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May. 4th, 2004 @ 12:37 pm
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OKAY... Haven't posted in a bit. Thought I would post the very rough quick right up I did on a privacy case I was researching this week.
In the late 1970s, LaJuan and Billy Wood were camping on the grounds of a Texas state park. As the temperature increased the couple became very hot, and decided to shed their clothing and go swimming. After leaving the pond the couple decided to take some photos of each nude in the woods.
After returning from the state park the Woods took the film to be developed. They choose a location that only developed film with machinery. This was to insure that the photos not be seen by other eyes. The Woods family then stored the photos in a drawer in their home. Steve Simpson and Kelley Rhoades (husband and wife at the time) lived in the duplex next to the Woods. One day Simpson broke into their home and found the photos. He stole a few. Back at home Simpson and Rhoades decided to send the photos to Hustler to be part of an amateur model section called “Beaver Hunt.”
The couple filled out, falsely, the consent form to accompany the photos. Some of the information was true. Such as LaJuan’s name, age, and hobby of collecting arrowheads. However the couple added false information, such as explaining her fantasies. The couple wrote that LaJuan’s principle fantasy was to be tied down and “screwed” by two bikers. Rhodes forged LaJuan’s signature and mailed the consent form to the California-based hustler magazine.
Hustler’s Beaver Hunt section paid $50 to models whose photo was selected. The section had been quite popular and had been maintained for some time. There were certain procedures in place to try and verify the authenticity of the photos. Hustler would call and ask non-leading questions. If the applicant did not list a phone number Hustler would send a letter requesting that the applicant call them collect.
In this case, Hustler sent a letter to address provided—this address was Rhodes. Rhodes called Hustler and was presented with leading questions. Hustler had failed to follow their own policies. The check was then sent to Rhodes, who requested the check be addressed to someone her, not LaJuan.
The Wood family first heard about the articles from their friends in their Texas neighborhood. The couple was in disbelief and decided to check the magazine anyway. The result was serious pain to their household. LaJuan fell into an intense depression and had to spend 6 weeks in therapy.
All of the individual parties are private citizens, a matter that Hustler does not dispute. The reason the status of the parties is pertinent is that New York Times v. Sullivan sets guideline for liable and slander when in context of the media. Had LaJuan been a public figure, this might have gone another way. The primary issue at stake in the 5th circuit appeal was whether the Texas court had jurisdiction of the case and whether this happened to be a privacy matter. The other main issue is whether Hustler is responsible for the invasion of privacy.
The court found that Texas did in fact have the jurisdiction to hear the case as opposed to California where Hustler is stationed. This is because the theft, the false form and the LaJuan’s suffering all took place in Texas. The court found that in past cases this would surely give Texas priority in hearing the case. The reason this became important is that Texas has a statue of limitation of two years in cases related to privacy, and one year in liable. California holds both torts under a one-year statue of limitations. The Wood family filed suit one year and twelve days after the article was published.
The courts found that the standard used in the Braun and Gertz cases to hold that a publication that places a private figures in a negative light can be applied equally to defamation cases as false light cases. The appearance of the photo and the false sexual fantasies spread across the pages of Hustler placed LaJuan in a false light. Thus the court agreed with the lower courts that as a result, LaJuan should be paid actual damages if some negligence could be shown. The court took some of New York Times to show that there was sufficient evidence to show that Hustler thought it might be false. For instance the staff thought that the name LaJuan Wood was a pseudonym because the photo was her leaning against a tree. As in lay on wood. They also were curious about addressing the check to another person. Hustler, “carelessly administered a slipshod procedure that allowed LaJuan to be placed in a false light in the pages of Hustler magazine.
The court also found that the care the couple had taken with the photos gave them an expectation of privacy and that this privacy could have been maintained had the magazine. However the court agreed with Hustler on one issue. Billy Wood should not be awarded damages that resulted in anguish over the invasion of his wife’s privacy. At first the lower courts had awarded LaJuan $150,000 and Billy $5,000. The appeals court decided that the law was not followed in this judgment and that no damages under Texan law can go to a secondary party over the invasion of someone else’s privacy.
In general this ruling has been held up. Many cases have tried to use it. Including a case involving the naked photos of two kids in a non-sexual manner when the kids were 5 and 7. The cases seem to arise on issues of whether one can ask for damages when it was someone else’s privacy that was invaded.Current Mood: accomplished |
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This one is for you babe.
Posted on Thu, Apr. 22, 2004
German Worker Auctioned Packages Online
Associated Press
BERLIN - A German postal worker admitted auctioning packages over the Internet after a search of his apartment turned up a hoard of missing deliveries, police said Thursday.
The 37-year-old letter carrier, whose identity was not released, started keeping packages and offering their contents on online auction site eBay last summer, police said. In all, more than 100 went missing, and police estimated the value at $23,700.
While the German post office noticed that packages frequently went missing on his route, it was unable to prove what was happening until there was a complain from a musician whose awaited clarinet mouthpiece never showed.
After the package failed to arrive, he found an identical item on eBay - offered by the postman, from the western town of Gelsenkirchen. He bought it, but also informed police.
Police found the missing mouthpiece at the apartment of the postman's girlfriend and then searched his flat - turning up piles of missing packages. |
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After apartheid, a bond renewed
A South African program to replace property that blacks and people of mixed race lost under white rule reunites two friends after 40 years.
BY SUDARSAN RAGHAVAN
Knight Ridder News Service
CAPE TOWN, South Africa - Dan Ndzabela and Ebrahim Murat lost their friendship because of the color of their skin. It's taken them half their lives to find it again.
In 1959, South Africa's whites-only government ordered Ndzabela, who's Christian and black, to move from Cape Town's racially mixed suburb District Six to a black township. In 1966, the government declared District Six a whites-only zone, and Murat, who's Muslim and mixed-race, was shuffled off to a ''colored'' area, reserved for those of mixed race.
They didn't see each other for nearly 40 years.
Now, on the anniversary of the end of white rule 10 years ago this week, they're among the hundreds who will begin receiving the keys to new homes in District Six as the present government tries to make up for the sins of the apartheid past.
Some 66,000 residents were evicted from District Six, their homes razed. Countless friendships were shattered. Now Ndzabela and Murat will live next door to each other, extracting, in the twilight of their lives, a small measure of justice for the crimes of apartheid.
''It is where I belong,'' said Ndzabela, 82, polite and strong-voiced in a plaid jacket and blue tie, his speech as slow as his gait.
''It was my comfort and my heart when I was young,'' said Murat, 87, short and frail with a kind smile and gray, cataract-filled eyes.
Their new homes, they say, are a blessing. Tens of thousands of South Africans are still waiting for compensation or to return to properties seized under white rule, and whites, who make up 10 percent of the population, still own 80 percent of the land.
PUSH BY PRESIDENT
The issue isn't likely to go away soon. Reelected President Thabo Mbeki, who'll be inaugurated today, has vowed to speed up the transfer of seized lands to nonwhites.
The story of Ndzabela, Murat and District Six underscores the damage that apartheid caused to South Africa.
Founded in 1867, District Six was a boisterous, working-class hub of cobbled streets, scrappy tenements and spice markets at the foot of majestic Table Mountain. Churches sat near mosques. Jews, Irish and Malays lived side by side with descendants of freed slaves and with black Africans in a rich multicultural brew, representing all that the white government opposed.
Murat sold newspapers and Ndzabela, who worked in a tire store, was a frequent customer. They chatted about rugby and soccer. Sometimes they saw each other, with their families, at local parades.
Their friendship, and countless others like them, represented both the promise of a multiracial South Africa and the fears of its white rulers.
Fear won. Before their friendship could deepen, Ndzabela received a letter ordering him to relocate to what's now the black township of Guguletu. The father of two put all of his family's belongings in a friend's car and left their brick house.
AN UNDESERVED FATE
''I had to abide by the law,'' Ndzabela said. ``My children had to have food on their plate.''
When they arrived, they were led to a one-room tin shack with no running water or electricity. 'I asked myself, `What have I done wrong?' '' Ndzabela recalled. ' `What will my wife feel about a man like me? Will she still respect me?' ''
Seven years later, Murat, too, got a letter. He, his wife and their nine children left their large home with the fig and apple trees. They were banished to the Cape Flats, where today gangs and drug pushers thrive.
Thousands more were evicted over the next 16 years. They left behind everything but their memories.
For the next three decades Ndzabela and Murat had quiet lives. They lived less than 50 miles from each other, but under the system of racial separation they were a world apart. As the years blurred, they forgot each other.
Then a few years after Nelson Mandela became the nation's first black president in 1994, they were both at a meeting to reclaim their property.
Ndzabela recognized him first, Murat recalled. Ndzabela slowly walked over and grabbed his wrinkled hand and shook it as firmly as he could.
Then they hugged each other.
''Here, sit by me, Mr. Murat,'' Ndzabela said with respect.
''We've got a lot to talk about,'' Murat told him later.
Ten weeks ago, they sat next to each other again. This time, Mandela, also an octogenarian, joined them. In a tear-filled ceremony, he handed Ndzabela and Murat two blue plastic keys, a sign that they would soon return home.
Within the next three years, an estimated 4,000 evicted families are expected to resettle the area, now a patchwork of grassy, vacant lots. The government, residents and private donors will finance the project.
REKINDLING THE SPIRIT
Community leaders are trying to resurrect the spirit of District Six. Those returning have to sign contracts that they won't turn their homes into pubs or brothels. High walls aren't permitted, forcing residents to interact.
And they can't sell their homes for 15 years, preventing real-estate developers from gobbling up some of the continent's priciest land.
Murat, whose wife died of cancer shortly after they learned they would be moving back to District Six, will live with his daughter and four grandchildren in house No. 8, on the same corner where his family's home was bulldozed.
Ndzabela will be in No. 6. In Cape Town, he'll be nearer to medical clinics, parks and museums.
Murat plans to invite Ndzabela over for tea the day they move into their new homes, perhaps as early as next month. They'll talk the whole evening, he predicted.
''About 2 a.m. he will still be sitting here by me,'' Murat said, pointing to his right side. ``And we'll sit and talk all night.''
Just as it might have been. |
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Posted on Tue, Apr. 27, 2004
IRAQ | NATIONAL SYMBOL
New flag meets with disapproval
The new national flag, presented after an artistic competition sponsored by the Iraqi Governing Council, appears to be encountering widespread public disapproval.
BY PAMELA CONSTABLE
Washington Post Service
BAGHDAD - It was supposed to be the perfect symbol for a new and unified Iraq: an Islamic crescent on a field of pure white, with two blue stripes representing the Tigris and Euphrates rivers and a third yellow stripe to symbolize the country's Kurdish minority.
But the new national flag, presented Monday after an artistic competition sponsored by the Iraqi Governing Council, appears to have met with widespread public disapproval here -- in part because of its design and in part because of the increasing unpopularity of the U.S.-appointed council.
In interviews in several Baghdad neighborhoods, residents expressed strong negative reactions to the flag. In particular, people objected to the pale blue color of the crescent and stripes, saying it was identical to the dominant color in the flag of Israel, a Jewish state.
''When I saw it in the newspaper, I felt very sad,'' said Muthana Khalil, 50, a supermarket owner in Saadoun, a commercial area in central Baghdad. ``The flags of other Arab countries are red and green and black. Why did they put in these colors that are the same as Israel? Why was the public opinion not consulted?''
Other residents objected to the removal of the phrase, ''God is greatest,'' which adorned the previous national flag, and said there was no need for a new one until national elections are held next January and a new constitution is written.
Hamid Kifaie, the chief spokesman for the Governing Council, said Monday that the winning design, by an Iraqi artist named Rifaat Chaderchi, was chosen from among 30 entries.
''This flag represents the democracy and freedom of the new Iraq, where the old one represented killing and oppression and dictatorship,'' he said. ``We are not imposing this flag on the people; it was chosen by the legitimate representatives of Iraq. When a new national assembly is elected, it can decide whether to keep it or change it.'' |
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Apr. 27th, 2004 @ 08:48 pm
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Neah Bay man becomes first Coast Guard casualty
By Nguyen Huy Vu
Seattle Times staff reporter
A Neah Bay reserve police officer was killed Sunday while serving with the U.S. Coast Guard in the war in Iraq.
Friends and colleagues remember Nate Bruckenthal as dedicated to serving his Clallam County community.
For two years, the 24-year-old volunteered as a Neah Bay firefighter, an emergency medical technician and reserve police officer. In his free time, he volunteered as a defensive football coach for Neah Bay High School.
Bruckenthal apparently was injured in Basra while protecting oil terminals, said Neah Bay Police Chief T.J. Greene.
"He was just an outstanding individual," Greene said. "He was great with kids. He just loved serving people and had a passion about law enforcement."
Green said he fielded calls yesterday from people who'd worked with Bruckenthal. "He touched a lot of lives in our community." |
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Copyright 2003 Times Publishing Company
St. Petersburg Times (Florida)
January 28, 2003 Tuesday 0 South Pinellas Edition
SECTION: NATIONAL; Pg. 7A
LENGTH: 799 words
HEADLINE: "Axis of evil' comment proves more powerful than expected
BYLINE: SARA FRITZ
DATELINE: WASHINGTON
BODY:
This is the story of a nice little turn-of-phrase that grew into an international crisis.
It began a year ago when President Bush, in his last State of the Union speech, branded Iran, Iraq and North Korea the "axis of evil."
Axis of evil was a stunning term that seemed to be bursting with significance. But what did it mean? Nobody could say for certain at the time why Bush had decided to identify these three countries as the axis of evil or what punishment was being prepared for them.
We now learn from David Frum, a former Bush speechwriter, that he thought up the phrase "axis of hatred" - later changed to axis of evil to be consistent with Bush's preference for the word "evil" - because Frum wanted a nice rhetorical flourish in the president's State of the Union speech. When Frum offered the phrase to Bush in a memo, however, it referred only to Iraq.
Then while last year's State of the Union speech was being written and revised by Bush and his aides, national security adviser Condoleezza Rice suggested Iran should be considered part of the axis of evil. So Iran was added to the speech.
"The Iranian regime had willfully flunked the test that Bush had set in his speeches to the Congress and the United Nations," Frum recalled in his recently published book, The Right Man: The Surprise Presidency of George W. Bush. "It harbored terrorists. It had revealed itself as a flagrantly hostile regime. Four years of attempted conciliation of the Iranian regime had abjectly failed."
Then, just a few days before Bush was scheduled to deliver the speech, somebody in the White House proposed adding North Korea.
"North Korea was added to the axis last," Frum wrote. "It was attempting to develop nuclear weapons, it had a history of reckless aggression, and it too had been cosseted by the United States in the recent past and needed to feel a stronger hand."
Thus was the centerpiece of Bush's foreign policy developed - not by diplomats meeting at the State Department or by members of the National Security Council schooled in the nuances of world affairs, but by a small group of speechwriters with a flair for a dramatic turn of phrase.
History tells us this is how policy is sometimes made in the White House. Every president defines his policies in the process of writing speeches and issuing press releases. The president's most important decisions are not clear until he decides how to explain them to the world.
Nevertheless, the language is not supposed to drive the policy, as it did in this case.
In Pyongyang, North Korea's Kim Jong Il apparently did not see "axis of evil" as just a nice turn of phrase.
Don Oberdorfer, author of The Two Koreas, says North Korea started manufacturing plutonium in response to what it saw as a serious threat in Bush's speech.
"Those in authority in the military in North Korea persuaded their leadership that the only way they could secure their security in light of the hostility of the United States and what was going on across the world in Iraq was to go for nuclear weapons," Oberdorfer said.
For a while, Bush, whose attention was focused strictly on Iraq, tried to ignore the action that his words had precipitated in North Korea.
"We didn't want to be distracted, frankly, from the fact that we were just mounting the pressure to get (an agreement to disarm) either through the U.N. or through force in Iraq, and having a new crisis on the horizon was not what we were looking for," says Ivo Daalder, a foreign policy scholar at the Brookings Institution. "So we just decided not to declare a crisis in the hope that it would therefore go away.
"The problem is, of course, that it did not go away. The North Koreans quite tactfully and masterfully escalated, as one would have expected, drawing the United States into a crisis, and basically showing that the policy the administration was pursuing had serious problems."
Bush should have known that a powerful phrase like "axis of evil" uttered in a major speech by the president of the United States would send a message around the world. But it seems he might have said those words without being fully committed to their meaning.
The same thing happened to his father, the first President Bush. When he said "read my lips, no new taxes," voters thought he meant it. Therefore, they were disappointed when Bush agreed to a tax increase to balance the budget.
Our current president seems to delight in using muscular words with a moral punch. It's likely that tonight's State of the Union speech will contain similar language. But White House insiders say this speech was written with a keener understanding that a president must mean what he says.
- Sara Fritz can be reached by e-mail at fritz@ sptimes.com or by telephone at (202) 463-0576.
LOAD-DATE: January 28, 2003
Apr. 27th, 2004 @ 10:34 am
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Gas-price cut foreseen as U.S. election ploy
WASHINGTON — Saudi Arabia's ambassador to the United States, Prince Bandar bin Sultan, promised President Bush the Saudis would cut oil prices before November to ensure that the U.S. economy is strong on Election Day, journalist Bob Woodward said yesterday.
Woodward, a senior editor at The Washington Post, appeared on CBS' "60 Minutes," where he was being interviewed about his new book, "Plan of Attack."
Woodward said the prince pledged the Saudis would try to fine-tune oil prices to prime the U.S. economy for the election, a move they think would help Bush be re-elected.
Questioned about his assertion at a time when oil prices are nearing a 13-year high, Woodward responded: "They're high. And they could go down very quickly. That's the Saudi pledge. Certainly over the summer or as we get closer to the election, they could increase production several million barrels a day and the price would drop significantly."
There was no immediate response from Saudi Arabia or the White House.
Russian rocket blasts off, ferrying three to space station
BAIKONUR, Kazakstan — A Russian rocket roared into space today carrying a new crew headed for the international space station.
American Michael Fincke, Russian Gennady Padalka and Andre Kuipers of the Netherlands were to spend two days en route to the space station aboard the Soyuz TMA-4 spacecraft.
The Russian-built capsule is the only means to get to the orbital outpost since the suspension of U.S. space-shuttle flights following the Columbia disaster.
Padalka and Fincke will spend 183 days on the space station. Kuipers will return after nine days with the station's current crew, U.S. astronaut Michael Foale and Russian cosmonaut Alexander Kaleri, who have been in orbit since October.
Radical cleric says attacks on London being prepared
LISBON — Several Islamic militant groups are preparing attacks on London, a radical Muslim cleric said in an interview published yesterday.
"It's inevitable. Because several (attacks) are being prepared by several groups," London-based Sheikh Omar Bakri Muhammad told Lisbon's Publica magazine.
Referring to what he called a "very well organized" group in London calling itself al-Qaida Europe, he said, "I know that they are ready to launch a big operation."
The firebrand cleric, who has outraged moderate Muslims and non-Muslims alike with his uncompromising views, gave no further details.
Hope grows that Myanmar will free Nobel laureate
YANGON, Myanmar — Myanmar opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi may be freed from house arrest in a day or two, the chairman of her National League for Democracy (NLD) party said today. Speculation has been rife that the Nobel peace laureate will be freed after the military government allowed the NLD to reopen its Yangon headquarters Saturday, nearly a year after it was shut and its leader Suu Kyi detained.
Suu Kyi, 58, and her vice chairman Tin Oo are the last senior NLD leaders confined since a May 30 clash, which critics blamed on the junta. Yangon denied orchestrating the violence.
The military government, which has ruled the former Burma since 1962, has promised fresh constitutional talks next month as part of its "road map to democracy" announced last August.
Leader of Arab fighters in Chechnya reportedly killed
RIYADH, Saudi Arabia — The leader of Arab fighters in Chechnya, Saudi-born Abu al-Waleed al-Ghamdi, was killed in the rebel Russian region a few days ago, his brother said yesterday.
Abu al-Waleed is said by Russia to be among those behind February's bombing of the Moscow subway that killed 41 people.
In Russia, a spokesman for the state security service declined to comment. Pro-Moscow Chechen leader Akhmad Kadyrov said there was a "real possibility" that Abu al-Waleed had been killed.
The insurgency in mainly Muslim Chechnya has attracted mujahedeen, or holy fighters, from many Arab countries.
Copyright © 2004 The Seattle Times Company
Apr. 19th, 2004 @ 01:59 pm
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By Hugh A. Mulligan
The Associated Press
PARIS — One can walk the grand boulevards, the embankments along the Seine, the cobblestone streets of the Latin Quarter, the tree-lined paths of the Bois de Bologne or the Luxembourg Gardens and encounter ghosts from Voltaire and Henry James to William Faulkner and John Steinbeck trolling for words and ideas.
Washington Irving slept here, and Benjamin Franklin charmed the mademoiselles.
Pause for "un sérieux," a large beer, at the Brasserie Lipp, where Ernest Hemingway wrote at a corner table on the terrace and one night rolled a rather too-serious James Joyce home in a wheelbarrow.
..................If you go to Paris .....................................
• The French Government Tourist Office in the United States can be reached by phone at 410-286-8310, or on the Web at www.francetourism.com.
• The Paris Office of Tourism, 127 Avenue des Champs-Elysees, has a multilingual staff available seven days a week, from 9 a.m. to 8 p.m. Phone: 1-49-52-53-54, or visit www.paris.org.
• Paris Chamber of Commerce, www.ccip.fr/home/index.html
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A few blocks away, Boulevard du Montparnasse offers a quartet of liquid literary shrines: La Rotonde, where Edna St. Vincent Millay burnt a few candles at both ends; Le Dome, now an excellent seafood restaurant; and Le Select, where Hart Crane was hauled off to a successor of the Bastille after a punch-up with a waiter.
Dad's old haunts
Strolling about Paris is like a graduate course in comparative lit, a fact we discovered while attending a seminar at the American University devoted to James Jones, the famed author of "From Here to Eternity." Jones lived and worked in Paris for a decade and a half, beginning in 1958.
Jones was a regular at the Lipp, which figures in his Paris novel, "The Merry Month of May." But he claimed "the best beer in town is served in stone mugs at Brasserie du Pont," just across the foot bridge from Notre Dame cathedral and a short walk from his apartment. Like Hemingway nearly a half-century before him, Jones liked to roam the quays along the Seine, browsing the book stallss.
Jones recommended the Sûreté, police headquarters, where Georges Simenon's fictional Inspector Maigret battled felons and bureaucrats.
'Une dry' martini
Hemingway apparently could write anywhere — on a park bench beneath the statue of his hero Marshal Ney, at the finish line of the bike races at the Velodrome, at outdoor or window tables in several pubs bordering Boulevard Saint Michel.
In the pursuit of suitable writing dens, Hemingway taught dozens of bartenders to keep a light hand on the vermouth in concocting "une dry," a gin martini, to his rigid 16-to-1 specifications. William Faulkner liked to sit on the terrace of the Cafe Esmerelda gazing up at the Notre Dame's gargoyles. He often wrote while watching the old men playing petanque, a bowling game like bocci, in the Luxembourg Gardens.
It was only a short hop under the river to visit the literary sites on the Right Bank, like the Ritz Hotel, where a sozzled Fitzgerald was often seen being helped into a cab; and Harry's New York Bar, which can count four Nobel Prize winners among the alumni of its "Society of International Barflies": Hemingway, Faulkner, John Steinbeck and Sinclair Lewis.
American writers and artists still come to Paris to find themselves, or, like The Lost Generation of the '20s, to lose and booze themselves. As it did for Hemingway and James Jones, Paris becomes both their university and mistress.
Apr. 19th, 2004 @ 01:46 pm
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Media firms, artists back Bono over FCC
NEW YORK — Media companies, artists and civil rights activists joined together Monday to protest a ruling last month by the Federal Communications Commissions against the musician Bono of the group U2 for his use of an expletive on last year's Golden Globes broadcast.
CBS owner Viacom Inc. participated in the challenge, as did Fox Entertainment Group Inc., the American Civil Liberties Union, the Screen Actors Guild, the comedians Penn & Teller and Margaret Cho, and others.
Last month the FCC commissioners overruled their staff and declared that Bono's use of an expletive while accepting an award on television was indecent and profane. However, they did not impose a fine since they had never before said that practically any use of the expletive violated its rules.
That ruling came on the same day that the commission also announced three fines for what it deemed indecent radio broadcasts, two against Infinity Broadcasting, including one for a Howard Stern show, and one against a unit of Clear Channel Communications. Infinity is a subsidiary of Viacom.
The group said in a statement that the FCC's ruling against Bono was "chilling free speech across the broadcast landscape," prompting broadcasters to abandon live programming and to drop or heavily edit classic rock songs such as "Who Are You" by The Who and "Walk on the Wild Side" by Lou Reed.
FCC spokesman David Fiske declined to comment on the group's filing, which is called a petition for reconsideration.
The FCC did not immediately return a call for comment.
The incident in question occurred at last year's Golden Globe awards, when Bono said "This is really, really, f------ brilliant." The FCC received hundreds of complaints afterward.
In its ruling, the FCC rejected earlier findings that occasional use of that word was acceptable. The FCC's own enforcement bureau had ruled last October that Bono's remarks weren't obscene because they didn't describe a sexual act.
Apr. 19th, 2004 @ 01:45 pm
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Beckhams consult lawyers about reports
By ED JOHNSON
Associated Press Writer
LONDON — England soccer captain David Beckham and his wife, Victoria, have consulted attorneys over what to do about newspaper reports that he had extramarital affairs, said a statement released Monday by the couple.
"This weekend a series of even more absurd and unsubstantiated claims have been published about David and Victoria Beckham," the statement said.
"The couple continue to dismiss these stories and they will not be commenting upon them further at this time. Lawyers have been instructed by David and Victoria concerning these matters," said the statement, released by management agency 19, which represents the couple.
Last week, the News of the World tabloid reported that Beckham, 28, had a sexual relationship with his personal assistant Rebecca Loos, 26, between September and December.
Beckham issued a statement describing the Loos story as "ludicrous," but that did nothing to dampen media frenzy. When the Beckhams retreated to the French Alps for a skiing holiday last week, the newspapers followed them, looking for signs of strife or reconciliation.
On Sunday, Malaysian-born model Sarah Marbeck, 29, was quoted as telling the News of the World she had sex with Beckham hours after meeting him in Singapore in July 2001. She said they spent their second and last night together in March 2002.
She claimed they called and sent mobile phone text messages to each other for at least a year, before they lost touch.
Beckham, who played for Manchester United, moved to Spain last summer to play for Real Madrid.
Victoria Beckham spends most of her time in England with the couple's two young sons, 5-year-old Brooklyn and 18-month-old Romeo. The former Spice Girl has been trying to rekindle her flagging pop career.
Apr. 13th, 2004 @ 12:10 pm
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It is the job of thinking people not to be on the side of the executioners.
– Albert Camus
Apr. 13th, 2004 @ 11:20 am
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BUSH MEMOS FROM THESMOKINGGUN.COM---my fav document website.
 
APRIL 10--Under pressure from the September 11 commission, the White House today declassified and released an intelligence digest given to President George W. Bush weeks before the 2001 terrorist attacks. The confidential President's Daily Brief (PDB) for August 6, 2001 contained a two-page section entitled "Bin Ladin Determined to Strike in US," and refers to possible hijacking attempts by Osama bin Laden disciples and the existence of about 70 FBI investigations into alleged al-Qaeda cells operating within the United States. The August 6 PDB, an excerpt from which you'll find below, was presented to Bush while he vacationed at his ranch in Crawford, Texas. The digest is prepared by the Central Intelligence Agency, an official from which briefs the president on the report's contents. While Bush critics have described the August 6 PDB as a warning of an impending al-Qaeda attack, Condoleezza Rice, Bush's national security adviser, testified Thursday that the document contained "historical information based on old reporting. There was no new threat information." (2 pages)
Apr. 12th, 2004 @ 07:59 pm
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3 More Moroccans Arrested in Madrid Train Bombings
By ELAINE SCIOLINO
Published: April 13, 2004
ADRID, April 12 - A 28-year-old Moroccan aeronautical engineering student was charged Monday with involvement in the train bombings last month in Madrid, and the police announced the arrest of three more Moroccans in connection with the attacks.
After two hours of questioning on Monday, Judge Juan del Olmo, who is leading the investigation of the train bombings, formally charged the student, Fouad el-Mourabit, with "collaborating with an armed group."
Underscoring the complexity of the inquiry into Spain's terror networks, another Spanish judge and a team from the Federal Bureau of Investigation were questioning suspects at the same time in the same courthouse in two separate but related terror investigations.
Judge del Olmo had already detained, questioned and released Mr. Mourabit twice since March 11. But the police concluded from Mr. Mourabit's cellphone records that he had spoken with most of the men who had so far been identified at the core of the plot.
The calls, an official with the National Court told reporters, "proved he had close relations with almost all those who are under arrest or dead." Mr. Mourabit, she added, made phone calls to them before and on the day of the bombings on March 11.
She added that Mr. Mourabit was well acquainted with Sarhane Ben Abdelmajid Fakhet, 37, a Tunisian who is believed to have been the operational head of the plot and who died along with several others in a suicide bombing as tne police were closing in on their apartment.
Until last year Mr. Mourabit shared an apartment with one of the suicide bombers, and then he moved in with Basel Ghayoun, a Syrian who is also under arrest on charges of involvement in the March 11 bombings, the official said.
Mr. Mourabit maintained his innocence on Monday, telling the judge in Spanish that he had no idea his friends had been involved in the plot. One floor above, Judge Baltasar Garzón was continuing his examination of Muhammad Galeb Kalaje Zouaydi, accused of financing attacks by Al Qaeda, at Mr. Zouaydi's request.
Judge Garzón indicted Osama bin Laden and 34 others, including Mr. Zouaydi, in connection with the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the United States, which were partly planned in Spain. Mr. Zouaydi's lawyer, Manuel Tuero, explained that his client, who has been held since November 2001, had asked to respond to various charges against him.
On the same floor, a group of Bush administration lawyers and investigators began a week of questioning in connection with a terrorist inquiry in the United States, under a treaty that the United States has with Spain and other close allies.
One American official said that inquiry was unrelated to the Madrid train bombings, which he called "a completely Spanish investigation." He gave no further information.
But a Spanish lawyer familiar with the case said the Americans were in Madrid to question two Algerians, Khaled Madani, 33, and Moussa Laouar, 36, about their possible involvement in the Sept. 11 plot. They are suspected of providing false passports to Mohamed Atta and Ramzi bin al-Shibh, two of the central Sept. 11 plotters.
In another development on Monday, the police announced the arrests of Ibrahim al-Fallah, Hassan Belhadj and Said Aharouch, all of whom had been linked to the men who blew themselves up nine days ago.
One of the main targets of the continuing investigation is Amer el-Azizi, 36, a Moroccan who spent time in Qaeda camps in Afghanistan and recruited for them, according to a Spanish indictment charging him with involvement in the Spanish Qaeda cell that helped plan the Sept. 11 attacks. He is also wanted by Morocco in connection with attacks in Casablanca last year and by the F.B.I. in connection with Sept. 11.
News reports, citing Spanish investigators, in recent days have said Mr. Fakhet, a Tunisian immigrant, traveled to Turkey in late 2002 or early 2003 and met with Mr. Azizi. If such a meeting took place, it could establish a direct link between one of the main actors in the Madrid plot and Al Qaeda.
But senior intelligence, police and law enforcement officials said Monday that they could not confirm the accuracy of the reports.
Apr. 12th, 2004 @ 07:56 pm
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Hoping for Free Saris, 21 Indian Women Die in Stampede
By DAVID ROHDE
Published: April 13, 2004
NEW DELHI, April 12 - Twenty-one women were killed on Monday in the northern Indian city of Lucknow in a stampede set off when free saris were offered at a public birthday celebration for a close aide to Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee.
Witnesses said that more than 10,000 poor women and their children, responding to the sari offer, gathered under a large white tent in a public park on Monday afternoon. They rushed forward at the conclusion of the birthday celebration for Lalji Tandon, a senior official in Mr. Vajpayee's Hindu nationalist political party.
"Suddenly, a large number of women jostled with one another to reach the distribution point and collect the birthday gift,'' Komal Maurya, who was in the crowd, told Press Trust of India.
On Monday night, Indian satellite news channels broadcast graphic images of the dead women, whose bodies were shown stacked on the floor of a van. The stations did not identify the victims or a grieving young woman who was filmed trying to revive one of them.
Falling to her knees, she embraced the inert body and frantically tried to bring the young woman back to life - shaking her lifeless shoulders, stroking her hair and shouting a question into her motionless face.
"Why did you go to get the sari?'' the woman wailed, referring to the traditional dress worn by many Indian women. "Why did you go to get the sari?''
Members of the opposition Congress Party said the sari distribution was an illegal effort by Mr. Vajpayee's party to win favor with voters. For years, Indian politicians have distributed blankets, food and other gifts to draw crowds and garner votes, a practice election officials now ban.
Officials from Mr. Vajpayee's Bharatiya Janata Party said that the celebration was not a campaign event and that proper security procedures were in place. They said Mr. Vajpayee had canceled campaign appearances and was heading to Lucknow to console families and to make certain that there would be a full investigation.
Lucknow is the capital of Uttar Pradesh, India's largest state, which has a population of 170 million. One of India's poorest states, it represents a trove of potential votes for Indian political parties.
Mr. Vajpayee's party is running an "India Shining'' re-election campaign focused on the country's booming high technology industry, stock markets and an estimated 8 percent economic growth.
Members of the opposition Congress Party say the reports of economic growth are exaggerated and that the boom is not filtering down to India's poor, who make up 30 percent of the country's population.
This evening, shoes littered the area where the stampede took place, state run media reported. On a counter, a pile of new saris sat in a heap, undistributed.
Apr. 12th, 2004 @ 07:53 pm
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WRITTEN BY ME....
Slug: ESPIANAGE
Russian arms control researcher Igor Sutyagin was sentenced in Moscow Wednesday to 15 years in a maximum-security prison for spying on behalf of the United States, according to The Moscow Times.
Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) agents arrested Sutyagin, a researcher for an esteemed think tank in Obninsk, on charges that he had sold information on nuclear submarines and missile warning systems to a company that was merely a front for the CIA. However, Sutyagin still proclaims his innocence.
“I am not guilty,” he said. “All my guilt is that I had contacts with foreigners. In fact only newspapers, magazines and books, mostly published abroad, were the sources of my works.”
Sutyagin had a freelance contract with the British company that FSB agents said was a CIA operation. He states that not only was the information completely public, but he had no reason to suspect the business that contracted him was anything more than a foreign company.
Ecologist Anatoly Nikitin, who was brought up on similar charges, but was cleared in 1999, told Moskcy radio that, “A man has been jailed for 15 years for carrying out scientific activity. Even terrorists get less.”
But Sutyagin’s fate is not completely sealed. Lawyer Anna Stavitskaya, who is handling the case in the European Court on Human Rights, said Wednesday to the Moscow Times that the court has decided to hear Sutyagin’s case and give it high priority. The case is an issue under Articles 5 and 6 of the European Convention of Human Rights. These articles deal with improper detention and the right to a fair trial.
Human rights activists claim that the jury was instructed improperly on how to evaluate the case. Lawyers say that the judge asked the jury to decide whether Sutyagin gave the research to the company. Sutyagin did not argue anything to the contrary, but rather his argument was that he is a civilian with no access to classified materials and that his material came from already published sources.
Sutyagin’s lawyer in the Moscow case, Boris Kuznetsov is expected to appeal with in the next 10 days. He says the appeal is needed because his client is innocent, and the courts have made numerous errors—such as the judicial instruction given by judge Marina Komarova. “Before the trial he was approached by FSB agents who made him the offer that if he pleaded guilty, he would be convicted, but released from prison based on the time he had already spent behind bars.”
But the sentencing of 15 years is painful not only to Sutyagin, but also to his wife who sees a broader trend to fear. Wife Irina Manannikova told the San Francisco Chronicle that the agency is using her husband as a message.
“They are trying to justify the shutting down of a democracy, the strengthening of their authority,” she said. “They use these spy cases to tell people that they have to give up their freedoms to protect the country from spies.”
Sutyagin is the second scientist-suspected spy to receive a jury trial, a practice that entered Russia only two years agoThey reported that a jury cleared Siberian scientist Valentin Fanilov for spying for China. This outcome reportedly angered the FSB, according to Reuters. The FSB, the successor of the KGB, have argued that jurors should not be allowed on spy cases, but this time all 12 jurors found Sutyagin guilty of passing on information.
This news may have terrible implications for other scientists in Russia.
SOURCES:
Moscow Times, REUTERS, AP, New York Times, San Francisco Chronicle.
Apr. 11th, 2004 @ 10:30 pm
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Story written by Jamila Asha Johnson for Zenoworld
April 2, 2004
SLUG: LOLITA
Vladimir Nabokov once said, “Lolita is famous, not I.” Yet over the past weeks the possibility of a scandal in the creation of his internationally renowned novel Lolita has shook literary communities in Russia and Germany and put his name back in the papers internationally.
Could Lolita be a plagiarized work? This is the question on the lips of the literary world the past few weeks, but common support seems to be on the side of St. Petersburg-born author Nabokov. This week admirers of Nabokov announced that they find the allegations that the tale of Lolita was plagiarized from a 1916 German Novella without merit, according to a report in Thursday’s St. Petersburg Times.
But not all are convinced. The questions surrounding Lolita, a tale of a young girl and the man who gets seduced by her nymphet ways, emerged when literary scholar Michael Maar gave an interview last month to German media. He claims the parallels between Heinz Von Eschwege’s novella “Lolita” are far too similar to Nabokov’s novel—which is commonly thought to be one of the greatest literary works of the 20th century.
Eschwege’s novella, only 18-pages long, tells a very similar tale to Nabokov’s. It is a first person recount of a man losing his mind while embracing a relationship with a pre-teen girl. Last, but not least, both the Eschwege novella and the Nabokov novel call the girl Lolita.
But what’s in a name? Counter-arguments have sprung up suggesting that at the time Nabokov could not read German well enough to have taken the tale, even though he did spend 15 years in Berlin prior to relocating to the United States after WWII.
An article in the St. Petersburg Times states that Tatyana Ponomaryova, the head of the Nabokov museum in St. Petersburg, has not read the German novella, but believes the odds of plagiarism are low because it seems unlikely that Nabokov would have even read the forgotten work prior to the publication of Lolita in 1956.
"There is no indication that the two writers were acquainted, but there is proof that Vladimir Nabokov wasn't interested in contemporary German literature," Ponomaryova said to the Times. "More importantly, his German, while sufficient for him to communicate with, was too limited to allow him read such literature."
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Nabokov’s son, Dmitry, also denies the allegations stating as proof the fact that his father had used the theme in a book published prior to the German novella in an interview. Others say Dmitry’s father was working on Don Quixote lectures and that Dolores could have been inspired from this work. Dolores’s nickname is commonly Lolita.
Throughout the past decade many cases of plagiarism have arisen with Nabokov’s works, but these cases had been other authors accused of plagiarizing Nabokov’s works, not the other way around.
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SOURCES
http://www.sptimes.ru/archive/times/956/top/t_12091.htm
www.fulmerford.com/waxwing/nabokov.html -
www.randomhouse.com/features/nabokov/
Apr. 11th, 2004 @ 05:15 pm
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Military Says 12 GIs Killed in Recent Days
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published: April 11, 2004
Filed at 7:05 p.m. ET
BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) -- The U.S. military on Sunday announced the deaths of 12 U.S. soldiers killed Friday and Saturday.
Four of the soldiers, from the 1st Armored Division, were killed Friday in two separate attacks in Baghdad, the military said in a statement.
In the region of Tikrit on Friday, three 1st Infantry Division soldiers were killed and two wounded in an ambush in the town of Baiji, 120 miles northwest of the capital. Another soldier, from Task Force Danger, died when an RPG hit his armored vehicle near Buhritz, in the same area.
A Marine was killed Saturday in Anbar, a large western province, the statement said, giving no further details.
A 1st Armored Division soldier was killed in an attack on his convoy late Saturday in downtown Baghdad. A soldier wounded by a roadside bomb in Baghdad on Saturday died the next day.
A 1st Infantry Division soldier was killed and another wounded early Saturday when 15 insurgents attacked his patrol near Khalis, 30 miles north of Baghdad.
Including the newly announced deaths, 59 American soldiers have been killed in fighting across the country since April 4, when an uprising by a radical Shiite militia in the south and a Marine offensive on Sunni insurgents in Fallujah began.
At least 661 U.S. soldiers have died in Iraq since the war began in March 2003.
Apr. 11th, 2004 @ 05:03 pm
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April 12, 2004
Dutch Worker in Chechnya Is Released After 2 Years
By SETH MYDANS
MOSCOW, April 11 — A Dutch aid worker kidnapped almost two years ago near the lawless region of Chechnya was freed in a police operation on Sunday and returned to Moscow after months of failed attempts to negotiate his release.
The aid worker, Arjan Erkel, 35, who headed the North Caucasus mission of Doctors Without Borders, had been seized by masked gunmen in an area terrorized by kidnappings by both the military and rebel fighters.
[Mr. Erkel flew on to Rotterdam late Sunday, news agencies said.]
"I want to thank M.S.F. for having freed me of this nightmare," Mr. Erkel said in Moscow, referring to the French initials of his group Médécins Sans Frontières. He had grown a beard and lost weight during his 20 months as a hostage.
In a statement in Moscow, his group said, "First indications are that, for the circumstances, Arjan is in good health."
In the Netherlands, the foreign minister, Bernard Bot, said his government had been instrumental in the release.
"I feel fantastic," Mr. Erkel said. "I thank the Lord that he has brought me back to life." Then, using an Arabic expression that means "if God is willing," he said, "Inshallah, tonight I will be home."
Mr. Erkel was freed in Dagestan, a republic of Russia that adjoins Chechnya. A Dagestani official told local reporters that the release came in an operation involving intelligence agents and ministry forces, but did not give details.
Earlier, the aid group said it did not know who had been holding Mr. Erkel and no ransom demands had been made.
Last month, having lost patience with both Russian and Dutch actions that had failed to free Mr. Erkel, officials of the group suggested that Russian and Dagestani officials had been complicit in the abduction.
Citing Russian news reports regarding official involvement, they said the kidnapping might have been staged as a warning to other aid groups to stay out of the dangerous region.
Russian troops have been fighting in Chechnya for much of the past decade, and rebel groups have operated from forest camps in a campaign that involves terror tactics on both sides.
In a statement last month, the aid group said Russian and Dagestani authorities claimed to know who was behind the abduction and had shown that they had direct access to the kidnappers.
"It is clear that the Russian authorities hold the keys to solving this case and securing the safe release of Arjan," it said. "By not doing so, they demonstrate their lack of interest in its resolution."
"The abduction of Arjan and the subsequent investigation has been characterized by extreme irregularities," the statement said. "On the night of Arjan's abduction he was followed by two Russian security service operatives who themselves admit that they stood by as he was kidnapped."
It said authorities failed to follow up on leads and at one point suspended the investigation without telling the aid group.
"Very few aspects of the investigation give us reason to believe that the Russian authorities are really taking this seriously," said Dr. Thomas Nierle, the group's operations director in Switzerland.
"In fact, it is clear that the investigation has been hampered every step of the way. It appears they are more interested in a cover-up than solving the case."
Apr. 11th, 2004 @ 05:00 pm
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