Baby Marin and Pro-Bono Podcast are Delivered!

Well, those pesky day jobs have been getting in the way a bit - actually, a lot. Chris has just accepted a job in radio management that has him packing up and leaving our Southern California home base. The demands of organizing a major relocation have meant that, once again, we've not been able to be as attentive to ATR as we'd like. However, having one of our guys back in the ranks of working radio executives has got to be a good thing for the future of this enterprise. It just means we've not been able to post with the frequency and thoroughness we've asked you to expect. Wait... There's one more reason that are podcast is not up?

Just when we thought we couldn't come up with another bogus excuse to show a Hot babe or a Victoria's Secret supermodel on our pages, we come up with a real Baby this time..... Hey look it's "Marin." So here's the deal.

Our web master Lisa Lopuck, Sister Gina and her husband Yon. just had a baby girl down in the O.C. Her name is Marin & She was born April 15 @ 0030hrs. Congratulations On Your Baby Girl!


As for the podcast? We recorded a new one, which was to have been posted by now. Alas, some compression conversion thing has caused the 'cast not to upload to this site. We're going to re-crunch the raw .wav file and have it posted by Wednesday.
Please come back and check that out, since we think you'll enjoy our charity/non-profit theme.

Look for some updated analytics (which has emerged as a favorite post of our each week) and news from the road as Chris gets settled in.

Christie's to Gavel Christina Onassis' Baubles

Jewellery belonging to late heiress could fetch $4.5 million

Jewellery belonging to Christina Onassis, daughter of legendary Greek shipping magnate Aristotle Onassis, is going up for auction. Christie's will sell more than 40 pieces of jewellery from the collection of the women who found herself connected to the Kennedy clan when her father married Jacqueline Kennedy in 1968. Christina Onassis struggled to find happiness in her life despite her family's great wealth. In a period of just 24 months between 1973 and 1975, Christina Onassis lost her entire family. she dies at the age of 37 in 1988.

According to Reuters, the highlight of the June 11th event is a pear-shaped, 38-carat D colour potentially flawless diamond which Onassis wore on a diamond pendant necklace. Other important pieces in the collection are a rare bowenite Buddha by Carl Faberge and a sapphire and diamond necklace by Harry Winston.

Stolen U.S. Military Materiel Brokered on eBay, Craigslist

Numerous defense-related items "for sale to the highest bidder"

Military hardware, weapons and componants are being brokered on Craigslist and eBay, according to report posted on the Wired.com today.

"Night-vision goggles, armor vests, F-14 fighter components that could only be used by Iran" are some of the sensitive military items from the U.S. arsenal that have turned up for sale online, according to the story, posted on Wire's Danger Room section.

The story cites an audit by the U.S. Government Accountability Office, which is detailed in a report called "Internet Sales: Undercover Purchases on eBay and Craigslist Reveal a Market for Sensitive and Stolen U.S. Military Items."

Here is an excerpt:

~~ We found numerous defense-related items for sale to the highest bidder on eBay and Craigslist from January 2007 through March 2008. A review of eBay and Craigslist policies and procedures determined that, although these Web sites have taken steps to regulate their user communities and define items that are prohibited from sale, there are few safeguards to prevent sensitive and stolen defense-related items from being sold to either domestic or foreign users of these sites. During the period of our investigation, undercover investigators purchased a dozen sensitive items to demonstrate how easy it was to obtain them. The items were shipped to us "no questions asked."...Many of the sensitive items we purchased could have been used directly against our troops and allies, or reverse-engineered to develop countermeasures or equivalent technology. ~~

We visited eBay to see if the company had posted anything in response to this report. The only thing we could find on eBay's Government Relations section is a story called "What's New: eBay Sellers Make an Impact in Washington."

We probably don't need to tell you that the eBay seller's "impact" discussed in the post and the "impact" cited in the GAO report are two very different things. To be fair, the company may have responded elsehwere on the site and it got by us, just like some F-14 fighter parts got by them.

(F-14 on carrier flight deck photo from Milavia.net)

Lincoln Letter Sets Auction Record at $3.4 million

Document was reply to plea for slavery's end

For $3.4 million, anonymous phone bidder won ownership of a letter President Lincoln wrote in reply to an impassioned plea for the end of slavery.

The letter, an emotional response to a "Children's Petition to the president asking him to free all the little slave children in this country," dates from 1864 and was the highlight of a sale of historical American manuscripts, according to AFP.

Part of an auction called Presidential and Other American Manuscripts from the Dr. Robert Small Trust, the Lincoln letter was just one of many historically-significant items put on the block by Sotheby's New York.

"Please tell these little people I am very glad their young hearts are so full of just and generous sympathy," Lincoln wrote in the letter.

"While I have not the power to grant all they ask, I trust they will remember that God has, and that, as it seems, He wills to do it."

More from AFP:

- The other highlight in the Sotheby's sale was Lincoln's signature from an autograph album on the same day in 1863 he gave his Gettysburg address -- considered perhaps the greatest speech in US history.

The autograph, signed at the dedication of a cemetery for those killed at the battle of Gettysburg in July that year, sold for 937,000 dollars to a first-time bidder who described the letter as "an amazing piece of history." -

A letter written by Thomas Jefferson, in which the third president reveals his concern over the health of then president George Washington, was among the items that failed to sell.

Lincoln letter as it was displayed in the National Archives. (AFP/GETTY IMAGES/File)