What's $16 billion among friends?
Thursday, June 11, 2009
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The Finance Minister understates the deficit by $16 billion. Do we get mad?
Nah. The guy's doing his best. Let's give him another chance.
OTTAWA - Canadians appear to be willing to cut Finance Minister Jim Flaherty a little slack over his deficit shocker.
A Canadian Press Harris-Decima poll shows few Canadians think the
finance minister should resign just because he made a $16-billion
mistake on his deficit projection.
The survey of 1,000 people finds only 28 per cent who want Flaherty to
step down, while 59 per cent think he should stay on the job.
Even among Liberal supporters, 54 per cent don't think he should lose
his position because the budget deficit has ballooned to more than $50
billion - not the $34 billion predicted in the budget four months ago.
What's $16 billion among friends?
[Source: Good Times Society - by The American Illuminati]
What's $16 billion among friends?
[Source: Rome News]
What's $16 billion among friends?
[Source: Mexico News]
What's $16 billion among friends?
[Source: Abc 7 News]
What's $16 billion among friends?
[Source: World News]
posted by tgazw @ 5:26 PM,
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The other Susan Boyle
PrintEmailPDF The global success of the Britain's Got Talent star has had an unlikely impact on one unassuming Texas artist. Stuart Jeffries hears how
There is, you might think, room in the world for only one Susan Boyle. But you would be wrong. The American artist, Susan K Boyle, was living her quiet, unassuming life in the pretty hill country of Kerrville, Texas, when a friend sent her an email.
"It was a link to Susan Boyle's YouTube performance a few days after her audition," recalls Susan K. "I thought she was wonderful - what a beautiful voice and what a compelling story. But I thought it was just an interesting coincidence, nothing more."
Except that back in 2002, Susan K Boyle had set up a website, susanboyle.com, to display her artworks. That site had been rusting in cyberspace for a couple of years - until the Britain's Got Talent finalist sudenly came to the global consciousness last month, and something rather strange happened. "A journalist called me and said, 'Do you know your site is getting 1,800 hits per hour?' I had no idea - I hadn't upgraded the site for a couple of years." Yesterday, she calculated the cumulative total of hits to be more than 172,000.
Susan K's website shows her figurative line drawings and head studies in oil. Like her namesake, she has got talent, though not the sort to irrigate Simon Cowell or Amanda Holden's tear ducts.
And then the madness, as it does in such cases, began in earnest. "A couple of Susan Boyle fans emailed me to say they thought I sang beautifully. Another thought I sang beautifully and liked my artwork! Among the emails were inquiries for price quotes on a couple of my art pieces. However, I have had no sales as a result of this. Yet."
So is Susan K expecting a surge of sales as a result of the sudden celebrity of an unglamorous though sweet-voiced woman who lives on the other side of the Atlantic? "That would be too weird, wouldn't it?"
Next, she started getting calls and emails from people wanting to buy her website's domain name. "One guy, within a minute, had increased his offer from $100 to $500,000. I'm not sure how serious he was, but that sort of thing is very strange to happen to someone like me." She consulted a company called Sedo that sells domain names and, following their advice, has now put her web address up for sale for a cool $25,000. She hasn't sold it. Yet. (She has moved her artwork display, though, to sboyleart.com).
Surely she'll be rooting for her namesake to win tomorrow night's final? "I haven't heard the other finalists, so I can't say." Admirably diplomatic - but Susan K now has a pecuniary interest in the other Susan's success. According to Sedo's director of business development, Nora Nanayakkara: "The value of the domain name really depends on the sustainability of Susan Boyle's popularity."
I ask if Susan K's life story is as heart-rending as her namesake's. "I don't know much about her biography," she replies. I'm thinking of the fact that the 46-year-old singer from West Lothian claimed - apparently as a joke - never to have been kissed, at least until Piers Morgan made her life story even more harrowing by kissing her backstage last week. "Oh, I've been kissed," Susan K replies finally.
The 64-year-old from Kerrville is an art major who has drawn and painted throughout her life, while working mostly in the airline industry. "I was a stewardess, as they were called in the 60s, for PanAm. I left just before Lockerbie [the PanAm crash in 1988]."
In addition to Susan K's new website, her work can be seen in a show called Turning Point at the Hill Country Arts Foundation in Ingram, Texas, from 6 June. She is understandably eager for the media circus (ie me calling her at the prearranged time of 7.30am from London) to move on, so she can walk her "lovely old dog" and then get back to her art.
After the interview, she sends me a disarming email: "Please be kind to me in your article. Another outfit in the UK wrote about me yesterday and made me sound stupid AND greedy - and they hadn't even spoken with me!! Egads!"
For the record, Susan K Boyle is neither of those things (and I'm always a sucker for a woman who exclaims "egads"). She is, like her namesake, a breath of fresh air. The last thing the "other" Susan Boyle says sounds sweet coming down the line to this celeb-crazy nation. "I am an artist and am happiest in my studio working on my art. I don't deserve, or want, fame".
guardian.co.uk ? Guardian News & Media Limited 2009 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds
The other Susan Boyle
[Source: Good Times Society - by The American Illuminati]
The other Susan Boyle
[Source: News Argus]
The other Susan Boyle
[Source: Television News]
The other Susan Boyle
[Source: Daily News]
The other Susan Boyle
[Source: Wb News]
posted by tgazw @ 5:23 PM,
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FNC: Justice Dept Drops Voter Intimidation Charges Vs. Black Panthers
PrintEmailPDF On Friday's Special Report with Bret Baier, FNC host Baier informed viewers that the Justice Department had dropped charges against New Black Panther members who engaged in blatant voter intimidation in Philadelphia last November. As previously documented by Newsbuster Noel Sheppard, last November Fox News ran a report by Rick Leventhal detailing the activity which was ignored by the mainstream media. On Friday's Special Report, Baier quoted a former 1960s civil rights lawyer: "The most blatant form of voter intimidation. They were positioned in a location that forced every voter to pass in close proximity to them. The weapon was openly displayed and brandished in plain sight of voters."
Below is a transcript of the report from the Friday, May 29, Special Report with Bret Baier on FNC, which aired during the show's "Political Grapevine" segment:
BRET BAIER: A lawsuit brought by the Bush administrationNew Black Panther Party has been dropped by the Obama Justice Department. The move comes despite an eye witness account of a You Tube video of the men seemingly attempting to scare away would-be voters on Election Day, an apparent violation of the 1965 Voting Rights Act. The civil complaint accused the men of coercion, making threats, intimidation, and hurling racial slurs while at a Philadelphia polling station on November 4. Prosecutors say one of the men brandished a night stick, which they called a deadly weapon.
A former 1960's civil rights lawyer said in an affidavit that it was, quote, "The most blatant form of voter intimidation. They were positioned in a location that forced every voter to pass in close proximity to them. The weapon was openly displayed and brandished in plain sight of voters." A Justice Department spokesman said officials obtained "an injunction that prohibits the defendant, who brandished the weapon, from doing so again. Claims were dismissed from the other defendants based on a careful assessment of the facts and the law."
FNC: Justice Dept Drops Voter Intimidation Charges Vs. Black Panthers
[Source: Good Times Society - by The American Illuminati]
FNC: Justice Dept Drops Voter Intimidation Charges Vs. Black Panthers
[Source: Home News]
FNC: Justice Dept Drops Voter Intimidation Charges Vs. Black Panthers
[Source: 11 Alive News]
FNC: Justice Dept Drops Voter Intimidation Charges Vs. Black Panthers
[Source: News Argus]
FNC: Justice Dept Drops Voter Intimidation Charges Vs. Black Panthers
[Source: Channels News]
posted by tgazw @ 2:12 PM,
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Setting The Stage For Cairo
PrintEmailPDF Obama has had something of a media coup in the Middle Eastern press, especially Iran:
A headline from state-run Iran Daily declares, "Obama to Get Mideast Talks Back on Track," while, according to
Saudi English-language outlet Arab News, Obama's trip "evokes hope
for the future" in Saudis. A sub-head in Pakistani newspaper Dawn declares that Obama looks to revive peace talks "while a US confrontation steadily builds with Israel." Both Iran Daily and the Iranian Islamic Republic News Agency ran stories on Obama's discussions of Iranian nuclear-energy ambitions--both of them posing Obama favorably.
Hezbollah-run Al-Manar TV highlighted Israeli criticism of Obama and played up
the souring of relations under Bush. Obama has the chance "be marked as
an ally of Muslims, not an adversary as his predecessor was cast," according to an editorial in Qatari English-language daily The Peninsula. The English-language Yemen Post reported
that Obama's trip has "kindled hope," though Muslims want to see
tangible policy changes. In an op-ed in The Jordan Times, former
Jordanian Minister of Culture Faisal Al Rfouh writes Obama's visit "could hold the key" to the basic issues of Israeli/Palestinian peace and Iran's nuclear ambitions.
Know hope.
Setting The Stage For Cairo
[Source: Good Times Society - by The American Illuminati]
Setting The Stage For Cairo
[Source: Television News]
Setting The Stage For Cairo
[Source: Mexico News]
Setting The Stage For Cairo
[Source: Abc 7 News]
Setting The Stage For Cairo
[Source: International News]
Setting The Stage For Cairo
[Source: Weather News]
posted by tgazw @ 2:05 PM,
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