What's Wrong With This Woman?

Of course it's a trick question.

So what is wrong with the appearance of Victoria Secrets model Selita Ebanks to the right? Well according to Victoria Secrets, a lot. Below is the list of changes they made to her image before they used it to sell clothes in the picture below:

• Face completely recolored
• Mouth digitally enhanced - brightened teeth
• Eyes digitally enhanced - lightened eye color
• Right arm recolored and arm flab reduced -- see right above the elbow
• Chest digitally enhanced by a cup size and nipples removed

See the interesting and rather technical analysis on the Secure Computing blog. As they say at Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) and Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (PCAOB) meetings, there is no accounting for tastes.

This puts the success of the Avatar movie in a whole new light. Which reminds me, I wanted to blog about why napalm was apparently no longer available in the year 2154.

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Seal Not The Same -- U2 fans Go Clubbing

Enraged U2 Fans Protest Supposed Ticket Snafu

[AP-BHO Newswire] -- Ontario Canada

For U2 fans arriving at Ticket Master offices in Ontario, it was a not so beautiful day. Not when they were notified that their concert tickets had been 'upgraded' to Seal concert tickets instead. What followed after can either be considered a testament to the intensity of the band's fans or an appalling example of an overreaction, especially to marine mammal lovers.

Here is what is known to date, based on the company's press release and off-the-record interviews with some employees. While printing out the the U2 concert tickets last week, Ticket Master ran run out of recycled paper and had to stop the printing, as per mandates based on Copenhagen guidelines. At that point, a faction of new employees, all apparently formerly employed with ACORN -- the organization which helped elect Barak Obama and which are rumored to be in Canada to avoid prosecution in the U.S. -- began contacting local community activists to determine why they were not being allowed to print concert tickets for non-white artists. What followed next is not clear. Either a lower-level executive panicked or the ACORN-istas acted on their own, either way, the U2 tickets were 'upgraded' to a Seal concert event when the printing resumed.

The response from U2 fans was swift and entirely within the Canadian Marine Mammal Regulations pursuant to Seal Hunts, in that "only high-powered rifles, shotguns firing slugs, clubs or hakapiks" were used in the ongoing protest. The protesters threatened, and have delivered, a dead adult seal every day to the Ticket Master offices until they are given the U2 tickets they actually purchased.

Ticket Master officials are meeting to determine how to respond. Initial efforts to placate the U2 protesters with free flash drives which contained non-restricted MP3's of Seal's hit single "Kiss from a Rose" were unsuccessful. The protesters responded by blasting a little known U2 tune through their car stereos, 'Happiness Is A Warm Gun' and by attaching a note containing a lyric from that song, "I need a fix cause I'm going down" to the 2 seals delivered since then.

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Tuning Out, But Not Turning Away

I heard it twice on the radio before I really heard it. Twin sisters and a six year girl old were gunned own on Thanksgiving by their own brother. This is why I don't watch local TV news anymore. Reading about the tragedy seems more appropriate -- in that it lends itself to more reflection -- than the creepy 'excitement' that permeates TV coverage of these type of tragedies.

So I try and not watch the coverage, not because I am shocked that people are capable of terrible acts, but because I always seem to be shocked when people commit terrible acts. Better to pray for the victims. My Catholic faith teaches me to pray for the perpetrator as well, but frankly, I never seem to get to the evil-doers.

The resumé of the poor family involved is instructive in that they touched so many key places in our community. Which Miamian could feel impervious based on the following list:

• Our Lady of Lebanon Eastern Catholic Church
• Miami-Dade County Courthouse
• Miami-Dade Guardian-ad-Litem Program
• University of Miami
• Florida International University
• Gulliver Prep Academy
  
• Our Lady of Lourdes Academy
• Epiphany Catholic School

Today's paper brought the final roundhouse blow of the tragedy; This wasn't the first murder spree in this family. Back in 1973:

The twins' aunt -- Salwa Merrige-Abrams, a well-known opera singer and the sister of Michael Merhige, who is father of the twins and the suspected shooter -- killed her husband and two children at her home in Miami.

So what is the Christian response to living with the evil which is always amongst us, even when it does not shock us during Thanksgiving? C.S. Lewis' thoughts:

Now is our chance to choose the right side. God is holding back to give us that chance. It won't last forever. We must take it or leave it.

If you choose God, pray that your actions reflect your choice.

Articles referenced are copied in full at end of post.

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Singing sisters silenced forever in Thanksgiving tragedy
Posted on Fri, Nov. 27, 2009
BY CAROL MARBIN MILLER AND JENNIFER LEBOVICH
jlebovich@MiamiHerald.com

Police are searching for Paul Michael Merhige in connections with a shooting that left four people dead on Thursday night in Jupiter.

Two years ago, twin sisters Carla Merhige and Lisa Knight volunteered at Miami's juvenile lockup, singing as a duet in front of dozens of troubled girls during Christmas.

Lisa, with her country twang, and Carla, with the more soulful voice, performed before scores of girls who were awaiting trial.

On Thursday, the voices of the two 33-year-old women were silenced forever.

Police say their brother, Paul Michael Merhige, gunned them down, also killing two other relatives -- his aunt, 76-year-old Raymonde Joseph, and 6-year-old Makayla Sitton -- at a family Thanksgiving gathering in Palm Beach County. Injured were two others, including Lisa's husband, Patrick Knight, 37. Authorities said Lisa Knight was pregnant. The motive was unclear.

Police fanned out across South Florida in search of Merhige late into the night Friday. Merhige, 35, who lived in Kendall, had fled in a blue 2007 Toyota Camry.

Little is known about him, though friends said Lisa Knight often spoke about her brother and the wonderful times they had together as kids. He graduated from Gulliver Prep and the University of Miami.

On Friday, friends of both women -- who had been born and raised in Miami -- mourned the violent end to their lives, filling the Facebook walls of the sisters with condolences.

The twins were ``inseparable,'' speaking on the phone several times daily, spending holidays together and going on joint family vacations, said Sonia Ferrer, the director of Miami-Dade's Guardian-ad-Litem Program, where Carla worked.

``They each made each other whole,'' Ferrer said. ``Carla was very proud of her sister's accomplishments, and her sister was very proud of Carla.''

Said Miami-Dade Circuit Judge Cindy Lederman, who helped arrange the holiday season concerts: ``[Singing] was a gift they had, and they shared it with everyone -- especially the children. I never saw the two sisters without a smile.''

``They were the loveliest human beings you ever could meet,'' Lederman said. ``This is so sad.''

The sisters had ``angelic'' voices, often singing at courthouse holiday parties. They also sang at their church, Our Lady of Lebanon on Coral Way, and at funerals, weddings and other occasions, friends said.

The sisters went to Epiphany Catholic School -- where they sang duets in elementary school talent shows -- and then Our Lady of Lourdes Academy.

Lisa graduated from the University of Miami, where she later got an MBA; Carla from Florida International University.

Lisa Knight left a job at the Miami-Dade County courthouse a few years ago to work with her mother at Coldwell Banker in Pinecrest. She was remembered as a devoted friend, who always had time for others and was knowledgeable beyond her years.

``If you wanted advice she'd always have an ear for you to talk and basically be a friend,'' said Miguel Arellano, a real estate agent at Coldwell Banker. ``She always had wonderful advice for people. She was very caring and loving.''

Her husband, Patrick Knight, is a litigation attorney and motivational speaker.

Colleagues of Carla Merhige, a children's advocate who spent nine years at the guardian's office and recently started a new assignment working with adolescents aging out of the foster care system, described her as dedicated to children and families -- and a wonderful co-worker.

On Wednesday, Ferrer said, Merhige worked late into the evening to make sure that a Thanksgiving donation from the mayor of Doral got to 35 needy families in time for the holiday.

``She didn't want to impose any anybody else, but she wanted to make sure the families got what they needed,'' Ferrer said.

Kadie Black, legislative affairs director for Our Kids, Miami's private foster care agency, knew Merhige for years because Black -- whose mom, Joni Goodman, was then the guardian program's director -- virtually grew up around children's advocates and volunteers.

When Goodman was given a national guardian-ad-litem award in Washington last year, Merhige insisted on traveling to the capital -- paying her own way -- to share in Goodman's joy, Black said.

``She was just loved by everybody,'' Black said. ``Every time she was around people, she was just contagious -- her smile, her willingness to go above and beyond. She was a very special person.''

The past few years, Merhige sang at Our Kids' annual Adoption Day celebration, in which juvenile court judges formalized scores of adoptions, clearing the way for Miami-area children to begin new lives with permanent families.

``Carla was amazing,'' said Fran Allegra, Our Kids' executive director, who added Merhige offered to sing because she wanted to ``be a part'' of something special.

The sisters were close in good times and bad.

Lisa comforted Carla after her fiancé died suddenly of an aneurysm two years ago, Black said, and Carla was still recovering from the loss.

For months after her fiancé's death, Lederman said, Carla could no longer sing. But slowly, she regained her voice, and was back on stage again, holding her sister's hand.

The sisters were connected ``physically, emotionally, in every which way,'' said Miami-Dade Court administrator Ruben Carrerou, who hired Lisa Knight several years ago to be his executive assistant. Her death was ``like losing a daughter.''

Said Ferrer of Miami-Dade's Guardian-ad-Litem Program: ``They both came into the world together, and they left together.''

The Palm Beach Post contributed to this report.
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Violent deaths mar Merhige family history
Posted on Sat, Nov. 28, 2009
BY ELINOR J. BRECHER
ebrecher@MiamiHerald.com

The Thanksgiving Day tragedy in Palm Beach County bears an eerie similarity to a prior violent episode in the Merhige family.

In July 1973, the twins' aunt -- Salwa Merrige-Abrams, a well-known opera singer and the sister of Michael Merhige, who is father of the twins and the suspected shooter -- killed her husband and two children at her home in Miami.

The mezzo soprano -- who gave up a high-profile career to raise her children -- died five days later, at 43, of a drug overdose.

It happened one day after Merrige-Abrams, a Brooklynite who Anglicized the family's Syrian name, and James Abrams, 45, a National Airlines pilot, had been in court for a final divorce hearing.

She shot him, daughter Melissa Ann, 10, and son Jack, 14, with a .38 caliber revolver.

The Abrams' 19-year marriage broke up after Jim had an affair with a flight attendant, fell in love and moved out.

Retired Miami police officer Lloyd Hough, sole investigator on the 1973 murders, came to know Michael Merhige well at the time.

He recognized him in television coverage of Thursday's events.

"They're a super-nice family,'' Hough said. "It's the same family.''

He recalled that Jim Abrams came to his ex-wife's house, in the 5400 block of Southwest 60th Court, after she called saying she needed to see him.

Before he got there, she put the children and their poodle mix into her car. A stereo blared.

As Abrams lit a cigarette in the master bedroom, his ex-wife shot him four times in the chest.

She then called Jack into the house and emptied the gun into his body, reloaded, brought Melissa Ann into a different room and shot her.

She again reloaded, said Hough, then swallowed a handful of barbiturates and lapsed into a coma.

Police found her on the living room floor near her piano. She later died at South Miami Hospital.

The dog was still in the car when Hough arrived at the house, a detail that helped him figure out how Salwa managed to kill three people in 10 minutes.
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Rubio and Barzini: It Was Them All Along

How good are things going for Marco Rubio? He was on the cover of National Review. George Will even explained why he thinks Rubio will win. He is raising money as if this were 2008 and his initials were B and O [i.e. many small donors], including a check between $24 and $26 from this blogger [emphasis on the small]. He recently received the endorsement of the pro-business lobby, Club for Growth.

Finally, a St. Petersburg Times article, which was picked up by the Miami Herald, addressed, from a skeptical perspective, just how conservative he really is. Read for yourself [click on read more below], but my biased take on the article is that Rubio comes across as not being as ideological as you would think based on what his campaign sounds like at this stage.

In a word, the article is priceless for the Rubio campaign. See ya gotta understand, the Achilles heal for any conservative candidate is whether they will be too ideological, unreasonable or unbending. Yet read the types of things being said of Rubio's tenure as Florida's Speaker of the House:

Rubio consistently presented smaller budgets than the governor and the Senate. But he also spent eight years casting votes and cutting deals that reflect the reality of the legislative process: hard-line ideology rarely triumphs over compromise.
...
Nobody who served with Rubio in the Legislature would call him a squishy moderate, and he consistently brandished the conservative label even as he espoused a more inclusive House -- a promise Democrats say he did not entirely live up to.
...
Time and again, Rubio's big ideas lost out to the Senate, showing the limits of his influence even as he got credit for pushing the debate.

"We always let them take the role of the `upper house,'" said former Rep. Don Brown, among the most conservative members of the Legislature who opposed Rubio by voting against the bill to expand Citizens insurance. As a result, Brown and another dissenter were forced from their leadership positions.

But Brown does not fault Rubio (he supports him over Crist) and says the young speaker merely met the reality of the process.

"To get some piece of the pie, you have to give in or else you get absolutely nothing and you're accused of being an obstructionist," Brown said. "There's a lot of pressure on those in that leadership position."

As if all this wasn't enough, Rubio is sitting on an endorsement by Mr Florida Republican himself, Jeb Bush, to be brandished, like the sword in the article, only when necessary.

Poor Charlie Crist, he probably still thinks it was Tattaglia. Independents for Crist's Sake? Can't you see it coming?

Article referenced is copied in full at end of post.

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How conservative is Senate candidate Marco Rubio?
BY ADAM C. SMITH AND ALEX LEARY
St. Petersburg Times
Posted on Sun, Nov. 08, 2009

Republican U.S. Senate candidate Marco Rubio is emerging as the champion of activists fed up with Republicans who don't stay true to conservative principles.

But if those turning against Gov. Charlie Crist are looking for a pure, uncompromising conservative, Rubio's legislative record might give them pause.

``He was a big disappointment to us when he was the speaker,'' said NRA lobbyist Marion Hammer, who saw Rubio do little to help pass a bill allowing employees to take guns to work. ``He talked the talk, but he didn't walk the walk.''

As speaker of the House, Rubio consistently presented smaller budgets than the governor and the Senate. But he also spent eight years casting votes and cutting deals that reflect the reality of the legislative process: hard-line ideology rarely triumphs over compromise.

The 38-year-old campaigning as an authentic, from-the-gut conservative is the same person who spent tens of thousands of dollars to test political messages on focus groups, gave out big staff salaries and, like Crist, favored a $60 million subsidy for a new Florida Marlins stadium.

Rubio says he knew nothing about it, but his handpicked budget chief, Ray Sansom, was able to funnel $35 million to a Panhandle college -- actions that led to a grand jury indictment against Sansom.

The candidate Rubio rails against big-government spending and assures voters that as a senator he won't slip earmarks into the federal budget. As speaker, however, he didn't mind a state budget with $800,000 tucked away for artificial turf on Miami-Dade fields where he played flag football.

The turf (listed as a juvenile crime prevention initiative) was among $50 million in pork targeted to the speaker's home county and more than $400 million in projects and initiatives that Crist vetoed in 2007.

``He may be a conservative in his rhetoric, but when you look at his record in what he has supported and what he has voted on in the past, he is definitely not the conservative he portrays himself to be,'' said state Sen. Mike Fasano, R-New Port Richey, a Crist supporter.

In a 2002 speech on the House floor, Fasano thundered against a measure introduced by Rubio that asked voters to allow a panel of legislators to review every sales tax exemption with an eye toward repealing them.

That bill was part of a horse-trading deal that ensured then-Senate President John McKay would see sales tax reviews and then-House Speaker Tom Feeney would have a congressional seat carved out for him. A legal challenge ultimately stripped the proposal from the ballot, and Rubio said it merely asked voters to give legislators authority they already had.

`LIMITED GOVERNMENT'

Rubio, who was speaker during the 2007 and 2008 sessions, said he understands people will probably find things to attack among thousands of votes he has taken but stands proudly behind the overall record.

``In life, as in policy, things don't always fit into neat little boxes, but overwhelmingly I have a record that testifies to a commitment to limited government,'' he said. ``And certainly someone you can rely on to go to Washington and stand up to the Obama agenda -- unlike my opponent.''

Still, Rubio voted for some of the same measures for which he now criticizes Crist.

• He criticizes the governor for expanding Citizens Property Insurance Corp., Florida's government-run property insurer, though he voted to do just that. ``The bill had a lot of other things in it that were good for Florida,'' Rubio said.

• He bashes Crist for pushing a cap-and-trade program to lower greenhouse emissions, but Rubio voted for the bill that specifically declared that the Legislature wants the state to pursue market-based strategies such as cap-and-trade.

Rubio notes the bill placed legislative controls on the governor's environmental agenda, but Jerry Karnas of the Environmental Defense Fund called Rubio's recent cap-and-trade rhetoric a ``total reversal'' from his position as House speaker.

``He seemed much more moderate, more forward-thinking,'' agreed Susan Glickman of the Natural Resources Defense Council. ``There's definitely some posturing going on now.''

• Rubio has criticized Crist for seeking a gambling accord with the Seminole Tribe of Florida. But a House speaker can kill any legislation he wishes, and Rubio stood by as his chamber pursued the largest expansion of gambling in more than 15 years. (And he took some industry contributions, though he said it had no influence.)

``I voted against the bills that ultimately passed. . . . There are limits to what a speaker can and should do,'' said Rubio, whose top deputy and close friend Rep. David Rivera went on to run a campaign to expand gambling in Miami-Dade County.

• As a candidate, Rubio talks about securing the nation's borders and says he does not support amnesty for the millions of illegal immigrants already in the country.

But as the first Cuban-American speaker of the Florida House, he came across as more moderate and understanding of the nuances of the issue. During Rubio's final year as speaker, there were at least six bills intended to crack down on illegal immigrants. Not one made it to a vote.

``He's all of a sudden saying, `I've seen the light and I had nothing to do with those bills,' '' said Bill Landes, director of the Florida Minuteman Civil Defense Corps. ``But the real truth is it was him (and other South Florida lawmakers) who helped keep those bills in committee. He's saying what the people want to hear to get elected.''

PRIVATE DINING ROOM

Rubio's fiscal conservatism was called into question as soon as he assumed the role of speaker. He spent hundreds of thousands on renovations, including a private dining room for lawmakers, hired the highest-paid spokesman in state government (one with no state government experience) and added more than 20 jobs, including a parliamentarian earning nearly $134,000.

``Our goal is to make the Florida House the host for the most vibrant competition of ideas in the entire nation,'' Rubio said at the time, noting the renovations were less than some past speakers made. ``In order to accomplish this, we felt we had to provide our members with the most talented and experienced staff possible.''

Nobody who served with Rubio in the Legislature would call him a squishy moderate, and he consistently brandished the conservative label even as he espoused a more inclusive House -- a promise Democrats say he did not entirely live up to.

``You can't be popular and lead,'' Rubio said early in his term as speaker.

It sounds like something Jeb Bush would say. Indeed, Bush anointed Rubio as his ideological heir in 2005 by giving him an ancient Chinese sword in a ceremony in the House chamber. Rubio kept the sword his office, a reminder to stay true to conservative values.

Rubio's biggest test as speaker would come as the soaring Florida housing market caused property taxes to increase sharply, swelling local government coffers. Rubio played the issue masterfully, offering a ``tax swap'' proposal that cast him as a bold thinker and using speaking engagements across the state to cultivate name ID and generate news coverage.

The tax swap called for increasing the sales tax rate by 2.5 percent while eliminating property taxes on primary homes.

The hot-button issue afforded Rubio his first and strongest platform to draw a distinction with Crist, who pushed more populist ideas such as doubling the homestead exemption.

Yet, in the end, Rubio acquiesced to Crist and the more cautious Senate, which rejected his plan as a $9 billion tax increase, despite greater property tax savings.

``The poor are going to get poorer and the rich are going to get richer,'' former Sen. Dan Webster, a conservative icon, said at the time. He flatly refused the idea. ``I'm not into raising taxes. They are.''

By they, he meant Rubio, who hammered away at the idea to the private discomfort of some House Republicans.

Time and again, Rubio's big ideas lost out to the Senate, showing the limits of his influence even as he got credit for pushing the debate.

``We always let them take the role of the `upper house,' '' said former Rep. Don Brown, among the most conservative members of the Legislature who opposed Rubio by voting against the bill to expand Citizens insurance. As a result, Brown and another dissenter were forced from their leadership positions.

But Brown does not fault Rubio (he supports him over Crist) and says the young speaker merely met the reality of the process.

``To get some piece of the pie, you have to give in or else you get absolutely nothing and you're accused of being an obstructionist,'' Brown said. ``There's a lot of pressure on those in that leadership position.''

Miami Herald reporter Beth Reinhard contributed to this report. Adam C. Smith can be reached at asmith@sptimes.com.
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Barak Obama: He's Just Not That Into Us

Us being Americans.

President Obama's first reaction to the Ft Hood shooting was to caution Americans "against jumping to conclusions." Does this guy ever have a reaction where he defends America with something other than tepidness? Please don't include Afghanistan as an example, he was outmaneuvered by the military on that one, properly calculating that he had less desire to fight them than the Taliban.

Sorry but a heavily armed Muslim shooting -- while shouting 'Allahu Akbar' (God is great) -- unarmed innocents means we don't need to 'jump' to anything, it's already there. Our government needs to inform us of the who, what and where? The why we can figure out for ourselves, without his Hyde Park sensibilities. Here's the one conclusion President Obama really wants us to avoid: We are still in a war against Islamofascism.

Along the lines of 'not jumping to conclusions,' Bernard Glodberg's blog makes an interesting point about how this story would have been covered if the evil-doer had a different profile:

I got an email from a journalist friend this morning, about the big news of the day, the massacre at Fort Hood in Texas. Here’s what it said:

“While the mainstream media is busy downplaying the shooter’s religion, just think if an O’Reilly or Goldberg book was found in his home or, God forbid, there was a talk station pre-set on his car radio or he once knew a guy who had a cousin who attended a tea party. There would be endless, mindless speculation and convoluted banner headlines about [how] the evil right-wing is sowing hatred and inspiring death.”

He’s right, of course. A lone gunman kills a late term abortion doctor in Kansas and if you watched liberal television or read liberal papers you’d think Bill O’Reilly pulled the trigger. When Timothy McVeigh blew up the Federal Building in Oklahoma City, liberals blamed conservative talking radio for fomenting an anti-government frenzy. Now we have another catastrophe, but this one is a tad inconvenient for liberals in the media. It turns out the gunman was a Muslim. Uh Oh!

This particular Muslim was a psychiatrist in the United States Army, whose name appears on comments posted on a radical Muslim Web site waxing favorably about suicide bombings; and who allegedly told a friend — as a retired army colonel told Fox News — that, “Muslims had a right to rise up and attack Americans in Iraq and Afghanistan.” So, what’s the storyline? Muslim fundamentalism? Try, Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome.

You see the media don’t want to jump to any conclusions in this case, especially when they’re politically incorrect conclusions. But they’d jump to conclusions, wouldn’t they, if a white guy with a crew cut and overalls from the rural south walked into a local NAACP office and shot up the place. They’d conclude the guy was a racist. And they’d almost certainly be right. With the Fort Hood story there was sound reason to suspect the killer’s religion played a part in the massacre, and all we got was drivel about how stressed out soldiers are these days.

Finally John Podhoretz deconstructs the absurdity of the politically correct nonsense about stress:

Can it really be that anybody seriously believed a career Army psychiatrist would deal with the “stress” of his own deployment to a war he opposes by opening fire and shooting 43 people? Evidently, the answer is yes, as Noah Pollak and others have noted. This is a particular American madness, as far as I can tell, the invocation of ludicrous pop psychology to explain acts that can only properly be described as evil. Recall the case of Paula Yates, the Texas mother who murdered her five children? Before the world could even spend a moment mourning the children, Paula Yates herself was turned into a Rorschach test—of the perils of having too many children, of a traditional marriage, of postpartum depression. The problem is that tens of millions of women go through the same experiences and do not murder their children. Yates represented nothing but, at best, psychosis and, at worst, the face of pure evil.

And so it is with Nadal Hasan. Obviously, there are a great many people in the military who would rather not be deployed to a war zone; for whom such deployments cause stress; and who may indeed be philosophically opposed to the fight they are obliged as a matter of law and duty to wage. Let’s say, just for the sake of argument, that there are 10,000 such people. Only one has actually taken a machine gun and mowed down his fellow soldiers. The argument that Nadal Hasan was somehow sent round the bend by his orders is not only bizarre but also deeply and profoundly insulting to those in the military who live with all the same pressures and do good rather than evil.

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How You Give

Our favorite ethernet homilies come courtesy of Fr Vallee. His latest homily, on giving, explains why how you give matters more than what you give:

I got a call from Msgr Delaney, he was my pastor at Holy Family where I had grown up. Msgr was calling to tell me that Fr. Lenny Boucher had died. Fr. Lenny was the old French priest at Holy Family. Msgr. Delaney especially wanted to give me father’s little kit for anointing the sick. Along with the oils and things there was a thick little black book. It was Father’s communion log. In small neat little rows, there were thousands of names. Right up until just before he died, he was still going out many times a week. It was extraordinary the list just went on and on people from all over and at all times of the day and night. There was however one thing that was strange. Beside some but not all of the names there were three little letters “LIB.” I couldn’t figure out what it meant. When Father Marcel saw the letters, he started to softly cry. I said, “Father, what is it?” He said, “Robert, did you notice when most of those LIBS show up?” I said, “Well, most of them are in the middle of the night.”

IV. Libentur
Father, then told me that in the old ordination ritual in Latin. The priest makes five promises to serve God’s people and Christ’s church. The last promise is: Do you swear to minister the body and blood of Christ to the people and to do so, libentur? Like our English word, liberty, libentur means freely. Every time Fr Lenny had a very late or a difficult call to make, he would recall the passion of his youth, he would recall that he had promised to do this thing freely, with a free heart, with generosity.

Click on 'Read more!' below to see his entire homily at the end of this post. If you want to read more homilies by Fr Vallee, just enter 'Vallee' in the search box in the upper right corner.

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Fr Vallee 11/08/09 Homily
I. Widow mite
The meaning of the widow’s mite story is, I think, simply this: It does not matter what you give or how much you give. What matters, all that matters, is how you give. The widow gave freely, with an open heart and that is what matters.

II. The phone at St. Mary’s
My first assignment was at St. Mary’s Cathedral here in Miami. I loved the Cathedral and the people there. In fact I still have a warm spot in my heart for them. I guess for a priest that a first parish is sort of like a first love or a first kiss. Anyhow, there was one thing about the Cathedral that really annoyed me. I was the young associate and, for one reason or another, no one else ever seem to answer the phone at night. I came to hate the sound of Merlin telephone. To this day, the sound of that telephone makes me edgy and nervous. After a while, it affected the way I saw the other priests as well. I would be up all night answering the phone and when I came down from breakfast I would fantasy about ways to kill them all with warm milk and corn flakes.

III. Fr Lenny’s mass kit and communion log
Anyhow this went on for about six months and I was getting more and more angry. About that time, I got a call from Msgr Delaney, he was my pastor at Holy Family where I had grown up. Msgr was calling to tell me that Fr. Lenny Boucher had died. Fr. Lenny was the old French priest at Holy Family. He had worked for many years in Haiti until he was thrown out by the government. Msgr was distributing Fr. Boucher’s things being that he had no family left. Msgr. Delaney especially wanted to give me father’s little kit for anointing the sick. Along with the oils and things there was a thick little black book. It was Father’s communion log. In small neat little rows, there were thousands of names. Right up until just before he died, he was still going out many times a week.. As I paged back in the book, I found the name of my own Zio who Fr. Lenny had visited many times. It was extraordinary the list just went on and on people from all over and at all times of the day and night. There was however one thing that was strange. Beside some but not all of the names there were three little letters “LIB.” I couldn’t figure out what it meant. I asked Monsignor Delaney and he, too, did not know. When I got back the Cathedral, I showed the book to Fr. Marcel Peloquin. He was an old French priest who had worked for many years with Fr Boucher in Haiti and had studied with him in seminary. When Father Marcel saw the letters, he started to softly cry. I said, “Father, what is it?” He said, “Robert, did you notice when most of those LIBS show up?” I said, “Well, most of them are in the middle of the night.”

IV. Libentur
Father, then told me that in the old ordination ritual in Latin. The priest makes five promises to serve God’s people and Christ’s church. The last promise is: Do you swear to minister the body and blood of Christ to the people and to do so, libentur? Like our English word, liberty, libentur means freely. Every time Fr Lenny had a very late or a difficult call to make, he would recall the passion of his youth, he would recall that he had promised to do this thing freely, with a free heart, with generosity. And if he couldn’t do it that way, it was not worth doing at all. I went back to my room and turned my phone off. From then on, I would only turn to on when I was on duty. You see letting myself become an angry and bitter little martyr was not helping any one, not me, not the people and not Christ.

Conclusion
What matters is not what you give or how much you give. What matters is how you give. What you cannot or do not give libentur, with a free heart is not worth giving at all. The widow goes home justified because she gave freely, generously, with an open heart.
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Yoani Sanchez: Solzhenitsyn-LikeChronicler of Communist Abuse

Cuban blogger Yoani Sanchez was beaten up by yesterday by thugs from the Cuban government. Hopefully, even bloggers outside of Miami will find reason to call attention to this latest abuse by the Cuban government.

Thanks to friend of the blog *Jose Garcia and my favorite and ever-vigilant blogs Babalu and the 26th Parallel for keeping me up to date on what's happening with Ms Sanchez.

I was reading Norman Podhoretz writing about Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn and could not help but draw the comparison to Ms Sanchez. I do not mean to compare literary talents, which I am uniquely unqualified to attempt, but rather the courage and tenacity to document Communist abuse while still subject to their retributions. The following quotes from Podhoretz's book made me think that Ms Sanchez could relate more than a little to Solzhenitsyn:

Podhoretz on Solzhenitsyn:

In the Gulag, even on those rare occasions when pen and paper were available, to write was literally to risk one's life or at the very least to court more severe conditions and longer sentences. Yet even under those circumstances Solzhenitsyn went on writing, in his head if not on paper, and in verse rather than prose because verse was easier to memorize. In eight years he committed tens of thousands of lines to memory, and it was only after his release that he was able to transcribe them and even then only in secret.

Solzhenitsyn quote highlighted by Podhoretz:

... I did not belong to myself alone, that my literary destiny was not just my own, but that of the millions who had not lived to scrawl or gasp or croak the truth about their lot as jail birds ... I, who had returned from the world that never gives up on its dead, had no right to swear loyalty to [anything else].

Solzhenitsyn passed away in August of 2008. In my post at the time, I noted that it was wrong of the New York Times to have said nothing of his faith in a 5,800 word obituary. Here is Podhoretz's opinion on how Solzhenitsyn viewed his own faith:

There can be no doubt that Solzhenitsyn in retrospect has come to view himself as an instrument of the will of God ... unbeknownst to himself, he was appointed to rescue from oblivion "the millions done to death" in the Gulag. It was for this purpose that he was sent to the Gulag himself.

* - That really is his name, not some generic Hispanic name I used to hide someone's identity. See I actually have friends of the blog named Garcia, Perez and Rodriguez. It's like living in Wichita having your best friends be named Jones, Smith and Taylor. Freaky man.

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Self-Censorship and the FIU Basketball Coach

There is something very strange going on with the local newspaper reporting about Isiah Thomas. Yesterday there was a nice profile of Isiah Thomas in the Palm Beach Post and I had read earlier ones in the Miami Herald.

Those articles disclosed that Thomas was fired from the New York Knicks and that there was a sexual harassment lawsuit brought against the franchise due to his actions. In the articles, the tone of Thomas's comments about his 'disgraced stint' with the Knicks [you don't want to know about the CBA] was matter of fact, 'hey, it just didn't work out, trial was a pain, stuff happens' etc. Unless Thomas has picked up Jedi-mind skills, how could any reference to what happened to Thomas in New York completely avoid the pink elephant? Here is what Thomas avoided or they did not print, at least in these recent articles; One year ago Isiah Thomas overdosed on sleeping pills and then attempted to cover it up by blaming it on his daughter.

His efforts to divert attention [lying] might have been successful, but unfortunately for Thomas, the local police chief was not on board. This from a NY Times article last October:

Isiah Thomas, the former Knicks president and head coach, was taken from his Westchester County home by ambulance and hospitalized early Friday morning after he overdosed on sleeping pills.

After a day of conflicting reports about the nature of the incident and who was hospitalized, a person directly involved in the investigation confirmed that it was Thomas. Thomas was released from the hospital later in the day and was reported to be fine.

Emergency personnel and police officers, responding to a 911 call, said they found a 47-year-old man unconscious at Thomas’s home in Purchase, N.Y. Although the authorities withheld the man’s name, Thomas is 47.

At least two earlier news reports indicated that Thomas was not involved, causing confusion. Thomas, in a brief cellphone interview with The New York Post, said it was his teenage daughter, Lauren, who was in distress. Thomas denied that anything had happened to him. His son, Joshua, gave a similar account, telling The Daily News that his sister has hypoglycemia, which is caused by low glucose in the bloodstream.

“Reports of sleeping pills are false,” Joshua Thomas told The Daily News. Referring to his father, he added: “He looked faint from stressing over her. They sat him down, let him drink some water. He’s fine.”

Reached Friday evening, Harrison Police Chief David Hall confirmed that a 47-year-old male had been taken from Thomas’s home. He refuted claims that the incident involved Thomas’s daughter.

“I understand that this person claims it was his daughter; he is lying,” Hall said. “It was definitely not his daughter, it was a male. We know the difference between a 47-year-old black male and a young black female.”

Hall said that the man was unconscious when officers arrived at the home shortly after midnight.

“We administered oxygen and we loaded him into an ambulance,” Hall said. “He was unconscious, but breathing. So we are calling this an accidental overdose of a prescription sleeping pill.”

Hall added, “We aren’t mind readers, so we don’t know why he did it, but there was nothing to indicate a suicide, no notes left.”

Hall said that a prescription bottle was handed over to officers, who gave it to ambulance personnel, who then handed it over to doctors at White Plains Hospital Center.

That's part of the reason why when FIU hired Thomas, I thought of him as the anti-Cristobal selection. Nothing about Thomas's past behavior and string of failures suggested he would be a good fit for a college program attempting to establish itself, other than his name recognition.

Which is what the Thomas experiment at FIU proves. Since recruiting is the key to successful college programs, having a 'name' more than makes up for any other deficiencies a coach may have. So the next time someone is dismissed or not considered for a job based on any sort of character, role model or leadership [yada yada] qualifications, we know that is just the politically correct thing to say. They need to win and in order to win they need to recruit. I think it's true at most colleges, but rarely are the factors so blatant as they were in FIU's Athletic Director Pete Garcia's decision to hire Thomas. In terms of proving that point, the FIU hire of Thomas provides a Zapruder-film-like finality to that argument.

By hiring Thomas, I thought FIU acted with desperation when I didn't think they were in a desperate spot. But perhaps I'm just not familiar with the sort of pressures, internal or external, Garcia is under to turn things around. So far it seems to be working as hoped given that FIU has signed some highly touted players it would normally not have been able to compete for. As an FIU grad, I hope it does work out. But from what I know about Thomas, that represents the triumph of hope over experience. Anyways, it will be interesting to watch how successful Isiah Thomas and FIU are in getting the local media to avoid the pink elephant in the gym.

The New York Times article referenced is copied in full at end of post.

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Overdose of Pills Puts Isiah Thomas in Hospital
By HOWARD BECK and MICHAEL S. SCHMIDT
October 25, 2008

Isiah Thomas, the former Knicks president and head coach, was taken from his Westchester County home by ambulance and hospitalized early Friday morning after he overdosed on sleeping pills.

After a day of conflicting reports about the nature of the incident and who was hospitalized, a person directly involved in the investigation confirmed that it was Thomas. Thomas was released from the hospital later in the day and was reported to be fine.

Emergency personnel and police officers, responding to a 911 call, said they found a 47-year-old man unconscious at Thomas’s home in Purchase, N.Y. Although the authorities withheld the man’s name, Thomas is 47.

At least two earlier news reports indicated that Thomas was not involved, causing confusion. Thomas, in a brief cellphone interview with The New York Post, said it was his teenage daughter, Lauren, who was in distress. Thomas denied that anything had happened to him. His son, Joshua, gave a similar account, telling The Daily News that his sister has hypoglycemia, which is caused by low glucose in the bloodstream.

“Reports of sleeping pills are false,” Joshua Thomas told The Daily News. Referring to his father, he added: “He looked faint from stressing over her. They sat him down, let him drink some water. He’s fine.”

Reached Friday evening, Harrison Police Chief David Hall confirmed that a 47-year-old male had been taken from Thomas’s home. He refuted claims that the incident involved Thomas’s daughter.

“I understand that this person claims it was his daughter; he is lying,” Hall said. “It was definitely not his daughter, it was a male. We know the difference between a 47-year-old black male and a young black female.”

Hall said that the man was unconscious when officers arrived at the home shortly after midnight.

“We administered oxygen and we loaded him into an ambulance,” Hall said. “He was unconscious, but breathing. So we are calling this an accidental overdose of a prescription sleeping pill.”

Hall added, “We aren’t mind readers, so we don’t know why he did it, but there was nothing to indicate a suicide, no notes left.”

Hall said that a prescription bottle was handed over to officers, who gave it to ambulance personnel, who then handed it over to doctors at White Plains Hospital Center.

Thomas, who was hired as the Knicks’ president in December 2003, presided over one of the worst eras in franchise history — a four-and-a-half-year run in which the team cycled through five head coaches (including Thomas) and dozens of players, but never reached .500 despite a league-high payroll.

The Knicks went 23-59 last season, reaching a series of low points on and off the court. Thomas feuded with point guard Stephon Marbury and frequently benched center Eddy Curry, both of whom were acquired by Thomas and portrayed as franchise cornerstones.

In addition, Thomas and his employer, Madison Square Garden, were found liable for sexual harassment last October, with a jury finding in favor of a former team executive and awarding her $11.6 million in punitive damages.

In April, the Garden’s chairman, James L. Dolan, removed Thomas as team president, replacing him with Donnie Walsh. A few weeks later, Walsh removed Thomas as coach. But the team kept Thomas on the payroll, with no title, no authority and no office. He is an infrequent visitor to the team’s headquarters in Greenburgh, N.Y. Walsh said he uses Thomas as a consultant. In the spring, he dispatched Thomas to Italy to scout Danilo Gallinari, whom the Knicks later selected with the sixth pick in the June draft.

The Knicks released a statement Friday evening, but it provided little clarity.

“Isiah Thomas spoke with members of the New York Knicks’ organization and is O.K.,” the team said in the statement. “He is dealing with a family matter and we will have no further comment. He has asked that we respect his privacy and we will.”

As the Knicks prepared to play the Nets in their final preseason game Friday at Madison Square Garden, Thomas’s former players expressed concern for his well being.

Walsh said he had not seen Thomas since just before training camp opened in late September.

“I didn’t talk to him, but people in the franchise have spoken to him,” Walsh said.

Brendan Suhr, a longtime friend and former Knicks official under Thomas, said in a telephone interview that he was confident Thomas had not attempted to harm himself.

“He’s in a great frame of mind,” said Suhr, who said he spoke with Thomas earlier in the week. “That’s why I say that with such confidence.”

Suhr said that Thomas was in great shape, both mentally and physically, after taking time off.

“He is not depressed; he is not down,” Suhr said. “He is just the opposite. He’s a very upbeat guy.”

None of the Knicks players said they had talked with Thomas since training camp began.

“He seemed fine, it was good to see him,” said Jamal Crawford, who said he saw Thomas in early October. “I don’t know enough about it to really comment, but I just hope he’s doing well.”

While expressing concern over Thomas’s situation, Mike D’Antoni, the Knicks’ new coach, said he had little contact with Thomas in the last few months.

“I just feel bad about it like everybody else, but I have no knowledge about it,” D’Antoni said.

Jonathan Abrams contributed reporting.
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The Golden Goose Tale Updated

Peggy Noonan's description of those who prefer to aggressively expand the role of government - 'they think America is the goose that lays the golden egg' - rings true to me. Those who sincerely believe in government expansion have just chosen incorrectly in my opinion. But those who do so to for political gain -- since more voters dependent on government means more votes for those who seek to protect and expand that dependency -- have betrayed the ideals our founders intended I believe.

They should ask themselves the question posed by Peggy Noonan; Why aren't they worried about the impact of what they're doing?

When I see those in government, both locally and in Washington, spend and tax and come up each day with new ways to spend and tax—health care, cap and trade, etc.—I think: Why aren't they worried about the impact of what they're doing? Why do they think America is so strong it can take endless abuse?

I think I know part of the answer. It is that they've never seen things go dark. They came of age during the great abundance, circa 1980-2008 (or 1950-2008, take your pick), and they don't have the habit of worry. They talk about their "concerns"—they're big on that word. But they're not really concerned. They think America is the goose that lays the golden egg. Why not? She laid it in their laps. She laid it in grandpa's lap.

They don't feel anxious, because they never had anything to be anxious about. They grew up in an America surrounded by phrases—"strongest nation in the world," "indispensable nation," "unipolar power," "highest standard of living"—and are not bright enough, or serious enough, to imagine that they can damage that, hurt it, even fatally.

We are governed at all levels by America's luckiest children, sons and daughters of the abundance, and they call themselves optimists but they're not optimists—they're unimaginative. They don't have faith, they've just never been foreclosed on. They are stupid and they are callous, and they don't mind it when people become disheartened. They don't even notice.

Noonan's article referenced is copied in full at end of post.

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We're Governed by Callous Children By PEGGY NOONAN
NOVEMBER 2, 2009

Americans feel increasingly disheartened, and our leaders don't even notice.

The new economic statistics put growth at a healthy 3.5% for the third quarter. We should be dancing in the streets. No one is, because no one has any faith in these numbers. Waves of money are sloshing through the system, creating a false rising tide that lifts all boats for the moment. The tide will recede. The boats aren't rising, they're bobbing, and will settle. No one believes the bad time is over. No one thinks we're entering a new age of abundance. No one thinks it will ever be the same as before 2008. Economists, statisticians, forecasters and market specialists will argue about what the new numbers mean, but no one believes them, either. Among the things swept away in 2008 was public confidence in the experts. The experts missed the crash. They'll miss the meaning of this moment, too.

The biggest threat to America right now is not government spending, huge deficits, foreign ownership of our debt, world terrorism, two wars, potential epidemics or nuts with nukes. The biggest long-term threat is that people are becoming and have become disheartened, that this condition is reaching critical mass, and that it afflicts most broadly and deeply those members of the American leadership class who are not in Washington, most especially those in business.

It is a story in two parts. The first: "They do not think they can make it better."

I talked this week with a guy from Big Pharma, which we used to call "the drug companies" until we decided that didn't sound menacing enough. He is middle-aged, works in a significant position, and our conversation turned to the last great recession, in the late mid- to late 1970s and early '80s. We talked about how, in terms of numbers, that recession was in some ways worse than the one we're experiencing now. Interest rates were over 20%, and inflation and unemployment hit double digits. America was in what might be called a functional depression, yet there was still a prevalent feeling of hope. Here's why. Everyone thought they could figure a way through. We knew we could find a path through the mess. In 1982 there were people saying, "If only we get rid of this guy Reagan, we can make it better!" Others said, "If we follow Reagan, he'll squeeze out inflation and lower taxes and we'll be America again, we'll be acting like Americans again." Everyone had a path through.

Now they don't. The most sophisticated Americans, experienced in how the country works on the ground, can't figure a way out. Have you heard, "If only we follow Obama and the Democrats, it will all get better"? Or, "If only we follow the Republicans, they'll make it all work again"? I bet you haven't, or not much.

This is historic. This is something new in modern political history, and I'm not sure we're fully noticing it. Americans are starting to think the problems we are facing cannot be solved.

Part of the reason is that the problems—debt, spending, war—seem too big. But a larger part is that our government, from the White House through Congress and so many state and local governments, seems to be demonstrating every day that they cannot make things better. They are not offering a new path, they are only offering old paths—spend more, regulate more, tax more in an attempt to make us more healthy locally and nationally. And in the long term everyone—well, not those in government, but most everyone else—seems to know that won't work. It's not a way out. It's not a path through.

And so the disheartenedness of the leadership class, of those in business, of those who have something. This week the New York Post carried a report that 1.5 million people had left high-tax New York state between 2000 and 2008, more than a million of them from even higher-tax New York City. They took their tax dollars with them—in 2006 alone more than $4 billion.

You know what New York, both state and city, will do to make up for the lost money. They'll raise taxes.

I talked with an executive this week with what we still call "the insurance companies" and will no doubt soon be calling Big Insura. (Take it away, Democratic National Committee.) He was thoughtful, reflective about the big picture. He talked about all the new proposed regulations on the industry. Rep. Barney Frank had just said on some cable show that the Democrats of the White House and Congress "are trying on every front to increase the role of government in the regulatory area." The executive said of Washington: "They don't understand that people can just stop, get out. I have friends and colleagues who've said to me 'I'm done.'" He spoke of his own increasing tax burden and said, "They don't understand that if they start to tax me so that I'm paying 60%, 55%, I'll stop."

He felt government doesn't understand that business in America is run by people, by human beings. Mr. Frank must believe America is populated by high-achieving robots who will obey whatever command he and his friends issue. But of course they're human, and they can become disheartened. They can pack it in, go elsewhere, quit what used to be called the rat race and might as well be called that again since the government seems to think they're all rats. (That would be you, Chamber of Commerce.)

And here is the second part of the story. While Americans feel increasingly disheartened, their leaders evince a mindless . . . one almost calls it optimism, but it is not that.

It is a curious thing that those who feel most mistily affectionate toward America, and most protective toward it, are the most aware of its vulnerabilities, the most aware that it can be harmed. They don't see it as all-powerful, impregnable, unharmable. The loving have a sense of its limits.

When I see those in government, both locally and in Washington, spend and tax and come up each day with new ways to spend and tax—health care, cap and trade, etc.—I think: Why aren't they worried about the impact of what they're doing? Why do they think America is so strong it can take endless abuse?

I think I know part of the answer. It is that they've never seen things go dark. They came of age during the great abundance, circa 1980-2008 (or 1950-2008, take your pick), and they don't have the habit of worry. They talk about their "concerns"—they're big on that word. But they're not really concerned. They think America is the goose that lays the golden egg. Why not? She laid it in their laps. She laid it in grandpa's lap.

They don't feel anxious, because they never had anything to be anxious about. They grew up in an America surrounded by phrases—"strongest nation in the world," "indispensable nation," "unipolar power," "highest standard of living"—and are not bright enough, or serious enough, to imagine that they can damage that, hurt it, even fatally.

We are governed at all levels by America's luckiest children, sons and daughters of the abundance, and they call themselves optimists but they're not optimists—they're unimaginative. They don't have faith, they've just never been foreclosed on. They are stupid and they are callous, and they don't mind it when people become disheartened. They don't even notice.
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Stossel's POV is DOA with MSM

John Stossel states the obvious -- that all reporters have a point of view -- and that has created some enemies for him. Stossel replies:

I was invited on CNN's media program, "Reliable Sources," to be interviewed by The Washington Post's Howard Kurtz and an indignant Bernard Kalb. They titled the segment, "Objectivity and Journalism: Does John Stossel Practice Either?" It was in big letters over my head.

Apparently, I had broken the rules.

On the air they told me that I was no longer objective. I was too stunned to defend myself effectively. I said something like: "I've always had a point of view. How come you had no trouble with that when I criticized business?"

In hindsight, I wish I'd said: "Look at the title on the wall, you hypocrites! It shows you have a point of view, too. Many reporters do. You just don't like my arguments now that I no longer hew to your statist line. So you want to shut me up."

But I didn't.

So I'll say it now: Reporters who think coercive government control is generally good and I, who thinks voluntary market forces are generally better, both have a point of view.

Stossel's article referenced is copied in full at end of post.

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The Double Standard About Journalists' Bias By John Stossel
November 4, 2009

I made The New York Times last week. It even ran my picture. My mother would be proud.

Unfortunately, the story was critical. It said, "Critics have leaped on Mr. Stossel's speaking engagements as the latest evidence of conservative bias on the part of Fox."

Which "critics" had "leaped"? The reporter mentioned Rachel Maddow. I wouldn't think her criticism newsworthy, but Times reporters may use MSNBC as their guide to life. He also quoted an "associate professor of journalism" who said my speeches were "'pretty shameful' by traditional journalistic standards." All this because I spoke at an event for Americans for Prosperity (AFP), a "conservative advocacy group."

It is odd that this is a news story. In August, AFP hired me to do the very same thing. I give the money to charity. The Times didn't call that "shameful."

But in August, I worked for ABC News. Now, I work for Fox. Hmmm.

It reminds me of something that happened earlier in my career.

I was one of America's first TV consumer reporters. I approached the job with an attitude. If companies ripped people off, I would embarrass them on TV -- and demand that government do something. (I now regret the latter -- the former was a good thing.)

I clearly had a point of view: I was a crusader out to punish corporate bullies. My colleagues liked it. I got job offers. I won 19 Emmys. I was invited to speak at journalism conferences.

Then, gradually, I figured out that business, for the most part, treats consumers pretty well. The way to get rich in business is to create something good, sell it for a reasonable price, acquire a reputation for honesty and keep pleasing customers so they come back for more.

As a local TV reporter, I could find plenty of crooks. But once I got to the national stage -- "20/20" and "Good Morning America" -- it was hard to find comparable national scams. There were some: Enron, Bernie Madoff, etc. But they are rare. In a $14 trillion economy, you'd think there'd be more. But there aren't.

I figured out why: Market forces, even when hampered by government, keep scammers in check. Reputation matters. Word gets out. Good companies thrive, and bad ones atrophy. Regulation barely deters the cheaters, but competition does.

It made me want to learn more about free markets. I subscribed to Reason magazine and read Cato Institute research papers. Then Milton Friedman, Friedrich Hayek and Aaron Wildavsky.

My reporting changed. I started taking skeptical looks at government -- especially regulation. I did an ABC TV special, "Are We Scaring You to Death?" that said we TV reporters often make hysterical claims about chemicals, pollution and other relatively minor risks. Its good ratings -- 16 million viewers -- surprised my colleagues.

Suddenly, I wasn't so popular with them.

I stopped winning Emmys.

I was invited on CNN's media program, "Reliable Sources," to be interviewed by The Washington Post's Howard Kurtz and an indignant Bernard Kalb. They titled the segment, "Objectivity and Journalism: Does John Stossel Practice Either?" It was in big letters over my head.

Apparently, I had broken the rules.

On the air they told me that I was no longer objective. I was too stunned to defend myself effectively. I said something like: "I've always had a point of view. How come you had no trouble with that when I criticized business?"

In hindsight, I wish I'd said: "Look at the title on the wall, you hypocrites! It shows you have a point of view, too. Many reporters do. You just don't like my arguments now that I no longer hew to your statist line. So you want to shut me up."

But I didn't.

So I'll say it now: Reporters who think coercive government control is generally good and I, who thinks voluntary market forces are generally better, both have a point of view.

So why am I the one called biased?

I like what "Americans for Prosperity" defends. I'm an American, and I'm for prosperity. What creates prosperity is free and competitive markets. That means limited government.

And I will speak about that every chance I get.
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David Friedman on Stockholders vs Stakeholders

David Friedman weighs on on an interesting issue; Should stakeholders [all people affected by the corporation's decisions] be given more protection or a bigger say in how corporations are managed?

First a Friedman primer on what incentive issues exist in how corporations operate today:

The holder of a share of stock, like an individual voter, knows that his vote is very unlikely to change the outcome and so has little incentive to spend time and energy judging how well the firm is being run in order to exercise his voting power. But votes in the corporate context, unlike votes in the political context, are transferable; each is attached to a share of stock, and shares can be bought and sold. If a corporation is doing a sufficiently bad job of maximizing stockholder value, someone with the necessary assets and expertise can buy up lots of shares at a price reflecting the current performance of the corporation. Since owning lots of shares gives you lots of votes, he can then, perhaps in alliance with other large shareholders, vote out the board, replace management and, when it becomes clear to others that the firm is now doing better for its stockholders, sell his shares at a higher price and go looking for another badly run firm to buy stock in. Takeover bids generally get a bad press, possibly due to the efforts of incumbent managers who would prefer not to be replaced, but they provide people running corporations with an incentive not to deviate too far from doing what, in theory, they are supposed to do.

Friedman on why stockholders need greater protection than shareholders:

But my situation as customer and employee is very much better in this respect than my situation as a stockholder. It is true that, as a stockholder, I have the option of selling my shares of stock, which at first glance looks rather like my option as a consumer of not buying a product or as a worker of quitting a job. But the apparent similarity is an illusion.

If I choose not to spend twenty thousand dollars buying a car from Ford, Ford has one more unsold car and twenty thousand dollars less money. If I choose to sell twenty thousand dollars of Ford stock, on the other hand, the money I get is not coming at Ford's expense. Another investor has paid me the money and now owns the stock, leaving Ford itself unaffected. From the standpoint of the firm's incentives, it is as if, every time a customer wished to stop buying from a store, he was required to first find a new customer willing to take his place, or as if an employee could only quit if he provided a replacement willing to do the same job at the same pay.

The stockholder's view of the value of the stock directly affects the firm only if the firm wishes to raise capital by selling a new issue of stock. So far as existing stock is concerned, the shareholder is locked in, even if the fact is not immediately obvious. If the firm is being run in a way that fails to maximize stockholder value, he cannot escape that cost by selling his share, since the price he can sell it for will reflect the reduction in future profits and dividends, insofar as it can be estimated by other stockholders.

It follows that stockholders, unlike customers and employees, receive no direct protection from the market on which they deal with the firm. As a customer of Apple, I am to some limited degree locked in; I can switch to hardware and software from another firm, but only at a significant cost. The same is true of my situation as an employee of Santa Clara University. In both cases, I have born what are now sunk costs as a result of my initial decision to buy a product or accept a job. But as a stockholder in Apple, I am entirely locked in; all of my cost is sunk. If Steve Jobs announces tomorrow that he plans to run Apple entirely for the benefit of its employees and customers, never paying another dividend, the fact that I can respond by selling my stock provides me no protection.

It follows that the stockholder is dependent, very much more than the other stakeholders, on other mechanisms for controlling a firm to make it act in his interest. That is a strong argument in favor of the current mechanism for corporate control and the current legal rules defining the fiduciary obligation of the directors.

The complete Friedman post from his blog is copied in full at end of post.

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David Friedman
Tuesday, November 03, 2009
Controlling Corporations: Stockholders vs Stakeholders

In theory, private corporations are run for the benefit of their stockholders. Insofar as the theory is enforced in practice, it is through two different mechanisms. One is the fiduciary obligation of corporate directors, the fact that they are legally obliged to run the firm in the interest of its stockholders. How much effect that obligation has is not clear, given the obvious difficulties with having a court second guess the decisions of the firm. The second and more important mechanism is the fact that the board of directors, which has the power to hire and fire management, is itself elected by a vote of the stockholders. If holders of a majority of the shares are unhappy with how the corporation is being run, they can replace the existing board, and so the existing management, with people who will run it more nearly as they wish.

This mechanism, like democratic voting in the political arena, faces an obvious problem; the holder of a share of stock, like an individual voter, knows that his vote is very unlikely to change the outcome and so has little incentive to spend time and energy judging how well the firm is being run in order to exercise his voting power. But votes in the corporate context, unlike votes in the political context, are transferable; each is attached to a share of stock, and shares can be bought and sold. If a corporation is doing a sufficiently bad job of maximizing stockholder value, someone with the necessary assets and expertise can buy up lots of shares at a price reflecting the current performance of the corporation. Since owning lots of shares gives you lots of votes, he can then, perhaps in alliance with other large shareholders, vote out the board, replace management and, when it becomes clear to others that the firm is now doing better for its stockholders, sell his shares at a higher price and go looking for another badly run firm to buy stock in. Takeover bids generally get a bad press, possibly due to the efforts of incumbent managers who would prefer not to be replaced, but they provide people running corporations with an incentive not to deviate too far from doing what, in theory, they are supposed to do.

Some people—including a colleague of mine whose recent work inspired this essay—argue that the theory itself is wrong. Decisions made by a corporation affect not only the stockholders but other people as well, most obviously its customers and employees. Why not alter the legal rules in ways designed to give all "stakeholders," all people affected by the corporation's decisions, a voice—either by altering the legal rules to broaden the fiduciary obligation of directors or by changing the rules on how directors are chosen to give (at least) customers and employees some votes as well?

There are a number of problems with the argument; in this post I will focus on one of them.

Corporations are constrained in at least three different ways. Two of them are the legal obligations of the directors and the mechanisms for electing them. The third constraint is the market on which a corporation sells its outputs and buys its inputs. A customer who finds that the corporation is not serving his interests, that its products are more expensive or less desirable than those offered by competitors, does not have to intervene in the internal affairs of the corporation in order to solve the problem. He can simply stop buying what the corporation is selling. An employee who finds that the corporation is offering less money for a less attractive job than alternative employers can quit. Since the corporation requires customers to provide the money with which it pays dividends to its stockholders and salaries and bonuses to its management, and requires employees to produce the goods and services that it sells to those customers, it has a direct and immediate incentive to produce what customers want to buy and provide employment terms that employees are willing to accept.

Like most mechanisms, this one is imperfect. Customers are not perfectly informed about what they are getting or the alternatives, and some customers for some goods and services are to some degree locked in by previous choices. Having spent time and effort learning to use the hardware and software on which I am writing this, I would be willing to switch only if the quality went down quite a lot or the price up quite a lot, so the firms providing the hardware and software have some ability to benefit themselves at my expense without losing my business. Having accepted my current job, there would be significant costs to shifting to another—costs of learning my way around a different university, perhaps of moving to a different location. Hence my employer as well has some ability to benefit itself at my expense.

But my situation as customer and employee is very much better in this respect than my situation as a stockholder. It is true that, as a stockholder, I have the option of selling my shares of stock, which at first glance looks rather like my option as a consumer of not buying a product or as a worker of quitting a job. But the apparent similarity is an illusion.

If I choose not to spend twenty thousand dollars buying a car from Ford, Ford has one more unsold car and twenty thousand dollars less money. If I choose to sell twenty thousand dollars of Ford stock, on the other hand, the money I get is not coming at Ford's expense. Another investor has paid me the money and now owns the stock, leaving Ford itself unaffected. From the standpoint of the firm's incentives, it is as if, every time a customer wished to stop buying from a store, he was required to first find a new customer willing to take his place, or as if an employee could only quit if he provided a replacement willing to do the same job at the same pay.

The stockholder's view of the value of the stock directly affects the firm only if the firm wishes to raise capital by selling a new issue of stock. So far as existing stock is concerned, the shareholder is locked in, even if the fact is not immediately obvious. If the firm is being run in a way that fails to maximize stockholder value, he cannot escape that cost by selling his share, since the price he can sell it for will reflect the reduction in future profits and dividends, insofar as it can be estimated by other stockholders.

It follows that stockholders, unlike customers and employees, receive no direct protection from the market on which they deal with the firm. As a customer of Apple, I am to some limited degree locked in; I can switch to hardware and software from another firm, but only at a significant cost. The same is true of my situation as an employee of Santa Clara University. In both cases, I have born what are now sunk costs as a result of my initial decision to buy a product or accept a job. But as a stockholder in Apple, I am entirely locked in; all of my cost is sunk. If Steve Jobs announces tomorrow that he plans to run Apple entirely for the benefit of its employees and customers, never paying another dividend, the fact that I can respond by selling my stock provides me no protection.

It follows that the stockholder is dependent, very much more than the other stakeholders, on other mechanisms for controlling a firm to make it act in his interest. That is a strong argument in favor of the current mechanism for corporate control and the current legal rules defining the fiduciary obligation of the directors.

Indeed, it is an argument for more than that. It is an argument for strengthening stockholder control in order to provide more protection to the most vulnerable party in the network of relationships that makes up a corporation. One way of doing so would be by removing current legal barriers that make takeover bids more difficult, and so protect managers and directors from the consequences of serving their own interests at the expense of the stockholders whose interests they are supposed to be serving.
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A Few Observations

Rich Lowry on why Obama passed on commemorating the fall of the Berlin Wall:

Obama famously made a speech in Berlin during last year's campaign, but at an event devoted to celebrating himself as the apotheosis of world hopefulness. He said of 1989, "a wall came down, a continent came together, and history proved that there is no challenge too great for a world that stands as one."

The line was typical Obama verbal soufflé, soaring but vulnerable to collapse upon the slightest jostling from logic or historical fact. The wall came down only after the free world resolutely stood against the Communist bloc. Rather than a warm-and-fuzzy exercise in global understanding, the Cold War was another iteration of the 20th century's long war between totalitarianism and Western liberalism. The West prevailed on the back of American strength.

Greg Mankiw on why it is 'absurd for the Administration to claim that jobs saved or created can be measured:'

I do not object to claims such as,

A: "Based on our models of the economy, we believe there would be X million fewer jobs today without the stimulus."

But it is absurd to suggest that you can say,

B: "We have measured how many jobs the stimulus has saved or created, and the number is X."

Economists are capable of making statements such as A, but it is beyond our ken to make statements such as B. Statement B is, of course, much stronger than statement A, as it purports to be based on data rather than on models. Unfortunately, we are hearing statements like B much too often from administration officials.

Dan Le Batard on the logic of how someone as decent as Bob Griese gets suspended -- thanks to Robert at the 26th Parallel blog for the pointer:

"Out having a taco."

That's what Griese said during a college-football broadcast a week ago, trying to make a joke about race-car driver Juan Pablo Montoya. And I, a Cuban sports columnist, am still trying to figure out how and why I'm supposed to be offended, and for whom. Colombians? Mexicans? Hispanics in general? Cheap food? Taco Bell?

If Griese had said arepa, would that be allowed because Montoya is Colombian? If Manny Fernandez had said exactly the same thing, would that be OK? Was Griese's crime getting Montoya's nationality wrong or his nationality's food? Or was it being white? Is his joke permissible if Montoya's car had been sponsored by Taco Bell?

Regardless, I wish I'd heard a fraction as much about Griese's charity work (helping kids cope with grief) as I did this week about tacos. It didn't make me angry. What it made me was hungry. And it's a good thing for Griese he didn't go anywhere near Taco Bell's new black taco.

(You have to admit, having someone who pronounces his name ``greasy'' involved in a taco controversy is oddly wonderful. Almost as great as if it had involved Art Shell, Matt Fish, Billy Beane or Renyel Pinto.)

In our zeal to be sensitive, we're often too sensitive. But this is what can happen when a bunch of white executives punish a white broadcaster for what they think might offend people who aren't white. You want to tackle a real race issue? Don't punish Griese. Put some black and Hispanic people in charge so they can tell you what does and doesn't offend us the next time something like this comes around. Punishing Griese doesn't make you sensitive to racism; it just makes you look like you'd very much like to appear sensitive to racism. That isn't the same thing at all.

Le Batard article referenced is copied in full at end of post -- since the McClatchey corporate mindset thinks that having links expire will cause us to pay for their content.

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Taco hell: A bad week for former Miami Dolphin Bob Griese
By DAN LE BATARD - dlebatard@MiamiHerald.com

Posted on Nov. 01, 2009

Six syllables.

That's all it takes to stain and scar your name. All the good work before it, all the good decades of good words and good syllables and good professionalism gets swallowed in a hiccup. How have we arrived in this place where so little dark can envelope so much light?

Distinguished Dolphins legend Bob Griese was perfect in 1972 and has been pretty publicly perfect since, becoming one of the nation's best college-football voices. That voice has spent a lot of time in our living rooms over the years, talking to us for hours and hours on Saturday afternoons, but it was silenced this weekend. Punished. Suspended for a week. And stained in a way that hurt his name and echoed throughout the The Land Of The Free Until You Say Something That May Or May Not Be Considered Kind Of Sort Of Offensive By Somebody. It was, a wounded Griese said, the first time in 28 years of broadcasting that he has gotten in trouble with an employer.

``Out having a taco.''

That's what Griese said during a college-football broadcast a week ago, trying to make a joke about race-car driver Juan Pablo Montoya. And I, a Cuban sports columnist, am still trying to figure out how and why I'm supposed to be offended, and for whom. Colombians? Mexicans? Hispanics in general? Cheap food? Taco Bell?

If Griese had said arepa, would that be allowed because Montoya is Colombian? If Manny Fernandez had said exactly the same thing, would that be OK? Was Griese's crime getting Montoya's nationality wrong or his nationality's food? Or was it being white? Is his joke permissible if Montoya's car had been sponsored by Taco Bell?

Regardless, I wish I'd heard a fraction as much about Griese's charity work (helping kids cope with grief) as I did this week about tacos. It didn't make me angry. What it made me was hungry. And it's a good thing for Griese he didn't go anywhere near Taco Bell's new black taco.

(You have to admit, having someone who pronounces his name ``greasy'' involved in a taco controversy is oddly wonderful. Almost as great as if it had involved Art Shell, Matt Fish, Billy Beane or Renyel Pinto.)

In our zeal to be sensitive, we're often too sensitive. But this is what can happen when a bunch of white executives punish a white broadcaster for what they think might offend people who aren't white. You want to tackle a real race issue? Don't punish Griese. Put some black and Hispanic people in charge so they can tell you what does and doesn't offend us the next time something like this comes around. Punishing Griese doesn't make you sensitive to racism; it just makes you look like you'd very much like to appear sensitive to racism. That isn't the same thing at all.

`A VERY TOUGH WEEK'

I wanted to have an honest conversation about this with Griese. I came as an ally. But he wasn't getting anywhere near this stove again.

``It has been a very tough week,'' he said. ``I want to be known for something else. I don't want to continue this. I just want to put this behind me. I've gotten a lot of support -- calls from Keith Jackson, Don Shula. Is this what it feels like to die?''

I asked if this was the toughest week he can remember.

``And more,'' he said.

You know what gets lost there, right? An honest, open conversation -- one in which people, you know, learn and, you know, understand. You can't have those when scared. I wanted to know specifics. How and why, exactly, did he apologize? Because of the action, the reaction or because his bosses simply said he should? Had he heard from anyone in Miami who was offended? How does it feel to be at this storm center, knowing that this whiff of racism is the only thing some people will know of him as they come into sports from outside to see what all this noise is about? I wanted to make him human, not just four words.

MINORITY CARTE BLANCHE

But I understand his fear. If I didn't understand all this as the allegedly injured party, how could he? I can say what I want about this, too. I've got minority carte blanche. That dynamic can create resentment among white people, that I get more of a free-speech America than they do when discussing this stuff. I get it. I find myself dancing around land mines any time I want to discuss black issues on the radio or TV. Any sentence can end my career, which doesn't exactly foster healthy communication or confident discussion.

Last week on the radio, for example, we talked a lot about former Heat star Antoine Walker blowing through a $110 million fortune while supporting 70 family members and friends. I wanted to know what elements of this, if any, were cultural, so I brought on three black peers. Washington Post columnist Michael Wilbon said it was a cultural issue and that it takes a special kind of will power and discipline for a young, rich person of any color to be unpopular among friends by saying no. Jalen Rose said it was a socioeconomic issue, not a cultural one, and that people of all color and creeds in entertainment lose their money by being reckless and trying to help loved ones. And Charles Barkley flatly blamed black culture and freeloaders.

But Barkley is the rare fearless celebrity who can say just about anything he wants without worrying about silly things like food stereotypes.

Which might explain how he could say, as he did, that the greatest white man ever is Colonel Sanders.
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Health Care Positions: Left, Center and Right

The Left as per Paul Krugman:

Serious students of health care have known for a long time that the magic of the marketplace doesn’t work in health care; the United States has the most privatized health-care system in the advanced world, and also the least efficient. The pale reflection of this reality in the current discussion is that reform with a strong public option is cheaper than reform without — which means that as we get closer to really doing something, rhetoric about socialism fades out, and that $100 billion or so in projected savings starts to look awfully attractive.

The Center as per Megan McArdle:

It's easy to get cynical about the process of the health care bills. At this point, I'd say that conservative and liberal health care analysts both know the score. Everyone knows that this bill won't work as advertised: it will not cover as many people as promised, and it will run into budget shortfalls, if for no other reason than because Congress is not going to enact the cuts as written--they will get lobbied into repealing many of them. Doug Elmendorf [CBO] has done everything but hire a skywriter to make it clear that he doesn't think that any of the various bills will actually be deficit neutral--while doing his job, which is to score what's written, not his best guess at what will happen.

Liberals don't care, because they think it's worth it to cover more people. Conservatives care, but their kabuki complaints about what everyone in the wonkosphere knows go mostly unheeded. I find it hard to get too outraged about any of it; I'm against the bill, but I think that this part of the process is playing out about as well as you can expect.

The Right as per the WSJ Editorial:

In a rational political world, this 1,990-page runaway train [Pelosi bill] would have been derailed months ago. With spending and debt already at record peacetime levels, the bill creates a new and probably unrepealable middle-class entitlement that is designed to expand over time. Taxes will need to rise precipitously, even as ObamaCare so dramatically expands government control of health care that eventually all medicine will be rationed via politics.

Yet at this point, Democrats have dumped any pretense of genuine bipartisan "reform" and moved into the realm of pure power politics as they race against the unpopularity of their own agenda. The goal is to ram through whatever income-redistribution scheme they can claim to be "universal coverage." The result will be destructive on every level—for the health-care system, for the country's fiscal condition, and ultimately for American freedom and prosperity.

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Scientology's Bombshell: Xenu vs Zena on PPV

In a stunning development, the Church of Scientology has decided to spin off its core beliefs into a separate entity whose relationship with Scientology would only exist through monitored arm's length transactions. The new company, Thetan But Not Beaten [TBNB] Group LLC, is expected to be a major player in the video game and kids clothing market this coming holiday season.

The coming out event for the new entity will be an animation sensation as an Avatar version of Xenu -- from Scientology's version of the Galactic Confederacy, as opposed to the Lego's version -- will face a live version of Zena, Warrior Princess, on pay-per-view television. While the ground rules have yet to be developed, UFC® and MMA® are in negotiations with the TBNB Group.

From Celebrity Center to Revenue Center -- How Scientology Intends to Turn a Negative into a Positive [Cash Flow]

In business, staying ahead of the curve is a necessary survival instinct. Scientology, which has been able to turn it's willingness to abuse the legal system and celebrity actors -- a group whose members are not distinguished by their intellectual capacity or emotional stability -- into a shield which allows them just enough room to run their worldwide scam. However, given the recent court defeats in France and Germany, combined with Tom Cruise's decline in popularity -- culminating with his appearance in Tropic Thunder -- it seemed likely that a corporate, as opposed to eschatological, end of days was approaching.

Which is why industry analysts are agog over how Scientology may potentially have turned their never ending embarrassment over their beliefs into an annual 750 million dollar revenue bonanza. The IRS approval of the proposed corporate structures is believed to have been heavily influenced by the IRS's experience, and capitulation to, Scientology's guerrilla tactics when obtaining tax exempt status during the Clinton Administration. To say that the Scientology crowd does not take no's well is an understatement.

The structure of the new entities will allow Scientology to charge the TBNB Group a licensing fee for the likeness of Xenu, while still maintaining their non-profit status. The Thetan But Not Beaten Group, despite being expected to gross upwards of $750 million dollars in the coming year, is not expected to pay any taxes as a result of the approved fee structure.

Xenu, We Hardly Knew Ya

I see Lafayette Ronald Hubbard as a worthy predecessor to Oliver Stone as a storyteller. When Stone couldn't decide who to blame for the JFK assassination in his movie, he just blamed everyone. Similarly, when Hubbard was making up his science fiction stories, the 'maybe I should make this remotely believable' factor was noticeably absent. But that was just a warm up. Turning those stories in a 'belief system' was a task worthy of an Ahmadinejad denying the Holocaust, as the graph and the following bullet points might suggest:

• Xenu was the dictator of the Galactic Confederacy who brought billions of his people to Earth in a DC-8-like spacecraft, stacked them around volcanoes and killed them using hydrogen bombs.
• The essences of these many people remained, and that they form around people in modern times, causing them spiritual harm.
• These events are known as Incident II, and the traumatic memories associated with them as The Wall of Fire or the R6 implant.
• The story of Xenu is part of Scientologist teachings about extraterrestrial civilizations and alien interventions in Earthly events, collectively described as space opera by Hubbard.
• The Xenu story is part of the Church of Scientology's secret Advanced Technology normally only revealed to members who have already contributed large amounts of money.

For an animated glimpse into Scientology, please check out this episode of South Park:

• Trapped in the Closet - Season 9 - an actual explanation of Scientology's beliefs begins at 11:15 and runs 2 minutes - if nothing else, there is an A.J. Feeley reference at the beginning of the episode from 2006 - must see TV!

On a more serious note, read the recent reporting from the St. Petersburg Times on how Scientology operates. Also, those noted haters, the Carnegie Mellon’s School of Computer Science, has devoted space on it's web site to gather data which documents Scientology's efforts to intimidate the IRS, in the process of obtaining their non-for-profit exemption.

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