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At 1:38 a.m. on Tuesday, November 6th, 2007, our site was hacked. Someone got into our FTP server and deleted absolutely everything on our site.  Thanks to the help and support of GoDaddy.com, we will be able to retrieve almost everything, but it will take 24-72 hours. In the meantime, there will be a lot of - if not mostly - broken links and missing images.  We're actively working to fix it, so please be patient!  Thanks! The First Bush Veto Override...Ever  Thursday, November 8th, 2007 President George W. Bush received his first defeat in a veto override with Congress today, over a $23 billion water projects measure that affects locations across the nation.  In a vote of 79 to 14, the Senate successfully trumped Bush's veto of the bill from last Friday. Only 12 Republicans voted in favor of Bush's veto, and two Democrats (Senators Russell D. Feingold of Wisconsin and Claire McCaskill of Missouri). The House of Representatives also voted in favor of the bill, with an overwhelming vote of 361 to 54. The Water Resources Development Act provides the authority for new navigation projects, program funding to combat flood and coastal storm damage, restore ecosystems. "This week's veto override means that this nation will finally have the opportunity for new investments in improved flood control, increasing navigation capacity and ecosystem restoration," said Stephen E. Sandherr, CEO for The Associate General Contractors of America. Lovely.  Can we get back to the Iraq spending bill he vetoed that set the guidelines for withdrawing troops? Comments > >

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Wiretapping:  As if You Needed Another Reason to Hate AT&T  Thursday, November 8th, 2007 This one's a doozy:   His first inkling that something was amiss came in summer 2002 when he opened the door to admit a visitor from the National Security Agency to an office of AT&T in San Francisco. "What the heck is the NSA doing here?" Mark Klein, a former AT&T technician, said he asked himself. A year or so later, he stumbled upon documents that, he said, nearly caused him to fall out of his chair. The documents, he said, show that the NSA gained access to massive amounts of e-mail and search and other Internet records of more than a dozen global and regional telecommunications providers. AT&T allowed the agency to hook into its network at a facility in San Francisco and, according to Klein, many of the other telecom companies probably knew nothing about it. Klein is in Washington this week to share his story in the hope that it will persuade lawmakers not to grant legal immunity to telecommunications firms that helped the government in its anti-terrorism efforts. The plain-spoken, bespectacled Klein, 62, said he may be the only person in the country in a position to discuss firsthand knowledge of an important aspect of the Bush administration's domestic surveillance program. He is retired, so he isn't worried about losing his job. He did not have security clearance, and the documents in his possession were not classified, he said. He has no qualms about "turning in," as he put it, the company where he worked for 22 years until he retired in 2004. Read the rest!! Comments > >

Dutch Health Minister Wants to Promote Cannabis Medicine  Thursday, November 8th, 2007 Lots of marijuana news lately. The Dutch Government said yesterday that they are looking to promote the development of medical marijuana and cannabis-based meds, as well as extend the plant's availability in pharmacies.  Cannabis is already available by prescription in the Netherlands, of course. "Medicinal cannabis must become a regular registered medicine," said Health Minister Ab Klink in yesterday's statement.  The Dutch Govt. regulates the growing of special types of cannabis in labs that supply pharmacies.  "This development track will take years, but it can yield scientific evidence and give insight into the balance between safety and effectiveness of medical cannabis."   "By making medical marijuana available as a raw material for five years, I want to give this track a serious chance." Canada approved a cannabis-based medicine to treat MS patients in 2005. In the Netherlands, though, even if they have a doctor's prescription, many patients just buy it at a third of the price in "coffee shops," where marijuana is technically illegal but allowed in small amounts to anyone at all. Yet the Netherlands' Trimbos Institute for Mental Health and Addiction says that after 30 years of the Dutch's "tolerance" policy, usage rates are in the middle of international norms.  France, Britain, and the U.S., they say, use more marijuana that they do. Those laws are really working, aren't they? Comments > >

Hollywood Writers on Strike  Thursday, November 8th, 2007

Founder of The Weather Channel Says Manmade Global Warming is a Hoax  Thursday, November 8th, 2007 John Coleman, the founder of The Weather Channel, wrote an article yesterday for the International Climate and Environmental Change Assessment Project, in which he called the theory of man causing global warming a "scam." "It is the greatest scam in history," he wrote.  "I am amazed, appalled and highly offended by it.  Global warming; it is a SCAM.  Some dastardly scientists with environmental and political motives manipulated long term scientific data to create an allusion of rapid global warming. "I say this knowing you probably won't believe me, a mere TV weatherman, challenging a Nobel Prize, Academy Award and Emmy Award winning former Vice President of the United States...I have read dozens of scientific papers.  I have talked with numerous scientists.  I have studied.  I have thought about it.  I know I am correct." I am further from being Right Wing that most anyone you'll meet, I think.  But I myself have read the research and struggled with whether or not manmade global warming is indeed a "hoax."  For a while, I flat out said it was.  Other scientists have attributed global warming to the natural variations in the Earth's orbit around the sun.  There are many, many theories out there. But the way I see it now - the steps we've been taking today to "go green" and to reduce the amount of carbon emissions in the atmosphere, can only do good, not harm.  As a child, I remember all of the talk in school about how we should try not to purchase aerosol cans for our hairspray (God knows that was an issue in the 80's!), because we should try and do all we can to stop the hole in the ozone layer from getting bigger. That, plus being taught about recycling, not littering, and preserving plant life, gave my peers and I a feeling that we could make a real difference in the world.  It gave us something to work on, to be proud of, to be concerned about, in an intellectual way. Even if the scientists and governments that have adapted the theory that atmospheric greenhouse gas concentrations from man are the true cause of global warming - why would anyone try to refute it?  Look at all of the people that have made real efforts to change their energy consumption since this became such a widely-discussed issue. What ever happened to "better safe than sorry?" Comments > >

News Roundup:  Other News You Don't Want to Miss  Thursday, November 8th, 2007 Celebrity:  Now the size of a house, J. Lo finally confirms her pregnancy  Source:  MTV News Warning:  Turn the volume down because there are some crazy screaming fans in this! Crime:  Sleeping man tasered in his own home  Source:  Reason.com Entertainment:  Two gangster films shed light on 70's drug world in New York  Source:  VOA News Environment:  State of California sues the EPA over emissions  Source:  LA Times Strike:  Union orders Hollywood writers to turn over their scripts  Source:  Reuters Rumor:  Bill Clinton said to be offering diplomatic services in Hollywood strike  Source:  PastDeadline.com U.S. News:  Governor of parched Georgia is praying for rain  Source:  MSNBC

This Will Make Your Jaw Drop, I Promise  Thursday, November 8th, 2007 Tyra Banks devotes an entire hour to discussing the vagina.  She brings "Dr. Debbie" to the show, who has a prop:  and the prop is a pillow of a vagina, with a pink satin inner lining. I am not kidding you. I was laughing so hard when I saw this - the woman is holding it like a hand puppet, and I keep thinking she's about to make it start talking. "I'm so happy that you have this," Tyra says of the pillow.  "It makes it cute, and sweet, and not scary.  It's like a stuffed animal." And still, even in this episode, Tyra can't go without mentioning her mother.  Or maybe especially in this episode.  I think this is good though, for young women to watch - I'm especially pleased that it was allowed to air.  Tyra is never afraid to go there, girl! Continued > >

Animal Lovers Corner:  Australian Zoo rears Five Male White Lion Cubs  Thursday, November 8th, 2007 Mogo Zoo on the NSW southern coast of Australia, is the first zoo in the world to have a lion give birth to five male white lion cubs. The cubs holed up with parent lions Tim and Snow since their birth on Febuary 7th - until this week.  Mogo Zoo owner Shelley Padey announced the litter of cubs on November 7th, after wanting to keep the little "gangsters" (as the zoo calls them) a secret until they were a little older. "We didn't release it because we wanted to make sure everything went well with the pride," Padey said.  "They're little gangsters...they work as a little troop.  They're real little characters - it's beyond words how lucky I am." The Mogo Zoo specializes in endangered species.  White lions have a lifespan of just up to 15 years in the wild, but live up to 24 years in captivity. Comments > >

Rudy's Push to Save America  Thursday, November 8th, 2007 I cannot believe my father sent me this e-mail.  It's entitled, "Rudy's Push to Save America." Photo from officespam.chattablogs.com. It ain't even close to being over, Rudy...there may end up a longer line in front of you than that! Comments > >

Awww...Brad wants to marry Angelina   Thursday, November 8th, 2007 "I still want to kiss the bride," Brad Pitt told the latest issue of British Cosmopolitan.  "I want to wear the ring, wear my suit and wake up in the morning and say, 'Good morning, my wife.'" "We've both been married before," he continued.  "So [a big wedding] is not so much an issue in our lives."