Bush HUD secretary under investigation by the FBI

ABC

The FBI and the Justice Department are working with the inspector general for the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) to probe whether HUD Secretary Alphonso Jackson arranged for nearly half a million dollars worth of work to go to a golfing partner and friend, according to the National Journal magazine.

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George Bush, on being president

Idiot ipsa loquitur:

"My job is a decision-making job. And as a result, I make a lot of decisions," the president said.

He elaborated on that point later.

"I delegate to good people. I always tell Condi Rice, `I want to remind you, Madam Secretary, who has the Ph.D. and who was the C student. And I want to remind you who the adviser is and who the president is.'

"I got a lot of Ph.D.-types and smart people around me who come into the Oval Office and say, `Mr. President, here's what's on my mind.' And I listen carefully to their advice. But having gathered the device (sic), I decide, you know, I say, `This is what we're going to do.' And it's `Yes, sir, Mr. President.' And then we get after it, implement policy."

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The backlash begins, Part II

Robin Tyler is a LONG-time lesbian activist (I won't share her age, but let's just say that at the time of Stonewall, when I was busy watching Captain Kangaroo, Robin was well into her twenties). Robin was a co-founder of StopDrLaura.com, along with me, and she coordinated all of our grassroots events across the country, in 34 cities. She also has been a recent plaintfiff in a lawsuit to win marriage rights in California. The list goes on. For someone of Robin's stature to speak out on this issue is a rather big deal. Especially since, up until today, most people who have concerns about killing ENDA have been reluctant to speak out. No more.

Here is Robin's statement she emailed me this morning:

I support full transgender rights. However, when I have been invited to legal weddings of some of my transgender friends, not one of them has said "we will not get married until Diane and you and other same gender couples can get married". They did not sacrifice their legal rights on the alter of political correctness to give up the State and Federal benefits of marriage.

And yet, with regard to ENDA, the lesbian and gay community is expected to do so, leaving millions and millions of us in the majority of States, once again, unprotected.

Robin Tyler

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The difficult discussions people don't want to have

I started out intending to do a short piece on this ridiculous incident in Louisiana about college students who thought it was knee-slapping funny to roll in the mud and play blackface on video depicting the Jena 6.

As I typed this out (again another wee hours of the AM post), it occurred to me the there are some interesting parallels that can be drawn about our difficulties discussing race and in the case of ENDA, transgender issues. Read on and see if you can make the connection.

***

White Louisiana students re-enact 'Jena 6' in blackface

From The Smoking Gun. The fact that these people thought it was hysterically funny to do this is all the evidence one needs to confirm that an honest discussion about the third rail topic of race is sorely needed.

A group of white Louisiana college students dressed in blackface and reenacted the "Jena 6" assault while a friend snapped photos and videotaped the staged attack, images that were later posted to a participant's Facebook page. The photos, which you'll find on the following pages, were taken late last month on the bank of the Red River, where students from the University of Louisiana at Monroe giddily acted out the racial attack. The photos (and the short video clip at right) were posted to the Facebook page of Kristy Smith, a freshman nursing student. The album of images was entitled "The Jena 6 on the River." In the video, three students with mud smeared across their bodies stomp on a fourth student, while two of the participants are heard to say, "Jena 6." One man can also be heard saying, "Niggers put the noose on."

The images were taken down, but not before other students snared the video. In subsequent Facebook postings, Smith said:

"We were just playin n the mud and it got out of hand. I promise i'm not racist. i have just as many black friends as i do white. And i love them to death," she wrote. She added in a later message that her friends "were drinking" and things "got a lil out of hand."

The Smoking Gun also points to similar racially charged images placed on Facebook by college students in Texas, Connecticut, and South Carolina.

***

The bottom line is that the first order of business was for Smith to declare she's not racist. That label is clearly radioactive to most people, so much so that they can simply cannot own the fact that they engaged in racist behavior. In their minds they rationalize away such incidents because a real racist burns a cross on someone's lawn, or ties a black man to the back of a truck and drags him until his limbs fall off.

The matter isn't helped when professional self-appointed Leaders of the Black Community^TM (Jesse Jackson comes to mind first) tosses out the "racist" card way too often, explicitly because they know the label is radioactive.

Generally speaking, we can't get very far if people cannot even admit that racism is still part of our culture, and that one can engage in negative race-based thinking or behavior without putting a Klan hood on. Look at Michael Richards. One of the striking things about his unhinged apology on Letterman last year, after appearing onstate at a comedy club and going on an unhinged rant because of black heckler in the audience was that he felt compelled to say he wasn't racist.

"I'm not a racist. That's what's so insane about this," Richards said, his tone becoming angry and frustrated as he defended himself.

How is this not racist:

"Shut up! Fifty years ago we'd have you upside down with a f------ fork up your a--...Throw his ass out. He's a nigger! He's a nigger! He's a nigger! A nigger, look, there's a nigger!"

Those comments obviously indicate that Richards either must have been possessed by a racist demon or he was just "playing one" onstage that night, right?

The real problem is that Richards was more concerned about being labeled racist because contemporary society has deemed that label the sign of a fringe element, a social pariah.

Had he been more self-reflective he might have something more sane, such as "I realize that I am a product of a culture steeped in a toxic history regarding race, and my outburst -- and the response to it -- is a teachable moment. It's important to think about how we feel about race and how our internal views about race play out in our daily lives. I intend to do so, because there was no excuse for what I said on stage."

Instead, his advisers felt it was necessary for him to ring up Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson to beg for mercy. That isn't productive.

***

This whole mess about ENDA, particularly the dialogue that has resulted in perceived anti-trans opinion to bubble up to the surface is quite similar to discussing race.

It appears some people are reluctant to publicly broach the subject of transfolk in LGBT movement and the effect on or strategy of the passage of anti-discrimination legislation lest they be labeled with the equally radioactive word "bigot." Nothing shuts down the conversation or draws a line in the sand faster.

If people want to make the case that Ts shouldn't be attached to LGB, then that's a discussion that reveals a serious difference in opinion and philosophy about the definition of our movement. It needs to be aired out honestly and openly. It's relevant to know how many hold this view and why. It's the first step toward admitting a problem we all must face to move forward.

It's one matter to make a case that the trans protections should be dropped from ENDA as a matter of strategy and pragmatism, it's a completely different matter to hold the view that Ts aren't really part of the movement at all and use the former as PC cover for belief in the latter.

Is this view due to lack of direct engagement with transfolk on the issue, a lack of education on the history of the movement, or is it because of some other factor that is worthy of open discussion that may inform those on the other side of the issue that may shed new light on the topic?

It really is identical to the problem our country has with race -- we'll never know if people aren't willing to express their fears without getting their heads bitten off. By the same token, no rational discussion about sensitive topics can take place if that expression is not really about engaging tactfully or diplomatically, but unloading frustrations in a way that is hurtful and shuts down conversation. That's what happens when people leave these discussions buried -- they come out in all the wrong ways, resulting in flashpoints at the completely wrong time.

I don't have a solution, of course, it's a matter of observing human nature and how difficult we often make things for one another when we talk all around the real problem -- the lack of ability to communicate effectively. Read More......

Republican party embraces Limbaugh's attack on the troops,

So much for all the claims that Limbaugh is just a lone loony who doesn't represent Republicans or their party. The congressional Republican group in charge of electing Repubs to Congress has embraced Limbaugh's latest attack on the troops, big time. Here is their email they just sent out.

From: Rep. Eric Cantor, Chief Deputy Republican Whip website@nrcc.org
Date: Oct 4, 2007 2:19 PM
Subject: Rush Needs Your Support

Friends,

One failure after another, Washington Democrats have built a record of legislative failure; one disappointment after another, Washington Democrats have failed to deliver results to the people who got them there.
This must be why, just nine months into their tenure, the Democrat-led Congress hit an 11% approval rating – that is the lowest in recorded history. Facing their record of failure, Washington Democrats decided to try and distract – and so they took a man's words out of context, then they went on the attack.
That's why I'm encouraging you to click here to "Stand With Rush" and sign this petition.

It is at moments like these when we need to band together as conservatives and fight back.

This issue is bigger than you or me, it is bigger than Rush Limbaugh. With the recent liberal effort to resurrect the "fairness doctrine," we have to recognize that free speech -- conservative free speech is under direct attack. These are issues that speak directly to the core of the modern conservative movement – are we going to allow ourselves to be pushed around by liberal extremists, or are we going to fight back?

I want to send Washington Democrats a message that their attempts to distract aren't working – I stand with Rush Limbaugh against liberal attacks.

Rep. Eric Cantor (R - VA)
Chief Deputy Republican Whip
EricCantor.com

P.S. Please remember to Stand With Rush and sign the petition.

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Judge refuses to overturn GOP Senator Larry "Wide Stance" Craig's gay bathroom sex conviction

UPDATE: Larry Craig has now reversed himself. He's staying in the congress for the rest of his term, but won't run again in 2008. He previously said he was going to quit, now. There is a God. Another year of "wide stance" jokes. There really is a God. And what better timing, with all this gay legislation being debated. It's going to be all Larry Craig all the time. Hell, let's rename ENDA the Larry Craig Employment Act.

I wonder if we can add Larry Craig to ENDA... Read More......

A trans activist responds

A trans activist has asked me to publish their response to some of my posts on the ENDA issue. Here it is, in its entirety. I respond after.

Well, John, you make a number of things very clear.

You think the trans community was able to enter the LGB community not as a natural evolution of the community, as you pointed out happened with women and bi's, but through shame and fear. Fear? You're afraid of what, our political power? I don't think so. But maybe some folks in our community are afraid that trans people will highlight the gender nonconformity in the gay community and drag straight-acting gays into the sunlight.

Shame? Maybe, and if so, then for good reason. They should be ashamed of themselves. That they feel so privileged and so righteous is shameful.

I agree with you that there are "senior" gay journalists - among others - who don't get it. Barney Frank is apparently one such; Tammy Baldwin is not. Evidently the old school is not old enough to have read Susan Stryker's history of gay America to realize that it was the gay guys who were added to the trans community at the dawn of the "gay" rights revolution. We were at Dewey's Compton's and Stonewall. I celebrate the fact that gays and lesbians were depathologized in 1973; I mourn the ensuing turnabout, when newly "mainstreamed" gays and lesbians turned on the gender nonconformists, including gay drag queens, and piled on to psychiatry's pathologization of us. Jim Fouratt spewed his vile notion that trans women are nothing more than cowardly gay men who couldn't accept their homosexuality, and Janice Raymond and her 2nd wave radical lesbian feminists characterized us as the surgical construct of the patriarchy to be used as an avant garde to invade women's spaces.

You're right - there hadn't until this past week been an up swelling in the non-trans queer community to be trans-inclusive, just an evolution of adding one more letter to the alphabet soup - a change in nomenclature which has mirrored our own improved understanding of who we are and how we can identify to be as inclusive within our sub-community as possible. It saddens me that you ridicule that evolution.

Yet there had never been any kind of mass gay action in support of sexual minority rights until Stonewall, run by trans women, and then little thereafter until death started to sweep the gay community.

I have pointed out repeatedly that surveys, including those of HRC, show there is as much support for a trans-inclusive ENDA as a non-trans-inclusive one. Just because most Americans have never met one of us (or at least not outside of Oprah) doesn't mean Americans don't understand discrimination when they see it.

If Barney can't get the bill passed, then he should leave it to Tammy to get the job done. I can speak to the wavering Congresspersons in half an hour and give them enough of an understanding to respond effectively to any hate speech from the Republicans. Instead we show our cowardice again and run.

The bottom line is that when we're in the equation, the LGBT community can't hide from gender nonconformity and all the sub-issues that raises. You're right - let's deal with it. Generalized fear of transgender people can be overcome just as so many Americans have overcome their generalized fear of gay men. We can make this a better country together, and do so without sacrificing anyone.

Please feel free to post this response on your blog.

Dana Beyer, M.D.

HRC Board of Governors nominee

Dana,

Your argument boils down to the assertion that America really does accept transgendered people far more than I'm willing to realize and therefore we'd have no problem passing a trans-inclusive ENDA. Great. I'm game. Show me the votes. Show me that you have the votes to pass a trans-inclusive ENDA, that the bill won't go down in flames, that Democrats won't be forced en masse to vote in favor of some hideously anti-trans amendment lest they lose their jobs next election, and I'm there for you. You think this is some easy game, that we actually have the votes, but some of us simply don't like you and find you icky and that's why we're concerned. Fine, then I'll call your bluff. I adore you. Now prove to me that you have the votes to pass ENDA and that your strategy won't kill this legislation for the next two decades, and you have my support. You have two weeks, which should be ample time considering all of us are lying about there not being enough votes to pass ENDA with trans inclusion.

JOHN Read More......

The definitive piece on Petraeus

I don't often find myself linking to conservative magazines, but this piece by Andrew Bacevich is a fantastic analysis of General Petraeus and his recent efforts in Washington and in Iraq. Bacevich is a renowned military historian and professor of international relations. A self-described "Catholic conservative," he is also one of the most insightful critics of Bush administration international policy, and has been for years.

This past May, his son, a 27-year-old Lieutenant, was killed by a suicide bomber in Iraq.

Bacevich has impeccable credentials, a keen understanding of military and diplomatic affairs, and, one has to imagine, an extraordinarily heavy heart. He gets right to the crux of the matter when it comes to the Political General:

[I]n presenting his recent assessment of the Iraq War and in describing the “way forward,” Petraeus demonstrated that he is a political general of the worst kind—one who indulges in the politics of accommodation that is Washington’s bread and butter but has thereby deferred a far more urgent political imperative, namely, bringing our military policies into harmony with our political purposes.

Petraeus has chosen a middle course, carefully crafted to cause the least amount of consternation among various Washington constituencies he is eager to accommodate. This is the politics of give and take, of horse trading, of putting lipstick on a pig. Ultimately, it is the politics of avoidance.

A political general in the mold of Washington or Grant would have taken a different course, using his moment in the spotlight not to minimize consternation but to stir it up to the maximum extent. He would have capitalized on his status as man of the hour to oblige civilian leaders, both in Congress and in the executive branch, to do what they have not done since the Iraq War began—namely, their jobs. He would have insisted upon the president and the Congress making decisions that wartime summons them—and not military commanders—to make. Instead, Petraeus issued everyone a pass.

The entire piece is simply -- and rightly -- devastating.

Bacevich goes on to explain the most intellectually indefensible argument of Petraeus's testimony: after an (ostensibly) effective surge, supposedly fueled by increased troop levels, he didn't move to exploit the advantage. If the increase was really helping us "win" the war, an honest position would have been to ask for more troops. Exploit the advantage, if indeed there is one. Bacevich explains,

There is only one plausible explanation for Petraeus’s terminating a surge that has (he says) enabled coalition forces, however tentatively, to gain the upper hand. That explanation is politics—of the wrong kind.

Given the current situation as Petraeus describes it, an incremental reduction in U.S. troop strength makes sense only in one regard: it serves to placate each of the various Washington constituencies that Petraeus has a political interest in pleasing.

Indeed. It's really amazing that he has gotten such a pass on all of this; history, I think, will not be so kind. Read More......

The backlash begins, Part I

From the editor-in-chief of Bay Windows, the largest gay paper in New England, and one of the most influential in the US:

Editorial
Susan Ryan-Vollmar
Editor-in-Chief, Bay Windows

Rep. Barney Frank is right

If only we’d seen the passion, the blog posts and the last-minute organizing by LGBT organizations around a trans-inclusive Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA) last year. And the year before that. And the decade before that. Just yesterday, a coalition called United ENDA unveiled its website featuring talking points for a trans-inclusive ENDA; legal analysis showing that an ENDA bill that only protects lesbians, gay men and bisexuals will be too weak to actually protect lesbians, gay men and bisexuals (the bill’s failure to protect actual transmen and women is conspicuously absent from the analysis); and an impressively lengthy list of national and state LGBT organizations demanding an all-or-nothing approach to passing ENDA.

The outcry has been strong enough to convince House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who supports a trans-inclusive ENDA and U.S. Rep. Barney Frank, who has been lobbying House members on the trans-inclusive ENDA, to back off of their controversial plan to put forward two ENDA bills: one that is trans-inclusive and one that would make it illegal to fire an employee based solely on his or her sexual orientation.

In a lengthy statement outlining his rationale, Frank said that after House Leadership took an official count of the votes, it became clear that the trans-inclusive ENDA bill wouldn’t pass. Even worse, Frank wrote, a trans-inclusive ENDA would also be vulnerable to anti-trans amendments from Republicans: “[I]t became clear that an amendment offered by Republicans either to omit the transgender provision altogether or severely restrict it in very obnoxious ways would pass.”

LGBT organizations from the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force to the Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund to the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network are demanding that either a trans-inclusive ENDA be put forward or none at all.

This is madness.

The House is on the verge of passing groundbreaking workplace protections for millions of Americans. It’s the first piece of legislation Congress has seriously considered since the Family Medical Leave Act (FMLA) was passed in 1993 that offers American workers protection from arbitrary firings. It’s not perfect. Few pieces of civil rights legislation are. But it would provide a concrete base upon which to expand ENDA protections not just to transmen and women but to also add provisions to the bill that would require employers to offer domestic partnership benefits to the partners of their LGBT employees if they offer such benefits to their heterosexual employees — a provision that is not in the current bill. As it happens, that’s exactly how Congress dealt with the FMLA. It was a nine-year fight of submitting bills, amending them and persevering through two vetoes of the bill by President George H.W. Bush. The bill that was eventually signed into law by President Bill Clinton in 1993 was much more comprehensive than the one first approved by Congress. This is not unusual; it’s how the legislative process works.

There is much concern that if a bill protecting employees solely on the basis of sexual orientation is passed then protections for transmen and women will be forgotten. It’s hard to take that concern seriously given the flurry of support that’s been forcefully expressed for trans rights now that we know a trans-inclusive ENDA simply will not pass in the House as its currently configured.

Claiming that Frank has betrayed the trans community, as some are now doing (Los Angeles Times sportswriter Christine Daniels wrote this week that he was engaged in a strategy to “throw the transfolk overboard”) is breathtakingly ignorant of the facts.

The targeting of the Human Rights Campaign for its failure to align itself with the LGBT organizations that have promised to work to defeat a non-inclusive ENDA is equally ignorant of reality. Who can seriously expect the nation’s largest organization working to pass legislation on our behalf to refuse to work with Pelosi and Frank?

This petulant insistence on purity, principle and perfection is a hallmark not just of the LGBT community, but of American politics in general. Just look at James Dobson’s and the Christian right’s demands that the Republican Congress take up an overly broad Federal Marriage Amendment to the U.S. Constitution when a much narrower provision that would have allowed for civil unions stood a much better chance of passage.

Not that I’m comparing progressive LGBT activists with the Christian right. After all, the Christian right is capable of delivering votes, huge sums of money to candidates and hundreds of thousands of phone calls to lawmakers when an issue is deemed important enough to warrant it. Progressive activists? Not so much.

Read More......

Susan Collins, consummate negative campaigner, gets busted and owes an apology

Susan Collins is a notoriously negative campaigner. She has the patina of being a good government moderate, so the narrative that she's a nasty campaigner hasn't sunk in with the traditional media, especially in Maine. However, one particularly nasty episode this week exposed Susan for what she is.

Last week, The Hill reported that Collins was planning to run a spurious negative campaign against Tom Allen. Her biggest issue was going to be Tom's missed votes. Yes, after two terms in the U.S. Senate, this is her best issue:

An aide to Collins, speaking on background, said that before last week, the senator’s campaign had polled on the issue of Allen’s missed votes twice, and both times, “and not surprisingly, it’s an issue that polls really well for us.”

The aide said that the senator includes a line in her stump speech when addressing Republican-only crowds that mentions her perfect attendance.

“That’s the biggest applause line that she gets every time,” the aide said.

In front of mixed crowds, Collins adds a line about Allen’s 129 missed votes, and there are “audible gasps” from the crowd.

Audible gasps? Tom Allen has a 98% voting record over the past 10+ years. Now, of course, Collins doesn't want to talk about her own votes -- like her unwavering support for George Bush and the war in Iraq. Susan doesn't want to compare the votes she's taken with Tom, hence the diversion tactic.

Earlier this week, sticking to the Collins attack plan, the head of the Maine GOP attacked Allen for missing some votes. You can imagine the Collins campaign staff high-fiving when this nasty release went out. (Interestingly, it still seems that the Collins campaign staff is basically her U.S. Senate staff -- yeah, they're all on the federal payroll.) Here's the GOP attack:

"October 2, 2007

"Congressman Tom Allen missed each of the three votes the House of Representatives held yesterday, bringing his missed votes total to 132. He also missed three days of votes for a fundraising [sic] trip to California two weeks ago. Over the last three weeks the House has only held votes on ten days -- Congressman Allen has missed four of those days completely, for a total of 22 votes.

"Maine Republican Party Chairman Mark Ellis said, "Congressman Allen really seems to have lost interest in showing up to work. At the very least, he should tell his constituents why he is choosing to leave them unrepresented in Congress less than a year after he was reelected. For these and the many other days that Tom has skipped votes, Mainers deserve to know the answer to the question: Where was Tom?"

Maine's got a strong hunting tradition. I've always been told that you never take a shot unless you know what your target is. Never, ever. So, talk about shoot first, ask questions later. Susan's toadies at the Maine GOP later got the answer to their "Where was Tom?" question when they found out that Tom Allen was actually attending a funeral of a family member. Yes. Collins and the GOP attacked Tom for missing votes because he was at a funeral. The state GOP had to issue another statement, notably lacking an apology:

"October 2, 2007

"It has come to our attention that Congressman Tom Allen was in Bangor on Monday attending the funeral of a family member. Without question, the most difficult times in our lives are those in which we grieve the loss of family or friends. Our thoughts are with Congressman Allen and his family during this difficult time," said Maine Republican Party Chairman Mark Ellis."

Collins' Director of Internet Strategy, who also works for Fox News, detailed the episode here.

This episode indicates just how desperate Susan Collins is. She is going to run a very negative campaign because it's all she can do. The Senate 2008 Guru nails it:

And, the If Ellis had instead said something to the effect of, "Hey, Maine Republicans including myself and Susan Collins tried to manufacture a sleazy, misleading attack against Tom Allen and it blew up in our faces. We are real jerks and apologize profusely," I might be more content with Ellis' fake remorse. In fact, nowhere in the addendum is there an apology for the attack! No, "Sorry we tried to exploit for cheap political gain a few missed votes while you were at a family funeral." Nothing. Ellis should immediately lose his job and Susan Collins should immediately repudiate Ellis and the Maine Republican Party for this. Otherwise, since it was her sleazy, misleading attack that Ellis was simply advancing, we can take it as Collins' tacit approval for Ellis' disgusting remarks and subsequent lack of apology.

AMERICAblog has an Act Blue page for Tom Allen. Every dollar will help Tom defeat Susan and her pro-Iraq war, pro-Bush agenda. Read More......

The Bush/Cheney/Gonzales "secret" legacy of promoting torture

What a legacy. Secret opinions from the new Attorney General, Alberto Gonzales, gave the green light to torture:

When the Justice Department publicly declared torture “abhorrent” in a legal opinion in December 2004, the Bush administration appeared to have abandoned its assertion of nearly unlimited presidential authority to order brutal interrogations.

But soon after Alberto R. Gonzales’s arrival as attorney general in February 2005, the Justice Department issued another opinion, this one in secret. It was a very different document, according to officials briefed on it, an expansive endorsement of the harshest interrogation techniques ever used by the Central Intelligence Agency.

The new opinion, the officials said, for the first time provided explicit authorization to barrage terror suspects with a combination of painful physical and psychological tactics, including head-slapping, simulated drowning and frigid temperatures.

Mr. Gonzales approved the legal memorandum on “combined effects” over the objections of James B. Comey, the deputy attorney general, who was leaving his job after bruising clashes with the White House. Disagreeing with what he viewed as the opinion’s overreaching legal reasoning, Mr. Comey told colleagues at the department that they would all be “ashamed” when the world eventually learned of it.

Later that year, as Congress moved toward outlawing “cruel, inhuman and degrading” treatment, the Justice Department issued another secret opinion, one most lawmakers did not know existed, current and former officials said. The Justice Department document declared that none of the C.I.A. interrogation methods violated that standard.

Read More......

Thursday Morning Open Thread

Good morning. New season of South Park started last night, so at least something good is happening.

What's the rest of the news? Read More......

"Thomas & Friends" bonus gift toys also being recalled

If only expensive supply chain professionals thought about the entire supply chain and not just select pieces. Hmmmm...what's that they say about paybacks?

The first recall was bad enough: A million-plus "Thomas & Friends" toys pulled because of lead paint. The second was surreal: The maker of the smiley-faced trains sent customers "bonus gifts" so they'd stay loyal — and now some of those toys have been recalled, too.

Even if you're not 3-year-old Zoe McGaha-Schletter, it's yet another mind-bending episode in a cascade of recalls that already had parents fretting what toys were safe for their kids.

"This is so exactly what the villain in a children's movie would do," said Zoe's father, Eban Schletter. "It's just ridiculous."

The good thing is that RC2, the company in question, probably was able to save a lot of money by outsourcing to the cheapest supplier and ignoring quality controls. The brilliant corporate strategy is working so well, customers are throwing away all of their toys and vowing never to buy their products again. You just can't buy PR like this. Read More......

Cholera continues to spread in Iraq

If the daily bombings and sectarian violence don't get them, the water will. And to think the Iraqi people are not impressed with Bush-style democracy and all of the great benefits that come with it. Read More......

Deutsche Bank writes off $3.12 billion from US mortgage problems

Ouch. That's gotta hurt, even with the positive help from other divisions. DB joins fellow European bank UBS who were also caught up in the mortgage mess and let's not forget about the nearly collapsed Northern Rock in the UK. Who will be next? Read More......