'Fox Blocker' Aims to Block Channel
Mood:  don't ask
Topic: Lib Loser Stories

It's not that Sam Kimery objects to the views expressed on Fox News. The creator of the "Fox Blocker" contends the channel is not news at all.

Kimery figures he's sold about 100 of the little silver bits of metal that screw into the back of most televisions, allowing people to filter Fox News from their sets, since its August debut.

The Tulsa, Okla., resident also has received thousands of e-mails, both angry and complimentary ? as well as a few death threats.

"Apparently the making of terroristic threats against those who don't share your views is a high art form among a certain core audience," said Kimery, 45.

Formerly a registered Republican, even a precinct captain, Kimery became an independent in the 1990s when he said the state party stopped taking input from its everyday members.

Kimery now contends Fox News' top-level management dictates a conservative journalistic bias, that inaccuracies are never retracted, and what winds up on the air is more opinion than news. "I might as well be reading tabloids out of the grocery store," he says. "Anything to get a rise out of the viewer and to reinforce certain retrograde notions."

A Fox spokeswoman at the station's New York headquarters said the channel's ratings speak for themselves. For the first three months of this year, Fox has been averaging 1.62 million viewers in prime-time, compared with CNN's 805,000, according to Nielsen Media Research.

Kimery's motives go deeper than preventing people from watching the channel, which he acknowledges can be done without the Blocker. But he likens his device to burning a draft card, a tangible example of disagreement.

And he's taking this message to the network's advertisers. After buying the $8.95 device online, would-be blockers are shown a letter that they can send to advertisers via the Fox Blocker site.

"The point is not to block the channel or block free speech but to raise awareness," said Kimery, who works in the tech industry.

Kimery doesn't use the device himself; his remote is programmed to only a half-dozen channels. Plus he occasionally feels the need to tune into Fox News for something "especially heinous."

Business could pick up since the blocker was alluded to in a recent episode of the ABC drama "Boston Legal." The show's original script mentioned Fox News, but ABC had the references removed.

The boisterous conversations on Fox News may be why the station is so popular, said Matthew Felling, media director for the Center for Media and Public Affairs, a nonprofit, nonpartisan media watchdog group. And despite a perception that Fox leans to the right, Felling said, that doesn't mean people who lean left should tune out.

"It's tough to engage in an argument when you're not participating in it," Felling said. "It's just one more layer in the wall that the right and the left are building in between each other."

On the Net: Fox Blocker / Fox News

Seattle Times ~ Associated Press ** Device lets you out-Fox your TV

Yahoo News ~ Associated Press ** 'Fox Blocker' Aims to Block Channel

Starbucks puts lib loser opinionated bullshit quotes on its cups
Mood:  caffeinated
Now Playing: Coffee with steam
Topic: Lib Loser Stories

Some conservatives are angered by opinionated quotes that Starbucks puts on its cups.

Moments after picking up a venti vanilla latte from a St. Petersburg Starbucks, Sam Maston removed his cup's cardboard sleeve to inspect a message printed beneath.

"America's national debt is now $7.5-trillion, and it's skyrocketing, even as America's population ages," the cup read. "There will never be a better time to start paying off this crippling debt than today."

The quote, from environmentalist Denis Hayes, didn't faze the 29-year-old Maston.

"I'm a pretty hardcore Democrat," said Maston, who wore a black rubber wristband bearing the words I DID NOT VOTE 4 BUSH. "I think they should put that stuff on there."

Not everyone agrees.

The Seattle coffee chain has raised some eyebrows over its "The Way I See It" campaign, which prints quotes from thinkers, authors, athletes and entertainers on the side of your morning machiatto. The goal, according to the company, is to foster philosophical debate in its 9,000-plus coffeehouses.

The quotes aren't all that inflammatory, though several mirror Starbucks' hallmark tall-grande-venti pretentiousness. Take this one from film critic Roger Ebert: "A movie is not about what it is about. It is about how it is about it."

The problem, critics say, is the company's list of overwhelmingly liberal contributors, including Al Franken, Melissa Etheridge, Quincy Jones, Chuck D. Of the 31 contributors listed on Starbucks' Web site, only one, National Review editor Jonah Goldberg, offers a conservative viewpoint.

Considering Starbucks sells millions of cups of coffee each day - at $4 and up, no less - it's no surprise some customers have complained to Starbucks' Web site, labeling the campaign "offensive" and the company a proponent of "the destruction of family values and virtues."

"I want to enjoy your product without having Earth Day Network propaganda thrust at me," wrote Malachi Salcido of East Wenatchee, Wash.

Yvette Nunez, a 27-year-old Republican from Tampa, said she hadn't noticed the quotes on her weekly caramel machiattos. On "tall" cups, the text is obscured by a cardboard sleeve.

"There are a lot of great conservative quotes, but oh well," she said. "I'm not surprised. I'm used to being under-represented."

Starbucks' founder and chairman, Howard Schultz, is a major Democratic campaign donor who last year gave $1,000 in Florida to Peter Deutsch's failed U.S. Senate campaign.

Seth Hoffman, president of the Tampa Bay Young Republicans and an occasional Starbucks drinker, said he tries to avoid buying some "liberal" products, like Ben & Jerry's ice cream. He said Starbucks should consider using more conservative voices, but if they don't, he's unlikely to stay away.

"I know about what the company does; I know what my money's going to," said Hoffman, 32. "For me, with Starbucks, it's not what's on the cup, but what's in the cup."

Company spokeswoman Valerie Hwang said the goal is not to stir up controversy. She said the company has lined up 60 contributors with "varying points of view, experiences and priorities" in an effort to promote "open, respectful conversation among a wide variety of individuals."

Each cup also bears a caveat letting customers know that the quote is "the author's opinion, not necessarily that of Starbucks."

"The program is such that we're not requiring our customers to read," Hwang said, "but rather the quotes are there for our customers to discover and enjoy."

The cups also refer customers to the campaign's Web site, www.starbucks.com/wayiseeit where ordinary Joes can submit opinions for publication on a future cup. The site, as well as fliers available in each Starbucks store, encourage angry customers to lash out if they're upset.

Plenty of conservatives may do so. But liberals? Maston, for one, shrugs off the cup-quote controversy, and suggests most Starbucks addicts will do the same.

"If I was that upset about what they put on there," he said, "I wouldn't come here."

St. Petersburg Times ** Coffee with steam

Dems teach donors how to skirt campaign finance laws
Mood:  d'oh
Topic: Lib Loser Stories

TRENTON, N.J. -- New Jersey Republicans on Thursday blasted a Democratic Party memo that reportedly tells contractors hoping to win business from the state how to bypass a new law intended to choke off their campaign contributions.

The law, trumpeted by Democrats as a win for ethics in government, restricts campaign donors from receiving state contracts worth $17,500 or more if they contributed more than $300 to a gubernatorial campaign, the governor's state party account or county committees controlled by the governor's political party.

The Star-Ledger of Newark on Thursday said the memo suggests contractors can still make sizable contributions, informing them they may donate up to $10,000 a year to the Democratic State Committee's federal campaign account. Money from that account can be used in state races with few restrictions, including ones that pertain to maximum contributions and disclosure obligations, according to state and federal election officials.

The memo was distributed among top Democratic fund-raisers before the party's annual fund-raising gala Tuesday evening, just hours after acting Gov. Richard J. Codey signed the Democrat-sponsored pay-to-play law, the newspaper reported.

The pay-to-play law was an outgrowth of an executive order imposed last fall by Codey's predecessor, former Gov. James E. McGreevey, who resigned in November.

The Feb. 1 memo was written by Angelo Genova, the Democrats' top campaign finance lawyer, who also helped draft the measure Codey signed, according to the newspaper.

Genova said the subject matter of the memo was the executive order and called it "ludicrous" to say it was aimed at contractors. Both political parties and all candidates regularly inform contributors of obligations and restrictions concerning campaign donations.

Genova stressed that contributions to a party's federal campaign account would not enable donors to bypass the pay-to-play law. Money used from those accounts on state races must be reported to the state Election Law Enforcement Commission and would then trigger provisions of the pay-to-play law.

On Thursday, state Democratic Committee chairwoman Bonnie Watson Coleman issued a statement saying the memo advises contributors with respect to campaign finance law.

"In response to the many questions from our broad base of supporters, we provided the necessary information to keep them within compliance of the law. With changes in rules and regulations, it's important that our donors understand what contributions are permissible under the law and what contributions are not," Coleman said.

She added: "The party is diligent in adhering to the letter of the law and all regulatory requirements."

When he signed the pay-to-play law Tuesday, Codey, a Democrat, said it was the nation's strongest check on the practice of rewarding contributors with contracts, a relationship critics have characterized as legal bribery.

Codey said Thursday he was unaware of the memo but maintained it does nothing to change the reform initiative.

"I still think what we did changes state elections to a great extent and takes away the influence of vendor money," he said.

State GOP chief Tom Wilson said Democrats were interested only in guarding their election prospects in the fall.

"This is further proof they don't have an interest in doing the right thing. If anything should tell the voters who the real reformers are and who the posers are, it is this," Wilson said.

Democrats hold majorities in the Senate and General Assembly.

State Sen. Thomas Kean Jr., a sponsor of a Republican crackdown on pay-to-play that remains stalled in the Legislature, said Democrats aren't living up to their word.

"They have been talking reform for 3 years, but in practice they have been raising money any way they can. It's frustrating the majority party has figured out a way to circumvent the law even before it was signed," Kean said.

Newsday ~ Associated Press ** GOP lashes out at Democrat memo higlighting pay-to-play loophole

Mother arrested for attempting to intervene in her 14-year old's decision to have abortion
Mood:  irritated
Topic: News

For legal reasons, the names of the family and the 14-year old girl that are the subject of this story have been withheld at this time.

GRANITE CITY - A Sothern Illinois woman was arrested last week (March 17) after trying to intervene on behalf of her 14-year old daughter's effort to have an abortion. The girl was allegedly taken to an abortion clinic by the mother of the man allegedly to have impregnated the 14-year old.

According to the girl's mother, her 14-year old daughter was called off from school in Madison County by a woman posing as the girl's "grandmother." The woman took the girl from her home only minutes before the girl?s mother returned home from work.

It was later determined that the woman who had posed as the "grandmother" to the school authorities was the mother of the male who had fathered the unborn child the 14-year old girl was carrying. The age of the male has not been released.

When the parents were notified their pregnant daughter was not at school, they suspected she had been taken to the Hope Abortion Clinic in Granite City. The parents and grandfather were the only persons authorized to request school absence for the fourteen year old female.

"My husband and I rushed to the abortion clinic where we saw our daughter?s name on the roster and the time she had checked in," the mother said. She then went into the clinic and searched a room filled with young women awaiting abortions but did not see her daughter.

She took a seat near the main desk and said, "I was told I could not prove my daughter was there so I began calling her name. A medical tech at the clinic told me , ?It?s your daughter?s rights, it?s her body. You have no rights.?"

After continuing to call out her daughter?s name and telling her "don?t do it," authorities were called and the mother was arrested.

The 14-year old told her mother she could hear her but when she asked employees to give her mother a message, they came back to the room and told her that her mother had left.

Angela Michaels, of Small Victories Ministry, was tipped off as to what was happening at the Hope clinic. According to Michaels, she witnessed police placing the mother?s hands behind her back, taking her into custody. As the police were putting the mother in the squad car, she was crying out, "Please, please, help me...my daughter is in there."

Michaels said, "Exactly one hour later at 10:35 a.m., the 14-year old emerged from the clinic looking disheveled. The 14-year old told us that employees kept her in a quiet room until the procedure was performed and she was told that her mother had left."

Employees assured this girl on her departure, "No-one will ever know you were here, we?ll bury your records."

In the meantime, the woman who had taken the girl for the abortion was slipped out the back door of the clinic.

The police in the community in which the family lives allegedly told the girl's mom that they couldn't intervene despite her making a charge that her daughter had been raped (by statute) because the charge was stale--7 weeks after the incident. They did tell the girl's mom that, while she had no right to stop the abortion, she did have a right to go into the clinic and speak to her daughter.

The parents are expected to file charges.

Illinois Leader ** EXCLUSIVE: Mother arrested for attempting to intervene in her 14-year old's decision to have abortion

FL Capitol bill aims to control ?leftist? professors
Mood:  bright
Topic: News

THE LAW COULD LET STUDENTS SUE FOR UNTOLERATED BELIEFS.

TALLAHASSEE ? Republicans on the House Choice and Innovation Committee voted along party lines Tuesday to pass a bill that aims to stamp out "leftist totalitarianism" by "dictator professors" in the classrooms of Florida?s universities.

The Academic Freedom Bill of Rights, sponsored by Rep. Dennis Baxley, R-Ocala, passed 8-to-2 despite strenuous objections from the only two Democrats on the committee.

The bill has two more committees to pass before it can be considered by the full House.

While promoting the bill Tuesday, Baxley said a university education should be more than "one biased view by the professor, who as a dictator controls the classroom," as part of "a misuse of their platform to indoctrinate the next generation with their own views."

The bill sets a statewide standard that students cannot be punished for professing beliefs with which their professors disagree. Professors would also be advised to teach alternative "serious academic theories" that may disagree with their personal views.

According to a legislative staff analysis of the bill, the law would give students who think their beliefs are not being respected legal standing to sue professors and universities.

Students who believe their professor is singling them out for "public ridicule" ? for instance, when professors use the Socratic method to force students to explain their theories in class ? would also be given the right to sue.

"Some professors say, 'Evolution is a fact. I don?t want to hear about Intelligent Design (a creationist theory), and if you don?t like it, there?s the door,'" Baxley said, citing one example when he thought a student should sue.

Rep. Dan Gelber, D-Miami Beach, warned of lawsuits from students enrolled in Holocaust history courses who believe the Holocaust never happened.

Similar suits could be filed by students who don?t believe astronauts landed on the moon, who believe teaching birth control is a sin or even by Shands medical students who refuse to perform blood transfusions and believe prayer is the only way to heal the body, Gelber added.

"This is a horrible step," he said. "Universities will have to hire lawyers so our curricula can be decided by judges in courtrooms. Professors might have to pay court costs ? even if they win ? from their own pockets. This is not an innocent piece of legislation."

The staff analysis also warned the bill may shift responsibility for determining whether a student?s freedom has been infringed from the faculty to the courts.

But Baxley brushed off Gelber?s concerns. "Freedom is a dangerous thing, and you might be exposed to things you don?t want to hear," he said. "Being a businessman, I found out you can be sued for anything. Besides, if students are being persecuted and ridiculed for their beliefs, I think they should be given standing to sue."

During the committee hearing, Baxley cast opposition to his bill as "leftists" struggling against "mainstream society."

"The critics ridicule me for daring to stand up for students and faculty," he said, adding that he was called a McCarthyist.

Baxley later said he had a list of students who were discriminated against by professors, but refused to reveal names because he felt they would be persecuted.

Rep. Eleanor Sobel, D-Hollywood, argued universities and the state Board of Governors already have policies in place to protect academic freedom. Moreover, a state law outlining how professors are supposed to teach would encroach on the board?s authority to manage state schools.

"The big hand of state government is going into the universities telling them how to teach," she said. "This bill is the antithesis of academic freedom."

But Baxley compared the state?s universities to children, saying the legislature should not give them money without providing "guidance" to their behavior.

"Professors are accountable for what they say or do," he said. "They?re accountable to the rest of us in society... All of a sudden the faculty think they can do what they want and shut us out. Why is it so unheard of to say the professor shouldn?t be a dictator and control that room as their totalitarian niche?"

In an interview before the meeting, Baxley said "arrogant, elitist academics are swarming" to oppose the bill, and media reports misrepresented his intentions.

"I expect to be out there on my own pretty far," he said. "I don?t expect to be part of a team."

House Bill H-837 can be viewed online at www.flsenate.gov.

Alligator Online FL ** Capitol bill aims to control ?leftist? profs

As an April fool's joke, Maxim magazine plays a photo prank on the Bush twins
Mood:  mischievious
Topic: Yahoo Chat Stuff

As an April fool's joke, Maxim is taking on the Bush twins.

The April issue of the men's magazine, which hit newsstands Tuesday, has a photo illustration of Jenna and Barbara Bush, plumage in the air and sporting lingerie in what is meant to be the aftermath of a pillow fight.

"Born November 25, 1981, this Texas twosome burst into the public eye and our dirtiest dreams — right after Daddy moved into the Oval Office," reads the first paragraph.

As the magazine worked on introducing a new "girl page," said Maxim's executive editor James Heindery, "we thought, 'Who should we prank?' How do you make a girl page and make it a prank? We had to watch our p's and q's. We certainly don't want to step on some people's toes, but it seemed like the Bush twins was the first suggestion that everybody threw out. And we thought there was little chance that we would get in too much trouble because I don't think their father would ever want to talk about this."

It took 25 models and more than 75 paparazzi shots to come up with the concoction, Heindery explained. "We definitely tried to be realistic and not put stick figures on them."

This isn't the first "doctored" photo that magazine buyers have seen lately. Newsweek recently ran a cover that showed Martha Stewart coming out from behind a curtain. That image was Martha's face put on a model's body. It was identified as a photo illustration.

Texas Monthly, for the cover of its annual Bum Steer Awards issue, showed Jessica Simpson wearing a T-shirt that read: "I'm with stupid."

Maxim's photo trickery does have a red ring on the page with "100% FAKE" written in it.

Susan Whitson, press secretary for Laura Bush, said the first lady had not seen the photo and offered a "no comment" after the image was e-mailed to her.

Whether it was for underage drinking or making strange faces at the press, the Bush daughters have made news throughout their dad's tenure.

Overall, however, the news media have restrained their coverage, possibly due to a stern warning by the president.

But now, Heindery said, the twins are fair game.

"We took (the warning) into consideration," Heindery said. "But first of all, the girls made news themselves with their antics. Also when (President Bush) brought them along the campaign trail (in 2004) and had them speak at the convention, it made them fair game."

Michael Musto, columnist for the Village Voice, said Maxim's fake photo may signal open season on the twins.

"But I honestly feel they should send Maxim a thank-you note," he wrote in an e-mail. "The mag made them look beautiful!"

"We haven't gotten any blow-back (yet)," Heindery said. "I think like any good American, they should take (the) joke in stride."

Houston Chronicle ** Men's magazine plays a photo prank on the Bush twins

Five Democrats indicted in alleged vote-buying scheme
Mood:  d'oh
Topic: Lib Loser Stories

FAIRVIEW HEIGHTS, Ill. Five Democrats in East St. Louis have been charged in a scheme to buy votes in November's election in a federal indictment unsealed today.

Federal prosecutors in southern Illinois charged four Democratic committeemen and one precinct worker in the indictment.

Yesterday, four others pleaded guilty to related vote-buying charges in federal court.

Court records indicate voters were paid five or ten dollars to cast a Democratic ballot in the November second election.

They allege that the money to buy votes came from the St. Clair County Democratic Committee.

U-S Attorney Ronald Tenpas says the allegations do not address how many voters may have been paid for their votes or whether it affected the outcome of any election.

WQAD Channel 8 Illinios ~ Associated Press ** Five Democrats indicted in alleged vote-buying scheme

Experts: Conservative Bloggers More Influential Than Liberals
Mood:  chatty
Now Playing: The Web: The battle of the bloggers
Topic: Yahoo Chat Stuff

CHICAGO - There may be more liberal blogs than conservative ones on the Internet, but the conservatives appear to be much more adept at employing the technology of the medium to market their message and influence public opinion, experts told UPI's The Web.

Take last year's presidential election. Research shows conservatives used the blogs - a contraction for the term, Web logs - to talk down Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry on the Internet, perhaps making themselves one of the decisive factors in the November election's outcome.

"Who were the bloggers writing about?" asks the new report, "The Political Blogosphere and the 2004 U.S. Election: Divided They Blog, from Intelliseek's BlogPulse project." It answers its own question, "Curiously, 59 percent of the mentions of John Kerry came from right-leaning bloggers, while 53 percent of the mentions of George W. Bush came from left-leaning bloggers."

The study was conducted by Natalie Glance of Intelliseek, a marketing intelligence firm in Cincinnati, and Lada Adamic of HP Labs, the main laboratory for Hewlett-Packard in Palo Alto, Calif. It showed that of the 1,494 most influential blogs, during the two months leading up to the election, 759 were liberal in worldview, while 735 were conservative. The conservatives, however, showed a "greater tendency" to link to other blogs than did the liberals -- on average 15.1 links per conservative blog to 13.6 for the liberals. That made them more powerful agents of persuasion.

"We've been looking at blogs for about a year," Glance said. "There was some hope that the blogosphere would help bridge the different opinions in America, but what we are seeing is in an election year, it was divisive online and there was a strong tendency for separation of differences."

Conservative blogs apparently were the most influential sites, generating huge flows of traffic to right-leaning news organizations, such as the National Review magazine and Fox News television. The bloggers' links also pushed up the readership numbers for publications such as The New York Post, The Wall Street Journal's online Opinion Journal and The Washington Times, Glance said.

Other experts said the trend is likely to continue, and it is starting to shape the way businesses are perceived, too, not just politicians.

"There is a democratization of media going on before our eyes," said Scott Anthony, co-author of "Seeing What's Next" (Harvard Business School Press, 2005), and a partner in Innosight LLC in Watertown, Mass. "A small number of people used to determine what was, or was not, newsworthy. Now, it is an online collective that says this is interesting, or not interesting, news."

Anthony said this is an example of "disruptive innovation" in the media business, which has a parallel to the rise of the personal computer back in the late 1970s.

"Disruptive innovation uses relatively cheap, relatively simple technologies to give people what they want," Anthony told The Web. "Look at the early days of the computer industry. Back then, Digital Equipment Corp. looked at the (personal computer) and saw no reason why anyone would want one in their home - but people were delighted with product."

Anthony predicted that 20 years from now, there will be an entirely new industry based on blogs. Just a few years ago, he noted, when eBay was launched, it was selling novelty items, such as Pez candy dispensers. Today, it is a major retail force that even sells automobiles.

"The established media companies are going to have to deal with the blogs," Anthony said. "This pattern of starting simply and expanding will have profound effects. Thirty years ago, Digital Equipment had delighted customers, and sound management principles, like listening to their customers, but the wave of change caused by the PC overwhelmed them."

The blogging phenomenon is challenging local media as well as the national giants. In Chicago, for example, the newspapers have not devoted much attention to a measure that local conservatives view as important: Senate Bill 2033, which calls for the direct election of GOP state central committeemen in Illinois. Yet the bill is being promoted via a simple blog by Joseph A. Morris, a former Reagan administration lawyer who is now an attorney in private practice in Chicago. He holds forth at illinoiscenterright.com.

The blog is marketed by e-mails from conservative Web sites, such as the local affiliate of Townhall.com, run by activist Rich Johns. Rather than waiting for the Chicago Tribune to write about the story, for example, the blog reports and comments on its own.

Search engines dedicated to blogging, such as technorati, help fans find the info they want. Really simple syndication, or RSS, technology provides short descriptions of Web content and links to the search engines.

"Right-wing blogs have very coherent message delivery," Glance said.

Traditionally, conservative business people are also now using blogs to promote their enterprises online. A recent article in the Harvard Business Review called on businesses to embrace the trend.

In a marketing switch, the business bloggers embrace -- rather than eschew -- controversy to generate business. One Chicago blogger, entrepreneur Kirsten Osolind, has been posting an ongoing debate with a conservative business pundit, Seth Godin, on her site, reinventioninc.blogspot.com.

Osolind has received feedback calling her "catty," which she does not think she would have received if she were a male blogger. However, the tool of controversy seems to have worked for her, because she is being wooed by advertisers such as Home Depot, who want to place ads on her site, and she has landed a column with Entrepreneur Magazine.

"The whole blogosphere is a fascinating space - a movement really," Anthony said. "Rather than having conservatives say they are unhappy about biased liberal news, or liberals saying they are unhappy about biased conservative news, everyone goes where they are happy. The old gray lady (The New York Times) does not determine what we read anymore. It is a different world."

World Peace Herald ~ United Press International ** The Web: The battle of the bloggers

Phony Iraq warriors beginning to surface
Mood:  d'oh
Topic: News

- On the front lines in Afghanistan, Sgt. Thomas Larez was said to have braved enemy fire to pull an injured soldier to safety, taking two shots to his torso and shrapnel in his thigh as he did.

Though bloodied and temporarily blinded by a concussion grenade, Larez then killed seven Taliban fighters and helped capture several others.

It was a compelling account of heroism hailed in a December 2001 Dallas newscast based on a "Marine advisory" about the battle that Larez said his commanding officer wrote.

Two days later, the station retracted the story. Not only was the "advisory" bogus, apparently concocted by Larez, but the Marine had never even left the United States, much less distinguished himself in combat overseas.

With that fraud, Larez became one of the first phony heroes of America's war on terrorism to be exposed. He was far from the last.

- In Rockport, Texas, Andrew Isbell, clad in an Army sergeant's uniform, told jurors at his drug-possession trial in August that he had earned the two Bronze Stars on his chest in Iraq in August, along with a Purple Heart for a recent bullet wound to the shoulder.

Portraying himself as an infantryman on medical leave from his dangerous patrol job in Baghdad, Isbell was a sympathetic figure who ultimately was acquitted.

But after a juror later raised questions about Isbell's uniform, investigators found that he had actually been a food-service private who never saw combat, was not wounded, won no decorations and had been discharged from the Army after being absent without leave for 61 days.

Isbell faces perjury charges.

- Home on leave last August in Maysville, Ky., Army Spc. Chastity Turner was honored at a Veterans of Foreign Wars picnic and lauded in a local newspaper for her calm under pressure during two convoy ambushes she survived in Iraq.

"An IED (improvised explosive device, or makeshift bomb) went off and it blew out the windows of the trucks," Turner told the Ledger Independent. "It's exciting and it gets your adrenaline going."

Only problem: Turner never left Kuwait during her deployment. She was busted in her lie by her company commander, who had read the story online and contacted the paper, which published a retraction.

- Justin McCauley regaled his Roseville, Calif., family with his derring-do as an elite Navy SEAL in 2002 in Afghanistan, showing off his Navy jacket with a patch signifying his membership in the storied commando outfit and recounting the close call he survived when a grenade exploded near him and sprayed him with shrapnel.

"The second it happened, that hit me: 'Wow, we're at war,' " McCauley was quoted as saying in the Sacramento Bee newspaper.

But, like Turner, McCauley had made the whole thing up, the newspaper later reported. Not only was he not a SEAL, the aviation ordnanceman had never left the deck of the USS Kitty Hawk aircraft carrier where he loaded U.S. warplanes with bombs.

- Sarah Kenney, of Grand Junction, Colo., allegedly made up a heroic husband. Kenney told a local support group for soldiers' families that her husband, Spc. Jonathan Kenney, had been killed when he shielded an Iraqi child from flying bullets only to be hit by one himself.

In fact, there was no such soldier, and Kenney was charged last month with criminal impersonation.

To the phalanx of mostly volunteer fraud-busters dedicated to outing wannabe warriors, it is no surprise that bogus soldiers claiming exploits in Iraq and Afghanistan are now surfacing.

"It's a phenomenon of every single war that's ever, ever been fought," said B.G. Burkett, co-author of the award-winning book "Stolen Valor."

He and Mary Schantag, who with her husband Chuck spend hours each day hunting down fake claims, are certain the number of Iraq and Afghanistan service frauds will only mushroom as time goes on.

Mary Schantag, who helps run the POWNetwork.org clearinghouse that also investigates non-POW frauds, says reports of phony Vietnam-era heroes have reached epidemic proportions.

When the Schantags began outing fakes in 1998, they had 22 cases. Last year, they had more than 2,000. There are now at least twice as many pretend Vietnam POWs documented than the number of U.S. troops who truly were prisoners.

"The more we expose, the more get reported," Schantag said, lamenting the fact that, despite the criminal violations committed by the poseurs, overtaxed police and other authorities simply don't have the time or resources to pursue more than a handful.

She and Burkett also warn that high-tech tools are a boon to the bad guys, who can use them to easily create fake military records that can pass for the real thing.

They are outraged, as well, that many of these phonies have snookered the government into providing them with benefits, while others are recording their made-up war exploits for assorted oral-history projects across the country.

"It's so sad," Schantag said.

These activists characterize the majority of the fakes as people with low self-esteem who create a heroic persona to inflate their image. "Being one changes everything about his life. The medals say he is not only brave but also loyal, trustworthy, honest," said Burkett, a Vietnam vet with an ordinary record like that of most who served at the time.

The rest are generally cons looking for quick bucks or other advantages. For Jim Johnson, it was romance that he apparently was seeking. Though his Navy service lasted just two years in the mid-1970s, Johnson portrayed himself to scores of women via an Internet dating site as a Navy SEAL now fighting in Iraq. He allegedly asked many to marry him.

An outfit called Veriseal, dedicated to identifying SEAL imposters, determined that Johnson had never been a Navy commando and was never in Iraq - or even in the service. Instead, he was found to be working for an insurance company in Rocky Mount, N.C.

Scripps Howard News Service - Lisa Hoffman ** Phony Iraq warriors beginning to surface

WELL, LOOKIE HERE... Social Security Said to Go Broke in 2041
Mood:  suave
Topic: Yahoo Chat Stuff

With 79-year old Margaret Valdez at his side, President Bush promotes his Social Security reforms to an audience at the Kiva Auditorium in Albuquerque, N.M., Tuesday, March 22, 2005. In a state with a large population of retirees, Bush wants to assure seniors that they will continue to receive their regular government checks, while he pushes for a system of private accounts which would enable younger workers to divert a portion of their payroll taxes from Social Security deductions and into stock market investments to bankroll their retirement. \/

WASHINGTON - The trust fund for Social Security will go broke in 2041 - a year earlier than previously estimated - the trustees reported Wednesday. Trustees also said that Medicare, the giant health care program for the elderly and disabled, faces insolvency in 2020.

The new projections made in the trustees annual report were certain to be cited by both sides in the massive battle to overhaul Social Security, which President Bush has made the top domestic priority of his second term.

The go-broke date for Medicare was delayed by one year, compared to the estimate that trustees gave a year ago.

The insolvency dates represent when both trust funds will have exhausted the government bonds that have been building up to take care of the pending retirement of 78 million baby boomers.

Equally important are when benefits paid to the elderly start exceeding the payroll taxes designated to support the two programs. That's when the government will have to increase its borrowing on financial markets, raise taxes or divert money from other government programs to sustain Medicare and Social Security at current levels.

For Medicare, the threshold when benefits exceed program income occurred last year. For Social Security, that threshold will be crossed in 2017, one year earlier than the 2018 date projected in last year's report.

That change is certain to be cited by the administration as a sign of the urgency to act to deal with Social Security's funding woes. Democrats argue that the real crisis is in Medicare and that the administration is ignoring the health care crisis.

Treasury Secretary John Snow, chairman of the six-member board of trustees for both programs, said the estimates "leave no question that Social Security reform is needed and it is needed soon. Reform of this system, for the sake of our children, grandchildren and the financial future of our country, is a very real and pressing matter."

The trustees said that Social Security's unfunded obligations total $4 trillion over the next 75 years, an increase from last year's projection of $3.7 trillion in unfunded liabilities.

Snow said that to meet that shortfall, Social Security payroll taxes would have to be raised by 3.5 percentage points or benefits would have to be cut by 22 percent.

Bush has said he will not raise payroll taxes to deal with the funding problem although he has left the door open to raising the $90,000 cap on incomes subject to the payroll tax.

In the report, the trustees said that "the projected trust fund deficits should be addressed in timely way to allow for a gradual phasing of the necessary changes and to provide advanced notices to workers. The sooner adjustments are made, the smaller and less abrupt they will have to be."

^ House Democratic Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., and Rep. Robert Menendez, D-N.J., take part in a news conference on Capitol Hill Wednesday, March 16, 2005, on Social Security reform legislation.

My Way News ~ Associated Press ** Social Security Said to Go Broke in 2041