Imus producer: Sharpton a 'race-baiter'

Sat May 12, 7:20 AM ET

Don Imus' former producer on Friday called Rev. Al Sharpton a "race-baiter" who was looking for attention when he led a campaign to fire the radio host, while Sharpton said Imus and his producer got what they deserved for making a racist, sexist remark on the air.

Bernard McGuirk and Sharpton appeared together for a combative debate on Fox News Channel's "Hannity & Colmes" show. The producer was fired last month for his part in an exchange on the "Imus in the Morning" program in which the members of the Rutgers University women's basketball team were called "nappy-headed hos."

MSNBC took Imus' show off the air on April 11 and CBS fired him from his syndicated radio program a day later for the slur. McGuirk, a 20-year producer and on-air jester for the show that originated on WFAN-AM in New York, called the team "hardcore hos" in the April 4 exchange with Imus. Sharpton held protests and lobbied both networks to fire Imus.

McGuirk called Sharpton a "crude ... opportunist, a race-baiter" who campaigned against Imus to help his own career and raise his profile.

While McGuirk acknowledged that "these words did hurt these girls," he added, "until you, Reverend Al, got involved, they probably never would have heard of it. They would have probably never, quote unquote, got scarred for life until you got involved for your own self-serving interests."

Sharpton said he wasn't looking for more attention — "if you have any recollection at all, I had been in the papers all year," he said. He said Imus and McGuirk may have apologized for the remark, but "forgiveness is not the point. The question is the penalty."

"Consumers have the right to say to advertisers, are your standards going to be where people are attacked based on your gender and race?" Sharpton said.

McGuirk countered that Sharpton "terrorized these spineless, thumbsucking executives" into taking Imus off the air. In an earlier appearance on "Hannity & Colmes," he said the executives "were in a fetal position under their desks sucking their thumbs on their BlackBerrys, trying to coordinate their response."

Sharpton responded: "What he is saying is we want to apologize and we want to decide what the penalty is." He said that most people wanted Imus fired, including a minister who arranged Imus' meeting with the Rutgers team, and many NBC employees.

"Is Al Roker one of these guys hiding under the desk with a BlackBerry?" Sharpton asked.

McGuirk said that Imus "made one small mistake. He ran a red light" and shouldn't have been fired.

He asked Sharpton. "Who elected you the PC police chief? Who elected you to anything?"

Imus has not spoken publicly since his dismissal, but his lawyer has said he intends to sue CBS for $120 million, and said that the network encouraged irreverent, off-color comments on the program.

Vegas run by gays and Jews, says magician

Cool, time to visit Vegas!

We will be in San Fran later in the week, perhaps I will post some photos of naked Jews and gays as they run the Bay to Breakers race.

Published: 11th May 2007 11:06 CET
Online: http://www.thelocal.se/7274/

Swedish magician Joe Labero has provoked a strong reaction with suggestions that Las Vegas is controlled by "Jewish business syndicates, American dollar millionaires and homosexual booking agents".

The magic master's comments were made in an interview with rail company SJ's on-board magazine Kupé.

As a prelude to his controversial thesis, Labero explained that he has long been close to getting his own show in Las Vegas.

"But at the end of the day it seems to be impossible - unless you are a homosexual, a Jew or an American.

"I don't mean to sound prejudiced of course, I'm just cynical. A blond Swedish Viking will have a hard time breaking through the hierarchies that control Vegas, where power rests in the hands of Jewish business syndicates, American dollar millionaires and homosexual booking agents.

"But I will get there, sooner of later," Labero told the magazine.

Joe Labero is the stage name of Lars Bengt Roland Johansson.

Sören Andersson, chairman of the Swedish Federation for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Rights (RFSL) took exception to the illusionist's remarks.

"I think it's rather nasty to say things like this. The implication is that everybody who is not ether Jewish or homosexual is being discriminated against," he told The Local.

"It is reminiscent of the world-famous Jewish conspiracy, now extended to also include gays. But these are two groups that have typically been the victims of discrimination.

"Putting the blame on specific groups says more about Joe Labero than anybody else," he added.

The editor of Kupé magazine admitted that he had been hesitant about publishing the controversial quotes.

"We discussed this a lot internally before arriving at the conclusion that it would be controversial and inappropriate in the context of a Swedish discussion.

"But we also raised it in the context of an American discussion, where it is not considered controversial to say that decisions in Hollywood are dominated by Jewish, homosexual and American interests," Gunnar Wesslén told newspaper Resumé.

Rail operator SJ has taken up the matter with Mediabolaget, the company responsible for producing the magazine on its behalf.

"We are having serious talks with the editor and the company about what has happened and why it was allowed to happen," press spokesman Mark Vadasz told Resumé.

Joe Labero meanwhile has shelved his plans for a Vegas show as he instead sets his sights on Asia.

"I am quite simply a bit tired of the Yanks at the moment," he told Kupé.

Scientists Draw Link Between Morality And Brain's Wiring

May 11, 2007

Most of us feel a rush of righteous certainty in the face of a moral challenge, an intuitive sense of right or wrong hard to ignore yet difficult to articulate.

A provocative medical experiment conducted recently by neuroscientists at Harvard, Caltech and the University of Southern California strongly suggests these impulsive convictions come not from conscious principles but from the brain trying to make its emotional judgment felt.


Using neurology patients to probe moral reasoning, the researchers for the first time drew a direct link between the neuroanatomy of emotion and moral judgment.

Knock out certain brain cells with an aneurysm or a tumor, they discovered, and while everything else may appear normal, the ability to think straight about some issues of right and wrong has been permanently skewed. "It tells us there is some neurobiological basis for morality," said Harvard philosophy student Liane Young, who helped to conceive the experiment.

In particular, these people had injured an area that links emotion to cognition, located in the ventromedial prefrontal cortex several inches behind the brow. The experiment underscores the pivotal part played by unconscious empathy and emotion in guiding decisions. "When that influence is missing," said USC neuroscientist Antonio Damasio, "pure reason is set free."


Bringing medical tools to bear on moral questions, cognitive scientists are invading the territory of philosophers, theologians and clerics.

Usually, the human brain is of two minds when it comes to morality -- selfish but self-sacrificing, survivalist yet altruistic, calculating but also compassionate. Many dilemmas force a choice between the lesser of two evils, invoking a clash of competing neural networks, said Harvard neuroscientist Joshua Greene. Intuition tempers rational deliberation, especially when our actions to help some people will harm others.

At this level of inquiry, the mind is a special effect generated by neurons. Trust is a measure of neuropeptide levels, while fairness is an electromagnetic pattern in the right prefrontal cortex. Disrupt it with a strong magnet, as did University of Zurich researchers in 2006, and any sense of fair-dealing fades away like a radio station subsumed by static.

Not everyone reasons through moral conundrums in the same way, of course. Decisions hinge on family values, cultural heritage, legal traditions and religious beliefs -- or on the kind of brain you can bring to bear on the problem.

At the University of Iowa Hospital, the researchers singled out six middle-age men and women who had injured the same neural network in the prefrontal cortex. On neuropsychological tests, they seemed normal. They were healthy, intelligent, talkative, yet also unkempt, not so easily embarrassed or so likely to feel guilty, explained lead study scientist Michael Koenigs at the National Institutes of Health. They had lived with the brain damage for years but seemed unaware that anything about them had changed.

To analyze their moral abilities, Dr. Koenigs and his colleagues used a diagnostic probe as old as Socrates -- leading questions: To save yourself and others, would you throw someone out of a lifeboat? Would you push someone off a bridge, smother a crying baby, or kill a hostage?

All told, they considered 50 hypothetical moral dilemmas. Their responses were essentially identical to those of neurology patients who had different brain injuries and to healthy volunteers, except when a situation demanded they take one life to save others. For most, the thought of killing an innocent prompts a visceral revulsion, no matter how many other lives weigh in the balance. But if your prefrontal cortex has been impaired in the same small way by stroke or surgery, you would feel no such compunction in sacrificing one life for the good of all. The six patients certainly felt none. Any moral inhibition, whether learned or hereditary, had lost its influence.

The effort to understand the biology of morality is far from academic, said Georgetown University law professor John Mikhail. The search for an ethical balance of harm is central to medical debates on vaccine safety, organ transplants and clinical drug trials. It colors political disputes over embryonic stem-cell research, capital punishment and abortion. It is the essence of much military strategy and the underlying logic of terrorism.

For Harvard neuroscientist Marc Hauser, the moral-dilemma experiment is evidence the brain may be hard-wired for morality. Most moral intuitions, he said, are unconscious, involuntary and universal. To test the idea, he gathered data from thousands of people in hundreds of countries, all of whom display a remarkable unanimity in their basic moral choices. A shared innate capacity for morality may be responsible, he concluded.

Many scientists think his theory needs more proof. Since no two brains are exactly alike, each brain's ability to perceive right and wrong might be unique. The world is a thicket of moral maxims we readily ignore. Even so, it would be curious if, in the neural substrates of morality, we find common ground.

Nappy Headed Al Sharpton hoisted on his own petard.

John Ridley Bio

05.09.2007

Stop the Presses: Al Sharpton's a Hatemongering Hypocrite

File this one under the heading THINGS WE ALREADY KNOW, right next to "water is wet" and "sunshine is warm." Al Sharpton is a hypocrite. And a hatemongering one at that.

When we were last visited by - or rather forced to endure - Reverend Al, he was once again snatching up the scepter of media-anointed spokesman for All Things Black.

It was the heady days of the Affair Imus. The women of the Rutgers B-ball team had the kink of their hair and the level of their sexuality called into question by the I-Man. Al, as Al is wont to do, took it upon himself to act without invitation and speak for those who were perfectly capable of speaking for themselves (for those keeping score, that's hypocrisy number one).

Toward the tail end of that TV news cycle whipped storm, when it was pointed out to Al that a variation of Imus's rant could be heard with an exponent in heavy rotation within a certain variety of rap music, Al promised to go at the extreme ends of the music business with the same camera-whoring zeal with which he attacked Imus.

On the 12th it will have been a month since Imus was dropped by CBS.

Though I make a point of closely following the news, I was apparently otherwise occupied during the ten minutes Al was flogging his big Anti-misogyny in Music Campaign.

Or so I thought.

As it turns out, it was Al who was otherwise occupied. Rather than take on misogyny, the man who decried there was no place in the culture for hateful language...well, he went out and fresh-brewed some hate talk of his own.

During a debate held Monday at the New York Public Library with atheist author Christopher Hitchens, Al assessed Mormon Mitt Romney's presidential bid thusly: "As for the one Mormon running for office, those who really believe in God will defeat him anyways, so don't worry about that; that's a temporary situation."

"Those who really believe in God."

Lemme be real clear about something. There are no tears shed in the Ridley household over the loss of Don Imus from waves of either radio or TV. However, "nappy headed 'hos" sounds nearly genteel in the echo chamber of Al's religious fanaticism.

But his faith-based bashing is only part one in Al's (current) hypocrisy double header. Al said something hurtful and bigoted, and the way to man up to his mistake is merely to apologize.

But to man up to something, ya gotta be a man.

From Al there was no apology. Only spin.

See, Al - according to Al - wasn't really talking about Romney when he used the phrase "the one Mormon running for office." Al was actually contrasting himself with Christopher Hitchens.

Interesting.

I spoke with Chris Hitchens when I was co-hosting the MSNBC morning news today (in Imus's old slot, I sweetly say). Though Hitchens could be confused for many things, as a devout atheist a Mormon ain't one of them.

Having dangled an excuse so ludicrous in an attempt to give himself cover, it was clearly time for a mea culpa from the Rev.

From Al there was no apology. Only more spin.

Version 2.0 of "what I meant to say" straight from Al: "What I said was that we would defeat him (Romney), meaning as a Republican."

Hmm. 'Cause, you didn't say Republican. You said Mormon. Mormon's what you said, and Mormon and Republican aren't trippingly close linguistically.

So, Al, you know; having tried twice to excuse the inexcusable, there is always, finally, a good old fashioned "my bad" to be given. Say, "I'm sorry," and be done with it.

For the record, what I won't be doing right now: holding my breath. My lung capacity could in no way preserve enough air to wait for an apology that must take its place in line behind the apology due from the Tawana Brawley affair. And from the "I regret" having said "If the Jews want to get it on, tell them to pin their yarmulkes back and come over to my house." And even that's back of the line from offering sorrow for referring to Jews as "diamond merchants."

More seriously, there are seven dead who still wait for an apology over Freddie's Fashion Mart and "white interlopers."

But you know what, Al? Forget it. Don't bother with any justifications. After the umpteenth cocktail of hate and hypocrisy you've served up, I would say to you exactly as you said to Don Imus: "What is any possible reason you could feel that this kind of statement could be just forgiven and overlooked?"

Wolfowitz Ouster Sought by German World Bank Director

How long will it be before AIPAC complains of antisemitic Germans? Gag me with a spoon.

By Andreas Cremer

May 8 (Bloomberg) -- Germany's director on the World Bank board is under orders from his government to press for the ouster of President Paul Wolfowitz over his role in giving his companion a pay raise, a European official said.

The German director, Eckhard Deutscher, has been told to rally opinion on the 24-person board against Wolfowitz, who was found to have violated the bank's ethics rules. Germany wants Wolfowitz out before Chancellor Angela Merkel hosts a Berlin forum on Africa in two weeks, said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity. Deutscher declined to comment.

Deutscher, 58, is the dean of the World Bank's executive board and represents its third-largest shareholder, after the U.S. and Japan. European finance ministers today stepped up their criticism of Wolfowitz, saying the uproar over the pay- and-promotion package for his partner had hobbled his ability to lead the world's largest development agency.

``We need a president with a good reputation and good integrity,'' Finance Minister Wouter Bos of the Netherlands told reporters today in Brussels, where he attended a meeting with European counterparts. ``I have serious doubts.''

Only the Bush administration has publicly backed the 63- year-old Wolfowitz. Today, asked whether the White House continues to support the bank chief, Press Secretary Tony Snow said, ``it still has confidence in Paul Wolfowitz.'' He referred further questions to the Treasury Department.

The U.S. has nominated every president of the World Bank, which dispenses annual aid of about $23 billion, since the organization was founded in the closing stages of World War II.

Appointment Process

``Up to now the appointment procedure seems to have worked,'' said Bos of the Netherlands. ``We have a problem with the president, not the procedure.''

The New York Times reported that European officials will let the U.S. continue the practice in return for pushing Wolfowitz to resign.

A panel of seven bank directors investigating Wolfowitz stopped short of saying he acted in bad faith and gave him until May 9 to respond. The group also faulted the bank's ethics committee for giving him insufficient guidance on how to avoid a conflict of interest, and it didn't suggest a punishment, said a person who read the report.

The findings will next be considered by the bank's full board, where opposition to Wolfowitz's continued tenure is hardening, said two officials who asked not to be identified. Wolfowitz must now choose whether to fight on, negotiate a face- saving deal or allow himself to be pushed out by his critics.

`Honorable' Exit

``What he's probably angling for is an honorable way out,'' said George Ayittey, an economist at American University in Washington and a former World Bank consultant. ``Right now, even if the board were to clear him, there is so much rancor at the World Bank that it is literally impossible for him to be an effective leader.''

A copy of the report was given to Wolfowitz on the evening of May 6, his attorney, Robert Bennett, said yesterday. He was initially given two days to respond, a period that was extended to three days after Wolfowitz argued for a week.

Bennett, in a statement today, renewed his appeal for more time, saying it would allow Wolfowitz to prepare his case and for ``cooler heads'' to judge the findings. He also criticized the committee for failing to stop leaks.

``The appearance that people are prejudging the outcome of the process weakens bank governance and disrespects both the board and the process,'' Bennett said.

Top Jobs

The European Union's foreign policy chief said today that it may be time to review how the top jobs at the World Bank and International Monetary Fund are awarded. While the U.S. has been allowed to select the head of the bank, European leaders have always insisted on the right to nominate the IMF chief.

``Maybe it is the moment to think,'' Javier Solana told reporters in Brussels.

The panel investigated Wolfowitz's role in arranging the deal under which Riza, 52, was transferred to the State Department in 2005 to avoid a potential conflict of interest. Riza, a communications officer in the Middle East and North Africa department, stayed on the World Bank payroll.

Wolfowitz, who is divorced, told the panel that he was merely carrying out the orders of the agency's ethics committee when he arranged a 36 percent pay raise for Riza, to $180,000, with guarantees of future increases of 8 percent a year. The deal also stipulated she would be offered a promotion to the level of director after Wolfowitz's five-year term expired.

Ad Melkert, the Dutchman who chaired the ethics committee at the time, disputed Wolfowitz's account. He said that while the committee told Wolfowitz to arrange a transfer beyond his ``supervisory influence'' and recommended a raise for Riza, it never reviewed or approved the details of the deal.

Blaming World Bank

Wolfowitz blamed the dispute on the bank's ``ambiguous rules'' on conflicts of interest. He also said the generous terms of the deal were intended as a ``settlement of potential claims'' by Riza, who was being transferred against her will and whose career at the World Bank was ``effectively ended.''

Wolfowitz, who initially apologized for the controversy, last week lashed out at the panel, saying that he wouldn't quit in the face of a ``bogus charge'' and that he had been the victim of a ``smear campaign.''

Fundamentalist Christian Dogs such as George W. Bush and The Pope oppose the use of Embryonic Stem Cells

An undated handout image showing vascular repair in eye 24 hours after injection of cells (labeled green). Stem cells made from human embryos can home in on damaged eyes, hearts and arteries of mice and rats, and appear to start repairs, a U.S. company said on Monday. REUTERS/Advanced Cell Technology, Inc./Handout

Embryonic stem cells can repair eyes, company says

Mon May 7, 2007 1:11PM EDT

By Maggie Fox, Health and Science Editor

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Stem cells made from human embryos can home in on damaged eyes, hearts and arteries of mice and rats, and appear to start repairs, a U.S. company said on Monday.

Massachusetts-based Advanced Cell Technology said it had devised a straightforward way to make blood vessel precursor cells out of the stem cells and plans to test them in humans.

"We figured out how to produce literally billions of so-called 'hemangioblasts' -- the mythical cell in the embryo that gives rise to our entire blood and immune system as well as to the blood vessels in our body," Dr. Robert Lanza, vice president of research and scientific development at ACT, said in an e-mail.

"We've also tested these cells in animals for the first time, and it turns out that they have incredible reparative potential."

Embryonic stem cells are the ultimate master cell of the body, giving rise to all of the tissues and organs. The use of human embryonic stem cells is controversial because many people oppose destroying the embryo.

The U.S. Congress has passed several bills that would expand federal funding of human embryonic stem cell research but President George W. Bush vetoed one and has said he will veto any more.

However, companies working with private funding, such as the over-the-counter listed ACT, may do as they please.

Working with embryonic stem cells is not easy. For medical uses, researchers would like to partly differentiate them -- start them down the road toward becoming a specific cell or tissue type.

PREVENTING CONTAMINATION

Another roadblock is that many of the current batches, or lines, of stem cells must be grown in a serum culture taken from animal blood. This can contaminate them with viruses.

Writing in the journal Nature Methods, Lanza's team said they found a way to grow and differentiate human embryonic stem cells without using culture.

They directed the stem cells into becoming what they believe are hemangioblasts, the blood vessel precursor cells, although other teams will have to replicate this for it to be accepted.

"When injected into the bloodstream, they homed to the other side of the body and repaired damaged vasculature within 24 to 48 hours," Lanza said.

"For example, we injected the cells into mice with damaged retinas due to diabetes or other eye injury. The cells (labeled green) migrated to the injured eye, and incorporated and lit-up the entire damaged vasculature. The cells are really smart, and amazingly, knew not to do anything in uninjured eyes."

The researchers killed the mice to check the cells' progress, so they do not know the long-term effects.

"The cells also showed remarkable reparative capacity in animals with heart attacks and ischemic (blocked by a blood clot) limbs. The cells reduce the mortality rate by 50 percent after a massive heart attack," Lanza said.

"If the same thing works in humans (these would be the same human cells we would probably use), you might be able to prevent patients from having legs and other limbs amputated by simply injecting some cells."

William Caldwell, chairman and chief executive officer of Advanced Cell Technology, said the company wanted to test the cells in people and had asked the Food and Drug Administration for permission to do so by the end of next year.

"We also have studies underway indicating that the cells can also considerably accelerate wound healing, repair lung damage, and can even generate unlimited amounts of red blood cells for transfusion," Lanza said.

© Reuters 2006.