March 2007

Popwatch | Blog | Movies | Music | TV: Entertainment Weekly

Holy Hogwarts! Is it true that Emma Watson, 16-year-old child star of the Harry Potter films, will not be coming back for the final two installments of the multi-billion-dollar-grossing movie franchise? That’s what more than one British tabloid reported over this past weekend. But, as with stories filed by the hideous journalist character Rita Skeeter in the Potter books, the so-called “news” about Watson turns out to be untrue.

Tip of the hat to Entertainment Weekly for the great title!

Technorati Tags: Deathly Hallows, Rowling, Emma Watson

trent900a340_flyingtb2.jpg (JPEG Image, 2000×1559 pixels)

The Airbus 380 photo is one of the most popular pages on my blog. Go figure!

I still think this is a horrible idea – an eight-hundred-passenger disaster waiting to happen.

Technorati Tags: airbus 380, a380

A Place to Turn When a Newborn Is Fated to Die - New York Times

Most couples choose to have an abortion when they learn that the fetus has a fatal condition. But experts say about 20 to 40 percent of families given such diagnoses opt to carry the pregnancy to term, and an increasing number of them, like the Kilibardas, have turned to programs called perinatal hospice for help with the practical and spiritual questions that arise.

The article is accompanied by an extremely touching photo of a woman feeding her severely ill baby.

Parents, children, and caregivers, all heroes.

This is respect for life.

I had two twin brothers who died the day they were born. I will be 46 Sunday; they would have been 42 or 43.

There was no perinatal hospice for them. I wish there had been.

The World of Business : The Kona Files: Reporting & Essays: The New Yorker

Two former police officers who worked for Hewlett-Packard security, Fred Adler and Vince Nye, questioned the legality of the method, according to notes of a later interview with Hunsaker. Nye, after learning that investigators had discovered Kawamoto’s call to Keyworth, e-mailed Hunsaker, “I have serious reservations about what we are doing… . It is very unethical at the least and probably illegal… . I am requesting that we cease this phone number gathering method immediately.”

A hero in the ugly HP scandal.

‘Mistakes’ Made on Prosecutors, Gonzales Says - New York Times

He said he had rejected an earlier idea, which the White House attributed to Ms. Miers, to replace all 93 United States attorneys, the top federal prosecutors in their regions. “I felt that was a bad idea,” Mr. Gonzales said, “and it was disruptive.”

Replacing all 93 U.S. attorneys is not just a bad idea. It is a virtually treasonous idea. What an awful precedent that would set … completely politicizing the criminal justice system. May Harriet Miers rot in well deserved oblivion for proposing this assault on the Constitution.

Technorati Tags: Harriet Miers