Clipmarks | kidora's News collection

CNN Makes Paris More Important than Health Care

Wed, 27 Jun 2007 01:19:56 GMT

clipped by: zasel
clipper's remarks: CNN, in my opinion, is no longer to be considered a reputable source of important and relevant news. Although I realize Michael Moore is publicizing his new film SICKO, which is of course, self-serving, the film is about an issue of great importance and relevance to the entire country. To bump this discussion of such a critical matter in favour of an interview with Paris Hilton who is relevant to nothing of importance in the overall serious issues confronting our country is an insult to what the news media is supposed to be all about.

Clip Source: www.alternet.org

CNN Dumps Michael Moore for Paris Hilton

Yesterday, CNN proudly announced that it has scored the first post-jail interview with Paris Hilton. To make room for Paris on Wednesday, CNN canceled its interview with Michael Moore about his new health care documentary SiCKO:

CNN, the "most trusted name in Paris news," continues to sink to new lows in its "assault on reason." Hilton is the latest "serial obsession," though the network recently hired a reporter devoted to "covering things like Britney, as well as the Michael Jackson memorabilia." Now CNN has ditched coverage of America's broken health care system in favor of an hour-long interview of an incarcerated socialite.

ThinkProgress spoke with Moore's team, who confirmed that CNN has not yet rescheduled the interview. SiCKO, which opens nationwide this Friday, sheds light on the health care crisis that the media covers poorly, when it covers it at all.

Tags: michael moore, paris hilton, heath care, media, cnn

Egg McMuffin Inventor Dies

Thu, 27 Mar 2008 22:50:49 GMT

clipped by: kidora
clipper's remarks: Thanks for the egg McMuffin dude!

Clip Source: www.cnn.com

A Southern California McDonald's restaurants official says Egg McMuffin inventor Herb Peterson has died in Santa Barbara at age 89

Monte Fraker, vice president of operations for McDonald's restaurants in Santa Barbara, said Peterson died peacefully at his home Tuesday.

Peterson came up with idea for the signature McDonald's breakfast item in 1972.

He began his career with McDonald's as vice president of the company's advertising firm, D'Arcy Advertising, in Chicago. He wrote McDonald's first national advertising slogan, "Where Quality Starts Fresh Every Day," and eventually became a franchisee

Author of Long Running Series The Wheel Of Time Dies

Tue, 18 Sep 2007 16:35:02 GMT

clipped by: kidora
clipper's remarks: I really liked this series despite its length and complexity. He is one of the few modern authors to capture the world of Tolkien with The Wheel of Time series. He is also the author of the Conan the Barbarian series, made popular by the actor (and governor) Arnold Schwarzenegger.
I really hope that A Memory of Light is released despite his death.
My sympathies go out to his family in their time of grief.

Clip Source: slashdot.org

"James Oliver Rigney Jr, author of the long-running fantasy series The Wheel of Time and better known to millions of fans by the pen name Robert Jordan, died on 16 Sept 2007 from cardiac amyloidosis. Jordan announced he had been diagnosed with the disease in March 2006 and vowed to beat the odds, but determination and gumption sometimes just aren't enough in the face of a disease with a median survival time of just over two years. Jordan was in the process of writing the twelfth and final book in the Wheel of Time series, A Memory of Light, but the book was not slated for release until 2009 and is still incomplete. While there is hope that the book will still be finished from Jordan's notes, this is devastating news to all of us who have been reading the series since 1990."

Tags: author, books, robert jordan

Skeletons Found At London Olympic Site

Thu, 27 Mar 2008 22:41:34 GMT

clipped by: kidora
clipper's remarks: Digging up your grandfather.

Clip Source: news.bbc.co.uk

Four skeletons thought to date back to the Iron Age have been unearthed on the site of the London 2012 Olympic Park.

The remains, believed to be up to 3,000 years old, were discovered in graves close to where the aquatics centre will be built in Stratford, east London.

Experts searching the area have previously uncovered a Roman coin, Roman river walls, World War II gun emplacements and a complete 19th Century boat used for hunting wild fowl on the lower River Lea.

More than 140 trenches have been dug and archaeological work has been carried out on the sites of the Olympic stadium, aquatics centre, VeloPark, Olympic village and the international media centre.

The Discover project, being launched on Thursday, will use school visits, a community dig and roadshows to give local people a chance to learn more about the area's history.

Tags: optional. separate by commas., history

Good New For All You Frequent Flyer's: Crashes Drop By 65%

Mon, 01 Oct 2007 17:51:03 GMT

clipped by: kidora
clipper's remarks: I travel frequently in and out of the U.S. so this is really encouraging news. The airline industry may not be getting any more customer friendly but at least it's getting safer.

Clip Source: www.nytimes.com

After two infamous crashes in 1996 that together killed 375 people, a White House commission told the airline industry and its regulators to reduce the domestic rate of fatal accidents 80 percent over 10 years. That clock ended Sunday.

They have come close to reaching that goal. Barring a crash before midnight Sunday, the drop in the accident rate will be about 65 percent, to one fatal accident in about 4.5 million departures, from one in nearly 2 million in 1997.

“This is the golden age of safety, the safest period, in the safest mode, in the history of the world,” said Marion C. Blakey, the administrator of the Federal Aviation Administration, in a speech to an aviation group in Washington on Sept. 11, two days before her five-year term ended.

Tags: airplane, airlines, crash, safety

New Orleans Two Years Latter

Fri, 17 Aug 2007 16:51:05 GMT

clipped by: kidora

Clip Source: www.nytimes.com

After two years and more than a billion dollars spent by the Army Corps of Engineers to rebuild New Orleans’s hurricane protection system, that is how much the water level is likely to be reduced if a big 1-in-100 flood hits Leah Pratcher’s Gentilly neighborhood.

Looking over the maps that showed other possible water levels around the city, Ms. Pratcher grew increasingly furious. Her house got four feet of water after Hurricane Katrina, and still stands to get almost as much from a 1-in-100 flood.

By comparison, the wealthier neighborhood to the west, Lakeview, had its flooding risk reduced by nearly five and a half feet.

Tags: new orleans, flood, disaster, recovery