AMUSING NEWS FOR MOMS

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HEADLINES FROM AROUND THE SILLY OLD WORLD

PUT THEM ALL TOGETHER AND THEY SPELL
"GRB@FLKH-NMIY/TD{S*"

YOUTUBE
"moms guilt trip sep2008"
OY VEY!!! You BETTER f**kin' CALL tomorrow!!!


Just When You Think The World Is Beginning To Make Sense, A Republican Speaks Up...

NEWS FLASH: Don't forget to call your Mom tomorrow! The guilt-trip if you don't would not be sustainable. You Have Been Warned! Look, there's even some stuff you can talk to her about, right here:


AFP
"Murdoch leads charge to get readers to pay online"
Now he wants us to PAY for his bullsh*t!

' The much-villified Australian-born media tycoon is preparing to battle against the practice many hold largely responsible for newspapers' current plight -- the "original sin" of giving away their content for free online. The 78-year-old Murdoch announced this week that the days of free are over. He said he planned to begin charging readers of the websites of News Corp. newspapers "within the next 12 months," testing the scheme "first on some of our stronger ones. Edmonds noted that a number of US newspapers, including The New York Times with its failed "Times Select" payment scheme, had experimented with charging readers. "The proposition of putting the New York Post or The Times of London behind a pay wall -- it's not immediately clear to me why that would go over better with readers than pay online attempts in the past," Edmonds said. "Quite a few United States papers experimented with that at least for a while and typically found their traffic fell through the floor and therefore weren't getting much ad revenue. '

YAHOO NEWS
"Accounting tricks boost bank profits"
In the magical world of banking, losses are now gains! So FUN!!!

' Earnings at several banks also benefited, counterintuitively, because the value of the banks' own debt was reduced to reflect a decline in the market value of that debt. In accounting-speak, a "credit-value adjustment" allows the banks to book a gain. The logic is that they could buy back the debt for less cash than they received when they issued the debt, so they get to claim a benefit, which many analysts say is illusory. Say a bank had issued debt at 100 cents on the dollar, and it now trades at 60 cents on the dollar. The bank can mark down the value of the debt on their books to 60 cents on the dollar, and take a gain on the 40-cent difference. For Citigroup, that debt adjustment totaled $2.5 billion, which helped narrow its losses for the quarter. The New York-based bank posted a first-quarter loss of $966 million, smaller than analysts expected. '

LA TIMES
"U.S. global warming rules won't change to help polar bears"
Ursophobe Stephen Coldbear swaying Obama?

' The Interior Department on Friday let stand a Bush administration policy barring the federal government from using the precarious state of the U.S. polar bear population as a reason to crack down on global warming, upsetting environmentalists and cheering oil and gas companies. The decision means the government cannot use the Endangered Species Act to regulate greenhouse gas emissions, though Interior Secretary Ken Salazar explicitly has blamed those emissions for the habitat erosion that last year landed the polar bear on the list of threatened species. '

MCCLATCHY
"Interior nominee EchoHawk pledges to work for Indian country"
Kewlest name for a Cabinet Secretary, ever.

' Former Idaho Attorney General Larry EchoHawk pledged Thursday to focus on economic development, education and law enforcement if the Senate confirms him as the assistant interior secretary in charge of the Bureau of Indian Affairs. EchoHawk, a member of the Pawnee tribe, told the Senate Indian Affairs Committee that he's seen firsthand the effects of poverty on Indian reservations. As a former prosecutor, EchoHawk said, he also is well aware of the effects of crime on reservation communities. '

YAHOO NEWS
"On May 5, Mexican dominance irks other Latinos"
Cinco de PUTO, cabron!

' With mariachis, tequila and parades, Cinco De Mayo will be celebrated this week in parties across the nation, kicking off a commemoration of Mexican heritage in the United States as a pseudo-holiday that has been adopted by the general population. But for Dagoberto Reyes, a Salvadorian immigrant living in Los Angeles, May 5 is more a reminder of the dominance Mexican culture has in a country that is home to immigrants from many Latin American countries. His prime example: Los Angeles-area public schools. "Our kids go to this school system, and the school system is more preoccupied with Mexico's history, and not the rest of Latin America's, much less El Salvador's," said Reyes, director of Casa de la Cultura, a Salvadorian community center. "They came back celebrating Cinco De Mayo. That holiday means nothing to us." '

THE CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR
"A marijuana tax as the next new revenue stream?"
"Historic highs." Heh-heh. Heh-heh.

' "We are actually talking about historic highs when it comes to public support of taxing and regulating marijuana for adult consumption," says Paul Armentano, deputy director of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws (NORML). But, he adds, "the most difficult task is how you convert public sentiment into public policy." '

YAHOO NEWS
"Just call her 'Dr. Dolly': Parton receives Ph.D."
Doctor of Divinity? Dentistry? Dolliography?

' Award-winning entertainer, businesswoman and education advocate Dolly Parton has a new title. "Just think, I am Dr. Dolly!" she said Friday after receiving an honorary doctorate of humane and musical letters from the University of Tennessee in Knoxville. Always joking about her buxom figure, she added, "So when people say something about 'Double-D,' they will be thinking of something entirely different." '

AFP
"Polanksi won't return for US court date: lawyers"
He may be a perv, but he's not STUPID!

' Fugitive director Roman Polanski will not return to the United States for a hearing this week where his lawyers will seek to quash a decades-old sex case against him, court documents showed. Oscar-winner Polanski, famed for films such as "Rosemary's Baby" and "Chinatown," fled the United States in 1978 before being sentenced for his guilty plea on a charge of unlawful sexual intercourse with a 13-year-old girl. Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Peter Espinoza said in February he may consider Polanski's case at this Thursday's hearing but only if the director returned from France, where he now lives. Polanski's legal team says the film-maker's conviction should be tossed on the grounds of misconduct, claiming the late judge who heard his case in the 1970s had improperly colluded with prosecutors. '

YAHOO NEWS
"Double hand transplant patient recovering well"
"Now where did I put that honey-do list?"

' Valarie Kepner was so excited at learning last fall that doctors might be able give her husband new hands that she called the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center without telling him first. Jeff Kepner, 57, had lost his hands and feet a decade ago to sepsis that developed from a strep infection. On Monday, he became the first person to undergo a double hand transplant in the United States and the second person to undergo a hand transplant through the hospital's new hand transplant program. '

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