Saturday, December 23, 2006
Wednesday, December 06, 2006
Saturday, November 25, 2006
Scum rob convenience store, kill clerk
Authorities are investigating a robbery and shooting that left one person dead and another injured early Saturday in the city of Lemon Grove on the outskirts of San Diego, California.
According to reports, one suspect waited outside the front door of the 7-Eleven at 7607 Broadway shortly after 2 a.m. while a second suspect, armed with a sawn-off rifle, entered the business and shot a customer and the clerk.
"He was armed with a sawed off rifle. (He) shot the customer (and) shot the clerk," Lt. Dennis Burgos said. Police said the customer was getting coffee when he was shot.
The injured customer ran from the business and called 911. The clerk was taken to a hospital where he died. A third customer hid in a freezer and was not injured.
The suspect who entered the store is described as a white male in his twenties and wearing a hooded sweatshirt. The second suspect also wore a hooded sweatshirt. They were last seen leaving the area in a black or dark Dodge Neon.
Crimestoppers and 7 Eleven are both offering awards for information. Anyone with information is asked to call the sheriff's department at (858) 565-5200.
Authorities are investigating a robbery and shooting that left one person dead and another injured early Saturday in the city of Lemon Grove on the outskirts of San Diego, California.According to reports, one suspect waited outside the front door of the 7-Eleven at 7607 Broadway shortly after 2 a.m. while a second suspect, armed with a sawn-off rifle, entered the business and shot a customer and the clerk.
"He was armed with a sawed off rifle. (He) shot the customer (and) shot the clerk," Lt. Dennis Burgos said. Police said the customer was getting coffee when he was shot.
The injured customer ran from the business and called 911. The clerk was taken to a hospital where he died. A third customer hid in a freezer and was not injured.
The suspect who entered the store is described as a white male in his twenties and wearing a hooded sweatshirt. The second suspect also wore a hooded sweatshirt. They were last seen leaving the area in a black or dark Dodge Neon.
Crimestoppers and 7 Eleven are both offering awards for information. Anyone with information is asked to call the sheriff's department at (858) 565-5200.
Thursday, November 23, 2006
Tuesday, November 21, 2006
Fluoride in drinking water causing serious health problems, UN report warns
Excessive amounts of fluoride in drinking water are exposing millions of people around the world to risks ranging from often crippling skeletal problems to milder dental conditions, according to a report released today by the United Nations World Health Organization (WHO).
The report, issued in Geneva, finds that the widespread effects of fluoride in drinking water remain largely unrecognized and neglected, and that much of the suffering could easily be prevented.
Although fluoride is found in some concentration in all natural waters, bringing benefits for teeth, excessive concentrations in some areas can lead to debilitating health problems.
The report identified Africa, the eastern Mediterranean and South Asia as three regions where unusually elevated concentrations of fluoride are causing concern. One of the worst affected areas is an arc stretching from Turkey to China.
The effects can be devastating. In China, for example, at least 10 million people are estimated to suffer from skeletal fluorosis, when fluoride accumulates in the bones over many years and causes stiffness and joint pain and, in some cases, changes to bone structure, calcification of ligaments and crippling effects.
Clinical dental fluorosis, another by-product of elevated fluoride concentrations, is marked by stained and pitted teeth and, in the worst cases, by damage to the enamel of the teeth.
The report states that although removing excessive fluoride from drinking water can be difficult and expensive, there are alternative low-cost options available at a local level, such as the use of absorptive filters, bone charcoal or crushed clay pots.
Excessive amounts of fluoride in drinking water are exposing millions of people around the world to risks ranging from often crippling skeletal problems to milder dental conditions, according to a report released today by the United Nations World Health Organization (WHO).
The report, issued in Geneva, finds that the widespread effects of fluoride in drinking water remain largely unrecognized and neglected, and that much of the suffering could easily be prevented.
Although fluoride is found in some concentration in all natural waters, bringing benefits for teeth, excessive concentrations in some areas can lead to debilitating health problems.
The report identified Africa, the eastern Mediterranean and South Asia as three regions where unusually elevated concentrations of fluoride are causing concern. One of the worst affected areas is an arc stretching from Turkey to China.
The effects can be devastating. In China, for example, at least 10 million people are estimated to suffer from skeletal fluorosis, when fluoride accumulates in the bones over many years and causes stiffness and joint pain and, in some cases, changes to bone structure, calcification of ligaments and crippling effects.
Clinical dental fluorosis, another by-product of elevated fluoride concentrations, is marked by stained and pitted teeth and, in the worst cases, by damage to the enamel of the teeth.
The report states that although removing excessive fluoride from drinking water can be difficult and expensive, there are alternative low-cost options available at a local level, such as the use of absorptive filters, bone charcoal or crushed clay pots.
Thursday, November 16, 2006
Grand Rapids Announces New Fluoride-Themed Sculpture
A new 33-foot-high sculpture will commemorate the city's role as one of the first in the nation to put fluoride in its water supply.
The blue metal sculpture — created by Dutch artist Cyril Lixenberg — will sit along the bank of the Grand River in a plaza near the entrance to the new J.W. Marriott Hotel.
Lixenberg said the work of art evokes cascading water — a reference to the river and the Grand Rapids water supply. The sculpture, which will be lit by the hotel as part of its riverfront plaza, will be built and installed by local steel fabricators. It will be unveiled when the hotel opens next year.
It will replace an 11-year-old white marble monument whose tooth-like elements were cracked by vandals and stained by weather, James Wieland, head of the West Michigan Dental Foundation, told The Grand Rapids Press for a story published Wednesday.
Even though the five-ton sculpture will sit on city park land, it will be maintained by a $50,000 endowment set up by the dental foundation.
Grand Rapids began fluoridating its water supply in 1945 and was one of the first in the U.S. to do so. Fluoridation has resulted in a 65 per cent decline in tooth decay, Wieland alleged.
Lixenberg, whose work also is featured at Holland Hospital, was chosen from three finalists, Wieland said.
"We specifically asked that it be fine art and that it not be a tooth in the river," said Wieland, referring to an earlier campaign to commemorate the fluoridation program.
Photo: Cyril Lixenberg posed in Grand Rapids beside a scale model of a 33-foot sculpture he will create to honor the city's role as one of the first in the nation to put fluoride in its water supply.
A new 33-foot-high sculpture will commemorate the city's role as one of the first in the nation to put fluoride in its water supply.The blue metal sculpture — created by Dutch artist Cyril Lixenberg — will sit along the bank of the Grand River in a plaza near the entrance to the new J.W. Marriott Hotel.
Lixenberg said the work of art evokes cascading water — a reference to the river and the Grand Rapids water supply. The sculpture, which will be lit by the hotel as part of its riverfront plaza, will be built and installed by local steel fabricators. It will be unveiled when the hotel opens next year.
It will replace an 11-year-old white marble monument whose tooth-like elements were cracked by vandals and stained by weather, James Wieland, head of the West Michigan Dental Foundation, told The Grand Rapids Press for a story published Wednesday.
Even though the five-ton sculpture will sit on city park land, it will be maintained by a $50,000 endowment set up by the dental foundation.
Grand Rapids began fluoridating its water supply in 1945 and was one of the first in the U.S. to do so. Fluoridation has resulted in a 65 per cent decline in tooth decay, Wieland alleged.
Lixenberg, whose work also is featured at Holland Hospital, was chosen from three finalists, Wieland said.
"We specifically asked that it be fine art and that it not be a tooth in the river," said Wieland, referring to an earlier campaign to commemorate the fluoridation program.
Photo: Cyril Lixenberg posed in Grand Rapids beside a scale model of a 33-foot sculpture he will create to honor the city's role as one of the first in the nation to put fluoride in its water supply.
Laibow Urges Indian Farmers to go Organic
Rima E. Laibow, MD, Medical Director of the Natural Solutions Foundation, will address a huge gathering of farmers in India urging them to resist dangerous farming techniques which will destroy not only their societies but the health of their countries as well. Laibow, a proponent of natural solutions to health, will point to the increased pesticide use, health risks and social disruption brought about by an industrialized food supply which harms society at every level. She will share enhancement techniques which make ti easy for farmers to grow abundant, clean premium crops with enhanced nutrient density.
Laibow will address the 16th Convention of All India Panchayat Parishad in New Delhi next week. The Festival, which runs from Nov. 21-22 in New Delhi, will be opened by the President of All India Panchayat Parishad who also is the Minister in-charge of Food Processing Industries & CODEX. Laibow will urge farmers to refuse to grow genetically modified crops of any type and to retain the ancient, land-friendly and healthy farming styles which did not damage either the land or the consumer of the foods produced in these ways. At the same time, she will discuss the newest, inexpensive and highly effective technologies which farmers can incorporate into their growing techniques to enhance yield without chemicals and increase nutrient density of food.
The meeting, a festival of farmers and rural community and social organizations, will provide an opportunity for Laibow to emphasize to farmers that without them, and their clean food, no society can prosper. Farmers, Laibow believes, hold a key to the health of societies since they can use a combination of ancient and modern techniques to provide clean, abundant and nutrient dense foods to the nations which depend upon them. Standing in stark contrast to this, according to Laibow, the Medical Director of the Natural Solutions Foundation, is the industrialized food supply supported by international corporate pressure and organizations like Codex Alimentarius.
Codex Alimentarius, the international world food standard setting body run by the World Health Organization (WHO) and the Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) for the United Nations, is, according to Dr. Laibow and the Natural Solutions Foundation a serious threat to the health and well-being of the world since it favors the industrialization of the world's food supply rather than the enhancement of high nutrient density, low contamination food.
Addressing the farmers and their organizations on the topic of "Farmers Hold Up More Than Half the Sky" Laibow will put the pesticide, herbicide, drug and antibiotic food supply permitted by Codex for international food trade into sharp contrast with the environmentally, socially and nutritionally healthy food produced by farmers using a carefully honed combination of ancient farming techniques and new, low impact, zero toxicity enhanced agricultural techniques. Some of these techniques are being field tested by the Natural Solutions Foundation in Asia in keeping with the principles and goals of the Foundation's International Decade of Nutrition designed to use nutrition to show how to eliminate under nutrition and the diseases it causes, crop shortages, epidemic and endemic diseases and the downward spiral of under nutrition, poverty and illness for families, individuals and communities in the developing world.
The World Health Organization defines the preventable diseases of under nutrition as cancers, cardiovascular disease, stroke, diabetes and obesity. Using high nutrient density strategies, enhanced agricultural techniques which do not involve genetic manipulation and modern nutritional disease eradication strategies, the Natural Solutions Foundation will carry out pilot projects with diverse groups in varied settings around the world developing inexpensive and effective strategies for ending hunger and enhancing world health through nutrition and low-tech, high impact natural methods which will be shared with interested communities so they can apply them within the context of their own cultures.
Rima E. Laibow, MD, Medical Director of the Natural Solutions Foundation, will address a huge gathering of farmers in India urging them to resist dangerous farming techniques which will destroy not only their societies but the health of their countries as well. Laibow, a proponent of natural solutions to health, will point to the increased pesticide use, health risks and social disruption brought about by an industrialized food supply which harms society at every level. She will share enhancement techniques which make ti easy for farmers to grow abundant, clean premium crops with enhanced nutrient density.
Laibow will address the 16th Convention of All India Panchayat Parishad in New Delhi next week. The Festival, which runs from Nov. 21-22 in New Delhi, will be opened by the President of All India Panchayat Parishad who also is the Minister in-charge of Food Processing Industries & CODEX. Laibow will urge farmers to refuse to grow genetically modified crops of any type and to retain the ancient, land-friendly and healthy farming styles which did not damage either the land or the consumer of the foods produced in these ways. At the same time, she will discuss the newest, inexpensive and highly effective technologies which farmers can incorporate into their growing techniques to enhance yield without chemicals and increase nutrient density of food.
The meeting, a festival of farmers and rural community and social organizations, will provide an opportunity for Laibow to emphasize to farmers that without them, and their clean food, no society can prosper. Farmers, Laibow believes, hold a key to the health of societies since they can use a combination of ancient and modern techniques to provide clean, abundant and nutrient dense foods to the nations which depend upon them. Standing in stark contrast to this, according to Laibow, the Medical Director of the Natural Solutions Foundation, is the industrialized food supply supported by international corporate pressure and organizations like Codex Alimentarius.
Codex Alimentarius, the international world food standard setting body run by the World Health Organization (WHO) and the Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) for the United Nations, is, according to Dr. Laibow and the Natural Solutions Foundation a serious threat to the health and well-being of the world since it favors the industrialization of the world's food supply rather than the enhancement of high nutrient density, low contamination food.
Addressing the farmers and their organizations on the topic of "Farmers Hold Up More Than Half the Sky" Laibow will put the pesticide, herbicide, drug and antibiotic food supply permitted by Codex for international food trade into sharp contrast with the environmentally, socially and nutritionally healthy food produced by farmers using a carefully honed combination of ancient farming techniques and new, low impact, zero toxicity enhanced agricultural techniques. Some of these techniques are being field tested by the Natural Solutions Foundation in Asia in keeping with the principles and goals of the Foundation's International Decade of Nutrition designed to use nutrition to show how to eliminate under nutrition and the diseases it causes, crop shortages, epidemic and endemic diseases and the downward spiral of under nutrition, poverty and illness for families, individuals and communities in the developing world.
The World Health Organization defines the preventable diseases of under nutrition as cancers, cardiovascular disease, stroke, diabetes and obesity. Using high nutrient density strategies, enhanced agricultural techniques which do not involve genetic manipulation and modern nutritional disease eradication strategies, the Natural Solutions Foundation will carry out pilot projects with diverse groups in varied settings around the world developing inexpensive and effective strategies for ending hunger and enhancing world health through nutrition and low-tech, high impact natural methods which will be shared with interested communities so they can apply them within the context of their own cultures.
Tuesday, November 14, 2006
Nutrition Myths & Truths
Myth: Heart disease in America is caused by consumption of cholesterol and saturated fat from animal products.
Truth: During the period of rapid increase in heart disease (1920-1960), American consumption of animal fats declined but consumption of hydrogenated and industrially processed vegetable fats increased dramatically. (USDA-HNI)
Myth: Saturated fat clogs arteries.
Truth: The fatty acids found in artery clogs are mostly unsaturated (74 per cent) of which 41 per cent are polyunsaturated. (Lancet 1994 344:1195)
Myth: Vegetarianism is healthy.
Truth: The annual all-cause death rate of vegetarian men is slightly more than that of non-vegetarian men (.93 per cent vs.89 per cent); the annual death rate of vegetarian women is significantly more than that of non-vegetarian women (.86 per cent vs.54 per cent) (Am J Clin Nutr 1982 36:873)
Myth: Vitamin B12 can be obtained from certain plant sources such as blue-green algae and soy products.
Truth: Vitamin B12 is not absorbed from plant sources. Modern soy products increase the body’s need for B12. (Soybeans: Chemistry & Technology Vol 1 1972)
Myth: For good health, serum cholesterol should be less than 180 mg/dl.
Truth: The all-cause death rate is higher in individuals with cholesterol levels lower than 180 mg/dl. (Circulation 1992 86:3:1026-1029)
Myth: Animal fats cause cancer and heart disease.
Truth: Animal fats contain many nutrients that protect against cancer and heart disease; elevated rates of cancer and heart disease are associated with consumption of large amounts of vegetable oils. (Fed Proc July 1978 37:2215)
Myth: Children benefit from a low-fat diet.
Truth: Children on low-fat diets suffer from growth problems, failure to thrive & learning disabilities. (Food Chem News 10/3/94)
Myth: A low-fat diet will make you “feel better... and increase your joy of living.”
Truth: Low-fat diets are associated with increased rates of depression, psychological problems, fatigue, violence and suicide. (Lancet 3/21/92 v339)
Myth: To avoid heart disease, we should use margarine instead of butter.
Truth: Margarine eaters have twice the rate of heart disease as butter eaters. (Nutrition Week 3/22/91 21:12)
Myth: Americans do not consume enough essential fatty acids.
Truth: Americans consume far too much of one kind of EFA (omega-6 EFAs found in most polyunsaturated vegetable oils) but not enough of another kind of EFA (omega-3 EFAs found in fish, fish oils, eggs from properly fed chickens, dark green vegetables and herbs, and oils from certain seeds such as flax and chia, nuts such as walnuts and in small amounts in all whole grains.) (Am J Clin Nutr 1991 54:438-63)
Myth: A vegetarian diet will protect you against atherosclerosis.
Truth: The International Atherosclerosis Project found that vegetarians had just as much atherosclerosis as meat eaters. (Lab Invest 1968 18:498)
Myth: Low-fat diets prevent breast cancer.
Truth: A recent study found that women on very low-fat diets (less than 20 per cent) had the same rate of breast cancer as women who consumed large amounts of fat. (NEJM 2/8/96)
Myth: The “cave man diet” was low in fat.
Truth: Throughout the world, primitive peoples sought out and consumed fat from fish and shellfish, water fowl, sea mammals, land birds, insects, reptiles, rodents, bears, dogs, pigs, cattle, sheep, goats, game, eggs, nuts and milk products. (Abrams, Food & Evolution 1987)
Myth: Coconut oil causes heart disease.
Truth: When coconut oil was fed as 7 per cent of energy to patients recovering from heart attacks, the patients had greater improvement compared to untreated controls, and no difference compared to patents treated with corn or safflower oils. Populations that consume coconut oil have low rates of heart disease. Coconut oil, may also be one of the most useful oils to prevent heart disease because of its antiviral and antimicrobial characteristics. (JAMA 1967 202:1119-1123; Am J Clin Nutr 1981 34:1552)
Myth: Saturated fats inhibit production of anti-inflammatory prostaglandins.
Truth: Saturated fats actually improve the production of all prostaglandins by facilitating the conversion of essential fatty acids. (Price-Pottenger Nutrition Foundation Journal 20:3)
Myth: Arachidonic acid in foods like liver, butter and egg yolks causes production of “bad” inflammatory prostaglandins.
Truth: Series 2 prostaglandins that the body makes from arachidonic acid both encourage and inhibit inflammation under appropriate circumstances. Arachidonic acid is vital for the function of the brain and nervous system. (Price-Pottenger Nutrition Foundation Journal 20:3)
Myth: Beef causes colon cancer
Truth: Argentina, with higher beef consumption, has lower rates of colon cancer than the US. Mormons have lower rates of colon cancer than vegetarian Seventh Day Adventists (Cancer Res 35:3513 1975)
Source: Weston A. Price Foundation
Myth: Heart disease in America is caused by consumption of cholesterol and saturated fat from animal products.
Truth: During the period of rapid increase in heart disease (1920-1960), American consumption of animal fats declined but consumption of hydrogenated and industrially processed vegetable fats increased dramatically. (USDA-HNI)
Myth: Saturated fat clogs arteries.
Truth: The fatty acids found in artery clogs are mostly unsaturated (74 per cent) of which 41 per cent are polyunsaturated. (Lancet 1994 344:1195)
Myth: Vegetarianism is healthy.
Truth: The annual all-cause death rate of vegetarian men is slightly more than that of non-vegetarian men (.93 per cent vs.89 per cent); the annual death rate of vegetarian women is significantly more than that of non-vegetarian women (.86 per cent vs.54 per cent) (Am J Clin Nutr 1982 36:873)
Myth: Vitamin B12 can be obtained from certain plant sources such as blue-green algae and soy products.
Truth: Vitamin B12 is not absorbed from plant sources. Modern soy products increase the body’s need for B12. (Soybeans: Chemistry & Technology Vol 1 1972)
Myth: For good health, serum cholesterol should be less than 180 mg/dl.
Truth: The all-cause death rate is higher in individuals with cholesterol levels lower than 180 mg/dl. (Circulation 1992 86:3:1026-1029)
Myth: Animal fats cause cancer and heart disease.
Truth: Animal fats contain many nutrients that protect against cancer and heart disease; elevated rates of cancer and heart disease are associated with consumption of large amounts of vegetable oils. (Fed Proc July 1978 37:2215)
Myth: Children benefit from a low-fat diet.
Truth: Children on low-fat diets suffer from growth problems, failure to thrive & learning disabilities. (Food Chem News 10/3/94)
Myth: A low-fat diet will make you “feel better... and increase your joy of living.”
Truth: Low-fat diets are associated with increased rates of depression, psychological problems, fatigue, violence and suicide. (Lancet 3/21/92 v339)
Myth: To avoid heart disease, we should use margarine instead of butter.
Truth: Margarine eaters have twice the rate of heart disease as butter eaters. (Nutrition Week 3/22/91 21:12)
Myth: Americans do not consume enough essential fatty acids.
Truth: Americans consume far too much of one kind of EFA (omega-6 EFAs found in most polyunsaturated vegetable oils) but not enough of another kind of EFA (omega-3 EFAs found in fish, fish oils, eggs from properly fed chickens, dark green vegetables and herbs, and oils from certain seeds such as flax and chia, nuts such as walnuts and in small amounts in all whole grains.) (Am J Clin Nutr 1991 54:438-63)
Myth: A vegetarian diet will protect you against atherosclerosis.
Truth: The International Atherosclerosis Project found that vegetarians had just as much atherosclerosis as meat eaters. (Lab Invest 1968 18:498)
Myth: Low-fat diets prevent breast cancer.
Truth: A recent study found that women on very low-fat diets (less than 20 per cent) had the same rate of breast cancer as women who consumed large amounts of fat. (NEJM 2/8/96)
Myth: The “cave man diet” was low in fat.
Truth: Throughout the world, primitive peoples sought out and consumed fat from fish and shellfish, water fowl, sea mammals, land birds, insects, reptiles, rodents, bears, dogs, pigs, cattle, sheep, goats, game, eggs, nuts and milk products. (Abrams, Food & Evolution 1987)
Myth: Coconut oil causes heart disease.
Truth: When coconut oil was fed as 7 per cent of energy to patients recovering from heart attacks, the patients had greater improvement compared to untreated controls, and no difference compared to patents treated with corn or safflower oils. Populations that consume coconut oil have low rates of heart disease. Coconut oil, may also be one of the most useful oils to prevent heart disease because of its antiviral and antimicrobial characteristics. (JAMA 1967 202:1119-1123; Am J Clin Nutr 1981 34:1552)
Myth: Saturated fats inhibit production of anti-inflammatory prostaglandins.
Truth: Saturated fats actually improve the production of all prostaglandins by facilitating the conversion of essential fatty acids. (Price-Pottenger Nutrition Foundation Journal 20:3)
Myth: Arachidonic acid in foods like liver, butter and egg yolks causes production of “bad” inflammatory prostaglandins.
Truth: Series 2 prostaglandins that the body makes from arachidonic acid both encourage and inhibit inflammation under appropriate circumstances. Arachidonic acid is vital for the function of the brain and nervous system. (Price-Pottenger Nutrition Foundation Journal 20:3)
Myth: Beef causes colon cancer
Truth: Argentina, with higher beef consumption, has lower rates of colon cancer than the US. Mormons have lower rates of colon cancer than vegetarian Seventh Day Adventists (Cancer Res 35:3513 1975)
Source: Weston A. Price Foundation
Monday, November 13, 2006
Friday, November 10, 2006
Thursday, November 09, 2006
Live at the Theater for the New City in New York
Thursday, Nov. 9 - 8 p.m.Friday, Nov. 10 - 8 p.m.
Saturday, Nov. 11 - 3 p.m.
Saturday, Nov. 11 - 8 p.m.
Sunday, Nov. 12 - 3 p.m.
Sunday, Nov. 12 - 8 p.m.
Purchase tickets online
Theatre of Science displays live science on stage — funny, bizarre, sometimes disquieting. A heady mixture of probability theory, psychology, and comedy, this show revives a tradition in which audiences attended the theatre to see scientific demonstrations as entertainment.
The climax involves generating six-foot-long bolts of lightning between two specifically constructed coils, with one of the performers entering a coffin-shaped cage and absorbing the full force of the lethal strikes.
An experimental psychologist and former professional magician, Professor Richard Wiseman teams up with a physicist and popular science author, Dr. Simon Singh (author of Fermat’s Enigma and Big Bang).
”The spirit of Houdini lives on” — The Times”
”The most frightening and bizarre show in town.” — The Daily Mail
This show is part of the Science and Arts Festival of NY.
To learn more about free events, see www.scienceartfestival.com. Sponsored by Skeptical Inquirer magazine and CUNY Graduate Center Science & the Arts Program. Tune in to Point of Inquiry on Friday, Nov. 10 for a special interview with Professor Richard Wiseman on the Theatre of Science.
Wednesday, November 08, 2006
Saddam’s Unindicted Co-Conspirator
By Norman Solomon, AlterNet
Saddam Hussein has received a death sentence for crimes he committed more than a year before Donald Rumsfeld shook his hand in Baghdad. Let’s reach back into history and extract these facts:
These are facts that the public should know about the [former] defense secretary of the United States.
Norman Solomon is the author of the new book, “War Made Easy: How Presidents and Pundits Keep Spinning Us to Death.”
© 2006 Independent Media Institute. All rights reserved.
Monday, November 06, 2006
Hanging Saddam is Inhuman and Illegal
por Henk Ruyssenaars — Foreign correspondent Sunday, Nov. 05, 2006 at 9:48 AM
fpf@chello.nl (Casilla de correo válida)
Hanging Saddam for 148 victims? George Bush as Texas governor was named ‘Texecutionor’ as the biggest Serial Killer with 155 victims. Compared to Bush’s 655.000 estimated deaths in Iraq, Saddam Hussein is a bad apprentice. But murder is murder: whoever does it.
Bush killed an estimated 655.000 in Iraq, and his former buddy Saddam?
by Henk Ruyssenaars
FPF — Nov. 5th 2006 — According to all outside the US valid international laws and the also by the US signed international treaties and conventions, changing a constitution, holding elections or appointing courts and judges in occupied territory is absolutely prohibited and illegal. And so are the ‘verdicts’.
The Geneva Convention, Article 54 reads: “The Occupying Power may not alter the status of public officials or judges in the occupied territories, or in any way apply sanctions to or take any measures of coercion or discrimination against them, should they abstain from fulfilling their functions for reasons of conscience.” This is confirmed in the The Hague War Convention, also signed by the earlier existing US, before it became a totally lawless dictatorship.
“Saddam Hussein was convicted and sentenced (today) Sunday to hang for crimes against humanity in the 1982 killings of 148 people in a single town, as the ousted leader, trembling and defiant, shouted “God is great!” As he, his half brother and another senior official in his regime were convicted and sentenced to death, Saddam yelled out, “Long live the people and death to their enemies. Long live the glorious nation, and death to its enemies!” (AP — formerly a ‘news agency’ — Now AP stands for ‘American Propaganda’)
Apparently the junta in the US abusing the world with the US/NATO war machine via the Pentagon, still refuses to understand that might does not make right, and their lies are globally spread again by war propaganda outlets like AP in the US and it’s media collaborators, the parrots and ‘spin doctors’ in the US colonies. In The Netherlands for instance, the slavishly compliant and so called ‘Christian government’ betrayed as usual all decency, and the by 81 per cent of the Dutch despised Washington stooge and PM Balkenende in the Dutch US compliant media called the illegal verdict ‘satisfying’.
Bush is Guilty of An Estimated Death Toll of 655.000 in Iraq
This is not the inhuman and usually by the Washington ‘crazies’ concocted Kafkaesque idiocy anymore: this way of denial but anyhow acting is taken straight out of the ‘smoke and mirror’ fables of ‘Alice in Wonderland’. Are we all supposed to have forgotten the fact that all over the world, and even in one of the Washington junta’s worst propaganda papers, The Washington Post* it was published that in Iraq alone the US warmongers are guilty of an estimated death toll of sixhundred-and-fifty-five-thousand (655.000)?
A team of American and Iraqi epidemiologists estimates that 655,000 more people have died in Iraq since coalition forces arrived in March 2003 than would have died if the invasion had not occurred. The estimate, produced by interviewing residents during a random sampling of households throughout the country, is far higher than ones produced by other groups, including Iraq’s government. It is more than 20 times the estimate of 30,000 civilian deaths that President Bush gave in a speech in December. It is more than 10 times the estimate of roughly 50,000 civilian deaths made by the British-based Iraq Body Count research group.*
It’s there for everybody to see who can still read the overwhelming signs and understand why this creature Bush with his sick, dope and drink diluted mind, by the double nationality junta was put in the White House. As a front man for the junta’s war machine and now — according to the latest dictatorial decree signed October 17th 2006 — via Bush they can order torture, kill and let disappear anybody in the world. It is fascism optima forma, but fully supported by the war machine’s collaborators and their vile propaganda parrots in the US and its colonies.
Execution of the Mentally Retarded
In Texas Bush has left the ‘Office of The Texas Governor’ to his Lt. Governor Rick Perry, sworn in as 47th Governor of Texas on Thursday, December 21, 2000. Unfortunately Governor Perry, like his predecessor Bush, had little or no concern for the credibility of the Texas justice system. So Perry vetoed legislation that would have banned the execution of the mentally retarded. Proving what civilization is worth in Texas and among so called ‘Christians’ in the US. They can’t even spell the word decency, those ‘christian nuts’ as Bush, Rove et.al. call the — them supporting — hypocrites behind their backs.
Massage, Sex and Methamphetamines
As was proved for the umpteenth time by Ted Haggard, the hypocritical “President of the National Association of Evangelicals” with 30 (thirty) million brainwashed members all over the US. Haggard admitted receiving massage from a man who claims to have exchanged sex for money with the church leader for three years. Haggard stepped down Thursday after Michael Jones, 49, said he had been having paid sex with Haggard once a month for three years and helped provided him with methamphetamine. That was bad, because Bush and the junta counted on their by fake ‘religion’ blinded support in the as usual rigged ‘election’ next Tuesday.
But the illegal and inhuman hanging verdict in Baghdad will also cover up the election results it is thought.
Amnesty Warned Earlier
In London, commenting on Bush’s killing record, a spokesman for Amnesty International earlier said: “We fear Governor Bush’s record on the death penalty — he has presided over more than 150 executions, including of juvenile offenders, the mentally impaired and the inadequately represented — which does not bode well for efforts to rein the USA back from its increasing resort to judicial killing.” It did not help that Amnesty many times urged Bush “to adopt a broader awareness of human rights and international standards than he has displayed in Texas.” — But he only got worse.
The death penalty is an issue that has caused widespread outrage in Europe, most dramatically in Italy where the late Pope John Paul was at the forefront of criticism of Washington and demanded an end to the taking of lives by governments in rogue states like the US. Yet most Americans are brainwashed, in denial, and/or unaware of the global uproar.
And for all the talk from private activists and officials on all levels in the corridors of power, those who sometimes are seen as ‘moral leaders’ but have much to do with cultivating the money making transatlantic partnership in key areas like defense and trade, those ‘moral leaders’ are still silent. And if you’re silent you agree.
The United States Tore Out 8,000 Pages Out of the Iraq Dossier for the UN
They did not for instance say a word either, when the United States junta tore out 8000 pages out of the Iraq dossier for the UN, pages which were evidence, proving the US is ten thousand times worse than Saddam ever was. It ought to be quite clear who the real war criminals are: the Washington junta again making ‘fall guys’ of their former buddies in Iraq this time. — Url.: http://tinyurl.com/yem6pc
But not even reports on all war crimes, torture or 655.000 dead in Iraq moves those creatures. Implying their absolute guilt by association, which the war crimes tribunals will take care of.
Capital punishment like hanging is wrong: it’s much better to give Bush, the junta and their collaborators everywhere on earth, a life time sentence, so the punishment works as long as they vegetate in jail.
They deserve every second of it.
Henk Ruyssenaars
References:
International Outrage over Texecutioner Bush — URL: http://ccadp.org/texecutioner-outrage.htm
Like the fake constitution: elections or verdicts in Iraq are illegal — URL: http://tinyurl.com/o5zpe
THE UNITED STATES TORE OUT 8,000 PAGES FROM THE IRAQ DOSSIER FOR THE UN — URL: http://www.sundayherald.com/30195
The Independent (UK) — 655,000: The toll of war in Iraq — URL: http://news.independent.co.uk/world/politics/article1842559.ece
October 29, 2004 — 100,000 Iraqi dead — THE LANCET Report — The new study released in the U.K. this morning by the British medical journal of reference, THE LANCET, is devastating. — URL: http://direland.typepad.com/direland/2004/10/100000_iraqi_de.html
The Nuremberg principles: “Any person who commits an act which constitutes a crime under international law is responsible therefor and liable to punishment.” — URL: http://tinyurl.com/byurp
Reference guide to the Geneva Conventions — URL: http://www.genevaconventions.org
http://tinyurl.com/6xdfw
agrega tus comentarios
por Henk Ruyssenaars — Foreign correspondent Sunday, Nov. 05, 2006 at 9:48 AM
fpf@chello.nl (Casilla de correo válida)
Hanging Saddam for 148 victims? George Bush as Texas governor was named ‘Texecutionor’ as the biggest Serial Killer with 155 victims. Compared to Bush’s 655.000 estimated deaths in Iraq, Saddam Hussein is a bad apprentice. But murder is murder: whoever does it.
Bush killed an estimated 655.000 in Iraq, and his former buddy Saddam?
by Henk Ruyssenaars
FPF — Nov. 5th 2006 — According to all outside the US valid international laws and the also by the US signed international treaties and conventions, changing a constitution, holding elections or appointing courts and judges in occupied territory is absolutely prohibited and illegal. And so are the ‘verdicts’.
The Geneva Convention, Article 54 reads: “The Occupying Power may not alter the status of public officials or judges in the occupied territories, or in any way apply sanctions to or take any measures of coercion or discrimination against them, should they abstain from fulfilling their functions for reasons of conscience.” This is confirmed in the The Hague War Convention, also signed by the earlier existing US, before it became a totally lawless dictatorship.
“Saddam Hussein was convicted and sentenced (today) Sunday to hang for crimes against humanity in the 1982 killings of 148 people in a single town, as the ousted leader, trembling and defiant, shouted “God is great!” As he, his half brother and another senior official in his regime were convicted and sentenced to death, Saddam yelled out, “Long live the people and death to their enemies. Long live the glorious nation, and death to its enemies!” (AP — formerly a ‘news agency’ — Now AP stands for ‘American Propaganda’)
Apparently the junta in the US abusing the world with the US/NATO war machine via the Pentagon, still refuses to understand that might does not make right, and their lies are globally spread again by war propaganda outlets like AP in the US and it’s media collaborators, the parrots and ‘spin doctors’ in the US colonies. In The Netherlands for instance, the slavishly compliant and so called ‘Christian government’ betrayed as usual all decency, and the by 81 per cent of the Dutch despised Washington stooge and PM Balkenende in the Dutch US compliant media called the illegal verdict ‘satisfying’.
Bush is Guilty of An Estimated Death Toll of 655.000 in Iraq
This is not the inhuman and usually by the Washington ‘crazies’ concocted Kafkaesque idiocy anymore: this way of denial but anyhow acting is taken straight out of the ‘smoke and mirror’ fables of ‘Alice in Wonderland’. Are we all supposed to have forgotten the fact that all over the world, and even in one of the Washington junta’s worst propaganda papers, The Washington Post* it was published that in Iraq alone the US warmongers are guilty of an estimated death toll of sixhundred-and-fifty-five-thousand (655.000)?
A team of American and Iraqi epidemiologists estimates that 655,000 more people have died in Iraq since coalition forces arrived in March 2003 than would have died if the invasion had not occurred. The estimate, produced by interviewing residents during a random sampling of households throughout the country, is far higher than ones produced by other groups, including Iraq’s government. It is more than 20 times the estimate of 30,000 civilian deaths that President Bush gave in a speech in December. It is more than 10 times the estimate of roughly 50,000 civilian deaths made by the British-based Iraq Body Count research group.*
It’s there for everybody to see who can still read the overwhelming signs and understand why this creature Bush with his sick, dope and drink diluted mind, by the double nationality junta was put in the White House. As a front man for the junta’s war machine and now — according to the latest dictatorial decree signed October 17th 2006 — via Bush they can order torture, kill and let disappear anybody in the world. It is fascism optima forma, but fully supported by the war machine’s collaborators and their vile propaganda parrots in the US and its colonies.
Execution of the Mentally Retarded
In Texas Bush has left the ‘Office of The Texas Governor’ to his Lt. Governor Rick Perry, sworn in as 47th Governor of Texas on Thursday, December 21, 2000. Unfortunately Governor Perry, like his predecessor Bush, had little or no concern for the credibility of the Texas justice system. So Perry vetoed legislation that would have banned the execution of the mentally retarded. Proving what civilization is worth in Texas and among so called ‘Christians’ in the US. They can’t even spell the word decency, those ‘christian nuts’ as Bush, Rove et.al. call the — them supporting — hypocrites behind their backs.
Massage, Sex and Methamphetamines
As was proved for the umpteenth time by Ted Haggard, the hypocritical “President of the National Association of Evangelicals” with 30 (thirty) million brainwashed members all over the US. Haggard admitted receiving massage from a man who claims to have exchanged sex for money with the church leader for three years. Haggard stepped down Thursday after Michael Jones, 49, said he had been having paid sex with Haggard once a month for three years and helped provided him with methamphetamine. That was bad, because Bush and the junta counted on their by fake ‘religion’ blinded support in the as usual rigged ‘election’ next Tuesday.
But the illegal and inhuman hanging verdict in Baghdad will also cover up the election results it is thought.
Amnesty Warned Earlier
In London, commenting on Bush’s killing record, a spokesman for Amnesty International earlier said: “We fear Governor Bush’s record on the death penalty — he has presided over more than 150 executions, including of juvenile offenders, the mentally impaired and the inadequately represented — which does not bode well for efforts to rein the USA back from its increasing resort to judicial killing.” It did not help that Amnesty many times urged Bush “to adopt a broader awareness of human rights and international standards than he has displayed in Texas.” — But he only got worse.
The death penalty is an issue that has caused widespread outrage in Europe, most dramatically in Italy where the late Pope John Paul was at the forefront of criticism of Washington and demanded an end to the taking of lives by governments in rogue states like the US. Yet most Americans are brainwashed, in denial, and/or unaware of the global uproar.
And for all the talk from private activists and officials on all levels in the corridors of power, those who sometimes are seen as ‘moral leaders’ but have much to do with cultivating the money making transatlantic partnership in key areas like defense and trade, those ‘moral leaders’ are still silent. And if you’re silent you agree.
The United States Tore Out 8,000 Pages Out of the Iraq Dossier for the UN
They did not for instance say a word either, when the United States junta tore out 8000 pages out of the Iraq dossier for the UN, pages which were evidence, proving the US is ten thousand times worse than Saddam ever was. It ought to be quite clear who the real war criminals are: the Washington junta again making ‘fall guys’ of their former buddies in Iraq this time. — Url.: http://tinyurl.com/yem6pc
But not even reports on all war crimes, torture or 655.000 dead in Iraq moves those creatures. Implying their absolute guilt by association, which the war crimes tribunals will take care of.
Capital punishment like hanging is wrong: it’s much better to give Bush, the junta and their collaborators everywhere on earth, a life time sentence, so the punishment works as long as they vegetate in jail.
They deserve every second of it.
Henk Ruyssenaars
References:
http://tinyurl.com/6xdfw
agrega tus comentarios
Saturday, November 04, 2006
US: How They Stole the Mid-Term Election
By Greg Palast for The Guardian (UK)
Here’s how the 2006 mid-term election was stolen. Note the past tense. And i’m not kidding.
And shoot me for saying this, but it won’t be stolen by jerking with the touch-screen machines (though they’ll do their nasty part). While progressives panic over the viral spread of suspect computer black boxes, the Karl Rove-bots have been tunneling into the vote vaults through entirely different means.
For six years now, our investigations team, at first on assignment for BBC TV and the Guardian, has been digging into the nitty-gritty of the gaming of US elections. We’ve found that November 7, 2006 is a day that will live in infamy. Four and a half million votes have been shoplifted. Here’s how they’ll do it, in three easy steps:
Theft #1: Registrations Gone with the Wind.
On January 1, 2006, while America slept off New Year’s Eve hangovers, a new federal law crept out of the swamps that has devoured 1.9 million votes, overwhelmingly those of African-Americans and Hispanics. The vote-snatching statute is a cankerous codicil slipped into the 2002 Help America Vote Act — strategically timed to go into effect in this mid-term year. It requires every state to reject new would-be voters whose identity can’t be verified against a state verification database.
Sounds arcane and not too threatening. But look at the numbers and you won’t feel so fine. About 24.3 million Americans attempt to register or re-register each year. The New York University Law School’s Brennan Center told me that, under the new law, Republican Secretaries of State began the year by blocking about one in three new voters.
How? To begin with, Bush’s Social Security Administration has failed to verify 47 per cent of registrants. After appeals and new attempts to register, US Elections Assistance Agency statistics indicate 1.9 million would-be voters will still find themselves barred from the ballot on Tuesday.
But don’t worry: those holding passports from their ski vacations to Switzerland are doing just fine. And that’s the point. It’s not the number of voters rejected, it’s their color. For example, California’s Republican Secretary of State Bruce McPherson figured out how to block 40 per cent of registrants, mostly Hispanics. In a rare counter-move, Los Angeles, with a Hispanic mayor, contacted these citizens, “verified” them and got almost every single one back on the rolls. But throughout the rest of the West, new Hispanics remain victims of the “José Crow” treatment.
In hotly contested Ohio, Kenneth Blackwell, Secretary of State and the Republican’s candidate for Governor, remains voter-rejection champ — partly by keeping the rejection criteria a complete secret.
Theft #2: Turned Away — the ID Game
A legion of pimple-faced Republicans with Blackberries loaded with lists of new voters is assigned to challenge citizens in heavily Black and Hispanic(i.e. Democratic) precincts to demand photo ID that perfectly matches registration data.
Sounds benign, but it’s not. The federal HAVA law and complex new ID requirements in states like New Mexico will easily allow the GOP squads to triple the number of voters turned away. Rather than deny using these voter suppression tactics, Republican spokesmen are claiming they are “protecting the integrity of the vote.”
I’ve heard that before. In 2004, we got our hands on fifty confidential internal memos from the files of the Republican National Committee. Attached to these were some pretty strange spreadsheets. They called them “caging lists” — and it wasn’t about zoo feeding times. They were lists (70,000 for Florida alone) of new Black and Jewish voters — a very Democratic demographic — to challenge on Election Day. The GOP did so with a vengeance: In 2004, for the first time in half a century, more than 3.5 million voters were challenged on Election Day. Worse, nearly half lost their vote: 300,000 were turned away for wrong ID; 1.1 million were allowed a “provisional” ballot — which was then simply tossed out.
Tomorrow, new federal ID requirements and a dozen new state show-me-your-ID laws will permit the GOP challenge campaign to triple their 300,000 record to nearly one million voters blocked.
Theft #3: Votes Spoiled Rotten
The nasty little secret of US elections is that three million ballots are cast in national elections but not counted — 3,600,380 not counted in 2004 according to US Election Commission stats. These are votes lost because a punch card didn’t punch (its chad got “hung”), a stray mark voided a paper ballot and other machinery glitches.
Officials call it “spoilage.” I call it, “inaugurating Republicans.” Why? According to statisticians working with the US Civil Rights Commission, the chance your vote will “spoil” this way is 900 per cent higher for Black folk and 500 per cent higher for Hispanics than for white voters. When we do the arithmetic, we find that well over half of all votes spoiled or “blank” are cast by voters of color. On balance, this spoilage game produces a million-vote edge for the GOP.
That’s where the Black Boxes come into play. Forget about Karl Rove messing with the software to change your vote. Rather, the big losses occur when computers crash, fail to start or simply don’t respond to your touch. They are the new spoilage machines of choice with, statistically, the same racial bias as the old vote-snatching lever machines. (Funny, but paper ballots with in-precinct scanners don’t go rotten on Black voters. Maybe that’s why Republican Secretaries of State have installed so few of them.)
So let’s add it up
Two million legitimate voters will be turned away because of wrongly rejected or purged registrations.
Add another one million voters challenged and turned away for “improper ID.”
Then add yet another million for Democratic votes “spoiled” by busted black boxes and by bad ballots.
And let’s not forget to include the one million “provisional” ballots which will never get counted. Based on the experience of 2004, we know that, overwhelmingly, minority voters are the ones shunted to these baloney ballots.
And there’s one more group of votes that won’t be counted: absentee ballots challenged and discarded. Elections Assistance Agency data tell us a half million of these absentee votes will go down the drain.
Driving this massive suppression of the vote are sophisticated challenge operations. And here I must note that the Democrats have no national challenge campaign. That’s morally laudable; electorally suicidal.
Add it all up — all those Democratic-leaning votes rejected, barred and spoiled — and the Republican Party begins Election Day with a 4.5 million-vote thumb on the vote-tally scale.
So, what are you going to do about it? May I suggest you steal back your vote.
It’s true you can’t win with 51 per cent of the vote anymore. So just get over it. The regime’s sneak attack via vote suppression will only net them 4.5 million votes, about 5 per cent of the total. You should be able to beat that blindfolded.
If you can’t get 55 per cent, then you’re just a bunch of crybaby pussycats who don’t deserve to win back America.
Greg Palast
Greg Palast is the author of the New York Times bestseller, “Armed Madhouse.”
For specific advice on How to Steal Back Your Vote, go to http://www.gregpalast.com/steal-back-your-vote
You can catch Greg Palast on Election Night on the new Mike Malloy Show on many Air America affiliates.
FPF — RELATED:
Vote fraud? As Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin said: ‘It’s not important who votes. The people who count the votes decide.”
VOTING FOR AN AMERICAN PRISON PLANET: “THE BUSH ADMINISTRATION AS GLOBAL JAILOR” — http://www.tomdispatch.com/index.mhtml?pid=135352
Interesting Links on Vote Fraud:
FPF — US VOTE FRAUD AGAIN: NO PAPER TRAIL IN 2006 ELECTIONS — http://tinyurl.com/gcnx4
FPF — US VOTERS SKEPTICAL: ASSOCIATED PRESS DECIDES? — AxisofLogic.com — Oct. 28, 2004 — http://tinyurl.com/5zosu
AP on the voting results: “Now they will rely on us alone.” — http://tinyurl.com/5zosu
AP — ‘About Us’ — http://tinyurl.com/5nqh3
Dutch org. “We don’t trust E-voting machines” — in English — http://www.wijvertrouwenstemcomputersniet.nl/English
Voting Machines: Why Manufacturing Processes Should not be Closed — http://rpbouman.blogspot.com/2006/10/nedapgroenendaal-es3b-voting-machines.html
Why France and The Netherlands voted NO to the treacherous so called ‘EU referendum. — http://tinyurl.com/d2llj
Stealing the votes is part of the plan — Holland already has Apartheid, which is an official crime against humanity — http://wvl.indymedia.org/news/2006/09/5288.php
‘Freedom of the press is guaranteed only to those who own one’ ‹ A.J. Liebling — The merciless engine of propaganda has been turned on: The infamous US ‘Lie Factory’ — http://tinyurl.com/8ncal
A FREE working press in Kansas? — Read the ‘Fightin’ Cock Flyer’ — http://fightincockflyer.blogspot.com/
Fool me — you can’t get fooled again.” — George W. Bush, Nashville, Tenn., Sept. 17, 2002 (Listen to audio or watch video) — http://tinyurl.com/4vovt
FPF-COPYRIGHT NOTICE — In accordance with Title 17 U. S. C. Section 107 — any copyrighted work in this message is distributed by the Foreign Press Foundation under fair use, without profit or payment, to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the information. http://liimirror.warwick.ac.uk/uscode/17/107.html
© 2006 FOREIGN PRESS FOUNDATION Editor: Henk Ruyssenaars http://tinyurl.com/amn3q The Netherlands
By Greg Palast for The Guardian (UK)
Here’s how the 2006 mid-term election was stolen. Note the past tense. And i’m not kidding.
And shoot me for saying this, but it won’t be stolen by jerking with the touch-screen machines (though they’ll do their nasty part). While progressives panic over the viral spread of suspect computer black boxes, the Karl Rove-bots have been tunneling into the vote vaults through entirely different means.
For six years now, our investigations team, at first on assignment for BBC TV and the Guardian, has been digging into the nitty-gritty of the gaming of US elections. We’ve found that November 7, 2006 is a day that will live in infamy. Four and a half million votes have been shoplifted. Here’s how they’ll do it, in three easy steps:
Theft #1: Registrations Gone with the Wind.
On January 1, 2006, while America slept off New Year’s Eve hangovers, a new federal law crept out of the swamps that has devoured 1.9 million votes, overwhelmingly those of African-Americans and Hispanics. The vote-snatching statute is a cankerous codicil slipped into the 2002 Help America Vote Act — strategically timed to go into effect in this mid-term year. It requires every state to reject new would-be voters whose identity can’t be verified against a state verification database.
Sounds arcane and not too threatening. But look at the numbers and you won’t feel so fine. About 24.3 million Americans attempt to register or re-register each year. The New York University Law School’s Brennan Center told me that, under the new law, Republican Secretaries of State began the year by blocking about one in three new voters.
How? To begin with, Bush’s Social Security Administration has failed to verify 47 per cent of registrants. After appeals and new attempts to register, US Elections Assistance Agency statistics indicate 1.9 million would-be voters will still find themselves barred from the ballot on Tuesday.
But don’t worry: those holding passports from their ski vacations to Switzerland are doing just fine. And that’s the point. It’s not the number of voters rejected, it’s their color. For example, California’s Republican Secretary of State Bruce McPherson figured out how to block 40 per cent of registrants, mostly Hispanics. In a rare counter-move, Los Angeles, with a Hispanic mayor, contacted these citizens, “verified” them and got almost every single one back on the rolls. But throughout the rest of the West, new Hispanics remain victims of the “José Crow” treatment.
In hotly contested Ohio, Kenneth Blackwell, Secretary of State and the Republican’s candidate for Governor, remains voter-rejection champ — partly by keeping the rejection criteria a complete secret.
Theft #2: Turned Away — the ID Game
A legion of pimple-faced Republicans with Blackberries loaded with lists of new voters is assigned to challenge citizens in heavily Black and Hispanic(i.e. Democratic) precincts to demand photo ID that perfectly matches registration data.
Sounds benign, but it’s not. The federal HAVA law and complex new ID requirements in states like New Mexico will easily allow the GOP squads to triple the number of voters turned away. Rather than deny using these voter suppression tactics, Republican spokesmen are claiming they are “protecting the integrity of the vote.”
I’ve heard that before. In 2004, we got our hands on fifty confidential internal memos from the files of the Republican National Committee. Attached to these were some pretty strange spreadsheets. They called them “caging lists” — and it wasn’t about zoo feeding times. They were lists (70,000 for Florida alone) of new Black and Jewish voters — a very Democratic demographic — to challenge on Election Day. The GOP did so with a vengeance: In 2004, for the first time in half a century, more than 3.5 million voters were challenged on Election Day. Worse, nearly half lost their vote: 300,000 were turned away for wrong ID; 1.1 million were allowed a “provisional” ballot — which was then simply tossed out.
Tomorrow, new federal ID requirements and a dozen new state show-me-your-ID laws will permit the GOP challenge campaign to triple their 300,000 record to nearly one million voters blocked.
Theft #3: Votes Spoiled Rotten
The nasty little secret of US elections is that three million ballots are cast in national elections but not counted — 3,600,380 not counted in 2004 according to US Election Commission stats. These are votes lost because a punch card didn’t punch (its chad got “hung”), a stray mark voided a paper ballot and other machinery glitches.
Officials call it “spoilage.” I call it, “inaugurating Republicans.” Why? According to statisticians working with the US Civil Rights Commission, the chance your vote will “spoil” this way is 900 per cent higher for Black folk and 500 per cent higher for Hispanics than for white voters. When we do the arithmetic, we find that well over half of all votes spoiled or “blank” are cast by voters of color. On balance, this spoilage game produces a million-vote edge for the GOP.
That’s where the Black Boxes come into play. Forget about Karl Rove messing with the software to change your vote. Rather, the big losses occur when computers crash, fail to start or simply don’t respond to your touch. They are the new spoilage machines of choice with, statistically, the same racial bias as the old vote-snatching lever machines. (Funny, but paper ballots with in-precinct scanners don’t go rotten on Black voters. Maybe that’s why Republican Secretaries of State have installed so few of them.)
So let’s add it up
Two million legitimate voters will be turned away because of wrongly rejected or purged registrations.
Add another one million voters challenged and turned away for “improper ID.”
Then add yet another million for Democratic votes “spoiled” by busted black boxes and by bad ballots.
And let’s not forget to include the one million “provisional” ballots which will never get counted. Based on the experience of 2004, we know that, overwhelmingly, minority voters are the ones shunted to these baloney ballots.
And there’s one more group of votes that won’t be counted: absentee ballots challenged and discarded. Elections Assistance Agency data tell us a half million of these absentee votes will go down the drain.
Driving this massive suppression of the vote are sophisticated challenge operations. And here I must note that the Democrats have no national challenge campaign. That’s morally laudable; electorally suicidal.
Add it all up — all those Democratic-leaning votes rejected, barred and spoiled — and the Republican Party begins Election Day with a 4.5 million-vote thumb on the vote-tally scale.
So, what are you going to do about it? May I suggest you steal back your vote.
It’s true you can’t win with 51 per cent of the vote anymore. So just get over it. The regime’s sneak attack via vote suppression will only net them 4.5 million votes, about 5 per cent of the total. You should be able to beat that blindfolded.
If you can’t get 55 per cent, then you’re just a bunch of crybaby pussycats who don’t deserve to win back America.
Greg Palast
Greg Palast is the author of the New York Times bestseller, “Armed Madhouse.”
For specific advice on How to Steal Back Your Vote, go to http://www.gregpalast.com/steal-back-your-vote
You can catch Greg Palast on Election Night on the new Mike Malloy Show on many Air America affiliates.
FPF — RELATED:
Vote fraud? As Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin said: ‘It’s not important who votes. The people who count the votes decide.”
VOTING FOR AN AMERICAN PRISON PLANET: “THE BUSH ADMINISTRATION AS GLOBAL JAILOR” — http://www.tomdispatch.com/index.mhtml?pid=135352
Interesting Links on Vote Fraud:
© 2006 FOREIGN PRESS FOUNDATION Editor: Henk Ruyssenaars http://tinyurl.com/amn3q The Netherlands
Maraming Salamat Po, Manny Ramirez
Manny Ramirez, a Filipino-American community advocate whose photography is well known to residents of Chula Vista, California, has announced his intention to move back to the Philippines, possibly to Chula Vista's sister city Cebu City.
"While healthy, my remaining volunteering time should be dedicated to my beloved motherland," he said in an e-mail bulletin to the many contacts he has amassed over many years spent volunteering in libraries, museums, schools, home owners associations community group forums, festivals, chambers of commerce, the New Hope Community Church and aviation clubs since he moved to Chula Vista from the San Francisco Bay Area in 1995. He first moved to the USA in 1972.
"I have devoted much time in volunteer works and have had fun with it," he said. "And guess what? When you visit the islands, you will have a Chula Vistan as your tourist guide."
Aside from the many hours he has given to the community, he somehow found time to hold down a regular job that enabled him to support a family in the U.S. and relatives in the Philippines.
But Ramirez' passion has always been arial photography. And at local events he took photographs that he donated freely to community newspapers.
In the present election, Ramirez calls upon Filipino Americans to act as a solid political group and re-elect Chula Vista Mayor Steve Padilla. From the vast amount of time Ramirez has spent listening, reading, digging through library materal and as a guest in the homes of well known Chula Vistans he feels he has been able to form an opinion of who leads best in the service of Chula Vista residents. "I found that in Mayor Steve Padilla. but NOT in the present Chula Vista Elementary School District board."
Ramirez is calling attention to the way the district's only Filipino-American principal was fired from Heritage Elementary School "without reasonable explanation and no input from the parents and community." Presumably there was no serious misconduct if San Diego School District was happy to hire him immediately afterwards.
At Glen Abbey Memorial Park, Bonita, Nov. 1, 2006, Ramirez (right) and a friend visited the grave of Ernie Flores Jr., the beloved Filipino-American journalist who, for 18 years, was editor and publisher of the Filipino Press until he died at age 71 on Jan. 7, 2006, after a massive heart attack.
Campaigners for the re-election of incumbent Bob Filner (Rep-D) show their support for Padilla.
Chula Vista Fil-Ams For the Re-election of Mayor Steve Padilla assembled at the historic El Primero Hotel, Chula Vista.
Placards for some of the candidates running against incumbent board members of Chula Vista Elementary School District.
A delegation from Odawara, Japan celebrated 25 years as Chula Vista's sister city, Oct. 30, 2006.
Friday, November 03, 2006
Nutricide — Criminalizing Natural Health, Vitamins and Herbs
The Codex Alimentarius is a threat to the freedom of people to choose natural healing and alternative medicine and nutrition. Ratified by the World Health Organization, and going into law in the United States in 2009, the threat to health freedom has never been greater.
This is the first part of a series of talks by Dr. Rima Laibow MD, available on DVD from the Natural Solutions Foundation, a non-profit organization dedicated to educating people about how to stop Codex Alimentarius from taking away our right to freely choose nutritional health.
Natural Solutions Foundation 40 min. 7 sec — Sep 2, 2006 www.healthfreedomusa.org
Thursday, November 02, 2006
For the first time in more than 30 years, EQUUS returns to the West End Stage and promises to be the hottest ticket of 2007.
Richard Griffiths, who this year won a Tony Award for his performance in The History Boys, stars alongside Daniel Radcliffe, best known for playing Harry Potter.A special allocation of first class seats are available for a limited period only until 12 November 2006 when the Box Office opens to the general public.
PERFORMANCES FROM 16 FEBRUARY 2007
Monday to Saturday at 7:30 p.m.
Wednesday and Saturday at 2:30 p.m.
SEAT PRICES
£49.50, £39.50, £29.50, £19.50
TO BOOK CALL 0870 890 5501 or click here
The Gielgud Theatre, Shatesbury Avenue, London W1
Sunday, October 22, 2006
Thursday, October 19, 2006
Somebody Told Me
Breaking my back just to know your name
Seventeen tracks and I've had it with this game
I'm breaking my back just to know your name
But heaven ain't close in a place like this
Anything goes but don't blink you might miss
Cause heaven ain't close in a place like this
I said heaven ain't close in a place like this
Bring it back down, bring it back down tonight
Never thought I'd let a rumour ruin my moonlight
Well somebody told me
You had a boyfriend
Who looks like a girlfriend
That I had in February of last year
It's not confidential
I've got potential
Ready? Let's roll onto something new
Taking its toll and I'm leaving without you
Ready? Let's roll onto something new
But heaven ain't close in a place like this
Anything goes but don't blink you might miss
Cause heaven ain't close in a place like this
I said heaven ain't close in a place like this
Bring it back down, bring it back down tonight
Never thought I'd let a rumour ruin my moonlight
Well somebody told me
You had a boyfriend
Who looks like a girlfriend
That I had in February of last year
It's not confidential
I've got potential
A rushin', a rushin' around
Pace yourself from me
I said maybe baby please
But I just don't know now
Somebody told me
You had a boyfriend
Who looks like a girlfriend
That I had in February of last year
It's not confidential
I've got potential
A rushin', a rushin' around
Tuesday, October 17, 2006
Fox News Killed Monsanto Cancer Story
Most of the milk in the state of Florida and much of the USA is adulterated with Bovine Growth Hormone, which causes cancer in humans. Fox News was threatened with "dire consequences" if it did not kill the story. Fox executives made an offer, in writing, to pay the two reporters a year's salary if they'd just go away and keep the Monsanto story secret. The investigators refused to take the offer and refused to return the written offer.
Most of the milk in the state of Florida and much of the USA is adulterated with Bovine Growth Hormone, which causes cancer in humans. Fox News was threatened with "dire consequences" if it did not kill the story. Fox executives made an offer, in writing, to pay the two reporters a year's salary if they'd just go away and keep the Monsanto story secret. The investigators refused to take the offer and refused to return the written offer.
Monday, October 16, 2006
Friday, October 13, 2006
Kill the Messenger: The Tragic Life of Gary Webb
Gary Webb, the legendary journalist who sccoped the big papers and found himself punished for it, teaches the lesson that it’s often dangerous to speak truth to power.
Kill the Messenger: How the CIA’s Crack-Cocaine Controversy Destroyed Journalist Gary Webb by Nick Schou, Charles Bowden (Nation Books, 2006)
With Kill the Messenger (Nation Books/Avalon), Nick Schou, an editor at Orange County Weekly, provides a meticulous, balanced account of the life of Gary Webb, the former San Jose Mercury News reporter who, despite minor errors, basically got it right when he wrote the biggest story of his career. That story lifted the rug on a historical episode the mainstream media didn’t want to touch: how the Central Intelligence Agency turned a blind eye to drug dealing in furtherance of its covert support for the Nicaraguan contras.
For his efforts, Webb was hounded out of journalism after a ferocious assault from America’s most prestigious newspapers, which Schou documents in painstaking and shameful detail. When Webb — who had once shared a Pulitzer Prize for his reporting — committed suicide in December 2004, it was the last chapter in a real-life American tragedy.
Webb was not the first one on to the story. AP reporter Robert Parry had been forced out of his job at the wire service for pursuing it. The U.S. Senate Subcommittee on Narcotics and Terrorism, chaired by Sen. John Kerry, conducted an investigation into the contras’ drug trafficking in 1987-88 that had documented (among other things) how CIA cargo planes ferried arms to the contras and then carried cocaine back to military bases and remote airfields on the return flights. But, as Schou notes, "Because of its sensitive nature, the committee … sealed most of the testimony, and Kerry’s investigation got scant play in the national news media."
The Kerry investigation was mainly concerned with cocaine coming into the U.S. East Coast. Webb’s 1996 series for the Mercury News, based on a year-long investigation, looked at the cocaine traffic in Los Angeles, which was then known as "the crack capital of the world." Webb detailed how "Freeway" Ricky Ross, the first ‘80s crack millionaire and a crack kingpin in L.A.’s South Central neighborhood, had been supplied with crack cocaine by Nicaraguan exiles and contra supporters with CIA connections.
Webb discovered an affidavit from the L.A. County Sheriff’s Department that said that the coke profits of Ross’ suppliers "are transported to Florida and laundered through … a chain of banks in Florida. …From this bank the monies are filtered to the Contra rebels to buy arms in the war in Nicaragua."
Webb’s articles, however, were unjustifiably hyped by the Mercury News’ editors, who, according to Schou, were hungry to compete with the media Big Boys. The series ran with war-sized headlines and a silhouette of a man smoking a crack pipe superimposed on the official seal of the CIA. "Dark Alliance: The Story Behind the Crack Explosion," screamed the paper, with a subhead claiming that "Crack Plague’s Roots Are in Nicaraguan War."
The story got away from Webb and took on a life of its own, fueled by anger and despair in black communities being destroyed by the crack epidemic and the lethal gang wars surrounding it. As Schou puts it, "Dark Alliance" created an alliance of conspiracy theorists, from some "on the left who believed the CIA had deliberately started the crack epidemic to commit genocide against black people" to "right-wing followers of Lyndon LaRouche, who saw the story as further proof that George Bush Sr. and the Queen of England belong to a secret cabal that controls the planet." Opportunistic politicians like Rep. Cynthia McKinney (D-Ga.) — who exclaimed on the floor of Congress that "CIA" stood for "Central Intoxication Agency" — seized on Webb’s story to grab headlines for themselves. The "Dark Alliance" series quickly became a national cause célebre.
The Los Angeles Times — embarrassingly scooped on its own turf by Webb — reacted by assigning no less than two dozen reporters to what one of them described as the "Get Gary Webb Team," running a takedown series on the "Dark Alliance" stories that dwarfed them in size. The Washington Post and the New York Times piled on with multiple stories discrediting not just what Webb had written, but Webb himself, delving into his past to come up with mud to throw. Most of these papers’ "deconstructions" of Webb’s reporting were based on unnamed government sources. But the damage was done. In the end, the very Mercury News editors who’d made exaggerated claims for Webb’s series publicly disowned him in an editorial while refusing to print stories Webb wrote further documenting his series. Demoted to a remote police beat, Webb left the paper.
Unable to get another reporting job on any U.S. daily, his marriage destroyed by the intensity of his "Dark Alliance" experience, a depressed Webb killed himself. In Schou’s telling, he was the victim of incompetent editors and of a media feeding frenzy that the Washington Post’s own ombudsman later described as misplaced. Throughout Kill the Messenger, Schou does fresh reporting that bolsters some of Webb’s findings. He also interviews some of those who helped incinerate Webb and who now admit they went overboard. The book is an important cautionary tale for anyone considering a career in investigative journalism. And the moral is: It’s often dangerous to speak truth to power.
Doug Ireland has been writing about power, politics and the media since 1977. A former columnist for theVillage Voice, the New York Observer and the Paris daily Libération, among others, his articles have appeared everywhere from The Nation to Vanity Fair to POZ. He’s a contributing editor of In These Times. He can be reached through his blog, Direland.
Gary Webb, the legendary journalist who sccoped the big papers and found himself punished for it, teaches the lesson that it’s often dangerous to speak truth to power.
Kill the Messenger: How the CIA’s Crack-Cocaine Controversy Destroyed Journalist Gary Webb by Nick Schou, Charles Bowden (Nation Books, 2006)
With Kill the Messenger (Nation Books/Avalon), Nick Schou, an editor at Orange County Weekly, provides a meticulous, balanced account of the life of Gary Webb, the former San Jose Mercury News reporter who, despite minor errors, basically got it right when he wrote the biggest story of his career. That story lifted the rug on a historical episode the mainstream media didn’t want to touch: how the Central Intelligence Agency turned a blind eye to drug dealing in furtherance of its covert support for the Nicaraguan contras.
For his efforts, Webb was hounded out of journalism after a ferocious assault from America’s most prestigious newspapers, which Schou documents in painstaking and shameful detail. When Webb — who had once shared a Pulitzer Prize for his reporting — committed suicide in December 2004, it was the last chapter in a real-life American tragedy.
Webb was not the first one on to the story. AP reporter Robert Parry had been forced out of his job at the wire service for pursuing it. The U.S. Senate Subcommittee on Narcotics and Terrorism, chaired by Sen. John Kerry, conducted an investigation into the contras’ drug trafficking in 1987-88 that had documented (among other things) how CIA cargo planes ferried arms to the contras and then carried cocaine back to military bases and remote airfields on the return flights. But, as Schou notes, "Because of its sensitive nature, the committee … sealed most of the testimony, and Kerry’s investigation got scant play in the national news media."
The Kerry investigation was mainly concerned with cocaine coming into the U.S. East Coast. Webb’s 1996 series for the Mercury News, based on a year-long investigation, looked at the cocaine traffic in Los Angeles, which was then known as "the crack capital of the world." Webb detailed how "Freeway" Ricky Ross, the first ‘80s crack millionaire and a crack kingpin in L.A.’s South Central neighborhood, had been supplied with crack cocaine by Nicaraguan exiles and contra supporters with CIA connections.
Webb discovered an affidavit from the L.A. County Sheriff’s Department that said that the coke profits of Ross’ suppliers "are transported to Florida and laundered through … a chain of banks in Florida. …From this bank the monies are filtered to the Contra rebels to buy arms in the war in Nicaragua."
Webb’s articles, however, were unjustifiably hyped by the Mercury News’ editors, who, according to Schou, were hungry to compete with the media Big Boys. The series ran with war-sized headlines and a silhouette of a man smoking a crack pipe superimposed on the official seal of the CIA. "Dark Alliance: The Story Behind the Crack Explosion," screamed the paper, with a subhead claiming that "Crack Plague’s Roots Are in Nicaraguan War."
The story got away from Webb and took on a life of its own, fueled by anger and despair in black communities being destroyed by the crack epidemic and the lethal gang wars surrounding it. As Schou puts it, "Dark Alliance" created an alliance of conspiracy theorists, from some "on the left who believed the CIA had deliberately started the crack epidemic to commit genocide against black people" to "right-wing followers of Lyndon LaRouche, who saw the story as further proof that George Bush Sr. and the Queen of England belong to a secret cabal that controls the planet." Opportunistic politicians like Rep. Cynthia McKinney (D-Ga.) — who exclaimed on the floor of Congress that "CIA" stood for "Central Intoxication Agency" — seized on Webb’s story to grab headlines for themselves. The "Dark Alliance" series quickly became a national cause célebre.
The Los Angeles Times — embarrassingly scooped on its own turf by Webb — reacted by assigning no less than two dozen reporters to what one of them described as the "Get Gary Webb Team," running a takedown series on the "Dark Alliance" stories that dwarfed them in size. The Washington Post and the New York Times piled on with multiple stories discrediting not just what Webb had written, but Webb himself, delving into his past to come up with mud to throw. Most of these papers’ "deconstructions" of Webb’s reporting were based on unnamed government sources. But the damage was done. In the end, the very Mercury News editors who’d made exaggerated claims for Webb’s series publicly disowned him in an editorial while refusing to print stories Webb wrote further documenting his series. Demoted to a remote police beat, Webb left the paper.
Unable to get another reporting job on any U.S. daily, his marriage destroyed by the intensity of his "Dark Alliance" experience, a depressed Webb killed himself. In Schou’s telling, he was the victim of incompetent editors and of a media feeding frenzy that the Washington Post’s own ombudsman later described as misplaced. Throughout Kill the Messenger, Schou does fresh reporting that bolsters some of Webb’s findings. He also interviews some of those who helped incinerate Webb and who now admit they went overboard. The book is an important cautionary tale for anyone considering a career in investigative journalism. And the moral is: It’s often dangerous to speak truth to power.
Doug Ireland has been writing about power, politics and the media since 1977. A former columnist for theVillage Voice, the New York Observer and the Paris daily Libération, among others, his articles have appeared everywhere from The Nation to Vanity Fair to POZ. He’s a contributing editor of In These Times. He can be reached through his blog, Direland.
Thursday, October 12, 2006
George Lakoff: Bringing Progressive Politics Back to the People
Noted linguist George Lakoff, author of "Thinking Points: Communicating Our American Values and Vision" joins Buce Cain of the University of California's Washington Center for a thoughtful discussion on how Republicans routinely beat Democrats in framing political issues in terms that appeal to a wide spectrum of voters. [11/2006] [Public Affairs] [Show ID: 11999]
Noted linguist George Lakoff, author of "Thinking Points: Communicating Our American Values and Vision" joins Buce Cain of the University of California's Washington Center for a thoughtful discussion on how Republicans routinely beat Democrats in framing political issues in terms that appeal to a wide spectrum of voters. [11/2006] [Public Affairs] [Show ID: 11999]
Friday, October 06, 2006
Thursday, October 05, 2006
Exposing the Iraq Lies, One by One
Mother Jones' searchable, sortable timeline chronicles Bush's deceitful selling of the war in Iraq.
The Bush administration's lies about Iraq just keep coming, from the revelations in Bob Woodward's latest book to Bush's claim that "Nobody has ever suggested in this administration that Saddam Hussein ordered the [9/11] attack." Mother Jones' recently released a timeline, Lie by Lie, exposing the administration's deceit in the runup to the invasion of Iraq.
The timeline shows, for instance, that in September 2002 Bush said, "You can't distinguish between Saddam and Al Qaeda when you talk about the war on terror." And it notes that, three days later, Donald Rumsfeld said that the link between Iraq and Al Qaeda was "accurate and not debatable." The Lie by Lie database features hundreds of entries linked to original source documents and is searchable and sortable.
When did Dick Cheney say, "The question in my mind is: How many additional casualties is Saddam worth? The answer is: Not very damn many." Who was the convicted sex offender and "known fabricator" behind much of Bush's WMD intelligence? Which terror alerts were timed for political convenience? Who said, "We will be greeted as liberators"? The Mother Jones timeline is a great source for the facts behind the spin on Iraq.
Mother Jones' searchable, sortable timeline chronicles Bush's deceitful selling of the war in Iraq.
The Bush administration's lies about Iraq just keep coming, from the revelations in Bob Woodward's latest book to Bush's claim that "Nobody has ever suggested in this administration that Saddam Hussein ordered the [9/11] attack." Mother Jones' recently released a timeline, Lie by Lie, exposing the administration's deceit in the runup to the invasion of Iraq.
The timeline shows, for instance, that in September 2002 Bush said, "You can't distinguish between Saddam and Al Qaeda when you talk about the war on terror." And it notes that, three days later, Donald Rumsfeld said that the link between Iraq and Al Qaeda was "accurate and not debatable." The Lie by Lie database features hundreds of entries linked to original source documents and is searchable and sortable.
When did Dick Cheney say, "The question in my mind is: How many additional casualties is Saddam worth? The answer is: Not very damn many." Who was the convicted sex offender and "known fabricator" behind much of Bush's WMD intelligence? Which terror alerts were timed for political convenience? Who said, "We will be greeted as liberators"? The Mother Jones timeline is a great source for the facts behind the spin on Iraq.
Wednesday, September 13, 2006
Schwarzenegger: Thou Shalt Not Steal Free Newspapers [Associated Press]
On three different occasions, the entire press run of the Chula Vista Star-News was taken from news racks and sold to recyclers in Mexico.
SACRAMENTO, Calif. — Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger signed legislation this week making it an infraction to take more than 25 copies of a free newspaper to recycle it or prevent people from reading it.
The measure, by Assembly Minority Leader George Plescia, R-La Jolla, is a response to several incidents in which large numbers of free papers were taken from news boxes to be sold for recycling or to keep others from reading them.
In one case, the entire press run of the Chula Vista Star-News was taken from news racks on three different occasions and sold to recyclers in Mexico. Authorities said they were powerless to prosecute because the newspapers were free and had no fair market value.
In another instance, thousands of copies of the Epoch Times began disappearing in the San Gabriel Valley after the Chinese language paper began publishing articles on human rights violations and other issues in China.
Berkeley Mayor Tom Bates was fined $100 for trashing hundreds of copies of the Daily Californian in 2002 after the University of California at Berkeley student newspaper endorsed his opponent.
A spokesman for Plescia, Morgan Crinklaw, said AB 2612 would make it easier to prosecute similar cases.
"It's not as ambiguous as before," he said.
The measure makes it an infraction punishable by a fine of up to $250 to take more than 25 copies of a free newspaper to sell or barter the papers, recycle them for cash or another type of compensation, hurt a competitor or prevent others from reading the paper.
A subsequent offense could be prosecuted as a misdemeanor punishable by a fine of up to $500, sentencing of up to 10 days in the county jail or both.
On three different occasions, the entire press run of the Chula Vista Star-News was taken from news racks and sold to recyclers in Mexico.
SACRAMENTO, Calif. — Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger signed legislation this week making it an infraction to take more than 25 copies of a free newspaper to recycle it or prevent people from reading it.
The measure, by Assembly Minority Leader George Plescia, R-La Jolla, is a response to several incidents in which large numbers of free papers were taken from news boxes to be sold for recycling or to keep others from reading them.
In one case, the entire press run of the Chula Vista Star-News was taken from news racks on three different occasions and sold to recyclers in Mexico. Authorities said they were powerless to prosecute because the newspapers were free and had no fair market value.
In another instance, thousands of copies of the Epoch Times began disappearing in the San Gabriel Valley after the Chinese language paper began publishing articles on human rights violations and other issues in China.
Berkeley Mayor Tom Bates was fined $100 for trashing hundreds of copies of the Daily Californian in 2002 after the University of California at Berkeley student newspaper endorsed his opponent.
A spokesman for Plescia, Morgan Crinklaw, said AB 2612 would make it easier to prosecute similar cases.
"It's not as ambiguous as before," he said.
The measure makes it an infraction punishable by a fine of up to $250 to take more than 25 copies of a free newspaper to sell or barter the papers, recycle them for cash or another type of compensation, hurt a competitor or prevent others from reading the paper.
A subsequent offense could be prosecuted as a misdemeanor punishable by a fine of up to $500, sentencing of up to 10 days in the county jail or both.
Thursday, September 07, 2006
Cult Rock Posters 1972-1982 by Roger Crimlis and Alwyn Turner will be published by Aurum in the UK and Billboard in the USA on Monday Sept. 25, 2006.
The launch will be followed by a small exhibition of rock & roll posters at Bamalama Posters, 55 Leather Lane, London EC1N 7JT on Thursday, Sept. 28. The exhibition will run until Oct. 20, 2006. The book promises to remain in print forever.
Sunday, September 03, 2006
Friday, August 25, 2006
Trummerflora, or rubble plants and trees, are a special phenomenon unique to heavily bombed urban areas. The bomb acts as a plow, mixing rubble fragments with the earth, which often contain seeds dormant for a century or more. These seeds come to light and those that can live in this new and special earth grow and flourish.
— Helen and Newton Harrison
Tuesday, August 22, 2006
Top Stories from AlterNet for Aug. 22, 2006
Seven Hair-Raising Realities About the Iraq War
Michael Schwartz, Tomdispatch.com
A short guide to understanding a flood of new Iraqi developments — and the fate of both the American occupation and Iraqi society.
Is Marriage Rational?
G. Pascal Zachary, AlterNet
In the debate over who can marry, both sides imbue the institution of marriage with an importance it neither deserves nor possesses.
Immigration: the Tinderbox Issue
Susy Buchanan, Intelligence Report
The immigration debate is searing hot in communities across America — and it’s threatening to tear one California town apart.
The ‘New’ New Orleans Blues
Sheerly Avni, Truthdig
Spike Lee’s HBO doc about Hurricane Katrina is a haunting and expertly told story that shows how little our government truly cares about many of its citizens.
The Jill Carroll Story, Part 5: An Insurgency Leader?
Jill Carroll, Peter Grier, Christian Science Monitor
Carroll discovers that her kidnappers are hardcore Islamic militants.
—>>Watch these new clips, and more, in VIDEO:
Bush: Iraq Has ‘Nothing’ to Do with 9/11
As Bush tries to tie the war in Iraq to 9/11, watch what happens when a reporter interjects with a question.
Neil Young: Living With War
Check out two new videos from Neil Young’s controversial new album.
BREAKING: Jonbenet Ramsey’s Killer Used Illegal Wiretapping
Maybe Bush will be in trouble now!?
Another Lieberman/Lamont?
With a violent scuffle…
Seven Hair-Raising Realities About the Iraq War
Michael Schwartz, Tomdispatch.com
A short guide to understanding a flood of new Iraqi developments — and the fate of both the American occupation and Iraqi society.
Is Marriage Rational?
G. Pascal Zachary, AlterNet
In the debate over who can marry, both sides imbue the institution of marriage with an importance it neither deserves nor possesses.
Immigration: the Tinderbox Issue
Susy Buchanan, Intelligence Report
The immigration debate is searing hot in communities across America — and it’s threatening to tear one California town apart.
The ‘New’ New Orleans Blues
Sheerly Avni, Truthdig
Spike Lee’s HBO doc about Hurricane Katrina is a haunting and expertly told story that shows how little our government truly cares about many of its citizens.
The Jill Carroll Story, Part 5: An Insurgency Leader?
Jill Carroll, Peter Grier, Christian Science Monitor
Carroll discovers that her kidnappers are hardcore Islamic militants.
—>>Watch these new clips, and more, in VIDEO:
Bush: Iraq Has ‘Nothing’ to Do with 9/11
As Bush tries to tie the war in Iraq to 9/11, watch what happens when a reporter interjects with a question.
Neil Young: Living With War
Check out two new videos from Neil Young’s controversial new album.
BREAKING: Jonbenet Ramsey’s Killer Used Illegal Wiretapping
Maybe Bush will be in trouble now!?
Another Lieberman/Lamont?
With a violent scuffle…
Nigerian Scam Continues
From: mik.okoye@zipmail.com.br Subject: urgent message To: undisclosed-recipients:; X-SIG5: 814235eedbb02e38a0c5248e37afd98a
FROM THE DESK OF MIKE OKOYE BILL AND EXCHANGE MANAGER STANDARD BANK FOR AFRICA, JOHANNESSBURG/SOUTH-AFRICA
Dear,
I am the bill and exchange manager at STANDARD BANK OF AFRICA (S.B.A) foreign remittance department. There is a business I would want you to champion for me. In my department I discovered an abandoned sum of USD$10.5M dollars in an account that belongs to one of our foreign client MR ANDREAS SCHRANNER from Germany who died along with his entire family in 31july 2000 in a plane crash.
Visit the site (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/859479.stm )
Since we got information about his death, we have been expecting his next of kin to come over and claim his money because we cannot release it unless somebody applies for it as next of kin or relation to the deceased as indicated in our banking guidelines but unfortunately we learnt That all his supposed next of kin or relation died alongside with him in the plane crash leaving nobody behind for the claim.
It is therefore upon this discovery that I now decided to make this business proposal to you and release the money to you as the next of kin or relation to the deceased for safety and subsequent disbursement Since nobody is coming for it and i don't want this money to go into the Bank treasury as unclaimed Bill.
The Banking law and guidelines here stipulates that if such money remained unclaimed after six years, the money will be transferred into the Bank treasury as unclaimed fund. The request of foreigner as next of kin in this business is occasioned by the fact that the customer was a foreigner and a citizen here cannot stand as next of kin to a foreigner. I agree that 30 % of this money will be for you as foreign partner, in respect to the provision of a foreign account, 10 % will be set aside for expenses incurred during the transfer and 60 % would be for me. Thereafter I will visit your country for disbursement according to the percentages indicated.
I will not fail to bring to your notice that this transaction is hitch free and that you should not entertain any atom of fear as all required arrangements have been made for the transfer. Trusting to hear from you immediately. Therefore to enable the immediate transfer of this fund to your nominated account as I arranged, I want your banking account details, your private telephone and fax number for easy and effective communication and location where in the money will be remitted. Yours faithfully,
MIKE OKOYE. mik.okoye11@yahoo.com
From: mik.okoye@zipmail.com.br Subject: urgent message To: undisclosed-recipients:; X-SIG5: 814235eedbb02e38a0c5248e37afd98a
FROM THE DESK OF MIKE OKOYE BILL AND EXCHANGE MANAGER STANDARD BANK FOR AFRICA, JOHANNESSBURG/SOUTH-AFRICA
Dear,
I am the bill and exchange manager at STANDARD BANK OF AFRICA (S.B.A) foreign remittance department. There is a business I would want you to champion for me. In my department I discovered an abandoned sum of USD$10.5M dollars in an account that belongs to one of our foreign client MR ANDREAS SCHRANNER from Germany who died along with his entire family in 31july 2000 in a plane crash.
Visit the site (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/859479.stm )
Since we got information about his death, we have been expecting his next of kin to come over and claim his money because we cannot release it unless somebody applies for it as next of kin or relation to the deceased as indicated in our banking guidelines but unfortunately we learnt That all his supposed next of kin or relation died alongside with him in the plane crash leaving nobody behind for the claim.
It is therefore upon this discovery that I now decided to make this business proposal to you and release the money to you as the next of kin or relation to the deceased for safety and subsequent disbursement Since nobody is coming for it and i don't want this money to go into the Bank treasury as unclaimed Bill.
The Banking law and guidelines here stipulates that if such money remained unclaimed after six years, the money will be transferred into the Bank treasury as unclaimed fund. The request of foreigner as next of kin in this business is occasioned by the fact that the customer was a foreigner and a citizen here cannot stand as next of kin to a foreigner. I agree that 30 % of this money will be for you as foreign partner, in respect to the provision of a foreign account, 10 % will be set aside for expenses incurred during the transfer and 60 % would be for me. Thereafter I will visit your country for disbursement according to the percentages indicated.
I will not fail to bring to your notice that this transaction is hitch free and that you should not entertain any atom of fear as all required arrangements have been made for the transfer. Trusting to hear from you immediately. Therefore to enable the immediate transfer of this fund to your nominated account as I arranged, I want your banking account details, your private telephone and fax number for easy and effective communication and location where in the money will be remitted. Yours faithfully,
MIKE OKOYE. mik.okoye11@yahoo.com
Monday, August 21, 2006
Wednesday, August 16, 2006
Coming Soon…
“The Vault of Punk Horror”
— The first ever anthology of authentic punk-themed horror with fresh stories from some of the darkest minds in music and fiction. Featuring cyberpunk pioneer John Shirley. Bram Stoker Award nominee Jeremy Robert Johnson and Duncan Barlow (former guitarist of End Point and By the Grace of God).
“Screams From a Dying World”
— No parade is complete without some acid rain. David Agranoff’s first fiction collection says: not with a whimper, but a scream. Featuring five short stories with eco-terrorism, buffalo ghosts and belligerent rednecks. Plus illustrations!
Monday, August 14, 2006
The Art of the Interview, ESPN-Style
By David Folkenflik
For years, John Sawatsky was one of Canada’s leading investigative reporters. He unmasked a spy and exposed explosive stories about rampant police abuses. He later became a journalism professor at Ottawa’s Carleton University.
He says the big-name reporters are failing to plan meticulously how to extract information from their sources, calling their process "haphazard."
"You are hoping that the person being interviewed is a good talker," he says, "and knows how to do something with your inept question."
Sawatsky’s rules are simple, but he says they get broken all the time: Don’t ask yes-or-no questions, keep questions short and avoid charged words, which can distract people. In his seminar, Sawatsky points to Mike Wallace of CBS’ 60 Minutes and CNN’s Larry King as examples to avoid. In Sawatsky’s illustrative clips, King favors leading questions that generate curt answers, while Wallace’s rapid patter fails to get a subject to speak candidly.
Sawatsky says Wallace and the others are better at theatrics than journalism, and that they often trip up their own interviews — by thinking they should be the focus of attention.
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5625218
By David Folkenflik
For years, John Sawatsky was one of Canada’s leading investigative reporters. He unmasked a spy and exposed explosive stories about rampant police abuses. He later became a journalism professor at Ottawa’s Carleton University.
He says the big-name reporters are failing to plan meticulously how to extract information from their sources, calling their process "haphazard."
"You are hoping that the person being interviewed is a good talker," he says, "and knows how to do something with your inept question."
Sawatsky’s rules are simple, but he says they get broken all the time: Don’t ask yes-or-no questions, keep questions short and avoid charged words, which can distract people. In his seminar, Sawatsky points to Mike Wallace of CBS’ 60 Minutes and CNN’s Larry King as examples to avoid. In Sawatsky’s illustrative clips, King favors leading questions that generate curt answers, while Wallace’s rapid patter fails to get a subject to speak candidly.
Sawatsky says Wallace and the others are better at theatrics than journalism, and that they often trip up their own interviews — by thinking they should be the focus of attention.
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5625218
Friday, August 11, 2006
Senator Allen's Racism is Unacceptable
By Nita, Eli, Ben, Wes and the MoveOn.org Political Action Team
Republican Senator George Allen used a racial slur against a non-white audience member. This kind of bigotry has no place in America. Can you join us in telling the Republican National Committee to take a stand against these tactics and withdraw support for Sen. Allen?
On Aug. 11, Allen sank to a new low. At a campaign stop, the senator singled out the only non-white member of the audience — S.R. Sidarth, a young Indian-American volunteering for his opponent and called him "macaca" (a racial slur meaning 'monkey'). He went on to say, "Welcome to America." As it happens, Sidarth was born and raised in Virginia.
Republicans have used racism to try to win over voters for decades, but this kind of pandering has absolutely no place in our politics. That's why we're standing with Color of Change to ask the Republican National Committee to withdraw support from Allen. We need to send a strong message that America won't tolerate bigotry.
Can you sign the petition and add your voice? You can sign and watch video of the incident on this page.
The sting of Allen's words upset me personally and I'd hoped to see his colleagues in Washington censure him for this display of bigotry. But just yesterday, Sen. John McCain stood with him at a town hall meeting. Race-baiting continues to be a time-tested tradition for the Republican party in the South. And it's got to stop.
This is our opportunity—hundreds of thousands of us standing together will make a major statement to our elected officials and the media. I'll deliver these comments to the Republican National Committee when we reach 250,000 — we're aiming for the end of the week.
Unfortunately, this isn't the first incident of its kind. Allen — who's a contender for the Republican presidential nomination in 2008 — has a long history of demeaning minorities. Here are just a few examples of his racial hostility.
He used to display a noose hanging from a tree in his law offices. When running for governor he admitted to displaying the confederate flag in his home. As governor, he proclaimed April as "Confederate Heritage and History Month" and issued a proclamation calling the civil war "a struggle for independence and sovereign rights" (the statement did not condemn slavery). He opposed the creation of a holiday commemorating Martin Luther King, Jr. All of this would be bad enough if Allen were a small-time politician. But he's running in one of the key Senate races and, currently, he's ahead.
The media are watching this story closely and you can help show that ordinary Americans are ready to stand up for each other when a powerful man uses race to divide us. Can you sign the petition today?
MoveOn.org Political Action is entirely funded by 3.3 million members. It has no corporate contributors, no foundation grants, no money from unions. Its tiny staff ensures that small contributions go a long way. If you'd like to support its work, you can give here.
Not authorized by any candidate or candidate's committee.
By Nita, Eli, Ben, Wes and the MoveOn.org Political Action Team
Republican Senator George Allen used a racial slur against a non-white audience member. This kind of bigotry has no place in America. Can you join us in telling the Republican National Committee to take a stand against these tactics and withdraw support for Sen. Allen?On Aug. 11, Allen sank to a new low. At a campaign stop, the senator singled out the only non-white member of the audience — S.R. Sidarth, a young Indian-American volunteering for his opponent and called him "macaca" (a racial slur meaning 'monkey'). He went on to say, "Welcome to America." As it happens, Sidarth was born and raised in Virginia.
Republicans have used racism to try to win over voters for decades, but this kind of pandering has absolutely no place in our politics. That's why we're standing with Color of Change to ask the Republican National Committee to withdraw support from Allen. We need to send a strong message that America won't tolerate bigotry.
Can you sign the petition and add your voice? You can sign and watch video of the incident on this page.
The sting of Allen's words upset me personally and I'd hoped to see his colleagues in Washington censure him for this display of bigotry. But just yesterday, Sen. John McCain stood with him at a town hall meeting. Race-baiting continues to be a time-tested tradition for the Republican party in the South. And it's got to stop.
This is our opportunity—hundreds of thousands of us standing together will make a major statement to our elected officials and the media. I'll deliver these comments to the Republican National Committee when we reach 250,000 — we're aiming for the end of the week.
Unfortunately, this isn't the first incident of its kind. Allen — who's a contender for the Republican presidential nomination in 2008 — has a long history of demeaning minorities. Here are just a few examples of his racial hostility.
The media are watching this story closely and you can help show that ordinary Americans are ready to stand up for each other when a powerful man uses race to divide us. Can you sign the petition today?
MoveOn.org Political Action is entirely funded by 3.3 million members. It has no corporate contributors, no foundation grants, no money from unions. Its tiny staff ensures that small contributions go a long way. If you'd like to support its work, you can give here.
Not authorized by any candidate or candidate's committee.
Wednesday, August 09, 2006
LCP Alumnus Writes for Channel 4
Ali Catterall, who graduated from the London College of Printing, is credited as a writer for an online movie-review show called Movie Rush. And he's hopeful that it will win a major award.
Movie Rush is now broadcast on the UK's recently relaunched Film 4 channel in five- and 10-minute formats. According to Channel 4, it's the first online programme to make the transition from the Web.
"Maddeningly, it’s not actually listed in the schedules," Catterall said. "And it pops up all over the place when there’s a convenient gap."
According to Catterall, the show is a finalist in the Campaign Digital Awards 2006. So its creators are picking the mothballs out of their tuxedos in anticipation of being awarded a colon-shaped lump of plastic by Jimmy Carr while James Blunt and Dido twitter in the background.
Movie Rush is edited specifically for broadband and has no presenters, instead taking what Channel 4 describes as a typographical approach, using animated copy to segue between each of its segments.
The show — which was designed and produced for Channel 4 by digital design and strategy agency, Holler, and sponsored by the brewer Stella Artois — reviews two new movie releases each week plus a recent DVD release. It also has a coming-soon segment that showcases an upcoming movie.
Each episode is divided into four segments: information about the content of each segment, together with a link to the Web site of the movie covered in that segment, appears on-screen next to a representative image.
The first episode of "Movie Rush" (www.channel4.com/movierush) debuted online Feb. 2. It featured reviews of "Walk the Line," "Grizzly Man," "The Brat Pack Selection" (a DVD release), and "Capote."
Catterall has written and broadcast for Channel 4, the BBC and The Guardian. He is the co-author of Your Face Here: British Cult Movies Since the Sixties.
Contact: Zone, 168a Camden Street, London NW1 9PT. T: 020 7267 4774
Stop the Falsiness
We’re putting Stephen Colbert on notice. For almost a year, his ceaseless falsiness — disguised, shamelessly, as truthiness — has gone unchallenged. No longer. It’s time to ask the tough questions:
- Stephen Colbert calls bears “Godless killing machines.” Are they really? Or is Colbert just a pawn of the gun and/or picnic industry?
- When Colbert introduces guests, he always hogs the spotlight for himself. Isn’t that supposed to be their moment?
- He unapologetically stands with George W. Bush. Why isn’t he more apologetic?
Our Political System is Broken
By Nick Nyhart, Executive Director, Public Campaign
The officials we elect to represent us spend their time chasing big campaign checks and using their votes to do political favors for big-money special interests and lobbyists instead.
It’s time to do something about it — and we can.
By enacting a system of public financing for elections we can cut the ties between politicians and the big-money special interests and lobbyists who currently fund their campaigns. It’s called Clean Elections, it’s already working in seven states and two cities across the country, and it’s on the ballot here in California this November.
Click here now to tell Congress to enact real campaign reform by passing the Clean Money, Clean Elections Act.
Under Clean Elections, qualified candidates who agree to forgo all private contributions and follow strict spending limits receive public financing for their campaigns, freeing them from having to chase campaign donations from big money special interests and lobbyists.
It’s a system that’s proven to work. Clean Elections has been in place in Arizona since 2000 and has already reshaped the state’s politics. Ten out of 11 statewide officials in Arizona — including Gov. Janet Napolitano — ran and won “clean” by accepting public financing.
Under a Clean Elections program, voters can go to the polls knowing that candidates will answer to them, not big-money, special-interest contributors.
It’s time to expand Clean Elections nationwide! Click here to tell Congress to pass Clean Elections today!
Once you’ve taken action, will you please forward this message to five of your friends and ask them to join you in standing up for Clean Elections?
Thank you for helping empower voters to elect officials who are NOT bought and paid for by big-money special interests.
Will you take the next step in the fight for Clean Elections? Click here to make a contribution today.
Clean Elections: antidote to unhealthy campaign financing.(Cover story): An article from: National Voter
Monday, August 07, 2006
Sunday, August 06, 2006
Rock ’n’ Roll Coelacanth
I was only dimly aware of what The New York Dolls were. Their heyday was pre-1980 and my consciousness was alcohol-based then. When I was a dosser in the royal parks of London, I may have read about the Dolls if some pages of New Musical Express or Melody Maker were among my bedding.
During most of my sober years, the Dolls have jointly been disbanded and severally dropping dead. I've been otherwise preoccupied. They came to San Diego Street Scene as a last-minute stand in for My Chemical Romance who were unable to attend perhaps ironically because of serious burns sustained while shooting their next video.
And The Dolls were a welcome relief from the bands described by one local reporter as Interpol wannabes. On most of the stages, the early bands of both days seemed to be repeating the same song, which gradually morphed into a grand finale that made me realise, "Oh yeah. I've heard this on the radio."
I don't remember hearing the Dolls on the radio. But they had a repertoire. They were entertaining. They had personality. And they presented themselves as the kind of rock 'n' roll veterans we like to think should still to be out on the road working somewhere.
Lisa thought it was funny to see David Johansen reading his lyrics from a music stand. I was impressed that he could do it without bifocals.
I was only dimly aware of what The New York Dolls were. Their heyday was pre-1980 and my consciousness was alcohol-based then. When I was a dosser in the royal parks of London, I may have read about the Dolls if some pages of New Musical Express or Melody Maker were among my bedding.
During most of my sober years, the Dolls have jointly been disbanded and severally dropping dead. I've been otherwise preoccupied. They came to San Diego Street Scene as a last-minute stand in for My Chemical Romance who were unable to attend perhaps ironically because of serious burns sustained while shooting their next video.
And The Dolls were a welcome relief from the bands described by one local reporter as Interpol wannabes. On most of the stages, the early bands of both days seemed to be repeating the same song, which gradually morphed into a grand finale that made me realise, "Oh yeah. I've heard this on the radio."
I don't remember hearing the Dolls on the radio. But they had a repertoire. They were entertaining. They had personality. And they presented themselves as the kind of rock 'n' roll veterans we like to think should still to be out on the road working somewhere.
Lisa thought it was funny to see David Johansen reading his lyrics from a music stand. I was impressed that he could do it without bifocals.
God botherer Robert Ephrata (aka Robert Warner) picketed in front of the San Diego Street Scene venue during the concerts on Aug. 5 and 6. At the top of a long stick, he held a picture of a man wearing a crown of thorns under the question, "Do you know who this is?" Although I repeatedly asked him where he got the Kanye West poster, he just ignored me. I don't think that was very Christian of him.
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