Quote w/in a quote w/in a quote

Posted to my mass communications blogs. --pe

The CNN story was headlined "Why bad kissers don't get to second base." Cute enough. Worth a look. But what I really liked about it was the punctuation in the last 'graph! Take a look:

"The best kisses are always the ones that happen accidentally," observes New York City resident Benjamin Kayne, 25, a digital media sales director. "(Planned kisses) are just tedious, and I'm sitting there thinking, 'Is this over yet? The commercial is over and I'm missing "CSI".' "

That's a quote within a quote within a quote. That you don't see every day.

Christmas parties are just another excuse to consume Chocolate

A tenuous link to Christmas, but I’m all about books and food.

So to combine 'em, check out this link to amazon.com-- it’s got a great photograph too.


In the spirit of the season, have a second helping.

Christmas Clip Art

Christmas Clip Art

Christmas Cat

Here is a picture of a cute kitten who loves Christmas!

sample pix

Here's a picture of a deputy sheriff's badge. text

Best Christmas Movie

Here is a picture of the best Christmas movie ever

Master Chief will be coming into town for Christmas!

The Master Chief will be using Santa's sleigh this year for Halo fans. Here is a picture for Halo fans. Have a save holiday and Merry Christmas!

Christmas trees bound for troops' families
EmailPrint Text size – + By Alex I. Oster
Globe Correspondent / November 29, 2007
Besides the nip in the air and the Christmas carols playing in shops, there's another sure way to know Christmas season has come again: the sight of flatbed trucks filled with tightly bound evergreens, destined to become Christmas trees.
more stories like this
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Stores open early for bargain hunters

Mahoney's Garden Centers, with locations in Chelmsford, Concord, Tewksbury, and Winchester, among others in the Boston area, is stocking up on those trees because, this weekend, some people may buy two.
Mahoney's is the only retailer in the state participating in the Trees for Troops program, run by the nonprofit Christmas Spirit Foundation. Anyone buying a tree tomorrow through Sunday can spend about $20 or $30 more to buy a tree for a military family. Mahoney's kicks in $5 toward the shipping.
Both grades of tree are about the same height, but $30 trees are heavier and statelier.
FedEx Corp., which sponsors the program, will pick up the trees Monday and deliver them to one of several military bases around the country, where military families can pick a tree for free. The closest military base to receive trees will be Fort Drum in upstate New York, but trees go to bases in Virginia, South Carolina, and around the country.
Flatbeds brought 2,000 trees to Mahoney's last week in preparation for the season.
Tom Mahoney, a managing partner at the retailer, said he was sure hundreds of people, if not more, would participate in the program.
"It's a way people can support the troops in a tangible way," he said, adding that he wants "to make sure their Christmas is what it is to me and my family."
This year is Mahoney's first in the program, which began in 2005. In previous years, smaller Massachusetts tree growers participated. Heavy demand and a drought have left those growers strapped for trees, so this year those growers will make monetary donations to the program, while Mahoney's will supply most of the trees, said Laura Dooley, a manager at Mahoney's who is organizing the program.
The Christmas Spirit Foundation partners with tree farms around the country. The program has grown greatly since its inception. In its first year, 4,300 trees were delivered. This year, the foundation expects to deliver about 20,000.
In addition to delivering trees to military families in the United States, the foundation will deliver several hundred trees to troops in Iraq, Afghanistan, and aboard ships in Southwest Asia.
Although Mahoney's will be shipping trees only from its Winchester location, tags that will be attached to donated trees will be available at all locations.
© Copyright 2007 Globe Newspaper Company.
more stories like this

Visit the North Pole

Who says it's all work and no play for Santa this time of year? This website takes you to the Northpole. You can answer questions to see if you are on the naughty-or-nice list, dance with Santa, and even visit the reindeer barn.

Merry Christmas Balls

Christmas Balls

Xmas Picture

Here is a link to a Xmas picture

Christmas Picture

It's Christmas Here

Hooray for Asynchronous Internet!

This is ridiculous.
Okay. According to the third statement in the Principles of Journalism, “journalism’s essence is a discipline of verification”. So spreading rumors like this one is completely idiotic.

Points seven and eight on the ethics site state that journalism, “must strive to make the significant interesting and relevant”, and “must keep the news comprehensive and proportional”. This Clinton-Obama snit is not significant, and by spreading the rumor, Novak and others have blown this issue out of proportion.

If nothing else, Novak apparently is pleased to comply with the final statement from the Principles of Journalism:

“Practitioners must be allowed to exercise their personal conscience”

… assuming they have any.

This all reminds me of playground taunting. I know a secret and you don’t!

Libel definition

Here is a definition of libel

1a: a written statement in which a plaintiff in certain courts sets forth the cause of action or the relief sought barchaic : a handbill especially attacking or defaming someone2 a: a written or oral defamatory statement or representation that conveys an unjustly unfavorable impression b (1): a statement or representation published without just cause and tending to expose another to public contempt (2): defamation of a person by written or representational means (3): the publication of blasphemous, treasonable, seditious, or obscene writings or pictures (4): the act, tort, or crime of publishing such a libel

Halo 3 Article

An article on Halo 3 can be found at the Gamespy website.


It includes some quotes on how well some people played the game. For example,

We've all played a stupid amount of Master Chief's final push for victory, and we're here to spill the proverbial beans on our final thoughts and feelings. Were we all just caught up in the hype? Not likely! Read on to hear why we're still totally jazzed to be rocking 12-year-olds in the face with Spartan lasers.

Enjoy the article!

I have taken a quote from CNN discussing Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama's cat fight and spots in the poles. Kick her @$$ Obama!!!! It's a pretty factual quote, nobody's breakin' any laws here!

"Clinton last week saw a 23-point lead over Obama in September fall to 14 points, according to a CNN/WMUR New Hampshire presidential primary poll. That poll came out a day after another poll in Iowa found Obama first in the state, although his lead was within the sampling error."

Libel

Here is the link to a case that talks about libel.

Bloggers Gain Libel Protection
Xeni Jardin 06.30.03 | 2:00 AM
The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled last Tuesday that Web loggers, website operators and e-mail list editors can't be held responsible for libel for information they republish, extending crucial First Amendment protections to do-it-yourself online publishers.

Online free speech advocates praised the decision as a victory. The ruling effectively differentiates conventional news media, which can be sued relatively easily for libel, from certain forms of online communication such as moderated e-mail lists. One implication is that DIY publishers like bloggers cannot be sued as easily.

quotes clinton/obama exchange gets nasty

"Clinton also pointed fingers at Obama's health care plan, calling it "confusing," a day after the Illinois senator said his proposal would keep costs down more than any of his rivals' plans. "There's a big difference between Sen. Obama and me on health care. I have a health care plan that covers every single American. He does not," Clinton told reporters Sunday."

http://www.cnn.com/2007/POLITICS/11/27/obama.clinton.rancor/index.html

Employee rights

The California Survival Handbook was written by David Hurd in 1998. This is what he says about his book:

"We believe that all employees will find this information both interesting and important. Many employees have no idea that they may have rights in the protection of their personal reputation that are much stronger than their rights to their jobs. At will employees can be terminated at any time for no reason. This book points out that even if your employer can terminate you they cannot ruin your good name or your reputation as an excuse for terminating you, or as a side effect of your termination. Pay particular attention to the section dealing with performance reviews. Very enlightening."

Libel law changed forever in 1964 with the United States Supreme Court decision in New York Times v. Sullivan. That decision and others by the Warren Court established a clear concept of libel and one that guaranteed press freedom without eliminating libel entirely.
The Supreme Court held in the Times case that the Constitution, specifically the First Amendment, prohibits a public official from recovering damages for a defamatory falsehood related to his or her official conduct. The court included one qualification: malice, or actual malice. The definition given for actual malice was “with knowledge that it (the material in question) was false or with reckless disregard of whether if was false or not.”.:

The Supreme Court had no other choice in that case. Deciding otherwise would have shackled the press at the very time public debate was needed on important social issues. In the Times case the issue was segregation. Later it was to be the Vietnam War in the Pentagon Papers case, then President Richard Nixon’s right to withhold tapes and so on. Any other decision by the Supreme Court in the Times case would have changed history—and not for the better.

After establishing this new standard for public officials, the Supreme Court used other decisions to limit suits brought by public figures and private citizens.
Two cases were decided in one opinion in 1967. They were Associated Press v. Walker and Curtis Publishing Company v. Butts. In that decision the Supreme Court brought public figures under the umbrella it had created in Sullivan.
The court said that a public figure cannot collect damages unless malice is proved. The court established a guideline, “accepted publishing standards,” by which reckless disregard might be judged.
In 1971 in Rosenbloom v. Metromedia, Inc. the Supreme Court held that a private citizen involved in an event of public interest must prove malice to collect in a libel action.