Wednesday, October 11, 2006

Celebrities Who Have Died in Small Plane Crashes:   KEN HUBBS, Baseball Player TONY LEMA, Golfer ROCKY MARCIANO, Prizefighter PATSY CLINE, Country & Western Singer CHARLES HARDIN HOLLEY (BUDDY HOLLY), Rock and Roll Singer RITCHIE VALENS, Rock and Roll Singer J.P. RICHARDSON (THE BIG BOPPER), Rock and Roll Singer MEL CARNAHAN, Governor of Missouri JOHN WALTON, Billionaire JOHN F. KENNEDY JR., Publisher RON BROWN, Secretary of Commerce JOHN DENVER, Pop Singer RICK NELSON, Rock and Roll Singer RANDY RHOADS, Heavy Metal Guitarist RONNIE VAN ZANDT, Rock and Roll Singer (Lynrd Skynrd) STEVE GAINES, Rock and Roll Guitarist (Lynrd Skynrd) CASSIE GAINES, Rock and Roll Singer (Lynrd Skynrd) JIM CROCE, Pop Singer HALE BOGGS, U.S. Congressman NICK BEGICH, U.S. Congressman AUDIE MURPHY, War Hero and Movie Star PAUL WELLSTONE, United States Senator YURI GAGARIN, Soviet Cosmonaut (First man in Space) OTIS REDDING, Rhythm & Blues Singer JIM REEVES, Country and Western Singer DAG HAMMARSKJOLD, United Nations Secretary General MIKE TODD, Film Producer GLENN MILLER, Jazz Bandleader KATHLEEN KENNEDY CAVENDISH, oldest daughter of Joseph and Rose Kennedy CAROLE LOMBARD, Film Actress AMELIA EARHART, Aviator KNUTE ROCKNE, Football Coach WILL ROGERS, Humorist H. JOHN HEINZ III, United States Senator JOHN G. TOWER, United States Senator THURMAN MUNSON, Baseball Player COREY LIDLE, Baseball Player     6:08:06 PM     comment []

A Haunting Piece. . . Cory Lidle earned his pilot’s license last off-season and bought a four-seat Cirrus SR20. He said he’s spent about 95 solo hours in the air.     September 8, 2006 In Lidle, Yanks Have Extra Pitcher and Backup Pilot By TYLER KEPNER When the Yankees fly, the pilots are not only in the cockpit. There is another pilot in the main cabin, where the players sit. He is probably studying his hand-held Global Positioning System receiver, tracking the weather and noting the plane’s precise speed and altitude. He is Cory Lidle, who has been a major league pitcher for nine years and a pilot for seven months. He earned his pilot’s license last off-season and bought a four-seat airplane for $187,000. It is a Cirrus SR20, built in 2002, with fewer than 400 hours in the air. A player-pilot is still a sensitive topic for the Yankees, whose captain, Thurman Munson, was killed in the crash of a plane he was flying in 1979. Lidle, acquired from the Philadelphia Phillies on July 30, said his plane was safe. “The whole plane has a parachute on it,” Lidle said. “Ninety-nine percent of pilots that go up never have engine failure, and the 1 percent that do usually land it. But if you’re up in the air and something goes wrong, you pull that parachute, and the whole plane goes down slowly.” Lidle, 34, lives in West Covina, Calif., 20 miles or so east of Los Angeles. On a trip to Arizona last season, Lidle saw a former teammate, Tom Wilson, whose friend is a pilot. Lidle became intrigued by how quickly he could navigate the Southwest if he could fly a plane. He had never flown, but decided that if he could learn in an off-season, he would make it his top priority. The day after the Phillies’ season ended, Lidle met with an instructor, Tyler Stanger, in nearby Pomona, Calif. They flew to Long Beach that day, and Lidle was hooked. “He was probably my best student,” Stanger said in a telephone interview. “He learned very, very quickly, and a lot of it is desire. He had huge desire. “Really, anyone can learn how to fly. If you can drive a bus, you can fly an airplane. But to learn quickly takes money and time. Of course, Cory had plenty of money, and it was the off-season, so he had the time.” Lidle, who is making $3.3 million this season, met with Stanger twice a week, for three or four hours at a time, all winter. He became queasy once, Stanger said, somewhere over New Mexico while returning from Texas. Otherwise, Lidle was a natural. Part of Stanger’s job is to surprise students by simulating emergencies. He will pull the throttle to the idle position, essentially letting the plane coast as if the engine were failing. Other times, he said, he would instruct a student to wear blinders so only the instrument panel was visible, simulating bad weather. Then Stanger would tilt the plane nose-high or nose-low, making the student recover by trusting the instruments. “Most people get kind of ruffled,” Stanger said. “He was like, ‘O.K., no big deal.’ A lot of it is his mental state. “On the mound, he has to hold in all the emotions and keep completely focused. It’s the same thing flying: If you’re in an emergency, you can’t waste any time worrying. You have to take command of the situation. A lot of people I fly with don’t have that mentality. Cory does.” Flying has become a passion for Lidle, who said he had spent about 95 solo hours in the air. After a recent day game at Yankee Stadium, he took a train to Philadelphia, fetched his plane from a nearby airport and flew it to Teterboro Airport in New Jersey, where he keeps it during the season. If Lidle re-signs with the Yankees, he would fly at his own risk; in the Yankees’ standard contract, a player who injures himself in an off-field activity like flying would jeopardize the guaranteed money in his deal. For now, Lidle plans to enjoy flying this off-season, unburdened by the notorious California traffic. “It’s basically to bring things a little closer to reach,” he said. “Now I can go to Pebble Beach if I want, and instead of driving there for five hours, I can fly there in an hour and 45 minutes. I can go to Arizona to golf, or Vegas, wherever.” On a conference call with reporters the day after he was traded, Lidle criticized his former Phillies teammates for their effort near the trade deadline. Lidle said he was not thinking before he spoke and nearly forgot about the call because he was outside in the heat, cleaning his plane. The Phillies have done well without him, and the Yankees have thrived with him and outfielder Bobby Abreu, who has hit .355 since also being acquired in the trade. Lidle, who starts tonight in Baltimore, is 3-2 with a 3.38 earned run average in six starts with the Yankees. Because they were off yesterday, the Yankees are skipping Jaret Wright’s turn in the rotation. The fact that they kept Lidle on schedule could give Lidle the edge on Wright if the Yankees need a fourth starter in the playoffs. Manager Joe Torre, though, does not seem quite sold on Lidle, a finesse pitcher who deliberately throws slower than 90 miles an hour so his sinker fades better. “He’s one of those guys who gives you six strong innings, and then maybe won’t get out of the second,” Torre said. “It’s all about command, all about throwing strikes, and if they’re going to swing at the balls that he throws. “So you have to be prepared for that. That’s why, on Friday, it will be him, and Jaret will be lurking.” In other words, if Lidle struggles tonight, Wright will be his parachute.   5:53:00 PM     comment []

I know this isn't really news to anybody. But it's so damn much fun to report:   Poll shows Nelson holding big lead over GOP challenger Katherine Harris Nelson By BRENT KALLESTAD Associated Press October 11, 2006, 1:03 PM EDT TALLAHASSEE -- U.S. Rep. Katherine Harris is trailing by a wide margin in her bid to unseat Democratic Sen. Bill Nelson, according to a poll issued Wednesday. Nelson was favored by 61 percent compared to 33 percent who preferred Harris, who party leaders had tried to force out of the race, and 6 percent were undecided. The results were gathered in a random telephone sampling of 783 likely voters, conducted Oct. 3-8 by Quinnipiac University Polling Institute.   Harris In a larger sampling of 968 registered voters, Nelson was favored by 56 percent to Harris's 31 percent with 11 percent undecided. A similar poll taken in July found Nelson with 61 percent to 24 percent who liked Harris. As Florida's secretary of state in 2000, Harris oversaw the recount that gave George W. Bush the White House and quickly won star status among the GOP faithful. However, state GOP leaders, who talked Harris out of a Senate bid in 2004, tried again to keep her from challenging Nelson, fearing she would not only lose but spur a large Democratic turnout that would damage the entire Republican ticket. She easily won the Sept. 5 primary. The poll also found that 59 percent of Floridians disapprove of the job President Bush is doing compared to 37 percent who support his handling of the job. Fifty-five percent believe the country is losing the war in Iraq and 44 percent say the U.S. is losing the battle against terrorism. The survey of likely voters carried a margin of error or plus or minus 3.5 percentage points while the larger sampling of registered voters was plus or minus 3.2 percentage points. Copyright © 2006, South Florida Sun-Sentinel   4:23:08 PM     comment []

Hastert and Foleygate: Send in the clown.  Paul: Hussein says hi! Evangelist Who Counseled Saddam Says Hastert Promises to Resign Eccentric preacher K.A. Paul says when he met with Dennis Hastert yesterday, God convinced the speaker to step down over the Foley scandal. But the real question is: Why did the speaker even take the meeting Josh Harkinson, Mother Jones October 11 , 2006 On Tuesday morning, an unusual guest emerged from House Speaker Dennis Hastert’s home in Plano, Ill.: Globetrotting evangelical minister K.A. Paul, who proceeded to tell the Associated Press that he’d talked and prayed with the speaker about the Foley affair. That Hastert would reach out to a preacher best known for hobnobbing with the likes of Saddam Hussein, Liberia’s Charles Taylor, and Haiti’s Jean-Bertrand Aristide, might have seemed bizarre enough. But reached at his home Tuesday evening, Paul told Mother Jones an even more peculiar story: that he’d convinced the Speaker to resign. “God convinced him through me in prayer,” said Paul, who knows a few things about scandals, having faced controversy for allegedly claiming another minister’s work as his own, neglecting orphans in the United States, and interfering with a murder investigation in India. “God gave me this position that I don’t deserve,” he claims Speaker Hastert told him. “For the good of the people, I will do it.” Hastert’s office couldn’t be reached Tuesday evening; the speaker’s staff confirmed to the AP that the meeting took place, but wouldn’t comment on what transpired. It’s not clear why Hastert decided to meet with Paul, whose Gospel for the Unreached Millions, the AP dryly noted, lost its membership in the Evangelical Council for Financial Accountability last year “when the group failed to provide information about the use of its resources.” To be sure, over the years, Paul has cultivated many prominent Republican supporters: Dallas millionaire Nelson Bunker Hunt served on the board of his charity, Global Peace Initiative (which is separate from Gospel for the Unreached Millions), and prominent Republican donor Carl Lindner Jr. has given his organization millions. Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee once hosted a party for Paul’s associates at the governor’s mansion. Promise Keepers founder Bill McCartney and boxer Evander Holyfield have also reportedly championed his causes. Born Anand Kilari in India’s impoverished Andhra Pradesh, Paul boasts that he convinced Liberian ex-dictator Charles Taylor to resign his office; he claims to have ministered to Saddam Hussein, Muammar al-Khaddafi, and Slobodan Milosevic, and to have known al-Qaeda’s Abu Musab al-Zarqawi “when he was nobody.” His sermons in Africa and India reportedly draw millions. More recently, Paul has been an outspoken critic of the war in Iraq. “We don’t need unnecessary stupid Iraq wars anymore,” he said, “because we are losing reputation and spoiling the good name of Christ and Americans.” Paul said he decided to seek an audience with Hastert because the Foley scandal is distracting America from more pressing problems such as alleviating global poverty. And so, on Monday morning he sent his “international secretary general,” Dennis Ryan, to track down Hastert in his hometown of Plano, Ill. After stopping by the Speaker’s house, Ryan found Hastert at a local Italian restaurant and connected him with Paul via cell phone; in short order, Paul says, Hastert agreed to meet him at 7:00 a.m. the next day. The evangelist showed up Tuesday morning, half an hour late with his trademark entourage of Third World orphans, and promptly told the Speaker that “God has a very special plan for this meeting.” The two men withdrew into a private room where, Paul says, he launched into a sermon about what Hastert should do. Paul told Mother Jones that he cited politicians whose reputations suffered when they resisted stepping down: Donald Rumsfeld, Tom DeLay, Bill Clinton. “I said ‘If you don’t do that, the Republicans will lose control of the Congress, you will no longer be Speaker in 30 days, and at the same time they will all blame you because of the Foley scandal. You want that for you? You want that to be your life legacy after accomplish so many good things?’ So that’s what convinced him.” Hastert pledged to resign, Paul says, at which point he prayed for the Speaker. The prayer, as Paul recalls it, went like this: “Lord, give him wisdom, direction, understanding, knowledge, guidance during this time of crisis and thank you for inspiring him to do the right thing. To put the people and the country before himself. Bless him and his family, anoint him and thank the Lord for his simplicity and humility. Give him good health.” Paul says he came away much more impressed with Hastert than with DeLay, whom he also claims to have counseled. “There is no comparison between,” he said. “Tom DeLay and Speaker Hastert: Pride vs humility. Opposites.” Inspired by the humility of Mother Theresa and Gandhi, Paul says that he lives in a $160,000 house, sleeps on a $100 bed, and gets by with a $10 table and $5 chair—“Goodwill stuff”—all so he can donate more resources to finding homes for orphans. He claims to have rescued 310,000 of them. There are suggestions, though, that Paul’s humility has its limits. This past June, a story in the Houston Press, the alternative weekly in Paul’s hometown (and my employer at the time), drew attention to a Boeing 747, named Global Peace One, that Paul has used to fly around the globe. The plane has racked up a string of unpaid maintenance fees around the world and is the subject of a lawsuit filed against Paul in Los Angeles Superior Court by the Friends of the Israeli Defense Forces, a group that claims that Paul’s group took $850,000 of its money in exchange for a promise—never fulfilled—to fly them to a Holocaust commemoration in Israel. When a Houston Press reporter questioned Paul about how he justified owning the costly jet, the evangelist shot back, “It’s the organization owns it, you chicken!” Paul is also accused of abandoning an orphan after checking her into a U.S. hospital, claiming a different minister’s leper colony as his own, and deserting nine American missionaries in an Indian prison where they were taken after participating in an unpermitted religious rally he had organized. In 1999, the National Council of Churches in India issued a warning on Paul, writing that “Chuches and missions are advised not to associate with his activities.” For the time being, Paul has grounded the 747 in favor of a used, $10,000 van that he plans to drive, orphans in tow, to 21 battleground states in an effort to influence the November election. He will meet with “many leaders,” he said, and preach whenever he can: “I would love to see Congress tilted.” Josh Harkinson is a Mother Jones investigative fellow. This article has been made possible by the Foundation for National Progress, the Investigative Fund of Mother Jones, and gifts from generous readers like you. © 2006 The Foundation for National Progress 4:00:11 PM     comment []

Whatever it is that makes Lincoln Chafee want to keep being a Republican apparently is coming back this year to bite him in the ass. You're a decent guy, Senator, but you're in the way. Sorry. . . Chafee: Love the Man, Hate the Party   RI Senate: Chafee now down by 10, 49% to 39% rasmussenreports.comTue Oct 10, 12:49 PM ET He prevailed in Rhode Island's highly watched Republican primary, but incumbent U.S. Sen. Lincoln Chafee (news, bio, voting record)'s road to November 7 looks to be an uphill one.  The latest Rasmussen Reports election survey shows Democrat Sheldon Whitehouse leading the incumbent 49% to 39%. When leaners are included in the total, Whitehouse leads by nine, 51% to 42%. The current results are similar to our previous poll which found the Democrat leading by eight points. The race remains in the "Leans Democrat" category for our Senate Balance of Power summary.  The candidates are also running fairly closely in the likeability contest:  Chafee's "very favorable" score is 22% and Whitehouse's is 27%.  At the other end of the spectrum, Chafee's "very unfavorable" score is 16% and Whitehouse's is 15%. It's worth noting the difference, though, in how the candidates are perceived by their respective party bases.  Twenty-five percent (25%) of Republicans report "very unfavorable" opinions of Chafee and 32% feel very favorably toward him.  On the Democratic side, 58% have "very favorable" opinions of Whitehouse and only 3% feel very unfavorably. Of those who plan to vote for Chafee, 68% say they are voting for him while 29% are voting against Whitehouse.  Whitehouse's numbers follow a similar pattern:  65% are voting for him and 29% are voting against Chafee. Rhode Island's voters will have more than the spotlight Senate race on their minds when they go to the polls in November.  Seventy-eight percent (78%) rate national security as a "very important" factor in planning the votes they will cast.  Government corruption (72%) and the economy (70%) also rate highly on the list of influential issues. The telephone survey of 500 Likely Voters was conducted by Rasmussen Reports October 4, 2006. The margin of sampling error for the survey is +/- 4.5 percentage points with a 95% level of confidence. Rasmussen Reports is an electronic publishing firm specializing in the collection, publication, and distribution of public opinion polling information. Copyright © 2006 Rasmussen Reports Inc.   3:51:40 PM     comment []

Last Call for Sick Rick?   Like many, I've been longing for the day this slug's political career comes to a crashing, well deserved halt. Could it finally be November 7, 2006?    Pennsylvania Senate: Casey (D) 50%; Santorum (R) 37% rasmussenreports.comTue Oct 10, 2:37 PM ET Republican Senator Rick Santorum continues to be the nation's most vulnerable incumbent and has lost ground once again to Democratic challenger Bob Casey, Jr. Casey now leads the race, 50% to 37%. If undecided voters leaning toward a candidate are added to the mix, Casey leads 52% to 39%. We are now shifting this race from "Leans Democrat" to "Democrat" in our Senate Balance of Power summary. Santorum is the only Republican incumbent to have his re-election chances rated weaker than "Leans Democrat." The weakest Democrat of 2006 is New Jersey's Bob Menendez whose race with Tom Kean Jr. (R) is rated as a Toss-Up. Most Casey supporters (60%), including 53% of Democrats, profess to be casting a vote against Santorum rather than a vote for Casey (31%). This is not too surprising given that Senator Santorum is viewed "very unfavorably" by 37% of all voters. Additionally, many Democrats in the state do not share Casey's pro-life view on abortion. Seventy-seven percent (77%) of Santorum supporters say their vote is "for Santorum" rather than "against Casey" (15%). The survey also found that 52% of all Pennsylvania voters believe American troops should be brought home from Iraq within the next year; 32% disagree. Santorum has been trailing in this race all year, at times by more than twenty percentage points. However, over the summer, the incumbent appeared to be mounting a comeback. In August, he had closed the gap to single digits. But by September, the momentum had stopped and Casey again led by double digits. Santorum is trying to overcome a basic structural challenge in the state, 50% of the Keystone State's voters would select a Democrat if they thought control of the Senate hinged on their vote. Just 40% would vote for GOP control. The power of incumbency can often be counted upon to overcome such numbers, but Santorum is not a typical incumbent and 2006 is not a typical election year. It's not only unaffiliated voters and Democrats who are sour on Santorum. Casey attracts 18% of GOP voters 27% of conservatives. These numbers may reflect the lingering impact of Santorum's support for Republican Senator Arlen Specter over the more conservative Pat Toomey in Pennsylvania's 2004 Senate primary. Specter was only narrowly re-nominated. The telephone survey of 500 Likely Voters was conducted by Rasmussen Reports October 5, 2006. The margin of sampling error for the survey is +/- 4.5 percentage points with a 95% level of confidence. Rasmussen Reports is an electronic publishing firm specializing in the collection, publication, and distribution of public opinion polling information. Copyright © 2006 Rasmussen Reports Inc. 3:35:30 PM     comment []

© Copyright 2006 Michael D. Zungolo. Last update: 10/27/2006; 3:06:15 PM.