odoriferous and foul, and leaves in my mind the scent of something staged. Most observers of the fiasco point to Williams' long, contentious relationship with the radio network, and most agreed that he wasn't a really good fit from the start. His dual roles with both NPR and FOX were problematic from the get go, since both networks are perceived as competing ideologues. Though we're not certain of the exact moment NPR was tagged a bastion of "liberal" media, this recent turn of events could lead into another conversation about what constitutes "liberal media" and what, for argument's sake, is "conservative media." But - to the point. While throngs of people debate as to whether Williams' should or shouldn't have been fired, let's stoke the flames of discussion with a bit of "devil's advocate." Namely, should we be surprised if this firing was just the culmination of Williams' double-play, an effort to get both outlets to outbid the other. If this was in fact what happened, you'd have to admit that it was a rather clever maneuver on Williams' part. He clearly grew tired of battling double-consciousness between the two contrasting institutions; more fatigued from holding back on one network when the other dug his outspoken style. To Williams, NPR was boring, while FOX gave him a platform to work his liberal sideshow. He knew all along that it was a matter of time, and agreeing to an O'Reilly Factor appearance was all part of a larger plan to gaffe and force NPR's hand. Leaving on his own was flat ... less dramatic, barely causing a stir. Being booted is a ratings panacea for any future appearances on FOX, thereby prompting the right-leaning network to chip in some extra loot (now at $2 million) for their new tap dance routine.
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More on Bill O'Reilly 
 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Richard Thompson tackles two rock cliches in one fell swoop with his current album and tour. When it came time to record Dream Attic for his new label Shout Factory, Thompson said (like so many touring musicians before him), "Hey, we sound great on the road and whenever we tour a new album the music sounds better by the end of the tour than it did when we recorded it. So why not record the next album live? Work out the songs...on the road!" So, like Jackson Browne and Joe Jackson and too many to mention, that's what he did. The result is Dream Attic, which is neither a landmark work of his nor a flop but simply a new album by Thompson, stronger this time melodically than lyrically. 
Now that the album is out, Thompson moved on to the newest rock trend: playing an album in its entirety. So his current show begins with all 13 songs from his new CD and then moves onto his vast catalog of brilliant work. (And where oh where is the boxed set of Richard and Linda Thompson, remastered, with a bonus CD or two of live stuff and extras in a nice compact box once and for all?)
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 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | WASHINGTON — The scheduled Nov. 15 start of Rep. Charles Rangel's ethics trial is in jeopardy, because the former Ways and Means Committee chairman no longer has a defense team. The New York Democrat and lawyers for the Washington firm of Zuckerman Spaeder have parted company, according to people inside and outside Congress familiar with the breakup. They spoke on condition of anonymity Tuesday because they were not authorized to discuss the development publicly.
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 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | HuffPost editor Roy Sekoff taped an appearance on "The Joy Behar Show" Tuesday in which he and the CNN Headline News host decried a recent ad by Nevada GOP Senate candidate Sharron Angle. "It's getting worse," Sekoff told Behar. "They've been playing the fear card for many years. As you said, Willie Horton, they play the race card. It's this ominous 'the scary, the other,' and we've seen a lot more of this since Obama became president." WATCH:
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 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti — Hundreds of new cholera cases are appearing in Haiti as aid workers move to contain the outbreak. U.N. officials say 3,769 cases of the deadly diarrhea have been counted as of Tuesday. Twenty-five more people died bringing the total to 284.
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 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | MIAMI — Google is awarding $2 million to the Knight Foundation to support its media innovation projects. The grant will be used on projects including the Knight News Challenge, a media innovation contest; and on ways of informing people through such tools as online news sites and mobile technology. It will also be used to develop new business models to make news gathering financially sustainable.
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 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | On November 2nd, voters will head to the polls in what has arguably been the most contentious midterm election campaign in more than a decade. Despite reluctance on the part of some Democrats to campaign on health-related issues, one area presents a fresh window of fiscal and political opportunity to help address the challenges facing our nation's health care system: managing and preventing chronic disease by providing quality-based services to millions of seniors and disabled persons in the privacy of their own homes. Consider the following: the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services estimates that a typical four-day hospital visit costs more than $20,000. By comparison, a typical three-visit week from a home health-care provider costs significantly less. As the United States recovers from the worst economic recession in decades, we cannot underestimate the extensive savings achieved through in-home health services. Currently, 49 percent of Americans with chronic illnesses are responsible for 75 percent of U.S. health care costs. In-home health care is playing a critical role in bringing these costs down. The results are both indisputable and real: Diabetics receiving their insulin on a coordinated schedule; Hypertension patients regularly having their blood pressure checked; Heart disease patients getting the medication they need to stay out of costly hospital or nursing home settings. Effective management of chronic disease can reduce hospitalizations and readmissions, clinic and emergency room visits resulting in lower health care spending.
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 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | A few weeks back, I wrote a post on the politics of organized labor - a post that was fundamentally about how political power is wielded through both both the carrot of reward and the stick of punishment. Same thing for the converse: If you only use the carrot - or worse, if you hand over the carrot without something in return - you incinerate whatever political power you have, as politicians will know they never have to do anything you ask. This is not some great revelation - it's about as rudimentary a political principle as there is. Which is why it's truly stunning to see that some top professional labor leaders in Washington - ie. people paid lots of hard-earned union dues to engineer political strategy for labor union members - either A) don't seem to understand this idea, or B) refuse to understand it out of a corrupt willingness to sell out labor union members on behalf of these leaders' partisan affinities and/or their personal loyalty to cronies inside the Establishment Democratic Party. We saw this here in Colorado when the AFL-CIO responded to Democratic Sen. Michael Bennet's opposition to the Employee Free Choice Act - ie. labor's top legislative priority - by loyally restating its lockstep support for Bennet and by then insisting that EFCA was suddenly a "non-issue" for labor unions.* We also saw it with AFSCME president Gerry McEntee compliantly endorsing Rahm Emanuel for Chicago Mayor, despite Emanuel consistently laying waste to organized labor's basic agenda. This was the same McEntee who previously promised to lead the fight against any progressive groups trying to run primaries against anti-labor Democrats. Now, we see even more of this ignorance/corruption from labor leaders - and in even more shockingly ignorant/corrupt terms.
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 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange and Daniel Ellsberg, a former Pentagon analyst best known for leaking key memos about the Vietnam War 40 years ago, led a packed forum at London's Frontline Club last night to discuss the fallout over the non-profit group's disclosure of approximately 400,000 US Army files documenting the Iraq War. While the two men predictably levelled forceful criticism at the Pentagon, their main target for most of the evening was actually the New York Times. Assange fumed openly about John Burns and Ravi Somaiya's expose from this past Sunday's Times that characterized the WikiLeaks mastermind as increasingly paranoid, erratic, and dangerously egotistical. "It's a smear piece, and more tabloid behavior by the Times," Assange said of the article. "Is it that only journalists with bad character work for the Times?" he added, before quickly shifting gears to argue that that the paper is beholden to the US military-industrial complex and, as a result, too often confuses a false sense of balance with accuracy. WikiLeaks, Assange maintained, is free from the political constraints that tie the hands of a mainstream media organization like the Times, and so does not have to make editorial concessions to the Pentagon that could compromise its accuracy. For Assange, the Times's allegedly compromised sense of accuracy clearly extends to the "terrible" article by Burns and Somaiya that seeks to analyze - though, he would say impugn - his character and motives. "Mr. Assange has come a long way from an unsettled childhood in Australia as a self-acknowledged social misfit who narrowly avoided prison after being convicted on 25 charges of computer hacking in 1995," reads the beginning of one damning passage.
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 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | CARTAGENA, Colombia — The leaders of several Latin American nations on the front lines of the battle against drugs said Tuesday that a California ballot measure to legalize marijuana would send a contradictory message from the United States. The Nov. 2 election in California was a key topic as Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos hosted the presidents of Mexico and three other countries at a one-day summit.
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 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | IBM's Smarter Planet has touched on so many of the things they're doing to make our technology, cities, health care systems, and global community work better. But putting all these tools to good use is a tall order, so IBM has teamed up with universities and non profits to train a new generation of smarter students, entrepreneurs and social activists. Check out how they're making an impact on college campuses and beyond:
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 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | I've often daydreamed about what an alien civilization would think about Earth if they were ever to come visit, given our fractured ethnic, political, and economic planet, the epidemic violence, our ecological ignorance and mismanagement, the miserable way so many people live in poverty and misery, and our global failure to eradicate basic diseases such as cholera that simply require safe water and sanitation systems available to everyone reading this column. Indeed, as Calvin says to Hobbes in Bill Watterson's classic cartoon, "Sometimes I think the surest sign that intelligent life exists elsewhere in the universe is that none of it has tried to contact us." One of these global failures was the failure to acknowledge a formal human right to water. There is a formal international human right to life, to human health, to an adequate standard of living, to adequate food, and more. But until a few weeks ago, there was no formal human right to water.
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 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Campaign cash -- we're drowning in a flood of it. As Katrina vanden Heuvel noted yesterday on GRITtv, this is on track to be a $5 billion election--and it's not over. We used to have words for spending like that on politicians: bribery. Remember all that quaint anti-colonial talk about "Independence"? As Zephyr Teachout commented in a meeting I was part of, hosted by the Coffee Party, those founding fathers were all about independence from corruption and prosecuting bribery. Remember the phrase "anti-Trust"? Now it seems the most we can hope for is "transparency." Well, Transparency International's Corruption Perceptions Index is out now, and it's pretty transparent: The U.S. has dropped in the world rankings to 22nd, below Chile and just above Uruguay. "The world's most peaceful countries score the best" reports The UK Guardian -- places like Denmark and New Zealand -- hmm. Maybe there's a connection. (You'll be relieved to know we're above Somalia.)
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 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | RALEIGH, N.C. — Lists that identify the books, music and movies individual customers bought from online retailer Amazon.com Inc. are protected from North Carolina tax collectors, a federal judge has ruled. Amazon said in a lawsuit it filed in April in its hometown of Seattle that disclosing the names, addresses and purchases of its customers as requested by the North Carolina Revenue Department would harm anyone who may have bought controversial books or movies.
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 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | It turns out that Prospect Park is the perfect place to get your main ingredient for goats head soup. Two days after the gutted carcass and the entrails of an unidentifiable decapitated animal turned up in the park, the head, covered in orange wax, was discovered roughly 100 feet away on Parkside Avenue on Thursday. "I was walking my dog, sending texts on my Blackberry, and then I saw it," said Alex Gurevich, who also first spotted the carcass on two days before. "I thought, 'Man, is that the head?' It's gross."
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 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Hotel Bel-Air has announced its plans to reopen next summer. Now that wasn't such a long, bad sleep, was it? Among all the remodeling, which fortunately didn't involve bringing in a nightlife company, the famous piano bar and restaurant are both undergoing patio-mad extensions. Where will the new additions be? The bar will extend into two outdoor garden "niches," Hospitality.net reports, with a little bit of polish added to the piano and wood-paneled walls inside. So no massive changes within because, let's face it, old people are really uncomfortable with new-fangled additions like i-Pod docks and blaring flat screens.
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 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | SAN FRANCISCO — Several leading Internet travel agencies and search engines are urging U.S. government regulators to block Google from buying a technology supplier that plays an instrumental role in finding the best airline fares. The opponents, led by Expedia Inc., have formed a coalition called FairSearch.org to fight Google Inc.'s proposed $700 million acquisition of ITA Software. Google's deal was announced nearly four months ago.
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 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | DEKALB, Ill. — Human remains found in a park where authorities were looking for a missing Northern Illinois University student were burned beyond recognition, and the case is now being handled as a homicide investigation, police said Tuesday. DeKalb Police Chief Bill Feithen stopped short of saying the remains belong to freshman art major Antinette "Toni" Keller. The 18-year-old was last seen Oct. 14 headed to the heavily wooded park near campus, telling friends she needed to work on an art project.
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 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Wow. This baby is really feeling this prayer service music. Like, really feeling it. On the one hand she's totally adorable. I mean come on, it's a baby! But on the other hand she's slightly disturbing. Is she being moved by the music or a higher power? Is she mimicking someone just out of frame? Is this what indoctrination looks like? We have so many questions, but most importantly: is this cute or creepy? We've rarely seen a video of a baby this adorable be so borderline unnerving at the same time. If anything it's entertaining to watch. Let us know what you think in the comments! (Via Buzzfeed)
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 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Contemplative neuroscientists say that making a habit of meditation can strengthen brain circuits responsible for maintaining concentration and generating empathy.
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 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | The Washington Post reports that NPR received a bomb threat on Monday. Sources told the Post that the bomb threat was sent by mail and was turned over to the FBI and local police. The Post's Paul Farhi writes that, while the letter didn't refer specifically to the controversy surrounding NPR's firing of Juan Williams, "people at NPR, who spoke about it on the condition of anonymity, said the timing and tone suggested it was sent after Williams's widely publicized termination." NPR's decision to fire Williams set off a torrent of criticism from all sides, with many prominent conservatives calling for the network's government funding to be cut off. A staff memo told NPR employees about a general "security threat," but did not go into detail about what the threat was.
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 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | (By MAE ANDERSON and SARAH SKIDMORE, AP/HUFFINGTON POST) NEW YORK -- Barnes & Noble Inc. is introducing a new Nook e-reader with a color touch screen for $249 as competition among e-reader makers heats up ahead of the holidays. The Nookcolor can be used for reading digital books, magazines, newspapers and children's books. It ups the competition for e-readers by including functions common to more expensive tablet computers such as Apple's iPad with features such as games, music, Web browsing and its own application store. It runs on Google Inc.'s Android operating system. Barnes & Noble, which announced the product Tuesday, said it will begin taking orders at its stores on Wednesday and begin shipping in mid-November.
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 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | The Cut caught up with model and HuffPost Game Changer Crystal Renn at last week's Lingerie NY show and Renn shared that she found the latex pasties she had just donned "very sexy." She remarked, "When people wear short skirts and all that, that's not my type of sexy....I must give off some dominatrix-type energy. I'm like, "What is the message people are trying to say by hiring me all the time as the dominatrix?'" Renn also revealed that she doesn't often wear bras or underwear: Being someone who doesn't tend to wear undergarments -- and I'm so sorry for anyone who might be offended by my eccentric ways -- but when I do wear it, I make sure it's a special occasion, and I wear it as a special thing, feeling special, so therefore the effect is stronger than ever. As opposed to every day, feeling the effect. Special times, special measures.
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 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Halloween is now 5 days away. Ghost stories are being told, candy is being eaten early and here at the Huffington Post, we've put together a sampling of hotels TripAdvisor claims are the most haunted in America. While we're dubious about ghosts and goblins, it's still fun to get into that holiday (if you can call it that) spirit.
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 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | As America debated whether an unwitting MoveOn protester's cranium had been "stepped" or "stomped" on -- and we mourned the demise of Paul the Octopus -- November 2nd crept ever closer. The White House announced that Obama will campaign for the belle of the Burt's Bees ball, Tom Perriello. A Republican Ohio House candidate had to pull a campaign spot claiming Mary Jo Kilroy is a terrifying, fire-breathing Monster.com. And the NRSC released a Harry Reid attack ad that doubles as a trailer for Ridley Scott's next project. This is HUFFPOST HILL for Tuesday, October 26th, 2010: PUREED MOVEON PROTESTER COMES FORWARD - Progressives were outraged today after video emerged of a female MoveOn protester at a Rand Paul-Jack Conway debate being subdued by a group of men and then getting the Edward-Norton-at-the-beginning-of-American History-X-treatment. Senior Countenance-Crushing Correspondent Sam Stein: "On Tuesday, Lauren Valle spoke for the first time since being thrust into the center of an alarming campaign fracas. Valle said that she recognized the Paul supporters who went after her and felt frightened almost immediately after they claimed they were there to do 'crowd control.' Her treatment, she said, was 'premeditated.'" http://huff.to/9xoRKe Valle will be a guest on Countdown with Keith Olbermann tonight.
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 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | A federal watchdog reported Monday that the Obama administration's signature anti-foreclosure program sometimes causes people to lose their homes to foreclosure -- a conclusion that had already been reached by some homeowners and their advocates. The Treasury Department, which administers the Home Affordable Modification Program, did not respond to that claim in its answer to the watchdog's report. But a Treasury official told HuffPost on Tuesday that no one who is current on their mortgage payments can become delinquent because of a HAMP modification. Consumer advocates heartily disagree.
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 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | The pros say she is finished as House Speaker, but it's never been wise to bet against her. Perhaps it is gallows humor, but in the final days of an election that could be Nancy Pelosi's undoing the first female Speaker demonstrates characteristic spunk in the face of a GOP media assault on her image:  People say to me, 'Well, it helps them raise money.' It helps me raise money, too. I view this as the highest compliment that they want to take me down.
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| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | GENEVA — Sixty-thousand civilians in Somalia have fled their homes over the past week as fresh fighting between Islamist insurgents and a government-allied militia claimed the lives of at least 10 people, the U.N. refugee agency said Tuesday. Fierce clashes in the southeastern border town of Beled-Hawa have forced thousands to seek refuge in nearby villages, with some crossing into neighboring Kenya in search of safety, said a spokesman for the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees.
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 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | West Virginia Republican Senate candidate John Raese appeared to rip a page out of fellow conservative contender Sharron Angle's playbook on Tuesday when members of the press were restricted from a rally for his campaign in the Mountain State. Angle, who is looking to unseat Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid in Nevada, has developed a reputation for being media shy and has gone to great lengths to avoid taking questions from reporters. This week, HuffPost's Sam Stein reported that the GOP hopeful even relied on a decoy to dodge the press in the Silver State. Raese -- who's facing off against Democratic Gov. Joe Manchin for the Senate seat long held by the late Sen. Robert Byrd -- seems to be running with the Angle campaign media strategy.
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 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | First Lady Michelle Obama continued to cruise around the West Coast on Tuesday, speaking at the Maria Shriver Women's Conference in Long Beach, California. The First Lady of California looked truly ecstatic to see FLOTUS. We would be, too. For the occasion, Michelle donned a Jason Wu dress paired with her Alaia belt and Maria donned deep purple. Take a look at pics from the event and scroll down to read Mrs. Obama's full remarks.
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 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Small business owners are not happy with Democrats, according to two new polls released this week. The Discover Small Business Watch -- a survey of 750 business owners with fewer than five employees -- shows that small business owners' political preferences have shifted right since Obama took office. Fifty-one percent of the small business owners Discover surveyed plan to vote for a Republican in November's mid-term election, compared to 38 percent of small owners who plan to choose a Democrat. In a poll Discover conducted one month before the 2008 elections, small business owners were roughly split between favoring Democrats or Republicans.
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