excerpt:
Thanks in part to a still common reliance on `rabbit ears,' record numbers of viewers tuned in to the ABC News Democratic Presidential debate this past Wednesday night.

What they witnessed was Barack Obama fumble and Hillary Clinton stretch, under the pressure of trivial irrelevance during the first portion of a live prime time meet up, and the viewing experience left many clearly upset.

What many appeared to be most miffed about was the unusual barrage of seemingly un-important salvos leveled by moderators Charles Gibson and George Stephanopoulos at Senator Barack Obama.

EXCERPT: Politics was flowing from mouths faster than the sweat from brows at New York City's Crunch Gym on Lafayette this past Wednesday as a group of amateur pundits gathered within the downtown house of body worship engaging in more chit and chat than arms on curls.

Background beats from Madonna and Justin Timberlake's "4 Minutes to save the world" kept heads bobbin while the pundits voiced frustration over continued calls by Democrats and media bullhorns to kick "their girl" off the playing field in the race for the White House this season.

As he sat and strained with a tortured look on his face pushing down a tricep machine, one of them began his diatribe.

EXCERPT:::
Each week, countless fans of Bravo Television’s smart reality show, Project Runway, get a kick out of hearing Heidi Klum, in her pronounced German accent say, “you’re out” to the losing contestant of the competition.

But before the final rendering, in the final moments on the program, viewers are treated to a fashion show, this being the moment when competitors parade their gowns, dresses or suits before the judges, often constructed under the most difficult situations.

The contestants represent, as models strut down the runway while Nina Garcia, Heidi and Michael Kors all take notes and then offer sometimes stinging critiques, building the drama for the commercial break, and when viewers return, Klum makes her final analysis and bids auf wiedersehen to one unlucky contestant.

From April 07 Story-
-The Iraqi cabinet approved the hydrocarbon law on Feb. 26 and sent it on to parliament where it now sits. If fully approved, Iraq's oil reserves would be opened to investment from foreign multinational oil companies. The current legislation would also provide oil companies the option for long-term contracts of up to 30 years. The laws would set up Profit Sharing Agreements, or PSAs, where revenue is based on the profit after oil companies' deduct their production costs. Reportedly, the remaining profits would then be divided among the Iraqi provinces.

Critics charge that the law offers excessive and unfair profits to the oil companies. Others worry that since Iraq is now a country experiencing horrific turmoil, the time is not right to debate such important economic legislation.

And, despite dramatic social change over the past few decades and a greater integration into the economic national fold, there are still reasons for southern insecurity that are evidenced through inexcusable and dramatic social ills that should bother the conscience of every American who calls themselves progressive, and there is no place those ills are more evident than Mississippi.

Still, during national elections, the more progressive party, the Democrats, basically write off the South as un-winnable during national elections which in turn, further fuels a sense that parts of this nation have been truly left behind.

EXCERPT:
Further, there's a common mis-perception fueled by the common rhetorical reference in the press and elsewhere to "Florida's decision" to move the state's primary to January.

It was not Florida Democratic `voters' who made that decision, but instead, a Republican Governor and a Republican majority Legislature that passed HB 537 which changed the state's primary date to January 29, ahead of February 5, which we all know now was in violation of national Democratic Party rules.

As a result of this violation, 1.75 million sunshine state voters may not be heard in August. Some are saying if that happens, the issue would move beyond politics and instead become a case of massive voter disenfranchisement.

Naturally, politicians in the heat of campaign are going to engage in slippery talk and a tendency to plant seeds of doubt aimed at potential voters that is often laden with fact challenged or questionable text and messages. But in the end, voters suffer because they are misled into believing messages that simply aren't true. And that's where the news people come in since its there job to expose that sort of material and behavior to readers, viewers and listeners for what it is, misleading.

But, as this campaign season has shown, over the past few weeks, they've done a pretty lame job and have according to those on the Clinton side, appeared almost biased.

Cody Lyon
excerpt:
A Wednesday report from Reuters is saying that Exxon Mobil is "interested in helping to develop Iraq's huge oil reserves. According to the February 6 report, the company declined to comment on whether it has registered yet to compete for contracts there.

The "Reuters" report says that spokesperson Len D'Eramo said in an emailed statement "if the Iraqi government decides it wants international oil companies to partner with them in developing their resources, Exxon Mobil would be interested in participating."

The report said that D'Eramo wrote in the email that Exxon "would pursue profitable business opportunities as they arise in Iraq, just as it would in other countries in which is permitted to operate."

Full Story at OP-ED NEWS
by Cody Lyon (EXCERPT BELOW)
Those sympathetic to local LGBT causes saw the Congressman's comments as further evidence that leadership is lacking where it pertains to the millions of LGBT Americans. Local activists saw Davis' apparent acceptance of this apparent Alabama reality as proof that LGBT citizens are still considered second class citizens when it comes to some of the most basic elements of American life.

Davis' advice to the Alabama LGBT community seemed to say that Washington did not have a say, that in the heart of Dixie, that Preachers had the pull with the congregation, and among this congregations members, were the insurance company decision makers, and that they would in fact, be the sole decision makers on whether or not, gay couples would ever see this sort of benefit offered as a product.

excerpt...Still, each argued that the Clinton campaign, with its "safe" promotion of Clinton as an anchor of staid leadership, was until recently, stale and un-enthusiastic. Where was that "Don’t Stop Thinking about Tomorrow" energy of yesteryear that culminated on Election night 1992 when those young looking Clintons and the Gores waved to a crowd of change seekers in Little Rock?

The frustrating conclusion among the Crunch Gym Pundits was that Hillary hasn’t owned her womanhood, and effectively sold the novelty of her own historic moment to voters, a moment they say should be an asset that might actually fire up the un-decided, both male and female?

There is a large, visible, albeit loosely organized gay community in Alabama’s largest city. There are 24-hour gay bars, social, religious and political organizations, annual events, even entire neighborhoods that gays have transformed into friendly enclaves....

In fact, according to the 2000 United State Census, the city of Birmingham was home to a higher per capita concentration of same-sex couples than cities of comparable or larger sizes like Memphis, Charlotte and even more liberal northern cities like Columbus, Ohio.

But for many Americans, the notion of Birmingham evokes intolerance, still viewed through the lens of the 1960s civil rights movement, home to streets where police dogs and fire hoses met foot soldiers in the fight for civil rights.