Tuesday News Bucket

10 Comments

1. 

   CabinGirl on April 10, 2007 at 7:41 am

   of ‘haves’ and ‘have mores’: Houston Chronicle

   U.S. college freshmen are wealthier than at any point in the past 35 years, and the income gap is widening between their families and the rest of the nation, a study indicates.

   This academic year’s entering class came from families with income 60 percent greater than the national median, as tuition increases shut out lower-income students, the Higher Education Research Institute at the University of California, Los Angeles, said in a report Monday. The gap was 46 percent in 1971, according to the study of more than 8 million students over 40 years.

   The findings, based on the biggest and longest-running survey of college students, may buttress criticism from members of Congress over the increasing cost of a college education. Tuition and fees have risen 35 percent so far this decade at public four-year institutions and 11 percent at their private counterparts, the researchers said, citing College Board figures.

   A 35% increase in tuition at public universities in the last 7 years…how much have people’s salaries increased during that same period?  1’m guessing 15% is  probably a little optimisitc.

2. 

   CabinGirl on April 10, 2007 at 7:45 am

   increasingly detached from reality: Guardian

   Sen. John McCain said Monday he would have taken his tour of an Iraqi market last week even if he hadn’t been accompanied by heavily armed U.S. soldiers.

   The Republican presidential hopeful said he would have walked through the Bab al-Sharqi market in Baghdad without the military protection, but the top U.S. commander in Iraq, Gen. David Petraeus, had recommended the armed escort.

   “I’m not notorious for being nervous about going anywhere,” said McCain, R-Ariz. “I’ll gladly go almost anywhere in the world, under any circumstances, but I did respond and do what General Petraeus asked me to do.”

   Note to John:  We already have a crazy man living in a fantasy world in the White House.  Nobody but the right-wing extremists wants another one.

3. 

   CabinGirl on April 10, 2007 at 8:03 am

   via feministing

   In a recent TIME magazine article about the pro-choice movement in Mexico, writer Tim Padgett writes that the morning-after pill causes abortions:

       As a result, Chilean President Michelle Bachelet, a socialist, late last year sanctioned the free distribution of abortion-inducing “morning-after” contraception pills at government-run hospitals.

   Problem is, it doesn’t. Emergency contraception is not abortion and will not cause an abortion.

   Please, please, please write a letter to the editor and demand a correction–just go to the article and click on the author’s name.  

   If you have time, and you’re sick of Plan B being mischaracterized, please go to the linked article and shoot TIME an email.

   • 

     chocolate ink on April 10, 2007 at 2:51 pm

     I’m really glad I dropped my Time subscription after they had the Coultergist on the cover-quite awhile ago. I don’t think reporters even know what that word reporting means anymore…as Joe Friday says, ‘Just the facts, Mam’.

     I simply don’t trust anything I read anymore unless it’s here on the net and has links to prove what someone is writing or posting.

     • 

       CabinGirl on April 10, 2007 at 3:52 pm

       It seems like you’d do a smidgen of background research on what you’re writing about for TIME magazine, but then, what do I know?

       I’ve never subscribed to TIME, and I’m glad.

4. 

   Oui on April 10, 2007 at 1:58 pm

   .

   4 Serbs convicted in Srebrenica deaths

   BELGRADE, Serbia (CNN/AP) April 10 – Four paramilitaries seen in a video gunning down Bosnian Muslims near Srebrenica in 1995 were convicted of war crimes against civilians by Serbia’s War Crimes Court.

   It was the country’s first court ruling related to the systematic killings of up to 8,000 Muslim men and boys in Srebrenica in the final months of the 1992-95 war in Bosnia — Europe’s worst atrocity since World War II.

   Trials of Serbs in Serbia have only become possible since the 2000 ouster of President Slobodan Milosevic, and the Srebrenica case has been a key test of the ability of Serbia’s judiciary to deal with wartime atrocities.

   The four Serbs found guilty were seen in a video that surfaced in June 2005 when it was shown at the war crimes trial of Milosevic before the U.N. tribunal for the former Yugoslavia.

   The video shows members of a notorious Serbia paramilitary unit known as the Scorpions.

   The unit’s commander, Slobodan Medic, and a fellow paramilitary were each sentenced to 20 years in prison — the maximum sentence possible — while the only defendant who admitted to shooting the victims, Pero Petrasevic, was sentenced to 13 years in prison. Another Scorpions member, accused as an accomplice, was sentenced to five years in jail, while a fifth was cleared.

   "But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."

   • 

     CabinGirl on April 10, 2007 at 3:50 pm

     Twelve years after the fact…Does this mean justice for war criminals just isn’t that important in Serbia?

     • 

       Oui on April 10, 2007 at 5:29 pm

       .
       On all former states within Yugoslavia to convict suspects of war crimes.

       ICTY prosecutor calls for EU pressure on Croatia, Serbia on war crimes suspects

       "But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."

5. 

   Oui on April 10, 2007 at 2:22 pm

   .

   Iran planning documentary on sailor “confessions”

   TEHRAN, Iran (WaPo/Reuters) April 10 – Iran’s armed forces are preparing to release a documentary and book about the detention and “confessions” of 15 British sailors and marines held captive in Iran, a military commander said.

   “A documentary about their arrest, interrogation and confessions … is being prepared and soon it will hit the market,” Commander Alireza Afshar, cited as deputy for “defence propaganda,” said in a faxed statement.

   …
   The 14 servicemen and one woman said in a statement given at an official news conference after their return to England they had been blindfolded, bound, kept in isolation and threatened with up to seven years in jail.

   Iran has dismissed the news conference as “propaganda.”

   “Instead of thanking and welcoming the Islamic Republic for its clemency in pardoning the sailors, the childish staged theatre … once more displayed Britain’s aggressive habit,” Afshar said.

   ≈ Cross-posted from my diary — U.K. Bans Military From Talking to Media for Cash ≈

   "But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."

6. 

   on April 10, 2007 at 8:24 pm

   Here’s a link I found at Huffington Post: Impeach Bush for Peace
   This Web site evidently represents the line of thought that Booman has been advocating.

   Representatives Want To Know From Their Constituents: Is it Time for Impeachment of Bush & Cheney? Act Now!

   Last Monday Rep. Danny Davis (D-IL 7th) stated to Pledge to Impeach spokesman Anthony St. Martin and independent reporter Jay Marx that though he currently defers to “leadership” on the issue of impeachment he would be compelled to represent his constituency if a Citizen’s Petition calling for the impeachment of George W. Bush came from his district. When word of Rep. Davis’ willingness to part from leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA 8th)’s insistence that impeachment be “off the table” was relayed to Rep. Diane Watson (D-CA 33rd)’s Chief of Staff, Jim Clarke, Mr. Clarke replied, also guardedly, but with certainty, that Rep. Watson would also represent such a petition coming from her constituency. Clarke even went as far as speaking for Rep. Conyers (D-MI 14th), who he said would respond similarly to such a petition if it arrived with at least 1% of the district’s support. In other words, impeachment is just 6,500 petition signatures away from the floor of Congress.

   It must be conveyed here, that Mr. St. Martin observed a prevailing tension or even fear in the eyes of some who work in the House Office Buildings. His feeling that those Members opposed to this administration have been locked up and suppressed to the point that they find no sense to bringing their own bill for impeachment, only to be defeated and further isolated, or worse. However, the statements of Mr. Davis and Clarke can be seen as a plea for help; that if given the chance to bring a citizen’s petition, these Members could claim that they have no choice but to fulfill their duty of office and bring it to the floor. As ironic as it may seem, WE must not let THEM down.