Monday, February 25, 2008

Friday, February 15, 2008

"He’s willing to let Americans die to protect the phone companies”

House ignores Bush pressure on surveillance law, finds two aides in contempt

Bush says he'd delay Africa trip to help with vote; Bolten, Miers cited for refusing to cooperate in U.S. attorneys inquiry.

By Renee Schoof, Marisa Taylor
MCCLATCHY NEWSPAPERS
Friday, February 15, 2008

WASHINGTON — In two political showdowns Thursday, Democrats in the House of Representatives refused to bow to presidential pressure to pass a broad surveillance law and voted to hold two Bush aides in contempt of Congress.
Early in the day, President Bush said he'd delay his trip to Africa to persuade the House to approve a Senate-passed bill that would give the government authority to monitor e-mails and phone calls.
But House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., refused to hold a vote, saying the House needed more time, and Bush put his trip back on schedule for a departure today.
Democrats and Republicans in the House also tangled over whether to hold former White House Counsel Harriet Miers and current Chief of Staff Josh Bolten in contempt for refusing to cooperate with an inquiry into whether nine U.S. attorneys were fired for political reasons.
Democrats prevailed 223-32 in a party-line vote after Republicans walked out in protest, saying the House should be voting on the surveillance bill instead of what Minority Leader John Boehner, R-Ohio, called a "fishing expedition."
The resolution was the first time in more than two decades that a full chamber of Congress had backed a contempt-of-Congress citation. It also marked an escalation of a dispute between House Democrats and the White House over the breadth of the doctrine of executive privilege.
The White House has said that the Justice Department won't act on the criminal contempt request, setting up what's expected to be a long court battle.
Pelosi said that she wanted to work with the White House on the surveillance bill, but that the House needs more time to find ways to protect Americans' civil liberties.
"The president believes he has the inherent authority from the Constitution to do whatever he wishes, not necessarily under the law. We respectfully disagree," she said.
The Senate bill is an update of a law that's due to expire tonight. Existing surveillance could continue for a year after the law expires.
Bush said the Senate bill would allow the intelligence community to "effectively monitor those seeking to harm our people" and that the House should pass it so he could sign it before he departs.
"Failure to act would harm our ability to monitor new terrorist activities and could reopen dangerous gaps in our intelligence. Failure to act would also make the private sector less willing to help us protect the country, and this is unacceptable," Bush said.
Congress passed the Protect America Act in August, giving the government broader surveillance powers. It was intended to remain in effect only for six months, giving Democrats time to revise it.
Intelligence officials can continue to eavesdrop on approved targets for a year after the law expires. The government also can get an order from the secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court to start new surveillance.
The Senate's revision of the Protect America Act also would grant immunity to telecommunications companies that complied with the administration's requests for surveillance without court approval after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.
The House didn't include the retroactive immunity provision in its version of the bill.
The House voted to hold Bolten and Miers in contempt for refusing to testify in last year's investigation of the firing of nine U.S. attorneys.
The investigation has produced suspicions but no proof that the ousted prosecutors were targeted because they rebuffed demands that they bring weak voter fraud cases against Democrats or because they mounted corruption investigations of Republicans.
The vote authorized the House Judiciary Committee to ask a court to order Miers and Bolten to testify if the Justice Department fails to issue criminal contempt citations.
The administration has denied any wrongdoing, and maintains that Congress has no compelling interest to see internal White House deliberations on the matter. Democrats said they recognize the president's right to assert executive privilege but maintain that Bush overreached illegally.

http://www.statesman.com/news/content/news/stories/nation/02/15/0215contempt.html

meanwhile:

A veto of the FISA bill endangers Americans

Olbermann:
The president is demanding immunity for the telecoms yet, he can’t confirm they did anything for which they need to be cleared

SPECIAL COMMENT

By Keith Olbermann

Anchor, 'Countdown'

updated 9:41 p.m. CT, Thurs., Feb. 14, 2008

A part of what I will say, was said here on Jan. 31. Unfortunately it is both sadder and truer now than it was then.
“Who’s to blame?” Mr. Bush also said this afternoon, “Look, these folks in Congress passed a good bill late last summer.... The problem is, they let the bill expire. My attitude is: If the bill was good enough then, why not pass the bill again?”

Like the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution. Or Executive Order 90-66. Or The Alien and Sedition Acts. Or slavery.
Mr. Bush, you say that our ability to track terrorist threats will be weakened and our citizens will be in greater danger. Yet you have weakened that ability!
You have subjected us, your citizens, to that greater danger! This, Mr. Bush, is simple enough for even you to understand.
For the moment, at least, thanks to some true patriots in the House, and your own stubbornness, you have tabled telecom immunity, and the FISA act.
You. By your own terms and your definitions, you have just sided with the terrorists. You’ve got to have this law, or we’re all going to die. But, practically speaking, you vetoed this law.
It is bad enough, sir, that you were demanding an ex post facto law that could still clear the AT&Ts and the Verizons from responsibility for their systematic, aggressive and blatant collaboration with your illegal and unjustified spying on Americans under this flimsy guise of looking for any terrorists who are stupid enough to make a collect call or send a mass e-mail.
But when you demanded it again during the State of the Union address, you wouldn’t even confirm that they actually did anything for which they deserved to be cleared.
“The Congress must pass liability protection for companies believed to have assisted in the efforts to defend America.”
Believed? Don’t you know? Don’t you even have the guts Dick Cheney showed in admitting they did collaborate with you? Does this endless presidency of loopholes and fine print extend even here? If you believe in the seamless mutuality of government and big business, come out and say it! There is a dictionary definition, one word that describes that toxic blend.
You’re a fascist — get them to print you a T-shirt with fascist on it! What else is this but fascism? Did you see Mark Klein on this newscast last November?
Mark Klein was the AT&T whistleblower who explained in the placid, dull terms of your local neighborhood IT desk how he personally attached all AT&T circuits, everything, carrying every one of your phone calls, every one of your e-mails, every bit of your Web browsing into a secure room, room No. 641-A at the Folsom Street facility in San Francisco, where it was all copied so the government could look at it.
Not some of it, not just the international part of it, certainly not just the stuff some spy, a spy both patriotic and telepathic, might be able to divine had been sent or spoken by or to a terrorist.
Everything! Every time you looked at a naked picture. Every time you bid on eBay. Every time you phoned in a donation to a Democrat. “My thought was,” Mr. Klein told us last November, “George Orwell’s ‘1984.’ And here I am, forced to connect the Big Brother machine.”
And if there’s one thing we know about Big Brother, Mr. Bush, it is that he is — you are — a liar.
“This Saturday at midnight,” you said Thursday, “legislation authorizing intelligence professionals to quickly and effectively monitor terrorist communications will expire. If Congress does not act by that time, our ability to find out who the terrorists are talking to, what they are saying and what they are planning will be compromised.” You said that “the lives of countless Americans depend” on your getting your way.
This is crap. And you sling it with an audacity and a speed unrivaled by even the greatest political felons of our history.
Richard Clarke — you might remember him, sir: He was one of the counterterror pros you inherited from President Clinton, before you ran the professionals out of government in favor of your unreality-based reality — Richard Clarke wrote in the Philadelphia Inquirer:
“Let me be clear: Our ability to track and monitor terrorists overseas would not cease should the Protect America Act expire.
“If this were true, the president would not threaten to terminate any temporary extension with his veto pen. All surveillance currently occurring would continue even after legislative provisions lapsed because authorizations issued under the act are in effect up to a full year.”
You are a liar, Mr. Bush. And after showing some skill at it, you have ceased to even be a very good liar.
And your minions like John Boehner, your Republican congressional crash dummies who just happen to decide to walk out of Congress when a podium-full of microphones await them, they should just keep walking, out of Congress and, if possible, out of the country.
For they and you, sir, have no place in a government of the people, by the people, for the people.
The lot of you are the symbolic descendants of the despotic middle managers of some banana republic to whom “freedom” is an ironic brand name, a word you reach for when you want to get away with its opposite.
Thus, Mr. Bush, your panoramic invasion of privacy is dressed up as “protecting America.”
Thus, Mr. Bush, your indiscriminate domestic spying becomes the focused monitoring only of “terrorist communications.”
Thus, Mr. Bush, what you and the telecom giants have done isn’t unlawful; it’s just the kind of perfectly legal, passionately patriotic thing for which you happen to need immunity!
Richard Clarke is on the money, as usual.
That the president was willing to veto this eavesdropping means there is no threat to the legitimate counterterror efforts under way.
As Sen. Edward Kennedy reminded us in December:
“The president has said that American lives will be sacrificed if Congress does not change FISA.
“But he has also said that he will veto any FISA bill that does not grant retroactive immunity.
“No immunity, no FISA bill. So if we take the president at his word, he’s willing to let Americans die to protect the phone companies.”
And that literally cannot be. Even Mr. Bush could not overtly take a step that actually aids the terrorists. I am not talking about ethics here. I am talking about blame. If the president seems to be throwing the baby out with the bath water, it means we can safely conclude there is no baby.
Because if there were, sir, now that you have vetoed an extension of this eavesdropping, if some terrorist attack were to follow, you would not merely be guilty of siding with the terrorists. You would not merely be guilty of prioritizing the telecoms over the people. You would not merely be guilty of stupidity. You would not merely be guilty of treason, sir.
You would be personally, and eternally, responsible.
And if there is one thing we know about you, Mr. Bush, one thing that you have proved time and time again — it is that you are never responsible.
As recently ago as 2006, we spoke words like these with trepidation.
The idea that even the most cynical and untrustworthy of politicians in our history, George W. Bush, would use the literal form of terrorism against his own people was dangerous territory. It seemed to tempt fate, to heighten fear.
We will not fear any longer. We will not fear the international terrorists, and we will thwart them. We will not fear the recognition of the manipulation of our yearning for safety, and we will call it what it is: terrorism. We will not fear identifying the vulgar hypocrites in our government, and we will name them. And we will not fear George W. Bush. Nor will we fear because George W. Bush wants us to fear.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/23173388/

We salute this voice of rational outrage.
A sane shrill scream against the prevailing cheneyBu$hco. maddness.

Keith called them "fascists".
May All that is Holy bless Keith Olbermann.

Saturday, February 9, 2008

The Official YDJ Energy Policy

well, it's my proposal anyway:

solar, hydro(dams) and geothermal energy sources only.
sources offer all electric output some of which will make hydrogen via electrolysis of water.

solar farms in the deserts.
shut the saudis up.
solar farms on the moon.
satellite network for power transmission and distribution.
nasa can make a profit.

all the oil and coal would be carefully archived as the irreplaceable prehistoric artifacts they are.

factories would be able to order their power delivered directly from orbit.
anywhere.

everybody’s mileage would be exactly the same.

Wednesday, February 6, 2008

... and they all shine on ...

too many legends have passed to remember ...

much less

the sequence in which they died:

12/5/1791	wolfgang amadeas mozart 34	rheumatic fever
3/26/1827	ludwig van beethoven 56	lead poisoning
4/1/1917	scott joplin 48	syphilis
8/2/1921	enrico caruso 48	peritonitis
8/6/1931	bix beiderbecke 28	delirim tremens/alcoholic seizure
5/26/1933	jimmie rodgers 35	tuberculosis
9/26/1937	bessie smith 43	car crash
8/16/1938	robert johnson 27	murdered/strychnine
12/15/1944	glenn miller 40	aircraft lost
12/6/1949	lead belly 61	amyotrophic lateral sclerosis
1/1/1953	hank williams 29	morphine
3/12/1955	charlie parker 35	pneumonia/bleeding ulcer
2/3/1959	ritchie valens 17	plane crash
2/3/1959	buddy holly 22	plane crash
2/3/1959	the big bopper 28	plane crash
7/17/1959	billie holiday 44	cirrhosis
10/17/1959	mario lanza 38	pulmonary embolism
4/21/1960	eddie cochran 21	taxi accident
11/5/1960	johnny horton 35	car crash
3/5/1963	patsy cline 30	plane crash
12/11/1964	sam cooke 33	shot
2/15/1965	nat king cole 45	lung cancer
7/18/1966	bobby fuller 23	"suicide"/murder
7/17/1967	john coltrane 40	liver cancer
10/3/1967	woody guthrie 55	Huntington's Disease
12/10/1967	otis redding 26	plane crash
2/27/1968	frankie lymon 25	heroin
6/22/1969	judy garland 47	Seconal
7/3/1969	brian jones 27	drowning/drugs/murder?
9/18/1970	jimi hendrix 27	Vesperax/ asphyxiation
10/4/1970	janis joplin 27	heroin
7/3/1971	jim morrison 27	heroin
7/6/1971	louis armstrong 69	heart attack
10/12/1971	gene vincent 36	ruptured stomach ulcer
10/29/1971	duane allman 24	motorcycle crash
1/27/1972	mahalia jackson 60	diabetes/heart failure
9/19/1973	gram parsons 26	morphine/alcohol
9/20/1973	jim croce 30	plane crash
12/20/1973	bobby darin 37	prosthetic heart valve clot
5/13/1975	bob wills 70	strokes
1/10/1976	howlin' wolf 65	kidney failure
5/14/1976	keith relf 33	electrocuted by guitar
8/29/1976	jimmy reed 50	alcoholism/epilepsy
8/16/1977	elvis presley 42	drugs/enlarged heart/heart attack
9/16/1977	maria callas 53	heart attack
9/16/1977	marc bolan 29	car crash
10/20/1977	ronnie van zant 29	air crash
4/21/1978	sandy denny 31	cerebral hemorrhage
9/1/1978	keith moon 32	Clomethiazole
2/2/1979	sid vicious 21	herion
6/29/1979	lowell george 34	heart attack
7/12/1979	minnie riperton 31	breast cancer
1/30/1980	professor longhair 61	died in his sleep
12/8/1980	john lennon 40	shot
5/11/1981	bob marley 36	melanoma
7/16/1981	harry chapin 38	car crash
1/30/1982	lightnin' hopkins 69	esophageal cancer/pneumonia
2/17/1982	thelonious monk 64	stroke
10/4/1982	glenn gould 57	stroke
12/8/1982	marty robbins 57	heart surgery complications
4/30/1983	muddy waters 70	died in his sleep
1/21/1984	jackie wilson 49	heart attack
4/1/1984	marvin gaye 44	shot
7/4/1984	jimmie spheeris 36	motorcycle crash
9/20/1984	steve goodman 36	leukemia
5/13/1988	chet baker 58	heroin/cocaine/head wounds
10/19/1988	son house 86	cancer of the larynx
12/6/1988	roy orbison 52	heart attack
2/1/1989	blaze foley 39	shot
2/8/1990	del shannon 55	suicide/shot
8/27/1990	stevie ray vaughn 35	helicopter crash
6/1/1991	david ruffin 50	cocaine
6/6/1991	stan getz 64	liver cancer
9/28/1991	miles davis 65	stroke/pneumonia/respiratory failure
11/24/1991	freddie mercury 45	HIV/bronchopneumonia
10/25/1992	roger miller 56	lung and throat cancer
1/6/1993	dizzy gillespie 75	pancreatic cancer
12/4/1993	frank zappa 52	prostate cancer
1/15/1994	harry nilsson 52	heart failure
4/5/1994	kurt cobain 27	suicide/shot
11/19/1994	cab calloway 86	stroke
3/31/1995	selina 23	murder/shot
8/9/1995	jerry garcia 53	heart attack
5/11/1996	walter hyatt 46	air crash
9/13/1996	tupac shakur 25	shot
11/2/1996	eva cassidy 33	melanoma
1/1/1997	townes van zandt 52	post-surgical pulmonary embolus
4/8/1997	laura nyro 49	ovarian cancer
3/9/1997	notorious B.I.G. 24	shot
5/29/1997	jeff buckley 30	drowned
6/26/1997	iz kamakawiwo'ole 38	weight-related respiratory illness
1/19/1998	carl perkins 65	strokes/throat cancer
5/14/1998	frank sinatra 82	heart attack
3/2/1999	dusty springfield 59	breast cancer
10/26/1999	hoyt axton 61	strokes/heart attack
12/26/1999	curtis mayfield 57	diabetes
4/15/2001	joey ramone 49	lymphoma
6/21/2001	john lee hooker 83	died in his sleep
6/30/2001	chet atkins 77	colon cancer
8/25/2001	aaliyah 22	plane crash
11/29/2001	george harrison 58	lung cancer
12/22/2002	joe strummer 50	congenital heart defect
6/15/2003	june carter cash 73	heart valve replacement surgery complications
7/16/2003	celia cruz 77	cancerous brain tumor
9/7/2003	warren zevon 56	mesothelioma
9/12/2003	johnny cash 71	diabetes/autonomic neuropathy
6/10/2004	ray charles 73	liver cancer
7/1/2005	luther vandross 54	diabetes/hypertension/stroke
1/19/2006	wilson pickett 64	heart attack
7/7/2006	syd barrett 60	diabetes/pancreatic cancer
12/25/2006	james brown 73	congestive heart failure/pneumonia
7/2/2007	beverly sills 78	lung cancer
9/6/2007	luciano pavarotti 71	pancreatic cancer
12/23/2007	oscar peterson 82	renal failure

Of
These
114 :

vehicular accidents

1. bessie smith

2. eddie cochran

3. johnny horton

4. duane allman

5. marc bolan

6. harry chapin

7. jimmie spheeris

diabetes/kidney failure

1. mahalia jackson

2. howlin' wolf

3. curtis mayfield

4. johnny cash

5. luther vandross

6. syd barrett

7. oscar peterson

overdose

1. hank williams

2. frankie lymon

3. judy garland

4. jimi hendrix

5. janis joplin

6. jim morrison

7. gram parsons

8. sid vicious

9. chet baker

10. david ruffin

aircraft accidents

1. glenn miller

2. buddy holly

3. ritchie valens

4. j.p richardson

5. patsy cline

6. otis redding

7. jim croce

8. ronnie van zant

9. stevie ray vaughn

10. walter hyatt

11. aaliyah

heart failure

1. louis armstrong

2. mahalia jackson

3. bobby darin

4. elvis

5. maria callas

6. lowell george

7. marty robbins

8. jackie wilson

9. roy orbison

10. harry nilsson

11. jerry garcia

12. frank sinatra

13. hoyt axton

14. joe strummer

15. june carter cash

16. wilson pickett

17. james brown

cancer

1. nat king cole

2. john coltrane

3. minnie riperton

4. bob marley

5. lightnin' hopkins

6. steve goodman

7. son house

8. stan getz

9. roger miller

10. dizzy gillespie

11. frank zappa

12. eva cassidy

13. laura nyro

14. carl perkins

15. dusty springfield

16. joey ramone

17. chet atkins

18. george harrison

19. celia cruz

20. warren zevon

21. ray charles

22. beverly sills

23. luciano pavarotti

still alive (2/21/08)

les paul 92

fats domino 79

chuck berry 81

keith richards

... on and on and on and on and ...

Wednesday, January 9, 2008

Why get tested for anything if you have no money and you're just going to die?

Submitted by lambert on Wed, 2008-01-09 08:39.

Surprise! Universal health care really is a matter of life and death.

Single payer, no rickety plans, just do it the Fuck like all the other civilized nations do. Xan nails it in this comment, which ought to be permanently front-paged on every fucking liberal blog in the world forever. Sarah advocates early testing, which in a sane world might make sense, but:

[XAN] I was trying to agree with you. You have “choices” about living longer only if you are worth keeping alive. That means having money, since money = worth.

I have no money. I am not worth keeping alive. Check CD’s post on the story about where the US ranks on rate of death from preventable diseases. Hint: dead last, you should pardon the expression.

Therefore I will not live no matter what stage my (entirely hypothetical) cancer is caught at. Catching it “early” will only make me, or you for that matter, depressed. Why bother?

I am not worth keeping alive, under our system as presently constituted. Anybody who wonders why I support John Edwards as persistently as I do should keep in mind that he is the only fucking candidate who thinks I am worth keeping alive. That kinda means a lot to me.

I feel exactly the same way. I go get tested, and the results are bad. What can I do except go die anyhow? Test or no test, the end result is the same, but if I get the test, I lose happiness, which I do have, but which is all I have. What does the knowledge get me? The time to “settle my affairs”? No thank you.

There’s a woman who runs a small store in my town. The store isn’t big enough for her to afford health insurance. She has varicose veins, and can’t afford treatment. So, when that condition acts up, she walks around with her feet bleeding out.

In America. In the Year of Our Lord 2008.

NOTE As if it ever made sense to voluntarily get your health information into any kind of a record, let alone one that tags you as having a pre-existing condition. Shit, it would make more sense to do whatever it takes to go to jail. Awful though that would be, at least there’s a clinic on the inside.

NOTE Oh, and with Xan, I support Edwards. He’s the only one who gets it. Fuck “unity” and fuck “experience.” How about making sure people don’t die when the only medication they need to live is money?

ah ...

"Oh, and with Xan, I support Edwards. He’s the only one who gets it. Fuck “unity” and fuck “experience.” How about making sure people don’t die when the only medication they need to live is money?"

yes.
i agree

Saturday, January 5, 2008

How Hill Choked

from Morley Winograd's post "Can Hillary learn ... " over at MyDD :

Gen Xers, who adored and still revere Ronald Reagan and distrust government, were responsible for the decline in voter participation among young people in the 1980s and 1990s, but as studies by Harvard's Institute of Politics have demonstrated, ever since 9/11 today's youth have voted in increasing numbers, at a growth rate that surpasses that of all other generations.

"Talking about my g-gen-geneh-RAy-shun! ... "
okay, i'm just singing the song; NOT claiming to be a Millennial-gener.
by a LONG shot.

but, but, but,
... then there is this jewel, ALL about Hillary:

Hillary's team were told to invite young people over for a night of watching TV shows like Gray's Anatomy or The Office, and use that opportunity to engage them in a conversation on the issues. Obama's team went about finding its cadre of supporters by using their website, built off of the FaceBook operating system or platform, in tune with Millennial's social networking habits. Once they found potential supporters, Obama's team didn't ask them to watch television, something Millennials do infrequently, unless it's on their laptop with shows downloaded from the Net, but to hang out at the local bar.

Watch TV ?
deeply clueless is the face of the hippest, fastest growing generation of voters.

self-filling doom there, hill-ster.
you missed the crucially important high-tech connection.

but then you hired Terry McAulifee.
that explains a lot of your problems right there.
say Hi to bill.

Thursday, January 3, 2008

So, 2007 ...

We've lost ...

Molly Ivins and Lady Bird Johnson
Barbaro and Washoe
Beverly Sills and Luciano Pavarotti
Kurt Vonnegut and Kurt Waldheim
Arthur Schlesinger and David Halberstam
Jerry Falwell and Tammy Faye Messner
Charles Nelson Reilly and Merv Griffin

L. M. Boyd and Johnny Hart
Porter Wagoner and Ike Turner
Robert Goulet and Dan Fogelberg
Laura Huxley and Jane Wyman
Wally Schirra and "Evel" Knievel
Tom Poston and Larry "Bud" Melman

Mr. Wizard and Mr. Whipple
Yvonne De Carlo and Carlo Ponti

why wouldn't one be enough?
why would death have to take both?

om ah ra pa tsa na dhi

Wednesday, January 2, 2008

Goodbye 2007

1/8 Yvonne De Carlo, 84, Canadian-born American actress (The Ten Commandments, The Munsters), natural causes. [225]

1/9 Carlo Ponti, 94, Italian film producer, pulmonary complications. [218]

1/17 Art Buchwald, 81, American humorist and columnist, kidney failure. [144] [145]

1/22 L. M. Boyd, 79, American newspaper columnist for the San Francisco Chronicle. [105]

1/23 E. Howard Hunt, 88, American Watergate scandal principal, pneumonia. [99]

1/29 Barbaro, 3, American racehorse, 2006 Kentucky Derby winner, euthanized after contracting laminitis. [21]

1/31 Molly Ivins, 62, American newspaper columnist, political commentator and author, breast cancer. [3] [4] [5]

2/28 Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., 89, American historian and Pulitzer Prize-winning author, heart attack. [6]

3/17 Wilford "Crazy Ray" Jones, 76, American cheerleading fan of the Dallas Cowboys, diabetes and cardiovascular disease. [89]

3/19 Calvert DeForest, 85, American actor, comedian and David Letterman sidekick known as Larry "Bud" Melman. [74]

4/7 Johnny Hart, 76, American cartoonist (B.C., The Wizard of Id), stroke. [181]

4/11 Kurt Vonnegut, 84, American novelist and social critic, brain injury from a fall. [156]

4/16 Virginia Tech

Seung-Hui Cho, 23, South Korean Virginia Tech mass murderer, suicide by gunshot. [107]

Jocelyne Couture-Nowak, 49, Canadian instructor of French at Virginia Tech, homicide. [108]

Kevin Granata, 45, American associate professor of engineering at Virginia Tech, homicide. [111]

Liviu Librescu, 76, Romanian-born professor of engineering at Virginia Tech, Holocaust survivor, homicide. [114]

G. V. Loganathan, 50, Indian-born professor of engineering at Virginia Tech, homicide. [115]

4/23

Boris Yeltsin, 76, first President of the Russian Federation (1991–1999), heart failure. [55] [56]

David Halberstam, 73, American Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and author, car accident. [52]

4/30 Tom Poston, 85, American actor (Newhart). [6]

5/3 Wally Schirra, 84, American Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo astronaut, heart attack. [197]

5/15 Jerry Falwell, 73, American pastor, television evangelist and founder of the Moral Majority, cardiac arrhythmia. [121] [122]

5/25 Charles Nelson Reilly, 76, American Tony-winning actor and Match Game panelist, complications from pneumonia. [48]

6/2 Steve Gilliard, 42, American blogger, heart and kidney failure. [210]

6/12 Don Herbert, 89, American TV host ("Mr. Wizard"), bone cancer. [143]

6/14 Kurt Waldheim, 88, Austrian President (1986–1992), UN Sec-General (1972–1981), WWII Wehrmacht officer, heart failure. [133] [134]

7/2 Beverly Sills, 78, American opera singer, lung cancer. [225]

7/11 Lady Bird Johnson, 94, First Lady of the United States (1963–1969), natural causes. [149]

7/20 Tammy Faye Messner, 65, American evangelist, metastatic colon cancer. [89]

7/29

Tom Snyder, 71, American talk show host and journalist, complications of leukemia. [26]

Marvin Zindler, 85, American reporter, pancreatic cancer. [27]

8/12 Merv Griffin, 82, American talk show host, real estate tycoon, creator of Jeopardy! and Wheel of Fortune, prostate cancer. [155]

9/6 Luciano Pavarotti, 71, Italian operatic tenor, pancreatic cancer. [166]

9/10 Jane Wyman, 90, American Academy Award-winning actress and first wife of Ronald Reagan. [134] [135]

9/15 Colin McRae, 39, British World Rally champion, helicopter crash. [94] [95]

9/22 Marcel Marceau, 84, French mime artist. [56]

10/28 Porter Wagoner, 80, American country music singer, lung cancer. [35]

10/30

Washoe, c.42, African-born chimpanzee believed to be first non-human to acquire human language, influenza. [14]

Robert Goulet, 73, American singer and actor, idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis. [6] [7]

11/19 Dick Wilson, 91, British-born American actor ("Mr. Whipple"), natural causes. [110] [111]

11/27 Sean Taylor, 24, American football player (Washington Redskins), homicide by gunshot. [33]

11/30 Robert "Evel" Knievel, Jr., 69, American stunt performer. [4] [5]

12/12 Ike Turner, 76, American R&B musician and record producer, ex-husband of Tina Turner, emphysema. [175]

12/13 Laura Huxley, 96, American musician and author, widow of Aldous Huxley, cancer. [160]

12/16 Dan Fogelberg, 56, American singer-songwriter ("Same Old Lang Syne"), prostate cancer. [130]

12/27 Benazir Bhutto, 54, Pakistani Opposition Leader and former Prime Minister (1988–1990, 1993–1996), assassinated. [35]

Thursday, October 4, 2007

Free Burma!

Free Burma.Org

birth
7/4/1911	mitch miller	96
7/7/1913	pinetop perkins	95
6/9/1915	les paul	93
6/30/1917	lena horne	90
5/2/1919	pete seeger	88
4/7/1920	ravi shankar	87
12/6/1920	dave brubeck	87
12/29/1921	johnny otis	86
12/22/1922	jean ritchie	85
1/6/1924	earl scruggs	84
1/20/1924	slim whitman	84
9/16/1925	b.b. king	82
1/12/1926	ray price	82
10/18/1926	chuck berry	81
1/17/1927	eartha kitt	81
2/10/1927	leontyne price	81
3/1/1927	harry belafonte	81
11/11/1927	mose allison	80
2/26/1928	fats domino	79
8/10/1928	jimmy dean	79
12/30/1928	bo diddley	79	r.i.p. 6/2/2008	ride on Gun Slinger
3/9/1930	ornette coleman	78
9/7/1930	sonny rollins	77
12/31/1930	odetta	77
9/12/1931	george jones	76
12/5/1932	little richard	75
3/14/1933	quincy jones	75
4/30/1933	willie nelson	74
4/12/1934	van cliburn	73
9/29/1935	jerry lee lewis	72
9/30/1935	johnny mathis	72
1/24/1936	doug kershaw	72
10/24/1936	bill wyman	71
4/6/1937	merl haggard	70
3/18/1938	charlie pride	70
3/11/1939	flaco jiménez	69
3/25/1942	aretha franklin	66
12/18/1943	keith richards	65

psychoRabble