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DHP Review: Towelhead Posted by Dirty Harry on Thursday, July 24th, 2008 During the Q&A, after a sneak preview of Towelhead, writer/director Alan Ball said of child rape, “Society wants us to believe that’s a soul destroying event, I don’t believe that.” The context of such an incendiary statement is important and can be found in his film, the story of a thirteen year old Arab girl, Jasira, (Summer Bishil) who‘s raped by her Army Reservist next door neighbor (Aaron Eckhart), molested by her mother‘s boyfriend, and sexually manipulated by Thomas (Eugene Bradley), a young man she goes to school...

The collection of ne’er do wells, clueless dolts, political hacks, and oh, let’s just be blunt and call them what they are — total Idiots — expands into an ever larger circle. While the Republic burns due to the unsavory combination of incompetence, ideological rigidity, and crony capitalism, the fools and assclowns seem ever more determined to avoid any personal responsibility for the damages they have wrought. Instead, they flail about blindly, blaming everything and everyone — except their own horrific negligence. This is financial incompetence writ on a scale grander than anything seen for centuries. As a nation, our...

DALLAS — What do "black hole," "angel food cake," and "devil's food cake" have in common? They're all racist terms, says a Dallas County, Texas, official. A county commissioners' meeting this week over traffic tickets turned into a tense discussion over race when one commissioner said the county's collections office was like a certain astronomical phenomenon. "It sounds like Central Collections has become a black hole," Commissioner Kenneth Mayfield, who is white, said during the Monday meeting. One black official demanded an apology, and Commissioner John Wiley Price, who also is black, said that type of language is unacceptable. At...

Carol Fisher thought she did everything right to prepare for retirement--and to live her dream of seeing the country from a recreational vehicle. She and her husband, Larry, worked at the Naval Surface Warfare Center in Dahlgren. They planned to sell their log home in King George County after they retired and live off the interest, along with their pensions. But when Larry Fisher died two years after the couple began traveling, Carol Fisher's dreams ended, too. ------------------------------------------------------ She also had a decade-long spending spree, buying souvenirs from New York to Nova Scotia. When gas and grocery prices soared, she...

An attorney with a six-figure salary, Will Chen thought credit card debt was something that only affected people with low-paying jobs. But when the lavish spending inspired by his new job outpaced his paychecks, he quickly fell $100,000 into debt. ADVERTISEMENT Credit-card debt is becoming even more prominent in the struggling state of the economy. The average amount per consumer rose to $6,900 in the last year, a 21 percent increase, according to Experian, a global information services company. The average number of past-due accounts also increased to exceed more than one per consumer. And it's not just those with...

I called and complained about gas prices. This is the claptrap I got back. Maria Cantwell United States Senator Voted to be 2nd dumbest politician in DC Dear Mr. kennyboy509 Thank you for contacting me with your concerns about the high energy prices in Washington state. I appreciate hearing from you on this matter of utmost importance to families and businesses across our nation. As I'm sure you know, the last few months have seen the highest recorded average gasoline and diesel prices ever seen in Washington. With volatile oil prices over $135 per barrel, and gasoline and diesel pump...

Emily Nordling has never met a Muslim, at least not to her knowledge. But this spring, Ms. Nordling, a 19-year-old student from Fort Thomas, Ky., gave herself a new middle name on Facebook.com, mimicking her boyfriend and shocking her father. “Emily Hussein Nordling,” her entry now reads. With her decision, she joined a growing band of supporters of Senator Barack Obama, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, who are expressing solidarity with him.....

Video clip from Al Furqan's latest tape, "The Islamic State is Meant to Stay". The video shows the attack on Combat Outpost Inman and images from The Long War Journal of the aftermath of the attack. Al Qaeda in Iraq, through its puppet organization the Islamic State of Iraq, released its latest propaganda video on June 23. The video contains a montage of attacks throughout Iraq, and features two Kuwaiti al Qaeda operatives who conducted strikes in Mosul. One of the operatives was released from the US military prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. The Islamic State of Iraq used footage...

- According to the media, a liberal standing over a dead body with a smoking gun is someone who is innocent until proven guilty. A conservative standing over a dead body with a smoking gun is a crazed, uneducated, KKK cracker, and proof positive that more gun control laws are needed. - Jimmy Carter is a celebrity these days because so many of those who have granted him that status are too young to remember what a colossal disaster he was as a president. - “Consensus” is one of those sissified terms that emerge when leadership is not around. -...

U.S. mayors are adding their voices to those raising concerns about energy produced from Alberta's vast oilsands. The U.S. Conference of Mayors, meeting in Miami this week, has approved a resolution calling on its members to ban the use of energy from unconventional sources because of its impact on the environment. "We don't want to spend taxpayer dollars on fuels that make global warming worse," said Eugene, Ore., Mayor Kitty Piercy, who submitted the resolution.

Brooklyn teen Quashon Burton thought bringing a laxative-laced cake to school would be "funny" - but he's not laughing now.   After two teachers were sickened and he was hit with an assault charge, the senior is worried his whole future is collapsing like a half-baked souffle. "I'm pretty scared," Burton told the Daily News Thursday outside his home in Brownsville.  "I didn't mean to have this whole thing blow out of proportion. I thought it would be a senior prank that everyone would think is funny." Burton, 17, and pals Tiara Peoples and Kenny Ramirez got the idea to...

(CNSNews.com) - President's Bush's call on Wednesday for Congress to lift its 27-year moratorium on offshore drilling is an "example of typical Bush White House politics," Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev) told Cybercast News Service Thursday. Other leading Democrats on Capitol Hill also said they were surprised that Bush has not yet rescinded the executive office ban on drilling, which was established by his father, President George H.W. Bush, in 1990. "What the president is doing is unfair to the American people to indicate, 'We will let Congress do something about it,' " Reid said. "He has the authority...

Boulder, Colo. -- The Earth has about 16.2 million square miles of forests but scientists say research is needed to understand the forests' impact on climate change. "As politicians and the general public become more aware of climate change, there will be greater interest in legislative policies to mitigate global warming," said atmospheric scientist Gordon Bonan of the National Science Foundation's National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colo. "Forests have been proposed as a possible solution, so it is imperative that we understand fully how forests influence climate." The complex relationships within forests both add and subtract from the...

A senior labour leader with the Canadian Auto Workers union confronted Americans buying Asian cars recently about their choices and compared Japanese car dealers to the enemy in the Second World War, according to a union summary of the trip. Ron Carlyle, the CAW's chair representing workers at General Motors Corp.'s car plant in Oshawa, Ont., spoke at a GM union leadership meeting this past spring about a trip he took to a NASCAR event in the United States. Minutes of the meeting, dated March 20 and posted on the CAW Local 222 website, describe what Mr. Carlyle said. "Ron...

... 97 senators recently voted to increase the supply of oil on the market by stopping the flow of oil into the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, which protects against major physical interruptions. Seventy-one of the 97 senators who voted to stop filling the reserve also oppose drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. One million barrels is what might today be flowing from ANWR if in 1995 President Bill Clinton had not vetoed legislation to permit drilling there. One million barrels produce 27 million gallons of gasoline and diesel fuel. Seventy-two of today's senators -- including Schumer, of course, and 38...

Remember the recent farce when the Guardian's George Monbiot made a spectacle of himself by pretending he was going to subject John Bolton to a citizen's arrest for being a "war criminal"? If the kooks at Democratic Underground have their way, we'll be subjected to more tasteless entertainment along the same lines. DUmmies are advised not to announce they're coming before pouncing on their quarry, and to refer to convictbushcheney.org for information as to when suitable victims might show up in their towns. There follows a long list of "war criminals," along with their alleged crimes, mostly having to do...

Dutch police say a man who pushed his exposed buttocks against a restaurant window as a joke was injured when the glass broke and lacerated his behind. Authorities say a man, 21, and two others had run down a street Sunday morning with their pants pulled down. The man pushed his behind against the window of a restaurant when it broke and cut him. The injured man was treated for his injuries at a nearby hospital. The cafe owner decided not to press charges after the men agreed to pay for the broken window.

July 6, 1999 New Poll Gauges Americans' General Knowledge Levels When Americans are asked to identify the country from which America gained its independence, 76% correctly name Great Britain. A handful, 2%, think America's freedom was won from France, 3% mention some other country (including Russia, China, and Mexico, among others named), while 19% are unsure. Groups that have higher degrees of self-reported patriotism (see Gallup's Fourth of July release), such as older people and whites, are also more likely to correctly name the country from which America gained its independence. Only 66% of those aged 18-29 know that America...

YANGON, Myanmar — Myanmar shunned a U.S. proposal for naval ships to deliver aid to cyclone victims today, according to state-run media, dimming hopes that the vessels could provide a major boost to relief efforts. The New Light of Myanmar, a mouthpiece for Myanmar's ruling junta, said that such assistance "comes with strings attached," citing fears that Washington wants to overthrow the country's government and seize its oil. The United States, as well as France and Great Britain, have naval vessels loaded with humanitarian supplies off the Myanmar coast, and had been waiting for a green light to deliver them....

The US House of Representatives will hold hearings on energy markets trying to determine who is causing oil prices to rise. The anti-market investigation will blame hedge funds and investment banks for manipulating the markets to make oil go to record levels. Oil is too global a commodity for speculators to determine its price. We know, for instance, that oil prices are high not only in spot markets but in futures markets, not only on the Nymex but in the UK (Brent), Dubai, Malaysia, and numerous smaller, less liquid markets not accessible to speculators. Are we to believe that the...

WASHINGTON - Strapped homeowners could refinance into government-backed mortgages and states would get money to deal with foreclosed property under Democrats' housing aid plan. The measures, slated for votes Thursday, constitute the most significant action Congress has taken to date to address the housing crisis that's at the center of the nation's economic woes. President Bush has threatened to veto both measures, which he says reward lenders and speculators. Democrats counter that the bills will head off hundreds of thousands of foreclosures, stabilize the shaky housing market, and prevent neighborhood blight. The centerpiece of their plan is a bill by...

For school officials in Haverford Township, the challenge was daunting: What do you do when a 9-year-old student, with the full support of his parents, decides that he is no longer a boy and instead is a girl? Parents of a third-grade student at Chatham Park Elementary School approached the administration on April 16 to ask for help in making a "social transition" for their child. (Excerpt) Full story: http://www.philly.com/inquirer/local/pa/chester/20080503_School_challenge__Transgender_student_is_age_9.html The Haverford School District consulted experts on transgender children, then sent letters to parents advising them that the guidance counselor would meet with the school's 100 third-grade students to explain...

LOS ANGELES — Look out, Al Gore ... People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals says you are refusing to face one very "inconvenient truth." On Monday, the animal rights organization launched the campaign offsetalgore.com (conveniently timed for Earth Day) in an attempt to counter the effects that they say the former vice president's meat-laden diet has on Mother Nature. While reps for Gore had no comment, Pop Tarts confirmed with people who have worked with the ex-veep that he loves his steak and sausage, plus he was notorious for chowing down on the almost all-meat Atkins diet during his...

Andy Warhol famously opined that everyone would eventually experience their own "15 minutes" of fame. Little did he know that, like a drug, having once experienced 15 minutes of fame, many people would become addicted. And with the growth of 24/7 news cycles, many others would go to desperate lengths to achieve their own 15 minutes of fame, by any means. Take Yale student, Aliza Schvarts, who is currently enjoying her very own 15 minutes, reveling in the controversy sparked by her desperate bid for relevance. She concocted an art project..

ALBANY (1010 WINS/AP) -- The state Assembly has given final approval to legislation intended to protect teenagers who use social-networking sites from online predators. Attorney General Andrew Cuomo introduced the Electronic Security and Targeting of Online Predators Act in January. It requires registered sex offenders to provide online screen names to state officials. They would share the identities with Web hangouts like MySpace.com and Facebook.com, who are authorized to prescreen or remove offenders. It also restricts use of the Internet by certain sex offenders on probation and parole. The Assembly also passed legislation that would increase criminal penalties for using...

NEWS RELEASE Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms 12500 N.E. Tenth Place Bellevue, WA  98005 PRISON RELEASE IDEA ‘AN OUTRAGE,’ SAYS CCRKBA; ADVISES CITIZENS TO ARM THEMSELVES For Immediate Release: April 4, 2008 BELLEVUE, WA – Reports that state lawmakers are considering the release of thousands of prison inmates across the country to save money amount to a public outrage, the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms said today. The Associated Press reported Friday morning that legislators in several states are considering the move to prop up state budgets. One report...

How did your Earth Hour go? My husband and I enjoyed it so much, we want to try to do it weekly.

Today, Google has decided to celebrate "Earth Hour" in this way on their main page: Here is some text to explain their actions: Google users in the United States will notice today that we "turned the lights out" on the Google.com homepage as a gesture to raise awareness of a worldwide energy conservation effort called Earth Hour. As to why we don't do this permanently - it saves no energy; modern displays use the same amount of power regardless of what they display. However, you can do something to reduce the energy consumption of your home PC by joining the...

Three new hires allegedly spent a day drinking, driving and shooting at stop signs. Three Dona Ana County Detention Center Officers, who just graduated from the center's training academy in February, allegedly spent March 7 drinking and driving around Las Cruces' East Mesa, shooting an assault rifle in the air and firing at stop signs with a handgun, the Las Cruces Sun-News is reporting. -SNIP- Guerra and Cardoza later allegedly fired an AK-47 assault rifle into the air, and police said Hernandez admitted to helping load the weapon but denied firing it, according to the Sun-News.

Police watch as anti-war protesters dressed as detainees chain themselves across Market Street in San Francisco, on the fifth anniversary of the war in Iraq Wednesday, March 19, 2008 Anti-war protesters block traffic as they march down K Street in Washington March 19, 2008. Protesters to the war in Iraq perform a demonstration of waterboarding torture techniques in Lafayette Park across from the White House in Washington, Wednesday, March 19, 2008. A lone protester tries to catch up with the main body of marchers as she carries a large marionette during an anti-war march on the fifth anniversary of the...

Many Christians sacrifice a personal pleasure such as chocolate, liquor, or cigarettes to mark Lent, the period of penance and prayer before Easter. This year, Nina Scott is giving up carbon. The retired University of Massachusetts at Amherst professor is hanging wet laundry on a clothesline in her basement to prevent emissions of heat-trapping carbon dioxide from using the dryer. She is carpooling as much as she can and turning off lights more often.

Doors uncovered Two days after the attack, racial graffiti was spray-painted on the garage doors of the house the couple has been building since 2005, when a fire destroyed their previous home. In January, KSKY/660 AM radio host Mike Gallagher helped raise $4,000 to replace the doors. Gamble picked up the new doors last week, according to Gallagher. The vandalized doors have not been replaced, but a blue tarp covers the racial slurs. Haynes announced Friday that the doors were being uncovered so the "world would see that racism exists in Arlington." "Racism in Arlington has been exposed," he said....

Clintonite Stabs Obama Supporter Cops: Man assaulted brother-in-law during political argument FEBRUARY 25--Meet Jose Antonio Ortiz. The Pennsylvania man allegedly stabbed his brother-in-law in the stomach after the pair quarreled about their respective support of Democratic presidential candidates Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton. According to cops, Ortiz, 28, stabbed Sean Shurelds last Thursday night in the kitchen of an Upper Providence Township home. According to a criminal complaint, a copy of which you'll find here, the 41-year-old Shurelds, an Obama supporter, told Ortiz that the Illinois senator was "trashing" Clinton (apparently in regard to recent primary and caucus results). Ortiz,...

NEWTON - From the beginning, no hyperbole was spared when discussing the proposed Newton North High School. The mayor said it would reaffirm the city's commitment to top-notch education, the architect said he hoped to build the best high school in the country, and voters ultimately supported building the most expensive school in state history. The public schools, after all, are why many people moved to Newton in the first place. But now, with the estimated cost of the new school ballooning from $141 million to $186 million and beyond, and one state official referring to it as a Taj...

In the 1990s, when Latin America and Asia were rocked by financial crises similar to the one now dogging the United States, Washington officials were quick with stern advice: Don't bail out distressed banks. Don't intervene when stock market and real estate bubbles pop. Let your overblown economies shrink to their natural levels. "It was all, 'You've got to be tough and take your castor oil,' " said Joseph E. Stiglitz, the Nobel Prize-winning economist, chairman of the Council of Economic Advisors under President Clinton and former vice president of the World Bank. To date, U.S. officials haven't followed any...

...at least not to the AP: Romney did better among more conservative voters, while McCain and Paul each got about one in five moderates, who made up about 20 percent of the electorate. OK, what kind of a "moderate" would vote for Ron Paul? I can't think of any position that he takes that could be considered "moderate." He's what most people would call an extremist*. If someone called themselves a "moderate," or someone whom the AP would call a "moderate" would vote for Ron Paul then the word has no meaning whatsoever. And frankly, I find people who call...

San Francisco police today began their review of the cell phones and car belonging to the survivors of a Christmas Day tiger attack at the San Francisco Zoo, officials said. < snip > A San Francisco Superior Court judge granted a search warrant allowing police to examine the cell phones and car on Tuesday. For police and city officials to get the warrant, they needed to show probable cause of felony wrongdoing, a city official said.

Soon after their 17-year-old friend was mauled to death by a tiger at the San Francisco Zoo, the two brothers who survived the attack made a quick pact not to cooperate with the police as they rode in an ambulance to the hospital, sources told The Chronicle. "Don't tell them what we did," paramedics heard 23-year-old Kulbir Dhaliwal tell his brother, Paul, 19. Sources also say that the younger brother was intoxicated at the time of the incident, having used marijuana and consumed enough liquor to have a blood-alcohol level above the .08 limit for adult drivers. The older brother...

The two brothers injured in the Christmas Day tiger attack at the San Francisco Zoo have refused to let police examine photos on their cell phones that authorities believe were taken the day they were mauled and their friend was killed. < snip > "We also understand that police officers requested permission from your clients to examine any images and other contents of the cell phone. Your clients refused to cooperate with this request; consequently, no one has yet examined this potentially critical evidence."

Jennifer Miller, who was at the zoo with her husband and two children that ill-fated Christmas afternoon, said she saw four young men at the big-cat grottos - and three of them were teasing the lions a short time before the tiger's bloody rampage that killed 17-year-old Carlos Sousa Jr. < snip > When a friend told Miller about the attacks - first reported to 911 dispatchers at 5:07 p.m. - she called police the day after Christmas to tell them what she had seen. She called back Wednesday because she was wondering why news accounts mentioned only three young...

California faces an estimated $14 billion budget deficit, but the state's independent fiscal watchdog has an answer: Trim some of the tax loopholes, which total $50 billion. Simple idea. Difficult to make happen. Each of the hundreds of tax breaks is important to some interest group, political analysts said, and a few of those loopholes are perceived almost as a constitutional right. Nevertheless, Legislative Analyst Elizabeth Hill's recommendations on tax breaks, which she says mostly benefit the rich and corporations, are drawing attention. She even addressed the largest, seemingly most untouchable tax break: allowing homeowners to deduct mortgage interest off...

The invaders smashed through a security gate and broke windows in order to get inside, police reports said. During their investigation, Rugby police provided her with a crime-fighting booklet that discusses home security. But she told the Advertiser when she asked about putting in a new security fence and upgrading its capabilities, she was told the laws on liability meant she risked a police investigation herself if any trespassers hurt themselves climbing it. She had wanted to add barbed wire to the fence in order to reduce the ease with which the robbers apparently gained access to her home. But...

Congress is poised to give the President a $516 billion omnibus spending bill that would downgrade previous mandates for a double-layered border fence to be built along the southern border. The Secure Fence Act of 2006 required “two layers of reinforced fencing” be constructed in five separate areas, but Texas Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison (R.) slipped a provision into a fiscal year 2008 spending bill that weakens the law. Hutchison and fellow Texas Sen. John Cornyn (R.) believe Border and Customs Enforcement should have more freedom to build fencing where they see fit instead of having to follow exact requirements...

Updated: Wednesday, 19 December 2007, 11:38 GMT Charity 'may offend pupils' claim The gifts are sent to children in poorer countries Schools in Bristol are being advised that supporting a Christian charity may offend some of their pupils. Samaritan's Purse collects goods in the UK before sending them to children in Eastern Europe and Africa. Bristol City Council said schools adopting charities should not offend anyone on the grounds of equality, disability, race or religion. But a spokesman for Samaritan's Purse said it handed out presents to children regardless of these factors. "The difficultly is that this all becomes prescriptive...

OCALA, Fla. (AP) - Marion County school officials say they seized a 4-1/2 inch steak knife from a 10-year-old student. She was using the knife to cut her steak. She is facing a felony charge of bringing a weapon to school. School employees at Sunrise Elementary School told Marion County sheriff's deputies the girl was eating lunch and using the knife to cut her steak when she was spotted by two school officials. They took the knife away from her. The sheriff's office says the student told deputies she brought the knife to school so she could use it for...

December 14th, 2007 COLORADO SPRINGS (APUPI) As a mass memorial service was held today for the seventy-three victims of the massacre at the New Life Church, one of the largest such grim tolls in the nations' history, gun-control advocates pointed out the continuing folly of allowing civilians access to pistols and assault weapons. "This never would have happened had Matthew Murray not been able to get his hands on those weapons, " said Sarah Brady, head of Handgun Control, Incorporated. "He had two handguns, an assault rifle, and a thousand rounds of ammunition. Seventy-three people are dead now, because the...

Over 15,000 bureaucrats, politicians, officials, and assorted do-gooders from 187 nations descended on the tropical island of Bali last week for the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change.Their goal? To make a last ditch effort to save the world from the ravages of global warming. The aim is to require industrial nations to limit their emission of C02 to 25-40 percent below 1990 levels by 2020. This is necessary, they proclaim, in order to head off rising oceans, drought, famine, dying species, and, well, just plain catastrophe. These noble shepherds of the earth are willing to have others make any...

Monday, 10 December 2007 Multi-National Corps – IraqPublic Affairs Office, Camp VictoryAPO AE 09342FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASERELEASE No. 20071210-06December 10, 20075 Iraqi detainees killed in rocket attackMulti-National Division – Baghdad PAOFORWARD OPERATING BASE LOYALTY, Iraq – Five Iraqi detainees were killed and 25 others wounded when insurgents launched a rocket attack in the Rusafa district of eastern Baghdad Dec. 10.    Reports indicate nine 122mm rockets were fired with at least one of them hitting a detainee holding area on a forward operating base.  Coalition Forces sealed off the area.  An investigation into the attack is underway.-30-FOR QUERIES, CONTACT MULTI-NATIONAL DIVISION...

New Calif. Law Requires Warning When Products Contain Lead Traces CLEVELAND -- As they put up holiday lights this year, some people are noticing something very strange on their new packages of lights – a label warning about possible hazardous chemicals in the lights. NewsChannel5's John Matarese reported that despite the warning label, the lights are not dangerous. Al Shelton went to buy some lights for outside his house, but found a label on the boxes warning about the lights' wires containing lead. The label read, "Handling these coated electric wires in this product exposes you to lead, a chemical...

DES MOINES - A Democratic presidential contest that had focused on high-minded qualities of leadership, experience and change has whiplashed into sharp attacks between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama over courage, character and kindergarten writings amid ever-tightening polls and the ever-closer Iowa caucuses. The intensity of the rhetoric flowing between the two rival camps underscores the stakes of Iowa's presidential deliberations, now less than a month away, for a Clinton campaign that had initially projected inevitability toward winning the nomination, only to find a strong challenge from Obama turning the leadoff contest into a tossup. "Well, now the fun part...