A hero's welcome awaits a famous Iraqi terrorist. Unlike the recent welcome home party that actually does make me sick, the latest welcome home party I'm in favor of. The party is for the famous Iraqi shoe thrower.

The Iraqi who tested George Bush's reflex skills(which were pretty sharp I must say) is due to be release to a huge welcome home party including women, sports cars, and a buffet of career possibilities.

Also, how about that last item on the list: "A Saudi businessman offered to buy one of the shoes for $10 million, but they were instead tested for explosives by the US military and then burned"

======================================================

Posted on 14 September 2009

Zaidi catapulted into the international spotlight when he stood up in the middle of a press conference being given in December in Baghdad by President Bush and the Iraqi prime minister, Nouri al-Maliki.

"It is the farewell kiss, you dog," he shouted before hurling the first shoe. "This is for the widows and orphans of Iraq," he went on, as he threw the second.

He was sentenced to three years in prison for assaulting a foreign head of state, later reduced to one year. He has served nine months, with time off for good behavior.

But while he has been hailed as a popular hero, Zaidi, who was due to be freed yesterday (Mon), fell foul of Baghdad's paper-pushers. Clerks at the jail failed to fill in the requisite release forms.

Zaidi's brother and three sisters were waiting for him outside the prison yesterday morning, hoping to accompany him back to their two-bedroom apartment in Sadr City, the poor Shia Muslim suburb of the Iraqi capital.

There, a party had been arranged: his nieces and nephews were waiting with balloons and "welcome home" posters.

Zaidi, a journalist for a local television station run from Cairo, al-Baghdadiya, had made a reputation - and been strongly influenced - by his reporting on the deaths and injuries caused by American forces' raids.

He had also been kidnapped by armed groups and arrested by American forces.

Although some Iraqis professed shame that a guest had been ill-treated, Zaidi was acclaimed across the Middle East - his picture etched into walls in Gaza and hung from banners in Damascus.

His greatest support is from the more radical anti-American factions of his own Shia Muslim community, from which he comes.

"Muntazer is a courageous man," said Salah al-Obeidi, spokesman for Muqtada al-Sadr, who led uprisings against the allied occupation in 2004. "His release will be a great victory for everyone opposed to the occupation."

What Zaidi has been offered

• The Emir of Qatar has pledged a golden statue of a horse

• An organisation headed by the daughter of Col Gaddafi of Libya awarded him a medal

• An Iraqi living in Morocco has offered the hand of his daughter and women from across the Arab world rang his newspaper asking to marry him

• His company has bought him a new house

• Businessmen have offered to club together to buy him a sports car

• He has been offered jobs by several Arab television networks

• A Saudi businessman offered to buy one of the shoes for $10 million, but they were instead tested for explosives by the US military and then burned

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NEW YORK -- Oprah Winfrey is opening her talk show's 24th season with a flourish. One week of programs include a Chicago block party with the Black Eyed Peas, an exclusive Whitney Houston interview, her first Dr. Phil visit in seven years and a trip to New York.

It's hard to remember when it seemed more important.

Winfrey is still the queen of daytime television, but the aura of invincibility is gone. The average viewership for "The Oprah Winfrey Show" slipped under 7 million last season, down 7 percent from the year before, according to Nielsen Media Research. One week during the July rerun season, the show had its lowest ratings since its 1985 debut.

There are many possible explanations for the fade, including some over which Winfrey has no control. Ratings declines are common with so many choices and demands on time, particularly during the day. It's even rarer for programs that have been on the air as long as Winfrey's to grow.

And it's not just her. "Live with Regis and Kelly" had the same 7 percent decline last season. Shows with Jerry Springer, Maury Povich and Martha Stewart all had double-digit declines.

Yet Winfrey has also alienated some of her audience, particularly in more conservative parts of the country, said Janice Peck, author of the book "Age of Oprah" and a University of Colorado professor.

By endorsing Barack Obama and campaigning for him, she shucked her apolitical image. Winfrey's book club selection of Eckhart Tolle's New Age religion book "A New Earth" angered some conservative Christians - even though Winfrey's producer said Winfrey was careful not to push Tolle's views on viewers through the television show.

Winfrey's buoyant encouragement of her audience, telling them that their possibilities are limitless, may no longer resonate in tough economic times, Peck said.

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The professor said few of her college students talk about Winfrey. They seem more interested in Ellen DeGeneres or Tyra Banks. As the just-named fourth judge for "American Idol," DeGeneres is in line for a burst of attention this year.

"They see Oprah as kind of like who their mom likes," she said. "This is not a good sign for her."

Sheri Salata, executive producer, acknowledges "The Oprah Winfrey Show" is trying to deal with the delicate issue of attracting young viewers while not alienating longtime fans. Notice how the block party carefully followed a performance by the Black Eyed Peas with one by James Taylor.

It was the first time the show actively used social networks, drawing a crowd of 21,000 people in part through alerts on Twitter and Facebook, she said.

Winfrey has aggressively promoted her interview with Houston, telling Mario Lopez during an appearance on "Extra" that it was the best one she has ever done.

Whoa. Mario Lopez? Interviews with Winfrey used to be harder than that to come by.

"You can't be oblivious to the decline in ratings," said Bill Carroll, expert in the syndication market for Katz Television. "Even if it is the dominant show, you have to look at what the value is. I am sure that the people around her are aware of the trends or the perception of trends."

Salata said the show is trying hard to make an impact with the season opening, although it does that every year.

"When you've been on the air for 24 years, our greatest challenge as producers is what are we going to do now that hasn't been done before? How do we take it up a notch?" she said.

Big interview "gets" like Houston or Erin Andrews, the sportscaster who was secretly videotaped nude, are important. The show will also do a "Mad Men" inspired episode where everyone, from the audience to Winfrey, is dressed in early 1960s style, she said.

"We have a real commitment to our viewers to do shows that will make their lives better, and that's not something we take lightly," she said.

It's worth remembering that Winfrey still has the most-watched talk show by a wide margin, more than two million viewers over "Dr. Phil." But downticks in its ratings have an impact beyond her: most stations use her show to give a big audience lead-in to their local news. NBC used to argue that ABC's "World News" got a ratings boost because Winfrey's show was on many ABC stations, even though it was two hours before the network news.

How things go this fall will affect an important decision: Winfrey is signed to do her show through September 2011, and has promised an answer by the end of the year on whether she'll renew her contract.

ATLANTA, Georgia (CNN) -- Boris Kodjoe owns a mansion in Atlanta. But when he goes to answer his door, the black actor knows what it's like to be an outcast.

"When I'm opening the door of my own house, someone will ask me where the man of the house is, implying that I'm staff," said Kodjoe, best known for starring in Showtime's "Soul Food."

It's a feeling some African-Americans say is all too common, even to this day in America: No matter your status or prominence in society, you're still typecast. That's why the recent arrest of Henry Louis Gates Jr., one of the nation's most prominent African-American scholars, has stirred outrage and debate.

Jelani Cobb, an author and professor at Spelman College in Atlanta, says it's troubling on many levels when "one of the most recognizable African-Americans in the country can be arrested in his own home and have to justify being in his own home." Watch arrest of a Harvard scholar »

"It's really kind of unfathomable," Cobb said. "If it can happen to him, yeah, it can happen to any of us."

That's a sentiment echoed by Jimi Izrael. "If a mild-mannered, bespectacled Ivy League professor who walks with a cane can be pulled from his own home and arrested on a minor charge, the rest of us don't stand a chance," Izrael wrote Tuesday on The Root, an online magazine with commentary from a variety of black perspectives that's co-founded by Gates.

"We all fit a description. We are all suspects."

In an interview with The Root, Gates said he was outraged by the incident and hopes to use the experience as a teaching tool, including a possible PBS special on racial profiling.

"I can't believe that an individual policeman on the Cambridge police force would treat any African-American male this way, and I am astonished that this happened to me; and more importantly I'm astonished that it could happen to any citizen of the United States, no matter what their race," Gates said. "And I'm deeply resolved to do and say the right things so that this cannot happen again." Voices of black America: What it's like being black in America

'Moment of Truth-Black in America 2' Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates Jr. will join the countdown to Black in America 2, in his first TV interview since his run-in with police at his home. Moment of Truth, live from Times Square.
Tonight, 7 p.m. ET see full schedule »

Gates was arrested last Thursday in broad daylight at his Cambridge, Massachusetts, home for disorderly conduct -- what the arresting officer described as "loud and tumultuous behavior in a public space." The charge was dropped Tuesday on the recommendation of police, and the city of Cambridge issued a statement calling the incident "regrettable and unfortunate."

Gates had just returned from a trip to China when a police officer responded to a call about a potential break-in at his home that was phoned in by a white woman. According to the police report, Gates was in the foyer when the officer arrived.

The officer asked Gates to "step out onto the porch and speak with me," the report says. "[Gates] replied, 'No, I will not.' He then demanded to know who I was. I told him that I was 'Sgt. Crowley from the Cambridge Police' and that I was 'investigating a report of a break in progress' at the residence.

"While I was making this statement, Gates opened the front door and exclaimed, 'Why, because I'm a black man in America?' " Have race relations improved since the election of President Barack Obama?

According to the report, Gates initially refused to show the officer his identification, instead asking for the officer's ID. But Gates eventually did show the officer his identification that included his home address.

"The police report says I was engaged in loud and tumultuous behavior. That's a joke," Gates told The Root. "It escalated as follows: I kept saying to him, 'What is your name, and what is your badge number?' and he refused to respond. I asked him three times, and he refused to respond. And then I said, 'You're not responding because I'm a black man, and you're a white officer.'"

Known as Skip by friends and colleagues, Gates is the director of the W.E.B. Du Bois Institute for African and African-American Research at Harvard University, and an acclaimed PBS documentarian.

While Gates' arrest lit up talk radio and blogs, it prompted others to defend the police against charges of racial profiling.

"I'd be glad if somebody called the police if somebody was breaking into my house," neighbor Michael Schaffer told CNN affiliate WHDH.

For others, the incident symbolized something more. Seeing the police mugshot of Gates brought some African-Americans to near tears.

Kim Coleman, a Washington radio host, cultural commentator and blogger, said she grew numb when she saw the mugshot.

Don't Miss

• Full interview of Gates from The Root
• Charge against Harvard professor dropped
• WCVB: Police report of incident
• In Depth: Black in America

"I was not prepared for that," she said. "To see one of my heroes in a mugshot was not something that I was expecting. ... It just tells me we're not in a post-racial society."

She said there's a reason why you don't hear about prominent white people arrested in their homes: "because it doesn't happen."

It's time for America to have a long overdue national conversation about race, Coleman said. "When are we going to have that," she said. "When are we really going to sit down and strip down and say, 'This is what I feel about you and this is what you feel about me. Now, how are we going to get over that?' "

Rebecca Walker, an award-winning author, said the arrest was devastating to scholars, writers, and artists "who work so hard to keep a free flow of information."

"It seems eerily ironic Mr. Gates was returning from China, where surveillance is so high and freedom of speech and ideas so curtailed," Walker said. "To see the mugshot of Skip was a blow to all of us who feel some sense of safety based on our work to try to mend all of these broken fences in America -- to make ourselves into people who refuse to be limited by race and class and gender and everything else."

"To end up, at the end of the day, treated like a criminal, unjustly stripped of our accomplishments and contributions even if only for a moment, is profoundly disturbing. We must ask ourselves what it means, and to allow ourselves to face various scenarios regarding power and freedom and how these will intersect in the coming years."

Last week, President Obama spoke at the 100th anniversary of the NAACP, saying that while minorities have made great strides "the pain of discrimination is still felt in America."

"Even as we inherit extraordinary progress that cannot be denied; even as we marvel at the courage and determination of so many plain folks -- we know that too many barriers still remain," the president said.

Kodjoe, the actor, said Obama "has affected a change in people's consciousness regarding such issues as racism and prejudice." But he said the arrest of Gates underscores that there's more work ahead.

"I think we're moving in the right direction. But no doubt, there still is a lot of work to be done," Kodjoe said. "It's not just a problem here. It's a problem worldwide. Racism is universal."

Gates said he has a newfound understanding of exactly what that means. "There's been a very important symbolic change and that is the election of Barack Obama," he told The Root. "But the only black people who truly live in a post-racial world in America all live in a very nice house on 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue."

By Brian Faler

July 22 (Bloomberg) -- The U.S. Senate defeated a Republican bid to expand gun ownership rights by letting people carry concealed weapons across state lines.

The Senate voted 58-39 for the proposal by John Thune, a South Dakota Republican, two votes short of the 60 needed. It would have allowed truck drivers, salespeople and anyone else permitted to carry concealed weapons to take them into any of the 48 states that allow hidden firearms.

Critics said the provision would have forced states with stringent limits on who may carry such weapons to honor permits from states with more lax standards.

"It completely undermines the rights of state government to protect public safety," said Senator Dianne Feinstein, a California Democrat. "This amendment essentially overturns the standards and regulations that many states have enacted to prevent concealed weapons from falling into the wrong hands."

Thune argued that "the right to defend one's self and the right to exercise that basic Second Amendment constitutional right does not end at state borders." The Constitution's Second Amendment protects the right to keep and bear arms.

Earlier this year, Republicans teamed up with Democrats from Western and rural states to approve a pair of amendments to expand gun rights.

In May, lawmakers agreed to Oklahoma Republican Senator Tom Coburn's proposal to let people carry concealed weapons in national parks. Those provisions, attached to a credit card bill, were signed into law by President Barack Obama.

In February, the Senate approved Nevada Republican Senator John Ensign's proposal to repeal most of the gun restrictions in Washington, D.C., including a ban on semiautomatic weapons. Ensign's amendment was attached to legislation to provide the District of Columbia with a vote in the House of Representative, stalling the voting measure.

Thune sought to attach today's gun proposal to a defense policy measure. Such legislation frequently attracts amendments on unrelated social-policy issues because it is difficult for lawmakers to vote against bills supporting the military.

Lawmakers last week agreed to add a provision to the defense measure to expand federal hate-crime protections to gays and the transgendered. Yesterday, lawmakers agreed to Obama's demand to cut $1.75 billion in funds for seven F-22 military jets.

To contact the reporter on this story: Brian Faler in Washington at   or bfaler@bloomberg.net.

Last Updated: July 22, 2009 12:30 EDT

There's a McClatchy article out there that's raised a few objections from liberal commentators. Both Media Matters for America and Crooks and Liars have objected to "On Friday, lowest wage workers get a raise," which ignores the opinions of liberal economists in favor of conservative ones. The federal minimum wage increases from $6.55 an hour to $7.25. Conservatives argue that this will bring America to her knees.

"[S]ome economists worry that the wage increase is coming at the worst possible time and will only make the recession-battered job market tougher for the very workers it's intended to help," McClatchy reports. And, while it's absolutely true that "some economists" say this, it's also true that other economists say pretty much the opposite. Media Matters points us to a piece from National Public Radio that reports that progressive economists think this is a great time to raise the minimum wage:

But liberal economists say this summer is the perfect time for a wage hike: It will put more money into the pockets of people who need it most. Fatter paychecks will stimulate spending and help the economy, they say. Kai Filion, a policy analyst for the Economic Policy Institute, a left-leaning research group, says this wage hike will generate $5.5 billion in consumer spending over the next 12 months.

But the bigger problem here isn't that McClatchy's only looking at one argument. The bigger problem -- one shared by the entire media -- is that no one's looking at the history of that argument. Every time someone suggests raising the minimum wage, the right goes nuts. It'll destroy the economy, crash employment numbers, and drive companies out of business. To listen to the right, raising the minimum wage is an economic nuclear bomb.

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And these are arguments that the right makes every time, without fail. "If we do not balance a minimum-wage increase with economic relief for the small businesses, we will stifle job creation and shut the employment door on the very individuals we are trying to help," said Wyoming Sen. Mike Enzi of an effort to raise the federal minimum in 2006.

This has been going on since there was a federal minimum wage. Since 1938 -- when the minimum was set at $0.25 an hour -- the federal minimum has been raised 24 times, with Friday's raise being the 25th. Oddly, these weren't followed by 24 economic disasters as employment plummeted and businesses shuttered.

Given that track record, isn't the real headline here "Conservatives Always Wrong About Minimum Wage?" The same arguments come up every time and, every time, the predictions fail to come true. The problem with McClatchy's article isn't that it ignores liberal economists, it's that it pretends that conservative economists are worth a damn on this issue.

And it's not just McClatchy that makes this mistake every time, it's the entire media. In any interview of a conservative on minimum wage, the one question that's almost always missing is "Isn't that exactly what you said the last time?"

In fact, McClatchy may be doing us a favor, since the issue generally slips off the radar once the debate is won or lost. No one talks about the minimum wage once it happens -- not with wall-to-wall coverage and talking head panels, anyway -- they only report on the fight over raising it. As a result, the predictions are allowed to fall down the memory hole, forgotten by a media with the attention span of a goldfish. If we'd follow the entire process, not just the initial stage, we'd be a lot better informed in the future. If we were reminded of the failed gloom-and-doom predictions, it'd be a lot harder for Republicans to recycle them the next time around. We've got a 24-hour news cycle, you'd think we could jam some consumer-side economic news in between Celebrity News Item A and Celebrity News Item B.


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As it is, Republicans are already getting away with making conflicting arguments about the economy. The current GOP line is that the stimulus has failed. If the minimum wage, which adds $5.5 billion to people's pockets, is such a tremendous hit on the economy, how is it that a $787 billion stimulus package can have no effect at all? Someone explain that one to me, because that doesn't make any damned sense.

When the federal minimum goes up this Friday, a lot of people are going to get a raise. The economy won't crash and American small business won't become extinct. And those facts won't be news, because "House Not on Fire" isn't a headline. But "Conservatives Maintain Perfect Record of Being Wrong About Minimum Wage" should be. Seems to me that's kind of newsworthy and it seems to me that that's the story being ignored here.

Why are these people allowed to get away with being completely wrong so consistently? That should be Friday's question of the day.

John Cannon has been financing big real estate loans for $25 billion-asset Capmark Finance Inc. of Horsham and its predecessors since 1985, and he's never seen business this slow.

"There's nothing being bought and sold," Cannon told me by phone from the vast Virginia headquarters of government-controlled home lender Freddie Mac, one of the few outfits still pumping millions into buildings.

Capmark financed $1.5 billion in apartment deals during the first half of the year, down by half since early 2008. Almost all this year's lending was refinancing loans, funded by Freddie and Fannie Mae, and the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.

"They're the only viable lenders in U.S. commercial real estate right now," and all they do is residential real estate, not offices or industry, Cannon said.

He's seen slow markets before. The early 1990s, when the savings banks failed. But that "was a supply issue. You saw a lot of empty buildings. Now it's a liquidity issue." Banks aren't lending.

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He's hoping things have hit bottom. Fannie and Freddie tightened credit sharply last year. Lately, they aren't requiring quite so many escrow payments, Cannon said hopefully. "Terms are getting looser. Spreads are coming down."

It's not that loan rates have fallen. It's the spread between what money costs and what Fannie and Freddie charge that tells the story, according to Cannon:

Back in the mid-2000s, loans were approved at less than 1 percent above the benchmark 10-year Treasury rate. That zoomed to 3.5 to 4 percent above the benchmark during last fall's credit crisis, after the Bush administration took control of Fannie and Freddie. Now it's around 2 percent, Cannon says.

But banks still aren't coming back into the market. It's not just that they're shy. There's also "the disconnect between buyers' and sellers' expectations," Cannon told me. "Guys bought a building five years ago for $10 million. They don't want to sell for $8 million."

NJ to PA

Archer Daniels Midland Co., Decatur, Ill., says it's closing its Glassboro cocoa plant and ending jobs for 53 workers there. The work is moving to ADM's new 500,000-square foot plant in Hazleton, says spokesman Roman Blahoski.

Bernanke or Summers?

Democrats in Congress and the Obama White House are plotting to remove Federal Reserve Chairman Benjamin Bernanke and replace him with Obama's chief economic adviser, Larry Summers, at the end of his term next year, writes veteran bank analyst Richard X. Bove of Connecticut-based Rochdale Securities.

Summers is the brainy Main Line native, Harvard economist, and ex-Treasury Secretary who's trying to re-regulate the financial institutions he helped deregulate under President Bill Clinton, setting the stage for the current mess.

Bernanke or Summers - what's the difference? "Mr. Bernanke has demonstrated a willingness to act to defend both the economy and the financial system. Conversely, Mr. Summers has written the bulk of the proposals to regulate the financial industry," which Bove says "would dramatically restrict fund flow to the economy" and kill the recovery like the government did when it tightened credit rules too soon in 1937. (But when's the right time?)

Bove credits Bernanke, ex-Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, and FDIC chief Sheila Bair with "bold, innovative action" that salvaged the banks and prevented a full U.S. takeover. Bush and Obama at that time "did nothing." Congress was "the proverbial deer in the headlights."

Yet "the same people who were incapable of acting when there was a clear need for action will now make the decision as to whether the man who helped save the system should be removed."

Bernanke is set to testify before the House banking committee next Tuesday. Expect Fed critics to ask how he'll reverse the scary growth in the money supply without stalling the economy.