| Obama's victories draw more voter groups as Democrats waver
To clarify how Obama treats race, just look at his website, in the category of African-Americans. Says it all. Look through the pages. The reliance on proxies like his wife is photographically documented. His rhetorical reliance on blackness is apparent on the first page, where front and center feature words who's author is no doubt Axelrod: There is no better advocate for African Americans than Barack Obama. Barack knows your story, because it is his story. The causes that you hold dear have been the causes of his life. Barack has spent his entire career fighting for justice — as a community organizer in the streets of the South Side of Chicago, as a civil rights attorney, a constitutional law professor, an Illinois state Senator and a U.S. Senator. In Chicago Obama was charge with rape when he was 17 years old charges droped after his dad payed off some cops ???? Crucial to Obama's primary success, are his advisers unabashed beliefs that they can turn our hopes and emotions to their advantage.
Boiling water spikes bisphenol A levels
Adding boiling water to polycarbonate plastic bottles causes a dramatic spike in the amount of bisphenol A, or BPA, leaching from containers into drinks, according to a U.S. research team. The finding suggests that parents sterilizing polycarbonate baby bottles by heating them in water or in a microwave may be inadvertently increasing the amount of the estrogen-mimicking chemical leaching from the containers. It also indicates hikers who use the bottles as a thermos to store hot tea or liquids may be doing the same. The addition of boiling water increased BPA migration rates by up to 55-fold compared with water at room temperature, according to experiments run at the University of Cincinnati. A paper outlining the findings is being released today in Toxicology Letters, a peer-reviewed journal.
Court delay keeps Port Phillip Bay dredging in limbo
A COURTROOM saga over the future of Port Phillip Bay's controversial $1 billion dredging project will drag on for at least another 10 days after the case was adjourned today. The matter will return to court on March 3 after environment group Blue Wedges requested time to change the legal arguments of its case. The group is challenging the legality of federal Environment Minister Peter Garrett's approval of a huge dredging project to deepen Melbourne's shipping channels. Dredging began two weeks ago under strict conditions imposed by the court, pending the hearing. But the Port of Melbourne Corporation (PoMC) will seek to have those conditions relaxed in a separate hearing this afternoon, on the grounds that Blue Wedges has caused the delay by seeking to amend their original application to the court.
BUZZY TRENT: RIP
Living in the true spirit of aloha, he never sold a used board. Instead, he would pass his boards on to others without ever asking anything in return. Trent found distaste in the emergence of shortboarding and competition and eventually stopped surfing after the winter of 1973.
He is survived by two children, Ivan and Anna, and eight grandchildren, Leialoha, Russell, Lemoni, Ashley, Ivan Jr., Brandon, Bud, and Cody.
"I had the opportunity to surf with him once when I was 15," said Trent's son Ivan. "It was a unique experience. He was very quiet and reserved in the water."
Buzzy will be greatly missed by the surfing community. MORE SURFNEWS .
Portlanders may have another tax day: Nov. 4
Now that city Commissioner Sam Adams' $464 million street fee proposal appears to be headed for the November ballot, it joins a crowd of other potential initiatives that will compete for voters' tax dollars. Local pollster Tim Hibbitts, of Davis, Hibbitts & Midghall, said that, especially in tough economic times like the country appears to be facing, voters sometimes suffer from "ballot fatigue" when faced with a swarm of tax increases — fatigue that might come into play this fall. "The city is pretty liberal, but when times get tight even liberal voters look at their pocketbooks and say, 'How much can I afford?' " he said. "They might say, 'Gosh, this one I can vote for, but I just can't see three or four tax increases.' " So far, the measures appear to be a Portland Public Schools facilities levy that would cost at least $900 million, a Multnomah County public safety levy that could cost $25 million to $30 million year, and a five-year renewal of the Portland Children's Investment Fund that would cost $14 million per year.
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