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Jodie Foster and partner split

Thu, 15 May 2008 05:05:08 GMT

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Actress Jodie Foster has split with her longterm partner Cydney Bernard, according to tabloid reports.

The news comes just five months after the intensely private star paid tribute to her alleged partner of 14 years at an award ceremony.

An insider tells the National Enquirer, "Jodie breaking up with Cydney is shocking. Right now it's the best kept secret in Hollywood, and it's not just because Jodie is legend and an intensely private person, either."

"She and Cydney have been together for so many years and have two children together, the potential fallout and legal wrangling from this split could be monumental."

Tags: hollywood, celebrity, gay, actor

Clinton: 'terrible mistake' to pick McCain over Obama

Thu, 15 May 2008 00:41:16 GMT

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Clip Source: www.cnn.com

Hillary Clinton on Wednesday reiterated her vow to stay in the Democratic presidential race, but she said it would be a "terrible mistake" for her supporters to vote for John McCain over Barack Obama.

"Anybody who has ever voted for me or voted for Barack has much more in common in terms of what we want to see happen in our country and in the world with the other than they do with John McCain," Clinton said on CNN's "The Situation Room."

"I'm going to work my heart out for whoever our nominee is. Obviously, I'm still hoping to be that nominee, but I'm going to do everything I can to make sure that anyone who supported me ... understands what a grave error it would be not to vote for Sen. Obama."

Tags: politics, clinton, obama, democrats, president, campaign, mccain

Cracking the Candidates' Coded Attacks

Thu, 15 May 2008 00:39:38 GMT

clipped by: wiccantexan

Clip Source: abcnews.go.com

The landscape of this year's election is filled with linguistic pitfalls, and as Sen. Barack Obama has said, "words matter" more than ever before.

With so much attention on what is being said -- and in a culture where politically sensitive language has become the mainstream -- candidates disguise their attacks in coded messages intended to pique voters' innate racist, misogynist and ageist prejudices, experts in political communication told ABCNEWS.com.

In March, Clinton outwardly denied rumors that Obama was a practicing Muslim. In an interview with "60 Minutes," when asked whether she believed Obama was a Muslim she said: "No, there is nothing to base that on. As far as I know."

"Though she said he was not a Muslim, it was code for maybe he is Muslim," Jamieson said. "It implies, or suggests, that if he was Muslim that would be a problem. Many Muslims ought to be and are offended by that, because it further assumes that Islam equals al Qaeda or terrorism."

Tags: politics, language, obama, clinton, mccain, speech

Greece Sued Over Sectarian Prayer

Wed, 14 May 2008 01:19:46 GMT

clipped by: wiccantexan
clipper's remarks: Note: Greece here is a town in the United States, not the country.

Clip Source: www.democratandchronicle.com

In just a few seconds' time during the April Town Board meeting, Jennifer Zarpentine made Greece history.

Zarpentine, a Wiccan, delivered the first-ever pagan prayer to open a meeting of the Greece Town Board.

Her hands raised to the sky, she called upon Greek deities Athena and Apollo to "help the board make the right informed decisions for the benefit and greater good of the community."

Greece is embroiled in a legal battle over the prayers delivered before the meetings. In March, national church-state watchdog group Americans United for Separation of Church and State, filed suit against the town in state Supreme Court.

their

The suit claims the practice of allowing explicitly religious prayers — regardless of the religion — during the public meetings is a violation of the U.S. Constitution.

Tags: religion, belief, legal, wicca, prayer

Quirkiness of Vice Presidents past

Wed, 14 May 2008 01:16:31 GMT

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Clip Source: www.cnn.com

In the words of Vice President John Nance Garner, the vice presidency "isn't worth a pitcher of warm piss."

That may be true, but the characters who've held the job are definitely worth a few good pages of trivia. Join mental_floss in toasting seven backup plans that made this country great.

1. Chester Arthur: James Garfield's V.P.

2. Henry Wallace: Franklin Roosevelt's second V.P.

3. William Rufus de Vane King: Franklin Pierce's V.P.

4. Richard M. Johnson: Martin Van Buren's V.P.

5. Aaron Burr: Thomas Jefferson's V.P.

No story on vice presidents would be complete without Aaron Burr -- best known for shooting and killing Alexander Hamilton in a duel in 1804. After the incident, Burr went back to presiding over the Senate. From there, he plotted a treasonous conspiracy to become emperor of the western United States and Mexico.

6. Andrew Johnson: Abraham Lincoln's 4th V.P.

7. John Cabell Breckenridge: James Buchanan's V.P.

Tags: politics, vice president, history

Arapaho man must stand trial in eagle killing case

Wed, 14 May 2008 01:13:05 GMT

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Clip Source: www.firstamendmentcenter.org

A member of the Northern Arapaho Tribe who killed a bald eagle for use in his tribe's Sun Dance in 2005 must stand trial, a federal appeals court ruled yesterday.

In dismissing the charge, Downes said the federal government had shown "callous indifference" to Native American religious beliefs. Downes said the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service generally refuses to grant permits allowing tribal members to kill eagles, even though federal regulations say such permits should be available.

But the appeals court ruled in U.S. v. Friday that American Indians' religious freedoms are not violated by federal law protecting eagles or its policy requiring American Indians to get permits to kill eagles.

"Law accommodates religion," Circuit Judge Michael W. McConnell wrote for the panel. "It cannot wholly exempt religion from the reach of the law."

Tags: american, indian, federal, law, wildlife, eagle, tribe, religion, belief

Mental health workers blast CPS for separating polygamist families

Wed, 14 May 2008 01:10:57 GMT

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Clip Source: www.dallasnews.com

SAN ANTONIO – Removing children from a polygamist sect's West Texas ranch was unnecessary and traumatizing, several mental health workers sent to aid the families wrote.

"The mothers are incredibly loving and patient with the children. The children were well-socialized and well-behaved and interacted willingly and happily with us," one wrote.

Another wrote: "The children were sweet and well-mannered upon our arrival. They obeyed their mothers and appeared to be healthy and well-nourished. They had none of the traditional withdrawal common in abused children."

The MHMR workers helped staff large shelters in San Angelo where mothers were at first allowed to stay with the children. Only mothers of younger children were allowed to remain after the first few days.

Many of the MHMR workers described child welfare workers as high-handed, rude and uncaring toward the mothers.

Tags: flds, family, sect, social, children, polygamist

Televangelist John Hagee apologizes to Catholics

Wed, 14 May 2008 01:08:09 GMT

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Clip Source: hosted.ap.org

John Hagee, an influential Texas televangelist who endorsed John McCain, apologized to Catholics Tuesday for his stinging criticism of the Roman Catholic Church and for having "emphasized the darkest chapters in the history of Catholic and Protestant relations with the Jews."

In a letter to William Donohue, president of the Catholic League for Civil and Religious Rights, Hagee wrote: "Out of a desire to advance a greater unity among Catholics and evangelicals in promoting the common good, I want to express my deep regret for any comments that Catholics have found hurtful."

Hagee has cited the Inquisition and the Crusades as evidence of anti-Semitism within the Catholic church and has suggested that Catholic anti-Semitism shaped Adolf Hitler's views of Jews.

Tags: religion, belief, controversy, christian, catholic, jewish

Einstein letter calls Bible ‘pretty childish’

Wed, 14 May 2008 01:06:34 GMT

clipped by: wiccantexan

Clip Source: www.msnbc.msn.com

A letter being auctioned in London this week adds more fuel to the long-simmering debate about the Nobel Prize-winning physicist's religious views. In the note, written the year before his death, Einstein dismissed the idea of God as the product of human weakness and the Bible as "pretty childish."

Einstein, who helped unravel the mysteries of the universe with his theory of relativity, expressed complex and arguably contradictory views on faith, perceiving a universe suffused with spirituality while rejecting organized religion.

In it, Einstein said that "the word God is for me nothing more than the expression and product of human weaknesses, the Bible a collection of honorable but still primitive legends which are nevertheless pretty childish."

"Like many great scientists of the past, he is rather quirky about religion, and not always consistent from one period to another," Brooke said.

Tags: religion, belief, bible, science, god, theology

Vatican astronomer says it's okay to believe in extra-terrestrials

Wed, 14 May 2008 01:03:12 GMT

clipped by: wiccantexan

Clip Source: www.earthtimes.org

Belief in the existence of aliens from outer space is not necessarily at odds with being a Christian, according to the Vatican's top astronomy official. "It is possible to believe in God and in extra-terrestrials," Father Jose Gabriel Funes was quoted as saying in an interview published Tueday in the Vatican's official newspaper, L'Osservatore Romano.

For Christians it is also possible "to admit the existence of other worlds and other forms of life, even those more evolved than ours, without necessarily questioning faith in the Creation, in the incarnation (of God as man through Jesus) and redemption" of mankind, said Funes.

Tags: vatican, catholic, aliens, space, astronomy, god, belief

Texas eco-friendly cemetery offers 'green burial'

Wed, 14 May 2008 01:01:29 GMT

clipped by: wiccantexan

Clip Source: www.mysanantonio.com

When you think of a cemetery, usually dozens of rows of marble headstones crowded together lining acres of burial ground comes to mind.

However, one Texas cemetery is alive with the remains of people who chose to go green even in death.

Russell founded the state's first green cemetery and it is an eco-friendly final resting place where a person is buried without embalming fluid and without a coffin.

"Green burial is a form of eternal life because we humans are nothing more than recycled material," he said.

"It makes it such an intimate experience for the family," Russell said.

As for Russell and his wife, they too will be going green, but he's hoping for an even more unusual burial. “

Russell encourages “sky burial,” a Tibetan funeral practice in which the body of a dead person or an animal carcass is exposed to the open air to be eaten by vultures.

Tags: funeral, death, nature, ecology, green, texas

Racism alarms Obama's backers

Wed, 14 May 2008 00:59:04 GMT

clipped by: wiccantexan

Clip Source: www.msnbc.msn.com

Here's the worst: In Muncie, a factory town in the east-central part of Indiana, Ross and her cohorts were soliciting support for Obama at malls, on street corners and in a Wal-Mart parking lot, and they ran into "a horrible response," as Ross put it, a level of anti-black sentiment that none of them had anticipated.

For all the hope and excitement Obama's candidacy is generating, some of his field workers, phone-bank volunteers and campaign surrogates are encountering a raw racism and hostility that have gone largely unnoticed -- and unreported -- this election season. Doors have been slammed in their faces. They've been called racially derogatory names (including the white volunteers). And they've endured malicious rants and ugly stereotyping from people who can't fathom that the senator from Illinois could become the first African American president.

One caller, Switzer remembers, said he couldn't possibly vote for Obama and concluded: "Hang that darky from a tree!"

Tags: politics, obama, race, racism

Obama pushes for new GI Bill

Wed, 14 May 2008 00:57:29 GMT

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Clip Source: www.wvgazette.com

On the day before West Virginia's primary election, U.S. Sen. Barack Obama called for passage of the new GI bill Monday in Charleston, while taking a jab at U.S. Sen. John McCain - his likely opponent in the fall presidential election - for refusing to support it.

The proposed 21st Century GI Bill would allow soldiers to receive free tuition for college. Obama said it is one of a number of upgrades to GI benefits and healthcare the federal government should provide.

"It would provide every returning veteran with a real chance to afford a college education, and it would not harm retention,"

The Illinois Democrat said McCain, whom he added he greatly respects as a prisoner of war during the Vietnam War, doesn't like the new plan.

"He is one of the few senators of either party who oppose this bill because he thinks it's too generous," Obama said. "I couldn't disagree more.

Tags: politics, obama, military, education, mccain, government

McCain, Obama Ready to Rumble

Sun, 11 May 2008 22:15:56 GMT

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clipper's remarks: Note Obama's words, "substantive issues."

Clip Source: blogs.abcnews.com

The McCain campaign is eager to engage in a series of unconventional joint forums with Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., as soon as June if Obama emerges as the Democratic presidential nominee.

Charles Black, an advisor to Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., suggested a number of town hall-style debates with the candidates sharing the stage and fielding questions from voters in the audience. The events would not necessarily involve a moderator or taking questions from reporters as has usually been the format for the dozens of Democratic and Republican debates over the last year.

The New York Times reported Sunday that the idea was "floated" by the McCain campaign. Black said he was not sure how it came up or who brought it but. Obama said Saturday it was a "great idea."

if I have the opportunity to debate substantive issues before the voters with John McCain, that’s something I’m going to welcome."

Tags: politics, obama, mccain, debate

Clinton: 'It's Not Over Until the Lady in the Pantsuit Says It Is'

Sun, 11 May 2008 22:13:00 GMT

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Clip Source: blogs.abcnews.com

Sen. Hillary Clinton spoke in Grafton, W.Va., on Mother’s Day with her daughter by her side. Clinton read a few messages from supporters who urged her to continue her bid for the presidency.

"'Keep strong,' she said. 'It's not over until the lady in the pantsuit says it is,'" Clinton said, reading what she said was her favorite message.

Another one she read said: "Keep fighting. No matter what the outcome may be, the fact that you stood throughout the constant ups and downs of this race -– one things is sure –- you never wavered and you never gave up."

Clinton thanked women who came before her and spoke about being a young trial lawyer. She later appealed to the audience, saying, "I am asking for your support so I can continue to fight for you."

Tags: politics, clinton, campaign, futile, women