NEWSWEEK has also learned that Palin's shopping spree at high-end department stores was more extensive than previously reported. While publicly supporting Palin, McCain's top advisers privately fumed at what they regarded as her outrageous profligacy. One senior aide said that Nicolle Wallace had told Palin to buy three suits for the convention and hire a stylist. But instead, the vice presidential nominee began buying for herself and her family—clothes and accessories from top stores such as Saks Fifth Avenue and Neiman Marcus. According to two knowledgeable sources, a vast majority of the clothes were bought by a wealthy donor, who was shocked when he got the bill. Palin also used low-level staffers to buy some of the clothes on their credit cards. The McCain campaign found out last week when the aides sought reimbursement. One aide estimated that she spent "tens of thousands" more than the reported $150,000, and that $20,000 to $40,000 went to buy clothes for her husband. Some articles of clothing have apparently been lost. An angry aide characterized the shopping spree as "Wasilla hillbillies looting Neiman Marcus from coast to coast," and said the truth will eventually come out when the Republican Party audits its books.

Your total 2007 Blue Sky purchase of renewable energy avoided the release of 8.97 tons of carbon dioxide into our air. This represents environmental benefits equal to not driving 19,220.37 miles.

Only a president clinically incapable of understanding that mistakes have consequences could take the action he did today.

The majority of Republicans in the United States do not believe the theory of evolution is true and do not believe that humans evolved over millions of years from less advanced forms of life. This suggests that when three Republican presidential candidates at a May debate stated they did not believe in evolution, they were generally in sync with the bulk of the rank-and-file Republicans whose nomination they are seeking to obtain.

Independents and Democrats are more likely than Republicans to believe in the theory of evolution. But even among non-Republicans there appears to be a significant minority who doubt that evolution adequately explains where humans came from.

For some reason, the military seems more afraid of gay people than they are against terrorists, but they're very brave with the terrorists. ... If the terrorists ever got a hold of this information, they'd get a platoon of lesbians to chase us out of Baghdad.

In this world, you have been forgotten.
If you want to quench the thirst of another, the least you need is water.
There is something about you that does not change.
That thirst to be fulfilled does not change.
You have searched outside, but have you searched inside? And tie well this boat of life to the changeless. If I do something at the expense of others, that is selfish. How do you begin to feel that magic in your life?
And from this well comes the spring of clarity. Do not be under the misunderstanding that the love is in someone else.
What am I doing here?
What I talk about, you have, whether you decide to pursue it or not.
You can try to change its appearance, but you cannot change its nature.
Understand who you are, your nature.
It is about feeling, admiring the space within.
The water of peace flows within you.
If you cannot find peace, come to me. I say: what you need, you already have.
The want to be fulfilled has always been there.
That has been an incredible challenge. One day, a farmer was walking through a jungle and he came across a tiny lion cub that had been lost. That thirst to be fulfilled does not change. Do whatever it takes to find that self and fulfill that self, so you may serve and serve well. There is pain in you, and there is joy in you. Be content and your behavior automatically alters. Understand what you have been given because it is magnificent. To feel that understanding, to be in joy, to be in reality. It is about feeling, admiring the space within. Always has been and always will be. It is not the palm trees that need peace; it is not the whales that need peace; it is not the North Pole that needs peace; and it is not the equator that needs peace. People spend thousands of dollars trying to alter their behavior, and yet it is so easy. And only one like you on the face of this earth.

Mr. Durbin: Will the Senator yield for a question?

Mr. Reid: I will be happy to yield for a question.

Mr. Durbin: Can the Senator refresh my memory? Was Mr. Bremmer the recipient of a gold medal or something from the President? Didn't he receive some high decoration or medal for his performance in Iraq?

Mr. Reid: The answer is, yes, he received that. I assume one would expect that from somebody who had a throne while he was over there.

Mr. Durbin: Isn't it also true that George Tenet, who was responsible for the intelligence that was so bad that led us into the war in Iraq, got a medal from the President the same day?

Mr. Reid: That is true.

Mr. Durbin: Did Michael Brown with FEMA receive a gold medal from the White House before he was dismissed?

Mr. Reid: I don't think he did. Even though he was doing a heck of a job, I don't think he obtained a medal from the White House.

Mr. Durbin: Apparently, these gold medals were being awarded for incompetence. They missed Mr. Brown, but they did give one to Mr. Bremmer. Will the Senator yield for another question?

Mr. Reid: I will be happy to.

Mr. Durbin: I am trying to recall the exact number -- it was in the billions of dollars -- that we gave to the President for the reconstruction of Iraq; is that not true?

Mr. Reid: It started out at $18 billion. But as the Senator from Illinois will remember, part of that money, stacks of one-hundred-dollar bills, was used by some of the contractors who were sent over there to play football games -- some of these same people.

Mr. Durbin: It is also true, is it not, that the Democratic policy conference has been holding hearings -- in fact, I think it is the only agency on the Hill holding hearings -- on this waste and abuse, this profiteering and corruption at the expense of American taxpayers and even, equally important -- more importantly -- at the expense of our troops?

Mr. Reid: I say to my friend, this war is approaching 3 1/2 years, and there has not been a single congressional oversight hearing on the conduct of the war. This war has now cost us, the American taxpayers, about $325 billion. There has not been a single congressional oversight hearing on the war.

Disney/ABC cancelled the reality show featuring a gay couple, "Welcome To The Neighborhood," ten days before it was to air when James Dobson and the religious right threatened to withdraw their support for the conservative classic "Narnia."

Disney refused to allow its subsidiary Miramax, which specialized in controversial fare, to distribute "Fahrenheit 9/11" allegedly because they felt it was too political.

They made a deal with Mel Gibson, beloved on the religious right for his film "The Passion," to produce a film about the Holocaust even though they knew at the time he held extremely controversial views about the Holocaust and Judaism. They only cancelled the project when he was caught by the police drunkenly saying "all the wars in the world are caused by the Jews."

Now they have produced a blatantly rightwing work of fiction which they are saying is based on the official 9/11 Commission report and they are giving it away without any advertising. They sent out hundreds of screening copies but failed to send any to the Clinton administration officials who are trashed in the film or to liberal columnists and bloggers.

There's a pattern here folks and it isn't a pattern that shows ABC knuckling under to liberals. There is a huge amount of money at stake in all these decisions, but for some reason Disney seems to be more than willing to throw it away when it benefits the right wing: already produced films and TV shows are either cancelled or allowed to be distributed by others, while hugely expensive, controversial rightwing mini-series' are broadcast with no advertising and allowed to be downloaded for free by I-tunes.

Nine black children attending Red River Elementary School were directed last week to the back of the school bus by a white driver who designated the front seats for white children.

...

After Richmond and Williams filed complaints with the School Board, Transportation Supervisor Jerry Carlisle asked Davis to make seat assignments for her passengers, Sessoms said.

"But she still assigned the black children to the back of the bus," she added.

And the nine children had to share only two seats, meaning the older children had to hold the younger ones in their laps.

A new solution reached Monday by School Board officials has a black bus driver driving across town to pick up the nine black children.

As the man approached the airport security checkpoint here on Wednesday, he kept picking up and putting down his backpack, touching his fingers to his chin, rubbing some object in his hands and finally reaching for his pack of cigarettes, even though smoking was not allowed.

Two Transportation Security Administration officers stood nearby, nearly motionless and silent, gazing straight at him. Then, with a nod, they moved in, chatting briefly with the man, and then swiftly pulled him aside for an intense search.

Another airline passenger had just made the acquaintance of the transportation agency's "behavior detection officers."

The RIAA has sued more than 20,000 music fans for file sharing, yet file sharing continues to rapidly increase both online and offline. When will you stop suing music fans?

The RIAA has sued over 20,000 music fans for file sharing, who have on average paid a $3,750 settlement. That's over $75,000,000. Has any money collected from your lawsuits gone to pay actual artists? Where's all that money going?

The RIAA has sued over 20,000 music fans for file sharing. Recently, an RIAA representative reportedly suggested that "students drop out of college or go to community college in order to be able to afford [P2P lawsuit] settlements." Do you stand by this advice? Is this really good advice for our children's futures?

The RIAA said that it only went after individual file sharers because you couldn't go after P2P system creators. After the Supreme Court's Grokster decision, shouldn't you stop going after music fans?

I just the other day got, an internet was sent by my staff at 10 o'clock in the morning on Friday and I just got it yesterday. Why?

Because it got tangled up with all these things going on the internet commercially.

...

The regulatory approach is wrong. Your approach is regulatory in the sense that it says "No one can charge anyone for massively invading this world of the internet". No, I'm not finished. I want people to understand my position, I'm not going to take a lot of time.

They want to deliver vast amounts of information over the internet. And again, the internet is not something you just dump something on. It's not a truck.

It's a series of tubes.

And if you don't understand those tubes can be filled and if they are filled, when you put your message in, it gets in line and its going to be delayed by anyone that puts into that tube enormous amounts of material, enormous amounts of material.

Antibiotic Could Cause Severe Liver Problems : Benefits Outweigh Risks ?

Rarely have science and art merged as enduringly, or as endearingly, as in "Protein Synthesis: An Epic on the Cellular Level," a twenty-minute educational film that has become a classic to generations of high-school and college science students. On an open field at Stanford University in 1971, several hundred students convened to undulate and impersonate molecules undergoing protein synthesis by a ribosome. A few were trained dancers, wearing costumes and colored balloons to identify their roles; most were recruited with the promise of fun and refreshments.

When the president was asked at a Rose Garden question-and-answer session whether the anthem should be sung in Spanish, he replied: "I think the national anthem ought to be sung in English, and I think people who want to be a citizen of this country ought to learn English and they ought to learn to sing the national anthem in English."

According to an article in the Washington Post last Friday, at least 389 different versions of our anthem have been produced over the years, in many musical styles, including rock and roll and country. But, the Post also noted, never before has it been rendered in another language.
...
That flag and that song are a part of our history and our national identity. It declares some of our national ideals, in being the "land of the free and the home of the brave." That's why in 1931 Congress declared the Star-Spangled Banner our national anthem.
...
That's why we should always sing it in our common language, English. And that's why today I am introducing a resolution that affirms that statements of national unity, especially the Pledge of Allegiance and the national anthem, ought to be recited or sung in English.

But in 1919, the U.S. Bureau of Education commissioned a Spanish-language version of "The Star Spangled Banner." The State Department's website also features four-separate versions of the anthem in Spanish.

When visiting cities like Chicago, Milwaukee or Philadelphia, in pivotal states, he would drop in at Hispanic festivals and parites, sometimes joining in singing "The Star-Spangled Banner" in Spanish, sometimes partying with a "Viva Bush" mariachi band flown in from Texas.

Vice President Dick Cheney says he was looking at his notes, not sleeping, during a briefing by President Bush and Chinese President Hu Jintao in Hu's first Oval Office visit.

Could someone really trademark the word 'coffee'? That sounds ridiculous. It's a generic term. It's a common word used throughout the world and especially in the coffee industry. It would be like trademarking the word 'screwdriver.' Surely a government organization wouldn't allow someone to claim the word 'coffee' as exclusively their own... Would they?

Well, it seems that there are big organizations that think they can finagle the law enough to get a trademark on common industry terms, as associated with their company name. In our instance, Starbucks is claiming they have exclusive rights to the word 'doubleshot' because they were granted a trademark on the term 'Starbucks Doubleshot' for a canned drink sold in convenience stores. They claim that I am infringing on that trademark, and that I should destroy everything I own with the word 'doubleshot' on it, and abandon my website.