Several Imax theaters, including some in science museums, are refusing to show movies that mention the subject - or the Big Bang or the geology of the earth - fearing protests from people who object to films that contradict biblical descriptions of the origin of Earth and its creatures.

The number of theaters rejecting such films is small, people in the industry say - perhaps a dozen or fewer, most in the South. But because only a few dozen Imax theaters routinely show science documentaries, the decisions of a few can have a big impact on a film's bottom line - or a producer's decision to make a documentary in the first place.

People who follow trends at commercial and institutional Imax theaters say that in recent years, religious controversy has adversely affected the distribution of a number of films, including "Cosmic Voyage," which depicts the universe in dimensions running from the scale of subatomic particles to clusters of galaxies; "Galápagos," about the islands where Darwin theorized about evolution; and "Volcanoes of the Deep Sea," an underwater epic about the bizarre creatures that flourish in the hot, sulfurous emanations from vents in the ocean floor.

A Brookfield man was acquitted Wednesday of sexually assaulting a Naperville teenager in an incident videotaped at a party in a Burr Ridge home in 2002.

Christopher Robbins, 20, was one of four males charged with sex crimes against a girl, then 16, on Dec. 7, 2002, after police discovered the videotape.

The Cook County jury deliberated for two hours in the Bridgeview courthouse before returning not-guilty verdicts on two counts of criminal sexual assault.

"I have a new life, I feel great," Robbins said after the verdict. "I have my life back together. I'll be fine."

He did not testify, nor did the defense call any witnesses on his behalf.

Robbins' friends Burim Bezeri, 19, of Lyons, and Adrian Missbrenner, 19, of Burr Ridge left the area in August and have been charged with numerous sex crimes and fleeing to avoid prosecution. The incident occurred in Missbrenner's home.

"When they get back, they will be found not guilty too," Robbins said.

His mother, Cynthia Robbins, was overcome with emotion at the verdict, saying: "I have always believed in him. He told me what happened, and it was the truth."

The 20-minute videotape was the centerpiece of the prosecution's case against Robbins. The jury saw the whole tape at the two-day trial and saw portions of it in closing arguments Wednesday. Jurors asked to see parts of it a third time in their deliberations.

The tape never has been made public, and only the jury was able to view it at the trial. Prosecutors said it showed Bezeri and Missbrenner having sex with the girl and several of the young men writing derogatory terms for females on her and performing other degrading acts.

Robbins is seen on the tape appearing to do something that prosecutors said was a sexual act, but defense attorney Robert Kuzas said it was unclear what actually happened.

Robbins said he had sex with the girl, but in a locked bedroom and not on tape.

"The tape outright shows that she wasn't raped," Kuzas said. "My argument all along was that it was consensual."

Kuzas said the tape is "disgusting, but what happened is an insult, not an assault."

"It is convenient that she doesn’t remember anything," [Defense Attorney] Kuzas told the jury. "She initiated drinking games, was chugging vodka from a bottle, and went to a party at 2 a.m."

I think it's a nutty idea to fool around with the Social Security system and run the risk of [hurting] the people who've been saving all their lives.... It may be a new idea, but it's a dumb one.

"Buy the ticket, take the ride." These are the words that echo in my skull. The words that our Good Doctor lived by and, by God, died by. He dictated, created, commanded, demanded, manipulated, manhandled and snatched life up by the short hairs and only relinquished his powerful grasp when he was ready. There's the rub. When he was ready. That is what we are left with. We are here, without him. But in no way are we left with nothing, far from it. We have his words, his books, his insights, his humor and his truth. For those of us lucky enough to have been close to him, which often meant rather lengthy and dangerous occasions that would invariably lead to uncontrollable fits of laughter, we have the memory of his Cheshire grin leading us wherever he felt we needed to go. Which, by the way, was always the right direction, however insane it may have seemed. Yes, the doctor always knew best. I have, seared onto my brain, the millions of hideous little adventures that I was blessed enough to have lived through with him and, frankly, in certain instances, blessed to have lived through. He was/is a brother, a friend, a hero, a father, a son, a teacher, a partner in crime. Our crime: fun. Always, fun.

A coalition of ultra-Orthodox Jews from Jerusalem and evangelical Christians from the United States announced yesterday that their group intends to try to stop an international homosexual celebration called the "World Pride Parade" from taking place in the holy city this summer. However, the mayor of Jerusalem has said he has no means to prevent the "gay pride" event from occurring. The coalition, which includes a number of Israeli lawmakers, is hoping to collect a million signatures in opposition to the celebration. San Diego pastor Leo Giovinetti is the leader of the Christian group. According to Associated Press reports, organizers of the parade claim they want to promote tolerant coexistence, but Giovinetti believes holding the homosexual pride parade in Jerusalem will offend the religious sensibilities of many communities. He is quoted as stating that millions worldwide who pray for the peace of Jerusalem are "heartbroken" over what he calls a misguided effort to "divide, inflame and sow disunity." InterPride, the group that organizes homosexual pride parades around the world, made the decision to host the international event in Jerusalem this year. The last World Pride Parade was held in Rome, Italy, in 2000. Giovinetti believes the choice of a major religious center both then and now is no accident, but demonstrates clearly that the InterPride agenda is to provoke and offend religious communities.

An overnight road rage incident in Denver left a Hummer on its side and another SUV with serious damage.

The series of events began on Morrison Road and ended on the 800 Block of South Irving.

Police say two teens in the Hummer got into an argument with someone in a Nissan Pathfinder. The argument continued for several blocks until the teens in the Hummer rammed the other SUV, flipping their vehicle in the process.

Both of the teens were hospitalized with injuries.

Authorities have not released the names or conditions of the people involved.

EchoStar Communications Corp., on the heels of strong revenue growth in the fourth quarter, disclosed Wednesday that it has found a "significant deficiency" in its internal controls over financial reporting.

According to government filings, the Douglas County-based satellite TV provider said it would not restate previous earnings and is taking steps to fix company procedures.

EchoStar officials would not comment further on the statement triggered last week by a Bloomberg News article alleging illegal transactions with suppliers and questionable consulting payments made by chairman and chief executive Charlie Ergen.

An internal review by EchoStar's audit committee did not name Ergen in its review, but it found "one instance in which one of our executive officers in charge of certain business functions directed the preparation, in prior years, of inaccurate documentation that was used to determine payments made to a vendor."

"No adjustments to our consolidated financial statements were required as a result of the review, and none were made," EchoStar added.

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission contacted EchoStar after the Bloomberg report, and the company is cooperating with the inquiry.

A class-action lawsuit filed in response to news of improper accounting was dropped Wednesday.

Lawmakers who attended a closed-door meeting of the conservative Republican Study Committee last Wednesday watched a clip from the classic frat-house movie “Animal House” to find motivation to press the GOP leadership to include budget-process reform in the House budget resolution.

Conservative Republicans and centrist Republican leaders who attended the meeting attempted several times to get the GOP leadership to amend the budget process to make it harder to waive budget rules. By girding to face down Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Texas), they apparently have begun to identify with the characters of Delta House in their showdown with the crusty Dean Wormer.

The lawmakers watched inspirational speeches by the characters Otter, the Delta House president, played by Tim Matheson, and Bluto, played by the legendary late Jim Belushi.

Otter: “I think in this case we need to go all out. I think that this situation absolutely requires something really futile and stupid to be done on someone’s part.”

Bluto: “We’re just the guys to do it. LET’S DO IT!!!!”

The leaked transcript of the script left out the off-color, and funnier, parts of the dialogue.

The unexpurgated version:

Bluto: “Nothing is over until we decide it is! Was it over when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor? Hell no!”

Otter: “We gotta take these bastards. Now we could do it with conventional weapons that could take years and cost millions of lives.”

Nothing like a little frat-house humor to rev up the troops.

Muslim clerics in Spain have issued what they called the world's first fatwa, or Islamic edict, against Osama bin Laden as the country marked the first anniversary of the Madrid train bombings that killed 191 people.

They accused him of abandoning his religion and urged others of their faith to denounce the al Qaeda leader, who is believed to be hiding out near the Pakistan-Afghanistan border.

The ruling was issued by the Islamic Commission of Spain, the main body representing the country's 1 million-member Muslim community. The commission invited imams to condemn terrorism at Friday prayers.

The fatwa said that according to the Koran "the terrorist acts of Osama bin Laden and his organization al Qaeda ... are totally banned and must be roundly condemned as part of Islam."

EchoStar Communications Corp., whose audit committee is investigating chairman and chief executive Charlie Ergen's role in the company's accounting, has one of the worst corporate-governance ratings in the U.S., according to Institutional Shareholder Services.

The country's No. 2 satellite-television operator, based in Douglas County, is ranked lower than at least 2,925 of the 3,000 companies in the Russell 3000 index.

Chief among the concerns of ISS: Five of the board's eight members are EchoStar insiders, and Ergen controls 91 percent of the shareholder votes through a separate class of super-voting stock.

With a board that includes his wife, Cantey, and friend and EchoStar executive James DeFranco, Ergen doesn't have to answer to a majority of independent directors.

Under his watch, EchoStar may have improperly booked transactions with suppliers and made suspect consulting payments to one of his friends, people familiar with the internal probe said.

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission also has opened an inquiry into Ergen's role in EchoStar's accounting, said two of the people, who declined to be identified.

Steve Caulk, an EchoStar spokesman, declined to comment on the company's corporate governance.

You will not be seeing Deborah Lipstadt on C-SPAN. The Holocaust scholar at Emory University has a new book out ("History on Trial"), and an upcoming lecture of hers at Harvard was scheduled to be televised on the public affairs cable outlet. The book is about a libel case brought against her in Britain by David Irving, a Holocaust denier, trivializer and prevaricator who is, by solemn ruling of the very court that heard his lawsuit, "anti-Semitic and racist." No matter. C-SPAN wanted Irving to "balance" Lipstadt.

The word balance is not in quotes for emphasis. It was invoked repeatedly by C-SPAN producers who seemed convinced that they had chosen the most noble of all journalistic causes: fairness. "We want to balance it [Lipstadt's lecture] by covering him," said Amy Roach, a producer for C-SPAN's Book TV. Her boss, Connie Doebele, put it another way. "You know how important fairness and balance is at C-SPAN," she told me. "We work very, very hard at this. We ask ourselves, 'Is there an opposing view of this?' "

luck would have it, there was. To Lipstadt's statements about the Holocaust, there was Irving's rebuttal that it never happened -- no systematic killing of Jews, no Final Solution and, while many people died at Auschwitz of disease and the occasional act of brutality, there were no gas chambers there. "More women died on the back seat of Edward Kennedy's car at Chappaquiddick than ever died in a gas chamber at Auschwitz," Irving once said.

[snip]

This is the man C-SPAN turned to for "balance." It told Lipstadt that since it was going to air her lecture, it would do one of Irving's, too. As luck would have it, he was appearing March 12 at the Landmark Diner in Atlanta. C-SPAN was there for this momentous event -- although Irving's advance warning that cameras would be present apparently held down attendance. (His people seem to prefer anonymity -- or, in the old days, sheets.) Lipstadt was in effect being told that if she wanted to promote her book on C-SPAN (an important venue) she would also have to promote Irving. If she was to get a TV audience, then so would he.

[snip]

In the end, Lipstadt had to choose between promoting her own book -- a terrific read, by the way -- and giving Irving the audience of his dreams and a status equal to her own. C-SPAN said it was only seeking fairness, but it was asking Lipstadt to balance truth with a lie or history with fiction. On this occasion, at least, Irving did what he could not do with his libel suit: silence Lipstadt. He may still appear on C-SPAN, but Lipstadt will not -- a victory for "balance" that only the truly unbalanced could applaud.

Paramount Home Entertainment has released early details on two editions of the Oscar-winning Titanic which stars Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet. The film will be available in seperate two-disc and four-disc collector's editions. The two-disc special edition will include a branching feature, enabling fans to view a wide selection of never-before-seen footage. The four-disc collector's edition will be the ultimate for film and DVD enthusiasts - containing numerous deleted scenes, new in-depth documentaries that explore the odyssey of the making of the film and much more. The film itself will be presented in a brand new high definition transfer along with 6.1 Dolby Digital Audio offering the highest level of picture and sound quality on DVD. James Cameron commented: "The three year process of making Titanic seemed at times as arduous as the building of the original ship itself. Until recently, I wasn't really ready to dive back into it all and re-live the conflicts, disappointments, tough choices and, ultimately, the film's crazy, unexpected success. This special edition is more than just the hour or so of unseen footage we're including.we're taking fans on an untold journey, one which could have ended just as disastrously as Titanic's maiden voyage, and often seemed as if it would."

Move over Tinky Winky and SpongeBob SquarePants.

When Marshall Field's employed a Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs theme for its 2004 holiday festivities, the Chicago-born retailer received some complaints that it was promoting the homosexual lifestyle, an executive said recently.

The concerned citizens divined that there was a "hidden gay agenda" in Field's theme "because seven men were living together," Gregory Clark, vice president of creative services for Field's in Minneapolis, recounted last month at a Retail Advertising & Marketing Association conference in Chicago.

Shares of EchoStar Communications Corp. fell Thursday after a report said an internal probe may have uncovered illegal accounting practices and a federal court declined to dismiss patent infringement claims against the company.

EchoStar shares fell $1.87, or 6.1 percent, to close at $28.72 on the Nasdaq Stock Market.

According to Bloomberg News, which cited unnamed sources, the Littleton, Colo., company may have improperly booked transactions with suppliers and made suspect consulting payments to a friend of Chief Executive Charlie Ergen.

The potentially problems were uncovered by EchoStar's audit committee, which was prompted to take a closer look after accounting firm KPMG LLP uncovered evidence of potentially illegal activities during an audit last year. The Securities and Exchange Commission has started an inquiry into the matter, according to Bloomberg.

EchoStar spokesman Steve Caulk declined to comment.

A spokesman for KPMG, Tim Fitzgerald, also declined to comment "on the basis of client confidentiality."

Married just two years, Staff Sgt. Eric Cagle and his wife, Amanda, had modest hopes and dreams.

After Hawai'i, Eric, 25, wanted to be stationed in Colorado to be near mountains, and to teach his wife to snowboard and ski.

He loved the Army, intended to make it a career, and planned to become a helicopter pilot.

Together, they watched home-repair TV shows and dreamed of "something with cobblestones, old English-style architecture, vaulted ceilings," said Amanda, 23.

In a flash of high explosives, it was gone.

On Oct. 14, as Eric Cagle drove up to an Iraqi national guard compound in Huwijah, northern Iraq, a roadside bomb detonated, shredding one side of his Humvee.

Shrapnel knifed through his cheek under his left eye and embedded in his brain. For the Arizona man, a 1st Battalion, 27th Infantry "Wolfhound" out of Schofield Barracks, it was just the start of many bad things to come.

In surgery, his carotid artery burst, leading to a massive stroke. An infection caused swelling, and doctors were forced to remove the right side of his brain.

His right eye is sutured shut to allow an ulceration of the cornea to heal, and his left eye has only a sliver of sight.

Of the more than 270 soldiers from the 25th Infantry Division (Light) and U.S. Army, Hawai'i, wounded in combat in Iraq or Afghanistan, Cagle has the unenviable distinction of being the most seriously injured.

The avid runner joined the Army nearly seven years ago, in part because of the physical nature of soldiering. In Hawai'i, the Cagles loved snorkeling and hiking by Friendship Garden in Kane'ohe. He had previously deployed with the 101st Airborne Division to Afghanistan.

These days, everyday tasks are all the adventure Cagle can handle. He is mostly paralyzed on his left side and is confined to a wheelchair.

Making a bologna sandwich is a test of dexterity. The former squad leader's attention span is short, he nods off constantly, and in a cruel irony, as a result of his brain damage, he is more easily agitated and frustrated — exactly when he needs more patience.

[snip]

For the Cagles, recovery is a slow and uncertain process. Pretty much all of Eric's motor cortex on the right side of his brain and some of his frontal lobe is gone, Amanda said.

A dent on the right side of his head will be covered by a plate back at Walter Reed. He's expected to return there in May, his mom said.

His left eye droops because of scar tissue, and his smile is now a lopsided effort because of the paralysis.

A lot of involuntary actions such as blinking and swallowing now require extra effort from Cagle.

He has a short attention span, can forget to eat the food that's in front of him, and his emotions can be dulled or exaggerated.

Cagle himself is aware of the personality changes. One of his biggest frustrations is "not being who I used to be," he said. "I'm a different person. I do things differently."

Gurcharan Virdee is no stranger to the hardships facing women around the world.

Virdee works with Medica Mondiale, a German-based international organization supporting women in war and crisis situations.

The group is currently working on a program to provide shelter to women living in the western Afghan province of Herat -- an area where Taliban-era repressions are still very much in place.

There, Virdee met several women who had attempted to kill themselves through self-immolation. The most tragic case, Virdee says, involved a young pregnant woman who survived despite suffering severe burns over 60 percent of her body.

"One of the women that I met, she was about 29. She already had four children, [and] she was seven months pregnant when she burned herself. She was experiencing problems with her husband and family; they wouldn't allow her to go and visit her own family. She set fire to herself. She then gave birth to a baby with no painkillers, nothing. The baby girl was taken by her aunt to look after her, and [the mother] died three weeks after giving birth," Virdee said.

A government delegation that traveled to Herat last week said at least 52 women in the province have killed themselves in recent months through self-immolation.

A Herat regional hospital last year recorded 160 cases of attempted suicide among girls and women between the ages of 12 and 50. But Virdee says the real number is probably much higher.

"The official statistics which the hospitals have are for the women who have actually come to the hospital, who can receive treatment. There are many other cases of women burning themselves in the villages, in the city, in some of the provinces. But these are women we can't give any estimates on, partly because they never reach the hospital or because they die in their villages or city. These are the cases that never come to the attention of any public authorities," Virdee said.

Afghan officials say poverty, forced marriages, and lack of access to education are the main reasons for suicide among women in Herat. Domestic violence is also widespread.

"A lot of women are saying that their husbands don't allow them to go and visit their families. There are severe restrictions on their movement, and also there is violence towards them -- both physical and psychological -- and intimidation and isolation," Virdee said.

Readers often write in for an update on Fallujah. I am sorry to say that there is no Fallujah to update. The city appears to be in ruins and perhaps uninhabitable in the near future. Of 300,000 residents, only about 9,000 seem to have returned, and apparently some of those are living in tents above the ruins of their homes. The rest of the Fallujans are scattered in refugee camps of hastily erected tents at several sites, including one near Habbaniyyah, or are staying with relatives in other cities, including Baghdad.

The scale of this human tragedy-- the dispossession and displacement of 300,000 persons-- is hard to imagine. Unlike the victims of the tsunami who were left homeless, moreover, the Fallujans have witnessed no outpouring of world sympathy. While there were undeniably bad characters in the city, most residents had done nothing wrong and did not deserve to be made object lessons--which was the point Rumsfeld was making with this assault. He hoped to convince Ramadi and Mosul to fall quiet lest the same thing happen to them. He failed, since the second Fallujah campaign threw the Sunni Arab heartland into much more chaos than ever before. People forget how quiet Mosul had been. And, the campaign was the death knell for proper Sunni participation in the Jan. 30 elections (Sunnis, with 20 percent of the population, have only 6 seats in the 275 member parliament).

• illegally funneling corporate funds to assist state political campaigns


• bribing a Congressman to vote for President Bush's Medicare drug plan


• using a government airplane to track down legislators opposed to his redistricting plan


• using a children’s charity as cover for collecting soft money from anonymous interest groups, some of which was used for “dinners, a golf tournament, a rock concert, Broadway tickets and other fundraising events” at the party's convention


• openly promising an energy company "a seat at the table" in drafting energy legislation in return for a $56,500 campaign contribution


• taking a $100,000 check from a private prison company at a fundraiser for a children's charity used to "launder" illegal campaign contributions; this one clearly in payment for DeLay's support of a plan to privatize Texas jails


• "punishing" a trade group that named a member of the opposition party to head its Washington operation


• accepting shady donations for his legal defense fund


• accepting a luxury vacation from an Indian tribe and a gambling services company, then voting against gambling legislation they opposed


• accepting an expense-paid trip to South Korea paid for by a South Korean lobbying group


• attempting to change the rules to retain his own power

Today, the analysts at Herold -- a research-only firm that issues valuations on several hundred publicly traded energy companies -- are making predictions even bolder than their call on Enron. They have begun estimating when each of the world's biggest energy companies will peak in its ability to produce oil and gas. Herold's work shows that the best minds in the energy industry are accepting the reality that the globe is reaching (or has already reached) the limit of its own ability to produce ever increasing amounts of oil.

Many analysts have estimated when the earth will reach its peak oil production. Others have done estimates on when individual countries will hit their peaks. Herold is the first Wall Street firm to predict when specific energy companies will hit their peaks.

Since last fall, Herold has done peak estimates on about two dozen oil companies. Herold believes that the French oil company, Total S.A., will reach its peak production in 2007. Herold expects 2008 to be critical, with Exxon Mobil Corp., ConocoPhillips Co., BP, Royal Dutch/Shell Group, and the Italian producer, Eni S.p.A., all hitting their peaks. In 2009, Herold expects ChevronTexaco Corp. to peak. In Herold's view, each of the world's seven largest publicly traded oil companies will begin seeing production declines within the next 48 months or so.

[snip]

Herold's projections have enormous ramifications both for stockholders in the major oil companies and for every energy consumer on the globe. If Herold is correct, and the world's biggest oil companies cannot increase their production in the coming years, then several things appear certain:

• Oil prices -- which are already at record levels -- will continue rising as demand outstrips supply. In a few years, gasoline prices of $2 per gallon could seem like a bargain.


• State-owned oil companies like Mexico's Pemex, Venezuela's PDVSA (Petroléos de Venezuela) and Saudi Arabia's Saudi Aramco may be unable to increase their production enough to meet burgeoning global demand.


• The producers who belong to the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries, and Saudi Arabia in particular, may have even more leverage over the global oil market in the coming years.


• The United States will be ever more reliant on oil imported from countries filled with people who don't like George W. Bush or his policies.

The White House on Monday defended the administration's use of video news releases that are sent to television stations across the country and frequently used without any acknowledgment of the government's role in their production.

In an opinion last week, the Justice Department concluded that the practice was appropriate as long as the videos presented factual information about government programs. The memo was sent to heads of federal departments and agencies.

"The prohibition does not apply where there is no advocacy of a particular viewpoint, and therefore it does not apply to the legitimate provision of information concerning the programs administered by an agency," according to the Justice Department memo.

The advice conflicts with the opinion of the Government Accountability Office, which is the investigative arm of Congress. The GAO says that video news releases amount to illegal "covert propaganda" when they fail to make plain that the government is behind the releases.

Questions have been raised about government media practices after the revelation that conservative columnists were paid to promote administration policies and did not tell their audiences that they had received federal money. President Bush, after the practice was disclosed, said it was wrong and ordered that it stop.

The video news releases — from the Pentagon, Agriculture Department, Census Bureau and other agencies — have the appearance of other segments in news programs and frequently are not identified by local stations as being produced by the government.

White House press secretary Scott McClellan suggested the lack of disclosure was the fault of the broadcasters, not the government.

A judge ruled Monday that California's ban on gay marriage is unconstitutional, saying the state could no longer justify limiting marriage to a man and a woman.

In the eagerly awaited opinion likely to be appealed to the state's highest court, San Francisco County Superior Court Judge Richard Kramer said that withholding marriage licenses from gays and lesbians is unconstitutional.

"It appears that no rational purpose exists for limiting marriage in this state to opposite-sex partners," Kramer wrote.

The judge wrote that the state's historical definition of marriage, by itself, cannot justify the denial of equal protection for gays and lesbians.

"The state's protracted denial of equal protection cannot be justified simply because such constitutional violation has become traditional," Kramer wrote.