Early Morning Horror: Suicide attackers detonated three car bombs near embassies in Baghdad this morning, killing at least 35 people and wounding more than 200 in back-to-back attacks.

Seattle Garbage Strike Update: More than 1,600 people have applied to work as replacement drivers for Waste Management in case of a strike by the Teamsters, although Teamsters have “backed off” from their threat of striking.

Stiff Upper Lip: The pope maintained his silence on mounting sex abuse cover-up accusations during his Easter message this morning; hailed as “unfailing leader.”

iCrazy: Despite its unfortunate name, Apple’s devoted fans congregated at stores around the country to pick up their latest object of desire: the eagerly anticipated iPad.

Tech Debate: But will the iPad cause the end of innovation?

Good Planning: 90-year-old Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens says he “will surely” retire while President Obama is still in office; his departure would give Obama his second nomination to the court, enabling him to ensure there would continue to be at least four liberal-leaning justices.

Island Fight: Guemes Island man arrested after a bizarre incident Friday in which four people were doused with gasoline, several shots were fired, and a house was set on fire.

Inappropriate PDA: Dubai appeals court this morning upheld a one-month prison sentence for a British couple convicted of kissing in a restaurant.

On Her Own: Former Oregon woman who spent four years in a Mexican prison wins her own release, says she had no help from state or federal officials.

Race War Declared: South Africa’s white supremacist leader Eugene Terreblanche was bludgeoned to death by two of his farm workers Saturday in an apparent dispute over wages; white supremacist group calling the slaying of their leader “a declaration of war” by blacks against whites.

Cockfighting is No Joke: Authorities say 14 people are under arrest after they raided a cockfight in Bellingham. A helicopter was used to nab some of the suspects, others were caught hiding in the rafters of the barn used for the fighting; all 14 face animal-fighting felony charges.

Poor Things: The median pay package for C.E.O.’s at big public companies declined by 15 percent last year to $7.7 million.

Things That Seem Like a Good Idea When You’re Drunk: San Diego police said a man just out of the hospital Saturday night for intoxication stole an ambulance and fled from police, leading a “slow chase” through residential streets before they stopped him with spike strips.

First Out Pro-Wrestler Dead: Chris Kanyon, 40, who wrestled for World Championship Wrestling and late in his career attempted to market himself as the first openly gay professional wrestler, was found dead in his New York apartment Friday night from an apparent overdose of pills.

27 replies on “Morning News”

  1. The pope may be momentarily silent, but his defenders certainly are not. The church’s handling of the child-molestation scandal, even setting aside all the lies and damage to people (and who wants to do that?), is turning into a PR clusterfuck of epic proportions. If they want to preserve their holy playpens (and who would want them to do that?), they need to a) immediately shut the hell up, and b) hire a PR firm with a good reputation in crisis management (if they can find one that wishes to risk its own good name) and do exactly what they say. These people are digging themselves an ever-deeper hole with their flapping lips and tongues alone.

  7. Doctorow sounds a bit like a weepy old woman there. It’s funny; it’s iPad CRITICS, not fans, who seem to be endowing the device with the most extreme magical powers. He seems to be assuming that iPads will become the only kind of computer that exists. Not only is he grossly overstating the power of the iPad to stamp out innovation; he’s also grossly overstating the amount of innovation that came out of those Apple II+ schematics.

    Nobody really cares, and they haven’t for almost three decades, since the original, ultra-restrictive, Mac came along. If you want to futz with device drivers, you get a PC, same as in 1984. Apple has never been a platform for COMPUTING innovation; they’ve been instead a platform for design innovation (from within the company) and CREATIVE innovation — people using Macs to create graphic design, photography, film, etc. Creating content has nothing to do with being able to get inside the case.

    No one is going to use an iPad to create; or, if they do, it will be because someone using some other kind of computer figured out how to make it possible to create effectively on one — perhaps a successor to Photoshop using touch-screen gestures or something, I dunno. Hard-core gamers will continue to use their overclocked PCs with their liquid-cooled video cards and whatnot.Illustrator and InDesign aren’t going to disappear from Macs or PCs anytime soon.

    People like Doctorow seem to be confused about what the market is for this thing. No one really KNOWS what the market is; it doesn’t exist yet. Apple’s betting it’s going to be somewhere between the market for the iPod and for the Mac — about where the iPhone currently is.

    Has the iPhone killed innovation? No, it’s sparked it — largely on a vast array of imitators, Android for one. There will be Android tablets soon. If the iPad is successful, ultimately its success will be measured not in iPads but in the revitalized tablet category.

    Finally, maybe Doctorow should shut up about “innovation” in a field in which he himself has never innovated anything, one in which millions of people work innovating stuff every day.

  8. I asked Virgin Mobile USA:

    “I want to upload myPix to my facebook account. I set it up, but when I share a photo, all it does is email it back to me on phone. It doesn’t show up on my Facebook wall…”

    They answered:

    “Sorry to hear that you are having problem uploading your pictures. In order for your to upload your pictures, it has to be done from the MY PIX on line, just login in to your account select the phone you would like to upload and click on the destination (FB), and you’ll be al set.”

    Confirming that moronitude is not limited to the Greater Seattle area, but a worldwide phenomenon.

  9. @1 no there’s no saving the vatican now. there is no p.r. job that can fix it. the whole world knows they are a bunch of child raping criminals and liars. the various plaintiff’s laywers will in the next few years use civil litigation to uncover even more invovlement, knowledge and cover up by the higher ups; get judgments piercing the corporate veil that heretofore has kept all dioceses legally separate; they will likely get us court orders that vatican papers be handed over or else face a default judgment; and one day

    one brave judge

    will declare that it’s just one entity the way the fucking church has actually described itself for 2000 years with just one guy in charge the way they’ve actually operated for 2000 years and with that one guy directly involved in setting policy of the dioceses and they will make it one entity an sell churches on the courthouse steps …. just like the lawyers going against the newspaper in San Fran now can go against all the affiliated corporations.

    just like morriss dees did with the KKK.

    in short they’re in a death spiral already.

    Thank God.

  10. Fnarf is probably the most intelligent and legit free contributor to this blog, but when he goes on a tangent fuck all if reading his comments doesn’t feel like being yelled at by someone you shouldn’t be dating. Jesus.

  11. How is it news that people who have hard ons for anything steve jobs touches are buying his products? This happens every day…and usually on machines that run flash.

  16. Isn’t it a little too perfect that the white supremacist had the surname “Terreblanche”? I wonder if it’s his original name.

  19. it’s a Hueguenot name, his ancestor arrived in S. Africa (what is now S. Africa) about 1704. Family was from toulon. Though his political program was creating a whiteland, his name is a coincidence.

    OR WAS IT???????

  23. This whole manufactured controversy about the name iPad is bullshit. Really, a perfectly innocuous word like “pad” is off-limits because one of its many meanings happens to be a product related to menstruation? Are we that juvenile, or that overly sensitive? Jesus.

  24. white supremacist group calling the slaying of their leader “a declaration of war” by blacks against whites

    These guys sure are slow on the uptake, seeing as how the entire civilized world declared war on “white supremacists” decades ago.

    Photoshop and Illustrator run beautifully on a Windows Tablet PC, BTW. Unfortunately, all the compact slate-style tablets seem to have been discontinued due to lack of demand.

  26. @22, thank you, dear. You’re very kind. I don’t actually do much rocking these days, though I do still sway back and forth at times.

  27. Pat Patterson who was the first man to ever win the Intercontinental Championship pre-dating Kanyon by some years is openly gay.

    Personally I am glad to see that Seattle has workers that will stand up for themsselves and not just bend over when the company says to their faces “If we could treat you worse we would.”

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