NBC Claims “mistake”

Yeah, I ain’t buying it.

NEW YORK (Reuters) - NBC News’ decision to air an edited call from George Zimmerman to police in the moments before he shot Trayvon Martin was “a mistake and not a deliberate act to misrepresent the phone call,” according to the president of the network’s news division.
The edit in question, which aired on the network’s flagship “Today” morning show last week, made it appear that Zimmerman told police that Martin was black without being prompted, when, in fact, the full tape reveals that the neighborhood watch captain only did so when responding to a question posed by a dispatcher.

Under growing public pressure to explain the incident, NBC News President Steve Capus provided Reuters with the fullest explanation to date of how the edited call made it on air and what the network is doing to prevent such a consequential error from happening again.

Capus confirmed a previous Reuters report that an internal network investigation had determined that a producer made the editing error, and that the network’s editorial controls - including senior broadcast producer oversight, script editors and often legal and standards department reviews of sensitive material to be broadcast - simply missed the selective editing of the phone call.

Man Who Shielded Son Dies

Wow. Such courage.

Police are asking the public to help identify suspects involved in an Inglewood shooting that left a 28-year-old father dead after he shielded his 8-year-old son from the barrage of bullets.

Fredrick Martin and his son, Tre, were in front of their garage Tuesday night when gunfire broke out, police said.

When he heard the shots, the man pushed his son to the ground and covered him with his body. Martin suffered gunshot wounds to his abdomen and upper torso and later died at the hospital.

“The investigation is not going well,” Lt. James Madia with Inglewood police said, adding that detectives are working on a few conflicting descriptions of the possible suspects and their cars.

Facebook Warns About Sharing Passwords

Does anyone else think it’s funny that Facebook is nagging other companies about privacy?

NEW YORK (AP) — Facebook is warning employers not to demand the passwords of job applicants, saying that it’s an invasion of privacy that opens companies to legal liabilities.

The social networking company is also threatening legal action against those who violate its long-standing policy against sharing passwords.

An Associated Press story this week documented cases of job applicants who are being asked, at the interview table, to reveal their Facebook passwords so their prospective employers can check their backgrounds.

In a post on Friday, Facebook’s chief privacy of policy officer cautioned that if an employer discovers that a job applicant is a member of a protected group, the employer may open itself up to claims of discrimination if it doesn’t hire that person.

Dogs n Suds

I seriously want to eat there.

Supper Clubs

Here’s a nice little story about supper clubs in Wisconsin. When I moved to Wisconsin, the whole supper club experience was a bit odd, entertaining, intimidating, and fun. There’s a routine and flow that is unique, in my experience, to the Wisconsin dining experience. I absolutely love them.

Rolling in the Deep Drums

Since we’re celebrating drums, check out the drumming behind this song.

I love the vocals, but I can’t take my eyes off of the drums…

Grothman’s Bill on Single Parents

This has been in the news for a couple of days.

Grothman recently introduced a bill to force the Child Abuse and Neglect Prevention Board to emphasize single parenting as a risk factor for child abuse and neglect.

Grothman says statistics show that children from “broken families” are up to nine times more likely to be abused or neglected than children from “old-fashioned” families.

“I guess as long as this state is going to fund a group called the Child Abuse and Neglect Prevention Board, at least that group could use the money that they have to publicize something that’s politically incorrect, but I think has to be said in our society,” Grothman said at a public hearing on the bill last week.

Noting that 41 percent of children born in the U.S. last year were born to single parents, Grothman said: “It’s a very politically difficult thing to deal with because over time you’re having more and more families that are not old-fashioned families. There are even people who make fun of old-fashioned families.”

Despite the rhetoric the media seems to want to throw out here, let’s back up a bit. Wisconsin has a Child Abuse and Neglect Prevention Board that is chartered to evangelize against child abuse and neglect. That’s their job. As I read it, Grothman’s bill seeks to require them to educate people that single parenthood is a risk factor for child abuse. While not all, or most, single parents abuse their children, the statistics bear out that children are more likely to be abused in a single parent home than in the home of a married couple. If our public education campaigns are to be truly based on the relevant science, then shouldn’t an education campaign regarding child abuse encourage people to be in a committed, monogomous relationship before having children? After all, the data shows that that is still the best environment in which a child can grow.

The Abortion Culture

Vile “humans.”

The article, published in the Journal of Medical Ethics, says newborn babies are not “actual persons” and do not have a “moral right to life”. The academics also argue that parents should be able to have their baby killed if it turns out to be disabled when it is born.

The journal’s editor, Prof Julian Savulescu, director of the Oxford Uehiro Centre for Practical Ethics, said the article’s authors had received death threats since publishing the article. He said those who made abusive and threatening posts about the study were “fanatics opposed to the very values of a liberal society”.

The article, entitled “After-birth abortion: Why should the baby live?”, was written by two of Prof Savulescu’s former associates, Alberto Giubilini and Francesca Minerva.

They argued: “The moral status of an infant is equivalent to that of a fetus in the sense that both lack those properties that justify the attribution of a right to life to an individual.”

Gym Etiquette

So I went to the gym today and experienced some poor etiquette on the part of one of my fellow gym mates. Here are some guidlines that I hope we can all follow so that we can sweat in peace:

1) Cornering someone in the locker room in order to berate them for something they wrote a week ago is poor form.

2) If you are going to do that, be sure to have actually read what was written.

3) It’s generally a poor debate tactic to tell your opponent that when they die that God will say “shame on you.”

That is all…

On the bright side, I did 8.55 miles on the bike in 30 minutes and some sets on the weights.

Holloway Throws Down the Race Card

Because that’s what he does.

In your column this morning, I am particularly concerned that you chose the phrase “oversized personality” to describe me. It’s unfortunate that some people are not open to having black individuals in strong leadership positions. Your message undoubtedly will be perceived as “black man, stay in your place.”

I dream of a day when a white man can openly call a black man a jerk without being accused of racism.

Local Girl Scout Leader Removed

Well, this is interesting.

Stacy Hintz wants everyone to know she is not a Satanist. Lately, she’s been accused of that, as well as promoting sin.

  “I’m a Pentecostal Christian,” said the West Bend mother of two and until this week a local Girl Scouts Troop leader. Following a flurry of complaints from three mothers of troop members, including the troop’s coleader, Hintz was fired from the volunteer position she held for four years by the Girl Scouts of Wisconsin Southeast because of her involvement with a website called Wisconsin Sickness.

  Started in 2007 by Stacy Hintz’s husband Charles, a computer graphics web designer, the website defines itself as a “project created to expose and preserve the dark and disturbing underground world of Wisconsin art in all its forms, including art, film and the worldrenown WI metal!”

  Stacy Hintz prefers using the term “alternative” to describe Wisconsin Sickness and the artists, musicians, authors, and off-beat Wisconsin-based topics it contains. While the website has edgy content, she said, it is far from being a bastion of evil some have portrayed it.

  “Yes, it’s controversial,” she said, but it also provides information on state bands, artists and performers.

  “It’s a harmless interest,” Hintz said. “I’m not breaking any laws. I’m not breaking any Biblical laws. It’s a hobby.”

  Hintz was first told she would be removed “from all of your volunteer positions with Girl Scouts of Wisconsin Southeast” on Feb. 8, with the decision confirmed Tuesday by Mary Black, chief program officer for the Milwaukee-based Scouts council.

  In her email, Black said Hintz was removed as troop leader “due to violations of policy, including your endorsement, while in a Girl Scout capacity, of a website service that does not live up to the Girl Scout standards and principles.”

There are a lot of issues floating through this. First, let’s remember that the Girl Scouts are a private organization and they can choose to accept or deny volunteers on almost any basis. If they say that her affiliation with the website violates their standards, then so be it. It’s their choice. But that’s just one aspect of the story.

If you haven’t already, go check out the website in question, Wisconsin Sickness. You can see what they are about and read the contributor’s own commentary on this situation. What do you think? Is it satanic? There are overtones of the occult, for sure. Is it pornographc? While it mentions porn in places, I don’t see anything pornographic. Is it creepy? Somewhat. Is it interesting? Very. I’m thinking of picking up that book about paranormal Washington County. Does it indicate that the creators of the site are evil, abusive, or in any way a danger to kids? Without any further evidence, no.

What happened here seems pretty straight forward. Hintz was a scout leader for a few years. By all accounts, she was good at it and lauded for her efforts. Then some parents found out that she was affiliated with Wisconsin Sickness. They disapproved and complained to the authorities of the Girl Scouts to have her removed. The leadership of the Girl Scouts in Milwaukee agreed, and let her know that her services were no longer needed.

Were the parents justified in being concerned? Yes, I think so. At first blush, Wisconsin Sickness is disturbing and Hintz’s role involves a lot of contact with the parents’ kids. I would have been concerned. At the same time, the situation must be put into the context that Hintz has served in the role successfully for several years. While it looks like she’s into some goofy stuff, there doesn’t appear to be any indication that she exhibited bad behavior toward the kids. In the absence of any such bad behavior, I would have been reluctant to call for her removal, even if I would have asked her about it and kept an eye out.

I suspect that there is more to the story here. It doesn’t smell like we’ve heard the whole tale.

Whitney Houston

Dead at 48. RIP.

Obligated to Help?

This is an interesting story.

Coleman likely suffered a stroke and fell out of bed, then lay on the floor for two days, getting no help from her sister or nephew, a criminal complaint charged.

The Kings are scheduled to face a preliminary hearing in the case on Thursday before Dane County Circuit Judge Frank Remington.

But Veronica King’s lawyer, Marcus Berghahn, wrote in court papers filed Monday that the two charges against her that are related to Coleman’s death should be dismissed because they are based solely on a failure on Veronica King’s part to prevent Coleman’s death. State law only recognizes a failure to act as the basis for a crime under certain circumstances involving defined special relationships, he wrote.

In 2008, Berghahn wrote, King suffered a stroke that left her unable to care for herself and incompetent to make important decisions. Coleman was appointed as her guardian, a role she still had at the time of her death. As a ward of Coleman, he wrote, King had no legal duty to act on Coleman’s behalf.

Under Wisconsin law, Berghahn wrote, “there is no legal duty that compels the subject of a guardianship to act for the person who is charged with caring for her, even if ward and guardian are sisters. Acting may be a moral or ethical imperative, but all the same, it is not a legal duty.”

Clearly, as a human beings, Veronica King and her son are disgusting and immoral. They should have helped because that’s what decent people do. But as a matter of law, were they obligated to help? Let’s say you’re driving and see someone lying immobile on the side of the road, are you obligated to stop and help? I think the answer is “no” in both cases, even if you should as a decent human being. But the law isn’t generally set up to force people to be decent.

UW-Parkside Threat Was a Hoax

What in the world posseses people to do stuff like this?

SOMERS, Wis.—The Kenosha County Sheriff’s Department said some recent racially motivated threats at University of Wisconsin-Parkside were a hoax.

Authorities said one of the students named on a list of “targeted” black students confessed that she created the list and fliers found in a dormitory. The lists and fliers were found after a report of a rubber band noose found in a residence hall.

Authorities said the student created the list and fliers because she was not happy with the initial response from a resident assistant to the noose.

Magna Carta Goes on Display

Very cool.

WASHINGTON (AP) — A 715-year old copy of Magna Carta will soon return to public view at the National Archives after a conservation effort removed old patches and repaired weak spots in the English declaration of human rights that inspired the United States’ founding documents.

The National Archives unveiled the medieval document Thursday in a specially humidified glass and metal case. It is the only original Magna Carta in the United States and will return to public display Feb. 17.

A $13.5 million gift from philanthropist David Rubenstein funded the conservation, the custom-built case and a new gallery being renovated to host Magna Carta. Rubenstein bought the historic document at auction in 2007 for $21.3 million and sent it to the National Archives on a long-term loan.

Rubenstein, a co-founder of the private equity firm The Carlyle Group, said he sought the document previously owned by Texas billionaire H. Ross Perot because he wanted to keep it from leaving the country.