May 20, 2005
"I'm going to take a look at how the United States is perceived in global business," Nooyi told the audience, saying she'd use the human hand as a model.As you can imagine, the audience was shocked by Nooyi's statements.Nooyi then went on to say the five major continents in the world can each be represented by a finger on the hand.
She said Africa was the pinkie, because of its place on the world's stage, having yet to catch up to her sister continents.
"And yet, when our little finger hurts, it affects the whole hand," Nooyi stated.
She said our thumb is Asia, "strong, powerful, and ready to assert herself as a major player on the world's economic stage."
Europe was compared to the index finger, the cradle of democracy which "pointed the way for Western civilization and the laws we use in conducting global business."
South America, including Latin America, was likened to the ring finger, symbolizing love and commitment to another person.
She said her analogy "leaves the long, middle finger for North America, and in particular, the United States. As the longest of the fingers, it really stands out. The middle finger anchors every function that the hand performs and is the key to all of the fingers working together efficiently and effectively. This is a really good thing, and has given the U.S. a leg up in global business since the end of World War I.
"However, if used inappropriately – just like the U.S. itself, the middle finger can convey a negative message and get us in trouble," Nooyi said, noting she would not demonstrate, nor was she looking for volunteers. "Discretion being the better part of valor, I think I'll pass."
She continued:
What is most crucial to my analogy of the five fingers as the five major continents, is that each of us in the U.S. – the long, middle finger – must be careful that when we extend our arm in either a business or political sense, we take pains to assure we are giving a hand, not the finger. Sometimes this very difficult. Because the U.S. – the middle finger – sticks out so much, we can send the wrong message unintentionally.
Unfortunately, I think this is how the rest of the world looks at the U.S. right now. Not as part of the hand – giving strength and purpose to the rest of the fingers – but instead, scratching our nose and sending a far different signal.
Some quarters are calling for a boycott of Pepsi products, while Pepsico in general, and Nooyi in particular are left with tap dancing.
Unfortunately, my remarks at Columbia University were misconstrued and depicted in a different context as unpatriotic. Although nothing could be further from the truth, I regret any confusion or concern that I may have inadvertently created.The "mea culpa" wasn't enough to staunch the criticism, so Nooyi was left to issue a formal apology.
Following my remarks to the graduating class of Columbia University's Business School in New York City, I have come to realize that my words and examples about America unintentionally depicted our country negatively and hurt people.Despite the formal apology, the criticism continues. I'm guessing we'll hear more within the next week or so.I appreciate the honest comments that have been shared with me since then, and am deeply sorry for offending anyone. I love America unshakably – without hesitation – and am extremely grateful for the opportunities and support our great nation has always provided me.
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May 19, 2005
Davis was notified Wednesday of the arrest warrant, while in New York, according to his attorney, Dennis Scheib.
Mane was in New York on Thursday for a show.Gucci Mane's first full-length CD, "Trap House," is set to be released this coming Tuesday.“He said, ‘Hey, I’ll come down’—he’s not trying to avoid it,” Scheib said.
The attorney said the shooting was in self-defense and that Mane did not even know anyone was injured in the gunfight.
Mane was in a DeKalb County home with a woman on May 10 when five men entered with guns and duct tape, his lawyer said. Mane traded fire with the men, who later fled, Scheib said.
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May 18, 2005
You can watch or listen to the live C-Span2 stream (WMP) online.
The filibuster vote (i.e., exercising the "Constitutional/Nuclear Option") is anticipated late thsi week or (more likely) early next week.
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May 17, 2005
Well, I suppose the cat's out of the bag, so....I'm not dead.What moonbats will do for attention...To those that sent heartfelt messages, and felt that this was a true story, I truly apologize. This situation quickly got out of hand, when national media outlets called looking for clarification.
I honestly thought people would shrug it off, and go on their merry way. I even got a kick out of the numerous hate messages from people
Just damn.
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Olbermann's latest target is (no surprise here), as the majority of the time, the Bush Administration. This time he not only blames them for the Newsweek fiasco, but accuses them of treason.
Newsweek’s version of this story has varied from the others over the last two years — ones in The Philadelphia Inquirer, The Washington Post, and British and Russian news organizations — only in that it quoted a government source who now says he didn’t have firsthand knowledge of whether or not the investigation took place (oops, sorry, shoulda mentioned that, buh-bye). All of its other government connections — the ones past which it ran the story — have gone from saying nothing like ‘don’t print this, it ain’t true’ or ‘don’t print this, it may be true but it’ll start riots,’ to looking slightly confused and symbolically saying ‘Newsweek? Newsweek who?’Keith -- couple of things. First off, treason is, by definition, an act that provides aid and comfort to an enemy. I don't see anyone offering any aid here at all; on the contrary, the enemies (and our friends in that neck of the woods) are all pretty damn pissed off.Whatever I smell comes from this odd sequence of events: Newsweek gets blasted by the White House, apologizes over the weekend but doesn't retract its story. Then (White House Press Secretary Scott) McClellan offers his Journalism 101 outdoor seminar and blasts the magazine further. Finally, just before 5 p.m. Monday, the Dan Rather drama replaying itself in its collective corporate mind, Newsweek retracts.
The real point, of course, is that you’d have to be pretty dumb to think that making a threat at Gitmo akin to ‘Spill the beans or we’ll kill this Qu’ran’ would have any effect on the prisoners, other than to eventually leak out and inflame anti-American feelings somewhere. Of course, everybody in the prosecution of the so-called ‘war on terror’ has done something dumb, dating back to the President’s worst-possible-word-selection (“crusade”) on September 16, 2001. So why wouldn’t some mid-level interrogator stuck in Cuba think it would be a good idea to desecrate a holy book? Jack Rice, the former CIA special agent and now radio host, said on Countdown that it would be a “knuckleheaded” thing to do, but “plausible.”
Or would somebody rather play politics with this? The news organization turns to the administration for a denial. The administration says nothing. The news organization runs the story. The administration jumps on the necks of the news organization with both feet — or has its proxies do it for them.
ThatÂ’s beyond shameful. ItÂ’s treasonous.
Second thing. Newsweek's editors took a look at their "evidence" and realized that they'd screwed up. Big time. Yeah, the White House was pissed, Republicans in general were pissed, we conservative bloggers were pissed. We not only had a right to say so, we actually did. Loudly. That is entirely different from "forcing" Newsweek to change anything. "Forcing" someone in the press to change hasn't worked before; what makes you think it would work now? Oh. I forgot. That whole conspiracy thing again.
Third -- lay off of the sauce, man. Your theories are getting wilder and wilder. Your face is starting to twitch.
Trust me on this. No one else would tell you, because next to no one else is watching MSNBC at that hour. Save maybe your relatives.
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Nichols was present at an arraignment hearing in Atlanta today.
Defense attorney Chris Adams announced his client's plea of not guilty in the 54-count indictment charging Nichols with killing Fulton County Superior Court Judge Rowland Barnes, court reporter Julie Ann Brandau and deputy Sgt. Hoyt Teasley at the courthouse. In the indictment, Nichols is also charged with killing U.S. Customs agent David Wilhelm in Buckhead during a carjacking.The Fulton County DA, Paul Howard, has announced that he will seek the death penalty in the case.Nichols, dressed in a dark suit and light blue dress shirt, seemed to listen intently and answered Superior Court Judge Hilton Fuller politely with: "Yes, your honor," and "No, your honor" when asked if the defense team seated beside him represented him and if he wanted to discuss any concerns about his defense so far.
Nichols' attorneys, with the Office of the Georgia Capital Defender, asked Judge Fuller to move future pretrial hearings to DeKalb County. Fuller, on loan from DeKalb to hear the case, agreed.
Fuller said he doesn't have concerns about security at the Fulton Courthouse and that the move would be for other reasons, but he didn't elaborate.
The next hearing is scheduled for June 9 and 10, where Judge Fuller will hear defense requests for a gag order, and the recusal of Howard and his staff, since the shootings occured in their workplace, and they - the DA and his staff - were possible targets.
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Curry wastes no time in insulting all black conservatives -- so that we know where he's coming from in the first place.
Few things are as repulsive as Black conservatives trying to advance the Republican agenda by mischaracterizing the Civil Rights Movement or distorting history.The Curry piece goes further, insisting that Rice exploits the history of the Civil Rights movement, since her parents were not an active part of the movement.When asked her thoughts on gun control, Rice replied: “Well, Larry, I come out of a – my personal experiences in which in Birmingham, Ala., my father and his friends defended our community in 1962 and 1963 against White nightriders by going to the head of the community, the head of the cul-de-sac, and sitting there armed. And so I’m very concerned about any abridgement of the Second Amendment…”
Moments later, she added: “…We have to be very careful when we start abridging rights that our Founding Fathers thought very important. And on this one, I think that they understood that there might be circumstances that people like my father experienced in Birmingham, Ala., when, in fact, the police weren’t going to protect you.”
Speaking at the 2000 Republican convention, Rice praised her father as “the first Republican I knew.” She declared, “Democrats in Jim Crow Alabama of 1952 would not register him to vote. The Republicans did. My father has never forgotten that day, and neither have I.”Doesn't seem like exploitation to me. Sounds like she tells -- and has told -- the story of her father's experiences. A Republican helped him where a Democrat didn't. I don't seeWhat Rice forgot was the truth: political parties don’t register voters in Alabama. Voters are added to the voting rolls by registrars. A profile of Rice written by Dale Russakoff, a reporter for the Washington Post and native of Birmingham, was even more telling.
After a White registrar asked Rice’s father a trick question to keep him from registering, according to Russakoff: “Rice says her father later learned of a Republican functionary in the registrar’s office who would register blacks secretly, as long as they registered Republicans – not the expansive grant of suffrage suggested in her speech.”Rice’s exploitation of the Civil Rights Movement is even more notable because her middle-class parents, by her own admission, were not active in the movement. Her father, John Rice, was a minister and her mother, Angelena, was a school teacher.
Ah. But Curry deftly leaves out the fact that Democrats in that day, as a whole, were opposed to blacks voting and asserting their rights. Then again, that would be telling wouldn't it?
Mind you, also today, word has come up that a posting on an Al Qaeda-frequented Islamic internet message board, purportedly from Al Qaeda itself, refers to Rice as a "hag," and publishes a veiled death threat toward her.
"The hag wants the participation of the apostates and secularists who are claiming to be Sunnis. You should know that our [the Sunni] way is fighting you."Attacks from here at home, and attacks from overseas. Sounds like she can't quite catch a break, can she?The statement griped that the Iraqi constitution "is written only by those who disavowed their belief in God's book."
In what sounded like an indirect death threat to Dr. Rice, the message continued, "Our belief entails that the sword and bullets are our way of holding dialogue with you."
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This week is the annual E3 computer gaming trade show in Los Angeles.
Last week, Microsoft took the time to release images and specs of it's upcoming XBOX 360, the replacement for their current gaming console. It's due on store shelves next winter -- but you know how Microsoft can delay things, so I'll believe it when I see it.
Early this morning, Sony released information and images of the PlayStation 3, their next-generation console system. Sony says that their system will be fully backward-compatible, both with the PlayStation 1 and PlayStation 2.
The new system is very sleek looking with an aerodynamic controller. Sony showed off three colors -- white, silver and black.
Both systems boast full high defintion compatibility, and showed off some upcoming game titles and images for the new systems.
Both systems will be in the $300 to $400 range at full retail, with the Sony system coming to market in Spring 2006.
It's anticipated that Nintendo will make an announcement regarding their next-generation console system sometime before the end of the E3 show this week.
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Live streaming coverage is available from C-Span2 (via Windows Media Player).
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Crook was allegedly beaten by persons upset with his site, and died as a result of those injuries.
As it mentions on the Troops site, today at 6:19pm EST, Michael Crook died at an area hospital as a result of head injuries sustained from an assault by people upset with his website.I don't wish death on anyone, but it appeared that Crook sought confrontation - some of it violent - with his opinions and websites.Michael died with his wife, and baby present. He was 27. The assaulters are in custody.
a Vietnam vet actually recognized me in public and approached me. He didn't threaten me, and was actually quite respectful. In all honestly, it seemed as if he was hurt by the site..he was blubbering some nonsense about losing friends in the conflict. I felt real good telling him off. He just slunk away. All talk, no action. Typical!Crook had just placed a new site up, ForsakeThePolice.info, with much the same sort of mean-spirited rhetoric, this time directed toward law enforcement across the nation. He apparently didn't have much opportunity to put much on that site before his demise.Oh, by the way..playtime's over..you'll notice that the contact methods are no longer available on the website. No more e-mail, no IM's, and the forums require my approval to join. You can no longer leave comments on this weblog, either. Playtime's over. I don't really care to hear about peoples' hurt feelings, nor do I care about anyone's opinion, really. What it comes down to is this: I am right, and everyone else is wrong on this matter.
His family has placed a contact telephone number on the site for media and condolences, and asks for privacy at this point (I won't post the number in respect for said privacy). But given Crook's attitude and mindset, I wouldn't be surprised if the family doesn't receive much in the way of sympathy.
UPDATE - 10:45A ET - No word of Crook's attack or death has been reported in local media in Syracuse, NY, Crook's home town. In addition, the telephone number listed on the website "has been changed" and points to a local web hosting service's phone number.
Could this be a publicity stunt on Crook's part?
UPDATE - 12:30P ET - Crook's personal website is still there, but mentions of his demise (notably the link above) have been removed.
His ForsakeTheTroops site still exists with the reports of death though.
No reports of the attack on Crook have appeared in Syracuse or New York state media outlets, which increases speculation that this is an idiotic, brain-addled attempt at faking his own demise.
UPDATE - 8P ET - Confirmed, via Marine Corps Times: "local police say no murder has occurred."
The site also says the two attackers were “taken into police custody.”Now, I can say this. I hope this puke gets what's coming to him. I don't wish death on anyone, but I do wish a great deal of pain and suffering on Mr. Crook.But officials with the Onondaga County Sheriff’s Office in Syracuse told Army Times Tuesday that they have no record or knowledge of any such attack in the region.
A message left at the phone number listed on the Web site was not immediately returned.
The Web site has repeatedly posted disparaging comments about the military. Crook, the alleged blogger of the site, has said his main intent is to inform Americans that soldiers are paid too much for what they do.
Recently the site posted this: “Don't military pukes learn anything? Nine more Marines bite the big one in combat. Stupid is as stupid does!”
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Again and again, Today floated the notion that Newsweek retracted the story due to pressure from the Bush administration, and went so far as to suggest the story might be true.With partisan stories like this that border on propaganda, is there any wonder that Today is falling behind Good Morning America in the morning ratings race?The focus was at least as much on possibly sinister motives at the "White House," as it was on any transgression by Newsweek.
Thus the story was introduced with this question: "Will Newsweek's retraction end the flurry of White House criticism?"
And again: "Did pressure from the White House impact Newsweek's decision to retract the story?"
Matt Lauer stuck to the marching orders in his interview of Dan Klaidman Newsweek DC Bureau Chief.
Lauer: "Did you get pressure from the White House?"
Klaidman flatly denied it: "The only pressure was our own sense of responsibility."
That wasn't good enough for Lauer. He was apparently more willing to believe the enemies of the US than he was the Bush administration or even Newsweek.
Lauer: "There is suspicion in the Muslim world. They say they've heard similar reports from released detainees. Why shouldn't we believe it and think that Newsweek retracted the story only because it was forced to do so by the White House to protect its image?" And just in case anyone missed the MSM message, Lauer sympathetically asked: "Is there piling on by the administration?"
Given that the propagation of a false story led to riots and deaths, you'd think the last thing Today would do would be to air other rumors. Yet incredibly, incredibly!, that's exactly what it devoted virtually the entirety of its next segment to.
NBC reporter Richard Engel reported from Baghdad, and his report consisted of retelling a variety of additional rumors:
1. "There are many rumors in Iraq and across Muslim world that this kind of thing happens regularly."
2. "There are rumors that US Marines while raiding a mosque abused a Koran and spray-painted it."
3. "Another one - during a search of woman, a search dog pulled a Koran out of the woman's handbag and Marines started laughing."
Engel claimed: "People believe this is not a war on terrorism but a war on Islam."
Lauer 'helpfully' filled in the blanks: "You're telling me people in that part of the world expect the worst from the US.?"
Engel somberly observed: "I'm not sure we're winning the battle for hearts and minds. There is still fallout from Abu Ghraib."
And just to pour the last measure of gasoline on the fire, Engel ended with this explosive allegation: "There are rumors women were raped at Abu Ghraib. One women claimed she was raped six times every night."
How long before Katie Couric accuses President Bush of eating children?
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May 16, 2005
Fox repeatedly refused to back away from his Friday comment, saying his remark had been misinterpreted. But later, in telephone conversations with the Rev. Jesse Jackson and the Rev. Al Sharpton the president said he "regretted" the statement.Jackson then suggested a meeting to discuss "joint strategies" between blacks and Mexican immigrants in the United States."The president regretted any hurt feelings his statements may have caused," the Foreign Relations Department said in a press statement. "He expressed the great respect he and his administration has for the African-American community in the United States."
Did I miss something, or shouldn't Fox be more concerned with people in his own damn country, as opposed to taking care of illegals in THIS country?
Closing the border militarily has more and more appeal the more I hear of and from Fox. And then President Bush has the audacity to suggest a damn "guest worker" pseudo-amnesty program. I hope this mess wakes Bush up -- but I'm not holding my breath.
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The heck with 'em. I don't need 'em to charge me money just to tell me what they want me to think.
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Newsweek On Air senior editor and host David Alpern says that the program (broadcast Sundays in most markets) avoided the print publication's error, and in next week's show will examine what went wrong in the editorial process.
Other stations that carry Newsweek On Air include WNYC/New York, WTOP/Washington, KCBS/San Francisco, WSB/Atlanta and the Armed Forces Radio Network. No word about the show's status on any of those outlets presently.
UPDATE - 7:45P ET - Newsweek On Air's David Alpern insists that the WRKO cancellation was already in the works, and was not related to the current controversy
Newsweek has completely retracted the story, as opposed to "suggesting" that it "might be erroneous." Tapscott's criticizes Newsweek asking "Was Newsweek's Sin That The Koran Flushing Story Was Too Good Not to be True?"
(Courtesy The Radio Equalizer; More coverage from Michelle Malkin, Instapundit, Ace of Spades, Hyscience, Conservablog & others)
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Officials at the US Embassy in Mexico City had raised the issue with Fox's government.
Fox's spokesman, Ruben Aguilar, said Mexican and foreign news media have misinterpreted the remark as a racial slur. He said the president was speaking in defense of Mexican migrants as they come under attack by the new U.S. immigration measures that include a wall along the U.S.-California border.Jesse Jackson & Al Sharpton both offered sharp criticism of Fox's statements today.
"His statement had the impact of being inciting and divisive," Jackson said Monday, noting that in many U.S. cities tensions are already high between blacks and Latinos because they compete for scarce jobs and often have children crowded into underfunded schools.Fox's statement comes as he tries to influence American lawmakers who want to crack down on illegal immigration from Mexico."President Fox should issue an unequivocal apology," Sharpton said, "explaining the offense only adds insult to injury."
"The words are offensive," the civil rights activist said. "The words he used confirm the stereotype that blacks are the lowest peons in the workforce of this country."
Sharpton said the comment was especially disturbing because Fox was educated in the United States, and "he is not unaware of the racial sensitivities here in the United States."
(More coverage from LaShawn Barber, Polipundit, The Immigration Blog, Baldilocks & others)
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The apology, released on the 'net yesterday and in print today, included an apology to those directly affected by violence caused by the erroneous report, as well as to US troops put in greater harm's way as a result of the false statement.
Muslims said they suspected that pressure from Washington was behind the magazine's climbdown, Reuters reported Monday.At least 16 deaths and more than 100 injuries can be directly linked to the violence stemming from a reaction to the Newsweek report."We will not be deceived by this," Islamic cleric Mullah Sadullah Abu Aman told Reuters in the northern Afghan province of Badakhshan.
"This is a decision by America to save itself. It comes because of American pressure. Even an ordinary illiterate peasant understands this and won't accept it."
Other bloggers are looking for Sgt. Eric Saar, former Guantanamo Bay guard and co-author of a new "tell-all" book (Inside The Wire) on so-called abuses. It looks like Saar may be the source of the report that Newsweek relied on to support the false story.
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Looks to me like ol' George didn't know a good thing when he saw it. (link not work-safe)
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May 15, 2005
The story insisted that military interrogators at the prison there desecrated the Muslim holy book, with one supposedly flushing a copy of the Koran down a toilet. Islamic clerics demanded apologies from the United States, riots broke out in parts of the Middle East, and at one count, more than 16 were killed in Afghanistan alone. Clerics promised to call for an Islamic holy war against the United States if the interrogators were not turned over to them.
The only catch is that the Newsweek story is not true.
Although other major news organizations had aired charges of Qur'an desecration based only on the testimony of detainees, we believed our story was newsworthy because a U.S. official said government investigators turned up this evidence. So we published the item. After several days, newspapers in Pakistan and Afghan-istan began running accounts of our story. At that point, as Evan Thomas, Ron Moreau and Sami Yousafzai report this week, the riots started and spread across the country, fanned by extremists and unhappiness over the economy.Translation? Newsweek lied. And in their haste to either get the story in print, they didn't follow up.Last Friday, a top Pentagon spokesman told us that a review of the probe cited in our story showed that it was never meant to look into charges of Qur'an desecration. The spokesman also said the Pentagon had investigated other desecration charges by detainees and found them "not credible." Our original source later said he couldn't be certain about reading of the alleged Qur'an incident in the report we cited, and said it might have been in other investigative documents or drafts.
So now, a dozen and a half Afghanis are dead, and scores are injured.
Is Newsweek objective here, or are they playing with their own agenda. I'll let you be the judge of that.
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Our of deference to West Coast folk, I won't reveal the winner of Survivor Palau, which came tonight live from the Ed Sullivan Theatre in New York City (and will be broadcast in several hours out west).
But the next edition of Survivor, contrary to rumors of Madagascar, the Yukon and Peru, will be in the jungles of Guatemala, and embrace the Mayan culture: Survivor The Maya Empire premieres this fall on CBS.
UPDATE - Mon 9:15A ET - 41 year-old FDNY firefighter Tom Westman claimed his $1 million prize on CBS' The Early Show this morning, after winning the final tribal council last night in New York.
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