http://consortiumnews.com/2013/05/03/howard-kurtzs-belated-comeuppance

Howard Kurtz’s Belated Comeuppance

May 3, 2013

Exclusive: Media critic Howard Kurtz has lost his job as Washington bureau chief for Newsweek/Daily Beast after a blog post in which he falsely accused basketball player Jason Collins of hiding his past engagement to a woman while coming out as gay. But Kurtz’s journalistic abuses have a much longer history, writes Robert Parry.

By Robert Parry

For nearly a quarter century, Howard Kurtz has served as hall monitor for Washington’s conventional wisdom, handing out demerits to independent-minded journalists who don’t abide by the mainstream rules. So, there is some understandable pleasure seeing Kurtz face some accountability in his ouster as bureau chief for Newsweek and The Daily Beast.

However, the more salient point is that Kurtz, who continues to host CNN’s “Reliable Sources” show, should never have achieved the level of influence in journalism that he did. Throughout his career, he has consistently – and unfairly – punished journalists who had the courage to ask tough questions and pursue truly important stories.

When one looks at the mess that is modern journalism in the United States, a chief culprit has been Howard Kurtz. Yet, his downfall did not come because of his smearing of fellow journalists – like Gary Webb and Helen Thomas – but rather from a blog post that unfairly criticized basketball player Jason Collins after he revealed that he was gay.

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While Webb was held to the strictest standards of journalism, it was entirely all right for Kurtz — the supposed arbiter of journalistic standards — to make judgments based on ignorance. Kurtz faced no repercussions for disparaging an embattled journalist who was factually correct. (Kurtz’s sloppiness regarding Webb was similar to Kurtz’s cavalier approach to Collins’s brave announcement as the first player in a major U.S. team sport to declare that he is gay.)

- snip -

On Nov. 12, 2001, the Post’s headline was “Florida Recounts Would Have Favored Bush” and Kurtz backed that judgment up by dismissing anyone who actually looked at the statistical findings of the recount as a kook. Kurtz’s sidebar – headlined, “George W. Bush, Now More Than Ever” – ridiculed as “conspiracy theorists” those who thought Gore had won.

MUCH MORE AT LINK

Source: CBS News

Same-sex marriage becomes legal in Rhode Island
May 02, 2013

PROVIDENCE, R.I. Rhode Island on Thursday became the nation's 10th state to allow gay and lesbian couples to wed, as a 16-year effort to extend marriage rights in this heavily Roman Catholic state ended with the triumphant cheers of hundreds of gays, lesbians, their families and friends.

Gov. Lincoln Chafee signed the bill into law on the Statehouse steps Thursday evening following a final 56-15 vote in the House. The first weddings will take place Aug. 1, when the law takes effect.

"I've been waiting 32 years for this day, and I never thought it would come in my lifetime," said Raymond Beausejour, a 66-year-old gay North Providence man who has been with his partner for 32 years. "For the first time in my life, I feel welcome in my own state."

After Chafee signed the bill, the hundreds of people who gathered on the Statehouse grounds erupted into cheers as a chorus sang "Chapel of Love."

Read more: http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-250_162-57582680/same-sex-marriage-becomes-legal-in-rhode-island

Source: Associated Press

IBM MAKES TINY MOVIE BY PUSHING MOLECULES AROUND

Associated Press

— May. 1 12:11 AM EDT

WHITE PLAINS, N.Y. (AP) — Scientists have taken the idea of a film short down to new levels. Molecular levels.

IBM says it has made the tiniest stop-motion movie ever — a one-minute video of individual carbon monoxide molecules repeatedly rearranged to show a boy dancing, throwing a ball and bouncing on a trampoline.

Each frame measures 45 by 25 nanometers — there are 25 million nanometers in an inch — but hugely magnified, the movie (http://bit.ly/17ZmHIt ) is reminiscent of early video games, particularly when the boy bounces the ball off the side of the frame accompanied by simple music and sound effects.

The movie is titled "A Boy and His Atom."

Videos showing atoms in motion have been seen before but Andreas Heinrich, IBM's principal scientist for the project, said Tuesday this is the first time anything so small has been maneuvered to tell a story.

Read more: http://bigstory.ap.org/article/ibm-makes-tiny-movie-pushing-molecules-around

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In this undated image taken from video and provided by IBM, a boy composed of carbon monoxide molecules rides a skateboard in a scene from what IBM claims to be the world's tiniest stop-action movie. Entitled “A Boy and his Atom,” the one minute video employs individual carbon monoxide molecules that are rearranged to show the boy carrying out various activities. Each of the 242 frames measures 45 by 25 nanometers which is one billionth of a meter. (AP Photo/IBM)

http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2013-04-30/a-new-obstacle-to-gop-efforts-to-repeal-obamacare

A New Obstacle to GOP Efforts to Repeal Obamacare

By Joshua Green

April 30, 2013 0:38 PM EDT

Over the last two years, Republicans in Congress have voted dozens of times to repeal the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, a.k.a. “Obamacare.” A furious debate over whether to keep up the probably fruitless push for outright repeal or instead attack the law at the margins has sundered the GOP and set back the efforts by such Republican leaders as Eric Cantor to put a friendlier face on an unpopular party.

A new poll out this morning from the Kaiser Family Foundation reveals an obstacle to repeal that Republicans may not have been counting on: One in five Americans believes that Obamacare has already been repealed. These misinformed millions divide into two camps: the 12 percent who wrongly believe that Congress has already undone the law and the 7 percent who wrongly believe that the Supreme Court struck it down (they must be CNN and Fox News watchers).

Source: Reuters

American Medical Association questions Guantanamo force-feedings

Mon Apr 29, 2013 8:58pm BST

By Jane Sutton

MIAMI (Reuters) - The Navy sent extra medical personnel to the Guantanamo detention camp because of a growing hunger strike, and the American Medical Association questioned whether doctors were being asked to violate their ethics by force-feeding prisoners.

The reinforcements arrived at the weekend and included about 40 nurses, specialists and hospital corpsmen, who are trained to provide basic medical care, Army Lieutenant Colonel Samuel House, a spokesman for the detention camp said, said on Monday.

He said 100 of the 166 detainees had joined a hunger strike that began in February to protest their continued detention at the Guantanamo Bay U.S. Naval Base in eastern Cuba. Twenty-one of those had lost enough weight that they were being fed liquid supplements via tubes inserted in their noses and down into their stomachs, House said.

Five were in the hospital for observation but did not have life-threatening conditions, he said.

On Thursday, the president of the American Medical Association sent a letter to U.S. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel reiterating its long-held position that it is a violation of medical ethics to force-feed mentally competent adults who refuse food and life-saving treatment.

Read more: http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSBRE93S0VD20130429

Source: Associated Press

OFFICIALS: 16 KILLED IN CAR BOMBINGS IN SOUTH IRAQ

By SINAN SALAHEDDIN
— Apr. 29 3:41 AM EDT

BAGHDAD (AP) — Officials say three car bombs have killed 16 people and wounded dozens in two Shiite cities in southern Iraq amid a rise in sectarian violence.

A police officer says two parked car bombs went off simultaneously Monday morning in the city of Amarah near a gathering of constructor workers and a market, killing nine civilians and wounding 20. Amarah is located 320 kilometers (200 miles) southeast of Baghdad.

Another police officer said a parked car bomb exploded near a restaurant in the city of Diwaniyah, killing seven civilians and wounding 15 others. The city is located 130 kilometers (80 miles) south of Baghdad.

Two medical officials confirmed the casualty figures. All officials spoke on condition of anonymity as they were not authorized to release information.

Read more: http://bigstory.ap.org/article/officials-16-killed-car-bombings-south-iraq

Source: Associated Press

PER-STUDENT PRE-K SPENDING LOWEST IN DECADE

By PHILIP ELLIOTT
— Apr. 29 12:03 AM EDT

WASHINGTON (AP) — State funding for pre-kindergarten programs had its largest drop ever last year and states are now spending less per child than they did a decade ago, according to a report released Monday.

The report also found that more than a half million of those preschool students are in programs that don't even meet standards suggested by industry experts that would qualify for federal dollars.

Those findings — combined with Congress' reluctance to spend new dollars — complicate President Barack Obama's effort to expand pre-K programs across the country. While Education Secretary Arne Duncan and Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius continue to promote the president's proposal, researchers say existing programs are inadequate, and until their shortcomings are fixed there is little desire by lawmakers to get behind Obama's call for more preschool.

"The state of preschool was a state of emergency," said Steven Barnett, director of the National Institute for Early Education Research at Rutgers University, which produced the report.

Read more: http://bigstory.ap.org/article/student-pre-k-spending-lowest-decade

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/29/opinion/krugman-the-story-of-our-time.html

The Story of Our Time

By PAUL KRUGMAN
Published: April 28, 2013

Those of us who have spent years arguing against premature fiscal austerity have just had a good two weeks. Academic studies that supposedly justified austerity have lost credibility; hard-liners in the European Commission and elsewhere have softened their rhetoric. The tone of the conversation has definitely changed.

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Let’s start with what may be the most crucial thing to understand: the economy is not like an individual family. Families earn what they can, and spend as much as they think prudent; spending and earning opportunities are two different things. In the economy as a whole, however, income and spending are interdependent: my spending is your income, and your spending is my income. If both of us slash spending at the same time, both of our incomes will fall too.

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O.K., I’ve just given you a story, but why should you believe it? There are, after all, people who insist that the real problem is on the economy’s supply side: that workers lack the skills they need, or that unemployment insurance has destroyed the incentive to work, or that the looming menace of universal health care is preventing hiring, or whatever. How do we know that they’re wrong?

Well, I could go on at length on this topic, but just look at the predictions the two sides in this debate have made. People like me predicted right from the start that large budget deficits would have little effect on interest rates, that large-scale “money printing” by the Fed (not a good description of actual Fed policy, but never mind) wouldn’t be inflationary, that austerity policies would lead to terrible economic downturns. The other side jeered, insisting that interest rates would skyrocket and that austerity would actually lead to economic expansion. Ask bond traders, or the suffering populations of Spain, Portugal and so on, how it actually turned out.

- snip -

What has happened now, however, is that the drive for austerity has lost its intellectual fig leaf, and stands exposed as the expression of prejudice, opportunism and class interest it always was. And maybe, just maybe, that sudden exposure will give us a chance to start doing something about the depression we’re in.

MORE

Source: New York Times

Karzai’s Office Gets Bags Full of C.I.A. Cash

By MATTHEW ROSENBERG
Published: April 28, 2013 75 Comments

KABUL, Afghanistan — For more than a decade, wads of American dollars packed into suitcases, backpacks and, on occasion, plastic shopping bags have been dropped off every month or so at the offices of Afghanistan’s president — courtesy of the Central Intelligence Agency.

All told, tens of millions of dollars have flowed from the C.I.A. to the office of President Hamid Karzai, according to current and former advisers to the Afghan leader.

“We called it ‘ghost money,’ ” said Khalil Roman, who served as Mr. Karzai’s chief of staff from 2002 until 2005. “It came in secret, and it left in secret.”

The C.I.A., which declined to comment for this article, has long been known to support some relatives and close aides of Mr. Karzai. But the new accounts of off-the-books cash delivered directly to his office show payments on a vaster scale, and with a far greater impact on everyday governing.

Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/29/world/asia/cia-delivers-cash-to-afghan-leaders-office.html

Source: Associated Press

Bangladesh building collapse death toll hits 362

By JULHAS ALAM and CHRIS BLAKE
From Associated Press
April 28, 2013 1:40 AM EDT

SAVAR, Bangladesh (AP) — Bangladesh rescuers on Sunday located nine people alive inside the rubble of a multi-story building that collapsed five days ago, as authorities announced they will now use heavy equipment to drill a central hole from the top to find survivors and dead bodies.

At least 362 people are confirmed dead in the collapse of the 8-story building that housed five garment factories. The death toll is expected to rise further, but it is already the deadliest tragedy to hit Bangladesh's garment industry, which is worth $20 billion annually and is one of the mainstays of the economy.

Wednesday's collapse and previous disasters in garment factories have focused attention on the poor working conditions of workers who toil for as little as $38 a month to produce clothing for top international brands.

Army Maj. Gen. Chowdhury Hasan Suhrawardy, the coordinator of the rescue operations, said they will try to save the nine people first by manually shifting concrete blocks with the help of light equipment such as pick axes and shovels.

"But if we fail we will start our next phase within hours," which would involve manual efforts as well as heavy equipment, including hydraulic cranes and cutters to bore a hole from the top of the collapsed building, he told reporters.

Read more: http://enews.earthlink.net/article/top?guid=20130427/52f10555-205f-441d-ac70-07e9e4ed543f