Sunday, June 29, 2008

Analysis: Gun Ruling Bodes Well for 1st Amendment

WASHINGTON -- (TYDN) The U.S. Supreme Court's decision affirming an individual's right to bear arms under the Second Amendment is likely to bolster First Amendment free-speech protections, TheYellowDailyNews has learned.

The justices' 5-4 Thursday decision, split along party lines, is expected to embolden Americans wanting to express themselves who had remained silent because they were unarmed. Under the high court's decision, which said individuals had an almost absolute right to carry weapons unrelated to service in a state-run militia, persons with views outside the mainstream now will more likely utter their speech.

"The ability to carry weapons, like at the beach, at a sports stadium and even at the local Parents Teachers Association meeting will energize the national discussion," American Civil Liberties Union director Anthony Romero said. "Throughout history, people have been sheepish in standing up for what they believed. Now they have the Constitution, perhaps in the form of a concealed handgun, on their side backing up their opinion."

It was the first time in the nation's history that the Supreme Court has ruled that individuals have a right to weapons. The Second Amendment reads: "A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed."

The National Rifle Association, which won the ruling after challenging a handgun ban in the District of Columbia, said the decision protects the weak by empowering the meagerly minded to have their voices heard. A side benefit to the far-reaching decision, according to the NRA, would be a safer, yet more talkative, America.

"A lot of people are going to say what's on their minds now because the justices said it's OK to have a Smith & Wesson in their toddler's diaper bag," said NRA lobbyist Christopher Cox. "But these gun enthusiasts are less likely to draw that Smith & Wesson knowing that the person they're speaking their mind to has got perhaps an even larger Smith & Wesson."

Groups representing the mentally ill derided the decision because it left intact federal and state rules prohibiting their clients from weapons ownership -- an infringement on their First Amendment right to free speech.

"This ruling basically stands for the proposition that nobody wants to hear from the mentally disabled," Disability Rights Advocates attorney Sid Wolinsky said in an exclusive interview with TheYellowDailyNews. "Once again, the voices of the disabled have been pistol whipped by the courts."

Advocates for Convicted Felons spokesman Jack Derringer said the ruling vindicates a large swath of the group's constituents who had been sentenced to lengthy prison terms for "what now seems like the absurd crime of possessing or discharging firearms to back up their First Amendment rights."

The First Amendment says "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."

Photo: Mike Licht

Thursday, June 26, 2008

McCain Backs Condom ‘Sin’ Tax

WASHINGTON -- (TYDN) Republican presidential nominee Sen. John McCain is set to propose what campaign aides describe as "the truest sin tax ever," a $5 surcharge on every condom, TheYellowDailyNews has learned.

The Arizona senator is expected to announce the far-reaching plan at a news conference here Friday, campaign operatives said late Thursday. Some insiders said the controversial proposal was less about revenue generation than it was to deter Americans from having sex for purposes other than reproduction.

The sources also likened the move as a form of so-called social Darwinism, by which the tax would likely spawn a new generation of impoverished Americans who would acquiesce to being reared with "any sense of a realistic expectation that they would live better than their parents, and not to expect it anymore."

"Obviously, this will impact the poor, who will likely forgo condoms and reproduce a newer, low-wage population that will have no expectations of being better off than the previous generation, and this is what the Republican Party, and, frankly, the Democratic Party are capitalizing on," a McCain insider, requesting anonymity because she has not been authorized to disclose the philosophy behind the tax, told TheYellowDailyNews in an exclusive interview.

"Alcohol and tobacco is what we usually associate with as sin taxes," the source said. "This tax is the truest sin tax ever."

Still, there's a rift among the McCain campaign over the proposal.

Other McCain insiders suggested the idea was among the most advanced in history to reduce global warning while being mindful not to associate the tax with China's one-person-per-family rule or Hitler's Nazi Germany. They suggested that the tax would put condoms outside the reach of many Americans, who would forego intercourse and slow population growth -- all of which would purify the environment.

"This tax is a win-win, and we're openly using the term tax," another McCain insider told TheYellowDailyNews, who spoke on condition of anonymity. "How many candidates can say 'tax' with a straight face?"

Sen. Barack Obama, the Democrats' candidate for president, is considering a smaller "surcharge" for each condom, perhaps at the $4 level, Obama aides said. One aide said, however, that Obama operatives are having a difficult time getting the Illinois senator to commit.

"He sees everything as black or white," said the aide, in an exclusive interview with TheYellowDailyNews. "Sometimes it's black and sometimes it's white. It's hard for him to go middle of the road."

Pope Benedict XVI criticized the plan, saying it would have little effect on the Church's unmarried followers because they already practice abstinence. "And our ordained members, the priests," the pontiff added, "have sex with under-aged boys incapable of being impregnated."

Photo: TheGirlsNY

Tuesday, June 24, 2008

Bush Backs SEC Changes to Credit Rating Industry

WASHINGTON -- (TYDN) The Bush administration is backing Securities and Exchange Commission proposals that may diminish the longstanding importance of credit ratings across various markets, including the $3.4 trillion money-market industry, in the latest blow to the rating business stemming from the credit crunch, TheYellowDailyNews has learned.

The most significant portion of the rules -- which only insiders can profit from because nobody else understands them -- would make it possible for U.S. money-market funds to invest in short-term debt without regard to ratings put on those securities by firms such as Moody's Investors Service and Standard & Poor's, sources requesting anonymity because they have not been authorized to publicly disclose how the rich get richer told TheYellowDailyNews late Wednesday.

Currently, SEC rules generally require that money-market funds purchase only short-term debt with high investment-grade ratings. The new rules would put more discretion in the hands of money managers to determine whether the debt is investment grade, according to administration sources.

President Bush applauded the proposal in an exclusive interview with TheYellowDailyNews in the Oval Office early Thursday.

"We need to ensure that when investors invest, they are investing in what investors would want to invest in, and that it's a high-grade investment," the president said. "I have always invested myself to ensure investors invest in what is a good investment, in what is investable, in what the market would want to invest in."

Sources suggested the SEC rule changes would diminish the importance of credit ratings in determining the amount of capital that investment banks are required to hold. In all, the proposal would put about a dozen changes on the table that would touch on the role of credit ratings for investors and banks, TheYellowDailyNews has learned.

Lehman Sachs analyst Din Ero said the changeover would have a far-reaching benefit to the economy. "Ratings agencies that invest in the stocks they rate, would no longer have a say in the ratings of stocks that others invest in," Ero said. "This means, for the better, that traders would be more invested in their investment brokers who advise them to buy the stocks they are advising and invested in."

Other analysts were more optimistic.

"The SEC's proposal means I can invest wantonly, even if that means driving up the price of oil, gasoline, baby food, housing and shelter, and the government would bail me out if it all tanks," Sid Barringer, a Los Angeles bankruptcy attorney and day trader, said in an exclusive interview. "This proposal should make the next welfare mother, the scourge of society, think twice before considering having another baby."

The renewed banking effort is part of a wide-ranging regulatory push in the United States and Europe amid the credit crunch that has devastated many banks and investors. Major ratings services -- Moody's Corp.'s Moody's Investors Service, McGraw-Hill Cos.' Standard & Poor's and Fimalac SA's Fitch Ratings-- have been blamed by some for underestimating the risk of default on hundreds of billions of dollars on mortgage debt.

Financial insiders said the proposed rules unveil a dirty secret of some bond investors who simply bought securities with the highest yield for a given rating, which is why they snapped up complicated securities tied to subprime mortgages. Those securities often got high ratings but yielded more than standard securities with the same rating, TheYellowDailyNews has learned.

TYDN wire services contributed to this report.

Sunday, June 22, 2008

Arctic Scientists Embracing Winter Darkness

MCMURDO STATION, Antarctica -- (TYDN) The absence of sunlight has engulfed this American scientific outpost here, where the first sunrise won't be visible for two months, TheYellowDailyNews has learned.

The last supplies to this scientific research hub have just arrived from Wellington, New Zealand, about 2,200 miles to the north. The remaining 125 scientists and staff, who will endure subfreezing temperatures for months, will have to make do with what the U.S. Antarctic Program has delivered.

It's a rag-tag team of patriotic male and female volunteers who stay on as a skeleton staff through one of the harshest winters on Earth. The U.S. government has sent 16,500 condoms, 150 kegs of beer, various crates of snack chips and vodka, a truckload of toilet paper, 16,500 doses of Viagra, scientific equipment and massive amounts of aspirin.

Bill Henriksen, the manager of the McMurdo base station, said he only ordered a fraction of supplies compared to past winters. "It's constantly dark here. You can't go outside and there's not that much to do," he said. "This year, we're foregoing shipments of tanning lotion, sun glasses, swim trunks, lawn mowers, the ice-making machines, ice cream and sprinkler systems."

Members of the skeleton crew said working here in the winter is not as glamorous as it might seem, according to Chuck Upton, a 34-year-old anthropologist from Southern California who studies sheep migration.

"Our beer rations aren't available each day until after noon. And do you know how embarrassing it is to ask the pharmacist for another dozen rubbers and for more hits of Viagra?" Upton asked. "Everybody knows everybody. And everybody knows that I haven't done it with anyone of them out here."

Ina Neednit, a climatologist from Chicago, said it will be her third winter here. She does not share Upton's grim view. "I just feel so beautiful, so wanted," the 300-pound Neednit said. "I just seem to glow in the absence of light."

CBS is planning a reality TV show in which it will secretly bring the skeleton crew's spouses to this remote camp, TheYellowDailyNews has learned.

Sources told TheYellowDailyNews that CBS was experimenting with a new breed of reality television, where a series is concocted not knowing its ultimate theme. One CBS executive, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said it was not clear "whether the show will devolve into another '70s swinger show or a horror film."

In the summer, the base is home to some 1,000 researchers and staff. Sunlight is not forecast until Aug. 20.

Photo: elisfanclub

Thursday, June 19, 2008

Book Deal for (Alleged) Killer Busted by Alert Officer

ALBERMARLE, N.C. -- (TYDN) Betty Neumar, the 76-year-old grandma jailed here and suspected of murdering five husbands over three decades, has signed a deal to publish her memoir "If I killed My Husbands (and I Didn't) Here's How I Would Have Done It," TheYellowDailyNews has learned.

A Penguin Books spokeswoman confirmed the $1 million deal, first reported on the TheYellowDailyNews' website late Thursday.

Neumar, a housewife through five husbands in this blue-collar town in North Carolina, says in the book that, if she would have killed her husbands, she would have had them "shot in the back in what was a staged home-invasion robbery," according to excerpts, obtained by TheYellowDailyNews.

Neumar, jailed on suspicion of hiring a hit man to off her fifth husband, writes, "If I wanted to have my husbands killed, I would have paid somebody, go out of town, come home and look kinda shocked when I saw them lying in a pool of blood in the kitchen."

According to police reports, her fifth husband, John Neumar, was "shot in the back in what was a staged home-invasion robbery while his wife was out of town."

The woman's attorney, Charles Krauthehiemer, said there was no relationship between the fictions "Ms. Neumar was writing in her book and what happened to her husband, John, or to her four other husbands."

Sources said the woman earned $5 million in life insurance payouts, all from Mutual of Omaha, which never questioned the five claims.

Albemarle police are crediting a veteran detective with solving the mystery.

"She looked kinda shocked when she saw John Neumar lying in a pool of blood in the kitchen when I responded to her house where she's lived for 40 years," Det. Jason Keeneye said in an exclusive interview. "She had proof she was out of town."

"Then it started to add up. I remembered that the same thing happened a few years before in the same house, and some time before that and some time before that and so on -- all in the same house and they were all shot in the back, on a pool of blood," added Keeneye, who was handed the Detective of the Year Award from the city of Albemarle. "I started getting suspicious after the fourth husband was killed the same way, in the same place, in the kitchen. The fifth time just pushed me over the cliff."

In an exclusive jailhouse interview with TheYellowDailyNews, Betty Neumar, her balding gray hair draping her orange jail jumpsuit, said she was innocent. She added that she was engaged to marry a sixth husband, but the wedding was called off after she discovered him "lying in a pool of blood in the kitchen after I returned home from being out of town."

"He was a victim of a home-invasion robbery," she said.

Tuesday, June 17, 2008

First CA Married Lesbian Couple Divorcing

SAN FRANCISCO -- (TYDN) San Francisco lesbians Del Martin and Phyllis Lyon made unprecedented history on both Monday and Tuesday, TheYellowDailyNews has learned.

On Monday, the partners of 55 years were the first to marry under a California Supreme Court decision overturning state law allowing only opposite-sex couples to tie the knot. Thousands of other same-sex couples across the Golden State also wedded.

But hours after San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom officiated the historic Martin-Lyon wedding, the self-declared "spouses for life" filed for divorce on Tuesday, thus becoming California's first same-sex marriage couple seeking to dissolve their nuptials.

The marriage was 18 hours old.

"It wasn't long until after she said, 'I do,' that she turned into a raving bitch," Lyon, 83, told TheYellowDailyNews in an exclusive interview here. "And then that arm fat, her arm fat looked like it grew inches during the ceremony."

For her part, Martin, 87, who now uses a wheelchair, said she suspected her new wife married her for her money.

"Jesus Christ, I barely kissed the bride and suddenly she started ringing up my credit card like money grew on trees," Martin said. "What really pissed me off was the plywood coffin she ordered for me on overnight delivery."

The divorce filing came hours after the San Francisco Police Department responded to a domestic dispute call at the divorcing couple's Pacific Heights neighborhood apartment that they've shared for four decades, SFPD sources said.

"One of them wanted to move the couch and re-arrange some furniture, I can't remember who, and the other just broke down, saying she couldn't live under these conditions anymore, that she wanted to see other people," an officer who responded to the scene, who requested anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media, told TheYellowDailyNews.

"They just started throwing stuff, and screaming, 'I'm sick of you. Get out and I hate your parents,'" the officer said.

The divorce papers, obtained by TheYellowDailyNews, cited "irreconcilable differences" as grounds for the divorce.

After Massachusetts, California became the nation's second state to allow same-sex marriage. California's same-sex nuptials, which were sanctioned to begin at 5:01 p.m. on Monday, were a result of Lyon and Martin suing, claiming they should be treated the same as opposite-sex couples.

Photo: bilericoproject

Thursday, June 12, 2008

Schwarzenegger, Meteorologists Face Treason Charges

SACRAMENTO -- (TYDN) California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger was arrested here late Thursday and charged with treason for declaring a statewide drought after two years of below-average rainfall -- dryness the governor said was causing extreme fire danger across the Golden State.

Federal agents stormed Schwarzenegger's office at the statehouse here about 11 p.m. on Thursday.

The agents accused him of treason against the United States. He was whisked away to Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and will likely be executed along with as many as 600 other enemy combatants rounded up in Afghanistan and Iraq for plotting against the United States.

Schwarzenegger was the first arrested in DroughtGate, in what was followed by dozens of other arrests of California meteorologists. They, too, are accused of treason, of alerting al-Qaida via their news broadcasts that the state was suffering from one of its worst droughts, and informing the public that fire conditions were dangerously high.

"What Mr. Schwarzenegger did, and what those pawns in the media echoed, was a message to the terrorists, to the people that hate us, that all they have to do is toss a lit cigarette into the brush and they can conflate massive chaos," President Bush said in an exclusive interview with TheYellowDailyNews. "Once again, you're either with the fight against terror, or you're complicit with terror. Clearly, Schwarzenegger and all of his media acolytes are for terror."

Moments after Bush's exclusive interview with TheYellowDailyNews in the Oval Office, his spokeswoman, Dana Perino, immediately clarified that the Republican president had misspoken.

"The president in no way made an overture that the tobacco industry, with the millions of deaths that they have caused to men, woman and children globally, in no way did he mean to say the tobacco industry was affiliated with terrorism," Perino said. "The president meant to say that terrorists could toss a lit match into the brush, not a cigarette."

Civil rights groups, including the American Civil Liberties Union, immediately defended the president.

The ACLU noted that treasonous speech was indefensible and carried no First Amendment protections, just like child pornography. "How many people will now die, will be endangered because of Mr. Schwarzenegger's reprehensible speech?" asked Anthony Romero, the ACLU's executive director.

Schwarzenegger spokesman, Aaron McLear, said the governor was sorry for endangering the nation, for sullying the good name of California, which produces the world's sixth largest economy.

"Since he was Mr. Universe, he's gotten pretty flabby. We hope this time in Gitmo, he'll take the opportunity to shed a few pounds and pump some iron," McLear said. "Then he'll be ready for the next 'Terminator' movie or, in the alternative, look good for his execution."

The Justice Department said as many as 56 meteorologists for the news media was also rounded up and hauled to Guantanamo Bay. Representatives for the media denied any wrongdoing but apologized for what they conceded was "egregious acts of treason," which is likely to carry a death sentence for Schwarzenegger and the weathermen and weatherwomen.

"We were in the process of abandoning our weather coverage on our news stations and moving toward focusing exclusively on hyping our reality TV shows," CBS President Leslie Moonves said in an exclusive interview with TheYellowDailyNews.

"Our next show is a combination of professional eating while forbidding the players from going to the bathroom," Moonves said.

Executives for ABC immediately countered, saying they would offer a similar show, but demand the participants sleep with their opponents' wives, a show ABC News President David Westin described as a "tinder box minus the treason."

Photowoodleywonderworks

Tuesday, June 10, 2008

McCain Won't Tap VP Running Mate

HANOI, Vietnam -- (TYDN) Sen. John McCain will accept the Republican Party nomination for U.S. president and will go on the ticket absent a vice-presidential running mate, TheYellowDailyNews has learned.

Four McCain campaign operatives, speaking on condition of anonymity because they have not been authorized to publicize the strategy, said the Arizona senator is expected to announce in Hanoi, Vietnam, that he is going solo perhaps as early as Wednesday.

"It's more than just the senator knowing that nobody believes in God as much as he does," one McCain operative told TheYellowDailyNews late Tuesday. "He doesn't think anybody else has killed as many people, as many enemies of the United States as he has. He doesn't want to be seen as coddling to the weak."

Revisionist historians said it was the first time in the republic's history that a presidential candidate has declined a vice president to appear alongside on the ballot. While some historians suggested the approach verged on despotism, others said it was a natural evolutionary flow following President Bush's two terms in office.

"There's nobody there to bring McCain the candidate down in this election," USC historian Farquadia Marumama said in an exclusive interview. "For eight years, Bush lived under the shadow of what's his name, Dick Cheney, the vice president, that dead guy behind the curtain that nobody has seen alive for years, but a guy many thought was pulling the strings."

Another McCain operative, speaking on condition of anonymity, said McCain would deliver the news in a makeshift bamboo cage outside Hanoi here, where he was held captive during the Vietnam War for five years. The candidate, the operative said, is expected to tell a news conference that any potential running mate "could never live up to my love for country, the thirst to kill for that country and my love for Jesus."

Strategists said the move has pushed into a corner McCain's rival, Sen. Barack Obama, the Democratic nominee for president. The Illinois senator, who just defeated New York Sen. Hillary Clinton in the primary, has not made up his mind whether he, too, would go solo during the November election.

Several Obama strategists, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the country's first black man on a major presidential party ticket was mulling a female running mate. But the strategists and Obama are unsure whether Clinton is the right choice, although many strategists suggest she would solidify the ticket.

"We're considering a white woman, a lesbian, somebody with broad appeal who gave birth to a black child after divorcing a Muslim man who beat her, didn't allow her to drive and beat her again after she drove to church and later converted to Judaism," one Obama operative said. "She must have dabbled in pornography, been victimized in a nunnery, practiced criminal defense and later quit the bar to adopt Chinese children while working at a convenience store in Middle America who shot at least two armed robbers with an unregistered handgun she carried in her overalls."

Photo: ZekeSaysSo

Sunday, June 8, 2008

J.Lo Hospitalized After Buttocks Catch Fire

SOUTH BEACH, Miami -- (TYDN) Singer, actress and model Jennifer Lopez was rushed to a local hospital here after her buttocks caught fire at a night club party, TheYellowDailyNews has learned.

The actress, who Playboy magazine rated as having the "hottest" buttocks in Hollywood, was dancing at Café Polozonoblo when her buttocks suddenly turned into a raging conflagration late Sunday, witnesses said.

"I was having a beer and staring at her buttocks while she was swirling around on the dance floor and I was thinking, 'I definitely want a piece of that,' and suddenly her buttocks ignited," partygoer James Wilson said. "Her buttocks were so smoking hot; they just started flaming right there before my eyes."

Other witnesses said dozens of partygoers were trampled when J.Lo's entourage rushed the Latin sensation from the club. Internet chat sites were filled with discussions on whether the flames marked an end of an era.

Investigators from Barclays Insurance Group PLC, which has insured Lopez' buttocks for $1 billion, immediately dispatched to the scene as many as 20 investigators from its Assets Department. One South Beach police official, speaking on condition of anonymity because he has not been authorized to publicize the investigation, said dozens of South Beach Fire Department investigators are scrutinizing the blaze.

"A lot of the guys immediately stepped up to probe this," the police official said. "They hope to get to the bottom soon."

A spokesman for the Our Lady the Mercy Hospital in South Beach said Lopez's husband, Latin music sensation Marc Anthony, was at the 38-year-old star's bedside. The actress, popularly nicknamed J.Lo, "is recovering from severe burns on her buttocks," said hospital spokeswoman Nila Forlorn.

Forlorn declined to provide details about the severity of the burns and whether both cheeks fell victim. J.Lo spokesman Haklan Roswellio also declined to give details, but said there was some discord with the medical staff on how to treat Lopez.

"They've been butting heads and calling each other's treatment plans asinine," Roswellio said.

The National Inquirer posted on its website a picture of what appeared to capture the moment Lopez's buttocks became engulfed in flames. Paparazzi photographer Burt Bunseyedo, in an exclusive interview with TheYellowDailyNews, said it was a picture of a lifetime.

"My lens has been trained on her buttocks for years," Bunseyedo said. "Her buttocks literally combusted. I think many of us knew this would happen."

Photo: Chris1002x

Thursday, June 5, 2008

Gas Station Sign Changers Suffering, Unionizing

LOS ANGELES -- (TYDN) Thousands of gas station workers are suffering from what health experts are labeling "repetitive marquee sign stress syndrome," a condition linked to changing signage at gas stations dozens of times daily to reflect the ever-increasing price of petroleum.

The AFL-CIO is haggling with the nation's largest oil concerns in a bid to unionize these workers, who battle frigid temperatures, snow, rain, fog, wind and the boiling heat to keep motorists informed of the always changing price of gasoline -- all for meager wages of about $6.25 hourly.

Some marquee sign changers must climb shaky ladders while braving extreme heights. All the while, they succumb to the screams from their supervisors and they are also victims of constant threats from angry motorists when these sign changers meticulously rearrange the plastic numbers to reflect skyrocketing gas prices that are eroding the American Dream.

The Justice Department was mulling whether to declare acts of violence against gas station marquee sign changers a hate crime after a motorist got out of his car and kicked the ladder from under a sign changer, causing the sign changer to plummet 25 feet and breaking both legs at an Arkansas gas station last week. The American Civil Liberties Union was strongly lobbying against the proposal, which increases any crime's penalty up to five years if directed at a marquee sign changer.

"This legislation doesn't make a distinction to when the sign changer is on or off the job," ACLU spokeswoman Norma Mailanandra said in an exclusive interview. "Does this mean that if I rob a marquee sign changer who is working the cash register, not knowing he is a marquee sign changer, I'm going to get rung up with extra time? That's a First Amendment violation of the highest order."

When President Bush took office in 2001, the average nationwide price for a gallon of regular unleaded was $1.46 a gallon and remained steady. Today, gas nervously hovers at $4 a gallon.

Until recently, marquee sign changing was among the plumb assignments for gas station attendants, a dangerous duty usually exercised once a day and sometimes getting these brave minimum-wage soldiers out of bathroom-cleanup duty.

But that plush lifestyle is now eroding along with the American Dream as speculators and the world's petroleum companies -- fearing the apocalypse, endless war and famine -- have pushed the price of a barrel to record levels of $130, with prices endlessly fluctuating throughout the day.

Several sign changers nationwide told reporters from TheYellowDailyNews that they're now forced to recast gas prices all day long, regardless of the weather. Many are suffering unusual shoulder and hand pain from what some experts say mirrors carpal tunnel-like complications. Other sign changers are suffering the psychological toll of being verbally accosted by motorists unhappy with the cost of gas.

"There I was, for the tenth time that day, in the blistering cold and howling wind, on a 10-foot ladder changing the price when this drunken dude driving an old Ford green pickup started yelling that he was gonna kidnap my daughter and perform unspeakable acts on her," said one ExxonMobil marquee sign changer, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he feared he could lose his job for publicizing the event that happened last week outside a South-Central gas station here.

What's more, hundreds of marquee sign changers have been fired, or demoted to bathroom-cleaning duties, after complaining about the dangerous and unhealthy conditions. The AFL-CIO is attempting to unionize the nation's estimated 22,457 marquee sign changers in a bid to get better wages and less ladder time, union sources familiar with the matter told TheYellowDailyNews.

"These marquee sign changers are the forgotten heroes in the oil wars who brave the elements, and when they complain, they're being fired in unprecedented numbers and in violation of federal law," one union source said.

One oil executive, who earns more per day than a marquee sign changer could in a lifetime, told TheYellowDailyNews that the industry opposes a marquee sign changing union. The exectutive said gas would soon reach $5 a gallon if one was approved.

"These marquee sign changers are greedy, and are the cause of the spike in gas prices," said the executive, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he has not been authorized to discuss the real reasons for high gas prices.

Photo: Marshall Astor - Food Pornographer

Tuesday, June 3, 2008

Grinning Texas Polygamists Greet Returning Kids

ELDORADO, Texas -- (TYDN) Smiling and grinning polygamists welcomed with open arms the return Tuesday of about 400 children removed weeks ago from a polygamist sect's private compound here.

The children -- from infants to teenagers --were allowed to move back to Yearning For Zion Ranch, where Texas child-welfare officials have alleged that underage girls were pushed into spiritual marriages with older men and forced to have sex with their fathers. The parents claimed there was no abuse, and the Texas Supreme Court ruled that state welfare workers went too far in removing the children amid allegations that as many as 31 of the teen-aged girls was pregnant.

The Texas high court, ruling last week that only 30 of the girls was pregnant, said the Texas Child Protective Services agency "went too far and leveled false allegations to these God-fearing and loving worshippers of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints."

The Fundamentalist church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints preaches that polygamy brings glorification in heaven. It is a breakaway sect of the Mormon Church, which renounced polygamy more than a century ago.

A sect elder, speaking on condition of anonymity because he has not been authorized to address the media, told TheYellowDailyNews in front of a gate at the locked compound here that many of the parents were excited to see the return of the children, who were removed three weeks ago amid the pregnancy allegations and accusations of sexual abuse.

"We're just looking forward to when little children can be in the arms of their parents," the elder said. "Until you have your children in your hands, there's no relief."

As part of the children's return, the sect's men at Yearning For Zion Ranch, many having as many as a dozen wives and untold number of children, promised not to force sex on the children and instead agreed only to have intercourse with minors who consent. The Texas high court said removal of the children also was not necessary because the young girls, about 253 of the 400 children, would be forced to wear chastity belts.

Child welfare workers, who would be charged with maintaining the keys to the chastity belts, opposed the kids' return. They argued that chastity belts would not protect against anal and oral sex.

The chief of Texas' child protective services agency, his five deputies, secretary and dog were scheduled to be executed by lethal injection as punishment for overstepping their authority when they ordered the removal of the kids last month, the Texas high court declared. Only a stay by the U.S. Supreme Court could halt their Wednesday morning scheduled executions.

TheYellowDailyNews wire services contributed to this report.

Sunday, June 1, 2008

NRA Wants Concealed Weapons on Flights

WASHINGTON -- (TYDN) The Bush administration is mulling lifting the ban of concealed weapons on U.S-based passenger air flights, a move government officials say would allow fliers to defend themselves from hijackings, rapes, robberies and other crimes running rampant in the sky and at airports, TheYellowDailyNews has learned.

The proposed changes, which are being pushed by the National Rifle Association, follow the Interior Department's lifting of the ban on concealed weapons in National Parks. That plan is designed to allow vacationers to protect themselves from armed bears, packs of hostile wolves, non-Christians, minorities and gays and lesbians who may have wandered aimlessly into the nation's scenic treasures.

"Imagine stumbling into an inter-racial same-sex marriage, right there on a grassy knoll in a public, national park," NRA lobbyist Chris Cox said.

Three Bush administration officials, speaking on condition of anonymity because they have not been authorized to discuss the airline rule changes, told TheYellowDailyNews early Monday that allowing fliers to secretly arm themselves in airports and in the sky "is what the Second Amendment to the U.S Constitution stands for, and more than likely would have prevented 9-11."

"Terrorists, knowing that the person sitting next to them might be armed, would think twice before trying to dive-bomb the plane into buildings," one of the officials said.

But it was unclear whether the plan would come to fruition. While the NRA has given millions to the administration in favor of the change, the airport security lobby strongly objects to the changeover and has been funneling millions of dollars to the administration and members of Congress.

Security lobbyists, representing the makers of metal detectors, face recognition machines, stun guns, batons, medical gloves and lubrication, say lifting the ban on weapons threatens fliers' safety and could ruin the one-of-a-kind atmosphere at airports and aboard planes.

"With every traveler already thinking everybody else is a terrorist and wanting to take down the plane or blow up the airport, adding concealed weapons to that mental mix is a dangerous elixir," said Franklin Dentin, president of Dentin Airport Security Systems, a contractor who has sold millions of manuals to the government with titles like "Strip Searching Made Easy" and "The Need for Cavity Searches in the Richard Reid Aftermath."

Administration officials said they were tallying campaign contributions, kickbacks and bribes from both sides of the debate. The Federal Registrar defines concealed weapons as "any weapon that is concealed."

Bush administration officials are expected to publicize the proposal in the coming days as they finalize the plan and weigh whether to open the door to concealed weapons for every airline passenger.

Some officials favor opening it to all, even to under-aged and mentally ill fliers, a move that insiders say would send the strongest message to potential terrorists and airport rogues.

Other officials suggest that the right to carry concealed weapons on flights should be granted only to those who have donated at least $1,000 to the Republican Party or the NRA. Donations would be accepted at airport security checkpoints.

Many administration officials, however, were lining up against allowing concealed weapons for passengers with one-way tickets or those with shampoo, suntan lotion or bottled water in their carry-on bags.