Mood:
d'ohTopic: Lib Loser Stories
Scoop on Coop: His ratings droop Journo's never drawn auds in like predecessor
By Michael Learmonth
The Anderson Cooper media bandwagon continues to defy logic, and ratings gravity.
It's been nearly a year since Cooper was anointed CNN's youthful savior and given Aaron Brown's primo 10 p.m. timeslot.
Since then, he's been TV news' media darling, most recently gracing the cover of June's Vanity Fair.
But Cooper's stellar media masks an inconvenient truth: He's never achieved the ratings of even his predecessor.
CNN sacked Brown believing Cooper could draw a bigger, younger aud at 10 p.m. But that hasn't happened. And the VF cover hit just as April ratings showed Coop down 36% in the 25-54 demo, the younger aud he was supposed to attract.
Brown averaged 307,000 young viewers a night last year. This April, Cooper averaged 198,000. In total viewers, Cooper averaged 710,000 compared to 907,000 for Brown last year
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Variety.com ~ Michael Learmonth ** Scoop on Coop: His ratings droop
Posted by yaahoo_2006iest
at 3:27 AM EDT
Updated: Monday, 8 May 2006 3:31 AM EDT
Calvin Reddick, left, pumps gas into his car on May 1, 2006 in Honolulu. Gov. Linda Lingle says she sees no plausible situation in which she would ever use her power to bring back the state's cap on wholesale gasoline prices, which are set to become history as early as this weekend. >>>>>
Hawaii Gas Cap Running on Fumes
HONOLULU -- Gas prices keep going up everywhere, and Hawaii's unique attempt to control them is running on fumes.
The isolated island state whose drivers consistently pay the highest pump prices in the nation has given up on its government-regulated price controls after an eight-month experiment.
With the average price for regular in Hawaii rising above $3.38 per gallon Friday, lawmakers have sent to Gov. Linda Lingle a law to suspend the cap that sought to keep the oil companies in check and give a fair price to customers.
Bad timing with rising oil prices, outrage among island motorists, industry lobbying and public pressure in an election year combined to scuttle the nation's only state attempt to cap the cost of fuel.
"In a lot of people's minds, they thought the gas cap wasn't working," said Sen. Paul Whalen, a strong supporter of the law. "It was hard to generate lots of support for it because ... we're paying more than we ever were before."
Hawaii first imposed weekly limits on wholesale gas prices Sept. 1 based on the average of prices in Los Angeles, New York and the Gulf Coast. Then allowances were added for what it costs wholesalers to ship to Hawaii and distribute gas to more remote islands.
Price caps differed for each island. There was no cap on the markup added by gas stations.
Some opponents argued that the state's limit on gas prices actually helped the oil companies boost profits because they knew they could charge up to the maximum allowed.
Another problem was that it was hard to tell whether the law did any good.
"It's ridiculous. Prices jumped up 20 cents in the last couple of days," said Calvin Reddick, who paid $15 for just over four gallons of gas for his Volkswagon Beetle. "Usually when you have a cap, it's supposed to freeze prices off. Obviously, their idea of a cap is different from mine."
Because the oil refiners keep their profit margins and costs private, it was difficult for even experts to determine whether residents were paying more or less than they would without the gas cap
.
One study by an economics professor showed the gas cap cost consumers 5 cents more per gallon.
An analysis by the state Department of Business, Economic Development and Tourism estimated that island motorists paid $54.9 million more than they otherwise would have in the first five months under the cap.
But research by cap supporter Rep. Marcus Oshiro indicated the limits saved drivers $33 million.
"It was a failure, and other experts that have looked at it have said the same thing," said Anita Mangels, a spokeswoman for the Western States Petroleum Association, which represents ChevronTexaco and Shell Oil. "It was well-intended, but apparently according to the state's own agency has not served consumers well."
With customer unrest mounting and aggressive oil company lobbying, lawmakers felt they had to do something before the November election and before prices went up further
.
Rather than forcing down gas prices with a lower price ceiling, the state's mostly Democratic Legislature suspended the cap and gave Republican Gov. Linda Lingle, who had opposed any regulation of gas prices, the power to bring it back if she decides fuel has gotten too expensive
.
That way, legislators passed on responsibility for any price control to the governor.
"Going into an election year, they weren't willing to support gas pricing regulations, given the concerns of many people in the public, and I think the oil companies did a good job of blaming the pricing regulations for the high prices," said Sen. Ron Menor, chief advocate of the gas cap.
At the same time, the law provides for computation of a hypothetical gas cap using a new formula expected to be about 16 cents a gallon lower than the current one. The revised calculation will include prices from low-cost Singapore, and it will disqualify the highest-priced market from the average of the four regions.
"It will remain as a flashing sign that will remind Hawaii's consumers what the price would have been under the gas cap," said Scott Foster, a spokesman for Hawaii Advocates for Consumer Rights. "The more information we get, the more we can understand about how the industry has been gouging us."
Other parts of the law lifting the controls require the oil companies to make their wholesale pricing information public so that customers could compare pump prices with actual costs. Currently, that information is kept confidential by the companies.
"We understand that people desire to know what the situation is," said Albert Chee, a spokesman for Chevron. "No one can claim exactly what the effect has been. I don't know if following of mainland prices has better served our customers."
Even though the gas cap has been suspended, it isn't going away.
Lawmakers said it has inspired interest from other states that want to try to hold down soaring gas prices.
"We're going to be talking about gas prices for a long time. The president is looking into it, Congress is looking into it," said Sen. Will Espero, a steady backer of regulating the oil industry. "This issue is a complicated and complex matter that doesn't have an easy, simple solution."
On the Net: 
cheeky
Surge in Tax Revenue Cuts Federal-Deficit Projections
WASHINGTON -- A surge in federal tax revenue, mainly in payments from rich Americans, is driving down government and private-sector projections of this year's federal deficit to as low as $300 billion, well below current forecasts that are near or over $400 billion.
The Congressional Budget Office "now expects that the 2006 deficit will be significantly less than $350 billion, perhaps as low as $300 billion," it said yesterday in a monthly budget report that reflected April's tax-time receipts. The CBO previously projected a deficit for this fiscal year, which ends Sept. 30, of $371 billion. The Bush administration's Office of Management and Budget, which had forecast a $423 billion shortfall, also will be reducing its estimate, government analysts say.
The fiscal revisions, reflecting the economy's higher-than-expected growth, suggest a 2006 deficit coming in closer to last year's $318 billion, or even below it. That would be good news for President Bush and the Republican-led Congress. Preliminary reports of lower deficit numbers were being hailed in emails among Capitol Hill offices. But the brighter short-term outlook doesn't change long-run forecasts of unsustainable deficits as more Americans age and draw Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security benefits.
In its annual long-term outlook in January, the CBO wrote that spending for those programs "will exert pressures on the budget that economic growth alone is unlikely to alleviate. A substantial reduction in the growth of spending and perhaps a sizable increase in taxes as a share of the economy will be necessary for fiscal stability to be at all likely in the coming decades."
The data indicate the gains from a strong economy are going largely to those at the top of the income scale. The revenue growth stems from nonwithheld taxes -- not federal taxes automatically withheld from most workers' paychecks. Nonwithheld tax payments mostly come from wealthy taxpayers with income from stocks, bonuses and other sources from which federal taxes aren't immediately withheld.
Private-sector analysts, tracking the same monthly Treasury tax-collection data as government analysts, have been making similar revisions. J.P. Morgan Chase Bank, in an economic update yesterday, reduced its deficit forecast to $325 billion from $370 billion. It also cited a surge in nonwithheld tax payments with the April 15 income-tax filing deadline.
"Much of the revision appears to be concentrated in income from the exercise of stock options," J.P. Morgan analyst Robert Mellman wrote in an investors note. He said a similar but smaller surge occurred a year ago at tax-filing time in April.
silly
When she hits the presidential campaign trail next year, 2008 White House hopeful Hillary Clinton is planning to sell herself to the nation as a common sense, iron-willed, family values candidate.
So says Newsweek's Howard Fineman, who says he uncovered the daring strategy during a recent conversation with longtime Clinton advisor James Carville.
He writes: "As Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton looks for a basic sales pitch after what is likely to be a sweeping reelection victory in her New York Senate race this fall, she's going to play a part that comes naturally to her: hard-eyed realist in a world of dreamers ...
"She's the one who kept her family together - its finances, its marriage, most of its parenting function," Fineman notes - credentials that he says will be key to Hillary's appeal.
Of Hillary's image as wife and mother, the Newsweek scribe reports: "That is the role she will cast herself in as she tries to win the White House."
"After eight years of what she will call the perhaps worthy but disastrously administered dreams of George Bush, it's time to restore some discipline," says Fineman, adding:
"Think of the iron-willed mom in 'Malcolm in the Middle.'"
spacey
Biden, Matthews Yuck It Up
BEGIN TRANSCRIPT
BIDEN: I don't want to be that sucker in prison. I don't want to be that guy in an American prison. If you want to say how to punish somebody, put Zarqawi [sic] in a prison with a bunch of red-blooded American criminals. Criminals. Put him in there for live -- and guarantee under no circumstances, no circumstances, could he get out of prison. I think that boy is about to have, as we Catholics say, an epiphany. I think he's about to find out (laughing) that he may not have gotten the better end of the deal.
MATTHEWS: Do you think he'll survive for long in prison, senator?
BIDEN: I think it's not going to be an easy road for him.
RUSH: Did I just hear what I think I heard? Did I just hear Joe Biden and Matthews yucking it up over the fact that "Zarqawi" is going to be tortured in jail? Did I just hear that? I think I just heard that, folks. I think we all just heard that together. (interruption) Well, he's talking about Moussaoui, I know. He doesn't know who it is. It doesn't matter. We all know who he's talking about. He's talking about Moussaoui. Okay, I don't care if he's going to be lockdown 23 hours. I don't care about any of that? These guys are hoping. This comment, when the sensitive and caring and proper and understanding Joe Biden, liberal Democrat says, "He may not have gotten the better end of the deal," you can't fool me. I know exactly what he's talking about. It's the old bend-over-forward-and-grab-the-ankles-in-prison time.
That's what he means by that -- and they're yucking it up over this guy being tortured in prison! I thought torture was bad. What's going to happen when Al-Qaeda learns that we're torturing him, senator? And we know damn well the ACLU is going to find out about it, and the word will get out, and so all of the good vibes that we are feeling because we think, "We've shown the world how fair and just our system is," they're going to blow it to smithereens because this guy is going to go in there and "get the wrong end of the deal." He's going to get tortured. He may be in lockup 23 hours a day, but he's out for one,
and in that one, if he gets tortured -- and they're hoping for it -- we're going to blow all this goodwill, senator. I am stunned. I couldn't believe I was hearing what I was hearing when I heard it. But I did hear it. I heard it, and I was right. One more from Kristen Breitweiser. This pretty much sums it up. Matthews asked her, "Do you have a comment on what you've just been listening to, Kristen?"
BREITWEISER: I would appreciate someone asking either Senator Biden or former Mayor Giuliani if their standard for death is withholding information from the FBI that could have prevented the 9/11 attacks, how would you explain George Tenet who withheld information about two of the 9/11 hijackers for 18 months from the FBI -- information that certainly would have gone a long way, uh, into preventing this attack --
RUSH: Alright.
BREITWEISER: -- and I'd like to know where are we drawing the line here?
RUSH: Yeah. Mmm-hmm. Mmm-hmm.
BREITWEISER: What is the threshold, and why are we not holding those types of people in our government accountable?
RUSH: Well, let me tell you who those people are. Ever hear of the name 
chillin'
Lesbians have less
distress with PMS
SYDNEY -- Most women have physical and psychological changes in the premenstrual phase of the cycle, but only some experience distress, an Australian researcher says.
Drawing on in-depth interviews with 36 British and 64 Australian women, Jane M. Ussher, director of the Gender Culture and Health Research at the University of Western Sydney, argues that women's experience of distress or anger premenstrually is connected to the self-policing practices which women are expected to engage in order to fulfill their role as a "good" wife or mother.
Premenstrually, when many women feel more vulnerable, and their repressed frustration or anger comes to the fore, their self-control is ruptured, and they can lash out, or want to withdraw from the caring role, often followed by increased self-surveillance, leading to guilt, shame and blaming of the body, according to Ussher.
She says women in lesbian relationships were found to report less distress associated with premenstrual changes, greater acceptance on the part of their partner, and less self-policing.
Ussher concludes that the identification of self-policing is of particular concern for heterosexual women.
Ussher is presenting her findings at an international conference for psychologists held at the University of Leicester.
chatty
Donald Hitchcock (left) was fired May 2 as the Democratic Party's gay outreach adviser. His partner, Paul Yandura, said the move was in retaliation for a letter Yandura wrote accusing DNC Chair Howard Dean of failing to take adequate steps to defend gay rights. >>>>>
Dean fires Dems' gay outreach chief
Shakeup follows criticism by partner; Bond named replacement
Democratic Party Chair Howard Dean fired the party's gay outreach adviser Donald Hitchcock on May 2 less than a week after Hitchcock's domestic partner, Paul Yandura, a longtime party activist, 
former Democratic Party operative Brian Bond to replace Hitchcock as executive director of the party's Gay Lesbian Leadership Council, according to DNC spokesperson Karen Finney, who called Bond a "proven leader."
Bond served from 1997 to 2003 as executive director of the Gay & Lesbian Victory Fund, a bipartisan national group that raises money and provides training to help elect openly gay candidates to public office.
"It was not retaliation," Finney said of Hitchcock's dismissal. "It was decided we needed a change. We decided to hire a proven leader."
Hitchcock confirmed that Dean informed him May 2 through a surrogate that he had been terminated. He said he was considering consulting an attorney to decide whether to contest the firing.
"This is retaliation, plain and simple," said Yandura. "This shows what they think about domestic partners."
Yandura said Dean was using Hitchcock as a "scapegoat" for problems of Dean's own making.
"All I did was ask questions about what the party and Dean are doing about its GLBT constituency," Yandura said. "I have yet to see any answers."
Hitchcock's dismissal came after Yandura created a stir among party activists, both gay and straight, by sending an open letter on April 20 to gay Democrats criticizing Dean and the party for not getting involved in state ballot measures seeking to ban gay marriage.
Yandura charged that the DNC failed to counter efforts by Republicans to promote the anti-gay ballot measures as a wedge issue to win elections. He suggested that gays withhold donations to the Democrats until the party formally addresses issues he raised.
Finney said Dean and party leaders were developing plans to address efforts by Republicans to push for constitutional amendments banning same-sex marriage. She said Dean and DNC high-level staffers met last week with officials from national gay rights groups to discuss strategy for opposing the ballot measures.
Longtime party activists
Bond 'snatched away'
"This was not necessarily Donald's fault," said this source. "He never received the confidence of Dean and high-level DNC officials that someone like Bond is certain to receive," the source said.
Hitchcock disputes this assessment. "I never had any bad performance review or anyone telling me I was not doing a good job," he said.
He said DNC officials Tom McMahon and Leah Daughtry said at the time they informed him of his dismissal on May 2 that the decision to let him go "was not in the works for several weeks" but had been made within the past few days.
Hitchcock said the firing came after McMahon and Daughtry asked him to resign and he refused.
More clout in DNC?
Andy Tobias, the DNC treasurer, considered the party's highest ranking openly gay official, said he was sorry to see Hitchcock leave his post at the DNC, but declined to comment on whether his departure was a form of retaliation by Dean.
"Donald is terrific," Tobias said. "I will miss working with him, and I'm really sorry this didn't work out," he said. "Brian is also terrific, and I think he'll bring our community even more clout within the DNC, which we deserve. Now, let's go out and win some elections."
Tobias said he respects and admires Yandura's work for the party in the past and understands his frustration over the Republicans' use of anti-gay ballot initiatives as a device to win elections.
"Paul is terrific, but I deeply disagree with his approach," Tobias said. "Paul and I have talked several times, and I let him know we are eager to receive all suggestions that will enhance the dignity and rights of the GLBT community, and at the same time enhance our chances of winning the elections or at least not diminish the chances."
According to Tobias, Yandura has responded to his inquires by repeatedly saying the party has to figure out on its own how to respond to the anti-gay ballot measures.
"It's not so easy to come up with these answers. But we are all ears," Tobias said. "We welcome anything he or others can suggest."
Dean's latest gay headache
.
Dean said the new system would be an improvement over the previous system, and that the party would expand its gay outreach efforts.
But some gay Democrats were 
.
DNC officials insisted then that the six-page grassroots report issued by Dean was intended to be a brief, preliminary account of Dean's plan to rebuild the party by strengthening its field operation in all 50 states.
Then, six weeks ago, gay rights leaders met with eight prominent Democratic senators to 
KENNEDY CAR CRASH COVER-UP?
Police labor union officials asked acting Chief Christopher McGaffin this afternoon to allow a Capitol Police officer to complete his investigation into an early-morning car crash involving Rep. Patrick Kennedy (D-R.I.), son of Sen. Ted Kennedy.
ROLL CALL reports: According to a letter sent by Officer Greg Baird, acting chairman of the USCP FOP, the wreck took place at approximately 2:45 a.m. Thursday when Kennedy's car, operating with its running lights turned off, narrowly missed colliding with a Capitol Police cruiser and smashed into a security barricade at First and C streets Southeast.
"The driver exited the vehicle and he was observed to be staggering," Baird's letter states. Officers approached the driver, who "declared to them he was a Congressman and was late to a vote. The House had adjourned nearly three hours before this incident. It was Congressman Patrick J. Kennedy from Rhode Island."
Baird wrote that Capitol Police Patrol Division units, who are trained in driving under the influence cases, were not allowed to perform basic field sobriety tests on the Congressman. Instead, two sergeants, who also responded to the accident, proceeded to confer with the Capitol Police watch commander on duty and then "ordered all of the Patrol Division Units to leave the scene and that they were taking over."
A source tells the DRUDGE REPORT: "It was apparent that the driver was intoxicated (stumbling) and claimed he was in a hurry to make a vote.
"When it became apparent who it was, instead of processing a normal DWI, the watch commander had the Patrol units clear the scene. The commander allowed other building officials drive Kennedy home."
This morning's incident comes just over two weeks after Kennedy was involved in a car accident in Rhode Island.
"I was involved in a traffic accident last night at First and C Street SE near the U.S. Capitol," 
"I consumed no alcohol prior to the incident. I will fully cooperate with the Capitol Police in whatever investigation they choose to undertake."
Kennedy said he returned to his Capitol Hill home on Wednesday evening after a final series of votes in Congress and took "prescribed" amounts of Phenergan and Ambien, another prescribed drug that he occasionally takes to fall asleep.
"Some time around 2:45 a.m., I drove the few blocks to the Capitol Complex believing I needed to vote," his second statement said. "Apparently, I was disoriented from the medication."
Kennedy appeared to be intoxicated when he crashed his Ford Mustang into a barrier on Capitol Hill early Thursday morning, said Louis P. Cannon, president of the Washington chapter of the Fraternal Order of Police.
bright
Ozone layer shows signs of recovery: scientists
LONDON - The ozone layer is showing signs of recovering, thanks to a drop in ozone-depleting chemicals, but it is unlikely to stabilize at pre-1980 levels, researchers said on Wednesday.
Depletion of the earth's protective ozone layer is caused by the chemical action of chlorine and bromine released by man-made chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs), which are used in aerosol sprays and cooling equipment.
Ozone-depleting chemicals were banned by the 1987 Montreal Protocol which has now been ratified by 180 nations.
"We now have some confidence that the ozone layer is responding to the decreases in chlorine levels in the atmosphere due to the leveling off and decrease of CFCs," said Dr Betsy Weatherhead, of the University of Colorado in Boulder.
"Not only is the ozone layer getting better, we feel it is due to the Montreal Protocol," she added in an interview.
The depletion of the ozone layer, which absorbs most of the harmful effects of the sun's ultraviolet radiation, increases the risk of skin cancer and cataracts in humans and may harm crop yields and sea life.
Despite the signs of recovery, Weatherhead, who reported the findings in the journal Nature, said people should still protect themselves from harmful ultraviolet rays.
Weatherhead and Signe Bech Anderson of the Danish Meteorological Institute in Copenhagen analyzed data from satellites and ground stations and information from 14 modeling studies.
They found that ozone levels have stabilized or increased slightly in the past 10 years. But full recovery is still decades away.
The researchers said depletion has been most severe at the poles and to a lesser extent at mid-latitudes covering bands of North America, South America and Europe.
Shifting temperatures, greenhouse gases, nitrous oxide (N20) and atmospheric dynamics, which can influence ozone levels, are going to change in the future, they added.
"Therefore we really don't think ozone is going to stabilize back to its pre-ozone-depleting-substance levels," Weatherhead said.
Volcanic activity on Earth also has an impact. The 1993 Mount Pinatubo eruption in the Philippines caused ozone levels to backslide for several years, according to the researchers.
But then there's DeVos, the husband of the ex-state GOP chairwoman, who looks assured of having no opponent in the GOP primary. And he has plenty of punch to fire things up: He has personal financial resources to commit to his campaign and has been tirelessly stumping the state with what he hopes is a winning message.
It seems to be working. A new statewide poll shows that DeVos has now pulled even with Gov. Granholm, with each garnering 43 percent support among likely voters.
The poll also found that two-thirds of respondents believe the state is headed in the wrong direction.
The gubernatorial election is set for Nov. 7.
At the heart of that flagging economy is Michigan's 6.7 percent unemployment rate - nearly 2 percentage points above the national rate of 4.9 percent.
Granholm, who argues that nixing the business tax would blow a huge hole in the state's budget and just further strap the rank-and-file taxpayer, points to how her administration has been, in its own way, business-friendly - reducing, for instance, the red tape businesses face when seeking permits from the state.
She also has been emphasizing empirical results: Small firms growing by 2,400 in 2004; seven companies opening new headquarters in the state last year; and Toyota Motor Corporation's plans to invest $150 million in a new state-of-the-art research and development facility in York Township, generating more than 670 new jobs for Michigan.
However, DeVos, a former president of Alticor Inc. - the parent company of Amway Corp. - and the scion of one of Michigan's wealthiest families, keeps focused on what he describes as the very grim bigger and longer-range picture: "Our economy is in decline. Families are struggling. Jobs are leaving. And yet the rest of the nation continues to prosper," he intones as his campaign's signature mantra
Along with banishing the single business tax, he has been publicly mulling the trimming of Medicaid, the health plan that has become a black hole in the state's strained finances. Medicaid costs Michigan $7.5 billion in state and federal funds. Of that, $2.1 billion comes directly from Michigan taxpayers.
DeVos favors what Missouri has done to save its Medicaid program from implosion - eliminating the program for some 100,000 people to save an estimated $310 million in the current fiscal year.
The trimming back has been anything but painless and bloodless in the Missouri test case. These were some of the cuts: feeding tubes, walkers, crutches, prosthetics and physical therapy. Health-care premiums for low-income families were hiked up and Medicaid for disabled people who work part-time was discontinued.
For her part, Gov. Granholm has thus far insulated Medicaid from any deep cuts - continuing even some benefits that aren't mandated by the federal government.
With the battle lines drawn, pundits are suggesting that Granholm and an entourage of Democratic support groups will burn through about $30 million during the campaign.
DeVos has pledged to be competitive with that treasure chest. "I'm just going to try and keep up."
Having eschewed any PAC contributions, DeVos and company say they are looking for smaller gifts from "thousands of individuals."
Despite the big end-game figures, fund-raising as thus far been relatively modest - with the DeVos campaign reporting that they raised $1.84 million last year.
Meanwhile, the Granholm campaign raised $4.96 million in 2005 and kicked off 2006 with nearly $5.13 million in ready cash.
DeVos has declined so far to reveal how much of his personal fortune he stands ready to expend on the campaign. His campaign trail rhetoric, however, suggests that he'll do whatever it takes: "I know that Michigan is desperate for leadership, and I know how to turn this ship around. I'll never give up on Michigan, and I'm flat out going to get it done!"
Granholm has not been heavy with the political polemics, instead reminding the electorate how Michigan's public schools in 2005 received record funding at levels promised by the previous administration.
The tenacious DeVos, however, is always ready with a return jab.
In a recent speech, he noted: "We continue to lag in education achievement, even though we rank near the top in money spent on education. Two-thirds of the class of 2005 failed to meet state standards in social studies. Almost half failed to meet state standards in math. Over 40 percent failed to meet state standards in science."
There are, of course, other distressed states in the union.
Whatever the final result, the volatile gubernatorial contest in Michigan may serve as a template for other important contests around the country where politicians frantically search for the perfect message to capture the fickle hearts and minds of the American electorate