newsobserver.com | Fire hits mill used by Edwards to launch campaign

Fuhgeddaboudit.

ROBBINS - Firefighters from five counties responded to a fire at an abandoned textile plant in Moore County that John Edwards used as a backdrop to announce his first presidential bid in 2003.

The Associated Press: King penguin receives Norwegian knighthood

FSCK!

LONDON (AP) — Nils Olav already has medals for good conduct and long service. He made honorary colonel-in-chief of the elite Norwegian King’s Guard in 2005. And on Friday he was knighted. Not bad for a 3-foot tall penguin — actually, three of them.

A resident of Edinburgh Zoo in Scotland, the original Nils Olav was made an honorary member of the King’s Guard in 1972 after being picked out as the guard’s mascot by lieutenant Nils Egelien. The guards adopted him because they often toured the zoo during their visits to the Edinburgh Military Tattoo, an annual military music festival, according to zoo spokeswoman Maxine Finlay.

The king penguin was named after Egelien and Norway’s then-King Olav V. When the penguin died — Finlay said no one at the zoo knew exactly when — he was replaced by a second penguin, who inherited Nils Olav’s name and rank.

The current Nils Olav, the third penguin to serve as the guards’ mascot, was promoted from honorable regimental sergeant major to honorary colonel-in-chief in 2005, Finlay said.

The knighthood ceremony began Friday morning with speeches and a fanfare before Nils arrived, under escort with the King’s Guard Color Detachment. Nils then reviewed the troops lined up outside the penguin enclosure at the zoo, waddling down the row of uniformed soldiers, occasionally stopping to crane his neck and peer inquisitively at their crisp uniforms before being guided forward by his handler.

Nils was then knighted by British Maj. Gen. Euan Loudon on behalf of Norway’s King Harald V. Loudon dropped the king’s sword on both sides of Nils’s black-and-white frame, and the penguin’s colonel-in-chief badge, tied to his flipper, was swapped for one symbolizing his knighthood.

“He’ll be a “sir” now,” Finlay said.

Nepal seeks new child goddess: must have voice like a duck - Times Online

If you are female, possess “the voice of a duck” and are between 2 and 4 years old, it could be just the job for you - Nepal is advertising for a new living goddess.

Despite being revered as a powerful Hindu divinity, the Himalayan state’s Royal Kumari has no option but to step down once she reaches puberty. Because Preeti Shakya, the current holder of the centuries-old role, has reached her 11th birthday, the race is on to find a replacement before the end of the summer.

Preeti, who has been visited by a ceaseless throng of pilgrims since she became a goddess at the age of 4, should retire during the annual Hindu festival of Dasain in October, according to temple officials in Kathmandu.

“If we don’t change her now we’ll have to wait until next year, which could be late,” said Deepak Bahadur Pandey, of the Trust Corporation, which oversees the Kumari search. “It is inauspicious if the girl starts menstruating while serving as Kumari.”

The job criteria are rigorous: Kumaris, who are typically selected as toddlers, must have a voice “as soft and clear as a duck’s”, “the body of a Banyan tree” and “the chest of a lion”. The 32 prerequisite physical “perfections” also include flawless skin, hair, eyes and teeth. A suitable horoscope is mandatory and being afraid of the dark is not allowed.

[more at link]

[Upper Arlington is an upscale suburb of Columbus.]

The Columbus Dispatch : Orphan must pay to stay in UA schools

Upper Arlington’s superintendent has stood by his decision not to let Meagan Haught stay in the school district, but the teen and her guardians haven’t given up.

Meagan, who will be 14 next Friday, will be a freshman this fall. She moved out of Upper Arlington after her mother and father died five weeks apart early this year, but she was allowed to finish the year at Hastings Middle School.

She lives in Columbus with her aunt and uncle, Stan Haught and Mona Cook-Haught, who are her legal guardians. Their home is in Centennial High School’s attendance area.

Meagan also lost her grandfather in 2007 and an uncle on Christmas Day 2006, so the Haughts are concerned that leaving Upper Arlington schools would be one change too many to ask of their niece.

She had moved to central Ohio with her mother and sister in 2005 from Baton Rouge, La., a week after storms from Hurricane Katrina destroyed her mother’s business. They were reunited with Meagan’s father, who had separated from her mother 18 months earlier.

Cook-Haught said they had shown Superintendent Jeff Weaver a letter Tuesday from Meagan’s therapist that recommended she stay with her friends in the Upper Arlington district.

In a letter the family received yesterday, Weaver emphasized his duty to taxpayers. Although district policy states an exemption can be used “to protect the student’s physical or mental well-being or to deal with other extenuating circumstances deemed appropriate by the superintendents,” it has been used only for seniors, Weaver wrote.

No students from outside the district are enrolled in Upper Arlington, he has said.

Weaver wrote that Meagan could continue in the district if her family moved there; if she moved in with a guardian who lived in the district; or if the family paid tuition.

Tuition is $12,727.72 a year, said Paul Craft, a district administrator, and is set by the state.

Open Questions on a Closed Case - Op-Ed - NYTimes.com

… The investigators fail to address another underlying problem with their anthrax match: that Dr. Ivins was an investigator in the case before he was a suspect. After the anthrax attack, Dr. Ivins himself worked directly with the evidence. The F.B.I. asked Dr. Ivins to help them with the forensics in the case by analyzing the contents of suspicious letters. And he did so for years, until the authorities began to suspect that the anthrax spores used in the mailings might have originated from his lab.

Dr. Ivins, for instance, was asked to analyze the anthrax envelope that was sent to Mr. Daschle’s office on Oct. 9, 2001. When his team analyzed the powder, they found it to be a startlingly refined weapons-grade anthrax spore preparation, the likes of which had never been seen before by personnel at Fort Detrick.

It is extremely improbable that this type of preparation could ever have been produced at Fort Detrick, certainly not of the grade and quality found in that envelope.

But even leaving that aside, there are important questions left unanswered. First, isn’t it possible that the manipulation of the contents of the anthrax letters in Dr. Ivins’s laboratory might have contaminated the work environment enough to potentially jeopardize the integrity of subsequent samples taken from the lab? Might that perhaps explain why the anthrax powder used in the attacks was later found to have the same DNA footprint as the other anthrax preparations in Dr. Ivins’s lab? At the very least, wouldn’t this call his guilt into doubt?

It was as if a gun used in a murder was unintentionally returned to the scene of the crime several days after the murder. What are the legal implications of such a possibility? Wouldn’t a court be especially cautious in considering evidence involving a weapon in such circumstances?

Josh Marshall on the bit of the Edwards mess that is actually relevant to the American public:

Talking Points Memo

  … I don’t think I have anything to add to the obvious. Fundamentally, it’s between him and his wife and their family. And I wish them the best.

But this decision on his part involved several overlapping betrayals. And the one that is very much a public matter is his betrayal of his supporters and, really, all Democrats nationwide — one that continued at least until he dropped out in the spring. Edwards made a strong run for the presidency knowing full well that he was carrying on an affair, at least in the early stages of the campaign, which could come to light in the midst of the general election and fatally damage all Democrats’ hopes for regaining the presidency. Just think how fun this weekend would be if John Edwards had won the nomination. Indeed, it seems clear that the aftermath of the affair was such that the chances of its coming to light were substantial. It’s a level of recklessness and selfishness that I probably shouldn’t but still do find shocking.

Clone dog mistress denies she is ’sex in chains’ McKinney | The Register

… For those whose knowledge of news stretches back no further than the launch of Eudora, Joyce McKinney was the former Miss Wyoming who was accused in 1977 of stalking Kirk Anderson, young Mormon Missionary, all the way from Utah to Ewell in Surrey, before kidnapping him and spiriting him away to a cottage in Dorset. There, she allegedly chained him to a bed and forced herself upon him - three times - while wearing a see-through negligee. (Her, not him. He was apparently wearing a Mormon chastity garment, and presumably a pained expression.)

The object of Joyce McKinney’s affections eventually escaped her mink-lined handcuffs. She and an accomplice were charged with kidnapping, but she insisted it was consensual. Joyce escaped the UK using a false passport and disguised as a member of a mime troupe, but not before declaring in court that her love for the mink-restrained Mormon was such that: “I’d ski naked down Mount Everest with a carnation up my nose if he asked me.”

See also the AP story.

The girl in the window - St. Petersburg Times

PLANT CITY — The family had lived in the rundown rental house for almost three years when someone first saw a child’s face in the window.

A little girl, pale, with dark eyes, lifted a dirty blanket above the broken glass and peered out, one neighbor remembered.

Everyone knew a woman lived in the house with her boyfriend and two adult sons. But they had never seen a child there, had never noticed anyone playing in the overgrown yard.

The girl looked young, 5 or 6, and thin. Too thin. Her cheeks seemed sunken; her eyes were lost.

The child stared into the square of sunlight, then slipped away.

A remarkable and haunting story.

Missing votes spark lawsuit Columbus Dispatch Politics

The touch-screen voting setup used in half of Ohio’s 88 counties doesn’t work properly, and the former Diebold Election Systems should pay as a result, Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner said in a court filing yesterday.

The move comes fewer than 90 days before Ohio voters go to the polls in an election that could decide the presidential race, but Brunner says safeguards will be in place by then in the affected counties to mitigate any risks.

“We will make the equipment work, but this is not something that Ohio should be satisfied with for the long term,” Brunner said. “Our goal is to have Ohio taxpayers compensated for this equipment that doesn’t function properly.”

Brunner is seeking punitive damages from Diebold, now Premier Election Solutions, after she said an investigation showed that votes in at least 11 counties were “dropped” in recent elections when memory cards were uploaded to computer servers.

Elections workers discovered the missing votes, but not until many hours later in most cases, Brunner said. The malfunction first was discovered in Butler County in April, she said.

Forty-four counties, including Licking and Fairfield in central Ohio, use Premier touch-screens. Franklin County uses touch-screens from a different manufacturer.

OK, Fairfield County here….

Premier filed a lawsuit against the state and Cuyahoga County in May seeking a ruling that it had satisfied the obligations of its state contract to provide touch-screen voting machines in the county, which replaced the equipment this year.

County officials responded by accusing the company of breach of contract, fraud and negligence, and Brunner filed a counterclaim against the company yesterday in Franklin County Common Pleas Court.

Brunner wants the court to find that Premier made false representations about its equipment and failed to live up to contractual obligations and warranties. Ohio spent millions of dollars in mostly federal funds to upgrade voting systems after problems with punch-card ballots in Florida in the 2000 presidential election.

Premier spokesman Chris Riggall said he hadn’t seen the court filing and couldn’t comment on it specifically.

But he said a conflict was identified involving the company’s software and virus-protection software.

Brilliant. Votes = viruses. Way to go, Ohio.

Win Points for McCain!

Spread John McCain’s official talking points around the Web — and you could win valuable prizes!That, in essence, is the McCain campaign’s pitch to supporters to join its new online effort, one that combines the features of “AstroTurf” campaigning with the sort of customer-loyalty programs offered by airlines, hotel chains, restaurants and the occasional daily newspaper.

On McCain’s Web site, visitors are invited to “Spread the Word” about the presumptive Republican nominee by sending campaign-supplied comments to blogs and Web sites under the visitor’s screen name. The site offers sample comments (”John McCain has a comprehensive economic plan . . .”) and a list of dozens of suggested destinations, conveniently broken down into “conservative,” “liberal,” “moderate” and “other” categories. Just cut and paste.

Activists and political operatives have used volunteers or paid staff to seed radio call-in shows or letters-to-the-editor pages for years, typically without disclosing the caller or letter writer’s connection to a candidate or cause. Like the fake grass for which the practice is named, such AstroTurf messages look as though they come from the grass roots but are ersatz.

McCain’s campaign has taken the same idea and given it an Internet-era twist. It also has taken the concept one step further.

People who sign up for McCain’s program receive reward points each time they place a favorable comment on one of the listed Web sites (subject to verification by McCain’s webmasters). The points can be traded for prizes, such as books autographed by McCain, preferred seating at campaign events, even a ride with the candidate on his bus, known as the Straight Talk Express, according to campaign spokesman Brian Rogers.