Eideard

British folk singer Yusuf Islam, formerly Cat Stevens, on Friday accepted libel damages and an apology from a news agency which reported he refused to talk to women at an awards ceremony who were not wearing a veil.

The artist will donate the “substantial” payout to Small Kindness, a UN-linked charity which he chairs.

Adam Tudor, the singer’s solicitor, told London’s High Court that the story behind the legal action was published by World Entertainment News Network and was used on Contactmusic.com, a Web site said to have 2.2 million page views a month.

The article appeared in March last year and suggested that the singer was “so sexist and bigoted that he refused at an awards ceremony to speak to or even acknowledge any women who were not wearing a veil,” Tudor said.

Slimeball journalists who create and perpetuate lies about something as essential as an individual’s philosophy or lifestyle – contribute as little to society as the average drug dealer. They feed upon each other. There will be Muslim-hating bigots quoting the original libel for years, online, in the press, among their barroom mates.

I hope the sum was close to sufficient to compensate for the crime.

The bookshop trestle table clearly ain’t big enough for the both of them. Novelist Salman Rushdie yesterday claimed to have broken wine writer Malcolm Gluck’s record for book signings after adding his full name to 1,000 books on a tour to promote his latest novel.

“His record is toast,” Rushdie crowed, in a letter to the Guardian…

Gluck’s claimed record is 1,001 copies in 59 minutes, set at a wine warehouse in London in 1998. Gluck achieved this with the help of a team of three men, one fetching the copies, one opening them at the blank page, and another whisking the signed copies away.

Rushdie said he had signed 1,000 copies, on his most recent tour promoting the Enchantress of Florence, in a books warehouse in Nashville in 57 minutes.

Rushdie insisted: “Let me be clear: I did not initial the books, but signed my full name.” The Best of Booker winner agreed that a crack team of book-handlers is essential.

Just wait till John C. Dvorak finishes his latest book and gets on the book-signing trail. My money’s on him!

American medical care might be the most expensive in the world, but it is getting increasingly difficult to argue that it is worth every penny. A new study highlights the stark contrast between what the United States spends on its health system and the quality of care it delivers, compared with health care in many other industrialized nations.

The report, prepared by an influential health policy research group, provides evidence of just how frequently the country falls short of its own standards of care and those of its global peers. While the United States spends more than twice as much per capita on health care as most other industrialized countries, including France, it has fallen to last place among those countries in being able to prevent deaths with timely and effective medical care, according the report by the Commonwealth Fund, a not-for-profit research group in New York.

Access to care in the United States has worsened as more people – about 75 million – are believed to lack adequate health insurance or be uninsured altogether. And within the nation, the cost and quality of care varies dramatically, the report found…

“People are now aware that you can do better,” said Karen Davis, the president of the Commonwealth Fund. “It’s harder to keep deluding yourself or be complacent that we don’t have areas that need improvement…”

A very readable article. The core fact is that every other modern industrial nation spends less for their health care and gets better results.

You have to wonder what really lies at the heart of opposition to a change for a better system? The obvious propaganda from providers and insurers is a given. But, there’s the bloc of nay-sayers who seem to oppose any kind of change as being un-American.

Anyone who confuses health care and a better life for American citizens with “patriotism” is dumber than a hoe handle. Is that clear enough?

What ever happened to enlightened self-interest?

At first glance, Cesare Bonizzi looks like the archetypal Capuchin monk – round-faced, stout, with twinkling eyes and a long flowing white beard. But beneath his robes beats a heart of metal.

Brother Cesare is the lead singer in a heavy metal band which has just released its second album.
A former missionary in the Ivory Coast, he lives in a small friary in the Milan hinterland.

The 62-year-old monk’s love affair with heavy metal began when he attended a Metallica concert some 15 years ago.

“I was overwhelmed and amazed by the sheer energy of it” he says.

Hard rock and heavy metal have, over the years, been criticised as the work of the devil. Its a claim which Brother Cesare, also known as Brother Metal, says is nonsense.

Rock on, bro!

Tee hee

With word that the three network news anchors will be joining Barack Obama on his trip overseas next week, the New York Times today raises the question of whether John McCain has been given short shrift when it comes to media coverage…The Times correctly notes that the network anchors didn’t travel with McCain on his last trip to Iraq in March, which also took him throughout the Middle East and Europe.

But there’s a big difference between McCain’s trip and the one Obama will embark on next week to Europe and the Middle East. In what could be interpreted now as a possible strategic misstep, the McCain campaign chose not to take reporters along for the ride, forcing media outlets who wanted to cover the newly elected GOP nominee to travel on their own without any guarantee of getting anywhere near the senator. The small group of scribes who made the trek faced a logistical nightmare, from arranging last-minute foreign visas to struggling to keep up with McCain as they flew commercially from stop to stop. (McCain traveled by a military aircraft.) In contrast, the Obama campaign is inviting reporters on its tour, handling all the logistics–including transportation–for what will certainly be a much larger press corps than usual.

You may think Obama’s fundraising makes a significant difference. You should know that the RNC is making up the difference between McCain’s lesser fundraising and Obama’s. Both candidates have about the same bucks. McCain could have spent the same bucks on transporting reporters.
Read the rest of this entry »

An official of the Swiss bank UBS announced that it was halting its offshore banking services for US citizens after it came under scathing criticism for facilitating massive tax evasion.

The official, Mark Branson, also said the bank is cooperating with the US government to identify US clients who might have committed tax fraud.

Branson told the Senate Permanent Subcommittee of Investigation that the bank “genuinely regrets” failures in complying with US regulations and will stop offering offshore banking to Americans.

You were caught, suckers!

“That means UBS will no longer provide offshore banking and securities services to US residents through its bank branches. Such services will only be provided to residents of this country through companies licensed in the United States,” he said.

In addition, he added, “we are working with the US government to identify the names of US clients who may have engaged in tax fraud.”

That’s the quid pro quo. “We’ll turn over our clients. We’re good boys, now. Let us go free!”

Their chests rise and fall and you can hear a tiny heartbeat, but these babies for sale over the Internet are not alive.

“Reborn babies” are disconcertingly life-like baby dolls carefully crafted in vinyl, which have become swiftly popular mainly with collectors, but also with nostalgic grandparents and grieving parents.

Made and collected by an online community of enthusiasts, they are painted several times to create the mottled colour of newborn skin, have mohair hair and eyelashes, and are weighted to make them feel as heavy as human babies.

Fans of the hobby, who call it “reborning”, are mostly women and increasingly guarded about discussing it since media reports highlighted their purchase by bereaved parents, prompting some to portray the hobby as macabre…
Read the rest of this entry »

Tomatoes are again safe to eat, says the Food and Drug Administration, weeks after the food was blamed as a source of a salmonella outbreak in the United States and Canada. The source of the outbreak of salmonella still isn’t known, but the FDA says tomatoes are safe.

The federal agency lifted its warning about tomatoes but left in place a warning about raw jalapeño and serrano peppers, having previously said those foods also may be linked to the outbreak.

The source of the outbreak still isn’t known — and 20 to 30 reports of the illness are coming in per day — but the FDA said the epidemic is “waning…”

Salmonella Saintpaul — a rare form of the bacteria — has infected more than 1,190 people in 42 states, the District of Columbia and Canada since April.

Salmonella can lead to infections involving diarrhea, vomiting, abdominal cramps and sometimes a low-grade fever. In most cases, an infected person will recover within a week without medicine simply by staying hydrated, doctors have said.

I’ll say it, again. The FDA is the FEMA of food. There is no traceability. There is no mechanism for mandatory recall. There is little more than bureaucratic paper-shufflers standing in the way of scientists who manage to stay on board.

Thanks, K B