Does the public have the right to know and challenge what’s going on in the current climate?
1. Find an article that you believe falls under muckraking, or yellow journalism.
1. Find an article that you believe falls under muckraking, or yellow journalism.
Copy and Paste the Article into the Post.
2. Describe what exactly the article is exposing.
3. Do you believe the article is legitimate, and explain why.
Kevin M
ReplyDeletePeriod 3
Progressive Era Assignment
Article:
Desperate to get back into Rihanna’s good graces, Chris Brown stunned her with a dazzling engagement diamond, sources say.
Rihanna accepted the ring, and is contemplating her future with Chris — but there is one major obstacle in the way of a reconciliation.
Rihanna's younger brother, Rorrey Fenty, 18, has vowed revenge on Brown, 19, for allegedly giving his sister a savage pre-Grammy beating, say sources close to the couple.
“Rorrey is fuming. He can barely contain his rage, and he’s shocked that his sister still has anything to do with Chris,” the family friend divulged.
“Rorrey says he intends to confront Chris man-to-man for the beating.”
It wouldn’t be the first time Rorrey, a student in Barbados, clashed with Brown, according to the source.
“When Chris visited Barbados with Rihanna last summer, Rorrey took Chris aside and told him, ‘Make sure you treat my sister well,’” said the family friend.
“But Chris responded by taking a dig at Rihanna. He boasted to Rorrey that Rihanna should be thrilled to have landed someone as special and in-demand with the ladies as he is. That did not sit well with Rorrey.”
1) The article is trying to say that before Rihanna marries Chris Brown; her brother wants to beat him up for hitting his sister. Although he may feel that way, the fight would never happen because of the media frenzy that would surround it.
2) I do not think the article is legitimate because the National Enquirer is known for writing false or exaggerated articles for the sake of their sales.
Melisa W.
ReplyDeletePer 4
Article:
The next time we go to war.(NEWS)(on Iraq and Afghanistan). John Diamond.
USA Today (March 11, 2009): p11A.
Reading Level (Lexile): N/A.
COPYRIGHT 2009 USA Today
Byline: John Diamond
Thousands of U.S. soldiers will be shifting from Iraq to Afghanistan at the president's behest, and members of Congress are largely spectators, confined to their legislative bleachers. This reality might be constitutionally correct. But our painful experience in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, combined with the arrival of a new president and Congress, make this an appropriate time to rethink how this nation goes to war should a new military crisis arise -- in Iran or North Korea, for example.
My prescription is simple: First, the U.S. intelligence community should be required to produce a detailed assessment not only of the immediate conflict ahead but also of the long-term implications of military commitment; second, every member of Congress should be required to read it. Some might be shocked to learn that these simple steps are not already mandatory. In fact, the procedures our government follows in committing U.S. forces to war are surprisingly ad hoc.
Such changes wouldn't affect President Obama's recent decisions to send 17,000 additional troops to Afghanistan and to keep roughly 50,000 troops in Iraq through 2011. Congress granted the president war-making power against al-Qaeda and its allies a week after the 9/11 attacks -- before Obama was even a senator. Obama's plan to keep a "residual" force in Iraq, after the bulk of U.S. combat forces leaves, rests on authority Congress granted to President Bush in October 2002.
Tackling tradition
What I am talking about involves neither a constitutional amendment nor even legislation, but rather a new set of procedures agreed upon by the executive and legislative branches that takes on the mantle of tradition. One small example of such a tradition already in place is the Senate's relatively recent practice of having members stand at their desks and vote one at a time when the issue is war, replacing the casual scrum that characterizes most Senate votes.
Even in crises, the intelligence community usually has enough information on a potential adversary to brief Congress extensively before a vote to use force. As soon as it is known that a war vote is in the offing, the intelligence community should get busy. It should assess not only the immediate military task ahead but also the longer-term consequences. Congress should vote only after this intelligence reporting becomes available.
There is no way in law to force disparate and independent legislators to sit down and read any one document, no matter how important. But in the case of a war vote, the combination of peer pressure and the threat of public embarrassment could ensure that lawmakers do what we have a right to expect they would do in any case.
The House and Senate leadership could announce before a vote on the use of force that all 535 members were expected, if not required, to read the available intelligence reporting. The majority and minority leaders could issue a schedule -- and make it public -- allotting time slots for each member to visit the secure intelligence committee rooms on the fourth floor of the Capitol building to read the classified intelligence.
A sign-in sheet could be made public so that constituents and the news media would know which senators and representatives had taken the time to examine the relevant reporting. Woe to the lawmaker running for re-election who hadn't bothered to spend two hours reading an intelligence report before voting to send U.S. troops into battle.
Why was this not done in the past two wars?
The vote to commit forces to Afghanistan came only days after the 9/11 attacks amid universal sentiment that something had to be done immediately. That allowed no time to produce a detailed intelligence assessment of the risk of U.S. forces becoming bogged down in a protracted occupation of that rugged, hostile land. Congress could easily have authorized emergency military action while taking more time to weigh longer-term implications of war in Afghanistan.
Incredibly, the Bush administration was prepared to initiate war in Iraq without even bothering to produce a detailed national intelligence assessment. Only when a handful of Democratic senators demanded one did the intelligence community rush a national intelligence estimate into print. The results of that rush job have been painfully evident ever since.
Flawed as the 2002 intelligence estimate was concerning Iraq's phantom weapons of mass destruction, it did include worrisome minority views expressing doubts about whether Iraq's threat was even remotely as serious as generally believed. Yet no more than a dozen lawmakers, according to my reporting, bothered to sit down and read the entire 90-page estimate. When no WMD turned up, Democrats demanded investigations into the gap between the Bush administration's scary warnings about Iraq and the intelligence community's more measured assessments. That gap, of course, should have been evident before the war -- to anyone who bothered to read the reports.
'Due diligence' ahead of war
The intelligence community did a better job raising concerns about the possibility of sectarian violence in Iraq after a U.S. invasion. But these warnings came three months after Congress had already voted to use force.
None of this would protect us against flawed decisions to go to war. But making this exercise a required part of war-making would help us anticipate the setbacks that are inevitable in conflict and would provide a sense of measured care, of due diligence, before we send our sons and daughters into battle.
John Diamond, a former USA TODAY intelligence beat reporter, is author of The CIA and the Culture of Failure: U.S. Intelligence from the End of the Cold War to the Invasion of Iraq.
1) This article is exposing the flaws in congress and the legislative process. The author tells of his own ideas of radical reforms to the government. He thinks our government needs to be more active. He also thinks there needs to be more laws about war and the way we go into war. He says that the Bush Administration did not think through Iraq and Afghanistan and went into those countries without any plan of how to get out. He thinks our government needs to be more active and organized in our war strategies.
2) I think this article is legitimate because all of the facts it states are true, however, it is very opinionated. It is trying to persuade people to think a certain way. It wants people to believe that the government is corrupt. This is more of opinion rather than a fact. It is not absolutely true but it is not absolutely false. It is somewhere in the middle.
Eric S.
ReplyDeleteperiod 5
I believe the bailout of AIG falls under yellow journalism. AIG was using our tax money from the government bailout to give their people their bonuses, about $165 million. This exposes the improper use of the tax payer’s money to high paying people. They should get some type of bonus but not that much. The article is legitimate because it exposes improper use of the bailout.
http://network.nationalpost.com/np/blogs/francis/archive/2009/03/19/aig-and-gm.aspx
Per 5
ReplyDeleteJustin L
Dozen arrested, drugs seized in probe
Heroin was brought to western Suffolk to be sold, authorities say
BY JOHN VALENTI
8:13 AM EDT, March 19, 2009
A dozen people have been arrested -- and three kilos of heroin, crack cocaine, marijuana and $200,000 in cash seized -- following a joint law-enforcement effort, authorities said.
Evidence indicates the heroin was cut and packaged in Queens and other metro locations and transported to western Suffolk County for sale, authorities said, adding that more arrests are expected.
Suffolk County District Attorney Thomas Spota is expected to detail the arrests and investigation at a news conference Thursday in Hauppauge.
The arrests and seizures come as the result of a joint investigation and enforcement effort by district attorney investigators, the State Police, the Drug Enforcement Agency, the Suffolk County Sheriff's Office and narcotics detectives from the Suffolk County Police Department.
In addition to the heroin, crack, marijuana and cash, about 50 weapons -- including handguns, shotguns and rifles -- were seized, authorities said.
1. The articles is exposing criminals that have smuggles a lot of drugs and weapons onto long island. They also found a lot of money with them, and arresting a lot of people.
2. I think it is legitimate, but to an extent. I feel like they make it a lot bigger than it actually is, as if they are just making this big flashy title and trying to have people buy the paper that they are producing.
Laura Y.
ReplyDeletePeriod 5
Progressive Era Assignment
Rihanna & Chris: Sex Tapes!
The leaked police photo of Rihanna's battered face stunned and horrified the world. But now Star has learned that the pop princess worries that other shocking images could go public — wild sex tapes of her with abusive boyfriend Chris Brown!
In the March 30 issue of Star —on sale now — we report that Rihanna allowed Chris to record some of their, um, intimate moments and — she worries that the racy tapes could ruin her — especially after seeing how quickly Chris turned on her once before.
"Rihanna has no issues with her sexuality," a source tells Star. "But she'd be mortified if her friends and family found this out!"
Insiders say Rihanna is still emotionally fragile and vulnerable since the Feb. 9 assault that left her nearly unconscious.
"This whole beating incident is terribly humiliating for her. She's already traumatized and will do anything to make it all go away as quickly as possible," explains the insider.
1. This article is imposing that Rihanna and Chris Brown made a sex tape which may get leaked to the media. It says that Rihanna is worried that Chris will release these tapes because she knows that she cannot trust him after the February 8th beatings.
2. I think that this story is false because Star Magazine is known it's fabricated stories. Also I don't think that Chris Brown would release these tapes because his reputation is already ruined enough when news spread of him abusing Rihanna. If Chris did release these tapes, his career would be permanently ruined.
Jaimie Kaplan, Period 3
ReplyDeleteYellow Journalism
1.) Remember the Maine
The battleship Maine drifted lazily at its mooring. Although the Havana night was moonless, the Maine's gleaming white hull -- longer than a football field -- contrasted against the blackness of the sea and sky. Smoke wisped from its two mustard-colored funnels. Random lights sparkled from its portholes and its bridge. In the captain's cabin, Charles Sigsbee sat at a table writing a letter to his wife. The trouble in Cuba, he wrote, would soon be over. The new Spanish governor of the island seemed to have the situation under control. During the three weeks that the Maine had been in Havana, Captain Sigsbee had seen no sign of Cuban rebels. He'd entertained the Spanish officers in his mess, and he and his staff had been entertained lavishly by the local officials. Although Sigsbee found the bullfights to which he'd been invited somewhat barbaric, the Spanish officers behaved as perfect gentlemen.
General Fitzhugh Lee
Capt. Charles D. Sigsbee, 1898
Even Fitzhugh Lee, the American consul, seemed optimistic. A month earlier the old general (Lee had commanded a cavalry division under his uncle Robert E. in the Civil War) had summoned a battleship to "protect American interests." Although the Maine was only a second-class battleship, it was the largest ship ever to enter Havana harbor. To the Cubans, it was a floating American fortress right in their capital city. Aboard the Maine, "taps" sounded at ten minutes past nine. Captain Sigsbee describes what happened next.
I laid down my pen and listened to the notes of the bugle, which were singularly beautiful in the oppressive stillness of the night. . . . I was enclosing my letter in its envelope when the explosion came. It was a bursting, rending, and crashing roar of immense volume, largely metallic in character. It was followed by heavy, ominous metallic sounds. There was a trembling and lurching motion of the vessel, a list to port. The electric lights went out. Then there was intense blackness and smoke.
The situation could not be mistaken. The Maine was blown up and sinking. For a moment the instinct of self-preservation took charge of me, but this was immediately dominated by the habit of command.
Captain Sigsbee managed to reach the deck, now slanted down sharply toward the submerged bow. He climbed aft toward the only part of the ship that was not awash. Fires had broken out all over the vessel, and they lit the harbor in an eerie red glow. In Havana lights began to shine from windows that had just been smashed by the blast. Most of the crew had been asleep in their berths at the forward part of the ship, which was already at the bottom of the harbor. The stern sunk more slowly. Crews from nearby ships manned lifeboats to rescue the surviving crewmen of the Maine. "Chief among them," Sigsbee wrote, "were the boats from the Alfonso XII. The Spanish officers and crews did all that humanity and gallantry could compass." Reluctantly, Captain Sigsbee abandoned the Maine, which continued to burn and explode throughout the night.
The twisted, burnt wreckage of the Maine 's stern and bridge was still above water in the morning. It remained there for years. Two hundred fifty-four seamen were dead, and fifty-nine sailors were wounded. Eight of the wounded later died. The navy conducted an investigation into the cause of the disaster, but it never discovered who was responsible for the explosion.
The American press, however, had no doubts about who was responsible for sinking the Maine. It was the cowardly Spanish, they cried. William Randolph Hearst's New York Journal even published pictures. They showed how Spanish saboteurs had fastened an underwater mine to the Maine and had detonated it from shore. As one of the few sources of public information, newspapers had reached unprecedented influence and importance. Journalistic giants, such as Hearst and Joseph Pulitzer of the World, viciously competed for the reader's attention. They were determined to reach a daily circulation of a million people, and they didn't mind fabricating stories in order to reach their goal. They competed in other ways as well. The World was the first newspaper to introduce colored comics, and the Journal immediately copied it. The two papers often printed the same comics under different titles. One of these involved the adventures of "The Yellow Kid," a little boy who always wore a yellow gown. Since color presses were new in the 1890s, the finished product was not always perfect. The colors, especially the Yellow Kid's costume, often smeared. Soon people were calling the World, the Journal, and other papers like them "the yellow press." "They colored the funnies," some said, "but they colored the news as well." A minor revolt in Cuba against the Spanish colonial government provided a colorful topic. For months now the papers had been painting in lurid detail the horrors of Cuban life under oppressive Spanish rule. The Spanish had confined many Cubans to concentration camps. The press called them "death camps." Wild stories with screaming headlines -- Spanish Cannibalism, Inhuman Torture, Amazon Warriors Fight For Rebels -- flooded the newsstands. Newspapers sent hundreds of reporters, artists, and photographers south to recount Spanish atrocities. The correspondents, including such notables as author Stephen Crane and artist Frederick Remington, found little to report on when they arrived. "There is no war," Remington wrote to his boss. "Request to be recalled." Remington's boss, William Randolph Hearst, sent a cable in reply: "Please remain. You furnish the pictures, I'll furnish the war." Hearst was true to his word. For weeks after the Maine disaster, the Journal devoted more than eight pages a day to the story. Not to be outdone, other papers followed Hearst's lead. Hundreds of editorials demanded that the Maine and American honor be avenged. Many Americans agreed. Soon a rallying cry could be heard everywhere -- in the papers, on the streets, and in the halls of Congress: "Remember the Maine! To hell with Spain."
2.) This article is exploiting what happened on the USS Maine ship when it was bombed during the Spanish American War.
3.) I feel that this article is not legitimate because the journalist that wrote this article was simply trying to wreak havoc. The Maine ship was not bombed but it hit a missile underneath the water. It was blown up non-intentionally and this article is a very good example of yellow journalism and what it looks like.
Liz B.
ReplyDeletePeriod:4
Same old game, same old talk: The faux apology act by athletes is growing stale in a hurry
By TIM DAHLBERG | AP Sports Columnist
2:50 PM EDT, March 14, 2009
Mistakes, we all make them.
Regrets, well, we all have a few.
Alex Rodriguez surely had some about shooting up with steroids, though, curiously enough, he didn't mention them until he was outed for testing positive. His biggest one now seems to be that he got caught for what he wants you to believe was a youthful indiscretion.
Michael Phelps has some to, and who can blame him. One picture of him smoking a bong figures to long trump the Sports Illustrated cover of him with eight gold medals around his neck.
Like A-Rod, he has an explanation. Does the phrase "immature and stupid" ring a bell?
Don't be confused if you get a serious case of deja vu Sunday night watching Phelps answering questions posed by Matt Lauer on NBC's "Dateline" in what the network advertises as an "exclusive" first television interview by Phelps since the infamous picture of him with the bong surfaced in a British tabloid.
Never mind that Phelps has already told print journalists basically the same things he tells Lauer and that he is so uninteresting he is painful to watch. Exclusive in this case means a chance to make even more prime-time money off Phelps than NBC managed to squeeze out of his golden run in Beijing.
Judging from the segment that was used as a teaser on the "Today" show, you could have replaced Phelps with A-Rod, Lauer with Peter Gammons, and marijuana with steroids and the interview would have been eerily the same as the one Rodriguez offered up last month.
By now the formula should be familiar. Jason Giambi pioneered it when he apologized for doing something bad, then refused to say just what bad thing he was apologizing for.
Worked well for him, too. Giambi was able to pocket the $82 million he had remaining on his Yankee contract, no further questions asked.
Rodriguez did much the same thing, admitting that he used something but wasn't quite sure what it was. He blamed a cousin and the magazine reporter who busted him for his problems, which he said were really caused by him being "young and stupid" and doing an "immature" thing.
Seems to be working for him, too. The Yankees rallied around A-Rod, and he's still got some $250 million left on his contract. He may even play the remaining nine years he signed up for, though the history with steroid users is that they tend to break down when they stop using the stuff, assuming, of course, that Rodriguez has.
And now we have Phelps, who has contracts of a different kind. His are with advertisers and sponsors, who need to be reassured that they aren't throwing their money away on someone a lot of people are going to think of as a stoner first and a swimmer second.
That's the reason Phelps did the taping with Lauer, who could be counted on to help in the damage control process and eventual rehabilitation to superstar by the time of the 2012 Olympics, which his network just happens to be broadcasting. To his credit, Lauer asked the requisite questions, but he didn't seem to hear any of the answers.
Maybe that's because he, like all of us, has heard them before.
Phelps, it turns out, made some mistakes, though he declined to say just what they were. He was young and stupid, of course, but now that he's seen the error of his ways his advice to children who see him or other athletes as role models is to take responsibility for your mistakes.
So, kids, next time you do something bad, go to your parents and tell them you did something bad. Just don't tell them what it was.
We all know what this was, of course. Not too many people attach their lips to a bong without having some kind of underlying reason for it.
But wouldn't it be nice for Phelps to just come clean and cut out the charade? Is there any point of wasting our time in prime time on national TV in what is really nothing more than an effort to appease sponsors and NBC?
There isn't, of course, just like there was no reason to watch A-Rod or Giambi, either. It's all manufactured damage control, scripted by someone in a PR office somewhere.
And by now the script has grown stale.
___
Tim Dahlberg is a national sports columnist for The Associated Press. Write to him at tdahlberg@ap.org
2. This article exposes a couple of major famous athletes that have been very successful and it is now revealed about them that they are doing drugs and some are taking steroids. And this article shows that now they have to go through a lot of consequences based on their actions.
3. Of course this article is legitimate. This is absolutely horrible that these athletes would do this but everyone makes mistakes. And especially in A-Rod’s case why are they finally making a big deal out of it when there are hundreds of major league baseball players behind him making the same mistake! He did something very wrong but there are many other players that should be getting the same penalty as him and they aren’t.
Mike M
ReplyDeleteArticle: Clemens denies steroid use
The report says Brian McNamee, a former Toronto Blue Jays strength coach, testified that Clemens received injections of the steroid Winstrol in Clemens' Toronto, Ontario, apartment in 1998.
McNamee "injected Clemens approximately four times in the buttocks over a several-week period with needles that Clemens provided," the report said. It said Clemens' pitching improved during that time.
"During this period of improved performance, Clemens told McNamee that the steroids 'had a pretty good effect' on him," the report said.
The report said McNamee also injected Clemens with testosterone and human growth hormone after Clemens moved to the New York Yankees in 2000.
"Roger has been repeatedly tested for these substances and he has never tested positive," Hardin said in a statement. "There has never been one shred of tangible evidence that he ever used these substances and yet he is being slandered today."
The article is exposing the frauds of baseball. It shows the abuse of anobolic steroids to cheat there way through the game.
I think the article is legitimate because there is more then enough evidence to prove that the use of steroids by Roger Clemens is more believable. BY DNA samples the Mcnamee
Nicole A., Period 3
ReplyDeletehttp://www.newsday.com/news/local/newyork/ny-etnatasha0320,0,1302865.story
1. Tjis article is talking about actress Natasha Richardson's death. I believe that they are only blowing this story out of proportion because she is famous. Also, it has been reported that there has also been an increase in the amount of helmets being worn due to her death.
2. I believe this is a legitimate story because it has all of the facts of her death, even though they are making it more of a big deal than it really is.
Katelyn B.
ReplyDeletePeriod 3
Bernie Madoff's $50 Billion Ponzi Scheme
Robert Lenzner, 12.12.08, 06:45 PM EST
Brazen fraud ensnares well-known investors and nonprofits and gives hedge funds another black eye.
The shocking revelation that prominent investment manager Bernard Madoff's hedge fund, Ascot Partners, was a giant scam will intensify redemptions from scores of other hedge funds that will be forced to liquidate holdings and increase downward pressure on stock prices.
This additional negative influence on the market, together with liquidations by mutual funds facing redemptions and endowments facing the need for liquidity, are three significant barriers for optimism about the direction of stock prices in the near term.
The arrest of the 70-year-old Madoff, widely considered to have the magic touch as an investor, is another serious black eye for the hedge fund industry and all non-transparent investment vehicles. Investors across the New York area have clamored to be in Ascot because of the stability of double-digit returns and the reports of serious wealth creation. The scandal is bound to reveal the inner workings of the hedge fund industry, whereby intermediary feeders bring in their clients and take fees for putting clients with an investment manager.
If Madoff hadn't faced $7 billion in redemptions, this Ponzi scheme might not have been discovered. What's astonishing is that he got away with it for so long with nobody discovering it. What his four family members in Ascot knew is a puzzle that everyone wants answered, but one thing is certain: It's virtually impossible to have returns like Madoff reported, and it should have been a major warning signal.
Aside from the impact on stocks overall, the exposure of fraud on a massive scale is also devastating to individuals who trusted Madoff with their fortunes and to nonprofit organizations like Yeshiva University, which counted on Madoff's purported secret trading system to help operate its institutions. Sterling Equities, the investment vehicle of the Wilpon family, which owns the New York Mets baseball team, had $300 million reportedly invested in Ascot. So did some wealthy investors who had money in related hedge funds who were never informed of ties to Ascot. Another private bank executive placed $10 million from a client just two weeks ago. He knew of another family that had $100 million with Madoff. A woman in California told us that she had lost everything with Madoff and another hedge fund.
Everyone in New York wants to know how Madoff could have pulled off this Ponzi scheme whereby these new investment funds were apparently used to pay double-digit returns to some of the older investors. A charitable account that operates institutions in Israel received a 12% return recently. Other individual investors report that they got nothing.
Ascot's monthly reports are voluminous, showing many transactions in and out of the market every day. Madoff was supposed to have some "black box" model that signaled when to buy and when to sell. He was one of the most active traders in the marketplace, and his annual returns in these short-term trades were mainly ordinary income, which made Ascot attractive mostly to tax free institutions like foundations, hospitals and religious groups. After many years of returns in the range of 12% to 15%, in recent times the profits have been in the high single digits at times.
If indeed, $50 billion was lost, as apparently Madoff claims, it is the largest such fraud in history, and one that might even shame the conman whose name is attached to this brand of deception. In 1920, Charles Ponzi, an Italian immigrant, began advertising that he could make a 50% return for investors in only 45 days. Incredibly, Ponzi began taking in money from all over New England and New Jersey. By July of 1920, he was making millions as people mortgaged their homes and invested their life savings. As with all frauds, he was discovered to have a jail record and was indicted on 86 counts of fraud. Some tens of millions of dollars were invested with him.
Other fraudsters have made inglorious names for themselves. In March of 1932, Ivar Kreuger, a Swedish businessman who had cooked the books of his match manufacturing business and forged $142 million of bonds, shot himself in the head. It was reported that he may have burned through $400 million of investor money by falsifying the accounts of 400 separate companies.
Until Madoff came along, the Equity Funding scandal may have been the largest fraud in dollar terms in U.S. history. A publicly held company whose shares traded on the New York Stock Exchange, the top executives falsified 64,000 insurance policies that were used to report revenues of $2 billion. The company also sold $25 million in counterfeit bonds and had missing assets of $100 million. Three auditors and high ranking executives served prison terms.
Expect Madoff to be one of the first jailed investors of the 2008 market meltdown. Hopefully, there will be others.
2. This article is exposing Bernie Madoff's Ponzi hedge fund scam. People invested in Madoff's hedge fund and when the economy collapsed and people wanted their money back, he had spent it all, and didn't have the money to return to the investors.
3. Yes, because there is legitimate evidence of Madoffs expenses and investors losing over millions of dollars.
Ellie A. Period 3
ReplyDeleteBehind the scenes, elephant trainer Tim Frisco instructs would-be trainers how to dominate elephants and make them perform circus tricks. “Sink that hook into ’em. When you hear that screaming, then you know you got their attention.” An elephant trumpets in agony as Frisco’s bullhook, with its sharp metal hook and spiked end, tears through her sensitive skin. Frisco, a Carson & Barnes elephant trainer, learned the trade from his father, a former trainer for Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus. Click here to watch the video.
The fact is, animals do not naturally ride bicycles, stand on their heads, balance on balls, or jump through rings of fire. To force them to perform these confusing and physically uncomfortable tricks, trainers use whips, tight collars, muzzles, electric prods, bullhooks, and other painful tools of the trade.
1. This article is exposing the disgusting truth behind the red shiny curtain at the circus. It tells how cruel the trainers are and the torture and pain that the elephants go through.
2. This article is legitimate because it exposes the truth, with videos and proof of the terrible cruel acts that the trainers do to the animals so they can ride a stupid bike. They are not meant to be in the circuses and it shows what the elephants feel when they are forced to do these acts.
Sara F
ReplyDeletePeriod 3
Article
I Knew Bernie Madoff Was Cheating, That's Why I Invested with Him
Interesting tidbits coming in about Bernie Madoff Specifically, we're hearing that the smart money KNEW Bernie had to be cheating, because the returns he was generating were impossibly good. Many Wall Streeters suspected the wrong rigged game, though: They thought it was insider trading, not a Ponzi scheme. And here's the best part: That's why they invested with him.
For years and years I've heard people say that [Bernie's] investment performance was too good to be true. The returns were too steady -- like GE earnings under Welch -- and too high given the supposed strategy.
One Madoff investor, himself a legend, told me that Madoff's performance "just doesn't make sense. The numbers can't be straight." Another sophisticated Madoff investor actually went through trade confirms in order to reverse-engineer the strategy and said, "it doesn't add up."
So why did these smart and skeptical investors keep investing? They, like many Madoff investors, assumed Madoff was somehow illegally trading on information from his market-making business for their benefit. They didn't consider the possibility that he was clean on that score but running a good old-fashioned Ponzi scheme.
And another from Whitney Tilson:
One friend who saw this coming said Madoff had his own broker-dealer and a relative as his finance guy; another friend said he was suspicious because of the 1-2%/month returns with never a down month (much less quarter or year), combined with never showing a a down month (much less quarter or year), combined with never showing anyone his portfolio. 99% of the time, if it sounds too good to be true, IT IS!
1. This Article is exposing how people knew that Bernie Madoff was cheating and knew what was coming in the future and that’s why people started to invest with him.
2. This article is legitimate because it shows that people believe that Bernie was a legend and that he was illegally trading on information form his business of benefit.
Mike E
ReplyDeletePeriod 3
Just stopped by the gym, where the photos of Olympic gold-medal swimmer Michael Phelps smoking pot were all over the wall of televisions. It was the talk of the treadmillers. Yesterday, I was at a gathering of mothers of middle- and high-school-age kids. It was the talk of the moms, too. "Can you believe that?" they all said, shaking their heads and talking about their teenage Phelps Phans. How could he have been so stupid?
Today's Washington Post has a column by Sally Jenkins—just below a news story on the front page of the sports section with this headline: "Clemens's DNA Is Linked to Syringes / Attorney says tests 'won't matter at all.' " That article details the scientific tests that link baseball great Roger Clemens's DNA to blood found in syringes his trainer says he used to inject drugs into Clemens. His lawyer was dismissive of the whole thing.
Anyway, Jenkins's column is equally dismissive of the Phelps photos. Full of snarky references to drug slang and wink-wink asides denying that she has ever smoked pot herself, Jenkins goes on to rationalize Phelps's drug use. Her excuses for him range from "He merely got caught doing what scores of people did every weekend in college" to "It's better than drinking and driving" and even "It's organic!" She points out that "fortunately" he won't face official sanctions because while the "draconian" World Anti-Doping Agency enforces bans on over-the-counter medications in season, it does nothing about "out-of-competition recreational drug use"—or illegal drug use, as the rest of us call it.
She belittles those who insist their sports heroes be "superhuman ideals" and says it's "absurd" to expect Phelps to be a role model. "All he did was behave in an unmeasured and uncalculated way and suffer the bad luck to be photographed doing it," she writes.
What planet is she on?
Does she not realize how many middle- and high-school kids look up to Michael Phelps? That he's on the front of Wheaties boxes right now? That we all warn our kids about the dangers of drug use? Most parents find that photo sad and disappointing and will use it as a Teachable Moment for teenagers. What Michael Phelps did was a shame, but adults' defending—and even encouraging—his drug use are far more shameful.
1. This Article is exposing the bad decisions of Michael Phelps and the disappointment that was placed on all of his fans.
2. No, I don’t believe this article is legitimate because it is blowing up way out of proportion. Most of these articles were exaggerated to feed their sales. Michael Phelps has been dropped by many companies and this event has messed up a lot of his career. With a story like this the medias eyes light up not because of what actually happened but because of the profit that they can make.
Cara S per 3
ReplyDeleteGirl, 2, dies after choking on carrot at Hicksville school
State shuts down part of Carousel Day School
BY SUMATHI REDDY | sumathi.reddy@newsday.com
9:48 PM EDT, March 18, 2009
The state has closed down the toddler program at Carousel Day School in Hicksville after the death of a 2-year-old girl who plucked a baby carrot out of her teacher's bag and choked on it.
The State Office of Children and Family Services issued the school a cease-and-desist order Wednesday after an investigation spurred by the Tuesday death.
"We're closing them down," said Eddie Borges, a spokesman for the state Office of Children and Family Services. "They're not licensed in the State of New York. They're under our jurisdiction and we know nothing about them."
The toddler, Olivia Raspanti of Hicksville, choked at about 10:30 a.m. at the school after retrieving a carrot from behind her teacher's desk, said Det. Sgt. Anthony Repalone, a Nassau police spokesman.
Video
Wednesday Olivia's grief-stricken grandfather, Anthony E. Raspanti, said he wants answers. "Are carrots supposed to be allowed in a classroom with 2-year-olds?" he asked. "Wasn't anybody looking?
"You send them to school because you want them to be safe . . .” he added. "Not because you want them dead."
The State Office of Children and Family Services found that the school was caring for nine children under the age of 3 for more than three hours a day. Any day care center that has two or more children for three or more hours a week must be licensed.
Carousel Day School was chartered in 1984 for preschool, kindergarten and first grade - not second or third - said Jonathan Burman, a spokesman for the New York State Education Department.
Karen Walker Bryce, general counsel for State Office of Children and Family Services, said the school could remain open if Carousel shuts down its program for children younger than 3 years old. But she said the state was investigating Carousel's other programs, such as an all-day nursery, after-school programs and a summer camp for children ages 2 and up.
The owners of the center, Jane and Gene Formica, did not respond to calls for comment.
In a statement, Gene Formica said, "The health and safety of all of our children is our greatest concern at Carousel Day School, and this loss has affected each of us very deeply and personally."
The toddler was in a classroom with about a dozen children, supervised by a teacher and two teachers' aides, police said.
School employees began performing first aid and called 911, police said. Police continued CPR when they arrived.
The toddler, who would have turned 3 later this spring, was transported to Nassau University Medical Center, where she was pronounced dead at 4:25 p.m., police said. The medical examiner will determine the exact cause of death.
The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends keeping raw vegetables, among other foods, away from children younger than 4 because they are choking hazards.
Parents picking up their children from Carousel Wednesday weren't all aware of the news.
Brunda Shastri, 43, of Westbury, whose 6-year-old daughter attends the school, said she was concerned about the death but added her experience with the school over the past three years has been positive. "It is a very good day care," she said. "They take care of things very well."
The Raspanti family - which includes her parents, Anthony J. and Lisa, and brothers, 7 and 9 - are now making funeral preparations. Her grandfather said he was going shopping to buy Olivia's last dress.
"She was a beautiful little girl - my princess," said Anthony Raspanti.
Among his last memories were a family party where Olivia sang "Happy Birthday" to her grandfather, helping him blow out the candles on his cake.
"There are no words to describe what I feel," he said. "It's like somebody hit you with a bowling ball and keeps shoving it in. You can't even catch your breath."
This story was reported by staff writers Michael Amon, Matthew Chayes, Zach Dowdy, Jennifer Kelleher and Laura Rivera.
1) The article is exposing how the day care center was unlicensed in the state of New York. It says how it is illegal because the state needs to recognize them as a legitimate establishment.
2) I think the article is legitimate because the state of New York does not recognize them, it is also unsafe because they might not have all the mandated requirements.
Nick E
ReplyDeletePer3
Rep. Peter King rejects bill to tax corporate bonuses
BY TOM BRUNE | Newsday Staff Writer
12:35 AM EDT, March 20, 2009
The House bill to levy a 90 percent tax on bonuses to employees at federally bailed-out firms such as AIG won the backing of Long Island's four Democrats Thursday, but was rejected by its lone Republican.
Reacting to widespread outrage at AIG's payments last weekend of $165 million in bonuses, the House passed the bill 328-93.
"We did this to restore the public's confidence that there are guardians at the gate, that their representatives are here to protect their money," said Rep. Steve Israel (D-Huntington), sponsor of the bill with Rep. Charles Rangel (D-N.Y.).
Rep. Pete King (R-Seaford) opposed it, though he said AIG bonuses should be returned. "It is wrong and dangerous," he said, "to use the tax code to target specific individuals to score political points. Today's legislation violates American protections against bills of attainder and ex post facto laws."
He also called it "hypocritical posturing" by Democrats, saying they protected bonuses in the stimulus bill and their Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner was involved in the AIG bailout from the start.
Democrats, however, blame the Bush administration for approving the bonuses last October.
2. This article is exposing the corrupt doings in recent time of a assurance agency, and its non righteous way of giving out bonuses, and cheating people out of money
3. I believe that this article is legitimate because Newsday, and its partners are a trusted name in news and within the article there are direct quotes from the people involved in the scandal.
Sara.S
ReplyDeletePD.4
Chris Brown and Rihanna: The Whole Story
It's a sad, but well-documented truth that those who grow up surrounded by domestic violence will sometimes replicate the same destructive pattern later in life.
Many are saying that this is the case with 19-year-old singer Chris Brown, who was arrested this past weekend for alleged domestic violence and felony battery against his girlfriend, 20-year-old Barbados-born singer Rihanna. The incident led to the cancellation of both their Grammy performances Sunday.
Brown was raised surrounded by domestic violence; his stepfather allegedly abused his mother. Ironically, in 2006, Brown told MTV the abuse was "an influence in me about how to treat a woman." He also stated, "I used to always feel the hate for anybody that disrespected a lady."
Brown and Rihanna reportedly began fighting in Brown's rented Lamborghini when Brown received a text message from another woman after leaving Clive Davis' pre-Grammy party late Saturday [via New York Daily News].
Brown pulled over the car in L.A.'s Hancock Park neighborhood and an upset Rihanna is said to have tossed the keys out the window. A source "close to the investigation" who spoke with E! News said Brown responded by choking and threatening to kill the pop diva before she lost consciousness.
A neighbor, hearing a woman's screams, made a call to 911 and the police arrived to find an injured Rihanna left alone at the scene. They took photos to document the singer's injuries, which are described as "horrific" -- major contusions on both sides of the singer's face, a black eye, a split lip, bloody nose and bite marks on one of her arms and on several fingers [via TMZ.com].
She was then taken to Cedars-Sinai Medical Center for treatment and Brown later turned himself in to the LAPD and was charged with making a criminal threat. He was released on $50,000 bail.
Since the incident, sources have come forward alleging that this may not have been the first time Brown abused Rihanna. A source identified as a friend of Rihanna's described the pair's relationship as "volatile" to US Weekly and added that bruises were clearly visible on the singer's neck in early December. "I asked if everything was OK with her and Chris," the friend is quoted as saying. "She told me, 'We broke up again.'"
Life and Style magazine has reported that Brown's temper has manifested itself in violent ways in the past -- claiming that a fight between the singer and his mom that took place in a Miami hotel in 2007 saw Brown "screaming and throwing dishes," which prompted concerned hotel guests to call the police.
Brown's sister has spoken to Extra in his defense, describing him as "a good boy -- never violent," and adding that "He's doing good. He's coping." Rihanna's grandmother, meanwhile, told Barbados' leading newspaper, The Daily Nation, "I don't want people to worry. Rihanna is fine and she is doing well."
And while the two at the center of the storm struggle to come back from it, the incident has also sent shockwaves throughout the hip-hop community. A source told US Weekly that upon hearing the news, rapper Jay Z "hit the roof" and that Brown was now a "walking dead man" as a result. Self-proclaimed "big brother" to Rihanna, Kanye West, has openly talked about being "devastated" by the affair, and praised the singer's talent to Ryan Seacrest on his KIIS-FM radio show. "I feel like she is the most important artist in music and has the most potential. Her taste level and her age... she has the potential to be the greatest artist of all time."
Rihanna is said to be cooperating with investigators building a domestic violence case against Brown, according to a police source quoted by the Los Angeles Times. Currently Brown is scheduled to appear in court March 5 for arraignment on one felony count.
1. Describe what exactly the article is exposing.
Chris is said to be an abusive boyfriend, and grew up with a step father that beat his mom. He has beat Rihanna a couple times and she keeps going back to him. All Rihanna’s friends say that Chris is abusive to her, and said that there relationship should be described as“volatile.”
2. Do you believe the article is legitimate, and explain why.
I think the article is legitimate because you see it all over the news and read about it everywhere.Im sure there may be a few false statements because not everything that they write may be 100% true, but for the most part i think it is true.
Jackie G
ReplyDeletePeriod 4
Chris Brown and Rihanna
It's a sad, but well-documented truth that those who grow up surrounded by domestic violence will sometimes replicate the same destructive pattern later in life.
Many are saying that this is the case with 19-year-old singer Chris Brown, who was arrested this past weekend for alleged domestic violence and felony battery against his girlfriend, 20-year-old Barbados-born singer Rihanna. The incident led to the cancellation of both their Grammy performances Sunday.
Brown was raised surrounded by domestic violence; his stepfather allegedly abused his mother. Ironically, in 2006, Brown told MTV the abuse was "an influence in me about how to treat a woman." He also stated, "I used to always feel the hate for anybody that disrespected a lady."
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
More on SPIN.com:
>> Is Chris Brown's Career Over?
>> 11 Thoughts About the Grammys
>> All 25 Grammy Performances -- Ranked!
>> Grammys: The 7 Best Moments
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Brown and Rihanna reportedly began fighting in Brown's rented Lamborghini when Brown received a text message from another woman after leaving Clive Davis' pre-Grammy party late Saturday [via New York Daily News].
Brown pulled over the car in L.A.'s Hancock Park neighborhood and an upset Rihanna is said to have tossed the keys out the window. A source "close to the investigation" who spoke with E! News said Brown responded by choking and threatening to kill the pop diva before she lost consciousness.
A neighbor, hearing a woman's screams, made a call to 911 and the police arrived to find an injured Rihanna left alone at the scene. They took photos to document the singer's injuries, which are described as "horrific" -- major contusions on both sides of the singer's face, a black eye, a split lip, bloody nose and bite marks on one of her arms and on several fingers [via TMZ.com].
She was then taken to Cedars-Sinai Medical Center for treatment and Brown later turned himself in to the LAPD and was charged with making a criminal threat. He was released on $50,000 bail.
Since the incident, sources have come forward alleging that this may not have been the first time Brown abused Rihanna. A source identified as a friend of Rihanna's described the pair's relationship as "volatile" to US Weekly and added that bruises were clearly visible on the singer's neck in early December. "I asked if everything was OK with her and Chris," the friend is quoted as saying. "She told me, 'We broke up again.'"
Life and Style magazine has reported that Brown's temper has manifested itself in violent ways in the past -- claiming that a fight between the singer and his mom that took place in a Miami hotel in 2007 saw Brown "screaming and throwing dishes," which prompted concerned hotel guests to call the police.
Brown's sister has spoken to Extra in his defense, describing him as "a good boy -- never violent," and adding that "He's doing good. He's coping." Rihanna's grandmother, meanwhile, told Barbados' leading newspaper, The Daily Nation, "I don't want people to worry. Rihanna is fine and she is doing well."
And while the two at the center of the storm struggle to come back from it, the incident has also sent shockwaves throughout the hip-hop community. A source told US Weekly that upon hearing the news, rapper Jay Z "hit the roof" and that Brown was now a "walking dead man" as a result. Self-proclaimed "big brother" to Rihanna, Kanye West, has openly talked about being "devastated" by the affair, and praised the singer's talent to Ryan Seacrest on his KIIS-FM radio show. "I feel like she is the most important artist in music and has the most potential. Her taste level and her age... she has the potential to be the greatest artist of all time."
Rihanna is said to be cooperating with investigators building a domestic violence case against Brown, according to a police source quoted by the Los Angeles Times. Currently Brown is scheduled to appear in court March 5 for arraignment on one felony count.
Questions:
Does the public have the right to know and challenge what’s going on in the current climate?
4. This article exposes both yellow journalism and muckraking.
5. This article is exposing both yellow journalism and muckraking. The Chris Brown vs. Rihanna incident being described in the article is portraying a muckraker’s work on an article in describing and researching on a violent investigation and search for corruption. This article also falls under yellow journalism. This is because it is exploiting and exaggerating the situation. People don’t actually know what really happened in the car; the situation is being assumed and dragged out by the media. The story reveals the tragic incident of how Chris Brown purposely hit Rihanna and beat her up continuously.
6. No, I don’t think that this article is legitimate. This is because the media is exaggerating this Chris Brown vs. Rihanna story. I believe that Chris Brown did hit Rihanna and left her in bad condition. I feel that the media exaggerated the amount of violence that was involved by Chris Brown. Also, this article is only giving one side to the story, while Rihanna was involved too. Although, I do agree with this article that what Chris did was wrong and you should never hit a girl. I also agree with the fact that Chris was surrounded by an abuse parent growing up and that did affect him greatly- he need s to get help before his career sinks down even more.
Lindsey F-period 4
ReplyDelete1."Jennifer Aniston and Angelina Jolie are reportedly sharpening their claws once again over Brad Pitt’s mother Jane Pitt.
According to a new report, there is still rivalry between Brad Pitt’s past wife Jennifer and current flame Angelina for Jane Pitt’s affections.
It is known that Jane Pitt and Jennifer Aniston have remained very good friends since her divorce from Brad Pitt in 2005. This closeness is believed to have push Angelina Jolie into fits of outrage and jealousy.The insider added that, “between Angie’s tattoos, bisexuality and past drug use, there’s always been a part of Jane that’s wondered why Brad ever got involved with a woman like her!”"
2. The article is exposing the supposive "fight" between Angelina Jolie, and Jennifer Aniston, Brad Pitt's ex-wife.
3.I don't think the article is legitimate because they are all assupmtions made about the two. There are no direct quotes supporting any of the information
Robert W
ReplyDeleteMr. Harris
Period 4
Muckraking Article
1. Exposing Anti-Choice Abortion Clinics
By Amanda Marcotte, AlterNet
Posted on May 1, 2006, Printed on March 20, 2009
http://www.alternet.org/story/35545/
According to a recent Planned Parenthood email, a 17-year-old girl mistakenly walked into a crisis pregnancy center thinking it was Planned Parenthood, which was next door. "The group took down the girl's confidential personal information and told her to come back for her appointment, which they said would be in their 'other office' (the real Planned Parenthood office nearby)."
When she showed up for her nonexistent appointment, she was met by the police, who had been erroneously tipped that a minor was being forced to abort. The crisis pregnancy center staff followed up this harassment by staking out the girl's house, phoning her father at work, and even talking to her classmates about her pregnancy, urging them to harass her.
I contacted Jennifer Jorczak of Planned Parenthood of Indiana to verify this story, and while she was unable to provide details out of respect for the patient's privacy, she confirmed that everything in the initial action alert email was true.
This humiliating and frustrating experience seems, by all accounts, to await more American women in the near future. And the best part? It's funded by your tax dollars.
Even here in the liberal city of Austin, Texas, the signs are everywhere: "Pregnant? Need help?"
If you're facing an unwanted pregnancy, one of the possible solutions would be getting un-pregnant -- still a legal, if sometimes difficult-to-find, option in America. But the "crisis pregnancy centers" these signs advertise seek to limit and, in some cases, prevent women from exploring their legal options for health care.
Dishonest as these types of crisis pregnancy centers are, it's hard to argue against their right to exist, especially since most of their clients enter their doors willingly. However, the aforementioned incident reported by Planned Parenthood of Indiana indicates that some groups are not above using more aggressive methods to stop women from aborting pregnancies.
These tactics are even more troubling in light of the growing legislative support to direct taxpayer money towards crisis pregnancy centers and away from places that provide actual reproductive services to low-income women. Texas, as usual, stands at the forefront of conservative innovation in the art of draining public funding while reducing services. In the latest round of cuts, $25 million was sliced from the state budget for family planning services and $5 million of that money was set aside in a rider from Republican Sen. Tommy Williams to fund crisis pregnancy centers.
Peggy Romberg of the Women's Health and Family Planning Association of Texas estimates that 17,000 low-income women will lose access to affordable family planning as a result of the cuts, adding to the 75 percent of low-income Texas women who are eligible for state-funded family planning services but who lack actual access. And that's just in Texas. According to Planned Parenthood crisis pregnancy centers across the nation "have received $60 million of government grants."
Only two organizations applied for the $5 million in available funding for Texas's crisis pregnancy centers, and the one that received it, the Texas Pregnancy Care Network, appears to have been formed just to acquire this money. The TPCN is associated with a group called Real Alternatives, an anti-choice organization that has put so little effort into their "educational" materials that the site goes so far as to have sections called "Telling Your Boyfriend" and "Telling Your Parents," seemingly ignorant of the fact that most abortions are performed on adult women, many of whom are married.
Anti-choice activists openly regard family planning clinics like Planned Parenthood as primarily feminist organizations that just so happen to provide health care. Sarah Wheat of NARAL Pro-Choice Texas, who spent a considerable amount of time researching crisis pregnancy centers and has compiled a full report on them, explained that the first crisis pregnancy center was opened in 1967 by Robert Pearson as "the service arm of the anti-choice movement." Crisis pregnancy centers have a long history of providing the absolute minimum of services required to maintain the illusion that they provide care while they further their actual goal of trying to persuade women out of abortion -- sometimes using deceptive methods.
Peggy Romberg recollected that when she worked for Planned Parenthood in the '80s, crisis pregnancy centers would actually provide shelter to pregnant women right up until the eligible date for legal abortion had passed. They would then turn the women out, and it was Romberg's agency that was tasked with explaining to these desperate women that it was too late.
These hardline tactics were softened after a number of states began cracking down. Texas's own attorney general sued to prevent crisis pregnancy centers from advertising themselves as abortion providers in 1985. As a result the centers evolved to put on a better show of caring about women's health by advertising themselves as places to obtain full medical information.
But the kinder, gentler crisis pregnancy centers might be even more problematic than those engaging in more open harassment, as in the Indiana incident. The gentler face of the centers makes their health care pretenses slightly more plausible, even if their function is primarily political. Sarah Wheat said she and her staff regularly make phone calls to crisis pregnancy centers to learn more about the services offered there and, as a general rule, these pseudo-clinics have few or no paid employees, no medical personnel on staff and no real facilities to provide any medical care. Generally speaking, the medical treatment provided by the largely volunteer staff is nothing more than handing clients a pregnancy test that could be purchased over the counter for $10.
A friend warned me to be careful when contacting crisis pregnancy centers, as they are known to give callers the runaround, refusing to give information over the phone and asking you to come in for an appointment. Curious, I called Austin Life Care, a prominent local crisis pregnancy center and grilled the unlucky receptionist about the services offered. She said they offered pregnancy tests and counseling. When I asked about the credentials of the counselors, she replied, "Well, we have all different levels of education and some of them are really academic."
I followed up by asking what kind of medical staff they had on hand and she replied, "Well, we have sonographers."
When I asked her what a sonographer was, she was curt: "It's someone who can do your sonogram."
Actually performing a sonogram on a client probably adds to the illusion that crisis pregnancy centers are providing care. In fact, this allure explains why there's a bill pending in Congress to grant crisis pregnancy centers ultrasound machines, despite the fact that having a sonogram performed by an unsupervised technician could be dangerous. Dr. Diana Kroi, the ob-gyn who authored "Take Control of Your Period," explained that ultrasounds need a trained physician to look for problems like ectopic pregnancies and other dangerous indications that a woman's health is imperiled.
If a woman who's had an ultrasound mistakenly thinks she's had actual prenatal care, she may not go elsewhere for real care. Anti-choicers are banking on the ultrasound's appeal as a pre-born snapshot machine, though it's an actual diagnostic tool, or as the Mayo Clinic puts it, "[Ultrasound] isn't meant primarily to provide parental thrills or souvenir snapshots," and it's irresponsible to treat it as if it were. This is especially irresponsible in a setting where clients are being told that Planned Parenthood and other affordable clinics are nothing but abortion mills who want to hurt the woman and the expected baby.
So it's possible that these centers are not only detrimental to those women seeking abortions, they could be inadvertently stopping women from obtaining proper prenatal care. And from what I could gather on the website, most of the "counseling" available is for the only syndrome that crisis pregnancy centers show any interest in treating; one they call "post-abortion stress syndrome." The problem with this syndrome is anti-choice activists made it up. Unlike, say, post-natal depression, neither the American Psychiatric Association nor the American Psychological Association recognizes "post-abortion stress syndrome." So add proper mental health services to the list of services not rendered.
Because they have so little overhead, crisis pregnancy centers are proliferating while clinics offering actual medical care lag behind. NARAL Pro-Choice Texas noted that as of December 2005 that there were only 43 abortion providers in Texas compared to 183 crisis pregnancy centers -- which is unsurprising considering the cost of real medical care versus a stick to pee on and a video to watch. There's no indication as of yet that the $5 million grant to Texas Pregnancy Care Network will result in anything resembling professional medical care offered to the low-income women who need it, most of whom are punted by crisis pregnancy centers onto Medicaid, escalating the cost to the American taxpayer.
The truth is that Texas taxpayers are being asked to pony up $5 million to an organization that provides no services apart from furthering an outsider political agenda. Even the much ballyhooed "education" about alternatives to abortion isn't worth a dime of taxpayer money, even from those who would prefer fewer women to have abortions. After all, Planned Parenthood was already in the business of educating women about their options and the education offered is far more complete.
Peggy Romberg ended with a story about a young woman she'd worked with a few years back who'd been fortunate enough to get help from a college friend whose parents were friends of hers. The young woman had recently broken up with her boyfriend only to discover she was pregnant. When she contacted him for help, he instructed her to meet him at a nearby crisis pregnancy center. The ex-boyfriend had gone to a football game instead, forcing the young woman to endure the berating of the staff alone. She then went back to her dorm and despaired, running into another friend who was able to help her obtain the abortion. Without that stroke of luck, Romberg noted, there's no telling what a young woman who so far had met with nothing but abandonment, lies and berating would have done to escape her situation.
Amanda Marcotte co-writes the popular blog Pandagon.
© 2009 Independent Media Institute. All rights reserved.
View this story online at: http://www.alternet.org/story/35545/
2. This article is exposing the ruthless tactics some Fake crisis pregnancies clinics use to harass and expose their victims and prevent them from aborting their babies. How they delve into the persons social life and harass them in many ways to try to prevent them from getting the abortion.
3. I believe this article is somewhat legitimate. I think this because yes, some pro-life people are VERY radical and do things like this to prevent people from getting abortions. But I’m skeptical about this situation because its based off of an E-mail, which is very unreliable and opinionated.
Nick G
ReplyDeletePeriod 4
Article: In the annals of famous domestic abuse cases you have Ike Turner and Tina Turner, Mike Tyson and Robin Givens, Humphrey Bogart and Mayo Methot (Bogarts friends nick named her "Slugsy"), Bobby Brown and Whitney Houston, Phil Hartman and Brynn Omdahl, which teaches you that if you threaten to leave your drug abusing wife you don't go to sleep in the house after doing it, right down to Adam and Eve. I'm pretty sure Adam slugged her a few times after causing humanity to get kicked out of the garden.
Well to add another name to this laundry list of pugilistic matrimony we now have Chris Brown and Rihanna (though they aren't married). Their relationship was once thought to be clean cut and somewhat wholesome turned out to be volatile. Everything changed during the night of the Grammy's when both Chris Brown and Rihanna did not show up for their performances. Then the picture showed up on TMZ where Rihanna's face or someone strongly resembling the singer was made to look like a Christmas ham.
Just in case you've been left out of the loop on this here is what happened. According to a recently released statement by Los Angeles Police Department Detective Deshon Andrews. "Brown was driving a vehicle with Robyn F. (Rihanna) as the front passenger on an unknown street in Los Angeles. Robyn F (Rihanna). picked up Brown's cellular phone and observed a three-page text message from a woman who Brown had a previous sexual relationship with."
After this they began to fight, first it was verbal and then it became physical. According to the statement Chris Brown tried to force Rihanna out of the car, but Rihanna was still wearing her seatbelt. "When he could not force her to exit, he took his right hand and shoved her head against the passenger window of the vehicle, causing an approximate one-inch raised circular contusion."
Eventually he hits Rihanna in her left eye and then proceeds to start driving while punching her in the face. This caused Rihanna's mouth to fill up with blood "The assault caused Robyn F.'s (Rihanna) mouth to fill with blood and blood to splatter all over her clothing and the interior of the vehicle," says the statement.
Sadly it got worse. After Rihanna faked a call to her assistant saying, "I'm on my way home. Make sure the police are there when I get there." This further angered Chris Brown. According to the statement Brown said, "You just did the stupidest thing ever! Now I'm really going to kill you!" And he attempted to make every word count.
"Brown resumed punching Robyn F. and she interlocked her fingers behind her head and brought her elbows forward to protect her face. She then bent over at the waist, placing her elbows and face near her lap in [an] attempt to protect her face and head from the barrage of punches being levied upon her by Brown.
"Brown continued to punch Robyn F. (Rihanna) on her left arm and hand, causing her to suffer a contusion on her left triceps that was approximately two inches in diameter and numerous contusions on her left hand."
"Robyn F. (Rihanna) then attempted to send a text message to her other personal assistant, Melissa Ford. Brown snatched the cellular telephone out of her hand and threw it out of the window onto an unknown street.
"Brown continued driving and Robyn F. (Rihanna) observed his cellular telephone sitting in his lap. She picked up the cellular telephone with her left hand and before she could make a call he placed her in a head lock with his right hand and continued to drive the vehicle with his left hand.
"Brown pulled Robyn F. (Rihanna) close to him and bit her on her left ear (I knew I mentioned Mike Tyson for a reason!). She was able to feel the vehicle swerving from right to left as Brown sped away. He stopped the vehicle in front of 333 North June Street and Robyn F. (Rihanna) turned off the car, removed the key from the ignition and sat on it.
"Brown did not know what she did with the key and began punching her in the face and arms. He then placed her in a head lock positioning the front of her throat between his bicep and forearm. Brown began applying pressure to Robyn F.'s (Rihanna) left and right carotid arteries, causing her to be unable to breathe and she began to lose consciousness.
"She reached up with her left hand and began attempting to gouge his eyes in an attempt to free herself. Brown bit her left ring and middle fingers and then released her. While Brown continued to punch her, she turned around and placed her back against the passenger door. She brought her knees to her chest, placed her feet against Brown's body and began pushing him away. Brown continued to punch her on the legs and feet, causing several contusions."
2. This article is exposing the epic fight between Rihanna and Chris Brown.
3. I believe this article to be legitmate but exaggerated. The media tends to do this throughout the celebrity world
Aimee H.
ReplyDeletePeriod: 4
Ex-CIA Man Exposes Hysteria Of Car "Bomb" Terror
Countering the frothing rabid hysteria that is being whipped up by a fervent media in response to three failed car "bomb" attacks in the last few days in the UK, ex-CIA agent Larry Johnson joined Keith Olbermann to underscore the truth behind the madness - that the so-called bombs were primitive at best and would not have killed anybody.
In the immediate aftermath of the discovery of a Mercedes parked outside a London night club containing up to 60 litres of petrol and a similar second vehicle, authorities claimed that the bombs would have caused "carnage" had they been detonated, killing hundreds of people.
A burning Jeep that was driven into a terminal building at Glasgow Airport yesterday was also believed to contain petrol, but failed to explode beyond simply burning out the interior of the vehicle.
The truth about the "deadly" car bombs that led to airports and other transit systems being closed across the country as well as the UK terror threat level being raised to critical is that they displayed an almost laughable level of proficiency and would not have killed anyone.
"This is not one of the truck bombs or car bombs we see going off in Iraq - what's really striking about this today is that you had two non-bombs in London when we had at least five bombs in Baghdad in which U.S. soldiers were killed in one of those so I think it's just out of proportion - this was an incendiary, this was not a high explosive," said Johnson.
Johnson said that had the gas been ignited properly, there would have been a loud boom that would have split the tank but that no projectiles would have even exited the vehicle.
"If someone was within 20, 30 feet of it they would have ear damage but not much more," said Johnson.
Johnson contrasted how the media glaze over deadly car bombings in Iraq which occur every day "And then you have a non-event in London and we're going to battle quarters and beginning to give the hairy eyeball to every Muslim."
Olbermann called the terrorists, "the graduating Al-Qaeda bomb squad that need remedial work" while attacking the concept that we're fighting them in Iraq so as to not have to fight them over here."
He also called out the so-called counter-terrorism experts who have hyped this non-event on television to enhance the profile of the counter-terror companies that they head up.
As Johnson outlines, fewer than 50,000 people worldwide have died as a result of terror attacks since the 60's, and as we recently highlighted, accident causing deer, swimming pools and peanut allergies have all proven more deadly than international terrorism.
The true extent of the damage that could have been caused by these recent attacks pales in comparison to the overblown exaggerated hype that the authorities have claimed and that the media has willingly parroted.
Similar attacks were a staple of the 60's and 70's but the government and the media downplayed them because they were of minimal threat to anyone and to hype such non-events was handing a propaganda victory to the terrorists.
Since the very definition of terrorism is to influence government policy not by the attack itself but by hyping fear of new attacks, the government of Gordon Brown is engaging in terrorism by strongly intimating that fresh attacks are inevitable.
Brown came to power with an agenda to push through new anti-terror laws including wiretaps being admissible in court and extending the 28-day detention without charge law to 90 days. Though such proposals failed under Blair and Brown was expecting a fight to get them passed, expect them to breeze through Parliament with little opposition following the outright panic that has been generated as a result of recent events.
2. This article exposes how these so called “car bombs” really were not harmful at all. They were said that they could kill people, but they were really harmless. These caused a huge riot in local airports, and transit stations. According to Johnson, if the gas was ignited correctly, there would have been a loud bang, but that would be all. He also said that projectiles would not have even left the vehicle.
3. This article is legitimate, because he is an ex-CIA personal, and he has backgrounds in these fields from his works. This is exposing a true false that was believed by the public to be a big danger, and turned out to be harmless. This is not exaggerating anything but just exposing the truth to the people in the UK.
Francesca C.
ReplyDeletePeriod 4
1) Amid his custody fight with Denise Richards, Charlie Sheen has made an eye-popping claim: His ex-wife wants to have another child with him.
"There was a request for a donation," Sheen, who is now engaged to Brooke Mueller, tells TV's Entertainment Tonight, as reported on the Web site for its sister show, The Insider.
"Without getting into it here," the The Two and a Half Men Emmy nominee, 41, tells ET's Mark Steines, "there is a specific document relating to this that I am going to reserve for a court."
Asked if he would take this alleged offer from Richards seriously, Sheen replies: "I would sooner, in exactly what I'm wearing, walk on the surface of the moon. Does that answer it?"
Richards denied Sheen's claim, telling The New York Post's Page Six column Monday: "I don't want another child right now. I have my hands full."
In response to Richards's denial Sheen replied, "She can make every claim in the world. But what she stated in something she wrote would completely and totally defy that."
Richards, 36, filed for divorce from Sheen in March 2005, when she was six months pregnant with their second child. In November of last year, a court legally ended their status as a married couple. However, their divorce is not yet complete.
Still at issue is the final division of assets and custody arrangements over their daughters Sam, 3, and Lola, 2. Sheen is requesting looser visitation rights – that won't require him to be supervised – with the girls, according to legal documents filed in a Los Angeles family court Friday.
In speaking to ET, Sheen also apparently comments on the story that Richards sent flowers to congratulate him and Mueller on their engagement last month.
"What I find curious and somewhat amusing is that the press knew she sent flowers before they arrived," says Sheen.
2) This article is exposing Denise Richards supposedly wanting to have another kid with her ex-husband.
3) I don't know if this article is legitimate; while it's based on facts and quotes by Charlie Sheen, it's likely to just be his cry for attention.
Taylor C. Period 4
ReplyDeleteYellow Journalism
Marie Douglas-David says $100 million should about cover it.
The Swedish countess sniffs that there's no way she can get by on a measly $36 million payout from her soon-to-be-ex, United Technologies Chairman George David because she spends $53,000 a week on bare essentials.
She's already tapped into the postnup she agreed to with her mogul hubby but now that the economy has trashed its value, she claims she's destitute.
As their sensational divorce trial in Hartford proceeded yesterday, David, the United Technologies chairman and former CEO, testified that his unemployed, blond, beautiful and 30-years-younger wife is too late.
She accepted the terms of a postnup when she asked him to sell off $1 million of company stock on three different occasions in 2007.
David, 66, said he put the cash in a company in which Marie Douglas-David wanted to invest, as the 2005 postnup called for him to do.
He said the convoluted transfers were worked out that way for tax purposes, and because Douglas-David was not an American citizen.
A source said the big-spending David, whose net worth is estimated at more than $320 million, is quite miserly when it comes to taxes and noted that the exec still technically owns the $150,000 engagement ring he bought Marie in London because he didn't want to pay a gift tax on it.
The 36-year-old Douglas-David still possesses the ring, another source said.
In fact, she made off with a number of gifts from David the pair of 4-carat, $255,000 earrings she was sporting in court yesterday, a $97,000 Mercedes-Benz, some lamps, a chandelier and a Christo drawing, all as the postnup dictated.
David said he also followed the terms of the deal by helping Douglas-David settle up accounts on some real-estate transactions in her native Sweden.
But Douglas-David's side contends that she was bullied into signing the agreement and that it should be voided because the couple reconciled for a time after their 2007 separation.
Back then, the value of Douglas-David's postnup was $70 million. But as the Dow has plummeted, so has the amount of her payday.
The postnup is tied into her husband's huge stash of United Technologies stock. A knowledgeable source said that every time UT stock goes up 1 point, David makes $7 million.
The aerospace and buildings company has been hit hard by the tanking economy, which has also been gutting the wife's haul.
David's net worth has fallen from an estimated $500 million in 2005 to about $300 million, a source said. Douglas-David's payoff fell to about $43 million last December and it's now worth only $36 million.
The drama in the courtroom became heated yesterday as Douglas-David's lawyer, Bill Beslow, painted the exec as a deceptive womanizer and coldhearted businessman.
He said David lied in sworn court documents about his spending and in a deposition about his philandering.
David "was clearly dishonest under oath," Beslow said.
The lawyer referred to testimony David gave in December, when he was asked about the last time he'd had sex with his girlfriend, Wendy Touton.
David said in that testimony that he didn't remember. Beslow then asked him if he'd had relations with her on any of the trips they'd taken together to Sardinia, London, Paris and St.-Tropez.
"I do not recall anywhere on earth I had sex," David answered.
He was asked at the same deposition when he'd last seen Touton. He replied that he'd last seen her two to three days earlier at his home in Avon, Conn. when they'd had sex.
Beslow yesterday asked David if he recalled the discrepancies. The obviously angered exec replied, "I don't recall that."
The lawyer then claimed David inflated his net worth when he was trying to get on the co-op board of his exclusive apartment building at 740 Park Ave.
Beslow said David claimed to the board that he owned a $1 million apartment in Sweden, although that home actually belonged to his wife.
David sniffed at the suggestion.
"It's less then 1 percent of my assets," he scoffed.
David then admitted to having signed off on incorrect information in a sworn court document, saying he'd trusted the person who drafted it and hadn't bother to read it. "I didn't think it was important," he said.
The prolonged attack led David's lawyer, Anne Dranginis, to blast Douglas-David's attorney for making "outrageous" accusations and "playing to the crowd."
It was a stormy opening to a big-bucks divorce feud which, given the current state of the economy, has drawn gasps nationwide.
Douglas-David says the $36 million she'd currently get under the terms of the postnup would be exhausted within 15 years.
In court papers, she estimated her expenses to be $53,000 a week, including $27,300 in mortgage and maintenance payments, $8,000 for travel, $4,500 for clothing, $2,209 for a personal assistant and $600 for flowers.
And that's nothing compared to her husband, who says he needs to keep what he can to maintain his own lifestyle, in which he spends $200,000 a week.
The pair married in 2002, and David pushed her to give up her job as a vice president at Lazard Asset Management a year later.
They lived the high life together, hobnobbing with the likes of Vladimir Putin and traveling the world, but their union was stormy. Between 2004 and 2008, there were five different divorce filings.
Douglas-David is expected to take the stand today
1. The article I found was in the New York Post and it discussed the divorce of two multi millionaires in Connecticut. It exposed details of the expensive divorce and many accusations between the two, very little of it seemed to be true, which is why I chose it to represent yellow journalism.
2. I believe this article constitutes as yellow journalism because it is most likely taking an issue and blowing it out of proportion. The article throws around accusations which seem to have no legitimate proof. The post took an issue that people would normally overlook and exaggerated to get the public’s attention, for that reason I find this article to be extremely illegitimate.
andrew r
ReplyDeletemr harris
period 5
Bernie Madoff's $50 Billion Ponzi Scheme
The shocking revelation that prominent investment manager Bernard Madoff's hedge fund, Ascot Partners, was a giant scam will intensify redemptions from scores of other hedge funds that will be forced to liquidate holdings and increase downward pressure on stock prices.
This additional negative influence on the market, together with liquidations by mutual funds facing redemptions and endowments facing the need for liquidity, are three significant barriers for optimism about the direction of stock prices in the near term.
The arrest of the 70-year-old Madoff, widely considered to have the magic touch as an investor, is another serious black eye for the hedge fund industry and all non-transparent investment vehicles. Investors across the New York area have clamored to be in Ascot because of the stability of double-digit returns and the reports of serious wealth creation. The scandal is bound to reveal the inner workings of the hedge fund industry, whereby intermediary feeders bring in their clients and take fees for putting clients with an investment manager.
If Madoff hadn't faced $7 billion in redemptions, this Ponzi scheme might not have been discovered. What's astonishing is that he got away with it for so long with nobody discovering it. What his four family members in Ascot knew is a puzzle that everyone wants answered, but one thing is certain: It's virtually impossible to have returns like Madoff reported, and it should have been a major warning signal.
Aside from the impact on stocks overall, the exposure of fraud on a massive scale is also devastating to individuals who trusted Madoff with their fortunes and to nonprofit organizations like Yeshiva University, which counted on Madoff's purported secret trading system to help operate its institutions. Sterling Equities, the investment vehicle of the Wilpon family, which owns the New York Mets baseball team, had $300 million reportedly invested in Ascot. So did some wealthy investors who had money in related hedge funds who were never informed of ties to Ascot. Another private bank executive placed $10 million from a client just two weeks ago. He knew of another family that had $100 million with Madoff. A woman in California told us that she had lost everything with Madoff and another hedge fund.
Everyone in New York wants to know how Madoff could have pulled off this Ponzi scheme whereby these new investment funds were apparently used to pay double-digit returns to some of the older investors. A charitable account that operates institutions in Israel received a 12% return recently. Other Other individual investors report that they got nothing.
Ascot's monthly reports are voluminous, showing many transactions in and out of the market every day. Madoff was supposed to have some "black box" model that signaled when to buy and when to sell. He was one of the most active traders in the marketplace, and his annual returns in these short-term trades were mainly ordinary income, which made Ascot attractive mostly to tax free institutions like foundations, hospitals and religious groups. After many years of returns in the range of 12% to 15%, in recent times the profits have been in the high single digits at times.
1)This article shows the scheme by Bernie Madoff called a ponzi shcheme. He stole billions of dollars from individuals while falsly investing there money. He took many peoples life savings and used it for themselves.
2)I believe this article is legitamate. He had gone unseen for a long time before being found out. This is one of the biggest frauds in united states history and has destoryed many of peoples lives, and lost everyones trust
Carly G
ReplyDeletePR.5
Under fire for bonuses, AIG says over $90 billion of its bailout money went to other banks used more than $90 billion in federal aid to pay out foreign and domestic banks, some of whom had received their own multibillion-dollar U.S. government bailouts.
The embattled insurer's disclosure on Sunday came amid outrage on Capitol Hill over its payment of tens of millions in executive bonuses, and followed demands from lawmakers that the names of trading partners who indirectly benefited from federal aid to AIG be made public.
The company, now about 80 percent owned by U.S. taxpayers, has received roughly $170 billion from the government, which feared that its collapse could cause widespread damage to banks and consumers around the globe.
"The ability of AIG to meet its obligations is important to the stability of the U.S. financial system and to getting credit flowing to households and businesses," Federal Reserve spokeswoman Michelle Smith said.
Some of the biggest recipients of the AIG money were Goldman Sachs at $12.9 billion, and three European banks — France's Societe Generale at $11.9 billion, Germany's Deutsche Bank at $11.8 billion, and Britain's Barclays PLC at $8.5 billion. Merrill Lynch, which also is undergoing federal scrutiny of its bonus plans, received $6.8 billion as of Dec. 31.
The money went to banks to cover their losses on complex mortgage investments, as well as for collateral needed for other transactions.
Other banks receiving between $1 billion and $3 billion from AIG's securities lending unit include Citigroup Inc., Switzerland's UBS AG and Morgan Stanley.
Municipalities in certain states, including California, Virginia and Hawaii, received a total of $12.1 billion under guaranteed investment agreements.
The company said it used billions more to fund its Maiden Lane business, which was set up following the federal bailout to purchase toxic assets, and to repay debt and provide capital for some of its operations.
"I've been asking for this information for months. This is a good first step, but I'm concerned by how long it took,' said Rep. Carolyn Maloney, D-N.Y., who is chair of Congress' Joint Economic Committee.
The details from AIG came after Obama administration officials and top Republicans voiced sharp criticism over $165 million in bonus payments AIG said it must make Sunday. The contracts are part of a larger total payout which has been reportedly valued at $450 million.
In a letter to Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner dated Saturday, AIG Chairman Edward Liddy said outside lawyers informed AIG that it had contractual obligations to make the payments and could face lawsuits if it did not do so.
Liddy said the company entered into the bonus agreements in early 2008 before AIG got into severe financial straits and was forced to obtain a government bailout.
AIG has agreed to the Obama administration's requests to restrain future payments.
Found in Newsday
What is the article exposing? AIG is making loans to other banks with out paying there debts. They are taking care of other banks with their bailout money. They are giving tens of millions of dollar in bonuses to their executive without helping who they are supposed to help.
Do you think this article is legitimate? Yes this is a real fact that is affecting millions of tax payers.
Brittany S. Period 5
ReplyDeleteLEANN RIMES CHEATING SCANDAL
Photo by: Zodiac / Splash News
LeAnn Rimes caught having an affair with her onscreen love interest!
That's the shocking allegation made by US Weekly about the country cutie who's accused of falling for her Lifetime TV movie Northern Lights costar Eddie Cibrian.
"This is a difficult time for me and my loved ones, but I appreciate all your continued support," Rimes wrote on her web site in response to the mag story. "I would like to assure all of you that this [web site] is a place for you to hear things directly from me and, as you all know, not everything in our lives is always black and white."
LeAnn's husband Dean Sheremet also took to the 'Net to clear up the rumors. Via his Twitter, Sheremet said, "I love my wife!!!"
Eddie Cibrian weighed in via a statement to Access Hollywood: "It is a fabricated story that is using random snapshots as connective tissue to create a scandalous relationship."
Who knew a Nora Roberts TV movie could spark such controversy!
1.This article is saying that Leann Rimes was caught having and affair with her onscreen lover. But her, her husband, and her co-star “lover”, all say that this is false that they used random snapshots to create a scandal.
2.I believe that this article is not a legitimate source of information. I believe this because its from the national enquirer which post made up scandals to get people to have that “shock” factor so then they’ll buy more.
Clare B.
ReplyDeletePeriod 5
Nose Job for Gwynnie?
There's no denying that Gwyneth Paltrow is a classic beauty. But a photo of the Oscar-winning actress snapped in 1990 — the year she graduated from the tony Spence School in NYC — shows that she may have had some help to get her schnoz picture perfect before making her big-screen debut in 1991's Shout. Star asked plastic surgeon Dr. Michael Salzhauer of Bal Harbour, Fla., what the actress, who is married to Coldplay singer Chris Martin, may have done to streamline her nose.
"The tip looks more refined and narrow now," observes Dr. Salzhauer. But if she had a nose job, he doesn't think the bone was broken. Instead, Dr. Salzhauer believes that some cartilage was removed through incisions on the inside of the nose to diminish the fullness at the tip. While the procedure takes about an hour, Dr. Salzhauer says the subsequent swelling, bruising and redness take a week to go away.
As for Gwyn, Dr. Salzhauer gives her nose a thumbs-up.
"It looks like a very subtle change," he tells Star. "It appears more delicate-looking and fits her face perfectly."
1. This article is supposedly exposing that Gwyneth Paltrow got a nose job, before her first big role, once she left collage.
2. I do not believe this article is legitimate, because I found this article on Star magazine. Star Magazine has been caught not always telling the truth. Also I saw a picture they used as a comparison, and her nose looks Identical. The before picture was a horrible dimly lit picture and the other one was bright. They tried to trick people to get a bad picture and make it look like she got a nose job. When in reality she did not.
Dave R
ReplyDeletePeriod 5
BARACK'S FUNNY BUSINESS
President Obama last night got comfy on "The Tonight Show" couch, cracking jokes about his bowling, a promised pooch and his job even as critics slammed his appearance, and a foray into basketball predictions, as distractions from a critically ill economy.
Displaying perfect comic timing and spouting plenty of one-liners including an insensitive crack about the Special Olympics that prompted a White House apology the cool commander-in-chief offered his assessment of Washington as "a little bit like 'American Idol.' But everybody is Simon Cowell."
He also said he likes playing pickup basketball with aides, and assured host Jay Leno that they played it honest.
"I don't see why they would throw the game, except for all those Secret Service guys with guns around them," he deadpanned.
A self-deprecating remark could get Obama into hot water. Talking about rolling a 129-point game in the White House bowling alley, the president called the result, "Like the Special Olympics or something."
Even before the taped show aired, the White House issued a statement:
"The president made an offhand remark making fun of his own bowling that was in no way intended to disparage the Special Olympics. He thinks that the Special Olympics are a wonderful program that gives an opportunity to shine to people with disabilities from around the world."
In the first-ever talk-show appearance by a sitting president, Obama spent much of his 35-minute interview assuring the LA audience that he was "stunned" by the bonuses that bailed-out insurance giant AIG was paying and that "we're going to do everything we can to get these bonuses back."
He also defended Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, who has come under fire for failing to block the multimillion-dollar payouts.
Geithner "is doing an outstanding job," the president declared. "I don't think people fully appreciate the plate that was handed him."
But there was plenty of time for jokes.
Leno asked, "How cool is it to fly on Air Force One?"
"Pretty cool," the president answered.
And when will Obama's daughters, Sasha and Malia, get their pet dog? Leno prodded.
The president obligingly promised the dog for his girls would be in place after he returns from a NATO meeting.
Leno cracked wise about the visit, saying in his monologue that people were surprised the president would come on NBC, figuring he'd be tired of companies on the brink of disaster with a bunch of overpaid execs.
The president's Leno appearance and his ESPN bracket picks Wednesday for the NCAA tournament he picked 11 out of 16 correctly for the day are an apparent effort to burnish Obama's regular-guy image. But critics were incensed.
"He flies off to Los Angeles tonight to be on the Jay Leno show," said Sen. Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.).
"My suggestion is that he come back since he's taken the full responsibility [for the AIG bonuses] to get his people together and say, 'All right, I want to know exactly what happened. Who did what when? And how are we going to prevent this from ever happening in the future?' "
Obama did tend to some presidential business yesterday, saying he's looking forward to signing a bill that comes out of Congress to limit bonuses.
Yesterday, the House passed legislation that would take back 90 percent of the hefty bonuses handed out by AIG and other companies that received at least $5 billion in bailout funds.
As for the president's picking North Carolina to go all the way in the NCAA tourney, no one took greater issue than the coach of the Tar Heels' top rival, Duke. Obama described the Blue Devils as a bunch of weaklings who would likely lose to Pittsburgh in the Elite Eight round, because "they just don't have the muscle inside."
"Somebody said we're not in President Obama's Final Four," Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski said yesterday. "As much as I respect what he's doing, really, the economy is something he should focus on, probably more than the brackets."
Obama's political foes also seized on the president's hard-court high jinks, saying he should be focusing on helping people with their 401(k)s rather than their office pools.
"He's even found time to fill out his NCAA basketball brackets, which is a healthy thing to do in my opinion," said Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.). "But he picked North Carolina, and he caused the Duke coach our Olympic coach, Coach K to say respectfully, 'You might be spending less time on the brackets, Mr. President, and more time on the economy.' "
Obama had appeared on ESPN Wednesday with host Andy Katz before a large white bracket board in the White House, which the president personally filled in with a marker.
The NCAA bracket interview which ESPN dubbed "Barack-etology" fulfilled a promise Obama made to the sports host before his election.
todd.venezia@nypost.com
2. Describe what exactly the article is exposing.
The article is talking about how Obama “got comfy” on the talk show with Jay Leno. He talked about his 129 score bowling game calling it "Like the Special Olympics or something." The article seems to be trying to show readers Obama in a certain way because of his casual-ness on a talk show, although the Special Olympics remark was a little over the top. The White House apologized for this before the show even aired. They also talk about Obama’s prediction for NCAA basketball, in which a coach said “the economy is something he should focus on, probably more than the brackets."
3. Do you believe the article is legitimate, and explain why.
I believe this article is legitimate because it has a video that you can watch the show on, and you can probably find the video or another article about this on the web.
TJ s Period 5
ReplyDelete1
Q.) Find an article that uses yellow journalism, then explain what that article is exposing and explain whether or not you think it is legitimate.
A.) From Sacramento -- Some political sins are practically unforgivable. Sins like blatant hypocrisy. Covering up instead of fessing up. Soliciting sex in a public restroom.
This column is merely about hypocrisy -- at least its perception.
E-mails began pouring in almost immediately after my last column.
I'd written about new Senate leader Darrell Steinberg (D-Sacramento) declaring that his "No. 1 priority" -- the "most important" agenda item for California -- was revamping schools with sufficient career tech education to prepare students for the "new economy."
I pointed out that the percentage of high school students taking some course in career tech -- formerly called vocational education -- had fallen from 74% in 1987 to 29% last year. Meanwhile, companies have been complaining that California schools aren't producing enough skilled workers.
Blame the elitist attitude that if a kid doesn't obtain a four-year college degree, he's doomed to failure. So high school curricula are shaped to meet university requirements. Also blame the high cost of career tech courses, which places them at risk during every budget crisis.
Steinberg and other Senate Democrats proposed a packet of career tech legislation. Senate Republican leader Dennis Hollingsworth of Murrieta chimed in that "there is a lot of common ground across party lines" on career tech.
But wouldn't you know it: As I quickly learned, Steinberg -- along with the other legislative leaders and Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger -- had just negotiated a deficit-reduction package that whacked career tech funding by 15% this fiscal year and an additional 5% the next. Moreover, most programs were left vulnerable to complete elimination by penny-pinching school districts.
"A lot of 'common ground' and a lot of hypocrisy," e-mailed one school superintendent.
An assistant superintendent wrote: "Sen. Steinberg and his cronies . . . have just completed a state budget that not only will DECREASE [tech ed] in high schools, but also in the adult education system."
An Orange County career tech teacher e-mailed that she had read my column "with great interest and horror." She was on break between classes and invited me to call.
"My message for Steinberg," Regina Blankenhorn told me, "is that if he really wants to do career tech education, we're already doing it. We don't want him reinventing the wheel."
What Steinberg, other legislators and the governor must do, however, is reinvent a funding source. They're scrounging for bond, private sector or federal stimulus money.
State money for career tech comes from the debt-ridden general fund. Budget negotiators last month had to fill a $42-billion general fund deficit hole.
Blankenhorn teaches computer use, customer service skills and work ethics at a regional occupational center in Costa Mesa. She works for the Coastline Regional Occupational Program, which serves 21 high schools and this year has enrolled about 8,500 students. She's also president-elect of the Orange County Chapter of the California Assn. of Regional Occupational Centers and Programs -- or ROPs for short.
There are 74 ROPs in California, serving 550,000 students. They're lumped in the state education budget under "categorical" programs. There are 61 so-called categoricals. Of those, budget negotiators cut 42 by 20% over two years and gave school districts the flexibility to use the remaining money for any programs they choose. In other words, ROPs could be cannibalized.
ROP funding was reduced for the next fiscal year to $385 million. For adult education, it's down to $635 million -- as workers are being laid off and need retraining.
The career tech programs are in good company.
Also on the "cut and chop" list are summer schools, counseling, high school class-size reduction, physical education, arts and music.
Similarly cut by 20%, but protected from further butchering, were much smaller career tech programs involving apprenticeships and "partnership academies" linking schools with businesses.
This article is exposing how the senator of Sacramento is not doing what he promised by renovating the schools in the area. It goes onto explain how the funding in the area is being spent in other areas where it should not be spent because the schools desperately need it for the teachers and the buildings. I believe that if his facts are valid then he is correct. The government in that area should stay true to what they promised and support the education system in that area. If he promised something to the people, he should follow through with it.
Natalie S
ReplyDeleteperiod 5
State expands Hicksville day care probe
The state has expanded its probe of a Hicksville school where a 2-year-old choked to death on a carrot in an unlicensed day care program, while also launching an investigation into a Wantagh center owned by the same couple.
"We're tracking the situation very closely," said Edward Borges, a spokesman for the state Office of Children and Family Services, of the Maplewood School in Wantagh.
Both Maplewood and Carousel Day School -- where Olivia Raspanti, 2, choked on a carrot she took from her teacher's bag -- have charters from the New York State Education Department and the Board of Regents to operate as schools. Both schools are owned by Eugene and Jane Formica and advertise full-day nursery, which state officials said Thursday requires a day care license.
Joe Holden, director at Maplewood, said Thursday the school did not have a day care program for children under age 3.
But Borges said, "If it's more than three hours a day, you can call it a zebra program if you want, but it's still under our jurisdiction. That's part of our investigation."
Neither school has a license from the OCFS -- the state agency that licenses and regulates day care -- to operate a day care facility. State law requires that any center that regularly supervises two or more children for three hours or more a day be licensed.
Olivia, who was in the Carousel toddler program, died of asphyxia caused by choking on food, Nassau police said, citing autopsy results.
Police suspect Olivia -- who would have turned 3 in May -- may have been given one of the teacher's carrots earlier in the school day and was seeking another, said police spokesman Det. Sgt. Anthony Repalone.
Once the staff realized the child was choking, they "did everything right. ... They did back thrusts and were also able to dislodge some pieces of the carrot from Olivia."
Thursday, state officials said Maplewood applied for a day care center license in 1998 but then withdrew its application. In 2001, the state approved a change in Maplewood's charter to allow it to open a day care center, but the school did not follow up and apply for a license, Borges said.
State investigators have determined that Carousel was operating an illegal toddler program with at least nine children under the age of 3. On Wednesday they issued the Formicas a cease-and-desist order for all their day care facilities.
Eugene Formica released a statement Thursday admitting that Carousel was not licensed by the OCFS. "While our school is in compliance with OCFS regulations, we did not complete the proper paperwork required for this licensing," Formica said. "We are in the process of completing this paperwork now."
State regulations say handbags, backpacks or briefcases belonging to staff "must be used and stored in such a manner that they are not accessible to children."
Even as state investigators monitored Carousel Day School to make sure its toddler program was shut down Thursday, at least one mother said she dropped her 2-year-old at the school Thursday morning.
"They just told me there were some licensing problems," said Prathna V. Reddy of Hicksville.
Borges said because there was only one toddler, it did not violate regulations.
Many parents interviewed at Carousel said they were unaware of the licensing issue.
Reddy appeared stunned when told of the death. "I didn't know that," she said.
Strapping her 3-year-old daughter into her car seat, Angelica Chavez said the school had a moral obligation to alert parents to Olivia's death.
"I saw the police taking pictures and I imagined that one of the school buses had been involved in an accident," said Chavez, 30, of Hicksville. "They should have told us."
1. This article talks about a two year old girl who died because she choked on a carrot while she was at day care. The day care center wasn't licensed to accept children under three years old.
2. I think this article is legitimate because it states that any day care that hosts children of a young age must be licensed for that age group. This is because for different age groups, there may be different requirements that you must follow, such as things that aren't and are allowed to be in the day care.
Brittany S. Period 5
ReplyDeletePELF'S ARSENAL AND POTENTIAL GROWING
Last updated: 6:16 am
March 20, 2009
Posted: 1:43 am
March 20, 2009
PORT ST. LUCIE The sea son is still more than two weeks away. Yesterday's opponent was the Houston Astros, who are defining March Badness.
So in general, you would temper enthusiasm about how Mike Pelfrey pitched.
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But forget the calendar and definitely forget the opponent, because watching the 1-16 Astros could swear you off baseball forever. Even throw out that Pelfrey retired the first 13 Houston hitters and became the first Met to work six innings this spring, allowing just one run.
This is about what Pelfrey is doing, and how he is doing it.
A year ago, he was a sixth starter trying to find his way into the rotation firing one sinker after another. No art. No craft. Simply pure desperation to impress with his best pitch.
A year later, Jerry Manuel already has anointed Pelfrey not Oliver Perez, not John Maine as the No. 2 starter. Why not? Liberated from the angst of having to make a rotation, Pelfrey is into an experimental stage that potentially can elevate him way above even the impressive run he had over the final four months last year (11-5, 3.20 ERA in his last 23 starts).
His improvement in 2008 coincided with his recognition to use his four-seam fastball regularly to get ahead in counts. He had been opening at-bats mainly with his sinker, his self-described "God-given gift," but one that often darts out of the zone and put him behind 1-0 too much.
Yesterday, he was like an artist discovering new colors beyond black and white. He opened several counts with curves for strikes. He sprinkled his changeup liberally.
And after recently watching Livan Hernandez front-door his sinker to lefty hitters aiming it for the front leg and having it arc back over the inside corner Pelfrey asked the veteran for a few pointers and then incorporated them into his collection.
In the fourth inning, he used it to freeze Kaz Matsui and Michael Bourn for consecutive called-looking strikeouts before inducing Houston's best hitter, Lance Berkman, to pop out on a curve.
"If he can do that consistently," a scout in attendance said of using the varied stuff, "he wins 18 this year. He is just getting better and better, in part because he realizes he does not have to blow everyone away."
Now keep in mind that a pitcher with an elite sinker can win basically as a one-pitch wonder. Chien-Ming Wang essentially fits that criterion. So did Kevin Brown at his best. How good is Pelfrey's sinker? Omar Minaya said that Albert Pujols confided to the Met GM that the pitch made Pelfrey his toughest at-bat.
"Some guys have velocity, but throw 96 [mph] straight, and some guys have movement, but can't throw 96," Brian Schneider said in speaking of Pelfrey's sinker. "He has both."
Yet by expanding his arsenal, Pelfrey might be doing the same with his possibilities. Assistant GM Tony Bernazard, for example, said, "He will be in the No. 2 slot, but he's going to be a No. 1. If not, I would be disappointed."
Manuel agreed, saying he considers Pelfrey a legitimate No. 2 starter on a championship-caliber team now and "eventually he can definitely be a No. 1 guy."
He gets there by staying healthy. Pelfrey was still slightly feeling a strain in his lower left leg. However, the big issue is remaining strong after throwing 200" innings last year 48 more than the year before. There is always concern when the workload increases so dramatically.
But working in Pelfrey's favor is his size: He is a solid 6-foot-7. But more vital is his style. Not all innings are created equal. Pelfrey's ability to throw more strikes with more pitches and to get quick outs with his sinker should keep his pitch count reasonable.
He did need just 67 pitches to work six innings yesterday, and did so without overthrowing his sinker; mainly working at 90-91 mph.
"All of the pitches are going to make me better," Pelfrey said.
That should give a sinking feeling to the rest of the NL.
1.This article is on people’s opinions on Mike Pelfrey. It states in this article that he has no craft and no talent, the only thing going for him is his great pitch. But with out his pitch he is nothing.
2.I don’t believe this article is legitimate because Mike Pelfrey could have great art in baseball but in someone’s opinion he could be awful.
Elana S
ReplyDeleteMr. Harris
Period 5
Chris Brown and Rihanna: Singer condemns domestic violence
Chris Brown, the star arrested for allegedly assaulting his pop singer girlfriend Rihanna, has previously condemned domestic violence.
By Anita Singh, Showbusiness Editor
Last Updated: 2:41PM GMT 11 Feb 2009
As a child, Brown said, he watched his mother being beaten up by her boyfriend.
Speaking on the Tyra Banks Show in late 2007, Brown disclosed: "Some people, their families go through domestic violence and stuff like that. I don't want to mention the person's name but there was somebody who hurt my mom. Me having to deal with that from the age of seven all the way through to 13, me seeing that and being visually abused by it - it affected me."
The experience shaped Brown's attitude towards women, he claimed. "I treat them differently, because I don't want to go through the same thing, I don't want to put a woman through the same thing that person put my mom through."
Brown, 19, said witnessing the abuse made him a "scared and timid" child who wet the bed through fear. Explaining why his mother had endured the violence, he shrugged: "I guess when a woman's in love, she don't look at it right."
When Banks asked him to offer advice to children in his situation, he replied: "Just try to overcome it and pray. I prayed all the time. I had a Bible under the pillow."
The singer and actor was arrested on Sunday and freed on $50,000 bail. Both he and Rihanna were due to perform at the Grammy Awards but pulled out
Police have not confirmed or denied that Rihanna, 20 was the alleged victim, but US reports claim the crime report included her real name, Robyn Fenty.
Website TMZ.com claims an onlooker in LA's residential Hancock Park area called police after witnessing a "loud, violent confrontation". Hours earlier, the couple had attended a pre-Grammys gala at the Beverly Hilton hotel.
Chewing gum makers Wrigley has suspended an advert starring Brown.
"Wrigley is concerned by the serious allegations made against Chris Brown. We believe Mr. Brown should be afforded the same due process as any citizen," the company said in a statement. "However, we have made the decision to suspend the current advertising featuring Brown and any related marketing communications until the matter is resolved."
The young star, who rose to fame as a sweet-faced 16-year-old, has a clean-cut image and any conviction could cost his career.
Meanwhile, Rihanna cancelled a concert in the Malaysian capital, Kuala Lumpur, planned for this Friday. Her publicist has refused to comment on the alleged incident except to issue a brief statement which said: "Rihanna is well. Thank you for concern and support."
1. This article is talking about how Chris Brown allegedly beat Rihanna. It is also talking about how it is wrong to beat someone.
2. I believe that the article is legitimate because people shouldn’t beat other people, it isn’t right.
Brendan L.
ReplyDeleteArticle
3.This article exposes How Mike Pelfrey has struggled in the past. Many people feel he isn’t the best person for the job. Mike has struggled but he also has done well. Many people seem to put too much on the guys back and that seems to add to struggles. The article is about how he probably isn’t the best for the job and hasn’t established too much in his career.
4.I believe that this article is not really legitimate because it is really only someone’s opinion on a topic, many times people feel that they are right, and we are all entitled to our opinions but we may not be correct.
Kim M.
ReplyDeletePeriod: 5
Feds say Bernard Madoff's $50 billion Ponzi scheme was worst ever
BY THOMAS ZAMBITO AND GREG B. SMITH
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITERS
The secret life of Bernard Madoff unraveled as he stood in his Upper East Side apartment in pale blue bathrobe and slippers, facing two FBI agents."We're here to find out if there's an innocent explanation," Special Agent Theodore Cacioppi told him at the Thursday morning encounter. "There is no innocent explanation," Madoff replied. Within hours, investors who had trusted the 70-year-old Madoff for years - including the owner of the New York Mets - were reeling at charges that one of the most trusted names on Wall Street was a full-time fraud. The FBI's complaint alleges he told their agents he had been paying investors "with money that wasn't there". Regulatory filings show he managed money for hedge funds, banks and wealthy individuals. Manhattan federal prosecutors disclosed a long-running scheme that may have resulted in $50 billion in losses - perhaps the biggest scam in Wall Street history. The one-time Nasdaq chairman, investigators charged, operated a classic Ponzi scheme, paying off early investors with funds from subsequent clients to keep the illusion of profit alive.
He tallied his deals in secret books locked in a filing cabinet a floor away from Madoff Securities' main offices, they said. His victims included Fred Wilpon and Saul Katz, co-owners of the Mets, who Friday acknowledged that their Sterling Equities had invested an unknown amount with Madoff. Spokesman Richard Auletta insisted Madoff's arrest "does not affect the day-to-day operations and long-term plans of the Mets organization and Citi Field." Wilpon even trusted Madoff to invest hundreds of thousands of dollars from family charities, documents show. In May, Madoff's wife, Marion, joined Wilpon's wife, Judy, to raise money for the United Jewish Association Federation in a charity bridge tournament. Since its founding in 1960, Madoff Securities won wealthy clients like the Wilpons by delivering steady profits through markets both bull and bear. In January, the firm claimed Madoff's investment advisory business managed $17.1 billion for 11 to 25 clients. Madoff Securities boasted of an "unblemished record of value, fair-dealing and high ethical standards." Last week, the truth began to emerge as investors, spooked by the battered economy, decided to pull out their money. Madoff told an employee clients wanted $7 billion in redemptions, court papers state. He was "struggling" to get it, he said.
By Tuesday, Madoff announced he wanted to distribute employee bonuses, two months ahead of time. A suspicious senior employee said Madoff was "under great stress." On Wednesday, employees challenged Madoff's claim the firm recently made profits. He declared he couldn't speak of the situation at the office because he "wasn't sure he would be able to hold it together." They went to his E. 64th St. apartment, where he revealed his business was a fraud, that he was "finished," that he owned "absolutely nothing." Shocked employees, including his sons Andrew and Mark, called the Securities and Exchange Commission, which told the FBI. When the agents showed up at his apartment, Madoff admitted he'd "paid investors with money that wasn't there," was "broke" and knew "it could not go on." Friday, angry investors crowded a Manhattan federal courtroom hoping to find out if the SEC would come to their rescue. Manhattan Federal Judge Louis Stanton issued an order freezing Madoff's assets, as well as those of his firm, and named lawyer Lee Richard to oversee the business. The hearing was canceled, leaving investors bewildered. "The one thing my father always told me was, 'Never sell your Madoff,'" said a Florida investor who believes he's out $3million he'd hoped to give to his children. "My only question is whether [the feds] will be able to salvage anything," he said. "My gut tells me no."
5.The article is exposing Bernard Madoff’s Ponzi scheme. When the economy started to go downhill people wanted there money that they have invested in, but there was no money to give to the public. The FBI's complaint alleges he told their agents he had been paying investors "with money that wasn't there". Regulatory filings show he managed money for hedge funds, banks and wealthy individuals.
6.I do believe that this article is legitimate, because the economy has suffered because of his actions. This was the biggest Ponzi scheme in history.
Heathers per5
ReplyDeleteDon't get taken by these stimulus scams
Another promises a helpful guide: "How to get your free stimulus grant before it's too late!"
There are copious government grants to be had, but these sites are scams, said Eileen Harrington, acting director of the Bureau of Consumer Protection at the Federal Trade Commission. Worse, once one site is squashed, another pops out like a cockroach.
Harrington held a recent news conference to expose two sites that the FTC had investigated in the weeks after the act's passage. Neither site -- www.presidentobamagrants.com and www.officialstimulusgrants.com -- could be found a week later. But search for the now-missing sites and you'll find dozens more.
In a brilliant example of misinformation, one outfit purports to be a scam-busting site, investigating the promises of government-grant websites and rating them with up to five stars. It warns users to "avoid government-grant information scams." However, the site's "top recommendations" lead you to sites that do exactly what Harrington warned about.
What's the game?
Each of the sites proclaims that you can get information on hundreds of government grants, worth tens of thousands of dollars, for nominal shipping and handling fees. The disclosed fees range from $1 to $3. The sites have you pay that pittance with a credit card.
But in reality, they're planning to charge you much, much more -- and to be clear, most of these grants really aren't available to average consumers anyway. So in most cases, you're going to wind up paying a lot of money to these websites while probably not getting much of anything in return.
The catch is buried in the "terms and conditions," which coincidentally are hard to find.
The fact that you're accepting these terms -- but not the terms themselves -- will pop up when you feed in your credit card number.
You have to hunt to find actual terms (that you've just accepted by being gullible enough to give your credit information). They're usually way at the bottom of the page in small type.
How much will you be charged? That depends on how quickly you discover the hidden fees and address them. Most offer a few days' "free trial," after which charges start to accrue.
One of the sites the FTC uncovered billed users a one-time fee of $99, plus almost $50 a month for an "online resource center." It also automatically signed up users for a second membership that cost $30 a month, Harrington said. If you failed to follow complex cancellation procedures, you would pay more than $1,000 over the course of a year.
Among the sites still operating, the charges ranged from $70 to more than $100 a month.
One site, for example, said in its terms and conditions that users are charged $74.95 a month for access to a "help center" after a seven-day free trial. "No refunds will be given for failure to use the requested and/or provided services," it said. The company's terms revealed that after 14 days a second "membership" kicks in, to a "mentoring center," which costs $29.95 more a month.
Another top recommendation of the supposed scam-busting site charges $39.95 a month (after seven days "free") and signs up users for two other services that total $19 a month. The site also warns that the charges are nonrefundable.
You'd also read in the terms -- if you managed to find them -- that both of the sites guarantee nothing and users are cautioned to use the sites "at their own risk."
Aside from the hidden charges, Harrington said the biggest problem with the sites is that they mislead people into thinking that they're going to get grants to pay off their credit cards, mortgages or buy Christmas presents. Nothing could be further from the truth.
You can find real government grants at www.grants.gov. And you can see how government stimulus funds are being spent at www.recovery.gov.
But the average consumer wouldn't qualify for most of the government grants available. For example, the stimulus act created grants for those willing and able to recruit, train and manage AmeriCorps volunteers. It also set aside $20 million for rural business development. But to get one of these grants, you'd need to be an existing government contractor, state or municipal agency or a nonprofit.
There are also grants for scientific research, clean-fuel technology and for those with ideas on how to make the criminal justice system more efficient. There are housing grants for Native American organizations and supporting the development of rural businesses.
Grants to help you pay off your credit cards? Get real.
"People who make a living defrauding consumers are quite opportunistic," said Harrington in an interview. "They read the paper. They watch the news. When you combine the serious economic downturn that we're experiencing with government programs and action, they seize on the combination of circumstances to defraud consumers."
2. Describe what exactly the article is exposing.
The article exposes how the internet has become heavily corrupt. That many websites that promise you grants in fact are just taking your money. It exposes how a group of people are taking advantage of the current economic situation. They are taking from the economically hurt, who are seeking help and becoming the rich end.
3. Do you believe the article is legitimate, and explain why.
I do believe this article is legitimate because the author is exposing an issue using facts, and quotes from legitimate sources. Making her work more legit.
Dan M, Period 5
ReplyDelete1. Post the article-
Mar 20, 9:31 AM EDT
Former AIG head denies he started exec bonuses
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Former AIG chief executive officer Hank Greenberg said the company under his leadership never had the kind of retention bonus system that has subjected it to withering criticism.
"When I was there, nobody had a contract with the company, including me," Greenberg said in a nationally broadcast interview Friday. "If you didn't do the job, you didn't deserve to be there. We had a bonus plan based on performance."
Greenberg's interview was broadcast on CBS's "The Early Show" a day after the Democratic-led House approved a bill that would impose punitive taxes on big employee bonuses from AIG and other firms bailed out by taxpayers.
"We want our money back and we want our money back now for the taxpayers," declared House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif.
The bonuses, totaling $165 million, were paid to employees of the troubled insurer, including to traders in the financial unit that nearly caused the company's collapse.
On Wednesday, the current chairman and CEO of AIG, Edward Liddy, told Congress under oath that his predecessor was responsible for the financial problems the company now is experiencing, saying mistakes had been made on a scale few could have imagined.
There have been two other executives at the top of AIG since Greenberg left and Liddy took charge.
Martin Sullivan, a native of England who had worked with AIG for 37 years, replaced Greenberg as CEO in March 2005, when Greenberg was forced out amid accusations from then-New York State Attorney General Eliot Spitzer of fraudulent accounting.
Former Citigroup Inc. executive Robert Willumstad took over from Sullivan in June, and was succeeded in September by Liddy, former chairman of Allstate Corp.
In his CBS appearance Friday, Greenberg was asked directly if he would have paid out the retention bonuses had he still been at the helm of the company. "Absolutely not," he told the interviewer.
Greenberg also said he didn't think Liddy was qualified to run the company, but stopped short of calling for his firing.
"I think he should be replaced," he said. "You can call it what you want."
Greenberg has sued AIG, saying the company that he led for 38 years misled investors about its exposure to subprime mortgages and ruined his fortune by lying about its financial health.
The lawsuit filed earlier this month says Greenberg was the New York-based company's largest non-institutional shareholder. The company has said the suit is without merit.
Greenberg said that AIG once was "the greatest company in history." It had been the world's largest insurer with clients all over the globe.
"Was there fraud? Was there whatever. I think it's stupidity. Well, do you punish stupidity," he said.
The bill was passed on a 328-93 margin despite sharp Republican attacks calling it a legally questionable ploy to cover up Obama administration missteps on this issue.
House Minority Leader John Boehner, R-Ohio, said the bill was "a political circus" diverting attention from why the administration hadn't done more to block the bonuses before they were paid.
Although a number of Republicans cast "no" votes against the measure at first, there was a heavy GOP migration to the "yes" side in the closing moments. The bill now goes to the Senate.
2. This article discusses the recent controversy over excessive pay bonuses to AIG employees, in a time that the company themselves was going through a financial collapse.
3. Yes, even thought it is the NY Post, this article is very legitimate; many big corporations have been questioned for their actions in this recent recession. It is especially appalling that the President of AIG himself had absolutely no knowledge of the fraud his company was involved in. And I believe this news is essential, the public have the right to know where they’re investments are going.
Eve
ReplyDeleteperiod 5
article
Is Julia Roberts still queen of the screen?
After a career lull, Julia Roberts stars in a new caper and hopes she can still rule at the box office
BY JOHN ANDERSON | Special to Newsday
HOLLYWOOD - The word layoff has an entirely different meaning for a Hollywood movie star than, say, a fired GM worker, but both involve career idleness, apprehension and questions: Is Julia Roberts' new movie, "Duplicity," a thriller or a comedy? More intriguingly, can it restore the woman who was or perhaps is the queen of the screen to the luster she once enjoyed as the $20 million-a-picture heavyweight box-office champion and mistress of all she surveys?
It would be nice to think Roberts didn't care about fame. And maybe she doesn't. In Hollywood - the concept, not the location - months can be lifetimes, years can be eons. Having carried three children since she last had to carry a picture ("Mona Lisa Smile" in 2003), Roberts has delivered vocal performances in the animated "Charlotte's Web" and "The Ant Bully" and reprised a relatively minor role, as Tess Ocean in "Ocean's Twelve." She also has managed to star in a Broadway play, "Three Days of Rain," which was hit by a critical Katrina and floated away after 70 performances. And she has been a member of forgettable ensemble casts in "Closer" (2004) and last year's German-made "Fireflies in the Garden" (which opens here in June, maybe, having already opened and closed all over the world).
For an actress who has never really been required to act, the one recent bright spot was " Charlie Wilson's War," a commercially mishandled gem. Roberts gave a spot-on performance as a Republican crypto-fascist Texas socialite who worked toward saving Afghanistan from the Russians, when not bedding Tom Hanks' congressman, Charlie Wilson. It certainly wasn't "Sleeping With the Enemy." But the movie did less business than a Taliban liquor store.
All of which leads to two conclusions: Julia Roberts has been doing what she wants. And Julia Roberts is a gamble. This is not something anyone ever thought they'd be saying - not anyone cinema-conscious from 1988 ("Mystic Pizza") through, say, 2000 ("Erin Brockovich"). But the romantic-heist movie "Duplicity" - in which she and "Closer" co-star Clive Owen play ex-spies who may or may not be in love - has thus far been kept under wraps by its studio, which doesn't seem quite sure what it is. It opens Friday.
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Things to do this weekend It's hard to believe that Roberts suffered an Oscar jinx once she got her statuette, for playing a real-life heroine in "Brockovich," but there hasn't been a movie since then that would be mentioned in the first 10 paragraphs of any Roberts obituary. ... Even though, arguably, she's done some of her better work since.
Living unlike a movie star
What she hasn't been doing is being a movie star, which is why Julia Roberts matters. No? Consider that Roberts was virtually the only female film star, for years, who possessed the commercial potential her elder sister stars held in the 1940s, which means they ruled. As movies of the two past decades became more and more the purview of sweaty monosyllabic he-men, Roberts conquered mini-genre after mini-genre.
Building on the mega-celebrity of "Pretty Woman," she did brief duty as the imperiled victim (in "Sleeping With the Enemy," which is pretty unwatchable now) before she started playing women of self-possession and spunk. And audiences agreed silently to excuse the most ludicrous stories for a chance to see her: "The Pelican Brief," "I Love Trouble," the gothic-revisionist "Mary Reilly" and "Conspiracy Theory" with Mel Gibson, one of her better matchups. ( Steven Spielberg thanks us for stepping over "Hook," and let's also forget Robert Altman's lugubrious "Pret-a-Porter").
Was any of this memorable, I-have-to-watch-it-again-type stuff? Well, Gibson going ga-ga in "Conspiracy Theory" was kind of fun. But no: For all the gelt she raked in, Roberts wasn't making indelible movies.
Hints of what's to come
Yet, there have been moments that suggest that as Roberts ages out of glamorhood - she's 41, the camera can be cruel and Hollywood has an unyielding obsession with the vacuously pretty - that Roberts will become something more than a sex symbol. One of her assets is generosity, actorly generosity, which can work in a performer's favor.
An early example was "Stepmom" (1998), in which she had the unenviable job of making Ed Harris' second wife sympathetic while his first, played by the not-always-subtle Susan Sarandon, died of cancer. Fast-forwarding to "Mona Lisa Smile," she gave elbow room to three gifted and younger actresses (Julia Stiles, Kirsten Dunst and Maggie Gyllenhaal) and made herself look good in the process (despite the movie characters' tendency to be anachronistically enlightened).
In the largely forgotten "America's Sweethearts," Roberts played second banana to Catherine Zeta-Jones and stole the show. And in "Notting Hill," she played a character who was essentially Julia Roberts, while allowing Hugh Grant to do his charmingly bemused shtick unfettered.
Then there has been Roberts' association with Steven Soderbergh, which has ranged from the slickly comedic (and seductive) "Ocean's Eleven" and "Twelve" as well as his "Full Frontal," one of the director's periodic forays into experimental cinema that would never have gotten any attention without Roberts' participation. Likewise, she helped out pal George Clooney by playing the mystery woman in his directorial debut, the oh-so-memorable "Confessions of a Dangerous Mind," in which she was first-rate.
"Charlie Wilson's War" wouldn't have been the same without her, all of which sets up the predictable declaration that American movies haven't been the same without Roberts.
But nothing's ever the same at the movies, except the ravages of time, and the risks involved when you make yourself scarce.
PRETTY WOMAN, PRETTY GOOD, PRETTY BAD
It isn't easy being La Roberts, which may be why some of her most effective turns have come when she stepped off the celebrity grid.
MYSTIC PIZZA (1988) - She wasn't supposed to be the star of this romantic comedy by Donald ("Miss Congeniality") Petrie. But the Roberts laugh was like a solar eclipse, around which all else fell into shadow.
STEEL MAGNOLIAS (1989) - Again, Roberts should have been overwhelmed by this movie's axis of estrogen: Sally Field, Olympia Dukakis, Dolly Parton, Shirley MacLaine. But how could they compete with a character like Shelby Eatenton Latcherie, a diabetic who not only chooses to have a baby, but dies in the process?
PRETTY WOMAN (1990) - What can you say? Hokum. Some would say offensive hokum. The Maxim magazine version of the adult movie. It had charm, the unctuous direction of Garry Marshall, and Roberts' character, Vivian Ward, not only conquers her Prince Charming ( Richard Gere), she turns him into a human. Sex and redemption. Never fails.
SLEEPING WITH THE ENEMY (1991) - Painfully predictable.
THE PELICAN BRIEF (1993) - Painfully implausible
MARY REILLY (1996) - No survivors.
MY BEST FRIEND'S WEDDING (1997) - Interesting movie, inasmuch as Roberts was set up as the heroine, but in actuality was playing an awful person. Movie did a lot for Cameron Diaz.
ERIN BROCKOVICH (2000) - Julia goes down-market, named best actress. More great attitude than great performance, but who can argue with Oscar?
CHARLIE WILSON'S WAR (2007) - Hugely underrated film, with underrated Roberts. As she had in "Confessions of a Dangerous Mind" and in a 1999, Emmy-winning turn on TV's "Law & Order," playing a devious fund-raiser, the actress showed she could shine playing dislikable characters. In this case, she's a long-legged Dallas belle with the money of Croesus and the politics of Otto von Bismarck.
-JOHN ANDERSON
1)The article is exposing wheter julia roberts is really an actress or a stay at home mom in some aspects. The article is basically cutting her open saying she was this big film star and what happened to her?
2) The article is not legitamate because its all biased opinions. The writer states that the actress is "41 and out of glamwood", as well as critisizing everything she has ever done whether its her carreer or her private life. The media will say anything for a good story.
PROGRESSIVE ASSIGNMENT
ReplyDeleteSteven R. period 5
1.Find an article that you believe falls under muckraking, or yellow journalism.
Copy and Paste the Article into the Post.
Obama Apologizes for Calling His Bad Bowling 'Like the Special Olympics'
His controversial joke hadn't even aired yet when President Obama got on the phone from Air Force One Thursday night to apologize for comparing his notoriously bad bowling skills to the Special Olympics.
"He expressed his disappointment and he apologized, I think in a way that was very moving," Tim Shriver, the chairman of the Special Olympics board, told "Good Morning America" today.
"He expressed that he did not intend to humiliate this population, certainly didn't want to embarrass or give anybody any more reason for pain or just suffering I would say," said Shriver, who received the call from Obama as the president was flying back to Washington.
"He was very sincere, expressed an interest and an openness in being more engaged in the movement and said he was a fan of the movement and I think importantly he said he was ready to have some of our athletes over to the White House to bowl or play basketball or help him improve his score."
Related
It began with the president joking about how bad a bowler he is.
Toward the end of his approximately 40-minute taping on the "The Tonight Show With Jay Leno," Obama talked about how he'd gotten better at bowling and had been practicing in the White House bowling alley.
"I bowled a 129," he told Leno.
"That's very good, Mr. President," Leno said sarcastically.
But then came the foot-in-mouth moment: "It's like the Special Olympics or something," the president said.
Shriver told "GMA" that these moments can worsen the stereotypes of people with special needs.
"I think it's important to see that words hurt, and words do matter and these words can in some way be seen as humiliating or [a] put-down to people with special needs. [They] do cause pain and they do result in stereotypes and they do result in behavior that's neglectful and almost oppressive moment of people with special needs," Shriver said.
"This kind of language needs to be a teachable moment for our country, I think. I would hope every parent that's at home this morning watching this show could turn to their children and say, 'This is a chance for us to recognize that when we talk about Special Olympics, when we talk about people with special needs, let's make sure we talk about it in an affirming way," he said.
Shriver said there is someone who might be able to help the president with his bowling: a special Olympian in the Detroit area who has bowled three perfect games.
2.Describe what exactly the article is exposing.
The article is exposing how the president was a little bit careless with his words. I personally have no problem with what he said, but since he is the president who is supposed to be perfect in every way then I see it as unacceptable because many people listen to what he says and how will they be confident in what he says if he is careless in words.
3.Do you believe the article is legitimate, and explain why.
Yes, it is all definitely true because Obama actually apologized to the chairman of the special Olympics. What Obama said is also on J. Leno so that’s solid proof.
Jennifer O.
ReplyDeletePeriod 5
1. Find an article that you believe falls under muckraking or yellow journalism.
Copy and Paste the Article into the Post.
On the morning of January 25, 1898, the waters of Havana Harbor were calm. But sentiments in the Cuban capital for which the harbor was named were just the opposite. A riot had recently rocked the city. The U.S. government feared for the safety of Americans living in Cuba. "In view of the possibility of danger to American life and property," wrote President William McKinley, "some means of protection should be at hand." That protection arrived that day in the form of an American battleship, the USS Maine.
The Maine was an impressive sight as it steamed into Havana Harbor. Commissioned in 1895, the Maine was a showcase of the latest naval technology. Steel armor plating and electric lights, which replaced gas lamps, were two of its modernizations.
The man who commanded the ship, Captain Charles D. Sigsbee, knew his mission to Cuba could be dangerous. There were rumors of mines in the harbor. And no one knew how the Spanish military would react to a U.S. battleship in its midst. Taking precautions, Sigsbee confined his 328 enlisted sailors to the ship. He kept steam in the Maine's boilers at all times to power the turrets. Things remained quiet in the first few weeks that the Maine was in Cuba. But all that changed on the night of February 15, 1898.
Sigsbee sat in his cabin at the stern (rear) of the Maine writing a letter to his wife. At around 9:00 P.M., he heard the bugler play "Taps," announcing lights out on the ship. Most of the sailors had already settled down in the crew's quarters toward the bow (front). Sigsbee finished his letter. It was 9:40 P.M.
Suddenly, a tremendous explosion shook the ship. It lifted the bow several feet out of the water. An American newspaper reporter later described the scene in grim detail: "Great masses of twisted and bent iron plates and beams were thrown up in confusion amidships. The bow had disappeared; the foremast and smoke stacks had fallen; and to add to the horror and danger, the mass of wreckage amidships was on fire."
Sigsbee made his way up to the deck. He immediately ordered a search for survivors. Because of all the damage, only two of the Maine's lifeboats could be launched. Soon, boats from other ships joined in the rescue effort. When no more survivors could be found, Sigsbee stepped into his own rowboat. He was the last officer to leave. As the captain's boat rowed away from the sinking ship, he heard a strange, high-pitched moaning sound. As the Maine sank, the rising water forced air from sealed compartments below the decks. It was an eerie death wail.
Once safely aboard an American steamship anchored in Havana Harbor, Sigsbee sent an urgent message to Washington, D.C.: "Maine blown up in Havana harbor at nine forty to-night. Many wounded and doubtless more killed or drowned." In all, 266 men died in the explosion. Except for two officers, all the casualties were enlisted sailors.
2. Describe what exactly the article is exposing.
This article is telling how the ship was blown up by the enemy and how they are saying what they think, although they do not know it for sure, and that it a estimate of what actually happened, and their first reaction,
3. Do you believe the article is legitimate, and explain why.
I believe it is legitimate because it had real information and facts about the actual event, as well with idea of what and why they thought the event had occurred.
Sarah A.
ReplyDeleteperiod 5
Rihanna & Chris: Sex Tapes.
The leaked police photo of Rihanna's battered face stunned and horrified the world. But now Star has learned that the pop princess worries that other shocking images could go public — wild sex tapes of her with abusive boyfriend Chris Brown!
In the March 30 issue of Star —on sale now — we report that Rihanna allowed Chris to record some of their, um, intimate moments and — she worries that the racy tapes could ruin her — especially after seeing how quickly Chris turned on her once before.
"Rihanna has no issues with her sexuality," a source tells Star. "But she'd be mortified if her friends and family found this out!"
Insiders say Rihanna is still emotionally fragile and vulnerable since the Feb. 9 assault that left her nearly unconscious.
"This whole beating incident is terribly humiliating for her. She's already traumatized and will do anything to make it all go away as quickly as possible," explains the insider.
1. This article is saying that Rihanna and Chris Brown made a sex tape which could get leaked to the media. It states that Rihanna is worried that Chris will release these tapes because she knows that she cannot trust him after what happened with the whole “beating” that occurred on February 8th .
2. I do not believe this story is true. I believe it is false because many of these “tabloids” try to expose people in doing something that are not real to be able to become more popular within society. I feel this story is one of those fabrications.
(this article was found online in star magazine)
Article
ReplyDeleteChelsea Irizarry
Oops, he did it again.
Fred Durst, who publicly bickered with Britney Spears about their reported relationship in 2003 (she's always denied it) and then claimed he was going to "put [the feud] behind me," is once again speaking out about the pop star – and saying they were indeed a couple.
"It just became a fiasco of madness," Durst, 38, tells MTV News about their fight. "[But] I always stay true to my heart and true to everything I did and my intentions, and I am in no way a liar."
The Limp Bizkit singer and Spears, who was 21 at the time, reportedly became an item at the 2003 American Music Awards in L.A. To express his feelings, he wrote on his band's Web site at the time that he had "never felt this way," but Spears never acknowledged the relationship.
Even with Durst going on Howard Stern's radio show and swearing on his son's life that he was telling the truth, Spears rarely commented on his remarks. She did, however, say the relationship was one-sided.
"I think him for me, but not me for him," she told the British version of Glamour magazine. "He's said some pretty amazing things about me. But, um, I think he leaped in too deep, too quick."
Durst says he's still a bit confused about how everything unraveled but describes it as an episode of her bizarre behavior.
"I look back on it as very interesting [in terms of] how things have been sort of unraveling for her since," he says. "[But] it is what it is. I can sleep at night knowing I made decisions that I wanted to make. [Still] I'm a supporter. I was then, I guess I am now."
"I just guess at the time it was taboo for a guy like me to be associated with a gal like her," he adds.
1. The article is exposing how Fred Durst is saying how he went out Britney Spears. Even though Britney spears is denying it. People will write anything just to make a profit out of a story. He thinks her behavior was due to the events going on in her life, and she thinks otherwise.
2. I think that this article is legitimate; people magazine is known for making up stories and exaggerating stories just so people will buy and read their magazine.
Courtney
ReplyDeleteperiod 4
Bernie Madoff's $50 Billion Ponzi Scheme
Robert Lenzner, 12.12.08, 06:45 PM EST
Brazen fraud ensnares well-known investors and nonprofits and gives hedge funds another black eye.
The shocking revelation that prominent investment manager Bernard Madoff's hedge fund, Ascot Partners, was a giant scam will intensify redemptions from scores of other hedge funds that will be forced to liquidate holdings and increase downward pressure on stock prices.
This additional negative influence on the market, together with liquidations by mutual funds facing redemptions and endowments facing the need for liquidity, are three significant barriers for optimism about the direction of stock prices in the near term.
The arrest of the 70-year-old Madoff, widely considered to have the magic touch as an investor, is another serious black eye for the hedge fund industry and all non-transparent investment vehicles. Investors across the New York area have clamored to be in Ascot because of the stability of double-digit returns and the reports of serious wealth creation. The scandal is bound to reveal the inner workings of the hedge fund industry, whereby intermediary feeders bring in their clients and take fees for putting clients with an investment manager.
If Madoff hadn't faced $7 billion in redemptions, this Ponzi scheme might not have been discovered. What's astonishing is that he got away with it for so long with nobody discovering it. What his four family members in Ascot knew is a puzzle that everyone wants answered, but one thing is certain: It's virtually impossible to have returns like Madoff reported, and it should have been a major warning signal.
Aside from the impact on stocks overall, the exposure of fraud on a massive scale is also devastating to individuals who trusted Madoff with their fortunes and to nonprofit organizations like Yeshiva University, which counted on Madoff's purported secret trading system to help operate its institutions. Sterling Equities, the investment vehicle of the Wilpon family, which owns the New York Mets baseball team, had $300 million reportedly invested in Ascot. So did some wealthy investors who had money in related hedge funds who were never informed of ties to Ascot. Another private bank executive placed $10 million from a client just two weeks ago. He knew of another family that had $100 million with Madoff. A woman in California told us that she had lost everything with Madoff and another hedge fund.
Everyone in New York wants to know how Madoff could have pulled off this Ponzi scheme whereby these new investment funds were apparently used to pay double-digit returns to some of the older investors. A charitable account that operates institutions in Israel received a 12% return recently. Other individual investors report that they got nothing.
Ascot's monthly reports are voluminous, showing many transactions in and out of the market every day. Madoff was supposed to have some "black box" model that signaled when to buy and when to sell. He was one of the most active traders in the marketplace, and his annual returns in these short-term trades were mainly ordinary income, which made Ascot attractive mostly to tax free institutions like foundations, hospitals and religious groups. After many years of returns in the range of 12% to 15%, in recent times the profits have been in the high single digits at times.
If indeed, $50 billion was lost, as apparently Madoff claims, it is the largest such fraud in history, and one that might even shame the conman whose name is attached to this brand of deception. In 1920, Charles Ponzi, an Italian immigrant, began advertising that he could make a 50% return for investors in only 45 days. Incredibly, Ponzi began taking in money from all over New England and New Jersey. By July of 1920, he was making millions as people mortgaged their homes and invested their life savings. As with all frauds, he was discovered to have a jail record and was indicted on 86 counts of fraud. Some tens of millions of dollars were invested with him.
Other fraudsters have made inglorious names for themselves. In March of 1932, Ivar Kreuger, a Swedish businessman who had cooked the books of his match manufacturing business and forged $142 million of bonds, shot himself in the head. It was reported that he may have burned through $400 million of investor money by falsifying the accounts of 400 separate companies.
Until Madoff came along, the Equity Funding scandal may have been the largest fraud in dollar terms in U.S. history. A publicly held company whose shares traded on the New York Stock Exchange, the top executives falsified 64,000 insurance policies that were used to report revenues of $2 billion. The company also sold $25 million in counterfeit bonds and had missing assets of $100 million. Three auditors and high ranking executives served prison terms.
Expect Madoff to be one of the first jailed investors of the 2008 market meltdown. Hopefully, there will be others.
1. This article is about Bernie Madoff and his scheme called the ponzi scheme. Many people invested their money in Madoff's funds. He stole millions of dollars from people who thought they were keeping their money in safe hands. He took peoples life savings and used it for himself. People found this out when the economy began to crash because people wanted their money back but it was gone. It was gone since he spent all of the money meaning he had none to return to the investors when they asked for it.
2. I believe this article is legitimate because there is legit evidence of Madoff's funds and of the investors losing millions of dollars. This is one of the biggest topics going on in the world right now because this is known as one of the biggest frauds in the United States history. It has destroyed many people’s lives and made it so they can never get their life savings back. This is crucial in what we are going through now with the economy and funds.
Chris A.
ReplyDeleteperiod 4
VIII.
1. Muckrakers emerged on the U.S. journalism scene around the turn of the nineteenth century. They were journalists who sought out and exposed the misconduct of prominent people or high profile organizations. As crusaders for social change, muckraking journalists wrote articles not about news events, but about injustices or abuses, and corruption in the world of business and politics. Their aim was to bring such information to the attention of the U.S. public.
Politician Theodore Roosevelt (1858-1919) was the first to call controversial journalists "muckrakers." [This was a reference to a character in the then well-known book Pilgrim's Progress, by English preacher John Bunyan (1628-1688).] A muckraker was a person who rejected a crown for a muckrake, a tool used to rake dung.
Magazines such as McClure's, Cosmopolitan, and Everybody's published articles revealing abuses of power or negligent practices. These included the use of tainted meat by the meat packing industry, prostitution rings, fraudulent insurance, and corruption among city politicians. Proponents of this progressive journalism included magazine editor Lincoln Steffens (1866-1936), whose collected articles in McClure's were published as the book Shame of the Cities (1904). Writer and social reformer Upton Sinclair (1878-1968) also incorporated pointed criticisms of business and government into such topical novels as The Jungle (1906), The Money Changers (1908), and King Coal (1917). Author Ida M. Tarbell (1857-1944) penned a History of the Standard Oil Company (1904) which was then a scathing indictment of the U.S. petroleum business.
While the muckrakers were derided in their own time, their work succeeded in raising widespread awareness of social, economic, and political ills. This prompted a number of reforms, including passage of pure food laws and anti-trust legislation
Source Citation:
"Muckrakers." Gale Encyclopedia of U.S. Economic History. Ed. Thomas Carson and Mary Bonk. Detroit: Gale Group, 1999. Student Resource Center - Bronze. Gale. Ward Melville High School. 20 Mar. 2009
3. This article is exposing the conditions and reputation muckrakers had during their time period. They were trashed by the government while they trashed others. Often, scolded for their cruel writings which criticized groups which never spoke up against anyone. However, it was their job to hunt down and reveal the problems in society during their time period.
4. This article has a tone of reminiscence indicating that it is from a third person narrative view of an event; this is the point of view that is taken by those who are unbiased on the situation they are writing about. So, I believe the facts expressed in this article are legitimate.
Raven B.
ReplyDeletePeriod 5
4. Bernie Madoff's $50 Billion Ponzi Scheme
Robert Lenzner 12.12.08, 6:45 PM ET
The shocking revelation that prominent investment manager Bernard Madoff's hedge fund, Ascot Partners, was a giant scam will intensify redemptions from scores of other hedge funds that will be forced to liquidate holdings and increase downward pressure on stock prices.
This additional negative influence on the market, together with liquidations by mutual funds facing redemptions and endowments facing the need for liquidity, are three significant barriers for optimism about the direction of stock prices in the near term.
Run, don't walk, into the high yields and safety of municipal bonds. Which ones? Click here for current buys from Marilyn Cohen in Forbes Tax-Advantaged Investor.
The arrest of the 70-year-old Madoff, widely considered to have the magic touch as an investor, is another serious black eye for the hedge fund industry and all non-transparent investment vehicles. Investors across the New York area have clamored to be in Ascot because of the stability of double-digit returns and the reports of serious wealth creation. The scandal is bound to reveal the inner workings of the hedge fund industry, whereby intermediary feeders bring in their clients and take fees for putting clients with an investment manager.
If Madoff hadn't faced $7 billion in redemptions, this Ponzi scheme might not have been discovered. What's astonishing is that he got away with it for so long with nobody discovering it. What his four family members in Ascot knew is a puzzle that everyone wants answered, but one thing is certain: It's virtually impossible to have returns like Madoff reported, and it should have been a major warning signal.
Aside from the impact on stocks overall, the exposure of fraud on a massive scale is also devastating to individuals who trusted Madoff with their fortunes and to nonprofit organizations like Yeshiva University, which counted on Madoff's purported secret trading system to help operate its institutions. Sterling Equities, the investment vehicle of the Wilpon family, which owns the New York Mets baseball team, had $300 million reportedly invested in Ascot. So did some wealthy investors who had money in related hedge funds who were never informed of ties to Ascot. Another private bank executive placed $10 million from a client just two weeks ago. He knew of another family that had $100 million with Madoff. A woman in California told us that she had lost everything with Madoff and another hedge fund.
Everyone in New York wants to know how Madoff could have pulled off this Ponzi scheme whereby these new investment funds were apparently used to pay double-digit returns to some of the older investors. A charitable account that operates institutions in Israel received a 12% return recently. Other individual investors report that they got nothing.
Ascot's monthly reports are voluminous, showing many transactions in and out of the market every day. Madoff was supposed to have some "black box" model that signaled when to buy and when to sell. He was one of the most active traders in the marketplace, and his annual returns in these short-term trades were mainly ordinary income, which made Ascot attractive mostly to tax free institutions like foundations, hospitals and religious groups. After many years of returns in the range of 12% to 15%, in recent times the profits have been in the high single digits at times.
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If indeed, $50 billion was lost, as apparently Madoff claims, it is the largest such fraud in history, and one that might even shame the conman whose name is attached to this brand of deception. In 1920, Charles Ponzi, an Italian immigrant, began advertising that he could make a 50% return for investors in only 45 days. Incredibly, Ponzi began taking in money from all over New England and New Jersey. By July of 1920, he was making millions as people mortgaged their homes and invested their life savings. As with all frauds, he was discovered to have a jail record and was indicted on 86 counts of fraud. Some tens of millions of dollars were invested with him.
Other fraudsters have made inglorious names for themselves. In March of 1932, Ivar Kreuger, a Swedish businessman who had cooked the books of his match manufacturing business and forged $142 million of bonds, shot himself in the head. It was reported that he may have burned through $400 million of investor money by falsifying the accounts of 400 separate companies.
Until Madoff came along, the Equity Funding scandal may have been the largest fraud in dollar terms in U.S. history. A publicly held company whose shares traded on the New York Stock Exchange, the top executives falsified 64,000 insurance policies that were used to report revenues of $2 billion. The company also sold $25 million in counterfeit bonds and had missing assets of $100 million. Three auditors and high ranking executives served prison terms.
Expect Madoff to be one of the first jailed investors of the 2008 market meltdown. Hopefully, there will be others.
5. This article is exposing an investment banker who stole billions of dollars, which he was supposed to be investing for a lot of people. For a decade now Bernie Madoff has been getting away with his stealing. No one had a clue that all this was going down and he was finally caught in the latter of 2008. As of now, only a small fraction of the money has been recovered. As a result to this $50 billion ponzi scheme, many lives have been ruined and have also lost their life-savings to the scheme.
6. I believe this article is legitimate because Bernie Madoff is currently in jail after he was charged with 11 felonies. The charges include fraud, wire fraud, money laundering, and perjury. There are many victims of this ponzi scheme operated by Madoff. He would take their money, promise to invest it and then he would pocket that money.
Mickey A.
ReplyDeletePer. 3
Police say "Project Runway" finalist Kenley Collins was arrested and charged in an assault on her ex-fiance with a laptop computer at their Brooklyn apartment.
After getting released on bail, Collins told the New York Post in Thursday editions that "it was a miscommunication." She said the police report exaggerated the incident. She described it as "a break up that went badly."
The 26-year-old fashion designer was known for being sharp-tongued on the Bravo TV show "Project Runway," in which contestants compete to create the best clothes. She placed third in the contest last year.
Police say she was arrested on Tuesday morning.
1) This article is exposing that Kenley Collins was arrested for beating her ex-fiance with a laptop. The article says she was arrested on tuesday morning but was realeased on bail.
2) I think this article is legitimite for the most part. I think she could have got into a fight with her ex-fiance but beating him with a laptop? that part seems a little farfecthed. I think they might have just added in the laptop part to seem more intresting and entertaning to the readers. She did state that infact the police report exaggerated the real story.
Jaime C. Period 3
ReplyDeleteSpitzer Is Linked to Prostitution Ring
ALBANY - Gov. Eliot Spitzer, who gained national prominence relentlessly pursuing Wall Street wrongdoing, has been caught on a federal wiretap arranging to meet with a high-priced prostitute at a Washington hotel last month, according to law enforcement official and a person briefed on the investigation.
The wiretap captured a man identified as Client 9 on a telephone call confirming plans to have a woman travel from New York to Washington, where he had reserved a hotel room, according to an affidavit filed in federal court in Manhattan. The person briefed on the case and the law enforcement official identified Mr. Spitzer as Client 9.
Mr. Spitzer, a first term Democrat, today made a brief public appearance during which he apologized for his behavior, and described it as a “private matter.” He did not address his political future.
“I have acted in a way that violates my obligation to my family and violates my or any sense of right or wrong,” said Mr. Spitzer, who appeared with his wife Silda at his Manhattan office. “I apologize first and most importantly to my family. I apologize to the public to whom I promised better.”
“I have disappointed and failed to live up to the standard I expected of myself. I must now dedicate some time to regain the trust of my family.”
Before speaking, Mr. Spitzer stood with his arm around his wife; the two nodded and then strode forward together to face more than 100 reporters. Both had glassy, tear-filled eyes, but they did not cry.
As he went to leave, three reporters called out, "Are you resigning? Are you resigning?", and Mr. Spitzer charged out of the room, slamming the door.
The governor learned that he had been implicated in the prostitution inquiry when a federal official contacted his staff Friday, according to the person briefed on the case.
The governor informed his top aides Sunday night and this morning of his involvement. He canceled his public events today and scheduled the announcement for this afternoon after inquiries from The Times. The governor’s aides appeared shaken before he spoke, and one of them began to weep as they waited for him to make his statement at his Manhattan office.
The Republican state party and a leading Republican legislator called for the governor to step down. James Tedisco, a Republican Assemblyman from Schenectady who has clashed loudly and publicly with Mr. Spitzer, called on the governor to step down if the allegations are true. “The governor who was going to bring ethics back to New York State, if he was involved insomething like this,” Mr. Tedisco said, “he’s got to leave. I don’t think there’s any question about that.”
As questions swirled about the Governor’s political future, a swarm of reporters gathered outside the office of Lt. Gov. David Paterson, who by law would become governor if Mr. Spitzer resigns. But his staffers provided no information.
The man described as Client 9 in the affidavit arranged to meet with a prostitute who was part of the ring, Emperors Club VIP, on the night of Feb. 13. Mr. Spitzer traveled to Washington that evening, according to a person told of his travel arrangements.
The affidavit says that Client 9 met with the woman in hotel room 871 but does not identify the hotel. Mr. Spitzer stayed at the Mayflower Hotel in Washington on Feb. 13, according to a source who was told of his travel arrangements. Room 871 at the Mayflower Hotel that evening was registered under the name George Fox.
The law enforcement official said that several people running the prostitution ring knew Mr. Spitzer by the name of George Fox, though a few of the prostitutes came to realize he was the governor of New York.
Mr. Fox is a friend and donor to Mr. Spitzer. Asked in a telephone interview Monday whether he accompanied Mr. Spitzer to Washington on Feb. 13 and Feb. 14, Mr. Fox responded: "Why would you think that? I did not.”
Told that the Room 871 at the Renaissance Mayflower Hotel was registered in Mr. Fox’s name but with Mr. Spitzer’s Fifth Avenue address, Mr. Fox said, "That is the first I have heard of it. Until I speak to the governor further, I have no comment."
Federal prosecutors rarely charge clients in prostitution cases, which are generally seen as state crimes. But the Mann Act, passed by Congress in 1910 to address prostitution, human trafficking and what was viewed at the time as immorality in general, makes it a crime to transport someone between states for the purpose of prostitution. The four defendants charged in the case unsealed last week were all charged with that crime, along with several others.
Mr. Spitzer had a difficult first year in office, rocked by a mix of scandal and legislative setbacks. In recent weeks, however, Mr. Spitzer seemed to have rebounded, with his Democratic party poised to perhaps gain control of the state Senate for the first time in four decades.
Though his signature issue was pursuing Wall Street misdeeds, as attorney general Mr. Spitzer also had prosecuted at least two prostitution rings as head of the state’s organized crime task force.
In one such case in 2004, Mr. Spitzer spoke with revulsion and anger after announcing the arrest of 16 people for operating a high-end prostitution ring out of Staten Island.
“This was a sophisticated and lucrative operation with a multitiered management structure,” Mr. Spitzer said at the time. “It was, however, nothing more than a prostitution ring.”
Albany for months has been roiled by bitter fighting and accusations of dirty tricks. The Albany County district attorney is set to issue in the coming days the results of his investigation into Mr. Spitzer’s first scandal, his aides’ involvement in an effort to tarnish Majority Leader Joseph L. Bruno, the state’s top Republican.
On the second floor of the capitol, aides and staffers to Mr. Spitzer knew something was wrong Monday morning, as Mr. Spitzer’s schedule began to change and planned meetings and appearances were canceled. But Mr. Paterson, the lieutenant governor who would succeed Mr. Spitzer in the event of a resignation, only learned of the allegations at midday, from an aide to the governor. The rest of the executive chamber was formally informed at a 6 P.M. general staff meeting, said one official who was present, where Richard Baum, the governor’s top aide, made no mention of a resignation and urged his colleagues to keep their heads down and continue as best they could with the day-to-day work of state government.
Under the state constitution, should Mr. Spitzer resign, Mr. Paterson, the lieutenant governor would serve the remainder of the Governor’s term.
Mr. Paterson’s current office would remain unfilled until the 2010 election, as the constitution makes no provision for filling a vacancy in the lieutenant governor’s office. Under those circumstances, Joseph L. Bruno, is the Republican majority leader and temporary president of the state senate, would "perform all the duties of the lieutenant-governor" until a new one is elected in 2010.
Those duties include acting as governor when the nominal office-holder is out of the state. Moreover, should Mr. Spitzer resign and if Mr. Paterson were unwilling or unable to take his place, Mr. Bruno would become acting governor—a possibility that would hold special irony, given the vicious and ongoing battles between Mr. Bruno and Mr. Spitzer over the last year
1. Describe what exactly the article is exposing
The article here is exposing the wrong doings of the New York state former governor Elliot Spitzer. He was convicted of being linked into a prostitution ring and he was also convicted of paying for a very expensive prostitute at a hotel he was at.
2. Do you believe that the article is legitimate?
I believe that this article is legitimate because former governor Spitzer was convicted of his charges and he had stepped down from his position as governor.