tampabay.com

Power has been restored throughout most of Florida after a massive outage Monday afternoon left more than 4-million people throughout the state without electricity.

The problem has been traced to a malfunction at an electricity substation in Dade County. As of 4:30 p.m., power had been restored to all but 800,000 people, said Jenn Meale, a spokesperson for the state emergency operations center. The state expected that most of those people will have power by 6 p.m.

Missed my home by a hair. Now we’re under a tornado watch until 11:00 PM EST. Cripes!

In an environment where users are more likely to turn to piracy, Apple’s iTunes Store has climbed to second place among all legal US music stores and is second only to Wal-Mart, according to a new study by The NPD Group.

The research firm notes that about 29 million users, or 10 percent of all people acquiring music in the US, turned to paid download services throughout the course of 2007 and more often shopped at iTunes than through any other service. The total figure represented a jump of about five million versus 2006 and saw most sales go to buyers between 36 and 50 years old…

As many as one million people stopped buying CDs altogether in the last year, with nearly half of all teenagers — 48 percent — never having bought their music in the physical medium.

We’re already having discussions about DVD’s and Blu-Ray disappearing. Certainly, CD’s are part of that process.

Targeted ads? Oh Brother!

A couple in Atlanta has pleaded guilty to beating their son for not getting all A’s on his school report card.

42-year-old Jean Pierre Marshall and stepmother, 26-year-old Courtney Marshall, were convicted Monday on one count of first degree cruelty to children and one count of misdemeanor battery…

The district attorney’s office says that when the teacher would not change his grades, Jacob altered his report card himself and when his parents discovered the deception they beat him with a belt and their fists.

The boy fled the house, returning to school barefoot and in torn clothes.

The Marshalls were arrested soon after. The child now lives with his biological mother in Wisconsin.

Some idiots call this “traditional discipline”.

Thanks, K B

Yes, of course I know not all people on the right agree with this guy. But it’s interesting and important to see what the extreme right believes in in case a President starts to agree with these ideas. Here’s the dead guy’s website which is quite, um, interesting.

Anti-Islamic blogger commits suicide

A poster at Free Republic has discovered that a right-wing blogger named Ronald Barbour committed suicide on February 19. Barbour announced the planned suicide in a blog entry posted at his website on February 17. He said that the suicide would be to protest America’s failure to oppose the spread of Islam. Barbour’s views on what to do about Islam, as shown in another article of his below, were basically the same as my own: get Muslims out of the West, confine them to their own lands (he called his policy “quarantine” rather than “separationism”), and use military force to destroy any dangerous Islamic regimes but without occupying any Muslim countries. In addition to quarantining Islam as I would do, Barbour also, following the more hard-line position of David Yerushalmi of SANE, wanted to destroy Islam by destroying every sharia regime, whether or not it directly threatened us. Strikingly, Barbour understood that the problem is not terrorism, and the problem is not jihad, the problem is sharia. He said that any sharia-believing Muslim should be made to leave the U.S.

I wonder what would happen if mainstream, right-wing TV talking heads like O’Reilly started calling for this. Or for getting Jews or other non-Christians out of America?

Prozac, the bestselling antidepressant taken by 40 million people worldwide, does not work and nor do similar drugs in the same class, according to a major review.

The study examined all available data on the drugs, including results from clinical trials that the manufacturers chose not to publish at the time. The trials compared the effect on patients taking the drugs with those given a placebo or sugar pill.

When all the data was pulled together, it appeared that patients had improved – but those on placebo improved just as much as those on the drugs.

The only exception is in the most severely depressed patients, according to the authors – Prof Irving Kirsch from the department of psychology at Hull University and colleagues in the US and Canada. But that is probably because the placebo stopped working so well, they say, rather than the drugs having worked better.

But, you do get to pay extra for the Prozac. The real stuff.

Four climate change protesters wrapped a banner around the tailfin protesting at plans to build a third runway at the airport.

The demonstrators walked through a set of double doors at Terminal 1 and succeeded in making their way across the tarmac without being challenged…

Even though the demonstration caused no disruption to other flights, there was concern at the ability those involved to breach what is supposed to be tight airport security…

Their ability to get onto the tarmac and then climb onto a plane without police or security staff intervening will raise serious question marks about the ability of Heathrow to protect its aircraft.

Am I giving away the deepest secret of insurgencies by noting the easiest way to fool the stiffs who rely on profiling is to imitate the “safe” stereotypes they also thoroughly believe in? Eh?

KYW-1060 The race between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama for the Democratic nomination continues to heat up — but in one Montgomery County, Pa. household, the debate turned violent. Prosecutors say that two brothers-in-law tried to settle the presidential race on the kitchen floor of a Collegeville, Pa. home

Jose Ortiz

Jose Ortiz, 28, is now behind bars on felony assault charges after prosecutors say he stabbed Sean Shurelds inside a home in the 100 block of Honeylocust Court.

District attorney Risa Ferman says a heated debate over the candidates escalated into violence:
“One is a supporter of Barack Obama, the other is a supporter of Hillary Clinton, and an argument of words turned bloody when one brother-in-law tried to choke the other and the victim then responded with a knife and stabbed his brother-in-law in the stomach.”

Geez, what a couple of idiots.

Thanks MJ Hopper

Christian Science Monitor – February 26, 2008:

A panoramic snapshot of American religious life in 2008 reveals an extraordinary dynamism that is reshaping the country’s major traditions in historic ways.

Almost half of Americans have moved to a different religious denomination from that in which they were raised, and 28 percent have switched to a different major tradition or to no religion (i.e., from Roman Catholic to Protestant, Jewish to unaffiliated).

The fluidity is combining with immigration to spur dramatic changes in the religious landscape. Protestantism appears on the verge of losing its majority status. The number of “unaffiliated” Americans has doubled, to 16 percent. One-third of Catholics are now Latino and the religion is depending on immigration to maintain its share of the population.

These shifts are captured in a survey released Monday by the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life.

Last week I posted a story about Jill Simpson, a Republican operative who claimed Karl Rove had asked her to dig up dirt on then Alabama Governor Don Siegelman. The 60 Minutes piece ran last night, although it seems it may have been blacked out in some strategic locations.

The Huffington Post

Now, let me tell you what has been going on. As 60 Minutes was putting its show together, the White House put pressure on CBS — the parent company — to kill the show. Over the last few days, as word got out that the 60 Minutes show would air tonight, Karl Rove’s associates began planting defamatory stories about journalists working on this story (see example here) and attacking the whistle-blower who came forward, Dana Jill Simpson. If you recall, Ms. Simpson testified, under oath, to Congress about Karl Rove’s involvement in politicizing the DOJ. What you may not know, however, is that her house mysteriously caught fire and she was run off the road in the weeks leading up to her testimony.

What you may also not know is that Governor Siegelman’s house was broken into twice during his trial as was his attorney’s office.

Tonight was something truly unseen in US history. During the 60 Minutes broadcast and ONLY during the Don Siegelman portion — the screen went black for Huntsville residents and Mobile residents. There are other reports of other locations, but I have not yet confirmed those. In Florida, a series of strange ads were running about the FISA bill and how Democrats are not tough on terrorism, apparently during the 60 Minutes hour and also right before 60 Minutes, but not after (still trying to confirm when the ads stopped running). When reporters attempt to get this story out, they are threatened and smeared. When all else fails, the public is not allowed to see the news. Karl Rove may be gone from office, but he clearly is not gone from power. So long as his buddy, George W. Bush, continues to occupy the White House — what used to be a symbol of how a nation could both be governed and be free — we will continue toward abuse after imperial, no Soviet, abuse against us. That too is unacceptable.

Any readers in Alabama that experienced the blackout? Does anyone watch 60 Minutes anymore?

KOMO-TV

ALBANY, Ore. (AP) – A pair of Albany teenagers suspended for “gang-related behavior” because they were wearing crucifixes say they were only wearing gifts from their mothers. Jaime Salazar, 14, his friend Marco Castro, 16, were suspended from South Albany High School recently after they refused to put away the crucifixes they were wearing around their necks. Salazar said Principal Chris Equinoa saw his necklace and told him to put it away. “I was like, why?” Salazar said. “He says it’s related to gangs.” Salazar said he argued and was sent to the office. Instead, he went home. Later, he received a note saying he had been suspended for five days for “defiance and gang-related behavior.”

Castro, a junior, was suspended for three days after refusing to take off a string of milky rosary beads, with a crucifix and a tiny picture of the Virgin Mary, that he was wearing around his neck. His mother gave it to him, he said. Equinoa said religious items are not banned. But, as principal, he reserves the right to ask a student to remove, or cover up, any item he feels could indicate gang affiliation even a crucifix. Bud Bunce, spokesman for the Roman Catholic archdiocese of Portland, said his office has received no reports of gangs using crucifixes or rosaries to identify themselves.

It appears we have come full-circle.