By Staff
Indian extremists gave us the opposite of The Beatles' "Love is All You Need" with their traditional Valentine bonfire.
More than 100 members of the Hindu extremist group Shiv Sena chanted "Death to Valentines Day" and "People who celebrate Valentine's Day should be pelted with shoes."
It made Hindu and Muslim hard-liners crazy when India embraced a Western holiday, so Feb. 14 they vented like they do every year – burning cards and even threatening to beat couples displaying affection publicly.
Like a message from above, torrential rains prevented Hindu extremists in the northern city of Lucknow from carrying out threats to assault couples kissing, hugging or holding hands.
Of course, the Beatles lit bonfires of their own when John Lennon commented on thick-headed, self-appointed disciples.
Lennon also imagined a world with no religion.
A fan got his autograph, then assassinated him outside his home.
His beautiful ballad was banned after Sept. 11.
Preaching peace and love threatens the military industrial complex.
Dr. Martin Luther King was killed when he turned from poverty to Vietnam.
Money can't buy you love, but it's behind the only news story on every channel.
Unrelenting coverage of Anna Nicole's death obscures all else.
So, let's follow the money.
Time is money: The United States and Britain rank at the bottom of a UNICEF report released Feb. 14 of child welfare in 21 wealthy countries that assessed everything from infant mortality to whether children eat dinner with their parents.
The Netherlands, followed by Sweden, Denmark and Finland, perch at the top; the United States is 20th, Britain 21st.
Researcher Jonathan Bradshaw said children fare worse in the U.S. and Britain – despite high overall levels of national wealth – because of greater economic inequality and poor levels of public support for families.
Japan autoworkers want more: With record sales forecast, workers at Toyota, the world's second-largest automaker, asked for an annual bonus of $21,300 and an average base salary increase of $12.43 a month.
Unions at Toyota Motor Corp., Nissan Motor Co. and Honda Motor Co. all negotiated raises last year. Honda's labor union asked management to boost base monthly pay by $8.29 and to pay a bonus comparable to 6.6 months' pay.
Nissan's employees asked Japan's No. 3 automaker to increase base monthly salaries by $57.98 and to pay a bonus worth 6.3 months salary.
Almost 1,400 workers at Ford's only car assembly plant in Russia struck Feb. 14 to demand more money for working in hazardous conditions.
8,000: Jobs cut by Masco, the Taylor-based maker of home improvement and building products, after a $187 million fourth-quarter loss, compared to a $173 million profit the same three-month period a year ago.
The Michigan Gaming Control Board said casino revenue increased an average of 4.8 percent last month, compared to the same period last year.
Which reminds me, I haven't heard Michigan talk about selling its lottery, like Indiana and some other states.
The hidden tax for living here: Beginning of 2007, gas cost $2.24; Michigan average, $2.30; national average, $2.23; Dowagiac, $2.39.
The Internal Revenue Service began in September turning over 10,000 delinquent taxpayers a month to three private collection agencies in New York and Texas. Through Jan. 21, the program grossed $12.6 million, but an estimated 18.5 percent to 19 percent in fees will be subtracted and sent back to the collection agencies. The program will be ramped up by seven more collection agencies in March 2008. Supporters say it offers the potential to bring in $1.5 billion in otherwise uncollected taxes over 10 years, or $150 million a year.
Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy called for Congress to give federal judges a raise because "low salaries" threaten judicial independence and hurt morale. The chief justice makes $212,000 year, the other eight justices $203,000. Federal appeals court judges make $175,000 a year, trial judges $165,200.
State Farm Insurance, swamped by litigation since Hurricane Katrina, Feb. 16 suspended sales of any new commercial or homeowner policies in Mississippi.
"All options are on the table."
– DaimlerChrysler Chairman Dieter Zetsche, who refused to rule out selling Chrysler Feb. 14 as the Auburn Hills-based unit announced 13,00 jobs cuts, including 5,300 in Michigan. The two companies merged in 1998.
"Too bad the trial of Vice President Dick Cheney's former top aide, Lewis 'Scooter' Libby, is getting only a fraction of the media fuss stirred up by the death of Anna Nicole Smith. Smith's passing is more titillating, but Libby's perjury trial is crucial to U.S. security. It has laid bare how the White House skewed the intel on Iraq's weapons of mass destruction and sold these distortions to the media. What makes the tale even more unnerving is the possibility that the process is being repeated – with Iran … the same officials who cherry-picked Iraq intelligence are still in the White House."
– Philadelphia Inquirer columnist Trudy Rubin
"Bush's budget is a collection of artificial numbers – including cuts in domestic programs Congress will inevitably reverse – that allow the president to claim fiscal responsibility while demanding that his tax cuts for the wealthy be made permanent. Cutbacks in health insurance coverage for lower-income working families are among the most egregious of the president's fiscal choices … here is a president who believes passionately in redistributing income upward."
– Washington Post
columnist E.J. Dionne
In other words, it's not the lovers who should be pelted with shoes.