Michael Moore may be prevented from advertising his controversial new movie, “Fahrenheit 9/11,” on television or radio after July 30 if the Federal Election Commission (FEC) today accepts the legal advice of its general counsel.

At the same time [Citizens United], a Republican-allied 527 soft-money group is preparing to file a complaint against Moore’s film with the FEC for violating campaign-finance law.

In a draft advisory opinion placed on the FEC’s agenda for today’s meeting, the agency’s general counsel states that political documentary filmmakers may not air television or radio ads referring to federal candidates within 30 days of a primary election or 60 days of a general election.

The opinion is generated under the new McCain-Feingold campaign-finance law, which prohibits corporate-funded ads that identify a federal candidate before a primary or general election.

The proscription is broadly defined. Section 100.29 of the federal election regulations defines restricted corporate-funded ads as those that identify a candidate by his “name, nickname, photograph or drawing” or make it “otherwise apparent through an unambiguous reference.”

The day after Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 9/11 was released in American cinemas, it was announced yesterday that a festival devoted to films debunking Moore's own work will be staged later this year in Texas.

The American Film Renaissance has the backing of 'some big-time conservative donors', according to its organizers, and will feature up to 10 films, among them Michael Moore Hates America - a so-called exposé of the director's working methods, by filmmaker Michael Wilson.

In Sacramento the conservative group Move America Forward, whose Web site criticizes "Fahrenheit 9/11," organized an advance screening of the Disney documentary "America's Heart and Soul," due in theaters on July 2. That film, directed by Louis Schwartzberg, celebrates ordinary Americans and, Disney says, their extraordinary stories. "Disney brought the movie, rented the theater and even paid for the popcorn," Howard Kaloogian, the chairman of Move America Forward, said. "It's a very patriotic film," he continued. "It's in the finest tradition of inspiring Disney movies."

George W. Bush: Faith in the White House, which premiered at CBA Convention, will air on network television in September and may release in theaters later this summer as a contrast to the negative Fahrenheit 9/11.

LONDON (Reuters) - Mobile phones may damage men's sperm, Hungarian scientists say, in a study that fertility experts dismissed Monday as inconclusive.

Carrying a mobile in hip pockets or a holster on the waist could cut sperm count by nearly 30 percent, according to the research.

"The prolonged use of cell phones may have a negative effect on (sperm production) and male fertility," Dr. Imre Fejes, of the department of obstetrics and gynecology at the University of Szeged said in a summary of the study.

BERLIN (Reuters) - Men trying to boost their fertility may soon receive help from an unusual source--a plant grown for centuries in East Africa and the Middle East.

The leaves of the khat plant, which is also known as qat, are chewed for the feeling of euphoria they produce. But scientists at King's College London have discovered that they also contain chemicals that help sperm mature and fertilize an egg.

There is also some rustling among the brass about General Tommy Franks' memoir, to be published in August. Bob Woodward reported that Franks once called Under Secretary of Defense Douglas Feith, who was charged with postwar planning, "the [Cheney expletive] stupidest guy on the face of the earth," and some defense experts are wondering if Franks, who has a reputation for candor, will elaborate on that.

`There is no clear evidence that downsizing actually does any good, at least not in the United States.'

In recent years, Japan's kinder and gentler managers borrowed a critical lesson from their more ruthless American counterparts: They learned to downsize. They got serious about trimming their work forces, that in turn boosted profits, and that finally brought the fragile recovery Japan is now experiencing.

It's a nice story, but there is a big problem with it: There is no clear evidence that downsizing actually does any good, at least not in the United States. What? How could that be? Everyone knows that downsizing reduces costs, and cutting costs raises profits. But that is precisely the point.
Everyone is so convinced that downsizing enhances corporate performance that no one bothers to check the evidence, ...

I have been doing some research on the topic recently, and I discovered to my astonishment that the evidence from the United States suggests that downsizing has not improved corporate performance-whether defined in terms of profits, productivity, or stock price-and many studies indicate that it impairs performance.

After all, downsizing may save a company on labor costs, but it also entails substantial costs: The immediate cost of paying off downsized workers, for example, plus the longer-term cost of losing valuable personnel and undermining employee morale.

In one of the most authoritative studies, prominent economists William Baumol, Alan Blinder and Edward Wolff [in the book Downsizing in America] find that downsizing does not improve productivity, lowers stock performance and raises profits-but only by depressing wages. Other studies contend that downsizing does not even increase profits, and one study suggests that layoffs actually decrease profits in subsequent periods.

So if downsizing doesn't help, then why have so many American companies rushed to do it? Several scholars have taken up this puzzle, and they conclude that American managers are so beholden to the myth that downsizing is effective that they do not even bother to check whether it happens to be true. They also contend that managers view downsizing as a social norm, so they do it to preserve or enhance their firm's reputation.

But think about this - how many debates do we have in this country that start off under patently false pretenses? Tort reform, the estate tax, Social Security, the war in Iraq, and many more. It's not even different interpretations of the facts, different glosses on the same basic ideas. The partisan divide comes from the fact that we're having totally different debates on the same issues, to the point where we simply are talking about disparate ideas and problems.

How can a policy apparatus produce good results when it's geared towards solving problems that don't exist?

• Reuters - "Accused Abortion Clinic Bomber." The word terror does not appear in their story in any form.
  
• CNN - "accused bomber Eric Rudolph." The word terror does not appear in their story in any form.
  
• AP - "serial bombing suspect Eric Rudolph." The word terror does not appear in their story in any form.
  
• UPI/Washington Times - "Trial of Eric Rudolph in the bombing of an Alabama abortion clinic." The word terror does not appear in their story in any form.
  
• New York Times - "Eric Rudolph, who is accused of being a serial bomber." The word terror does not appear in their story in any form.
  
• ABC - "serial bombing suspect Eric Rudolph." The word terror does not appear in their story in any form.

If John Kerry is elected president, his seat in the U.S. Senate would be filled by the winner of a special election rather than a successor hand-picked by Republican Gov. Mitt Romney, under a bill approved Wednesday by the Massachusetts Senate.

The Senate voted along party lines, 32-8, after a sometimes testy debate pitting the badly outnumbered Republicans, who opposed the change, against Democrats.

MARSEILLE, France (Reuters) -- The southern French city of Marseille called off a three-week hunt for a black panther on Tuesday after the animal sighted by several residents turned out to be a large house cat.

"The 'panther' is just a black house cat -- a very big one though," said a spokeswoman for the local prefecture, adding the animal was about 24 inches long and weighed some 22 pounds.

Police deployed dozens of searchers this month after reports that a black panther was roaming around the nearby Calanques area, popular with tourists for its creeks, rocks and beaches.

Searchers finally caught up with the animal and identified it as a cat but were still unable to catch it, the spokeswoman added.

The original story was simple - Abdul Aziz al-Muqrin, a leader of al-Qaeda in the Arabian peninsula - was killed in a shootout after trying to dump the body of the American hostage Paul Johnson.

Johnson had had just been beheaded by Muqrin's group after a deadline expired for the release of prisoners in Saudi jails.

But by Saturday the picture had begun to muddy.

It turns out that Paul Johnson's body had not been discovered after all and the search was still going on for it around Riyadh.

So how was it that Muqrin was found?

"How can a free nation survive when a majority of its citizens, now dependent on government services, no longer have the incentive to restrain the growth of government?" he asked during a Heritage Foundation lecture in 2001. His prescription? "We must have a new tax code that allows all voters to see and feel the cost of government," he counseled. "Using the tax code to help low-income workers only disconnects them from the responsibilities of freedom."

...He has suggested replacing the federal income tax with a national sales tax that all consumers would feel, then refunding part of the sales tax payments to help those in poverty. At least the poor "would still see the cost of government," he said.

But under such a plan, those just above the poverty line likely would see a substantial tax increase. That might not go over well in South Carolina, where nearly a third of the population lives on incomes twice the poverty level or less.

... hardly any [South Carolinians] know of DeMint's unorthodox views, said Neal D. Thigpen, a political scientist at Francis Marion University, in Florence, S.C. "He comes across as competent and steady, but he's no maverick," said Thigpen, a longtime watcher of South Carolina politics, who had no idea of DeMint's views on taxes and Social Security. "That's not what he's selling, and it's certainly not the way he's perceived."

The conservative Club for Growth has pumped $500,000 into DeMint's quest for the nomination, and has pledged to make him a national figure if he prevails.

Adel Al-Jubeir, the foreign affairs adviser to Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah, told reporters in Washington that Saudi security forces discovered terrorist suspects fleeing in cars, gave chase and then battled them in central Riyadh.

"A number of terrorists have been killed," he said. "We believe they are part of the al Qaeda network in the kingdom. We don't know how related they are to the murder of Mr. Johnson."

AFP news agency quoted security personnel as saying the shootout occurred in Riyadh's al-Malaz district following discoveries at the house where Johnson's body was found.

Abdul Aziz al-Muqrin and three other militants died in a shootout in Riyadh after dumping American Paul Johnson's body, Saudi officials said....

Saudi officials say the militants were cornered at a petrol station in Riyadh, after witnesses spotted them throwing Mr Johnson's body from their car.

A fierce gun battle broke out, in which the four militants and at least one security officer died.

Saudi government spokesman Jamal Khashoggi told the BBC World Service's Newshour programme that Muqrin's death showed that al-Qaeda was "running out of recruits and staff, as you can see when their leader is involved in basic planning, in dumping a body".

The searches around the area where the four were gunned down were particularly intense. The security forces arrested 12 suspects on Friday, and diplomats said those forces were likely using tips from the arrests to track down more extremists.

[…]

The group that claimed responsibility for the kidnapping, Al Qaeda on the Arabian Peninsula, posted its monthly magazine on the web today, vowing to continue the struggle despite the death of its leader and providing new details about Mr. Johnson's kidnapping.

The Qaeda offshoot claimed, somewhat implausibly, that police sympathetic to its cause had provided the uniforms and vehicles needed to set up a phony checkpoint on June 12 not far from the industrial park at King Khalid International Airport where Mr. Johnson worked.

"A number of those cooperating, who are sincere to their religion, in the security apparatus donated those clothes and the police cars," the article said. "We ask God to reward them and ask that they use their energy to serve Islam and the mujahedeen."

I don't have any respect by and large for the Iraqi people at all. I have no respect for them. I think that they're a prehistoric group… this teaches us a big lesson, that we cannot intervene in the Muslim world ever again. What we can do is bomb the living daylights out of them…They're just people who are primitive.

If you do not support our President's decisions you are a traitor.

I couldn't believe what I heard when I turned on C-SPAN today, and heard Billionaire George Gobels Soros attacking Bush… Billionaire George Gobels Soros, if you tell a big lie often enough it will become the truth -- how dare you come to my fair country, and infect it with these foreign, sick ideas George? You're not fooling anybody. You know you're part of a left-wing fringe that will destroy the Democrat party even further than it's been destroyed. Keep on talking George, because it doesn't play outside MoveOn.org, an organization of rat-bastard Communists. How's that George?

George Gobel
1919-1991

"The world is watching us," said the legislation's sponsor, Sen. Richard J. Durbin, D-Ill. "They are asking whether the United States will stand behind its treaty obligations in the age of terrorism."

The measure says the United States "shall not engage in torture or cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment ... a standard that is embodied in the U.S. Constitution and in numerous international agreements which the United States has ratified."

The amendment also would require the secretary of defense to issue guidelines to ensure troops comply with the standards and report to Congress on any suspected violations. There is no equivalent legislation in the House defense authorization bill and the two chambers would have to decide whether to include it in the final version.

WASHINGTON - Anyone trying to add more fruits and vegetables to their diet may have just gotten an unlikely assist from the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Based on a little-noticed change to obscure federal rules, the USDA defines frozen french fries as "fresh vegetables."

[...]

The Frozen Potato Products Institute appealed to the USDA in 2000 to change its definition of fresh produce under PACA to include batter-coated, frozen french fries, arguing that rolling potato slices in a starch coating, frying them and freezing them is the equivalent of waxing a cucumber or sweetening a strawberry.

A controversial chain of schools teaching Biblical "creationism" has been given Tony Blair's personal support despite serious doubts raised by parents and teachers, The Independent on Sunday can reveal.

Mr Blair, said to be the most religious Prime Minister since Gladstone, has backed the millionaire car dealer Sir Peter Vardy in his attempt to take over seven comprehensives and turn them into Christian Academies promoting Old Testament views of the world's creation. This includes the claim that it was made in six days, 10,000 years ago. Two of Sir Peter's schools are open already, in Gateshead and Middlesbrough, and a third is under construction in Doncaster.

Negotiators have extended talks for a new labor contract at the Puget Sound region's four largest grocery chains into early July, delaying the prospect of a possible strike or lockout.

The current contract, which had been set to expire in early May, has been extended twice in the past month as the two sides bargain over health benefits and wages for more than 16,000 workers at Safeway, Albertsons, QFC and Fred Meyer.

Late last week, representatives of the grocery chains and the United Food and Commercial Workers extended the contract for three more weeks and agreed to meet six more times, with talks resuming Monday and scheduled to continue through July 7.

[…]

As in California, the key issue is health-care costs, which the group of employers says have jumped more than 73 percent since the last contract was negotiated in 2001. The companies pay 100 percent of workers' health-care premiums. Employees cover co-pays and deductibles.

The grocers' initial proposal for the new contract called for employees to pay a share of their health-care premiums.

It also proposed a two-tier salary system in which new employees would be paid less than veterans. Union officials said the proposal amounted to $500 million in cuts over the three-year contract.

On Friday, the UFCW submitted a counterproposal that it said would save companies $120 million by, among other things, increasing employees' co-pays and assigning new hires to an HMO for their first year of coverage.

"It's a start — and a good start," said Melinda Merrill, a spokeswoman for the grocery chains. "Their proposal acknowledges that there needs to be changes, and that really is encouraging. The employers still want to explore ways to lower the cost of health benefits, but this is a good step."

Sharon McCann, president of UFCW Local 1105, said she is disappointed that the grocery chains haven't embraced the union's latest offer or amended their initial proposal.

The strike and the picket line are labor's best-known tools for exerting pressure on employers in a contract negotiation. But the strike (or, from an employers' point of view, the lockout) is a high-risk proposition; once workers walk out (or are locked out) the dispute takes on an unpredictable momentum beyond the control of either party, with the potential for disaster for both. In such cases strikes aren't ended by negotiation so much as they're ended by exhaustion on both sides, who are left to convince themselves and the public that they didn't lose as much as the other guy.

The picket line is meant to convey a message to the public of the workers' cause and to deter the public from patronizing the business. But a good portion of the public these days, not belonging to a union or not having grown up in the tradition, is indifferent to the picket line; another segment is openly hostile toward unions and their cause.

[…]

The me-too agreement isn't a cure-all for these problems. But it does have some attractions that make it intriguing to labor unions such as the United Food and Commercial Workers, which represents grocery store employees.
Me-too agreements work like this: In situations where there are contracts covering multiple employers in the same industry expiring at roughly the same time, the union and some of those employers will negotiate a sort of contract in advance. That contract says that the union won't strike those employers should there be a walkout. In turn, those employers agree to offer to their workers whatever is the industrywide or regionwide settlement agreed to by the largest employers.

UFCW locals in the Puget Sound region have been announcing me-too agreements with such smaller chains and independents as Town & Country Markets (Ballard, Greenwood and Shoreline Central markets), Metropolitan Markets, Market Place, Thriftway, Red Apple and Market Place stores.

For unions, me-toos have the attraction of preserving whatever benefits there are to multiemployer bargaining (keeping everyone at roughly the same wage scale) with whatever leverage can be extracted from a divide-and-conquer approach. In negotiations such as the grocery industry, local and regional labor unions are going up against national operations (Kroger, Safeway, Albertsons). The notion that their competitors will be operating unfettered while they're being struck may be a counterbalance to that disparity of size.

For the smaller grocery operations who agree to me-toos, the benefits include being able to operate without the cost and hassle of a strike should one occur, and maybe even pick up some new customers.

How's this for compassion? Mississippi has approved the deepest cut in Medicaid eligibility for senior citizens and the disabled that has ever been approved anywhere in the U.S.

The cut in eligibility for seniors and the disabled was the most dramatic component of a stunning rollback of services in Mississippi's Medicaid program. The rollback was initiated by the Republican-controlled State Senate and Mississippi's new governor, Haley Barbour, a former chairman of the national Republican Party. When he signed the new law on May 26, Mr. Barbour complained about taxpayers having to "pay for free health care for people who can work and take care of themselves and just choose not to."

[…]

The 65,000 seniors and disabled individuals who will lose their Medicaid eligibility have incomes so low they effectively have no money to pay for their health care. The new law coldly reduces the maximum income allowed for an individual to receive Medicaid in Mississippi from an impecunious $12,569 per year to a beggarly $6,768.

…when they ring the bells at 1:15, let's just pretend it's for Ray Charles.

You wanna put someone new on the ten dollar bill? He's your man...

Currently the google results for the Democratic National Convention brings up a fake republican site pretending to be the official convention site at the top of the results. In effect, an actual, practical, use of the googlebomb to screw with your political opponents (so a tip of the hat to the wingnuts who pulled this off).

This post is merely an effort to get the real Democratic National Convention site back up to the top of the search rankings. I encourage other bloggers to join in this counter googlebomb. Unlike "flip flopper" and the other fun googlebombs, this one actually matters.

Look, I'm fine with the Peggy Noonan footworshipping. I'm fine with all the "Reagan destroyed the Soviet Union singlehandedly" nonsense. I'm fine with all of these types of things because they're opinions. Some are silly opinions, and there should be some balance to them, but they are still opinions.

What I'm not fine with is all the factual errors that creep into the coverage by supposedly "unbiased" reporters.

The House and Senate did not both come under Republican rule during Reagan's time.

The Berlin Wall did not come down when Reagan was in office.

Reagan is not the president who left office with the highest approval rating in modern times.

Reagan was not "the most popular president ever."

Reagan did not preside over the longest economic expansion in history.

Reagan did not shrink the size of government.

Reagan did preside over what was at the time the "biggest tax cut in history" but it was almost instantly followed up by the "biggest tax increase in history."

Reagan was not "beloved by all." He was loved by some, liked by some, and hated by some with good reason.

Scientists at the University of Arizona may have witnessed the birth of a new species for the first time.

Biologists Laura Reed [a grad student] and Prof Therese Markow made the discovery by observing breeding patterns of fruit flies that live on rotting cacti in deserts.

The work could help scientists identify the genetic changes that lead one species to evolve into two species.

The research is published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Whether the two closely related fruit fly populations the scientists studied - Drosophila mojavensis and Drosophila arizonae - represent one species or two is still debated by biologists.

However, the University of Arizona researchers believe the insects are in the early stages of diverging into separate species.

In meetings with top aides and administration officials, the President goes from quoting the Bible in one breath to obscene tantrums against the media, Democrats and others that he classifies as “enemies of the state.”

Worried White House aides paint a portrait of a man on the edge, increasingly wary of those who disagree with him and paranoid of a public that no longer trusts his policies in Iraq or at home.

“It reminds me of the Nixon days,” says a longtime GOP political consultant with contacts in the White House. “Everybody is an enemy; everybody is out to get him. That’s the mood over there.”

[...]

The President's abrupt dismissal of CIA Directory George Tenet Wednesday night is, aides say, an example of how he works.

"Tenet wanted to quit last year but the President got his back up and wouldn't hear of it," says an aide. "That would have been the opportune time to make a change, not in the middle of an election campaign but when the director challenged the President during the meeting Wednesday, the President cut him off by saying 'that's it George. I cannot abide disloyalty. I want your resignation and I want it now."

Tenet was allowed to resign "voluntarily" and Bush informed his shocked staff of the decision Thursday morning. One aide says the President actually described the decision as "God's will."

The sister of Oklahoma City bombing conspirator Terry Nichols testified Monday that her brother has found God in prison as Nichols' lawyers began trying to persuade a jury to spare his life in the 1995 bombing.

An analysis of Gallup Poll data reveals extreme and unprecedented levels of polarization in George W. Bush's job approval ratings. Currently, Democrats and Republicans evaluate the president very differently, with Republicans overwhelmingly positive and Democrats decidedly negative. Views among both groups are quite strong, which means they are probably unlikely to change much between now and the election. Never before has Gallup data shown such a high proportion of partisans with such strongly opposing views of a president.

In the most recent Gallup Poll, conducted May 21-23, 47% of Americans approve and 49% disapprove of the job Bush is doing as president. That rating is characterized by a wide gulf in the views of Republicans and Democrats -- 89% of Republicans approve of Bush, but just 12% of Democrats do. That 77 percentage-point gap is the highest of Bush's presidency, and the gap between Republicans and Democrats has been 70 points or higher since mid-February.

The impressiveness of this gap is underscored by looking at historical approval ratings for other presidents who were similarly gearing up for a re-election bid. Aside from Bush, Bill Clinton had the largest partisan gap in approval ratings at a comparable point in his presidency, but his 60-point gap from May 1996 is nearly 25% smaller than Bush's. Ronald Reagan is the only other president to have a partisan gap in excess of 50 percentage points in May of his re-election year.

Bush's 70+-point gap is not only unprecedented for May of a re-election year, but it is unprecedented for any point in a re-election year. No president, dating back to Harry Truman, has had a partisan gap above 70 points in any Gallup Poll in a re-election year.

Ask people here why Las Vegas is the nation's fastest-growing city, and they point to the thriving casino industry and to its ever-growing appetite for workers.

But there is another, little understood force contributing to the allure of Las Vegas, a force often viewed as the casino industry's archnemesis. It is Culinary Local 226, also called the Culinary, the city's largest labor union, an unusual - and unusually successful - union that has done a spectacular job catapulting thousands of dishwashers, hotel maids and other unskilled workers into the middle class.

In most other cities, these workers live near the poverty line. But thanks in large part to the Culinary, in Las Vegas these workers often own homes and have Rolls-Royce health coverage, a solid pension plan and three weeks of vacation a year.

The Culinary's extraordinary success at delivering for its 48,000 members beckons newcomers from far and wide. By many measures, the Culinary is the nation's most successful union local; its membership has nearly tripled from 18,000 in the late 1980's, even as the rest of the labor movement has shrunk. The Culinary is such a force that one in 10 people here is covered by its health plan, and more than 90 percent of the hotel workers on the Strip belong to the union. The union is also unusual because it is a rainbow coalition, 65 percent nonwhite and 70 percent female. It includes immigrants from Central America, refugees from the Balkan wars and blacks from the Deep South.
Read the rest here.

Sen. Trent Lott (R-Miss.) proved he has not lost his knack for inflammatory rhetoric when he defended "really rough" treatment of Iraqi prisoners by U.S. soldiers, including the use of dogs against a prisoner "unless the dog ate him."

[…]

"Hey, nothing wrong with holding a dog up there, unless the dog ate him, scared him with a dog," Lott said. When WAPT news anchorman Brad McMullan noted that a prisoner died at Abu Ghraib, apparently after a beating, Lott responded, "This is not Sunday school; this is interrogation; this is rough stuff."

Some of the prisoners "should not have been prisoners in the first place, probably should have been killed," he added.

After Texas redrew its political boundaries last year, the Republican leadership in the House of Representatives was buzzing with talk of big increases in their majority. But when Representative Tom Reynolds of New York, the chairman of the National Republican Campaign Committee, offered his outlook for 2004 on Wednesday, it did not include such expansive predictions.

"My goal," Mr. Reynolds said, "is to bring back 228 members of House Republicans next year."

That, as it happens, was the same number of Republicans in the House until Tuesday, when Stephanie Herseth, a Democrat, squeaked to victory in a special election in South Dakota, bringing it down to 227. When reporters expressed surprise that Mr. Reynolds was not predicting an even bigger majority, given the redistricting in Texas, he simply reiterated his stance. "My goal is to bring back 228," he said, adding, "I don't predict seats."