NEW YORK (AP) - The Pittsburgh Steelers' victory over the Seattle Seahawks in the Super Bowl was watched in an average of 45.85 million homes, the second-highest total in television history behind the final episode of 'M-A-S-H' in 1983. Pittsburgh's 21-10 victory Sunday got a 41.6 preliminary national rating, Nielsen Media Service said Monday, up slightly from the 41.1 rating last year. The share remained the same at 62. The game was watched by an estimated 141.4 million people in the United States, ABC said, the second-highest total to view a program behind the 144.4 million who tuned to New England's victory over Carolina in the 2004 Super Bowl. That number estimates the total amount of people to watch the game at any point.

 

The estimated average of 90.7 million people - or the estimated number of viewers throughout - was the largest Super Bowl audience since the Steelers last played in the title game in 1996, a loss to Dallas that attracted an average of 94.1 million people watching. This year's audience was 5 percent bigger than the 86.1 million people who watched the Patriots beat the Philadelphia Eagles last year. In 1983, the final episode of 'M-A-S-H' was watched in an average of 50.15 million homes. Super Bowl viewers feasted on another halftime show controversy, when the NFL briefly shut off Mick Jagger's microphone to avoid sexually-suggestive lyrics in two Rolling Stones songs. ABC also scored solid ratings for an episode of "Grey's Anatomy" following the game. While the Steelers won by 11 points, the game wasn't really decided until the final five minutes or so, which kept the audience attracted, said Larry Hyams, ABC research executive.

 

Jerusalem Post ... Israel's Ambassador to the United States Danny Ayalon said on Tuesday morning that Iran is the biggest problem facing the world since World War II. He said the UN Security Council must force Iran to accept real supervision that would prevent the further development of its nuclear program. If they continue with their plans, Ayalon warned, Iran may have the know-how needed for the production of nuclear weapons by the end of the year. Ayalon, in an interview to Reuters, stated that he believed Iran's nuclear program would be blocked by diplomatic, not military means.

 

Iranian Newspaper Plans Holocaust Cartoons ... NEWSMAX ... A prominent Iranian newspaper said Tuesday it would hold a competition for cartoons on the Holocaust to test whether the West extends the principle of freedom of expression to the Nazi genocide as it did to the caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad. Hamshahri, one of Iran's largest papers, made clear the contest is a reaction to European newspapers' publication of Danish cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad, which have led to demonstrations, boycotts and attacks on European embassies across the Islamic world. Several people have been killed. Hundreds of Iranians hurled stones, and sometimes gasoline bombs, at the Danish and Austrian embassies in Tehran in protest against the cartoons Monday. Austria currently holds the European Union presidency.

 

MOSCOW, Feb. 7 (UPI) -- A Moscow museum has announced it will exhibit the entire series of cartoons of Mohammed that have caused riots throughout the Islamic world. Yury Samodurov, director of the Sakharov Museum and Public Center, said on Russian television that the center was ready to organize a public exhibition of the cartoons satirizing the founder of Islam that originally were published in a Danish newspaper, Pravda.ru reported Monday. "We must show the whole world that Russia goes along with Europe, that the freedom of expression is much more important for us than the dogmas of religious fanatics," Samodurov said. The exhibition reportedly will open in March. Lawyer Yury Shmidt has said he will invite French philosopher Andre Glucksmann and French novelist Michel Houellebecq to the opening ceremony to read lectures about the threat of Islamic fundamentalism. In 2003 the Sakharov Museum outraged many Russian Orthodox believers with the art exhibit "Be Careful -- Religion," which many felt was insulting to their beliefs.

 

Former President Jimmy Carter criticized the Bush administration's domestic eavesdropping program Monday and said he believes the president has broken the law. "Under the Bush administration, there's been a disgraceful and illegal decision _ we're not going to the let the judges or the Congress or anyone else know that we're spying on the American people," Carter told reporters. "And no one knows how many innocent Americans have had their privacy violated under this secret act." Carter made the remarks at a union hall near Las Vegas, where his oldest son, Jack Carter, announced his candidacy for the U.S. Senate.

 

Note from Tom: What U.S. law reads; is that the president can order this without prior approval if he and the attorney general deem it necessary for national security reasons to move faster than the courts could approve it.  Then they must still go to the courts, tell them what they did, and then have them sign off on the decision.  They've done all of this.  The Left is having a political heyday with it.

 

Scientist predicts 'mini Ice Age' ST. PETERSBURG, Russia, Feb. 7 (UPI) -- A Russian astronomer has predicted that Earth will experience a "mini Ice Age" in the middle of this century, caused by low solar activity. Khabibullo Abdusamatov of the Pulkovo Astronomic Observatory in St. Petersburg said Monday that temperatures will begin falling six or seven years from now, when global warming caused by increased solar activity in the 20th century reaches its peak, RIA Novosti reported. The coldest period will occur 15 to 20 years after a major solar output decline between 2035 and 2045, Abdusamatov said. Dramatic changes in the earth's surface temperatures are an ordinary phenomenon, not an anomaly, he said, and result from variations in the sun's energy output and ultraviolet radiation. The Northern Hemisphere's most recent cool-down period occurred between 1645 and 1705. The resulting period, known as the Little Ice Age, left canals in the Netherlands frozen solid and forced people in Greenland to abandon their houses to glaciers, the scientist said.

 

Sierra Fire Leads To Evacuations, School Closings ANAHEIM HILLS, Calif. -- Thousands of Orange County residents found themselves displaced Tuesday as a wildfire fueled by high winds raged near Anaheim Hills for a second day, resulting in road and school closures. Canyon Rim and Anaheim Hills elementary schools were closed down Monday and were closed again Tuesday, the Orange Unified School District said. Two other schools were also closed Tuesday: Hillsborough Private School (Anaheim Hills) and Oak Ridge Private School (City of Orange). More than 500 firefighters from 17 agencies were battling the blaze, which had scorched more than 3,500 acres by 8 a.m. but had not yet caused damage to structure, according to Orange County Fire Authority. No injuries were reported. NBC4 reported that the fire was about 7 percent contained by 6 a.m. Tuesday.

 

President Bush yesterday sent Congress a $2.77 trillion budget proposal that would increase defense spending by nearly 7 percent, create new tax credits for health care and make permanent the tax cuts that he pushed through in his first term. The plan also calls for slashing about $15 billion from 141 programs in nine of 15 Cabinet agencies, including the Education and Justice departments, and seeks additional savings by reducing the growth of spending in Medicare, the health care program for the elderly and disabled, by $35.9 billion over five years. Under the fiscal 2007 plan, which begins Oct. 1, the administration boosts total spending from this year by a modest 2.3 percent, and promises to cut in half this year's projected record deficit of $423 billion by 2009. "My administration has responded to major economic challenges by following this vital principle: The American economy grows when people are allowed to keep more of what they earn, to save and spend as they see fit," the president said in a message transmitted with the budget. The White House said the tax proposals would save taxpayers about $1.7 trillion over the next 10 years, including $1.4 trillion by making permanent tax cuts that expire in 2011. The health care proposal would reduce taxes by about $137 billion in the coming decade.

KING FUNERAL TURNS POLITICAL: BUSH BASHED BY FORMER PRESIDENT, REVERENDToday's memorial service for civil rights activist Coretta Scott King -- billed as a "celebration" of her life -- turned suddenly political as one former president took a swipe at the current president, who was also lashed by an outspoken black pastor! The outspoken Rev. Joseph Lowery, co-founder of Southern Christian Leadership Conference, ripped into President Bush during his short speech, ostensibly about the wife of Martin Luther King Jr. "She extended Martin's message against poverty, racism and war. She deplored the terror inflicted by our smart bombs on missions way afar. We know now that there were no weapons of mass destruction over there," Lowery said.

The mostly black crowd applauded, then rose to its feet and cheered in a two-minute-long standing ovation. A closed-circuit television in the mega-church outside Atlanta showed the president smiling uncomfortably. "But Coretta knew, and we know," Lowery continued, "That there are weapons of misdirection right down here," he said, nodding his head toward the row of presidents past and present. "For war, billions more, but no more for the poor!" The crowd again cheered wildly.

Former President Jimmy Carter later swung at Bush as well, not once but twice. As he talked about the Kings, he said: "It was difficult for them then personally with the civil liberties of both husband and wife violated as they became the target of secret government wiretaps." The crowd cheered as Bush, under fire for a secret wiretapping program he ordered after the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, again smiled weakly. Later, Carter said Hurricane Katrina showed that all are not yet equal in America.

"This commemorative ceremony this morning, this afternoon, is not only to acknowledge the great contributions of Coretta and Martin, but to remind us that the struggle for equal rights is not over. We only have to recall the color of the faces of those in Louisiana, Alabama and Mississippi," Carter said, the rest of his sentence drowned out by loud applause. "Those who were most devastated by [Hurricane] Katrina know that there are not yet equal opportunities for all Americans. It is our responsibility to continue their crusade."

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