- Sorry Georgia (the country, not the state), but there will be no justice for you over your claims that Russia committed human rights abuses in two breakaway provinces of your country. The International Court of Justice in The Hague, the Netherlands, said Friday that it cannot hear the complaint from Georgia because it has no jurisdiction over the case. Georgia and Russia both lodged claims and counter-claims against one another, but the court ruled there was no evidence that the two parties had held negotiations to try and resolve the complaint. "The court, by 10 votes to six, finds that it has no jurisdiction to entertain the application," Hisashi Owada, president of the UN court, said at a hearing on Friday. The case had dragged on for nearly three years after Georgia filed a complaint with the court in 2008 near the end of a five-day war with Russia (if only all wars could be five days), accusing Russian soldiers of slaughtering thousands of ethnic Georgians and displacing hundreds of thousands of people in South Ossetia and Abkhazia for nearly two decades. Those are some heavy charges and there’s actually more to the case. Georgia, a former Soviet republic, also accused Russia of "serious violations" of a 1965 anti-discrimination treaty during three interventions in the regions from 1990 and a "systematic policy" of ethnic discrimination. Russia had asked for the case to be dismissed because Georgia had allegedly caused the five-day war in 2008 with an "unlawful" assault on South Ossetia. Not surprisingly, Russia celebrated Friday's ruling. "It is a very, very good decision. It is exactly what we were trying to prove to the court," said Kirill Gevorgian, Russia's foreign ministry legal adviser. On the other side of the aisle, the Georgian contingent was understandably disappointed. "We are disappointed that the court has decided to stop the examination of the dispute due to a procedural technicality," observed Tina Burjaliani, Georgia's deputy justice minister before vowing, "This is not the finish of this case. All options remain open." Georgia argued that the court did have jurisdiction due to an international convention on the elimination of racial discrimination. However, the convention stipulates that disputes can only be referred to the court if the countries involved have already tried and failed to negotiate a settlement. The court had ordered both countries in October 2008 to "refrain from any acts of racial discrimination" against ethnic groups in South Ossetia and Abkhazia, an order neither side has done a good job of abiding by. The states of South Ossetia and Abkhazia both broke away from Georgian control in the early 1990s and following the 2008 war, Russia recognized them both as independent states. That view was not shared by Georgia nor by most of the international community, which continue to view them as belonging to Georgia. For now, it appears that the two sides may actually have to sit down and figure matters out for themselves……….
- Americans will not be getting any help from the Food and Drug Administration on restraining the growing menace to its youth that is food coloring. Asked to weigh in on the issue of whether a possible link between food dyes and hyperactivity in children was dangerous enough to justify requiring warnings on food labels, a federal advisory panel, in an 8-to-6 vote, decided that there isn’t enough evidence to mandate the warnings. Instead, the Food and Drug Administration panel passed its responsibility on to the next panel by calling for more studies on the issue. “There’s something going on,” said Lisa Lefferts, a panel member and environmental consultant who cast one of the votes in favor of warnings on food labels. “Parents know that. But it’s hard to measure.” In making its decision, the panel seemingly gave in to alarmists who contended that warnings on food labels could raise unwarranted fears, given what’s currently known about food dyes. Oh, I’m sorry, you don’t want the two people who actually read the labels on anything the eat to possibly become alarmed because the food dye they are about to use in food to be served to their children could result in hyperactivity? The hearings took place after two studies from the United Kingdom found a connection between hyperactivity and the consumption of a number of food dyes. Dyes, which are present in foods ranging from candies and cereals to bagels and pickles, are more a part of the average person’s daily life than most realize. The FDA’s decision (or lack thereof) infuriated food safety advocates who argued the panel should have approached the issue from the other direction. Asking if there exists adequate proof that food dyes are safe may seem like a radical tactic, but that very sort of radical thinking could just be the paradigm-shifting point of view that is needed to fend off the very real threat posed to our future by these über-dangerous dyes……….
- Thanks for the offer, Britney Spears, but we didn’t really ask for an inside look at your life and the making of your latest album. Ask for it or not, the world will get that inside scoop in the upcoming MTV special "Britney Spears: I Am the Femme Fatale." For some odd reason, MTV News has of course been tracking the release of her record, which dropped on Tuesday, but why? The world figured out long ago that Spears possesses no actual musical talent, that she has been bypassed by a group of younger, hotter and equally untalented pop hacks and ceased to be interesting when she went from crazy chick shaving her head and attacking paparazzi’s vehicles with umbrellas to a relatively normal person raising her two kids and churning out predictably awful pop albums. Even when she showed up last week for a surprise performance in Las Vegas at the Palms' Rain nightclub following a set by DJ Pauly D of Jersey Shore fame, the intrigue just wasn’t there. Just don’t tell MTV News that because it seems legitimately excited about "Britney Spears: I Am the Femme Fatale,” which airs on Sunday, April 3, at 9 p.m. ET on MTV. According to Spears' longtime manager, Larry Rudolph, she took her freak show Vegas because much like the city, her performances have lots of sparkle, pyro and razzmatazz.” Uh huh, sure they don’t, Larry. "We chose this place; we chose the Palms because the Palms is where Britney has so much history," he said. "We performed here with the Britney album, we did a similar thing. We're doing this eight years later now and we're doing it for the fans." The one unfortunately true part of Rudolph’s speech is his claim that Spears has one main goal: to entertain her fans in the Femme Fatale era. "For her, it was really important to do it for the fans the first time she was out there," he explained. No argument on her only purpose being to entertain the fans, none at all. The goal is clearly not to produce good music with well-written lyrics and solid vocals, nor is it to put out albums that will stand the test of time and be considered great for years to come. So keep up with your goal to skank/entertain your (musically clueless) fans, Brit…………
- Leave it to California to come up with an idea as bizarre as a library with no books. That brilliant concept was (apparently) raised in upscale Newport Beach, where the city’s library administration and city hall officials announced a proposed development that was quickly blown out of proportion and turned into an effort that would mean no physical copes of books in any of the city’s four library branches. The proposal does include an electronic library, which would mean Balboa Branch, which was the city’s first library, and its books could cease to exist. The project, called Marina Park, was made public last week and since then, officials have been flooded with phone calls from as far as the East Coast. Book lovers were concerned that the city’s four library branches were going to get rid of physical copies of books and go fully electronic. “I actually got an email from an English professor in a college or university, I’m not sure which, in New Jersey who had heard the story on public radio in New York City,” Library Director Cynthia Cowell said. “Has a cousin here in Newport Beach who happens to be a physician, and she said, ‘I just can’t believe it. I’m stunned.’” Once concerned citizens have the plan explained to them and understand that no one is taking Newport Beach’s books away, they have lost much of their rage. It didn’t help matters when publications like The New Yorker picked up the story, twisted it around and began labeling it as the library as we know it “going Netflix.” Never mind that the actual proposal called for one library and not for all four of the city’s library branches to go digital; on with the outrage and indignation! Oh, and never mind the fact that all of this is merely theoretical and under consideration at present. The controversial plan, along with a second one that calls for a traditional library with shelves, books and Internet-enabled computers, will be discussed Thursday afternoon at a meeting. Hopefully those who show up with bother to inform themselves, research the issue and have a clue what they’re so upset about before showing up at the meeting…………
- College athletics are broken. Some may argue that they are irrevocably and irreparably broken and those individuals would probably love the idea being floated by recurring presidential candidate and supposed consumer advocate Ralph Nader. Nader is calling for the elimination of college athletic scholarships on the grounds that the move is necessary to "de-professionalize" college athletes. While the rest of us have been enjoying another great March Madness run, Nader has been cooking up what can only be described as an asinine idea with no hopes of solving the very problem Nader is aiming to fix. "As we near the exciting conclusion of 'March Madness' -- which would more accurately be described as the 2011 NCAA Professional Basketball Championships -- it's time we step back and finally address the myth of amateurism surrounding big-time college football and basketball in this country," Nader explained. He has even formed a group to push his radical idea - the League of Fans - and together they are proposing that the scholarships be replaced with need-based financial aid. Nader - for some reason - believes his idea would reduce the "win-at-all-costs" mentality in high schools because the carrot of college scholarships would not be dangling in front of players. He is, of course, missing the point that high school teams do not try to crush their opponents so their best players can impress college coaches and earn scholarships. Those impressions are typically made - for the best of the best - playing for AAU and traveling teams. As for “de-professionalizing” college sports, Nader’s idea wouldn’t accomplish that as much as it would rip the incentive for many highly-recruited prospects to attend college. For example, a top football or basketball prospect whose family could afford to pay for college but who wants to turn pro as soon as possible wouldn’t want to waste money on college if they had no intention of graduating. The added bureaucracy and red tape of forming committees and agencies and panels to determine which athletes need financial aid and which don’t would also be cumbersome and would also further complicate the debate over paying college athletes. Right now, opponents of paying student-athletes argue that the free (or mostly free) education athletes receive is their payment for the money they bring in for the university through ticket sales and merchandising, but if an athlete’s family is deemed wealthy enough to not merit financial aid, then what would their “payment” be? The NCAA issued its requisite denigration of Nader’s plan, with NCAA spokesman Bob Williams saying that referring to college athletes as professionals defies logic. "They are students, just like any other student on campus who receives a merit-based scholarship," William said. That did not deter Nader, who will attempt to rally support for his proposal from university presidents, Congress and the Education Department "We'll use all the levers," Nader said. "We'll use the parents of athletes who've been mistreated and sick, and forced to play when they're injured." He is of the opinion that lawmakers who are concerned about the way college athletes are treated as opposed to being concerned about passing a budget to keep the country running, balancing the multiple wars the U.S. is currently fighting and working on their re-election campaigns. Integrating athletics into the educational mission by eliminating college scholarships just isn't realistic and too much money is being made by all involved parties to drastically alter the system. Bringing League of Fans, a sports reform group that has been dormant for some time, back to life just isn't going to change that fact and neither will Nader’s terrible idea………..
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