Sea Critters Pancaeks!
Ta much, dear MSiegel!
If women needing birth control to treat endometriosis makes you think about sex, there are medications for that.
There are still at it. They’re still implying Sandra Fluke is a slut. They’re still betraying they have no idea how birth control works. They still think getting a prescription to treat endometriosis is some luxury you’re being “given” at their expense.
As Secretary of State Hillary Clinton recently said, "Why extremists always focus on women remains a mystery to me. But they all seem to. It doesn‘t matter what country they’re in or what religion they claim. They all want to control women."
She seems to be wondering two things:
1. Why are they so dumb?
This is just a horrible strategy. All they are doing is reminding women both of what the Affordable Care Act offers and what will be taken away. And they’re doing it a way that makes it impossible for a self-respecting woman to vote Republican.
2. Do you they really hate women this much?
As a man I can promise you that boys are taught to take great shame in any femininity, which in patriarchal societies is identified with weakness. Since weakness is natural feeling, it has to be converted into shame which turns to rage at gay men and women.
I think Secretary Clinton knows this but it isn’t something that polite people say out loud. I’m not polite. For any sane man, the idea of any man who isn’t a doctor telling a woman what to do with her body is as repulsive as a Rush Limbaugh centerfold.
That conservatives are raging against women who use birth control, 98% of all women, and not obese people who get Lipitor betrays the conservative agenda.
This isn’t about responsibility or anything other than rejecting a woman’s ability to experience the sexual liberation as men. It’s a tactic we shun in the Middle East and decry in the inner city. And when women see it, they always know what it is. ...
Ta much, dear Edosan
There are still at it. They’re still implying Sandra Fluke is a slut. They’re still betraying they have no idea how birth control works. They still think getting a prescription to treat endometriosis is some luxury you’re being “given” at their expense.
As Secretary of State Hillary Clinton recently said, "Why extremists always focus on women remains a mystery to me. But they all seem to. It doesn‘t matter what country they’re in or what religion they claim. They all want to control women."
She seems to be wondering two things:
1. Why are they so dumb?
This is just a horrible strategy. All they are doing is reminding women both of what the Affordable Care Act offers and what will be taken away. And they’re doing it a way that makes it impossible for a self-respecting woman to vote Republican.
2. Do you they really hate women this much?
As a man I can promise you that boys are taught to take great shame in any femininity, which in patriarchal societies is identified with weakness. Since weakness is natural feeling, it has to be converted into shame which turns to rage at gay men and women.
I think Secretary Clinton knows this but it isn’t something that polite people say out loud. I’m not polite. For any sane man, the idea of any man who isn’t a doctor telling a woman what to do with her body is as repulsive as a Rush Limbaugh centerfold.
That conservatives are raging against women who use birth control, 98% of all women, and not obese people who get Lipitor betrays the conservative agenda.
This isn’t about responsibility or anything other than rejecting a woman’s ability to experience the sexual liberation as men. It’s a tactic we shun in the Middle East and decry in the inner city. And when women see it, they always know what it is. ...
Ta much, dear Edosan
Photographer Lalage Snow photographed and interviewed members of 1st Battalion The Royal Regiment of Scotland before they were sent to Afghanistan, after three months' service, and days after they returned home. Their faces show the toll that fighting in Afghanistan takes on our troops.
Private Chris MacGregor, 24
11th March, Edinburgh: “Obviously I’ll miss family but other than that I am going to miss my dogs more than anything. They are my de-stressers and keep me sane. I think I’ll miss TV too though. I try not to think about the worst case scenario.”
19th June, Compound 19, Nad Ali, after an IED incident: “Most people get used to being away from home but I find it hard. It’s your fear that keeps you alive here. But I believe if it’s going to happen, it’s going to happen and theres nothing you can do about it. If the big man upstairs could do anything, there’d be no dead soldiers. They’d all be alive. It still hurts when you hear about a soldier dying. You think about what their families are going through. You ask what they died for and what we are achieving here. I am not sure any more. That Afghan soldier losing his legs just now… I don’t know….”
28th August, Edinburgh, after being evacuated due to sustained knee injury from Iraq: “My legs just gave up. I think it was the weight – 135 pounds or something. I just had to accept, my body was telling me to give up as I had pushed it. I was telling it to go, it was telling me to stop. When squaddies come back they still have a lot of adrenaline and anger in them. I had to have anger management after Iraq. If I get like that now, I just go for a walk with the dogs. It is the best way to deal with it, instead of being all tense and ready to snap at folk. The first thing I did when I came back, appart from kissing and cuddling the misses and my bairn, was go for a massive walk with the dogs. I walked for miles and miles not caring where I stepped.”
(via We Are Not The Dead: soldiers' faces before, during and after serving in Afghanistan - Telegraph)
Private Chris MacGregor, 24
11th March, Edinburgh: “Obviously I’ll miss family but other than that I am going to miss my dogs more than anything. They are my de-stressers and keep me sane. I think I’ll miss TV too though. I try not to think about the worst case scenario.”
19th June, Compound 19, Nad Ali, after an IED incident: “Most people get used to being away from home but I find it hard. It’s your fear that keeps you alive here. But I believe if it’s going to happen, it’s going to happen and theres nothing you can do about it. If the big man upstairs could do anything, there’d be no dead soldiers. They’d all be alive. It still hurts when you hear about a soldier dying. You think about what their families are going through. You ask what they died for and what we are achieving here. I am not sure any more. That Afghan soldier losing his legs just now… I don’t know….”
28th August, Edinburgh, after being evacuated due to sustained knee injury from Iraq: “My legs just gave up. I think it was the weight – 135 pounds or something. I just had to accept, my body was telling me to give up as I had pushed it. I was telling it to go, it was telling me to stop. When squaddies come back they still have a lot of adrenaline and anger in them. I had to have anger management after Iraq. If I get like that now, I just go for a walk with the dogs. It is the best way to deal with it, instead of being all tense and ready to snap at folk. The first thing I did when I came back, appart from kissing and cuddling the misses and my bairn, was go for a massive walk with the dogs. I walked for miles and miles not caring where I stepped.”
(via We Are Not The Dead: soldiers' faces before, during and after serving in Afghanistan - Telegraph)
Ta much, dear Edosan!
A new study from the Food and Drug Administration may have you thinking twice about your morning make-up routine. As The Post’s Dina ElBoghdady reports, four hundred types of lipstick were found to contain lead.
Here is a list of the 10 brands and shades that contain the most lead, according the FDA’s study. A full analysis of all 400 varieties is available here.
1. Maybelline’s Color Sensation in Pink Petal. (Lead content: 7.19 ppm)
2. L’Oreal Colour Riche in Volcanic. (Lead content: 7.00 ppm)
3. NARS Semi-Matte in Red Lizard. (Lead content: 4.93 ppm)
4. Cover Girl Queen Collection Vibrant Hues Color in Ruby Remix (Lead content: 4.92 ppm)
5. NARS Semi-Matte in Funny Face. (Lead content: 4.89)
6. L’Oreal Colour Rich in Tickled Pink. (Lead content: 4.45)
7. L’Oreal Intensely Moisturizing Lipcolor in Heroic. (Lead content: 4.41)
8. Cover Girl Continuous Color in Warm Brick. (Lead content: 4.28)
9. Maybelline Color Sensational in Mauve Me. (Lead content: 4.23)
10. Stargazer lipstick in shade 103. (Lead content: 4.12) ...
Here is a list of the 10 brands and shades that contain the most lead, according the FDA’s study. A full analysis of all 400 varieties is available here.
1. Maybelline’s Color Sensation in Pink Petal. (Lead content: 7.19 ppm)
2. L’Oreal Colour Riche in Volcanic. (Lead content: 7.00 ppm)
3. NARS Semi-Matte in Red Lizard. (Lead content: 4.93 ppm)
4. Cover Girl Queen Collection Vibrant Hues Color in Ruby Remix (Lead content: 4.92 ppm)
5. NARS Semi-Matte in Funny Face. (Lead content: 4.89)
6. L’Oreal Colour Rich in Tickled Pink. (Lead content: 4.45)
7. L’Oreal Intensely Moisturizing Lipcolor in Heroic. (Lead content: 4.41)
8. Cover Girl Continuous Color in Warm Brick. (Lead content: 4.28)
9. Maybelline Color Sensational in Mauve Me. (Lead content: 4.23)
10. Stargazer lipstick in shade 103. (Lead content: 4.12) ...
Working in an industry built on child labour and exploitation, it's little wonder models have finally unionised
PASADENA, Calif. (AP) — The 2011 Playmate of the Year on Monday sought a restraining order against the 21-year-old son of Playboy founder Hugh Hefner, after the son was arrested on suspicion of domestic violence, the Pasadena Star-News reported.
Marston Hefner was released from jail Monday after posting $20,000 bail, according to police and jail records.
Officers were called Sunday night to the apartment Marston Hefner shares with his girlfriend, and he was arrested after she was found with minor injuries, Pasadena police said in a statement.
The woman wasn't identified in the police statement, but Lt. Jari Faulkner told the Star-News (http://bit.ly/z4dVpp) that Claire Sinclair, 20, sought an emergency restraining order against Marston Hefner from police on Monday. Sinclair is the 2011 Playmate of the Year.
It was unclear if the temporary restraining order was granted, and police reached by phone late Monday would give no information beyond the details of Marston Hefner's arrest.
Marston Hefner is one of two adult sons of the Playboy founder and his former wife, ex-Playmate Kimberly Conrad Hefner. ...
'Guess ol' hugh never taught his son about respecting females. Quel surprise, mes chers.
Marston Hefner was released from jail Monday after posting $20,000 bail, according to police and jail records.
Officers were called Sunday night to the apartment Marston Hefner shares with his girlfriend, and he was arrested after she was found with minor injuries, Pasadena police said in a statement.
The woman wasn't identified in the police statement, but Lt. Jari Faulkner told the Star-News (http://bit.ly/z4dVpp) that Claire Sinclair, 20, sought an emergency restraining order against Marston Hefner from police on Monday. Sinclair is the 2011 Playmate of the Year.
It was unclear if the temporary restraining order was granted, and police reached by phone late Monday would give no information beyond the details of Marston Hefner's arrest.
Marston Hefner is one of two adult sons of the Playboy founder and his former wife, ex-Playmate Kimberly Conrad Hefner. ...
'Guess ol' hugh never taught his son about respecting females. Quel surprise, mes chers.
'Human error' led to addresses being placed in wrong field when sending survey to victims over standard of service
Syria launched a major military offensive to seize back parts of Damascus under de facto rebel control on Sunday, a day after the Arab League said it was abandoning its monitoring mission in the face of out-of-control violence.
Government forces killed at least 19 people, activists said, in some of the bloodiest fighting in the capital since Syria’s 10-month uprising began. Witnesses inside Damascus described scenes of mayhem, with troops shelling residential areas and fierce house-to-house fighting.
“It’s urban war. There are bodies in the street,” one activist, speaking from the suburb of Kfar Batna, told Reuters.
Around 2,000 troops, together with at least 50 tanks and armoured vehicles, began a major operation at dawn, when they headed towards the al-Ghouta area in eastern Damascus. The foray was part of a wider offensive against the suburbs of Saqba, Hammouriya and Kfar Batna, activists said.
Video footage showed tanks trundling forward, followed by government soldiers on foot. The army pushed deep into the centre of Kfar Batna. Witnesses reported four tanks in the main square.
Activists said 14 civilians and five insurgents from the opposition Free Syrian Army (FSA) were killed. Gruesome unconfirmed video showed the mangled bodies of what appeared to be civilians caught by mortar or shellfire. …
Government forces killed at least 19 people, activists said, in some of the bloodiest fighting in the capital since Syria’s 10-month uprising began. Witnesses inside Damascus described scenes of mayhem, with troops shelling residential areas and fierce house-to-house fighting.
“It’s urban war. There are bodies in the street,” one activist, speaking from the suburb of Kfar Batna, told Reuters.
Around 2,000 troops, together with at least 50 tanks and armoured vehicles, began a major operation at dawn, when they headed towards the al-Ghouta area in eastern Damascus. The foray was part of a wider offensive against the suburbs of Saqba, Hammouriya and Kfar Batna, activists said.
Video footage showed tanks trundling forward, followed by government soldiers on foot. The army pushed deep into the centre of Kfar Batna. Witnesses reported four tanks in the main square.
Activists said 14 civilians and five insurgents from the opposition Free Syrian Army (FSA) were killed. Gruesome unconfirmed video showed the mangled bodies of what appeared to be civilians caught by mortar or shellfire. …
Google is under fire for plans to collect data on individual users across all of its websites and merge the information into a single profile that can be used to alter the person's search results and target them with advertising and services.
Users will have no way to opt out of being tracked across the board when the search company unifies its privacy policy and terms of service for all its online offerings, including search, Gmail and Google+. The move is being criticised by privacy advocates and could attract greater scrutiny from anti-trust regulators.
"If you're signed in, we may combine information you've provided from one service with information from other services," Google's director of privacy, product and engineering, Alma Whitten, wrote in a blogpost.
After the new policy comes into effect, user information from most Google products – such as YouTube, Gmail, Google Maps, Google+ and Android mobile – will be treated as a single trove of data, which the company could use for targeted advertising or other revenue-raising purposes.
An article in the Washington Post raised concerns about details of people's private meetings, health, politics and finances becoming part of their digital dossier kept by Google. Confidential discussions via Gmail of a meeting location might be transferred to Google Maps without the user's consent, for example. ...
Users will have no way to opt out of being tracked across the board when the search company unifies its privacy policy and terms of service for all its online offerings, including search, Gmail and Google+. The move is being criticised by privacy advocates and could attract greater scrutiny from anti-trust regulators.
"If you're signed in, we may combine information you've provided from one service with information from other services," Google's director of privacy, product and engineering, Alma Whitten, wrote in a blogpost.
After the new policy comes into effect, user information from most Google products – such as YouTube, Gmail, Google Maps, Google+ and Android mobile – will be treated as a single trove of data, which the company could use for targeted advertising or other revenue-raising purposes.
An article in the Washington Post raised concerns about details of people's private meetings, health, politics and finances becoming part of their digital dossier kept by Google. Confidential discussions via Gmail of a meeting location might be transferred to Google Maps without the user's consent, for example. ...
WHY???!!!
The Russian leadership has sought to calm tensions following an unprecedented protest against Vladimir Putin that brought tens of thousands of demonstrators on to the streets of Moscow.
The prime minister has yet to comment on the protest, but his spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, said: "We respect the point of view of the protesters. We are hearing what is being said. We will continue to listen to them."
Up to 50,000 people demonstrated in Moscow on Saturday following the disputed parliamentary election in which Putin's United Russia party won nearly 50% of the vote amid widespread allegations of fraud.
Protests took place in more than 50 cities, with a reported 7,000 people gathering in St Petersburg and up to 4,000 in the Siberian city of Novosibirsk, despite the temperature of -20C.
Protesters have promised to gather again in two weeks' time if the Kremlin refuses to annul the result, which was confirmed by the election commission on Friday. ...
The prime minister has yet to comment on the protest, but his spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, said: "We respect the point of view of the protesters. We are hearing what is being said. We will continue to listen to them."
Up to 50,000 people demonstrated in Moscow on Saturday following the disputed parliamentary election in which Putin's United Russia party won nearly 50% of the vote amid widespread allegations of fraud.
Protests took place in more than 50 cities, with a reported 7,000 people gathering in St Petersburg and up to 4,000 in the Siberian city of Novosibirsk, despite the temperature of -20C.
Protesters have promised to gather again in two weeks' time if the Kremlin refuses to annul the result, which was confirmed by the election commission on Friday. ...
The head of Revenue & Customs is to retire in the wake of revelations about his organisation's decisions to waive millions of pounds owed by corporations.
Dave Hartnett, 60, will step down as the permanent secretary for tax next summer, a spokesman said . He will leave with a pension pot worth £1.7m.
Hartnett has admitted that his organisation made "a mistake" when he shook hands on a deal to excuse the US bank Goldman Sachs from paying around £10m in interest charges. His organisation has also been accused of allowing Vodafone off interest charges of more than £1bn.
His announcement came hours after the Guardian disclosed that Revenue & Customs is investigating the whistleblower who uncovered the Goldman Sachs deal and Hartnett's role in it.
Senior MPs are angry that Osita Mba, a solicitor who used the Public Interest Disclosure Act to tell the National Audit Office and two parliamentary committees about the deal, could face the sack or criminal prosecution. ....
Dave Hartnett, 60, will step down as the permanent secretary for tax next summer, a spokesman said . He will leave with a pension pot worth £1.7m.
Hartnett has admitted that his organisation made "a mistake" when he shook hands on a deal to excuse the US bank Goldman Sachs from paying around £10m in interest charges. His organisation has also been accused of allowing Vodafone off interest charges of more than £1bn.
His announcement came hours after the Guardian disclosed that Revenue & Customs is investigating the whistleblower who uncovered the Goldman Sachs deal and Hartnett's role in it.
Senior MPs are angry that Osita Mba, a solicitor who used the Public Interest Disclosure Act to tell the National Audit Office and two parliamentary committees about the deal, could face the sack or criminal prosecution. ....
Saudi women walk in Jeddah June 17, 2011. Saudi Arabia has no formal ban on women driving. REUTERS/Susan Baaghil
Allowing women to drive in Saudi Arabia would cause rampant sex, porn and homosexuality, according to some of the country's scholars.
Academics at the country's highest religious council submitted a report to the legislative assembly warning of the dangers of letting women behind the wheel, reports the Daily Telegraph.
If the only country in the world that still bans women from driving were to change its rules, there would be "a surge in prostitution, pornography, homosexuality and divorce."
Within 10 years of the ban being lifted, the report claimed, there would be "no more virgins" in the country, according to the paper.
Currently, women caught driving in the kingdom may be lashed as punishment.
May those "scholars" reach complete and total enlightenment and on all levels, and quickly, for all our sakes.
Ta much, dear Glenn321
Adventurer Mark Moffett (how great is that job title?) was out adventuring on Little Barrier Island in New Zealand when he found this guy. The giant, cricket-like insect was recently declared the world's biggest and is so large that it eats full-sized carrots.
Federal public servants were trying to understand the wholesale “harperization” of Government of Canada communications six months before a spokesman for the prime minister emphatically denied any change in policy or practice.
New documents obtained by The Canadian Press under the Access to Information Act directly contradict published claims by Stephen Harper’s chief spokesman that bureaucrats have not been directed to replace the words Government of Canada with “Harper Government” in departmental news releases and backgrounders.
Top former civil servants say the wording change marks a disturbing new trend in the politicization of the bureaucracy — and breaches both communications policy and the civil service ethics policy.
Insiders say ongoing editing skirmishes continue between some government departments with strong leadership and the Privy Council Office, the bureaucracy known as PCO that serves the prime minister.
Industry Canada took nearly nine months to deliver documents based on the access request, ignoring statutory deadlines for releasing the records. The Information Commissioner deemed a complaint by The Canadian Press about the delay to be well-founded, determining the department had refused to provide access under the Act.
The “deemed refusal” appears profoundly political, given the contents.
Industry Canada’s emails and edited releases from autumn 2010 make a mockery of Conservative government denials offered when The Canadian Press first published reports of the name-change orders last March.
“The directive we have from the (director general’s office) is that if PCO adds the Harper Government reference, then we leave it in,” says an email to communications officials at Industry, dated Oct. 5, 2010. “Please proceed with this approach. Sorry — it is what PCO has instructed.”
An editor responded: “Given this directive, and with mild distress, I have reinstalled the phrasing.”
“French release harperized and good to go,” quipped another.
Civil servants were clearly alarmed by the change in nomenclature as far back as late September 2010.
“‘Harper Government’ is not in line with the Communications Policy of the Government of Canada, so I have modified it,” wrote a member of Industry Canada’s communications branch after PCO sent back an altered release.
“Please see Chris Fox to make sure we are actually adding ‘Harper Government’ to the release,” wrote another. “This is not appropriate language, in my opinion.” …
Ah, stephen ha-pah: the shrub, jr of The North.
Ta much, Glenn321
New documents obtained by The Canadian Press under the Access to Information Act directly contradict published claims by Stephen Harper’s chief spokesman that bureaucrats have not been directed to replace the words Government of Canada with “Harper Government” in departmental news releases and backgrounders.
Top former civil servants say the wording change marks a disturbing new trend in the politicization of the bureaucracy — and breaches both communications policy and the civil service ethics policy.
Insiders say ongoing editing skirmishes continue between some government departments with strong leadership and the Privy Council Office, the bureaucracy known as PCO that serves the prime minister.
Industry Canada took nearly nine months to deliver documents based on the access request, ignoring statutory deadlines for releasing the records. The Information Commissioner deemed a complaint by The Canadian Press about the delay to be well-founded, determining the department had refused to provide access under the Act.
The “deemed refusal” appears profoundly political, given the contents.
Industry Canada’s emails and edited releases from autumn 2010 make a mockery of Conservative government denials offered when The Canadian Press first published reports of the name-change orders last March.
“The directive we have from the (director general’s office) is that if PCO adds the Harper Government reference, then we leave it in,” says an email to communications officials at Industry, dated Oct. 5, 2010. “Please proceed with this approach. Sorry — it is what PCO has instructed.”
An editor responded: “Given this directive, and with mild distress, I have reinstalled the phrasing.”
“French release harperized and good to go,” quipped another.
Civil servants were clearly alarmed by the change in nomenclature as far back as late September 2010.
“‘Harper Government’ is not in line with the Communications Policy of the Government of Canada, so I have modified it,” wrote a member of Industry Canada’s communications branch after PCO sent back an altered release.
“Please see Chris Fox to make sure we are actually adding ‘Harper Government’ to the release,” wrote another. “This is not appropriate language, in my opinion.” …
Ah, stephen ha-pah: the shrub, jr of The North.
Ta much, Glenn321
The New York Times did what I was not allowed to do - tell you there has been a second diagnosis of Infectious Salmon Anemia virus in wild BC salmon, this time in the Fraser River itself, the biggest wild salmon river in the world. The fish the New York Times is talking about is one that a small group of us picked up, sampled and sent to the world reference lab for the ISA virus. It was a beautiful coho salmon, in first blush of spawning colours. The salmon had navigated the river as a tiny fry, entered the sea as a fat and sassy little smolt eating everything insight. It traveled north and west in search of the saltiness of the ocean and in doing so passed millions of European salmon in pens. Whether it got infected then or on the way home carrying the richness of a life at sea, her body shut down infected with a virus her ancestors had never had a chance to prepare her for. We found her drifting down stream passing Harrison Mills. We scooped her up took a sliver of her heart and gills and sent them to one of the world authorities on ISA virus.
We did this because we want to know how widespread the European ISA virus is, in BC waters and I don't see anyone else out there trying to map the damage. The lab never reported back to me, muzzled I suspect, but the truth got out. We now have two diagnoses, 600 km apart, in two different species, of two different generations.
I don't know how no one could see this coming. We are the buffalo racing for the cliff, even as we watch videos of buffalo falling off cliffs. EVERY COUNTRY WITH SALMON FARMS has taken this path. I am so exhausted with trying to explain this to Ministers, bureaucrats, streamkeepers, environmentalists, fishermen. People just don't want to believe it. It is easier to write me off than deal with this.
Look, it is simple. Salmon farms break the natural laws and viruses, bacteria and parasites are the beneficiaries of this behaviour. If you move diseases across the world and brew them among local pathogens, in an environment where predators are not allowed to remove the sick - you get pestilence. There is no other outcome. ...
Thanks much, Glenn321
We did this because we want to know how widespread the European ISA virus is, in BC waters and I don't see anyone else out there trying to map the damage. The lab never reported back to me, muzzled I suspect, but the truth got out. We now have two diagnoses, 600 km apart, in two different species, of two different generations.
I don't know how no one could see this coming. We are the buffalo racing for the cliff, even as we watch videos of buffalo falling off cliffs. EVERY COUNTRY WITH SALMON FARMS has taken this path. I am so exhausted with trying to explain this to Ministers, bureaucrats, streamkeepers, environmentalists, fishermen. People just don't want to believe it. It is easier to write me off than deal with this.
Look, it is simple. Salmon farms break the natural laws and viruses, bacteria and parasites are the beneficiaries of this behaviour. If you move diseases across the world and brew them among local pathogens, in an environment where predators are not allowed to remove the sick - you get pestilence. There is no other outcome. ...
Thanks much, Glenn321
A secret CIA document shows that British and Libyans worked together to arrange the removal of a terror suspect to Tripoli
British and US intelligence agencies built up close links with Muammar Gaddafi and handed over detailed information to assist his regime, according to secret files found in Libyan government offices.
The documents claim that MI6 supplied its counterparts in Libya with details on exiled opponents living in the UK, and chart how the CIA abducted several suspected militants before handing them over to Tripoli.
They also contain communications between British and Libyan security officials ahead of Tony Blair's visit in 2004, and show that British officials helped write a draft speech for Gaddafi when he was being encouraged to give up his weapons programme.
The discovery was made by reporters and members of Human Rights Watch in the private offices of Moussa Koussa, the former foreign minister and head of Libyan intelligence, who defected to Britain in February. He is now believed to be in Qatar.
According to the documents, Libya's relationship with MI6 and the CIA was especially close between 2002 and 2004, at the height of the war on terror. The papers give details of how No 10 insisted that the 2004 meeting between Blair and Gaddafi took place in his bedouin tent, with a letter from an MI6 official saying: "I don't know why the English are fascinated by tents. The plain fact is that the journalists would love it."
They also show how a statement made by Gaddafi during the time in which he pledged to give up his nuclear programme and destroy his stock of chemical and biological weapons was put together with the help of British officials. A covering letter states: "For the sake of clarity, please find attached a tidied-up version of the language we agreed on Tuesday. I wanted to ensure that you had the same script."
Other letters seem to reveal that British intelligence gave Tripoli details of a Libyan dissident who had been freed from jail in Britain. One US document stated the CIA was in a position to deliver a prisoner into the custody of Libyan authorities.
The papers, which have not been independently verified, also suggest the CIA abducted several suspected militants from 2002 to 2004 who were subsequently handed over to Tripoli. Human Rights Watch has accused the CIA of condoning torture. ...
The documents claim that MI6 supplied its counterparts in Libya with details on exiled opponents living in the UK, and chart how the CIA abducted several suspected militants before handing them over to Tripoli.
They also contain communications between British and Libyan security officials ahead of Tony Blair's visit in 2004, and show that British officials helped write a draft speech for Gaddafi when he was being encouraged to give up his weapons programme.
The discovery was made by reporters and members of Human Rights Watch in the private offices of Moussa Koussa, the former foreign minister and head of Libyan intelligence, who defected to Britain in February. He is now believed to be in Qatar.
According to the documents, Libya's relationship with MI6 and the CIA was especially close between 2002 and 2004, at the height of the war on terror. The papers give details of how No 10 insisted that the 2004 meeting between Blair and Gaddafi took place in his bedouin tent, with a letter from an MI6 official saying: "I don't know why the English are fascinated by tents. The plain fact is that the journalists would love it."
They also show how a statement made by Gaddafi during the time in which he pledged to give up his nuclear programme and destroy his stock of chemical and biological weapons was put together with the help of British officials. A covering letter states: "For the sake of clarity, please find attached a tidied-up version of the language we agreed on Tuesday. I wanted to ensure that you had the same script."
Other letters seem to reveal that British intelligence gave Tripoli details of a Libyan dissident who had been freed from jail in Britain. One US document stated the CIA was in a position to deliver a prisoner into the custody of Libyan authorities.
The papers, which have not been independently verified, also suggest the CIA abducted several suspected militants from 2002 to 2004 who were subsequently handed over to Tripoli. Human Rights Watch has accused the CIA of condoning torture. ...
The scale of the CIA's rendition programme has been laid bare in court documents that illustrate in minute detail how the US contracted out the secret transportation of suspects to a network of private American companies.
The manner in which American firms flew terrorism suspects to locations around the world, where they were often tortured, has emerged after one of the companies sued another in a dispute over fees. As the 10th anniversary of 9/11 approaches, the mass of invoices, receipts, contracts and email correspondence – submitted as evidence to a court in upstate New York – provides a unique glimpse into a world in which the "war on terror" became just another charter opportunity for American businesses.
As a result of the case, the identities of some of the corporations involved in the rendition programme have been disclosed for the first time, along with the names of some of the executives who knew the purpose of the flights.
One unintended consequence may be that some of those corporations and individuals are now at risk of being sued in proceedings brought on behalf of the al-Qaida and Taliban suspects who were the victims of the programme.
The New York case concerns Sportsflight, an aircraft broker, and Richmor, an aircraft operator. Sportsflight entered into an arrangement to make a Gulfstream IV executive jet available at $4,900 an hour rather than the market rate of $5,450. A crew was available to fly at 12 hours' notice. The government wanted "the cheapest aircraft to fulfil a mission", Sportsflight's owner, Don Moss, told the court. But it was the early days of the rendition programme, and business was booming: the court heard that Sportsflight told Richmor: "The client says we're going to be very, very busy." ...
Makes me so proud to be Yankistani. /hurl
The manner in which American firms flew terrorism suspects to locations around the world, where they were often tortured, has emerged after one of the companies sued another in a dispute over fees. As the 10th anniversary of 9/11 approaches, the mass of invoices, receipts, contracts and email correspondence – submitted as evidence to a court in upstate New York – provides a unique glimpse into a world in which the "war on terror" became just another charter opportunity for American businesses.
As a result of the case, the identities of some of the corporations involved in the rendition programme have been disclosed for the first time, along with the names of some of the executives who knew the purpose of the flights.
One unintended consequence may be that some of those corporations and individuals are now at risk of being sued in proceedings brought on behalf of the al-Qaida and Taliban suspects who were the victims of the programme.
The New York case concerns Sportsflight, an aircraft broker, and Richmor, an aircraft operator. Sportsflight entered into an arrangement to make a Gulfstream IV executive jet available at $4,900 an hour rather than the market rate of $5,450. A crew was available to fly at 12 hours' notice. The government wanted "the cheapest aircraft to fulfil a mission", Sportsflight's owner, Don Moss, told the court. But it was the early days of the rendition programme, and business was booming: the court heard that Sportsflight told Richmor: "The client says we're going to be very, very busy." ...
Makes me so proud to be Yankistani. /hurl
New details have emerged of the route used by Muammar Gaddafi's family to escape into neighbouring Algeria, triggering a diplomatic row over their fate.
According to officials in Libya's National Transitional Council, Gaddafi's second wife, daughter and two sons slipped out of the country along a road through central Libya not yet under NTC control.
The escape was made in a convoy of six armoured Mercedes limousines, once part of an extensive government fleet, which departed from the town of Bani Walid, the stronghold of Libya's biggest tribe, the Warfallah, where significant remnants of the regime are holding out.
Guma al-Gamaty, the NTC's UK co-ordinator, said the motorcade was carrying a total of 32 Gaddafi family members, including the ousted leader's second wife, Safia, daughter Aisha and two sons, Hannibal and Mohammed, and reached the Algerian border on Saturday.
"They were kept waiting there for 10 to 12 hours while the Algerian government decided what to do. It was the Algerian president himself [Abdelaziz Bouteflika] who authorised their entry," Gamaty said. "We will definitely be seeking their return, and we are co-operating with Interpol to secure their return."
On Monday the Algerian foreign ministry confirmed that the Gaddafi entourage had crossed the border that morning, after denying a report to that effect on Sunday. ...
According to officials in Libya's National Transitional Council, Gaddafi's second wife, daughter and two sons slipped out of the country along a road through central Libya not yet under NTC control.
The escape was made in a convoy of six armoured Mercedes limousines, once part of an extensive government fleet, which departed from the town of Bani Walid, the stronghold of Libya's biggest tribe, the Warfallah, where significant remnants of the regime are holding out.
Guma al-Gamaty, the NTC's UK co-ordinator, said the motorcade was carrying a total of 32 Gaddafi family members, including the ousted leader's second wife, Safia, daughter Aisha and two sons, Hannibal and Mohammed, and reached the Algerian border on Saturday.
"They were kept waiting there for 10 to 12 hours while the Algerian government decided what to do. It was the Algerian president himself [Abdelaziz Bouteflika] who authorised their entry," Gamaty said. "We will definitely be seeking their return, and we are co-operating with Interpol to secure their return."
On Monday the Algerian foreign ministry confirmed that the Gaddafi entourage had crossed the border that morning, after denying a report to that effect on Sunday. ...
Majority of 88 detainees who have died since start of uprising against regime said to have been tortured
The names of several News of the World journalists who ordered a private detective to hack into mobile phones belonging to six public figures will not be publicly disclosed after Scotland Yard intervened to prevent their publication.
The names were passed to Steve Coogan on Friday by Glenn Mulcaire, the private investigator who worked for the paper, in compliance with a high court order the actor obtained earlier this year.
The names are critical to the phone-hacking investigation because they could show how far the practice was widespread at the paper, which was closed down by Rupert Murdoch last month, despite consistent denials from its owner News Group Newspapers. Coogan is one of several celebrities suing the paper for breach of privacy.
The high court order instructed Mulcaire to reveal who at the paper asked him to illegally intercept messages left on mobile belonging to former model Elle Macpherson, publicist Max Clifford and four others.
Mulcaire, who was employed exclusively by the News of the World, was also told to reveal who at the paper ordered him to target Liberal Democrat MP Simon Hughes, PFA chief executive Gordon Taylor, his colleague Jo Armstrong and football agent Sky Andrew.
He was refused leave to appeal against the order earlier this month and handed over the names on Friday, the deadline set by the high court for making the information available.
Law firm Schillings was contacted by Mulcaire's solicitor Sarah Webb of Payne Hicks Beach on Friday and asked not to make the names public. Webb said: "The issues of confidentiality are of concern to the Metropolitan police and we asked Coogan's solicitors not to disclose the information until the Met could consider the matter." ...
The names were passed to Steve Coogan on Friday by Glenn Mulcaire, the private investigator who worked for the paper, in compliance with a high court order the actor obtained earlier this year.
The names are critical to the phone-hacking investigation because they could show how far the practice was widespread at the paper, which was closed down by Rupert Murdoch last month, despite consistent denials from its owner News Group Newspapers. Coogan is one of several celebrities suing the paper for breach of privacy.
The high court order instructed Mulcaire to reveal who at the paper asked him to illegally intercept messages left on mobile belonging to former model Elle Macpherson, publicist Max Clifford and four others.
Mulcaire, who was employed exclusively by the News of the World, was also told to reveal who at the paper ordered him to target Liberal Democrat MP Simon Hughes, PFA chief executive Gordon Taylor, his colleague Jo Armstrong and football agent Sky Andrew.
He was refused leave to appeal against the order earlier this month and handed over the names on Friday, the deadline set by the high court for making the information available.
Law firm Schillings was contacted by Mulcaire's solicitor Sarah Webb of Payne Hicks Beach on Friday and asked not to make the names public. Webb said: "The issues of confidentiality are of concern to the Metropolitan police and we asked Coogan's solicitors not to disclose the information until the Met could consider the matter." ...
Pauline Pearce – the woman with a walking stick – became a YouTube sensation after tackling looters in the street. Now she fears there's more trouble ahead
Patrick Kingsley
Monday 22 August 2011
... Two weeks ago, nobody outside Hackney had heard of 45-year-old Pearce. Then she became the Hackney Heroine – known by voice, but not name – who was filmed on the Monday of the riots confronting a group of looters on a smashed-out street next to the Pembury estate. The video was posted on YouTube, and went viral within minutes. Hands clasped round her walking stick, Pearce can be seen standing on a pavement covered in debris, in front of graffiti that says: "Fuck Cameroon." The cars around her are on fire, and every so often you can hear breaking glass. And she is shouting. Raging, even. "Get it real, black people, get real. Do it for a cause. If we're fighting for a cause let's fight for a fucking cause. You lot piss me off. We're not all gathering together and fighting for a cause, we're running down Foot Locker and stealing shoes."
When I visit Pearce, Clarence Road is calm. The postbox still has burn marks, but the graffiti has been whitewashed. Siva's newsagents – ransacked live on the BBC – has re-opened (Pearce was asked to cut the ribbon, but had to go to hospital for a check-up) and the barber shop opposite has new windows. Every five minutes someone stops to say hello – wellwishers ("see, we love each other really!") or shopkeepers hoping for a mention on her show.
It was on her return from her last radio appearance that she was caught up in the riot. "One man got physical with me, and that's why I started ranting. There was a burnt-out car, and I said: 'What is the point of that? It's ridiculous, they're our neighbours' vehicles, and they're trying to make a living just like you.' And this big burly black man goes up against me, and really gives me intimidation. And I'm like, 'Go for it, I'm ready to go, I'm at peace with the Lord.' And that's when I started to go off on one. I was ranting for a good 15 minutes before the clip started."
Some people cheered, and the arsonist walked off "kissing his teeth". But while the video of her took Twitter by storm, Pearce was still on the streets, involved in another altercation. "People were charging after this poor man, pulling him from all angles. And I'm like, 'Get off him', trying to get their hands off of him. And then they gave us both a shove, and I fell against this car that was burning. The flames were down by the handbrake, and my bum was stuck in the window! Ha ha ha! I have to laugh. My bum was stuck in a burning car."
Pearce was eventually saved by a pair of vigilantes "who were out there trying to keep it less than it could have been … They were trying to stop scuffles. People were charging around burning vehicles, and they would step in and say: 'Well, why are you burning it? What's the point?'"
It wasn't until the following day that Pearce discovered that she had been filmed, let alone become a minor celebrity. "I only found out when I was walking down Clarence Road, to see if they need help clearing up. People said: 'You're the woman with the stick, people are looking for you.' And I'm like, 'Me?!'" ...
Patrick Kingsley
Monday 22 August 2011
... Two weeks ago, nobody outside Hackney had heard of 45-year-old Pearce. Then she became the Hackney Heroine – known by voice, but not name – who was filmed on the Monday of the riots confronting a group of looters on a smashed-out street next to the Pembury estate. The video was posted on YouTube, and went viral within minutes. Hands clasped round her walking stick, Pearce can be seen standing on a pavement covered in debris, in front of graffiti that says: "Fuck Cameroon." The cars around her are on fire, and every so often you can hear breaking glass. And she is shouting. Raging, even. "Get it real, black people, get real. Do it for a cause. If we're fighting for a cause let's fight for a fucking cause. You lot piss me off. We're not all gathering together and fighting for a cause, we're running down Foot Locker and stealing shoes."
When I visit Pearce, Clarence Road is calm. The postbox still has burn marks, but the graffiti has been whitewashed. Siva's newsagents – ransacked live on the BBC – has re-opened (Pearce was asked to cut the ribbon, but had to go to hospital for a check-up) and the barber shop opposite has new windows. Every five minutes someone stops to say hello – wellwishers ("see, we love each other really!") or shopkeepers hoping for a mention on her show.
It was on her return from her last radio appearance that she was caught up in the riot. "One man got physical with me, and that's why I started ranting. There was a burnt-out car, and I said: 'What is the point of that? It's ridiculous, they're our neighbours' vehicles, and they're trying to make a living just like you.' And this big burly black man goes up against me, and really gives me intimidation. And I'm like, 'Go for it, I'm ready to go, I'm at peace with the Lord.' And that's when I started to go off on one. I was ranting for a good 15 minutes before the clip started."
Some people cheered, and the arsonist walked off "kissing his teeth". But while the video of her took Twitter by storm, Pearce was still on the streets, involved in another altercation. "People were charging after this poor man, pulling him from all angles. And I'm like, 'Get off him', trying to get their hands off of him. And then they gave us both a shove, and I fell against this car that was burning. The flames were down by the handbrake, and my bum was stuck in the window! Ha ha ha! I have to laugh. My bum was stuck in a burning car."
Pearce was eventually saved by a pair of vigilantes "who were out there trying to keep it less than it could have been … They were trying to stop scuffles. People were charging around burning vehicles, and they would step in and say: 'Well, why are you burning it? What's the point?'"
It wasn't until the following day that Pearce discovered that she had been filmed, let alone become a minor celebrity. "I only found out when I was walking down Clarence Road, to see if they need help clearing up. People said: 'You're the woman with the stick, people are looking for you.' And I'm like, 'Me?!'" ...
Fresh evidence has emerged of other voice messages allegedly hacked from the phone of murdered schoolgirl Milly Dowler's by the News of the World.
A report suggested that the former Sunday tabloid newspaper had details of more voicemails left on her mobile phone than originally thought.
The Wall Street Journal said it had obtained earlier print editions of the newspaper from 2002, which made reference to more messages on the missing teenager's phone.
It states that it undertook a review of the News International-owned newspaper and found that early versions on one day contained detailed quotes from three voicemails.
In the final edition, the article only contained one passing reference to a single voicemail.
On 14 April 2002, the News of the World published a story in its final edition about a woman allegedly pretending to be Milly who had applied for a job with a recruitment agency. It suggested that the hoaxer had given the agency Milly's real mobile number, which it used to contact her when a vacancy arose, leaving a message on her voicemail six days after she went missing.
The newspaper later informed the police about the voicemail that it is alleged to have intercepted.
However, the Wall Street Journal has now said that it has obtained earlier editions of the newspaper from the same day, which include an article that makes reference to two further messages left on the phone. ...
A report suggested that the former Sunday tabloid newspaper had details of more voicemails left on her mobile phone than originally thought.
The Wall Street Journal said it had obtained earlier print editions of the newspaper from 2002, which made reference to more messages on the missing teenager's phone.
It states that it undertook a review of the News International-owned newspaper and found that early versions on one day contained detailed quotes from three voicemails.
In the final edition, the article only contained one passing reference to a single voicemail.
On 14 April 2002, the News of the World published a story in its final edition about a woman allegedly pretending to be Milly who had applied for a job with a recruitment agency. It suggested that the hoaxer had given the agency Milly's real mobile number, which it used to contact her when a vacancy arose, leaving a message on her voicemail six days after she went missing.
The newspaper later informed the police about the voicemail that it is alleged to have intercepted.
However, the Wall Street Journal has now said that it has obtained earlier editions of the newspaper from the same day, which include an article that makes reference to two further messages left on the phone. ...
Shell has finally stopped the leak from its faulty oil pipeline in the North Sea, ending the flow of oil undersea after 10 days of the worst oil spill in UK waters for a decade.
Divers closed a relief valve which was the source of a small secondary leak, discovered after the first major leak in the pipeline at the Gannet Alpha platform had been plugged last week. Government officials are now opening an investigation into how the leak occurred and whether the correct procedures were followed. They will also have to decide whether Shell should pay for government expenses incurred in the clean-up operation.
Shell now has to decide how to deal with the pipeline, which could still contain as much as 660 tonnes of oil with the potential for much more damage than the 218 tonnes of oil thought to have spilled into the sea already.
"Closing the valve is a key step," said Glen Cayley, technical director of Shell's exploration and production activities in Europe, based in Aberdeen. "It was a careful and complex operation conducted by skilled divers, with support from our technical teams onshore. But we will be watching the line closely over the next 24 hours and beyond."
The UK government has said a containment structure should be built over the affected part of the pipeline, to ensure that no more oil emerges as the pipeline is dealt with.
Cayley said removing the residual oil from the pipeline, which has been depressurised and is now held to the seafloor by "rock mattresses", would "take time". The company could not say how long, nor does it yet know the cause of the leak. ...
Divers closed a relief valve which was the source of a small secondary leak, discovered after the first major leak in the pipeline at the Gannet Alpha platform had been plugged last week. Government officials are now opening an investigation into how the leak occurred and whether the correct procedures were followed. They will also have to decide whether Shell should pay for government expenses incurred in the clean-up operation.
Shell now has to decide how to deal with the pipeline, which could still contain as much as 660 tonnes of oil with the potential for much more damage than the 218 tonnes of oil thought to have spilled into the sea already.
"Closing the valve is a key step," said Glen Cayley, technical director of Shell's exploration and production activities in Europe, based in Aberdeen. "It was a careful and complex operation conducted by skilled divers, with support from our technical teams onshore. But we will be watching the line closely over the next 24 hours and beyond."
The UK government has said a containment structure should be built over the affected part of the pipeline, to ensure that no more oil emerges as the pipeline is dealt with.
Cayley said removing the residual oil from the pipeline, which has been depressurised and is now held to the seafloor by "rock mattresses", would "take time". The company could not say how long, nor does it yet know the cause of the leak. ...
Glenn Mulcaire, the private investigator at the centre of the News of the World phone-hacking scandal, has been ordered by a court to reveal who instructed him to access the voicemails of model Elle Macpherson and five other public figures, including Simon Hughes, the Liberal Democrat deputy leader.
Mulcaire is due to reveal these details by the end of next week in a move that will throw further light on the scale of phone hacking at the now defunct News International tabloid.
The Guardian has learned that Mulcaire has lost an attempt to appeal against a court order obliging him to identify who instructed him to hack the phones, something he has resisted since February.
Mulcaire, who was jailed in 2007 after pleading guilty to hacking the phones of members of the royal household for the NoW, has been forced into making the disclosure after legal action by Steve Coogan. In February, the actor's lawyers argued in court that if it were proved that the paper had instructed Mulcaire to hack into the phones of the six public figures, it would show that phone hacking was taking place on an industrial scale.
Mulcaire must now name names in relation to Macpherson, Hughes and four others: Max Clifford; the football agent Sky Andrew; Jo Armstrong, a legal adviser to the Professional Footballers Association; and Gordon Taylor, the former head of the PFA. At his trial in 2006 Mulcaire also admitted hacking the phones of five of the six names in Coogan's court order. ...
Mulcaire is due to reveal these details by the end of next week in a move that will throw further light on the scale of phone hacking at the now defunct News International tabloid.
The Guardian has learned that Mulcaire has lost an attempt to appeal against a court order obliging him to identify who instructed him to hack the phones, something he has resisted since February.
Mulcaire, who was jailed in 2007 after pleading guilty to hacking the phones of members of the royal household for the NoW, has been forced into making the disclosure after legal action by Steve Coogan. In February, the actor's lawyers argued in court that if it were proved that the paper had instructed Mulcaire to hack into the phones of the six public figures, it would show that phone hacking was taking place on an industrial scale.
Mulcaire must now name names in relation to Macpherson, Hughes and four others: Max Clifford; the football agent Sky Andrew; Jo Armstrong, a legal adviser to the Professional Footballers Association; and Gordon Taylor, the former head of the PFA. At his trial in 2006 Mulcaire also admitted hacking the phones of five of the six names in Coogan's court order. ...
... "I'm a vampire and I've been alive for over 500 years," he told the Galveston Police Department after being arrested.
The 19-year-old Lyle Monroe Bensley broke into the apartment of a woman he did not know wearing only boxer shorts and made his way to her bedroom. He reportedly made growling and hissing noises while biting and striking the woman in her bed.
He tried to drag the woman out of her apartment, but she escaped and contacted the police.
The tattoo-covered Bensley was arrested by police shortly after the incident. Police found him making shrieking and growling sounds in the apartment's parking lot.
"He was begging us to restrain him because he didn't want to kill us," Galveston Officer Daniel Erickson said. "He said he needed to feed." ...
What a fucking asshole.
I blame 'twilight.'
Blame dear MSiegel too: he sent me this.
The 19-year-old Lyle Monroe Bensley broke into the apartment of a woman he did not know wearing only boxer shorts and made his way to her bedroom. He reportedly made growling and hissing noises while biting and striking the woman in her bed.
He tried to drag the woman out of her apartment, but she escaped and contacted the police.
The tattoo-covered Bensley was arrested by police shortly after the incident. Police found him making shrieking and growling sounds in the apartment's parking lot.
"He was begging us to restrain him because he didn't want to kill us," Galveston Officer Daniel Erickson said. "He said he needed to feed." ...
What a fucking asshole.
I blame 'twilight.'
Blame dear MSiegel too: he sent me this.
Rupert Murdoch, James Murdoch and their former editor Andy Coulson all face embarrassing new allegations of dishonesty and cover-up after the publication of an explosive letter written by the News of the World's disgraced royal correspondent, Clive Goodman.
In the letter, which was written four years ago but published only on Tuesday, Goodman claims that phone hacking was "widely discussed" at editorial meetings at the paper until Coulson himself banned further references to it; that Coulson offered to let him keep his job if he agreed not to implicate the paper in hacking when he came to court; and that his own hacking was carried out with "the full knowledge and support" of other senior journalists, whom he named.
The claims are acutely troubling for the prime minister, David Cameron, who hired Coulson as his media adviser on the basis that he knew nothing about phone hacking. And they confront Rupert and James Murdoch with the humiliating prospect of being recalled to parliament to justify the evidence which they gave last month on the aftermath of Goodman's allegations. In a separate letter, one of the Murdochs' own law firms claim that parts of that evidence were variously "hard to credit", "self-serving" and "inaccurate and misleading".
Goodman's claims also raise serious questions about Rupert Murdoch's close friend and adviser, Les Hinton, who was sent a copy of the letter but failed to pass it to police and who then led a cast of senior Murdoch personnel in telling parliament that they believed Coulson knew nothing about the interception of the voicemail of public figures and that Goodman was the only journalist involved.
The letters from Goodman and from the London law firm Harbottle & Lewis are among a cache of paperwork published by the Commons culture, media and sport select committee. One committee member, the Labour MP Tom Watson, said Goodman's letter was "absolutely devastating". He said: "Clive Goodman's letter is the most significant piece of evidence that has been revealed so far. It completely removes News International's defence. This is one of the largest cover-ups I have seen in my lifetime."
Goodman's letter is dated 2 March 2007, soon after he was released from a four-month prison sentence. It is addressed to News International's director of human resources, Daniel Cloke, and registers his appeal against the decision of Hinton, the company's then chairman, to sack him for gross misconduct after he admitted intercepting the voicemail of three members of the royal household. Goodman lists five grounds for his appeal.
He argues that the decision is perverse because he acted "with the full knowledge and support" of named senior journalists and that payments for the private investigator who assisted him, Glenn Mulcaire, were arranged by another senior journalist. The names of the journalists have been redacted from the published letter at the request of Scotland Yard, who are investigating the affair. ...
In the letter, which was written four years ago but published only on Tuesday, Goodman claims that phone hacking was "widely discussed" at editorial meetings at the paper until Coulson himself banned further references to it; that Coulson offered to let him keep his job if he agreed not to implicate the paper in hacking when he came to court; and that his own hacking was carried out with "the full knowledge and support" of other senior journalists, whom he named.
The claims are acutely troubling for the prime minister, David Cameron, who hired Coulson as his media adviser on the basis that he knew nothing about phone hacking. And they confront Rupert and James Murdoch with the humiliating prospect of being recalled to parliament to justify the evidence which they gave last month on the aftermath of Goodman's allegations. In a separate letter, one of the Murdochs' own law firms claim that parts of that evidence were variously "hard to credit", "self-serving" and "inaccurate and misleading".
Goodman's claims also raise serious questions about Rupert Murdoch's close friend and adviser, Les Hinton, who was sent a copy of the letter but failed to pass it to police and who then led a cast of senior Murdoch personnel in telling parliament that they believed Coulson knew nothing about the interception of the voicemail of public figures and that Goodman was the only journalist involved.
The letters from Goodman and from the London law firm Harbottle & Lewis are among a cache of paperwork published by the Commons culture, media and sport select committee. One committee member, the Labour MP Tom Watson, said Goodman's letter was "absolutely devastating". He said: "Clive Goodman's letter is the most significant piece of evidence that has been revealed so far. It completely removes News International's defence. This is one of the largest cover-ups I have seen in my lifetime."
Goodman's letter is dated 2 March 2007, soon after he was released from a four-month prison sentence. It is addressed to News International's director of human resources, Daniel Cloke, and registers his appeal against the decision of Hinton, the company's then chairman, to sack him for gross misconduct after he admitted intercepting the voicemail of three members of the royal household. Goodman lists five grounds for his appeal.
He argues that the decision is perverse because he acted "with the full knowledge and support" of named senior journalists and that payments for the private investigator who assisted him, Glenn Mulcaire, were arranged by another senior journalist. The names of the journalists have been redacted from the published letter at the request of Scotland Yard, who are investigating the affair. ...
Police watchdog says it led media to believe shots were exchanged but Duggan was carrying gun that was never used
Riots not condoned by Chavez Campbell but says youths with no jobs, no money and no future were ripe for causing mayhem
Alexandra Topping
Friday 12 August 2011
At 6ft 3in, with a loose gait and a large kit bag slung over his shoulder, 18-year-old Chavez Campbell is a striking figure as he walks past the boarded-up shops in Wood Green, north London. Last Saturday, riots erupted here, rampaging youths shattered shopfronts and filled their arms with anything they could grab.
A week before it began, Campbell, in an interview with the Guardian about cuts to youth services, predicted what would happen. Asked what he thought the future held, he said, simply: "There'll be riots."
Looking at his words again, he said: "I did see the riots coming and the government should have seen it coming, too. Jobs are hard to get and, when they do become available, youths don't get the jobs. There is nothing to do, they are closing youth clubs so the streets are just crazy. They are full of people who have no ambitions, or have ambitions but can't fulfil them."
Campbell, who has recently left college and is struggling to find a job, represents a voice that has been rarely heard in the maelstrom of recent days. He saw the riots explode, but went home to stay safe. He thinks the government has to take some responsibility, claiming cuts and poverty played a role, but he also thinks the rioters were wrong and should be punished. He is not an academic, nor an expert, just a young person from a disadvantaged area trying to get on with his life.
Being poor is not an excuse, he argues, but it might help explain why there was such widespread looting of goods such as trainers, gadgets and clothes. "It doesn't justify it but they think: 'I ain't got no money for this, I ain't got no money for that, I can't get a job but I need it.' The only way they are going to get it is stealing. They are going to be ruthless and do anything they can to get it. This was fun for them." ...
Alexandra Topping
Friday 12 August 2011
At 6ft 3in, with a loose gait and a large kit bag slung over his shoulder, 18-year-old Chavez Campbell is a striking figure as he walks past the boarded-up shops in Wood Green, north London. Last Saturday, riots erupted here, rampaging youths shattered shopfronts and filled their arms with anything they could grab.
A week before it began, Campbell, in an interview with the Guardian about cuts to youth services, predicted what would happen. Asked what he thought the future held, he said, simply: "There'll be riots."
Looking at his words again, he said: "I did see the riots coming and the government should have seen it coming, too. Jobs are hard to get and, when they do become available, youths don't get the jobs. There is nothing to do, they are closing youth clubs so the streets are just crazy. They are full of people who have no ambitions, or have ambitions but can't fulfil them."
Campbell, who has recently left college and is struggling to find a job, represents a voice that has been rarely heard in the maelstrom of recent days. He saw the riots explode, but went home to stay safe. He thinks the government has to take some responsibility, claiming cuts and poverty played a role, but he also thinks the rioters were wrong and should be punished. He is not an academic, nor an expert, just a young person from a disadvantaged area trying to get on with his life.
Being poor is not an excuse, he argues, but it might help explain why there was such widespread looting of goods such as trainers, gadgets and clothes. "It doesn't justify it but they think: 'I ain't got no money for this, I ain't got no money for that, I can't get a job but I need it.' The only way they are going to get it is stealing. They are going to be ruthless and do anything they can to get it. This was fun for them." ...
The Liberal Democrat MP, Simon Hughes, is to sue News International over phone hacking at the News of the World, he confirmed on Thursday.
Hughes told the Evening Standard: "It is important now that all those who were clearly the subject of criminal activity help to get to the bottom of what happened during this dark period in British journalism."
Hughes's decision to take legal action against Rupert Murdoch's Sunday tabloid, which was closed last month, is significant because the private investigator employed by the paper has already been convicted of targeting his mobile phone.
Glenn Mulcaire pleaded guilty to hacking into Hughes's messages, along with those left on mobiles belonging to seven other people, in 2006.
That means Mulcaire will be unable to resist complying with any court order Hughes obtains that requires the former investigator to say who asked him to intercept Hughes's messages.
In other cases currently going through the civil courts, Mulcaire's legal team has successfully appealed against such orders by arguing that he would be incriminating himself if he were to comply with them by admitting his guilt.
Mulcaire will not be able to mount the same argument when Hughes takes legal action, against News International subsidiary News Group Newspapers, because he pleaded guilty to hacking his phone five years ago.
That could lead to more News of the World journalists being named. Three of the original eight victims named in the 2006 legal action have already sued the paper's owner. ...
Hughes told the Evening Standard: "It is important now that all those who were clearly the subject of criminal activity help to get to the bottom of what happened during this dark period in British journalism."
Hughes's decision to take legal action against Rupert Murdoch's Sunday tabloid, which was closed last month, is significant because the private investigator employed by the paper has already been convicted of targeting his mobile phone.
Glenn Mulcaire pleaded guilty to hacking into Hughes's messages, along with those left on mobiles belonging to seven other people, in 2006.
That means Mulcaire will be unable to resist complying with any court order Hughes obtains that requires the former investigator to say who asked him to intercept Hughes's messages.
In other cases currently going through the civil courts, Mulcaire's legal team has successfully appealed against such orders by arguing that he would be incriminating himself if he were to comply with them by admitting his guilt.
Mulcaire will not be able to mount the same argument when Hughes takes legal action, against News International subsidiary News Group Newspapers, because he pleaded guilty to hacking his phone five years ago.
That could lead to more News of the World journalists being named. Three of the original eight victims named in the 2006 legal action have already sued the paper's owner. ...
David Cameron is facing growing cabinet pressure to rethink the coalition's policing cuts in the wake of the deaths of three young Birmingham men, who were hit by a car during violent disturbances in the city.
As the Police Federation warned of a "catastrophe" if similar riots erupted after the cuts were introduced, a senior government source said the Home Office would be advised to take a fresh look at its plans to cut £2bn from police funding over the next few years. "The optics have changed," the source told the Guardian. ...
"The optics have changed"??? What the fuck does that mean? Is it some kind of conservative jargon?
As the Police Federation warned of a "catastrophe" if similar riots erupted after the cuts were introduced, a senior government source said the Home Office would be advised to take a fresh look at its plans to cut £2bn from police funding over the next few years. "The optics have changed," the source told the Guardian. ...
"The optics have changed"??? What the fuck does that mean? Is it some kind of conservative jargon?
At the Fox News Chrismas party the year the network overtook arch-rival CNN in the cable ratings, tipsy employees were herded down to the basement of a midtown bar in New York. As they gathered around a television mounted high on the wall, an image flashed to life, glowing bright in the darkened tavern: the MSNBC logo. A chorus of boos erupted among the Fox faithful. The CNN logo followed, and the catcalls multiplied. Then a third slide appeared, with a telling twist. In place of the logo for Fox News was a beneficent visage: the face of the network's founder. The man known to his fiercest loyalists simply as "the Chairman" – Roger Ailes.
"It was as though we were looking at Mao," recalls Charlie Reina, a former Fox News producer..."It's like the Soviet Union or China: People are always looking over their shoulders," says a former executive with the network's parent, News Corp. "There are people who turn people in."
The key to decoding Fox News isn't hosts Bill O'Reilly or Sean Hannity. It isn't even News Corp chief Rupert Murdoch. To understand what drives Fox News, and what its true purpose is, you must first understand Chairman Ailes. "He is Fox News," says Jane Hall, a Fox commentator for 10 years, who defected over Ailes's embrace of the fear-mongering Glenn Beck. "It's his vision. It's a reflection of him." ...
... The outsize success of Fox News gives Ailes a free hand to shape the network in his own image. "Murdoch has almost no involvement with it at all," says Michael Wolff, who spent nine months embedded at News Corp researching a biography of the Australian media giant. "People are afraid of Roger. Murdoch is, himself, afraid of Roger. He has amassed enormous power within the company – and within the country – from the success of Fox News."
Fear, in fact, is precisely what Ailes is selling: his network has relentlessly hyped phantom menaces such as the planned "terror mosque" near Ground Zero, inspiring Florida pastor Terry Jones to torch the Qur'an. Privately, Murdoch is as impressed by Ailes's business savvy as he is dismissive of his extremist politics. "You know Roger is crazy," Murdoch recently told a colleague, shaking his head in disbelief. "He really believes that stuff."
To watch even a day of Fox News – the anger, the bombast, the virulent paranoid streak, the unending appeals to white resentment, the reporting that is held to the same standard of evidence as a political campaign attack ad – is to see a refraction of its founder, one of the most skilled and fearsome operatives in the history of the Republican party. As a political consultant, Ailes repackaged Richard Nixon for television in 1968, papered over Ronald Reagan's budding Alzheimer's in 1984, shamelessly stoked racial fears to elect George Bush in 1988, and waged a secret campaign on behalf of Big Tobacco to derail healthcare reform in 1993. "He was the premier guy in the business," says former Reagan campaign manager Ed Rollins. "He was our Michelangelo." ...
"It was as though we were looking at Mao," recalls Charlie Reina, a former Fox News producer..."It's like the Soviet Union or China: People are always looking over their shoulders," says a former executive with the network's parent, News Corp. "There are people who turn people in."
The key to decoding Fox News isn't hosts Bill O'Reilly or Sean Hannity. It isn't even News Corp chief Rupert Murdoch. To understand what drives Fox News, and what its true purpose is, you must first understand Chairman Ailes. "He is Fox News," says Jane Hall, a Fox commentator for 10 years, who defected over Ailes's embrace of the fear-mongering Glenn Beck. "It's his vision. It's a reflection of him." ...
... The outsize success of Fox News gives Ailes a free hand to shape the network in his own image. "Murdoch has almost no involvement with it at all," says Michael Wolff, who spent nine months embedded at News Corp researching a biography of the Australian media giant. "People are afraid of Roger. Murdoch is, himself, afraid of Roger. He has amassed enormous power within the company – and within the country – from the success of Fox News."
Fear, in fact, is precisely what Ailes is selling: his network has relentlessly hyped phantom menaces such as the planned "terror mosque" near Ground Zero, inspiring Florida pastor Terry Jones to torch the Qur'an. Privately, Murdoch is as impressed by Ailes's business savvy as he is dismissive of his extremist politics. "You know Roger is crazy," Murdoch recently told a colleague, shaking his head in disbelief. "He really believes that stuff."
To watch even a day of Fox News – the anger, the bombast, the virulent paranoid streak, the unending appeals to white resentment, the reporting that is held to the same standard of evidence as a political campaign attack ad – is to see a refraction of its founder, one of the most skilled and fearsome operatives in the history of the Republican party. As a political consultant, Ailes repackaged Richard Nixon for television in 1968, papered over Ronald Reagan's budding Alzheimer's in 1984, shamelessly stoked racial fears to elect George Bush in 1988, and waged a secret campaign on behalf of Big Tobacco to derail healthcare reform in 1993. "He was the premier guy in the business," says former Reagan campaign manager Ed Rollins. "He was our Michelangelo." ...
UK riots: day four aftermath live
• Serious disorder in Manchester and west Midlands
• Murder inquiry launched in Birmingham after car hits three men
• Calm night in London as police maintain control
• Serious disorder in Manchester and west Midlands
• Murder inquiry launched in Birmingham after car hits three men
• Calm night in London as police maintain control
somehow, the Obama brain trust, a term herein used advisedly, always seems caught off guard by the ferocity, velocity and fury of the response to him. They were surprised at the verbal and physical violence of the healthcare debate, surprised at the hardiness of the birther nonsense, surprised by the stiff defense of the Bush-era tax cuts.
Now, they are surprised the GOP would rather see the U.S. economy go off a cliff than surrender the aforementioned tax cuts for rich folks. So the debt ceiling gets raised in exchange for cuts to services for the poor, who shortsightedly failed to hire lobbyists.
It is time Obama quit being surprised by the predictable, time he understood this is not politics as usual, not Ronald Reagan and Tip O’Neill snarling at one another by day and having drinks by night, like that old cartoon where the sheepdog and the coyote punch a time clock to signal the beginning and end of their hostilities. It is not Bill Clinton living in a state of permanent investigation, nor even George W. Bush being called incompetent all day every day.
No, this is a new thing, repulsion at a visceral, indeed, mitochondrial, level. Obama’s denigrators are appalled by the newness of him, the liberality of him, the exoticness of him and, yes, and the blackness of him.
“Your boy?” Really?
Sure. Why not. Didn’t Rep. Lynn Westmoreland call him “uppity?” Didn’t the ex-mayor of Los Alamitos, Calif., send out an email showing the White House with a watermelon patch? ...
Now, they are surprised the GOP would rather see the U.S. economy go off a cliff than surrender the aforementioned tax cuts for rich folks. So the debt ceiling gets raised in exchange for cuts to services for the poor, who shortsightedly failed to hire lobbyists.
It is time Obama quit being surprised by the predictable, time he understood this is not politics as usual, not Ronald Reagan and Tip O’Neill snarling at one another by day and having drinks by night, like that old cartoon where the sheepdog and the coyote punch a time clock to signal the beginning and end of their hostilities. It is not Bill Clinton living in a state of permanent investigation, nor even George W. Bush being called incompetent all day every day.
No, this is a new thing, repulsion at a visceral, indeed, mitochondrial, level. Obama’s denigrators are appalled by the newness of him, the liberality of him, the exoticness of him and, yes, and the blackness of him.
“Your boy?” Really?
Sure. Why not. Didn’t Rep. Lynn Westmoreland call him “uppity?” Didn’t the ex-mayor of Los Alamitos, Calif., send out an email showing the White House with a watermelon patch? ...
Mark Duggan, whose shooting by police sparked London's riots, did not fire a shot at police officers before they killed him, the Independent Police Complaints Commission said on Tuesday.
Releasing the initial findings of ballistics tests, the police watchdog said a CO19 firearms officer fired two bullets, and that a bullet that lodged in a police radio was "consistent with being fired from a police gun".
One theory, not confirmed by the IPCC, is that the bullet became lodged in the radio from a ricochet or after passing through Duggan.
Duggan, 29, was killed last Thursday in Tottenham, north London, after armed officers stopped the minicab in which he was travelling.
The IPCC said Duggan was carrying a loaded gun, but it had no evidence that the weapon had been fired. It said tests were continuing.
The officer who fired the fatal shots has been removed from firearms duties, which is standard procedure, pending the IPCC investigation. ...
Releasing the initial findings of ballistics tests, the police watchdog said a CO19 firearms officer fired two bullets, and that a bullet that lodged in a police radio was "consistent with being fired from a police gun".
One theory, not confirmed by the IPCC, is that the bullet became lodged in the radio from a ricochet or after passing through Duggan.
Duggan, 29, was killed last Thursday in Tottenham, north London, after armed officers stopped the minicab in which he was travelling.
The IPCC said Duggan was carrying a loaded gun, but it had no evidence that the weapon had been fired. It said tests were continuing.
The officer who fired the fatal shots has been removed from firearms duties, which is standard procedure, pending the IPCC investigation. ...
• Clashes between looters and police across London
• Violence spreads to Birmingham, Bristol and Liverpool
• Fires in Clapham, Croydon, Enfield and Peckham
• Prime minister returns early from holiday
• Twitter movement #riotcleanup gets under way
• Violence spreads to Birmingham, Bristol and Liverpool
• Fires in Clapham, Croydon, Enfield and Peckham
• Prime minister returns early from holiday
• Twitter movement #riotcleanup gets under way
• Full-scale alert as violence spreads across capital
• Disorder breaks out in Birmingham city centre
• Prime minister, mayor and home secretary return
• Disorder breaks out in Birmingham city centre
• Prime minister, mayor and home secretary return
There has been a second night of rioting across London, with violence erupting in several of the capital's boroughs, from Brixton in the south to Enfield and Islington in the north and Walthamstow to the east.
What police are calling "copycat criminal activity" – some of it apparently part of an orchestrated plan – has so far resulted in 100 arrests.
Sunday night's rioting followed disturbances on Saturday night in Tottenham, which came after the fatal shooting by police of Mark Duggan, 29, on Thursday.
In a statement on Monday morning, the Metropolitan police said they were shocked at the levels of "disgraceful violence" that had left 35 officers injured.
"Officers responding to sporadic disorder in a number of boroughs made more than 100 arrests throughout last night and early this morning.
"This is in addition to the 61 arrests made on Saturday night and Sunday morning … Officers are shocked at the outrageous level of violence directed against them. At least nine officers were injured overnight in addition to the 26 injured on Saturday night.
"We will not tolerate this disgraceful violence. The investigation continues to bring these criminals to justice."
Shops in Enfield Town and the A10 retail park were vandalised and looted, and there were reports of two vehicles set on fire.
Mounted police were seen chasing groups of masked youths, some carrying sticks, away from stores, while lines of riot police readied themselves for trouble.
At 9.30pm on Sunday Met police and reinforcements from Kent began turning the whole of Enfield into a "sterile area". Hundreds of riot police arrived with vans and police dogs, charging at groups of teenagers who disappeared into sidestreets, smashing cars and shop windows as they ran.
A large crowd of youths moved off westwards, with some teenagers saying the plan was to go to nearby Ponders End. A retail park and shops were attacked, among them a closed Tesco Extra store. Workers inside described hearing windows smashing as dozens of youths poured into the store. "They left carrying TVs, alcohol – they were stuffing trolleys," said one shop assistant.
Unlike the previous night's disturbances, this time riot police appeared on the scene in large numbers. Their stance was also more aggressive, with baton charges and dogs used to disperse crowds. ...
What police are calling "copycat criminal activity" – some of it apparently part of an orchestrated plan – has so far resulted in 100 arrests.
Sunday night's rioting followed disturbances on Saturday night in Tottenham, which came after the fatal shooting by police of Mark Duggan, 29, on Thursday.
In a statement on Monday morning, the Metropolitan police said they were shocked at the levels of "disgraceful violence" that had left 35 officers injured.
"Officers responding to sporadic disorder in a number of boroughs made more than 100 arrests throughout last night and early this morning.
"This is in addition to the 61 arrests made on Saturday night and Sunday morning … Officers are shocked at the outrageous level of violence directed against them. At least nine officers were injured overnight in addition to the 26 injured on Saturday night.
"We will not tolerate this disgraceful violence. The investigation continues to bring these criminals to justice."
Shops in Enfield Town and the A10 retail park were vandalised and looted, and there were reports of two vehicles set on fire.
Mounted police were seen chasing groups of masked youths, some carrying sticks, away from stores, while lines of riot police readied themselves for trouble.
At 9.30pm on Sunday Met police and reinforcements from Kent began turning the whole of Enfield into a "sterile area". Hundreds of riot police arrived with vans and police dogs, charging at groups of teenagers who disappeared into sidestreets, smashing cars and shop windows as they ran.
A large crowd of youths moved off westwards, with some teenagers saying the plan was to go to nearby Ponders End. A retail park and shops were attacked, among them a closed Tesco Extra store. Workers inside described hearing windows smashing as dozens of youths poured into the store. "They left carrying TVs, alcohol – they were stuffing trolleys," said one shop assistant.
Unlike the previous night's disturbances, this time riot police appeared on the scene in large numbers. Their stance was also more aggressive, with baton charges and dogs used to disperse crowds. ...
Doubts have emerged over whether Mark Duggan, whose death at the hands of police sparked the weekend's Tottenham riots, was killed during an exchange of fire .
The Guardian understands that initial ballistics tests on a bullet, found lodged in a police radio worn by an officer during Thursday's incident, suggested it was police issue – and therefore had not been fired by Duggan.
On Saturday night 26 police officers were injured, eight requiring hospital treatment, in clashes with around 300 rioters in Tottenham that saw buildings and vehicles torched, shops looted and residents forced to flee their homes.
Police have arrested 55 people as a major investigation began into the escalation of violence, which followed a peaceful demonstration to demand "justice" for Duggan, 29, a father of four shot dead on Thursday evening after being stopped in a taxi near Tottenham Hale. The Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC) has launched an inquiry into the shooting.
Initial reports from the IPCC were that during an apparent exchange of fire police officers from C019 fired two shots and Duggan died at the scene. The suggestion was that officers could have come under fire from a minicab carrying Duggan. Much of this assumption came from the fact that a bullet had lodged in a police radio worn by an officer at the scene – raising speculation he might have been fired at from the vehicle. A non-police issue handgun was also recovered at the scene where Duggan was shot dead in Ferry Road.
The latest developments come as one community organiser suggested the handgun recovered was found in a sock and therefore not ready for use. It is likely to fuel anger on the streets of Tottenham and elsewhere in London if it provides evidence that officers were not under attack at the time they opened fire on Duggan.
The IPCC said on Sunday: "We await further forensic analysis to enable us to have a fuller and more comprehensive account of what shots were discharged, the sequence of events and what exactly happened. In the meantime we would request people are patient while we seek to find answers to the questions raised by this incident."
Gutted buildings were still smouldering in Tottenham on Sunday evening. Firefighters dealt with 49 primary fires receiving 264 999 calls between 9.30pm on Saturday and 4.30am on Sunday. ...
The Guardian understands that initial ballistics tests on a bullet, found lodged in a police radio worn by an officer during Thursday's incident, suggested it was police issue – and therefore had not been fired by Duggan.
On Saturday night 26 police officers were injured, eight requiring hospital treatment, in clashes with around 300 rioters in Tottenham that saw buildings and vehicles torched, shops looted and residents forced to flee their homes.
Police have arrested 55 people as a major investigation began into the escalation of violence, which followed a peaceful demonstration to demand "justice" for Duggan, 29, a father of four shot dead on Thursday evening after being stopped in a taxi near Tottenham Hale. The Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC) has launched an inquiry into the shooting.
Initial reports from the IPCC were that during an apparent exchange of fire police officers from C019 fired two shots and Duggan died at the scene. The suggestion was that officers could have come under fire from a minicab carrying Duggan. Much of this assumption came from the fact that a bullet had lodged in a police radio worn by an officer at the scene – raising speculation he might have been fired at from the vehicle. A non-police issue handgun was also recovered at the scene where Duggan was shot dead in Ferry Road.
The latest developments come as one community organiser suggested the handgun recovered was found in a sock and therefore not ready for use. It is likely to fuel anger on the streets of Tottenham and elsewhere in London if it provides evidence that officers were not under attack at the time they opened fire on Duggan.
The IPCC said on Sunday: "We await further forensic analysis to enable us to have a fuller and more comprehensive account of what shots were discharged, the sequence of events and what exactly happened. In the meantime we would request people are patient while we seek to find answers to the questions raised by this incident."
Gutted buildings were still smouldering in Tottenham on Sunday evening. Firefighters dealt with 49 primary fires receiving 264 999 calls between 9.30pm on Saturday and 4.30am on Sunday. ...
Asked if the Metropolitan police were slow to respond to the Tottenham riots, commander Adrian Hanstock replied: "No, not at all." That account, given outside Scotland Yard on Sunday morning, did not correlate with events that had unfolded several miles away in north London hours earlier.
What began as a gathering of around 200 protesters demanding answers over the death of Mark Duggan, who was shot dead by police on Thursday, culminated 12 hours later in a full-scale riot that saw brazen looting spread across north-London suburbs.
By 5.00am, at Tottenham Hale retail park, teenagers were still emerging from shops into the dawn sunshine, stuffing bags and trolleys with stolen goods and running into back streets.
Some officers had apprehended a handful of looters; others had their phones out and were taking pictures of a burnt-out car.
At exactly the same time, looting was taking place nearly two miles away, on Wood Green high street, where approximately 100 people had spent hours burning cars and breaking into high-street shops. Some were even filling suitcases.
As for police – who had claimed to have "contained" disturbances six hours earlier – there was none in sight.
By Sunday night police said there had been 55 arrests, and 26 police officers injured. Yet what marked the weekend's disturbances were not the number of people hurt but the scale of property destruction. ...
What began as a gathering of around 200 protesters demanding answers over the death of Mark Duggan, who was shot dead by police on Thursday, culminated 12 hours later in a full-scale riot that saw brazen looting spread across north-London suburbs.
By 5.00am, at Tottenham Hale retail park, teenagers were still emerging from shops into the dawn sunshine, stuffing bags and trolleys with stolen goods and running into back streets.
Some officers had apprehended a handful of looters; others had their phones out and were taking pictures of a burnt-out car.
At exactly the same time, looting was taking place nearly two miles away, on Wood Green high street, where approximately 100 people had spent hours burning cars and breaking into high-street shops. Some were even filling suitcases.
As for police – who had claimed to have "contained" disturbances six hours earlier – there was none in sight.
By Sunday night police said there had been 55 arrests, and 26 police officers injured. Yet what marked the weekend's disturbances were not the number of people hurt but the scale of property destruction. ...
The violent riot that tore through a deprived north London neighbourhood and injured more than two dozen police officers has cast a pall over Britain's capital, spreading malaise through a city preparing to host the Olympic Games.
A peaceful protest against the fatal police shooting of a 29-year-old man degenerated into a Saturday night rampage, with rioters torching a double-decker bus, destroying patrol cars and trashing a shopping mall. Twenty-six police officers were injured, with eight of them being briefly hospitalised.
Looters descended on London's Tottenham area around midnight, setting buildings alight, and piling stolen goods into cars and shopping carts. Sirens could be heard across the capital as authorities rushed reinforcements to the scene. Police reported 46 arrests.
"This is just a glimpse into the abyss," former Metropolitan Police Commander John O'Connor told Sky News television yesterday. "Someone's pulled the clock back and you can look and see what's beneath the surface. And what with the Olympic Games coming up, this doesn't bode very well for London." ...
A peaceful protest against the fatal police shooting of a 29-year-old man degenerated into a Saturday night rampage, with rioters torching a double-decker bus, destroying patrol cars and trashing a shopping mall. Twenty-six police officers were injured, with eight of them being briefly hospitalised.
Looters descended on London's Tottenham area around midnight, setting buildings alight, and piling stolen goods into cars and shopping carts. Sirens could be heard across the capital as authorities rushed reinforcements to the scene. Police reported 46 arrests.
"This is just a glimpse into the abyss," former Metropolitan Police Commander John O'Connor told Sky News television yesterday. "Someone's pulled the clock back and you can look and see what's beneath the surface. And what with the Olympic Games coming up, this doesn't bode very well for London." ...
Record Report
Statement as of 04:25 PM EDT on July 21, 2011
Record high temperature set at Detroit, MI
A record high temperature of 100° was set at Detroit, MI today.
This breaks the old record of 97° which was set in 1926.
Statement as of 04:25 PM EDT on July 21, 2011
Record high temperature set at Detroit, MI
A record high temperature of 100° was set at Detroit, MI today.
This breaks the old record of 97° which was set in 1926.
It’s 85.2°F + 77% humidity + 77°F dew point = 96°F heat index & the clock now says it’s 2.50 AM.
A heat advisory remains in effect until 8 am EDT Wednesday. An
excessive heat watch remains in effect from Wednesday morning
through Thursday evening.
Potential effects...
* a prolonged period or consecutive days of heat can cause a
cumulative effect of heat stress to segments of the
population.
* Those prone to heat stress may suffer, especially when shade
or air conditioning is not available.
* Strenuous outdoor activity may lead to heat injuries such as
heat stroke, heat exhaustion, or heat cramps.
Hazardous weather
* temperatures tonight are only expected to drop into the upper
60s and lower 70s.
* The hottest stretch of the heat wave is expected to affect
southeastern Michigan on Wednesday and Thursday. High
temperatures are expected to range between 95 and 100 degrees
on Wednesday, with temperatures potentially reaching 100
degrees on Thursday.
* A tropical airmass is in place across southeastern Michigan.
With limited airmass modification expected, surface
dewpoints will range in the upper 60s to lower 70s.
* The combination of high heat and humidity will cause heat index
values to climb to around 100 degrees on Wednesday and between
105 and 110 degrees on Thursday. ...
We'd been getting air quality alerts all along too, also. O_o
excessive heat watch remains in effect from Wednesday morning
through Thursday evening.
Potential effects...
* a prolonged period or consecutive days of heat can cause a
cumulative effect of heat stress to segments of the
population.
* Those prone to heat stress may suffer, especially when shade
or air conditioning is not available.
* Strenuous outdoor activity may lead to heat injuries such as
heat stroke, heat exhaustion, or heat cramps.
Hazardous weather
* temperatures tonight are only expected to drop into the upper
60s and lower 70s.
* The hottest stretch of the heat wave is expected to affect
southeastern Michigan on Wednesday and Thursday. High
temperatures are expected to range between 95 and 100 degrees
on Wednesday, with temperatures potentially reaching 100
degrees on Thursday.
* A tropical airmass is in place across southeastern Michigan.
With limited airmass modification expected, surface
dewpoints will range in the upper 60s to lower 70s.
* The combination of high heat and humidity will cause heat index
values to climb to around 100 degrees on Wednesday and between
105 and 110 degrees on Thursday. ...
We'd been getting air quality alerts all along too, also. O_o
Kindle Store awash with auto-generated crap 'books'
Bargain barrelscrape rubbish obscuring decent reads
By Tim Worstall
Posted in Music and Media, 17th June 2011
Tsk, kids of today, eh? Give them something free and they spam it, thus making it all entirely unusable for the rest of us. As Reuters reports, this is now happening with the Kindle Store.
Now that you can upload an e-book, price it and sell it, for free, hordes of wouldbe publishing millionaires are doing exactly that. Except they're not actually writing books - they're just lifting them from elsewhere and hoping to collect the royalties.
The lifting can be from a variety of sources: Private Label Rights (PLR) are tales specifically marketed to be resold in this manner, perhaps under a new title or cover. There are even software packages claiming to automate much of the process and allowing the production of 10 or 20 books in a day.
There have always been those re-publishing out-of-copyright books as e-books. A favoured source was Project Gutenberg at one time. These Amazon publishers are getting more aggressive though: at least one author has found their own work being marketed under a different name.
The concern is that with reams of these spam books (spooks? Sbooks? Sblooks?) now appearing in the Kindle Store that real readers looking for real books will be put off the whole idea.
The problem is really one of economics. When sending email became essentially free we were all spammed near to death. When blog comments gained Google juju, blogs were also spammed. When it's possible to “create” and sell a book for nothing but earn royalties from anyone you can fool into buying it, splooks there will be in ever-increasing volume. ...
Bargain barrelscrape rubbish obscuring decent reads
By Tim Worstall
Posted in Music and Media, 17th June 2011
Tsk, kids of today, eh? Give them something free and they spam it, thus making it all entirely unusable for the rest of us. As Reuters reports, this is now happening with the Kindle Store.
Now that you can upload an e-book, price it and sell it, for free, hordes of wouldbe publishing millionaires are doing exactly that. Except they're not actually writing books - they're just lifting them from elsewhere and hoping to collect the royalties.
The lifting can be from a variety of sources: Private Label Rights (PLR) are tales specifically marketed to be resold in this manner, perhaps under a new title or cover. There are even software packages claiming to automate much of the process and allowing the production of 10 or 20 books in a day.
There have always been those re-publishing out-of-copyright books as e-books. A favoured source was Project Gutenberg at one time. These Amazon publishers are getting more aggressive though: at least one author has found their own work being marketed under a different name.
The concern is that with reams of these spam books (spooks? Sbooks? Sblooks?) now appearing in the Kindle Store that real readers looking for real books will be put off the whole idea.
The problem is really one of economics. When sending email became essentially free we were all spammed near to death. When blog comments gained Google juju, blogs were also spammed. When it's possible to “create” and sell a book for nothing but earn royalties from anyone you can fool into buying it, splooks there will be in ever-increasing volume. ...
see more Historic LOL
Great moments in trolling history presents: The Civil Defense Test Operation!
On the morning of December 13, 1952, tens of thousands of residents of Westchester, New York, found this newspaper on their doorsteps. There was little to indicate at first glance that the lurid headlines dealt merely with a typical “civil defense test operation.”
A leading tabloid journalist has joined those suing the News of the World for allegedly hacking into voicemails, reviving claims that the Rupert Murdoch-owned paper has been spying on its rivals to steal their stories.
According to the high court registry, Fleet Street veteran Dennis Rice has issued proceedings against the NoW and its private investigator, Glenn Mulcaire. Rice, who is now freelance, was the investigations editor at the Mail on Sunday (MoS) when Mulcaire was at the peak of his activity between 2005 and 2006.
A source familiar with Mulcaire's activities claims that, acting on orders from an NoW editorial executive, he intercepted voicemail messages from Rice and half a dozen other journalists at the MoS. They say that among other targets, the paper was keen to steal stories that Rice was filing from Germany, where England were playing in the World Cup in the summer of 2006, generating tabloid interest in the players' wives and girlfriends.
The same source said that by hacking into voicemails, Mulcaire obtained a password which would have allowed him to access the MoS internal computer system, potentially disclosing all of its email traffic and every story awaiting publication.
Some journalists who have worked for the NoW claim they were also attempting to penetrate the security of the Sun, the Daily Mail, the Daily Mirror, the Sunday Mirror and the People.
If proved, the claim could break the alliance of silence which has seen most Fleet Street papers refuse to investigate the scandal. Rice's legal action is only the latest in a number of indications that the claim may be correct. ...
According to the high court registry, Fleet Street veteran Dennis Rice has issued proceedings against the NoW and its private investigator, Glenn Mulcaire. Rice, who is now freelance, was the investigations editor at the Mail on Sunday (MoS) when Mulcaire was at the peak of his activity between 2005 and 2006.
A source familiar with Mulcaire's activities claims that, acting on orders from an NoW editorial executive, he intercepted voicemail messages from Rice and half a dozen other journalists at the MoS. They say that among other targets, the paper was keen to steal stories that Rice was filing from Germany, where England were playing in the World Cup in the summer of 2006, generating tabloid interest in the players' wives and girlfriends.
The same source said that by hacking into voicemails, Mulcaire obtained a password which would have allowed him to access the MoS internal computer system, potentially disclosing all of its email traffic and every story awaiting publication.
Some journalists who have worked for the NoW claim they were also attempting to penetrate the security of the Sun, the Daily Mail, the Daily Mirror, the Sunday Mirror and the People.
If proved, the claim could break the alliance of silence which has seen most Fleet Street papers refuse to investigate the scandal. Rice's legal action is only the latest in a number of indications that the claim may be correct. ...
... Grant...described the closeness of successive governments to the Murdoch press as "repulsive" and claimed his films, such as Love Actually, did not rely on publicity in the tabloid press for their success.
"Only one actress spoke to a newspaper in publicising that film. The tabloid press is completely unnecessary in my industry," said Grant.
He added that a film's success was 97% down to a good film, 2% to publicity material such as a trailer and 1% publicity in the press. "Almost no one will talk to the tabloid press," he said.
"People who have a bit of success in life will do anything in the world to avoid talking to a tabloid newspaper."
Warming to his theme, Grant said: "So little do we need the tabloid press that if I won a big libel case against a tabloid I wouldn't [want money], I would want an assurance that they would never mention my name again.
"We don't need them. The sooner they go out of business the better. They rely almost entirely on stealing people's privacy. Those journalists might go back to proper journalism in six or 12 months. They might actually be grateful ... they might feel better about themselves."
He added: "Basically they have all gone down the easy route, especially in the digital age. They just steal someone's privacy and sell it for money." ...
"Only one actress spoke to a newspaper in publicising that film. The tabloid press is completely unnecessary in my industry," said Grant.
He added that a film's success was 97% down to a good film, 2% to publicity material such as a trailer and 1% publicity in the press. "Almost no one will talk to the tabloid press," he said.
"People who have a bit of success in life will do anything in the world to avoid talking to a tabloid newspaper."
Warming to his theme, Grant said: "So little do we need the tabloid press that if I won a big libel case against a tabloid I wouldn't [want money], I would want an assurance that they would never mention my name again.
"We don't need them. The sooner they go out of business the better. They rely almost entirely on stealing people's privacy. Those journalists might go back to proper journalism in six or 12 months. They might actually be grateful ... they might feel better about themselves."
He added: "Basically they have all gone down the easy route, especially in the digital age. They just steal someone's privacy and sell it for money." ...
Talks on resolving the European debt crisis have been plunged into disarray after the head of the International Monetary Fund, Dominique Strauss-Kahn, was arrested and charged with sexually assaulting and attempting to rape a maid in a New York hotel.
Strauss-Kahn, 62, was taken from the first class cabin of a Paris-bound Air France flight at JFK airport by plainclothes officers before Manhattan police formally arrested him on charges of a criminal sexual act, attempted rape and unlawful imprisonment.
The charges threatened to create a leadership vacuum at the IMF, overseer of the global economy, and threw open next year's French presidential election, ending the hopes of the French Socialist who was favourite to beat Nicolas Sarkozy.
The allegation is a major embarrassment to the IMF, which has authorised billions of dollars of lending to troubled countries and played a major role in the eurozone debt crisis. The arrest will cast a cloud over the IMF's role in addressing the rescues and is likely to have a major impact on stock markets as traders react to yet more uncertainty in Europe.
Strauss-Kahn had been flying to Europe to discuss the worsening European debt crisis. He had been scheduled to meet the German chancellor, Angela Merkel, on Sunday and European financial ministers on Monday and Tuesday. The IMF leader was to have discussed how best to tackle Greece's worsening debt crisis and finalise Portugal's €78bn bailout package.
A senior Greek government official said the arrest would not change the IMF's policy in Greece but could cause delays in the short term. The IMF-led bailout has become increasingly unpopular with other IMF members amid growing doubts about the Greek government's ability and resolve to meet the commitments of the international aid package. ...
Strauss-Kahn, 62, was taken from the first class cabin of a Paris-bound Air France flight at JFK airport by plainclothes officers before Manhattan police formally arrested him on charges of a criminal sexual act, attempted rape and unlawful imprisonment.
The charges threatened to create a leadership vacuum at the IMF, overseer of the global economy, and threw open next year's French presidential election, ending the hopes of the French Socialist who was favourite to beat Nicolas Sarkozy.
The allegation is a major embarrassment to the IMF, which has authorised billions of dollars of lending to troubled countries and played a major role in the eurozone debt crisis. The arrest will cast a cloud over the IMF's role in addressing the rescues and is likely to have a major impact on stock markets as traders react to yet more uncertainty in Europe.
Strauss-Kahn had been flying to Europe to discuss the worsening European debt crisis. He had been scheduled to meet the German chancellor, Angela Merkel, on Sunday and European financial ministers on Monday and Tuesday. The IMF leader was to have discussed how best to tackle Greece's worsening debt crisis and finalise Portugal's €78bn bailout package.
A senior Greek government official said the arrest would not change the IMF's policy in Greece but could cause delays in the short term. The IMF-led bailout has become increasingly unpopular with other IMF members amid growing doubts about the Greek government's ability and resolve to meet the commitments of the international aid package. ...
... The allegations spread panic among the left at an extremely awkward time in the runup to the Socialist party's internal battle for a candidate to beat Nicolas Sarkozy. Strauss-Kahn, seen as the biggest danger to Sarkozy, had already been accused of being a champagne socialist in what his allies said was a concerted campaign against him. When Moscovici recently warned against the use of "stink bombs" in the political campaign, many read between the lines that it was a warning about political opponents digging up aspects of Strauss-Kahn's private life and relationship with women.
The far-right politician Marine Le Pen said Strauss-Kahn's arrest in New York meant he could no longer run for president. "All of Paris – journalistic Paris, political Paris – has been abuzz for months about the rather pathological relationship that Mr Strauss-Kahn maintains towards women," she said. One rightwing MP from Sarkozy's ruling party compared Strauss-Kahn to JR in the soap opera Dallas.
The full implications of the shame raised by the allegations, on not just the Socialist party but the whole French political class, was apparent in New York's Daily News's headline: "Le Perv".
The far-right politician Marine Le Pen said Strauss-Kahn's arrest in New York meant he could no longer run for president. "All of Paris – journalistic Paris, political Paris – has been abuzz for months about the rather pathological relationship that Mr Strauss-Kahn maintains towards women," she said. One rightwing MP from Sarkozy's ruling party compared Strauss-Kahn to JR in the soap opera Dallas.
The full implications of the shame raised by the allegations, on not just the Socialist party but the whole French political class, was apparent in New York's Daily News's headline: "Le Perv".
Even for the Lincoln Centre it was an unusual show, and an unscheduled one. Several hundred protesters turned up outside the arts complex on Manhattan's Upper West Side last week for the guerrilla screening of a short film. From a hotel on the other side of the street, a video was projected on to the centre's walls. The unwitting stars of the films were David and Charles Koch, the reclusive rightwing billionaire brothers whose secretive empire and network of influence and funding is emerging as a liberal rallying cause in America.
As bemused theatregoers watched the boisterous crowd, the videos depicted facts and figure showing Koch support for Tea Party groups, global warming sceptics and thinktanks seeking to strip away regulations on the environment, cut social security and oppose healthcare reform. On the David H Koch Theatre in the complex – renamed when one of the brothers donated $100m (£62m) in 2008 – activists climbed a ladder to post a giant sticker above the sign bearing Koch's name. "I am the Tea Party's wallet," it read. When the police vans finally arrived, the activists had gone.
For Koch Industries, one of the largest private businesses in America, it was another attempt by liberal groups to drag it into the public eye over accusations that it is corrupting US politics in pursuit of its business interests. There have been lengthy magazine articles investigating its activities, growing protests and a legion of bloggers scouring the company's every move. ...
As bemused theatregoers watched the boisterous crowd, the videos depicted facts and figure showing Koch support for Tea Party groups, global warming sceptics and thinktanks seeking to strip away regulations on the environment, cut social security and oppose healthcare reform. On the David H Koch Theatre in the complex – renamed when one of the brothers donated $100m (£62m) in 2008 – activists climbed a ladder to post a giant sticker above the sign bearing Koch's name. "I am the Tea Party's wallet," it read. When the police vans finally arrived, the activists had gone.
For Koch Industries, one of the largest private businesses in America, it was another attempt by liberal groups to drag it into the public eye over accusations that it is corrupting US politics in pursuit of its business interests. There have been lengthy magazine articles investigating its activities, growing protests and a legion of bloggers scouring the company's every move. ...
Dominique Strauss-Kahn, the head of the International Monetary Fund and the man French Socialists hope will be the next occupant of the Elysée Palace, was arrested at JFK airport in New York on Saturday afternoon accused of a sex attack on a Times Square hotel maid earlier in the day.
He was taken off an Air France flight by officers from the Port Authority of New York and turned over to Manhattan police, according to a spokesman from the agency. Plainclothes officers boarded the flight at 4.45pm, moments before take-off, and took the 62-year-old out of the first-class cabin and into custody. He had been due to meet German chancellor Angela Merkel on Sunday.
"It was 10 minutes before its scheduled departure," said John Kelly, a Port Authority spokesman.
Port Authority officers were acting on information from the New York Police Department, whose detectives had been investigating a brutal alleged attack on a woman employee at the Sofitel New York on West 44th Street in the heart of the city's theatre district.
The 32-year-old woman told police that she entered Strauss-Kahn's room at about 1pm on Saturday and he emerged from the bedroom naked, threw her down and tried to sexually assault her, NYPD spokesman Paul Browne said. She broke free and escaped the room and told hotel staff what had happened who called the police.
When New York City police detectives arrived moments later, Strauss-Kahn had already left the hotel, leaving behind his mobile phone and other personal items. "It looked like he got out of there in a hurry," Browne added. ...
He was taken off an Air France flight by officers from the Port Authority of New York and turned over to Manhattan police, according to a spokesman from the agency. Plainclothes officers boarded the flight at 4.45pm, moments before take-off, and took the 62-year-old out of the first-class cabin and into custody. He had been due to meet German chancellor Angela Merkel on Sunday.
"It was 10 minutes before its scheduled departure," said John Kelly, a Port Authority spokesman.
Port Authority officers were acting on information from the New York Police Department, whose detectives had been investigating a brutal alleged attack on a woman employee at the Sofitel New York on West 44th Street in the heart of the city's theatre district.
The 32-year-old woman told police that she entered Strauss-Kahn's room at about 1pm on Saturday and he emerged from the bedroom naked, threw her down and tried to sexually assault her, NYPD spokesman Paul Browne said. She broke free and escaped the room and told hotel staff what had happened who called the police.
When New York City police detectives arrived moments later, Strauss-Kahn had already left the hotel, leaving behind his mobile phone and other personal items. "It looked like he got out of there in a hurry," Browne added. ...
Disabled people have faced greater hostility from the public since the government launched its controversial benefits reforms, according to a survey by a leading charity.
A majority said that they experienced hostility, discrimination and even physical attacks from strangers every week and more than a third claimed the position had worsened over the previous 12 months.
Victims blame ministers for portraying all people with disabilities as scroungers as they seek to cut the number of people on the disability living allowance, the benefit now given to 1.9 million people deemed physically unable to work.
The government has presented changes, including the introduction of medical and psychological tests for those claiming the allowance, as a way of getting tough on people who are cheating the system. But Scope, a charity for disabled people, which commissioned the survey, said there was powerful evidence that the "backdrop of negativity" behind the cuts was leading to a rise in hostility and even violence towards some of the most vulnerable in society.
In the survey, 37% of people with disabilities claimed they were increasingly being abused in the streets, erroneously reported to the benefits fraud hotline and accosted when trying to use parking spaces for the disabled. Nearly two- thirds thought others did not believe they were disabled and half of respondents said they felt others presumed they did not work. Around two-thirds of the 676 surveyed said that they expected to experience discrimination when trying to find a job, and more than half expected to be discriminated against in the workplace.
The findings follow last week's protest by several thousand disabled people through London over cuts to services and benefits provided by central and local government. David Gillon, 47, from Chatham, Kent, who suffers from a debilitating back condition, told the Observer he was left distraught when he was recently reported to the Department for Work and Pensions' fraud hotline.
"I spend only about four hours a week outside the house, but I was contacted by the DWP recently because someone had anonymously reported me for cheating," he said. ...
A majority said that they experienced hostility, discrimination and even physical attacks from strangers every week and more than a third claimed the position had worsened over the previous 12 months.
Victims blame ministers for portraying all people with disabilities as scroungers as they seek to cut the number of people on the disability living allowance, the benefit now given to 1.9 million people deemed physically unable to work.
The government has presented changes, including the introduction of medical and psychological tests for those claiming the allowance, as a way of getting tough on people who are cheating the system. But Scope, a charity for disabled people, which commissioned the survey, said there was powerful evidence that the "backdrop of negativity" behind the cuts was leading to a rise in hostility and even violence towards some of the most vulnerable in society.
In the survey, 37% of people with disabilities claimed they were increasingly being abused in the streets, erroneously reported to the benefits fraud hotline and accosted when trying to use parking spaces for the disabled. Nearly two- thirds thought others did not believe they were disabled and half of respondents said they felt others presumed they did not work. Around two-thirds of the 676 surveyed said that they expected to experience discrimination when trying to find a job, and more than half expected to be discriminated against in the workplace.
The findings follow last week's protest by several thousand disabled people through London over cuts to services and benefits provided by central and local government. David Gillon, 47, from Chatham, Kent, who suffers from a debilitating back condition, told the Observer he was left distraught when he was recently reported to the Department for Work and Pensions' fraud hotline.
"I spend only about four hours a week outside the house, but I was contacted by the DWP recently because someone had anonymously reported me for cheating," he said. ...
Libyan regime accused of exploiting boat people
Muammar Gaddafi's officials admit unseaworthy migrant ships are being allowed to sail in protest at Nato air strikes
Muammar Gaddafi's officials admit unseaworthy migrant ships are being allowed to sail in protest at Nato air strikes
Yemeni forces have opened fire on demonstrators in three major cities, killing at least 18 and wounding hundreds in one of the fiercest bouts of violence witnessed in nearly three months of popular unrest aimed at toppling President Ali Abdullah Saleh.
The clashes between a defected faction of Yemen's army and the republican guard, have raised fears that Yemen may be reaching a critical juncture as public fury continues to mount at the president's refusal to step down.
Violence broke out in the capital when a throng of 2,000 protesters tore away from the main sit-in area at Sana'a University and surged en masse towards the cabinet building in downtown Sana'a with shouts of "God is great" and "Allah rid us of this tyrant".
As they neared their destination they were halted by republican guards who, after trying to disperse them with tear gas and water cannons, began firing live rounds at the crowd.
Soldiers positioned on the balconies and roofs of nearby houses rained bullets down on the angry mob of protesters, who responded by hurling chunks of broken-off paving slabs.
The standoff, which lasted for around four hours, climaxed when soldiers loyal to a defected general, Major Ali Mohsin, arrived in pickup trucks and began returning fire at Saleh's troops.
It was the first time the two sides have clashed in the capital since Mohsin declared his support for the opposition in late March.
Local press reported that a lieutenant colonel, Yahya Muhammad al-Ansi, belonging to the rebel general's first armoured division, was killed in the clashes. ...
The clashes between a defected faction of Yemen's army and the republican guard, have raised fears that Yemen may be reaching a critical juncture as public fury continues to mount at the president's refusal to step down.
Violence broke out in the capital when a throng of 2,000 protesters tore away from the main sit-in area at Sana'a University and surged en masse towards the cabinet building in downtown Sana'a with shouts of "God is great" and "Allah rid us of this tyrant".
As they neared their destination they were halted by republican guards who, after trying to disperse them with tear gas and water cannons, began firing live rounds at the crowd.
Soldiers positioned on the balconies and roofs of nearby houses rained bullets down on the angry mob of protesters, who responded by hurling chunks of broken-off paving slabs.
The standoff, which lasted for around four hours, climaxed when soldiers loyal to a defected general, Major Ali Mohsin, arrived in pickup trucks and began returning fire at Saleh's troops.
It was the first time the two sides have clashed in the capital since Mohsin declared his support for the opposition in late March.
Local press reported that a lieutenant colonel, Yahya Muhammad al-Ansi, belonging to the rebel general's first armoured division, was killed in the clashes. ...
... Julie Fernandez, who played Brenda in The Office, said the government should be doing more to help disabled people who want to work. A wheelchair user, she said: "The government want to get people into employment in principle, but we are living in a recession and the business community don't see disabled people as viable employees.
"They see us as people who are going to be taking time off sick or who aren't intelligent enough. They should stop penalising disabled people and start making the business community and public transport more accessible."Fernandez, 37, from Huntingdon, Cambridgeshire, said the film and TV industry was "incredibly discriminatory" as it was still seen as acceptable to have able-bodied actors playing disabled characters. "There are millions of people across the UK with permanent disabilities. They need to be supported – they don't need to be living in fear of having their benefits taken away."
Carrying a black coffin with the words "disability equality" on the side, Mary Carr, 46, accused the government of "demonising disabled people".
Carr said: "I'm fortunate in that I can hold down a job. I have access to work support and the government pays for taxis to take me to work. They haven't cut that, but the warning signs are there.
"A lot of my disabled colleagues have lost their jobs, because in public services they are targeting local offices and disabled people can't travel to get to other places. We signed up to the European convention for people with disabilities, but if you go through the effects of the cuts – transport, education, housing – all the rights I have to take part in society are being eroded. It's the poor and disabled who are more reliant on the public sector." Sheila Gardiner, 62, from Derbyshire, was a book keeper until she had a stroke five years ago. Now unable to walk or transfer from her wheelchair unaided, she lives in a Leonard Cheshire disability care home, and currently gets £49.85 DLA support every week, which is under threat. Gardiner said: "Britain is going backwards towards Victorian times when people were either very rich or very poor."
The Hardest Hit march was organised by the UK Disabled People's Council and the Disability Benefits Consortium, and was supported by organisations including Mind, Mencap RNIB and Sense. ...
"They see us as people who are going to be taking time off sick or who aren't intelligent enough. They should stop penalising disabled people and start making the business community and public transport more accessible."Fernandez, 37, from Huntingdon, Cambridgeshire, said the film and TV industry was "incredibly discriminatory" as it was still seen as acceptable to have able-bodied actors playing disabled characters. "There are millions of people across the UK with permanent disabilities. They need to be supported – they don't need to be living in fear of having their benefits taken away."
Carrying a black coffin with the words "disability equality" on the side, Mary Carr, 46, accused the government of "demonising disabled people".
Carr said: "I'm fortunate in that I can hold down a job. I have access to work support and the government pays for taxis to take me to work. They haven't cut that, but the warning signs are there.
"A lot of my disabled colleagues have lost their jobs, because in public services they are targeting local offices and disabled people can't travel to get to other places. We signed up to the European convention for people with disabilities, but if you go through the effects of the cuts – transport, education, housing – all the rights I have to take part in society are being eroded. It's the poor and disabled who are more reliant on the public sector." Sheila Gardiner, 62, from Derbyshire, was a book keeper until she had a stroke five years ago. Now unable to walk or transfer from her wheelchair unaided, she lives in a Leonard Cheshire disability care home, and currently gets £49.85 DLA support every week, which is under threat. Gardiner said: "Britain is going backwards towards Victorian times when people were either very rich or very poor."
The Hardest Hit march was organised by the UK Disabled People's Council and the Disability Benefits Consortium, and was supported by organisations including Mind, Mencap RNIB and Sense. ...
An earthquake struck the south-eastern Spanish city of Lorca on Wednesday, killing at least 10 people and injuring dozens amid scenes of chaos caused by the country's worst quake for half a century.
Falling bell towers, walls and masonry brought panic to the streets of a small city that lies in an area known for minor earthquakes, but where residents could not recall such an intense quake in living memory.
The earthquake was magnitude 5.1 and came at 6.47pm local time, almost two hours after a 4.4 magnitude quake had already caused considerable damage and forced many people out of their homes into the city's streets.
The quake was felt in the neighbouring provinces of Almería, Granada and Albacete, but the worst of the damage was done in Lorca, in the province of Murcia, where people were staying outside as aftershocks struck. Up to 10,000 people were expected to camp out at the city's fairground.
More than 300 troops and extra police with search and rescue teams were being drafted into the city to look for the dead and injured and clear away the rubble.
City mayor Francisco Jódar called for water, blankets, food and mattresses to be brought in from neighbouring towns.
"People don't dare go back into their homes. I can't tell them to go home and spend the night there as I can't promise them that there will not be another quake," he said.
A reporter broadcasting live for state television station TVE narrowly escaped being hit by the facade of a church's falling bell tower. ...
Falling bell towers, walls and masonry brought panic to the streets of a small city that lies in an area known for minor earthquakes, but where residents could not recall such an intense quake in living memory.
The earthquake was magnitude 5.1 and came at 6.47pm local time, almost two hours after a 4.4 magnitude quake had already caused considerable damage and forced many people out of their homes into the city's streets.
The quake was felt in the neighbouring provinces of Almería, Granada and Albacete, but the worst of the damage was done in Lorca, in the province of Murcia, where people were staying outside as aftershocks struck. Up to 10,000 people were expected to camp out at the city's fairground.
More than 300 troops and extra police with search and rescue teams were being drafted into the city to look for the dead and injured and clear away the rubble.
City mayor Francisco Jódar called for water, blankets, food and mattresses to be brought in from neighbouring towns.
"People don't dare go back into their homes. I can't tell them to go home and spend the night there as I can't promise them that there will not be another quake," he said.
A reporter broadcasting live for state television station TVE narrowly escaped being hit by the facade of a church's falling bell tower. ...
The great corporate tax swindle
It's astounding how our politicians have bought in to firms' tax blackmail. But there is an alternative: workplace democracy
It's astounding how our politicians have bought in to firms' tax blackmail. But there is an alternative: workplace democracy
Financial Services Authority wants banks to speed up PPI payouts
• Barclays sets aside £1bn to cover compensation
• British Bankers Association drops case
• Payment protection insurance wrongly sold to millions
• Barclays sets aside £1bn to cover compensation
• British Bankers Association drops case
• Payment protection insurance wrongly sold to millions
Ian Tomlinson death: IPCC rules Met officer 'reckless' in conduct
Detective Inspector Eddie Hall falsely claimed Tomlinson fell down before encountering PC Simon Harwood
Detective Inspector Eddie Hall falsely claimed Tomlinson fell down before encountering PC Simon Harwood
Britain's wealthiest residents have recouped their losses from the financial crisis and are now just short of the record registered before the 2008 financial crash.
While most of the country struggles through the fallout from recession and government cuts, the UK's 1,000 richest people are now worth £396bn, according to the latest Sunday Times Rich List. That figure is just 4% below that recorded at the height of the boom in 2008, before the financial crisis hammered large dents in many fortunes.
There are now 73 sterling billionaires, an increase of 20 on last year's total and just two short of the all-time high. Meanwhile, a fortune of at least £70m is required to feature among the country's 1,000 richest, up from £55m in 2009 and £63m in 2010.
Chuka Umunna, a Labour MP and member of the Treasury select committee, said: "Clearly we are not all in this together. In this time of austerity many independent experts such as the Institute for Fiscal Studies have found that the impact is falling heavier on lower-income families and middle Britain.
"It is not indulging in the politics of envy to say that you want to find a more fair and equitable society. The challenge is to find a system that doesn't just work for the wealthy but also works for everybody else more effectively." ...
While most of the country struggles through the fallout from recession and government cuts, the UK's 1,000 richest people are now worth £396bn, according to the latest Sunday Times Rich List. That figure is just 4% below that recorded at the height of the boom in 2008, before the financial crisis hammered large dents in many fortunes.
There are now 73 sterling billionaires, an increase of 20 on last year's total and just two short of the all-time high. Meanwhile, a fortune of at least £70m is required to feature among the country's 1,000 richest, up from £55m in 2009 and £63m in 2010.
Chuka Umunna, a Labour MP and member of the Treasury select committee, said: "Clearly we are not all in this together. In this time of austerity many independent experts such as the Institute for Fiscal Studies have found that the impact is falling heavier on lower-income families and middle Britain.
"It is not indulging in the politics of envy to say that you want to find a more fair and equitable society. The challenge is to find a system that doesn't just work for the wealthy but also works for everybody else more effectively." ...
Iran helping Syrian regime crack down on protesters, say diplomats
Claim comes as four women shot dead by security forces in first use of violence against an all-female demonstration
Claim comes as four women shot dead by security forces in first use of violence against an all-female demonstration
Syrian tanks move into city of Homs
12-year-old boy reported killed as residents describe hearing gunfire and shelling
12-year-old boy reported killed as residents describe hearing gunfire and shelling
Some black holes may be older than time
Friday, 6 May 2011 Stuart Gary
ABC
An intriguing new hypothesis suggests some black holes could have formed before the formation of our universe.
The work by Professor Bernard Carr from Queen Mary University in London and Professor Alan Coley from Canada's Dalhousie University, examines a cosmology in which the universe goes through cycles of birth and death.
According to their work published on the pre-press website arXiv.org, some black holes could be remnants of a previous universe that collapsed in a big crunch and was then reborn in the big bang - 13.7 billion years ago.
Called primordial black holes, they would be formed in the hyper dense conditions existing in the moments after the big bang. That makes them even more exotic than other black holes formed from the collapse of massive stars or at the centre of galaxies.
Carr and Coley say if the universe expands and contracts in cycles of big bangs and big crunches, some primordial black holes may survive.
They reached their conclusion after thinking about what might happen in the moments before a big crunch.
Rather than everything merging back into a singularity, Coley and Carr speculate the densities reached as the universe transitions from big crunch to big bang mean primordial black holes between a few hundred million kilograms and about the mass of our Sun could survive as separate entities.
So far primordial black holes only exist in theory, and even if scientists do eventually detect one, Carr and Coley admit there would be no way of determining if it was born in our universe or came from a previous epoch. ...
Shiva opens his eyes, a Universe is born.
Shiva closes his eyes, the Universe dies.
Shiva opens his eyes, a Universe is born.
Shiva closes his eyes, the Universe dies........
Ad infinitum, eh?
The Doctor might have a different explanation.
Maybe he'd just say it's all wibbly-wobbly timey-wimey stuff.
Ta much, dear MSiegel
Friday, 6 May 2011 Stuart Gary
ABC
An intriguing new hypothesis suggests some black holes could have formed before the formation of our universe.
The work by Professor Bernard Carr from Queen Mary University in London and Professor Alan Coley from Canada's Dalhousie University, examines a cosmology in which the universe goes through cycles of birth and death.
According to their work published on the pre-press website arXiv.org, some black holes could be remnants of a previous universe that collapsed in a big crunch and was then reborn in the big bang - 13.7 billion years ago.
Called primordial black holes, they would be formed in the hyper dense conditions existing in the moments after the big bang. That makes them even more exotic than other black holes formed from the collapse of massive stars or at the centre of galaxies.
Carr and Coley say if the universe expands and contracts in cycles of big bangs and big crunches, some primordial black holes may survive.
They reached their conclusion after thinking about what might happen in the moments before a big crunch.
Rather than everything merging back into a singularity, Coley and Carr speculate the densities reached as the universe transitions from big crunch to big bang mean primordial black holes between a few hundred million kilograms and about the mass of our Sun could survive as separate entities.
So far primordial black holes only exist in theory, and even if scientists do eventually detect one, Carr and Coley admit there would be no way of determining if it was born in our universe or came from a previous epoch. ...
Shiva opens his eyes, a Universe is born.
Shiva closes his eyes, the Universe dies.
Shiva opens his eyes, a Universe is born.
Shiva closes his eyes, the Universe dies........
Ad infinitum, eh?
The Doctor might have a different explanation.
Maybe he'd just say it's all wibbly-wobbly timey-wimey stuff.
Ta much, dear MSiegel
Nice one. Thanks a lot.
Riots have swept across the Ugandan capital, Kampala, in the biggest anti-government protest in sub-Saharan Africa so far this year.
Security forces have launched a brutal crackdown, opening fire on unarmed civilians with live rounds, rubber bullets and teargas. Two people have been killed, more than 120 wounded and around 360 arrested. Women and girls have been among those beaten, according to witnesses.
Two weeks of growing unrest – sparked by rising food and fuel prices – have gained fresh impetus after the violent arrest of the opposition leader Kizza Besigye on Thursday. Critics say President Yoweri Museveni, in power for 25 years, is losing his grip. They claim his wildly disproportionate crackdown on Besigye's "walk to work" protests smacks of panic and is sowing the seeds of popular revolt.
"I thought the police were going to kill me," said Andrew Kibwka, 18, after police with heavy sticks rained blows on him. "I was telling them I'm harmless but they just carried on. I did nothing to provoke them. They beat me because I was running away."
Some point to the political earthquakes in Tunisia, Egypt and Libya, and wonder if the aftershocks could reach tyrannies south of the Sahara. Already there are pockets of unrest from Burkina Faso to Senegal to Swaziland. Even South Africa, reputed anchor of the continent, is tormented by deadly protests over poor public service delivery.
In Uganda there is an inchoate revolution struggling to be born. Protests have spread to several towns, leaving seven people dead and hundreds in jail. The riots, in which roads have been barricaded with burning tyres and vehicles pelted with rocks, mark a new level of defiance. Facebook and Twitter, which the government unsuccessfully tried to block, are reverberating with dissent. Museveni's heavyhanded attempts to put out the fire only appear to be fanning its flames. ...
Security forces have launched a brutal crackdown, opening fire on unarmed civilians with live rounds, rubber bullets and teargas. Two people have been killed, more than 120 wounded and around 360 arrested. Women and girls have been among those beaten, according to witnesses.
Two weeks of growing unrest – sparked by rising food and fuel prices – have gained fresh impetus after the violent arrest of the opposition leader Kizza Besigye on Thursday. Critics say President Yoweri Museveni, in power for 25 years, is losing his grip. They claim his wildly disproportionate crackdown on Besigye's "walk to work" protests smacks of panic and is sowing the seeds of popular revolt.
"I thought the police were going to kill me," said Andrew Kibwka, 18, after police with heavy sticks rained blows on him. "I was telling them I'm harmless but they just carried on. I did nothing to provoke them. They beat me because I was running away."
Some point to the political earthquakes in Tunisia, Egypt and Libya, and wonder if the aftershocks could reach tyrannies south of the Sahara. Already there are pockets of unrest from Burkina Faso to Senegal to Swaziland. Even South Africa, reputed anchor of the continent, is tormented by deadly protests over poor public service delivery.
In Uganda there is an inchoate revolution struggling to be born. Protests have spread to several towns, leaving seven people dead and hundreds in jail. The riots, in which roads have been barricaded with burning tyres and vehicles pelted with rocks, mark a new level of defiance. Facebook and Twitter, which the government unsuccessfully tried to block, are reverberating with dissent. Museveni's heavyhanded attempts to put out the fire only appear to be fanning its flames. ...
Syrian security forces opened fire on a demonstration on Friday in the coastal city of Latakia – the heartland of the ruling elite – wounding at least five people as thousands took to the streets in several places across the country, witnesses said.
President Bashar al-Assad's regime has stepped up its deadly crackdown on protesters in recent days by unleashing the army along with snipers and tanks. On Friday protesters came out in their thousands, defying the crackdown and using it as a rallying cry.
A witness in Latakia said about 1,000 people turned out for an anti-government rally when plainclothes security agents with automatic rifles opened fire. He said he saw at least five people wounded. Like many witnesses contacted by the Associated Press, he asked that his name not be used for fear of reprisal.
Other demonstrations were reported in Banias and in the north-eastern city of Qamishli.
The government had warned against holding any demonstrations on Friday. Syrian state television said the interior ministry had not approved any "march, demonstration or sit-ins" and that such rallies sought only to harm Syria's security and stability.
Many of the protests were held in remembrance of more than 50 people killed in the last week alone in Deraa, a southern city at the centre of the revolt. Deraa has been under military siege since Monday when thousands of soldiers stormed in backed by tanks and snipers.
A devastating picture has been emerging from the city – which is largely sealed off, without electricity and telephones – as residents flee to neighbouring countries. ...
President Bashar al-Assad's regime has stepped up its deadly crackdown on protesters in recent days by unleashing the army along with snipers and tanks. On Friday protesters came out in their thousands, defying the crackdown and using it as a rallying cry.
A witness in Latakia said about 1,000 people turned out for an anti-government rally when plainclothes security agents with automatic rifles opened fire. He said he saw at least five people wounded. Like many witnesses contacted by the Associated Press, he asked that his name not be used for fear of reprisal.
Other demonstrations were reported in Banias and in the north-eastern city of Qamishli.
The government had warned against holding any demonstrations on Friday. Syrian state television said the interior ministry had not approved any "march, demonstration or sit-ins" and that such rallies sought only to harm Syria's security and stability.
Many of the protests were held in remembrance of more than 50 people killed in the last week alone in Deraa, a southern city at the centre of the revolt. Deraa has been under military siege since Monday when thousands of soldiers stormed in backed by tanks and snipers.
A devastating picture has been emerging from the city – which is largely sealed off, without electricity and telephones – as residents flee to neighbouring countries. ...
The Metropolitan police has admitted that during the first four years of the phone-hacking affair it warned only 36 people they may have been targeted by the News of the World's private investigator Glenn Mulcaire.
Scotland Yard's latest inquiry, which was launched in January, is believed to be contacting up to 4,000 people whose names and personal details were found in Mulcaire's possession during the original police investigation in 2006.
The disclosure of the number – which Scotland Yard had previously insisted on keeping secret – exposes the Met to the complaint that it breached an agreement with the director of public prosecutions that it would warn all "potential victims" in the affair.
It will also revive criticism that it has consistently played down the scale of criminal activity commissioned by the News of the World.
Scotland Yard has previously repeatedly refused to disclose the number of victims it had warned, rejecting applications under the Freedom of Information Act on the grounds that releasing it would necessarily disclose the identities of those warned, and that this would breach their privacy.
However, in a sharp change of policy, the Met's acting deputy commissioner, John Yates, volunteered that during the 2006 inquiry police had warned 28 people they may have been victims; and that after the Guardian revived the affair in July 2009 they warned eight more.
In a letter to John Whittingdale, chairman of the culture, media and sport select committee, Yates – who was responsible for dealing with the hacking affair for nearly 20 months – gave no explanation for the failure to inform more than 36 potential victims. He said: "I have accepted that more could and should have been done in relation to those who may have been potential victims." ...
Scotland Yard's latest inquiry, which was launched in January, is believed to be contacting up to 4,000 people whose names and personal details were found in Mulcaire's possession during the original police investigation in 2006.
The disclosure of the number – which Scotland Yard had previously insisted on keeping secret – exposes the Met to the complaint that it breached an agreement with the director of public prosecutions that it would warn all "potential victims" in the affair.
It will also revive criticism that it has consistently played down the scale of criminal activity commissioned by the News of the World.
Scotland Yard has previously repeatedly refused to disclose the number of victims it had warned, rejecting applications under the Freedom of Information Act on the grounds that releasing it would necessarily disclose the identities of those warned, and that this would breach their privacy.
However, in a sharp change of policy, the Met's acting deputy commissioner, John Yates, volunteered that during the 2006 inquiry police had warned 28 people they may have been victims; and that after the Guardian revived the affair in July 2009 they warned eight more.
In a letter to John Whittingdale, chairman of the culture, media and sport select committee, Yates – who was responsible for dealing with the hacking affair for nearly 20 months – gave no explanation for the failure to inform more than 36 potential victims. He said: "I have accepted that more could and should have been done in relation to those who may have been potential victims." ...
Afghanistan's great escape: how 480 Taliban prisoners broke out of jail
It may not have been Stalag Luft III, but the escape from Sarpoza prison in Kandahar was pretty ingenious
Can you say, "Inside job," girls and boys?
I knew you could.
It may not have been Stalag Luft III, but the escape from Sarpoza prison in Kandahar was pretty ingenious
Can you say, "Inside job," girls and boys?
I knew you could.
The White House is preparing to introduce new sanctions against the Syrian regime in response to a military crackdown that saw tanks and armoured cars deployed against protesters on Monday.
The Obama administration condemned "the brutal violence used by the government of Syria", describing it as deplorable, and adding: "The United States is pursuing a range of possible policy options, including targeted sanctions, to respond to the crackdown and make clear that this behaviour is unacceptable."
Human rights groups estimate that about 350 people have died so far in Syria, 100 of them on Friday. Troops mounted a major assault Monday on Deraa, the city where the uprising began a month ago, and Douma, a suburb of Damascus.
It was apparently the first time that tanks have been used. Ammar Qurabi, head of the National Organisation for Human Rights in Syria, who is in exile in Egypt, was quoted by Reuters as saying at least 18 people died in Deraa alone.
The US, having announced sanctions unilaterally, is putting pressure on the UK and other European countries to impose sanctions against the Syrian regime.
The US treasury department and other American agencies are discussing freezing the assets of senior officials accused of human rights abuses and banning them from travelling to the US or doing business there. Such sanctions are mainly symbolic, as the US has long had stringent measures in place against Syria and has little trade with the country. Sanctions by European countries, with whom Syria has extensive trade, would have more impact and several members of the Syrian government have assets in Europe. ...
The Obama administration condemned "the brutal violence used by the government of Syria", describing it as deplorable, and adding: "The United States is pursuing a range of possible policy options, including targeted sanctions, to respond to the crackdown and make clear that this behaviour is unacceptable."
Human rights groups estimate that about 350 people have died so far in Syria, 100 of them on Friday. Troops mounted a major assault Monday on Deraa, the city where the uprising began a month ago, and Douma, a suburb of Damascus.
It was apparently the first time that tanks have been used. Ammar Qurabi, head of the National Organisation for Human Rights in Syria, who is in exile in Egypt, was quoted by Reuters as saying at least 18 people died in Deraa alone.
The US, having announced sanctions unilaterally, is putting pressure on the UK and other European countries to impose sanctions against the Syrian regime.
The US treasury department and other American agencies are discussing freezing the assets of senior officials accused of human rights abuses and banning them from travelling to the US or doing business there. Such sanctions are mainly symbolic, as the US has long had stringent measures in place against Syria and has little trade with the country. Sanctions by European countries, with whom Syria has extensive trade, would have more impact and several members of the Syrian government have assets in Europe. ...
Millions of smartphone users and BT customers who use Wi-Fi wireless internet "hotspot" connections in public are vulnerable to fraud and identity theft, a Guardian investigation has established.
In tests conducted with volunteers – to avoid breaching telecommunications and computer misuse laws – security experts were able to gather usernames, passwords and messages from phones using Wi-Fi in public places.
In the case of the best-selling Apple iPhone 4 and other smartphone handsets, the information could be harvested without the users' knowledge and even when they were not actively surfing the web if the phone was turned on.
BT, the UK's biggest provider of such hotspots with five million of its "Openzone" connections in the UK in train stations, hotels and airports, admitted that it has known of the weakness for "years" and that it is working on a permanent fix. But it has no timetable for when it might be implemented.
Using a £49 piece of communications equipment and software freely available for download from the internet, the investigation established that crooks could set up bogus Wi-Fi "gateways" to which the latest generation of mobile phones would automatically connect. Once a connection is established, all the information passing through the gateway can be either be read directly or decrypted using software that will run on a laptop.
In another test, a fake Wi-Fi hotspot invited people to "pay" for internet access with their credit card – but required them to click a box to accept terms and conditions which clearly stated "you agree we can do anything we like with your credit card details and personal logins".
A number of people entered their details. The Guardian did not retain any users' details in the experiment.
Not only could the information be used to steal identities, hijack email accounts and commit fraud but also to gather information about individuals and company employees. With the information gained in our investigation, fraudsters could have bought goods online or sent multiple e-gift vouchers worth as much as £1,000 each to pre-set email addresses. It is believed that such vouchers are already being traded by crooks over the internet. ...
In tests conducted with volunteers – to avoid breaching telecommunications and computer misuse laws – security experts were able to gather usernames, passwords and messages from phones using Wi-Fi in public places.
In the case of the best-selling Apple iPhone 4 and other smartphone handsets, the information could be harvested without the users' knowledge and even when they were not actively surfing the web if the phone was turned on.
BT, the UK's biggest provider of such hotspots with five million of its "Openzone" connections in the UK in train stations, hotels and airports, admitted that it has known of the weakness for "years" and that it is working on a permanent fix. But it has no timetable for when it might be implemented.
Using a £49 piece of communications equipment and software freely available for download from the internet, the investigation established that crooks could set up bogus Wi-Fi "gateways" to which the latest generation of mobile phones would automatically connect. Once a connection is established, all the information passing through the gateway can be either be read directly or decrypted using software that will run on a laptop.
In another test, a fake Wi-Fi hotspot invited people to "pay" for internet access with their credit card – but required them to click a box to accept terms and conditions which clearly stated "you agree we can do anything we like with your credit card details and personal logins".
A number of people entered their details. The Guardian did not retain any users' details in the experiment.
Not only could the information be used to steal identities, hijack email accounts and commit fraud but also to gather information about individuals and company employees. With the information gained in our investigation, fraudsters could have bought goods online or sent multiple e-gift vouchers worth as much as £1,000 each to pre-set email addresses. It is believed that such vouchers are already being traded by crooks over the internet. ...
Bahrain accused of systematic attacks on doctors
Medical workers targeted because they have evidence of security force atrocities, claims US-based human rights group
Medical workers targeted because they have evidence of security force atrocities, claims US-based human rights group
Syria troops kill protesters in country's bloodiest day of turmoil
Dozens reportedly killed as live bullets and teargas used against rallies after Friday prayers
Dozens reportedly killed as live bullets and teargas used against rallies after Friday prayers
The Nation magazine has revealed that Koch Industries sent a letter to most of its 50,000 employees on the eve of the November elections, advising them on whom to vote for and warning them of the dire consequences should they choose to vote otherwise. As a result of the Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission ruling last year, Koch Industries and other corporations are now legally allowed to pressure their workers to adopt their political views. Koch Industries is run by the billionaire brothers, Charles and David Koch, who have helped bankroll the Tea Party movement and dozens of other right-wing causes, including the recent attacks on public sector employees and unions going on in many states. ...
Ta much, dear Glenn321
Ta much, dear Glenn321
Security researchers have discovered that Apple's iPhone keeps track of where you go – and saves every detail of it to a secret file on the device which is then copied to the owner's computer when the two are synchronised.
The file contains the latitude and longitude of the phone's recorded coordinates along with a timestamp, meaning that anyone who stole the phone or the computer could discover details about the owner's movements using a simple program.
For some phones, there could be almost a year's worth of data stored, as the recording of data seems to have started with Apple's iOS 4 update to the phone's operating system, released in June 2010.
"Apple has made it possible for almost anybody – a jealous spouse, a private detective – with access to your phone or computer to get detailed information about where you've been," said Pete Warden, one of the researchers.
Only the iPhone records the user's location in this way, say Warden and Alasdair Allan, the data scientists who discovered the file and are presenting their findings at the Where 2.0 conference in San Francisco on Wednesday. "Alasdair has looked for similar tracking code in [Google's] Android phones and couldn't find any," said Warden. "We haven't come across any instances of other phone manufacturers doing this."
Simon Davies, director of the pressure group Privacy International, said: "This is a worrying discovery. Location is one of the most sensitive elements in anyone's life – just think where people go in the evening. The existence of that data creates a real threat to privacy. The absence of notice to users or any control option can only stem from an ignorance about privacy at the design stage."
Warden and Allan point out that the file is moved onto new devices when an old one is replaced: "Apple might have new features in mind that require a history of your location, but that's our specualtion. The fact that [the file] is transferred across [to a new iPhone or iPad] when you migrate is evidence that the data-gathering isn't accidental." But they said it does not seem to be transmitted to Apple itself. ...
The file contains the latitude and longitude of the phone's recorded coordinates along with a timestamp, meaning that anyone who stole the phone or the computer could discover details about the owner's movements using a simple program.
For some phones, there could be almost a year's worth of data stored, as the recording of data seems to have started with Apple's iOS 4 update to the phone's operating system, released in June 2010.
"Apple has made it possible for almost anybody – a jealous spouse, a private detective – with access to your phone or computer to get detailed information about where you've been," said Pete Warden, one of the researchers.
Only the iPhone records the user's location in this way, say Warden and Alasdair Allan, the data scientists who discovered the file and are presenting their findings at the Where 2.0 conference in San Francisco on Wednesday. "Alasdair has looked for similar tracking code in [Google's] Android phones and couldn't find any," said Warden. "We haven't come across any instances of other phone manufacturers doing this."
Simon Davies, director of the pressure group Privacy International, said: "This is a worrying discovery. Location is one of the most sensitive elements in anyone's life – just think where people go in the evening. The existence of that data creates a real threat to privacy. The absence of notice to users or any control option can only stem from an ignorance about privacy at the design stage."
Warden and Allan point out that the file is moved onto new devices when an old one is replaced: "Apple might have new features in mind that require a history of your location, but that's our specualtion. The fact that [the file] is transferred across [to a new iPhone or iPad] when you migrate is evidence that the data-gathering isn't accidental." But they said it does not seem to be transmitted to Apple itself. ...
Why does anyone pay any attention to the ramblings of these aged, cross-dressing, insane pædophiles?
Fuck you, usa.
Governments from around the world today pledged $785m (€550m) to seal the stricken nuclear reactor at Chernobyl within a 20,000-tonne steel shield that would be large enough to enclose St Paul's Cathedral in London. The huge arch is designed to prevent any further radiation from escaping for 100 years.
The pledges, made at a conference in Kiev ahead of the 25th anniversary of the disaster on 26 April 2011, bring the total raised for the Chernobyl safety works to $1.8bn and will enable efforts to finally secure the reactor which caught fire in April 1986.
Twenty-eight governments have so far offered money. The European commission was the biggest contributor with €110m. The US pledged €86m and Britain – which still has more than 300 hill farms in Wales under radiation restrictions following fallout from Chernobyl – will contribute €35m. The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development announced an extra €120m. Japan, Italy and Canada are considering whether to contribute to the fund.
The planned arch-shaped structure, which at 190 metres (623 feet) wide and more than 100 metres tall, will take five years to build. It will replace a hastily built concrete "sarcophagus" erected around the reactor in 1987. This now has serious cracks in it, raising fears that 95% of the original nuclear material which is left inside the reactor could escape.
Radiation levels directly over the sarcophagus are too high for the arch to be built over it, so it will be constructed in two halves and then moved over it on rails. It is designed so that authorities could start dismantling the reactor from inside in 100 years' time. The shield is intended to stay in place until either the radiation threat decreases or the Ukrainian government finds a permanent storage facility for the 200 tonnes of uranium and one tonne of radioactive plutonium still inside the ruins.
World governments, which had already raised more than €1.1bn in international funding for the shelter, as well as for a permanent nuclear fuel store for other reactors on the Chernobyl site, said that the current crisis in at the Fukushima plant in Japan persuaded them to respond to the appeal by Ukraine, which estimates the accident has so far cost the nation more than $12bn. ...
The pledges, made at a conference in Kiev ahead of the 25th anniversary of the disaster on 26 April 2011, bring the total raised for the Chernobyl safety works to $1.8bn and will enable efforts to finally secure the reactor which caught fire in April 1986.
Twenty-eight governments have so far offered money. The European commission was the biggest contributor with €110m. The US pledged €86m and Britain – which still has more than 300 hill farms in Wales under radiation restrictions following fallout from Chernobyl – will contribute €35m. The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development announced an extra €120m. Japan, Italy and Canada are considering whether to contribute to the fund.
The planned arch-shaped structure, which at 190 metres (623 feet) wide and more than 100 metres tall, will take five years to build. It will replace a hastily built concrete "sarcophagus" erected around the reactor in 1987. This now has serious cracks in it, raising fears that 95% of the original nuclear material which is left inside the reactor could escape.
Radiation levels directly over the sarcophagus are too high for the arch to be built over it, so it will be constructed in two halves and then moved over it on rails. It is designed so that authorities could start dismantling the reactor from inside in 100 years' time. The shield is intended to stay in place until either the radiation threat decreases or the Ukrainian government finds a permanent storage facility for the 200 tonnes of uranium and one tonne of radioactive plutonium still inside the ruins.
World governments, which had already raised more than €1.1bn in international funding for the shelter, as well as for a permanent nuclear fuel store for other reactors on the Chernobyl site, said that the current crisis in at the Fukushima plant in Japan persuaded them to respond to the appeal by Ukraine, which estimates the accident has so far cost the nation more than $12bn. ...
Libya regime accuses Nato of siding with rebels [Ed. Note: Well, duh!]
Minister claims France and UK 'violating' UN mandate as Nato airstrikes hit pro-Gaddafi communication centres [Ed. Note: Good show! Jolly good show, Majah!]
Minister claims France and UK 'violating' UN mandate as Nato airstrikes hit pro-Gaddafi communication centres [Ed. Note: Good show! Jolly good show, Majah!]
Syria to lift emergency rule after 48 years – but violence continues
Biggest concession yet to pro-democracy movement, which is gathering steam but has not reached tipping point
Biggest concession yet to pro-democracy movement, which is gathering steam but has not reached tipping point
Fish worth £4m seized in EU crackdown on illegal fishing
Catches of octopus, squid, sole, shrimp and grouper, allegedly caught using child labour, impounded in Canary Islands
Catches of octopus, squid, sole, shrimp and grouper, allegedly caught using child labour, impounded in Canary Islands
The alleged members of a vice ring who are claimed to have procured young women for Italy's prime minister, Silvio Berlusconi, have fallen out spectacularly, creating a potentially grave problem for his defence.
Berlusconi denies paying an underage prostitute and then abusing his position to cover up the alleged offence in a trial that began earlier this month.
Three of his associates are also under investigation in related proceedings, on suspicion of aiding and abetting prostitution, juvenile and otherwise.
They include Nicole Minetti, an Anglo-Italian dental hygienist and former TV variety dancer whom Berlusconi made a regional parliamentarian.
Also under investigation are Emilio Fede, who presents a news programme on one of Berlusconi's TV channels, and Lele Mora, a showbusiness talent scout.
Minetti's lawyer handed the prosecutors a document outlining her defence on Monday night.
According to reports, the document blames the other suspects for introducing the prime minister to Karima El Mahroug, the then 17-year-old Moroccan runaway known as Ruby who is at the heart of the case.
Minetti and her lawyer both denied the reports. "I am not accusing either Emilio Fede or Lele Mora," Minetti said.
But that was not Fede's view. After being guided through a summary by Minetti's lawyer, he said: "The memorandum submitted by Nicole Minetti is bullshit ... I deny it." ...
Berlusconi denies paying an underage prostitute and then abusing his position to cover up the alleged offence in a trial that began earlier this month.
Three of his associates are also under investigation in related proceedings, on suspicion of aiding and abetting prostitution, juvenile and otherwise.
They include Nicole Minetti, an Anglo-Italian dental hygienist and former TV variety dancer whom Berlusconi made a regional parliamentarian.
Also under investigation are Emilio Fede, who presents a news programme on one of Berlusconi's TV channels, and Lele Mora, a showbusiness talent scout.
Minetti's lawyer handed the prosecutors a document outlining her defence on Monday night.
According to reports, the document blames the other suspects for introducing the prime minister to Karima El Mahroug, the then 17-year-old Moroccan runaway known as Ruby who is at the heart of the case.
Minetti and her lawyer both denied the reports. "I am not accusing either Emilio Fede or Lele Mora," Minetti said.
But that was not Fede's view. After being guided through a summary by Minetti's lawyer, he said: "The memorandum submitted by Nicole Minetti is bullshit ... I deny it." ...
... Tomlinson, a newspaper seller, collapsed and died less than three minutes after being hit with a baton and pushed to the ground by a police officer, PC Simon Harwood, during the demonstrations near the Bank of England.
He had been trying to get home from work at around 7.20pm on 1 April 2009 when he encountered the Metropolitan police officer.
Paramedics were unable to resuscitate Tomlinson, a father of nine, who was pronounced dead more than an hour later.
Prof Kevin Channer, a heart expert at Royal Hallamshire hospital, was asked by the inquest to analyse chart readings from a defibrillator that was used on Tomlinson by paramedics.
Channer's expert evidence, contained in a report to the inquest, was that the electrocardiogram (ECG) data obtained by paramedics as they fought to resuscitate Tomlinson was inconsistent with an arrhythmic heart attack. The heart pulse data was however consistent with the 47-year-old dying of internal bleeding, Channer said.
The medical cause of Tomlinson's death has proved a key area of controversy in his inquest, which is now in its fourth week. ...
He had been trying to get home from work at around 7.20pm on 1 April 2009 when he encountered the Metropolitan police officer.
Paramedics were unable to resuscitate Tomlinson, a father of nine, who was pronounced dead more than an hour later.
Prof Kevin Channer, a heart expert at Royal Hallamshire hospital, was asked by the inquest to analyse chart readings from a defibrillator that was used on Tomlinson by paramedics.
Channer's expert evidence, contained in a report to the inquest, was that the electrocardiogram (ECG) data obtained by paramedics as they fought to resuscitate Tomlinson was inconsistent with an arrhythmic heart attack. The heart pulse data was however consistent with the 47-year-old dying of internal bleeding, Channer said.
The medical cause of Tomlinson's death has proved a key area of controversy in his inquest, which is now in its fourth week. ...
Hundreds of thousands of people demonstrated across Yemen on Sunday, denouncing President Ali Abdullah Saleh for saying women should not take part in protest rallies.
At least 10 people were shot and wounded in Sana'a by forces loyal to the president, doctors said, and around 200 were overcome by teargas. Clashes were also reported to have taken place in Dhamar, just south of the capital.
In a speech on Friday, Saleh had condemned the mingling of men and women at demonstrations, saying it violated Islamic law. The comments enraged many Yemenis and prompted the youth movement to call for mass protests, on what they called a day of honour and dignity.
There was a significant turnout, with more than 100,000 people – including significant numbers of women – taking to the streets in Taiz, and tens of thousands more marching in Ibb, Aden, Shabwa and other cities. Demonstrators also demanded the president step down.
Abdel-Malek al-Youssefi, a youth movement activist and organiser, said the protests could be "the last nail in Saleh's coffin".
Yemen has been racked with anti-government demonstrations for the past two months. The protesters are calling for steps to improve livelihoods and open up the country's restricted political life.
A young woman first led anti-Saleh rallies on a university campus in January, but women did not begin taking part in large numbers until early last month.
While Yemen has conservative social and religious traditions, women can vote, run for parliament and drive cars, unlike in neighbouring Saudi Arabia.
Near-daily protests and defections by key allies in the military, powerful tribes and diplomatic corps have failed to bring an end to Saleh's 32-year autocratic rule. A crackdown on protesters by government forces has killed more than 120 people, according to Yemeni rights groups, but has not deterred the crowds from gathering.
Last week, the six-nation Gulf Co-operation Council suggested Saleh transfer power to his deputy, seeking an end to the unrest. The opposition criticised the proposal for not suggesting that the power transfer should be immediate. Opposition members are expected in the Saudi capital on Sunday to explain their position to Riyadh and other Gulf mediators. ...
At least 10 people were shot and wounded in Sana'a by forces loyal to the president, doctors said, and around 200 were overcome by teargas. Clashes were also reported to have taken place in Dhamar, just south of the capital.
In a speech on Friday, Saleh had condemned the mingling of men and women at demonstrations, saying it violated Islamic law. The comments enraged many Yemenis and prompted the youth movement to call for mass protests, on what they called a day of honour and dignity.
There was a significant turnout, with more than 100,000 people – including significant numbers of women – taking to the streets in Taiz, and tens of thousands more marching in Ibb, Aden, Shabwa and other cities. Demonstrators also demanded the president step down.
Abdel-Malek al-Youssefi, a youth movement activist and organiser, said the protests could be "the last nail in Saleh's coffin".
Yemen has been racked with anti-government demonstrations for the past two months. The protesters are calling for steps to improve livelihoods and open up the country's restricted political life.
A young woman first led anti-Saleh rallies on a university campus in January, but women did not begin taking part in large numbers until early last month.
While Yemen has conservative social and religious traditions, women can vote, run for parliament and drive cars, unlike in neighbouring Saudi Arabia.
Near-daily protests and defections by key allies in the military, powerful tribes and diplomatic corps have failed to bring an end to Saleh's 32-year autocratic rule. A crackdown on protesters by government forces has killed more than 120 people, according to Yemeni rights groups, but has not deterred the crowds from gathering.
Last week, the six-nation Gulf Co-operation Council suggested Saleh transfer power to his deputy, seeking an end to the unrest. The opposition criticised the proposal for not suggesting that the power transfer should be immediate. Opposition members are expected in the Saudi capital on Sunday to explain their position to Riyadh and other Gulf mediators. ...
... Successfully forging the belief that tabloid journalism is a worthwhile use of your brief time on this planet must require a mental leap beyond the reach of Galileo. This is one reason why so many tabloid stories are routinely peppered with lies – if their staff didn't continually flex their delusion muscles, a torrent of dark, awful self-awareness might rush into their heads like unforgiving black water pouring through the side of a stricken submarine, and they'd all slash their wrists open right there at their workstations. The newsroom hubbub would be regularly broken by the dispiriting thump of lifeless heads thunking on to desks. Each morning their bosses would have to clear all the spent corpses away with a bulldozer and hire a fresh team of soon-to-be-heartbroken lifewasters to replace the ones who couldn't make it, whose powers of self-deception simply weren't up to the job. Who couldn't cope with the knowledge that they were wasting their lives actively making the world worse.
And now – on top of all of these trials and indignities, on top of the harrowing leukaemia-of-the-soul their career choice inflicts upon them – now their job has got even harder. Because for a while, at least, wasting your life actively making the world worse was relatively easy. You could pay someone to root through someone's dustbins. Then, when the early mobiles arrived, you could get a £59 frequency scanner and sit outside a soap star's flat, surreptitiously recording their calls. And when phones went digital, there was the voicemail wheeze, which made life even easier. You could sit at your desk illegally invading the privacy of strangers just by pushing buttons.
But now, having abused all those tricks, like they abused their talent – not for any noble cause, but to find out which girlband member snogged which boyband member – those easy games are up. And it couldn't have come at a worse time: with plummeting sales, the need for sensational stories is higher than ever. All of which means all those people wasting their lives actively making the world worse will now have to expend colossal effort in order to do so: like prisoners forced at gunpoint to dig their own graves – but with a rubber shovel.
There is no fate more tragic. Pity them. Pity them hard.
And now – on top of all of these trials and indignities, on top of the harrowing leukaemia-of-the-soul their career choice inflicts upon them – now their job has got even harder. Because for a while, at least, wasting your life actively making the world worse was relatively easy. You could pay someone to root through someone's dustbins. Then, when the early mobiles arrived, you could get a £59 frequency scanner and sit outside a soap star's flat, surreptitiously recording their calls. And when phones went digital, there was the voicemail wheeze, which made life even easier. You could sit at your desk illegally invading the privacy of strangers just by pushing buttons.
But now, having abused all those tricks, like they abused their talent – not for any noble cause, but to find out which girlband member snogged which boyband member – those easy games are up. And it couldn't have come at a worse time: with plummeting sales, the need for sensational stories is higher than ever. All of which means all those people wasting their lives actively making the world worse will now have to expend colossal effort in order to do so: like prisoners forced at gunpoint to dig their own graves – but with a rubber shovel.
There is no fate more tragic. Pity them. Pity them hard.
A UK subsidiary of the world's largest commodities broker helped one of its African mining operations avoid paying tens of millions of pounds in tax, according to charities who have analysed a leaked review of its accounts.
The findings of a draft report into internal controls at Zambia's Mopani Copper Mines plc have been categorically rejected by its owner, Glencore, the giant fuel, metals and cereals trader based in the Swiss tax haven of Zug. The report, seen by the Observer, was carried out in 2009 by a Norwegian subsidiary of Grant Thornton, one of the world's largest accountancy firms, at the request of the previous Zambian government.
Its authors alleged the mine's owners "resisted the pilot audit at every stage", a claim denied by a spokesman for Glencore, which owns a 73% stake in Mopani through a company based in the British Virgin Islands, another tax haven.
The report claimed there had been an "unexplainable" increase in Mopani's costs between 2006 and 2008 that allowed it to minimise its stated profits and lower its tax bill. "We suggest the ZRA [Zambian Revenue Authority] does a new tax assessment based on the results of the audit," the report claims.
Glencore, which is preparing a £37bn listing on the London stock market, the capital's biggest ever flotation, said the auditors had failed to factor in rising fuel and labour costs over the period. The audit also suggested Mopani sold copper at artificially low prices to Glencore in Switzerland under a deal struck with the firm's UK subsidiary in 2000. The metal was then sold on, allowing Glencore to take advantage of Switzerland's ultra-low tax regime. ...
The findings of a draft report into internal controls at Zambia's Mopani Copper Mines plc have been categorically rejected by its owner, Glencore, the giant fuel, metals and cereals trader based in the Swiss tax haven of Zug. The report, seen by the Observer, was carried out in 2009 by a Norwegian subsidiary of Grant Thornton, one of the world's largest accountancy firms, at the request of the previous Zambian government.
Its authors alleged the mine's owners "resisted the pilot audit at every stage", a claim denied by a spokesman for Glencore, which owns a 73% stake in Mopani through a company based in the British Virgin Islands, another tax haven.
The report claimed there had been an "unexplainable" increase in Mopani's costs between 2006 and 2008 that allowed it to minimise its stated profits and lower its tax bill. "We suggest the ZRA [Zambian Revenue Authority] does a new tax assessment based on the results of the audit," the report claims.
Glencore, which is preparing a £37bn listing on the London stock market, the capital's biggest ever flotation, said the auditors had failed to factor in rising fuel and labour costs over the period. The audit also suggested Mopani sold copper at artificially low prices to Glencore in Switzerland under a deal struck with the firm's UK subsidiary in 2000. The metal was then sold on, allowing Glencore to take advantage of Switzerland's ultra-low tax regime. ...
Fuck you, chinastan.
Rick Santorum Borrows Campaign Slogan From Pro-Union Poem Written By Gay Rights Advocate
Earlier today, former Sen. Rick Santorum (R-PA) announced that he will begin fundraising for a presidential run using the campaign slogan “Fighting to make America America again.” This eloquent turn of phrase, however, was not invented by Santorum. It is borrowed from the title of a pro-union, pro-racial justice, and pro-immigrant poem written by Harlem Renaissance poet Langston Hughes — “Let America Be America Again”:
O, I’m the man who sailed those early seas
In search of what I meant to be my home–
For I’m the one who left dark Ireland’s shore,
And Poland’s plain, and England’s grassy lea,
And torn from Black Africa’s strand I came
To build a “homeland of the free.”
The free?
Who said the free? Not me?
Surely not me? The millions on relief today?
The millions shot down when we strike?
The millions who have nothing for our pay?
For all the dreams we’ve dreamed
And all the songs we’ve sung
And all the hopes we’ve held
And all the flags we’ve hung,
The millions who have nothing for our pay–
Except the dream that’s almost dead today.
O, let America be America again–
The land that never has been yet–
And yet must be–the land where every man is free.
The land that’s mine–the poor man’s, Indian’s, Negro’s, ME–
While Hughes is best known for his poetic cries for racial and economic justice, he was also a staunch defender of gay rights. His poem “Cafe: 3 a.m.” criticizes a police raid on a gay establishment, attacking the injustice of arresting gay people because “God, Nature, or somebody made them that way.” Santorum, by contrast, is best known for spouting a frothy mixture of anti-gay rhetoric comparing same-sex couples with people who have sex with dogs.
Ta much, dear Anneliese
Earlier today, former Sen. Rick Santorum (R-PA) announced that he will begin fundraising for a presidential run using the campaign slogan “Fighting to make America America again.” This eloquent turn of phrase, however, was not invented by Santorum. It is borrowed from the title of a pro-union, pro-racial justice, and pro-immigrant poem written by Harlem Renaissance poet Langston Hughes — “Let America Be America Again”:
O, I’m the man who sailed those early seas
In search of what I meant to be my home–
For I’m the one who left dark Ireland’s shore,
And Poland’s plain, and England’s grassy lea,
And torn from Black Africa’s strand I came
To build a “homeland of the free.”
The free?
Who said the free? Not me?
Surely not me? The millions on relief today?
The millions shot down when we strike?
The millions who have nothing for our pay?
For all the dreams we’ve dreamed
And all the songs we’ve sung
And all the hopes we’ve held
And all the flags we’ve hung,
The millions who have nothing for our pay–
Except the dream that’s almost dead today.
O, let America be America again–
The land that never has been yet–
And yet must be–the land where every man is free.
The land that’s mine–the poor man’s, Indian’s, Negro’s, ME–
While Hughes is best known for his poetic cries for racial and economic justice, he was also a staunch defender of gay rights. His poem “Cafe: 3 a.m.” criticizes a police raid on a gay establishment, attacking the injustice of arresting gay people because “God, Nature, or somebody made them that way.” Santorum, by contrast, is best known for spouting a frothy mixture of anti-gay rhetoric comparing same-sex couples with people who have sex with dogs.
Ta much, dear Anneliese
Thousands may sue over police kettling at G20 protests
High court rules way in which police kettled up to 5,000 demonstrators at G20 protests in April 2009 was illegal
High court rules way in which police kettled up to 5,000 demonstrators at G20 protests in April 2009 was illegal
Briton dies in Dubai police custody after 'severe beatings'
Foreign Office demands full investigation after death of Lee Brown during detention in Dubai over a row at luxury hotel
Foreign Office demands full investigation after death of Lee Brown during detention in Dubai over a row at luxury hotel
The News of the World reacted to the unexpected arrest of one of its most senior reporters by clearing his desk.
Despite the paper having promised that it would co-operate fully with police inquiries, executives descended on the desk of former news editor James Weatherup moments after learning of his arrest. Under the eyes of their legal team, they bagged up notebooks, papers and recording machines and removed them "via our lawyers", a firm whose identity the publisher refused to confirm.
A few hours later, the police arrived and took the bags to Scotland Yard.
The unexpected arrest of Weatherup, one of the most senior journalists at the News of the World, at his home leaves little room for doubt that the new police team investigating the phone-hacking scandal is determined to succeed where its much-criticised predecessors failed.
It was three weeks ago that the News of the World dumped a vast archive of data at Scotland Yard's door – a trove that has turbo-charged the Met investigation.
The data, which comprises millions of emails from everyone at the newspaper – and which the NoW previously claimed had been lost – could implicate the paper in more instances of malpractice than have been previously suggested.
There are 8,000 emails relating to Sienna Miller alone. An examination of their contents could reveal that many more public figures were also targeted by the newspaper, in addition to the 24 who are already bringing legal actions, including football agent Sky Andrew and the former culture secretary, Tessa Jowell. ...
Despite the paper having promised that it would co-operate fully with police inquiries, executives descended on the desk of former news editor James Weatherup moments after learning of his arrest. Under the eyes of their legal team, they bagged up notebooks, papers and recording machines and removed them "via our lawyers", a firm whose identity the publisher refused to confirm.
A few hours later, the police arrived and took the bags to Scotland Yard.
The unexpected arrest of Weatherup, one of the most senior journalists at the News of the World, at his home leaves little room for doubt that the new police team investigating the phone-hacking scandal is determined to succeed where its much-criticised predecessors failed.
It was three weeks ago that the News of the World dumped a vast archive of data at Scotland Yard's door – a trove that has turbo-charged the Met investigation.
The data, which comprises millions of emails from everyone at the newspaper – and which the NoW previously claimed had been lost – could implicate the paper in more instances of malpractice than have been previously suggested.
There are 8,000 emails relating to Sienna Miller alone. An examination of their contents could reveal that many more public figures were also targeted by the newspaper, in addition to the 24 who are already bringing legal actions, including football agent Sky Andrew and the former culture secretary, Tessa Jowell. ...
Girl, 6, frisked by security at US airport
The parents of a young child have called for changes to airport security procedures after their six-year-old daughter was body-searched at New Orleans airport.
14 Apr 2011
Selena Drexel said her daughter Anna was confused and began crying after the pat-down.
"When it was over and the camera was off, she got very weepy," she said. "She was apologetic: 'I'm sorry Mommy, I don't know what I did wrong, I don't know why they're mad at me'."
Mrs Drexel said searches were inappropriate for children because they are usually told not to let adults touch them in sensitive areas.
Airport screeners would not tell her why they were frisking her six-year-old daughter, she added.
Security officials said the officer followed proper procedures but that the security agency was reviewing its screening policies.
The parents of a young child have called for changes to airport security procedures after their six-year-old daughter was body-searched at New Orleans airport.
14 Apr 2011
Selena Drexel said her daughter Anna was confused and began crying after the pat-down.
"When it was over and the camera was off, she got very weepy," she said. "She was apologetic: 'I'm sorry Mommy, I don't know what I did wrong, I don't know why they're mad at me'."
Mrs Drexel said searches were inappropriate for children because they are usually told not to let adults touch them in sensitive areas.
Airport screeners would not tell her why they were frisking her six-year-old daughter, she added.
Security officials said the officer followed proper procedures but that the security agency was reviewing its screening policies.
Detectives investigating illegal news-gathering at the News of the World are planning to question Rebekah Brooks, the paper's former editor who is now Rupert Murdoch's chief executive in the UK, according to police sources.
The revelation came on the day that Brooks denied to MPs that she had "knowledge of any specific cases" of police officers being paid for information by any newspaper – despite having told MPs eight years ago that her journalists had paid officers in the past.
It is understood that Brooks now faces questioning from Operation Weeting, Scotland Yard's third attempt to investigate the interception of voicemail messages by News of the World journalists. At the same time, the Guardian has established that during an earlier inquiry Scotland Yard was so concerned by allegations that the paper was paying bribes to serving officers and other key workers that it tapped Brooks's telephone. Police found no evidence that she had committed any offence.
The tapping of her phone was carried out with a Home Office warrant early in 2004 as part of an inquiry by Scotland Yard's anti-corruption command into allegations that the News of the World was bribing serving officers, buying confidential data from the police national computer and making regular cash payments of up to £1,000 a week to employees of phone companies who were selling information from the accounts of public figures.
The paper's then assistant editor (news), Greg Miskiw, is believed to have been arrested and questioned. Four men were convicted of selling information from the police computer to the News of the World and other papers. But neither Brooks, Miskiw nor anyone else from Fleet Street was charged. ...
The revelation came on the day that Brooks denied to MPs that she had "knowledge of any specific cases" of police officers being paid for information by any newspaper – despite having told MPs eight years ago that her journalists had paid officers in the past.
It is understood that Brooks now faces questioning from Operation Weeting, Scotland Yard's third attempt to investigate the interception of voicemail messages by News of the World journalists. At the same time, the Guardian has established that during an earlier inquiry Scotland Yard was so concerned by allegations that the paper was paying bribes to serving officers and other key workers that it tapped Brooks's telephone. Police found no evidence that she had committed any offence.
The tapping of her phone was carried out with a Home Office warrant early in 2004 as part of an inquiry by Scotland Yard's anti-corruption command into allegations that the News of the World was bribing serving officers, buying confidential data from the police national computer and making regular cash payments of up to £1,000 a week to employees of phone companies who were selling information from the accounts of public figures.
The paper's then assistant editor (news), Greg Miskiw, is believed to have been arrested and questioned. Four men were convicted of selling information from the police computer to the News of the World and other papers. But neither Brooks, Miskiw nor anyone else from Fleet Street was charged. ...
There was to be no suicide pill, no bullet in the brain, no heroic martyrdom. Instead, it is claimed, there was a humiliating slap on the cheek and Laurent Gbagbo was hauled from his bunker and paraded before the TV cameras.
The fall of the African strongman came after one of the most drawn-out election results in history. Gbagbo was finally prised from his palace in the former Ivory Coast capital four months after the votes were cast against him.
Backed by French tanks, forces loyal to Gbagbo's opponent, Alassane Ouattara, said they stormed his underground bunker at the presidential residence in Abidjan, interrogated Gbagbo then carried him away with his wife, Simone, and his son Michel.
"We attacked and forced in a part of the bunker," Issard Soumahro, a pro-Ouattara soldier at the scene, told the Associated Press. "He was there with his wife and his son. He wasn't hurt, but he was tired and his cheek was swollen from where a soldier had slapped him."
The 65-year-old former history professor, who once dismissed the beheading of France's Louis XVI as public "ebullience", could be seen wearing a military flak jacket and flanked by two soldiers. His son was beaten and bleeding, according to an Ouattara spokesman.
Gbagbo was then reportedly taken to the city's Golf hotel, where Ouattara's government-in-waiting has been encamped under UN protection since Gbagbo's intransigence plunged the country back into civil war. ...
The fall of the African strongman came after one of the most drawn-out election results in history. Gbagbo was finally prised from his palace in the former Ivory Coast capital four months after the votes were cast against him.
Backed by French tanks, forces loyal to Gbagbo's opponent, Alassane Ouattara, said they stormed his underground bunker at the presidential residence in Abidjan, interrogated Gbagbo then carried him away with his wife, Simone, and his son Michel.
"We attacked and forced in a part of the bunker," Issard Soumahro, a pro-Ouattara soldier at the scene, told the Associated Press. "He was there with his wife and his son. He wasn't hurt, but he was tired and his cheek was swollen from where a soldier had slapped him."
The 65-year-old former history professor, who once dismissed the beheading of France's Louis XVI as public "ebullience", could be seen wearing a military flak jacket and flanked by two soldiers. His son was beaten and bleeding, according to an Ouattara spokesman.
Gbagbo was then reportedly taken to the city's Golf hotel, where Ouattara's government-in-waiting has been encamped under UN protection since Gbagbo's intransigence plunged the country back into civil war. ...
Yemen’s embattled President Ali Abdullah Saleh has lost the backing of his closest allies in the Arab world who called on him to pass power to his vice president to ensure the country’s “unity, safety and stability.”
The Gulf Cooperation Council urged for the transition of power to Vice President Abduraboo Mansur Hadi and the creation of an opposition-led national unity government, Abdel Latif al Zayyani, secretary general of the GCC, told reporters in the Saudi capital Riyadh late yesterday. The group renewed its invitation to Saleh’s government and Yemen’s opposition to hold GCC-brokered talks in Riyadh.
“It has seemed more and more likely over the past week that Saleh would have to pass on power, whether in the two months that the opposition has called for or by the end of the year as the ruling party has said,” Abdul Ghani Aryani, an independent political analyst, said in a telephone interview from Sana’a. “With the GCC formally backing the transition, it will probably be at some point in between.”
In Yemen, the poorest Arab country, anti-government protests mirroring those across the Middle East and North Africa, are entering their third month. Saleh’s army, government and much of his tribal base have abandoned him as violent clashes between security forces and protesters calling for his removal escalated. At least 662 Yemenis, including 24 children, have been killed in the civil unrest since Feb. 18, the United Nations’ children’s fund said yesterday. ...
The Gulf Cooperation Council urged for the transition of power to Vice President Abduraboo Mansur Hadi and the creation of an opposition-led national unity government, Abdel Latif al Zayyani, secretary general of the GCC, told reporters in the Saudi capital Riyadh late yesterday. The group renewed its invitation to Saleh’s government and Yemen’s opposition to hold GCC-brokered talks in Riyadh.
“It has seemed more and more likely over the past week that Saleh would have to pass on power, whether in the two months that the opposition has called for or by the end of the year as the ruling party has said,” Abdul Ghani Aryani, an independent political analyst, said in a telephone interview from Sana’a. “With the GCC formally backing the transition, it will probably be at some point in between.”
In Yemen, the poorest Arab country, anti-government protests mirroring those across the Middle East and North Africa, are entering their third month. Saleh’s army, government and much of his tribal base have abandoned him as violent clashes between security forces and protesters calling for his removal escalated. At least 662 Yemenis, including 24 children, have been killed in the civil unrest since Feb. 18, the United Nations’ children’s fund said yesterday. ...
Sir Gus O'Donnell, the cabinet secretary, blocked an attempt by Gordon Brown before the general election to hold a judicial inquiry into allegations that the News of the World had hacked into the phones of cabinet ministers and other high-profile figures. ...
NHS chiefs ration healthcare to meet cuts target
Royal College of Nursing study reveals that most job losses involve frontline staff as patient services are withdrawn
Royal College of Nursing study reveals that most job losses involve frontline staff as patient services are withdrawn
... Now it's almost time to hurl another outmoded device down the historical garbage chute: your body. Last week, researchers at Washington University unveiled a new mind-control computer system. Traditional mind-control systems – and the fact that any mind-control system can be referred to as "traditional" shows you how nuts-deep into the future we already are – require the user to don an EEG skullcap before thinking very hard about specific actions. The resultant brainwaves are then crudely interpreted and the device reacts accordingly. But practical use is severely restricted thanks to the human skull, which muffles some signals and amplifies others. It's like trying to work out what your neighbours are up to by pressing your ear against the wall: fun, but often wildly misleading.
Which is where electrocorticography comes in. Electrocorticography basically means "sticking sensors directly on to the surface of the brain". Once you've done that, you get a far more reliable signal. Already they've had volunteers controlling an onscreen cursor by imagining different vowel sounds. As soon as they refine it further, giving the user the ability to steer the pointer around and click on things, the days of mass-market Wi-Fi mind-controlled iPads will be upon us before you can smother your kids in their sleep to protect them from precisely such a future.
But is this really so sinister? All computers are mind-controlled already. My hand may steer the mouse and my fingers may punch the keys, but none of this takes place without my mental say-so. My brain runs things round here. Surely all a mind-controlled interface does is cut out the corporeal middleman, leaving your fingers free to do something more useful, such as plugging your ears so you can't hear the horrified screams spontaneously exploding from your facehole? What's the problem?
The problem is that the body is the final, crucial buffer between the skittish human mind and the slavish machine servant. Think of how many furious email responses you've composed in haste, only to halt and reflect at the final moment as your finger hovers over the "send" button. The simple fact that a small physical action is required to actually deliver the damn thing is often enough to give pause for thought.
When mind-controlled computers become a commonplace reality, you'll have typed and sent that message in the time it takes to stub a toe; as quick as pulling a facial expression, but more detailed, and full of swearwords. ...
Which is where electrocorticography comes in. Electrocorticography basically means "sticking sensors directly on to the surface of the brain". Once you've done that, you get a far more reliable signal. Already they've had volunteers controlling an onscreen cursor by imagining different vowel sounds. As soon as they refine it further, giving the user the ability to steer the pointer around and click on things, the days of mass-market Wi-Fi mind-controlled iPads will be upon us before you can smother your kids in their sleep to protect them from precisely such a future.
But is this really so sinister? All computers are mind-controlled already. My hand may steer the mouse and my fingers may punch the keys, but none of this takes place without my mental say-so. My brain runs things round here. Surely all a mind-controlled interface does is cut out the corporeal middleman, leaving your fingers free to do something more useful, such as plugging your ears so you can't hear the horrified screams spontaneously exploding from your facehole? What's the problem?
The problem is that the body is the final, crucial buffer between the skittish human mind and the slavish machine servant. Think of how many furious email responses you've composed in haste, only to halt and reflect at the final moment as your finger hovers over the "send" button. The simple fact that a small physical action is required to actually deliver the damn thing is often enough to give pause for thought.
When mind-controlled computers become a commonplace reality, you'll have typed and sent that message in the time it takes to stub a toe; as quick as pulling a facial expression, but more detailed, and full of swearwords. ...
Phone hacking: Rupert Murdoch 'urged Gordon Brown' to halt Labour attacks | UK news | guardian.co.uk
Rupert Murdoch used his political influence and contacts at the highest levels to try to get Labour MPs and peers to back away from investigations into phone hacking at the News of the World, a former minister in Gordon Brown's government has told the Observer.
The ex-minister, who does not want to be named, says he is aware of evidence that Murdoch, the chairman of News Corporation, relayed messages to Brown last year via a third party, urging him to help take the political heat out of the row, which he felt was in danger of damaging his company.
Brown, who stepped down as prime minister after last May's general election defeat for Labour, has refused to comment on the claim, but has not denied it. It is believed that contacts were made before he left No 10. The minister said: "What I know is that Murdoch got in touch with a good friend who then got in touch with Brown. The intention was to get him to cool things down. That is what I was told."
Brown, who became increasingly concerned at allegations of phone hacking and asked the police to investigate, had claimed that he was a victim of hacking when chancellor. He made Murdoch's views known to a select few in the Labour party.
In January, it was revealed Brown had written at least one letter to the Metropolitan police over concerns that his phone was targeted when he was still at the Treasury.
Suggestions that Murdoch involved Tony Blair in a chain of phone calls that led to Brown have been denied by the former prime minister. A spokesman for Blair said the claim was "categorically untrue", adding "no such calls ever took place". The allegation will, however, add to concerns about the influence Murdoch wielded over key political figures at Westminster and in Downing Street.
It will also raise further questions over the decision by David Cameron to appoint Andy Coulson, a former NoW editor who resigned over phone hacking, as his director of communications. ...
The ex-minister, who does not want to be named, says he is aware of evidence that Murdoch, the chairman of News Corporation, relayed messages to Brown last year via a third party, urging him to help take the political heat out of the row, which he felt was in danger of damaging his company.
Brown, who stepped down as prime minister after last May's general election defeat for Labour, has refused to comment on the claim, but has not denied it. It is believed that contacts were made before he left No 10. The minister said: "What I know is that Murdoch got in touch with a good friend who then got in touch with Brown. The intention was to get him to cool things down. That is what I was told."
Brown, who became increasingly concerned at allegations of phone hacking and asked the police to investigate, had claimed that he was a victim of hacking when chancellor. He made Murdoch's views known to a select few in the Labour party.
In January, it was revealed Brown had written at least one letter to the Metropolitan police over concerns that his phone was targeted when he was still at the Treasury.
Suggestions that Murdoch involved Tony Blair in a chain of phone calls that led to Brown have been denied by the former prime minister. A spokesman for Blair said the claim was "categorically untrue", adding "no such calls ever took place". The allegation will, however, add to concerns about the influence Murdoch wielded over key political figures at Westminster and in Downing Street.
It will also raise further questions over the decision by David Cameron to appoint Andy Coulson, a former NoW editor who resigned over phone hacking, as his director of communications. ...
News of the World phone hacking victims get apology from Murdoch
Confession that practice was rife is likely to cost News International millions of pounds in compensation
Confession that practice was rife is likely to cost News International millions of pounds in compensation
Ivory Coast's incumbent leader caught France and the rest of the world by surprise when he refused to surrender, accused Nicolas Sarkozy of an assassination plot, and defiantly held out as rebels attempted to storm his underground bunker.
French ministers had confidently predicted that Laurent Gbagbo could cede power within hours, ending the west African country's four-month crisis. A TV station run by his rival, Alassane Ouattara, played clips from Downfall, a German film about the final days of Adolf Hitler in his bunker in Berlin.
But France, the former colonial power, was forced to admit that negotiations for Gbagbo's surrender had collapsed on Wednesday. Troops loyal to Ouattara launched a ferocious assault on his presidential residence but met with unexpectedly stiff resistance. ...
French ministers had confidently predicted that Laurent Gbagbo could cede power within hours, ending the west African country's four-month crisis. A TV station run by his rival, Alassane Ouattara, played clips from Downfall, a German film about the final days of Adolf Hitler in his bunker in Berlin.
But France, the former colonial power, was forced to admit that negotiations for Gbagbo's surrender had collapsed on Wednesday. Troops loyal to Ouattara launched a ferocious assault on his presidential residence but met with unexpectedly stiff resistance. ...
Portugal has joined Greece and Ireland on the casualty list of Europe's sovereign debtors after its prime minister, José Sócrates, requested a European Union bailout.
The dramatic decision came in the middle of a political crisis that has left the country in limbo and with spiralling interest rates on its debt.
"I want to inform the Portuguese that the government decided today to ask ... for financial help, to ensure financing for our country, for our financial system and for our economy," Sócrates said in a televised address. "This is an especially grave moment for our country," he added. "Things will only get worse if nothing's done."
Sócrates said that the bailout, which analysts said could be between €70bn (£61bn) and €80bn was "the last resort".
The move was immediately welcomed in Brussels. "This is a responsible move by the Portuguese government for the sake of economic stability in the country and in Europe," the European commission's economic and monetary affairs commissioner, Olli Rehn, told Reuters.
Sócrates did not say how much aid Portugal had asked for, but promised to negotiate the best possible conditions.
Analysts said Portugal was expected to need up to €80bn, an amount the EU's bailout fund, the European financial stability facility, can easily cover. The European commission's president, José Manuel Barroso, promised a swift response. ...
The dramatic decision came in the middle of a political crisis that has left the country in limbo and with spiralling interest rates on its debt.
"I want to inform the Portuguese that the government decided today to ask ... for financial help, to ensure financing for our country, for our financial system and for our economy," Sócrates said in a televised address. "This is an especially grave moment for our country," he added. "Things will only get worse if nothing's done."
Sócrates said that the bailout, which analysts said could be between €70bn (£61bn) and €80bn was "the last resort".
The move was immediately welcomed in Brussels. "This is a responsible move by the Portuguese government for the sake of economic stability in the country and in Europe," the European commission's economic and monetary affairs commissioner, Olli Rehn, told Reuters.
Sócrates did not say how much aid Portugal had asked for, but promised to negotiate the best possible conditions.
Analysts said Portugal was expected to need up to €80bn, an amount the EU's bailout fund, the European financial stability facility, can easily cover. The European commission's president, José Manuel Barroso, promised a swift response. ...
Georgian woman cuts off web access to whole of Armenia
Entire country loses internet for five hours after woman, 75, slices through cable while scavenging for copper
Entire country loses internet for five hours after woman, 75, slices through cable while scavenging for copper
The actor Leslie Ash has spoken out for the first time against the Metropolitan police for failing to investigate claims that a private investigator working for the News of the World had hacked into her mobile phone, even though the force had held evidence since 2006 that he had targeted her along with her husband and two children.
Ash, a former star of Men Behaving Badly, told the Guardian: "I feel I've really been let down. I can't understand their behaviour at all." Ash and her husband, the former footballer Lee Chapman, are suing the News of the World for breach of privacy after the Met confirmed in January that in a 2006 raid on the investigator Glenn Mulcaire, it had seized notepads in which he had recorded their mobile phone numbers and those of their two sons.
Despite holding that information, which Ash said includes phone numbers for her GP, bank and a teacher at her sons' school, Scotland Yard failed to tell her that she was a target.
"The police were actually withholding evidence," she said. "I've been brought up to trust the police. It's not a good time for the police at the moment."
Ash became a regular in the headlines as soon as she appeared in the hit laddish comedy Men Behaving Badly, but tabloid pressure reached its peak when cosmetic surgery left her with inflamed lips in 2003 and when she contracted a form of MRSA in hospital the following year.
Her family feared she would die. Now Ash says that messages left on mobile phones belonging to her and her children at that time were used by newspapers. ...
Ash, a former star of Men Behaving Badly, told the Guardian: "I feel I've really been let down. I can't understand their behaviour at all." Ash and her husband, the former footballer Lee Chapman, are suing the News of the World for breach of privacy after the Met confirmed in January that in a 2006 raid on the investigator Glenn Mulcaire, it had seized notepads in which he had recorded their mobile phone numbers and those of their two sons.
Despite holding that information, which Ash said includes phone numbers for her GP, bank and a teacher at her sons' school, Scotland Yard failed to tell her that she was a target.
"The police were actually withholding evidence," she said. "I've been brought up to trust the police. It's not a good time for the police at the moment."
Ash became a regular in the headlines as soon as she appeared in the hit laddish comedy Men Behaving Badly, but tabloid pressure reached its peak when cosmetic surgery left her with inflamed lips in 2003 and when she contracted a form of MRSA in hospital the following year.
Her family feared she would die. Now Ash says that messages left on mobile phones belonging to her and her children at that time were used by newspapers. ...
The former news editor and current chief reporter from the News of the World have been arrested on suspicion of unlawfully intercepting mobile phone voicemail messages.
Ian Edmondson and Neville Thurlbeck had voluntarily presented themselves at different London police stations this morning and were arrested. It was expected their homes would be searched by officers at midday.
Scotland Yard has confirmed that two men, aged 50 and 42, "were arrested this morning after attending separate police stations in south-west London by appointment".
"They remain in custody for questioning after being arrested on suspicion of conspiring to intercept communications, contrary to Section 1(1) Criminal Law Act 1977, and unlawful interception of voicemail messages, contrary to Section 1 Ripa [Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act] 2000," the briefing added.
"The Operation Weeting team is conducting the new investigation into phone hacking. It would be inappropriate to discuss any further details regarding this case at this time." ...
Ian Edmondson and Neville Thurlbeck had voluntarily presented themselves at different London police stations this morning and were arrested. It was expected their homes would be searched by officers at midday.
Scotland Yard has confirmed that two men, aged 50 and 42, "were arrested this morning after attending separate police stations in south-west London by appointment".
"They remain in custody for questioning after being arrested on suspicion of conspiring to intercept communications, contrary to Section 1(1) Criminal Law Act 1977, and unlawful interception of voicemail messages, contrary to Section 1 Ripa [Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act] 2000," the briefing added.
"The Operation Weeting team is conducting the new investigation into phone hacking. It would be inappropriate to discuss any further details regarding this case at this time." ...
Computer hackers have stolen the names and email addresses of millions of people in one of the largest internet security breaches in US history.
The names and email addresses of customers of Barclaycard US, Capital One and other large firms were taken in an attack on the marketing email provider Epsilon last week. British customers of Barclays Bank, which owns Barclaycard US, were not affected. A spokesman for Barclaycard US confirmed to the Guardian that it would continue to work with Epsilon despite the breach.
Other information, such as passwords or credit card details, are not thought to have been exposed. However, some banks have warned customers to expect fraudulent emails attempting to solicit further login details.
The UK Information Commissioner's Office (ICO), which investigates data breaches of this kind, said it was making inquiries into whether any Britons were among those affected.
Epsilon, which provides marketing services via email to about 2,500 companies, put a warning on its website on Friday stating that its systems had been "exposed by an unauthorised entry" into its email system. Epsilon said it would not be comment further on the breach when contacted by the Guardian. It is not yet known who perpetrated the attack, which US law enforcement agencies have begun investigating.
"The information that was obtained was limited to email addresses and/or customer names only," Epsilon said in its statement. "A rigorous assessment determined that no other personal identifiable information associated with those names was at risk. A full investigation is currently underway." ...
I'm a Detroiter, so I assume it's an inside job.
The names and email addresses of customers of Barclaycard US, Capital One and other large firms were taken in an attack on the marketing email provider Epsilon last week. British customers of Barclays Bank, which owns Barclaycard US, were not affected. A spokesman for Barclaycard US confirmed to the Guardian that it would continue to work with Epsilon despite the breach.
Other information, such as passwords or credit card details, are not thought to have been exposed. However, some banks have warned customers to expect fraudulent emails attempting to solicit further login details.
The UK Information Commissioner's Office (ICO), which investigates data breaches of this kind, said it was making inquiries into whether any Britons were among those affected.
Epsilon, which provides marketing services via email to about 2,500 companies, put a warning on its website on Friday stating that its systems had been "exposed by an unauthorised entry" into its email system. Epsilon said it would not be comment further on the breach when contacted by the Guardian. It is not yet known who perpetrated the attack, which US law enforcement agencies have begun investigating.
"The information that was obtained was limited to email addresses and/or customer names only," Epsilon said in its statement. "A rigorous assessment determined that no other personal identifiable information associated with those names was at risk. A full investigation is currently underway." ...
I'm a Detroiter, so I assume it's an inside job.
Rebel forces in Ivory Coast have laid siege to the presidential palace as president Laurent Gbagbo made a last stand and the battle for power in Abidjan raged for a second day, with the UN mission coming under heavy fire.
Forces backing presidential claimant Alassane Ouattara have overrun nearly three-quarters of Ivory Coast and looked poised to topple Gbagbo, but after entering the economic capital met with stiff resistance outside his fortified residence and office. With reports of beatings, looting and arson on the streets of Abidjan, residents barricaded inside their homes reported heavy arms fire throughout the early morning on Friday. On the peninsula where the palace is situated buildings were shaking with each explosion, witnesses said.
Ouattara's spokesman, Patrick Achi, told Reuters: "His house is under attack. That's for sure. There is a resistance, but it's under attack. [Gbagbo] hasn't shown any signs of giving up. I don't think he will see the game is up, because he really believes God will save him … Gbagbo is in his house. I'm certain. He hasn't gone anywhere."
Ouattara ordered the borders closed to prevent Gbagbo and his allies fleeing. Ouattara's foreign affairs minister told the Associated Press: "His inner circle is trying to run, but they won't be able to."
Not seen in public for five days, Gbagbo has been weakened by high-level defections in the military. The regular army put up almost no opposition during a four-day offensive, including in Gbagbo's home town, where rebels said they broke into his compound and slept in his bed.
Some 50,000 soldiers, police and gendarmes have abandoned Gbagbo, according to the head of the UN mission, Choi Young-jin. "Only the Republican Guard and his special forces remain loyal, guarding the palace and residence," he told France-Info. The chair of the commission of the African Union, Jean Ping, urged him to immediately hand power to Ouattara "in order to shorten the suffering of the Ivorians". But a core of Gbagbo loyalists have fought to defend their shrinking territory. A spokesman, Abdon Georges Bayeto, told the BBC: "The president is not going to step down. He's been elected for five years and we are going to put up a fight." The heaviest clashes were at the state TV station, which went off air after Ouattara forces seized it overnight. Gbagbo's forces said they had retaken it this morning. A senior diplomat said fighting continued.
Heavy weapons fire was also heard at two military bases. ...
Forces backing presidential claimant Alassane Ouattara have overrun nearly three-quarters of Ivory Coast and looked poised to topple Gbagbo, but after entering the economic capital met with stiff resistance outside his fortified residence and office. With reports of beatings, looting and arson on the streets of Abidjan, residents barricaded inside their homes reported heavy arms fire throughout the early morning on Friday. On the peninsula where the palace is situated buildings were shaking with each explosion, witnesses said.
Ouattara's spokesman, Patrick Achi, told Reuters: "His house is under attack. That's for sure. There is a resistance, but it's under attack. [Gbagbo] hasn't shown any signs of giving up. I don't think he will see the game is up, because he really believes God will save him … Gbagbo is in his house. I'm certain. He hasn't gone anywhere."
Ouattara ordered the borders closed to prevent Gbagbo and his allies fleeing. Ouattara's foreign affairs minister told the Associated Press: "His inner circle is trying to run, but they won't be able to."
Not seen in public for five days, Gbagbo has been weakened by high-level defections in the military. The regular army put up almost no opposition during a four-day offensive, including in Gbagbo's home town, where rebels said they broke into his compound and slept in his bed.
Some 50,000 soldiers, police and gendarmes have abandoned Gbagbo, according to the head of the UN mission, Choi Young-jin. "Only the Republican Guard and his special forces remain loyal, guarding the palace and residence," he told France-Info. The chair of the commission of the African Union, Jean Ping, urged him to immediately hand power to Ouattara "in order to shorten the suffering of the Ivorians". But a core of Gbagbo loyalists have fought to defend their shrinking territory. A spokesman, Abdon Georges Bayeto, told the BBC: "The president is not going to step down. He's been elected for five years and we are going to put up a fight." The heaviest clashes were at the state TV station, which went off air after Ouattara forces seized it overnight. Gbagbo's forces said they had retaken it this morning. A senior diplomat said fighting continued.
Heavy weapons fire was also heard at two military bases. ...
Jobcentres tricking people out of benefits to cut costs, says whistleblower
Soaring number of sanctions against unemployed amid claims that DWP staff are being told to trip people up with paperwork
John Domokos
Friday 1 April 2011
The Guardian has been told that unemployed people are being tricked into breaching the rules so that benefits can be held back
Rising numbers of vulnerable jobseekers are being tricked into losing benefits amid growing pressure to meet welfare targets, a Jobcentre Plus adviser has told the Guardian.
A whistleblower said staff at his jobcentre were given targets of three people a week to refer for sanctions, where benefits are removed for up to six months. He said it was part of a "culture change" since last summer that had led to competition between advisers, teams and regional offices.
"Suddenly you're not helping somebody into sustainable employment, which is what you're employed to do," he said. "You're looking for ways to trick your customers into 'not looking for work'. You come up with many ways. I've seen dyslexic customers given written job searches, and when they don't produce them – what a surprise – they're sanctioned. The only target that anyone seems to care about is stopping people's money.
"'Saving the public purse' is the catchphrase that is used in our office … It is drummed home all the time – you're saving the public purse. Feel good about stopping someone's money, you've just saved your own pocket. Its a joke."
The claims came as the big businesses handed contracts to get the long term jobless into worktoday said the government should privatise jobcentres so that their firms could work with people who have been jobless for less than a year.
Statistics from the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) show the total number of cases where people have lost their benefits has soared since the beginning of 2010 to 75,000 in October, the latest month available. The figures also reveal the number of claimants with registered disabilities being cut off has more than doubled to almost 20,000 over the same period. ...
Soaring number of sanctions against unemployed amid claims that DWP staff are being told to trip people up with paperwork
John Domokos
Friday 1 April 2011
The Guardian has been told that unemployed people are being tricked into breaching the rules so that benefits can be held back
Rising numbers of vulnerable jobseekers are being tricked into losing benefits amid growing pressure to meet welfare targets, a Jobcentre Plus adviser has told the Guardian.
A whistleblower said staff at his jobcentre were given targets of three people a week to refer for sanctions, where benefits are removed for up to six months. He said it was part of a "culture change" since last summer that had led to competition between advisers, teams and regional offices.
"Suddenly you're not helping somebody into sustainable employment, which is what you're employed to do," he said. "You're looking for ways to trick your customers into 'not looking for work'. You come up with many ways. I've seen dyslexic customers given written job searches, and when they don't produce them – what a surprise – they're sanctioned. The only target that anyone seems to care about is stopping people's money.
"'Saving the public purse' is the catchphrase that is used in our office … It is drummed home all the time – you're saving the public purse. Feel good about stopping someone's money, you've just saved your own pocket. Its a joke."
The claims came as the big businesses handed contracts to get the long term jobless into worktoday said the government should privatise jobcentres so that their firms could work with people who have been jobless for less than a year.
Statistics from the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) show the total number of cases where people have lost their benefits has soared since the beginning of 2010 to 75,000 in October, the latest month available. The figures also reveal the number of claimants with registered disabilities being cut off has more than doubled to almost 20,000 over the same period. ...
Rebels forces fighting to install Ivory Coast's democratically elected president are preparing to advance on the country's largest city, Abidjan, after seizing a key port and the official capital overnight.
Power seems to be slipping away from the incumbent president, Laurent Gbagbo, after troops loyal to his rival, Alassane Ouattara, swept south, taking the official capital, Yamoussoukro, and the port of San Pedro late on Wednesday.
Residents and combatants from both sides said opposition troops are in control and it is now largely calm apart from some sporadic shooting. Now attention turns to Abidjan, where the mood is tense ahead of a possible rebel assault. Ouattara's prime minister, Guillaume Soro, told French radio that Gbagbo has just hours to leave power peacefully.
In a further sign of Gbagbo's weakening position, the Army Chief of Staff sought refuge last night at the home of the South African ambassador to Ivory Coast.
Gen. Phillippe Mangou, his wife and five children arrived at the ambassador's home in Abidjan on Wednesday night, according to the South African foreign ministry.
South Africa says it is consulting with unnamed parties in Ivory Coast, West African regional leaders, the African Union and the U.N. on Mangou's move.
Ouattara's New Forces, renamed the Republic Forces (FRCI), have made huge gains in the past two days, seizing swaths of territory in the centre, east and west.
Seydou Ouattara, a military spokesman, told Reuters: "We have taken the port of San Pedro. Gbagbo's forces have all left. We are in full control."
One San Pedro resident, who declined to be named, said: "Shooting started at around 9pm, then we saw the rebels' vehicles drive into the town. Everyone's staying indoors, but we're still hearing a lot of gunfire."
Witnesses saw soldiers taking off their uniforms and throwing guns and ammunition into ditches as they fled from the rebel army. Others say some soldiers simply switched sides and joined the Republican Forces.
Earlier, residents of Yamoussoukro said they braced themselves for conflict before sporadic gunfire erupted. Serge Kipre, who runs a small clothing store in the city, said: "The night before, we were all calling each other to make sure nobody went outside. In the morning, I saw loads of police with balaclavas and Kalashnikovs racing across town. The market closed, shops shuttered. Everybody seemed on edge."
But the approach of the rebels was eagerly awaited by many young pro-Ouattara supporters, who cheered as they drove by in 4x4s. ...
Power seems to be slipping away from the incumbent president, Laurent Gbagbo, after troops loyal to his rival, Alassane Ouattara, swept south, taking the official capital, Yamoussoukro, and the port of San Pedro late on Wednesday.
Residents and combatants from both sides said opposition troops are in control and it is now largely calm apart from some sporadic shooting. Now attention turns to Abidjan, where the mood is tense ahead of a possible rebel assault. Ouattara's prime minister, Guillaume Soro, told French radio that Gbagbo has just hours to leave power peacefully.
In a further sign of Gbagbo's weakening position, the Army Chief of Staff sought refuge last night at the home of the South African ambassador to Ivory Coast.
Gen. Phillippe Mangou, his wife and five children arrived at the ambassador's home in Abidjan on Wednesday night, according to the South African foreign ministry.
South Africa says it is consulting with unnamed parties in Ivory Coast, West African regional leaders, the African Union and the U.N. on Mangou's move.
Ouattara's New Forces, renamed the Republic Forces (FRCI), have made huge gains in the past two days, seizing swaths of territory in the centre, east and west.
Seydou Ouattara, a military spokesman, told Reuters: "We have taken the port of San Pedro. Gbagbo's forces have all left. We are in full control."
One San Pedro resident, who declined to be named, said: "Shooting started at around 9pm, then we saw the rebels' vehicles drive into the town. Everyone's staying indoors, but we're still hearing a lot of gunfire."
Witnesses saw soldiers taking off their uniforms and throwing guns and ammunition into ditches as they fled from the rebel army. Others say some soldiers simply switched sides and joined the Republican Forces.
Earlier, residents of Yamoussoukro said they braced themselves for conflict before sporadic gunfire erupted. Serge Kipre, who runs a small clothing store in the city, said: "The night before, we were all calling each other to make sure nobody went outside. In the morning, I saw loads of police with balaclavas and Kalashnikovs racing across town. The market closed, shops shuttered. Everybody seemed on edge."
But the approach of the rebels was eagerly awaited by many young pro-Ouattara supporters, who cheered as they drove by in 4x4s. ...
Ivory Coast's president, Laurent Gbagbo, is facing a bloody deposition after his top general deserted and rebel forces advanced into Abidjan, his seat of power.
Heavy weapons and machine-gun fire were heard in the centre of Ivory Coast's main city. And French troops were deployed as the four-month political crisis appeared to near its endgame.
Ivorian sources in South Africa said they heard rumours that Gbagbo could be about to step down, possibly turning to South Africa for a diplomatic channel to end his 10-year rule. Officials in Pretoria denied there had been any approach.
The speculation was begun by the abrupt departure of Phillippe Mangou, Gbagbo's army chief of staff, to take refuge with his wife and five children at the South African ambassador's residence in Abidjan.
"We've seen a regime collapse," said one western diplomat, who could hear gunfire and explosions from his residence. "The army is no longer an effective body. It has defected and deserted, and has no leadership now the general has gone into hiding. It lacks any command and control."
He added: "There's very little to keep Gbagbo in power and he must know it. I just hope he's not one of those men who fight to the death, because it will be a bloodbath." ...
Heavy weapons and machine-gun fire were heard in the centre of Ivory Coast's main city. And French troops were deployed as the four-month political crisis appeared to near its endgame.
Ivorian sources in South Africa said they heard rumours that Gbagbo could be about to step down, possibly turning to South Africa for a diplomatic channel to end his 10-year rule. Officials in Pretoria denied there had been any approach.
The speculation was begun by the abrupt departure of Phillippe Mangou, Gbagbo's army chief of staff, to take refuge with his wife and five children at the South African ambassador's residence in Abidjan.
"We've seen a regime collapse," said one western diplomat, who could hear gunfire and explosions from his residence. "The army is no longer an effective body. It has defected and deserted, and has no leadership now the general has gone into hiding. It lacks any command and control."
He added: "There's very little to keep Gbagbo in power and he must know it. I just hope he's not one of those men who fight to the death, because it will be a bloodbath." ...
The US supreme court heard oral arguments Tuesday on what could be the largest class action civil rights suit in US history. Or it could be the case that stops class action history in its tracks. Monster megastore Walmart is challenging a lower court's decision to permit women employed at thousands of Walmart stores to join together to contest alleged gender discrimination in pay and promotion practices.
"This has been a ten-year process," says plaintiff Edith Arana. What keeps the women of Dukes v Wal-Mart going, she says, is the belief that something bigger than them is at stake. (Walmart revised the form of its name a few years back.) Says Arana:
"I know what happened to me and it's not just me. The women of this lawsuit are the poster children for the all the women who couldn't do this, and they each have families and names and faces."
That, when it comes to class action lawsuits, is the whole point. Class action lawsuits have probably been the best tool since the passage of the 1964 civil rights act to bring forth claims and win cases against companies that discriminate. The case now before the court will decide not only if women like Arana and Betty Dukes experienced discrimination, but if an entire class of workers did.
It couldn't be a more contentious issue, at a more contentious moment. As Columbia University political science professor Dorian Warren noted on GRITtv this week, the Walmart case comes before a court that has been sceptical not just of discrimination cases, but of the very idea of "class action". And it comes before a nation that – from Madison to Main Street in just about every state – is in the streets over that very concept.
Coming up on 4 April is a nationally coordinated day of action by US trade unions and their allies: We Are One. The protesters will be recalling Dr Martin Luther King's legacy – on the anniversary of his assassination. But they could do worse than to take a tip from the Tea Party types and read the US Constitution while they're at it. Listen in to one of those Tea Party recitations and you'll find constitutionally guaranteed freedoms of speech, of the press and of the right peaceably to assemble and petition government for redress. For working Americans living in the most dramatically divided economy in a century, every one of those avenues is under attack.
Freedom of the press? Concentration of media ownership is consolidating press power into a few mighty hands. As in the recently approved NBC/Comcast merger, the power in question is the power to shut others out.
Assembly? After weeks of inconvenient public protest for labour rights and against draconian cuts to public services and the people who provide them, the city of Madison just restricted speech in the people's Capitol building to a small "free speech zone" – for the first time in Wisconsin history. In Albany, New York, protesters faced a sign that told them only "senators, staff and lobbyists" were welcome in the state's house. ...
"This has been a ten-year process," says plaintiff Edith Arana. What keeps the women of Dukes v Wal-Mart going, she says, is the belief that something bigger than them is at stake. (Walmart revised the form of its name a few years back.) Says Arana:
"I know what happened to me and it's not just me. The women of this lawsuit are the poster children for the all the women who couldn't do this, and they each have families and names and faces."
That, when it comes to class action lawsuits, is the whole point. Class action lawsuits have probably been the best tool since the passage of the 1964 civil rights act to bring forth claims and win cases against companies that discriminate. The case now before the court will decide not only if women like Arana and Betty Dukes experienced discrimination, but if an entire class of workers did.
It couldn't be a more contentious issue, at a more contentious moment. As Columbia University political science professor Dorian Warren noted on GRITtv this week, the Walmart case comes before a court that has been sceptical not just of discrimination cases, but of the very idea of "class action". And it comes before a nation that – from Madison to Main Street in just about every state – is in the streets over that very concept.
Coming up on 4 April is a nationally coordinated day of action by US trade unions and their allies: We Are One. The protesters will be recalling Dr Martin Luther King's legacy – on the anniversary of his assassination. But they could do worse than to take a tip from the Tea Party types and read the US Constitution while they're at it. Listen in to one of those Tea Party recitations and you'll find constitutionally guaranteed freedoms of speech, of the press and of the right peaceably to assemble and petition government for redress. For working Americans living in the most dramatically divided economy in a century, every one of those avenues is under attack.
Freedom of the press? Concentration of media ownership is consolidating press power into a few mighty hands. As in the recently approved NBC/Comcast merger, the power in question is the power to shut others out.
Assembly? After weeks of inconvenient public protest for labour rights and against draconian cuts to public services and the people who provide them, the city of Madison just restricted speech in the people's Capitol building to a small "free speech zone" – for the first time in Wisconsin history. In Albany, New York, protesters faced a sign that told them only "senators, staff and lobbyists" were welcome in the state's house. ...
No surveillance without oversight
Given the FBI's record of fallibility – and without genuine safeguards for citizens – this $1bn biometrics project is alarming
Jay Stanley
Wednesday 30 March 2011
The FBI recently announced that its Next Generation Identification System (NGIS) has "reached its initial operating capacity". This vast new biometrics project, for which Lockheed Martin won a $1bn contract in 2008, encompasses not only fingerprints but also, possibly, such biometrics as iris scans, face recognition, bodily scars, marks and tattoos.
Such a system raises a number of concerns from a civil liberties perspective. Many types of biometrics are of particular concern because they allow individuals to be tracked secretly and at a distance. For instance, facial recognition may allow a person to be tracked by various CCTV cameras across a city. Worse, in the future, this may be automated and done by computers.
The FBI is rushing ahead with this system in a larger context that is very troubling. Since 9/11, we've repeatedly seen the government throw together new identity and tracking systems without building in the necessary protections to make sure innocent people aren't caught up in them. A good example is aviation watchlists. Countless travelers have found themselves trapped in a Kafkaesque nightmare – improperly listed as suspected terrorists, hassled, arrested or worse, and with no way to clear their names in the eyes of the government's secretive security bureaucracies. The problem is not just errors and mistaken identification, or the lack of due process or rigorous procedures for keeping the lists accurate, but also the possibility that government bureaucrats have used a "when in doubt, thrown a name on the list" approach.
We don't want to see the NGIS operate that way. Unfortunately, the FBI's record does not inspire confidence. In 2003, the bureau exempted its main criminal database, the National Crime Information Center (NCIC), from a requirement under the Privacy Act that agencies maintain records with "such accuracy, relevance, timeliness and completeness as is reasonably necessary to assure fairness to the individual". Some people have experienced the reality of this, such as a Maryland woman named Amy Studnitz who was fired from her job after an NCIC background check erroneously reported that she had a criminal record (even after the error was discovered, she was not rehired).
The experience of Oregon attorney Brandon Mayfield is also a cautionary tale. Considered a suspect in the 2004 bombing of a Madrid train due to a faulty fingerprint match, the FBI spied on Mayfield without a warrant, broke into his home several times and arrested him under the "material witness" statute. The FBI also investigated 19 other individuals whose fingerprints, like Mayfield's, were deemed similar to those found on evidence in Madrid.
Finally, the FBI's giant biometric project is taking place in a context where the United States – almost alone in the industrialised world – has no strong, overarching privacy laws, and no robust, independent institutions to enforce such laws. In another country where such institutions existed to protect people from error and abuse, this kind of programme might be cause for less concern. But rather than building such institutions, the US government has instead been granting sweeping new powers to our security agencies, and dismantling the checks and balances that are needed to ensure those powers are not misused. ...
Given the FBI's record of fallibility – and without genuine safeguards for citizens – this $1bn biometrics project is alarming
Jay Stanley
Wednesday 30 March 2011
The FBI recently announced that its Next Generation Identification System (NGIS) has "reached its initial operating capacity". This vast new biometrics project, for which Lockheed Martin won a $1bn contract in 2008, encompasses not only fingerprints but also, possibly, such biometrics as iris scans, face recognition, bodily scars, marks and tattoos.
Such a system raises a number of concerns from a civil liberties perspective. Many types of biometrics are of particular concern because they allow individuals to be tracked secretly and at a distance. For instance, facial recognition may allow a person to be tracked by various CCTV cameras across a city. Worse, in the future, this may be automated and done by computers.
The FBI is rushing ahead with this system in a larger context that is very troubling. Since 9/11, we've repeatedly seen the government throw together new identity and tracking systems without building in the necessary protections to make sure innocent people aren't caught up in them. A good example is aviation watchlists. Countless travelers have found themselves trapped in a Kafkaesque nightmare – improperly listed as suspected terrorists, hassled, arrested or worse, and with no way to clear their names in the eyes of the government's secretive security bureaucracies. The problem is not just errors and mistaken identification, or the lack of due process or rigorous procedures for keeping the lists accurate, but also the possibility that government bureaucrats have used a "when in doubt, thrown a name on the list" approach.
We don't want to see the NGIS operate that way. Unfortunately, the FBI's record does not inspire confidence. In 2003, the bureau exempted its main criminal database, the National Crime Information Center (NCIC), from a requirement under the Privacy Act that agencies maintain records with "such accuracy, relevance, timeliness and completeness as is reasonably necessary to assure fairness to the individual". Some people have experienced the reality of this, such as a Maryland woman named Amy Studnitz who was fired from her job after an NCIC background check erroneously reported that she had a criminal record (even after the error was discovered, she was not rehired).
The experience of Oregon attorney Brandon Mayfield is also a cautionary tale. Considered a suspect in the 2004 bombing of a Madrid train due to a faulty fingerprint match, the FBI spied on Mayfield without a warrant, broke into his home several times and arrested him under the "material witness" statute. The FBI also investigated 19 other individuals whose fingerprints, like Mayfield's, were deemed similar to those found on evidence in Madrid.
Finally, the FBI's giant biometric project is taking place in a context where the United States – almost alone in the industrialised world – has no strong, overarching privacy laws, and no robust, independent institutions to enforce such laws. In another country where such institutions existed to protect people from error and abuse, this kind of programme might be cause for less concern. But rather than building such institutions, the US government has instead been granting sweeping new powers to our security agencies, and dismantling the checks and balances that are needed to ensure those powers are not misused. ...
More than 2,000 of the most experienced police officers will be made to retire by 2015 as forces across England and Wales try to find 20% budget cuts, a Labour survey has claimed.
A series of Freedom of Information Act requests by the shadow home secretary, Yvette Cooper, has disclosed that over the next four years 13 of the 43 forces intend to use an obscure regulation to compulsorily retire 1,138 officers who have more than 30 years of service.
Labour estimates that a further 986 officers could be affected if some of the remaining 30 forces also decide to use the same regulation to find budget savings.
Cooper said that it was "deeply worrying" that 13 forces had already decided to use the A19 regulation to compulsorily retire some of the most experienced officers in the force.
"Some of these officers are experts in their fields and internationally respected for what they do in the fight against crime," she said.
"The home secretary must realise that you cannot make 20% front-loaded cuts to the police without losing the very crime fighters we need. The home secretary is taking unacceptable risks with public safety and the continued fight against crime."
As fully sworn officers of the crown rather than employees, policemen and women cannot be made redundant under existing rules. However, the A19 regulation can forcibly retire officers with more than 30 years' service on not less than two-thirds pension on the grounds of the efficiency of the force.
The experienced officers who have already left or are leaving the police this week include:
• An inspector with 33 years' service who is the longest serving specialist in crime reduction and crime prevention in England and Wales. He advises architects and builders on "designing out" crime in new buildings, especially on council estates.
• A neighbourhood sergeant who, at 48, is one of the youngest to be forcibly retired. He manages a team of officers and liaises with the local community on anti-social behaviour.
• A 55-year-old frontline roads policing officer who has spent the last 20 years responding to motorway incidents.
The latest Labour survey of police authority current plans shows that the jobs of 12,500 officers are to be lost over the next four years in addition to a further 15,000 police staff jobs, confirming the estimate of 28,000 jobs made by the Association of Chief Police Officers.
The Home Office estimated in November that 3,200 officers in England and Wales could be affected if all the 43 forces decided to enforce the compulsorily retirement rule. ...
A series of Freedom of Information Act requests by the shadow home secretary, Yvette Cooper, has disclosed that over the next four years 13 of the 43 forces intend to use an obscure regulation to compulsorily retire 1,138 officers who have more than 30 years of service.
Labour estimates that a further 986 officers could be affected if some of the remaining 30 forces also decide to use the same regulation to find budget savings.
Cooper said that it was "deeply worrying" that 13 forces had already decided to use the A19 regulation to compulsorily retire some of the most experienced officers in the force.
"Some of these officers are experts in their fields and internationally respected for what they do in the fight against crime," she said.
"The home secretary must realise that you cannot make 20% front-loaded cuts to the police without losing the very crime fighters we need. The home secretary is taking unacceptable risks with public safety and the continued fight against crime."
As fully sworn officers of the crown rather than employees, policemen and women cannot be made redundant under existing rules. However, the A19 regulation can forcibly retire officers with more than 30 years' service on not less than two-thirds pension on the grounds of the efficiency of the force.
The experienced officers who have already left or are leaving the police this week include:
• An inspector with 33 years' service who is the longest serving specialist in crime reduction and crime prevention in England and Wales. He advises architects and builders on "designing out" crime in new buildings, especially on council estates.
• A neighbourhood sergeant who, at 48, is one of the youngest to be forcibly retired. He manages a team of officers and liaises with the local community on anti-social behaviour.
• A 55-year-old frontline roads policing officer who has spent the last 20 years responding to motorway incidents.
The latest Labour survey of police authority current plans shows that the jobs of 12,500 officers are to be lost over the next four years in addition to a further 15,000 police staff jobs, confirming the estimate of 28,000 jobs made by the Association of Chief Police Officers.
The Home Office estimated in November that 3,200 officers in England and Wales could be affected if all the 43 forces decided to enforce the compulsorily retirement rule. ...
Security forces fired shots and used teargas to disperse up to 4,000 protesters in the volatile Syrian city of Deraa on Monday as frustration mounted at the slow pace of promised reforms.
Despite the widespread presence of security forces, protesters appeared to consolidate their positions in Deraa in the deep south and in the northern port city of Latakia, which are the two main fronts in the challenge to the Syrian regime.
According to human rights activists, more than 150 people have been killed in 11 days of unrest, which have seen protesters calling for increased freedoms.
Syria's president, Bashar al-Assad, who has not been sighted during the protests, is expected to deliver a speech within days.
The government has pledged to lift an almost five decade old emergency law, which – among other things – severely limits citizens' rights to demonstrate. That and other reforms are yet to be implemented.
A witness said demonstrators in Deraa had converged on a main square chanting "no to emergency laws". ...
Despite the widespread presence of security forces, protesters appeared to consolidate their positions in Deraa in the deep south and in the northern port city of Latakia, which are the two main fronts in the challenge to the Syrian regime.
According to human rights activists, more than 150 people have been killed in 11 days of unrest, which have seen protesters calling for increased freedoms.
Syria's president, Bashar al-Assad, who has not been sighted during the protests, is expected to deliver a speech within days.
The government has pledged to lift an almost five decade old emergency law, which – among other things – severely limits citizens' rights to demonstrate. That and other reforms are yet to be implemented.
A witness said demonstrators in Deraa had converged on a main square chanting "no to emergency laws". ...
... The leak comes as a second survey of police authority intentions carried out by Labour confirms that the police are heading for 27,500 job losses, including 12,500 police officers, over the next four years. Ministers have vowed to protect frontline policing from the impact of the cuts and a report by Her Majesty's Inspector of Constabulary to be published on Wednesday is expected to clear up the confusion over where the "frontline" can be drawn in the battle against crime.
The shadow home secretary, Yvette Cooper, said the Warwickshire situation showed that chief constables had been put in an impossible position: "It is now clear that when there is not the staff to help plan, co-ordinate or forensically investigate the fight against crime, then police officers will have to be taken off the streets to do this work.
"The government needs to take responsibility and recognise that the loss of 12,500 police officers and 15,000 police staff across the country is taking risks with public safety and the progress on crime and antisocial behaviour that was made over the last decade."
The decision by Warwickshire to redeploy frontline officers to roles such as staffing inquiry offices and control rooms and conducting routine visits to crime scenes was disclosed in a leaked memo by Richard Elkin, the force's human resources director.
He has written to all 860 back-office staff inviting those with more than two years' service to apply for voluntary redundancy: "Whilst the force manages the required reductions in the number of police officers, it has been agreed that some will be temporarily posted into police staff posts which are currently vacant, or which will become vacant following voluntary redundancy," says the memo.
The Warwickshire force faces losing 450 jobs out of its 1,800 strength to find savings of £23m in its £100m budget by 2015. The home secretary, Theresa May, and the police minister, Nick Herbert, have repeatedly said it is possible for savings to be found through cutting bureaucracy and back-office functions without hitting the frontline.
Ian Francis, chairman of Warwickshire police authority, has said that there are too many police officers in the county force for the new model of policing which is being implemented. "We don't like it, they [Warwickshire police federation] don't like it, I don't think the public like it, but at the end of the day we have no option," Francis has said.
Francis has predicted that other forces are also likely to draft frontline officers into support roles: "The simple matter is yes, we are going to lose policemen from the front line." ...
The shadow home secretary, Yvette Cooper, said the Warwickshire situation showed that chief constables had been put in an impossible position: "It is now clear that when there is not the staff to help plan, co-ordinate or forensically investigate the fight against crime, then police officers will have to be taken off the streets to do this work.
"The government needs to take responsibility and recognise that the loss of 12,500 police officers and 15,000 police staff across the country is taking risks with public safety and the progress on crime and antisocial behaviour that was made over the last decade."
The decision by Warwickshire to redeploy frontline officers to roles such as staffing inquiry offices and control rooms and conducting routine visits to crime scenes was disclosed in a leaked memo by Richard Elkin, the force's human resources director.
He has written to all 860 back-office staff inviting those with more than two years' service to apply for voluntary redundancy: "Whilst the force manages the required reductions in the number of police officers, it has been agreed that some will be temporarily posted into police staff posts which are currently vacant, or which will become vacant following voluntary redundancy," says the memo.
The Warwickshire force faces losing 450 jobs out of its 1,800 strength to find savings of £23m in its £100m budget by 2015. The home secretary, Theresa May, and the police minister, Nick Herbert, have repeatedly said it is possible for savings to be found through cutting bureaucracy and back-office functions without hitting the frontline.
Ian Francis, chairman of Warwickshire police authority, has said that there are too many police officers in the county force for the new model of policing which is being implemented. "We don't like it, they [Warwickshire police federation] don't like it, I don't think the public like it, but at the end of the day we have no option," Francis has said.
Francis has predicted that other forces are also likely to draft frontline officers into support roles: "The simple matter is yes, we are going to lose policemen from the front line." ...
The News of the World has revealed that its computers have retained an archive of potentially damning emails, which hitherto it had claimed had been lost.
The millions of emails, amounting to half a terabyte of data, could expose executives and reporters involved in hacking the voicemail of public figures, including former deputy prime minister John Prescott, actor Sienna Miller, and former culture secretary Tessa Jowell.
The archived data is likely to include email exchanges between the most senior executives, including former editor Andy Coulson, who resigned as David Cameron's media adviser in January, as well as three former news editors – Ian Edmondson, Greg Miskiw, and Neville Thurlbeck – implicated in the affair by paperwork seized from Glenn Mulcaire, the private investigator who was on the News of the World's books. Edmondson was sacked in January. Miskiw and Thurlbeck were interviewed by police last autumn. No charge has been brought against any of them. Coulson and the three former news editors have all denied all involvement in criminal activity.
MPs on the home affairs select committee are likely on Tuesday to ask about the emails to John Yates, acting deputy commissioner of the Metropolitan police, when they question him over allegations he misled parliament in evidence he gave about the number of hacking victims originally identified by Scotland Yard. Yates told the committee six months ago the Met had only identified "10 to 12" individuals in a 2006 inquiry because the Crown Prosecution Service advised it to adopt a narrow legal definition of what constituted an offence. The Director of Public Prosecutions, Keir Starmer, has said that prosecuting counsel never adopted this narrow definition.
Several News of the World journalists have since been linked with phone hacking after victims began legal battles, raising questions about why Scotland Yard failed to conduct a more comprehensive inquiry. Only one reporter, former royal editor Clive Goodman, was convicted of a crime along with Mulcaire. Both men were sentenced to jail terms in January 2007. ...
The millions of emails, amounting to half a terabyte of data, could expose executives and reporters involved in hacking the voicemail of public figures, including former deputy prime minister John Prescott, actor Sienna Miller, and former culture secretary Tessa Jowell.
The archived data is likely to include email exchanges between the most senior executives, including former editor Andy Coulson, who resigned as David Cameron's media adviser in January, as well as three former news editors – Ian Edmondson, Greg Miskiw, and Neville Thurlbeck – implicated in the affair by paperwork seized from Glenn Mulcaire, the private investigator who was on the News of the World's books. Edmondson was sacked in January. Miskiw and Thurlbeck were interviewed by police last autumn. No charge has been brought against any of them. Coulson and the three former news editors have all denied all involvement in criminal activity.
MPs on the home affairs select committee are likely on Tuesday to ask about the emails to John Yates, acting deputy commissioner of the Metropolitan police, when they question him over allegations he misled parliament in evidence he gave about the number of hacking victims originally identified by Scotland Yard. Yates told the committee six months ago the Met had only identified "10 to 12" individuals in a 2006 inquiry because the Crown Prosecution Service advised it to adopt a narrow legal definition of what constituted an offence. The Director of Public Prosecutions, Keir Starmer, has said that prosecuting counsel never adopted this narrow definition.
Several News of the World journalists have since been linked with phone hacking after victims began legal battles, raising questions about why Scotland Yard failed to conduct a more comprehensive inquiry. Only one reporter, former royal editor Clive Goodman, was convicted of a crime along with Mulcaire. Both men were sentenced to jail terms in January 2007. ...
Prince Andrew is under further pressure over his work as Britain's special trade representative after it was alleged that a Libyan businessman gave his daughter Princess Beatrice a diamond necklace for her 21st birthday two years ago.
The businessman, Tarek Kaituni, who is now a US citizen, has convictions for possession of drugs – for which he served a prison sentence in 1998 – and attempting to smuggle a sub-machine gun into France.
He was a guest at Beatrice's birthday party at a private villa near Marbella, during which he was photographed with the prince sitting at the same table. Kaituni's former girlfriend Manel Hamrouni, who was pictured sitting next to the prince, claimed to the Sunday Times that the prince had lobbied for the businessman to be given a consultancy with the British water treatment company Biwater and paid commission for helping to secure business in Libya.
The prince's spokesman denied that he had ever acted on Kaituni's behalf, received personal gifts or solicited payments for him. He described Andrew and Kaituni as "certainly associates".
Asked whether the princess had been given a diamond necklace, he replied: "We never comment on any gifts given to members of the royal family." ...
The businessman, Tarek Kaituni, who is now a US citizen, has convictions for possession of drugs – for which he served a prison sentence in 1998 – and attempting to smuggle a sub-machine gun into France.
He was a guest at Beatrice's birthday party at a private villa near Marbella, during which he was photographed with the prince sitting at the same table. Kaituni's former girlfriend Manel Hamrouni, who was pictured sitting next to the prince, claimed to the Sunday Times that the prince had lobbied for the businessman to be given a consultancy with the British water treatment company Biwater and paid commission for helping to secure business in Libya.
The prince's spokesman denied that he had ever acted on Kaituni's behalf, received personal gifts or solicited payments for him. He described Andrew and Kaituni as "certainly associates".
Asked whether the princess had been given a diamond necklace, he replied: "We never comment on any gifts given to members of the royal family." ...
... What is relatively new, however, is the level of logical dysfunction and hyperbole within the American right, trapped in a fetid media ecosystem where all the Kool-Aid has been spiked. In short, what you need to say and do to be credible within the Republican party essentially deprives you of credibility outside it. The Republicans seem to realise this, but like an obese glutton at an all-you-can-eat buffet, they just can't seem to help themselves. ...
A sixth police officer has been unmasked as an undercover spy in the protest movement as it emerged that Mark Kennedy, who spent seven years posing as an environmental activist, is considering suing Scotland Yard.
In an interview with the Guardian Weekend magazine, Kennedy, who went "rogue" and offered to help environmental campaigners accused of planning to break into a power station, says he has suffered severe post-traumatic stress disorder and has been suicidal. His lawyers have been instructed to consider legal action against the police.
The latest officer was reported to have been embedded in an anti-capitalist group for four years under the fake name of Simon Wellings. Newsnight on BBC2 reported that his true identity was discovered through a police blunder.
Wellings inadvertently phoned a campaigner with the Globalise Resistance anti-capitalist group on his mobile phone while discussing photographs of demonstrators with another officer at a police station.
The call was recorded on the campaigner's answerphone and Wellings is heard being pressed to identify protesters at demonstrations, according to Newsnight. He is recorded saying: "She's Hanna's girlfriend – very overt lesbian – last time I saw her, hair about that long, it was blonde, week before it was black."
The infiltration of police spies became controversial after the identification of Kennedy and four others who had posed as members of a variety of political groups including environmental, anti-racist and anti-globalisation campaigns.
The infiltration is the subject of four official investigations after police chiefs and ministers admitted the undercover operations had gone "badly wrong".
Kennedy believes that other undercover officers have been similarly ostracised. "The way the police handled the whole extraction .. is absolutely thoughtless from a psychological point of view and from a safety point of view."
He argues that the damage caused by such undercover work is too great, and that the police should rely more on electronic rather than human intelligence. ...
In an interview with the Guardian Weekend magazine, Kennedy, who went "rogue" and offered to help environmental campaigners accused of planning to break into a power station, says he has suffered severe post-traumatic stress disorder and has been suicidal. His lawyers have been instructed to consider legal action against the police.
The latest officer was reported to have been embedded in an anti-capitalist group for four years under the fake name of Simon Wellings. Newsnight on BBC2 reported that his true identity was discovered through a police blunder.
Wellings inadvertently phoned a campaigner with the Globalise Resistance anti-capitalist group on his mobile phone while discussing photographs of demonstrators with another officer at a police station.
The call was recorded on the campaigner's answerphone and Wellings is heard being pressed to identify protesters at demonstrations, according to Newsnight. He is recorded saying: "She's Hanna's girlfriend – very overt lesbian – last time I saw her, hair about that long, it was blonde, week before it was black."
The infiltration of police spies became controversial after the identification of Kennedy and four others who had posed as members of a variety of political groups including environmental, anti-racist and anti-globalisation campaigns.
The infiltration is the subject of four official investigations after police chiefs and ministers admitted the undercover operations had gone "badly wrong".
Kennedy believes that other undercover officers have been similarly ostracised. "The way the police handled the whole extraction .. is absolutely thoughtless from a psychological point of view and from a safety point of view."
He argues that the damage caused by such undercover work is too great, and that the police should rely more on electronic rather than human intelligence. ...
... Their disappearance may not be noticed by anyone with a good income, in secure employment, in sound health, without caring responsibilities – anyone who does not look to the state for support with life's problems. For the more vulnerable, the decision to close these bodies and cut these jobs will be sharply felt. They will be more acutely obvious beyond the south-east, in areas that are more dependent on government grants. Women, parents, carers, disabled people, teenagers and elderly people are likely to be the most affected.
From a Westminster perspective, they may be easy to ignore. These are not dramatic closures of maternity wards, big events that would inspire fury and noisy protest; instead the process is much smaller, more fragmented in scale, and hardest felt by people who tend not to be particularly powerful or vocal. Mostly, ministers are able to wash their hands of responsibility, dismissing these cuts as local decisions (despite the fact that they originate in central government funding reductions).
Viewed from Downing Street, they probably seem a fractured collection of regrettable but relatively insignificant services, located (conveniently) in greater concentration the further you move from Westminster. But from the service users' perspective, their disappearance will often be catastrophic. ...
From a Westminster perspective, they may be easy to ignore. These are not dramatic closures of maternity wards, big events that would inspire fury and noisy protest; instead the process is much smaller, more fragmented in scale, and hardest felt by people who tend not to be particularly powerful or vocal. Mostly, ministers are able to wash their hands of responsibility, dismissing these cuts as local decisions (despite the fact that they originate in central government funding reductions).
Viewed from Downing Street, they probably seem a fractured collection of regrettable but relatively insignificant services, located (conveniently) in greater concentration the further you move from Westminster. But from the service users' perspective, their disappearance will often be catastrophic. ...
A strong earthquake that toppled homes in north-east Burma has killed at least 65 people, and there are fears the death toll will mount as conditions in more remote areas become known.
The quake on Thursday night, measured at a magnitude 6.8 by the US Geological Survey, was centred just north of the town of Tachileik in the mountains along the Thai border, but was felt hundreds of miles away in the Thai capital, Bangkok, and the Vietnamese capital, Hanoi.
Burma state radio announced on Friday that 65 people had been killed and 111 injured in the quake, but was updating the total frequently. It said 244 houses, 14 Buddhist monasteries and nine government buildings were damaged.
An official from the UN's World Food Programme said there were many casualties and serious damage in Mong Lin village, five miles (8km) from Tachileik. State radio said 29 were killed there and 16 injured. ...
The quake on Thursday night, measured at a magnitude 6.8 by the US Geological Survey, was centred just north of the town of Tachileik in the mountains along the Thai border, but was felt hundreds of miles away in the Thai capital, Bangkok, and the Vietnamese capital, Hanoi.
Burma state radio announced on Friday that 65 people had been killed and 111 injured in the quake, but was updating the total frequently. It said 244 houses, 14 Buddhist monasteries and nine government buildings were damaged.
An official from the UN's World Food Programme said there were many casualties and serious damage in Mong Lin village, five miles (8km) from Tachileik. State radio said 29 were killed there and 16 injured. ...
Syria's government pledged to consider protesters' "legitimate demands" after thousands took to the streets for the funerals of nine people killed by the military.
Rights activists described Wednesday's shootings in the southern city of Daraa as a massacre, claiming that more than 100 people may have been killed when troops fired on a mosque in the early hours and throughout the day.
With protests called for after Friday prayers, Buthaina Shaaban, adviser to President Bashar al-Assad, announced that the government would consider ending Syria's emergency law and revise legislation for political parties and the media. Similar reform pledges have been announced in the past, and are unlikely to satisfy protesters.
In Deraa, funeral-goers chanted "God, Syria, Freedom" and "The blood of martyrs is not spilt in vain!", Reuters news agency reported. Some reports said that up to 20,000 people attended, but this could not be verified. The city has been cordoned off.
Deraa's hospital reported receiving 37 bodies from Wednesday's violence. YouTube videos apparently showed bloody scenes at the mosque.
Electricity and communications in the city were cut before the attack, which sources said was by a unit of forces headed by the president's brother, Maher al-Assad.
"This is a crime against humanity because forces opened fire on unarmed civilians without any warning," said Radwan Ziadeh, head of the Damascus Centre for Human Rights and a visiting scholar at Harvard University. ...
Rights activists described Wednesday's shootings in the southern city of Daraa as a massacre, claiming that more than 100 people may have been killed when troops fired on a mosque in the early hours and throughout the day.
With protests called for after Friday prayers, Buthaina Shaaban, adviser to President Bashar al-Assad, announced that the government would consider ending Syria's emergency law and revise legislation for political parties and the media. Similar reform pledges have been announced in the past, and are unlikely to satisfy protesters.
In Deraa, funeral-goers chanted "God, Syria, Freedom" and "The blood of martyrs is not spilt in vain!", Reuters news agency reported. Some reports said that up to 20,000 people attended, but this could not be verified. The city has been cordoned off.
Deraa's hospital reported receiving 37 bodies from Wednesday's violence. YouTube videos apparently showed bloody scenes at the mosque.
Electricity and communications in the city were cut before the attack, which sources said was by a unit of forces headed by the president's brother, Maher al-Assad.
"This is a crime against humanity because forces opened fire on unarmed civilians without any warning," said Radwan Ziadeh, head of the Damascus Centre for Human Rights and a visiting scholar at Harvard University. ...
The extraordinary public clash between the Metropolitan police and the director of public prosecutions during which each side has implied that the other has misled parliament continued with controversial claims before a Commons committee.
The quarrel continued as new claims were made that private investigators working for newspapers may have targeted the families of Milly Dowler, the Surrey schoolgirl who was abducted and murdered in March 2002, and of Holly Chapman, one of the two 10-year-old girls murdered by Ian Huntley in Soham in August 2002.
The Met-DPP clash continued at a special session of the Commons culture, media and sport committee, where Scotland Yard's acting deputy commissioner, John Yates, conceded for the first time that the original 2006 inquiry into phone hacking at the News of the World should have done more, and that police had failed to do enough for victims of hacking.
Asked if he accepted that the affair had seriously damaged the reputation of the Metropolitan police, he said: "I would certainly say that it has been very challenging for us. We are working extremely hard to put that right."
But it was his evidence on the legal advice provided by the director of public prosecutions, Keir Starmer QC, that was most controversial. The immediate focus of the dispute is an arcane point of law.
Its underlying significance is the light it may shed on the question of whether Scotland Yard has tried to hide the truth about the number of people whose phones were hacked by journalists and private investigators working for the NoW.
In his evidence, Yates listed a series of occasions on which prosecutors had advised police that the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000 (Ripa) made it an offence to intercept voicemail only if the message had not already been heard by its intended recipient.
He said this advice had been given repeatedly during the original inquiry in 2006: "It permeated every aspect of the investigative strategy." It was on this basis, Yates added, that he had previously told parliament that police had found only 10 to 12 victims of the hacking, even though the emerging evidence now suggests there were many more.
Yates's evidence directly clashes with a written submission from Starmer last October to the home affairs select committee. Starmer said the question of how to interpret Ripa had not arisen during the original inquiry.
Prosecutors had attached no significance to the point in preparing charges or presenting the facts, he said. "It is evident that the prosecution's approach to Ripa had no bearing on the charges brought against the defendants or the legal proceedings generally," he wrote. ...
The quarrel continued as new claims were made that private investigators working for newspapers may have targeted the families of Milly Dowler, the Surrey schoolgirl who was abducted and murdered in March 2002, and of Holly Chapman, one of the two 10-year-old girls murdered by Ian Huntley in Soham in August 2002.
The Met-DPP clash continued at a special session of the Commons culture, media and sport committee, where Scotland Yard's acting deputy commissioner, John Yates, conceded for the first time that the original 2006 inquiry into phone hacking at the News of the World should have done more, and that police had failed to do enough for victims of hacking.
Asked if he accepted that the affair had seriously damaged the reputation of the Metropolitan police, he said: "I would certainly say that it has been very challenging for us. We are working extremely hard to put that right."
But it was his evidence on the legal advice provided by the director of public prosecutions, Keir Starmer QC, that was most controversial. The immediate focus of the dispute is an arcane point of law.
Its underlying significance is the light it may shed on the question of whether Scotland Yard has tried to hide the truth about the number of people whose phones were hacked by journalists and private investigators working for the NoW.
In his evidence, Yates listed a series of occasions on which prosecutors had advised police that the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000 (Ripa) made it an offence to intercept voicemail only if the message had not already been heard by its intended recipient.
He said this advice had been given repeatedly during the original inquiry in 2006: "It permeated every aspect of the investigative strategy." It was on this basis, Yates added, that he had previously told parliament that police had found only 10 to 12 victims of the hacking, even though the emerging evidence now suggests there were many more.
Yates's evidence directly clashes with a written submission from Starmer last October to the home affairs select committee. Starmer said the question of how to interpret Ripa had not arisen during the original inquiry.
Prosecutors had attached no significance to the point in preparing charges or presenting the facts, he said. "It is evident that the prosecution's approach to Ripa had no bearing on the charges brought against the defendants or the legal proceedings generally," he wrote. ...
prince is no prince.
Um, who are the good guys again?
...something very different is going on on the right, and I think we need to understand what that is. Why is climate change seen as such a threat? I don’t believe it’s an unreasonable fear. I think it’s unreasonable to believe that scientists are making up the science. They’re not. It’s not a hoax. But actually, climate change really is a profound threat to a great many things that right-wing ideologues believe in. So, in fact, if you really wrestle with the implications of the science and what real climate action would mean, here’s just a few examples what it would mean.
It would mean upending the whole free trade agenda, because it would mean that we would have to localize our economies, because we have the most energy-inefficient trade system that you could imagine. And this is the legacy of the free trade era. So, this has been a signature policy of the right, pushing globalization and free trade. That would have to be reversed.
You would have to deal with inequality. You would have to redistribute wealth, because this is a crisis that was created in the North, and the effects are being felt in the South. So, on the most basic, basic, "you broke it, you bought it," polluter pays, you would have to redistribute wealth, which is also against their ideology.
You would have to regulate corporations. You simply would have to. I mean, any serious climate action has to intervene in the economy. You would have to subsidize renewable energy, which also breaks their worldview.
You would have to have a really strong United Nations, because individual countries can’t do this alone. You absolutely have to have a strong international architecture.
So when you go through this, you see, it challenges everything that they believe in. So they’re choosing to disbelieve it, because it’s easier to deny the science than to say, "OK, I accept that my whole worldview is going to fall apart," that we have to have massive investments in public infrastructure, that we have to reverse free trade deals, that we have to have huge transfers of wealth from the North to the South. Imagine actually contending with that. It’s a lot easier to deny it. ...
Ta much, dear Ar0cketman
It would mean upending the whole free trade agenda, because it would mean that we would have to localize our economies, because we have the most energy-inefficient trade system that you could imagine. And this is the legacy of the free trade era. So, this has been a signature policy of the right, pushing globalization and free trade. That would have to be reversed.
You would have to deal with inequality. You would have to redistribute wealth, because this is a crisis that was created in the North, and the effects are being felt in the South. So, on the most basic, basic, "you broke it, you bought it," polluter pays, you would have to redistribute wealth, which is also against their ideology.
You would have to regulate corporations. You simply would have to. I mean, any serious climate action has to intervene in the economy. You would have to subsidize renewable energy, which also breaks their worldview.
You would have to have a really strong United Nations, because individual countries can’t do this alone. You absolutely have to have a strong international architecture.
So when you go through this, you see, it challenges everything that they believe in. So they’re choosing to disbelieve it, because it’s easier to deny the science than to say, "OK, I accept that my whole worldview is going to fall apart," that we have to have massive investments in public infrastructure, that we have to reverse free trade deals, that we have to have huge transfers of wealth from the North to the South. Imagine actually contending with that. It’s a lot easier to deny it. ...
Ta much, dear Ar0cketman
Syrian police have sealed off a southern city after security forces killed at least five protesters.
Residents of Daraa were being allowed to leave but not enter the city , said prominent Syrian rights activist Mazen Darwish.
The cordon seemed aimed at choking off any spread of unrest after earlier clashes and emotional funeral processions for the dead.
President Bashar Al-Assad, who has boasted that his country is immune to the demands for change that have already toppled leaders in Egypt and Tunisia, sent a delegation to the southern city to offer his condolences to families of the victims, according to a Syrian official.
Serious disturbances in Syria would be a major expansion of the region's unrest. Syria, a predominantly Sunni country ruled by minority Alawites, has a history of brutally crushing dissent.
Security forces launched a harsh crackdown on Friday's demonstrations calling for political freedoms. Protests took place in at least five cities, including the capital, Damascus. But only in Daraa did they turn deadly. ...
Residents of Daraa were being allowed to leave but not enter the city , said prominent Syrian rights activist Mazen Darwish.
The cordon seemed aimed at choking off any spread of unrest after earlier clashes and emotional funeral processions for the dead.
President Bashar Al-Assad, who has boasted that his country is immune to the demands for change that have already toppled leaders in Egypt and Tunisia, sent a delegation to the southern city to offer his condolences to families of the victims, according to a Syrian official.
Serious disturbances in Syria would be a major expansion of the region's unrest. Syria, a predominantly Sunni country ruled by minority Alawites, has a history of brutally crushing dissent.
Security forces launched a harsh crackdown on Friday's demonstrations calling for political freedoms. Protests took place in at least five cities, including the capital, Damascus. But only in Daraa did they turn deadly. ...
Andrew Lansley accused of burying poll showing record satisfaction with NHS | Society | The Observer
Ministers have been accused of "burying good news" about the NHS because it will undermine their case for sweeping reforms, after it emerged that they are withholding unpublished polling data that shows record levels of satisfaction with healthcare.
The Observer has learned that the polling organisation Ipsos MORI submitted the results last autumn to the Department of Health for inclusion in a government survey of public perceptions of the NHS. The data, commissioned by the department, shows that more members of the public than ever believe the NHS is doing a good job – a finding contrary to health secretary Andrew Lansley's insistence that it is falling short and needs urgent change.
The department has had the findings for six months, but has yet to make them public – the most recent information on its website relates to 2007. The decision to "sit on" the positive information has fuelled a row over the way in which the government is rooting out negative statistics about the NHS to justify reforms. Under the plans – rejected by the Liberal Democrats at their spring conference last weekend and opposed by a small band of Tory MPs, as well as by the Labour party – GPs will be handed control of £80bn of the NHS budget, tiers of management will be swept away and the private sector will play a greater role. The department was unable to say yesterday when it would publish the new data, but sources confirmed that the information shows public satisfaction at a record level.
In January, John Appleby, chief economist at the King's Fund thinktank, questioned the way in which ministers were unfavourably comparing the NHS with France. Appleby's article for the British Medical Journal attracted support from several academics and doctors. Professor Raj Bhopal, of the University of Edinburgh, said: "Justifying NHS reforms by picking a few statistics that cast doubts on the UK's renowned healthcare system is worrying, but choosing statistics that are widely questioned reminds me of previous government briefings that led to dodgy dossiers." ...
The Observer has learned that the polling organisation Ipsos MORI submitted the results last autumn to the Department of Health for inclusion in a government survey of public perceptions of the NHS. The data, commissioned by the department, shows that more members of the public than ever believe the NHS is doing a good job – a finding contrary to health secretary Andrew Lansley's insistence that it is falling short and needs urgent change.
The department has had the findings for six months, but has yet to make them public – the most recent information on its website relates to 2007. The decision to "sit on" the positive information has fuelled a row over the way in which the government is rooting out negative statistics about the NHS to justify reforms. Under the plans – rejected by the Liberal Democrats at their spring conference last weekend and opposed by a small band of Tory MPs, as well as by the Labour party – GPs will be handed control of £80bn of the NHS budget, tiers of management will be swept away and the private sector will play a greater role. The department was unable to say yesterday when it would publish the new data, but sources confirmed that the information shows public satisfaction at a record level.
In January, John Appleby, chief economist at the King's Fund thinktank, questioned the way in which ministers were unfavourably comparing the NHS with France. Appleby's article for the British Medical Journal attracted support from several academics and doctors. Professor Raj Bhopal, of the University of Edinburgh, said: "Justifying NHS reforms by picking a few statistics that cast doubts on the UK's renowned healthcare system is worrying, but choosing statistics that are widely questioned reminds me of previous government briefings that led to dodgy dossiers." ...
The growing number of public figures suing the News of the World won a major high court victory when a judge said Scotland Yard must hand over a mass of phone-hacking evidence that has never before been disclosed.
The ruling by Justice Geoffrey Vos, who was appointed this week to handle the 14 phone-hacking cases currently going through the courts, means the Metropolitan police will be forced to pass reams of documents seized from Glenn Mulcaire, the private investigator who worked for the News of the World, to lawyers acting for the politicians, celebrities and football figures who are suing the paper. They include Sienna Miller, Paul Gascoigne, Steve Coogan and the former culture secretary Tessa Jowell.
Vos ruled on Friday that the Met must give unredacted documents – including Mulcaire's emails, address and contacts books, and phone bills – to another hacking victim, the football agent Sky Andrew. The decision sets a precedent for the other hacking cases and has far-reaching implications for the NoW, police and other litigants. It will lead to a flood of hacking documents being released to other claimants, all of whom are seeking copies of papers seized by police in a 2006 raid on Mulcaire's home. ...
The ruling by Justice Geoffrey Vos, who was appointed this week to handle the 14 phone-hacking cases currently going through the courts, means the Metropolitan police will be forced to pass reams of documents seized from Glenn Mulcaire, the private investigator who worked for the News of the World, to lawyers acting for the politicians, celebrities and football figures who are suing the paper. They include Sienna Miller, Paul Gascoigne, Steve Coogan and the former culture secretary Tessa Jowell.
Vos ruled on Friday that the Met must give unredacted documents – including Mulcaire's emails, address and contacts books, and phone bills – to another hacking victim, the football agent Sky Andrew. The decision sets a precedent for the other hacking cases and has far-reaching implications for the NoW, police and other litigants. It will lead to a flood of hacking documents being released to other claimants, all of whom are seeking copies of papers seized by police in a 2006 raid on Mulcaire's home. ...
The US is pushing the UN to authorise not just a no-fly zone over Libya, but also the use of air strikes to stop the advance of forces loyal to Muammar Gaddafi.
Washington's ambassador to the UN, Susan Rice, said on Wednesday that a no-fly zone would have only a limited use, and that the Obama administration was working "very hard" to pass a new resolution, which would authorise the use of aerial bombing of Libyan tanks and heavy artillery.
The UN security council is planning to vote on the resolution late on Thursday.
After a day of intensive negotiation in New York, Rice told reporters: "We need to be prepared to contemplate steps that include, but perhaps go beyond, a no-fly zone at this point, as the situation on the ground has evolved, and as a no-fly zone has inherent limitations in terms of protection of civilians at immediate risk."
The draft, supported by the US, Britain, France and Germany, reflects a significant shift by Washington, alarmed by the speed at which the uprising is collapsing and concerned at the possibility of a massacre in the rebel stronghold of Benghazi. ...
Washington's ambassador to the UN, Susan Rice, said on Wednesday that a no-fly zone would have only a limited use, and that the Obama administration was working "very hard" to pass a new resolution, which would authorise the use of aerial bombing of Libyan tanks and heavy artillery.
The UN security council is planning to vote on the resolution late on Thursday.
After a day of intensive negotiation in New York, Rice told reporters: "We need to be prepared to contemplate steps that include, but perhaps go beyond, a no-fly zone at this point, as the situation on the ground has evolved, and as a no-fly zone has inherent limitations in terms of protection of civilians at immediate risk."
The draft, supported by the US, Britain, France and Germany, reflects a significant shift by Washington, alarmed by the speed at which the uprising is collapsing and concerned at the possibility of a massacre in the rebel stronghold of Benghazi. ...
Dr Freddy Patel, the former Home Office pathologist suspended for incompetence in a series of high profile autopsies, has been found guilty of misconduct after failing to spot that a murder victim had been suffocated.
The 63-year-old forensic examiner now faces being struck off the medical register.
A disciplinary panel of the General Medical Council (GMC) ruled that his "fitness to practise was impaired" because of his reluctance to consider asphyxiation in the murder case, the falsification of his professional CV, and his failure to redress previous professional shortcomings.
Over the last 18 months, Patel's work has come under intense scrutiny. He has been criticised for suggesting the newspaper seller Ian Tomlinson died of natural causes during the G20 protests in 2009.
Last summer Patel was suspended from practice for three months after the GMC found him guilty of misconduct or "deficient professional performance" in other cases. A disciplinary panel in effect banned him from carrying out postmortem examinations involving suspicious deaths.
In its latest findings the GMC told Patel that his clinical approach was not "sufficiently in line with the required standard of a competent pathologist".
In relation to his inaccurate CV, it said he had "acted in a way that was dishonest and liable to bring the profession into disrepute" and that the failings were "deliberate rather than inadvertent". ...
Believe it or not, as the article continues it actually gets worse.
The 63-year-old forensic examiner now faces being struck off the medical register.
A disciplinary panel of the General Medical Council (GMC) ruled that his "fitness to practise was impaired" because of his reluctance to consider asphyxiation in the murder case, the falsification of his professional CV, and his failure to redress previous professional shortcomings.
Over the last 18 months, Patel's work has come under intense scrutiny. He has been criticised for suggesting the newspaper seller Ian Tomlinson died of natural causes during the G20 protests in 2009.
Last summer Patel was suspended from practice for three months after the GMC found him guilty of misconduct or "deficient professional performance" in other cases. A disciplinary panel in effect banned him from carrying out postmortem examinations involving suspicious deaths.
In its latest findings the GMC told Patel that his clinical approach was not "sufficiently in line with the required standard of a competent pathologist".
In relation to his inaccurate CV, it said he had "acted in a way that was dishonest and liable to bring the profession into disrepute" and that the failings were "deliberate rather than inadvertent". ...
Believe it or not, as the article continues it actually gets worse.
Phone hacking: Panorama to name sixth journalist in News of the World scandal | Media | The Guardian
The News of the World phone-hacking scandal is set to reach a new peak of embarrassment for the paper and for Scotland Yard with the naming of the sixth and most senior journalist yet to be implicated in illegal news-gathering.
A BBC Panorama programme claims that Alex Marunchak, formerly the paper's senior executive editor, commissioned a specialist snooper who illegally intercepted email messages from a target's computer and faxed copies of them to Marunchak's News of the World office.
The embarrassment is heightened by the fact that the target was a former British army intelligence officer who had served in Northern Ireland and was in possession of secrets which were deemed so sensitive that they had been suppressed by a court order.
Rupert Murdoch's News International, which owns the News of the World, has claimed repeatedly that only one of its journalists – the former royal correspondent, Clive Goodman – was involved in illegal news-gathering. When Goodman was jailed in January 2007, Scotland Yard chose not to interview any other journalist or executive on the paper.
And Panorama reports that the illegal interception of emails happened in July 2006, when the prime minister's former media adviser Andy Coulson was editing the paper. ...
A BBC Panorama programme claims that Alex Marunchak, formerly the paper's senior executive editor, commissioned a specialist snooper who illegally intercepted email messages from a target's computer and faxed copies of them to Marunchak's News of the World office.
The embarrassment is heightened by the fact that the target was a former British army intelligence officer who had served in Northern Ireland and was in possession of secrets which were deemed so sensitive that they had been suppressed by a court order.
Rupert Murdoch's News International, which owns the News of the World, has claimed repeatedly that only one of its journalists – the former royal correspondent, Clive Goodman – was involved in illegal news-gathering. When Goodman was jailed in January 2007, Scotland Yard chose not to interview any other journalist or executive on the paper.
And Panorama reports that the illegal interception of emails happened in July 2006, when the prime minister's former media adviser Andy Coulson was editing the paper. ...
What was the most amazing thing about last weekend's 24 Hour Panel People (highlights of which will be shown all week on BBC3 in the run-up to Friday's Comic Relief)? Was it David Walliams's incredible achievement of performing live in panel shows for a solid 24 hours – a feat of comic endurance not equalled since someone at the BBFC had to classify the DVD release of the complete Chucklevision? Or the generosity with which a host of Britain's best-loved comedians and Nicholas Parsons gave their time to make the event such a success? Or the speed with which the people at Dave subsequently put together a business plan for a 24-hour live rolling panel-show channel entirely fronted by Chinese children?
Well, I was there and I can tell you it was none of those things. The most amazing aspect of it, as a contributor, was the number of people bustling around with clipboards and headsets. Wherever I stood, unless actually on camera, dozens of them would immediately try to push past, politely but hurriedly, as if I'd obstinately positioned myself on the route of an air traffic controllers' fun run. "What can they possibly all be doing?" I thought irritably, forgetting temporarily that I lack the knowledge or power to self-televise.
It's an easy attitude to fall into, assuming that everyone else is perversely inconveniencing you, rather than having jobs or problems of their own – sitting in heavy traffic thinking: "Where are all these people going? Do they really need to? I'm late! They're getting in the way." In the case of this particular TV studio, I was the one who was getting in the way, and also having the gall to question the necessity and urgency of what I was getting in the way of: "Where are they going with the clipboards? Who are they talking to on the headsets? None of this makes any sense! All this process requires is people like me going in front of cameras and talking some shit."
That's precisely what David Cameron thinks about government. He simply can't understand what all the guys in headsets – the civil service – are up to. And he says it's not just him they're annoying – they're pushing past or obstructing the whole private sector. In an extraordinary speech to the Conservatives' spring conference last weekend, he called them the "enemies of enterprise". To him, they're the Klingons.
He said he was "taking on… the bureaucrats in government departments who concoct those ridiculous rules and regulations that make life impossible for small firms". On the face of it, this is simple crowd-pleasing stuff. It's easy to slag off the faceless bureaucrats, who supposedly waste our time and money with all their stupid rules. It's convenient to forget that bureaucrats, or civil servants as they're called when they're not being victimised, don't actually make rules, they just enforce them. Maybe, sometimes, they enforce them officiously. Maybe, sometimes, the processes they "concoct" for enforcing them are unnecessarily time-consuming. Maybe fewer of them could enforce the rules just as effectively. But they don't make the rules, Parliament does.
In seeking to blame the civil service for the rules as well as their enforcement, I think this speech is more sinister than Cameron's usual second-rate demagogy and I'm surprised it didn't attract greater attention. To me, these remarks are just as damaging as the prime minister's disparagement of multiculturalism, which rightly drew criticism, and a truer reflection of his political standpoint. Here he's breaking new ground for his evidence-averse Thatcherite ideological crusade. ...
Well, I was there and I can tell you it was none of those things. The most amazing aspect of it, as a contributor, was the number of people bustling around with clipboards and headsets. Wherever I stood, unless actually on camera, dozens of them would immediately try to push past, politely but hurriedly, as if I'd obstinately positioned myself on the route of an air traffic controllers' fun run. "What can they possibly all be doing?" I thought irritably, forgetting temporarily that I lack the knowledge or power to self-televise.
It's an easy attitude to fall into, assuming that everyone else is perversely inconveniencing you, rather than having jobs or problems of their own – sitting in heavy traffic thinking: "Where are all these people going? Do they really need to? I'm late! They're getting in the way." In the case of this particular TV studio, I was the one who was getting in the way, and also having the gall to question the necessity and urgency of what I was getting in the way of: "Where are they going with the clipboards? Who are they talking to on the headsets? None of this makes any sense! All this process requires is people like me going in front of cameras and talking some shit."
That's precisely what David Cameron thinks about government. He simply can't understand what all the guys in headsets – the civil service – are up to. And he says it's not just him they're annoying – they're pushing past or obstructing the whole private sector. In an extraordinary speech to the Conservatives' spring conference last weekend, he called them the "enemies of enterprise". To him, they're the Klingons.
He said he was "taking on… the bureaucrats in government departments who concoct those ridiculous rules and regulations that make life impossible for small firms". On the face of it, this is simple crowd-pleasing stuff. It's easy to slag off the faceless bureaucrats, who supposedly waste our time and money with all their stupid rules. It's convenient to forget that bureaucrats, or civil servants as they're called when they're not being victimised, don't actually make rules, they just enforce them. Maybe, sometimes, they enforce them officiously. Maybe, sometimes, the processes they "concoct" for enforcing them are unnecessarily time-consuming. Maybe fewer of them could enforce the rules just as effectively. But they don't make the rules, Parliament does.
In seeking to blame the civil service for the rules as well as their enforcement, I think this speech is more sinister than Cameron's usual second-rate demagogy and I'm surprised it didn't attract greater attention. To me, these remarks are just as damaging as the prime minister's disparagement of multiculturalism, which rightly drew criticism, and a truer reflection of his political standpoint. Here he's breaking new ground for his evidence-averse Thatcherite ideological crusade. ...
Muammar Gaddafi's army won control of a strategic rebel-held Libyan town and laid siege to another as the revolutionary administration in Benghazi again appealed for foreign military help to prevent what it said would be the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people if the insurgents were to lose.
The rebels admitted retreating from the oil town of Ras Lanuf – captured a week ago – after two days of intense fighting and that the nearby town of Brega was now threatened.
The revolutionary army, in large part made up of inexperienced young volunteers, has been forced back by a sustained artillery, tank and air bombardment about 20 miles along the road to the rebel capital of Benghazi.
The head of Libya's revolutionary council, Mustafa Abdel Jalil, claimed that if Gaddafi's forces were to reach the country's second-largest city it would result in "the death of half a million" people.
The Arab League, meeting in Cairo, called on the UN security council to impose a no fly-zone on Libya as Gaddafi's forces also began to move against Misrata, a city of 300,000 people about 125 miles from Tripoli. Misrata is the only town in the west of the country still under the control of the insurgents after their defeat in a vicious battle for Zawiya. The rebels said that Misrata was now surrounded by Gaddafi's forces, which included tanks.
"We are bracing for a massacre," Mohamad Ahmed, a rebel fighter in the city, said. "We know it will happen and Misrata will be like Zawiya, but we believe in God. We do not have the capabilities to fight Gaddafi and his forces. They have tanks and heavy weapons and we have our belief and trust in God. The fighters here and the people of Misrata hold the international community responsible for the fall of Zawiya and for all the deaths that happened. Gaddafi is responsible, but they are partners in crime."
Jalil again appealed for the imposition of a no-fly zone to stop the air attacks on rebel forces: "If there is no no-fly zone imposed on Gaddafi's regime, and his ships are not checked, we will have a catastrophe in Libya." ...
The rebels admitted retreating from the oil town of Ras Lanuf – captured a week ago – after two days of intense fighting and that the nearby town of Brega was now threatened.
The revolutionary army, in large part made up of inexperienced young volunteers, has been forced back by a sustained artillery, tank and air bombardment about 20 miles along the road to the rebel capital of Benghazi.
The head of Libya's revolutionary council, Mustafa Abdel Jalil, claimed that if Gaddafi's forces were to reach the country's second-largest city it would result in "the death of half a million" people.
The Arab League, meeting in Cairo, called on the UN security council to impose a no fly-zone on Libya as Gaddafi's forces also began to move against Misrata, a city of 300,000 people about 125 miles from Tripoli. Misrata is the only town in the west of the country still under the control of the insurgents after their defeat in a vicious battle for Zawiya. The rebels said that Misrata was now surrounded by Gaddafi's forces, which included tanks.
"We are bracing for a massacre," Mohamad Ahmed, a rebel fighter in the city, said. "We know it will happen and Misrata will be like Zawiya, but we believe in God. We do not have the capabilities to fight Gaddafi and his forces. They have tanks and heavy weapons and we have our belief and trust in God. The fighters here and the people of Misrata hold the international community responsible for the fall of Zawiya and for all the deaths that happened. Gaddafi is responsible, but they are partners in crime."
Jalil again appealed for the imposition of a no-fly zone to stop the air attacks on rebel forces: "If there is no no-fly zone imposed on Gaddafi's regime, and his ships are not checked, we will have a catastrophe in Libya." ...
Al-Jazeera says a cameraman for the pan-Arab satellite station has been killed near the eastern Libyan city of Benghazi. It is the first death of a journalist since the Libyan uprising began.
The station identified the slain journalist as Ali Hassan al-Jaber but did not specify his nationality. It said he was killed in what it called an "armed ambush" on an Al-Jazeera crew in the Hawari area near Benghazi, which is the headquarters of the rebellion seeking to oust Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi. ...
The station identified the slain journalist as Ali Hassan al-Jaber but did not specify his nationality. It said he was killed in what it called an "armed ambush" on an Al-Jazeera crew in the Hawari area near Benghazi, which is the headquarters of the rebellion seeking to oust Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi. ...
Yemeni security forces have killed four people and wounded hundreds more in the second day of a harsh crackdown on anti-government protests, witnesses said. One of the dead was a 15-year-old student.
The assault with gunfire and tear gas was the toughest yet by the government in a month of protests aimed at unseating the president, Ali Abdullah Saleh, who has been in power for 32 years. An ally in the Obama administration's fight against al-Qaida, Saleh had appeared to be one of the Arab leaders most threatened by the regional unrest inspired by revolts in Egypt and Tunisia.
The violence began with a pre-dawn raid on a central square in the capital, Sana'a, where thousands of pro-democracy protesters have been camped out.
Eyewitnesses said security troops surrounded the square with police cars and armoured personnel carriers shortly after midnight and began calling on protesters through loudspeakers to go home. At 5am, security forces attacked, firing bullets and tear gas.
One protester died from a bullet to the head, which may have come from a sniper on the rooftop of a nearby building, witnesses said.
"We were performing dawn prayers when we were surprised by a sudden hail of bullets and tear gas," said Walid Hassan, a 25-year-old activist. "The protesters began throwing rocks at security ... it was total mayhem, a real battlefield."
A few hours later, another protester was shot dead in a nearby street. In the city of Dar Saad in the southern province of Aden, police used live fire and tear gas to disperse a crowd of several thousand, killing one demonstrator. ...
The assault with gunfire and tear gas was the toughest yet by the government in a month of protests aimed at unseating the president, Ali Abdullah Saleh, who has been in power for 32 years. An ally in the Obama administration's fight against al-Qaida, Saleh had appeared to be one of the Arab leaders most threatened by the regional unrest inspired by revolts in Egypt and Tunisia.
The violence began with a pre-dawn raid on a central square in the capital, Sana'a, where thousands of pro-democracy protesters have been camped out.
Eyewitnesses said security troops surrounded the square with police cars and armoured personnel carriers shortly after midnight and began calling on protesters through loudspeakers to go home. At 5am, security forces attacked, firing bullets and tear gas.
One protester died from a bullet to the head, which may have come from a sniper on the rooftop of a nearby building, witnesses said.
"We were performing dawn prayers when we were surprised by a sudden hail of bullets and tear gas," said Walid Hassan, a 25-year-old activist. "The protesters began throwing rocks at security ... it was total mayhem, a real battlefield."
A few hours later, another protester was shot dead in a nearby street. In the city of Dar Saad in the southern province of Aden, police used live fire and tear gas to disperse a crowd of several thousand, killing one demonstrator. ...
The money came pouring in. Jonathan Rees worked from a dingy office in south London. He lived in a cramped flat upstairs. He was divorced, overweight and foul-mouthed but his business was golden: he traded information. His sources may have been corrupt. His actions may have been illegal. But the money kept coming – from one golden source in particular. As Rees himself put it: "No one pays like the News of the World do."
There was only one problem with Rees's lucrative business. He had caught the eye of Scotland Yard's anti-corruption command who strongly suspected that he was paying bribes to various serving officers and, with great care and some skill, they had managed to place a covert listening device inside his office.
It was that bug which recorded him gloating about the pay he received from the News of the World. It also recorded the vivid detail of an empire of corruption, run with casual ease by Rees and his business partner, Sid Fillery – and liberally greased with cash from the News of the World and other Fleet Street titles. The News of the World alone was paying him more than £150,000 a year.
The listening device was placed in Rees's office in mid-April 1999. It did its job for only six months. In that short time, it provided one highly revealing chapter in a long tale of promiscuous criminality. Further chapters were provided by three other private investigators, all of whom worked separately for the News of the World, all of whom finally ended up in court, all of whom were publicly linked with illegal news-gathering.
Over the following years, the Guardian published a lengthy exposé of Rees's involvement with corrupt police and the procurement of confidential information for the News of the World; the Sunday tabloid's assistant editor is believed to have been arrested and accused of paying bribes to police and other key workers, although he was never charged; the paper was named in a London court as the paymaster for the purchase of information from the police national computer; Rees was jailed for a conspiracy to frame an innocent woman and then accused of conspiracy to murder.
And yet the man who became the prime minister's media adviser, Andy Coulson, has always maintained in evidence to parliament and on oath in court that he knew nothing of any illegal activity during the seven years he spent at the top of the News of the World. The entire story unfolded without ever catching his eye. In the same way, the prime minister and his deputy were happy to appoint Coulson last May to oversee the communication between the British government and its people, even though they were already fully aware of all the essential facts.
It begins with the bug....
There was only one problem with Rees's lucrative business. He had caught the eye of Scotland Yard's anti-corruption command who strongly suspected that he was paying bribes to various serving officers and, with great care and some skill, they had managed to place a covert listening device inside his office.
It was that bug which recorded him gloating about the pay he received from the News of the World. It also recorded the vivid detail of an empire of corruption, run with casual ease by Rees and his business partner, Sid Fillery – and liberally greased with cash from the News of the World and other Fleet Street titles. The News of the World alone was paying him more than £150,000 a year.
The listening device was placed in Rees's office in mid-April 1999. It did its job for only six months. In that short time, it provided one highly revealing chapter in a long tale of promiscuous criminality. Further chapters were provided by three other private investigators, all of whom worked separately for the News of the World, all of whom finally ended up in court, all of whom were publicly linked with illegal news-gathering.
Over the following years, the Guardian published a lengthy exposé of Rees's involvement with corrupt police and the procurement of confidential information for the News of the World; the Sunday tabloid's assistant editor is believed to have been arrested and accused of paying bribes to police and other key workers, although he was never charged; the paper was named in a London court as the paymaster for the purchase of information from the police national computer; Rees was jailed for a conspiracy to frame an innocent woman and then accused of conspiracy to murder.
And yet the man who became the prime minister's media adviser, Andy Coulson, has always maintained in evidence to parliament and on oath in court that he knew nothing of any illegal activity during the seven years he spent at the top of the News of the World. The entire story unfolded without ever catching his eye. In the same way, the prime minister and his deputy were happy to appoint Coulson last May to oversee the communication between the British government and its people, even though they were already fully aware of all the essential facts.
It begins with the bug....
A man cleared of murder can be named as a private investigator with links to corrupt police officers who earned £150,000 a year from the News of the World for supplying illegally obtained information on people in the public eye.
Jonathan Rees was acquitted of the murder of his former business partner, Daniel Morgan, who was found in a south London car park in 1987 with an axe in the back of his head. The case collapsed after 18 months of legal argument, during which it has been impossible for media to write about Rees's Fleet Street connections.
The ending of the trial means it is now possible for the first time to tell how Rees went to prison in December 2000 after a period of earning six-figure sums from the News of the World.
Rees, who had worked for the paper for seven years, was jailed for planting cocaine on a woman in order to discredit her during divorce proceedings. After his release from prison Rees, who had been bugged for six months by Scotland Yard because of his links with corrupt police officers, was rehired by the News of the World, which was being edited by Andy Coulson.
The revelations call into question David Cameron's judgment in choosing Coulson as director of communications at 10 Downing Street in May 2010. Both he and the deputy prime minister had been warned in March 2010 about Coulson's responsibility for rehiring Rees after his prison sentence.
Nick Clegg had been informed in detail about Jonathan Rees's murder charge, his prison sentence and his involvement with police corruption – and that he and three other private investigators had committed crimes for the News of the World while Coulson was deputy editor or editor.
In September 2002 the Guardian published a lengthy exposé of Rees's involvement with police corruption and illegal newsgathering. But since April 2008 the press have been prevented from revealing Rees's connections with the News of the World, or placing it in the context of News International's denials about any knowledge of illegal activity on behalf of the company. ...
Jonathan Rees was acquitted of the murder of his former business partner, Daniel Morgan, who was found in a south London car park in 1987 with an axe in the back of his head. The case collapsed after 18 months of legal argument, during which it has been impossible for media to write about Rees's Fleet Street connections.
The ending of the trial means it is now possible for the first time to tell how Rees went to prison in December 2000 after a period of earning six-figure sums from the News of the World.
Rees, who had worked for the paper for seven years, was jailed for planting cocaine on a woman in order to discredit her during divorce proceedings. After his release from prison Rees, who had been bugged for six months by Scotland Yard because of his links with corrupt police officers, was rehired by the News of the World, which was being edited by Andy Coulson.
The revelations call into question David Cameron's judgment in choosing Coulson as director of communications at 10 Downing Street in May 2010. Both he and the deputy prime minister had been warned in March 2010 about Coulson's responsibility for rehiring Rees after his prison sentence.
Nick Clegg had been informed in detail about Jonathan Rees's murder charge, his prison sentence and his involvement with police corruption – and that he and three other private investigators had committed crimes for the News of the World while Coulson was deputy editor or editor.
In September 2002 the Guardian published a lengthy exposé of Rees's involvement with police corruption and illegal newsgathering. But since April 2008 the press have been prevented from revealing Rees's connections with the News of the World, or placing it in the context of News International's denials about any knowledge of illegal activity on behalf of the company. ...
Nick Davies, the Guardian journalist who revealed the News of the World had made a series of legal payments to hide the full extent of the phone-hacking scandal, wrote to the paper's former editor Andy Coulson on 23 February last year.
He put a series of allegations to Coulson, who was then head of the communications for the Conservative party. At the time of Davies' letter, the Guardian could not reveal the full extent of the phone-hacking affair because one of the private investigators who had worked for the paper was facing a murder charge.
The email containing the charges was sent two months before the general election. Both David Cameron and Nick Clegg – later to be prime minister and deputy prime minister – knew about the allegations. Despite that, Cameron appointed Coulson as his director of communications in Downing Street in May 2010. Coulson resigned in January this year. ...
He put a series of allegations to Coulson, who was then head of the communications for the Conservative party. At the time of Davies' letter, the Guardian could not reveal the full extent of the phone-hacking affair because one of the private investigators who had worked for the paper was facing a murder charge.
The email containing the charges was sent two months before the general election. Both David Cameron and Nick Clegg – later to be prime minister and deputy prime minister – knew about the allegations. Despite that, Cameron appointed Coulson as his director of communications in Downing Street in May 2010. Coulson resigned in January this year. ...
Prince Andrew has pulled out of a proposed trip to Saudi Arabia after almost three weeks of damaging revelations about his personal integrity and links with corrupt and repressive regimes.
The Duke of York was due to travel next week to boost defence contracts in his role as Britain's trade envoy.
Buckingham Palace denied the trip was cancelled in light of the allegations, saying simply that the trip had been "postponed" because of safety concerns.
"The Foreign and Commonwealth Office, UK Trade and Investment and the palace have agreed to postpone the visit given the current circumstances in the region," the palace said.
"Any suggestion that this had anything to do with recent UK media coverage is absolutely not the case."
The Queen is reported to have held private talks with Andrew on Tuesday over the mounting scandal. The Duke, who is fourth in line to the throne, has been plagued by revelations about his close friendship with convicted sex offender and billionaire Jeffrey Epstein. ...
The Duke of York was due to travel next week to boost defence contracts in his role as Britain's trade envoy.
Buckingham Palace denied the trip was cancelled in light of the allegations, saying simply that the trip had been "postponed" because of safety concerns.
"The Foreign and Commonwealth Office, UK Trade and Investment and the palace have agreed to postpone the visit given the current circumstances in the region," the palace said.
"Any suggestion that this had anything to do with recent UK media coverage is absolutely not the case."
The Queen is reported to have held private talks with Andrew on Tuesday over the mounting scandal. The Duke, who is fourth in line to the throne, has been plagued by revelations about his close friendship with convicted sex offender and billionaire Jeffrey Epstein. ...
Japan earthquake - live updates
A series of powerful earthquakes have struck Japan triggering warnings of tsunami as high as 10 metres and shaking buildings in Tokyo
A series of powerful earthquakes have struck Japan triggering warnings of tsunami as high as 10 metres and shaking buildings in Tokyo
Japan earthquake and tsunami: live
A huge 8.9-magnitude earthquake has hit the coast of Japan, sending two tsunamis crashing into the city of Sendai. Follow our live coverage here.
A huge 8.9-magnitude earthquake has hit the coast of Japan, sending two tsunamis crashing into the city of Sendai. Follow our live coverage here.
As unrest escalated across the Middle East, activists in Saudi Arabia demanded a political voice as well. Rather than promises of democracy, they got a $36 billion handout and a slap down from Islamic clerics.
Saudi academics, writers and representatives of the minority Shiite Muslim population called on King Abdullah, the sixth monarch in the Arab world’s largest economy, to move the country toward a constitutional monarchy. Anti-government demonstrators are advocating a “Day of Rage” today.
“Demands for political reform will inevitably increase in the kingdom as democracy takes root in the region,” said Thomas Hegghammer, a senior research fellow at the Norwegian Defense Research Establishment in Oslo and author of “Jihad in Saudi Arabia.” “If the regime does nothing, tension will grow between conservative and progressive factions.”
More than two months of protests have rocked the Middle East and North Africa as citizens demand civil rights, higher living standards and the ouster of entrenched autocratic regimes. In Bahrain, a Saudi neighbor and home to the U.S. Navy’s Fifth Fleet, mainly Shiite protesters are pressing their demands for free elections and a constitutional monarchy.
The Saudi Tadawul stock index has dropped 9 percent since Tunisia’s Zine El Abidine Ben Ali was ousted by a popular movement and fled to Saudi Arabia on Jan. 14. The benchmark had been down as much as 21 percent since that date when it slumped close to a two-year low on March 2. Crude oil has advanced 19 percent since turmoil in Libya started on Feb. 17.
‘Urgent Matter’
“The monarchy is trying hard to absorb demands for political change and cast them as economic demands,” Madawi Al- Rasheed, a professor of Anthropology of Religion at King’s College London, said in response to e-mailed questions. “Political reform is an urgent matter.”
Saudi Arabia has so far tried to calm oil markets and avoid the political upheaval with a package of new jobless benefits, education and housing subsidies and debt write-offs. There was also a warning from the Council of Senior Islamic Scholars that public protests won’t be tolerated. ...
Saudi academics, writers and representatives of the minority Shiite Muslim population called on King Abdullah, the sixth monarch in the Arab world’s largest economy, to move the country toward a constitutional monarchy. Anti-government demonstrators are advocating a “Day of Rage” today.
“Demands for political reform will inevitably increase in the kingdom as democracy takes root in the region,” said Thomas Hegghammer, a senior research fellow at the Norwegian Defense Research Establishment in Oslo and author of “Jihad in Saudi Arabia.” “If the regime does nothing, tension will grow between conservative and progressive factions.”
More than two months of protests have rocked the Middle East and North Africa as citizens demand civil rights, higher living standards and the ouster of entrenched autocratic regimes. In Bahrain, a Saudi neighbor and home to the U.S. Navy’s Fifth Fleet, mainly Shiite protesters are pressing their demands for free elections and a constitutional monarchy.
The Saudi Tadawul stock index has dropped 9 percent since Tunisia’s Zine El Abidine Ben Ali was ousted by a popular movement and fled to Saudi Arabia on Jan. 14. The benchmark had been down as much as 21 percent since that date when it slumped close to a two-year low on March 2. Crude oil has advanced 19 percent since turmoil in Libya started on Feb. 17.
‘Urgent Matter’
“The monarchy is trying hard to absorb demands for political change and cast them as economic demands,” Madawi Al- Rasheed, a professor of Anthropology of Religion at King’s College London, said in response to e-mailed questions. “Political reform is an urgent matter.”
Saudi Arabia has so far tried to calm oil markets and avoid the political upheaval with a package of new jobless benefits, education and housing subsidies and debt write-offs. There was also a warning from the Council of Senior Islamic Scholars that public protests won’t be tolerated. ...
... The witness, speaking on condition of anonymity because he feared government reprisal, said police in the area opened fire and at least one protester was injured.
The Reuters news agency reported one witness as saying police fired percussion bombs to disperse the crowd of around 200 people.
Last week Saudi Arabia banned public protests following demonstrations by minority Shia groups.
The ruling came after widespread demonstrations in the Middle East – including those that led to the downfall of regimes in Egypt and Tunisia – and two weeks of Shia agitation in Saudi Arabia itself, during which 22 people were arrested.
A statement issued by the country's council of senior clerics at the time said: "The council ... affirms that demonstrations are forbidden in this country. The correct way in sharia [law] of realising common interest is by advising, which is what the Prophet Muhammad established.
"Reform and advice should not be via demonstrations and ways that provoke strife and division, this is what the religious scholars of this country in the past and now have forbidden and warned against."
The statement made clear the council's stance against political parties, which are banned as they are deemed to be not in keeping with Islam.
The Reuters news agency reported one witness as saying police fired percussion bombs to disperse the crowd of around 200 people.
Last week Saudi Arabia banned public protests following demonstrations by minority Shia groups.
The ruling came after widespread demonstrations in the Middle East – including those that led to the downfall of regimes in Egypt and Tunisia – and two weeks of Shia agitation in Saudi Arabia itself, during which 22 people were arrested.
A statement issued by the country's council of senior clerics at the time said: "The council ... affirms that demonstrations are forbidden in this country. The correct way in sharia [law] of realising common interest is by advising, which is what the Prophet Muhammad established.
"Reform and advice should not be via demonstrations and ways that provoke strife and division, this is what the religious scholars of this country in the past and now have forbidden and warned against."
The statement made clear the council's stance against political parties, which are banned as they are deemed to be not in keeping with Islam.
... The Queen is reported to have held private talks with Andrew about the mounting scandal over his trade dealings with despots for the government and his personal links to the US financier Jeffrey Epstein, who has been convicted of sex offences with young girls.
The prince's spokesman refused to comment on the meeting, said to have taken place at the Queen's private apartments at Buckingham Palace on Tuesday, after more than two weeks of daily reports criticising his conduct and judgment as the UK's international trade envoy.
"I understand that she asked him if any more stories are going to come out in the next few days," the Daily Mail reported a senior aide as saying. "If the answer was yes, then his position will be untenable. I suspect he will make a decision in the next 48 hours or so."The newspaper said the Queen was concerned that scrutiny of the duke was overshadowing preparations for the wedding next month of Prince William and Kate Middleton, which the royal family hopes to use to increase public support.
But backing for the prince came from Sir David Tang, the Hong Kong restaurateur and businessman. He met the prince before his visit last October to promote business interests in Hong Kong.
Meanwhile, GeneWatch UK, which has campaigned against the police national DNA database, has disclosed that the UK Forensic Science Service is involved in a plan to DNA-test the entire population of the United Arab Emirates, under a contract signed in the presence of Andrew in 2006.
Dr Helen Wallace, of GeneWatch UK, called on ministers to scrap the contract under which a universal DNA database is to being built and linked to a national identity card scheme. "This would allow the Emirates to track every citizen and identify their relatives, a frightening prospect for dissidents and women," she said. ...
The prince's spokesman refused to comment on the meeting, said to have taken place at the Queen's private apartments at Buckingham Palace on Tuesday, after more than two weeks of daily reports criticising his conduct and judgment as the UK's international trade envoy.
"I understand that she asked him if any more stories are going to come out in the next few days," the Daily Mail reported a senior aide as saying. "If the answer was yes, then his position will be untenable. I suspect he will make a decision in the next 48 hours or so."The newspaper said the Queen was concerned that scrutiny of the duke was overshadowing preparations for the wedding next month of Prince William and Kate Middleton, which the royal family hopes to use to increase public support.
But backing for the prince came from Sir David Tang, the Hong Kong restaurateur and businessman. He met the prince before his visit last October to promote business interests in Hong Kong.
Meanwhile, GeneWatch UK, which has campaigned against the police national DNA database, has disclosed that the UK Forensic Science Service is involved in a plan to DNA-test the entire population of the United Arab Emirates, under a contract signed in the presence of Andrew in 2006.
Dr Helen Wallace, of GeneWatch UK, called on ministers to scrap the contract under which a universal DNA database is to being built and linked to a national identity card scheme. "This would allow the Emirates to track every citizen and identify their relatives, a frightening prospect for dissidents and women," she said. ...
At a time of unprecedented tension between the west and Hamid Karzai over the killing of civilians, Nato has accidentally shot dead one of the Afghan president's own family members during a botched night raid.
Officials in the southern province of Kandahar said Haji Yar Mohammad Karzai, a second cousin of the president, was killed during an operation by US special forces in Karz, the ancestral Karzai home on the outskirts of Kandahar city.
In what appears to have been a major intelligence failure, the 63-year-old tribal elder was mistaken for the father of a Taliban commander.
This week the UN released figures showing the total number of civilians killed last year by the coalition and the Taliban reached an all-time high of 2,777, reflecting an escalation of violence by both sides.
Mahmoud Karzai, one of the president's brothers, said he "smelled a very deep conspiracy" over the killing of Haji Yar Mohammad and said he feared Nato had been fed false information by someone from within the Karzai family. ...
Officials in the southern province of Kandahar said Haji Yar Mohammad Karzai, a second cousin of the president, was killed during an operation by US special forces in Karz, the ancestral Karzai home on the outskirts of Kandahar city.
In what appears to have been a major intelligence failure, the 63-year-old tribal elder was mistaken for the father of a Taliban commander.
This week the UN released figures showing the total number of civilians killed last year by the coalition and the Taliban reached an all-time high of 2,777, reflecting an escalation of violence by both sides.
Mahmoud Karzai, one of the president's brothers, said he "smelled a very deep conspiracy" over the killing of Haji Yar Mohammad and said he feared Nato had been fed false information by someone from within the Karzai family. ...
Downing Street is set to appoint former BP employee Ben Moxham to head up its energy and environment policy, as one of nine new policy advisers due to beef up No 10.
Moxham is currently employed at the Riverstone private equity group run by former BP boss Lord John Browne, which specialises in oil and renewable energy investment.
The 31-year-old has been put forward on a shortlist of one to David Cameron and Nick Clegg for approval, having been vetted by an impartial civil service appointment process. The two party leaders will meet six civil service candidates and three private sector recruits, of which Moxham is one, in the final round of the process to bring nine extra policy experts into government. All will be appointed as civil servants in order not to breach Cameron's stipulation on the number of political appointees. ...
Moxham is currently employed at the Riverstone private equity group run by former BP boss Lord John Browne, which specialises in oil and renewable energy investment.
The 31-year-old has been put forward on a shortlist of one to David Cameron and Nick Clegg for approval, having been vetted by an impartial civil service appointment process. The two party leaders will meet six civil service candidates and three private sector recruits, of which Moxham is one, in the final round of the process to bring nine extra policy experts into government. All will be appointed as civil servants in order not to breach Cameron's stipulation on the number of political appointees. ...
The controversial former bank chief Sir Fred Goodwin is the latest high profile figure to obtain a superinjunction, it has emerged.
The existence of the measure – which bans the press from reporting that an injunction has been obtained – can be revealed after a backbench Liberal Democrat, John Hemming, raised the issue in the Commons.
"In a secret hearing this week Fred Goodwin has obtained a superinjunction preventing him being identified as a banker," said Hemming, the MP for Birmingham Yardley.
Hemming, who used parliamentary privilege to avoid the legal ban on reporting the use of superinjunctions, asked: "Will the government have a debate or a statement on freedom of speech and whether there's one rule for the rich like Fred Goodwin and one rule for the poor?"
Goodwin, who presided over the near collapse of the Royal Bank of Scotland, was reported to have been angered by press coverage after he became popularly known as "Fred the Shred".
He attracted widespread media attention after he was forced to step down in 2008 as a non-negotiable condition of the bank's £20bn bailout by the taxpayer. Goodwin initially left RBS with a pension of £700,000 a year and a lump sum of nearly £3m. He agreed to reduce the payout following public outcry.
News that Goodwin has obtained a superinjunction – over issues that cannot be reported – has raised further questions about the use of the measures. ...
The existence of the measure – which bans the press from reporting that an injunction has been obtained – can be revealed after a backbench Liberal Democrat, John Hemming, raised the issue in the Commons.
"In a secret hearing this week Fred Goodwin has obtained a superinjunction preventing him being identified as a banker," said Hemming, the MP for Birmingham Yardley.
Hemming, who used parliamentary privilege to avoid the legal ban on reporting the use of superinjunctions, asked: "Will the government have a debate or a statement on freedom of speech and whether there's one rule for the rich like Fred Goodwin and one rule for the poor?"
Goodwin, who presided over the near collapse of the Royal Bank of Scotland, was reported to have been angered by press coverage after he became popularly known as "Fred the Shred".
He attracted widespread media attention after he was forced to step down in 2008 as a non-negotiable condition of the bank's £20bn bailout by the taxpayer. Goodwin initially left RBS with a pension of £700,000 a year and a lump sum of nearly £3m. He agreed to reduce the payout following public outcry.
News that Goodwin has obtained a superinjunction – over issues that cannot be reported – has raised further questions about the use of the measures. ...
Not quite the sharpest crayon in the box are ye, Andy?
Two journalists working for the BBC in Libya have been arrested, tortured and subjected to a mock execution by security forces of Colonel Muammar Gaddafi's regime.
The shocking account of their experiences, including being held in a cage in a militia barracks while others were tortured around them, was made available to media colleagues in Tripoli after the men had been released and left the country.
At one point during their captivity the men say they had shots fired past their heads as they were led into a barracks.
One of the men was attacked repeatedly with fists, boots, rifle butts, a stick and piece of pipe. He also described trying to help other victims of torture whom they saw, some of whom had had their ribs broken during beatings.
The ordeal represents the most serious incident yet involving the targeting of the international media and may offer an insight into the fate of many of those opposition supporters who have been rounded up during the regime's crackdown on its opponents.
It also offers the first real eyewitness depiction of conditions endured by those arrested by the regime, including those whose only crime has been to talk to foreign journalists.
A reporter for the BBC Arabic service, Feras Killani, a Palestinian refugee with a Syrian passport and Turkish cameraman Goktay Koraltan, were arrested on Monday with Chris Cobb-Smith, a British citizen, at a checkpoint in Zahra, six miles from the besieged town of Zawiya 30 miles from Tripoli.
The two journalists say they were kicked and punched and beaten to the floor with rifle butts while being interrogated as suspected "British spies" despite having permission to work in Libya. Cobb-Smith was not assaulted. ...
The shocking account of their experiences, including being held in a cage in a militia barracks while others were tortured around them, was made available to media colleagues in Tripoli after the men had been released and left the country.
At one point during their captivity the men say they had shots fired past their heads as they were led into a barracks.
One of the men was attacked repeatedly with fists, boots, rifle butts, a stick and piece of pipe. He also described trying to help other victims of torture whom they saw, some of whom had had their ribs broken during beatings.
The ordeal represents the most serious incident yet involving the targeting of the international media and may offer an insight into the fate of many of those opposition supporters who have been rounded up during the regime's crackdown on its opponents.
It also offers the first real eyewitness depiction of conditions endured by those arrested by the regime, including those whose only crime has been to talk to foreign journalists.
A reporter for the BBC Arabic service, Feras Killani, a Palestinian refugee with a Syrian passport and Turkish cameraman Goktay Koraltan, were arrested on Monday with Chris Cobb-Smith, a British citizen, at a checkpoint in Zahra, six miles from the besieged town of Zawiya 30 miles from Tripoli.
The two journalists say they were kicked and punched and beaten to the floor with rifle butts while being interrogated as suspected "British spies" despite having permission to work in Libya. Cobb-Smith was not assaulted. ...
Trade unions representing a million state employees are drawing up plans for strikes that could bring Britain's schools, universities, courts and Whitehall to a standstill as early as June in protest over government plans to end so-called "gold-plated" public sector pensions, the Guardian has learned.
Lord Hutton, the Labour former work and pensions secretary charged by the coalition with reviewing public sector pensions, will publish his final report on Thursday, and it now looks likely to act as a starting gun for extended industrial action against the government's austerity programme.
The report will recommend that 6 million nurses, teachers, local government and other public sector workers should pay more into their pension pots, retire later and receive less when they do. All state employees will be affected, and it will create the first legal basis for simultaneous strikes across the public service unions. ...
Lord Hutton, the Labour former work and pensions secretary charged by the coalition with reviewing public sector pensions, will publish his final report on Thursday, and it now looks likely to act as a starting gun for extended industrial action against the government's austerity programme.
The report will recommend that 6 million nurses, teachers, local government and other public sector workers should pay more into their pension pots, retire later and receive less when they do. All state employees will be affected, and it will create the first legal basis for simultaneous strikes across the public service unions. ...
Police chiefs: we will lose 28,000 staff
Officer numbers predicted to fall by 12,000 – with crime-hit urban areas to be most affected by government cuts
Officer numbers predicted to fall by 12,000 – with crime-hit urban areas to be most affected by government cuts
... Leonid Nikolayev and Oleg Vorotnikov, members of the radical art collective Voina, were freed from custody last week after nearly four months awaiting trial for overturning police cars in St Petersburg.
They held a press conference on Thursday to talk about their ordeal. On their way home, accompanied by Oleg's wife Natalia Sokol and his two-year-old son, Casper, they noticed they were being followed by seven men, who looked like "typical thugs".
When Natalia started taking pictures of the men, they tried to grab the camera. In the struggle she was pushed into a puddle and dragged by the hair, so violently that one of her braids was ripped out.
"They said they were from the Criminal Investigation department," she said when I eventually reached her by e-mail. "But if they really were police investigators they behaved pretty strangely."
Oleg added: "They waved their IDs, but we couldn't examine them. Then they attacked Leonid from behind and rained down blows on my back and my head."
The baby pram was given a violent push, knocking Casper's face hard against a wall.
St Petersburg police could not be reached for comment but a spokesman told the Russian news agency RIA Novosti that "preliminary investigations" were under way. ...
They held a press conference on Thursday to talk about their ordeal. On their way home, accompanied by Oleg's wife Natalia Sokol and his two-year-old son, Casper, they noticed they were being followed by seven men, who looked like "typical thugs".
When Natalia started taking pictures of the men, they tried to grab the camera. In the struggle she was pushed into a puddle and dragged by the hair, so violently that one of her braids was ripped out.
"They said they were from the Criminal Investigation department," she said when I eventually reached her by e-mail. "But if they really were police investigators they behaved pretty strangely."
Oleg added: "They waved their IDs, but we couldn't examine them. Then they attacked Leonid from behind and rained down blows on my back and my head."
The baby pram was given a violent push, knocking Casper's face hard against a wall.
St Petersburg police could not be reached for comment but a spokesman told the Russian news agency RIA Novosti that "preliminary investigations" were under way. ...
A UK startup company offering details of farmers' markets has complained of being "crippled" after it was mistakenly labelled adult viewing on O2's mobile network.
Lovefre.sh, a location-based service for finding fresh food, discovered that it had been rated at "only suitable for over 18s" by a third-party company which provides content filtering for O2, and that users of its iPhone app – which has seen nearly 18,000 downloads from Apple's App Store since its launch – would only see a blank page.
Although O2 is the only network that has blocked Lovefresh, "the problem is that most iPhones in the UK are on O2," said Mark Spofforth, the company's co-founder and chief executive. "I'm despondent about it. It's just crippling."
A spokesperson for O2 said that it had been notified of the error and had moved to whitelist Lovefresh – but that the effect would not work through its network until early on Saturday morning.
But O2 has been criticised by its customers after it implemented the "age verification" system without warning on Thursday. Any of its 20m users who try to access a page that has been rated as 18+ will have to go through a verification page which demands a payment from a credit card.
The company insists that it has taken the step as a child protection measure. Previously it only implemented the block if the buyer or controller of a phone requested it, such as a parent buying for a child.
But the flip from the longstanding "opt-in" system to an "opt-out" system, where people have to make a payment on a credit card as an age verification measure – on the basis that credit cards are only available and accessible to over-18s – has annoyed users.
Users in its forums have worried that they are being scammed, and complained that O2 is "censoring" them. ...
Lovefre.sh, a location-based service for finding fresh food, discovered that it had been rated at "only suitable for over 18s" by a third-party company which provides content filtering for O2, and that users of its iPhone app – which has seen nearly 18,000 downloads from Apple's App Store since its launch – would only see a blank page.
Although O2 is the only network that has blocked Lovefresh, "the problem is that most iPhones in the UK are on O2," said Mark Spofforth, the company's co-founder and chief executive. "I'm despondent about it. It's just crippling."
A spokesperson for O2 said that it had been notified of the error and had moved to whitelist Lovefresh – but that the effect would not work through its network until early on Saturday morning.
But O2 has been criticised by its customers after it implemented the "age verification" system without warning on Thursday. Any of its 20m users who try to access a page that has been rated as 18+ will have to go through a verification page which demands a payment from a credit card.
The company insists that it has taken the step as a child protection measure. Previously it only implemented the block if the buyer or controller of a phone requested it, such as a parent buying for a child.
But the flip from the longstanding "opt-in" system to an "opt-out" system, where people have to make a payment on a credit card as an age verification measure – on the basis that credit cards are only available and accessible to over-18s – has annoyed users.
Users in its forums have worried that they are being scammed, and complained that O2 is "censoring" them. ...
... In a speech earlier this month at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), Americans For Prosperity-Michigan Executive Director Scott Hagerstrom revealed the true goal of his group and allies like Walker.
Speaking at CPAC's "Panel for Labor Policy," Hagerstrom said that even more than cutting taxes and regulations, AFP really wants to "take the unions out at the knees ." Knee-capping free labor has long been a goal of the Koch brothers and their many front groups. In the run-up to the 2010 elections, the Kochs worked with other anti-labor billionaires, corporations and activists to fund conservative candidates and groups across the country.
Now after viciously opposing pro-middle class policies for years, Koch Industries is trying to eliminate the only organizations which serve as a counterweight to its well-oiled corporate machine. Believing he was talking with David Koch, Walker told a prankster his plans to crush the unions. Koch's AFP operatives are now working with "state officials in Indiana, Ohio and Pennsylvania to urge them to duplicate Walker's crusade in Wisconsin." ...
... According to EPA databases, Koch businesses are huge polluters, emitting thousands of pounds of toxic pollutants. As soon as he got into office, Walker started cutting environmental regulations and appointed a Republican known for her disregard for environmental regulations to lead the Department of Natural Resources. In addition, Walker has stated his opposition to clean energy jobs policies that might draw workers away from Koch-owned interests. ...
I don't give a fuck how they pronounce it - they're cocks.
Ta much, dear Anneliese
Speaking at CPAC's "Panel for Labor Policy," Hagerstrom said that even more than cutting taxes and regulations, AFP really wants to "take the unions out at the knees ." Knee-capping free labor has long been a goal of the Koch brothers and their many front groups. In the run-up to the 2010 elections, the Kochs worked with other anti-labor billionaires, corporations and activists to fund conservative candidates and groups across the country.
Now after viciously opposing pro-middle class policies for years, Koch Industries is trying to eliminate the only organizations which serve as a counterweight to its well-oiled corporate machine. Believing he was talking with David Koch, Walker told a prankster his plans to crush the unions. Koch's AFP operatives are now working with "state officials in Indiana, Ohio and Pennsylvania to urge them to duplicate Walker's crusade in Wisconsin." ...
... According to EPA databases, Koch businesses are huge polluters, emitting thousands of pounds of toxic pollutants. As soon as he got into office, Walker started cutting environmental regulations and appointed a Republican known for her disregard for environmental regulations to lead the Department of Natural Resources. In addition, Walker has stated his opposition to clean energy jobs policies that might draw workers away from Koch-owned interests. ...
I don't give a fuck how they pronounce it - they're cocks.
Ta much, dear Anneliese
Fire tornado caught on camera in Hungary
A rare phenomenon known as a "fire tornado" has been caught on camera towering into the night sky above Budapest.
A rare phenomenon known as a "fire tornado" has been caught on camera towering into the night sky above Budapest.
He was voted Germany's most popular politician, a chisel-jawed, gelled-haired aristocrat who held such rock-star status that his party used to play an AC/DC track every time he took to the stage. But Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg has resigned as defence minister after being engulfed by a plagiarism scandal, leaving the ruling coalition with a serious charisma vacuum. ...
Charisma is so much more important than integrity.
Charisma is so much more important than integrity.
The playboy son of one of Africa's most notorious dictators commissioned plans for a luxury superyacht costing $380m (£234m) – nearly three times his country's combined health and education budgets, according to a corruption watchdog.
Teodorin Obiang, eldest son of Teodoro Obiang, the president of Equatorial Guinea, wanted to build the world's second most expensive yacht after the Russian tycoon Roman Abramovich's $1.2bn Eclipse, the campaign group Global Witness said. It condemned the plan as "outrageous extravagance" in a country where, despite vast oil wealth, 20% of children die before their fifth birthday and few people live beyond 50.
The government of the tiny west African country confirmed that Obiang junior had ordered the yacht design, but said he had decided against going ahead with it.
President Obiang has ruled for more than 30 years and been accused of grave human rights violations. Forbes magazine estimated his wealth at around $600m.
Teodorin Obiang, 41, is his minister of agriculture and apparently being groomed as his father's successor. Global Witness said his "extravagant lifestyle" includes a $35m mansion in Malibu , a $33m jet and a fleet of luxury cars – yet his ministerial salary is $6,799 a month.
Global Witness claimed Obiang asked the German company Kusch Yachts to build the superyacht under the codename "Project Zen". It said Kusch employees told investigators the 387ft yacht would have a cinema, restaurant, bar, pool and a $1.3m security system complete with floor motion sensors, photoelectric barriers and fingerprint door openers. The basic design was completed by Kusch in December 2009 for €250,000 (£212,192) with an original delivery date set for late next year. ...
Teodorin Obiang, eldest son of Teodoro Obiang, the president of Equatorial Guinea, wanted to build the world's second most expensive yacht after the Russian tycoon Roman Abramovich's $1.2bn Eclipse, the campaign group Global Witness said. It condemned the plan as "outrageous extravagance" in a country where, despite vast oil wealth, 20% of children die before their fifth birthday and few people live beyond 50.
The government of the tiny west African country confirmed that Obiang junior had ordered the yacht design, but said he had decided against going ahead with it.
President Obiang has ruled for more than 30 years and been accused of grave human rights violations. Forbes magazine estimated his wealth at around $600m.
Teodorin Obiang, 41, is his minister of agriculture and apparently being groomed as his father's successor. Global Witness said his "extravagant lifestyle" includes a $35m mansion in Malibu , a $33m jet and a fleet of luxury cars – yet his ministerial salary is $6,799 a month.
Global Witness claimed Obiang asked the German company Kusch Yachts to build the superyacht under the codename "Project Zen". It said Kusch employees told investigators the 387ft yacht would have a cinema, restaurant, bar, pool and a $1.3m security system complete with floor motion sensors, photoelectric barriers and fingerprint door openers. The basic design was completed by Kusch in December 2009 for €250,000 (£212,192) with an original delivery date set for late next year. ...
The strange story of a scientist killed by the Plague
Maggie Koerth-Baker at 8:31 AM Monday, Feb 28, 2011
On September 13, 2009, Malcolm Casadaban, a University of Chicago professor of genetics and cell biology, was taken by ambulance to a hospital and died just a few hours later. Cause of death: The Plague, with a capital P.
Casadaban had been working with Plague bacteria as part of his research, but, despite that fact, this wasn't an open-and-shut case. Casadaban's bacteria were genetically modified, weakened so they couldn't infect humans. Scientists have been handling this sort of wishy-washy Plague for decades, without much incident. Until Casdaban, no-one had ever been killed by lab-acquired Plague. In fact, 1959 was the last time lab Plague had even made anyone sick.
The Centers for Disease Control wanted to know what made Casadaban different. And this is where the story gets weird. Turns out, Casadaban had his own weakness—a genetic mutation, common in people of European descent. In fact, this particular mutation is common because it protects against naturally acquired strains of the Plague. If your ancestors lived through a Plague outbreak, you're more likely to carry it. But, the same mutation also seems to leave you particularly susceptible to weakened, laboratory Plague bacteria. ...
Ta much, dear Ar0cketman
Maggie Koerth-Baker at 8:31 AM Monday, Feb 28, 2011
On September 13, 2009, Malcolm Casadaban, a University of Chicago professor of genetics and cell biology, was taken by ambulance to a hospital and died just a few hours later. Cause of death: The Plague, with a capital P.
Casadaban had been working with Plague bacteria as part of his research, but, despite that fact, this wasn't an open-and-shut case. Casadaban's bacteria were genetically modified, weakened so they couldn't infect humans. Scientists have been handling this sort of wishy-washy Plague for decades, without much incident. Until Casdaban, no-one had ever been killed by lab-acquired Plague. In fact, 1959 was the last time lab Plague had even made anyone sick.
The Centers for Disease Control wanted to know what made Casadaban different. And this is where the story gets weird. Turns out, Casadaban had his own weakness—a genetic mutation, common in people of European descent. In fact, this particular mutation is common because it protects against naturally acquired strains of the Plague. If your ancestors lived through a Plague outbreak, you're more likely to carry it. But, the same mutation also seems to leave you particularly susceptible to weakened, laboratory Plague bacteria. ...
Ta much, dear Ar0cketman
Britain froze the assets of Muammar Gaddafi and his five children on Sunday evening at an emergency meeting of the Privy Council at Windsor castle presided over by the Queen.
The chancellor, George Osborne, acted amid reports that the Libyan leader had moved £3bn to Britain last week. In a separate cloak-and-dagger operation, £900m of Libyan currency was impounded in Britain.
Earlier ministers announced they had stripped the Gaddafi family of its diplomatic immunity in Britain.
A special meeting of the Privy Council at 5.15pm on Sunday approved an order in council freezing the assets of Gaddafi, his sons Saif al-Islam, Hannibal Muammar, Khamis Muammar, and Mutassim, and his daughter Aisha Muammar. The Times reported on Saturday that Gaddafi had deposited £3m with a Mayfair-based private wealth manager last week.
The chancellor said: "I have today taken action to freeze the assets in the UK of Colonel Gaddafi and his family or those acting on their behalf so that they cannot be used against the interests of the Libyan people. This follows the UN security council resolution tabled by the UK and France.
"I decided to implement this UN resolution in the UK as quickly as possible, before the financial markets reopened. This is a strong message for the Libyan regime that violence against its own people is not acceptable."
The order in council freezes "all funds, financial assets and economic resources owned or controlled by the listed individuals and entities, or by anyone acting on their behalf or by entities controlled" by the named members of the Gaddafi family. The City of London has been informed that "no funds or economic resources can be made available to listed persons or entities, or for their benefit". ...
The chancellor, George Osborne, acted amid reports that the Libyan leader had moved £3bn to Britain last week. In a separate cloak-and-dagger operation, £900m of Libyan currency was impounded in Britain.
Earlier ministers announced they had stripped the Gaddafi family of its diplomatic immunity in Britain.
A special meeting of the Privy Council at 5.15pm on Sunday approved an order in council freezing the assets of Gaddafi, his sons Saif al-Islam, Hannibal Muammar, Khamis Muammar, and Mutassim, and his daughter Aisha Muammar. The Times reported on Saturday that Gaddafi had deposited £3m with a Mayfair-based private wealth manager last week.
The chancellor said: "I have today taken action to freeze the assets in the UK of Colonel Gaddafi and his family or those acting on their behalf so that they cannot be used against the interests of the Libyan people. This follows the UN security council resolution tabled by the UK and France.
"I decided to implement this UN resolution in the UK as quickly as possible, before the financial markets reopened. This is a strong message for the Libyan regime that violence against its own people is not acceptable."
The order in council freezes "all funds, financial assets and economic resources owned or controlled by the listed individuals and entities, or by anyone acting on their behalf or by entities controlled" by the named members of the Gaddafi family. The City of London has been informed that "no funds or economic resources can be made available to listed persons or entities, or for their benefit". ...
Libya's Berbers join the revolution in fight to reclaim ancient identity | World news | The Guardian
"Have a good revolution," said the Tunisian customs officer, handing back our passports. We set out across the short stretch of no man's land towards Libya beneath a giant image of Muammar Gaddafi, his chin lifted, hands held together in a gesture of unity and victory.
Before we could reach him, a car bearing the flag of Libya's revolution raced out and its driver gestured us inside before speeding around the border post in a wide circle. We could make out the gaping expressions of the police and intelligence officers as they receded into the distance.
"This [is] all free now," the driver said, gesturing at the expanses of mountain and desert.
The roads in western Libya are clogged with makeshift checkpoints. Barricades built of burnt-out cars and rocks and manned by a patchwork of armed militias block the entrances to towns and villages. The fighters here are an assortment of turbaned Amazigh, or Berber, tribesmen, defectors wearing army uniforms and volunteers in mismatched combat fatigues.
The leaders of this uprising are equally varied: one burly military commander, Talibi, in civilian life is an Amazigh poet. Other revolutionaries we met were doctors, engineers, tribal elders, even a web-savvy youth in a baseball cap.
Night had fallen by the time we reached Nalut, where dozens of Amazigh tribesmen stood around campfires guarding barricades and manning checkpoints in the cold. Some carried weapons they had looted from army bases, the rest carried hunting rifles and clubs. The Amazigh we spoke to could not hide their euphoria.
"The fear of decades was broken after what happened in Egypt and Tunisia," said Khairy as he handed us small cups of green tea. The Amazigh have long struggled to retain their cultural rights in Gaddafi's Libya. "We never thought this could happen in our lifetime," he said. ...
Before we could reach him, a car bearing the flag of Libya's revolution raced out and its driver gestured us inside before speeding around the border post in a wide circle. We could make out the gaping expressions of the police and intelligence officers as they receded into the distance.
"This [is] all free now," the driver said, gesturing at the expanses of mountain and desert.
The roads in western Libya are clogged with makeshift checkpoints. Barricades built of burnt-out cars and rocks and manned by a patchwork of armed militias block the entrances to towns and villages. The fighters here are an assortment of turbaned Amazigh, or Berber, tribesmen, defectors wearing army uniforms and volunteers in mismatched combat fatigues.
The leaders of this uprising are equally varied: one burly military commander, Talibi, in civilian life is an Amazigh poet. Other revolutionaries we met were doctors, engineers, tribal elders, even a web-savvy youth in a baseball cap.
Night had fallen by the time we reached Nalut, where dozens of Amazigh tribesmen stood around campfires guarding barricades and manning checkpoints in the cold. Some carried weapons they had looted from army bases, the rest carried hunting rifles and clubs. The Amazigh we spoke to could not hide their euphoria.
"The fear of decades was broken after what happened in Egypt and Tunisia," said Khairy as he handed us small cups of green tea. The Amazigh have long struggled to retain their cultural rights in Gaddafi's Libya. "We never thought this could happen in our lifetime," he said. ...
The UN Security Council agreed on Saturday evening to freeze international assets belonging to the Gaddafis and their key aides, to ban them from travelling and to block all arms sales to Tripoli. It also called for the International Criminal Court (ICC) to investigate the killings of demonstrators.
This inquiry could lead to senior Libyan ministers and officials being indicted to stand trial for crimes against humanity at The Hague and being given lengthy prison sentences.
But it has been widely alleged that many of the attacks were in fact carried out by foreign mercenaries hired by Colonel Gaddafi. And the US insisted that the UN resolution was worded so that no one from an outside country that is not a member of the ICC could be prosecuted for their actions in Libya.
This means that mercenaries from countries such as Algeria, Ethiopia and Tunisia – which have all been named by rebel Libyan diplomats to the UN as being among the countries involved – would escape prosecution even if they were captured, because their nations are not members of the court.
The move was seen as an attempt to prevent a precedent that could see Americans prosecuted by the ICC for alleged crimes in other conflicts. While the US was once among the signatories to the court, George W. Bush withdrew from it in 2002 and declared that it did not have power over Washington. ...
This inquiry could lead to senior Libyan ministers and officials being indicted to stand trial for crimes against humanity at The Hague and being given lengthy prison sentences.
But it has been widely alleged that many of the attacks were in fact carried out by foreign mercenaries hired by Colonel Gaddafi. And the US insisted that the UN resolution was worded so that no one from an outside country that is not a member of the ICC could be prosecuted for their actions in Libya.
This means that mercenaries from countries such as Algeria, Ethiopia and Tunisia – which have all been named by rebel Libyan diplomats to the UN as being among the countries involved – would escape prosecution even if they were captured, because their nations are not members of the court.
The move was seen as an attempt to prevent a precedent that could see Americans prosecuted by the ICC for alleged crimes in other conflicts. While the US was once among the signatories to the court, George W. Bush withdrew from it in 2002 and declared that it did not have power over Washington. ...
The TaxPayers' Alliance said Cumbria Police had ''wasted money'' by paying a marketing firm £10,880 to create the ''Safer Stronger Cumbria'' logo.
A force spokeswoman defended the spending, saying the ''brand and logo'' had helped police ''leave a footprint that people can easily recognise''.
Earlier this year, the Plain English Campaign (PEC) - which campaigns for better use of English by public bodies - said such police branding slogans served no purpose and should be scrapped.
PEC officials said the police service had nothing to sell and the word ''police'' told people all they needed to know.
The amount spent on the slogan was revealed after a local newspaper - the North West Evening Mail, which is based in Barrow - asked police questions under freedom of information legislation.
''Taxpayers want their money focused on fighting crime,'' said Matthew Sinclair, director of the TaxPayers' Alliance.
''It is absurd that Cumbria Police have spent thousands on rebranding, a waste of money that will do nothing to make Cumbria safer or stronger.
''If they want to build trust, they should be working to convince the public that they aren't distracted by this kind of presentational nonsense.'' ...
A force spokeswoman defended the spending, saying the ''brand and logo'' had helped police ''leave a footprint that people can easily recognise''.
Earlier this year, the Plain English Campaign (PEC) - which campaigns for better use of English by public bodies - said such police branding slogans served no purpose and should be scrapped.
PEC officials said the police service had nothing to sell and the word ''police'' told people all they needed to know.
The amount spent on the slogan was revealed after a local newspaper - the North West Evening Mail, which is based in Barrow - asked police questions under freedom of information legislation.
''Taxpayers want their money focused on fighting crime,'' said Matthew Sinclair, director of the TaxPayers' Alliance.
''It is absurd that Cumbria Police have spent thousands on rebranding, a waste of money that will do nothing to make Cumbria safer or stronger.
''If they want to build trust, they should be working to convince the public that they aren't distracted by this kind of presentational nonsense.'' ...
... A Whitehall source said: “Some of what is going on in local government is simply scandalous; it’s comparable to the MPs expenses scandal. Ministers are rushing to keep up with all the loopholes and make sure these people are paid realistic wages.”
GMPTE – which runs buses, trains and trams – lists the salaries of six executives, who earn up to £125,000 a year. Payments for Mr Leather do not appear on the list.
GMPTE has said that it will have to cut up to 15 per cent of its workforce and is planning to save nearly £25 million over three years by increasing concessionary fares for pensioners and children.
It lists payments to Ernst & Young and engineering group Parsons Brinckerhoff, which have both provided staff on long-term secondments. In December 2010, GMPTE paid Parsons Brinckerhoff £963,597, and Ernst &Young £192,196.
A spokesman for Ernst & Young said: “Like our competitors, Ernst & Young run an extensive programme of secondments to and from organisations in both the public and private sectors. We do not disclose the individual salaries of our people.”
Emma Boon, the campaign director from the TaxPayers’ Alliance, criticised the GMPTE for not listing the chief executive’s salary. “It’s sneaky because they are listing other people’s salaries, so you think it is the whole list,” she said. ...
GMPTE – which runs buses, trains and trams – lists the salaries of six executives, who earn up to £125,000 a year. Payments for Mr Leather do not appear on the list.
GMPTE has said that it will have to cut up to 15 per cent of its workforce and is planning to save nearly £25 million over three years by increasing concessionary fares for pensioners and children.
It lists payments to Ernst & Young and engineering group Parsons Brinckerhoff, which have both provided staff on long-term secondments. In December 2010, GMPTE paid Parsons Brinckerhoff £963,597, and Ernst &Young £192,196.
A spokesman for Ernst & Young said: “Like our competitors, Ernst & Young run an extensive programme of secondments to and from organisations in both the public and private sectors. We do not disclose the individual salaries of our people.”
Emma Boon, the campaign director from the TaxPayers’ Alliance, criticised the GMPTE for not listing the chief executive’s salary. “It’s sneaky because they are listing other people’s salaries, so you think it is the whole list,” she said. ...
... But the men in Zawiyah were not foreigners, or drugged – as Gaddafi had previously claimed. Nor were they bearded Islamists or even rebels from outside. Instead, they were the town's people. There were doctors and engineers, teachers, local youths and old men all anxious to speak, although many of them still fearful that the army – whose nearest positions were only two kilometres away – would try to enter Zawiyah again.
In a small mosque off the main square, locals led us into a small storeroom to show off two captured teenage soldiers, one whose family had come from Chad.
Terrified, the boys were led out of the room, one with a dressing on a face wound. We were told they were being handed over to one of the boys' fathers.
Youssef Mustapha, a doctor who had been working at the aid station, said he believed 24 people had died in the fighting in this city, which began last Thursday night and continued for almost four days.
"We saw all kinds of injuries," he said. "People shot in the head and neck. Shotgun and rifle wounds and injuries caused by heavy calibre weapons. The firing always came from the south and east. Have you seen the graves?"
These are in the centre of Martyrs Square. Those killed in the fighting are now buried there and a pair of open graves waited to be filled.
Ghari Ahmed, a computer engineer was worried about the soldiers outside: "They control all of the main roads into city," he explained. "Villagers from around the town want to come in, but the army is blocking them. I am afraid they will try to attack again." ...
In a small mosque off the main square, locals led us into a small storeroom to show off two captured teenage soldiers, one whose family had come from Chad.
Terrified, the boys were led out of the room, one with a dressing on a face wound. We were told they were being handed over to one of the boys' fathers.
Youssef Mustapha, a doctor who had been working at the aid station, said he believed 24 people had died in the fighting in this city, which began last Thursday night and continued for almost four days.
"We saw all kinds of injuries," he said. "People shot in the head and neck. Shotgun and rifle wounds and injuries caused by heavy calibre weapons. The firing always came from the south and east. Have you seen the graves?"
These are in the centre of Martyrs Square. Those killed in the fighting are now buried there and a pair of open graves waited to be filled.
Ghari Ahmed, a computer engineer was worried about the soldiers outside: "They control all of the main roads into city," he explained. "Villagers from around the town want to come in, but the army is blocking them. I am afraid they will try to attack again." ...
Six people were killed in the Democratic Republic of Congo in what authorities said was a coup attempt on the presidential palace in the capital Kinshasa.
"We have witnessed a coup attempt," the information minister, Lambert Mende, said.
"A group of heavily armed people attacked the presidential palace. They were stopped at the first roadblock. Our soldiers fought with them, arrested some of them and six people were killed."
He added that the situation was under control and authorities were trying to identify the suspects. No further details on the casualties were immediately available.
A presidential source said President Joseph Kabila was not in the palace at the time but that he had now returned there and was safe.
Kabila came to power when his father was assassinated in 2001. He faces presidential and parliamentary elections in November this year, the second such polls since the official end of the 1998-2003 war. ...
"We have witnessed a coup attempt," the information minister, Lambert Mende, said.
"A group of heavily armed people attacked the presidential palace. They were stopped at the first roadblock. Our soldiers fought with them, arrested some of them and six people were killed."
He added that the situation was under control and authorities were trying to identify the suspects. No further details on the casualties were immediately available.
A presidential source said President Joseph Kabila was not in the palace at the time but that he had now returned there and was safe.
Kabila came to power when his father was assassinated in 2001. He faces presidential and parliamentary elections in November this year, the second such polls since the official end of the 1998-2003 war. ...
Police in Beijing and other cities mounted a major show of force following an anonymous call for protests inspired by the Middle East uprisings.
A US journalist was punched and kicked in the face and more than a dozen other journalists manhandled, detained or delayed as they covered the events which revealed official anxiety over similar protests against authoritarian rule in China.
Few expected Chinese citizens to answer the "jasmine revolution" appeal, which urged them to express their desire for reform by "strolling" past a McDonald's on Wangfujing shopping street and spots in 22 other mainland cities.
In addition to the heavy police presence, street cleaning vehicles and men with brooms swept back and forth along the designated streets in Beijing and Shanghai, preventing pedestrians from slowing down. A construction site appeared on Wangfujing earlier this week, blocking off a stretch outside the hamburger bar.
Associated Press reported that Shanghai police used whistles to disperse a crowd of around 200, although it was unclear if the people were anything more than onlookers. It said officers detained at least four Chinese citizens in the city and two others in Beijing. It was not clear, however, if those detained had tried to protest.
In a statement, the Foreign Correspondent's Club of China said it was "appalled by the attack on one of our members by men who appeared to be plain clothes security officers in Beijing. This video journalist was trying to do his job when he was set upon and repeatedly punched and kicked in the face by officers as part of a general crackdown in Wangfujing following calls on the internet for a protest in this area. ...
A US journalist was punched and kicked in the face and more than a dozen other journalists manhandled, detained or delayed as they covered the events which revealed official anxiety over similar protests against authoritarian rule in China.
Few expected Chinese citizens to answer the "jasmine revolution" appeal, which urged them to express their desire for reform by "strolling" past a McDonald's on Wangfujing shopping street and spots in 22 other mainland cities.
In addition to the heavy police presence, street cleaning vehicles and men with brooms swept back and forth along the designated streets in Beijing and Shanghai, preventing pedestrians from slowing down. A construction site appeared on Wangfujing earlier this week, blocking off a stretch outside the hamburger bar.
Associated Press reported that Shanghai police used whistles to disperse a crowd of around 200, although it was unclear if the people were anything more than onlookers. It said officers detained at least four Chinese citizens in the city and two others in Beijing. It was not clear, however, if those detained had tried to protest.
In a statement, the Foreign Correspondent's Club of China said it was "appalled by the attack on one of our members by men who appeared to be plain clothes security officers in Beijing. This video journalist was trying to do his job when he was set upon and repeatedly punched and kicked in the face by officers as part of a general crackdown in Wangfujing following calls on the internet for a protest in this area. ...
International efforts to respond to the Libyan crisis are gathering pace under US leadership after a still defiant Muammar Gaddafi launched counterattacks to defend Tripoli against the popular uprising now consolidating its hold on the liberated east of the country.
The White House said Barack Obama planned to call David Cameron and France's president, Nicolas Sarkozy, to discuss possible actions, including a no-fly zone or sanctions to force the Libyan leader to end the violence. Switzerland said it had frozen Gaddafi's assets.
Gaddafi, in power for 42 years, has used aircraft, tanks and foreign mercenaries in eight days of violence that has killed hundreds in the bloodiest of the uprisings to shake the Arab world. Up to 2,000 people may have died, it was claimed by a senior French human rights official.
But there was no sign Gaddafi was prepared to change course. In another semi-coherent and abusive speech on Thursday, he accused protesters of being drugged and agents of al-Qaida. "Their ages are 17. They give them pills at night, they put hallucinatory pills in their drinks, their milk, their coffee," he said in a telephone interview with Libyan state TV – suggesting he may already have left his heavily guarded Tripoli compound.
It only boosted the growing impression that he is desperate and out of touch with reality. "This is the speech of a dead man," said Said el-Gareeny in the eastern city of Benghazi, which is now in opposition hands.
"People always warn about al-Qaida and say this will become an Islamic state ... to get support from western countries. This isn't true. The Libyan people are free. That's it." ...
The White House said Barack Obama planned to call David Cameron and France's president, Nicolas Sarkozy, to discuss possible actions, including a no-fly zone or sanctions to force the Libyan leader to end the violence. Switzerland said it had frozen Gaddafi's assets.
Gaddafi, in power for 42 years, has used aircraft, tanks and foreign mercenaries in eight days of violence that has killed hundreds in the bloodiest of the uprisings to shake the Arab world. Up to 2,000 people may have died, it was claimed by a senior French human rights official.
But there was no sign Gaddafi was prepared to change course. In another semi-coherent and abusive speech on Thursday, he accused protesters of being drugged and agents of al-Qaida. "Their ages are 17. They give them pills at night, they put hallucinatory pills in their drinks, their milk, their coffee," he said in a telephone interview with Libyan state TV – suggesting he may already have left his heavily guarded Tripoli compound.
It only boosted the growing impression that he is desperate and out of touch with reality. "This is the speech of a dead man," said Said el-Gareeny in the eastern city of Benghazi, which is now in opposition hands.
"People always warn about al-Qaida and say this will become an Islamic state ... to get support from western countries. This isn't true. The Libyan people are free. That's it." ...
Tensions are mounting in the Syrian capital, Damascus, after the third peaceful demonstration in three weeks was violently dispersed on Wednesday. There are increasing reports of intimidation and blocking of communications by secret services in the wake of violent unrest in neighbouring Arab countries.
Fourteen people were arrested and several people beaten by uniformed and plainclothes police on Tuesday after about 200 staged a peaceful sit-in outside the Libyan embassy to show support for Libya's protesters.
Witnesses said at least two women were among those beaten.
The demonstrators carried placards reading "Freedom for the people" and "Down with Gaddafi", and chanted slogans such as "Traitors are those that beat their people."
Witnesses said authorities warned the group to disperse but they reconvened shortly afterwards in the central neighbouring suburb of Sha'alan. When they tried to march back to the embassy they were met with a heavy police presence.
Several witnesses told the Guardian there were nearly twice as many secret and uniformed police as protesters. Some protesters were punched, kicked and beaten with sticks..
All present had their identities recorded. Fourteen people were detained but later released, Human Rights Watch in Beirut confirmed.
"They hit two girls, I saw them on the ground crying," said a witness who was briefly detained.
"There were so many of them, we didn't know where they all came from."
Under emergency law, public congregations are banned in Syria. This kind of protest is very rare but last Friday 1,500 people took part in a seemingly spontaneous demonstration outside the central Hamidiyah souq. It was reportedly in protest at the police beating of a local shop owner, rather than being directed at the government. People chanted "The Syrian people will not be humiliated", "Shame, shame" and "With our soul, with our blood, we sacrifice for you Bashar" in reference to the country's president, Bashar al-Assad. Syria's interior minister has promised an investigation. ...
Fourteen people were arrested and several people beaten by uniformed and plainclothes police on Tuesday after about 200 staged a peaceful sit-in outside the Libyan embassy to show support for Libya's protesters.
Witnesses said at least two women were among those beaten.
The demonstrators carried placards reading "Freedom for the people" and "Down with Gaddafi", and chanted slogans such as "Traitors are those that beat their people."
Witnesses said authorities warned the group to disperse but they reconvened shortly afterwards in the central neighbouring suburb of Sha'alan. When they tried to march back to the embassy they were met with a heavy police presence.
Several witnesses told the Guardian there were nearly twice as many secret and uniformed police as protesters. Some protesters were punched, kicked and beaten with sticks..
All present had their identities recorded. Fourteen people were detained but later released, Human Rights Watch in Beirut confirmed.
"They hit two girls, I saw them on the ground crying," said a witness who was briefly detained.
"There were so many of them, we didn't know where they all came from."
Under emergency law, public congregations are banned in Syria. This kind of protest is very rare but last Friday 1,500 people took part in a seemingly spontaneous demonstration outside the central Hamidiyah souq. It was reportedly in protest at the police beating of a local shop owner, rather than being directed at the government. People chanted "The Syrian people will not be humiliated", "Shame, shame" and "With our soul, with our blood, we sacrifice for you Bashar" in reference to the country's president, Bashar al-Assad. Syria's interior minister has promised an investigation. ...
Corporations and interest groups have channelled more than £1.6m to MPs and lords in the past year through sponsorship of parliamentary groups, a Guardian investigation can reveal.
Parliamentary reformers given access to the Guardian's findings have called on the coalition government to take action to prevent all-party groups acting as "mere front groups for lobbyists to buy influence".
Westminster has more than 450 all-party political groups, semi-official entities around particular subjects or countries, ranging from groups on asthma and autism, to the parliamentary choir and rowing team.
The Guardian has found 283 of these groups receive financial support from outside interests, including:
• £60,000 support for the parliamentary choir from BT
• £52,000 from drink and pub companies for the beer group
• £16,000 for the parliamentary boat race from Siemens
Other benefits are less quantifiable: the members of the all-party wine and spirits group, co-chaired by former Tory shadow minister Geoffrey Clifton-Brown and new Labour MP Ian Mearns, receive corkage, refreshment and wine tasting thanks to the largesse of the Wine and Spirits Trade Association. Some sporting groups, such as the athletics or rugby league groups, receive free tickets to matches.
Benefits of a less indulgent nature are offered to the parliamentary slimming group, whose members include Ed Vaizey and David Amess: they are entitled to receive free Slimming World membership, worth £290 a year.
Conservative MP Douglas Carswell, an outspoken advocate for parliamentary reform, says constituents should make the judgment on whether such fringe benefits are legitimate.
"I don't know whether it's legitimate for companies to hand out, say, sports tickets to MPs," he said. "But if my constituents can see clearly and easily what I have received, sunlight is the best disinfectant. The public will quickly rule what they think is acceptable. It's for them to decide, not a group of Westminster grandees." ...
Parliamentary reformers given access to the Guardian's findings have called on the coalition government to take action to prevent all-party groups acting as "mere front groups for lobbyists to buy influence".
Westminster has more than 450 all-party political groups, semi-official entities around particular subjects or countries, ranging from groups on asthma and autism, to the parliamentary choir and rowing team.
The Guardian has found 283 of these groups receive financial support from outside interests, including:
• £60,000 support for the parliamentary choir from BT
• £52,000 from drink and pub companies for the beer group
• £16,000 for the parliamentary boat race from Siemens
Other benefits are less quantifiable: the members of the all-party wine and spirits group, co-chaired by former Tory shadow minister Geoffrey Clifton-Brown and new Labour MP Ian Mearns, receive corkage, refreshment and wine tasting thanks to the largesse of the Wine and Spirits Trade Association. Some sporting groups, such as the athletics or rugby league groups, receive free tickets to matches.
Benefits of a less indulgent nature are offered to the parliamentary slimming group, whose members include Ed Vaizey and David Amess: they are entitled to receive free Slimming World membership, worth £290 a year.
Conservative MP Douglas Carswell, an outspoken advocate for parliamentary reform, says constituents should make the judgment on whether such fringe benefits are legitimate.
"I don't know whether it's legitimate for companies to hand out, say, sports tickets to MPs," he said. "But if my constituents can see clearly and easily what I have received, sunlight is the best disinfectant. The public will quickly rule what they think is acceptable. It's for them to decide, not a group of Westminster grandees." ...
The chairman of the right-wing current affairs channel, Fox News, Roger Ailes, has been named in court documents as the previously anonymous executive who allegedly tried to persuade a fellow boss at News Corporation to lie to federal investigators over a crucial Washington appointment.
The New York Times reported court documents had become available that for the first time name Ailes as the mysterious executive involved in the allegations. The claims were initially made in November 2007 by Judith Regan, one of Rupert Murdoch's rising stars in News Corporation until she was dismissed the previous year in a row over her decision to publish a book with OJ Simpson.
In her unfair dismissal claim against her former employers, Regan claimed that a News Corporation senior executive had tried to secure her silence during the process to vet Bernard Kerik as the US head of homeland security. Regan had been having an affair with Kerik, and she alleged in her lawsuit that the unnamed executive had wanted her to keep quiet about it during the vetting procedure in order to protect Rudy Giuliani, the former New York mayor who had appointed Kerik as New York police commissioner and was Kerik's main supporter. Giuliani was at the time considering a run for the White House in 2008 and the revelations could have rubbed off adversely on him.
The identity of the executive has long been a topic of speculation in New York media circles. Now, according to the New York Times, the mystery is solved as Ailes is named in a separate court case in 2008.
The court documents reveal his identity and, even more sensationally, say that there is a tape recording of Ailes's conversation with Regan in which he seeks to secure her co-operation. However, there are no transcripts of the conversation. ...
The New York Times reported court documents had become available that for the first time name Ailes as the mysterious executive involved in the allegations. The claims were initially made in November 2007 by Judith Regan, one of Rupert Murdoch's rising stars in News Corporation until she was dismissed the previous year in a row over her decision to publish a book with OJ Simpson.
In her unfair dismissal claim against her former employers, Regan claimed that a News Corporation senior executive had tried to secure her silence during the process to vet Bernard Kerik as the US head of homeland security. Regan had been having an affair with Kerik, and she alleged in her lawsuit that the unnamed executive had wanted her to keep quiet about it during the vetting procedure in order to protect Rudy Giuliani, the former New York mayor who had appointed Kerik as New York police commissioner and was Kerik's main supporter. Giuliani was at the time considering a run for the White House in 2008 and the revelations could have rubbed off adversely on him.
The identity of the executive has long been a topic of speculation in New York media circles. Now, according to the New York Times, the mystery is solved as Ailes is named in a separate court case in 2008.
The court documents reveal his identity and, even more sensationally, say that there is a tape recording of Ailes's conversation with Regan in which he seeks to secure her co-operation. However, there are no transcripts of the conversation. ...
So many messages are being examined by Scotland Yard's phone-hacking inquiry that it is difficult to identify every mention of a celebrity's name among "hundreds of intercepts", lawyers for the police have claimed.
The proliferation of legal actions generated by complaints against the News of the World is also in danger of congesting the courts with "parallel claims", the judge hearing applications for disclosure in three cases has implied.
Official recognition of the scale of the problem came as three more alleged victims of the practice of hacking into voicemail messages sought high court orders granting them access to documents that may substantiate claims for damages. Lawyers for Paul Gascoigne, George Galloway and Mick McGuire, former deputy chief executive of the Professional Footballers' Association, were granted permission to see relevant sections of transcripts.
The notebooks are among material seized by the Metropolitan police from the convicted private investigator Glenn Mulcaire who was employed by the newspaper.
Gascoigne and McGuire's applications were supported by Newsgroup Newspapers, owners of the News of the World, because, the court heard, the company "wishes to show it was not involved in the interception of information" relating to them.
Explaining the need for efficient case management, Mr Justice Vos told the court: "There have been numerous parallel applications with different counsel and solicitors ... raising identical or nearly identical points". He wanted to avoid duplication, he said.
At least 14 cases were already before the courts, agreed Jeremy Reed, counsel for Gascoigne and McGuire. There is speculation there will be many more, he added.
Lawyers for Gascoigne requested that any intercepted messages "about him or concerning him" should be included in the disclosure order because private information about his medical treatment had been obtained by hacking into other people's phones.
Edwin Buckett, representing the Met, said that would mean the police "having to listen to every transcript to see if Mr Gascoigne is mentioned". There are "hundreds of intercepts", he said. "It makes it so wide, it's difficult to comply with."
The judge ordered the police to hand over anything in the transcripts that was "about or concerning" Paul Gascoigne.
The names of more journalists may appear after the judge ordered that ''redactions'' – the blanked-out sections in the transcripts handed to the claimants – should not hide the names of employees of the News of the World.
The three claimants were also granted access to information on breaches of privacy gathered by the Information Commissioner's Office during its Operation Motorman inquiry into the matter. ...
The proliferation of legal actions generated by complaints against the News of the World is also in danger of congesting the courts with "parallel claims", the judge hearing applications for disclosure in three cases has implied.
Official recognition of the scale of the problem came as three more alleged victims of the practice of hacking into voicemail messages sought high court orders granting them access to documents that may substantiate claims for damages. Lawyers for Paul Gascoigne, George Galloway and Mick McGuire, former deputy chief executive of the Professional Footballers' Association, were granted permission to see relevant sections of transcripts.
The notebooks are among material seized by the Metropolitan police from the convicted private investigator Glenn Mulcaire who was employed by the newspaper.
Gascoigne and McGuire's applications were supported by Newsgroup Newspapers, owners of the News of the World, because, the court heard, the company "wishes to show it was not involved in the interception of information" relating to them.
Explaining the need for efficient case management, Mr Justice Vos told the court: "There have been numerous parallel applications with different counsel and solicitors ... raising identical or nearly identical points". He wanted to avoid duplication, he said.
At least 14 cases were already before the courts, agreed Jeremy Reed, counsel for Gascoigne and McGuire. There is speculation there will be many more, he added.
Lawyers for Gascoigne requested that any intercepted messages "about him or concerning him" should be included in the disclosure order because private information about his medical treatment had been obtained by hacking into other people's phones.
Edwin Buckett, representing the Met, said that would mean the police "having to listen to every transcript to see if Mr Gascoigne is mentioned". There are "hundreds of intercepts", he said. "It makes it so wide, it's difficult to comply with."
The judge ordered the police to hand over anything in the transcripts that was "about or concerning" Paul Gascoigne.
The names of more journalists may appear after the judge ordered that ''redactions'' – the blanked-out sections in the transcripts handed to the claimants – should not hide the names of employees of the News of the World.
The three claimants were also granted access to information on breaches of privacy gathered by the Information Commissioner's Office during its Operation Motorman inquiry into the matter. ...
Gaddafi speech and Libya unrest – as it happened
• Gaddafi: 'I cannot leave my country, I will die a martyr'
• Libyan leader makes rambling speech after days of unrest
• 'Anyone who undermines state will be punished by death'
• Hague: 'Structure of Libyan state is collapsing'
• Gaddafi: 'I cannot leave my country, I will die a martyr'
• Libyan leader makes rambling speech after days of unrest
• 'Anyone who undermines state will be punished by death'
• Hague: 'Structure of Libyan state is collapsing'
Gaddafi urges violent showdown and tells Libya 'I'll die a martyr'
• Muammar Gaddafi tells loyalists to take to streets of Libya
• Witnesses speak of mercenaries in death squads
• International condemnation of bloodshed grows
• Muammar Gaddafi tells loyalists to take to streets of Libya
• Witnesses speak of mercenaries in death squads
• International condemnation of bloodshed grows
Rescuers working through the night have pulled dozens of people from the rubble after the earthquake that killed at least 75 people in Christchurch, New Zealand.
Rescue teams had to perform amputations to free some of the 120 survivors that have been pulled from the wreckage of the quake in the country's second-biggest city. The death toll is expected to rise further, with as many as 300 still missing, believed to be buried under concrete, brick and twisted metal.
"We are getting texts and tapping sounds from the living and that's our focus at the moment," police commander Russell Gibson said on Radio New Zealand. The city's mayor, Bob Parker, said as many as 300 people might be missing as a national state of emergency was declared.
Just before 2pm on Wednesday afternoon emergency workers were hurriedly evacuated from a two-block radius of the Chancellor hotel, after fears the building could collapse. About a quarter of the building had sunk into the ground.
Christchurch hospital's emergency department was packed with victims. Gibson described the scene in the city as one of "absolute carnage". The streets, he said, were "littered with dead bodies".
The 6.3-magnitude quake rocked New Zealand's second largest city at 12.51pm, when streets and shops were packed. Christchurch was hit last September by a 7.1-magnitude quake that caused damage but no deaths. This time, some estimated, the death toll could reach 200.
Already it is the country's worst natural disaster since a 1931 earthquake, measuring 7.8, destroyed much of the North Island city of Napier, killing 256 people. ...
...The quake, centred three miles from the city, was at a relatively shallow depth of 2½ miles. ...
Rescue teams had to perform amputations to free some of the 120 survivors that have been pulled from the wreckage of the quake in the country's second-biggest city. The death toll is expected to rise further, with as many as 300 still missing, believed to be buried under concrete, brick and twisted metal.
"We are getting texts and tapping sounds from the living and that's our focus at the moment," police commander Russell Gibson said on Radio New Zealand. The city's mayor, Bob Parker, said as many as 300 people might be missing as a national state of emergency was declared.
Just before 2pm on Wednesday afternoon emergency workers were hurriedly evacuated from a two-block radius of the Chancellor hotel, after fears the building could collapse. About a quarter of the building had sunk into the ground.
Christchurch hospital's emergency department was packed with victims. Gibson described the scene in the city as one of "absolute carnage". The streets, he said, were "littered with dead bodies".
The 6.3-magnitude quake rocked New Zealand's second largest city at 12.51pm, when streets and shops were packed. Christchurch was hit last September by a 7.1-magnitude quake that caused damage but no deaths. This time, some estimated, the death toll could reach 200.
Already it is the country's worst natural disaster since a 1931 earthquake, measuring 7.8, destroyed much of the North Island city of Napier, killing 256 people. ...
...The quake, centred three miles from the city, was at a relatively shallow depth of 2½ miles. ...
The wife of the jailed Nobel peace prize laureate Liu Xiaobo said she and her family are "hostages", according to a friend. The comment is thought to be her first contact with the outside world for four months.
Supporters have been unable to reach Liu Xia since shortly after October's announcement that her husband had won the award. It was initially thought she was under house arrest at the couple's home in Beijing, but it is now believed she may be being held at her parents' house. ...
...The Washington Post said it received the document from the friend, with whom she had communicated online, via an intermediary.
"I don't know how I managed to get online," Liu Xia wrote in the five-minute chat on Thursday night. "Don't go online. Otherwise my whole family is in danger."
Asked whether she was at home, she [replied], "Yes. Can't go out. My whole family are hostages."
She added: "So miserable. I'm crying. Nobody can help me."
The chat ended when her friend asked her to log out because he was concerned he would cause her more trouble, adding: "We miss you and support you. We will wait for you outside."
Liu Xiaobo is serving an 11-year sentence for inciting subversion of state power for co-authoring Charter 08, a bold call for democratic reforms, and other essays posted online.
The author was represented by an empty chair at the Nobel ceremony last year because none of his family was able to attend.
The authorities placed his wife under house arrest when he won. Her communications were cut off a few days later, although she had said she was able to visit him in prison after the announcement.
In her online chat, she wrote: "I only saw him once,"...
Liu Xiaobo's case has sparked international condemnation. Campaigners are particularly alarmed at the treatment of his wife, because she has never been accused of any crime. ...
... Human rights groups say they fear the authorities are increasingly turning to unlawful methods to silence unwanted voices, citing cases such Liu Xia's, the disappearance of the lawyer Gao Zhisheng and the house arrest of the legal activist Chen Guangcheng following his release from prison. ...
Supporters have been unable to reach Liu Xia since shortly after October's announcement that her husband had won the award. It was initially thought she was under house arrest at the couple's home in Beijing, but it is now believed she may be being held at her parents' house. ...
...The Washington Post said it received the document from the friend, with whom she had communicated online, via an intermediary.
"I don't know how I managed to get online," Liu Xia wrote in the five-minute chat on Thursday night. "Don't go online. Otherwise my whole family is in danger."
Asked whether she was at home, she [replied], "Yes. Can't go out. My whole family are hostages."
She added: "So miserable. I'm crying. Nobody can help me."
The chat ended when her friend asked her to log out because he was concerned he would cause her more trouble, adding: "We miss you and support you. We will wait for you outside."
Liu Xiaobo is serving an 11-year sentence for inciting subversion of state power for co-authoring Charter 08, a bold call for democratic reforms, and other essays posted online.
The author was represented by an empty chair at the Nobel ceremony last year because none of his family was able to attend.
The authorities placed his wife under house arrest when he won. Her communications were cut off a few days later, although she had said she was able to visit him in prison after the announcement.
In her online chat, she wrote: "I only saw him once,"...
Liu Xiaobo's case has sparked international condemnation. Campaigners are particularly alarmed at the treatment of his wife, because she has never been accused of any crime. ...
... Human rights groups say they fear the authorities are increasingly turning to unlawful methods to silence unwanted voices, citing cases such Liu Xia's, the disappearance of the lawyer Gao Zhisheng and the house arrest of the legal activist Chen Guangcheng following his release from prison. ...
Confusion caused by wording in a popular mortgage deal is costing Lloyds £500m as the bank is being forced to write to 600,000 customers and repay up to 300,000 of them.
Payments will range from a few to potentially thousands of pounds per customer.
Just days before it publishes 2010 figures expected to show £2bn of profits, the bank admitted it had reached a voluntary agreement with the Financial Services Authority about the mortgages, which were sold under the Halifax brand.
Lloyds rescued Halifax's parent company, HBOS, at the height of the banking crisis in September 2008 and has already been saddled with billions of pounds of bad debts caused by poor lending decisions in HBOS's corporate banking arm. Lloyds shares were among the largest fallers in the FTSE 100 on Monday.
The latest problem related to 600,000 Halifax customers who were sent a mortgage offer between 20 September 2004 and 16 September 2007 which contained information about the bank's standard variable rate (SVR).
Halifax, the country's biggest mortgage lender, was capping the SVR to customers who were also being locked into the mortgages through early repayment charges. The cap was originally set at 2% above the Bank of England base rate but in October 2008 this was lifted to 3%.
However, the bank did not write to all its customers at the time to tell them of the change, only contacting those who were locked in on mortgage deals.
Halifax hit a problem in January 2009 when the Bank of England cut interest rates by half a percentage point to 1.5% – at the time their lowest level – although they have since been reduced to 0.5%.
As a result of this interest rate cut, Halifax's SVR was more than 2% above the Bank of England's rate – leaving some customers confused, as they believed the rate was capped at 2% not 3%. In reality, the cap may not have applied to them at all if they were locked in through one of the bank's early redemption changes.
Lloyds is now agreeing to made a "goodwill payment" to some 300,000 customers, regardless of whether or not the deal had applied to them. Those who were warned of the change in the cap – customers facing redemption changes – will receive a flat payment of £250, while the others will receive payments based on the difference in repayments caused by the change in the rate. ...
Payments will range from a few to potentially thousands of pounds per customer.
Just days before it publishes 2010 figures expected to show £2bn of profits, the bank admitted it had reached a voluntary agreement with the Financial Services Authority about the mortgages, which were sold under the Halifax brand.
Lloyds rescued Halifax's parent company, HBOS, at the height of the banking crisis in September 2008 and has already been saddled with billions of pounds of bad debts caused by poor lending decisions in HBOS's corporate banking arm. Lloyds shares were among the largest fallers in the FTSE 100 on Monday.
The latest problem related to 600,000 Halifax customers who were sent a mortgage offer between 20 September 2004 and 16 September 2007 which contained information about the bank's standard variable rate (SVR).
Halifax, the country's biggest mortgage lender, was capping the SVR to customers who were also being locked into the mortgages through early repayment charges. The cap was originally set at 2% above the Bank of England base rate but in October 2008 this was lifted to 3%.
However, the bank did not write to all its customers at the time to tell them of the change, only contacting those who were locked in on mortgage deals.
Halifax hit a problem in January 2009 when the Bank of England cut interest rates by half a percentage point to 1.5% – at the time their lowest level – although they have since been reduced to 0.5%.
As a result of this interest rate cut, Halifax's SVR was more than 2% above the Bank of England's rate – leaving some customers confused, as they believed the rate was capped at 2% not 3%. In reality, the cap may not have applied to them at all if they were locked in through one of the bank's early redemption changes.
Lloyds is now agreeing to made a "goodwill payment" to some 300,000 customers, regardless of whether or not the deal had applied to them. Those who were warned of the change in the cap – customers facing redemption changes – will receive a flat payment of £250, while the others will receive payments based on the difference in repayments caused by the change in the rate. ...
Saif al-Islam Gaddafi: LSE-educated man the west can no longer deal with | World news | The Guardian
With his flawless English, his expensive Italian suits and his place at the London School of Economics, Saif al-Islam Gaddafi appeared to be a man with whom the west could do business: a man who could smooth access to his country's vast mineral resources while avoiding the need to deal with his famously capricious father.
As state security forces were reported to be firing relentlessly into crowds of civilian protesters on Monday, and with Gaddafi Jr appearing on television to threaten a civil war in which the regime "will fight to the last minute, until the last bullet", many of his erstwhile associates were questioning their friendships with him.
The LSE has been quick to distance itself from Saif, issuing a statement in which it said the university had had a number of links with Libya, but that "in view of the highly distressing news from Libya over the weekend of 19-20 February, the school has reconsidered those links as a matter of urgency".
Although the LSE had accepted £1.5m from the Gaddafi International Charity and Development Foundation, an organisation headed by Saif – some of which was to finance "a virtual democracy centre" – the university stressed that it was to be paid over five years, and only £300,000 has been received to date. "In current difficult circumstances across the region, the school has decided to stop new activities under that programme," the statement said. The LSE has also received scholarship funding in return for advice given to the Libyan Investment Authority in London. "No further receipts are anticipated," the university said.
Professor David Held, an academic advisor to Saif Gaddafi during his four years at the LSE, said: "Watching Saif give that speech – looking so exhausted, nervous and, frankly, terrible – was the stuff of Shakespeare and of Freud: a young man torn by a struggle between loyalty to his father and his family, and the beliefs he had come to hold for reform, democracy and the rule of law. The man giving that speech wasn't the Saif I had got to know well over those years." ...
As state security forces were reported to be firing relentlessly into crowds of civilian protesters on Monday, and with Gaddafi Jr appearing on television to threaten a civil war in which the regime "will fight to the last minute, until the last bullet", many of his erstwhile associates were questioning their friendships with him.
The LSE has been quick to distance itself from Saif, issuing a statement in which it said the university had had a number of links with Libya, but that "in view of the highly distressing news from Libya over the weekend of 19-20 February, the school has reconsidered those links as a matter of urgency".
Although the LSE had accepted £1.5m from the Gaddafi International Charity and Development Foundation, an organisation headed by Saif – some of which was to finance "a virtual democracy centre" – the university stressed that it was to be paid over five years, and only £300,000 has been received to date. "In current difficult circumstances across the region, the school has decided to stop new activities under that programme," the statement said. The LSE has also received scholarship funding in return for advice given to the Libyan Investment Authority in London. "No further receipts are anticipated," the university said.
Professor David Held, an academic advisor to Saif Gaddafi during his four years at the LSE, said: "Watching Saif give that speech – looking so exhausted, nervous and, frankly, terrible – was the stuff of Shakespeare and of Freud: a young man torn by a struggle between loyalty to his father and his family, and the beliefs he had come to hold for reform, democracy and the rule of law. The man giving that speech wasn't the Saif I had got to know well over those years." ...
Idi Amin finished up in Saudi Arabia. Mobutu Sese Seko went to Togo then settled in Morocco. Mengistu Haile Mariam, author of Ethiopia's Red Terror, is living out his days in Zimbabwe. And so, if the once unthinkable should happen and the dictator falls in Libya, whither Muammar Gaddafi?
Burkina Faso, Chad, Equatorial Guinea, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Venezuela and Zimbabwe are among the contenders floated by analysts if the self-declared "doyen of Arab leaders, king of kings of Africa and imam of all Muslims" was forced to seek asylum. Saudi hospitality has previously been extended to ousted Pakistani prime minister Nawaz Sharif and overthrown Tunisia's Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali. But its relations with Libya have been strained for years; in 2009 Gaddafi told King Abdullah: "You are propelled by fibs towards the grave and you were made by Britain and protected by the US."
Venezuela is a stronger candidate having had close ties with Libya of late. Gaddafi was seen shopping on a Venezuelan island during a summit 18 month ago. President Hugo Chavez has visited Libya several times and a football stadium there was named in his honour.
But Gaddafi also has a long history with the rest of Africa, which intensified after he switched from promoting Arab unity to buying influence at the African Union – debts he may now seek to call in. Adekeye Adebajo, executive director of the Centre for Conflict Resolution at Cape Town University in South Africa, said: "He has enough friends to be able to find a safe haven in many parts of Africa, but obviously there would be a lot of people scared to take him."
Adebajo noted Gaddafi's past involvement in funding rebel movements in Liberia and Sierra Leone. "A lot of insecure African leaders would be nervous to have him on their territory." ...
Burkina Faso, Chad, Equatorial Guinea, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Venezuela and Zimbabwe are among the contenders floated by analysts if the self-declared "doyen of Arab leaders, king of kings of Africa and imam of all Muslims" was forced to seek asylum. Saudi hospitality has previously been extended to ousted Pakistani prime minister Nawaz Sharif and overthrown Tunisia's Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali. But its relations with Libya have been strained for years; in 2009 Gaddafi told King Abdullah: "You are propelled by fibs towards the grave and you were made by Britain and protected by the US."
Venezuela is a stronger candidate having had close ties with Libya of late. Gaddafi was seen shopping on a Venezuelan island during a summit 18 month ago. President Hugo Chavez has visited Libya several times and a football stadium there was named in his honour.
But Gaddafi also has a long history with the rest of Africa, which intensified after he switched from promoting Arab unity to buying influence at the African Union – debts he may now seek to call in. Adekeye Adebajo, executive director of the Centre for Conflict Resolution at Cape Town University in South Africa, said: "He has enough friends to be able to find a safe haven in many parts of Africa, but obviously there would be a lot of people scared to take him."
Adebajo noted Gaddafi's past involvement in funding rebel movements in Liberia and Sierra Leone. "A lot of insecure African leaders would be nervous to have him on their territory." ...
Half a dodo has turned up in an Edwardian wooden box in a drawer at one of Britain's oldest natural history collections.
Not much surprises the staff at the Grant Museum, where the contents include an old sweet jar full to the brim with pickled baby moles, their paws pressed pathetically against the glass, and the skull and antlers of an extinct species of giant deer which some academics bought straight off the wall of an Irish pub.
However, even they were a little startled when the dodo turned up, stored with a mass of crocodile bones.
"They do have common characteristics, crocodiles and birds," Jack Ashby, the museum's learning access manager, said. "It was an understandable mistake."
The dodo remains emerged as the Grant, part of University College London, moved its 70,000-item collection to a new home in an Edwardian former medical library.
It may look like a collection of blackened bones, but the dodo is an exceptional find. The afterlife of the disastrously delicious flightless bird in museums is almost as tragic as its extinction in its native Mauritius in the 17th century.
No complete specimen survives, although in the 19th century at least two were destroyed by curators who decided they were in unacceptably poor condition, including the one at the Natural History Museum in Oxford that inspired Lewis Carroll's dodo in Alice in Wonderland.
The bones will be displayed alongside another treasure of the collection, the Grant's quagga – an extinct South African relative of the horse, resembling a zebra. The old catalogue said the collection held two zebras: it turned out that one was a donkey, and the other was the quagga, one of only seven almost complete skeletons in the world. (Almost complete because it lost a left hind leg, probably when the collection was moved to a Welsh slate mine during the Blitz.) ...
Not much surprises the staff at the Grant Museum, where the contents include an old sweet jar full to the brim with pickled baby moles, their paws pressed pathetically against the glass, and the skull and antlers of an extinct species of giant deer which some academics bought straight off the wall of an Irish pub.
However, even they were a little startled when the dodo turned up, stored with a mass of crocodile bones.
"They do have common characteristics, crocodiles and birds," Jack Ashby, the museum's learning access manager, said. "It was an understandable mistake."
The dodo remains emerged as the Grant, part of University College London, moved its 70,000-item collection to a new home in an Edwardian former medical library.
It may look like a collection of blackened bones, but the dodo is an exceptional find. The afterlife of the disastrously delicious flightless bird in museums is almost as tragic as its extinction in its native Mauritius in the 17th century.
No complete specimen survives, although in the 19th century at least two were destroyed by curators who decided they were in unacceptably poor condition, including the one at the Natural History Museum in Oxford that inspired Lewis Carroll's dodo in Alice in Wonderland.
The bones will be displayed alongside another treasure of the collection, the Grant's quagga – an extinct South African relative of the horse, resembling a zebra. The old catalogue said the collection held two zebras: it turned out that one was a donkey, and the other was the quagga, one of only seven almost complete skeletons in the world. (Almost complete because it lost a left hind leg, probably when the collection was moved to a Welsh slate mine during the Blitz.) ...
Libya and Bahrain protests – Saturday 19 February
• Dozens reported killed in deadly crackdowns
• Video shows Libya protester shot in head
• Iran opposition calls for more demonstrations
• Dozens reported killed in deadly crackdowns
• Video shows Libya protester shot in head
• Iran opposition calls for more demonstrations
Colonel Muammar Gaddafi is confronting the most serious challenge to his 42-year rule as leader of Libya by unleashing his army on unarmed protesters.
Unlike the rulers of neighbouring Egypt, Gaddafi has refused to countenance the politics of disobedience, despite growing international condemnation, and the death toll of demonstrators nearing 100.
The pro-government Al-Zahf al-Akhdar newspaper warned that the government would "violently and thunderously respond" to the protests, and said those opposing the regime risked "suicide".
William Hague, the UK's foreign secretary, condemned the violence as "unacceptable and horrifying", even as the Libyan regime's special forces, backed by African mercenaries, launched a dawn attack on a protest camp in the eastern Libyan city of Benghazi.
Britain is scrambling to extricate itself from its recently cosy relationship with Gaddafi, initiated by then prime minister Tony Blair in 2004. That rapprochement saw Libya open its doors to British oil companies in exchange for becoming a new ally in the "war on terror" while Britain sold Gaddafi arms.
Hague's outspoken comments came a day after the government revoked arms export licenses to both Bahrain and Libya for their use of deadly force against protesters calling for a change in the regime.
With internet services in Libya shut off for long periods, foreign journalists excluded and access already blocked to social networking sites, Gaddafi appeared determined to quell a revolt centred in the country's east, which has long suffered a policy of deliberate economic exclusion.
Libya has also jammed the signals of Al-Jazeera, the Arab broadcaster to the country. Reports from inside the country claimed pro-regime forces had deliberately aimed at protesters' heads. ...
Unlike the rulers of neighbouring Egypt, Gaddafi has refused to countenance the politics of disobedience, despite growing international condemnation, and the death toll of demonstrators nearing 100.
The pro-government Al-Zahf al-Akhdar newspaper warned that the government would "violently and thunderously respond" to the protests, and said those opposing the regime risked "suicide".
William Hague, the UK's foreign secretary, condemned the violence as "unacceptable and horrifying", even as the Libyan regime's special forces, backed by African mercenaries, launched a dawn attack on a protest camp in the eastern Libyan city of Benghazi.
Britain is scrambling to extricate itself from its recently cosy relationship with Gaddafi, initiated by then prime minister Tony Blair in 2004. That rapprochement saw Libya open its doors to British oil companies in exchange for becoming a new ally in the "war on terror" while Britain sold Gaddafi arms.
Hague's outspoken comments came a day after the government revoked arms export licenses to both Bahrain and Libya for their use of deadly force against protesters calling for a change in the regime.
With internet services in Libya shut off for long periods, foreign journalists excluded and access already blocked to social networking sites, Gaddafi appeared determined to quell a revolt centred in the country's east, which has long suffered a policy of deliberate economic exclusion.
Libya has also jammed the signals of Al-Jazeera, the Arab broadcaster to the country. Reports from inside the country claimed pro-regime forces had deliberately aimed at protesters' heads. ...
It is not the sex or sleaze swirling around Silvio Berlusconi that irks Matteo Renzi most. "I checked, and he is only six years younger than my granny," said the leftwing mayor of Florence who, at the tender age of 36, is being tipped as the man to clean up Italy if and when Berlusconi's creaking rule collapses.
As the Italian prime minister, 74, prepares to go on trial on suspicion of paying an underage girl for sex, Renzi is basking in ratings revealing he is the country's most popular mayor. He is now building national backing with a 20-city tour promoting his book calling for a dramatic generational change in Italian politics. Its title? Fuori! (Out!)
"When Italy hosted international summits in 1994, 2001 and 2009, John Major, Tony Blair and Gordon Brown were Britain's prime ministers, but Berlusconi was there every time," Renzi, a member of the centre-left Democratic party, told the Observer. "We need to send a whole generation of politicians into retirement and I am just one of many demanding we turn a page."
Renzi has yet to make the leap to the national stage, but for many it is just a matter of time. In an attempt to drive home his ambitions and youthful credentials, he held a book launch in Florence this month at which he preached change over a U2 soundtrack and prowled the stage before 1,000 fans. It was a far cry from Berlusconi's idea of connecting with young people, which allegedly consists of groping topless girls as they cavort at his private soirées and sending out emissaries to scour beauty contests for a fresh stock of "virgins ready to sacrifice themselves to the dragon", as his wife put it before leaving him.
Last week the allegations of sleaze and debauchery took a dramatic turn in favour of Berlusconi's critics as he was ordered to stand trial, before three female judges, in April. But the media mogul shows no sign of resigning and is beefing up his support in parliament. ...
As the Italian prime minister, 74, prepares to go on trial on suspicion of paying an underage girl for sex, Renzi is basking in ratings revealing he is the country's most popular mayor. He is now building national backing with a 20-city tour promoting his book calling for a dramatic generational change in Italian politics. Its title? Fuori! (Out!)
"When Italy hosted international summits in 1994, 2001 and 2009, John Major, Tony Blair and Gordon Brown were Britain's prime ministers, but Berlusconi was there every time," Renzi, a member of the centre-left Democratic party, told the Observer. "We need to send a whole generation of politicians into retirement and I am just one of many demanding we turn a page."
Renzi has yet to make the leap to the national stage, but for many it is just a matter of time. In an attempt to drive home his ambitions and youthful credentials, he held a book launch in Florence this month at which he preached change over a U2 soundtrack and prowled the stage before 1,000 fans. It was a far cry from Berlusconi's idea of connecting with young people, which allegedly consists of groping topless girls as they cavort at his private soirées and sending out emissaries to scour beauty contests for a fresh stock of "virgins ready to sacrifice themselves to the dragon", as his wife put it before leaving him.
Last week the allegations of sleaze and debauchery took a dramatic turn in favour of Berlusconi's critics as he was ordered to stand trial, before three female judges, in April. But the media mogul shows no sign of resigning and is beefing up his support in parliament. ...
Violence in Bahrain and Libya: live updates
• Bahrain: dozens injured as shots fired at protesters
• Libya: reports claim up to 50 killed
• Obama condemns violent attacks on protesters
• Egypt: protesters return to Tahrir Square
• Yemen: crowds demonstrating in Sana'a and Taiz ...
• Bahrain: dozens injured as shots fired at protesters
• Libya: reports claim up to 50 killed
• Obama condemns violent attacks on protesters
• Egypt: protesters return to Tahrir Square
• Yemen: crowds demonstrating in Sana'a and Taiz ...
Ali Ismail had helped wash the body of a dead protester for burial and he was already talking of more blood. "We will go to them and they will attack us," he said of Bahrain's riot police. Within hours he was proved correct.
Just after 5.30pm on Friday, central Manama again erupted in gunfire and screaming. Up to 200 demonstrators had attempted to march on Pearl Square, the scene of Thursday morning's savage assault that left three dead. Just over a mile from the central Bahrain landmark, soldiers and police opened fire, killing at least one more protester and leaving 50 others wounded.
"We don't care if they kill 5,000 of us," a protester screamed inside the forecourt of the Salmaniya hospital, which has become a staging point for Bahrain's raging youth. "The regime must fall and we will make sure it does."
Just before dusk, riot police advanced on the hospital, apparently chasing protesters who had attempted to link up with the group bound for Pearl Square. Sound grenades cracked in the distance, gradually getting closer as protesters beat a retreat to the only place in Manama where they now feel safe to gather in numbers.
Within minutes, the bitter scent of tear-gas had wafted into the hospital grounds, sparking panic that the riot police were coming for them there as well. The police backed off and the crowd in the hospital swelled to at least 7,000 people, all of them chanting anti-regime slogans that they would not have dared to utter a month ago.
"Down with the king, down with the Khalifas," they cried, referring to the kingdom's ruling family. Anger among the overwhelmingly Shia Muslim demonstrators towards the Sunni dynasty that has ruled Bahrain for more than 200 years is now virulent.
"They have done nothing for us in the past except discriminate against us," said one nurse, sobbing against a hospital gurney. "Now their new trick is to kill us."
Inside the hospital I saw a young man being wheeled into a makeshift trauma room, which is usually used to conduct angiograms. The gurney was soaked in blood and he had been shot in the head.
"There are at least two bullets. I don't think he will live," said a young doctor as he left the room.
He didn't.
The man's death takes to at least five the number killed during clashes with police since Wednesday. Scores more have been injured. Most of those brought to the emergency ward had wounds from rubber bullets, although at least one youth had a gaping wound to his calf that specialists said was caused by a live round. ...
Just after 5.30pm on Friday, central Manama again erupted in gunfire and screaming. Up to 200 demonstrators had attempted to march on Pearl Square, the scene of Thursday morning's savage assault that left three dead. Just over a mile from the central Bahrain landmark, soldiers and police opened fire, killing at least one more protester and leaving 50 others wounded.
"We don't care if they kill 5,000 of us," a protester screamed inside the forecourt of the Salmaniya hospital, which has become a staging point for Bahrain's raging youth. "The regime must fall and we will make sure it does."
Just before dusk, riot police advanced on the hospital, apparently chasing protesters who had attempted to link up with the group bound for Pearl Square. Sound grenades cracked in the distance, gradually getting closer as protesters beat a retreat to the only place in Manama where they now feel safe to gather in numbers.
Within minutes, the bitter scent of tear-gas had wafted into the hospital grounds, sparking panic that the riot police were coming for them there as well. The police backed off and the crowd in the hospital swelled to at least 7,000 people, all of them chanting anti-regime slogans that they would not have dared to utter a month ago.
"Down with the king, down with the Khalifas," they cried, referring to the kingdom's ruling family. Anger among the overwhelmingly Shia Muslim demonstrators towards the Sunni dynasty that has ruled Bahrain for more than 200 years is now virulent.
"They have done nothing for us in the past except discriminate against us," said one nurse, sobbing against a hospital gurney. "Now their new trick is to kill us."
Inside the hospital I saw a young man being wheeled into a makeshift trauma room, which is usually used to conduct angiograms. The gurney was soaked in blood and he had been shot in the head.
"There are at least two bullets. I don't think he will live," said a young doctor as he left the room.
He didn't.
The man's death takes to at least five the number killed during clashes with police since Wednesday. Scores more have been injured. Most of those brought to the emergency ward had wounds from rubber bullets, although at least one youth had a gaping wound to his calf that specialists said was caused by a live round. ...
Violence in Libya and Bahrain has claimed scores of lives and left many more injured as the two Arab countries were united by popular protests that continue to shake the status quo and sound alarm bells across the region and the world.
Just a week after Egypt's president, Hosni Mubarak, was forced to stand down, dozens of Libyans were reported killed by Muammar Gaddafi's security forces. Meanwhile Bahraini troops shot dead at least one protester and wounded 50 others after mourners had buried four people who were gunned down on Thursday in the worst mass unrest the western-backed Gulf state has ever seen.
"We don't care if they kill 5,000 of us," a protester screamed inside the forecourt of the Salmaniya hospital, which has become a staging point for Bahrain's raging youth. "The regime must fall and we will make sure it does."
Crown Prince Sheikh Salman bin Hamad Al Khalifa went on television to promise a national dialogue once calm has returned. But Bahrain's most senior Shia cleric, Sheikh Issa Qassem, condemned attacks on protesters as a "massacre" and said the government had shut the door to such dialogue.
But while the unrest in Bahrain was broadcast instantly around the world, the unprecedented bloodshed in the remote towns of eastern Libya was far harder for global media to cover.
Amid an official news blackout in Libya, there were opposition claims of 60 dead as diplomats reported the use of heavy weapons in Benghazi, the country's second city, and "a rapidly deteriorating situation" in the latest – and the most repressive – Arab country to be hit by serious unrest.
Libyans said a "massacre" had been perpetrated in Benghazi, al-Bayda and elsewhere in the region. Crowds in the port city of Tobruk were shown destroying a statue of Gaddafi's Green Book and chanting "We want the regime to fall," echoing the slogan of the uprising in Egypt.
Umm Muhammad, a political activist in Benghazi, told the Guardian that 38 people had died in the city. "They [security forces] were using live fire here, not just tear gas. This is a bloody massacre – in Benghazi, in al-Bayda, all over Libya. They are releasing prisoners from the jails to attack the demonstrators." Benghazi's al-Jala hospital was appealing for emergency blood supplies to help treat the injured. ...
Just a week after Egypt's president, Hosni Mubarak, was forced to stand down, dozens of Libyans were reported killed by Muammar Gaddafi's security forces. Meanwhile Bahraini troops shot dead at least one protester and wounded 50 others after mourners had buried four people who were gunned down on Thursday in the worst mass unrest the western-backed Gulf state has ever seen.
"We don't care if they kill 5,000 of us," a protester screamed inside the forecourt of the Salmaniya hospital, which has become a staging point for Bahrain's raging youth. "The regime must fall and we will make sure it does."
Crown Prince Sheikh Salman bin Hamad Al Khalifa went on television to promise a national dialogue once calm has returned. But Bahrain's most senior Shia cleric, Sheikh Issa Qassem, condemned attacks on protesters as a "massacre" and said the government had shut the door to such dialogue.
But while the unrest in Bahrain was broadcast instantly around the world, the unprecedented bloodshed in the remote towns of eastern Libya was far harder for global media to cover.
Amid an official news blackout in Libya, there were opposition claims of 60 dead as diplomats reported the use of heavy weapons in Benghazi, the country's second city, and "a rapidly deteriorating situation" in the latest – and the most repressive – Arab country to be hit by serious unrest.
Libyans said a "massacre" had been perpetrated in Benghazi, al-Bayda and elsewhere in the region. Crowds in the port city of Tobruk were shown destroying a statue of Gaddafi's Green Book and chanting "We want the regime to fall," echoing the slogan of the uprising in Egypt.
Umm Muhammad, a political activist in Benghazi, told the Guardian that 38 people had died in the city. "They [security forces] were using live fire here, not just tear gas. This is a bloody massacre – in Benghazi, in al-Bayda, all over Libya. They are releasing prisoners from the jails to attack the demonstrators." Benghazi's al-Jala hospital was appealing for emergency blood supplies to help treat the injured. ...
A BBC journalist was held for 15 hours at Bahrain international airport before having her equipment confiscated, amid radical anti-government protests in the country.
The BBC declined to name the detained producer, but confirmed that she was allowed into the country on Friday after having her equipment – including her mobile phone – confiscated indefinitely.
Bahrain security forces have tightened restrictions on journalists entering the country in the past 24 hours, as tens of thousands of protesters intensify calls for the downfall of the country's ruling monarchy. Hadeel Al-Shalchi, Middle East correspondent for the Associated Press, said 16 foreign journalists, including those from the BBC, ABC and CNN, were being held at Bahrain airport on Friday.
Nicholas Kristof, the New York Times columnist, said on Twitter on Thursday: "Bahrain barring journalists from entry at airport. King Hamad doesn't want witnesses to his brutality."
Political unrest has swept across the Middle East this week in the aftermath of last Friday's events in Egypt where president Hosni Mubarak was ousted. Attempts to break up the protests by security forces in Yemen, Libya, and Bahrain have been largely fruitless.
Attempts by Bahrain security forces to obstruct journalists had remained relatively non-violent, but on Friday that situation showed signs of escalating as government forces in a helicopter fired on a reporter and cameraman who were filming the unfolding violence in Manama's Pearl Square, according to the New York Times. There were also reports of sniper fire from rooftops in the square. ...
The BBC declined to name the detained producer, but confirmed that she was allowed into the country on Friday after having her equipment – including her mobile phone – confiscated indefinitely.
Bahrain security forces have tightened restrictions on journalists entering the country in the past 24 hours, as tens of thousands of protesters intensify calls for the downfall of the country's ruling monarchy. Hadeel Al-Shalchi, Middle East correspondent for the Associated Press, said 16 foreign journalists, including those from the BBC, ABC and CNN, were being held at Bahrain airport on Friday.
Nicholas Kristof, the New York Times columnist, said on Twitter on Thursday: "Bahrain barring journalists from entry at airport. King Hamad doesn't want witnesses to his brutality."
Political unrest has swept across the Middle East this week in the aftermath of last Friday's events in Egypt where president Hosni Mubarak was ousted. Attempts to break up the protests by security forces in Yemen, Libya, and Bahrain have been largely fruitless.
Attempts by Bahrain security forces to obstruct journalists had remained relatively non-violent, but on Friday that situation showed signs of escalating as government forces in a helicopter fired on a reporter and cameraman who were filming the unfolding violence in Manama's Pearl Square, according to the New York Times. There were also reports of sniper fire from rooftops in the square. ...
Barclays Bank has been forced to admit it paid just £113m in UK corporation tax in 2009 – a year when it rang up a record £11.6bn of profits.
The admission stunned politicians and tax campaigners. It was revealed on the eve of a day of protests planned against the high street banks by activists from UK Uncut, a group set up five months ago to oppose government cuts and corporate tax avoidance.
The Labour MP Chuka Umunna, who lobbied Barclays' chief executive, Bob Diamond, to reveal the tax paid by the bank, described the figure – just 1% of its 2009 profits – as "shocking".
The current rate of corporation tax in the UK is 28%, although global banks such as Barclays – which has hundreds of overseas subsidiaries, including many in tax havens – do not generate all of their profits in their domestic market.
Max Lawson, of the Robin Hood Tax Campaign, said: "This is proof that banks live in a parallel universe to the rest of us, paying billions in bonuses and unhampered by the inconvenience of paying tax.
"If banks paid their fair share we could avoid the worst of the cuts and help those hit hardest by the financial crisis they did nothing to cause."
UK Uncut, which has also campaigned against Vodafone, Boots and Top Shop, intends to take its first national day of action against the banks on Saturday with protesters expected to bring more than 30 high street branches of Barclays to a standstill.
On Tuesday – when Barclays announced 2010 profits of £6.1bn and a 23% rise in average pay in its investment banking arm, Barclays Capital – the tax campaigners turned a London branch of the bank into a library.
The disclosure of the size of Barclays' corporation tax bill was made in a letter by Diamond to Umunna, who had asked the Barclays boss about the tax paid by the bank when he appeared before the Treasury select committee of MPs last month. ...
The admission stunned politicians and tax campaigners. It was revealed on the eve of a day of protests planned against the high street banks by activists from UK Uncut, a group set up five months ago to oppose government cuts and corporate tax avoidance.
The Labour MP Chuka Umunna, who lobbied Barclays' chief executive, Bob Diamond, to reveal the tax paid by the bank, described the figure – just 1% of its 2009 profits – as "shocking".
The current rate of corporation tax in the UK is 28%, although global banks such as Barclays – which has hundreds of overseas subsidiaries, including many in tax havens – do not generate all of their profits in their domestic market.
Max Lawson, of the Robin Hood Tax Campaign, said: "This is proof that banks live in a parallel universe to the rest of us, paying billions in bonuses and unhampered by the inconvenience of paying tax.
"If banks paid their fair share we could avoid the worst of the cuts and help those hit hardest by the financial crisis they did nothing to cause."
UK Uncut, which has also campaigned against Vodafone, Boots and Top Shop, intends to take its first national day of action against the banks on Saturday with protesters expected to bring more than 30 high street branches of Barclays to a standstill.
On Tuesday – when Barclays announced 2010 profits of £6.1bn and a 23% rise in average pay in its investment banking arm, Barclays Capital – the tax campaigners turned a London branch of the bank into a library.
The disclosure of the size of Barclays' corporation tax bill was made in a letter by Diamond to Umunna, who had asked the Barclays boss about the tax paid by the bank when he appeared before the Treasury select committee of MPs last month. ...
An attempt by Barclays to suppress details of its allegedly massive tax avoidance schemes two years ago ended in farce. The high street bank went to court in the middle of the night to gag the Guardian but was outmanoeuvred by free-spirited souls on the internet.
It showed the legal system struggling to keep documents secret even after they were freely available on the web.
The story emerged in March 2009 when a whistleblower leaked internal Barclays memos to the Liberal Democrat MP Vince Cable.
The memos – passed on to the newspaper – described how a 2007 scheme called Project Knight proposed to save tax by manipulating loans totalling more than $16bn (£9.8bn), through a web of firms in the Cayman Islands, Luxembourg and the United States.
The memos also quoted advice from lawyers on how to blunt any challenges from HM Revenue & Customs. The whistleblower alleged: "It is a commonly held view that no agency in the US or the UK has the resources or the commitment to challenge [Barclays]."
Freshfields, Barclays' lawyers, toiled into the night to compel the Guardian to remove the documents from the website. Geraldine Proudler, a solicitor acting for the Guardian, was woken by a high court judge telephoning at 2am and asked to justify their publication. At 2.31am, Mr Justice Ouseley, over the phone, ordered that the documents be removed from the website, by which time 127 people had read them. ...
It showed the legal system struggling to keep documents secret even after they were freely available on the web.
The story emerged in March 2009 when a whistleblower leaked internal Barclays memos to the Liberal Democrat MP Vince Cable.
The memos – passed on to the newspaper – described how a 2007 scheme called Project Knight proposed to save tax by manipulating loans totalling more than $16bn (£9.8bn), through a web of firms in the Cayman Islands, Luxembourg and the United States.
The memos also quoted advice from lawyers on how to blunt any challenges from HM Revenue & Customs. The whistleblower alleged: "It is a commonly held view that no agency in the US or the UK has the resources or the commitment to challenge [Barclays]."
Freshfields, Barclays' lawyers, toiled into the night to compel the Guardian to remove the documents from the website. Geraldine Proudler, a solicitor acting for the Guardian, was woken by a high court judge telephoning at 2am and asked to justify their publication. At 2.31am, Mr Justice Ouseley, over the phone, ordered that the documents be removed from the website, by which time 127 people had read them. ...
Glenn Mulcaire, the private investigator at the centre of the News of the World phone-hacking case, passed phone intercept information to several individuals working on the tabloid's news desk, the high court heard today.
The private eye – who was on a £100,000-a-year contract with the News of the World – was quoted in court documents as saying that he dealt with so many people on the news desk at the tabloid that he cannot recall precisely who received certain items of information.
Mulcaire's admission, if true, was "devastating" to the News of the World's long-held insistence that phone hacking was the work of a "lone, rotten journalist", Jeremy Reed QC told the court.
Reed was representing Sky Andrew, a football agent who is suing the paper's immediate parent, News Group Newspapers (NGN) for breach of privacy over phone hacking.
Mulcaire was jailed for six months in 2007 for hacking into phones belonging to staff at Buckingham Palace, along with the News of the World royal editor Clive Goodman.
However, in that trial the court also heard that Mulcaire hacked into the phones of high profile individuals such as publicist Max Clifford and supermodel Elle Macpherson, as well as Andrew.
Earlier this year, Mulcaire also said in court documents that he had been instructed by Ian Edmondson, the assistant editor (news) at the tabloid, to intercept Andrew's voicemails. Edmondson was initially suspended, and has now been sacked.
Today's case saw lawyers for Andrew lodge a claim against the Metropolitan police, seeking greater access to heavily redacted documents released by the force to his legal team. ...
The private eye – who was on a £100,000-a-year contract with the News of the World – was quoted in court documents as saying that he dealt with so many people on the news desk at the tabloid that he cannot recall precisely who received certain items of information.
Mulcaire's admission, if true, was "devastating" to the News of the World's long-held insistence that phone hacking was the work of a "lone, rotten journalist", Jeremy Reed QC told the court.
Reed was representing Sky Andrew, a football agent who is suing the paper's immediate parent, News Group Newspapers (NGN) for breach of privacy over phone hacking.
Mulcaire was jailed for six months in 2007 for hacking into phones belonging to staff at Buckingham Palace, along with the News of the World royal editor Clive Goodman.
However, in that trial the court also heard that Mulcaire hacked into the phones of high profile individuals such as publicist Max Clifford and supermodel Elle Macpherson, as well as Andrew.
Earlier this year, Mulcaire also said in court documents that he had been instructed by Ian Edmondson, the assistant editor (news) at the tabloid, to intercept Andrew's voicemails. Edmondson was initially suspended, and has now been sacked.
Today's case saw lawyers for Andrew lodge a claim against the Metropolitan police, seeking greater access to heavily redacted documents released by the force to his legal team. ...
The controversial French journalist Éric Zemmour has been found guilty of incitement to racial hatred after telling a TV chatshow that drug dealers were mostly "blacks and Arabs".
The Paris trial sparked a fierce debate over freedom of speech and the extent of France's racism problem, which is poisoning the republican ideal that all citizens are equal regardless of colour.
Zemmour, a well-known media commentator and columnist for Le Figaro, prides himself on his outspoken defiance of what he deems political correct, woolly liberals.
He appeared on a chatshow last year when the debate turned to the question of the French police's excessive use of stop and search powers against minorities. He said: "But why are they stopped 17 times? Why? Because most dealers are blacks and Arabs. That's a fact."
According to the French model, where everyone is theoretically equal under a state blind to race or religion, it is illegal to count ethnic minorities or race statistics. So there are no figures on the ethnic identity of criminals.
Zemmour was also fined for telling another TV channel that employers "had a right" to turn down black or Arab candidates. Job discrimination over race and ethnicity is thought to be widespread in France. ...
The Paris trial sparked a fierce debate over freedom of speech and the extent of France's racism problem, which is poisoning the republican ideal that all citizens are equal regardless of colour.
Zemmour, a well-known media commentator and columnist for Le Figaro, prides himself on his outspoken defiance of what he deems political correct, woolly liberals.
He appeared on a chatshow last year when the debate turned to the question of the French police's excessive use of stop and search powers against minorities. He said: "But why are they stopped 17 times? Why? Because most dealers are blacks and Arabs. That's a fact."
According to the French model, where everyone is theoretically equal under a state blind to race or religion, it is illegal to count ethnic minorities or race statistics. So there are no figures on the ethnic identity of criminals.
Zemmour was also fined for telling another TV channel that employers "had a right" to turn down black or Arab candidates. Job discrimination over race and ethnicity is thought to be widespread in France. ...
Those of you brought up in the heliocentric tradition are advised to look away now, because a poll has revealed that one-third of Russians favour the Ptolemaic model of our solar system.
A shaken spokeswoman for state pollster VsTIOM admitted on Friday that a survey of 1,600 across Russia confirmed the worst: 32 per cent of citizens reckon the Sun revolves around the Earth.
In a further blow to the Russian education system, 29 per cent confidently stated that the first humans, presumably clad like Raquel Welch in animal skin bikinis, battled the dinosaurs for control of the solar system's centre.
In response to a moderately more challenging question, 55 per cent of Russians asserted that "all radioactivity is man-made".
The aforementioned spokeswoman, Olga Kamenchuk, gasped: "It's really quite amazing.
"All of [the questions] were absolutely obvious ... the data speaks of the low levels of education in the country." ...
A shaken spokeswoman for state pollster VsTIOM admitted on Friday that a survey of 1,600 across Russia confirmed the worst: 32 per cent of citizens reckon the Sun revolves around the Earth.
In a further blow to the Russian education system, 29 per cent confidently stated that the first humans, presumably clad like Raquel Welch in animal skin bikinis, battled the dinosaurs for control of the solar system's centre.
In response to a moderately more challenging question, 55 per cent of Russians asserted that "all radioactivity is man-made".
The aforementioned spokeswoman, Olga Kamenchuk, gasped: "It's really quite amazing.
"All of [the questions] were absolutely obvious ... the data speaks of the low levels of education in the country." ...
Women's rights activists and pro-change protesters in Egypt have rallied to condemn a serious sexual assault on an American news reporter, Lara Logan, which took place in Cairo's Tahrir Square in the moments following Hosni Mubarak's resignation last Friday.
"Lara Logan … and her team and their security were surrounded by a dangerous element amidst the celebration," Logan's employers, CBS news, said in a brief statement. "It was a mob of more than 200 people whipped into frenzy.
"In the crush of the mob, she was separated from her crew. She was surrounded and suffered a brutal and sustained sexual assault and beating before being saved by a group of women and an estimated 20 Egyptian soldiers."
Logan, a 39-year-old foreign correspondent, had previously been detained by the Egyptian police while covering the anti-government uprising. She has now flown back to the US and is "recovering at home", CBS said. The incident has provoked a storm of comment in both the Egyptian and American blogospheres, with many protesters in Cairo keen to show that Logan's attackers were not representative of the pro-change crowds.
"It's incredibly sad that this has happened, and it's something that the spirit of Tahrir and the spirit of revolution was resolutely against," Ahdaf Soueif, an author who spent a great deal of time in Tahrir Square, told the Guardian. "Women in the square were rejoicing that they felt freedom on the streets of Cairo for the first time, and [this is] definitely something that we want to stamp out alongside corruption and all the other social ills that have befallen Egypt during Mubarak's regime."
Mahmoud Salem, a well known Egyptian blogger, was one of many 25 January activists to express outrage. "Lara Logan, what happened to you was reprehensible, I hope u don't judge the egyptian people or Tahrir because of it," he tweeted under his moniker Sandmonkey. ...
Of course activists didn't attack her - they were government thugs.
May she - and all those who truly love her - receive all needed healing.
May all those who attack women (and children!) reach complete and total enlightenment, and on all levels.
"Lara Logan … and her team and their security were surrounded by a dangerous element amidst the celebration," Logan's employers, CBS news, said in a brief statement. "It was a mob of more than 200 people whipped into frenzy.
"In the crush of the mob, she was separated from her crew. She was surrounded and suffered a brutal and sustained sexual assault and beating before being saved by a group of women and an estimated 20 Egyptian soldiers."
Logan, a 39-year-old foreign correspondent, had previously been detained by the Egyptian police while covering the anti-government uprising. She has now flown back to the US and is "recovering at home", CBS said. The incident has provoked a storm of comment in both the Egyptian and American blogospheres, with many protesters in Cairo keen to show that Logan's attackers were not representative of the pro-change crowds.
"It's incredibly sad that this has happened, and it's something that the spirit of Tahrir and the spirit of revolution was resolutely against," Ahdaf Soueif, an author who spent a great deal of time in Tahrir Square, told the Guardian. "Women in the square were rejoicing that they felt freedom on the streets of Cairo for the first time, and [this is] definitely something that we want to stamp out alongside corruption and all the other social ills that have befallen Egypt during Mubarak's regime."
Mahmoud Salem, a well known Egyptian blogger, was one of many 25 January activists to express outrage. "Lara Logan, what happened to you was reprehensible, I hope u don't judge the egyptian people or Tahrir because of it," he tweeted under his moniker Sandmonkey. ...
Of course activists didn't attack her - they were government thugs.
May she - and all those who truly love her - receive all needed healing.
May all those who attack women (and children!) reach complete and total enlightenment, and on all levels.
Riot police firing tear gas and rubber bullets have stormed a landmark square occupied by anti-government protesters in Bahrain's capital Manama, driving out demonstrators and destroying a makeshift encampment that had become the hub for demands to bring sweeping political changes to the kingdom.
The main opposition group Al Wefaq said at least two people were killed in the pre-dawn assault on Pearl Square, which was littered with flattened tents, trampled banners and broken glass. There was no official word on deaths or injuries.
After police regained control of the plaza, they chased protesters through sidestreets and put a ring of vehicles around the area with blue lights flashing in the darkened city just as the dawn call for prayers rang out.
The blow by authorities marked a dramatic shift in tactics. It appeared Bahrain's leaders had sought to rein in security forces after clashes on Monday that left at least two people dead and brought sharp criticism from Western allies, including the US – which operates its main naval base in the Gulf from Bahrain. ...
The main opposition group Al Wefaq said at least two people were killed in the pre-dawn assault on Pearl Square, which was littered with flattened tents, trampled banners and broken glass. There was no official word on deaths or injuries.
After police regained control of the plaza, they chased protesters through sidestreets and put a ring of vehicles around the area with blue lights flashing in the darkened city just as the dawn call for prayers rang out.
The blow by authorities marked a dramatic shift in tactics. It appeared Bahrain's leaders had sought to rein in security forces after clashes on Monday that left at least two people dead and brought sharp criticism from Western allies, including the US – which operates its main naval base in the Gulf from Bahrain. ...
Colin Powell, the US secretary of state at the time of the Iraq invasion, has called on the CIA and Pentagon to explain why they failed to alert him to the unreliability of a key source behind claims of Saddam Hussein's bio-weapons capability.
Responding to the Guardian's revelation that the source, Rafid Ahmed Alwan al-Janabi or "Curveball" as his US and German handlers called him, admitted fabricating evidence of Iraq's secret biological weapons programme, Powell said that questions should be put to the US agencies involved in compiling the case for war.
In particular he singled out the CIA and the Defence Intelligence Agency – the Pentagon's military intelligence arm. Janabi, an Iraqi defector, was used as the primary source by the Bush administration to justify invading Iraq in March 2003. Doubts about his credibility circulated before the war and have been confirmed by his admission this week that he lied.
Powell said that the CIA and DIA should face questions about why they failed to sound the alarm about Janabi. He demanded to know why it had not been made clear to him that Curveball was totally unreliable before false information was put into the key intelligence assessment, or NIE, put before Congress, into the president's state of the union address two months before the war and into his own speech to the UN.
"It has been known for several years that the source called Curveball was totally unreliable," he told the Guardian . "The question should be put to the CIA and the DIA as to why this wasn't known before the false information was put into the NIE sent to Congress, the president's state of the union address and my 5 February presentation to the UN." ...
Responding to the Guardian's revelation that the source, Rafid Ahmed Alwan al-Janabi or "Curveball" as his US and German handlers called him, admitted fabricating evidence of Iraq's secret biological weapons programme, Powell said that questions should be put to the US agencies involved in compiling the case for war.
In particular he singled out the CIA and the Defence Intelligence Agency – the Pentagon's military intelligence arm. Janabi, an Iraqi defector, was used as the primary source by the Bush administration to justify invading Iraq in March 2003. Doubts about his credibility circulated before the war and have been confirmed by his admission this week that he lied.
Powell said that the CIA and DIA should face questions about why they failed to sound the alarm about Janabi. He demanded to know why it had not been made clear to him that Curveball was totally unreliable before false information was put into the key intelligence assessment, or NIE, put before Congress, into the president's state of the union address two months before the war and into his own speech to the UN.
"It has been known for several years that the source called Curveball was totally unreliable," he told the Guardian . "The question should be put to the CIA and the DIA as to why this wasn't known before the false information was put into the NIE sent to Congress, the president's state of the union address and my 5 February presentation to the UN." ...
The Iranian regime has been accused of hijacking the death of a young pro-democracy protester killed during rallies in Tehran on Monday.
A family member of Saane Zhaleh, a 26-year-old theatre student at Tehran University of Arts, told the Guardian that the Iranian authorities had launched a campaign to depict the pro-opposition protester as a member of the government-sponsored basiji militia who had been killed by what they described as terrorists.
"They [security forces] have killed him and now they want to hijack his dead body and exploit his funeral for their own purposes. His family is totally devastated and inundated in sorrow," said the family member, who asked not to be identified.
Opposition websites reported that two protesters were killed in clashes between security forces and thousands of defiant protesters who marched in a banned rally organised by the leaders of the green movement on Monday.
Iranian state news agencies later identified them as Zhaleh, a member of Iran's Kurd and Sunni minority, and 22-year-old Mohammad Mokhtari, but blamed the opposition for their death.
Iran's semi-official FARS news agency published a basiji identity card that it said belonged to Zhaleh, but the opposition immediately questioned its authenticity. In response, activists sympathetic to the green movement published a photo of Zhaleh on social networking websites that showed him in a meeting with grand Ayatollah Montazeri, a leading opposition figure who died in 2009. ...
A family member of Saane Zhaleh, a 26-year-old theatre student at Tehran University of Arts, told the Guardian that the Iranian authorities had launched a campaign to depict the pro-opposition protester as a member of the government-sponsored basiji militia who had been killed by what they described as terrorists.
"They [security forces] have killed him and now they want to hijack his dead body and exploit his funeral for their own purposes. His family is totally devastated and inundated in sorrow," said the family member, who asked not to be identified.
Opposition websites reported that two protesters were killed in clashes between security forces and thousands of defiant protesters who marched in a banned rally organised by the leaders of the green movement on Monday.
Iranian state news agencies later identified them as Zhaleh, a member of Iran's Kurd and Sunni minority, and 22-year-old Mohammad Mokhtari, but blamed the opposition for their death.
Iran's semi-official FARS news agency published a basiji identity card that it said belonged to Zhaleh, but the opposition immediately questioned its authenticity. In response, activists sympathetic to the green movement published a photo of Zhaleh on social networking websites that showed him in a meeting with grand Ayatollah Montazeri, a leading opposition figure who died in 2009. ...
Thieves have stolen 18 priceless artefacts from the Egyptian Museum in Cairo, including two gilded statues of King Tutankhamun, during the political unrest.
Zahi Hawass, the antiquities minister, said the losses were discovered during an inventory of the museum after the protests died down.
Among missing items are a statue of Tutankhamun being carried by a goddess and another of him harpooning. Also stolen is a limestone statue of the pharaoh Akhenaten holding an offering table, a statue of Nefertiti making offerings and several other stone and wooden artefacts.
Hawass said that an investigation is underway and that the "police and army plan to follow up with the criminals already in custody".
The museum is on the edge of Tahrir square, the heart of three weeks of protests that brought down the president, Hosni Mubarak. It was raided on 28 January by thieves who climbed up a fire escape and then used ropes to lower themselves into the museum.
The thieves appear to have carefully selected some of the most valuable objects while ignoring less important artefacts. "They are not something you would come and randomly find," an Egyptologist at Cairo's American University, Ikram Said Salima Ikram, told Reuters.
Restoration work has already started at the museum to repair the damage by looters. Hawass said that 70 pieces were damaged. ...
Zahi Hawass, the antiquities minister, said the losses were discovered during an inventory of the museum after the protests died down.
Among missing items are a statue of Tutankhamun being carried by a goddess and another of him harpooning. Also stolen is a limestone statue of the pharaoh Akhenaten holding an offering table, a statue of Nefertiti making offerings and several other stone and wooden artefacts.
Hawass said that an investigation is underway and that the "police and army plan to follow up with the criminals already in custody".
The museum is on the edge of Tahrir square, the heart of three weeks of protests that brought down the president, Hosni Mubarak. It was raided on 28 January by thieves who climbed up a fire escape and then used ropes to lower themselves into the museum.
The thieves appear to have carefully selected some of the most valuable objects while ignoring less important artefacts. "They are not something you would come and randomly find," an Egyptologist at Cairo's American University, Ikram Said Salima Ikram, told Reuters.
Restoration work has already started at the museum to repair the damage by looters. Hawass said that 70 pieces were damaged. ...
Geppi Calcara, a Sicilian archivist, was there with her friend and 11-year-old daughter "because we're tired of our children living in a society of non-values", she said. "We find it really difficult to bring up our children with the values they're learning."
Behind her, the Piazza del Popolo in Rome was filling up with tens of thousands of women, and many men who had arrived with their wives or girlfriends.
"There are lots of us," said Calcara. "But we're not visible. The privately-owned TV channels, which belong to [Silvio] Berlusconi, and all but one of the [state-owned] RAI channels, manipulate the news. So people know nothing, or only half, of what is happening."
On Sunday, Italians dismayed by the prime minister and his antics got a chance to show their feelings in a way that even his television network will find difficult to ignore. Thousands of them assembled in piazzas from the foothills of the Alps to the tip of Sicily and in cities from Auckland to Zurich.
"We're more than a million across the world," the actor Angela Finocchiaro told the crowd in the Piazza del Popolo. And though that claim may be disputed, there was plenty of evidence to suggest the numbers ran to several hundreds of thousands.
The posters for the demonstration proclaimed it was being held in support of "a country that respects women". That the need should be felt for such a protest in Europe, 11 years into the 21st century and several decades after Italy spawned one of the continent's most lively feminist movements is, in part at least, evidence of the impact of Berlusconi and his media empire. Last week, the 74-year-old prime minister learned that prosecutors had asked for his indictment on charges of paying an underage sex worker and abusing his official position when she was arrested. He denies any wrongdoing.
His Mediaset network has for years thrived on supplying the public with schedules that are long on glitzy variety programmes and quiz shows that feature so-called veline – young, pretty women in scanty costumes whose most demanding duty in most cases is to hold up a score card.
But RAI too uses veline, and both networks reflect attitudes in society as much as create them. The posters for the demonstration were printed on a pink background without anyone apparently thinking that was patronising.
Unlike Spanish, Italian has not been altered by the change in relations between the sexes, so the words for positions of authority – chief, minister, lawyer and so on – have no have feminine forms.
According to the World Economic Forum's latest global gender gap report, Italy ranked 74th out of 134 countries surveyed — 33 places below Kazakhstan. It scored particularly badly on economic participation and opportunity. Less than half of Italian women have a job and the notion that they should not return to paid work after having a child is still widespread. ...
Behind her, the Piazza del Popolo in Rome was filling up with tens of thousands of women, and many men who had arrived with their wives or girlfriends.
"There are lots of us," said Calcara. "But we're not visible. The privately-owned TV channels, which belong to [Silvio] Berlusconi, and all but one of the [state-owned] RAI channels, manipulate the news. So people know nothing, or only half, of what is happening."
On Sunday, Italians dismayed by the prime minister and his antics got a chance to show their feelings in a way that even his television network will find difficult to ignore. Thousands of them assembled in piazzas from the foothills of the Alps to the tip of Sicily and in cities from Auckland to Zurich.
"We're more than a million across the world," the actor Angela Finocchiaro told the crowd in the Piazza del Popolo. And though that claim may be disputed, there was plenty of evidence to suggest the numbers ran to several hundreds of thousands.
The posters for the demonstration proclaimed it was being held in support of "a country that respects women". That the need should be felt for such a protest in Europe, 11 years into the 21st century and several decades after Italy spawned one of the continent's most lively feminist movements is, in part at least, evidence of the impact of Berlusconi and his media empire. Last week, the 74-year-old prime minister learned that prosecutors had asked for his indictment on charges of paying an underage sex worker and abusing his official position when she was arrested. He denies any wrongdoing.
His Mediaset network has for years thrived on supplying the public with schedules that are long on glitzy variety programmes and quiz shows that feature so-called veline – young, pretty women in scanty costumes whose most demanding duty in most cases is to hold up a score card.
But RAI too uses veline, and both networks reflect attitudes in society as much as create them. The posters for the demonstration were printed on a pink background without anyone apparently thinking that was patronising.
Unlike Spanish, Italian has not been altered by the change in relations between the sexes, so the words for positions of authority – chief, minister, lawyer and so on – have no have feminine forms.
According to the World Economic Forum's latest global gender gap report, Italy ranked 74th out of 134 countries surveyed — 33 places below Kazakhstan. It scored particularly badly on economic participation and opportunity. Less than half of Italian women have a job and the notion that they should not return to paid work after having a child is still widespread. ...
A "treasure trove" of information could be accessed on actor Steve Coogan's mobile phone at a time when journalists at the News of the World were instructing a private investigator to hack into it, the high court was told today.
Coogan's counsel, Jeremy Reed, said his witness statement showed: "He conducts business by voicemail messages. He tends to let messages stack up ... There is essentially a treasure trove of commercial information on his voicemail at any one time."
Coogan is suing News of the World publisher News Group, part of Rupert Murdoch's media empire, and former private investigator Glenn Mulcaire, who worked for the paper.
Lawyers for Coogan and former Sky Sports presenter Andy Gray, who is also suing, were in court for a pre-trial hearing. They are trying to force Mulcaire to name the News of the World executives who ordered him to hack into phones.
"The News of the World entertainment section is likely to be extremely interested in what Mr Coogan ... or some other actor or director seeks to charge when they are working for Baby Cow," Reed said, referring to the TV production company co-owned by the comedian.
Scotland Yard has written to Coogan to confirm that the actor's mobile number, voicemail pin, password and other account details were found in Mulcaire's notebooks, which were seized in a police raid on his home in 2006.
Gray has been handed redacted copies of Mulcaire's notes, which allegedly show he was targeted by the investigator, along with billing information showing his mobile voicemail number was called about a dozen times from landlines registered to Mulcaire in a six-month period.
The court was reminded that copies of Mulcaire's notes also showed the private investigator wrote "Greg" on the left-hand side of the page. Reed said that was a reference to Greg Miskiw, a former News of the World investigations editor. ...
Coogan's counsel, Jeremy Reed, said his witness statement showed: "He conducts business by voicemail messages. He tends to let messages stack up ... There is essentially a treasure trove of commercial information on his voicemail at any one time."
Coogan is suing News of the World publisher News Group, part of Rupert Murdoch's media empire, and former private investigator Glenn Mulcaire, who worked for the paper.
Lawyers for Coogan and former Sky Sports presenter Andy Gray, who is also suing, were in court for a pre-trial hearing. They are trying to force Mulcaire to name the News of the World executives who ordered him to hack into phones.
"The News of the World entertainment section is likely to be extremely interested in what Mr Coogan ... or some other actor or director seeks to charge when they are working for Baby Cow," Reed said, referring to the TV production company co-owned by the comedian.
Scotland Yard has written to Coogan to confirm that the actor's mobile number, voicemail pin, password and other account details were found in Mulcaire's notebooks, which were seized in a police raid on his home in 2006.
Gray has been handed redacted copies of Mulcaire's notes, which allegedly show he was targeted by the investigator, along with billing information showing his mobile voicemail number was called about a dozen times from landlines registered to Mulcaire in a six-month period.
The court was reminded that copies of Mulcaire's notes also showed the private investigator wrote "Greg" on the left-hand side of the page. Reed said that was a reference to Greg Miskiw, a former News of the World investigations editor. ...
Frustrated trying to access the internet from the smartphone you bought at Christmas? It's partly your own fault, says the International Telecommunication Union, the industry body that represents the mobile and fixed-line industries – and it's likely to get worse unless governments and networks take urgent action.
The problem arises because ownership of smartphones such as Apple's iPhone or models running Google Android software is booming, and on average they use five times more data capacity than users of "feature phones" capable only of sending text or picture messages or making video calls.
The explosion in use has caught some networks off guard. In Britain delays to the government auction of extra radio spectrum, caused in part by legal objections raised by the networks themselves, means some people will not see improved access for at least two years.
On the opening day of the Mobile World Congress exhibition in Barcelona, Hamadoun Touré, secretary-general of the ITU, said governments need to accelerate the introduction of high-speed fibre optic cable which provides faster data connections between mobile towers and networks. Governments also needed to provide greater availability of radio frequency spectrum for mobile signals.
Smartphones are the fastest-growing sector of the information technology market, growing 74% in 2010 to a total of 300m shipped to retailers. In the last quarter smartphones outsold PCs worldwide. While "feature phones" still made up the majority of the 1.6bn mobiles sold in 2010, they are expected to be outstripped by smartphones within a couple of years.
The ITU forecasts in a forthcoming report that the number of smartphones in use will rise from today's global estimate of 500m handsets to almost two billion by 2015. "Operators are already having to employ multi-pronged strategies to keep up with demand and not all are succeeding," it said. "In some high-usage cities, such as San Francisco, New York and London, we are still seeing users frustrated by chronic problems of network unavailability."
Industry observers said that the ITU was essentially putting pressure on governments which have been slow to free spectrum, which is needed urgently to cope with the "capacity crunch". One said: "It's apparent that some networks are suffering. O2's data network struggled badly last week and there have been complaints about Orange which showed up in last autumn's YouGov survey." ...
The problem arises because ownership of smartphones such as Apple's iPhone or models running Google Android software is booming, and on average they use five times more data capacity than users of "feature phones" capable only of sending text or picture messages or making video calls.
The explosion in use has caught some networks off guard. In Britain delays to the government auction of extra radio spectrum, caused in part by legal objections raised by the networks themselves, means some people will not see improved access for at least two years.
On the opening day of the Mobile World Congress exhibition in Barcelona, Hamadoun Touré, secretary-general of the ITU, said governments need to accelerate the introduction of high-speed fibre optic cable which provides faster data connections between mobile towers and networks. Governments also needed to provide greater availability of radio frequency spectrum for mobile signals.
Smartphones are the fastest-growing sector of the information technology market, growing 74% in 2010 to a total of 300m shipped to retailers. In the last quarter smartphones outsold PCs worldwide. While "feature phones" still made up the majority of the 1.6bn mobiles sold in 2010, they are expected to be outstripped by smartphones within a couple of years.
The ITU forecasts in a forthcoming report that the number of smartphones in use will rise from today's global estimate of 500m handsets to almost two billion by 2015. "Operators are already having to employ multi-pronged strategies to keep up with demand and not all are succeeding," it said. "In some high-usage cities, such as San Francisco, New York and London, we are still seeing users frustrated by chronic problems of network unavailability."
Industry observers said that the ITU was essentially putting pressure on governments which have been slow to free spectrum, which is needed urgently to cope with the "capacity crunch". One said: "It's apparent that some networks are suffering. O2's data network struggled badly last week and there have been complaints about Orange which showed up in last autumn's YouGov survey." ...
Deadly battles between south Sudan's army and a renegade commander have killed 105 fighters and civilians, the military said, as the war-scarred region moves towards independence.
The violence comes days after results of a referendum on secession confirmed south Sudan would declare independence in July, after decades of civil war that has claimed 2 million lives.
The region's army said clashes at Fangak in Jonglei state on Wednesday and Thursday had killed 50 fighters from both sides and 39 civilians, adding to the 16 casualties it reported earlier from fighting in Door.
"It was George Athor's men who came with machine guns, AK 47s and started firing," said south Sudan's army spokesman Philip Aguer. ...
The violence comes days after results of a referendum on secession confirmed south Sudan would declare independence in July, after decades of civil war that has claimed 2 million lives.
The region's army said clashes at Fangak in Jonglei state on Wednesday and Thursday had killed 50 fighters from both sides and 39 civilians, adding to the 16 casualties it reported earlier from fighting in Door.
"It was George Athor's men who came with machine guns, AK 47s and started firing," said south Sudan's army spokesman Philip Aguer. ...
A high court judge has ordered the education secretary, Michael Gove, to reconsider his decision to cancel scores of multimillion-pound school rebuilding projects.
Mr Justice Holman said Gove's actions over the scrapping of the Building Schools for the Future (BSF) initiative last year had been "so unfair as to amount to an abuse of power".
Under the £55bn scheme introduced by Labour, every secondary school in England was to be either rebuilt or refurbished. More than 700 schools' building projects were cancelled when the scheme was scrapped in July.
Justice Holman told the high court in London that the education secretary had acted unlawfully in failing to consult local authorities over the decision and had broken the law by failing to give "due regard" to equality legislation.
The result is a major embarrassment for Gove and may result in the government paying compensation costs to six councils who had taken the case to the high court claiming that the cancellation of the school building projects had been "arbitrary and legally flawed". ...
Mr Justice Holman said Gove's actions over the scrapping of the Building Schools for the Future (BSF) initiative last year had been "so unfair as to amount to an abuse of power".
Under the £55bn scheme introduced by Labour, every secondary school in England was to be either rebuilt or refurbished. More than 700 schools' building projects were cancelled when the scheme was scrapped in July.
Justice Holman told the high court in London that the education secretary had acted unlawfully in failing to consult local authorities over the decision and had broken the law by failing to give "due regard" to equality legislation.
The result is a major embarrassment for Gove and may result in the government paying compensation costs to six councils who had taken the case to the high court claiming that the cancellation of the school building projects had been "arbitrary and legally flawed". ...
... The museum is still checking to determine whether any items are missing. On his website, Hawass said an additional five items that were stolen from an archaeological storage site in Qantara, near the Suez Canal, were apparently discarded in the desert and police returned them Tuesday.
Authorities have recovered a total of 293 objects at the Qantara site, and an inventory was under way.
Hawass sought to project a sense of normalcy, reaching high for comparisons. He suggested that other great repositories of culture - the British Museum and New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art - were equally vulnerable to plunder or destruction.
"It can happen to any place in the world," said Hawass, who faces demands for higher wages from antiquities workers who demonstrated outside his office this week.
Authorities have recovered a total of 293 objects at the Qantara site, and an inventory was under way.
Hawass sought to project a sense of normalcy, reaching high for comparisons. He suggested that other great repositories of culture - the British Museum and New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art - were equally vulnerable to plunder or destruction.
"It can happen to any place in the world," said Hawass, who faces demands for higher wages from antiquities workers who demonstrated outside his office this week.
A Chinese grassroots lawyer and his wife have been severely beaten after secretly filming a video documenting their house arrest, human rights campaigners fear.
Chen Guangcheng and Yuan Weijing described in a recording, smuggled out of their village and published online, how they and their children were being held at home and watched round the clock since Chen's release from prison five months ago.
The China Human Rights Defenders network said a source – unwilling to disclose their identity – said the couple were attacked on Tuesday by security officials who learned of the video. The source said Chen and Yuan were too badly injured to get out of bed, and in any case would not be allowed to go to hospital.
Chen is one of the country's best-known activists, a self-taught legal advocate for women who had forced abortions and sterilisations and farmers who lost their land. Rights groups have expressed grave concern for Chen and his family and the US secretary of state, Hillary Clinton, raised his case in a speech shortly before the Chinese president Hu Jintao's visit to the US last month.
"I was in a small prison and now I am in a larger prison," Chen said in the hour-long video, his first direct statement to the outside world since his detention in 2006. He said three shifts of people monitor the family, with more than 20 agents per shift.
Wearing black sunglasses, Chen, who is blind, urges Chinese people to stand up for their rights and the international community to pay attention to the situation in China. He says his treatment is illegal under the constitution and that officials who took away his phone have committed robbery. ...
Chen Guangcheng and Yuan Weijing described in a recording, smuggled out of their village and published online, how they and their children were being held at home and watched round the clock since Chen's release from prison five months ago.
The China Human Rights Defenders network said a source – unwilling to disclose their identity – said the couple were attacked on Tuesday by security officials who learned of the video. The source said Chen and Yuan were too badly injured to get out of bed, and in any case would not be allowed to go to hospital.
Chen is one of the country's best-known activists, a self-taught legal advocate for women who had forced abortions and sterilisations and farmers who lost their land. Rights groups have expressed grave concern for Chen and his family and the US secretary of state, Hillary Clinton, raised his case in a speech shortly before the Chinese president Hu Jintao's visit to the US last month.
"I was in a small prison and now I am in a larger prison," Chen said in the hour-long video, his first direct statement to the outside world since his detention in 2006. He said three shifts of people monitor the family, with more than 20 agents per shift.
Wearing black sunglasses, Chen, who is blind, urges Chinese people to stand up for their rights and the international community to pay attention to the situation in China. He says his treatment is illegal under the constitution and that officials who took away his phone have committed robbery. ...
Britain's fastest-growing protest movement is to target scores of high street banks in the next stage of its campaign against government cuts and corporate tax avoidance.
Activists from UK Uncut have, over the past five months, caused the temporary closure of more than 100 branches of high street stores accused of avoiding millions of pounds in tax.
The group will stage its first national day of action against UK banks on 19 February.
"The idea this time is not to shut these places down but to open up high street banks, occupying them and using them for things that may be more useful for the community," said Daniel Garvin from the group.
He and other protesters have mobilised thousands of activists using the Twitter hashtag #UKuncut since the group was formed in October.
The protests, which come as banks reveal multimillion-pound bonus packages over the next few weeks, will involve a range of peaceful – and creative – direct actions.
"If libraries are being closed in their area, people may decide to stage a read-in in the bank," said Garvin.
"The housing benefit cap means people are losing their homes, so some groups may opt for a sleep-in. Theatres are being shut, so others have talked about staging a play.
"Health provision is being cut, so what about setting up a walk-in clinic? Education funding is being savaged so how about holding a lecture series?" ...
Activists from UK Uncut have, over the past five months, caused the temporary closure of more than 100 branches of high street stores accused of avoiding millions of pounds in tax.
The group will stage its first national day of action against UK banks on 19 February.
"The idea this time is not to shut these places down but to open up high street banks, occupying them and using them for things that may be more useful for the community," said Daniel Garvin from the group.
He and other protesters have mobilised thousands of activists using the Twitter hashtag #UKuncut since the group was formed in October.
The protests, which come as banks reveal multimillion-pound bonus packages over the next few weeks, will involve a range of peaceful – and creative – direct actions.
"If libraries are being closed in their area, people may decide to stage a read-in in the bank," said Garvin.
"The housing benefit cap means people are losing their homes, so some groups may opt for a sleep-in. Theatres are being shut, so others have talked about staging a play.
"Health provision is being cut, so what about setting up a walk-in clinic? Education funding is being savaged so how about holding a lecture series?" ...
North Korea has ordered all its embassies to appeal to foreign governments for food aid in a sign of growing desperation in Pyongyang, according to diplomatic sources.
This direct approach to foreign capitals, launched in December, is highly unusual for the insular and totalitarian regime, which normally negotiates deliveries of food assistance with international organisations such as the World Food Programme (WFP). ...
This direct approach to foreign capitals, launched in December, is highly unusual for the insular and totalitarian regime, which normally negotiates deliveries of food assistance with international organisations such as the World Food Programme (WFP). ...
Thousands of judges and lawyers have taken to the streets in unprecedented protests against Nicolas Sarkozy, paralysing the legal system and shutting down almost all France's courthouses this week.
Magistrates' unions have for days expressed outrage at the president by hearing only urgent cases, after the president used a shocking murder case to attack judges for being too lax.
The gruesome Laetitia case gripped France after a teenage waitress disappeared one night after her shift in western France. Her severed limbs and head were found in the waters of an abandoned quarry after a lengthy search, but the rest of her remains have not been recovered. The suspect, a 31-year-old, refused to co-operate with the search or the inquiry. Recently out of prison after completing a sentence, he had 15 previous convictions.
The case struck a chord with Sarkozy's longrunning campaign to appeal to the rightwing vote by cracking down on repeat offenders. Sarkozy publicly branded the suspect "presumed guilty", slammed judges for incompetence and making mistakes after his prison release, and said: "Our duty is to protect society from these monsters."
Judges were furious that Sarkozy would declare a suspect guilty before either a trial or the end of investigations. They accused him of using the case to boost his "tough on crime" image ahead of what will be a tough race for presidential re-election next year.
"It's an old habit of his, using people's legitimate feelings of outrage ... for ends that are clearly electoral and demagogical," said Nicolas Leger, national secretary of the USM magistrates' union.
Sarkozy, a former lawyer, has been in a long standoff with France's magistrates, who have accused him of meddling in the justice system and planning reforms that threaten their independence. ...
Magistrates' unions have for days expressed outrage at the president by hearing only urgent cases, after the president used a shocking murder case to attack judges for being too lax.
The gruesome Laetitia case gripped France after a teenage waitress disappeared one night after her shift in western France. Her severed limbs and head were found in the waters of an abandoned quarry after a lengthy search, but the rest of her remains have not been recovered. The suspect, a 31-year-old, refused to co-operate with the search or the inquiry. Recently out of prison after completing a sentence, he had 15 previous convictions.
The case struck a chord with Sarkozy's longrunning campaign to appeal to the rightwing vote by cracking down on repeat offenders. Sarkozy publicly branded the suspect "presumed guilty", slammed judges for incompetence and making mistakes after his prison release, and said: "Our duty is to protect society from these monsters."
Judges were furious that Sarkozy would declare a suspect guilty before either a trial or the end of investigations. They accused him of using the case to boost his "tough on crime" image ahead of what will be a tough race for presidential re-election next year.
"It's an old habit of his, using people's legitimate feelings of outrage ... for ends that are clearly electoral and demagogical," said Nicolas Leger, national secretary of the USM magistrates' union.
Sarkozy, a former lawyer, has been in a long standoff with France's magistrates, who have accused him of meddling in the justice system and planning reforms that threaten their independence. ...
... Jack Cole, a retired undercover narcotics officer who now belongs to Law Enforcement Against Prohibition, said of some high school students he'd once investigated: "None of them were 21 years old but they could, and did, sell me any kind of illegal drugs you can name. However, they often came up to me and said, 'Hey Jack, we're thirsty – will you go into the liquor store and buy us some beer? We can't buy beer.' They could get all the illegal drugs they wanted but couldn't buy beer. How could that be?"
No mystery: beer comes from legal retailers who'll lose their liquor licence if they sell to anyone underage. Drug dealers feel no such compunction. And for all the very real problems excessive alcohol use can cause, that's not what's fuelling street violence in Camden. When distillers and brewmasters have disputes with their rivals, no innocents ever die in the crossfire – because there isn't any crossfire, since the owners of legal businesses can settle their disputes in court. Camden's drug dealers, on the other hand, fight their turf wars in the streets.
Unfortunately, the legal, licensed alcohol sellers in Camden and everywhere else are bound to go bankrupt any day now. Their business model doesn't work – at least, not according to Hillary Clinton. In an interview with the Mexican media last week, our illustrious secretary of state dismissed the idea that legalisation might reduce Mexico's drug-war violence. "I don't think that will work. I mean, I hear the same debate. I hear it in my country. It is not likely to work. There is just too much money in it."
Were Clinton alive and politicking during Prohibition, would she have also dismissed the eventual solution to the Mob violence that terrorised Chicago in the 1920s? "Legalising alcohol is not likely to work. There is just too much money in it."
Fortunately, for Clinton, she can afford to live in places much nicer and safer than Camden or Ciudad Juárez. She can afford to ignore the consequences of what she's endorsing. The slum-dwellers of the most violent cities in North America cannot. If you live in Camden, feel free to call the cops if your neighbour's smoking illicit cigarettes, but if your neighbour merely spray-paints your front door or steals the knocker off it, don't bother. The over-stretched cops have more important things to attend to.
No mystery: beer comes from legal retailers who'll lose their liquor licence if they sell to anyone underage. Drug dealers feel no such compunction. And for all the very real problems excessive alcohol use can cause, that's not what's fuelling street violence in Camden. When distillers and brewmasters have disputes with their rivals, no innocents ever die in the crossfire – because there isn't any crossfire, since the owners of legal businesses can settle their disputes in court. Camden's drug dealers, on the other hand, fight their turf wars in the streets.
Unfortunately, the legal, licensed alcohol sellers in Camden and everywhere else are bound to go bankrupt any day now. Their business model doesn't work – at least, not according to Hillary Clinton. In an interview with the Mexican media last week, our illustrious secretary of state dismissed the idea that legalisation might reduce Mexico's drug-war violence. "I don't think that will work. I mean, I hear the same debate. I hear it in my country. It is not likely to work. There is just too much money in it."
Were Clinton alive and politicking during Prohibition, would she have also dismissed the eventual solution to the Mob violence that terrorised Chicago in the 1920s? "Legalising alcohol is not likely to work. There is just too much money in it."
Fortunately, for Clinton, she can afford to live in places much nicer and safer than Camden or Ciudad Juárez. She can afford to ignore the consequences of what she's endorsing. The slum-dwellers of the most violent cities in North America cannot. If you live in Camden, feel free to call the cops if your neighbour's smoking illicit cigarettes, but if your neighbour merely spray-paints your front door or steals the knocker off it, don't bother. The over-stretched cops have more important things to attend to.
Jemma Benjamin, 18, was kissed by fellow university student Daniel Ross, 21, at his home after a night out together.
But Miss Benjamin suddenly slumped onto the sofa - and died in front of Mr Ross's eyes.
The inquest heard Jemma died from SADS, a rare heart condition which kills 500 people in Britain each year.
Mr Ross, who had known Miss Benjamin for three months, tried desperately to save her before paramedics arrived on the scene.
But the inquest heard nothing could have been done for Miss Benjamin, who was described as a "picture of health".
Mr Ross told police that he and Miss Benjamin had been friends for three months - but that was the first time they had kissed.
He said: "It was not a sexual relationship but we saw each other a couple of times a week.
"We were going to go to a bar for some food and went back to my house for a credit card which I had forgotten.
"We were talking and ended up kissing in the hallway by the front door.
"We went into the kitchen and then the living room and Jemma sat down on the sofa."
Mr Ross said that Miss Benjamin's eyelids "suddenly began to droop" and her mouth started to froth before she collapsed at his student flat in Treforest, Pontypridd, South Wales.
He said: "I rang her mother to see if she had epilepsy. She fell in and out of consciousness."
He rang 999 and was given CPR instructions on the phone by a Welsh Ambulance Service control operator but he was unable to revive her. ...
But Miss Benjamin suddenly slumped onto the sofa - and died in front of Mr Ross's eyes.
The inquest heard Jemma died from SADS, a rare heart condition which kills 500 people in Britain each year.
Mr Ross, who had known Miss Benjamin for three months, tried desperately to save her before paramedics arrived on the scene.
But the inquest heard nothing could have been done for Miss Benjamin, who was described as a "picture of health".
Mr Ross told police that he and Miss Benjamin had been friends for three months - but that was the first time they had kissed.
He said: "It was not a sexual relationship but we saw each other a couple of times a week.
"We were going to go to a bar for some food and went back to my house for a credit card which I had forgotten.
"We were talking and ended up kissing in the hallway by the front door.
"We went into the kitchen and then the living room and Jemma sat down on the sofa."
Mr Ross said that Miss Benjamin's eyelids "suddenly began to droop" and her mouth started to froth before she collapsed at his student flat in Treforest, Pontypridd, South Wales.
He said: "I rang her mother to see if she had epilepsy. She fell in and out of consciousness."
He rang 999 and was given CPR instructions on the phone by a Welsh Ambulance Service control operator but he was unable to revive her. ...
The Egyptian military has secretly detained hundreds and possibly thousands of suspected government opponents since mass protests against President Hosni Mubarak began, and at least some of these detainees have been tortured, according to testimony gathered by the Guardian.
The military has claimed to be neutral, merely keeping anti-Mubarak protesters and loyalists apart. But human rights campaigners say this is clearly no longer the case, accusing the army of involvement in both disappearances and torture – abuses Egyptians have for years associated with the notorious state security intelligence (SSI) but not the army.
The Guardian has spoken to detainees who say they have suffered extensive beatings and other abuses at the hands of the military in what appears to be an organised campaign of intimidation. Human rights groups have documented the use of electric shocks on some of those held by the army.
Egyptian human rights groups say families are desperately searching for missing relatives who have disappeared into army custody. Some of the detainees have been held inside the renowned Museum of Egyptian Antiquities on the edge of Tahrir Square. Those released have given graphic accounts of physical abuse by soldiers who accused them of acting for foreign powers, including Hamas and Israel.
Among those detained have been human rights activists, lawyers and journalists, but most have been released. However, Hossam Bahgat, director of the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights in Cairo, said hundreds, and possibly thousands, of ordinary people had "disappeared" into military custody across the country for no more than carrying a political flyer, attending the demonstrations or even the way they look. Many were still missing.
"Their range is very wide, from people who were at the protests or detained for breaking curfew to those who talked back at an army officer or were handed over to the army for looking suspicious or for looking like foreigners even if they were not," he said. "It's unusual and to the best of our knowledge it's also unprecedented for the army to be doing this."
One of those detained by the army was a 23-year-old man who would only give his first name, Ashraf, for fear of again being arrested. He was detained last Friday on the edge of Tahrir Square carrying a box of medical supplies intended for one of the makeshift clinics treating protesters attacked by pro-Mubarak forces.
"I was on a sidestreet and a soldier stopped me and asked me where I was going. I told him and he accused me of working for foreign enemies and other soldiers rushed over and they all started hitting me with their guns," he said. ...
The military has claimed to be neutral, merely keeping anti-Mubarak protesters and loyalists apart. But human rights campaigners say this is clearly no longer the case, accusing the army of involvement in both disappearances and torture – abuses Egyptians have for years associated with the notorious state security intelligence (SSI) but not the army.
The Guardian has spoken to detainees who say they have suffered extensive beatings and other abuses at the hands of the military in what appears to be an organised campaign of intimidation. Human rights groups have documented the use of electric shocks on some of those held by the army.
Egyptian human rights groups say families are desperately searching for missing relatives who have disappeared into army custody. Some of the detainees have been held inside the renowned Museum of Egyptian Antiquities on the edge of Tahrir Square. Those released have given graphic accounts of physical abuse by soldiers who accused them of acting for foreign powers, including Hamas and Israel.
Among those detained have been human rights activists, lawyers and journalists, but most have been released. However, Hossam Bahgat, director of the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights in Cairo, said hundreds, and possibly thousands, of ordinary people had "disappeared" into military custody across the country for no more than carrying a political flyer, attending the demonstrations or even the way they look. Many were still missing.
"Their range is very wide, from people who were at the protests or detained for breaking curfew to those who talked back at an army officer or were handed over to the army for looking suspicious or for looking like foreigners even if they were not," he said. "It's unusual and to the best of our knowledge it's also unprecedented for the army to be doing this."
One of those detained by the army was a 23-year-old man who would only give his first name, Ashraf, for fear of again being arrested. He was detained last Friday on the edge of Tahrir Square carrying a box of medical supplies intended for one of the makeshift clinics treating protesters attacked by pro-Mubarak forces.
"I was on a sidestreet and a soldier stopped me and asked me where I was going. I told him and he accused me of working for foreign enemies and other soldiers rushed over and they all started hitting me with their guns," he said. ...
The sickening, rapid click-click-clicking of the electrocuting device sounded like an angry rattlesnake as it passed within inches of my face. Then came a scream of agony, followed by a pitiful whimpering from the handcuffed, blindfolded victim as the force of the shock propelled him across the floor.
A hail of vicious punches and kicks rained down on the prone bodies next to me, creating loud thumps. The torturers screamed abuse all around me. Only later were their chilling words translated to me by an Arabic-speaking colleague: "In this hotel, there are only two items on the menu for those who don't behave – electrocution and rape."
Cuffed and blindfolded, like my fellow detainees, I lay transfixed. My palms sweated and my heart raced. I felt myself shaking. Would it be my turn next? Or would my outsider status, conferred by holding a British passport, save me? I suspected – hoped – that it would be the latter and, thankfully, it was. But I could never be sure.
I had "disappeared", along with countless Egyptians, inside the bowels of the Mukhabarat, President Hosni Mubarak's vast security-intelligence apparatus and an organisation headed, until recently, by his vice-president and former intelligence chief, Omar Suleiman, the man trusted to negotiate an "orderly transition" to democratic rule.
Judging by what I witnessed, that seems a forlorn hope.
I had often wondered, reading accounts of political prisoners detained and tortured in places such as junta-run Argentina of the 1970s, what it would be like to be totally at the mercy of, and dependent on, your jailer for everything – food, water, the toilet. I never dreamed I would find out. Yet here I was, cooped up in a tiny room with a group of Egyptian detainees who were being mercilessly brutalised.
I had been handed over to the security services after being stopped at a police checkpoint near central Cairo last Friday. I had flown there, along with an Iraqi-born British colleague, Abdelilah Nuaimi, to cover Egypt's unfolding crisis for RFE/RL, an American radio station based in Prague.
We knew beforehand that foreign journalists had been targeted by security services as they scrambled to contain a revolt against Mubarak's regime, so our incarceration was not unique.
Yet it was different. My experience, while highly personal, wasn't really about me or the foreign media. It was about gaining an insight – if that is possible behind a blindfold – into the inner workings of the Mubarak regime. It told me all I needed to know about why it had become hated, feared and loathed by the mass of ordinary Egyptians. ...
A hail of vicious punches and kicks rained down on the prone bodies next to me, creating loud thumps. The torturers screamed abuse all around me. Only later were their chilling words translated to me by an Arabic-speaking colleague: "In this hotel, there are only two items on the menu for those who don't behave – electrocution and rape."
Cuffed and blindfolded, like my fellow detainees, I lay transfixed. My palms sweated and my heart raced. I felt myself shaking. Would it be my turn next? Or would my outsider status, conferred by holding a British passport, save me? I suspected – hoped – that it would be the latter and, thankfully, it was. But I could never be sure.
I had "disappeared", along with countless Egyptians, inside the bowels of the Mukhabarat, President Hosni Mubarak's vast security-intelligence apparatus and an organisation headed, until recently, by his vice-president and former intelligence chief, Omar Suleiman, the man trusted to negotiate an "orderly transition" to democratic rule.
Judging by what I witnessed, that seems a forlorn hope.
I had often wondered, reading accounts of political prisoners detained and tortured in places such as junta-run Argentina of the 1970s, what it would be like to be totally at the mercy of, and dependent on, your jailer for everything – food, water, the toilet. I never dreamed I would find out. Yet here I was, cooped up in a tiny room with a group of Egyptian detainees who were being mercilessly brutalised.
I had been handed over to the security services after being stopped at a police checkpoint near central Cairo last Friday. I had flown there, along with an Iraqi-born British colleague, Abdelilah Nuaimi, to cover Egypt's unfolding crisis for RFE/RL, an American radio station based in Prague.
We knew beforehand that foreign journalists had been targeted by security services as they scrambled to contain a revolt against Mubarak's regime, so our incarceration was not unique.
Yet it was different. My experience, while highly personal, wasn't really about me or the foreign media. It was about gaining an insight – if that is possible behind a blindfold – into the inner workings of the Mubarak regime. It told me all I needed to know about why it had become hated, feared and loathed by the mass of ordinary Egyptians. ...
Talks between the Egyptian government and opposition have all but collapsed after the regime balked at surrendering power to a transitional administration in the hope that mass protests would die down.
Instead, the unrest is spreading as some of the largest demonstrations yet against President Hosni Mubarak were joined by labour strikes across the country, including on the Suez canal, in the city of Alexandria and by public transport workers in Cairo.
A prominent member of a key opposition group, the Council of Wise Men, said negotiations had "essentially come to an end". A western diplomat said Washington was alarmed by the lack of progress and the vice-president Omar Suleiman's warning of a coup if the opposition refused to accept the government's terms.
Diaa Rashwan, of the Council of Wise Men, said he offered Suleiman a compromise in which Mubarak would have remained president but with his powers transferred to a transitional government.
Rashwan said this proposal was rejected at the weekend and there had been no further movement. He said: "Suleiman's comments about there being a danger of a coup were shocking to all of us – it was a betrayal of the spirit of negotiations, and is unacceptable. The regime's strategy has been just to play for time and stall with negotiations. They don't really want to talk to anyone."
Instead, the largest demonstration so far took place in Cairo on Tuesday, the same day as 25 big demonstrations elsewhere in Egypt and the start of a series of strikes as trade unions joined the fray. Some stoppages are mainly about wage demands, but in the present crisis there is little doubt they are timed to support the pro-democracy movement. Tens of thousands of workers stayed away in Alexandria to demand Mubarak's resignation. Employees of the state-run Suez Canal company, public transport workers in Cairo and iron and steel workers in other areas have also joined the strikes.
At least two people were killed and several wounded in clashes between thousands of protesters and police in New Province, 300 miles from Cairo. This takes the estimated number of deaths at the hands of government forces above 300.
Rashwan said that the lack of progress in talks and the rise in protests had shifted the initiative back to the street. ...
Instead, the unrest is spreading as some of the largest demonstrations yet against President Hosni Mubarak were joined by labour strikes across the country, including on the Suez canal, in the city of Alexandria and by public transport workers in Cairo.
A prominent member of a key opposition group, the Council of Wise Men, said negotiations had "essentially come to an end". A western diplomat said Washington was alarmed by the lack of progress and the vice-president Omar Suleiman's warning of a coup if the opposition refused to accept the government's terms.
Diaa Rashwan, of the Council of Wise Men, said he offered Suleiman a compromise in which Mubarak would have remained president but with his powers transferred to a transitional government.
Rashwan said this proposal was rejected at the weekend and there had been no further movement. He said: "Suleiman's comments about there being a danger of a coup were shocking to all of us – it was a betrayal of the spirit of negotiations, and is unacceptable. The regime's strategy has been just to play for time and stall with negotiations. They don't really want to talk to anyone."
Instead, the largest demonstration so far took place in Cairo on Tuesday, the same day as 25 big demonstrations elsewhere in Egypt and the start of a series of strikes as trade unions joined the fray. Some stoppages are mainly about wage demands, but in the present crisis there is little doubt they are timed to support the pro-democracy movement. Tens of thousands of workers stayed away in Alexandria to demand Mubarak's resignation. Employees of the state-run Suez Canal company, public transport workers in Cairo and iron and steel workers in other areas have also joined the strikes.
At least two people were killed and several wounded in clashes between thousands of protesters and police in New Province, 300 miles from Cairo. This takes the estimated number of deaths at the hands of government forces above 300.
Rashwan said that the lack of progress in talks and the rise in protests had shifted the initiative back to the street. ...
Omar Suleiman may be starting to deserve the adjective "embattled" that has often been attached to his boss, Hosni Mubarak, since Egypt's uprising began.
Appointed vice-president as a safe and loyal pair of hands, Mubarak's former intelligence chief has been mandated to run "an inclusive and serious national dialogue with participants from the whole political spectrum to deliver an orderly transition to democracy by September".
But doubts about the regime's real intentions, present from the start of the crisis, are growing fast.
The first talks on Sunday were inconclusive. The impression is strengthening, say analysts in Egypt and abroad, that Suleiman is not serious about a constitutional review, a timetable for change, protecting freedom of expression, allowing peaceful protest, and ending the state of emergency. His remarks on Tuesday, rejecting an immediate departure by Mubarak or any "end to the regime", did not sit well with his wish to resolve the crisis through dialogue. His warning of a possible "coup" sounded like a threat of more overt military intervention than has been seen so far.
The view from Cairo is that the regime, though confused, is taking a hard line, and that the negotiations have essentially come to an end. The regime's strategy has been to play for time, believing that the protests would fade in the face of a faltering economy and government initiatives such as raising wages for state employees.
In a fast-moving situation, the mood changes from day to day. Only last Friday the government seemed to have acted wisely by not sending back its thugs to Tahrir square. That eased pressure from abroad, with the US, Britain and others tacitly accepting that Mubarak was unlikely to leave office before September. Worries about the Muslim Brotherhood taking advantage of the chaos may also have played into western calculations.
Now, with protesters showing determination and resilience after Tuesday's big rally, and another massive turnout planned for Friday, there is a tougher line from Washington. Joe Biden, the US vice-president, urged Suleiman to rescind the emergency laws immediately. ...
Appointed vice-president as a safe and loyal pair of hands, Mubarak's former intelligence chief has been mandated to run "an inclusive and serious national dialogue with participants from the whole political spectrum to deliver an orderly transition to democracy by September".
But doubts about the regime's real intentions, present from the start of the crisis, are growing fast.
The first talks on Sunday were inconclusive. The impression is strengthening, say analysts in Egypt and abroad, that Suleiman is not serious about a constitutional review, a timetable for change, protecting freedom of expression, allowing peaceful protest, and ending the state of emergency. His remarks on Tuesday, rejecting an immediate departure by Mubarak or any "end to the regime", did not sit well with his wish to resolve the crisis through dialogue. His warning of a possible "coup" sounded like a threat of more overt military intervention than has been seen so far.
The view from Cairo is that the regime, though confused, is taking a hard line, and that the negotiations have essentially come to an end. The regime's strategy has been to play for time, believing that the protests would fade in the face of a faltering economy and government initiatives such as raising wages for state employees.
In a fast-moving situation, the mood changes from day to day. Only last Friday the government seemed to have acted wisely by not sending back its thugs to Tahrir square. That eased pressure from abroad, with the US, Britain and others tacitly accepting that Mubarak was unlikely to leave office before September. Worries about the Muslim Brotherhood taking advantage of the chaos may also have played into western calculations.
Now, with protesters showing determination and resilience after Tuesday's big rally, and another massive turnout planned for Friday, there is a tougher line from Washington. Joe Biden, the US vice-president, urged Suleiman to rescind the emergency laws immediately. ...
The reopened police investigation into phone hacking by News of the World journalists has identified a number of new potential victims, including Lord Prescott, the former deputy prime minister, the Guardian has learned.
Just a fortnight after reopening their inquiry, in the wake of an 18-month campaign by the Guardian, police said a re-examination of the evidence they had held for years, but failed to fully investigate, combined with new evidence from the Sunday tabloid, had thrown up an "important and immediate new line of inquiry". The new investigation, they said, had already established "reasonable evidence" that up to 20 people, mainly prominent public figures, were targeted by the paper.
The development represents Scotland Yard finally beginning to take the lid off the phone-hacking scandal. More than five years after they first started to investigate the illegal interception of voicemail messages by a private investigator working for the News of the World, the Met announced that its new inquiry would:
• Review all the decisions made by their two previous inquiries.
• Contact thousands of public figures who have never been told that their personal details were recorded by the private investigator.
• Warn some public figures that they had previously been misled when they asked the Yard for information.
Police had been dismissive of Prescott's suspicions that he had been targeted, but the head of the new investigation, Deputy Assistant Commissioner Sue Akers, saw Prescott on Wednesday. He was told that invoices recovered by police showed he was targeted by Glenn Mulcaire, the private eye used by the NoW, who was an expert in phone hacking. They also have notes made by Mulcaire about Prescott, who as deputy prime minister was in possession of highly sensitive information. After his briefing by the police chief, Prescott told the Guardian that previous police investigations had been "completely inadequate".
The new evidence is understood to show that Prescott was targeted in April 2006, the month he admitted to having an affair with his diary secretary Tracey Temple. In a statement Prescott told the Guardian: "I can confirm that at her request I met Deputy Assistant Commissioner Sue Akers today. She informed me that significant new evidence relating to phone hacking and myself had been discovered and that they were investigating it. I think this proves my long-held belief that the original Met police investigation into Mulcaire and News International was completely inadequate and failed to follow all the evidence. I now look forward to the Met police finally uncovering the truth." ...
Just a fortnight after reopening their inquiry, in the wake of an 18-month campaign by the Guardian, police said a re-examination of the evidence they had held for years, but failed to fully investigate, combined with new evidence from the Sunday tabloid, had thrown up an "important and immediate new line of inquiry". The new investigation, they said, had already established "reasonable evidence" that up to 20 people, mainly prominent public figures, were targeted by the paper.
The development represents Scotland Yard finally beginning to take the lid off the phone-hacking scandal. More than five years after they first started to investigate the illegal interception of voicemail messages by a private investigator working for the News of the World, the Met announced that its new inquiry would:
• Review all the decisions made by their two previous inquiries.
• Contact thousands of public figures who have never been told that their personal details were recorded by the private investigator.
• Warn some public figures that they had previously been misled when they asked the Yard for information.
Police had been dismissive of Prescott's suspicions that he had been targeted, but the head of the new investigation, Deputy Assistant Commissioner Sue Akers, saw Prescott on Wednesday. He was told that invoices recovered by police showed he was targeted by Glenn Mulcaire, the private eye used by the NoW, who was an expert in phone hacking. They also have notes made by Mulcaire about Prescott, who as deputy prime minister was in possession of highly sensitive information. After his briefing by the police chief, Prescott told the Guardian that previous police investigations had been "completely inadequate".
The new evidence is understood to show that Prescott was targeted in April 2006, the month he admitted to having an affair with his diary secretary Tracey Temple. In a statement Prescott told the Guardian: "I can confirm that at her request I met Deputy Assistant Commissioner Sue Akers today. She informed me that significant new evidence relating to phone hacking and myself had been discovered and that they were investigating it. I think this proves my long-held belief that the original Met police investigation into Mulcaire and News International was completely inadequate and failed to follow all the evidence. I now look forward to the Met police finally uncovering the truth." ...
George Osborne's efforts to end the war on bankers were crumbling as Vince Cable, the business secretary, said he was still determined to end "unjustified and outrageous" salaries in the sector and his Liberal Democrat ally Lord Oakeshott left his party's frontbench after damning the government's attempts to curb bonuses.
Oakeshott, who was not in the government but spoke for the junior coalition partner on Treasury matters in the Lords, stood down shortly after he criticised officials working on the government's deal with the bankers and said: "If this is robust action on bank bonuses, my name's Bob Diamond."
Danny Alexander, the Lib Dem chief secretary to the Treasury, said Oakeshott had stood down by mutual consent.
Osborne hailed his deal as the moment to move beyond retribution to economic recovery. ...
Oakeshott, who was not in the government but spoke for the junior coalition partner on Treasury matters in the Lords, stood down shortly after he criticised officials working on the government's deal with the bankers and said: "If this is robust action on bank bonuses, my name's Bob Diamond."
Danny Alexander, the Lib Dem chief secretary to the Treasury, said Oakeshott had stood down by mutual consent.
Osborne hailed his deal as the moment to move beyond retribution to economic recovery. ...
The leader of France's National Front has praised David Cameron for what she says is an endorsement of her party's far-right views on multiculturalism and immigration.
Marine Le Pen was elected to lead the National Front last month. She claimed the prime minister's speech on the failures of multiculturalism showed he was taking Britain's Conservatives towards her stance on the issue. "It is exactly this type of statement that has barred us from public life [in France] for 30 years," she told the Financial Times. "I sense an evolution at European level, even in classic governments. I can only congratulate him."
Germany's chancellor, Angela Merkel, was among European leaders listening to Cameron's speech in Munich at the weekend. He is accused of having played into the hands of rightwing extremists by talking of the failings of multiculturalism within hours of one of the biggest anti-Islam rallies ever staged in Britain.
Cameron called for a new "muscular liberalism", promoting British values and national identity. A policy of "passive tolerance" had only served to encourage Islamist extremism, he argued.
Marine Le Pen is daughter of the former National Front leader Jean-Marie Le Pen. She told the FT it was "indisputable" Cameron was moving the Conservatives closer to the traditional positions held by her party. A Conservative spokesman said she had "clearly failed to understand the prime minister's speech".
Cameron told the Munich Security Conference, attended by world leaders, that state multiculturalism had failed in this country and pledged to cut funding for Muslim groups that failed to respect basic British values.
He warned other European leaders that they needed to "wake up" to the threat of Islamist extremism and the radicalisation of Muslims inside their nations' borders. ...
Marine Le Pen was elected to lead the National Front last month. She claimed the prime minister's speech on the failures of multiculturalism showed he was taking Britain's Conservatives towards her stance on the issue. "It is exactly this type of statement that has barred us from public life [in France] for 30 years," she told the Financial Times. "I sense an evolution at European level, even in classic governments. I can only congratulate him."
Germany's chancellor, Angela Merkel, was among European leaders listening to Cameron's speech in Munich at the weekend. He is accused of having played into the hands of rightwing extremists by talking of the failings of multiculturalism within hours of one of the biggest anti-Islam rallies ever staged in Britain.
Cameron called for a new "muscular liberalism", promoting British values and national identity. A policy of "passive tolerance" had only served to encourage Islamist extremism, he argued.
Marine Le Pen is daughter of the former National Front leader Jean-Marie Le Pen. She told the FT it was "indisputable" Cameron was moving the Conservatives closer to the traditional positions held by her party. A Conservative spokesman said she had "clearly failed to understand the prime minister's speech".
Cameron told the Munich Security Conference, attended by world leaders, that state multiculturalism had failed in this country and pledged to cut funding for Muslim groups that failed to respect basic British values.
He warned other European leaders that they needed to "wake up" to the threat of Islamist extremism and the radicalisation of Muslims inside their nations' borders. ...
Republicans have launched an attack on the Obama administration's powers to act on climate change, proposing a 17% budget cut to the Environmental Protection Agency.
In a follow-up strike, they repeatedly challenged the legal authority of the agency to regulate greenhouse gas emissions during a contentious hearing in Congress.
The proposed $1.6bn (£1bn) cut to the EPA was the largest in dollar terms of some 70 budgetary measures put forward by Republicans on Wednesday.
Lisa Jackson, the EPA chief, said the attacks were part of a larger Republican project to roll back years of environmental and safety protections.
"I think this is a serious effort to weaken the clean air act," she said.
Jackson and the EPA have emerged as prime targets for the Republican majority in the House of Representatives, who have promised to block what they say are "job-killing" regulations.
The energy and commerce committee is now under the control of a Republican, Fred Upton, who told a seminar this week he did not believe in man-made climate change. ...
In a follow-up strike, they repeatedly challenged the legal authority of the agency to regulate greenhouse gas emissions during a contentious hearing in Congress.
The proposed $1.6bn (£1bn) cut to the EPA was the largest in dollar terms of some 70 budgetary measures put forward by Republicans on Wednesday.
Lisa Jackson, the EPA chief, said the attacks were part of a larger Republican project to roll back years of environmental and safety protections.
"I think this is a serious effort to weaken the clean air act," she said.
Jackson and the EPA have emerged as prime targets for the Republican majority in the House of Representatives, who have promised to block what they say are "job-killing" regulations.
The energy and commerce committee is now under the control of a Republican, Fred Upton, who told a seminar this week he did not believe in man-made climate change. ...
A Republican congressman has resigned after apparently sending a picture of himself stripped to the waist, to a woman who had advertised for a man on the internet.
Chris Lee's resignation came after the Gawker gossip website posted the image, and reported exchanges between the married New York congressman and the woman.
According to Gawker, the 34-year-old woman posted an ad last month in the women seeking men section of the Craigslist website looking for men who did not "look like toads" and were emotionally and financially secure.
He is alleged to have replied: "Hope I'm not a toad. i'm a very fit fun classy guy. Live in Cap Hill area. 6ft 190lbs blond/blue. 39. Lobbyist. I promise not to disappoint." ...
Chris Lee's resignation came after the Gawker gossip website posted the image, and reported exchanges between the married New York congressman and the woman.
According to Gawker, the 34-year-old woman posted an ad last month in the women seeking men section of the Craigslist website looking for men who did not "look like toads" and were emotionally and financially secure.
He is alleged to have replied: "Hope I'm not a toad. i'm a very fit fun classy guy. Live in Cap Hill area. 6ft 190lbs blond/blue. 39. Lobbyist. I promise not to disappoint." ...
Silvio Berlusconi has raised the spectre of a full-scale constitutional showdown in Italy after prosecutors in Milan asked for him to be put on trial immediately, charged with sex-related offences.
Italy's prime minister accused them of breaking the law and going against parliament. Soon afterwards his chief ally, Umberto Bossi of the Northern League, said the indictment request marked the start of a "total war" between Italy's judiciary and its legislature.
Berlusconi and his allies have argued that the case should have been dropped last week after a vote in the lower house of parliament, where they have a narrow majority. The house adopted a resolution that meant, in effect, that the prosecutors had no right to pursue their investigation.
Milan's chief prosecutor, Edmondo Bruti Liberati, said his colleagues had asked for the prime minister to be put in the dock without a preliminary hearing because of the "obviousness of the evidence" against him.
A judge, Cristina Di Censo, is expected to rule early next week on the prosecutors' application. If it is granted, Berlusconi could be put on trial as early as April.
The latest move piled yet more pressure on the media tycoon-turned-conservative politician, whose Freedom People movement was hit by a split last year. His government has since survived two make-or-break confidence votes in parliament, but it is struggling to pass legislation Bossi has said is essential to the Northern League's continued support. ...
Italy's prime minister accused them of breaking the law and going against parliament. Soon afterwards his chief ally, Umberto Bossi of the Northern League, said the indictment request marked the start of a "total war" between Italy's judiciary and its legislature.
Berlusconi and his allies have argued that the case should have been dropped last week after a vote in the lower house of parliament, where they have a narrow majority. The house adopted a resolution that meant, in effect, that the prosecutors had no right to pursue their investigation.
Milan's chief prosecutor, Edmondo Bruti Liberati, said his colleagues had asked for the prime minister to be put in the dock without a preliminary hearing because of the "obviousness of the evidence" against him.
A judge, Cristina Di Censo, is expected to rule early next week on the prosecutors' application. If it is granted, Berlusconi could be put on trial as early as April.
The latest move piled yet more pressure on the media tycoon-turned-conservative politician, whose Freedom People movement was hit by a split last year. His government has since survived two make-or-break confidence votes in parliament, but it is struggling to pass legislation Bossi has said is essential to the Northern League's continued support. ...
see more funny videos
[brilliant snooty English butler]Excuse me, Sir? A Mr Darwin has telephoned several times.[/brilliant snooty English butler]
Senior managers at Oxford and Cambridge universities are intent on charging £9,000 a year in tuition fees, the maximum allowed, it has emerged.
A consultation paper shows Cambridge wants to almost triple fees to £9,000 as soon as it can in autumn next year. The university will charge the maximum of £3,375 for this autumn.
Students whose family income is below £25,000 would pay £6,000 and receive a maintenance bursary of up to £1,625, under plans from Cambridge's working group on fees, published internally for consultation. Means testing will taper this £3,000 reduction to zero when family income exceeds £42,000.
Oxford's pro-vice-chancellor, Tony Monaco, has said fees of less than £8,000 would lose the university money because of national cuts to teaching and other grants. Hhe told a Congregation, a formal meeting of senior members of the university, that Oxford subsidised undergraduates by £80m.
"That is already straining research and infrastructure ... Were we to charge £9,000, the additional income would be £14m a year." This would be used to improve outreach activities and waive fees for the poorest students.
The university calculates that to waivefees for the poorest by £3,000, would be the equivalent of charging all undergraduates £8,500. Oxford will make its decision on fees in March. ...
A consultation paper shows Cambridge wants to almost triple fees to £9,000 as soon as it can in autumn next year. The university will charge the maximum of £3,375 for this autumn.
Students whose family income is below £25,000 would pay £6,000 and receive a maintenance bursary of up to £1,625, under plans from Cambridge's working group on fees, published internally for consultation. Means testing will taper this £3,000 reduction to zero when family income exceeds £42,000.
Oxford's pro-vice-chancellor, Tony Monaco, has said fees of less than £8,000 would lose the university money because of national cuts to teaching and other grants. Hhe told a Congregation, a formal meeting of senior members of the university, that Oxford subsidised undergraduates by £80m.
"That is already straining research and infrastructure ... Were we to charge £9,000, the additional income would be £14m a year." This would be used to improve outreach activities and waive fees for the poorest students.
The university calculates that to waivefees for the poorest by £3,000, would be the equivalent of charging all undergraduates £8,500. Oxford will make its decision on fees in March. ...
Disgraced Eric Illsley has finally quit as an MP, weeks after being convicted of fiddling his expenses.
Treasury sources confirmed that Illsley had been granted the ceremonial post of crown steward and bailiff of the three Chiltern Hundreds of Stoke, Desborough and Burnham – the traditional way of resigning from parliament.
Labour is planning to trigger a by-election in his Barnsley Central seat on March 3.
Illsley is due to be sentenced on Thursday after admitting dishonestly claiming £14,000 of expenses on 11 January.
He could theoretically have stayed on as an MP with a jail term of less than 12 months.
However, following heavy pressure Illsley expressed "deep regret" over his actions and said he would quit before the court decided his fate. He is believed to have been receiving his £65,000 a year parliamentary salary over the past month – meaning he will have pocketed roughly £5,400 since being convicted. ...
Treasury sources confirmed that Illsley had been granted the ceremonial post of crown steward and bailiff of the three Chiltern Hundreds of Stoke, Desborough and Burnham – the traditional way of resigning from parliament.
Labour is planning to trigger a by-election in his Barnsley Central seat on March 3.
Illsley is due to be sentenced on Thursday after admitting dishonestly claiming £14,000 of expenses on 11 January.
He could theoretically have stayed on as an MP with a jail term of less than 12 months.
However, following heavy pressure Illsley expressed "deep regret" over his actions and said he would quit before the court decided his fate. He is believed to have been receiving his £65,000 a year parliamentary salary over the past month – meaning he will have pocketed roughly £5,400 since being convicted. ...
Zohra Mejri shivered from the damp and rot spreading along the cracked ceiling of her makeshift concrete home. Outside, as raw sewage trickled past children playing, men were discussing renaming the desolate, windswept road "Martyr Street".
Mejri's son, Muhammad, 23, was shot dead by a police sniper as he walked home during the rural street demonstrations that led to Tunisia's revolution and the toppling of the dictator Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali.
"We just don't want him to have died in vain," she said. "Nothing has changed in people's miserable lives here in this forgotten corner of Tunisia. And if the old faces of the regime keep terrorising us, then what was it all worth? People will rise up again."
Few places better illustrate the problems of Tunisia's unfinished revolution than Kasserine, a lawless and poverty-stricken border town nestled below mountains on the Algerian frontier, nearly 200 miles south-west of Tunis. For centuries a bastion of rebellion and unrest, the rural town of 100,000 people had the highest death toll of the revolution after Ben Ali's police snipers were ordered to shoot to kill to quell street demonstrations. Far from the golden tourist coast, Kasserine has the highest unemployment, crime rate, suicide levels and divorce figures in Tunisia.
Jobs are so scarce that much of the population survives from the smuggling of petrol, cigarettes and hashish over the Algerian border. Makeshift stands sell jerrycans of contraband fuel for £1 a throw.
Kasserine was at the forefront of Tunisia's historic January uprising, the first time in the Arab world that people on the streets have ousted a brutal dictator. The country's hope of becoming the first true Arab democracy spread across the region, inspiring Egypt's revolt. But as the world spotlight turns to Cairo, Tunisia's rural interior fears its revolution could disintegrate.
The town now finds itself at the heart of the attempts by Ben Ali's former ruling RCD party to stir fresh violence to disrupt the revolution. In the past three days, at least five people have died in Tunisia in the worst violence since Ben Ali fled on January 14. The interim government has blamed the wave of violence on a plot by old figures in the RCD party to stir panic and damage the revolution.
Last week in Kasserine at least 1,000 thugs descended on the town centre, ransacking schools, smashing buildings, attacking the court-house and robbing at knifepoint, left to run riot through the town by the lack of police. "This was a war of terrorism," said local lawyer Bedma Askri. "The RCD paid criminals and thugs around 15 dinars each [£5] to do this.
"In some cases, they just plied them with alcohol in exchange for violence. That's poverty for you, when someone will smash up a town and terrify people in exchange for a drink." ...
Mejri's son, Muhammad, 23, was shot dead by a police sniper as he walked home during the rural street demonstrations that led to Tunisia's revolution and the toppling of the dictator Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali.
"We just don't want him to have died in vain," she said. "Nothing has changed in people's miserable lives here in this forgotten corner of Tunisia. And if the old faces of the regime keep terrorising us, then what was it all worth? People will rise up again."
Few places better illustrate the problems of Tunisia's unfinished revolution than Kasserine, a lawless and poverty-stricken border town nestled below mountains on the Algerian frontier, nearly 200 miles south-west of Tunis. For centuries a bastion of rebellion and unrest, the rural town of 100,000 people had the highest death toll of the revolution after Ben Ali's police snipers were ordered to shoot to kill to quell street demonstrations. Far from the golden tourist coast, Kasserine has the highest unemployment, crime rate, suicide levels and divorce figures in Tunisia.
Jobs are so scarce that much of the population survives from the smuggling of petrol, cigarettes and hashish over the Algerian border. Makeshift stands sell jerrycans of contraband fuel for £1 a throw.
Kasserine was at the forefront of Tunisia's historic January uprising, the first time in the Arab world that people on the streets have ousted a brutal dictator. The country's hope of becoming the first true Arab democracy spread across the region, inspiring Egypt's revolt. But as the world spotlight turns to Cairo, Tunisia's rural interior fears its revolution could disintegrate.
The town now finds itself at the heart of the attempts by Ben Ali's former ruling RCD party to stir fresh violence to disrupt the revolution. In the past three days, at least five people have died in Tunisia in the worst violence since Ben Ali fled on January 14. The interim government has blamed the wave of violence on a plot by old figures in the RCD party to stir panic and damage the revolution.
Last week in Kasserine at least 1,000 thugs descended on the town centre, ransacking schools, smashing buildings, attacking the court-house and robbing at knifepoint, left to run riot through the town by the lack of police. "This was a war of terrorism," said local lawyer Bedma Askri. "The RCD paid criminals and thugs around 15 dinars each [£5] to do this.
"In some cases, they just plied them with alcohol in exchange for violence. That's poverty for you, when someone will smash up a town and terrify people in exchange for a drink." ...
Cambodia has asked for an urgent UN security council meeting after Thai and Cambodian troops clashed for a fourth consecutive day over a disputed border area at an 11th-century temple.
Several hours of shelling and machine-gun fire subsided on Monday morning as both sides blamed each other for hostilities which have killed at least five people since Friday.
A Cambodian government spokesman, Phay Siphan, said fighting broke out again after halting around midnight. There was no immediate comment from the Thai authorities, but an Associated Press reporter in the area said the sound of gunfire and artillery could be heard.
The Cambodian prime minister, Hun Sen, said the latest clash was sparked when Thai soldiers crossed the border in search of a dead comrade and Cambodians opened fire. Hun Sen, who has warned that the fighting poses a threat to regional stability, said: "We need the United Nations to send forces here and create a buffer zone to guarantee that there is no more fighting." ...
Several hours of shelling and machine-gun fire subsided on Monday morning as both sides blamed each other for hostilities which have killed at least five people since Friday.
A Cambodian government spokesman, Phay Siphan, said fighting broke out again after halting around midnight. There was no immediate comment from the Thai authorities, but an Associated Press reporter in the area said the sound of gunfire and artillery could be heard.
The Cambodian prime minister, Hun Sen, said the latest clash was sparked when Thai soldiers crossed the border in search of a dead comrade and Cambodians opened fire. Hun Sen, who has warned that the fighting poses a threat to regional stability, said: "We need the United Nations to send forces here and create a buffer zone to guarantee that there is no more fighting." ...
The last Labour government did "all it could" to help release the Libyan convicted of the Lockerbie bombing to secure a BP oil deal and strengthen its political ties with Libya, an official review has found.
The study of hundreds of confidential government papers by the Cabinet Office concluded that there was an "underlying desire" by the UK government to see Abdelbaset al-Megrahi released early from his life sentence to further UK-Libyan relations.
That included briefing the Libyans on how to approach the Scottish government to seek Megrahi's release under a prisoner transfer treaty and on compassionate grounds – briefings sanctioned by ministers in Edinburgh.
But Sir Gus O'Donnell, the head of the civil service, said ministers in London "took great efforts" not to overtly pressurise the Scottish government into releasing Megrahi.
The report says Jack Straw, then the UK justice secretary, and Des Browne, then the secretary of state for Scotland, knew that releasing Megrahi was solely a matter for ministers in Edinburgh and feared that directly and overtly lobbying the Scottish nationalist government would backfire.
However, O'Donnell's inquiry has also found that, at an early stage, Scottish government ministers in Edinburgh tried to trade Megrahi for concessions on two controversial policies controlled by the UK government, on air guns and compensation payments for prison inmates.
The UK government's records said Kenny MacAskill, the Scottish justice minister, was prepared to shelve his government's fierce objections to including Megrahi in a prisoner transfer agreement with Libya in return for concessions. ...
The study of hundreds of confidential government papers by the Cabinet Office concluded that there was an "underlying desire" by the UK government to see Abdelbaset al-Megrahi released early from his life sentence to further UK-Libyan relations.
That included briefing the Libyans on how to approach the Scottish government to seek Megrahi's release under a prisoner transfer treaty and on compassionate grounds – briefings sanctioned by ministers in Edinburgh.
But Sir Gus O'Donnell, the head of the civil service, said ministers in London "took great efforts" not to overtly pressurise the Scottish government into releasing Megrahi.
The report says Jack Straw, then the UK justice secretary, and Des Browne, then the secretary of state for Scotland, knew that releasing Megrahi was solely a matter for ministers in Edinburgh and feared that directly and overtly lobbying the Scottish nationalist government would backfire.
However, O'Donnell's inquiry has also found that, at an early stage, Scottish government ministers in Edinburgh tried to trade Megrahi for concessions on two controversial policies controlled by the UK government, on air guns and compensation payments for prison inmates.
The UK government's records said Kenny MacAskill, the Scottish justice minister, was prepared to shelve his government's fierce objections to including Megrahi in a prisoner transfer agreement with Libya in return for concessions. ...
There is a lot more behind Hosni Mubarak digging in his heels and setting his thugs on the peaceful protests in Cairo's Tahrir Square than pure politics. This is also about money. Mubarak and the clique surrounding him have long treated Egypt as their fiefdom and its resources as spoils to be divided among them.
Under sweeping privatisation policies, they appropriated profitable public enterprises and vast areas of state-owned lands. A small group of businessmen seized public assets and acquired monopoly positions in strategic commodity markets such as iron and steel, cement and wood. While crony capitalism flourished, local industries that were once the backbone of the economy were left to decline. At the same time, private sector industries making environmentally hazardous products like ceramics, marble and fertilisers have expanded without effective regulation at a great cost to the health of the population.
A tiny economic elite controlling consumption-geared production and imports has accumulated great wealth. This elite includes representatives of foreign companies with exclusive import rights in electronics, electric cables and automobiles. It also includes real estate developers who created a construction boom in gated communities and resorts for the super-rich. Much of this development is on public land acquired at very low prices, with no proper tendering or bidding.
It is estimated that around a thousand families maintain control of vast areas of the economy. This business class sought to consolidate itself and protect its wealth through political office. The National Democratic party was their primary vehicle for doing so. This alliance of money and politics became flagrant in recent years when a number of businessmen became government ministers with portfolios that clearly overlapped with their private interests.
Mubarak presided over a process in which the national wealth passed into a few private hands while the majority of the population was impoverished, with 40% living below the poverty line of less than $2 a day, rising rates of unemployment, and job opportunities for the young blocked. In the last few months of 2010, Egyptians protested for an increase of the minimum monthly wage to less than $240, but the now departed Nazif government decreed that less than $100 was sufficient as a basic income. This, at a time when the prices of food staples and utilities tariffs increased at very high rates. Indeed, as one local economist asserted, every single commodity and service cost significantly more under the Nazif government – which is the government of business that ended progressive taxation and replaced it by a single unified income tax.
Additionally, public social services underwent masked privatisation, taking health and education beyond the reach of vast segments of the population. Many poor families were forced to give up the hope of educating children and had to send them to do menial work to contribute to the income of the household. There was little public investment in most services, and in infrastructure such as roads, water and sewerage. In the 2000s, Egypt witnessed numerous demonstrations by ordinary people across the country for the construction of overpass bridges on fast roads and for clean water in towns and villages. ...
Under sweeping privatisation policies, they appropriated profitable public enterprises and vast areas of state-owned lands. A small group of businessmen seized public assets and acquired monopoly positions in strategic commodity markets such as iron and steel, cement and wood. While crony capitalism flourished, local industries that were once the backbone of the economy were left to decline. At the same time, private sector industries making environmentally hazardous products like ceramics, marble and fertilisers have expanded without effective regulation at a great cost to the health of the population.
A tiny economic elite controlling consumption-geared production and imports has accumulated great wealth. This elite includes representatives of foreign companies with exclusive import rights in electronics, electric cables and automobiles. It also includes real estate developers who created a construction boom in gated communities and resorts for the super-rich. Much of this development is on public land acquired at very low prices, with no proper tendering or bidding.
It is estimated that around a thousand families maintain control of vast areas of the economy. This business class sought to consolidate itself and protect its wealth through political office. The National Democratic party was their primary vehicle for doing so. This alliance of money and politics became flagrant in recent years when a number of businessmen became government ministers with portfolios that clearly overlapped with their private interests.
Mubarak presided over a process in which the national wealth passed into a few private hands while the majority of the population was impoverished, with 40% living below the poverty line of less than $2 a day, rising rates of unemployment, and job opportunities for the young blocked. In the last few months of 2010, Egyptians protested for an increase of the minimum monthly wage to less than $240, but the now departed Nazif government decreed that less than $100 was sufficient as a basic income. This, at a time when the prices of food staples and utilities tariffs increased at very high rates. Indeed, as one local economist asserted, every single commodity and service cost significantly more under the Nazif government – which is the government of business that ended progressive taxation and replaced it by a single unified income tax.
Additionally, public social services underwent masked privatisation, taking health and education beyond the reach of vast segments of the population. Many poor families were forced to give up the hope of educating children and had to send them to do menial work to contribute to the income of the household. There was little public investment in most services, and in infrastructure such as roads, water and sewerage. In the 2000s, Egypt witnessed numerous demonstrations by ordinary people across the country for the construction of overpass bridges on fast roads and for clean water in towns and villages. ...
A former Israeli soldier is facing a long prison sentence after admitting that she passed thousands of classified military documents to a newspaper reporter.
Anat Kam, 24, has been under house arrest since she was charged in January 2010 with espionage and intent to harm state security with a maximum sentence of life imprisonment. In a plea bargain, that charge was dropped when she admitted to collecting and passing on secret information. She faces a maximum sentence of 15 years, but prosecutors are reportedly asking for about nine years.
Among the documents leaked by Kam to the Haaretz reporter Uri Blau were papers showing that Israeli military and security officials had authorised the killing of Palestinian militants in operations where they could have instead been arrested. Kam made copies of 2,000 documents, including 700 marked top secret, during her national service as a clerk in the office of a top Israeli general.
Blau published an investigation revealing the content of the documents in November 2008. The assassinations contravened an Israeli high court judgment which ruled that militants must be arrested where possible.
Blau's article was approved by the military censor, and Kam was not arrested for more than a year after publication. The Haaretz journalist remained in London, where he was at the time of Kam's arrest, for many months, fearing he would face prosecution if he returned to Israel. He flew back in October after his lawyers struck a deal with the Shin Bet security service under which he returned the documents. ...
Anat Kam, 24, has been under house arrest since she was charged in January 2010 with espionage and intent to harm state security with a maximum sentence of life imprisonment. In a plea bargain, that charge was dropped when she admitted to collecting and passing on secret information. She faces a maximum sentence of 15 years, but prosecutors are reportedly asking for about nine years.
Among the documents leaked by Kam to the Haaretz reporter Uri Blau were papers showing that Israeli military and security officials had authorised the killing of Palestinian militants in operations where they could have instead been arrested. Kam made copies of 2,000 documents, including 700 marked top secret, during her national service as a clerk in the office of a top Israeli general.
Blau published an investigation revealing the content of the documents in November 2008. The assassinations contravened an Israeli high court judgment which ruled that militants must be arrested where possible.
Blau's article was approved by the military censor, and Kam was not arrested for more than a year after publication. The Haaretz journalist remained in London, where he was at the time of Kam's arrest, for many months, fearing he would face prosecution if he returned to Israel. He flew back in October after his lawyers struck a deal with the Shin Bet security service under which he returned the documents. ...
With condolences to the iPad and Sarah Palin's Twitter account, WikiLeaks is the media story of our time. Since the one-two punch of the release of military reports about the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and November's trove of diplomatic cables, the government, the media, and the public have been playing catch-up with the implications of this new media frontier.
Much of the traditional media has seemed lost on how to handle this hi-tech interloper. As a result, too much of the coverage has been meta – focusing on questions about whether the leaks were justified – while too little has dealt with the details of what has actually been revealed and what those revelations say about the wisdom of America's ongoing effort in Afghanistan. There's a reason why the Obama administration has been so upset about these leaks.
As has too often been the case since 9/11, the WikiLeaks controversy has found a great deal of the media once again on the wrong side of the secrecy debate. As Harvard's John Perry Barlow tweeted: "We have reached a point in our history where lies are protected speech and the truth is criminal."
Whether old or new, the media's job, as Simon Jenkins wrote in the Guardian, isn't to protect the powerful from embarrassment. Its job is to play the role of the little boy in The Emperor's New Clothes – brave enough to point out what nobody else will say. And when the press trades truth for access, it is WikiLeaks that acts like the little boy.
Without that little boy, we get truth-for-access traders like Judith Miller, whose breathless, spoonfed – and ultimately inaccurate – accounts from Iraq help lead America to war. When her facts proved wrong, Miller shrugged it off by saying: "My job isn't to assess the government's information and be an independent intelligence analyst myself. My job is to tell readers of the New York Times what the government thought about Iraq's arsenal." In other words, her job is to tell citizens what their government is saying, not what their government is doing.
The establishment media may be part of the media, but they're also part of the establishment. And, with WikiLeaks, they've been circling the wagons. They conflate the secrecy that governments use to operate and the secrecy that allows governments to mislead us. Nobody, including WikiLeaks, is promoting the idea that governments should exist in total transparency, or that, for instance, all government meetings should be live-streamed and cameras placed around the White House like a DC-based spin-off of Big Brother.
But a government's legitimate need for secrecy is different from the government's desire to get away with hiding the truth. Conflating the two is dangerously unhealthy for a democracy. This is why it's especially important to look at what WikiLeaks is doing, as distinct from what its critics claim it's doing.
It's also important to look at the fact that even though the cables were published in mainstream outlets such as the Guardian, the information first went to WikiLeaks. "You've heard of voting with your feet?" said New York University journalism professor Jay Rosen. "The sources are voting with their leaks. If they trusted the newspapers more, they would be going to the newspapers." ...
Much of the traditional media has seemed lost on how to handle this hi-tech interloper. As a result, too much of the coverage has been meta – focusing on questions about whether the leaks were justified – while too little has dealt with the details of what has actually been revealed and what those revelations say about the wisdom of America's ongoing effort in Afghanistan. There's a reason why the Obama administration has been so upset about these leaks.
As has too often been the case since 9/11, the WikiLeaks controversy has found a great deal of the media once again on the wrong side of the secrecy debate. As Harvard's John Perry Barlow tweeted: "We have reached a point in our history where lies are protected speech and the truth is criminal."
Whether old or new, the media's job, as Simon Jenkins wrote in the Guardian, isn't to protect the powerful from embarrassment. Its job is to play the role of the little boy in The Emperor's New Clothes – brave enough to point out what nobody else will say. And when the press trades truth for access, it is WikiLeaks that acts like the little boy.
Without that little boy, we get truth-for-access traders like Judith Miller, whose breathless, spoonfed – and ultimately inaccurate – accounts from Iraq help lead America to war. When her facts proved wrong, Miller shrugged it off by saying: "My job isn't to assess the government's information and be an independent intelligence analyst myself. My job is to tell readers of the New York Times what the government thought about Iraq's arsenal." In other words, her job is to tell citizens what their government is saying, not what their government is doing.
The establishment media may be part of the media, but they're also part of the establishment. And, with WikiLeaks, they've been circling the wagons. They conflate the secrecy that governments use to operate and the secrecy that allows governments to mislead us. Nobody, including WikiLeaks, is promoting the idea that governments should exist in total transparency, or that, for instance, all government meetings should be live-streamed and cameras placed around the White House like a DC-based spin-off of Big Brother.
But a government's legitimate need for secrecy is different from the government's desire to get away with hiding the truth. Conflating the two is dangerously unhealthy for a democracy. This is why it's especially important to look at what WikiLeaks is doing, as distinct from what its critics claim it's doing.
It's also important to look at the fact that even though the cables were published in mainstream outlets such as the Guardian, the information first went to WikiLeaks. "You've heard of voting with your feet?" said New York University journalism professor Jay Rosen. "The sources are voting with their leaks. If they trusted the newspapers more, they would be going to the newspapers." ...
Protests against the planned closure of more than 450 library services were staged today. Library users, authors, parents and children took part in "read-ins" and demonstrations at libraries in south Yorkshire, Lancashire, Gloucestershire, Dorset and Oxfordshire, where 20 of the 43 libraries still running are earmarked for withdrawal of funds.
TV presenter Kirsty Young, musician Billy Bragg and literary stars such as Philip Pullman, Colin Dexter, Mark Haddon, Kate Mosse and Julia Donaldson were involved in Save Our Libraries events.
At Sheffield central library a mass "shhh-in" was organised by Library Workers for a Brighter Future. On the stroke of 11am, protesters joined in a chorus of "shhh" then cheered for their library, before taking out the maximum 15 books each on their tickets – the theory being that you cannot close down a library while most books are on loan. In Dorset, Bragg attended an event where library users also attempted to empty its shelves. A rally was staged outside Bolton's central library, and in Cambridge a "flashmob book reading" surprised the public outside the city's main library.
For Pullman and Dexter the planned closures around Oxford have a particular irony. In September they were at the forefront of the city's bid to become Unesco's World Book Capital in 2014. "At the time we had the meetings I said we would have a wonderful chance," said Dexter. "But if the committee come along to Somertown in North Oxford we would have to take them and show them a library building with boarded-up windows. It is a sad commentary and what makes a lot of us very cross is that the argument deployed in defence is simply to ask us what we would cut. We are here to say that this is a terrible, shameful business."
Oxfordshire County Council believes the library cuts could save £2m over four years and is offering an option for local groups to bid for grants and then run libraries voluntarily. ...
TV presenter Kirsty Young, musician Billy Bragg and literary stars such as Philip Pullman, Colin Dexter, Mark Haddon, Kate Mosse and Julia Donaldson were involved in Save Our Libraries events.
At Sheffield central library a mass "shhh-in" was organised by Library Workers for a Brighter Future. On the stroke of 11am, protesters joined in a chorus of "shhh" then cheered for their library, before taking out the maximum 15 books each on their tickets – the theory being that you cannot close down a library while most books are on loan. In Dorset, Bragg attended an event where library users also attempted to empty its shelves. A rally was staged outside Bolton's central library, and in Cambridge a "flashmob book reading" surprised the public outside the city's main library.
For Pullman and Dexter the planned closures around Oxford have a particular irony. In September they were at the forefront of the city's bid to become Unesco's World Book Capital in 2014. "At the time we had the meetings I said we would have a wonderful chance," said Dexter. "But if the committee come along to Somertown in North Oxford we would have to take them and show them a library building with boarded-up windows. It is a sad commentary and what makes a lot of us very cross is that the argument deployed in defence is simply to ask us what we would cut. We are here to say that this is a terrible, shameful business."
Oxfordshire County Council believes the library cuts could save £2m over four years and is offering an option for local groups to bid for grants and then run libraries voluntarily. ...
Not the least of the pleasures the North African revolutions are bringing is the look of astonishment on the face of the foreign policy establishment. The world has become a constant source of surprise for diplomats and ministers, as each news bulletins lands a fresh blow on their crumbling certainties. "Tunisia, who knew?" "Egypt? Egypt! WTF?" So lost has Whitehall become, Alistair Burt, the Middle East minister, admits that the Foreign Office no longer understood foreign affairs. "The tide is turning very strongly," he sighed. "It's not for us to sit here in London and work out where that tide is going to go."
We are witnessing a diplomatic failure as great as the failure to predict the collapse of Soviet communism. Revolts in the Arab world are coming in a manner and from a quarter the experts never expected. With luck, we are also seeing the end of one of the most discreditable episodes in British diplomacy since Chamberlain and Halifax appeased the European fascists in the 1930s.
Like America and France, Britain has sought to charm the Arab dictators and not only in Cairo and Riyadh. WikiLeaks tells us that in the interests of "realism" and "stability", the Foreign Office also embraced the unhinged Muammar Gaddafi and briefed the old despot's courtiers on how they could secure the release of the Lockerbie bomber, before the courts had acquitted him of responsibility for the worst murder in recent British history.
What set the Foreign Office apart from other cynical western chancelleries was that it was not content with appeasing today's secular dictators. It went on to embrace the theocrats of the Muslim Brotherhood it expected to become the religious dictators of the future. At no time did it seek to promote the interests of those in Egypt, Tunisia, Syria and elsewhere who do not wish to live under dictatorship in any of its forms.
Appeasement is a slippery tactic. Diplomats convince themselves they are "engaging" with repulsive movements because the national interest demands it. But the longer they engage the more willing they become to take the side of their partners and find excuses for their life-denying ideologies. A series of leaks to the Observer from a brave Foreign Office civil servant called Derek Pasquill showed that Britain never spent a moment worrying about what Muslim Brotherhood rule would mean for the Christian and Bahá'í religious minorities, or for Egypt's democrats, liberals, trade unionists, women and homosexuals.
Typical of Whitehall's casuistry was a briefing by Mockbul Ali, a graduate of the religious right, the Foreign Office hired as an adviser. He told ministers that Yusuf al-Qaradawi, one of the Brotherhood's favourite theologians, was a mainstream figure Britain should do business with. He neglected to mention the cleric's endorsement of wife-beating and female genital mutilation and of the murder of gays, Jews and Muslim "apostates".
The careers of Foreign Office diplomats provide a measure of how compromised Whitehall became. Frances Guy, the head of the Engaging with the Islamic World Group, which led the drive to support radical Islam, give it aid money and involve the Brotherhood in British foreign policy, is now our ambassador to Lebanon, from where she writes sinister blog posts announcing her admiration for the leaders of Hezbollah . Derek Pasquill lost his job, his home and his marriage for blowing the whistle. Such was the price of defending liberal values in "liberal" Britain. ...
We are witnessing a diplomatic failure as great as the failure to predict the collapse of Soviet communism. Revolts in the Arab world are coming in a manner and from a quarter the experts never expected. With luck, we are also seeing the end of one of the most discreditable episodes in British diplomacy since Chamberlain and Halifax appeased the European fascists in the 1930s.
Like America and France, Britain has sought to charm the Arab dictators and not only in Cairo and Riyadh. WikiLeaks tells us that in the interests of "realism" and "stability", the Foreign Office also embraced the unhinged Muammar Gaddafi and briefed the old despot's courtiers on how they could secure the release of the Lockerbie bomber, before the courts had acquitted him of responsibility for the worst murder in recent British history.
What set the Foreign Office apart from other cynical western chancelleries was that it was not content with appeasing today's secular dictators. It went on to embrace the theocrats of the Muslim Brotherhood it expected to become the religious dictators of the future. At no time did it seek to promote the interests of those in Egypt, Tunisia, Syria and elsewhere who do not wish to live under dictatorship in any of its forms.
Appeasement is a slippery tactic. Diplomats convince themselves they are "engaging" with repulsive movements because the national interest demands it. But the longer they engage the more willing they become to take the side of their partners and find excuses for their life-denying ideologies. A series of leaks to the Observer from a brave Foreign Office civil servant called Derek Pasquill showed that Britain never spent a moment worrying about what Muslim Brotherhood rule would mean for the Christian and Bahá'í religious minorities, or for Egypt's democrats, liberals, trade unionists, women and homosexuals.
Typical of Whitehall's casuistry was a briefing by Mockbul Ali, a graduate of the religious right, the Foreign Office hired as an adviser. He told ministers that Yusuf al-Qaradawi, one of the Brotherhood's favourite theologians, was a mainstream figure Britain should do business with. He neglected to mention the cleric's endorsement of wife-beating and female genital mutilation and of the murder of gays, Jews and Muslim "apostates".
The careers of Foreign Office diplomats provide a measure of how compromised Whitehall became. Frances Guy, the head of the Engaging with the Islamic World Group, which led the drive to support radical Islam, give it aid money and involve the Brotherhood in British foreign policy, is now our ambassador to Lebanon, from where she writes sinister blog posts announcing her admiration for the leaders of Hezbollah . Derek Pasquill lost his job, his home and his marriage for blowing the whistle. Such was the price of defending liberal values in "liberal" Britain. ...
David Cameron was accused of playing into the hands of rightwing extremists today as he delivered a controversial speech on the failings of multiculturalism within hours of one of the biggest anti-Islam rallies ever staged in Britain.
Muslim and anti-fascist groups questioned the prime minister's judgment and sensitivity to the issues, saying he had handed a propaganda coup to the hard-right English Defence League as 3,000 of its supporters marched through Luton chanting anti-Islamic slogans.
Some of crowd were jubilant, saying that Cameron "had come round to our way of thinking". Paul Bradburn, 35, from Stockport, said Cameron was "coming out against extremism".
He added: "The timing of his speech is quite weird as it comes on the day of one of the biggest EDL demos we've ever seen. If he wants to start sticking up for us, that's great."
Matt, 16, a school pupil in Birmingham who was at the march said: "He believes what we believe to some extent."
Downing Street issued a robust defence saying the prime minister was "absolutely unapologetic".
A spokeswoman said the speech had been "in the diary for months". She added: "The idea that he would be blown off course on an issue as fundamental as this by the English Defence League is ridiculous and extraordinary."
Cameron told the Munich Security Conference, attended by world leaders, that state multiculturalism had failed in this country and pledged to cut funding for Muslim groups that failed to respect basic British values.
He blamed the radicalisation of Muslim youths and the phenomenon of home-grown terrorism on the sense of alienation that builds among young people living in separate communities and the "hands-off tolerance" of groups that peddle separatist ideology. ...
Muslim and anti-fascist groups questioned the prime minister's judgment and sensitivity to the issues, saying he had handed a propaganda coup to the hard-right English Defence League as 3,000 of its supporters marched through Luton chanting anti-Islamic slogans.
Some of crowd were jubilant, saying that Cameron "had come round to our way of thinking". Paul Bradburn, 35, from Stockport, said Cameron was "coming out against extremism".
He added: "The timing of his speech is quite weird as it comes on the day of one of the biggest EDL demos we've ever seen. If he wants to start sticking up for us, that's great."
Matt, 16, a school pupil in Birmingham who was at the march said: "He believes what we believe to some extent."
Downing Street issued a robust defence saying the prime minister was "absolutely unapologetic".
A spokeswoman said the speech had been "in the diary for months". She added: "The idea that he would be blown off course on an issue as fundamental as this by the English Defence League is ridiculous and extraordinary."
Cameron told the Munich Security Conference, attended by world leaders, that state multiculturalism had failed in this country and pledged to cut funding for Muslim groups that failed to respect basic British values.
He blamed the radicalisation of Muslim youths and the phenomenon of home-grown terrorism on the sense of alienation that builds among young people living in separate communities and the "hands-off tolerance" of groups that peddle separatist ideology. ...
Genetically modified crops will be allowed to enter the UK food chain without the need for regulatory clearance for the first time under controversial plans expected to be approved this week.
The Observer understands that the UK intends to back EU plans permitting the importing of animal feed containing traces of unauthorised GM crops in a move that has alarmed environmental groups.
Importing animal feed containing GM feed must at present be authorised by European regulators. But a vote on Tuesday in favour of the scheme put forward by the EU's standing committee on the food chain and animal health would overturn the EU's "zero tolerance" policy towards the import of unauthorised GM crops.
The move would mark a significant victory for the GM lobby, which has pushed for a relaxation of the blanket ban for years.Environmental groups claim the GM industry wants to use the presence of unauthorised organisms in animal feed as part of a wider strategy to promote its technology.
"The GM industry is pushing this proposal so it can wedge its foot firmly in the door and open up the British and European markets to food no one wants to eat," said Helen Wallace, director of GeneWatch UK, which campaigns against GM food. "Its long-term aim is to contaminate the food chain to such an extent that GM-free food will disappear."
Relaxing the EU's zero-tolerance position would greatly benefit US feed exporters. The push for Europe to drop its zero-tolerance policy began in 2009 after EU authorities found traces of GM maize in soy shipments from the US and refused to allow its entry. Such recalls are expensive and those affected are unlikely to receive compensation. ...
The Observer understands that the UK intends to back EU plans permitting the importing of animal feed containing traces of unauthorised GM crops in a move that has alarmed environmental groups.
Importing animal feed containing GM feed must at present be authorised by European regulators. But a vote on Tuesday in favour of the scheme put forward by the EU's standing committee on the food chain and animal health would overturn the EU's "zero tolerance" policy towards the import of unauthorised GM crops.
The move would mark a significant victory for the GM lobby, which has pushed for a relaxation of the blanket ban for years.Environmental groups claim the GM industry wants to use the presence of unauthorised organisms in animal feed as part of a wider strategy to promote its technology.
"The GM industry is pushing this proposal so it can wedge its foot firmly in the door and open up the British and European markets to food no one wants to eat," said Helen Wallace, director of GeneWatch UK, which campaigns against GM food. "Its long-term aim is to contaminate the food chain to such an extent that GM-free food will disappear."
Relaxing the EU's zero-tolerance position would greatly benefit US feed exporters. The push for Europe to drop its zero-tolerance policy began in 2009 after EU authorities found traces of GM maize in soy shipments from the US and refused to allow its entry. Such recalls are expensive and those affected are unlikely to receive compensation. ...
The coalition was accused of leaving vulnerable people at the mercy of loan sharks after deciding that it would not provide fresh funding for a series of schemes aimed at helping households stay out of debt.
Ministers have said there will be no money for the Financial Inclusion Fund, which bankrolled debt advice services, when funding ends this year. The government is also refusing to guarantee the future of the Growth Fund – which dispensed low-interest loans. The Saving Gateway fund, which encouraged those on tax credits and benefits to save, has also been axed.
Between them, the three funds had received £200m of taxpayers' money since they were created by the previous government.But the timing of the decision to discontinue funding has dismayed debt experts. Last Friday, it emerged that 135,000 people were declared insolvent in England and Wales last year, the highest figure since 1960.
Doubts about the future of the Growth Fund, which aims to increase the availability of affordable credit by working with not-for-profit lenders, have particularly alarmed debt experts.
The Department for Work and Pensions said that "no decisions have yet been made regarding future funding options for the Growth Fund".
More than 430,000 applications for loans were made to the fund from July 2006 to December 2010. Of these, more than 370,000 loans totalling almost £161m were approved.
"If these services disappear, there's a very real danger that loan sharks and doorstep lenders will fill the void and suck people into chronic levels of debt and hardship," said David Orr, chief executive of the National Housing Federation, which represents England's housing associations and runs a scheme, My Home Finance, providing low-cost loans for borrowers using money from the Growth Fund. ...
Ministers have said there will be no money for the Financial Inclusion Fund, which bankrolled debt advice services, when funding ends this year. The government is also refusing to guarantee the future of the Growth Fund – which dispensed low-interest loans. The Saving Gateway fund, which encouraged those on tax credits and benefits to save, has also been axed.
Between them, the three funds had received £200m of taxpayers' money since they were created by the previous government.But the timing of the decision to discontinue funding has dismayed debt experts. Last Friday, it emerged that 135,000 people were declared insolvent in England and Wales last year, the highest figure since 1960.
Doubts about the future of the Growth Fund, which aims to increase the availability of affordable credit by working with not-for-profit lenders, have particularly alarmed debt experts.
The Department for Work and Pensions said that "no decisions have yet been made regarding future funding options for the Growth Fund".
More than 430,000 applications for loans were made to the fund from July 2006 to December 2010. Of these, more than 370,000 loans totalling almost £161m were approved.
"If these services disappear, there's a very real danger that loan sharks and doorstep lenders will fill the void and suck people into chronic levels of debt and hardship," said David Orr, chief executive of the National Housing Federation, which represents England's housing associations and runs a scheme, My Home Finance, providing low-cost loans for borrowers using money from the Growth Fund. ...
Andy Coulson was aware that phone hacking was taking place at Rupert Murdoch's newspaper empire and "told others to do it", a former executive at the News of the World told MPs.
In written evidence given to the home affairs select committee and published for the first time today, Paul McMullan, a former features executive and investigative journalist at the title, said former editor Coulson "knew a lot of people" used the technique when Coulson worked at sister paper the Sun. He joined the News of the World in 2003, where he worked alongside McMullan for 18 months.
McMullan said: "As he sat a few feet from me in the [News of the World] newsroom he probably heard me doing it, laughing about it … and told others to do it".
Coulson, who last month quit as David Cameron's director of communications, worked at the Sun for more than a decade before joining the News of the World.
"Andy Coulson knew a lot of people did it at the Sun on his Bizarre [showbiz] column and after that at the NOTW," McMullan claimed.
McMullan, who is now a pub landlord, also described a flourishing trade in private information at the News of the World, which he said was regularly supplied with details of celebrities' medical records and mobile phone pin numbers.
"People who worked for Vodaphone [sic] etc would sometimes ring up the newsdesk offering to sell numbers and codes of stars' phones," he said, "as indeed people at the tax office, people in doctors' receptions."
In separate evidence also published today, Vodafone told the committee: "A small minority of customers were targeted by unscrupulous individuals."
The company said it had passed all evidence to the police during their 2006 investigation into phone hacking carried out by former News of the World journalist Clive Goodman and private investigator Glenn Mulcaire.
McMullan told the Guardian last year that Coulson must have been well aware the practice was "pretty widespread".
Coulson has continued to deny this. ...
In written evidence given to the home affairs select committee and published for the first time today, Paul McMullan, a former features executive and investigative journalist at the title, said former editor Coulson "knew a lot of people" used the technique when Coulson worked at sister paper the Sun. He joined the News of the World in 2003, where he worked alongside McMullan for 18 months.
McMullan said: "As he sat a few feet from me in the [News of the World] newsroom he probably heard me doing it, laughing about it … and told others to do it".
Coulson, who last month quit as David Cameron's director of communications, worked at the Sun for more than a decade before joining the News of the World.
"Andy Coulson knew a lot of people did it at the Sun on his Bizarre [showbiz] column and after that at the NOTW," McMullan claimed.
McMullan, who is now a pub landlord, also described a flourishing trade in private information at the News of the World, which he said was regularly supplied with details of celebrities' medical records and mobile phone pin numbers.
"People who worked for Vodaphone [sic] etc would sometimes ring up the newsdesk offering to sell numbers and codes of stars' phones," he said, "as indeed people at the tax office, people in doctors' receptions."
In separate evidence also published today, Vodafone told the committee: "A small minority of customers were targeted by unscrupulous individuals."
The company said it had passed all evidence to the police during their 2006 investigation into phone hacking carried out by former News of the World journalist Clive Goodman and private investigator Glenn Mulcaire.
McMullan told the Guardian last year that Coulson must have been well aware the practice was "pretty widespread".
Coulson has continued to deny this. ...
China has penetrated the Foreign Office's internal communications in the most audacious example yet of the growing threat posed by state-sponsored cyber-attacks, it emerged tonight.
William Hague told a security conference in Munich that the FO repelled the attack last month from "a hostile state intelligence agency". Although the foreign secretary did not name the country behind the attacks, intelligence sources familiar with the incidents made it clear he was referring to China. The sources did not want to be identified because of the sensitive nature of the issue.
In his speech Hague was reflecting growing anger and concern within the government about the increasing threat posed by cyber-espionage – states, as well as individuals, using cyberspace to steal defence, diplomatic and commercial secrets.
"It is a new development. The UK is prepared to admit the attacks were state-backed," said Alexander Neill, head of the Asia programme at the Royal United Services Institute thinktank.
The foreign secretary said the FO attack came in the form of an email sent to three of his staff "which claimed to be about a forthcoming visit to the region and looked quite innocent". "In fact it was from a hostile state intelligence agency and contained computer code embedded in the attached document that would have attacked their machine. Luckily, our systems identified it and stopped it from ever reaching my staff," Hague said.
In another attack last year, the foreign secretary said Britain's defence industry was "deliberately" targeted. "A malicious file posing as a report on a nuclear Trident missile was sent to a defence contractor by someone masquerading as an employee of another defence contractor," Hague told an audience of western officials and businessmen. "Security meant that the email was detected and blocked, but its purpose was undoubtedly to steal information relating to our most sensitive defence projects."
Hague admitted that a third attack, apparently criminal, had succeeded in evading Britain's defences, with a version of the Zeus malware widely used to extract banking information and other personal details from targeted computers.
"In late December a spoof email purporting to be from the White House was sent to a large number of international recipients who were directed to click on a link that then downloaded a variant of Zeus," Hague said. "The UK government was targeted in this attack and a large number of emails bypassed some of our filters. Our experts were able to clear up the infection, but more sophisticated attacks such as these are becoming more common." ...
William Hague told a security conference in Munich that the FO repelled the attack last month from "a hostile state intelligence agency". Although the foreign secretary did not name the country behind the attacks, intelligence sources familiar with the incidents made it clear he was referring to China. The sources did not want to be identified because of the sensitive nature of the issue.
In his speech Hague was reflecting growing anger and concern within the government about the increasing threat posed by cyber-espionage – states, as well as individuals, using cyberspace to steal defence, diplomatic and commercial secrets.
"It is a new development. The UK is prepared to admit the attacks were state-backed," said Alexander Neill, head of the Asia programme at the Royal United Services Institute thinktank.
The foreign secretary said the FO attack came in the form of an email sent to three of his staff "which claimed to be about a forthcoming visit to the region and looked quite innocent". "In fact it was from a hostile state intelligence agency and contained computer code embedded in the attached document that would have attacked their machine. Luckily, our systems identified it and stopped it from ever reaching my staff," Hague said.
In another attack last year, the foreign secretary said Britain's defence industry was "deliberately" targeted. "A malicious file posing as a report on a nuclear Trident missile was sent to a defence contractor by someone masquerading as an employee of another defence contractor," Hague told an audience of western officials and businessmen. "Security meant that the email was detected and blocked, but its purpose was undoubtedly to steal information relating to our most sensitive defence projects."
Hague admitted that a third attack, apparently criminal, had succeeded in evading Britain's defences, with a version of the Zeus malware widely used to extract banking information and other personal details from targeted computers.
"In late December a spoof email purporting to be from the White House was sent to a large number of international recipients who were directed to click on a link that then downloaded a variant of Zeus," Hague said. "The UK government was targeted in this attack and a large number of emails bypassed some of our filters. Our experts were able to clear up the infection, but more sophisticated attacks such as these are becoming more common." ...
Dozens of foreign journalists were arrested, attacked and beaten yesterday as the Egyptian government and its supporters embarked on what the US state department called a concerted campaign to intimidate the international media.
Human rights workers also fell victim to crowd violence, while police raided the offices of two groups in Cairo, the Hisham Mubarak Law Centre and the Centre for Economic and Social Rights, and arrested observers. Amnesty International said one of its staff was detained at the law centre, with a Human Rights Watch colleague.
A group of reporters from Daily News Egypt, an independent, English-language paper, were among those targeted. They were set upon by a group of passers-by in Dokki, west of the Nile, that quickly swelled into a 50-strong crowd after they ventured out of their offices to investigate a story about rising petrol prices.
"It was terrifying," said Amira Ahmed, the publication's business editor. "They were chanting: 'We've found the foreigners, don't let them go,' and calling us traitors and spies. When I pointed out to them that I was Egyptian, they responded: 'Your Egypt isn't the same as ours.'"
Like many who were caught up in similar incidents today, Ahmed said the most chilling part of the encounter was the mob mentality that took hold. "We had one French journalist with us who we managed to put in a taxi and get to safety. But the people who were showing up had no idea why we were the targets. They just took up the cry of 'foreigners' and 'journalists' and joined in. There was no leader we could appeal to for reason."
Ahmed and her companions agreed to be handed over to the army to avoid provoking any more violence. On the way, they were followed by men on motorbikes and one youth who clung to the trunk of their cab. The army took custody of them and released them without harm. "I've never felt unsafe in Egypt before. I always felt that if anything ever happened to me on the street here, other Egyptians would come in to protect me," said Ahmed.
"But today was different and it was horrible. There was no logic to any of it; people are divided and people are raging, and they're casting out for targets to direct that rage against."
The Egyptian interior ministry arrested more than 20 foreign journalists in Cairo, including the Washington Post's bureau chief and a photographer. Al-Jazeera said three of its journalists were detained. ...
Human rights workers also fell victim to crowd violence, while police raided the offices of two groups in Cairo, the Hisham Mubarak Law Centre and the Centre for Economic and Social Rights, and arrested observers. Amnesty International said one of its staff was detained at the law centre, with a Human Rights Watch colleague.
A group of reporters from Daily News Egypt, an independent, English-language paper, were among those targeted. They were set upon by a group of passers-by in Dokki, west of the Nile, that quickly swelled into a 50-strong crowd after they ventured out of their offices to investigate a story about rising petrol prices.
"It was terrifying," said Amira Ahmed, the publication's business editor. "They were chanting: 'We've found the foreigners, don't let them go,' and calling us traitors and spies. When I pointed out to them that I was Egyptian, they responded: 'Your Egypt isn't the same as ours.'"
Like many who were caught up in similar incidents today, Ahmed said the most chilling part of the encounter was the mob mentality that took hold. "We had one French journalist with us who we managed to put in a taxi and get to safety. But the people who were showing up had no idea why we were the targets. They just took up the cry of 'foreigners' and 'journalists' and joined in. There was no leader we could appeal to for reason."
Ahmed and her companions agreed to be handed over to the army to avoid provoking any more violence. On the way, they were followed by men on motorbikes and one youth who clung to the trunk of their cab. The army took custody of them and released them without harm. "I've never felt unsafe in Egypt before. I always felt that if anything ever happened to me on the street here, other Egyptians would come in to protect me," said Ahmed.
"But today was different and it was horrible. There was no logic to any of it; people are divided and people are raging, and they're casting out for targets to direct that rage against."
The Egyptian interior ministry arrested more than 20 foreign journalists in Cairo, including the Washington Post's bureau chief and a photographer. Al-Jazeera said three of its journalists were detained. ...
Sir George Young, the leader of the house of Commons, today delivered a devastating critique of the expenses watchdog as it published the latest tranche of claims, naming and shaming 125 MPs who had claims rejected.
The list includes the ministers Ed Davey, Ed Vaizey Maria Miller and Peter Luff and Labour grandees, among them Jack Straw and Harriet Harman.
The Conservative MP for Loughborough, Nicky Morgan, had a £77 claim for hosting a "big society" reception rejected, though it was subsequently resubmitted and paid, and her colleague in Hereford, Jesse Norman, had the largest sum rejected – £1,504.01 for furniture for his office.
Overall, the rejected claims amounted to just £15,352 out of the total £3.64m expenses bill for September and October.
The number of MPs rejected has fallen substantially compared with the first four months of the new scheme, which was introduced to clean up the expenses system after the scandal that rocked parliament in 2009.
But today is the first time those who have had their expenses rejected have been named.
Young published his official response to a consultation on the future of the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority (Ipsa) moments before the latest tranche of expenses was revealed.
In it, he accused Ipsa of "failing" to support MPs in their work, and said it had "unsatisfactory features" which are "at best distracting, and at worst impeding".
He called for widespread reforms, but insisted Ipsa should remain independent of the House of Commons. It is understood that the prime minister, David Cameron, has seen the document. ...
The list includes the ministers Ed Davey, Ed Vaizey Maria Miller and Peter Luff and Labour grandees, among them Jack Straw and Harriet Harman.
The Conservative MP for Loughborough, Nicky Morgan, had a £77 claim for hosting a "big society" reception rejected, though it was subsequently resubmitted and paid, and her colleague in Hereford, Jesse Norman, had the largest sum rejected – £1,504.01 for furniture for his office.
Overall, the rejected claims amounted to just £15,352 out of the total £3.64m expenses bill for September and October.
The number of MPs rejected has fallen substantially compared with the first four months of the new scheme, which was introduced to clean up the expenses system after the scandal that rocked parliament in 2009.
But today is the first time those who have had their expenses rejected have been named.
Young published his official response to a consultation on the future of the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority (Ipsa) moments before the latest tranche of expenses was revealed.
In it, he accused Ipsa of "failing" to support MPs in their work, and said it had "unsatisfactory features" which are "at best distracting, and at worst impeding".
He called for widespread reforms, but insisted Ipsa should remain independent of the House of Commons. It is understood that the prime minister, David Cameron, has seen the document. ...
Some passengers fail to understand why they are prevented from opening the window, while others would like the engines to be "turned down" to reduce the noise.
The foolish and sometimes bizarre questions asked of flight attendants were disclosed after 3,000 Virgin Atlantic cabin crew members listed the most unusual customer requests they had experienced.
Among the most common queries was "Please can you open the window?", from uncomfortable passengers who had failed to appreciate the benefits of a pressurised cabin at 35,000 feet.
Other unique questions fielded by Virgin staff included "Could you turn the engines down because they are too noisy?" and "Please can the Captain stop the turbulence?"
The survey of 3,000 cabin crew also laid bare the level of comfort and service some customers expect, with several asking flight attendants "Can you show me to the showers?" ...
The foolish and sometimes bizarre questions asked of flight attendants were disclosed after 3,000 Virgin Atlantic cabin crew members listed the most unusual customer requests they had experienced.
Among the most common queries was "Please can you open the window?", from uncomfortable passengers who had failed to appreciate the benefits of a pressurised cabin at 35,000 feet.
Other unique questions fielded by Virgin staff included "Could you turn the engines down because they are too noisy?" and "Please can the Captain stop the turbulence?"
The survey of 3,000 cabin crew also laid bare the level of comfort and service some customers expect, with several asking flight attendants "Can you show me to the showers?" ...
Former Labour MP Jim Devine, accused of submitting false invoices for parliamentary expenses, claimed the cash to clear his overdraft, a court heard yesterday.
Devine, 57, who represented Livingston in Scotland, is alleged to have submitted five false invoices for cleaning and maintenance work to his London flat, and two false documents to claim for printing leaflets, totalling almost £9,000. But, Southwark crown court in London heard, none of the work was carried out. When confronted Devine tried to blame a secretary who he said was trying to frame him.
Devine, whose main residence was in Bathgate, West Lothian, denies two counts of false accounting. Peter Wright QC, prosecuting, told jurors the case was "very straightforward". Devine was almost always overdrawn. One invoice for £2,400 was sufficient to "extinguish his overdraft" but only for a day.
"This was, we say, quite a memorable event as it was the only day in the history of his bank account between July 2008 and May 2009 when he was actually in funds," said Wright. The following month he was in £8,000 debt, and is said to have submitted another claim, this time for £3,105.
It is alleged between July 2008 and May 2009 Devine dishonestly claimed £3,240 for cleaning services from Tom O'Donnell Hygiene and Cleaning Services, a company run by the landlord of Devine's local pub in south-east London.
Although a cleaner employed by O'Donnell did some cleaning work at the flat, Devine carried on using a blank invoice given to him by the publican to claim for further work that was not done.
Invoices totalling £5,505 were claimed for stationery from Armstrong Printing Ltd, but, said Wright, "the invoices were fiction. No such costs had been incurred."
Rules and regulations on submitting expenses were set out in the Green Book, a guide listing the fundamental principles MPs should adhere to when making claims. "These are based on concepts of selflessness, integrity, objectivity, accountability, openness, honesty and leadership," said Wright. "We say these are qualities of which Mr Devine demonstrated a woeful inadequacy." ...
Devine, 57, who represented Livingston in Scotland, is alleged to have submitted five false invoices for cleaning and maintenance work to his London flat, and two false documents to claim for printing leaflets, totalling almost £9,000. But, Southwark crown court in London heard, none of the work was carried out. When confronted Devine tried to blame a secretary who he said was trying to frame him.
Devine, whose main residence was in Bathgate, West Lothian, denies two counts of false accounting. Peter Wright QC, prosecuting, told jurors the case was "very straightforward". Devine was almost always overdrawn. One invoice for £2,400 was sufficient to "extinguish his overdraft" but only for a day.
"This was, we say, quite a memorable event as it was the only day in the history of his bank account between July 2008 and May 2009 when he was actually in funds," said Wright. The following month he was in £8,000 debt, and is said to have submitted another claim, this time for £3,105.
It is alleged between July 2008 and May 2009 Devine dishonestly claimed £3,240 for cleaning services from Tom O'Donnell Hygiene and Cleaning Services, a company run by the landlord of Devine's local pub in south-east London.
Although a cleaner employed by O'Donnell did some cleaning work at the flat, Devine carried on using a blank invoice given to him by the publican to claim for further work that was not done.
Invoices totalling £5,505 were claimed for stationery from Armstrong Printing Ltd, but, said Wright, "the invoices were fiction. No such costs had been incurred."
Rules and regulations on submitting expenses were set out in the Green Book, a guide listing the fundamental principles MPs should adhere to when making claims. "These are based on concepts of selflessness, integrity, objectivity, accountability, openness, honesty and leadership," said Wright. "We say these are qualities of which Mr Devine demonstrated a woeful inadequacy." ...
The security services were unable to identify the ringleader of a terrorist gang before it struck London on 7 July 2005, despite having his picture and having seen him associating with other terrorist suspects, the inquest into the 52 deaths heard today.
Mohammad Sidique Khan was spotted by MI5 on the periphery of another terror plot as early as 2003, and was seen with suspected terrorists. Khan was groomed through contact with other suspected terrorists progressing from "an associate of terrorists to prime conspirator and murderer", said Hugo Keith QC, counsel to the inquests, in a statement assessing whether the attacks could have been prevented.
Security services did not believe Khan was a high priority and did not connect different pieces of information relating to him, including training at terrorist camps and having an interest in "martyrdom operations". Various sources pointed towards an individual in the West Yorkshire area, but the authorities never uncovered Khan's full name until he led the biggest mass murder on UK soil.
Several different men linked to different terrorism plots were shown photographs of Khan before the attacks, but they failed to recognise him. Khan was also linked to a number of different vehicles – a blue BMW, a green Honda Civic, and a green Vauxhall Astra – used to hold or travel to meetings with suspected terrorist ringleaders.
Keith told Lady Justice Hallett, who is sitting as the coroner: "One issue that my lady may need to explore, in particular with the security service, is whether it is fair to say that the threads of Mohammad Sidique Khan's graduation from an associate of terrorists to prime conspirator and murderer were in fact there to see.
"Was it simply a question of tying threads together? And that process, the process of tying those threads together, should, it may be argued, be carried out, not only as part of an investigation into those who may already have formed their plans, but also by aggressive investigation of those who may be in the process of radicalisation." ...
Mohammad Sidique Khan was spotted by MI5 on the periphery of another terror plot as early as 2003, and was seen with suspected terrorists. Khan was groomed through contact with other suspected terrorists progressing from "an associate of terrorists to prime conspirator and murderer", said Hugo Keith QC, counsel to the inquests, in a statement assessing whether the attacks could have been prevented.
Security services did not believe Khan was a high priority and did not connect different pieces of information relating to him, including training at terrorist camps and having an interest in "martyrdom operations". Various sources pointed towards an individual in the West Yorkshire area, but the authorities never uncovered Khan's full name until he led the biggest mass murder on UK soil.
Several different men linked to different terrorism plots were shown photographs of Khan before the attacks, but they failed to recognise him. Khan was also linked to a number of different vehicles – a blue BMW, a green Honda Civic, and a green Vauxhall Astra – used to hold or travel to meetings with suspected terrorist ringleaders.
Keith told Lady Justice Hallett, who is sitting as the coroner: "One issue that my lady may need to explore, in particular with the security service, is whether it is fair to say that the threads of Mohammad Sidique Khan's graduation from an associate of terrorists to prime conspirator and murderer were in fact there to see.
"Was it simply a question of tying threads together? And that process, the process of tying those threads together, should, it may be argued, be carried out, not only as part of an investigation into those who may already have formed their plans, but also by aggressive investigation of those who may be in the process of radicalisation." ...
Two out of three people believe the prime minister showed poor judgment in employing Andy Coulson as his Downing Street director of communications.
In an opinion poll carried out by ComRes for the Independent newspaper, 66% said they thought David Cameron should not have hired Coulson knowing he had resigned as editor of the News of the World over the phone-hacking scandal.
Coulson quit his role in the government 10 days ago after repeated inquiries into his knowledge of phone hacking at the News of the World, saying the affair limited his ability to devote himself to his job.
Nine out of 10 of those polled believe it is wrong for journalists to hack into the private telephone voicemail messages of celebrities and politicians.
The poll also showed that 67% thought the allegations of telephone hacking meant the newspaper industry should no longer regulate itself.
ComRes polled 1,002 adults over the weekend between the 28-30 January.
Last night, giving the Hugh Cudlipp memorial lecture in London, the editor of the Financial Times, Lionel Barber, warned that Britain's newspapers risked political "retribution" in the form of statutory regulation following the phone hacking scandal. He accused Rupert Murdoch's News International – publishers of the NoW – of failing to pursue a policy of "own up rather than cover up", and he criticised the bulk of the industry for failing to "take the issue seriously" because their titles may also have been implicated in the illegal practice.
In a trenchant lecture, he described "the phone hacking scandal" as a "watershed - not just for News International but also for tabloid journalism" arguing that a 2006 report by the Information Commissioner suggested that 305 journalists from a range of titles used the services of a private investigator. ...
In an opinion poll carried out by ComRes for the Independent newspaper, 66% said they thought David Cameron should not have hired Coulson knowing he had resigned as editor of the News of the World over the phone-hacking scandal.
Coulson quit his role in the government 10 days ago after repeated inquiries into his knowledge of phone hacking at the News of the World, saying the affair limited his ability to devote himself to his job.
Nine out of 10 of those polled believe it is wrong for journalists to hack into the private telephone voicemail messages of celebrities and politicians.
The poll also showed that 67% thought the allegations of telephone hacking meant the newspaper industry should no longer regulate itself.
ComRes polled 1,002 adults over the weekend between the 28-30 January.
Last night, giving the Hugh Cudlipp memorial lecture in London, the editor of the Financial Times, Lionel Barber, warned that Britain's newspapers risked political "retribution" in the form of statutory regulation following the phone hacking scandal. He accused Rupert Murdoch's News International – publishers of the NoW – of failing to pursue a policy of "own up rather than cover up", and he criticised the bulk of the industry for failing to "take the issue seriously" because their titles may also have been implicated in the illegal practice.
In a trenchant lecture, he described "the phone hacking scandal" as a "watershed - not just for News International but also for tabloid journalism" arguing that a 2006 report by the Information Commissioner suggested that 305 journalists from a range of titles used the services of a private investigator. ...
Undercover investigators have exposed the ease with which high-powered guns can be bought in the US, purchasing the same type of pistol used in the Tucson massacre just two weeks later in a neighbouring city – with no questions asked.
New York's mayor, Michael Bloomberg, sent a team of undercover agents to the Crossroads of the West gun show in Phoenix, Arizona, just 120 miles away from the scene of the Tucson shooting. There, on 23 January, they bought a Glock 9mm pistol of the kind wielded by Jared Loughner when he killed six people and wounded 13, including the US congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, at a public meeting in Tucson.
The agents filmed the gun sales using hidden cameras.
They bought a Glock 17 gun for $480 (£299) and three $40 extended magazines each holding 33 bullets. Loughner had a 33-round extended magazine attached to his Glock 19, allowing him to wreak carnage in Tucson by shooting multiple times.
The New York investigators bought the gun with no questions asked other than the requirement of an ID card.
Under current federal law, that sale was legal because of the so-called "gun show loophole" that allows occasional gun sellers to trade weapons without carrying out a background check to ensure that the purchaser is not mentally ill, a criminal, or a drug abuser. Such "private" sales are responsible for 40% of all gun sales in the US.
Of less certain legality was the purchase that the New York investigators went on to make of a SIG-Sauer SIG Pro 9mm pistol for $500, and a Smith & Wesson for $450. In both cases, the undercover agent admitted to the seller that they "probably couldn't pass a background check".
Under federal law even private sellers are not permitted to sell guns to any individual they "know", or have "reason to believe", is not eligible to own a gun. ...
New York's mayor, Michael Bloomberg, sent a team of undercover agents to the Crossroads of the West gun show in Phoenix, Arizona, just 120 miles away from the scene of the Tucson shooting. There, on 23 January, they bought a Glock 9mm pistol of the kind wielded by Jared Loughner when he killed six people and wounded 13, including the US congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, at a public meeting in Tucson.
The agents filmed the gun sales using hidden cameras.
They bought a Glock 17 gun for $480 (£299) and three $40 extended magazines each holding 33 bullets. Loughner had a 33-round extended magazine attached to his Glock 19, allowing him to wreak carnage in Tucson by shooting multiple times.
The New York investigators bought the gun with no questions asked other than the requirement of an ID card.
Under current federal law, that sale was legal because of the so-called "gun show loophole" that allows occasional gun sellers to trade weapons without carrying out a background check to ensure that the purchaser is not mentally ill, a criminal, or a drug abuser. Such "private" sales are responsible for 40% of all gun sales in the US.
Of less certain legality was the purchase that the New York investigators went on to make of a SIG-Sauer SIG Pro 9mm pistol for $500, and a Smith & Wesson for $450. In both cases, the undercover agent admitted to the seller that they "probably couldn't pass a background check".
Under federal law even private sellers are not permitted to sell guns to any individual they "know", or have "reason to believe", is not eligible to own a gun. ...
Tax avoidance protesters needed hospital treatment today after police used CS spray to break up a demonstration on Oxford Street in central London.
Hundreds of people staged peaceful sit-ins at high street stores around the country as part of the latest UK Uncut day of action, designed to highlight companies it says are avoiding millions of pounds in tax.
In London protesters had successfully closed down Boots in Oxford Street – one of the companies campaigners accuse of tax avoidance – when police tried to arrest a woman for pushing a leaflet through the store's doors. Other demonstrators tried to stop the arrest and at least one police officer used CS spray, which hospitalised three people.
Jed Weightman, one of those who went to hospital, said protesters had joined hands to try and prevent the arrest.
"One police officer sprayed towards us and because I was tall I got a lot of it in my face," he said. "My eyes were streaming and I couldn't see anything."
Earlier this week Sir Hugh Orde, president of the Association of Chief Police Officers, said police could adopt more extreme tactics to counter the growing wave of protests, and hinted that UK Uncut demonstrators could face criminal and civil charges if they invaded shops during today's protests.
Activists reacted angrily to yesterday's events, claiming the police had been "heavy handed and disproportionate."
Anna Williams, who saw the incident, said: "This is yet another example of political policing that is about protecting corporate interests and not those of ordinary people ... We have a right to protest when the government are making unnecessary cuts that will hit the poorest in our society the hardest."
Protesters said staff at Boots had been shocked by the police tactics, and took those who were suffering from the effects of CS spray into the store and offered them free eye wash.
"The staff at Boots were fantastic and took us inside and gave us free treatment," said Gordon Maloney, 20, one of the other protesters who was hit by the CS spray. "My eyes were really streaming and my face hurt but I was most struck by the violence used by the police. I have been on a lot of demonstrations and have not seen anything like this before." ...
Hundreds of people staged peaceful sit-ins at high street stores around the country as part of the latest UK Uncut day of action, designed to highlight companies it says are avoiding millions of pounds in tax.
In London protesters had successfully closed down Boots in Oxford Street – one of the companies campaigners accuse of tax avoidance – when police tried to arrest a woman for pushing a leaflet through the store's doors. Other demonstrators tried to stop the arrest and at least one police officer used CS spray, which hospitalised three people.
Jed Weightman, one of those who went to hospital, said protesters had joined hands to try and prevent the arrest.
"One police officer sprayed towards us and because I was tall I got a lot of it in my face," he said. "My eyes were streaming and I couldn't see anything."
Earlier this week Sir Hugh Orde, president of the Association of Chief Police Officers, said police could adopt more extreme tactics to counter the growing wave of protests, and hinted that UK Uncut demonstrators could face criminal and civil charges if they invaded shops during today's protests.
Activists reacted angrily to yesterday's events, claiming the police had been "heavy handed and disproportionate."
Anna Williams, who saw the incident, said: "This is yet another example of political policing that is about protecting corporate interests and not those of ordinary people ... We have a right to protest when the government are making unnecessary cuts that will hit the poorest in our society the hardest."
Protesters said staff at Boots had been shocked by the police tactics, and took those who were suffering from the effects of CS spray into the store and offered them free eye wash.
"The staff at Boots were fantastic and took us inside and gave us free treatment," said Gordon Maloney, 20, one of the other protesters who was hit by the CS spray. "My eyes were really streaming and my face hurt but I was most struck by the violence used by the police. I have been on a lot of demonstrations and have not seen anything like this before." ...
Belgium waits. And waits. And waits
As politicians of seven parties can't unite, Belgium nears the record time for a country being without a government
Sanne Rooseboom
Sunday 30 January 2011
It's an unwieldy title but Belgium could soon be named World Champion in Not Forming a Government. The country has been in limbo since June, with coalition talks between the seven parties constantly breaking down. The latest mediator, appointed by King Albert II, resigned last week, complaining that he couldn't even get all the parties around one table. If the politicians haven't sorted out their differences by 17 February, the paralysis will have lasted for 250 days, and the record will be in the bag.
Parties representing Belgium's two communities, the 6 million Dutch-speaking Flemings and 4.5 million French-speaking Walloons, have struggled to cooperate before. But Belgium surpassed its own national record when it hit 194 days in December and is well on its way to beating Iraq, which dithered for 249 days after the 2010 elections....
As politicians of seven parties can't unite, Belgium nears the record time for a country being without a government
Sanne Rooseboom
Sunday 30 January 2011
It's an unwieldy title but Belgium could soon be named World Champion in Not Forming a Government. The country has been in limbo since June, with coalition talks between the seven parties constantly breaking down. The latest mediator, appointed by King Albert II, resigned last week, complaining that he couldn't even get all the parties around one table. If the politicians haven't sorted out their differences by 17 February, the paralysis will have lasted for 250 days, and the record will be in the bag.
Parties representing Belgium's two communities, the 6 million Dutch-speaking Flemings and 4.5 million French-speaking Walloons, have struggled to cooperate before. But Belgium surpassed its own national record when it hit 194 days in December and is well on its way to beating Iraq, which dithered for 249 days after the 2010 elections....
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Airlines are suspending flights and adjusting schedules to and from Cairo to work around Egypt’s nationwide curfew, as violent anti-government street protests against President Hosni Mubarak’s governance continue across the country.
Mobile phone and internet networks have been cut across Egypt, including in tourist resorts close to the Red Sea and Egyptair’s website has reportedly been down since Friday. ...
Mobile phone and internet networks have been cut across Egypt, including in tourist resorts close to the Red Sea and Egyptair’s website has reportedly been down since Friday. ...
It should have been a chance to trumpet recovery in cosy Alpine surroundings. At Davos, David Cameron and George Osborne wanted to sell British austerity, discipline and economic stability to the world's most powerful people. It didn't quite work out like that.
The week started with dismal figures showing that Britain's economy had shrunk by 0.5% in the final quarter of 2010 and that questions were being asked about deficit-cutting without long-term growth. And instead of getting plaudits at the World Economic Forum's annual summit in Switzerland, wherever they went British ministers were confronted by economists casting doubt on British policy.
There was no respite when they met anxious financiers alarmed by "banker bashing". At a closed-door session today as the Alpine jamboree drew to an end, more than 40 bosses of banking and insurance companies met finance ministers from nations including Britain, Canada, France, South Africa, Turkey and Sweden.
A guest list obtained by the Observer reveals that those invited included Bank of America's boss, Brian Moynihan; Standard Chartered's chief, Peter Sands; the Lloyd's of London chairman, Lord Levene; the UK head of Santander, Ana Patricia Botín; and Aviva's chief executive, Andrew Moss.
In emollient form afterwards, Barclays' chief executive, Bob Diamond, said the get-together had been an opportunity to deliver "very heartfelt thanks" to governments for rescuing the banking system.
"We have to recognise, although there is some fatigue, that an awful lot has been achieved over the last few years," said Diamond. "We should say thanks to the central bankers and regulators because we're operating in a much safer system than a couple of years ago."
But France's finance minister, Christine Lagarde, made it clear that the discussion had been robust: "The best way for the banking system to say 'thank you' would be with good financing of the economy, sensible compensation packages and a refinancing of their capital."
Impatient with criticism of bonuses, tax avoidance and lending to small businesses, many banks used the occasion to turn up the volume in protest at what they see as undue punishment. JP Morgan's chief executive, Jamie Dimon, snapped last week that banks were not prepared to simply "bend over and accept it" from regulators. The Goldman Sachs president, Gary Cohn, declared that extra regulations on banks would simply encourage people to put their money into riskier hedge funds. ...
The week started with dismal figures showing that Britain's economy had shrunk by 0.5% in the final quarter of 2010 and that questions were being asked about deficit-cutting without long-term growth. And instead of getting plaudits at the World Economic Forum's annual summit in Switzerland, wherever they went British ministers were confronted by economists casting doubt on British policy.
There was no respite when they met anxious financiers alarmed by "banker bashing". At a closed-door session today as the Alpine jamboree drew to an end, more than 40 bosses of banking and insurance companies met finance ministers from nations including Britain, Canada, France, South Africa, Turkey and Sweden.
A guest list obtained by the Observer reveals that those invited included Bank of America's boss, Brian Moynihan; Standard Chartered's chief, Peter Sands; the Lloyd's of London chairman, Lord Levene; the UK head of Santander, Ana Patricia Botín; and Aviva's chief executive, Andrew Moss.
In emollient form afterwards, Barclays' chief executive, Bob Diamond, said the get-together had been an opportunity to deliver "very heartfelt thanks" to governments for rescuing the banking system.
"We have to recognise, although there is some fatigue, that an awful lot has been achieved over the last few years," said Diamond. "We should say thanks to the central bankers and regulators because we're operating in a much safer system than a couple of years ago."
But France's finance minister, Christine Lagarde, made it clear that the discussion had been robust: "The best way for the banking system to say 'thank you' would be with good financing of the economy, sensible compensation packages and a refinancing of their capital."
Impatient with criticism of bonuses, tax avoidance and lending to small businesses, many banks used the occasion to turn up the volume in protest at what they see as undue punishment. JP Morgan's chief executive, Jamie Dimon, snapped last week that banks were not prepared to simply "bend over and accept it" from regulators. The Goldman Sachs president, Gary Cohn, declared that extra regulations on banks would simply encourage people to put their money into riskier hedge funds. ...
María Ester García Polanco, one of the women at the centre of the scandal engulfing the Italian prime minister, Silvio Berlusconi, is bouncing her daughter on her knee – but that doesn't mean she's not a worried woman.
"With the newspapers full of this story, I am concerned about my child and what other mothers are saying at school," says the 27-year-old model and showgirl. Two weeks ago police woke her at 6am to search for evidence that she was accepting cash gifts and free rent from the Italian prime minister, allegedly in return for sexual favours.
Since then journalists have laid siege to the smart apartment complex on the fringes of Milan that is home to María and a "stable" of other beautiful women, all suspected of participating in Berlusconi's alleged "bunga bunga" nights of striptease and sex at his villa an hour's drive to the north.
The investigation into the prime minister's sexual activities, following suspicions that Berlusconi paid an underage Moroccan dancer, Karima El-Mahroug, thousands of euros for sex when she was 17, is deadly serious. But its ramifications took on a tragi-comic dimension when the owners of the Via Olgettina apartment complex tried to evict the models for "lowering the tone" of the neighbourhood. That eviction notice has been shelved, but the journalists remain. ...
"With the newspapers full of this story, I am concerned about my child and what other mothers are saying at school," says the 27-year-old model and showgirl. Two weeks ago police woke her at 6am to search for evidence that she was accepting cash gifts and free rent from the Italian prime minister, allegedly in return for sexual favours.
Since then journalists have laid siege to the smart apartment complex on the fringes of Milan that is home to María and a "stable" of other beautiful women, all suspected of participating in Berlusconi's alleged "bunga bunga" nights of striptease and sex at his villa an hour's drive to the north.
The investigation into the prime minister's sexual activities, following suspicions that Berlusconi paid an underage Moroccan dancer, Karima El-Mahroug, thousands of euros for sex when she was 17, is deadly serious. But its ramifications took on a tragi-comic dimension when the owners of the Via Olgettina apartment complex tried to evict the models for "lowering the tone" of the neighbourhood. That eviction notice has been shelved, but the journalists remain. ...
Police brutality in Egypt is "routine and pervasive" and the use of torture so widespread that the Egyptian government has stopped denying it exists, according to leaked cables released today by WikiLeaks.
The batch of US embassy cables paint a despairing portrait of a police force and security service in Egypt wholly out of control. They suggest torture is routinely used against ordinary criminals, Islamist detainees, opposition activists and bloggers.
"The police use brutal methods mostly against common criminals to extract confessions, but also against demonstrators, certain political prisoners and unfortunate bystanders. One human rights lawyer told us there is evidence of torture in Egypt dating back to the time of the pharoahs. NGO contacts estimate there are literally hundreds of torture incidents every day in Cairo police stations alone," one cable said.
Under Hosni Mubarak's presidency there had been "no serious effort to transform the police from an instrument of regime power into a public service institution", it said. The police's ubiquitous use of force had pervaded Egyptian culture to such an extent that one popular TV soap opera recently featured a police detective hero who beat up suspects to collect evidence.
Some middle-class Egyptians did not report thefts from their apartment blocks because they knew the police would immediately go and torture "all of the doormen", the cable added. It cited one source who said the police would use routinely electric shocks against suspected criminals, and would beat up human rights lawyers who enter police stations to defend their clients. Women detainees allegedly faced sexual abuse. Demoralised officers felt solving crimes justified brutal interrogation methods, with some believing that Islamic law also sanctioned torture, the cable said. ...
The batch of US embassy cables paint a despairing portrait of a police force and security service in Egypt wholly out of control. They suggest torture is routinely used against ordinary criminals, Islamist detainees, opposition activists and bloggers.
"The police use brutal methods mostly against common criminals to extract confessions, but also against demonstrators, certain political prisoners and unfortunate bystanders. One human rights lawyer told us there is evidence of torture in Egypt dating back to the time of the pharoahs. NGO contacts estimate there are literally hundreds of torture incidents every day in Cairo police stations alone," one cable said.
Under Hosni Mubarak's presidency there had been "no serious effort to transform the police from an instrument of regime power into a public service institution", it said. The police's ubiquitous use of force had pervaded Egyptian culture to such an extent that one popular TV soap opera recently featured a police detective hero who beat up suspects to collect evidence.
Some middle-class Egyptians did not report thefts from their apartment blocks because they knew the police would immediately go and torture "all of the doormen", the cable added. It cited one source who said the police would use routinely electric shocks against suspected criminals, and would beat up human rights lawyers who enter police stations to defend their clients. Women detainees allegedly faced sexual abuse. Demoralised officers felt solving crimes justified brutal interrogation methods, with some believing that Islamic law also sanctioned torture, the cable said. ...
The five people arrested in the UK in connection with a spate of online attacks in support of WikiLeaks were today released on police bail, while in the US the FBI has issued search warrants as part of its investigation into online group Anonymous.
The FBI yesterday issued more than 40 search warrants across the US as part of its Anonymous probe, where the distributed denial of services (DDoS) attacks the group carried out on the websites of companies including MasterCard and Visa are punishable by up to 10 years in prison.
Last night Anonymous issued a statement branding the UK arrests "a serious declaration of war" against the group of internet "hacktivists".
Yesterday's arrests are the first in the Metropolitan police's central e-crime unit investigation in the UK. ...
The FBI yesterday issued more than 40 search warrants across the US as part of its Anonymous probe, where the distributed denial of services (DDoS) attacks the group carried out on the websites of companies including MasterCard and Visa are punishable by up to 10 years in prison.
Last night Anonymous issued a statement branding the UK arrests "a serious declaration of war" against the group of internet "hacktivists".
Yesterday's arrests are the first in the Metropolitan police's central e-crime unit investigation in the UK. ...
The convictions of 20 environmental campaigners involved in a protest at Britain's second largest coal-fired power station are to be reviewed less than two weeks after they were sentenced.
The urgent investigation by the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) into the safety of the convictions was welcomed by one of the activists, Ben Stewart, a Greenpeace employee who branded the trial a miscarriage of justice.
The CPS decision follows revelations in the Guardian about the role of PC Mark Kennedy, allegedly at the centre of a £250,000-a-year undercover operationwithin the climate change movement. Under the name Mark Stone the former Metropolitan police officer infiltrated environmental groups across Europe.
The demonstrators were convicted of conspiracy to commit aggravated trespass at the coal-fired Ratcliffe-on-Soar power station in Nottinghamshire. ...
The urgent investigation by the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) into the safety of the convictions was welcomed by one of the activists, Ben Stewart, a Greenpeace employee who branded the trial a miscarriage of justice.
The CPS decision follows revelations in the Guardian about the role of PC Mark Kennedy, allegedly at the centre of a £250,000-a-year undercover operationwithin the climate change movement. Under the name Mark Stone the former Metropolitan police officer infiltrated environmental groups across Europe.
The demonstrators were convicted of conspiracy to commit aggravated trespass at the coal-fired Ratcliffe-on-Soar power station in Nottinghamshire. ...
The National Trust is poised to offer to take over or buy much of the state-owned English woodland which the government is planning to sell off.
The initiative, says the trust's director, Dame Fiona Reynolds, could protect in perpetuity not just large areas of "heritage" areas such as the Forest of Dean and the New Forest, but other woodland expected to be offered for sale to communities and commercial enterprises in the biggest change in land ownership for more than 80 years.
"This is a watershed moment in the history of the nation. These much-cherished places have been in public hands for centuries, enjoyed by everyone for generation after generation. The future of these important national assets will be decided in a matter of weeks," Reynolds told the Guardian.
"For 116 years, the National Trust has helped to save the places the people of this country most value when their existence, or access to them, has been threatened. If the government is determined to pursue the course of action it has outlined and the public wish us to, we are ready to play our part in giving them a secure future. We are ready to step in." ...
Thank fucking God/dess.
The initiative, says the trust's director, Dame Fiona Reynolds, could protect in perpetuity not just large areas of "heritage" areas such as the Forest of Dean and the New Forest, but other woodland expected to be offered for sale to communities and commercial enterprises in the biggest change in land ownership for more than 80 years.
"This is a watershed moment in the history of the nation. These much-cherished places have been in public hands for centuries, enjoyed by everyone for generation after generation. The future of these important national assets will be decided in a matter of weeks," Reynolds told the Guardian.
"For 116 years, the National Trust has helped to save the places the people of this country most value when their existence, or access to them, has been threatened. If the government is determined to pursue the course of action it has outlined and the public wish us to, we are ready to play our part in giving them a secure future. We are ready to step in." ...
Thank fucking God/dess.
A former commodities trader threatened to torture his regulator until he would "beg to be killed", according to court documents.
Vincent McCrudden, founder of Alnbri Asset Management, was arrested in New York last month and charged with drawing up an "execution list" of more than 40 employees of the US Commodities Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) and other agencies.
Details of one threatening email McCrudden wrote to Dan Driscoll, chief operating officer of the National Futures Association, have now been released in court papers.
McCrudden said he had hired "professionals" to torture and kill Driscoll. "They have things they will do to you that will make you beg to be killed, shot, anything to get away from the pain," he wrote. "And the great thing is, you will be the first, but not the last."
According to his website, McCrudden is a former professional football player and a 25-year Wall Street veteran. The CFTC filed a civil enforcement lawsuit filed against McCrudden in December, according to prosecutors, who also say that McCrudden has been the subject of various enforcement or disciplinary proceedings over several years. ...
Vincent McCrudden, founder of Alnbri Asset Management, was arrested in New York last month and charged with drawing up an "execution list" of more than 40 employees of the US Commodities Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) and other agencies.
Details of one threatening email McCrudden wrote to Dan Driscoll, chief operating officer of the National Futures Association, have now been released in court papers.
McCrudden said he had hired "professionals" to torture and kill Driscoll. "They have things they will do to you that will make you beg to be killed, shot, anything to get away from the pain," he wrote. "And the great thing is, you will be the first, but not the last."
According to his website, McCrudden is a former professional football player and a 25-year Wall Street veteran. The CFTC filed a civil enforcement lawsuit filed against McCrudden in December, according to prosecutors, who also say that McCrudden has been the subject of various enforcement or disciplinary proceedings over several years. ...
An unexpected and unwanted text message from a wireless company prematurely exploded a would-be suicide bomber’s vest bomb in Russia New Year’s Eve, inadvertently thwarting a planned attack on revelers in Moscow, according to The Daily Telegraph.
The would-be suicide bomber was planning to detonate a suicide belt bomb near Red Square, a plan that was foiled when her wireless carrier sent her an SMS while she was still at a safe house, setting off the bomb and killing her. The message reportedly wished her a Happy New Years, according to the report, which sourced the info from security forces in Russia. Cell phones are often used as makeshift detonators by terrorist and insurgent groups.
If true, the SMS might be the only time that a wireless carrier’s SMS message has ever been useful. ...
Ta much, dear Anneliese
The would-be suicide bomber was planning to detonate a suicide belt bomb near Red Square, a plan that was foiled when her wireless carrier sent her an SMS while she was still at a safe house, setting off the bomb and killing her. The message reportedly wished her a Happy New Years, according to the report, which sourced the info from security forces in Russia. Cell phones are often used as makeshift detonators by terrorist and insurgent groups.
If true, the SMS might be the only time that a wireless carrier’s SMS message has ever been useful. ...
Ta much, dear Anneliese
The whistleblower
A police officer and divorced mother of three, Kathyrn Bolkovac was looking for a fresh start when she signed up as a UN peacekeeper in Bosnia. But when she began to investigate the local trafficking of young girls into prostitution, all the evidence pointed to those she worked alongside
Kathyrn Bolkovac
Saturday 22 January 2011
Ta much, dear BrightKnight
A police officer and divorced mother of three, Kathyrn Bolkovac was looking for a fresh start when she signed up as a UN peacekeeper in Bosnia. But when she began to investigate the local trafficking of young girls into prostitution, all the evidence pointed to those she worked alongside
Kathyrn Bolkovac
Saturday 22 January 2011
Ta much, dear BrightKnight
Scotland Yard reopened its investigation into phone hacking today – four years after the only convictions in the case – after the News of the World passed on "significant new information" alleged to implicate one of the paper's top executives in the practice.
Shortly afterwards the paper announced that it had sacked its assistant editor (news), Ian Edmondson. This came hard on the heels of the arrival in London of its proprietor, Rupert Murdoch, said to be in town to deal with both the phone-hacking scandal that has engulfed the paper and his corporation's bid to take complete control of BSkyB.
The sacking, and the new police investigation, come after 18 months of Guardian reports into allegations of widespread phone hacking at the News of the World.
Until shortly before Christmas the paper had always alleged that only one rogue reporter and a private investigator were involved in the practice, and the police had repeatedly insisted that there was no evidence available to link any other News Corporation employees with hacking.
Tonight a source close to the new police investigation said the latest evidence passed to the Metropolitan police so far amounted to only a small number of emails, although detectives believe there may be many more.
"It's hard to believe these are the only ones. There may be a shedload of shit still to come," said one source. ...
Shortly afterwards the paper announced that it had sacked its assistant editor (news), Ian Edmondson. This came hard on the heels of the arrival in London of its proprietor, Rupert Murdoch, said to be in town to deal with both the phone-hacking scandal that has engulfed the paper and his corporation's bid to take complete control of BSkyB.
The sacking, and the new police investigation, come after 18 months of Guardian reports into allegations of widespread phone hacking at the News of the World.
Until shortly before Christmas the paper had always alleged that only one rogue reporter and a private investigator were involved in the practice, and the police had repeatedly insisted that there was no evidence available to link any other News Corporation employees with hacking.
Tonight a source close to the new police investigation said the latest evidence passed to the Metropolitan police so far amounted to only a small number of emails, although detectives believe there may be many more.
"It's hard to believe these are the only ones. There may be a shedload of shit still to come," said one source. ...
The international speculator George Soros warned David Cameron tonight that the government would push the British economy back into recession unless it modified its hardline austerity package.
Speaking in Davos, Switzerland, the hedge fund owner who famously wrecked the reputation for financial competence of the last Conservative administration on Black Wednesday said the mix of tax increases and spending cuts planned by the coalition was unsustainable.
Soros's suggestion that the UK needed a plan B came only hours after Cameron insisted in fierce Commons exchanges with the Labour leader, Ed Miliband, that there would be no change of government policy following the unexpected news yesterday that the economy contracted by 0.5% in the final three months of 2010.
"I think they may be right in embarking on it [the austerity programme] but I think they will probably have the sense that they will have to modify it when the effects are felt," Soros said. "I don't think it can possibly be implemented without pushing the economy into a recession." Noting that the initial market reaction to the government's tough stance had been positive, Soros added: "We will have to see it unfold. My expectation is that it will prove to be unsustainable." ...
Speaking in Davos, Switzerland, the hedge fund owner who famously wrecked the reputation for financial competence of the last Conservative administration on Black Wednesday said the mix of tax increases and spending cuts planned by the coalition was unsustainable.
Soros's suggestion that the UK needed a plan B came only hours after Cameron insisted in fierce Commons exchanges with the Labour leader, Ed Miliband, that there would be no change of government policy following the unexpected news yesterday that the economy contracted by 0.5% in the final three months of 2010.
"I think they may be right in embarking on it [the austerity programme] but I think they will probably have the sense that they will have to modify it when the effects are felt," Soros said. "I don't think it can possibly be implemented without pushing the economy into a recession." Noting that the initial market reaction to the government's tough stance had been positive, Soros added: "We will have to see it unfold. My expectation is that it will prove to be unsustainable." ...
The international row over undercover police officer Mark Kennedy escalated tonight after the full scope of his activities were revealed in a secret sitting at the German parliament.
Germany's federal police chief, Jörg Ziercke, was forced to admit to MPs at the Bundestag that not only had Kennedy had a long-term lover in Berlin – in direct violation of a law forbidding police officers to have sexual relationships while undercover – but that he had been invited to Germany by the authorities to infiltrate the anti-fascist movement.
Ziercke also revealed that Kennedy, the Metropolitan police officer at the centre of a controversy over the infiltration of peaceful environmental groups across Europe, worked for three German states during at least five visits to the country between 2004 and 2009.
He said the agent committed at least two crimes, but the cases against him were dropped at the behest of German authorities who knew Kennedy's true identity.
Kennedy first broke the law during protests at Heiligendamm, the town near Rostock where the G8 meetings took place in 2007. He later committed arson, Der Spiegel said, during a demonstration in Berlin at which he set fire to containers.
The revelations are published today in Der Spiegel, which says Kennedy's involvement in criminal activity during his time in Germany highlights concerns that he was working as an agent provocateur and not just an observer of the activists.
In addition, the newspaper says, the fact that investigations into both crimes were shelved suggests police authorities wielded an unacceptable influence over the country's judicial process. ...
Germany's federal police chief, Jörg Ziercke, was forced to admit to MPs at the Bundestag that not only had Kennedy had a long-term lover in Berlin – in direct violation of a law forbidding police officers to have sexual relationships while undercover – but that he had been invited to Germany by the authorities to infiltrate the anti-fascist movement.
Ziercke also revealed that Kennedy, the Metropolitan police officer at the centre of a controversy over the infiltration of peaceful environmental groups across Europe, worked for three German states during at least five visits to the country between 2004 and 2009.
He said the agent committed at least two crimes, but the cases against him were dropped at the behest of German authorities who knew Kennedy's true identity.
Kennedy first broke the law during protests at Heiligendamm, the town near Rostock where the G8 meetings took place in 2007. He later committed arson, Der Spiegel said, during a demonstration in Berlin at which he set fire to containers.
The revelations are published today in Der Spiegel, which says Kennedy's involvement in criminal activity during his time in Germany highlights concerns that he was working as an agent provocateur and not just an observer of the activists.
In addition, the newspaper says, the fact that investigations into both crimes were shelved suggests police authorities wielded an unacceptable influence over the country's judicial process. ...
The mayor of Ciudad Juárez has accused federal police of killing one of his bodyguards in an incident that underlines the growing tension between the different authorities in Mexico's drug war capital.
Héctor Murguía Lardizábal said the incident happened while he was having supper with a priest in the centre of the beleaguered border city on Monday. The mayor said his bodyguards had set up a security perimeter around the building when hooded federal officers – who are claiming the incident was an act of self defence – approached two of his men stationed at a street corner.
"My bodyguard, accompanied by another, identified himself, raised his hands and was shot in the head," Murguía told reporters. "That's a murder." ...
Héctor Murguía Lardizábal said the incident happened while he was having supper with a priest in the centre of the beleaguered border city on Monday. The mayor said his bodyguards had set up a security perimeter around the building when hooded federal officers – who are claiming the incident was an act of self defence – approached two of his men stationed at a street corner.
"My bodyguard, accompanied by another, identified himself, raised his hands and was shot in the head," Murguía told reporters. "That's a murder." ...
Alastair Campbell has written to the Metropolitan police to say he suspects his phone was hacked by the News of the World while he was advising Tony Blair's government.
As the Commons home affairs select committee announced it is to publish a list of victims of alleged phone hacking, Blair's former communications director said his lawyers had contacted the Met with details of a specific incident.
Campbell believes his phone was hacked shortly after he left Downing Street in 2003 when he advised a senior member of Blair's cabinet. A News of the World photographer was waiting outside Campbell's house when the minister arrived for a meeting which had been arranged in mobile phone calls and text messages without reference to civil servants.
Campbell said: "Phone hacking is more widespread than people realise and was carried out by many more newspapers.
"That is why it is not being pursued by most of the press. Just as John Prescott has been pursuing it, I intend to get to the bottom of it."
The intervention by Campbell came as Keith Vaz, the Labour chairman of the home affairs select committee, said he would be publishing a list of people whose phones were allegedly hacked. ...
As the Commons home affairs select committee announced it is to publish a list of victims of alleged phone hacking, Blair's former communications director said his lawyers had contacted the Met with details of a specific incident.
Campbell believes his phone was hacked shortly after he left Downing Street in 2003 when he advised a senior member of Blair's cabinet. A News of the World photographer was waiting outside Campbell's house when the minister arrived for a meeting which had been arranged in mobile phone calls and text messages without reference to civil servants.
Campbell said: "Phone hacking is more widespread than people realise and was carried out by many more newspapers.
"That is why it is not being pursued by most of the press. Just as John Prescott has been pursuing it, I intend to get to the bottom of it."
The intervention by Campbell came as Keith Vaz, the Labour chairman of the home affairs select committee, said he would be publishing a list of people whose phones were allegedly hacked. ...
OK, thank you – spy chief Dearlove's Iraq evidence revealed ... sort of
Redactions leave question marks on former MI6 chief Sir Richard Dearlove's private testimony to Chilcot inquiry
Richard Norton-Taylor Tuesday 25 January 2011
Heavily redacted pages from the private testimony of Sir Richard Dearlove to the Chilcot inquiry
Never let it be said that Britain's spies do not have a sense of humour. Ninety-three pages of evidence (pdf) given in private to the Iraq inquiry by Sir Richard Dearlove, the former head of MI6, have finally been released. Unfortunately, they have been so heavily redacted by the censors that some are entirely black, save for a lone, enigmatic question mark.
Dearlove, known officially as C, for chief, was head of Britain's foreign intelligence service in the runup to the invasion. He has been criticised for helping the Blair government to "sex up" the Iraqi WMD dossier. But it would be hard to glean much evidence of this from pages that, for example, now only contain the phrase "OK, thank you." ...
Redactions leave question marks on former MI6 chief Sir Richard Dearlove's private testimony to Chilcot inquiry
Richard Norton-Taylor Tuesday 25 January 2011
Heavily redacted pages from the private testimony of Sir Richard Dearlove to the Chilcot inquiry
Never let it be said that Britain's spies do not have a sense of humour. Ninety-three pages of evidence (pdf) given in private to the Iraq inquiry by Sir Richard Dearlove, the former head of MI6, have finally been released. Unfortunately, they have been so heavily redacted by the censors that some are entirely black, save for a lone, enigmatic question mark.
Dearlove, known officially as C, for chief, was head of Britain's foreign intelligence service in the runup to the invasion. He has been criticised for helping the Blair government to "sex up" the Iraqi WMD dossier. But it would be hard to glean much evidence of this from pages that, for example, now only contain the phrase "OK, thank you." ...
Dmitry Medvedev today accused government officials of allowing security checks at Domodedovo airport to slip into "a state of anarchy", amid reports that a Black Widow suicide bomber detonated the bomb that killed 35 people there yesterday.
The Russian president told chiefs of the federal security service (FSB) that those responsible for transport security "could be dismissed or face other sanctions" as a result of the negligence.
"We will have to put in place a much tougher inspection system, total inspections. It will likely take passengers longer, but it's the only way out," he said. "The information available to us [from Domodedovo] suggests that it was simply a state of anarchy. People were able to enter [the airport] from any place. Control over people's movements was partial and did not apply to those waiting for passengers."
Medevedev said earlier in the day: "What happened shows that there were clear security violations."
The massive blast took place at about 4.30pm beside the international arrivals hall at Moscow's busiest airport. The bomb, packed with nuts, bolts and ball bearings, ripped through the area, wounding up to 180 people. ...
The Russian president told chiefs of the federal security service (FSB) that those responsible for transport security "could be dismissed or face other sanctions" as a result of the negligence.
"We will have to put in place a much tougher inspection system, total inspections. It will likely take passengers longer, but it's the only way out," he said. "The information available to us [from Domodedovo] suggests that it was simply a state of anarchy. People were able to enter [the airport] from any place. Control over people's movements was partial and did not apply to those waiting for passengers."
Medevedev said earlier in the day: "What happened shows that there were clear security violations."
The massive blast took place at about 4.30pm beside the international arrivals hall at Moscow's busiest airport. The bomb, packed with nuts, bolts and ball bearings, ripped through the area, wounding up to 180 people. ...
At least 35 people, including two Britons, were killed today after a suspected suicide bomber blew himself up at Moscow's busiest airport.
The bomber entered the ground floor of Domodedovo airport's terminal building apparently unchallenged. He then made his way to the crowded international arrivals zone. At 4.32pm local time he set off a massive explosive device, possibly hidden in a suitcase, causing a blast equivalent to 7kg of TNT.
Up to 168 people were injured, many of them critically. Relatives waiting to meet family members and arriving passengers were killed instantly.
Witness Artyom Zhilenkov, 30, survived the blast and tonight told the Guardian: "There was a massive boom and then a wave of heat and pressure that swept along the floor, bent my legs and flung me aside.
"I was looking toward a dark-skinned man when it happened. I think it was the suitcase standing next to him that exploded." ...
The bomber entered the ground floor of Domodedovo airport's terminal building apparently unchallenged. He then made his way to the crowded international arrivals zone. At 4.32pm local time he set off a massive explosive device, possibly hidden in a suitcase, causing a blast equivalent to 7kg of TNT.
Up to 168 people were injured, many of them critically. Relatives waiting to meet family members and arriving passengers were killed instantly.
Witness Artyom Zhilenkov, 30, survived the blast and tonight told the Guardian: "There was a massive boom and then a wave of heat and pressure that swept along the floor, bent my legs and flung me aside.
"I was looking toward a dark-skinned man when it happened. I think it was the suitcase standing next to him that exploded." ...
Kosovo's prime minister, Hashim Thaçi, has been identified as one of the "biggest fish" in organised crime in his country, according to western military intelligence reports leaked to the Guardian.
The Nato documents, which are marked "Secret", indicate that the US and other western powers backing Kosovo's government have had extensive knowledge of its criminal connections for several years.
They also identify another senior ruling politician in Kosovo as having links to the Albanian mafia, stating that he exerts considerable control over Thaçi, a former guerrilla leader.
Marked "USA KFOR", they provide detailed information about organised criminal networks in Kosovo based on reports by western intelligence agencies and informants. The geographical spread of Kosovo's criminal gangs is set out, alongside details of alleged familial and business links.
The Council of Europe is tomorrow expected to formally demand an investigation into claims that Thaçi was the head of a "mafia-like" network responsible for smuggling weapons, drugs and human organs during and after the 1998-99 Kosovo war. ...
The Nato documents, which are marked "Secret", indicate that the US and other western powers backing Kosovo's government have had extensive knowledge of its criminal connections for several years.
They also identify another senior ruling politician in Kosovo as having links to the Albanian mafia, stating that he exerts considerable control over Thaçi, a former guerrilla leader.
Marked "USA KFOR", they provide detailed information about organised criminal networks in Kosovo based on reports by western intelligence agencies and informants. The geographical spread of Kosovo's criminal gangs is set out, alongside details of alleged familial and business links.
The Council of Europe is tomorrow expected to formally demand an investigation into claims that Thaçi was the head of a "mafia-like" network responsible for smuggling weapons, drugs and human organs during and after the 1998-99 Kosovo war. ...
News Corporation refused to say today what Rupert Murdoch's son James was told about evidence of phone hacking by News of the World journalists when he signed off a £700,000 settlement with the football chief Gordon Taylor.
The company declined to comment on any of a set of questions asked by the Guardian about which board members were made aware of the fact that the practice of phone hacking extended beyond the former royal editor Clive Goodman, and the reasons for payouts to Taylor and the public relations specialist Max Clifford.
News Corp also refused to reply to further questions about what was discussed at a social meeting between David Cameron, James Murdoch and its UK chief executive, Rebekah Brooks, over the Christmas period.
Rupert Murdoch today spent the day at News International's Wapping offices in east London, where he had lunch in the company canteen with his son, Brooks, Dominic Mohan, the editor of the Sun, and James Harding, the editor of the Times.
There has so far been no explanation as to why James Murdoch, the chief executive of News Corp's operations in Europe and Asia, decided to sign off the payment to Taylor. One friend of Rupert Murdoch's younger son said he had failed to appreciate the significance of the hacking allegations until recently. ...
The company declined to comment on any of a set of questions asked by the Guardian about which board members were made aware of the fact that the practice of phone hacking extended beyond the former royal editor Clive Goodman, and the reasons for payouts to Taylor and the public relations specialist Max Clifford.
News Corp also refused to reply to further questions about what was discussed at a social meeting between David Cameron, James Murdoch and its UK chief executive, Rebekah Brooks, over the Christmas period.
Rupert Murdoch today spent the day at News International's Wapping offices in east London, where he had lunch in the company canteen with his son, Brooks, Dominic Mohan, the editor of the Sun, and James Harding, the editor of the Times.
There has so far been no explanation as to why James Murdoch, the chief executive of News Corp's operations in Europe and Asia, decided to sign off the payment to Taylor. One friend of Rupert Murdoch's younger son said he had failed to appreciate the significance of the hacking allegations until recently. ...
Following the resignation of former News of the World editor Andy Coulson as David Cameron's media man, the voicemail hacking scandal has snowballed to include other newspapers.
Mark Lewis, a lawyer who has already brought one damages claim against the NoW for phone hacking, told the Observer last night that he is now representing four people who believe their voicemail was tapped by journalists.
And Lewis, who acted for Gordon Taylor of the Professional Footballers' Association in his previous case, said none of the four had been the victims of News Group newspapers. (News Group is a Murdoch company which controls the NoW.)
He told the paper: "Lots of people were doing it. It was such a widespread practice, this was almost kids' playtime.
"Although it is a crime, people were regarding it as though it was driving at 35mph in a 30mph zone, that you just sort of do it and hope you don't get caught."
The allegation that the practice spread beyond the NoW will surely be a welcome one for Rupert Murdoch.
The latest intrigue over Coulson's behaviour at one of his papers could not have come at a worse time for the Australian mogul. Murdoch's News Corp, the parent company of News Group, is still hoping to avoid having its bid to take full control of BSkyB brought before the Competition Commission. ...
Mark Lewis, a lawyer who has already brought one damages claim against the NoW for phone hacking, told the Observer last night that he is now representing four people who believe their voicemail was tapped by journalists.
And Lewis, who acted for Gordon Taylor of the Professional Footballers' Association in his previous case, said none of the four had been the victims of News Group newspapers. (News Group is a Murdoch company which controls the NoW.)
He told the paper: "Lots of people were doing it. It was such a widespread practice, this was almost kids' playtime.
"Although it is a crime, people were regarding it as though it was driving at 35mph in a 30mph zone, that you just sort of do it and hope you don't get caught."
The allegation that the practice spread beyond the NoW will surely be a welcome one for Rupert Murdoch.
The latest intrigue over Coulson's behaviour at one of his papers could not have come at a worse time for the Australian mogul. Murdoch's News Corp, the parent company of News Group, is still hoping to avoid having its bid to take full control of BSkyB brought before the Competition Commission. ...
All Sherry Rehman wants is to go out – for a coffee, a stroll, lunch, anything. But that's not possible. Death threats flood her email inbox and mobile phone; armed police are squatted at the gate of her Karachi mansion; government ministers advise her to flee.
"I get two types of advice about leaving," says the steely politician. "One from concerned friends, the other from those who want me out so I'll stop making trouble. But I'm going nowhere." She pauses, then adds quietly: "At least for now."
It's been almost three weeks since Punjab governor Salmaan Taseer was gunned down outside an Islamabad cafe. As the country plunged into crisis, Rehman became a prisoner in her own home. Having championed the same issue that caused Taseer's death – reform of Pakistan's draconian blasphemy laws – she is, by popular consensus, next on the extremists' list.
Giant rallies against blasphemy reform have swelled the streets of Karachi, where clerics use her name. There are allegations that a cleric in a local mosque, barely five minutes' drive away, has branded her an "infidel" deserving of death. In the Punjabi city of Multan last week opponents tried to file blasphemy charges against her – raising the absurd possibility of Rehman, a national politician, facing a possible death sentence. "My inbox is inundated. The good news is that a lot of it is no longer hate mail," she says with a grim smile. "But a lot of it is."
Pakistani politicians have a long tradition of self-imposed exile but 50-year-old Rehman – a former confidante of Benazir Bhutto, and known for her glamour, principled politics and sharp tongue – is surely the first to undergo self-imposed house arrest. Hers is a luxury cell near the Karachi shore, filled with fine furniture and expensive art, but a stifling one. Government officials insist on 48 hours' notice before putting a foot outside. Plots are afoot, they warn. ...
"I get two types of advice about leaving," says the steely politician. "One from concerned friends, the other from those who want me out so I'll stop making trouble. But I'm going nowhere." She pauses, then adds quietly: "At least for now."
It's been almost three weeks since Punjab governor Salmaan Taseer was gunned down outside an Islamabad cafe. As the country plunged into crisis, Rehman became a prisoner in her own home. Having championed the same issue that caused Taseer's death – reform of Pakistan's draconian blasphemy laws – she is, by popular consensus, next on the extremists' list.
Giant rallies against blasphemy reform have swelled the streets of Karachi, where clerics use her name. There are allegations that a cleric in a local mosque, barely five minutes' drive away, has branded her an "infidel" deserving of death. In the Punjabi city of Multan last week opponents tried to file blasphemy charges against her – raising the absurd possibility of Rehman, a national politician, facing a possible death sentence. "My inbox is inundated. The good news is that a lot of it is no longer hate mail," she says with a grim smile. "But a lot of it is."
Pakistani politicians have a long tradition of self-imposed exile but 50-year-old Rehman – a former confidante of Benazir Bhutto, and known for her glamour, principled politics and sharp tongue – is surely the first to undergo self-imposed house arrest. Hers is a luxury cell near the Karachi shore, filled with fine furniture and expensive art, but a stifling one. Government officials insist on 48 hours' notice before putting a foot outside. Plots are afoot, they warn. ...
Criticisms of the police handling of the phone-hacking scandal intensified tonight after a senior minister accused Scotland Yard of failing to properly investigate the allegations, while it emerged that Gordon Brown has asked police to establish whether he had been a victim.
Chris Huhne, the Liberal Democrat energy secretary, cast doubt on News International's claims that hacking was the work of a "rogue reporter". He criticised the initial handling of the allegations by the police and accused them of reacting to his calls for a full inquiry last year by "scurrying back to Scotland Yard" and dismissing the idea in an afternoon.
"It seemed to me clear that the number of people that were being hacked clearly was not consistent with it being one rogue reporter who happened to be the royal correspondent. Why would the royal correspondent be interested in hacking the voicemails of Simon Hughes, my colleague who is a Liberal Democrat MP, for example?" he told the BBC's Daily Politics.
"We know the police were not keen on the subject because when I called for a very clear review of this, the police scurried back into Scotland Yard, spent less than a day reviewing it and popped out again in time for the six o'clock news to say they had discovered no further evidence."
Asked whether he thought the police had been deterred from carrying out a full investigation after their failure to make charges in Labour's "cash for honours" scandal, he said: "I certainly think that may well have played a part of it because obviously they had been through a very thorough investigation there and they got nowhere, so they may have decided that messing with the political process was something that they didn't want to bother doing." He quickly added: "I really don't know, I mean you'll have to ask a police officer that."
Huhne's intervention is a guarantee that the row over phone hacking won't disappear with Andy Coulson's resignation as director of communications from Downing Street last week. The former editor of the News of the World stepped down claiming that the continued controversy over phone hacking was making it difficult for him to do his job. ...
Chris Huhne, the Liberal Democrat energy secretary, cast doubt on News International's claims that hacking was the work of a "rogue reporter". He criticised the initial handling of the allegations by the police and accused them of reacting to his calls for a full inquiry last year by "scurrying back to Scotland Yard" and dismissing the idea in an afternoon.
"It seemed to me clear that the number of people that were being hacked clearly was not consistent with it being one rogue reporter who happened to be the royal correspondent. Why would the royal correspondent be interested in hacking the voicemails of Simon Hughes, my colleague who is a Liberal Democrat MP, for example?" he told the BBC's Daily Politics.
"We know the police were not keen on the subject because when I called for a very clear review of this, the police scurried back into Scotland Yard, spent less than a day reviewing it and popped out again in time for the six o'clock news to say they had discovered no further evidence."
Asked whether he thought the police had been deterred from carrying out a full investigation after their failure to make charges in Labour's "cash for honours" scandal, he said: "I certainly think that may well have played a part of it because obviously they had been through a very thorough investigation there and they got nowhere, so they may have decided that messing with the political process was something that they didn't want to bother doing." He quickly added: "I really don't know, I mean you'll have to ask a police officer that."
Huhne's intervention is a guarantee that the row over phone hacking won't disappear with Andy Coulson's resignation as director of communications from Downing Street last week. The former editor of the News of the World stepped down claiming that the continued controversy over phone hacking was making it difficult for him to do his job. ...
Britain's tabloid newspapers are now facing a major crisis after being drawn into the News of the World phone-hacking scandal.
Twenty-four hours after Andy Coulson, the prime minister's communications chief and former News of the World editor, was forced to resign, a lawyer confirmed other newspapers were facing legal claims.
Mark Lewis, who acted for Gordon Taylor of the Professional Footballers' Association in a damages claim against the NoW, confirmed to the Observer that he was now representing four people who believe they were targeted by other newspapers.
Lewis said that none of the four had been hacked by News Group Newspapers, owner of the News of the World and the Sun. "Lots of people were doing it," Lewis said. "It was such a widespread practice."
He added that he had been preparing the cases since Christmas. "We are at an initial stage in our investigations made with police forces and phone companies. But we believe there is a prima facie case that information has been obtained unlawfully.
"This was almost kids' playtime. It was such a widespread practice. Although it is a crime, people were regarding it as though it was driving at 35mph in a 30mph zone, that you just sort of do it and hope you don't get caught."
Speculation about further law suits, and the prospect of fresh evidence in the form of emails and audio tapes stretching back over years, has heaped pressure on News Group over the past few weeks. It emerged earlier this month that News of the World executive Ian Edmondson had been suspended as a result of claims in a case brought by actress Sienna Miller. ...
Twenty-four hours after Andy Coulson, the prime minister's communications chief and former News of the World editor, was forced to resign, a lawyer confirmed other newspapers were facing legal claims.
Mark Lewis, who acted for Gordon Taylor of the Professional Footballers' Association in a damages claim against the NoW, confirmed to the Observer that he was now representing four people who believe they were targeted by other newspapers.
Lewis said that none of the four had been hacked by News Group Newspapers, owner of the News of the World and the Sun. "Lots of people were doing it," Lewis said. "It was such a widespread practice."
He added that he had been preparing the cases since Christmas. "We are at an initial stage in our investigations made with police forces and phone companies. But we believe there is a prima facie case that information has been obtained unlawfully.
"This was almost kids' playtime. It was such a widespread practice. Although it is a crime, people were regarding it as though it was driving at 35mph in a 30mph zone, that you just sort of do it and hope you don't get caught."
Speculation about further law suits, and the prospect of fresh evidence in the form of emails and audio tapes stretching back over years, has heaped pressure on News Group over the past few weeks. It emerged earlier this month that News of the World executive Ian Edmondson had been suspended as a result of claims in a case brought by actress Sienna Miller. ...
Man killed by own cock
Blade-enhanced battle-beast missing, presumed stolen
By Sarah Bee
21st January 2011
A Bengali man has reportedly suffered a gruesome demise after he pushed his metal-enhanced cock that bit too far.
Singrai Soren, a trainer of fighting roosters, was killed in Mohanpur in West Bengal after one of his birds apparently turned on him, the Daily Mail soberly relates.
According to a friend, Soren forced the cockerel - whose legs were tooled up with razor blades - back into the ring to fight as it repeatedly tried to get away.
"This upset it, and it attacked Soren," said the friend.
The man's throat was slit in the struggle. The whereabouts of the killer cock are unknown, but it is thought that another trainer has bagged it. The bird had won four fights prior to its deadly attack. ...
Ta much, dear Anneliese
Blade-enhanced battle-beast missing, presumed stolen
By Sarah Bee
21st January 2011
A Bengali man has reportedly suffered a gruesome demise after he pushed his metal-enhanced cock that bit too far.
Singrai Soren, a trainer of fighting roosters, was killed in Mohanpur in West Bengal after one of his birds apparently turned on him, the Daily Mail soberly relates.
According to a friend, Soren forced the cockerel - whose legs were tooled up with razor blades - back into the ring to fight as it repeatedly tried to get away.
"This upset it, and it attacked Soren," said the friend.
The man's throat was slit in the struggle. The whereabouts of the killer cock are unknown, but it is thought that another trainer has bagged it. The bird had won four fights prior to its deadly attack. ...
Ta much, dear Anneliese
Arizona is a state riddled with anti-government white militias, radio stations pumping out racist hate speech and politicians who wave guns as they denounce the oppressive rule of Washington. But Arizona's attorney general apparently believes the real threat to the stability of the US government is being fomented in a handful of high schools in a liberal corner of the desert state.
Tom Horne has declared classes in Mexican-American history and social studies in the city of Tucson illegal on the grounds that they are "propagandising and brainwashing" students into overthrowing the constitutional government and hating white people.
Horne has ordered schools to scrap the ethnic studies programmes under a law he wrote in his previous role as Arizona's education superintendent. He has not banned similar classes dealing with black or Native American history on the grounds that no one has complained about them.
Critics, including teachers of the classes he wants to scrap, accuse Horne of political opportunism by exploiting growing hostility to people of Hispanic origin in a state that recently passed controversial anti-immigrant legislation.
José Gonzalez, who lectures at a Tucson high school, is one of 11 teachers suing to prevent that ban from being enforced.
"If you were to look at the legacy of Tom Horne and his past eight years as the superintendent of instruction in Arizona, you will see that he has targeted Mexican-American people. He did away with bilingual education. He was very proud of that," said Gonzales. "He's a politician and, quite frankly, a very successful politician so he's pandering to these xenophobic sentiments here in Arizona and that's helping him get elected." ...
Tom Horne has declared classes in Mexican-American history and social studies in the city of Tucson illegal on the grounds that they are "propagandising and brainwashing" students into overthrowing the constitutional government and hating white people.
Horne has ordered schools to scrap the ethnic studies programmes under a law he wrote in his previous role as Arizona's education superintendent. He has not banned similar classes dealing with black or Native American history on the grounds that no one has complained about them.
Critics, including teachers of the classes he wants to scrap, accuse Horne of political opportunism by exploiting growing hostility to people of Hispanic origin in a state that recently passed controversial anti-immigrant legislation.
José Gonzalez, who lectures at a Tucson high school, is one of 11 teachers suing to prevent that ban from being enforced.
"If you were to look at the legacy of Tom Horne and his past eight years as the superintendent of instruction in Arizona, you will see that he has targeted Mexican-American people. He did away with bilingual education. He was very proud of that," said Gonzales. "He's a politician and, quite frankly, a very successful politician so he's pandering to these xenophobic sentiments here in Arizona and that's helping him get elected." ...
One of these things is not like the others....
Keith Olbermann was just fired by MSNBC. According to Keith, he received notice that "this is going to be the last edition of your show," and bam, he was out the door.
Keith's commentaries gave voice to our hopes and our fears. He helped so many of us survive the Bush years, and while a staunch Obama supporter, he wasn't afraid to stand up to his own President either.
We will all miss Keith, and wish him well wherever he ends up next.
Please sign the petition and show Keith that we stand with him today. ...
Ta much, dear Anneliese
Keith's commentaries gave voice to our hopes and our fears. He helped so many of us survive the Bush years, and while a staunch Obama supporter, he wasn't afraid to stand up to his own President either.
We will all miss Keith, and wish him well wherever he ends up next.
Please sign the petition and show Keith that we stand with him today. ...
Ta much, dear Anneliese
Darwinists Discover New Way to Destroy Their Property
THREE PEOPLE IN BELLEVUE, WASHINGTON, ARE IN SERIOUS condition following a fire triggered inside the van they were riding in Wednesday afternoon. The conversion van had apparently run out of gas before the two men and a woman could make it to a gas station, so one of them walked to the nearest station to buy some and carry back. He did not have a regular gasoline can, so he took a bucket and poured 2 gallons of gasoline in it and returned to the van.
Finding that they were unable to pour the gas out of the bucket into the filler pipe, they removed the interior engine cover in the front of the van and began using a water bottle to pour gasoline directly into the carburetor while they were driving. You know what happened next. ...
[brilliant snooty English butler]One of the maids has informed me that a Mr Darwin has repeatedly rang for you, Sirs, Madam.[/brilliant snooty English butler]
Ta much, dear Anneliese
THREE PEOPLE IN BELLEVUE, WASHINGTON, ARE IN SERIOUS condition following a fire triggered inside the van they were riding in Wednesday afternoon. The conversion van had apparently run out of gas before the two men and a woman could make it to a gas station, so one of them walked to the nearest station to buy some and carry back. He did not have a regular gasoline can, so he took a bucket and poured 2 gallons of gasoline in it and returned to the van.
Finding that they were unable to pour the gas out of the bucket into the filler pipe, they removed the interior engine cover in the front of the van and began using a water bottle to pour gasoline directly into the carburetor while they were driving. You know what happened next. ...
[brilliant snooty English butler]One of the maids has informed me that a Mr Darwin has repeatedly rang for you, Sirs, Madam.[/brilliant snooty English butler]
Ta much, dear Anneliese
Andy Coulson resigns – as it happened
Andy Coulson, David Cameron's director of communications, has quit in the wake of the latest phone-hacking revelations
5.15pm: Here's a summary of events tonight.
Live blog: recap
The intensification of the phone-hacking scandal, a story that refuses to go away, has forced Andy Coulson into a second resignation. Coulson quit as director of communications at Downing Street, blaming "continued coverage" of the phone-hacking scandal which forced him from the editorship of the News of the World. He said: "When the spokesman needs a spokesman, it's time to move on." (It was later revealed that the satirist Armando Iannucci first used this line last September.)
Coulson's resignation has once again raised questions over the judgment of David Cameron, who knew of the controversy surrounding his editorship of the News of the World. Cameron said of Coulson: "He has been a brilliant member of my team and has thrown himself at the job with skill and dedication."
Ed Miliband, the Labour leader, attempted to turn the focus onto Cameron. Miliband said: "I think it raises real questions about David Cameron's judgment that he hung on to Andy Coulson for so long."
It is understood that Coulson told Cameron of his decision on Wednesday night. Some commentators have questioned the decision to announce his departure today – as Tony Blair was giving evidence to the Iraq war inquiry, but Downing Street denied the timing was deliberate.
The MP who triggered the latest Commons inquiry into phone hacking called on the police to conduct a thorough investigation. Chris Bryant, a Labour MP, said: "I hope now finally that the police will be able to conduct the full, transparent, and thorough inquiry into phone hacking that we are still waiting for and that the murky truth will come to light."
4.56pm: Coulson has been shown on the news channels leaving Downing Street. As the flashbulbs popped, Coulson strode off, saying nothing. I'll resist the temptation to sugggest that, as the sun sets over London, he looked as if he was slunking away into the shadows. I'll just confine myself to noting that Adam Boulton, Sky's political editor, reckons that he won't be back at No 10 before he leaves his job in a few weeks. I guess he'll just be working from home, then.
4.48pm: My colleague Mark Sweney has been trawling through the archives to see what key figures said about phone hacking in the past. My favourite is the one from Rebekah Brooks, who preceded Coulson as editor of the News of the World. On 10 July 2009, Brooks, who was then chief executive of News International, said:
"The Guardian coverage, we believe, has substantially and likely deliberately misled the British public." ...
... 11.51am: This is the full statement issued by Andy Coulson today:
I can today confirm that I've resigned as Downing Street director of communications. It's been a privilege and an honour to work for David Cameron for three-and-a-half years.
I'm extremely proud of the part I've played in helping him reach No 10 and during the coalition's first nine months.
Nothing is more important than the Government's task of getting this country back on its feet.
Unfortunately, continued coverage of events connected to my old job at the News of the World has made it difficult for me to give the 110% needed in this role.
I stand by what I've said about those events but when the spokesman needs a spokesman, it's time to move on.
I'll leave within the next few weeks and will do so wishing the Prime Minister, his family, and his brilliant and dedicated team the very best for what I'm sure will be a long and successful future in Government.
11.51am: Here's the full statement from David Cameron:
I am very sorry that Andy Coulson has decided to resign as my Director of Communications, although I understand that the continuing pressures on him and his family mean that he feels compelled to do so. Andy has told me that the focus on him was impeding his ability to do his job and was starting to prove a distraction for the Government.
During his time working for me, Andy has carried out his role with complete professionalism. He has been a brilliant member of my team and has thrown himself at the job with skill and dedication. He can be extremely proud of the role he has played, including for the last eight months in Government.
I wish Andy all the very best for his future, which I am certain will be a successful one.
11.48am: This is the second time Coulson has lost a high-profile job over the phone-hacking scandal. He quit as editor of the News of the World in January 2007 when Clive Goodman was jailed. Until now, the prime minister, David Cameron, had maintained Coulson "deserved a second chance". ...
Andy Coulson, David Cameron's director of communications, has quit in the wake of the latest phone-hacking revelations
5.15pm: Here's a summary of events tonight.
Live blog: recap
The intensification of the phone-hacking scandal, a story that refuses to go away, has forced Andy Coulson into a second resignation. Coulson quit as director of communications at Downing Street, blaming "continued coverage" of the phone-hacking scandal which forced him from the editorship of the News of the World. He said: "When the spokesman needs a spokesman, it's time to move on." (It was later revealed that the satirist Armando Iannucci first used this line last September.)
Coulson's resignation has once again raised questions over the judgment of David Cameron, who knew of the controversy surrounding his editorship of the News of the World. Cameron said of Coulson: "He has been a brilliant member of my team and has thrown himself at the job with skill and dedication."
Ed Miliband, the Labour leader, attempted to turn the focus onto Cameron. Miliband said: "I think it raises real questions about David Cameron's judgment that he hung on to Andy Coulson for so long."
It is understood that Coulson told Cameron of his decision on Wednesday night. Some commentators have questioned the decision to announce his departure today – as Tony Blair was giving evidence to the Iraq war inquiry, but Downing Street denied the timing was deliberate.
The MP who triggered the latest Commons inquiry into phone hacking called on the police to conduct a thorough investigation. Chris Bryant, a Labour MP, said: "I hope now finally that the police will be able to conduct the full, transparent, and thorough inquiry into phone hacking that we are still waiting for and that the murky truth will come to light."
4.56pm: Coulson has been shown on the news channels leaving Downing Street. As the flashbulbs popped, Coulson strode off, saying nothing. I'll resist the temptation to sugggest that, as the sun sets over London, he looked as if he was slunking away into the shadows. I'll just confine myself to noting that Adam Boulton, Sky's political editor, reckons that he won't be back at No 10 before he leaves his job in a few weeks. I guess he'll just be working from home, then.
4.48pm: My colleague Mark Sweney has been trawling through the archives to see what key figures said about phone hacking in the past. My favourite is the one from Rebekah Brooks, who preceded Coulson as editor of the News of the World. On 10 July 2009, Brooks, who was then chief executive of News International, said:
"The Guardian coverage, we believe, has substantially and likely deliberately misled the British public." ...
... 11.51am: This is the full statement issued by Andy Coulson today:
I can today confirm that I've resigned as Downing Street director of communications. It's been a privilege and an honour to work for David Cameron for three-and-a-half years.
I'm extremely proud of the part I've played in helping him reach No 10 and during the coalition's first nine months.
Nothing is more important than the Government's task of getting this country back on its feet.
Unfortunately, continued coverage of events connected to my old job at the News of the World has made it difficult for me to give the 110% needed in this role.
I stand by what I've said about those events but when the spokesman needs a spokesman, it's time to move on.
I'll leave within the next few weeks and will do so wishing the Prime Minister, his family, and his brilliant and dedicated team the very best for what I'm sure will be a long and successful future in Government.
11.51am: Here's the full statement from David Cameron:
I am very sorry that Andy Coulson has decided to resign as my Director of Communications, although I understand that the continuing pressures on him and his family mean that he feels compelled to do so. Andy has told me that the focus on him was impeding his ability to do his job and was starting to prove a distraction for the Government.
During his time working for me, Andy has carried out his role with complete professionalism. He has been a brilliant member of my team and has thrown himself at the job with skill and dedication. He can be extremely proud of the role he has played, including for the last eight months in Government.
I wish Andy all the very best for his future, which I am certain will be a successful one.
11.48am: This is the second time Coulson has lost a high-profile job over the phone-hacking scandal. He quit as editor of the News of the World in January 2007 when Clive Goodman was jailed. Until now, the prime minister, David Cameron, had maintained Coulson "deserved a second chance". ...
The lawyer for Bradley Manning, the army private suspected of leaking hundreds of thousands of documents to WikiLeaks, has filed a complaint that he is being unfairly treated at the marine base jail in Virginia.
David Coombs, Manning's lawyer, said that holding him in maximum custody over the last five months and placing him on suicide watch amounted to abuse. Coombs called for his removal from such tight monitoring.
The complaint was filed on Wednesday and on Thursday the marines downgraded his classification from suicide watch to prevention of injury. But Coombs argues that prevention of injury is not significantly different in practical terms and is seeking his removal from maximum security.
Coombs, writing on his office website, said that on Wednesday, against the recommendation of two forensic psychiatrists, the commander of the Quantico jail, James Averhart, listed Manning as a suicide risk, which meant he was confined to his cell 24 hours a day. "He was stripped of all clothing with the exception of his underwear. His prescription eyeglasses were taken away from him. He was forced to sit in essential blindness with the exception of the times that he was reading or given limited television privileges. During those times, his glasses were returned to him," Coombs wrote.
Manning, aged 23, who had been based in Iraq, was transferred to Quantico on July 29 last year. He is facing court-martial later this year and faces a heavy prison sentence if found guilty of leaking classified material. ...
David Coombs, Manning's lawyer, said that holding him in maximum custody over the last five months and placing him on suicide watch amounted to abuse. Coombs called for his removal from such tight monitoring.
The complaint was filed on Wednesday and on Thursday the marines downgraded his classification from suicide watch to prevention of injury. But Coombs argues that prevention of injury is not significantly different in practical terms and is seeking his removal from maximum security.
Coombs, writing on his office website, said that on Wednesday, against the recommendation of two forensic psychiatrists, the commander of the Quantico jail, James Averhart, listed Manning as a suicide risk, which meant he was confined to his cell 24 hours a day. "He was stripped of all clothing with the exception of his underwear. His prescription eyeglasses were taken away from him. He was forced to sit in essential blindness with the exception of the times that he was reading or given limited television privileges. During those times, his glasses were returned to him," Coombs wrote.
Manning, aged 23, who had been based in Iraq, was transferred to Quantico on July 29 last year. He is facing court-martial later this year and faces a heavy prison sentence if found guilty of leaking classified material. ...
Nearly a third of Zimbabwe's 5.5m registered voters are dead, research has found. Others appear to be up to 120 years old, improbably outstripping the country's average life expectancy of 43.
The independent Zimbabwe Election Support Network (ZESN) said the country's electoral roll was a "shambles" and should be overhauled before fresh elections, which could be held this year.
A new electoral register is a key demand of the Movement for Democratic Change , which has accused President Robert Mugabe's Zanu-PF party of counting "ghost voters" in its own favour.
After conducting an audit of the roll, the ZESN reported that 27% of people registered to vote were dead.
"The computer test revealed that 2,344 people born between 1901 and 1909, therefore aged between 101 and 110 years, were on the voters' roll," it said. "Nine people born between 1890 and 1900, aged between 111 and 120 years, are registered voters."
Life expectancy in Zimbabwe is 43 years, according to the World Health Organisation. Mugabe will soon turn 87. ...
The independent Zimbabwe Election Support Network (ZESN) said the country's electoral roll was a "shambles" and should be overhauled before fresh elections, which could be held this year.
A new electoral register is a key demand of the Movement for Democratic Change , which has accused President Robert Mugabe's Zanu-PF party of counting "ghost voters" in its own favour.
After conducting an audit of the roll, the ZESN reported that 27% of people registered to vote were dead.
"The computer test revealed that 2,344 people born between 1901 and 1909, therefore aged between 101 and 110 years, were on the voters' roll," it said. "Nine people born between 1890 and 1900, aged between 111 and 120 years, are registered voters."
Life expectancy in Zimbabwe is 43 years, according to the World Health Organisation. Mugabe will soon turn 87. ...
Handmade cosmetics group Lush has admitted its website was hacked repeatedly by fraudsters over the past three months, putting thousands of customers at risk of having their card details stolen. But the company only informed customers last night.
Lush has taken down its website and replaced it with a statement: "We would like all customers that placed online orders with us between 4 Oct 2010 and 20 Jan 2011 to contact their banks for advice as their card details may have been compromised."
The beauty company warned: "24 hour security monitoring has shown us that we are still being targeted and there are continuing attempts to re-enter".
Customers will be unable to make purchases until a new site is launched "in a few days" accepting only PayPal payments, but orders are still being taken via its mail order telephone service, which the cosmetics group said had been unaffected by the "crisis". Customers who paid by card in Lush stores are also unaffected. ...
Lush has taken down its website and replaced it with a statement: "We would like all customers that placed online orders with us between 4 Oct 2010 and 20 Jan 2011 to contact their banks for advice as their card details may have been compromised."
The beauty company warned: "24 hour security monitoring has shown us that we are still being targeted and there are continuing attempts to re-enter".
Customers will be unable to make purchases until a new site is launched "in a few days" accepting only PayPal payments, but orders are still being taken via its mail order telephone service, which the cosmetics group said had been unaffected by the "crisis". Customers who paid by card in Lush stores are also unaffected. ...
Julian Assange vows to reveal tax details of 2,000 wealthy people
Swiss banker gives WikiLeaks founder data 'to educate society' about amount of potential tax revenues lost to offshore schemes
Esther Addley
Monday 17 January 2011
Julian Assange, the WikiLeaks founder, today pledged to make public the confidential tax details of 2,000 wealthy and prominent individuals, after being passed the data by a Swiss banker who claims the information potentially reveals instances of money-laundering and large-scale illegal tax evasion.
In a carefully choreographed handover in central London, Rudolf Elmer, formerly a senior executive at the Swiss bank Julius Baer, based in the Cayman islands, said he was handing the data to WikiLeaks as part of an attempt "to educate society" about the amount of potential tax revenues lost thanks to offshore schemes and money-laundering.
"As banker, I have the right to stand up if something is wrong," he said. "I am against the system. I know how the system works and I know the day-to-day business. I wanted to let society know how this system works because it's damaging society," he said.
Elmer will appear in a Swiss court on Wednesday charged with breaking Swiss banking secrecy laws, forging documents and sending threatening messages to two officials at his former employer.
He denies the charges. ...
Swiss banker gives WikiLeaks founder data 'to educate society' about amount of potential tax revenues lost to offshore schemes
Esther Addley
Monday 17 January 2011
Julian Assange, the WikiLeaks founder, today pledged to make public the confidential tax details of 2,000 wealthy and prominent individuals, after being passed the data by a Swiss banker who claims the information potentially reveals instances of money-laundering and large-scale illegal tax evasion.
In a carefully choreographed handover in central London, Rudolf Elmer, formerly a senior executive at the Swiss bank Julius Baer, based in the Cayman islands, said he was handing the data to WikiLeaks as part of an attempt "to educate society" about the amount of potential tax revenues lost thanks to offshore schemes and money-laundering.
"As banker, I have the right to stand up if something is wrong," he said. "I am against the system. I know how the system works and I know the day-to-day business. I wanted to let society know how this system works because it's damaging society," he said.
Elmer will appear in a Swiss court on Wednesday charged with breaking Swiss banking secrecy laws, forging documents and sending threatening messages to two officials at his former employer.
He denies the charges. ...
The government will respond today to revelations that police spent millions of pounds running a network of undercover spies in the environmental protest movement.
Home Office minister Nick Herbert will be questioned by MPs about Mark Kennedy, who spent seven years living as an activist. Kennedy claims he has been "hung out to dry" by his handlers, makes numerous criticisms of the operation and admits to sexual relations with activists.
He also alleges that secret surveillance tapes would have exonerated six activists accused of breaking into a power station. He accuses senior officers of suppressing the tapes, a move that could have resulted in a serious miscarriage of justice.
Herbert, who has responsibility for policing, will appear before the home affairs select committee to answer questions on police financing. Members of the committee, including the Labour chair, Keith Vaz, are planning to question him over Kennedy. A programme to plant spies in the protest movement is now estimated to have cost £15m over the last decade.
Kennedy denies claims by activists that he was an agent provocateur in protests, including the attempt to break into Ratcliffe-on-Soar power station in 2009. He insists all of his activities were scrutinised and "sanctioned" by his superiors. ...
Home Office minister Nick Herbert will be questioned by MPs about Mark Kennedy, who spent seven years living as an activist. Kennedy claims he has been "hung out to dry" by his handlers, makes numerous criticisms of the operation and admits to sexual relations with activists.
He also alleges that secret surveillance tapes would have exonerated six activists accused of breaking into a power station. He accuses senior officers of suppressing the tapes, a move that could have resulted in a serious miscarriage of justice.
Herbert, who has responsibility for policing, will appear before the home affairs select committee to answer questions on police financing. Members of the committee, including the Labour chair, Keith Vaz, are planning to question him over Kennedy. A programme to plant spies in the protest movement is now estimated to have cost £15m over the last decade.
Kennedy denies claims by activists that he was an agent provocateur in protests, including the attempt to break into Ratcliffe-on-Soar power station in 2009. He insists all of his activities were scrutinised and "sanctioned" by his superiors. ...
...it was some years before I heard he had been an informer. I was left feeling rather grubby, and rueing my taste in men. Yet I never thought that he had specifically targeted me, or that anything I said had been of particular use to his police handlers.
A far greater betrayal came in the form of Joy Harnden, another spy in my organisation, the End Conscription Campaign. We weren't particularly close but I remember being impressed by her dedication and intimate knowledge of the workings of the apartheid state. (Odd that.) I recall one conversation when she pumped me for personal information about a housemate who had recently been released from police detention. I should have noticed something was amiss, but I admired Joy and was pleased to spend time with her.
I later learned that she was a lieutenant in the security police and was responsible for the death of at least one ANC comrade. It still makes me feel sick. She changed her name and lived in Scotland for a while, and sometimes I fantasise about tracking her down and confronting her.
But it didn't cross my mind to take legal action against the police over any of this. After all, it was South Africa in the 1980s and we were trying to overthrow the state. We expected it. But it's not what I would expect if I was protesting against climate change in Britain today.
A far greater betrayal came in the form of Joy Harnden, another spy in my organisation, the End Conscription Campaign. We weren't particularly close but I remember being impressed by her dedication and intimate knowledge of the workings of the apartheid state. (Odd that.) I recall one conversation when she pumped me for personal information about a housemate who had recently been released from police detention. I should have noticed something was amiss, but I admired Joy and was pleased to spend time with her.
I later learned that she was a lieutenant in the security police and was responsible for the death of at least one ANC comrade. It still makes me feel sick. She changed her name and lived in Scotland for a while, and sometimes I fantasise about tracking her down and confronting her.
But it didn't cross my mind to take legal action against the police over any of this. After all, it was South Africa in the 1980s and we were trying to overthrow the state. We expected it. But it's not what I would expect if I was protesting against climate change in Britain today.
News Corporation's defence that phone hacking at the News of the World was the work of a single "rogue reporter" was on the verge of collapse tonight after Glenn Mulcaire, the private detective at the centre of the case, said the paper's head of news commissioned him to access voicemail messages.
Mulcaire is understood to have submitted a statement to the high court this afternoon confirming that Ian Edmondson, the paper's assistant editor (news) asked him to hack into voicemail messages left on a mobile phone belonging to Sky Andrew, a football agent. Andrew is suing the paper for breach of privacy.
It is also understood that Mulcaire said in the court statement that several other executives at the News of the World were aware that phone hacking was taking place, although he does not name them.
A spokesman for the News of the World said: "This is a serious allegation that will form part of our internal investigation."
Edmondson was suspended by the paper before Christmas after he was named in court documents in a separate case against the News of the World brought by the actor Sienna Miller.
His computer has been impounded as part of the paper's internal investigation and the company is trawling through his emails. He is expected to be questioned after colleagues have been interviewed.
Mulcaire's decision to name Edmondson helps to explains why News Group acted so quickly to suspend him. ...
Mulcaire is understood to have submitted a statement to the high court this afternoon confirming that Ian Edmondson, the paper's assistant editor (news) asked him to hack into voicemail messages left on a mobile phone belonging to Sky Andrew, a football agent. Andrew is suing the paper for breach of privacy.
It is also understood that Mulcaire said in the court statement that several other executives at the News of the World were aware that phone hacking was taking place, although he does not name them.
A spokesman for the News of the World said: "This is a serious allegation that will form part of our internal investigation."
Edmondson was suspended by the paper before Christmas after he was named in court documents in a separate case against the News of the World brought by the actor Sienna Miller.
His computer has been impounded as part of the paper's internal investigation and the company is trawling through his emails. He is expected to be questioned after colleagues have been interviewed.
Mulcaire's decision to name Edmondson helps to explains why News Group acted so quickly to suspend him. ...
A bizarre decision to ride an inflatable doll down a flood-swollen Yarra River blew up in a woman’s face yesterday when she lost her latex playmate in a rough patch.
The incident prompted a warning from police that blow-up sex toys are "not recognised flotation devices’’.
Police and a State Emergency Services crew were called to the rescue when the woman and a man, both 19, struck trouble at Warrandyte North about 4.30pm yesterday.
They were floating down the river on two inflatable dolls and had just passed the Pound Bend Tunnel when the woman lost her toy in turbulent water.
She clung to a floating tree, calling for help while the man stayed with her. Fortunately for the pair, a passer-by called triple zero while while a kayaker took life jackets to the pair. Police and the SES crew hauled the water-logged thrillseekers to safety. ...
Ta much, dear Anneliese
The incident prompted a warning from police that blow-up sex toys are "not recognised flotation devices’’.
Police and a State Emergency Services crew were called to the rescue when the woman and a man, both 19, struck trouble at Warrandyte North about 4.30pm yesterday.
They were floating down the river on two inflatable dolls and had just passed the Pound Bend Tunnel when the woman lost her toy in turbulent water.
She clung to a floating tree, calling for help while the man stayed with her. Fortunately for the pair, a passer-by called triple zero while while a kayaker took life jackets to the pair. Police and the SES crew hauled the water-logged thrillseekers to safety. ...
Ta much, dear Anneliese
Hundreds of British holidaymakers on a Saga cruise were ordered below deck after pirates closed in on their ship off the coast of Tanzania.
Passengers on the £2,000 a head voyage across the Indian Ocean were instructed to stay out of sight on the floor of the main lounge of the Spirit of Adventure.
A fast moving boat carrying armed Somali pirates was first spotted on the vessel's radar on Wednesday evening as it sped towards the liner.
Pirates operating out of lawless tracts of Somalia have spread their attacks south towards Tanzania and east far beyond the Seychelles in an attempt to avoid surveillance by European naval patrols protecting the international shipping lanes in the Red Sea. ...
Passengers on the £2,000 a head voyage across the Indian Ocean were instructed to stay out of sight on the floor of the main lounge of the Spirit of Adventure.
A fast moving boat carrying armed Somali pirates was first spotted on the vessel's radar on Wednesday evening as it sped towards the liner.
Pirates operating out of lawless tracts of Somalia have spread their attacks south towards Tanzania and east far beyond the Seychelles in an attempt to avoid surveillance by European naval patrols protecting the international shipping lanes in the Red Sea. ...
Silvio Berlusconi was tonight facing the potentially devastating possibility that he might be put on trial as an alleged sex offender.
The chief prosecutor in his home city of Milan said the Italian prime minister had been formally placed under investigation on suspicion of having sex with an underage prostitute. He was also accused of abusing his position to pressure the police.
The offences carry sentences totalling up to 15 years in jail. Berlusconi had not been charged, but had been invited to present himself for questioning, according to the prosecutor's statement.
The previous day Italy's constitutional court overturned key passages of a bill introduced by Berlusconi's government that would have shielded him from the courts. The double blow looked certain to weaken a leader whose majority in parliament has hung by a thread ever since he was deserted last year by his former ally and deputy, Gianfranco Fini.
The investigation concerns Karima El Mahroug, otherwise known as Ruby Rubacuori, a Moroccan teenager who told investigators last year – when she was 17 – that she had attended parties at Berlusconi's estate near Milan, one of which ended in an erotic game called "Bunga Bunga".
The period in which Berlusconi is suspected of relations with a juvenile prostitute, February to May 2010, coincides with that in which Mahroug is thought to have visited his estate. She has denied having sexual relations with the prime minister, but acknowledged accepting from him a gift of several thousand euros.
Berlusconi's lawyers said in a statement that the allegations were "absurd and groundless". They called the investigation a "very serious interference in the private life" of the prime minister. ...
The chief prosecutor in his home city of Milan said the Italian prime minister had been formally placed under investigation on suspicion of having sex with an underage prostitute. He was also accused of abusing his position to pressure the police.
The offences carry sentences totalling up to 15 years in jail. Berlusconi had not been charged, but had been invited to present himself for questioning, according to the prosecutor's statement.
The previous day Italy's constitutional court overturned key passages of a bill introduced by Berlusconi's government that would have shielded him from the courts. The double blow looked certain to weaken a leader whose majority in parliament has hung by a thread ever since he was deserted last year by his former ally and deputy, Gianfranco Fini.
The investigation concerns Karima El Mahroug, otherwise known as Ruby Rubacuori, a Moroccan teenager who told investigators last year – when she was 17 – that she had attended parties at Berlusconi's estate near Milan, one of which ended in an erotic game called "Bunga Bunga".
The period in which Berlusconi is suspected of relations with a juvenile prostitute, February to May 2010, coincides with that in which Mahroug is thought to have visited his estate. She has denied having sexual relations with the prime minister, but acknowledged accepting from him a gift of several thousand euros.
Berlusconi's lawyers said in a statement that the allegations were "absurd and groundless". They called the investigation a "very serious interference in the private life" of the prime minister. ...
Any one of the many allegations levelled at Silvio Berlusconi over the years would probably be sufficient to sink a prime minister in most countries, but the scandal which could finally undo him is perhaps the most scurrilous of them all. It combines an underage belly dancer, ribald sex parties and claims of political interference with the police.
The unwitting protagonist in this particular tale is Karima el-Mahroug, who also goes under the stage monicker of Ruby Rubacuori, or Ruby Heartstealer.
According to a series of media reports last October, Berlusconi met Mahroug, then 17, through Nicole Minetti, a TV showgirl turned dental hygienist who acquired a post in Berlusconi's Freedom People party after catching his eye while cleaning his teeth.
Mahroug insisted that she had not slept with the 74-year-old prime minister, but she told Italian newspapers that she attended "bunga bunga" sex parties at his mansion near Milan. At one of these, Mahroug said, she sat next to Berlusconi, who later took her upstairs and gave her an envelope containing €7,000. She said he also gave her jewellery.
Their acquaintance came to light after Mahroug was arrested in Milan for allegedly stealing cash. The station commander said that she was released after police received a call from the prime minister's office saying – incorrectly – that she was the granddaughter of Egypt's long-serving president, Hosni Mubarak.
Berlusconi ridiculed opposition calls for him to resign over the affair, saying: "As always, I work without interruption and if occasionally I happen to look a beautiful girl in the face, it's better to like beautiful girls than to be gay." ...
The unwitting protagonist in this particular tale is Karima el-Mahroug, who also goes under the stage monicker of Ruby Rubacuori, or Ruby Heartstealer.
According to a series of media reports last October, Berlusconi met Mahroug, then 17, through Nicole Minetti, a TV showgirl turned dental hygienist who acquired a post in Berlusconi's Freedom People party after catching his eye while cleaning his teeth.
Mahroug insisted that she had not slept with the 74-year-old prime minister, but she told Italian newspapers that she attended "bunga bunga" sex parties at his mansion near Milan. At one of these, Mahroug said, she sat next to Berlusconi, who later took her upstairs and gave her an envelope containing €7,000. She said he also gave her jewellery.
Their acquaintance came to light after Mahroug was arrested in Milan for allegedly stealing cash. The station commander said that she was released after police received a call from the prime minister's office saying – incorrectly – that she was the granddaughter of Egypt's long-serving president, Hosni Mubarak.
Berlusconi ridiculed opposition calls for him to resign over the affair, saying: "As always, I work without interruption and if occasionally I happen to look a beautiful girl in the face, it's better to like beautiful girls than to be gay." ...
Twenty environmental activists are seeking to overturn recent criminal convictions in the wake of the Guardian's revelations about a network of undercover police officers embedded deep in the movement.
Lawyers for the group claim that a failure to disclose the role of covert police operative Mark Kennedy during their trial may have led to a miscarriage of justice and have written to the Crown Prosecution Service demanding details of his role.
Six other activists walked free from court earlier this week after their lawyer, Mike Schwarz, demanded details of the part played by Kennedy in planning the environmental protest they took part in at Ratcliffe-on-Soar power station, near Nottingham, in 2009.
However, last month, in a separate trial, the 20 green campaigners were convicted of conspiracy to commit aggravated trespass during the same protest, after failing to convince a jury that their actions were designed to prevent immediate harm to human life and property from climate change.
"The police allowed this trial, unlike the later one, to run all the way to conviction," said Schwarz, whose firm, Bindmans, represents both groups of protesters. "In the light of events last week, this must be seen as a potential miscarriage of justice."
Revelations of PC Kennedy's activities by the Guardian this week have triggered a crisis in undercover policing. He is alleged to have played a central role in organising a proposal to break into the power station.
Kennedy used the fake identity "Mark Stone" to live for seven years in the protest movement, infiltrating activist groups in 22 countries. He had sexual relationships with a number of women. He also revealed the identity of another undercover officer to fellow activists, leading to a security operation this week as police tried to ensure all their undercover officers were safe.
An investigation into the collapse of the trial of the six activists is expected to be launched shortly by the Independent Police Complaints Commission. The body is also considering widening its inquiry to take into account whether or not Kennedy acted as an agent provocateur during his years undercover. A further review into the wider undercover operation and those organising it may also follow. ...
Lawyers for the group claim that a failure to disclose the role of covert police operative Mark Kennedy during their trial may have led to a miscarriage of justice and have written to the Crown Prosecution Service demanding details of his role.
Six other activists walked free from court earlier this week after their lawyer, Mike Schwarz, demanded details of the part played by Kennedy in planning the environmental protest they took part in at Ratcliffe-on-Soar power station, near Nottingham, in 2009.
However, last month, in a separate trial, the 20 green campaigners were convicted of conspiracy to commit aggravated trespass during the same protest, after failing to convince a jury that their actions were designed to prevent immediate harm to human life and property from climate change.
"The police allowed this trial, unlike the later one, to run all the way to conviction," said Schwarz, whose firm, Bindmans, represents both groups of protesters. "In the light of events last week, this must be seen as a potential miscarriage of justice."
Revelations of PC Kennedy's activities by the Guardian this week have triggered a crisis in undercover policing. He is alleged to have played a central role in organising a proposal to break into the power station.
Kennedy used the fake identity "Mark Stone" to live for seven years in the protest movement, infiltrating activist groups in 22 countries. He had sexual relationships with a number of women. He also revealed the identity of another undercover officer to fellow activists, leading to a security operation this week as police tried to ensure all their undercover officers were safe.
An investigation into the collapse of the trial of the six activists is expected to be launched shortly by the Independent Police Complaints Commission. The body is also considering widening its inquiry to take into account whether or not Kennedy acted as an agent provocateur during his years undercover. A further review into the wider undercover operation and those organising it may also follow. ...
... Johnson & Johnson has had to recall such a variety of products because of quality-control problems across product lines, in multiple factories and in several units last year. Some of its consumer products, for instance, may have contained bits of metal. Others came in bottles with a moldy smell. And some products have gone missing from stores with hardly an explanation. All of this has put the company and its manufacturing under the intense scrutiny of lawmakers and officials at the Food and Drug Administration.
“It looks like a plane spinning out of control,” says David Vinjamuri, a former J.& J. marketing employee who now trains brand managers at his company, ThirdWay Brand Trainers.
While the drugstore signs that helpfully suggest “Try CVS/pharmacy brand” are intended to assist frustrated shoppers in identifying alternatives to missing brand-name products, they also serve as constant reminders of another of J.& J.’s continuing problems: It must persuade millions of disappointed customers to once again pay a premium for products that may no longer seem to be of any higher quality than the less expensive store brand.
“I don’t even consider buying them any more,” says Thien-Kim Lam, a mother of two and a blogger in Silver Spring, Md. In a post last spring titled “Makers of Tylenol, I’m Disappointed in You” on the blog DC Metro Moms, Ms. Lam wrote about the huge recall of J.& J. infants’ and children’s medicines.
Now, she says, the frequent recalls have prompted her to switch to generic cold and cough medicines for her children. “It’s like a breakup,” she says. “I’m done. I’ve moved on.” ...
“It looks like a plane spinning out of control,” says David Vinjamuri, a former J.& J. marketing employee who now trains brand managers at his company, ThirdWay Brand Trainers.
While the drugstore signs that helpfully suggest “Try CVS/pharmacy brand” are intended to assist frustrated shoppers in identifying alternatives to missing brand-name products, they also serve as constant reminders of another of J.& J.’s continuing problems: It must persuade millions of disappointed customers to once again pay a premium for products that may no longer seem to be of any higher quality than the less expensive store brand.
“I don’t even consider buying them any more,” says Thien-Kim Lam, a mother of two and a blogger in Silver Spring, Md. In a post last spring titled “Makers of Tylenol, I’m Disappointed in You” on the blog DC Metro Moms, Ms. Lam wrote about the huge recall of J.& J. infants’ and children’s medicines.
Now, she says, the frequent recalls have prompted her to switch to generic cold and cough medicines for her children. “It’s like a breakup,” she says. “I’m done. I’ve moved on.” ...
... 12pm: A Julian Assange colouring book.
12.10pm: How many Twitter followers does WikiLeaks have? A Forbes blog yesterday said its 637,000 had fallen by several thousand since WikiLeaks tweeted that all of them were the "target of US gov subpoena". The number today appears to be up – to 647,541.
1pm: Glenn Greenwald has a post following on from the Assange legal team's invocation of the possibility of extradition from Sweden to the US:
And now we have the spectacle of Julian Assange's lawyers citing the Obama administration's policies of rendition and indefinite detention at Guantanamo as a reason why human rights treaties bar his extradition to any country (such as Sweden) which might transfer him to American custody. Indeed, almost every person with whom I've spoken who has or had anything to do with WikiLeaks expresses one fear above all others: the possibility that they will end up in American custody and subjected to its lawless War on Terror "justice system." Americans still like to think of themselves as "leaders of the free world," but in the eyes of many, it's exactly the "free world" to which American policies are so antithetical and threatening
2.45pm: The Frontline Club - where Assange was living when he was in London - has put up video of a WikiLeaks discussion it held last night. The panel included Guardian deputy editor Ian Katz, Times columnist David Aaronovitch and Assange's lawyer Mark Stephens.
The Frontline Club has also written up the event on its blog.
3.45pm: Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu has offered his assessment of the leaked cables to a group of foreign journalists.
The WikiLeaks exposed the three main concerns of most, if not all, of the governments in this region. The first concern is Iran; the second concern is Iran; and the third concern is Iran
4pm: Assange claims to have an "insurance file" on Rupert Murdoch and News Corporation that would be released if either he or WikiLeaks came into difficulty, he says in an interview with the New Statesman. (Update: Press Gazette has more if the News Statesman's link to its own interview summary is slow. Update 2: MediaGuardian has more.)
4.10pm: More from Assange's interview with the New Statesman.
The "technological enemy" of WikiLeaks is not the US - but China, according to Assange.
"China is the worst offender," when it comes to censorship, says the controversial whistleblower. "China has aggressive and sophisticated interception technology that places itself between every reader inside China and every information source outside China. We've been fighting a running battle to make sure we can get information through, and there are now all sorts of ways Chinese readers can get on to our site."
On Bradley Manning - the US soldier accused of leaking the diplomatic cables to WikiLeaks - Assange says: "I'd never heard his name before it was published in the press." He argues that the US is trying to use Manning - currently stuck in solitary confinement in the US - to build a case against the WikiLeaks founder:
"Cracking Bradley Manning is the first step," says the Australian hacker. "The aim clearly is to break him and force a confession that he somehow conspired with me to harm the national security of the United States." ...
12.10pm: How many Twitter followers does WikiLeaks have? A Forbes blog yesterday said its 637,000 had fallen by several thousand since WikiLeaks tweeted that all of them were the "target of US gov subpoena". The number today appears to be up – to 647,541.
1pm: Glenn Greenwald has a post following on from the Assange legal team's invocation of the possibility of extradition from Sweden to the US:
And now we have the spectacle of Julian Assange's lawyers citing the Obama administration's policies of rendition and indefinite detention at Guantanamo as a reason why human rights treaties bar his extradition to any country (such as Sweden) which might transfer him to American custody. Indeed, almost every person with whom I've spoken who has or had anything to do with WikiLeaks expresses one fear above all others: the possibility that they will end up in American custody and subjected to its lawless War on Terror "justice system." Americans still like to think of themselves as "leaders of the free world," but in the eyes of many, it's exactly the "free world" to which American policies are so antithetical and threatening
2.45pm: The Frontline Club - where Assange was living when he was in London - has put up video of a WikiLeaks discussion it held last night. The panel included Guardian deputy editor Ian Katz, Times columnist David Aaronovitch and Assange's lawyer Mark Stephens.
The Frontline Club has also written up the event on its blog.
3.45pm: Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu has offered his assessment of the leaked cables to a group of foreign journalists.
The WikiLeaks exposed the three main concerns of most, if not all, of the governments in this region. The first concern is Iran; the second concern is Iran; and the third concern is Iran
4pm: Assange claims to have an "insurance file" on Rupert Murdoch and News Corporation that would be released if either he or WikiLeaks came into difficulty, he says in an interview with the New Statesman. (Update: Press Gazette has more if the News Statesman's link to its own interview summary is slow. Update 2: MediaGuardian has more.)
4.10pm: More from Assange's interview with the New Statesman.
The "technological enemy" of WikiLeaks is not the US - but China, according to Assange.
"China is the worst offender," when it comes to censorship, says the controversial whistleblower. "China has aggressive and sophisticated interception technology that places itself between every reader inside China and every information source outside China. We've been fighting a running battle to make sure we can get information through, and there are now all sorts of ways Chinese readers can get on to our site."
On Bradley Manning - the US soldier accused of leaking the diplomatic cables to WikiLeaks - Assange says: "I'd never heard his name before it was published in the press." He argues that the US is trying to use Manning - currently stuck in solitary confinement in the US - to build a case against the WikiLeaks founder:
"Cracking Bradley Manning is the first step," says the Australian hacker. "The aim clearly is to break him and force a confession that he somehow conspired with me to harm the national security of the United States." ...
... "Indeed, if Mr Assange were rendered to the USA, without assurances that the death penalty would not be carried out, there is a real risk that he could be made subject to the death penalty. It is well known that prominent figures have implied, if not stated outright, that Mr Assange should be executed." ...
... The woman who said she had had a sexual relationship with Kennedy now lives abroad and wants to be known only by her first name, Anna. She said she had sex more than 20 times with the undercover officer about five years ago, including at his house in Nottingham, when she was aged just 21. They met at protests around Europe, and it seemed clear to her that Kennedy was "seeing other women" around the same time. "I'm not sure personally if I would be willing to take part in an inquiry that touched on our sexual relationship," she said. "If the Met knew that this was going on, then obviously they should reveal this. There should be an inquiry into whether this is legal."
Kennedy, who joined the police in about 1994, is known to have had a wife and children before going undercover. There have also been unconfirmed reports that Kennedy had a long-term relationship with a woman in Nottingham while posing as an activist.
Questions over the ethics of the Kennedy operation have already been raised in Germany, where the MP Andrej Hunko has tabled questions asking whether authorities authorised the undercover officer to have "sexual relationships" in the country.
A Guardian investigation revealed on Monday that Kennedy had used a fake passport to travel to 22 different countries while posing as a campaigner, earning the trust of activists and feeding back intelligence to his commanders. ...
Kennedy, who joined the police in about 1994, is known to have had a wife and children before going undercover. There have also been unconfirmed reports that Kennedy had a long-term relationship with a woman in Nottingham while posing as an activist.
Questions over the ethics of the Kennedy operation have already been raised in Germany, where the MP Andrej Hunko has tabled questions asking whether authorities authorised the undercover officer to have "sexual relationships" in the country.
A Guardian investigation revealed on Monday that Kennedy had used a fake passport to travel to 22 different countries while posing as a campaigner, earning the trust of activists and feeding back intelligence to his commanders. ...
Glenn Mulcaire, the former private investigator jailed for intercepting voicemails on phones used by aides to Princes William and Harry at the behest of the News of the World, has run up a legal bill of hundreds of thousands of pounds as he battles a string of ongoing phone-hacking lawsuits.
The expensive defence, estimated to be in excess of £500,000, has triggered speculation that the costs are being paid by the publishers of the tabloid newspaper, whose controlling shareholder, Rupert Murdoch, has said he would take "immediate action" against anybody found to be caught hacking again.
Mulcaire's costs are likely to rise quickly as a string of actions from more public figures suing both him and the newspaper are expected to follow in the next few weeks, adding to the pressure on a south Londoner described as unemployed and receiving jobseeker's allowance in a court judgment in February of last year.
Mulcaire's legal team refuses to say who is paying his bills. When Sarah Webb, his lawyer, was asked if it was known whether News International – owners of News Group Newspapers, the publisher of NotW – was paying his fees, she replied: "No, we don't know that." News International declined to comment. ...
The expensive defence, estimated to be in excess of £500,000, has triggered speculation that the costs are being paid by the publishers of the tabloid newspaper, whose controlling shareholder, Rupert Murdoch, has said he would take "immediate action" against anybody found to be caught hacking again.
Mulcaire's costs are likely to rise quickly as a string of actions from more public figures suing both him and the newspaper are expected to follow in the next few weeks, adding to the pressure on a south Londoner described as unemployed and receiving jobseeker's allowance in a court judgment in February of last year.
Mulcaire's legal team refuses to say who is paying his bills. When Sarah Webb, his lawyer, was asked if it was known whether News International – owners of News Group Newspapers, the publisher of NotW – was paying his fees, she replied: "No, we don't know that." News International declined to comment. ...
Public release date: 7-Jan-2011
Rosanne Spector
Stanford University Medical Center
Evidence lacking for widespread use of costly antipsychotic drugs, says Stanford researcher
STANFORD, Calif. — Many prescriptions for the top-selling class of drugs, known as atypical antipsychotic medications, lack strong evidence that the drugs will actually help, a study by researchers at the Stanford University School of Medicine and University of Chicago has found. Yet, drugs in this class may cause such serious effects as weight gain, diabetes and heart disease, and cost Americans billions of dollars.
"Because these drugs have safety issues, physicians should prescribe them only when they are sure patients will get substantial benefits," said Randall Stafford, MD, PhD, associate professor of medicine at the Stanford Prevention Research Center, who is senior author of the study to be published online Jan. 7 in Pharmacoepidemiology and Drug Safety. "These are commonly used and very expensive drugs."
Prescriptions for these drugs have risen steadily since they first came on the U.S. market in 1989, largely replacing the first generation of antipsychotics, which were mainly used to treat schizophrenia. The U.S. government's original stamp of approval for the new drugs was for treating schizophrenia, but they're used more today for other conditions, including other psychoses, autism, bipolar disorder, delirium, dementia, depression and personality disorders. And while some of these uses have recently been approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, many have not.
For example, the FDA has approved quetiapine (brand name, Seroquel), the antipsychotic with the biggest U.S. sales, for treating schizophrenia and some aspects of bipolar disorder and depression, but the drug is also often used for anxiety and dementia, among other conditions.
These new drugs accounted for more than $10 billion in retail pharmacy U.S. prescription drug costs in 2008, representing the largest expenditure for any single drug class — nearly 5 percent of all drug spending, surpassing even blockbusters like statin cholesterol medications. According to a 2004 study, a quarter of all residents of U.S. nursing homes had taken them. Among the drugs are quetiapine, aripoprazole (brand name, Abilify), olanzapine (Zyprexa) and risperidone (Risperdal), each with annual U.S. sales exceeding $1 billion.
Stafford's new study adds to concerns about the drugs, which have been the focus of thousands of lawsuits, and as a class make up the single largest target of litigation filed under the federal False Claims Act. All major companies selling new-generation antipsychotics have either recently settled cases for hundreds of millions of dollars or are currently under investigation for skewing results or using questionable marketing tactics.
In 2005, the FDA issued its strongest type of caution, the "black box" warning, for use of new-generation antipsychotics, because of increased risk of death for dementia patients.
"Most people think, 'If my doctor prescribed this, the FDA must have evaluated whether this drug was safe and effective for this use.' That's not true," said Stafford. When doctors prescribe drugs for purposes other than those approved by the FDA, it's called "off-label" use. Though it's riskier for patients, there's nothing illegal about it, and can make sense medically in some instances, Stafford said, especially if there are no approved treatments or if a patient has not responded to approved drugs. ...
Rosanne Spector
Stanford University Medical Center
Evidence lacking for widespread use of costly antipsychotic drugs, says Stanford researcher
STANFORD, Calif. — Many prescriptions for the top-selling class of drugs, known as atypical antipsychotic medications, lack strong evidence that the drugs will actually help, a study by researchers at the Stanford University School of Medicine and University of Chicago has found. Yet, drugs in this class may cause such serious effects as weight gain, diabetes and heart disease, and cost Americans billions of dollars.
"Because these drugs have safety issues, physicians should prescribe them only when they are sure patients will get substantial benefits," said Randall Stafford, MD, PhD, associate professor of medicine at the Stanford Prevention Research Center, who is senior author of the study to be published online Jan. 7 in Pharmacoepidemiology and Drug Safety. "These are commonly used and very expensive drugs."
Prescriptions for these drugs have risen steadily since they first came on the U.S. market in 1989, largely replacing the first generation of antipsychotics, which were mainly used to treat schizophrenia. The U.S. government's original stamp of approval for the new drugs was for treating schizophrenia, but they're used more today for other conditions, including other psychoses, autism, bipolar disorder, delirium, dementia, depression and personality disorders. And while some of these uses have recently been approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, many have not.
For example, the FDA has approved quetiapine (brand name, Seroquel), the antipsychotic with the biggest U.S. sales, for treating schizophrenia and some aspects of bipolar disorder and depression, but the drug is also often used for anxiety and dementia, among other conditions.
These new drugs accounted for more than $10 billion in retail pharmacy U.S. prescription drug costs in 2008, representing the largest expenditure for any single drug class — nearly 5 percent of all drug spending, surpassing even blockbusters like statin cholesterol medications. According to a 2004 study, a quarter of all residents of U.S. nursing homes had taken them. Among the drugs are quetiapine, aripoprazole (brand name, Abilify), olanzapine (Zyprexa) and risperidone (Risperdal), each with annual U.S. sales exceeding $1 billion.
Stafford's new study adds to concerns about the drugs, which have been the focus of thousands of lawsuits, and as a class make up the single largest target of litigation filed under the federal False Claims Act. All major companies selling new-generation antipsychotics have either recently settled cases for hundreds of millions of dollars or are currently under investigation for skewing results or using questionable marketing tactics.
In 2005, the FDA issued its strongest type of caution, the "black box" warning, for use of new-generation antipsychotics, because of increased risk of death for dementia patients.
"Most people think, 'If my doctor prescribed this, the FDA must have evaluated whether this drug was safe and effective for this use.' That's not true," said Stafford. When doctors prescribe drugs for purposes other than those approved by the FDA, it's called "off-label" use. Though it's riskier for patients, there's nothing illegal about it, and can make sense medically in some instances, Stafford said, especially if there are no approved treatments or if a patient has not responded to approved drugs. ...
Another study is raising questions about widespread use of atypical antipsychotics. The newer schizophrenia meds have been adopted for a variety of other uses, including bipolar disorder and depression, but those uses aren't really warranted by the evidence, researchers concluded after reviewing data from prescribing physicians. Indeed, more than half of the 2008 scrips for atypicals were based on less-than-solid data, the Pharmacoepidemiology and Drug Safety study found.
"What we see is wide adoption for the use of these medications far beyond the evidence base to support it," Dr. Caleb Alexander, a professors at the University of Chicago and an IMS Health consultant, told Reuters. "We're talking millions of prescriptions a year for antipsychotics in settings where there is uncertain evidence to support them." ...
"What we see is wide adoption for the use of these medications far beyond the evidence base to support it," Dr. Caleb Alexander, a professors at the University of Chicago and an IMS Health consultant, told Reuters. "We're talking millions of prescriptions a year for antipsychotics in settings where there is uncertain evidence to support them." ...
WikiLeaks has demanded that Google and Facebook reveal the contents of any US subpoenas they may have received after it emerged that a court in Virginia had ordered Twitter to secretly hand over details of accounts on the micro-blogging site by five figures associated with the group, including Julian Assange.
Amid strong evidence that a US grand jury has begun a wideranging trawl for details of what networks and accounts WikiLeaks used to communicate with Bradley Manning, the US serviceman accused of stealing hundreds of thousands of sensitive government cables, some of those named in the subpoena said they would fight disclosure.
"Today, the existence of a secret US government grand jury espionage investigation into WikiLeaks was confirmed for the first time as a subpoena was brought into the public domain," WikiLeaks said in a statement.
The writ, approved by a court in Virginia in December, demands that the San Franscisco based micro-blogging site hand over all details of five individuals' accounts and private messaging on Twitter – including the computers and networks used.
They include WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, Manning, Icelandic MP Brigitta Jonsdottir and Dutch hacker Rop Gonggrijp. Three of them – Gonggrijp, Assange and Jonsdottir – were named as "producers" of the first significant leak from the US cables cache: a video of an Apache helicopter attack that killed civilians and journalists in Baghdad. ...
Amid strong evidence that a US grand jury has begun a wideranging trawl for details of what networks and accounts WikiLeaks used to communicate with Bradley Manning, the US serviceman accused of stealing hundreds of thousands of sensitive government cables, some of those named in the subpoena said they would fight disclosure.
"Today, the existence of a secret US government grand jury espionage investigation into WikiLeaks was confirmed for the first time as a subpoena was brought into the public domain," WikiLeaks said in a statement.
The writ, approved by a court in Virginia in December, demands that the San Franscisco based micro-blogging site hand over all details of five individuals' accounts and private messaging on Twitter – including the computers and networks used.
They include WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, Manning, Icelandic MP Brigitta Jonsdottir and Dutch hacker Rop Gonggrijp. Three of them – Gonggrijp, Assange and Jonsdottir – were named as "producers" of the first significant leak from the US cables cache: a video of an Apache helicopter attack that killed civilians and journalists in Baghdad. ...
The former Labour MP David Chaytor behind bars tonight beginning an 18-month jail sentence after admitting claiming false parliamentary expenses.
Chaytor, who as MP for Bury North tried to cheat taxpayers out of more than £22,000, looked gaunt but impassive as Mr Justice Saunders at Southwark crown court told him the expenses scandal had "shaken public confidence in our legislature" and had "angered the public".
The first MP to be convicted and sentenced over the debacle, he was led from a reinforced glass-panelled dock and taken to Wandsworth prison, where he will be held until transferred to an open prison.
The 61-year-old may serve just four-and-a-half months if risk-assessed as eligible for the home detention curfew scheme, which could see him released with a tag as early as the end of May.
Passing sentence, the judge said a custodial sentence was one of the first steps in restoring public faith in the parliamentary system. He said Chaytor had breached "the high degree of trust" placed in MPs who hold an "important and powerful place in society". ...
Chaytor, who as MP for Bury North tried to cheat taxpayers out of more than £22,000, looked gaunt but impassive as Mr Justice Saunders at Southwark crown court told him the expenses scandal had "shaken public confidence in our legislature" and had "angered the public".
The first MP to be convicted and sentenced over the debacle, he was led from a reinforced glass-panelled dock and taken to Wandsworth prison, where he will be held until transferred to an open prison.
The 61-year-old may serve just four-and-a-half months if risk-assessed as eligible for the home detention curfew scheme, which could see him released with a tag as early as the end of May.
Passing sentence, the judge said a custodial sentence was one of the first steps in restoring public faith in the parliamentary system. He said Chaytor had breached "the high degree of trust" placed in MPs who hold an "important and powerful place in society". ...
Supermarkets, including Tesco and Morrisons, were forced to remove quiches and cakes from their shelves today after it was revealed they had been baked with contaminated liquefied eggs imported from Germany.
The Food Standards Agency and the manufacturers sought to defuse public anxiety by insisting that any eggs contaminated with dioxins would be so diluted that they would not be a health hazard.
The problem appears to have originated when oils intended for biofuel became mixed with oil destined for animal feed.
About 14 tonnes of contaminated liquefied eggs were imported last month and distributed to two companies, Kensey Foods, in Cornwall and Memory Lane Cakes in Cardiff, both of which supply supermarkets nationally. ...
The Food Standards Agency and the manufacturers sought to defuse public anxiety by insisting that any eggs contaminated with dioxins would be so diluted that they would not be a health hazard.
The problem appears to have originated when oils intended for biofuel became mixed with oil destined for animal feed.
About 14 tonnes of contaminated liquefied eggs were imported last month and distributed to two companies, Kensey Foods, in Cornwall and Memory Lane Cakes in Cardiff, both of which supply supermarkets nationally. ...
The Metropolitan police today faced calls for an independent review of its investigation into the News of the World phone-hacking scandal as the former home secretary Alan Johnson called for an independent inquiry and Ed Balls branded the affair as increasingly "murky".
MPs on the cross-party Commons culture select committee, who will discuss the scandal next week after the announcement that a senior News of the World executive had been suspended, said the latest development raised fresh questions about alleged collusion between the police and News International. ...
MPs on the cross-party Commons culture select committee, who will discuss the scandal next week after the announcement that a senior News of the World executive had been suspended, said the latest development raised fresh questions about alleged collusion between the police and News International. ...
Sounds more than familiar.......
... Up to 30 anonymous letters have been sent to the residents of Burton Bradstock in Dorset accusing Bragg of being a hypocrite for enjoying a wealthy lifestyle while espousing socialist views.
Bragg believes the letters are the work of a disgruntled BNP supporter and has urged his neighbours to bin them.
Simon Holdcroft, who runs the village post office, received one of the typed letters. "It was quite bizarre and was a racist rant at Billy Bragg," he said.
"We thought we were the only ones to have been sent it but over a few days it became clear that about 20 or 30 people had also got one.
"A lot of the people were quite horrified by it. It wasn't overly aggressive and didn't include death threats but it wasn't nice.
"The letter claimed he was anti-British, pro-immigration and called him the village fool." Holdcroft said Bragg had done a lot of good in the village.
"Mr Bragg has been in the village for a long time and has done a lot of work here and supports activities."
Karen Broad, who also received one, said: "I think everybody was just rather shocked by the letter. It was so vindictive and terribly cowardly." ...
Bragg believes the letters are the work of a disgruntled BNP supporter and has urged his neighbours to bin them.
Simon Holdcroft, who runs the village post office, received one of the typed letters. "It was quite bizarre and was a racist rant at Billy Bragg," he said.
"We thought we were the only ones to have been sent it but over a few days it became clear that about 20 or 30 people had also got one.
"A lot of the people were quite horrified by it. It wasn't overly aggressive and didn't include death threats but it wasn't nice.
"The letter claimed he was anti-British, pro-immigration and called him the village fool." Holdcroft said Bragg had done a lot of good in the village.
"Mr Bragg has been in the village for a long time and has done a lot of work here and supports activities."
Karen Broad, who also received one, said: "I think everybody was just rather shocked by the letter. It was so vindictive and terribly cowardly." ...
A school dinner lady who was sacked after telling a couple that their seven-year-old daughter had been tied to a fence and hit with a skipping rope by a group of boys has won her claim for unfair dismissal, it was announced today.
Carol Hill was suspended from Great Tey primary school, Essex, after the incident in June 2009, and then dismissed by governors after telling a local newspaper what had happened to her, an employment tribunal heard previously.
Unison, which represented Hill, said the panel had found that her dismissal was procedurally unfair because the school did not carry out a reasonable investigation into the allegations, and that the disciplinary and appeal hearings were not fair hearings.
The tribunal, sitting in Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk, heard that the girl appeared to have been tied to a playing field fence by her wrist and then "whipped" across the legs with a skipping rope.
The school's head, Deborah Crabb, said four boys involved had explained that they were playing a game called "prisoners and guards". The incident was not bullying but an "inappropriate game" which went too far, she argued during the three-day hearing.
Crabb sent a letter to the girl's parents saying: "You may wish to know [the girl] had a minor accident today. She was hurt on the right leg and right wrist with a skipping rope."
But Hill gave more detail to the girl's mother at a Scouts meeting outside school, and a written statement to the girl's family – which was passed to police – and then called a newspaper to tell of her suspension, the tribunal heard.
The headteacher told the panel that Hill was sacked for committing the "offence" of "going to the press". Giving details of the incident to the child's parents was a breach of confidentiality which would have earned her a "final warning", she said, but by talking to a journalist she had brought the school into disrepute and had to be dismissed. ...
Carol Hill was suspended from Great Tey primary school, Essex, after the incident in June 2009, and then dismissed by governors after telling a local newspaper what had happened to her, an employment tribunal heard previously.
Unison, which represented Hill, said the panel had found that her dismissal was procedurally unfair because the school did not carry out a reasonable investigation into the allegations, and that the disciplinary and appeal hearings were not fair hearings.
The tribunal, sitting in Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk, heard that the girl appeared to have been tied to a playing field fence by her wrist and then "whipped" across the legs with a skipping rope.
The school's head, Deborah Crabb, said four boys involved had explained that they were playing a game called "prisoners and guards". The incident was not bullying but an "inappropriate game" which went too far, she argued during the three-day hearing.
Crabb sent a letter to the girl's parents saying: "You may wish to know [the girl] had a minor accident today. She was hurt on the right leg and right wrist with a skipping rope."
But Hill gave more detail to the girl's mother at a Scouts meeting outside school, and a written statement to the girl's family – which was passed to police – and then called a newspaper to tell of her suspension, the tribunal heard.
The headteacher told the panel that Hill was sacked for committing the "offence" of "going to the press". Giving details of the incident to the child's parents was a breach of confidentiality which would have earned her a "final warning", she said, but by talking to a journalist she had brought the school into disrepute and had to be dismissed. ...
A senior News of the World executive has been suspended by the paper following a "serious allegation" that he was involved with phone hacking when the paper was edited by Andy Coulson, now the prime minister's director of communications.
It was revealed today that Ian Edmondson, the title's assistant editor, was "suspended from active duties" before Christmas, shortly after the Guardian obtained court documents which apparently showed that he had asked private investigator Glenn Mulcaire to hack into phones belonging to Sienna Miller and her staff in 2005.
The News of the World confirmed in a statement today that Edmondson had been suspended. It said it had launched an internal investigation into the claims and that "appropriate action" would be taken if they were found to be true.
The paper's former royal editor Clive Goodman was jailed along with Mulcaire in January 2007 after the two men were found guilty of illegally intercepting phone messages left on mobile phones belonging to members of the royal household. Coulson resigned when the men were sentenced, but he has always insisted that Goodman acted alone and that he and other executives knew nothing about their activities.
If it is proved Edmondson also used Mulcaire's services it would destroy the paper's carefully constructed public defence that Goodman was a rogue reporter. His suspension puts fresh pressure on Coulson, who has consistently maintained that he was unaware of any hacking while editor of the paper between 2003 and 2007. Edmondson was hired by Coulson and was part of the former editor's inner circle.
It also raises embarrassing questions for the Metropolitan police, who failed to interview any News of the World executive during the Goodman/Mulcaire investigation despite the fact that the name "Ian" appears on a number of documents seized from Mulcaire. ...
It was revealed today that Ian Edmondson, the title's assistant editor, was "suspended from active duties" before Christmas, shortly after the Guardian obtained court documents which apparently showed that he had asked private investigator Glenn Mulcaire to hack into phones belonging to Sienna Miller and her staff in 2005.
The News of the World confirmed in a statement today that Edmondson had been suspended. It said it had launched an internal investigation into the claims and that "appropriate action" would be taken if they were found to be true.
The paper's former royal editor Clive Goodman was jailed along with Mulcaire in January 2007 after the two men were found guilty of illegally intercepting phone messages left on mobile phones belonging to members of the royal household. Coulson resigned when the men were sentenced, but he has always insisted that Goodman acted alone and that he and other executives knew nothing about their activities.
If it is proved Edmondson also used Mulcaire's services it would destroy the paper's carefully constructed public defence that Goodman was a rogue reporter. His suspension puts fresh pressure on Coulson, who has consistently maintained that he was unaware of any hacking while editor of the paper between 2003 and 2007. Edmondson was hired by Coulson and was part of the former editor's inner circle.
It also raises embarrassing questions for the Metropolitan police, who failed to interview any News of the World executive during the Goodman/Mulcaire investigation despite the fact that the name "Ian" appears on a number of documents seized from Mulcaire. ...
Wednesday, January 5, 2011
Issa puts himself up for bid
One of the hallmarks of the tea party gains in the GOP has been virulent opposition to earmarks. Their newfound influence within the Republican Party has led to a strong push to eliminate the practice of earmarks altogether, and Darrell Issa hasn't missed a beat jumping on board that train.
Issa was among the first Republicans to suspend his earmark requests, and even went so far as to declare "Mr. Speaker, I make a point of order that an earmark is tantamount to a bribe." Yet that never prevented Issa from requesting earmarks before Fiscal year 2010. And not just a few here and there- hundreds of millions of dollars worth.
In FY 2007, Issa requested a total of $260,738,955 in what he later called "tantamount to a bribe." It dipped a bit in FY 2008 to $112,570,000, but he rebounded strongly for FY 2009 with earmark requests totalling $214,367,000. And let's remember that it was just a few weeks after submitting those FY2009 earmark requests that he was trying to block health care for 9/11 first responders, saying "I have to ask ... why the firefighters who went there and everybody in the city of New York needs to come to the federal government for the dollars versus this being primarily a state consideration."
As though he felt compelled to shine even more light on his hypocrisy with respect to earmarks, it’s worth noting that Issa requested a $5 million earmark in FY 2007 for a project submitted by the giant defense contractor SAIC. Interestingly, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, SAIC has been Issa's single largest source of campaign contributions throughout his Congressional career. Between FY 2007 and 2008, Issa submitted $13 million in earmark requests to benefit another defense contractor, BAE Systems. BAE clocks in at fifth on Issa's career top contributor list.
The conflicts and the hypocrisy are a troubling pattern--especially in light of yesterday’s news that Issa has now asked corporate lobbyists to tell him what to investigate. ...
Issa puts himself up for bid
One of the hallmarks of the tea party gains in the GOP has been virulent opposition to earmarks. Their newfound influence within the Republican Party has led to a strong push to eliminate the practice of earmarks altogether, and Darrell Issa hasn't missed a beat jumping on board that train.
Issa was among the first Republicans to suspend his earmark requests, and even went so far as to declare "Mr. Speaker, I make a point of order that an earmark is tantamount to a bribe." Yet that never prevented Issa from requesting earmarks before Fiscal year 2010. And not just a few here and there- hundreds of millions of dollars worth.
In FY 2007, Issa requested a total of $260,738,955 in what he later called "tantamount to a bribe." It dipped a bit in FY 2008 to $112,570,000, but he rebounded strongly for FY 2009 with earmark requests totalling $214,367,000. And let's remember that it was just a few weeks after submitting those FY2009 earmark requests that he was trying to block health care for 9/11 first responders, saying "I have to ask ... why the firefighters who went there and everybody in the city of New York needs to come to the federal government for the dollars versus this being primarily a state consideration."
As though he felt compelled to shine even more light on his hypocrisy with respect to earmarks, it’s worth noting that Issa requested a $5 million earmark in FY 2007 for a project submitted by the giant defense contractor SAIC. Interestingly, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, SAIC has been Issa's single largest source of campaign contributions throughout his Congressional career. Between FY 2007 and 2008, Issa submitted $13 million in earmark requests to benefit another defense contractor, BAE Systems. BAE clocks in at fifth on Issa's career top contributor list.
The conflicts and the hypocrisy are a troubling pattern--especially in light of yesterday’s news that Issa has now asked corporate lobbyists to tell him what to investigate. ...
WikiLeaks: US targets EU over GM crops
US embassy cable recommends drawing up list of countries for 'retaliation' over opposition to genetic modification
John Vidal, environment editor
Monday 3 January 2011
The US embassy in Paris advised Washington to start a military-style trade war against any European Union country which opposed genetically modified (GM) crops, newly released WikiLeaks cables show.
In response to moves by France to ban a Monsanto GM corn variety in late 2007, the ambassador, Craig Stapleton, a friend and business partner of former US president George Bush, asked Washington to penalise the EU and particularly countries which did not support the use of GM crops.
"Country team Paris recommends that we calibrate a target retaliation list that causes some pain across the EU since this is a collective responsibility, but that also focuses in part on the worst culprits.
"The list should be measured rather than vicious and must be sustainable over the long term, since we should not expect an early victory. Moving to retaliation will make clear that the current path has real costs to EU interests and could help strengthen European pro-biotech voices," said Stapleton, who with Bush co-owned the St Louis-based Texas Rangers baseball team in the 1990s.
In other newly released cables, US diplomats around the world are found to have pushed GM crops as a strategic government and commercial imperative.
Because many Catholic bishops in developing countries have been vehemently opposed to the controversial crops, the US applied particular pressure to the pope's advisers.
Cables from the US embassy in the Vatican show that the US believes the pope is broadly supportive of the crops after sustained lobbying of senior Holy See advisers, but regrets that he has not yet stated his support. The US state department special adviser on biotechnology as well as government biotech advisers based in Kenya lobbied Vatican insiders to persuade the pope to declare his backing. "… met with [US monsignor] Fr Michael Osborn of the Pontifical Council Cor Unum, offering a chance to push the Vatican on biotech issues, and an opportunity for post to analyse the current state of play on biotech in the Vatican generally," says one cable in 2008.
"Opportunities exist to press the issue with the Vatican, and in turn to influence a wide segment of the population in Europe and the developing world," says another.
But in a setback, the US embassy found that its closest ally on GM, Cardinal Renato Martino, head of the powerful Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace and the man who mostly represents the pope at the United Nations, had withdrawn his support for the US.
"A Martino deputy told us recently that the cardinal had co-operated with embassy Vatican on biotech over the past two years in part to compensate for his vocal disapproval of the Iraq war and its aftermath – to keep relations with the USG [US government] smooth. According to our source, Martino no longer feels the need to take this approach," says the cable.
In addition, the cables show US diplomats working directly for GM companies such as Monsanto. "In response to recent urgent requests by [Spanish rural affairs ministry] state secretary Josep Puxeu and Monsanto, post requests renewed US government support of Spain's science-based agricultural biotechnology position through high-level US government intervention."
It also emerges that Spain and the US have worked closely together to persuade the EU not to strengthen biotechnology laws. In one cable, the embassy in Madrid writes: "If Spain falls, the rest of Europe will follow."
The cables show that not only did the Spanish government ask the US to keep pressure on Brussels but that the US knew in advance how Spain would vote, even before the Spanish biotech commission had reported.
US embassy cable recommends drawing up list of countries for 'retaliation' over opposition to genetic modification
John Vidal, environment editor
Monday 3 January 2011
The US embassy in Paris advised Washington to start a military-style trade war against any European Union country which opposed genetically modified (GM) crops, newly released WikiLeaks cables show.
In response to moves by France to ban a Monsanto GM corn variety in late 2007, the ambassador, Craig Stapleton, a friend and business partner of former US president George Bush, asked Washington to penalise the EU and particularly countries which did not support the use of GM crops.
"Country team Paris recommends that we calibrate a target retaliation list that causes some pain across the EU since this is a collective responsibility, but that also focuses in part on the worst culprits.
"The list should be measured rather than vicious and must be sustainable over the long term, since we should not expect an early victory. Moving to retaliation will make clear that the current path has real costs to EU interests and could help strengthen European pro-biotech voices," said Stapleton, who with Bush co-owned the St Louis-based Texas Rangers baseball team in the 1990s.
In other newly released cables, US diplomats around the world are found to have pushed GM crops as a strategic government and commercial imperative.
Because many Catholic bishops in developing countries have been vehemently opposed to the controversial crops, the US applied particular pressure to the pope's advisers.
Cables from the US embassy in the Vatican show that the US believes the pope is broadly supportive of the crops after sustained lobbying of senior Holy See advisers, but regrets that he has not yet stated his support. The US state department special adviser on biotechnology as well as government biotech advisers based in Kenya lobbied Vatican insiders to persuade the pope to declare his backing. "… met with [US monsignor] Fr Michael Osborn of the Pontifical Council Cor Unum, offering a chance to push the Vatican on biotech issues, and an opportunity for post to analyse the current state of play on biotech in the Vatican generally," says one cable in 2008.
"Opportunities exist to press the issue with the Vatican, and in turn to influence a wide segment of the population in Europe and the developing world," says another.
But in a setback, the US embassy found that its closest ally on GM, Cardinal Renato Martino, head of the powerful Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace and the man who mostly represents the pope at the United Nations, had withdrawn his support for the US.
"A Martino deputy told us recently that the cardinal had co-operated with embassy Vatican on biotech over the past two years in part to compensate for his vocal disapproval of the Iraq war and its aftermath – to keep relations with the USG [US government] smooth. According to our source, Martino no longer feels the need to take this approach," says the cable.
In addition, the cables show US diplomats working directly for GM companies such as Monsanto. "In response to recent urgent requests by [Spanish rural affairs ministry] state secretary Josep Puxeu and Monsanto, post requests renewed US government support of Spain's science-based agricultural biotechnology position through high-level US government intervention."
It also emerges that Spain and the US have worked closely together to persuade the EU not to strengthen biotechnology laws. In one cable, the embassy in Madrid writes: "If Spain falls, the rest of Europe will follow."
The cables show that not only did the Spanish government ask the US to keep pressure on Brussels but that the US knew in advance how Spain would vote, even before the Spanish biotech commission had reported.
Gawker was made aware two years ago of flaws in its password encryption system, and promised users it would "improve" it - but did not, which made it easier for its system to be hacked earlier this year.
The flaw meant that only the first eight characters of any password were used and encrypted; any more were ignored. That put a limit on the security that the encryption could offer.
In December, the Gawker Media database of 1.3m usernames and passwords was released online by the hacking group Gnosis, who had attacked the site in revenge for its taunting of the 4Chan message board.
The hackers were able to decode at least 188,000 of the passwords, including that of the sites' chief executive and founder Nick Denton, because of the weakness.
Some of the passwords were subsequently used for a spam attack on Twitter, and users were advised to change their passwords on other sites as protection.
Bryan Campbell, a Gawker user, alerted the company to the weakness on its GetSatisfaction feedback site in November 2008.
"I have discovered a serious flaw in your logon process," Campbell wrote. "When logging in, I have a alpha numeric password, EVEN when I drop the numerical part of it, it still authenticates me, with just the alpha part. Big worry."
Another user pointed out the problem too.
Gawker's technical team responded: "Thanks for letting us know about this. We realized we have an 8-character limit on passwords. We will be improving this in the future."
But the "improvement" did not transpire: the recent hack into Gawker's system demonstrated that it only used 8-character passwords, and that anything more than that was simply dropped - precisely as Campbell had warned. Campbell says was unaffected by the hack because he had stopped using the site after discovering the flaw. ...
The flaw meant that only the first eight characters of any password were used and encrypted; any more were ignored. That put a limit on the security that the encryption could offer.
In December, the Gawker Media database of 1.3m usernames and passwords was released online by the hacking group Gnosis, who had attacked the site in revenge for its taunting of the 4Chan message board.
The hackers were able to decode at least 188,000 of the passwords, including that of the sites' chief executive and founder Nick Denton, because of the weakness.
Some of the passwords were subsequently used for a spam attack on Twitter, and users were advised to change their passwords on other sites as protection.
Bryan Campbell, a Gawker user, alerted the company to the weakness on its GetSatisfaction feedback site in November 2008.
"I have discovered a serious flaw in your logon process," Campbell wrote. "When logging in, I have a alpha numeric password, EVEN when I drop the numerical part of it, it still authenticates me, with just the alpha part. Big worry."
Another user pointed out the problem too.
Gawker's technical team responded: "Thanks for letting us know about this. We realized we have an 8-character limit on passwords. We will be improving this in the future."
But the "improvement" did not transpire: the recent hack into Gawker's system demonstrated that it only used 8-character passwords, and that anything more than that was simply dropped - precisely as Campbell had warned. Campbell says was unaffected by the hack because he had stopped using the site after discovering the flaw. ...
Two journalists with access to a secret transcript of comments by Bradley Manning, the US soldier accused of leaking confidential material to whistleblowing website WikiLeaks, have denied speculation that the material could potentially help a prosecution against Julian Assange.
The pair, from Wired magazine, said there was nothing "newsworthy" in unpublished internet chat logs between Manning and Adrian Lamo, a former hacker who claims to have discussed the leak with the young intelligence officer and later tipped off the FBI.
Wired.com claimed a scoop in June when it obtained a transcript of the chats and published excerpts in which Manning, 23, appeared to confess to being the source of classified material handed to WikiLeaks, which was founded by Assange.
However, in recent days the journalists have found themselves at the centre of an increasingly acrimonious spat with critics who accuse them of withholding crucial information about the largest leak of military data in history.
The dispute has centred on the 75% of the transcript Wired has not published, claiming the information would infringe Manning's privacy or compromise sensitive military information.
Amid reports that federal prosecutors want to establish that Assange "encouraged or helped" Manning to leak the material in order to make him a co-conspirator, Wired has found itself under pressure to reveal more about the unpublished chats. ...
The pair, from Wired magazine, said there was nothing "newsworthy" in unpublished internet chat logs between Manning and Adrian Lamo, a former hacker who claims to have discussed the leak with the young intelligence officer and later tipped off the FBI.
Wired.com claimed a scoop in June when it obtained a transcript of the chats and published excerpts in which Manning, 23, appeared to confess to being the source of classified material handed to WikiLeaks, which was founded by Assange.
However, in recent days the journalists have found themselves at the centre of an increasingly acrimonious spat with critics who accuse them of withholding crucial information about the largest leak of military data in history.
The dispute has centred on the 75% of the transcript Wired has not published, claiming the information would infringe Manning's privacy or compromise sensitive military information.
Amid reports that federal prosecutors want to establish that Assange "encouraged or helped" Manning to leak the material in order to make him a co-conspirator, Wired has found itself under pressure to reveal more about the unpublished chats. ...
Hospitals in Northern Ireland have had to rely temporarily on the fire service for water and thousands of households remain dry as the utility company warned today that the crisis will last until early next week.
Laurence MacKenzie, the chief executive of Northern Ireland Water faced demands for his resignation after up to 36,000 people were cut off. He said the focus was on getting everyone back on the system rather than his job.
MacKenzie insisted he had been on top of the crisis despite claims that he did not turn up for work until Monday – several days after the crisis began. He said: "I have been in here since the issue arose. I am doing the best I can to keep the team together."
But Martin McGuinness, Northern Ireland's deputy first minister, said heads should roll. He warned that people needed to be held accountable after pregnant mothers, families with young children and the elderly were left without water for days.
Speaking outside Stormont Castle tonight Northern Ireland's first minister Peter Robinson said NI Water's response was "shambolic" and "ineffective"....
Laurence MacKenzie, the chief executive of Northern Ireland Water faced demands for his resignation after up to 36,000 people were cut off. He said the focus was on getting everyone back on the system rather than his job.
MacKenzie insisted he had been on top of the crisis despite claims that he did not turn up for work until Monday – several days after the crisis began. He said: "I have been in here since the issue arose. I am doing the best I can to keep the team together."
But Martin McGuinness, Northern Ireland's deputy first minister, said heads should roll. He warned that people needed to be held accountable after pregnant mothers, families with young children and the elderly were left without water for days.
Speaking outside Stormont Castle tonight Northern Ireland's first minister Peter Robinson said NI Water's response was "shambolic" and "ineffective"....
Hackers had access to the gossip site Gawker's content management system (CMS) and password files for around six months, rather than the few days suggested by the company, the Guardian has learnt from sources connected to the break-in.
That contradicts the indications given by Gawker in public statements, such as an email sent out on 17 December by Thomas Plunkett, Gawker's chief technology officer, in which he suggested that the hackers only had access "briefly" to the site: "Gawker Media servers and some company email accounts were compromised by hackers at some time during the last few weeks; the compromise was made public to us (and everyone else) this past weekend," Plunkett wrote in an internal memo which was reposted on the Poynter.org website.
The hacking of Gawker and its associated sites led to the usernames, email addresses and passwords of 1.3 million registered users of the sites being made available – among them, those for Gawker staff including its chief Nick Denton. The hackers discovered Denton had used the same password for Gawker and for other sites such as Campfire, used by his company to coordinate its work. That allowed them to access those sites and find sensitive details including chats between members of the company.
Sources close to the hacking group Gnosis, which carried out the attack, have told the Guardian that they obtained access to Gawker's server by using a "local file inclusion" (LFI) weakness. Gawker has not previously said whether the access was via a weakness in the Gawker site, via a staff member's password, or some other means.
"The Gawker site LFI [flaw] was found about six months ago," a source close to, but not a member of, Gnosis told the Guardian. "The Campfire access came after the administrator database for the CMS was cracked."
The Guardian asked Plunkett to respond to the claims. He declined to comment and said that the company would offer further clarification later. ...
That contradicts the indications given by Gawker in public statements, such as an email sent out on 17 December by Thomas Plunkett, Gawker's chief technology officer, in which he suggested that the hackers only had access "briefly" to the site: "Gawker Media servers and some company email accounts were compromised by hackers at some time during the last few weeks; the compromise was made public to us (and everyone else) this past weekend," Plunkett wrote in an internal memo which was reposted on the Poynter.org website.
The hacking of Gawker and its associated sites led to the usernames, email addresses and passwords of 1.3 million registered users of the sites being made available – among them, those for Gawker staff including its chief Nick Denton. The hackers discovered Denton had used the same password for Gawker and for other sites such as Campfire, used by his company to coordinate its work. That allowed them to access those sites and find sensitive details including chats between members of the company.
Sources close to the hacking group Gnosis, which carried out the attack, have told the Guardian that they obtained access to Gawker's server by using a "local file inclusion" (LFI) weakness. Gawker has not previously said whether the access was via a weakness in the Gawker site, via a staff member's password, or some other means.
"The Gawker site LFI [flaw] was found about six months ago," a source close to, but not a member of, Gnosis told the Guardian. "The Campfire access came after the administrator database for the CMS was cracked."
The Guardian asked Plunkett to respond to the claims. He declined to comment and said that the company would offer further clarification later. ...
Ministers in Northern Ireland are to hold an emergency meeting to discuss how to help the 36,000 people who have been without running water for days.
Eighty villages and towns have been affected as pipes burst in the thaw.
As the first of 160,000 litres of bottled water arrive from Scotland, the Stormont Executive will discuss what further measures can be taken.
Deputy First Minister Martin McGuinness has said he feels "absolutely let down" by NI Water's response.
The state-owned company, which is the sole provider of water and sewerage services in Northern Ireland, said an unprecedented number of leaks caused by the thaw following the long period of freezing weather had been putting "big pressure" on its systems.
The thaw followed the worst snow in Northern Ireland in 25 years and record cold temperatures.
As temperatures rose, burst pipes drained reservoirs, forcing NI Water to turn off the tap to the 80 locations. ...
Eighty villages and towns have been affected as pipes burst in the thaw.
As the first of 160,000 litres of bottled water arrive from Scotland, the Stormont Executive will discuss what further measures can be taken.
Deputy First Minister Martin McGuinness has said he feels "absolutely let down" by NI Water's response.
The state-owned company, which is the sole provider of water and sewerage services in Northern Ireland, said an unprecedented number of leaks caused by the thaw following the long period of freezing weather had been putting "big pressure" on its systems.
The thaw followed the worst snow in Northern Ireland in 25 years and record cold temperatures.
As temperatures rose, burst pipes drained reservoirs, forcing NI Water to turn off the tap to the 80 locations. ...
Christine O'Donnell, the Tea Party star with a colourful past, is said to be under federal investigation for misusing donations made by supporters during her failed election campaigns.
The Associated Press reported that a criminal probe has been opened to examine whether O'Donnell broke the law by using campaign funds to pay for personal expenses during the Delaware Republican's attempts to win a seat in the US Senate.
Quoting a "person with knowledge of a federal campaign-finance investigation," who it says could not be named in order to protect the identity of a client, AP reporters Ben Nuckols and Mattew Barakat said O'Donnell's case has been assigned to two federal prosecutors and two FBI agents in Delaware but has not been brought before a grand jury.
Delaware's News Journal also reported that O'Donnell was "the subject of a federal criminal probe to determine if she illegally used campaign money to pay personal expenses," quoting "a federal source in a position to know".
Accusations of financial irregularities have dogged O'Donnell for months, even before O'Donnell shot to fame in September after her surprise victory in the Delaware Republican primary – thanks to a surge of support from the Tea Party movement and backing from the likes of Sarah Palin and Rush Limbaugh. ...
The Associated Press reported that a criminal probe has been opened to examine whether O'Donnell broke the law by using campaign funds to pay for personal expenses during the Delaware Republican's attempts to win a seat in the US Senate.
Quoting a "person with knowledge of a federal campaign-finance investigation," who it says could not be named in order to protect the identity of a client, AP reporters Ben Nuckols and Mattew Barakat said O'Donnell's case has been assigned to two federal prosecutors and two FBI agents in Delaware but has not been brought before a grand jury.
Delaware's News Journal also reported that O'Donnell was "the subject of a federal criminal probe to determine if she illegally used campaign money to pay personal expenses," quoting "a federal source in a position to know".
Accusations of financial irregularities have dogged O'Donnell for months, even before O'Donnell shot to fame in September after her surprise victory in the Delaware Republican primary – thanks to a surge of support from the Tea Party movement and backing from the likes of Sarah Palin and Rush Limbaugh. ...
Police have asked the government for a new counter-terrorism power to stop and search people without having to suspect them of involvement in crime, the Guardian has learned.
Senior officers have told the government the new law is needed to better protect the public against attempted attacks on large numbers of people, and are hopeful they can win ministers' backing.
A previous law allowing counter-terrorism stops without suspicion, section 44 of the Terrorism Act 2000, was scrapped this year by the home secretary, Theresa May, after European judges struck it down for breaching human rights.
But police, including the Metropolitan force, which leads the UK fight against terrorism, say they need a boost to their counter-terrorism powers, which they worry are now too weak. ...
Senior officers have told the government the new law is needed to better protect the public against attempted attacks on large numbers of people, and are hopeful they can win ministers' backing.
A previous law allowing counter-terrorism stops without suspicion, section 44 of the Terrorism Act 2000, was scrapped this year by the home secretary, Theresa May, after European judges struck it down for breaching human rights.
But police, including the Metropolitan force, which leads the UK fight against terrorism, say they need a boost to their counter-terrorism powers, which they worry are now too weak. ...
The media regulator Ofcom is this week expected to recommend that Rupert Murdoch's £8bn controversial buyout of BSkyB should be subject to a further six-month long inquiry – and in so doing hand culture secretary Jeremy Hunt the toughest political decision in his time in office.
On Friday, Ofcom's chief executive Ed Richards will send over the conclusions of a "public interest" inquiry into whether News Corporation's buyout of Sky will damage media plurality in the UK – and while the document will initially remain confidential most expect the regulator to demand a further investigation by the Competition Commission.
That leaves Jeremy Hunt – the cabinet minister suddenly brought into the inquiry after Vince Cable's ill-advised "war on Murdoch" comments – with about 10 working days to decide whether to follow Ofcom's advice or not. Although his discretion is free, it will be a major surprise if he deviates from the interim verdict.
At issue is whether, by controlling 100% of BSkyB, Rupert Murdoch will have a disproportionate influence over the British media – in which News Corp has unprecedented cross-media power with titles accounting for 37% of the newspaper sales and control of the biggest broadcaster by turnover in the UK.
Critics – an unlikely alliance of normally competing Fleet Street owners, including the companies behind the Daily Mail, the Daily Telegraph, the Daily Mirror and the Guardian – argue that the power and influence of a company with at least £7.5bn of UK turnover will inevitably lead to the diminution of rivals.
Contact between the owner of the Times and the Sun and Ofcom in the run-up to Christmas left insiders at News Corp's Wapping headquarters braced for a referral. But that has not stopped sniping between the two with News Corp complaining that Richards did not attend any pre-Christmas case conferences between the two sides. ...
On Friday, Ofcom's chief executive Ed Richards will send over the conclusions of a "public interest" inquiry into whether News Corporation's buyout of Sky will damage media plurality in the UK – and while the document will initially remain confidential most expect the regulator to demand a further investigation by the Competition Commission.
That leaves Jeremy Hunt – the cabinet minister suddenly brought into the inquiry after Vince Cable's ill-advised "war on Murdoch" comments – with about 10 working days to decide whether to follow Ofcom's advice or not. Although his discretion is free, it will be a major surprise if he deviates from the interim verdict.
At issue is whether, by controlling 100% of BSkyB, Rupert Murdoch will have a disproportionate influence over the British media – in which News Corp has unprecedented cross-media power with titles accounting for 37% of the newspaper sales and control of the biggest broadcaster by turnover in the UK.
Critics – an unlikely alliance of normally competing Fleet Street owners, including the companies behind the Daily Mail, the Daily Telegraph, the Daily Mirror and the Guardian – argue that the power and influence of a company with at least £7.5bn of UK turnover will inevitably lead to the diminution of rivals.
Contact between the owner of the Times and the Sun and Ofcom in the run-up to Christmas left insiders at News Corp's Wapping headquarters braced for a referral. But that has not stopped sniping between the two with News Corp complaining that Richards did not attend any pre-Christmas case conferences between the two sides. ...
Denmark and Sweden arrest five over suspected 'Mumbai-style' terror plot | World news | The Guardian
Police in Denmark and Sweden arrested five men today on suspicion of planning a "Mumbai-style" attack on the Danish newspaper that printed cartoons portraying the prophet Muhammad.
In a series of raids, Danish police seized an automatic weapon, a silencer, ammunition and plastic strips that could be used as handcuffs, foiling what they described as the most serious terror operation ever uncovered in the country.
The men had planned to storm the Copenhagen offices housing the Jyllands-Posten newspaper and other titles and "kill as many as possible of those around", intelligence officials said.
Denmark's security and intelligence service (PET) said its officers had arrested four people suspected of planning the "imminent" attack. Three of them – a 44-year-old Tunisian national, a 29-year-old Lebanese-born man and a 30-year-old whose origin was not immediately known – were Swedish residents who entered Denmark late last night or early today. The other was described as a 26-year-old Iraqi asylum seeker living in Copenhagen.
Swedish police, who had been working closely with their Danish counterparts, arrested a fifth man, a 37-year-old Swedish national of Tunisian origin living in Stockholm. ...
In a series of raids, Danish police seized an automatic weapon, a silencer, ammunition and plastic strips that could be used as handcuffs, foiling what they described as the most serious terror operation ever uncovered in the country.
The men had planned to storm the Copenhagen offices housing the Jyllands-Posten newspaper and other titles and "kill as many as possible of those around", intelligence officials said.
Denmark's security and intelligence service (PET) said its officers had arrested four people suspected of planning the "imminent" attack. Three of them – a 44-year-old Tunisian national, a 29-year-old Lebanese-born man and a 30-year-old whose origin was not immediately known – were Swedish residents who entered Denmark late last night or early today. The other was described as a 26-year-old Iraqi asylum seeker living in Copenhagen.
Swedish police, who had been working closely with their Danish counterparts, arrested a fifth man, a 37-year-old Swedish national of Tunisian origin living in Stockholm. ...
As tankers shuttled between distribution centres and thousands of people in Northern Ireland steeled themselves for another night without drinking water or flushing toilets, some in the 400-strong queue that snaked out of the Avoniel leisure centre in north Belfast were beginning to thirst for more than just water.
"Those at the top of that company should fall on their swords for this," said John Crossan, who had been without water for almost a week.
"Heads will have to roll for this," agreed Glyn Roberts from the Northern Ireland Independent Retail Trade Association. "Why on earth is Northern Ireland the only part of the UK where there has been this massive disruption since the thaw?"
Up to 40,000 homes were today reported to be without water in Northern Ireland. A sudden thaw after arctic conditions has burst thousands of pipes and let reservoirs run dry.
Doctors are worried about the effect on public health. "This is becoming a really serious emergency," said Dr John McMahon, a GP who had been without water in his home in Rostrevor for seven days. Peter Maguire, another County Down doctor, was of the same mind. "This really is now a public health emergency," said the Newry GP. "We need water and we need it for the sake of public health. People with young families have not been able to flush toilets and wash themselves, never mind get access to drinking water."
What did he make of Northern Ireland Water's response to the crisis? "Shambolic." ...
"Those at the top of that company should fall on their swords for this," said John Crossan, who had been without water for almost a week.
"Heads will have to roll for this," agreed Glyn Roberts from the Northern Ireland Independent Retail Trade Association. "Why on earth is Northern Ireland the only part of the UK where there has been this massive disruption since the thaw?"
Up to 40,000 homes were today reported to be without water in Northern Ireland. A sudden thaw after arctic conditions has burst thousands of pipes and let reservoirs run dry.
Doctors are worried about the effect on public health. "This is becoming a really serious emergency," said Dr John McMahon, a GP who had been without water in his home in Rostrevor for seven days. Peter Maguire, another County Down doctor, was of the same mind. "This really is now a public health emergency," said the Newry GP. "We need water and we need it for the sake of public health. People with young families have not been able to flush toilets and wash themselves, never mind get access to drinking water."
What did he make of Northern Ireland Water's response to the crisis? "Shambolic." ...
A leading charity figure and key supporter of David Cameron's "big society" project warns that massive public spending cuts could doom the prime minister's main social policy initiative to failure and become a Hurricane Katrina moment for the government.
David Robinson declares that a barrage of unsustainable cuts will damage Britain's poorest neighbourhoods.
In an open letter to Cameron, the co-founder of the Community Links charity warns that vital local voluntary organisations will be wiped out. Robinson, whose charity has been described by Cameron as "one of Britain's most inspiring community organisations", writes: "Forcing an unsustainable pace on a barrage of unco-ordinated cuts that hit the poorest hardest is not an act of God. Why let it be your Katrina?"
Robinson gives a practical example of the impact of the cuts – and how they will jeopardise Cameron's central big society philosophy – when he warns that deprived areas face a "double whammy" of increasing unemployment and cuts to services. He says that Community Links, based in east London, faces an uncertain future because of the government's changes to legal aid and welfare-to-work funding. "Charities like us are surely the bedrock of the big society, and we are wobbling." ...
David Robinson declares that a barrage of unsustainable cuts will damage Britain's poorest neighbourhoods.
In an open letter to Cameron, the co-founder of the Community Links charity warns that vital local voluntary organisations will be wiped out. Robinson, whose charity has been described by Cameron as "one of Britain's most inspiring community organisations", writes: "Forcing an unsustainable pace on a barrage of unco-ordinated cuts that hit the poorest hardest is not an act of God. Why let it be your Katrina?"
Robinson gives a practical example of the impact of the cuts – and how they will jeopardise Cameron's central big society philosophy – when he warns that deprived areas face a "double whammy" of increasing unemployment and cuts to services. He says that Community Links, based in east London, faces an uncertain future because of the government's changes to legal aid and welfare-to-work funding. "Charities like us are surely the bedrock of the big society, and we are wobbling." ...
Nicolas Sarkozy's war on illegal downloading has begun in earnest, with the state internet surveillance body dubbed "Big Brother" warning more than 100,000 French internet-users that they have been caught accessing pirate material.
The controversial anti-piracy law is one of Sarkozy's pet projects, backed by his singer wife, Carla Bruni-Sarkozy. The couple argue that artists must be protected from the nation's massive illegal download culture – France is thought to be the world number one in illegally accessing film and music online.
The internet policing system, known under its acronym Hadopi, investigates specific incidents of illegal downloading reported by music and film companies. It obtains web-users' details from internet service providers and issues a series of warnings by email and letter. Repeat offenders risk one month's suspension from all internet access. Those accused of counterfeiting can be fined and cut off from the internet for one year. At least 100,000 warning emails have been sent since early October. ...
The controversial anti-piracy law is one of Sarkozy's pet projects, backed by his singer wife, Carla Bruni-Sarkozy. The couple argue that artists must be protected from the nation's massive illegal download culture – France is thought to be the world number one in illegally accessing film and music online.
The internet policing system, known under its acronym Hadopi, investigates specific incidents of illegal downloading reported by music and film companies. It obtains web-users' details from internet service providers and issues a series of warnings by email and letter. Repeat offenders risk one month's suspension from all internet access. Those accused of counterfeiting can be fined and cut off from the internet for one year. At least 100,000 warning emails have been sent since early October. ...
The founder of the WikiLeaks website, Julian Assange, has said he expects to earn more than £1m from book deals.
Assange, who achieved global notoriety after his whistleblower website began releasing more than a quarter of a million diplomatic cables, said he would use the money for legal costs.
The 39-year-old is fighting extradition to Sweden, where two women have accused him of sexual misconduct. He denies the allegations.
Since being released on bail earlier this month pending extradition proceedings, Assange has been living under virtual house arrest at Ellingham Hall, a Norfolk country mansion, from where he regularly gives media interviews.
He told the Sunday Times that he was forced to sign a deal worth more than £1m for his autobiography due to financial difficulties. "I don't want to write this book, but I have to," he said. "I have already spent £200,000 for legal costs and I need to defend myself and to keep WikiLeaks afloat."
He will reportedly receive $800,000 dollars from Alfred A Knopf, his American publisher, while a British deal with Canongate is said to be worth £325,000. An estimated £1.1m will be generated from the deal, including serialisation, he said.
Previously Assange told the Guardian that WikiLeaks does not have enough money to pay its legal bills, even though "a lot of generous lawyers have donated their time to us".
Legal costs for WikiLeaks and his own defence were approaching £500,000, he said. The decisions by Visa, MasterCard and PayPal to stop processing donations have cost the organisation £425,000, enough to fund WikiLeaks' publishing operations for six months. At its peak the organisation was receiving £85,000 a day, he said. ...
Assange, who achieved global notoriety after his whistleblower website began releasing more than a quarter of a million diplomatic cables, said he would use the money for legal costs.
The 39-year-old is fighting extradition to Sweden, where two women have accused him of sexual misconduct. He denies the allegations.
Since being released on bail earlier this month pending extradition proceedings, Assange has been living under virtual house arrest at Ellingham Hall, a Norfolk country mansion, from where he regularly gives media interviews.
He told the Sunday Times that he was forced to sign a deal worth more than £1m for his autobiography due to financial difficulties. "I don't want to write this book, but I have to," he said. "I have already spent £200,000 for legal costs and I need to defend myself and to keep WikiLeaks afloat."
He will reportedly receive $800,000 dollars from Alfred A Knopf, his American publisher, while a British deal with Canongate is said to be worth £325,000. An estimated £1.1m will be generated from the deal, including serialisation, he said.
Previously Assange told the Guardian that WikiLeaks does not have enough money to pay its legal bills, even though "a lot of generous lawyers have donated their time to us".
Legal costs for WikiLeaks and his own defence were approaching £500,000, he said. The decisions by Visa, MasterCard and PayPal to stop processing donations have cost the organisation £425,000, enough to fund WikiLeaks' publishing operations for six months. At its peak the organisation was receiving £85,000 a day, he said. ...
...while most people still get their internet connections via fixed-line broadband, the likelihood is that in 10 years' time a majority will access the net via wireless connections. And if the FCC ruling stands, the wireless sphere will be anything but neutral. It will be dominated by the carriers – the telcos – who see no merit in neutrality. Which is why some people feel that the FCC's decision effectively means kissing goodbye to the open internet. "The neutering of the internet is now the unofficial policy of the Federal Communications Commission," writes Dan Gillmor, for example. "Contrary to the happy talk from FCC chairman Julius Genachowski... the move is well underway to turn the internet into a regulated playground for corporate giants."
Sceptics about net neutrality will doubtless portray this as an over-reaction. Until I read Tim Wu's new book – The Master Switch: the Rise and Fall of Information Empires (Knopf, 2010) – I might have agreed with them. But Professor Wu places all this in a more sombre context – of what he calls the Cycle. "History shows," he writes, "a typical progression of information technologies: from somebody's hobby to somebody's industry; from jury-rigged contraption to slick production marvel; from a freely accessible channel to one strictly controlled by a single corporation or cartel — from open to closed system."
Will the internet prove to be immune to Tim Wu's Cycle? I wouldn't bet on it.
Sceptics about net neutrality will doubtless portray this as an over-reaction. Until I read Tim Wu's new book – The Master Switch: the Rise and Fall of Information Empires (Knopf, 2010) – I might have agreed with them. But Professor Wu places all this in a more sombre context – of what he calls the Cycle. "History shows," he writes, "a typical progression of information technologies: from somebody's hobby to somebody's industry; from jury-rigged contraption to slick production marvel; from a freely accessible channel to one strictly controlled by a single corporation or cartel — from open to closed system."
Will the internet prove to be immune to Tim Wu's Cycle? I wouldn't bet on it.
Because the world’s most powerful military is being destroyed by a combination of a) goat herders in Afghanistan and b) some weird guy with a website, the Pentagon has just banned any kind of little gizmo that can save information off a computer. (It is apparently impossible to ban goat herders … yet.) As of immediately, any military person (or military contractor, maybe?) cannot use removable/portable disk thingies such as thumb drives or external DVD/CD writable drives when using the secret computers that have all the potential WikiLeaks stuff on them. Hooray, there will be no more leaks of information! ...
The last comment here was written by the man who built La Bestioni, Gary Wales.
Julian Assange said today that it would be "politically impossible" for Britain to extradite him to the United States, and that the final word on his fate if he were charged with espionage would rest with David Cameron.
In an interview with the Guardian in Ellingham Hall, the Norfolk country mansion where he is living under virtual house arrest, the founder of WikiLeaks said it would be difficult for the prime minister to hand him over to the Americans if there was strong support for him from the British people.
"It's all a matter of politics. We can presume there will be an attempt to influence UK political opinion, and to influence the perception of our standing as a moral actor," he said.
Assange is currently fighting extradition to Sweden. He strongly denies allegations of sexual misconduct with two Swedish women. But he believes the biggest threat to his freedom and to WikiLeaks, his whistleblowing website, emanates from a wrathful United States.
There is no evidence of any imminent US move to indict him. But according to Assange, the Obama administration is "trying to strike a plea deal" with Bradley Manning, the 23-year-old intelligence officer and alleged source of the more than a quarter of a million US diplomatic cables embarrassingly leaked last month. The US attorney general, Eric Holder, wants to indict Assange as a co-conspirator and is also examining "computer hacking statutes and support for terrorism", Assange claims.
Sitting in front of a log fire, his Apple MacBook Pro perched on his lap, Assange said his recent nine-day spell in Wandsworth jail had prepared him for the possibility that he might spend a long period in prison if indicted by the US. He said the prospect of solitary confinement was no longer an "intellectual abstraction" but a reality. The high court bailed him to Norfolk last Thursday, with his extradition hearing scheduled for 6-7 February.
He said: "Solitary confinement is very difficult. But I know that provided there is some opportunity for correspondence I can withstand it. I'm mentally robust. Of course it would mean the end of my life in the conventional sense."
If the US succeeded in removing him from the UK or Sweden, Assange said there was a "high chance" of his being killed "Jack Ruby-style"...
May all that is good and powerful in the Universe keep you strong and safe, Mr Assange.
In an interview with the Guardian in Ellingham Hall, the Norfolk country mansion where he is living under virtual house arrest, the founder of WikiLeaks said it would be difficult for the prime minister to hand him over to the Americans if there was strong support for him from the British people.
"It's all a matter of politics. We can presume there will be an attempt to influence UK political opinion, and to influence the perception of our standing as a moral actor," he said.
Assange is currently fighting extradition to Sweden. He strongly denies allegations of sexual misconduct with two Swedish women. But he believes the biggest threat to his freedom and to WikiLeaks, his whistleblowing website, emanates from a wrathful United States.
There is no evidence of any imminent US move to indict him. But according to Assange, the Obama administration is "trying to strike a plea deal" with Bradley Manning, the 23-year-old intelligence officer and alleged source of the more than a quarter of a million US diplomatic cables embarrassingly leaked last month. The US attorney general, Eric Holder, wants to indict Assange as a co-conspirator and is also examining "computer hacking statutes and support for terrorism", Assange claims.
Sitting in front of a log fire, his Apple MacBook Pro perched on his lap, Assange said his recent nine-day spell in Wandsworth jail had prepared him for the possibility that he might spend a long period in prison if indicted by the US. He said the prospect of solitary confinement was no longer an "intellectual abstraction" but a reality. The high court bailed him to Norfolk last Thursday, with his extradition hearing scheduled for 6-7 February.
He said: "Solitary confinement is very difficult. But I know that provided there is some opportunity for correspondence I can withstand it. I'm mentally robust. Of course it would mean the end of my life in the conventional sense."
If the US succeeded in removing him from the UK or Sweden, Assange said there was a "high chance" of his being killed "Jack Ruby-style"...
May all that is good and powerful in the Universe keep you strong and safe, Mr Assange.
A man and two teenagers have been charged with theft after a £1.2m antique violin was stolen from outside a London railway station.
The 300-year-old Stradivarius was taken from Euston station when classical musician Min-Jin Kym, 32, went to buy a sandwich. Today John Michael Maughan, 26, of no fixed abode, and two boys aged 16 and 14, from Tottenham, north London, who for legal reasons cannot be named, were charged with theft at West London magistrates court. Maughan was remanded in custody while the teenagers were released on court bail, said British Transport Police (BTP). They will appear again at the same court on 20 January.
Investigating officer Detective Inspector Andy Rose said along with the 1696 Antonio Stradivarius violin there was a Peccatte bow, valued at £62,000, in the case and another bow made by the school of Bazin, valued at more than £5,000.
A BTP spokesman said there was a £15,000 reward, issued by Lark Insurance Broking Group and certain underwriters at Lloyd's, for information leading to their safe recovery. ...
The 300-year-old Stradivarius was taken from Euston station when classical musician Min-Jin Kym, 32, went to buy a sandwich. Today John Michael Maughan, 26, of no fixed abode, and two boys aged 16 and 14, from Tottenham, north London, who for legal reasons cannot be named, were charged with theft at West London magistrates court. Maughan was remanded in custody while the teenagers were released on court bail, said British Transport Police (BTP). They will appear again at the same court on 20 January.
Investigating officer Detective Inspector Andy Rose said along with the 1696 Antonio Stradivarius violin there was a Peccatte bow, valued at £62,000, in the case and another bow made by the school of Bazin, valued at more than £5,000.
A BTP spokesman said there was a £15,000 reward, issued by Lark Insurance Broking Group and certain underwriters at Lloyd's, for information leading to their safe recovery. ...
Where’s Cameron’s Big Society when we need it?
Hundreds are stranded by the snow and yet there’s no sign of David Cameron or his big idea
By Max Eilenberg
DECEMBER 21, 2010
Perhaps the thousands of people stranded at Heathrow should count themselves lucky. At least they're inside and out of the cold. They're not having to stand outside for hours in sub-zero temperatures, like the unhappy travellers hoping to catch a Eurostar train from St Pancras yesterday.
Shivering queues at one stage stretched for hundreds of yards outside the main terminal and along the Euston Road, past the British Library. With Eurostar already running a reduced service, the pressure was only increased by the large number of refugees from the airlines as Heathrow cancelled all short-haul flights to Europe.
For many of them, the outlook was bleak: a freezing night in the cavernous, unheated halls of St Pancras, or a scramble to find somewhere anywhere in London's overbooked and overpriced hotels.
How could it all go so wrong?
Such scenes put us to shame. It's the same up and down the country. As Neil Clark wrote here yesterday, the private sector can't get its act together hence the transport chaos - while the government washes its hands.
Prime Minister David Cameron, normally to be found some distance behind the shit deflector that is Nick Clegg, is nowhere to be seen. London's Mayor Boris Johnson, never at a loss for a pointless phrase in Latin, has nothing to say.
Is this what the Tories meant by the Big Society? Did they intend the state to have no responsibility in crises like this? That people - families, the elderly, businessmen and women, tourists - should be stranded in Arctic conditions and left to fend for themselves?
"I don't know," said a policeman at St Pancras when I asked him whether anyone was going to look after the poor unfortunates queueing for a train to Paris. "It's beyond my remit." He had a dog. Perhaps this kind of indifference is part of the government's anti-immigration policy. ...
Hundreds are stranded by the snow and yet there’s no sign of David Cameron or his big idea
By Max Eilenberg
DECEMBER 21, 2010
Perhaps the thousands of people stranded at Heathrow should count themselves lucky. At least they're inside and out of the cold. They're not having to stand outside for hours in sub-zero temperatures, like the unhappy travellers hoping to catch a Eurostar train from St Pancras yesterday.
Shivering queues at one stage stretched for hundreds of yards outside the main terminal and along the Euston Road, past the British Library. With Eurostar already running a reduced service, the pressure was only increased by the large number of refugees from the airlines as Heathrow cancelled all short-haul flights to Europe.
For many of them, the outlook was bleak: a freezing night in the cavernous, unheated halls of St Pancras, or a scramble to find somewhere anywhere in London's overbooked and overpriced hotels.
How could it all go so wrong?
Such scenes put us to shame. It's the same up and down the country. As Neil Clark wrote here yesterday, the private sector can't get its act together hence the transport chaos - while the government washes its hands.
Prime Minister David Cameron, normally to be found some distance behind the shit deflector that is Nick Clegg, is nowhere to be seen. London's Mayor Boris Johnson, never at a loss for a pointless phrase in Latin, has nothing to say.
Is this what the Tories meant by the Big Society? Did they intend the state to have no responsibility in crises like this? That people - families, the elderly, businessmen and women, tourists - should be stranded in Arctic conditions and left to fend for themselves?
"I don't know," said a policeman at St Pancras when I asked him whether anyone was going to look after the poor unfortunates queueing for a train to Paris. "It's beyond my remit." He had a dog. Perhaps this kind of indifference is part of the government's anti-immigration policy. ...
A major new fossil site in south-west China has filled in a sizeable gap in our understanding of how life on this planet recovered from the greatest mass extinction of all time, according to a paper co-authored by Professor Mike Benton, in the School of Earth Sciences, and published this week in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B. The work is led by scientists from the Chengdu Geological Center in China.
Some 250 million years ago, at the end of the time known as the Permian, life was all but wiped out during a sustained period of massive volcanic eruption and devastating global warming. Only one in ten species survived, and these formed the basis for the recovery of life in the subsequent time period, called the Triassic. The new fossil site – at Luoping in Yunnan Province – provides a new window on that recovery, and indicates that it took about 10 million years for a fully-functioning ecosystem to develop. ...
Some 250 million years ago, at the end of the time known as the Permian, life was all but wiped out during a sustained period of massive volcanic eruption and devastating global warming. Only one in ten species survived, and these formed the basis for the recovery of life in the subsequent time period, called the Triassic. The new fossil site – at Luoping in Yunnan Province – provides a new window on that recovery, and indicates that it took about 10 million years for a fully-functioning ecosystem to develop. ...
US FCC fumbles ball on net neutrality: yes for fixed, not really for mobile
The reason why mobile broadband doesn't need net neutrality? It's obvious, isn't it: because Android is open. That's really what they said.
Charles Arthur Wednesday 22 December 2010
The US Federal Communications Commission (FCC) which has the power to set the rules for use and, more importantly, charging for internet use in the US, has passed "limited" net neutrality rules by a 3-2 vote which split along Democratic (yes) and Republican (no) party lines.
It seems to have done the right thing - defending neutrality - for fixed-line broadband, but fumbled it on mobile, and the reason it gives for the latter is astonishing: it's because Android is open. Mull on that as we go along.
The FCC portrays the decision on its own website as "FCC Acts to Preserve Internet Freedom and Openness" - and just to prove how free and open it is, then has the press release in two formats: Microsoft Word and Adobe PDF. (Just to add to the fun, I couldn't get them to download on Wednesday morning. Links to the documents, courtesy of Matt Temple and Angrygoat, at end.)
Ars Technica notes that fixed-line broadband does seem to be getting net neutrality rules that you might recognise - where someone operating such a service "shall not unreasonably discriminate in transmitting lawful network traffic over a consumer's broadband Internet access service" - although "Reasonable network management shall not constitute unreasonable discrimination". And reasonable network management purposes "include: ensuring network security and integrity, including by addressing traffic that is harmful to the network; addressing traffic that is unwanted by users (including by premise operators), such as by providing services or capabilities consistent with a user's choices regarding parental controls or security capabilities; and by reducing or mitigating the effects of congestion on the network."
However many people who are not in the FCC seem to think that it has not really preserved freedom or openness, and that it has really fumbled it on a particularly important field - mobile.
The rules seem to allow mobile carriers to decide that they can introduce pay-per-service charges, so that Skype or YouTube or Facebook might be charged to get their content onto the networks; alternatively (or perhaps additionally) users who wanted those services might find themselves being charged extra. That, obviously, means that those services are not being treated in a "neutral" way. Which means that you don't have net neutrality.
The gobsmacking reason given by the commissioners for not imposing net neutrality treatment on wireless? The fact that Google's Android is "open". Yes, you read that correctly: because there's a pseudo-open mobile operating system, therefore wireless networks don't need regulation about how they charge for content.
Or to quote from the FCC statements as seen by some sites:
"Further, we recognize that there have been meaningful recent moves toward openness, including the introduction of open operating systems like Android. In addition, we anticipate soon seeing the effects on the market of the openness conditions we imposed on mobile providers that operate on upper 700 MHz C-Block spectrum, which includes Verizon Wireless, one of the largest mobile wireless carriers in the U.S.
"In light of these considerations, we conclude it is appropriate to take measured steps at this time to protect the openness of the Internet when accessed through mobile broadband."
It's a stunning example of American legislature showing that it simply doesn't know enough to be trusted with big decisions. There's some rumbling at Engadget suggesting that Google might have lobbied with Verizon, which sells an estimated 80% of the Android phones sold in the US, in favour of this "limited" (actually: thin wedge-end) approach to differential charging. ...
The reason why mobile broadband doesn't need net neutrality? It's obvious, isn't it: because Android is open. That's really what they said.
Charles Arthur Wednesday 22 December 2010
The US Federal Communications Commission (FCC) which has the power to set the rules for use and, more importantly, charging for internet use in the US, has passed "limited" net neutrality rules by a 3-2 vote which split along Democratic (yes) and Republican (no) party lines.
It seems to have done the right thing - defending neutrality - for fixed-line broadband, but fumbled it on mobile, and the reason it gives for the latter is astonishing: it's because Android is open. Mull on that as we go along.
The FCC portrays the decision on its own website as "FCC Acts to Preserve Internet Freedom and Openness" - and just to prove how free and open it is, then has the press release in two formats: Microsoft Word and Adobe PDF. (Just to add to the fun, I couldn't get them to download on Wednesday morning. Links to the documents, courtesy of Matt Temple and Angrygoat, at end.)
Ars Technica notes that fixed-line broadband does seem to be getting net neutrality rules that you might recognise - where someone operating such a service "shall not unreasonably discriminate in transmitting lawful network traffic over a consumer's broadband Internet access service" - although "Reasonable network management shall not constitute unreasonable discrimination". And reasonable network management purposes "include: ensuring network security and integrity, including by addressing traffic that is harmful to the network; addressing traffic that is unwanted by users (including by premise operators), such as by providing services or capabilities consistent with a user's choices regarding parental controls or security capabilities; and by reducing or mitigating the effects of congestion on the network."
However many people who are not in the FCC seem to think that it has not really preserved freedom or openness, and that it has really fumbled it on a particularly important field - mobile.
The rules seem to allow mobile carriers to decide that they can introduce pay-per-service charges, so that Skype or YouTube or Facebook might be charged to get their content onto the networks; alternatively (or perhaps additionally) users who wanted those services might find themselves being charged extra. That, obviously, means that those services are not being treated in a "neutral" way. Which means that you don't have net neutrality.
The gobsmacking reason given by the commissioners for not imposing net neutrality treatment on wireless? The fact that Google's Android is "open". Yes, you read that correctly: because there's a pseudo-open mobile operating system, therefore wireless networks don't need regulation about how they charge for content.
Or to quote from the FCC statements as seen by some sites:
"Further, we recognize that there have been meaningful recent moves toward openness, including the introduction of open operating systems like Android. In addition, we anticipate soon seeing the effects on the market of the openness conditions we imposed on mobile providers that operate on upper 700 MHz C-Block spectrum, which includes Verizon Wireless, one of the largest mobile wireless carriers in the U.S.
"In light of these considerations, we conclude it is appropriate to take measured steps at this time to protect the openness of the Internet when accessed through mobile broadband."
It's a stunning example of American legislature showing that it simply doesn't know enough to be trusted with big decisions. There's some rumbling at Engadget suggesting that Google might have lobbied with Verizon, which sells an estimated 80% of the Android phones sold in the US, in favour of this "limited" (actually: thin wedge-end) approach to differential charging. ...
The British government has been training a Bangladeshi paramilitary force condemned by human rights organisations as a "government death squad", leaked US embassy cables have revealed.
Members of the Rapid Action Battalion (RAB), which has been held responsible for hundreds of extra-judicial killings in recent years and is said to routinely use torture, have received British training in "investigative interviewing techniques" and "rules of engagement".
Details of the training were revealed in a number of cables, released by WikiLeaks, which address the counter-terrorism objectives of the US and UK governments in Bangladesh. One cable makes clear that the US would not offer any assistance other than human rights training to the RAB – and that it would be illegal under US law to do so – because its members commit gross human rights violations with impunity.
Since the RAB was established six years ago, it is estimated by some human rights activists to have been responsible for more than 1,000 extra-judicial killings, described euphemistically as "crossfire" deaths. In September last year the director general of the RAB said his men had killed 577 people in "crossfire". In March this year he updated the figure, saying they had killed 622 people.
The RAB's use of torture has also been exhaustively documented by human rights organisations. In addition, officers from the paramilitary force are alleged to have been involved in kidnap and extortion, and are frequently accused of taking large bribes in return for carrying out crossfire killings.
However, the cables reveal that both the British and the Americans, in their determination to strengthen counter-terrorism operations in Bangladesh, are in favour of bolstering the force, arguing that the "RAB enjoys a great deal of respect and admiration from a population scarred by decreasing law and order over the last decade". In one cable, the US ambassador to Dhaka, James Moriarty, expresses the view that the RAB is the "enforcement organisation best positioned to one day become a Bangladeshi version of the US Federal Bureau of Investigation". ...
Well, they've certainly got a superb foundation on which to build a baby fbi, innit.
Members of the Rapid Action Battalion (RAB), which has been held responsible for hundreds of extra-judicial killings in recent years and is said to routinely use torture, have received British training in "investigative interviewing techniques" and "rules of engagement".
Details of the training were revealed in a number of cables, released by WikiLeaks, which address the counter-terrorism objectives of the US and UK governments in Bangladesh. One cable makes clear that the US would not offer any assistance other than human rights training to the RAB – and that it would be illegal under US law to do so – because its members commit gross human rights violations with impunity.
Since the RAB was established six years ago, it is estimated by some human rights activists to have been responsible for more than 1,000 extra-judicial killings, described euphemistically as "crossfire" deaths. In September last year the director general of the RAB said his men had killed 577 people in "crossfire". In March this year he updated the figure, saying they had killed 622 people.
The RAB's use of torture has also been exhaustively documented by human rights organisations. In addition, officers from the paramilitary force are alleged to have been involved in kidnap and extortion, and are frequently accused of taking large bribes in return for carrying out crossfire killings.
However, the cables reveal that both the British and the Americans, in their determination to strengthen counter-terrorism operations in Bangladesh, are in favour of bolstering the force, arguing that the "RAB enjoys a great deal of respect and admiration from a population scarred by decreasing law and order over the last decade". In one cable, the US ambassador to Dhaka, James Moriarty, expresses the view that the RAB is the "enforcement organisation best positioned to one day become a Bangladeshi version of the US Federal Bureau of Investigation". ...
Well, they've certainly got a superb foundation on which to build a baby fbi, innit.
Kroger announces select pet food recall
By the CNN Wire
(CNN) -- The Kroger Co. is recalling select pet food packages from stores in 19 states fearing some of these products may contain aflatoxin, a toxic chemical byproduct that could be harmful to animals.
The recall involves certain bags of Pet Pride Cat Food, Pet Pride Kitten Food, Old Yeller Chunk Dog Food, Kroger Value Cat Food and Kroger Value Chunk Food, the company said Saturday. ...
... The company has set up a Customer Recall Notification system to help customers determine whether they have purchased any of the contaminated products. Most of recalled products have an expiration date of October 23 and 24, 2011.
States with Kroger-operated stores included in the recall are Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Michigan, Mississippi, Missouri, Nebraska, North Carolina, Ohio, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia and West Virginia.
Ta much, dear Anneliese
By the CNN Wire
(CNN) -- The Kroger Co. is recalling select pet food packages from stores in 19 states fearing some of these products may contain aflatoxin, a toxic chemical byproduct that could be harmful to animals.
The recall involves certain bags of Pet Pride Cat Food, Pet Pride Kitten Food, Old Yeller Chunk Dog Food, Kroger Value Cat Food and Kroger Value Chunk Food, the company said Saturday. ...
... The company has set up a Customer Recall Notification system to help customers determine whether they have purchased any of the contaminated products. Most of recalled products have an expiration date of October 23 and 24, 2011.
States with Kroger-operated stores included in the recall are Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Michigan, Mississippi, Missouri, Nebraska, North Carolina, Ohio, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia and West Virginia.
Ta much, dear Anneliese
The EU today agreed a travel ban on Ivory Coast's president, Laurent Gbagbo, whose supporters have vowed to fight to the death to keep him in power.
The announcement came as the UN accused armed men of threatening its staff in their homes, and expressed concern at unconfirmed reports of a mass grave in the tense west African nation.
The UN says more than 50 people have been killed since opposition leader Alassane Ouattara's election victory over Gbagbo was recognised by the UN, the US, the African Union and the country's former colonial power, France – but not Gbagbo.
The EU travel ban will be imposed on Gbagbo, his wife Simone and 17 of his close allies, expected to include top security, ruling party and regular army officials.
Maja Kocijancic, a spokeswoman for the European Commission in Brussels, said: "We expect the ban to be adopted by Wednesday and come into effect on Thursday, effective immediately." Governments were also discussing a freeze on assets, she added. ...
The announcement came as the UN accused armed men of threatening its staff in their homes, and expressed concern at unconfirmed reports of a mass grave in the tense west African nation.
The UN says more than 50 people have been killed since opposition leader Alassane Ouattara's election victory over Gbagbo was recognised by the UN, the US, the African Union and the country's former colonial power, France – but not Gbagbo.
The EU travel ban will be imposed on Gbagbo, his wife Simone and 17 of his close allies, expected to include top security, ruling party and regular army officials.
Maja Kocijancic, a spokeswoman for the European Commission in Brussels, said: "We expect the ban to be adopted by Wednesday and come into effect on Thursday, effective immediately." Governments were also discussing a freeze on assets, she added. ...
Iran jails director Jafar Panahi and stops him making films for 20 years | World news | The Guardian
The acclaimed Iranian filmmaker Jafar Panahi was sentenced to six years in prison today, and banned from directing and producing films for the next 20 years, his lawyer said.
Panahi, an outspoken supporter of Iran's opposition green movement, was convicted of gathering, colluding and propaganda against the regime, Farideh Gheyrat told the Iranian state news agency ISNA.
"He is therefore sentenced to six years in prison and also he is banned for 20 years from making any films, writing any scripts, travelling abroad and also giving any interviews to the media including foreign and domestic news organisations," she said. Gheyrat said she would appeal against the conviction.
Panahi won the Camera d'Or award at the Cannes film festival in 1995 for his debut feature, The White Balloon, and took the Golden Lion prize at Venice for his 2000 drama, The Circle. His other films include Crimson Gold and Offside. He is highly regarded around the world but his films are banned at home.
Hamid Dabashi, a professor of Iranian studies at Columbia university, told the Guardian the sentence showed Iran's leaders could not tolerate the arts. "This is a catastrophe for Iran's cinema," he said. "Panahi is now exactly in the most creative phase of his life and by silencing him at this sensitive time, they are killing his art and talent. ...
Panahi, an outspoken supporter of Iran's opposition green movement, was convicted of gathering, colluding and propaganda against the regime, Farideh Gheyrat told the Iranian state news agency ISNA.
"He is therefore sentenced to six years in prison and also he is banned for 20 years from making any films, writing any scripts, travelling abroad and also giving any interviews to the media including foreign and domestic news organisations," she said. Gheyrat said she would appeal against the conviction.
Panahi won the Camera d'Or award at the Cannes film festival in 1995 for his debut feature, The White Balloon, and took the Golden Lion prize at Venice for his 2000 drama, The Circle. His other films include Crimson Gold and Offside. He is highly regarded around the world but his films are banned at home.
Hamid Dabashi, a professor of Iranian studies at Columbia university, told the Guardian the sentence showed Iran's leaders could not tolerate the arts. "This is a catastrophe for Iran's cinema," he said. "Panahi is now exactly in the most creative phase of his life and by silencing him at this sensitive time, they are killing his art and talent. ...
Counter-terrorism officials launched a major operation over fears of multiple bomb attacks in Whitehall, central London, and on Christmas shoppers and revellers in the West Midlands, the Guardian has learned.
In a series of co-ordinated pre-dawn raids in Stoke, Birmingham, Cardiff and east London, police arrested 12 men aged 17 to 28 and began extensive searches of a number of properties.
Sources with knowledge of the operation said the arrests followed intelligence that targets including "public spaces" and shopping areas in the West Midlands were part of a suspected plot. Sites in Whitehall, including around the Houses of Parliament, were also said to be possible targets. Sources said it is believed that the targets had been scouted as part of the alleged plot.
If the intelligence and assessment by British counter-terrorism officials are correct, it means an attack may have been averted with days to spare. The multiple arrests followed a long undercover investigation led by MI5, according to counter-terrorism officials.
One source said that intelligence had led the security services to launch a surveillance operation against the men, which intensified within the past weeks.
In the past few days the decision was taken, at an executive liaison group where police and MI5 meet to discuss major operations, that the suspected plot had to be disrupted because it was believed there was too great a chance of an attack being staged.
Those arrested are all British, and some come from a Bangladeshi background. They are alleged to be involved in a serious plot, officials made clear, indicating this was more than an operation designed to disrupt or warn off suspects. Only the sparsest details were made public . Scotland Yard's head of counter-terrorism, John Yates, said: "They were all arrested under the Terrorism Act 2000 on suspicion of the commission, cooperation and instigation of acts of terrorism. ...
In a series of co-ordinated pre-dawn raids in Stoke, Birmingham, Cardiff and east London, police arrested 12 men aged 17 to 28 and began extensive searches of a number of properties.
Sources with knowledge of the operation said the arrests followed intelligence that targets including "public spaces" and shopping areas in the West Midlands were part of a suspected plot. Sites in Whitehall, including around the Houses of Parliament, were also said to be possible targets. Sources said it is believed that the targets had been scouted as part of the alleged plot.
If the intelligence and assessment by British counter-terrorism officials are correct, it means an attack may have been averted with days to spare. The multiple arrests followed a long undercover investigation led by MI5, according to counter-terrorism officials.
One source said that intelligence had led the security services to launch a surveillance operation against the men, which intensified within the past weeks.
In the past few days the decision was taken, at an executive liaison group where police and MI5 meet to discuss major operations, that the suspected plot had to be disrupted because it was believed there was too great a chance of an attack being staged.
Those arrested are all British, and some come from a Bangladeshi background. They are alleged to be involved in a serious plot, officials made clear, indicating this was more than an operation designed to disrupt or warn off suspects. Only the sparsest details were made public . Scotland Yard's head of counter-terrorism, John Yates, said: "They were all arrested under the Terrorism Act 2000 on suspicion of the commission, cooperation and instigation of acts of terrorism. ...
The South Korean military fired shells into disputed waters in the Yellow Sea today in a live-fire drill that risked inflaming tensions with North Korea that have led to two deadly clashes this year.
Ahead of the action, South Korea scrambled F-15K fighter jets, put Aegis warships on alert and evacuated residents of the nearby Yeonpyeong island into air-raid shelters amid North Korean warnings of "catastrophe" if the exercise went ahead.
Yet there was no immediate response from Pyongyang, suggesting either repurcussions will be delayed or last-minute diplomatic calls for restraint have paid off.
Two civilians and two marines were killed on the island last month, when North Korean responded to a similar drill with a military barrage. The government in Pyongyang considers the island, which is seven miles from its western shore, to be part of its territory.
The live-fire exercise lasted 94 minutes, government officials said, and involved K-9 self-propelled guns and other weapons firing about 2,000 shells away from the North Korean shoreline, South Korean defence ministry spokesman Kim Min-seok told reporters.
After the drill, South Korean president Lee Myung-bak ordered troops to remain on alert, highlighting concerns that the North may be biding its time. ...
I am so sick of sabre-rattling and cock-waving: "Look! Mine's soooo much bigger than yours!"
So what? Your brain is miniscule and you have no heart, so what the hell good could that do?
Ahead of the action, South Korea scrambled F-15K fighter jets, put Aegis warships on alert and evacuated residents of the nearby Yeonpyeong island into air-raid shelters amid North Korean warnings of "catastrophe" if the exercise went ahead.
Yet there was no immediate response from Pyongyang, suggesting either repurcussions will be delayed or last-minute diplomatic calls for restraint have paid off.
Two civilians and two marines were killed on the island last month, when North Korean responded to a similar drill with a military barrage. The government in Pyongyang considers the island, which is seven miles from its western shore, to be part of its territory.
The live-fire exercise lasted 94 minutes, government officials said, and involved K-9 self-propelled guns and other weapons firing about 2,000 shells away from the North Korean shoreline, South Korean defence ministry spokesman Kim Min-seok told reporters.
After the drill, South Korean president Lee Myung-bak ordered troops to remain on alert, highlighting concerns that the North may be biding its time. ...
I am so sick of sabre-rattling and cock-waving: "Look! Mine's soooo much bigger than yours!"
So what? Your brain is miniscule and you have no heart, so what the hell good could that do?
A senior government official in Yemen warned US diplomats that poor security at the country's main store of radioactive products could allow dangerous material to fall into the hands of terrorists, according to a leaked US embassy cable.
The official told the Americans that the lone guard standing watch at Yemen's national atomic energy commission (NAEC) facility had been removed from his post and that its only closed circuit TV security camera had broken down six months previously and was never fixed.
"Very little now stands between the bad guys and Yemen's nuclear material," the official warned, in a cable dated 9 January this year sent from the Sana'a embassy to the CIA, the FBI and the department of homeland security as well as the US secretary of state in Washington and others.
Yemen, the Arab world's poorest nation, has emerged as al-Qaida's most active base, after Iraq and Afghanistan. It is home to Al-Qaida in the Arab Peninsula (AQAP), the group behind a series of attacks on western targets...
The official told the Americans that the lone guard standing watch at Yemen's national atomic energy commission (NAEC) facility had been removed from his post and that its only closed circuit TV security camera had broken down six months previously and was never fixed.
"Very little now stands between the bad guys and Yemen's nuclear material," the official warned, in a cable dated 9 January this year sent from the Sana'a embassy to the CIA, the FBI and the department of homeland security as well as the US secretary of state in Washington and others.
Yemen, the Arab world's poorest nation, has emerged as al-Qaida's most active base, after Iraq and Afghanistan. It is home to Al-Qaida in the Arab Peninsula (AQAP), the group behind a series of attacks on western targets...
Riot police beat back thousands of opposition supporters who tried to storm the main government building in Belarus last night in protest at what they claim was large-scale vote rigging in yesterday's presidential election.
As protests in Minsk against the re-election of President Alexander Lukashenko turned violent, the opposition candidate Vladimir Neklyayev, 64, was reported to have been taken to hospital unconscious. Andrei Sannikov, another opposition candidate, was beaten and detained.
Tens of thousands of protesters swarmed into Minsk's central square after a pro-government exit poll claimed Lukashenko had won 79.1% of the vote. Polls cited by the nine candidates challenging Lukashenko indicated he had failed to win the 50% needed to hold on to power without a second round.
Video showed protesters waving flags and chanting "Lukashenko, no! Belarus, yes!" as they marched through Minsk toward the central election commission and the seat of government.
Several journalists, including a photographer for the New York Times and two cameramen for Russia Today, were among those injured.
Lukashenko, described as Europe's last dictator, has ruled the country since 1994, brokering no dissent. A US diplomatic cable released by WikiLeaks earlier this month said he "intends to stay in power indefinitely". ...
As protests in Minsk against the re-election of President Alexander Lukashenko turned violent, the opposition candidate Vladimir Neklyayev, 64, was reported to have been taken to hospital unconscious. Andrei Sannikov, another opposition candidate, was beaten and detained.
Tens of thousands of protesters swarmed into Minsk's central square after a pro-government exit poll claimed Lukashenko had won 79.1% of the vote. Polls cited by the nine candidates challenging Lukashenko indicated he had failed to win the 50% needed to hold on to power without a second round.
Video showed protesters waving flags and chanting "Lukashenko, no! Belarus, yes!" as they marched through Minsk toward the central election commission and the seat of government.
Several journalists, including a photographer for the New York Times and two cameramen for Russia Today, were among those injured.
Lukashenko, described as Europe's last dictator, has ruled the country since 1994, brokering no dissent. A US diplomatic cable released by WikiLeaks earlier this month said he "intends to stay in power indefinitely". ...
United Nations peacekeepers and French soldiers stationed in the Ivory Coast were today set on a dangerous course of confrontation with forces loyal to the renegade president, Laurent Gbagbo, after he ordered them out of the country.
The UN secretary general, Ban Ki-moon, responded swiftly with a warning that violence against the 10,000-strong mission would incur serious consequences. "Any attack on UN forces will be an attack on the international community and those responsible for these actions will be held accountable," Ban said.
His warning came as Britons were advised by the Foreign Office to leave the west African country. "In view of the tense and highly uncertain security environment following the disputed presidential election … we advise against all travel to Côte d'Ivoire," the FCO stated on its website. "Due to the threat of widespread instability and violence in Abidjan and other major cities, British nationals are advised to leave Côte d'Ivoire by commercial means, if safe to do so, unless you have a pressing reason to remain."
The UN, the European Union, the former colonial power France and the African Union all endorsed the victory of Alassane Ouattara after the second round of presidential elections on 28 November. Gbagbo, in power since 2000, insisted he won the ballot and has refused to relinquish office.
Gbagbo's defiance has been backed by Ivory Coast's military forces and by the feared youth militia, the Young Patriots, but condemned by other African countries. ...
The UN secretary general, Ban Ki-moon, responded swiftly with a warning that violence against the 10,000-strong mission would incur serious consequences. "Any attack on UN forces will be an attack on the international community and those responsible for these actions will be held accountable," Ban said.
His warning came as Britons were advised by the Foreign Office to leave the west African country. "In view of the tense and highly uncertain security environment following the disputed presidential election … we advise against all travel to Côte d'Ivoire," the FCO stated on its website. "Due to the threat of widespread instability and violence in Abidjan and other major cities, British nationals are advised to leave Côte d'Ivoire by commercial means, if safe to do so, unless you have a pressing reason to remain."
The UN, the European Union, the former colonial power France and the African Union all endorsed the victory of Alassane Ouattara after the second round of presidential elections on 28 November. Gbagbo, in power since 2000, insisted he won the ballot and has refused to relinquish office.
Gbagbo's defiance has been backed by Ivory Coast's military forces and by the feared youth militia, the Young Patriots, but condemned by other African countries. ...
... Television images showed scorched houses, businesses and trees blackened by the huge explosion, and a black crude-like substance covering the streets.
The explosion, which happened before dawn on Sunday, was apparently provoked by thieves trying to steal crude oil, according to Valentin Meneses, interior secretary for the state of Puebla.
The state-owned oil company, Petroleos Mexicanos, or Pemex, said it had shut down the pipeline. Government authorities said the fire was under control by midday, and fires are burning the remaining crude.
Civil protection authorities, firefighters and military officers are investigating and trying to ensure there are no more explosions. No one has been detained.
Pemex has struggled with chronic theft, losing as much as 10% of its product.
Criminals tap remote pipelines, sometimes building pipelines of their own, to siphon off hundreds of millions of dollars worth of oil each year, Pemex has said.
In 2009, the US justice department said US refineries bought millions of dollars worth of oil stolen from Mexican government pipelines and smuggled it across the border in illegal operations led by Mexican drug cartels expanding their reach.
Two Texas oil company officials were sentenced to probation in September for their roles in the sale of petroleum products stolen from Mexico.
Pemex sued five companies in the US in June for allegedly buying stolen Mexican petroleum products.
Also in June, police arrested 13 people who had excavated a 500ft tunnel under Mexico City to steal fuel from oil company pipelines.
The explosion, which happened before dawn on Sunday, was apparently provoked by thieves trying to steal crude oil, according to Valentin Meneses, interior secretary for the state of Puebla.
The state-owned oil company, Petroleos Mexicanos, or Pemex, said it had shut down the pipeline. Government authorities said the fire was under control by midday, and fires are burning the remaining crude.
Civil protection authorities, firefighters and military officers are investigating and trying to ensure there are no more explosions. No one has been detained.
Pemex has struggled with chronic theft, losing as much as 10% of its product.
Criminals tap remote pipelines, sometimes building pipelines of their own, to siphon off hundreds of millions of dollars worth of oil each year, Pemex has said.
In 2009, the US justice department said US refineries bought millions of dollars worth of oil stolen from Mexican government pipelines and smuggled it across the border in illegal operations led by Mexican drug cartels expanding their reach.
Two Texas oil company officials were sentenced to probation in September for their roles in the sale of petroleum products stolen from Mexico.
Pemex sued five companies in the US in June for allegedly buying stolen Mexican petroleum products.
Also in June, police arrested 13 people who had excavated a 500ft tunnel under Mexico City to steal fuel from oil company pipelines.
WikiLeaks cables: Julian Assange says his life is 'under threat'
• WikiLeaks founder says Swedish rape case is 'a travesty'
• Bank of America blocks WikiLeaks payments
David Batty
Saturday 18 December 2010
Julian Assange said today his life and the lives of his colleagues at the whistleblowing website WikiLeaks are under threat.
Speaking to reporters outside Ellingham Hall, the Norfolk house at which he is staying following his release on bail from prison, Assange said: "There is a threat to my life. There is a threat to my staff. There are significant risks facing us."
Assange is wanted in Sweden, after he was accused of committing sex offences. He denies the allegations and his lawyers have accused the Swedish authorities of waging a "vendetta".
He was initially remanded in custody but freed from prison on Thursday after a judge granted bail pending a court ruling on extradition to Sweden.
Assange said: "The case in Sweden is a travesty. No person should be exposed to that type of investigation and persecution.
"I have seen a statement from one of the witnesses that she was bamboozled ... I have heard a rumour that one has withdrawn her statement."
Meanwhile, Bank of America has become the latest financial institution to refuse to handle payments for WikiLeaks.
The bank released a statement saying it will no longer process any transactions that it believes are intended for the site, which has released thousands of secret US diplomatic cables.
"This decision is based upon our reasonable belief that WikiLeaks may be engaged in activities that are, among other things, inconsistent with our internal policies for processing payments," the bank said.
The action comes as WikiLeaks says it plans to release information about banks.
Other financial institutions, including MasterCard and PayPal, have also stopped handling payments for the site. ...
• WikiLeaks founder says Swedish rape case is 'a travesty'
• Bank of America blocks WikiLeaks payments
David Batty
Saturday 18 December 2010
Julian Assange said today his life and the lives of his colleagues at the whistleblowing website WikiLeaks are under threat.
Speaking to reporters outside Ellingham Hall, the Norfolk house at which he is staying following his release on bail from prison, Assange said: "There is a threat to my life. There is a threat to my staff. There are significant risks facing us."
Assange is wanted in Sweden, after he was accused of committing sex offences. He denies the allegations and his lawyers have accused the Swedish authorities of waging a "vendetta".
He was initially remanded in custody but freed from prison on Thursday after a judge granted bail pending a court ruling on extradition to Sweden.
Assange said: "The case in Sweden is a travesty. No person should be exposed to that type of investigation and persecution.
"I have seen a statement from one of the witnesses that she was bamboozled ... I have heard a rumour that one has withdrawn her statement."
Meanwhile, Bank of America has become the latest financial institution to refuse to handle payments for WikiLeaks.
The bank released a statement saying it will no longer process any transactions that it believes are intended for the site, which has released thousands of secret US diplomatic cables.
"This decision is based upon our reasonable belief that WikiLeaks may be engaged in activities that are, among other things, inconsistent with our internal policies for processing payments," the bank said.
The action comes as WikiLeaks says it plans to release information about banks.
Other financial institutions, including MasterCard and PayPal, have also stopped handling payments for the site. ...
Dodgy dealings in tough year for whistleblowers
It's been a marvellous year for bullshit and pseudoscience
Ben Goldacre
17 December 2010
It's been a marvellous year for bullshit. We saw quantitative evidence showing that drug adverts aimed at doctors are routinely factually inaccurate, while pharmaceutical company ghostwriters were the secret hands behind letters to the Times, and a whole series of academic papers. We saw more drug companies and even regulators withholding evidence from doctors and patients that a drug was dangerous – the most important and neglected ethical issue in modern medicine — and that whistleblowers have a rubbish life.
Bias is everywhere. Academic papers from people who get money from tobacco companies are vastly more likely to say that cigarettes prevent Alzheimer's, and we saw the first good quantitative evidence describing how academics routinely mislead readers about their negative results in academic papers, by spinning them as positive. Dodgy facts aren't the only reason clever people believe stupid things, as demonstrated by a gale of research on irrationality. Superstitious rituals really do improve performance.
What women musicians wear affects listeners' assessment of their skill. Antibiotics don't work for a sore throat, but if you're prescribed them, you come away thinking they do. You can find mysterious alien patterns in ancient sites on a map of the UK, but you can find similar patterns in the locations of former Woolworths stores.
More chillingly, if a piece of information which reinforced your prejudices is corrected, this only reinforces your prejudices; and we think crimes are less serious, when they have more victims.
Newspapers continued to bravely make false claims about the efficacy of fish oils despite the negative trial data. There was the usual round of "Facebook spreads syphilis" that is barely worth still documenting, though the Sunday Times distortion of figures to claim the public sector pays more for the same job was particularly elaborate. ...
SuperClubs chairman John Issa is estimating that the cruise ship industry owes the country more than US$12 million in head tax, while land-based tourists are being burdened with fees tacked on to their airline tickets.
According to Issa, cruise-ship passengers are required to pay US$2 head tax per person, but "not one cent has been collected, yet we have been piling tax on our land-based visitors for giving them the privilege of spending their hard-earned money in Jamaica.
"While the TEF has not collected this amount, the board has the audacity to propose the additional head tax on the stopover tourist," he added.
His comments come days after the Tourism Enhancement Fund (TEF) Board voted to increase the tax on airline tickets for incoming passengers by 100 per cent. Currently, visitors to the island pay US$10 per person.
"I felt obligated to give my views on the disastrous path we appear to be taking to seriously damage the tourism industry," Issa argued.
According to the hotel mogul, up to the end of 2008, US$8.5 million was due on the tax from cruise passengers and his estimate is that by the end of 2010, an additional US$4 million will be due, bringing the total to more than US$12 million.
His concerns are even more far-reaching, as he argues that in addition to increasing the general consumption tax on land-based visitors' hotel stays by 10 per cent last year, every tourist coming to Jamaica has to pay J$1,800 departure tax and US$10 to the TEF on arrival.
"Any new tax would mean that the visitor who arrives by air would pay over US$40 for the privilege of arriving and departing."
Issa cautioned the decision makers to remember what happened to the country's bauxite and alumina industry after massive increases were levied on that sector. ...
According to Issa, cruise-ship passengers are required to pay US$2 head tax per person, but "not one cent has been collected, yet we have been piling tax on our land-based visitors for giving them the privilege of spending their hard-earned money in Jamaica.
"While the TEF has not collected this amount, the board has the audacity to propose the additional head tax on the stopover tourist," he added.
His comments come days after the Tourism Enhancement Fund (TEF) Board voted to increase the tax on airline tickets for incoming passengers by 100 per cent. Currently, visitors to the island pay US$10 per person.
"I felt obligated to give my views on the disastrous path we appear to be taking to seriously damage the tourism industry," Issa argued.
According to the hotel mogul, up to the end of 2008, US$8.5 million was due on the tax from cruise passengers and his estimate is that by the end of 2010, an additional US$4 million will be due, bringing the total to more than US$12 million.
His concerns are even more far-reaching, as he argues that in addition to increasing the general consumption tax on land-based visitors' hotel stays by 10 per cent last year, every tourist coming to Jamaica has to pay J$1,800 departure tax and US$10 to the TEF on arrival.
"Any new tax would mean that the visitor who arrives by air would pay over US$40 for the privilege of arriving and departing."
Issa cautioned the decision makers to remember what happened to the country's bauxite and alumina industry after massive increases were levied on that sector. ...
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Mark Madoff, the eldest son of disgraced financier Bernard Madoff, has been found hanged in his downtown Manhattan apartment on the second anniversary of the day his father turned himself in to authorities.
His death, which was reported to the police by his father-in-law at 7.30am today, came days after he was named in a new lawsuit by the liquidators of his father's empire.
"He was found hanged in his apartment. It was an apparent suicide," police spokesman Paul Browne said. But authorities said he left no suicide note.
Mark Madoff and his brother, Andrew, were under investigation but had not faced any criminal charges in the $50bn (£31bn) Ponzi scheme that led to their father being jailed.
His death also came on the cut-off date for trustees looking to clawback losses from the fraud to file final lawsuits.
On Wednesday, Irving Picard, the court-appointed trustee for the liquidation of Bernard L Madoff Investment Securities, the fraudster's main US firm, named all the directors of the London subsidiary in a new lawsuit.
The high court complaint – which named Mark and his brother Andrew, their uncle Peter, as well as Sonja Kohn, who has been charged separately for other Madoff-related fraud – will attempt to recoup $80m (£50.5bn). ...
His death, which was reported to the police by his father-in-law at 7.30am today, came days after he was named in a new lawsuit by the liquidators of his father's empire.
"He was found hanged in his apartment. It was an apparent suicide," police spokesman Paul Browne said. But authorities said he left no suicide note.
Mark Madoff and his brother, Andrew, were under investigation but had not faced any criminal charges in the $50bn (£31bn) Ponzi scheme that led to their father being jailed.
His death also came on the cut-off date for trustees looking to clawback losses from the fraud to file final lawsuits.
On Wednesday, Irving Picard, the court-appointed trustee for the liquidation of Bernard L Madoff Investment Securities, the fraudster's main US firm, named all the directors of the London subsidiary in a new lawsuit.
The high court complaint – which named Mark and his brother Andrew, their uncle Peter, as well as Sonja Kohn, who has been charged separately for other Madoff-related fraud – will attempt to recoup $80m (£50.5bn). ...
The Empire strikes back against WikiLeaks
Alexander Cockburn: First Amendment rights trampled - and WikiLeaks is not the only site to be shut down
By Alexander Cockburn
LAST UPDATED 7:14 AM, DECEMBER 9, 2010
The WikiLeaks sites have vanished — though more than 1,400 mirror sites still carry the disclosures. Amazon, Visa, MasterCard, PayPal and the organisation’s Swiss bank have shut them down, either on their own initiative or after a threat from the US government or its poodles in London and Geneva. Julian Assange is in a British jail cell, facing a hearing on trumped-up Swedish allegations zealously posted by Interpol.
The US government is warning potential employees not to read the WikiLeaks materials anywhere on the web, and US Attorney General Eric Holder is cooking up a stew of new gag stipulations and fierce statutory penalties against any site carrying material the government deems compromising to state security. Commercial outfits like Amazon are falling over themselves to connive at the shutdowns, actual or threatened.
One of the biggest lessons for us all comes in the form of a wake-up call on the enormous vulnerability of our prime means of communication to swift government-instigated, summary shutdown.
Forty-three years ago, Ramparts magazine published its disclosures of the CIA’s capture of the National Student Association as a front organisation. The magazine became the target of furious denunciation by the Liebermans and McConnells of the day. Even before publication, the CIA’s Desmond FitzGerald authorised a dirty-tricks operation against Ramparts.
But at no time did the government muster the nerve to flout the First Amendment and try to shut the magazine down on grounds that it was compromising “national security” or was guilty of espionage. A courtroom challenge by Ramparts’ lawyers would have been inevitable.
While visiting Britain in the early 1970s, former CIA case officer Philip Agee had a brief meeting with Tony Godwin, editor-in-chief of Penguin Books, a friend of mine. Godwin agreed to publish Agee’s exposé, including the names of active CIA officers and details of their operations.
Agee managed to write the book in Paris, though I warned him that the CIA certainly knew of his plans and would probably try to kill him. They bugged his typewriter and later floated disobliging rumours about his sex life and drinking habits. But no one tried to shove him into the Seine or even put him in a French prison.
Today? At the least, all of Ramparts’ electronic business operations would be closed down. Pressured by the US government, Amazon would deny Penguin all access or ability to sell books. Just look at what has happened to WikiLeaks. ...
Alexander Cockburn: First Amendment rights trampled - and WikiLeaks is not the only site to be shut down
By Alexander Cockburn
LAST UPDATED 7:14 AM, DECEMBER 9, 2010
The WikiLeaks sites have vanished — though more than 1,400 mirror sites still carry the disclosures. Amazon, Visa, MasterCard, PayPal and the organisation’s Swiss bank have shut them down, either on their own initiative or after a threat from the US government or its poodles in London and Geneva. Julian Assange is in a British jail cell, facing a hearing on trumped-up Swedish allegations zealously posted by Interpol.
The US government is warning potential employees not to read the WikiLeaks materials anywhere on the web, and US Attorney General Eric Holder is cooking up a stew of new gag stipulations and fierce statutory penalties against any site carrying material the government deems compromising to state security. Commercial outfits like Amazon are falling over themselves to connive at the shutdowns, actual or threatened.
One of the biggest lessons for us all comes in the form of a wake-up call on the enormous vulnerability of our prime means of communication to swift government-instigated, summary shutdown.
Forty-three years ago, Ramparts magazine published its disclosures of the CIA’s capture of the National Student Association as a front organisation. The magazine became the target of furious denunciation by the Liebermans and McConnells of the day. Even before publication, the CIA’s Desmond FitzGerald authorised a dirty-tricks operation against Ramparts.
But at no time did the government muster the nerve to flout the First Amendment and try to shut the magazine down on grounds that it was compromising “national security” or was guilty of espionage. A courtroom challenge by Ramparts’ lawyers would have been inevitable.
While visiting Britain in the early 1970s, former CIA case officer Philip Agee had a brief meeting with Tony Godwin, editor-in-chief of Penguin Books, a friend of mine. Godwin agreed to publish Agee’s exposé, including the names of active CIA officers and details of their operations.
Agee managed to write the book in Paris, though I warned him that the CIA certainly knew of his plans and would probably try to kill him. They bugged his typewriter and later floated disobliging rumours about his sex life and drinking habits. But no one tried to shove him into the Seine or even put him in a French prison.
Today? At the least, all of Ramparts’ electronic business operations would be closed down. Pressured by the US government, Amazon would deny Penguin all access or ability to sell books. Just look at what has happened to WikiLeaks. ...
Police chief: students lucky not to be shot
Charles’s armed bodyguards showed ‘enormous restraint’ says angry London police commissioner
By Tim Edwards
LAST UPDATED 12:58 PM, DECEMBER 10, 2010
There was shock this morning after Britain's most senior police officer police chief suggested that armed royal protection officers had shown "enormous restraint" in not opening fire on unarmed students when they mobbed the car of Prince Charles and Camilla in London last night.
The Prince of Wales and his wife were on Regent Street, en route to the London Palladium, when their car was surrounded by protesters returning from a demonstration in Parliament Square against the raising of tuition fees.
Pictures of a shocked Camilla sitting inside the besieged Rolls Royce, which is armoured with toughened glass, have been broadcast around the world to amazed audiences. Shouts of "Off with their heads were heard", but the car emerged with just a cracked window and spatters of paint.
Though the royals were unharmed and were able to attend the Royal Variety Performance as planned, Metropolitan Police commissioner Sir Paul Stephenson said on BBC Radio 4 today: "I do think that the officers who were protecting their royal highnesses showed very real restraint. Some of those officers were armed.
"Their priority was to get that car to a point of safety and that was achieved. But it was a hugely shocking incident and there will be a full criminal investigation into it."
Asked if that meant the bodyguards could have opened fire on the protesters, Stephenson replied: "I think you and your listeners can draw their own conclusion." ...
Charles’s armed bodyguards showed ‘enormous restraint’ says angry London police commissioner
By Tim Edwards
LAST UPDATED 12:58 PM, DECEMBER 10, 2010
There was shock this morning after Britain's most senior police officer police chief suggested that armed royal protection officers had shown "enormous restraint" in not opening fire on unarmed students when they mobbed the car of Prince Charles and Camilla in London last night.
The Prince of Wales and his wife were on Regent Street, en route to the London Palladium, when their car was surrounded by protesters returning from a demonstration in Parliament Square against the raising of tuition fees.
Pictures of a shocked Camilla sitting inside the besieged Rolls Royce, which is armoured with toughened glass, have been broadcast around the world to amazed audiences. Shouts of "Off with their heads were heard", but the car emerged with just a cracked window and spatters of paint.
Though the royals were unharmed and were able to attend the Royal Variety Performance as planned, Metropolitan Police commissioner Sir Paul Stephenson said on BBC Radio 4 today: "I do think that the officers who were protecting their royal highnesses showed very real restraint. Some of those officers were armed.
"Their priority was to get that car to a point of safety and that was achieved. But it was a hugely shocking incident and there will be a full criminal investigation into it."
Asked if that meant the bodyguards could have opened fire on the protesters, Stephenson replied: "I think you and your listeners can draw their own conclusion." ...
Wow. walmart's helping turn Yankistan into E Germany: a country where the civilians spy on each other. Great.
This is such bullshit I can't even believe it. Someone got at those two women and convinced them to lie; doubtless $$$$$ was involved.
Bringing connectivity to rural areas can involve lobbying MPs and signing petitions, but it can also involve knocking on doors, digging up sheep fields and climbing around on the roof in search of bandwidth.
Over the last seven years I've tried all the alternatives, from satellite broadband to community networks, not to mention searching shops for a "modem" when necessary, and while my not-spot is not as not as it used to be I'm still not reaching the broadband nirvana of 2Mb/sec.
Living in one of the more remote parts of Scotland was always going to present a challenge when it came to internet access, but one doesn't imagine trying to get some bandwidth will lead to being ostracised by the neighbours, owning enough ladders to scale a decent castle wall, or securing a job at The Register either. ...
Over the last seven years I've tried all the alternatives, from satellite broadband to community networks, not to mention searching shops for a "modem" when necessary, and while my not-spot is not as not as it used to be I'm still not reaching the broadband nirvana of 2Mb/sec.
Living in one of the more remote parts of Scotland was always going to present a challenge when it came to internet access, but one doesn't imagine trying to get some bandwidth will lead to being ostracised by the neighbours, owning enough ladders to scale a decent castle wall, or securing a job at The Register either. ...
... The police reform and social responsibility bill, published last week, contains an amendment to the constitution of the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs (ACMD) that would remove the requirement on the home secretary to appoint at least six scientists to the committee.
A further amendment to the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971 would allow the home secretary to place temporary controls on substances for a year by statutory instrument.
The proposals will be of concern to the many doctors and scientists who have criticised the government's treatment of scientific evidence in the wake of the sacking, last year, of ACMD chairman David Nutt. The then home secretary, Alan Johnson, removed Nutt from the post after the scientist criticised politicians for distorting research evidence and claiming alcohol and tobacco were more harmful than some illegal drugs, including LSD, ecstasy and cannabis.
At present, the ACMD is required to have a membership that includes representatives of medicine, dentistry, veterinary medicine and pharmacy, the pharmaceutical industry, and chemistry. It is also meant to include people with expertise on the social problems connected with the misuse of drugs.
"The government is ill-advised to hack away at science advisory structures," said Evan Harris, former Lib Dem MP and campaigner for evidence-based policy. "The solution to the poor relationship scientists and Home Office ministers have had is for both to follow their codes of practice, not for ministers to seek to abolish science advisers."
Imran Khan, director of the Campaign for Science and Engineering, said: "It's incredible that the government are trying to take us back to the time of 'Minister knows best'. Scrapping the need for expertise on the drugs advice is not only bad science, but it's also terrible politics." ...
A further amendment to the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971 would allow the home secretary to place temporary controls on substances for a year by statutory instrument.
The proposals will be of concern to the many doctors and scientists who have criticised the government's treatment of scientific evidence in the wake of the sacking, last year, of ACMD chairman David Nutt. The then home secretary, Alan Johnson, removed Nutt from the post after the scientist criticised politicians for distorting research evidence and claiming alcohol and tobacco were more harmful than some illegal drugs, including LSD, ecstasy and cannabis.
At present, the ACMD is required to have a membership that includes representatives of medicine, dentistry, veterinary medicine and pharmacy, the pharmaceutical industry, and chemistry. It is also meant to include people with expertise on the social problems connected with the misuse of drugs.
"The government is ill-advised to hack away at science advisory structures," said Evan Harris, former Lib Dem MP and campaigner for evidence-based policy. "The solution to the poor relationship scientists and Home Office ministers have had is for both to follow their codes of practice, not for ministers to seek to abolish science advisers."
Imran Khan, director of the Campaign for Science and Engineering, said: "It's incredible that the government are trying to take us back to the time of 'Minister knows best'. Scrapping the need for expertise on the drugs advice is not only bad science, but it's also terrible politics." ...
The crew of the Qantas superjumbo whose Rolls-Royce engine exploded in mid-air last month have been praised for overcoming an almost overwhelming set of system failures to land the plane safely.
The scale of the drama on board flight QF32 on 4 November was revealed for the first time today with the publication of an official investigation into the incident. Australian accident investigators said the A380 was left with only limited flight controls after one of its four Trent 900 engines ripped apart over Indonesia, five minutes after take-off. Hydraulic and electrical systems were damaged and fuel tanks were punctured. So many alarms were triggered that the crew had to fly a holding pattern for nearly an hour while they assessed the extent of the damage.
"The aircraft would not have arrived safely in Singapore without the focused and effective action of the flight crew," said Martin Dolan, chief commissioner of the Australian Transport Safety Bureau. ...
The scale of the drama on board flight QF32 on 4 November was revealed for the first time today with the publication of an official investigation into the incident. Australian accident investigators said the A380 was left with only limited flight controls after one of its four Trent 900 engines ripped apart over Indonesia, five minutes after take-off. Hydraulic and electrical systems were damaged and fuel tanks were punctured. So many alarms were triggered that the crew had to fly a holding pattern for nearly an hour while they assessed the extent of the damage.
"The aircraft would not have arrived safely in Singapore without the focused and effective action of the flight crew," said Martin Dolan, chief commissioner of the Australian Transport Safety Bureau. ...
Leah's an acquaintance of whom I am very fond, and this happening in our neighborhood is awful too.
Internet backbone provider Level 3 Communications says that US cable outfit Comcast is demanding a recurring fee for transmitting internet movies and "other content" to Comcast customers who request the content, accusing the cable provider of violating the Federal Communications Commission's "net neutrality" principles. But Comcast says Level 3 is misrepresenting the negotiations between the two companies.
"Comcast is effectively putting up a toll booth at the borders of its broadband Internet access network, enabling it to unilaterally decide how much to charge for content which competes with its own cable TV and Xfinity delivered content," reads a statement from Level 3 chief legal officer Thomas Stortz. "This action by Comcast threatens the open Internet and is a clear abuse of the dominant control that Comcast exerts in broadband access markets as the nation's largest cable provider."
According to Storz's statement, Comcast first made its demand on November 19, and on November 22, Level 3 agreed to the terms "under protest, in order to ensure customers did not experience any disruptions."
Earlier this month, movie rental outfit Netflix announced that Level 3 will be the primary content delivery network provider for its internet-based streaming video service, which is available via PCs but is also embedded in various gaming consoles and TVs. ...
"Comcast is effectively putting up a toll booth at the borders of its broadband Internet access network, enabling it to unilaterally decide how much to charge for content which competes with its own cable TV and Xfinity delivered content," reads a statement from Level 3 chief legal officer Thomas Stortz. "This action by Comcast threatens the open Internet and is a clear abuse of the dominant control that Comcast exerts in broadband access markets as the nation's largest cable provider."
According to Storz's statement, Comcast first made its demand on November 19, and on November 22, Level 3 agreed to the terms "under protest, in order to ensure customers did not experience any disruptions."
Earlier this month, movie rental outfit Netflix announced that Level 3 will be the primary content delivery network provider for its internet-based streaming video service, which is available via PCs but is also embedded in various gaming consoles and TVs. ...
WikiLeaks chief faces criminal investigations or arrest in the US, EU and Australia
By Tim Edwards
LAST UPDATED 2:52 PM, NOVEMBER 30, 2010
As his whistleblowing website continues to release secret US embassy cables into the public domain, the list of countries friendly to Julian Assange, the editor-in-chief of WikiLeaks, is becoming shorter by the day.
He faces criminal investigations or arrest in the United States, the European Union and in his native Australia. But he can at least count on one offer of refuge - from Ecuador.
In sharp contrast to the triumphant press conferences WikiLeaks held in July and October to publicise the release of the Afghanistan war files and the Iraq war logs, Assange is understood to be directing the current release of the embassy cables from a secret location in London.
He has had to keep a low profile since Sweden issued an international arrest warrant for him on rape charges. Assange's lawyer has submitted an appeal against the warrant but, as it stands, he risks being picked up by police in any European Union country plus Switzerland.
Elsewhere, the United States seems intent on putting an end to Assange's activities. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton says the US is taking "aggressive steps to hold responsible those who stole this information", while attorney general Eric Holder says WikiLeaks is the subject of a criminal investigation and could face charges under the 1917 Espionage Act.
One of those "aggressive steps" appears to be to apply pressure on its allies, including Australia, of which Assange is a citizen.
Australia has assembled a "whole-of-government taskforce" to pore through documents released by WikiLeaks in what appears to be an effort to pin a crime on Assange by finding an instance of publication of national security information.
Robert McClelland, Australia's attorney general, said yesterday that the country "will support any law enforcement action that may be taken" - including by the US. Charges he is looking to bring against Assange include giving away or publicising "national security information". Other offences may relate to "places and the source of documentation".
If the US is putting similar pressure on its other allies, Assange needs to be careful. He can be relatively confident that he won't be the victim of a CIA hitman. This is because he has encouraged concerned citizens around the world to download an encrypted 2GB "history insurance" file, the contents of which are supposedly explosive. If something happens to Assange it is presumed a password will be issued allowing the file to be read.
Previously, WikiLeaks has indicated that Assange and his website might move to Sweden or Switzerland. With those countries currently not an option, WikiLeaks has received an offer of refuge from Ecuador. ...
By Tim Edwards
LAST UPDATED 2:52 PM, NOVEMBER 30, 2010
As his whistleblowing website continues to release secret US embassy cables into the public domain, the list of countries friendly to Julian Assange, the editor-in-chief of WikiLeaks, is becoming shorter by the day.
He faces criminal investigations or arrest in the United States, the European Union and in his native Australia. But he can at least count on one offer of refuge - from Ecuador.
In sharp contrast to the triumphant press conferences WikiLeaks held in July and October to publicise the release of the Afghanistan war files and the Iraq war logs, Assange is understood to be directing the current release of the embassy cables from a secret location in London.
He has had to keep a low profile since Sweden issued an international arrest warrant for him on rape charges. Assange's lawyer has submitted an appeal against the warrant but, as it stands, he risks being picked up by police in any European Union country plus Switzerland.
Elsewhere, the United States seems intent on putting an end to Assange's activities. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton says the US is taking "aggressive steps to hold responsible those who stole this information", while attorney general Eric Holder says WikiLeaks is the subject of a criminal investigation and could face charges under the 1917 Espionage Act.
One of those "aggressive steps" appears to be to apply pressure on its allies, including Australia, of which Assange is a citizen.
Australia has assembled a "whole-of-government taskforce" to pore through documents released by WikiLeaks in what appears to be an effort to pin a crime on Assange by finding an instance of publication of national security information.
Robert McClelland, Australia's attorney general, said yesterday that the country "will support any law enforcement action that may be taken" - including by the US. Charges he is looking to bring against Assange include giving away or publicising "national security information". Other offences may relate to "places and the source of documentation".
If the US is putting similar pressure on its other allies, Assange needs to be careful. He can be relatively confident that he won't be the victim of a CIA hitman. This is because he has encouraged concerned citizens around the world to download an encrypted 2GB "history insurance" file, the contents of which are supposedly explosive. If something happens to Assange it is presumed a password will be issued allowing the file to be read.
Previously, WikiLeaks has indicated that Assange and his website might move to Sweden or Switzerland. With those countries currently not an option, WikiLeaks has received an offer of refuge from Ecuador. ...
... An acquaintance, only joking, suggested the unthinkable: Maybe the bees were hitting the juice — maraschino cherry juice, that sweet, sticky stuff sloshing around vats at Dell’s Maraschino Cherries Company over on Dikeman Street in Red Hook.
“I didn’t want to believe it,” said Ms. Mayo, a soft-spoken young woman who has long been active in the slow-food movement. She found it particularly hard to believe that the bees would travel all the way from Governors Island to gorge themselves on junk food. “Why would they go to the cherry factory,” she said, “when there’s a lot for them to forage right there on the farm?”
It seems natural, by now, for humans to prefer the unnatural, as if we ourselves had been genetically modified to choose artificially flavored strawberry candy over strawberries, or crunchy orange “cheese” puffs over a piece of actual cheese. But when bees make the same choice, it feels like a betrayal to our sense of how nature should work. Shouldn’t they know better? Or, perhaps, not know enough to know better? ...
“I didn’t want to believe it,” said Ms. Mayo, a soft-spoken young woman who has long been active in the slow-food movement. She found it particularly hard to believe that the bees would travel all the way from Governors Island to gorge themselves on junk food. “Why would they go to the cherry factory,” she said, “when there’s a lot for them to forage right there on the farm?”
It seems natural, by now, for humans to prefer the unnatural, as if we ourselves had been genetically modified to choose artificially flavored strawberry candy over strawberries, or crunchy orange “cheese” puffs over a piece of actual cheese. But when bees make the same choice, it feels like a betrayal to our sense of how nature should work. Shouldn’t they know better? Or, perhaps, not know enough to know better? ...
...Dr. Pike has been perfecting a new micro-sampling technique which involves using a laser to take tiny samples from along the growth axis of a tooth. As tooth enamel is formed incrementally from the crown, a series of isotopes representing every year, every month – and possibly even every week – of a person’s life is laid down layer by layer in the enamel. Using the laser allows for up to 2,000 measurements to be taken from a single tooth (earlier techniques allowed only four or five), thus creating a highly detailed picture of an individual’s movements throughout the first 14 years of life.
The isotope values taken from the ‘Eadgyth’ teeth were compared with those on the Natural Environment Research Council’s geological map of strontium ratios across Great Britain and the British Geological Survey’s map of oxygen isotope values for European drinking water. Combining the results pinpointed the chalk regions of southern England as the place where the individual grew up, thus indicating that she was indeed the Wessex-born Eadgyth.
The truly remarkable discovery, however, was that these isotope results closely mirrored the facts of Eadgyth’s childhood and adolescence known from historical records....
... To be able to tell in such detail what people and animals were doing from year to year isn’t just remarkable, it’s a revolution. The science of skeletons is allowing archaeologists to gain information about what happened to people throughout their lives, not just at the time of their deaths. It’s like someone discovering a new type of artefact, Dr Pike believes, new objects never seen before. These ‘objects’ happen to be isotopes but, thanks to cutting-edge science, they can speak about our past as eloquently as any axe-head or bowl or pottery shard. ...
The isotope values taken from the ‘Eadgyth’ teeth were compared with those on the Natural Environment Research Council’s geological map of strontium ratios across Great Britain and the British Geological Survey’s map of oxygen isotope values for European drinking water. Combining the results pinpointed the chalk regions of southern England as the place where the individual grew up, thus indicating that she was indeed the Wessex-born Eadgyth.
The truly remarkable discovery, however, was that these isotope results closely mirrored the facts of Eadgyth’s childhood and adolescence known from historical records....
... To be able to tell in such detail what people and animals were doing from year to year isn’t just remarkable, it’s a revolution. The science of skeletons is allowing archaeologists to gain information about what happened to people throughout their lives, not just at the time of their deaths. It’s like someone discovering a new type of artefact, Dr Pike believes, new objects never seen before. These ‘objects’ happen to be isotopes but, thanks to cutting-edge science, they can speak about our past as eloquently as any axe-head or bowl or pottery shard. ...
This bitch- er, bishop don't play too nice w/others, innit.
Revealed: Lib Dems planned before election to abandon tuition fees pledge
Exclusive: Documents show Nick Clegg's public claim was at odds with secret decision made by party in March
Nicholas Watt, chief political correspondent
Friday 12 November 2010
In addition to the party's manifesto pledge, Nick Clegg signed an NUS pledge in April to vote against any increase in tuition fees. Photograph: NUS press office
The Liberal Democrats were drawing up plans to abandon Nick Clegg's flagship policy to scrap university tuition fees two months before the general election, secret party documents reveal.
As the Lib Dem leader faces a growing revolt after this week's violent protest against fee rises, internal documents show the party was drawing up proposals for coalition negotiations which contrasted sharply with Clegg's public pronouncements.
A month before Clegg pledged in April to scrap the "dead weight of debt", a secret team of key Lib Dems made clear that, in the event of a hung parliament, the party would not waste political capital defending its manifesto pledge to abolish university tuition fees within six years.
In a document marked "confidential" and dated 16 March, the head of the secret pre-election coalition negotiating team, Danny Alexander, wrote: "On tuition fees we should seek agreement on part time students and leave the rest. We will have clear yellow water with the other [parties] on raising the tuition fee cap, so let us not cause ourselves more headaches."
The document is likely to fuel criticism among Lib Dem backbenchers and in the National Union of Students that the party courted the university vote in the full knowledge that its pledge would have to be abandoned as the party sought to achieve a foot in government. Within a month of the secret document, Clegg recorded a YouTube video for the annual NUS conference on 13 April in which he pledged to abolish fees within six years. ...
Exclusive: Documents show Nick Clegg's public claim was at odds with secret decision made by party in March
Nicholas Watt, chief political correspondent
Friday 12 November 2010
In addition to the party's manifesto pledge, Nick Clegg signed an NUS pledge in April to vote against any increase in tuition fees. Photograph: NUS press office
The Liberal Democrats were drawing up plans to abandon Nick Clegg's flagship policy to scrap university tuition fees two months before the general election, secret party documents reveal.
As the Lib Dem leader faces a growing revolt after this week's violent protest against fee rises, internal documents show the party was drawing up proposals for coalition negotiations which contrasted sharply with Clegg's public pronouncements.
A month before Clegg pledged in April to scrap the "dead weight of debt", a secret team of key Lib Dems made clear that, in the event of a hung parliament, the party would not waste political capital defending its manifesto pledge to abolish university tuition fees within six years.
In a document marked "confidential" and dated 16 March, the head of the secret pre-election coalition negotiating team, Danny Alexander, wrote: "On tuition fees we should seek agreement on part time students and leave the rest. We will have clear yellow water with the other [parties] on raising the tuition fee cap, so let us not cause ourselves more headaches."
The document is likely to fuel criticism among Lib Dem backbenchers and in the National Union of Students that the party courted the university vote in the full knowledge that its pledge would have to be abandoned as the party sought to achieve a foot in government. Within a month of the secret document, Clegg recorded a YouTube video for the annual NUS conference on 13 April in which he pledged to abolish fees within six years. ...
Manchester police's £80,000 eye in the sky on the blink due to wet weather
'Covert' surveillance balloon sold off after being repeatedly grounded by bad weather
Helen Carter
Thursday 11 November 2010
A "covert" police surveillance balloon has been scrapped because it could not cope with the wet weather in Manchester.
The helium eagle eye blimp – which had "police'' emblazoned across it in 10ft letters – was used to secretly monitor people from the air at large-scale events. It cost the Greater Manchester force £80,000.
The balloon was first trialled at last summer's Heaton Park Oasis gigs and during 17 other large outdoor events, including football matches.
But it was mothballed after its outer skin repeatedly ripped during rain. A police source said it had become something of a joke. The blimp, which was unmanned, had a camera mounted beneath it that could turn 360 degrees with a one-mile range.
The £80,000 cost included camera equipment and the vehicle that transported the balloon and which operated as a studio where five officers viewed footage. It was given a low-key launch by officers who described it as a "covert intelligence tool" despite its colossal size and large police logo.
The balloon was expected to carry out a similar role to the force helicopter, India 99, but with the advantage it did not have to return to its base to refuel.
Police chiefs admit it has been a huge disappointment. It was beset by "technical problems" and was becoming too expensive to maintain.
It has now been sold at a loss, but the force was unable to confirm the precise figure. One officer said: "It has become something of a joke. It just became too expensive to maintain and its operational effectiveness was questionable."
Another source said: "The idea was good and it worked well in good weather. It started to encounter problems really in bad weather."
The head of Greater Manchester police's specialist operations branch, Chief Superintendent Dave Anthony, said: "We experienced a number of technical and other problems with the blimp and it was decided, especially in the current climate, that it was neither cost effective nor operationally viable to maintain.
'Covert' surveillance balloon sold off after being repeatedly grounded by bad weather
Helen Carter
Thursday 11 November 2010
A "covert" police surveillance balloon has been scrapped because it could not cope with the wet weather in Manchester.
The helium eagle eye blimp – which had "police'' emblazoned across it in 10ft letters – was used to secretly monitor people from the air at large-scale events. It cost the Greater Manchester force £80,000.
The balloon was first trialled at last summer's Heaton Park Oasis gigs and during 17 other large outdoor events, including football matches.
But it was mothballed after its outer skin repeatedly ripped during rain. A police source said it had become something of a joke. The blimp, which was unmanned, had a camera mounted beneath it that could turn 360 degrees with a one-mile range.
The £80,000 cost included camera equipment and the vehicle that transported the balloon and which operated as a studio where five officers viewed footage. It was given a low-key launch by officers who described it as a "covert intelligence tool" despite its colossal size and large police logo.
The balloon was expected to carry out a similar role to the force helicopter, India 99, but with the advantage it did not have to return to its base to refuel.
Police chiefs admit it has been a huge disappointment. It was beset by "technical problems" and was becoming too expensive to maintain.
It has now been sold at a loss, but the force was unable to confirm the precise figure. One officer said: "It has become something of a joke. It just became too expensive to maintain and its operational effectiveness was questionable."
Another source said: "The idea was good and it worked well in good weather. It started to encounter problems really in bad weather."
The head of Greater Manchester police's specialist operations branch, Chief Superintendent Dave Anthony, said: "We experienced a number of technical and other problems with the blimp and it was decided, especially in the current climate, that it was neither cost effective nor operationally viable to maintain.
The BBC is used to China's disapproval. Its Chinese language service has long been blocked and last year it annoyed officials by sneaking Kate Adie into the country.
But BBC executives say they could never have predicted the latest programme to send Chinese officials on the warpath: the corporation's far-fetched spy drama Spooks.
Several episodes of the latest series, which finished on Sunday night, have featured Chinese agents engaged in nefarious activities: trying to kidnap a scientist and threatening to detonate a bomb in London if anyone interfered; working with Russians to hack Anglo-US cybersecurity; and stealing the blueprint of a genetic weapon.
The Guardian has learned that Beijing is so unhappy at these unflattering portrayals that government officials have ordered TV companies not to co-operate with BBC Worldwide, the corporation's international commercial wing.
Officials were thought to be particularly enraged at the timing of the broadcasts, coming as they did so close to David Cameron's visit to China earlier this week.
"It blows hot and cold for us in China – however, it is usually BBC News or a documentary that causes an issue," said one senior BBC source. "The issue is always if content strays, or is perceived to stray, into the area of politics. It is the nature of doing business in China. No one would have even thought about Spooks [offending anyone] and the timing [with Cameron's trip] is just plain bad luck. It is not the first issue and it won't be the last." ...
Get a grip, idiots.
But BBC executives say they could never have predicted the latest programme to send Chinese officials on the warpath: the corporation's far-fetched spy drama Spooks.
Several episodes of the latest series, which finished on Sunday night, have featured Chinese agents engaged in nefarious activities: trying to kidnap a scientist and threatening to detonate a bomb in London if anyone interfered; working with Russians to hack Anglo-US cybersecurity; and stealing the blueprint of a genetic weapon.
The Guardian has learned that Beijing is so unhappy at these unflattering portrayals that government officials have ordered TV companies not to co-operate with BBC Worldwide, the corporation's international commercial wing.
Officials were thought to be particularly enraged at the timing of the broadcasts, coming as they did so close to David Cameron's visit to China earlier this week.
"It blows hot and cold for us in China – however, it is usually BBC News or a documentary that causes an issue," said one senior BBC source. "The issue is always if content strays, or is perceived to stray, into the area of politics. It is the nature of doing business in China. No one would have even thought about Spooks [offending anyone] and the timing [with Cameron's trip] is just plain bad luck. It is not the first issue and it won't be the last." ...
Get a grip, idiots.
Quel un idiot!
Silvio Berlusconi was today under renewed pressure after he was barracked in public and his party outvoted in parliament as a new video emerged appearing to show miniskirted women being ushered into one of his properties.
Already reeling from revelations that he had entertained Karimael Mahroug, a 17-year-old Moroccan belly dancer before intervening to free her when she was arrested on suspicion of theft, the Italian prime minister was accused of hosting a Cuban model and a Romanian reality TV star at his mansion near Milan.
The Oggi gossip magazine posted video footage, shot in July, of the celebrity agent Lele Mora allegedly helping the women into a car with tinted windows at his Milan office before driving them into the grounds of Berlusconi's property without stopping at a police checkpoint at the gate.
Mora is already being investigated on suspicion of aiding and abetting prostitution.
Opposition politicians argued that Berlusconi was making himself an easy blackmail target. "There is a certain ease with which women who admit to being involved in prostitution gain access to the prime minister's residence," Luigi de Magistris, of the Italy of Values party, said.
"It is clear that this makes Berlusconi a potential blackmail victim, and that puts national security at risk." ...
Already reeling from revelations that he had entertained Karimael Mahroug, a 17-year-old Moroccan belly dancer before intervening to free her when she was arrested on suspicion of theft, the Italian prime minister was accused of hosting a Cuban model and a Romanian reality TV star at his mansion near Milan.
The Oggi gossip magazine posted video footage, shot in July, of the celebrity agent Lele Mora allegedly helping the women into a car with tinted windows at his Milan office before driving them into the grounds of Berlusconi's property without stopping at a police checkpoint at the gate.
Mora is already being investigated on suspicion of aiding and abetting prostitution.
Opposition politicians argued that Berlusconi was making himself an easy blackmail target. "There is a certain ease with which women who admit to being involved in prostitution gain access to the prime minister's residence," Luigi de Magistris, of the Italy of Values party, said.
"It is clear that this makes Berlusconi a potential blackmail victim, and that puts national security at risk." ...
... The spokesman declined to say what guests had paid for their tickets but said the regular brochure price of a suite was $2,619 per person.
The passengers will have the price of their tickets and transportation refunded – and if any are keen to return, they will also be able to claim a complimentary future cruise.
The incident marks the end of a bad month for the ship. On the night of Oct 12, a crew member jumped overboard and was never found.
John Heald, Carnival’s senior cruise director, described the search for the staff member on his blog.
“I advised the guests that we had lost a valued and dear crew member to the sea,” Mr Heald wrote.
“We lost one of our own tonight, someone who just a few hours earlier was serving the guests and who now is lost to us forever.”
On Oct 31, off the coast of San Diego, another crew member had to be airlifted to hospital from the ship after becoming seriously ill.
One of the passengers posted video footage of the incident, which took place during strong winds, to YouTube.
A spokesman for Carnival declined to elaborate but said the crew member had since recovered.
She said the incidents were “very unusual” for the company.
Yeah, right.
The passengers will have the price of their tickets and transportation refunded – and if any are keen to return, they will also be able to claim a complimentary future cruise.
The incident marks the end of a bad month for the ship. On the night of Oct 12, a crew member jumped overboard and was never found.
John Heald, Carnival’s senior cruise director, described the search for the staff member on his blog.
“I advised the guests that we had lost a valued and dear crew member to the sea,” Mr Heald wrote.
“We lost one of our own tonight, someone who just a few hours earlier was serving the guests and who now is lost to us forever.”
On Oct 31, off the coast of San Diego, another crew member had to be airlifted to hospital from the ship after becoming seriously ill.
One of the passengers posted video footage of the incident, which took place during strong winds, to YouTube.
A spokesman for Carnival declined to elaborate but said the crew member had since recovered.
She said the incidents were “very unusual” for the company.
Yeah, right.
Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan -- a nonprofit created to keep health costs affordable -- has tried to derail physical therapy programs designed to save auto giants Ford and Chrysler millions of dollars annually, according to a review of hundreds of pages of e-mails and internal documents produced in a lawsuit against Blue Cross.
Blue Cross, the state's largest health insurer, strongly denies the allegations.
Yet an Oakland County jury disagreed this summer, finding the insurer wrongfully interfered with physical therapy firm TheraMatrix's efforts to create a program for Chrysler. TheraMatrix was awarded $4.5 million. Blue Cross has appealed.
Now, antitrust investigators at the Michigan Attorney General's Office and the U.S. Justice Department are reviewing records in the case, along with other practices by the Blues. Competitors say Blue Cross is so powerful that it negotiates deals with hospitals others don't get -- driving up health costs to customers insured by other companies.
Together, these issues have put Michigan in a national spotlight.
The tale of Pontiac-based TheraMatrix's efforts to carve out a cost-saving physical therapy program for some of the nation's largest employers raises larger questions about whether relationships between insurers and hospitals are inflating the cost of health care and stifling competition critical to controlling costs under the nation's new health law.
"It's really an exposure of the entire health care situation in this state," said Robert Whitton, TheraMatrix's CEO.
As health care costs soared nationwide, a small Michigan firm gave Ford a proposal to cut its physical therapy costs. The automaker signed up for an instate pilot program, which was so successful Ford expanded it last year to cover about 390,000 employees, retirees and their families nationwide.
Yet the cost-saving program created by Pontiac-based TheraMatrix has come under attack from Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan.
Court records allege Blue Cross used its position as the state's dominant insurer to try to crush TheraMatrix as it worked also to sign up Chrysler and General Motors. A USA Today review of hundreds of pages of e-mails and internal documents that are part of a lawsuit TheraMatrix filed against Blue Cross indicates that TheraMatrix's efforts to carve out a niche market in managing outpatient physical therapy costs was seen as a threat by officials at Blue Cross and by some Michigan hospitals.
"They tried to destroy us," said Robert Whitton, a physical therapist who founded TheraMatrix in 1981. TheraMatrix has cut Ford's physical therapy costs by about half, Whitton says, saving millions of dollars annually. Under Blue Cross, Ford's costs averaged $745,000 a month just in Michigan, he said. "We shouldn't have been in this position for creating a program that helped save health care costs." ...
Blue Cross, the state's largest health insurer, strongly denies the allegations.
Yet an Oakland County jury disagreed this summer, finding the insurer wrongfully interfered with physical therapy firm TheraMatrix's efforts to create a program for Chrysler. TheraMatrix was awarded $4.5 million. Blue Cross has appealed.
Now, antitrust investigators at the Michigan Attorney General's Office and the U.S. Justice Department are reviewing records in the case, along with other practices by the Blues. Competitors say Blue Cross is so powerful that it negotiates deals with hospitals others don't get -- driving up health costs to customers insured by other companies.
Together, these issues have put Michigan in a national spotlight.
The tale of Pontiac-based TheraMatrix's efforts to carve out a cost-saving physical therapy program for some of the nation's largest employers raises larger questions about whether relationships between insurers and hospitals are inflating the cost of health care and stifling competition critical to controlling costs under the nation's new health law.
"It's really an exposure of the entire health care situation in this state," said Robert Whitton, TheraMatrix's CEO.
As health care costs soared nationwide, a small Michigan firm gave Ford a proposal to cut its physical therapy costs. The automaker signed up for an instate pilot program, which was so successful Ford expanded it last year to cover about 390,000 employees, retirees and their families nationwide.
Yet the cost-saving program created by Pontiac-based TheraMatrix has come under attack from Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan.
Court records allege Blue Cross used its position as the state's dominant insurer to try to crush TheraMatrix as it worked also to sign up Chrysler and General Motors. A USA Today review of hundreds of pages of e-mails and internal documents that are part of a lawsuit TheraMatrix filed against Blue Cross indicates that TheraMatrix's efforts to carve out a niche market in managing outpatient physical therapy costs was seen as a threat by officials at Blue Cross and by some Michigan hospitals.
"They tried to destroy us," said Robert Whitton, a physical therapist who founded TheraMatrix in 1981. TheraMatrix has cut Ford's physical therapy costs by about half, Whitton says, saving millions of dollars annually. Under Blue Cross, Ford's costs averaged $745,000 a month just in Michigan, he said. "We shouldn't have been in this position for creating a program that helped save health care costs." ...
... Detroit filed a motion in federal court Tuesday seeking to recoup $10 million it paid former Police Department monitor Sheryl Robinson Wood and the firms who employed her to oversee federally mandated department reforms, because Wood was found to have been carrying on a secret relationship with Kilpatrick.
"She violated the city's trust, and all the money needs to be repaid," said attorney Thomas Murray, who is representing the city.
In July 2009, U.S. District Judge Julian Abele Cook received Wood's resignation after Kilpatrick's messages revealed what Cook characterized as "undisclosed communication, as well as meetings of a personal nature."
University of Detroit Mercy law professor Larry Dubin said it appears the city has a serious claim. "A lawyer has a duty to give the client or the court undivided loyalty." ...
"She violated the city's trust, and all the money needs to be repaid," said attorney Thomas Murray, who is representing the city.
In July 2009, U.S. District Judge Julian Abele Cook received Wood's resignation after Kilpatrick's messages revealed what Cook characterized as "undisclosed communication, as well as meetings of a personal nature."
University of Detroit Mercy law professor Larry Dubin said it appears the city has a serious claim. "A lawyer has a duty to give the client or the court undivided loyalty." ...
The former pleasure-seekers of the Carnival Splendor are cruising again. But it's hardly the lap of luxury – instead of lavish seafood buffets, most of the more than 3,000 passengers were making do on a diet of Spam and Pop-tarts.
The rations are being ferried in by US navy helicopters after the 952ft (290 metre) ship spent two days adrift off the Mexican Riviera following a fire in its engine room.
The 952ft (290m) vessel was expected to arrive in San Diego tomorrow night, Miami-based Carnival Cruise Lines said in a statement.
No one was hurt in the engine room fire, but the nearly 4,500 passengers and crew were left without air conditioning, hot water, mobile phone or internet service. The ship's auxiliary power allowed only for working toilets and running water.
US Navy Seahawk helicopters were ferrying supplies, including Spam, crab meat, croissants and Pop-Tarts to the ship from the USS Ronald Reagan, an aircraft carrier that reached the Splendor after it was diverted from training manoeuvres. ...
Mom wisely points out that carnival should be the one who's buying and sending them food, and it sure as hell shouldn't be spam and pop tarts.
carnival needs to go under, pun intended.
The rations are being ferried in by US navy helicopters after the 952ft (290 metre) ship spent two days adrift off the Mexican Riviera following a fire in its engine room.
The 952ft (290m) vessel was expected to arrive in San Diego tomorrow night, Miami-based Carnival Cruise Lines said in a statement.
No one was hurt in the engine room fire, but the nearly 4,500 passengers and crew were left without air conditioning, hot water, mobile phone or internet service. The ship's auxiliary power allowed only for working toilets and running water.
US Navy Seahawk helicopters were ferrying supplies, including Spam, crab meat, croissants and Pop-Tarts to the ship from the USS Ronald Reagan, an aircraft carrier that reached the Splendor after it was diverted from training manoeuvres. ...
Mom wisely points out that carnival should be the one who's buying and sending them food, and it sure as hell shouldn't be spam and pop tarts.
carnival needs to go under, pun intended.
Nov. 8, 2010
Andrew Shirvell fired for attacks on gay U-M student
Behavior wasn't appropriate, former assistant attorney general is told
By LORI HIGGINS
FREE PRESS STAFF WRITER
The attorney for Andrew Shirvell, the assistant attorney general under fire for his attacks on a University of Michigan student, says his client has been fired.
A hearing that was supposed to be held Tuesday was moved up to this afternoon. Philip Thomas said he showed up for the meeting and was read one sentence.
“They said essentially that as a result of Andrew’s conduct, it’s become impossible for him to carry out his duties as an attorney general.”
Shirvell had been criticized for his blog in which he calls Chris Armstrong, the president of the Michigan Student Assembly, a radical homosexual, a Nazi and Satan’s representative on the assembly. Thomas had said his client is expressing his free-speech rights.
Thomas said the attorney general’s office left a message on his office voice mail Saturday morning, telling him the hearing had been moved to this afternoon. He didn’t get the message until this morning.
Thomas said he is shocked and confused, saying he doesn’t know what could have happened between Friday afternoon, when the hearing began, and Saturday afternoon.
A message was left with the attorney general’s office seeking comment.
“This smells political to me,” Thomas said.
He said Shirvell has received excellent performance reviews from his bosses, and that his employers knew of Shirvell’s off-work activities.
“There’s been a tremendous piling on against Andrew. The liberal media started this tempest in a teapot.”
“Andrew’s reaction is that he’s devastated over the loss of his employment,” Thomas said.
Armstrong’s attorney, Deborah Gordon, issued a statement this afternoon in which she said the AG’s office made the correct decision. Gordon and Armstrong have filed complaints with the Michigan Grievance Commission, asking it to investigate Shirvell and possibly disbar him.
“The next step must be a complete retraction of all the malicious lies and fabrications by Mr. Shirvell, and a public apology to Chris Armstrong, his family and the others Mr. Shirvell has slandered.”
Gordon went on to say it’s time for Shirvell to realize there are consequences to his “reckless, outrageous statements and actions and that he is solely responsible for those consequences.”
Until now, Shirvell has won battles. Armstrong dropped a request for a personal protection order in Washtenaw court. The Washtenaw County Prosecutor’s office declined to file a stalking charge against Shirvell, saying that while Shirvell’s comments “are offensive and mean spirited,” they don’t meet the definition of harassment under Michigan’s stalking statute.
The University of Michigan also essentially lifted Shirvell’s ban from campus, allowing Shirvell on campus but requiring him to stay away from Armstrong.
Andrew Shirvell fired for attacks on gay U-M student
Behavior wasn't appropriate, former assistant attorney general is told
By LORI HIGGINS
FREE PRESS STAFF WRITER
The attorney for Andrew Shirvell, the assistant attorney general under fire for his attacks on a University of Michigan student, says his client has been fired.
A hearing that was supposed to be held Tuesday was moved up to this afternoon. Philip Thomas said he showed up for the meeting and was read one sentence.
“They said essentially that as a result of Andrew’s conduct, it’s become impossible for him to carry out his duties as an attorney general.”
Shirvell had been criticized for his blog in which he calls Chris Armstrong, the president of the Michigan Student Assembly, a radical homosexual, a Nazi and Satan’s representative on the assembly. Thomas had said his client is expressing his free-speech rights.
Thomas said the attorney general’s office left a message on his office voice mail Saturday morning, telling him the hearing had been moved to this afternoon. He didn’t get the message until this morning.
Thomas said he is shocked and confused, saying he doesn’t know what could have happened between Friday afternoon, when the hearing began, and Saturday afternoon.
A message was left with the attorney general’s office seeking comment.
“This smells political to me,” Thomas said.
He said Shirvell has received excellent performance reviews from his bosses, and that his employers knew of Shirvell’s off-work activities.
“There’s been a tremendous piling on against Andrew. The liberal media started this tempest in a teapot.”
“Andrew’s reaction is that he’s devastated over the loss of his employment,” Thomas said.
Armstrong’s attorney, Deborah Gordon, issued a statement this afternoon in which she said the AG’s office made the correct decision. Gordon and Armstrong have filed complaints with the Michigan Grievance Commission, asking it to investigate Shirvell and possibly disbar him.
“The next step must be a complete retraction of all the malicious lies and fabrications by Mr. Shirvell, and a public apology to Chris Armstrong, his family and the others Mr. Shirvell has slandered.”
Gordon went on to say it’s time for Shirvell to realize there are consequences to his “reckless, outrageous statements and actions and that he is solely responsible for those consequences.”
Until now, Shirvell has won battles. Armstrong dropped a request for a personal protection order in Washtenaw court. The Washtenaw County Prosecutor’s office declined to file a stalking charge against Shirvell, saying that while Shirvell’s comments “are offensive and mean spirited,” they don’t meet the definition of harassment under Michigan’s stalking statute.
The University of Michigan also essentially lifted Shirvell’s ban from campus, allowing Shirvell on campus but requiring him to stay away from Armstrong.
Opposition politicians and commentators accused Italy's government of neglect and mismanagement today over the collapse of the 2,000-year-old House of the Gladiators in the ruins of ancient Pompeii.
Some commentators said the Unesco world heritage site should be privatised and removed from state control. La Stampa newspaper ran a story headlined "Pompeii – the collapse of shame," echoing national opinion over the cultural disaster.
The stone house, on one of the site's main streets and measuring about 80 sq m (860 sq ft), collapsed just after dawn yesterday while Pompeii was closed to visitors. The structure was believed to have been used as a club house by gladiators before they went to battle in a nearby amphitheatre.
Business newspaper Il Sole 24 Ore said the only solution for Pompeii was a private sponsor which would be allowed to place its logos at the entrance.
"Precisely because it belongs to all humanity, its management should be taken away from a state that has shown itself incapable of protecting it," it said.
The building was not open to visitors but was visible from the outside.
Its walls were decorated with frescoes of military themes. Culture minister Sandro Bondi visited the site today and said experts believe at least some frescoes could be saved.
Approximately 2.5 million tourists visit Pompeii every year, making it one of Italy's most popular attractions. Art historians and residents have for years complained that the sites were in a state of decay and needed regular maintenance. Two years ago the government declared a state of emergency for Pompeii but it lasted only a year. ...
Some commentators said the Unesco world heritage site should be privatised and removed from state control. La Stampa newspaper ran a story headlined "Pompeii – the collapse of shame," echoing national opinion over the cultural disaster.
The stone house, on one of the site's main streets and measuring about 80 sq m (860 sq ft), collapsed just after dawn yesterday while Pompeii was closed to visitors. The structure was believed to have been used as a club house by gladiators before they went to battle in a nearby amphitheatre.
Business newspaper Il Sole 24 Ore said the only solution for Pompeii was a private sponsor which would be allowed to place its logos at the entrance.
"Precisely because it belongs to all humanity, its management should be taken away from a state that has shown itself incapable of protecting it," it said.
The building was not open to visitors but was visible from the outside.
Its walls were decorated with frescoes of military themes. Culture minister Sandro Bondi visited the site today and said experts believe at least some frescoes could be saved.
Approximately 2.5 million tourists visit Pompeii every year, making it one of Italy's most popular attractions. Art historians and residents have for years complained that the sites were in a state of decay and needed regular maintenance. Two years ago the government declared a state of emergency for Pompeii but it lasted only a year. ...
Top Mexican drugs lord killed in fierce gunbattle with military
'Storm Tony', high-profile leader of the Gulf cartel, and four of his gunmen die in attacks by navy special forces and helicopters
Jo Tuckman in Mexico City
Sunday 7 November 2010
Mexican authorities have killed one of the country's most wanted drug lords following hours of ferocious gun battles close to the US border. Antonio Ezequiel Cárdenas Guillén, otherwise known as Tony Tormenta or Storm Tony, was the highest-profile leader of the Gulf cartel, one of the country's most important trafficking organisations.
As news of his demise spread across the northeastern state of Tamaulipas yesterday, so did fear of a backlash. A reporter in the border city of Reynosa said gunmen immediately took over the main road along the Mexican side of the Río Bravo. "It is going to be a bloody weekend," she wrote.
The apprehension befitted a man who, during his lifetime, earned a reputation for extreme violence – and whose arrest was so desired by the US authorities that they had offered a $5m (£3m) reward for information leading to the detention. The Mexican authorities had promised 30m pesos (about £1.5m).
On Friday, President Felipe Calderón announced the capo's death on his Twitter account. Later that evening, presidential security spokesman Alejandro Poire described it as "another meaningful step toward the dismantling of criminal groups that do so much damage to our country".
The day's shooting that culminated in Tormenta's death also claimed the lives of at least four of his gunmen, three marines and a soldier. A local reporter called Carlos Guajardo was caught in the crossfire and died.
The gun battles began on Friday morning in an upscale area of the city of Matamoros, just across the frontier from Brownsville, Texas, and lasted until late afternoon. Terrified locals hid in their homes and offices waiting for things to calm down, some furiously tweeting warnings to stay away from the area. A final battle started around 3.30pm after the authorities tracked the capo down to one of his many safe houses, according to a navy statement. It lasted for over two hours and involved navy special forces, three helicopters, 17 vehicles and 660 support troops. ...
'Storm Tony', high-profile leader of the Gulf cartel, and four of his gunmen die in attacks by navy special forces and helicopters
Jo Tuckman in Mexico City
Sunday 7 November 2010
Mexican authorities have killed one of the country's most wanted drug lords following hours of ferocious gun battles close to the US border. Antonio Ezequiel Cárdenas Guillén, otherwise known as Tony Tormenta or Storm Tony, was the highest-profile leader of the Gulf cartel, one of the country's most important trafficking organisations.
As news of his demise spread across the northeastern state of Tamaulipas yesterday, so did fear of a backlash. A reporter in the border city of Reynosa said gunmen immediately took over the main road along the Mexican side of the Río Bravo. "It is going to be a bloody weekend," she wrote.
The apprehension befitted a man who, during his lifetime, earned a reputation for extreme violence – and whose arrest was so desired by the US authorities that they had offered a $5m (£3m) reward for information leading to the detention. The Mexican authorities had promised 30m pesos (about £1.5m).
On Friday, President Felipe Calderón announced the capo's death on his Twitter account. Later that evening, presidential security spokesman Alejandro Poire described it as "another meaningful step toward the dismantling of criminal groups that do so much damage to our country".
The day's shooting that culminated in Tormenta's death also claimed the lives of at least four of his gunmen, three marines and a soldier. A local reporter called Carlos Guajardo was caught in the crossfire and died.
The gun battles began on Friday morning in an upscale area of the city of Matamoros, just across the frontier from Brownsville, Texas, and lasted until late afternoon. Terrified locals hid in their homes and offices waiting for things to calm down, some furiously tweeting warnings to stay away from the area. A final battle started around 3.30pm after the authorities tracked the capo down to one of his many safe houses, according to a navy statement. It lasted for over two hours and involved navy special forces, three helicopters, 17 vehicles and 660 support troops. ...
The Story Gains a Villain (Kind of)
October 28th, 2010
Wow. It’s been an ingranzzible week. (Still have to make up new words to express this properly.)
[Our book] Machine of Death rose to #1 on Amazon and stayed there for over twenty-four hours. We accomplished everything we set out to do. Agents, publishers, retailers, distributors, well-wishers and the press have been flooding our email inbox. I can’t stress this enough: It worked. We won!
Once we hit #1, I called an agent I’ve worked with in the past — one who’d tried to sell MOD before but just couldn’t find anyone who wanted it — and he sprung instantly into action. Doors that were once closed started positively flying open before us. Although some big publishers have now approached us about buying the rights and doing a new edition of the book, we have declined. That ship has sailed. We are the publisher.
We also realized that we had an opportunity here to gain a level. We could have struck a deal with a publisher, potentially even a lucrative one, that would have been nice in the short term and could probably have led to interesting places. But we have larger goals than just signing a book deal, and we realized we could play the long game here, not just for our benefit — but for the benefit of our friends and colleagues in webcomics as well.
And so in the last few days, using resources offered to us that previously would have been absolutely inconceivable, we have laid the groundwork for a complex but amazing publishing/distribution structure that, in the future, should hopefully allow us to get not just Machine of Death, but also all TopatoCo-published and TopatoCo-partnered books into regular bookstore/retail channels, both in the U.S. and abroad. Ryan, Matt and I are harnessing this amazing rising flood-tide to lift all the boats we can find, all the ropes we managed to grab hold of when the waters hit.
Much has yet to be settled on this front, so I will simply say it remains a carefully considered work-in-progress and I expect to make more important announcements about this in time.
And something else kind of incredible has happened as well! We didn’t know it, but apparently Tuesday was also the launch date for Glenn Beck’s new book, Broke. Our book at #1 (as well as Keith Richards’ autobiography at #2) prevented him from claiming the top spot, and so he called us out on his radio program Wednesday. Here’s the audio (about 3 minutes long), or if you like, there’s a transcription over on the MOD site.
If you don’t want to listen, here’s the executive summary: (a) His book is supposed to be #1. (b) The fact that it’s not, but ours is, is evidence of a liberal “culture of death” that is threatening to take over America and destroy everything sensible folks hold dear, a menace that can presumably only be stemmed by folks buying his book and making it #1.
Let me contextualize this for you, in the form of a parable in which all of the details are true.
A young entrepreneur, the son of a self-made immigrant small-business owner (a God-fearing Protestant who’d married a girl from a family of missionaries), had a crazy pie-in-the-sky idea. Having learned the rudiments of business by working since he was small in the family store, he struck out after his goal, investing himself into something he really believed in, inspiring both colleagues and strangers to join his cause even as “big business” slammed door after door in his face. For years he toiled long into the night, gradually growing his own small business by being as honest, kind and creative as he could manage. Ultimately, in a tremendous Rudy-like moment, he and his ragtag band of reg’lar folks — for one glorious day — accidentally made the twelfth book by the multimillionaire host of “the third-most-listened-to show in all of America” debut at #3 on one single bookseller’s list, rather than at #1.
I guess I can see his point! I am clearly the bad guy here. Part of “a culture of death” that “celebrates the things that have destroyed us.”
Now, listen. I honestly don’t begrudge Mr. Beck his book’s success. As Ryan put it, he asked his audience to buy his book, and they did! It’s the same thing we did, only his audience is bigger. His priority is selling books by any means necessary, and if we were a handy (if nonsensical) scapegoat, then that’s business. Like Ryan, I just think it’s tremendously funny that he got upset when all we did was bumble past him on our own merry way!
MOD is still under $10 on Amazon if you’re interested in joining the culture of death! I promise that every new sale is another tiny pea beneath Glenn Beck’s many mattresses. ...
October 28th, 2010
Wow. It’s been an ingranzzible week. (Still have to make up new words to express this properly.)
[Our book] Machine of Death rose to #1 on Amazon and stayed there for over twenty-four hours. We accomplished everything we set out to do. Agents, publishers, retailers, distributors, well-wishers and the press have been flooding our email inbox. I can’t stress this enough: It worked. We won!
Once we hit #1, I called an agent I’ve worked with in the past — one who’d tried to sell MOD before but just couldn’t find anyone who wanted it — and he sprung instantly into action. Doors that were once closed started positively flying open before us. Although some big publishers have now approached us about buying the rights and doing a new edition of the book, we have declined. That ship has sailed. We are the publisher.
We also realized that we had an opportunity here to gain a level. We could have struck a deal with a publisher, potentially even a lucrative one, that would have been nice in the short term and could probably have led to interesting places. But we have larger goals than just signing a book deal, and we realized we could play the long game here, not just for our benefit — but for the benefit of our friends and colleagues in webcomics as well.
And so in the last few days, using resources offered to us that previously would have been absolutely inconceivable, we have laid the groundwork for a complex but amazing publishing/distribution structure that, in the future, should hopefully allow us to get not just Machine of Death, but also all TopatoCo-published and TopatoCo-partnered books into regular bookstore/retail channels, both in the U.S. and abroad. Ryan, Matt and I are harnessing this amazing rising flood-tide to lift all the boats we can find, all the ropes we managed to grab hold of when the waters hit.
Much has yet to be settled on this front, so I will simply say it remains a carefully considered work-in-progress and I expect to make more important announcements about this in time.
And something else kind of incredible has happened as well! We didn’t know it, but apparently Tuesday was also the launch date for Glenn Beck’s new book, Broke. Our book at #1 (as well as Keith Richards’ autobiography at #2) prevented him from claiming the top spot, and so he called us out on his radio program Wednesday. Here’s the audio (about 3 minutes long), or if you like, there’s a transcription over on the MOD site.
If you don’t want to listen, here’s the executive summary: (a) His book is supposed to be #1. (b) The fact that it’s not, but ours is, is evidence of a liberal “culture of death” that is threatening to take over America and destroy everything sensible folks hold dear, a menace that can presumably only be stemmed by folks buying his book and making it #1.
Let me contextualize this for you, in the form of a parable in which all of the details are true.
A young entrepreneur, the son of a self-made immigrant small-business owner (a God-fearing Protestant who’d married a girl from a family of missionaries), had a crazy pie-in-the-sky idea. Having learned the rudiments of business by working since he was small in the family store, he struck out after his goal, investing himself into something he really believed in, inspiring both colleagues and strangers to join his cause even as “big business” slammed door after door in his face. For years he toiled long into the night, gradually growing his own small business by being as honest, kind and creative as he could manage. Ultimately, in a tremendous Rudy-like moment, he and his ragtag band of reg’lar folks — for one glorious day — accidentally made the twelfth book by the multimillionaire host of “the third-most-listened-to show in all of America” debut at #3 on one single bookseller’s list, rather than at #1.
I guess I can see his point! I am clearly the bad guy here. Part of “a culture of death” that “celebrates the things that have destroyed us.”
Now, listen. I honestly don’t begrudge Mr. Beck his book’s success. As Ryan put it, he asked his audience to buy his book, and they did! It’s the same thing we did, only his audience is bigger. His priority is selling books by any means necessary, and if we were a handy (if nonsensical) scapegoat, then that’s business. Like Ryan, I just think it’s tremendously funny that he got upset when all we did was bumble past him on our own merry way!
MOD is still under $10 on Amazon if you’re interested in joining the culture of death! I promise that every new sale is another tiny pea beneath Glenn Beck’s many mattresses. ...
Posted: Oct. 27, 2010
Kwame Kilpatrick's news of tossed city computer upsets judge
Computer, e-mails for Greene case gone
By TRESA BALDAS
FREE PRESS STAFF WRITER
Someone threw away ex-Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick's city computer in the middle of his heated text-message scandal in 2008.
And a federal judge is demanding to know why.
"It's highly troubling," U.S. Magistrate Judge R. Steven Whalen said at a hearing Tuesday after learning the computer was tossed seven months before Kilpatrick resigned in September 2008.
Of particular concern, said Whalen, who could sanction the city for spoiling evidence, is that e-mails potentially relevant to several lawsuits have been wiped out.
Whalen's comments came during an evidentiary hearing in a lawsuit filed by the family of Tamara Greene, a slain stripper said to have danced at a rumored wild party at the Manoogian Mansion. The family is suing the city and Kilpatrick, claiming authorities sabotaged the murder investigation to shield the killers.
Gary Hermanson, an attorney for the family, argued that the city has dragged its feet in producing e-mails for Kilpatrick and his ex-chief of staff and lover, Christine Beatty.
City attorney John Schapka, in explaining why the city doesn't have the e-mails, disclosed that computer hard drives belonging to Kilpatrick and Beatty were thrown away and replaced in February 2008. Any deleted e-mails would have been electronically shredded by the main server to free up space, he said.
Whalen was miffed as to why "nobody archived anything," given the litigation the city has faced involving Kilpatrick's and Beatty's electronic communications.
"The relevance and potential role seems really obvious to me," he said.
Whalen ordered Hermanson to submit a brief within two weeks addressing the handling of evidence. The city will get two weeks to respond. ...
Kwame Kilpatrick's news of tossed city computer upsets judge
Computer, e-mails for Greene case gone
By TRESA BALDAS
FREE PRESS STAFF WRITER
Someone threw away ex-Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick's city computer in the middle of his heated text-message scandal in 2008.
And a federal judge is demanding to know why.
"It's highly troubling," U.S. Magistrate Judge R. Steven Whalen said at a hearing Tuesday after learning the computer was tossed seven months before Kilpatrick resigned in September 2008.
Of particular concern, said Whalen, who could sanction the city for spoiling evidence, is that e-mails potentially relevant to several lawsuits have been wiped out.
Whalen's comments came during an evidentiary hearing in a lawsuit filed by the family of Tamara Greene, a slain stripper said to have danced at a rumored wild party at the Manoogian Mansion. The family is suing the city and Kilpatrick, claiming authorities sabotaged the murder investigation to shield the killers.
Gary Hermanson, an attorney for the family, argued that the city has dragged its feet in producing e-mails for Kilpatrick and his ex-chief of staff and lover, Christine Beatty.
City attorney John Schapka, in explaining why the city doesn't have the e-mails, disclosed that computer hard drives belonging to Kilpatrick and Beatty were thrown away and replaced in February 2008. Any deleted e-mails would have been electronically shredded by the main server to free up space, he said.
Whalen was miffed as to why "nobody archived anything," given the litigation the city has faced involving Kilpatrick's and Beatty's electronic communications.
"The relevance and potential role seems really obvious to me," he said.
Whalen ordered Hermanson to submit a brief within two weeks addressing the handling of evidence. The city will get two weeks to respond. ...
Eric Schmidt: Google boss backtracks over Street View move gaffe
Eric Schmidt, the Google chief executive, has backtracked on claims that people could "move" if they did not want their house appearing on the controversial Street View service.
By Andrew Hough
27 Oct 2010
The boss of the internet search engine was forced to clarify his remarks, admitting he had "clearly misspoke" during the interview with CNN last week.
In the interview with the broadcaster's "Parker Spitzer" programme, Mr Schmidt spoke of the criticism levelled at his company amid a row over its privacy stance.
He told the programme: "Street View, we drive exactly once. So, you can just move, right?"
Despite the comments being cut from the final programme, the quote leaked onto the internet, further fuelling criticism of the company and its stance to privacy.
The company was then forced to issue a statement, in which Mr Schmidt backtracked on the comments.
"As you can see from the unedited interview, my comments were made during a fairly long back and forth on privacy," he said in his statement issued via the company.
"I clearly misspoke. If you are worried about Street View and want your house removed please contact Google and we will remove it.”
A Google spokesman later said users could click on the "Report a problem" link on Street View, where they could ask for an image to be removed from the service.
Some US reports speculated that Google had asked for the comment to be edited out, a claim denied by the company and CNN.
"Producers routinely make editorial decisions about what sound bites to include in their shows," a CNN spokesman said. "In this case, the clip was posted on cnn.com and disseminated to other media outlets and was widely available."
The gaffe, one of several from Mr Schmidt in recent times, comes amid a new row over privacy on Google's Street View service.
At the weekend The Sunday Telegraph disclosed that computer passwords and entire emails from households across Britain have been copied by Google, in a major privacy breach.
The company has admitted it downloaded personal data from wireless networks when its fleet of vehicles drove down residential roads taking photographs for its controversial Street View project.
Millions of internet users have potentially been affected.
Earlier this month, he told the Washington Ideas Forum: "We know where you are, we know where you've been, we can more or less know what you're thinking about."
"Don't be evil," huh?
Eric Schmidt, the Google chief executive, has backtracked on claims that people could "move" if they did not want their house appearing on the controversial Street View service.
By Andrew Hough
27 Oct 2010
The boss of the internet search engine was forced to clarify his remarks, admitting he had "clearly misspoke" during the interview with CNN last week.
In the interview with the broadcaster's "Parker Spitzer" programme, Mr Schmidt spoke of the criticism levelled at his company amid a row over its privacy stance.
He told the programme: "Street View, we drive exactly once. So, you can just move, right?"
Despite the comments being cut from the final programme, the quote leaked onto the internet, further fuelling criticism of the company and its stance to privacy.
The company was then forced to issue a statement, in which Mr Schmidt backtracked on the comments.
"As you can see from the unedited interview, my comments were made during a fairly long back and forth on privacy," he said in his statement issued via the company.
"I clearly misspoke. If you are worried about Street View and want your house removed please contact Google and we will remove it.”
A Google spokesman later said users could click on the "Report a problem" link on Street View, where they could ask for an image to be removed from the service.
Some US reports speculated that Google had asked for the comment to be edited out, a claim denied by the company and CNN.
"Producers routinely make editorial decisions about what sound bites to include in their shows," a CNN spokesman said. "In this case, the clip was posted on cnn.com and disseminated to other media outlets and was widely available."
The gaffe, one of several from Mr Schmidt in recent times, comes amid a new row over privacy on Google's Street View service.
At the weekend The Sunday Telegraph disclosed that computer passwords and entire emails from households across Britain have been copied by Google, in a major privacy breach.
The company has admitted it downloaded personal data from wireless networks when its fleet of vehicles drove down residential roads taking photographs for its controversial Street View project.
Millions of internet users have potentially been affected.
Earlier this month, he told the Washington Ideas Forum: "We know where you are, we know where you've been, we can more or less know what you're thinking about."
"Don't be evil," huh?
The Ministry of Defence is under pressure to release all of its evidence to an independent inquiry into the death of an Iraqi detainee in British custody after it emerged that military interrogators were still being trained to mistreat prisoners after the 2003 incident.
Baha Mousa, a Basra hotel worker, died in the custody of British soldiers in September 2003 after he and other detainees were abused and beaten.
However the Guardian reported yesterday that training materials drawn up secretly between 2005 and 2008 tell interrogators to try to provoke humiliation, insecurity, disorientation, exhaustion, anxiety and fear in the prisoners they are questioning, and suggest ways in which this could be achieved.
It revealed that one PowerPoint demonstration created in September 2005 suggested that prisoners should be stripped before they were questioned. "Get them naked," the training aid said. "Keep them naked if they do not follow commands." A manual prepared in April 2008 suggests that "Cpers" – captured personnel – be kept in conditions of physical discomfort and intimidated.
"The only sensible MoD response to these humiliating PowerPoint revelations is full and frank disclosure without delay," said Shami Chakrabarti, director of the civil rights group Liberty. "The department had to be dragged through the courts before it conceded an inquiry into Baha Mousa's death. Let's hope that saner counsel will prevail this time," she said.
The MoD declined to shed light on the reports, saying that the Guardian story "draws upon material provided to the Baha Mousa public inquiry by the MoD".
The manuals, which appear to breach the Geneva Conventions and human rights laws, were drawn up by the combined military intelligence headquarters in Chicksands in Bedfordshire and were described as an "Introduction to Interrogation and Tactical Questioning". ...
Baha Mousa, a Basra hotel worker, died in the custody of British soldiers in September 2003 after he and other detainees were abused and beaten.
However the Guardian reported yesterday that training materials drawn up secretly between 2005 and 2008 tell interrogators to try to provoke humiliation, insecurity, disorientation, exhaustion, anxiety and fear in the prisoners they are questioning, and suggest ways in which this could be achieved.
It revealed that one PowerPoint demonstration created in September 2005 suggested that prisoners should be stripped before they were questioned. "Get them naked," the training aid said. "Keep them naked if they do not follow commands." A manual prepared in April 2008 suggests that "Cpers" – captured personnel – be kept in conditions of physical discomfort and intimidated.
"The only sensible MoD response to these humiliating PowerPoint revelations is full and frank disclosure without delay," said Shami Chakrabarti, director of the civil rights group Liberty. "The department had to be dragged through the courts before it conceded an inquiry into Baha Mousa's death. Let's hope that saner counsel will prevail this time," she said.
The MoD declined to shed light on the reports, saying that the Guardian story "draws upon material provided to the Baha Mousa public inquiry by the MoD".
The manuals, which appear to breach the Geneva Conventions and human rights laws, were drawn up by the combined military intelligence headquarters in Chicksands in Bedfordshire and were described as an "Introduction to Interrogation and Tactical Questioning". ...
Rescue workers are scrambling to find up to 500 of people believed to be missing after Indonesia was hit by a volcanic eruption and a tsunami which killed more than 300 people.
Fishermen and relief crews searched the sea west of Sumatra for survivors of the deadly tidal surge set off by Monday's 7.5 magnitude earthquake west of South Pagai, in the Mentawai islands.
The remote islands, popular with surfers, were hit by 10ft waves that killed at least 272 people. Fears are growing for hundreds more still missing.
Today corpses littered the roads and beaches, according to district head Edison Salelo Baja. Hundreds of body bags have been dispatched, the health ministry said.
The relief agency World Vision said 500 people are missing.
Rough seas and bad weather have hampered relief operations. The first cargo plane loaded with 16 tons of tents, medicine, food and clothes arrived today. Four helicopters also landed in Sikakap, a town on North Pagai island which is being used as the centre of relief operations.
Harmensyah, who heads the West Sumatra provincial disaster management centre, said: "Finally we have a break in the weather. We have a chance now to look for the missing from the sky and also to survey the extent of the damage." ...
Fishermen and relief crews searched the sea west of Sumatra for survivors of the deadly tidal surge set off by Monday's 7.5 magnitude earthquake west of South Pagai, in the Mentawai islands.
The remote islands, popular with surfers, were hit by 10ft waves that killed at least 272 people. Fears are growing for hundreds more still missing.
Today corpses littered the roads and beaches, according to district head Edison Salelo Baja. Hundreds of body bags have been dispatched, the health ministry said.
The relief agency World Vision said 500 people are missing.
Rough seas and bad weather have hampered relief operations. The first cargo plane loaded with 16 tons of tents, medicine, food and clothes arrived today. Four helicopters also landed in Sikakap, a town on North Pagai island which is being used as the centre of relief operations.
Harmensyah, who heads the West Sumatra provincial disaster management centre, said: "Finally we have a break in the weather. We have a chance now to look for the missing from the sky and also to survey the extent of the damage." ...
Facebook pages very much public, even when set as private
Privacy theatre
By Dan Goodin in San Francisco
25th October 2010
Facebook settings that are supposed to cloak user profiles can easily be bypassed to reveal the friends, pictures, and other attributes of users who have configured their accounts to be private.
The inability to keep profile pages private would seem to contradict Facebook's promise that "The settings you choose control which people and applications can see your information." In fact, profiles configured to be private remain viewable when manually browsing through the pages of users who are friends.
“My problem with this issue is actually how I found the bug,” said Justin E. Dian, a software developer who brought the setting bypass to the attention of The Register. “People I didn't want requesting me as friends kept somehow finding me and requesting friendship. I keep my Facebook security settings pretty much as tight as possible and I soon realized this is how they were finding me.”
The privacy settings were put in place following outcries that Facebook accounts spilled users' birthdates, friends, home towns, current location, and other information that could jeopardize their privacy. The new settings made it possible to share specific details with the world at large, a user's Facebook friends, friends of friends, or no one at all.
A Facebook spokesman said certain information, including the URL to the user's profile page, the user's picture, sex, and networks remain public no matter what settings are chosen. [Ed. Note: Italics mine.]
“You can make it harder for people to find your profile in searches, but people may still be able to get to it in other ways (e.g., if they know your vanity URL or navigate there through a friend list or News Feed story),” the spokesman said. “The basic information that allows friends to find and connect with people is available to everyone and has no privacy settings.”
The spokesman didn't respond to repeated questions asking whether Facebook had plans to change the settings so the information was no longer public.
Profiles that have been designated as private are viewable when browsing a list of friends that includes the profile. These lists can be made available to the world at large, or to friends or friends of friends of the user. The lists include the profiles of all of the user's friends, even when they've told Facebook to keep information — including their friends — private.
The arrangement means that it's impossible to keep a Facebook profile completely private if it includes even a single friend whose friend list is accessible to others.
Dian said it probably wouldn't be hard to create a script that browses and records all of a user's friends of friends and then recursively browses and records each friend's friends who have lists set to be viewable by everyone or friends of friends. Search-engine spiders build detailed repositories of links in much the same fashion.
“Doing this, you could quickly create a very large database of people and have, at the least, the following information on all of these people, no matter their security settings: name, profile picture, networks and sex,” Dian said. “So in essence, while Facebook offers you security settings to only be searchable by your friends, it would be very easy for someone you are not friends with to have access to the previous information.”
Interestingly, using a name search to identify someone's friends won't list profiles that have been set to be private. But the same profiles continue to show up when you manually view the friends list. That means Facebook is technically correct that private profiles aren't searchable, even though they are in many cases easily found. ®
Privacy theatre
By Dan Goodin in San Francisco
25th October 2010
Facebook settings that are supposed to cloak user profiles can easily be bypassed to reveal the friends, pictures, and other attributes of users who have configured their accounts to be private.
The inability to keep profile pages private would seem to contradict Facebook's promise that "The settings you choose control which people and applications can see your information." In fact, profiles configured to be private remain viewable when manually browsing through the pages of users who are friends.
“My problem with this issue is actually how I found the bug,” said Justin E. Dian, a software developer who brought the setting bypass to the attention of The Register. “People I didn't want requesting me as friends kept somehow finding me and requesting friendship. I keep my Facebook security settings pretty much as tight as possible and I soon realized this is how they were finding me.”
The privacy settings were put in place following outcries that Facebook accounts spilled users' birthdates, friends, home towns, current location, and other information that could jeopardize their privacy. The new settings made it possible to share specific details with the world at large, a user's Facebook friends, friends of friends, or no one at all.
A Facebook spokesman said certain information, including the URL to the user's profile page, the user's picture, sex, and networks remain public no matter what settings are chosen. [Ed. Note: Italics mine.]
“You can make it harder for people to find your profile in searches, but people may still be able to get to it in other ways (e.g., if they know your vanity URL or navigate there through a friend list or News Feed story),” the spokesman said. “The basic information that allows friends to find and connect with people is available to everyone and has no privacy settings.”
The spokesman didn't respond to repeated questions asking whether Facebook had plans to change the settings so the information was no longer public.
Profiles that have been designated as private are viewable when browsing a list of friends that includes the profile. These lists can be made available to the world at large, or to friends or friends of friends of the user. The lists include the profiles of all of the user's friends, even when they've told Facebook to keep information — including their friends — private.
The arrangement means that it's impossible to keep a Facebook profile completely private if it includes even a single friend whose friend list is accessible to others.
Dian said it probably wouldn't be hard to create a script that browses and records all of a user's friends of friends and then recursively browses and records each friend's friends who have lists set to be viewable by everyone or friends of friends. Search-engine spiders build detailed repositories of links in much the same fashion.
“Doing this, you could quickly create a very large database of people and have, at the least, the following information on all of these people, no matter their security settings: name, profile picture, networks and sex,” Dian said. “So in essence, while Facebook offers you security settings to only be searchable by your friends, it would be very easy for someone you are not friends with to have access to the previous information.”
Interestingly, using a name search to identify someone's friends won't list profiles that have been set to be private. But the same profiles continue to show up when you manually view the friends list. That means Facebook is technically correct that private profiles aren't searchable, even though they are in many cases easily found. ®
Armed men burst into a drug rehab centre in the Mexican border city of Tijuana and killed up to 13 people. While police would only confirm today that 10 people were shot dead, officials had been celebrating a decline in the terror unleashed on the city by the drug cartels.
The attackers made the addicts lie on the floor and then sprayed them with bullets, killing 13 during the assault on Sunday night, according to one witness, Jesus, who asked to be identified only by his first name for fear of reprisals. There are normally about 45 clients at this ramshackle, privately run treatment centre and the people sleeping upstairs survived.
Police have not identified the motive behind the massacre but gangs have attacked clinics in other cities to target rivals.
It was the second massacre of the weekend in Mexico: 14 people were killed on Friday night when gunmen stormed a birthday party in another border city, Ciudad Juárez. The victims ranged from 13 to 32 years old, and most of them were high school students, a survivor said.
But the attack in Tijuana is the first mass killing at an addiction treatment centre in a city praised for its anti-gang efforts. In Ciudad Juárez, several such attacks have killed dozens of recovering addicts; and these killings have been accompanied by a message from an unknown voice – "this is a taste of Juárez" – heard over a police radio frequency. ...
The attackers made the addicts lie on the floor and then sprayed them with bullets, killing 13 during the assault on Sunday night, according to one witness, Jesus, who asked to be identified only by his first name for fear of reprisals. There are normally about 45 clients at this ramshackle, privately run treatment centre and the people sleeping upstairs survived.
Police have not identified the motive behind the massacre but gangs have attacked clinics in other cities to target rivals.
It was the second massacre of the weekend in Mexico: 14 people were killed on Friday night when gunmen stormed a birthday party in another border city, Ciudad Juárez. The victims ranged from 13 to 32 years old, and most of them were high school students, a survivor said.
But the attack in Tijuana is the first mass killing at an addiction treatment centre in a city praised for its anti-gang efforts. In Ciudad Juárez, several such attacks have killed dozens of recovering addicts; and these killings have been accompanied by a message from an unknown voice – "this is a taste of Juárez" – heard over a police radio frequency. ...
CIA drones could be grounded by software suit
A judge’s December ruling in an intellectual property law suit between two software firms in Massachusetts could strip the CIA’s Predator drones of their targeting software, the CEO of one of the companies says.
Intelligent Integration Systems (IISi) of Boston, Mass., developer of a sophisticated mapping software that guides CIA drones, has accused its Netezza, its onetime partner in the deal, of stealing its technology after it refused to go along with an expedited production schedule allegedly demanded by the CIA. IISi maintains that its unique software was not ready for use in the Predator system and would cause missiles to miss their targets by up to 40 feet.
"My reaction was one of stun, amazement that they want to kill people with my software that doesn't work," IISi’s chief technology officer said in a sworn statement last April.
In August IISi won a summary judgment against Netezza, which had accused it of breach of contract for not going along with the stepped-up production schedule.
IISi’s counterclaim, that Netezza had wrongfully terminated the contract, was allowed to proceed by Massachusetts Superior Court Judge Margaret R. Hinkle.
The CIA’s future use of IISi’s technology, moreover, was thrown into jeopardy this week by the judge's approval of a stipulation that forbade Netezza from sharing any copies of IISi ‘s Geospatial and Extended SQL Toolkit products with IBM, which has made a $1.7 billion bid for the company.
Now IISi has asked the court to for a preliminary injunction to halt the use of its software by Netezza or any other client. Judge Hinckle’s decision is expected on Dec. 7. ...
Ta much, dear MSiegel
Haggling over the deepest public spending cuts since the second world war has culminated in the BBC being forced to accept a 16% budget cut that will see its licence fee frozen for six years and the corporation taking over funding of the World Service from the Foreign Office.
The negotiations left the BBC stunned, with insiders claiming that a licence fee settlement that would normally take years to thrash out had been imposed in three days. The extra financial burdens are equivalent to the cost of running the BBC's five national radio stations.
The news came as the Treasury finally backed off money-saving plans to remove child benefit from 17- and 18-year-olds, but went ahead with plans to cut the means-tested education maintenance allowance aimed at largely the same age group.
There was acute embarrassment for the government, meanwhile, as Danny Alexander, the Treasury chief secretary, allowed himself to be photographed with a briefing paper showing that the government accepts that 490,000 public sector jobs will be lost by 2014-15 as a result of the spending cuts, which will finally be outlined by the chancellor, George Osborne, today.
Osborne acknowledges that his unprecedented spending review will take Britain into uncharted social and economic territory as he announces £83bn of spending cuts over the next four years.
The cuts will involve the loss of thousands of jobs, massive cuts in university funding, wholesale reform of public housing and further cuts to the welfare budget.
The coalition will also announce the state retirement age is to be raised to 66 in 2016, 10 years earlier than previously planned and liable to save billions of pounds in the medium term. It is also expected there will be big cuts to the budget for sport in schools and the abolition of the specialist school network. Some departments including the Ministry of Justice, the Department of Communities and Local Government and the culture department will see cuts of 30%, involving multibillion-pound reductions in the prison programme and to legal aid.
Voluntary groups and private companies operating on a payment-by-results basis will be asked to take over the rehabilitation of released prisoners. As many as 10,000 national offender management jobs will be lost.
The briefing document warns that spending cuts "inevitably impact" on workers because the pay bill in Whitehall accounts for around half of all departmental spending. It also claimed the overall public sector pay package has been generous, with pay rises four times as high as those in the private sector. Each public sector employer will have to "determine the workforce implications of spending settlements", the document says. It adds: "Government will do everything they can to mitigate the impact of redundancies."
This will be done by creating conditions for private sector growth, encouraging pay restraint and reduced hours, and finally supporting employees facing redundancy so they can find work in the private sector.
In perhaps the single most radical public service reform to be announced today, families stuck on council house waiting lists are to be offered a new form of shorter-term tenure at near-market rents as a way of freeing up social housing and filling a near-£4bn cut in the social housing budget, due to be announced.
The coalition hopes the new form of tenure, dubbed affordable rent, involving less exacting accommodation, will make it easier to build more social housing since the tenants will be asked to pay up to 80% of the market rent, well above the current rent levels in social housing. Ministers will also withdraw security of tenure for new council house tenants. The government hopes that as a result institutional investors will become more active in the social housing market. ...
Ta much, dear Glenn321
The negotiations left the BBC stunned, with insiders claiming that a licence fee settlement that would normally take years to thrash out had been imposed in three days. The extra financial burdens are equivalent to the cost of running the BBC's five national radio stations.
The news came as the Treasury finally backed off money-saving plans to remove child benefit from 17- and 18-year-olds, but went ahead with plans to cut the means-tested education maintenance allowance aimed at largely the same age group.
There was acute embarrassment for the government, meanwhile, as Danny Alexander, the Treasury chief secretary, allowed himself to be photographed with a briefing paper showing that the government accepts that 490,000 public sector jobs will be lost by 2014-15 as a result of the spending cuts, which will finally be outlined by the chancellor, George Osborne, today.
Osborne acknowledges that his unprecedented spending review will take Britain into uncharted social and economic territory as he announces £83bn of spending cuts over the next four years.
The cuts will involve the loss of thousands of jobs, massive cuts in university funding, wholesale reform of public housing and further cuts to the welfare budget.
The coalition will also announce the state retirement age is to be raised to 66 in 2016, 10 years earlier than previously planned and liable to save billions of pounds in the medium term. It is also expected there will be big cuts to the budget for sport in schools and the abolition of the specialist school network. Some departments including the Ministry of Justice, the Department of Communities and Local Government and the culture department will see cuts of 30%, involving multibillion-pound reductions in the prison programme and to legal aid.
Voluntary groups and private companies operating on a payment-by-results basis will be asked to take over the rehabilitation of released prisoners. As many as 10,000 national offender management jobs will be lost.
The briefing document warns that spending cuts "inevitably impact" on workers because the pay bill in Whitehall accounts for around half of all departmental spending. It also claimed the overall public sector pay package has been generous, with pay rises four times as high as those in the private sector. Each public sector employer will have to "determine the workforce implications of spending settlements", the document says. It adds: "Government will do everything they can to mitigate the impact of redundancies."
This will be done by creating conditions for private sector growth, encouraging pay restraint and reduced hours, and finally supporting employees facing redundancy so they can find work in the private sector.
In perhaps the single most radical public service reform to be announced today, families stuck on council house waiting lists are to be offered a new form of shorter-term tenure at near-market rents as a way of freeing up social housing and filling a near-£4bn cut in the social housing budget, due to be announced.
The coalition hopes the new form of tenure, dubbed affordable rent, involving less exacting accommodation, will make it easier to build more social housing since the tenants will be asked to pay up to 80% of the market rent, well above the current rent levels in social housing. Ministers will also withdraw security of tenure for new council house tenants. The government hopes that as a result institutional investors will become more active in the social housing market. ...
Ta much, dear Glenn321
Facebook gets poked in latest privacy gaffe
'No personal details were used. But we're changing our tech anyway... bitch'
By Kelly Fiveash
Posted in ID, 18th October 2010
Facebook’s privacy rules aren’t as watertight as the company would have its users believe, after the Wall Street Journal uncovered that some of the social network’s most popular apps have siphoned off personal information to ad firms and internet tracking outfits.
According to the report, many Facebook apps have transmitted identifiable details about individual users to around 25 companies, in effect breaking the terms laid down by the Mark Zuckerberg-run website.
The privacy breach, which gives advertising and internet tracking firms access to people’s names, affects a huge number of Facebook app users.
Worse still, the newspaper found that users whose profiles have rigorous privacy settings have also had their details exposed.
It said that the 10 most popular Facebook apps, including Farmville and Texas HoldEm Poker, were transmitting users’ IDs to external firms.
Game Network Inc’s Farmville was found to also be transmitting personal details about a user’s Facebook "friends" to advertisers and internet tracking companies.
Facebook, which claims to have around 500 million users of its service, told the WSJ that the social network would bring in new tech to close the breach.
One company, RapLeaf Inc, was found to have linked Facebook ID details taken from apps to its own database of internet users, which it sells on to companies.
RapLeaf insisted that the transmission of data hadn’t been intentional.
“We didn’t do it on purpose,” the company’s biz development veep Joel Jewitt told the newspaper.
The Register asked Facebook to comment on the story. It gave us this statement:
As part of our work to provide people with control over their information, we've learned that the design and operation of the Internet doesn't always provide the greatest control that is technically possible.
"For example, in the Spring, it was brought to our attention that Facebook user IDs may be inadvertently included in the URL referrer sent to advertisers.
Here, WSJ has uncovered the same issue on Facebook Platform, where a Facebook user ID may be inadvertently shared by a user's internet browser or by an application delivering content to a user.
While knowledge of user ID does not permit access to anyone's private information on Facebook, we plan to introduce new technical systems that will dramatically limit the sharing of User ID's [sic].
This is an even more complicated technical challenge than the similar issue we successfully addressed last spring, but one that we are committed to addressing. Our technical systems have always been complemented by strong policy enforcement, and we will continue to rely on both to keep people in control of their information.
It is important to note that there is no evidence that any personal information was misused or even collected as a result of this issue. In fact, all of the companies questioned about this issue said publicly that they did not use the user IDs or did not use them to obtain personal info.
Which leaves us wondering whether Facebook may have been aware of the flaw in its technology prior to the WSJ report, but just hadn't got around to closing the door on that particular privacy leak yet.
Note also that Facebook has tried to distance itself from any implication that personal information could have been used by any one of the 25 companies to which the apps transmitted the data.
The company put out a separate statement to its third-party developers that was part finger-wagging, and partly an assertion that the press had exaggerated the implications of sharing a UID.
In effect, the company is trying to downplay the whole sorry affair. The only trouble is that by admitting it needs to fix its technology to prevent this kind of thing from happening in the future, Facebook just got poked. And not in a good way. ®
'No personal details were used. But we're changing our tech anyway... bitch'
By Kelly Fiveash
Posted in ID, 18th October 2010
Facebook’s privacy rules aren’t as watertight as the company would have its users believe, after the Wall Street Journal uncovered that some of the social network’s most popular apps have siphoned off personal information to ad firms and internet tracking outfits.
According to the report, many Facebook apps have transmitted identifiable details about individual users to around 25 companies, in effect breaking the terms laid down by the Mark Zuckerberg-run website.
The privacy breach, which gives advertising and internet tracking firms access to people’s names, affects a huge number of Facebook app users.
Worse still, the newspaper found that users whose profiles have rigorous privacy settings have also had their details exposed.
It said that the 10 most popular Facebook apps, including Farmville and Texas HoldEm Poker, were transmitting users’ IDs to external firms.
Game Network Inc’s Farmville was found to also be transmitting personal details about a user’s Facebook "friends" to advertisers and internet tracking companies.
Facebook, which claims to have around 500 million users of its service, told the WSJ that the social network would bring in new tech to close the breach.
One company, RapLeaf Inc, was found to have linked Facebook ID details taken from apps to its own database of internet users, which it sells on to companies.
RapLeaf insisted that the transmission of data hadn’t been intentional.
“We didn’t do it on purpose,” the company’s biz development veep Joel Jewitt told the newspaper.
The Register asked Facebook to comment on the story. It gave us this statement:
As part of our work to provide people with control over their information, we've learned that the design and operation of the Internet doesn't always provide the greatest control that is technically possible.
"For example, in the Spring, it was brought to our attention that Facebook user IDs may be inadvertently included in the URL referrer sent to advertisers.
Here, WSJ has uncovered the same issue on Facebook Platform, where a Facebook user ID may be inadvertently shared by a user's internet browser or by an application delivering content to a user.
While knowledge of user ID does not permit access to anyone's private information on Facebook, we plan to introduce new technical systems that will dramatically limit the sharing of User ID's [sic].
This is an even more complicated technical challenge than the similar issue we successfully addressed last spring, but one that we are committed to addressing. Our technical systems have always been complemented by strong policy enforcement, and we will continue to rely on both to keep people in control of their information.
It is important to note that there is no evidence that any personal information was misused or even collected as a result of this issue. In fact, all of the companies questioned about this issue said publicly that they did not use the user IDs or did not use them to obtain personal info.
Which leaves us wondering whether Facebook may have been aware of the flaw in its technology prior to the WSJ report, but just hadn't got around to closing the door on that particular privacy leak yet.
Note also that Facebook has tried to distance itself from any implication that personal information could have been used by any one of the 25 companies to which the apps transmitted the data.
The company put out a separate statement to its third-party developers that was part finger-wagging, and partly an assertion that the press had exaggerated the implications of sharing a UID.
In effect, the company is trying to downplay the whole sorry affair. The only trouble is that by admitting it needs to fix its technology to prevent this kind of thing from happening in the future, Facebook just got poked. And not in a good way. ®
Suicide attack on Chechen Parliament
by Andy Potts at 19/10/2010 10:24
A shoot-out and suicide bomb attack at a Chechen government building in Grozny has left at least four civilians dead.
Details of the attack are still emerging, but officials have confirmed that the head of Chechnya’s parliament, Dukuvakha Abdurakhmanov, was in the building and escaped unharmed, RIA Novosti reported.
It is thought that a suicide bomber followed a motorcade of MPs into the compound and blew himself up on the steps of the parliament building.
Other accounts say there was an exchange of automatic weapon fire in Abdurakhmanov’s office, though this too remains unconfirmed.
The precise location of the attack is not yet clear. Initial reports said terrorists targeted the Republic’s parliament, but it was later confirmed that the incident happened at the former Ministry of Agriculture offices, another nearby building in the government complex in the centre of the city.
Unconfirmed reports say four government staff were killed in the attack with Prime-Tass reporting three terrorists were also killed.
RIA Novosti later confirmed that at least three people were dead and a further 13 had been taken to hospital.
One of the injured is the head of the Parliamentary Apparatus, Iskam Baykhakov, according to Interfax.
Special services police have sealed off the area, RIA Novosti reported, with four officers injured during the operation.
Chechnya’s hard-line ruler Ramzan Kadyrov has played a personal role in stemming the tide of violence which has engulfed the republic in recent years.
And RIA Novosti reported that Kadyrov has taken charge of a special operation to secure the government complex and round up the attackers this morning.
Interior minister Rashid Nurgaliyev, who is in Grozny for a meeting with local police chiefs, is also in contact with Kadyrov about the situation.
by Andy Potts at 19/10/2010 10:24
A shoot-out and suicide bomb attack at a Chechen government building in Grozny has left at least four civilians dead.
Details of the attack are still emerging, but officials have confirmed that the head of Chechnya’s parliament, Dukuvakha Abdurakhmanov, was in the building and escaped unharmed, RIA Novosti reported.
It is thought that a suicide bomber followed a motorcade of MPs into the compound and blew himself up on the steps of the parliament building.
Other accounts say there was an exchange of automatic weapon fire in Abdurakhmanov’s office, though this too remains unconfirmed.
The precise location of the attack is not yet clear. Initial reports said terrorists targeted the Republic’s parliament, but it was later confirmed that the incident happened at the former Ministry of Agriculture offices, another nearby building in the government complex in the centre of the city.
Unconfirmed reports say four government staff were killed in the attack with Prime-Tass reporting three terrorists were also killed.
RIA Novosti later confirmed that at least three people were dead and a further 13 had been taken to hospital.
One of the injured is the head of the Parliamentary Apparatus, Iskam Baykhakov, according to Interfax.
Special services police have sealed off the area, RIA Novosti reported, with four officers injured during the operation.
Chechnya’s hard-line ruler Ramzan Kadyrov has played a personal role in stemming the tide of violence which has engulfed the republic in recent years.
And RIA Novosti reported that Kadyrov has taken charge of a special operation to secure the government complex and round up the attackers this morning.
Interior minister Rashid Nurgaliyev, who is in Grozny for a meeting with local police chiefs, is also in contact with Kadyrov about the situation.
Oh no they didn't: China accused of releasing killer as Nobel backlash continues
Robert Foyle
October 19, 2010
Is China going through its own Kübler-Ross process - otherwise known as the Five Stages of Grief - regarding its unwanted Nobel Peace Prize?
We’ve seen a brief flirtation with denial, in the form of a media blackout: that lasted a day or so. What’s followed has been a seemingly endless stream of fuming editorials, dodgy polls and pissy governmental statements.
If we’re lucky, we can look forward to an extended period of depression - Politburo members listening to Leonard Cohen, Foreign Ministry officials responding to questions about US-South Korean naval drills with listless shrugs etc. Less likely, though, is acceptance; that might take a while - a century or so - given that that they still haven’t gotten over the Opium Wars, the Japanese occupation or, God forbid, the Dalai Lama’s Peace Prize.
But if you thought that Beijing’s retaliatory measures merely extended to cancelled fisheries meetings and some (yet-to-be-announced but inevitable) visa difficulties for Norwegian students and businessmen, think again… maybe.
According to reports circulating in Scandinavian media, officials have recently released a suspect Chinese national accused of murdering his Norwegian girlfriend, a surprise move some now suggest may be connected to the Liu Xiaobo controversy.
Foreign student Zhao Fei, 26, was arrested in China after apparently fleeing Hungary last month, where the body of his 21-year-old Norwegian girlfriend, Pernille Marie Thronsen, was discovered stabbed to death in Budapest August 30th. Hungarian police issued an arrest warrant on September 1st , naming Zhao as the sole suspect. A remorseful Zhaon is later said to have turned himself into Chinese cops, and reportedly confessed to the deed.
Yet in a rare (and ironic) display of legal compliance, China has since released Zhao, claiming it cannot hold a suspect longer than 30 days without evidence; Hungarian authorities are unwilling to supply the necessary evidence due to China’s death penalty, a move the Pernille family are said to sympathize with.
Norwegian Foreign Ministry Ragnhild Imerslund has denied the two incidents are in any way linked, telling Norwegian Broadcasting that Zhao was released before the Liu announcement and the government is content with China’s jurisprudence in this case.
Who cannot commend China’s sudden passionate adherence to the constitutional rule of law? Supporters of Liu probably wish it weren’t quite so schizophrenic. Yet the fact that the link is being made is less an example of people just believing anything you say about China - albeit there are plenty of those around - more that China’s global stage presence has over the last year or so has shrunken the credibility gap by ten years.
Ever since Premier Wen personally blanked President Obama (and possibly helped wreck Copenhagen), China has been the dick in the room, alternated between swaggering and petulant, with the occasional self-flagellating cry of “We’re still developing!” Indelicate? Whether they are ignoring North Korean complicity in the Cheonan tragedy, declaring the entire South China Sea suddenly sovereign Chinese territory or flouting international trade law by embargoing rare earth exports to Japan (while, of course, denying it), the prevailing attitude emanating from Zhongnanhai could diplomatically be described as bullish. Others might prefer hawkish, or simply hubristic.
Publicly alienating South Korea, all but wrecking a decade plus of ASEAN diplomacy, driving Japan and Vietnam into the US’s embrace and locking up pretty much everybody connected with human rights because they won the wrong Nobel are surely not examples of reasoned, respectable governance befitting a leading world power.
If nothing else, such acts, coupled with the country’s infamous lack of transparency, give credibility to all kind of damaging rumors - like thinking that China would release a murderer just because he killed the right foreign national. People are once again starting to believe anything about China - and how can that be good for Beijing?
Yet let’s not forget the most important thing about this sorry tale: are we really to expect that Pernille Thronsen and her family will be forever denied justice because of a Chinese legal loophole? That surely would be the hardest story of all to believe.
Robert Foyle
October 19, 2010
Is China going through its own Kübler-Ross process - otherwise known as the Five Stages of Grief - regarding its unwanted Nobel Peace Prize?
We’ve seen a brief flirtation with denial, in the form of a media blackout: that lasted a day or so. What’s followed has been a seemingly endless stream of fuming editorials, dodgy polls and pissy governmental statements.
If we’re lucky, we can look forward to an extended period of depression - Politburo members listening to Leonard Cohen, Foreign Ministry officials responding to questions about US-South Korean naval drills with listless shrugs etc. Less likely, though, is acceptance; that might take a while - a century or so - given that that they still haven’t gotten over the Opium Wars, the Japanese occupation or, God forbid, the Dalai Lama’s Peace Prize.
But if you thought that Beijing’s retaliatory measures merely extended to cancelled fisheries meetings and some (yet-to-be-announced but inevitable) visa difficulties for Norwegian students and businessmen, think again… maybe.
According to reports circulating in Scandinavian media, officials have recently released a suspect Chinese national accused of murdering his Norwegian girlfriend, a surprise move some now suggest may be connected to the Liu Xiaobo controversy.
Foreign student Zhao Fei, 26, was arrested in China after apparently fleeing Hungary last month, where the body of his 21-year-old Norwegian girlfriend, Pernille Marie Thronsen, was discovered stabbed to death in Budapest August 30th. Hungarian police issued an arrest warrant on September 1st , naming Zhao as the sole suspect. A remorseful Zhaon is later said to have turned himself into Chinese cops, and reportedly confessed to the deed.
Yet in a rare (and ironic) display of legal compliance, China has since released Zhao, claiming it cannot hold a suspect longer than 30 days without evidence; Hungarian authorities are unwilling to supply the necessary evidence due to China’s death penalty, a move the Pernille family are said to sympathize with.
Norwegian Foreign Ministry Ragnhild Imerslund has denied the two incidents are in any way linked, telling Norwegian Broadcasting that Zhao was released before the Liu announcement and the government is content with China’s jurisprudence in this case.
Who cannot commend China’s sudden passionate adherence to the constitutional rule of law? Supporters of Liu probably wish it weren’t quite so schizophrenic. Yet the fact that the link is being made is less an example of people just believing anything you say about China - albeit there are plenty of those around - more that China’s global stage presence has over the last year or so has shrunken the credibility gap by ten years.
Ever since Premier Wen personally blanked President Obama (and possibly helped wreck Copenhagen), China has been the dick in the room, alternated between swaggering and petulant, with the occasional self-flagellating cry of “We’re still developing!” Indelicate? Whether they are ignoring North Korean complicity in the Cheonan tragedy, declaring the entire South China Sea suddenly sovereign Chinese territory or flouting international trade law by embargoing rare earth exports to Japan (while, of course, denying it), the prevailing attitude emanating from Zhongnanhai could diplomatically be described as bullish. Others might prefer hawkish, or simply hubristic.
Publicly alienating South Korea, all but wrecking a decade plus of ASEAN diplomacy, driving Japan and Vietnam into the US’s embrace and locking up pretty much everybody connected with human rights because they won the wrong Nobel are surely not examples of reasoned, respectable governance befitting a leading world power.
If nothing else, such acts, coupled with the country’s infamous lack of transparency, give credibility to all kind of damaging rumors - like thinking that China would release a murderer just because he killed the right foreign national. People are once again starting to believe anything about China - and how can that be good for Beijing?
Yet let’s not forget the most important thing about this sorry tale: are we really to expect that Pernille Thronsen and her family will be forever denied justice because of a Chinese legal loophole? That surely would be the hardest story of all to believe.
China promises help over shooting of Zambian miners
Bill Smith
Oct 19, 2010
Beijing - China's Foreign Ministry on Tuesday promised to cooperate with Zambian authorities over the shooting of a group of Zambian miners by Chinese coal mine managers.
'The Chinese embassy in Zambia has taken timely measures to cope with the incident, such as to direct relevant companies to properly handle disputes and to visit the victims and their family,' ministry spokesman Ma Zhaoxu told reporters.
Ma said the problem at the Chinese Collum Coal Mine was 'largely resolved' but he said the Chinese government would continue 'cooperating closely with Zambia.'
Zambian police arrested two Chinese mine managers on Monday after they 'accidentally wounded some Zambian miners during a clash sparked by disputes over working conditions' at the mine in the southern town of Sinazongwe, the official Xinhua news agency reported.
The Zambian news website zambianwatchdog.com said 10 miners and one bystander were injured in the clash at the Chinese-run coal mine last week.
The miners had been 'presenting their grievances of poor working conditions' to the managers, Zambian Watchdog said.
Local residents protested and blocked the main road to the mine after the shooting, it said.
Bill Smith
Oct 19, 2010
Beijing - China's Foreign Ministry on Tuesday promised to cooperate with Zambian authorities over the shooting of a group of Zambian miners by Chinese coal mine managers.
'The Chinese embassy in Zambia has taken timely measures to cope with the incident, such as to direct relevant companies to properly handle disputes and to visit the victims and their family,' ministry spokesman Ma Zhaoxu told reporters.
Ma said the problem at the Chinese Collum Coal Mine was 'largely resolved' but he said the Chinese government would continue 'cooperating closely with Zambia.'
Zambian police arrested two Chinese mine managers on Monday after they 'accidentally wounded some Zambian miners during a clash sparked by disputes over working conditions' at the mine in the southern town of Sinazongwe, the official Xinhua news agency reported.
The Zambian news website zambianwatchdog.com said 10 miners and one bystander were injured in the clash at the Chinese-run coal mine last week.
The miners had been 'presenting their grievances of poor working conditions' to the managers, Zambian Watchdog said.
Local residents protested and blocked the main road to the mine after the shooting, it said.
Chinese managers 'mistakenly hurt' Zambian miners: China
Oct 19 2010
China said the managers of a Chinese private company in Zambia 'mistakenly hurt' 12 coal miners protesting the poor working conditions prevailing in the pits.
Asked about reports that Chinese managers shot and wounded 12 Zambian workers at a coal mine on October 15, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Ma Zhaoxu said Chinese managers mistakenly hurt several local workers.
Both the government took serious note of the incidents and the Chinese Foreign Ministry has directed the local company to 'properly' handle the dispute with visits to the injured and their families.
The situation was brought under control with joint efforts of Chinese and Zambian governments.
The Chinese government will continue close cooperation with the Zambian government and continue close cooperation and properly handle aftermath and safeguard the safety and legitimate interest of Chinese personnel, he said.
Reports from Zambia said two Chinese managers who allegedly shot and wounded 12 miners protesting against poor working conditions at a Chinese run coal-mine have been arrested.
Oct 19 2010
China said the managers of a Chinese private company in Zambia 'mistakenly hurt' 12 coal miners protesting the poor working conditions prevailing in the pits.
Asked about reports that Chinese managers shot and wounded 12 Zambian workers at a coal mine on October 15, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Ma Zhaoxu said Chinese managers mistakenly hurt several local workers.
Both the government took serious note of the incidents and the Chinese Foreign Ministry has directed the local company to 'properly' handle the dispute with visits to the injured and their families.
The situation was brought under control with joint efforts of Chinese and Zambian governments.
The Chinese government will continue close cooperation with the Zambian government and continue close cooperation and properly handle aftermath and safeguard the safety and legitimate interest of Chinese personnel, he said.
Reports from Zambia said two Chinese managers who allegedly shot and wounded 12 miners protesting against poor working conditions at a Chinese run coal-mine have been arrested.
Christie's caught up as £30m forgeries send shock waves through the art world
German police hold three suspects after works sold through leading auction houses are exposed as fakes
Dalya Alberge
Sunday 17 October 2010
Panic is spreading through the art world following the discovery of forgeries among major 20th-century paintings sold in recent years by leading auctioneers and dealers worldwide, including Christie's in London.
More than 30 paintings, thought to be by artists including Max Ernst, Raoul Dufy and Fernand Léger, have been unmasked as forgeries, the Observer has learned. The fakes have duped leading figures in the art world into parting with at least £30m.
Four of the paintings have gone through Christie's, including forgeries of Ernst's La Horde, estimated at £3.5m and eventually sold to the Würth Collection, and André Derain's Bateaux à Collioure, sold for £2m. Six paintings were sold by the leading German auctioneer, Lempertz, one for £2.8m. The forger's strategy appears to have been to create compositions that would relate to the titles of documented works whose whereabouts are not currently known.
Dealers and collectors who have recently acquired works by the artists involved "are shaking over this scandal", one insider said. "They are in a panic over whether their paintings are also forgeries. Everyone's taking a second look." The panic is so acute that collectors are even seeking refunds on unquestionably genuine works.
One expert describes the forgeries as "gold standard". They cover many styles and include works by Heinrich Campendonk, the German Expressionist. Most are in the style of the particular artist, rather than a direct copy. All are believed to have been painted by a German forger over the past 15 years. Police are now investigating whether that forger is Wolfgang Beltracchi, 59, an artist from Freiburg, aided by his wife, Helene, 52, and her sister, Susanne, 57 – women described as "great charmers". All three are now in police custody. Two men are also being investigated.
The deception involved an invented story about inheriting the paintings from the sisters' grandfather, Werner Jägers.
Dr Nicholas Eastaugh, of Art Access and Research, a leading British expert in scientific analysis of paintings, told the Observer that he has seen four of the forgeries and conducted extensive tests on three. The results confirmed that they contain pigments not available when they were supposed to have been painted. One of the paintings, Campendonk's Rotes Bild Mit Pferden (Red Picture with Horses), was sold in 2006 by Lempertz for a record price.
Eastaugh emphasised that the duped buyer has given him permission to discuss the case. A painted sketch on the back of the canvas – suggesting that the artist was trying out another idea – is also a forgery. Clues to a painting's provenance, or history, are often found on the back of a painting. Many of the forgeries have fake labels from galleries or collections to give a further authentic touch, suggesting past exhibitions. The Christie's Ernst is said to bear a false label, "Flechtheim Collection", which aroused the suspicions of the distinguished historian and Flechtheim biographer, Ralph Jentsch. Labels on other works suggest they are from the "Jägers Collection".
One duped auctioneer said: "It's significant that these paintings have been through the sale process before they got to me. They must have been sufficiently convincing."
The buyer of the Campendonk was Trasteco, a trading company in Malta, which is now claiming back the purchase price. The firm is one of two collectors represented by Friederike Gräfin von Brühl, a German lawyer at K&L Gates. She said: "For the art world, this is a big scandal. Everyone is shocked."
Christie's London – which handled alleged forgeries that include Campendonk's Girl with a Swan, sold for £67,000, and another painting that fetched £344,000 – said: "We take any doubt surrounding authenticity extremely seriously and are investigating the matter fully."
German police hold three suspects after works sold through leading auction houses are exposed as fakes
Dalya Alberge
Sunday 17 October 2010
Panic is spreading through the art world following the discovery of forgeries among major 20th-century paintings sold in recent years by leading auctioneers and dealers worldwide, including Christie's in London.
More than 30 paintings, thought to be by artists including Max Ernst, Raoul Dufy and Fernand Léger, have been unmasked as forgeries, the Observer has learned. The fakes have duped leading figures in the art world into parting with at least £30m.
Four of the paintings have gone through Christie's, including forgeries of Ernst's La Horde, estimated at £3.5m and eventually sold to the Würth Collection, and André Derain's Bateaux à Collioure, sold for £2m. Six paintings were sold by the leading German auctioneer, Lempertz, one for £2.8m. The forger's strategy appears to have been to create compositions that would relate to the titles of documented works whose whereabouts are not currently known.
Dealers and collectors who have recently acquired works by the artists involved "are shaking over this scandal", one insider said. "They are in a panic over whether their paintings are also forgeries. Everyone's taking a second look." The panic is so acute that collectors are even seeking refunds on unquestionably genuine works.
One expert describes the forgeries as "gold standard". They cover many styles and include works by Heinrich Campendonk, the German Expressionist. Most are in the style of the particular artist, rather than a direct copy. All are believed to have been painted by a German forger over the past 15 years. Police are now investigating whether that forger is Wolfgang Beltracchi, 59, an artist from Freiburg, aided by his wife, Helene, 52, and her sister, Susanne, 57 – women described as "great charmers". All three are now in police custody. Two men are also being investigated.
The deception involved an invented story about inheriting the paintings from the sisters' grandfather, Werner Jägers.
Dr Nicholas Eastaugh, of Art Access and Research, a leading British expert in scientific analysis of paintings, told the Observer that he has seen four of the forgeries and conducted extensive tests on three. The results confirmed that they contain pigments not available when they were supposed to have been painted. One of the paintings, Campendonk's Rotes Bild Mit Pferden (Red Picture with Horses), was sold in 2006 by Lempertz for a record price.
Eastaugh emphasised that the duped buyer has given him permission to discuss the case. A painted sketch on the back of the canvas – suggesting that the artist was trying out another idea – is also a forgery. Clues to a painting's provenance, or history, are often found on the back of a painting. Many of the forgeries have fake labels from galleries or collections to give a further authentic touch, suggesting past exhibitions. The Christie's Ernst is said to bear a false label, "Flechtheim Collection", which aroused the suspicions of the distinguished historian and Flechtheim biographer, Ralph Jentsch. Labels on other works suggest they are from the "Jägers Collection".
One duped auctioneer said: "It's significant that these paintings have been through the sale process before they got to me. They must have been sufficiently convincing."
The buyer of the Campendonk was Trasteco, a trading company in Malta, which is now claiming back the purchase price. The firm is one of two collectors represented by Friederike Gräfin von Brühl, a German lawyer at K&L Gates. She said: "For the art world, this is a big scandal. Everyone is shocked."
Christie's London – which handled alleged forgeries that include Campendonk's Girl with a Swan, sold for £67,000, and another painting that fetched £344,000 – said: "We take any doubt surrounding authenticity extremely seriously and are investigating the matter fully."
Campaign launched to build Charles Babbage's Analytical Engine
A steam-powered computer designed by the 19th century mathematician Charles Babbage could finally be built after a campaign was launched to bring his dream to life.
By Murray Wardrop
14 Oct 2010
A steam-powered computer designed by the 19th century mathematician Charles Babbage could finally be built after a campaign was launched to bring his dream to life.
By Murray Wardrop
14 Oct 2010
Mad as a bag of badgers innit.
badger badger badger badger badger badger badger badger badger badger badger badger *mushroom* *mushroom* badger badger badger badger badger badger badger badger etc
badger badger badger badger badger badger badger badger badger badger badger badger *mushroom* *mushroom* badger badger badger badger badger badger badger badger etc
That thing's even uglier than Dennis Hopper's joint!
[satire]Rather curious news now from India: our Elizabeth Benton reports.
A shoe box factory in Mumbai exploded yesterday, leaving behind a sea of bits of cardboard, and massive lakes of wadded tissue paper; the lot covered by shredded sheets of tissue paper.
Most surprising, besides perhaps the happy lack of casualties, was the sudden appearance of a £630 million luxury building loathed by neighbours and described by an influential blogger [/sarcasm] as an 'evil eyesore.'
It seems composed of giant shoebox parts, wadded tissue paper, and those annoying plastic sticks placed in shoes - shoved up against the wadded tissue paper in the toe and the back - to help them maintain their shape.
Mohamed Shiva Mukartjee, who lives nearby, is angered.
"How can they sey there are no casualties. Our eyes are the casualties here! It must cease to be, this sort of soul-destroying so-called architecture!"[/satire]
[satire]Rather curious news now from India: our Elizabeth Benton reports.
A shoe box factory in Mumbai exploded yesterday, leaving behind a sea of bits of cardboard, and massive lakes of wadded tissue paper; the lot covered by shredded sheets of tissue paper.
Most surprising, besides perhaps the happy lack of casualties, was the sudden appearance of a £630 million luxury building loathed by neighbours and described by an influential blogger [/sarcasm] as an 'evil eyesore.'
It seems composed of giant shoebox parts, wadded tissue paper, and those annoying plastic sticks placed in shoes - shoved up against the wadded tissue paper in the toe and the back - to help them maintain their shape.
Mohamed Shiva Mukartjee, who lives nearby, is angered.
"How can they sey there are no casualties. Our eyes are the casualties here! It must cease to be, this sort of soul-destroying so-called architecture!"[/satire]
BBC staff told how to spot complaints
Staff collecting the BBC licence fee have been issued with an "idiot's guide" advising them that customers who use the words ''shambles'' or ''useless'' are likely to be making a complaint.
10 Oct 2010
Other indications that a viewer may be unhappy include use of capital letters or the phrases, ''When will you people listen?'', ''Who do you think you are?'' and ''Sort yourselves out!''
The document also reveals quirks in the rules about who needs a licence - the Queen, prisoners and diplomats do not, but all other Royals and prison officers who live in the grounds of a jail do.
The 964-page official handbook, which was released following a Freedom of Information request, sets out in detail how the fee should be administered.
A large section is dedicated to dealing with complaints, including prepared answers to regular objections about the BBC's ''offensive'' programmes and the aggressive tone of licence fee warning letters that could ''shock'' elderly people.
Staff are advised to look out for particular ''keywords'' suggesting a customer is protesting about some aspect of the £145.50-a-year fee.
These include: ''compensation'', ''complaint'', ''disgraceful'', ''disgusted'', ''incompetent'', ''appalling'', ''furious'', ''intimidation'', ''mistakes'', ''harassment'', ''rude'', ''threatening'', ''outrageous'', ''upsetting'', ''unacceptable'' and swear words.
The guide also lists warning phrases, such as ''I am extremely angry'', ''I demand an apology'', ''lack of courtesy'', ''your failure'' and ''I will sue''.
The document adds: ''Remember underlining of key words and phrases or the use of bold or capital letters designed to make certain parts of a letter stand out is also an indication of a complaint.'' ...
Staff collecting the BBC licence fee have been issued with an "idiot's guide" advising them that customers who use the words ''shambles'' or ''useless'' are likely to be making a complaint.
10 Oct 2010
Other indications that a viewer may be unhappy include use of capital letters or the phrases, ''When will you people listen?'', ''Who do you think you are?'' and ''Sort yourselves out!''
The document also reveals quirks in the rules about who needs a licence - the Queen, prisoners and diplomats do not, but all other Royals and prison officers who live in the grounds of a jail do.
The 964-page official handbook, which was released following a Freedom of Information request, sets out in detail how the fee should be administered.
A large section is dedicated to dealing with complaints, including prepared answers to regular objections about the BBC's ''offensive'' programmes and the aggressive tone of licence fee warning letters that could ''shock'' elderly people.
Staff are advised to look out for particular ''keywords'' suggesting a customer is protesting about some aspect of the £145.50-a-year fee.
These include: ''compensation'', ''complaint'', ''disgraceful'', ''disgusted'', ''incompetent'', ''appalling'', ''furious'', ''intimidation'', ''mistakes'', ''harassment'', ''rude'', ''threatening'', ''outrageous'', ''upsetting'', ''unacceptable'' and swear words.
The guide also lists warning phrases, such as ''I am extremely angry'', ''I demand an apology'', ''lack of courtesy'', ''your failure'' and ''I will sue''.
The document adds: ''Remember underlining of key words and phrases or the use of bold or capital letters designed to make certain parts of a letter stand out is also an indication of a complaint.'' ...
What a scientist didn't tell the New York Times about his study on bee deaths
By Katherine Eban, contributor
October 8, 2010
FORTUNE -- Few ecological disasters have been as confounding as the massive and devastating die-off of the world's honeybees. The phenomenon of Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD) -- in which disoriented honeybees die far from their hives -- has kept scientists, beekeepers, and regulators desperately seeking the cause. After all, the honeybee, nature's ultimate utility player, pollinates a third of all the food we eat and contributes an estimated $15 billion in annual agriculture revenue to the U.S. economy.
The long list of possible suspects has included pests, viruses, fungi, and also pesticides, particularly so-called neonicotinoids, a class of neurotoxins that kills insects by attacking their nervous systems. For years, their leading manufacturer, Bayer Crop Science, a subsidiary of the German pharmaceutical giant Bayer AG (BAYRY), has tangled with regulators and fended off lawsuits from angry beekeepers who allege that the pesticides have disoriented and ultimately killed their bees. The company has countered that, when used correctly, the pesticides pose little risk.
A cheer must have gone up at Bayer on Thursday when a front-page New York Times article, under the headline "Scientists and Soldiers Solve a Bee Mystery," described how a newly released study pinpoints a different cause for the die-off: "a fungus tag-teaming with a virus." The study, written in collaboration with Army scientists at the Edgewood Chemical Biological Center outside Baltimore, analyzed the proteins of afflicted bees using a new Army software system. The Bayer pesticides, however, go unmentioned.
What the Times article did not explore -- nor did the study disclose -- was the relationship between the study's lead author, Montana bee researcher Dr. Jerry Bromenshenk, and Bayer Crop Science. In recent years Bromenshenk has received a significant research grant from Bayer to study bee pollination. Indeed, before receiving the Bayer funding, Bromenshenk was lined up on the opposite side: He had signed on to serve as an expert witness for beekeepers who brought a class-action lawsuit against Bayer in 2003. He then dropped out and received the grant.
Bromenshenk's company, Bee Alert Technology, which is developing hand-held acoustic scanners that use sound to detect various bee ailments, will profit more from a finding that disease, and not pesticides, is harming bees. Two years ago Bromenshenk acknowledged as much to me when I was reporting on the possible neonicotinoid/CCD connection for Conde Nast Portfolio magazine, which folded before I completed my reporting.
Bromenshenk defends the study and emphasized that it did not examine the impact of pesticides. "It wasn't on the table because others are funded to do that," he says, noting that no Bayer funds were used on the new study. Bromenshenk vociferously denies that receiving funding from Bayer (to study bee pollination of onions) had anything to do with his decision to withdraw from the plaintiff's side in the litigation against Bayer. "We got no money from Bayer," he says. "We did no work for Bayer; Bayer was sending us warning letters by lawyers."
A Bayer publicist reached last night said she was not authorized to comment on the topic but was trying to reach an official company spokesperson.
The Times reporter who authored the recent article, Kirk Johnson, responded in an e-mail that Dr. Bromenshenk "did not volunteer his funding sources." Johnson's e-mail notes that he found the peer-reviewed scientific paper cautious and that he "tried to convey that caution in my story." Adds Johnson: The study "doesn't say pesticides aren't a cause of the underlying vulnerability that the virus-fungus combo then exploits...."
At least one scientist questions the new study. Dr. James Frazier, professor of entomology at Penn State University, who is currently researching the sublethal impact of pesticides on bees, said that while Bromenshenk's study generated some useful data, Bromenshenk has a conflict of interest as CEO of a company developing scanners to diagnose bee diseases. "He could benefit financially from that if this thing gets popularized," Frazier says, "so it's a difficult situation to deal with." He adds that his own research has shown that pesticides affect bees "absolutely, in multiple ways." ...
Ta much, dear Ar0cketman, who asks,
"Bayer? It's that German for Monsanto?"
By Katherine Eban, contributor
October 8, 2010
FORTUNE -- Few ecological disasters have been as confounding as the massive and devastating die-off of the world's honeybees. The phenomenon of Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD) -- in which disoriented honeybees die far from their hives -- has kept scientists, beekeepers, and regulators desperately seeking the cause. After all, the honeybee, nature's ultimate utility player, pollinates a third of all the food we eat and contributes an estimated $15 billion in annual agriculture revenue to the U.S. economy.
The long list of possible suspects has included pests, viruses, fungi, and also pesticides, particularly so-called neonicotinoids, a class of neurotoxins that kills insects by attacking their nervous systems. For years, their leading manufacturer, Bayer Crop Science, a subsidiary of the German pharmaceutical giant Bayer AG (BAYRY), has tangled with regulators and fended off lawsuits from angry beekeepers who allege that the pesticides have disoriented and ultimately killed their bees. The company has countered that, when used correctly, the pesticides pose little risk.
A cheer must have gone up at Bayer on Thursday when a front-page New York Times article, under the headline "Scientists and Soldiers Solve a Bee Mystery," described how a newly released study pinpoints a different cause for the die-off: "a fungus tag-teaming with a virus." The study, written in collaboration with Army scientists at the Edgewood Chemical Biological Center outside Baltimore, analyzed the proteins of afflicted bees using a new Army software system. The Bayer pesticides, however, go unmentioned.
What the Times article did not explore -- nor did the study disclose -- was the relationship between the study's lead author, Montana bee researcher Dr. Jerry Bromenshenk, and Bayer Crop Science. In recent years Bromenshenk has received a significant research grant from Bayer to study bee pollination. Indeed, before receiving the Bayer funding, Bromenshenk was lined up on the opposite side: He had signed on to serve as an expert witness for beekeepers who brought a class-action lawsuit against Bayer in 2003. He then dropped out and received the grant.
Bromenshenk's company, Bee Alert Technology, which is developing hand-held acoustic scanners that use sound to detect various bee ailments, will profit more from a finding that disease, and not pesticides, is harming bees. Two years ago Bromenshenk acknowledged as much to me when I was reporting on the possible neonicotinoid/CCD connection for Conde Nast Portfolio magazine, which folded before I completed my reporting.
Bromenshenk defends the study and emphasized that it did not examine the impact of pesticides. "It wasn't on the table because others are funded to do that," he says, noting that no Bayer funds were used on the new study. Bromenshenk vociferously denies that receiving funding from Bayer (to study bee pollination of onions) had anything to do with his decision to withdraw from the plaintiff's side in the litigation against Bayer. "We got no money from Bayer," he says. "We did no work for Bayer; Bayer was sending us warning letters by lawyers."
A Bayer publicist reached last night said she was not authorized to comment on the topic but was trying to reach an official company spokesperson.
The Times reporter who authored the recent article, Kirk Johnson, responded in an e-mail that Dr. Bromenshenk "did not volunteer his funding sources." Johnson's e-mail notes that he found the peer-reviewed scientific paper cautious and that he "tried to convey that caution in my story." Adds Johnson: The study "doesn't say pesticides aren't a cause of the underlying vulnerability that the virus-fungus combo then exploits...."
At least one scientist questions the new study. Dr. James Frazier, professor of entomology at Penn State University, who is currently researching the sublethal impact of pesticides on bees, said that while Bromenshenk's study generated some useful data, Bromenshenk has a conflict of interest as CEO of a company developing scanners to diagnose bee diseases. "He could benefit financially from that if this thing gets popularized," Frazier says, "so it's a difficult situation to deal with." He adds that his own research has shown that pesticides affect bees "absolutely, in multiple ways." ...
Ta much, dear Ar0cketman, who asks,
"Bayer? It's that German for Monsanto?"
...
“Given all that the Teddy Bear is exposed to,” says Lanier, “it would be absurd to think that somewhere along the way you wouldn’t get some pretty haunted and even possessed toys out of it.”
To launch her investigation into the secret lives of haunted Teddy Bears, Lanier first had to acquire test subjects with appropriate backgrounds. With the help of friends and family she has amassed a large collection of Teddy Bears, all of which just happen to be the objects of paranormal and ghostly activity. Many of these were subjected to research and returned to their owners; others were willingly donated with no return required.
Lanier’s collection spans all types of Teddy Bears: some are antiques (made around the 1920’s and 30’s), some are just old and tattered, some are more modern examples, and some are brand new. Several were collected from the massive debris piles left in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. What they all have in common is a history of association with paranormal activity, as verified by the statements and real-life accounts of their owners or as discerned by Lanier herself over the course of many months’ work.
MOST HAUNTED
Just why the Teddy Bear is the most haunted childhood relic is something Lanier considered at great length throughout her investigation.
In many cases, Lanier concluded, the haunting or possession of the teddy bear occurs over a long period of time. For all the years a bear remains in possession of a loving child it becomes an integral part of that child’s life. As the child creates this relationship with the bear, the toy naturally begins to take on the energy being directed toward it. Eventually, it is surmised, the essential energy becomes a force that draws other remnant energy to it; for example, if the child and his toy live in a home that already has an established history of paranormal activity, this may begin to use the toy as a conduit to manifestation. In this instance, the toy can become something similar to the “familiar” associated with practitioners of magic, though of course not frequently on such a powerful scale. The object may not move and act as if of its own volition, but the fact remains that the high concentration of energy, sometimes combined with external anomalies, will cause the teddy bear to almost take on “a life of its own.” When this occurs, the teddy bear begins to act in response to the child, taking on – at least to its companion – all aspects of an independent playmate.
Similarly, in homes where a family member such as a sibling or other close relative has died, it often happens that the teddy bear becomes the receptacle for the etheric energy of the deceased in question. In this event, the toy might manifest audible phenomena as well as local, independent motion, i.e. moving from place to place without the assistance of human interaction.
In the situations described above it is often found that the energy manifest in the teddy bear is generally benevolent and that, outside the somewhat unsettling fact that an entity is present in the toy, the most unnerving aspect seems to be the intense loyalty the haunted object will demonstrate toward the child that owns it.
It is when the link between child and plaything is broken, either through the natural breakdown of interest that occurs as the child ages or in situations where adults intervene when they feel the child is appropriately old enough to discontinue playing with toys, that malevolent activity associated with haunted teddy bears has been most prevalent.
“Well, it’s the sudden withdrawal of the energy that causes the bears to ‘go bad,’ you might say,” Lanier comments. “After all, this toy has spent nearly every waking moment of the child’s life involved in all of his or her experiences. To be cut off from the constant companionship and the natural interaction can be a shock; if the etheric energy within the bear has gained enough strength, it might be capable of all sorts of activity on its own.” ...
“Given all that the Teddy Bear is exposed to,” says Lanier, “it would be absurd to think that somewhere along the way you wouldn’t get some pretty haunted and even possessed toys out of it.”
To launch her investigation into the secret lives of haunted Teddy Bears, Lanier first had to acquire test subjects with appropriate backgrounds. With the help of friends and family she has amassed a large collection of Teddy Bears, all of which just happen to be the objects of paranormal and ghostly activity. Many of these were subjected to research and returned to their owners; others were willingly donated with no return required.
Lanier’s collection spans all types of Teddy Bears: some are antiques (made around the 1920’s and 30’s), some are just old and tattered, some are more modern examples, and some are brand new. Several were collected from the massive debris piles left in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. What they all have in common is a history of association with paranormal activity, as verified by the statements and real-life accounts of their owners or as discerned by Lanier herself over the course of many months’ work.
MOST HAUNTED
Just why the Teddy Bear is the most haunted childhood relic is something Lanier considered at great length throughout her investigation.
In many cases, Lanier concluded, the haunting or possession of the teddy bear occurs over a long period of time. For all the years a bear remains in possession of a loving child it becomes an integral part of that child’s life. As the child creates this relationship with the bear, the toy naturally begins to take on the energy being directed toward it. Eventually, it is surmised, the essential energy becomes a force that draws other remnant energy to it; for example, if the child and his toy live in a home that already has an established history of paranormal activity, this may begin to use the toy as a conduit to manifestation. In this instance, the toy can become something similar to the “familiar” associated with practitioners of magic, though of course not frequently on such a powerful scale. The object may not move and act as if of its own volition, but the fact remains that the high concentration of energy, sometimes combined with external anomalies, will cause the teddy bear to almost take on “a life of its own.” When this occurs, the teddy bear begins to act in response to the child, taking on – at least to its companion – all aspects of an independent playmate.
Similarly, in homes where a family member such as a sibling or other close relative has died, it often happens that the teddy bear becomes the receptacle for the etheric energy of the deceased in question. In this event, the toy might manifest audible phenomena as well as local, independent motion, i.e. moving from place to place without the assistance of human interaction.
In the situations described above it is often found that the energy manifest in the teddy bear is generally benevolent and that, outside the somewhat unsettling fact that an entity is present in the toy, the most unnerving aspect seems to be the intense loyalty the haunted object will demonstrate toward the child that owns it.
It is when the link between child and plaything is broken, either through the natural breakdown of interest that occurs as the child ages or in situations where adults intervene when they feel the child is appropriately old enough to discontinue playing with toys, that malevolent activity associated with haunted teddy bears has been most prevalent.
“Well, it’s the sudden withdrawal of the energy that causes the bears to ‘go bad,’ you might say,” Lanier comments. “After all, this toy has spent nearly every waking moment of the child’s life involved in all of his or her experiences. To be cut off from the constant companionship and the natural interaction can be a shock; if the etheric energy within the bear has gained enough strength, it might be capable of all sorts of activity on its own.” ...
... Judge Binnie said that expecting a defence lawyer to effectively advise a client who is shut away in an interrogation room is the equivalent of playing him a phone message that states: “You have reached counsel. Keep your mouth shut. Press one to repeat this message.”
“What now appears to be licensed is that a presumed innocent individual may be detained and isolated by the police for at least five or six hours without reasonable recourse to a lawyer – during which time the officers can brush aside assertions of the right to silence or demands to be returned to his or her cell in an endurance contest in which the police interrogators, taking turns with one another, hold all the important legal cards,” he said.
Police interrogators are skilled at lying and wearing suspects down, Judge Binnie said. Some will inevitably make false confessions, he said, adding them to “the platoon of the wrongfully convicted.”
In separate dissenting reasons, Mr. Justice Louis LeBel, Madam Justice Rosalie Abella and Mr. Justice Morris Fish argued that the right to counsel aids citizens when they are at their most intimidated and vulnerable.
Defence lawyers greeted the ruling with resigned displeasure – as they do so often nowadays when the Supreme Court tackles issues involving search and seizure, admissibility of evidence and fair trial rights. ...
Ta much, dear Glenn321
“What now appears to be licensed is that a presumed innocent individual may be detained and isolated by the police for at least five or six hours without reasonable recourse to a lawyer – during which time the officers can brush aside assertions of the right to silence or demands to be returned to his or her cell in an endurance contest in which the police interrogators, taking turns with one another, hold all the important legal cards,” he said.
Police interrogators are skilled at lying and wearing suspects down, Judge Binnie said. Some will inevitably make false confessions, he said, adding them to “the platoon of the wrongfully convicted.”
In separate dissenting reasons, Mr. Justice Louis LeBel, Madam Justice Rosalie Abella and Mr. Justice Morris Fish argued that the right to counsel aids citizens when they are at their most intimidated and vulnerable.
Defence lawyers greeted the ruling with resigned displeasure – as they do so often nowadays when the Supreme Court tackles issues involving search and seizure, admissibility of evidence and fair trial rights. ...
Ta much, dear Glenn321
A toxic red mud spill that killed four people in western Hungary has reached the Mosoni-Danube, a southern branch of the Danube, Hungarian disaster officials said today.
Tibor Dobson of Hungary's national disaster unit told Reuters the spill reached the branch of Europe's second-longest river near Hungary's border with Slovakia and Austria this morning.
But Dobson said the highly caustic slurry has been reduced to the point where it is unlikely to cause further damage to the environment. The pH level of the sludge, originally above 12, is now under 10, he said. However, a harmless level is between 6 and 8.
There are fears that the toxic torrent will cause serious ecological damage to the Danube after being carried downstream by tributaries. The sludge is expected to reach the river by the weekend or early next week.
Hungary's prime minister, Viktor Orban, who visited one of three villages inundated by red sludge, today declared one area a write-off.
Orban said he sees "no sense" in rebuilding in an area made uninhabitable by the torrent that poured from a breached reservoir at a nearby alumina factory on Monday.
Local officials in Kolontar say 34 houses in the village of about 800 were so badly damaged by the slurry that they cannot be refurbished. Orban spoke after an unannounced dawn visit to Kolontar. ...
Tibor Dobson of Hungary's national disaster unit told Reuters the spill reached the branch of Europe's second-longest river near Hungary's border with Slovakia and Austria this morning.
But Dobson said the highly caustic slurry has been reduced to the point where it is unlikely to cause further damage to the environment. The pH level of the sludge, originally above 12, is now under 10, he said. However, a harmless level is between 6 and 8.
There are fears that the toxic torrent will cause serious ecological damage to the Danube after being carried downstream by tributaries. The sludge is expected to reach the river by the weekend or early next week.
Hungary's prime minister, Viktor Orban, who visited one of three villages inundated by red sludge, today declared one area a write-off.
Orban said he sees "no sense" in rebuilding in an area made uninhabitable by the torrent that poured from a breached reservoir at a nearby alumina factory on Monday.
Local officials in Kolontar say 34 houses in the village of about 800 were so badly damaged by the slurry that they cannot be refurbished. Orban spoke after an unannounced dawn visit to Kolontar. ...
Hungarians battle to hold back toxic sludge spill from Danube
Greenpeace describes incident as 'one of the top three environmental disasters in Europe in the last 20 or 30 years'
Greenpeace describes incident as 'one of the top three environmental disasters in Europe in the last 20 or 30 years'
Glenn Beck under fire from Dana Milbank for gold-digging
Fox News's Tea Party pundit-in-chief criticised for using his position in the public eye to promote Goldline
Ed Pilkington in New York
Tuesday 5 October 2010
Glenn Beck, Fox News's Tea Party pundit-in-chief, has made his name by pouring vitriol on progressives and liberals who he accuses of trying to destroy America. Now he's being subjected to a taste of his own medicine.
Dana Milbank, a Washington Post columnist, publishes today a 261-page invective against Beck which is just as caustic and sharply-worded as his subject's televised monologues, with the important distinction that Milbank's account is factually accurate.
Chapter 7 of Tears of a Clown: Glenn Beck and the Tea Bagging of America, looks at how Beck, who likes to present himself to his viewers as a regular schmo, has amassed an empire with an annual turnover of $32 million.
One route to his largesse, Milbank tells us, is his relentless plugging of gold which he tells his listeners and viewers is a sure-fire way for them to protect their savings amid economic collapse. "Conveniently, enough," he writes, "a top sponsor of Beck's radio, TV, and internet ventures is Goldine, a big gold dealer."
Goldline is featured in adverts sprinkled all over his website, GlennBeck.com. Goldline's president, Mark Albarian, has appeared on Beck's show many times, in which they regularly talk up its price.
"So, Mark, I saw a story last night that said we're ... we're running out of gold," Milbank quotes Beck as saying in one interview. "Is that even possible?"
"I think it is," Albarian replied. "Now, we won't actually run out of gold, but you'll see much higher prices in my opinion."
Beck makes regular mentions of Goldline on his radio show – paid plugs, says Milbank. And in a paid video made before he joined Fox, he invoked the Founding Fathers to make the case for gold. "If you're like our Founding Fathers, Thomas Jefferson and John Adams, then just know that what's on the horizon is just temporary and this too shall pass. Here's the deal: Call Goldline."
Now it's true that Jefferson et al had nothing at all against making an honest penny, the pursuit of happiness being one of their objectives. But having their names attached to Goldline? Is nothing off limits in Beckland?
Fox News's Tea Party pundit-in-chief criticised for using his position in the public eye to promote Goldline
Ed Pilkington in New York
Tuesday 5 October 2010
Glenn Beck, Fox News's Tea Party pundit-in-chief, has made his name by pouring vitriol on progressives and liberals who he accuses of trying to destroy America. Now he's being subjected to a taste of his own medicine.
Dana Milbank, a Washington Post columnist, publishes today a 261-page invective against Beck which is just as caustic and sharply-worded as his subject's televised monologues, with the important distinction that Milbank's account is factually accurate.
Chapter 7 of Tears of a Clown: Glenn Beck and the Tea Bagging of America, looks at how Beck, who likes to present himself to his viewers as a regular schmo, has amassed an empire with an annual turnover of $32 million.
One route to his largesse, Milbank tells us, is his relentless plugging of gold which he tells his listeners and viewers is a sure-fire way for them to protect their savings amid economic collapse. "Conveniently, enough," he writes, "a top sponsor of Beck's radio, TV, and internet ventures is Goldine, a big gold dealer."
Goldline is featured in adverts sprinkled all over his website, GlennBeck.com. Goldline's president, Mark Albarian, has appeared on Beck's show many times, in which they regularly talk up its price.
"So, Mark, I saw a story last night that said we're ... we're running out of gold," Milbank quotes Beck as saying in one interview. "Is that even possible?"
"I think it is," Albarian replied. "Now, we won't actually run out of gold, but you'll see much higher prices in my opinion."
Beck makes regular mentions of Goldline on his radio show – paid plugs, says Milbank. And in a paid video made before he joined Fox, he invoked the Founding Fathers to make the case for gold. "If you're like our Founding Fathers, Thomas Jefferson and John Adams, then just know that what's on the horizon is just temporary and this too shall pass. Here's the deal: Call Goldline."
Now it's true that Jefferson et al had nothing at all against making an honest penny, the pursuit of happiness being one of their objectives. But having their names attached to Goldline? Is nothing off limits in Beckland?
David Cameron defends Andy Coulson – but says no one is 'unsackable'
PM praises director of communications after fresh allegations by Channel 4 film over phone hacking at News of the World
Nicholas Watt
Tuesday 5 October 2010
David Cameron said last night that nobody on his team is unsackable, as he faced questions about his communications director, Andy Coulson.
In a Channel 4 News interview, the prime minister defended Coulson, who is facing allegations that he knew about illegal phone hacking during his time as editor of the News of the World.
Asked by Channel 4 News presenter Jon Snow whether Coulson was unsackable, Cameron said: "No one is unsackable. But … we haven't had one single complaint about how he has done his job, or indeed about how the Downing Street press office has done its job. That is quite a contrast from the years of [Labour's director of communications] Alastair Campbell and [special adviser] Damian McBride and all the rest of them."
Cameron faced renewed questions about the phone hacking scandal after new allegations that Coulson personally listened to the intercepted voicemail messages of public figures. The allegations were aired on the Channel 4 Dispatches programme on Monday night.
Former Labour minister Tom Watson, MP for West Bromwich East, said the new allegations made against Coulson were "new, far-reaching and warrant investigation". He wrote to Cameron calling for a statement to parliament, after an unnamed former News International executive was quoted.
Coulson resigned as editor of the News of the World after Clive Goodman, the paper's former royal editor, and Glenn Mulcaire, a private investigator paid by the newspaper, were jailed for illegal phone hacking.
Coulson, who resigned on the basis that he took "ultimate" responsibility for their actions, has consistently denied any knowledge of the phone hacking. ...
PM praises director of communications after fresh allegations by Channel 4 film over phone hacking at News of the World
Nicholas Watt
Tuesday 5 October 2010
David Cameron said last night that nobody on his team is unsackable, as he faced questions about his communications director, Andy Coulson.
In a Channel 4 News interview, the prime minister defended Coulson, who is facing allegations that he knew about illegal phone hacking during his time as editor of the News of the World.
Asked by Channel 4 News presenter Jon Snow whether Coulson was unsackable, Cameron said: "No one is unsackable. But … we haven't had one single complaint about how he has done his job, or indeed about how the Downing Street press office has done its job. That is quite a contrast from the years of [Labour's director of communications] Alastair Campbell and [special adviser] Damian McBride and all the rest of them."
Cameron faced renewed questions about the phone hacking scandal after new allegations that Coulson personally listened to the intercepted voicemail messages of public figures. The allegations were aired on the Channel 4 Dispatches programme on Monday night.
Former Labour minister Tom Watson, MP for West Bromwich East, said the new allegations made against Coulson were "new, far-reaching and warrant investigation". He wrote to Cameron calling for a statement to parliament, after an unnamed former News International executive was quoted.
Coulson resigned as editor of the News of the World after Clive Goodman, the paper's former royal editor, and Glenn Mulcaire, a private investigator paid by the newspaper, were jailed for illegal phone hacking.
Coulson, who resigned on the basis that he took "ultimate" responsibility for their actions, has consistently denied any knowledge of the phone hacking. ...
Hungary toxic sludge spill an 'ecological catastrophe' says government
Hungary declares a state of emergency as 1m cubic metres of sludge leaks from an alumina factory killing four and injuring 120
Mark Tran and agencies
Tuesday 5 October 2010
Hungary today declared a state of emergency in three western counties after a dam holding back a vast reservoir of toxic red sludge, from an alumina plant, burst, killing four people and injuring 120 others in what officials said was an "ecological catastrophe".
An elderly woman, a young man and a three-year-old child died in the deluge and six others were reported missing. Two of the injured were in a serious condition.
The sludge, which is waste produced during aluminium manufacture, swept cars off roads and damaged bridges and homes, forcing the evacuation of 400 residents. About 7,000 people are thought to have been directly affected by the spill.
The sludge poured out yesterday when a dam at the reservoir of the Ajkai Timfoldgyar Zrt alumina plant, owned by MAL Zrt, broke after days of heavy rain.
So far, about 1m cubic metres of sludge have leaked from the reservoir. Seven towns, including Kolontal, Devecser and Somlovasarhely, have been affected near the plant in Ajka, 100 miles south-west of Budapest.
Doctors said that the injured were being closely monitored because the chemical burns caused by the sludge could take days to emerge and what could seem like superficial injuries could later cause damage to deeper tissue.
Robert Kis, in Devecser, said his uncle was taken to Budapest by helicopter after the sludge "burned him to the bone". The flood overturned his wife's car, pushing it 30 metres to the back of the garden, while his van was lifted on to a fence. ...
Tinfoil: is it really worth it?
Hungary declares a state of emergency as 1m cubic metres of sludge leaks from an alumina factory killing four and injuring 120
Mark Tran and agencies
Tuesday 5 October 2010
Hungary today declared a state of emergency in three western counties after a dam holding back a vast reservoir of toxic red sludge, from an alumina plant, burst, killing four people and injuring 120 others in what officials said was an "ecological catastrophe".
An elderly woman, a young man and a three-year-old child died in the deluge and six others were reported missing. Two of the injured were in a serious condition.
The sludge, which is waste produced during aluminium manufacture, swept cars off roads and damaged bridges and homes, forcing the evacuation of 400 residents. About 7,000 people are thought to have been directly affected by the spill.
The sludge poured out yesterday when a dam at the reservoir of the Ajkai Timfoldgyar Zrt alumina plant, owned by MAL Zrt, broke after days of heavy rain.
So far, about 1m cubic metres of sludge have leaked from the reservoir. Seven towns, including Kolontal, Devecser and Somlovasarhely, have been affected near the plant in Ajka, 100 miles south-west of Budapest.
Doctors said that the injured were being closely monitored because the chemical burns caused by the sludge could take days to emerge and what could seem like superficial injuries could later cause damage to deeper tissue.
Robert Kis, in Devecser, said his uncle was taken to Budapest by helicopter after the sludge "burned him to the bone". The flood overturned his wife's car, pushing it 30 metres to the back of the garden, while his van was lifted on to a fence. ...
Tinfoil: is it really worth it?
As Jérôme Kerviel stood to hear the verdict that would decide his fate, not a flicker of emotion showed in his eyes. It was only once the judge had gone and the court had risen that the former trader slumped in his chair and stared down at the floor. He had entered the chamber looking sharp in a suit and shining leather shoes, but left it a broken man.
The ruling read out in Paris's historic Palais de Justice was eagerly anticipated. But few had predicted how hard the court would come down on Kerviel, the man behind one of history's biggest trading scandals.
Accused of breach of trust, computer abuse and forgery, the 33-year-old was convicted of all three charges and was sentenced to five years' imprisonment, with two years suspended. In an order that prompted an audible gasp from court observers, he was also told to pay damages to Société Générale of €4.9bn (£4.2bn) – the total sum of money his risky betting strategies cost his former employers in January 2008.
It is understood the bank views the granting of damages as a symbolic payment, and may not intend to force its erstwhile employee into a lifetime of unpayable debt. Its lawyer, Jean Veil, said the tough verdict was "moral compensation" for a company which insists it knew nothing of the malpractice. "It has been very clearly shown that Jérôme Kerviel's behaviour, his lies, were so sophisticated that the bank could not suspect what he was doing," he added.
Olivier Metzner, the defendant's lawyer, begged to differ. "This is a completely unreasonable ruling which says that the bank is responsible for nothing, not responsible for a creature it has made, and that only Jérôme Kerviel is responsible for the excesses [and] the crises of a banking system," he said, adding that he would "quite obviously" be appealing.
Such outrage was unlikely to cut any ice with judge Dominique Pauthe, whose dense, often impenetrable ruling tore into Kerviel's character and demolished his lawyers' attempts to portray him as the victim of a wider system and global malaise.
According to Pauthe, the Brittany-born computer whizz was a quietly cynical operator who exploited his technological knowhow and market understanding to pull the wool over his employers' eyes.
Exposing the bank to uncovered trades worth €50bn – more than Société Générale's total value – he took risks on a "gigantic scale", all the time maintaining his sang-froid. "The varied nature of his means of forgery and deceit were rivalled only by the dazzling reactivity, the constant cool-headedness and the deceptive serenity which he was able to exhibit on an everyday basis," said the judge.
He added: "Through his deliberate actions, he put in danger the solvency of the bank employing 140,000 people, including him, whose future was seriously endangered … In their size, their specificity and the context of crisis in which they occurred, these acts undoubtedly harmed the international economic order." ...
The ruling read out in Paris's historic Palais de Justice was eagerly anticipated. But few had predicted how hard the court would come down on Kerviel, the man behind one of history's biggest trading scandals.
Accused of breach of trust, computer abuse and forgery, the 33-year-old was convicted of all three charges and was sentenced to five years' imprisonment, with two years suspended. In an order that prompted an audible gasp from court observers, he was also told to pay damages to Société Générale of €4.9bn (£4.2bn) – the total sum of money his risky betting strategies cost his former employers in January 2008.
It is understood the bank views the granting of damages as a symbolic payment, and may not intend to force its erstwhile employee into a lifetime of unpayable debt. Its lawyer, Jean Veil, said the tough verdict was "moral compensation" for a company which insists it knew nothing of the malpractice. "It has been very clearly shown that Jérôme Kerviel's behaviour, his lies, were so sophisticated that the bank could not suspect what he was doing," he added.
Olivier Metzner, the defendant's lawyer, begged to differ. "This is a completely unreasonable ruling which says that the bank is responsible for nothing, not responsible for a creature it has made, and that only Jérôme Kerviel is responsible for the excesses [and] the crises of a banking system," he said, adding that he would "quite obviously" be appealing.
Such outrage was unlikely to cut any ice with judge Dominique Pauthe, whose dense, often impenetrable ruling tore into Kerviel's character and demolished his lawyers' attempts to portray him as the victim of a wider system and global malaise.
According to Pauthe, the Brittany-born computer whizz was a quietly cynical operator who exploited his technological knowhow and market understanding to pull the wool over his employers' eyes.
Exposing the bank to uncovered trades worth €50bn – more than Société Générale's total value – he took risks on a "gigantic scale", all the time maintaining his sang-froid. "The varied nature of his means of forgery and deceit were rivalled only by the dazzling reactivity, the constant cool-headedness and the deceptive serenity which he was able to exhibit on an everyday basis," said the judge.
He added: "Through his deliberate actions, he put in danger the solvency of the bank employing 140,000 people, including him, whose future was seriously endangered … In their size, their specificity and the context of crisis in which they occurred, these acts undoubtedly harmed the international economic order." ...
Dmitry Medvedev's stereo system has Russia's bloggers buzzing
Breakfast talks with Vladimir Putin offer glimpse of president's £130,000 state-of-the-art music system
Luke Harding in Moscow
Tuesday 5 October 2010
Forget the sacking of Moscow's mayor or Russia's chances of beating England to host the 2018 world cup. Russia's blogosphere was today buzzing with a discussion of president Dmitry Medvedev's state-of-the-art stereo system.
On Friday Medvedev invited Vladimir Putin to his Moscow residence for a simple breakfast of milk and brown bread. The meeting was meant to reinforce the two leaders' unity and their humble love of patriotic dairy products.
Sharp-eyed bloggers, however, spotted Medvedev's extraordinary stereo lurking in the background. Experts estimated it was worth up to $200,000 (£130,000). It includes giant speakers, a CD player, amplifiers, and other expensive gadgets. It is not clear whether the stereo belongs to Medvedev himself – a Deep Purple fan and keen vinyl enthusiast – or is the property of the state, in this case the Russian Federation. Either way, it is a tantalising clue in a country where any mention of Putin or Medvedev's personal wealth is strictly taboo.
Bloggers seemed unimpressed by Medvedev's choice of audio equipment, much of it made in Britain (including a bespoke Avid Acutus Reference SP turntable, made in Huntingdon, Cambridgeshire, and two Swiss-made Daniel Hertz M1 speakers, costing a cool $75,000 a pair, it was estimated.)
One blogger, yarosh, declared: "The experts I've talked to tell me this is a bit of a vulgar stereo complex. There's nothing special about it. You can find something cooler and cheaper in Russia and, most crucially, with a superior sound." Others wanted to know why Medvedev had not bought a Russian model and whether he had paid for it himself or used taxpayers' cash. "If the stereo belonged to Obama, or any European leader, this would be a scandal rather than a joke," one blogger, westernstorm, pointed out. ...
Breakfast talks with Vladimir Putin offer glimpse of president's £130,000 state-of-the-art music system
Luke Harding in Moscow
Tuesday 5 October 2010
Forget the sacking of Moscow's mayor or Russia's chances of beating England to host the 2018 world cup. Russia's blogosphere was today buzzing with a discussion of president Dmitry Medvedev's state-of-the-art stereo system.
On Friday Medvedev invited Vladimir Putin to his Moscow residence for a simple breakfast of milk and brown bread. The meeting was meant to reinforce the two leaders' unity and their humble love of patriotic dairy products.
Sharp-eyed bloggers, however, spotted Medvedev's extraordinary stereo lurking in the background. Experts estimated it was worth up to $200,000 (£130,000). It includes giant speakers, a CD player, amplifiers, and other expensive gadgets. It is not clear whether the stereo belongs to Medvedev himself – a Deep Purple fan and keen vinyl enthusiast – or is the property of the state, in this case the Russian Federation. Either way, it is a tantalising clue in a country where any mention of Putin or Medvedev's personal wealth is strictly taboo.
Bloggers seemed unimpressed by Medvedev's choice of audio equipment, much of it made in Britain (including a bespoke Avid Acutus Reference SP turntable, made in Huntingdon, Cambridgeshire, and two Swiss-made Daniel Hertz M1 speakers, costing a cool $75,000 a pair, it was estimated.)
One blogger, yarosh, declared: "The experts I've talked to tell me this is a bit of a vulgar stereo complex. There's nothing special about it. You can find something cooler and cheaper in Russia and, most crucially, with a superior sound." Others wanted to know why Medvedev had not bought a Russian model and whether he had paid for it himself or used taxpayers' cash. "If the stereo belonged to Obama, or any European leader, this would be a scandal rather than a joke," one blogger, westernstorm, pointed out. ...
Salt and battering at the State Fair of Texas
Joel De La Rosa
October 5th, 2010
... This year’s Most Creative award went to Fried Beer - a pretzel pocket filled with beer then fried and served with melted cheddar cheese. "It tastes like ravioli with a shot of beer!" said a female fairgoer. "It's like eating nachos and beer at the same time."
Another woman, not knowing if she should drink it or eat, decided, "I’d rather just have a beer!"
Another Big Tex Choice award went to Deep Fried S’mores Pop-Tart. "First we start with a regular Pop-Tart, we batter it, roll it a peanut butter concoction and fry it,” explained Issac Rousso of Taste of Cuba. Then he covers it with powdered sugar, whipped cream, chocolate sauce and chocolate sprinkles. "At the end what you got is a Deep Fried Pop-Tart," Issac said with a proud smile.
Among the other fried items featured this year are Deep Fried Frozen Margarita, Fried Lemonade, Fried Chocolate, Fried Texas Caviar and Fried Club Salad....
Thanks, dear Anneliese....I think...
Joel De La Rosa
October 5th, 2010
... This year’s Most Creative award went to Fried Beer - a pretzel pocket filled with beer then fried and served with melted cheddar cheese. "It tastes like ravioli with a shot of beer!" said a female fairgoer. "It's like eating nachos and beer at the same time."
Another woman, not knowing if she should drink it or eat, decided, "I’d rather just have a beer!"
Another Big Tex Choice award went to Deep Fried S’mores Pop-Tart. "First we start with a regular Pop-Tart, we batter it, roll it a peanut butter concoction and fry it,” explained Issac Rousso of Taste of Cuba. Then he covers it with powdered sugar, whipped cream, chocolate sauce and chocolate sprinkles. "At the end what you got is a Deep Fried Pop-Tart," Issac said with a proud smile.
Among the other fried items featured this year are Deep Fried Frozen Margarita, Fried Lemonade, Fried Chocolate, Fried Texas Caviar and Fried Club Salad....
Thanks, dear Anneliese....I think...
Verizon to refund $30-$90m in 'mystery fees'
As FCC investigation continues
By Rik Myslewski in San Francisco
4th October 2010
Verizon will refund between $30 and $90 million to customers for "mystery fees" charged to their wireless accounts — but the US Federal Communications Commission says that the paybacks won't end their investigation into the US's largest wireless provider's billing practices.
"As we reviewed customer accounts," said Verizon counsel Mary Coyne when announcing the payback Sunday, "we discovered that over the past several years approximately 15 million customers who did not have data plans were billed for data sessions on their phones that they did not initiate."
According to Coyne, "The majority of the data sessions involved minor data exchanges caused by software built into their phones; others included accessing certain web links, which should not have incurred charges."
The 15 million overcharged customers will receive credits on their October or November bills of between $2 and $6 apiece; customers who are no longer on a Verizon plan will get refund checks for the appropriate amount. Coyne did note, however, that "some will receive larger credits or refunds."
"The FCC Enforcement Bureau began looking into this matter ten months ago after reports from consumers about these mystery fees," said FCC enforcement bureau chief Michele Ellison in a statement.
"We're gratified to see Verizon agree to finally repay its customers," Ellison said. "[But[ questions remain as to why it took Verizon two years to reimburse its customers and why greater disclosure and other corrective actions did not come much, much sooner."
And Verizon isn't off the hook quite yet. "The Enforcement Bureau will continue to explore these issues," said Ellison, "including the possibility of additional penalties, to ensure that all companies prioritize the interests of consumers when billing problems occur."
Verizon may not be alone in its dip into FCC hot water — The Washington Post reports that the commission declined to comment about whether its investigation was also targeting AT&T, T-Mobile, and Sprint.
As FCC investigation continues
By Rik Myslewski in San Francisco
4th October 2010
Verizon will refund between $30 and $90 million to customers for "mystery fees" charged to their wireless accounts — but the US Federal Communications Commission says that the paybacks won't end their investigation into the US's largest wireless provider's billing practices.
"As we reviewed customer accounts," said Verizon counsel Mary Coyne when announcing the payback Sunday, "we discovered that over the past several years approximately 15 million customers who did not have data plans were billed for data sessions on their phones that they did not initiate."
According to Coyne, "The majority of the data sessions involved minor data exchanges caused by software built into their phones; others included accessing certain web links, which should not have incurred charges."
The 15 million overcharged customers will receive credits on their October or November bills of between $2 and $6 apiece; customers who are no longer on a Verizon plan will get refund checks for the appropriate amount. Coyne did note, however, that "some will receive larger credits or refunds."
"The FCC Enforcement Bureau began looking into this matter ten months ago after reports from consumers about these mystery fees," said FCC enforcement bureau chief Michele Ellison in a statement.
"We're gratified to see Verizon agree to finally repay its customers," Ellison said. "[But[ questions remain as to why it took Verizon two years to reimburse its customers and why greater disclosure and other corrective actions did not come much, much sooner."
And Verizon isn't off the hook quite yet. "The Enforcement Bureau will continue to explore these issues," said Ellison, "including the possibility of additional penalties, to ensure that all companies prioritize the interests of consumers when billing problems occur."
Verizon may not be alone in its dip into FCC hot water — The Washington Post reports that the commission declined to comment about whether its investigation was also targeting AT&T, T-Mobile, and Sprint.
A perfect example of why we still have a 56k dial up modem:
Such foolishnesse.
Edited to add:
A Canadian friend says the deal he's got is $30/mo for 3 months; thereafter it's $47 when bundled, $57 if not. Damn near $60 a month is comparable to what I find around here, but he's getting up to 15 Mbps download speed, 1 Mbps upload speed, and the modem is included. None of our lot offer a free modem.
A Dutch friend says he pays €22 for unlimited Internet, up to a speed of 20 Mb!!!
Such foolishnesse.
Edited to add:
A Canadian friend says the deal he's got is $30/mo for 3 months; thereafter it's $47 when bundled, $57 if not. Damn near $60 a month is comparable to what I find around here, but he's getting up to 15 Mbps download speed, 1 Mbps upload speed, and the modem is included. None of our lot offer a free modem.
A Dutch friend says he pays €22 for unlimited Internet, up to a speed of 20 Mb!!!
Even the fake furlong is fixed
The venerable Mascot Grand National has been infiltrated in recent years by contestants who are bent on winning, which is hardly in the spirit of the British sport
By Telegraph View
03 Oct 2010
Break with tradition: some participants in the Mascot Grand National are ringers in stripped-down costumes, designed for velocity rather than levity
Just when it seemed that the reputation of sport couldn’t be brought much lower, with the field of Test cricket besmirched by rumours of bribery and corruption, and the greens of professional golf turned positively blue with tales of porn stars and pole-dancers, come today’s dreadful revelations about the Mascot Grand National.
This venerable contest between football club mascots, where scores of persons clad in gigantic outfits of foam and fake fur struggle along a 220-yard course and over six fences, has been infiltrated in recent years by contestants who are bent on winning, which is hardly in the spirit of the British sport. More to the point, some of these participants are not the actual mascots who attend matches, but ringers in stripped-down costumes, designed for velocity rather than levity.
Perhaps a solution would be to replace the fabulous creatures of the club mascot universe with the actual beasts used by the British Army. A race of regimental mascots would make for a lively event, after all, testing the paces of Irish wolfhounds, Staffordshire bull terriers, rams, goats, Shetland ponies and ferrets. Sadly, the current culture of gamesmanship might bring on a sudden spurt of evolution, with Millwall swapping Zampa the Lion for a cheetah, Swansea’s swan turning into Cyril the Ostrich, and Oldham’s owl into Chaddy the Peregrine Falcon.
The venerable Mascot Grand National has been infiltrated in recent years by contestants who are bent on winning, which is hardly in the spirit of the British sport
By Telegraph View
03 Oct 2010
Break with tradition: some participants in the Mascot Grand National are ringers in stripped-down costumes, designed for velocity rather than levity
Just when it seemed that the reputation of sport couldn’t be brought much lower, with the field of Test cricket besmirched by rumours of bribery and corruption, and the greens of professional golf turned positively blue with tales of porn stars and pole-dancers, come today’s dreadful revelations about the Mascot Grand National.
This venerable contest between football club mascots, where scores of persons clad in gigantic outfits of foam and fake fur struggle along a 220-yard course and over six fences, has been infiltrated in recent years by contestants who are bent on winning, which is hardly in the spirit of the British sport. More to the point, some of these participants are not the actual mascots who attend matches, but ringers in stripped-down costumes, designed for velocity rather than levity.
Perhaps a solution would be to replace the fabulous creatures of the club mascot universe with the actual beasts used by the British Army. A race of regimental mascots would make for a lively event, after all, testing the paces of Irish wolfhounds, Staffordshire bull terriers, rams, goats, Shetland ponies and ferrets. Sadly, the current culture of gamesmanship might bring on a sudden spurt of evolution, with Millwall swapping Zampa the Lion for a cheetah, Swansea’s swan turning into Cyril the Ostrich, and Oldham’s owl into Chaddy the Peregrine Falcon.
Mascot Grand National hit by boycott
The Mascot Grand National, a race that pits sporting mascots against each other, has been marred by a bitter row that questions the event's very integrity and threatens to deal it a terminal blow.
By Jasper Copping
02 Oct 2010
Wacky Macky Bear of Saffron Walden FC races to victory in a previous Mascot Grand National Photo: ALISTAIR GRANT
It is an annual race that pits an array of furry dragons, giant farmyard animals, oversized birds, and fluffy poachers and pirates against one another.
For more than a decade the Mascot Grand National has been a keenly-contested fixture on the sporting calendar featuring representatives from football clubs across the country.
But this year's race, due to be held today, has been marred by a bitter row that questions the event's very integrity and threatens to deal it a terminal blow.
Dozens of competitors are boycotting the charity race because they believe it has been hijacked by "ringers". The renegade mascots are even considering picketing the event in protest.
They say it has moved too far away from its roots – as a contest between "professional" mascots who appear each week for football clubs – and has since been taken over by private companies, charities and other, minor, sports clubs looking to promote themselves.
They claim that many of the new competitors are not proper, full-time mascots but are often amateur sportsmen in little more than fancy dress who pose as mascots just for the day.
Many of them do not even bother to wear proper mascots' costume, opting instead for running shoes, lightweight tracksuits, and masks. Previous competitors have raced in outfits that are nothing more than football kits worn with tights and a mask.
This gives them a significant advantage over the "professional" mascots, who must lumber over the one furlong course – with six fences – in bulky foam suits, giant headgear and oversized feet.
The striking mascots – all from football league or established non-league clubs – even suspect that some of the "ringers" are placing bets on themselves to win.
Among those leading the walkout is Poacher the Imp, Lincoln City's mascot. Poacher, who also goes under the name Gary Hutchinson, a 31-year-old training adviser in the construction industry, has competed on nine occasions.
"The race has moved away from what it was set up to be, towards something where chancers think they can just come and win," he added.
In previous years, the event, held at Huntingdon Racecourse, in Cambridgeshire, has attracted around 80 competitors.
But Mr Hutchinson said around 40 football mascots were boycotting the event. He understands that only two from the football league, Pilgrim Pete, from Plymouth Argyle, and Peter Burrow, from Peterborough United, are due to compete.
The organisers confirmed that the field this year is restricted to just 41 runners and riders.
Mr Hutchinson added: "We are all sticking together. We have previously tried to set up the British Union for Mascots, but every club treats their mascots differently and we couldn't really bring a set of standards together.
"However, when it comes to certain principles, we all agree."
Sheffield United's Captain Blade, who declined to give another name, said: "The race is being taken over by ringers. You have got to tell these people to stop ruining it for us and get it back to what it was before – a load of blokes going down and earning money for charity, having a laugh and entertaining people." ...
... The boycott is not the first controversy in the world of football mascots.
Previously, there have been concerns over their behaviour at matches. One season Bury's Robbie the Bobby was sent off three times, while Cyril the Swan, from Swansea City, received a £1,000 fine for a pitch invasion.
On another occasion he also ripped the head off Millwall's Zampa the Lion and drop-kicked it into the crowd, while Wolverhampton Wanderers' mascot Wolfie once started a fight with all three of Bristol City's pigs.
The Mascot Grand National, a race that pits sporting mascots against each other, has been marred by a bitter row that questions the event's very integrity and threatens to deal it a terminal blow.
By Jasper Copping
02 Oct 2010
Wacky Macky Bear of Saffron Walden FC races to victory in a previous Mascot Grand National Photo: ALISTAIR GRANT
It is an annual race that pits an array of furry dragons, giant farmyard animals, oversized birds, and fluffy poachers and pirates against one another.
For more than a decade the Mascot Grand National has been a keenly-contested fixture on the sporting calendar featuring representatives from football clubs across the country.
But this year's race, due to be held today, has been marred by a bitter row that questions the event's very integrity and threatens to deal it a terminal blow.
Dozens of competitors are boycotting the charity race because they believe it has been hijacked by "ringers". The renegade mascots are even considering picketing the event in protest.
They say it has moved too far away from its roots – as a contest between "professional" mascots who appear each week for football clubs – and has since been taken over by private companies, charities and other, minor, sports clubs looking to promote themselves.
They claim that many of the new competitors are not proper, full-time mascots but are often amateur sportsmen in little more than fancy dress who pose as mascots just for the day.
Many of them do not even bother to wear proper mascots' costume, opting instead for running shoes, lightweight tracksuits, and masks. Previous competitors have raced in outfits that are nothing more than football kits worn with tights and a mask.
This gives them a significant advantage over the "professional" mascots, who must lumber over the one furlong course – with six fences – in bulky foam suits, giant headgear and oversized feet.
The striking mascots – all from football league or established non-league clubs – even suspect that some of the "ringers" are placing bets on themselves to win.
Among those leading the walkout is Poacher the Imp, Lincoln City's mascot. Poacher, who also goes under the name Gary Hutchinson, a 31-year-old training adviser in the construction industry, has competed on nine occasions.
"The race has moved away from what it was set up to be, towards something where chancers think they can just come and win," he added.
In previous years, the event, held at Huntingdon Racecourse, in Cambridgeshire, has attracted around 80 competitors.
But Mr Hutchinson said around 40 football mascots were boycotting the event. He understands that only two from the football league, Pilgrim Pete, from Plymouth Argyle, and Peter Burrow, from Peterborough United, are due to compete.
The organisers confirmed that the field this year is restricted to just 41 runners and riders.
Mr Hutchinson added: "We are all sticking together. We have previously tried to set up the British Union for Mascots, but every club treats their mascots differently and we couldn't really bring a set of standards together.
"However, when it comes to certain principles, we all agree."
Sheffield United's Captain Blade, who declined to give another name, said: "The race is being taken over by ringers. You have got to tell these people to stop ruining it for us and get it back to what it was before – a load of blokes going down and earning money for charity, having a laugh and entertaining people." ...
... The boycott is not the first controversy in the world of football mascots.
Previously, there have been concerns over their behaviour at matches. One season Bury's Robbie the Bobby was sent off three times, while Cyril the Swan, from Swansea City, received a £1,000 fine for a pitch invasion.
On another occasion he also ripped the head off Millwall's Zampa the Lion and drop-kicked it into the crowd, while Wolverhampton Wanderers' mascot Wolfie once started a fight with all three of Bristol City's pigs.
Never known for his sensivity – and already in trouble for telling a gag about Hitler – the Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi was today condemned for more 'deplorable' jokes.
The Italian prime minister was filmed cracking jokes to members of the public which depicted Jews as money-grabbers, mocked the appearance of a female opposition MP and used the Italian language's most offensive religious oath.
The jokes were described as "deplorable" by the Vatican's official newspaper, L'Osservatore Romano, which said they offended "the sentiments of believers and the memory of the six million victims of the Shoah".
Days after Berlusconi told a youth rally an apparent joke about Adolf Hitler, he emerged from his Rome residence on 29 September to regale supporters with a joke about a Jew who charges fellow Jews money to hide in his basement from the Nazis, without telling them the war is over.
As the video of the encounter was posted on the internet, a second candid video, dating from earlier this year, also appeared.
In it, Berlusconi, filmed during a visit to L'Aquila, tells a joke poking fun at the physical appearance of Rosy Bindi, an grey haired, bespectacled opposition politician.
The punchline featured the oath 'Porco Dio', which roughly translates as 'Pig God'. It is considered one of the most blasphemous phrases in Italian, to the extent that a contestant on Italy's celebrity Big Brother was ejected for saying it in 2006.
Criticism from the Vatican's newspaper was matched by Avvenire, the newspaper of the Italian Bishops' conference, which denounced Berlusconi's "insupportable blasphemy and Jewish stereotyping".
Denis Verdini, a Berlusconi MP defended the prime minister, claiming: "Swear words and oaths sometimes slip out."
In a statement, Berlusconi claimed that jokes made in private were "neither an offence nor a sin, but merely a laugh".
"The bad taste and the responsibility are on the part of whoever publicises them," he added.
The day after Berlusconi cracked his Jewish joke, a senator in his Freedom People party was also accused of anti-semitism. ...
WTF? Has some sort of public anti-semitic-statement-making holiday just occurred?
The Italian prime minister was filmed cracking jokes to members of the public which depicted Jews as money-grabbers, mocked the appearance of a female opposition MP and used the Italian language's most offensive religious oath.
The jokes were described as "deplorable" by the Vatican's official newspaper, L'Osservatore Romano, which said they offended "the sentiments of believers and the memory of the six million victims of the Shoah".
Days after Berlusconi told a youth rally an apparent joke about Adolf Hitler, he emerged from his Rome residence on 29 September to regale supporters with a joke about a Jew who charges fellow Jews money to hide in his basement from the Nazis, without telling them the war is over.
As the video of the encounter was posted on the internet, a second candid video, dating from earlier this year, also appeared.
In it, Berlusconi, filmed during a visit to L'Aquila, tells a joke poking fun at the physical appearance of Rosy Bindi, an grey haired, bespectacled opposition politician.
The punchline featured the oath 'Porco Dio', which roughly translates as 'Pig God'. It is considered one of the most blasphemous phrases in Italian, to the extent that a contestant on Italy's celebrity Big Brother was ejected for saying it in 2006.
Criticism from the Vatican's newspaper was matched by Avvenire, the newspaper of the Italian Bishops' conference, which denounced Berlusconi's "insupportable blasphemy and Jewish stereotyping".
Denis Verdini, a Berlusconi MP defended the prime minister, claiming: "Swear words and oaths sometimes slip out."
In a statement, Berlusconi claimed that jokes made in private were "neither an offence nor a sin, but merely a laugh".
"The bad taste and the responsibility are on the part of whoever publicises them," he added.
The day after Berlusconi cracked his Jewish joke, a senator in his Freedom People party was also accused of anti-semitism. ...
WTF? Has some sort of public anti-semitic-statement-making holiday just occurred?
Phone-hacking scandal: Andy Coulson 'listened to intercepted messages'
Anonymous source tells Channel Four David Cameron's media adviser would ask for recordings to be played for him at News of the World
Nick Davies
Sunday 3 October 2010
The prime minister's media adviser, Andy Coulson, personally listened to the intercepted voicemail messages of public figures when he edited the News of the World, a senior journalist who worked alongside him has said.
Coulson has always denied knowing about any illegal activity by the journalists who worked for him, but an unidentified former executive from the paper told Channel Four Dispatches that Coulson not only knew his reporters were using intercepted voicemail but was also personally involved.
"Sometimes, they would say: 'We've got a recording' and Andy would say: 'OK, bring it into my office and play it to me' or 'Bring me, email me a transcript of it'," the journalist said.
The claim, due to be broadcast tomorrow night, goes beyond earlier statements by Coulson's former colleagues.
Sean Hoare, a showbusiness reporter, told the New York Times Coulson had "actively encouraged" him to intercept voicemail.
Paul McMullan, who handled investigations, told the Guardian illegal activity was so widespread in the newsroom that Coulson must have known about it. Coulson has denied all the claims.
Channel Four's anonymous witness, whose words are spoken by an actor in the programme, says: "Andy was a very good editor.
"He was very conscientious and he wouldn't let stories pass unless he was sure they were correct ... so, if the evidence that a reporter had was a recorded phone message, that would be what Andy would know about.
"So you'd have to say: 'Yes, there's a recorded message.' You go and either play it to him or show him a transcript of it, in order to satisfy him that you weren't going to get sued, that it wasn't made up."
In evidence to a House of Commons select committee last year, Coulson said he could not remember any instance of voicemail being intercepted during his six years at the paper.
He resigned in January 2007 after the tabloid's royal correspondent, Clive Goodman, was jailed for listening to the voicemails of three members of the royal household. "I am absolutely sure that Clive's case was a very unfortunate rogue case," he told the committee.
Channel Four's witness said: "It was fairly common – not so common that everybody was doing it. That wasn't the case at all. But the people who did know how to do it would do it regularly." ...
... Brian Paddick, a former deputy assistant commissioner at Scotland Yard who is also taking the police to court, suggested that his former colleagues' decision to cut short their original investigation may have been influenced by their links with the News of the World.
"That relationship was well worth protecting ... when you have something as big as this, where you're talking about potentially a large investigation involving illegal activity, you can see how potentially pressure could have been brought to bear," he said. ...
Anonymous source tells Channel Four David Cameron's media adviser would ask for recordings to be played for him at News of the World
Nick Davies
Sunday 3 October 2010
The prime minister's media adviser, Andy Coulson, personally listened to the intercepted voicemail messages of public figures when he edited the News of the World, a senior journalist who worked alongside him has said.
Coulson has always denied knowing about any illegal activity by the journalists who worked for him, but an unidentified former executive from the paper told Channel Four Dispatches that Coulson not only knew his reporters were using intercepted voicemail but was also personally involved.
"Sometimes, they would say: 'We've got a recording' and Andy would say: 'OK, bring it into my office and play it to me' or 'Bring me, email me a transcript of it'," the journalist said.
The claim, due to be broadcast tomorrow night, goes beyond earlier statements by Coulson's former colleagues.
Sean Hoare, a showbusiness reporter, told the New York Times Coulson had "actively encouraged" him to intercept voicemail.
Paul McMullan, who handled investigations, told the Guardian illegal activity was so widespread in the newsroom that Coulson must have known about it. Coulson has denied all the claims.
Channel Four's anonymous witness, whose words are spoken by an actor in the programme, says: "Andy was a very good editor.
"He was very conscientious and he wouldn't let stories pass unless he was sure they were correct ... so, if the evidence that a reporter had was a recorded phone message, that would be what Andy would know about.
"So you'd have to say: 'Yes, there's a recorded message.' You go and either play it to him or show him a transcript of it, in order to satisfy him that you weren't going to get sued, that it wasn't made up."
In evidence to a House of Commons select committee last year, Coulson said he could not remember any instance of voicemail being intercepted during his six years at the paper.
He resigned in January 2007 after the tabloid's royal correspondent, Clive Goodman, was jailed for listening to the voicemails of three members of the royal household. "I am absolutely sure that Clive's case was a very unfortunate rogue case," he told the committee.
Channel Four's witness said: "It was fairly common – not so common that everybody was doing it. That wasn't the case at all. But the people who did know how to do it would do it regularly." ...
... Brian Paddick, a former deputy assistant commissioner at Scotland Yard who is also taking the police to court, suggested that his former colleagues' decision to cut short their original investigation may have been influenced by their links with the News of the World.
"That relationship was well worth protecting ... when you have something as big as this, where you're talking about potentially a large investigation involving illegal activity, you can see how potentially pressure could have been brought to bear," he said. ...
WESTERN BUREAU: Negril residents are adamant they experienced a Category-One hurricane last Tuesday night and not a tropical storm - criticising the island's Meteorological Service for what they say is its lack of up-to-date information.
Between last Tuesday night and Wednesday morning, Negril was hit by ferocious winds, brutal waves and storm surges eroding sections of the popular seven-mile beach and destroying rooms at a number of small hotels on the West End.
The West End's Xtabi, Tensing Pen, Catch-a-Falling-Star, The Caves, Rockhouse, Rick's Café, and the beachside's Sandals Negril, Negril Tree House, Foote Prints, Merril's were worst affected by the storm.
"The Met Service sent out a flash flood-warning on Tropical Storm Nicole, but we had a Category-One hurricane, with storm surges up to 30ft high, accompanied by waves crashing over them," said hotelier and area chair of the Jamaica Hotel and Tourist Association Negril Chapter, Evelyn Smith.
Smith said the severity of the storm in terms of wind speed and storm surge took many of the businesses in the resort town by surprise. "There is a need for a more efficient locally based online Met Service that has up-to-the-minute information on systems affecting the country," she argued.
According to her, the resort town is forced to rely on Wunderground.com, a weather website, "which is great, but doesn't always have the precise data needed to adequately inform persons".
Member of parliament, for Western Westmoreland, Dr Wykeham McNeill, who has been in the area since Friday, said the Met Service and the Office of Disaster Preparedness Emergency Management must find a way to do their own extrapolations and put out data that is of an international standard. "Give us information specific to sections of the country." ...
Between last Tuesday night and Wednesday morning, Negril was hit by ferocious winds, brutal waves and storm surges eroding sections of the popular seven-mile beach and destroying rooms at a number of small hotels on the West End.
The West End's Xtabi, Tensing Pen, Catch-a-Falling-Star, The Caves, Rockhouse, Rick's Café, and the beachside's Sandals Negril, Negril Tree House, Foote Prints, Merril's were worst affected by the storm.
"The Met Service sent out a flash flood-warning on Tropical Storm Nicole, but we had a Category-One hurricane, with storm surges up to 30ft high, accompanied by waves crashing over them," said hotelier and area chair of the Jamaica Hotel and Tourist Association Negril Chapter, Evelyn Smith.
Smith said the severity of the storm in terms of wind speed and storm surge took many of the businesses in the resort town by surprise. "There is a need for a more efficient locally based online Met Service that has up-to-the-minute information on systems affecting the country," she argued.
According to her, the resort town is forced to rely on Wunderground.com, a weather website, "which is great, but doesn't always have the precise data needed to adequately inform persons".
Member of parliament, for Western Westmoreland, Dr Wykeham McNeill, who has been in the area since Friday, said the Met Service and the Office of Disaster Preparedness Emergency Management must find a way to do their own extrapolations and put out data that is of an international standard. "Give us information specific to sections of the country." ...
... During the event he made several references to the controversy around Sanchez.
According to an article in The Hollywood Reporter, Stewart, in talking about donating to autism education, said: “If you went on radio and said the Jews control the media…you may want to hold on to your money.”
It was a reference to Sanchez, who had made this comment on Pete Dominick’s Sirius radio show: “I’m telling you that everybody who runs CNN is a lot like Stewart. And a lot of people who run all the other networks are a lot like Stewart. And to imply that somehow they, the people in this country who are Jewish are an oppressed minority? Yeah.” During the interview, Sanchez also called Stewart a “bigot,” and then later took the word back.
Stewart made this joke about Sanchez and Jews: “All he has to do is apologize to us, and we’ll hire him back.” ...
According to an article in The Hollywood Reporter, Stewart, in talking about donating to autism education, said: “If you went on radio and said the Jews control the media…you may want to hold on to your money.”
It was a reference to Sanchez, who had made this comment on Pete Dominick’s Sirius radio show: “I’m telling you that everybody who runs CNN is a lot like Stewart. And a lot of people who run all the other networks are a lot like Stewart. And to imply that somehow they, the people in this country who are Jewish are an oppressed minority? Yeah.” During the interview, Sanchez also called Stewart a “bigot,” and then later took the word back.
Stewart made this joke about Sanchez and Jews: “All he has to do is apologize to us, and we’ll hire him back.” ...
Ukrainian police on Thursday arrested five people suspected of orchestrating an international fraud ring that siphoned more than $70m out of bank accounts by infecting computers with the Zeus trojan.
The action by Ukraine's SBU was part of an unprecedented partnership among law enforcement agencies in the US, the UK, the Netherlands, and Ukraine, the FBI said in a press release issued on Friday. “Operation Trident Beach” first came to light on Tuesday with the arrest of 19 people in London in connection to Zeus-related offenses. On Thursday, 11 individuals were charged in Westminster Magistrates' Court, and in New York federal prosecutors announced similar charges against 37.
Most of those suspects were accused of being “money mules” who set up hundreds of bank accounts under fraudulent names to launder money transferred from accounts that were compromised by the crimeware.
The five people arrested in Ukraine, by contrast, are “key subjects responsible for this overarching scheme” the FBI said. In all, the ring attempted to steal $220m and succeeded in getting $70m. ...
The action by Ukraine's SBU was part of an unprecedented partnership among law enforcement agencies in the US, the UK, the Netherlands, and Ukraine, the FBI said in a press release issued on Friday. “Operation Trident Beach” first came to light on Tuesday with the arrest of 19 people in London in connection to Zeus-related offenses. On Thursday, 11 individuals were charged in Westminster Magistrates' Court, and in New York federal prosecutors announced similar charges against 37.
Most of those suspects were accused of being “money mules” who set up hundreds of bank accounts under fraudulent names to launder money transferred from accounts that were compromised by the crimeware.
The five people arrested in Ukraine, by contrast, are “key subjects responsible for this overarching scheme” the FBI said. In all, the ring attempted to steal $220m and succeeded in getting $70m. ...
Rick Sanchez fired by CNN after comments about Jews and Jon Stewart
CNN anchor Rick Sanchez leaves the network after sneering comments about Jon Stewart and Jews running US television
by Richard Adams
Friday 1 October 2010
guardian.co.uk
In a terse statement, the US cable network CNN announced that daytime anchor Rick Sanchez was no longer employed, only a day after Sanchez made a string of controversial remarks, accusing Daily Show host Jon Stewart of being a "bigot" and made sneering comments about American Jews as "an oppressed minority".
The brief statement from CNN this evening reads in full:
"Rick Sanchez is no longer with the company. We thank Rick for his years of service and we wish him well."
On Thursday, Sanchez gave an interview on XM Radio in which he called Stewart – who has frequently poked fun at Sanchez on the Daily Show – a bigot before correcting himself and describing Stewart as "prejudiced" after being challenged by the interviewer, Pete Dominick.
But what set off a storm of controversy on blogs, after a transcript of Sanchez's interview was circulated, was his remarks about Jews. Here's a partial transcript of the exchange that followed:
Rick Sanchez: I don't think it's a conscious thing. I just think it's important that people who are not minorities understand that those of us who are – and very few of us will say the things that I just said – are actually more complex than they think we are.
Pete Dominick: [Jon] Stewart's a minority as much as you are. He's Jewish.
Sanchez: Yeah. Yeah. Very powerless people. Please. What are you, kidding?
Dominick: You're telling me that....
Sanchez: I'm telling you that everybody who runs CNN is a lot like Stewart, and a lot of people who run all the other networks are a lot like Stewart. And to imply that somehow they – the people in this country who are Jewish – are an oppressed minority? Yeah.
Several US Jewish groups called on Sanchez to retract his remarks but the anchor made no public comment. He did not appear to anchor his daily Rick's List segment on CNN on Friday afternoon, before the network's statement was released. ...
Don't let the door slam you on your annoying, bigoted, pompous, egotistical, ignorant ass, ricky. KTHXBAI
CNN anchor Rick Sanchez leaves the network after sneering comments about Jon Stewart and Jews running US television
by Richard Adams
Friday 1 October 2010
guardian.co.uk
In a terse statement, the US cable network CNN announced that daytime anchor Rick Sanchez was no longer employed, only a day after Sanchez made a string of controversial remarks, accusing Daily Show host Jon Stewart of being a "bigot" and made sneering comments about American Jews as "an oppressed minority".
The brief statement from CNN this evening reads in full:
"Rick Sanchez is no longer with the company. We thank Rick for his years of service and we wish him well."
On Thursday, Sanchez gave an interview on XM Radio in which he called Stewart – who has frequently poked fun at Sanchez on the Daily Show – a bigot before correcting himself and describing Stewart as "prejudiced" after being challenged by the interviewer, Pete Dominick.
But what set off a storm of controversy on blogs, after a transcript of Sanchez's interview was circulated, was his remarks about Jews. Here's a partial transcript of the exchange that followed:
Rick Sanchez: I don't think it's a conscious thing. I just think it's important that people who are not minorities understand that those of us who are – and very few of us will say the things that I just said – are actually more complex than they think we are.
Pete Dominick: [Jon] Stewart's a minority as much as you are. He's Jewish.
Sanchez: Yeah. Yeah. Very powerless people. Please. What are you, kidding?
Dominick: You're telling me that....
Sanchez: I'm telling you that everybody who runs CNN is a lot like Stewart, and a lot of people who run all the other networks are a lot like Stewart. And to imply that somehow they – the people in this country who are Jewish – are an oppressed minority? Yeah.
Several US Jewish groups called on Sanchez to retract his remarks but the anchor made no public comment. He did not appear to anchor his daily Rick's List segment on CNN on Friday afternoon, before the network's statement was released. ...
Don't let the door slam you on your annoying, bigoted, pompous, egotistical, ignorant ass, ricky. KTHXBAI
JEWS DID RICK SANCHEZ
CNN Fires Rick Sanchez, But Not For Obvious Reason of Being Dumb
by Ken Layne
11:37 pm October 1, 2010
CNN, the once-influential news channel that for the past several years employed a mouth-breathing fool as its main daytime news reader, has finally fired this mouth-breathing fool. Was Rick Sanchez let go because he in an insult to the intelligence of anyone smart enough to operate a teevee remote? No, he was fired for saying idiotic things on a satellite radio channel. The Jews won this round, Sanchez! Guess you’ll have to go back to Cuba. Wait, what?
Sanchez was only known as “Rick’s List” to sad people in rest homes forced to watch CNN two days a week (it’s Fox News and History Channel the rest of the time). But inside his pea-sized brain, being a highly paid news reader on a major news channel five days a week was a form of racial insult, in that Jews (CNN) hate Latinos (dumb-looking white clods who claim to be “Cuban-American”). Also, lousy Jon Stewart thinks he’s so smart, well he’s just a Jew who is prejudiced (like all Jews) against Mexicans such as Rick’s List, the end.
Who knew that inside the mashed-potato brains of Rick Sanchez there was all this simmering, misplaced racial fury? If we were forced to guess, we would’ve said the main thoughts inside Rick’s brain were “time to poop!” and “don’t need to poop yet.”
Comments:
Umbrageofsnow
October 2, 2010 at 1:17 am
Is Rick Sanchez one of them immigrants they talk about "stealing our jobs" on Fox News? Because clearly he was taking up an anchor position your standard Fox anchor could have held, IQ-wise. This new open slot is just the place for another token conservative. Maybe one of the Friends from Fox and Friends?
They'll hopefully learn the lesson not to bite the hand of the NEW WORLD ORDER ELITE RACIST STEALTH-JEW OVERLORDS who pay their salary.
JoshuaNorton
October 2, 2010 at 1:19 am
Shalom, mofo.
straighteight
October 2, 2010 at 1:24 am
It's unnerving to think that the only thing holding Rick Sanchez from total television domination was Jewish control of all media. We need to reinforce the wall of Jews between ambitious morons and the public airways. ...
CNN Fires Rick Sanchez, But Not For Obvious Reason of Being Dumb
by Ken Layne
11:37 pm October 1, 2010
CNN, the once-influential news channel that for the past several years employed a mouth-breathing fool as its main daytime news reader, has finally fired this mouth-breathing fool. Was Rick Sanchez let go because he in an insult to the intelligence of anyone smart enough to operate a teevee remote? No, he was fired for saying idiotic things on a satellite radio channel. The Jews won this round, Sanchez! Guess you’ll have to go back to Cuba. Wait, what?
Sanchez was only known as “Rick’s List” to sad people in rest homes forced to watch CNN two days a week (it’s Fox News and History Channel the rest of the time). But inside his pea-sized brain, being a highly paid news reader on a major news channel five days a week was a form of racial insult, in that Jews (CNN) hate Latinos (dumb-looking white clods who claim to be “Cuban-American”). Also, lousy Jon Stewart thinks he’s so smart, well he’s just a Jew who is prejudiced (like all Jews) against Mexicans such as Rick’s List, the end.
Who knew that inside the mashed-potato brains of Rick Sanchez there was all this simmering, misplaced racial fury? If we were forced to guess, we would’ve said the main thoughts inside Rick’s brain were “time to poop!” and “don’t need to poop yet.”
Comments:
Umbrageofsnow
October 2, 2010 at 1:17 am
Is Rick Sanchez one of them immigrants they talk about "stealing our jobs" on Fox News? Because clearly he was taking up an anchor position your standard Fox anchor could have held, IQ-wise. This new open slot is just the place for another token conservative. Maybe one of the Friends from Fox and Friends?
They'll hopefully learn the lesson not to bite the hand of the NEW WORLD ORDER ELITE RACIST STEALTH-JEW OVERLORDS who pay their salary.
JoshuaNorton
October 2, 2010 at 1:19 am
Shalom, mofo.
straighteight
October 2, 2010 at 1:24 am
It's unnerving to think that the only thing holding Rick Sanchez from total television domination was Jewish control of all media. We need to reinforce the wall of Jews between ambitious morons and the public airways. ...
May all the God/desses bless Jon Stewart.
...Clementi killed himself, jumping off the George Washington Bridge three days after the incident. Meanwhile, on CNN, Rick Sanchez couldn’t be persuaded that this disgusting affair reeeeeally qualified as “bullying.”
While we can respect Sanchez taking some unpopular stances on this story (he makes some good points about the slippery slope of trying to charge Ravi and Wei with Clementi’s death instead of merely invasion of privacy) his opinions on “bullying” are just weird. He doesn’t just believe that this isn’t bullying, he appears to not believe bullying is a real thing to begin with.
“‘Bullying?’ How is this bullying? You know, this whole term, it’s a psycho-babble, media term that we’ve made up. A person is mean to another person. How is this bullying?”
A term made up by the media? Maybe “cyber-bullying,” but Merriam-Webster has the first known use of the word “bully” as happening in 1693. Arguing that “bullying” is a made up term is kind of like arguing that the word “green” is a made up term.
Sanchez frequently is criticized by people as being a bit of a “meathead.” This is unfair. Still though, if he wants to escape that impression, he probably shouldn’t go on TV and claim that bullying doesn’t exist while doing a report on a dead teenager. ...
While we can respect Sanchez taking some unpopular stances on this story (he makes some good points about the slippery slope of trying to charge Ravi and Wei with Clementi’s death instead of merely invasion of privacy) his opinions on “bullying” are just weird. He doesn’t just believe that this isn’t bullying, he appears to not believe bullying is a real thing to begin with.
“‘Bullying?’ How is this bullying? You know, this whole term, it’s a psycho-babble, media term that we’ve made up. A person is mean to another person. How is this bullying?”
A term made up by the media? Maybe “cyber-bullying,” but Merriam-Webster has the first known use of the word “bully” as happening in 1693. Arguing that “bullying” is a made up term is kind of like arguing that the word “green” is a made up term.
Sanchez frequently is criticized by people as being a bit of a “meathead.” This is unfair. Still though, if he wants to escape that impression, he probably shouldn’t go on TV and claim that bullying doesn’t exist while doing a report on a dead teenager. ...
Utilities sputter back on stream
Published: Friday | October 1, 2010
A Jamaica Public Service technician repairs a power line along East Queen Street in Kingston yesterday. - Norman Grindley/Chief Photographer
MOST CUSTOMERS of the Jamaica Public Service Company (JPS) could have their power restored by today.
At the same time, the National Water Commission (NWC) says it is working feverishly to provide its customers with water, but has warned that many may not get the precious commodity right away.
Following the recent lashing by tropical depression 16 and even after it was upgraded to Tropical Storm Nicole, the utility companies are struggling to restore electricity and running water to most of the island.
"Some of the rural systems will take longer (than other areas) to come back up, especially if there are issues of access to the communities and to the water-supply sources," said Charles Buchanan, NWC's communications manager.
The NWC reported that nearly 200 pumping stations and treatment plants of a total of 460 were damaged across the island while approxi-mately 100,000 JPS customers were without electricity yesterday.
Meanwhile, the National Works Agency (NWA) says it continues to grapple with problems arising from damage to the island's road and bridge network.
NWA Communications Manager Stephen Shaw last night told The Gleaner the agency had received more than 250 reports of incidents on the roadways
"This includes over 100 roads which were impassable due to landslides, flooding, fallen trees, downed power lines, bridges which have given away and washed-out approach roads, " Shaw said. ...
Published: Friday | October 1, 2010
A Jamaica Public Service technician repairs a power line along East Queen Street in Kingston yesterday. - Norman Grindley/Chief Photographer
MOST CUSTOMERS of the Jamaica Public Service Company (JPS) could have their power restored by today.
At the same time, the National Water Commission (NWC) says it is working feverishly to provide its customers with water, but has warned that many may not get the precious commodity right away.
Following the recent lashing by tropical depression 16 and even after it was upgraded to Tropical Storm Nicole, the utility companies are struggling to restore electricity and running water to most of the island.
"Some of the rural systems will take longer (than other areas) to come back up, especially if there are issues of access to the communities and to the water-supply sources," said Charles Buchanan, NWC's communications manager.
The NWC reported that nearly 200 pumping stations and treatment plants of a total of 460 were damaged across the island while approxi-mately 100,000 JPS customers were without electricity yesterday.
Meanwhile, the National Works Agency (NWA) says it continues to grapple with problems arising from damage to the island's road and bridge network.
NWA Communications Manager Stephen Shaw last night told The Gleaner the agency had received more than 250 reports of incidents on the roadways
"This includes over 100 roads which were impassable due to landslides, flooding, fallen trees, downed power lines, bridges which have given away and washed-out approach roads, " Shaw said. ...
Cash to cross
Published: Friday | October 1, 2010
Arthur Hall, Senior Staff Reporter
An enterprising tour guide takes a customer across the swift-moving Hope River, St Andrew, yesterday.
Members of the public brave the heavy river water yesterday after the Harbour View ford was washed away. - photos by Norman Grindley/Chief Photographer
The two-minute trip across the Hope River cost as much as $1,000 yesterday as persons trapped by the raging river paid dearly to cross in the vicinity of the Harbour View ford.
With work continuing to restore the ford, 'tour guides' placed a rope across the river and offered to move persons from one bank to the next.
"Two bills and me hold you hand go cross," said one young man as he requested $200 to get a Gleaner team from the Harbour View side of the river to the Bull Bay side. "Thousand dollars and you pants won't get wet 'cause me will carry you on me back," added the young man who later identified himself as George.
He said he offered this service after the bridge collapsed in Tropical Storm Gustav in 2008 and was prepared to continue carrying people across the river until the ford was repaired.
Several persons were quick to fork out the money although some insisted they would pay no more than $100, which was quickly accepted by the enterprising young men.
"I had to pay because I needed to come across to buy grocery and to get to Western Union," one young woman said. "Most of the shops there (Bull Bay, St Andrew) are out of food, so I had to get over here," the woman added.
"Me pay $200 and then me hold on the rope and the man carry me bag and me come cross," another woman said. "Me cool but them need to hurry up and fix the bridge. Them should have a plan B because this is the hurricane season," added the woman. ...
Please note that at the time of writing
J$100 = US$1.17 - €.85 - £.74 - CAN$1.20
J$200 = US$2.35 - €1.70 - £1.48 - CAN$2.40
J$1000 = US$11.75 - €8.52 - £7.43 - CAN$11.99
Published: Friday | October 1, 2010
Arthur Hall, Senior Staff Reporter
An enterprising tour guide takes a customer across the swift-moving Hope River, St Andrew, yesterday.
Members of the public brave the heavy river water yesterday after the Harbour View ford was washed away. - photos by Norman Grindley/Chief Photographer
The two-minute trip across the Hope River cost as much as $1,000 yesterday as persons trapped by the raging river paid dearly to cross in the vicinity of the Harbour View ford.
With work continuing to restore the ford, 'tour guides' placed a rope across the river and offered to move persons from one bank to the next.
"Two bills and me hold you hand go cross," said one young man as he requested $200 to get a Gleaner team from the Harbour View side of the river to the Bull Bay side. "Thousand dollars and you pants won't get wet 'cause me will carry you on me back," added the young man who later identified himself as George.
He said he offered this service after the bridge collapsed in Tropical Storm Gustav in 2008 and was prepared to continue carrying people across the river until the ford was repaired.
Several persons were quick to fork out the money although some insisted they would pay no more than $100, which was quickly accepted by the enterprising young men.
"I had to pay because I needed to come across to buy grocery and to get to Western Union," one young woman said. "Most of the shops there (Bull Bay, St Andrew) are out of food, so I had to get over here," the woman added.
"Me pay $200 and then me hold on the rope and the man carry me bag and me come cross," another woman said. "Me cool but them need to hurry up and fix the bridge. Them should have a plan B because this is the hurricane season," added the woman. ...
Please note that at the time of writing
J$100 = US$1.17 - €.85 - £.74 - CAN$1.20
J$200 = US$2.35 - €1.70 - £1.48 - CAN$2.40
J$1000 = US$11.75 - €8.52 - £7.43 - CAN$11.99
The police watchdog believed as far back as a year ago that it should carry out an independent review of the Metropolitan police's handling of the investigation into the News of the World phone-hacking scandal, the Guardian understands.
Senior figures at Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Constabulary decided last summer that there was sufficient public interest in the matter for it to investigate the handling of the case by the Met. The inspectorate eventually decided against undertaking a review because it did not have sufficient resources at the time.
The disclosure of the inspectorate's concerns may increase pressure on the Met, which is facing the threat of a series of legal actions over an allegedly slow response in alerting public figures and celebrities that they may have been targeted by a private investigator employed by the News of the World.
Lord Prescott, the former deputy prime minister, is the most senior political figure seeking a judicial review of the police action. Prescott, whose name was found on papers seized from the office of private investigator Glenn Mulcaire, is demanding damages from Scotland Yard for initially failing to inform him about the documents.
The inspectorate's interest in the case may raise questions about senior figures in the Home Office. The Guardian disclosed last month that Stephen Rimmer, the Home Office director general for crime and policing, had warned last summer that Scotland Yard would "deeply resent" a review of its investigation by the inspectorate. Senior officials at the inspectorate conducted their preliminary inquiry last summer after fresh allegations about the phone-hacking scandal were published by the Guardian in July 2009.
The paper reported that News Group Newspapers paid out more than £1m to settle legal cases that threatened to reveal the repeated involvement of journalists in illegal methods to obtain stories. ...
Senior figures at Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Constabulary decided last summer that there was sufficient public interest in the matter for it to investigate the handling of the case by the Met. The inspectorate eventually decided against undertaking a review because it did not have sufficient resources at the time.
The disclosure of the inspectorate's concerns may increase pressure on the Met, which is facing the threat of a series of legal actions over an allegedly slow response in alerting public figures and celebrities that they may have been targeted by a private investigator employed by the News of the World.
Lord Prescott, the former deputy prime minister, is the most senior political figure seeking a judicial review of the police action. Prescott, whose name was found on papers seized from the office of private investigator Glenn Mulcaire, is demanding damages from Scotland Yard for initially failing to inform him about the documents.
The inspectorate's interest in the case may raise questions about senior figures in the Home Office. The Guardian disclosed last month that Stephen Rimmer, the Home Office director general for crime and policing, had warned last summer that Scotland Yard would "deeply resent" a review of its investigation by the inspectorate. Senior officials at the inspectorate conducted their preliminary inquiry last summer after fresh allegations about the phone-hacking scandal were published by the Guardian in July 2009.
The paper reported that News Group Newspapers paid out more than £1m to settle legal cases that threatened to reveal the repeated involvement of journalists in illegal methods to obtain stories. ...
Land Slippages Reported in St. Mary
KINGSTON (JIS)
Wednesday, September 29, 2010
Parish Disaster Coordinator, Office of Disaster Preparedness and Emergency Management (ODPEM), St. Mary, Yolande Jankie, is reporting that there have been a number of land slippages in the parish as a result of the persistent heavy rainfall.
Speaking in an interview with JIS News, Ms. Jankie said that slippages have occurred in the Junction and Richmond areas, which are being cleared by the National Works Agency (NWA) to allow for single traffic.
"We have had reports of landslides from Red Hills to Carron Hall and that area is cut off," she said, noting that Derry Road in Western St. Mary has been severely damaged. She said that no shelters have been opened.
Ms. Jankie further informed that most sections of the parish are without electricity. The Jamaica Public Service Company (JPS) has activated its emergency operations centre, with attendants on hand to respond to emergencies, in addition to any restoration work required. ...
KINGSTON (JIS)
Wednesday, September 29, 2010
Parish Disaster Coordinator, Office of Disaster Preparedness and Emergency Management (ODPEM), St. Mary, Yolande Jankie, is reporting that there have been a number of land slippages in the parish as a result of the persistent heavy rainfall.
Speaking in an interview with JIS News, Ms. Jankie said that slippages have occurred in the Junction and Richmond areas, which are being cleared by the National Works Agency (NWA) to allow for single traffic.
"We have had reports of landslides from Red Hills to Carron Hall and that area is cut off," she said, noting that Derry Road in Western St. Mary has been severely damaged. She said that no shelters have been opened.
Ms. Jankie further informed that most sections of the parish are without electricity. The Jamaica Public Service Company (JPS) has activated its emergency operations centre, with attendants on hand to respond to emergencies, in addition to any restoration work required. ...
At least two people have been killed and about 12 others are missing after Tropical Storm Nicole triggered flash flooding in Jamaica, officials say.
In one incident, a boy died after the house he was staying [sic] collapsed into a raging torrent outside Kingston. Six members of his family are missing.
Separately, an elderly man drowned near the island nation's capital. Power was also cut to many areas of Jamaica.
Nicole later dissipated over the Florida straits, US forecasters said.
However, the Miami-based National Hurricane Center (NHC) said Nicole, with winds of up to 65kmh (40mph) and moving north-east, still posed a flooding threat to the Cayman Islands, Cuba and Jamaica.
The NHC also warned that rains were expected in the US state of Florida and the Bahamas. ...
In one incident, a boy died after the house he was staying [sic] collapsed into a raging torrent outside Kingston. Six members of his family are missing.
Separately, an elderly man drowned near the island nation's capital. Power was also cut to many areas of Jamaica.
Nicole later dissipated over the Florida straits, US forecasters said.
However, the Miami-based National Hurricane Center (NHC) said Nicole, with winds of up to 65kmh (40mph) and moving north-east, still posed a flooding threat to the Cayman Islands, Cuba and Jamaica.
The NHC also warned that rains were expected in the US state of Florida and the Bahamas. ...
... "They want to portray me and my friends as crazies, as non-journalists, as unprofessional and likely as homophobes, racists or bigots of some sort," O'Keefe fumed. But looking at O'Keefe's latest bizarre, sexist and misogynistic stunt, it is hard to see how anyone could portray him in any other way.
Lusby, Maryland (CNN) -- A conservative activist known for making undercover videos plotted to embarrass a CNN correspondent by recording a meeting on hidden cameras aboard a floating "palace of pleasure" and making sexually suggestive comments, e-mails and a planning document show.
James O'Keefe, best known for hitting the community organizing group ACORN with an undercover video sting, hoped to get CNN Investigative Correspondent Abbie Boudreau onto a boat filled with sexually explicit props and then record the session, those documents show.
The plan apparently was thwarted after Boudreau was warned minutes before it was supposed to happen.
"I never intended to become part of the story," Boudreau said. "But things suddenly took a very strange turn."
O'Keefe is best known for making a series of undercover videos inside ACORN offices around the country in 2009. The 40-year-old liberal group was crippled by scandal after O'Keefe and fellow activist Hannah Giles allegedly solicited advice from ACORN workers on setting up a brothel and evading taxes.
The videos led to some of the employees being fired and contributed to the disbanding of ACORN, which advocated for low- and middle-income and worked to register voters.
But prosecutors in New York and California eventually found no evidence of wrongdoing by the group, and the California probe found the videos had been heavily and selectively edited.
O'Keefe's next big splash ended with his arrest after he taped associates entering Louisiana Sen. Mary Landrieu's office in New Orleans posing as telephone repairmen. He ended up pleading guilty to a misdemeanor charge of entering a federal office under false pretenses and is now on probation. ...
James O'Keefe, best known for hitting the community organizing group ACORN with an undercover video sting, hoped to get CNN Investigative Correspondent Abbie Boudreau onto a boat filled with sexually explicit props and then record the session, those documents show.
The plan apparently was thwarted after Boudreau was warned minutes before it was supposed to happen.
"I never intended to become part of the story," Boudreau said. "But things suddenly took a very strange turn."
O'Keefe is best known for making a series of undercover videos inside ACORN offices around the country in 2009. The 40-year-old liberal group was crippled by scandal after O'Keefe and fellow activist Hannah Giles allegedly solicited advice from ACORN workers on setting up a brothel and evading taxes.
The videos led to some of the employees being fired and contributed to the disbanding of ACORN, which advocated for low- and middle-income and worked to register voters.
But prosecutors in New York and California eventually found no evidence of wrongdoing by the group, and the California probe found the videos had been heavily and selectively edited.
O'Keefe's next big splash ended with his arrest after he taped associates entering Louisiana Sen. Mary Landrieu's office in New Orleans posing as telephone repairmen. He ended up pleading guilty to a misdemeanor charge of entering a federal office under false pretenses and is now on probation. ...
France was warned by the European authorities today that it would face disciplinary proceedings and possible court action if EU freedom of movement is not enshrined in French law by next month.
The ultimatum from Brussels, in a letter to the French government from the European commission, upped the ante in the ferocious row over France's treatment of immigrant Gypsies, a dispute that hijacked a recent EU summit and saw insults traded over the second world war.
All 27 European commissioners decided todayto set France a deadline of 15 October to remedy the member state's failure to observe European law, namely a directive from 2004 giving all EU citizens freedom of movement across the union.
"France is not applying European law as it should," said Viviane Reding, the commissioner for justice and fundamental rights who sparked one of the worst rows in the EU for years this month by calling French treatment of Roma immigrants from Romania "a disgrace" and "appalling", reminiscent of the persecution they suffered in Vichy France during the war.
President Nicolas Sarkozy threatened to boycott an EU summit unless she retracted. An EU summit a fortnight ago descended into a slanging match. Sarkozy said Reding apologised. She denied it. She was criticised by fellow commissioners and European leaders for inappropriate language. But the commission, despite the huge pressure from Paris, insisted it would referee in the Roma row as the guardian of the European treaties and the arbiter of EU law. ...
The ultimatum from Brussels, in a letter to the French government from the European commission, upped the ante in the ferocious row over France's treatment of immigrant Gypsies, a dispute that hijacked a recent EU summit and saw insults traded over the second world war.
All 27 European commissioners decided todayto set France a deadline of 15 October to remedy the member state's failure to observe European law, namely a directive from 2004 giving all EU citizens freedom of movement across the union.
"France is not applying European law as it should," said Viviane Reding, the commissioner for justice and fundamental rights who sparked one of the worst rows in the EU for years this month by calling French treatment of Roma immigrants from Romania "a disgrace" and "appalling", reminiscent of the persecution they suffered in Vichy France during the war.
President Nicolas Sarkozy threatened to boycott an EU summit unless she retracted. An EU summit a fortnight ago descended into a slanging match. Sarkozy said Reding apologised. She denied it. She was criticised by fellow commissioners and European leaders for inappropriate language. But the commission, despite the huge pressure from Paris, insisted it would referee in the Roma row as the guardian of the European treaties and the arbiter of EU law. ...
'Slavery' uncovered on trawlers fishing for Europe
Exclusive: EJF find conditions including incarceration, violence, and confinement on board for months or even years
Felicity Lawrence
Thursday 30 September 2010
Shocking evidence of conditions akin to slavery on trawlers that provide fish for European dinner tables has been found in an investigation off the coast of west Africa.
Forced labour and human rights abuses involving African crews have been uncovered on trawlers fishing illegally for the European market by investigators for an environmental campaign group.
The Environmental Justice Foundation found conditions on board including incarceration, violence, withholding of pay, confiscation of documents, confinement on board for months or even years, and lack of clean water.
The EJF found hi-tech vessels operating without appropriate licences in fishing exclusion zones off the coast of Sierra Leone and Guinea over the last four years. The ships involved all carried EU numbers, indicating that they were licensed to import to Europe having theoretically passed strict hygiene standards.
"We didn't set out to look at human rights but rather to tackle the illegal fishing that's decimating fish stocks, but having been on board we have seen conditions that unquestionably meet the UN official definition of forced labour or modern-day slavery," EJF investigator Duncan Copeland said. A report on the abuses is published by the foundation today. ...
Exclusive: EJF find conditions including incarceration, violence, and confinement on board for months or even years
Felicity Lawrence
Thursday 30 September 2010
Shocking evidence of conditions akin to slavery on trawlers that provide fish for European dinner tables has been found in an investigation off the coast of west Africa.
Forced labour and human rights abuses involving African crews have been uncovered on trawlers fishing illegally for the European market by investigators for an environmental campaign group.
The Environmental Justice Foundation found conditions on board including incarceration, violence, withholding of pay, confiscation of documents, confinement on board for months or even years, and lack of clean water.
The EJF found hi-tech vessels operating without appropriate licences in fishing exclusion zones off the coast of Sierra Leone and Guinea over the last four years. The ships involved all carried EU numbers, indicating that they were licensed to import to Europe having theoretically passed strict hygiene standards.
"We didn't set out to look at human rights but rather to tackle the illegal fishing that's decimating fish stocks, but having been on board we have seen conditions that unquestionably meet the UN official definition of forced labour or modern-day slavery," EJF investigator Duncan Copeland said. A report on the abuses is published by the foundation today. ...
Jamaica under flood waters, child washed away
2010-09-29 07:19:45 |
The Office of Disaster Preparedness and Emergency Management (ODPEM) is reporting that at least one child was washed away when the house in which the child was living was swept away in Barbican, St Andrew in the vicinity of Burger King.
The age and sex of the child are not yet known.
There are also reports that several residents have been marooned in Nightingale Grove, St Catherine where a gully has overflowed its banks.
The situation in the St Catherine communities of Bushy Park and The Vineyards is also said to be serious.
Meanwhile, there have been several reports of flooding across the island due to the heavy rains associated with Tropical Depression # 16.
Kingston and St. Andrew
· August Town, Bedward Garden and Goldsmith Villas, homes have been flooded
· August Town Bridge has collapsed
· Red Hills- Sterling Castle homes have been flooded and it is reported two persons are trapped within their home
· Harbour View- Bridge has collapsed
· Marcus Garvey Drive Flooded
· Saddlers Avenue and Lanston Road of Mountain View has been flooded
· South Monterey Drive of Hope Pastures flooded
· Kyntire Close in Papine flooded
· Don Head Avenue, Liguanea reported flooding
·
Spanish Town
· Thompson Pen- homes have been flooded
· Bridge joining the communities of Simon District and Tredegar Park has collapsed
St. Catherine
· The Bog Walk Gorge is Closed
· Sunnyside Linstead flooding reported
· Serenity Park, between Spring Village and Nightingale Grove, the gully is reportedly overflowing
Clarendon
· Four Paths flooded
· Portland Cottage flooded
St. Elizabeth
· Burnt Savannah blocked
· Fullerswood Main road is inundated
St. Mary
· Junction road is blocked it is reported that persons are trapped in a car in the vicinity of Castleton
Westmoreland
· Savanna La Mar, four homes have been reportedly damaged
· Savanna La Mar Cooperative Credit Union and the Savanna La Mar Baptist Church has been damaged
The public is advised to continue monitoring the radio for further advisories and to avoid areas that are at risk from flooding and landslides. Also take the following precautions in the event of heavy rains:
1. Be ready to evacuate if you live in low-lying or flood-prone areas. Decide on likely evacuation routes now.
2. Avoid flooded waterways, i.e. Fords, gullies, streams or rivers, either on foot or in vehicles.
The ODPEM will continue to monitor the situation and further updates will be provided as the situation demands.
Comments:
I just can't understand what is going on in Jamaica regarding flooding. How many times will the Harbour View bridge have to be replaced? What about the bridges that are stored away while people are marooned in their communities? Maybe Hibbert could shed some light on te matter. The Bog Walk Gorge is the most important link between Kingston and the North Coast, and whenever it rains cars are washed away, and others are marooned. These things are only happening in Jamaica, not that people don't die by floods in other countries, but this is always a problem in Jamaica with Flat Bridge. With all the knowledge and engineering skills available, could'nt an elevated bridge be built there to alleviate the problem whenever it rains?
Today, 9:48:18 AM ...
2010-09-29 07:19:45 |
The Office of Disaster Preparedness and Emergency Management (ODPEM) is reporting that at least one child was washed away when the house in which the child was living was swept away in Barbican, St Andrew in the vicinity of Burger King.
The age and sex of the child are not yet known.
There are also reports that several residents have been marooned in Nightingale Grove, St Catherine where a gully has overflowed its banks.
The situation in the St Catherine communities of Bushy Park and The Vineyards is also said to be serious.
Meanwhile, there have been several reports of flooding across the island due to the heavy rains associated with Tropical Depression # 16.
Kingston and St. Andrew
· August Town, Bedward Garden and Goldsmith Villas, homes have been flooded
· August Town Bridge has collapsed
· Red Hills- Sterling Castle homes have been flooded and it is reported two persons are trapped within their home
· Harbour View- Bridge has collapsed
· Marcus Garvey Drive Flooded
· Saddlers Avenue and Lanston Road of Mountain View has been flooded
· South Monterey Drive of Hope Pastures flooded
· Kyntire Close in Papine flooded
· Don Head Avenue, Liguanea reported flooding
·
Spanish Town
· Thompson Pen- homes have been flooded
· Bridge joining the communities of Simon District and Tredegar Park has collapsed
St. Catherine
· The Bog Walk Gorge is Closed
· Sunnyside Linstead flooding reported
· Serenity Park, between Spring Village and Nightingale Grove, the gully is reportedly overflowing
Clarendon
· Four Paths flooded
· Portland Cottage flooded
St. Elizabeth
· Burnt Savannah blocked
· Fullerswood Main road is inundated
St. Mary
· Junction road is blocked it is reported that persons are trapped in a car in the vicinity of Castleton
Westmoreland
· Savanna La Mar, four homes have been reportedly damaged
· Savanna La Mar Cooperative Credit Union and the Savanna La Mar Baptist Church has been damaged
The public is advised to continue monitoring the radio for further advisories and to avoid areas that are at risk from flooding and landslides. Also take the following precautions in the event of heavy rains:
1. Be ready to evacuate if you live in low-lying or flood-prone areas. Decide on likely evacuation routes now.
2. Avoid flooded waterways, i.e. Fords, gullies, streams or rivers, either on foot or in vehicles.
The ODPEM will continue to monitor the situation and further updates will be provided as the situation demands.
Comments:
I just can't understand what is going on in Jamaica regarding flooding. How many times will the Harbour View bridge have to be replaced? What about the bridges that are stored away while people are marooned in their communities? Maybe Hibbert could shed some light on te matter. The Bog Walk Gorge is the most important link between Kingston and the North Coast, and whenever it rains cars are washed away, and others are marooned. These things are only happening in Jamaica, not that people don't die by floods in other countries, but this is always a problem in Jamaica with Flat Bridge. With all the knowledge and engineering skills available, could'nt an elevated bridge be built there to alleviate the problem whenever it rains?
Today, 9:48:18 AM ...
St Thomas hit hard
Published: Wednesday | September 29, 2010
Rocks from a landslide that blocked a section of the Trinityville main road in St Thomas yesterday.
Two men direct motorists where to drive to get through water at a ford in Bull Bay, St Thomas, yesterday. The resourceful men used the opportunity to make some money by collecting fees for assisting the motorists. - Photos: Ricardo Makyn/Staff Photographer
Flooded roads, falling rocks and landslides proved major hazards for residents of St Thomas yesterday as they struggled to go about their normal business. From Bull Bay to Yallahs, Poor Man's Corner, Morant Bay, Trinityville, Cedar Valley, Ramble, Llandewey and other communities, it was difficult for persons traversing the roadways in the parish.
With heavy rain falling for most of the day, many students who ventured out to school were soaked as they made their way home.
Motorists had to weave their way around falling rocks and landslides while trying to avoid the potholes which, in some areas, meant riding on the verge of the roadway. As some motorists battled to cross the flooded roadway in Eleven Miles, Bull Bay, a few young men used the opportunity to earn some cash. They piloted motorists through the worst of the flooded areas and collected a fee for their services.
The roadway between Harbour View and Bull Bay was impacted by silt near the intersection of the Shooters Hill parish council road, causing major obstruction to vehicular traffic.
Parish disaster coordinator, Millicent Blake, said while no homes suffered major flooding, several roads were blocked. These included the Hagley Gap to Penline Castle, River Head to Goat Ridge, Cedar Valley to Grove and Kerick Hill to Goat Ridge. The Trinityville to Mount Vernon road was impassable for most of yesterday while the corridor from Morant Crossing to Whitehall was restricted to single-lane traffic due to a massive breakaway.
Published: Wednesday | September 29, 2010
Rocks from a landslide that blocked a section of the Trinityville main road in St Thomas yesterday.
Two men direct motorists where to drive to get through water at a ford in Bull Bay, St Thomas, yesterday. The resourceful men used the opportunity to make some money by collecting fees for assisting the motorists. - Photos: Ricardo Makyn/Staff Photographer
Flooded roads, falling rocks and landslides proved major hazards for residents of St Thomas yesterday as they struggled to go about their normal business. From Bull Bay to Yallahs, Poor Man's Corner, Morant Bay, Trinityville, Cedar Valley, Ramble, Llandewey and other communities, it was difficult for persons traversing the roadways in the parish.
With heavy rain falling for most of the day, many students who ventured out to school were soaked as they made their way home.
Motorists had to weave their way around falling rocks and landslides while trying to avoid the potholes which, in some areas, meant riding on the verge of the roadway. As some motorists battled to cross the flooded roadway in Eleven Miles, Bull Bay, a few young men used the opportunity to earn some cash. They piloted motorists through the worst of the flooded areas and collected a fee for their services.
The roadway between Harbour View and Bull Bay was impacted by silt near the intersection of the Shooters Hill parish council road, causing major obstruction to vehicular traffic.
Parish disaster coordinator, Millicent Blake, said while no homes suffered major flooding, several roads were blocked. These included the Hagley Gap to Penline Castle, River Head to Goat Ridge, Cedar Valley to Grove and Kerick Hill to Goat Ridge. The Trinityville to Mount Vernon road was impassable for most of yesterday while the corridor from Morant Crossing to Whitehall was restricted to single-lane traffic due to a massive breakaway.
ANOTHER RECOMMENDATION by Contractor General Greg Christie, for criminal charges to be brought against public officials, has been dismissed by Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) Paula Llewellyn.
Christie had suggested that Agriculture Minister Dr Christopher Tufton, his permanent secretary, Donovan Stanberry, and consultant Aubyn Hill be charged with supplying his office with inaccurate information.
The contractor general was examining the circumstances under which Hill, a former investment banker, was given a multimillion-dollar contract to divest the country's sugar assets.
In her ruling made public yesterday, Llewellyn said the Crown would struggle to successful prosecute the case in court.
The dismissal of Christie's recommendation for criminal charge came a day after she ruled that no one was criminally culpable in the award of contracts by the Jamaica Urban Transit Company (JUTC) to companies in which its late executive director, Douglas Chambers, had active interests.
Christie had said a number of persons at the JUTC should be made to answer before the court for their actions. ...
One cannot help but wonder, "Who owns the judge? Who owns the judge?"
Christie had suggested that Agriculture Minister Dr Christopher Tufton, his permanent secretary, Donovan Stanberry, and consultant Aubyn Hill be charged with supplying his office with inaccurate information.
The contractor general was examining the circumstances under which Hill, a former investment banker, was given a multimillion-dollar contract to divest the country's sugar assets.
In her ruling made public yesterday, Llewellyn said the Crown would struggle to successful prosecute the case in court.
The dismissal of Christie's recommendation for criminal charge came a day after she ruled that no one was criminally culpable in the award of contracts by the Jamaica Urban Transit Company (JUTC) to companies in which its late executive director, Douglas Chambers, had active interests.
Christie had said a number of persons at the JUTC should be made to answer before the court for their actions. ...
One cannot help but wonder, "Who owns the judge? Who owns the judge?"
Poolside at Las Vegas’s Vdara hotel is a dangerous place to be. That’s according to one tourist who claims he almost had his hair singed off by a “death ray”—the term used by some hotel employees—reflected from hotel’s shiny facade.
The hotel’s spokesperson would understandably prefer to use the term “hot spot” or “solar convergence” to describe the spot near the pool where the sunlight reflects off the building’s side. Hotel guests say they have seen plastic cups and bags melt from the heat of the ray. The Review-Journal was tipped off to the problem by the story of a poolside lounger named Bill Pintas from Chicago:
[Pintas] became so uncomfortably hot that he leaped up to move. He tried to put on his flip-flop sandals but, inexplicably, they were too hot to touch. So he ran barefoot to the shade. “I was effectively being cooked,” Pintas said. “I started running as fast as I could without looking like a lunatic.” Then he smelled an odor, and realized it was coming from his head, where a bit of hair had been scorched.
After hearing Pintas’ story, the Review-Journal sent reporters undercover to ask the employees and patrons about the phenomenon...
[Dr. Smith]Oh, the paaiin, the paaaaiiiin![/Dr Smith]
Ta much, dear Anneliese
The hotel’s spokesperson would understandably prefer to use the term “hot spot” or “solar convergence” to describe the spot near the pool where the sunlight reflects off the building’s side. Hotel guests say they have seen plastic cups and bags melt from the heat of the ray. The Review-Journal was tipped off to the problem by the story of a poolside lounger named Bill Pintas from Chicago:
[Pintas] became so uncomfortably hot that he leaped up to move. He tried to put on his flip-flop sandals but, inexplicably, they were too hot to touch. So he ran barefoot to the shade. “I was effectively being cooked,” Pintas said. “I started running as fast as I could without looking like a lunatic.” Then he smelled an odor, and realized it was coming from his head, where a bit of hair had been scorched.
After hearing Pintas’ story, the Review-Journal sent reporters undercover to ask the employees and patrons about the phenomenon...
[Dr. Smith]Oh, the paaiin, the paaaaiiiin![/Dr Smith]
Ta much, dear Anneliese
Shoes created for women can make even those who walk around for a living fall down.
Is this sexism? Discuss.
Discussion points:
Are there similar men's shoes?
Do men's shoes ever make them fall down?
Men ceased wearing high heels centuries ago. Why do women continue?
Had a model refused to wear shoes like these, what would have happened?
Attitudes toward female forms vary radically within history and between cultures. Do today's fashion models represent an accurate expression of "womanhood"?
Do essentially hairless, skinny models seem more like prepubescent girls than women?
Do essentially hairless, skinny male models seem more like small boys than men?
American women began depilating their armpits in the 1920s because of an advertising campaign involving sleeveless dresses. Discuss.
Many women who are not Americans do not use depilatories. Discuss.
Some Frenchwomen began underarm depilation during the Revolution, because of parasites. Discuss germ theory and hygiene, and how regular washing decreases diseases' incidence and spread, and increased the modern lifespan.
Victorian women often wore heavy hats, corsets, several petticoats and many other undergarments, heavy and elaborate suits and dresses, regardless of the season. Why?
Help students realize "That was the style/fashion," is not a real answer, and that there may not be a real answer.
A majority of surveyed men claimed they dislike makeup. Discuss.
Is women's fashion anti-woman?
Discuss how BDSM fetishes are related to high heels and fashion if students are suitably mature.
U.S. Tries to Make It Easier to Wiretap the Internet
By CHARLIE SAVAGE
Published: September 27, 2010
WASHINGTON — Federal law enforcement and national security officials are preparing to seek sweeping new regulations for the Internet, arguing that their ability to wiretap criminal and terrorism suspects is “going dark” as people increasingly communicate online instead of by telephone.
Essentially, officials want Congress to require all services that enable communications — including encrypted e-mail transmitters like BlackBerry, social networking Web sites like Facebook and software that allows direct “peer to peer” messaging like Skype — to be technically capable of complying if served with a wiretap order. The mandate would include being able to intercept and unscramble encrypted messages.
The bill, which the Obama administration plans to submit to lawmakers next year, raises fresh questions about how to balance security needs with protecting privacy and fostering innovation. And because security services around the world face the same problem, it could set an example that is copied globally.
James X. Dempsey, vice president of the Center for Democracy and Technology, an Internet policy group, said the proposal had “huge implications” and challenged “fundamental elements of the Internet revolution” — including its decentralized design.
“They are really asking for the authority to redesign services that take advantage of the unique, and now pervasive, architecture of the Internet,” he said. “They basically want to turn back the clock and make Internet services function the way that the telephone system used to function.”
But law enforcement officials contend that imposing such a mandate is reasonable and necessary to prevent the erosion of their investigative powers.
“We’re talking about lawfully authorized intercepts,” said Valerie E. Caproni, general counsel for the Federal Bureau of Investigation. “We’re not talking expanding authority. We’re talking about preserving our ability to execute our existing authority in order to protect the public safety and national security.”
Investigators have been concerned for years that changing communications technology could damage their ability to conduct surveillance. In recent months, officials from the F.B.I., the Justice Department, the National Security Agency, the White House and other agencies have been meeting to develop a proposed solution.
There is not yet agreement on important elements, like how to word statutory language defining who counts as a communications service provider, according to several officials familiar with the deliberations.
But they want it to apply broadly, including to companies that operate from servers abroad, like Research in Motion, the Canadian maker of BlackBerry devices. In recent months, that company has come into conflict with the governments of Dubai and India over their inability to conduct surveillance of messages sent via its encrypted service.
In the United States, phone and broadband networks are already required to have interception capabilities, under a 1994 law called the Communications Assistance to Law Enforcement Act. It aimed to ensure that government surveillance abilities would remain intact during the evolution from a copper-wire phone system to digital networks and cellphones. ...
By CHARLIE SAVAGE
Published: September 27, 2010
WASHINGTON — Federal law enforcement and national security officials are preparing to seek sweeping new regulations for the Internet, arguing that their ability to wiretap criminal and terrorism suspects is “going dark” as people increasingly communicate online instead of by telephone.
Essentially, officials want Congress to require all services that enable communications — including encrypted e-mail transmitters like BlackBerry, social networking Web sites like Facebook and software that allows direct “peer to peer” messaging like Skype — to be technically capable of complying if served with a wiretap order. The mandate would include being able to intercept and unscramble encrypted messages.
The bill, which the Obama administration plans to submit to lawmakers next year, raises fresh questions about how to balance security needs with protecting privacy and fostering innovation. And because security services around the world face the same problem, it could set an example that is copied globally.
James X. Dempsey, vice president of the Center for Democracy and Technology, an Internet policy group, said the proposal had “huge implications” and challenged “fundamental elements of the Internet revolution” — including its decentralized design.
“They are really asking for the authority to redesign services that take advantage of the unique, and now pervasive, architecture of the Internet,” he said. “They basically want to turn back the clock and make Internet services function the way that the telephone system used to function.”
But law enforcement officials contend that imposing such a mandate is reasonable and necessary to prevent the erosion of their investigative powers.
“We’re talking about lawfully authorized intercepts,” said Valerie E. Caproni, general counsel for the Federal Bureau of Investigation. “We’re not talking expanding authority. We’re talking about preserving our ability to execute our existing authority in order to protect the public safety and national security.”
Investigators have been concerned for years that changing communications technology could damage their ability to conduct surveillance. In recent months, officials from the F.B.I., the Justice Department, the National Security Agency, the White House and other agencies have been meeting to develop a proposed solution.
There is not yet agreement on important elements, like how to word statutory language defining who counts as a communications service provider, according to several officials familiar with the deliberations.
But they want it to apply broadly, including to companies that operate from servers abroad, like Research in Motion, the Canadian maker of BlackBerry devices. In recent months, that company has come into conflict with the governments of Dubai and India over their inability to conduct surveillance of messages sent via its encrypted service.
In the United States, phone and broadband networks are already required to have interception capabilities, under a 1994 law called the Communications Assistance to Law Enforcement Act. It aimed to ensure that government surveillance abilities would remain intact during the evolution from a copper-wire phone system to digital networks and cellphones. ...
U.S. seeks ways to wiretap the Internet
By Ellen Nakashima
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, September 28, 2010
The Obama administration is planning to seek legislation that would require social networking companies and voice-over-Internet service providers to adapt their technology so law enforcement agents can monitor users' communications during criminal and terrorism investigations.
The proposal arises out of a concern that technology and social customs have outpaced the law and that authorities lack the means to monitor new methods of communication, administration officials said. But the initiative has also revived a more than 15-year-old debate over the proper balance between national security and personal privacy as well as what industry can reasonably be asked to do without stifling innovation.
"This is about lawfully authorized intercepts," said Valerie E. Caproni, FBI general counsel. "This is not about expanding authority, but about preserving the ability to carry out existing authorities in order to protect the national security and public safety."
The idea, which has been percolating for at least two years, is still in the discussion stages among federal bodies, including the FBI, the Justice Department and the National Security Council. Congressional and administration officials said no draft language or clear timeline exists. The administration's plans were first reported by the New York Times.
At issue is a 1994 telecommunications law called the Communications Assistance to Law Enforcement Act, which requires phone and broadband companies to build interception capabilities into their networks for law enforcement. An agent must have a court order based on probable cause to gain access to a provider's network.
Social networking companies such as Facebook and Twitter are not covered under CALEA. Their technologies were not built to provide law enforcement with real-time access to content.
Law enforcement agencies would also like firms that offer encrypted communications to be able to provide them with decrypted "clear text," as well as design a service to allow interception of peer-to-peer communications, such as Skype.
"If you're in an ongoing situation, where we had hostages and the suspects are communicating with one another calling out their plan or next move, you'd want real-time access," said one federal law enforcement official who was not authorized to speak for attribution. ...
By Ellen Nakashima
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, September 28, 2010
The Obama administration is planning to seek legislation that would require social networking companies and voice-over-Internet service providers to adapt their technology so law enforcement agents can monitor users' communications during criminal and terrorism investigations.
The proposal arises out of a concern that technology and social customs have outpaced the law and that authorities lack the means to monitor new methods of communication, administration officials said. But the initiative has also revived a more than 15-year-old debate over the proper balance between national security and personal privacy as well as what industry can reasonably be asked to do without stifling innovation.
"This is about lawfully authorized intercepts," said Valerie E. Caproni, FBI general counsel. "This is not about expanding authority, but about preserving the ability to carry out existing authorities in order to protect the national security and public safety."
The idea, which has been percolating for at least two years, is still in the discussion stages among federal bodies, including the FBI, the Justice Department and the National Security Council. Congressional and administration officials said no draft language or clear timeline exists. The administration's plans were first reported by the New York Times.
At issue is a 1994 telecommunications law called the Communications Assistance to Law Enforcement Act, which requires phone and broadband companies to build interception capabilities into their networks for law enforcement. An agent must have a court order based on probable cause to gain access to a provider's network.
Social networking companies such as Facebook and Twitter are not covered under CALEA. Their technologies were not built to provide law enforcement with real-time access to content.
Law enforcement agencies would also like firms that offer encrypted communications to be able to provide them with decrypted "clear text," as well as design a service to allow interception of peer-to-peer communications, such as Skype.
"If you're in an ongoing situation, where we had hostages and the suspects are communicating with one another calling out their plan or next move, you'd want real-time access," said one federal law enforcement official who was not authorized to speak for attribution. ...
Administration Internet-wiretap proposals forget history
By Rob Pegoraro | September 27, 2010
Any headline that uses the phrase "wiretap the Internet" is likely to make people on the Internet cranky. When this wiretapping scheme comes from an administration that already has an iffy record on digital-rights issues, there's good reason to be angry about it.
Today's news comes from the New York Times, which reported that the Obama administration wants to require "all services that enable communications-- including encrypted e-mail transmitters like BlackBerry, social networking Web sites like Facebook and software that allows direct 'peer to peer' messaging like Skype" to make their services compatible with government wiretap orders, decrypting their user's encrypted messages if necessary.
The NYT piece, by Charlie Savage, says the administration plans to submit legislation imposing these requirements next year.
One plank in this proposal, as I understand it, merely looks unrealistic. That's the idea to extend the mandates already applied to Internet providers and Internet-calling services by a 1994 law called the Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act. That law requires them to make their services compatible with wiretap requests; the administration would like to put operators of other communications sites and services, from Facebook to peer-to-peer messaging services, under the same requirement.
But where CALEA focuses on companies with fixed facilities and U.S. addresses, this expanded authority would have to cover services based overseas and open-source applications with no physical location at all. Good luck with that.
Part two of this idea seems not only unrealistic but outright foolish--the unworkable concept of requiring encrypted services to retain the ability to decrypt messages. The authors of this proposal seem to have forgotten the dubious history of Clinton administration's ill-fated "Clipper chip" scheme for mandatory unlocking of scrambled messages. One reason why Clipper sank was the widespread availability of such open-source encryption tools as Pretty Good Privacy, which anybody could use instead of Clipper-compliant hardware or software. No new law will undo those developments.
As unwise as these proposals seem on their own, they seem even worse in the context of this Obama administration's actions. It's defended the Bush administration's illegal wiretapping under a dubious "state secrets" doctrine (fortunately, it lost). It continues to assert the right to search the laptops of citizens returning from overseas without any suspicion of wrongdoing. It's proposed to compel Web sites to turn over more information about their users to the FBI without a court order. ...
By Rob Pegoraro | September 27, 2010
Any headline that uses the phrase "wiretap the Internet" is likely to make people on the Internet cranky. When this wiretapping scheme comes from an administration that already has an iffy record on digital-rights issues, there's good reason to be angry about it.
Today's news comes from the New York Times, which reported that the Obama administration wants to require "all services that enable communications-- including encrypted e-mail transmitters like BlackBerry, social networking Web sites like Facebook and software that allows direct 'peer to peer' messaging like Skype" to make their services compatible with government wiretap orders, decrypting their user's encrypted messages if necessary.
The NYT piece, by Charlie Savage, says the administration plans to submit legislation imposing these requirements next year.
One plank in this proposal, as I understand it, merely looks unrealistic. That's the idea to extend the mandates already applied to Internet providers and Internet-calling services by a 1994 law called the Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act. That law requires them to make their services compatible with wiretap requests; the administration would like to put operators of other communications sites and services, from Facebook to peer-to-peer messaging services, under the same requirement.
But where CALEA focuses on companies with fixed facilities and U.S. addresses, this expanded authority would have to cover services based overseas and open-source applications with no physical location at all. Good luck with that.
Part two of this idea seems not only unrealistic but outright foolish--the unworkable concept of requiring encrypted services to retain the ability to decrypt messages. The authors of this proposal seem to have forgotten the dubious history of Clinton administration's ill-fated "Clipper chip" scheme for mandatory unlocking of scrambled messages. One reason why Clipper sank was the widespread availability of such open-source encryption tools as Pretty Good Privacy, which anybody could use instead of Clipper-compliant hardware or software. No new law will undo those developments.
As unwise as these proposals seem on their own, they seem even worse in the context of this Obama administration's actions. It's defended the Bush administration's illegal wiretapping under a dubious "state secrets" doctrine (fortunately, it lost). It continues to assert the right to search the laptops of citizens returning from overseas without any suspicion of wrongdoing. It's proposed to compel Web sites to turn over more information about their users to the FBI without a court order. ...
Feds eye plan to make Internet snooping easier
Internet services will be required to help with data interception, report says
By Jaikumar Vijayan
September 27, 2010 03:24 PM ET
Computerworld - The Obama Administration is reportedly considering a statute that would make it easier for federal authorities to intercept communications over services such as Facebook, Skype and BlackBerry -- an idea that's stoking anxiety within the privacy community.
The measure would force Internet companies that provide communications services to add in capabilities allowing federal authorities to intercept any messages on their networks, and to unscramble encrypted ones, the New York Times reported today.
The idea is being driven by law enforcement authorities worried that their ability to wiretap criminal and terrorism suspects is being eroded as more communications take place online rather than by phone.
A bill outlining the requirements could go to lawmakers sometime next year, the Times said. ...
Internet services will be required to help with data interception, report says
By Jaikumar Vijayan
September 27, 2010 03:24 PM ET
Computerworld - The Obama Administration is reportedly considering a statute that would make it easier for federal authorities to intercept communications over services such as Facebook, Skype and BlackBerry -- an idea that's stoking anxiety within the privacy community.
The measure would force Internet companies that provide communications services to add in capabilities allowing federal authorities to intercept any messages on their networks, and to unscramble encrypted ones, the New York Times reported today.
The idea is being driven by law enforcement authorities worried that their ability to wiretap criminal and terrorism suspects is being eroded as more communications take place online rather than by phone.
A bill outlining the requirements could go to lawmakers sometime next year, the Times said. ...
U.S. Looking to Ease Internet Wiretap Laws, Report Says
By: Larry Seltzer
* 09.27.2010
The Obama administration is reportedly prepping new Internet regulations that would allow online service providers to comply with wiretap orders.
These new regulations could include sites like Facebook, mobile providers like Research in Motion, and software like Skype "to be technically capable of complying if served with a wiretap order," according to a report in The New York Times. "The mandate would include being able to intercept and unscramble encrypted messages."
The Obama administration would reportedly submit the new regulations in the form of a bill next year.
Voice communications services and broadband networks are already required to provide such assistance under a 1994 law called the Communications Assistance to Law Enforcement Act. That law does not apply to data communications services and this effort attempts to hold them to the same standard. ...
By: Larry Seltzer
* 09.27.2010
The Obama administration is reportedly prepping new Internet regulations that would allow online service providers to comply with wiretap orders.
These new regulations could include sites like Facebook, mobile providers like Research in Motion, and software like Skype "to be technically capable of complying if served with a wiretap order," according to a report in The New York Times. "The mandate would include being able to intercept and unscramble encrypted messages."
The Obama administration would reportedly submit the new regulations in the form of a bill next year.
Voice communications services and broadband networks are already required to provide such assistance under a 1994 law called the Communications Assistance to Law Enforcement Act. That law does not apply to data communications services and this effort attempts to hold them to the same standard. ...
It was so hot Monday that it broke the all-time record — and the weatherman's thermometer.
The National Weather Service's thermometer for downtown Los Angeles headed into uncharted territory at 12:15 p.m. Monday, reaching 113 degrees for the first time since records began being kept in 1877.
Shortly after that banner moment, the temperature dipped back to 111, and then climbed back to 112. Then at 1 p.m., the thermometer stopped working. ...
The National Weather Service's thermometer for downtown Los Angeles headed into uncharted territory at 12:15 p.m. Monday, reaching 113 degrees for the first time since records began being kept in 1877.
Shortly after that banner moment, the temperature dipped back to 111, and then climbed back to 112. Then at 1 p.m., the thermometer stopped working. ...
Six buses operated by the Jamaica Urban Transit Company (JUTC) have been damaged since Wednesday night, raising concerns that it forms part of a coordinated attack on the state-owned company.
One of the buses was destroyed by fire in downtown Kingston shortly after midday yesterday, but the cause of the fire has not been determined.
Reginald Allen, JUTC director of communications, said an attempt was made to set another bus on fire, while four others were stoned, all in the Barbican area of St Andrew between Wednesday night and early yesterday.
He said the stoning incidents have left two of the four buses with their front and rear windshields smashed.
At the time of the attacks, Allen said the buses were either empty or had very few passengers. ...
One of the buses was destroyed by fire in downtown Kingston shortly after midday yesterday, but the cause of the fire has not been determined.
Reginald Allen, JUTC director of communications, said an attempt was made to set another bus on fire, while four others were stoned, all in the Barbican area of St Andrew between Wednesday night and early yesterday.
He said the stoning incidents have left two of the four buses with their front and rear windshields smashed.
At the time of the attacks, Allen said the buses were either empty or had very few passengers. ...
Dozens of NYC taxi drivers accused of charging double fare
Passengers in New York City's yellow taxis have been cheated by thousands of drivers who manipulated their meters to double the fare rate, officials said.
24 Sep 2010
Fifty-nine of the worst alleged offenders were arrested on Wednesday, but officials said the criminal cases represented the tip of the iceberg, and that up to 22,000 drivers were believed to have deployed the fare trick before the city took steps to stop the practice in the spring.
Forty-five of the drivers arrested were charged with felony or scheming to defraud, while misdemeanour petty larceny cases have been lodged against another 14.
Six drivers reeled in more than $10,000 (£6,400) apiece by repeatedly bumping their meters up to a higher suburban rate when they actually were in the city, the Manhattan district attorney's office said.
One driver overcharged more than 5,100 times between November 2008 and June 2010, prosecutors said.
Unsuspecting passengers overpaid an average of about $5, officials said. But they said the overcharges added up to a sprawling scam among the cabs.
The investigation began after a passenger complained to the city about a fare that seemed to go up too fast last July.
The city Taxi & Limousine Commission concluded in May that almost 22,000 cabbies out of the city's roughly 48,000 yellow-cab drivers had improperly charged the double rate, which is supposed to apply only when taxis cross into suburban Westchester or Nassau counties. Passengers were overcharged 286,000 times, for a total of about $1.1 million, the TLC said.
The city's 13,000 taxis are now equipped with warning systems that alert passengers if the higher rate is being charged. ...
Passengers in New York City's yellow taxis have been cheated by thousands of drivers who manipulated their meters to double the fare rate, officials said.
24 Sep 2010
Fifty-nine of the worst alleged offenders were arrested on Wednesday, but officials said the criminal cases represented the tip of the iceberg, and that up to 22,000 drivers were believed to have deployed the fare trick before the city took steps to stop the practice in the spring.
Forty-five of the drivers arrested were charged with felony or scheming to defraud, while misdemeanour petty larceny cases have been lodged against another 14.
Six drivers reeled in more than $10,000 (£6,400) apiece by repeatedly bumping their meters up to a higher suburban rate when they actually were in the city, the Manhattan district attorney's office said.
One driver overcharged more than 5,100 times between November 2008 and June 2010, prosecutors said.
Unsuspecting passengers overpaid an average of about $5, officials said. But they said the overcharges added up to a sprawling scam among the cabs.
The investigation began after a passenger complained to the city about a fare that seemed to go up too fast last July.
The city Taxi & Limousine Commission concluded in May that almost 22,000 cabbies out of the city's roughly 48,000 yellow-cab drivers had improperly charged the double rate, which is supposed to apply only when taxis cross into suburban Westchester or Nassau counties. Passengers were overcharged 286,000 times, for a total of about $1.1 million, the TLC said.
The city's 13,000 taxis are now equipped with warning systems that alert passengers if the higher rate is being charged. ...
Clerics in the South Pacific have fingered the key cause of climate change - homosexuals.
The revelation came at a conference at the University of the South Pacific considering the implications of Climate Change and Creativity.
Academics were apparently thrown off their consideration of "Arts in the Age of Global Warming" and "Ecology in Poetry / Poetry in Ecology" by reports of Church Ministers who maintained that climate change in Samoa are clearly attributable to to homosexuals.
The revelation prompted one attendee USP student, Shaiza Janif, to opine: "We need to educate our ministers and not turn this into an agenda."
Details of exactly how the ministers think homosexuals are pumping more CO2 into the atmosphere, thereby trapping heat around the planet, driving up the average temperature and causing massive economic and environmental dislocation are scant. ...
A little insecure, guys?
The revelation came at a conference at the University of the South Pacific considering the implications of Climate Change and Creativity.
Academics were apparently thrown off their consideration of "Arts in the Age of Global Warming" and "Ecology in Poetry / Poetry in Ecology" by reports of Church Ministers who maintained that climate change in Samoa are clearly attributable to to homosexuals.
The revelation prompted one attendee USP student, Shaiza Janif, to opine: "We need to educate our ministers and not turn this into an agenda."
Details of exactly how the ministers think homosexuals are pumping more CO2 into the atmosphere, thereby trapping heat around the planet, driving up the average temperature and causing massive economic and environmental dislocation are scant. ...
A little insecure, guys?
Steve Jobs may not be a ninja, but when an over-enthusiastic journalism student had the temerity to email him to complain about Apple's less than helpful press office last week, he quickly chopped her down to size.
The Guardian splendidly reports that Chelsea Isaacs, a journalism student at Long Island University was tasked with writing a piece about an iPad program at the campus.
Being young and eager and conscientious she thought she would check in with the firm's press department. She got no reply to her message, nor to the five subsequent messages she sent - even though she said she was on a deadline.
At a loss for what to do she found Jobs' email on the web and asked if he could help out, as the story was "vital to my academic grade as a journalist".
As well as referring to the hypocrisy of "ignoring student needs when they represent a company that does so much for our schools, the Media Relations reps are apparently, also failing to responsibly handle the inquiries of professional journalists on deadlines." This she suggested could cost professional journalists their jobs. Well, not at the Reg. Or it transpires, The Guardian.
Within an hour, Chelsea had her answer from the man himself: "Our goals do not include helping you get a good grade. Sorry."
Oh, that was sent from "my iPhone".
Chelsea replied once again mentioning her grade, and foolishly, castigating Jobs over a "lack of common courtesy". She clearly didn't realise that a sorry from Apple is about as good as it gets.
Jobs - or his phone ghost - replied that he was only interested in helping people who have a problem.
To which Chelsea replied that she did have a problem, and could he get the PRs to reply. Cos she's on a deadline.
Jobs then administered the coup de grace:
"Please leave us alone." ...
The Guardian splendidly reports that Chelsea Isaacs, a journalism student at Long Island University was tasked with writing a piece about an iPad program at the campus.
Being young and eager and conscientious she thought she would check in with the firm's press department. She got no reply to her message, nor to the five subsequent messages she sent - even though she said she was on a deadline.
At a loss for what to do she found Jobs' email on the web and asked if he could help out, as the story was "vital to my academic grade as a journalist".
As well as referring to the hypocrisy of "ignoring student needs when they represent a company that does so much for our schools, the Media Relations reps are apparently, also failing to responsibly handle the inquiries of professional journalists on deadlines." This she suggested could cost professional journalists their jobs. Well, not at the Reg. Or it transpires, The Guardian.
Within an hour, Chelsea had her answer from the man himself: "Our goals do not include helping you get a good grade. Sorry."
Oh, that was sent from "my iPhone".
Chelsea replied once again mentioning her grade, and foolishly, castigating Jobs over a "lack of common courtesy". She clearly didn't realise that a sorry from Apple is about as good as it gets.
Jobs - or his phone ghost - replied that he was only interested in helping people who have a problem.
To which Chelsea replied that she did have a problem, and could he get the PRs to reply. Cos she's on a deadline.
Jobs then administered the coup de grace:
"Please leave us alone." ...
Lots of journalists know the experience of contacting Apple to ask about a story and getting no response. But now a journalism student has discovered the experience too. Chelsea Isaacs, who is doing a journalism degree at Long Island University, was asked by her professor to write an article about the implementation of an iPad program at the campus.
So, obviously, being a wannabe journalist, since the story was about Apple, she contacted its press office. Not once, but six times, getting increasingly wound up. And then finally, in the way of a journalist right on deadline, she dug out an email address that is all over the web which is believed to belong to Steve Jobs, chief executive of Apple. Perhaps he could help?
We've seen the headers on the emails from Jobs, and they match IP addresses that could only come from within Apple. We sent the emails - with headers - to Apple on Friday afternoon (morning, their time) and asked for an urgent response by Sunday evening.
And guess what they said? Oh, we'll tell you at the end. First, the emails. We take up the story at 3.22pm (EDT) on Thursday 16 September with Isaacs's first email to Jobs. ...
So, obviously, being a wannabe journalist, since the story was about Apple, she contacted its press office. Not once, but six times, getting increasingly wound up. And then finally, in the way of a journalist right on deadline, she dug out an email address that is all over the web which is believed to belong to Steve Jobs, chief executive of Apple. Perhaps he could help?
We've seen the headers on the emails from Jobs, and they match IP addresses that could only come from within Apple. We sent the emails - with headers - to Apple on Friday afternoon (morning, their time) and asked for an urgent response by Sunday evening.
And guess what they said? Oh, we'll tell you at the end. First, the emails. We take up the story at 3.22pm (EDT) on Thursday 16 September with Isaacs's first email to Jobs. ...
Facebook follows papal line on censorship
The whole internet is one giant penis room
By Jane Fae Ozimek
16th September 2010
What do the Pope and Facebook have in common? They both abhor public displays of nudity.
Facebook though may not go to quite the lengths of one medieval pope, who allegedly sponsored the mass removal of every penis (of the statuary sort) in the Vatican - thereby giving rise to the legend of the papal penis room, where the removed organs were then stored.
In fairness to Facebook, it claims that its latest censoring of nakedness on the net owes more to human error than nanny corporatism.
According to Elinor Mills, a writer for CNET, a photo of Bliss Dance, a work of art, recently exhibited at the Nevada Burning Man event was this week removed from Facebook because, according to Facebook, the image violated the site's terms of use, which ban the posting of photos that contain nudity.
As with other stories of inconsistent Facebook intervention – most recently, our own questioning of Facebook about its failure to ban a group that incited violence in Serbia - this decision was swiftly reversed after CNET contacted Facebook to demand explanation. ...
The whole internet is one giant penis room
By Jane Fae Ozimek
16th September 2010
What do the Pope and Facebook have in common? They both abhor public displays of nudity.
Facebook though may not go to quite the lengths of one medieval pope, who allegedly sponsored the mass removal of every penis (of the statuary sort) in the Vatican - thereby giving rise to the legend of the papal penis room, where the removed organs were then stored.
In fairness to Facebook, it claims that its latest censoring of nakedness on the net owes more to human error than nanny corporatism.
According to Elinor Mills, a writer for CNET, a photo of Bliss Dance, a work of art, recently exhibited at the Nevada Burning Man event was this week removed from Facebook because, according to Facebook, the image violated the site's terms of use, which ban the posting of photos that contain nudity.
As with other stories of inconsistent Facebook intervention – most recently, our own questioning of Facebook about its failure to ban a group that incited violence in Serbia - this decision was swiftly reversed after CNET contacted Facebook to demand explanation. ...
A Hungarian couple have been reduced to washing in the downstairs sink after the Lord of the Flies' terrifying visage appeared in their bathroom.
Poor old Laszlo Csrefko, 52, blew a "fortune" doing up the room, but no sooner had he slapped in a new bath, shower and ceramics then Satan decided to pay a visit.
According to the Sun, his missus Andrea was enjoying her first shower in the renovated facility when she spotted Old Nick's face peering out from a tile. She recounted: "I was naked coming out of the shower and I could suddenly see his eyes staring into me. I just screamed and ran." ...
Poor old Laszlo Csrefko, 52, blew a "fortune" doing up the room, but no sooner had he slapped in a new bath, shower and ceramics then Satan decided to pay a visit.
According to the Sun, his missus Andrea was enjoying her first shower in the renovated facility when she spotted Old Nick's face peering out from a tile. She recounted: "I was naked coming out of the shower and I could suddenly see his eyes staring into me. I just screamed and ran." ...
Similac Baby Formula Recalled Due to Insect Parts
by Mary Rothschild | Sep 23, 2010
Abbott, the company that makes Similac-brand baby formula, is voluntarily recalling certain powder formulas after small beetles were found in one of its manufacturing plants.
The company said there was a "remote possibility" that the insects or their larvae could have contaminated some of the formula. It initiated the recall as a precautionary measure. ...
Breast Milk: Now, and Always 100% Beetle Parts-Free!
by Mary Rothschild | Sep 23, 2010
Abbott, the company that makes Similac-brand baby formula, is voluntarily recalling certain powder formulas after small beetles were found in one of its manufacturing plants.
The company said there was a "remote possibility" that the insects or their larvae could have contaminated some of the formula. It initiated the recall as a precautionary measure. ...
Breast Milk: Now, and Always 100% Beetle Parts-Free!
Bishop Eddie Long, the pastor who built the New Birth Missionary Baptist Church in Atlanta into a 25,000-member megachurch and publically campaigned against homosexuality, has denied accusations by three former male members of his congregation that he coerced them into having sex.
Two of the three men, then aged 17 and 18, allege that Long plied them with gifts including cash, cars and trips abroad. But Long's lawyers say he "categorically denies the allegations." A third man today launched a civil action against Long, the church and a related youth academy.
In 2006 Long's church was the venue for the funeral of Coretta Scott King, the widow of Martin Luther King, attended by President Bush and former presidents Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton and George Bush senior.
Long is an outspoken and high-profile opponent of homosexuality, once described by the Southern Poverty Law Centre as "one of the most virulently homophobic black leaders in the religiously based anti-gay movement."
Long led a campaign for a national ban on same-sex marriage and his church counsels gay members in an attempt to "turn" them straight. In 2004, he led a march to Martin Luther King's grave in Atlanta in support of amending the US constitution to define marriage as "between one man and one woman" – and so permanently barring gay marriage under US law. ...
Two of the three men, then aged 17 and 18, allege that Long plied them with gifts including cash, cars and trips abroad. But Long's lawyers say he "categorically denies the allegations." A third man today launched a civil action against Long, the church and a related youth academy.
In 2006 Long's church was the venue for the funeral of Coretta Scott King, the widow of Martin Luther King, attended by President Bush and former presidents Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton and George Bush senior.
Long is an outspoken and high-profile opponent of homosexuality, once described by the Southern Poverty Law Centre as "one of the most virulently homophobic black leaders in the religiously based anti-gay movement."
Long led a campaign for a national ban on same-sex marriage and his church counsels gay members in an attempt to "turn" them straight. In 2004, he led a march to Martin Luther King's grave in Atlanta in support of amending the US constitution to define marriage as "between one man and one woman" – and so permanently barring gay marriage under US law. ...
Commonwealth Games organisers in Delhi have been given 48 hours to save the crisis-hit event after team officials warned they would pull their athletes out if serious ongoing concerns about the standard of facilities were not immediately addressed.
The sense of impending crisis was exacerbated when a section of the ceiling in the weightlifting arena fell down amid growing fears over rising flood waters near the athlete's village, which had already been condemned by team officials as "filthy" and "unfit for human occupation".
With the Games at risk of descending into farce, thousands of athletes from the major competing nations remained in the dark about whether or not they would be boarding a plane to compete.
The Scottish team delayed the departure of the first batch of their 192 athletes, comprising 41 boxers, rugby players, wrestlers and support staff. The Wales team set a deadline of Wednesday night to receive reassurances from organisers that the athlete's village and venues would be "fit for purpose" and plan to discuss the issue further on Thursday. ...
The sense of impending crisis was exacerbated when a section of the ceiling in the weightlifting arena fell down amid growing fears over rising flood waters near the athlete's village, which had already been condemned by team officials as "filthy" and "unfit for human occupation".
With the Games at risk of descending into farce, thousands of athletes from the major competing nations remained in the dark about whether or not they would be boarding a plane to compete.
The Scottish team delayed the departure of the first batch of their 192 athletes, comprising 41 boxers, rugby players, wrestlers and support staff. The Wales team set a deadline of Wednesday night to receive reassurances from organisers that the athlete's village and venues would be "fit for purpose" and plan to discuss the issue further on Thursday. ...
Officials Arrested in Los Angeles Suburb
By ADAM NAGOURNEY and REBECCA CATHCART
Published: September 21, 2010
BELL, Calif. — The investigators from the district attorney’s office showed up at the mayor’s house early Tuesday morning, arrest warrant and battering ram in hand, banging on the door. When the mayor, Oscar Hernandez, ignored their shouts — “Come out!” and “Put your hands up!” — they rammed down the door and arrested Mr. Hernandez on charges of looting the treasury of his own city to enrich himself.
Residents of Bell, Calif., gathered outside City Hall on Tuesday to celebrate the arrest of eight former and current city officials.
And it was not only Mr. Hernandez. To cheers and visible elation in this working-class town of small stucco houses south of Los Angeles, the authorities arrested eight former and current city officials of Bell — including the former city manager, who had been drawing an annual salary of nearly $800,000 — just after 8 a.m. on Tuesday. The officials were accused, in effect, of turning this city into their personal piggy bank: misappropriating $5.5 million in city money to enrich themselves with pumped-up salaries, illicit loans and big payments to attend committee meetings that lasted just a few minutes, if they were held at all.
The arrests brought to a climax a distasteful tale that has gripped Los Angeles throughout the summer: The story of public officials apparently looting a working-class city — overwhelmingly Hispanic, with many living below the poverty line — in a state that is so broke and where so many people face a cutoff of social services.
The case began in July when The Los Angeles Times, in the first of what has been an almost daily run of articles detailing malfeasance in Bell, reported that Robert Rizzo, who resigned as city manager after the articles appeared, was paid almost double the salary of the president of the United States, while Randy Adams, who resigned last month as police chief, was paid $457,000 a year.
“This is corruption on steroids,” said Steve Cooley, the district attorney of Los Angeles.
Throughout the day, Bell residents grinned broadly and broke out in cheers and song as they spoke of the arrests and traded stories of watching officials who have been the subject of an increasingly vibrant recall movement being led, handcuffed, out of their houses or businesses.
“Man, was I happy when I heard they were arrested,” said Macario Limon, 66, who has lived in Bell for 31 years. “I can celebrate now. Last night we were at a City Council meeting, and the city councilmen are so arrogant, all of them. I’m just glad they’re locked up, and I hope they stay in there forever.” ...
By ADAM NAGOURNEY and REBECCA CATHCART
Published: September 21, 2010
BELL, Calif. — The investigators from the district attorney’s office showed up at the mayor’s house early Tuesday morning, arrest warrant and battering ram in hand, banging on the door. When the mayor, Oscar Hernandez, ignored their shouts — “Come out!” and “Put your hands up!” — they rammed down the door and arrested Mr. Hernandez on charges of looting the treasury of his own city to enrich himself.
Residents of Bell, Calif., gathered outside City Hall on Tuesday to celebrate the arrest of eight former and current city officials.
And it was not only Mr. Hernandez. To cheers and visible elation in this working-class town of small stucco houses south of Los Angeles, the authorities arrested eight former and current city officials of Bell — including the former city manager, who had been drawing an annual salary of nearly $800,000 — just after 8 a.m. on Tuesday. The officials were accused, in effect, of turning this city into their personal piggy bank: misappropriating $5.5 million in city money to enrich themselves with pumped-up salaries, illicit loans and big payments to attend committee meetings that lasted just a few minutes, if they were held at all.
The arrests brought to a climax a distasteful tale that has gripped Los Angeles throughout the summer: The story of public officials apparently looting a working-class city — overwhelmingly Hispanic, with many living below the poverty line — in a state that is so broke and where so many people face a cutoff of social services.
The case began in July when The Los Angeles Times, in the first of what has been an almost daily run of articles detailing malfeasance in Bell, reported that Robert Rizzo, who resigned as city manager after the articles appeared, was paid almost double the salary of the president of the United States, while Randy Adams, who resigned last month as police chief, was paid $457,000 a year.
“This is corruption on steroids,” said Steve Cooley, the district attorney of Los Angeles.
Throughout the day, Bell residents grinned broadly and broke out in cheers and song as they spoke of the arrests and traded stories of watching officials who have been the subject of an increasingly vibrant recall movement being led, handcuffed, out of their houses or businesses.
“Man, was I happy when I heard they were arrested,” said Macario Limon, 66, who has lived in Bell for 31 years. “I can celebrate now. Last night we were at a City Council meeting, and the city councilmen are so arrogant, all of them. I’m just glad they’re locked up, and I hope they stay in there forever.” ...
... "Mr Golding says he was associated with gunmen. The PNPYO wants to know when Crime Stop is going to get that list that he was associated with?" Crawford queried.
In the late 1990s, after Golding had parted company with the Jamaica Labour Party and formed the National Democratic Movement, he declared that he had rejected garrison politics.
On his road-to-Damascus transformation, Golding had confessed that he was once associated with gunmen in his earlier political career but had turned over a new leaf.
"I was associated with gunmen," Golding said in 1999, adding, "but being associated with gunmen is not a criminal offence."
Golding had said that, under the old-style politics in which he was involved, gunmen served a function in his former Central St Catherine constituency by keeping supporters of the People's National Party out of the area.
Classy PM ya got, Jamaica.
In the late 1990s, after Golding had parted company with the Jamaica Labour Party and formed the National Democratic Movement, he declared that he had rejected garrison politics.
On his road-to-Damascus transformation, Golding had confessed that he was once associated with gunmen in his earlier political career but had turned over a new leaf.
"I was associated with gunmen," Golding said in 1999, adding, "but being associated with gunmen is not a criminal offence."
Golding had said that, under the old-style politics in which he was involved, gunmen served a function in his former Central St Catherine constituency by keeping supporters of the People's National Party out of the area.
Classy PM ya got, Jamaica.
If you really think vintage clothes are cool . . .
. . . then don't wear fake ones with the label's name written on the chest
Hadley Freeman
Sunday 19 September 2010
That Faux Vintage look. Photograph: Linda Nylind
I have noticed a lot of men my age wearing Superdry T-shirts and other similarly vintage-looking tops. Is this the new de rigueur look for men in their late 20s and early 30s? Must I join in?
Mark, by email
Double negative, Mark, though your confusion is wholly understandable. Indeed, it does seem as though all British men born between 1975 and 1985 have suddenly joined a cult called Faux Vintage.
Faux Vintage refers to the totally lame, usually pre-faded, always sloganed clothing that features a juxtaposition of primary colours and says something unbelievably irritating such as "Jerry's Crayfish Stall, New Orleans – Best crayfish in the south!", even though the closest the wearer has ever been to Louisiana was when he once dated a girl called Louisa, and the T-shirt was bought from a tedious stall in Camden Market.
As you might be able tell from the above, I am not a fan of this look. Not because I am a snob about authenticity: authenticity snobbery is one of the few things more irritating than Faux Vintage. It's the fact that the wearer is blindly subscribing to the tedious belief that vintage is inherently cool, even if it's not actually vintage. Moreover, I am not a fan of any clothing that proclaims one's recent holiday destination or musical tastes because I do not feel the need to bandy around my inner personal scrapbook across my chest in a desperate attempt to impress strangers and as a substitute for having an actual personality. But hey, that's just me.
Faux Vintage is even worse because in this case the wearer hasn't even been to Jerry's (presumably non-existent) Crayfish Stall – he's just wearing the T-shirt because he tragically thinks the look is cool. (See previous paragraph for my thoughts on that.)
Superdry achieves what I'd heretofore considered an impossibility: it has made Faux Vintage even more annoying and it has done so by bringing label-snobbery to the look. This is an extraordinary little trick because vintage's original appeal is that it isn't a label. Oh no, nothing from a chain or mass-marketed designer for your vintage fan – no Reiss or Emporio Armani would you find in their closet. No, they went off the beaten (high street) path for originals. Which is fine, if a smidgeon smug and self-conscious. But now Superdry comes along, knocks out T-shirts in the usual Faux Vintage style, and then slaps its own name across them and suddenly, Superdry in itself becomes a label to flash among your demographic, Mark. I'd like to think that it is a brilliant satire on the cult of vintage, but that does seem unlikely. The fact that this label has become so phenomenally successful proves that vintage was never, really, about being original, it was about trying to be cool. This makes me feel simultaneously an enormous sense of self-vindication and a sudden desire to weep for mankind. ...
. . . then don't wear fake ones with the label's name written on the chest
Hadley Freeman
Sunday 19 September 2010
That Faux Vintage look. Photograph: Linda Nylind
I have noticed a lot of men my age wearing Superdry T-shirts and other similarly vintage-looking tops. Is this the new de rigueur look for men in their late 20s and early 30s? Must I join in?
Mark, by email
Double negative, Mark, though your confusion is wholly understandable. Indeed, it does seem as though all British men born between 1975 and 1985 have suddenly joined a cult called Faux Vintage.
Faux Vintage refers to the totally lame, usually pre-faded, always sloganed clothing that features a juxtaposition of primary colours and says something unbelievably irritating such as "Jerry's Crayfish Stall, New Orleans – Best crayfish in the south!", even though the closest the wearer has ever been to Louisiana was when he once dated a girl called Louisa, and the T-shirt was bought from a tedious stall in Camden Market.
As you might be able tell from the above, I am not a fan of this look. Not because I am a snob about authenticity: authenticity snobbery is one of the few things more irritating than Faux Vintage. It's the fact that the wearer is blindly subscribing to the tedious belief that vintage is inherently cool, even if it's not actually vintage. Moreover, I am not a fan of any clothing that proclaims one's recent holiday destination or musical tastes because I do not feel the need to bandy around my inner personal scrapbook across my chest in a desperate attempt to impress strangers and as a substitute for having an actual personality. But hey, that's just me.
Faux Vintage is even worse because in this case the wearer hasn't even been to Jerry's (presumably non-existent) Crayfish Stall – he's just wearing the T-shirt because he tragically thinks the look is cool. (See previous paragraph for my thoughts on that.)
Superdry achieves what I'd heretofore considered an impossibility: it has made Faux Vintage even more annoying and it has done so by bringing label-snobbery to the look. This is an extraordinary little trick because vintage's original appeal is that it isn't a label. Oh no, nothing from a chain or mass-marketed designer for your vintage fan – no Reiss or Emporio Armani would you find in their closet. No, they went off the beaten (high street) path for originals. Which is fine, if a smidgeon smug and self-conscious. But now Superdry comes along, knocks out T-shirts in the usual Faux Vintage style, and then slaps its own name across them and suddenly, Superdry in itself becomes a label to flash among your demographic, Mark. I'd like to think that it is a brilliant satire on the cult of vintage, but that does seem unlikely. The fact that this label has become so phenomenally successful proves that vintage was never, really, about being original, it was about trying to be cool. This makes me feel simultaneously an enormous sense of self-vindication and a sudden desire to weep for mankind. ...
Saturday, September 18, 2010
Blackwater Working for Monsanto Company and Canada
Blackwater, now called Xe, is back in the news again after it was reported that they have provided services to the Canadian Military, the Netherlands Police, and Monsanto Company.
Blackwater/Xe is a mercenary force most famous for its controversial run in Iraq under the Bush administration. Jeremy Scahill, a journalist who wrote a book on the soldiers of fortune, said:
"... entities closely linked to the private security firm Blackwater have provided intelligence, training and security services to US and foreign governments as well as several multinational corporations, including Monsanto, Chevron, the Walt Disney Company, Royal Caribbean Cruise Lines and banking giants Deutsche Bank and Barclays, according to documents obtained by The Nation. Blackwater's work for corporations and government agencies was contracted using two companies owned by Blackwater's owner and founder, Erik Prince: Total Intelligence Solutions and the Terrorism Research Center (TRC). Prince is listed as the chairman of both companies in internal company documents, which show how the web of companies functions as a highly coordinated operation."
A spokesperson for Monsanto said his company paid Total Intelligence for reports on groups and individuals that could pose a threat to the company wherever it operates. Total Intelligence worked on this by monitoring local news reports and searching the pages of activist blogs and websites. It didn't stop there, Blackwater's puppet company also infiltrated anti-Monsanto activist groups.
This is no surprise, given the fact that Monsanto is the same company that gave the world Agent Orange.
Another one of Blackwater/Xe's subsidiaries, the Terrorism Research Center, was paid over $1.6 million by Canada to provide training to its soldiers. This violation of the US export control laws, as well as other violations by the private death squad, incurred a fine of only $42 million. This is a mere slap on the wrist given the fact that Xe is raking in billions and has grown enormously over the past few years. ...
Ta much, dear Ar0cketman
Blackwater Working for Monsanto Company and Canada
Blackwater, now called Xe, is back in the news again after it was reported that they have provided services to the Canadian Military, the Netherlands Police, and Monsanto Company.
Blackwater/Xe is a mercenary force most famous for its controversial run in Iraq under the Bush administration. Jeremy Scahill, a journalist who wrote a book on the soldiers of fortune, said:
"... entities closely linked to the private security firm Blackwater have provided intelligence, training and security services to US and foreign governments as well as several multinational corporations, including Monsanto, Chevron, the Walt Disney Company, Royal Caribbean Cruise Lines and banking giants Deutsche Bank and Barclays, according to documents obtained by The Nation. Blackwater's work for corporations and government agencies was contracted using two companies owned by Blackwater's owner and founder, Erik Prince: Total Intelligence Solutions and the Terrorism Research Center (TRC). Prince is listed as the chairman of both companies in internal company documents, which show how the web of companies functions as a highly coordinated operation."
A spokesperson for Monsanto said his company paid Total Intelligence for reports on groups and individuals that could pose a threat to the company wherever it operates. Total Intelligence worked on this by monitoring local news reports and searching the pages of activist blogs and websites. It didn't stop there, Blackwater's puppet company also infiltrated anti-Monsanto activist groups.
This is no surprise, given the fact that Monsanto is the same company that gave the world Agent Orange.
Another one of Blackwater/Xe's subsidiaries, the Terrorism Research Center, was paid over $1.6 million by Canada to provide training to its soldiers. This violation of the US export control laws, as well as other violations by the private death squad, incurred a fine of only $42 million. This is a mere slap on the wrist given the fact that Xe is raking in billions and has grown enormously over the past few years. ...
Ta much, dear Ar0cketman
More than half of the Catholic clergy jailed for paedophile activity in England and Wales remain in the priesthood – with several receiving financial support from church authorities, raising serious questions about depth of church commitment to child protection and overshadowing the start of the papal visit.
There are also claims the church has breached guidelines it agreed to in 2001 by not punishing offenders appropriately and that it has even relaxed some of the rules on how to treat them.
The allegations, shown on Channel 4 News, will fuel hostility towards a trip that is proving controversial on many levels and in many quarters.
The investigation examines one of the key recommendations in the Nolan report, which was published in the wake of damaging disclosures of clerical sexual abuse and cover-ups at the start of the decade and was designed to root out sex offenders and prevent paedophiles from entering the priesthood.
It said that any cleric sentenced to a year or more in jail for sexual abuse should face laicisation – meaning they were to be stripped of their priesthood and privileges.
But at least 14 of the 22 priests who have served a year or more behind bars are still members of the clergy and 10 of these appear in the most recent edition of the Catholic Directory, the official yearbook of the church. Only eight of the 22 men have been dismissed from their positions. ...
There are also claims the church has breached guidelines it agreed to in 2001 by not punishing offenders appropriately and that it has even relaxed some of the rules on how to treat them.
The allegations, shown on Channel 4 News, will fuel hostility towards a trip that is proving controversial on many levels and in many quarters.
The investigation examines one of the key recommendations in the Nolan report, which was published in the wake of damaging disclosures of clerical sexual abuse and cover-ups at the start of the decade and was designed to root out sex offenders and prevent paedophiles from entering the priesthood.
It said that any cleric sentenced to a year or more in jail for sexual abuse should face laicisation – meaning they were to be stripped of their priesthood and privileges.
But at least 14 of the 22 priests who have served a year or more behind bars are still members of the clergy and 10 of these appear in the most recent edition of the Catholic Directory, the official yearbook of the church. Only eight of the 22 men have been dismissed from their positions. ...
Roma deportations by France a disgrace, says EU
European Union justice commissioner compares expulsions to Vichy France's deportation of Jews
Ian Traynor in Brussels
14 September 2010
France was forced on to the defensive over Nicolas Sarkozy's crackdown on the Roma population today after the European commission threatened the French government with legal action, labelling the policy disgraceful and comparing it to second world war deportations.
In her first direct criticism of France, after being widely reviled for prevaricating, Viviane Reding, the European commissioner for justice, attacked the Sarkozy government over the mass expulsions of Roma people and accused it of duplicity in its dealings with Brussels.
Reding likened the recent deportation of almost 1,000 Gypsies to Romania and Bulgaria to Vichy France's treatment of Jews in the second world war. She said Brussels had no option but to launch infringement proceedings, meaning that France could be hauled before the European court of justice.
The ultimatum from Reding represented a policy U-turn only a few days after she declared that the French government was sending "very positive" signals on its Roma policy, and José Manuel Barroso, European commission president, called a truce on the issue with Sarkozy.
The volte-face was triggered by the leak of a French government document demonstrating that Gypsies from Romania and Bulgaria were the explicit targets of a Sarkozy policy to shut down 300 immigrant encampments, an apparent breach of the EU ban on ethnic discrimination.
Over the past six weeks the French authorities have expelled almost 1,000 Roma and demolished scores of camps, while repeatedly denying that the families were the target of the campaign. "I can only express my deepest regrets that the political assurances, given by two French ministers officially mandated to discuss this matter with the European commission are now openly contradicted by an administrative circular issued by the same government. This is not a minor offence. This is a disgrace … my patience is wearing thin. Enough is enough," Reding said. ...
European Union justice commissioner compares expulsions to Vichy France's deportation of Jews
Ian Traynor in Brussels
14 September 2010
France was forced on to the defensive over Nicolas Sarkozy's crackdown on the Roma population today after the European commission threatened the French government with legal action, labelling the policy disgraceful and comparing it to second world war deportations.
In her first direct criticism of France, after being widely reviled for prevaricating, Viviane Reding, the European commissioner for justice, attacked the Sarkozy government over the mass expulsions of Roma people and accused it of duplicity in its dealings with Brussels.
Reding likened the recent deportation of almost 1,000 Gypsies to Romania and Bulgaria to Vichy France's treatment of Jews in the second world war. She said Brussels had no option but to launch infringement proceedings, meaning that France could be hauled before the European court of justice.
The ultimatum from Reding represented a policy U-turn only a few days after she declared that the French government was sending "very positive" signals on its Roma policy, and José Manuel Barroso, European commission president, called a truce on the issue with Sarkozy.
The volte-face was triggered by the leak of a French government document demonstrating that Gypsies from Romania and Bulgaria were the explicit targets of a Sarkozy policy to shut down 300 immigrant encampments, an apparent breach of the EU ban on ethnic discrimination.
Over the past six weeks the French authorities have expelled almost 1,000 Roma and demolished scores of camps, while repeatedly denying that the families were the target of the campaign. "I can only express my deepest regrets that the political assurances, given by two French ministers officially mandated to discuss this matter with the European commission are now openly contradicted by an administrative circular issued by the same government. This is not a minor offence. This is a disgrace … my patience is wearing thin. Enough is enough," Reding said. ...
... Kamkar showed just how simple stalking can be. The first step is to lure the victim to click the attacker's link. Once the victim lands on the baited website, Kamkar showed how to trick and manipulate Google into revealing her location.
After she visited the malicious site, he could impersonate her by making his PC seem like her PC requesting the information. Using JavaScript to remotely scan for her router type and her MAC address, he then utilized Google Street View data to discover the location of her router. He was accurate within 30 feet.
According to Dan Goodin, "If JavaScript is unpalatable for some reason, there are other ways to do this. A few things have to happen for the attack to work. First, the router needs to be set to use the default administrative password, or it needs to be a model that doesn't require credentials to access its system information page. And the router's MAC address must already have been recorded by Google's ubiquitous fleet of Street View cars, which roam the earth snapping pictures and sniffing select Wi-Fi data."
This hack might be used for stalking or for targeting and attacking specific individuals. From proof-of-concept to his 'How I Met Your Girlfriend' presentation, Kamkar shows how easily a person could meet a guy, find out about his girlfriend, social engineer her to click a link, track her down, knock on her door, deliver pizza and beer. Discovering, meeting, and then stealing your girlfriend out from under you might be one of the less harmful scenarios.
"This is geo-location gone terrible," Samy Kamkar said during his presentation. "Privacy is dead, people. I'm sorry."
I contacted Samy and asked him what he advised for people who are concerned about privacy and security. In other words, what does he do to protect his privacy? Samy replied via email, "To better protect yourself, make sure you're using up to date firmware on your router, that you've changed any default passwords on your router or firewall, and if possible, use additional software such as NoScript to protect your browser from malicious code." ...
After she visited the malicious site, he could impersonate her by making his PC seem like her PC requesting the information. Using JavaScript to remotely scan for her router type and her MAC address, he then utilized Google Street View data to discover the location of her router. He was accurate within 30 feet.
According to Dan Goodin, "If JavaScript is unpalatable for some reason, there are other ways to do this. A few things have to happen for the attack to work. First, the router needs to be set to use the default administrative password, or it needs to be a model that doesn't require credentials to access its system information page. And the router's MAC address must already have been recorded by Google's ubiquitous fleet of Street View cars, which roam the earth snapping pictures and sniffing select Wi-Fi data."
This hack might be used for stalking or for targeting and attacking specific individuals. From proof-of-concept to his 'How I Met Your Girlfriend' presentation, Kamkar shows how easily a person could meet a guy, find out about his girlfriend, social engineer her to click a link, track her down, knock on her door, deliver pizza and beer. Discovering, meeting, and then stealing your girlfriend out from under you might be one of the less harmful scenarios.
"This is geo-location gone terrible," Samy Kamkar said during his presentation. "Privacy is dead, people. I'm sorry."
I contacted Samy and asked him what he advised for people who are concerned about privacy and security. In other words, what does he do to protect his privacy? Samy replied via email, "To better protect yourself, make sure you're using up to date firmware on your router, that you've changed any default passwords on your router or firewall, and if possible, use additional software such as NoScript to protect your browser from malicious code." ...
Schoolgirl sent home for wearing wrong shade of green
A seven-year-old girl was sent home from school for wearing the wrong shade of green.
07 Sep 2010
Seven-year-old Emma Johnson was sent home from school on the first day of term because teachers said her shirt was the wrong shade of green.
Her mother Sue Johnson, 42, criticised the primary school after her daughter was sent home with a letter from the head teacher and chairman of governors because she wasn't wearing a jade shirt.
This was despite the fact that, according to the school's website, the school does not have an official uniform policy.
Mrs Johnson, a mother of two, said Green Lane Primary School in Leeds, West Yorks, was being unreasonable and trying too hard to impress after recently winning permission to become an academy.
The change due to happen in the coming months would allow the school's management more autonomy over the way it is run.
The 42-year-old said: "I am absolutely livid at the school. They are making an example of a seven-year-old. She is worried and upset now.
"The shirt is as close to jade green as you can get. In fact the schools' letterhead matches the colour of the shirt." ...
A seven-year-old girl was sent home from school for wearing the wrong shade of green.
07 Sep 2010
Seven-year-old Emma Johnson was sent home from school on the first day of term because teachers said her shirt was the wrong shade of green.
Her mother Sue Johnson, 42, criticised the primary school after her daughter was sent home with a letter from the head teacher and chairman of governors because she wasn't wearing a jade shirt.
This was despite the fact that, according to the school's website, the school does not have an official uniform policy.
Mrs Johnson, a mother of two, said Green Lane Primary School in Leeds, West Yorks, was being unreasonable and trying too hard to impress after recently winning permission to become an academy.
The change due to happen in the coming months would allow the school's management more autonomy over the way it is run.
The 42-year-old said: "I am absolutely livid at the school. They are making an example of a seven-year-old. She is worried and upset now.
"The shirt is as close to jade green as you can get. In fact the schools' letterhead matches the colour of the shirt." ...
Most Detroiters have an almost genetic fear and/or distrust of police. You now know why.
And so the Press Complaints Commission sits there, not as King Canute failing to turn back the tide of voicemail hacking, but as the embodiment of all three monkeys, seeing nothing, saying nothing, and doing nothing.
The News of the World now assures us it has "zero tolerance" of phone hacking. Bill Akass, the managing editor, says that if the latest case is proven, the perpetrator will be dismissed for "gross misconduct without compensation". That is an improvement on the position adopted after the convictions of Clive Goodman (the former royal correspondent) and Glenn Mulcaire (a private investigator). Both were paid off, and to this day both remain silent.
After the phone hacking story broke, the PCC, the regulator of the press financed by the press, did nothing.
It continues to do nothing while making noises that "phone message hacking is deplorable". The excuses for doing nothing are varied but the outcome is the same. ...
The News of the World now assures us it has "zero tolerance" of phone hacking. Bill Akass, the managing editor, says that if the latest case is proven, the perpetrator will be dismissed for "gross misconduct without compensation". That is an improvement on the position adopted after the convictions of Clive Goodman (the former royal correspondent) and Glenn Mulcaire (a private investigator). Both were paid off, and to this day both remain silent.
After the phone hacking story broke, the PCC, the regulator of the press financed by the press, did nothing.
It continues to do nothing while making noises that "phone message hacking is deplorable". The excuses for doing nothing are varied but the outcome is the same. ...
Tank mit Gülle geplatzt
Tank mit Gülle in Roggendorf geplatzt
“Definitely an increased smell annoyance…” was the description of the incident earlier this morning (Monday) when a tank truck hauling 20 tons of liquified pig manure burst open in the center of Rye, Germany. The truck was hauling the crap from the Netherlands to a fertilizer plant not much farther down the road from Rye in Pulheim when the tank’s discharge cap suddenly fell off in the center of the village around 7:30 am this morning.
The entire load was ejected and violently sprayed over 100 meters of roadway, six houses, seven cars and two pedestrians. ...
... They soon learned that the slop had been pasteurized before shipment and was not carrying any harmful bacteria....
... They had the job wrapped up by noon and returned to quarters with a good story to pass along to the next generation of firefighters.
Ta much, dear Anneliese, I think.
The entire load was ejected and violently sprayed over 100 meters of roadway, six houses, seven cars and two pedestrians. ...
... They soon learned that the slop had been pasteurized before shipment and was not carrying any harmful bacteria....
... They had the job wrapped up by noon and returned to quarters with a good story to pass along to the next generation of firefighters.
Ta much, dear Anneliese, I think.
John Prescott furious over unrevealed link to phone-hacking scandal
Documents held by Metropolitan police suggest News of the World targeted former deputy prime minister
Toby Helm and Jamie Doward
4 September 2010
John Prescott tonight demanded the Metropolitan police reopen its investigation into the News of the World phone-hacking scandal as the Observer revealed that Scotland Yard holds News International documents suggesting that he was a target when deputy prime minister.
Two invoices held by the Met mention Prescott by name. They appear to show that News International, owner of the NoW, paid Glenn Mulcaire, the private investigator at the heart of the scandal, for his help on stories relating to the deputy PM. Lord Prescott spoke of his anger that the information, spelled out in a letter from the Yard's legal services directorate, emerged only after he was given a series of personal reassurances by detectives at the highest level that there was "no evidence" his phone may have been hacked.
The invoices are both dated May 2006, at a time when Prescott was the subject of intense media scrutiny following revelations that he had had an affair with his secretary, Tracey Temple. There is also a piece of paper obtained from Mulcaire on which the name "John Prescott" is written. The only other legible word on this document is "Hull".
The name "Prescott" appears on two "self-billing tax invoices" from News International Supply Company Ltd to Mulcaire's company, Nine Consultancy.
The Yard's letter, obtained by the Observer, states: "One appears to be for a single payment of £250 on 7/5/2006 labelled 'Story: other Prescott Assist -txt.' The second, also for £250, on 21/5/2006 contains the words 'Story: Other Prescott Assist -txt urgent'."
The legal services directorate adds: "We do not know what this means or what it is referring to."
In a statement to the Observer, Prescott said he formed the impression that the police were more intent on withholding information relating directly to him. "I have been far from satisfied with the Metropolitan police's procedure in dealing with my requests to uncover the truth about this case," he said. ...
Documents held by Metropolitan police suggest News of the World targeted former deputy prime minister
Toby Helm and Jamie Doward
4 September 2010
John Prescott tonight demanded the Metropolitan police reopen its investigation into the News of the World phone-hacking scandal as the Observer revealed that Scotland Yard holds News International documents suggesting that he was a target when deputy prime minister.
Two invoices held by the Met mention Prescott by name. They appear to show that News International, owner of the NoW, paid Glenn Mulcaire, the private investigator at the heart of the scandal, for his help on stories relating to the deputy PM. Lord Prescott spoke of his anger that the information, spelled out in a letter from the Yard's legal services directorate, emerged only after he was given a series of personal reassurances by detectives at the highest level that there was "no evidence" his phone may have been hacked.
The invoices are both dated May 2006, at a time when Prescott was the subject of intense media scrutiny following revelations that he had had an affair with his secretary, Tracey Temple. There is also a piece of paper obtained from Mulcaire on which the name "John Prescott" is written. The only other legible word on this document is "Hull".
The name "Prescott" appears on two "self-billing tax invoices" from News International Supply Company Ltd to Mulcaire's company, Nine Consultancy.
The Yard's letter, obtained by the Observer, states: "One appears to be for a single payment of £250 on 7/5/2006 labelled 'Story: other Prescott Assist -txt.' The second, also for £250, on 21/5/2006 contains the words 'Story: Other Prescott Assist -txt urgent'."
The legal services directorate adds: "We do not know what this means or what it is referring to."
In a statement to the Observer, Prescott said he formed the impression that the police were more intent on withholding information relating directly to him. "I have been far from satisfied with the Metropolitan police's procedure in dealing with my requests to uncover the truth about this case," he said. ...
News of the World faces fresh phone hacking charge
• Calls for judicial inquiry after reporter is suspended
• Latest phone hacking allegation dates from earlier this year
• Four targets poised to sue police over failure to warn them
Nick Davies, Vikram Dodd and Nicholas Watt
Thursday 2 September 2010
The government tonight came under pressure to set up a judicial inquiry into the phone hacking scandal at the News of the World after the paper confirmed that it has suspended a journalist while it investigates new allegations of the unlawful interception of voicemail.
The prime minister's media adviser, Andy Coulson, has denied a report in the New York Times which claimed he freely discussed the use of unlawful news-gathering techniques when he was editing the paper and "actively encouraged" a named reporter to engage in illegal interception of voicemail messages. Coulson has always denied knowing of any illegal activity by his journalists.
Scotland Yard, too, found itself in the firing line after the New York Times quoted unnamed detectives alleging they had cut short their investigation because of their close relationship with the News of the World. A group of four public figures, including former deputy prime minister John Prescott, is poised to sue police over a failure to warn them they had been targeted by the private investigator at the centre of the scandal, Glenn Mulcaire.
The Guardian has learned that the Metropolitan police commissioner at the time of the original investigation, Sir Ian Blair, was among those whose names were found in material seized from Mulcaire, raising questions about whether officers who were directly involved in the investigation had discovered that they, too, had been targets of the newspaper. It is understood Blair was assured at the time that his phone had not been hacked.
The former Labour minister Tom Watson today called on the government to set up an inquiry into the relationship between Scotland Yard and Rupert Murdoch's News Group, which publishes the News of the World. In a letter which was addressed to the deputy prime minister, Nick Clegg, in the absence of the prime minister, who is on paternity leave, Watson wrote: "The testimony given to the New York Times is that the police did not share all the relevant information with the Crown Prosecution Service, and that, if they had done, the CPS would have reached a different conclusion. These are clear grounds for a judicial inquiry.
"I think that information should be made available to the people concerned." ...
• Calls for judicial inquiry after reporter is suspended
• Latest phone hacking allegation dates from earlier this year
• Four targets poised to sue police over failure to warn them
Nick Davies, Vikram Dodd and Nicholas Watt
Thursday 2 September 2010
The government tonight came under pressure to set up a judicial inquiry into the phone hacking scandal at the News of the World after the paper confirmed that it has suspended a journalist while it investigates new allegations of the unlawful interception of voicemail.
The prime minister's media adviser, Andy Coulson, has denied a report in the New York Times which claimed he freely discussed the use of unlawful news-gathering techniques when he was editing the paper and "actively encouraged" a named reporter to engage in illegal interception of voicemail messages. Coulson has always denied knowing of any illegal activity by his journalists.
Scotland Yard, too, found itself in the firing line after the New York Times quoted unnamed detectives alleging they had cut short their investigation because of their close relationship with the News of the World. A group of four public figures, including former deputy prime minister John Prescott, is poised to sue police over a failure to warn them they had been targeted by the private investigator at the centre of the scandal, Glenn Mulcaire.
The Guardian has learned that the Metropolitan police commissioner at the time of the original investigation, Sir Ian Blair, was among those whose names were found in material seized from Mulcaire, raising questions about whether officers who were directly involved in the investigation had discovered that they, too, had been targets of the newspaper. It is understood Blair was assured at the time that his phone had not been hacked.
The former Labour minister Tom Watson today called on the government to set up an inquiry into the relationship between Scotland Yard and Rupert Murdoch's News Group, which publishes the News of the World. In a letter which was addressed to the deputy prime minister, Nick Clegg, in the absence of the prime minister, who is on paternity leave, Watson wrote: "The testimony given to the New York Times is that the police did not share all the relevant information with the Crown Prosecution Service, and that, if they had done, the CPS would have reached a different conclusion. These are clear grounds for a judicial inquiry.
"I think that information should be made available to the people concerned." ...
Golfer sparks 12-acre fire with shot in the rough
A golfer managed to set fire to a course when he accidentally struck a rock with his iron, sending sparks into the Californian rough.
2 Sep 2010
His hacking in the rough caused a spark that lit the rough ablaze and spread, destroying 12 acres, although no homes were destroyed.
The fire, at the exclusive Shady Canyon Golf Club in Irvine, California, USA, attracted 150 firefighters. ...
A golfer managed to set fire to a course when he accidentally struck a rock with his iron, sending sparks into the Californian rough.
2 Sep 2010
His hacking in the rough caused a spark that lit the rough ablaze and spread, destroying 12 acres, although no homes were destroyed.
The fire, at the exclusive Shady Canyon Golf Club in Irvine, California, USA, attracted 150 firefighters. ...
[brilliant snooty English butler]I have brought Sir a rather large Aloe Vera plant. I have also taken the liberty of engaging a hypnotherapist for Madam - she specialises in phobias.
A Mr Darwin also rang for you earlier, Sir. He said he shall ring back.[/brilliant snooty English butler]
Ta much to that naughty scullery maid, dear Anneliese
A Mr Darwin also rang for you earlier, Sir. He said he shall ring back.[/brilliant snooty English butler]
Ta much to that naughty scullery maid, dear Anneliese
Fucking disgusting.
...“What we’re suggesting is that something that doesn’t really interact with anything is changing something that can’t be changed.” ...
Ta much, dear Ar0cketman
Ta much, dear Ar0cketman
Tredegar terror - Weeping residents angry at MP and police
Published: Saturday | August 14, 2010
Arthur Hall and Rasbert Turner, Gleaner Reporters
THE GRIEF was evident, and the tears flowed freely as residents of Tredegar Park, St Catherine, responded to the killing of eight of their neighbours yesterday morning.
But what was more evident was the anger, as the residents claimed that they had been abandoned by the security forces and their political representatives and left to the mercy of heartless criminals.
With five men and three females, including an 11-year-old girl dead, the residents of the east central St Catherine community had reason to mourn. ...
... The residents reported that about 12:30 yesterday morning, explosions were heard in the area.
On investigation, the residents saw a group of men numbering between 15 and 20, dressed in dark-coloured clothing, firing shots into a number of houses before setting fire to at least two premises.
According to residents, calls to the police went unanswered as the gunmen went on a rampage that lasted for between 30 and 45 minutes.
"As anything happen, the police come round here, but when gunmen come kill wi aff, wi caan si any police," said a young woman, as the tears streamed down her cheeks.
"Let this be a warning to all of you that we have to come together to protect each other because the police and soldiers nah protect we," said an obviously angry young man.
"If you did think we have any MP (member of Parliament) or police to protect wi, you can see wi nuh have none now. You nuh see all now the MP nuh reach yah so," the young man added angrily. ...
Published: Saturday | August 14, 2010
Arthur Hall and Rasbert Turner, Gleaner Reporters
THE GRIEF was evident, and the tears flowed freely as residents of Tredegar Park, St Catherine, responded to the killing of eight of their neighbours yesterday morning.
But what was more evident was the anger, as the residents claimed that they had been abandoned by the security forces and their political representatives and left to the mercy of heartless criminals.
With five men and three females, including an 11-year-old girl dead, the residents of the east central St Catherine community had reason to mourn. ...
... The residents reported that about 12:30 yesterday morning, explosions were heard in the area.
On investigation, the residents saw a group of men numbering between 15 and 20, dressed in dark-coloured clothing, firing shots into a number of houses before setting fire to at least two premises.
According to residents, calls to the police went unanswered as the gunmen went on a rampage that lasted for between 30 and 45 minutes.
"As anything happen, the police come round here, but when gunmen come kill wi aff, wi caan si any police," said a young woman, as the tears streamed down her cheeks.
"Let this be a warning to all of you that we have to come together to protect each other because the police and soldiers nah protect we," said an obviously angry young man.
"If you did think we have any MP (member of Parliament) or police to protect wi, you can see wi nuh have none now. You nuh see all now the MP nuh reach yah so," the young man added angrily. ...
Wrong again! Man 'killed' by police still on the run
Published: Saturday | August 14, 2010
Arthur Hall, Senior Staff Reporter
ANOTHER POLICE report has been called into question less than three weeks after the police information arm was left with egg on its face when a private video recording contradicted its report about the circumstances surrounding the fatal shooting of a man in Buckfield, St Ann.
Early yesterday morning, the police claimed that they had engaged the gunmen who had killed eight persons in Tredegar Park, St Catherine, and fatally shot two of the men in the section of the community known as Brooklyn.
According to the police, the dead gunmen were identified as Kevin, otherwise called 'Bilbo', and Jerome Williams, otherwise called 'Crab', both members of the Clansman gang, which operates in Spanish Town.
But hours later, residents disputed the police reports and compounded this by identifying the two dead persons.
The residents identified one of the victims as 15-year-old Derrick Anthony Bolton, otherwise called 'Crabby'. The other victim was identified as Lemone Turner, otherwise called 'Frenchman'.
"Crabby is my son who is a dancer who stay in Brooklyn and practise him dancing, so me tell him not to come home until in the morning," Geraldien Williams, his mother, told The Gleaner.
"The police dem hold him and dem ask him what the people call him, and him say Crabby, and dem say a him shoot the people a Tredegar Park, and a so dem kill him. It was a case of mistaken identity," Williams argued.
Other residents were most upset that the police could have mistaken the young Crabby for the alleged gangster known as Crab who was recently released from state custody.
"The police dem should a know say a nuh him name Crab, and dem should a never kill the youth," an angry resident said. ...
Published: Saturday | August 14, 2010
Arthur Hall, Senior Staff Reporter
ANOTHER POLICE report has been called into question less than three weeks after the police information arm was left with egg on its face when a private video recording contradicted its report about the circumstances surrounding the fatal shooting of a man in Buckfield, St Ann.
Early yesterday morning, the police claimed that they had engaged the gunmen who had killed eight persons in Tredegar Park, St Catherine, and fatally shot two of the men in the section of the community known as Brooklyn.
According to the police, the dead gunmen were identified as Kevin, otherwise called 'Bilbo', and Jerome Williams, otherwise called 'Crab', both members of the Clansman gang, which operates in Spanish Town.
But hours later, residents disputed the police reports and compounded this by identifying the two dead persons.
The residents identified one of the victims as 15-year-old Derrick Anthony Bolton, otherwise called 'Crabby'. The other victim was identified as Lemone Turner, otherwise called 'Frenchman'.
"Crabby is my son who is a dancer who stay in Brooklyn and practise him dancing, so me tell him not to come home until in the morning," Geraldien Williams, his mother, told The Gleaner.
"The police dem hold him and dem ask him what the people call him, and him say Crabby, and dem say a him shoot the people a Tredegar Park, and a so dem kill him. It was a case of mistaken identity," Williams argued.
Other residents were most upset that the police could have mistaken the young Crabby for the alleged gangster known as Crab who was recently released from state custody.
"The police dem should a know say a nuh him name Crab, and dem should a never kill the youth," an angry resident said. ...
Never again!
Published: Thursday | August 19, 2010
Arthur Hall, Senior Staff Reporter
National Security Minister Dwight Nelson has vowed that the people of Tredegar Park, St Catherine, will never again have to endure the nightmare which climaxed with the killing of eight of their neighbours last Friday.
"This is a distressing situation, it is a terrible situation and the Government is not going to abdicate its responsibilities to protect these people," Nelson declared yesterday.
"Eight have been murdered and we don't want any more murders."
Nelson was on a tour of the community for his first meeting with residents who have survived a seven-year assault.
"I'm frightened. I am really trying hard to find words to describe how I feel inside having visited the places where the people were killed," Nelson told journalists as he walked the area known as Monkey Town, where the eight persons, including an 11-year-old girl, were fatally shot.
"I looked inside and saw the spots at which they died, talked to the people feeling the trauma, talked to children, looked at the fright in their eyes and I'm really, really distressed," Nelson said.
He told the residents that there was need for a united effort to bring back peace and a sense of safety to the community.
However, Nelson said the police have devised several measures which will be implemented to protect the residents.
He announced that those measures will include the placement of a mobile police station in the area. ...
Published: Thursday | August 19, 2010
Arthur Hall, Senior Staff Reporter
National Security Minister Dwight Nelson has vowed that the people of Tredegar Park, St Catherine, will never again have to endure the nightmare which climaxed with the killing of eight of their neighbours last Friday.
"This is a distressing situation, it is a terrible situation and the Government is not going to abdicate its responsibilities to protect these people," Nelson declared yesterday.
"Eight have been murdered and we don't want any more murders."
Nelson was on a tour of the community for his first meeting with residents who have survived a seven-year assault.
"I'm frightened. I am really trying hard to find words to describe how I feel inside having visited the places where the people were killed," Nelson told journalists as he walked the area known as Monkey Town, where the eight persons, including an 11-year-old girl, were fatally shot.
"I looked inside and saw the spots at which they died, talked to the people feeling the trauma, talked to children, looked at the fright in their eyes and I'm really, really distressed," Nelson said.
He told the residents that there was need for a united effort to bring back peace and a sense of safety to the community.
However, Nelson said the police have devised several measures which will be implemented to protect the residents.
He announced that those measures will include the placement of a mobile police station in the area. ...
No consensus on cause of war
Published: Thursday | August 19, 2010
Conflicting reports are beginning to surface about the cause of the bloody battle that has engulfed the communities of Tredegar Park and Gravel Heights in East Central St Catherine.
The official reports from the police link the conflict to the two major gangs operating out of the parish capital, Spanish Town.
According to the police, the Jamaica Labour Party (JLP)-aligned One Order gang and the People's National Party (PNP)-linked Clansman gang are behind the violence.
In the immediate aftermath of last Friday's killing of eight people in Tredegar Park, the police released the names of nine members of the two gangs as persons of interest.
But JLP councillor caretaker for the area, Neil Powell, says the One Order gang does not operate in Tredegar Park and the killers have been targeting his supporters.
"The people who worked with me in the last election have been either killed, abducted, driven away or raped in the area," Powell told The Gleaner.
"I'm standing here and I'm being truthful and I don't know of any criminal elements in Tredegar Park right now. There are a few guys who were here and they stood up and said they are not going to be taken over by the criminals from the Clansman gang and, when these guys put up resistance, people call them One Order gang and it is not so," Powell declared.
He said the few men who defended their turf in Tredegar Park have been taken into custody by the police. ...
Published: Thursday | August 19, 2010
Conflicting reports are beginning to surface about the cause of the bloody battle that has engulfed the communities of Tredegar Park and Gravel Heights in East Central St Catherine.
The official reports from the police link the conflict to the two major gangs operating out of the parish capital, Spanish Town.
According to the police, the Jamaica Labour Party (JLP)-aligned One Order gang and the People's National Party (PNP)-linked Clansman gang are behind the violence.
In the immediate aftermath of last Friday's killing of eight people in Tredegar Park, the police released the names of nine members of the two gangs as persons of interest.
But JLP councillor caretaker for the area, Neil Powell, says the One Order gang does not operate in Tredegar Park and the killers have been targeting his supporters.
"The people who worked with me in the last election have been either killed, abducted, driven away or raped in the area," Powell told The Gleaner.
"I'm standing here and I'm being truthful and I don't know of any criminal elements in Tredegar Park right now. There are a few guys who were here and they stood up and said they are not going to be taken over by the criminals from the Clansman gang and, when these guys put up resistance, people call them One Order gang and it is not so," Powell declared.
He said the few men who defended their turf in Tredegar Park have been taken into custody by the police. ...
Help coming for Tredegar Park residents
Published: Thursday | August 19, 2010
THE GOVERNMENT is mobilising several agencies to provide immediate assistance to the residents of Tredegar Park, St Catherine, who are struggling to cope with the impact of a conflict that has left more than 30 people dead over the past seven years.
Daryl Vaz, minister with responsibility for information and special projects, visited the community yesterday and promised the battle-weary residents that help was on the way.
"What I have learnt from this visit is that there are a number of people in the community who were affected in previous attacks who have received no assistance," Vaz told journalists as he completed a tour of the community.
"I have put the SDC (Social Develop-ment Commission) in charge and I'm going to ask other agencies to assist," he added.
Vaz announced that the Ministry of Education is to conduct an assessment of the Tredegar Park Primary School to see what needs to be done to have it ready for September, while the Ministry of Water and Housing is to look at the houses which were firebombed or otherwise damaged during the conflict.
The Ministry of Labour and Social Security is also to provide assistance to the families who will now have to bury their dead.
"Food For The Poor will be coming tomorrow because it can react immediately and quickest to the infrastructure needs of these people," said Vaz.
"We are talking about an immediate response, a short-term and a medium-term response because this is not a quick-fix situation, and the people have been affected in many different ways."
The government minister described the situation in Tredegar Park as heart-rending and frightening.
"When you listen to the people and the stories that they tell you about how they have been living in fear for many, many years ... ," he lamented, shaking his head.
"They don't sleep at nights. The children have been crying since Friday and this looks like something that you will see in war-torn countries around the world." ...
Published: Thursday | August 19, 2010
THE GOVERNMENT is mobilising several agencies to provide immediate assistance to the residents of Tredegar Park, St Catherine, who are struggling to cope with the impact of a conflict that has left more than 30 people dead over the past seven years.
Daryl Vaz, minister with responsibility for information and special projects, visited the community yesterday and promised the battle-weary residents that help was on the way.
"What I have learnt from this visit is that there are a number of people in the community who were affected in previous attacks who have received no assistance," Vaz told journalists as he completed a tour of the community.
"I have put the SDC (Social Develop-ment Commission) in charge and I'm going to ask other agencies to assist," he added.
Vaz announced that the Ministry of Education is to conduct an assessment of the Tredegar Park Primary School to see what needs to be done to have it ready for September, while the Ministry of Water and Housing is to look at the houses which were firebombed or otherwise damaged during the conflict.
The Ministry of Labour and Social Security is also to provide assistance to the families who will now have to bury their dead.
"Food For The Poor will be coming tomorrow because it can react immediately and quickest to the infrastructure needs of these people," said Vaz.
"We are talking about an immediate response, a short-term and a medium-term response because this is not a quick-fix situation, and the people have been affected in many different ways."
The government minister described the situation in Tredegar Park as heart-rending and frightening.
"When you listen to the people and the stories that they tell you about how they have been living in fear for many, many years ... ," he lamented, shaking his head.
"They don't sleep at nights. The children have been crying since Friday and this looks like something that you will see in war-torn countries around the world." ...
This is well beyond tasteless.
What a buncha pricks.
Elderly widow threatened with £2,500 fine for dropping cigarette ash
An elderly widow has been threatened with a £2,500 fine for dropping cigarette ash on the pavement.
16 Aug 2010
Sheila Martin, 70, was smoking at a bus stop when a warden pounced and handed her the £75 fixed penalty for littering.
However she has refused to pay – and could now face a £2,500 penalty.
Mrs Martin, from Oldbury, West Mids, was hit with the original fine by the Sandwell Council warden while at the bus stop on May 25.
She said: "I still can't believe what happened. I was just sat at a bus stop quietly enjoying my cigarette and from nowhere a warden appeared and accused me of littering.
"I couldn't believe it, I was only smoking a cigarette. It is one of the few things I have left that I can afford to buy myself.
"I can't work out why the council would be so vindictive over such a petty matter. I'm so upset and angry."
It is not the first time Sandwell Council has been accused of heavy handedness over littering.
The authority handed out 2,200 penalty fines last year, compared to just 336 in neighbouring Dudley.
Cllr Derek Rowley, Sandwell's Cabinet member for safer neighbourhoods, refused to be drawn on Mrs Martin's case, but said: "In general terms, our wardens do not issue fixed penalty notices for dropping cigarette ash...."
They did, in general terms, issue a fixed penalty notice to Ms Martin, you fuckwits.
An elderly widow has been threatened with a £2,500 fine for dropping cigarette ash on the pavement.
16 Aug 2010
Sheila Martin, 70, was smoking at a bus stop when a warden pounced and handed her the £75 fixed penalty for littering.
However she has refused to pay – and could now face a £2,500 penalty.
Mrs Martin, from Oldbury, West Mids, was hit with the original fine by the Sandwell Council warden while at the bus stop on May 25.
She said: "I still can't believe what happened. I was just sat at a bus stop quietly enjoying my cigarette and from nowhere a warden appeared and accused me of littering.
"I couldn't believe it, I was only smoking a cigarette. It is one of the few things I have left that I can afford to buy myself.
"I can't work out why the council would be so vindictive over such a petty matter. I'm so upset and angry."
It is not the first time Sandwell Council has been accused of heavy handedness over littering.
The authority handed out 2,200 penalty fines last year, compared to just 336 in neighbouring Dudley.
Cllr Derek Rowley, Sandwell's Cabinet member for safer neighbourhoods, refused to be drawn on Mrs Martin's case, but said: "In general terms, our wardens do not issue fixed penalty notices for dropping cigarette ash...."
They did, in general terms, issue a fixed penalty notice to Ms Martin, you fuckwits.
... Here are the major companies that are downloading the torrent. A couple caveats to these. Just because a company is on the list, doesn't mean that it's a sanctioned download by the company itself to grab the user information for some purpose. It could easily just be some dude at the company who wanted to download the torrent himself to check it out. Also, the IP addresses assigned to a company might fluctuate (they usually don't, much, unless major companies change their connection to the internet, so it should be mostly accurate).
A.C. Nielsen
Agilent Technologies
Apple
AT&T - Possible Macrovision
Baker & McKenzie
BBC
Bertelsmann Media
Boeing
Church of Scientology
Cisco Systems
Cox Enterprises
Davis Polk & Wardwell
Deutsche Telekom
Disney
Duracell
Ernst & Young
Fujitsu
Goldman Sachs
Halliburton
HBO & Company
Hilton Hospitality
Hitachi
HP
IBM
Intel
Intuit
Levi Strauss & Co.
Lockheed-Martin Corp
Lucasfilm
Lucent
Lucent Technologies
Matsushita Electric Industrial Co
Mcafee
MetLife
Mitsubishi
Motorola
Northrop Grumman
Novell
Nvidia
O'Melveny & Myers
Oracle Corp
Pepsi Cola
Procter and Gamble
Random House
Raytheon
Road Runner RRWE
Seagate
Sega
Siemens AG
SONY CORPORATION
Sprint
Sun Microsystems
Symantec
The Hague
Time Warner Telecom
Turner Broadcasting system
Ubisoft Entertainment
Unisys
United Nations
Univision
USPS
Viacom
Vodafone
Wells Fargo
Xerox PARC
facebook: Just Say "No."
Ta much, dear MSiegel
A.C. Nielsen
Agilent Technologies
Apple
AT&T - Possible Macrovision
Baker & McKenzie
BBC
Bertelsmann Media
Boeing
Church of Scientology
Cisco Systems
Cox Enterprises
Davis Polk & Wardwell
Deutsche Telekom
Disney
Duracell
Ernst & Young
Fujitsu
Goldman Sachs
Halliburton
HBO & Company
Hilton Hospitality
Hitachi
HP
IBM
Intel
Intuit
Levi Strauss & Co.
Lockheed-Martin Corp
Lucasfilm
Lucent
Lucent Technologies
Matsushita Electric Industrial Co
Mcafee
MetLife
Mitsubishi
Motorola
Northrop Grumman
Novell
Nvidia
O'Melveny & Myers
Oracle Corp
Pepsi Cola
Procter and Gamble
Random House
Raytheon
Road Runner RRWE
Seagate
Sega
Siemens AG
SONY CORPORATION
Sprint
Sun Microsystems
Symantec
The Hague
Time Warner Telecom
Turner Broadcasting system
Ubisoft Entertainment
Unisys
United Nations
Univision
USPS
Viacom
Vodafone
Wells Fargo
Xerox PARC
facebook: Just Say "No."
Ta much, dear MSiegel
I live in Detroit, but the biggest rat I ever saw was in Cleveland, and it was the size of a big kitty!
Stop Industrial Farm Antibiotic Abuse
Industrial farms routinely feed antibiotics to chickens, pigs, and beef cattle to make them grow faster and compensate for overcrowding and unsanitary living conditions.
In fact, up to 70 percent of all antibiotics sold in the United States are used on industrial farms in healthy food animals.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and U.S. Food and Drug Administration recently testified before the U.S. Congress to the definitive link between routine antibiotic use in food animal production and antibiotic resistance in humans—the first time these three agencies have presented a unified message on the issue.
Yet, the FDA may weaken a regulation to make it even easier for veterinarians to give antibiotics to food animals on industrial farms. And, while a recent FDA draft guidance document on antibiotic use in food-producing animals states that “using medically important antimicrobial drugs for production or growth enhancing purposes in food-producing animals is not in the interest of protecting and promoting the public health,” the document only recommends measures to curb some overuse of the drugs. Now is not the time for less regulations and unenforceable recommendations! It is time for definitive action that forces agribusiness to end the overuse and misuse of antibiotics. ...
Industrial farms routinely feed antibiotics to chickens, pigs, and beef cattle to make them grow faster and compensate for overcrowding and unsanitary living conditions.
In fact, up to 70 percent of all antibiotics sold in the United States are used on industrial farms in healthy food animals.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and U.S. Food and Drug Administration recently testified before the U.S. Congress to the definitive link between routine antibiotic use in food animal production and antibiotic resistance in humans—the first time these three agencies have presented a unified message on the issue.
Yet, the FDA may weaken a regulation to make it even easier for veterinarians to give antibiotics to food animals on industrial farms. And, while a recent FDA draft guidance document on antibiotic use in food-producing animals states that “using medically important antimicrobial drugs for production or growth enhancing purposes in food-producing animals is not in the interest of protecting and promoting the public health,” the document only recommends measures to curb some overuse of the drugs. Now is not the time for less regulations and unenforceable recommendations! It is time for definitive action that forces agribusiness to end the overuse and misuse of antibiotics. ...
FEDERAL BUREAU of Investigations (FBI) director, Robert Mueller, told Congress yesterday that he does not know how many of his agents cheated on an important test about the limitations of the bureau's powers to conduct surveillance and open cases without evidence that a crime has been committed.
The Justice Department inspector general (IG) is investigating whether hundreds of FBI agents cheated on the test, a brewing scandal that could be further embarrassment for the FBI as it continues cleaning up after years of collecting phone records without court approval. Asked by Senator Patrick Leahy, a Democrat, about an Associated Press report on the cheating, Mueller told the Senate Judiciary Committee he didn't know the exact number of agents involved. ...
The Justice Department inspector general (IG) is investigating whether hundreds of FBI agents cheated on the test, a brewing scandal that could be further embarrassment for the FBI as it continues cleaning up after years of collecting phone records without court approval. Asked by Senator Patrick Leahy, a Democrat, about an Associated Press report on the cheating, Mueller told the Senate Judiciary Committee he didn't know the exact number of agents involved. ...
United States drug-enforcement agents appear to have come across the first details it learned about the alleged criminal empire of accused drug kingpin Christopher 'Dudus' Coke by chance.
Those details, according to a recent New York Times article, came out while investigators were grilling Jamaican drug dealer, Lloyd Reid, after a routine arrest on gun and drug charges in The Bronx, New York, in October 2007.
The article stated that Reid, who was convicted last year on conspiracy to distribute marijuana, told investigators about someone he depicted as "one of the most powerful men in all of Jamaica". ...
Those details, according to a recent New York Times article, came out while investigators were grilling Jamaican drug dealer, Lloyd Reid, after a routine arrest on gun and drug charges in The Bronx, New York, in October 2007.
The article stated that Reid, who was convicted last year on conspiracy to distribute marijuana, told investigators about someone he depicted as "one of the most powerful men in all of Jamaica". ...
[brilliant snooty English butler]Pardon me, sirs, but a Mr Darwin is calling and would like a word. Shall I ask him to ring back once the bandages have been removed from your visages? Very good, sirs.
Thank you, sirs.[/brilliant snooty English butler]
Ta much, dear Anneliese
Thank you, sirs.[/brilliant snooty English butler]
Ta much, dear Anneliese
Iroquois lacrosse team cleared to travel by America – then blocked by Britain
Nation that invented the sport refused entry to UK for tournament
Ewen MacAskill, Washington
Thursday 15 July 2010
The British government was last night refusing to allow a native American team into the country to take part in a lacrosse competition.
Only hours after the US government backed down in a row with the Iroquois team over passports, the team's hopes of making it to the UK were dashed when the British government denied them entry.
The Iroquois team had been due to fly to the UK on Sunday for the opening game tonight against England in Manchester.
For the last three decades, the Iroquois have travelled using their own documents, as agreed by the US, Britain, Canada and other nations. But the US, under new stringent travel rules, insisted that they now use US passports, which the Iroquois do not recognise.
The US state department, intent on ending the embarrassing standoff, cleared the way for the team to travel yesterday after the US secretary of state, Hillary Clinton, ordered them to be given a one-off waiver.
Asked why the department had dropped its opposition, the state department spokesman, PJ Crowley said: "There was flexibility there to grant this kind of one-time waiver given the unique circumstances of this particular trip."
The team, after hearing the news, prepared to fly out from New York yesterday afternoon, optimistic of finally getting to England.
But a British diplomat said last night that the tightening of rules on travel that applied in the US post-9/11 also applied in Britain.
"We would be pleased to welcome the Iroquois national lacrosse team but like all those seeking entry to the UK they must present document that enable us to complete our immigration and other checks," the diplomat said.
The diplomat added that the team would not require a visa if they had presented their Iroquois travel documents along with either a US or Canadian passport.
But that is at the crux of the problem: the Iroquois do not recognise either the US or Canadian governments and regard themselves as a sovereign nation.
The Iroquois team chairman, Oren Lyons, said the team was now unlikely to board a flight in time for the opening game of the two-week tournament.
The Iroquois, who helped invent the game more than 1,000 years ago, had hoped to have a few days in the UK to practise. "This has not been the best preparation for a world tournament," Lyons said. ...
Nation that invented the sport refused entry to UK for tournament
Ewen MacAskill, Washington
Thursday 15 July 2010
The British government was last night refusing to allow a native American team into the country to take part in a lacrosse competition.
Only hours after the US government backed down in a row with the Iroquois team over passports, the team's hopes of making it to the UK were dashed when the British government denied them entry.
The Iroquois team had been due to fly to the UK on Sunday for the opening game tonight against England in Manchester.
For the last three decades, the Iroquois have travelled using their own documents, as agreed by the US, Britain, Canada and other nations. But the US, under new stringent travel rules, insisted that they now use US passports, which the Iroquois do not recognise.
The US state department, intent on ending the embarrassing standoff, cleared the way for the team to travel yesterday after the US secretary of state, Hillary Clinton, ordered them to be given a one-off waiver.
Asked why the department had dropped its opposition, the state department spokesman, PJ Crowley said: "There was flexibility there to grant this kind of one-time waiver given the unique circumstances of this particular trip."
The team, after hearing the news, prepared to fly out from New York yesterday afternoon, optimistic of finally getting to England.
But a British diplomat said last night that the tightening of rules on travel that applied in the US post-9/11 also applied in Britain.
"We would be pleased to welcome the Iroquois national lacrosse team but like all those seeking entry to the UK they must present document that enable us to complete our immigration and other checks," the diplomat said.
The diplomat added that the team would not require a visa if they had presented their Iroquois travel documents along with either a US or Canadian passport.
But that is at the crux of the problem: the Iroquois do not recognise either the US or Canadian governments and regard themselves as a sovereign nation.
The Iroquois team chairman, Oren Lyons, said the team was now unlikely to board a flight in time for the opening game of the two-week tournament.
The Iroquois, who helped invent the game more than 1,000 years ago, had hoped to have a few days in the UK to practise. "This has not been the best preparation for a world tournament," Lyons said. ...
Vital leads 'ignored' in Natalya Estemirova murder investigation
One year on, many observers suspect cover-up over Russian human rights campaigner's murder in Chechnya
Tom Parfitt in Moscow
Wednesday 14 July 2010
... Investigators now say they have solved Estemirova's murder, finding she was killed by a boyevik (rebel fighter) called Alkhazur Bashayev from Shalazhi village in central Chechnya. Bashayev was allegedly upset by reports Estemirova wrote about his armed group for the Russian human rights organisation Memorial, whose office she headed in Grozny.
This theory rests on investigators' claims earlier this year that they had found a rebel arms cache in Shalazhi including the pistol used in the killing, a car fitting descriptions of that used to kidnap Estemirova, part of a silencer in the boot of the car which fitted the pistol, and then the owner of the car, who said he had sold it to Bashayev.
Bashayev – too conveniently, say critics – cannot be questioned because he was killed in a shootout with security forces last autumn.
In fact, many observers suspect a cover-up. They think Estemirova, known to friends as Natasha, was killed for the reports she wrote on wayward law enforcement agencies – perhaps even those filed in the days before her death.
One report described how officers in the police department of Chechnya's Kurchaloy district had publicly executed Rizvan Albekov, an unarmed man suspected of helping the rebels, on 7 July.
"Natasha must have struggled with her captors because investigators obtained DNA samples of three people from under her fingernails," said Milashina. "Why have no samples been taken from the police officers in Kurchaloy for comparative study?"
Critics say there are other glaring errors: Estemirova never visited Shalazhi or wrote about Bashayev; and investigators have not questioned any of the witnesses who saw her being kidnapped near her home in Grozny.
Oleg Orlov, the head of Memorial, said investigators must seek Estemirova's killers among those she exposed.
"Above all, the investigation needs to determine who were the guilty parties in the crimes that Natasha was examining," he said. "So far, they have not looked at a single case she handled in the year she died."
One year on, many observers suspect cover-up over Russian human rights campaigner's murder in Chechnya
Tom Parfitt in Moscow
Wednesday 14 July 2010
... Investigators now say they have solved Estemirova's murder, finding she was killed by a boyevik (rebel fighter) called Alkhazur Bashayev from Shalazhi village in central Chechnya. Bashayev was allegedly upset by reports Estemirova wrote about his armed group for the Russian human rights organisation Memorial, whose office she headed in Grozny.
This theory rests on investigators' claims earlier this year that they had found a rebel arms cache in Shalazhi including the pistol used in the killing, a car fitting descriptions of that used to kidnap Estemirova, part of a silencer in the boot of the car which fitted the pistol, and then the owner of the car, who said he had sold it to Bashayev.
Bashayev – too conveniently, say critics – cannot be questioned because he was killed in a shootout with security forces last autumn.
In fact, many observers suspect a cover-up. They think Estemirova, known to friends as Natasha, was killed for the reports she wrote on wayward law enforcement agencies – perhaps even those filed in the days before her death.
One report described how officers in the police department of Chechnya's Kurchaloy district had publicly executed Rizvan Albekov, an unarmed man suspected of helping the rebels, on 7 July.
"Natasha must have struggled with her captors because investigators obtained DNA samples of three people from under her fingernails," said Milashina. "Why have no samples been taken from the police officers in Kurchaloy for comparative study?"
Critics say there are other glaring errors: Estemirova never visited Shalazhi or wrote about Bashayev; and investigators have not questioned any of the witnesses who saw her being kidnapped near her home in Grozny.
Oleg Orlov, the head of Memorial, said investigators must seek Estemirova's killers among those she exposed.
"Above all, the investigation needs to determine who were the guilty parties in the crimes that Natasha was examining," he said. "So far, they have not looked at a single case she handled in the year she died."
McInnis' articles for foundation lift ideas, words from 20-year-old essay
By Karen E. Crummy
The Denver Post
Posted: 07/13/2010 01:00:00 AM MDT
Updated: 07/13/2010 02:57:26 PM MDT
Although GOP gubernatorial candidate Scott McInnis presented his "Musings on Water" for publication as original works, portions are identical and nearly identical to an essay on water written 20 years earlier by now-Colorado Supreme Court Justice Gregory J. Hobbs.
A Clemson University expert who reviewed McInnis' work next to Hobbs' essay called it a clear case of plagiarism of both words and ideas.
McInnis' water articles were a required part of his two-year fellowship at the Hasan Family Foundation in 2005 and 2006. The former congressman, who left office in 2004, was paid $300,000 to do speaking engagements and "research and write a monthly article on water issues that can be distributed to media and organizations as well as be available on the Internet."
Totaling 150 pages over 23 installments, the articles discussing state water policy are devoid of footnotes, endnotes or other forms of attribution.
In at least four of those articles, McInnis' work mirrors Hobbs' 1984 essay published by the Colorado Water Congress, "Green Mountain Reservoir: Lock or Key?"
In one of his installments of the musings, titled "Pumpbacks and Roundtables," McInnis uses four full pages that are nearly reprinted verbatim from Hobbs' earlier work. ...
By Karen E. Crummy
The Denver Post
Posted: 07/13/2010 01:00:00 AM MDT
Updated: 07/13/2010 02:57:26 PM MDT
Although GOP gubernatorial candidate Scott McInnis presented his "Musings on Water" for publication as original works, portions are identical and nearly identical to an essay on water written 20 years earlier by now-Colorado Supreme Court Justice Gregory J. Hobbs.
A Clemson University expert who reviewed McInnis' work next to Hobbs' essay called it a clear case of plagiarism of both words and ideas.
McInnis' water articles were a required part of his two-year fellowship at the Hasan Family Foundation in 2005 and 2006. The former congressman, who left office in 2004, was paid $300,000 to do speaking engagements and "research and write a monthly article on water issues that can be distributed to media and organizations as well as be available on the Internet."
Totaling 150 pages over 23 installments, the articles discussing state water policy are devoid of footnotes, endnotes or other forms of attribution.
In at least four of those articles, McInnis' work mirrors Hobbs' 1984 essay published by the Colorado Water Congress, "Green Mountain Reservoir: Lock or Key?"
In one of his installments of the musings, titled "Pumpbacks and Roundtables," McInnis uses four full pages that are nearly reprinted verbatim from Hobbs' earlier work. ...
McInnis's Colo. gubernatorial bid derailed by plagiarism charges
By Aaron Blake
July 14, 2010; 3:06 PM ET
Former Rep. Scott McInnis's (R-Colo.) gubernatorial campaign is in a fight for its life as charges of plagiarism have led to questions of whether McInnis can stay in the race.
Republicans in Colorado say he's a dead man walking, and they are exploring the ins and outs of how to get another nominee.
The Denver Post this week uncovered two examples of alleged plagiarism by McInnis -- one in papers McInnis wrote for a fellowship a few years ago and another in a Washington Post column and speech he delivered in 1994.
Sources in Colorado Republican circles say it's likely a matter of when, not if, McInnis will exit the race.
"Almost without exception, they think he is done," said one senior Colorado Republican who spoke on the condition that his name not be used.
"He may be the last one to know it, but he's dead in the water," said another. "It's likely he will resist heavily, but at some point he's got to realize this is a fact of life." ...
By Aaron Blake
July 14, 2010; 3:06 PM ET
Former Rep. Scott McInnis's (R-Colo.) gubernatorial campaign is in a fight for its life as charges of plagiarism have led to questions of whether McInnis can stay in the race.
Republicans in Colorado say he's a dead man walking, and they are exploring the ins and outs of how to get another nominee.
The Denver Post this week uncovered two examples of alleged plagiarism by McInnis -- one in papers McInnis wrote for a fellowship a few years ago and another in a Washington Post column and speech he delivered in 1994.
Sources in Colorado Republican circles say it's likely a matter of when, not if, McInnis will exit the race.
"Almost without exception, they think he is done," said one senior Colorado Republican who spoke on the condition that his name not be used.
"He may be the last one to know it, but he's dead in the water," said another. "It's likely he will resist heavily, but at some point he's got to realize this is a fact of life." ...
McInnis should throw in the towel
After revelations of plagiarism and other cases of questionable judgment, it's clear the GOP candidate is not fit to be governor.
By The Denver Post
Posted: 07/14/2010 01:00:00 AM MDT
Revelations of extensive plagiarism in work that gubernatorial candidate Scott McInnis claimed as his own call into question his fitness for public office.
The lifted work, examined in The Denver Post, constitutes inexcusable intellectual thievery. It is so damaging that we believe McInnis ought to drop out of the race.
Colorado's next governor should be a person of integrity, a trusted hand to lead the state through difficult times.
The Post revealed in Tuesday's paper that McInnis was paid to write essays on water in 2005 and 2006 yet turned in writings that had been plagiarized. Now we learn he did the same thing in a 1994 op-ed in the Rocky Mountain News.
We were astonished Tuesday to hear McInnis, in an interview with 9News, call the revelations over his water essays a "non-issue." Later, he did tell us he had made a mistake and that he should have checked the material. Yes, he should have.
The Hasan Family Foundation paid McInnis $300,000 over two years to give talks on water issues and write original, monthly articles on the topic. The plagiarism detailed by Post reporter Karen E. Crummy is extensive.
McInnis says he hired a consultant to serve as an expert for the writings. Yet the foundation hired McInnis as the expert, and McInnis' work never mentioned the help of anyone else. It was presented as his own.
The written work he submitted to the foundation included numerous instances of passages that were copied, with few changes, from scholarly work originated by Gregory J. Hobbs, who is now a Colorado Supreme Court justice.
The former congressman was paid handsomely for work that he said was "original and not reprinted from any other source." It was McInnis' obligation to ensure that was true.
Unfortunately, this is not the first time we've had questions about McInnis' judgment. ...
After revelations of plagiarism and other cases of questionable judgment, it's clear the GOP candidate is not fit to be governor.
By The Denver Post
Posted: 07/14/2010 01:00:00 AM MDT
Revelations of extensive plagiarism in work that gubernatorial candidate Scott McInnis claimed as his own call into question his fitness for public office.
The lifted work, examined in The Denver Post, constitutes inexcusable intellectual thievery. It is so damaging that we believe McInnis ought to drop out of the race.
Colorado's next governor should be a person of integrity, a trusted hand to lead the state through difficult times.
The Post revealed in Tuesday's paper that McInnis was paid to write essays on water in 2005 and 2006 yet turned in writings that had been plagiarized. Now we learn he did the same thing in a 1994 op-ed in the Rocky Mountain News.
We were astonished Tuesday to hear McInnis, in an interview with 9News, call the revelations over his water essays a "non-issue." Later, he did tell us he had made a mistake and that he should have checked the material. Yes, he should have.
The Hasan Family Foundation paid McInnis $300,000 over two years to give talks on water issues and write original, monthly articles on the topic. The plagiarism detailed by Post reporter Karen E. Crummy is extensive.
McInnis says he hired a consultant to serve as an expert for the writings. Yet the foundation hired McInnis as the expert, and McInnis' work never mentioned the help of anyone else. It was presented as his own.
The written work he submitted to the foundation included numerous instances of passages that were copied, with few changes, from scholarly work originated by Gregory J. Hobbs, who is now a Colorado Supreme Court justice.
The former congressman was paid handsomely for work that he said was "original and not reprinted from any other source." It was McInnis' obligation to ensure that was true.
Unfortunately, this is not the first time we've had questions about McInnis' judgment. ...
Researcher: CO gov. campaign trying to pass blame
By STEVEN K. PAULSON
The Associated Press
Thursday, July 15, 2010; 12:40 AM
DENVER -- A researcher who Colorado Republican gubernatorial candidate Scott McInnis blamed for plagiarism allegations says he won't sign a letter from the campaign owning up to what happened because he claims McInnis is lying.
Researcher Rolly Fischer told KMGH-TV in an interview Wednesday that McInnis' campaign sent him a letter to sign in which Fischer would say the alleged plagiarism was "solely my own." A McInnis spokesman didn't immediately return a call for comment. ...
By STEVEN K. PAULSON
The Associated Press
Thursday, July 15, 2010; 12:40 AM
DENVER -- A researcher who Colorado Republican gubernatorial candidate Scott McInnis blamed for plagiarism allegations says he won't sign a letter from the campaign owning up to what happened because he claims McInnis is lying.
Researcher Rolly Fischer told KMGH-TV in an interview Wednesday that McInnis' campaign sent him a letter to sign in which Fischer would say the alleged plagiarism was "solely my own." A McInnis spokesman didn't immediately return a call for comment. ...
USAIN has bolted from competing in Britain because of a massive tax net which could capture huge chunks of the Jamaican superstar's earnings.
Britain, which has moved to mend its leaking economy, has instituted new regulations which the BBC said would have caused sprinter Usain Bolt to lose more money than he would earn from competing at the Crystal Palace Diamond League meet next month.
Athletes competing in the United Kingdom are liable for a 50 per cent tax rate on their appearance fee as well as a portion of their total worldwide earnings.
Britain bases its tax charge on the number of UK events athletes compete in. If Bolt were to take part in 10 meetings worldwide, with one in the UK, the British government could tax him on one-tenth of his worldwide earnings. ...
Britain, which has moved to mend its leaking economy, has instituted new regulations which the BBC said would have caused sprinter Usain Bolt to lose more money than he would earn from competing at the Crystal Palace Diamond League meet next month.
Athletes competing in the United Kingdom are liable for a 50 per cent tax rate on their appearance fee as well as a portion of their total worldwide earnings.
Britain bases its tax charge on the number of UK events athletes compete in. If Bolt were to take part in 10 meetings worldwide, with one in the UK, the British government could tax him on one-tenth of his worldwide earnings. ...
For years, two corrupt Synagro Technologies salesmen courted Detroit power brokers with cash, Vegas getaways, booze, even a $1,200 strip-club outing as the company sought a $1.2-billion city contract for sludge disposal.
Both men were caught and sent to prison for bribery. No one else at Synagro has been charged.
But documents reviewed by the Free Press indicate that at least four Synagro executives — including the CEO at the time — were aware of thousands of dollars in questionable spending by the salesmen, James Rosendall and Rayford Jackson, with some executives approving payments on several occasions.
Taken together, the records portray top Synagro executives as being so eager to close the Detroit deal that they set aside ethical concerns over payments and perks to then-Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick, his father, Bernard Kilpatrick, Councilwoman Monica Conyers and others. ...
Both men were caught and sent to prison for bribery. No one else at Synagro has been charged.
But documents reviewed by the Free Press indicate that at least four Synagro executives — including the CEO at the time — were aware of thousands of dollars in questionable spending by the salesmen, James Rosendall and Rayford Jackson, with some executives approving payments on several occasions.
Taken together, the records portray top Synagro executives as being so eager to close the Detroit deal that they set aside ethical concerns over payments and perks to then-Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick, his father, Bernard Kilpatrick, Councilwoman Monica Conyers and others. ...
An Italian judge has ordered Saadi Gaddafi, the third son of Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi, to pay a €392,000 (£328,000) hotel bill he failed to settle.
Gaddafi was taken to court by the Grand Hotel Excelsior in Rapallo, near Portofino, after staying for about 40 days in early 2008, accompanied by secretaries, bodyguards, a personal trainer, a driver and a dog trainer.
The party left without paying the bill but did leave behind a black sports utility vehicle, which is still parked at the hotel, local media reported.
At the time, Gaddafi was winding up his career as a professional footballer in Italy. After signing in 2003 for Serie A side Perugia, Gaddafi joined Udinese in 2005 and Sampdoria in 2006, playing in a total of two matches in Italy and failing a drugs test. When not in training, he made the Italian gossip columns when he reportedly crashed a yacht into a harbour wall in Sardinia. He is now reportedly forging a new career as a film mogul.
Gaddafi's legal woes follow the brief jailing in 2008 in Switizerland of his younger brother Hannibal and his wife on charges of assaulting members of their staff, an incident that prompted the Libyan government to boycott Swiss imports, recall diplomats, close Swiss company offices in Libya and detain two Swiss businessmen. ...
Gaddafi was taken to court by the Grand Hotel Excelsior in Rapallo, near Portofino, after staying for about 40 days in early 2008, accompanied by secretaries, bodyguards, a personal trainer, a driver and a dog trainer.
The party left without paying the bill but did leave behind a black sports utility vehicle, which is still parked at the hotel, local media reported.
At the time, Gaddafi was winding up his career as a professional footballer in Italy. After signing in 2003 for Serie A side Perugia, Gaddafi joined Udinese in 2005 and Sampdoria in 2006, playing in a total of two matches in Italy and failing a drugs test. When not in training, he made the Italian gossip columns when he reportedly crashed a yacht into a harbour wall in Sardinia. He is now reportedly forging a new career as a film mogul.
Gaddafi's legal woes follow the brief jailing in 2008 in Switizerland of his younger brother Hannibal and his wife on charges of assaulting members of their staff, an incident that prompted the Libyan government to boycott Swiss imports, recall diplomats, close Swiss company offices in Libya and detain two Swiss businessmen. ...
July 9, 2010
Man dies after five-story fall on Wayne State University's campus
BY CECIL ANGEL
Free Press Staff Writer
A 31-year-old man died today after a fall from the top of a parking structure on the Wayne State University campus and police are examining surveillance video to determine whether it was an accident or deliberate.
"We're still looking for clues as to what took place," said Wayne State University Police Chief Anthony Holt this evening. "He either fell or he jumped and we're not sure." ...
Man dies after five-story fall on Wayne State University's campus
BY CECIL ANGEL
Free Press Staff Writer
A 31-year-old man died today after a fall from the top of a parking structure on the Wayne State University campus and police are examining surveillance video to determine whether it was an accident or deliberate.
"We're still looking for clues as to what took place," said Wayne State University Police Chief Anthony Holt this evening. "He either fell or he jumped and we're not sure." ...
BP oil spill could be tip of the iceberg as a study questions the safety of abandoned oil wells
By Tim Edwards
LAST UPDATED 5:02 PM, JULY 7, 2010
A study has revealed there are more than 27,000 abandoned oil wells in the Gulf of Mexico - 4,600 of which may have been badly plugged and are at risk of leaking.
The investigation by Associated Press suggests the BP oil spill is just the tip of the iceberg and that abandoned wells may have been leaking oil into the Gulf of Mexico for decades.
Abandonment of oil wells – both permanent and temporary – is common in the oil industry. BP was in the process of temporarily abandoning its Macondo well in April when its Deepwater Horizon oil rig blew and breached the pipe.
The process of abandonment typically involves installing in the well a number of plugs of cement 30-60m long. Temporarily abandoned wells will have fewer plugs installed and are therefore not as secure.
When a well is temporarily abandoned, a plan to reuse or permanently plug it is supposed to be presented within a year. AP claims the regulation is frequently ignored with three-quarters of 'temporarily' abandoned wells being left for more than a year and more than 1,000 of them left for over 10 years.
In this time, various processes can lead to the breach of a capped well. Exposure to seawater and pressure underground can corrode pipes and cement. Oil reservoirs can repressurise thanks to "changing geological conditions", according to Andy Radford, a petroleum engineer with the American Petroleum Institute.
History suggests badly sealed oil wells are common. State records show that Texas alone has had to plug more than 21,000 abandoned wells to control pollution. ...
By Tim Edwards
LAST UPDATED 5:02 PM, JULY 7, 2010
A study has revealed there are more than 27,000 abandoned oil wells in the Gulf of Mexico - 4,600 of which may have been badly plugged and are at risk of leaking.
The investigation by Associated Press suggests the BP oil spill is just the tip of the iceberg and that abandoned wells may have been leaking oil into the Gulf of Mexico for decades.
Abandonment of oil wells – both permanent and temporary – is common in the oil industry. BP was in the process of temporarily abandoning its Macondo well in April when its Deepwater Horizon oil rig blew and breached the pipe.
The process of abandonment typically involves installing in the well a number of plugs of cement 30-60m long. Temporarily abandoned wells will have fewer plugs installed and are therefore not as secure.
When a well is temporarily abandoned, a plan to reuse or permanently plug it is supposed to be presented within a year. AP claims the regulation is frequently ignored with three-quarters of 'temporarily' abandoned wells being left for more than a year and more than 1,000 of them left for over 10 years.
In this time, various processes can lead to the breach of a capped well. Exposure to seawater and pressure underground can corrode pipes and cement. Oil reservoirs can repressurise thanks to "changing geological conditions", according to Andy Radford, a petroleum engineer with the American Petroleum Institute.
History suggests badly sealed oil wells are common. State records show that Texas alone has had to plug more than 21,000 abandoned wells to control pollution. ...
After an initial denial, the state-owned Urban Development Corporation (UDC) has admitted that it hired and is still paying millions of dollars to a company partially owned by extradited west Kingston strongman Christopher 'Dudus' Coke.
The UDC says it has one contract with the firm Bulls Eye Security Services Limited, but it is still checking its records to see if there are any others.
Late last month, the UDC told The Gleaner that it had not issued any contract to Bulls Eye, which lists Coke as a shareholder. Coke was previously listed as a director but is believed to have pulled out because of requirements that would force him to be fingerprinted.
But, last week, in a letter to The Gleaner, the UDC said it erred in its denial.
"We wish to state for the record that the UDC, in expediting what was deemed to be an urgent request from a Gleaner reporter to meet a cut-off deadline for publication, stated: "The UDC has not awarded any contract to Bulls Eye Security Services Limited.
"The company was engaged by contractors Jatlin Construction and Associates and Alcar Construction Limited for the St William Grant Park and Downtown Transport Centre projects, respectively," read a section of the UDC's missive.
"However, a further review of our records has indicated that in one instance, July 2009, the services of Bulls Eye were contracted within the provisions of the Procurement Guidelines by way of limited tender. The contract, which is valued at $5.28 million, expires on March 4, 2011 and services the UDC project located at the corner of Church and North (streets)."
The UDC argued that the $5.28-million contract should be placed in the context of its entire security bill of $205.4 million, spread across seven contractors. ...
The UDC says it has one contract with the firm Bulls Eye Security Services Limited, but it is still checking its records to see if there are any others.
Late last month, the UDC told The Gleaner that it had not issued any contract to Bulls Eye, which lists Coke as a shareholder. Coke was previously listed as a director but is believed to have pulled out because of requirements that would force him to be fingerprinted.
But, last week, in a letter to The Gleaner, the UDC said it erred in its denial.
"We wish to state for the record that the UDC, in expediting what was deemed to be an urgent request from a Gleaner reporter to meet a cut-off deadline for publication, stated: "The UDC has not awarded any contract to Bulls Eye Security Services Limited.
"The company was engaged by contractors Jatlin Construction and Associates and Alcar Construction Limited for the St William Grant Park and Downtown Transport Centre projects, respectively," read a section of the UDC's missive.
"However, a further review of our records has indicated that in one instance, July 2009, the services of Bulls Eye were contracted within the provisions of the Procurement Guidelines by way of limited tender. The contract, which is valued at $5.28 million, expires on March 4, 2011 and services the UDC project located at the corner of Church and North (streets)."
The UDC argued that the $5.28-million contract should be placed in the context of its entire security bill of $205.4 million, spread across seven contractors. ...
see more
I love Rani Pink as much as any woman can, but FFS, ly-deeez!
Ta much, dear Edosan, I think.
FDA being sued for failure to regulate bisphenol A
Thursday, 01 Jul 2010
The National Resources Defense Counsel filed suit on Tuesday in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit against the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, alleging that the FDA has failed to regulate bisphenol A, a chemical linked to reproductive harm, cancer and obesity. Bisphenol A, or BPA, was first developed as a synthetic form of estrogen in the 1930s but was later transformed into a plastic, which is used today in food containers. BPA is found in numerous products that can be used on a daily basis, from soda and beer cans to baby bottles, sippy cups, and water bottles. Researchers believe that when heated, BPA can leak into the containers contents.
Studies have found that BPA can cause early puberty and reproductive harms, suppress immune function, and cause cancer, neurological delays and diabetes. Detected in urine, amniotic fluid, breast milk and umbilical cord blood, the chemical is so common that the NRDC says more than 93 percent of the general population has some BPA in their bodies. ...
Thursday, 01 Jul 2010
The National Resources Defense Counsel filed suit on Tuesday in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit against the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, alleging that the FDA has failed to regulate bisphenol A, a chemical linked to reproductive harm, cancer and obesity. Bisphenol A, or BPA, was first developed as a synthetic form of estrogen in the 1930s but was later transformed into a plastic, which is used today in food containers. BPA is found in numerous products that can be used on a daily basis, from soda and beer cans to baby bottles, sippy cups, and water bottles. Researchers believe that when heated, BPA can leak into the containers contents.
Studies have found that BPA can cause early puberty and reproductive harms, suppress immune function, and cause cancer, neurological delays and diabetes. Detected in urine, amniotic fluid, breast milk and umbilical cord blood, the chemical is so common that the NRDC says more than 93 percent of the general population has some BPA in their bodies. ...
The former chief executive of a British chemical company faces the prospect of extradition to the US after the firm admitted million-dollar bribes to officials to sell toxic fuel additives to Iraq.
Paul Jennings, until last year chief executive of the Octel chemical works near Ellesmere Port, Merseyside, and his predecessor, Dennis Kerrison, exported tonnes of tetra ethyl lead (TEL), to Iraq. TEL is banned from cars in western countries because of links with brain damage to children. Iraq is believed to be the only country that still adds lead to petrol.
The company recently admitted that, in a deliberate policy to maximise profits, executives from Octel – which since changed its name to Innospec – bribed officials in Iraq and Indonesia with millions of dollars to carry on using TEL, despite its health hazards.
The firm's Lebanese agent, Osama Naaman, was extradited and agreed this week to plead guilty and co-operate with US prosecutors. Although the US department of justice has run much of the case, the Serious Fraud Office is keen to claim jurisdiction.
Senior Iraqi oil ministry officials are accused of taking British bribes throughout the UK-US occupation, up until 2008. Ahmad al-Shamma, the deputy oil minister in Iraq, told the Guardian he would investigate the charges. He strongly denied courtroom allegations that he himself had taken a free holiday in Thailand. He said he had never been to Thailand and that a middle man involved, now under arrest in the US, may have pocketed the alleged payment himself.
Both Jennings and Kerrison are identified in court statements by the US department of justice, which is conducting an expanding corruption investigation and may seek Jennings's extradition to the US, according to legal sources. ...
Paul Jennings, until last year chief executive of the Octel chemical works near Ellesmere Port, Merseyside, and his predecessor, Dennis Kerrison, exported tonnes of tetra ethyl lead (TEL), to Iraq. TEL is banned from cars in western countries because of links with brain damage to children. Iraq is believed to be the only country that still adds lead to petrol.
The company recently admitted that, in a deliberate policy to maximise profits, executives from Octel – which since changed its name to Innospec – bribed officials in Iraq and Indonesia with millions of dollars to carry on using TEL, despite its health hazards.
The firm's Lebanese agent, Osama Naaman, was extradited and agreed this week to plead guilty and co-operate with US prosecutors. Although the US department of justice has run much of the case, the Serious Fraud Office is keen to claim jurisdiction.
Senior Iraqi oil ministry officials are accused of taking British bribes throughout the UK-US occupation, up until 2008. Ahmad al-Shamma, the deputy oil minister in Iraq, told the Guardian he would investigate the charges. He strongly denied courtroom allegations that he himself had taken a free holiday in Thailand. He said he had never been to Thailand and that a middle man involved, now under arrest in the US, may have pocketed the alleged payment himself.
Both Jennings and Kerrison are identified in court statements by the US department of justice, which is conducting an expanding corruption investigation and may seek Jennings's extradition to the US, according to legal sources. ...
... Jamaat-e-Islami has a large following among the country’s majority, and mostly illiterate, Muslim population. But as a political party it ranks fourth after the Awami League of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) of ex-premier Begum Khaleda Zia and the Jatiya Party led by former army ruler Hossain Mohammed Ershad.
Police arrested the three top Jamaat leaders after another religious group, the Bangladesh Tarikat Federation, filed a court case in March, saying two had compared the Jamaat party chief with Prophet Muhammad.
In Islam, Muhammad is beyond comparison. Police named the arrested leaders as Jamaat chief Moulana Motiur Rahman Nizami, his deputy Ali Ahsan Mohammed Mujahid and another key party leader, Moulana Delwar Hossain Saidee.
Jamaat said around 25 other party members were detained in police in overnight raids in various districts.
Many Bangladeshis accuse Jamaat of collaborating with the Pakistani army during the 1971 war of independence, in which around three million people were killed and thousands of women raped.
Jamaat denies the charges, and in turn has accused the government of Sheikh Hasina of trying to curb its activities using war crime charges and is likely to see the arrests as a ploy to push that effort.
Police using clubs, tear gas and water cannon were also locked in street battles with textile workers demanding back pay and an immediate rise in monthly wages now equivalent to less than $24. Witnesses said at least 30 people, including 10 police, were injured.
The clashes, with workers erecting street barricades, pelting police with stones and attacking cars, were the second in as many weeks involving workers producing garments for global brands and earning wages well below the poverty line.
The violence took place three days after a one-day general strike called by opposition parties closed most businesses and prompted further confrontations between marchers and police.
Bangladesh garment factory workers currently earn a minimum monthly salary of 1,660 taka, or less than $24, and have demanded an increase of 300% to 5,000 taka. Owners last week said they could pay no more than 3,000 taka a month.
Garments, Bangladesh’s biggest export, account for more than 80% of the impoverished South Asian country’s $15bn in annual export earnings, according to Commerce Ministry data. ...
Dear BrightKnight hipped me to this news story.
Police arrested the three top Jamaat leaders after another religious group, the Bangladesh Tarikat Federation, filed a court case in March, saying two had compared the Jamaat party chief with Prophet Muhammad.
In Islam, Muhammad is beyond comparison. Police named the arrested leaders as Jamaat chief Moulana Motiur Rahman Nizami, his deputy Ali Ahsan Mohammed Mujahid and another key party leader, Moulana Delwar Hossain Saidee.
Jamaat said around 25 other party members were detained in police in overnight raids in various districts.
Many Bangladeshis accuse Jamaat of collaborating with the Pakistani army during the 1971 war of independence, in which around three million people were killed and thousands of women raped.
Jamaat denies the charges, and in turn has accused the government of Sheikh Hasina of trying to curb its activities using war crime charges and is likely to see the arrests as a ploy to push that effort.
Police using clubs, tear gas and water cannon were also locked in street battles with textile workers demanding back pay and an immediate rise in monthly wages now equivalent to less than $24. Witnesses said at least 30 people, including 10 police, were injured.
The clashes, with workers erecting street barricades, pelting police with stones and attacking cars, were the second in as many weeks involving workers producing garments for global brands and earning wages well below the poverty line.
The violence took place three days after a one-day general strike called by opposition parties closed most businesses and prompted further confrontations between marchers and police.
Bangladesh garment factory workers currently earn a minimum monthly salary of 1,660 taka, or less than $24, and have demanded an increase of 300% to 5,000 taka. Owners last week said they could pay no more than 3,000 taka a month.
Garments, Bangladesh’s biggest export, account for more than 80% of the impoverished South Asian country’s $15bn in annual export earnings, according to Commerce Ministry data. ...
Dear BrightKnight hipped me to this news story.
Police in Bangladesh have used clubs, tear gas and water cannons to disperse thousands of textile workers protesting low wages in capital city Dhaka.
The clashes erupted Wednesday in the Mirpur and Sheorapara areas of the capital, forcing several factories to close down. Authorities say the protesters erected street barricades and hurled bricks at police.
Witnesses say at least 40 people, including police officers, were injured in the violence.
The unrest is the latest in a series of violent protests involving low-paid workers producing garments for global brands. Garment factories accounted for 80 percent of Bangladesh's annual export earnings last year.
Supporters of the Islamic party Jamaat-e-Islami took to the streets on Wednesday to protest the arrests of three of their leaders the day before. At least 20 people were detained during the demonstrations in Dhaka and other parts of the country. ...
Dear BrightKnight hipped me to this news story.
The clashes erupted Wednesday in the Mirpur and Sheorapara areas of the capital, forcing several factories to close down. Authorities say the protesters erected street barricades and hurled bricks at police.
Witnesses say at least 40 people, including police officers, were injured in the violence.
The unrest is the latest in a series of violent protests involving low-paid workers producing garments for global brands. Garment factories accounted for 80 percent of Bangladesh's annual export earnings last year.
Supporters of the Islamic party Jamaat-e-Islami took to the streets on Wednesday to protest the arrests of three of their leaders the day before. At least 20 people were detained during the demonstrations in Dhaka and other parts of the country. ...
Dear BrightKnight hipped me to this news story.
Use fewer antibiotics in animals for Human health, Says FDA
Tuesday, 29 Jun 2010
The FDA stated on Monday that excess use of antibiotics such as penicillin in animals is causing humans to be less responsive to antibiotics. This is a concern that was raised after it came to the FDA’s attention that farmers and livestock keepers are giving their animals mass amounts of antibiotics used by humans to spur growth. The humans in turn become resistant to antibiotics when ill because of this.
Other renowned antibiotics like tetracycline, erythromycin and macrolides are fed to animals like cows, pigs, chicken among others in the hope that they will bring more revenue to their keepers as these drugs promote growth in the animals. The FDA has tried unsuccessfully since 1977 to ban this tradition at Congress level.
Dr. Joshua Sharfstein, principal deputy commissioner of food and drugs at the FDA says that bacteria adapt and become immune to microbial drugs in a short time and excess use of these in animals is causing humans to become less responsive to antibiotics. This ban was enacted in the UK in 2006 and it has been said that 70% of antibiotics in the US are given to animals, according to the Union of Concerned Scientists. ...
Tuesday, 29 Jun 2010
The FDA stated on Monday that excess use of antibiotics such as penicillin in animals is causing humans to be less responsive to antibiotics. This is a concern that was raised after it came to the FDA’s attention that farmers and livestock keepers are giving their animals mass amounts of antibiotics used by humans to spur growth. The humans in turn become resistant to antibiotics when ill because of this.
Other renowned antibiotics like tetracycline, erythromycin and macrolides are fed to animals like cows, pigs, chicken among others in the hope that they will bring more revenue to their keepers as these drugs promote growth in the animals. The FDA has tried unsuccessfully since 1977 to ban this tradition at Congress level.
Dr. Joshua Sharfstein, principal deputy commissioner of food and drugs at the FDA says that bacteria adapt and become immune to microbial drugs in a short time and excess use of these in animals is causing humans to become less responsive to antibiotics. This ban was enacted in the UK in 2006 and it has been said that 70% of antibiotics in the US are given to animals, according to the Union of Concerned Scientists. ...
Antibiotics in Animals May Be Causing Drug Resistant Bacteria in Humans
Tuesday, 29 Jun 2010
“Food animals fed with antibiotics may be becoming fertile ground for the growth of drug resistant pathogens.” This is according to a communication received from the FDA today. They attribute this to the use of antibiotics, together with conventional animal feed, to increase the weight gain of food animals. “We are seeing the emergence of multidrug-resistant pathogens.” FDA Deputy Commissioner Joshua Sharfstein, MD, stated at a news briefing.
“FDA believes overall weight of evidence supports the conclusion that using medically important antimicrobial drugs for production purposes is not appropriate.” Research has shown that traces of these antibiotics remain in the processed meat and transfer some form of drug resistant bacteria to consumers. ...
Tuesday, 29 Jun 2010
“Food animals fed with antibiotics may be becoming fertile ground for the growth of drug resistant pathogens.” This is according to a communication received from the FDA today. They attribute this to the use of antibiotics, together with conventional animal feed, to increase the weight gain of food animals. “We are seeing the emergence of multidrug-resistant pathogens.” FDA Deputy Commissioner Joshua Sharfstein, MD, stated at a news briefing.
“FDA believes overall weight of evidence supports the conclusion that using medically important antimicrobial drugs for production purposes is not appropriate.” Research has shown that traces of these antibiotics remain in the processed meat and transfer some form of drug resistant bacteria to consumers. ...
Arrests made amidst violent G20 protests
By Ashley Terry, Linda Nguyen and Mark Kennedy
Canwest News Service June 27, 2010 12:06 AM
TORONTO — Riot police arrested more than a hundred G20 protesters who rampaged through the city’s downtown core burning police cars and smashing windows on Saturday.
A small group of black-clad protesters were surrounded at a downtown intersection around 10 p.m. ET.
A police line in full riot gear began marching at the group, banging their batons on their shields, in hopes of preventing more protesters from moving towards the G20 security fence still located blocks away.
The mood was tense as a small number of protesters yelled obscenities. Helicopters could be heard overhead.
The officers loudly chanted: “Move, move,” as they marched.
One older man was pushed by police out of the way as he was seeking shelter from the pouring rain. ...
By Ashley Terry, Linda Nguyen and Mark Kennedy
Canwest News Service June 27, 2010 12:06 AM
TORONTO — Riot police arrested more than a hundred G20 protesters who rampaged through the city’s downtown core burning police cars and smashing windows on Saturday.
A small group of black-clad protesters were surrounded at a downtown intersection around 10 p.m. ET.
A police line in full riot gear began marching at the group, banging their batons on their shields, in hopes of preventing more protesters from moving towards the G20 security fence still located blocks away.
The mood was tense as a small number of protesters yelled obscenities. Helicopters could be heard overhead.
The officers loudly chanted: “Move, move,” as they marched.
One older man was pushed by police out of the way as he was seeking shelter from the pouring rain. ...
Media covering G20 caught up in arrests
Canwest News Service June 27, 2010 1:02 AM
TORONTO — Two National Post photographers were arrested Saturday night during anti-G20 demonstrations in downtown Toronto.
Brent Gundlock, a staff photographer for the Post, was tackled and taken away by several police officers in riot gear as they attempted to disperse protesters hanging around near the Ontario legislature.
Kier Gilmour, a photographer for Canwest News Service who witnessed the arrest, said the officers knocked Gundlock to the ground and then dragged him away. He had been standing with several other media photographers at the time.
"They slammed him down, onto his ass so to speak, then they dragged him back up and pulled him back to the police line," Gilmour said.
He said the photographer was not wearing his yellow media credentials at the time. He had taken the badge off because he was trying to stay close to members of the Black Bloc — the anarchist group believed to be behind many of the outbreaks of violence at the demonstrations — and they did not want members of the media among them.
Colin O’Connor, a freelance photographer working for the Post, was also apparently detained.
Gilmour said the police were being very aggressive in trying to disperse the remaining demonstrators near Queen’s Park, which is several blocks away from the secure zone where the G20 meeting is taking place. ...
Canwest News Service June 27, 2010 1:02 AM
TORONTO — Two National Post photographers were arrested Saturday night during anti-G20 demonstrations in downtown Toronto.
Brent Gundlock, a staff photographer for the Post, was tackled and taken away by several police officers in riot gear as they attempted to disperse protesters hanging around near the Ontario legislature.
Kier Gilmour, a photographer for Canwest News Service who witnessed the arrest, said the officers knocked Gundlock to the ground and then dragged him away. He had been standing with several other media photographers at the time.
"They slammed him down, onto his ass so to speak, then they dragged him back up and pulled him back to the police line," Gilmour said.
He said the photographer was not wearing his yellow media credentials at the time. He had taken the badge off because he was trying to stay close to members of the Black Bloc — the anarchist group believed to be behind many of the outbreaks of violence at the demonstrations — and they did not want members of the media among them.
Colin O’Connor, a freelance photographer working for the Post, was also apparently detained.
Gilmour said the police were being very aggressive in trying to disperse the remaining demonstrators near Queen’s Park, which is several blocks away from the secure zone where the G20 meeting is taking place. ...
Mission Accomplished: The Reagan Occupation and the Destruction of the American Middle Class
by David Michael Green | June 25, 2010
... If Americans understood the real ambitions of Ronald Reagan and his puppeteers, and if they knew the degree to which the supposed patriotism of those folks extended beyond falsity and into the far darker waters of being an irritating irrelevance put on purely for show, then they would not only stop seeing Reagan as some sort of national hero, but would also understand that he instead launched a process far more equivalent to an invasion and occupation of this country.
The goal of the right - which cares about America about as much as it does about Burkina Faso - has been to restore the economic order last seen under Herbert Hoover, in which a tiny minority possess vast sums of wealth and there is (therefore) essentially no remaining middle class. It is nothing short of a breathtaking display of a world class greed, worthy of the ages.
It has also been a work of strategic genius (in much the same way one might appreciate the Germans' engineering prowess in figuring out the logistics of how to mass murder ten or twelve million civilians in a year or two), one which has drawn upon deep psychological insights, absolutely sociopathic amoralism, and clever tactics that have all simultaneously pushed in the same direction. In plain English, they hired some politicians of hit-man level moral integrity, who then marshaled fear, insecurity, hate and deceit into a witch's brew of self-destruction that would prove highly attractive to a large segment of the population already sinking from the effects of a global economic order rebalancing after decades of post-war American dominance.
Of course, you couldn't just come right out and say, "Vote for me and I'll give your money to people so rich they can't even imagine what they'll do with it (but they still demand to have it anyhow)", so slightly more subtle tactics had to be employed. It is telling that the most honest thing Barack Obama ever said was when he thought there were no microphones in the room. But he was right when, at a presidential fundraiser in San Francisco he told the wine and cheese set that the right uses guns, god and gays (I would add Gaddafis) to scare people out of their money. I'll believe that Republicans are serious about protecting heterosexual marriage on the day that you can't find half of them prowling the gay bars of DC every night (and you don't even want to know what the other half are into).
This bait-and-switch tactic worked perfectly well whenever it was applied. It didn't hurt that the regressive Billy-Bobs who vote for these folks are as dumb as a tree. With bags of hammers for leaves. But stupid is really only the facilitating quality, and often one that is neither present nor required. What really drives this stuff is fear. If you can turn that into a loathing of fur'ners, fags, bitches, blackies and brownies, you got their vote. Then you can do what you really set out to accomplish in the first place. George W. Bush's 2004 campaign was the paradigmatic example....
by David Michael Green | June 25, 2010
... If Americans understood the real ambitions of Ronald Reagan and his puppeteers, and if they knew the degree to which the supposed patriotism of those folks extended beyond falsity and into the far darker waters of being an irritating irrelevance put on purely for show, then they would not only stop seeing Reagan as some sort of national hero, but would also understand that he instead launched a process far more equivalent to an invasion and occupation of this country.
The goal of the right - which cares about America about as much as it does about Burkina Faso - has been to restore the economic order last seen under Herbert Hoover, in which a tiny minority possess vast sums of wealth and there is (therefore) essentially no remaining middle class. It is nothing short of a breathtaking display of a world class greed, worthy of the ages.
It has also been a work of strategic genius (in much the same way one might appreciate the Germans' engineering prowess in figuring out the logistics of how to mass murder ten or twelve million civilians in a year or two), one which has drawn upon deep psychological insights, absolutely sociopathic amoralism, and clever tactics that have all simultaneously pushed in the same direction. In plain English, they hired some politicians of hit-man level moral integrity, who then marshaled fear, insecurity, hate and deceit into a witch's brew of self-destruction that would prove highly attractive to a large segment of the population already sinking from the effects of a global economic order rebalancing after decades of post-war American dominance.
Of course, you couldn't just come right out and say, "Vote for me and I'll give your money to people so rich they can't even imagine what they'll do with it (but they still demand to have it anyhow)", so slightly more subtle tactics had to be employed. It is telling that the most honest thing Barack Obama ever said was when he thought there were no microphones in the room. But he was right when, at a presidential fundraiser in San Francisco he told the wine and cheese set that the right uses guns, god and gays (I would add Gaddafis) to scare people out of their money. I'll believe that Republicans are serious about protecting heterosexual marriage on the day that you can't find half of them prowling the gay bars of DC every night (and you don't even want to know what the other half are into).
This bait-and-switch tactic worked perfectly well whenever it was applied. It didn't hurt that the regressive Billy-Bobs who vote for these folks are as dumb as a tree. With bags of hammers for leaves. But stupid is really only the facilitating quality, and often one that is neither present nor required. What really drives this stuff is fear. If you can turn that into a loathing of fur'ners, fags, bitches, blackies and brownies, you got their vote. Then you can do what you really set out to accomplish in the first place. George W. Bush's 2004 campaign was the paradigmatic example....
Buh-byeeeeee!
You surely weren't expecting tax rises for the rich - not with a conservative PM!
I'm a 60%er and proud of it!
Geologist investigates canyon carved in just three days in Texas flood
June 20, 2010
In the summer of 2002, a week of heavy rains in Central Texas caused Canyon Lake -- the reservoir of the Canyon Dam -- to flood over its spillway and down the Guadalupe River Valley in a planned diversion to save the dam from catastrophic failure. The flood, which continued for six weeks, stripped the valley of mesquite, oak trees, and soil; destroyed a bridge; and plucked meter-wide boulders from the ground. And, in a remarkable demonstration of the power of raging waters, the flood excavated a 2.2-kilometer-long, 7-meter-deep canyon in the bedrock.
According to a new analysis of the flood and its aftermath—performed by Michael Lamb, assistant professor of geology at the California Institute of Technology, and Mark Fonstad of Texas State University—the canyon formed in just three days.
A paper about the research appears in the June 20 advance online edition of the journal Nature Geoscience.
Our traditional view of deep river canyons, such as the Grand Canyon, is that they are carved slowly, as the regular flow and occasionally moderate rushing of rivers erodes rock over periods of millions of years.
Such is not always the case, however. "We know that some big canyons have been cut by large catastrophic flood events during Earth's history," Lamb says.
Unfortunately, these catastrophic megafloods -- which also may have chiseled out spectacular canyons on Mars—generally leave few telltale signs to distinguish them from slower events. "There are very few modern examples of megafloods," Lamb says, "and these events are not normally witnessed, so the process by which such erosion happens is not well understood." Nevertheless, he adds, "the evidence that is left behind, like boulders and streamlined sediment islands, suggests the presence of fast water"—although it reveals nothing about the time frame over which the water flowed. ...
Ta much, dear MSiegel
June 20, 2010
In the summer of 2002, a week of heavy rains in Central Texas caused Canyon Lake -- the reservoir of the Canyon Dam -- to flood over its spillway and down the Guadalupe River Valley in a planned diversion to save the dam from catastrophic failure. The flood, which continued for six weeks, stripped the valley of mesquite, oak trees, and soil; destroyed a bridge; and plucked meter-wide boulders from the ground. And, in a remarkable demonstration of the power of raging waters, the flood excavated a 2.2-kilometer-long, 7-meter-deep canyon in the bedrock.
According to a new analysis of the flood and its aftermath—performed by Michael Lamb, assistant professor of geology at the California Institute of Technology, and Mark Fonstad of Texas State University—the canyon formed in just three days.
A paper about the research appears in the June 20 advance online edition of the journal Nature Geoscience.
Our traditional view of deep river canyons, such as the Grand Canyon, is that they are carved slowly, as the regular flow and occasionally moderate rushing of rivers erodes rock over periods of millions of years.
Such is not always the case, however. "We know that some big canyons have been cut by large catastrophic flood events during Earth's history," Lamb says.
Unfortunately, these catastrophic megafloods -- which also may have chiseled out spectacular canyons on Mars—generally leave few telltale signs to distinguish them from slower events. "There are very few modern examples of megafloods," Lamb says, "and these events are not normally witnessed, so the process by which such erosion happens is not well understood." Nevertheless, he adds, "the evidence that is left behind, like boulders and streamlined sediment islands, suggests the presence of fast water"—although it reveals nothing about the time frame over which the water flowed. ...
Ta much, dear MSiegel
The United Nations, the European commission and individual states including Britain are flouting international human rights law by funding anti-drug crime measures that are inadvertently leading to the executions of offenders, according to a report seen by the Guardian.
The International Harm Reduction Association (IHRA), a non-governmental organisation that advocates less punitive approaches to drugs policy globally, says it has gathered evidence revealing "strong links" between executions for drugs offences and the funding of specific drug enforcement operations by international agencies.
It says programmes aimed at shoring up local efforts to combat drug trafficking and other offences are being run "without appropriate safeguards" that could prevent serious human rights violations in countries that retain the death penalty.
The report concludes that the UN Office on Drugs and Crime ( "are all actively involved in funding and/or delivering technical assistance, legislative support and financial aid intended to strengthen domestic drug enforcement activities in states that retain the death penalty for drug offences.
"Such funding, training and capacity-building activities – if successful – result in increased convictions of persons on drug charges, and the potential for increased death sentences and executions".
The report claims there is evidence of "complicity in acts that violate international human rights law", undermining the Council of Europe's commitment to abolish the death penalty, the United Nations Charter and UNODC's stated opposition to the penalty for drugs offences. ...
The International Harm Reduction Association (IHRA), a non-governmental organisation that advocates less punitive approaches to drugs policy globally, says it has gathered evidence revealing "strong links" between executions for drugs offences and the funding of specific drug enforcement operations by international agencies.
It says programmes aimed at shoring up local efforts to combat drug trafficking and other offences are being run "without appropriate safeguards" that could prevent serious human rights violations in countries that retain the death penalty.
The report concludes that the UN Office on Drugs and Crime ( "are all actively involved in funding and/or delivering technical assistance, legislative support and financial aid intended to strengthen domestic drug enforcement activities in states that retain the death penalty for drug offences.
"Such funding, training and capacity-building activities – if successful – result in increased convictions of persons on drug charges, and the potential for increased death sentences and executions".
The report claims there is evidence of "complicity in acts that violate international human rights law", undermining the Council of Europe's commitment to abolish the death penalty, the United Nations Charter and UNODC's stated opposition to the penalty for drugs offences. ...
The backlash against the coalition's £85bn emergency budget will begin tomorrow as business leaders, children's charities and unions representing six million public employees come out against the planned tax rises, pay freezes and spending cuts, marking the end of the government's honeymoon period.
The moves come after the chancellor today warned that everyone would have to play their part to reduce the public deficit. He described announcements due on Tuesday as the "unavoidable budget", claiming he faced the toughest test of any chancellor in history to prevent the country embarking on a "road to ruin".
The Guardian understands that George Osborne is preparing to order a one-year freeze on council taxes for 2011/12 to reduce the strain on all liable households, but the freeze will be opposed by local government, which has so far suffered some of the worst budget cuts.
The government's attempts to spread the burden of the four-year plan to tackle the deficit across all sections of society and to counter-balance public sector cuts with tax rises is facing intense opposition from unions, charities and industrial figures.
In a BBC interview, Osborne promised a crackdown on the "out of control" welfare system, suggesting that public sector pay will be frozen beyond the expected one year and launching a review of public sector pensions, to be chaired by the former Labour minister John Hutton.
Osborne insisted the budget measures would be spread fairly across society, suggesting capital gains tax will rise and promising a new banking levy. But he refused to be drawn on the vexed issue of a potential rise in VAT, which the Conservatives had privately committed to raising from 17.5% to 19.5% before the election. ...
The moves come after the chancellor today warned that everyone would have to play their part to reduce the public deficit. He described announcements due on Tuesday as the "unavoidable budget", claiming he faced the toughest test of any chancellor in history to prevent the country embarking on a "road to ruin".
The Guardian understands that George Osborne is preparing to order a one-year freeze on council taxes for 2011/12 to reduce the strain on all liable households, but the freeze will be opposed by local government, which has so far suffered some of the worst budget cuts.
The government's attempts to spread the burden of the four-year plan to tackle the deficit across all sections of society and to counter-balance public sector cuts with tax rises is facing intense opposition from unions, charities and industrial figures.
In a BBC interview, Osborne promised a crackdown on the "out of control" welfare system, suggesting that public sector pay will be frozen beyond the expected one year and launching a review of public sector pensions, to be chaired by the former Labour minister John Hutton.
Osborne insisted the budget measures would be spread fairly across society, suggesting capital gains tax will rise and promising a new banking levy. But he refused to be drawn on the vexed issue of a potential rise in VAT, which the Conservatives had privately committed to raising from 17.5% to 19.5% before the election. ...
... The parents are Ashkenazi, originating from Europe, and are in a long-running battle to have their daughters educated separately from Sephardi girls originating from north Africa and the Middle East. ...
... The reason for wanting separate education, the parents claim, is not racism but a desire to remove their daughters from the influence of those they consider less strict in their religious observance. Watching TV at home, having access to the internet, and a laxer dress code among the Sephardi ultra-Orthodox have been cited.
The ultra-Orthodox school in the illegal West Bank settlement of Immanuel segregated the girls, a move that was subject to a legal challenge resulting in an order to reintegrate. The parents of the 43 girls refused to send them back to mixed classes, leading to sentences for contempt of court.
Underlying the case is the rejection of what the ultra-Orthodox community sees as state interference in their religious practice and life. "We don't give our girls all the knowledge that there is in the world," said Esther Bark, 50, a mother of seven daughters watching the male-only demonstration today. "We shelter them, and that's why they need a sheltered school. We can't mix a whole assortment of girls in one school." [Italics mine.]
As police helicopters throbbed over the mass of black-hatted demonstrators, Aaron Shuv, 28, said: "We only follow the rules of God. The Torah [scriptures] is above all government."
The issue had nothing to do with discrimination, said Dubin, a father of two. "No court in the world should have the right to tell me how to educate my sons or daughters. The court went against our rabbis."
Jerusalem's ultra-Orthodox community has swollen to a third of the Jewish population, assisted by a high birthrate and departure of thousands of secular residents. The secular population is increasingly resentful that its taxes support welfare benefits for the ultra-Orthodox, who reject paid work in favour of religious study. ...
So move to Saudi Arabia, you parasitical, racist, sexist morons!
... The reason for wanting separate education, the parents claim, is not racism but a desire to remove their daughters from the influence of those they consider less strict in their religious observance. Watching TV at home, having access to the internet, and a laxer dress code among the Sephardi ultra-Orthodox have been cited.
The ultra-Orthodox school in the illegal West Bank settlement of Immanuel segregated the girls, a move that was subject to a legal challenge resulting in an order to reintegrate. The parents of the 43 girls refused to send them back to mixed classes, leading to sentences for contempt of court.
Underlying the case is the rejection of what the ultra-Orthodox community sees as state interference in their religious practice and life. "We don't give our girls all the knowledge that there is in the world," said Esther Bark, 50, a mother of seven daughters watching the male-only demonstration today. "We shelter them, and that's why they need a sheltered school. We can't mix a whole assortment of girls in one school." [Italics mine.]
As police helicopters throbbed over the mass of black-hatted demonstrators, Aaron Shuv, 28, said: "We only follow the rules of God. The Torah [scriptures] is above all government."
The issue had nothing to do with discrimination, said Dubin, a father of two. "No court in the world should have the right to tell me how to educate my sons or daughters. The court went against our rabbis."
Jerusalem's ultra-Orthodox community has swollen to a third of the Jewish population, assisted by a high birthrate and departure of thousands of secular residents. The secular population is increasingly resentful that its taxes support welfare benefits for the ultra-Orthodox, who reject paid work in favour of religious study. ...
So move to Saudi Arabia, you parasitical, racist, sexist morons!
American troops going home from Iraq after seven painful years are leaving behind a legacy that is literally toxic.
An investigation by The Times in five Iraqi provinces has found that hazardous material from US bases is being dumped locally rather than sent back to America, in clear breach of Pentagon rules.
North and west of Baghdad, engine oil is leaking from 55-gallon drums into dusty ground, open acid canisters sit within easy reach of children, and discarded batteries lie close to irrigated farmland. A 2009 Pentagon document shown to The Times by a private contractor working with US soldiers mentions “an estimated 11 million pounds [5,000 tonnes] of hazardous waste” produced by American troops.
But even this figure appears to be only a partial estimate. Brigadier General Kendall Cox, who is responsible for engineering and infrastructure in Iraq, told The Times yesterday that he was in the process of disposing of 14,500 tonnes of oil and soil contaminated with oil. “This has accumulated over seven years,” he said. ...
An investigation by The Times in five Iraqi provinces has found that hazardous material from US bases is being dumped locally rather than sent back to America, in clear breach of Pentagon rules.
North and west of Baghdad, engine oil is leaking from 55-gallon drums into dusty ground, open acid canisters sit within easy reach of children, and discarded batteries lie close to irrigated farmland. A 2009 Pentagon document shown to The Times by a private contractor working with US soldiers mentions “an estimated 11 million pounds [5,000 tonnes] of hazardous waste” produced by American troops.
But even this figure appears to be only a partial estimate. Brigadier General Kendall Cox, who is responsible for engineering and infrastructure in Iraq, told The Times yesterday that he was in the process of disposing of 14,500 tonnes of oil and soil contaminated with oil. “This has accumulated over seven years,” he said. ...
Well done the hecklers.
Screw you, fbi.
Foxhunting is a good idea.
David Cameron sought to distance himself from BP yesterday, dashing any hopes that he might intervene to repair the company’s appalling relations with Washington over the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. The US Administration is now pursuing a criminal investigation into BP. Yesterday a spokesman for the Prime Minister said: “Clearly Mr Cameron is concerned about the situation but it is primarily a matter for the company.”
It is understood that BP will meet Charles Hendry, the Energy Minister, today after a request by the company. It is also understood that the new Government has not asked to meet BP to discuss the spill. However, BP representatives briefed Energy Department officials at a recent event in Aberdeen.
BP said: “We have not approached No 10 for assistance but have had conversations with officials to keep them up to date. We could well be talking to ministers over the next week or so.”
Shares in BP have lost a third of their value since the rig exploded in April. The shares closed down just 0.25p to 429.75p yesterday as investors began to believe the company would hold to its pledge not to cut the dividend. There was also speculation that BHP Billiton, the mining giant, may emerge as a white knight if BP has to sell its Gulf of Mexico assets. ...
It is understood that BP will meet Charles Hendry, the Energy Minister, today after a request by the company. It is also understood that the new Government has not asked to meet BP to discuss the spill. However, BP representatives briefed Energy Department officials at a recent event in Aberdeen.
BP said: “We have not approached No 10 for assistance but have had conversations with officials to keep them up to date. We could well be talking to ministers over the next week or so.”
Shares in BP have lost a third of their value since the rig exploded in April. The shares closed down just 0.25p to 429.75p yesterday as investors began to believe the company would hold to its pledge not to cut the dividend. There was also speculation that BHP Billiton, the mining giant, may emerge as a white knight if BP has to sell its Gulf of Mexico assets. ...
The Turkish charity at the centre of the raid by Israeli forces on an aid vessel in the Mediterranean was under intense scrutiny last night over its alleged links with militant organisations.
Despite their claims to be an entirely peaceful organisation, The Foundation for Human Rights, Freedoms and Humanitarian Relief (IHH) has a history of involvement in Islamic extremism around the world and has been linked with an attempted bombing of an airport in the US.
The charity had 40 members on the Turkish-owned ship Mavi Marmara when it was boarded by Israeli Navy commandos on Monday. Nine people died in the operation. ...
Despite their claims to be an entirely peaceful organisation, The Foundation for Human Rights, Freedoms and Humanitarian Relief (IHH) has a history of involvement in Islamic extremism around the world and has been linked with an attempted bombing of an airport in the US.
The charity had 40 members on the Turkish-owned ship Mavi Marmara when it was boarded by Israeli Navy commandos on Monday. Nine people died in the operation. ...
A daring heist by armed bandits who made off with 200kg (440lb) of gold jewellery worth £5.5m has left French detectives baffled and quietly impressed.
Officers described the raid, in which a jewellery wholesaler and his family were held at gunpoint overnight, as a professional job carried out with military precision. In terms of forward planning, audacity and meticulous attention to detail, the robbery resembled the plot of the Hollywood film Ocean's Eleven.
"We've never seen anything like it," said one officer in Marseille, who admitted that police had no leads in their inquiry. "This was an extremely professional job."
The masked and heavily armed robbers worked in silence, wore aluminium gloves to avoid leaving traces of DNA, and made off with their haul only after carefully cleaning the scene with methylated spirits.
Details of the robbery, which have just emerged, suggest the gang had been preparing the operation for some time. Just before midnight last Wednesday, the gang ambushed gold and jewel dealer Bruno Franchini, 39, as he drove his Mercedes into his home in the fishing port of Cassis, near Marseille. ...
Officers described the raid, in which a jewellery wholesaler and his family were held at gunpoint overnight, as a professional job carried out with military precision. In terms of forward planning, audacity and meticulous attention to detail, the robbery resembled the plot of the Hollywood film Ocean's Eleven.
"We've never seen anything like it," said one officer in Marseille, who admitted that police had no leads in their inquiry. "This was an extremely professional job."
The masked and heavily armed robbers worked in silence, wore aluminium gloves to avoid leaving traces of DNA, and made off with their haul only after carefully cleaning the scene with methylated spirits.
Details of the robbery, which have just emerged, suggest the gang had been preparing the operation for some time. Just before midnight last Wednesday, the gang ambushed gold and jewel dealer Bruno Franchini, 39, as he drove his Mercedes into his home in the fishing port of Cassis, near Marseille. ...
Man, in diaper, approaches woman in parking lot
Written by John Kovach
Thursday, 27 May 2010
A Stratford[, CT] man was arrested May 25 after he allegedly approached a woman and her grandchildren. He was allegedly wearing a diaper and sucking a pacifier at the time, asking the woman to change him.
The woman said she was with her grandchildren, ages 10, 8 and 9 months, when Wellington jumped out of his car in the parking lot at C-Town, 360 Boston Ave., at 4:36 p.m. The woman said he asked if she had wipes, and several times asked if she would wipe him.
The woman ignored him and left, but said she feared for the safety of others and reported the incident.
Police traced the plate on an SUV the man was said to be sitting in to Thomas Wellington, 41, of 72 Vought Place.
According to police they found Wellington in his Ford Bronco in the shopping center parking lot. He was reportedly covered in sweat, wearing Spandex pants pulled up to the mid thigh area over a large diaper.
Wellington reportedly told officers he was wearing diapers becuase of intestinal problems.
"[ Wellington] had a bulge in his pants and had baby pacifiers all over the vehicle," according to a police report. ...
[brilliant snooty English butler]Mr Darwin's Nursery School and Day Care is calling, sir. Your teacher requires an explanation of your truancy.[/brilliant snooty English butler]
Ta much, dear BrightKnight
Written by John Kovach
Thursday, 27 May 2010
A Stratford[, CT] man was arrested May 25 after he allegedly approached a woman and her grandchildren. He was allegedly wearing a diaper and sucking a pacifier at the time, asking the woman to change him.
The woman said she was with her grandchildren, ages 10, 8 and 9 months, when Wellington jumped out of his car in the parking lot at C-Town, 360 Boston Ave., at 4:36 p.m. The woman said he asked if she had wipes, and several times asked if she would wipe him.
The woman ignored him and left, but said she feared for the safety of others and reported the incident.
Police traced the plate on an SUV the man was said to be sitting in to Thomas Wellington, 41, of 72 Vought Place.
According to police they found Wellington in his Ford Bronco in the shopping center parking lot. He was reportedly covered in sweat, wearing Spandex pants pulled up to the mid thigh area over a large diaper.
Wellington reportedly told officers he was wearing diapers becuase of intestinal problems.
"[ Wellington] had a bulge in his pants and had baby pacifiers all over the vehicle," according to a police report. ...
[brilliant snooty English butler]Mr Darwin's Nursery School and Day Care is calling, sir. Your teacher requires an explanation of your truancy.[/brilliant snooty English butler]
Ta much, dear BrightKnight
[brilliant snooty English butler]A Mr Darwin is on the telephone, Modom. Shall I inform him that Modom will ring him back when the bandages have been removed?
The lump in Modom's arm? That is Modom's new contraception, Modom.[/brilliant snooty English butler]
Ta much, dear Anneliese
The lump in Modom's arm? That is Modom's new contraception, Modom.[/brilliant snooty English butler]
Ta much, dear Anneliese
Who is behind Jamaica's mayhem?
Published: Saturday | May 29, 2010
The Editor, Sir:
I have read and watched with interest the developments in Jamaica since the Christopher 'Dudus' Coke extradition issue has come to the forefront. And, I must say how interesting it is when one man must take the fall for the ills of many.
Yes, I say, many because, even though the spotlight is on Dudus, the real problem facing Jamaica is not Dudus; it is corruption in all levels of government. Dudus is just a product of the ongoing corruption that has infected Jamaican politics and society over the years.
Lest we forget, many members of parliament, in an effort to maintain power, have supported dons in garrison constituencies. And these events today are just a product of those actions. What is happening now, with the signing of the extradition order and the effort to arrest Dudus, is seemingly just a facade to save face and to appease the US State Department, which has stepped up pressure on the Jamaican government.
Let's ask the question, "what would have happened if there were no extradition request from the United States?", and "what will happen next?" Would the garrisons remain? Or rather, "will they remain when this is all over and Dudus is gone?"
It is time to hold members of parliament accountable for ills in their constituencies. Dudus has allegedly broken the law, but the politicians have been living above the law since independence. ...
Published: Saturday | May 29, 2010
The Editor, Sir:
I have read and watched with interest the developments in Jamaica since the Christopher 'Dudus' Coke extradition issue has come to the forefront. And, I must say how interesting it is when one man must take the fall for the ills of many.
Yes, I say, many because, even though the spotlight is on Dudus, the real problem facing Jamaica is not Dudus; it is corruption in all levels of government. Dudus is just a product of the ongoing corruption that has infected Jamaican politics and society over the years.
Lest we forget, many members of parliament, in an effort to maintain power, have supported dons in garrison constituencies. And these events today are just a product of those actions. What is happening now, with the signing of the extradition order and the effort to arrest Dudus, is seemingly just a facade to save face and to appease the US State Department, which has stepped up pressure on the Jamaican government.
Let's ask the question, "what would have happened if there were no extradition request from the United States?", and "what will happen next?" Would the garrisons remain? Or rather, "will they remain when this is all over and Dudus is gone?"
It is time to hold members of parliament accountable for ills in their constituencies. Dudus has allegedly broken the law, but the politicians have been living above the law since independence. ...
Massacre in Tivoli Gardens
Published: Saturday | May 29, 2010
Massacre in Tivoli Gardens
The Editor, Sir:
Since the prime minister's announcement that the process for the extradition of Christopher 'Dudus' Coke would take place, not only have we witnessed the physical and mental destruction of a community, but we have witnessed an intentional onslaught by the security forces on a poor, innocent and misled people. What makes it so difficult and painful is the fact that the invasion's main purpose was inconsequential.
How can a warrant be issued without any credible evidence as to the whereabouts of the person being sought? Refusing to acquire, or not acquiring, credible evidence suggests that other than issuing the warrant, the security forces could not wait to unleash their weaponry on a community which has been a target for them for quite a number of years....
A time to rejoice
The Editor, Sir;
While many Jamaicans lament the killing of innocent Jamaicans in this battle in Tivoli, many of us applaud the efforts of the military and the police to rid the country of criminal elements.
We are quite aware that politicians are guilty of the escalation of mafia-type crime in Jamaica through the granting of contracts to these criminal elements, which has served to safeguard the politicians' selfish desire for political power. So, while many politicians forge unholy alliances with criminals, many hardworking Jamaicans cowered in their communities as criminals ran amok, holding citizens hostage to violence and extortion.
Now that the politicians have empowered these criminals to the point where they can challenge the State, the Government has reacted to stave off international embarrassment. ...
...hard-working Jamaicans have had enough of crime and rejoice at the dismantling of this and hopefully many other garrisons across Jamaica....
Published: Saturday | May 29, 2010
Massacre in Tivoli Gardens
The Editor, Sir:
Since the prime minister's announcement that the process for the extradition of Christopher 'Dudus' Coke would take place, not only have we witnessed the physical and mental destruction of a community, but we have witnessed an intentional onslaught by the security forces on a poor, innocent and misled people. What makes it so difficult and painful is the fact that the invasion's main purpose was inconsequential.
How can a warrant be issued without any credible evidence as to the whereabouts of the person being sought? Refusing to acquire, or not acquiring, credible evidence suggests that other than issuing the warrant, the security forces could not wait to unleash their weaponry on a community which has been a target for them for quite a number of years....
A time to rejoice
The Editor, Sir;
While many Jamaicans lament the killing of innocent Jamaicans in this battle in Tivoli, many of us applaud the efforts of the military and the police to rid the country of criminal elements.
We are quite aware that politicians are guilty of the escalation of mafia-type crime in Jamaica through the granting of contracts to these criminal elements, which has served to safeguard the politicians' selfish desire for political power. So, while many politicians forge unholy alliances with criminals, many hardworking Jamaicans cowered in their communities as criminals ran amok, holding citizens hostage to violence and extortion.
Now that the politicians have empowered these criminals to the point where they can challenge the State, the Government has reacted to stave off international embarrassment. ...
...hard-working Jamaicans have had enough of crime and rejoice at the dismantling of this and hopefully many other garrisons across Jamaica....
War tools - Security forces say thugs designed multiple hazards
Published: Saturday | May 29, 2010
Mark Beckford, Staff Reporter
THE NUMBER of guns found, as well as the sophistication of the resistance which the security forces encountered in west Kingston, were revealed yesterday during a press conference at the Jamaica Defence Force (JDF) headquarters at Up Park Camp in St Andrew.
A tale of a well-fortified Tivoli Gardens community was presented yesterday, with the security forces painting a picture, with the aid of photographs and videos, that criminal elements in the downtown Kingston enclave utilised several methods to present hazards for law enforcement.
Pictures and videos obtained through surveillance by the military of several checkpoints, improvised explosive devices (IED), men walking around with guns, men setting up firing positions, booby-trapped barricades and gullies inside the community leading to the Kingston Harbour added to the aura in the general public of Tivoli Gardens as a well-organised criminal operation.
"The insertion into the area was not going to be a simple task, as the high level of fortification and number of firing positions seen inside the area would have made it difficult. This, coupled with the large-scale barricading which was done to the main entries, made the military task a more arduous one," Major Richard Blackwood, civil-military officer, said.
He explained that it took up to three hours for the security forces to move over 200 metres - a journey which would have taken three minutes - because of the gunfire from criminal elements. ...
Published: Saturday | May 29, 2010
Mark Beckford, Staff Reporter
THE NUMBER of guns found, as well as the sophistication of the resistance which the security forces encountered in west Kingston, were revealed yesterday during a press conference at the Jamaica Defence Force (JDF) headquarters at Up Park Camp in St Andrew.
A tale of a well-fortified Tivoli Gardens community was presented yesterday, with the security forces painting a picture, with the aid of photographs and videos, that criminal elements in the downtown Kingston enclave utilised several methods to present hazards for law enforcement.
Pictures and videos obtained through surveillance by the military of several checkpoints, improvised explosive devices (IED), men walking around with guns, men setting up firing positions, booby-trapped barricades and gullies inside the community leading to the Kingston Harbour added to the aura in the general public of Tivoli Gardens as a well-organised criminal operation.
"The insertion into the area was not going to be a simple task, as the high level of fortification and number of firing positions seen inside the area would have made it difficult. This, coupled with the large-scale barricading which was done to the main entries, made the military task a more arduous one," Major Richard Blackwood, civil-military officer, said.
He explained that it took up to three hours for the security forces to move over 200 metres - a journey which would have taken three minutes - because of the gunfire from criminal elements. ...
Market blues
Published: Saturday | May 29, 2010
Lovelette Brooks, News Editor
THE PLANNED rebuilding and refurbishing exercise for the Coronation Market, downtown Kingston, later this year, becomes even more urgent as the market, regarded as the pivot of trade and commerce in the heart of the city, is almost completely destroyed.
Located in west Kingston in proximity to the Tivoli Gardens war zone, the market took a severe battering from four days of intense battle waged between the island's security forces and gunmen that threatened to rip the city apart.
More than 70 persons, including Jamaica Defence Force personnel, were killed and two police stations burnt.
The largest and most vibrant market in Jamaica, Coronation Market, or 'Curry', accommodates between 6,000 to 8,000 persons per day. Peak days for business are Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays. Despite its deplorable physical and sanitary conditions, the wholesale and retail market is well patronised.
However, vending stalls that, only a week ago, were piled high with fresh fruits and ground produce, were reduced to smouldering cisterns. Soot, ash, burnt fruits and vegetables litter the ground.
"This is the leading market in Jamaica and it gone, and if it gone, there is no more economy downtown!" shouts Jessica, an angry vendor who says she lost everything, including stock she had in storage.
According to residents who live in the vicinity, the market was firebombed. Several stalls were still burning when The Gleaner visited the market. ...
Published: Saturday | May 29, 2010
Lovelette Brooks, News Editor
THE PLANNED rebuilding and refurbishing exercise for the Coronation Market, downtown Kingston, later this year, becomes even more urgent as the market, regarded as the pivot of trade and commerce in the heart of the city, is almost completely destroyed.
Located in west Kingston in proximity to the Tivoli Gardens war zone, the market took a severe battering from four days of intense battle waged between the island's security forces and gunmen that threatened to rip the city apart.
More than 70 persons, including Jamaica Defence Force personnel, were killed and two police stations burnt.
The largest and most vibrant market in Jamaica, Coronation Market, or 'Curry', accommodates between 6,000 to 8,000 persons per day. Peak days for business are Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays. Despite its deplorable physical and sanitary conditions, the wholesale and retail market is well patronised.
However, vending stalls that, only a week ago, were piled high with fresh fruits and ground produce, were reduced to smouldering cisterns. Soot, ash, burnt fruits and vegetables litter the ground.
"This is the leading market in Jamaica and it gone, and if it gone, there is no more economy downtown!" shouts Jessica, an angry vendor who says she lost everything, including stock she had in storage.
According to residents who live in the vicinity, the market was firebombed. Several stalls were still burning when The Gleaner visited the market. ...
Gov't hiding 'real issues' in Chinese deal - OCG
Published: Friday | May 28, 2010
Contractor General Greg Christie has slammed the Government for its attempt to justify a proposed multibillion-dollar deal to sell its 45 per cent stake of the Jamalco alumina refinery to Chinese firm Zhuhai Hongfan Non-ferrous Metals and Chemical Engineering Limited (Hongfan). He accused government bureaucrats of "obfuscating" the real issues when it responded to the initial alarm he raised about the deal.
In a media release, responding to concerns raised by the Office of the Contractor General (OCG) two weeks ago, permanent secretary in the Ministry of Energy and Mining (MEM), Hillary Alexander, pointed to, among other things, operating losses at Clarendon Alumina Production Company (CAP), which created a debt of more than US$400 million, an obligation, she said which cannot be accommodated in the current economic programme with the International Monetary Fund (IMF).
But in a sharp rebuke, Christie described the ministry's response as an "interesting attempt ... to obfuscate the real issues which are the subject of the OCG's contention in the matter".
"As you are very much aware, the OCG's primary contention is that the proposed multibillion-dollar Government of Jamaica/Port Reliant/Hongfan contract award is not one which was borne out of an open, competitive and transparent tender process," the OCG letter which was released to the media said.
"Indeed, to date," the contractor general continued, "you have failed to provide to the OCG an acceptable explanation for your ministry's aberrant and potentially damaging conduct in not putting this major asset divestment to public competitive tender."
In the letter, which was copied to the prime minister and other state officials, Christie pointed to the ministry's references to the "drain on the public purse" and the allusion that the IMF standby agreement made no provision for the servicing of CAP's J$36-billion debt. ...
Published: Friday | May 28, 2010
Contractor General Greg Christie has slammed the Government for its attempt to justify a proposed multibillion-dollar deal to sell its 45 per cent stake of the Jamalco alumina refinery to Chinese firm Zhuhai Hongfan Non-ferrous Metals and Chemical Engineering Limited (Hongfan). He accused government bureaucrats of "obfuscating" the real issues when it responded to the initial alarm he raised about the deal.
In a media release, responding to concerns raised by the Office of the Contractor General (OCG) two weeks ago, permanent secretary in the Ministry of Energy and Mining (MEM), Hillary Alexander, pointed to, among other things, operating losses at Clarendon Alumina Production Company (CAP), which created a debt of more than US$400 million, an obligation, she said which cannot be accommodated in the current economic programme with the International Monetary Fund (IMF).
But in a sharp rebuke, Christie described the ministry's response as an "interesting attempt ... to obfuscate the real issues which are the subject of the OCG's contention in the matter".
"As you are very much aware, the OCG's primary contention is that the proposed multibillion-dollar Government of Jamaica/Port Reliant/Hongfan contract award is not one which was borne out of an open, competitive and transparent tender process," the OCG letter which was released to the media said.
"Indeed, to date," the contractor general continued, "you have failed to provide to the OCG an acceptable explanation for your ministry's aberrant and potentially damaging conduct in not putting this major asset divestment to public competitive tender."
In the letter, which was copied to the prime minister and other state officials, Christie pointed to the ministry's references to the "drain on the public purse" and the allusion that the IMF standby agreement made no provision for the servicing of CAP's J$36-billion debt. ...
Witter to probe army strike
Published: Friday | May 28, 2010
Edmond Campbell, Senior Staff Reporter
THE Golding administration has announced an independent enquiry into the security operation in Tivoli Gardens and Denham Town in west Kingston which left at least 73 civilians dead and three members of the security forces killed.
Public Defender Earl Witter and a team to be selected by him will carry out a probe into what is being described by some as the largest casualty figure arising from a security-force operation in Jamaica.
"The Government will be having independent investigations on all police-military operations taking place to date. That will be the starting point," Information Minister Daryl Vaz told journalists yesterday at a press conference at the Hilton hotel in New Kingston.
The investigation comes as the Government yesterday expressed concern about alleged reports of misconduct in the security operation in Tivoli Gardens and Denham Town.
"These vary from mistreatment of citizens to innocent persons being killed. The Government is committed and insistent that the rights of citizens be respected and observed," Vaz stated.
He said the public defender would set up office in Tivoli Gardens and Denham Town to provide easy access to residents who wanted to make complaints. ...
Published: Friday | May 28, 2010
Edmond Campbell, Senior Staff Reporter
THE Golding administration has announced an independent enquiry into the security operation in Tivoli Gardens and Denham Town in west Kingston which left at least 73 civilians dead and three members of the security forces killed.
Public Defender Earl Witter and a team to be selected by him will carry out a probe into what is being described by some as the largest casualty figure arising from a security-force operation in Jamaica.
"The Government will be having independent investigations on all police-military operations taking place to date. That will be the starting point," Information Minister Daryl Vaz told journalists yesterday at a press conference at the Hilton hotel in New Kingston.
The investigation comes as the Government yesterday expressed concern about alleged reports of misconduct in the security operation in Tivoli Gardens and Denham Town.
"These vary from mistreatment of citizens to innocent persons being killed. The Government is committed and insistent that the rights of citizens be respected and observed," Vaz stated.
He said the public defender would set up office in Tivoli Gardens and Denham Town to provide easy access to residents who wanted to make complaints. ...
May 27, 2010
Suicide attempt prompts panic at Foxconn
Leo Lewis, Asia Business Correspondent
The spiralling suicide crisis at Foxconn appeared to be worsening last night after another employee of the electronics plant tried to kill himself by slashing his wrists.
The suicide attempt was made just hours after the death of a 23-year-old employee.
Psychologists and experts in suicide have begun to talk openly of a “mass hysteria” among the 350,000 mostly migrant workers at the vast factory in Shenzhen, southern China, which makes digital equipment such as iPods, mobile phones and laptop PCs for big-name clients.
The death today brought the toll among the company’s staff to 11 since January. The Times has learnt that Sony has begun “re-evaluating” the working environment at Foxconn.
With panic starting to show among Foxconn’s management, the company is understood to have asked employees to sign a pledge that they would seek medical help if they were ever overcome by suicidal thoughts.
The fatalities come amid mounting condemnation of working conditions at the Taiwanese-owned plant and the decision of several of the company’s biggest clients — Apple, Dell and Hewlett Packard — to investigate how their products are being manufactured.
The latest victim, like the nine other young employees who have committed suicide at the plant since January, leapt from the seventh floor of his dormitory.
The company has made hastily contrived efforts to improve conditions for its workers, the majority of whom stand in the same position for 12-hour shifts and receive the equivalent of about £90 each month in salary. Those measures include the use of “soothing” music on the factory floor, the recruitment of hundreds of dance instructors and the establishment of a suicide hotline. ...
Suicide attempt prompts panic at Foxconn
Leo Lewis, Asia Business Correspondent
The spiralling suicide crisis at Foxconn appeared to be worsening last night after another employee of the electronics plant tried to kill himself by slashing his wrists.
The suicide attempt was made just hours after the death of a 23-year-old employee.
Psychologists and experts in suicide have begun to talk openly of a “mass hysteria” among the 350,000 mostly migrant workers at the vast factory in Shenzhen, southern China, which makes digital equipment such as iPods, mobile phones and laptop PCs for big-name clients.
The death today brought the toll among the company’s staff to 11 since January. The Times has learnt that Sony has begun “re-evaluating” the working environment at Foxconn.
With panic starting to show among Foxconn’s management, the company is understood to have asked employees to sign a pledge that they would seek medical help if they were ever overcome by suicidal thoughts.
The fatalities come amid mounting condemnation of working conditions at the Taiwanese-owned plant and the decision of several of the company’s biggest clients — Apple, Dell and Hewlett Packard — to investigate how their products are being manufactured.
The latest victim, like the nine other young employees who have committed suicide at the plant since January, leapt from the seventh floor of his dormitory.
The company has made hastily contrived efforts to improve conditions for its workers, the majority of whom stand in the same position for 12-hour shifts and receive the equivalent of about £90 each month in salary. Those measures include the use of “soothing” music on the factory floor, the recruitment of hundreds of dance instructors and the establishment of a suicide hotline. ...
Italian priests' secret mistresses ask pope to scrap celibacy rule
Forty women send unprecedented letter to pontiff saying priests need to 'experience feelings, love and be loved'
John Hooper in Rome
Thursday 27 May 2010
Dozens of Italian women who have had relationships with Roman Catholic priests or lay monks have endorsed an open letter to the pope that calls for the abolition of the celibacy rule. The letter, thought by one signatory to be unprecedented, argues that a priest "needs to live with his fellow human beings, experience feelings, love and be loved".
It also pleads for understanding of those who "live out in secrecy those few moments the priest manages to grant [us] and experience on a daily basis the doubts, fears and insecurities of our men".
The issue was put back on the Vatican's agenda in March when one of Pope Benedict's senior advisers, Cardinal Christoph Schönborn, the archbishop of Vienna, said the abolition of the celibacy rule might curb sex abuse by priests, a suggestion he hastily withdrew after Benedict spoke up for "the principle of holy celibacy".
The authors of the letter said they decided to come into the open after hearing his retort, which they said was an affirmation of "the holiness of something that is not holy" but a man-made rule. There are many instances of married priests in the early centuries of Christianity. Today, priests who follow the eastern Catholic rites can be married, as can those who married before converting to Roman Catholicism from Anglicanism.
One signatory, Stefania Salomone, 42, an office manager, said the message to the pope had been endorsed by nearly 40 women registered with an online forum linked to Il Dialogo website. But such was the sensitivity of the issue that only three had published their names.
The letter was posted on the internet on 28 March. But it was only reported on Wednesday by the online international news agency, globalPost. ...
Forty women send unprecedented letter to pontiff saying priests need to 'experience feelings, love and be loved'
John Hooper in Rome
Thursday 27 May 2010
Dozens of Italian women who have had relationships with Roman Catholic priests or lay monks have endorsed an open letter to the pope that calls for the abolition of the celibacy rule. The letter, thought by one signatory to be unprecedented, argues that a priest "needs to live with his fellow human beings, experience feelings, love and be loved".
It also pleads for understanding of those who "live out in secrecy those few moments the priest manages to grant [us] and experience on a daily basis the doubts, fears and insecurities of our men".
The issue was put back on the Vatican's agenda in March when one of Pope Benedict's senior advisers, Cardinal Christoph Schönborn, the archbishop of Vienna, said the abolition of the celibacy rule might curb sex abuse by priests, a suggestion he hastily withdrew after Benedict spoke up for "the principle of holy celibacy".
The authors of the letter said they decided to come into the open after hearing his retort, which they said was an affirmation of "the holiness of something that is not holy" but a man-made rule. There are many instances of married priests in the early centuries of Christianity. Today, priests who follow the eastern Catholic rites can be married, as can those who married before converting to Roman Catholicism from Anglicanism.
One signatory, Stefania Salomone, 42, an office manager, said the message to the pope had been endorsed by nearly 40 women registered with an online forum linked to Il Dialogo website. But such was the sensitivity of the issue that only three had published their names.
The letter was posted on the internet on 28 March. But it was only reported on Wednesday by the online international news agency, globalPost. ...
Cops Conduct Search For Dudus
2010-05-27 07:08:48
As the civil unrest across the city enters its fifth day, THE STAR understands that the security forces this morning conducted a massive operation at a house in the East Kirkland Heights area of St Andrew, Jamaica, apparently in search of alleged Shower Posse leader Christopher "Dudus" Coke.
Coke is being sought by police who are seeking to serve on him a warrant of arrest after Government last week signed an order clearing the way for extradition proceedings to begin against the man who United States authorities have accused of serious gun and drug-related crimes. The US authorities have requested that Coke be extradited to face trial.
STAR sources suggest that Coke was believed to be at the premises. This morning, from as early as 2:30 a.m., residents reported that the security forces cordoned off the community. Helicopters, they said, circled in the night sky, dropping flares near or on the premises. There were also reports of gunfire. One source, close to the scene said the situation ‘was not pretty’.
The earliest signs that something was afoot began shortly after 9 p.m. last night when helicopters with searchlights attached buzzed in the night sky in Upper St Andrew. It seemed to have been a prelude to the operation that begun just a few hours later. ...
2010-05-27 07:08:48
As the civil unrest across the city enters its fifth day, THE STAR understands that the security forces this morning conducted a massive operation at a house in the East Kirkland Heights area of St Andrew, Jamaica, apparently in search of alleged Shower Posse leader Christopher "Dudus" Coke.
Coke is being sought by police who are seeking to serve on him a warrant of arrest after Government last week signed an order clearing the way for extradition proceedings to begin against the man who United States authorities have accused of serious gun and drug-related crimes. The US authorities have requested that Coke be extradited to face trial.
STAR sources suggest that Coke was believed to be at the premises. This morning, from as early as 2:30 a.m., residents reported that the security forces cordoned off the community. Helicopters, they said, circled in the night sky, dropping flares near or on the premises. There were also reports of gunfire. One source, close to the scene said the situation ‘was not pretty’.
The earliest signs that something was afoot began shortly after 9 p.m. last night when helicopters with searchlights attached buzzed in the night sky in Upper St Andrew. It seemed to have been a prelude to the operation that begun just a few hours later. ...
A Chinese electronics assembly worker threw himself from the roof of his dormitory in Shenzhen yesterday, the latest suicide by a worker toiling to feed the world’s craving for cheaper iPods, laptops and mobile phones.
The migrant worker, 19, earning a basic salary of 900 yuan (£19) per month, was the ninth employee at Foxconn’s immense plant in the southern Chinese city to take his life since January, and the tenth in the company as a whole. He had worked at the plant for only 42 days.
Li Hai’s death echoes that of a 21-year-old logistics worker at the same factory three days earlier and came a day after the chairman of Foxconn, Terry Gou, declared that his company was “not running a sweatshop”.
Many think that the boom in electronic equipment and market pressures have given the industry the characteristics for which the textile industry is notorious: physically punishing, mind-numbing work at low wages. ...
The migrant worker, 19, earning a basic salary of 900 yuan (£19) per month, was the ninth employee at Foxconn’s immense plant in the southern Chinese city to take his life since January, and the tenth in the company as a whole. He had worked at the plant for only 42 days.
Li Hai’s death echoes that of a 21-year-old logistics worker at the same factory three days earlier and came a day after the chairman of Foxconn, Terry Gou, declared that his company was “not running a sweatshop”.
Many think that the boom in electronic equipment and market pressures have given the industry the characteristics for which the textile industry is notorious: physically punishing, mind-numbing work at low wages. ...
A ninth worker fell to his death at a southern Chinese factory run by the electronics giant Foxconn today, as campaigners protested against working conditions at the company's Hong Kong offices.
The Taiwanese-owned firm's plant in Shenzhen had already seen eight suicides this year and two more attempts. Another worker committed suicide at a smaller Foxconn factory in Hebei province, in the north of the country, in January, according to the Associated Press.
The 19-year-old man from central China had been working at the plant for only a month and a half, the state news agency Xinhua reported. Police say they are determining the cause of death and Foxconn did not offer immediate comment.
The company ‑ which is believed to make goods for Dell, Nokia, Sony Ericsson and Apple among others ‑ has installed safety nets around buildings to try to prevent further deaths. It has also called in counsellors and introduced music on production lines to attempt to relieve the monotony of working practices.
But campaigners have demanded a more comprehensive overhaul of working practices, saying that higher wages, shorter hours and greater variety of work are needed. They also called for independent workers' committees to air employees' grievances. ...
The Taiwanese-owned firm's plant in Shenzhen had already seen eight suicides this year and two more attempts. Another worker committed suicide at a smaller Foxconn factory in Hebei province, in the north of the country, in January, according to the Associated Press.
The 19-year-old man from central China had been working at the plant for only a month and a half, the state news agency Xinhua reported. Police say they are determining the cause of death and Foxconn did not offer immediate comment.
The company ‑ which is believed to make goods for Dell, Nokia, Sony Ericsson and Apple among others ‑ has installed safety nets around buildings to try to prevent further deaths. It has also called in counsellors and introduced music on production lines to attempt to relieve the monotony of working practices.
But campaigners have demanded a more comprehensive overhaul of working practices, saying that higher wages, shorter hours and greater variety of work are needed. They also called for independent workers' committees to air employees' grievances. ...
Hunt still on for 'Dudus'
2010-05-25 18:52:59
The hunt is still on in Jamaica this evening for west Kingston strongman Christopher Dudus Coke.
More than 30 hours since a mass police/military operation began in Tivoli Gardens, Kingston, the National Security Minister Senator Dwight Nelson says the security forces have reported that Coke was not found.
Meanwhile acting deputy commissioner of police Glenmore Hinds declined to say whether the authorities know where to find the man the United States has accused of being a crime lord.
At the same time, the parishes of Kingston and St Andrew remain under a state of public emergency. ...
2010-05-25 18:52:59
The hunt is still on in Jamaica this evening for west Kingston strongman Christopher Dudus Coke.
More than 30 hours since a mass police/military operation began in Tivoli Gardens, Kingston, the National Security Minister Senator Dwight Nelson says the security forces have reported that Coke was not found.
Meanwhile acting deputy commissioner of police Glenmore Hinds declined to say whether the authorities know where to find the man the United States has accused of being a crime lord.
At the same time, the parishes of Kingston and St Andrew remain under a state of public emergency. ...
Over 26 killed in standoff to capture Christopher 'Dudus' Coke for extradition
2010-05-25 12:16:22
The Jamaica Security Forces have provided a report on the number of casualties arising from the ongoing battle between criminal elements in Tivoli Gardens and Denham Town since yesterday.
The police say seven members of the security forces have been injured and one killed. They also say 26 civilians have been killed and 25 injured.
The police say those killed were mainly males whose bodies were recovered from areas close to barricades, building entrances and gullies running through Tivoli Gardens.
In addition to injuries and fatalities, 211 people including six women have been detained.
The Security Forces are also reporting seizures of firearms, ammunition, binoculars, army fatigues and ballistic vests....
2010-05-25 12:16:22
The Jamaica Security Forces have provided a report on the number of casualties arising from the ongoing battle between criminal elements in Tivoli Gardens and Denham Town since yesterday.
The police say seven members of the security forces have been injured and one killed. They also say 26 civilians have been killed and 25 injured.
The police say those killed were mainly males whose bodies were recovered from areas close to barricades, building entrances and gullies running through Tivoli Gardens.
In addition to injuries and fatalities, 211 people including six women have been detained.
The Security Forces are also reporting seizures of firearms, ammunition, binoculars, army fatigues and ballistic vests....
Food running low in Kingston
2010-05-25 18:34:34
Damion Mitchell
Assistant News Editor
Food supplies are running low in the Jamaican capital, Kingston even as many supermarkets remain closed.
In St Andrew, many of the popular supermarkets like PriceSmart on Red Hills Road were closed today.
But outside the establishment, however, a few security personnel were seen.
In downtown Kingston, mini-supermarkets and wholesale grocery stores remained locked and at several others there were clear signs that they had been looted.
But a few of the wholesales in the corporate area like some on Molynes Road were open. However they had limited amount of food.
On the Washington Boulevard, the Lee's Food Fair was opened, but perishable goods like bread were finished and other items like biscuits were running low. ...
2010-05-25 18:34:34
Damion Mitchell
Assistant News Editor
Food supplies are running low in the Jamaican capital, Kingston even as many supermarkets remain closed.
In St Andrew, many of the popular supermarkets like PriceSmart on Red Hills Road were closed today.
But outside the establishment, however, a few security personnel were seen.
In downtown Kingston, mini-supermarkets and wholesale grocery stores remained locked and at several others there were clear signs that they had been looted.
But a few of the wholesales in the corporate area like some on Molynes Road were open. However they had limited amount of food.
On the Washington Boulevard, the Lee's Food Fair was opened, but perishable goods like bread were finished and other items like biscuits were running low. ...
Jamaica's international reputation takes a battering
2010-05-25 18:37:50
The bad publicity for Jamaica has continued in the international press.
The latest report is posted on the website of the United States-based ABC news.
ABC news has quoted a US Government report naming a very prominent Government minister and cabinet member as a criminal affiliate of Christopher Coke.
The ABC report says the very prominent Government minister and other senior Jamaican officials have been electronically intercepted talking to Coke inside his fortified community.
The issue of Jamaica’s international reputation was also raised in parliament today.
In the meantime, the Government is moving to counter negative media coverage of the operations in Tivoli Gardens.
Information Minister, Daryl Vaz announced today that a media center has been set up at the Hilton Hotel in New Kingston. ...
2010-05-25 18:37:50
The bad publicity for Jamaica has continued in the international press.
The latest report is posted on the website of the United States-based ABC news.
ABC news has quoted a US Government report naming a very prominent Government minister and cabinet member as a criminal affiliate of Christopher Coke.
The ABC report says the very prominent Government minister and other senior Jamaican officials have been electronically intercepted talking to Coke inside his fortified community.
The issue of Jamaica’s international reputation was also raised in parliament today.
In the meantime, the Government is moving to counter negative media coverage of the operations in Tivoli Gardens.
Information Minister, Daryl Vaz announced today that a media center has been set up at the Hilton Hotel in New Kingston. ...
How far should we let Big Oil go?
An alternative annual report for the oil company Chevron looks at the deep costs paid for the world's oil addiction
Antonia Juhasz
Monday 24 May 2010
... As I prepare for the annual general meeting of the fourth largest global oil company – Chevron (BP is the third largest) – I am confronted daily by people who are looking around their own communities and out across the world with new-found attention to the deep costs paid every day for our oil addiction.
A new alternative annual report for Chevron, The True Cost of Chevron, of which I am an author and the editor, will be released at a press conference on 25 May in Houston, Texas – just a few hundred miles from the sites where oil is washing up on shore following the explosion on BP's rig. Written by dozens of authors from 16 countries and 10 states from across the US who either live in, or advocate on behalf of, communities where Chevron operates, the report criticises Chevron's record on human rights, the environment, the climate, public health, worker safety and treatment of indigenous populations.
From Chevron's coalfields in Alabama to its oil wells in Indonesia, the report examines operations mired in accusations of human rights abuse (Angola, Burma, Indonesia, Chad and Nigeria); mass environmental and human health devastation (including Ecuador, Kazakhstan and Canada); toxic abuse of its neighbours (including Alabama, California, Mississippi, Texas, Thailand and the Philippines); abuse of its workers (including Utah); threats to endangered species (including Australia and the US Gulf Coast); and, in Iraq, intensifying the violent insurgency and putting the lives of US and Iraqi service members at greater risk.
There is also a powerful silver lining. All of these authors are part of a global resistance movement bringing its message to Houston where Chevron is hosting its AGM.
It has likely been 40 years since the American public in particular, was so ready to hear and embrace this message. In 1969, a Unocal (now Chevron) oil platform off the coast of California experienced a massive blowout and the issue forced its way to the nation's attention. Activists organised against offshore drilling in their community, ultimately enlisting millions of supporters and advocates, spawning a massive environmental movement which, within just a few years, achieved the establishment of the US Environmental Protection Agency and the passage of the US Clean Air and Clean Water Acts. ...
An alternative annual report for the oil company Chevron looks at the deep costs paid for the world's oil addiction
Antonia Juhasz
Monday 24 May 2010
... As I prepare for the annual general meeting of the fourth largest global oil company – Chevron (BP is the third largest) – I am confronted daily by people who are looking around their own communities and out across the world with new-found attention to the deep costs paid every day for our oil addiction.
A new alternative annual report for Chevron, The True Cost of Chevron, of which I am an author and the editor, will be released at a press conference on 25 May in Houston, Texas – just a few hundred miles from the sites where oil is washing up on shore following the explosion on BP's rig. Written by dozens of authors from 16 countries and 10 states from across the US who either live in, or advocate on behalf of, communities where Chevron operates, the report criticises Chevron's record on human rights, the environment, the climate, public health, worker safety and treatment of indigenous populations.
From Chevron's coalfields in Alabama to its oil wells in Indonesia, the report examines operations mired in accusations of human rights abuse (Angola, Burma, Indonesia, Chad and Nigeria); mass environmental and human health devastation (including Ecuador, Kazakhstan and Canada); toxic abuse of its neighbours (including Alabama, California, Mississippi, Texas, Thailand and the Philippines); abuse of its workers (including Utah); threats to endangered species (including Australia and the US Gulf Coast); and, in Iraq, intensifying the violent insurgency and putting the lives of US and Iraqi service members at greater risk.
There is also a powerful silver lining. All of these authors are part of a global resistance movement bringing its message to Houston where Chevron is hosting its AGM.
It has likely been 40 years since the American public in particular, was so ready to hear and embrace this message. In 1969, a Unocal (now Chevron) oil platform off the coast of California experienced a massive blowout and the issue forced its way to the nation's attention. Activists organised against offshore drilling in their community, ultimately enlisting millions of supporters and advocates, spawning a massive environmental movement which, within just a few years, achieved the establishment of the US Environmental Protection Agency and the passage of the US Clean Air and Clean Water Acts. ...
Foxconn employee dies in 11th fall this year in China
Mon May 24, 2010
BEIJING, May 25 (Reuters) - An employee of the tech firm Foxconn died early on Tuesday after falling from a building in southern city of Shenzhen, state media reported, the ninth such death at the firm's manufacturing hub this year.
Two workers have also survived similar falls at the sprawling manufacturing hub of the firm, whose clients include Apple and Sony Ericsson.
The company did not immediately respond to phone calls and emails seeking comment on the latest fall, just four days after a 21-year-old man died in the same way.
The man who fell on Tuesday was a teenage vocational school graduate from central China who had worked at the plant for a month and a half, the official Xinhua news agency reported.
Police are investigating whether the death was suicide or an accident, but Xinhua quoted sources saying the man left a suicide note, apologising to his father.
"This is really a public relations crisis for Foxconn," said Jenny Lai, an analyst at CLSA in Taipei. "The key right now is for the company to get out there and reassure their clients that they have put in place a system that will ensure that any new cases are minimised."
Shenzhen's police chief was leading an investigation into previous falls, Xinhua reported earlier.
Foxconn has 420,000 employees based in Shenzhen, Xinhua reported earlier this month, most under 30.
The unit of Taiwan's Hon Hai Precision Industry has come under criticism from labour groups over its working conditions after the spate of apparent suicides.
Hon Hai's chairman, Terry Gou, on Monday defended the firm and its working conditions at a business forum.
"I believe, we are not a sweatshop...a team of 900,000 workers is very difficult to manage, there are many things to do every day, however I have confidence that we can stabilise the situation very quickly," local television showed him saying.
Mon May 24, 2010
BEIJING, May 25 (Reuters) - An employee of the tech firm Foxconn died early on Tuesday after falling from a building in southern city of Shenzhen, state media reported, the ninth such death at the firm's manufacturing hub this year.
Two workers have also survived similar falls at the sprawling manufacturing hub of the firm, whose clients include Apple and Sony Ericsson.
The company did not immediately respond to phone calls and emails seeking comment on the latest fall, just four days after a 21-year-old man died in the same way.
The man who fell on Tuesday was a teenage vocational school graduate from central China who had worked at the plant for a month and a half, the official Xinhua news agency reported.
Police are investigating whether the death was suicide or an accident, but Xinhua quoted sources saying the man left a suicide note, apologising to his father.
"This is really a public relations crisis for Foxconn," said Jenny Lai, an analyst at CLSA in Taipei. "The key right now is for the company to get out there and reassure their clients that they have put in place a system that will ensure that any new cases are minimised."
Shenzhen's police chief was leading an investigation into previous falls, Xinhua reported earlier.
Foxconn has 420,000 employees based in Shenzhen, Xinhua reported earlier this month, most under 30.
The unit of Taiwan's Hon Hai Precision Industry has come under criticism from labour groups over its working conditions after the spate of apparent suicides.
Hon Hai's chairman, Terry Gou, on Monday defended the firm and its working conditions at a business forum.
"I believe, we are not a sweatshop...a team of 900,000 workers is very difficult to manage, there are many things to do every day, however I have confidence that we can stabilise the situation very quickly," local television showed him saying.
Bruce Golding's abortive attempt to resign as leader of the Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) raises far more questions than it answers. Golding's failure to concede defeat unequivocally and accede to the wishes of civil society confirms our collective fear that, even in the face of a national crisis of unprece-dented proportions, indi-vidual integrity must yield to the demands of partisan politics.
The decision of the Central Excecutive of the JLP not to accept Golding's resignation reinforces the popular perception that the function of leader of the party takes precedence over the role of prime minister. Propping up the fallen leader appears to be a much higher priority than preserving the integrity of the high office of prime minister.
Ironically, this 'separation of powers' is precisely what got Mr Golding into trouble in the first place. In the matter of that fateful sanctioning of the decision to hire the law firm Manatt, Phelps & Phillips to lobby on behalf of the JLP, Mr Golding claimed that his sacrosanct role as prime minister could not at all be compromised by his actions as leader of the JLP. ...
The decision of the Central Excecutive of the JLP not to accept Golding's resignation reinforces the popular perception that the function of leader of the party takes precedence over the role of prime minister. Propping up the fallen leader appears to be a much higher priority than preserving the integrity of the high office of prime minister.
Ironically, this 'separation of powers' is precisely what got Mr Golding into trouble in the first place. In the matter of that fateful sanctioning of the decision to hire the law firm Manatt, Phelps & Phillips to lobby on behalf of the JLP, Mr Golding claimed that his sacrosanct role as prime minister could not at all be compromised by his actions as leader of the JLP. ...
BRUCE GOLDING, prime minister of Jamaica, shares an intriguing relationship with Christopher 'Dudus' Coke, the 'President' of Tivoli Gardens.
The power-sharing framework between the man who formally represents the West Kingston constituency in which Tivoli Gardens is located, and the man who really runs the place, is just as fascinating.
The word from well-placed political sources is that Golding and Dudus are not particularly close.
More than a generation separates them.
While Golding revels in the political limelight, Dudus shirks it.
Why then would Golding sacrifice his political career for a man with whom he is not a particularly close friend?
A Sunday Gleaner probe reveals that Coke was instrumental in Golding's election as member of parliament (MP) for Western Kingston after he was elected leader of the Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) in 2005. ...
The power-sharing framework between the man who formally represents the West Kingston constituency in which Tivoli Gardens is located, and the man who really runs the place, is just as fascinating.
The word from well-placed political sources is that Golding and Dudus are not particularly close.
More than a generation separates them.
While Golding revels in the political limelight, Dudus shirks it.
Why then would Golding sacrifice his political career for a man with whom he is not a particularly close friend?
A Sunday Gleaner probe reveals that Coke was instrumental in Golding's election as member of parliament (MP) for Western Kingston after he was elected leader of the Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) in 2005. ...
How can they call when they have no phones?
The government is facing demands to clarify how an entire draft of the Queen's speech fell into the hands of newspaper journalists in a leak, just days before it will be read, that was described as unprecedented by the office of the Speaker.
A Commons official told the Guardian that the leak at the weekend of all 21 bills – which included language the Queen could read out when she delivers the speech – was on a "different level" from the daily appearance of ministerial announcements in the press before they are announced in parliament, something the Speaker, John Bercow, has tried to stamp out.
The document obtained by Sunday newspapers, thought to be the nearly finalised speech, shows the government's draft plans for the next 18 months are likely to include repeal of the previous government's legislation that it dislikes and immediate action to move forward on Conservative plans to enable more schools to become academies, the scrapping of ID cards and a parliamentary reform bill that will lay out legislation to bring in fixed-term parliaments and allow the electorate to recall MPs found guilty of wrongdoing. ...
A Commons official told the Guardian that the leak at the weekend of all 21 bills – which included language the Queen could read out when she delivers the speech – was on a "different level" from the daily appearance of ministerial announcements in the press before they are announced in parliament, something the Speaker, John Bercow, has tried to stamp out.
The document obtained by Sunday newspapers, thought to be the nearly finalised speech, shows the government's draft plans for the next 18 months are likely to include repeal of the previous government's legislation that it dislikes and immediate action to move forward on Conservative plans to enable more schools to become academies, the scrapping of ID cards and a parliamentary reform bill that will lay out legislation to bring in fixed-term parliaments and allow the electorate to recall MPs found guilty of wrongdoing. ...
Revealed: how Israel offered to sell South Africa nuclear weapons
Exclusive: Secret apartheid-era papers give first official evidence of Israeli nuclear weapons
Chris McGreal in Washington
Sunday 23 May 2010
Secret South African documents reveal that Israel offered to sell nuclear warheads to the apartheid regime, providing the first official documentary evidence of the state's possession of nuclear weapons.
The "top secret" minutes of meetings between senior officials from the two countries in 1975 show that South Africa's defence minister, PW Botha, asked for the warheads and Shimon Peres, then Israel's defence minister and now its president, responded by offering them "in three sizes". The two men also signed a broad-ranging agreement governing military ties between the two countries that included a clause declaring that "the very existence of this agreement" was to remain secret.
The documents, uncovered by an American academic, Sasha Polakow-Suransky, in research for a book on the close relationship between the two countries, provide evidence that Israel has nuclear weapons despite its policy of "ambiguity" in neither confirming nor denying their existence.
The Israeli authorities tried to stop South Africa's post-apartheid government declassifying the documents at Polakow-Suransky's request and the revelations will be an embarrassment, particularly as this week's nuclear non-proliferation talks in New York focus on the Middle East.
They will also undermine Israel's attempts to suggest that, if it has nuclear weapons, it is a "responsible" power that would not misuse them, whereas countries such as Iran cannot be trusted. ...
Exclusive: Secret apartheid-era papers give first official evidence of Israeli nuclear weapons
Chris McGreal in Washington
Sunday 23 May 2010
Secret South African documents reveal that Israel offered to sell nuclear warheads to the apartheid regime, providing the first official documentary evidence of the state's possession of nuclear weapons.
The "top secret" minutes of meetings between senior officials from the two countries in 1975 show that South Africa's defence minister, PW Botha, asked for the warheads and Shimon Peres, then Israel's defence minister and now its president, responded by offering them "in three sizes". The two men also signed a broad-ranging agreement governing military ties between the two countries that included a clause declaring that "the very existence of this agreement" was to remain secret.
The documents, uncovered by an American academic, Sasha Polakow-Suransky, in research for a book on the close relationship between the two countries, provide evidence that Israel has nuclear weapons despite its policy of "ambiguity" in neither confirming nor denying their existence.
The Israeli authorities tried to stop South Africa's post-apartheid government declassifying the documents at Polakow-Suransky's request and the revelations will be an embarrassment, particularly as this week's nuclear non-proliferation talks in New York focus on the Middle East.
They will also undermine Israel's attempts to suggest that, if it has nuclear weapons, it is a "responsible" power that would not misuse them, whereas countries such as Iran cannot be trusted. ...
They've thrown up barricades because they don't want their doors kicked in and their children shot by the cops; simple as.
Ta much, dear Glenn321
Ta much, dear Glenn321
Posted: May 21, 2010
Raid footage in hands of State Police TV crew
BY JIM SCHAEFER
FREE PRESS STAFF WRITER
The production company for the TV crew that was with Detroit police when an officer's gun went off, killing 7-year-old Aiyana Stanley-Jones, said it has turned over its footage to Michigan State Police.
The crew following the Detroit Police Special Response Team early Sunday shot footage from outside the house only, according to a statement released Thursday on behalf of ITV Studios, which produces "The First 48" for A&E.
Earlier this week, a person familiar with the case told the Free Press that the film crew had turned over its video to Detroit police on Sunday.
A second source told the Free Press on Thursday that the tape turned over to Detroit police was a copy of the original. The film crew, though, had a second camera operator at the raid who did not surrender footage Sunday. In the days since the shooting, copies of footage from both cameras were turned over to the State Police.
The girl was shot in the neck during the raid after an officer threw a flash-bang grenade through the window of her east-side duplex. Police say the gun went off accidentally when a cop came in contact with the girl's grandmother. The grandmother denies any contact.
Detroit attorney Herschel Fink, who is representing ITV, said the footage turned over to State Police is not the footage referenced by Geoffrey Fieger, the lawyer for the girl's family. Fink also frequently represents the Free Press in First Amendment and other legal matters.
State Police "have the ITV footage, but ITV was not the source of the footage supposedly shown to the attorney for the family," Fink said. ...
Raid footage in hands of State Police TV crew
BY JIM SCHAEFER
FREE PRESS STAFF WRITER
The production company for the TV crew that was with Detroit police when an officer's gun went off, killing 7-year-old Aiyana Stanley-Jones, said it has turned over its footage to Michigan State Police.
The crew following the Detroit Police Special Response Team early Sunday shot footage from outside the house only, according to a statement released Thursday on behalf of ITV Studios, which produces "The First 48" for A&E.
Earlier this week, a person familiar with the case told the Free Press that the film crew had turned over its video to Detroit police on Sunday.
A second source told the Free Press on Thursday that the tape turned over to Detroit police was a copy of the original. The film crew, though, had a second camera operator at the raid who did not surrender footage Sunday. In the days since the shooting, copies of footage from both cameras were turned over to the State Police.
The girl was shot in the neck during the raid after an officer threw a flash-bang grenade through the window of her east-side duplex. Police say the gun went off accidentally when a cop came in contact with the girl's grandmother. The grandmother denies any contact.
Detroit attorney Herschel Fink, who is representing ITV, said the footage turned over to State Police is not the footage referenced by Geoffrey Fieger, the lawyer for the girl's family. Fink also frequently represents the Free Press in First Amendment and other legal matters.
State Police "have the ITV footage, but ITV was not the source of the footage supposedly shown to the attorney for the family," Fink said. ...
It is 19 years since Erin Brockovich first went into battle against corporate America. She was a small-town single mum who stood up to an industrial Goliath and won. Now, as she champions a new case with a depressingly similar plot, it is clear that she has lost none of her fighting spirit or trademark candour.
“Stand up to BP and say, ‘You know what, I’m not taking your shit any more’ ,” she tells an audience of more than 300 anxious individuals in Pensacola, Florida, who have gathered to hear how they can seek legal redress for the Gulf of Mexico oil spill.
“If you stand down and you say nothing and you get complacent and let them run over you, they will do that. They are already doing that. I’m telling you: Don’t let them,” she continues, and is greeted with applause.
But backstage, the 49-year-old former beauty queen whose grit helped to win hundreds of millions of dollars for wronged communities and made her a symbol of environmental activism seems momentarily beaten.
“In all my 19 years this is the first time I feel helpless,” she admits, wiping away a tear. “I’m the one that usually sends a message of hope and I’m feeling helpless in this scenario because it’s so big and so complex and so . . . just awful.”
It is a powerful confession for a woman whose life story is based on mental toughness, a “modern-day David who loves a good brawl with today’s Goliaths”, as she admits.
In 1991, as a filing clerk at a legal firm in California, she uncovered a scandal in which a utility company, Pacific Gas and Electric, had been poisoning the small town of Hinkley by leaking toxic Chromium 6 into the ground water. The subsequent court settlement of $333 million was the largest of its kind and inspired a Hollywood film, with Julia Roberts winning an Academy Award for her portrayal of Ms Brockovich. ...
“Stand up to BP and say, ‘You know what, I’m not taking your shit any more’ ,” she tells an audience of more than 300 anxious individuals in Pensacola, Florida, who have gathered to hear how they can seek legal redress for the Gulf of Mexico oil spill.
“If you stand down and you say nothing and you get complacent and let them run over you, they will do that. They are already doing that. I’m telling you: Don’t let them,” she continues, and is greeted with applause.
But backstage, the 49-year-old former beauty queen whose grit helped to win hundreds of millions of dollars for wronged communities and made her a symbol of environmental activism seems momentarily beaten.
“In all my 19 years this is the first time I feel helpless,” she admits, wiping away a tear. “I’m the one that usually sends a message of hope and I’m feeling helpless in this scenario because it’s so big and so complex and so . . . just awful.”
It is a powerful confession for a woman whose life story is based on mental toughness, a “modern-day David who loves a good brawl with today’s Goliaths”, as she admits.
In 1991, as a filing clerk at a legal firm in California, she uncovered a scandal in which a utility company, Pacific Gas and Electric, had been poisoning the small town of Hinkley by leaking toxic Chromium 6 into the ground water. The subsequent court settlement of $333 million was the largest of its kind and inspired a Hollywood film, with Julia Roberts winning an Academy Award for her portrayal of Ms Brockovich. ...
Why are we quitting?
For us it comes down to two things: fair choices and best intentions. In our view, Facebook doesn't do a good job in either department. Facebook gives you choices about how to manage your data, but they aren't fair choices, and while the onus is on the individual to manage these choices, Facebook makes it damn difficult for the average user to understand or manage this. We also don't think Facebook has much respect for you or your data, especially in the context of the future.
For a lot of people, quitting Facebook revolves around privacy. This is a legitimate concern, but we also think the privacy issue is just the symptom of a larger set of issues. The cumulative effects of what Facebook does now will not play out well in the future, and we care deeply about the future of the web as an open, safe and human place. We just can't see Facebook's current direction being aligned with any positive future for the web, so we're leaving. ...
They have a counter set up on the page, and as of this posting, 12614 people said they'd quit.
For us it comes down to two things: fair choices and best intentions. In our view, Facebook doesn't do a good job in either department. Facebook gives you choices about how to manage your data, but they aren't fair choices, and while the onus is on the individual to manage these choices, Facebook makes it damn difficult for the average user to understand or manage this. We also don't think Facebook has much respect for you or your data, especially in the context of the future.
For a lot of people, quitting Facebook revolves around privacy. This is a legitimate concern, but we also think the privacy issue is just the symptom of a larger set of issues. The cumulative effects of what Facebook does now will not play out well in the future, and we care deeply about the future of the web as an open, safe and human place. We just can't see Facebook's current direction being aligned with any positive future for the web, so we're leaving. ...
They have a counter set up on the page, and as of this posting, 12614 people said they'd quit.
8th Suicide Reported at Foxconn Factory
By DAVID BARBOZA
Published: May 21, 2010
SHANGHAI — For the eighth time this year, a worker has apparently committed suicide at a factory in China operated by Foxconn Technology, the world’s biggest contract electronics manufacturer and a major supplier to Apple, Dell, Hewlett-Packard and other global companies.
The worker, a 21-year-old man named Nan Gang, jumped from a four-story factory after leaving work at 4 a.m. Friday, Xinhua, the official Chinese news agency, reported. It was the 10th time a Foxconn worker has apparently committed or attempted suicide this year. Two workers survived with serious injuries.
No one has been able to explain what is happening at Foxconn this year. But not for the first time, the events are raising questions about the harsh regimens used by Chinese factories to produce a growing share of the world’s goods.
Labor rights groups have called some of the deaths suspicious and asked for an independent investigation of the two massive Foxconn factory sites, which together employ about 420,000 workers in Shenzhen, China.
A spokesman for Foxconn, a unit of Hon Hai Precision Industry of Taiwan, could not be reached Friday. But the company recently said it had hired counselors, was planning to bring in monks and had set up a help line for troubled workers.
Representatives of Apple, Dell and H.P. also could not be reached Friday for comment. But all three companies have long said that their factory suppliers abide by international labor standards. ...
By DAVID BARBOZA
Published: May 21, 2010
SHANGHAI — For the eighth time this year, a worker has apparently committed suicide at a factory in China operated by Foxconn Technology, the world’s biggest contract electronics manufacturer and a major supplier to Apple, Dell, Hewlett-Packard and other global companies.
The worker, a 21-year-old man named Nan Gang, jumped from a four-story factory after leaving work at 4 a.m. Friday, Xinhua, the official Chinese news agency, reported. It was the 10th time a Foxconn worker has apparently committed or attempted suicide this year. Two workers survived with serious injuries.
No one has been able to explain what is happening at Foxconn this year. But not for the first time, the events are raising questions about the harsh regimens used by Chinese factories to produce a growing share of the world’s goods.
Labor rights groups have called some of the deaths suspicious and asked for an independent investigation of the two massive Foxconn factory sites, which together employ about 420,000 workers in Shenzhen, China.
A spokesman for Foxconn, a unit of Hon Hai Precision Industry of Taiwan, could not be reached Friday. But the company recently said it had hired counselors, was planning to bring in monks and had set up a help line for troubled workers.
Representatives of Apple, Dell and H.P. also could not be reached Friday for comment. But all three companies have long said that their factory suppliers abide by international labor standards. ...
May 22, 2010
Aiyana Jones murder turns spotlight on a nation hooked on reality TV
Giles Whittell in Washington
When police scooped up the limp body of Aiyana Jones, 7, last Sunday night they promised her father that she would be all right. They were wrong. She was pronounced dead on arrival at hospital, the victim of a police Swat team member being filmed for a reality TV show.
Miss Jones went to sleep for the last time under the front window of her parents’ flat on Detroit’s violent and impoverished east side. A police bullet killed her later that night. The porch outside is now festooned with flowers, teddy bears and “you will be missed” balloons.
Her body went on display yesterday at a nearby funeral parlour. She will be eulogised at her funeral today by the Rev Al Sharpton, with the Rev Jesse Jackson in attendance — figures from an era of racial politics that millions of Americans hoped to consign to history two years ago by voting for Barack Obama.
Six days after police burst into the Jones’s flat — the wrong flat — Miss Jones’s death has acquired the dimensions of a national scandal. Black leaders in Washington have demanded a federal investigation into the use of paramilitary police units in poor neighbourhoods.
A white Republican candidate for governor of Michigan has condemned Mr Sharpton’s appearance at the funeral as disgusting. The family’s lawyer has accused police of a cover-up. All are being forced to confront the issue of whether the murder has been turned into entertainment for a nation addicted to reality TV.
There were 379 murders in Detroit last year alone. Miss Jones’s killing may yet be ruled manslaughter but it is her death that has focused national attention on “ridealong” TV crews and Detroit violence.
Police claim that she was struck by a bullet in the neck after her grandmother jostled a Swat team officer who was inside the flat with a search warrant for a separate murder hunt. The family’s lawyer insists that the only shot was fired from outside the building, and claims to have seen videotape that proves it.
No one denies the existence of the tape: it was shot by a film crew following the Swat team for “The First 48, a reality series for the A & E network that focuses on the crucial first two days of murder investigations. A Supreme Court ruling bars the media from following police inside private homes, forcing the crew to wait outside while the team went in.
Geoffrey Fieger, the family’s lawyer and a prominent Michigan Democrat, believes that the cameraman missed nothing. Flanked by tearful family members at a news conference this week he told reporters that the raid began with a flash-bang grenade — or bomb — being thrown through the front window to stun anyone inside. ...
Aiyana Jones murder turns spotlight on a nation hooked on reality TV
Giles Whittell in Washington
When police scooped up the limp body of Aiyana Jones, 7, last Sunday night they promised her father that she would be all right. They were wrong. She was pronounced dead on arrival at hospital, the victim of a police Swat team member being filmed for a reality TV show.
Miss Jones went to sleep for the last time under the front window of her parents’ flat on Detroit’s violent and impoverished east side. A police bullet killed her later that night. The porch outside is now festooned with flowers, teddy bears and “you will be missed” balloons.
Her body went on display yesterday at a nearby funeral parlour. She will be eulogised at her funeral today by the Rev Al Sharpton, with the Rev Jesse Jackson in attendance — figures from an era of racial politics that millions of Americans hoped to consign to history two years ago by voting for Barack Obama.
Six days after police burst into the Jones’s flat — the wrong flat — Miss Jones’s death has acquired the dimensions of a national scandal. Black leaders in Washington have demanded a federal investigation into the use of paramilitary police units in poor neighbourhoods.
A white Republican candidate for governor of Michigan has condemned Mr Sharpton’s appearance at the funeral as disgusting. The family’s lawyer has accused police of a cover-up. All are being forced to confront the issue of whether the murder has been turned into entertainment for a nation addicted to reality TV.
There were 379 murders in Detroit last year alone. Miss Jones’s killing may yet be ruled manslaughter but it is her death that has focused national attention on “ridealong” TV crews and Detroit violence.
Police claim that she was struck by a bullet in the neck after her grandmother jostled a Swat team officer who was inside the flat with a search warrant for a separate murder hunt. The family’s lawyer insists that the only shot was fired from outside the building, and claims to have seen videotape that proves it.
No one denies the existence of the tape: it was shot by a film crew following the Swat team for “The First 48, a reality series for the A & E network that focuses on the crucial first two days of murder investigations. A Supreme Court ruling bars the media from following police inside private homes, forcing the crew to wait outside while the team went in.
Geoffrey Fieger, the family’s lawyer and a prominent Michigan Democrat, believes that the cameraman missed nothing. Flanked by tearful family members at a news conference this week he told reporters that the raid began with a flash-bang grenade — or bomb — being thrown through the front window to stun anyone inside. ...
Kindeh kinkeh ain't no reason to jail someone.
Paris art museum theft the work of lone robber
CCTV captures thief stealing paintings by Picasso, Matisse, Braque, Modigliani and Léger
Lizzy Davies in Paris, Sam Jones and agencies
Thursday 20 May 2010
A lone thief broke into a Paris museum last night and stole five paintings possibly worth hundreds of millions of euros, including masterpieces by Pablo Picasso and Henri Matisse, French police said today.
A police spokesman said works by Picasso, Matisse, Georges Braque, Amedeo Modigliani and Fernand Léger were reported missing early this morning from the Paris Museum of Modern Art. The total value of the paintings was initially put at €500m (£430m) by the Paris prosecutor's office, but Christophe Girard, the deputy culture secretary at Paris City Hall later said it was "just under €100m".
The pictures are: Le Pigeon aux Petits Pois (Pigeon with Peas) an ochre and brown Cubist oil painting by Picasso; La Pastorale (Pastoral), an oil painting of nudes on a hillside by Matisse; L'Olivier Près de l'Estaque (Olive Tree near Estaque) by Braque; La Femme a l'Eventail (Woman with a Fan) by Modigliani; and Nature Morte aux Chandeliers (Still Life with Chandeliers) by Léger.
The burglary was discovered just before 7am. A single masked intruder was caught on a CCTV camera taking the paintings away, according to the prosecutor's office. A window had been broken and the padlock of a grille giving access to the museum was smashed. The paintings appeared to have been carefully removed from their frames, rather than sliced out.
Police and investigators have sealed off the museum. ...
Ta much, dear Glenn321
CCTV captures thief stealing paintings by Picasso, Matisse, Braque, Modigliani and Léger
Lizzy Davies in Paris, Sam Jones and agencies
Thursday 20 May 2010
A lone thief broke into a Paris museum last night and stole five paintings possibly worth hundreds of millions of euros, including masterpieces by Pablo Picasso and Henri Matisse, French police said today.
A police spokesman said works by Picasso, Matisse, Georges Braque, Amedeo Modigliani and Fernand Léger were reported missing early this morning from the Paris Museum of Modern Art. The total value of the paintings was initially put at €500m (£430m) by the Paris prosecutor's office, but Christophe Girard, the deputy culture secretary at Paris City Hall later said it was "just under €100m".
The pictures are: Le Pigeon aux Petits Pois (Pigeon with Peas) an ochre and brown Cubist oil painting by Picasso; La Pastorale (Pastoral), an oil painting of nudes on a hillside by Matisse; L'Olivier Près de l'Estaque (Olive Tree near Estaque) by Braque; La Femme a l'Eventail (Woman with a Fan) by Modigliani; and Nature Morte aux Chandeliers (Still Life with Chandeliers) by Léger.
The burglary was discovered just before 7am. A single masked intruder was caught on a CCTV camera taking the paintings away, according to the prosecutor's office. A window had been broken and the padlock of a grille giving access to the museum was smashed. The paintings appeared to have been carefully removed from their frames, rather than sliced out.
Police and investigators have sealed off the museum. ...
Ta much, dear Glenn321
Facebook scrambles to close hole exposing private data
Gives attacker almost as much control as user
By Dan Goodin in San Francisco
19th May 2010
Facebook engineers are finishing a patch for a critical vulnerability that exposed user birthdays and other sensitive data even when they were designated as private, a security researcher said Wednesday.
The bug could be exploited by prompting a user to click on a link while logged into the social networking site, said M.J. Keith, a senior security analyst with Alert Logic, a provider of cloud-based intrusion detection systems. Attackers could then read, delete, or alter a victim's profile page, including pictures and data that are set to be viewed only by trusted friends.
"I would assume that every single Facebook user [could] have [had] their Facebook page defaced or have exposed things about them," Keith told El Reg. The bug "gives the attacker almost as much control as the user."
At time of writing, much of the CSRF (cross-site request forgery) bug appeared to have been patched, Keith said. However, as noted earlier by IDG News, attackers still could exploit the flaw to control a user's "like" functions, which are used to endorse ads and other types of content.
Facebook representatives didn't respond to an email asking about the status of the bug fix. ...
Gives attacker almost as much control as user
By Dan Goodin in San Francisco
19th May 2010
Facebook engineers are finishing a patch for a critical vulnerability that exposed user birthdays and other sensitive data even when they were designated as private, a security researcher said Wednesday.
The bug could be exploited by prompting a user to click on a link while logged into the social networking site, said M.J. Keith, a senior security analyst with Alert Logic, a provider of cloud-based intrusion detection systems. Attackers could then read, delete, or alter a victim's profile page, including pictures and data that are set to be viewed only by trusted friends.
"I would assume that every single Facebook user [could] have [had] their Facebook page defaced or have exposed things about them," Keith told El Reg. The bug "gives the attacker almost as much control as the user."
At time of writing, much of the CSRF (cross-site request forgery) bug appeared to have been patched, Keith said. However, as noted earlier by IDG News, attackers still could exploit the flaw to control a user's "like" functions, which are used to endorse ads and other types of content.
Facebook representatives didn't respond to an email asking about the status of the bug fix. ...
INDIANAPOLIS — Republicans are scrambling to hold onto Rep. Mark Souder’s seat following the evangelical Christian’s decision to resign over an extramarital affair with a staffer with whom he made a video touting the benefits of abstinence education. ...
Mechanic drove three miles with angry bloke on bonnet
'I’m not stopping. This man is going to kill me'
By Lester Haines
A Northern Ireland garage mechanic who drove for three miles with a disgruntled customer clamped to the bonnet of his car has been cleared of a raft of charges including assault and dangerous driving, the Belfast Telegraph reports.
Gerry Brown, 53, was at his yard near Castlewellan in February 2008 when Lesley Quirey and his uncle Philip Quirey turned up to demand a refund on a second-hand car Brown had sold to the former for £350.
The vehicle had broken down after a week, and the Quireys were evidently none too pleased. A row quickly ensued, and Lesley Quirey "ran around to the back of his car, where there was a Staffordshire bull terrier and pickaxe handle and I immediately thought that something wasn’t right", as Brown explained.
He continued: "I just wanted to get out of there. They followed me in their car through Castlewellan. I had to stop at temporary traffic lights and Philip Quirey got out of his car and ran over to mine.
“I saw him coming through my wing mirror and I locked the doors as I didn’t want him getting at me. He started banging on the car with his fists then jumped on the bonnet. He is a very big man, about 6ft 4 and about 19 stone and he left a dent in the bonnet. All I could think of was to keep driving and to get to the police station.”
Brown added: “I really thought I was in danger. I don’t feel that I had any other choice but to keep driving. I wasn’t driving fast, about 30mph and he had plenty of chances to get off. I phoned the police to tell them there was someone on the bonnet of my car and I was too afraid to stop. I told them to get someone there quick as it was an emergency.
"They said there was nobody available and kept telling me I had to stop, but I told them I wasn’t stopping until I got to the police station. They told me I couldn’t drive down the Main Street of Newcastle with someone on the bonnet of my car and I said ‘yes I can’.”
After three miles Brown was pulled by cops and subsequently charged with the aforementioned assault and dangerous driving, plus driving while using a mobile phone.
Two years later, Downpatrick District Judge Mr Mervyn Bates has shown all the charges the door, having listened to a recording of Brown's 999 call, in which he said: “I’ve got a New Zealander on the bonnet of my car. He’s f****** lost it. He’s going to kill me. I’m not stopping. This man is going to kill me. He’s three times the size of me.” ...
'I’m not stopping. This man is going to kill me'
By Lester Haines
A Northern Ireland garage mechanic who drove for three miles with a disgruntled customer clamped to the bonnet of his car has been cleared of a raft of charges including assault and dangerous driving, the Belfast Telegraph reports.
Gerry Brown, 53, was at his yard near Castlewellan in February 2008 when Lesley Quirey and his uncle Philip Quirey turned up to demand a refund on a second-hand car Brown had sold to the former for £350.
The vehicle had broken down after a week, and the Quireys were evidently none too pleased. A row quickly ensued, and Lesley Quirey "ran around to the back of his car, where there was a Staffordshire bull terrier and pickaxe handle and I immediately thought that something wasn’t right", as Brown explained.
He continued: "I just wanted to get out of there. They followed me in their car through Castlewellan. I had to stop at temporary traffic lights and Philip Quirey got out of his car and ran over to mine.
“I saw him coming through my wing mirror and I locked the doors as I didn’t want him getting at me. He started banging on the car with his fists then jumped on the bonnet. He is a very big man, about 6ft 4 and about 19 stone and he left a dent in the bonnet. All I could think of was to keep driving and to get to the police station.”
Brown added: “I really thought I was in danger. I don’t feel that I had any other choice but to keep driving. I wasn’t driving fast, about 30mph and he had plenty of chances to get off. I phoned the police to tell them there was someone on the bonnet of my car and I was too afraid to stop. I told them to get someone there quick as it was an emergency.
"They said there was nobody available and kept telling me I had to stop, but I told them I wasn’t stopping until I got to the police station. They told me I couldn’t drive down the Main Street of Newcastle with someone on the bonnet of my car and I said ‘yes I can’.”
After three miles Brown was pulled by cops and subsequently charged with the aforementioned assault and dangerous driving, plus driving while using a mobile phone.
Two years later, Downpatrick District Judge Mr Mervyn Bates has shown all the charges the door, having listened to a recording of Brown's 999 call, in which he said: “I’ve got a New Zealander on the bonnet of my car. He’s f****** lost it. He’s going to kill me. I’m not stopping. This man is going to kill me. He’s three times the size of me.” ...
May 19, 2010
First case of French ‘burka rage’ as shopping dispute turns violent
Charles Bremner
France had its first case of “burka rage” at the weekend when a shopper allegedly tried to pull the veil from the face of a Muslim woman and the resulting scuffle turned violent.
The Muslim woman, named only as Élodie, told reporters that she had been leaving a shoe store in Trignac, near St Nazaire, when two passers-by, apparently mother and daughter, made derogatory remarks before telling her: “Go back to your own country.”
The mother, a lawyer, [Ed. Note: !!!] allegedly tried to tear off the niqab worn by Élodie — at which point the two began trading slaps before being separated by shop assistants, Élodie said.
“Things got nasty,” she added. “The older woman grabbed my veil to the point of ripping it off.” ...
Niqabs, hijabs, burkas are evil and oppressive. That said, any form of abuse is also evil and oppressive. The lawyer shoulda known better than to act that way, FFS - the shit ain't yet illegal.
Also, women who have no compassion for their 'fellow' (crikey) women are no longer women. They are just evil.
First case of French ‘burka rage’ as shopping dispute turns violent
Charles Bremner
France had its first case of “burka rage” at the weekend when a shopper allegedly tried to pull the veil from the face of a Muslim woman and the resulting scuffle turned violent.
The Muslim woman, named only as Élodie, told reporters that she had been leaving a shoe store in Trignac, near St Nazaire, when two passers-by, apparently mother and daughter, made derogatory remarks before telling her: “Go back to your own country.”
The mother, a lawyer, [Ed. Note: !!!] allegedly tried to tear off the niqab worn by Élodie — at which point the two began trading slaps before being separated by shop assistants, Élodie said.
“Things got nasty,” she added. “The older woman grabbed my veil to the point of ripping it off.” ...
Niqabs, hijabs, burkas are evil and oppressive. That said, any form of abuse is also evil and oppressive. The lawyer shoulda known better than to act that way, FFS - the shit ain't yet illegal.
Also, women who have no compassion for their 'fellow' (crikey) women are no longer women. They are just evil.
The Long Emergency: An Interview with James Howard Kunstler
By Kurt Cagle
January 14, 2009
... KC: The role of urban planning plays a large part in your writings. What's wrong with our current urban planning models, and how can we readjust the way that we build (and connect) cities to work better in a world of changing resources?
JHK: Omigod! What's wrong. We'll, let's just start by saying we've constructed an infrastructure for daily life with no future. That's pretty disturbing, isn't it? I customarily refer to this as the greatest misallocation off resources in the history of the world. Having poured all our post-WW2 wealth in it, we've made ourselves hostage to the psychology of previous investment -- meaning we will desperately try anything to keep it all going, to sustain the unsustainable, at all costs. Thus, we'll be squandering our dwindling resources in a gigantic act of futility. That's the Big Picture end of the story.
The more micro view is that we've constructed a daily living arrangement that is depressing, demoralizing, unrewarding, unfair to children and old people, grossly wasteful, ecologically unsound to-the-max, and profoundly unhealthy. It is a bad human habitat. It's toxic in every sense. It punishes us intensely, despite the number of bathrooms per inhabitant and the air conditioning. And for most people in the USA, it is absolutely normal -- it's all they know.
Now, the reason we can't get past it (stemming from the psychology of previous investment) is that we've encoded the template for building all this crap in our laws, and trained our municipal officials and politicians to administer the template rigorously (and outlaw most of the remedies in traditional urban design), and trained the architects to be grandstanding narcissists, and conditioned the public to expect to drive everywhere for everything, and empowered the developers and bankers to deliver only the "products" (say, houses and strip malls) that comport with the template. It will take a shock to induce the necessary paradigm shift away from all this foolishness -- and we're in for one. In fact, we've entered it. How do you like the Long Emergency so far? ...
Ta much, dear MSiegel
By Kurt Cagle
January 14, 2009
... KC: The role of urban planning plays a large part in your writings. What's wrong with our current urban planning models, and how can we readjust the way that we build (and connect) cities to work better in a world of changing resources?
JHK: Omigod! What's wrong. We'll, let's just start by saying we've constructed an infrastructure for daily life with no future. That's pretty disturbing, isn't it? I customarily refer to this as the greatest misallocation off resources in the history of the world. Having poured all our post-WW2 wealth in it, we've made ourselves hostage to the psychology of previous investment -- meaning we will desperately try anything to keep it all going, to sustain the unsustainable, at all costs. Thus, we'll be squandering our dwindling resources in a gigantic act of futility. That's the Big Picture end of the story.
The more micro view is that we've constructed a daily living arrangement that is depressing, demoralizing, unrewarding, unfair to children and old people, grossly wasteful, ecologically unsound to-the-max, and profoundly unhealthy. It is a bad human habitat. It's toxic in every sense. It punishes us intensely, despite the number of bathrooms per inhabitant and the air conditioning. And for most people in the USA, it is absolutely normal -- it's all they know.
Now, the reason we can't get past it (stemming from the psychology of previous investment) is that we've encoded the template for building all this crap in our laws, and trained our municipal officials and politicians to administer the template rigorously (and outlaw most of the remedies in traditional urban design), and trained the architects to be grandstanding narcissists, and conditioned the public to expect to drive everywhere for everything, and empowered the developers and bankers to deliver only the "products" (say, houses and strip malls) that comport with the template. It will take a shock to induce the necessary paradigm shift away from all this foolishness -- and we're in for one. In fact, we've entered it. How do you like the Long Emergency so far? ...
Ta much, dear MSiegel
... From: HSBC BANK [benno209@gmail.com]
Dear valued customer Incidentally,there is an emergency shortlited varified problem in your account which there is a need to restore Pls send us all the enqiures of your bank account so that the varified problem will be entirely and stupidiously retrieve. Thanks for banking with us
And that represents the entire content of the email. No graphics, no links, nothing, save some exceptional English and a truly stupidious gmail addy. Make no mistake, this classic has been shortlited for bone-idle scam email of the year.
Dear valued customer Incidentally,there is an emergency shortlited varified problem in your account which there is a need to restore Pls send us all the enqiures of your bank account so that the varified problem will be entirely and stupidiously retrieve. Thanks for banking with us
And that represents the entire content of the email. No graphics, no links, nothing, save some exceptional English and a truly stupidious gmail addy. Make no mistake, this classic has been shortlited for bone-idle scam email of the year.
Well done, Brits, busting this prick!
Man remanded in custody after poker pro's red Ferrari taken from Crown Casino car park
Amelia Harris
Herald Sun
May 14, 2010
A PROFESSIONAL poker player whose $355,000 Ferrari was stolen from Crown's valet parking lot has slammed casino security.
And magistrate Peter Couzens backed up card ace Van Marcus, criticising the casino's "shoddy system".
Mr Marcus, who has won more than $1 million at the poker table, said he was angry to find his F430 Spider missing when he went to drive home about 4.30am yesterday after a night at the casino with friends.
"I am very angry. I am really p----- off," Mr Marcus told the Herald Sun.
"They spend millions of dollars watching players' chips and cards in play, but as soon as it comes to the public's property there is a lack of security."
Adam Ramsay, 32, of Flemington, faced Melbourne Magistrates' Court charged with car theft.
The court heard Mr Ramsay, a father of two, had been drinking and gambling at Crown before realising he had locked his keys in his car.
Mr Ramsay allegedly approached valet parking staff about 1.30am, claiming he was the owner of the 2006 Ferrari.
He didn't produce the valet parking ticket required to collect the car, but filled out a form with his own details, paid the $30 and drove off.
Police saw the dream machine on the Tullamarine Freeway and recovered it about six hours later at a petrol station in Barry Rd, Broadmeadows. Mr Ramsay was arrested nearby. ...
Ta much, dear MSiegel
Amelia Harris
Herald Sun
May 14, 2010
A PROFESSIONAL poker player whose $355,000 Ferrari was stolen from Crown's valet parking lot has slammed casino security.
And magistrate Peter Couzens backed up card ace Van Marcus, criticising the casino's "shoddy system".
Mr Marcus, who has won more than $1 million at the poker table, said he was angry to find his F430 Spider missing when he went to drive home about 4.30am yesterday after a night at the casino with friends.
"I am very angry. I am really p----- off," Mr Marcus told the Herald Sun.
"They spend millions of dollars watching players' chips and cards in play, but as soon as it comes to the public's property there is a lack of security."
Adam Ramsay, 32, of Flemington, faced Melbourne Magistrates' Court charged with car theft.
The court heard Mr Ramsay, a father of two, had been drinking and gambling at Crown before realising he had locked his keys in his car.
Mr Ramsay allegedly approached valet parking staff about 1.30am, claiming he was the owner of the 2006 Ferrari.
He didn't produce the valet parking ticket required to collect the car, but filled out a form with his own details, paid the $30 and drove off.
Police saw the dream machine on the Tullamarine Freeway and recovered it about six hours later at a petrol station in Barry Rd, Broadmeadows. Mr Ramsay was arrested nearby. ...
Ta much, dear MSiegel
May 17, 2010
Detroit police investigate grenade use in fatal raid
By AMBER HUNT and BEN SCHMITT
FREE PRESS STAFF WRITERS
Detroit police are investigating whether officers were right to use a disorienting flash-bang grenade when executing a search warrant on an east-side home that turned deadly early Sunday, Assistant Chief Ralph Godbee said.
He told reporters that the department and the Wayne County Prosecutor’s Office together agreed that the investigation into the shooting should be handled by Michigan State Police to address “community confidence concerns.”
But he said the investigation into the officers’ use of the flash-bang is under way in-house.
“This is not about egos,” Godbee said this afternoon. “This is about getting to the veracity of the truth, finding out what happened and taking the appropriate prosecutorial approach and taking the appropriate approach to assessing our tactics, our policies and our procedures.”
Godbee declined to discuss the specifics of the shooting that left 7-year-old Aiyana Jones dead of a gunshot wound to the neck.
The officer whose firearm was discharged during the incident is on administrative leave without gun access. The unnamed officer is a 14-year veteran who has worked on the Special Response Team – which handled the Sunday raid – for about six years, Godbee said. ...
Detroit police investigate grenade use in fatal raid
By AMBER HUNT and BEN SCHMITT
FREE PRESS STAFF WRITERS
Detroit police are investigating whether officers were right to use a disorienting flash-bang grenade when executing a search warrant on an east-side home that turned deadly early Sunday, Assistant Chief Ralph Godbee said.
He told reporters that the department and the Wayne County Prosecutor’s Office together agreed that the investigation into the shooting should be handled by Michigan State Police to address “community confidence concerns.”
But he said the investigation into the officers’ use of the flash-bang is under way in-house.
“This is not about egos,” Godbee said this afternoon. “This is about getting to the veracity of the truth, finding out what happened and taking the appropriate prosecutorial approach and taking the appropriate approach to assessing our tactics, our policies and our procedures.”
Godbee declined to discuss the specifics of the shooting that left 7-year-old Aiyana Jones dead of a gunshot wound to the neck.
The officer whose firearm was discharged during the incident is on administrative leave without gun access. The unnamed officer is a 14-year veteran who has worked on the Special Response Team – which handled the Sunday raid – for about six years, Godbee said. ...
May 17, 2010
Cop car crash kills Dearborn Heights woman
By ERIC D. LAWRENCE
FREE PRESS STAFF WRITER
Michigan State Police have been asked to investigate a collision between a Dearborn police officer and a Dearborn Heights woman that left the woman dead today.
State Police Capt. Harold Love, commander for southeast Michigan, said the request was made by Dearborn police, and that once completed, the investigation results would be reviewed by the Wayne County Prosecutor’s Office.
After the collision, the 55-year-old woman, identified by her neighbors on Hanover Street as Deborah Hodges, was taken to Oakwood Hospital and Medical Center in Dearborn, where she was pronounced dead. Police said her SUV collided with a Dearborn police cruiser on Outer Drive at Parker Street this morning.
Her 20-year-old daughter, who was a passenger in the 1994 Ford Explorer, and the officer who was driving the cruiser were both taken to Oakwood Hospital, where they were treated for non-life-threatening injuries, according to Dearborn Police Chief Ronald Haddad. The officer was later released from the hospital.
“It’s a tragedy for the family. It’s a tragedy for the community. It’s a tragedy for the police department,” Haddad said. ...
Cop car crash kills Dearborn Heights woman
By ERIC D. LAWRENCE
FREE PRESS STAFF WRITER
Michigan State Police have been asked to investigate a collision between a Dearborn police officer and a Dearborn Heights woman that left the woman dead today.
State Police Capt. Harold Love, commander for southeast Michigan, said the request was made by Dearborn police, and that once completed, the investigation results would be reviewed by the Wayne County Prosecutor’s Office.
After the collision, the 55-year-old woman, identified by her neighbors on Hanover Street as Deborah Hodges, was taken to Oakwood Hospital and Medical Center in Dearborn, where she was pronounced dead. Police said her SUV collided with a Dearborn police cruiser on Outer Drive at Parker Street this morning.
Her 20-year-old daughter, who was a passenger in the 1994 Ford Explorer, and the officer who was driving the cruiser were both taken to Oakwood Hospital, where they were treated for non-life-threatening injuries, according to Dearborn Police Chief Ronald Haddad. The officer was later released from the hospital.
“It’s a tragedy for the family. It’s a tragedy for the community. It’s a tragedy for the police department,” Haddad said. ...
Are users 'dumb fucks' for trusting data to Facebook? | Technology | News & Comment | The First Post
Are users ‘dumb fucks’ for trusting data to Facebook?
Embarrassing conversation comes back to haunt embattled Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg
By Tim Edwards
LAST UPDATED 2:28 PM, MAY 14, 2010
A row over Facebook's casual attitude towards the privacy of its 400 million users is threatening to snowball into a full-blown crisis as high-profile members start closing their accounts.
Facebook seems to deem the situation serious enough to have called an 'all hands' meeting of its staff yesterday to address concerns over data protection.
The situation was inflamed when Silicon Alley Insider posted an old instant messaging conversation between Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and a friend in which the then 19-year-old Harvard student called users of his newly founded website 'dumb fucks'.
During the conversation, Zuckerberg writes: "Yeah so if you ever need info about anyone at Harvard, just ask. I have over 4,000 emails, pictures, addresses, SNS."
When the friend asks him how he got the information, Zuckerberg replies: "People just submitted it. I don't know why. They 'trust me'. Dumb fucks."
Facebook responded to the publication of the 'dumb fucks' message, saying: "The privacy and security of our users' information is of paramount importance to us. We're not going to debate claims from anonymous sources or dated allegations that attempt to characterise Mark's and Facebook's views towards privacy."
The IM exchange may well be put down to college-boy bravado, but it chimes with Facebook's generally cavalier attitude to privacy since its inception. Most applications on Facebook require users to allow access to their personal information and that of their friends. It is possible to refuse, but those that do cannot then play games like Farmville or Mafia Wars with their Facebook friends. ...
Embarrassing conversation comes back to haunt embattled Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg
By Tim Edwards
LAST UPDATED 2:28 PM, MAY 14, 2010
A row over Facebook's casual attitude towards the privacy of its 400 million users is threatening to snowball into a full-blown crisis as high-profile members start closing their accounts.
Facebook seems to deem the situation serious enough to have called an 'all hands' meeting of its staff yesterday to address concerns over data protection.
The situation was inflamed when Silicon Alley Insider posted an old instant messaging conversation between Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and a friend in which the then 19-year-old Harvard student called users of his newly founded website 'dumb fucks'.
During the conversation, Zuckerberg writes: "Yeah so if you ever need info about anyone at Harvard, just ask. I have over 4,000 emails, pictures, addresses, SNS."
When the friend asks him how he got the information, Zuckerberg replies: "People just submitted it. I don't know why. They 'trust me'. Dumb fucks."
Facebook responded to the publication of the 'dumb fucks' message, saying: "The privacy and security of our users' information is of paramount importance to us. We're not going to debate claims from anonymous sources or dated allegations that attempt to characterise Mark's and Facebook's views towards privacy."
The IM exchange may well be put down to college-boy bravado, but it chimes with Facebook's generally cavalier attitude to privacy since its inception. Most applications on Facebook require users to allow access to their personal information and that of their friends. It is possible to refuse, but those that do cannot then play games like Farmville or Mafia Wars with their Facebook friends. ...
The Vatican will today make its most detailed defence yet against claims that it is liable for US bishops who allowed priests to molest children, saying bishops are not its employees and that a document from 1962 did not require them to keep quiet.
The Vatican will make the arguments in a motion to dismiss a federal lawsuit on jurisdictional grounds filed in Louisville, Kentucky, but it could affect other efforts to sue the Holy See.
Jeffrey Lena, the Vatican's lawyer in the US, said the Vatican would assert that bishops are not its employees because they are not paid by Rome, don't act on Rome's behalf and are not controlled day-to-day by the pope — factors courts use to determine whether employers are liable for the actions of their employees.
Mr Lena said he would suggest to the court that it should avoid using the religious nature of the relationship between bishops and the pope as a basis for civil liability because it entangles the court in an analysis of religious doctrine that dates back to the apostles. ...
The Vatican will make the arguments in a motion to dismiss a federal lawsuit on jurisdictional grounds filed in Louisville, Kentucky, but it could affect other efforts to sue the Holy See.
Jeffrey Lena, the Vatican's lawyer in the US, said the Vatican would assert that bishops are not its employees because they are not paid by Rome, don't act on Rome's behalf and are not controlled day-to-day by the pope — factors courts use to determine whether employers are liable for the actions of their employees.
Mr Lena said he would suggest to the court that it should avoid using the religious nature of the relationship between bishops and the pope as a basis for civil liability because it entangles the court in an analysis of religious doctrine that dates back to the apostles. ...
Facebook Friends' Names Leak Into Search Engine Results
by Laurie Sullivan
17 May 2010
Facebook members have begun to realize that the ramifications of not opting-in to privacy controls that lock down information in profiles may go well beyond their control. The old adage that every action has consequences appears to have surfaced in Google search engine results.
Some people who chose not to opt-in to Facebook privacy settings have found their name in search results on google.com; and listed beneath, the names of a few of their Facebook friends. There's one problem. Unfortunately, Facebook members who choose to keep their profiles public, rather than opt-in to privacy settings, take their friends who want to remain private into the open, too. They do it unknowingly and unwillingly.
Take Nichola Stott, for example. The co-founder of TheMediaFlow -- who specializes in search, social media and online monetization -- admits to not setting up Facebook privacy walls, but believes the issue focuses more around having to opt-in to a variety of confusing privacy settings that many may not understand. Although she chooses to keep her profile open, some of her friends -- such as business partner Stephen Adds -- do not.
Adds -- TheMediaFlow co-founder and director of strategy and monetization -- initiated Facebook privacy options, but as a friend of Nichola, he also gets pulled into the fray. Do a search on "Stephen Adds" and friends appear under his name in the search engine results page (SERP).
Stott calls it counterintuitive regardless of what Facebook Terms and Conditions or manually controlled privacy settings may permit. It makes her feel "unnerved, but not surprised," she says, "I knew it was coming."
It appears that the list of friends in search engine queries have begun to surface most recently on Google.co.uk, Stott says. Facebook acknowledged MediaPost's request for comment, but has not responded with an official statement. ...
by Laurie Sullivan
17 May 2010
Facebook members have begun to realize that the ramifications of not opting-in to privacy controls that lock down information in profiles may go well beyond their control. The old adage that every action has consequences appears to have surfaced in Google search engine results.
Some people who chose not to opt-in to Facebook privacy settings have found their name in search results on google.com; and listed beneath, the names of a few of their Facebook friends. There's one problem. Unfortunately, Facebook members who choose to keep their profiles public, rather than opt-in to privacy settings, take their friends who want to remain private into the open, too. They do it unknowingly and unwillingly.
Take Nichola Stott, for example. The co-founder of TheMediaFlow -- who specializes in search, social media and online monetization -- admits to not setting up Facebook privacy walls, but believes the issue focuses more around having to opt-in to a variety of confusing privacy settings that many may not understand. Although she chooses to keep her profile open, some of her friends -- such as business partner Stephen Adds -- do not.
Adds -- TheMediaFlow co-founder and director of strategy and monetization -- initiated Facebook privacy options, but as a friend of Nichola, he also gets pulled into the fray. Do a search on "Stephen Adds" and friends appear under his name in the search engine results page (SERP).
Stott calls it counterintuitive regardless of what Facebook Terms and Conditions or manually controlled privacy settings may permit. It makes her feel "unnerved, but not surprised," she says, "I knew it was coming."
It appears that the list of friends in search engine queries have begun to surface most recently on Google.co.uk, Stott says. Facebook acknowledged MediaPost's request for comment, but has not responded with an official statement. ...
Site automates search of embarrassing Facebook posts
Want to know who's throwing a sickie?
By John Leyden
17th May 2010 02:53 GMT
A new site illustrates the privacy perils of users who leave their public updates searchable outside of Facebook.
FacebookSearch allows interested parties to search for status updates containing potentially embarrassing information such as "playing hooky", "stupid boss", or "control urges" simply by clicking on a link. The site also offers customised searches of freely viewable status updates. Search results return the name and profile picture of those making potentially embarrassing comments.
The site neatly illustrates the privacy perils of making status updates and wall posts viewable in much the same way PleaseRobMe previously illustrated how location updates through services such as FourSquare might potentially help out burglars.
FacebookSearch automates a type of security shortcoming first noticed by a commentard on Slashdot. The Facebook Graph site allows users to search for posts containing the word sex, or any other search term the curious might choose to select.
A spokeswoman for Facebook explained: "This is the search feature of the Graph API, documented here (http://developers.facebook.com/docs/api#search.)"
The same search is possible directly on Facebook. ...
Want to know who's throwing a sickie?
By John Leyden
17th May 2010 02:53 GMT
A new site illustrates the privacy perils of users who leave their public updates searchable outside of Facebook.
FacebookSearch allows interested parties to search for status updates containing potentially embarrassing information such as "playing hooky", "stupid boss", or "control urges" simply by clicking on a link. The site also offers customised searches of freely viewable status updates. Search results return the name and profile picture of those making potentially embarrassing comments.
The site neatly illustrates the privacy perils of making status updates and wall posts viewable in much the same way PleaseRobMe previously illustrated how location updates through services such as FourSquare might potentially help out burglars.
FacebookSearch automates a type of security shortcoming first noticed by a commentard on Slashdot. The Facebook Graph site allows users to search for posts containing the word sex, or any other search term the curious might choose to select.
A spokeswoman for Facebook explained: "This is the search feature of the Graph API, documented here (http://developers.facebook.com/docs/api#search.)"
The same search is possible directly on Facebook. ...
May 16, 2010
The election’s biggest loser is us, ladies
Jenni Russell
I feel diminished. And furious. At the end of one of the most absorbing election campaigns of my lifetime, and at the start of a fascinatingly different and unpredictable government, women have been largely eliminated from the political debate — and decision-making — by politicians and broadcasters alike. And it’s been done without a hint of embarrassment.
It is as if men talking to men, debating with men, being interviewed by men and reporting on men is a perfectly satisfactory and adequate way of reflecting this country and its issues. It has left every woman I know in a state of seething agitation and disbelief. Is this really where we’ve got to, 40 years after the rise of feminism — invisibility, impotence and irrelevance combined?
The culmination of this collective dismay was the formation of the new Liberal-Conservative government last week, with women making up just 14% of the people attending cabinet. That puts women’s power and representation way behind much of Europe or North America. Spain’s cabinet is 53% female, Sweden’s is 50%, France’s is 33% and America’s is 31%. It is a long way from the aspiration expressed by David Cameron two years ago that a third of his government would be female. It’s doubtful he would have achieved that target had the Tories won outright, but his figures have undoubtedly been made worse by the Liberal Democrats, the supposed mould-breakers of politics, who didn’t select a single woman to take up one of their five cabinet seats.
The new government may be puzzled by this reaction — Gordon Brown’s male-dominated cabinet was no better. But what has made women so angry is that we keep being promised change and yet what this campaign — and the boys-only horse trading that followed it — exposed is that women are just not taken seriously. ...
The election’s biggest loser is us, ladies
Jenni Russell
I feel diminished. And furious. At the end of one of the most absorbing election campaigns of my lifetime, and at the start of a fascinatingly different and unpredictable government, women have been largely eliminated from the political debate — and decision-making — by politicians and broadcasters alike. And it’s been done without a hint of embarrassment.
It is as if men talking to men, debating with men, being interviewed by men and reporting on men is a perfectly satisfactory and adequate way of reflecting this country and its issues. It has left every woman I know in a state of seething agitation and disbelief. Is this really where we’ve got to, 40 years after the rise of feminism — invisibility, impotence and irrelevance combined?
The culmination of this collective dismay was the formation of the new Liberal-Conservative government last week, with women making up just 14% of the people attending cabinet. That puts women’s power and representation way behind much of Europe or North America. Spain’s cabinet is 53% female, Sweden’s is 50%, France’s is 33% and America’s is 31%. It is a long way from the aspiration expressed by David Cameron two years ago that a third of his government would be female. It’s doubtful he would have achieved that target had the Tories won outright, but his figures have undoubtedly been made worse by the Liberal Democrats, the supposed mould-breakers of politics, who didn’t select a single woman to take up one of their five cabinet seats.
The new government may be puzzled by this reaction — Gordon Brown’s male-dominated cabinet was no better. But what has made women so angry is that we keep being promised change and yet what this campaign — and the boys-only horse trading that followed it — exposed is that women are just not taken seriously. ...
WTF, Japan? Sure, being overcrowded on a series of small islands can make a people weird, but this is beyond wrong!
Prime Minister talks it out - Golding holds Vale Royal meetings with JLP to decide on his future
Saturday | May 15, 2010
Gary Spaulding, Senior Gleaner Writer
As the calls for the resignation of the prime minister heighten, official word from the Government is that Bruce Golding is engaged in a series of consultations before deciding his future.
Information Minister Daryl Vaz feverishly sought to quash swirling rumours that Golding had tendered his resignation to a meeting of officers of the Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) yesterday.
"The prime minister, the Government and the party take very seriously what has transpired and, therefore, these consultations and discussions have to be done in a very organised way," asserted Vaz.
The information minister continued to be the face and voice of the party in turmoil even as scores of other party faithfuls wound up heavily tinted windows to avoid the media.
Vaz sought to stave off a rush on the prime minister's official residence, Vale Royal, in the face of the rumours that the prime minister had buckled under pressure. ...
Saturday | May 15, 2010
Gary Spaulding, Senior Gleaner Writer
As the calls for the resignation of the prime minister heighten, official word from the Government is that Bruce Golding is engaged in a series of consultations before deciding his future.
Information Minister Daryl Vaz feverishly sought to quash swirling rumours that Golding had tendered his resignation to a meeting of officers of the Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) yesterday.
"The prime minister, the Government and the party take very seriously what has transpired and, therefore, these consultations and discussions have to be done in a very organised way," asserted Vaz.
The information minister continued to be the face and voice of the party in turmoil even as scores of other party faithfuls wound up heavily tinted windows to avoid the media.
Vaz sought to stave off a rush on the prime minister's official residence, Vale Royal, in the face of the rumours that the prime minister had buckled under pressure. ...
Facebook loses friends as privacy campaign grows
Type 'How do I ...' into the search engine and one of the first suggestions it comes up with continues: '... delete my Facebook account?'
Peter Walker
Friday 14 May 2010
It's a fitting congruity that the simplest way to gauge Facebook's current woes comes via that other unchallenged behemoth of the internet, Google. Type "How do I ..." into the search engine and one of the first suggestions it comes up with continues: "... delete my Facebook account?" Today it was the ninth top-ranked search term, bringing more than 18m results. ...
...this week Facebook has experienced perhaps the closest thing to a crisis in its brief history, with reports of an emergency staff meeting at its California headquarters about privacy issues.
Criticism has been mounting since a revamp of the site in December meant users' profiles became publicly accessible by default. Retreating back into anonymity also became an increasingly tortuous process, with profiles now featuring 50 separate privacy settings and 170 options. This was followed in March by more changes, including plans to automatically share users' information with outside websites.
While this has the potential to hugely boost Facebook's revenues through targeted marketing, it has angered campaigners, including the American Civil Liberties Union. This month EU data protection officials wrote to Facebook, calling the privacy changes "unacceptable".
But what seems to have worried the company are calls for Facebook users to wipe their accounts. "Facebook is officially 'out', as in uncool," was the verdict of another California tech pioneer, Jason Calacanis, chief executive of the question-and-answer website Mahalo, calling for a boycott of the "not trustworthy" site.
In a telling echo of Facebook's origin, in April four New York University students started a web appeal for $10,000 (£7,000) to finance a summer holiday creating an open-source alternative to Facebook, called Diaspora. Within a fortnight they had $100,000. ...
... Elliot Schrage, Facebook's vice-president of communications, concedes that the privacy changes have been handled badly. He said: "The most important thing for our business is trust. People trust Facebook with their most personal information – the photographs of their family, how they're feeling, the things they care about. What distresses me most is when people believe our changes are born from malevolence or sneakiness. It's our failure that people don't understand what we're doing with the data. That's a mistake in communications." ...
Type 'How do I ...' into the search engine and one of the first suggestions it comes up with continues: '... delete my Facebook account?'
Peter Walker
Friday 14 May 2010
It's a fitting congruity that the simplest way to gauge Facebook's current woes comes via that other unchallenged behemoth of the internet, Google. Type "How do I ..." into the search engine and one of the first suggestions it comes up with continues: "... delete my Facebook account?" Today it was the ninth top-ranked search term, bringing more than 18m results. ...
...this week Facebook has experienced perhaps the closest thing to a crisis in its brief history, with reports of an emergency staff meeting at its California headquarters about privacy issues.
Criticism has been mounting since a revamp of the site in December meant users' profiles became publicly accessible by default. Retreating back into anonymity also became an increasingly tortuous process, with profiles now featuring 50 separate privacy settings and 170 options. This was followed in March by more changes, including plans to automatically share users' information with outside websites.
While this has the potential to hugely boost Facebook's revenues through targeted marketing, it has angered campaigners, including the American Civil Liberties Union. This month EU data protection officials wrote to Facebook, calling the privacy changes "unacceptable".
But what seems to have worried the company are calls for Facebook users to wipe their accounts. "Facebook is officially 'out', as in uncool," was the verdict of another California tech pioneer, Jason Calacanis, chief executive of the question-and-answer website Mahalo, calling for a boycott of the "not trustworthy" site.
In a telling echo of Facebook's origin, in April four New York University students started a web appeal for $10,000 (£7,000) to finance a summer holiday creating an open-source alternative to Facebook, called Diaspora. Within a fortnight they had $100,000. ...
... Elliot Schrage, Facebook's vice-president of communications, concedes that the privacy changes have been handled badly. He said: "The most important thing for our business is trust. People trust Facebook with their most personal information – the photographs of their family, how they're feeling, the things they care about. What distresses me most is when people believe our changes are born from malevolence or sneakiness. It's our failure that people don't understand what we're doing with the data. That's a mistake in communications." ...
Scientists are calling for the long-term risks of GM crops to be reassessed after field studies revealed an explosion in pest numbers around farms growing modified strains of cotton.
The unexpected surge of infestations "highlights a critical need" for better ways of predicting the impact of GM crops and spotting potentially damaging knock-on effects arising from their cultivation, researchers said.
Millions of hectares of farmland in northern China have been struck by infestations of bugs following the widespread adoption of Bt cotton, an engineered variety made by the US biotech giant, Monsanto.
Outbreaks of mirid bugs, which can devastate around 200 varieties of fruit, vegetable and corn crops, have risen dramatically in the past decade, as cotton farmers have shifted from traditional cotton crops to GM varieties, scientists said.
Traditional cotton famers have to spray their crops with insecticides to combat destructive bollworm pests, but Bt cotton produces its own insecticide, meaning farmers can save money by spraying it less.
But a 10-year study across six major cotton-growing regions of China found that by spraying their crops less, farmers allowed mirid bugs to thrive and infest their own and neighbouring farms.
The infestations are potentially catastrophic for more than 10m small-scale farmers who cultivate 26m hectares of vulnerable crops in the region studied. ...
Ta much, dear Ar0cketman
The unexpected surge of infestations "highlights a critical need" for better ways of predicting the impact of GM crops and spotting potentially damaging knock-on effects arising from their cultivation, researchers said.
Millions of hectares of farmland in northern China have been struck by infestations of bugs following the widespread adoption of Bt cotton, an engineered variety made by the US biotech giant, Monsanto.
Outbreaks of mirid bugs, which can devastate around 200 varieties of fruit, vegetable and corn crops, have risen dramatically in the past decade, as cotton farmers have shifted from traditional cotton crops to GM varieties, scientists said.
Traditional cotton famers have to spray their crops with insecticides to combat destructive bollworm pests, but Bt cotton produces its own insecticide, meaning farmers can save money by spraying it less.
But a 10-year study across six major cotton-growing regions of China found that by spraying their crops less, farmers allowed mirid bugs to thrive and infest their own and neighbouring farms.
The infestations are potentially catastrophic for more than 10m small-scale farmers who cultivate 26m hectares of vulnerable crops in the region studied. ...
Ta much, dear Ar0cketman
Incident spurs call for school use review
A city School Committee member says she's 'appalled' at how GOP guests treated a classroom.
By Kelley Bouchard kbouchard@mainetoday.com
Staff Writer
PORTLAND - One School Committee member, saying she's "appalled" by the behavior of some of the Republicans who used a room at King Middle School last weekend, wants to protect the city's public schools from future harm.
Sarah Thompson said she plans to raise the issue when the committee meets on May 19. She has asked Superintendent Jim Morse to contact City Manager Joe Gray so the committee will have a clear understanding of policies and legalities related to the rental and public use of school buildings.
"We allowed them to use the space and I'm appalled that they would go through a teacher's things, let alone remove something from a classroom," Thompson said Wednesday. "We want the public to use school spaces, but they need to respect that it's a school and understand that they should leave it the way they find it."
The Republican State Convention was held at the Portland Exposition Building, which is on Park Avenue, near the middle school. Party members from Knox County caucused in a classroom used by eighth-grade social studies teacher Paul Clifford.
When Clifford returned to school on Monday, he found that a favorite poster about the U.S. labor movement had been taken and replaced with a bumper sticker that read, "Working People Vote Republican."
Later, Clifford learned that his classroom had been searched. Republicans who had attended the convention called Principal Mike McCarthy to complain about "anti-American" things they saw there, including a closed box containing copies of the U.S. Constitution that were published by the American Civil Liberties Union.
Maine Republican Party leaders have issued a written apology to King students and teachers.
"King Middle School was kind enough to allow the (party) to use their facilities and we are deeply concerned about the lack of respect shown to the faculty," wrote Executive Director Christie-Lee McNally. ...
Ta much, dear Anneliese
A city School Committee member says she's 'appalled' at how GOP guests treated a classroom.
By Kelley Bouchard kbouchard@mainetoday.com
Staff Writer
PORTLAND - One School Committee member, saying she's "appalled" by the behavior of some of the Republicans who used a room at King Middle School last weekend, wants to protect the city's public schools from future harm.
Sarah Thompson said she plans to raise the issue when the committee meets on May 19. She has asked Superintendent Jim Morse to contact City Manager Joe Gray so the committee will have a clear understanding of policies and legalities related to the rental and public use of school buildings.
"We allowed them to use the space and I'm appalled that they would go through a teacher's things, let alone remove something from a classroom," Thompson said Wednesday. "We want the public to use school spaces, but they need to respect that it's a school and understand that they should leave it the way they find it."
The Republican State Convention was held at the Portland Exposition Building, which is on Park Avenue, near the middle school. Party members from Knox County caucused in a classroom used by eighth-grade social studies teacher Paul Clifford.
When Clifford returned to school on Monday, he found that a favorite poster about the U.S. labor movement had been taken and replaced with a bumper sticker that read, "Working People Vote Republican."
Later, Clifford learned that his classroom had been searched. Republicans who had attended the convention called Principal Mike McCarthy to complain about "anti-American" things they saw there, including a closed box containing copies of the U.S. Constitution that were published by the American Civil Liberties Union.
Maine Republican Party leaders have issued a written apology to King students and teachers.
"King Middle School was kind enough to allow the (party) to use their facilities and we are deeply concerned about the lack of respect shown to the faculty," wrote Executive Director Christie-Lee McNally. ...
Ta much, dear Anneliese
As the federal and congressional probes continue into the causes of the Gulf oil rig explosion, new information is coming to light about the failure of a key device, the blowout preventer, to shut off the gushing well, which could have prevented the growing catastrophe.
And new questions are being raised about the testing of the preventers. At today's hearing before a House subcommittee, Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., revealed that the blowout preventer had a leak in a crucial hydraulic system and had failed a negative pressure test just hours before the April 20 explosion. And at a hearing in Louisiana on Tuesday, the government engineer who gave oil giant BP the final approval to drill admitted that he never asked for proof that the preventer worked.
In addition, an oil industry whistleblower told Huffington Post that BP had been aware for years that tests of blowout prevention devices were being falsified in Alaska. The devices are different from the ones involved in the Deepwater Horizon explosion but are also intended to prevent dangerous blowouts at drilling operations.
Mike Mason, who worked on oil rigs in Alaska for 18 years, says that he observed cheating on blowout preventer tests at least 100 times, including on many wells owned by BP.
As he describes it, the test involves a chart that shows whether the device will hold a certain amount of pressure for five minutes on each valve. (The test involves increasing the pressure from 250 pounds per square-inch (psi) to 5,000 psi.) "Sometimes, they would put their finger on the chart and slide it ahead -- so that it only recorded the pressure for 30 seconds instead of 5 minutes," he tells HuffPost.
Mason claims that a BP representative was usually present while subcontractors performed the tests. ...
Ta much, dear Zaxy
And new questions are being raised about the testing of the preventers. At today's hearing before a House subcommittee, Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., revealed that the blowout preventer had a leak in a crucial hydraulic system and had failed a negative pressure test just hours before the April 20 explosion. And at a hearing in Louisiana on Tuesday, the government engineer who gave oil giant BP the final approval to drill admitted that he never asked for proof that the preventer worked.
In addition, an oil industry whistleblower told Huffington Post that BP had been aware for years that tests of blowout prevention devices were being falsified in Alaska. The devices are different from the ones involved in the Deepwater Horizon explosion but are also intended to prevent dangerous blowouts at drilling operations.
Mike Mason, who worked on oil rigs in Alaska for 18 years, says that he observed cheating on blowout preventer tests at least 100 times, including on many wells owned by BP.
As he describes it, the test involves a chart that shows whether the device will hold a certain amount of pressure for five minutes on each valve. (The test involves increasing the pressure from 250 pounds per square-inch (psi) to 5,000 psi.) "Sometimes, they would put their finger on the chart and slide it ahead -- so that it only recorded the pressure for 30 seconds instead of 5 minutes," he tells HuffPost.
Mason claims that a BP representative was usually present while subcontractors performed the tests. ...
Ta much, dear Zaxy
Idiots. They should ban alcohol sales to touristos instead. All their problems would be solved.
Ta much, dear Ar0cketman
Ta much, dear Ar0cketman
Facebook Privacy Instructions
2010-05-04
Recent changes by Facebook fundamentally change the relationship between the user and the social networking site. Previously, users had the ability to determine what information they chose to share and what information they wanted to keep private. Recent policy changes are altering that relationship and there is little guidance on what social networking sites can and cannot do and what disclosures are necessary to users.
Basically, Facebook now shares your personal information with third parties (Microsoft, Yelp, and Pandora so far) automatically. If you don’t want Facebook to share your information you need to opt-out of the “Instant Personalization Program”
You can complete the whole process in a few minutes using the links below and your browser’s ‘back’ button. Here is how:
1. First, log into Facebook in a new window or tab.
2. Next, go to the “Instant Personalization” page (under Account/Privacy Settings/Applications and Websites) and uncheck the “allow” box.
3. To prevent the third parties from accessing your information through your friends who have not opted out, you need to visit Pandora, Microsoft, and Yelp and click on the “Block Application” link in the upper left corner of the page.
4. Finally, check Facebook’s “Help Center” frequently to see an up-to-date list of applications that need to be individually blocked to maintain your privacy.
2010-05-04
Recent changes by Facebook fundamentally change the relationship between the user and the social networking site. Previously, users had the ability to determine what information they chose to share and what information they wanted to keep private. Recent policy changes are altering that relationship and there is little guidance on what social networking sites can and cannot do and what disclosures are necessary to users.
Basically, Facebook now shares your personal information with third parties (Microsoft, Yelp, and Pandora so far) automatically. If you don’t want Facebook to share your information you need to opt-out of the “Instant Personalization Program”
You can complete the whole process in a few minutes using the links below and your browser’s ‘back’ button. Here is how:
1. First, log into Facebook in a new window or tab.
2. Next, go to the “Instant Personalization” page (under Account/Privacy Settings/Applications and Websites) and uncheck the “allow” box.
3. To prevent the third parties from accessing your information through your friends who have not opted out, you need to visit Pandora, Microsoft, and Yelp and click on the “Block Application” link in the upper left corner of the page.
4. Finally, check Facebook’s “Help Center” frequently to see an up-to-date list of applications that need to be individually blocked to maintain your privacy.
[brilliant snooty English butler]A phone call for you, Mr Fitzwater. A Mr Darwin, Sir.
Oh, and Mr Robinson, Sir? The doctor is here to perform your so sadly belated vasectomy, Sir.[/brilliant snooty English butler]
Ta much, dear Anneliese
Oh, and Mr Robinson, Sir? The doctor is here to perform your so sadly belated vasectomy, Sir.[/brilliant snooty English butler]
Ta much, dear Anneliese
Brazil and the United States rank as the two worst countries in terms of their environmental impact, a new study finds.
The researchers, led by the University of Adelaide's Environment Institute in Australia, used seven indicators of environmental degradation to create two rankings — one in which impact was measured against the total resources available to a country, and another measuring absolute environmental degradation at a global scale.
The indicators included: natural forest loss, habitat conversion (when natural areas are converted into shopping centers or farmland), fisheries and other marine captures, fertilizer use, water pollution, carbon emissions from land use, and species threat.
Overall, the richer a country, the greater its environmental impact.
"The environmental crises currently gripping the planet are the corollary of excessive human consumption of natural resources," said study leader Corey Bradshaw, of the Environment Institute. "There is considerable and mounting evidence that elevated degradation and loss of habitats and species are compromising ecosystems that sustain the quality of life for billions of people worldwide."
Here's how the two types of rankings came out:
The world’s 10 worst environmental performers (out of 179 considered) according to the proportional environmental impact rank are (with 1 being the worst):
1. Singapore
2. Korea
3. Qatar
4. Kuwait
5. Japan
6. Thailand
7. Bahrain
8. Malaysia
9. Philippines
10. The Netherlands
The world’s 10 worst environmental performers (out of 171 considered) in absolute global terms are:
1. Brazil
2. USA
3. China
4. Indonesia
5. Japan
6. Mexico
7. India
8. Russia
9. Australia
10. Peru
Bradshaw said that the indices used were robust and comprehensive and, unlike other rankings, deliberately avoided including human health and economic data — measuring environmental impact only. ...
The researchers, led by the University of Adelaide's Environment Institute in Australia, used seven indicators of environmental degradation to create two rankings — one in which impact was measured against the total resources available to a country, and another measuring absolute environmental degradation at a global scale.
The indicators included: natural forest loss, habitat conversion (when natural areas are converted into shopping centers or farmland), fisheries and other marine captures, fertilizer use, water pollution, carbon emissions from land use, and species threat.
Overall, the richer a country, the greater its environmental impact.
"The environmental crises currently gripping the planet are the corollary of excessive human consumption of natural resources," said study leader Corey Bradshaw, of the Environment Institute. "There is considerable and mounting evidence that elevated degradation and loss of habitats and species are compromising ecosystems that sustain the quality of life for billions of people worldwide."
Here's how the two types of rankings came out:
The world’s 10 worst environmental performers (out of 179 considered) according to the proportional environmental impact rank are (with 1 being the worst):
1. Singapore
2. Korea
3. Qatar
4. Kuwait
5. Japan
6. Thailand
7. Bahrain
8. Malaysia
9. Philippines
10. The Netherlands
The world’s 10 worst environmental performers (out of 171 considered) in absolute global terms are:
1. Brazil
2. USA
3. China
4. Indonesia
5. Japan
6. Mexico
7. India
8. Russia
9. Australia
10. Peru
Bradshaw said that the indices used were robust and comprehensive and, unlike other rankings, deliberately avoided including human health and economic data — measuring environmental impact only. ...
Thousands of people were deprived of their right to vote last night as polling stations across the country were unable to cope with demand.
Election chiefs told The Times that the widespread failures to deal with high voter turnout may lead to by-elections in the next few weeks, which could be critical to the outcome of the election. The Electoral Commission, the election watchdog, last night announced an investigation into the problems.
An estimated 500 would-be voters were turned away in Nick Clegg’s constituency of Sheffield Hallam as students and local residents descended on the station at St John’s Church in the Ranmoor district of the city.
Another 200 people in Woodseats, a Sheffield suburb five miles away, were told their votes would not count. Police were called to deal with 100 angry people who refused to leave the library where they had hoped to cast their ballot.
Some 600 people were turned away in Chester, a key marginal seat where Labour were defending a majority of 915,
Police also dispersed 300 people who were prevented from voting in Brockley in Lewisham, southeast London and Islington, North London. Sit-ins were also reported in Hackney, East London.
Other polling stations in Newcastle East and Sutton Coldfield stayed open after 10pm to cope with demand. Electoral Commission rules state that votes can only be counted if ballot papers have already been issued by the 10pm deadline.
John Mothersole, returning officer for Sheffield, apologised to residents who were turned away. “We got this wrong and I would like to apologise,” he said. “We were faced with a difficult situation with the numbers of people, and a large amount of students turning up to vote without polling cards.”
Sheffield students said that part of the problem was that more than 5,000 students had been registered at a single polling station.
Alice Meakin, 18, who is studying for her A-levels at Sheffield High School, was not allowed to vote despite turning up more than an hour before polls closed. “They said that no votes would be counted after 10pm. It’s really bad, because at school we’ve had talks saying how it is really important that we should go out and vote and now we can’t. I was really excited because it’s my first chance to vote.” ...
... More than 300 people were turned away from a polling station in a student area of Manchester, according to a voter who queued for three quarters of an hour before being sent home. ...
Election chiefs told The Times that the widespread failures to deal with high voter turnout may lead to by-elections in the next few weeks, which could be critical to the outcome of the election. The Electoral Commission, the election watchdog, last night announced an investigation into the problems.
An estimated 500 would-be voters were turned away in Nick Clegg’s constituency of Sheffield Hallam as students and local residents descended on the station at St John’s Church in the Ranmoor district of the city.
Another 200 people in Woodseats, a Sheffield suburb five miles away, were told their votes would not count. Police were called to deal with 100 angry people who refused to leave the library where they had hoped to cast their ballot.
Some 600 people were turned away in Chester, a key marginal seat where Labour were defending a majority of 915,
Police also dispersed 300 people who were prevented from voting in Brockley in Lewisham, southeast London and Islington, North London. Sit-ins were also reported in Hackney, East London.
Other polling stations in Newcastle East and Sutton Coldfield stayed open after 10pm to cope with demand. Electoral Commission rules state that votes can only be counted if ballot papers have already been issued by the 10pm deadline.
John Mothersole, returning officer for Sheffield, apologised to residents who were turned away. “We got this wrong and I would like to apologise,” he said. “We were faced with a difficult situation with the numbers of people, and a large amount of students turning up to vote without polling cards.”
Sheffield students said that part of the problem was that more than 5,000 students had been registered at a single polling station.
Alice Meakin, 18, who is studying for her A-levels at Sheffield High School, was not allowed to vote despite turning up more than an hour before polls closed. “They said that no votes would be counted after 10pm. It’s really bad, because at school we’ve had talks saying how it is really important that we should go out and vote and now we can’t. I was really excited because it’s my first chance to vote.” ...
... More than 300 people were turned away from a polling station in a student area of Manchester, according to a voter who queued for three quarters of an hour before being sent home. ...
Fuck yu, yu t'iefin' bastard! Yu h'alreddy t'ief from wi, an' now unu want wi help yu pey h'it baack? Mi na t'ink so, you faat t'iefin' fuckka!
The best thing about people who hate gay people is that they secretly all love gay people. Or at least having sex with gay people. Look at the recent case of Family Research Council co-founder George Rekers. There's a rentboy! ...
This morning we posted the story below about Florida Attorney General Bill McCollum’s Facebook page being inundated with pointed questions about Dr. George Rekers, who the AG paid to testify on behalf of the state of Florida in defending it’s ban on gay adoption.
Since then, those messages have been taken down. However, as we write, there are a couple of new ones that have popped up. But they’ll probably be taken off soon. Listed below is our original post.
If you click on Florida Attorney General and GOP gubernatorial favorite Bill McCollum’s Facebook page today, you’ll see a veritable slew of messages demanding that he comment on Dr. George Rekers, the controversial “expert witness” (one of only two that McCollum brought forth) in a trial in which he was seeking to reverse Miami-Dade judge Cindy Lederman, who ruled that Florida’s [gay] adoption ban – the only one in the country – was unconstitutional.
The Miami New Times reported earlier this week that Rekers was seen returning from a trip at Miami International Airport with a male prostitute. Rekers has denied any involvement with the young man named “Geo” who he allegedly met on the website rentboy.com, and “Geo” is also denying any hanky-panky occurred.
Rekers is a leading Christian conservative who helped form the Family Research Council back in 1983, with the Reverend James Dobson. In 1989 In 1989, he and former Florida DCF Secretary Jerry Regier (remember him?) co-wrote an essay called The Christian World View of the Family, which criticized abortion and gay couples forming families.
This is what Judge Lederman said about Rekers' testimony after she called the ban against gay adoption unconstitutional, after the state paid Rekers tens of thousands of dollars for his “expert” testimony.
“Dr. Rekers’ testimony was far from a neutral and unbiased recitation of the relevant scientific evidence. Dr. Rekers’ beliefs are motivated by his strong ideological and theological convictions that are not consistent with the science. Based on his testimony and demeanor at trial, the court can not consider his testimony to be credible nor worthy of forming the basis of public policy.”
Since then, those messages have been taken down. However, as we write, there are a couple of new ones that have popped up. But they’ll probably be taken off soon. Listed below is our original post.
If you click on Florida Attorney General and GOP gubernatorial favorite Bill McCollum’s Facebook page today, you’ll see a veritable slew of messages demanding that he comment on Dr. George Rekers, the controversial “expert witness” (one of only two that McCollum brought forth) in a trial in which he was seeking to reverse Miami-Dade judge Cindy Lederman, who ruled that Florida’s [gay] adoption ban – the only one in the country – was unconstitutional.
The Miami New Times reported earlier this week that Rekers was seen returning from a trip at Miami International Airport with a male prostitute. Rekers has denied any involvement with the young man named “Geo” who he allegedly met on the website rentboy.com, and “Geo” is also denying any hanky-panky occurred.
Rekers is a leading Christian conservative who helped form the Family Research Council back in 1983, with the Reverend James Dobson. In 1989 In 1989, he and former Florida DCF Secretary Jerry Regier (remember him?) co-wrote an essay called The Christian World View of the Family, which criticized abortion and gay couples forming families.
This is what Judge Lederman said about Rekers' testimony after she called the ban against gay adoption unconstitutional, after the state paid Rekers tens of thousands of dollars for his “expert” testimony.
“Dr. Rekers’ testimony was far from a neutral and unbiased recitation of the relevant scientific evidence. Dr. Rekers’ beliefs are motivated by his strong ideological and theological convictions that are not consistent with the science. Based on his testimony and demeanor at trial, the court can not consider his testimony to be credible nor worthy of forming the basis of public policy.”
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), has issued a recall of 43 children’s medications available over the counter, issued late Friday.
The FDA is recommending that parents throw away any of the products having lot numbers specified on the FDA website. There are over 1000 lot numbers listed on the site. The FDA is suggesting the use of generic equivalents of the products.
Johnson and Johnson’s McNeil Consumer Healthcare unit in Fort Washington, Pa. manufactured all of the recalled products.
The affected products are Children’s Tylenol, Children and Infants Motrin, Children’s Benadryl and Children’s Zyrtec. The FDA has stated that an inspection of the McNeil manufacturing facility uncovered broken equipment, heavy dust and grime, duct taped pipes and a hole in the ceiling. The FDA also found product ingredients contaminated by bacteria, products containing larger amounts of active ingredients than specified, inactive ingredients that did not meet testing requirements and small metallic particles in some products.
The FDA cited poor quality control procedures and inefficient employee training as problems.
Johnson and Johnson was denying that consumer complaints had lead to the inspection and subsequent recall but the FDA states that over 50 such complaints were received concerning dark spots in some of the liquid medicines. ...
The FDA is recommending that parents throw away any of the products having lot numbers specified on the FDA website. There are over 1000 lot numbers listed on the site. The FDA is suggesting the use of generic equivalents of the products.
Johnson and Johnson’s McNeil Consumer Healthcare unit in Fort Washington, Pa. manufactured all of the recalled products.
The affected products are Children’s Tylenol, Children and Infants Motrin, Children’s Benadryl and Children’s Zyrtec. The FDA has stated that an inspection of the McNeil manufacturing facility uncovered broken equipment, heavy dust and grime, duct taped pipes and a hole in the ceiling. The FDA also found product ingredients contaminated by bacteria, products containing larger amounts of active ingredients than specified, inactive ingredients that did not meet testing requirements and small metallic particles in some products.
The FDA cited poor quality control procedures and inefficient employee training as problems.
Johnson and Johnson was denying that consumer complaints had lead to the inspection and subsequent recall but the FDA states that over 50 such complaints were received concerning dark spots in some of the liquid medicines. ...
... The Electronic Frontier Foundation, an online civil liberties group, has criticised the changes, alleging that they reduce control of an individual’s personal information and fail to offer an easy “opt-out” preference.
Four US senators wrote to Mark Zuckerberg, the chief executive of Facebook, last week to take issue with some of the changes.
Candid Wueest, from the internet security firm Symantec, said: “For any organisation, whether you are a social networking site or not, privacy breaches are worrying.
“Unfortunately, this isn’t the first privacy breach of its kind to plague a social networking site. Other high-profile sites have also been affected with similar problems.
“Privacy settings lead people to be a little freer in the content they share on social networking sites, as it enables users to have control over who can see the content posted.
“It is therefore important that all social networking sites regularly review the policies in which the privacy settings sit.”
Four US senators wrote to Mark Zuckerberg, the chief executive of Facebook, last week to take issue with some of the changes.
Candid Wueest, from the internet security firm Symantec, said: “For any organisation, whether you are a social networking site or not, privacy breaches are worrying.
“Unfortunately, this isn’t the first privacy breach of its kind to plague a social networking site. Other high-profile sites have also been affected with similar problems.
“Privacy settings lead people to be a little freer in the content they share on social networking sites, as it enables users to have control over who can see the content posted.
“It is therefore important that all social networking sites regularly review the policies in which the privacy settings sit.”
King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia is not normally associated with radical moves but the 85-year-old monarch is making waves with signals encouraging greater tolerance of women's rights.
In recent days Abdullah's appearance in an unusual group photograph has become a talking point across his realm and the wider Arab world. The king and his brother Crown Prince Sultan were flanked by 40 women dressed in modest abayas but mostly with their faces bare, a novelty that is seen as evidence of rare liberalism at the top.
The king's pose, at a conference in the southern city of Najran last month, is big news because it appears to challenge the norm in a country where unrelated men and women are kept strictly apart, women are covered from head to toe and alcohol and women's driving are banned. Under Saudi law a woman must not leave home without a male "guardian" (her father, husband or brother) to whom she is legally subordinated.
"I think this is a great picture and everyone is talking about it," said Dr Maha Muneef, a prominent physician and government adviser. "This is a picture that sent a message that it is OK to work with women ... and that there's nothing wrong with that."
Overzealous enforcement by the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice – the morality police – is routinely criticised by liberals. Saudi and foreign observers detected royal intervention when the commission suddenly reversed a decision to sack Sheikh Ahmad al-Ghamdi, its head for the Mecca region, after he questioned whether Islam in fact required gender segregration.
Ghamdi's swift reinstatement was widely interpreted as a vote of confidence by the palace in reformist ideas. The presence of the crown prince in the group photograph, which was distributed to selected media by the palace, suggested a pointer to future policies. ...
In recent days Abdullah's appearance in an unusual group photograph has become a talking point across his realm and the wider Arab world. The king and his brother Crown Prince Sultan were flanked by 40 women dressed in modest abayas but mostly with their faces bare, a novelty that is seen as evidence of rare liberalism at the top.
The king's pose, at a conference in the southern city of Najran last month, is big news because it appears to challenge the norm in a country where unrelated men and women are kept strictly apart, women are covered from head to toe and alcohol and women's driving are banned. Under Saudi law a woman must not leave home without a male "guardian" (her father, husband or brother) to whom she is legally subordinated.
"I think this is a great picture and everyone is talking about it," said Dr Maha Muneef, a prominent physician and government adviser. "This is a picture that sent a message that it is OK to work with women ... and that there's nothing wrong with that."
Overzealous enforcement by the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice – the morality police – is routinely criticised by liberals. Saudi and foreign observers detected royal intervention when the commission suddenly reversed a decision to sack Sheikh Ahmad al-Ghamdi, its head for the Mecca region, after he questioned whether Islam in fact required gender segregration.
Ghamdi's swift reinstatement was widely interpreted as a vote of confidence by the palace in reformist ideas. The presence of the crown prince in the group photograph, which was distributed to selected media by the palace, suggested a pointer to future policies. ...
... The shareholders’ claims are scathing of Lloyd Blankfein, the chairman and chief executive of the bank, and Gary Cohen, the president, and the rest of the bank’s 12-strong board, which they said was made up of individuals too interested in their “grossly excessive” compensation and too closely connected to each other to run the bank properly. “The director defendants completely abdicated their oversight duties to the company,” one lawsuit said.
Instead, the bank’s leaders sold $65.4 million of “artificially inflated” Goldman stock while they — but not other shareholders — knew of the SEC’s impending charges, the legal action alleged. Goldman’s credibility had been “devastated” and its corporate image and goodwill “irreparably damaged” by the charges, shareholders asserted.
“For at least the foreseeable future, Goldman will suffer from what is known as the ‘liar’s discount’, a term applied to the stocks of companies who have been implicated in illegal behaviour and have misled the investing public,” one suit said.
Shareholders want Goldman Sachs to pay them damages and make corporate governance reforms. Mr Blankfein went on a public relations offensive at the weekend, doing an interview on The Charlie Rose Show in which he acknowledged that the bank, which is overhauling its internal rules for dealing with clients, “can’t exist in the current state that we are in”. He added: “We have a lot of work to do.”
Warren Buffett, the renowned investor who loaned Goldman $5 billion during the financial crisis in return for an annual return of $500 million, tried to boost the bank’s image at his shareholders’ meeting in Omaha, Nebraska, at the weekend.
“I don’t hold against Goldman Sachs the fact that an allegation’s been made by the SEC,” he said. “If it leads to something more serious, then we’ll think about it if it happens.”
Mr Buffett did not convince at least some of his own shareholders. “I hope they nail Goldman,” John Buckley, an Omaha native, told The Times. “It ain’t right, doing that to people.”
Shares in Goldman Sachs dropped by 9.4 per cent last Friday after the bank was downgraded by two analysts who cited the difficulty of predicting the outcome of the bank’s legal problems. The stock made a comparatively small rebound yesterday, rising by $4.37, or 3 per cent, to close at $149.57. ...
Instead, the bank’s leaders sold $65.4 million of “artificially inflated” Goldman stock while they — but not other shareholders — knew of the SEC’s impending charges, the legal action alleged. Goldman’s credibility had been “devastated” and its corporate image and goodwill “irreparably damaged” by the charges, shareholders asserted.
“For at least the foreseeable future, Goldman will suffer from what is known as the ‘liar’s discount’, a term applied to the stocks of companies who have been implicated in illegal behaviour and have misled the investing public,” one suit said.
Shareholders want Goldman Sachs to pay them damages and make corporate governance reforms. Mr Blankfein went on a public relations offensive at the weekend, doing an interview on The Charlie Rose Show in which he acknowledged that the bank, which is overhauling its internal rules for dealing with clients, “can’t exist in the current state that we are in”. He added: “We have a lot of work to do.”
Warren Buffett, the renowned investor who loaned Goldman $5 billion during the financial crisis in return for an annual return of $500 million, tried to boost the bank’s image at his shareholders’ meeting in Omaha, Nebraska, at the weekend.
“I don’t hold against Goldman Sachs the fact that an allegation’s been made by the SEC,” he said. “If it leads to something more serious, then we’ll think about it if it happens.”
Mr Buffett did not convince at least some of his own shareholders. “I hope they nail Goldman,” John Buckley, an Omaha native, told The Times. “It ain’t right, doing that to people.”
Shares in Goldman Sachs dropped by 9.4 per cent last Friday after the bank was downgraded by two analysts who cited the difficulty of predicting the outcome of the bank’s legal problems. The stock made a comparatively small rebound yesterday, rising by $4.37, or 3 per cent, to close at $149.57. ...
The chief executive of BP faces a grilling when he meets US lawmakers and regulators in Washington tomorrow amid mounting criticism of the oil giant's reaction to the blown-out well of the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig in the Gulf of Mexico, which has left America's southern states facing an environmental and economic catastrophe.
Tony Hayward spent today on a charm offensive, meeting officials from the Obama administration and using US news networks to explain how the company is hoping to stem the flow of 5,000 barrels of oil a day that have been pumping unchecked into the sea since the rig exploded two weeks ago. But the case against the company is mounting.
Questions have been raised about whether BP should have installed a secondary cut-off valve and why the company had not installed a so-called "acoustic switch" on the blowout preventer, which is on the seabed and designed to stop pressure from the oil well damaging the drilling rig, so it could be activated remotely.
Fishermen, who are watching their livelihoods destroyed by the spreading oil slick, have been asking why the retaining booms that are supposed to hold back the oil were deployed so late and in too widely spread an area, while some environmental campaigners have complained that they are being kept away from the coastline as BP picks its own contractors to deal with the oil as it washes ashore.
The choppy weather in the Gulf of Mexico has been pushing a mixture of oil and seawater over the hundreds of thousands of feet of floating booms which have been deployed over the past few days in an attempt to corral the oil so it can be contained and burnt.
The weather forecast for later this week is fairer and the hope is that some of the oil could be burnt off towards the weekend, but by then thousands of gallons will have hit the shoreline. ...
Tony Hayward spent today on a charm offensive, meeting officials from the Obama administration and using US news networks to explain how the company is hoping to stem the flow of 5,000 barrels of oil a day that have been pumping unchecked into the sea since the rig exploded two weeks ago. But the case against the company is mounting.
Questions have been raised about whether BP should have installed a secondary cut-off valve and why the company had not installed a so-called "acoustic switch" on the blowout preventer, which is on the seabed and designed to stop pressure from the oil well damaging the drilling rig, so it could be activated remotely.
Fishermen, who are watching their livelihoods destroyed by the spreading oil slick, have been asking why the retaining booms that are supposed to hold back the oil were deployed so late and in too widely spread an area, while some environmental campaigners have complained that they are being kept away from the coastline as BP picks its own contractors to deal with the oil as it washes ashore.
The choppy weather in the Gulf of Mexico has been pushing a mixture of oil and seawater over the hundreds of thousands of feet of floating booms which have been deployed over the past few days in an attempt to corral the oil so it can be contained and burnt.
The weather forecast for later this week is fairer and the hope is that some of the oil could be burnt off towards the weekend, but by then thousands of gallons will have hit the shoreline. ...
David Cameron's close adviser, Andy Coulson, tonight came under fresh attack after the disclosure of new evidence of the News of the World's role in the illegal interception of the royal household's voicemail messages during his time as editor.
The evidence is in the outline for a book planned by the private investigator at the centre of the affair, Glenn Mulcaire. The outline was written before Mulcaire signed a deal with the paper which stopped the book's publication and gagged him from speaking about the scandal.
The outline directly contradicts the News of the World's claim that Mulcaire broke the law without the paper's knowledge or consent. It describes an unnamed editorial executive at the News of the World commissioning Mulcaire to intercept the royal messages and claims that the paper pressed him to continue with the interceptions when he tried to stop.
It also refers to an unnamed person approaching him to "change his story", although it does not say whether this was an employee of the News of the World. Coulson has insisted that he does not remember any of his journalists being involved in breaking the law.
Labour's business secretary, Peter Mandelson, said: "The idea that as editor of the News of the World Andy Coulson was not aware of this activity beggars belief. If the election in less than a week goes the Tories' way, we would see this man taking on a major role in the British government. People should think long and hard before considering voting Conservative."
The Lib Dems' home affairs spokesman, Chris Huhne, said: "Coulson is in this up to his neck and it is shocking that Cameron continues to employ someone with his history of presiding over skulduggery. It was always an astonishing lapse of judgment to hire someone who was either complicit in criminal activity or the most incompetent editor in Fleet Street's modern history." ...
The evidence is in the outline for a book planned by the private investigator at the centre of the affair, Glenn Mulcaire. The outline was written before Mulcaire signed a deal with the paper which stopped the book's publication and gagged him from speaking about the scandal.
The outline directly contradicts the News of the World's claim that Mulcaire broke the law without the paper's knowledge or consent. It describes an unnamed editorial executive at the News of the World commissioning Mulcaire to intercept the royal messages and claims that the paper pressed him to continue with the interceptions when he tried to stop.
It also refers to an unnamed person approaching him to "change his story", although it does not say whether this was an employee of the News of the World. Coulson has insisted that he does not remember any of his journalists being involved in breaking the law.
Labour's business secretary, Peter Mandelson, said: "The idea that as editor of the News of the World Andy Coulson was not aware of this activity beggars belief. If the election in less than a week goes the Tories' way, we would see this man taking on a major role in the British government. People should think long and hard before considering voting Conservative."
The Lib Dems' home affairs spokesman, Chris Huhne, said: "Coulson is in this up to his neck and it is shocking that Cameron continues to employ someone with his history of presiding over skulduggery. It was always an astonishing lapse of judgment to hire someone who was either complicit in criminal activity or the most incompetent editor in Fleet Street's modern history." ...
Federal agents and police detectives arrested a Connecticut man, a naturalized United States citizen from Pakistan, early Tuesday in connection with the failed Times Square car bombing, according to people briefed on the investigation.
The man, Faisal Shahzad, was believed to have recently bought the 1993 Nissan Pathfinder that was found loaded with gasoline, propane, fireworks and fertilizer in the heart of Times Square, one of the people briefed on the development said.
Mr. Shahzad was taken into custody at Kennedy Airport, apparently trying to flee, one of the people said. Charges against Mr. Shahzad, who had returned recently from a trip to Pakistan, were not announced.
The authorities began focusing on him after they tracked the vehicle to its previously registered owner in Bridgeport, Conn., who had advertised it for sale on several Web sites. He paid cash, and the sale was handled without any formal paperwork.
The former owner told investigators that it appeared the buyer was of Middle Eastern or Hispanic descent, but could not recall his name. It was unclear how agents from the Joint Terrorist Task Force identified him. Federal authorities provided few details on Monday night about the arrest, the suspect or the scope of any conspiracy in the failed attack.
The authorities have been exploring whether the man or others who might have been involved in the attempted bombing had been in contact with people or groups overseas, according to federal officials. ...
The man, Faisal Shahzad, was believed to have recently bought the 1993 Nissan Pathfinder that was found loaded with gasoline, propane, fireworks and fertilizer in the heart of Times Square, one of the people briefed on the development said.
Mr. Shahzad was taken into custody at Kennedy Airport, apparently trying to flee, one of the people said. Charges against Mr. Shahzad, who had returned recently from a trip to Pakistan, were not announced.
The authorities began focusing on him after they tracked the vehicle to its previously registered owner in Bridgeport, Conn., who had advertised it for sale on several Web sites. He paid cash, and the sale was handled without any formal paperwork.
The former owner told investigators that it appeared the buyer was of Middle Eastern or Hispanic descent, but could not recall his name. It was unclear how agents from the Joint Terrorist Task Force identified him. Federal authorities provided few details on Monday night about the arrest, the suspect or the scope of any conspiracy in the failed attack.
The authorities have been exploring whether the man or others who might have been involved in the attempted bombing had been in contact with people or groups overseas, according to federal officials. ...
Times Square car bomb - an eye witness account
Emma Brockes was in the heart of Manhattan's theatre district shortly after a car bomb made of explosives and petrol was set off, but failed to ignite
Emma Brockes in New York
Sunday 2 May 2010
At 7.30pm on Saturday night, crowds in New York's Times Square were irritated by a police cordon sealing off the street with the highest density of theatres in the city: west 45th, between Eighth avenue and Broadway, home to five productions including the two biggest shows in town, The Lion King and Billy Elliot.
Tourists shuffled like buffalo to find alternatives routes, while impatient New Yorkers slipped, cursing, between them. It seemed like a routine disruption even when, at the western end of 46th street, people crept under the barrier and a policeman bore down on them bellowing with what in retrospect sounded like panic: "People! There is a car on fire and it might explode. Unless you want to get hurt, I suggest you move. NOW." In classic New York style people scowled and muttered "jerk".
What turned out to be a failed car bomb caused major disruption at the heart of Broadway on Saturday night, but by this morning New Yorkers and their guests were shrugging the whole thing off with reflex bravado.
"See these buildings?" said a man idling beneath a giant poster of Al Pacino. "They're still standing."
The tagline on the Pacino poster read: "Is this the face of a killer?"
The bomb was discovered in a Nissan SUV by a street vendor who saw smoke seeping out and alerted a mounted policeman. The city's mayor, Michael Bloomberg, described it as an "amateurish effort" and by this morning, after the area had been evacuated and the car towed and destroyed at a firing range in the Bronx, Times Square was fully operational again. ...
Emma Brockes was in the heart of Manhattan's theatre district shortly after a car bomb made of explosives and petrol was set off, but failed to ignite
Emma Brockes in New York
Sunday 2 May 2010
At 7.30pm on Saturday night, crowds in New York's Times Square were irritated by a police cordon sealing off the street with the highest density of theatres in the city: west 45th, between Eighth avenue and Broadway, home to five productions including the two biggest shows in town, The Lion King and Billy Elliot.
Tourists shuffled like buffalo to find alternatives routes, while impatient New Yorkers slipped, cursing, between them. It seemed like a routine disruption even when, at the western end of 46th street, people crept under the barrier and a policeman bore down on them bellowing with what in retrospect sounded like panic: "People! There is a car on fire and it might explode. Unless you want to get hurt, I suggest you move. NOW." In classic New York style people scowled and muttered "jerk".
What turned out to be a failed car bomb caused major disruption at the heart of Broadway on Saturday night, but by this morning New Yorkers and their guests were shrugging the whole thing off with reflex bravado.
"See these buildings?" said a man idling beneath a giant poster of Al Pacino. "They're still standing."
The tagline on the Pacino poster read: "Is this the face of a killer?"
The bomb was discovered in a Nissan SUV by a street vendor who saw smoke seeping out and alerted a mounted policeman. The city's mayor, Michael Bloomberg, described it as an "amateurish effort" and by this morning, after the area had been evacuated and the car towed and destroyed at a firing range in the Bronx, Times Square was fully operational again. ...
Police investigating the failed car bomb attack on Times Square in New York are focusing their attention on surveillance footage of a white man seen shedding his shirt near the SUV where the bomb was found.
The unidientified man, who appears to be in his 40s, is seen on the footage looking furtively over his shoulder and removing a dark shirt, revealing a red one underneath. The man then stuffs the dark shirt into a bag, officials said.
Investigators are also examining eight bags of a non-explosive grade of fertiliser which was found in a metal rifle cabinet amongst the other materials in the Nissan Pathfinder, including gasoline, propane, firecracks and alarm clocks. ...
The unidientified man, who appears to be in his 40s, is seen on the footage looking furtively over his shoulder and removing a dark shirt, revealing a red one underneath. The man then stuffs the dark shirt into a bag, officials said.
Investigators are also examining eight bags of a non-explosive grade of fertiliser which was found in a metal rifle cabinet amongst the other materials in the Nissan Pathfinder, including gasoline, propane, firecracks and alarm clocks. ...
A nationwide hunt was under way last night for would-be bombers who left a car loaded with explosives and petrol in the middle of Times Square in Manhattan.
"We were lucky it didn't detonate," the New York police commissioner, Raymond Kelly, told a press conference. "In my judgment, it would have caused casualties, a significant fireball. I'm told the vehicle would have been cut in half."
The bomb failed to go off correctly and was discovered by two T-shirt vendors.
The device was safely defused by bomb squad experts wearing protective suits and controlling a robot, giving rise to dramatic scenes in an area packed with theatres, bars and restaurants and also home to one of the US military's most famous recruiting stations.
The Pakistan Taliban allegedly claimed responsibility on a jihadist website. But Kelly said: "We have no evidence to support this claim."
Instead, the focus is on video footage showing a white man in his 40s half a block from the scene. The surveillance footage shows him walking away, looking back at the car and shedding a dark shirt to reveal a red one underneath.
There is no doubt that Times Square is a high-profile target. The military recruitment station has been threatened before, including by a hooded cyclist who planted a small bomb there in March 2008. No one was ever caught for that attack.
The latest bomb was left close to the headquarters of Viacom, which owns Comedy Central. The TV channel recently aired a controversial episode of South Park that angered some American Muslims by depicting the prophet Muhammad in a bear costume.
Investigators, including the New York police department, the FBI and US intelligence services, have been left a range of potential clues to help identify whoever was behind the bomb. ...
"We were lucky it didn't detonate," the New York police commissioner, Raymond Kelly, told a press conference. "In my judgment, it would have caused casualties, a significant fireball. I'm told the vehicle would have been cut in half."
The bomb failed to go off correctly and was discovered by two T-shirt vendors.
The device was safely defused by bomb squad experts wearing protective suits and controlling a robot, giving rise to dramatic scenes in an area packed with theatres, bars and restaurants and also home to one of the US military's most famous recruiting stations.
The Pakistan Taliban allegedly claimed responsibility on a jihadist website. But Kelly said: "We have no evidence to support this claim."
Instead, the focus is on video footage showing a white man in his 40s half a block from the scene. The surveillance footage shows him walking away, looking back at the car and shedding a dark shirt to reveal a red one underneath.
There is no doubt that Times Square is a high-profile target. The military recruitment station has been threatened before, including by a hooded cyclist who planted a small bomb there in March 2008. No one was ever caught for that attack.
The latest bomb was left close to the headquarters of Viacom, which owns Comedy Central. The TV channel recently aired a controversial episode of South Park that angered some American Muslims by depicting the prophet Muhammad in a bear costume.
Investigators, including the New York police department, the FBI and US intelligence services, have been left a range of potential clues to help identify whoever was behind the bomb. ...
Police have defused a car bomb in New York's Times Square which sparked a mass evacuation of the area on Saturday evening.
Armed police were called at 6.30 pm local time (2230) GMT after a t-shirt vendor noticed an unoccupied car on Times Square and alerted a mounted New York police officer who smelled gunpower and saw smoke emerging from the back of the dark green Nissan Pathfinder said New York Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly .
Mr Kelly told reporters the car, which was left on 45th Street, just off 7th Avenue, contained three propane tanks, consumer-grade fireworks, two filled 5-gallon (19-litre) gasoline containers, and two clocks with batteries, electrical wire and other components. He said a black metal box resembling a gun locker was also recovered.
The bomb threatened a "very deadly event," said New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who rushed back to New York from a White House Correspondents' dinner in Washington. However he described the wiring connected to the device as "amateurish." ...
Armed police were called at 6.30 pm local time (2230) GMT after a t-shirt vendor noticed an unoccupied car on Times Square and alerted a mounted New York police officer who smelled gunpower and saw smoke emerging from the back of the dark green Nissan Pathfinder said New York Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly .
Mr Kelly told reporters the car, which was left on 45th Street, just off 7th Avenue, contained three propane tanks, consumer-grade fireworks, two filled 5-gallon (19-litre) gasoline containers, and two clocks with batteries, electrical wire and other components. He said a black metal box resembling a gun locker was also recovered.
The bomb threatened a "very deadly event," said New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who rushed back to New York from a White House Correspondents' dinner in Washington. However he described the wiring connected to the device as "amateurish." ...
NPR and other outlets are reporting today that there seems to be a federal criminal probe into allegations of bribery by Massey Energy - Don Blankenship's company, the one involved in last month's horrible disaster - of federal mine-regulating officials.
Ken Ward, who writes the excellent Coal Tattoo blog for the Charleston (WV) Gazette, offers the best summary here. It's early on this story and still a bit fuzzy, but it's something we shall keep an eye on.
When last we spoke of this general matter, the subject of why MSHA, the mine safety and health administration, didn't do more to prevent such disasters was the topic of lots of down-thread discussion. Well, one answer might be that some officials took bribes. But let me take pains to say that we're a long long way from having that established as a fact, or even officially alleged.
Even so, here's another reason, from the AP:
The nation's top mine safety official told lawmakers earlier this week that the government will start going directly to federal court to shut down mines that make a habit of ignoring safety.
Joe Main, director of the Mine Safety and Health Administration, said his agency has had the power to seek federal injunctions for years, but has never tried to use it.
"I can't speak for past administrations," Main said during the Senate's first hearing on the accident that killed 29 men. "We're going to use it."
Main also called for a slew of other legal and regulatory reforms to beef up safety enforcement in the wake of this month's deadly explosion at a mine in West Virginia. ...
Ken Ward, who writes the excellent Coal Tattoo blog for the Charleston (WV) Gazette, offers the best summary here. It's early on this story and still a bit fuzzy, but it's something we shall keep an eye on.
When last we spoke of this general matter, the subject of why MSHA, the mine safety and health administration, didn't do more to prevent such disasters was the topic of lots of down-thread discussion. Well, one answer might be that some officials took bribes. But let me take pains to say that we're a long long way from having that established as a fact, or even officially alleged.
Even so, here's another reason, from the AP:
The nation's top mine safety official told lawmakers earlier this week that the government will start going directly to federal court to shut down mines that make a habit of ignoring safety.
Joe Main, director of the Mine Safety and Health Administration, said his agency has had the power to seek federal injunctions for years, but has never tried to use it.
"I can't speak for past administrations," Main said during the Senate's first hearing on the accident that killed 29 men. "We're going to use it."
Main also called for a slew of other legal and regulatory reforms to beef up safety enforcement in the wake of this month's deadly explosion at a mine in West Virginia. ...
A voluntary recall has been issued for more than 40 over-the-counter drugs for children, including Tylenol and Motrin, because they don't meet quality standards.
"This recall is not being undertaken on the basis of adverse medical events," McNeil Consumer Healthcare said in a statement Friday. "However, as a precautionary measure, parents and caregivers should not administer these products to their children."
"Some products in the recall may have a higher concentration of active ingredient than specified while others may have inactive ingredients that don't meet testing requirements, the company said.
The company said it issued the recall after consulting with the Food and Drug Administration. The affected brands include: Tylenol Infants' Drops, Children's Tylenol Suspensions, Children's Tylenol Plus Suspensions, Motrin Infant Drops, Children's Motrin Suspensions, Children's Zyrtec Liquids in Bottles and Children's Benadryl Allergy Liquids in Bottles.
The drugs were made in the United States and distributed to Canada, the Dominican Republic, Dubai, Fiji, Guam, Guatemala, Jamaica, Puerto Rico, Panama, Trinidad & Tobago and Kuwait.
More details are available by calling 1-888-222-6036 or visiting McNeil's Web site.
"This recall is not being undertaken on the basis of adverse medical events," McNeil Consumer Healthcare said in a statement Friday. "However, as a precautionary measure, parents and caregivers should not administer these products to their children."
"Some products in the recall may have a higher concentration of active ingredient than specified while others may have inactive ingredients that don't meet testing requirements, the company said.
The company said it issued the recall after consulting with the Food and Drug Administration. The affected brands include: Tylenol Infants' Drops, Children's Tylenol Suspensions, Children's Tylenol Plus Suspensions, Motrin Infant Drops, Children's Motrin Suspensions, Children's Zyrtec Liquids in Bottles and Children's Benadryl Allergy Liquids in Bottles.
The drugs were made in the United States and distributed to Canada, the Dominican Republic, Dubai, Fiji, Guam, Guatemala, Jamaica, Puerto Rico, Panama, Trinidad & Tobago and Kuwait.
More details are available by calling 1-888-222-6036 or visiting McNeil's Web site.
The Obama administration has banned new oil drilling off the US coast as the first streaks of the huge and growing spill from a BP rig in the Gulf of Mexico lapped the Louisiana shore today.
A decision taken last month to ease a moratorium on new offshore oil and gas drilling was being at least temporarily reversed while the cause of last week's blowout on the Deepwater Horizon rig is investigated, according to White House adviser David Axelrod. Eleven workers are missing, presumed dead.
Environmentalists say the estimated 5,000 barrels of oil a day pouring into the sea threaten to destroy large areas of fragile wetlands, kill marine life and tens of thousands of birds, and could prove to be an environmental disaster as big as the Exxon Valdez spill 21 years ago.
The US navy and air force are now directly involved in efforts to contain the slick as the weather service warned high winds and waves were likely to push the oil deep into rivers and marshes along the Louisiana coast. US coast guard crews were patrolling the coast in search of evidence that the slick had hit the shore. Officials reported small fingers of oil already reaching the shore as a forerunner to much thicker deposits several hours behind. ...
A decision taken last month to ease a moratorium on new offshore oil and gas drilling was being at least temporarily reversed while the cause of last week's blowout on the Deepwater Horizon rig is investigated, according to White House adviser David Axelrod. Eleven workers are missing, presumed dead.
Environmentalists say the estimated 5,000 barrels of oil a day pouring into the sea threaten to destroy large areas of fragile wetlands, kill marine life and tens of thousands of birds, and could prove to be an environmental disaster as big as the Exxon Valdez spill 21 years ago.
The US navy and air force are now directly involved in efforts to contain the slick as the weather service warned high winds and waves were likely to push the oil deep into rivers and marshes along the Louisiana coast. US coast guard crews were patrolling the coast in search of evidence that the slick had hit the shore. Officials reported small fingers of oil already reaching the shore as a forerunner to much thicker deposits several hours behind. ...
Sixty Russian officials should be banned from the United States over the torture and death in prison of a lawyer who exposed a $230 million (£149 million) fraud by corrupt policemen, a powerful US government body has urged Hillary Clinton, the Secretary of State.
Senator Benjamin Cardin, the chairman of the Commission on Security and Co-operation in Europe, sent Mrs Clinton a list of security service agents, police, prosecutors, judges, tax officials and prison wardens who he said were implicated in the killing of Sergei Magnitsky.
The request threatens to cause a row between the Kremlin and the Obama Administration.
The list includes Viktor Grin, Russia’s Deputy General Prosecutor Viktor Grin, Aleksei Anichin, the Interior Ministry’s chief investigator Alexei Anichin, and 11 senior judges.
Mr Magnitsky, 37, died in November in Matrosskaya Tishina prison, Moscow, where he was held in pre-trial detention for almost a year for an alleged tax crime. He was refused medical treatment despite serious illnesses and denied access to his family.
Mr Magnitsky, a lawyer for the US firm Firestone Duncan, represented Hermitage Capital, a London-based hedge fund, in a battle with Kremlin officials allegedly involved in the theft of companies belonging to Hermitage and HSBC.
He was arrested on the orders of a group of Interior Ministry officers whom he had accused of fraudulently reclaiming $230 million in state taxes paid by Hermitage. ...
Senator Benjamin Cardin, the chairman of the Commission on Security and Co-operation in Europe, sent Mrs Clinton a list of security service agents, police, prosecutors, judges, tax officials and prison wardens who he said were implicated in the killing of Sergei Magnitsky.
The request threatens to cause a row between the Kremlin and the Obama Administration.
The list includes Viktor Grin, Russia’s Deputy General Prosecutor Viktor Grin, Aleksei Anichin, the Interior Ministry’s chief investigator Alexei Anichin, and 11 senior judges.
Mr Magnitsky, 37, died in November in Matrosskaya Tishina prison, Moscow, where he was held in pre-trial detention for almost a year for an alleged tax crime. He was refused medical treatment despite serious illnesses and denied access to his family.
Mr Magnitsky, a lawyer for the US firm Firestone Duncan, represented Hermitage Capital, a London-based hedge fund, in a battle with Kremlin officials allegedly involved in the theft of companies belonging to Hermitage and HSBC.
He was arrested on the orders of a group of Interior Ministry officers whom he had accused of fraudulently reclaiming $230 million in state taxes paid by Hermitage. ...
A pair of security researchers has discovered a number of new attack vectors that give them the ability to not only locate any GSM mobile handset anywhere in the world, but also find the name of the subscriber associated with virtually any cellular phone number, raising serious privacy and security concerns for customers of all of the major mobile providers.
The research, which Don Bailey of iSec Partners and idndependent security researcher Nick DePetrillo will present at the SOURCE conference in Boston today, builds upon earlier work on geolocation of GSM handsets and exposes a number of fundamental weaknesses in the architecture of mobile providers' networks. However, these are not software or hardware vulnerabilities that can be patched or mitigated with workarounds. Rather, they are features and functionality built into the networks and back-end systems that Bailey and DePetrillo have found ways to abuse in order to discover information that most cell users assume is private and known only to the cell provider.
"I haven't seen anything out there anywhere on this. Who owns a cell number isn't private," DePetrillo said. "If you go through entire number ranges and blocks, you'll get numbers for celebrities, executives, anyone. You can then track them easily using the geolocation information."
At the heart of the work the pair did is their ability to access the caller ID database mobile providers use to match the names of subscribers to mobile numbers. This is the same database that contains the subscriber information for landlines, but most mobile users don't realize that their data is entered into this repository, Bailey said. ...
Ta much, dear MSiegel
The research, which Don Bailey of iSec Partners and idndependent security researcher Nick DePetrillo will present at the SOURCE conference in Boston today, builds upon earlier work on geolocation of GSM handsets and exposes a number of fundamental weaknesses in the architecture of mobile providers' networks. However, these are not software or hardware vulnerabilities that can be patched or mitigated with workarounds. Rather, they are features and functionality built into the networks and back-end systems that Bailey and DePetrillo have found ways to abuse in order to discover information that most cell users assume is private and known only to the cell provider.
"I haven't seen anything out there anywhere on this. Who owns a cell number isn't private," DePetrillo said. "If you go through entire number ranges and blocks, you'll get numbers for celebrities, executives, anyone. You can then track them easily using the geolocation information."
At the heart of the work the pair did is their ability to access the caller ID database mobile providers use to match the names of subscribers to mobile numbers. This is the same database that contains the subscriber information for landlines, but most mobile users don't realize that their data is entered into this repository, Bailey said. ...
Ta much, dear MSiegel
... In a hefty dossier circulated to media, the bank produced charts showing it never controlled more than 6% of the market for residential mortgage-backed securities or 9% of trade in collateralised debt obligations (CDOs). Mortgage-related products never exceeded 2% of group revenues between 2003-2008, the bank said. It denied engaging "in some type of massive 'bet' against our clients".
Correspondence in the dossier shows a discussion raging within the firm about appropriate exposure and the direction of the housing market. At one point in late 2006, a Goldman banker emailed colleagues bemoaning: "Sub-prime market getting hit hard – hedge funds hitting street, Wall Street Journal article. At this point we are down $20m today."
In another exchange, one trading executive writes that "the market in general underestimated how bad it could get", continuing: "While undoubtedly there will be some continued spillover, I'm not so convinced this is a total death spiral. In fact we may have terrific opportunities."
For Goldman's 30,500 staff worldwide, the next few weeks are crucial. Insiders say clients, so far, have been supportive in spite of the SEC's accusations that Goldman misled investors with Abacus, a mortgage derivative allegedly designed to fail. If the SEC's prosecution is successful, Goldman risks huge damage to its reputation and could suffer an exodus of customers and staff.
The bank's defence has been hindered by the release of a batch of emails sent by Fabrice Tourre, who refers to himself as the 'Fabulous Fab', to his girlfriend, Marine Serres. In the emails, the originator of the Abacus deal intersperses expressions of love and affection with banter about CDOs. In the messages, Tourre jokes that he has been selling Abacus to "widows and orphans" at an airport and he is scornful about the financial package, describing it as "a product of pure intellectual masturbation" that has "no purpose" and is "absolutely conceptual".
Correspondence in the dossier shows a discussion raging within the firm about appropriate exposure and the direction of the housing market. At one point in late 2006, a Goldman banker emailed colleagues bemoaning: "Sub-prime market getting hit hard – hedge funds hitting street, Wall Street Journal article. At this point we are down $20m today."
In another exchange, one trading executive writes that "the market in general underestimated how bad it could get", continuing: "While undoubtedly there will be some continued spillover, I'm not so convinced this is a total death spiral. In fact we may have terrific opportunities."
For Goldman's 30,500 staff worldwide, the next few weeks are crucial. Insiders say clients, so far, have been supportive in spite of the SEC's accusations that Goldman misled investors with Abacus, a mortgage derivative allegedly designed to fail. If the SEC's prosecution is successful, Goldman risks huge damage to its reputation and could suffer an exodus of customers and staff.
The bank's defence has been hindered by the release of a batch of emails sent by Fabrice Tourre, who refers to himself as the 'Fabulous Fab', to his girlfriend, Marine Serres. In the emails, the originator of the Abacus deal intersperses expressions of love and affection with banter about CDOs. In the messages, Tourre jokes that he has been selling Abacus to "widows and orphans" at an airport and he is scornful about the financial package, describing it as "a product of pure intellectual masturbation" that has "no purpose" and is "absolutely conceptual".
FABRICE TOURRE, the 31-year-old trader at the centre of the Goldman Sachs fraud allegations, dismissed the complex debt products he created for the bank as “pure intellectual masturbation”.
In a series of damaging emails released yesterday, Tourre also compared the products to a “Frankenstein” monster that had “turned against his own inventor”.
Other emails that emerged yesterday showed Lloyd Blankfein, Goldman’s chief executive, boasting about the money the bank made from the housing market collapse. “Of course we didn’t dodge the mortgage mess,” Blankfein wrote in November 2007. “We lost money, then made more than we lost because of shorts (bets against housing).”
The Blankfein emails were released by a Senate committee that will take evidence from him and Tourre this week. The committee is investigation the firm’s role in selling sub-prime mortgage products. The probe has been triggered by a lawsuit from the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) that alleges Goldman defrauded investors of $1 billion (£650m).
Senator Carl Levin, the committee’s chairman, described the bank and its Wall Street peers yesterday as “self-interested promoters of risky and complex financial schemes that helped trigger the crisis”.
Levin also accused the bank of making “enormous” profits by betting that house prices would fall — a claim rejected by Goldman. ...
In a series of damaging emails released yesterday, Tourre also compared the products to a “Frankenstein” monster that had “turned against his own inventor”.
Other emails that emerged yesterday showed Lloyd Blankfein, Goldman’s chief executive, boasting about the money the bank made from the housing market collapse. “Of course we didn’t dodge the mortgage mess,” Blankfein wrote in November 2007. “We lost money, then made more than we lost because of shorts (bets against housing).”
The Blankfein emails were released by a Senate committee that will take evidence from him and Tourre this week. The committee is investigation the firm’s role in selling sub-prime mortgage products. The probe has been triggered by a lawsuit from the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) that alleges Goldman defrauded investors of $1 billion (£650m).
Senator Carl Levin, the committee’s chairman, described the bank and its Wall Street peers yesterday as “self-interested promoters of risky and complex financial schemes that helped trigger the crisis”.
Levin also accused the bank of making “enormous” profits by betting that house prices would fall — a claim rejected by Goldman. ...
The Tories' chief spin doctor, Andy Coulson, faces more awkward questions about a phone-hacking scandal at the News of the World during his time as editor. The Observer understands that a leading football agent has launched a legal action alleging that his phone was hacked by private investigators working with the newspaper's journalists while Coulson was in charge.
More than 10 MPs and at least one former football star, ex-England midfielder Paul Gascoigne, are also in discussions with lawyers looking to bring similar cases against the newspaper's owner, News Group Newspapers (NGN), part of Rupert Murdoch's empire. The pending legal action will severely embarrass Coulson who, as director of communications and planning for the Conservative party, will wield significant influence if it comes to power after the election.
Sky Andrew, who represents Arsenal defender Sol Campbell and has acted on behalf of former Liverpool player Jermaine Pennant and Tottenham striker Jermain Defoe, issued proceedings last week. Andrew's move comes just weeks after the newspaper agreed to pay more than £1m to PR agent Max Clifford, who dropped an action in which he alleged that his voicemail messages had been intercepted.
A similar case involving Gordon Taylor, the former chief executive of the Professional Footballers' Association, was settled out of court in 2008 with a £700,000 payout.
Labour has been quick to use Coulson's past to embarrass David Cameron. Last week Lord Mandelson, Labour's election strategist, blamed Coulson for a "dirty tricks" campaign waged in some newspapers against the Liberal Democrat leader, Nick Clegg.
"This is pure Andy Coulson-style News of the World territory turned into political form," Mandelson said. "It is cheap and rather squalid. If a Tory campaign is subcontracted to someone like Andy Coulson, it is no surprise that things like this are going to appear on the front pages of our newspapers." ...
More than 10 MPs and at least one former football star, ex-England midfielder Paul Gascoigne, are also in discussions with lawyers looking to bring similar cases against the newspaper's owner, News Group Newspapers (NGN), part of Rupert Murdoch's empire. The pending legal action will severely embarrass Coulson who, as director of communications and planning for the Conservative party, will wield significant influence if it comes to power after the election.
Sky Andrew, who represents Arsenal defender Sol Campbell and has acted on behalf of former Liverpool player Jermaine Pennant and Tottenham striker Jermain Defoe, issued proceedings last week. Andrew's move comes just weeks after the newspaper agreed to pay more than £1m to PR agent Max Clifford, who dropped an action in which he alleged that his voicemail messages had been intercepted.
A similar case involving Gordon Taylor, the former chief executive of the Professional Footballers' Association, was settled out of court in 2008 with a £700,000 payout.
Labour has been quick to use Coulson's past to embarrass David Cameron. Last week Lord Mandelson, Labour's election strategist, blamed Coulson for a "dirty tricks" campaign waged in some newspapers against the Liberal Democrat leader, Nick Clegg.
"This is pure Andy Coulson-style News of the World territory turned into political form," Mandelson said. "It is cheap and rather squalid. If a Tory campaign is subcontracted to someone like Andy Coulson, it is no surprise that things like this are going to appear on the front pages of our newspapers." ...
Google engineering gaggle flees Facebook
'When I complain about privacy, I use Google Buzz'
By Cade Metz in San Francisco
23rd April 2010
A gaggle of Google engineers have expressed their displeasure with Facebook's latest effort to share your data with third-party sites, and many have gone so far as to deactivate their accounts.
This includes the Delphic Oracle of the SEO world, Matt Cutts, who announced his Facebook deactivation with a post to Twitter. Cutts didn't say why he deactivated, but the move came just hours after Facebook introduced an "instant personalization" thingy that automatically feeds your Facebook profile data to certain third-party sites when you - or your Facebook "friends" - pay a visit.
"When you and your friends visit an instantly personalized site, the partner can use your public Facebook information, which includes your name, profile picture, gender, and connections," Facebook says. Facebook displays a banner across the top of the website when this happens, but the onus is on the user to opt-out. And we all know that the average user isn't exactly aware of what's going on. ...
'When I complain about privacy, I use Google Buzz'
By Cade Metz in San Francisco
23rd April 2010
A gaggle of Google engineers have expressed their displeasure with Facebook's latest effort to share your data with third-party sites, and many have gone so far as to deactivate their accounts.
This includes the Delphic Oracle of the SEO world, Matt Cutts, who announced his Facebook deactivation with a post to Twitter. Cutts didn't say why he deactivated, but the move came just hours after Facebook introduced an "instant personalization" thingy that automatically feeds your Facebook profile data to certain third-party sites when you - or your Facebook "friends" - pay a visit.
"When you and your friends visit an instantly personalized site, the partner can use your public Facebook information, which includes your name, profile picture, gender, and connections," Facebook says. Facebook displays a banner across the top of the website when this happens, but the onus is on the user to opt-out. And we all know that the average user isn't exactly aware of what's going on. ...
April 23, 2010
How Facebook is putting its users last
by Molly Wood
It's almost become a joke: Facebook makes a change to its privacy settings that opts you in to a bunch of scary stuff, the entire Internet flips out about it, it rolls back the change, and then a few months or years later, it makes the same or a very similar update, opting you in to it again. It would be funny, if it weren't getting so damned insulting.
Here's the latest. In the wake of its F8 conference the other day, Facebook rolled out a slew of changes aimed at transforming the Web into one giant conduit for Facebook data collection. And, as usual, the lofty discussions of a more "semantically aware" Web are based on the assumption that the Facebook-ized Web in question has access to most of the personal data of, hopefully, everyone in the world.
Let's be clear: I hold few illusions that Facebook's business strategy has ever been about anything other than building up a huge user base and then selling ads to those users. And obviously, the more targeted the ads, the easier it is to get people interested in them. But as the opportunities for data mining and targeting grow, Facebook faces a growing problem: how to get the data, if the users won't share it.
Facebook has created an unprecedented web (if you will) of connected users, with connections to other users who are more than willing to specify, in great detail, their interests, hobbies, and buying habits. The only problem? Those pesky private profiles.
Users tend to want to protect that data, at least a little bit, and at least some of it has to be "public," if it's to be used for the kind of behavioral targeting and, ultimately, ad targeting that really brings in the big bucks. And that is really the only explanation left for why Facebook has now gotten so shrilly insistent on you publicizing virtually every facet of your life. It's not about the user anymore, people (if it ever was).
Among other things, Facebook this week announced new "personalization" changes--the stickiest of them being Instant Personalization, which shares all your publicly available information (name, profile picture, gender, and "Connections," another new way for you to publicize all the things you're interested in) with, right now, three partner sites: Yelp, Pandora, and Docs.com. It's sticky because, as with most of Facebook's annoying new features, it's opt-out. ...
How Facebook is putting its users last
by Molly Wood
It's almost become a joke: Facebook makes a change to its privacy settings that opts you in to a bunch of scary stuff, the entire Internet flips out about it, it rolls back the change, and then a few months or years later, it makes the same or a very similar update, opting you in to it again. It would be funny, if it weren't getting so damned insulting.
Here's the latest. In the wake of its F8 conference the other day, Facebook rolled out a slew of changes aimed at transforming the Web into one giant conduit for Facebook data collection. And, as usual, the lofty discussions of a more "semantically aware" Web are based on the assumption that the Facebook-ized Web in question has access to most of the personal data of, hopefully, everyone in the world.
Let's be clear: I hold few illusions that Facebook's business strategy has ever been about anything other than building up a huge user base and then selling ads to those users. And obviously, the more targeted the ads, the easier it is to get people interested in them. But as the opportunities for data mining and targeting grow, Facebook faces a growing problem: how to get the data, if the users won't share it.
Facebook has created an unprecedented web (if you will) of connected users, with connections to other users who are more than willing to specify, in great detail, their interests, hobbies, and buying habits. The only problem? Those pesky private profiles.
Users tend to want to protect that data, at least a little bit, and at least some of it has to be "public," if it's to be used for the kind of behavioral targeting and, ultimately, ad targeting that really brings in the big bucks. And that is really the only explanation left for why Facebook has now gotten so shrilly insistent on you publicizing virtually every facet of your life. It's not about the user anymore, people (if it ever was).
Among other things, Facebook this week announced new "personalization" changes--the stickiest of them being Instant Personalization, which shares all your publicly available information (name, profile picture, gender, and "Connections," another new way for you to publicize all the things you're interested in) with, right now, three partner sites: Yelp, Pandora, and Docs.com. It's sticky because, as with most of Facebook's annoying new features, it's opt-out. ...
Facebook is about to get a lot more personal and dig deeper into you and your friends' likes, dislikes, and what you do online. This week at a Facebook developers conference called F8, the company pulled the curtain back on some very cool and soon to be available features.
What follows is an overview of what those new features are and how these features will impact your privacy. First, I'll start with five new Facebook features debuted this week. ...
What follows is an overview of what those new features are and how these features will impact your privacy. First, I'll start with five new Facebook features debuted this week. ...
Facebook's notable announcements this week range from a holistic vision of a seamless, semantically-enabled Web of human relationships, to a simple "Like" button, which will soon be omnipresent on the Internet. The moves are ambitious, giving even fast-moving rivals like Twitter reason to worry. Still, the simple fact that gets lost in the rush towards ubiquitous social connectivity is that Facebook users still don't know what they are sharing, with whom, or why it matters. In short: Facebook remains a privacy minefield. ...
A Belgian bishop has confessed to molesting a boy, becoming the first high-ranking prelate to be directly implicated in child sex abuse since the outbreak of the global scandal enveloping the Roman Catholic church.
Shortly after the Vatican announced that the pope had accepted his resignation , Roger Vangheluwe, the bishop of the Flemish city of Bruges, said that before he took over his diocese "and for a short time afterwards, I sexually abused a young boy close to me".
In a letter read to a press conference, the 73-year-old prelate, who was not present, said what he had done more than 25 years ago "marked the victim forever".
"The wound does not heal. Neither for me, nor for the victim," he said.
Vangheluwe, who was consecrated a bishop in 1985, said he had several times begged for the forgiveness of the victim and his family – apparently to no avail.
His voice shaking with emotion, the head of the Belgian church and archbishop of Brussels, André-Joseph Léonard, acknowledged that the affair would have a painful effect on Belgian Catholics. "We are aware of the crisis of confidence that this is going to engender in a number of people," he said. ...
Shortly after the Vatican announced that the pope had accepted his resignation , Roger Vangheluwe, the bishop of the Flemish city of Bruges, said that before he took over his diocese "and for a short time afterwards, I sexually abused a young boy close to me".
In a letter read to a press conference, the 73-year-old prelate, who was not present, said what he had done more than 25 years ago "marked the victim forever".
"The wound does not heal. Neither for me, nor for the victim," he said.
Vangheluwe, who was consecrated a bishop in 1985, said he had several times begged for the forgiveness of the victim and his family – apparently to no avail.
His voice shaking with emotion, the head of the Belgian church and archbishop of Brussels, André-Joseph Léonard, acknowledged that the affair would have a painful effect on Belgian Catholics. "We are aware of the crisis of confidence that this is going to engender in a number of people," he said. ...
April 23, 2010
Belgian politics in crisis as Prime Minister quits again
David Charter in Brussels
It is an unenviable record: quitting twice, forgetting the national anthem and insulting half the population by calling them lazy or stupid. Yesterday Europe’s most accident-prone Prime Minister threw in the towel for a third time, plunging Belgium into a fresh existential crisis.
Yves Leterme tendered his resignation to Albert II, King of the Belgians, after a key coalition partner walked out in a row over redrawing constituency boundaries. His latest Government had lasted a mere five months.
Mr Leterme still had a slender majority in parliament but had the support of only one of the Flemish parties from the Dutch-speaking north, along with three francophone parties in a country in which politics is sharply divided between the language communities.
The king was still pondering last night whether to let Mr Leterme, 49, go. The Prime Minister had quit twice before but returned in November when Herman Van Rompuy, his popular replacement, was appointed as the EU’s first President. Belgium — bitterly divided between Flanders and French-speaking Wallonia — is struggling to emerge from recession, facing a battle to cut its deficit and preparing to take over the rotating presidency of the EU on July 1.
In a statement, the Royal Palace called the crisis “inopportune” and said that it could harm Belgium’s role in Europe and at an international level. As the king met political leaders, about 15 members of the far-right Flemish Interest party hoisted a banner in the empty parliament chamber. It read: “Time For An Independent Flanders” — recalling the impasse over forming a government after the 2007 elections, when a nine-month period of wrangling led to open debate over whether the two bickering halves of Belgium should go their separate ways.
In 2006 Mr Leterme called French-speaking Belgians lazy or stupid for not learning Dutch. His first coalition was formed in March 2008, but after four months he offered to resign over the same issue that defeated him yesterday: how to redraw electoral boundaries in the towns of Halle and Vilvoorde, after a court ruling that the French-speaking residents should become part of Dutch-speaking constituencies. ...
Belgian politics in crisis as Prime Minister quits again
David Charter in Brussels
It is an unenviable record: quitting twice, forgetting the national anthem and insulting half the population by calling them lazy or stupid. Yesterday Europe’s most accident-prone Prime Minister threw in the towel for a third time, plunging Belgium into a fresh existential crisis.
Yves Leterme tendered his resignation to Albert II, King of the Belgians, after a key coalition partner walked out in a row over redrawing constituency boundaries. His latest Government had lasted a mere five months.
Mr Leterme still had a slender majority in parliament but had the support of only one of the Flemish parties from the Dutch-speaking north, along with three francophone parties in a country in which politics is sharply divided between the language communities.
The king was still pondering last night whether to let Mr Leterme, 49, go. The Prime Minister had quit twice before but returned in November when Herman Van Rompuy, his popular replacement, was appointed as the EU’s first President. Belgium — bitterly divided between Flanders and French-speaking Wallonia — is struggling to emerge from recession, facing a battle to cut its deficit and preparing to take over the rotating presidency of the EU on July 1.
In a statement, the Royal Palace called the crisis “inopportune” and said that it could harm Belgium’s role in Europe and at an international level. As the king met political leaders, about 15 members of the far-right Flemish Interest party hoisted a banner in the empty parliament chamber. It read: “Time For An Independent Flanders” — recalling the impasse over forming a government after the 2007 elections, when a nine-month period of wrangling led to open debate over whether the two bickering halves of Belgium should go their separate ways.
In 2006 Mr Leterme called French-speaking Belgians lazy or stupid for not learning Dutch. His first coalition was formed in March 2008, but after four months he offered to resign over the same issue that defeated him yesterday: how to redraw electoral boundaries in the towns of Halle and Vilvoorde, after a court ruling that the French-speaking residents should become part of Dutch-speaking constituencies. ...
April 23, 2010
Stranded Britons rescued by £1,000-a-week cruise liner Celebrity Eclipse
Graham Keeley aboard SS Celebrity Eclipse, Bilbao
As she sipped champagne at breakfast time in the lavish Moonlight Sonata banqueting suite, Caroline Birtill reflected on how her luck had changed.
Twenty-four hours earlier she had been stuck in Benalmadena on the Costa del Sol with no route home and four days late for work.
Now she was the first of 2,000 British passengers given a free trip home from Spain on the luxury cruise liner Celebrity Eclipse, in one of the biggest peace-time evacuations in recent years.
“The teachers at my school have been very sympathetic,” said Ms Birtill, 57, head of languages at a school in Nunthorpe, near Middlesbrough.
“They might not feel so sympathetic if they saw me now.”
Ms Birtill had paid £480 for a week on the Costa del Sol but was about to spend 28 hours sailing from Bilbao to Southampton on a 15-deck cruise ship, which normally costs around £1,000 per person for a week’s cruise.
With tens of thousands of Britons struggling to get home to Britain amid the travel chaos caused by the no-flight ban, the cruise liner’s US owners, Celebrity Cruises, stepped in to offer their five-star ship to take home.
The ship, which boasts its own lawn with real grass, three swimming pools, 13 bars, two penthouse suites, and a resident glass-blowing team, was about to embark on its maiden voyage with travel industry representatives earlier this week.
However, a last-minute rethink by bosses with an eye for a PR coup led to the mercy mission. The £500 million Celebrity Eclipse set sail from Southampton on Thursday and docked in Bilbao early today.
After all the passengers had boarded it set sail from Bilbao for Southampton just after 1pm GMT.
Most of the tired Britons boarding the ship had been bussed from southern Spain to the Basque port overnight for journey home. Some had been flown by tour operators to resorts in Spain from Mexico and Egypt. ...
Well done, those bosses with an eye for a PR coup!
Stranded Britons rescued by £1,000-a-week cruise liner Celebrity Eclipse
Graham Keeley aboard SS Celebrity Eclipse, Bilbao
As she sipped champagne at breakfast time in the lavish Moonlight Sonata banqueting suite, Caroline Birtill reflected on how her luck had changed.
Twenty-four hours earlier she had been stuck in Benalmadena on the Costa del Sol with no route home and four days late for work.
Now she was the first of 2,000 British passengers given a free trip home from Spain on the luxury cruise liner Celebrity Eclipse, in one of the biggest peace-time evacuations in recent years.
“The teachers at my school have been very sympathetic,” said Ms Birtill, 57, head of languages at a school in Nunthorpe, near Middlesbrough.
“They might not feel so sympathetic if they saw me now.”
Ms Birtill had paid £480 for a week on the Costa del Sol but was about to spend 28 hours sailing from Bilbao to Southampton on a 15-deck cruise ship, which normally costs around £1,000 per person for a week’s cruise.
With tens of thousands of Britons struggling to get home to Britain amid the travel chaos caused by the no-flight ban, the cruise liner’s US owners, Celebrity Cruises, stepped in to offer their five-star ship to take home.
The ship, which boasts its own lawn with real grass, three swimming pools, 13 bars, two penthouse suites, and a resident glass-blowing team, was about to embark on its maiden voyage with travel industry representatives earlier this week.
However, a last-minute rethink by bosses with an eye for a PR coup led to the mercy mission. The £500 million Celebrity Eclipse set sail from Southampton on Thursday and docked in Bilbao early today.
After all the passengers had boarded it set sail from Bilbao for Southampton just after 1pm GMT.
Most of the tired Britons boarding the ship had been bussed from southern Spain to the Basque port overnight for journey home. Some had been flown by tour operators to resorts in Spain from Mexico and Egypt. ...
Well done, those bosses with an eye for a PR coup!
Barely 6 1/2 months before the midterm elections, an internal investigation by the Republican National Committee has revealed that the organization is beset with questionable financial management and oversight and is spending more money courting top-dollar donors than it raises.
The investigation found that the Republican Party's national governing body is losing money on its major-donors' fundraising program -- spending $1.09 for each $1.00 raised, according to RNC members privy to the investigation's findings. It typically costs about 40 cents for every dollar raised from donors who give more than $1,000.
The investigation also found that the RNC has allowed employees to forge Finance Director Rob Bickhart's initials on expense-reimbursement request approvals, according to an RNC member who spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of retaliation. The RNC's top elected and appointed management have united in defense of the committee's practices. RNC Chairman Michael S. Steele can withhold or increase RNC contributions to a state party.
The Washington Times obtained a copy of a report on the investigation -- prepared by RNC Treasurer Randy Pullen -- that he sent to the 28-member RNC Executive Committee before a conference call hastily scheduled for Wednesday afternoon by Mr. Steele's office. It includes some of the findings.
RNC communications director Doug Heye disputed the fundraising figures when reached for comment about the report. He said year-to-date the RNC has received $2,649,586 from major donors at a cost of $1,832,642, netting the organization more than $800,000.
The report says several RNC Finance Department employees have been forging Mr. Bickhart's signature for reimbursement for the purchase of clothing, wine and entertainment expenses, including some that were labeled as office supplies.
One such expense was the nearly $2,000 that a Finance Department employee named Allison Myers -- since fired -- received for money spent by a friend and non-employee at an Los Angeles nightclub that featured a sexual-bondage theme. Many small and large RNC donors alike were not amused. ...
Ta much, dear Anneliese
The investigation found that the Republican Party's national governing body is losing money on its major-donors' fundraising program -- spending $1.09 for each $1.00 raised, according to RNC members privy to the investigation's findings. It typically costs about 40 cents for every dollar raised from donors who give more than $1,000.
The investigation also found that the RNC has allowed employees to forge Finance Director Rob Bickhart's initials on expense-reimbursement request approvals, according to an RNC member who spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of retaliation. The RNC's top elected and appointed management have united in defense of the committee's practices. RNC Chairman Michael S. Steele can withhold or increase RNC contributions to a state party.
The Washington Times obtained a copy of a report on the investigation -- prepared by RNC Treasurer Randy Pullen -- that he sent to the 28-member RNC Executive Committee before a conference call hastily scheduled for Wednesday afternoon by Mr. Steele's office. It includes some of the findings.
RNC communications director Doug Heye disputed the fundraising figures when reached for comment about the report. He said year-to-date the RNC has received $2,649,586 from major donors at a cost of $1,832,642, netting the organization more than $800,000.
The report says several RNC Finance Department employees have been forging Mr. Bickhart's signature for reimbursement for the purchase of clothing, wine and entertainment expenses, including some that were labeled as office supplies.
One such expense was the nearly $2,000 that a Finance Department employee named Allison Myers -- since fired -- received for money spent by a friend and non-employee at an Los Angeles nightclub that featured a sexual-bondage theme. Many small and large RNC donors alike were not amused. ...
Ta much, dear Anneliese
DUBLIN (Reuters) - Irish airline Ryanair said it would now reimburse passengers disrupted by the cloud of ash over Europe that grounded flights for a week but would not pay compensation beyond covering receipted expenses.
Europe's biggest low-cost carrier had previously said it would only consider requests for reimbursement up to the value of the air ticket.
It said in a statement on Thursday it would now comply with European Union regulations on the matter but it added, "Under (regulation) EU261 passengers are not entitled to compensation, as the closure of European airspace over the past seven days was beyond the control of European airlines."
Ryanair had been criticised by politicians and in newspapers for not committing to reimbursing passengers affected by last week's volcanic eruption in Iceland, but Chief Executive Michael O'Leary said political pressure had not swayed him.
"We have caved into the pressure in the newspapers and from our own customers. We've said we'll comply now, but it's not because of any pressure from some idiot politician," O'Leary told Sky News. ...
Europe's biggest low-cost carrier had previously said it would only consider requests for reimbursement up to the value of the air ticket.
It said in a statement on Thursday it would now comply with European Union regulations on the matter but it added, "Under (regulation) EU261 passengers are not entitled to compensation, as the closure of European airspace over the past seven days was beyond the control of European airlines."
Ryanair had been criticised by politicians and in newspapers for not committing to reimbursing passengers affected by last week's volcanic eruption in Iceland, but Chief Executive Michael O'Leary said political pressure had not swayed him.
"We have caved into the pressure in the newspapers and from our own customers. We've said we'll comply now, but it's not because of any pressure from some idiot politician," O'Leary told Sky News. ...
A US Muslim website has warned the creators of South Park they face death after once again depicting the Muslim prophet Mohammed in an episode last week.
Trey Parker and Matt Stone celebrated the 200th episode of South Park with a storyline in which the actor Tom Cruise launches a class lawsuit against the animation’s townsfolk, uniting every celebrity that has ever been insulted by the cartoon.
During the episode, Cruise agrees not to pursue his lawsuit if the South Park characters can hand Mohammed over to him. It transpires Cruise and the other celebrities, who include Bono, the Pope, Mel Gibson, and George Lucas leading a ball-gagged Harrison Ford on a leash, only want Mohammed for his "goo", which they believe will lend them invulnerability to public ridicule. Mohammed eventually appears, but dressed in a bear suit. ...
Trey Parker and Matt Stone celebrated the 200th episode of South Park with a storyline in which the actor Tom Cruise launches a class lawsuit against the animation’s townsfolk, uniting every celebrity that has ever been insulted by the cartoon.
During the episode, Cruise agrees not to pursue his lawsuit if the South Park characters can hand Mohammed over to him. It transpires Cruise and the other celebrities, who include Bono, the Pope, Mel Gibson, and George Lucas leading a ball-gagged Harrison Ford on a leash, only want Mohammed for his "goo", which they believe will lend them invulnerability to public ridicule. Mohammed eventually appears, but dressed in a bear suit. ...
Last week, in the Somali capital of Mogadishu, more than a dozen radio stations switched off their music in accordance with an ultimatum from Islamist rebels.
Apparently seeking to bolster their global-jihadist credentials, Somali extremist groups Hezb al-Islam and their sometime-allies al-Shebab decreed that all music - Arab, East African or Britney Spears - is "un-Islamic", and ordered all radio stations to cease playing it, in any form, or face "serious consequences".
Broadcasters were quick to devise light-hearted alternatives to their scheduled music, re-recording ads and replacing bridging jingles with the sounds of car horns, frogs croaking, roosters crowing and, with grim irony, gunfire. The situation was bizarre enough to earn the beleaguered Somalis a spoof-tribute on America's National Public Radio.
The bigger picture, though, is less amusing. Of the 16 FM broadcasters in Mogadishu, all but two complied. The proud hold-outs were Radio Mogadishu, run by Somalia's Transition Federal Government (TFG) and protected by African Union forces, and Radio Bar-Kulan, funded by the UN and broadcast from Kenya.
Notwithstanding radio's vital role in Somalia as the principal medium of both entertainment and news broadcasting, media bosses have said they had little choice but to toe the hardline. In the capital, predominantly controlled by Islamist extremist groups, this is, very unmetaphorically, a matter of life and death: nine journalists were killed in Mogadishu last year, several others held for ransom.
The National Somali Journalists Association quotes one radio editor as saying that, however discomfiting the Islamists' musical edict may be to their professional ethics, the reality was crystal clear: to deny the ban outright could mean the end of journalism altogether in the capital, and of many journalists. ...
Apparently seeking to bolster their global-jihadist credentials, Somali extremist groups Hezb al-Islam and their sometime-allies al-Shebab decreed that all music - Arab, East African or Britney Spears - is "un-Islamic", and ordered all radio stations to cease playing it, in any form, or face "serious consequences".
Broadcasters were quick to devise light-hearted alternatives to their scheduled music, re-recording ads and replacing bridging jingles with the sounds of car horns, frogs croaking, roosters crowing and, with grim irony, gunfire. The situation was bizarre enough to earn the beleaguered Somalis a spoof-tribute on America's National Public Radio.
The bigger picture, though, is less amusing. Of the 16 FM broadcasters in Mogadishu, all but two complied. The proud hold-outs were Radio Mogadishu, run by Somalia's Transition Federal Government (TFG) and protected by African Union forces, and Radio Bar-Kulan, funded by the UN and broadcast from Kenya.
Notwithstanding radio's vital role in Somalia as the principal medium of both entertainment and news broadcasting, media bosses have said they had little choice but to toe the hardline. In the capital, predominantly controlled by Islamist extremist groups, this is, very unmetaphorically, a matter of life and death: nine journalists were killed in Mogadishu last year, several others held for ransom.
The National Somali Journalists Association quotes one radio editor as saying that, however discomfiting the Islamists' musical edict may be to their professional ethics, the reality was crystal clear: to deny the ban outright could mean the end of journalism altogether in the capital, and of many journalists. ...
Enterprise customers of a widely used McAfee anti-virus product were in a world of hurt on Wednesday after an update caused large swaths of their machines to become completely inoperable.
The problem started around 2 pm GMT when McAfee pushed out DAT 5958 to users of VirusScan Enterprise. The virus definition falsely identifies a core Windows file as infected, quarantines it and then shuts down the machine. When restarted, the PCs are unable to load Windows, a glitch that mires them in an endless reboot cycle.
"We support customers' platforms, and it means we are currently unable to do that," said the head of infrastructure security for a worldwide IT firm who asked not to be identified because he's not authorized to speak to the press. "Basically, our engineers are currently unable to work."
In a statement, McAfee said the false positive "can result in moderate to significant performance issues" on machines running Windows XP service pack 3, and that the defective definition has been removed from download servers. The infrastructure security head said XP machines running SP 1 and SP 2 were also affected. ...
The problem started around 2 pm GMT when McAfee pushed out DAT 5958 to users of VirusScan Enterprise. The virus definition falsely identifies a core Windows file as infected, quarantines it and then shuts down the machine. When restarted, the PCs are unable to load Windows, a glitch that mires them in an endless reboot cycle.
"We support customers' platforms, and it means we are currently unable to do that," said the head of infrastructure security for a worldwide IT firm who asked not to be identified because he's not authorized to speak to the press. "Basically, our engineers are currently unable to work."
In a statement, McAfee said the false positive "can result in moderate to significant performance issues" on machines running Windows XP service pack 3, and that the defective definition has been removed from download servers. The infrastructure security head said XP machines running SP 1 and SP 2 were also affected. ...
How the Boston Globe exposed the abuse scandal that rocked the Catholic church
The tenacity of Boston Globe journalists in uncovering the scandal of widespread sexual abuse by priests led to the current crisis in the Catholic church. And there's more to come, as Jon Henley reports
Jon Henley
Wednesday 21 April 2010
In June 2001, Cardinal Bernard Law, archbishop of Boston, perhaps the most staunchly Catholic of all America's big cities, filed a routine court submission in response to a number of allegations contained in lawsuits brought against one of his former priests, Father John Geoghan.
At the time, sexual abuse of minors by Roman Catholic clerics was not a widespread topic of discussion, in the US or anywhere else. Cases would surface, and sometimes be quite extensively reported: in 1981, Father Donald Roemer pleaded guilty to child molestation in Los Angeles; in 1985, a Louisiana priest, Gilbert Gauthe, was convicted of similar offences against 11 boys. But they were seen, for the most part, as isolated incidents. There was no convincing evidence of any consistent pattern of clerical abuse, still less of a sustained attempt by the church to cover up such behaviour – by simply moving priests on without informing the authorities.
Cardinal Law's seemingly innocent court filing, though, was about to change that. Buried somewhere in it was the admission that when, in 1984, he had assigned Geoghan to St Julia's church in the Boston suburb of Weston, he had done so knowing that the priest had, in his previous parish, been accused of molesting seven boys from the same family.
With fresh allegations of abuse and cover-ups now surfacing almost daily, and calls in the UK for Pope Benedict to be arrested, something resembling the worldwide crisis facing the Catholic church would surely have happened sooner or later. But it is possible it would not be happening now, on such a large scale and with such potentially disastrous consequences for the church, had it not been for the work of a small group of journalists – the majority of them Catholic – from the Boston Globe newspaper, who were the first to spot Cardinal Law's startling admission. ...
The tenacity of Boston Globe journalists in uncovering the scandal of widespread sexual abuse by priests led to the current crisis in the Catholic church. And there's more to come, as Jon Henley reports
Jon Henley
Wednesday 21 April 2010
In June 2001, Cardinal Bernard Law, archbishop of Boston, perhaps the most staunchly Catholic of all America's big cities, filed a routine court submission in response to a number of allegations contained in lawsuits brought against one of his former priests, Father John Geoghan.
At the time, sexual abuse of minors by Roman Catholic clerics was not a widespread topic of discussion, in the US or anywhere else. Cases would surface, and sometimes be quite extensively reported: in 1981, Father Donald Roemer pleaded guilty to child molestation in Los Angeles; in 1985, a Louisiana priest, Gilbert Gauthe, was convicted of similar offences against 11 boys. But they were seen, for the most part, as isolated incidents. There was no convincing evidence of any consistent pattern of clerical abuse, still less of a sustained attempt by the church to cover up such behaviour – by simply moving priests on without informing the authorities.
Cardinal Law's seemingly innocent court filing, though, was about to change that. Buried somewhere in it was the admission that when, in 1984, he had assigned Geoghan to St Julia's church in the Boston suburb of Weston, he had done so knowing that the priest had, in his previous parish, been accused of molesting seven boys from the same family.
With fresh allegations of abuse and cover-ups now surfacing almost daily, and calls in the UK for Pope Benedict to be arrested, something resembling the worldwide crisis facing the Catholic church would surely have happened sooner or later. But it is possible it would not be happening now, on such a large scale and with such potentially disastrous consequences for the church, had it not been for the work of a small group of journalists – the majority of them Catholic – from the Boston Globe newspaper, who were the first to spot Cardinal Law's startling admission. ...
The budget airline Ryanair today sparked a furious response from politicians and risked a consumer backlash by refusing to pay the hotel and food bills of passengers stranded by the volcanic ash cloud, in a blatant refusal to abide by strict EU consumer rules.
As Britain's skies opened for business at last after a catastrophic six-day shutdown, the carrier's chief executive, Michael O'Leary, told passengers his airline would not meet hotel and subsistence expenses incurred while they were stuck abroad. Ryanair would reimburse travellers the original price of their air fare and no more, he said.
Europe-wide regulations demand that airlines provide food and drinks and hotel accommodation if appropriate when passengers are stranded. There are no time or monetary limits on the commitment, which Ryanair repeats on its website. Pressed on the legality of his stance, O'Leary challenged Ireland's airline regulator, the Commission for Aviation Regulation, to take him to court. It is estimated Ryanair's stance could affect as many as 400,000 passengers, and potentially save the airline millions of pounds.
The firm was alone in promising to defy the law, but the main European and international airline industry bodies yesterday also attacked the regulations and demanded an urgent review on the basis that they were not intended for extraordinary situations such as erupting volcanos. ...
As Britain's skies opened for business at last after a catastrophic six-day shutdown, the carrier's chief executive, Michael O'Leary, told passengers his airline would not meet hotel and subsistence expenses incurred while they were stuck abroad. Ryanair would reimburse travellers the original price of their air fare and no more, he said.
Europe-wide regulations demand that airlines provide food and drinks and hotel accommodation if appropriate when passengers are stranded. There are no time or monetary limits on the commitment, which Ryanair repeats on its website. Pressed on the legality of his stance, O'Leary challenged Ireland's airline regulator, the Commission for Aviation Regulation, to take him to court. It is estimated Ryanair's stance could affect as many as 400,000 passengers, and potentially save the airline millions of pounds.
The firm was alone in promising to defy the law, but the main European and international airline industry bodies yesterday also attacked the regulations and demanded an urgent review on the basis that they were not intended for extraordinary situations such as erupting volcanos. ...
After 16 months of promoting the “KopBusters” reality show, former Texas narcotics officer Barry Cooper is closing up shop out of fear that the next police retaliation may be much more severe.
“I’ve been told by lawyers, my fans and many people who love me that the next thing they’re gonna do is plant drugs on me and send me away for 20 years, or kill me or my wife … I’m not going to let that happen,” he said in a telephone interview on Tuesday.
“We put so much of our life into something good,” Cooper continued. “We got Yolanda out of prison. I had so many plans for ‘KopBusters’. We were gonna get to the point where we were targeting federal agents, but then I did these bag drops and look what happened! So, I’m … I’m not doing any more cop stings. I’m still going to make noise. I’m still going to produce ‘Never Get Busted‘. I’m going to give speeches and I’m still going to run for office. But … I’m done with ‘KopBusters’.” ...
Ta much, dear Edosan
“I’ve been told by lawyers, my fans and many people who love me that the next thing they’re gonna do is plant drugs on me and send me away for 20 years, or kill me or my wife … I’m not going to let that happen,” he said in a telephone interview on Tuesday.
“We put so much of our life into something good,” Cooper continued. “We got Yolanda out of prison. I had so many plans for ‘KopBusters’. We were gonna get to the point where we were targeting federal agents, but then I did these bag drops and look what happened! So, I’m … I’m not doing any more cop stings. I’m still going to make noise. I’m still going to produce ‘Never Get Busted‘. I’m going to give speeches and I’m still going to run for office. But … I’m done with ‘KopBusters’.” ...
Ta much, dear Edosan
College professors are anything but LOL at their students' recent writing habits.
Not only are instructors not laughing out loud — shortened to LOL in text messages and online chats — at the technology-oriented shorthand that has seeped into academic papers, many of them also sternly telling students to stop using the new language even in less formal writing.
The shorthand often consists of shortened variations of common words — "u" instead of you, or "ur" for your. Text speak may be appropriate for a quick note to a friend, but professors are increasingly stymied by how casually students are using the terms.
"Despite the fact that I happen to be perfectly capable of reading any incoherent drivel you may send to my (e-mail) inbox directly from your phone keypad, 'wut up ya I cnt make it 2 clss lol' is insanely unprofessional," reads the syllabus of Alejo Enriquez, a Cal State East Bay instructor.
"Therefore, I am imposing a higher standard of grammar, spelling, and use of the enter key upon you and kindly request that all e-mails sent to me resemble any other letter to your teacher, supervisor, grandparents or parole officer."
Faculty members increasingly have expressed irritation about reading acronyms and abbreviations they often do not understand, said Sally Murphy, a Cal State East Bay professor and director of the university's general-education program. One e-mail to a professor started with, "Yo, teach," she said.
"It has a real effect on the tone of professionalism," said Murphy, who also has seen younger instructors use the shorthand. "We tell them very specifically how this is going to affect them in life. It's kind of like wearing their jeans below their butt. They're going to lose all credibility."
The introduction of such casual language into term papers is a sea change from the days when nearly all students addressed their instructors as "professor" or "doctor." More faculty members ask students to call them by their first names, but many are drawing the line at texting shorthand or even emoticons — smiley faces made out of punctuation marks. ...
Not only are instructors not laughing out loud — shortened to LOL in text messages and online chats — at the technology-oriented shorthand that has seeped into academic papers, many of them also sternly telling students to stop using the new language even in less formal writing.
The shorthand often consists of shortened variations of common words — "u" instead of you, or "ur" for your. Text speak may be appropriate for a quick note to a friend, but professors are increasingly stymied by how casually students are using the terms.
"Despite the fact that I happen to be perfectly capable of reading any incoherent drivel you may send to my (e-mail) inbox directly from your phone keypad, 'wut up ya I cnt make it 2 clss lol' is insanely unprofessional," reads the syllabus of Alejo Enriquez, a Cal State East Bay instructor.
"Therefore, I am imposing a higher standard of grammar, spelling, and use of the enter key upon you and kindly request that all e-mails sent to me resemble any other letter to your teacher, supervisor, grandparents or parole officer."
Faculty members increasingly have expressed irritation about reading acronyms and abbreviations they often do not understand, said Sally Murphy, a Cal State East Bay professor and director of the university's general-education program. One e-mail to a professor started with, "Yo, teach," she said.
"It has a real effect on the tone of professionalism," said Murphy, who also has seen younger instructors use the shorthand. "We tell them very specifically how this is going to affect them in life. It's kind of like wearing their jeans below their butt. They're going to lose all credibility."
The introduction of such casual language into term papers is a sea change from the days when nearly all students addressed their instructors as "professor" or "doctor." More faculty members ask students to call them by their first names, but many are drawing the line at texting shorthand or even emoticons — smiley faces made out of punctuation marks. ...
... The allegations came to light in a lawsuit filed by the family of Blake Robbins, which argues that the LANrev software illegally invaded his privacy. The family first learned of the surveillance in November when an assistant principal confronted the 15-year-old high school sophomore with a picture of him that was taken by the tracking software.
The image, Robbins has said, showed him with a handful of Mike and Ike candies that the principal had mistaken for illegal pills.
Robbins' $1,000 laptop was not believed to be missing, so the theft-tracking software never should have been activated, his attorney has argued.
School officials told The Philadelphia Inquirer that the software was turned on because Robbins' family had failed to pay a $55 insurance fee to cover the laptop, so he was not authorized to take it home. They also say there is no evidence to indicate school employees used any of the images inappropriately.
Still, the district acknowledged that the software has been activated 42 times since September and an undisclosed number of times the previous year. They have yet to say how many students were photographed or monitored.
According to documents filed by the Robbins' attorney on Thursday, more than 400 images were secretly snapped of Blake, some while he was sleeping or partially undressed.
"Thousands of webcam pictures and screenshots have been taken of numerous other students in their homes, many of which never reported their laptops lost or missing," the filing added.
The motion went on to recite the email exchange between two district employees who administered the laptops.
Viewing the images was like watching "a little LMSD soap opera," one of them said, referring to the initials of the school district.
"I know, I love it!" technology coordinator Carol Cafiero replied.
The image, Robbins has said, showed him with a handful of Mike and Ike candies that the principal had mistaken for illegal pills.
Robbins' $1,000 laptop was not believed to be missing, so the theft-tracking software never should have been activated, his attorney has argued.
School officials told The Philadelphia Inquirer that the software was turned on because Robbins' family had failed to pay a $55 insurance fee to cover the laptop, so he was not authorized to take it home. They also say there is no evidence to indicate school employees used any of the images inappropriately.
Still, the district acknowledged that the software has been activated 42 times since September and an undisclosed number of times the previous year. They have yet to say how many students were photographed or monitored.
According to documents filed by the Robbins' attorney on Thursday, more than 400 images were secretly snapped of Blake, some while he was sleeping or partially undressed.
"Thousands of webcam pictures and screenshots have been taken of numerous other students in their homes, many of which never reported their laptops lost or missing," the filing added.
The motion went on to recite the email exchange between two district employees who administered the laptops.
Viewing the images was like watching "a little LMSD soap opera," one of them said, referring to the initials of the school district.
"I know, I love it!" technology coordinator Carol Cafiero replied.
Lawyers for Harriton High School sophomore Blake Robbins are claiming that the teenager's school district has used built-in tracking software on students' laptops to take "thousands" of unauthorized images, "including pictures of Blake partially undressed and of Blake sleeping."
The motion, filed April 15 by Michael and Holly Robbins, is the latest salvo in a class-action lawsuit filed against the Lower Merion School District of Ardmore, PA earlier this year. The issue of remote laptop surveillance came to light after school administrators accused Robbins of "improper behavior in his home," based on a photograph that was taken through the school's remote-monitoring software, LANrev.
Around 2,300 students across two schools in the district have received $1,000 Macintosh laptops for use with said software preinstalled and, as allegedly confirmed by one of Harriton's assistant principals, it can be remotely activated at any time, for any reason.
According to the lawsuit, "By virtue of the fact that the Webcam can be remotely activated at any time by the School District, the Webcam will capture anything happening in the room in which the laptop computer is located, regardless of whether the student is sitting at the computer and using it." Consequently, the suit is accusing the school district of violating various federal and state statutes against surveillance and wiretapping, including the federal Electronics Communications Privacy Act. ...
The motion, filed April 15 by Michael and Holly Robbins, is the latest salvo in a class-action lawsuit filed against the Lower Merion School District of Ardmore, PA earlier this year. The issue of remote laptop surveillance came to light after school administrators accused Robbins of "improper behavior in his home," based on a photograph that was taken through the school's remote-monitoring software, LANrev.
Around 2,300 students across two schools in the district have received $1,000 Macintosh laptops for use with said software preinstalled and, as allegedly confirmed by one of Harriton's assistant principals, it can be remotely activated at any time, for any reason.
According to the lawsuit, "By virtue of the fact that the Webcam can be remotely activated at any time by the School District, the Webcam will capture anything happening in the room in which the laptop computer is located, regardless of whether the student is sitting at the computer and using it." Consequently, the suit is accusing the school district of violating various federal and state statutes against surveillance and wiretapping, including the federal Electronics Communications Privacy Act. ...
Lawyers for Harriton High School sophomore Blake Robbins are claiming that the teenager's school district has used built-in tracking software on students' laptops to take "thousands" of unauthorized images, "including pictures of Blake partially undressed and of Blake sleeping."
The motion, filed April 15 by Michael and Holly Robbins, is the latest salvo in a class-action lawsuit filed against the Lower Merion School District of Ardmore, PA earlier this year. The issue of remote laptop surveillance came to light after school administrators accused Robbins of "improper behavior in his home," based on a photograph that was taken through the school's remote-monitoring software, LANrev.
Around 2,300 students across two schools in the district have received $1,000 Macintosh laptops for use with said software preinstalled and, as allegedly confirmed by one of Harriton's assistant principals, it can be remotely activated at any time, for any reason.
According to the lawsuit, "By virtue of the fact that the Webcam can be remotely activated at any time by the School District, the Webcam will capture anything happening in the room in which the laptop computer is located, regardless of whether the student is sitting at the computer and using it." Consequently, the suit is accusing the school district of violating various federal and state statutes against surveillance and wiretapping, including the federal Electronics Communications Privacy Act. ...
The motion, filed April 15 by Michael and Holly Robbins, is the latest salvo in a class-action lawsuit filed against the Lower Merion School District of Ardmore, PA earlier this year. The issue of remote laptop surveillance came to light after school administrators accused Robbins of "improper behavior in his home," based on a photograph that was taken through the school's remote-monitoring software, LANrev.
Around 2,300 students across two schools in the district have received $1,000 Macintosh laptops for use with said software preinstalled and, as allegedly confirmed by one of Harriton's assistant principals, it can be remotely activated at any time, for any reason.
According to the lawsuit, "By virtue of the fact that the Webcam can be remotely activated at any time by the School District, the Webcam will capture anything happening in the room in which the laptop computer is located, regardless of whether the student is sitting at the computer and using it." Consequently, the suit is accusing the school district of violating various federal and state statutes against surveillance and wiretapping, including the federal Electronics Communications Privacy Act. ...
A new motion in the Lower Merion School School District Webcam-spying case has presented extraordinary suggestions as to the frequency and intimate nature of the photographs allegedly taken remotely by the cameras on school-issued laptops.
On Thursday, lawyers for 15-year-old Blake Robbins and his family claimed that thousands of images were taken by the laptop Webcams. Included in these were, according to the motion, "pictures of Blake partially undressed and of Blake sleeping." In addition, images of Web sites visited and snapshots of their instant messages were also allegedly captured.
According to the Philadelphia Inquirer, lawyers claim that each time the LANRev software took Webcam shots, it sent them back to school district servers, where employees found entertainment in "a little LMSD soap opera."
Two school district employees were placed on administrative leave in March, after the allegations surfaced, and the school agreed to immediately turn off the Webcams. ...
On Thursday, lawyers for 15-year-old Blake Robbins and his family claimed that thousands of images were taken by the laptop Webcams. Included in these were, according to the motion, "pictures of Blake partially undressed and of Blake sleeping." In addition, images of Web sites visited and snapshots of their instant messages were also allegedly captured.
According to the Philadelphia Inquirer, lawyers claim that each time the LANRev software took Webcam shots, it sent them back to school district servers, where employees found entertainment in "a little LMSD soap opera."
Two school district employees were placed on administrative leave in March, after the allegations surfaced, and the school agreed to immediately turn off the Webcams. ...
Gloating officials who spied on them said it was "like a soap opera", it is alleged. ...
MI5 secretly planted bugs in 10 Downing Street despite repeated official denials and they remained in place for more than 10 years during the tenure of five prime ministers.
The disclosure was to have been included in the official history of MI5 by the Cambridge historian, Christopher Andrew, published last year to mark the agency's 100th anniversary. It is believed to have been suppressed by senior Whitehall officials to protect the "public interest".
Bugs are understood to have been placed in the cabinet room, the waiting room, and the prime minister's study, at the request of Harold Macmillan in July 1963. They remained there until James Callaghan removed them in 1977. ...
The disclosure was to have been included in the official history of MI5 by the Cambridge historian, Christopher Andrew, published last year to mark the agency's 100th anniversary. It is believed to have been suppressed by senior Whitehall officials to protect the "public interest".
Bugs are understood to have been placed in the cabinet room, the waiting room, and the prime minister's study, at the request of Harold Macmillan in July 1963. They remained there until James Callaghan removed them in 1977. ...
April 18, 2010
Errant priests’ secret children to sue church
John Follain in Rome and Bojan Pancevski in Vienna
When Pat Bond told her lover Henry Willenborg, a Franciscan priest, that she was pregnant, he urged her to have an abortion.
Bond, who was 28, had a miscarriage and then became pregnant again. This time Willenborg’s superiors urged her to give up the child for adoption.
Bond, from Missouri, kept the child but agreed to a vow of silence. In a signed contract with the Catholic Church, she undertook to keep the priest’s identity secret in exchange for financial support for her son, Nathan.
In America, Britain, Ireland, Germany, France, Italy and Austria,women made pregnant by priests have signed such pledges in exchange for hush money from the church. ...
... Bond was 25 when she started a five-year relationship with Willenborg in 1983, after going to him for marriage counselling. He kissed her passionately as she left his parlour, then she left her husband.
After Bond became pregnant by him for the second time in 1986, Willenborg’s order, the Order of Friars Minor, offered her $50,000 and a confidentiality contract. “They said: ‘Here, take this money, sign this contract and you’ll have support for your child’. I was very naive and I signed,” said Bond.
She broke her promise of silence last year after the Franciscans refused to meet part of the cost of treatment for her son Nathan, then 22, who died in November from a brain tumour.
When Willenborg’s liaisons with Bond, now 53, and another woman became public, the priest was suspended from his parish in Ashland, Wisconsin. He was treated for sex addiction, then returned to his pastoral duties. Catherine Schroeder, a St Louis lawyer for the Order of Friars Minor, declined to comment. Willenborg and the order failed to return calls and emails.
Other cases are reaching the US courts. In Maryland, two children of the late Father Francis Ryan are suing their local archdiocese and a religious order for $10m after discovering through DNA tests that he was their father.
Carla Latty, 58, and Adrian Senna, 65, say Ryan never admitted he was their father or made any payments to their late mother. Senna was sent to an orphanage, while Latty was put up for adoption.
Cait Finnegan, of the Good Tidings association, an American charity for priests and their lovers, has been contacted by nearly 2,000 women who had relationships with priests. She said one pregnant friend had been told by a bishop to “get rid of the child” — a comment she took to mean she should have an abortion. The woman kept the baby.
Thousands of priests in German-speaking countries are believed to have fathered children. Paul Zuhlener, an Austrian theologian, has estimated that up to 22% of Austrian priests have sexual relationships. ...
Errant priests’ secret children to sue church
John Follain in Rome and Bojan Pancevski in Vienna
When Pat Bond told her lover Henry Willenborg, a Franciscan priest, that she was pregnant, he urged her to have an abortion.
Bond, who was 28, had a miscarriage and then became pregnant again. This time Willenborg’s superiors urged her to give up the child for adoption.
Bond, from Missouri, kept the child but agreed to a vow of silence. In a signed contract with the Catholic Church, she undertook to keep the priest’s identity secret in exchange for financial support for her son, Nathan.
In America, Britain, Ireland, Germany, France, Italy and Austria,women made pregnant by priests have signed such pledges in exchange for hush money from the church. ...
... Bond was 25 when she started a five-year relationship with Willenborg in 1983, after going to him for marriage counselling. He kissed her passionately as she left his parlour, then she left her husband.
After Bond became pregnant by him for the second time in 1986, Willenborg’s order, the Order of Friars Minor, offered her $50,000 and a confidentiality contract. “They said: ‘Here, take this money, sign this contract and you’ll have support for your child’. I was very naive and I signed,” said Bond.
She broke her promise of silence last year after the Franciscans refused to meet part of the cost of treatment for her son Nathan, then 22, who died in November from a brain tumour.
When Willenborg’s liaisons with Bond, now 53, and another woman became public, the priest was suspended from his parish in Ashland, Wisconsin. He was treated for sex addiction, then returned to his pastoral duties. Catherine Schroeder, a St Louis lawyer for the Order of Friars Minor, declined to comment. Willenborg and the order failed to return calls and emails.
Other cases are reaching the US courts. In Maryland, two children of the late Father Francis Ryan are suing their local archdiocese and a religious order for $10m after discovering through DNA tests that he was their father.
Carla Latty, 58, and Adrian Senna, 65, say Ryan never admitted he was their father or made any payments to their late mother. Senna was sent to an orphanage, while Latty was put up for adoption.
Cait Finnegan, of the Good Tidings association, an American charity for priests and their lovers, has been contacted by nearly 2,000 women who had relationships with priests. She said one pregnant friend had been told by a bishop to “get rid of the child” — a comment she took to mean she should have an abortion. The woman kept the baby.
Thousands of priests in German-speaking countries are believed to have fathered children. Paul Zuhlener, an Austrian theologian, has estimated that up to 22% of Austrian priests have sexual relationships. ...
Pheasant attacks man
A retired ornithologist says he is frightened to leave his home because of a ferocious pheasant.
17 Apr 2010
A pheasant attacking John Tucker at his home Photo: SWNS
John Tucker, 72, has started wearing gloves and carrying a walking stick to protect himself from the bird, which lives in a neighbouring field.
Using its beak, claws and wings the pheasant chases Mr Tucker around his garden as he tries to escape.
But the angry animal has even learned to spot when the front door is open – and runs into the house.
''When I get out of the car he pursues me into the house and even comes inside and trails me around the house. I can't cut the grass without him following me around.
''If I want to spend time in the garden I've learned to let him chase me into the shed. I turn round quickly and shut him in for a while. Otherwise he comes at me non stop.
''I was a professional ornithologist all my career so I know a thing or two about birds. But I've never been stalked by one before.''
The bird has been in the area a while but Mr Tucker says he turned aggressive around two weeks ago and started to chase him and wife Carol, 64. ...
Man, one of our pheasants came running to mom when she brought him some corn meal. She tossed it out to him, and he pecked at it and scratched!
A retired ornithologist says he is frightened to leave his home because of a ferocious pheasant.
17 Apr 2010
A pheasant attacking John Tucker at his home Photo: SWNS
John Tucker, 72, has started wearing gloves and carrying a walking stick to protect himself from the bird, which lives in a neighbouring field.
Using its beak, claws and wings the pheasant chases Mr Tucker around his garden as he tries to escape.
But the angry animal has even learned to spot when the front door is open – and runs into the house.
''When I get out of the car he pursues me into the house and even comes inside and trails me around the house. I can't cut the grass without him following me around.
''If I want to spend time in the garden I've learned to let him chase me into the shed. I turn round quickly and shut him in for a while. Otherwise he comes at me non stop.
''I was a professional ornithologist all my career so I know a thing or two about birds. But I've never been stalked by one before.''
The bird has been in the area a while but Mr Tucker says he turned aggressive around two weeks ago and started to chase him and wife Carol, 64. ...
Man, one of our pheasants came running to mom when she brought him some corn meal. She tossed it out to him, and he pecked at it and scratched!
... Peter Tazelaar was under orders from the exiled Dutch queen, Wilhelmina, to slip into the country to extract two fellow countrymen to join the government-in-exile in Britain.
He and his fellow secret agents – Eric Hazelhoff Roelfzema and Bob Van der Stok – had often spent time at the seaside resort of Scheveningen, near The Hague, and knew that the Palace hotel there had been taken over by the Germans as a headquarters, and that every Friday night they held large and boisterous parties there.
Their plan was simple but audacious – approach Scheveningen in darkness by boat, and take Mr Tazelaar into the surf by dinghy, from where he could scramble ashore. Once there, he would strip off his wetsuit, to reveal his evening clothes underneath, to enable him to pose as a partygoer and slip past the sentries. ...
He and his fellow secret agents – Eric Hazelhoff Roelfzema and Bob Van der Stok – had often spent time at the seaside resort of Scheveningen, near The Hague, and knew that the Palace hotel there had been taken over by the Germans as a headquarters, and that every Friday night they held large and boisterous parties there.
Their plan was simple but audacious – approach Scheveningen in darkness by boat, and take Mr Tazelaar into the surf by dinghy, from where he could scramble ashore. Once there, he would strip off his wetsuit, to reveal his evening clothes underneath, to enable him to pose as a partygoer and slip past the sentries. ...
Last week, with headlines that could have fit right into the classic movie Chinatown, about the water wars that early Los Angeles lived through, the department of water and power, the mayor, and the city council engaged in an extremely public battle over shrinking financial resources.
LA owns the vast utility company, and going all the way back to the pre-second world war era in lieu of collecting property taxes and other fees the city has instead been given 8% of the DWP's revenue from the previous year to put into the city's general fund. These days, that amounts to a couple of hundred million dollars a year. But the DWP has an escape clause. If they can show that they don't have enough reserve funds to adequately service their own huge debt, they can forgo payments.
In recent months, the mayor and the DWP have allied to push for higher utility rates. The council, fearing voter anger, has balked, approving smaller increases than the DWP asked for. In response, the utility began claiming a cash crunch and argued that it couldn't transfer all the dollars it owed the city. The council disagreed, with sources claiming that the DWP had secreted away funds to the tune of $1bn.
Things came to a head last week when the DWP refused to transfer $73m into the general fund, the city's financial advisers warned that it could run out of cash to pay its bills in early May, and mayor Antonio Villaraigosa – presumably hoping to strong arm the council to change its position – responded with a proposal to move most city services onto a three-day work week. ...
LA owns the vast utility company, and going all the way back to the pre-second world war era in lieu of collecting property taxes and other fees the city has instead been given 8% of the DWP's revenue from the previous year to put into the city's general fund. These days, that amounts to a couple of hundred million dollars a year. But the DWP has an escape clause. If they can show that they don't have enough reserve funds to adequately service their own huge debt, they can forgo payments.
In recent months, the mayor and the DWP have allied to push for higher utility rates. The council, fearing voter anger, has balked, approving smaller increases than the DWP asked for. In response, the utility began claiming a cash crunch and argued that it couldn't transfer all the dollars it owed the city. The council disagreed, with sources claiming that the DWP had secreted away funds to the tune of $1bn.
Things came to a head last week when the DWP refused to transfer $73m into the general fund, the city's financial advisers warned that it could run out of cash to pay its bills in early May, and mayor Antonio Villaraigosa – presumably hoping to strong arm the council to change its position – responded with a proposal to move most city services onto a three-day work week. ...
Wednesday, April 14, 2010
Priest, 7 others held in sex sting
By JOSEPH G. COTE
Staff Writer
NASHUA – A Catholic priest is one of eight men police arrested Friday evening during a prostitution sting.
Police said they arrested the eight men, including three Nashua residents, for allegedly responding to a Craigslist advertisement by showing up to a local hotel with the intention of paying for sex. ...
Ta much, dear Anneliese
Priest, 7 others held in sex sting
By JOSEPH G. COTE
Staff Writer
NASHUA – A Catholic priest is one of eight men police arrested Friday evening during a prostitution sting.
Police said they arrested the eight men, including three Nashua residents, for allegedly responding to a Craigslist advertisement by showing up to a local hotel with the intention of paying for sex. ...
Ta much, dear Anneliese
... Kremer, who works for the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Agricultural Research Service (ARS), is among a group of scientists who are turning up potential problems with glyphosate, the key ingredient in Monsanto's Roundup and the most widely used weed-killer in the world.
"This could be something quite big. We might be setting up a huge problem," said Kremer, who expressed alarm that regulators were not paying enough attention to the potential risks from biotechnology on the farm, including his own research.
Concerns range from worries about how nontraditional genetic traits in crops could affect human and animal health to the spread of herbicide-resistant weeds.
Biotech crop supporters say there is a wealth of evidence that the crops on the market are safe, but critics argue that after only 14 years of commercialized GMOs, it is still unclear whether or not the technology has long-term adverse effects.
But whatever the point of view on the crops themselves, there are many people on both sides of the debate who say that the current U.S. regulatory apparatus is ill-equipped to adequately address the concerns. Indeed, many experts say the U.S. government does more to promote global acceptance of biotech crops than to protect the public from possible harmful consequences.
"We don't have a robust enough regulatory system to be able to give us a definitive answer about whether these crops are safe or not. We simply aren't doing the kinds of tests we need to do to have confidence in the safety of these crops," said Doug Gurian-Sherman, a scientist who served on a FDA biotech advisory subcommittee from 2002 to 2005.
"The U.S. response (to questions about biotech crop safety) has been an extremely patronizing one. They say 'We know best, trust us,'" added Gurian-Sherman, now a senior scientist at the Union of Concerned Scientists, a nonprofit environmental group. ...
"This could be something quite big. We might be setting up a huge problem," said Kremer, who expressed alarm that regulators were not paying enough attention to the potential risks from biotechnology on the farm, including his own research.
Concerns range from worries about how nontraditional genetic traits in crops could affect human and animal health to the spread of herbicide-resistant weeds.
Biotech crop supporters say there is a wealth of evidence that the crops on the market are safe, but critics argue that after only 14 years of commercialized GMOs, it is still unclear whether or not the technology has long-term adverse effects.
But whatever the point of view on the crops themselves, there are many people on both sides of the debate who say that the current U.S. regulatory apparatus is ill-equipped to adequately address the concerns. Indeed, many experts say the U.S. government does more to promote global acceptance of biotech crops than to protect the public from possible harmful consequences.
"We don't have a robust enough regulatory system to be able to give us a definitive answer about whether these crops are safe or not. We simply aren't doing the kinds of tests we need to do to have confidence in the safety of these crops," said Doug Gurian-Sherman, a scientist who served on a FDA biotech advisory subcommittee from 2002 to 2005.
"The U.S. response (to questions about biotech crop safety) has been an extremely patronizing one. They say 'We know best, trust us,'" added Gurian-Sherman, now a senior scientist at the Union of Concerned Scientists, a nonprofit environmental group. ...
April 12, 2010
Arrest the Pope? I rather think we should
The sin of making victims and the community complicit in the abuse cover-up is still not acknowledged
Libby Purves
... From Ireland, America, Australia, Austria, the story is always the same: a brave complaint, an admission of guilt including other crimes, followed only by weak supervision and an exaggerated concern for the perpetrator. The wolf retains his clerical dress and status, making other children and their parents feel safe when they are not. Higher authority deplores the sin, takes the confession but won’t risk corporate reputation by handling it properly. As the Murphy Commission scathingly put it, the priority was always “the maintenance of secrecy, the avoidance of scandal, the protection of the Church and the preservation of its assets”.
What troubles me even more is that in doing this, church authorities repeatedly dragged other people into collusion and thus into what — in more convenient circumstances — they themselves would call sin. Young victims, particularly of sexual crimes, badly need to know that they are absolutely accepted as innocents betrayed: the crime is not their burden and does not define them. One of the ways in which societies achieve this is by openly punishing the perpetrator. Too often, that didn’t happen. In some of the most infamous Irish cases the children who suffered were sworn to secrecy, with all the dusty, incense-smelling, habit-rustling impressiveness of canonical process. They were made to collaborate in the shame, by men round whose necks hung the cross they had been taught to revere.
Even when there was no such formality, testimonies of the young victims tell us again and again how they would be ordered not to speak of it, often by shocked Catholic parents, and that keeping the invasive memory locked in their breasts bred guilt and shame that festered for a lifetime. Some killed themselves. Many speak of the particular misery of knowing that their silence — their collusion with the lie that all was well — condemned other younger children to the same ordeal.
Nor is it only children who were stained by secrecy. The respect for church authority and wisdom in homogenous Catholic communities — schools, slums, villages — bred another horror. Not only did it make parents unwittingly betray their raped children by disbelieving them, but if you read memoirs of victims, such as Colm O’Gorman, you hear how in later years they would find that many of the adults around them always “sort of knew” — that there were jokes about the priest’s little ways, that you’d do well not to get too close. From Ealing Abbey now we learn that the criminal Father Pearce was widely giggled about as “gay Dave” by the boys. People knew, but knew they mustn’t speak. ...
Arrest the Pope? I rather think we should
The sin of making victims and the community complicit in the abuse cover-up is still not acknowledged
Libby Purves
... From Ireland, America, Australia, Austria, the story is always the same: a brave complaint, an admission of guilt including other crimes, followed only by weak supervision and an exaggerated concern for the perpetrator. The wolf retains his clerical dress and status, making other children and their parents feel safe when they are not. Higher authority deplores the sin, takes the confession but won’t risk corporate reputation by handling it properly. As the Murphy Commission scathingly put it, the priority was always “the maintenance of secrecy, the avoidance of scandal, the protection of the Church and the preservation of its assets”.
What troubles me even more is that in doing this, church authorities repeatedly dragged other people into collusion and thus into what — in more convenient circumstances — they themselves would call sin. Young victims, particularly of sexual crimes, badly need to know that they are absolutely accepted as innocents betrayed: the crime is not their burden and does not define them. One of the ways in which societies achieve this is by openly punishing the perpetrator. Too often, that didn’t happen. In some of the most infamous Irish cases the children who suffered were sworn to secrecy, with all the dusty, incense-smelling, habit-rustling impressiveness of canonical process. They were made to collaborate in the shame, by men round whose necks hung the cross they had been taught to revere.
Even when there was no such formality, testimonies of the young victims tell us again and again how they would be ordered not to speak of it, often by shocked Catholic parents, and that keeping the invasive memory locked in their breasts bred guilt and shame that festered for a lifetime. Some killed themselves. Many speak of the particular misery of knowing that their silence — their collusion with the lie that all was well — condemned other younger children to the same ordeal.
Nor is it only children who were stained by secrecy. The respect for church authority and wisdom in homogenous Catholic communities — schools, slums, villages — bred another horror. Not only did it make parents unwittingly betray their raped children by disbelieving them, but if you read memoirs of victims, such as Colm O’Gorman, you hear how in later years they would find that many of the adults around them always “sort of knew” — that there were jokes about the priest’s little ways, that you’d do well not to get too close. From Ealing Abbey now we learn that the criminal Father Pearce was widely giggled about as “gay Dave” by the boys. People knew, but knew they mustn’t speak. ...
Ireland's embattled Catholic Cardinal Sean Brady was taken to hospital tonight with a suspected heart attack.
The Catholic primate was taken to Craigavon Area hospital in Northern Ireland after being taken ill at a confirmation ceremony in Co Tyrone this evening.
A spokesman for the hospital said the 70-year-old cardinal was in a stable condition.
Brady faces demands from clerical abuse victims to stand down over his role in silencing two young victims of the paedophile priest Brendan Smyth. Smyth was one of Ireland's most notorious paedophiles whom the Catholic church continually moved around the country, Northern Ireland, England and the US even after it knew about the allegations against the Norbertine priest. ...
The Catholic primate was taken to Craigavon Area hospital in Northern Ireland after being taken ill at a confirmation ceremony in Co Tyrone this evening.
A spokesman for the hospital said the 70-year-old cardinal was in a stable condition.
Brady faces demands from clerical abuse victims to stand down over his role in silencing two young victims of the paedophile priest Brendan Smyth. Smyth was one of Ireland's most notorious paedophiles whom the Catholic church continually moved around the country, Northern Ireland, England and the US even after it knew about the allegations against the Norbertine priest. ...
The great happy Vatican death spiral
By Mark Morford, SF Gate Columnist
Wednesday, April 14, 2010
... I wasn't kidding above. I firmly believe we have this apocalypse thing all wrong, backwards. The Second Coming has nothing whatsoever to do with some melodramatic return of a bearded, sandal-wearing hippie anarchist who comes back to take away all the booze, porn and tattoos as he whisks away the trembling "true believers" to a land of harps, minivans and horrible sex.
Wrong. The Rapture is when the major karmic roadblocks of man -- all the Vaticans, popes, temples, cults, megachurches and even most organized religions all stagger and collapse under the weight of their inherent hypocrisy, all the oppressed sexuality, the homophobia, misogyny, fear of science, the denial of true spiritual source.
You could call it one of the greatest ironies of man: Only when our supposedly "holy" dogmas, institutions and leaders fail, can the human soul ever truly be free.
Ta much, dear Anneliese
By Mark Morford, SF Gate Columnist
Wednesday, April 14, 2010
... I wasn't kidding above. I firmly believe we have this apocalypse thing all wrong, backwards. The Second Coming has nothing whatsoever to do with some melodramatic return of a bearded, sandal-wearing hippie anarchist who comes back to take away all the booze, porn and tattoos as he whisks away the trembling "true believers" to a land of harps, minivans and horrible sex.
Wrong. The Rapture is when the major karmic roadblocks of man -- all the Vaticans, popes, temples, cults, megachurches and even most organized religions all stagger and collapse under the weight of their inherent hypocrisy, all the oppressed sexuality, the homophobia, misogyny, fear of science, the denial of true spiritual source.
You could call it one of the greatest ironies of man: Only when our supposedly "holy" dogmas, institutions and leaders fail, can the human soul ever truly be free.
Ta much, dear Anneliese
Helpline priest falls asleep during suicide call for help
A suicidal man connected to a Samaritans-style helpline in Sweden was left pondering his options when the priest at the other end fell asleep and started snoring down the line.
By Allan Hall in Berlin
13 Apr 2010
The suicidal man called emergency services at around 2am on Friday, saying he felt "psychologically unstable". He was forwarded to the duty Church of Sweden pastor. About five minutes into the call, the troubled 44-year-old man had the feeling that he was talking to himself.
"I thought maybe he was taking notes, so I asked: 'Are you taking notes?'" the man told the Barometern local daily.
"I could hear his heavy breathing before he woke up," he said.
But, according to the man, the pastor's alertness did not last for long. After another frustrating few minutes with no response from the priest, the man rang off.
Luckily, the clergyman's response to his woes left the troubled man angry rather than depressed, and he abandoned thoughts of suicide. ...
A suicidal man connected to a Samaritans-style helpline in Sweden was left pondering his options when the priest at the other end fell asleep and started snoring down the line.
By Allan Hall in Berlin
13 Apr 2010
The suicidal man called emergency services at around 2am on Friday, saying he felt "psychologically unstable". He was forwarded to the duty Church of Sweden pastor. About five minutes into the call, the troubled 44-year-old man had the feeling that he was talking to himself.
"I thought maybe he was taking notes, so I asked: 'Are you taking notes?'" the man told the Barometern local daily.
"I could hear his heavy breathing before he woke up," he said.
But, according to the man, the pastor's alertness did not last for long. After another frustrating few minutes with no response from the priest, the man rang off.
Luckily, the clergyman's response to his woes left the troubled man angry rather than depressed, and he abandoned thoughts of suicide. ...
A furious transatlantic row has erupted over quotes that were attributed to a retired Italian bishop, which suggested that Jews were behind the current criticism of the Catholic church's record on tackling clerical sex abuse.
A website quoted Giacomo Babini, the emeritus bishop of Grosseto, as saying he believed a "Zionist attack" was behind the criticism, considering how "powerful and refined" the criticism is.
The comments, which have been denied by the bishop, follow a series of statements from Catholic churchmen alleging the existence of plots to weaken the church and Pope Benedict XVI.
Allegedly speaking to the Catholic website Pontifex, Babini, 81, was quoted as saying: "They do not want the church, they are its natural enemies. Deep down, historically speaking, the Jews are God killers."
The interview was spotted on Friday by the American Jewish Committee, which said Babini was using "slanderous stereotypes, which sadly evoke the worst Christian and Nazi propaganda prior to world war two".
On its website, the American Jewish Group Committee quoted bishop Vincenzo Paglia, an official at the Italian Bishops' Conference, as saying Babini's remarks were "entirely contrary to the official line and mainstream thought of the Catholic church".
As the interview appeared on Italy's main newspaper sites today, complete with the American reaction, the Bishops' Conference rushed out a statement quoting Babini denying he had ever given the interview in the first place. "Statements I have never made about our Jewish brothers have been attributed to me," he said.
Babini has previously been quoted on the Pontifex website accusing Jews of exploiting the Holocaust, as well as criticising homosexuality. ...
A website quoted Giacomo Babini, the emeritus bishop of Grosseto, as saying he believed a "Zionist attack" was behind the criticism, considering how "powerful and refined" the criticism is.
The comments, which have been denied by the bishop, follow a series of statements from Catholic churchmen alleging the existence of plots to weaken the church and Pope Benedict XVI.
Allegedly speaking to the Catholic website Pontifex, Babini, 81, was quoted as saying: "They do not want the church, they are its natural enemies. Deep down, historically speaking, the Jews are God killers."
The interview was spotted on Friday by the American Jewish Committee, which said Babini was using "slanderous stereotypes, which sadly evoke the worst Christian and Nazi propaganda prior to world war two".
On its website, the American Jewish Group Committee quoted bishop Vincenzo Paglia, an official at the Italian Bishops' Conference, as saying Babini's remarks were "entirely contrary to the official line and mainstream thought of the Catholic church".
As the interview appeared on Italy's main newspaper sites today, complete with the American reaction, the Bishops' Conference rushed out a statement quoting Babini denying he had ever given the interview in the first place. "Statements I have never made about our Jewish brothers have been attributed to me," he said.
Babini has previously been quoted on the Pontifex website accusing Jews of exploiting the Holocaust, as well as criticising homosexuality. ...
I Saw the Crisis Coming. Why Didn’t the Fed?
By MICHAEL J. BURRY
Published: April 3, 2010
Cupertino, Calif.
... By mid-2005, I had so much confidence in my analysis that I staked my reputation on it. That is, I purchased credit default swaps — a type of insurance — on billions of dollars worth of both subprime mortgage-backed securities and the bonds of many of the financial companies that would be devastated when the real estate bubble burst. As the value of the bonds fell, the value of the credit default swaps would rise. Our swaps covered many of the firms that failed or nearly failed, including the insurer American International Group and the mortgage lenders Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.
I entered these trades carefully. Suspecting that my Wall Street counterparties might not be able or willing to pay up when the time came, I used six counterparties to minimize my exposure to any one of them. I also specifically avoided using Lehman Brothers and Bear Stearns as counterparties, as I viewed both to be mortally exposed to the crisis I foresaw.
What’s more, I demanded daily collateral settlement — if positions moved in our favor, I wanted cash posted to our account the next day. This was something I knew that Goldman Sachs and other derivatives dealers did not demand of AAA-rated A.I.G.
I believed that the collapse of the subprime mortgage market would ultimately lead to huge failures among the largest financial institutions. But at the time almost no one else thought these trades would work out in my favor.
During 2007, under constant pressure from my investors, I liquidated most of our credit default swaps at a substantial profit. By early 2008, I feared the effects of government intervention and exited all our remaining credit default positions — by auctioning them to the many Wall Street banks that were themselves by then desperate to buy protection against default. This was well in advance of the government bailouts. Because I had been operating in the face of strong opposition from both my investors and the Wall Street community, it took everything I had to see these trades through to completion. Disheartened on many fronts, I shut down Scion Capital in 2008. ...
...our leaders in Washington either willfully or ignorantly aided and abetted the bubble. And even when the full extent of the financial crisis became painfully clear early in 2007, the Federal Reserve chairman, the Treasury secretary, the president and senior members of Congress repeatedly underestimated the severity of the problem, ultimately leaving themselves with only one policy tool — the epic and unfair taxpayer-financed bailouts. Now, in exchange for that extra year or two of consumer bliss we all enjoyed, our children and our children’s children will suffer terrible financial consequences.
It did not have to be this way. And at this point there is no reason to reflexively dismiss the analysis of those who foresaw the crisis. Mr. Greenspan should use his substantial intellect and unsurpassed knowledge of government to ascertain and explain exactly how he and other officials missed the boat. If the mistakes were properly outlined, that might both inform Congress’s efforts to improve financial regulation and help keep future Fed chairmen from making the same errors again.
Ta much, dear MSiegel
By MICHAEL J. BURRY
Published: April 3, 2010
Cupertino, Calif.
... By mid-2005, I had so much confidence in my analysis that I staked my reputation on it. That is, I purchased credit default swaps — a type of insurance — on billions of dollars worth of both subprime mortgage-backed securities and the bonds of many of the financial companies that would be devastated when the real estate bubble burst. As the value of the bonds fell, the value of the credit default swaps would rise. Our swaps covered many of the firms that failed or nearly failed, including the insurer American International Group and the mortgage lenders Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.
I entered these trades carefully. Suspecting that my Wall Street counterparties might not be able or willing to pay up when the time came, I used six counterparties to minimize my exposure to any one of them. I also specifically avoided using Lehman Brothers and Bear Stearns as counterparties, as I viewed both to be mortally exposed to the crisis I foresaw.
What’s more, I demanded daily collateral settlement — if positions moved in our favor, I wanted cash posted to our account the next day. This was something I knew that Goldman Sachs and other derivatives dealers did not demand of AAA-rated A.I.G.
I believed that the collapse of the subprime mortgage market would ultimately lead to huge failures among the largest financial institutions. But at the time almost no one else thought these trades would work out in my favor.
During 2007, under constant pressure from my investors, I liquidated most of our credit default swaps at a substantial profit. By early 2008, I feared the effects of government intervention and exited all our remaining credit default positions — by auctioning them to the many Wall Street banks that were themselves by then desperate to buy protection against default. This was well in advance of the government bailouts. Because I had been operating in the face of strong opposition from both my investors and the Wall Street community, it took everything I had to see these trades through to completion. Disheartened on many fronts, I shut down Scion Capital in 2008. ...
...our leaders in Washington either willfully or ignorantly aided and abetted the bubble. And even when the full extent of the financial crisis became painfully clear early in 2007, the Federal Reserve chairman, the Treasury secretary, the president and senior members of Congress repeatedly underestimated the severity of the problem, ultimately leaving themselves with only one policy tool — the epic and unfair taxpayer-financed bailouts. Now, in exchange for that extra year or two of consumer bliss we all enjoyed, our children and our children’s children will suffer terrible financial consequences.
It did not have to be this way. And at this point there is no reason to reflexively dismiss the analysis of those who foresaw the crisis. Mr. Greenspan should use his substantial intellect and unsurpassed knowledge of government to ascertain and explain exactly how he and other officials missed the boat. If the mistakes were properly outlined, that might both inform Congress’s efforts to improve financial regulation and help keep future Fed chairmen from making the same errors again.
Ta much, dear MSiegel
...I don't know what LSD is but I admire the graphic art in this vintage poster. Minimalist but not boring. I like the use of color in this. ...
April 9, 2010
Woman strangled by hijab in freak accident
Sophie Tedmanson in Sydney
A young Muslim mother wearing a hjiab was strangled in a freak accident while go-karting with her family in Australia yesterday.
The 26-year-old died when her headscarf became entangled in the wheel of the go-kart and tightened around her neck during a family day out at Port Stephens, 137 miles (220km) north of Sydney in New South Wales.
Police said that the woman, her husband and children had been holidaying on the coast when the accident occurred during a day trip to the karting track.
The woman’s scarf appeared to have been pulled across her throat from one side of the body to the other, and the longer part was wedged near one of the wheel axles of the go-kart, they added. ...
Woman strangled by hijab in freak accident
Sophie Tedmanson in Sydney
A young Muslim mother wearing a hjiab was strangled in a freak accident while go-karting with her family in Australia yesterday.
The 26-year-old died when her headscarf became entangled in the wheel of the go-kart and tightened around her neck during a family day out at Port Stephens, 137 miles (220km) north of Sydney in New South Wales.
Police said that the woman, her husband and children had been holidaying on the coast when the accident occurred during a day trip to the karting track.
The woman’s scarf appeared to have been pulled across her throat from one side of the body to the other, and the longer part was wedged near one of the wheel axles of the go-kart, they added. ...
Pope Benedict XVI was dragged directly into the scandal engulfing the Roman Catholic Church when a letter with his signature emerged implicating him in the failure to defrock a known paedophile priest.
Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger resisted pleas from a Californian diocese to defrock a priest with a record of molesting children, putting “the good of the universal Church”, above other considerations, according to the 1985 letter.
The correspondence, obtained by the Associated Press, undermines the repeated insistence from the Holy See that Benedict XVI has had no personal involvement in covering up the sins of paedophiles.
The letter, bearing the then Cardinal Ratzinger’s signature, was typed and in Latin, and is part of years of correspondence between the Diocese of Oakland and the Vatican about the proposed laicisation [defrocking] of Father Stephen Kiesle. ...
Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger resisted pleas from a Californian diocese to defrock a priest with a record of molesting children, putting “the good of the universal Church”, above other considerations, according to the 1985 letter.
The correspondence, obtained by the Associated Press, undermines the repeated insistence from the Holy See that Benedict XVI has had no personal involvement in covering up the sins of paedophiles.
The letter, bearing the then Cardinal Ratzinger’s signature, was typed and in Latin, and is part of years of correspondence between the Diocese of Oakland and the Vatican about the proposed laicisation [defrocking] of Father Stephen Kiesle. ...
The World Bank approved a controversial $3.75bn loan to build one of the world's largest coal-fired power plants in South Africa yesterday, defying international protests and sharp criticism from the Obama administration that the project would fuel climate change.
The proposed Medupi power station, operated by South Africa's state-owned Eskom company, was fiercely opposed by an international coalition of grassroots, church and environmental activists who said it would hurt the environment and do little to help end poverty. As planned, it would put out 25m tonnes of carbon dioxide a year and would prevent South Africa making good on a promise to try to curb future emissions.
The bank said it had acted to help South Africa escape a crippling power shortage. "Without an increased energy supply, South Africans will face hardship for the poor and limited economic growth," said Obiageli Ezekwesili, the World Bank's vice president for Africa.
But the bank's approval for the Medupi plant, though expected, was overshadowed by dissatisfaction from American and European donors, as well as a groundswell of protests. ...
There is no sane reason to use anything but wind and solar power in Africa, you idiots.
The proposed Medupi power station, operated by South Africa's state-owned Eskom company, was fiercely opposed by an international coalition of grassroots, church and environmental activists who said it would hurt the environment and do little to help end poverty. As planned, it would put out 25m tonnes of carbon dioxide a year and would prevent South Africa making good on a promise to try to curb future emissions.
The bank said it had acted to help South Africa escape a crippling power shortage. "Without an increased energy supply, South Africans will face hardship for the poor and limited economic growth," said Obiageli Ezekwesili, the World Bank's vice president for Africa.
But the bank's approval for the Medupi plant, though expected, was overshadowed by dissatisfaction from American and European donors, as well as a groundswell of protests. ...
There is no sane reason to use anything but wind and solar power in Africa, you idiots.
Exclusive: Phone-tapping inquiry over John Terry affair
Vanessa Perroncel, in her first interview since news of her affair with ex-England captain emerged, reveals how her refusal to talk to the tabloids caused a prolonged campaign of vilification
Saturday 10 April 2010
An official inquiry has been launched into the suspected interception of voicemail messages around the tabloid newspaper story of the former England football captain John Terry and his alleged affair with a French model.
The inquiry, which is being led from the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO), will cause concern in Fleet Street, where newspapers and the Press Complaints Commission have insisted that this kind of illegal activity has been stamped out since the jailing of a News of the World reporter in January 2007.
The evidence focuses on the phone records of Vanessa Perroncel and of one of her close friends, Antonia Graham. Perroncel was accused by tabloids of having an affair with Terry.
One allegation involves the interception of a live telephone call between the two women, a more serious offence than listening to phone messages.
In her first interview since the story broke, published in the Guardian today, Perroncel, the former partner of the Manchester City and England footballer Wayne Bridge, says of her experience at the hands of the tabloid pack: "It is horrible. It is like a nightmare. Every day you think: 'What else are they going to say about me?' It is so intrusive and so false. Every day, so many lies – and then people making judgments because of the lies."
Her lawyers this week formally warned seven national newspapers that she is moving to sue them for breach of privacy over reports that claimed to expose her personal life, including her sexual relationships, her medical history, her finances and her wider family's personal problems. ...
... Perroncel says she refused to speak to journalists but that the quote is an accurate account of what she said – in a private phone call to Antonia Graham.
Perroncel told the Guardian: "Antonia did not sell that quotation. I know she does not do that. So how did they get it? There have been other times when the same thing has happened: a conversation with a friend ends up word for word in the paper." ...
Vanessa Perroncel, in her first interview since news of her affair with ex-England captain emerged, reveals how her refusal to talk to the tabloids caused a prolonged campaign of vilification
Saturday 10 April 2010
An official inquiry has been launched into the suspected interception of voicemail messages around the tabloid newspaper story of the former England football captain John Terry and his alleged affair with a French model.
The inquiry, which is being led from the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO), will cause concern in Fleet Street, where newspapers and the Press Complaints Commission have insisted that this kind of illegal activity has been stamped out since the jailing of a News of the World reporter in January 2007.
The evidence focuses on the phone records of Vanessa Perroncel and of one of her close friends, Antonia Graham. Perroncel was accused by tabloids of having an affair with Terry.
One allegation involves the interception of a live telephone call between the two women, a more serious offence than listening to phone messages.
In her first interview since the story broke, published in the Guardian today, Perroncel, the former partner of the Manchester City and England footballer Wayne Bridge, says of her experience at the hands of the tabloid pack: "It is horrible. It is like a nightmare. Every day you think: 'What else are they going to say about me?' It is so intrusive and so false. Every day, so many lies – and then people making judgments because of the lies."
Her lawyers this week formally warned seven national newspapers that she is moving to sue them for breach of privacy over reports that claimed to expose her personal life, including her sexual relationships, her medical history, her finances and her wider family's personal problems. ...
... Perroncel says she refused to speak to journalists but that the quote is an accurate account of what she said – in a private phone call to Antonia Graham.
Perroncel told the Guardian: "Antonia did not sell that quotation. I know she does not do that. So how did they get it? There have been other times when the same thing has happened: a conversation with a friend ends up word for word in the paper." ...
The head of Kyrgyzstan's new interim government yesterday revealed that her country was broke and said that the former president who was overthrown in a street-led revolution this week had left only $80m in the budget.
In an interview with the Guardian, Roza Otunbayeva appealed for urgent international aid so that the impoverished Central Asian nation could meet its immediate bills. "Tomorrow we should pay pensions. This is a really serious problem," she said.
Otunbayeva said that the ousted president Kurmanbek Bakiyev had plundered the economy, installing his sons in key government positions and flogging off strategic state industries for a fraction of their true value.
She said the country's leading telecoms firm had been sold to an offshore company in the Canary Islands, belonging to a friend of the president's son Maxim. "We had an absolutely scandalous situation where Kyrgyzstan had become a family-run regime," she said.
Otunbayeva, a former foreign minister, said popular anger against the president and his relatives exploded after he imposed new tariffs on 1 January on electricity and hot water. She said the revolt started in the freezing mountain town of Talas in early March, then spread across the country. ...
In an interview with the Guardian, Roza Otunbayeva appealed for urgent international aid so that the impoverished Central Asian nation could meet its immediate bills. "Tomorrow we should pay pensions. This is a really serious problem," she said.
Otunbayeva said that the ousted president Kurmanbek Bakiyev had plundered the economy, installing his sons in key government positions and flogging off strategic state industries for a fraction of their true value.
She said the country's leading telecoms firm had been sold to an offshore company in the Canary Islands, belonging to a friend of the president's son Maxim. "We had an absolutely scandalous situation where Kyrgyzstan had become a family-run regime," she said.
Otunbayeva, a former foreign minister, said popular anger against the president and his relatives exploded after he imposed new tariffs on 1 January on electricity and hot water. She said the revolt started in the freezing mountain town of Talas in early March, then spread across the country. ...
A retired army brigadier general is among six suspects arrested by Israeli police investigating an organ-trafficking ring, police say.
The organisation offered as much as $100,000 (£65,600) for kidneys, which were transplanted by doctors in poor countries, a sting operation uncovered.
Police said they had been "shocked" by the extent of the smuggling ring.
Retired Gen Meir Zamir, arrested in connection with the trafficking, won a medal of valour in the Yom Kippur War. ...
Ta much, dear Edosan
The organisation offered as much as $100,000 (£65,600) for kidneys, which were transplanted by doctors in poor countries, a sting operation uncovered.
Police said they had been "shocked" by the extent of the smuggling ring.
Retired Gen Meir Zamir, arrested in connection with the trafficking, won a medal of valour in the Yom Kippur War. ...
Ta much, dear Edosan
Buncha ahem pussies.
George W. Bush, Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld covered up that hundreds of innocent men were sent to the Guantánamo Bay prison camp because they feared that releasing them would harm the push for war in Iraq and the broader War on Terror, according to a new document obtained by The Times.
The accusations were made by Lawrence Wilkerson, a top aide to Colin Powell, the former Republican Secretary of State, in a signed declaration to support a lawsuit filed by a Guantánamo detainee. It is the first time that such allegations have been made by a senior member of the Bush Administration.
Colonel Wilkerson, who was General Powell’s chief of staff when he ran the State Department, was most critical of Mr Cheney and Mr Rumsfeld. He claimed that the former Vice-President and Defence Secretary knew that the majority of the initial 742 detainees sent to Guantánamo in 2002 were innocent but believed that it was “politically impossible to release them”.
General Powell, who left the Bush Administration in 2005, angry about the misinformation that he unwittingly gave the world when he made the case for the invasion of Iraq at the UN, is understood to have backed Colonel Wilkerson’s declaration. ...
The accusations were made by Lawrence Wilkerson, a top aide to Colin Powell, the former Republican Secretary of State, in a signed declaration to support a lawsuit filed by a Guantánamo detainee. It is the first time that such allegations have been made by a senior member of the Bush Administration.
Colonel Wilkerson, who was General Powell’s chief of staff when he ran the State Department, was most critical of Mr Cheney and Mr Rumsfeld. He claimed that the former Vice-President and Defence Secretary knew that the majority of the initial 742 detainees sent to Guantánamo in 2002 were innocent but believed that it was “politically impossible to release them”.
General Powell, who left the Bush Administration in 2005, angry about the misinformation that he unwittingly gave the world when he made the case for the invasion of Iraq at the UN, is understood to have backed Colonel Wilkerson’s declaration. ...
The looters had already taken the lampshades, the fridge, and the DVD player. Today they began on the shrubbery – digging up the dwarf fir trees from the front garden of Kyrgyzstan's president, Kurmanbek Bakiyev. The air resounded with crashing. One ambitious looter even stole the drainpipes.
The popular revolt in Kyrgyzstan that toppled Bakiyev two days ago was so sudden and ferocious that nobody has had a chance to give it a name yet. But it would be plausible to dub it the fir tree revolution – after the presidential shrubs taken and loaded into taxis.
Kyrgyzstan's opposition parties declared they had formed a new interim government, after a day of mayhem on yesterday when security force snipers and riot police opened fire on unarmed demonstrators as they tried to storm the main government building in the capital, Bishkek. At least 75 people were killed and 300 more injured.
Speaking in Bishkek's ransacked parliament building today, the opposition leader Roza Otunbayeva said: "You can call what happened here a popular uprising or a revolution. In essence people were simply fed up with the regime, and with its repressive, tyrannical and abusive ways."
Otunbayeva said her temporary government had taken control – with security headquarters, state TV and various government building now in opposition hands. She added that she planned to hold elections in six months after a new constitution had been drafted. ...
The popular revolt in Kyrgyzstan that toppled Bakiyev two days ago was so sudden and ferocious that nobody has had a chance to give it a name yet. But it would be plausible to dub it the fir tree revolution – after the presidential shrubs taken and loaded into taxis.
Kyrgyzstan's opposition parties declared they had formed a new interim government, after a day of mayhem on yesterday when security force snipers and riot police opened fire on unarmed demonstrators as they tried to storm the main government building in the capital, Bishkek. At least 75 people were killed and 300 more injured.
Speaking in Bishkek's ransacked parliament building today, the opposition leader Roza Otunbayeva said: "You can call what happened here a popular uprising or a revolution. In essence people were simply fed up with the regime, and with its repressive, tyrannical and abusive ways."
Otunbayeva said her temporary government had taken control – with security headquarters, state TV and various government building now in opposition hands. She added that she planned to hold elections in six months after a new constitution had been drafted. ...
Unemployment benefits and GOP principle
Michael Tomasky Monday 5 April 2010
... You may remember a few weeks ago that it was Republican Senator Jim Bunning who held up extension of these benefits because the Senate wasn't coming up to any way to pay for them and make the extension deficit neutral thereby. This time around it's Oklahoma's Tom Coburn:
"The legitimate debate is whether we borrow and steal from our kids or we get out of town and send the bill to our kids for something that we're going to consume today," Coburn said on the Senate floor.
The cost is $10 billion, so I can see that if you're concerned about the deficit it's a fair point. But here's the thing that gets me.
Somehow, Republicans don't manage to raise these objections about deficit neutrality when the question involves tax cuts heavily weighted toward the rich. The Bush tax cuts of 2001 and 2003 increased the deficit. I don't remember many Republican protestations about that. As you can see from this roll-call vote from 2006, extending the tax cuts (well after their deficit-augmenting reality was known), all 51 (at the time) Republican senators voted for them, Coburn and Bunning among them.
Rich people are rich because they're good, so by definition the deficit isn't their fault. Working-class unemployed people, well, hard luck.
Michael Tomasky Monday 5 April 2010
... You may remember a few weeks ago that it was Republican Senator Jim Bunning who held up extension of these benefits because the Senate wasn't coming up to any way to pay for them and make the extension deficit neutral thereby. This time around it's Oklahoma's Tom Coburn:
"The legitimate debate is whether we borrow and steal from our kids or we get out of town and send the bill to our kids for something that we're going to consume today," Coburn said on the Senate floor.
The cost is $10 billion, so I can see that if you're concerned about the deficit it's a fair point. But here's the thing that gets me.
Somehow, Republicans don't manage to raise these objections about deficit neutrality when the question involves tax cuts heavily weighted toward the rich. The Bush tax cuts of 2001 and 2003 increased the deficit. I don't remember many Republican protestations about that. As you can see from this roll-call vote from 2006, extending the tax cuts (well after their deficit-augmenting reality was known), all 51 (at the time) Republican senators voted for them, Coburn and Bunning among them.
Rich people are rich because they're good, so by definition the deficit isn't their fault. Working-class unemployed people, well, hard luck.
IFJ demands investigation into killing of Reuters media pair
Roy Greenslade
Wednesday 7 April 2010
The International Federation of Journalists has called on President Barack Obama to open a fresh investigation into the actions of the US army, which has been implicated in killings of journalists in Iraq.
This follows the release of a shocking video film - which can be seen here - of a 2007 helicopter gunship attack on civilians, including two media staff.
"This is evidence of calculated, cold-blooded and horrifying violence," said Jim Boumelha, IFJ's president. "The United States cannot ignore this atrocity and the killings of unarmed civilians. We insist on a completely new review of these and all the killings of journalists and media staff in the Iraq conflict." ...
Roy Greenslade
Wednesday 7 April 2010
The International Federation of Journalists has called on President Barack Obama to open a fresh investigation into the actions of the US army, which has been implicated in killings of journalists in Iraq.
This follows the release of a shocking video film - which can be seen here - of a 2007 helicopter gunship attack on civilians, including two media staff.
"This is evidence of calculated, cold-blooded and horrifying violence," said Jim Boumelha, IFJ's president. "The United States cannot ignore this atrocity and the killings of unarmed civilians. We insist on a completely new review of these and all the killings of journalists and media staff in the Iraq conflict." ...
General election 2010: Tory adviser's firm stands to benefit from cuts
• Key expert chairs health company
• Labour to mount fightback on NI
• More business chiefs back Tories
Patrick Wintour, political editor
Wednesday 7 April 2010
One of David Cameron's independent efficiency experts who identified the £12bn spending savings an incoming Conservative government could make this year chairs a private healthcare firm that openly admits it will benefit from NHS spending cutbacks.
Sir Peter Gershon chairs General Healthcare Group, the largest private sector health firm in the UK. The Conservatives have relied on Gershon's analysis of efficiency savings to enable them to promise scrapping most of the government's planned national insurance increase – a move that has left Labour flatfooted at the outset of the election campaign.
The disclosure, which will open the Tories to the charge that they have not been transparent about the interests of a key adviser, came after the issue dominated the second day of formal campaigning. Cameron pummelled Gordon Brown over Labour's insistence that it had to raise NI contributions (NICs) – rather than cut spending immediately – in the last prime minister's questions before polling day, and the Tories announced that they had secured the support of another 30 business leaders, taking to 68 the number who have backed their plans to scrap the rise.
The Conservatives claim that the £12bn savings would enable them to cut spending this year by £6bn and channel a further £6bn into other areas. But at a potentially crucial press conference tomorrow – at which Brown and Alistair Darling, the chancellor, will attempt to stem the damage caused by the business assault on the NI rise – Labour will argue that it would be more damaging to take £6bn out of the economy this year than to increase Nics next year.
They will also seek to rebut the Tory claim that Labour is not willing to make efficiency savings of its own in the current financial year. ...
• Key expert chairs health company
• Labour to mount fightback on NI
• More business chiefs back Tories
Patrick Wintour, political editor
Wednesday 7 April 2010
One of David Cameron's independent efficiency experts who identified the £12bn spending savings an incoming Conservative government could make this year chairs a private healthcare firm that openly admits it will benefit from NHS spending cutbacks.
Sir Peter Gershon chairs General Healthcare Group, the largest private sector health firm in the UK. The Conservatives have relied on Gershon's analysis of efficiency savings to enable them to promise scrapping most of the government's planned national insurance increase – a move that has left Labour flatfooted at the outset of the election campaign.
The disclosure, which will open the Tories to the charge that they have not been transparent about the interests of a key adviser, came after the issue dominated the second day of formal campaigning. Cameron pummelled Gordon Brown over Labour's insistence that it had to raise NI contributions (NICs) – rather than cut spending immediately – in the last prime minister's questions before polling day, and the Tories announced that they had secured the support of another 30 business leaders, taking to 68 the number who have backed their plans to scrap the rise.
The Conservatives claim that the £12bn savings would enable them to cut spending this year by £6bn and channel a further £6bn into other areas. But at a potentially crucial press conference tomorrow – at which Brown and Alistair Darling, the chancellor, will attempt to stem the damage caused by the business assault on the NI rise – Labour will argue that it would be more damaging to take £6bn out of the economy this year than to increase Nics next year.
They will also seek to rebut the Tory claim that Labour is not willing to make efficiency savings of its own in the current financial year. ...
When rightwing hate goes mainstream
The Republican party is indulging extremists, hoping they'll put down their guns long enough to vote for them this November
Dan Kennedy
Wednesday 7 April 2010
... The first warning came a year ago, when the department of homeland security predicted a rise in rightwing extremism fuelled by economic calamity and the election of our first black president. News of the report, and especially about a warning contained therein that military veterans might be pulled into the movement, set off criticism among conservative bloggers. Yet it proved prescient.
The most recent and oddest manifestation was last week's arrest of nine people involved in what authorities have referred to as a "Christian militia" intent on sparking revolution. But there have been other examples, each treated by the media as isolated incidents. The murder of Kansas abortion doctor George Tiller, whose killer was sentenced to life in prison last week. The pilot who crashed his plane into an Internal Revenue Service facility in Austin, Texas, in February. Protesters whipped into a frenzy during the healthcare debate who yelled racist and homophobic slurs at members of Congress, who spat upon one and who phoned in threats of violence.
According to Mark Potok of the Southern Poverty Law Centre, the number of rightwing extremist groups has risen exponentially during the past 18 months. And in an interview with National Public Radio's On the Media last week, he was unstinting in placing at least some of the blame for that with their enablers in the Republican party and in the media....
The Republican party is indulging extremists, hoping they'll put down their guns long enough to vote for them this November
Dan Kennedy
Wednesday 7 April 2010
... The first warning came a year ago, when the department of homeland security predicted a rise in rightwing extremism fuelled by economic calamity and the election of our first black president. News of the report, and especially about a warning contained therein that military veterans might be pulled into the movement, set off criticism among conservative bloggers. Yet it proved prescient.
The most recent and oddest manifestation was last week's arrest of nine people involved in what authorities have referred to as a "Christian militia" intent on sparking revolution. But there have been other examples, each treated by the media as isolated incidents. The murder of Kansas abortion doctor George Tiller, whose killer was sentenced to life in prison last week. The pilot who crashed his plane into an Internal Revenue Service facility in Austin, Texas, in February. Protesters whipped into a frenzy during the healthcare debate who yelled racist and homophobic slurs at members of Congress, who spat upon one and who phoned in threats of violence.
According to Mark Potok of the Southern Poverty Law Centre, the number of rightwing extremist groups has risen exponentially during the past 18 months. And in an interview with National Public Radio's On the Media last week, he was unstinting in placing at least some of the blame for that with their enablers in the Republican party and in the media....
The Great Barrier Reef scandal
The Great Barrier Reef is threatened by the worst environmental disaster in Australia's history after a ship ran aground. So why are giant coal carriers allowed to use this well-known shipping hazard as a shortcut?
Ellen Connolly and Jon Henley
Tuesday 6 April 2010
On 11 June 1770, six weeks or so after becoming the first European to make landfall on the east coast of Australia, Lieutenant James Cook unexpectedly ran aground. His ship, the Endeavour, had struck a reef now known as the Endeavour Reef, within a manifestly far bigger reef system, nearly 25 miles from shore. Only the urgent jettisoning of 50 tonnes of stores and equipment (including all but four of the ship's guns), a delicate operation known as fothering (in which an old sail was drawn under the hull, effectively plugging the hole), Cook's expert seamanship and a great deal of hard pumping saved the vessel and her crew.
It would be another 30-odd years before the great Lincolnshire explorer and cartographer Matthew Flinders, having circumnavigated the entirety of Terra Australis Incognita, the Unknown Southern Land, gave the vast reef system its name. But despite his astonishing success in charting a safe passage through its treacherous waters, mainly by the expedient of sending small boats ahead to sound the depths, Flinders himself was later stranded on it while heading home for England in 1803.
For nearly 250 years, the Great Barrier Reef has been a hazard to shipping. It is the world's largest reef system, made up of more than 2,900 coral reefs and 900 islands scattered over 344,400sq km off the coast of Queensland in north-east Australia. Covering an area bigger than the United Kingdom, it is also a priceless and unimaginably fragile world heritage site, home to 30 species of whales, dolphins and porpoises; six species of sea turtles; 125 species of shark, stingray and skate; 5,000 species of mollusc; nine species of seahorse; 215 species of birds; 17 species of sea snake; 2,195 known plant species and more than 1,500 species of fish.
And it is still a hazard to shipping. In recent years, its pristine waters, in theory protected by the statutes of the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park, have become known as the "coal highway", a busy thoroughfare for foreign-owned bulk carriers bound for Asia. Laden with coal and fuel oil from Australia, thousands of ships, such as the Chinese-owned Shen Neng 1, which ran aground off the country's eastern seaboard on Saturday, continue to jeopardise the largest marine conservation site in the world. Last night, as salvage teams worked to prevent what would be the biggest environmental disaster in Australian history, environmentalists were not slow to accuse the government of turning a blind eye to the problem. ...
The Great Barrier Reef is threatened by the worst environmental disaster in Australia's history after a ship ran aground. So why are giant coal carriers allowed to use this well-known shipping hazard as a shortcut?
Ellen Connolly and Jon Henley
Tuesday 6 April 2010
On 11 June 1770, six weeks or so after becoming the first European to make landfall on the east coast of Australia, Lieutenant James Cook unexpectedly ran aground. His ship, the Endeavour, had struck a reef now known as the Endeavour Reef, within a manifestly far bigger reef system, nearly 25 miles from shore. Only the urgent jettisoning of 50 tonnes of stores and equipment (including all but four of the ship's guns), a delicate operation known as fothering (in which an old sail was drawn under the hull, effectively plugging the hole), Cook's expert seamanship and a great deal of hard pumping saved the vessel and her crew.
It would be another 30-odd years before the great Lincolnshire explorer and cartographer Matthew Flinders, having circumnavigated the entirety of Terra Australis Incognita, the Unknown Southern Land, gave the vast reef system its name. But despite his astonishing success in charting a safe passage through its treacherous waters, mainly by the expedient of sending small boats ahead to sound the depths, Flinders himself was later stranded on it while heading home for England in 1803.
For nearly 250 years, the Great Barrier Reef has been a hazard to shipping. It is the world's largest reef system, made up of more than 2,900 coral reefs and 900 islands scattered over 344,400sq km off the coast of Queensland in north-east Australia. Covering an area bigger than the United Kingdom, it is also a priceless and unimaginably fragile world heritage site, home to 30 species of whales, dolphins and porpoises; six species of sea turtles; 125 species of shark, stingray and skate; 5,000 species of mollusc; nine species of seahorse; 215 species of birds; 17 species of sea snake; 2,195 known plant species and more than 1,500 species of fish.
And it is still a hazard to shipping. In recent years, its pristine waters, in theory protected by the statutes of the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park, have become known as the "coal highway", a busy thoroughfare for foreign-owned bulk carriers bound for Asia. Laden with coal and fuel oil from Australia, thousands of ships, such as the Chinese-owned Shen Neng 1, which ran aground off the country's eastern seaboard on Saturday, continue to jeopardise the largest marine conservation site in the world. Last night, as salvage teams worked to prevent what would be the biggest environmental disaster in Australian history, environmentalists were not slow to accuse the government of turning a blind eye to the problem. ...
The voice betrays the adrenalin of combat, but the words are clearly audible over the static. “Let me engage,” the gunner demands, “can I shoot?”
A ground controller asks: “Picking up the wounded?” Seconds later the gunner asks again: “Come on, let us shoot.”
Permission is granted and a dust cloud envelopes a van and several Iraqis picking up bodies from a Baghdad square. Only afterwards do the crew of the American helicopter gunship realise that two children, now gravely wounded, are in the van. “Well,” one says, “it’s their fault for bringing kids into a battle.”
The sequence comes half way through 17 minutes of harrowing gun camera footage, authenticated by unnamed US military officials, in which the co-pilot of the Apache has already mistaken a Reuters photographer for an insurgent brandishing a rocket-propelled grenade launcher. ...
A ground controller asks: “Picking up the wounded?” Seconds later the gunner asks again: “Come on, let us shoot.”
Permission is granted and a dust cloud envelopes a van and several Iraqis picking up bodies from a Baghdad square. Only afterwards do the crew of the American helicopter gunship realise that two children, now gravely wounded, are in the van. “Well,” one says, “it’s their fault for bringing kids into a battle.”
The sequence comes half way through 17 minutes of harrowing gun camera footage, authenticated by unnamed US military officials, in which the co-pilot of the Apache has already mistaken a Reuters photographer for an insurgent brandishing a rocket-propelled grenade launcher. ...
US mine explosion leaves 25 dead
Four miners still missing after blast at West Virginia plant
James Meikle and agencies
Tuesday 6 April 2010
Twenty-five miners were killed and at least four were still unaccounted for today after an explosion in a mine in West Virginia – the worst US mining disaster for more than 25 years.
The search for survivors of the explosion more than 300m (1,000 ft) underground at a remote plant with a history of safety problems was suspended because rising methane gas levels posed a high risk of another blast. Bore holes were being drilled to allow toxic gas to escape.
Officials hoped some of the miners had survived the initial blast at Massey Energy's Upper Big Branch mine at Montcoal yesterday afternoon and reached airtight chambers stocked with food, water and enough oxygen for four days.
However, rescue teams who made it to one of two shelters found it empty and gas levels prevented them reaching the second. State mining director Ron Wooten said rescuers had not given up hope and would try to reach the missing miners. ...
... The cause of the blast is unknown but safety officials said the mine had previous violations for not properly ventilating methane gas. Miners were leaving on a vehicle that took workers in and out of the long shaft when a crew ahead of them felt a blast of air and went back to investigate. They found nine workers, seven of whom were dead. Others were hurt or missing about a mile and a half inside the mine.
Miner Benny R Willingham, 62, was among those who died, according to his sister-in-law Sheila Prillaman. She said family members were angry because they learned of Willingham's death after reading it on a list Massey posted, instead of being contacted by the company.
Massey Energy is among the US's most profitable coal producers. In the last year, federal inspectors have fined the company more than $382,000 (£251,000) for violations involving ventilation and equipment at the plant which is run by a subsidiary, Performance Coal Co. Three other deaths have occurred at the mine in the last 12 years. ...
Four miners still missing after blast at West Virginia plant
James Meikle and agencies
Tuesday 6 April 2010
Twenty-five miners were killed and at least four were still unaccounted for today after an explosion in a mine in West Virginia – the worst US mining disaster for more than 25 years.
The search for survivors of the explosion more than 300m (1,000 ft) underground at a remote plant with a history of safety problems was suspended because rising methane gas levels posed a high risk of another blast. Bore holes were being drilled to allow toxic gas to escape.
Officials hoped some of the miners had survived the initial blast at Massey Energy's Upper Big Branch mine at Montcoal yesterday afternoon and reached airtight chambers stocked with food, water and enough oxygen for four days.
However, rescue teams who made it to one of two shelters found it empty and gas levels prevented them reaching the second. State mining director Ron Wooten said rescuers had not given up hope and would try to reach the missing miners. ...
... The cause of the blast is unknown but safety officials said the mine had previous violations for not properly ventilating methane gas. Miners were leaving on a vehicle that took workers in and out of the long shaft when a crew ahead of them felt a blast of air and went back to investigate. They found nine workers, seven of whom were dead. Others were hurt or missing about a mile and a half inside the mine.
Miner Benny R Willingham, 62, was among those who died, according to his sister-in-law Sheila Prillaman. She said family members were angry because they learned of Willingham's death after reading it on a list Massey posted, instead of being contacted by the company.
Massey Energy is among the US's most profitable coal producers. In the last year, federal inspectors have fined the company more than $382,000 (£251,000) for violations involving ventilation and equipment at the plant which is run by a subsidiary, Performance Coal Co. Three other deaths have occurred at the mine in the last 12 years. ...
Saturday, April 03, 2010
Pity The Pedophile Priests, Pleads Pope.
The Pope pleaded "pity the pedophile priests;
Protect the poor padres, please pray"
They've sinned, but since Eden, we're nothing but beasts
These men--why, they're victims, I say
It's Satan, or sickness, not something they choose
When they lust after children, God knows
They're clearly as blameless as Holocaust Jews
(As the rhetoric reaches new lows)
With your staff and your ring, with your mitre and cape,
And with millions that heed your command
This is not just P.R.; this is forcible rape--
What's the part that you don't understand?
The fact that your coverup now comes to light
Has you pacing the Vatican floors--
And the grim realization must fill you with fright:
These sins are not Adam's; they're yours
Ta much, dear Anneliese
Pity The Pedophile Priests, Pleads Pope.
The Pope pleaded "pity the pedophile priests;
Protect the poor padres, please pray"
They've sinned, but since Eden, we're nothing but beasts
These men--why, they're victims, I say
It's Satan, or sickness, not something they choose
When they lust after children, God knows
They're clearly as blameless as Holocaust Jews
(As the rhetoric reaches new lows)
With your staff and your ring, with your mitre and cape,
And with millions that heed your command
This is not just P.R.; this is forcible rape--
What's the part that you don't understand?
The fact that your coverup now comes to light
Has you pacing the Vatican floors--
And the grim realization must fill you with fright:
These sins are not Adam's; they're yours
Ta much, dear Anneliese
Spying on Computer Spies Traces Data Theft to China
By JOHN MARKOFF and DAVID BARBOZA
Published: April 5, 2010
TORONTO — Turning the tables on a China-based computer espionage gang, Canadian and United States computer security researchers have monitored a spying operation for the past eight months, observing while the intruders pilfered classified and restricted documents from the highest levels of the Indian Defense Ministry.
In a report issued Monday night, the researchers, based at the Munk School of Global Affairs at the University of Toronto, provide a detailed account of how a spy operation it called the Shadow Network systematically hacked into personal computers in government offices on several continents.
The Toronto spy hunters not only learned what kinds of material had been stolen, but were able to see some of the documents, including classified assessments about security in several Indian states, and confidential embassy documents about India’s relationships in West Africa, Russia and the Middle East. The intruders breached the systems of independent analysts, taking reports on several Indian missile systems. They also obtained a year’s worth of the Dalai Lama’s personal e-mail messages.
The intruders even stole documents related to the travel of NATO forces in Afghanistan, illustrating that even though the Indian government was the primary target of the attacks, one chink in computer security can leave many nations exposed.
“It’s not only that you’re only secure as the weakest link in your network,” said Rafal Rohozinski, a member of the Toronto team. “But in an interconnected world, you’re only as secure as the weakest link in the global chain of information.”
As recently as early March, the Indian communications minister, Sachin Pilot, told reporters that government networks had been attacked by China, but that “not one attempt has been successful.” But on March 24, the Toronto researchers said, they contacted intelligence officials in India and told them of the spy ring they had been tracking. They requested and were given instructions on how to dispose of the classified and restricted documents.
On Monday, Sitanshu Kar, a spokesman for the Indian Defense Ministry, said officials were “looking into” the report, but had no official statement.
The attacks look like the work of a criminal gang based in Sichuan Province, but as with all cyberattacks, it is easy to mask the true origin, the researchers said. Given the sophistication of the intruders and the targets of the operation, the researchers said, it is possible that the Chinese government approved of the spying. ...
Ta much, dear Glenn321
By JOHN MARKOFF and DAVID BARBOZA
Published: April 5, 2010
TORONTO — Turning the tables on a China-based computer espionage gang, Canadian and United States computer security researchers have monitored a spying operation for the past eight months, observing while the intruders pilfered classified and restricted documents from the highest levels of the Indian Defense Ministry.
In a report issued Monday night, the researchers, based at the Munk School of Global Affairs at the University of Toronto, provide a detailed account of how a spy operation it called the Shadow Network systematically hacked into personal computers in government offices on several continents.
The Toronto spy hunters not only learned what kinds of material had been stolen, but were able to see some of the documents, including classified assessments about security in several Indian states, and confidential embassy documents about India’s relationships in West Africa, Russia and the Middle East. The intruders breached the systems of independent analysts, taking reports on several Indian missile systems. They also obtained a year’s worth of the Dalai Lama’s personal e-mail messages.
The intruders even stole documents related to the travel of NATO forces in Afghanistan, illustrating that even though the Indian government was the primary target of the attacks, one chink in computer security can leave many nations exposed.
“It’s not only that you’re only secure as the weakest link in your network,” said Rafal Rohozinski, a member of the Toronto team. “But in an interconnected world, you’re only as secure as the weakest link in the global chain of information.”
As recently as early March, the Indian communications minister, Sachin Pilot, told reporters that government networks had been attacked by China, but that “not one attempt has been successful.” But on March 24, the Toronto researchers said, they contacted intelligence officials in India and told them of the spy ring they had been tracking. They requested and were given instructions on how to dispose of the classified and restricted documents.
On Monday, Sitanshu Kar, a spokesman for the Indian Defense Ministry, said officials were “looking into” the report, but had no official statement.
The attacks look like the work of a criminal gang based in Sichuan Province, but as with all cyberattacks, it is easy to mask the true origin, the researchers said. Given the sophistication of the intruders and the targets of the operation, the researchers said, it is possible that the Chinese government approved of the spying. ...
Ta much, dear Glenn321
Council condemned over 'Britain's shortest cycle lane'
A council has been condemned for wasting taxpayers’ money after it built a cycle lane just 8ft long.
A council has been condemned for wasting taxpayers’ money after it built a cycle lane just 8ft long.
April 4, 2010
I believe you’ve killed the church, Holy Father
Only a morally bankrupt Pope could call news of his role in a child abuse cover-up ‘petty gossip’
Andrew Sullivan
We know two things about Pope Benedict XVI this Easter that we didn’t know last Easter. We know that he was implicated in covering up two cases of multiple child rapes and molestations, one in Germany and one in the United States. His record on this makes it hard to distinguish his career from that of many other bishops and cardinals who were indirectly but clearly guilty of ignoring or covering up their underlings’ violation of the bodies and souls of the young and the vulnerable.
The Vatican has spent Holy Week fighting back against those facts, but it cannot abolish or undo them. The German case is the most clear-cut — because it was so glaring and so directly connected to Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, as the Pope was then known. The facts are these: a priest, Peter Hullermann, was found guilty of raping children in at least three families under Ratzinger’s authority in the late 1970s. The local priest indicated that the families would “not file charges under the current circumstances”, and the case went to Ratzinger, who decided not to report the priest to the criminal authorities, nor to strip him of his office, but to send him for therapy and retain him as an active priest, capable of molesting again. The priest subsequently raped many more children; he was found guilty in 1986 and was given a suspended sentence.
The Pope’s first defence was that he knew nothing about it and that his subordinate at the time, Gerhard Gruber, took full responsibility. We then discovered that the psychiatrist in the case had contacted Ratzinger’s office on several occasions, warning him of the “danger” the priest represented. “I said, ‘For God’s sake, he desperately has to be kept away from working with children’,” the psychiatrist told The New York Times. ...
I believe you’ve killed the church, Holy Father
Only a morally bankrupt Pope could call news of his role in a child abuse cover-up ‘petty gossip’
Andrew Sullivan
We know two things about Pope Benedict XVI this Easter that we didn’t know last Easter. We know that he was implicated in covering up two cases of multiple child rapes and molestations, one in Germany and one in the United States. His record on this makes it hard to distinguish his career from that of many other bishops and cardinals who were indirectly but clearly guilty of ignoring or covering up their underlings’ violation of the bodies and souls of the young and the vulnerable.
The Vatican has spent Holy Week fighting back against those facts, but it cannot abolish or undo them. The German case is the most clear-cut — because it was so glaring and so directly connected to Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, as the Pope was then known. The facts are these: a priest, Peter Hullermann, was found guilty of raping children in at least three families under Ratzinger’s authority in the late 1970s. The local priest indicated that the families would “not file charges under the current circumstances”, and the case went to Ratzinger, who decided not to report the priest to the criminal authorities, nor to strip him of his office, but to send him for therapy and retain him as an active priest, capable of molesting again. The priest subsequently raped many more children; he was found guilty in 1986 and was given a suspended sentence.
The Pope’s first defence was that he knew nothing about it and that his subordinate at the time, Gerhard Gruber, took full responsibility. We then discovered that the psychiatrist in the case had contacted Ratzinger’s office on several occasions, warning him of the “danger” the priest represented. “I said, ‘For God’s sake, he desperately has to be kept away from working with children’,” the psychiatrist told The New York Times. ...
Are short-sleeved shirts with ties ever acceptable for a man at work or do they, as I suspect, just make you look creepy and as if you still live in your parents' spare room and play Dungeons and Dragons?
- Rod, by email
To answer your queries in order, no and yes, you suspect correctly. I am very sorry if you suffer from sweaty wrists, Rod, but unless your personal style icon is Napoleon Dynamite, or you wish to resemble one of those guys who is eventually arrested when police discover piles of dead bodies in his freezer and his neighbours all give quotes saying, "It's so strange – he always seemed like such a pleasant fellow. Kept to himself, mind", then you will not pair a tie with a short-sleeved shirt. Truth be told, I object to button-down short-sleeved shirts full stop, and when I am Queen of the Universe – as shall soon come to pass, it has been foretold in the Book of Grazia – I shall ban them...
- Rod, by email
To answer your queries in order, no and yes, you suspect correctly. I am very sorry if you suffer from sweaty wrists, Rod, but unless your personal style icon is Napoleon Dynamite, or you wish to resemble one of those guys who is eventually arrested when police discover piles of dead bodies in his freezer and his neighbours all give quotes saying, "It's so strange – he always seemed like such a pleasant fellow. Kept to himself, mind", then you will not pair a tie with a short-sleeved shirt. Truth be told, I object to button-down short-sleeved shirts full stop, and when I am Queen of the Universe – as shall soon come to pass, it has been foretold in the Book of Grazia – I shall ban them...
Senior Catholics across Europe today apologised for the way the church had dealt with paedophile priests and acknowledged the damage the scandal had caused to its moral authority.
In Easter sermons that revealed penitence, shame and shortcomings, archbishops in Armagh, Dublin, Edinburgh, Vienna and Westminster asked congregations for their forgiveness and urged them not to abandon the church because of past sins.
But there was no apology from Rome, as Benedict XVI maintained a steadfast silence about the crisis in his annual Urbi et Orbi – To the City and the World – address. ...
In Easter sermons that revealed penitence, shame and shortcomings, archbishops in Armagh, Dublin, Edinburgh, Vienna and Westminster asked congregations for their forgiveness and urged them not to abandon the church because of past sins.
But there was no apology from Rome, as Benedict XVI maintained a steadfast silence about the crisis in his annual Urbi et Orbi – To the City and the World – address. ...
Police who investigated the phone-hacking scandal at the News of the World obtained previously undisclosed telephone records which showed a vast number of public figures had had their voicemail accessed – and then decided not to pursue the evidence, according to official papers seen by the Guardian.
The revelation – contained in paperwork from inside the Crown Prosecution Service – raises fundamental questions about the behaviour of Scotland Yard, which has claimed repeatedly that it found evidence of "only a handful" of people whose mobile phone messages had been intercepted by the News of the World's private investigator, Glenn Mulcaire.
The paperwork also reveals that police and prosecutors adopted a deliberate strategy to ringfence the evidence which they presented in court in order to suppress the names of particularly prominent victims, including members of the royal family. The existence of this strategy has been omitted from all public statements, including evidence made to the House of Commons media select committee.
In a further blow to the official version of events, the Guardian has discovered that although police and prosecutors named only eight victims in court, material seized by police from Mulcaire and the paper's royal reporter, Clive Goodman, contained 4,332 names or partial names of people in whom the two men had an interest, 2,978 numbers or partial numbers for mobile phones and 30 audio tapes which appear to contain an unspecified number of recordings of voicemail messages. ...
The revelation – contained in paperwork from inside the Crown Prosecution Service – raises fundamental questions about the behaviour of Scotland Yard, which has claimed repeatedly that it found evidence of "only a handful" of people whose mobile phone messages had been intercepted by the News of the World's private investigator, Glenn Mulcaire.
The paperwork also reveals that police and prosecutors adopted a deliberate strategy to ringfence the evidence which they presented in court in order to suppress the names of particularly prominent victims, including members of the royal family. The existence of this strategy has been omitted from all public statements, including evidence made to the House of Commons media select committee.
In a further blow to the official version of events, the Guardian has discovered that although police and prosecutors named only eight victims in court, material seized by police from Mulcaire and the paper's royal reporter, Clive Goodman, contained 4,332 names or partial names of people in whom the two men had an interest, 2,978 numbers or partial numbers for mobile phones and 30 audio tapes which appear to contain an unspecified number of recordings of voicemail messages. ...
Aged 68 and almost half a century past the zenith of his angry, protest-song youth, Bob Dylan must almost have forgotten what it was like to be deemed a threat to society. But it seems at least one place still sees him as a dangerous radical.
Dylan's planned tour of east Asia later this month has been called off after Chinese officials refused permission for him to play in Beijing and Shanghai, his local promoters said. China's ministry of culture, which vets planned concerts by overseas artists, appeared wary of Dylan's past as an icon of the counterculture movement, said Jeffrey Wu, of the Taiwan-based promoters Brokers Brothers Herald.
Dylan fans denied the chance to see their hero might also blame Björk, who caused consternation among Chinese officials two years ago by shouting pro-Tibet slogans at a concert in Shanghai, Wu told Hong Kong's South China Morning Post.
The verdict scuppers Dylan's plans to play his first dates in mainland China. The singer, who plays around 100 concerts a year on his Never Ending Tour, had hoped to extend a multi-city Japanese leg with concerts in Beijing, Shanghai, Taiwan, South Korea and Hong Kong. All these would now be called off, Wu told the newspaper. ...
WTF, chinastan?
Dylan's planned tour of east Asia later this month has been called off after Chinese officials refused permission for him to play in Beijing and Shanghai, his local promoters said. China's ministry of culture, which vets planned concerts by overseas artists, appeared wary of Dylan's past as an icon of the counterculture movement, said Jeffrey Wu, of the Taiwan-based promoters Brokers Brothers Herald.
Dylan fans denied the chance to see their hero might also blame Björk, who caused consternation among Chinese officials two years ago by shouting pro-Tibet slogans at a concert in Shanghai, Wu told Hong Kong's South China Morning Post.
The verdict scuppers Dylan's plans to play his first dates in mainland China. The singer, who plays around 100 concerts a year on his Never Ending Tour, had hoped to extend a multi-city Japanese leg with concerts in Beijing, Shanghai, Taiwan, South Korea and Hong Kong. All these would now be called off, Wu told the newspaper. ...
WTF, chinastan?
"We are now very worried we might see further oil discharged from this ship," Ms Bligh said. Local emergency crews were on standby to clean any oil that reached mainland beaches, she added.
It emerged today that the 755ft (230m) vessel should not have been in the area where it ran aground.
Ms Bligh said that the vessel hit the reef at full speed in a restricted zone 9 miles (15km) outside the shipping lane.
Its presence outside the shipping channel would be subject to a probing inquiry, she said.
Aircraft have been spraying chemical oil dispersant on to two small patches of oil about 2.5 miles from the ship.
The spill is within the southern end of the Great Barrier Reef but it will not be known for some days whether it is large enough to have a damaging impact on the reef.
Peter Garrett, the Environment Minister, said that it was too early to say whether there would be any lasting effect. "We don't have advice at present as to whether the oil is going to threaten any part of the ecology of the reef," he said.
"The Government is very conscious of the importance of the Great Barrier Reef environment and ensuring that impacts on its ecology are effectively managed." Conservationists said the fact that there was no legal requirement to have marine pilots on board ships in the area to guide them safely through the 1,500 mile (2,500km) reef system put it in grave danger.
Ian Herbert, the Capricorn Conservation Council spokesman, said he feared that the latest incident was a “sign of things to come". ...
It emerged today that the 755ft (230m) vessel should not have been in the area where it ran aground.
Ms Bligh said that the vessel hit the reef at full speed in a restricted zone 9 miles (15km) outside the shipping lane.
Its presence outside the shipping channel would be subject to a probing inquiry, she said.
Aircraft have been spraying chemical oil dispersant on to two small patches of oil about 2.5 miles from the ship.
The spill is within the southern end of the Great Barrier Reef but it will not be known for some days whether it is large enough to have a damaging impact on the reef.
Peter Garrett, the Environment Minister, said that it was too early to say whether there would be any lasting effect. "We don't have advice at present as to whether the oil is going to threaten any part of the ecology of the reef," he said.
"The Government is very conscious of the importance of the Great Barrier Reef environment and ensuring that impacts on its ecology are effectively managed." Conservationists said the fact that there was no legal requirement to have marine pilots on board ships in the area to guide them safely through the 1,500 mile (2,500km) reef system put it in grave danger.
Ian Herbert, the Capricorn Conservation Council spokesman, said he feared that the latest incident was a “sign of things to come". ...
Pope Benedict XVI ignored calls for a mea culpa over the growing crisis of clerical sex abuse yesterday as a senior prelate insisted the Church would not be intimidated by “petty gossip”. In his Easter Day address, Urbi et Orbi (To the city and world), made to a crowd in St Peter’s Square in Rome, the Pope insisted he would continue his “pilgrimage” and spoke of the need for “a spiritual and moral conversion” and an examination of consciences. ...
US special forces soldiers dug bullets out of their victims’ bodies in the bloody aftermath of a botched night raid, then washed the wounds with alcohol before lying to their superiors about what happened, Afghan investigators have told The Times.
Two pregnant women, a teenage girl, a police officer and his brother were shot on February 12 when US and Afghan special forces stormed their home in Khataba village, outside Gardez in eastern Afghanistan. The precise composition of the force has never been made public.
The claims were made as Nato admitted responsibility for all the deaths for the first time last night. It had initially claimed that the women had been dead for several hours when the assault force discovered their bodies. ...
Two pregnant women, a teenage girl, a police officer and his brother were shot on February 12 when US and Afghan special forces stormed their home in Khataba village, outside Gardez in eastern Afghanistan. The precise composition of the force has never been made public.
The claims were made as Nato admitted responsibility for all the deaths for the first time last night. It had initially claimed that the women had been dead for several hours when the assault force discovered their bodies. ...
Jesus of Peeps
by Janet Galore
494 marshmallow Peeps with wood frame
4.5ft x 3.5ft
Guillaume Rambourg, the star trader suspended last week from Gartmore, the fund manager, used the Bloomberg instant messaging system to “direct” trades for nearly a year.
Jeff Meyer, Gartmore’s chief executive, said Rambourg circumvented a company rule introduced on May 15 last year. Staff were given training sessions and asked to take a test to make sure they understood that they could no longer direct trades. “That is what has caused us the most concern about Guillaume — it’s a behavioural issue. He knew what the rules were but continued as he had before,” said Meyer.
Rambourg, who owns 4% of the firm, did not appear to have profited from his actions. “I’ll jump off this building if he was doing it for profit,” said Meyer.
The rule banned fund managers from telling Gartmore’s trading staff which brokers to use on share deals. Before it was introduced, fund managers would use the company’s own IT systems to pass messages suggesting that business be directed to a certain firm. ...
Jeff Meyer, Gartmore’s chief executive, said Rambourg circumvented a company rule introduced on May 15 last year. Staff were given training sessions and asked to take a test to make sure they understood that they could no longer direct trades. “That is what has caused us the most concern about Guillaume — it’s a behavioural issue. He knew what the rules were but continued as he had before,” said Meyer.
Rambourg, who owns 4% of the firm, did not appear to have profited from his actions. “I’ll jump off this building if he was doing it for profit,” said Meyer.
The rule banned fund managers from telling Gartmore’s trading staff which brokers to use on share deals. Before it was introduced, fund managers would use the company’s own IT systems to pass messages suggesting that business be directed to a certain firm. ...
Easter became a festival of apology across the Christian world today as church leaders issued mea culpas for grievous sins committed against children and God.
The Pope was one of the few who failed to refer at all to the crisis that is tarnishing the image of the Church worldwide — and that has even embroiled the leader of the Anglican Communion, Dr Rowan Williams, Archbishop of Canterbury.
In Ireland Cardinal Sean Brady, the head of the Roman Catholic Church, acknowledged his own role in putting the reputation of the Church before justice for abused children, apologising "with all my heart" but stopped short of the resignation that many believe is inevitable.
Vincent Nichols, Archbishop of Westminster and leader of the Catholic Church in England and Wales, admitted that "serious sins" had been committed within the Catholic community. Preaching at Westminster Cathedral, he said: "Talk of sin is not always popular - unless we are talking about other people’s sins. In recent weeks the serious sins committed within the Catholic community have been much talked about. ..."
The Pope was one of the few who failed to refer at all to the crisis that is tarnishing the image of the Church worldwide — and that has even embroiled the leader of the Anglican Communion, Dr Rowan Williams, Archbishop of Canterbury.
In Ireland Cardinal Sean Brady, the head of the Roman Catholic Church, acknowledged his own role in putting the reputation of the Church before justice for abused children, apologising "with all my heart" but stopped short of the resignation that many believe is inevitable.
Vincent Nichols, Archbishop of Westminster and leader of the Catholic Church in England and Wales, admitted that "serious sins" had been committed within the Catholic community. Preaching at Westminster Cathedral, he said: "Talk of sin is not always popular - unless we are talking about other people’s sins. In recent weeks the serious sins committed within the Catholic community have been much talked about. ..."
Some of the suppressed fury of German Catholics about the handling of the child abuse scandal spilled over into an attack on a bishop during Easter Sunday High Mass.
Bishop Felix Genn had to hold aloft an incense container to fend off the blows from a broomstick wielded by an angry parishioner trying to beat him on the altar of Germany's ancient Münster Cathedral.
The attack was the first act of physical violence in a highly emotional Easter festival that has been overshadowed by months of child molestation accusations against priests.
The 44-year-old assailant ran forward at the beginning of the service and toppled the large Easter candle, then turned on the bishop. ...
Nice try.
Bishop Felix Genn had to hold aloft an incense container to fend off the blows from a broomstick wielded by an angry parishioner trying to beat him on the altar of Germany's ancient Münster Cathedral.
The attack was the first act of physical violence in a highly emotional Easter festival that has been overshadowed by months of child molestation accusations against priests.
The 44-year-old assailant ran forward at the beginning of the service and toppled the large Easter candle, then turned on the bishop. ...
Nice try.
The late Tucson Bishop Manuel D. Moreno, often characterized as a poor advocate for sexual abuse victims, struggled with both canon law and Vatican mandates in his efforts to defrock two local priests, documents obtained by the Arizona Daily Star show.
In one case, Moreno pleaded with then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, now Pope Benedict XVI, for help in removing the Rev. Michael Teta, who was convicted by the church in 1997 of five crimes including sexual solicitation in the confessional.
"I make this plea to you to assist me in every way you can to expedite this case, because the accused was a priest in whom I had great confidence at one time, but who, unfortunately, worked among our former seminarians, and, terrible to say, evidently corrupted many of them," Moreno wrote in an April 1997 letter to Ratzinger.
Ratzinger's office oversaw Teta's case because the crimes allegedly occurred in the confessional. His office did not handle the case of the other priest, Monsignor Robert C. Trupia, until 2001, when jurisdiction over such cases changed.
Teta's case, Moreno wrote, had already gone on for seven years. Teta was first suspended in 1990.
Teta and Trupia were defrocked in 2004. The diocese suspended Trupia in 1992 after a Tucson mother told the diocese her young son had been sexually abused by Trupia.
The diocese did not notify police about allegations against Trupia until 2000, when mandatory- reporting policies were adopted here. ...
In one case, Moreno pleaded with then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, now Pope Benedict XVI, for help in removing the Rev. Michael Teta, who was convicted by the church in 1997 of five crimes including sexual solicitation in the confessional.
"I make this plea to you to assist me in every way you can to expedite this case, because the accused was a priest in whom I had great confidence at one time, but who, unfortunately, worked among our former seminarians, and, terrible to say, evidently corrupted many of them," Moreno wrote in an April 1997 letter to Ratzinger.
Ratzinger's office oversaw Teta's case because the crimes allegedly occurred in the confessional. His office did not handle the case of the other priest, Monsignor Robert C. Trupia, until 2001, when jurisdiction over such cases changed.
Teta's case, Moreno wrote, had already gone on for seven years. Teta was first suspended in 1990.
Teta and Trupia were defrocked in 2004. The diocese suspended Trupia in 1992 after a Tucson mother told the diocese her young son had been sexually abused by Trupia.
The diocese did not notify police about allegations against Trupia until 2000, when mandatory- reporting policies were adopted here. ...
Detroit Mayor Dave Bing's big step toward tearing down 3,000 derelict buildings suffered a setback Thursday when a state asbestos inspector stopped demolition after one house was razed.
Residents along Lewerenz in southwest Detroit said Thomas Vincent, an asbestos inspector with the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality, shut down a crew that had torn down one house on the list and was preparing to haul the debris away.
Vincent did not return a call to his office on Thursday. No one answered calls to the city's Building and Safety Department. City officials were on an unpaid furlough Thursday.
Dave Yrhus, 50, whose home is next door to the house that was demolished in the 1100 block of Lewerenz, said he was there when Vincent showed up.
"He said these houses were not finally inspected and needed the final OK to be demolished," Yrhus said. "That stopped them from bringing the dump truck and having it all hauled."
City Building and Safety officials who had been contacted sent out inspectors who began gathering samples from the debris, Yrhus said.
Ashok Badhwar, owner of Glo Wrecking Co., said his Detroit company had been given the appropriate permits by the city to demolish the home, but there appeared to be some miscommunication between the state and city.
"I think the issue has been resolved," Badhwar said, adding that he expected to proceed with the demolition today. "The state wanted to know about some environmental issues, and the guy from the city was there and said he was going to send the information." ...
Residents along Lewerenz in southwest Detroit said Thomas Vincent, an asbestos inspector with the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality, shut down a crew that had torn down one house on the list and was preparing to haul the debris away.
Vincent did not return a call to his office on Thursday. No one answered calls to the city's Building and Safety Department. City officials were on an unpaid furlough Thursday.
Dave Yrhus, 50, whose home is next door to the house that was demolished in the 1100 block of Lewerenz, said he was there when Vincent showed up.
"He said these houses were not finally inspected and needed the final OK to be demolished," Yrhus said. "That stopped them from bringing the dump truck and having it all hauled."
City Building and Safety officials who had been contacted sent out inspectors who began gathering samples from the debris, Yrhus said.
Ashok Badhwar, owner of Glo Wrecking Co., said his Detroit company had been given the appropriate permits by the city to demolish the home, but there appeared to be some miscommunication between the state and city.
"I think the issue has been resolved," Badhwar said, adding that he expected to proceed with the demolition today. "The state wanted to know about some environmental issues, and the guy from the city was there and said he was going to send the information." ...
The Vatican has moved to block an attempt to force the Pope to appear in court in the United States, after a lawyer filed a motion seeking his sworn testimony on what the Vatican knew about paedophile scandals.
Giuseppe dalla Torre, head of the Vatican City Tribunal, said that Benedict XVI had diplomatic immunity as a head of state. The Vatican lawyers are also expected to argue that US bishops who oversaw priests who committed abuse were not Vatican employees.
The Kentucky action by William McMurry comes after a lawsuit filed in 2004 by three men who allege that they were abused by priests in the state.
The Vatican tried to get the case dismissed, but in 2007 a judge approved a process under which both sides can request information and documents, including the questioning of witnesses. ...
Giuseppe dalla Torre, head of the Vatican City Tribunal, said that Benedict XVI had diplomatic immunity as a head of state. The Vatican lawyers are also expected to argue that US bishops who oversaw priests who committed abuse were not Vatican employees.
The Kentucky action by William McMurry comes after a lawsuit filed in 2004 by three men who allege that they were abused by priests in the state.
The Vatican tried to get the case dismissed, but in 2007 a judge approved a process under which both sides can request information and documents, including the questioning of witnesses. ...
German Catholic leaders openly admitted for the first time today that the Church betrayed and abused children in its care.
The admission by Archbishop Robert Zollitsch, chairman of the German Bishops' Conference, came as Catholic priests across the country called on their congregations to pray for abused children.
But in many churches worshippers took the unusual step of expressing their unhappiness with the Church's management of the crisis.
Archbishop Zollitsch said that the Church had committed serious mistakes and done too little to help the victims of priestly abuse. “The caring responsibility towards the victims was insufficient in the past because of our own disappointment at the painful failure of the perpetrators, and out of a falsely understood concern for the standing of the church," he said. ...
The admission by Archbishop Robert Zollitsch, chairman of the German Bishops' Conference, came as Catholic priests across the country called on their congregations to pray for abused children.
But in many churches worshippers took the unusual step of expressing their unhappiness with the Church's management of the crisis.
Archbishop Zollitsch said that the Church had committed serious mistakes and done too little to help the victims of priestly abuse. “The caring responsibility towards the victims was insufficient in the past because of our own disappointment at the painful failure of the perpetrators, and out of a falsely understood concern for the standing of the church," he said. ...
March 28, 2010
DPS: Scam cost $57M
FBI investigates ex-risk manager; district sues to recover money
BY JENNIFER DIXON
FREE PRESS STAFF WRITER
A former department chief at Detroit Public Schools and his assistant used secret offices and their own computer system to improperly divert more than $57 million in school funds to vendors who provided little, if anything, in return, according to sworn records reviewed by the Free Press.
Documents in a Wayne County Circuit Court lawsuit brought by DPS allege that Stephen Hill of Detroit -- director of DPS risk management from 2001-05 -- received luxury vehicles and other kickbacks. Some of the vendors who benefitted were friends or associates of Hill's or relatives of Hill's assistant, Christina Polk-Osumah of Detroit, court records allege.
When Hill left the district in September 2005, he received a champagne-and-tenderloin farewell bash that cost the impoverished school system $40,000, according to the suit.
The FBI now is investigating the alleged fraud scheme.
Robert Bobb, the district's emergency financial manager, said in a statement that the case is another example of how "DPS has been a place where people use the district as their personal banker and where there has been a cesspool of corruption, and in cases such as this one, both national corporations and local individuals took advantage of Detroit Public Schools."
Hill could not be reached for comment. His former attorney denied that Hill acted improperly and said he will be vindicated. ...
DPS: Scam cost $57M
FBI investigates ex-risk manager; district sues to recover money
BY JENNIFER DIXON
FREE PRESS STAFF WRITER
A former department chief at Detroit Public Schools and his assistant used secret offices and their own computer system to improperly divert more than $57 million in school funds to vendors who provided little, if anything, in return, according to sworn records reviewed by the Free Press.
Documents in a Wayne County Circuit Court lawsuit brought by DPS allege that Stephen Hill of Detroit -- director of DPS risk management from 2001-05 -- received luxury vehicles and other kickbacks. Some of the vendors who benefitted were friends or associates of Hill's or relatives of Hill's assistant, Christina Polk-Osumah of Detroit, court records allege.
When Hill left the district in September 2005, he received a champagne-and-tenderloin farewell bash that cost the impoverished school system $40,000, according to the suit.
The FBI now is investigating the alleged fraud scheme.
Robert Bobb, the district's emergency financial manager, said in a statement that the case is another example of how "DPS has been a place where people use the district as their personal banker and where there has been a cesspool of corruption, and in cases such as this one, both national corporations and local individuals took advantage of Detroit Public Schools."
Hill could not be reached for comment. His former attorney denied that Hill acted improperly and said he will be vindicated. ...
March 31, 2010
$57-MILLION ALLEGATIONS
Ex-official facing DPS suit loses job offer
Ill. county rescinds proposal for top spot after troubles found
BY JENNIFER DIXON
FREE PRESS STAFF WRITER
On Sunday, the Free Press reported that a former Detroit schools official was accused of running a $57-million scam and accepting kickbacks while at Detroit Public Schools.
On Monday, Cook County, which covers Chicago and its environs, announced that the former official, Stephen Hill, had been offered a job as that county's director of risk management.
Oops.
When the Free Press called to inquire Tuesday, Cook County officials -- hours later -- confirmed the job offer. But they said the offer was rescinded after someone performed a Google search, which turned up the Free Press article, and other material on the DPS lawsuit against Hill, set for trial this summer. ...
$57-MILLION ALLEGATIONS
Ex-official facing DPS suit loses job offer
Ill. county rescinds proposal for top spot after troubles found
BY JENNIFER DIXON
FREE PRESS STAFF WRITER
On Sunday, the Free Press reported that a former Detroit schools official was accused of running a $57-million scam and accepting kickbacks while at Detroit Public Schools.
On Monday, Cook County, which covers Chicago and its environs, announced that the former official, Stephen Hill, had been offered a job as that county's director of risk management.
Oops.
When the Free Press called to inquire Tuesday, Cook County officials -- hours later -- confirmed the job offer. But they said the offer was rescinded after someone performed a Google search, which turned up the Free Press article, and other material on the DPS lawsuit against Hill, set for trial this summer. ...
A tax break created by Gordon Brown to encourage millions of people to save has degenerated into a £3 billion a year rip-off that enriches the banks, according to a damning verdict from the statutory consumer watchdog.
Consumer Focus has made a formal complaint to the Office of Fair Trading alleging that cash Isas pay derisory rates of interest and that banks use unfair obstacles to stop people from switching to better deals. The OFT has 90 days to respond.
“It beggars belief that in 21st century Britain it takes a month to transfer information and funds from one bank to another,” said Mike O’Connor, chief executive of Consumer Focus. “The average Isa saver is getting a poor deal.” ...
Consumer Focus has made a formal complaint to the Office of Fair Trading alleging that cash Isas pay derisory rates of interest and that banks use unfair obstacles to stop people from switching to better deals. The OFT has 90 days to respond.
“It beggars belief that in 21st century Britain it takes a month to transfer information and funds from one bank to another,” said Mike O’Connor, chief executive of Consumer Focus. “The average Isa saver is getting a poor deal.” ...
Police accused of trespass after 'burgling' 50 homes... to show owners how insecure they are
By Luke Salkeld
30th March 2010
When it comes to fighting crime, a certain understanding of the criminal mind is essential.
But the police have been criticised for their attempts to prevent a spate of house thefts - by committing the burglaries themselves.
Officers have been entering private homes through open windows or unlocked doors, supposedly as a warning to residents about a lack of security. ...
Wow. Warrantlessco pigs rooting round in peoples' homes, eh? Jolly good show, idiots.
Ta much, dear Edosan
By Luke Salkeld
30th March 2010
When it comes to fighting crime, a certain understanding of the criminal mind is essential.
But the police have been criticised for their attempts to prevent a spate of house thefts - by committing the burglaries themselves.
Officers have been entering private homes through open windows or unlocked doors, supposedly as a warning to residents about a lack of security. ...
Wow. Warrantless
Ta much, dear Edosan
Nine members of a rightwing Christian militia in the US were charged yesterday with plotting to murder a policeman and then bomb his funeral in an attempt to provoke an anti-government uprising.
Eight of the Michigan-based group, which includes one woman, were arrested at the weekend in raids in three states, amid warnings from civil rights groups of a surge in the number of extremist militias and "patriot" organisations that see the government as the enemy. A ninth person remained at large as charges of sedition and the planned use of weapons of mass destruction were issued.
The members of the group, called Hutaree, allegedly planned to kill the policeman and plant improvised bombs – modelled on those used by insurgents in Iraq – along the route of his funeral, to murder other officers and mourners.
Hutaree, which the group says means Christian warrior, is described by prosecutors as advocating attacks on law enforcement agencies as the "foot soldiers" of the federal government.
"This is an example of radical and extremist fringe groups which can be found throughout our society," said Andrew Arena, the FBI agent in charge of the investigation in Michigan. "The FBI takes such extremist groups seriously."
Hutaree describes its doctrine as based on the testimony of Jesus and warns of a looming battle with the antichrist. "The Hutaree will one day see its enemy and meet him on the battlefield, if so God wills it," the group says in its literature. ...
Eight of the Michigan-based group, which includes one woman, were arrested at the weekend in raids in three states, amid warnings from civil rights groups of a surge in the number of extremist militias and "patriot" organisations that see the government as the enemy. A ninth person remained at large as charges of sedition and the planned use of weapons of mass destruction were issued.
The members of the group, called Hutaree, allegedly planned to kill the policeman and plant improvised bombs – modelled on those used by insurgents in Iraq – along the route of his funeral, to murder other officers and mourners.
Hutaree, which the group says means Christian warrior, is described by prosecutors as advocating attacks on law enforcement agencies as the "foot soldiers" of the federal government.
"This is an example of radical and extremist fringe groups which can be found throughout our society," said Andrew Arena, the FBI agent in charge of the investigation in Michigan. "The FBI takes such extremist groups seriously."
Hutaree describes its doctrine as based on the testimony of Jesus and warns of a looming battle with the antichrist. "The Hutaree will one day see its enemy and meet him on the battlefield, if so God wills it," the group says in its literature. ...
'Stralia seems to be operating under the mistaken impression that it's chinastan.
Last Updated: March 29. 2010 1:00AM
Militia members arrested in Sun. raid to be charged today
At least seven were taken into custody in raids by an FBI-led Joint Terrorism Task Force in Michigan, Indiana, Ohio
Jennifer Chambers and Doug Guthrie / The Detroit News
Federal prosecutors plan to unseal charges today against members of a self-described Christian militia arrested Saturday and Sunday in Michigan, Ohio, Indiana and Illinois.
At least seven people were taken into custody in raids by an FBI-led Joint Terrorism Task Force as part of an investigation into an Adrian-based unit of the Hutaree, a group that professes it is training in modern armed combat techniques for a prophesized coming battle with the Antichrist.
The suspects are expected to make an initial appearance in U.S. District Court in Detroit today, according to federal authorities, who declined to discuss the charges behind the multistate arrests.
"Jesus wanted us to be ready to defend ourselves using the sword and stay alive using equipment ...," one of the group's purported leaders wrote on its Web site. "We, the Hutaree, are prepared to defend all those who belong to Christ and save those who aren't. We will still spread the word, and fight to keep it, up to the time of the great coming."
The group's insignia, worn as a patch on military camouflage uniforms, is a cross-shaped sword and the letters CCR for Colonial Christian Republic. The Hutaree Web site features links to conservative Christian news outlets along with photos and videos of combat training sessions under the banner, "Preparing for the end time battles to keep the testimony of Jesus Christ alive." ...
Militia-gan, my Militia-gan...
Militia members arrested in Sun. raid to be charged today
At least seven were taken into custody in raids by an FBI-led Joint Terrorism Task Force in Michigan, Indiana, Ohio
Jennifer Chambers and Doug Guthrie / The Detroit News
Federal prosecutors plan to unseal charges today against members of a self-described Christian militia arrested Saturday and Sunday in Michigan, Ohio, Indiana and Illinois.
At least seven people were taken into custody in raids by an FBI-led Joint Terrorism Task Force as part of an investigation into an Adrian-based unit of the Hutaree, a group that professes it is training in modern armed combat techniques for a prophesized coming battle with the Antichrist.
The suspects are expected to make an initial appearance in U.S. District Court in Detroit today, according to federal authorities, who declined to discuss the charges behind the multistate arrests.
"Jesus wanted us to be ready to defend ourselves using the sword and stay alive using equipment ...," one of the group's purported leaders wrote on its Web site. "We, the Hutaree, are prepared to defend all those who belong to Christ and save those who aren't. We will still spread the word, and fight to keep it, up to the time of the great coming."
The group's insignia, worn as a patch on military camouflage uniforms, is a cross-shaped sword and the letters CCR for Colonial Christian Republic. The Hutaree Web site features links to conservative Christian news outlets along with photos and videos of combat training sessions under the banner, "Preparing for the end time battles to keep the testimony of Jesus Christ alive." ...
Militia-gan, my Militia-gan...
March 28, 2010
Armed gang steal hundreds of thousands in Swiss Casino raid
Roger Boyes, Berlin
Masked gunmen hit the jackpot, stealing the equivalent of several hundreds of thousands of pounds, in a pre-dawn raid on a huge Swiss casino that brands itself 'Europe's Las Vegas'.
About 600 gamblers and staff were in the Basel Grand Casino at 4am on Sunday when the ten robbers smashed a sealed outer door with a sledge hammer and fired shots into the air.
The casino, three minutes drive from Basel airport [Ed. Note: How Handy!] and on the border with France and Germany, is popular with European high-rollers who, after all night sessions on the tables, stay in the adjoining casino-owned hotel. It has 357 slot machines, so called one-armed bandits, and 15 gaming tables. Winnings are usually paid out in a cheque and most regular gamblers have opened Swiss bank accounts.
"It was like an action film heist," said a spokesman for the Basel prosecutor's office....
... The gangsters fired at the chandeliers to persuade staff and gamblers to lie down on the marble tiles, cleaned out the cash registers on the basement and on another floor, but could not break the safe which, after the weekend, would have been full of cash.
After firing their machine guns at the locked strongroom door, they fled in two silver Audis. Witnesses said that they spoke French, had French number plates and appeared to flee in the direction of the French border, which is 200 metres from the casino. "We are working on the assumption that there is a French connection," [Ed. Note: snicker snicker snicker] said a Basel police officer. Both Swiss and French police are working on the case. ...
Armed gang steal hundreds of thousands in Swiss Casino raid
Roger Boyes, Berlin
Masked gunmen hit the jackpot, stealing the equivalent of several hundreds of thousands of pounds, in a pre-dawn raid on a huge Swiss casino that brands itself 'Europe's Las Vegas'.
About 600 gamblers and staff were in the Basel Grand Casino at 4am on Sunday when the ten robbers smashed a sealed outer door with a sledge hammer and fired shots into the air.
The casino, three minutes drive from Basel airport [Ed. Note: How Handy!] and on the border with France and Germany, is popular with European high-rollers who, after all night sessions on the tables, stay in the adjoining casino-owned hotel. It has 357 slot machines, so called one-armed bandits, and 15 gaming tables. Winnings are usually paid out in a cheque and most regular gamblers have opened Swiss bank accounts.
"It was like an action film heist," said a spokesman for the Basel prosecutor's office....
... The gangsters fired at the chandeliers to persuade staff and gamblers to lie down on the marble tiles, cleaned out the cash registers on the basement and on another floor, but could not break the safe which, after the weekend, would have been full of cash.
After firing their machine guns at the locked strongroom door, they fled in two silver Audis. Witnesses said that they spoke French, had French number plates and appeared to flee in the direction of the French border, which is 200 metres from the casino. "We are working on the assumption that there is a French connection," [Ed. Note: snicker snicker snicker] said a Basel police officer. Both Swiss and French police are working on the case. ...
Pope faces fresh wave of child abuse scandals in Italy
The head of the Catholic church is bracing himself for a new round of allegations by victims of paedophile priests — in Italy
Tom Kington in Rome and Henry McDonald in Dublin
Sunday 28 March 2010
Pope Benedict XVI is facing growing pressure over his handling of paedophile priests as new cover-ups come to light in Italy, the country with the greatest concentration of Roman Catholic clerics.
After the latest allegations – that Benedict took no action in the US when he was head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, the Vatican's enforcer – the church is now "terrified" as more victims stand up to be counted in Italy, according to Roberto Mirabile, head of La Caramella Buona, an Italian anti-abuse group. "With the scandals erupting abroad, we will see a huge growth in victims' groups in Italy in coming weeks," said Mirabile yesterday. As Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, Benedict handled abuse cases at the Vatican for 24 years before he became pope in 2005.
"We are likely to discover that the Vatican worked even harder in Italy with bishops than elsewhere to hide cases, simply because the contact was closer and the church is so powerful in Italy," Mirabile added.
Sergio Cavaliere, an Italian lawyer who has documented 130 cases of clerical paedophilia, also believes that the Vatican's backyard could follow Ireland, the United States and Germany in producing a wave of abuse revelations. "The cases I have found are just the tip of the iceberg given the reluctance of many victims to come forward until now," said Cavaliere. "And in no single case did the local bishop alert police to the suspected abuse."
Another startling development is how recent most of the allegations are, unlike the decades-old cases in Munich and Milwaukee that Benedict was last week accused of failing to act on.
Monsignor Charles Scicluna, who investigates abuse accusations passed on to the Vatican, denied this month that abuse had reached "dramatic proportions" in Italy, but he was concerned about "a certain culture of silence" among Italy's 50,000 priests.
In February, the Vatican opened an investigation into allegations by 67 former pupils at a school for the deaf in Verona that 24 priests, brothers and lay religious men abused pupils from the 1950s to the 1980s. Three of the accusers repeated their claims on Italian prime-time television on Friday. ...
The head of the Catholic church is bracing himself for a new round of allegations by victims of paedophile priests — in Italy
Tom Kington in Rome and Henry McDonald in Dublin
Sunday 28 March 2010
Pope Benedict XVI is facing growing pressure over his handling of paedophile priests as new cover-ups come to light in Italy, the country with the greatest concentration of Roman Catholic clerics.
After the latest allegations – that Benedict took no action in the US when he was head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, the Vatican's enforcer – the church is now "terrified" as more victims stand up to be counted in Italy, according to Roberto Mirabile, head of La Caramella Buona, an Italian anti-abuse group. "With the scandals erupting abroad, we will see a huge growth in victims' groups in Italy in coming weeks," said Mirabile yesterday. As Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, Benedict handled abuse cases at the Vatican for 24 years before he became pope in 2005.
"We are likely to discover that the Vatican worked even harder in Italy with bishops than elsewhere to hide cases, simply because the contact was closer and the church is so powerful in Italy," Mirabile added.
Sergio Cavaliere, an Italian lawyer who has documented 130 cases of clerical paedophilia, also believes that the Vatican's backyard could follow Ireland, the United States and Germany in producing a wave of abuse revelations. "The cases I have found are just the tip of the iceberg given the reluctance of many victims to come forward until now," said Cavaliere. "And in no single case did the local bishop alert police to the suspected abuse."
Another startling development is how recent most of the allegations are, unlike the decades-old cases in Munich and Milwaukee that Benedict was last week accused of failing to act on.
Monsignor Charles Scicluna, who investigates abuse accusations passed on to the Vatican, denied this month that abuse had reached "dramatic proportions" in Italy, but he was concerned about "a certain culture of silence" among Italy's 50,000 priests.
In February, the Vatican opened an investigation into allegations by 67 former pupils at a school for the deaf in Verona that 24 priests, brothers and lay religious men abused pupils from the 1950s to the 1980s. Three of the accusers repeated their claims on Italian prime-time television on Friday. ...
March 28, 2010
Holy Father, I can stay no longer in this Church of Disgust
India Knight
... It is simply not possible, having read the papers or watched the news over the past couple of weeks, to stick with the programme. Like many of my generation, I could hardly be described as a good, or even decent, Catholic, but I’d managed to hang on in there, in the vaguest way imaginable.
Vague because it’s hard to pay lip-service to a faith that you feel hates you; a faith that would rather let you die in childbirth than have an abortion, won’t let you take the contraception necessary to prevent said abortion, hates gay people despite having many homosexual priests; a faith that talks ignorant nonsense about HIV and Aids, that would rather watch people die in Africa than let them use a condom; a faith that is unbelievably slow to say sorry about the fact that some of its members are habitual rapists of children.
I mean, you know, at some point you just give up. Not one of these things is defensible taken individually. Collectively, they are beyond comprehension.
A faith based on central authority and infallibility must understand that failure immediately to condemn the rape of children — in Ireland, in America, in Austria, in Germany, in Italy, Spain, Switzerland, the Netherlands and Brazil, so far — is essentially to allow it. ...
Holy Father, I can stay no longer in this Church of Disgust
India Knight
... It is simply not possible, having read the papers or watched the news over the past couple of weeks, to stick with the programme. Like many of my generation, I could hardly be described as a good, or even decent, Catholic, but I’d managed to hang on in there, in the vaguest way imaginable.
Vague because it’s hard to pay lip-service to a faith that you feel hates you; a faith that would rather let you die in childbirth than have an abortion, won’t let you take the contraception necessary to prevent said abortion, hates gay people despite having many homosexual priests; a faith that talks ignorant nonsense about HIV and Aids, that would rather watch people die in Africa than let them use a condom; a faith that is unbelievably slow to say sorry about the fact that some of its members are habitual rapists of children.
I mean, you know, at some point you just give up. Not one of these things is defensible taken individually. Collectively, they are beyond comprehension.
A faith based on central authority and infallibility must understand that failure immediately to condemn the rape of children — in Ireland, in America, in Austria, in Germany, in Italy, Spain, Switzerland, the Netherlands and Brazil, so far — is essentially to allow it. ...
This idiot can't even tell which is God and which is da Debbil.
Give 'em hell, dahling!
Memories of a 1996 bank robbery, high-speed chase and arrest of a Livonia police officer flooded back to Warren Lt. Michael Torey when he learned the former officer had been arrested again in East Lansing and was arraigned Friday.
"It was weird because he was a police officer when he was robbing banks," Torey said Friday about the 1996 saga of former Livonia cop Ronald Nelson, arrested Thursday as a suspect in a series of robberies in the East Lansing area. "It wasn't like he was fired or anything. He was still on the job. It was a weird feeling."
Nelson, who lives in Gladwin, ultimately was convicted of three robberies of what was the Standard Federal Bank on Schoenherr just south of 13 Mile Road.
Nelson served 12 years in prison, but was released within the past year, Torey said.
East Lansing police Capt. Tom Johnstone said area banks have been robbed five times since November. So when tellers at the Bank of America at 1390 W. Lake Lansing Road in East Lansing realized the man walking in at 9:30 a.m. matched photos of the suspect they had behind their counters, they immediately notified police with their panic buttons, Johnson said. ...
"It was weird because he was a police officer when he was robbing banks," Torey said Friday about the 1996 saga of former Livonia cop Ronald Nelson, arrested Thursday as a suspect in a series of robberies in the East Lansing area. "It wasn't like he was fired or anything. He was still on the job. It was a weird feeling."
Nelson, who lives in Gladwin, ultimately was convicted of three robberies of what was the Standard Federal Bank on Schoenherr just south of 13 Mile Road.
Nelson served 12 years in prison, but was released within the past year, Torey said.
East Lansing police Capt. Tom Johnstone said area banks have been robbed five times since November. So when tellers at the Bank of America at 1390 W. Lake Lansing Road in East Lansing realized the man walking in at 9:30 a.m. matched photos of the suspect they had behind their counters, they immediately notified police with their panic buttons, Johnson said. ...
Conservative textbook proposal ‘disturbing’
Posted on Mar 24, 2010 by Lindsey Roberts in Opinion, World Issues
Ah, Texas. I don’t know much about the state other than everything is bigger there and it seems to have its own way of doing things. “The Lone Star” seems to be a perfectly fitting nickname for a state that thinks it is a country. So the fact that Texas’ conservative right wing wants to rewrite its textbooks with a Bible-Belt slant doesn’t really surprise me. And why should we care if Texas wants to remove biographies on George Washington and Abraham Lincoln from its textbooks? What if I told you 80 percent of America’s textbooks come from Texas?
Houston, we have a problem. ...
Posted on Mar 24, 2010 by Lindsey Roberts in Opinion, World Issues
Ah, Texas. I don’t know much about the state other than everything is bigger there and it seems to have its own way of doing things. “The Lone Star” seems to be a perfectly fitting nickname for a state that thinks it is a country. So the fact that Texas’ conservative right wing wants to rewrite its textbooks with a Bible-Belt slant doesn’t really surprise me. And why should we care if Texas wants to remove biographies on George Washington and Abraham Lincoln from its textbooks? What if I told you 80 percent of America’s textbooks come from Texas?
Houston, we have a problem. ...
... Thorough as ever, Blanchard had spent many previous nights infiltrating the bank to do recon or to tamper with the locks while James acted as lookout, scanning the vicinity with binoculars and providing updates via a scrambled-band walkie-talkie. He had put a transmitter behind an electrical outlet, a pinhole video camera in a thermostat, and a cheap baby monitor behind the wall. He had even mounted handles on the drywall panels so he could remove them to enter and exit the ATM room. Blanchard had also taken detailed measurements of the room and set up a dummy version in a friend’s nearby machine shop. With practice, he had gotten his ATM-cracking routine down to where he needed only 90 seconds after the alarm tripped to finish and escape with his score.
As Blanchard approached, he saw that the door to the ATM room was unlocked and wide open. Sometimes you get lucky. All he had to do was walk inside.
From here he knew the drill by heart. There were seven machines, each with four drawers. He set to work quickly, using just the right technique to spring the machines open without causing any telltale damage. Well rehearsed, Blanchard wheeled out boxes full of cash and several money counters, locked the door behind him, and headed to a van he had parked nearby.
Eight minutes after Blanchard broke into the first ATM, the Winnipeg Police Service arrived in response to the alarm. However, the officers found the doors locked and assumed the alarm had been an error. As the police pronounced the bank secure, Blanchard was zipping away with more than half a million dollars.
The following morning was a puzzler for authorities. There were no indications of damage to the door, no fingerprints, and no surveillance recordings — Blanchard had stolen the hard drives that stored footage from the bank’s cameras. Moreover, Blanchard’s own surveillance equipment was still transmitting from inside the ATM room, so before he skipped town, he could listen in on investigators. He knew their names; he knew their leads. He would call both the bank manager’s cell phone and the police, posing as an anonymous informant who had been involved in the heist and was swindled out of his share. It was the contractors, he’d say. Or the Brinks guy. Or the maintenance people. His tips were especially convincing because he had a piece of inside information: One of the bank’s ATMs was left untouched. Blanchard had done that on purpose to make it easier to sow confusion. ...
...Like a cornered hacker who trades his black hat for white, Blanchard took on a new challenge: working the system from the inside. He provided such good information that McCormick and Levasseur were able to put together an eight-hour presentation for law enforcement and banking professionals. “When those guys hear what Blanchard told us,” McCormick says, “you can hear their assholes pucker shut.” ...
Ta much, dear MSiegel
As Blanchard approached, he saw that the door to the ATM room was unlocked and wide open. Sometimes you get lucky. All he had to do was walk inside.
From here he knew the drill by heart. There were seven machines, each with four drawers. He set to work quickly, using just the right technique to spring the machines open without causing any telltale damage. Well rehearsed, Blanchard wheeled out boxes full of cash and several money counters, locked the door behind him, and headed to a van he had parked nearby.
Eight minutes after Blanchard broke into the first ATM, the Winnipeg Police Service arrived in response to the alarm. However, the officers found the doors locked and assumed the alarm had been an error. As the police pronounced the bank secure, Blanchard was zipping away with more than half a million dollars.
The following morning was a puzzler for authorities. There were no indications of damage to the door, no fingerprints, and no surveillance recordings — Blanchard had stolen the hard drives that stored footage from the bank’s cameras. Moreover, Blanchard’s own surveillance equipment was still transmitting from inside the ATM room, so before he skipped town, he could listen in on investigators. He knew their names; he knew their leads. He would call both the bank manager’s cell phone and the police, posing as an anonymous informant who had been involved in the heist and was swindled out of his share. It was the contractors, he’d say. Or the Brinks guy. Or the maintenance people. His tips were especially convincing because he had a piece of inside information: One of the bank’s ATMs was left untouched. Blanchard had done that on purpose to make it easier to sow confusion. ...
...Like a cornered hacker who trades his black hat for white, Blanchard took on a new challenge: working the system from the inside. He provided such good information that McCormick and Levasseur were able to put together an eight-hour presentation for law enforcement and banking professionals. “When those guys hear what Blanchard told us,” McCormick says, “you can hear their assholes pucker shut.” ...
Ta much, dear MSiegel
A nonprofit run by Kwame Kilpatrick's family paid more than $100,000 to a consulting firm formed by Christine Beatty after she resigned as his chief of staff during the text message scandal.
State records show that Beatty incorporated Maiyen Consulting the morning of Jan. 28, 2008 -- within hours of resigning from her $142,813 a year city job.
A federal tax report filed by the Kilpatrick Civic Fund says the fund -- whose mission was voter education and community improvement -- paid at least $100,000 to Maiyen Consulting as a "publication and print consultant." The report does not list the exact amount paid to the firm.
Beatty, who pleaded guilty to two felony charges in the text message scandal but refused to cooperate with prosecutors investigating Kilpatrick, didn't respond to requests for comment Wednesday.
Her lawyer, Mayer Morganroth, said Beatty was hired to work on publications for the civic fund and spent some of her fee on subcontractors, including printers. He said Beatty disclosed the payments to probation officials in her criminal case and declared it on her tax return.
In light of the Free Press' findings, the Wayne County Prosecutor's Office plans to examine the civic fund's dealings with Maiyen Consulting.
"There was some preliminary research regarding this particular consulting contract, however, we focused on other matters connected to the civic fund," prosecutor spokeswoman Maria Miller said Wednesday. "Given this information, we will be looking into this further." ...
State records show that Beatty incorporated Maiyen Consulting the morning of Jan. 28, 2008 -- within hours of resigning from her $142,813 a year city job.
A federal tax report filed by the Kilpatrick Civic Fund says the fund -- whose mission was voter education and community improvement -- paid at least $100,000 to Maiyen Consulting as a "publication and print consultant." The report does not list the exact amount paid to the firm.
Beatty, who pleaded guilty to two felony charges in the text message scandal but refused to cooperate with prosecutors investigating Kilpatrick, didn't respond to requests for comment Wednesday.
Her lawyer, Mayer Morganroth, said Beatty was hired to work on publications for the civic fund and spent some of her fee on subcontractors, including printers. He said Beatty disclosed the payments to probation officials in her criminal case and declared it on her tax return.
In light of the Free Press' findings, the Wayne County Prosecutor's Office plans to examine the civic fund's dealings with Maiyen Consulting.
"There was some preliminary research regarding this particular consulting contract, however, we focused on other matters connected to the civic fund," prosecutor spokeswoman Maria Miller said Wednesday. "Given this information, we will be looking into this further." ...
Last Updated: March 26. 2010 1:00AM
Ex-Kilpatrick aide Beatty under scrutiny over civic fund contract
Prosecutors give her 90 days before review of her restitution
Doug Guthrie and Mike Wilkinson / The Detroit News
Detroit --Wayne County prosecutors who put Kwame Kilpatrick's personal finances under a microscope at a probation violation hearing this week are giving the former mayor's criminal co-defendant and lover Christine Beatty 90 days before also reviewing her ability to pay restitution.
Kilpatrick's high lifestyle in Texas and claims that he is unable to meet the court's demands for payment on $1 million restitution have been spotlighted in court by Wayne County Prosecutor Kym Worthy. Meanwhile, Beatty, who promised to pay the city $100,000, has faced no public pressure from authorities while paying just $2,302 so far. She was allowed in January to move to Georgia to search for work.
"Christine Beatty recently moved to Atlanta to begin a new job. We will review her case in 90 days," Assistant Prosecutor Maria Miller said about the possibility of asking her sentencing judge for a restitution hearing where Beatty's ability to start making regular payments would be established.
"Until then, she will continue being supervised by probation authorities there (in Georgia)," Miller said.
Both Beatty and Kilpatrick pleaded guilty to felony charges of obstruction of justice for committing perjury during a 2007 trial. Their extramarital affair was revealed in Kilpatrick's infamous text messages. Both went to jail and both promised to pay the city hefty restitution.
Beatty, who now lives in a condominium near the heart of Atlanta, has made seven payments toward her $100,000 restitution. Her last payment of $350 was made Jan. 4, a week before she asked permission of the court to move. No more payments have been made since, according to Wayne Circuit Court records. ...
Ex-Kilpatrick aide Beatty under scrutiny over civic fund contract
Prosecutors give her 90 days before review of her restitution
Doug Guthrie and Mike Wilkinson / The Detroit News
Detroit --Wayne County prosecutors who put Kwame Kilpatrick's personal finances under a microscope at a probation violation hearing this week are giving the former mayor's criminal co-defendant and lover Christine Beatty 90 days before also reviewing her ability to pay restitution.
Kilpatrick's high lifestyle in Texas and claims that he is unable to meet the court's demands for payment on $1 million restitution have been spotlighted in court by Wayne County Prosecutor Kym Worthy. Meanwhile, Beatty, who promised to pay the city $100,000, has faced no public pressure from authorities while paying just $2,302 so far. She was allowed in January to move to Georgia to search for work.
"Christine Beatty recently moved to Atlanta to begin a new job. We will review her case in 90 days," Assistant Prosecutor Maria Miller said about the possibility of asking her sentencing judge for a restitution hearing where Beatty's ability to start making regular payments would be established.
"Until then, she will continue being supervised by probation authorities there (in Georgia)," Miller said.
Both Beatty and Kilpatrick pleaded guilty to felony charges of obstruction of justice for committing perjury during a 2007 trial. Their extramarital affair was revealed in Kilpatrick's infamous text messages. Both went to jail and both promised to pay the city hefty restitution.
Beatty, who now lives in a condominium near the heart of Atlanta, has made seven payments toward her $100,000 restitution. Her last payment of $350 was made Jan. 4, a week before she asked permission of the court to move. No more payments have been made since, according to Wayne Circuit Court records. ...
Last Updated: March 26. 2010 1:00AM
Private bus company hired by DPS on probation
First Student accused of violating rules that require driver background checks, training
Karen Bouffard / The Detroit News
Lansing -- The Detroit Public Schools district has handed $113.6 million over five years to a Cincinnati-based school bus company that is on probation in that state for violating rules on bus driver background checks and training.
First Student was initially hired by DPS last April to complete an $85,000 transportation audit for the district through its management services arm, First Group. The audit recommended that DPS privatize all bus routes, and re-bid routes contracted out to three private vendors.
One of those vendors, Safeway Transportation, brought a lawsuit against DPS in U.S. District Court last week, alleging it was unfair for First Student to bid on the contract after its own audit recommended that the job be put out for new bids. DPS spokesman Steve Wasko said Thursday he was unaware of First Student's probationary status in Ohio. He would not comment on the lawsuit, or on criminal charges brought against First Student bus drivers in other states and confirmed by the company.
"I don't know if we were aware of that. I know that the company has an extremely highly regarded track record all across the country," Wasko said. "The amount of savings over five years (under the First Student contract) is $49 million. It also enables a number of safety enhancements to our fleet."
Maureen Richmond, First Student spokeswoman, confirmed charges filed against several employees, including a First Student driver in Joliet, Ill., charged last December with allegedly giving a 14-year-old girl candy and $3 before fondling her.
In Skokie, Ill., a First Student bus driver was charged with drunken driving and 41 counts of child endangerment last fall after taking his charges on a harrowing bus ride.
In Glennwood, Ill., a driver was shot dead after a police chase, Richmond confirmed.
Kurt Weiss, spokesman for the Michigan Department of Technology, Management and Budget, said the state of Michigan would not have allowed a company to bid for a contract that had been hired to perform an audit.
"It would be a conflict of interest for a contractor to come in and do an audit or assessment for something and then turn around and turn in a bid for the work," he said.
First Student's DPS contract starts May 17. Detroit-based Safeway, a minority-owned company, has provided bus service to DPS for 35 years and employs 92 people. Since DPS is the company's only client, they plan to fold May 1, President Patricia Whitlow said.
"The playing field is not even when you bring somebody in to do an $85,000 study and we had about a month (to write a bid)," Whitlow said. ...
Private bus company hired by DPS on probation
First Student accused of violating rules that require driver background checks, training
Karen Bouffard / The Detroit News
Lansing -- The Detroit Public Schools district has handed $113.6 million over five years to a Cincinnati-based school bus company that is on probation in that state for violating rules on bus driver background checks and training.
First Student was initially hired by DPS last April to complete an $85,000 transportation audit for the district through its management services arm, First Group. The audit recommended that DPS privatize all bus routes, and re-bid routes contracted out to three private vendors.
One of those vendors, Safeway Transportation, brought a lawsuit against DPS in U.S. District Court last week, alleging it was unfair for First Student to bid on the contract after its own audit recommended that the job be put out for new bids. DPS spokesman Steve Wasko said Thursday he was unaware of First Student's probationary status in Ohio. He would not comment on the lawsuit, or on criminal charges brought against First Student bus drivers in other states and confirmed by the company.
"I don't know if we were aware of that. I know that the company has an extremely highly regarded track record all across the country," Wasko said. "The amount of savings over five years (under the First Student contract) is $49 million. It also enables a number of safety enhancements to our fleet."
Maureen Richmond, First Student spokeswoman, confirmed charges filed against several employees, including a First Student driver in Joliet, Ill., charged last December with allegedly giving a 14-year-old girl candy and $3 before fondling her.
In Skokie, Ill., a First Student bus driver was charged with drunken driving and 41 counts of child endangerment last fall after taking his charges on a harrowing bus ride.
In Glennwood, Ill., a driver was shot dead after a police chase, Richmond confirmed.
Kurt Weiss, spokesman for the Michigan Department of Technology, Management and Budget, said the state of Michigan would not have allowed a company to bid for a contract that had been hired to perform an audit.
"It would be a conflict of interest for a contractor to come in and do an audit or assessment for something and then turn around and turn in a bid for the work," he said.
First Student's DPS contract starts May 17. Detroit-based Safeway, a minority-owned company, has provided bus service to DPS for 35 years and employs 92 people. Since DPS is the company's only client, they plan to fold May 1, President Patricia Whitlow said.
"The playing field is not even when you bring somebody in to do an $85,000 study and we had about a month (to write a bid)," Whitlow said. ...
Last Updated: March 26. 2010 1:00AM
Dozens allege brutality by Gang Squad
West side residents say police officers beat, harassed victims
George Hunter / The Detroit News
Detroit -- Dozens of people packed Thursday's meeting of the Board of Police Commissioners to describe what they called a night of terror last week at the hands of the Detroit Police Gang Squad.
Police officials promised to look into the allegations that on March 18 members of the Gang Squad beat a man while he was handcuffed, assaulted the man's son and harassed other neighbors on Abington Street on the city's west side.
Members of the squad also came back the next day to hassle residents, according to several people at the emotional, standing-room-only meeting.
One of the alleged beating victims, Gerald Evans, is the grandfather of an 8-year-old girl whose anguished 911 call was released by police earlier this month after two gunmen shot and killed her mother, Monica Botello, and her boyfriend.
"I was talking to my neighbor about the incident with my daughter being killed, when two officers came out of nowhere and asked me what I was doing," said Evans, 44. "Then, for no reason, they put me in handcuffs and started beating me. A man with a mask just started socking me in my face. Then another officer with steel-toed boots started kicking me."
Family members and neighbors, some in tears, told the board that when they asked the officers why they were beating a man who was in handcuffs, they also were hassled or beaten.
"I came outside and saw them beating my daddy," said Maurice Evans, 21. "I asked the officers why they were doing that and they beat me, too. Then they said I had a gun on my person, which I didn't have. I just don't understand it." At that point, Maurice Evans started sobbing.
Alice Evans, wife and mother of the alleged beating victims, said her husband's shirt was covered with blood after police were through thrashing him.
"The police threw the shirt away," she said. "I asked why they did that, but they didn't answer. I know why -- they wanted to get rid of the evidence." ...
Dozens allege brutality by Gang Squad
West side residents say police officers beat, harassed victims
George Hunter / The Detroit News
Detroit -- Dozens of people packed Thursday's meeting of the Board of Police Commissioners to describe what they called a night of terror last week at the hands of the Detroit Police Gang Squad.
Police officials promised to look into the allegations that on March 18 members of the Gang Squad beat a man while he was handcuffed, assaulted the man's son and harassed other neighbors on Abington Street on the city's west side.
Members of the squad also came back the next day to hassle residents, according to several people at the emotional, standing-room-only meeting.
One of the alleged beating victims, Gerald Evans, is the grandfather of an 8-year-old girl whose anguished 911 call was released by police earlier this month after two gunmen shot and killed her mother, Monica Botello, and her boyfriend.
"I was talking to my neighbor about the incident with my daughter being killed, when two officers came out of nowhere and asked me what I was doing," said Evans, 44. "Then, for no reason, they put me in handcuffs and started beating me. A man with a mask just started socking me in my face. Then another officer with steel-toed boots started kicking me."
Family members and neighbors, some in tears, told the board that when they asked the officers why they were beating a man who was in handcuffs, they also were hassled or beaten.
"I came outside and saw them beating my daddy," said Maurice Evans, 21. "I asked the officers why they were doing that and they beat me, too. Then they said I had a gun on my person, which I didn't have. I just don't understand it." At that point, Maurice Evans started sobbing.
Alice Evans, wife and mother of the alleged beating victims, said her husband's shirt was covered with blood after police were through thrashing him.
"The police threw the shirt away," she said. "I asked why they did that, but they didn't answer. I know why -- they wanted to get rid of the evidence." ...
Kindly note that Mr Muntz is laughing at the insurance company, and the idiot who crashed it.
The car itself having been crashed makes Nelson and I make small, hurt-animal noises.
...Rod Menlove, of Cheshire East Council...
More than 200 million free energy-saving light bulbs have been sent to households over the last two years by energy suppliers. The mass mail-out was caused by gas and electricity suppliers trying to hit Government targets to reduce carbon emissions.
However, Which?, the consumer watchdog has calculated that each household has ended paying £45 each through higher energy bills to fund the scheme, even though many consumers objected to being sent the bulbs. Many complained about having to go to the Post Office to collect what they thought was a parcel, only to find it was a bulb that did not even fit any of their lamps.
"Consumers unwittingly paid for them to help energy companies avoid fines," the Which? report said. ...
However, Which?, the consumer watchdog has calculated that each household has ended paying £45 each through higher energy bills to fund the scheme, even though many consumers objected to being sent the bulbs. Many complained about having to go to the Post Office to collect what they thought was a parcel, only to find it was a bulb that did not even fit any of their lamps.
"Consumers unwittingly paid for them to help energy companies avoid fines," the Which? report said. ...
Robbers 'called ahead to bank to get money to go'
Two would-be robbers called a bank ahead and demanded that the cash be ready for them when they arrived, Connecticut officials said, giving police ample time to get to the scene.
24 Mar 2010
The pair called the People's United Bank branch in Fairfield, Connecticut, threatening to create a "blood bath" if there was not a bag of money waiting for them when they arrived.
But they were intercepted by police, who were already waiting on the scene when the young men arrived.
Police arrested 27-year-old Albert Bailey and an unidentified 16-year-old boy on robbery charges on Tuesday afternoon.
Sgt James Perez said the two Bridgeport residents turned up at the bank about 10 minutes after making the call and were met by police in the bank's car park.
Sgt Perez told the Connecticut Post that, in his opinion, the suspects were "not too bright". ...
Epic Fail!
{This fancy font available here}
Two would-be robbers called a bank ahead and demanded that the cash be ready for them when they arrived, Connecticut officials said, giving police ample time to get to the scene.
24 Mar 2010
The pair called the People's United Bank branch in Fairfield, Connecticut, threatening to create a "blood bath" if there was not a bag of money waiting for them when they arrived.
But they were intercepted by police, who were already waiting on the scene when the young men arrived.
Police arrested 27-year-old Albert Bailey and an unidentified 16-year-old boy on robbery charges on Tuesday afternoon.
Sgt James Perez said the two Bridgeport residents turned up at the bank about 10 minutes after making the call and were met by police in the bank's car park.
Sgt Perez told the Connecticut Post that, in his opinion, the suspects were "not too bright". ...
Epic Fail!
{This fancy font available here}
The Vatican is investigating 14 cases of alleged child sex abuse committed within the Spanish Catholic Church over the past nine years it emerged today.
The incidents of abuse are alleged to take have taken place between January 2001 and March 2010. Charles Scicluna, the promoter of justice in the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, said today they amounted to "less than one case every year". ...
The incidents of abuse are alleged to take have taken place between January 2001 and March 2010. Charles Scicluna, the promoter of justice in the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, said today they amounted to "less than one case every year". ...
An Irish Catholic bishop who served as personal secretary to three popes has become the latest casualty in the child sex abuse scandal that is convulsing the Church in Europe.
The Vatican said that Pope Benedict XVI had accepted the resignation of Bishop John Magee of Cloyne.
Magee, 73, was accused in a 2009 investigation of mishandling reports of sexual abuse in his diocese. He quit his daily administrative duties a year ago and offered his resignation to the Pope this month.
"To those whom I have failed in any way, or through any omission of mine have made suffer, I beg forgiveness and pardon," Magee said in a statement after the Vatican announced that the Pope had accepted his resignation.
The cleric, from Newry, Co Down, faced scathing criticism after the Church's own watchdog found that he took minimal action on accusations against two of his priests and branded his child protection inadequate and dangerous. ...
The Vatican said that Pope Benedict XVI had accepted the resignation of Bishop John Magee of Cloyne.
Magee, 73, was accused in a 2009 investigation of mishandling reports of sexual abuse in his diocese. He quit his daily administrative duties a year ago and offered his resignation to the Pope this month.
"To those whom I have failed in any way, or through any omission of mine have made suffer, I beg forgiveness and pardon," Magee said in a statement after the Vatican announced that the Pope had accepted his resignation.
The cleric, from Newry, Co Down, faced scathing criticism after the Church's own watchdog found that he took minimal action on accusations against two of his priests and branded his child protection inadequate and dangerous. ...
A Princeton University research team has demonstrated that all sweeteners are not equal when it comes to weight gain: Rats with access to high-fructose corn syrup gained significantly more weight than those with access to table sugar, even when their overall caloric intake was the same.
In addition to causing significant weight gain in lab animals, long-term consumption of high-fructose corn syrup also led to abnormal increases in body fat, especially in the abdomen, and a rise in circulating blood fats called triglycerides. The researchers say the work sheds light on the factors contributing to obesity trends in the United States.
"Some people have claimed that high-fructose corn syrup is no different than other sweeteners when it comes to weight gain and obesity, but our results make it clear that this just isn't true, at least under the conditions of our tests," said psychology professor Bart Hoebel, who specializes in the neuroscience of appetite, weight and sugar addiction. "When rats are drinking high-fructose corn syrup at levels well below those in soda pop, they're becoming obese -- every single one, across the board. Even when rats are fed a high-fat diet, you don't see this; they don't all gain extra weight." ...
In addition to causing significant weight gain in lab animals, long-term consumption of high-fructose corn syrup also led to abnormal increases in body fat, especially in the abdomen, and a rise in circulating blood fats called triglycerides. The researchers say the work sheds light on the factors contributing to obesity trends in the United States.
"Some people have claimed that high-fructose corn syrup is no different than other sweeteners when it comes to weight gain and obesity, but our results make it clear that this just isn't true, at least under the conditions of our tests," said psychology professor Bart Hoebel, who specializes in the neuroscience of appetite, weight and sugar addiction. "When rats are drinking high-fructose corn syrup at levels well below those in soda pop, they're becoming obese -- every single one, across the board. Even when rats are fed a high-fat diet, you don't see this; they don't all gain extra weight." ...
... The Most Rev Joseph Duffy admitted that he had known about allegations of abuse against a priest in his diocese in Enniskillen, Co Fermanagh, in 1989, but failed to tell the police or civil authorities. He had been informed that Father John McCabe had abused a young boy in his care, but he failed to report the incident to the police or social services in Northern Ireland. In spite of complaints from the boy’s mother, the Enniskillen school at which McCabe taught wrote him a reference to help him to get a job at an integrated, non-denominational school in Belfast. Six years later McCabe was jailed for 20 months on abuse charges.
Bishop Duffy said in a statement that he regretted how he handled the McCabe case and accepted that he should have told police about the family’s allegations. Bishop Duffy is the third Irish bishop in a week to admit to his role in covering up the activities of paedophile priests.
The latest admission is likely to undermine Vatican efforts to contain the scandal in Ireland. The Catholic hierarchy is trying to draw a line under similar accusations of abuse and cover-ups involving the Church in Germany, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Italy and Brazil in a growing scandal that has even drawn in the Pope. ...
Bishop Duffy said in a statement that he regretted how he handled the McCabe case and accepted that he should have told police about the family’s allegations. Bishop Duffy is the third Irish bishop in a week to admit to his role in covering up the activities of paedophile priests.
The latest admission is likely to undermine Vatican efforts to contain the scandal in Ireland. The Catholic hierarchy is trying to draw a line under similar accusations of abuse and cover-ups involving the Church in Germany, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Italy and Brazil in a growing scandal that has even drawn in the Pope. ...
... In Detroit, there have been no charges to date from the East Coast sting, but federal documents portray the father of former Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick and a mayoral aide as front men in a deal that would have resulted in payoffs to the Detroiters in exchange for the city hiring the fake company.
The deal never went through. But documents contend that over a period of months in 2007, Bernard Kilpatrick, mayoral aide Marc Cunningham and others were eagerly courted by officials with Coastal Solutions. Cunningham allegedly had Coastal Solutions send a $3,000 Super Bowl ticket to him at City Hall.
Bernard Kilpatrick's meetings with Coastal took him from the Trump Taj Mahal in Atlantic City to a championship fight in Las Vegas. Also in Vegas were Kwame Kilpatrick and Cunningham.
After the fight, the documents say, Cunningham left a voice mail with Coastal Solutions saying Kwame Kilpatrick favored the deal. The FBI interpreted that to mean the mayor and others were willing to do a deal in return for bribes.
Bernard Kilpatrick did not return messages over recent weeks. James Thomas, a criminal attorney for Kwame Kilpatrick, said: "Mr. Kilpatrick has not been charged and to my knowledge, he's not been indicted. Of course, he denies the allegations. It's always been my practice that I'd rather discuss this case in court, if it comes to that."
Cunningham, the mayoral aide, could not be reached for comment. Cunningham quit his job in July 2008, on the same day the Free Press reported that a cell phone assigned to him had been tapped by federal agents. Cunningham said then that he quit to pursue other opportunities.
The FBI briefly listened in on conversations on that phone in June 2007. By then, the sting operation using Coastal Solutions was in full swing. ...
The deal never went through. But documents contend that over a period of months in 2007, Bernard Kilpatrick, mayoral aide Marc Cunningham and others were eagerly courted by officials with Coastal Solutions. Cunningham allegedly had Coastal Solutions send a $3,000 Super Bowl ticket to him at City Hall.
Bernard Kilpatrick's meetings with Coastal took him from the Trump Taj Mahal in Atlantic City to a championship fight in Las Vegas. Also in Vegas were Kwame Kilpatrick and Cunningham.
After the fight, the documents say, Cunningham left a voice mail with Coastal Solutions saying Kwame Kilpatrick favored the deal. The FBI interpreted that to mean the mayor and others were willing to do a deal in return for bribes.
Bernard Kilpatrick did not return messages over recent weeks. James Thomas, a criminal attorney for Kwame Kilpatrick, said: "Mr. Kilpatrick has not been charged and to my knowledge, he's not been indicted. Of course, he denies the allegations. It's always been my practice that I'd rather discuss this case in court, if it comes to that."
Cunningham, the mayoral aide, could not be reached for comment. Cunningham quit his job in July 2008, on the same day the Free Press reported that a cell phone assigned to him had been tapped by federal agents. Cunningham said then that he quit to pursue other opportunities.
The FBI briefly listened in on conversations on that phone in June 2007. By then, the sting operation using Coastal Solutions was in full swing. ...
I briefly knew the guy ferguson threatened; we were kids.
... The Free Press has learned that at least nine businesspeople have testified to a grand jury or told federal investigators in interviews that they paid Bernard Kilpatrick, who ran a consulting firm called Maestro Associates, tens of thousands of dollars to try to get contracts from the city run by his son, former Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick.
FBI agents don't believe Bernard Kilpatrick actually was consulting. They think he was paid for access to Detroit's mayor.
The revelations, from documents and interviews by the Free Press, paint the most detailed portrait yet of the slow-building, cat-and-mouse game between FBI agents and their quarry.
They detail payoffs and perks that investigators say Bernard Kilpatrick received from contractors and other people seeking city business, including tickets to a prizefight in Las Vegas, Cristal champagne and a $7,000 discount on a leased Cadillac Escalade.
The investigation, some five years old, is still ongoing. There have been no charges against either Kilpatrick in the federal corruption probe. Kwame Kilpatrick declined to comment when reached on his cell phone Friday. Bernard Kilpatrick didn't respond to requests for comment in recent weeks.
The FBI has not gone away. ...
FBI agents don't believe Bernard Kilpatrick actually was consulting. They think he was paid for access to Detroit's mayor.
The revelations, from documents and interviews by the Free Press, paint the most detailed portrait yet of the slow-building, cat-and-mouse game between FBI agents and their quarry.
They detail payoffs and perks that investigators say Bernard Kilpatrick received from contractors and other people seeking city business, including tickets to a prizefight in Las Vegas, Cristal champagne and a $7,000 discount on a leased Cadillac Escalade.
The investigation, some five years old, is still ongoing. There have been no charges against either Kilpatrick in the federal corruption probe. Kwame Kilpatrick declined to comment when reached on his cell phone Friday. Bernard Kilpatrick didn't respond to requests for comment in recent weeks.
The FBI has not gone away. ...
Last Updated: March 22. 2010 1:00AM
N.J. FBI case led to Detroit
Ex-mayor's father linked to two corruption investigations in 2007
Paul Egan / The Detroit News
Detroit -- The father of former Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick was a subject of not just one -- but two -- FBI public corruption investigations in 2007.
FBI agents investigating political corruption in New Jersey followed leads in late 2006 that led them to Bernard N. Kilpatrick and raising concerns about upsetting a separate probe by the FBI in Detroit, a person familiar with the investigation said Sunday.
Bernard Kilpatrick had been under investigation by the FBI in Detroit for about two years when he came to the attention of FBI agents in New Jersey conducting Operation Broken Boards, a corruption probe that would lead to convictions of 14 New Jersey officials, including state assemblymen and school board officials.
The New Jersey FBI snagged corrupt politicians by setting up a dummy company called Coastal Solutions LLC and offering bribes in return for insurance-related contracts.
Those agents were put in touch with Marc Andre Cunningham, a former Kilpatrick aide, the Philadelphia Inquirer reported in 2007. Cunningham, who was a fraternity brother of Kilpatrick and former city treasurer and pension fund official Jeff Beasley at Florida A&M University, left City Hall in 2008 after media reports said his phone had been briefly tapped by the FBI. ...
... Both Kilpatricks remain under federal investigation in Detroit, amid allegations they were involved in a "pay to play" scheme in which contractors seeking city work were pressured to hire Bernard Kilpatrick as a consultant or make other illegal payments. Former Cobo Center contractor Karl Kado has told federal officials he made close to $100,000 in illegal payments to Kwame Kilpatrick and paid close to $300,000 to Kilpatrick's father, according to court records and a person familiar with the investigation.
Bernard Kilpatrick has not returned phone calls. James C. Thomas, an attorney for Kwame Kilpatrick, has denied his client took illegal payments from Kado.
Also Sunday, Detroit-area contractor Andrew Housey confirmed an incident in 2003 at a political fundraiser for Kilpatrick in which contractor and close Kilpatrick friend Bobby Ferguson allegedly threatened Housey with a handgun. ...
N.J. FBI case led to Detroit
Ex-mayor's father linked to two corruption investigations in 2007
Paul Egan / The Detroit News
Detroit -- The father of former Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick was a subject of not just one -- but two -- FBI public corruption investigations in 2007.
FBI agents investigating political corruption in New Jersey followed leads in late 2006 that led them to Bernard N. Kilpatrick and raising concerns about upsetting a separate probe by the FBI in Detroit, a person familiar with the investigation said Sunday.
Bernard Kilpatrick had been under investigation by the FBI in Detroit for about two years when he came to the attention of FBI agents in New Jersey conducting Operation Broken Boards, a corruption probe that would lead to convictions of 14 New Jersey officials, including state assemblymen and school board officials.
The New Jersey FBI snagged corrupt politicians by setting up a dummy company called Coastal Solutions LLC and offering bribes in return for insurance-related contracts.
Those agents were put in touch with Marc Andre Cunningham, a former Kilpatrick aide, the Philadelphia Inquirer reported in 2007. Cunningham, who was a fraternity brother of Kilpatrick and former city treasurer and pension fund official Jeff Beasley at Florida A&M University, left City Hall in 2008 after media reports said his phone had been briefly tapped by the FBI. ...
... Both Kilpatricks remain under federal investigation in Detroit, amid allegations they were involved in a "pay to play" scheme in which contractors seeking city work were pressured to hire Bernard Kilpatrick as a consultant or make other illegal payments. Former Cobo Center contractor Karl Kado has told federal officials he made close to $100,000 in illegal payments to Kwame Kilpatrick and paid close to $300,000 to Kilpatrick's father, according to court records and a person familiar with the investigation.
Bernard Kilpatrick has not returned phone calls. James C. Thomas, an attorney for Kwame Kilpatrick, has denied his client took illegal payments from Kado.
Also Sunday, Detroit-area contractor Andrew Housey confirmed an incident in 2003 at a political fundraiser for Kilpatrick in which contractor and close Kilpatrick friend Bobby Ferguson allegedly threatened Housey with a handgun. ...
... Victims criticised Benedict XVI's letter of apology because it did not directly address the long history of concealment by Irish bishops of sexual, physical and emotional abuse by priests, nuns and Catholic orders.
The campaigning group One in Four condemned the pope for failing to acknowledge that the church hierarchy had attempted to suppress the scandal.
"Victims were hoping for an acknowledgement of the scurrilous ways in which they have been treated as they attempted to bring their experiences of abuse to the attention of the church authorities," the group's director, Maeve Lewis, said.
"Pope Benedict has passed up a glorious opportunity to address the core issue in the clerical sexual abuse scandal: the deliberate policy of the Catholic church at the highest levels to protect sex offenders, thereby endangering children."
Lewis also accused the Pope of dodging Vatican responsibility for failing to tackle child abuse.
"If the church cannot acknowledge this fundamental truth, it is still in denial," she added.
Andrew Madden, who in 1995 became the first person in Ireland to go public with an abuse lawsuit against the church, said he did not need to hear the pope say that clerical sex abuse was a crime and a sin.
"The apology today is not for the cover-up, it's for the abuse and for the most part they didn't commit the abuse – but they caused some because of the cover-up," he said. "That's the bit they should say sorry for." ...
The campaigning group One in Four condemned the pope for failing to acknowledge that the church hierarchy had attempted to suppress the scandal.
"Victims were hoping for an acknowledgement of the scurrilous ways in which they have been treated as they attempted to bring their experiences of abuse to the attention of the church authorities," the group's director, Maeve Lewis, said.
"Pope Benedict has passed up a glorious opportunity to address the core issue in the clerical sexual abuse scandal: the deliberate policy of the Catholic church at the highest levels to protect sex offenders, thereby endangering children."
Lewis also accused the Pope of dodging Vatican responsibility for failing to tackle child abuse.
"If the church cannot acknowledge this fundamental truth, it is still in denial," she added.
Andrew Madden, who in 1995 became the first person in Ireland to go public with an abuse lawsuit against the church, said he did not need to hear the pope say that clerical sex abuse was a crime and a sin.
"The apology today is not for the cover-up, it's for the abuse and for the most part they didn't commit the abuse – but they caused some because of the cover-up," he said. "That's the bit they should say sorry for." ...
Detroit -- A top city lawyer accused of keeping the public, two judges and the City Council in the dark about former mayor Kwame Kilpatrick's text messages lost her copy of the agreement and forgot it existed, her attorney told a lawyers' panel Friday.
"It was not only out of sight, it is out of mind," Donald Campbell, the attorney representing Assistant Corporation Counsel Valerie Colbert-Osamuede, told the panel.
Colbert-Osamuede, whose hearing before the Michigan Attorney Discipline Board began Friday, faces penalties from reprimand to disbarment if the board determines she violated ethics rules for lawyers. ...
"It was not only out of sight, it is out of mind," Donald Campbell, the attorney representing Assistant Corporation Counsel Valerie Colbert-Osamuede, told the panel.
Colbert-Osamuede, whose hearing before the Michigan Attorney Discipline Board began Friday, faces penalties from reprimand to disbarment if the board determines she violated ethics rules for lawyers. ...
Calamity for pope as the past – and case of Peter Hullermann – returns to haunt him
Child abuse by German cleric among claims causing crisis for Vatican
Riazat Butt and John Hooper
Friday 19 March 2010
For Father Rupert Frania it seemed the best way. His parishioners in the Bavarian spa town of Bad Tölz had just learned a terrible secret.
It had been reported that one of their curates was a convicted paedophile, Peter Hullermann. The curate who had officiated at the children's mass. The one who had been with their sons and daughters the year before at a campsite in the mountains over their medieval town.
Frania decided to tackle the issue from an angle. In his sermon at the main mass last Sunday morning, he began with the parable of the prodigal son – and was stopped dead in mid-sentence.
"I cannot listen to that," shouted a man who was soon to have been married by Hullerman. "You just cannot dodge the issue any longer," he continued as other parishioners broke into applause and some began shouting "shut your mouth" at their parish priest.
It was a raucously rebellious start to a week in which the disclosure of hundreds of cases of alleged clerical sex abuse in the Roman Catholic church's European heartlands shook the allegiances of millions and forced their pastors to make unprecedented admissions of guilt and mortification.
In Armagh on St Patrick's Day the primate of All Ireland, Sean Brady, told the congregation in his cathedral that the clergy should admit "the full truth of our sinfulness".
Brady, who in 1975 was involved in the swearing to silence of two young victims of Ireland's most notorious clerical paedophile, was one of scores of prelates bowing their heads in disgrace in the Netherlands, Austria, Germany and the German-speaking parts of Switzerland and Italy.
So far almost 700 new cases have come to light. It was a week of unmitigated calamity for Benedict XVI, who became pope pledging to shore up Christianity in an increasingly secular Europe. ...
Child abuse by German cleric among claims causing crisis for Vatican
Riazat Butt and John Hooper
Friday 19 March 2010
For Father Rupert Frania it seemed the best way. His parishioners in the Bavarian spa town of Bad Tölz had just learned a terrible secret.
It had been reported that one of their curates was a convicted paedophile, Peter Hullermann. The curate who had officiated at the children's mass. The one who had been with their sons and daughters the year before at a campsite in the mountains over their medieval town.
Frania decided to tackle the issue from an angle. In his sermon at the main mass last Sunday morning, he began with the parable of the prodigal son – and was stopped dead in mid-sentence.
"I cannot listen to that," shouted a man who was soon to have been married by Hullerman. "You just cannot dodge the issue any longer," he continued as other parishioners broke into applause and some began shouting "shut your mouth" at their parish priest.
It was a raucously rebellious start to a week in which the disclosure of hundreds of cases of alleged clerical sex abuse in the Roman Catholic church's European heartlands shook the allegiances of millions and forced their pastors to make unprecedented admissions of guilt and mortification.
In Armagh on St Patrick's Day the primate of All Ireland, Sean Brady, told the congregation in his cathedral that the clergy should admit "the full truth of our sinfulness".
Brady, who in 1975 was involved in the swearing to silence of two young victims of Ireland's most notorious clerical paedophile, was one of scores of prelates bowing their heads in disgrace in the Netherlands, Austria, Germany and the German-speaking parts of Switzerland and Italy.
So far almost 700 new cases have come to light. It was a week of unmitigated calamity for Benedict XVI, who became pope pledging to shore up Christianity in an increasingly secular Europe. ...
OTTAWA (Reuters) - A Canadian government minister apologized on Friday for getting into an argument with airport security staff after he was told he could not take a bottle of tequila on board the plane.
The incident was the second time in three weeks that a member of the Conservative government has apologized for misbehaving at an airport.
Veterans Affairs Minister Jean-Pierre Blackburn said Ottawa airport officials had confiscated the bottle late last month because it was too big. He then got into a heated argument with staff, demanding it be destroyed.
"Granted, I was definitely upset at what happened, and I apologise to those I could have offended," Blackburn said in a statement. CTV television quoted sources as saying the argument was so heated that airport staff almost called police. ...
Ever notice how "conservatives" have liberal ideas only regarding their own behavio/ur?
The incident was the second time in three weeks that a member of the Conservative government has apologized for misbehaving at an airport.
Veterans Affairs Minister Jean-Pierre Blackburn said Ottawa airport officials had confiscated the bottle late last month because it was too big. He then got into a heated argument with staff, demanding it be destroyed.
"Granted, I was definitely upset at what happened, and I apologise to those I could have offended," Blackburn said in a statement. CTV television quoted sources as saying the argument was so heated that airport staff almost called police. ...
Ever notice how "conservatives" have liberal ideas only regarding their own behavio/ur?
A judge has rejected a $657m (£437m) deal to compensate workers who suffered ill-health after helping out at New York's Ground Zero after the 9/11 attacks, ruling the sum is not adequate.
Federal judge Alvin Hellerstein said the proposed payout was not a fair deal for about 10,000 police officers, firefighters and labourers made sick by the dust and debris.
Under the settlement, the amount received by each responder is based on a complicated points system that would give some workers only a few thousand dollars while others might qualify for $1m or more.
The judge said he was concerned too much of the money would be eaten up by legal fees and that the plaintiffs were being pressured into signing up to the agreement before they knew how much they stood to receive.
A third or more of the cash was expected to go to lawyers.
Workers have been given just 90 days to decide whether they agree to the terms, far too short a time for such an important decision, said Hellerstein.
"I will not preside over a settlement that is based on fear or ignorance," he said.
Hellerstein, who rules over all federal court litigation related to the terror attacks, had heard from several tearful responders speaking about their illnesses, and received letters and phone calls from others expressing confusion about the deal. ...
Federal judge Alvin Hellerstein said the proposed payout was not a fair deal for about 10,000 police officers, firefighters and labourers made sick by the dust and debris.
Under the settlement, the amount received by each responder is based on a complicated points system that would give some workers only a few thousand dollars while others might qualify for $1m or more.
The judge said he was concerned too much of the money would be eaten up by legal fees and that the plaintiffs were being pressured into signing up to the agreement before they knew how much they stood to receive.
A third or more of the cash was expected to go to lawyers.
Workers have been given just 90 days to decide whether they agree to the terms, far too short a time for such an important decision, said Hellerstein.
"I will not preside over a settlement that is based on fear or ignorance," he said.
Hellerstein, who rules over all federal court litigation related to the terror attacks, had heard from several tearful responders speaking about their illnesses, and received letters and phone calls from others expressing confusion about the deal. ...
CAPE TOWN (Reuters) - South Africa is spending more than $2 million (1.3 million pounds) a year to support polygamist President Jacob Zuma's wives and children, almost double the budget from a year ago, a minister said on Tuesday.
The 68-year-old Zuma, who currently has three wives, recently admitted to fathering his 20th child out of wedlock with the daughter of a friend, drawing flak for a cavalier attitude to sex in a country with one of the world's biggest HIV/AIDS caseloads.
In a written answer to a parliamentary question, Collins Chabane, a minister charged with monitoring government performance, said the state had a 15.5 million rand budget for Zuma's family this year.
The "spousal office" paid for personal support staff, such as secretaries and researchers, as well as domestic and international air travel and accommodation, Chabane said.
Cellular phones for spouses and their secretaries, laptops and printers and a special daily allowance for "incidental" expenses were also covered. ...
The 68-year-old Zuma, who currently has three wives, recently admitted to fathering his 20th child out of wedlock with the daughter of a friend, drawing flak for a cavalier attitude to sex in a country with one of the world's biggest HIV/AIDS caseloads.
In a written answer to a parliamentary question, Collins Chabane, a minister charged with monitoring government performance, said the state had a 15.5 million rand budget for Zuma's family this year.
The "spousal office" paid for personal support staff, such as secretaries and researchers, as well as domestic and international air travel and accommodation, Chabane said.
Cellular phones for spouses and their secretaries, laptops and printers and a special daily allowance for "incidental" expenses were also covered. ...
Get a mixed-breed dog from a shelter!
Last Updated: March 04. 2010 6:07PM
Laura Berman
Does DPS leader's writing send wrong message?
The president of the Detroit school board, Otis Mathis, is waging a legal battle to steer the academic future of 90,000 children, in the nation's lowest-achieving big city district.
He also acknowledges he has difficulty composing a coherent English sentence. Here's a sample from an e-mail he sent to friends and supporters on Sunday night, uncorrected for errors of spelling, grammar, punctuation and usage. It begins:
If you saw Sunday's Free Press that shown Robert Bobb the emergency financial manager for Detroit Public Schools, move Mark Twain to Boynton which have three times the number seats then students and was one of the reason's he gave for closing school to many empty seats.
The rest of the e-mail, and others that Mathis has written, demonstrate what one of his school board colleagues describes, carefully, as "his communication issues." But if these deficits have limited Mathis, as he admits they have, they have not stopped him from graduating from high school and college. In January, his peers elected him president by a 10-1 vote over Tyrone Winfrey, a University of Michigan academic officer.
"I'm a horrible writer. I know that," says Mathis, 56, a lifelong resident of southwest Detroit. His difficulties with language were spotted as early as fourth grade, when he was placed in special education classes. His college degree was held up for more than a decade because he repeatedly failed an English proficiency exam then required for graduation at Wayne State University. ...
Here's another mass e-mail from Mathis, from Aug. 11, 2009:
Do DPS control the Foundation or outside group? If an outside group control the foundation, then what is DPS Board row with selection of is director? Our we mixing DPS and None DPS row's, and who is the watch dog? ...
Laura Berman
Does DPS leader's writing send wrong message?
The president of the Detroit school board, Otis Mathis, is waging a legal battle to steer the academic future of 90,000 children, in the nation's lowest-achieving big city district.
He also acknowledges he has difficulty composing a coherent English sentence. Here's a sample from an e-mail he sent to friends and supporters on Sunday night, uncorrected for errors of spelling, grammar, punctuation and usage. It begins:
If you saw Sunday's Free Press that shown Robert Bobb the emergency financial manager for Detroit Public Schools, move Mark Twain to Boynton which have three times the number seats then students and was one of the reason's he gave for closing school to many empty seats.
The rest of the e-mail, and others that Mathis has written, demonstrate what one of his school board colleagues describes, carefully, as "his communication issues." But if these deficits have limited Mathis, as he admits they have, they have not stopped him from graduating from high school and college. In January, his peers elected him president by a 10-1 vote over Tyrone Winfrey, a University of Michigan academic officer.
"I'm a horrible writer. I know that," says Mathis, 56, a lifelong resident of southwest Detroit. His difficulties with language were spotted as early as fourth grade, when he was placed in special education classes. His college degree was held up for more than a decade because he repeatedly failed an English proficiency exam then required for graduation at Wayne State University. ...
Here's another mass e-mail from Mathis, from Aug. 11, 2009:
Do DPS control the Foundation or outside group? If an outside group control the foundation, then what is DPS Board row with selection of is director? Our we mixing DPS and None DPS row's, and who is the watch dog? ...
Posted: March 6, 2010
Will Kilpatrick face jail time?
Some say it is possible, but there are defenses
BY BEN SCHMITT and JIM SCHAEFER
FREE PRESS STAFF WRITERS
... "It seems that Judge Groner has lost his patience with Mr. Kilpatrick," Dubin said. "Judge Groner, in his opinions, has expressed the fact that the court has been offended by the nature of Kilpatrick's testimony, or the disingenuousness of Kilpatrick's testimony. For those reasons, the possibility of sending him to jail for a period of time so that he can contemplate the seriousness of abiding by his terms of probation seems real."
The state Court of Appeals said Kilpatrick and his lawyers do have defenses.
"At the probation violation hearings, defendant can raise the issue of ability to pay," Presiding Judge Karen Fort Hood wrote.
But Kilpatrick still could be in trouble over other allegations including: that he failed to provide a complete financial accounting for himself and his wife, Carlita Kilpatrick; did not surrender all tax refunds as ordered by the court, and did not disclose any gifts or benefits as ordered by the court.
Kilpatrick testified during previous restitution hearings that he received $240,000 in loans from local businessmen Peter Karmanos, Roger Penske, Dan Gilbert and Jim Nicholson.
"The trial court did not abuse its discretion by concluding that the $240,000 transfer of the loan from the defendant to his wife constituted a fraudulent conveyance," the appellate judges wrote.
In 2008, Kilpatrick pleaded guilty to obstruction of justice and no contest to assault, and resigned from office.
The plea came after the Free Press broke the text message scandal in January 2008 with a series of stories showing that Kilpatrick and his former chief of staff Christine Beatty perjured themselves during a 2007 civil whistle-blowers trial involving police officers.
Kilpatrick served 99 days in jail and was ordered to pay $1 million in restitution to the City of Detroit. He lives in a Dallas suburb and works at a $120,000-a-year sales job for Covisint, a subsidiary of Detroit-based Compuware. ...
Will Kilpatrick face jail time?
Some say it is possible, but there are defenses
BY BEN SCHMITT and JIM SCHAEFER
FREE PRESS STAFF WRITERS
... "It seems that Judge Groner has lost his patience with Mr. Kilpatrick," Dubin said. "Judge Groner, in his opinions, has expressed the fact that the court has been offended by the nature of Kilpatrick's testimony, or the disingenuousness of Kilpatrick's testimony. For those reasons, the possibility of sending him to jail for a period of time so that he can contemplate the seriousness of abiding by his terms of probation seems real."
The state Court of Appeals said Kilpatrick and his lawyers do have defenses.
"At the probation violation hearings, defendant can raise the issue of ability to pay," Presiding Judge Karen Fort Hood wrote.
But Kilpatrick still could be in trouble over other allegations including: that he failed to provide a complete financial accounting for himself and his wife, Carlita Kilpatrick; did not surrender all tax refunds as ordered by the court, and did not disclose any gifts or benefits as ordered by the court.
Kilpatrick testified during previous restitution hearings that he received $240,000 in loans from local businessmen Peter Karmanos, Roger Penske, Dan Gilbert and Jim Nicholson.
"The trial court did not abuse its discretion by concluding that the $240,000 transfer of the loan from the defendant to his wife constituted a fraudulent conveyance," the appellate judges wrote.
In 2008, Kilpatrick pleaded guilty to obstruction of justice and no contest to assault, and resigned from office.
The plea came after the Free Press broke the text message scandal in January 2008 with a series of stories showing that Kilpatrick and his former chief of staff Christine Beatty perjured themselves during a 2007 civil whistle-blowers trial involving police officers.
Kilpatrick served 99 days in jail and was ordered to pay $1 million in restitution to the City of Detroit. He lives in a Dallas suburb and works at a $120,000-a-year sales job for Covisint, a subsidiary of Detroit-based Compuware. ...
Brazen robbers wielding hand guns and a machete raided a million-euro poker tournament at a five-star hotel in central Berlin yesterday in full view of terrified players and staff.
The masked gang of six men burst into the Grand Hyatt hotel in Berlin’s busy Potsdamer Platz where the tournament was taking place just after 2pm (1300 GMT), threatening security staff and prompting a panic among the crowd.
Players flipped poker tables over and hid behind them as the armed attackers demanded staff hand over the money during the daring afternoon heist.
According to Berlin's Tageszeitung newspaper, four of the attackers entered the hotel from Potsdamer Platz, one of the German capital's most important and popular squares, while two others kept watch. The paper also reported the attackers had been armed with Kalashnikov assault rifles and grenades. ...
The masked gang of six men burst into the Grand Hyatt hotel in Berlin’s busy Potsdamer Platz where the tournament was taking place just after 2pm (1300 GMT), threatening security staff and prompting a panic among the crowd.
Players flipped poker tables over and hid behind them as the armed attackers demanded staff hand over the money during the daring afternoon heist.
According to Berlin's Tageszeitung newspaper, four of the attackers entered the hotel from Potsdamer Platz, one of the German capital's most important and popular squares, while two others kept watch. The paper also reported the attackers had been armed with Kalashnikov assault rifles and grenades. ...
A California man has been sentenced to up to eight years in prison for stealing a $3.99 (£2.60) bag of shredded cheese in a case critics say shows the need for reform of the state's criminal justice system and the overcrowded state of its prisons.
Robert Ferguson, who prosecutors say has a nearly 30-year record of convictions for burglary and other offences, avoided a life sentence under the state's controversial "three strikes" law after a psychological evaluation deemed him bipolar and unable to control his impulses to steal, the Sacramento Bee reported.
Prosecutor Clinton Parish said Ferguson had spent 22 of the past 27 years behind bars but had failed to show he could obey the law. A judge sentenced him to seven years and eight months in prison, but he could be eligible for parole in three years.
The ruling came amid critical overcrowding in the California prison system, to which years of tough policies, the "war on drugs" and one of the highest US recidivism rates have contributed. The system held 166,569 inmates in August, but remains so overcrowded nearly 8,000 have been sent to prisons outside the state. ...
Robert Ferguson, who prosecutors say has a nearly 30-year record of convictions for burglary and other offences, avoided a life sentence under the state's controversial "three strikes" law after a psychological evaluation deemed him bipolar and unable to control his impulses to steal, the Sacramento Bee reported.
Prosecutor Clinton Parish said Ferguson had spent 22 of the past 27 years behind bars but had failed to show he could obey the law. A judge sentenced him to seven years and eight months in prison, but he could be eligible for parole in three years.
The ruling came amid critical overcrowding in the California prison system, to which years of tough policies, the "war on drugs" and one of the highest US recidivism rates have contributed. The system held 166,569 inmates in August, but remains so overcrowded nearly 8,000 have been sent to prisons outside the state. ...
... Houses on sale for a few dollars are something of an urban legend in the US on the back of the mortgage crisis that drove millions of people from their homes. But in Detroit it is no myth.
One in five houses now stand empty in the city that launched the automobile age, forged America's middle-class and blessed the world with Motown.
Detroit has been in decline for decades; its falling population is now well below a million – half of its 1950 peak. But the recent mortgage crisis and the fall of the big car makers into bankruptcy has pushed the town into a realm unique among big cities in America.
A third of the population are unemployed. Property prices have fallen 80% or more in large parts of Detroit over the last three years. The average price of a home sold in the city last year has been put at $7,500 (£4,900).
The recent financial crash forced wholesale foreclosures among people unable to pay their mortgages or who walked away from houses that fell to a fraction of the value of the loans they had taken out on them.
Banks are selling off properties in the worst neighbourhoods, which are usually surrounded by empty and wrecked housing, for a few dollars each. But even better houses can be had at a fraction of their former value. ...
One in five houses now stand empty in the city that launched the automobile age, forged America's middle-class and blessed the world with Motown.
Detroit has been in decline for decades; its falling population is now well below a million – half of its 1950 peak. But the recent mortgage crisis and the fall of the big car makers into bankruptcy has pushed the town into a realm unique among big cities in America.
A third of the population are unemployed. Property prices have fallen 80% or more in large parts of Detroit over the last three years. The average price of a home sold in the city last year has been put at $7,500 (£4,900).
The recent financial crash forced wholesale foreclosures among people unable to pay their mortgages or who walked away from houses that fell to a fraction of the value of the loans they had taken out on them.
Banks are selling off properties in the worst neighbourhoods, which are usually surrounded by empty and wrecked housing, for a few dollars each. But even better houses can be had at a fraction of their former value. ...
The US Senate is known as the body where legislation goes to die, and a Republican senator from Kentucky has spent several days illustrating that point at the expense of nearly 500,000 out-of-work Americans.
Since last week Senator Jim Bunning [an ex-baseball player] has used his privilege under the chamber's parliamentary rules to hold up a 30-day extension of unemployment benefits, health insurance assistance, funding for road and infrastructure projects across the country, and other aid.
In exchange for lifting his objections he demands the senate come up with a way to pay for the $10bn extension package by reducing spending elsewhere, eliciting scoffs from Democrats who note that he voted for President Bush's $1.7tn tax cuts for the wealthy.
Nearly every major item on President Barack Obama's agenda, from health insurance reform to cap-and-trade climate regulation, has stalled in the Senate after passing the House of Representatives. ...
Since last week Senator Jim Bunning [an ex-baseball player] has used his privilege under the chamber's parliamentary rules to hold up a 30-day extension of unemployment benefits, health insurance assistance, funding for road and infrastructure projects across the country, and other aid.
In exchange for lifting his objections he demands the senate come up with a way to pay for the $10bn extension package by reducing spending elsewhere, eliciting scoffs from Democrats who note that he voted for President Bush's $1.7tn tax cuts for the wealthy.
Nearly every major item on President Barack Obama's agenda, from health insurance reform to cap-and-trade climate regulation, has stalled in the Senate after passing the House of Representatives. ...
Australian town, 326 miles from river, hit by raining fish
Residents in a remote desert town in Australia, 326 miles from the nearest river, are recovering after witnessing two days of fish raining from the sky.
1 Mar 2010
... It is the third time in less than 30 years that Lajamanu has been bombarded by falling fish after reports of the phenomenon in 1974 and 2004.
Joe Ashley, 55, from Jabiru an outback town in the Northern Territory, said: "Usually fish are in the water, now they are falling out of the sky! What if anything bigger falls out of the sky next?
"It could be crocodiles; that would be real scary."
Residents in a remote desert town in Australia, 326 miles from the nearest river, are recovering after witnessing two days of fish raining from the sky.
1 Mar 2010
... It is the third time in less than 30 years that Lajamanu has been bombarded by falling fish after reports of the phenomenon in 1974 and 2004.
Joe Ashley, 55, from Jabiru an outback town in the Northern Territory, said: "Usually fish are in the water, now they are falling out of the sky! What if anything bigger falls out of the sky next?
"It could be crocodiles; that would be real scary."
Research the history of ancient Kurdistan, and you'll see why they're hated. Their country/empire was vast. They were also ahead of the times, had fabulous art, learning, and good science.
...the simplest lesson here is that none of the pixels published over this incident would have been necessary if Microsoft had just published this document in the first place, which few people would have ever bothered to go read. Instead, these companies prefer to worry about the sensitivities of corporate-ass-covering lawyers and law enforcement agencies instead of putting their users and transparency first.
February 26. 2010 1:00AM
Prosecutors fight Michigan's freeing of violent offenders
Mike Martindale and Mike Wilkinson / The Detroit News
Hundreds of Michigan prison inmates convicted of violent crimes -- including 40 killers in Wayne County alone -- are eligible for release in the next two months as the state accelerates paroles to cut costs.
A recently compiled list of thousands of potential parolees obtained by The Detroit News provides a snapshot of who is on deck as the state seeks to trim its corrections budget by 6 percent in 2010. It includes some of the state's worst criminals, as well as hundreds of sex offenders, drug dealers, drunken drivers and bank robbers.
The list, demanded by Metro Detroit prosecutors and released only after a judge's order, provides a rare glimpse inside a process that has been going on routinely for years -- but is now under fire from law enforcement officials worried they don't have the time or resources to challenge potential parolees they believe pose a threat to public safety.
Oakland County Prosecutor Jessica Cooper led the fight to sue for the information because she said her office was repeatedly denied information about planned interviews of parole candidates in sufficient time to appeal certain cases.
The state argued that names of eligible parolees were only available a month in advance, but it was later determined the Parole Board's database included information on interviews scheduled months ahead of time.
"The Michigan Department of Corrections says 'trust us' in releasing criminals on parole to save money," said Cooper, who has called the state's effort "reckless."
"If (state officials) are so trustworthy, why did we have to sue them to obtain the list of individuals they are seeking to release?" ...
Prosecutors fight Michigan's freeing of violent offenders
Mike Martindale and Mike Wilkinson / The Detroit News
Hundreds of Michigan prison inmates convicted of violent crimes -- including 40 killers in Wayne County alone -- are eligible for release in the next two months as the state accelerates paroles to cut costs.
A recently compiled list of thousands of potential parolees obtained by The Detroit News provides a snapshot of who is on deck as the state seeks to trim its corrections budget by 6 percent in 2010. It includes some of the state's worst criminals, as well as hundreds of sex offenders, drug dealers, drunken drivers and bank robbers.
The list, demanded by Metro Detroit prosecutors and released only after a judge's order, provides a rare glimpse inside a process that has been going on routinely for years -- but is now under fire from law enforcement officials worried they don't have the time or resources to challenge potential parolees they believe pose a threat to public safety.
Oakland County Prosecutor Jessica Cooper led the fight to sue for the information because she said her office was repeatedly denied information about planned interviews of parole candidates in sufficient time to appeal certain cases.
The state argued that names of eligible parolees were only available a month in advance, but it was later determined the Parole Board's database included information on interviews scheduled months ahead of time.
"The Michigan Department of Corrections says 'trust us' in releasing criminals on parole to save money," said Cooper, who has called the state's effort "reckless."
"If (state officials) are so trustworthy, why did we have to sue them to obtain the list of individuals they are seeking to release?" ...
Spanish priest spunked €17k on chat lines and whores
Church funds fund less than Catholic lifestyle
By Lester Haines
25th February 2010
A Spanish priest who spunked €17k of church funds on sex chat lines, internet porn sites and prostitutes has unsurprisingly been given his marching orders.
Samuel Martin Martin, 27, racked up some impressive expenditure during his one year-tenure as spiritual shepherd to the villages of Totanes and Noez, in Toledo. As well as relieving pious parishioners of their hard-earned cash - including that from a whip-round in aid of Haiti, according to one flabbergasted local interviewed last night on Spanish telly - Martin also offered his sexual services online at €120 a pop. ...
Church funds fund less than Catholic lifestyle
By Lester Haines
25th February 2010
A Spanish priest who spunked €17k of church funds on sex chat lines, internet porn sites and prostitutes has unsurprisingly been given his marching orders.
Samuel Martin Martin, 27, racked up some impressive expenditure during his one year-tenure as spiritual shepherd to the villages of Totanes and Noez, in Toledo. As well as relieving pious parishioners of their hard-earned cash - including that from a whip-round in aid of Haiti, according to one flabbergasted local interviewed last night on Spanish telly - Martin also offered his sexual services online at €120 a pop. ...
This is a rich suburb, folks.
Give me a break, you idiot. You aren't supplying needed services anywhere!
Power companies have been accused of profiteering from the coldest winter for 30 years after a surge in corporate profits.
ScottishPower, which has more than 5 million British customers, saw profits rise by 7.9% last year amid fears that many people could not afford to heat their homes during the bitter winter. Results tomorrow from British Gas, the country's biggest supplier of gas and electricity with 15.6 million customers, are expected to show that operating profits rose 46% to £554m, up from £379m in 2008.
The increases were condemned by unions, customer groups and charities representing the elderly, and follow warnings this week from the regulator Ofgem that companies boosted margins by £30 for each dual fuel customer in the last three months as wholesale costs fell.
Gary Smith, national officer at the GMB union, said: "Buying cheap and selling dear will always add up to high profits in a natural monopoly. No great managerial elan or skills are needed. It is long overdue that the government should step in and take control of the energy sector and put in place proper plans for secure supplies at reasonable prices as happens in the rest of Europe."
David Hunter of McKinnon & Clarke, which buys energy for businesses across Britain, said: "Despite wholesale prices going into freefall, ScottishPower hasn't cut domestic standard tariffs in almost a year. Failure of the big six suppliers [British Gas, EDF, npower, ScottishPower, Scottish and Southern, and E.ON] to pass on to customers the massive reductions in wholesale energy prices which they have been enjoying since 2008 is scandalous." ...
Hey, our utilities are doing the same thing to us in Yankistan - and why the fuck haven't gasoline prices plummeted either?
ScottishPower, which has more than 5 million British customers, saw profits rise by 7.9% last year amid fears that many people could not afford to heat their homes during the bitter winter. Results tomorrow from British Gas, the country's biggest supplier of gas and electricity with 15.6 million customers, are expected to show that operating profits rose 46% to £554m, up from £379m in 2008.
The increases were condemned by unions, customer groups and charities representing the elderly, and follow warnings this week from the regulator Ofgem that companies boosted margins by £30 for each dual fuel customer in the last three months as wholesale costs fell.
Gary Smith, national officer at the GMB union, said: "Buying cheap and selling dear will always add up to high profits in a natural monopoly. No great managerial elan or skills are needed. It is long overdue that the government should step in and take control of the energy sector and put in place proper plans for secure supplies at reasonable prices as happens in the rest of Europe."
David Hunter of McKinnon & Clarke, which buys energy for businesses across Britain, said: "Despite wholesale prices going into freefall, ScottishPower hasn't cut domestic standard tariffs in almost a year. Failure of the big six suppliers [British Gas, EDF, npower, ScottishPower, Scottish and Southern, and E.ON] to pass on to customers the massive reductions in wholesale energy prices which they have been enjoying since 2008 is scandalous." ...
Hey, our utilities are doing the same thing to us in Yankistan - and why the fuck haven't gasoline prices plummeted either?
David Cameron's communications director, Andy Coulson, will come under fresh pressure to defend his editorship of the News of the World and his knowledge about the illegal activities of his journalists amid new allegations about the paper's involvement with private detectives who broke the law.
The Guardian has learned that while Coulson was still editor of the tabloid, the newspaper employed a freelance private investigator even though he had been accused of corrupting police officers and had just been released from a seven-year prison sentence for blackmail.
The private eye was well known to the News of the World, having worked for the paper for several years before he was jailed, when Coulson was deputy editor. He was rehired when he was freed.
Evidence seen by the Guardian shows that Mr A, who cannot be named for legal reasons, was blagging bank accounts, bribing police officers, procuring confidential data from the DVLA and phone companies, and trading sensitive material from live police inquiries.
Coulson has always insisted he knew nothing about the illegal activity which took place in the News of the World newsroom, telling MPs last year: "I have never had any involvement in it at all."
Mr A cannot be named now because he is facing trial for a violent crime, but his details will emerge once he has been dealt with by the courts. Coulson tonight refused to say whether he was aware of Mr A's criminal background, or of his return to the paper following his prison term. He said: "I have nothing to add to the evidence I gave to the select committee." ...
The Guardian has learned that while Coulson was still editor of the tabloid, the newspaper employed a freelance private investigator even though he had been accused of corrupting police officers and had just been released from a seven-year prison sentence for blackmail.
The private eye was well known to the News of the World, having worked for the paper for several years before he was jailed, when Coulson was deputy editor. He was rehired when he was freed.
Evidence seen by the Guardian shows that Mr A, who cannot be named for legal reasons, was blagging bank accounts, bribing police officers, procuring confidential data from the DVLA and phone companies, and trading sensitive material from live police inquiries.
Coulson has always insisted he knew nothing about the illegal activity which took place in the News of the World newsroom, telling MPs last year: "I have never had any involvement in it at all."
Mr A cannot be named now because he is facing trial for a violent crime, but his details will emerge once he has been dealt with by the courts. Coulson tonight refused to say whether he was aware of Mr A's criminal background, or of his return to the paper following his prison term. He said: "I have nothing to add to the evidence I gave to the select committee." ...
February 24. 2010 1:00AM
Judge expected to expand charges against Kilpatrick
Doug Guthrie / The Detroit News
Detroit --When former Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick returns from Texas on Friday for arraignment on criminal probation violation charges, he will face far more accusations than missing a single restitution payment.
Wayne County prosecutors Tuesday were ordered by Circuit Judge David Groner to assist Michigan Department of Corrections authorities in expanding the single charge recommended by agents overseeing Kilpatrick's probation to include numerous alleged violations revealed during six days of recent hearings on Kilpatrick's finances.
Wayne County Prosecutor Kym Worthy's spokeswoman, Maria Miller, declined to provide details, but legal experts say the charges could include perjury and fraud.
"We are prepared to proceed on Friday," Miller said. "We have assisted the probation department in their preparation of the warrant. The allegations will be contained in that petition."
With the charges broadened beyond Kilpatrick's failure to meet a deadline last week to pay $79,000 toward the $1 million restitution in the text message scandal, his lawyers' efforts to get the Michigan Court of Appeals to overturn Groner's recent restitution orders will likely have no impact on the coming proceedings, said Curt Benson, professor at Cooley School of Law. The higher court is likely to focus only on Kilpatrick's complaint that the judge overstepped his authority in ordering him to make more than $300,000 in accelerated restitution payments, because he determined Kilpatrick hid assets from the court.
The Court of Appeals agreed to consider Kilpatrick's appeal, but only after receiving transcripts of the lengthy restitution hearings. Groner's court reporter has almost a month to prepare the transcripts. The appeals court refused to delay payment deadlines. The first deadline, for $79,011, passed last Friday. The second, for $240,000, comes in April. ...
Judge expected to expand charges against Kilpatrick
Doug Guthrie / The Detroit News
Detroit --When former Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick returns from Texas on Friday for arraignment on criminal probation violation charges, he will face far more accusations than missing a single restitution payment.
Wayne County prosecutors Tuesday were ordered by Circuit Judge David Groner to assist Michigan Department of Corrections authorities in expanding the single charge recommended by agents overseeing Kilpatrick's probation to include numerous alleged violations revealed during six days of recent hearings on Kilpatrick's finances.
Wayne County Prosecutor Kym Worthy's spokeswoman, Maria Miller, declined to provide details, but legal experts say the charges could include perjury and fraud.
"We are prepared to proceed on Friday," Miller said. "We have assisted the probation department in their preparation of the warrant. The allegations will be contained in that petition."
With the charges broadened beyond Kilpatrick's failure to meet a deadline last week to pay $79,000 toward the $1 million restitution in the text message scandal, his lawyers' efforts to get the Michigan Court of Appeals to overturn Groner's recent restitution orders will likely have no impact on the coming proceedings, said Curt Benson, professor at Cooley School of Law. The higher court is likely to focus only on Kilpatrick's complaint that the judge overstepped his authority in ordering him to make more than $300,000 in accelerated restitution payments, because he determined Kilpatrick hid assets from the court.
The Court of Appeals agreed to consider Kilpatrick's appeal, but only after receiving transcripts of the lengthy restitution hearings. Groner's court reporter has almost a month to prepare the transcripts. The appeals court refused to delay payment deadlines. The first deadline, for $79,011, passed last Friday. The second, for $240,000, comes in April. ...
'Terminator' carp threatens Great Lakes
Environmentalists say Asian carp, an invasive species of food-guzzling fish, could cause an ecological disaster if it enters Lake Michigan
Ed Pilkington, Chicago
Tuesday 23 February 2010
The fight looks utterly unequal. In the red corner: the combined might of North America, including the US and Canadian governments, the US army, the governors of eight American states, two Senate committees and the supreme court. In the blue corner: one fish.
The way things are looking, the fish is winning.
At stake is the health of the Great Lakes, the world's largest body of fresh water. Environmentalists warn of ecological disaster, courtesy of Asian carp, an invasive species of food-guzzling fish that is within miles of entering Lake Michigan.
If they do, they would have the potential to spread throughout the lakes, wreaking havoc to their ecosystem and with it the $7bn (£4.7bn) fishing and recreation industries on which millions of jobs depend. "This is an intense threat, and people are just waking up to how big the danger is," said David Ullrich of the Great Lakes and St Lawrence Cities Initiative, which represents 70 waterfront cities in the US and Canada with a joint population of 13 million.
Asian carp were first introduced to southern states of the US from China in the 1970s to help clean tanks in fish farms. They escaped and for more than 30 years have steadily worked their way up the Mississippi river system, devouring food and devastating native fish populations along the way. Last December, DNA of the carp was found just a few miles from the Great Lakes outside Chicago, a discovery that Ullrich described as "a major shock to everyone". ...
Environmentalists say Asian carp, an invasive species of food-guzzling fish, could cause an ecological disaster if it enters Lake Michigan
Ed Pilkington, Chicago
Tuesday 23 February 2010
The fight looks utterly unequal. In the red corner: the combined might of North America, including the US and Canadian governments, the US army, the governors of eight American states, two Senate committees and the supreme court. In the blue corner: one fish.
The way things are looking, the fish is winning.
At stake is the health of the Great Lakes, the world's largest body of fresh water. Environmentalists warn of ecological disaster, courtesy of Asian carp, an invasive species of food-guzzling fish that is within miles of entering Lake Michigan.
If they do, they would have the potential to spread throughout the lakes, wreaking havoc to their ecosystem and with it the $7bn (£4.7bn) fishing and recreation industries on which millions of jobs depend. "This is an intense threat, and people are just waking up to how big the danger is," said David Ullrich of the Great Lakes and St Lawrence Cities Initiative, which represents 70 waterfront cities in the US and Canada with a joint population of 13 million.
Asian carp were first introduced to southern states of the US from China in the 1970s to help clean tanks in fish farms. They escaped and for more than 30 years have steadily worked their way up the Mississippi river system, devouring food and devastating native fish populations along the way. Last December, DNA of the carp was found just a few miles from the Great Lakes outside Chicago, a discovery that Ullrich described as "a major shock to everyone". ...
Jonathan Safran Foer: The truth about factory farming
In this disturbing extract from Eating Animals, the novelist reveals the unpalatable truth about factory-farmed poultry
Monday 22 February 2010
... We spend several minutes like this, looking for an unlocked door. Another why: Why would a farmer lock the doors of his turkey farm?
It can't be because he's afraid someone will steal his equipment or animals. There's no equipment to steal, and the animals aren't worth the herculean effort it would take to illicitly transport a significant number. A farmer doesn't lock his doors because he's afraid his animals will escape. Turkeys can't turn doorknobs. It isn't because of biosecurity, either. Barbed wire is enough to keep out the merely curious. So why? In the three years I will spend immersed in animal agriculture, nothing will unsettle me more than the locked doors.
As it turns out, locked doors are the least of it. I never heard back from any of the companies I wrote to. Even research organisations with paid staff find themselves consistently thwarted by industry secrecy.
The power brokers of factory farming know that their business model depends on consumers not being able to see (or hear about) what they do. ...
In this disturbing extract from Eating Animals, the novelist reveals the unpalatable truth about factory-farmed poultry
Monday 22 February 2010
... We spend several minutes like this, looking for an unlocked door. Another why: Why would a farmer lock the doors of his turkey farm?
It can't be because he's afraid someone will steal his equipment or animals. There's no equipment to steal, and the animals aren't worth the herculean effort it would take to illicitly transport a significant number. A farmer doesn't lock his doors because he's afraid his animals will escape. Turkeys can't turn doorknobs. It isn't because of biosecurity, either. Barbed wire is enough to keep out the merely curious. So why? In the three years I will spend immersed in animal agriculture, nothing will unsettle me more than the locked doors.
As it turns out, locked doors are the least of it. I never heard back from any of the companies I wrote to. Even research organisations with paid staff find themselves consistently thwarted by industry secrecy.
The power brokers of factory farming know that their business model depends on consumers not being able to see (or hear about) what they do. ...
Posted: Feb. 21, 2010
Feds have evidence ex-Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick took bribes
Contractor said Kilpatrick got up to $100K, his father up to $290K; Kilpatrick's lawyer says he knows nothing of bribery accusation
BY JENNIFER DIXON and JIM SCHAEFER
FREE PRESS STAFF WRITERS
A contractor who pleaded guilty in an ongoing corruption probe in Detroit has told investigators that he handed as much as $100,000 in bribes to then-Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick in 2002, according to interviews and sworn documents reviewed by the Free Press.
The contractor, Karl Kado of West Bloomfield, also told the FBI he paid hundreds of thousands of dollars to the mayor's father, and thousands more to a close mayoral aide, according to the records and interviews.
Kado told authorities he paid Kwame Kilpatrick in four or five installments of about $20,000 each. Kado, who is awaiting sentencing for paying bribes to protect multimillion-dollar Cobo Center contracts, said he sometimes delivered the money in envelopes to Kilpatrick's office on the 11th floor at City Hall, and sometimes Kilpatrick dropped by Cobo to get the cash.
The allegations are significant because they show, for the first time, that the government has secured the cooperation of someone who says he gave payoffs directly to Kilpatrick.
Authorities obtained the information as part of a years-long, complex and wide-ranging investigation in Detroit and Southfield that has produced a series of public corruption charges and 10 guilty pleas.
In pursuing Kilpatrick, investigators tracked cash moving in and out of bank accounts and wiretapped the phone of his father, among others, while slowly trying to build a case.
FBI agents also contend in sworn statements that they have grounds to believe Kilpatrick and his associates used the mayor's office to run a criminal enterprise, a term the FBI reserves for organized crime and racketeering cases. ...
Feds have evidence ex-Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick took bribes
Contractor said Kilpatrick got up to $100K, his father up to $290K; Kilpatrick's lawyer says he knows nothing of bribery accusation
BY JENNIFER DIXON and JIM SCHAEFER
FREE PRESS STAFF WRITERS
A contractor who pleaded guilty in an ongoing corruption probe in Detroit has told investigators that he handed as much as $100,000 in bribes to then-Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick in 2002, according to interviews and sworn documents reviewed by the Free Press.
The contractor, Karl Kado of West Bloomfield, also told the FBI he paid hundreds of thousands of dollars to the mayor's father, and thousands more to a close mayoral aide, according to the records and interviews.
Kado told authorities he paid Kwame Kilpatrick in four or five installments of about $20,000 each. Kado, who is awaiting sentencing for paying bribes to protect multimillion-dollar Cobo Center contracts, said he sometimes delivered the money in envelopes to Kilpatrick's office on the 11th floor at City Hall, and sometimes Kilpatrick dropped by Cobo to get the cash.
The allegations are significant because they show, for the first time, that the government has secured the cooperation of someone who says he gave payoffs directly to Kilpatrick.
Authorities obtained the information as part of a years-long, complex and wide-ranging investigation in Detroit and Southfield that has produced a series of public corruption charges and 10 guilty pleas.
In pursuing Kilpatrick, investigators tracked cash moving in and out of bank accounts and wiretapped the phone of his father, among others, while slowly trying to build a case.
FBI agents also contend in sworn statements that they have grounds to believe Kilpatrick and his associates used the mayor's office to run a criminal enterprise, a term the FBI reserves for organized crime and racketeering cases. ...
Last Updated: February 22. 2010 1:00AM
Feds plan Kilpatrick charges
Ex-mayor, dad expected to face felonies in 'pay to play' probe
Paul Egan / The Detroit News
Detroit -- Federal officials are preparing felony charges against former Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick and his father, business consultant Bernard N. Kilpatrick, The Detroit News has learned.
For at least five years, the FBI and the U.S. Attorney's Office have been investigating an alleged "pay to play" system at City Hall under Kilpatrick and allegations that contractors wanting City Hall business were directed to hire the former mayor's father as a consultant.
Now there are new allegations that former Cobo Center contractor Karl Kado, who has been cooperating with the FBI since 2005, not only paid close to $300,000 to the mayor's father but made about $100,000 in illegal cash payments directly to the former mayor.
Those allegations are contained in sworn statements that are part of the evidence in the wide-ranging corruption probe, a person familiar with the investigation said Sunday. Charges are expected against both Kwame Kilpatrick and his father, though the timing and specific nature of those charges are still being determined, the source said.
It's the first time a source close to the investigation has said corruption charges against the former mayor are planned, though there have been strong signals Kilpatrick was the ultimate target of a long-running investigation that has netted nine guilty pleas.
A federal grand jury has subpoenaed records and testimony related to possible abuses in fundraising and expenditures connected with the former mayor's nonprofit foundation, the Kilpatrick Civic Fund, and possible felony income tax violations are being examined, people familiar with the investigation said. ...
Feds plan Kilpatrick charges
Ex-mayor, dad expected to face felonies in 'pay to play' probe
Paul Egan / The Detroit News
Detroit -- Federal officials are preparing felony charges against former Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick and his father, business consultant Bernard N. Kilpatrick, The Detroit News has learned.
For at least five years, the FBI and the U.S. Attorney's Office have been investigating an alleged "pay to play" system at City Hall under Kilpatrick and allegations that contractors wanting City Hall business were directed to hire the former mayor's father as a consultant.
Now there are new allegations that former Cobo Center contractor Karl Kado, who has been cooperating with the FBI since 2005, not only paid close to $300,000 to the mayor's father but made about $100,000 in illegal cash payments directly to the former mayor.
Those allegations are contained in sworn statements that are part of the evidence in the wide-ranging corruption probe, a person familiar with the investigation said Sunday. Charges are expected against both Kwame Kilpatrick and his father, though the timing and specific nature of those charges are still being determined, the source said.
It's the first time a source close to the investigation has said corruption charges against the former mayor are planned, though there have been strong signals Kilpatrick was the ultimate target of a long-running investigation that has netted nine guilty pleas.
A federal grand jury has subpoenaed records and testimony related to possible abuses in fundraising and expenditures connected with the former mayor's nonprofit foundation, the Kilpatrick Civic Fund, and possible felony income tax violations are being examined, people familiar with the investigation said. ...
... Michael and Holly Robbins of Penn Valley, Pa., said they first found out about the alleged spying last November after their son Blake was accused by a Harriton High School official of "improper behavior in his home" and shown a photograph taken by his laptop.
An assistant principal at Harriton later confirmed that the district could remotely activate the webcam in students' laptops. "Michael Robbins thereafter verified, through [Assistant Principal] Ms. Matsko, that the school district in fact has the ability to remotely activate the webcam contained in a student's personal laptop computer issued by the school district at any time it chose and to view and capture whatever images were in front of the webcam, all without the knowledge, permission or authorization of any persons then and there using the laptop computer," the lawsuit stated.
The Robbins claimed that the district did not tell them beforehand that their son's laptop webcam could be activated remotely, and added that there was no mention of the functionality in any of the documentation they received or on the district's Web site.
And the privacy of non-students has been violated, the Robbins said. "By virtue of the fact that the webcam can be remotely activated at any time by the School District, the webcam will capture anything happening in the room in which the laptop computer is located, regardless of whether the student is sitting at the computer and using it," the lawsuit charged. ...
An assistant principal at Harriton later confirmed that the district could remotely activate the webcam in students' laptops. "Michael Robbins thereafter verified, through [Assistant Principal] Ms. Matsko, that the school district in fact has the ability to remotely activate the webcam contained in a student's personal laptop computer issued by the school district at any time it chose and to view and capture whatever images were in front of the webcam, all without the knowledge, permission or authorization of any persons then and there using the laptop computer," the lawsuit stated.
The Robbins claimed that the district did not tell them beforehand that their son's laptop webcam could be activated remotely, and added that there was no mention of the functionality in any of the documentation they received or on the district's Web site.
And the privacy of non-students has been violated, the Robbins said. "By virtue of the fact that the webcam can be remotely activated at any time by the School District, the webcam will capture anything happening in the room in which the laptop computer is located, regardless of whether the student is sitting at the computer and using it," the lawsuit charged. ...
A man facing the first major criminal trial to take place without a jury in England in 400 years was being hunted by police today after he went on the run from court.
Peter Blake, who police warn is dangerous and has previously had access to firearms, was reported missing just after the lunch break at the Royal Courts of Justice in London yesterday. ...
Peter Blake, who police warn is dangerous and has previously had access to firearms, was reported missing just after the lunch break at the Royal Courts of Justice in London yesterday. ...
A suspected armed robber who was on trial for a £1.75m heist in a historic criminal case without a jury has gone on the run.
Peter Blake, 57, apparently walked out of the high court in London in the midst of his trial yesterday.
Blake and three co-defendants were being tried without a jury after the prosecution and police alleged the jury in the previous Old Bailey trial had been harassed.
The escape of Blake is the latest in a series of setbacks in the investigation and prosecution of suspects for the 2004 heist at a warehouse near Heathrow. There have been three criminal trials and more than £20m has been spent, but no one has been convicted of the robbery.
During the third trial last year, the judge halted proceedings over claims from the prosecution that the jury had been interfered with. The court of appeal ruled that in the face of threats to a future potential jury the four men should be tried without a jury – the first such trial in England for 400 years. ...
Peter Blake, 57, apparently walked out of the high court in London in the midst of his trial yesterday.
Blake and three co-defendants were being tried without a jury after the prosecution and police alleged the jury in the previous Old Bailey trial had been harassed.
The escape of Blake is the latest in a series of setbacks in the investigation and prosecution of suspects for the 2004 heist at a warehouse near Heathrow. There have been three criminal trials and more than £20m has been spent, but no one has been convicted of the robbery.
During the third trial last year, the judge halted proceedings over claims from the prosecution that the jury had been interfered with. The court of appeal ruled that in the face of threats to a future potential jury the four men should be tried without a jury – the first such trial in England for 400 years. ...
dave wood needs to be transported in a caged van to yarl's wood and kept there, treated like any other immigrant there, until it changes its tune.
Chernobyl.
Three Mile Island.
The Fermi plants which made Lake Erie glow eerily every night for many years.
Fuck you, obama.
Three Mile Island.
The Fermi plants which made Lake Erie glow eerily every night for many years.
Fuck you, obama.
Some people are gay. Just get over it, you brutal and uncivilized assholes.
'Clumsy' French cop tasers schoolkid
By Lester Haines
10th February 2010
A "clumsy" French cop is facing discliplinary measures after accidentally tasering a 15-year-old schoolkid, TF1 News reports.
The unnamed gendarme was demonstrating the electric enforcer to youngsters at a "career day" in Dole, Jura, on 28 January, when he zapped his victim's leg. The discharge earned the lad a night in hospital "under observation", but he was reportedly none the worse for his ordeal. ...
Quel un idiot!
By Lester Haines
10th February 2010
A "clumsy" French cop is facing discliplinary measures after accidentally tasering a 15-year-old schoolkid, TF1 News reports.
The unnamed gendarme was demonstrating the electric enforcer to youngsters at a "career day" in Dole, Jura, on 28 January, when he zapped his victim's leg. The discharge earned the lad a night in hospital "under observation", but he was reportedly none the worse for his ordeal. ...
Quel un idiot!
The troubled American private security company Blackwater faced fresh controversy today when two former employees accused it of defrauding the US government for years, including billing for a Filipina prostitute on its payroll in Afghanistan.
According to Melan Davis, a former employee, Blackwater listed the woman for payment under the "morale welfare recreation" category.
The company, which allegedly employed her in Kabul, billed the government for her plane tickets and monthly salary, Davis said.
Blackwater, renamed Xe last year apparently because of the bad publicity attached to its original name, is among the biggest private security firms employed by the state department and Pentagon in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The most notorious incident involving Blackwater was the shooting of 17 Iraqis in Baghdad in 2007. Charges against Blackwater employees in the US over the incident were dropped last year, prompting the Iraqi government to order hundreds of its security staff out of the country within the next few days.
The latest accusations are contained in court records that have been recently unsealed and reveal details of a lawsuit by Davis and her husband, Brad, who both worked for Blackwater. According to Associated Press, the records say they had personal knowledge of the company falsifying invoices, double-billing federal agencies and charging the government for personal and inappropriate items whose real purpose was hidden.
They said they witnessed "systematic" fraud on the company's security contracts with the state department in Iraq and Afghanistan, and with the department of homeland security and federal emergency management agency in Louisiana after Hurricane Katrina. ...
According to Melan Davis, a former employee, Blackwater listed the woman for payment under the "morale welfare recreation" category.
The company, which allegedly employed her in Kabul, billed the government for her plane tickets and monthly salary, Davis said.
Blackwater, renamed Xe last year apparently because of the bad publicity attached to its original name, is among the biggest private security firms employed by the state department and Pentagon in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The most notorious incident involving Blackwater was the shooting of 17 Iraqis in Baghdad in 2007. Charges against Blackwater employees in the US over the incident were dropped last year, prompting the Iraqi government to order hundreds of its security staff out of the country within the next few days.
The latest accusations are contained in court records that have been recently unsealed and reveal details of a lawsuit by Davis and her husband, Brad, who both worked for Blackwater. According to Associated Press, the records say they had personal knowledge of the company falsifying invoices, double-billing federal agencies and charging the government for personal and inappropriate items whose real purpose was hidden.
They said they witnessed "systematic" fraud on the company's security contracts with the state department in Iraq and Afghanistan, and with the department of homeland security and federal emergency management agency in Louisiana after Hurricane Katrina. ...
Honda was recalling another 437,000 vehicles for faulty airbags, in the latest quality problem to hit a Japanese carmaker.
The company will replace the driver-side airbag inflator in the cars because they can deploy with too much pressure, causing the inflator to rupture and injure or kill the driver.
Honda began the recall in November 2008, and the total number of vehicles affected is approaching 1m. The latest expansion of the recall includes 378,000 cars in the US, 41,000 in Canada and 17,000 in Japan, Australia and elsewhere in Asia.
Toyota is in the process of recalling more than 8m cars and trucks due to faulty gas pedals, and yesterday said it would recall more than 440,000 of its flagship 2010 Prius and other hybrids, due to a braking glitch. ...
Brakes, acceleration, steering...what else is there???
Oh, yeah.
Airbags.
Oh, and as a native Detroiter, I'd like to say a big Fuck You to all the idiots who slagged off American cars and bought toyotas and hondas.
Thankyouverymuch.
The company will replace the driver-side airbag inflator in the cars because they can deploy with too much pressure, causing the inflator to rupture and injure or kill the driver.
Honda began the recall in November 2008, and the total number of vehicles affected is approaching 1m. The latest expansion of the recall includes 378,000 cars in the US, 41,000 in Canada and 17,000 in Japan, Australia and elsewhere in Asia.
Toyota is in the process of recalling more than 8m cars and trucks due to faulty gas pedals, and yesterday said it would recall more than 440,000 of its flagship 2010 Prius and other hybrids, due to a braking glitch. ...
Brakes, acceleration, steering...what else is there???
Oh, yeah.
Airbags.
Oh, and as a native Detroiter, I'd like to say a big Fuck You to all the idiots who slagged off American cars and bought toyotas and hondas.
Thankyouverymuch.
Metropolitan police assistant commissioner John Yates has been reprimanded by the culture select committee for what it claims was a failure to give more detailed evidence to MPs over the scale of hacking into private phone messages by former News International employees. The chairman of the culture committee, John Whittingdale, has written to Yates to deliver the reprimand.
Yates has angrily replied it had never been his intention to mislead the committee and he is most concerned that the committee believed that to be the case.
The Guardian revealed last week that a freedom of information request had disclosed that the police found News International had pin codes, which are used for accessing voicemail messages, belonging to 91 people. The phones had been accessed by the private investigator Glenn Mulcaire, who worked for the News of the World and the paper's royal correspondent, Clive Goodman.
Knowing that the information was about to be made public, a senior police officer wrote to the select committee to inform them late last month.
At the time of giving oral evidence to the committee in September, Yates gave no indication he knew of the scale of the hacking. ...
Yates has angrily replied it had never been his intention to mislead the committee and he is most concerned that the committee believed that to be the case.
The Guardian revealed last week that a freedom of information request had disclosed that the police found News International had pin codes, which are used for accessing voicemail messages, belonging to 91 people. The phones had been accessed by the private investigator Glenn Mulcaire, who worked for the News of the World and the paper's royal correspondent, Clive Goodman.
Knowing that the information was about to be made public, a senior police officer wrote to the select committee to inform them late last month.
At the time of giving oral evidence to the committee in September, Yates gave no indication he knew of the scale of the hacking. ...
Couple told by BT that broadband upgrade would cost £45,000
A couple, Ray and Frei Walker, who want broadband for their home and bed and breakfast business have been told by British Telecom that the installation would cost £45,000.
By Nick Britten
07 Feb 2010
They have managed with an old “dial up” service for the last nine years at the Victorian guest house they own.
But when they looked into getting broadband installed they were hit by the huge quote because BT said for the Walkers to benefit it would need to install new equipment that would also serve others in the village.
Mr Walker, 60, said: “It’s a farce, and obviously we’re staggered. We don’t have £45,000 and if we did we wouldn’t spend it on this.”
Currently BT broadband access is available to residents of the 150-strong village of Dufton, near Appelby, Cumbria, but BT said there was no capacity for any new users.
The Walkers currently have two telephone lines going into the house – one for a phone and one for the Internet – supplied by Digital Access Carrier System, or DACS, which allows BT to deliver both lines from its exchange through one copper wire.
The DACS box also services other villagers’ telephone lines.
They believed that by getting rid of one phone line, it would free up capacity for broadband.
But BT said to install broadband it would have to remove the current box, where the lines are squeezed down into one line and which is fitted to a telephone pole in the village, and install new, larger capacity equipment and cables for others in the village as well.
They quoted for the cost of removing the box plus “40 joint bosses, 637 metres of fibre copper cable and 1,341 metres of mole ploughing cable”.
Mr Walker accused the company of abusing its network monopoly because he had switched phone supplier and had been intent on using a different broadband supplier, even though BT still owns and maintains the equipment.
He said: “They seem to be wanting us to pay for equipment which will upgrade the whole village, and that’s what makes it more galling.
“We just want the same crap broadband service as everybody else in the village but BT won’t even let us have that.” ...
A couple, Ray and Frei Walker, who want broadband for their home and bed and breakfast business have been told by British Telecom that the installation would cost £45,000.
By Nick Britten
07 Feb 2010
They have managed with an old “dial up” service for the last nine years at the Victorian guest house they own.
But when they looked into getting broadband installed they were hit by the huge quote because BT said for the Walkers to benefit it would need to install new equipment that would also serve others in the village.
Mr Walker, 60, said: “It’s a farce, and obviously we’re staggered. We don’t have £45,000 and if we did we wouldn’t spend it on this.”
Currently BT broadband access is available to residents of the 150-strong village of Dufton, near Appelby, Cumbria, but BT said there was no capacity for any new users.
The Walkers currently have two telephone lines going into the house – one for a phone and one for the Internet – supplied by Digital Access Carrier System, or DACS, which allows BT to deliver both lines from its exchange through one copper wire.
The DACS box also services other villagers’ telephone lines.
They believed that by getting rid of one phone line, it would free up capacity for broadband.
But BT said to install broadband it would have to remove the current box, where the lines are squeezed down into one line and which is fitted to a telephone pole in the village, and install new, larger capacity equipment and cables for others in the village as well.
They quoted for the cost of removing the box plus “40 joint bosses, 637 metres of fibre copper cable and 1,341 metres of mole ploughing cable”.
Mr Walker accused the company of abusing its network monopoly because he had switched phone supplier and had been intent on using a different broadband supplier, even though BT still owns and maintains the equipment.
He said: “They seem to be wanting us to pay for equipment which will upgrade the whole village, and that’s what makes it more galling.
“We just want the same crap broadband service as everybody else in the village but BT won’t even let us have that.” ...
The Loch Ness Stig gets pixellated
Sinister Street View censorship shenanigans
By Lester Haines
1st February 2010
Those readers who live close to Loch Ness are invited to keep an eye out for circling black Google helicopters, since the Great Satan of Mountain View has inexplicably decided that this recent loch-side sighting of Top Gear's The Stig...
...would benefit from the application of Street View's "Swiss pixellation" filter:
Chilling stuff indeed. As ever, we welcome wild conspiracy theories as to what exactly Google is trying to hide... ®
Sinister Street View censorship shenanigans
By Lester Haines
1st February 2010
Those readers who live close to Loch Ness are invited to keep an eye out for circling black Google helicopters, since the Great Satan of Mountain View has inexplicably decided that this recent loch-side sighting of Top Gear's The Stig...
...would benefit from the application of Street View's "Swiss pixellation" filter:
Chilling stuff indeed. As ever, we welcome wild conspiracy theories as to what exactly Google is trying to hide... ®
Innocent victims of the subprime crisis
In spite of a law protecting tenants, people who rent across the US are being illegally evicted even if their finances are fine
Sasha Abramsky
6 February 2010
"What happens often is that after a foreclosure, a broker or an agent comes to the house and, as though the law didn't exist, tells renters the house has been foreclosed and they have to leave," says Judith Liben, senior housing attorney at the Massachusetts Law Reform Institute.
The law Liben is referencing is the federal Protecting Tenants at Foreclosure Act, passed in spring last year and intended to remain on the books until 2012. It was intended to mitigate the collateral damage from the foreclosure epidemic by making banks give tenants on month-to-month leases 90 days notice before evicting them following the home owners' foreclosure; and by ensuring that tenants in good standing with year, or multi-year, leases couldn't be evicted mid-lease following a foreclosure. The new owners would, according to this act, have to honour the terms of the lease, keep up repairs on the property, and repay the tenants' security deposits upon completion of the lease.
Housing advocates cheered the law as representing a signal victory for struggling tenants in an increasingly brutal real estate environment. In the months since it was passed, however, many have concluded that in practice it is a largely toothless wonder: most tenants don't know about its existence, many banks – desperate to evict tenants living in foreclosed homes so that they can more easily sell the properties – have continued sending out illegal eviction notices; some even hire bailiffs to change the locks and to throw possessions out onto the street. And the federal government has no real mechanisms to enforce the act's provisions.
It is not uncommon for tenants in these situations to come home and find intimidating, anonymous, and legally misleading, posters stuck to their doors. One such starts with "Attention!! This property has been foreclosed and is now bank-owned. The eviction process has started. The property is being monitored." The words are in bold and the text is circled for emphasis. Another begins: "To whom it may concern: We were informed this property was vacant. We have changed the locks." Another resorts to financial intimidation: "The eviction process has been started by the bank. It is in your best interest to avoid having an eviction added to your credit report. It is very difficult to rent a property with an eviction on your credit report."
That homeowners have been hammered by subprime mortgages, by the collapse of real estate value, and by the broader economic malaise, is well-documented. But, out of the spotlight, more and more rented homes go into foreclosure: many tenants continue to pay rent to delinquent landlords, only to subsequently find they have been giving their money to a person who no longer owns the property. Others have been summarily evicted, having to scurry to find new homes – or ending up homeless. Many have lost the security deposits on their old rentals to owners who have simply disappeared. Others have seen their credit records [affected] by being evicted, despite the eviction not being the result of their own financial failings. ...
In spite of a law protecting tenants, people who rent across the US are being illegally evicted even if their finances are fine
Sasha Abramsky
6 February 2010
"What happens often is that after a foreclosure, a broker or an agent comes to the house and, as though the law didn't exist, tells renters the house has been foreclosed and they have to leave," says Judith Liben, senior housing attorney at the Massachusetts Law Reform Institute.
The law Liben is referencing is the federal Protecting Tenants at Foreclosure Act, passed in spring last year and intended to remain on the books until 2012. It was intended to mitigate the collateral damage from the foreclosure epidemic by making banks give tenants on month-to-month leases 90 days notice before evicting them following the home owners' foreclosure; and by ensuring that tenants in good standing with year, or multi-year, leases couldn't be evicted mid-lease following a foreclosure. The new owners would, according to this act, have to honour the terms of the lease, keep up repairs on the property, and repay the tenants' security deposits upon completion of the lease.
Housing advocates cheered the law as representing a signal victory for struggling tenants in an increasingly brutal real estate environment. In the months since it was passed, however, many have concluded that in practice it is a largely toothless wonder: most tenants don't know about its existence, many banks – desperate to evict tenants living in foreclosed homes so that they can more easily sell the properties – have continued sending out illegal eviction notices; some even hire bailiffs to change the locks and to throw possessions out onto the street. And the federal government has no real mechanisms to enforce the act's provisions.
It is not uncommon for tenants in these situations to come home and find intimidating, anonymous, and legally misleading, posters stuck to their doors. One such starts with "Attention!! This property has been foreclosed and is now bank-owned. The eviction process has started. The property is being monitored." The words are in bold and the text is circled for emphasis. Another begins: "To whom it may concern: We were informed this property was vacant. We have changed the locks." Another resorts to financial intimidation: "The eviction process has been started by the bank. It is in your best interest to avoid having an eviction added to your credit report. It is very difficult to rent a property with an eviction on your credit report."
That homeowners have been hammered by subprime mortgages, by the collapse of real estate value, and by the broader economic malaise, is well-documented. But, out of the spotlight, more and more rented homes go into foreclosure: many tenants continue to pay rent to delinquent landlords, only to subsequently find they have been giving their money to a person who no longer owns the property. Others have been summarily evicted, having to scurry to find new homes – or ending up homeless. Many have lost the security deposits on their old rentals to owners who have simply disappeared. Others have seen their credit records [affected] by being evicted, despite the eviction not being the result of their own financial failings. ...
BAE deal with Tanzania: Military air traffic control – for country with no airforce
Claire Short and Robin Cook had tried to stop the sale of a hugely expensive radar to the poverty- stricken Tanzanians
Rob Evans and Paul Lewis
Saturday 6 February 2010
Tony Blair was at the centre of controversy over BAE's arms deal with Tanzania, just as he was in the Saudi contracts.
Cabinet ministers Claire Short and Robin Cook had tried to stop the sale of the hugely expensive radar to the poverty- stricken Tanzanians. But, as prime minister, he overruled them and insisted that the deal had to go through.
It left Cook ruefully muttering that it seemed that Dick Evans, BAE's then chairman, seemed to have "the key to the garden door of No 10".
The World Bank and the International Civil Aviation Organisation judged that the 2001 purchase was unnecessary and overpriced.
But the £28m deal started to look even worse when the SFO discovered that a third of the contract's price had been diverted into secret offshore bank accounts.
The SFO believed that this money was used to pay bribes to Tanzanian politicians and officials.
Yesterday Short, who resigned from the government, said : "Every way you looked at it, it [the deal] was outrageous and disgraceful. And guess who absolutely insisted on it going through? My dear friend Tony Blair, who absolutely, adamantly, favoured all proposals for arms deals.
"It was an obviously corrupt project. Tanzania didn't need a new military air traffic control, it was out-of-date technology, they didn't have any military aircraft – they needed a civilian air traffic control system and there was a modern, much cheaper one. Everyone talks about good governance in Africa as though it is an African problem, and often the roots of the 'badness' is companies in Europe." ...
Claire Short and Robin Cook had tried to stop the sale of a hugely expensive radar to the poverty- stricken Tanzanians
Rob Evans and Paul Lewis
Saturday 6 February 2010
Tony Blair was at the centre of controversy over BAE's arms deal with Tanzania, just as he was in the Saudi contracts.
Cabinet ministers Claire Short and Robin Cook had tried to stop the sale of the hugely expensive radar to the poverty- stricken Tanzanians. But, as prime minister, he overruled them and insisted that the deal had to go through.
It left Cook ruefully muttering that it seemed that Dick Evans, BAE's then chairman, seemed to have "the key to the garden door of No 10".
The World Bank and the International Civil Aviation Organisation judged that the 2001 purchase was unnecessary and overpriced.
But the £28m deal started to look even worse when the SFO discovered that a third of the contract's price had been diverted into secret offshore bank accounts.
The SFO believed that this money was used to pay bribes to Tanzanian politicians and officials.
Yesterday Short, who resigned from the government, said : "Every way you looked at it, it [the deal] was outrageous and disgraceful. And guess who absolutely insisted on it going through? My dear friend Tony Blair, who absolutely, adamantly, favoured all proposals for arms deals.
"It was an obviously corrupt project. Tanzania didn't need a new military air traffic control, it was out-of-date technology, they didn't have any military aircraft – they needed a civilian air traffic control system and there was a modern, much cheaper one. Everyone talks about good governance in Africa as though it is an African problem, and often the roots of the 'badness' is companies in Europe." ...
Perseverance and bluff – how the legal deal was done that sees BAE pay £285m fines
That the arms giant has finally been forced to pay substantial penalties is due to the doggedness of a small group of prosecutors
David Leigh and Rob Evans
Friday 5 February 2010
Since the Guardian first exposed BAE's worldwide system of undercover payments to secure contracts in 2003, the company has fought hard to deny its guilt, using every lobbying tool at its disposal and exploiting its influence within the offices of the then prime minister, Tony Blair.
That the arms giant has finally been forced to pay substantial penalties is due to the doggedness of a small group of prosecutors, currently led by Richard Alderman, director of the Serious Fraud Office, and his US counterpart, Mark Mendelsohn, at the department of justice in Washington.
Alderman's predecessor, Robert Wardle, stepped down from his post at the SFO in 2008, a frustrated man, having seen BAE and its friends persuade Blair to intervene and force a halt to extensive and long running criminal inquiries into the £43bn al-Yamamah arms deal with Saudi Arabia.
But that turned out to be the high-water mark of BAE's political influence. The US authorities promptly picked up the Saudi case which Blair had claimed would be so damaging to Britain's "national security".
Washington officials were vigorously attempting to enforce their own Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, and were long suspicious of BAE's surprising arms deals in the Czech Republic, about which they had vainly protested at the time.
Meanwhile Alderman, when he succeeded Wardle at the SFO, insisted he was no patsy. He ordered renewed investigations into BAE's remaining suspect contracts in Tanzania, South Africa, Romania and the Czech Republic. Alderman staked much of his credibility on attempts to change the lumbering SFO style of investigation. ...
That the arms giant has finally been forced to pay substantial penalties is due to the doggedness of a small group of prosecutors
David Leigh and Rob Evans
Friday 5 February 2010
Since the Guardian first exposed BAE's worldwide system of undercover payments to secure contracts in 2003, the company has fought hard to deny its guilt, using every lobbying tool at its disposal and exploiting its influence within the offices of the then prime minister, Tony Blair.
That the arms giant has finally been forced to pay substantial penalties is due to the doggedness of a small group of prosecutors, currently led by Richard Alderman, director of the Serious Fraud Office, and his US counterpart, Mark Mendelsohn, at the department of justice in Washington.
Alderman's predecessor, Robert Wardle, stepped down from his post at the SFO in 2008, a frustrated man, having seen BAE and its friends persuade Blair to intervene and force a halt to extensive and long running criminal inquiries into the £43bn al-Yamamah arms deal with Saudi Arabia.
But that turned out to be the high-water mark of BAE's political influence. The US authorities promptly picked up the Saudi case which Blair had claimed would be so damaging to Britain's "national security".
Washington officials were vigorously attempting to enforce their own Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, and were long suspicious of BAE's surprising arms deals in the Czech Republic, about which they had vainly protested at the time.
Meanwhile Alderman, when he succeeded Wardle at the SFO, insisted he was no patsy. He ordered renewed investigations into BAE's remaining suspect contracts in Tanzania, South Africa, Romania and the Czech Republic. Alderman staked much of his credibility on attempts to change the lumbering SFO style of investigation. ...
February 6, 2010
Baptist Laura Silsby who set off to 'rescue' orphans left behind debts and bad wages
James Bone in New York
The leader of the American missionaries imprisoned for alleged child abduction in Haiti has a history of divorce, bad debts, and unpaid wages back home.
Laura Silsby, 40, founded her New Life Children’s Refuge charity at an address in a still-unfinished development in a suburb of Boise, Idaho, in November.
A month later the $358,500 (£230,000) house was repossessed by the mortgage holder, MetLife Home Loans.
Ms Silsby, a divorced mother of young children, organised the Christian “rescue mission” that led to the arrest of the ten American Baptists for trying to take 33 Haitian children out of the country.
Back home she runs a personal shopping service on the internet that earned her the eWomanNetwork’s International Businesswoman of the Year award in 2006.
Court records show, however, that she has repeatedly been sued for unpaid wages and bad debts — and has had at least nine driving violations since 1997.
According to the newspaper the Idaho Statesman 14 claims totalling $38,100, including two by the same employee, were filed against the PersonalShopper.com company over the past two years.
The Idaho department of labour found that $30,620 was owed to employees and also imposed a $4,000 fine. The company’s former marketing director went to court against Ms Silsby and PersonalShopper.com in October claiming five months of unpaid wages, totalling $22,016. ...
Classy broad.
Baptist Laura Silsby who set off to 'rescue' orphans left behind debts and bad wages
James Bone in New York
The leader of the American missionaries imprisoned for alleged child abduction in Haiti has a history of divorce, bad debts, and unpaid wages back home.
Laura Silsby, 40, founded her New Life Children’s Refuge charity at an address in a still-unfinished development in a suburb of Boise, Idaho, in November.
A month later the $358,500 (£230,000) house was repossessed by the mortgage holder, MetLife Home Loans.
Ms Silsby, a divorced mother of young children, organised the Christian “rescue mission” that led to the arrest of the ten American Baptists for trying to take 33 Haitian children out of the country.
Back home she runs a personal shopping service on the internet that earned her the eWomanNetwork’s International Businesswoman of the Year award in 2006.
Court records show, however, that she has repeatedly been sued for unpaid wages and bad debts — and has had at least nine driving violations since 1997.
According to the newspaper the Idaho Statesman 14 claims totalling $38,100, including two by the same employee, were filed against the PersonalShopper.com company over the past two years.
The Idaho department of labour found that $30,620 was owed to employees and also imposed a $4,000 fine. The company’s former marketing director went to court against Ms Silsby and PersonalShopper.com in October claiming five months of unpaid wages, totalling $22,016. ...
Classy broad.
Vikings vs Pirates: Film at eleven.
Wednesday, February 3, 2010
Correction
A story on Page 1 of Tuesday’s Telegraph quoted a White House official explaining that a Q-and-A session with dozens of teenagers in Nashua High School North on Monday was “off the record.” However, the explanation about the talk being “off the record” was, it turns out, also “off the record” and should not have been quoted.
Ta much, dear Edosan, for thatamusi bemusing bit of enlightenment.
Correction
A story on Page 1 of Tuesday’s Telegraph quoted a White House official explaining that a Q-and-A session with dozens of teenagers in Nashua High School North on Monday was “off the record.” However, the explanation about the talk being “off the record” was, it turns out, also “off the record” and should not have been quoted.
Ta much, dear Edosan, for that
... Beyond awesome. This is Darwinian evolution mixed with, like, Burning Man.
Being scientists of biomimicry, the authors surmise that if it were possible to reverse-engineer the entire shell — it’s not just the outer iron layer that’s cool; there are also two inner layers with gooey nougat that are equally important in defending the snail — they could produce superstrong materials for military defense and “load-bearing”.
Fair enough. But personally I’m satisfied just to have more pure science that proves, yet again, the inexhaustible Weirdness Of The Briny Deep.
Iron snails, people! Iron snails.
Ta much, dear MSiegel
Being scientists of biomimicry, the authors surmise that if it were possible to reverse-engineer the entire shell — it’s not just the outer iron layer that’s cool; there are also two inner layers with gooey nougat that are equally important in defending the snail — they could produce superstrong materials for military defense and “load-bearing”.
Fair enough. But personally I’m satisfied just to have more pure science that proves, yet again, the inexhaustible Weirdness Of The Briny Deep.
Iron snails, people! Iron snails.
Ta much, dear MSiegel
Dmitry Medvedev sent his special envoy to the western outpost of Kaliningrad today after thousands of Russians took to the streets in the largest rally since the fall of the Soviet Union.
The protest, staged at the weekend, saw between 10,000 and 12,000 people gather in Kaliningrad's main square to demand the resignation of the governor and shout slogans against the ruling United Russia party.
Smaller opposition rallies were held in other towns, including Vladivostok – the scene of regular protests by car drivers over the past 18 months – as well as Moscow and St Petersburg. Riot police violently broke up a peaceful demonstration in Triumfalnaya Square, Moscow, on Sunday, arresting 100 people.
Although opposition rallies have taken place throughout the Vladimir Putin era, the scale of the Kaliningrad protest appeared to have caught the Kremlin off guard.
The region – the former German city of Königsberg, which was seized by Stalin during the second world war – is separated from the rest of Russia and bordered by EU member states Poland and Lithuania. ...
The protest, staged at the weekend, saw between 10,000 and 12,000 people gather in Kaliningrad's main square to demand the resignation of the governor and shout slogans against the ruling United Russia party.
Smaller opposition rallies were held in other towns, including Vladivostok – the scene of regular protests by car drivers over the past 18 months – as well as Moscow and St Petersburg. Riot police violently broke up a peaceful demonstration in Triumfalnaya Square, Moscow, on Sunday, arresting 100 people.
Although opposition rallies have taken place throughout the Vladimir Putin era, the scale of the Kaliningrad protest appeared to have caught the Kremlin off guard.
The region – the former German city of Königsberg, which was seized by Stalin during the second world war – is separated from the rest of Russia and bordered by EU member states Poland and Lithuania. ...
The US House of Representatives has announced an investigation into Toyota’s faulty accelerator pedals and other problems that may have caused 19 deaths over the past decade and triggered a global recall of nearly eight million vehicles.
A month from now Toyota will face a cross-examination from the House Committee on Energy and Commerce over whether it responded soon enough to reports that accelerator pedals could become stuck.
The committee has sent letters to Toyota’s American subsidiary requesting documents and e-mails related to the matter.
Information has also been requested from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, which alleges that “sudden acceleration” problems in Toyota cars have led to 19 fatalities. ...
A month from now Toyota will face a cross-examination from the House Committee on Energy and Commerce over whether it responded soon enough to reports that accelerator pedals could become stuck.
The committee has sent letters to Toyota’s American subsidiary requesting documents and e-mails related to the matter.
Information has also been requested from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, which alleges that “sudden acceleration” problems in Toyota cars have led to 19 fatalities. ...
January 27, 2010
Barack Obama to fight ‘no limit’ ruling on election funding by companies
Tim Reid in Washington
President Obama is planning an aggressive response to a landmark Supreme Court ruling last week that cleared the way for US companies to spend unlimited amounts on political campaign advertising.
Democrats fear that the 5-4 ruling will help Republicans in November’s midterm congressional elections.
It swept away a century of limits on corporate political spending and gave companies and unions the right to spend unlimited amounts attacking or promoting candidates. The move dismayed Democrats, who are already bracing themselves for heavy losses in November.
“I can’t think of anything more devastating to the public interest,” Mr Obama said in his weekly radio address at the weekend. “The last thing we need to do is hand more influence to the lobbyists in Washington or more power to the special interests to tip the outcome of elections.” ...
Barack Obama to fight ‘no limit’ ruling on election funding by companies
Tim Reid in Washington
President Obama is planning an aggressive response to a landmark Supreme Court ruling last week that cleared the way for US companies to spend unlimited amounts on political campaign advertising.
Democrats fear that the 5-4 ruling will help Republicans in November’s midterm congressional elections.
It swept away a century of limits on corporate political spending and gave companies and unions the right to spend unlimited amounts attacking or promoting candidates. The move dismayed Democrats, who are already bracing themselves for heavy losses in November.
“I can’t think of anything more devastating to the public interest,” Mr Obama said in his weekly radio address at the weekend. “The last thing we need to do is hand more influence to the lobbyists in Washington or more power to the special interests to tip the outcome of elections.” ...
Poetic justice for HK Taoist truck driver
Sent down to judge's words of (real) Zen master
By Lester Haines
The Hong Kong truck driver who duped an aspiring model into having ritual sex with him has been jailed for six years and nine months, HK's The Standard reports.
Au Yeung Kwok-fu, 55, posed as a Taoist Mao Shan master to have his evil way with the unnamed 19-year-old on nine occasions between April and December 2007. He claimed he had the power to grant her career success, but all she got was an unwanted pregnancy which she subsequently aborted.
Au Yeung was earlier this month found guilty of nine counts of "unlawful sexual intercourse under false pretences", and District Court judge Stanley Chan Kwong-chi this week sent him down, despite the defence presenting over 20 "mitigation letters" which praised the defendant's kindness and, in some cases, his "super power". ...
... Chan enigmatically concluded by quoting a real Zen master, who apparently enlightened: "Flowers blossom in spring; the moon shines in autumn; the breeze blows in summer; snow falls in winter. It will be the best season of all times if no trivial matters linger in your mind." ®
Sent down to judge's words of (real) Zen master
By Lester Haines
The Hong Kong truck driver who duped an aspiring model into having ritual sex with him has been jailed for six years and nine months, HK's The Standard reports.
Au Yeung Kwok-fu, 55, posed as a Taoist Mao Shan master to have his evil way with the unnamed 19-year-old on nine occasions between April and December 2007. He claimed he had the power to grant her career success, but all she got was an unwanted pregnancy which she subsequently aborted.
Au Yeung was earlier this month found guilty of nine counts of "unlawful sexual intercourse under false pretences", and District Court judge Stanley Chan Kwong-chi this week sent him down, despite the defence presenting over 20 "mitigation letters" which praised the defendant's kindness and, in some cases, his "super power". ...
... Chan enigmatically concluded by quoting a real Zen master, who apparently enlightened: "Flowers blossom in spring; the moon shines in autumn; the breeze blows in summer; snow falls in winter. It will be the best season of all times if no trivial matters linger in your mind." ®
Tea Partying Militia Leader Arrested for Rape, Possessing a Grenade Launcher
Tuesday, January 26, 2010 03:46 Devin Burghart
A former Marine with ties to Tea Parties and militias who talked openly about using his training “to become a domestic terrorist” has been charged in separate complaints with raping a child and possessing an unregistered grenade launcher. His arrest may signal that a wing of the Tea Parties is heading in a more militant direction.
Charles Allan Dyer, 29, of Marlow, Oklahoma was arrested on January 12 at his home by Stephens County Sheriff’s deputies on the rape charge. The arrest occurred after a 7-year-old girl told sexual-abuse experts about a January 2nd incident at Dyer's home.
While sheriff's deputies were at Dyer's home, they found several firearms and a Colt M-203, 40-millimeter grenade launcher, according to court documents. When they searched a national crime database, the deputies discovered that the grenade launcher was one of three stolen from a military base at Fort Irwin, California, in 2006. According to an affidavit, Dyer told law enforcement that he had received the grenade launcher "from his best friend who gave it to him while Dyer was stationed in California with the Marine Corps". ...
... Dyer has played a bridge role between the Tea Parties and the Oath Keepers, an organization that seeks to enlist military and law enforcement personnel to disobey orders they regard as unconstitutional. The group promotes many of the outlandish theories about gun confiscation and the rounding up of people into concentration camps. Oath Keepers founder, Stewart Rhodes, previously praised Dyer in speeches, but is now backtracking claiming that Dyer isn't a member because he never officially signed up and paid dues. Not everyone is looking to distance themselves from Dyer. Others in the movement almost immediately began calling Dyer the “1st P.O.W. of the 2nd American Revolutionary War.”
Prior to his arrest, Dryer was also busy organizing militia groups in Oklahoma. Dyer told an interviewer, “I came from California, where I was training with the SoCal militia and making liaison with active duty groups to train civilian. In February I will be traveling up North near Wyoming to assist in some cold weather training. At the moment, I am working with groups in Oklahoma to form a more cohesive militia here.”
And in another video, filmed during a militia training exercise, Dyer declared his intention to use his military training to become a domestic terrorist, "I'm going to use my training and become one of those domestic terrorists that you're so afraid of from the DHS reports." Dyer also stated, “Patriots we are not overpowered. If we united under one banner and fight for our children's liberty and the Constitution, our resolve is invincible to any standing army.” ...
Ta much, dear Anneliese
Tuesday, January 26, 2010 03:46 Devin Burghart
A former Marine with ties to Tea Parties and militias who talked openly about using his training “to become a domestic terrorist” has been charged in separate complaints with raping a child and possessing an unregistered grenade launcher. His arrest may signal that a wing of the Tea Parties is heading in a more militant direction.
Charles Allan Dyer, 29, of Marlow, Oklahoma was arrested on January 12 at his home by Stephens County Sheriff’s deputies on the rape charge. The arrest occurred after a 7-year-old girl told sexual-abuse experts about a January 2nd incident at Dyer's home.
While sheriff's deputies were at Dyer's home, they found several firearms and a Colt M-203, 40-millimeter grenade launcher, according to court documents. When they searched a national crime database, the deputies discovered that the grenade launcher was one of three stolen from a military base at Fort Irwin, California, in 2006. According to an affidavit, Dyer told law enforcement that he had received the grenade launcher "from his best friend who gave it to him while Dyer was stationed in California with the Marine Corps". ...
... Dyer has played a bridge role between the Tea Parties and the Oath Keepers, an organization that seeks to enlist military and law enforcement personnel to disobey orders they regard as unconstitutional. The group promotes many of the outlandish theories about gun confiscation and the rounding up of people into concentration camps. Oath Keepers founder, Stewart Rhodes, previously praised Dyer in speeches, but is now backtracking claiming that Dyer isn't a member because he never officially signed up and paid dues. Not everyone is looking to distance themselves from Dyer. Others in the movement almost immediately began calling Dyer the “1st P.O.W. of the 2nd American Revolutionary War.”
Prior to his arrest, Dryer was also busy organizing militia groups in Oklahoma. Dyer told an interviewer, “I came from California, where I was training with the SoCal militia and making liaison with active duty groups to train civilian. In February I will be traveling up North near Wyoming to assist in some cold weather training. At the moment, I am working with groups in Oklahoma to form a more cohesive militia here.”
And in another video, filmed during a militia training exercise, Dyer declared his intention to use his military training to become a domestic terrorist, "I'm going to use my training and become one of those domestic terrorists that you're so afraid of from the DHS reports." Dyer also stated, “Patriots we are not overpowered. If we united under one banner and fight for our children's liberty and the Constitution, our resolve is invincible to any standing army.” ...
Ta much, dear Anneliese
Kids' TV hosts terrorism-stopped for pew-pewing with sparkly hair-dryers
Andrew sez, "The presenters from British TV channel ITV's Toonatik were filming in London wearing safety gear and brandishing hairdryers. Of course, this presents a danger to Queen and Country, so the ever-vigilant Met held them and issued them a warning under the anti-terrorism act. And Londoners survive another day!" ...
Ta much, dear Anneliese
Andrew sez, "The presenters from British TV channel ITV's Toonatik were filming in London wearing safety gear and brandishing hairdryers. Of course, this presents a danger to Queen and Country, so the ever-vigilant Met held them and issued them a warning under the anti-terrorism act. And Londoners survive another day!" ...
Ta much, dear Anneliese
Crusty fireball space mango wrecks US doctor's office
'Fresh, pretty' meteorite blasts startled medics
By Lewis Page
22nd January 2010
A "mango-sized" meteorite crashed into a doctor's office in Virginia this week at more than 200 mph, according to reports. The space rock smashed through the roof, an internal wall and an upper floor before shattering into several pieces on a concrete slab.
"Literally an explosion went off," Dr Marc Gullani told local TV station WUSA9.
"It came from the roof, through the fire wall, through the ceiling and hit the ground right here," said his colleague Dr Frank Ciampi.
Nobody was hurt in the meteor strike, and the pieces of interplanetary debris were subsequently identified as being extraterrestrial by a geologist, fortuitously married to the doctors' receptionist.
The bits were then sent for analysis by the boffins from the meteorite collection at the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History, who described their arrival as "a special moment".
Dr Linda Welzenbach of the Smithsonian - evidently a woman with an encyclopaedic knowledge of asteroid strikes in America - immediately said "as I recall, this will be the fourth fall in Virginia." She later added that as a connoisseur she considered the alien boulder "pretty" and "very fresh", remarking further that "it's a shame that it broke on impact." ...
'Fresh, pretty' meteorite blasts startled medics
By Lewis Page
22nd January 2010
A "mango-sized" meteorite crashed into a doctor's office in Virginia this week at more than 200 mph, according to reports. The space rock smashed through the roof, an internal wall and an upper floor before shattering into several pieces on a concrete slab.
"Literally an explosion went off," Dr Marc Gullani told local TV station WUSA9.
"It came from the roof, through the fire wall, through the ceiling and hit the ground right here," said his colleague Dr Frank Ciampi.
Nobody was hurt in the meteor strike, and the pieces of interplanetary debris were subsequently identified as being extraterrestrial by a geologist, fortuitously married to the doctors' receptionist.
The bits were then sent for analysis by the boffins from the meteorite collection at the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History, who described their arrival as "a special moment".
Dr Linda Welzenbach of the Smithsonian - evidently a woman with an encyclopaedic knowledge of asteroid strikes in America - immediately said "as I recall, this will be the fourth fall in Virginia." She later added that as a connoisseur she considered the alien boulder "pretty" and "very fresh", remarking further that "it's a shame that it broke on impact." ...
Meteorite hits doctor's office
Linda Welzenbach and Cari Corrigan
Geologists/Meteorite Scientists, Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History
Friday, January 22, 2010; 12:00 PM
What are the chances of someone getting struck by a meteorite?
It almost happened Monday to Dr. Frank Ciampi at his office building in Lorton, Va.
"The floor just outside examination room No. 2 -- about 10 feet from where Ciampi had been doing paperwork -- was littered with small pieces of wood, plaster and insulation. Upon inspection, more debris lay inside the room. He saw three chunks of stone on the floor that together formed a rock about the size of a tennis ball, with a glassy-smooth surface. Then he saw a hole about the size of the rock in the tile ceiling, and a tear in the maroon carpet where the rock had landed," writes Paul Duggan of the Washington Post. ...
Linda Welzenbach and Cari Corrigan
Geologists/Meteorite Scientists, Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History
Friday, January 22, 2010; 12:00 PM
What are the chances of someone getting struck by a meteorite?
It almost happened Monday to Dr. Frank Ciampi at his office building in Lorton, Va.
"The floor just outside examination room No. 2 -- about 10 feet from where Ciampi had been doing paperwork -- was littered with small pieces of wood, plaster and insulation. Upon inspection, more debris lay inside the room. He saw three chunks of stone on the floor that together formed a rock about the size of a tennis ball, with a glassy-smooth surface. Then he saw a hole about the size of the rock in the tile ceiling, and a tear in the maroon carpet where the rock had landed," writes Paul Duggan of the Washington Post. ...
... Perception that the force is out of control has exploded since April when a police major shot dead a cashier and one other person in a Moscow supermarket. The interior ministry has shown little appetite for reform. It arrested an officer who complained of corruption in a video appeal to Vladimir Putin.
"Our law enforcement bodies all share a strong sense of impunity. This includes the police, the prosecutor's office, and the courts," Konstantin Korpachev, a colleague of the dead journalist, said. "This feeling is one of the main factors that allows cases like this to happen. They like to protect their own."
Korpachev dismissed insinuations by the local prosecutor's office that Popov had died of alcohol poisoning. The journalist had been savagely beaten to death, he said, adding that local officials were suffering from an "elementary lack of tact. We have lost a very nice and positive man."
Regional officials acknowledged that the behaviour of Russia's police force is unacceptable. Surveys show that 70% of Russians do not trust the police, who frequently turn to crime and corruption to supplement their low salaries.
Tomsk's governor Viktor Kress admitted: "This once again confirms the necessity of reforming our law enforcement structures."
During the late Soviet period the police force was known for its educated recruits, high standards and reasonable salaries. Since the end of communism, however, the force has attracted lower calibre officers.
"Our law enforcement bodies all share a strong sense of impunity. This includes the police, the prosecutor's office, and the courts," Konstantin Korpachev, a colleague of the dead journalist, said. "This feeling is one of the main factors that allows cases like this to happen. They like to protect their own."
Korpachev dismissed insinuations by the local prosecutor's office that Popov had died of alcohol poisoning. The journalist had been savagely beaten to death, he said, adding that local officials were suffering from an "elementary lack of tact. We have lost a very nice and positive man."
Regional officials acknowledged that the behaviour of Russia's police force is unacceptable. Surveys show that 70% of Russians do not trust the police, who frequently turn to crime and corruption to supplement their low salaries.
Tomsk's governor Viktor Kress admitted: "This once again confirms the necessity of reforming our law enforcement structures."
During the late Soviet period the police force was known for its educated recruits, high standards and reasonable salaries. Since the end of communism, however, the force has attracted lower calibre officers.
January 21, 2010
The fault line in Haiti runs straight to France
The earthquake’s destruction has been aggravated not by a pact with the Devil, but by the crippling legacy of imperialism
Ben Macintyre
Where does the fault lie in Haiti? For geologists, it lies on the line between the North American and Caribbean tectonic plates. For some, the earthquake is evidence of God’s wrath: the American evangelist Pat Robertson has even suggested that the horror is recompense for some voodoo pact made with the Devil at Haiti’s birth.
More sensible voices point to the procession of despots who have plundered Haiti over the years, depriving it of an effective infrastructure and rendering it uniquely vulnerable to natural disaster. But for many Haitians, the fault lies earlier — with Haiti’s colonial experience, the slavers and extortionists of empire who crippled it with debt and permanently stunted the economy. The fault line runs back 200 years, directly to France.
In the 18th century, Haiti was France’s imperial jewel, the Pearl of the Caribbean, the largest sugar exporter in the world. Even by colonial standards, the treatment of slaves working the Haitian plantations was truly vile. They died so fast that, at times, France was importing 50,000 slaves a year to keep up the numbers and the profits.
Inspired by the principles of the French Revolution, in 1791 the slaves rebelled under the leadership of the self-educated slave Toussaint L’Ouverture. After a vicious war, Napoleon’s forces were defeated. Haiti declared independence in 1804.
As Haiti struggles with new misfortune, it is worth remembering that noble achievement — this is the only nation to gain independence by a slave-led rebellion, the first black republic, and the second oldest republic in the western hemisphere. Haiti was founded on a demand for liberty from people whose liberty had been stolen: the country itself is a tribute to human resilience and freedom.
France did not forgive the impertinence and loss of earnings: 800 destroyed sugar plantations, 3,000 lost coffee estates. A brutal trade blockade was imposed. Former plantation owners demanded that Haiti be invaded, its population enslaved once more. Instead, the French State opted to bleed the new black republic white.
In 1825, in return for recognising Haitian independence, France demanded indemnity on a staggering scale: 150 million gold francs, five times the country’s annual export revenue. The Royal Ordinance was backed up by 12 French warships with 150 cannon.
The terms were non-negotiable. The fledgeling nation acceded, since it had little choice. Haiti must pay for its freedom, and pay it did, through the nose, for the next 122 years. ...
The fault line in Haiti runs straight to France
The earthquake’s destruction has been aggravated not by a pact with the Devil, but by the crippling legacy of imperialism
Ben Macintyre
Where does the fault lie in Haiti? For geologists, it lies on the line between the North American and Caribbean tectonic plates. For some, the earthquake is evidence of God’s wrath: the American evangelist Pat Robertson has even suggested that the horror is recompense for some voodoo pact made with the Devil at Haiti’s birth.
More sensible voices point to the procession of despots who have plundered Haiti over the years, depriving it of an effective infrastructure and rendering it uniquely vulnerable to natural disaster. But for many Haitians, the fault lies earlier — with Haiti’s colonial experience, the slavers and extortionists of empire who crippled it with debt and permanently stunted the economy. The fault line runs back 200 years, directly to France.
In the 18th century, Haiti was France’s imperial jewel, the Pearl of the Caribbean, the largest sugar exporter in the world. Even by colonial standards, the treatment of slaves working the Haitian plantations was truly vile. They died so fast that, at times, France was importing 50,000 slaves a year to keep up the numbers and the profits.
Inspired by the principles of the French Revolution, in 1791 the slaves rebelled under the leadership of the self-educated slave Toussaint L’Ouverture. After a vicious war, Napoleon’s forces were defeated. Haiti declared independence in 1804.
As Haiti struggles with new misfortune, it is worth remembering that noble achievement — this is the only nation to gain independence by a slave-led rebellion, the first black republic, and the second oldest republic in the western hemisphere. Haiti was founded on a demand for liberty from people whose liberty had been stolen: the country itself is a tribute to human resilience and freedom.
France did not forgive the impertinence and loss of earnings: 800 destroyed sugar plantations, 3,000 lost coffee estates. A brutal trade blockade was imposed. Former plantation owners demanded that Haiti be invaded, its population enslaved once more. Instead, the French State opted to bleed the new black republic white.
In 1825, in return for recognising Haitian independence, France demanded indemnity on a staggering scale: 150 million gold francs, five times the country’s annual export revenue. The Royal Ordinance was backed up by 12 French warships with 150 cannon.
The terms were non-negotiable. The fledgeling nation acceded, since it had little choice. Haiti must pay for its freedom, and pay it did, through the nose, for the next 122 years. ...
... It is claimed they offered to pay a 20% "commission" as a bribe to win part of a $15m (£9.1m) deal to equip an African country's presidential guard. But a sales agent who they believed represented the defence minister was in fact an undercover FBI agent. No actual defence minister was involved.
During the two-and-a-half year investigation, which involved 250 FBI agents, it is claimed defendants sought to obtain contracts for the sale of a range of products including grenade and teargas launchers, pistols, ammunition and explosive detection kits.
Raids were carried out across the US, and by City of London police in seven parts of the UK, which they declined to name. All those arrested had been attending the 2010 Shooting, Hunting, Outdoor Trade Show and Conference in Las Vegas.
Assistant attorney general Lanny Breuer said: "The fight to erase foreign bribery from the corporate playbook will not be won overnight, but these actions are a turning point."
Those arrested face charges under laws governing payments to foreign officials, and are also accused of corruption. These offences would involve a maximum prison sentence of five years. It is alleged they were involved in money laundering, which would carry a maximum prison sentence of 20 years.
All the accused are executives or employees of companies in the "military and law enforcement products industry", the Department of Justice said.
During the two-and-a-half year investigation, which involved 250 FBI agents, it is claimed defendants sought to obtain contracts for the sale of a range of products including grenade and teargas launchers, pistols, ammunition and explosive detection kits.
Raids were carried out across the US, and by City of London police in seven parts of the UK, which they declined to name. All those arrested had been attending the 2010 Shooting, Hunting, Outdoor Trade Show and Conference in Las Vegas.
Assistant attorney general Lanny Breuer said: "The fight to erase foreign bribery from the corporate playbook will not be won overnight, but these actions are a turning point."
Those arrested face charges under laws governing payments to foreign officials, and are also accused of corruption. These offences would involve a maximum prison sentence of five years. It is alleged they were involved in money laundering, which would carry a maximum prison sentence of 20 years.
All the accused are executives or employees of companies in the "military and law enforcement products industry", the Department of Justice said.
Hope to God/dess he wins.
Google runs Microsoft's IE, attacks show
'Why wasn't Google running Chrome?' asks researcher
By Gregg Keizer
January 15, 2010
Computerworld - Google's corporate network was hacked because its workers were running rival Microsoft's Internet Explorer browser, a point that didn't escape the notice of security researchers and Web users.
"More interesting than the IE zero-day, is why wasn't Google running Chrome?" asked Andrew Storms, director of security operations at nCircle Network Security, shortly after Microsoft issued a security advisory that told users of a critical, unpatched bug in Internet Explorer (IE).
Thursday, Microsoft acknowledged that the IE exploit had been used in the attacks against Google and other major corporations. "We have determined that Internet Explorer was one of the vectors used in targeted and sophisticated attacks against Google and possibly other corporate networks," said Mike Reavey, director of Microsoft's Security Response Center (MSRC).
In fact, the malware that Microsoft and others researchers have examined was designed to exploit IE6, the eight-year-old browser that's most often used with Windows XP.
Others, in addition to Storms, questioned why Google wasn't "eating its own dog food," the phrase used to describe software development companies running their own products, often in early editions long before they're made public. "I have to wonder, why the hell is Google using IE, and why IE6?" asked a Computerworld reader in a comment appended to a story on the IE bug. "In fact, why Windows-based servers? Eat your own dog food, Google." ...
'Why wasn't Google running Chrome?' asks researcher
By Gregg Keizer
January 15, 2010
Computerworld - Google's corporate network was hacked because its workers were running rival Microsoft's Internet Explorer browser, a point that didn't escape the notice of security researchers and Web users.
"More interesting than the IE zero-day, is why wasn't Google running Chrome?" asked Andrew Storms, director of security operations at nCircle Network Security, shortly after Microsoft issued a security advisory that told users of a critical, unpatched bug in Internet Explorer (IE).
Thursday, Microsoft acknowledged that the IE exploit had been used in the attacks against Google and other major corporations. "We have determined that Internet Explorer was one of the vectors used in targeted and sophisticated attacks against Google and possibly other corporate networks," said Mike Reavey, director of Microsoft's Security Response Center (MSRC).
In fact, the malware that Microsoft and others researchers have examined was designed to exploit IE6, the eight-year-old browser that's most often used with Windows XP.
Others, in addition to Storms, questioned why Google wasn't "eating its own dog food," the phrase used to describe software development companies running their own products, often in early editions long before they're made public. "I have to wonder, why the hell is Google using IE, and why IE6?" asked a Computerworld reader in a comment appended to a story on the IE bug. "In fact, why Windows-based servers? Eat your own dog food, Google." ...
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Food and Drug Administration should immediately ban the use of the chemical bisphenol A in food and beverage containers, a U.S. environmental health advocacy group urged on Thursday.
The nonprofit Environmental Working Group renewed a call for regulators to curb the use of bisphenol A, or BPA, citing a new study suggesting the widely used chemical poses a health risk.
The FDA is considering whether any action needs to be taken. Asked about the group's letter, an FDA spokesperson said that an announcement on BPA is forthcoming.
Bisphenol A has been used for decades to harden plastics and turns up in many food and beverage containers including some baby bottles, the coating of food cans and some medical devices. It appears to mimic the hormone estrogen in the body.
People consume BPA when it leaches from plastic into baby formula, water or food in a container.
"How much more does the FDA need to know to be convinced it must protect the national food supply from further contamination?," Environmental Working Group president Ken Cook said in a letter to FDA Commissioner Margaret Hamburg. ...
The nonprofit Environmental Working Group renewed a call for regulators to curb the use of bisphenol A, or BPA, citing a new study suggesting the widely used chemical poses a health risk.
The FDA is considering whether any action needs to be taken. Asked about the group's letter, an FDA spokesperson said that an announcement on BPA is forthcoming.
Bisphenol A has been used for decades to harden plastics and turns up in many food and beverage containers including some baby bottles, the coating of food cans and some medical devices. It appears to mimic the hormone estrogen in the body.
People consume BPA when it leaches from plastic into baby formula, water or food in a container.
"How much more does the FDA need to know to be convinced it must protect the national food supply from further contamination?," Environmental Working Group president Ken Cook said in a letter to FDA Commissioner Margaret Hamburg. ...
NEW YORK/WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Johnson & Johnson's consumer division is recalling more than 53 million bottles of over-the-counter products including Tylenol, Motrin and Rolaids after reports of an unusual odor, expanding on an issue that led to a Tylenol recall last year.
The latest voluntary recall, which drew a sharp rebuke from U.S. regulators on Friday, followed consumer reports of "an unusual moldy, musty, or mildew-like odor that, in a small number of cases, was associated with temporary and non-serious gastrointestinal events," the company said. Such events included nausea, stomach pain, vomiting and diarrhea.
The recall involves lots in the Americas, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), and Fiji. In addition to pain relievers Motrin and Tylenol, and the Rolaids antacid, the recall also involved the Benadryl allergy drug and St. Joseph's Aspirin.
Food and Drug Administration officials criticized the company for taking a year to report the problem to regulators and sent a warning to J&J's McNeil Consumer Healthcare unit.
"McNeil should have acted faster," Deborah Autor, head of compliance in the FDA's drugs division, told reporters on a conference call.
"When something smells bad, literally or figuratively, companies must aggressively investigate and take all necessary actions to solve the problem," she said. ...
The latest voluntary recall, which drew a sharp rebuke from U.S. regulators on Friday, followed consumer reports of "an unusual moldy, musty, or mildew-like odor that, in a small number of cases, was associated with temporary and non-serious gastrointestinal events," the company said. Such events included nausea, stomach pain, vomiting and diarrhea.
The recall involves lots in the Americas, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), and Fiji. In addition to pain relievers Motrin and Tylenol, and the Rolaids antacid, the recall also involved the Benadryl allergy drug and St. Joseph's Aspirin.
Food and Drug Administration officials criticized the company for taking a year to report the problem to regulators and sent a warning to J&J's McNeil Consumer Healthcare unit.
"McNeil should have acted faster," Deborah Autor, head of compliance in the FDA's drugs division, told reporters on a conference call.
"When something smells bad, literally or figuratively, companies must aggressively investigate and take all necessary actions to solve the problem," she said. ...
The Haiti quake must not be dismissed as an 'act of God'
This was foreseeable. We now owe it to Haitians to spend one tenth of aid on preparing for future earthquakes
Steve Bell
Friday 15 January 2010
This was foreseeable. We now owe it to Haitians to spend one tenth of aid on preparing for future earthquakes
Steve Bell
Friday 15 January 2010
VeriSign's iDefense security lab has published a report with technical details about the recent cyberattack that hit Google and over 30 other companies. The iDefense researchers traced the attack back to its origin and also identified the command-and-control servers that were used to manage the malware.
The cyber-assault came to light on Tuesday when Google disclosed to the public that the Gmail Web service was targeted in a highly-organized attack in late December. Google said that the intrusion attempt originated from China and was executed with the goal of obtaining information about political dissidents, but the company declined to speculate about the identity of the perpetrator.
Citing sources in the defense contracting and intelligence consulting community, the iDefense report unambiguously declares that the Chinese government was, in fact, behind the effort. The report also says that the malicious code was deployed in PDF files that were crafted to exploit a vulnerability in Adobe's software.
"The source IPs and drop server of the attack correspond to a single foreign entity consisting either of agents of the Chinese state or proxies thereof," the report says.
The researchers have determined that there are significant similarities between the recent attack and a seemingly related one that was carried out in July against a large number of US companies. Both attacks were apparently managed through the same command-and-control servers.
"The servers used in both attacks employ the HomeLinux DynamicDNS provider, and both are currently pointing to IP addresses owned by Linode, a US-based company that offers Virtual Private Server hosting. The IP addresses in question are within the same subnet, and they are six IP addresses apart from each other," the report says. "Considering this proximity, it is possible that the two attacks are one and the same, and that the organizations targeted in the Silicon Valley attacks have been compromised since July."
WTF, chinastan?
Ta much, dear MSiegel
The cyber-assault came to light on Tuesday when Google disclosed to the public that the Gmail Web service was targeted in a highly-organized attack in late December. Google said that the intrusion attempt originated from China and was executed with the goal of obtaining information about political dissidents, but the company declined to speculate about the identity of the perpetrator.
Citing sources in the defense contracting and intelligence consulting community, the iDefense report unambiguously declares that the Chinese government was, in fact, behind the effort. The report also says that the malicious code was deployed in PDF files that were crafted to exploit a vulnerability in Adobe's software.
"The source IPs and drop server of the attack correspond to a single foreign entity consisting either of agents of the Chinese state or proxies thereof," the report says.
The researchers have determined that there are significant similarities between the recent attack and a seemingly related one that was carried out in July against a large number of US companies. Both attacks were apparently managed through the same command-and-control servers.
"The servers used in both attacks employ the HomeLinux DynamicDNS provider, and both are currently pointing to IP addresses owned by Linode, a US-based company that offers Virtual Private Server hosting. The IP addresses in question are within the same subnet, and they are six IP addresses apart from each other," the report says. "Considering this proximity, it is possible that the two attacks are one and the same, and that the organizations targeted in the Silicon Valley attacks have been compromised since July."
WTF, chinastan?
Ta much, dear MSiegel
Accounts invaded, computers infected – human rights activists tell of cyber attacks
• Authorities blamed for hacking into Gmail users
• Phishing scams and malware used as weapons
Tania Branigan in Beijing
Thursday 14 January 2010
Well-known human rights advocates in China and a Tibetan rights activist in the United States have disclosed that their Gmail accounts have been compromised.
They came forward after Google's announcement of a sustained cyber attack on activists and other illicit accessing of accounts, but stressed that the problem goes back much further. Some in China said they had repeatedly suffered from hacking and blamed the authorities .
Ai Weiwei, one of China's best-known contemporary artists, said he detected problems with email accounts two months ago.
Teng Biao, a law professor and human rights lawyer, and Zeng Jinyan, activist and wife of the jailed dissident Hu Jia, both said their email had been hacked as long ago as 2007. They realised the issue had recurred when they checked their accounts in light of Google's statement.
However, a Chinese foreign ministry spokeswoman, Jiang Yu, told a press conference in Beijing: "Chinese laws prohibit any form of cyber attacks including hacking."
On Tuesday, Google said hackers had gained limited access to two accounts in December's attack. It is understood the firm contacted the account holders.
Tenzin Seldon, 20, a US student whose parents are Tibetan exiles, said Google had checked her computer and confirmed an intrusion. "My email account was likely hacked because I am a Tibetan activist," she said.
Google said its investigation also showed that the accounts of dozens of Gmail users in the US, China and Europe who are advocates of human rights in China had been routinely accessed by third parties. This had not happened through an intrusion into its infrastructure, but probably through phishing scams or malware placed on the users' computers. ...
... Earlier last year researchers at the University of Toronto said they had discovered a vast electronic spy network which seemed to have targeted embassies, media groups, NGOs, international organisations, government foreign ministries and the offices of the Dalai Lama, the leader of the Tibetan exile movement.
Computers were infected when users clicked on links in emails or documents attached to them.
The team said the "GhostNet", which had infiltrated hundreds of computers and stolen documents, was apparently controlled from computers in China. But they added that they could not identify who was behind it.
WTF, chinastan?
• Authorities blamed for hacking into Gmail users
• Phishing scams and malware used as weapons
Tania Branigan in Beijing
Thursday 14 January 2010
Well-known human rights advocates in China and a Tibetan rights activist in the United States have disclosed that their Gmail accounts have been compromised.
They came forward after Google's announcement of a sustained cyber attack on activists and other illicit accessing of accounts, but stressed that the problem goes back much further. Some in China said they had repeatedly suffered from hacking and blamed the authorities .
Ai Weiwei, one of China's best-known contemporary artists, said he detected problems with email accounts two months ago.
Teng Biao, a law professor and human rights lawyer, and Zeng Jinyan, activist and wife of the jailed dissident Hu Jia, both said their email had been hacked as long ago as 2007. They realised the issue had recurred when they checked their accounts in light of Google's statement.
However, a Chinese foreign ministry spokeswoman, Jiang Yu, told a press conference in Beijing: "Chinese laws prohibit any form of cyber attacks including hacking."
On Tuesday, Google said hackers had gained limited access to two accounts in December's attack. It is understood the firm contacted the account holders.
Tenzin Seldon, 20, a US student whose parents are Tibetan exiles, said Google had checked her computer and confirmed an intrusion. "My email account was likely hacked because I am a Tibetan activist," she said.
Google said its investigation also showed that the accounts of dozens of Gmail users in the US, China and Europe who are advocates of human rights in China had been routinely accessed by third parties. This had not happened through an intrusion into its infrastructure, but probably through phishing scams or malware placed on the users' computers. ...
... Earlier last year researchers at the University of Toronto said they had discovered a vast electronic spy network which seemed to have targeted embassies, media groups, NGOs, international organisations, government foreign ministries and the offices of the Dalai Lama, the leader of the Tibetan exile movement.
Computers were infected when users clicked on links in emails or documents attached to them.
The team said the "GhostNet", which had infiltrated hundreds of computers and stolen documents, was apparently controlled from computers in China. But they added that they could not identify who was behind it.
WTF, chinastan?
Tourist killed by 'dinosaur-sized' shark off South African beach
Zimbabwean holidaymaker eaten by shark described by onlookers as 'longer than a minibus'
David Smith in Johannesburg
Wednesday 13 January 2010
Witnesses have described their horror at seeing a tourist being eaten by a "gigantic" shark in South Africa's most popular holiday destination.
Lloyd Skinner was pulled under the surf and dragged out to sea by the shark, believed to be a great white, off Fish Hoek beach in Cape Town. His diving goggles and a dark patch of blood were all that remained in the water.
"Holy shit. We just saw a gigantic shark eat what looked like a person in front of our house," witness Gregg Coppen posted on Twitter. "That shark was huge. Like dinosaur huge."
The shocking attack yesterday afternoon came after an increase in recent shark sightings and led to calls for an electronic warning system to alert swimmers.
Skinner, 37, a Zimbabwean who lived in the Democratic Republic of Congo, was standing chest-deep 100 metres from the shore and adjusting his goggles when the shark struck. It was seen approaching him twice before he disappeared in a flurry of thrashing. Cape Town's disaster management services had issued a warning hours earlier that sharks had been spotted in the water, but the shark flag was not flying.
Witnesses described the terrifying scene. The shark was "longer than a minibus", Coppen told the Cape Times newspaper. ...
Zimbabwean holidaymaker eaten by shark described by onlookers as 'longer than a minibus'
David Smith in Johannesburg
Wednesday 13 January 2010
Witnesses have described their horror at seeing a tourist being eaten by a "gigantic" shark in South Africa's most popular holiday destination.
Lloyd Skinner was pulled under the surf and dragged out to sea by the shark, believed to be a great white, off Fish Hoek beach in Cape Town. His diving goggles and a dark patch of blood were all that remained in the water.
"Holy shit. We just saw a gigantic shark eat what looked like a person in front of our house," witness Gregg Coppen posted on Twitter. "That shark was huge. Like dinosaur huge."
The shocking attack yesterday afternoon came after an increase in recent shark sightings and led to calls for an electronic warning system to alert swimmers.
Skinner, 37, a Zimbabwean who lived in the Democratic Republic of Congo, was standing chest-deep 100 metres from the shore and adjusting his goggles when the shark struck. It was seen approaching him twice before he disappeared in a flurry of thrashing. Cape Town's disaster management services had issued a warning hours earlier that sharks had been spotted in the water, but the shark flag was not flying.
Witnesses described the terrifying scene. The shark was "longer than a minibus", Coppen told the Cape Times newspaper. ...
Metal Chinese jewelry a danger to kids: CPSC
Last Updated: Thursday, January 14, 2010
CBC News
Young children should not be given any cheap metal jewelry imported from China because it could contain high levels of cadmium, the head of the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission says.
"We have proof that lead in children’s jewelry is dangerous and was pervasive in the marketplace. To prevent young children from possibly being exposed to lead, cadmium or any other hazardous heavy metal, take the jewelry away," CPSC head Inez Tenenbaum posted Wednesday evening on the regulator's website. ...
... Observers have noted that the use of cadmium in children's jewelry comes as new U.S. regulations have severely restricted lead levels in such trinkets.
"We are moving swiftly to stop the replacement of lead with cadmium and other hazardous heavy metals in children’s products imported from China," wrote Tenenbaum.
U.S. regulators were moved to action after the March 2006 death of a four-year-old Minneapolis boy, who died four days after he swallowed a metal charm that was nearly pure lead.
Since 2004, the CPSC has conducted more than 50 recalls of more than 180 million units of metal jewelry because it contained a hazardous amount of lead. And since August 2009, it has been illegal to produce a piece of children’s metal jewelry with more than 300 parts per million of lead.
"Now we hear about cadmium in jewelry. This is unacceptable," wrote Tenenbaum.
Health Canada is in the process of conducting a routine round of testing on children's jewelry to determine cadmium levels.
In 2009, Health Canada tested 41 pieces of children’s jewelry for lead and cadmium, but it has refused CBC News requests to release the cadmium results.
WTF, chinastan?
Ta much, dear Glenn321
Last Updated: Thursday, January 14, 2010
CBC News
Young children should not be given any cheap metal jewelry imported from China because it could contain high levels of cadmium, the head of the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission says.
"We have proof that lead in children’s jewelry is dangerous and was pervasive in the marketplace. To prevent young children from possibly being exposed to lead, cadmium or any other hazardous heavy metal, take the jewelry away," CPSC head Inez Tenenbaum posted Wednesday evening on the regulator's website. ...
... Observers have noted that the use of cadmium in children's jewelry comes as new U.S. regulations have severely restricted lead levels in such trinkets.
"We are moving swiftly to stop the replacement of lead with cadmium and other hazardous heavy metals in children’s products imported from China," wrote Tenenbaum.
U.S. regulators were moved to action after the March 2006 death of a four-year-old Minneapolis boy, who died four days after he swallowed a metal charm that was nearly pure lead.
Since 2004, the CPSC has conducted more than 50 recalls of more than 180 million units of metal jewelry because it contained a hazardous amount of lead. And since August 2009, it has been illegal to produce a piece of children’s metal jewelry with more than 300 parts per million of lead.
"Now we hear about cadmium in jewelry. This is unacceptable," wrote Tenenbaum.
Health Canada is in the process of conducting a routine round of testing on children's jewelry to determine cadmium levels.
In 2009, Health Canada tested 41 pieces of children’s jewelry for lead and cadmium, but it has refused CBC News requests to release the cadmium results.
WTF, chinastan?
Ta much, dear Glenn321
A Comparison of the Effects of Three GM Corn Varieties on Mammalian Health
Joël Spiroux de Vendômois 1, François Roullier 1, Dominique Cellier 1,2, Gilles-Eric Séralini 1,3
1. CRIIGEN, 40 rue Monceau, 75008 Paris, France
2. University of Rouen LITIS EA 4108, 76821 Mont-Saint-Aignan, France
3. University of Caen, Institute of Biology, Risk Pole CNRS, EA 2608, 14032 Caen, France
... Our analysis clearly reveals for the 3 GMOs new side effects linked with GM maize consumption, which were sex- and often dose-dependent. Effects were mostly associated with the kidney and liver, the dietary detoxifying organs, although different between the 3 GMOs. Other effects were also noticed in the heart, adrenal glands, spleen and haematopoietic system. We conclude that these data highlight signs of hepatorenal toxicity, possibly due to the new pesticides specific to each GM corn. In addition, unintended direct or indirect metabolic consequences of the genetic modification cannot be excluded. ...
Ta much, dear Anneliese
Joël Spiroux de Vendômois 1, François Roullier 1, Dominique Cellier 1,2, Gilles-Eric Séralini 1,3
1. CRIIGEN, 40 rue Monceau, 75008 Paris, France
2. University of Rouen LITIS EA 4108, 76821 Mont-Saint-Aignan, France
3. University of Caen, Institute of Biology, Risk Pole CNRS, EA 2608, 14032 Caen, France
... Our analysis clearly reveals for the 3 GMOs new side effects linked with GM maize consumption, which were sex- and often dose-dependent. Effects were mostly associated with the kidney and liver, the dietary detoxifying organs, although different between the 3 GMOs. Other effects were also noticed in the heart, adrenal glands, spleen and haematopoietic system. We conclude that these data highlight signs of hepatorenal toxicity, possibly due to the new pesticides specific to each GM corn. In addition, unintended direct or indirect metabolic consequences of the genetic modification cannot be excluded. ...
Ta much, dear Anneliese
Caribbean had 80 quakes this week!
Published: Thursday | January 14, 2010
Laura Redpath, Senior Gleaner Writer
The United States Geological Survey's website shows there have been approximately 80 earthquakes, measuring anywhere from 2.4 to 7.0, in the Caribbean within the past week.
An online in-depth map outlines the dates, times and magnitudes of the earthquakes taking place mainly in the Hispaniola and Puerto Rico regions. Along with the major earthquake that struck Haiti on Tuesday, there was a smaller one with a magnitude of 2.5 in the Mona Passage alongside Puerto Rico.
According to Lyndon Brown, research fellow at the University of West Indies Earth-quake Unit, "Earth-quakes are always happening. There are cycles in terms of when the big events will be happening. The strength is building up and it has to be released.
"It is a young science when it comes to detecting earthquakes."
The unit did not register any other earthquakes in the region aside from what took place in Haiti.
Brown said the instruments at the Earthquake Unit are designed to detect local earthquakes. However, if the earthquakes measure 6 or 7, then the instruments will detect these events as far away as the Pacific. ...
Published: Thursday | January 14, 2010
Laura Redpath, Senior Gleaner Writer
The United States Geological Survey's website shows there have been approximately 80 earthquakes, measuring anywhere from 2.4 to 7.0, in the Caribbean within the past week.
An online in-depth map outlines the dates, times and magnitudes of the earthquakes taking place mainly in the Hispaniola and Puerto Rico regions. Along with the major earthquake that struck Haiti on Tuesday, there was a smaller one with a magnitude of 2.5 in the Mona Passage alongside Puerto Rico.
According to Lyndon Brown, research fellow at the University of West Indies Earth-quake Unit, "Earth-quakes are always happening. There are cycles in terms of when the big events will be happening. The strength is building up and it has to be released.
"It is a young science when it comes to detecting earthquakes."
The unit did not register any other earthquakes in the region aside from what took place in Haiti.
Brown said the instruments at the Earthquake Unit are designed to detect local earthquakes. However, if the earthquakes measure 6 or 7, then the instruments will detect these events as far away as the Pacific. ...
The rethuglicunt party should be ashamed, exploiting such obviously mentally handicapped folks - like palin!
Ta much, dear Glenn321
Ta much, dear Glenn321
A US maker of software that helps parents to filter internet content for their children is suing the Chinese Government for allegedly stealing its technology and using it to block sites deemed politically undesirable.
Cybersitter LLC has requested damages of $2.2 billion (£1.3 billion) after filing a federal lawsuit in Los Angeles. Gregory Fayer, representing the Santa Barbara-based firm, said: “I don’t think I have ever seen such clear-cut stealing.”
The US firm’s suspicions were aroused in the middle of last year when China stirred outrage among its people with a demand that every computer should be fitted with software called Green Dam. The intention, said the Government, was to protect children by equipping all computers with a pornography filter.
Cybersitter alleges that the Chinese copied its codes and incorporated them into software used to block access to sites disliked by the Government. Sony, Lenovo and Toshiba are also being sued for distributing the Chinese program with PCs sold in the country. ...
Cybersitter LLC has requested damages of $2.2 billion (£1.3 billion) after filing a federal lawsuit in Los Angeles. Gregory Fayer, representing the Santa Barbara-based firm, said: “I don’t think I have ever seen such clear-cut stealing.”
The US firm’s suspicions were aroused in the middle of last year when China stirred outrage among its people with a demand that every computer should be fitted with software called Green Dam. The intention, said the Government, was to protect children by equipping all computers with a pornography filter.
Cybersitter alleges that the Chinese copied its codes and incorporated them into software used to block access to sites disliked by the Government. Sony, Lenovo and Toshiba are also being sued for distributing the Chinese program with PCs sold in the country. ...
US airport closed after security scare caused by bottles of honey
A California airport was closed for several hours after a passenger carrying honey in plastic bottles triggered a security alert.
By Tom Leonard in New York
Published: 6:03PM GMT 06 Jan 2010
Police were struggling on Wednesday to explain why two baggage screeners at Meadows Field Airport in Bakersfield had to be taken to hospital on Tuesday after opening the bottles and becoming nauseated from the fumes.
A police spokesman said the bottles, which were being carried by a gardener, had tested positive for explosives even though the contents was later confirmed to be just honey. The two screeners may have felt nauseous because they were "just nervous", he added.
Amid heightened airport security tension following the alleged attempt to bring down a Detroit-bound plane, Minneapolis-St Paul International Airport in Minnesota was also closed temporarily on Tuesday after a sniffer dog indicated a suspicious piece of luggage.
The bag turned out to be a marker that airport staff put on the luggage carousel to tell other staff that all items have been unloaded from a flight.
There was further embarrassment at Newark International Airport in New Jersey where it emerged that a security camera supposedly monitoring a corridor where a major security breach occurred on Sunday had been broken for six days.
The busy airport was evacuated for nearly seven hours after a passenger reported a man walk the wrong way through an exit corridor without being challenged.
The comedienne Joan Rivers has complained angrily about officious security after she was kept off a flight from Costa Rica to Newark on Sunday because a gate agent was suspicious about her passport containing both her married and professional names.
So appalling I had to post the whole dang thang.
Screw you, tsa.
A California airport was closed for several hours after a passenger carrying honey in plastic bottles triggered a security alert.
By Tom Leonard in New York
Published: 6:03PM GMT 06 Jan 2010
Police were struggling on Wednesday to explain why two baggage screeners at Meadows Field Airport in Bakersfield had to be taken to hospital on Tuesday after opening the bottles and becoming nauseated from the fumes.
A police spokesman said the bottles, which were being carried by a gardener, had tested positive for explosives even though the contents was later confirmed to be just honey. The two screeners may have felt nauseous because they were "just nervous", he added.
Amid heightened airport security tension following the alleged attempt to bring down a Detroit-bound plane, Minneapolis-St Paul International Airport in Minnesota was also closed temporarily on Tuesday after a sniffer dog indicated a suspicious piece of luggage.
The bag turned out to be a marker that airport staff put on the luggage carousel to tell other staff that all items have been unloaded from a flight.
There was further embarrassment at Newark International Airport in New Jersey where it emerged that a security camera supposedly monitoring a corridor where a major security breach occurred on Sunday had been broken for six days.
The busy airport was evacuated for nearly seven hours after a passenger reported a man walk the wrong way through an exit corridor without being challenged.
The comedienne Joan Rivers has complained angrily about officious security after she was kept off a flight from Costa Rica to Newark on Sunday because a gate agent was suspicious about her passport containing both her married and professional names.
So appalling I had to post the whole dang thang.
Screw you, tsa.
Ta much, dear Zaxy
Wow - maybe the UK "government" will do something about this - they've sure done nothing for the couple these bastards kidnapped!
WTF is up with men's continually punishing women for our ability to become pregnant? Isn't it enough that we have cramps, get paid far less than men, and are abandoned - or worse - by the men who knock us up?
We can't become pregnant alone, you asshole.
Wanna prevent pregnancies? Use birth control. Give them The Pill. History shows that people have always had sex with each other, and the present shows we still do.
Were I lying, you wouldn't be reading this and I wouldn't have written it.
We can't become pregnant alone, you asshole.
Wanna prevent pregnancies? Use birth control. Give them The Pill. History shows that people have always had sex with each other, and the present shows we still do.
Were I lying, you wouldn't be reading this and I wouldn't have written it.
... I was stopped and searched twice near London City airport – for watercolouring! I was not even facing the airport. I was painting the Tate and Lyle sugar factory opposite. They said they saw me on a camera and thought that "no one would want to paint a factory". I explained that LS Lowry did loads. Then they said I could be an anarchist and I was carrying "suspicious paraphernalia" – this being a flask of coffee and an iPod. Oh, and a box of watercolours.
Once they had all my gear out, rummaged through what identity documentation I had and double-checked it on a few radios, they were satisfied I was just "weird" and left me to it. Until the next week, when I went back to finish off the picture and had to go through the same rigmarole all over again.
I have painted in Ukraine, Russia, Vietnam and plenty of other "controlled" states, and have never been questioned about watercolour anarchism.
Liam O'Farrell
London
Once they had all my gear out, rummaged through what identity documentation I had and double-checked it on a few radios, they were satisfied I was just "weird" and left me to it. Until the next week, when I went back to finish off the picture and had to go through the same rigmarole all over again.
I have painted in Ukraine, Russia, Vietnam and plenty of other "controlled" states, and have never been questioned about watercolour anarchism.
Liam O'Farrell
London
I hope he can go live elsewhere!
I'm posting the whole story because yahoo are such yahoos and delete stories after 5 minutes have passed.
Sun Dec 13, 1:45 pm ET
ST. LOUIS – Confidential contracts detailing Monsanto Co.'s business practices reveal how the world's biggest seed developer is squeezing competitors, controlling smaller seed companies and protecting its dominance over the multibillion-dollar market for genetically altered crops, an Associated Press investigation has found.
With Monsanto's patented genes being inserted into roughly 95 percent of all soybeans and 80 percent of all corn grown in the U.S., the company also is using its wide reach to control the ability of new biotech firms to get wide distribution for their products, according to a review of several Monsanto licensing agreements and dozens of interviews with seed industry participants, agriculture and legal experts.
Declining competition in the seed business could lead to price hikes that ripple out to every family's dinner table. That's because the corn flakes you had for breakfast, soda you drank at lunch and beef stew you ate for dinner likely were produced from crops grown with Monsanto's patented genes.
Monsanto's methods are spelled out in a series of confidential commercial licensing agreements obtained by the AP. The contracts, as long as 30 pages, include basic terms for the selling of engineered crops resistant to Monsanto's Roundup herbicide, along with shorter supplementary agreements that address new Monsanto traits or other contract amendments.
The company has used the agreements to spread its technology — giving some 200 smaller companies the right to insert Monsanto's genes in their separate strains of corn and soybean plants. But, the AP found, access to Monsanto's genes comes at a cost, and with plenty of strings attached.
For example, one contract provision bans independent companies from breeding plants that contain both Monsanto's genes and the genes of any of its competitors, unless Monsanto gives prior written permission — giving Monsanto the ability to effectively lock out competitors from inserting their patented traits into the vast share of U.S. crops that already contain Monsanto's genes.
Monsanto's business strategies and licensing agreements are being investigated by the U.S. Department of Justice and at least two state attorneys general, who are trying to determine if the practices violate U.S. antitrust laws. The practices also are at the heart of civil antitrust suits filed against Monsanto by its competitors, including a 2004 suit filed by Syngenta AG that was settled with an agreement and ongoing litigation filed this summer by DuPont in response to a Monsanto lawsuit.
The suburban St. Louis-based agricultural giant said it's done nothing wrong.
"We do not believe there is any merit to allegations about our licensing agreement or the terms within," said Monsanto spokesman Lee Quarles. He said he couldn't comment on many specific provisions of the agreements because they are confidential and the subject of ongoing litigation.
"Our approach to licensing (with) many companies is pro-competitive and has enabled literally hundreds of seed companies, including all of our major direct competitors, to offer thousands of new seed products to farmers," he said.
The benefit of Monsanto's technology for farmers has been undeniable, but some of its major competitors and smaller seed firms claim the company is using strong-arm tactics to further its control.
"We now believe that Monsanto has control over as much as 90 percent of (seed genetics). This level of control is almost unbelievable," said Neil Harl, agricultural economist at Iowa State University who has studied the seed industry for decades. "The upshot of that is that it's tightening Monsanto's control, and makes it possible for them to increase their prices long term. And we've seen this happening the last five years, and the end is not in sight."
At issue is how much power one company can have over seeds, the foundation of the world's food supply. Without stiff competition, Monsanto could raise its seed prices at will, which in turn could raise the cost of everything from animal feed to wheat bread and cookies.
The price of seeds is already rising. Monsanto increased some corn seed prices last year by 25 percent, with an additional 7 percent hike planned for corn seeds in 2010. Monsanto brand soybean seeds climbed 28 percent last year and will be flat or up 6 percent in 2010, said company spokeswoman Kelli Powers.
Monsanto's broad use of licensing agreements has made its biotech traits among the most widely and rapidly adopted technologies in farming history. These days, when farmers buy bags of seed with obscure brand names like AgVenture or M-Pride Genetics, they are paying for Monsanto's licensed products.
One of the numerous provisions in the licensing agreements is a ban on mixing genes — or "stacking" in industry lingo — that enhance Monsanto's power.
One contract provision likely helped Monsanto buy 24 independent seed companies throughout the Farm Belt over the last few years: that corn seed agreement says that if a smaller company changes ownership, its inventory with Monsanto's traits "shall be destroyed immediately."
Another provision from contracts earlier this decade_ regarding rebates — also help explain Monsanto's rapid growth as it rolled out new products.
One contract gave an independent seed company deep discounts if the company ensured that Monsanto's products would make up 70 percent of its total corn seed inventory. In its 2004 lawsuit, Syngenta called the discounts part of Monsanto's "scorched earth campaign" to keep Syngenta's new traits out of the market.
Quarles said the discounts were used to entice seed companies to carry Monsanto products when the technology was new and farmers hadn't yet used it. Now that the products are widespread, Monsanto has discontinued the discounts, he said.
The Monsanto contracts reviewed by the AP prohibit seed companies from discussing terms, and Monsanto has the right to cancel deals and wipe out the inventory of a business if the confidentiality clauses are violated.
Thomas Terral, chief executive officer of Terral Seed in Louisiana, said he recently rejected a Monsanto contract because it put too many restrictions on his business. But Terral refused to provide the unsigned contract to AP or even discuss its contents because he was afraid Monsanto would retaliate and cancel the rest of his agreements.
"I would be so tied up in what I was able to do that basically I would have no value to anybody else," he said. "The only person I would have value to is Monsanto, and I would continue to pay them millions in fees."
Independent seed company owners could drop their contracts with Monsanto and return to selling conventional seed, but they say it could be financially ruinous. Monsanto's Roundup Ready gene has become the industry standard over the last decade, and small companies fear losing customers if they drop it. It also can take years of breeding and investment to mix Monsanto's genes into a seed company's product line, so dropping the genes can be costly.
Monsanto acknowledged that U.S. Department of Justice lawyers are seeking documents and interviewing company employees about its marketing practices. The DOJ wouldn't comment.
A spokesman for Iowa Attorney General Tom Miller said the office is examining possible antitrust violations. Additionally, two sources familiar with an investigation in Texas said state Attorney General Greg Abbott's office is considering the same issues. States have the authority to enforce federal antitrust law, and attorneys general are often involved in such cases.
Monsanto chairman and chief executive officer Hugh Grant told investment analysts during a conference call this fall that the price increases are justified by the productivity boost farmers get from the company's seeds. Farmers and seed company owners agree that Monsanto's technology has boosted yields and profits, saving farmers time they once spent weeding and money they once spent on pesticides.
But recent price hikes have still been tough to swallow on the farm.
"It's just like I got hit with bad weather and got a poor yield. It just means I've got less in the bottom line," said Markus Reinke, a corn and soybean farmer near Concordia, Mo. who took over his family's farm in 1965. "They can charge because they can do it, and get away with it. And us farmers just complain, and shake our heads and go along with it."
Any Justice Department case against Monsanto could break new ground in balancing a company's right to control its patented products while protecting competitors' right to free and open competition, said Kevin Arquit, former director of the Federal Trade Commission competition bureau and now a antitrust attorney with Simpson Thacher & Bartlett LLP in New York.
"These are very interesting issues, and not just for the companies, but for the Justice Department," Arquit said. "They're in an area where there is uncertainty in the law and there are consumer welfare implications and government policy implications for whatever the result is."
Other seed companies have followed Monsanto's lead by including restrictive clauses in their licensing agreements, but their products only penetrate smaller segments of the U.S. seed market. Monsanto's Roundup Ready gene, on the other hand, is in such a wide array of crops that its licensing agreements can have a massive effect on the rules of the marketplace.
Monsanto was only a niche player in the seed business just 12 years ago. It rose to the top thanks to innovation by its scientists and aggressive use of patent law by its attorneys.
First came the science, when Monsanto in 1996 introduced the world's first commercial strain of genetically engineered soybeans. The Roundup Ready plants were resistant to the herbicide, allowing farmers to spray Roundup whenever they wanted rather than wait until the soybeans had grown enough to withstand the chemical.
The company soon released other genetically altered crops, such as corn plants that produced a natural pesticide to ward off bugs. While Monsanto had blockbuster products, it didn't yet have a big foothold in a seed industry made up of hundreds of companies that supplied farmers.
That's where the legal innovations came in, as Monsanto became among the first to widely patent its genes and gain the right to strictly control how they were used. That control let it spread its technology through licensing agreements, while shaping the marketplace around them.
Back in the 1970s, public universities developed new traits for corn and soybean seeds that made them grow hardy and resist pests. Small seed companies got the traits cheaply and could blend them to breed superior crops without restriction. But the agreements give Monsanto control over mixing multiple biotech traits into crops.
The restrictions even apply to taxpayer-funded researchers.
Roger Boerma, a research professor at the University of Georgia, is developing specialized strains of soybeans that grow well in southeastern states, but his current research is tangled up in such restrictions from Monsanto and its competitors.
"It's made one level of our life incredibly challenging and difficult," Boerma said.
The rules also can restrict research. Boerma halted research on a line of new soybean plants that contain a trait from a Monsanto competitor when he learned that the trait was ineffective unless it could be mixed with Monsanto's Roundup Ready gene.
Boerma said he hasn't considered asking Monsanto's permission to mix its traits with the competitor's trait.
"I think the co-mingling of their trait technology with another company's trait technology would likely be a serious problem for them," he said.
Quarles pointed out that Monsanto has signed agreements with several companies allowing them to stack their traits with Monsanto's. After Syngenta settled its lawsuit, for example, the companies struck a broad cross-licensing accord.
At the same time, Monsanto's patent rights give it the authority to say how independent companies use its traits, Quarles said.
"Please also keep in mind that, as the (intellectual property developer), it is our right to determine who will obtain rights to our technology and for what purpose," he said.
Monsanto's provision requiring companies to destroy seeds containing Monsanto's traits if a competitor buys them prohibited DuPont or other big firms from bidding against Monsanto when it snapped up two dozen smaller seed companies over the last five years, said David Boies, a lawyer representing DuPont who previously was a prosecutor on the federal antitrust case against Microsoft Corp.
Competitive bids from companies like DuPont could have made it far more expensive for Monsanto to bring the smaller companies into its fold. But that contract provision prevented bidding wars, according to DuPont.
"If the independent seed company is losing their license and has to destroy their seeds, they're not going to have anything, in effect, to sell," Boies said. "It requires them to destroy things — destroy things they paid for — if they go competitive. That's exactly the kind of restriction on competitive choice that the antitrust laws outlaw."
Quarles said some of the Monsanto contracts let companies sell their inventory for a period of time, rather than be required to destroy it. Seed companies also don't have to pay royalty fees on the bags of seed they destroyed.
"Simply put, it was designed to facilitate early adoption of the technology," he said.
Some independent seed company owners say they feel increasingly pinched as Monsanto cements its leadership in the industry.
"They have the capital, they have the resources, they own lots of companies, and buying more. We're small town, they're Wall Street," said Bill Cook, co-owner of M-Pride Genetics seed company in Garden City, Mo., who also declined to discuss or provide the agreements. "It's very difficult to compete in this environment against companies like Monsanto."
Sun Dec 13, 1:45 pm ET
ST. LOUIS – Confidential contracts detailing Monsanto Co.'s business practices reveal how the world's biggest seed developer is squeezing competitors, controlling smaller seed companies and protecting its dominance over the multibillion-dollar market for genetically altered crops, an Associated Press investigation has found.
With Monsanto's patented genes being inserted into roughly 95 percent of all soybeans and 80 percent of all corn grown in the U.S., the company also is using its wide reach to control the ability of new biotech firms to get wide distribution for their products, according to a review of several Monsanto licensing agreements and dozens of interviews with seed industry participants, agriculture and legal experts.
Declining competition in the seed business could lead to price hikes that ripple out to every family's dinner table. That's because the corn flakes you had for breakfast, soda you drank at lunch and beef stew you ate for dinner likely were produced from crops grown with Monsanto's patented genes.
Monsanto's methods are spelled out in a series of confidential commercial licensing agreements obtained by the AP. The contracts, as long as 30 pages, include basic terms for the selling of engineered crops resistant to Monsanto's Roundup herbicide, along with shorter supplementary agreements that address new Monsanto traits or other contract amendments.
The company has used the agreements to spread its technology — giving some 200 smaller companies the right to insert Monsanto's genes in their separate strains of corn and soybean plants. But, the AP found, access to Monsanto's genes comes at a cost, and with plenty of strings attached.
For example, one contract provision bans independent companies from breeding plants that contain both Monsanto's genes and the genes of any of its competitors, unless Monsanto gives prior written permission — giving Monsanto the ability to effectively lock out competitors from inserting their patented traits into the vast share of U.S. crops that already contain Monsanto's genes.
Monsanto's business strategies and licensing agreements are being investigated by the U.S. Department of Justice and at least two state attorneys general, who are trying to determine if the practices violate U.S. antitrust laws. The practices also are at the heart of civil antitrust suits filed against Monsanto by its competitors, including a 2004 suit filed by Syngenta AG that was settled with an agreement and ongoing litigation filed this summer by DuPont in response to a Monsanto lawsuit.
The suburban St. Louis-based agricultural giant said it's done nothing wrong.
"We do not believe there is any merit to allegations about our licensing agreement or the terms within," said Monsanto spokesman Lee Quarles. He said he couldn't comment on many specific provisions of the agreements because they are confidential and the subject of ongoing litigation.
"Our approach to licensing (with) many companies is pro-competitive and has enabled literally hundreds of seed companies, including all of our major direct competitors, to offer thousands of new seed products to farmers," he said.
The benefit of Monsanto's technology for farmers has been undeniable, but some of its major competitors and smaller seed firms claim the company is using strong-arm tactics to further its control.
"We now believe that Monsanto has control over as much as 90 percent of (seed genetics). This level of control is almost unbelievable," said Neil Harl, agricultural economist at Iowa State University who has studied the seed industry for decades. "The upshot of that is that it's tightening Monsanto's control, and makes it possible for them to increase their prices long term. And we've seen this happening the last five years, and the end is not in sight."
At issue is how much power one company can have over seeds, the foundation of the world's food supply. Without stiff competition, Monsanto could raise its seed prices at will, which in turn could raise the cost of everything from animal feed to wheat bread and cookies.
The price of seeds is already rising. Monsanto increased some corn seed prices last year by 25 percent, with an additional 7 percent hike planned for corn seeds in 2010. Monsanto brand soybean seeds climbed 28 percent last year and will be flat or up 6 percent in 2010, said company spokeswoman Kelli Powers.
Monsanto's broad use of licensing agreements has made its biotech traits among the most widely and rapidly adopted technologies in farming history. These days, when farmers buy bags of seed with obscure brand names like AgVenture or M-Pride Genetics, they are paying for Monsanto's licensed products.
One of the numerous provisions in the licensing agreements is a ban on mixing genes — or "stacking" in industry lingo — that enhance Monsanto's power.
One contract provision likely helped Monsanto buy 24 independent seed companies throughout the Farm Belt over the last few years: that corn seed agreement says that if a smaller company changes ownership, its inventory with Monsanto's traits "shall be destroyed immediately."
Another provision from contracts earlier this decade_ regarding rebates — also help explain Monsanto's rapid growth as it rolled out new products.
One contract gave an independent seed company deep discounts if the company ensured that Monsanto's products would make up 70 percent of its total corn seed inventory. In its 2004 lawsuit, Syngenta called the discounts part of Monsanto's "scorched earth campaign" to keep Syngenta's new traits out of the market.
Quarles said the discounts were used to entice seed companies to carry Monsanto products when the technology was new and farmers hadn't yet used it. Now that the products are widespread, Monsanto has discontinued the discounts, he said.
The Monsanto contracts reviewed by the AP prohibit seed companies from discussing terms, and Monsanto has the right to cancel deals and wipe out the inventory of a business if the confidentiality clauses are violated.
Thomas Terral, chief executive officer of Terral Seed in Louisiana, said he recently rejected a Monsanto contract because it put too many restrictions on his business. But Terral refused to provide the unsigned contract to AP or even discuss its contents because he was afraid Monsanto would retaliate and cancel the rest of his agreements.
"I would be so tied up in what I was able to do that basically I would have no value to anybody else," he said. "The only person I would have value to is Monsanto, and I would continue to pay them millions in fees."
Independent seed company owners could drop their contracts with Monsanto and return to selling conventional seed, but they say it could be financially ruinous. Monsanto's Roundup Ready gene has become the industry standard over the last decade, and small companies fear losing customers if they drop it. It also can take years of breeding and investment to mix Monsanto's genes into a seed company's product line, so dropping the genes can be costly.
Monsanto acknowledged that U.S. Department of Justice lawyers are seeking documents and interviewing company employees about its marketing practices. The DOJ wouldn't comment.
A spokesman for Iowa Attorney General Tom Miller said the office is examining possible antitrust violations. Additionally, two sources familiar with an investigation in Texas said state Attorney General Greg Abbott's office is considering the same issues. States have the authority to enforce federal antitrust law, and attorneys general are often involved in such cases.
Monsanto chairman and chief executive officer Hugh Grant told investment analysts during a conference call this fall that the price increases are justified by the productivity boost farmers get from the company's seeds. Farmers and seed company owners agree that Monsanto's technology has boosted yields and profits, saving farmers time they once spent weeding and money they once spent on pesticides.
But recent price hikes have still been tough to swallow on the farm.
"It's just like I got hit with bad weather and got a poor yield. It just means I've got less in the bottom line," said Markus Reinke, a corn and soybean farmer near Concordia, Mo. who took over his family's farm in 1965. "They can charge because they can do it, and get away with it. And us farmers just complain, and shake our heads and go along with it."
Any Justice Department case against Monsanto could break new ground in balancing a company's right to control its patented products while protecting competitors' right to free and open competition, said Kevin Arquit, former director of the Federal Trade Commission competition bureau and now a antitrust attorney with Simpson Thacher & Bartlett LLP in New York.
"These are very interesting issues, and not just for the companies, but for the Justice Department," Arquit said. "They're in an area where there is uncertainty in the law and there are consumer welfare implications and government policy implications for whatever the result is."
Other seed companies have followed Monsanto's lead by including restrictive clauses in their licensing agreements, but their products only penetrate smaller segments of the U.S. seed market. Monsanto's Roundup Ready gene, on the other hand, is in such a wide array of crops that its licensing agreements can have a massive effect on the rules of the marketplace.
Monsanto was only a niche player in the seed business just 12 years ago. It rose to the top thanks to innovation by its scientists and aggressive use of patent law by its attorneys.
First came the science, when Monsanto in 1996 introduced the world's first commercial strain of genetically engineered soybeans. The Roundup Ready plants were resistant to the herbicide, allowing farmers to spray Roundup whenever they wanted rather than wait until the soybeans had grown enough to withstand the chemical.
The company soon released other genetically altered crops, such as corn plants that produced a natural pesticide to ward off bugs. While Monsanto had blockbuster products, it didn't yet have a big foothold in a seed industry made up of hundreds of companies that supplied farmers.
That's where the legal innovations came in, as Monsanto became among the first to widely patent its genes and gain the right to strictly control how they were used. That control let it spread its technology through licensing agreements, while shaping the marketplace around them.
Back in the 1970s, public universities developed new traits for corn and soybean seeds that made them grow hardy and resist pests. Small seed companies got the traits cheaply and could blend them to breed superior crops without restriction. But the agreements give Monsanto control over mixing multiple biotech traits into crops.
The restrictions even apply to taxpayer-funded researchers.
Roger Boerma, a research professor at the University of Georgia, is developing specialized strains of soybeans that grow well in southeastern states, but his current research is tangled up in such restrictions from Monsanto and its competitors.
"It's made one level of our life incredibly challenging and difficult," Boerma said.
The rules also can restrict research. Boerma halted research on a line of new soybean plants that contain a trait from a Monsanto competitor when he learned that the trait was ineffective unless it could be mixed with Monsanto's Roundup Ready gene.
Boerma said he hasn't considered asking Monsanto's permission to mix its traits with the competitor's trait.
"I think the co-mingling of their trait technology with another company's trait technology would likely be a serious problem for them," he said.
Quarles pointed out that Monsanto has signed agreements with several companies allowing them to stack their traits with Monsanto's. After Syngenta settled its lawsuit, for example, the companies struck a broad cross-licensing accord.
At the same time, Monsanto's patent rights give it the authority to say how independent companies use its traits, Quarles said.
"Please also keep in mind that, as the (intellectual property developer), it is our right to determine who will obtain rights to our technology and for what purpose," he said.
Monsanto's provision requiring companies to destroy seeds containing Monsanto's traits if a competitor buys them prohibited DuPont or other big firms from bidding against Monsanto when it snapped up two dozen smaller seed companies over the last five years, said David Boies, a lawyer representing DuPont who previously was a prosecutor on the federal antitrust case against Microsoft Corp.
Competitive bids from companies like DuPont could have made it far more expensive for Monsanto to bring the smaller companies into its fold. But that contract provision prevented bidding wars, according to DuPont.
"If the independent seed company is losing their license and has to destroy their seeds, they're not going to have anything, in effect, to sell," Boies said. "It requires them to destroy things — destroy things they paid for — if they go competitive. That's exactly the kind of restriction on competitive choice that the antitrust laws outlaw."
Quarles said some of the Monsanto contracts let companies sell their inventory for a period of time, rather than be required to destroy it. Seed companies also don't have to pay royalty fees on the bags of seed they destroyed.
"Simply put, it was designed to facilitate early adoption of the technology," he said.
Some independent seed company owners say they feel increasingly pinched as Monsanto cements its leadership in the industry.
"They have the capital, they have the resources, they own lots of companies, and buying more. We're small town, they're Wall Street," said Bill Cook, co-owner of M-Pride Genetics seed company in Garden City, Mo., who also declined to discuss or provide the agreements. "It's very difficult to compete in this environment against companies like Monsanto."
...the folks at Consumer Reports discovered that while many people were cutting back on holiday gifts, their pets were still likely to find something under the tree. So a recent recall for dog chews -- typical stocking stuffers -- caught our attention. Pet Carousel has recalled its stock of pig ears and beef hooves because the products may be contaminated with salmonella. The chewies are sold under the brand names Choo Hooves, Dentley’s, Doggie Delight and Pet Carousel at PetSmart and other pet stores. ...
Ta much, dear Anneliese
Ta much, dear Anneliese
The rising power of China has been a constant theme in economic and political commentary in recent years, often accompanied by observations on the relative decline of the west. A seat at the top table is now always reserved for Beijing at global summits, whether it is climate change or financial stability under discussion. European politicians warn ruefully of the G2 – the US and China – settling world affairs between them.
But in admiring China's progress to economic superpower status, it is easy to forget how far it lags behind in political terms. Last week, there was a reminder. Liu Xiaobo, a 53-year-old former literature professor, was charged with "inciting subversion of state power", an offence that carries a potential prison term of 15 years.
Mr Liu's crime was to organise a petition last year, under the title Charter 08, calling for basic political freedom. He was first arrested for supporting the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests and has spent much of the ensuing period in jail or under house arrest.
Meanwhile, the Charter 08 petition has collected thousands of signatures. For anyone in China to put their name on such a document is an act of immense courage, which is certain to draw a hostile reaction from Communist party officials. ...
But in admiring China's progress to economic superpower status, it is easy to forget how far it lags behind in political terms. Last week, there was a reminder. Liu Xiaobo, a 53-year-old former literature professor, was charged with "inciting subversion of state power", an offence that carries a potential prison term of 15 years.
Mr Liu's crime was to organise a petition last year, under the title Charter 08, calling for basic political freedom. He was first arrested for supporting the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests and has spent much of the ensuing period in jail or under house arrest.
Meanwhile, the Charter 08 petition has collected thousands of signatures. For anyone in China to put their name on such a document is an act of immense courage, which is certain to draw a hostile reaction from Communist party officials. ...
Need a pack of foxhounds!
Diamond Pet Foods Announces Recall of Premium Edge Adult Cat and Premium Edge Hairball Cat Food
Company Contact:
800-977-8797
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE - November 27, 2009 - On September 23, Diamond Pet Foods issued a voluntary recall for Premium Edge Finicky Adult Cat and Premium Edge Hairball cat because they have the potential to produce Thiamine Deficiency. Today’s announcement provides additional information from the company’s posted announcement of September 23 when the initial recall information was provided.
Thiamine is essential for cats. Symptoms of deficiency displayed by an affected cat can be gastrointestinal or neurological in nature. At the first stage the cat may show decreased appetite, salivation, vomiting, and weight loss. Later, neurologic signs can develop, which may include ventriflexion (bending towards the floor) of the neck, wobbly walking, circling, falling, and seizures. These ultimately may result in the death of the animal if left untreated. If your cat has consumed the recalled product and has these symptoms, please contact your veterinarian.
The affected products were distributed in Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island, New Jersey, Maryland, Delaware, New York, Pennsylvania, Virginia, Alabama, Tennessee, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Florida.
The affected date codes were RAF0501A22X 18lb. (BB28NOV10), RAF0501A2X 6 lb. (BB28NOV10), RAF0802B12X 18lb (BB30FEB11), RAH0501A22X 18 lb. (BB28NOV10), RAH0501A2X 6lb. (BB28NOV10, BB30NOV10, BB08DEC10)
To date, 21 cases of thiamine deficiency in cats have been reported and confirmed by Diamond. The reports have been confined to the New York and Pennsylvania areas and none have been received since October 19.
Diamond has tested the product and found the cat foods were deficient in thiamine. Samples taken by the FDA indicated that there were additional lots with insufficient levels of thiamine. No other complaints have been reported on any other product manufactured by Diamond Pet Foods.
Consumers who have purchased the affected lots are urged to return it to the place of purchase for a full refund. Consumers with questions may contact the company at 1-800-977-8797, Monday-Friday, 8:00 am to 5:00 pm Central Time. ...
Company Contact:
800-977-8797
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE - November 27, 2009 - On September 23, Diamond Pet Foods issued a voluntary recall for Premium Edge Finicky Adult Cat and Premium Edge Hairball cat because they have the potential to produce Thiamine Deficiency. Today’s announcement provides additional information from the company’s posted announcement of September 23 when the initial recall information was provided.
Thiamine is essential for cats. Symptoms of deficiency displayed by an affected cat can be gastrointestinal or neurological in nature. At the first stage the cat may show decreased appetite, salivation, vomiting, and weight loss. Later, neurologic signs can develop, which may include ventriflexion (bending towards the floor) of the neck, wobbly walking, circling, falling, and seizures. These ultimately may result in the death of the animal if left untreated. If your cat has consumed the recalled product and has these symptoms, please contact your veterinarian.
The affected products were distributed in Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island, New Jersey, Maryland, Delaware, New York, Pennsylvania, Virginia, Alabama, Tennessee, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Florida.
The affected date codes were RAF0501A22X 18lb. (BB28NOV10), RAF0501A2X 6 lb. (BB28NOV10), RAF0802B12X 18lb (BB30FEB11), RAH0501A22X 18 lb. (BB28NOV10), RAH0501A2X 6lb. (BB28NOV10, BB30NOV10, BB08DEC10)
To date, 21 cases of thiamine deficiency in cats have been reported and confirmed by Diamond. The reports have been confined to the New York and Pennsylvania areas and none have been received since October 19.
Diamond has tested the product and found the cat foods were deficient in thiamine. Samples taken by the FDA indicated that there were additional lots with insufficient levels of thiamine. No other complaints have been reported on any other product manufactured by Diamond Pet Foods.
Consumers who have purchased the affected lots are urged to return it to the place of purchase for a full refund. Consumers with questions may contact the company at 1-800-977-8797, Monday-Friday, 8:00 am to 5:00 pm Central Time. ...
Beef sold in two states recalled over salmonella concerns
December 6, 2009
Washington (CNN) -- More than 20,000 pounds of beef have been recalled by a California company amid worries the meat is linked to two cases of salmonella, a federal food safety agency said.
Beef Packers Inc., based in Fresno, California, recalled 22,723 pounds of ground beef products produced on September 23, the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Food Safety and Inspection Service said in a statement. The labels on the beef include the establishment number "EST. 31913," the agency said.
The beef was repackaged at a distribution plant in Arizona, then sold under different retail brand names, the agency said. The agency's statement did not identify brand names.
The products were sold in Arizona and New Mexico, said Mark Klein, spokesman for Cargill Inc., which owns Beef Packers, Inc. Consumers in those states should check with stores where they purchased meat to determine if they bought the recalled beef.
Investigators have found an association between the meat and two Arizona people who have the "Salmonella Newport" strain, the Food Safety and Inspection Service said. That strain is resistant to many commonly prescribed drugs, increasing the risk of hospitalization or ineffective treatment, the agency said. ...
December 6, 2009
Washington (CNN) -- More than 20,000 pounds of beef have been recalled by a California company amid worries the meat is linked to two cases of salmonella, a federal food safety agency said.
Beef Packers Inc., based in Fresno, California, recalled 22,723 pounds of ground beef products produced on September 23, the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Food Safety and Inspection Service said in a statement. The labels on the beef include the establishment number "EST. 31913," the agency said.
The beef was repackaged at a distribution plant in Arizona, then sold under different retail brand names, the agency said. The agency's statement did not identify brand names.
The products were sold in Arizona and New Mexico, said Mark Klein, spokesman for Cargill Inc., which owns Beef Packers, Inc. Consumers in those states should check with stores where they purchased meat to determine if they bought the recalled beef.
Investigators have found an association between the meat and two Arizona people who have the "Salmonella Newport" strain, the Food Safety and Inspection Service said. That strain is resistant to many commonly prescribed drugs, increasing the risk of hospitalization or ineffective treatment, the agency said. ...
The secret video tapes could not be more damning. A newspaper owner shoves 30,000 reals (£10,000) in cash into his underpants. A state deputy stuffs a thick wad into her handbag. A press secretary and a Cabinet chief dump bricks of money into a hold-all.
Even corruption-hardened Brazilians have been shocked by the spectacle of their greedy leaders, capped by footage of the governor of the capital city pocketing an envelope said to contain R$50,000.
José Roberto Arruda, the Governor of Brasilia, says that it is a misunderstanding but the dialogue accompanying the video seems convincing: “Let me pay before I forget,” says Durval Barbosa, Mr Arruda’s former secretary for institutional affairs. “Great,” the governor replies. “Give me a hamper.”
The footage, now entertaining millions of Brazilians courtesy of television stations, was recorded secretly by Mr Barbosa, who has agreed to co-operate with a police investigation codenamed Operation Pandora. ...
Even corruption-hardened Brazilians have been shocked by the spectacle of their greedy leaders, capped by footage of the governor of the capital city pocketing an envelope said to contain R$50,000.
José Roberto Arruda, the Governor of Brasilia, says that it is a misunderstanding but the dialogue accompanying the video seems convincing: “Let me pay before I forget,” says Durval Barbosa, Mr Arruda’s former secretary for institutional affairs. “Great,” the governor replies. “Give me a hamper.”
The footage, now entertaining millions of Brazilians courtesy of television stations, was recorded secretly by Mr Barbosa, who has agreed to co-operate with a police investigation codenamed Operation Pandora. ...
Gordon Brown is the 324th highest paid person in Britain's public sector, according to figures showing that record levels of pay were awarded during the recession.
Public sector pay is "completely divorced" from the reality of the country's fiscal crisis, the Taxpayers' Alliance declares in its latest report on salaries. ...
Public sector pay is "completely divorced" from the reality of the country's fiscal crisis, the Taxpayers' Alliance declares in its latest report on salaries. ...
Bumbling NJ firemen, cops blown up in 'huge fireball'
Gunpowder plot ruled out: bunker-buster blunder blamed
By Lewis Page
Posted in Bootnotes, 30th November 2009
Firemen and police officers in New Jersey blew themselves up last week in an "orange mushroom cloud of fire and debris" which created a "deafening boom felt miles away". The unfortunate public-safety operatives had been attempting to light a bonfire at a high-school rally.
According to the South Jersey Courier-Post, kids at Vineland High School had planned a "pep rally" at 6:30 pm local time last Wednesday. Weather conditions had been damp, and it seems that local firemen attending the rally "doused" the bonfire - constructed largely of wooden shipping pallets - with "diesel and another accelerant".
Within seconds of the fire being lit, there was apparently a devastating blast which "ejected a flaming pile of pallets into the sky" atop the above mentioned roiling fireball. Fortunately nobody was seriously hurt, though the Courier-Post reports that a firefighter was injured by flying debris and several police officers "sought medical treatment for ear ailments" following the blast.
No schoolkids were harmed, and the rally apparently went ahead without trouble at an alternative venue free of exploding bonfires. ...
Gunpowder plot ruled out: bunker-buster blunder blamed
By Lewis Page
Posted in Bootnotes, 30th November 2009
Firemen and police officers in New Jersey blew themselves up last week in an "orange mushroom cloud of fire and debris" which created a "deafening boom felt miles away". The unfortunate public-safety operatives had been attempting to light a bonfire at a high-school rally.
According to the South Jersey Courier-Post, kids at Vineland High School had planned a "pep rally" at 6:30 pm local time last Wednesday. Weather conditions had been damp, and it seems that local firemen attending the rally "doused" the bonfire - constructed largely of wooden shipping pallets - with "diesel and another accelerant".
Within seconds of the fire being lit, there was apparently a devastating blast which "ejected a flaming pile of pallets into the sky" atop the above mentioned roiling fireball. Fortunately nobody was seriously hurt, though the Courier-Post reports that a firefighter was injured by flying debris and several police officers "sought medical treatment for ear ailments" following the blast.
No schoolkids were harmed, and the rally apparently went ahead without trouble at an alternative venue free of exploding bonfires. ...
Shops and markets in North Korea have been closed and all cash transactions frozen after the Government’s shock announcement of a devaluation of its currency in an effort to crack down on the country’s burgeoning free-market economy.
In the capital, Pyongyang, yesterday only the few shops and restaurants permitted to trade in foreign currencies — patronised by the privileged elite and the city’s small foreign population — were open for business. All other enterprises and services based on cash, including markets, long-distance bus services, barbers’ shops, saunas and bath houses, were suspended until the revaluation of the won is completed next week.
There were reports of public outrage and confusion after the announcement of the measure, which requires North Koreans to swap existing won notes for new ones at an exchange rate of one to 100 — effectively knocking two zeroes off their value. Because of a cap of 100,000 won per family (£475 at the official exchange rate), anyone with significant holdings of cash will have their savings wiped out.
“Loud sounds of weeping in every house have not ceased since the news was released,” a South Korean website quoted an inhabitant of Sinuiju, a city on the border with China, as saying. “Weeping and fighting between couples has not stopped anywhere. The atmosphere of the city is terrible now.” ...
In the capital, Pyongyang, yesterday only the few shops and restaurants permitted to trade in foreign currencies — patronised by the privileged elite and the city’s small foreign population — were open for business. All other enterprises and services based on cash, including markets, long-distance bus services, barbers’ shops, saunas and bath houses, were suspended until the revaluation of the won is completed next week.
There were reports of public outrage and confusion after the announcement of the measure, which requires North Koreans to swap existing won notes for new ones at an exchange rate of one to 100 — effectively knocking two zeroes off their value. Because of a cap of 100,000 won per family (£475 at the official exchange rate), anyone with significant holdings of cash will have their savings wiped out.
“Loud sounds of weeping in every house have not ceased since the news was released,” a South Korean website quoted an inhabitant of Sinuiju, a city on the border with China, as saying. “Weeping and fighting between couples has not stopped anywhere. The atmosphere of the city is terrible now.” ...
Comment #1 is quality, if mis-spelled. :)
A university that accepted £25 million from Tesco has published a report with misleading figures to endorse the supermarket’s policy of giving away billions of single-use carrier bags.
The University of Manchester’s Sustainable Consumption Institute allowed senior Tesco staff to contribute to the report but failed to disclose the extent of the company’s involvement. David Cameron, the Conservative leader, joined Sir Terry Leahy, Tesco chief executive, at the publication of the report at the Royal Society in London last month.
The report includes an analysis of different approaches to reducing the number of disposable bags issued annually by supermarkets. It claims that Tesco’s approach of giving customers a loyalty card point for reusing a bag is more effective than requiring shops to charge for bags, which is used in the Republic of Ireland.
The reduction in Ireland was five times greater than that achieved across Tesco shops in Britain. Ireland cut plastic bag consumption by 90 per cent when it introduced a 15 cent charge per bag in 2002. The Tesco reward method took three years to cut the number of plastic bags by less than 50 per cent. ...
The University of Manchester’s Sustainable Consumption Institute allowed senior Tesco staff to contribute to the report but failed to disclose the extent of the company’s involvement. David Cameron, the Conservative leader, joined Sir Terry Leahy, Tesco chief executive, at the publication of the report at the Royal Society in London last month.
The report includes an analysis of different approaches to reducing the number of disposable bags issued annually by supermarkets. It claims that Tesco’s approach of giving customers a loyalty card point for reusing a bag is more effective than requiring shops to charge for bags, which is used in the Republic of Ireland.
The reduction in Ireland was five times greater than that achieved across Tesco shops in Britain. Ireland cut plastic bag consumption by 90 per cent when it introduced a 15 cent charge per bag in 2002. The Tesco reward method took three years to cut the number of plastic bags by less than 50 per cent. ...
They are more savage and uncivilised than any Native tribe whom any "great white explorer" ever encountered - headhunters included - and we buy their oil.
UGLY Christmas Sweater Mens Price: US $69.99
Tacky Xmas Ugly Christmas Sweater Dress Perfect! Price: US $89.99
Ugly comes at a price: also add US $8.50 shipping!
A whole mess of ugly #196
It looks like whoever made this loaded a shotgun with holly and fired it at a white turtleneck
Size:L $20.00
Mock, Yeah! #183
Featuring snowmen that happen to be wearing blue and red ugly Christmas sweaters, odd.
Size: M $20.00
The Shining #128
You may not be able to tell from the picture... but this one sparkles...
Size: Petite XL (Whatever the hell that means) $25.00
Bird Flu #127
Be sure to wash your hands frequently and sneeze into your arm...
Size: Large $25.00
Point Break #111
Pointsetta's may not be poisonous, but this sweater sure is...
Size: Medium $25.00
Oriental Christmas #123
This piece comes to us from the far east to help spread the holiday ugliness...
Size: Large $25.00
Ugly Christmas Sweaters
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Welcome to Buy Ugly Sweaters! We have the largest selection of Ugly Christmas Sweaters on the internet. Our Ugly Sweater inventory is updated daily to make sure you have plenty of available options!
Jennifer in Virginia, writes:
"Hello Ugly Team!
I just wanted to thank you. I received the sweater today and it is the ugliest sweater I have EVER seen! Its perfect! I am sitting at my desk right now cracking up about this sweater. I cannot wait to give it to my friend for her birthday and the best part of that deal is she has to wear it!
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Unless otherwise stated; our sweaters are gently worn and processed to be suitable for wear upon reception....
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Also Featuring The Diana Ross Pre-alcoholism Ugly Sweater!!1!!!
Bonus: Vast Shoulder Ma-Pads!
FREE SHIPPING for the United States on all Ugly Sweaters!
Welcome to Buy Ugly Sweaters! We have the largest selection of Ugly Christmas Sweaters on the internet. Our Ugly Sweater inventory is updated daily to make sure you have plenty of available options!
Jennifer in Virginia, writes:
"Hello Ugly Team!
I just wanted to thank you. I received the sweater today and it is the ugliest sweater I have EVER seen! Its perfect! I am sitting at my desk right now cracking up about this sweater. I cannot wait to give it to my friend for her birthday and the best part of that deal is she has to wear it!
Thank you for the service you provide! You guys rock!"
Unless otherwise stated; our sweaters are gently worn and processed to be suitable for wear upon reception....
Yes!!!!1!!!eleven!!!!!
Also Featuring The Diana Ross Pre-alcoholism Ugly Sweater!!1!!!
Bonus: Vast Shoulder Ma-Pads!
Shocking Update 1 March 2010:
Yup. It's a hoax, allright.
Yup. It's a hoax, allright.
A Scotland Yard commander was accused of misleading parliament tonight after an inquiry found that undercover police were secretly deployed at the G20 protests to spy on activists, contrary to the police chief's denials.
Commander Bob Broadhurst, who had overall command of the G20 policing operation, told the home affairs select committee in May that "no plain clothes officers [were] deployed at all" during the demonstrations in the City of London.
It has emerged that 25 undercover City of London police were stationed around the Bank of England to gather "intelligence" on protesters on 1 and 2 April. Broadhurst stands by the evidence he gave to MPs, claiming the deployment of undercover officers was unknown to him.
The disclosure will add to pressure on the Metropolitan police, who will tomorrow be forced to react to the findings of a long-awaited government inquiry into the policing of protest. This inquiry, by Denis O'Connor, head of the government's policing inspectorate, was set up after criticism of the Met's handling of the protests, at which Ian Tomlinson, a newspaper seller, died after being attacked by police.
The inquiry's report is expected to call for a radical overhaul of public order policing, and to suggest that the heavy-handed way that forces handle protest threatens a broader breakdown in trust in the police. ...
Commander Bob Broadhurst, who had overall command of the G20 policing operation, told the home affairs select committee in May that "no plain clothes officers [were] deployed at all" during the demonstrations in the City of London.
It has emerged that 25 undercover City of London police were stationed around the Bank of England to gather "intelligence" on protesters on 1 and 2 April. Broadhurst stands by the evidence he gave to MPs, claiming the deployment of undercover officers was unknown to him.
The disclosure will add to pressure on the Metropolitan police, who will tomorrow be forced to react to the findings of a long-awaited government inquiry into the policing of protest. This inquiry, by Denis O'Connor, head of the government's policing inspectorate, was set up after criticism of the Met's handling of the protests, at which Ian Tomlinson, a newspaper seller, died after being attacked by police.
The inquiry's report is expected to call for a radical overhaul of public order policing, and to suggest that the heavy-handed way that forces handle protest threatens a broader breakdown in trust in the police. ...
Police officers are now routinely arresting people in order to add their DNA sample to the national police database, an inquiry will allege tomorrow.
The review of the national DNA database by the government's human genetics commission also raises the possibility that the DNA profiles of three-quarters of young black males, aged 18 to 35, are now on the database.
The human genetics commission report, Nothing to hide, nothing to fear?, says the national DNA database for England and Wales is already the largest in the world, at 5 million profiles and growing, yet has no clear statutory basis or independent oversight.
The highly critical report from the government's advisory body on the development of human genetics is published as the number of innocent people on the database is disclosed to be far higher than previously thought ‑ nearing 1 million.
The commission says the policy of routinely adding the DNA profiles of all those arrested has led to a highly disproportionate impact on different ethnic groups and the stigmatisation of young black men, with the danger of their being seen as "an 'alien wedge' of criminality". ...
Ta much, dear Glenn321
The review of the national DNA database by the government's human genetics commission also raises the possibility that the DNA profiles of three-quarters of young black males, aged 18 to 35, are now on the database.
The human genetics commission report, Nothing to hide, nothing to fear?, says the national DNA database for England and Wales is already the largest in the world, at 5 million profiles and growing, yet has no clear statutory basis or independent oversight.
The highly critical report from the government's advisory body on the development of human genetics is published as the number of innocent people on the database is disclosed to be far higher than previously thought ‑ nearing 1 million.
The commission says the policy of routinely adding the DNA profiles of all those arrested has led to a highly disproportionate impact on different ethnic groups and the stigmatisation of young black men, with the danger of their being seen as "an 'alien wedge' of criminality". ...
Ta much, dear Glenn321
Some of this is total crap, and most of the commenters need to change their meds.
Par example, every Friday our trash is collected unless holiday/s makes it a day or two later, which has always been the case.
We did have a female garbage truck driver for a while in the 80s (during coleman young's reign as mayor) who'd often pull into our alley, take a nap in her truck, and then drive away w/o ever collecting. When our dumpsters were full to all but overflowing and covered with flies and attracting rats she'd finally collect. She only lasted a few months, tho. Someone with real clout musta bitched about the bitch.
Par example, every Friday our trash is collected unless holiday/s makes it a day or two later, which has always been the case.
We did have a female garbage truck driver for a while in the 80s (during coleman young's reign as mayor) who'd often pull into our alley, take a nap in her truck, and then drive away w/o ever collecting. When our dumpsters were full to all but overflowing and covered with flies and attracting rats she'd finally collect. She only lasted a few months, tho. Someone with real clout musta bitched about the bitch.
... In the sixth in a string of damning rulings, the high court accused Miliband of wanting to suppress information about CIA activities even though details had already been disclosed by the Obama administration. Dismissing Miliband's claims, Lord Justice Thomas and Mr Justice Lloyd Jones insisted they were not trying to give away "American secrets". They said: "Of itself, the treatment to which Mr Mohamed was subjected could never properly be described in a democracy as 'a secret' or an 'intelligence secret' or 'a summary of classified intelligence'."
The judges revealed that seven paragraphs in a key document Miliband insists must remain secret "relate to admissions of what officials of the US did to BM during his detention in Pakistan". They repeated their earlier finding that "what is contained in those seven redacted paragraphs gives rise to an arguable case of torture or cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment".
The court has heard that a British security service officer interrogated Mohamed in Pakistan and officials passed information about him to the CIA. It was clear, the judges said, that the relationship of the UK to the US in connection with Mohamed "was far beyond that of a bystander or witness to the alleged wrongdoing".
In one stinging passage, the judges said yesterday the foreign secretary "was not prepared either to produce evidence or address argument to us".
Evidence that Miliband still wanted kept secret related to the question why "it was impossible to believe that President Obama would take action against the United Kingdom", and "why publication ... is necessary to uphold the rule of law and democratic accountability", the judges said.
They revealed that one passage the foreign secretary had now agreed could be disclosed referred to a memo from Jay Bybee, US assistant attorney general, to John Rizzo, acting CIA general counsel, which, the judges said, "made clear that the techniques described were those employed against Mr Zubaydah, alleged to be a high-ranking member of al Qaida." The judges said the remainder of the paragraph, which remains redacted from public versions of their rulings, was a "verbatim quote" from a memo made public in the US seven months ago. ...
The judges revealed that seven paragraphs in a key document Miliband insists must remain secret "relate to admissions of what officials of the US did to BM during his detention in Pakistan". They repeated their earlier finding that "what is contained in those seven redacted paragraphs gives rise to an arguable case of torture or cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment".
The court has heard that a British security service officer interrogated Mohamed in Pakistan and officials passed information about him to the CIA. It was clear, the judges said, that the relationship of the UK to the US in connection with Mohamed "was far beyond that of a bystander or witness to the alleged wrongdoing".
In one stinging passage, the judges said yesterday the foreign secretary "was not prepared either to produce evidence or address argument to us".
Evidence that Miliband still wanted kept secret related to the question why "it was impossible to believe that President Obama would take action against the United Kingdom", and "why publication ... is necessary to uphold the rule of law and democratic accountability", the judges said.
They revealed that one passage the foreign secretary had now agreed could be disclosed referred to a memo from Jay Bybee, US assistant attorney general, to John Rizzo, acting CIA general counsel, which, the judges said, "made clear that the techniques described were those employed against Mr Zubaydah, alleged to be a high-ranking member of al Qaida." The judges said the remainder of the paragraph, which remains redacted from public versions of their rulings, was a "verbatim quote" from a memo made public in the US seven months ago. ...
Doctors in Iraq's war-ravaged enclave of Falluja are dealing with up to 15 times as many chronic deformities in infants and a spike in early life cancers that may be linked to toxic materials left over from the fighting.
The extraordinary rise in birth defects has crystallised over recent months as specialists working in Falluja's over-stretched health system have started compiling detailed clinical records of all babies born.
Neurologists and obstetricians in the city interviewed by the Guardian say the rise in birth defects – which include a baby born with two heads, babies with multiple tumours, and others with nervous system problems - are unprecedented and at present unexplainable.
A group of Iraqi and British officials, including the former Iraqi minister for women's affairs, Dr Nawal Majeed a-Sammarai, and the British doctors David Halpin and Chris Burns-Cox, have petitioned the UN general assembly to ask that an independent committee fully investigate the defects and help clean up toxic materials left over decades of war – including the six years since Saddam Hussein was ousted.
"We are seeing a very significant increase in central nervous system anomalies," said Falluja general hospital's director and senior specialist, Dr Ayman Qais. "Before 2003 [the start of the war] I was seeing sporadic numbers of deformities in babies. Now the frequency of deformities has increased dramatically." ...
Can you say, "Depleted uranium"?
I knew you could.
The extraordinary rise in birth defects has crystallised over recent months as specialists working in Falluja's over-stretched health system have started compiling detailed clinical records of all babies born.
Neurologists and obstetricians in the city interviewed by the Guardian say the rise in birth defects – which include a baby born with two heads, babies with multiple tumours, and others with nervous system problems - are unprecedented and at present unexplainable.
A group of Iraqi and British officials, including the former Iraqi minister for women's affairs, Dr Nawal Majeed a-Sammarai, and the British doctors David Halpin and Chris Burns-Cox, have petitioned the UN general assembly to ask that an independent committee fully investigate the defects and help clean up toxic materials left over decades of war – including the six years since Saddam Hussein was ousted.
"We are seeing a very significant increase in central nervous system anomalies," said Falluja general hospital's director and senior specialist, Dr Ayman Qais. "Before 2003 [the start of the war] I was seeing sporadic numbers of deformities in babies. Now the frequency of deformities has increased dramatically." ...
Can you say, "Depleted uranium"?
I knew you could.
Rodney Bradford was held by police for 13 days, accused of breaking into a Brooklyn residence, but was able to corroborate his alibi thanks a posting to his Facebook page that showed what he was doing at the time of the crime.
Mr Bradford's comment, teasing his girlfriend about not having joined him to eat pancakes and accompanied by a time-stamp, "was probably instrumental in the district attorney's decision to drop the charges," his lawyer Robert Reuland said.
Mr Bradford was accused of breaking into a sprawling 1,390-apartment complex in Brooklyn, New York with a gun, when in fact he was eight miles away at his father's Manhattan home.
Jonah Bruno, a spokesman for the Kings County District Attorney's office confirmed "the case was dismissed".
If charged and convicted, Mr Bradford could have spent 25 years behind bars. ...
Mr Bradford's comment, teasing his girlfriend about not having joined him to eat pancakes and accompanied by a time-stamp, "was probably instrumental in the district attorney's decision to drop the charges," his lawyer Robert Reuland said.
Mr Bradford was accused of breaking into a sprawling 1,390-apartment complex in Brooklyn, New York with a gun, when in fact he was eight miles away at his father's Manhattan home.
Jonah Bruno, a spokesman for the Kings County District Attorney's office confirmed "the case was dismissed".
If charged and convicted, Mr Bradford could have spent 25 years behind bars. ...
... Checks via Facebook and presumably ISPs confirmed that Bradford's status was updated from the Harlem house at the time when the robbery took place. Rodney Bradford Sr, and his stepmother, Ernestine Bradford, backed up the story and the charges were dropped.
His defence lawyer, Robert Reuland, admitted that it might be possible for anyone who knew Bradford Junior’s username and password to have made the update, while dismissing the scenario as highly unlikely.
"This implies a level of criminal genius that you would not expect from a young boy like this. He is not Dr. Evil," Reuland told The New York Times, adding that the Facebook update was simply the "icing on the cake", since the accused already had witnesses to provide an alibi.
Previously activity on social networking websites has largely cropped up as prosecution evidence. For example, a burglar logged onto Facebook during the ransacking of a Pennsylvania home back in September using and forgot to log off when he made his escape. The resulting digital trail of evidence help to build a case against a local 19 year-old, who was later arrested on suspicion of burglary.
His defence lawyer, Robert Reuland, admitted that it might be possible for anyone who knew Bradford Junior’s username and password to have made the update, while dismissing the scenario as highly unlikely.
"This implies a level of criminal genius that you would not expect from a young boy like this. He is not Dr. Evil," Reuland told The New York Times, adding that the Facebook update was simply the "icing on the cake", since the accused already had witnesses to provide an alibi.
Previously activity on social networking websites has largely cropped up as prosecution evidence. For example, a burglar logged onto Facebook during the ransacking of a Pennsylvania home back in September using and forgot to log off when he made his escape. The resulting digital trail of evidence help to build a case against a local 19 year-old, who was later arrested on suspicion of burglary.
Iraq launches tourism drive
Security a 'minor problem', assures tourist chief
By Lester Haines
Posted in Bootnotes, 10th November 2009 12:18 GMT
Iraq is attempting what must rate as the biggest PR challenge since Nicolas Sarkozy ordered French media to convince the world he's actually six inches taller - that of enticing western tourists to sample the delights of the sun-kissed land astride the Tigris.
This unenviable task has fallen to Hammoud al-Yaqoubi, chairman of Iraq’s tourism board, who described security as a "minor problem" and insisted to the Times that a group of intrepid Russians recently enjoyed a ten-day trip "in which none suffered injury".
He enthused: “We have the infrastructure for tourism in Iraq. We are optimistic about turning the tourism industry into a success.” ...
The adventurous tourist should try Detroit instead. Save some $$$.
Security a 'minor problem', assures tourist chief
By Lester Haines
Posted in Bootnotes, 10th November 2009 12:18 GMT
Iraq is attempting what must rate as the biggest PR challenge since Nicolas Sarkozy ordered French media to convince the world he's actually six inches taller - that of enticing western tourists to sample the delights of the sun-kissed land astride the Tigris.
This unenviable task has fallen to Hammoud al-Yaqoubi, chairman of Iraq’s tourism board, who described security as a "minor problem" and insisted to the Times that a group of intrepid Russians recently enjoyed a ten-day trip "in which none suffered injury".
He enthused: “We have the infrastructure for tourism in Iraq. We are optimistic about turning the tourism industry into a success.” ...
The adventurous tourist should try Detroit instead. Save some $$$.
Council sets up scrutiny panel - to scrutinise its scrutiny panels
With public money at stake, councils are expected to subject all their decisions to a rigerous review process.
By Nick Britten
Published: 1:19PM GMT 11 Nov 2009
However, one has been accused of taking the practice to absurd lengths after establishing a scrutiny panel to scrutinise the actions of its scrutiny panels.
Wealden District Council said a working party was set up in July to oversee the actions of its three existing scrutiny panels and to “scrutinise the Council’s scrutiny arrangements”.
A council spokesman said the group was established with a clear objective to "improve services" and save money, and contained members of the existing scrutiny committees. It will report to the council with its findings next May. ...
With public money at stake, councils are expected to subject all their decisions to a rigerous review process.
By Nick Britten
Published: 1:19PM GMT 11 Nov 2009
However, one has been accused of taking the practice to absurd lengths after establishing a scrutiny panel to scrutinise the actions of its scrutiny panels.
Wealden District Council said a working party was set up in July to oversee the actions of its three existing scrutiny panels and to “scrutinise the Council’s scrutiny arrangements”.
A council spokesman said the group was established with a clear objective to "improve services" and save money, and contained members of the existing scrutiny committees. It will report to the council with its findings next May. ...
Barack Obama today joined calls from across America for calm amid fears of a backlash in the wake of the shooting spree by a Muslim soldier at the Fort Hood that left 13 dead and 28 wounded.
Obama, speaking in the White House Rose Garden after being briefed by the FBI, sought to dampen tensions, as did politicians from both the Democratic and Republican parties, the military, Muslim associations and the family of the alleged shooter, Major Nadil Malik Hasan.
"I would caution against jumping to conclusions until we get all the facts," Obama said....
Obama, speaking in the White House Rose Garden after being briefed by the FBI, sought to dampen tensions, as did politicians from both the Democratic and Republican parties, the military, Muslim associations and the family of the alleged shooter, Major Nadil Malik Hasan.
"I would caution against jumping to conclusions until we get all the facts," Obama said....
Scotland Yard faced calls for an "ethical audit" of all officers in its controversial riot squad tonight after figures revealed that they had received more than 5,000 complaint allegations, mostly for "oppressive behaviour".
Details of all allegations lodged against the Metropolitan police territorial support group (TSG) over the last four years reveal that only nine – less than 0.18% – were "substantiated" after an investigation by the force's complaints department.
The figures, released under the Freedom of Information Act, were described as evidence of a "culture of impunity" that makes it almost impossible for members of the public to lodge successful complaints against the Met's 730 TSG officers.
The TSG is a specialist squad that responds to outbreaks of disorder anywhere in the capital. It is under investigation for the most high-profile cases of alleged brutality at the G20 protests, including the death of Ian Tomlinson.
The unit came under renewed criticism this week after one of its officers was identified as a member of a team implicated in a "serious, gratuitous and prolonged" attack on a Muslim man. ...
Details of all allegations lodged against the Metropolitan police territorial support group (TSG) over the last four years reveal that only nine – less than 0.18% – were "substantiated" after an investigation by the force's complaints department.
The figures, released under the Freedom of Information Act, were described as evidence of a "culture of impunity" that makes it almost impossible for members of the public to lodge successful complaints against the Met's 730 TSG officers.
The TSG is a specialist squad that responds to outbreaks of disorder anywhere in the capital. It is under investigation for the most high-profile cases of alleged brutality at the G20 protests, including the death of Ian Tomlinson.
The unit came under renewed criticism this week after one of its officers was identified as a member of a team implicated in a "serious, gratuitous and prolonged" attack on a Muslim man. ...
The local mcdonald's should be getting some new applicants soon - from the soon-to-be former staff members (and I use the term advisedly) of the Sun City West retirement community, and several soon-to-be-ex-ahem-members of the 'police' department.
Ta much, dear Anneliese
Ta much, dear Anneliese
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Intel Corp was sued by New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo, who accused the world's largest chipmaker of threatening computer makers and paying billions of dollars in kickbacks to maintain its market dominance.
The lawsuit accuses Intel of violating state and federal antitrust law through a "systematic worldwide campaign" of bullying and coercion to monopolize the market for personal computer chips, at the expense of rival Advanced Micro Devices Inc.
Intel's microprocessors power more than 80 percent of the world's PCs. Wednesday's lawsuit comes on the heels of several antitrust probes throughout the world into the Santa Clara, California-based company's business practices. ...
The lawsuit accuses Intel of violating state and federal antitrust law through a "systematic worldwide campaign" of bullying and coercion to monopolize the market for personal computer chips, at the expense of rival Advanced Micro Devices Inc.
Intel's microprocessors power more than 80 percent of the world's PCs. Wednesday's lawsuit comes on the heels of several antitrust probes throughout the world into the Santa Clara, California-based company's business practices. ...
A pot of £30m compensation due to be paid to thousands of African victims of toxic waste may end up being stolen thanks to the Ivory Coast regime's corruption, their lawyers said today.
The money was handed over by oil traders Trafigura in an out-of-court settlement in London and deposited in a bank in the west African state's capital, Abidjan, ready to be shared out in cash to each of the 30,000 victims. But the entire sum has been frozen in a sudden move backed by the local state prosecutor, according to Martyn Day, the senior partner at Leigh Day, the London lawyers who won the landmark settlement.
Moves are now in train, he said, to order all the cash to be handed over to a local group claiming to represent the victims. At the same time, Day has received a request to meet representatives of a senior Ivorian figure in Paris, to agree to come to an "arrangement".
"Blatant corruption" could be occurring, Day, who has flown back to London from Ivory Coast, said today. "There is a very serious risk that the compensation monies will simply disappear and our clients will see none of it." ...
The money was handed over by oil traders Trafigura in an out-of-court settlement in London and deposited in a bank in the west African state's capital, Abidjan, ready to be shared out in cash to each of the 30,000 victims. But the entire sum has been frozen in a sudden move backed by the local state prosecutor, according to Martyn Day, the senior partner at Leigh Day, the London lawyers who won the landmark settlement.
Moves are now in train, he said, to order all the cash to be handed over to a local group claiming to represent the victims. At the same time, Day has received a request to meet representatives of a senior Ivorian figure in Paris, to agree to come to an "arrangement".
"Blatant corruption" could be occurring, Day, who has flown back to London from Ivory Coast, said today. "There is a very serious risk that the compensation monies will simply disappear and our clients will see none of it." ...
State attorney nabbed in car with stripper, Viagra and sex toys
South Carolina cemetery tryst ends in sack*
By Lester Haines
Posted in Bootnotes, 30th October 2009 11:12 GMT
A South Carolina deputy assistant attorney general who claimed he was on his lunch break, but was actually entertaining a stripper in his SUV, has been given his marching orders.
Former state legislator Roland Corning, 66, was spotted on Monday by a police officer in "a secluded part" of a Columbia cemetery last Monday. According to officer Michael Wines' report, Corning first "sped off, then pulled over a few blocks away".
He and his 18-year-old companion - an employee of the Platinum Plus Gentleman's Club - gave "conflicting stories about what they were doing in the cemetery", although Wines "did not elaborate" as to what these might be.
Corning then flashed a badge proving his Attorney General's Office credentials. By chance, Wines' missus also worked there, so he gave her call to check. He then searched the vehicle and found "a Viagra pill and several sex toys". Corning said he had them with him "just in case". ...
*Yes, the wrong kind of sack, in this case.
South Carolina cemetery tryst ends in sack*
By Lester Haines
Posted in Bootnotes, 30th October 2009 11:12 GMT
A South Carolina deputy assistant attorney general who claimed he was on his lunch break, but was actually entertaining a stripper in his SUV, has been given his marching orders.
Former state legislator Roland Corning, 66, was spotted on Monday by a police officer in "a secluded part" of a Columbia cemetery last Monday. According to officer Michael Wines' report, Corning first "sped off, then pulled over a few blocks away".
He and his 18-year-old companion - an employee of the Platinum Plus Gentleman's Club - gave "conflicting stories about what they were doing in the cemetery", although Wines "did not elaborate" as to what these might be.
Corning then flashed a badge proving his Attorney General's Office credentials. By chance, Wines' missus also worked there, so he gave her call to check. He then searched the vehicle and found "a Viagra pill and several sex toys". Corning said he had them with him "just in case". ...
*Yes, the wrong kind of sack, in this case.
Dear Ar0cketman sent this bit of microcar high weirdness.
Well done, ebay.
... The phone taps record Mr Karadzic saying: "They have to know that there are 20,000 armed Serbs around Sarajevo.... it will be a black cauldron where 300,000 Muslims will die. They will disappear. That people will disappear from the face of the earth."
Mr Tieger said that Mr Karadzic showed nothing but contempt for the views of the international community for the Bosnian Serb programme of ethnic cleansing - the euphemism invented during the conflict to sanitise the killing of thousands of Muslims.
"As he said in October 1991 in anticipation of what he had planned: 'Europe will be told to go f*** itself, and not to come back until the job is finished'."
Mr Tieger concluded: "This case is about that Supreme Commander, a man who harnessed the forces of nationalism, hatred and fear to implement his vision of an ethnic Bosnia. That Supreme Commander was Radovan Karadzic."
The International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia decided to push ahead with proceedings today, even though Mr Karadzic refused to attend for a second day.
Judge O-Gon Kwon, the chief judge, issued a second warning that Mr Karadzic would have a legal representative imposed upon him if he continued to remain in his cell, and ruled that the prosecution could begin to outline the case against him.
Mr Tieger said that Mr Karadzic showed nothing but contempt for the views of the international community for the Bosnian Serb programme of ethnic cleansing - the euphemism invented during the conflict to sanitise the killing of thousands of Muslims.
"As he said in October 1991 in anticipation of what he had planned: 'Europe will be told to go f*** itself, and not to come back until the job is finished'."
Mr Tieger concluded: "This case is about that Supreme Commander, a man who harnessed the forces of nationalism, hatred and fear to implement his vision of an ethnic Bosnia. That Supreme Commander was Radovan Karadzic."
The International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia decided to push ahead with proceedings today, even though Mr Karadzic refused to attend for a second day.
Judge O-Gon Kwon, the chief judge, issued a second warning that Mr Karadzic would have a legal representative imposed upon him if he continued to remain in his cell, and ruled that the prosecution could begin to outline the case against him.
T'row da bum out, I tells ya!
Well done, texass.
Retired bank manager sets record for most body piercings
A former Barclays Bank manager has made the record books for having more piercings than anyone else in the world.
25 Oct 2009
John Lynch has clinched the title with 241 piercings all over his body, including 150 on his head and neck.
The 78 year-old from Apsely, Hertfordshire, gave up flying years ago because his vast array of body art kept setting off security scanners at airports.
And the eccentric pensioner also has hundreds of tattoos on his body including his favourite, a huge portrait of film star Marilyn Monroe which takes up most of his torso.
Mr Lynch, who worked for Barclays Bank for 30 years, had to show all his adornments to an official from the Guinness Book of Records who had to count and verify the number of piercings all over his body.
He got his first piercing on his eyebrow when he decided he had enough of working in the bank in his 40's and also got himself his first tattoo an eagle on his right arm.
But since then Mr Lynch, who looks fearsome, has become a well-known character in the area. ...
OK, now that a 78-y-o holds the record for the most goddam body piercings, maybe you stupid kids will give it up.
A former Barclays Bank manager has made the record books for having more piercings than anyone else in the world.
25 Oct 2009
John Lynch has clinched the title with 241 piercings all over his body, including 150 on his head and neck.
The 78 year-old from Apsely, Hertfordshire, gave up flying years ago because his vast array of body art kept setting off security scanners at airports.
And the eccentric pensioner also has hundreds of tattoos on his body including his favourite, a huge portrait of film star Marilyn Monroe which takes up most of his torso.
Mr Lynch, who worked for Barclays Bank for 30 years, had to show all his adornments to an official from the Guinness Book of Records who had to count and verify the number of piercings all over his body.
He got his first piercing on his eyebrow when he decided he had enough of working in the bank in his 40's and also got himself his first tattoo an eagle on his right arm.
But since then Mr Lynch, who looks fearsome, has become a well-known character in the area. ...
OK, now that a 78-y-o holds the record for the most goddam body piercings, maybe you stupid kids will give it up.
Scotland Yard's most senior officer in charge of policing protests saidtoday that he would support a government inspectorate which has proposed a radical overhaul of public order policing.
Assistant commissioner Chris Allison said police would in the future be "far more explicit" about their commitment to facilitating peaceful protest, the main proposal made in an inquiry headed by Denis O'Connor, the chief inspector of the constabulary.
O'Connor's inquiry was launched in the aftermath of the Metropolitan police's controversial handling of the G20 protests, which saw several thousand protesters contained by officers in so-called "kettles" near the Bank of England. A newspaper-vendor, Ian Tomlinson, died after being pushed by a member of the Met's territorial support group.
The full report by Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Constabulary (HMIC), outlining major reform for policing protests, will be published next month. However, the Guardian understands the Met hired lawyers to object to a central recommendation made in its interim findings.
HMIC sources said the Met instigated a "huge battle" with inspectors, who were attempting to bring the force's approach in line with human rights obligations to facilitate peaceful assembly. The HMIC was forced to pay for its own senior barrister, whose legal advice found in their favour.
A Home Office source said the Met was still resistant to change, and "the battle is far from won" over the right approach to demonstrations....
Assistant commissioner Chris Allison said police would in the future be "far more explicit" about their commitment to facilitating peaceful protest, the main proposal made in an inquiry headed by Denis O'Connor, the chief inspector of the constabulary.
O'Connor's inquiry was launched in the aftermath of the Metropolitan police's controversial handling of the G20 protests, which saw several thousand protesters contained by officers in so-called "kettles" near the Bank of England. A newspaper-vendor, Ian Tomlinson, died after being pushed by a member of the Met's territorial support group.
The full report by Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Constabulary (HMIC), outlining major reform for policing protests, will be published next month. However, the Guardian understands the Met hired lawyers to object to a central recommendation made in its interim findings.
HMIC sources said the Met instigated a "huge battle" with inspectors, who were attempting to bring the force's approach in line with human rights obligations to facilitate peaceful assembly. The HMIC was forced to pay for its own senior barrister, whose legal advice found in their favour.
A Home Office source said the Met was still resistant to change, and "the battle is far from won" over the right approach to demonstrations....
Police were in no mood for a "softly-softly" approach when climate change campaigners began their demonstration outside Kingsnorth power station in Kent last year. Their response was harsh and expensive – and has been roundly criticised. The £5m operation involved putting demonstrators, including children, through a total of 8,000 searches at airport-style checkpoints.
Loud music was blasted out to spoil protesters' sleep during the week-long camp, and more than 2,000 possessions were confiscated, including party poppers, a clown costume and camping equipment. Protesters were aghast; they were staging a piece of political theatre to publicise the dangers of global warming. The police looked on them, it seems, as a far graver threat, bent on putting out the nation's lights.
Without perhaps many of the activists realising it, their demonstration was colliding with an established official mindset focused on potential terrorists or saboteurs. It is a culture that conforms with a change in the way political activists have become viewed by the UK authorities. ...
Loud music was blasted out to spoil protesters' sleep during the week-long camp, and more than 2,000 possessions were confiscated, including party poppers, a clown costume and camping equipment. Protesters were aghast; they were staging a piece of political theatre to publicise the dangers of global warming. The police looked on them, it seems, as a far graver threat, bent on putting out the nation's lights.
Without perhaps many of the activists realising it, their demonstration was colliding with an established official mindset focused on potential terrorists or saboteurs. It is a culture that conforms with a change in the way political activists have become viewed by the UK authorities. ...
Chief constables will be forced to justify the legality of recording thousands of law-abiding protesters on secret nationwide databases, the government's privacy watchdog announced today.
Christopher Graham, the information commissioner, said he had "genuine concerns about the ever increasing amount" of personal data held by police.
Graham's move came after the Guardian revealed how police have developed a covert apparatus to monitor people they consider are, or could be, "domestic extremists", a term which has no legal basis.
Photographs and personal details of thousands of activists who attend demonstrations, rallies and political meetings are being stored on the databases. Surveillance officers are given so-called "spotter cards" to identify individuals who may "instigate offences or disorder" at demonstrations. ...
Christopher Graham, the information commissioner, said he had "genuine concerns about the ever increasing amount" of personal data held by police.
Graham's move came after the Guardian revealed how police have developed a covert apparatus to monitor people they consider are, or could be, "domestic extremists", a term which has no legal basis.
Photographs and personal details of thousands of activists who attend demonstrations, rallies and political meetings are being stored on the databases. Surveillance officers are given so-called "spotter cards" to identify individuals who may "instigate offences or disorder" at demonstrations. ...
Britain's retail banks should be banned from paying out "significant" cash bonuses as part of a drive to plough profits back into new lending, the shadow chancellor, George Osborne, will declare tomorrow.
In the strongest attack by the Tories on banks, Osborne will say that bonuses should be paid in shares, which cannot be cashed in for at least three years, as he warns that billions of pounds in "subsidised profits" are threatening to worsen the credit crunch.
In a speech to Thomson Reuters in Canary Wharf, east London, Osborne will tell financiers: "We cannot wait for the promised land of a new responsible bonus culture which looks more remote than ever. We need to take emergency steps to support bank lending and move the economy forward.
"I am today calling on the Treasury and the Financial Services Authority to combine forces and stop retail banks paying out profits in significant cash bonuses. Full stop. Then the cash that would have been paid out should be put on to banks' balance sheets explicitly to support new lending. This should be a condition of continuing to receive taxpayer guarantees and liquidity support." ...
In the strongest attack by the Tories on banks, Osborne will say that bonuses should be paid in shares, which cannot be cashed in for at least three years, as he warns that billions of pounds in "subsidised profits" are threatening to worsen the credit crunch.
In a speech to Thomson Reuters in Canary Wharf, east London, Osborne will tell financiers: "We cannot wait for the promised land of a new responsible bonus culture which looks more remote than ever. We need to take emergency steps to support bank lending and move the economy forward.
"I am today calling on the Treasury and the Financial Services Authority to combine forces and stop retail banks paying out profits in significant cash bonuses. Full stop. Then the cash that would have been paid out should be put on to banks' balance sheets explicitly to support new lending. This should be a condition of continuing to receive taxpayer guarantees and liquidity support." ...
premarin has been proven less effective than other treatments, but horses still suffer and die.
Ta much, dear Anneliese
Ta much, dear Anneliese
Go Ian! Go Ian! Go Ian! Go Ian!
Rep. Buyer's scholarship fund hasn't helped a single student
Steve Buyer defends his scholarship foundation, which has yet to help a single student.
By Mary Beth Schneiderand Maureen Groppe
Posted: October 18, 2009
The biggest accomplishment so far of U.S. Rep. Steve Buyer's scholarship foundation has been to send the Indiana congressman to play golf with donors at luxury locales such as the Bahamas and Disney World.
The fundraising golf outings have raised more than $880,000 for the Frontier Foundation that Buyer founded in 2003. Almost all the contributions are from 20 companies and trade organizations that have interests before the House Energy and Commerce Committee on which Buyer serves.
Advertisement
The foundation has yet to award its first scholarship, and it has handed out only $10,500 in charitable grants.
Of those grants, $4,500 went to a cancer fund run by the chief Washington lobbyist for Eli Lilly and Co. That lobbyist, Joe Kelley, said he is refunding the money because Lilly is among the groups that have supported Buyer's foundation.
In addition, the foundation gave $1,450 in 2008 to the National Rifle Association Foundation.
The lack of scholarships, plus the fact that the foundation's money is coming from groups that might want to curry favor with the congressman, has come under fire by Democrats.
Indiana Democratic Party Chairman Dan Parker...said...."No good deed goes unpunished? Where's the good deed, if they haven't given out any scholarships?" he said. "It looks like this organization is a shadow campaign organization that's utilized to fly him around the country raising money from corporations that he can't legally raise (contributions from) to his campaign committee." ...
Ta much, dear Anneliese
Steve Buyer defends his scholarship foundation, which has yet to help a single student.
By Mary Beth Schneiderand Maureen Groppe
Posted: October 18, 2009
The biggest accomplishment so far of U.S. Rep. Steve Buyer's scholarship foundation has been to send the Indiana congressman to play golf with donors at luxury locales such as the Bahamas and Disney World.
The fundraising golf outings have raised more than $880,000 for the Frontier Foundation that Buyer founded in 2003. Almost all the contributions are from 20 companies and trade organizations that have interests before the House Energy and Commerce Committee on which Buyer serves.
Advertisement
The foundation has yet to award its first scholarship, and it has handed out only $10,500 in charitable grants.
Of those grants, $4,500 went to a cancer fund run by the chief Washington lobbyist for Eli Lilly and Co. That lobbyist, Joe Kelley, said he is refunding the money because Lilly is among the groups that have supported Buyer's foundation.
In addition, the foundation gave $1,450 in 2008 to the National Rifle Association Foundation.
The lack of scholarships, plus the fact that the foundation's money is coming from groups that might want to curry favor with the congressman, has come under fire by Democrats.
Indiana Democratic Party Chairman Dan Parker...said...."No good deed goes unpunished? Where's the good deed, if they haven't given out any scholarships?" he said. "It looks like this organization is a shadow campaign organization that's utilized to fly him around the country raising money from corporations that he can't legally raise (contributions from) to his campaign committee." ...
Ta much, dear Anneliese
Girl found in NY doesn't know who she is - 10/23/09 - New York News and Tri-State News - 7online.com
Dear Anneliese sent this, and like her I wish this girl well.
Zurich Insurance, the UK arm of the Swiss insurer, admitted yesterday that it had lost a tape containing the confidential personal details of 51,000 of its British customers.
Zurich, which apologised for the mishap, revealed that the tape had been lost more than a year ago while it was in transit in South Africa and is still missing.
The company said that a recent routine check had revealed that the tape was not in a storage centre where it should be kept and its whereabouts remain unknown.
Annette Court, chief executive of general insurance for Europe at Zurich Financial Services, said that regulators, including the Financial Services Authority (FSA), had been told.
She said that the tape, which was being taken from a Zurich office to a secure storage centre, also contained policy details of all its 550,000 customers in South Africa and 40,000 in Botswana. She said that Zurich had called in consultants at KPMG to investigate. ...
Zurich, which apologised for the mishap, revealed that the tape had been lost more than a year ago while it was in transit in South Africa and is still missing.
The company said that a recent routine check had revealed that the tape was not in a storage centre where it should be kept and its whereabouts remain unknown.
Annette Court, chief executive of general insurance for Europe at Zurich Financial Services, said that regulators, including the Financial Services Authority (FSA), had been told.
She said that the tape, which was being taken from a Zurich office to a secure storage centre, also contained policy details of all its 550,000 customers in South Africa and 40,000 in Botswana. She said that Zurich had called in consultants at KPMG to investigate. ...
Assaults and drunken attacks on the street have been ignored by the police rather than recorded and investigated as violent crime, an inspection report disclosed today.
One in three decisions to record a violent incident that has occurred as a “no crime” was wrong, the police inspectorate said.
If the findings, based on a small sample, are repeated across all forces in England and Wales an estimated 5,000 violent offences a year are not being treated as a crime by officers.
Today’s report will raise concerns that officers are dismissing violent offences in order to make their forces’ figures look better. ...
Ya think?
One in three decisions to record a violent incident that has occurred as a “no crime” was wrong, the police inspectorate said.
If the findings, based on a small sample, are repeated across all forces in England and Wales an estimated 5,000 violent offences a year are not being treated as a crime by officers.
Today’s report will raise concerns that officers are dismissing violent offences in order to make their forces’ figures look better. ...
Ya think?
Alistair Darling has openly criticised Goldman Sachs over its plan to pay huge staff bonuses so soon after the financial crisis nearly crushed the banking sector.
Speaking at an event in London this lunchtime, the chancellor cited the Wall Street giant as an example of a bank that "manifestly" failed to appreciate how the City landscape had changed.
"What happened with Goldman Sachs last week sends the wrong signals," said Darling, who was attending an event at Canary Wharf. "I've spoken to all our banks and none of them would be standing here today if the taxpayer hadn't put their hand into their pocket."
Goldman Sachs itself does not appear to share Darling's concerns. Last night, Lord Griffiths, vice-chairman of Goldman Sachs International, claimed that huge salaries were a price worth paying.
"I believe that we should be thinking about the medium-term common good, not the short-term common good ... we should not, therefore, be ashamed of offering compensation in an internationally competitive market which ensures the bank businesses here and employs British people," said Griffiths. ...
I think you should fuck off, mr griffiths. I don't think any boss anywhere deserves pay that's more than 100 times what the lowest paid employees receive. I very much like the Japanese idea of bosses' getting no more than up to ten times what the lowest paid employees get.
Speaking at an event in London this lunchtime, the chancellor cited the Wall Street giant as an example of a bank that "manifestly" failed to appreciate how the City landscape had changed.
"What happened with Goldman Sachs last week sends the wrong signals," said Darling, who was attending an event at Canary Wharf. "I've spoken to all our banks and none of them would be standing here today if the taxpayer hadn't put their hand into their pocket."
Goldman Sachs itself does not appear to share Darling's concerns. Last night, Lord Griffiths, vice-chairman of Goldman Sachs International, claimed that huge salaries were a price worth paying.
"I believe that we should be thinking about the medium-term common good, not the short-term common good ... we should not, therefore, be ashamed of offering compensation in an internationally competitive market which ensures the bank businesses here and employs British people," said Griffiths. ...
I think you should fuck off, mr griffiths. I don't think any boss anywhere deserves pay that's more than 100 times what the lowest paid employees receive. I very much like the Japanese idea of bosses' getting no more than up to ten times what the lowest paid employees get.
Balloon boy's father 'wanted TV fame before world ends in 2012'
Richard Heene, the man suspected of the alleged "balloon boy" hoax, was driven by a conviction that the world will come to a cataclysmic end in 2012, according to a friend.
By Nick Allen in Los Angeles
20 Oct 2009
Robert Thomas, who claims to have been a confidante and researcher for Mr Heene, has been interviewed by police.
Mr Thomas's lawyer, Linda Lee, claimed: "Heene believes the world is going to end in 2012. Because of that he wanted to make money quickly, become rich enough to build a bunker or something underground, where he can be safe from the sun exploding."
It was the latest disclosure about Mr Heene's bizarre world view, which also allegedly includes a belief in aliens and UFOs.
The suggestion that the world will come to an end in 2012 is based on an interpretation of the ancient Mayan calendar.
It is also the subject of a soon to be released Hollywood blockbuster called "2012".
However, scientists and Mayans themselves have debunked the theory. ...
Great. Not only is it a prick and a liar, it's also a bleeding ignorant looney.
A hoaxer who's bought into a hoax = Priceless.
I'm sorry, but, uh, how in fuck will a bunker protect you from an exploding Sun?
Mayhap he's got one of those ahem Looney Tunes cartoon images stuck in his head: Bugs Bunny & co hanging onto what remains of the Moon after the vast explosion caused by Marvin the Martian.
Idiot.
Richard Heene, the man suspected of the alleged "balloon boy" hoax, was driven by a conviction that the world will come to a cataclysmic end in 2012, according to a friend.
By Nick Allen in Los Angeles
20 Oct 2009
Robert Thomas, who claims to have been a confidante and researcher for Mr Heene, has been interviewed by police.
Mr Thomas's lawyer, Linda Lee, claimed: "Heene believes the world is going to end in 2012. Because of that he wanted to make money quickly, become rich enough to build a bunker or something underground, where he can be safe from the sun exploding."
It was the latest disclosure about Mr Heene's bizarre world view, which also allegedly includes a belief in aliens and UFOs.
The suggestion that the world will come to an end in 2012 is based on an interpretation of the ancient Mayan calendar.
It is also the subject of a soon to be released Hollywood blockbuster called "2012".
However, scientists and Mayans themselves have debunked the theory. ...
Great. Not only is it a prick and a liar, it's also a bleeding ignorant looney.
A hoaxer who's bought into a hoax = Priceless.
I'm sorry, but, uh, how in fuck will a bunker protect you from an exploding Sun?
Mayhap he's got one of those ahem Looney Tunes cartoon images stuck in his head: Bugs Bunny & co hanging onto what remains of the Moon after the vast explosion caused by Marvin the Martian.
Idiot.
Lizards and tortoises hampering California's solar energy efforts
Attempts to build solar energy plants in California are being threatened by efforts to protect rare species including desert tortoises, flat-tailed horned lizards and bighorn sheep.
By Nick Allen in Los Angeles
Published: 9:41PM BST 20 Oct 2009
Um, maybe if you try building them in empty lots in cities instead of in wilderness.....???
Just a thought................
Attempts to build solar energy plants in California are being threatened by efforts to protect rare species including desert tortoises, flat-tailed horned lizards and bighorn sheep.
By Nick Allen in Los Angeles
Published: 9:41PM BST 20 Oct 2009
Um, maybe if you try building them in empty lots in cities instead of in wilderness.....???
Just a thought................
The nuclear industry funds the special armed police force which guards its installations across the UK, and secret documents, seen by the Guardian, show the 750-strong force is authorised to carry out covert intelligence operations against anti-nuclear protesters, one of its main targets.
The nuclear industry will pay £57m this year to finance the Civil Nuclear Constabulary (CNC). The funding comes from the companies which run 17 nuclear plants, including Dounreay in Caithness, Sellafield in Cumbria and Dungeness in Kent.
Around a third is paid by the private consortium managing Sellafield, which is largely owned by American and French firms. Nearly a fifth of the funding is provided by British Energy, the privatised company owned by French firm EDF.
Private correspondence shows that in June, the EDF's head of security complained that the force had overspent its budget "without timely and satisfactory explanations to us". The industry acknowledges it is in regular contact with the CNC and the security services.
Most of the nuclear force's officers are armed with high-powered guns and Tasers. The CNC has spent £1.4m on weapons and ammunition in the past three years.
They patrol outside nuclear plants, with their jurisdiction stretching to three miles beyond the perimeter of the installations. They have the same powers as any other British police officer and can, for instance, arrest and stop and search people.
The body that regulates the CNC is also funded by the nuclear industry. Four of the eight members of the Civil Nuclear Police Authority are nominated by the nuclear industry as its representatives. Those four are employed in the industry. The others – mainly former police officers – are deemed to be independent. ...
The nuclear industry will pay £57m this year to finance the Civil Nuclear Constabulary (CNC). The funding comes from the companies which run 17 nuclear plants, including Dounreay in Caithness, Sellafield in Cumbria and Dungeness in Kent.
Around a third is paid by the private consortium managing Sellafield, which is largely owned by American and French firms. Nearly a fifth of the funding is provided by British Energy, the privatised company owned by French firm EDF.
Private correspondence shows that in June, the EDF's head of security complained that the force had overspent its budget "without timely and satisfactory explanations to us". The industry acknowledges it is in regular contact with the CNC and the security services.
Most of the nuclear force's officers are armed with high-powered guns and Tasers. The CNC has spent £1.4m on weapons and ammunition in the past three years.
They patrol outside nuclear plants, with their jurisdiction stretching to three miles beyond the perimeter of the installations. They have the same powers as any other British police officer and can, for instance, arrest and stop and search people.
The body that regulates the CNC is also funded by the nuclear industry. Four of the eight members of the Civil Nuclear Police Authority are nominated by the nuclear industry as its representatives. Those four are employed in the industry. The others – mainly former police officers – are deemed to be independent. ...
NEW ORLEANS, Louisiana (CNN) -- Two newlyweds are fighting for the dismissal of the justice of the peace who refused them a marriage license because they are of different races. ...
Um, what century is this again?
Um, what century is this again?
Civil liberty campaigners claimed a victory today after the government announced it is dropping current proposals to retain the DNA profiles of innocent people on the national database.
The Home Office has announced that its plan to keep the DNA profiles of those arrested – but never convicted of a crime – for between six and 12 years depending on the seriousness of the offence has been dropped from the policing and crime bill that is going through parliament.
A European court ruling in December found it was unlawful to keep the DNA details of 850,000 innocent people indefinitely on the national database.
The authors of the research on which Home Office ministers based their plan had disowned the proposals. The Jill Dando Institute for Crime Science said its work should not have been used to decide the six- to 12-year time limits because the work was unfinished.
A Home Office spokesman said they hoped to bring forward "further provisions" on DNA retention in the next policing and crime bill earmarked for the next session of parliament, which opens on 18 November. "We have now completed a public consultation on proposals to ensure the right people are on the database as well as considering when people should come off. Those proposals were grounded in the research and allowed us to respond to the judgment of the European court of human rights both swiftly and effectively. ..."
The Home Office has announced that its plan to keep the DNA profiles of those arrested – but never convicted of a crime – for between six and 12 years depending on the seriousness of the offence has been dropped from the policing and crime bill that is going through parliament.
A European court ruling in December found it was unlawful to keep the DNA details of 850,000 innocent people indefinitely on the national database.
The authors of the research on which Home Office ministers based their plan had disowned the proposals. The Jill Dando Institute for Crime Science said its work should not have been used to decide the six- to 12-year time limits because the work was unfinished.
A Home Office spokesman said they hoped to bring forward "further provisions" on DNA retention in the next policing and crime bill earmarked for the next session of parliament, which opens on 18 November. "We have now completed a public consultation on proposals to ensure the right people are on the database as well as considering when people should come off. Those proposals were grounded in the research and allowed us to respond to the judgment of the European court of human rights both swiftly and effectively. ..."
oth Silvio Berlusconi and his predecessor Romano Prodi have issued denials following the report in the Times yesterday that 10 French servicemen died in Afghanistan last year because their superiors did not realise the Italians who preceded them had been bribing the Taliban not to attack.
As The First Post reported yesterday, the French underestimated the Taliban threat as a result and suffered a brutal attack on one of their convoys. Insurgents later paraded trophies taken from the dead solders, to the disgust of the French.
A statement from the Italian prime minister's office said the Berlusconi government had never authorised or allowed payments to insurgents, and nor was it aware of "any such initiatives set in motion by the previous government".
Prodi himself told the Times: "This is the first time I have ever heard such accusations and I can say that there is no base for them. I know absolutely nothing of this."
Ignazio La Russa, the Italian defence minister, dismissed the claim as "rubbish" and said he was taking steps to sue the Times.
However, the Times today quotes a Taliban commander, Mohammed Ishmayel, confirming that Italian forces paid protection money. Ishmayel said a deal was struck last year so that Italian forces in the Sarobi valley, east of Kabul, would not be attacked.
Ishmayel told the Times that it was agreed that "neither side should attack one another. That is why we were informed at that time, that we should not attack the Nato troops".
However, he said, the Taliban were not informed when the Italian forces left the area to be replaced by the French and so they assumed the deal had been broken. ...
As The First Post reported yesterday, the French underestimated the Taliban threat as a result and suffered a brutal attack on one of their convoys. Insurgents later paraded trophies taken from the dead solders, to the disgust of the French.
A statement from the Italian prime minister's office said the Berlusconi government had never authorised or allowed payments to insurgents, and nor was it aware of "any such initiatives set in motion by the previous government".
Prodi himself told the Times: "This is the first time I have ever heard such accusations and I can say that there is no base for them. I know absolutely nothing of this."
Ignazio La Russa, the Italian defence minister, dismissed the claim as "rubbish" and said he was taking steps to sue the Times.
However, the Times today quotes a Taliban commander, Mohammed Ishmayel, confirming that Italian forces paid protection money. Ishmayel said a deal was struck last year so that Italian forces in the Sarobi valley, east of Kabul, would not be attacked.
Ishmayel told the Times that it was agreed that "neither side should attack one another. That is why we were informed at that time, that we should not attack the Nato troops".
However, he said, the Taliban were not informed when the Italian forces left the area to be replaced by the French and so they assumed the deal had been broken. ...
If a tree falls in the forest and there's no one to hear it, can Carter-Ruck ban all mention of the sound?
Charlie Brooker
Monday 19 October 2009
... That's effectively what the Guardian did last week, except that there was no beloved actor, but rather a whopping great multinational company accused of dumping toxic waste off the Ivory Coast, following which a lot of people got rather sick and more than a little upset. In an apparent bid to save face, the company instructed its lawyers (Carter-Ruck) to sail up and down the media coastline, knowingly dumping toxic injunctions. Eventually they went completely berserk and issued a super-injunction preventing the Guardian from reporting a parliamentary question about one of their previous super-injunctions. This was too much for common sense or modern technology to bear. Private Eye printed the question, the Twittersphere went bonkers; soon everyone knew about it, and Trafigura's name was toxic mud. In terms of corporate PR, it was about as effective as appearing on the GMTV sofa to carve your brand name on to the face of a live baby. Anyway, the Trafigura debacle is one of the very few occasions where the cloaking device of the super-injunction has actually malfunctioned, leaving the hovering mothership visible, which raises a worrying question: what else don't we know about? Literally anything could be going on. Like the mysterious "dark matter" that scientists believe makes up a huge percentage of the universe, an entire alternative reality could be thriving just over our shoulders. Dean Gaffney might be made of staples. Hitler could be alive and well and currently in negotiations to present the Radio 1 breakfast show. Kellogg's could be raising an army of the damned and declaring war on Norwich. How many other "invisible" stories are out there, shrouded by thick legal mist?
God knows. But he's not allowed to tell you. ...
Charlie Brooker
Monday 19 October 2009
... That's effectively what the Guardian did last week, except that there was no beloved actor, but rather a whopping great multinational company accused of dumping toxic waste off the Ivory Coast, following which a lot of people got rather sick and more than a little upset. In an apparent bid to save face, the company instructed its lawyers (Carter-Ruck) to sail up and down the media coastline, knowingly dumping toxic injunctions. Eventually they went completely berserk and issued a super-injunction preventing the Guardian from reporting a parliamentary question about one of their previous super-injunctions. This was too much for common sense or modern technology to bear. Private Eye printed the question, the Twittersphere went bonkers; soon everyone knew about it, and Trafigura's name was toxic mud. In terms of corporate PR, it was about as effective as appearing on the GMTV sofa to carve your brand name on to the face of a live baby. Anyway, the Trafigura debacle is one of the very few occasions where the cloaking device of the super-injunction has actually malfunctioned, leaving the hovering mothership visible, which raises a worrying question: what else don't we know about? Literally anything could be going on. Like the mysterious "dark matter" that scientists believe makes up a huge percentage of the universe, an entire alternative reality could be thriving just over our shoulders. Dean Gaffney might be made of staples. Hitler could be alive and well and currently in negotiations to present the Radio 1 breakfast show. Kellogg's could be raising an army of the damned and declaring war on Norwich. How many other "invisible" stories are out there, shrouded by thick legal mist?
God knows. But he's not allowed to tell you. ...
From the outside, there is nothing unusual about the warehouse by the offices on Finland's Olkiluoto island, site of what should have been the world's first modern nuclear reactor. But inside, stacked on five kilometres of shelving, are 160,000 documents. "If a valve for the reactor is changed, it comes in a small box and a van full of documents," complains Jouni Silvennoinen, project director for Teollisuuden Voima (TVO), the Finnish utility that ordered the plant from the Franco-German consortium Areva-Siemens.
The paper mountain helps explain why the reactor, which should have cost €3bn (£2.72bn) and been working this year, will now miss its revised completion date of mid-2012 and will cost at least €5.3bn. In the latest delay, Finland's nuclear safety regulator halted welding on the reactor last week and criticised poor oversight by the sub-contractor, supplier and TVO.
Areva claims TVO does not trust it to modify the fiendishly complex design as it sees fit, demanding documentation and approval from regulators for every change, however small. TVO says Areva is treating the new reactor as an R&D project in which the Finns are guinea pigs. TVO and Areva are now locked in arbitration over the cost overrun and damages. If TVO loses, Finnish consumers will pick up the tab.
Worryingly for the UK, Areva intends to build at least four of these reactors in Britain. The government wants to replace those being decommissioned as well as provide a secure and low-carbon supply of electricity.
The project was supposed to be a model for how modern reactors would be built. The industry's history of massive cost overruns, government bailouts and subsidies have provided ammunition to campaigners who claim the economics of nuclear power do not add up. The construction of the new generation of reactors would be different: this time, nuclear power would pay for itself.
Yet already cracks are appearing in these claims, especially in the UK. Nuclear plants are far more expensive to build than coal or gas but have lower fuel costs. The economics of all three vary according to the prices of the fuel and increasingly, of carbon. When coal prices are high, gas plants become more cost effective, and vice versa. When both fuels are costly – which also drives up the wholesale price of electricity – nuclear can undercut coal and gas.
Gambling on unpredictable energy markets is risky. To make the huge upfront investment needed for a nuclear plant – upwards of €4bn compared with just €600m to build a slightly smaller gas plant – the stakes go higher still. The UK energy market is particularly unsuited to nuclear investors. Unlike less liberalised markets such as Finland's, UK energy producers are more reluctant to sign long-term supply contracts to support investment in a new reactor. And because of full competition in the UK energy market, if EDF Energy makes a loss on building reactors, it is much harder to pass its costs on to its consumers, unlike its parent company in France, which dominates supply there.
Since the government began reconsidering its position on nuclear four years ago, the economics have become more unfavourable. The cost of building a reactor has soared, partly as a result of the Finland debacle but also because of higher steel and other construction costs. ...
The paper mountain helps explain why the reactor, which should have cost €3bn (£2.72bn) and been working this year, will now miss its revised completion date of mid-2012 and will cost at least €5.3bn. In the latest delay, Finland's nuclear safety regulator halted welding on the reactor last week and criticised poor oversight by the sub-contractor, supplier and TVO.
Areva claims TVO does not trust it to modify the fiendishly complex design as it sees fit, demanding documentation and approval from regulators for every change, however small. TVO says Areva is treating the new reactor as an R&D project in which the Finns are guinea pigs. TVO and Areva are now locked in arbitration over the cost overrun and damages. If TVO loses, Finnish consumers will pick up the tab.
Worryingly for the UK, Areva intends to build at least four of these reactors in Britain. The government wants to replace those being decommissioned as well as provide a secure and low-carbon supply of electricity.
The project was supposed to be a model for how modern reactors would be built. The industry's history of massive cost overruns, government bailouts and subsidies have provided ammunition to campaigners who claim the economics of nuclear power do not add up. The construction of the new generation of reactors would be different: this time, nuclear power would pay for itself.
Yet already cracks are appearing in these claims, especially in the UK. Nuclear plants are far more expensive to build than coal or gas but have lower fuel costs. The economics of all three vary according to the prices of the fuel and increasingly, of carbon. When coal prices are high, gas plants become more cost effective, and vice versa. When both fuels are costly – which also drives up the wholesale price of electricity – nuclear can undercut coal and gas.
Gambling on unpredictable energy markets is risky. To make the huge upfront investment needed for a nuclear plant – upwards of €4bn compared with just €600m to build a slightly smaller gas plant – the stakes go higher still. The UK energy market is particularly unsuited to nuclear investors. Unlike less liberalised markets such as Finland's, UK energy producers are more reluctant to sign long-term supply contracts to support investment in a new reactor. And because of full competition in the UK energy market, if EDF Energy makes a loss on building reactors, it is much harder to pass its costs on to its consumers, unlike its parent company in France, which dominates supply there.
Since the government began reconsidering its position on nuclear four years ago, the economics have become more unfavourable. The cost of building a reactor has soared, partly as a result of the Finland debacle but also because of higher steel and other construction costs. ...
Government officials have drawn up secret plans to tax electricity consumers to subsidise the construction of the UK's first new nuclear reactors for more than 20 years, the Guardian has learned.
The planned levy on household bills would add £44 to an annual electricity bill of £500 and contradicts repeated promises by ministers that the nuclear industry would no longer benefit from public subsidies. There is mounting pressure on the power industry to show it can keep the lights on, with fears growing of an energy gap as ageing nuclear stations are retired and plans for new coal plants attract hostile protests.
Ministers have become concerned that power companies such as E.ON and EDF Energy are reluctant to commit themselves to building nuclear stations because energy prices have fallen and they fear they will not be able to recoup the multi-billion pound cost of building new nuclear stations.
The government believes that only by artificially increasing the cost of electricity generated by coal and gas stations through an additional carbon levy on household bills can nuclear become more competitive and encourage new reactors to be built. ...
I'm gonna go vomit.
The planned levy on household bills would add £44 to an annual electricity bill of £500 and contradicts repeated promises by ministers that the nuclear industry would no longer benefit from public subsidies. There is mounting pressure on the power industry to show it can keep the lights on, with fears growing of an energy gap as ageing nuclear stations are retired and plans for new coal plants attract hostile protests.
Ministers have become concerned that power companies such as E.ON and EDF Energy are reluctant to commit themselves to building nuclear stations because energy prices have fallen and they fear they will not be able to recoup the multi-billion pound cost of building new nuclear stations.
The government believes that only by artificially increasing the cost of electricity generated by coal and gas stations through an additional carbon levy on household bills can nuclear become more competitive and encourage new reactors to be built. ...
I'm gonna go vomit.
THE state-owned Royal Bank of Scotland is planning to hand out record bonuses of up to £5m each in a snub to struggling taxpayers.
The move would see the average employee in its high-risk investment banking arm take home £240,000, with the top 20 staff in line for payments of between £1m and £5m.
The payouts by the investment banking division — from a total pay and bonus pot of £4 billion — would top the deals awarded at the peak of the financial boom in 2007 and are 66% higher than those paid last year.
RBS, then headed by Sir Fred Goodwin, had to be rescued from collapse by the Treasury last October with an initial injection of £20 billion. The taxpayer now has a 70% stake in the bank. ...
The move would see the average employee in its high-risk investment banking arm take home £240,000, with the top 20 staff in line for payments of between £1m and £5m.
The payouts by the investment banking division — from a total pay and bonus pot of £4 billion — would top the deals awarded at the peak of the financial boom in 2007 and are 66% higher than those paid last year.
RBS, then headed by Sir Fred Goodwin, had to be rescued from collapse by the Treasury last October with an initial injection of £20 billion. The taxpayer now has a 70% stake in the bank. ...
Twelve dead and helicopter downed as Rio de Janeiro drug gangs go to war | World news | The Observer
Twelve dead and helicopter downed as Rio de Janeiro gangs go to war
Host city of the 2014 World Cup and 2016 Olympics shaken by violence as warlords battle for control of the cocaine trade ...
Yankistani rethuglicunts still jubilant at Obama's 'failure' to secure Olympics for Chicago; film at eleven
Host city of the 2014 World Cup and 2016 Olympics shaken by violence as warlords battle for control of the cocaine trade ...
Yankistani rethuglicunts still jubilant at Obama's 'failure' to secure Olympics for Chicago; film at eleven
Government anti-terrorism strategy 'spies' on innocent
Data on politics, sexual activity and religion gathered by government
* Vikram Dodd
* guardian.co.uk, Friday 16 October 2009 20.15 BST
The government programme aimed at preventing Muslims from being lured into violent extremism is being used to gather intelligence about innocent people who are not suspected of involvement in terrorism, the Guardian has learned.
The information the authorities are trying to find out includes political and religious views, information on mental health, sexual activity and associates, and other sensitive information, according to documents seen by the Guardian. Other documents reveal that the intelligence and information can be stored until the people concerned reach the age of 100.
Tonight Shami Chakrabarti, director of Liberty, branded it the biggest spying programme in Britain in modern times and an affront to civil liberties. ...
Data on politics, sexual activity and religion gathered by government
* Vikram Dodd
* guardian.co.uk, Friday 16 October 2009 20.15 BST
The government programme aimed at preventing Muslims from being lured into violent extremism is being used to gather intelligence about innocent people who are not suspected of involvement in terrorism, the Guardian has learned.
The information the authorities are trying to find out includes political and religious views, information on mental health, sexual activity and associates, and other sensitive information, according to documents seen by the Guardian. Other documents reveal that the intelligence and information can be stored until the people concerned reach the age of 100.
Tonight Shami Chakrabarti, director of Liberty, branded it the biggest spying programme in Britain in modern times and an affront to civil liberties. ...
Minton report: Carter-Ruck give up bid to keep Trafigura study secret
• Guardian 'released from restrictions forthwith'
• Report called firm's oil waste 'potentially toxic'
• Read the Trafigura study: the Minton report (pdf)
* David Leigh
* guardian.co.uk, Friday 16 October 2009 22.19 BST
Lawyers for oil traders Trafigura finally abandoned attempts to keep secret a scientific report about toxic waste dumping in west Africa, that was shown to the Guardian.
Just after 7.30pm Carter-Ruck, libel lawyers for Trafigura, wrote a letter to the Guardian which said the newspaper should regard itself as "released forthwith" from any reporting restrictions. An MP revealed the report's existence to parliament this week, after the Guardian was hit with a "super-injunction" banning all mention of it and other UK media were then subsequently notified of, and therefore bound by it.
The Minton report, commissioned in 2006 from the London-based firm's scientific consultants, said that based on the "limited" information they had been given Trafigura's oil waste, dumped cheaply the month before in a city in Ivory Coast, was potentially toxic, and "capable of causing severe human health effects".
The study said early reports of large scale medical problems among the inhabitants of Abidjan, were consistent with a release of a cloud of potentially lethal hydrogen sulphide gas over the city. The effects could have included severe burns to the skin and lungs, eye damage, permanent ulceration, coma and death.
The author of this initial draft study, John Minton, of consultants Minton, Treharne & Davies, said dumping the waste would have been illegal in Europe and the proper method of disposal should have been a specialist chemical treatment called wet air oxidation. ...
• Guardian 'released from restrictions forthwith'
• Report called firm's oil waste 'potentially toxic'
• Read the Trafigura study: the Minton report (pdf)
* David Leigh
* guardian.co.uk, Friday 16 October 2009 22.19 BST
Lawyers for oil traders Trafigura finally abandoned attempts to keep secret a scientific report about toxic waste dumping in west Africa, that was shown to the Guardian.
Just after 7.30pm Carter-Ruck, libel lawyers for Trafigura, wrote a letter to the Guardian which said the newspaper should regard itself as "released forthwith" from any reporting restrictions. An MP revealed the report's existence to parliament this week, after the Guardian was hit with a "super-injunction" banning all mention of it and other UK media were then subsequently notified of, and therefore bound by it.
The Minton report, commissioned in 2006 from the London-based firm's scientific consultants, said that based on the "limited" information they had been given Trafigura's oil waste, dumped cheaply the month before in a city in Ivory Coast, was potentially toxic, and "capable of causing severe human health effects".
The study said early reports of large scale medical problems among the inhabitants of Abidjan, were consistent with a release of a cloud of potentially lethal hydrogen sulphide gas over the city. The effects could have included severe burns to the skin and lungs, eye damage, permanent ulceration, coma and death.
The author of this initial draft study, John Minton, of consultants Minton, Treharne & Davies, said dumping the waste would have been illegal in Europe and the proper method of disposal should have been a specialist chemical treatment called wet air oxidation. ...
The law firm Carter-Ruck has made a fresh move that could stop an MPs' debate next week by claiming a controversial injunction it has obtained is "sub judice".
The move follows the revelation of the existence of a secret "super-injunction" obtained by the firm on behalf of the London-based oil traders Trafigura.
The injunction not only bans disclosure of a confidential report on Trafigura and toxic waste, but also banned disclosure of the injunction's very existence, until it was revealed by an MP this week under parliamentary privilege.
Carter-Ruck partner Adam Tudor today sent a letter to the Speaker, John Bercow, and also circulated it to every single MP and peer, saying they believed the case was "sub judice".
If correct, it would mean that, under Westminster rules to prevent clashes between parliament and the courts, a debate planned for next Wednesday could not go ahead.
Earlier this week, the Labour MP Paul Farrelly said Carter-Ruck might be in contempt of parliament for seeking to stop the Guardian reporting questions he had put down on the order paper revealing the existence of the "super-injunction".
The Conservative MP Peter Bottomley went on to tell Gordon Brown at prime minister's questions that he would report Carter-Ruck to the Law Society for obtaining an injunction that purported to ban parliamentary reporting. ...
The move follows the revelation of the existence of a secret "super-injunction" obtained by the firm on behalf of the London-based oil traders Trafigura.
The injunction not only bans disclosure of a confidential report on Trafigura and toxic waste, but also banned disclosure of the injunction's very existence, until it was revealed by an MP this week under parliamentary privilege.
Carter-Ruck partner Adam Tudor today sent a letter to the Speaker, John Bercow, and also circulated it to every single MP and peer, saying they believed the case was "sub judice".
If correct, it would mean that, under Westminster rules to prevent clashes between parliament and the courts, a debate planned for next Wednesday could not go ahead.
Earlier this week, the Labour MP Paul Farrelly said Carter-Ruck might be in contempt of parliament for seeking to stop the Guardian reporting questions he had put down on the order paper revealing the existence of the "super-injunction".
The Conservative MP Peter Bottomley went on to tell Gordon Brown at prime minister's questions that he would report Carter-Ruck to the Law Society for obtaining an injunction that purported to ban parliamentary reporting. ...
The Mormon leadership demonstrates their clarity of vision
Category: Politics • Religion
Posted on: October 13, 2009 9:56 PM, by PZ Myers
Elder Dallin H. Oaks of the Mormon Church has made some interesting remarks.
In an interview Monday before the speech, Oaks said he did not consider it provocative to compare the treatment of Mormons in the election's aftermath to that of blacks in the civil rights era, and said he stands by the analogy.
"It may be offensive to some -- maybe because it hadn't occurred to them that they were putting themselves in the same category as people we deplore from that bygone era," he said.
Did you get that? He thinks the Mormons, who are trying to deny a civil right to another minority and reserve it to themselves, are exactly like a minority that were denied a civil right and had to fight to get their equality recognized.
I'm not offended. I've just determined that the elders of the Mormon Church are a collection of antiquated, dumb old bigots. ...
Category: Politics • Religion
Posted on: October 13, 2009 9:56 PM, by PZ Myers
Elder Dallin H. Oaks of the Mormon Church has made some interesting remarks.
In an interview Monday before the speech, Oaks said he did not consider it provocative to compare the treatment of Mormons in the election's aftermath to that of blacks in the civil rights era, and said he stands by the analogy.
"It may be offensive to some -- maybe because it hadn't occurred to them that they were putting themselves in the same category as people we deplore from that bygone era," he said.
Did you get that? He thinks the Mormons, who are trying to deny a civil right to another minority and reserve it to themselves, are exactly like a minority that were denied a civil right and had to fight to get their equality recognized.
I'm not offended. I've just determined that the elders of the Mormon Church are a collection of antiquated, dumb old bigots. ...
News Flash!
Fat Evil Racist Fuck Tries Buying nfl Team - Players Shockingly Protest
Film @ Eleven
Fat Evil Racist Fuck Tries Buying nfl Team - Players Shockingly Protest
Film @ Eleven
MPs from all parties protested at Westminster this afternoon at attempts by lawyers acting for the oil trader Trafigura to stop reports of parliamentary proceedings.
The Labour MP Paul Farrelly told the speaker, John Bercow, attempts by lawyers Carter-Ruck to gag the media could be a "potential contempt of parliament".
The Liberal Democrat MP Evan Harris said there was a need to "control the habit of law firms" of obtaining secrecy injunctions, and his colleague David Heath told the Commons a "fundamental principle" was being threatened: that MPs should be able to speak freely and have their words reported freely.
On the Conservative side, David Davies criticised the rising use of "super-injunctions", in which the fact of the injunction is itself kept secret. He said courts should not be allowed to grant injunctions forbidding the reporting of parliament. ...
... Farrelly, who tabled a parliamentary question yesterday that the Guardian had been forbidden from reporting, told the Commons: "I want to raise a point of order regarding a chain of events which may be of concern to the House.
"Today, the Guardian reported that it had been prevented from reporting a written question tabled by a member of parliament. This morning, I telephoned the Guardian to ask whether the MP was myself.
"The question was printed on the order paper yesterday and relates to the activities of Trafigura, an international oil trader at the centre of a controversy regarding toxic waste-dumping in the Ivory Coast, and to the role of its solicitors, Carter-Ruck.
"Yesterday, I understand, Carter-Ruck, quite astonishingly, warned of legal action if the Guardian reported my question. In view of the seriousness of this, will you accept representations from me over this matter and consider whether Carter-Ruck's behaviour constitutes a potential contempt of parliament?"
Earlier, Trafigura's law firm had refused to alter an existing blanket court order banning the Guardian from mentioning Trafigura's recourse to the courts. This refusal was despite the publication on parliament's official website of Farrelly's questions revealing the facts.
The result of Carter-Ruck's intransigence was an avalanche of online publication, as well as...in the magazine Private Eye...Bloggers who posted Farrelly's questions in full included the political website Guido Fawkes and the Spectator magazine website.
Large numbers of messages were posted on Twitter, to the extent that "Trafigura" and "Carter-Ruck" became the most viewed keywords in London throughout the morning.
Shortly before the case was due to come to court, Carter-Ruck announced that its clients would no longer oppose reporting of what was said in parliament about them. ...
Real genius, but the last five paras posted here are by far the funniest.
The Labour MP Paul Farrelly told the speaker, John Bercow, attempts by lawyers Carter-Ruck to gag the media could be a "potential contempt of parliament".
The Liberal Democrat MP Evan Harris said there was a need to "control the habit of law firms" of obtaining secrecy injunctions, and his colleague David Heath told the Commons a "fundamental principle" was being threatened: that MPs should be able to speak freely and have their words reported freely.
On the Conservative side, David Davies criticised the rising use of "super-injunctions", in which the fact of the injunction is itself kept secret. He said courts should not be allowed to grant injunctions forbidding the reporting of parliament. ...
... Farrelly, who tabled a parliamentary question yesterday that the Guardian had been forbidden from reporting, told the Commons: "I want to raise a point of order regarding a chain of events which may be of concern to the House.
"Today, the Guardian reported that it had been prevented from reporting a written question tabled by a member of parliament. This morning, I telephoned the Guardian to ask whether the MP was myself.
"The question was printed on the order paper yesterday and relates to the activities of Trafigura, an international oil trader at the centre of a controversy regarding toxic waste-dumping in the Ivory Coast, and to the role of its solicitors, Carter-Ruck.
"Yesterday, I understand, Carter-Ruck, quite astonishingly, warned of legal action if the Guardian reported my question. In view of the seriousness of this, will you accept representations from me over this matter and consider whether Carter-Ruck's behaviour constitutes a potential contempt of parliament?"
Earlier, Trafigura's law firm had refused to alter an existing blanket court order banning the Guardian from mentioning Trafigura's recourse to the courts. This refusal was despite the publication on parliament's official website of Farrelly's questions revealing the facts.
The result of Carter-Ruck's intransigence was an avalanche of online publication, as well as...in the magazine Private Eye...Bloggers who posted Farrelly's questions in full included the political website Guido Fawkes and the Spectator magazine website.
Large numbers of messages were posted on Twitter, to the extent that "Trafigura" and "Carter-Ruck" became the most viewed keywords in London throughout the morning.
Shortly before the case was due to come to court, Carter-Ruck announced that its clients would no longer oppose reporting of what was said in parliament about them. ...
Real genius, but the last five paras posted here are by far the funniest.
Cern physicist admits links with al-Qaida
Frenchman of Algerian origin corresponded online with a contact in north Africa's al-Qaida branch ...
Frenchman of Algerian origin corresponded online with a contact in north Africa's al-Qaida branch ...
£1 in every £3 of council tax in England and Wales spent on rubbish
Figures obtained by Guardian show councils in England and Wales spent £4.5bn dealing with refuse ...
Figures obtained by Guardian show councils in England and Wales spent £4.5bn dealing with refuse ...
Former Wall Street financiers face criminal action
Former Bear Stearns hedge fund manager Matthew Tannin's private jottings show concerns about 'blow up risk' to investors
Andrew Clark in New York
guardian.co.uk, Sunday 11 October 2009
They are scribblings that may come back to haunt Matthew Tannin. The former high-flying Bear Stearns hedge fund manager – who goes on trial for fraud in a New York court this week – had a habit of recording his inner-most thoughts in emails sent to himself on a private Google Mail account.
"I am going to use this to keep my diary," he wrote. "I didn't want to use my work email any more."
In words never intended for public consumption, Tannin wrote of his worries about becoming dependant on an antidepressant, Wellbutrin, and a stress medication, Lorazapan, to cope with concern about the performance of his fund. He expressed satisfaction at earning close to $2m (£1.3m) in a year but alluded to a "religious crisis" and complained about "schlepping the kids around from place to place" during a holiday in London.
As his confidence in his money-making panache began to falter, Tannin pinpointed a meeting in 2006 when he realised that his Bear Stearns fund faced potential trouble: "I had a wave of fear set over me – that the Fund couldn't be run in the way that I was 'hoping'. And that it was going to subject investors to 'blow up risk'."
Tannin and his boss, Ralph Cioffi, ran two funds holding $1.4bn of clients' funds that collapsed in July 2007, an event widely viewed as the first clear signal of America's sub-prime mortgage crisis and the global credit crunch. The meltdown of these funds sparked a chain of events that contributed to the demise of Bear Stearns, an 85-year-old Wall Street institution, in early 2008. They have been charged by US prosecutors with defrauding customers by hiding the true condition of investments as prospects steadily darkened.
The first high-rolling financiers to face criminal action arising from the financial crisis, Cioffi and Tannin have become unwitting poster boys for perceived arrogance, recklessness and irresponsibility on Wall Street. Frustrated at not seeing higher-ranking bank bosses clapped in irons, the public and the US media are watching keenly. ...
Former Bear Stearns hedge fund manager Matthew Tannin's private jottings show concerns about 'blow up risk' to investors
Andrew Clark in New York
guardian.co.uk, Sunday 11 October 2009
They are scribblings that may come back to haunt Matthew Tannin. The former high-flying Bear Stearns hedge fund manager – who goes on trial for fraud in a New York court this week – had a habit of recording his inner-most thoughts in emails sent to himself on a private Google Mail account.
"I am going to use this to keep my diary," he wrote. "I didn't want to use my work email any more."
In words never intended for public consumption, Tannin wrote of his worries about becoming dependant on an antidepressant, Wellbutrin, and a stress medication, Lorazapan, to cope with concern about the performance of his fund. He expressed satisfaction at earning close to $2m (£1.3m) in a year but alluded to a "religious crisis" and complained about "schlepping the kids around from place to place" during a holiday in London.
As his confidence in his money-making panache began to falter, Tannin pinpointed a meeting in 2006 when he realised that his Bear Stearns fund faced potential trouble: "I had a wave of fear set over me – that the Fund couldn't be run in the way that I was 'hoping'. And that it was going to subject investors to 'blow up risk'."
Tannin and his boss, Ralph Cioffi, ran two funds holding $1.4bn of clients' funds that collapsed in July 2007, an event widely viewed as the first clear signal of America's sub-prime mortgage crisis and the global credit crunch. The meltdown of these funds sparked a chain of events that contributed to the demise of Bear Stearns, an 85-year-old Wall Street institution, in early 2008. They have been charged by US prosecutors with defrauding customers by hiding the true condition of investments as prospects steadily darkened.
The first high-rolling financiers to face criminal action arising from the financial crisis, Cioffi and Tannin have become unwitting poster boys for perceived arrogance, recklessness and irresponsibility on Wall Street. Frustrated at not seeing higher-ranking bank bosses clapped in irons, the public and the US media are watching keenly. ...
Militants are holding up to 15 soldiers hostage inside Pakistan’s army headquarters today after they and others attacked the complex earlier in the day, killing at least six soldiers.
Army spokesman Maj. Gen. Athar Abbas says no army or intelligence leaders are among those being held.
The militants, armed with assault rifles and grenades and wearing military uniforms, stormed the heavily guarded compound in the city of Rawalpindi.
They arrived in full camouflage kit in a white van and opened fire on checkpoint guards.
The attack led to intense gun battles with troops, in which at least one grenade was thrown.
Pakistan authorities have confirmed at least six soldiers were killed and five more injured, one critically.
Four of the gunmen were also killed after the 45-minute gun fight, but it is believed two have managed to escape.
The attack, which happened shortly before midday local time, is the third large-scale militant attack in the country in the last week.
Eye witness Khan Bahadur, a shuttle van driver, said: “There was fierce firing, and then there was a blast.
"Soldiers were running here and there. The firing continued for about a half hour. There was smoke everywhere. Then there was a break, and then firing again.”
The Pakistan government has said it is planning an imminent offensive to flush out militants from mountain strongholds at the Afghanistan border. ...
Looks like you guys need to "flush out militants" in Rawalpindi, too. You may also want to step up your security's security: you're lookin' mighty feeble to the rest of the world, darlings.
Army spokesman Maj. Gen. Athar Abbas says no army or intelligence leaders are among those being held.
The militants, armed with assault rifles and grenades and wearing military uniforms, stormed the heavily guarded compound in the city of Rawalpindi.
They arrived in full camouflage kit in a white van and opened fire on checkpoint guards.
The attack led to intense gun battles with troops, in which at least one grenade was thrown.
Pakistan authorities have confirmed at least six soldiers were killed and five more injured, one critically.
Four of the gunmen were also killed after the 45-minute gun fight, but it is believed two have managed to escape.
The attack, which happened shortly before midday local time, is the third large-scale militant attack in the country in the last week.
Eye witness Khan Bahadur, a shuttle van driver, said: “There was fierce firing, and then there was a blast.
"Soldiers were running here and there. The firing continued for about a half hour. There was smoke everywhere. Then there was a break, and then firing again.”
The Pakistan government has said it is planning an imminent offensive to flush out militants from mountain strongholds at the Afghanistan border. ...
Looks like you guys need to "flush out militants" in Rawalpindi, too. You may also want to step up your security's security: you're lookin' mighty feeble to the rest of the world, darlings.
Hmmm. Looks like someone failed maths.
Horresco referens.
Officer Shoots Woman, Pit Bull Playing
Woman, Dog Expected To Survive
POSTED: Thursday, October 8, 2009
UPDATED: 7:00 am CDT October 8, 2009
LA MARQUE, Texas -- A police officer shot a woman and a dog that were playing when she thought the dog was attacking the woman, witnesses told KPRC Local 2.
Witnesses said a La Marque police officer was driving along 5th Avenue near Walnut Street at about 7:15 p.m. Wednesday, after she helped a person around the corner.
The officer heard people playing and screaming, witnesses said. A 23-year-old woman and her friend were playing with a pit bull.
Witnesses said the officer got out of the car and fired several shots toward the dog.
"The young lady started hollering and just at that time a police officer was coming down and thought the dog was attacking the lady," witness Dennis Wallace said. "I can't say that I would do anything different. [Oh, you woulda shot her in the chest too?!] The lady (the officer) drew down and started shooting. I couldn't say I wouldn't have done that."
The woman suffered a gunshot wound to the chest. She was taken by helicopter to Memorial Hermann Hospital in stable condition.
The dog was also wounded. The dog's owner took it to a vet and it is expected to recover. ...
Here's the question everyone wants answered:
Um, if she wanted to save the woman, why in hell did she shoot her in the chest?!
Methinks someone needs more handgun training/aiming/shooting classes.
Ta much, dear Anneliese
Woman, Dog Expected To Survive
POSTED: Thursday, October 8, 2009
UPDATED: 7:00 am CDT October 8, 2009
LA MARQUE, Texas -- A police officer shot a woman and a dog that were playing when she thought the dog was attacking the woman, witnesses told KPRC Local 2.
Witnesses said a La Marque police officer was driving along 5th Avenue near Walnut Street at about 7:15 p.m. Wednesday, after she helped a person around the corner.
The officer heard people playing and screaming, witnesses said. A 23-year-old woman and her friend were playing with a pit bull.
Witnesses said the officer got out of the car and fired several shots toward the dog.
"The young lady started hollering and just at that time a police officer was coming down and thought the dog was attacking the lady," witness Dennis Wallace said. "I can't say that I would do anything different. [Oh, you woulda shot her in the chest too?!] The lady (the officer) drew down and started shooting. I couldn't say I wouldn't have done that."
The woman suffered a gunshot wound to the chest. She was taken by helicopter to Memorial Hermann Hospital in stable condition.
The dog was also wounded. The dog's owner took it to a vet and it is expected to recover. ...
Here's the question everyone wants answered:
Um, if she wanted to save the woman, why in hell did she shoot her in the chest?!
Methinks someone needs more handgun training/aiming/shooting classes.
Ta much, dear Anneliese
Silvio Berlusconi defiant as court throws out immunity law
Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi laughs off legal proceedings against him as he loses immunity from prosecution ...
T'row da bum owt!
Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi laughs off legal proceedings against him as he loses immunity from prosecution ...
T'row da bum owt!
The social work model in a city where eight children known to social workers have died in the past four years was branded unfit for purpose by a damning official inquiry today.
The report into Birmingham city council's children's services department, commissioned after inspectors found weaknesses last December in care for children at risk of serious physical or sexual abuse, found that a lack of senior management was a "major risk" and a shortage of experienced staff continued to "hamper progress".
"Our findings demonstrated an extremely fragile management structure and the inevitable conclusion is that the current social work model is not fit for purpose," the report said.
Members of the inquiry committee, led by former city councillor Len Clark, were "shocked and dismayed" at the standard of accommodation at some of the council's social care sites.
The report ruled that current social work structures were "patently not working", adding that urgent investment was needed to address immediate and short-term concerns. ...
The report into Birmingham city council's children's services department, commissioned after inspectors found weaknesses last December in care for children at risk of serious physical or sexual abuse, found that a lack of senior management was a "major risk" and a shortage of experienced staff continued to "hamper progress".
"Our findings demonstrated an extremely fragile management structure and the inevitable conclusion is that the current social work model is not fit for purpose," the report said.
Members of the inquiry committee, led by former city councillor Len Clark, were "shocked and dismayed" at the standard of accommodation at some of the council's social care sites.
The report ruled that current social work structures were "patently not working", adding that urgent investment was needed to address immediate and short-term concerns. ...
It began before dawn — a devastating, well-planned attack. About 300 insurgents swarmed out of a village and mosque and attacked a pair of isolated American outposts in a remote mountainous area of eastern Afghanistan with machineguns, rockets and grenades.
They first stormed the Afghan police post at the foot of the hill in the province of Nuristan, a Taleban and al-Qaeda stronghold on the lawless Pakistan border. They then swept up to the Nato post. The battle lasted all day. American and Afghan soldiers finally repelled them, with the help of US helicopters and warplanes — but at heavy cost.
Eight American soldiers and two Afghan policemen were killed, with many injured. It was the worst attack on Nato forces in 14 months, and one of the deadliest battles of the eight-year war. The insurgents seized at least 20 Afghan policemen whose fate last night remained unclear.
The attack came at a crucial juncture in the war, with President Obama soon to decide whether to accept a request by General Stanley McChrystal, commander of the 100,000-strong US and Nato force in Afghanistan, for 40,000 extra troops, or to reduce the counter-insurgency operation against the Taleban and focus on al-Qaeda. ...
They first stormed the Afghan police post at the foot of the hill in the province of Nuristan, a Taleban and al-Qaeda stronghold on the lawless Pakistan border. They then swept up to the Nato post. The battle lasted all day. American and Afghan soldiers finally repelled them, with the help of US helicopters and warplanes — but at heavy cost.
Eight American soldiers and two Afghan policemen were killed, with many injured. It was the worst attack on Nato forces in 14 months, and one of the deadliest battles of the eight-year war. The insurgents seized at least 20 Afghan policemen whose fate last night remained unclear.
The attack came at a crucial juncture in the war, with President Obama soon to decide whether to accept a request by General Stanley McChrystal, commander of the 100,000-strong US and Nato force in Afghanistan, for 40,000 extra troops, or to reduce the counter-insurgency operation against the Taleban and focus on al-Qaeda. ...
Five UN employees were killed today in a suicide bomb atttack inside the offices of the United Nations’ World Food Programme in the Pakistani capital. ...
Oh, that's just so clever, bombing a good aspect of the UN. Idiots.
Oh, that's just so clever, bombing a good aspect of the UN. Idiots.
October 4, 2009
Top Gear in America's redneck country
Of all the hair-raising escapades in the show, being chased by murderous Alabamans was the scariest says presenter in new book
Richard Hammond
... “They’re comin’ up past here. We’re at the crossroads.” And: “I can see them here, too.” They were using their CB radios to track us. And I was suddenly very aware that television cameras and business cards would not protect us from guns.
I didn’t want to wake up tied to a tree, being invited to squeal like a little piggy for the entertainment of a 20-year-old psychopath in giant dungarees, with three teeth in his head and a bitter hatred of anyone who wasn’t also a 30-stone homophobic racist who shot at things he didn’t understand. ...
Top Gear in America's redneck country
Of all the hair-raising escapades in the show, being chased by murderous Alabamans was the scariest says presenter in new book
Richard Hammond
... “They’re comin’ up past here. We’re at the crossroads.” And: “I can see them here, too.” They were using their CB radios to track us. And I was suddenly very aware that television cameras and business cards would not protect us from guns.
I didn’t want to wake up tied to a tree, being invited to squeal like a little piggy for the entertainment of a 20-year-old psychopath in giant dungarees, with three teeth in his head and a bitter hatred of anyone who wasn’t also a 30-stone homophobic racist who shot at things he didn’t understand. ...
September 17, 2009
End blasphemy law in Pakistan say campaigners
A programme of religious re-education is needed in Pakistan says the former Bishop of Rochester
Bess Twiston Davies
The former Bishop of Rochester has led calls for a repeal of the Blasphemy law of Pakistan.
Under the law, section 295c of the country’s penal code, those accused of blaspheming against the Prophet Mohammed may be sentenced to death or life imprisonment. They are fined in addition.
“The law is sometimes used for a personal agenda that has nothing to do with blasphemy – eg an interest in a neighbour’s property” [Ed. Note: Oh, you mean like the Yurpeen witch-hunts, during which zillions of acres changed hands?] said Dr Michael Nazir-Ali, who last weekend stepped down as bishop of the Kent diocese of Rochester.
His comments follow a wave of violence in August in which eight Christians were burnt alive, and a further 20 attacked when a 3,000-strong Muslim mob attacked the Eastern town of Gojra. Two days earlier, on August 3rd, gangs in the nearby village of Korian set fire to more than 70 Christian homes and two Protestant churches. The attacks, condemned by religious leaders including Pope Benedict XVI and the Archbishop of Canterbury, were rated among the bloodiest in Pakistan’s history.
“I have always said this was a bad law,” said Dr Nazir-Ali. “Muslims who take their tradition seriously say that when the Prophet of Islam was insulted he forgave those who insulted them, so how can their [sic - Retrograde Mercury] be a law like this in his name?” ...
End blasphemy law in Pakistan say campaigners
A programme of religious re-education is needed in Pakistan says the former Bishop of Rochester
Bess Twiston Davies
The former Bishop of Rochester has led calls for a repeal of the Blasphemy law of Pakistan.
Under the law, section 295c of the country’s penal code, those accused of blaspheming against the Prophet Mohammed may be sentenced to death or life imprisonment. They are fined in addition.
“The law is sometimes used for a personal agenda that has nothing to do with blasphemy – eg an interest in a neighbour’s property” [Ed. Note: Oh, you mean like the Yurpeen witch-hunts, during which zillions of acres changed hands?] said Dr Michael Nazir-Ali, who last weekend stepped down as bishop of the Kent diocese of Rochester.
His comments follow a wave of violence in August in which eight Christians were burnt alive, and a further 20 attacked when a 3,000-strong Muslim mob attacked the Eastern town of Gojra. Two days earlier, on August 3rd, gangs in the nearby village of Korian set fire to more than 70 Christian homes and two Protestant churches. The attacks, condemned by religious leaders including Pope Benedict XVI and the Archbishop of Canterbury, were rated among the bloodiest in Pakistan’s history.
“I have always said this was a bad law,” said Dr Nazir-Ali. “Muslims who take their tradition seriously say that when the Prophet of Islam was insulted he forgave those who insulted them, so how can their [sic - Retrograde Mercury] be a law like this in his name?” ...
Honours for Hogwarts? Not in the Bush White House.
Sasha Obama may have been given a birthday tour of the Harry Potter set but the former occupant of the White House was not such a fan of the boy wizard.
In news that you really couldn't make up, it has emerged that J.K. Rowling's name came up in discussions regarding recipients of the Congressional Medal of Honor. And she was rejected.
Not because of her nationality or Bush's aversion to Professor Snape's hair. But because various members of the White House staff were worried about associating with witchcraft. ...
Sasha Obama may have been given a birthday tour of the Harry Potter set but the former occupant of the White House was not such a fan of the boy wizard.
In news that you really couldn't make up, it has emerged that J.K. Rowling's name came up in discussions regarding recipients of the Congressional Medal of Honor. And she was rejected.
Not because of her nationality or Bush's aversion to Professor Snape's hair. But because various members of the White House staff were worried about associating with witchcraft. ...
The Ministry of Defence was accused today by three high court judges of "lamentable" behaviour and "serious breaches" of its duty of candour over the failure to disclose crucial information about allegations of murder and ill-treatment by British soldiers in Iraq in 2004.
In a withering attack, they damned the ministry's chief witness – the deputy head of the military police – as lacking all credibility. They described his evidence to the court as "seriously flawed".
The MoD's failure to conduct a proper investigation of its own into the allegations has forced Bob Ainsworth, the defence secretary, to hold an independent public inquiry, the high court heard.
The MoD has already been forced into a public inquiry into the death of Baha Mousa while in the custody of British soldiers in Basra in 2003. Yesterday's case relates to allegations that an Iraqi named al-Sweady was murdered and others ill-treated after they were taken prisoner at a British base near Majar al-Kabir, north of Basra, in May 2004.
The Iraqis' lawyers demanded a public inquiry under the Human Rights Act, saying the original military police investigation into the claims was inadequate. The police, officials and ministers resisted the demand and withheld vital information in attempting to do so, the court heard.
"We are forced to the conclusion that the approach of the secretary of state to disclosure in this case was lamentable," Lord Justice Scott Baker, Mr Justice Silber and Mr Justice Sweeney ruled today.
They said that when he was armed forces minister earlier this year Ainsworth signed a demand for a gagging order even though the information he sought to suppress had already been published. The matter caused the judges "very considerable concern", they said. ...
In a withering attack, they damned the ministry's chief witness – the deputy head of the military police – as lacking all credibility. They described his evidence to the court as "seriously flawed".
The MoD's failure to conduct a proper investigation of its own into the allegations has forced Bob Ainsworth, the defence secretary, to hold an independent public inquiry, the high court heard.
The MoD has already been forced into a public inquiry into the death of Baha Mousa while in the custody of British soldiers in Basra in 2003. Yesterday's case relates to allegations that an Iraqi named al-Sweady was murdered and others ill-treated after they were taken prisoner at a British base near Majar al-Kabir, north of Basra, in May 2004.
The Iraqis' lawyers demanded a public inquiry under the Human Rights Act, saying the original military police investigation into the claims was inadequate. The police, officials and ministers resisted the demand and withheld vital information in attempting to do so, the court heard.
"We are forced to the conclusion that the approach of the secretary of state to disclosure in this case was lamentable," Lord Justice Scott Baker, Mr Justice Silber and Mr Justice Sweeney ruled today.
They said that when he was armed forces minister earlier this year Ainsworth signed a demand for a gagging order even though the information he sought to suppress had already been published. The matter caused the judges "very considerable concern", they said. ...
Gordon Brown is ready to leave Britain’s biggest defence manufacturer, BAE Systems, to the mercy of the courts over allegations that it paid millions of pounds in bribes to win contracts, The Times has learnt.
Senior Downing Street sources said last night that he was adopting a “strictly hands-off approach” to the case. It is understood that a plea from BAE for the Prime Minister to intervene — as Tony Blair did three years ago in helping to halt a previous investigation — has already been “firmly rebuffed” by officials.
Yesterday an ultimatum issued by the Serious Fraud Office (SFO) for the arms giant to accept an out-of-court settlement expired. Instead, the agency charged with stamping out corruption by British business vowed to pursue claims that BAE paid out millions of pounds for lucrative defence contracts in Tanzania, the Czech Republic, South Africa and Romania. ...
Senior Downing Street sources said last night that he was adopting a “strictly hands-off approach” to the case. It is understood that a plea from BAE for the Prime Minister to intervene — as Tony Blair did three years ago in helping to halt a previous investigation — has already been “firmly rebuffed” by officials.
Yesterday an ultimatum issued by the Serious Fraud Office (SFO) for the arms giant to accept an out-of-court settlement expired. Instead, the agency charged with stamping out corruption by British business vowed to pursue claims that BAE paid out millions of pounds for lucrative defence contracts in Tanzania, the Czech Republic, South Africa and Romania. ...
America's healthcare industry has spent hundreds of millions of dollars to block the introduction of public medical insurance and stall other reforms promised by Barack Obama. The campaign against the president has been waged in part through substantial donations to key politicians.
Supporters of radical reform of healthcare say legislation emerging from the US Senate reflects the financial power of vested interests ‑ principally insurance companies, pharmaceutical firms and hospitals ‑ that have worked to stop far-reaching changes threatening their profits.
The industry and interest groups have spent $380m (£238m) in recent months influencing healthcare legislation through lobbying, advertising and in direct political contributions to members of Congress. The largest contribution, totalling close to $1.5m, has gone to the chairman of the senate committee drafting the new law.
A former member of Bill Clinton's cabinet says fears that the industry could throw its money behind the populist rightwing backlash against public insurance have scared the Obama White House into pulling back from the most significant reforms in return for healthcare companies not trying to scupper the entire legislation.
Drug and insurance companies say they are merely seeking to educate politicians and the public. But with industry lobbyists swarming over Capitol Hill ‑ there are six registered healthcare lobbyists for every member of Congress ‑ a partner in the most powerful lobbying firm in Washington acknowledged that healthcare firms' money "has had a lot of influence" and that it is "morally suspect". ...
Ban all business lobbying. Simple as.
Supporters of radical reform of healthcare say legislation emerging from the US Senate reflects the financial power of vested interests ‑ principally insurance companies, pharmaceutical firms and hospitals ‑ that have worked to stop far-reaching changes threatening their profits.
The industry and interest groups have spent $380m (£238m) in recent months influencing healthcare legislation through lobbying, advertising and in direct political contributions to members of Congress. The largest contribution, totalling close to $1.5m, has gone to the chairman of the senate committee drafting the new law.
A former member of Bill Clinton's cabinet says fears that the industry could throw its money behind the populist rightwing backlash against public insurance have scared the Obama White House into pulling back from the most significant reforms in return for healthcare companies not trying to scupper the entire legislation.
Drug and insurance companies say they are merely seeking to educate politicians and the public. But with industry lobbyists swarming over Capitol Hill ‑ there are six registered healthcare lobbyists for every member of Congress ‑ a partner in the most powerful lobbying firm in Washington acknowledged that healthcare firms' money "has had a lot of influence" and that it is "morally suspect". ...
Ban all business lobbying. Simple as.
Beijing resembled a city at war today as armed soldiers and Swat police patrolled the capital before the Communist Party's biggest party for a decade to celebrate 60 years of rule.
By sunset the streets had emptied of people and around Tiananmen Square pairs of soldiers holding sub-machine guns with fixed bayonets stood to attention back-to-back.
Special Swat police in black uniforms patrolled with attack dogs and armoured cars were parked along the main Wangfujing — Beijing’s Oxford Street.
Armed police scoured the homes of residents living beside the Avenue of Eternal Peace that bisects Beijing from east to west, searching for explosives. Along the route of tomorrow's parade entire blocks of flats have been emptied and hotels closed.
Residents of high-rises have been told not to step on to their balconies, open windows or receive guests for more than 24 hours. Many living on the path that the military parade will take have been ordered to stock up on food in case they are not allowed to leave their homes. This is how China celebrates. ...
By sunset the streets had emptied of people and around Tiananmen Square pairs of soldiers holding sub-machine guns with fixed bayonets stood to attention back-to-back.
Special Swat police in black uniforms patrolled with attack dogs and armoured cars were parked along the main Wangfujing — Beijing’s Oxford Street.
Armed police scoured the homes of residents living beside the Avenue of Eternal Peace that bisects Beijing from east to west, searching for explosives. Along the route of tomorrow's parade entire blocks of flats have been emptied and hotels closed.
Residents of high-rises have been told not to step on to their balconies, open windows or receive guests for more than 24 hours. Many living on the path that the military parade will take have been ordered to stock up on food in case they are not allowed to leave their homes. This is how China celebrates. ...
September 30, 2009
Videotape of Gilad Shalit to be released in exchange for 20 Palestinian women
K. Lemme get this straight.
One videotape of a male Israeli soldier is worth twenty live Palestinian women?
Shit like this puts me in a very frightening state which is found well past Fury. It also makes me want to kick every single sexist right in their miniscule nutsacks or equivalent, esp the ones which stridently insist that discrimination against females is dead.
Fuck the rest of this story - this sort of thinking is what every country should be fighting. Instead, the men in charge keep waving their willies/guns at each other, insisting "Mine's bigger than yours!"
This is also one of those things which makes me wonder why, despite my intellectual capacities, I am not a Lebanese lady.
Edited to add:
Dear MSiegel, who is exceptionally evolved, has pointed out if videotapes keep getting released, prisoners will be too, and soon everyone will be out. :) I replied that probably only mere women will be released. ;)
Videotape of Gilad Shalit to be released in exchange for 20 Palestinian women
K. Lemme get this straight.
One videotape of a male Israeli soldier is worth twenty live Palestinian women?
Shit like this puts me in a very frightening state which is found well past Fury. It also makes me want to kick every single sexist right in their miniscule nutsacks or equivalent, esp the ones which stridently insist that discrimination against females is dead.
Fuck the rest of this story - this sort of thinking is what every country should be fighting. Instead, the men in charge keep waving their willies/guns at each other, insisting "Mine's bigger than yours!"
This is also one of those things which makes me wonder why, despite my intellectual capacities, I am not a Lebanese lady.
Edited to add:
Dear MSiegel, who is exceptionally evolved, has pointed out if videotapes keep getting released, prisoners will be too, and soon everyone will be out. :) I replied that probably only mere women will be released. ;)
A partially-sighted, one-legged man who had consumed a substantial quantity of rum was accused of attempted murder after he set about four American policemen single-handed earlier this week brandishing an assortment of cutting and stabbing weapons. The understandably alarmed plods subdued their assailant by the use of a Taser electroprod gun.
The Pueblo Chieftain reports today on the fracas, which took place on Monday in Colorado. According to court statements, four Pueblo cops responded to an emergency call made by a member of the public.
On arrival, the officers found James Ray Howard, 42, "shirtless on his front lawn" while brandishing a steak knife and a 12-inch metal spike. Howard later told police that he had consumed "a pint of rum" and unspecified prescription medication prior to the encounter. He is reportedly "legally blind" and has had one foot amputated, besides suffering from "other maladies".
According to the cops, on sighting them Howard uttered "threatening remarks" and made at them in an "aggressive manner". His aspect was sufficiently alarming that the cops understandably declined to engage in any hand-to-hand combat, despite their assailant's presumably limited abilities. ...
The Pueblo Chieftain reports today on the fracas, which took place on Monday in Colorado. According to court statements, four Pueblo cops responded to an emergency call made by a member of the public.
On arrival, the officers found James Ray Howard, 42, "shirtless on his front lawn" while brandishing a steak knife and a 12-inch metal spike. Howard later told police that he had consumed "a pint of rum" and unspecified prescription medication prior to the encounter. He is reportedly "legally blind" and has had one foot amputated, besides suffering from "other maladies".
According to the cops, on sighting them Howard uttered "threatening remarks" and made at them in an "aggressive manner". His aspect was sufficiently alarming that the cops understandably declined to engage in any hand-to-hand combat, despite their assailant's presumably limited abilities. ...
Selfridges launches 'mantyhose' - tights for men
Selfridges is selling a new range of tights for men dubbed “mantyhose” in response to soaring demand for the leg wear.
Published: 7:00AM BST 24 Sep 2009
The tights, priced £70 a pair, are made by lingerie brand Unconditional and are a tough 120 denier thickness.
However, those hoping to recreate the Errol Flynn look will be disappointed – they are only available in black, beige and charcoal.
The boom in sales represents a comeback for tights in men’s wardrobes after a two-century hiatus.
But it would appear that their place in fashion has still yet to be revisited, as today’s fans prefer to wear them as underwear rather than showing them off.
Mantyhose are usually worn under suits to keep the legs warm and to give the hips and legs a smoother line.
David Walker-Smith, Selfridges' director of menswear and beauty, said: “This winter the city's most stylish men will have a secret weapon hidden in their trousers. ..."
Oh, my!
I hate pantyhose - they make my leg-hair itch abominably.
Selfridges is selling a new range of tights for men dubbed “mantyhose” in response to soaring demand for the leg wear.
Published: 7:00AM BST 24 Sep 2009
The tights, priced £70 a pair, are made by lingerie brand Unconditional and are a tough 120 denier thickness.
However, those hoping to recreate the Errol Flynn look will be disappointed – they are only available in black, beige and charcoal.
The boom in sales represents a comeback for tights in men’s wardrobes after a two-century hiatus.
But it would appear that their place in fashion has still yet to be revisited, as today’s fans prefer to wear them as underwear rather than showing them off.
Mantyhose are usually worn under suits to keep the legs warm and to give the hips and legs a smoother line.
David Walker-Smith, Selfridges' director of menswear and beauty, said: “This winter the city's most stylish men will have a secret weapon hidden in their trousers. ..."
Oh, my!
I hate pantyhose - they make my leg-hair itch abominably.
[brilliant snooty English butler]Telephone for you, Sir. A Mister Darwin, Sir.[/brilliant snooty English butler]
Sweden has seen its fair share of daring cash robberies in recent years, from fake bombs used as decoys to the hold-up of luggage handlers at major airports.
But a spectacular raid by a Stockholm gang today has so far left police stumped.
The gang landed a helicopter on the roof of a cash depot before loading it with bags of money.
Just after 5am, the helicopter hovered over the roof of the G4S plc cash depot, in the Västberga area of the city, as men jumped out onto the building, smashed a window and entered a stairwell.
Staff on the early shift were working inside the depot at the time.
Once the gang were inside in the building, witnesses reported hearing load bangs, believed to have been caused by explosives.
The helicopter hovered for 15 minutes, waiting for the men to load the bags of stolen cash from the rooftop. Meanwhile, a police Swat team attempted to gain entry to the cash depot using a battering ram.
Stockholm police were unable to deploy their own helicopters because a bag containing suspected explosives had been left at their hangar. Small spiked objects had also been spread out on the road near the depot in an attempt to hinder the approach of police vehicles.
One witness who saw the rooftop operation told Swedish TV: "Two men hoisted themselves down. I saw when they hoisted up money, too."
Kjell Lindgren, a police spokesman, said: "I've never experienced anything like it." .
An abandoned helicopter was later found in a recreational area near a lake north of Stockholm, about 15 miles from the cash depot.
One witness living near the helicopter's landing site said he had been watching a news report of the robbery at 7:30am when he heard the sound of engines and looked out to see a red and white helicopter flying low over his house.
"I thought it can't have been the one [involved in the robbery]," he said. "But now I realise the helicopter I saw is the one that landed here in Skavloten." ...
But a spectacular raid by a Stockholm gang today has so far left police stumped.
The gang landed a helicopter on the roof of a cash depot before loading it with bags of money.
Just after 5am, the helicopter hovered over the roof of the G4S plc cash depot, in the Västberga area of the city, as men jumped out onto the building, smashed a window and entered a stairwell.
Staff on the early shift were working inside the depot at the time.
Once the gang were inside in the building, witnesses reported hearing load bangs, believed to have been caused by explosives.
The helicopter hovered for 15 minutes, waiting for the men to load the bags of stolen cash from the rooftop. Meanwhile, a police Swat team attempted to gain entry to the cash depot using a battering ram.
Stockholm police were unable to deploy their own helicopters because a bag containing suspected explosives had been left at their hangar. Small spiked objects had also been spread out on the road near the depot in an attempt to hinder the approach of police vehicles.
One witness who saw the rooftop operation told Swedish TV: "Two men hoisted themselves down. I saw when they hoisted up money, too."
Kjell Lindgren, a police spokesman, said: "I've never experienced anything like it." .
An abandoned helicopter was later found in a recreational area near a lake north of Stockholm, about 15 miles from the cash depot.
One witness living near the helicopter's landing site said he had been watching a news report of the robbery at 7:30am when he heard the sound of engines and looked out to see a red and white helicopter flying low over his house.
"I thought it can't have been the one [involved in the robbery]," he said. "But now I realise the helicopter I saw is the one that landed here in Skavloten." ...
STOCKHOLM (Reuters) - Swedish police said they were holding one suspect after armed robbers used a helicopter to stage a spectacular raid on a cash storage unit on the outskirts of the capital Wednesday.
The gang landed a helicopter on the roof of a cash storage facility belonging to Anglo-Danish firm G4S in Vastberga, just south of Stockholm, and made their way into the building through a window, police said.
Witnesses reported several explosions.
The gang then loaded up the helicopter and flew off.
"The attackers used helicopters and explosives to enter the premises and they escaped with an unconfirmed amount of money," G4S said in a statement. ...
The gang landed a helicopter on the roof of a cash storage facility belonging to Anglo-Danish firm G4S in Vastberga, just south of Stockholm, and made their way into the building through a window, police said.
Witnesses reported several explosions.
The gang then loaded up the helicopter and flew off.
"The attackers used helicopters and explosives to enter the premises and they escaped with an unconfirmed amount of money," G4S said in a statement. ...
Brabus Rocket takes title of World's Fastest Sedan with 362.4 km/h run
By Mike Hanlon
07:00 May 27, 2006 PDT
German Performance vehicle manufacturer Brabus has pushed its own world record for the world’s fastest sedan from 350.2 km/h (set by the 298,000 euro 640 bhp Brabus E V12 Biturbo earlier this year) to an incredible 362.4 km/h set at Nardo in Southern Italy by the 348,000-euro (US$437,575) Brabus Rocket, a new small-series production vehicle based on the new Mercedes CLS series. The heart of the new record car is the twin-turbo V12 engine from the latest Mercedes 600 models, suitably worked to increase displacement to 6.233 litres and with a maximum power output of 730 bhp (537 kW) at 5,100 rpm. The engine is capable of producing a peak torque figure of 1,320 Nm, but is limited electronically to 1,100 Nm, available from a low 2,100 rpm, all the way through the range. The Brabus Rocket accordingly accelerates like there’s no tomorrow, particularly given its luxury girth, achieving 0-100 km/h in 4.0 seconds, 0-200 km/h in 10.5 seconds, 0-300 km/h in 29.5 seconds, and just so you don’t do anything silly, the car is limited electronically for street-legal operation to 350 km/h....
By Mike Hanlon
07:00 May 27, 2006 PDT
German Performance vehicle manufacturer Brabus has pushed its own world record for the world’s fastest sedan from 350.2 km/h (set by the 298,000 euro 640 bhp Brabus E V12 Biturbo earlier this year) to an incredible 362.4 km/h set at Nardo in Southern Italy by the 348,000-euro (US$437,575) Brabus Rocket, a new small-series production vehicle based on the new Mercedes CLS series. The heart of the new record car is the twin-turbo V12 engine from the latest Mercedes 600 models, suitably worked to increase displacement to 6.233 litres and with a maximum power output of 730 bhp (537 kW) at 5,100 rpm. The engine is capable of producing a peak torque figure of 1,320 Nm, but is limited electronically to 1,100 Nm, available from a low 2,100 rpm, all the way through the range. The Brabus Rocket accordingly accelerates like there’s no tomorrow, particularly given its luxury girth, achieving 0-100 km/h in 4.0 seconds, 0-200 km/h in 10.5 seconds, 0-300 km/h in 29.5 seconds, and just so you don’t do anything silly, the car is limited electronically for street-legal operation to 350 km/h....
AT least 80 MPs are to face further humiliation over their expenses, as auditors have found they claimed too much for their mortgages and must pay it back.
Many face repaying thousands of pounds of taxpayers’ money. Informed sources say an investigation ordered by Gordon Brown has found a “ticking time bomb” of irregularities.
Investigators working for Sir Thomas Legg, a QC and former civil servant, have found MPs have routinely been claiming the full cost of mortgages on their second homes, even though they are only allowed to recoup the interest.
Whitehall sources predict that many MPs will be ordered to pay back thousands of pounds claimed over the past five years in breach of the rules. ...
Many face repaying thousands of pounds of taxpayers’ money. Informed sources say an investigation ordered by Gordon Brown has found a “ticking time bomb” of irregularities.
Investigators working for Sir Thomas Legg, a QC and former civil servant, have found MPs have routinely been claiming the full cost of mortgages on their second homes, even though they are only allowed to recoup the interest.
Whitehall sources predict that many MPs will be ordered to pay back thousands of pounds claimed over the past five years in breach of the rules. ...
Bring our children home NOW.
Evil, insecure, ignorant, bastards! I'm with dear Anneliese, who sent me this via her review which reads, "For this our troops are dying?"
The British oil trader Trafigura has offered to pay out in a historic damages claim from 31,000 Africans injured by the dumping of toxic waste in one of the worst pollution disasters in recent history, the Guardian can reveal.
The compensation deal for the victims of toxic oil waste dumping in west Africa – likely to be confirmed imminently – means the full extent of attempts to cover up what really happened can be spelled out for the first time.
The truth is laid bare in Trafigura's hitherto secret documents, published by the Guardian today.
The company's internal emails show the true nature of the toxic waste dumped around Abidjan, the capital of Ivory Coast. Trafigura had publicly claimed the waste was harmless.
The exposure of the company files has contributed to Trafigura's climbdown after three years of bitterly contested legal battles. We are publishing them online today. ...
How evil will solar power companies become?
The compensation deal for the victims of toxic oil waste dumping in west Africa – likely to be confirmed imminently – means the full extent of attempts to cover up what really happened can be spelled out for the first time.
The truth is laid bare in Trafigura's hitherto secret documents, published by the Guardian today.
The company's internal emails show the true nature of the toxic waste dumped around Abidjan, the capital of Ivory Coast. Trafigura had publicly claimed the waste was harmless.
The exposure of the company files has contributed to Trafigura's climbdown after three years of bitterly contested legal battles. We are publishing them online today. ...
How evil will solar power companies become?
Yup. Makes ya proud to be Yankistani.
Ahem Fuck you, alabama.
The World Bank is spending billions of pounds subsidising new coal-fired power stations in developing countries despite claiming that burning fossil fuels exposes the poor to catastrophic climate change. The bank, which has a goal of reducing poverty and is funded by Britain and other developed countries, calls on all nations in a report today to “act differently on climate change”.
It says that the world must reduce its dependence on fossil fuels, but it is funding several giant coal-burning plants that will each emit millions of tonnes of carbon dioxide a year for the next 40 to 50 years.
Britain is contributing £400million to a World Bank fund that claims to support “clean technology” but is financing coal power plants.
The bank’s World Development Report says: “Developing countries are disproportionately affected by climate change — a crisis that is not of their making and for which they are the least prepared. Increasing access to energy and other services using high-carbon technologies will produce more greenhouse gases, hence more climate change.” ...
I really didn't need more proof the world bank is thoroughly evil, but thanks anyways.
It says that the world must reduce its dependence on fossil fuels, but it is funding several giant coal-burning plants that will each emit millions of tonnes of carbon dioxide a year for the next 40 to 50 years.
Britain is contributing £400million to a World Bank fund that claims to support “clean technology” but is financing coal power plants.
The bank’s World Development Report says: “Developing countries are disproportionately affected by climate change — a crisis that is not of their making and for which they are the least prepared. Increasing access to energy and other services using high-carbon technologies will produce more greenhouse gases, hence more climate change.” ...
I really didn't need more proof the world bank is thoroughly evil, but thanks anyways.
What's the difference between religion and mental illness?
No, there's no punchline.
Ta much, dear Anneliese
No, there's no punchline.
Ta much, dear Anneliese
Welcome to th' Suthun You-nited States, y'all!
One of the greatest Masters of Foxhounds who ever lived said that every hound he'd known who'd won Peterborough was stupid, and out in the field proved less than worthless.
CANBERRA (Reuters) - Exhausted Australian doctors have been told to drink up to six cups of coffee a day to stay awake during extended shifts, building pressure on Prime Minister Kevin Rudd to seize control of state-run hospitals.
A document on fatigue management released by health officials in Queensland state recommended doctors ingest 400 milligrams of caffeine to stay awake on the job, or the equivalent of six cups of coffee, after warnings that patients were dying.
"For management to just say go and have a cup of coffee and get over tiredness, it cheapens the whole issue," Australian Medical Association Vice President Steven Hambleton told Reuters.
"We are talking about serious issues here, and this is not just a serious suggestion at all. It can't be a weakness to say you're dog tired," he said.
The recommendation followed warnings from a union representing Queensland doctors this week that public hospital patients were dying because dangerously tired medics were being forced to work up to 80 hours without a break. ...
A document on fatigue management released by health officials in Queensland state recommended doctors ingest 400 milligrams of caffeine to stay awake on the job, or the equivalent of six cups of coffee, after warnings that patients were dying.
"For management to just say go and have a cup of coffee and get over tiredness, it cheapens the whole issue," Australian Medical Association Vice President Steven Hambleton told Reuters.
"We are talking about serious issues here, and this is not just a serious suggestion at all. It can't be a weakness to say you're dog tired," he said.
The recommendation followed warnings from a union representing Queensland doctors this week that public hospital patients were dying because dangerously tired medics were being forced to work up to 80 hours without a break. ...
JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) - A South African information technology company on Wednesday proved it was faster for them to transmit data with a carrier pigeon than to send it using Telkom, the country's leading internet service provider.
Internet speed and connectivity in Africa's largest economy are poor because of a bandwidth shortage. It is also expensive.
Local news agency SAPA reported the 11-month-old pigeon, Winston, took one hour and eight minutes to fly the 80 km (50 miles) from Unlimited IT's offices near Pietermaritzburg to the coastal city of Durban with a data card was strapped to his leg.
Including downloading, the transfer took two hours, six minutes and 57 seconds -- the time it took for only four percent of the data to be transferred using a Telkom line.
SAPA said Unlimited IT performed the stunt after becoming frustrated with slow internet transmission times.
The company has 11 call-centres around the country and regularly sends data to its other branches.
Telkom could not immediately be reached for comment. ...
telkom obviously can't do anything immediately - and why in hell will this change for a big football (soccer) game that's coming, instead of simply because it's fucked?
Internet speed and connectivity in Africa's largest economy are poor because of a bandwidth shortage. It is also expensive.
Local news agency SAPA reported the 11-month-old pigeon, Winston, took one hour and eight minutes to fly the 80 km (50 miles) from Unlimited IT's offices near Pietermaritzburg to the coastal city of Durban with a data card was strapped to his leg.
Including downloading, the transfer took two hours, six minutes and 57 seconds -- the time it took for only four percent of the data to be transferred using a Telkom line.
SAPA said Unlimited IT performed the stunt after becoming frustrated with slow internet transmission times.
The company has 11 call-centres around the country and regularly sends data to its other branches.
Telkom could not immediately be reached for comment. ...
telkom obviously can't do anything immediately - and why in hell will this change for a big football (soccer) game that's coming, instead of simply because it's fucked?
The Home Secretary has released a man regarded as one of Britain’s most dangerous terror suspects from virtual house arrest to avoid disclosing secret evidence against him, The Times has learnt.
The man, known only as AF, has been subject to a controversial “control order” since 2006 because of his alleged links with Islamic terrorists. He has never been charged, however, and the evidence for the allegations has never been heard in a public court.
The control order was revoked last week and the suspect’s electronic tag removed, setting him free in spite of the Government’s claim that he remains a threat.
Lord Pannick, QC, who led the legal team acting for the man in the House of Lords, said: “The Home Secretary has some explaining to do. Does he now accept that there was no need for the control order which imposed severe restrictions on AF . . . or does he still think there is a need for controls but is unwilling to provide details of the allegations against AF? If the latter, does he accept that the control order regime is defective and should be scrapped?”
AF, who has dual Libyan and British nationality, was one of three terror suspects who won a landmark ruling from nine law lords in July that their detention under the control order regime was illegal. The law lords ruled that the suspects had been denied a fair hearing prior to detention because they had not been told sufficient details of the case against them.
The ruling paved the way for up to 20 men held under the regime to challenge their detention and to seek to know the basis of the case against them. ...
The man, known only as AF, has been subject to a controversial “control order” since 2006 because of his alleged links with Islamic terrorists. He has never been charged, however, and the evidence for the allegations has never been heard in a public court.
The control order was revoked last week and the suspect’s electronic tag removed, setting him free in spite of the Government’s claim that he remains a threat.
Lord Pannick, QC, who led the legal team acting for the man in the House of Lords, said: “The Home Secretary has some explaining to do. Does he now accept that there was no need for the control order which imposed severe restrictions on AF . . . or does he still think there is a need for controls but is unwilling to provide details of the allegations against AF? If the latter, does he accept that the control order regime is defective and should be scrapped?”
AF, who has dual Libyan and British nationality, was one of three terror suspects who won a landmark ruling from nine law lords in July that their detention under the control order regime was illegal. The law lords ruled that the suspects had been denied a fair hearing prior to detention because they had not been told sufficient details of the case against them.
The ruling paved the way for up to 20 men held under the regime to challenge their detention and to seek to know the basis of the case against them. ...
WTF, Hackney council?!
A character of Raymond Chandler's, a writer, observed, "All writers are punks." Eliot was one of the punkest.
Ta much, dear Edosan
Ta much, dear Edosan
"More than half the plants were destroyed," Simon Vink, spokesman for the university, said on Thursday.
The plants were part of a legal experiment on the suitability of cannabis fibres for the production of textiles, paper and synthetic materials, he said.
"The project had been underway for years and was in its final phase, which would have allowed us to introduced these new fibres to the market.
"We will probably suffer big losses; we are busy doing the calculations."
He added the university, in the east of the country, was "busy talking to the police" about recovering costs.
Police announced on Wednesday they had discovered about 47,000 cannabis plants with an estimated street value of 4.4 million euros (about 6.3 million dollars).
But, said Vink, the plants were unfit for cannabis production due to an extremely low content of THC, the psycho-active ingredient for soft drug use. ...
It's hemp, numbnuts!
The plants were part of a legal experiment on the suitability of cannabis fibres for the production of textiles, paper and synthetic materials, he said.
"The project had been underway for years and was in its final phase, which would have allowed us to introduced these new fibres to the market.
"We will probably suffer big losses; we are busy doing the calculations."
He added the university, in the east of the country, was "busy talking to the police" about recovering costs.
Police announced on Wednesday they had discovered about 47,000 cannabis plants with an estimated street value of 4.4 million euros (about 6.3 million dollars).
But, said Vink, the plants were unfit for cannabis production due to an extremely low content of THC, the psycho-active ingredient for soft drug use. ...
It's hemp, numbnuts!
KUALA LUMPUR (Reuters) - An eight-year legal battle between fast food giant McDonald's and a Malaysian restaurant called McCurry over copyright infringement is set to continue on Monday in the country's highest court.
McDonald's, which has 185 outlets in Malaysia, is appealing against the decision made on April 29 that its trademark had not been infringed upon by the local restaurant, which has one outlet in the Southeast Asian country's capital of Kuala Lumpur.
McCurry serves Malaysian staples such as fish head curry and is short for "Malaysian Chicken Curry," according to the company website (www.mccurryrecipe.com).
"The whole issue is about the name of my restaurant on the signboard," McCurry owner, P. Suppiah told Reuters on Friday.
Monday's hearing in the federal court will determine if the case goes to another trial. ...
McDonald's, which has 185 outlets in Malaysia, is appealing against the decision made on April 29 that its trademark had not been infringed upon by the local restaurant, which has one outlet in the Southeast Asian country's capital of Kuala Lumpur.
McCurry serves Malaysian staples such as fish head curry and is short for "Malaysian Chicken Curry," according to the company website (www.mccurryrecipe.com).
"The whole issue is about the name of my restaurant on the signboard," McCurry owner, P. Suppiah told Reuters on Friday.
Monday's hearing in the federal court will determine if the case goes to another trial. ...
JERICHO, AR - There could be a legal battle on the horizon between an Arkansas city and its fire chief. Jericho, Arkansas fire chief, Don Payne, is recovering at The Med after being shot in court last Thursday. Payne says police officers have gotten out of hand with traffic tickets, and he was trying to stick up for his son when he got shot.
Crittenden County Sheriff's Department Investigators are meeting with prosecutors to see if any charges will be filed in the shooting that happened in the Jericho city hall when police officers shot the fire chief when he was trying to argue a traffic ticket. ...
Yet another reason to avoid arkansas, as if we needed one.
Dear Ar0cketman sent me the yahoo story and I found this 'un.
Crittenden County Sheriff's Department Investigators are meeting with prosecutors to see if any charges will be filed in the shooting that happened in the Jericho city hall when police officers shot the fire chief when he was trying to argue a traffic ticket. ...
Yet another reason to avoid arkansas, as if we needed one.
Dear Ar0cketman sent me the yahoo story and I found this 'un.
He needs to be ridden outta politics on a rail.
Gimme my 60s-90s B&Ws and piss off.
Ta much, dear Ar0cketman for making me ask the classic question, What in holy hell is going on here?!
How private lives of famous were invaded
• Actors, MPs and union leaders among victims
• Investigators took data for news organisations
* Nick Davies
* Monday 31 August 2009
The Guardian today reveals the identities of scores of public figures whose confidential details were extracted from supposedly secure databases by a network of private investigators working for news organisations.
The victims include politicians, union leaders, a high court judge, sports personalities, showbusiness stars, journalists and thousands of members of the public.
Repeatedly breaking data protection laws, newspapers and magazines commissioned the network to obtain personal information from social security records, the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency, the police national computer, British Telecom and mobile phone companies.
They also conned hotels, banks, prisons, trade unions and the post office into handing over sensitive information.
The victims' identities are contained in paperwork which has been suppressed since it was seized six years ago from a Hampshire private investigator, Steve Whittamore, during an inquiry known as Operation Motorman, run by the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO).
It has released a statistical summary of the Motorman paperwork but has refused repeatedly to reveal any of the content, with the result that the vast majority of the victims have never been warned that their privacy was compromised. ...
• Actors, MPs and union leaders among victims
• Investigators took data for news organisations
* Nick Davies
* Monday 31 August 2009
The Guardian today reveals the identities of scores of public figures whose confidential details were extracted from supposedly secure databases by a network of private investigators working for news organisations.
The victims include politicians, union leaders, a high court judge, sports personalities, showbusiness stars, journalists and thousands of members of the public.
Repeatedly breaking data protection laws, newspapers and magazines commissioned the network to obtain personal information from social security records, the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency, the police national computer, British Telecom and mobile phone companies.
They also conned hotels, banks, prisons, trade unions and the post office into handing over sensitive information.
The victims' identities are contained in paperwork which has been suppressed since it was seized six years ago from a Hampshire private investigator, Steve Whittamore, during an inquiry known as Operation Motorman, run by the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO).
It has released a statistical summary of the Motorman paperwork but has refused repeatedly to reveal any of the content, with the result that the vast majority of the victims have never been warned that their privacy was compromised. ...
Detroit on brink of financial ruin
As budget balloons, some fear city can't stay afloat
BY SUZETTE HACKNEY and JOHN WISELY
FREE PRESS STAFF WRITERS
Detroit has fallen so far into debt that the only way out is through bankruptcy or mass layoffs, according to a former city auditor who is familiar with the city's financial structure.
Mayor Dave Bing is trying to plug a $60-million to $80-million cash shortfall and deal with a ballooning $300-million deficit. He is being hampered, though, with falling revenue from property and income taxes and state revenue sharing.
"I don't see the city getting out of this financial mess short of a bankruptcy," said Joe Harris, a former auditor general who was chief financial officer in late 2008 and early 2009.
Bing took the first step last week in addressing the cash crunch by laying off 205 workers, but Harris calls the move a stopgap. The city is bleeding at least $5 million a month, Harris said.
Adding to the cash woes, on Monday the state will again withhold about $1 million in revenue sharing because the city is late with its required audit.
"An $80-million cash flow shortfall sounds terrible," said Jan Lazar, a municipal finance and management consultant, "but it doesn't mean the city can't manage it."
On July 1, Detroit began its fiscal year with less than $20 million in the bank -- not even enough of a surplus to pay the roughly 13,000 employees who cost the city $50 million a month in salaries and benefits.
Now, as the budget continues to balloon -- Detroit Mayor Dave Bing estimates at least a $300-million accumulated deficit and a $60-million to $80-million immediate cash shortfall -- there's concern that the city will not be able to limp its way through the end of the year. ...
Where da money at, you bastards?
As budget balloons, some fear city can't stay afloat
BY SUZETTE HACKNEY and JOHN WISELY
FREE PRESS STAFF WRITERS
Detroit has fallen so far into debt that the only way out is through bankruptcy or mass layoffs, according to a former city auditor who is familiar with the city's financial structure.
Mayor Dave Bing is trying to plug a $60-million to $80-million cash shortfall and deal with a ballooning $300-million deficit. He is being hampered, though, with falling revenue from property and income taxes and state revenue sharing.
"I don't see the city getting out of this financial mess short of a bankruptcy," said Joe Harris, a former auditor general who was chief financial officer in late 2008 and early 2009.
Bing took the first step last week in addressing the cash crunch by laying off 205 workers, but Harris calls the move a stopgap. The city is bleeding at least $5 million a month, Harris said.
Adding to the cash woes, on Monday the state will again withhold about $1 million in revenue sharing because the city is late with its required audit.
"An $80-million cash flow shortfall sounds terrible," said Jan Lazar, a municipal finance and management consultant, "but it doesn't mean the city can't manage it."
On July 1, Detroit began its fiscal year with less than $20 million in the bank -- not even enough of a surplus to pay the roughly 13,000 employees who cost the city $50 million a month in salaries and benefits.
Now, as the budget continues to balloon -- Detroit Mayor Dave Bing estimates at least a $300-million accumulated deficit and a $60-million to $80-million immediate cash shortfall -- there's concern that the city will not be able to limp its way through the end of the year. ...
Where da money at, you bastards?
Naow, will y'all tek this dang corstoom off'n me an' lessgo scare us on up some 'coons an' possums?!
CIA threats to detainees' families exposed
Ewen MacAskill in Washington
Monday 24 August 2009
An internal CIA report published yesterday reveals a host of incidents in which its interrogators went far beyond acceptable bounds, including threatening an al-Qaida leader that his children would be killed and hinting to another suspect that his mother would be raped in front of him.
The CIA document, which the agency fought for years to keep secret, was released after a court action by a civil rights group. It described interrogation techniques that were "unauthorised, improvised, inhumane and undocumented".
Interrogators, questioning al-Qaida and other suspects at Guantánamo and secret prisons round the world, took a power drill and a handgun into an interrogation room and also staged a mock execution in a cell next door.
The report says interrogators threatened Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the mastermind of the September 11 attacks, that if there was another attack on the US, "we're going to kill your children".
In a separate incident, an interrogator told a suspected al-Qaida leader, Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, that if he did not talk "we could get your mother in here. We can bring your family in here". The report added that the interrogator wanted Nashiri to infer that the "interrogation technique involves sexually abusing female relatives in front of the detainee". ...
Go, usa. Rah rah fucking rah. Yippee. I'm so proud. Hooray.
/me vomits
Ewen MacAskill in Washington
Monday 24 August 2009
An internal CIA report published yesterday reveals a host of incidents in which its interrogators went far beyond acceptable bounds, including threatening an al-Qaida leader that his children would be killed and hinting to another suspect that his mother would be raped in front of him.
The CIA document, which the agency fought for years to keep secret, was released after a court action by a civil rights group. It described interrogation techniques that were "unauthorised, improvised, inhumane and undocumented".
Interrogators, questioning al-Qaida and other suspects at Guantánamo and secret prisons round the world, took a power drill and a handgun into an interrogation room and also staged a mock execution in a cell next door.
The report says interrogators threatened Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the mastermind of the September 11 attacks, that if there was another attack on the US, "we're going to kill your children".
In a separate incident, an interrogator told a suspected al-Qaida leader, Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, that if he did not talk "we could get your mother in here. We can bring your family in here". The report added that the interrogator wanted Nashiri to infer that the "interrogation technique involves sexually abusing female relatives in front of the detainee". ...
Go, usa. Rah rah fucking rah. Yippee. I'm so proud. Hooray.
/me vomits
The CIA's post-torture profits
Architects of a shameful chapter in the agency's history now reap rich rewards in the private sector. They must be held to account
o Tim Shorrock
o Tuesday 25 August 2009
Monday's release of the long-awaited CIA report on the agency's role in torture and interrogation brought me back to 1967, when I was a high school student opposed to the Vietnam war. Angry that my history teacher was only presenting the official story, I persuaded her to allow my class to read Vietnam! Vietnam!, a powerful indictment of the war by the British reporter Felix Greene. It was filled with disturbing images, including a haunting photograph of a Vietnamese fighter being waterboarded while American soldiers looked on. But my teacher and fellow students dismissed the book as propaganda, preferring instead the sanitised version of the war provided by the US government.
The CIA report, however, is the official word on the Bush-Cheney "war on terror". In gruesome detail, it shows how untrained CIA interrogators and private contractors, blessed by their superiors, inflicted detainees captured in the Middle East with "enhanced interrogation techniques" that ran the gamut from mock executions to threats to kill family members to waterboarding. While the intelligence provided important details about al-Qaida and some information about possible attacks, the report concluded that the interrogations violated US commitments to human rights and showed that the CIA "failed to provide adequate staffing, guidance and support" to those involved.
CIA director Leon Panetta attempted to downplay those findings by saying that "the challenge is not the battles of yesterday, but those of today and tomorrow". But we know from the American experience that is not true: as in Vietnam, we must come to grips with the fact that using the ends to justify the means has destroyed thousands of lives and stirred deep hatred for the US.
Curiously, there is a reference to the American cold war past in the CIA report. After Vietnam, it said, US interest in interrogation faded, only to re-emerge with US intervention in Central America as a way to "foster foreign liaison relationships" – presumably with the anti-communist governments such as El Salvador and Guatemala. But in the mid-1980s, after two CIA officers were investigated for killing a detainee – in a country blacked out in the report – the agency said it ended its so-called "human resource exploitation" programme. ...
Architects of a shameful chapter in the agency's history now reap rich rewards in the private sector. They must be held to account
o Tim Shorrock
o Tuesday 25 August 2009
Monday's release of the long-awaited CIA report on the agency's role in torture and interrogation brought me back to 1967, when I was a high school student opposed to the Vietnam war. Angry that my history teacher was only presenting the official story, I persuaded her to allow my class to read Vietnam! Vietnam!, a powerful indictment of the war by the British reporter Felix Greene. It was filled with disturbing images, including a haunting photograph of a Vietnamese fighter being waterboarded while American soldiers looked on. But my teacher and fellow students dismissed the book as propaganda, preferring instead the sanitised version of the war provided by the US government.
The CIA report, however, is the official word on the Bush-Cheney "war on terror". In gruesome detail, it shows how untrained CIA interrogators and private contractors, blessed by their superiors, inflicted detainees captured in the Middle East with "enhanced interrogation techniques" that ran the gamut from mock executions to threats to kill family members to waterboarding. While the intelligence provided important details about al-Qaida and some information about possible attacks, the report concluded that the interrogations violated US commitments to human rights and showed that the CIA "failed to provide adequate staffing, guidance and support" to those involved.
CIA director Leon Panetta attempted to downplay those findings by saying that "the challenge is not the battles of yesterday, but those of today and tomorrow". But we know from the American experience that is not true: as in Vietnam, we must come to grips with the fact that using the ends to justify the means has destroyed thousands of lives and stirred deep hatred for the US.
Curiously, there is a reference to the American cold war past in the CIA report. After Vietnam, it said, US interest in interrogation faded, only to re-emerge with US intervention in Central America as a way to "foster foreign liaison relationships" – presumably with the anti-communist governments such as El Salvador and Guatemala. But in the mid-1980s, after two CIA officers were investigated for killing a detainee – in a country blacked out in the report – the agency said it ended its so-called "human resource exploitation" programme. ...
Reforms are most needed in the countries whose 'governments' shout that reformers should be executed; curious, that.
God Hates Elms T-Shirt
By Daniel Florien on August 21, 2009 in Atheism, Christianity, Humor, Superstition.
Yesterday, while ridiculing those who believe a supernatural being sent a tornado to Minneapolis because of TEH GAYS!!!, PZ Myers said:
"It seems, if you look at the conference schedule, that the liberal Lutherans were contemplating making some friendly statements about their gay congregants, so obviously this was an example of gentle smiting of sodomites.
Of course, also on the schedule were bible study and hymn singing — god hates “Onward Christian Soldiers”. And a middle school in North Branch — god hates education. It knocked down many trees — god hates elms."
God hates elms. What a great idea for a t-shirt, I thought. Some commenters on PZ’s site also thought so, so a friend and I whipped one up:
...
Ta much, dear Anneliese
By Daniel Florien on August 21, 2009 in Atheism, Christianity, Humor, Superstition.
Yesterday, while ridiculing those who believe a supernatural being sent a tornado to Minneapolis because of TEH GAYS!!!, PZ Myers said:
"It seems, if you look at the conference schedule, that the liberal Lutherans were contemplating making some friendly statements about their gay congregants, so obviously this was an example of gentle smiting of sodomites.
Of course, also on the schedule were bible study and hymn singing — god hates “Onward Christian Soldiers”. And a middle school in North Branch — god hates education. It knocked down many trees — god hates elms."
God hates elms. What a great idea for a t-shirt, I thought. Some commenters on PZ’s site also thought so, so a friend and I whipped one up:
...
Ta much, dear Anneliese
US hacker charged with stealing 130m credit card IDs
Former secret service worker in jail in New York accused of record scam against retail companies
Ed Pilkington
Tuesday 18 August 2009
A serial hacker has been charged with carrying out the largest theft of credit card identities ever recorded in the US, in a sophisticated scam in which he and accomplices allegedly stole at least 130m accounts from big retail companies.
Albert Gonzalez, 28, of Miami, who once worked with the US secret service, is accused of working with two unidentified Russian conspirators to hack into the databases of retail chains, selling the information around the world. According to a 14-page indictment, the hackers stole credit card numbers from Heartland, a New Jersey-based company that processes payments, from the store 7-Eleven, and the supermarket chain Hannaford.
The three also targeted two other, unnamed corporations, according to the US attorney's office in New Jersey.
Heartland Payment Systems and Hannaford Brothers had separately acknowledged the breaches, but the scope of the fraud had not been known. ...
Former secret service worker in jail in New York accused of record scam against retail companies
Ed Pilkington
Tuesday 18 August 2009
A serial hacker has been charged with carrying out the largest theft of credit card identities ever recorded in the US, in a sophisticated scam in which he and accomplices allegedly stole at least 130m accounts from big retail companies.
Albert Gonzalez, 28, of Miami, who once worked with the US secret service, is accused of working with two unidentified Russian conspirators to hack into the databases of retail chains, selling the information around the world. According to a 14-page indictment, the hackers stole credit card numbers from Heartland, a New Jersey-based company that processes payments, from the store 7-Eleven, and the supermarket chain Hannaford.
The three also targeted two other, unnamed corporations, according to the US attorney's office in New Jersey.
Heartland Payment Systems and Hannaford Brothers had separately acknowledged the breaches, but the scope of the fraud had not been known. ...
Texas Judge Goes to Trial Over Execution
By MICHAEL BRICK
Published: August 17, 2009
SAN ANTONIO — The highest-ranking criminal judge in Texas, the woman who presides over the most active execution chamber in the country, sat at a defense table on Monday to face charges of intentionally denying a condemned man access to the legal system.
The judge, Sharon Keller of the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals, took her seat before a gallery crowded with bloggers, lawyers and death penalty protesters. Outside the courthouse, demonstrators called for her ouster. Inside, lawyers on both sides emphasized that capital punishment was not on trial.
But to some, Judge Keller has come to embody the practice. An intensely private former member of the Dallas County District Attorney’s Office, she won election to the court in 1994 and to the post of presiding judge in 2000. She has cultivated a reputation for rulings favorable to the prosecution in death penalty cases.
On Sept. 25, 2007, Judge Keller put in a 10-hour workday and went home around 4 p.m. to meet a repairman. That morning the United States Supreme Court had effectively suspended lethal injection as a manner of execution by accepting a challenge to its constitutionality in a Kentucky case.
Largely on the basis of the justices’ action, lawyers for a Texas death row inmate were putting together an appeal to stave off execution. An assigned duty judge was waiting at the courthouse for any last-minute appeal on the inmate’s behalf.
Around 4:45 p.m., the general counsel of Judge Keller’s court called her to relate a request to file paperwork after 5 p.m., the usual closing time for the court clerk’s office. Judge Keller replied that the clerk’s office closed at 5 p.m. A few hours later, the inmate was executed. ...
WTF, texass?
Ta much, dear Anneliese
By MICHAEL BRICK
Published: August 17, 2009
SAN ANTONIO — The highest-ranking criminal judge in Texas, the woman who presides over the most active execution chamber in the country, sat at a defense table on Monday to face charges of intentionally denying a condemned man access to the legal system.
The judge, Sharon Keller of the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals, took her seat before a gallery crowded with bloggers, lawyers and death penalty protesters. Outside the courthouse, demonstrators called for her ouster. Inside, lawyers on both sides emphasized that capital punishment was not on trial.
But to some, Judge Keller has come to embody the practice. An intensely private former member of the Dallas County District Attorney’s Office, she won election to the court in 1994 and to the post of presiding judge in 2000. She has cultivated a reputation for rulings favorable to the prosecution in death penalty cases.
On Sept. 25, 2007, Judge Keller put in a 10-hour workday and went home around 4 p.m. to meet a repairman. That morning the United States Supreme Court had effectively suspended lethal injection as a manner of execution by accepting a challenge to its constitutionality in a Kentucky case.
Largely on the basis of the justices’ action, lawyers for a Texas death row inmate were putting together an appeal to stave off execution. An assigned duty judge was waiting at the courthouse for any last-minute appeal on the inmate’s behalf.
Around 4:45 p.m., the general counsel of Judge Keller’s court called her to relate a request to file paperwork after 5 p.m., the usual closing time for the court clerk’s office. Judge Keller replied that the clerk’s office closed at 5 p.m. A few hours later, the inmate was executed. ...
WTF, texass?
Ta much, dear Anneliese
The sniffer dog trials
Using sniffer dogs to identify people carrying drugs is wrong in principle and ineffective in practice – and we'll prove it in court
Claudia Rubin
Friday 14 August 2009
Release is taking legal action against the British Transport Police (BTP) to determine if the use of sniffer dogs to detect drugs is lawful. If we are successful, the case will require the police to stop using sniffer dogs for this purpose.
The case was sparked by an incident in which Release's executive director, Sebastian Saville was searched last year by the BTP at Camden Town underground station following a positive indication by a sniffer dog. Saville had no illegal drugs in his possession.
Release argue that Saville was unlawfully searched and detained, and that these actions constituted a breach of Saville's fundamental human rights of freedom of movement and respect for private life, as well as constituting a trespass to his person. These kind of civil liberties are what distinguish our own society from the authoritarian and repressive ones that we loathe and fear. Adhering to the principle that the police are here to serve and protect the public requires our police forces to tread a fine line, and sometimes this line is crossed. The use of sniffer dogs to identify people carrying drugs as they make their way through London's transport system is not only wrong in principle, but it is also ineffective in practice.
Australian research has found that in 74% of searches following an indication by a police dog no drugs were found. No equivalent comprehensive research has been conducted in the UK; however preliminary inquiries via freedom of information requests indicate that the deployment of police dogs here produces similar results. During Operation Shelter, conducted by the British Transport Police during Latitude festival in Ipswich in 2008, only 12% of searches conducted as a result of "tells" by police dogs located illegal drugs. ...
Using sniffer dogs to identify people carrying drugs is wrong in principle and ineffective in practice – and we'll prove it in court
Claudia Rubin
Friday 14 August 2009
Release is taking legal action against the British Transport Police (BTP) to determine if the use of sniffer dogs to detect drugs is lawful. If we are successful, the case will require the police to stop using sniffer dogs for this purpose.
The case was sparked by an incident in which Release's executive director, Sebastian Saville was searched last year by the BTP at Camden Town underground station following a positive indication by a sniffer dog. Saville had no illegal drugs in his possession.
Release argue that Saville was unlawfully searched and detained, and that these actions constituted a breach of Saville's fundamental human rights of freedom of movement and respect for private life, as well as constituting a trespass to his person. These kind of civil liberties are what distinguish our own society from the authoritarian and repressive ones that we loathe and fear. Adhering to the principle that the police are here to serve and protect the public requires our police forces to tread a fine line, and sometimes this line is crossed. The use of sniffer dogs to identify people carrying drugs as they make their way through London's transport system is not only wrong in principle, but it is also ineffective in practice.
Australian research has found that in 74% of searches following an indication by a police dog no drugs were found. No equivalent comprehensive research has been conducted in the UK; however preliminary inquiries via freedom of information requests indicate that the deployment of police dogs here produces similar results. During Operation Shelter, conducted by the British Transport Police during Latitude festival in Ipswich in 2008, only 12% of searches conducted as a result of "tells" by police dogs located illegal drugs. ...
Bobb to announce criminal charges in DPS probe
BY BEN SCHMITT • FREE PRESS STAFF WRITER • August 11, 2009
Wayne County Prosecutor Kym Worthy issued a press release today stating she and Public Schools Emergency Financial Manager Robert Bobb will announce criminal charges Wednesday stemming from an investigation into the public schools. ...
BY BEN SCHMITT • FREE PRESS STAFF WRITER • August 11, 2009
Wayne County Prosecutor Kym Worthy issued a press release today stating she and Public Schools Emergency Financial Manager Robert Bobb will announce criminal charges Wednesday stemming from an investigation into the public schools. ...
A Brazilian politician who fronts a popular television crime show is being investigated for allegedly ordering a series of executions in a bid to boost his ratings.
Wallace Souza, a former police officer who used his lunchtime television slot to rail against the violence sweeping the jungle city of Manaus, is suspected of commissioning at least five murders to prove his claim that the region is awash with violent crime.
"Manaus can no longer live with this wave of crime," Souza, 50, frequently told the audience of his daily show Canal Livre. "Nowadays everyone is killing."
In a 2008 speech at Manaus's local parliament, Souza boasted that Canal Livre enjoyed complete editorial freedom and was conducted with "journalistic responsibility".
But prosecutors in the remote Amazon city say the politician's actions went far beyond the call of journalistic duty, accusing Souza of links to drug trafficking, death squads and organised crime, and possessing illegal arms. ...
Wallace Souza, a former police officer who used his lunchtime television slot to rail against the violence sweeping the jungle city of Manaus, is suspected of commissioning at least five murders to prove his claim that the region is awash with violent crime.
"Manaus can no longer live with this wave of crime," Souza, 50, frequently told the audience of his daily show Canal Livre. "Nowadays everyone is killing."
In a 2008 speech at Manaus's local parliament, Souza boasted that Canal Livre enjoyed complete editorial freedom and was conducted with "journalistic responsibility".
But prosecutors in the remote Amazon city say the politician's actions went far beyond the call of journalistic duty, accusing Souza of links to drug trafficking, death squads and organised crime, and possessing illegal arms. ...
... In 1981, Alexander built a 200sq ft home for lab rats. Rat Park, as it became known, was kept clean and temperate, while the rats were supplied with plenty of food and toys, along with places to dig, rest and mate. Alexander even painted the walls with a soothing natural backdrop of lakes and trees. He then installed two drips, one containing a morphine solution, the other plain water. This was rat heaven: but would happy rats develop morphine habits?
Try as he might, Alexander could not make junkies out of his rats. Even after being force-fed morphine for two months, when given the option, they chose plain water, despite experiencing mild withdrawal symptoms. He laced the morphine with sugar, but still they ignored it. Only when he added Naloxone, an opiate inhibitor, to the sugared morphine water, did they drink it.
Alexander simultaneously monitored rats kept in "normal" lab conditions: they consistently chose the morphine drip over plain water, sometimes consuming 16-20 times more than the Rat Parkers.
Alexander's findings - that deprived rats seek solace in opiates, while contented rats avoid them - dramatically contradict our currently held beliefs about addiction. So, how might society benefit if his results were applied to human addicts? Nobody seemed to care. ...
Ta much, dear DontheFox
Try as he might, Alexander could not make junkies out of his rats. Even after being force-fed morphine for two months, when given the option, they chose plain water, despite experiencing mild withdrawal symptoms. He laced the morphine with sugar, but still they ignored it. Only when he added Naloxone, an opiate inhibitor, to the sugared morphine water, did they drink it.
Alexander simultaneously monitored rats kept in "normal" lab conditions: they consistently chose the morphine drip over plain water, sometimes consuming 16-20 times more than the Rat Parkers.
Alexander's findings - that deprived rats seek solace in opiates, while contented rats avoid them - dramatically contradict our currently held beliefs about addiction. So, how might society benefit if his results were applied to human addicts? Nobody seemed to care. ...
Ta much, dear DontheFox
Cockrel goes to cops on Conyers' missing stuff
BY NAOMI R. PATTON AND BEN SCHMITT • FREE PRESS STAFF WRITERS • August 7, 2009
Detroit City Council President Ken Cockrel Jr. today asked police to investigate the disappearance of more than $21,000 worth of city-owned equipment from the office of former Detroit City Council President Pro Tem Monica Conyers.
A Cockrel staffer hand-delivered to police a package that included the inventory of equipment found missing after she resigned, plus correspondence with Cockrel and her attorney.
Cockrel said he has not yet spoken to Police Chief Warren Evans or Wayne County Prosecutor Kym Worthy since the package was delivered.
“We just got to a point where it became very clear we were not getting cooperation from either her or her attorney,” Cockrel said. “We’ve been promised, on a couple of occasions, a written response.”
He said attorneys with the council’s Research and Analysis Division have been the primary contact with Conyers' lawyer, Steve Fishman.
Fishman laughed today when informed of Cockrel’s report to police.
“I don’t have anything to add to what I said before,” Fishman said, before hanging up the phone.
Last month, Fishman said of the allegations: “"Monica Conyers did not take any property belonging to the City of Detroit, nor did she authorize anyone else to do so."
Cockrel initially sent Conyers a letter, dated July 23, telling her her that 29 items, valued at $21,300, were missing from her council offices. He asked her to arrange for the items – including, desktop computers, printers, a camcorder; and two digital cameras – to be returned, or “the items will be deemed stolen property and I will forward this documentation to the Detroit Police Department and the Wayne County Prosecutor’s Office."
Since then two of the laptops -- an Apple MacBook and a Hewlett Packard PC -- and a computer carrying case have been returned, reportedly on Conyers behalf, by a former staffer. ...
She's just an evil, lyin,' t'iefin' bitch.
BY NAOMI R. PATTON AND BEN SCHMITT • FREE PRESS STAFF WRITERS • August 7, 2009
Detroit City Council President Ken Cockrel Jr. today asked police to investigate the disappearance of more than $21,000 worth of city-owned equipment from the office of former Detroit City Council President Pro Tem Monica Conyers.
A Cockrel staffer hand-delivered to police a package that included the inventory of equipment found missing after she resigned, plus correspondence with Cockrel and her attorney.
Cockrel said he has not yet spoken to Police Chief Warren Evans or Wayne County Prosecutor Kym Worthy since the package was delivered.
“We just got to a point where it became very clear we were not getting cooperation from either her or her attorney,” Cockrel said. “We’ve been promised, on a couple of occasions, a written response.”
He said attorneys with the council’s Research and Analysis Division have been the primary contact with Conyers' lawyer, Steve Fishman.
Fishman laughed today when informed of Cockrel’s report to police.
“I don’t have anything to add to what I said before,” Fishman said, before hanging up the phone.
Last month, Fishman said of the allegations: “"Monica Conyers did not take any property belonging to the City of Detroit, nor did she authorize anyone else to do so."
Cockrel initially sent Conyers a letter, dated July 23, telling her her that 29 items, valued at $21,300, were missing from her council offices. He asked her to arrange for the items – including, desktop computers, printers, a camcorder; and two digital cameras – to be returned, or “the items will be deemed stolen property and I will forward this documentation to the Detroit Police Department and the Wayne County Prosecutor’s Office."
Since then two of the laptops -- an Apple MacBook and a Hewlett Packard PC -- and a computer carrying case have been returned, reportedly on Conyers behalf, by a former staffer. ...
She's just an evil, lyin,' t'iefin' bitch.
... "The most common injuries in Afghanistan are caused by IEDs or mines," he said. "How many people only suffer three injuries from these? It is impossible. Even a tank gets destroyed by a mine.
"To add insult to injury, the armed forces give you 100% for the first injury, 30% for the second and 15% for third. I think you should get 100% for every injury. I know that would cost the government an absolute fortune, but that's tough. They have cost us our lives.
"There are soldiers who have lost their lives and have paid the maximum price. We soldiers who are still alive are paying the maximum price for being alive.
"I have to live with this, and the other soldiers who are worse than me, for the rest of our lives. If the government think it is going to cost them too much they should bring us home."
shrub sr and jr's compassionate conservatism has leached into the m.o.d. - quel surprise.
"To add insult to injury, the armed forces give you 100% for the first injury, 30% for the second and 15% for third. I think you should get 100% for every injury. I know that would cost the government an absolute fortune, but that's tough. They have cost us our lives.
"There are soldiers who have lost their lives and have paid the maximum price. We soldiers who are still alive are paying the maximum price for being alive.
"I have to live with this, and the other soldiers who are worse than me, for the rest of our lives. If the government think it is going to cost them too much they should bring us home."
shrub sr and jr's compassionate conservatism has leached into the m.o.d. - quel surprise.
Quis custodiet ipsos custodes? indeed, Juvenal.
Just move to chinastan already, gm. You've become so sucky I can barely keep myself from going down to your World Headquarters© at the Renaissance Center (Yeah, like you've done so much for Detroit's Renaissance, you bastards!) and screaming, "I hate you, gm! I hate your polluting ways, your overpaid executives, your fucking your workers by sending so many jobs to chinastan among soooo many other ways, your ugly cars that you keep making while you dump the cool ones, your lack of vision, your ignorance, and your stupidity!"
/rant
/rant
Not only evil, but what a maroon!
President Ahmadinejad was sworn in for a second term today, but it was hardly a joyful occasion or cause for national celebration.
The regime claims Mr Ahmadinejad was swept back into office with an overwhelming 63 per cent of the vote, but thousands of police and basiji militiamen had to ring the parliament during the ceremony to protect it from an irate citizenry convinced the vote was stolen.
Dignitaries were flown in by helicopter. Opposition leaders and around 50 moderate MPs boycotted the ceremony. Britain’s ambassador and those of other western countries attended the event, but their governments pointedly omitted to send the customary letters of congratulation.
Mr Ahmadinejad called the June 12 vote an “unprecedented epic”, but his speech was, by his own bellicose standards, relatively subdued. The ceremony itself was “lacklustre, sombre, perfunctory,” said one of those present. “It was almost like they just wanted to get it out of the way.” ...
The regime claims Mr Ahmadinejad was swept back into office with an overwhelming 63 per cent of the vote, but thousands of police and basiji militiamen had to ring the parliament during the ceremony to protect it from an irate citizenry convinced the vote was stolen.
Dignitaries were flown in by helicopter. Opposition leaders and around 50 moderate MPs boycotted the ceremony. Britain’s ambassador and those of other western countries attended the event, but their governments pointedly omitted to send the customary letters of congratulation.
Mr Ahmadinejad called the June 12 vote an “unprecedented epic”, but his speech was, by his own bellicose standards, relatively subdued. The ceremony itself was “lacklustre, sombre, perfunctory,” said one of those present. “It was almost like they just wanted to get it out of the way.” ...
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's inauguration as Iranian president for a second term was marked by opposition walkouts, demonstrations and criticism from his own conservative camp today as pressure mounted on the disputed winner of Iran's election.
Senior officials and clerics attended the ceremony at Iran's parliament but it was boycotted by many opposition leaders and moderate politicians. Those of the reform faction who did attend walked out when Ahmadinejad started speaking, according to the opposition website Parleman News. Hundreds of opposition supporters gathered outside parliament and further protests were reported to be planned for 30 locations at 7pm Iranian time (3.30pm GMT).
The opposition claims Ahmadinejad stole the vote in the 12 June presidential elections. At least 30 demonstrators were killed in uprisings that followed. ...
Senior officials and clerics attended the ceremony at Iran's parliament but it was boycotted by many opposition leaders and moderate politicians. Those of the reform faction who did attend walked out when Ahmadinejad started speaking, according to the opposition website Parleman News. Hundreds of opposition supporters gathered outside parliament and further protests were reported to be planned for 30 locations at 7pm Iranian time (3.30pm GMT).
The opposition claims Ahmadinejad stole the vote in the 12 June presidential elections. At least 30 demonstrators were killed in uprisings that followed. ...
Lubna Hussein: justice deferred
Lubna Hussein's trial for 'indecent dressing' has been postponed. But whatever the result she has struck a blow for women's rights
Nesrine Malik
Wednesday 5 August 2009
Lubna Hussein's trial for 'indecent dressing' has been postponed. But whatever the result she has struck a blow for women's rights
Nesrine Malik
Wednesday 5 August 2009
August 5, 2009
Blackwater boss and guards accused of murder and 'killing Iraqis for fun'
Founder of security firm saw himself as a Christian Crusader whose task was to eliminate Muslims, former employees allege
Deborah Haynes, Defence Correspondent
Two former employees of Blackwater have accused the private US security firm and its founder of killing Iraqis for fun, smuggling weapons and deceiving the State Department.
The men, who requested anonymity for fear of retaliation — one claimed that Blackwater management threatened to kill him — also claimed they had learnt that at least one person who has or planned to speak out against the US firm and its founder Erik Prince was “killed in mysterious circumstances”.
The claims were made in sworn statements filed in a court in Virginia earlier this week as part of a civil lawsuit by families of several Iraqis allegedly killed by Blackwater guards.
The ex-Blackwater workers, a former Marine identified as John Doe No 1 and another man identified as John Doe No 2, are American citizens.
John Doe No 2 makes a series of accusations against Mr Prince. He says the Blackwater Worldwide boss “views himself as a Christian crusader tasked with eliminating Muslims and the Islamic faith from the globe”, according to his declaration posted, along with a series of other legal documents, on the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) website.
“To that end, Mr Prince intentionally deployed to Iraq certain men who shared his vision of Christian supremacy, knowing and wanting these men to take every available opportunity to murder Iraqis. Many of these men used call signs based on the Knights of the Templar, the warriors who fought the Crusades.”
He adds that "on several occasions after my departure from Mr Prince's employ, Mr Prince's management has personally threatened me with death or violence. In addition, based on information provided to me by former colleagues it appears that Mr Prince and his employees murdered or had murdered one or more persons who have provided information or were planning to provide information, to the federal authorities about the ongoing criminal conduct." ...
Well done the commenter who tosses prince into the same barrel as the other terrorists.
Blackwater boss and guards accused of murder and 'killing Iraqis for fun'
Founder of security firm saw himself as a Christian Crusader whose task was to eliminate Muslims, former employees allege
Deborah Haynes, Defence Correspondent
Two former employees of Blackwater have accused the private US security firm and its founder of killing Iraqis for fun, smuggling weapons and deceiving the State Department.
The men, who requested anonymity for fear of retaliation — one claimed that Blackwater management threatened to kill him — also claimed they had learnt that at least one person who has or planned to speak out against the US firm and its founder Erik Prince was “killed in mysterious circumstances”.
The claims were made in sworn statements filed in a court in Virginia earlier this week as part of a civil lawsuit by families of several Iraqis allegedly killed by Blackwater guards.
The ex-Blackwater workers, a former Marine identified as John Doe No 1 and another man identified as John Doe No 2, are American citizens.
John Doe No 2 makes a series of accusations against Mr Prince. He says the Blackwater Worldwide boss “views himself as a Christian crusader tasked with eliminating Muslims and the Islamic faith from the globe”, according to his declaration posted, along with a series of other legal documents, on the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) website.
“To that end, Mr Prince intentionally deployed to Iraq certain men who shared his vision of Christian supremacy, knowing and wanting these men to take every available opportunity to murder Iraqis. Many of these men used call signs based on the Knights of the Templar, the warriors who fought the Crusades.”
He adds that "on several occasions after my departure from Mr Prince's employ, Mr Prince's management has personally threatened me with death or violence. In addition, based on information provided to me by former colleagues it appears that Mr Prince and his employees murdered or had murdered one or more persons who have provided information or were planning to provide information, to the federal authorities about the ongoing criminal conduct." ...
Well done the commenter who tosses prince into the same barrel as the other terrorists.
August 5, 2009
Ridgback armour secrecy deprives British troops of Afghanistan vehicles
Michael Evans, Defence Editor
Secrecy s[urr]ounding the armour on new vehicles destined for British troops in Afghanistan is preventing them from being flown into the conflict zone.
The cladding on the Ridgbacks has been classified as so secret that only British transport aircraft are allowed to ferry them to the troops in Helmand province, defence sources said today.
As a consequence, the much-needed vehicles have been queuing up in Dubai, with long delays before sufficient UK transport aircraft can be found to take them to Afghanistan.
The four-wheeled Ridgback which is a smaller version of the six-wheeled Mastiff armoured vehicle, was bought from the Americans, partly to replace the Snatch Land Rover. Thirty-seven service personnel have been killed in the Land Rovers, which proved to be no match for the increasingly powerful roadside bombs.
During the time it has taken to deliver the Ridgbacks to Helmand, eight soldiers have been killed from explosions in Helmand. Two of them are known to have been travelling in ageing armoured tracked vehicles.
Under normal arrangements, all previous armoured vehicles bought to provide extra protection for the troops in Helmand have been flown by a mixture of British and civilian chartered aircraft. The most heavily used aircraft have been Russian-made Antonov planes - the giants in the air transport business.
However, the new American-designed Ridgbacks have been given a secrecy classification of “UK Eyes only” which automatically bars the use of foreign-owned transport aircraft to carry them to Afghanistan.
The RAF has been forced to use only the British-owned C17 Globemaster fleet, consisting of six aircraft, which can take two Ridgbacks at a time. But the Ministry of Defence said the C17s were already working at full stretch, taking all heavy supplies to Afghanistan. ...
WTF, red-tape addicts?
Ridgback armour secrecy deprives British troops of Afghanistan vehicles
Michael Evans, Defence Editor
Secrecy s[urr]ounding the armour on new vehicles destined for British troops in Afghanistan is preventing them from being flown into the conflict zone.
The cladding on the Ridgbacks has been classified as so secret that only British transport aircraft are allowed to ferry them to the troops in Helmand province, defence sources said today.
As a consequence, the much-needed vehicles have been queuing up in Dubai, with long delays before sufficient UK transport aircraft can be found to take them to Afghanistan.
The four-wheeled Ridgback which is a smaller version of the six-wheeled Mastiff armoured vehicle, was bought from the Americans, partly to replace the Snatch Land Rover. Thirty-seven service personnel have been killed in the Land Rovers, which proved to be no match for the increasingly powerful roadside bombs.
During the time it has taken to deliver the Ridgbacks to Helmand, eight soldiers have been killed from explosions in Helmand. Two of them are known to have been travelling in ageing armoured tracked vehicles.
Under normal arrangements, all previous armoured vehicles bought to provide extra protection for the troops in Helmand have been flown by a mixture of British and civilian chartered aircraft. The most heavily used aircraft have been Russian-made Antonov planes - the giants in the air transport business.
However, the new American-designed Ridgbacks have been given a secrecy classification of “UK Eyes only” which automatically bars the use of foreign-owned transport aircraft to carry them to Afghanistan.
The RAF has been forced to use only the British-owned C17 Globemaster fleet, consisting of six aircraft, which can take two Ridgbacks at a time. But the Ministry of Defence said the C17s were already working at full stretch, taking all heavy supplies to Afghanistan. ...
WTF, red-tape addicts?
Sudan police beat protesters as woman goes on trial for wearing trousers
Case against former UN worker Lubna Hussein, who faces 40 lashes for 'indecent dressing', is adjourned
* Xan Rice in Nairobi and agencies
* Tuesday 4 August 2009 11.31 BST
Police fired teargas and beat supporters of a Sudanese woman facing 40 lashes for wearing trousers in public shortly before her trial was adjourned this morning.
Police in Khartoum moved in swiftly and dispersed about 50 protesters, mostly women, who were supporting Lubna Hussein, a former UN worker charged with "indecent dressing" in violation of the country's Islamic laws.
Some of the women demonstrators wore trousers in solidarity with Hussein. "We are here to protest against this law that oppresses women and debases them," said Amal Habani, a female columnist for the daily newspaper Ajraa al-Hurria (Bells of Freedom).
Hussein's trial was later adjourned until September by a judge to seek clarification from Sudan's foreign ministry over her status.
At the time of her arrest, Hussein was working for the media department of the UN mission in Sudan, which gives her immunity from prosecution. She submitted her resignation after her trial began last week because she wanted to go on trial to challenge the dress code law. ...
Have these idiots never heard of salwar kameez, FFS?!
Case against former UN worker Lubna Hussein, who faces 40 lashes for 'indecent dressing', is adjourned
* Xan Rice in Nairobi and agencies
* Tuesday 4 August 2009 11.31 BST
Police fired teargas and beat supporters of a Sudanese woman facing 40 lashes for wearing trousers in public shortly before her trial was adjourned this morning.
Police in Khartoum moved in swiftly and dispersed about 50 protesters, mostly women, who were supporting Lubna Hussein, a former UN worker charged with "indecent dressing" in violation of the country's Islamic laws.
Some of the women demonstrators wore trousers in solidarity with Hussein. "We are here to protest against this law that oppresses women and debases them," said Amal Habani, a female columnist for the daily newspaper Ajraa al-Hurria (Bells of Freedom).
Hussein's trial was later adjourned until September by a judge to seek clarification from Sudan's foreign ministry over her status.
At the time of her arrest, Hussein was working for the media department of the UN mission in Sudan, which gives her immunity from prosecution. She submitted her resignation after her trial began last week because she wanted to go on trial to challenge the dress code law. ...
Have these idiots never heard of salwar kameez, FFS?!
Hope he wins his case.
The Speaker of the House of Commons, John Bercow, has ordered a £20,000 refurbishment of his grace-and-favour residence – including spending £7,524.30 on a sofa suite and window seat cushions for the drawing room, it emerged last night.
When he was appointed in June, Bercow pledged to forego the £24,000-a-year second home allowance as part of moves to restore trust in the wake of the expenses scandal.
However, details of the expenditure on improvements at the Palace of Westminster's Speaker's house were revealed in a confidential document seen by the Daily Telegraph.
The improvements include a series of alterations, redecoration and new furnishings for the rent-free home. One of the two studies is to become a playroom for Bercow's three young children, with a £1,087 bill for redecorating it.
Some £3,600 is being spent on fitting locks to the windows and paying workmen to check that access ducts in the wall panelling are lockable or childproof. A further £3,880 has been spent on planters to provide additional child safety on the terrace. ...
Believe it or else, the list goes on on and on!
When he was appointed in June, Bercow pledged to forego the £24,000-a-year second home allowance as part of moves to restore trust in the wake of the expenses scandal.
However, details of the expenditure on improvements at the Palace of Westminster's Speaker's house were revealed in a confidential document seen by the Daily Telegraph.
The improvements include a series of alterations, redecoration and new furnishings for the rent-free home. One of the two studies is to become a playroom for Bercow's three young children, with a £1,087 bill for redecorating it.
Some £3,600 is being spent on fitting locks to the windows and paying workmen to check that access ducts in the wall panelling are lockable or childproof. A further £3,880 has been spent on planters to provide additional child safety on the terrace. ...
Believe it or else, the list goes on on and on!
Frightened residents of a Chinese town sealed off after an outbreak of pneumonic plague have begun to flee under cover of darkness, sneaking around checkpoints set up to stop the spread of one of the world’s deadliest diseases.
Residents said that the streets of Ziketan, a town in a mainly ethnically Tibetan region of western China, were deserted as medical staff raced to disinfect the area amid reports a third person had died of the highly contagious illness.
After the outbreak was detected last Thursday, police set up checkpoints in a 17-mile radius of the farming community of about 10,000 people. But Tibetan residents familiar with the rugged and wild terrain have begun to slip out of the town, evading the checkpoints.
One person had made his way to a neighbouring province but declined to give his exact location. Others, he believed, had made their way to the city of Xining, the capital of Qinghai province. Still others had taken refuge with friends or relatives still living a nomadic existence on the Tibetan plateau. ...
Residents said that the streets of Ziketan, a town in a mainly ethnically Tibetan region of western China, were deserted as medical staff raced to disinfect the area amid reports a third person had died of the highly contagious illness.
After the outbreak was detected last Thursday, police set up checkpoints in a 17-mile radius of the farming community of about 10,000 people. But Tibetan residents familiar with the rugged and wild terrain have begun to slip out of the town, evading the checkpoints.
One person had made his way to a neighbouring province but declined to give his exact location. Others, he believed, had made their way to the city of Xining, the capital of Qinghai province. Still others had taken refuge with friends or relatives still living a nomadic existence on the Tibetan plateau. ...
'Shopped Anglerfish
... “At any given time, someone might be filming you,” said Macomb County Sheriff Mark Hackel, whose department passed along to the feds a case against a man accused of spying on his neighbor’s 10-year-old daughter by hiding a camera in her bathroom.
“These things are very small and very inexpensive,” Hackel said. “And with the good comes the bad.” ...
“These things are very small and very inexpensive,” Hackel said. “And with the good comes the bad.” ...
After Tenenbaum, who will take back the music industry from the RIAA?
By Angela Gunn | Published July 31, 2009
Because the Joel Tenenbaum trial hasn't been maddening enough, Engadget yesterday had a little item on how the RIAA is claiming that customers ought to just suck it up and accept that DRMed tracks will go poof even if they've been paid for, since no other products or service providers are expected to "provide consumers with perpetual access to creative works." That's interesting coming from a group that claims that alone of all industries, copyright holders somehow deserve to get paid in perpetuity for their output. I guess forever looks a lot longer when it includes server-maintenance duties. ...
... I think the recording industry is a culture-gutting abomination, and that the entire outfit ought to be torched like Rome during a Nero violin recital. Whatever figure the jury arrives at, the artists Mr. Tenenbaum loves will never see a cent of it; after over a century of treating most artists like sharecroppers, "the industry" takes the droit de seigneur approach to windfall profit.
Music is so much more than the music industry, and for the sake of music -- the transmission of it, the longevity of the worthwhile stuff -- I hope the industry which treats one of humankind's most powerful communication devices and repositories of memory like so much chattel withers and dies.
Now that distribution is a non-issue, A&R guys, vice-presidents of promotion, global distribution managers -- to all of the ranks that stand between us and the artists...
Buh-bye, hope an honest day's work happens to you someday. ...
By Angela Gunn | Published July 31, 2009
Because the Joel Tenenbaum trial hasn't been maddening enough, Engadget yesterday had a little item on how the RIAA is claiming that customers ought to just suck it up and accept that DRMed tracks will go poof even if they've been paid for, since no other products or service providers are expected to "provide consumers with perpetual access to creative works." That's interesting coming from a group that claims that alone of all industries, copyright holders somehow deserve to get paid in perpetuity for their output. I guess forever looks a lot longer when it includes server-maintenance duties. ...
... I think the recording industry is a culture-gutting abomination, and that the entire outfit ought to be torched like Rome during a Nero violin recital. Whatever figure the jury arrives at, the artists Mr. Tenenbaum loves will never see a cent of it; after over a century of treating most artists like sharecroppers, "the industry" takes the droit de seigneur approach to windfall profit.
Music is so much more than the music industry, and for the sake of music -- the transmission of it, the longevity of the worthwhile stuff -- I hope the industry which treats one of humankind's most powerful communication devices and repositories of memory like so much chattel withers and dies.
Now that distribution is a non-issue, A&R guys, vice-presidents of promotion, global distribution managers -- to all of the ranks that stand between us and the artists...
Buh-bye, hope an honest day's work happens to you someday. ...
UK's Atomic Weapons Establishment asks for applicants with experience of games such as Crysis, in which US troops take on North Korea ...
WTF, Britainistan?
WTF, Britainistan?
One of the first rules of Gardening 101:
Trees need watering and pruning, especially dead wood.
Trees need watering and pruning, especially dead wood.
One of the allegations made repeatedly by climate change deniers is that they are being censored. There's just one problem with this claim: they have yet to produce a single valid example. On the other hand, there are hundreds of examples of direct attempts to censor climate scientists.
Most were the work of the Bush administration. In 2007 the Union of Concerned Scientists collated 435 instances of political interference in the work of climate researchers in the US.
Scientists working for the government were pressured by officials to remove the words "climate change" and "global warming" from their publications; their reports were edited to change the meaning of their findings, others never saw the light of day. Scientists at the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration and the US Fish and Wildlife Service were forbidden to speak to the media; James Hansen at Nasa was told by public relations officials that there would be "dire consequences" if he continued to call for big cuts in greenhouse gases.
Philip Cooney, a senior White House aide who previously worked at the American Petroleum Institute, admitted to Congress that he had made hundreds of changes to government reports about climate change on behalf of the Bush government.
Among other changes, he had struck out evidence that glaciers were retreating and inserted phrases suggesting that there was serious scientific doubt about global warming. ...
I've never heard of a witchdoctor being angry about not being accepted by medical associations, why should these liars keep spreading lies and pseudo-science?
Most were the work of the Bush administration. In 2007 the Union of Concerned Scientists collated 435 instances of political interference in the work of climate researchers in the US.
Scientists working for the government were pressured by officials to remove the words "climate change" and "global warming" from their publications; their reports were edited to change the meaning of their findings, others never saw the light of day. Scientists at the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration and the US Fish and Wildlife Service were forbidden to speak to the media; James Hansen at Nasa was told by public relations officials that there would be "dire consequences" if he continued to call for big cuts in greenhouse gases.
Philip Cooney, a senior White House aide who previously worked at the American Petroleum Institute, admitted to Congress that he had made hundreds of changes to government reports about climate change on behalf of the Bush government.
Among other changes, he had struck out evidence that glaciers were retreating and inserted phrases suggesting that there was serious scientific doubt about global warming. ...
I've never heard of a witchdoctor being angry about not being accepted by medical associations, why should these liars keep spreading lies and pseudo-science?
Former Detroit police monitor Sheryl Robinson Wood was ousted under a cloud. Some experts say a review of her ties to then-Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick may eventually turn into a criminal investigation.
"With the possibility of federal charges, there are no minor concerns," said Detroit attorney Bill Goodman, who represented the City Council in its efforts to oust Kilpatrick.
Wood has been in talks this week with attorney Richard Craig Smith, an expert in white-collar crime and government investigations with the Washington, D.C., firm Fulbright & Jaworski. The firm was once home to Watergate special prosecutor Leon Jaworski.
Wood has not returned calls seeking comment. Carl Racine, managing partner at her law firm, Venable LLP, based in Washington and Baltimore, declined to discuss her status.
As first reported on freep.com, the judge overseeing Detroit Police Department reform efforts forced her ouster last week after being shown text messages that, the judge concluded, revealed Wood had engaged in an inappropriate relationship with Kilpatrick, even as she was monitoring the city's compliance with police reforms. ...
"With the possibility of federal charges, there are no minor concerns," said Detroit attorney Bill Goodman, who represented the City Council in its efforts to oust Kilpatrick.
Wood has been in talks this week with attorney Richard Craig Smith, an expert in white-collar crime and government investigations with the Washington, D.C., firm Fulbright & Jaworski. The firm was once home to Watergate special prosecutor Leon Jaworski.
Wood has not returned calls seeking comment. Carl Racine, managing partner at her law firm, Venable LLP, based in Washington and Baltimore, declined to discuss her status.
As first reported on freep.com, the judge overseeing Detroit Police Department reform efforts forced her ouster last week after being shown text messages that, the judge concluded, revealed Wood had engaged in an inappropriate relationship with Kilpatrick, even as she was monitoring the city's compliance with police reforms. ...
The race row that has inflamed the US took a bizarre twist last night when a Boston police officer was suspended for abusing Harvard scholar Professor Henry Louis Gates and calling him "a banana eating jungle monkey".
Hours before President Barack Obama was to sit down at the White House for a beer with Professor Gates and Sergeant James Crowley to calm tensions over the academic's arrest, it emerged that another police officer, Justin Barrett, was accused of sending an insulting email about Professor Gates to a local newspaper.
In a furious and at times ungrammatical rant at a reporter on the Boston Globe newspaper, the anonymous email, allegedly written by Officer Barrett said: "If I were the officer he (Professor Gates) verbally assaulted like a banana eating jungle monkey I would have sprayed him in the face with OC (capsicum spray)."
Later in the email, quoted in full on the website MyFoxBoston.com. the 36-year-old former English teacher suggested the headline for the newspaper's article on Professor Gates' arrest should read: "Conduct Unbecoming a Jungle Monkey - back to one's roots."
The Boston Police Department suspended Mr Barrett when the existence of the email became known. A spokesman for the police force said in a statement: "Boston Police Commissioner Ed Davis placed Officer Justin Barrett, 36, on administrative leave pending the outcome of a termination hearing.
"Commissioner Davis was made aware of a correspondence with racist remarks and yesterday re[lie]ved the officer of his gun and badge." ...
Hours before President Barack Obama was to sit down at the White House for a beer with Professor Gates and Sergeant James Crowley to calm tensions over the academic's arrest, it emerged that another police officer, Justin Barrett, was accused of sending an insulting email about Professor Gates to a local newspaper.
In a furious and at times ungrammatical rant at a reporter on the Boston Globe newspaper, the anonymous email, allegedly written by Officer Barrett said: "If I were the officer he (Professor Gates) verbally assaulted like a banana eating jungle monkey I would have sprayed him in the face with OC (capsicum spray)."
Later in the email, quoted in full on the website MyFoxBoston.com. the 36-year-old former English teacher suggested the headline for the newspaper's article on Professor Gates' arrest should read: "Conduct Unbecoming a Jungle Monkey - back to one's roots."
The Boston Police Department suspended Mr Barrett when the existence of the email became known. A spokesman for the police force said in a statement: "Boston Police Commissioner Ed Davis placed Officer Justin Barrett, 36, on administrative leave pending the outcome of a termination hearing.
"Commissioner Davis was made aware of a correspondence with racist remarks and yesterday re[lie]ved the officer of his gun and badge." ...
Both Travelodge and Swallow Hotels claim that they have discovered artificial limbs in their rooms after guests have checked out. In one year, between 2003 and 2004, Travelodge says 80 false limbs were left behind in its various outlets. ...
... Taxpayers already pay for pothole repairs through their council tax and drivers contribute billions more through road tax payments.
Paul Watters, the AA's head of policy, said: "It's utterly outrageous. They should not be calling on anyone to subsidise road repairs. Councils have a duty to maintain the public roadways. We pay £46 billion in road tax a year."
The sponsor-a-pothole scheme was first suggested by frustrated resident Anthony Baker, 53, from Marston, Oxford.
"The surface on my road is like the surface of the moon. We have been asking the council for years to do something about the road, but they claim they don't have the money. But if everyone sponsors a pothole we can get them filled in," he told The Oxford Times.
But his neighbours were not so keen on giving more money to the council.
Anne Hollis, 77, said: "We've heard all about this supposed lack of money before. It's a load of rubbish. I'll tell them to get stuffed if they come asking us for money."
There are estimated to be more than 1.5 million potholes on Britain's roads.
There are estimated to be 1.5 million potholes on Detroit's roads, so boo sucks to us both.
Paul Watters, the AA's head of policy, said: "It's utterly outrageous. They should not be calling on anyone to subsidise road repairs. Councils have a duty to maintain the public roadways. We pay £46 billion in road tax a year."
The sponsor-a-pothole scheme was first suggested by frustrated resident Anthony Baker, 53, from Marston, Oxford.
"The surface on my road is like the surface of the moon. We have been asking the council for years to do something about the road, but they claim they don't have the money. But if everyone sponsors a pothole we can get them filled in," he told The Oxford Times.
But his neighbours were not so keen on giving more money to the council.
Anne Hollis, 77, said: "We've heard all about this supposed lack of money before. It's a load of rubbish. I'll tell them to get stuffed if they come asking us for money."
There are estimated to be more than 1.5 million potholes on Britain's roads.
There are estimated to be 1.5 million potholes on Detroit's roads, so boo sucks to us both.
It spends a lot of time warning the public about the dangers of scams, but Britain's main consumer watchdog today revealed that it believes it has lost £250,000 after falling victim to an alleged fraud.
The admission was tucked away at the back of the Office of Fair Trading's annual report for the last financial year, which sets out its achievements and the value for money it is delivering for British consumers.
The OFT said it had suffered "a cash loss of £250,000, of which £97,000 occurred in 2008-09, and £153,000 occurred in 2007-08". "This was due to an alleged fraud made possible by a control weakness in the Accounts Payable process," it said.
The watchdog was unable to say much more as the matter was the subject of legal proceedings, it added. It is understood that a former member of staff has been charged with an offence. ...
The irony's so intense I can taste an archaic roofing nail.
The admission was tucked away at the back of the Office of Fair Trading's annual report for the last financial year, which sets out its achievements and the value for money it is delivering for British consumers.
The OFT said it had suffered "a cash loss of £250,000, of which £97,000 occurred in 2008-09, and £153,000 occurred in 2007-08". "This was due to an alleged fraud made possible by a control weakness in the Accounts Payable process," it said.
The watchdog was unable to say much more as the matter was the subject of legal proceedings, it added. It is understood that a former member of staff has been charged with an offence. ...
The irony's so intense I can taste an archaic roofing nail.
Michigan needs to send out an SOS. And the federal government will need to toss a life preserver.
Starting late next month, the number of people exhausting their jobless benefits will balloon. By year's end, roughly 100,000 laid-off workers will have lost their unemployment pay, which softens the blow of joblessness by up to $362 a week, plus a $25 federal supplement.
Which, if you believe in vicious downward cycles, will cause more foreclosures, more joblessness as purchasing power dwindles, more demand for already strained services like Medicaid and Michigan's pathetically weak welfare program, and more pressure on food banks and other nonprofits.
This jaw-dropping increase in the number of people losing benefits does not necessarily reflect a precise spate of layoffs. More likely it's attributable to when federal extensions of unemployment benefits became available, and people who previously ran out of eligibility came back on the rolls in bursts.
However the spike developed, these are truly scary numbers: 25,689 more people without benefits by year's end in Wayne County, 10,884 in Oakland and 10,158 in Macomb. United Way CEO Mike Brennan talks a good game about ways everyone can pitch in, but he concedes that demand will outstrip the region's capacity to help itself.
When even the health care workforce is shrinking, it's hard to claim job opportunities exist. Michigan's jobless rate was 15.2% in June, and U.S. statistics suggest it would rise by at least another 4 percentage points if it included so-called discouraged workers and the underemployed. That's a lot of families with very few resources -- and now facing even fewer -- after months and months of scarcity already. ...
Starting late next month, the number of people exhausting their jobless benefits will balloon. By year's end, roughly 100,000 laid-off workers will have lost their unemployment pay, which softens the blow of joblessness by up to $362 a week, plus a $25 federal supplement.
Which, if you believe in vicious downward cycles, will cause more foreclosures, more joblessness as purchasing power dwindles, more demand for already strained services like Medicaid and Michigan's pathetically weak welfare program, and more pressure on food banks and other nonprofits.
This jaw-dropping increase in the number of people losing benefits does not necessarily reflect a precise spate of layoffs. More likely it's attributable to when federal extensions of unemployment benefits became available, and people who previously ran out of eligibility came back on the rolls in bursts.
However the spike developed, these are truly scary numbers: 25,689 more people without benefits by year's end in Wayne County, 10,884 in Oakland and 10,158 in Macomb. United Way CEO Mike Brennan talks a good game about ways everyone can pitch in, but he concedes that demand will outstrip the region's capacity to help itself.
When even the health care workforce is shrinking, it's hard to claim job opportunities exist. Michigan's jobless rate was 15.2% in June, and U.S. statistics suggest it would rise by at least another 4 percentage points if it included so-called discouraged workers and the underemployed. That's a lot of families with very few resources -- and now facing even fewer -- after months and months of scarcity already. ...
Taser International unveiled its first new stun gun since 2003 today, a device that can shock three people without reloading.
Great. Just what the world fucking needs.
Great. Just what the world fucking needs.
It appears that Kent is radically mis-spelled.
Operation Bid Rig was a long-term investigation into money laundering and political corruption conducted by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Internal Revenue Service, and the United States Attorney for the District of New Jersey. In the third phase of the investigation, from 2007 to 2009, sting operations resulted in the July 2009 arrest of 44 people in New Jersey and New York, including 29 public servants and five orthodox rabbis from the Syrian Jewish community. A number of high-level New Jersey elected officials were arrested in the operation, including Hoboken Mayor Peter Cammarano, Secaucus Mayor Dennis Elwell, Ridgefield Mayor Anthony R. Suarez, Assemblyman L. Harvey Smith, Assemblyman Daniel M. Van Pelt, and former Assemblyman Louis Manzo. ...
'Ware flying fur and feathers, girls and boys!
The government will this week launch an attempt to deny soldiers crippled in battle full compensation for their injuries.
The Ministry of Defence (MoD) will go to the Court of Appeal on Tuesday to try to slash the compensation awarded to two injured soldiers by up to 70%. If the government wins, it will fuel the mounting disquiet over the relatively paltry payments some soldiers are receiving for lifelong injuries.
The legal action comes as British troops are suffering their heaviest casualties since the beginning of the conflict in Afghanistan in 2001. ...
You vicious, heartless bastards.
The Ministry of Defence (MoD) will go to the Court of Appeal on Tuesday to try to slash the compensation awarded to two injured soldiers by up to 70%. If the government wins, it will fuel the mounting disquiet over the relatively paltry payments some soldiers are receiving for lifelong injuries.
The legal action comes as British troops are suffering their heaviest casualties since the beginning of the conflict in Afghanistan in 2001. ...
You vicious, heartless bastards.
A civil servant in the Ministry of Defence (MoD) who suffered back strain after lifting a printer has received a payout of £202,000 – more than three times the sum awarded to the youngest British soldier to be shot and wounded in Iraq.
Private Jamie Cooper, 18, a Royal Green Jackets soldier, was hit twice by mortar rounds in Basra in November 2006. His compensation was just £57,587 even though he lost the use of one leg and a hand and suffered internal injuries.
The disparity, revealed in an MoD annual report, has reignited the controversy about the level of compensation given to soldiers wounded in combat. Liam Fox, the shadow defence secretary, said some of the payments made to soldiers were “completely heartless”.
Cooper’s father, Phil, said: “It’s laughable really, isn’t it. You’ve got guys out there on the front line risking their lives and getting horribly wounded and then you’ve got faceless bureaucrats getting far more for straining their back lifting a printer.
“It’s not just about Jamie. There are all those other Tommy Atkins in the same position. I’d have said I can’t believe it but I can. It doesn’t surprise me any more, it really doesn’t. I’m just so disillusioned by it all. It is despicable.”
The 2006-07 annual report of the MoD Directorate of Safety and Claims also revealed that another civil servant had received £217,000 in compensation for suffering chronic fatigue syndrome and depression.
Another wounded soldier, Lance Corporal Martyn Compton, 24, from Staplehurst, Kent, initially received a settlement of only £98,837.50 after he suffered third-degree burns to 70% of his body in a Taliban rocket attack. ...
Private Jamie Cooper, 18, a Royal Green Jackets soldier, was hit twice by mortar rounds in Basra in November 2006. His compensation was just £57,587 even though he lost the use of one leg and a hand and suffered internal injuries.
The disparity, revealed in an MoD annual report, has reignited the controversy about the level of compensation given to soldiers wounded in combat. Liam Fox, the shadow defence secretary, said some of the payments made to soldiers were “completely heartless”.
Cooper’s father, Phil, said: “It’s laughable really, isn’t it. You’ve got guys out there on the front line risking their lives and getting horribly wounded and then you’ve got faceless bureaucrats getting far more for straining their back lifting a printer.
“It’s not just about Jamie. There are all those other Tommy Atkins in the same position. I’d have said I can’t believe it but I can. It doesn’t surprise me any more, it really doesn’t. I’m just so disillusioned by it all. It is despicable.”
The 2006-07 annual report of the MoD Directorate of Safety and Claims also revealed that another civil servant had received £217,000 in compensation for suffering chronic fatigue syndrome and depression.
Another wounded soldier, Lance Corporal Martyn Compton, 24, from Staplehurst, Kent, initially received a settlement of only £98,837.50 after he suffered third-degree burns to 70% of his body in a Taliban rocket attack. ...
Members of the Armed Forces should be given a written guarantee by the Government that they will be properly looked after in return for risking their lives in overseas conflicts, a report by the Liberal Democrats will say today.
In a review of the military covenant that is supposed to safeguard the interests of soldiers, sailors and aircrew, Sir Menzies Campbell, QC, the party’s foreign affairs spokesman, says that a formal written agreement could be subjected to public scrutiny more easily.
The former party leader also concludes that the military covenant, already under strain because of the long-running operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, will be irreparably broken unless the Government carries out a full strategic security and defence review. The last review took place in 1998. “For too long, bloated and uncontrolled procurement projects have eaten away into basic provision of decent homes for our servicemen and women,” Sir Menzies says in his report, No Choice but Change.
“The fragility of the military covenant today is not just a symptom of inadequate welfare. It indicates a deeper malaise in defence policy,” he adds. “What this Government expects our Armed Forces to achieve and the financial and human cost required are no longer in balance.” ...
In a review of the military covenant that is supposed to safeguard the interests of soldiers, sailors and aircrew, Sir Menzies Campbell, QC, the party’s foreign affairs spokesman, says that a formal written agreement could be subjected to public scrutiny more easily.
The former party leader also concludes that the military covenant, already under strain because of the long-running operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, will be irreparably broken unless the Government carries out a full strategic security and defence review. The last review took place in 1998. “For too long, bloated and uncontrolled procurement projects have eaten away into basic provision of decent homes for our servicemen and women,” Sir Menzies says in his report, No Choice but Change.
“The fragility of the military covenant today is not just a symptom of inadequate welfare. It indicates a deeper malaise in defence policy,” he adds. “What this Government expects our Armed Forces to achieve and the financial and human cost required are no longer in balance.” ...
July 26, 2009
Millionaire Lord Bhatia claimed £20,000 on small flat
A MILLIONAIRE peer has claimed more than £20,000 in allowances from the House of Lords by saying that a small rented flat occupied by his brother is his main home. Last week he could not even remember its address.
Lord Bhatia, a businessman and philanthropist, has lived with his wife in a £1.5m home in southwest London for 20 years. Almost two years ago he decided to “flip” the designation of his primary residence to a two-bedroom flat in Reigate, Surrey, which has been his brother’s home for three years. The town is a mile beyond the M25 motorway, a boundary used by peers to define whether they live outside London for expenses purposes.
By saying the Reigate flat was his main home, Bhatia was able to claim lucrative “overnight” allowances from the Lords. Peers whose main home is outside the capital are able to collect £174 a night as reimbursement for the cost of a hotel or maintaining a second home while attending parliament.
Bhatia could not remember the address of the flat when repeatedly asked last week. He had to look it up and even then misspelt the name of the block. A neighbour could not recall him living there, but Bhatia insisted he had spent many weekends at the flat and said he intended to move there with his wife when he sells his family home. ...
...The Sunday Times has highlighted the need for an overhaul of the Lords’ expenses system. Unlike the Commons no new legislation is being introduced to change Lords’ allowances, despite a series of scandals.
The police are already investigating the overnight allowance claims made by Baroness Uddin and Lord Clarke of Hampstead following inquiries by this newspaper. Uddin faces fresh questions about her travel expenses as it emerged that she claimed for 89 round trips to a flat at which her neighbours had never seen her.
Bhatia is a 77-year-old Labour party donor who sits as a crossbencher. He is a successful businessman who has been prominent in several charities. After being made a peer by Tony Blair in 2001, he went on to lead the Edutrust Academies Charitable Trust which was formed to open and run city academies. He quit the board of the trust after a government inquiry found evidence of financial and governance mismanagement at the charity.
The Sunday Times began looking into his allowance claims after examining his record in the Lords. Although his attendance record is high, he has taken part in only 15% of votes since becoming a peer and has not spoken in the House for four years. Some peers are known to “clock in” frequently, securing a daily attendance allowance without staying to do any work. ...
Greedy greedy greedy greedy.
Millionaire Lord Bhatia claimed £20,000 on small flat
A MILLIONAIRE peer has claimed more than £20,000 in allowances from the House of Lords by saying that a small rented flat occupied by his brother is his main home. Last week he could not even remember its address.
Lord Bhatia, a businessman and philanthropist, has lived with his wife in a £1.5m home in southwest London for 20 years. Almost two years ago he decided to “flip” the designation of his primary residence to a two-bedroom flat in Reigate, Surrey, which has been his brother’s home for three years. The town is a mile beyond the M25 motorway, a boundary used by peers to define whether they live outside London for expenses purposes.
By saying the Reigate flat was his main home, Bhatia was able to claim lucrative “overnight” allowances from the Lords. Peers whose main home is outside the capital are able to collect £174 a night as reimbursement for the cost of a hotel or maintaining a second home while attending parliament.
Bhatia could not remember the address of the flat when repeatedly asked last week. He had to look it up and even then misspelt the name of the block. A neighbour could not recall him living there, but Bhatia insisted he had spent many weekends at the flat and said he intended to move there with his wife when he sells his family home. ...
...The Sunday Times has highlighted the need for an overhaul of the Lords’ expenses system. Unlike the Commons no new legislation is being introduced to change Lords’ allowances, despite a series of scandals.
The police are already investigating the overnight allowance claims made by Baroness Uddin and Lord Clarke of Hampstead following inquiries by this newspaper. Uddin faces fresh questions about her travel expenses as it emerged that she claimed for 89 round trips to a flat at which her neighbours had never seen her.
Bhatia is a 77-year-old Labour party donor who sits as a crossbencher. He is a successful businessman who has been prominent in several charities. After being made a peer by Tony Blair in 2001, he went on to lead the Edutrust Academies Charitable Trust which was formed to open and run city academies. He quit the board of the trust after a government inquiry found evidence of financial and governance mismanagement at the charity.
The Sunday Times began looking into his allowance claims after examining his record in the Lords. Although his attendance record is high, he has taken part in only 15% of votes since becoming a peer and has not spoken in the House for four years. Some peers are known to “clock in” frequently, securing a daily attendance allowance without staying to do any work. ...
Greedy greedy greedy greedy.
More vicious, heartless bastards.
Funding of some of the most prestigious cultural grand projects in Britain is in jeopardy because a £100m black hole has been discovered in the budgets of the Department for Culture, Media and Sport, Whitehall sources disclosed tonight.
The scale of the department's spending over-commitment could derail ambitious building projects such as the British Museum's new exhibition wing, Tate Modern's redevelopment, the British Film Institute's film centre on the South Bank in London and the Stonehenge visitor centre.
The shortfall has emerged in the capital budget for the financial years 2009-10 and 2010-11. Senior arts sources today variously called the funding crisis "a cock-up" and "quite astonishing". One source said: "It's hopeless management. Everyone will blame the DCMS for being hopeless, and they are fairly hopeless, so it's not unjustified."
According to another source: "Financial directors of interested bodies received a letter saying they were £100m overspent on capital and seeking contributions from unspent capital money."
The DCMS refused to comment on why it had got into a situation in which it had overpromised funds for capital projects by approximately £100m. However, it is understood that the problem was noted several weeks ago and is being addressed by ministers. A DCMS spokesperson said: "Our capital budget is currently overcommitted. Ministers are examining the reasons for this and looking for solutions. It is possible that difficult decisions will be needed, but none has been taken yet." [Italics mine.]
A senior arts source said: "They will solve it by scrabbling around, and delaying things here and there[; b]ut my goodness, it's no way to run a railroad." ...
Dem a t'ief it, Mon!
The scale of the department's spending over-commitment could derail ambitious building projects such as the British Museum's new exhibition wing, Tate Modern's redevelopment, the British Film Institute's film centre on the South Bank in London and the Stonehenge visitor centre.
The shortfall has emerged in the capital budget for the financial years 2009-10 and 2010-11. Senior arts sources today variously called the funding crisis "a cock-up" and "quite astonishing". One source said: "It's hopeless management. Everyone will blame the DCMS for being hopeless, and they are fairly hopeless, so it's not unjustified."
According to another source: "Financial directors of interested bodies received a letter saying they were £100m overspent on capital and seeking contributions from unspent capital money."
The DCMS refused to comment on why it had got into a situation in which it had overpromised funds for capital projects by approximately £100m. However, it is understood that the problem was noted several weeks ago and is being addressed by ministers. A DCMS spokesperson said: "Our capital budget is currently overcommitted. Ministers are examining the reasons for this and looking for solutions. It is possible that difficult decisions will be needed, but none has been taken yet." [Italics mine.]
A senior arts source said: "They will solve it by scrabbling around, and delaying things here and there[; b]ut my goodness, it's no way to run a railroad." ...
Dem a t'ief it, Mon!
Kent police's blanket use of stop-and-search powers on thousands of environmental activists at the Kingsnorth demonstration was "disproportionate and counterproductive", according to an official review into the force's handling of protests released today.
A total of 8,218 searches were carried out on protesters at the week-long demonstration last August against the energy company E.ON's proposed coal-fired power-station, after orders from senior commanders were misinterpreted "as an instruction to search everyone".
Although "huge amounts of property were seized" during the climate camp protests, only 2,000 stop-and-search forms – fewer than 25% – were legible. The report said this raised questions about the competence of police officers and their understanding of the law.
Most protesters were stopped under section 1 of the Police and Criminal Evidence Act (Pace), which requires officers to have reasonable suspicion that an individual is carrying prohibited weapons or articles that could be used for criminal damage.
David Howarth, the Liberal Democrat justice spokesman, echoed the report's findings when he said: "This is yet another example of the disproportionate use of stop and search, and shows how, even on the report's own narrow terms, this tactic is totally counterproductive."
The scale of the stop-and-search operation came to light in two inquiries by the National Policing Improvement Agency (NPIA) into Kent police's £5.3m operation, the largest of its kind in the UK last year. More than 1,400 officers were drafted in from 24 forces to assist with the operation, codenamed Oasis, on the Hoo peninsula.
The Kent force has come under sustained criticism for its management of the demonstration, after allegations of brutality by officers who had covered their badge numbers and concern that police used "psychological operations", including playing loud music at night to deprive activists of sleep. ...
A total of 8,218 searches were carried out on protesters at the week-long demonstration last August against the energy company E.ON's proposed coal-fired power-station, after orders from senior commanders were misinterpreted "as an instruction to search everyone".
Although "huge amounts of property were seized" during the climate camp protests, only 2,000 stop-and-search forms – fewer than 25% – were legible. The report said this raised questions about the competence of police officers and their understanding of the law.
Most protesters were stopped under section 1 of the Police and Criminal Evidence Act (Pace), which requires officers to have reasonable suspicion that an individual is carrying prohibited weapons or articles that could be used for criminal damage.
David Howarth, the Liberal Democrat justice spokesman, echoed the report's findings when he said: "This is yet another example of the disproportionate use of stop and search, and shows how, even on the report's own narrow terms, this tactic is totally counterproductive."
The scale of the stop-and-search operation came to light in two inquiries by the National Policing Improvement Agency (NPIA) into Kent police's £5.3m operation, the largest of its kind in the UK last year. More than 1,400 officers were drafted in from 24 forces to assist with the operation, codenamed Oasis, on the Hoo peninsula.
The Kent force has come under sustained criticism for its management of the demonstration, after allegations of brutality by officers who had covered their badge numbers and concern that police used "psychological operations", including playing loud music at night to deprive activists of sleep. ...
... There's no doubt that history education needs a boost in Texas.
According to test results, one-third of students think the Magna Carta was signed by the Pilgrims on the Mayflower and 40% believe Lincoln's 1863 emancipation proclamation was made nearly 90 years earlier at the constitutional convention.
According to test results, one-third of students think the Magna Carta was signed by the Pilgrims on the Mayflower and 40% believe Lincoln's 1863 emancipation proclamation was made nearly 90 years earlier at the constitutional convention.
Strange as it may sound, the makers of a film about the life of John Lennon had to go cap in hand to the Government to ensure the cameras could roll. Private investors, it seems, felt that a biopic about one of the greatest songwriters of all time was not box office enough and kept their wallets shut.
As a result, Sam Taylor-Wood’s Nowhere Boy ended up needing £1.2 million of UK Film Council cash or it would never have seen the light of day. The funds that go to support film-making are siphoned off from the National Lottery, so every time you dream that dream of landing the jackpot, you are realising a film-maker’s dream of hitting the jackpot.
No doubt Nowhere Boy will turn out to be a hit, or at least a critical success, and everybody involved will be happy, while the average cinema-goer will not have a clue where the cash, or rather some of it, came from.
And given that, perhaps we should all go home happy, and not worry about the £21 million a year of public money that goes on supporting the films spurned by Hollywood and the current generation of money men.
But that is hard because there could be better uses for £21 million, which includes the dollop of cash that goes on Kristin Scott Thomas’s fee (she plays Lennon’s Aunt Mimi). Go beyond the Harry Potters and the Working Title films, and what emerges is a cottage British film industry, producing great movies from Man on Wire to Gosford Park, but which is addicted to subsidy. ...
As a result, Sam Taylor-Wood’s Nowhere Boy ended up needing £1.2 million of UK Film Council cash or it would never have seen the light of day. The funds that go to support film-making are siphoned off from the National Lottery, so every time you dream that dream of landing the jackpot, you are realising a film-maker’s dream of hitting the jackpot.
No doubt Nowhere Boy will turn out to be a hit, or at least a critical success, and everybody involved will be happy, while the average cinema-goer will not have a clue where the cash, or rather some of it, came from.
And given that, perhaps we should all go home happy, and not worry about the £21 million a year of public money that goes on supporting the films spurned by Hollywood and the current generation of money men.
But that is hard because there could be better uses for £21 million, which includes the dollop of cash that goes on Kristin Scott Thomas’s fee (she plays Lennon’s Aunt Mimi). Go beyond the Harry Potters and the Working Title films, and what emerges is a cottage British film industry, producing great movies from Man on Wire to Gosford Park, but which is addicted to subsidy. ...
Ta much, dear Edosan
... Lattimore was charged this month with a single felony charge that he took $7,500 in 2007 as a councilman, "intending to be rewarded and influenced in connection with his official duties," according to court documents.
According to federal indictments handed down last week, political consultant Sam Riddle and former state Rep. Mary Waters, both charged with corruption, conspired to bribe Lattimore with $12,500 to gain his support for the relocation and expansion of a Southfield pawnshop.
Lattimore, according to the indictments, used the City of Southfield letterhead to write two letters supporting the project. In an interview with the Free Press in June, the councilman denied writing any letters supporting Zeidman's Jewelry & Loan -- the business implicated in the probe.
Southfield Mayor Brenda Lawrence said that if Lattimore pleads guilty to the felony charge, the city's charter "gives the city the right to ask for removal." But she said he should resign before the council is forced to act.
According to federal indictments handed down last week, political consultant Sam Riddle and former state Rep. Mary Waters, both charged with corruption, conspired to bribe Lattimore with $12,500 to gain his support for the relocation and expansion of a Southfield pawnshop.
Lattimore, according to the indictments, used the City of Southfield letterhead to write two letters supporting the project. In an interview with the Free Press in June, the councilman denied writing any letters supporting Zeidman's Jewelry & Loan -- the business implicated in the probe.
Southfield Mayor Brenda Lawrence said that if Lattimore pleads guilty to the felony charge, the city's charter "gives the city the right to ask for removal." But she said he should resign before the council is forced to act.
You blind, wilfully ignorant jackass - the collapse of your country's ruling elite is exactly what it needs!
If Silvio Berlusconi thought he'd shaken off the furore over his alleged use of escort girls, he was in for a nasty surprise today.
The Italian prime minister has successfully deflected and sidestepped lurid allegations about his supposed liaisons in recent weeks, helped by some timely international summitry which let him demonstrate his statesmanship, not to mention his commitment to dealing with the aftermath of the L'Aquila earthquake.
But today it was all about call girls, giant beds and the suggestion of a menage-a-trois, after a left-leaning news magazine, L'Espresso, posted "pillow talk" recordings that an escort said she made during a night with the septuagenarian Italian leader.
The escort, Patrizia D'Addario, claims the tapes relate to the night of 4 November last year, when the leaders of the world were holding their breath, waiting to see if Americans would elect their first black president.
Berlusconi, apparently, had other things on his mind. ...
I've never been able to understand why as soon as men get power, they want shedloads of whores. Were I rich and powerful I'd pay off all our bills first, (and then I'd want books, a laptop, some nice moisturis/zer, and someone from World Wildlife Fund [among other great charities] to relieve me of some of my ca$h) not buy a buncha whores.
The Italian prime minister has successfully deflected and sidestepped lurid allegations about his supposed liaisons in recent weeks, helped by some timely international summitry which let him demonstrate his statesmanship, not to mention his commitment to dealing with the aftermath of the L'Aquila earthquake.
But today it was all about call girls, giant beds and the suggestion of a menage-a-trois, after a left-leaning news magazine, L'Espresso, posted "pillow talk" recordings that an escort said she made during a night with the septuagenarian Italian leader.
The escort, Patrizia D'Addario, claims the tapes relate to the night of 4 November last year, when the leaders of the world were holding their breath, waiting to see if Americans would elect their first black president.
Berlusconi, apparently, had other things on his mind. ...
I've never been able to understand why as soon as men get power, they want shedloads of whores. Were I rich and powerful I'd pay off all our bills first, (and then I'd want books, a laptop, some nice moisturis/zer, and someone from World Wildlife Fund [among other great charities] to relieve me of some of my ca$h) not buy a buncha whores.
Tell me again, which century is this?
... Eastern Kentucky University professor Peter Kraska told the Washington Post that SWAT teams are currently sent out 40,000 times a year in the U.S. During the 1980's, SWAT teams were only used 3,000 times a year. Most of the time, SWAT teams are being sent out to simply serve warrants on non-violent drug offenders.
Many municipalities are using Homeland Security grants to even purchase large armored vehicles. The Pittsburgh Police Department now uses their 20-ton armored truck complete with rotating turret and gun ports to deliver many of their warrants. Pittsburgh Police Sgt. Barry Budd recently told the Associate Press: "We live on being prepared for 'what if'."
The training being given at many police academies appears to be the type of tactics one would use in Baghdad, rather than Baltimore. It would seem that our police officers are being readied for war, with the American public as the enemy. In the last several years, there has been a transformation from community policing to pre-emptive assaults
On January 24, 2006, Dr. Salvatore Culosi was shot and killed outside his house by a Fairfax County SWAT officer. Police used the SWAT team to serve a documents search warrant, after Dr. Culosi came under suspicion for taking sports bets. The investigation began after Fairfax Detective David Baucom solicited a bet with Dr. Culosi at a local sports bar.
Dr. Culosi was standing outside his home while talking with Det. Baucom, when SWAT Officer Deval Bullock quickly approached with his gun drawn and fatally shot Dr. Culosi in the chest. Court documents report that Culosi never made any threatening movements and made no attempt to run as he watched the SWAT team move in around him.
Dr. Culosi had no history of violence nor any criminal history whatsoever. He operated two successful optometry clinics at Wal-Marts in Manassas and Warrenton, Va. His parents have filed a $12 million lawsuit against the county of Fairfax, Va. ...
Land of the free and home of the brave, huh?
Many municipalities are using Homeland Security grants to even purchase large armored vehicles. The Pittsburgh Police Department now uses their 20-ton armored truck complete with rotating turret and gun ports to deliver many of their warrants. Pittsburgh Police Sgt. Barry Budd recently told the Associate Press: "We live on being prepared for 'what if'."
The training being given at many police academies appears to be the type of tactics one would use in Baghdad, rather than Baltimore. It would seem that our police officers are being readied for war, with the American public as the enemy. In the last several years, there has been a transformation from community policing to pre-emptive assaults
On January 24, 2006, Dr. Salvatore Culosi was shot and killed outside his house by a Fairfax County SWAT officer. Police used the SWAT team to serve a documents search warrant, after Dr. Culosi came under suspicion for taking sports bets. The investigation began after Fairfax Detective David Baucom solicited a bet with Dr. Culosi at a local sports bar.
Dr. Culosi was standing outside his home while talking with Det. Baucom, when SWAT Officer Deval Bullock quickly approached with his gun drawn and fatally shot Dr. Culosi in the chest. Court documents report that Culosi never made any threatening movements and made no attempt to run as he watched the SWAT team move in around him.
Dr. Culosi had no history of violence nor any criminal history whatsoever. He operated two successful optometry clinics at Wal-Marts in Manassas and Warrenton, Va. His parents have filed a $12 million lawsuit against the county of Fairfax, Va. ...
Land of the free and home of the brave, huh?
Monica Conyers' wrist slap is wrong message
BY STEPHEN HENDERSON • FREE PRESS COLUMNIST • July 16, 2009
Someone in the local U.S. Attorney's Office may have some 'splainin to do.
They have it all backward in the ongoing city hall corruption probe.
Here's why.
Based on the indictment handed down Wednesday of political consultant Sam Riddle, it seems prosecutors believe Riddle and former Detroit City Councilwoman Monica Conyers were running a pretty robust shakedown operation.
The documents say they hit up a strip club owner for $25,000, extorted $20,000 each from a technology company and a restaurant, and tried to put the arm on a real estate developer.
Riddle's facing a slew of charges related to each of those acts, as well as his involvement with Conyers on the rotten Synagro sludge deal and some other stuff. By statute, he could face a sentence in excess of 100 (yes, one hundred) years.
But Conyers, if you'll remember, copped a plea a few weeks ago to one count of conspiracy in the Synagro deal. And even though she's mentioned about as often as Riddle in his indictment, she isn't being charged for any of the non-Synagro schemes they allegedly hatched. She faces 5 years max in federal prison -- one-twentieth of the time Riddle could get.
Sorry, but that doesn't make sense.
Conyers was the public official involved here, the one who took an oath to serve the public faithfully, and the one who had the power to deliver on any favors she and Riddle concocted to sell. ...
BY STEPHEN HENDERSON • FREE PRESS COLUMNIST • July 16, 2009
Someone in the local U.S. Attorney's Office may have some 'splainin to do.
They have it all backward in the ongoing city hall corruption probe.
Here's why.
Based on the indictment handed down Wednesday of political consultant Sam Riddle, it seems prosecutors believe Riddle and former Detroit City Councilwoman Monica Conyers were running a pretty robust shakedown operation.
The documents say they hit up a strip club owner for $25,000, extorted $20,000 each from a technology company and a restaurant, and tried to put the arm on a real estate developer.
Riddle's facing a slew of charges related to each of those acts, as well as his involvement with Conyers on the rotten Synagro sludge deal and some other stuff. By statute, he could face a sentence in excess of 100 (yes, one hundred) years.
But Conyers, if you'll remember, copped a plea a few weeks ago to one count of conspiracy in the Synagro deal. And even though she's mentioned about as often as Riddle in his indictment, she isn't being charged for any of the non-Synagro schemes they allegedly hatched. She faces 5 years max in federal prison -- one-twentieth of the time Riddle could get.
Sorry, but that doesn't make sense.
Conyers was the public official involved here, the one who took an oath to serve the public faithfully, and the one who had the power to deliver on any favors she and Riddle concocted to sell. ...
... “You’d better get my loot, that’s all I know,” Conyers is quoted as telling Riddle regarding a payment from a restaurant owner.
Riddle passed her $10,000 in that caper, the indictment says. ...
... Conyers first took office in January 2006. Just 15 months later, according to the indictment, Conyers and Riddle began their extortion racket.
The indictment charges:
• Conyers conspired with Riddle to hit up the owner of a technology company for $20,000 to make Riddle a bogus “consultant.”
• Conyers and Riddle pressured a Detroit restaurant owner to pay Riddle $20,000 for another “consulting job” that didn’t exist.
• Conyers and Riddle received $25,000 from the owner of a strip club with an issue before the city council.
• Conyers and Riddle attempted to receive money in another faux “consulting contract” for Riddle, this time with a real estate developer.
Conyers, the wife of U.S. Rep. John Conyers, a Detroit Democrat, became notorious for her bad temper in public. In private, she appears to be equally difficult. The indictment portrays her as nagging Riddle and ordering him to carry out her orders in their various schemes.
“This bitch is a trip,” Riddle told an owner of the technology company, explaining Conyers was eager to receive the owner’s final $5,000 payment.
“Work on the, uh, five thing,” Riddle advised, “so I can keep her chilled out and stuff.”
Riddle passed her $10,000 in that caper, the indictment says. ...
... Conyers first took office in January 2006. Just 15 months later, according to the indictment, Conyers and Riddle began their extortion racket.
The indictment charges:
• Conyers conspired with Riddle to hit up the owner of a technology company for $20,000 to make Riddle a bogus “consultant.”
• Conyers and Riddle pressured a Detroit restaurant owner to pay Riddle $20,000 for another “consulting job” that didn’t exist.
• Conyers and Riddle received $25,000 from the owner of a strip club with an issue before the city council.
• Conyers and Riddle attempted to receive money in another faux “consulting contract” for Riddle, this time with a real estate developer.
Conyers, the wife of U.S. Rep. John Conyers, a Detroit Democrat, became notorious for her bad temper in public. In private, she appears to be equally difficult. The indictment portrays her as nagging Riddle and ordering him to carry out her orders in their various schemes.
“This bitch is a trip,” Riddle told an owner of the technology company, explaining Conyers was eager to receive the owner’s final $5,000 payment.
“Work on the, uh, five thing,” Riddle advised, “so I can keep her chilled out and stuff.”
'T ain't ever' day a fire melts a year-old bridge!
... Six months after pledging to get tough on anti-social gangs, the Tories have come up with their master plan - seize their mobile phones and bikes. Shadow Home Secretary Chris Grayling has said that taking away a hoodie's mobile for a month would not only "disrupt" gang activity in the area but serve as a stiff lesson to the culprit.
"This would go to the heart of what matters to a Nokia generation of young people," he declared. And if they don't learn their lesson, he wants to go a step further and confiscate their bicycles as well. "In areas where there is a genuine gang culture, such a step could also give police an additional tool to disrupt gang activity," said Grayling.
Labour MPs could hardly stifle their laughter at the proposals, pointing out that the plan has a fatal flaw at its heart.
"Where do the Tories think these hoodie gangs get their mobile phones and bicycles from in the first place? They are stolen!" one Labour backbencher told the Mole. "There's even a test for some gang members, to steal a phone.
"Far from making things better, this proposal could make it worse as anti-social youths have to steal more phones and bikes to replace the ones that have been confiscated. It's bonkers." ...
"This would go to the heart of what matters to a Nokia generation of young people," he declared. And if they don't learn their lesson, he wants to go a step further and confiscate their bicycles as well. "In areas where there is a genuine gang culture, such a step could also give police an additional tool to disrupt gang activity," said Grayling.
Labour MPs could hardly stifle their laughter at the proposals, pointing out that the plan has a fatal flaw at its heart.
"Where do the Tories think these hoodie gangs get their mobile phones and bicycles from in the first place? They are stolen!" one Labour backbencher told the Mole. "There's even a test for some gang members, to steal a phone.
"Far from making things better, this proposal could make it worse as anti-social youths have to steal more phones and bikes to replace the ones that have been confiscated. It's bonkers." ...
Tell me again - which century is this?
News of the World phone hacking: CPS to undertake urgent review of evidence | Media | guardian.co.uk
News of the World phone hacking: CPS to undertake urgent review of evidence
• Metropolitan Police rules out new investigation
• News International: 'Confidentiality obligations' prevent comment on 'certain' Guardian allegations
• Andy Coulson may face Commons culture select committee
• David Cameron defends his communications chief
• Gordon Brown: 'This raises serious questions'
* James Robinson, Andrew Sparrow and Leigh Holmwood
* guardian.co.uk, Thursday 9 July 2009
The Crown Prosecution Service today said it would undertake an urgent review of evidence in the News of the World phone hacking case, after the Metropolitan Police revealed it did not plan a further investigation of the allegations.
However, Andy Coulson, the former News of the World editor, now the Tory communications chief, could be grilled by MPs for a Commons inquiry into the affair.
Keir Starmer QC, the director of public prosecutions, said he had ordered an "urgent examination" of material provided by the police in the News of the World case three years ago. He added that the process will take time but he hopes to make a further statement in coming days. ...
• Metropolitan Police rules out new investigation
• News International: 'Confidentiality obligations' prevent comment on 'certain' Guardian allegations
• Andy Coulson may face Commons culture select committee
• David Cameron defends his communications chief
• Gordon Brown: 'This raises serious questions'
* James Robinson, Andrew Sparrow and Leigh Holmwood
* guardian.co.uk, Thursday 9 July 2009
The Crown Prosecution Service today said it would undertake an urgent review of evidence in the News of the World phone hacking case, after the Metropolitan Police revealed it did not plan a further investigation of the allegations.
However, Andy Coulson, the former News of the World editor, now the Tory communications chief, could be grilled by MPs for a Commons inquiry into the affair.
Keir Starmer QC, the director of public prosecutions, said he had ordered an "urgent examination" of material provided by the police in the News of the World case three years ago. He added that the process will take time but he hopes to make a further statement in coming days. ...
Just think: 2-3 thousand £million lawsuits. That'd take the wind outta ol' rupee's sails, what what?
rupee should know better than to fuck with rich people.
Idiot.
You know damn well he'd sue hell outta anyone who tapped/hacked his phone, FFS!!
rupee should know better than to fuck with rich people.
Idiot.
You know damn well he'd sue hell outta anyone who tapped/hacked his phone, FFS!!
News of the World phone-hacking affair 'very serious', says Gordon Brown | Politics | guardian.co.uk
... Chris Huhne, the Lib Dems' home affairs spokesman, said: "It is extraordinary that the leader of the opposition, who wants to be a prime minister, employs Andy Coulson, who at best was responsible for a newspaper that was out of control and at worst was personally [involved] with criminal activity. The exact parallel is surely with Damian McBride. If the prime minister was right to sack Damian McBride, should the leader of the opposition not sack Andy Coulson?"
Hanson told MPs that phone-hacking without authority was a criminal offence punishable with a fine or a prison sentence of up to two years.
Chris Grayling, the shadow home secretary, prompted laughter as he urged everyone in the house to give a "measured response" to the issues raised and leave it to the police to decide whether there was "any new information that warrants further action".
Hanson told MPs that phone-hacking without authority was a criminal offence punishable with a fine or a prison sentence of up to two years.
Chris Grayling, the shadow home secretary, prompted laughter as he urged everyone in the house to give a "measured response" to the issues raised and leave it to the police to decide whether there was "any new information that warrants further action".
... "If you imagine there was something of real major importance, you could have a public interest defence. But breaking into Gwyneth Paltrow's voicemail after she's just had a baby is not in the public interest. I'm at a loss to know what the public interest might be."
He also said the police had to explain why they failed to tell top politicians that their phones had been hacked into.
Neil said the story raised serious questions for Scotland Yard, top prosecutors and for judges: "It's not just a media story, it raises serious questions about the police.
"The police learn that the deputy prime minister has had his mobile phone compromised and they don't tell him. I just don't understand that.
"The police investigation unearthed evidence of clear wrongdoing and the Crown Prosecution Service does nothing."
He added: "The court is faced with evidence of conspiracy and systemic illegal actions and agrees to seal the evidence. All that is completely wrong, I just don't understand it."
Speaking earlier, on the BBC's Newsnight programme: "This is our criminal justice system in the dock."
Neil also said News International may face legal action from those who were victims of the phone hacking, a so called class action: "News International could face a class action by people who want to mount a class action to unseal those documents. There could be the most almighty class action, you're talking about multimillion pound losses. That gets scary.
"If this was in the US, shares in News International would collapse tonight." ...
Shares in "news" international should collapse tonight!
He also said the police had to explain why they failed to tell top politicians that their phones had been hacked into.
Neil said the story raised serious questions for Scotland Yard, top prosecutors and for judges: "It's not just a media story, it raises serious questions about the police.
"The police learn that the deputy prime minister has had his mobile phone compromised and they don't tell him. I just don't understand that.
"The police investigation unearthed evidence of clear wrongdoing and the Crown Prosecution Service does nothing."
He added: "The court is faced with evidence of conspiracy and systemic illegal actions and agrees to seal the evidence. All that is completely wrong, I just don't understand it."
Speaking earlier, on the BBC's Newsnight programme: "This is our criminal justice system in the dock."
Neil also said News International may face legal action from those who were victims of the phone hacking, a so called class action: "News International could face a class action by people who want to mount a class action to unseal those documents. There could be the most almighty class action, you're talking about multimillion pound losses. That gets scary.
"If this was in the US, shares in News International would collapse tonight." ...
Shares in "news" international should collapse tonight!
Murdoch papers paid £1m to gag phone-hacking victims
• News of the World bugging led to £700,000 payout to PFA chief executive Gordon Taylor
• Sun editor Rebekah Wade and Conservative communications chief Andy Coulson – both ex-NoW editors – involved
• News International chairman Les Hinton told MPs reporter jailed for phone-hacking was one-off case
Nick Davies
guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 8 July 2009
... The payments secured secrecy over out-of-court settlements in three cases that threatened to expose evidence of Murdoch journalists using private investigators who illegally hacked into the mobile phone messages of numerous public figures and to gain unlawful access to confidential personal data including tax records, social security files, bank statements and itemised phone bills. Cabinet ministers, MPs, actors and sports stars were all targets of the private investigators.
Today, the Guardian reveals details of the suppressed evidence which may open the door to hundreds more legal actions by victims of News Group, the Murdoch company that publishes the News of the World and the Sun, as well as provoking police inquiries into reporters who were involved and the senior executives responsible for them.
The evidence also poses difficult questions for:
• Conservative leader David Cameron's director of communications, Andy Coulson, who was deputy editor and then editor of the News of the World when, the suppressed evidence shows, journalists for whom he was responsible were engaging in hundreds of apparently illegal acts
• Murdoch executives who, albeit in good faith, have misled a parliamentary select committee, the Press Complaints Commission and the public
• The Metropolitan police, who did not alert all those whose phones were targeted, and the Crown Prosecution Service, which did not pursue all possible charges against News Group personnel
• The Press Complaints Commission, which claimed to have conducted an investigation but failed to uncover any evidence of illegal activity.
The suppressed legal cases are linked to the jailing in January 2007 of News of the World reporter Clive Goodman for hacking into the mobile phones of three royal staff, an offence under the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act. At the time, News International said it knew of no other journalist who was involved in hacking phones and that Goodman had been acting without their knowledge.
However, one senior source at the Metropolitan police told the Guardian that during the Goodman inquiry, officers had found evidence of News Group staff using private investigators who hacked into "thousands" of mobile phones. Another source with direct knowledge of the police findings put the figure at "two or three thousand" mobiles. They suggest that MPs from all three parties and cabinet ministers, including former deputy prime minister John Prescott and former culture secretary Tessa Jowell, were among the targets. News International has always maintained that it has no knowledge of phone hacking by anybody acting on its behalf.
A private investigator who had been working on contract for News Group, Glenn Mulcaire, was also jailed in January 2007. He admitted hacking into the phones of five other targets, including Gordon Taylor, chief executive of the Professional Footballers Association. Among those phones Mulcaire hacked into were the Liberal Democrat MP Simon Hughes, celebrity PR Max Clifford, model Elle MacPherson and football agent Sky Andrew. News Group denied all knowledge of the hacking, but Taylor last year sued them on the basis that they must have known about it. ...
Won't see this story at faux news, you betcha.
• News of the World bugging led to £700,000 payout to PFA chief executive Gordon Taylor
• Sun editor Rebekah Wade and Conservative communications chief Andy Coulson – both ex-NoW editors – involved
• News International chairman Les Hinton told MPs reporter jailed for phone-hacking was one-off case
Nick Davies
guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 8 July 2009
... The payments secured secrecy over out-of-court settlements in three cases that threatened to expose evidence of Murdoch journalists using private investigators who illegally hacked into the mobile phone messages of numerous public figures and to gain unlawful access to confidential personal data including tax records, social security files, bank statements and itemised phone bills. Cabinet ministers, MPs, actors and sports stars were all targets of the private investigators.
Today, the Guardian reveals details of the suppressed evidence which may open the door to hundreds more legal actions by victims of News Group, the Murdoch company that publishes the News of the World and the Sun, as well as provoking police inquiries into reporters who were involved and the senior executives responsible for them.
The evidence also poses difficult questions for:
• Conservative leader David Cameron's director of communications, Andy Coulson, who was deputy editor and then editor of the News of the World when, the suppressed evidence shows, journalists for whom he was responsible were engaging in hundreds of apparently illegal acts
• Murdoch executives who, albeit in good faith, have misled a parliamentary select committee, the Press Complaints Commission and the public
• The Metropolitan police, who did not alert all those whose phones were targeted, and the Crown Prosecution Service, which did not pursue all possible charges against News Group personnel
• The Press Complaints Commission, which claimed to have conducted an investigation but failed to uncover any evidence of illegal activity.
The suppressed legal cases are linked to the jailing in January 2007 of News of the World reporter Clive Goodman for hacking into the mobile phones of three royal staff, an offence under the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act. At the time, News International said it knew of no other journalist who was involved in hacking phones and that Goodman had been acting without their knowledge.
However, one senior source at the Metropolitan police told the Guardian that during the Goodman inquiry, officers had found evidence of News Group staff using private investigators who hacked into "thousands" of mobile phones. Another source with direct knowledge of the police findings put the figure at "two or three thousand" mobiles. They suggest that MPs from all three parties and cabinet ministers, including former deputy prime minister John Prescott and former culture secretary Tessa Jowell, were among the targets. News International has always maintained that it has no knowledge of phone hacking by anybody acting on its behalf.
A private investigator who had been working on contract for News Group, Glenn Mulcaire, was also jailed in January 2007. He admitted hacking into the phones of five other targets, including Gordon Taylor, chief executive of the Professional Footballers Association. Among those phones Mulcaire hacked into were the Liberal Democrat MP Simon Hughes, celebrity PR Max Clifford, model Elle MacPherson and football agent Sky Andrew. News Group denied all knowledge of the hacking, but Taylor last year sued them on the basis that they must have known about it. ...
Won't see this story at faux news, you betcha.
Calls grow within G8 to expel Italy as summit plans descend into chaos | World news | guardian.co.uk
Calls grow within G8 to expel Italy as summit plans descend into chaos
While US tries to inject purpose into meeting, Italy is lambasted for poor planning and reneging on overseas aid commitments
Silvio Berlusconi hits back at criticism over G8 summit
* Julian Borger, diplomatic editor
* guardian.co.uk, Monday 6 July 2009
Preparations for Wednesday's G8 summit in the Italian mountain town of L'Aquila have been so chaotic there is growing pressure from other member states to have Italy expelled from the group, according to senior western officials.
In the last few weeks before the summit, and in the absence of any substantive initiatives on the agenda, the US has taken control. Washington has organised "sherpa calls" (conference calls among senior officials) in a last-ditch bid to inject purpose into the meeting.
"For another country to organise the sherpa calls is just unprecedented. It's a nuclear option," said one senior G8 member state official. "The Italians have been just awful. There have been no processes and no planning."
"The G8 is a club, and clubs have membership dues. Italy has not been paying them," said a European official involved in the summit preparations.
The behind-the-scenes grumbling has gone as far as suggestions that Italy could be pushed out of the G8 or any successor group. One possibility being floated in European capitals is that Spain, which has higher per capita national income and gives a greater percentage of GDP in aid, would take Italy's place.
The Italian foreign ministry did not reply yesterday to a request to comment on the criticisms. ...
While US tries to inject purpose into meeting, Italy is lambasted for poor planning and reneging on overseas aid commitments
Silvio Berlusconi hits back at criticism over G8 summit
* Julian Borger, diplomatic editor
* guardian.co.uk, Monday 6 July 2009
Preparations for Wednesday's G8 summit in the Italian mountain town of L'Aquila have been so chaotic there is growing pressure from other member states to have Italy expelled from the group, according to senior western officials.
In the last few weeks before the summit, and in the absence of any substantive initiatives on the agenda, the US has taken control. Washington has organised "sherpa calls" (conference calls among senior officials) in a last-ditch bid to inject purpose into the meeting.
"For another country to organise the sherpa calls is just unprecedented. It's a nuclear option," said one senior G8 member state official. "The Italians have been just awful. There have been no processes and no planning."
"The G8 is a club, and clubs have membership dues. Italy has not been paying them," said a European official involved in the summit preparations.
The behind-the-scenes grumbling has gone as far as suggestions that Italy could be pushed out of the G8 or any successor group. One possibility being floated in European capitals is that Spain, which has higher per capita national income and gives a greater percentage of GDP in aid, would take Italy's place.
The Italian foreign ministry did not reply yesterday to a request to comment on the criticisms. ...
Another reason to hate the yankees. Oh, what joy.
Stupid; don't wanna insult cows; etc
... The Bing administration told the Free Press that White was unavailable to answer questions about the emergency check system -- not the sort of response voters anticipated when Bing was elected on a promise to provide transparency in the city's financial dealings. It's disturbing that the Free Press even had to file a FOIA request to obtain information that ought to be readily available online to any Detroit taxpayer.
No one should hold the new administration responsible for its predecessors' fiscal irresponsibility. But everyone should expect candor about any abuse of the emergency check system, especially when questions arise about the role played by a member of the current administration.
No one should hold the new administration responsible for its predecessors' fiscal irresponsibility. But everyone should expect candor about any abuse of the emergency check system, especially when questions arise about the role played by a member of the current administration.
Ah, but now he has a job making license (number) plates!
PM warned that elevation of Michael Martin could damage Lords
Nicholas Watt, chief political correspondent
* guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 30 June 2009 23.28 BST
Michael Martin, the former Speaker of the Commons, was today elevated to the House of Lords despite a warning from the independent appointments commission that his presence could "diminish" the upper house.
In an unprecedented move, the commission wrote to Gordon Brown to warn that Martin's conduct in recent months, which led him to become the first Speaker of the modern era to be forced out, could damage the Lords' reputation.
The intervention by the commission, chaired by the former Foreign Office permanent secretary Lord Jay, is understood to be the first time in modern times that questions have been raised about elevating a former Speaker to the Lords. ...
Nicholas Watt, chief political correspondent
* guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 30 June 2009 23.28 BST
Michael Martin, the former Speaker of the Commons, was today elevated to the House of Lords despite a warning from the independent appointments commission that his presence could "diminish" the upper house.
In an unprecedented move, the commission wrote to Gordon Brown to warn that Martin's conduct in recent months, which led him to become the first Speaker of the modern era to be forced out, could damage the Lords' reputation.
The intervention by the commission, chaired by the former Foreign Office permanent secretary Lord Jay, is understood to be the first time in modern times that questions have been raised about elevating a former Speaker to the Lords. ...
Hey, bing! When the hell you gonna get off yo' ass and do something, other than tryin' ta raise our water rates, you idiot?
Detroit Cops ---- Either They Don't Show Up, Or They Beat You Up If They Do.
The only way the human race can ever safely cope with nuclear power is if we no longer produce people like this:
Yes.
Were I to say any more I'd get an X rating.
Were I to say any more I'd get an X rating.
Library money paying city bills
Official: Cash supposed to go to benefits
By ZACHARY GORCHOW and CHASTITY PRATT DAWSEY
FREE PRESS STAFF WRITERS
June 20, 2009
The City of Detroit has been spending property tax money intended for Detroit Public Library employees' benefits on city operations instead, a library official said Friday.
Revelations about the city's use of library money came on the same day the Free Press reported that the city had been spending tax money it collects on behalf of the Detroit Public Schools to cover the city's payroll and other obligations.
The city would later reimburse DPS.
The library is a separate municipal corporation from the city with a dedicated millage that provides most of its $48-million annual budget.
On Friday, Library Commissioner Jonathan Kinloch said library staff learned this week that the city spent $6.2 million in property tax money that was supposed to go to the library, dating back to July 1.
The money was to cover employee benefits and contributions to the library workers' pension fund.
The city still owes the library the money.
"It's horrible, and it's illegal," Kinloch said. "There's a piggy bank that our money is supposed to be in, and the city is basically going into our piggy bank to pay their bills."
Joseph Harris, the chief financial officer during Mayor Ken Cockrel Jr.'s tenure, said he was unaware the practice of spending others' tax dollars dated back to July.
Financial experts say that the practice is a sign a municipality is in serious financial trouble.
A spokeswoman for Mayor Dave Bing did not respond to requests for comment Thursday and Friday about how close the city is to running out of cash. Nor is it known how, or if, the city plans on repaying the library. ...
Official: Cash supposed to go to benefits
By ZACHARY GORCHOW and CHASTITY PRATT DAWSEY
FREE PRESS STAFF WRITERS
June 20, 2009
The City of Detroit has been spending property tax money intended for Detroit Public Library employees' benefits on city operations instead, a library official said Friday.
Revelations about the city's use of library money came on the same day the Free Press reported that the city had been spending tax money it collects on behalf of the Detroit Public Schools to cover the city's payroll and other obligations.
The city would later reimburse DPS.
The library is a separate municipal corporation from the city with a dedicated millage that provides most of its $48-million annual budget.
On Friday, Library Commissioner Jonathan Kinloch said library staff learned this week that the city spent $6.2 million in property tax money that was supposed to go to the library, dating back to July 1.
The money was to cover employee benefits and contributions to the library workers' pension fund.
The city still owes the library the money.
"It's horrible, and it's illegal," Kinloch said. "There's a piggy bank that our money is supposed to be in, and the city is basically going into our piggy bank to pay their bills."
Joseph Harris, the chief financial officer during Mayor Ken Cockrel Jr.'s tenure, said he was unaware the practice of spending others' tax dollars dated back to July.
Financial experts say that the practice is a sign a municipality is in serious financial trouble.
A spokeswoman for Mayor Dave Bing did not respond to requests for comment Thursday and Friday about how close the city is to running out of cash. Nor is it known how, or if, the city plans on repaying the library. ...
GLENYS KINNOCK, the new minister for Europe, has amassed six publicly funded pensions worth £185,000 per year with her husband Neil, the former leader of the Labour party.
They have already received up to £8m of taxpayers’ money in pay and allowances, he as a European commissioner and she as a member of the European parliament.
The pair are already drawing payments from three of their taxpayer-funded pensions. Glenys Kinnock, 64, soon to be elevated to the House of Lords alongside her husband, is collecting a teacher’s pension and from next month is entitled to another from Brussels with an estimated annual value of £48,000.
Lord Kinnock, 67, is receiving one pension as a former MP and a second for his service in Brussels, together worth more than £112,000.
Glenys Kinnock is simultaneously drawing a ministerial salary of £83,275. Her job entitles her to a further ministerial pension.
After she retires from her job she will be eligible to draw a further UK-based pension related to her service as an MEP, worth £19,730 a year. ...
They have already received up to £8m of taxpayers’ money in pay and allowances, he as a European commissioner and she as a member of the European parliament.
The pair are already drawing payments from three of their taxpayer-funded pensions. Glenys Kinnock, 64, soon to be elevated to the House of Lords alongside her husband, is collecting a teacher’s pension and from next month is entitled to another from Brussels with an estimated annual value of £48,000.
Lord Kinnock, 67, is receiving one pension as a former MP and a second for his service in Brussels, together worth more than £112,000.
Glenys Kinnock is simultaneously drawing a ministerial salary of £83,275. Her job entitles her to a further ministerial pension.
After she retires from her job she will be eligible to draw a further UK-based pension related to her service as an MEP, worth £19,730 a year. ...
$380,000 TO TRAVEL THE WORLD
Detroit pension trustees take flight on funds' tab
The Free Press sued to get the records. Little is offered; some were destroyed. Are the assets of city workers safe?
BY JENNIFER DIXON • FREE PRESS STAFF WRITER • June 14, 2009
The trustees who oversee Detroit's two public pensions, their lawyers and staff spent $380,000 over the past year circling the globe to attend conferences -- often traveling in packs, with virtually no limitation on where they went or how often they traveled.
Trustee Ronald Gracia spent the most time on the road -- billing the General Retirement System for $105,000 in travel, including three trips to Singapore and $18,600 on travel to Hong Kong, according to records provided by the pension funds.
The two public pensions, with 21 trustees, have guarded their travel records from scrutiny. The Free Press sued to get the records -- which are actually only summaries from the past year.
The funds have yet to turn over actual receipts that would show, for instance, where trustees and staffers stayed and how they spent some of the money. Other documents have been destroyed.
However limited, these summaries provide a fuller snapshot than previously reported examples of the pensions' freewheeling travel practices.
The records also raise questions about how the travel squares with the trustees' legal duty to protect city workers' and retirees' assets, pension fund experts say.
Gracia declined to be interviewed. But in an e-mail, he said in today's world of global economics, trustees have an obligation to stay educated. He also said that the pension funds are in good financial shape.
Other pension officials declined comment. ...
Detroit pension trustees take flight on funds' tab
The Free Press sued to get the records. Little is offered; some were destroyed. Are the assets of city workers safe?
BY JENNIFER DIXON • FREE PRESS STAFF WRITER • June 14, 2009
The trustees who oversee Detroit's two public pensions, their lawyers and staff spent $380,000 over the past year circling the globe to attend conferences -- often traveling in packs, with virtually no limitation on where they went or how often they traveled.
Trustee Ronald Gracia spent the most time on the road -- billing the General Retirement System for $105,000 in travel, including three trips to Singapore and $18,600 on travel to Hong Kong, according to records provided by the pension funds.
The two public pensions, with 21 trustees, have guarded their travel records from scrutiny. The Free Press sued to get the records -- which are actually only summaries from the past year.
The funds have yet to turn over actual receipts that would show, for instance, where trustees and staffers stayed and how they spent some of the money. Other documents have been destroyed.
However limited, these summaries provide a fuller snapshot than previously reported examples of the pensions' freewheeling travel practices.
The records also raise questions about how the travel squares with the trustees' legal duty to protect city workers' and retirees' assets, pension fund experts say.
Gracia declined to be interviewed. But in an e-mail, he said in today's world of global economics, trustees have an obligation to stay educated. He also said that the pension funds are in good financial shape.
Other pension officials declined comment. ...
Water department gives him $56,600 a year, but Gracia focuses on pension
BY JENNIFER DIXON • FREE PRESS STAFF WRITER • June 14, 2009
Ronald Gracia, the $100,000-a-year traveler at Detroit's General Retirement System, also has a day job with the city's water department.
At least on paper.
Gracia receives $56,600 a year as a senior data processing program analyst with Detroit's Water and Sewerage Department, but spokesman George Ellenwood concedes Gracia doesn't actually work at his job.
Ellenwood said the department allows Gracia to devote full attention to his trustee duties for the pension fund, which typically meets once a week.
"All of his time is allocated to the pension work that he did," Ellenwood said, calling it a "long-term practice based on an understanding that is some years old."
Gracia, a trustee for 26 years, said in an e-mail he doesn't have to be on the job because he's a full-time union official and, like some other city employees, he's allowed to do union work full-time.
He did not respond to questions about whether he had a written agreement regarding his water department position. He also did not identify the union and his position.
Ellenwood said the water department is "trying to find if there was a written agreement with HR or some policy decision from perhaps labor relations that established this practice." ...
Yu a stinkin' t'ief, mon an' mi hope ya lose bot' ya jobs!
Rass claaat!
BY JENNIFER DIXON • FREE PRESS STAFF WRITER • June 14, 2009
Ronald Gracia, the $100,000-a-year traveler at Detroit's General Retirement System, also has a day job with the city's water department.
At least on paper.
Gracia receives $56,600 a year as a senior data processing program analyst with Detroit's Water and Sewerage Department, but spokesman George Ellenwood concedes Gracia doesn't actually work at his job.
Ellenwood said the department allows Gracia to devote full attention to his trustee duties for the pension fund, which typically meets once a week.
"All of his time is allocated to the pension work that he did," Ellenwood said, calling it a "long-term practice based on an understanding that is some years old."
Gracia, a trustee for 26 years, said in an e-mail he doesn't have to be on the job because he's a full-time union official and, like some other city employees, he's allowed to do union work full-time.
He did not respond to questions about whether he had a written agreement regarding his water department position. He also did not identify the union and his position.
Ellenwood said the water department is "trying to find if there was a written agreement with HR or some policy decision from perhaps labor relations that established this practice." ...
Yu a stinkin' t'ief, mon an' mi hope ya lose bot' ya jobs!
Rass claaat!
Idiots. Don't let them in the EU until they start treating women like human beings, too!
Wonder what % knows to wash its hands after using the WC?
chinastan, you just suck.
Not doin' so well there, eh airbus?
It is obscene that anyone would get a mere probation sentence for kiddie porn!!!
Whah, that thay-er's a funna-loookin' shaaark!
There's freak, and there's geek, and then there's FREAK.
There's also las vegas.
There's also las vegas.
Where can I "earn" a million squid in just over three months?! Sign me up!
Good on 'em, and I hope they win.
... "The exact cause of mortality of affected bats is not yet fully understood, but the newly identified fungus is considered a likely contributor," Marvin Moriarty, northeast regional director of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, told the natural resource committee yesterday.
The fungus invades the skin, underlying tissue and particularly the wings, which help to balance complex physiological processes such as body temperature. All six bat species that hibernate in the Northeast have been impacted and scientists fear the syndrome will spread to large bat populations in the South and Southwest -- and that some species may never recover even if a solution is found.
"Bats differ from most other small mammals in that they have long lives and reproduce slowly," Moriarty said.
Bats are insect-eaters and help human agriculture. The 1 million killed would have consumed 8,000 pounds of insects in a single summer night, scientists said.
"The level of nightly consumption by one little brown bat would be equivalent to a 150-pound teenage boy eating approximately 300 quarter-pounders. Translated to the number of insects that would not be eaten by one little brown bat in your backyard on a given night, it amounts to the equivalent of 60 medium-sized moths or over 1,000 mosquito-sized insects," said Thomas Kunz, director of the Center for Ecology and Conservation at Boston University.
The fungus invades the skin, underlying tissue and particularly the wings, which help to balance complex physiological processes such as body temperature. All six bat species that hibernate in the Northeast have been impacted and scientists fear the syndrome will spread to large bat populations in the South and Southwest -- and that some species may never recover even if a solution is found.
"Bats differ from most other small mammals in that they have long lives and reproduce slowly," Moriarty said.
Bats are insect-eaters and help human agriculture. The 1 million killed would have consumed 8,000 pounds of insects in a single summer night, scientists said.
"The level of nightly consumption by one little brown bat would be equivalent to a 150-pound teenage boy eating approximately 300 quarter-pounders. Translated to the number of insects that would not be eaten by one little brown bat in your backyard on a given night, it amounts to the equivalent of 60 medium-sized moths or over 1,000 mosquito-sized insects," said Thomas Kunz, director of the Center for Ecology and Conservation at Boston University.
Medical bills underlie 60 percent of U.S. bankrupts: study
Thu Jun 4, 2009
By Maggie Fox, Health and Science Editor
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Medical bills are behind more than 60 percent of U.S. personal bankruptcies, U.S. researchers reported on Thursday in a report they said demonstrates that healthcare reform is on the wrong track.
More than 75 percent of these bankrupt families had health insurance but still were overwhelmed by their medical debts, the team at Harvard Law School, Harvard Medical School and Ohio University reported in the American Journal of Medicine.
"Unless you're Warren Buffett, your family is just one serious illness away from bankruptcy," Harvard's Dr. David Himmelstein, an advocate for a single-payer health insurance program for the United States, said in a statement. ...
Hello?!
Thu Jun 4, 2009
By Maggie Fox, Health and Science Editor
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Medical bills are behind more than 60 percent of U.S. personal bankruptcies, U.S. researchers reported on Thursday in a report they said demonstrates that healthcare reform is on the wrong track.
More than 75 percent of these bankrupt families had health insurance but still were overwhelmed by their medical debts, the team at Harvard Law School, Harvard Medical School and Ohio University reported in the American Journal of Medicine.
"Unless you're Warren Buffett, your family is just one serious illness away from bankruptcy," Harvard's Dr. David Himmelstein, an advocate for a single-payer health insurance program for the United States, said in a statement. ...
Hello?!
DPS audit shows missing funds, 'sloppy bookkeeping'
BY CHASTITY PRATT DAWSEY
FREE PRESS EDUCATION WRITER
June 3, 2009
Detroit Public Schools Emergency Financial Manager Robert Bobb released audit findings this morning that show sloppy bookkeeping at 189 of 194 school buildings, some of which could result in criminal charges. The tax-exempt schools also may have lost about $1.7 million that was wrongly paid in sales taxes, a meeting with a vendor revealed this morning.
Advertisement
The audits showed loans made to school officials using school funds, missing funds from activities, school funds diverted to personal accounts, principals writing and signing checks, untimely deposits and money taken home by staff.
Three cases involving high schools and two involving elementary schools have been turned over to the district’s inspector general, former FBI official John Bell.
“We have a reason to believe some of them probably will” be turned over to the prosecutor’s office, Bobb said.
“How do you justify making loans to school officials?” he said.
Over a period of 21 days, 35 auditors investigated 194 schools that handle $2.5 million to $4 million in funds. Only five had “entirely proper bookkeeping,” he said. ...
BY CHASTITY PRATT DAWSEY
FREE PRESS EDUCATION WRITER
June 3, 2009
Detroit Public Schools Emergency Financial Manager Robert Bobb released audit findings this morning that show sloppy bookkeeping at 189 of 194 school buildings, some of which could result in criminal charges. The tax-exempt schools also may have lost about $1.7 million that was wrongly paid in sales taxes, a meeting with a vendor revealed this morning.
Advertisement
The audits showed loans made to school officials using school funds, missing funds from activities, school funds diverted to personal accounts, principals writing and signing checks, untimely deposits and money taken home by staff.
Three cases involving high schools and two involving elementary schools have been turned over to the district’s inspector general, former FBI official John Bell.
“We have a reason to believe some of them probably will” be turned over to the prosecutor’s office, Bobb said.
“How do you justify making loans to school officials?” he said.
Over a period of 21 days, 35 auditors investigated 194 schools that handle $2.5 million to $4 million in funds. Only five had “entirely proper bookkeeping,” he said. ...
That's easy: they slaughtered an entire generation.
Bastards.
Bastards.
Is stupidity a requirement for joining the police force the world over?!
"Hey, fbi
I am the Sky
Who are you?
Hey, po-lice
My name is Chris'
Who are you dat I should be mindful of?"
- Opening of De Devil Dead by Lee 'Scratch' Perry
{Ed Note: That "Chris' " is pronounced like Christ but missing the final T, and of course the 'lice' in 'po-lice' rhyme wid it, Mon.}
"Hey, fbi
I am the Sky
Who are you?
Hey, po-lice
My name is Chris'
Who are you dat I should be mindful of?"
- Opening of De Devil Dead by Lee 'Scratch' Perry
{Ed Note: That "Chris' " is pronounced like Christ but missing the final T, and of course the 'lice' in 'po-lice' rhyme wid it, Mon.}
Supreme Court overturns rule on right to counsel
Posted on: May 30, 2009 9:16 AM, by Ed Brayton
The U.S. Supreme Court has overturned a landmark 1986 ruling that forbid the police from questioning suspects without their attorney present. The 1986 case, Michigan v Jackson, was overturned on Tuesday in a 5-4 ruling (PDF) in a similar case, Montejo v Louisiana.
As I reported last month, the Obama administration had sided with the state of Louisiana in that case and argued for overturning the prior case.
Michigan v Jackson established the rule that if someone accused of a crime has an attorney or has requested the appointment of an attorney by the court, police may not question them without that attorney being present even if the accused agrees to waive the right to have their attorney present during that particular session of questioning. Under Jackson, any waiver of that right was presumed to be invalid because it was not made with the advice of counsel.
Justice Scalia, writing the majority opinion joined by Chief Justice Roberts and Justices Alito, Thomas and Kennedy, said "the marginal benefits of Jackson (viz., the number of confessions obtained coercively that are suppressed by its bright-line rule and would otherwise have been admitted) are dwarfed by its substantial costs (viz., hindering "society's compelling interest in finding, convicting, and punishing those who violate the law." (citations omitted)
This provoked an angry response from the dissenting justices, led by Justice Stevens, who took the unusual step of reading his dissenting opinion aloud from the bench. The majority, he wrote, "flagrantly misrepresents" the issues of the case and has "overrule[d] Jackson to correct a 'theoretical and doctrinal' problem of its own imagining." Such tough language is usually aimed by Justice Scalia, not at him. ...
Let's put scalia, thomas et al in one of Detroit's cop shops and see whether they want their attorneys present.
Posted on: May 30, 2009 9:16 AM, by Ed Brayton
The U.S. Supreme Court has overturned a landmark 1986 ruling that forbid the police from questioning suspects without their attorney present. The 1986 case, Michigan v Jackson, was overturned on Tuesday in a 5-4 ruling (PDF) in a similar case, Montejo v Louisiana.
As I reported last month, the Obama administration had sided with the state of Louisiana in that case and argued for overturning the prior case.
Michigan v Jackson established the rule that if someone accused of a crime has an attorney or has requested the appointment of an attorney by the court, police may not question them without that attorney being present even if the accused agrees to waive the right to have their attorney present during that particular session of questioning. Under Jackson, any waiver of that right was presumed to be invalid because it was not made with the advice of counsel.
Justice Scalia, writing the majority opinion joined by Chief Justice Roberts and Justices Alito, Thomas and Kennedy, said "the marginal benefits of Jackson (viz., the number of confessions obtained coercively that are suppressed by its bright-line rule and would otherwise have been admitted) are dwarfed by its substantial costs (viz., hindering "society's compelling interest in finding, convicting, and punishing those who violate the law." (citations omitted)
This provoked an angry response from the dissenting justices, led by Justice Stevens, who took the unusual step of reading his dissenting opinion aloud from the bench. The majority, he wrote, "flagrantly misrepresents" the issues of the case and has "overrule[d] Jackson to correct a 'theoretical and doctrinal' problem of its own imagining." Such tough language is usually aimed by Justice Scalia, not at him. ...
Let's put scalia, thomas et al in one of Detroit's cop shops and see whether they want their attorneys present.
Mortgage rescue plan accepts just two families
The Government has been derided after it emerged that its £285m scheme to rescue families from having their homes repossessed has been taken up by just two households since it was set up at the start of the year.
By Edmund Conway and Angela Monaghan
29 May 2009
The Government has been derided after it emerged that its £285m scheme to rescue families from having their homes repossessed has been taken up by just two households since it was set up at the start of the year.
By Edmund Conway and Angela Monaghan
29 May 2009
... Crucifying the headless body in a public place is a way to set an example, according to the kingdom’s interpretation of Islam. Normally those convicted of rape, murder and drug trafficking in Saudi Arabia are just beheaded.
London-based rights group Amnesty International criticized al-Anzi’s execution and crucifixion. “It is horrific that beheading and crucifixions still happen,” said Hassiba Hadj Sahraoui of Amnesty International in a statement Friday.
“King Abdullah should show true leadership and commute all death sentences if Saudi Arabia is to have any role to play as a global leader or member of the G20,” said Sahraoui.
According to an Associated Press count, Friday’s execution brought the number to 35 beheading this year in the kingdom. In 2008, 102 people were beheaded.
Why are we friends with this backward, savage, psychotic, woman- and queer-hating country?
Oh, yeah. Now I remember.
OIL.
London-based rights group Amnesty International criticized al-Anzi’s execution and crucifixion. “It is horrific that beheading and crucifixions still happen,” said Hassiba Hadj Sahraoui of Amnesty International in a statement Friday.
“King Abdullah should show true leadership and commute all death sentences if Saudi Arabia is to have any role to play as a global leader or member of the G20,” said Sahraoui.
According to an Associated Press count, Friday’s execution brought the number to 35 beheading this year in the kingdom. In 2008, 102 people were beheaded.
Why are we friends with this backward, savage, psychotic, woman- and queer-hating country?
Oh, yeah. Now I remember.
OIL.
Yu sey yu try a be 'a good mum an' a good EmmPee,' but yu jus' anudda t'ief h'until ya gat caaaght!
Do like dat daarries creature - go back a bed an' stey dere, mon.
Do like dat daarries creature - go back a bed an' stey dere, mon.
My thoughts are unfit for family reading, so I will reserve them.
I will point out she insists she won't return a farthing of what she's stolen.
I will point out she insists she won't return a farthing of what she's stolen.
Go back to bed and stay there.
Alex Salmond claims he was victim of MPs' expenses system
Alex Salmond has refused to apologise for his expense claims, arguing that he was the innocent victim of a system that was open to “widespread abuse”.
By Simon Johnson, Scottish Political Editor
Last Updated: 7:53PM BST 13 May 2009
'Nuff said.
Alex Salmond has refused to apologise for his expense claims, arguing that he was the innocent victim of a system that was open to “widespread abuse”.
By Simon Johnson, Scottish Political Editor
Last Updated: 7:53PM BST 13 May 2009
'Nuff said.
Sir Nicholas and Ann Winterton to stand down from parliament: MPs expenses
Sir Nicholas and Ann Winterton, the Conservative MPs, are to resign from parliament at the next election.
By Christopher Hope and Jon Swaine
Last Updated: 4:31PM BST 25 May 2009
The couple will not run for re-election as the MPs for Macclesfield and Congleton.
In a letter to David Cameron, the Tory leader, the couple said that they could no longer "maintain the hectic pace" of political life and wanted to step down in order to spend more time with their family. [Ed. Note: Peut-êum;tre, mes chers!]
Their decision comes after the Telegraph disclosed that they claimed more than £80,000 in rent for a small London flat that was owned by a trust controlled by their children.
Expenses submitted by Sir Nicholas show he claimed for £41,508 in rent. His wife’s claims amounted to £41,584.
Since 2002 the Wintertons’ flat in Westminster has been owned by a trust which is controlled by their children.
The decision to pass the property into a family trust was reportedly designed to save hundreds of thousands of pounds in death duties.
The trustees are Sir Nicholas and Lady Winterton, together with the family’s lawyer. For four years the pair submitted rental claims of £900 a month each. ...
Sir Nicholas and Ann Winterton, the Conservative MPs, are to resign from parliament at the next election.
By Christopher Hope and Jon Swaine
Last Updated: 4:31PM BST 25 May 2009
The couple will not run for re-election as the MPs for Macclesfield and Congleton.
In a letter to David Cameron, the Tory leader, the couple said that they could no longer "maintain the hectic pace" of political life and wanted to step down in order to spend more time with their family. [Ed. Note: Peut-êum;tre, mes chers!]
Their decision comes after the Telegraph disclosed that they claimed more than £80,000 in rent for a small London flat that was owned by a trust controlled by their children.
Expenses submitted by Sir Nicholas show he claimed for £41,508 in rent. His wife’s claims amounted to £41,584.
Since 2002 the Wintertons’ flat in Westminster has been owned by a trust which is controlled by their children.
The decision to pass the property into a family trust was reportedly designed to save hundreds of thousands of pounds in death duties.
The trustees are Sir Nicholas and Lady Winterton, together with the family’s lawyer. For four years the pair submitted rental claims of £900 a month each. ...
£500,000 Government report: commuters want trains to run on time
A two-year-long, 178-page report that cost taxpayers £500,000 has arrived at the unsurprising conclusion that commuters want trains to run on time.
By Harry Wallop, Consumer Affairs Editor
Last Updated: 3:10PM BST 24 May 2009
... Tony Ambrose, of the passenger campaign group More Train Less Strain, said: "It beggars belief. It's bad enough having the highest fares and worst overcrowding in Europe without the added unpleasantness of finding out you have been filmed without your permission.
"The report is astonishing. It's a rehash, in consultant-speak, of what is blindingly obvious to every traveller."
The RSSB defended its study, however, insisting it was a "practical appraisal of real-life situations".
A spokesman added: "In total, about one hour of filming was undertaken, based on one person travelling for four to five days."
The report comes just a week after the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs was attacked for spending £300,000 on a three-year study that proved ducks liked rainy weather.
A two-year-long, 178-page report that cost taxpayers £500,000 has arrived at the unsurprising conclusion that commuters want trains to run on time.
By Harry Wallop, Consumer Affairs Editor
Last Updated: 3:10PM BST 24 May 2009
... Tony Ambrose, of the passenger campaign group More Train Less Strain, said: "It beggars belief. It's bad enough having the highest fares and worst overcrowding in Europe without the added unpleasantness of finding out you have been filmed without your permission.
"The report is astonishing. It's a rehash, in consultant-speak, of what is blindingly obvious to every traveller."
The RSSB defended its study, however, insisting it was a "practical appraisal of real-life situations".
A spokesman added: "In total, about one hour of filming was undertaken, based on one person travelling for four to five days."
The report comes just a week after the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs was attacked for spending £300,000 on a three-year study that proved ducks liked rainy weather.
Lost medical records force urgent security review
Health department confirms 140 data breaches in the NHS, involving the records of tens of thousands of people
May 25, 2009
An urgent review of data security in the NHS has been ordered after the personal medical records of tens of thousands of people were lost by the health service.
A total of 140 security breaches were reported within the NHS between January and April this year, the Department of Health confirmed today.
These included computers containing medical records left in skips or stolen, and passwords taped on encrypted discs with sensitive information, according to The Independent newspaper.
Over the last six months, the information commissioner, Richard Thomas, has been forced to take action against 14 NHS bodies for breaching data regulations.
He has ordered an urgent review of data security in the health service, writing to the DoH to demand immediate improvements in the lax treatment of personal data within the NHS. ...
Sack the lot responsible, and send 'em to Antarctica.
Wearing Bermuda shorts.
Health department confirms 140 data breaches in the NHS, involving the records of tens of thousands of people
May 25, 2009
An urgent review of data security in the NHS has been ordered after the personal medical records of tens of thousands of people were lost by the health service.
A total of 140 security breaches were reported within the NHS between January and April this year, the Department of Health confirmed today.
These included computers containing medical records left in skips or stolen, and passwords taped on encrypted discs with sensitive information, according to The Independent newspaper.
Over the last six months, the information commissioner, Richard Thomas, has been forced to take action against 14 NHS bodies for breaching data regulations.
He has ordered an urgent review of data security in the health service, writing to the DoH to demand immediate improvements in the lax treatment of personal data within the NHS. ...
Sack the lot responsible, and send 'em to Antarctica.
Wearing Bermuda shorts.
... That consumers might buy a meal containing recalled meat is legal ---
and wholesome --- according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
The federal agency must OK the company's plans for recalled meat.
Cooking recalled meat is common practice in the food industry.
"I think we can say any product that is cooked per the guidelines
established by the USDA and recommended by the Colorado
Department of Health is perfectly safe for human consumption and
to indicate otherwise is irresponsible," ConAgra spokesman Jim Herlihy said.
Consumers watching the ConAgra recall, however, may think differently.
"They're asking me to trust them again, and that's outrageous," said Lisa
Scannell of Longmont. Her five-year-old son, Alec Scholhamer, was
sickened last month after eating a hamburger made with ConAgra meat.
"They always blame people for not cooking the meat even though they're
the ones who put the E. coli there. I'm supposed to trust them now to cook
it, too?" A Colorado health official said recalled meat shouldn't end up as
human food again.
"By definition of the federal recall, it's not fit for human consumption,"
said Patti Klocker, assistant director of the Colorado Department of
Health and Environment Consumer Protection Division. "We recommend
that humans don't consume it and that it shouldn't be turned into something edible."
Herlihy said he did not know how much of the meat has already been
cooked or processed. He could not say if it will be sold to outside
companies or to ConAgra-owned businesses, or how much will become
nonfood products such as fertilizer and tallow. ...
WTF, USDA?
and wholesome --- according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
The federal agency must OK the company's plans for recalled meat.
Cooking recalled meat is common practice in the food industry.
"I think we can say any product that is cooked per the guidelines
established by the USDA and recommended by the Colorado
Department of Health is perfectly safe for human consumption and
to indicate otherwise is irresponsible," ConAgra spokesman Jim Herlihy said.
Consumers watching the ConAgra recall, however, may think differently.
"They're asking me to trust them again, and that's outrageous," said Lisa
Scannell of Longmont. Her five-year-old son, Alec Scholhamer, was
sickened last month after eating a hamburger made with ConAgra meat.
"They always blame people for not cooking the meat even though they're
the ones who put the E. coli there. I'm supposed to trust them now to cook
it, too?" A Colorado health official said recalled meat shouldn't end up as
human food again.
"By definition of the federal recall, it's not fit for human consumption,"
said Patti Klocker, assistant director of the Colorado Department of
Health and Environment Consumer Protection Division. "We recommend
that humans don't consume it and that it shouldn't be turned into something edible."
Herlihy said he did not know how much of the meat has already been
cooked or processed. He could not say if it will be sold to outside
companies or to ConAgra-owned businesses, or how much will become
nonfood products such as fertilizer and tallow. ...
WTF, USDA?
Uzbekistan forced to stop child labour
Retailers refuse to buy cotton picked by children in inhumane conditions. Nick Mathiason reports
Sunday 24 May 2009
It is considered one of the most exploitative industries in the world. In Uzbekistan, gangs forcibly remove hundreds of thousands of children from schools, order them to pick cotton in the searing heat and live in squalid conditions on pitiful wages.
Blended by manufacturers thousands of miles away, Uzbeki state-controlled cotton is sold to the world's biggest retailers, making the repressive regime the third biggest exporter of "white gold" and earning the government $1bn.
But, in what has been described as a major breakthrough, a decision by some of the world's biggest clothing businesses has forced the Uzbeki government in recent weeks to sign International Labour Organisation conventions that commit the country to stop using child labour in its state-sponsored industry.
Retailers that have pulled out of the central Asian state include Tesco, Asda Wal-Mart, Marks & Spencer and Gap.
Steve Trent, director of the Environmental Justice Foundation (EJF), said: "This is a major step forward. Virtually nothing persuaded the government to change course. But the actions of retailers and campaigners are definitely now having an impact. But the key question that remains is whether the Uzbeki government will implement the conventions. They need to allow independent monitoring and work with civil society, which are basic requirements of the conventions they have signed up to and ratified. They are not doing this so the jury is out." ...
Retailers refuse to buy cotton picked by children in inhumane conditions. Nick Mathiason reports
Sunday 24 May 2009
It is considered one of the most exploitative industries in the world. In Uzbekistan, gangs forcibly remove hundreds of thousands of children from schools, order them to pick cotton in the searing heat and live in squalid conditions on pitiful wages.
Blended by manufacturers thousands of miles away, Uzbeki state-controlled cotton is sold to the world's biggest retailers, making the repressive regime the third biggest exporter of "white gold" and earning the government $1bn.
But, in what has been described as a major breakthrough, a decision by some of the world's biggest clothing businesses has forced the Uzbeki government in recent weeks to sign International Labour Organisation conventions that commit the country to stop using child labour in its state-sponsored industry.
Retailers that have pulled out of the central Asian state include Tesco, Asda Wal-Mart, Marks & Spencer and Gap.
Steve Trent, director of the Environmental Justice Foundation (EJF), said: "This is a major step forward. Virtually nothing persuaded the government to change course. But the actions of retailers and campaigners are definitely now having an impact. But the key question that remains is whether the Uzbeki government will implement the conventions. They need to allow independent monitoring and work with civil society, which are basic requirements of the conventions they have signed up to and ratified. They are not doing this so the jury is out." ...
Now here's something truly disgusting and invasive, Gen'l Jack D. Ripper notwithstanding.
"I can no longer sit back and allow communist infiltration, communist indoctrination, communist subversion, and the international communist conspiracy to sap and impurify all of our precious bodily fluids!"
Click Jack's pic, get a goodie.
"I can no longer sit back and allow communist infiltration, communist indoctrination, communist subversion, and the international communist conspiracy to sap and impurify all of our precious bodily fluids!"
Click Jack's pic, get a goodie.
Go die, monsteranto.
Are these council ahem members elected?
Equine abuse should be a crime with prison time. This creep's at least as bad as a dogfighting football player.
I'd cheerfully spit in this prick's eye - and I've got good aim.
martin wants stringing up!
Give the man a medal - and a chiropractor!
I can't think of a suitably foul epithet for these t'iefs.
May 8, 2009
Ministers under fire over lavish expenses
Sam Coates, Chief Political Correspondent
Gordon Brown came under renewed pressure after it emerged last night that more than half the Cabinet face embarrassment over expense claims.
Senior ministers were forced to explain a series of lavish, unusual and erroneous claims that highlight the lengths to which MPs have gone to exploit the system of taxpayer-funded allowances.
The revelations come days after the Prime Minister abandoned an attempt to reform the controversial £24,000 second-home allowance.
Mr Brown was thrust into the spotlight after it emerged he had paid his brother Andrew, a lobbyist for the energy company EDF, £241 a month for cleaning services.
The documents also show that Mr Brown transferred the location of his main home, from his constituency to his London flat, ten days after Tony Blair announced the date he would step down. Designating the North Queensferry property as his second home allowed Mr Brown to claim most of the running costs, including a gardener and cleaner, and carry out extensive repairs and redecoration at public expense. ...
More links from the page:
Full expense details | 'Pay for redecoration or I'll be divorced' | Tea room secrets exposed | 'Accountancy not my strong point' | Comment: Francis Elliott | The 10 most outrageous MP expense claims ever
Ministers under fire over lavish expenses
Sam Coates, Chief Political Correspondent
Gordon Brown came under renewed pressure after it emerged last night that more than half the Cabinet face embarrassment over expense claims.
Senior ministers were forced to explain a series of lavish, unusual and erroneous claims that highlight the lengths to which MPs have gone to exploit the system of taxpayer-funded allowances.
The revelations come days after the Prime Minister abandoned an attempt to reform the controversial £24,000 second-home allowance.
Mr Brown was thrust into the spotlight after it emerged he had paid his brother Andrew, a lobbyist for the energy company EDF, £241 a month for cleaning services.
The documents also show that Mr Brown transferred the location of his main home, from his constituency to his London flat, ten days after Tony Blair announced the date he would step down. Designating the North Queensferry property as his second home allowed Mr Brown to claim most of the running costs, including a gardener and cleaner, and carry out extensive repairs and redecoration at public expense. ...
More links from the page:
Full expense details | 'Pay for redecoration or I'll be divorced' | Tea room secrets exposed | 'Accountancy not my strong point' | Comment: Francis Elliott | The 10 most outrageous MP expense claims ever
[Ed. Note: Blame dear Glenn321 for the following rant: he sent me this story. kthxbai]
You know, chinastan, you have done nothing to endear yourself for um....how long is it now? More than 50 freakin' years!
I understand your country was named after the first real Emperor you had, a bloke named chin who'd successfully united so many far-flung provinces and peoples. He was a bit of an arse.....well, to be honest, a power-mad rat bastard who was unbelievably abusive. Illustrated dictionaries have his picture near the definition of 'autocrat.'
Thing is, he died 2220 years ago! Can't you lot get past that um past, and try a different way of treating people? FFS, chin buried scholars alive and outlawed Confucianism so his kingdom would have "stability," and that moronic evil prick mao slaughtered and imprisoned intellectuals, monks and scholars on a similar scale and for similar reasons only 42 years ago.
chin's original Great Wall project enslaved hundreds of thousands, and killed God/dess knows how many. That was all his building endeavo/urs' modus operandi.
mao musta thought he was chin's backasswards reincarnation:
"Moreover, most of the dams, canals and other infrastructure projects, [on] which millions of peasants and prisoners had been forced to toil...and in many cases die for, proved useless as they had been built without the input of trained engineers, whom Mao had rejected on ideological grounds." [Nicked from the inevitable Wikipedia page]
I'd think this news item a hoax had it appeared on auntie beeb's site, thanks to dear DontheFox's hippin' me.
You know, chinastan, you have done nothing to endear yourself for um....how long is it now? More than 50 freakin' years!
I understand your country was named after the first real Emperor you had, a bloke named chin who'd successfully united so many far-flung provinces and peoples. He was a bit of an arse.....well, to be honest, a power-mad rat bastard who was unbelievably abusive. Illustrated dictionaries have his picture near the definition of 'autocrat.'
Thing is, he died 2220 years ago! Can't you lot get past that um past, and try a different way of treating people? FFS, chin buried scholars alive and outlawed Confucianism so his kingdom would have "stability," and that moronic evil prick mao slaughtered and imprisoned intellectuals, monks and scholars on a similar scale and for similar reasons only 42 years ago.
chin's original Great Wall project enslaved hundreds of thousands, and killed God/dess knows how many. That was all his building endeavo/urs' modus operandi.
mao musta thought he was chin's backasswards reincarnation:
"Moreover, most of the dams, canals and other infrastructure projects, [on] which millions of peasants and prisoners had been forced to toil...and in many cases die for, proved useless as they had been built without the input of trained engineers, whom Mao had rejected on ideological grounds." [Nicked from the inevitable Wikipedia page]
I'd think this news item a hoax had it appeared on auntie beeb's site, thanks to dear DontheFox's hippin' me.
Getcher Karma, pal, and good luck with it.
STAFF at a government-backed fund supposed to help some of the poorest people in the world have been awarded £65m in bonuses – equivalent to an annual £350,000 per employee.
The bonuses have largely come from investments intended to tackle poverty in the developing world. The fund was part of the Department for International Development (DFID) until it was part-privatised in 2004.
Charity workers say the government has allowed the fund, Actis, to skew Britain’s priorities overseas in its pursuit of high returns by depriving poor rural communities of investment. Actis manages funds for DFID’s investment body, CDC, tasked with reducing poverty, and has been praised for its success. But it has been awarding staff bonuses of up to £3m out of investments built up over years in developing countries.
Average pay for employees in 2007 was on a par with those at Goldman Sachs, the US investment bank. ...
The bonuses have largely come from investments intended to tackle poverty in the developing world. The fund was part of the Department for International Development (DFID) until it was part-privatised in 2004.
Charity workers say the government has allowed the fund, Actis, to skew Britain’s priorities overseas in its pursuit of high returns by depriving poor rural communities of investment. Actis manages funds for DFID’s investment body, CDC, tasked with reducing poverty, and has been praised for its success. But it has been awarding staff bonuses of up to £3m out of investments built up over years in developing countries.
Average pay for employees in 2007 was on a par with those at Goldman Sachs, the US investment bank. ...
Okaaaaaay, that's as about logical as destroying a wind farm to build a nuke plant.
GDMFSOBs.
WTF, UK?
WTF, UK?
'Nother niiice one, there, texass.
Britain's nuclear submarine fleet has been hit by a series of serious safety breaches involving repeated leaks of radioactive waste, broken pipes and waste tanks at its home base on the Clyde, the Ministry of Defence has disclosed.
In a confidential report released under the Freedom of Information Act, the MoD has admitted that safety failings at the UK's main nuclear submarine base at Faslane, near Glasgow, are a "recurring theme" and ingrained in the base's culture.
The worst breaches include three leaks of radioactive coolant from nuclear submarines in 2004, 2007 and 2008 into the Firth of Clyde, while last year a radioactive waste plant manager was replaced. It emerged he had no qualifications in radioactive waste management. ...
No more nuke-powered anything. We can't handle it, simple as.
In a confidential report released under the Freedom of Information Act, the MoD has admitted that safety failings at the UK's main nuclear submarine base at Faslane, near Glasgow, are a "recurring theme" and ingrained in the base's culture.
The worst breaches include three leaks of radioactive coolant from nuclear submarines in 2004, 2007 and 2008 into the Firth of Clyde, while last year a radioactive waste plant manager was replaced. It emerged he had no qualifications in radioactive waste management. ...
No more nuke-powered anything. We can't handle it, simple as.
Isabel Oakeshott and David Leppard
April 26, 2009
A BRITISH agent has thrown the war against drug traffickers into chaos by leaving top secret information about covert operations on a bus in South America.
In a blunder that has cost taxpayers millions of pounds and put scores of lives at risk, the drugs liaison officer lost a computer memory stick said to contain a list of undercover agents’ names and details of more than five years of intelligence work.
It happened when the MI6-trained agent left her handbag on a transit coach at El Dorado airport in Bogota, Colombia. Intelligence chiefs were forced to wind up operations and relocate dozens of agents and informants amid fears the device could fall into the hands of drugs barons.
The incident, which was hushed up by the Serious Organised Crime Agency (Soca), the agent’s employer, is an embarrassment for the government. It is another blow for Jacqui Smith, the home secretary, who has ultimate responsibility for Britain’s anti-drugs operations and the safeguarding of criminal intelligence. ...
April 26, 2009
A BRITISH agent has thrown the war against drug traffickers into chaos by leaving top secret information about covert operations on a bus in South America.
In a blunder that has cost taxpayers millions of pounds and put scores of lives at risk, the drugs liaison officer lost a computer memory stick said to contain a list of undercover agents’ names and details of more than five years of intelligence work.
It happened when the MI6-trained agent left her handbag on a transit coach at El Dorado airport in Bogota, Colombia. Intelligence chiefs were forced to wind up operations and relocate dozens of agents and informants amid fears the device could fall into the hands of drugs barons.
The incident, which was hushed up by the Serious Organised Crime Agency (Soca), the agent’s employer, is an embarrassment for the government. It is another blow for Jacqui Smith, the home secretary, who has ultimate responsibility for Britain’s anti-drugs operations and the safeguarding of criminal intelligence. ...
You know how liars never believe anyone else, and the untrustworthy trust no one? I'd be willing to wager a vast sum that those who are pushing for spying upon the masses are into some nasty schemes that need outing. If they think everyone else should be spied on, then they must be hiding some truly hideous secrets themselves.
WTF, UK?
WTF, UK?
Welcome to my world: Sunny, Semi-Tropical, Sarcastic Detroit.
'E's a looney, 'e is!
Update: Hijacker in Jamaican police custody
Posted: 2009-04-20 06:46:33
The hostage situation aboard a CanJet flight at the Sangster International Airport in Montego Bay St James has now ended.
The hijacker, a man in his 20s who is said to be of unsound mind was held by police and military personnel who stormed the air craft this morning. He has been identified as Stephen Fray.
None of the 174 passengers and the eight crew members was injured by the man who held them at gunpoint.
The passengers were first released, but the man held six of the crew members at gun point for more than nine hours.
Posted: 2009-04-20 06:46:33
The hostage situation aboard a CanJet flight at the Sangster International Airport in Montego Bay St James has now ended.
The hijacker, a man in his 20s who is said to be of unsound mind was held by police and military personnel who stormed the air craft this morning. He has been identified as Stephen Fray.
None of the 174 passengers and the eight crew members was injured by the man who held them at gunpoint.
The passengers were first released, but the man held six of the crew members at gun point for more than nine hours.
This cow's cluelessness well and truly has no bounds. It's fair astonishing.
Let's hear it for historic homes and wet plaster!
I hope they rot in jail for the rest of their lives.
"Compensation?" How in fuck do you compensate for this?
There are many ways to spell evil, and one of them is m-o-n-s-a-n-t-o.
There are many ways to spell evil, and one of them is m-o-n-s-a-n-t-o.
Dis story ain't A Tree Grows In Brooklyn, pal!
That is sooooooo bay-ond tacky, Sugarplum. Y'all just cut that out naow, ya heah?
Brian Paddick is a God among slugs.
IPCC orders new post-mortem on G20 victim Ian Tomlinson
Philippe Naughton and Adam Fresco
April 8, 2009
The Independent Police Complaints Commission is to carry out a second post-mortem on the body of Ian Tomlinson, the newspaper vendor who died after collapsing at last week's anti-capitalist protests in London.
The IPCC also announced tonight that its own investigators are to take over the inquiry into Mr Tomlinson's death after video footage emerged that showed him being struck by an officer and pushed roughly to the floor shortly before his death.
The organisation had previously been directing an investigation by City of London Police but the video footage, and testimony from witnesses at the scene, appeared to call [into question] the official police version of events. ...
Philippe Naughton and Adam Fresco
April 8, 2009
The Independent Police Complaints Commission is to carry out a second post-mortem on the body of Ian Tomlinson, the newspaper vendor who died after collapsing at last week's anti-capitalist protests in London.
The IPCC also announced tonight that its own investigators are to take over the inquiry into Mr Tomlinson's death after video footage emerged that showed him being struck by an officer and pushed roughly to the floor shortly before his death.
The organisation had previously been directing an investigation by City of London Police but the video footage, and testimony from witnesses at the scene, appeared to call [into question] the official police version of events. ...
What's this 'may' crap, pal?
WAAAAAAAAAAHHHHH!!!!!1!!
Detroit city hall set to reopen Tuesday
By Zachary Gorchow • Free Press Staff Writer
April 6, 2009
Detroit’s City Hall is expected to reopen at 7:30 a.m. Tuesday after a partial power failure forced the evacuation of the building today.
A cable failure at the city’s Porter Street power substation triggered power surges that led to the partial outage. Lights went out in several portions of the building about noon, and officials evacuated the building at 12:45 p.m.
There was no fire, and damage was limited to the surge protectors, said Greg McDuffee, executive director of the Detroit-Wayne Joint Building Authority.
Officials are still investigating the cause of the cable failure, said Daniel Cherrin, spokesman for Detroit Mayor Ken Cockrel Jr. ...
Nope, The Powers What Am in Detroit don't know what "infrastructure" means, either.
By Zachary Gorchow • Free Press Staff Writer
April 6, 2009
Detroit’s City Hall is expected to reopen at 7:30 a.m. Tuesday after a partial power failure forced the evacuation of the building today.
A cable failure at the city’s Porter Street power substation triggered power surges that led to the partial outage. Lights went out in several portions of the building about noon, and officials evacuated the building at 12:45 p.m.
There was no fire, and damage was limited to the surge protectors, said Greg McDuffee, executive director of the Detroit-Wayne Joint Building Authority.
Officials are still investigating the cause of the cable failure, said Daniel Cherrin, spokesman for Detroit Mayor Ken Cockrel Jr. ...
Nope, The Powers What Am in Detroit don't know what "infrastructure" means, either.
On the basis of the frequency and intensity of past earthquakes, 45% of the land area of Italy is divided up into 3 earthquake zones: Category 1 (red) is the most severe, and Category 3 (yellow) the least severe zone of seismic activity:
Note that nearly all of La Marche and Umbria, and over half of Tuscany lie within one of these earthquake zones. In fact, 40% of the Italian population live in them.
The rest of the country, coloured white on the map, is unclassified - which means it is considered low risk. Note that this area includes all of the Piedmont wine region.
Note that nearly all of La Marche and Umbria, and over half of Tuscany lie within one of these earthquake zones. In fact, 40% of the Italian population live in them.
The rest of the country, coloured white on the map, is unclassified - which means it is considered low risk. Note that this area includes all of the Piedmont wine region.
I feel sick. My tags say it all.
Once again I find myself wondering, "Did he fall or was he pushed?" and knowing damn well I've already got the answer.
You know, Chinastan, yo' ass sho ain't been givin' me no good reason to quit despising yo' ass. Quite th' opposite, sink meh.
It wouldn't be nearly as bad if only marijuana were legalized. Coke's no good, and it's a dangerous business as well as a dangerous drug - but if law enforcement didn't have to waste time with pot smokers they could focus on the cocaine bastards instead.
Page Two Shocker: Study Shows One in Six Psychiatrists Have No Business Being Psychiatrists and Should be in Looney Bins Themselves!
Legalize it. No one's tobacco pipe will be trashed again.
You done got wrong, bitch.
There's no way they fell and were not pushed.
U.S. judges admit to jailing children for money
Thu Feb 12, 2009
By Jon Hurdle
PHILADELPHIA (Reuters) - Two judges pleaded guilty on Thursday to accepting more than $2.6 million from a private youth detention center in Pennsylvania in return for giving hundreds of youths and teenagers long sentences.
Judges Mark Ciavarella and Michael Conahan of the Court of Common Pleas in Luzerne County, Pennsylvania, entered plea agreements in federal court in Scranton admitting that they took payoffs from PA Childcare and a sister company, Western PA Childcare, between 2003 and 2006.
"Your statement that I have disgraced my judgeship is true," Ciavarella wrote in a letter to the court. "My actions have destroyed everything I worked to accomplish and I have only myself to blame."
Conahan, who along with Ciavarella faces up to seven years in prison, did not make any comment on the case.
When someone is sent to a detention center, the company running the facility receives money from the county government to defray the cost of incarceration. So as more children were sentenced to the detention center, PA Childcare and Western PA Childcare received more money from the government, prosecutors said.
Teenagers who came before Ciavarella in juvenile court often were sentenced to detention centers for minor offenses that would typically have been classified as misdemeanors, according to the Juvenile Law Center, a Philadelphia nonprofit group.
One 17-year-old boy was sentenced to three months' detention for being in the company of another minor caught shoplifting. ...
Thu Feb 12, 2009
By Jon Hurdle
PHILADELPHIA (Reuters) - Two judges pleaded guilty on Thursday to accepting more than $2.6 million from a private youth detention center in Pennsylvania in return for giving hundreds of youths and teenagers long sentences.
Judges Mark Ciavarella and Michael Conahan of the Court of Common Pleas in Luzerne County, Pennsylvania, entered plea agreements in federal court in Scranton admitting that they took payoffs from PA Childcare and a sister company, Western PA Childcare, between 2003 and 2006.
"Your statement that I have disgraced my judgeship is true," Ciavarella wrote in a letter to the court. "My actions have destroyed everything I worked to accomplish and I have only myself to blame."
Conahan, who along with Ciavarella faces up to seven years in prison, did not make any comment on the case.
When someone is sent to a detention center, the company running the facility receives money from the county government to defray the cost of incarceration. So as more children were sentenced to the detention center, PA Childcare and Western PA Childcare received more money from the government, prosecutors said.
Teenagers who came before Ciavarella in juvenile court often were sentenced to detention centers for minor offenses that would typically have been classified as misdemeanors, according to the Juvenile Law Center, a Philadelphia nonprofit group.
One 17-year-old boy was sentenced to three months' detention for being in the company of another minor caught shoplifting. ...
Wonder where it parked the rest of its litter.
RESCUING OUR CHILDREN
Seven Massive Porn Rings Dismantled
02/09/09
What started as a tip from Australian authorities in 2006 regarding a sexually explicit video has turned into one of the largest global child pornography investigations on record—and a model for how law enforcement cooperation can cast a powerful light into the darkest reaches of the Internet to bring child predators to justice.
Operation Joint Hammer has resulted in the rescue of 14 girls—some as young as 3 years old—who were being sexually abused by pornographers. Approximately 170 people have been arrested, more than 60 of them U.S. citizens. Seven major child pornography rings, hosting the worst of the worst, have been dismantled. And the investigation is far from complete. ...
Seven Massive Porn Rings Dismantled
02/09/09
What started as a tip from Australian authorities in 2006 regarding a sexually explicit video has turned into one of the largest global child pornography investigations on record—and a model for how law enforcement cooperation can cast a powerful light into the darkest reaches of the Internet to bring child predators to justice.
Operation Joint Hammer has resulted in the rescue of 14 girls—some as young as 3 years old—who were being sexually abused by pornographers. Approximately 170 people have been arrested, more than 60 of them U.S. citizens. Seven major child pornography rings, hosting the worst of the worst, have been dismantled. And the investigation is far from complete. ...
The Georgia company whose peanut products have been blamed for a nationwide salmonella outbreak shipped some products even though they had tested positive for the bacteria and no other tests indicated they were safe, the Food and Drug Administration said Friday. ...
Fallout from peanut recalls spreads in Michigan
BY MEGHA SATYANARAYANA
FREE PRESS STAFF WRITER
February 6, 2009
One of the broadest recalls in U.S. history -- 1,554 foods containing peanuts, peanut butter or peanut paste -- is being felt throughout Michigan by consumers, grocers and food producers.
The dizzying array of snacks, prepackaged meals, fund-raiser candy and pet treats on the recall list continues to grow. Legislators including U.S. Reps. Bart Stupak and John Dingell, both Michigan Democrats, are lining up bills to empower the Food and Drug Administration, which has come under fire for what some say is a slow response to an outbreak that began last fall.
A dozen Michigan-based companies are bracing for losses from recalling their products, including national giant Kellogg in Battle Creek and regional operations such as Hudsonville Creamery in Holland.
Stores such as Kroger are using data from customer loyalty cards to warn customers by phone, mail and e-mail of items they purchased that could make them sick. Others are barring recalled products from leaving the store.
"When the bar code is scanned at the register, it alerts the cashier, and it's stopped at the point of sale," said Frank Guglielmi, spokesman for Grand Rapids-based Meijer. It's a fail-safe, he said, as recalled products are pulled. ...
BY MEGHA SATYANARAYANA
FREE PRESS STAFF WRITER
February 6, 2009
One of the broadest recalls in U.S. history -- 1,554 foods containing peanuts, peanut butter or peanut paste -- is being felt throughout Michigan by consumers, grocers and food producers.
The dizzying array of snacks, prepackaged meals, fund-raiser candy and pet treats on the recall list continues to grow. Legislators including U.S. Reps. Bart Stupak and John Dingell, both Michigan Democrats, are lining up bills to empower the Food and Drug Administration, which has come under fire for what some say is a slow response to an outbreak that began last fall.
A dozen Michigan-based companies are bracing for losses from recalling their products, including national giant Kellogg in Battle Creek and regional operations such as Hudsonville Creamery in Holland.
Stores such as Kroger are using data from customer loyalty cards to warn customers by phone, mail and e-mail of items they purchased that could make them sick. Others are barring recalled products from leaving the store.
"When the bar code is scanned at the register, it alerts the cashier, and it's stopped at the point of sale," said Frank Guglielmi, spokesman for Grand Rapids-based Meijer. It's a fail-safe, he said, as recalled products are pulled. ...
What a psycho.
By Christopher Doering
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Food and Drug Administration lacks access to food safety tests that could have helped identify problems at a peanut plant at the center of one of the biggest food recalls in U.S. history, members of Congress said on Thursday.
The salmonella outbreak traced to a Peanut Corp. of America plant in Blakely, Georgia, has sickened more than 550 people, more than half of them children, and may be linked to eight deaths.
"We would like to have more information. There is no question," Stephen Sundlof, director of the FDA's Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition, told a hearing of the Senate Agriculture Committee.
Under law, a company does not have to notify the agency if it discovers salmonella or other contamination. The only time FDA can require information from a plant is if tainted product was shipped from it. ...
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Food and Drug Administration lacks access to food safety tests that could have helped identify problems at a peanut plant at the center of one of the biggest food recalls in U.S. history, members of Congress said on Thursday.
The salmonella outbreak traced to a Peanut Corp. of America plant in Blakely, Georgia, has sickened more than 550 people, more than half of them children, and may be linked to eight deaths.
"We would like to have more information. There is no question," Stephen Sundlof, director of the FDA's Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition, told a hearing of the Senate Agriculture Committee.
Under law, a company does not have to notify the agency if it discovers salmonella or other contamination. The only time FDA can require information from a plant is if tainted product was shipped from it. ...
February 04, 2009 09:15am
A WOMAN suspected of recruiting more than 80 female suicide bombers has confessed to organising their rapes so she could later convince them that martyrdom was the only way to escape the shame.
Samira Jassam, 51, was arrested by Iraqi police and confessed to recruiting the women and orchestrating dozens of attacks.
In a video confession, she explained how she had mentally prepared the women for martyrdom operations, passed them on to terrorists who provided explosives, and then took the bombers to their targets.
"We arrested Samira Jassim, known as 'Um al-Mumenin', the mother of the believers, who was responsible for recruiting 80 women'', Major General Qassim Atta said.
"She confessed her responsibility for these actions, and she confirmed that 28 attempts had been made in one of the terrorists' strongholds,'' he said.
Samira Jassim was arrested on January 21. She is allegedly linked to the Ansar al-Sunnah insurgent group.
Two of the attacks for which Samira Jassim admitted responsibility in the video confession took place in Diyala province, in central Iraq, which is considered one of the most dangerous areas of the country. ...
Hangin's too good.
A WOMAN suspected of recruiting more than 80 female suicide bombers has confessed to organising their rapes so she could later convince them that martyrdom was the only way to escape the shame.
Samira Jassam, 51, was arrested by Iraqi police and confessed to recruiting the women and orchestrating dozens of attacks.
In a video confession, she explained how she had mentally prepared the women for martyrdom operations, passed them on to terrorists who provided explosives, and then took the bombers to their targets.
"We arrested Samira Jassim, known as 'Um al-Mumenin', the mother of the believers, who was responsible for recruiting 80 women'', Major General Qassim Atta said.
"She confessed her responsibility for these actions, and she confirmed that 28 attempts had been made in one of the terrorists' strongholds,'' he said.
Samira Jassim was arrested on January 21. She is allegedly linked to the Ansar al-Sunnah insurgent group.
Two of the attacks for which Samira Jassim admitted responsibility in the video confession took place in Diyala province, in central Iraq, which is considered one of the most dangerous areas of the country. ...
Hangin's too good.
This is disgusting.
Peers who influence or amend laws to benefit companies that pay them will not face any new restrictions after the cash for amendments row.
Jack Straw, the Justice Secretary, promised new laws yesterday, allowing members of the Lords to be expelled if they bring the Upper House into disrepute.
Peers who are “non-domiciled” for tax purposes, potentially including billionaire Labour and Tory donors, could also lose their seats if plans supported by the Justice Secretary become law. Mr Straw said that, in general, lobbyists were too influential in British political life — the first hint since a report by the Commons Public Administration Committee on lobbying that curbs may be coming.
But there are no plans by the Government or the House of Lords to restrict peers who lobby on behalf of companies that pay them, despite criticism that this presents a worrying conflict of interest. ...
Jack Straw, the Justice Secretary, promised new laws yesterday, allowing members of the Lords to be expelled if they bring the Upper House into disrepute.
Peers who are “non-domiciled” for tax purposes, potentially including billionaire Labour and Tory donors, could also lose their seats if plans supported by the Justice Secretary become law. Mr Straw said that, in general, lobbyists were too influential in British political life — the first hint since a report by the Commons Public Administration Committee on lobbying that curbs may be coming.
But there are no plans by the Government or the House of Lords to restrict peers who lobby on behalf of companies that pay them, despite criticism that this presents a worrying conflict of interest. ...
Why in hell are they out on bail?!
Octuplets' mother already has six young children - Health News, Health & Wellbeing - The Independent
Upside the head, girlfriend.
Chicago (IL) - An almost unbelievable flaw in Windows 7 beta and Microsoft's User Account Control (UAC) feature - the one designed to keep all of the annoying messages seen in Vista away from its users - allows its protection to be defeated by any malware which happens to infect the system. The malware needs only to send a series of false keystrokes from a Visual Basic script to activate the UAC dialog, move the slider bar to the disable position, and then save the changes. After that, the program can access protected functions or even reboot the system, thereby gaining full total system access on restart.
This type of security breach has been in use for as long as there have been PCs. In the old DOS days, a terminate and stay resident (TSR) program could invoke the system BIOS functions, wait for the password screen to appear then start issuing interrupt 16h instructions (which send fake keystrokes). Doing so would mimic the effect of a user pressing keys on a keyboard, and old DOS programs like Sidekick used to do this as part of their feature in order to provide DOS with copy-and-paste-like functionality, as well as pop-up abilities like a calendar, calculator, etc. Sidekick would intercept and send its keystrokes in this way.
Over the years, similar techniques were employed to bypass security in later operating systems. Such programs could repeatedly try various password combinations, for example, at very high speed one right after the other. Early on system designers began to realize this weakness and developed the "three strikes and you're locked out" policy. But today in Microsoft's upcoming flagship operating system to be released later this year, Windows 7, such antiquated attempts aren't even necessary. ...
windoze blows.
This type of security breach has been in use for as long as there have been PCs. In the old DOS days, a terminate and stay resident (TSR) program could invoke the system BIOS functions, wait for the password screen to appear then start issuing interrupt 16h instructions (which send fake keystrokes). Doing so would mimic the effect of a user pressing keys on a keyboard, and old DOS programs like Sidekick used to do this as part of their feature in order to provide DOS with copy-and-paste-like functionality, as well as pop-up abilities like a calendar, calculator, etc. Sidekick would intercept and send its keystrokes in this way.
Over the years, similar techniques were employed to bypass security in later operating systems. Such programs could repeatedly try various password combinations, for example, at very high speed one right after the other. Early on system designers began to realize this weakness and developed the "three strikes and you're locked out" policy. But today in Microsoft's upcoming flagship operating system to be released later this year, Windows 7, such antiquated attempts aren't even necessary. ...
windoze blows.
BY ZLATI MEYER
FREE PRESS STAFF WRITER
January 29, 2009
In a winter of heavier-than-normal snowfall, the white stuff just keeps coming.
The latest blast pushed the 2008-09 snowfall totals for metro Detroit closer to being noteworthy. The 5.1 inches of snow that fell Tuesday night and Wednesday brought the total for the season to 47.8 inches, said Dave Kook, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service White Lake Township office.
That's nearly double the normal 24.8 inches and gaining rapidly on the area's 10th-highest total of 61.7 inches during the winter of 1977-78.
"We have 14 inches to go in the next two months, so there's a good chance that we'll get toward the top 10," he said. ...
FREE PRESS STAFF WRITER
January 29, 2009
In a winter of heavier-than-normal snowfall, the white stuff just keeps coming.
The latest blast pushed the 2008-09 snowfall totals for metro Detroit closer to being noteworthy. The 5.1 inches of snow that fell Tuesday night and Wednesday brought the total for the season to 47.8 inches, said Dave Kook, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service White Lake Township office.
That's nearly double the normal 24.8 inches and gaining rapidly on the area's 10th-highest total of 61.7 inches during the winter of 1977-78.
"We have 14 inches to go in the next two months, so there's a good chance that we'll get toward the top 10," he said. ...
Lawyer: Ex-Conyers aide Sam Riddle tried to sell votes in strip club deal
BY JIM SCHAEFER and JOE SWICKARD
FREE PRESS STAFF WRITERS
January 30, 2009
A day after denying wrongdoing in a bribery-tainted sludge-hauling contract in Detroit, political consultant and former City Council aide Sam Riddle faced new allegations Thursday that he tried to sell council support in an unrelated strip club deal.
Brad Shafer, a Lansing lawyer, said Riddle promised Shafer's clients he could deliver Councilwoman Monica Conyers' vote in favor of a new strip club operation in downtown Detroit -- if the men were willing to pay Riddle $25,000. At the time, Riddle was Conyers' aide.
Shafer said Jim St. John and Joe Hall both testified to a federal grand jury that Riddle made the offer to them in a Dearborn restaurant in November 2006. The offer came days before council voted on a permit that would allow their DéjÀ Vu Consulting to open a Hustler strip joint in the Zoo Bar location in Detroit.
"Mr. Riddle made a comment to the effect that for $25,000 we could get Monica Conyers' vote," Shafer said, adding that he was not at the meeting but was relaying what his clients told the grand jury. "They took it as a clear bribe solicitation."
Shafer said St. John and Hall both declined the offer.
Riddle, who has not been charged, said Thursday the allegation is not true.
"I have never went out and said I could deliver votes for money -- never happened," Riddle said. "I have never taken money to deliver Monica Conyers' vote." ...
Yeah, suuuure.
Detroit: Corrupt Since 1806 (at the Very Latest)
BY JIM SCHAEFER and JOE SWICKARD
FREE PRESS STAFF WRITERS
January 30, 2009
A day after denying wrongdoing in a bribery-tainted sludge-hauling contract in Detroit, political consultant and former City Council aide Sam Riddle faced new allegations Thursday that he tried to sell council support in an unrelated strip club deal.
Brad Shafer, a Lansing lawyer, said Riddle promised Shafer's clients he could deliver Councilwoman Monica Conyers' vote in favor of a new strip club operation in downtown Detroit -- if the men were willing to pay Riddle $25,000. At the time, Riddle was Conyers' aide.
Shafer said Jim St. John and Joe Hall both testified to a federal grand jury that Riddle made the offer to them in a Dearborn restaurant in November 2006. The offer came days before council voted on a permit that would allow their DéjÀ Vu Consulting to open a Hustler strip joint in the Zoo Bar location in Detroit.
"Mr. Riddle made a comment to the effect that for $25,000 we could get Monica Conyers' vote," Shafer said, adding that he was not at the meeting but was relaying what his clients told the grand jury. "They took it as a clear bribe solicitation."
Shafer said St. John and Hall both declined the offer.
Riddle, who has not been charged, said Thursday the allegation is not true.
"I have never went out and said I could deliver votes for money -- never happened," Riddle said. "I have never taken money to deliver Monica Conyers' vote." ...
Yeah, suuuure.
Detroit: Corrupt Since 1806 (at the Very Latest)
It's a freaking litter.
Detroit woman sues police for $15 million
BY ZLATI MEYER
FREE PRESS STAFF WRITER
January 30, 2009
A Detroit woman and her seven children ages 9-18 are suing the Detroit Police Department for $15 million, because they allege officers attacked them without provocation in their home earlier this month.
Tasha Flowers said Thursday that approximately 14 police officers barged into her home in the 19000 block of Shrewsbury about 7:30 p.m. on Jan. 3 without a search warrant, demanding to know where drugs and guns were. After she explained she didn't have any, she said they twisted her arm and tried to handcuff her, while her children and two of their friends were there.
The following day, a police officer came back with $25 gift certificates to Wal-Mart and Target, $100 in cash and the promise to bring a cashmere coat because he felt bad about the alleged attack, Flowers said. ...
BY ZLATI MEYER
FREE PRESS STAFF WRITER
January 30, 2009
A Detroit woman and her seven children ages 9-18 are suing the Detroit Police Department for $15 million, because they allege officers attacked them without provocation in their home earlier this month.
Tasha Flowers said Thursday that approximately 14 police officers barged into her home in the 19000 block of Shrewsbury about 7:30 p.m. on Jan. 3 without a search warrant, demanding to know where drugs and guns were. After she explained she didn't have any, she said they twisted her arm and tried to handcuff her, while her children and two of their friends were there.
The following day, a police officer came back with $25 gift certificates to Wal-Mart and Target, $100 in cash and the promise to bring a cashmere coat because he felt bad about the alleged attack, Flowers said. ...
Friday, January 30, 2009
Lawsuit: Cops beat mom, gave gift cards as bribe
Woman claims she and her children were assaulted by officers and offered a bribe to be quiet about the incident.
George Hunter / The Detroit News
DETROIT -- Cash and gift cards from Walmart and Target stores were allegedly offered as bribes to a 36-year-old woman if she agreed to keep quiet about a group of officers who broke into her home and assaulted her and her children, the woman claims in a lawsuit.
Attorneys for Tasha Flowers filed a lawsuit Wednesday in Wayne County Circuit Court, seeking $15 million in damages stemming from the alleged Jan. 3 incident.
Flowers claims in the lawsuit that several Detroit police officers from the department's Western District responded to a neighbor's complaint that she was selling drugs in her home on Shrewsbury. The police rushed into Flowers' home without her permission and without a search warrant.
"They showed up at my door and pointed a gun at me," Flowers said. "Then the officers pushed past me into my house and started asking me about drugs and guns. They pushed my daughter, and threw me to the ground and twisted my arm. Then the lieutenant grabbed my 14-year-old son in a chokehold until he was unconscious."
Flowers said the group of about 10 officers began assaulting her other six children, ages 8 to 17, who she said suffered cuts, scrapes and bruises.
Then, the next day, Flowers said the lieutenant in charge of the officers paid a second visit to her home.
"He said he felt bad about what he'd done, and asked if there was anything he could do to make up for it," Flowers said. "Then he offered me two gift cards: One from Walmart and Target; and $100." ...
Lawsuit: Cops beat mom, gave gift cards as bribe
Woman claims she and her children were assaulted by officers and offered a bribe to be quiet about the incident.
George Hunter / The Detroit News
DETROIT -- Cash and gift cards from Walmart and Target stores were allegedly offered as bribes to a 36-year-old woman if she agreed to keep quiet about a group of officers who broke into her home and assaulted her and her children, the woman claims in a lawsuit.
Attorneys for Tasha Flowers filed a lawsuit Wednesday in Wayne County Circuit Court, seeking $15 million in damages stemming from the alleged Jan. 3 incident.
Flowers claims in the lawsuit that several Detroit police officers from the department's Western District responded to a neighbor's complaint that she was selling drugs in her home on Shrewsbury. The police rushed into Flowers' home without her permission and without a search warrant.
"They showed up at my door and pointed a gun at me," Flowers said. "Then the officers pushed past me into my house and started asking me about drugs and guns. They pushed my daughter, and threw me to the ground and twisted my arm. Then the lieutenant grabbed my 14-year-old son in a chokehold until he was unconscious."
Flowers said the group of about 10 officers began assaulting her other six children, ages 8 to 17, who she said suffered cuts, scrapes and bruises.
Then, the next day, Flowers said the lieutenant in charge of the officers paid a second visit to her home.
"He said he felt bad about what he'd done, and asked if there was anything he could do to make up for it," Flowers said. "Then he offered me two gift cards: One from Walmart and Target; and $100." ...
Honey, you done got so wrong.
Charge the utility company with murder.
I knew you couldn't.
Even though he was under investigation he kept pullin' stuff.
This creep's been in trouble for some time - this story's dated last February.
Johann Hari: Why should I respect these oppressive religions?
Whenever a religious belief is criticised, its adherents say they're victims of 'prejudice'
Wednesday, 28 January 2009
The right to criticise religion is being slowly doused in acid. Across the world, the small, incremental gains made by secularism – giving us the space to doubt and question and make up our own minds – are being beaten back by belligerent demands that we "respect" religion. A historic marker has just been passed, showing how far we have been shoved. The UN rapporteur who is supposed to be the global guardian of free speech has had his job rewritten – to put him on the side of the religious censors.
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights stated 60 years ago that "a world in which human beings shall enjoy freedom of speech and belief is the highest aspiration of the common people". It was a Magna Carta for mankind – and loathed by every human rights abuser on earth. Today, the Chinese dictatorship calls it "Western", Robert Mugabe calls it "colonialist", and Dick Cheney calls it "outdated". The countries of the world have chronically failed to meet it – but the document has been held up by the United Nations as the ultimate standard against which to check ourselves. Until now.
Starting in 1999, a coalition of Islamist tyrants, led by Saudi Arabia, demanded the rules be rewritten. The demand for everyone to be able to think and speak freely failed to "respect" the "unique sensitivities" of the religious, they decided – so they issued an alternative Islamic Declaration of Human Rights. It insisted that you can only speak within "the limits set by the shariah [law]. It is not permitted to spread falsehood or disseminate that which involves encouraging abomination or forsaking the Islamic community".
In other words, you can say anything you like, as long as it precisely what the reactionary mullahs tell you to say. The declaration makes it clear there is no equality for women, gays, non-Muslims, or apostates. It has been backed by the Vatican and a bevy of Christian fundamentalists.
Incredibly, they are succeeding. The UN's Rapporteur on Human Rights has always been tasked with exposing and shaming those who prevent free speech – including the religious. But the Pakistani delegate recently demanded that his job description be changed so he can seek out and condemn "abuses of free expression" including "defamation of religions and prophets". The council agreed – so the job has been turned on its head. Instead of condemning the people who wanted to murder Salman Rushdie, they will be condemning Salman Rushdie himself. ...
Whenever a religious belief is criticised, its adherents say they're victims of 'prejudice'
Wednesday, 28 January 2009
The right to criticise religion is being slowly doused in acid. Across the world, the small, incremental gains made by secularism – giving us the space to doubt and question and make up our own minds – are being beaten back by belligerent demands that we "respect" religion. A historic marker has just been passed, showing how far we have been shoved. The UN rapporteur who is supposed to be the global guardian of free speech has had his job rewritten – to put him on the side of the religious censors.
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights stated 60 years ago that "a world in which human beings shall enjoy freedom of speech and belief is the highest aspiration of the common people". It was a Magna Carta for mankind – and loathed by every human rights abuser on earth. Today, the Chinese dictatorship calls it "Western", Robert Mugabe calls it "colonialist", and Dick Cheney calls it "outdated". The countries of the world have chronically failed to meet it – but the document has been held up by the United Nations as the ultimate standard against which to check ourselves. Until now.
Starting in 1999, a coalition of Islamist tyrants, led by Saudi Arabia, demanded the rules be rewritten. The demand for everyone to be able to think and speak freely failed to "respect" the "unique sensitivities" of the religious, they decided – so they issued an alternative Islamic Declaration of Human Rights. It insisted that you can only speak within "the limits set by the shariah [law]. It is not permitted to spread falsehood or disseminate that which involves encouraging abomination or forsaking the Islamic community".
In other words, you can say anything you like, as long as it precisely what the reactionary mullahs tell you to say. The declaration makes it clear there is no equality for women, gays, non-Muslims, or apostates. It has been backed by the Vatican and a bevy of Christian fundamentalists.
Incredibly, they are succeeding. The UN's Rapporteur on Human Rights has always been tasked with exposing and shaming those who prevent free speech – including the religious. But the Pakistani delegate recently demanded that his job description be changed so he can seek out and condemn "abuses of free expression" including "defamation of religions and prophets". The council agreed – so the job has been turned on its head. Instead of condemning the people who wanted to murder Salman Rushdie, they will be condemning Salman Rushdie himself. ...
By Tammy Stables Battaglia
Free Press Staff Writer
January 27, 2009
A 14-year-old Detroit boy is in critical condition today after being shot at his west-side home while he and his friends were playing with a gun Monday night.
The children were in the 14-year-old’s basement in the 15000 block of Whitcomb when the gun accidentally discharged at 8 p.m., police said. ...
Free Press Staff Writer
January 27, 2009
A 14-year-old Detroit boy is in critical condition today after being shot at his west-side home while he and his friends were playing with a gun Monday night.
The children were in the 14-year-old’s basement in the 15000 block of Whitcomb when the gun accidentally discharged at 8 p.m., police said. ...
ATLANTA -- CBS Atlanta News learned Wednesday that health officials were forced to use a federal anti-terrorism act to get a south Georgia plant to reveal the results of internal food safety inspections.
Those inspections found salmonella bacteria at the Peanut Corporation of America plant in Blakely, Ga. The bacteria has sicked hundreds of people across the country.
The records weren't shared with inspectors. The plant was directly linked to the outbreak.
Meanwhile, a Connecticut lawmaker is calling for a federal probe of possible criminal violations at the plant. ...
Those inspections found salmonella bacteria at the Peanut Corporation of America plant in Blakely, Ga. The bacteria has sicked hundreds of people across the country.
The records weren't shared with inspectors. The plant was directly linked to the outbreak.
Meanwhile, a Connecticut lawmaker is calling for a federal probe of possible criminal violations at the plant. ...
MONDAY, Jan. 26 (HealthDay News) -- Almost half of tested samples of commercial high-fructose corn syrup (HFCS) contained mercury, which was also found in nearly a third of 55 popular brand-name food and beverage products where HFCS is the first- or second-highest labeled ingredient, according to two new U.S. studies.
HFCS has replaced sugar as the sweetener in many beverages and foods such as breads, cereals, breakfast bars, lunch meats, yogurts, soups and condiments. On average, Americans consume about 12 teaspoons per day of HFCS, but teens and other high consumers can take in 80 percent more HFCS than average.
"Mercury is toxic in all its forms. Given how much high-fructose corn syrup is consumed by children, it could be a significant additional source of mercury never before considered. We are calling for immediate changes by industry and the [U.S. Food and Drug Administration] to help stop this avoidable mercury contamination of the food supply," the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy's Dr. David Wallinga, a co-author of both studies, said in a prepared statement.
In the first study, published in current issue of Environmental Health, researchers found detectable levels of mercury in nine of 20 samples of commercial HFCS.
And in the second study, the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy (IATP), a non-profit watchdog group, found that nearly one in three of 55 brand-name foods contained mercury. The chemical was found most commonly in HFCS-containing dairy products, dressings and condiments. ...
HFCS has replaced sugar as the sweetener in many beverages and foods such as breads, cereals, breakfast bars, lunch meats, yogurts, soups and condiments. On average, Americans consume about 12 teaspoons per day of HFCS, but teens and other high consumers can take in 80 percent more HFCS than average.
"Mercury is toxic in all its forms. Given how much high-fructose corn syrup is consumed by children, it could be a significant additional source of mercury never before considered. We are calling for immediate changes by industry and the [U.S. Food and Drug Administration] to help stop this avoidable mercury contamination of the food supply," the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy's Dr. David Wallinga, a co-author of both studies, said in a prepared statement.
In the first study, published in current issue of Environmental Health, researchers found detectable levels of mercury in nine of 20 samples of commercial HFCS.
And in the second study, the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy (IATP), a non-profit watchdog group, found that nearly one in three of 55 brand-name foods contained mercury. The chemical was found most commonly in HFCS-containing dairy products, dressings and condiments. ...
Man 'finds US troop data' on MP3
Tuesday, 27 January 2009
A New Zealand man says he found confidential data about US military personnel on an MP3 player he bought from a thrift shop in Oklahoma.
Chris Ogle, 29, said: "The more I look at it, the more I see and the less I think I should be looking."
The files included names and telephone numbers of American soldiers, according to reports by TV New Zealand.
One expert says the files are unlikely to compromise security, as most of them are from 2005.
Some included a warning that the release of its contents is "prohibited by federal law".
Embarrassment
As well as personal details of US soldiers, such as social security numbers, the files also listed pregnant female troops and apparent mission briefings in Afghanistan. ...
Tuesday, 27 January 2009
A New Zealand man says he found confidential data about US military personnel on an MP3 player he bought from a thrift shop in Oklahoma.
Chris Ogle, 29, said: "The more I look at it, the more I see and the less I think I should be looking."
The files included names and telephone numbers of American soldiers, according to reports by TV New Zealand.
One expert says the files are unlikely to compromise security, as most of them are from 2005.
Some included a warning that the release of its contents is "prohibited by federal law".
Embarrassment
As well as personal details of US soldiers, such as social security numbers, the files also listed pregnant female troops and apparent mission briefings in Afghanistan. ...
Levin livid over reported Citigroup jet purchase
By TODD SPANGLER
FREE PRESS WASHINGTON STAFF
January 26, 2009
WASHINGTON – Sen. Carl Levin of Michigan is beside himself over a report that Citigroup is buying a $50-million corporate jet considering that when the heads of Detroit’s automakers came to Washington in private jets to ask for aid they got blasted for it.
The federal government, after all, is into Citigroup for $50 billion under its package to rescue financial firms. Eventually — thanks to President George W. Bush — General Motors and Chrysler got a line on $17.4 billion, but only after agreeing to give up their corporate jets. (Chrysler didn’t own one, but now doesn’t even charter or lease one.)
No such requirement for Citigroup — or the other financial institutions getting money under the $700 billion Wall Street rescue plan — exists.
The New York Post, citing “a source familiar with the deal,” reported today that Citigroup executives authorized the purchase of a new Dassault Falcon 7X, which, according to the Dassault’s sales literature, seats 12 in leather seats and sofas and includes a custom entertainment center.
Citigroup decline to speak to the Post and didn’t immediately return a call to the Free Press today either. ...
By TODD SPANGLER
FREE PRESS WASHINGTON STAFF
January 26, 2009
WASHINGTON – Sen. Carl Levin of Michigan is beside himself over a report that Citigroup is buying a $50-million corporate jet considering that when the heads of Detroit’s automakers came to Washington in private jets to ask for aid they got blasted for it.
The federal government, after all, is into Citigroup for $50 billion under its package to rescue financial firms. Eventually — thanks to President George W. Bush — General Motors and Chrysler got a line on $17.4 billion, but only after agreeing to give up their corporate jets. (Chrysler didn’t own one, but now doesn’t even charter or lease one.)
No such requirement for Citigroup — or the other financial institutions getting money under the $700 billion Wall Street rescue plan — exists.
The New York Post, citing “a source familiar with the deal,” reported today that Citigroup executives authorized the purchase of a new Dassault Falcon 7X, which, according to the Dassault’s sales literature, seats 12 in leather seats and sofas and includes a custom entertainment center.
Citigroup decline to speak to the Post and didn’t immediately return a call to the Free Press today either. ...
Sheriff Evans asks governor for moratorium on foreclosures in Wayne | detnews.com | The Detroit News
Monday, January 26, 2009
Sheriff Evans asks governor for moratorium on foreclosures in Wayne County
Darren A. Nichols / The Detroit News
DETROIT -- Wayne County Sheriff Warren Evans has written a letter to Gov. Jennifer Granholm calling for a state of emergency on the foreclosure crisis in the state's largest county.
Evans, a Detroit mayoral candidate, is asking Gov. Granholm to exercise an executive order for a six-month moratorium on foreclosures in Wayne County.
"Not only is Wayne County experiencing a time of great public crisis, disaster and catastrophe, public safety is imperiled by the number of foreclosed citizens living on the street or committing crimes with the actual intent of being jailed," Evans' letter said.
His office has had a 32 percent increase in foreclosure auctions between 2006 and 2007, his letter said. The Sheriff's Department is in charge of the auctions. ...
Sheriff Evans asks governor for moratorium on foreclosures in Wayne County
Darren A. Nichols / The Detroit News
DETROIT -- Wayne County Sheriff Warren Evans has written a letter to Gov. Jennifer Granholm calling for a state of emergency on the foreclosure crisis in the state's largest county.
Evans, a Detroit mayoral candidate, is asking Gov. Granholm to exercise an executive order for a six-month moratorium on foreclosures in Wayne County.
"Not only is Wayne County experiencing a time of great public crisis, disaster and catastrophe, public safety is imperiled by the number of foreclosed citizens living on the street or committing crimes with the actual intent of being jailed," Evans' letter said.
His office has had a 32 percent increase in foreclosure auctions between 2006 and 2007, his letter said. The Sheriff's Department is in charge of the auctions. ...
6:42pm UK, Monday January 26, 2009
A recording of a discussion between a peer at the centre of a corruption controversy and an undercover reporter has been released by the Sunday Times.
The newspaper claims four Labour peers, including Lord Taylor of Blackburn, were prepared to change the law for cash.
During a conversation, recorded on 18th January, the paper alleges that Lord Taylor said: "I can speak better and they will speak more freely over a cup of coffee or a 'pie and a pint' as I say, rather than a board room table or a ministerial desk where everything is being written down and so on."
The Sunday Times alleges that Lord Taylor told the journalist he had managed to "delay" a statute to help a company.
"For example, I've been working with them on amending a statute that's coming out, or was coming out, because I've got it delayed now, whereby it was going to be difficult for them to get certain information and so on. So I've got that amended and you do it quietly behind the scenes you see," the paper alleges he said.
The reporter asks Lord Taylor if he put in the amendment himself.
He replies: "No no no no no. You don't do things like that. That's stupid. What you do is you talk to the parliamentary team who drafts the statute as it goes through and you point out to them the difficulty the retailer would be having on this, and hope things are working and so on.
"You get them to amend that way.
"You're too late when you put amendments down in...because they don't want loss of face.
"But if you can get it done when it's in the draft form it's far better because you know what the principles are of the bill as it's going through and you know what they are introducing...
"What you do is you meet the minister you meet the various people, and it's not always ministers or secretary of state or even permanent secretaries that do this.
"It's some little chappie half way down…It's about identifying the decision makers. It's about identifying the people that make the recommendations."
The Times reporter then raises the question of payment.
"Obviously, from our point of view, this would be something we would remunerate you for. And I don't think money is an object.
"But I would ask you to do would be to give us some idea of what a fee structure would be."
Lord Taylor replies: "This is absolutely difficult, this is very difficult for me because some companies that I work will pay me £100,000 a year.
"Reporter: £100,000?
"Lord Taylor: Oh yes. That's cheap for what I do for them. And other companies will pay me £25,000. It all depends on what you are trying to do and how much time I think I am going to spend on it.
"Reporter: Those fees are not impossible. They are all fine.
"Lord Taylor: Yes but these are the sort of fees I get. I am being absolutely honest with you. I am not exaggerating.
"It's whether I want to do it or not. You've got to whet my appetite to get me on board." ...
OMFG! It's Uncle Junior Soprano!
See?!
A recording of a discussion between a peer at the centre of a corruption controversy and an undercover reporter has been released by the Sunday Times.
The newspaper claims four Labour peers, including Lord Taylor of Blackburn, were prepared to change the law for cash.
During a conversation, recorded on 18th January, the paper alleges that Lord Taylor said: "I can speak better and they will speak more freely over a cup of coffee or a 'pie and a pint' as I say, rather than a board room table or a ministerial desk where everything is being written down and so on."
The Sunday Times alleges that Lord Taylor told the journalist he had managed to "delay" a statute to help a company.
"For example, I've been working with them on amending a statute that's coming out, or was coming out, because I've got it delayed now, whereby it was going to be difficult for them to get certain information and so on. So I've got that amended and you do it quietly behind the scenes you see," the paper alleges he said.
The reporter asks Lord Taylor if he put in the amendment himself.
He replies: "No no no no no. You don't do things like that. That's stupid. What you do is you talk to the parliamentary team who drafts the statute as it goes through and you point out to them the difficulty the retailer would be having on this, and hope things are working and so on.
"You get them to amend that way.
"You're too late when you put amendments down in...because they don't want loss of face.
"But if you can get it done when it's in the draft form it's far better because you know what the principles are of the bill as it's going through and you know what they are introducing...
"What you do is you meet the minister you meet the various people, and it's not always ministers or secretary of state or even permanent secretaries that do this.
"It's some little chappie half way down…It's about identifying the decision makers. It's about identifying the people that make the recommendations."
The Times reporter then raises the question of payment.
"Obviously, from our point of view, this would be something we would remunerate you for. And I don't think money is an object.
"But I would ask you to do would be to give us some idea of what a fee structure would be."
Lord Taylor replies: "This is absolutely difficult, this is very difficult for me because some companies that I work will pay me £100,000 a year.
"Reporter: £100,000?
"Lord Taylor: Oh yes. That's cheap for what I do for them. And other companies will pay me £25,000. It all depends on what you are trying to do and how much time I think I am going to spend on it.
"Reporter: Those fees are not impossible. They are all fine.
"Lord Taylor: Yes but these are the sort of fees I get. I am being absolutely honest with you. I am not exaggerating.
"It's whether I want to do it or not. You've got to whet my appetite to get me on board." ...
OMFG! It's Uncle Junior Soprano!
See?!
Oh, happy day: Orla Kiely signs on with Target
BY GEORGEA KOVANIS
FREE PRESS COLUMNIST
January 25, 2009
I am so excited I could SCREAM!
Beginning Feb. 8, Target will stock a colorful line of household items by one of my favorite designers in the entire world: Orla Kiely.
She's known for her fresh and upbeat graphic patterns that include flowers, pears and trees, and it's difficult to look at her work and not smile. ...
Well, it's difficult for me to look at this dress and not SCREAM or hurl, you bloody tasteless cow. The mug also shown is equally repulsive.
How much did Tarzhay pay your dumb ass to SCREAM about how wonderful this garbage is?
"Ooh, the things you see when you haven't got your gun," as Mrs Slocum once wisely said.
BY GEORGEA KOVANIS
FREE PRESS COLUMNIST
January 25, 2009
I am so excited I could SCREAM!
Beginning Feb. 8, Target will stock a colorful line of household items by one of my favorite designers in the entire world: Orla Kiely.
She's known for her fresh and upbeat graphic patterns that include flowers, pears and trees, and it's difficult to look at her work and not smile. ...
Well, it's difficult for me to look at this dress and not SCREAM or hurl, you bloody tasteless cow. The mug also shown is equally repulsive.
How much did Tarzhay pay your dumb ass to SCREAM about how wonderful this garbage is?
"Ooh, the things you see when you haven't got your gun," as Mrs Slocum once wisely said.
January 25, 2009
Loss of British Council staff data disk stings David Miliband
David Leppard
THE foreign secretary, David Miliband, faced embarrassment last night after it emerged that a computer disk containing confidential bank details of up to 2,000 public servants working for the British Council has been lost.
The council — the Foreign Office’s cultural arm — admitted that the disk, which held the names, National Insurance numbers, salary and bank account details of staff on its UK payroll, went missing while in transit last month.
The incident is the latest in a string of losses which has led to criticism of the government’s handling of sensitive data.
In November a memory stick holding data said to give access to tax and benefit records was lost in a pub car park, forcing officials to suspend the government’s gateway website.
After that loss, Gordon Brown promised that Whitehall rules on data handling would be toughened yet again.
However, it emerged this weekend that a month later the British Council’s data disk had been lost by TNT, the courier firm, in transit to its offices.
A spokesman for the council said the information — which was compressed and therefore difficult to read — was part of a monthly report from its payroll data supplier.
Although the British Council is at arm’s length from the Foreign Office, Miliband is still responsible for its oversight.
Chris Huhne, the Liberal Democrat home affairs spokesman who uncovered the loss, said: “This is another instance in a long line of slapdash data protection by government departments.
“If Whitehall cannot look after its own data records . . . it should not be trusted with the personal information of every citizen as it wants with the identity card scheme.”
Amen. You took the words right out of my brain.
Loss of British Council staff data disk stings David Miliband
David Leppard
THE foreign secretary, David Miliband, faced embarrassment last night after it emerged that a computer disk containing confidential bank details of up to 2,000 public servants working for the British Council has been lost.
The council — the Foreign Office’s cultural arm — admitted that the disk, which held the names, National Insurance numbers, salary and bank account details of staff on its UK payroll, went missing while in transit last month.
The incident is the latest in a string of losses which has led to criticism of the government’s handling of sensitive data.
In November a memory stick holding data said to give access to tax and benefit records was lost in a pub car park, forcing officials to suspend the government’s gateway website.
After that loss, Gordon Brown promised that Whitehall rules on data handling would be toughened yet again.
However, it emerged this weekend that a month later the British Council’s data disk had been lost by TNT, the courier firm, in transit to its offices.
A spokesman for the council said the information — which was compressed and therefore difficult to read — was part of a monthly report from its payroll data supplier.
Although the British Council is at arm’s length from the Foreign Office, Miliband is still responsible for its oversight.
Chris Huhne, the Liberal Democrat home affairs spokesman who uncovered the loss, said: “This is another instance in a long line of slapdash data protection by government departments.
“If Whitehall cannot look after its own data records . . . it should not be trusted with the personal information of every citizen as it wants with the identity card scheme.”
Amen. You took the words right out of my brain.
January 25, 2009
Madoff’s UK investors set to sue
Robert Watts
UK investors are planning legal action against HSBC, UBS, Barclays and Nicola Horlick’s Bramdean fund over advice received before the Bernard Madoff $50 billion (£36.8 billion) investment scandal.
One of the British victims had £36m invested in Madoff funds, according to a lawyer acting for the claimants.
Ten wealthy investors have approached the law firm Edwin Coe with a view to suing bankers, fund managers and other intermediaries for the full value of the money they have lost in the Madoff collapse.
The 10 claimants are said to include some of Britain’s richest people, with combined losses of about £87m. While their identities remain shrouded in secrecy, it is understood that most are entrepreneurs who amassed their fortunes by selling their businesses. ...
Madoff’s UK investors set to sue
Robert Watts
UK investors are planning legal action against HSBC, UBS, Barclays and Nicola Horlick’s Bramdean fund over advice received before the Bernard Madoff $50 billion (£36.8 billion) investment scandal.
One of the British victims had £36m invested in Madoff funds, according to a lawyer acting for the claimants.
Ten wealthy investors have approached the law firm Edwin Coe with a view to suing bankers, fund managers and other intermediaries for the full value of the money they have lost in the Madoff collapse.
The 10 claimants are said to include some of Britain’s richest people, with combined losses of about £87m. While their identities remain shrouded in secrecy, it is understood that most are entrepreneurs who amassed their fortunes by selling their businesses. ...
...Cincinnati['s] brass running EMS admit that they often have more customers than ambulances, so people have to wait after they dial 911. "The phenomenon of 'no ambulances available' is becoming more and more common throughout the country," says Bryan Bledsoe, D.O.
Dr. Bledsoe is a clinical adjunct professor of emergency medicine at the University of Nevada school of medicine and has been the director of two emergency departments and 13 ambulance services. He literally wrote the textbooks on which the principles of paramedic care are based, making him an exceptionally good guide for navigating the issues facing the industry. He says that because of simple neglect on the government's part, EMS is a ragtag collection of private companies, volunteers, and city and county agencies unprepared for even the more mundane, day-to-day tasks.
"Some rural areas are really on their own," Dr. Bledsoe says. "And nobody thinks about it until they have to call for help." ...
911 in a joke in all our towns; thanks, shrub, jr.
Dr. Bledsoe is a clinical adjunct professor of emergency medicine at the University of Nevada school of medicine and has been the director of two emergency departments and 13 ambulance services. He literally wrote the textbooks on which the principles of paramedic care are based, making him an exceptionally good guide for navigating the issues facing the industry. He says that because of simple neglect on the government's part, EMS is a ragtag collection of private companies, volunteers, and city and county agencies unprepared for even the more mundane, day-to-day tasks.
"Some rural areas are really on their own," Dr. Bledsoe says. "And nobody thinks about it until they have to call for help." ...
911 in a joke in all our towns; thanks, shrub, jr.
U-M med school should stop traumatizing dogs
BY EDWARD J. LINKNER, M.D.
January 24, 2009
As a physician who has supported the University of Michigan School of Medicine for decades, as a student in the 1970s to teaching medical students today, I am disappointed that U-M refuses to modernize its Advanced Trauma Life Support (ATLS) course by replacing live animals with high-tech simulators that accurately replicate human anatomy.
Instead, U-M continues to use and kill dogs from Michigan animal shelters in a course designed to teach procedures to be performed on human patients.
Don't get me wrong. U-M has many wonderful research and education programs. The school generally does an excellent job of educating students. But in this particular case, administrators are making a serious mistake. ...
BY EDWARD J. LINKNER, M.D.
January 24, 2009
As a physician who has supported the University of Michigan School of Medicine for decades, as a student in the 1970s to teaching medical students today, I am disappointed that U-M refuses to modernize its Advanced Trauma Life Support (ATLS) course by replacing live animals with high-tech simulators that accurately replicate human anatomy.
Instead, U-M continues to use and kill dogs from Michigan animal shelters in a course designed to teach procedures to be performed on human patients.
Don't get me wrong. U-M has many wonderful research and education programs. The school generally does an excellent job of educating students. But in this particular case, administrators are making a serious mistake. ...
... The details are still dribbling out, but it appears that for at least three recent years, the state police antiterrorism unit spied upon, infiltrated and documented groups of Marylanders who had the nerve to disagree with the policies of their government. The police acknowledge that at least 53 individuals made their terrorist-watch list but the real number could be much higher.
The troopers zeroed in on Roman Catholic nuns, human rights activists and church groups. They monitored animal rights advocates and cyclists pushing for more bicycle lanes. They opened a dossier on Amnesty International. (That group's crime was listed as "human rights.")
The troopers created files with titles like: "Terrorism: Anti-War Protesters," and "Terrorism: Anti-Govern," and "Terrorism: Environmental Extremists," and "Terrorism: Pro-Life."
To Maryland's finest, even Quakers, the ultimate pacifists, constituted a "security threat group." ...
The only real terrorists mentioned are pro-lifers.
Oh, and go fuck yrself, maryland.
The troopers zeroed in on Roman Catholic nuns, human rights activists and church groups. They monitored animal rights advocates and cyclists pushing for more bicycle lanes. They opened a dossier on Amnesty International. (That group's crime was listed as "human rights.")
The troopers created files with titles like: "Terrorism: Anti-War Protesters," and "Terrorism: Anti-Govern," and "Terrorism: Environmental Extremists," and "Terrorism: Pro-Life."
To Maryland's finest, even Quakers, the ultimate pacifists, constituted a "security threat group." ...
The only real terrorists mentioned are pro-lifers.
Oh, and go fuck yrself, maryland.
Friday, January 23, 2009
Editorial: Conyers must account for her travel expenses
The Detroit News
Restoring confidence in city government should be the top priority of everyone connected to Detroit's City Hall. That's why the city's General Retirement System should demand that Council President Monica Conyers make a full and complete accounting of her travel expense account.
Former Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick spent far too much of his first term in office dealing with the fallout from his abuses of his expense account. The lesson taken from that sorry episode in the city's history should have made every elected official laser focused on accountability and ethical behavior.
But when it comes to expense account issues, Conyers seems to have decided to take up where Kilpatrick left off.
As a member of the pension board for a little more than two years, she has traveled to Portugal, London, Philadelphia, Washington and San Francisco to attend conferences on the retirement system's dime.
Treating the pension system as a travel club is bad enough. But Conyers has refused repeated requests to account for the money she spent on many of those trips.
In one example, Conyers requested nearly $8,400 for business class airfare to London for a June pension conference. Records later revealed that the plane ticket cost less than $2,700, leaving about $5,700 unaccounted for.
We'll leave aside for now the question of why Conyers or any city official is traveling first class. Taxpayers and the retirees who funded the system have a right to know how the rest of the money was spent.
Since taking over the council presidency after Kenneth Cockrel Jr. became interim mayor last fall, Conyers has doubled overtime spending for her city-paid bodyguards and added her teenage son to her payroll, paying him $15 an hour for occasional work. ...
Editorial: Conyers must account for her travel expenses
The Detroit News
Restoring confidence in city government should be the top priority of everyone connected to Detroit's City Hall. That's why the city's General Retirement System should demand that Council President Monica Conyers make a full and complete accounting of her travel expense account.
Former Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick spent far too much of his first term in office dealing with the fallout from his abuses of his expense account. The lesson taken from that sorry episode in the city's history should have made every elected official laser focused on accountability and ethical behavior.
But when it comes to expense account issues, Conyers seems to have decided to take up where Kilpatrick left off.
As a member of the pension board for a little more than two years, she has traveled to Portugal, London, Philadelphia, Washington and San Francisco to attend conferences on the retirement system's dime.
Treating the pension system as a travel club is bad enough. But Conyers has refused repeated requests to account for the money she spent on many of those trips.
In one example, Conyers requested nearly $8,400 for business class airfare to London for a June pension conference. Records later revealed that the plane ticket cost less than $2,700, leaving about $5,700 unaccounted for.
We'll leave aside for now the question of why Conyers or any city official is traveling first class. Taxpayers and the retirees who funded the system have a right to know how the rest of the money was spent.
Since taking over the council presidency after Kenneth Cockrel Jr. became interim mayor last fall, Conyers has doubled overtime spending for her city-paid bodyguards and added her teenage son to her payroll, paying him $15 an hour for occasional work. ...
Nigerian police detain goat over armed robbery
Fri Jan 23, 2009
LAGOS (Reuters) - Police in Nigeria are holding a goat on suspicion of attempted armed robbery.
Vigilantes took the black and white beast to the police saying it was an armed robber who had used black magic to transform himself into a goat to escape arrest after trying to steal a Mazda 323.
"The group of vigilante men came to report that while they were on patrol they saw some hoodlums attempting to rob a car. They pursued them. However one of them escaped while the other turned into a goat," Kwara state police spokesman Tunde Mohammed told Reuters by telephone.
"We cannot confirm the story, but the goat is in our custody. We cannot base our information on something mystical. It is something that has to be proved scientifically, that a human being turned into a goat," he said. ...
Remind me again, please: what century is this?
Fri Jan 23, 2009
LAGOS (Reuters) - Police in Nigeria are holding a goat on suspicion of attempted armed robbery.
Vigilantes took the black and white beast to the police saying it was an armed robber who had used black magic to transform himself into a goat to escape arrest after trying to steal a Mazda 323.
"The group of vigilante men came to report that while they were on patrol they saw some hoodlums attempting to rob a car. They pursued them. However one of them escaped while the other turned into a goat," Kwara state police spokesman Tunde Mohammed told Reuters by telephone.
"We cannot confirm the story, but the goat is in our custody. We cannot base our information on something mystical. It is something that has to be proved scientifically, that a human being turned into a goat," he said. ...
Remind me again, please: what century is this?
Conyers given 2 weeks to resolve bill with board
By Jennifer Dixon
Free Press staff writer
January 22, 2009
Detroit’s General Retirement System today demanded that City Council President Monica Conyers resolve more than $5,600 in travel advances it says she never used while she was on the pension board.
In a letter sent today, Conyers was asked to repay the money or produce receipts for the expenses within two weeks. A copy of the pension system’s travel policy accompanied the letter.
A spokeswoman for Conyers said today the office would have no comment.
Pension board trustees get cash advances before they travel and must provide receipts showing how the money was spent. Money that is unaccounted for must be repaid.
Pension board records show Conyers did not provide receipts for hotel stays on Grand Cayman Island and in Philadelphia. In addition, Conyers provided a June 3 Northwest Airlines printout before she traveled to London showing an $8,392.23 airfare. Her receipt showed the ticket cost $2,652.56.
Conyers initially owed the board $7,371.25 but repaid $1,700 with two checks earlier this week, according to the board. ...
By Jennifer Dixon
Free Press staff writer
January 22, 2009
Detroit’s General Retirement System today demanded that City Council President Monica Conyers resolve more than $5,600 in travel advances it says she never used while she was on the pension board.
In a letter sent today, Conyers was asked to repay the money or produce receipts for the expenses within two weeks. A copy of the pension system’s travel policy accompanied the letter.
A spokeswoman for Conyers said today the office would have no comment.
Pension board trustees get cash advances before they travel and must provide receipts showing how the money was spent. Money that is unaccounted for must be repaid.
Pension board records show Conyers did not provide receipts for hotel stays on Grand Cayman Island and in Philadelphia. In addition, Conyers provided a June 3 Northwest Airlines printout before she traveled to London showing an $8,392.23 airfare. Her receipt showed the ticket cost $2,652.56.
Conyers initially owed the board $7,371.25 but repaid $1,700 with two checks earlier this week, according to the board. ...
China sentences two to death over tainted milk
Thu Jan 22, 2009
By Lucy Hornby
SHIJIAZHUANG, China (Reuters) - A Chinese court on Thursday sentenced two men to death for their role in a tainted milk scandal that killed at least six children, while the woman most widely blamed for the tragedy got life in jail.
Nearly 300,000 children fell ill last year after drinking milk intentionally laced with melamine, a toxic industrial compound that can give a fake positive on protein tests.
The latest in a string of food safety failures that have blighted the "made in China" brand, the Sanlu milk scandal was also one of the worst and prompted an outpouring of public anger.
Sanlu officials were aware of the melamine problem by early August but the public was not warned until mid-September as China strove to put on a perfect face for the Beijing Olympics.
Authorities may have timed the sentencing Thursday to try and tame outrage ahead of China's most important holiday.
The closely watched trial of middlemen and executives from the Sanlu Group, a now bankrupt firm that had failed to report cases of infants getting sick from drinking its products, wrapped up just before the Lunar New Year.
A handful of parents travelled to the gritty industrial town of Shijiazhuang and waited for hours in the freezing cold -- at a time when most of the country is planning family reunions -- to hear what justice their children would get. ...
Thu Jan 22, 2009
By Lucy Hornby
SHIJIAZHUANG, China (Reuters) - A Chinese court on Thursday sentenced two men to death for their role in a tainted milk scandal that killed at least six children, while the woman most widely blamed for the tragedy got life in jail.
Nearly 300,000 children fell ill last year after drinking milk intentionally laced with melamine, a toxic industrial compound that can give a fake positive on protein tests.
The latest in a string of food safety failures that have blighted the "made in China" brand, the Sanlu milk scandal was also one of the worst and prompted an outpouring of public anger.
Sanlu officials were aware of the melamine problem by early August but the public was not warned until mid-September as China strove to put on a perfect face for the Beijing Olympics.
Authorities may have timed the sentencing Thursday to try and tame outrage ahead of China's most important holiday.
The closely watched trial of middlemen and executives from the Sanlu Group, a now bankrupt firm that had failed to report cases of infants getting sick from drinking its products, wrapped up just before the Lunar New Year.
A handful of parents travelled to the gritty industrial town of Shijiazhuang and waited for hours in the freezing cold -- at a time when most of the country is planning family reunions -- to hear what justice their children would get. ...
China plans production controls for deadly melamine
Thu Jan 22, 2009
BEIJING (Reuters) - China plans to impose production controls on melamine, the cheap industrial ingredient at the center of a milk-contamination scandal that shocked China and the rest of the world last year, a newspaper said on Friday.
The Ministry of Industry and Information Technology has circulated for comment draft production permit rules aiming to stem a melamine production glut and stop it from tainting food, the China Chemical Industry News reported.
Melamine is used to maker fertilizers, plastics and other industrial goods but gained notoriety as a cheap additive for milk and other foods. Rich in nitrogen, melamine can be used to fool tests for protein.
At least six young Chinese children died from kidney stones and more than 290,000 were made ill from melamine-contaminated milk formula, battering already dented faith in China-made goods and prompting massive recalls of dairy and other food products around the world.
Tian Wenhua, the former general manager of the now bankrupt Sanlu Group, the company at the heart of the poisoning scandal, has pleaded guilty to charges of "producing and selling fake or substandard products". She is expected to be sentenced to life imprisonment.
The Industry Ministry hoped the new rules would end such scandals, the newspaper said.
Until recently, melamine has been widely sold, including over the Internet, for around 10,000 yuan ($1,500) a metric ton. It has also been detected in eggs, chocolates and other foods.
The ministry also aims to shrink the number of melamine producers by setting minimum production levels and strengthening controls on ingredients and waste.
A two-month-old boy died on Sunday after being fed with milk formula made by a Guangdong milk company in eastern Zhejiang province, the Oriental Morning Post reported on Friday. ...
Thu Jan 22, 2009
BEIJING (Reuters) - China plans to impose production controls on melamine, the cheap industrial ingredient at the center of a milk-contamination scandal that shocked China and the rest of the world last year, a newspaper said on Friday.
The Ministry of Industry and Information Technology has circulated for comment draft production permit rules aiming to stem a melamine production glut and stop it from tainting food, the China Chemical Industry News reported.
Melamine is used to maker fertilizers, plastics and other industrial goods but gained notoriety as a cheap additive for milk and other foods. Rich in nitrogen, melamine can be used to fool tests for protein.
At least six young Chinese children died from kidney stones and more than 290,000 were made ill from melamine-contaminated milk formula, battering already dented faith in China-made goods and prompting massive recalls of dairy and other food products around the world.
Tian Wenhua, the former general manager of the now bankrupt Sanlu Group, the company at the heart of the poisoning scandal, has pleaded guilty to charges of "producing and selling fake or substandard products". She is expected to be sentenced to life imprisonment.
The Industry Ministry hoped the new rules would end such scandals, the newspaper said.
Until recently, melamine has been widely sold, including over the Internet, for around 10,000 yuan ($1,500) a metric ton. It has also been detected in eggs, chocolates and other foods.
The ministry also aims to shrink the number of melamine producers by setting minimum production levels and strengthening controls on ingredients and waste.
A two-month-old boy died on Sunday after being fed with milk formula made by a Guangdong milk company in eastern Zhejiang province, the Oriental Morning Post reported on Friday. ...
New witness in dancer's death
Imprisoned drug kingpin linked to Greene through Detroit strip club owner, family says.
Paul Egan
The Detroit News
Tuesday, January 20, 2009
DETROIT -- Imprisoned drug kingpin Milton "Butch" Jones might be able to shed light on the killing of exotic dancer Tamara "Strawberry" Greene because they're linked through former state legislator and strip club owner Keith Stallworth, a lawyer for Greene's family said Monday.
That's why Jones, 53, now serving a federal prison sentence at Milan, was added Friday as a possible witness in a federal lawsuit brought by Greene's family against the city of Detroit, former Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick, and several top city and police officials, said Robert Zawideh, one of the attorneys representing Greene's family.
Greene, linked to a long-rumored but never substantiated party at the mayor's Manoogian Mansion in fall 2002, was shot to death in Detroit on April 30, 2003. Her family's lawsuit alleges top police and city officials obstructed the investigation of her still unsolved killing for political reasons. Kilpatrick and the other defendants deny the allegations. The case could go to trial this year.
Stallworth, who in 2003 pleaded guilty to a felony financial transaction, was indicted along with Jones in 2001 and accused of using his Detroit strip joint, Tiger's Lounge, to launder money for the Young Boys Inc. heroin-dealing gang that Jones founded. Stallworth, a friend and former Democratic state House colleague of Kilpatrick, also is on the Greene witness list.
He could not be reached for comment Monday. ...
Imprisoned drug kingpin linked to Greene through Detroit strip club owner, family says.
Paul Egan
The Detroit News
Tuesday, January 20, 2009
DETROIT -- Imprisoned drug kingpin Milton "Butch" Jones might be able to shed light on the killing of exotic dancer Tamara "Strawberry" Greene because they're linked through former state legislator and strip club owner Keith Stallworth, a lawyer for Greene's family said Monday.
That's why Jones, 53, now serving a federal prison sentence at Milan, was added Friday as a possible witness in a federal lawsuit brought by Greene's family against the city of Detroit, former Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick, and several top city and police officials, said Robert Zawideh, one of the attorneys representing Greene's family.
Greene, linked to a long-rumored but never substantiated party at the mayor's Manoogian Mansion in fall 2002, was shot to death in Detroit on April 30, 2003. Her family's lawsuit alleges top police and city officials obstructed the investigation of her still unsolved killing for political reasons. Kilpatrick and the other defendants deny the allegations. The case could go to trial this year.
Stallworth, who in 2003 pleaded guilty to a felony financial transaction, was indicted along with Jones in 2001 and accused of using his Detroit strip joint, Tiger's Lounge, to launder money for the Young Boys Inc. heroin-dealing gang that Jones founded. Stallworth, a friend and former Democratic state House colleague of Kilpatrick, also is on the Greene witness list.
He could not be reached for comment Monday. ...
Thief Admits to More Than 200 Robberies
Last Update: January 20, 2009 6:38 am
... When 27-year-old Mutsharas Gordon-Nix went before a judge Monday morning charged with robbing a Livonia home and stealing jewelry, it may have been the tip of the iceberg.
After Gordon-Nix was apprehended Saturday, he told police he was responsible for more than 200 home invasions since 2007 in 25 cities in five counties.
Police executed a search warrant of Gordon-Nix's home after his arrest and found electronics and jewelry that are believed to have been stolen.
Gordon-Nix was on parole when he was arrested, and now he could go to jail for life.
Last Update: January 20, 2009 6:38 am
... When 27-year-old Mutsharas Gordon-Nix went before a judge Monday morning charged with robbing a Livonia home and stealing jewelry, it may have been the tip of the iceberg.
After Gordon-Nix was apprehended Saturday, he told police he was responsible for more than 200 home invasions since 2007 in 25 cities in five counties.
Police executed a search warrant of Gordon-Nix's home after his arrest and found electronics and jewelry that are believed to have been stolen.
Gordon-Nix was on parole when he was arrested, and now he could go to jail for life.
Zimbabwe rivals report no progress in power-sharing talks
• 'It didn't go well' says Mugabe after 12-hour meeting
• Two sides blame each other for continuing deadlock
Matthew Weaver
guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 20 January 2009
Zimbabwe's main political rivals, President Robert Mugabe and the opposition leader, Morgan Tsvangirai, blamed each other as fresh power-sharing talks ended in deadlock yesterday.
Mediators from the Southern African Development Community (SADC) said that after 12 hours of talks no agreement had been reached over an attempt to revive a deal struck last September to resolve the country's political crisis.
Another round of talks are scheduled to take place next week, but both Mugabe and Tsvangirai emerged from yesterday's session gloomy at the prospects for progress.
"It didn't go well," Mugabe said. "This has been one of the darkest days of our lives," Tsvangirai said.
The opposition leader said Mugabe was the "stumbling block". Mugabe accused of Tsvangirai of rejecting a proposal backed by SADC. ...
• 'It didn't go well' says Mugabe after 12-hour meeting
• Two sides blame each other for continuing deadlock
Matthew Weaver
guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 20 January 2009
Zimbabwe's main political rivals, President Robert Mugabe and the opposition leader, Morgan Tsvangirai, blamed each other as fresh power-sharing talks ended in deadlock yesterday.
Mediators from the Southern African Development Community (SADC) said that after 12 hours of talks no agreement had been reached over an attempt to revive a deal struck last September to resolve the country's political crisis.
Another round of talks are scheduled to take place next week, but both Mugabe and Tsvangirai emerged from yesterday's session gloomy at the prospects for progress.
"It didn't go well," Mugabe said. "This has been one of the darkest days of our lives," Tsvangirai said.
The opposition leader said Mugabe was the "stumbling block". Mugabe accused of Tsvangirai of rejecting a proposal backed by SADC. ...
Zimbabwe talks end without deal
Mon Jan 19, 2009
By MacDonald Dzirutwe
HARARE, Jan 19 (Reuters) - Zimbabwe's power-sharing talks ended without a deal on Monday and opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai said no progress was made on what he called the "darkest day of our lives".
An official said regional leaders would discuss the stalemate between President Robert Mugabe and his rivals at a summit in either Botswana or South Africa next week, which all Zimbabwean leaders have agreed to attend.
"For us as the MDC, this is probably the darkest day of our lives," Tsvangirai said after a 12-hour meeting in Harare, which was billed as a last-ditch effort to save the pact.
A unity government is seen as the best chance of preventing total collapse in once-prosperous Zimbabwe, where prices double every day and more than 2,000 people have died in a cholera epidemic. ...
Mon Jan 19, 2009
By MacDonald Dzirutwe
HARARE, Jan 19 (Reuters) - Zimbabwe's power-sharing talks ended without a deal on Monday and opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai said no progress was made on what he called the "darkest day of our lives".
An official said regional leaders would discuss the stalemate between President Robert Mugabe and his rivals at a summit in either Botswana or South Africa next week, which all Zimbabwean leaders have agreed to attend.
"For us as the MDC, this is probably the darkest day of our lives," Tsvangirai said after a 12-hour meeting in Harare, which was billed as a last-ditch effort to save the pact.
A unity government is seen as the best chance of preventing total collapse in once-prosperous Zimbabwe, where prices double every day and more than 2,000 people have died in a cholera epidemic. ...
City demolished wrong house, lawsuit claims
Paul Egan / The Detroit News
Tuesday, January 20, 2009
DETROIT -- A common complaint in Detroit is that the city is too slow to demolish derelict homes that become magnets for drug deals, arson and other crimes.
So it came as a shock to Eric Roslonski when the city, without notice, knocked down a home he had just spent more than $30,000 improving. ...
Paul Egan / The Detroit News
Tuesday, January 20, 2009
DETROIT -- A common complaint in Detroit is that the city is too slow to demolish derelict homes that become magnets for drug deals, arson and other crimes.
So it came as a shock to Eric Roslonski when the city, without notice, knocked down a home he had just spent more than $30,000 improving. ...
Unfair Park has learned that Glazer's Distributors -- owners of 508 Park Avenue, the building in which Robert Johnson recorded 13 songs that changed the music world -- has filed with the city a permit that would allow them to tear down one of the most historic structures in the city of Dallas. As mentioned in October, that building is among some three dozen singled out by Mayor Tom Leppert and City Attorney Tom Perkins, who are trying to bring vacant downtown buildings up to code. ...
Nice one, dallas.
Nice one, dallas.
Saturday, January 17, 2009
Hit man, drug king among witnesses in Detroit stripper lawsuit
Paul Egan / The Detroit News
DETROIT -- Confessed city "hit man" Vincent Smothers and notorious drug kingpin Milton "Butch" Jones are among the names on a beefed-up witness list filed by relatives of a slain exotic dancer in their federal lawsuit against the city of Detroit.
Norman Yatooma, the Birmingham lawyer representing the family of Tamara "Strawberry" Greene, filed the new witness list late Friday. It contains the names of 343 witnesses and classes of witnesses, up from 193 names on an earlier witness list filed in October.
Other names on the expanded witness list include John Bebow, a former reporter for The Detroit News; Matt Allen, a former spokesman for Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick; and exotic dancers described only as "Mia;" Charlotte, also known as "Netta;" and Kelly, also known as "Lucky."
Greene, who was linked to a long-rumored party involving strippers at the mayor's Manoogian Mansion in the fall of 2002, was killed in a drive-by shooting outside her Detroit home on April 30, 2003. The killing remains unsolved.
Greene's family is suing the city, former Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick, his former chief of staff Christine Beatty, former Police Chief Ella Bully-Cummings, and other top city and police officials, alleging they obstructed the investigation of Greene's killing for political reasons.
The defendants deny the charges. The case could go to trial this year.
Among the allegations is that Greene sought hospital treatment in the fall of 2002 because she was assaulted at the party by Carlita Kilpatrick, the wife of the former mayor. Witnesses have signed affidavits saying they had evidence a dancer was treated for injuries at a Detroit hospital at about the time of the rumored party. ...
Hit man, drug king among witnesses in Detroit stripper lawsuit
Paul Egan / The Detroit News
DETROIT -- Confessed city "hit man" Vincent Smothers and notorious drug kingpin Milton "Butch" Jones are among the names on a beefed-up witness list filed by relatives of a slain exotic dancer in their federal lawsuit against the city of Detroit.
Norman Yatooma, the Birmingham lawyer representing the family of Tamara "Strawberry" Greene, filed the new witness list late Friday. It contains the names of 343 witnesses and classes of witnesses, up from 193 names on an earlier witness list filed in October.
Other names on the expanded witness list include John Bebow, a former reporter for The Detroit News; Matt Allen, a former spokesman for Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick; and exotic dancers described only as "Mia;" Charlotte, also known as "Netta;" and Kelly, also known as "Lucky."
Greene, who was linked to a long-rumored party involving strippers at the mayor's Manoogian Mansion in the fall of 2002, was killed in a drive-by shooting outside her Detroit home on April 30, 2003. The killing remains unsolved.
Greene's family is suing the city, former Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick, his former chief of staff Christine Beatty, former Police Chief Ella Bully-Cummings, and other top city and police officials, alleging they obstructed the investigation of Greene's killing for political reasons.
The defendants deny the charges. The case could go to trial this year.
Among the allegations is that Greene sought hospital treatment in the fall of 2002 because she was assaulted at the party by Carlita Kilpatrick, the wife of the former mayor. Witnesses have signed affidavits saying they had evidence a dancer was treated for injuries at a Detroit hospital at about the time of the rumored party. ...
Yeah, well, rootin' tootin' vladimir putin doesn't wanna hear it, and wants them to just STFU.
Much like the 'management' of a certain nameless online 'community.'
Much like the 'management' of a certain nameless online 'community.'
Amid deficit, Detroit schools to return unspent $16 million
BY CHASTITY PRATT DAWSEY
FREE PRESS EDUCATION WRITER
January 16, 2009
The deficit-ridden Detroit Public Schools failed to spend more than $36 million in federal aid for low-income children last school year and will have to return $16.3 million, according to the Michigan Department of Education.
The unspent funds -- first reported Thursday on freep.com -- are from grants earmarked for programs for children who are failing or at risk of failing. The money could have gone to professional development, increasing parental involvement or paying salaries for teachers, social workers or other staff who work on targeted programs.
While the money went unspent, at least 83 teachers and 32 social workers were laid off this school year. DPS ended the 2007-08 school year with a $139-million deficit and is struggling to pay for basics such as toilet paper and fuel for buses. Gov. Jennifer Granholm is expected to appoint an emergency financial manager soon to take control of the district's $1.1-billion budget.
DPS received $135 million in Title I, Part A grants last school year. Of the $36 million that was not spent, $20 million can be carried over to this school year and the rest will go back to the state, MDE spokesman Martin Ackley said.
Virginia Cantrell, president of the Detroit Federation of Teachers union, called it unacceptable for a troubled district to return needed money.
"I understand you can't use Title I to buy toilet paper, but you can't tell me that those guidelines are so strict that we could not use that money and use it appropriately," she said.
Board member Ida Short, who chairs the committee on academics, said she sent memos to Superintendent Connie Calloway about the Title I. "Dr. Calloway sat on it," Short said.
The board voted last month to fire Calloway, who is on paid leave as she fights to get her job back....
BY CHASTITY PRATT DAWSEY
FREE PRESS EDUCATION WRITER
January 16, 2009
The deficit-ridden Detroit Public Schools failed to spend more than $36 million in federal aid for low-income children last school year and will have to return $16.3 million, according to the Michigan Department of Education.
The unspent funds -- first reported Thursday on freep.com -- are from grants earmarked for programs for children who are failing or at risk of failing. The money could have gone to professional development, increasing parental involvement or paying salaries for teachers, social workers or other staff who work on targeted programs.
While the money went unspent, at least 83 teachers and 32 social workers were laid off this school year. DPS ended the 2007-08 school year with a $139-million deficit and is struggling to pay for basics such as toilet paper and fuel for buses. Gov. Jennifer Granholm is expected to appoint an emergency financial manager soon to take control of the district's $1.1-billion budget.
DPS received $135 million in Title I, Part A grants last school year. Of the $36 million that was not spent, $20 million can be carried over to this school year and the rest will go back to the state, MDE spokesman Martin Ackley said.
Virginia Cantrell, president of the Detroit Federation of Teachers union, called it unacceptable for a troubled district to return needed money.
"I understand you can't use Title I to buy toilet paper, but you can't tell me that those guidelines are so strict that we could not use that money and use it appropriately," she said.
Board member Ida Short, who chairs the committee on academics, said she sent memos to Superintendent Connie Calloway about the Title I. "Dr. Calloway sat on it," Short said.
The board voted last month to fire Calloway, who is on paid leave as she fights to get her job back....
TVA Disaster Spreads Far and Wide
Erin Brockovich and Robin Greenwald
Posted January 13, 2009
... Hindsight always shows how these tragedies could have been prevented. If history teaches us anything, it shows us that yesterday is our "crystal ball." In the now famous case, Pacific Gas and Electric knew that their contamination was affecting innocent people yet did nothing but try to convince people that the poison was good for them.
If TVA knew of leaks years before this disaster and sat and waited, is "oops" we're sorry" going to be enough?
The infrastructure handling coal fly ash in the U.S. is old and needs to be replaced. Can we worry about the cost of replacing the old with the new when health and safety and the environment depends on it? We can see that contamination moves through air, land and water. Can we sit back and wait for communities to get sick when we can prevent it now?
Science usually lags behind the law. But in this case, law lags behind science because coal fly ash handling is not regulated as it should be. And we have a pretty good grasp on the fact that Coal Fly Ash is not healthy.
A poison is a poison. It certainly can't be good for you. Does anyone believe that the arsenic in the fly ash along with other heavy metals won't leech into the groundwater? 5.4 million cubic yards of toxic compounds unleashed into the garden. We don't need a crystal ball to see the rough road ahead.
Erin Brockovich and Robin Greenwald
Posted January 13, 2009
... Hindsight always shows how these tragedies could have been prevented. If history teaches us anything, it shows us that yesterday is our "crystal ball." In the now famous case, Pacific Gas and Electric knew that their contamination was affecting innocent people yet did nothing but try to convince people that the poison was good for them.
If TVA knew of leaks years before this disaster and sat and waited, is "oops" we're sorry" going to be enough?
The infrastructure handling coal fly ash in the U.S. is old and needs to be replaced. Can we worry about the cost of replacing the old with the new when health and safety and the environment depends on it? We can see that contamination moves through air, land and water. Can we sit back and wait for communities to get sick when we can prevent it now?
Science usually lags behind the law. But in this case, law lags behind science because coal fly ash handling is not regulated as it should be. And we have a pretty good grasp on the fact that Coal Fly Ash is not healthy.
A poison is a poison. It certainly can't be good for you. Does anyone believe that the arsenic in the fly ash along with other heavy metals won't leech into the groundwater? 5.4 million cubic yards of toxic compounds unleashed into the garden. We don't need a crystal ball to see the rough road ahead.
Russia making gas delivery to EU difficult - source
Thu Jan 15, 2009
BRUSSELS, Jan 15 (Reuters) - Russia is providing Ukraine with gas in a way that makes its successful delivery to Europe difficult, a source familiar with the work of European Union monitors said on Thursday.
Europe is still not receiving gas from Russia, its main supplier, despite Moscow having provided some at the Sudzha entry point on Ukraine's northeastern border.
Transit country Ukraine refused to let the gas through, saying it should be delivered via two entry points further south although Gazprom vigorously defended its intended route.
"EU monitors are clearly seeing Russia is not supplying enough gas into the pipeline and clearly choosing the most difficult route and not using multiple routes as is necessary," the source told Reuters.
The European Commission said all conditions had been met for Russia to resume gas supplies and for Ukraine to begin transporting it to Europe again, but declined to apportion blame.
"At this point, the Commission is not judging why Russia chose that entry point, or why Ukraine did not allow the gas through," Commission energy spokesman Ferran Tarradellas Espuny said.
"But the Commission thinks full volumes of gas have to be supplied and full volumes of gas have to be allowed to transit immediately," he added. ...
Thu Jan 15, 2009
BRUSSELS, Jan 15 (Reuters) - Russia is providing Ukraine with gas in a way that makes its successful delivery to Europe difficult, a source familiar with the work of European Union monitors said on Thursday.
Europe is still not receiving gas from Russia, its main supplier, despite Moscow having provided some at the Sudzha entry point on Ukraine's northeastern border.
Transit country Ukraine refused to let the gas through, saying it should be delivered via two entry points further south although Gazprom vigorously defended its intended route.
"EU monitors are clearly seeing Russia is not supplying enough gas into the pipeline and clearly choosing the most difficult route and not using multiple routes as is necessary," the source told Reuters.
The European Commission said all conditions had been met for Russia to resume gas supplies and for Ukraine to begin transporting it to Europe again, but declined to apportion blame.
"At this point, the Commission is not judging why Russia chose that entry point, or why Ukraine did not allow the gas through," Commission energy spokesman Ferran Tarradellas Espuny said.
"But the Commission thinks full volumes of gas have to be supplied and full volumes of gas have to be allowed to transit immediately," he added. ...
There's now one fewer evil rat in our world: how very nice.
Europe left to beg and rage as Russian gas row drags on
Ian Traynor in Brussels
Thursday 15 January 2009
...a flood of legal claims could be made against Russian and Ukrainian gas companies and pipeline operators for breach of contracts.
The leaders of the worst-hit countries, Slovakia, Bulgaria, and Moldova, went to Moscow to plead with their former imperial overlord for mercy and for fuel to power the radiators for millions of households. Moldova has already asked the EU for heaters and blankets to counter the impact of a severe winter without its main energy source.
But the war of words raged on between Moscow and Kiev, with hardline positions entrenched and no sign of any settlement.
Despite an EU-brokered agreement on Monday to allow outside monitors to verify the gas flows and get the gas pumping immediately, the Russians continued to supply insufficient gas to power the system through to Europe yesterday while the Ukrainians also kept some pipelines closed, Brussels said.
"We opened the tap, and are ready to supply gas, but on the other side, the tap is closed," said Vladimir Putin, the Russian prime minister.
But according to Brussels, the Russians were pumping less than a third of the volume of gas needed to supply Europe and deliberately entered it into the wrong pipeline across Ukraine. "If the agreement is not honoured, it means that Russia and Ukraine can no longer be considered reliable partners for the EU in matters of energy supply," warned Barroso. ...
..."This is getting close to breaking point," said a commission official. "There is a feeling that Putin is being duplicitous, to put it mildly." ...
Why is that weasel rootin' tootin' vladimir putin even involved? Is he the emperor or russiastan or something? Why hasn't he gone away and stopped flapping his mouth and waving his guns around?
Ian Traynor in Brussels
Thursday 15 January 2009
...a flood of legal claims could be made against Russian and Ukrainian gas companies and pipeline operators for breach of contracts.
The leaders of the worst-hit countries, Slovakia, Bulgaria, and Moldova, went to Moscow to plead with their former imperial overlord for mercy and for fuel to power the radiators for millions of households. Moldova has already asked the EU for heaters and blankets to counter the impact of a severe winter without its main energy source.
But the war of words raged on between Moscow and Kiev, with hardline positions entrenched and no sign of any settlement.
Despite an EU-brokered agreement on Monday to allow outside monitors to verify the gas flows and get the gas pumping immediately, the Russians continued to supply insufficient gas to power the system through to Europe yesterday while the Ukrainians also kept some pipelines closed, Brussels said.
"We opened the tap, and are ready to supply gas, but on the other side, the tap is closed," said Vladimir Putin, the Russian prime minister.
But according to Brussels, the Russians were pumping less than a third of the volume of gas needed to supply Europe and deliberately entered it into the wrong pipeline across Ukraine. "If the agreement is not honoured, it means that Russia and Ukraine can no longer be considered reliable partners for the EU in matters of energy supply," warned Barroso. ...
..."This is getting close to breaking point," said a commission official. "There is a feeling that Putin is being duplicitous, to put it mildly." ...
Why is that weasel rootin' tootin' vladimir putin even involved? Is he the emperor or russiastan or something? Why hasn't he gone away and stopped flapping his mouth and waving his guns around?
Texts may shed light on Tamara Greene slaying
Magistrates ID 13 messages
By BEN SCHMITT, DAVID ASHENFELTER and JOE SWICKARD
FREE PRESS STAFF WRITERS
January 14, 2009
Federal magistrates have identified 13 text messages from city-issued pagers that might shed light on the 2003 killing of stripper Tamara Greene, who was said to have danced at a long-rumored party at the Manoogian Mansion, the Free Press has learned.
It's unclear what the text messages say, who exchanged them or why the magistrate judges singled them out from the hundreds that were exchanged April 30, 2003 — the day Greene was fatally shot — on pagers the city leased from Mississippi-based SkyTel Inc.
Birmingham attorney Norman Yatooma, who represents Greene's teenage son and other family members, sought Wednesday to obtain access to the messages as part of his lawsuit against the city, former Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick, his top aide Christine Beatty, police executives and others, lawyers in the case said.
The suit claims that city officials sabotaged the investigation into Greene's death, preventing the family from filing a wrongful death suit against her killers. ...
Magistrates ID 13 messages
By BEN SCHMITT, DAVID ASHENFELTER and JOE SWICKARD
FREE PRESS STAFF WRITERS
January 14, 2009
Federal magistrates have identified 13 text messages from city-issued pagers that might shed light on the 2003 killing of stripper Tamara Greene, who was said to have danced at a long-rumored party at the Manoogian Mansion, the Free Press has learned.
It's unclear what the text messages say, who exchanged them or why the magistrate judges singled them out from the hundreds that were exchanged April 30, 2003 — the day Greene was fatally shot — on pagers the city leased from Mississippi-based SkyTel Inc.
Birmingham attorney Norman Yatooma, who represents Greene's teenage son and other family members, sought Wednesday to obtain access to the messages as part of his lawsuit against the city, former Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick, his top aide Christine Beatty, police executives and others, lawyers in the case said.
The suit claims that city officials sabotaged the investigation into Greene's death, preventing the family from filing a wrongful death suit against her killers. ...
US accused of abdicating role as human rights defender
Human Rights Watch condemns Bush government, along with criticism of Afghanistan, Israel, Sudan, India, Afghanistan and Palestinian security forces
Richard Norton-Taylor
Wednesday 14 January 2009
Governments indulging in abuse and repression, including the US, are avoiding human rights legislation and international justice by hiding behind the principle of national sovereignty, Human Rights Watch (HRW) warns in a report today.
Abusive practices throughout the world, including Afghanistan, Israel, and the occupied Palestinian territories, has got worse as governments cling to the concept of non-interference . The US, specifically by secretly rendering prisoners to Guantánamo Bay, has abdicated its traditional role as defender of human rights, it adds. ...
Human Rights Watch condemns Bush government, along with criticism of Afghanistan, Israel, Sudan, India, Afghanistan and Palestinian security forces
Richard Norton-Taylor
Wednesday 14 January 2009
Governments indulging in abuse and repression, including the US, are avoiding human rights legislation and international justice by hiding behind the principle of national sovereignty, Human Rights Watch (HRW) warns in a report today.
Abusive practices throughout the world, including Afghanistan, Israel, and the occupied Palestinian territories, has got worse as governments cling to the concept of non-interference . The US, specifically by secretly rendering prisoners to Guantánamo Bay, has abdicated its traditional role as defender of human rights, it adds. ...
Elite police detained after off-duty brawl
Tue Jan 13, 2009
FRANKFURT (Reuters) - Three elite Frankfurt police officers who were involved in an off-duty brawl at a brothel have been detained by police and are under investigation for assault, a Frankfurt police spokesman said on Tuesday. ...
Tue Jan 13, 2009
FRANKFURT (Reuters) - Three elite Frankfurt police officers who were involved in an off-duty brawl at a brothel have been detained by police and are under investigation for assault, a Frankfurt police spokesman said on Tuesday. ...
Detainee tortured, Bush official admits
January 14, 2009
The U.S. military indeed tortured at least one man held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, the Bush administration official in charge of deciding whether to bring detainees to trial says.
Susan Crawford told the Washington Post’s Bob Woodward that interrogation techniques used against Mohammed al-Qahtani left him in a “life-threatening position.”
“His treatment met the legal definition of torture,” she said, explaining why she decided in May to dismiss the charges against him. It’s the first time a senior Bush administration official responsible for reviewing practices at Guantanamo has publicly said a detainee was tortured, the Post says.
Al-Qahtani is a Saudi who allegedly planned to participate in the 9/11 attacks. He had to be hospitalized twice because of abusive interrogation. ...
Okay, um, please tell me again which ones are the good guys and which ones are the bad guys.
January 14, 2009
The U.S. military indeed tortured at least one man held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, the Bush administration official in charge of deciding whether to bring detainees to trial says.
Susan Crawford told the Washington Post’s Bob Woodward that interrogation techniques used against Mohammed al-Qahtani left him in a “life-threatening position.”
“His treatment met the legal definition of torture,” she said, explaining why she decided in May to dismiss the charges against him. It’s the first time a senior Bush administration official responsible for reviewing practices at Guantanamo has publicly said a detainee was tortured, the Post says.
Al-Qahtani is a Saudi who allegedly planned to participate in the 9/11 attacks. He had to be hospitalized twice because of abusive interrogation. ...
Okay, um, please tell me again which ones are the good guys and which ones are the bad guys.
Why in hell does a newly-released version already need a patch? microsquish is at least as jacked as it was when unca bill was still runnin' the jernt. Idiots.
If pat robertson's a good christian, I'm a millionaire whom scrabble adores.
LETTER OF THE DAY - Tap the wisdom of the unlearned
Published: Monday | January 12, 2009
The Editor, Sir:
The time has come for us to unlearn all that we think we know about finance and economics. When 60 cents out of every tax dollar goes into paying for debt instead of social services, then I would say that our system has failed us terribly. I am not an economist, so, admittedly, I know nothing about high finance, but maybe that's exactly what the system needs right now, someone uncorrupted by what is taught or perpetuated in schools and universities.
Economists all over the world are predicting a global economic tsunami. It seems inevitable and it makes us afraid. But fear clouds our judgement; it makes us become cowards when bravery is what we need in the times ahead. Older folks said 'every dark cloud has its silver lining' - no exceptions. If the West is in a mess, then it would not be a priority for them to force Third World countries to repay debt. This would give Jamaica a window of opportunity to reboot and do things differently. Therefore, the solution is in not being afraid, but being prepared.
If an American family were paying 60 cents out of every dollar for debt, they would file bankruptcy or just refuse to pay some of these debts. It is inhumane to have our nation suffer because of the enormous debt burden. It is foolish for Jamaicans to think we can make progress and improve our situation on the 40 cents - but maybe we are just too smart to see it. ...
Published: Monday | January 12, 2009
The Editor, Sir:
The time has come for us to unlearn all that we think we know about finance and economics. When 60 cents out of every tax dollar goes into paying for debt instead of social services, then I would say that our system has failed us terribly. I am not an economist, so, admittedly, I know nothing about high finance, but maybe that's exactly what the system needs right now, someone uncorrupted by what is taught or perpetuated in schools and universities.
Economists all over the world are predicting a global economic tsunami. It seems inevitable and it makes us afraid. But fear clouds our judgement; it makes us become cowards when bravery is what we need in the times ahead. Older folks said 'every dark cloud has its silver lining' - no exceptions. If the West is in a mess, then it would not be a priority for them to force Third World countries to repay debt. This would give Jamaica a window of opportunity to reboot and do things differently. Therefore, the solution is in not being afraid, but being prepared.
If an American family were paying 60 cents out of every dollar for debt, they would file bankruptcy or just refuse to pay some of these debts. It is inhumane to have our nation suffer because of the enormous debt burden. It is foolish for Jamaicans to think we can make progress and improve our situation on the 40 cents - but maybe we are just too smart to see it. ...
Bounty system could pay hunters up to $75 apiece to kill wild hogs
By BOB CAMPBELL • FREE PRESS STAFF WRITER
January 9, 2009
A conservation group believes the threat wild hogs pose to Michigan’s farms, forests and wildlife is so grave that the state should pay bounty hunters up to $75 apiece to eliminate the 3,000 to 5,000 feral pigs roaming in 63 counties.
“If we turn a blind eye, we’ll have 50,000 in two years,” said Dennis Fijalkowski, executive director of the non-profit Michigan Wildlife Conservancy.
The hogs, including European boars, generally are escapees from commercial game ranches.
The Legislature would have to approve a bounty. Bounties on wild animals, such as foxes and coyotes, were eliminated more than 30 years ago, largely with support from groups like Fijalkowski’s, he said.
But the non-native hogs have no place in the wild and must be stopped before their populations explode, he said.
“They eat anything that moves or doesn’t move,” he said. ...
By BOB CAMPBELL • FREE PRESS STAFF WRITER
January 9, 2009
A conservation group believes the threat wild hogs pose to Michigan’s farms, forests and wildlife is so grave that the state should pay bounty hunters up to $75 apiece to eliminate the 3,000 to 5,000 feral pigs roaming in 63 counties.
“If we turn a blind eye, we’ll have 50,000 in two years,” said Dennis Fijalkowski, executive director of the non-profit Michigan Wildlife Conservancy.
The hogs, including European boars, generally are escapees from commercial game ranches.
The Legislature would have to approve a bounty. Bounties on wild animals, such as foxes and coyotes, were eliminated more than 30 years ago, largely with support from groups like Fijalkowski’s, he said.
But the non-native hogs have no place in the wild and must be stopped before their populations explode, he said.
“They eat anything that moves or doesn’t move,” he said. ...
... In mid-November, Howarth received notice that his FICA account, even after an adjustment, was out of whack.
He owed the IRS a nickel. And the IRS was serious.
It advised him to act promptly "to avoid additional penalty and/or interest."
Howarth started calculating how much that nickel was going to cost him.
As he figures it, there is the 5 cents plus the cost of a check -- payment must be made by check or money order. Then there is his CPA's fee, an envelope, his secretary's time, his own time and a 42-cent stamp.
"The costs are several hundred percent over the nickel," he said.
But then a second letter arrived. This one said Howarth had a refund coming.
The amount? Four cents. But to get it, Howarth would have to ask for it because it was less than $1.
"When I owe them a nickel, I must pay them," he said. "It's not optional. But when they owe me, I have to ask for it." ...
He owed the IRS a nickel. And the IRS was serious.
It advised him to act promptly "to avoid additional penalty and/or interest."
Howarth started calculating how much that nickel was going to cost him.
As he figures it, there is the 5 cents plus the cost of a check -- payment must be made by check or money order. Then there is his CPA's fee, an envelope, his secretary's time, his own time and a 42-cent stamp.
"The costs are several hundred percent over the nickel," he said.
But then a second letter arrived. This one said Howarth had a refund coming.
The amount? Four cents. But to get it, Howarth would have to ask for it because it was less than $1.
"When I owe them a nickel, I must pay them," he said. "It's not optional. But when they owe me, I have to ask for it." ...
... Calls to the Army and the Pentagon about how many men and women in their 50s are being called back to duty were not returned Wednesday. ...
Hmmm......did he fall or was he pushed?
I want my money back.
ncp services, you done got wrong.
... The Klamath Termination
In the period between 1950 and 1960, a number of individual bills were passed by the US Congress that ended the recognized status of many US Indian tribes. Tribes who were terminated lost their federal status, their reservation lands, and all claims to federally provided services in return for some level of monetary compensation. This policy was pursued especially vigorously in Oregon, where two of the larger confederated reservations, the Klamath and the Siletz, were terminated, along with several smaller tribes. The effects of the Termination were extensive, as this archive and other academic and government documents attest. ...
In the period between 1950 and 1960, a number of individual bills were passed by the US Congress that ended the recognized status of many US Indian tribes. Tribes who were terminated lost their federal status, their reservation lands, and all claims to federally provided services in return for some level of monetary compensation. This policy was pursued especially vigorously in Oregon, where two of the larger confederated reservations, the Klamath and the Siletz, were terminated, along with several smaller tribes. The effects of the Termination were extensive, as this archive and other academic and government documents attest. ...
des moines destroys its shrubville.
Look up "hoovervilles" if you don't get it.
Look up "hoovervilles" if you don't get it.
Teen's 'fantastic' new name
A Somerset teenager has changed his name to Captain Fantastic Faster Than Superman Spiderman Batman Wolverine Hulk And The Flash Combined.
Music graduate George Garratt, 19, changed his name by deed poll online for 10, reports the Daily Telegraph. ...
... The teenager, from Glastonbury, added that while he thought the new name was "crazy", his grandmother was no longer speaking to him.
Neither is anyone else, besides the Telegraph.
He'll change it back when he realizes no one will sleep with him unless he does.
A Somerset teenager has changed his name to Captain Fantastic Faster Than Superman Spiderman Batman Wolverine Hulk And The Flash Combined.
Music graduate George Garratt, 19, changed his name by deed poll online for 10, reports the Daily Telegraph. ...
... The teenager, from Glastonbury, added that while he thought the new name was "crazy", his grandmother was no longer speaking to him.
Neither is anyone else, besides the Telegraph.
He'll change it back when he realizes no one will sleep with him unless he does.
More than 170 people around the globe, including at least 61 in the United States, have been arrested in a major operation targeting international child pornographers, officials said Friday. ...
So far beyond tacky my language lacks a suitable (non-expletive) word.
Dec. 12 (Bloomberg) -- The Federal Reserve refused a request by Bloomberg News to disclose the recipients of more than $2 trillion of emergency loans from U.S. taxpayers and the assets the central bank is accepting as collateral.
Bloomberg filed suit Nov. 7 under the U.S. Freedom of Information Act requesting details about the terms of 11 Fed lending programs, most created during the deepest financial crisis since the Great Depression.
The Fed responded Dec. 8, saying it's allowed to withhold internal memos as well as information about trade secrets and commercial information. The institution confirmed that a records search found 231 pages of documents pertaining to some of the requests.
"If they told us what they held, we would know the potential losses that the government may take and that's what they don't want us to know," said Carlos Mendez, a senior managing director at New York-based ICP Capital LLC, which oversees $22 billion in assets. ...
Bloomberg filed suit Nov. 7 under the U.S. Freedom of Information Act requesting details about the terms of 11 Fed lending programs, most created during the deepest financial crisis since the Great Depression.
The Fed responded Dec. 8, saying it's allowed to withhold internal memos as well as information about trade secrets and commercial information. The institution confirmed that a records search found 231 pages of documents pertaining to some of the requests.
"If they told us what they held, we would know the potential losses that the government may take and that's what they don't want us to know," said Carlos Mendez, a senior managing director at New York-based ICP Capital LLC, which oversees $22 billion in assets. ...
There are more people in slavery now than at any other time in human history....
WTF, Iran?
I don't have a problem with crazy people per se but I do have a problem with their holding office.
M'tags say it all, girls and boys.
FBI power in terror cases grows
Metro Detroiters worry it'll open door to profiling
BY NIRAJ WARIKOO
FREE PRESS STAFF WRITER
November 30, 2008
Beginning Monday, the FBI will get increased power to investigate suspected terrorists under revised administrative guidelines that some Muslim Americans and civil rights advocates in metro Detroit are concerned may target innocent people.
The new Justice Department guidelines will allow FBI agents, for the first time in terrorism-related cases, to use undercover sources to gather information in preliminary probes, interview people without identifying who they are and spy on suspects without first getting clear evidence of wrongdoing. ...
Metro Detroiters worry it'll open door to profiling
BY NIRAJ WARIKOO
FREE PRESS STAFF WRITER
November 30, 2008
Beginning Monday, the FBI will get increased power to investigate suspected terrorists under revised administrative guidelines that some Muslim Americans and civil rights advocates in metro Detroit are concerned may target innocent people.
The new Justice Department guidelines will allow FBI agents, for the first time in terrorism-related cases, to use undercover sources to gather information in preliminary probes, interview people without identifying who they are and spy on suspects without first getting clear evidence of wrongdoing. ...
All churches which dabble in politics should be paying taxes.
FDA defends U.S. infant formula; sets safe level
Fri Nov 28, 2008
By Susan Heavey
WASHINGTON, Nov 28 (Reuters) - The U.S. Food and Drug Administration defended the safety of infant formula sold in the United States on Friday despite tests that found the chemical melamine in one brand and a related compound in another.
The amounts found are far less than levels found in infant formula in China earlier this year and "do not raise public health concerns," said Stephen Sundlof, director of the FDA's Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition. "The domestic supply of infant formula is safe."
FDA tests found "very low levels" of the industrial chemical melamine in Nestle's Good Start Supreme with Iron formula, Sundlof said during a conference call. Low levels of cyanuric acid were found in Bristol-Myers Squibb unit Mead Johnson's Enfamil Lipil with Iron.
The agency said it had determined that levels of melamine or one of its related compounds, alone, below 1 part per million in infant formula were not a concern. ...
How about having no melamine at all in infant formula? How does that sound?
Fri Nov 28, 2008
By Susan Heavey
WASHINGTON, Nov 28 (Reuters) - The U.S. Food and Drug Administration defended the safety of infant formula sold in the United States on Friday despite tests that found the chemical melamine in one brand and a related compound in another.
The amounts found are far less than levels found in infant formula in China earlier this year and "do not raise public health concerns," said Stephen Sundlof, director of the FDA's Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition. "The domestic supply of infant formula is safe."
FDA tests found "very low levels" of the industrial chemical melamine in Nestle's Good Start Supreme with Iron formula, Sundlof said during a conference call. Low levels of cyanuric acid were found in Bristol-Myers Squibb unit Mead Johnson's Enfamil Lipil with Iron.
The agency said it had determined that levels of melamine or one of its related compounds, alone, below 1 part per million in infant formula were not a concern. ...
How about having no melamine at all in infant formula? How does that sound?
Australia government embroiled in homophobia row
Thu Nov 27, 2008
By Rob Taylor
CANBERRA (Reuters) - Australia's centre-left government was accused of homophobia Thursday after two men appointed as high-profile ambassadors for men's health were linked to a newsletter containing anti-gay views.
Health Minister Nicola Roxon was forced to sack one of the ambassadors, appointed only two days before, and said she should have been more diligent about background checks for the men.
"These comments particularly about homosexuality are quite abhorrent," Roxon told state radio after sacking one of the two men.
The two were among six men named earlier in the week as role-models for Australian men on health matters.
Both were later found to have been listed as co-authors and contributors to a newsletter calling homosexuality a mental illness and blaming "radical feminist-led attempts to enforce social androgyny" for harm of boys and young men. ...
I dislike few things more than insecure macho shiteheads. May they reach complete and total enlightenment on all levels, which will doubtless include many lives spent as women and/or homosexuals.
Thu Nov 27, 2008
By Rob Taylor
CANBERRA (Reuters) - Australia's centre-left government was accused of homophobia Thursday after two men appointed as high-profile ambassadors for men's health were linked to a newsletter containing anti-gay views.
Health Minister Nicola Roxon was forced to sack one of the ambassadors, appointed only two days before, and said she should have been more diligent about background checks for the men.
"These comments particularly about homosexuality are quite abhorrent," Roxon told state radio after sacking one of the two men.
The two were among six men named earlier in the week as role-models for Australian men on health matters.
Both were later found to have been listed as co-authors and contributors to a newsletter calling homosexuality a mental illness and blaming "radical feminist-led attempts to enforce social androgyny" for harm of boys and young men. ...
I dislike few things more than insecure macho shiteheads. May they reach complete and total enlightenment on all levels, which will doubtless include many lives spent as women and/or homosexuals.
We'd have an awful lot of abandoned homes around our churches and schools if no one could live there who'd had or given oral sex when teenaged.
Morons.
Morons.
This is the joint that should be filing for bankruptcy, not Circuit City. Don't shop at the slime pit that is best buy, ever.
Hanging's too good for this rich prick.
Woman sentenced for impersonating federal prosecutor
BY DAVID ASHENFELTER
FREE PRESS STAFF WRITER
November 21, 2008
A former Dexter Township trustee was sentenced Thursday to 22 months in prison and fined $3,000 for impersonating a federal prosecutor in a scheme to force her in-laws to evict tenants from a farmhouse she wanted to move into in the township.
Marcia Ottoman, 44, pleaded guilty in April to falsifying a letter supposedly written by an assistant U.S. attorney in Detroit ordering the eviction. Authorities said Ottoman had once lived in the farmhouse and hoped eventually to inherit or control the property. ...
BY DAVID ASHENFELTER
FREE PRESS STAFF WRITER
November 21, 2008
A former Dexter Township trustee was sentenced Thursday to 22 months in prison and fined $3,000 for impersonating a federal prosecutor in a scheme to force her in-laws to evict tenants from a farmhouse she wanted to move into in the township.
Marcia Ottoman, 44, pleaded guilty in April to falsifying a letter supposedly written by an assistant U.S. attorney in Detroit ordering the eviction. Authorities said Ottoman had once lived in the farmhouse and hoped eventually to inherit or control the property. ...
All too often birth control isn't used by the people who need it the most, like this evil bitch.
... What kind of monsters would force a teen to prematurely birth her child (who was subsequently thrown into a canal since he/she was deemed illegitimate by a killer father-in-law) and then based on some asinine rodent's "wisdom" would throw her to a pack of rabid canines?
While this epic torture drama ensued, hitmen were sent after Taslim's absconding mother to snuff out her life too. However, if all of this doesn't inspire serious fear and fury in you, then take heart in the knowledge that a government official - a top level assistant commissioner, no less - was at the helm of these vile proceedings. Yes, officially signed, sealed and delivered...
These "men" are not human, and no animal is that cruel. I don't know what they are, but they sure as hell ain't members of my species.
While this epic torture drama ensued, hitmen were sent after Taslim's absconding mother to snuff out her life too. However, if all of this doesn't inspire serious fear and fury in you, then take heart in the knowledge that a government official - a top level assistant commissioner, no less - was at the helm of these vile proceedings. Yes, officially signed, sealed and delivered...
These "men" are not human, and no animal is that cruel. I don't know what they are, but they sure as hell ain't members of my species.
shrub jr isn't just stupid: he's stupid and evil.
We live in two Americas. One America, now the minority, functions in a print-based, literate world. It can cope with complexity and has the intellectual tools to separate illusion from truth. The other America, which constitutes the majority, exists in a non-reality-based belief system. This America, dependent on skillfully manipulated images for information, has severed itself from the literate, print-based culture. It cannot differentiate between lies and truth. It is informed by simplistic, childish narratives and clichs. It is thrown into confusion by ambiguity, nuance and self-reflection. This divide, more than race, class or gender, more than rural or urban, believer or nonbeliever, red state or blue state, has split the country into radically distinct, unbridgeable and antagonistic entities.
There are over 42 million American adults, 20 percent of whom hold high school diplomas, who cannot read, as well as the 50 million who read at a fourth- or fifth-grade level. Nearly a third of the nation's population is illiterate or barely literate. And their numbers are growing by an estimated 2 million a year. But even those who are supposedly literate retreat in huge numbers into this image-based existence. A third of high school graduates, along with 42 percent of college graduates, never read a book after they finish school. Eighty percent of the families in the United States last year did not buy a book. ...
It's not often that I feel the urge to reproduce myself, but this article sure invoked it! It also reminds me - very powerfully - why I haven't bred: I have standards.
I once overheard a mother telling her grown daughter, "You wanna sleep with an idiot, that's one thing; but never have his kid or marry him!"
There are over 42 million American adults, 20 percent of whom hold high school diplomas, who cannot read, as well as the 50 million who read at a fourth- or fifth-grade level. Nearly a third of the nation's population is illiterate or barely literate. And their numbers are growing by an estimated 2 million a year. But even those who are supposedly literate retreat in huge numbers into this image-based existence. A third of high school graduates, along with 42 percent of college graduates, never read a book after they finish school. Eighty percent of the families in the United States last year did not buy a book. ...
It's not often that I feel the urge to reproduce myself, but this article sure invoked it! It also reminds me - very powerfully - why I haven't bred: I have standards.
I once overheard a mother telling her grown daughter, "You wanna sleep with an idiot, that's one thing; but never have his kid or marry him!"
...I do not believe in teaching children self esteem or that they should feel good about themselves, because they should not..... ...We are born with a desire to sin. We are all born God hating and evil. ...
That says it all. Must really suck being its kid, and getting fed daily loads of this black magic bullshit.
That says it all. Must really suck being its kid, and getting fed daily loads of this black magic bullshit.
CBC News - Technology & Science - WWF warns of global boycotts over Baffin Bay polar bear hunt quota
I am basically pro-hunting, but certainly not pro-exinction. This is nuts!
M'tags say it all, kids.
Sunday, 2 November 2008
Probe into data left in car park
An inquiry has been launched after a memory stick with user names and passwords for a key government computer system was found in a pub car park.
Subcontractor Atos Origin, which lost the stick, said there had been a "direct breach" of its procedures.
It said the matter was being taken "extremely seriously" but the integrity of the website, which was closed for a short time, had not been compromised.
Prime Minister Gordon Brown said the company would have "to explain itself".
'Strict rules'
The data breach is the latest in a series of embarrassing blunders regarding government information.
Work and Pensions Secretary James Purnell issued an apology on Saturday after he left confidential ministerial correspondence on a train.
Mr Brown said Cabinet Secretary Gus O'Donnell was sending out fresh instructions to ministers over how sensitive data must be handled.
"There are very strict rules about information being outside buildings and these have to be followed," he said.
"This recent case with a private company, where information about individuals has been lost, makes me even more determined that we will root out this problem about leaving things around." ...
Idiots.
Probe into data left in car park
An inquiry has been launched after a memory stick with user names and passwords for a key government computer system was found in a pub car park.
Subcontractor Atos Origin, which lost the stick, said there had been a "direct breach" of its procedures.
It said the matter was being taken "extremely seriously" but the integrity of the website, which was closed for a short time, had not been compromised.
Prime Minister Gordon Brown said the company would have "to explain itself".
'Strict rules'
The data breach is the latest in a series of embarrassing blunders regarding government information.
Work and Pensions Secretary James Purnell issued an apology on Saturday after he left confidential ministerial correspondence on a train.
Mr Brown said Cabinet Secretary Gus O'Donnell was sending out fresh instructions to ministers over how sensitive data must be handled.
"There are very strict rules about information being outside buildings and these have to be followed," he said.
"This recent case with a private company, where information about individuals has been lost, makes me even more determined that we will root out this problem about leaving things around." ...
Idiots.
Hate-filled men with rocks murdered a child because she was raped. This is the 21st century?! Why didn't they stone the rapist instead?
This is a perfect example of why I have a pathological fear of "organis/zed" religion.
This is a perfect example of why I have a pathological fear of "organis/zed" religion.
... Swingle said the victim identified Preyer as the attacker in both incidents. Preyer, of Jackson, Mo., had wet caulking from the recently repaired basement window on his clothing when he was shot.
"I will not be filing any sort of charge against this 57-year-old woman, who was clearly justified under the law in shooting this intruder in her home," Swingle said.
Well done the lady! It's wonderful to hear about a gun killing the right person - it's a nice change.
"I will not be filing any sort of charge against this 57-year-old woman, who was clearly justified under the law in shooting this intruder in her home," Swingle said.
Well done the lady! It's wonderful to hear about a gun killing the right person - it's a nice change.
Bring back Lenny Henry, says I!
Fox News VP: If McCain Worker 'Mutilation' Story Is a Hoax His Campaign Is 'Over'
by Greg Mitchell
Posted October 24, 2008
It had drawn wide local and national -- even political attention, with the McCain and Obama campaigns weighing in -- but now the Ashley Todd story has fallen apart. Police in Pittsburgh have now declared the tale a hoax and the woman, who has confessed, now faces charges for her deed.
Earlier today, John Moody, executive vice president at Fox News, commented on his blog there that "this incident could become a watershed event in the 11 days before the election. If Ms. Todd's allegations are proven accurate, some voters may revisit their support for Senator Obama, not because they are racists (with due respect to Rep. John Murtha), but because they suddenly feel they do not know enough about the Democratic nominee.
"If the incident turns out to be a hoax, Senator McCain's quest for the presidency is over, forever linked to race-baiting."
He titled his posting: "Moment of Truth." Indeed. ...
by Greg Mitchell
Posted October 24, 2008
It had drawn wide local and national -- even political attention, with the McCain and Obama campaigns weighing in -- but now the Ashley Todd story has fallen apart. Police in Pittsburgh have now declared the tale a hoax and the woman, who has confessed, now faces charges for her deed.
Earlier today, John Moody, executive vice president at Fox News, commented on his blog there that "this incident could become a watershed event in the 11 days before the election. If Ms. Todd's allegations are proven accurate, some voters may revisit their support for Senator Obama, not because they are racists (with due respect to Rep. John Murtha), but because they suddenly feel they do not know enough about the Democratic nominee.
"If the incident turns out to be a hoax, Senator McCain's quest for the presidency is over, forever linked to race-baiting."
He titled his posting: "Moment of Truth." Indeed. ...
Henry Ford High shooting case headed to Cox's office
By NAOMI R. PATTON and CHASTITY PRATT DAWSEY
October 18, 2008
Wayne County Prosecutor Kym Worthy announced today that the Henry Ford High School shooting case that left one teen dead and three others wounded, will be transferred from her office to Michigan Attorney General Mike Cox's office to avoid a potential conflict of interest.
One of the suspects in Thursday's shooting outside Henry Ford in Detroit is the son of a Detroit Police homicide investigator and, in a statement released today, Worthy said her office has a "close working relationship" with the police lieutenant.
On Friday, Ronald Fleming, assistant chief for the Detroit Police, announced they were turning the case over to the Michigan State Police, also, to avoid a conflict of interest.
Police arrested three suspects, ages 15 to 18, about five hours after Christopher Walker, 16, was fatally shot in the head and chest about a block away from school after dismissal Thursday. Police said Christopher appears to have been targeted by the shooters. Also shot were two boys, ages 15 and 16 -- one in the leg, the other in the face -- and a 15-year-old girl in the arm.
The [vehicle] the suspects drove was registered to the officer's family, police confirmed....
By NAOMI R. PATTON and CHASTITY PRATT DAWSEY
October 18, 2008
Wayne County Prosecutor Kym Worthy announced today that the Henry Ford High School shooting case that left one teen dead and three others wounded, will be transferred from her office to Michigan Attorney General Mike Cox's office to avoid a potential conflict of interest.
One of the suspects in Thursday's shooting outside Henry Ford in Detroit is the son of a Detroit Police homicide investigator and, in a statement released today, Worthy said her office has a "close working relationship" with the police lieutenant.
On Friday, Ronald Fleming, assistant chief for the Detroit Police, announced they were turning the case over to the Michigan State Police, also, to avoid a conflict of interest.
Police arrested three suspects, ages 15 to 18, about five hours after Christopher Walker, 16, was fatally shot in the head and chest about a block away from school after dismissal Thursday. Police said Christopher appears to have been targeted by the shooters. Also shot were two boys, ages 15 and 16 -- one in the leg, the other in the face -- and a 15-year-old girl in the arm.
The [vehicle] the suspects drove was registered to the officer's family, police confirmed....
Ever wondered whence came Yankistan's "white trash?"
Ever wondered why flarida resembles a diseased prick?
White House memos endorsed CIA waterboarding says report
Wed Oct 15, 2008
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Bush administration explicitly endorsed the use of waterboarding and other harsh interrogation methods against al Qaeda suspects in a pair of secret memos to the CIA in 2003 and 2004, The Washington Post reported on Wednesday.
The previously undisclosed classified memos were requested by then CIA Director George Tenet more than a year after the start of the secret interrogations, the newspaper reported, citing administration and intelligence officials familiar with the documents.
A White House spokesman had no comment on the report.
According the newspaper, intelligence officials sought cover from the White House because they were worried about a possible backlash if details of the interrogation program became public.
Justice Department lawyers signed off on the agency's interrogation methods beginning in 2002, but senior CIA officials were troubled that White House policymakers had never endorsed the program in writing, the Post reported.
Repeated requests by the CIA chief for a paper trail reflected growing worries within the agency that the administration might later distance itself from decisions about the handling of captured al Qaeda leaders, the Post said, citing former intelligence officials who spoke on condition of anonymity.
The officials told the newspaper Tenet first pressed the White House for written approval in June 2003 during a meeting with members of the National Security Council.
A few days later, Tenet received a brief memo conveying the administration's approval for the CIA's interrogation methods, the officials were cited as saying. ...
Wed Oct 15, 2008
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Bush administration explicitly endorsed the use of waterboarding and other harsh interrogation methods against al Qaeda suspects in a pair of secret memos to the CIA in 2003 and 2004, The Washington Post reported on Wednesday.
The previously undisclosed classified memos were requested by then CIA Director George Tenet more than a year after the start of the secret interrogations, the newspaper reported, citing administration and intelligence officials familiar with the documents.
A White House spokesman had no comment on the report.
According the newspaper, intelligence officials sought cover from the White House because they were worried about a possible backlash if details of the interrogation program became public.
Justice Department lawyers signed off on the agency's interrogation methods beginning in 2002, but senior CIA officials were troubled that White House policymakers had never endorsed the program in writing, the Post reported.
Repeated requests by the CIA chief for a paper trail reflected growing worries within the agency that the administration might later distance itself from decisions about the handling of captured al Qaeda leaders, the Post said, citing former intelligence officials who spoke on condition of anonymity.
The officials told the newspaper Tenet first pressed the White House for written approval in June 2003 during a meeting with members of the National Security Council.
A few days later, Tenet received a brief memo conveying the administration's approval for the CIA's interrogation methods, the officials were cited as saying. ...
Its behavio/ur certainly isn't conservative. It acts like a spoilt-rotten six-year-old. Anyone who thinks something that acts that way is suitable for the leader of the free world really needs a shrink.
15th century minds don't go well with 21st century bodies.
Exclusive: Inside Account of U.S. Eavesdropping on Americans
U.S. Officers' "Phone Sex" Intercepted; Senate Demanding Answers
By BRIAN ROSS, VIC WALTER, and ANNA SCHECTER
Oct. 9, 2008
Despite pledges by President George W. Bush and American intelligence officials to the contrary, hundreds of US citizens overseas have been eavesdropped on as they called friends and family back home, according to two former military intercept operators who worked at the giant National Security Agency (NSA) center in Fort Gordon, Georgia.
Intercept operators allege the NSA is listening to citizens' phone calls.
The chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, Jay Rockefeller (D-WV), called the allegations "extremely disturbing" and said the committee has begun its own examination.
"We have requested all relevant information from the Bush Administration," Rockefeller said Thursday. "The Committee will take whatever action is necessary." ...
... Kinne described the contents of the calls as "personal, private things with Americans who are not in any way, shape or form associated with anything to do with terrorism."
U.S. Officers' "Phone Sex" Intercepted; Senate Demanding Answers
By BRIAN ROSS, VIC WALTER, and ANNA SCHECTER
Oct. 9, 2008
Despite pledges by President George W. Bush and American intelligence officials to the contrary, hundreds of US citizens overseas have been eavesdropped on as they called friends and family back home, according to two former military intercept operators who worked at the giant National Security Agency (NSA) center in Fort Gordon, Georgia.
Intercept operators allege the NSA is listening to citizens' phone calls.
The chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, Jay Rockefeller (D-WV), called the allegations "extremely disturbing" and said the committee has begun its own examination.
"We have requested all relevant information from the Bush Administration," Rockefeller said Thursday. "The Committee will take whatever action is necessary." ...
... Kinne described the contents of the calls as "personal, private things with Americans who are not in any way, shape or form associated with anything to do with terrorism."
starbucks = evil
"Cocaine's a helluva drug," especially avec l'alcool, and most esp if you're a testosterone-poisoned prick without even taking such substances.
This jackass shouldn't even be teaching mcdonald's burger college students.
September 30, 2008
The real name of the bailout bill
Posted by Karen U. Kwiatkowski at September 30, 2008 07:44 AM
Looking at the recorded vote it amazed me to see the "question" and the title of the bailout bill:
H R 3997 RECORDED VOTE 29-Sep-2008 2:07 PM
QUESTION: On Concurring in Senate Amendment With An Amendment
BILL TITLE: To amend the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 to provide earnings assistance and tax relief to members of the uniformed services, volunteer firefighters, and Peace Corps volunteers, and for other purposes
Funny, who knew it was all about firefighters and Peace Corps volunteers!! This win for the people against the elite is not what I expected Sunday -- but it is wonderful. I await the next move by the criminal-in-chief and his posse.
The real name of the bailout bill
Posted by Karen U. Kwiatkowski at September 30, 2008 07:44 AM
Looking at the recorded vote it amazed me to see the "question" and the title of the bailout bill:
H R 3997 RECORDED VOTE 29-Sep-2008 2:07 PM
QUESTION: On Concurring in Senate Amendment With An Amendment
BILL TITLE: To amend the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 to provide earnings assistance and tax relief to members of the uniformed services, volunteer firefighters, and Peace Corps volunteers, and for other purposes
Funny, who knew it was all about firefighters and Peace Corps volunteers!! This win for the people against the elite is not what I expected Sunday -- but it is wonderful. I await the next move by the criminal-in-chief and his posse.
Anti-terror computer stolen from open window of MI5 officer's home
2nd October 2008
A computer containing highly-sensitive information on the fight against terrorism has been stolen from a house used by an MI5 officer.
The property in Greater Manchester was rented by the intelligence service.
But the information on the hand-held computer was encrypted and MI5 say it would be virtually impossible for anyone to extract details from it.
The theft is not being regarded as act of negligence on the part of the officer who was using the house. It is believed the property accessed through an open window by an opportunist burglar and was not deliberately targeted. ...
Uh-huh. I wonder how much they paid the guy who left the window open.
2nd October 2008
A computer containing highly-sensitive information on the fight against terrorism has been stolen from a house used by an MI5 officer.
The property in Greater Manchester was rented by the intelligence service.
But the information on the hand-held computer was encrypted and MI5 say it would be virtually impossible for anyone to extract details from it.
The theft is not being regarded as act of negligence on the part of the officer who was using the house. It is believed the property accessed through an open window by an opportunist burglar and was not deliberately targeted. ...
Uh-huh. I wonder how much they paid the guy who left the window open.
M'tags say it all, girls and boys.
Blast in Mehrauli area in Delhi
27 Sep 2008
NEW DELHI: 11-year-old Santosh Kumar died and more than 18 people were injured when a crude bomb exploded at a crowded flower market at Mehrauli, south Delhi, close to the historic Qutub Minar, at 2.12pm on Saturday, police said.
The injured have been admitted to AIIMS; 12 of them are at the Trauma Centre. Five of them suffered serious head injuries. Three or four of the injured could be required to be operated upon, Union Home Secretary Madhukar Gupta told reporters.
Police said that the blast appeared to be similar in nature to the ones that took place near IIT and Lado Sarai in January, February this year.
Riding a black motorcycle, the two men in black dress and wearing helmets, dropped a black polythene bag containing a tiffin box opposite an electronic goods shop in the flower market in Mehrauli, Deputy Commissioner of Police (South) H S Dhaliwal told reporters. ...
27 Sep 2008
NEW DELHI: 11-year-old Santosh Kumar died and more than 18 people were injured when a crude bomb exploded at a crowded flower market at Mehrauli, south Delhi, close to the historic Qutub Minar, at 2.12pm on Saturday, police said.
The injured have been admitted to AIIMS; 12 of them are at the Trauma Centre. Five of them suffered serious head injuries. Three or four of the injured could be required to be operated upon, Union Home Secretary Madhukar Gupta told reporters.
Police said that the blast appeared to be similar in nature to the ones that took place near IIT and Lado Sarai in January, February this year.
Riding a black motorcycle, the two men in black dress and wearing helmets, dropped a black polythene bag containing a tiffin box opposite an electronic goods shop in the flower market in Mehrauli, Deputy Commissioner of Police (South) H S Dhaliwal told reporters. ...
Mark this day down. Today - last night, actually - the New York Times and Roll Call reported (it's hard to see who was first) what may be the biggest political story of the campaign. How big? John McCain might have to fire his campaign manager. Big enough?
The story is this. The lobbying firm of Rick Davis, the manager, was being paid $15,000 a month by Freddie Mac until last month. That fact is a direct contradiction of words McCain had spoken Sunday night. At that time, responding to a Times story being prepared for Monday's paper revealing that Davis had been the head of a lobbying consortium led by Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae until 2005, McCain said Davis had done no further work for either mortgage giant.
Someone's lying - either Davis to McCain, or McCain to the public. I trust you see the problem here. ...
The story is this. The lobbying firm of Rick Davis, the manager, was being paid $15,000 a month by Freddie Mac until last month. That fact is a direct contradiction of words McCain had spoken Sunday night. At that time, responding to a Times story being prepared for Monday's paper revealing that Davis had been the head of a lobbying consortium led by Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae until 2005, McCain said Davis had done no further work for either mortgage giant.
Someone's lying - either Davis to McCain, or McCain to the public. I trust you see the problem here. ...
Nutshell version: "Nothing we decide to do can be changed or even challenged by You The People; so sit down, shut up, pay your taxes, and be sure your family breeds great-grandchildren who will pay the debts we incur."
"Worrying?" How about "disgusting" or "shocking" or "horrifying"?
WTF, chinastan?
M'tags say it all.
Permalink
Permalink
Thursday, September 18, 2008
DTE seeks to add nuclear reactor at Fermi 2 plant
Christina Rogers / The Detroit News
Detroit Edison is seeking federal approval to build a second reactor at its Fermi 2 plan near Newport, Mich., a move officials say will help it meet the growing energy demands of its 2.1 million customers and help the company cut back on energy production from its coal-burning plants which release carbon-dioxide emissions into the air.
The power company filed a licensing application with the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission today to build and operate the nuclear plant next to its existing 1,130-megawatt reactor in Monroe County. The existing nuclear reactor is a landmark, with its two massive, cylindrical stacks that distinguish it from the landscape and are used to let off water vapor from the plant's cooling system. The new reactor also will require adding another one or two stacks to the site. ...
To hell with that shit! These idiots have far too many problems with the plants they already have!
How about a wind farm, guys? A wind farm won't make Lake Erie glow eerily at night like those damn nuke plants. What a concept!
DTE seeks to add nuclear reactor at Fermi 2 plant
Christina Rogers / The Detroit News
Detroit Edison is seeking federal approval to build a second reactor at its Fermi 2 plan near Newport, Mich., a move officials say will help it meet the growing energy demands of its 2.1 million customers and help the company cut back on energy production from its coal-burning plants which release carbon-dioxide emissions into the air.
The power company filed a licensing application with the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission today to build and operate the nuclear plant next to its existing 1,130-megawatt reactor in Monroe County. The existing nuclear reactor is a landmark, with its two massive, cylindrical stacks that distinguish it from the landscape and are used to let off water vapor from the plant's cooling system. The new reactor also will require adding another one or two stacks to the site. ...
To hell with that shit! These idiots have far too many problems with the plants they already have!
How about a wind farm, guys? A wind farm won't make Lake Erie glow eerily at night like those damn nuke plants. What a concept!
[Mr Rogers]Can you say, "overreaction?" I knew you could.[/Mr Rogers]
NHS: Personal details of 18,000 staff 'lost in the post'
The personal details of nearly 18,000 NHS staff have gone missing in the post, it has emerged.
By Aislinn Simpson
15 Sep 2008
Four computer discs containing the details of 17,990 current and former staff were lost in July when they were sent between Whittington Hospital NHS Trust in north London and McKesson, a firm providing IT payroll services.
They contained the names, dates of birth, national insurance numbers, start dates and pay details of all staff of Whittington Hospital NHS Trust, Islington Primary Care Trust, Camden Primary Care Trust and Camden and Islington NHS Foundation Trust.
They also contained the addresses of some staff, although Whittington trust insisted they did not contain anyone's personal bank account details.
The trust said the discs went missing when an envelope they were in was placed in a post tray marked "recorded delivery" on Tuesday 22 July. But there was no record of the discs being sent.
David Sloman, chief executive of the trust, said each one had a "separate alpha-numeric passwords on them which unless found by expert hackers are very difficult to break".
He apologised to all those affected by the blunder, saying it was the first time information had been sent through the post and that the member of staff thought to be responsible has been suspended.
"It is trust policy to send any such information by courier," he said.
"To our knowledge this is the one and only time that such information was directed through the post. ..."
The personal details of nearly 18,000 NHS staff have gone missing in the post, it has emerged.
By Aislinn Simpson
15 Sep 2008
Four computer discs containing the details of 17,990 current and former staff were lost in July when they were sent between Whittington Hospital NHS Trust in north London and McKesson, a firm providing IT payroll services.
They contained the names, dates of birth, national insurance numbers, start dates and pay details of all staff of Whittington Hospital NHS Trust, Islington Primary Care Trust, Camden Primary Care Trust and Camden and Islington NHS Foundation Trust.
They also contained the addresses of some staff, although Whittington trust insisted they did not contain anyone's personal bank account details.
The trust said the discs went missing when an envelope they were in was placed in a post tray marked "recorded delivery" on Tuesday 22 July. But there was no record of the discs being sent.
David Sloman, chief executive of the trust, said each one had a "separate alpha-numeric passwords on them which unless found by expert hackers are very difficult to break".
He apologised to all those affected by the blunder, saying it was the first time information had been sent through the post and that the member of staff thought to be responsible has been suspended.
"It is trust policy to send any such information by courier," he said.
"To our knowledge this is the one and only time that such information was directed through the post. ..."
Mars Petcare US Announces Nationwide Voluntary Recall
Franklin, Tennessee (September 12, 2008) -- Today, Mars Petcare US announced a voluntary recall of products manufactured at its Everson, Pennsylvania facility. The pet food is being voluntarily recalled because of potential contamination with Salmonella serotype Schwarzengrund. This voluntary recall only affects the United States.
Salmonella can cause serious infections in dogs and cats, and, if there is cross contamination caused by handling of the pet food, in people as well, especially children, the aged, and people with compromised immune systems. Healthy people potentially infected with Salmonella should monitor themselves for some or all of the following symptoms: nausea, vomiting, diarrhea or bloody diarrhea, abdominal cramping and fever. On rare occasions, Salmonella can result in more serious ailments, including arterial infections, endocarditis, arthritis, muscle pain, eye irritation, and urinary tract symptoms. Consumers exhibiting these signs after having contact with this product should contact their healthcare providers.
Pets with Salmonella infections may be lethargic and have diarrhea or bloody diarrhea, fever, and vomiting. Some pets will have only decreased appetite, fever and abdominal pain. Animals can be carriers with no visible symptoms and can potentially infect other animals or humans. If your pet has consumed the recalled product and has these symptoms, please contact your veterinarian.
The company stopped production at the Everson facility on July 29, 2008 when it was alerted of a possible link between dry pet food produced at the plant and two isolated cases of people infected with Salmonella Schwarzengrund.
Even though no direct link between product produced at Everson and human or pet illness has been made, Mars Petcare US is taking precautionary action to protect pets and their owners by announcing a voluntary recall of all products produced at the Everson facility beginning February 18, 2008 until July 29, 2008 when we stopped production.
The company is continuing to work collaboratively with the FDA to determine the nature and source of Salmonella Schwarzengrund at the Everson facility. Since it has not yet identified the source of the Salmonella Schwarzengrund at the Everson facility, Mars Petcare US does not plan to resume production out of a commitment to the safety of our pet owners and their pets, customers, and associates. ...
The site lists all affected products.
Franklin, Tennessee (September 12, 2008) -- Today, Mars Petcare US announced a voluntary recall of products manufactured at its Everson, Pennsylvania facility. The pet food is being voluntarily recalled because of potential contamination with Salmonella serotype Schwarzengrund. This voluntary recall only affects the United States.
Salmonella can cause serious infections in dogs and cats, and, if there is cross contamination caused by handling of the pet food, in people as well, especially children, the aged, and people with compromised immune systems. Healthy people potentially infected with Salmonella should monitor themselves for some or all of the following symptoms: nausea, vomiting, diarrhea or bloody diarrhea, abdominal cramping and fever. On rare occasions, Salmonella can result in more serious ailments, including arterial infections, endocarditis, arthritis, muscle pain, eye irritation, and urinary tract symptoms. Consumers exhibiting these signs after having contact with this product should contact their healthcare providers.
Pets with Salmonella infections may be lethargic and have diarrhea or bloody diarrhea, fever, and vomiting. Some pets will have only decreased appetite, fever and abdominal pain. Animals can be carriers with no visible symptoms and can potentially infect other animals or humans. If your pet has consumed the recalled product and has these symptoms, please contact your veterinarian.
The company stopped production at the Everson facility on July 29, 2008 when it was alerted of a possible link between dry pet food produced at the plant and two isolated cases of people infected with Salmonella Schwarzengrund.
Even though no direct link between product produced at Everson and human or pet illness has been made, Mars Petcare US is taking precautionary action to protect pets and their owners by announcing a voluntary recall of all products produced at the Everson facility beginning February 18, 2008 until July 29, 2008 when we stopped production.
The company is continuing to work collaboratively with the FDA to determine the nature and source of Salmonella Schwarzengrund at the Everson facility. Since it has not yet identified the source of the Salmonella Schwarzengrund at the Everson facility, Mars Petcare US does not plan to resume production out of a commitment to the safety of our pet owners and their pets, customers, and associates. ...
The site lists all affected products.
I bet she's not really a woman. She's just like the Africans who sold other Africans into slavery hundreds of years ago.
It must really suck having her karma.
I hope it finds her soon.
It must really suck having her karma.
I hope it finds her soon.
Serial blasts rock Delhi; 18 dead, over 100 injured
13 Sep 2008
NEW DELHI: At least five blasts ripped through different parts of the National Capital on Saturday evening between 6:15 PM and 7 PM. At least 18 have been killed and over 100 have been injured. Unconfirmed reports say the casualty figure may be higher.
The blasts took place in the Gaffar Market area of Karol Bagh, two blasts in Connaught Place, and another in Greater Kailash (M-block).
The impact of the blasts in Karol Bagh could be gauged by the fact that an auto was thrown up and got caught in the electrical wires.
According to Delhi Police, two persons were detained from Connaught Place area soon after the blasts.
Police said a boy named Rahul had claimed to have seen the terrorists.
Rahul informed the police that terrorists were travelling in an auto-rickshaw. He also said that the terrorists were clad in black kurta-pyjama.
Security was tightened across the National Capital, with police personnel fanning out in large numbers to railway and Metro stations, hospitals, bus terminals and airport.
Gun-toting security personnel were deployed at sensitive points after explosions in a span of 45 minutes ripped through the city.
Barricades were put up at several places to regulate traffic. There was chaos on the roads as people who were outside rushed back home following the blasts.
Security was stepped up at railway and Metro stations, inter-state bus terminals, airport, cinema halls, shopping malls and other sensitive points.
Several major city markets, including the popular Sarojini Nagar Market which was targeted in the previous Diwali-eve blasts in 2006, were shut down and evacuated.
Mobile services were jammed in Connaught Place and Gaffar Market area, the sites of three of the explosions.
Extra personnel have been deployed at religious places, besides keeping an extra vigil on the borders. ...
13 Sep 2008
NEW DELHI: At least five blasts ripped through different parts of the National Capital on Saturday evening between 6:15 PM and 7 PM. At least 18 have been killed and over 100 have been injured. Unconfirmed reports say the casualty figure may be higher.
The blasts took place in the Gaffar Market area of Karol Bagh, two blasts in Connaught Place, and another in Greater Kailash (M-block).
The impact of the blasts in Karol Bagh could be gauged by the fact that an auto was thrown up and got caught in the electrical wires.
According to Delhi Police, two persons were detained from Connaught Place area soon after the blasts.
Police said a boy named Rahul had claimed to have seen the terrorists.
Rahul informed the police that terrorists were travelling in an auto-rickshaw. He also said that the terrorists were clad in black kurta-pyjama.
Security was tightened across the National Capital, with police personnel fanning out in large numbers to railway and Metro stations, hospitals, bus terminals and airport.
Gun-toting security personnel were deployed at sensitive points after explosions in a span of 45 minutes ripped through the city.
Barricades were put up at several places to regulate traffic. There was chaos on the roads as people who were outside rushed back home following the blasts.
Security was stepped up at railway and Metro stations, inter-state bus terminals, airport, cinema halls, shopping malls and other sensitive points.
Several major city markets, including the popular Sarojini Nagar Market which was targeted in the previous Diwali-eve blasts in 2006, were shut down and evacuated.
Mobile services were jammed in Connaught Place and Gaffar Market area, the sites of three of the explosions.
Extra personnel have been deployed at religious places, besides keeping an extra vigil on the borders. ...
Government workers in oil industry sex and drug scandal
Thu Sep 11, 2008
By Tom Doggett
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Interior Department employees who oversaw oil drilling on federal lands had sex and used illegal drugs with workers at energy companies where they were conducting official business, an internal government report said on Wednesday.
Employees at the department's Minerals Management Service "socialized with, and received a wide array of gifts and gratuities from, oil and gas companies," according to the department's inspector general, Earl Devaney.
"When confronted by our investigators, none of the employees involved displayed remorse," Devaney said.
The alleged activities occurred between 2002 and 2006 and involved 19 former and current workers at the Minerals Management Service's offices in Denver and Washington. Devaney recommended that those still on the job be fired.
The workers were involved in the "royalty-in-kind" program that collects and sells oil and gas turned over by energy companies as royalties for drilling on federal lands. About $4 billion a year in royalty-in-kind oil and gas is collected and sold by the department.
The oil companies named in the report were Chevron, Shell Oil, Hess Corp and Gary Williams Energy Corp. ...
1st Update:
Interior Secretary "outraged" by oil-sex scandal
Thu Sep 11, 2008
By Tom Doggett
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne on Thursday said he was "outraged" by department workers who had sex, used drugs and took gifts from employees at regulated oil companies, while one senator called for a Bush administration official to resign over the scandal.
The Interior Department's inspector general issued a scathing report on Wednesday that found "a culture of substance abuse and promiscuity" at the department's Minerals Management Service, whose employees handled billions of dollars in oil and natural gas supplies that were turned over by companies as in-kind royalty payments for drilling on federal lands.
"I am outraged by the immoral behavior, illegal activities, and appalling misconduct of several former and current long-serving career employees in the Minerals Management Service's royalty-in-kind program," Kempthorne said. "We will take swift action to restore the public trust."
Democratic Sen. Bill Nelson of Florida called for the agency's top head, MMS director Randall Luthi, to resign. ...
Thu Sep 11, 2008
By Tom Doggett
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Interior Department employees who oversaw oil drilling on federal lands had sex and used illegal drugs with workers at energy companies where they were conducting official business, an internal government report said on Wednesday.
Employees at the department's Minerals Management Service "socialized with, and received a wide array of gifts and gratuities from, oil and gas companies," according to the department's inspector general, Earl Devaney.
"When confronted by our investigators, none of the employees involved displayed remorse," Devaney said.
The alleged activities occurred between 2002 and 2006 and involved 19 former and current workers at the Minerals Management Service's offices in Denver and Washington. Devaney recommended that those still on the job be fired.
The workers were involved in the "royalty-in-kind" program that collects and sells oil and gas turned over by energy companies as royalties for drilling on federal lands. About $4 billion a year in royalty-in-kind oil and gas is collected and sold by the department.
The oil companies named in the report were Chevron, Shell Oil, Hess Corp and Gary Williams Energy Corp. ...
1st Update:
Interior Secretary "outraged" by oil-sex scandal
Thu Sep 11, 2008
By Tom Doggett
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne on Thursday said he was "outraged" by department workers who had sex, used drugs and took gifts from employees at regulated oil companies, while one senator called for a Bush administration official to resign over the scandal.
The Interior Department's inspector general issued a scathing report on Wednesday that found "a culture of substance abuse and promiscuity" at the department's Minerals Management Service, whose employees handled billions of dollars in oil and natural gas supplies that were turned over by companies as in-kind royalty payments for drilling on federal lands.
"I am outraged by the immoral behavior, illegal activities, and appalling misconduct of several former and current long-serving career employees in the Minerals Management Service's royalty-in-kind program," Kempthorne said. "We will take swift action to restore the public trust."
Democratic Sen. Bill Nelson of Florida called for the agency's top head, MMS director Randall Luthi, to resign. ...
Baby dies as new milk powder scare spreads across China
Thu Sep 11, 2008
By Ian Ransom
BEIJING (Reuters) - Tainted milk formula has killed one baby and caused the development of kidney stones in dozens of others who may have drunk the same product, Chinese authorities concluded on Thursday, in a grim reminder of a milk-powder scandal that killed 13 infants four years ago.
Traces of cyanuramide, which can cause kidney stones, were found in Sanlu-brand milk formula, the Ministry of Health said late on Thursday. The Sanlu Group issued an immediate recall of milk formula made before Aug 6.
Doctors in Gansu Province, in northwestern China, told the Xinhua news agency this week that "fake milk powder" from one brand could have been responsible for kidney stones developing in 14 patients, all infants under 11 months.
Parents of the affected babies, mostly from poor and remote areas, said they had bought the powder much more cheaply than usual, Xinhua said.
Gansu health authorities were aware of the problem as early as July 16, after a local hospital reported seeing 16 babies with kidney stones who had all drunk the same brand of formula, Xinhua said, without explaining the delay in disclosure. ...
Thu Sep 11, 2008
By Ian Ransom
BEIJING (Reuters) - Tainted milk formula has killed one baby and caused the development of kidney stones in dozens of others who may have drunk the same product, Chinese authorities concluded on Thursday, in a grim reminder of a milk-powder scandal that killed 13 infants four years ago.
Traces of cyanuramide, which can cause kidney stones, were found in Sanlu-brand milk formula, the Ministry of Health said late on Thursday. The Sanlu Group issued an immediate recall of milk formula made before Aug 6.
Doctors in Gansu Province, in northwestern China, told the Xinhua news agency this week that "fake milk powder" from one brand could have been responsible for kidney stones developing in 14 patients, all infants under 11 months.
Parents of the affected babies, mostly from poor and remote areas, said they had bought the powder much more cheaply than usual, Xinhua said.
Gansu health authorities were aware of the problem as early as July 16, after a local hospital reported seeing 16 babies with kidney stones who had all drunk the same brand of formula, Xinhua said, without explaining the delay in disclosure. ...
Conyers to 'evil' media: 'Leave me alone!'
BY ZACHARY GORCHOW
FREE PRESS STAFF WRITER
September 9, 2008
If incoming Detroit City Council President Monica Conyers wants to persuade residents that she has learned to control her temper as she prepares to lead the council, Monday was a bad start.
Conyers, after exiting the elevators on the 13th floor of the Coleman A. Young Municipal Center, stormed into council offices ranting at the news media.
"You are all evil!" she shouted. "Please leave me alone!"
Conyers' outburst happened before a reporter asked her a question. She then asked a City Council sergeant to escort her.
And then, after entering the council chambers, she interrupted the Public Health and Safety Committee's discussion about non-motorized transportation in the city to bemoan the presence of reporters near her house. She said a council member's job is "part-time" and doesn't warrant such scrutiny.
Conyers makes $81,000 a year. Council members also get a city car -- a Ford Crown Victoria -- to drive.
Afterward, Conyers was approached by a reporter wanting to interview her. Conyers responded, "Please," and continued to walk away.
Conyers' spokeswoman Denise Johnson said Conyers was upset because reporters were waiting for her outside a courthouse where she was scheduled Monday for jury duty.
Monday's outburst is the latest in a long string of incidents involving Conyers. After winning election, but before taking office, Conyers was involved in a bar fight but was exonerated. ...
BY ZACHARY GORCHOW
FREE PRESS STAFF WRITER
September 9, 2008
If incoming Detroit City Council President Monica Conyers wants to persuade residents that she has learned to control her temper as she prepares to lead the council, Monday was a bad start.
Conyers, after exiting the elevators on the 13th floor of the Coleman A. Young Municipal Center, stormed into council offices ranting at the news media.
"You are all evil!" she shouted. "Please leave me alone!"
Conyers' outburst happened before a reporter asked her a question. She then asked a City Council sergeant to escort her.
And then, after entering the council chambers, she interrupted the Public Health and Safety Committee's discussion about non-motorized transportation in the city to bemoan the presence of reporters near her house. She said a council member's job is "part-time" and doesn't warrant such scrutiny.
Conyers makes $81,000 a year. Council members also get a city car -- a Ford Crown Victoria -- to drive.
Afterward, Conyers was approached by a reporter wanting to interview her. Conyers responded, "Please," and continued to walk away.
Conyers' spokeswoman Denise Johnson said Conyers was upset because reporters were waiting for her outside a courthouse where she was scheduled Monday for jury duty.
Monday's outburst is the latest in a long string of incidents involving Conyers. After winning election, but before taking office, Conyers was involved in a bar fight but was exonerated. ...
This isn't what we mean when we tell the oil companies "Go get fucked!"
It's not a war on drugs, it's a war against each country's own citizens. Were it an actual war on drugs, more dealers than users would be imprisioned, and cops on the scene would have actual warrants.
When will a Canadastani be able to grow tomatoes in his basement without being thrown to the ground by cops and handcuffed? When will a Yankistani be able to grow orchids in her home without the d.e.a. breaking in the door?
When will a Canadastani be able to grow tomatoes in his basement without being thrown to the ground by cops and handcuffed? When will a Yankistani be able to grow orchids in her home without the d.e.a. breaking in the door?
Land of the free and home of the brave, girls and boys.
bush, stay out of mine!
Anyone who thinks sexism is a myth is sound asleep.
Ex-mayoral bodyguard's gun found with felon
BY BEN SCHMITT and DAVID ASHENFELTER
FREE PRESS STAFF WRITERS
August 29, 2008
A convicted felon was recently found in possession of a stolen .40 caliber Glock handgun that belonged to Loronzo (Greg) Jones, the former commanding officer of Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick's security team, according to police reports obtained by the Free Press.
Detroit Police arrested Anthony Nixon on Aug. 9 after he was allegedly riding in a stolen van with another man. A report filed in U.S. District Court said police found a stolen Detroit Police department-issued gun in the passenger floorboard of the 1989 GMC van "where Nixon had been previously observed bending over."
Nixon has several convictions including, possession of cocaine and armed robbery, court records show.
Royal Oak Police Lt. Corey O'Donohue said today that Jones reported the gun stolen on July 25, 2007. Jones told police he accidentally left the gun in a bathroom stall of the Memphis Smoke bar and restaurant on July 23, 2007. ...
BY BEN SCHMITT and DAVID ASHENFELTER
FREE PRESS STAFF WRITERS
August 29, 2008
A convicted felon was recently found in possession of a stolen .40 caliber Glock handgun that belonged to Loronzo (Greg) Jones, the former commanding officer of Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick's security team, according to police reports obtained by the Free Press.
Detroit Police arrested Anthony Nixon on Aug. 9 after he was allegedly riding in a stolen van with another man. A report filed in U.S. District Court said police found a stolen Detroit Police department-issued gun in the passenger floorboard of the 1989 GMC van "where Nixon had been previously observed bending over."
Nixon has several convictions including, possession of cocaine and armed robbery, court records show.
Royal Oak Police Lt. Corey O'Donohue said today that Jones reported the gun stolen on July 25, 2007. Jones told police he accidentally left the gun in a bathroom stall of the Memphis Smoke bar and restaurant on July 23, 2007. ...
Thanks to dear Jasper1949, I now know that il duce's back.
WTF?! Wherever will shrub find soldiers for this? blackfrickenwater?
The good thing about dying industry - Detroiters know all about that - is environmental improvement.
Canada is no longer trying to sue our ass over acid rain: we're producing far less acid rain since we're not producing anything.
All the steel mills and chemical plants and cement factories on the Detroit River have closed, and now we can eat the fish again.
Good thing, too: we can use the free food.
Soon Detroit's shutting down the World's Largest Garbage Incinerator, oh, pardon me, please....the World's Largest Waste-To-Energy Facility and developing a recycling program.
Cancer rates in Detroit skyrocketed when they fired it up; even after the city was at long last forced to get the thing a 'modern' and 'effective' "scrubbing" system. The cancer rates will plummet when they shut down that son of a bitch.
Canada is no longer trying to sue our ass over acid rain: we're producing far less acid rain since we're not producing anything.
All the steel mills and chemical plants and cement factories on the Detroit River have closed, and now we can eat the fish again.
Good thing, too: we can use the free food.
Soon Detroit's shutting down the World's Largest Garbage Incinerator, oh, pardon me, please....the World's Largest Waste-To-Energy Facility and developing a recycling program.
Cancer rates in Detroit skyrocketed when they fired it up; even after the city was at long last forced to get the thing a 'modern' and 'effective' "scrubbing" system. The cancer rates will plummet when they shut down that son of a bitch.
Plant prohibition is absurd. QED.
This hellhole beats el lay's (LA's) worst days.
The athletes will need scuba tanks and goggles, which should prevent any new world records for speedy running, etc.
The athletes will need scuba tanks and goggles, which should prevent any new world records for speedy running, etc.
Slavery lived on well past what other history books wrote
BY LEONARD PITTS JR. * McCLATCHY NEWSPAPERS * July 26, 2008
This is how John Davis became a slave:
He was walking one evening from the train depot in Goodwater, Ala., when a white man appeared in the road. "N-----," he demanded, "have you got any money?"
The white man, Robert Franklin, was a constable. He claimed Davis owed him. This was news to Davis.
"I don't owe you anything," he said.
But what Davis said did not matter. He was arrested that night and summarily convicted. A wealthy landowner, John Pace, paid the alleged $40 debt and a $35 fine in exchange for Davis' mark -- Davis was illiterate -- on a contract binding him to work 10 months at any task Pace demanded. For all intents and purposes, the one man now owned the other. For all intents and purposes, John Davis was John Pace's slave.
This was September 1901, 36 years after the end of the Civil War.
It would be appalling if it happened once. Douglas Blackmon says it happened hundreds of thousands of times in Alabama alone. Blackmon, Atlanta bureau chief for the Wall Street Journal, is the author of a compelling new book, "Slavery by Another Name." ...
BY LEONARD PITTS JR. * McCLATCHY NEWSPAPERS * July 26, 2008
This is how John Davis became a slave:
He was walking one evening from the train depot in Goodwater, Ala., when a white man appeared in the road. "N-----," he demanded, "have you got any money?"
The white man, Robert Franklin, was a constable. He claimed Davis owed him. This was news to Davis.
"I don't owe you anything," he said.
But what Davis said did not matter. He was arrested that night and summarily convicted. A wealthy landowner, John Pace, paid the alleged $40 debt and a $35 fine in exchange for Davis' mark -- Davis was illiterate -- on a contract binding him to work 10 months at any task Pace demanded. For all intents and purposes, the one man now owned the other. For all intents and purposes, John Davis was John Pace's slave.
This was September 1901, 36 years after the end of the Civil War.
It would be appalling if it happened once. Douglas Blackmon says it happened hundreds of thousands of times in Alabama alone. Blackmon, Atlanta bureau chief for the Wall Street Journal, is the author of a compelling new book, "Slavery by Another Name." ...
What's Lurking in Your Countertop?
By KATE MURPHY
The New York Times
Published: July 24, 2008
SHORTLY before Lynn Sugarman of Teaneck, N.J., bought her summer home in Lake George, N.Y., two years ago, a routine inspection revealed it had elevated levels of radon, a radioactive gas that can cause lung cancer. So she called a radon measurement and mitigation technician to find the source.
"He went from room to room," said Dr. Sugarman, a pediatrician. But he stopped in his tracks in the kitchen, which had richly grained cream, brown and burgundy granite countertops. His Geiger counter indicated that the granite was emitting radiation at levels 10 times higher than those he had measured elsewhere in the house.
"My first thought was, my pregnant daughter was coming for the weekend," Dr. Sugarman said. When the technician told her to keep her daughter several feet from the countertops just to be safe, she said, "I had them ripped out that very day," and sent to the state Department of Health for analysis. The granite, it turned out, contained high levels of uranium, which is not only radioactive but releases radon gas as it decays. "The health risk to me and my family was probably small," Dr. Sugarman said, "but I felt it was an unnecessary risk."
As the popularity of granite countertops has grown in the last decade -- demand for them has increased tenfold, according to the Marble Institute of America, a trade group representing granite fabricators -- so have the types of granite available. For example, one source, Graniteland (graniteland.com) offers more than 900 kinds of granite from 63 countries. And with increased sales volume and variety, there have been more reports of "hot" or potentially hazardous countertops, particularly among the more exotic and striated varieties from Brazil and Namibia. ...
By KATE MURPHY
The New York Times
Published: July 24, 2008
SHORTLY before Lynn Sugarman of Teaneck, N.J., bought her summer home in Lake George, N.Y., two years ago, a routine inspection revealed it had elevated levels of radon, a radioactive gas that can cause lung cancer. So she called a radon measurement and mitigation technician to find the source.
"He went from room to room," said Dr. Sugarman, a pediatrician. But he stopped in his tracks in the kitchen, which had richly grained cream, brown and burgundy granite countertops. His Geiger counter indicated that the granite was emitting radiation at levels 10 times higher than those he had measured elsewhere in the house.
"My first thought was, my pregnant daughter was coming for the weekend," Dr. Sugarman said. When the technician told her to keep her daughter several feet from the countertops just to be safe, she said, "I had them ripped out that very day," and sent to the state Department of Health for analysis. The granite, it turned out, contained high levels of uranium, which is not only radioactive but releases radon gas as it decays. "The health risk to me and my family was probably small," Dr. Sugarman said, "but I felt it was an unnecessary risk."
As the popularity of granite countertops has grown in the last decade -- demand for them has increased tenfold, according to the Marble Institute of America, a trade group representing granite fabricators -- so have the types of granite available. For example, one source, Graniteland (graniteland.com) offers more than 900 kinds of granite from 63 countries. And with increased sales volume and variety, there have been more reports of "hot" or potentially hazardous countertops, particularly among the more exotic and striated varieties from Brazil and Namibia. ...
'Spam king' commits suicide after killing wife, daughter
25 July 2006
LOS ANGELES (AFP) -- An escaped convict who had been jailed for sending huge numbers of junk emails has been found dead with his wife and daughter in an apparent murder-suicide, Colorado police said Friday.
Edward Davidson, 35, dubbed the "spam king" after being sentenced to 21 months in prison in May, was found dead by his car on Thursday, four days after he escaped from a minimum security prison in Florence, 50 kilometers (30 miles) south of Denver. ...
25 July 2006
LOS ANGELES (AFP) -- An escaped convict who had been jailed for sending huge numbers of junk emails has been found dead with his wife and daughter in an apparent murder-suicide, Colorado police said Friday.
Edward Davidson, 35, dubbed the "spam king" after being sentenced to 21 months in prison in May, was found dead by his car on Thursday, four days after he escaped from a minimum security prison in Florence, 50 kilometers (30 miles) south of Denver. ...
Kilpatrick faces more trouble after run-in with police
Deputy says he was pushed, but mayor's lawyer says there was no roughness
BY M.L. Elrick, Jim Schaffer, Ben Schmitt and Joe Swickard
FREE PRESS STAFF WRITERS
July 25, 2008
Michigan State Police are investigating whether Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick assaulted a deputy trying to serve a subpoena at his sister's house Thursday -- an incident that could lead to additional criminal charges against the mayor.
In court today, prosecutors could present testimony about the incident in a bid to prove Kilpatrick violated the bond set after being charged with eight felonies stemming from the text message scandal the Free Press first reported in January.
The mayor is due in court at 8:30 a.m. to learn whether Detroit 36th District Court Judge Ronald Giles will release new text messages, including messages prosecutors say show the mayor lied about extramarital affairs in addition to the one with his former chief of staff Christine Beatty.
Kilpatrick's latest troubles began around 4 p.m., when a Wayne County sheriff's deputy and an investigator from Wayne County Prosecutor Kym Worthy's office went to Ayanna Kilpatrick's home in Detroit to serve a subpoena on Bobby Ferguson. Ferguson, a controversial city contractor, is one of the mayor's best friends. His cousin, Daniel Ferguson, is married to Ayanna Kilpatrick.
"The officer alleges that the mayor pushed him with significant force to make him bounce into the prosecutor's investigator," Wayne County Sheriff Warren Evans said at an evening news conference. ...
Deputy says he was pushed, but mayor's lawyer says there was no roughness
BY M.L. Elrick, Jim Schaffer, Ben Schmitt and Joe Swickard
FREE PRESS STAFF WRITERS
July 25, 2008
Michigan State Police are investigating whether Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick assaulted a deputy trying to serve a subpoena at his sister's house Thursday -- an incident that could lead to additional criminal charges against the mayor.
In court today, prosecutors could present testimony about the incident in a bid to prove Kilpatrick violated the bond set after being charged with eight felonies stemming from the text message scandal the Free Press first reported in January.
The mayor is due in court at 8:30 a.m. to learn whether Detroit 36th District Court Judge Ronald Giles will release new text messages, including messages prosecutors say show the mayor lied about extramarital affairs in addition to the one with his former chief of staff Christine Beatty.
Kilpatrick's latest troubles began around 4 p.m., when a Wayne County sheriff's deputy and an investigator from Wayne County Prosecutor Kym Worthy's office went to Ayanna Kilpatrick's home in Detroit to serve a subpoena on Bobby Ferguson. Ferguson, a controversial city contractor, is one of the mayor's best friends. His cousin, Daniel Ferguson, is married to Ayanna Kilpatrick.
"The officer alleges that the mayor pushed him with significant force to make him bounce into the prosecutor's investigator," Wayne County Sheriff Warren Evans said at an evening news conference. ...
Judge orders Kilpatrick to post $7,500 bond to remain out of jail
BY M.L. Elrick
FREE PRESS STAFF WRITER
July 25, 2008
Updated at 1:08 p.m.
A stern Detroit judge, saying he has thrown people in jail for less, found that Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick violated the terms of his bond in his criminal case after a sheriff's deputy testified he was assaulted by the mayor Thursday.
The ruling followed sheriff's deputy Brian White's testimony this morning that Kilpatrick shouted expletives at him and his partner when White sought to serve a subpoena on Kilpatrick's friend, Bobby Ferguson, at the mayor's sister's home Thursday. White said the mayor then threw him into his investigative partner, Joann Kinney, and made racially charged remarks during the incident.
Judge Ronald Giles of Detroit's 36th District Court changed Kilpatrick's bond from a personal bond in his criminal perjury case to requiring him to post $7,500 cash with the court to remain free.
And Giles revoked the mayor's right to make any trips -- business or otherwise -- without a court hearing, though he allowed previously scheduled travel. He also ordered periodic and random drug screens for the mayor, though there was no accusation that Kilpatrick was under the influence during the alleged assault.
The judge said it does not "matter whether investigator White was pushed or thrown ... the fact that defendant Kilpatrick decided to inject himself into this situation where the officers were attempting to lawfully serve a subpoena ... defendant Kilpatrick had no right ... to come into contact with investigator White or say anything to investigator White."
"I have locked up defendants for approaching or saying things to witnesses for a lot less, let alone touching them," Giles said. "I'm at a loss to defendant Kilpatrick's behavior here. It's irrational." ...
... After meeting a man who identified himself as Derrick Ferguson, White said he heard shouting from Ayanna Kilpatrick's home.
"'Don't tell those f------ anything ... Get the f--- out of here.' At that point Kilpatrick comes storming out through the door, grabbed me with both of my hands behind me and throws me into investigator Kinney," referring to his partner, retired Detroit Police Homicide Sgt. Joann Kinney.
At that point in White's testimony, Kilpatrick turned, wide-eyed, toward one of his police bodyguards sitting in the front row of the courtroom. The police officer shook his head.
White continued testifying that Kilpatrick said: "Get the f--- out of here. Leave my f------ family alone. Get off my f------ porch." ...
kwame's got as bad a Detroit accent (every other word starts with 'f') as that old pimp coleman young ever had, even when he was a drunken, foul-mouthed old man whom the news had quit interviewing live.
I wonder if the dead old pimp has possessed him, they're so much alike.
BY M.L. Elrick
FREE PRESS STAFF WRITER
July 25, 2008
Updated at 1:08 p.m.
A stern Detroit judge, saying he has thrown people in jail for less, found that Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick violated the terms of his bond in his criminal case after a sheriff's deputy testified he was assaulted by the mayor Thursday.
The ruling followed sheriff's deputy Brian White's testimony this morning that Kilpatrick shouted expletives at him and his partner when White sought to serve a subpoena on Kilpatrick's friend, Bobby Ferguson, at the mayor's sister's home Thursday. White said the mayor then threw him into his investigative partner, Joann Kinney, and made racially charged remarks during the incident.
Judge Ronald Giles of Detroit's 36th District Court changed Kilpatrick's bond from a personal bond in his criminal perjury case to requiring him to post $7,500 cash with the court to remain free.
And Giles revoked the mayor's right to make any trips -- business or otherwise -- without a court hearing, though he allowed previously scheduled travel. He also ordered periodic and random drug screens for the mayor, though there was no accusation that Kilpatrick was under the influence during the alleged assault.
The judge said it does not "matter whether investigator White was pushed or thrown ... the fact that defendant Kilpatrick decided to inject himself into this situation where the officers were attempting to lawfully serve a subpoena ... defendant Kilpatrick had no right ... to come into contact with investigator White or say anything to investigator White."
"I have locked up defendants for approaching or saying things to witnesses for a lot less, let alone touching them," Giles said. "I'm at a loss to defendant Kilpatrick's behavior here. It's irrational." ...
... After meeting a man who identified himself as Derrick Ferguson, White said he heard shouting from Ayanna Kilpatrick's home.
"'Don't tell those f------ anything ... Get the f--- out of here.' At that point Kilpatrick comes storming out through the door, grabbed me with both of my hands behind me and throws me into investigator Kinney," referring to his partner, retired Detroit Police Homicide Sgt. Joann Kinney.
At that point in White's testimony, Kilpatrick turned, wide-eyed, toward one of his police bodyguards sitting in the front row of the courtroom. The police officer shook his head.
White continued testifying that Kilpatrick said: "Get the f--- out of here. Leave my f------ family alone. Get off my f------ porch." ...
kwame's got as bad a Detroit accent (every other word starts with 'f') as that old pimp coleman young ever had, even when he was a drunken, foul-mouthed old man whom the news had quit interviewing live.
I wonder if the dead old pimp has possessed him, they're so much alike.
Margaret Thatcher state funeral backlash
By Mirror.co.uk 16/07/2008
Margaret Thatcher will have a 3million state funeral - the first Prime Minister since Churchill to be given this honour - according to plans backed by the Queen and Gordon Brown....
"As a taxpayer, I find it astounding that 3million has been earmarked for the state funeral of Margaret Thatcher.
"Her legacy included dividing the country, killing off our homegrown industries and going to war to feed her ego.
"It is insensitive to make such an announcement at a time when Britain is in the clutches of a recession.
"Is it any wonder people are leaving this country in droves?"
Ivor Moon, Ipswich
"Many families end up in debt paying for a parent's funeral because all their money has been taken up by care home costs. So it's appalling that taxpayers will have to pay for Thatcher's funeral.
"Also, a great deal of fuel will be used by the cortege.
"Not a very green idea, is it?"
Margaret Mavor, Edinburgh ...
... "If Margaret Thatcher is to be given a 3million state funeral, the rich toffs in the Conservative Party should pay for it - not us hardworking taxpayers."
Allan Day, Basingstoke, Hants
Old reagan-in-a-dress is still a pain in the arse, but Your Humble Narrator is hardly surprised.
By Mirror.co.uk 16/07/2008
Margaret Thatcher will have a 3million state funeral - the first Prime Minister since Churchill to be given this honour - according to plans backed by the Queen and Gordon Brown....
"As a taxpayer, I find it astounding that 3million has been earmarked for the state funeral of Margaret Thatcher.
"Her legacy included dividing the country, killing off our homegrown industries and going to war to feed her ego.
"It is insensitive to make such an announcement at a time when Britain is in the clutches of a recession.
"Is it any wonder people are leaving this country in droves?"
Ivor Moon, Ipswich
"Many families end up in debt paying for a parent's funeral because all their money has been taken up by care home costs. So it's appalling that taxpayers will have to pay for Thatcher's funeral.
"Also, a great deal of fuel will be used by the cortege.
"Not a very green idea, is it?"
Margaret Mavor, Edinburgh ...
... "If Margaret Thatcher is to be given a 3million state funeral, the rich toffs in the Conservative Party should pay for it - not us hardworking taxpayers."
Allan Day, Basingstoke, Hants
Old reagan-in-a-dress is still a pain in the arse, but Your Humble Narrator is hardly surprised.
Screw you, denver. God forbid the politicians see all the people they've made homeless.
Jail/gaol is a place for murderers, rapists, corrupt politicians/bankers/wall street bastards, people who beat people up for money who don't have promoters and do it on streets instead of in a ring with a fellow fighter, hardcore b&e folks and thieves, pa/edophiles, folks who sell nasty drugs to kids, and their ilk.
It is not a place for women forced into prostitution, artists, people who smoke pot/use hallucinogens, folks who think in a way that's different from their ruler's way of "thinking," etc.
N.B.: I am posting this from my vox blog because the independent dot co dot uk has a nasty habit (shared wif the NYTimes, Auntie Beeb's website, and a few other eejits) of changing URLs more often than a busy whore asks for fresh hot water.
It is not a place for women forced into prostitution, artists, people who smoke pot/use hallucinogens, folks who think in a way that's different from their ruler's way of "thinking," etc.
N.B.: I am posting this from my vox blog because the independent dot co dot uk has a nasty habit (shared wif the NYTimes, Auntie Beeb's website, and a few other eejits) of changing URLs more often than a busy whore asks for fresh hot water.
'World's Greatest Dad' Arrested As Predator
Last Update: July 15, 2008 11:52 pm
A man whose shirt proclaims him as the "world's greatest dad" has been arrested on charges he tried to use the internet to arrange a sexual encounter with a minor. He was caught in one of Attorney General Mike Cox's cyber stings. ...
... Attorney General investigators arrested Everett, 33, for chatting online with who he thought was a 14-year-old girl that he met in a chatroom. Everett allegedly engaged in graphic sexual conversation with an undercover agent and propositioned the agent, who was posing as a 14-year-old girl, to meet him for sex. ...
Last Update: July 15, 2008 11:52 pm
A man whose shirt proclaims him as the "world's greatest dad" has been arrested on charges he tried to use the internet to arrange a sexual encounter with a minor. He was caught in one of Attorney General Mike Cox's cyber stings. ...
... Attorney General investigators arrested Everett, 33, for chatting online with who he thought was a 14-year-old girl that he met in a chatroom. Everett allegedly engaged in graphic sexual conversation with an undercover agent and propositioned the agent, who was posing as a 14-year-old girl, to meet him for sex. ...
Uh, how in hell is this not suspicious?
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A U.S. watch list of terrorism suspects has passed 1 million records, corresponding to about 400,000 people, and a leading civil rights group said on Monday the number was far too high to be effective.
The Bush administration disagreed and called the list one of the most effective tools implemented after the September 11 hijacked plane attacks -- when a federal "no-fly" list contained just 16 people considered threats to aviation.
The American Civil Liberties Union publicized the 1 million milestone with a news conference and release.
It said the watch list was an impediment to millions of travellers and called for changes, including tightening criteria for adding names, giving travellers a right to challenge their inclusion and improving procedures for taking wrongly included names off the list.
"America's new million-record watch list is a perfect symbol for what's wrong with this administration's approach to security: it's unfair, out-of-control, a waste of resources (and) treats the rights of the innocent as an afterthought," ACLU technology director Barry Steinhardt said in a release. ...
The Bush administration disagreed and called the list one of the most effective tools implemented after the September 11 hijacked plane attacks -- when a federal "no-fly" list contained just 16 people considered threats to aviation.
The American Civil Liberties Union publicized the 1 million milestone with a news conference and release.
It said the watch list was an impediment to millions of travellers and called for changes, including tightening criteria for adding names, giving travellers a right to challenge their inclusion and improving procedures for taking wrongly included names off the list.
"America's new million-record watch list is a perfect symbol for what's wrong with this administration's approach to security: it's unfair, out-of-control, a waste of resources (and) treats the rights of the innocent as an afterthought," ACLU technology director Barry Steinhardt said in a release. ...
DIG!
George Bush Asks Congress For Latest Capitulation, On Drilling
President George Bush Jr. today lifted the executive ban on domestic offshore drilling for oil and natural gas, the same ban that his liberal father instituted 20-ish years ago. Take that, old retreating hack! But before the oil companies can start drilling off of your dock, Congress must lift its ban. Well that should be tough! We predict that Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi will whine about this for a good week, maybe 10 days, but should have a piece of drilling legislation ready for Bush's Rose Garden signin' desk by next Friday.
Tonashideska says at 3:22 pm, July 14th, 2008
Just as long as the first well is drilled in Kennebunkport Harbor.
Couldna put it better myself, Tonashideska.
George Bush Asks Congress For Latest Capitulation, On Drilling
President George Bush Jr. today lifted the executive ban on domestic offshore drilling for oil and natural gas, the same ban that his liberal father instituted 20-ish years ago. Take that, old retreating hack! But before the oil companies can start drilling off of your dock, Congress must lift its ban. Well that should be tough! We predict that Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi will whine about this for a good week, maybe 10 days, but should have a piece of drilling legislation ready for Bush's Rose Garden signin' desk by next Friday.
Tonashideska says at 3:22 pm, July 14th, 2008
Just as long as the first well is drilled in Kennebunkport Harbor.
Couldna put it better myself, Tonashideska.
... Driving on the Ford Freeway this morning at about 11:15 a.m., I saw wisps of black smoke east of Livernois. So I exited the freeway at West Warren, made a couple of turns, and drove up to a house with flames shooting out its back porch and smoke pouring from the roof and windows. I was the only person on the scene. The home looked abandoned, as are many in the neighborhood, and there were vacant lots surrounding the home.
So I called 911. The operator answered promptly. When she asked for the address, I looked around and realized I couldn't tell her because one and sometimes two street signs were missing at nearby intersections. So I drove back and forth until I could figure out the house was on the northwest corner of 30th and Herbert. She said she would send the fire department.
I stood across the street and waited. I heard fire sirens almost immediately. "Wow," I thought, "that is incredibly fast." But within seconds, I saw a rig speed by on Livernois, which is several blocks to the west. It appeared to be headed to another reported fire. I heard more sirens, but they were not heading to 30th and Herbert.
I waited. And waited. A Detroit police car drove by, north on 30th. Surprisingly, it did not stop. The orange flames grew in intensity, and began licking through the roof. Smoke covered the neighborhood.
Finally, Engine 5 -- stationed by Wayne State University, about 4 miles away -- roared up. It was about 10 minutes after I had called 911. National standards say the first pumper should arrive at the scene of a fire within 6 minutes of the first 911 call. I don't know if my call was first, but I was glad the house that was burning was abandoned, and there were no homes around it.
Other units arrived, but it took more than 20 minutes for the full complement of rigs that usually responds to a house fire in Detroit.
The battalion chief arrived, and walked toward Ladder 22. He wanted the ladder raised to shoot water down on the house. Sorry. Ladder 22 is broken, and it couldn't be used. Another ladder had to be summoned. ...
So I called 911. The operator answered promptly. When she asked for the address, I looked around and realized I couldn't tell her because one and sometimes two street signs were missing at nearby intersections. So I drove back and forth until I could figure out the house was on the northwest corner of 30th and Herbert. She said she would send the fire department.
I stood across the street and waited. I heard fire sirens almost immediately. "Wow," I thought, "that is incredibly fast." But within seconds, I saw a rig speed by on Livernois, which is several blocks to the west. It appeared to be headed to another reported fire. I heard more sirens, but they were not heading to 30th and Herbert.
I waited. And waited. A Detroit police car drove by, north on 30th. Surprisingly, it did not stop. The orange flames grew in intensity, and began licking through the roof. Smoke covered the neighborhood.
Finally, Engine 5 -- stationed by Wayne State University, about 4 miles away -- roared up. It was about 10 minutes after I had called 911. National standards say the first pumper should arrive at the scene of a fire within 6 minutes of the first 911 call. I don't know if my call was first, but I was glad the house that was burning was abandoned, and there were no homes around it.
Other units arrived, but it took more than 20 minutes for the full complement of rigs that usually responds to a house fire in Detroit.
The battalion chief arrived, and walked toward Ladder 22. He wanted the ladder raised to shoot water down on the house. Sorry. Ladder 22 is broken, and it couldn't be used. Another ladder had to be summoned. ...
Medical care is 3rd leading cause of death in U.S.
Nuff said.
Nuff said.
... Last week, quietly and with less fanfare than it deserved, the American Medical Association apologized for excluding black doctors from their group for the past century.
The AMA, which the New York Times described as a group "long considered to be the voice of American doctors," said, in effect, what most black Americans secretly need to hear: "We should have done more."
From the late 1800s until the 1960s, state and local medical societies had policies that barred black doctors. Since those groups were the entry points into the august national body, black doctors could not participate in major medical lobbying, and thus could not help lead the largest and most important group of doctors to focus on anything affecting black people. ...
The AMA, which the New York Times described as a group "long considered to be the voice of American doctors," said, in effect, what most black Americans secretly need to hear: "We should have done more."
From the late 1800s until the 1960s, state and local medical societies had policies that barred black doctors. Since those groups were the entry points into the august national body, black doctors could not participate in major medical lobbying, and thus could not help lead the largest and most important group of doctors to focus on anything affecting black people. ...
... The high volume of charges has prompted the Ohio Civil Rights Commission to launch a broad investigation into the possibility of an abusive environment at the Jeep complex, the Free Press has learned.
In the past four years, nine federal lawsuits have been filed in Toledo against Chrysler regarding sexual harassment at the Jeep plant. Seventy-three charges of civil rights violations have been filed with the Ohio Civil Rights Commission, with more than 40 coming within the past 18 months, records show.
The 45 civil rights complaints in the last 18 months is more than five times the number of charges leveled against General Motors Corp.'s comparably sized operations in and around Toledo.
Some of the Jeep plant cases highlight Chrysler's requirement that job applicants waive the full amount of time they have under the law to file a legal claim, a provision allowed by the courts that one Michigan judge has called "unconscionable."
The lawsuits and claims together portray an assembly plant where certain supervisors and union leaders used their power to demand sex from female workers in exchange for letting the women keep their jobs or favorable assignments. Workers say UAW and company officials turned a blind eye -- and a federal judge and investigators have affirmed that officials failed to protect employees. ...
In the past four years, nine federal lawsuits have been filed in Toledo against Chrysler regarding sexual harassment at the Jeep plant. Seventy-three charges of civil rights violations have been filed with the Ohio Civil Rights Commission, with more than 40 coming within the past 18 months, records show.
The 45 civil rights complaints in the last 18 months is more than five times the number of charges leveled against General Motors Corp.'s comparably sized operations in and around Toledo.
Some of the Jeep plant cases highlight Chrysler's requirement that job applicants waive the full amount of time they have under the law to file a legal claim, a provision allowed by the courts that one Michigan judge has called "unconscionable."
The lawsuits and claims together portray an assembly plant where certain supervisors and union leaders used their power to demand sex from female workers in exchange for letting the women keep their jobs or favorable assignments. Workers say UAW and company officials turned a blind eye -- and a federal judge and investigators have affirmed that officials failed to protect employees. ...
File under "Gimme A Break, Pal."
Screw you, washington dc.
Man in wheelchair charged with drink-driving
Mon Jun 23, 2008
CANBERRA (Reuters) - Police in Australia have charged a man for drink driving in a motorised wheelchair after he was found to be six times over the legal alcohol limit, local media reported on Monday.
Police in the tropical northern Queensland city of Cairns said the man had a blood alcohol reading of 0.31, and was so drunk he was asleep at the controls of his motorised wheelchair in a turning lane of a major highway.
"It beggars belief," Police Inspector Bob Walters told the Cairns Post newspaper, adding wheelchairs, bicycles, horses and skateboards were all considered to be vehicles under the state's road laws.
"It's unlawful, it is unacceptable and people should realise it could lead to a fatality," he said. ...
Mon Jun 23, 2008
CANBERRA (Reuters) - Police in Australia have charged a man for drink driving in a motorised wheelchair after he was found to be six times over the legal alcohol limit, local media reported on Monday.
Police in the tropical northern Queensland city of Cairns said the man had a blood alcohol reading of 0.31, and was so drunk he was asleep at the controls of his motorised wheelchair in a turning lane of a major highway.
"It beggars belief," Police Inspector Bob Walters told the Cairns Post newspaper, adding wheelchairs, bicycles, horses and skateboards were all considered to be vehicles under the state's road laws.
"It's unlawful, it is unacceptable and people should realise it could lead to a fatality," he said. ...
Screw you, number 10.
It's not every day I give a site a thumbs up from sheer shock, Gentle Stumbler.
**WARNING**
Car lovers should be very careful here.
This site could permanently damage one's a/esthetics receptors.
Ithankyou.
Thanks a whole helluva lot, {tooth-grinding, biting sarcasm}dear{/tooth-grinding, biting sarcasm} Stinkhond.
**WARNING**
Car lovers should be very careful here.
This site could permanently damage one's a/esthetics receptors.
Ithankyou.
Thanks a whole helluva lot, {tooth-grinding, biting sarcasm}dear{/tooth-grinding, biting sarcasm} Stinkhond.
Robert Mugabe says 'only God' can remove him
20/06/2008
Robert Mugabe vowed to remain president of Zimbabwe whatever the outcome of next week's election, saying "only God" could remove him from office.
Mr Mugabe, who has ruled Zimbabwe since 1980, said the opposition Movement for Democratic Change would not be allowed to assume power if it won the presidential run-off poll on June 27.
"The MDC will never be allowed to rule this country - never ever," Mr Mugabe, 84, told a meeting of business people in Bulawayo.
"Only God who appointed me will remove me, not the MDC, not the British." ...
God/dess, please kill robert mugabe. I know you were planning to one day anyway, but could you speed it up a bit? Thanks a lot.
20/06/2008
Robert Mugabe vowed to remain president of Zimbabwe whatever the outcome of next week's election, saying "only God" could remove him from office.
Mr Mugabe, who has ruled Zimbabwe since 1980, said the opposition Movement for Democratic Change would not be allowed to assume power if it won the presidential run-off poll on June 27.
"The MDC will never be allowed to rule this country - never ever," Mr Mugabe, 84, told a meeting of business people in Bulawayo.
"Only God who appointed me will remove me, not the MDC, not the British." ...
God/dess, please kill robert mugabe. I know you were planning to one day anyway, but could you speed it up a bit? Thanks a lot.
1984 toys for eight year olds; just what the world needs. Thanks, shrub junior.
These are the ignorant addlepates who created that racist Obama button which makes me question my species. Folks like them keep the bleach companies in business - gotta keep them sheets and hoods nice 'n' white, you know.
PS: How is racism patriotic? Although the rethuglicans have given this prick's booth rental money to the Red Cross and are attempting to "distance themselves" from his ass, I'm still so angry I'm all verklempt. Discuss amongst yourselves. You can call and/or email them and ask them: Phone: 407-333-2983 Email: sales@republicanmarket.com
PS: How is racism patriotic? Although the rethuglicans have given this prick's booth rental money to the Red Cross and are attempting to "distance themselves" from his ass, I'm still so angry I'm all verklempt. Discuss amongst yourselves. You can call and/or email them and ask them: Phone: 407-333-2983 Email: sales@republicanmarket.com
School board member's kids now wards of court
By PEGGY WALSH-SARNECKI
FREE PRESS EDUCATION WRITER
June 18, 2008
Detroit school board member Reverend David Murray's six children were made wards of the court on Wednesday, pending an evaluation into both the parents and the children.
Judge Mark Slavens set an Aug. 4 date to for another hearing on the investigation's results. Of the couple's children -- ages 2 to 16 -- four are now living with relatives, one is in juvenile custody on an unrelated matter and a sixth is reported missing, Slavens said.
The petition against Murray and his wife, Tanisha Murray, stated the couple had a history with Child Protective Services dating back to 1996, Slavens said. One child is the couple's natural child, four are adopted and one is Tanisha Murray's child from a previous marriage.
The current complaint documents problems such as broken windows, a hole in the roof and no electricity in the couple's two west-side homes.
Tanisha Murray said she and the children were living in a different house than Reverend Murray.
She also admitted that the couple's two-year-old daughter, who weighs 23 pounds, is underweight because she is unable to feed her enough. ...
I think she means that "she is unwilling to feed her enough," and that's more than a paddlin.'
By PEGGY WALSH-SARNECKI
FREE PRESS EDUCATION WRITER
June 18, 2008
Detroit school board member Reverend David Murray's six children were made wards of the court on Wednesday, pending an evaluation into both the parents and the children.
Judge Mark Slavens set an Aug. 4 date to for another hearing on the investigation's results. Of the couple's children -- ages 2 to 16 -- four are now living with relatives, one is in juvenile custody on an unrelated matter and a sixth is reported missing, Slavens said.
The petition against Murray and his wife, Tanisha Murray, stated the couple had a history with Child Protective Services dating back to 1996, Slavens said. One child is the couple's natural child, four are adopted and one is Tanisha Murray's child from a previous marriage.
The current complaint documents problems such as broken windows, a hole in the roof and no electricity in the couple's two west-side homes.
Tanisha Murray said she and the children were living in a different house than Reverend Murray.
She also admitted that the couple's two-year-old daughter, who weighs 23 pounds, is underweight because she is unable to feed her enough. ...
I think she means that "she is unwilling to feed her enough," and that's more than a paddlin.'
I have rarely been more embarassed and disgusted by my fellow Yankistanis....I can't possibly be the same species as these creatures.
Screw you, tsa.
In Russia, sometimes it rains cement
by Chris Baldwin
Tue Jun 17, 2008
MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russian air force planes dropped a 25-kg (55-lb) sack of cement on a suburban Moscow home last week while seeding clouds to prevent rain from spoiling a holiday, Russian media said on Tuesday. ...
... The homeowner was not injured, but refused an offer of 50,000 roubles ($2,100) from the air force, saying she would sue for damages and compensation for moral suffering, Interfax said.
by Chris Baldwin
Tue Jun 17, 2008
MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russian air force planes dropped a 25-kg (55-lb) sack of cement on a suburban Moscow home last week while seeding clouds to prevent rain from spoiling a holiday, Russian media said on Tuesday. ...
... The homeowner was not injured, but refused an offer of 50,000 roubles ($2,100) from the air force, saying she would sue for damages and compensation for moral suffering, Interfax said.
Screw you, ap.
You're a good man, Sister!
No smart-arse review from Yr Humble Narrator, though I must say that headline is Quality.
More secret files found on train
Sunday, 15 June 2008
More confidential government files were found on a commuter train earlier this week, it has been revealed.
The Independent on Sunday says it was handed the documents, which cover fighting global terrorist funding, drugs trafficking and money laundering.
The files were found on the same day as the BBC was handed top secret papers on al-Qaeda. A Treasury spokesman said the government was "extremely concerned".
The Tories are calling for controls to protect secret official information.
The documents, about a meeting of financial crime experts, apparently include briefing notes for a meeting of the international Financial Action Task Force (FATF) to be held in 11 Downing Street next week.
The papers were found on train bound for London Waterloo on 11 June, the same day that another batch of papers relating to intelligence assessments of Iraq and al-Qaeda were handed to the BBC after being left by a senior official on a train.
The Cabinet Office and the Metropolitan Police launched inquiries into the documents handed into the BBC - the latest in a series of blunders involving sensitive official information.
But Scotland Yard said it was not involved in investigating the latest case.
BBC political correspondent Laura Kuenssberg said it was uncertain whether the latest documents were also top secret.
The documents seen by the BBC should not have left Whitehall but it is not yet clear if the new files were permitted to have been taken out, our correspondent added.
"Some of the information is already on the public domain, but another lapse is deeply embarrassing for the government," she said. ...
Kinell!
Sunday, 15 June 2008
More confidential government files were found on a commuter train earlier this week, it has been revealed.
The Independent on Sunday says it was handed the documents, which cover fighting global terrorist funding, drugs trafficking and money laundering.
The files were found on the same day as the BBC was handed top secret papers on al-Qaeda. A Treasury spokesman said the government was "extremely concerned".
The Tories are calling for controls to protect secret official information.
The documents, about a meeting of financial crime experts, apparently include briefing notes for a meeting of the international Financial Action Task Force (FATF) to be held in 11 Downing Street next week.
The papers were found on train bound for London Waterloo on 11 June, the same day that another batch of papers relating to intelligence assessments of Iraq and al-Qaeda were handed to the BBC after being left by a senior official on a train.
The Cabinet Office and the Metropolitan Police launched inquiries into the documents handed into the BBC - the latest in a series of blunders involving sensitive official information.
But Scotland Yard said it was not involved in investigating the latest case.
BBC political correspondent Laura Kuenssberg said it was uncertain whether the latest documents were also top secret.
The documents seen by the BBC should not have left Whitehall but it is not yet clear if the new files were permitted to have been taken out, our correspondent added.
"Some of the information is already on the public domain, but another lapse is deeply embarrassing for the government," she said. ...
Kinell!
What's the moral of this story, Chicago piggies? Never assist an injured officer or you'll be jailed?
Nice one, mates.
Nice one, mates.
Logjam of War Contractor Fraud Suits
Thursday 12 June 2008
by: Matt Renner, t r u t h o u t
A backlog of whistleblower lawsuits against military contractors has been swelling and festering since the early days of the so-called war on terror.
According to critics, the Department of Justice (DOJ) has blocked the progress of these lawsuits to spare the Bush administration a major political black eye should the truth about ongoing war profiteering be revealed, a charge the DOJ denies. ...
Thursday 12 June 2008
by: Matt Renner, t r u t h o u t
A backlog of whistleblower lawsuits against military contractors has been swelling and festering since the early days of the so-called war on terror.
According to critics, the Department of Justice (DOJ) has blocked the progress of these lawsuits to spare the Bush administration a major political black eye should the truth about ongoing war profiteering be revealed, a charge the DOJ denies. ...
Yes, Virginia, there are very evil people in this world; some of them rule entire countries.
Simple.
Neuter 'em. Sans l'anesthsique.
Neuter 'em. Sans l'anesthsique.
A closely watched obscenity trial in Los Angeles federal court was suspended Wednesday after the judge acknowledged maintaining his own publicly accessible website featuring sexually explicit photos and videos.
Alex Kozinski, chief judge of the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, granted a 48-hour stay in the obscenity trial of a Hollywood adult filmmaker after the prosecutor requested time to explore "a potential conflict of interest concerning the court having a . . . sexually explicit website with similar material to what is on trial here." ...
The law isn't just an ass, it also likes ass.
Alex Kozinski, chief judge of the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, granted a 48-hour stay in the obscenity trial of a Hollywood adult filmmaker after the prosecutor requested time to explore "a potential conflict of interest concerning the court having a . . . sexually explicit website with similar material to what is on trial here." ...
The law isn't just an ass, it also likes ass.
shrub junior just keeps getting richer and richer, while non-rethuglicans must move house and/or change jobs so they can afford the commute.
Screw you, downing street!
BBC uncovers lost Iraq billions
By Jane Corbin
BBC News
Tuesday, 10 June 2008
A BBC investigation estimates that around $23bn (11.75bn) may have been lost, stolen or just not properly accounted for in Iraq.
The BBC's Panorama programme has used US and Iraqi government sources to research how much some private contractors have profited from the conflict and rebuilding.
A US gagging order is preventing discussion of the allegations.
The order applies to 70 court cases against some of the top US companies.
War profiteering
While Presdient George W Bush remains in the White House, it is unlikely the gagging orders will be lifted.
To date, no major US contractor faces trial for fraud or mismanagement in Iraq.
The president's Democratic opponents are keeping up the pressure over war profiteering in Iraq.
Henry Waxman, who chairs the House committee on oversight and government reform, said: "The money that's gone into waste, fraud and abuse under these contracts is just so outrageous, it's egregious.
"It may well turn out to be the largest war profiteering in history."
In the run-up to the invasion, one of the most senior officials in charge of procurement in the Pentagon objected to a contract potentially worth $7bn that was given to Halliburton, a Texan company which used to be run by Dick Cheney before he became vice-president.
Unusually only Halliburton got to bid - and won. ...
By Jane Corbin
BBC News
Tuesday, 10 June 2008
A BBC investigation estimates that around $23bn (11.75bn) may have been lost, stolen or just not properly accounted for in Iraq.
The BBC's Panorama programme has used US and Iraqi government sources to research how much some private contractors have profited from the conflict and rebuilding.
A US gagging order is preventing discussion of the allegations.
The order applies to 70 court cases against some of the top US companies.
War profiteering
While Presdient George W Bush remains in the White House, it is unlikely the gagging orders will be lifted.
To date, no major US contractor faces trial for fraud or mismanagement in Iraq.
The president's Democratic opponents are keeping up the pressure over war profiteering in Iraq.
Henry Waxman, who chairs the House committee on oversight and government reform, said: "The money that's gone into waste, fraud and abuse under these contracts is just so outrageous, it's egregious.
"It may well turn out to be the largest war profiteering in history."
In the run-up to the invasion, one of the most senior officials in charge of procurement in the Pentagon objected to a contract potentially worth $7bn that was given to Halliburton, a Texan company which used to be run by Dick Cheney before he became vice-president.
Unusually only Halliburton got to bid - and won. ...
Senate Republicans block windfall taxes on Big Oil
By H. JOSEF HEBERT
Associated Press Writer
Jun 11, 2008
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Saved by Senate Republicans, big oil companies dodged an attempt Tuesday to slap them with a windfall profits tax and take away billions of dollars in tax breaks in response to the record gasoline prices that have the nation fuming.
GOP senators shoved aside the Democratic proposal, arguing that punishing Big Oil won't do a thing to lower the $4-a-gallon-price of gasoline that is sending economic waves across the country. High prices at the pump are threatening everything from summer vacations to Meals on Wheels deliveries to the elderly.
The Democratic energy package would have imposed a 25 percent tax on any "unreasonable" profits of the five largest U.S. oil companies, which together made $36 billion during the first three months of the year. It also would have given the government more power to address oil market speculation, opened the way for antitrust actions against countries belonging to the OPEC oil cartel, and made energy price gouging a federal crime.
"Americans are furious about what's going on," declared Sen. Byron Dorgan, D-N.D. He said they want Congress to do something about oil company profits and the "orgy of speculation" on oil markets.
But Republican leaders said the Democrats' plan would do harm rather than good - and they kept the legislation from being brought up for debate and amendments. ...
... Shortly after the oil tax vote, Republicans blocked a second proposal that would extend tax breaks that have either expired or are scheduled to end this year for wind, solar and other alternative energy development, and for the promotion of energy efficiency and conservation. Again Democrats couldn't get the 60 votes to overcome a GOP filibuster. ...
"This was politics at its worst," complained Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo. "This was a refusal to debate the biggest problem confronting the American people. ... That takes nerve."
That's not nerve, it's evil.
WTF couldn't the democrats get a filibuster going? WTF is wrong with these people?
By H. JOSEF HEBERT
Associated Press Writer
Jun 11, 2008
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Saved by Senate Republicans, big oil companies dodged an attempt Tuesday to slap them with a windfall profits tax and take away billions of dollars in tax breaks in response to the record gasoline prices that have the nation fuming.
GOP senators shoved aside the Democratic proposal, arguing that punishing Big Oil won't do a thing to lower the $4-a-gallon-price of gasoline that is sending economic waves across the country. High prices at the pump are threatening everything from summer vacations to Meals on Wheels deliveries to the elderly.
The Democratic energy package would have imposed a 25 percent tax on any "unreasonable" profits of the five largest U.S. oil companies, which together made $36 billion during the first three months of the year. It also would have given the government more power to address oil market speculation, opened the way for antitrust actions against countries belonging to the OPEC oil cartel, and made energy price gouging a federal crime.
"Americans are furious about what's going on," declared Sen. Byron Dorgan, D-N.D. He said they want Congress to do something about oil company profits and the "orgy of speculation" on oil markets.
But Republican leaders said the Democrats' plan would do harm rather than good - and they kept the legislation from being brought up for debate and amendments. ...
... Shortly after the oil tax vote, Republicans blocked a second proposal that would extend tax breaks that have either expired or are scheduled to end this year for wind, solar and other alternative energy development, and for the promotion of energy efficiency and conservation. Again Democrats couldn't get the 60 votes to overcome a GOP filibuster. ...
"This was politics at its worst," complained Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo. "This was a refusal to debate the biggest problem confronting the American people. ... That takes nerve."
That's not nerve, it's evil.
WTF couldn't the democrats get a filibuster going? WTF is wrong with these people?
Calif. police: Things get ugly at the gas pumps
Jun 10, 2008
CYPRESS, Calif. (AP) -- Violence broke out at the gas pumps in Orange County. Police say a La Palma doctor waiting in line to buy gas at the Costco warehouse store in Cypress grabbed a tire iron and confronted a motorist who cut into the line. ...
Jun 10, 2008
CYPRESS, Calif. (AP) -- Violence broke out at the gas pumps in Orange County. Police say a La Palma doctor waiting in line to buy gas at the Costco warehouse store in Cypress grabbed a tire iron and confronted a motorist who cut into the line. ...
Worker finds military rocket on Tenn. golf course
June 9, 2008
JACKSON, Tenn. (AP) -- A man working on a bulldozer discovered a live military ordinance on a golf course in Jackson. Freddie McGee described the device as an old military-type rocket that looked like something you'd see in a war movie.
The Madison County Sheriff's Department said the rocket was removed from the Hidden Valley Golf Course by a bomb disposal team from Fort Campbell, Ky.
It was taken to a farm where it was destroyed.
The bomb, which McGee said was about 3 feet long and weighed around 20 pounds...
June 9, 2008
JACKSON, Tenn. (AP) -- A man working on a bulldozer discovered a live military ordinance on a golf course in Jackson. Freddie McGee described the device as an old military-type rocket that looked like something you'd see in a war movie.
The Madison County Sheriff's Department said the rocket was removed from the Hidden Valley Golf Course by a bomb disposal team from Fort Campbell, Ky.
It was taken to a farm where it was destroyed.
The bomb, which McGee said was about 3 feet long and weighed around 20 pounds...
[German accent]Your papahs, please.[/German accent]
Thumbs up for increasing awareness only.
Thumbs up for increasing awareness only.
... * March 28, 2005: Four classified fuses are sent to an unclassified warehouse due to a shipping error.
* March 30, 2005: Worker at the unclassified warehouse does not follow procedures that require containers to be opened and contents verified. That worker incorrectly marks the containers as helicopter batteries.
* August 1, 2006: Warehouse fills an order for helicopter batteries from Taiwan by shipping the wrongly marked fuses.
* January 16, 2007: Taiwan says it did not receive the batteries ordered and describes the fuses found in the shipment. U.S. personnel do not recognize the fuses even though Taiwan provides enough information to identify them.
* July 20, 2007: A U.S. defense agency tells Taiwan to throw out the fuses even though U.S. officials had still not identified them as classified fuses for nuclear missiles.
* Late July 2007 to March 2008: Details from this period were not released by the Pentagon. But according to senior U.S. officials, U.S. personnel repeatedly instructed Taiwan to throw the fuses away. Taiwan continued to try to determine what it had received and ultimately identified the objects as fuses.
* March 14, 2008: Taiwan tells U.S. authorities it cannot dispose of the fuses and asks for more guidance. ...
Just like a computer, the military is only as clever as the jackass who programs it.
* March 30, 2005: Worker at the unclassified warehouse does not follow procedures that require containers to be opened and contents verified. That worker incorrectly marks the containers as helicopter batteries.
* August 1, 2006: Warehouse fills an order for helicopter batteries from Taiwan by shipping the wrongly marked fuses.
* January 16, 2007: Taiwan says it did not receive the batteries ordered and describes the fuses found in the shipment. U.S. personnel do not recognize the fuses even though Taiwan provides enough information to identify them.
* July 20, 2007: A U.S. defense agency tells Taiwan to throw out the fuses even though U.S. officials had still not identified them as classified fuses for nuclear missiles.
* Late July 2007 to March 2008: Details from this period were not released by the Pentagon. But according to senior U.S. officials, U.S. personnel repeatedly instructed Taiwan to throw the fuses away. Taiwan continued to try to determine what it had received and ultimately identified the objects as fuses.
* March 14, 2008: Taiwan tells U.S. authorities it cannot dispose of the fuses and asks for more guidance. ...
Just like a computer, the military is only as clever as the jackass who programs it.
Anyone who'd vote for this creature needs heavy-duty therapy.
Oh, that's right! We don't elect our own president - th' electoral college does.
Oh, that's right! We don't elect our own president - th' electoral college does.
boris johnson = London version of kwame kilpatrick
...the puff pastries with corn and mozzarella, pasta with pumpkin and shrimp, and rolls of thinly sliced veal served up Tuesday at a U.N. conference on fighting hunger were a contrast to bleak accounts of starving people around the world. ...
Women in 10th-century societies like this are nothing but baby-machines and completely disposable. Their religious leaders claim that women have no souls.
How is this possible?
Thumbs up for awareness only.
How is this possible?
Thumbs up for awareness only.
Wonder whom old max paid off - and how.
Got a brain? Then you won't visit 10th-century c(o)untries. Simple as.
Travelling to dubai should be boycotted or banned. Maybe they'll get their heads on straight if no one will go there - tourists nor workers.
Travelling to dubai should be boycotted or banned. Maybe they'll get their heads on straight if no one will go there - tourists nor workers.
Tornado oddities: Toilet paper unwinds and rewinds
Jun 2, 2008
HUGO, Minn. (AP) -- As residents in Hugo begin to move on from last week's tornado, some say they noticed a few bizarre things amid all the damage. Jason Akins said the twister unwound a roll of toilet paper in his bathroom - draped it across the countertop, then rewound it in the sink. The toilet paper didn't even rip.
"All I could say was, 'You have got to be kidding me,'" Akins recalled.
He also said that winds overturned sofas and ripped away his roof, but dishes of cat food and water were untouched. The cat food was actually still in the bowl. ...
...tornados seem to have tiny fingers that can reach into small areas and cause some weird mischief. Some say tornados have their own personalities.
Terry Clarkin said the Hugo tornado stuck four steak knives in the yard - and they landed in a perfect square, with the blades in the dirt about three inches.
Across the street, a tree had been stripped of leaves, and instead was filled with pink wads of insulation - looking much like a tree from a cartoon. ...
... Jeff Janus said the tornado protected him.
He was in his front yard when the storm hit, and he ran inside and grabbed his dog and cat.
"I saw people's houses flying by," he said. He didn't make it to the basement, but instead crouched down in the hallway, with one animal in each arm. He said the storm tore off the bedroom doors and placed them almost gently on top of him - shielding him from falling debris.
When the storm passed, he said, he spit shreds of insulation from his mouth, but he felt the doors saved him. ...
Jun 2, 2008
HUGO, Minn. (AP) -- As residents in Hugo begin to move on from last week's tornado, some say they noticed a few bizarre things amid all the damage. Jason Akins said the twister unwound a roll of toilet paper in his bathroom - draped it across the countertop, then rewound it in the sink. The toilet paper didn't even rip.
"All I could say was, 'You have got to be kidding me,'" Akins recalled.
He also said that winds overturned sofas and ripped away his roof, but dishes of cat food and water were untouched. The cat food was actually still in the bowl. ...
...tornados seem to have tiny fingers that can reach into small areas and cause some weird mischief. Some say tornados have their own personalities.
Terry Clarkin said the Hugo tornado stuck four steak knives in the yard - and they landed in a perfect square, with the blades in the dirt about three inches.
Across the street, a tree had been stripped of leaves, and instead was filled with pink wads of insulation - looking much like a tree from a cartoon. ...
... Jeff Janus said the tornado protected him.
He was in his front yard when the storm hit, and he ran inside and grabbed his dog and cat.
"I saw people's houses flying by," he said. He didn't make it to the basement, but instead crouched down in the hallway, with one animal in each arm. He said the storm tore off the bedroom doors and placed them almost gently on top of him - shielding him from falling debris.
When the storm passed, he said, he spit shreds of insulation from his mouth, but he felt the doors saved him. ...
Those cops and difiore all need a mcdonald's reassignment.
Mayor vetoes council resolution seeking his removal from office
By Zachary Gorchow
Free Press Staff Writer
May 27, 2008
Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick vetoed today the resolution approved by the City Council asking Gov. Jennifer Granholm to remove Kilpatrick from office although Kilpatrick's veto will likely have little practical effect.
A request to the governor for the removal of a local elected official only requires a sworn statement by any person - public official or private citizen - and not the approval of a public body. However, the council's vote gave political heft to its request, and it's unclear what impact Kilpatrick's veto will have on that front. ...
HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA
By Zachary Gorchow
Free Press Staff Writer
May 27, 2008
Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick vetoed today the resolution approved by the City Council asking Gov. Jennifer Granholm to remove Kilpatrick from office although Kilpatrick's veto will likely have little practical effect.
A request to the governor for the removal of a local elected official only requires a sworn statement by any person - public official or private citizen - and not the approval of a public body. However, the council's vote gave political heft to its request, and it's unclear what impact Kilpatrick's veto will have on that front. ...
HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA
... Army documents obtained by CNN show that U.S.-paid contractor Kellogg, Brown and Root (KBR) inspected the building and found serious electrical problems a full 11 months before Maseth was electrocuted.
KBR noted "several safety issues concerning the improper grounding of electrical devices." But KBR's contract did not cover "fixing potential hazards." It covered repairing items only after they broke down.
Only after Maseth died did the Army issue an emergency order for KBR to finally fix the electrical problems, and that order was carried out soon thereafter.
In an internal e-mail obtained by CNN, a Navy captain admits that the Army should have known "the extent of the severity of the electrical problems." The e-mail then says the reason the Army did not know was because KBR's inspections were never reviewed by a "qualified government employee." ...
KBR noted "several safety issues concerning the improper grounding of electrical devices." But KBR's contract did not cover "fixing potential hazards." It covered repairing items only after they broke down.
Only after Maseth died did the Army issue an emergency order for KBR to finally fix the electrical problems, and that order was carried out soon thereafter.
In an internal e-mail obtained by CNN, a Navy captain admits that the Army should have known "the extent of the severity of the electrical problems." The e-mail then says the reason the Army did not know was because KBR's inspections were never reviewed by a "qualified government employee." ...
Lawyer sues Delta for ruining family vacation
by Edith Honan
Thu May 29, 2008 11:23am EDT
NEW YORK (Reuters) - A New York lawyer is suing Delta Air Lines for $1 million, saying his family vacation turned into a nightmare after they were stranded in an airport for days and treated disdainfully by airline employees.
Richard Roth, who filed the lawsuit on behalf of himself and his mother, said he planned the Christmas 2007 trip to Buenos Aires to celebrate his mother's 80th birthday. She had grown up in the city, but had not returned in years, he said.
Instead, Roth, his two teenage children, his wife and mother spent three days in airports, went days without their luggage, were treated rudely by airline employees and were forced to spend $21,000 on unused hotel rooms in Argentina, replacement clothes, and other costs.
"Through its gross negligence, malfeasance and absolute incompetence, Mr. Roth holds Delta responsible for ruining his vacation," said the lawsuit, filed in New York state court.
Delta Air Lines Inc had no immediate comment.
Roth said that he has been in touch with Delta about getting reimbursed, but was repeatedly rebuffed. He told Reuters on Wednesday filing the suit was a last resort.
After the initial flight from New York was delayed by more than two hours, the family was not allowed to board their connecting flight in Atlanta, Roth said.
A Delta employee "literally walked away chuckling that he had left them stranded," he said.
After waiting in the airport for hours, Roth was told the next available flight would depart more than two weeks later. ...
by Edith Honan
Thu May 29, 2008 11:23am EDT
NEW YORK (Reuters) - A New York lawyer is suing Delta Air Lines for $1 million, saying his family vacation turned into a nightmare after they were stranded in an airport for days and treated disdainfully by airline employees.
Richard Roth, who filed the lawsuit on behalf of himself and his mother, said he planned the Christmas 2007 trip to Buenos Aires to celebrate his mother's 80th birthday. She had grown up in the city, but had not returned in years, he said.
Instead, Roth, his two teenage children, his wife and mother spent three days in airports, went days without their luggage, were treated rudely by airline employees and were forced to spend $21,000 on unused hotel rooms in Argentina, replacement clothes, and other costs.
"Through its gross negligence, malfeasance and absolute incompetence, Mr. Roth holds Delta responsible for ruining his vacation," said the lawsuit, filed in New York state court.
Delta Air Lines Inc had no immediate comment.
Roth said that he has been in touch with Delta about getting reimbursed, but was repeatedly rebuffed. He told Reuters on Wednesday filing the suit was a last resort.
After the initial flight from New York was delayed by more than two hours, the family was not allowed to board their connecting flight in Atlanta, Roth said.
A Delta employee "literally walked away chuckling that he had left them stranded," he said.
After waiting in the airport for hours, Roth was told the next available flight would depart more than two weeks later. ...
May 23, 2008
Minor leaguer traded for 10 baseball bats
By CHRISTOPHER SHERMAN
Associated Press Writer
McALLEN, Texas (AP) -- During three years in the low minors, John Odom never really made a name for himself until he got traded for a bunch of bats.
"I don't really care," he said Friday. "It'll make a better story if I make it to the big leagues."
For now, Odom is headed to the Laredo Broncos of the United League. They got him Tuesday from the Calgary Vipers of the Golden Baseball League for a most unlikely price: 10 Prairie Sticks Maple Bats, double-dipped black, 34-inch, C243 style.
"They just wanted some bats, good bats - maple bats," Broncos general manager Jose Melendez said.
According to the Prairie Sticks Web site, their maple bats retail for $69 each, discounted to $65.50 for purchases of six to 11 bats. ...
The bat trade wasn't the first time Calgary came up with some creative dealmaking. The Vipers once tried to acquire a pitcher for 1,500 blue seats when they were renovating their stadium...
Classy joint, th' Calgary vipers.
Minor leaguer traded for 10 baseball bats
By CHRISTOPHER SHERMAN
Associated Press Writer
McALLEN, Texas (AP) -- During three years in the low minors, John Odom never really made a name for himself until he got traded for a bunch of bats.
"I don't really care," he said Friday. "It'll make a better story if I make it to the big leagues."
For now, Odom is headed to the Laredo Broncos of the United League. They got him Tuesday from the Calgary Vipers of the Golden Baseball League for a most unlikely price: 10 Prairie Sticks Maple Bats, double-dipped black, 34-inch, C243 style.
"They just wanted some bats, good bats - maple bats," Broncos general manager Jose Melendez said.
According to the Prairie Sticks Web site, their maple bats retail for $69 each, discounted to $65.50 for purchases of six to 11 bats. ...
The bat trade wasn't the first time Calgary came up with some creative dealmaking. The Vipers once tried to acquire a pitcher for 1,500 blue seats when they were renovating their stadium...
Classy joint, th' Calgary vipers.
Study Says Antidepressants OK For Fetuses
No Differences Seen In Defects, Doctors Say
May 23, 2008
Expectant mothers can safely use prescribed antidepressants during their first trimester, according to a new study from the Universit de Montral and Ste. Justine Hospital.
"This is the first study to investigate the impact of antidepressant use during the first trimester of pregnancy in mothers with psychiatric disorders," said Dr. Anick Berard. "In terms of birth malformations in this population, we found no difference between women who used antidepressants and those who did not use antidepressants during their first trimester." ...
Um, exactly which drugs company (-ies) paid for this study, and how goddamn stupid do they think we are?
No Differences Seen In Defects, Doctors Say
May 23, 2008
Expectant mothers can safely use prescribed antidepressants during their first trimester, according to a new study from the Universit de Montral and Ste. Justine Hospital.
"This is the first study to investigate the impact of antidepressant use during the first trimester of pregnancy in mothers with psychiatric disorders," said Dr. Anick Berard. "In terms of birth malformations in this population, we found no difference between women who used antidepressants and those who did not use antidepressants during their first trimester." ...
Um, exactly which drugs company (-ies) paid for this study, and how goddamn stupid do they think we are?
[select one or more, or add your own] Psychotic/criminal/stupid/evil arseholes have always been able to procure dangerous weaponry and use it against their fellow creatures no matter the law.
Arms dealing is doubtless the second oldest profession.
Contract killing is the third.
Arms dealing is doubtless the second oldest profession.
Contract killing is the third.
Woman nabbed for alleged DUI at same crash spot
May 21, 2008
TRUCKEE, Calif. (AP) -- Call it drunken driving deja vu. For the second time in five months, a 23-year-old California woman has been arrested after she allegedly crashed her car while driving under the influence at the exact same spot north of Lake Tahoe.
And to top it off, Truckee Police say that in both cases, her blood alcohol content was more than three times the legal limit.
Police say Melissa Dennison of Truckee crashed at about noon on Sunday on Glenshire Drive just south of the Glenshire Bridge. They say she was extremely intoxicated and had trouble standing or walking. Her blood alcohol level initially was measured at .346. The legal limit is .08. ...
May 21, 2008
TRUCKEE, Calif. (AP) -- Call it drunken driving deja vu. For the second time in five months, a 23-year-old California woman has been arrested after she allegedly crashed her car while driving under the influence at the exact same spot north of Lake Tahoe.
And to top it off, Truckee Police say that in both cases, her blood alcohol content was more than three times the legal limit.
Police say Melissa Dennison of Truckee crashed at about noon on Sunday on Glenshire Drive just south of the Glenshire Bridge. They say she was extremely intoxicated and had trouble standing or walking. Her blood alcohol level initially was measured at .346. The legal limit is .08. ...
Yup, Yankistani tax dollars at work yet again folks - isn't it charming?
Maradona would cut off "Hand of God" for actress
May 20, 2008
by James Mackenzie
CANNES, France (Reuters) - Argentinian soccer legend Diego Maradona said on Tuesday he would be prepared to cut off the hand that scored one of his most famous goals for a sight of film star Julia Roberts.
Maradona, in Cannes to promote a new documentary about his life by Serbian film director Emir Kusturica, appeared bewitched by the star of "Pretty Woman".
"I would do anything to see her coming along here, along the Croisette," he said, through a translator.
"I'd like to be able to walk along behind her and I'd be able to cut off my hand for that, even the hand with which I scored against England."
"I'd be able to cut off my hand if I could see Julia Roberts," he said. ...
... After the match, Maradona famously refused to admit that he had scored with his hand, saying that the goal was scored with "the Hand of God."
Remember, girls and boys - thinking with your crotch instead of your brain can make you do and say really stupid things.
May 20, 2008
by James Mackenzie
CANNES, France (Reuters) - Argentinian soccer legend Diego Maradona said on Tuesday he would be prepared to cut off the hand that scored one of his most famous goals for a sight of film star Julia Roberts.
Maradona, in Cannes to promote a new documentary about his life by Serbian film director Emir Kusturica, appeared bewitched by the star of "Pretty Woman".
"I would do anything to see her coming along here, along the Croisette," he said, through a translator.
"I'd like to be able to walk along behind her and I'd be able to cut off my hand for that, even the hand with which I scored against England."
"I'd be able to cut off my hand if I could see Julia Roberts," he said. ...
... After the match, Maradona famously refused to admit that he had scored with his hand, saying that the goal was scored with "the Hand of God."
Remember, girls and boys - thinking with your crotch instead of your brain can make you do and say really stupid things.
Screw you, washington dc.
Join a seed-swapping community and use only (preferably heirloom) seeds from real people, not monsanto-suckers.
Shades of that weirdo who wrote about subliminal images, and finished his book insisting the HoJo's menu photo of the fried clams had an orgy in.
They can all piss off.
They can all piss off.
School Bus Driver Arrested On Bus
Last Update: 5/16/2008 11:35 pm
A school bus driver is behind bars after being taken into custody on charges she was driving the bus drunk. ...
Last Update: 5/16/2008 11:35 pm
A school bus driver is behind bars after being taken into custody on charges she was driving the bus drunk. ...
It's not a religion, it's a CULT.
Hobo Jim McGreevey Cannot Afford Alimony
Poor sad ex-TGI Friday's gay romancer and New Jersey governor Jim McGreevey is so poor that he lives on cat food and canned beans, so he cannot spare any wooden nickles from his bindle for his betrayed former wife who "should have known he was gay" when she married him.
McGreevey earned a mere $429,000 in 2006 and $185,000 in 2007. This is why he is too poor to pay alimony to Dina Matos McGreevey or his other ex-wife, with whom he also fathered a child.
The former governor is expected to take his hobo act on the road, singing "The Big Rock Candy Mountain" from the backs of freight trains in order to cover his extensive legal fees. He will also perform sex acts at middlebrow chain restaurants for money. ...
Poor sad ex-TGI Friday's gay romancer and New Jersey governor Jim McGreevey is so poor that he lives on cat food and canned beans, so he cannot spare any wooden nickles from his bindle for his betrayed former wife who "should have known he was gay" when she married him.
McGreevey earned a mere $429,000 in 2006 and $185,000 in 2007. This is why he is too poor to pay alimony to Dina Matos McGreevey or his other ex-wife, with whom he also fathered a child.
The former governor is expected to take his hobo act on the road, singing "The Big Rock Candy Mountain" from the backs of freight trains in order to cover his extensive legal fees. He will also perform sex acts at middlebrow chain restaurants for money. ...
Firefighters get upper hand on Florida wildfire
By TRAVIS REED
Associated Press Writer
May 15, 1:58 PM EDT
PALM BAY, Fla. (AP) -- A man accused of lobbing a Molotov cocktail into woods that are among the thousands of acres that have burned along Florida's Atlantic coast conceded Thursday that he may have accidentally sparked a fire.
But Brian Crowder, 31, said he tossed a cigarette, not a bottle full of flammable liquid, out of his car.
"I believe that I accidentally may have - may have - started by tossing a cigarette out the door," Crowder told a horde of reporters as he was being led in shackles by police early Thursday. ...
... A resident alerted police after allegedly seeing Crowder throw an object from his car that sparked a small fire in the woods, Palm Bay Detective Ernie Diebel said. The object was a glass bottle containing an accelerant, Berger said.
Crowder was stopped a short time later and apprehended after fleeing from police. During the chase, Berger said Crowder set a few small fires with a long-stemmed lighter trying to throw police off, but those too were insignificant. He was found hiding under a pile of leaves in the woods.
Berger said Crowder's mother told police he had a juvenile fascination with fire. ...
He's still juvenile then, eh Mum?
By TRAVIS REED
Associated Press Writer
May 15, 1:58 PM EDT
PALM BAY, Fla. (AP) -- A man accused of lobbing a Molotov cocktail into woods that are among the thousands of acres that have burned along Florida's Atlantic coast conceded Thursday that he may have accidentally sparked a fire.
But Brian Crowder, 31, said he tossed a cigarette, not a bottle full of flammable liquid, out of his car.
"I believe that I accidentally may have - may have - started by tossing a cigarette out the door," Crowder told a horde of reporters as he was being led in shackles by police early Thursday. ...
... A resident alerted police after allegedly seeing Crowder throw an object from his car that sparked a small fire in the woods, Palm Bay Detective Ernie Diebel said. The object was a glass bottle containing an accelerant, Berger said.
Crowder was stopped a short time later and apprehended after fleeing from police. During the chase, Berger said Crowder set a few small fires with a long-stemmed lighter trying to throw police off, but those too were insignificant. He was found hiding under a pile of leaves in the woods.
Berger said Crowder's mother told police he had a juvenile fascination with fire. ...
He's still juvenile then, eh Mum?
May 15, 1:53 PM EDT
McCain outlines vision of Iraq victory
By GLEN JOHNSON
Associated Press Writer
"Vision," my arse. He's effing hallucinating!
McCain outlines vision of Iraq victory
By GLEN JOHNSON
Associated Press Writer
"Vision," my arse. He's effing hallucinating!
Doubtless their legal team will reincarnate as cockroaches - again.
Horses abandoned in West as feed prices rise
Tue May 13, 2008
By Laura Zuckerman
SALMON, Idaho (Reuters) - In the classic Hollywood western, a cowboy portrayed by John Wayne gallops across the sagebrush steppe and rocky ridges of the American West with only his horse for a companion.
What the films don't show is the cowboy buying and hauling hay for his horse, or what happens to the horse when it is too aged, infirm or irascible to ride.
Those more mundane details are at the heart of a debate about growing cases of mistreatment of horses in the United States, at a time when hay and grain prices are skyrocketing and when options for disposing of unwanted horses are dwindling.
Just a year ago, the sale of an average horse suitable for recreation -- one with neither prized bloodlines nor a performance record to heighten its status -- would have fetched several thousand dollars.
Today, prices in some cases have dropped to just hundreds of dollars, largely because of higher costs for their maintenance and transport.
The situation for marginal horses -- horses whose poor physical condition or disposition makes them targets for slaughter -- is even worse, after a court ruling sought by animal-rights groups effectively shut down the U.S. horse slaughter industry last year.
The result is that a growing number of unwanted horses are being starved or turned loose to fend for themselves in the U.S. West, according to animal welfare advocates.
"What concerns me is a fate worse than slaughter," said Temple Grandin, professor of animal science at Colorado State University and an authority on the handling of livestock such as horses. "We've got people turning horses loose in fields, dropping horses off in the night -- my worst nightmares are coming true." ...
You can thank "president" shrub and his brilliant economic policies - he's directly responsible. Idiot breeders ain't helpin' either.
Tue May 13, 2008
By Laura Zuckerman
SALMON, Idaho (Reuters) - In the classic Hollywood western, a cowboy portrayed by John Wayne gallops across the sagebrush steppe and rocky ridges of the American West with only his horse for a companion.
What the films don't show is the cowboy buying and hauling hay for his horse, or what happens to the horse when it is too aged, infirm or irascible to ride.
Those more mundane details are at the heart of a debate about growing cases of mistreatment of horses in the United States, at a time when hay and grain prices are skyrocketing and when options for disposing of unwanted horses are dwindling.
Just a year ago, the sale of an average horse suitable for recreation -- one with neither prized bloodlines nor a performance record to heighten its status -- would have fetched several thousand dollars.
Today, prices in some cases have dropped to just hundreds of dollars, largely because of higher costs for their maintenance and transport.
The situation for marginal horses -- horses whose poor physical condition or disposition makes them targets for slaughter -- is even worse, after a court ruling sought by animal-rights groups effectively shut down the U.S. horse slaughter industry last year.
The result is that a growing number of unwanted horses are being starved or turned loose to fend for themselves in the U.S. West, according to animal welfare advocates.
"What concerns me is a fate worse than slaughter," said Temple Grandin, professor of animal science at Colorado State University and an authority on the handling of livestock such as horses. "We've got people turning horses loose in fields, dropping horses off in the night -- my worst nightmares are coming true." ...
You can thank "president" shrub and his brilliant economic policies - he's directly responsible. Idiot breeders ain't helpin' either.
Judge dismisses case of woman who says veil cost her claim
5/13/2008
By JEFF KAROUB
The Associated Press
DETROIT (AP) -- A lawyer representing a Muslim woman who sued a judge for dismissing her small-claims court case after she refused to remove her veil said he's prepared to appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court.
"It's an unfortunate ruling," Nabih Ayad said of U.S. District Judge John Feikens' ruling Monday against Ginnnah Muhammad's claims that her constitutional right to freedom of religion and civil right to court access were violated.
Hamtramck Judge Paul Paruk requested she remove her niqab -- a scarf and veil that covers her head and most of her face -- during an October 2006 hearing.
"One could easily see the ... continuous litigants that are going to step into district court with this (veil) on," Ayad said Tuesday. "This issue is going to come up over and over again."
She was contesting a $3,000 charge from a rental-car company to repair a vehicle she said thieves had broken into. She offered to remove her veil before a female judge, but Paruk is the only judge in the district court in Hamtramck, a city surrounded by Detroit.
Feikens wrote that while Muhammad could not appeal Paruk's decision based on state law, she could have received state court review and filed a counter claim to the company's suit against her.
Ayad said state law also prevents cases under $3,500 from being filed in the state's general civil division.
"She can't file in state court," he said. "It is, basically, an appeal."
Ayad said Feikens' ruling circumvents the constitutional violations, and would appeal within 30 days.
"I feel the judge's ruling really left a citizen of this community feeling that her belief in the justice system has been stripped from her," Ayad said. "I always felt that this is a decision that ... has a very good chance of going to the appeals court, maybe even the Supreme Court." ...
... "It was a temporary, necessary, limited action (that had) only incidental impact on the practice of her religion," Nelson said. ...
Stupid cow.
5/13/2008
By JEFF KAROUB
The Associated Press
DETROIT (AP) -- A lawyer representing a Muslim woman who sued a judge for dismissing her small-claims court case after she refused to remove her veil said he's prepared to appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court.
"It's an unfortunate ruling," Nabih Ayad said of U.S. District Judge John Feikens' ruling Monday against Ginnnah Muhammad's claims that her constitutional right to freedom of religion and civil right to court access were violated.
Hamtramck Judge Paul Paruk requested she remove her niqab -- a scarf and veil that covers her head and most of her face -- during an October 2006 hearing.
"One could easily see the ... continuous litigants that are going to step into district court with this (veil) on," Ayad said Tuesday. "This issue is going to come up over and over again."
She was contesting a $3,000 charge from a rental-car company to repair a vehicle she said thieves had broken into. She offered to remove her veil before a female judge, but Paruk is the only judge in the district court in Hamtramck, a city surrounded by Detroit.
Feikens wrote that while Muhammad could not appeal Paruk's decision based on state law, she could have received state court review and filed a counter claim to the company's suit against her.
Ayad said state law also prevents cases under $3,500 from being filed in the state's general civil division.
"She can't file in state court," he said. "It is, basically, an appeal."
Ayad said Feikens' ruling circumvents the constitutional violations, and would appeal within 30 days.
"I feel the judge's ruling really left a citizen of this community feeling that her belief in the justice system has been stripped from her," Ayad said. "I always felt that this is a decision that ... has a very good chance of going to the appeals court, maybe even the Supreme Court." ...
... "It was a temporary, necessary, limited action (that had) only incidental impact on the practice of her religion," Nelson said. ...
Stupid cow.
Texas authorities investigate more polygamy charges
By ANGELA K. BROWN
Associated Press Writer
CLYDE, Texas (AP) -- Behind guarded, ornate gates at the end of a rural road, a self-proclaimed prophet warns his followers about the end of time and rails against a dangerous and unclean world outside their West Texas compound.
The women are covered in long skirts and long-sleeve shirts. Many of the children have different mothers and share the same father.
But this isn't the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints' ranch, which authorities raided last month in Eldorado after receiving reports that underage girls were being forced to marry much older men.
This is the House of Yahweh: a different, even darker sect that the state has been investigating for years. Authorities in February charged the group's 73-year-old leader with performing polygamous weddings and forcing about 40 children - some as young as 11 - to work jobs at his 44-acre compound.
"If a bunch of adults want to get together and follow some con man and throw their lives away, that's their right in this country," said Callahan County District Attorney Shane Deel. "But to me, when you do that to children and they don't have a chance, that's where the biggest concern is."
If convicted on the most serious charges, Yisrayl Hawkins faces up to 20 years in prison.
Another sect leader, Yedidiyah Hawkins, goes to court this summer on charges of sexually abusing a teenager, bigamy and welfare fraud.
Questions have also been raised about at least two deaths within the sect.
A 7-year-old died in 2003 after her mother and another member performed home surgery on her infected leg. Both women were convicted of injury to a child.
And in 2006, a woman bled to death after giving birth because she was prevented from going to the hospital, according to a wrongful-death lawsuit filed by her husband.
Although members deny they practice polygamy, former members say Yisrayl Hawkins has at least two dozen wives - and state records show he fathered two babies last year with women ages 19 and 22. ...
By ANGELA K. BROWN
Associated Press Writer
CLYDE, Texas (AP) -- Behind guarded, ornate gates at the end of a rural road, a self-proclaimed prophet warns his followers about the end of time and rails against a dangerous and unclean world outside their West Texas compound.
The women are covered in long skirts and long-sleeve shirts. Many of the children have different mothers and share the same father.
But this isn't the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints' ranch, which authorities raided last month in Eldorado after receiving reports that underage girls were being forced to marry much older men.
This is the House of Yahweh: a different, even darker sect that the state has been investigating for years. Authorities in February charged the group's 73-year-old leader with performing polygamous weddings and forcing about 40 children - some as young as 11 - to work jobs at his 44-acre compound.
"If a bunch of adults want to get together and follow some con man and throw their lives away, that's their right in this country," said Callahan County District Attorney Shane Deel. "But to me, when you do that to children and they don't have a chance, that's where the biggest concern is."
If convicted on the most serious charges, Yisrayl Hawkins faces up to 20 years in prison.
Another sect leader, Yedidiyah Hawkins, goes to court this summer on charges of sexually abusing a teenager, bigamy and welfare fraud.
Questions have also been raised about at least two deaths within the sect.
A 7-year-old died in 2003 after her mother and another member performed home surgery on her infected leg. Both women were convicted of injury to a child.
And in 2006, a woman bled to death after giving birth because she was prevented from going to the hospital, according to a wrongful-death lawsuit filed by her husband.
Although members deny they practice polygamy, former members say Yisrayl Hawkins has at least two dozen wives - and state records show he fathered two babies last year with women ages 19 and 22. ...
U.N. frustration grows at Myanmar's junta over aid
Mon May 12, 2008
By Louis Charbonneau
UNITED NATIONS, May 12 (Reuters) - U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon ratcheted up the pressure on Myanmar on Monday, saying he was extremely frustrated by the junta's slow delivery of aid to more than 1.5 million victims of Cyclone Nargis.
"Today is the eleventh day since ... Nargis hit Myanmar," Ban told reporters. "I want to register my deep concern -- and immense frustration -- at the unacceptably slow response to this grave humanitarian crisis."
In his most critical comments on Myanmar's military government to date, Ban said that despite repeated attempts to contact the junta's senior general, Than Shwe, he had been unable to speak with him and had sent him a letter.
"We are at a critical point," he said. "Unless more aid gets into the country very quickly, we face an outbreak of infectious diseases that could dwarf today's crisis."
"I therefore call, in the most strenuous terms, on the government of Myanmar to put its people's lives first. It must do all that it can to prevent this disaster from becoming even more serious."
U.N. humanitarian affairs chief John Holmes told reporters a problem with visas for U.N. relief officials had improved somewhat. He said a total of 34 Myanmar visas were being granted to U.N. aid workers, though more would be needed. ...
Mon May 12, 2008
By Louis Charbonneau
UNITED NATIONS, May 12 (Reuters) - U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon ratcheted up the pressure on Myanmar on Monday, saying he was extremely frustrated by the junta's slow delivery of aid to more than 1.5 million victims of Cyclone Nargis.
"Today is the eleventh day since ... Nargis hit Myanmar," Ban told reporters. "I want to register my deep concern -- and immense frustration -- at the unacceptably slow response to this grave humanitarian crisis."
In his most critical comments on Myanmar's military government to date, Ban said that despite repeated attempts to contact the junta's senior general, Than Shwe, he had been unable to speak with him and had sent him a letter.
"We are at a critical point," he said. "Unless more aid gets into the country very quickly, we face an outbreak of infectious diseases that could dwarf today's crisis."
"I therefore call, in the most strenuous terms, on the government of Myanmar to put its people's lives first. It must do all that it can to prevent this disaster from becoming even more serious."
U.N. humanitarian affairs chief John Holmes told reporters a problem with visas for U.N. relief officials had improved somewhat. He said a total of 34 Myanmar visas were being granted to U.N. aid workers, though more would be needed. ...
NY man sues US airline over flight spent in toilet
by Edith Honan
May 12, 2008
NEW YORK (Reuters) - A New York man who says he was denied a seat on a five-hour jetBlue flight and was instead told to "hang out" in the plane's bathroom has sued the airline for $2 million, saying he suffered "extreme humiliation."
When Gokhan Mutlu arrived to check in for a jetBlue flight from San Diego to New York in February he was told the flight was full, according to the lawsuit filed in New York State Supreme Court.
But Mutlu was allowed to board after a jetBlue flight attendant agreed to give up her seat and travel in an airline employee "jump seat." It was not clear in the lawsuit whether the flight attendant was working.
However 90 minutes into the flight, the pilot told Mutlu the flight attendant was uncomfortable and he would have to give up his seat and "hang out" in the bathroom for the remainder of the flight, the lawsuit said.
The pilot "became angry at (Mutlu's) reluctance" and said Mutlu "should be grateful for being onboard," the lawsuit said. When Mutlu volunteered to sit in the "jump seat," he was told it was reserved for airline personnel. ...
by Edith Honan
May 12, 2008
NEW YORK (Reuters) - A New York man who says he was denied a seat on a five-hour jetBlue flight and was instead told to "hang out" in the plane's bathroom has sued the airline for $2 million, saying he suffered "extreme humiliation."
When Gokhan Mutlu arrived to check in for a jetBlue flight from San Diego to New York in February he was told the flight was full, according to the lawsuit filed in New York State Supreme Court.
But Mutlu was allowed to board after a jetBlue flight attendant agreed to give up her seat and travel in an airline employee "jump seat." It was not clear in the lawsuit whether the flight attendant was working.
However 90 minutes into the flight, the pilot told Mutlu the flight attendant was uncomfortable and he would have to give up his seat and "hang out" in the bathroom for the remainder of the flight, the lawsuit said.
The pilot "became angry at (Mutlu's) reluctance" and said Mutlu "should be grateful for being onboard," the lawsuit said. When Mutlu volunteered to sit in the "jump seat," he was told it was reserved for airline personnel. ...
UN halts aid to Myanmar after junta seizes supplies
4 hours ago
YANGON, Myanmar (AP) -- Myanmar's junta seized U.N. aid shipments headed for hungry and homeless survivors of last week's devastating cyclone, prompting the world body to suspend further help on Friday.
The U.N. said the aid included 38 tons of high-energy biscuits and arrived in Myanmar on Friday on two flights from Bangladesh and the United Arab Emirates.
"All of the food aid and equipment that we managed to get in has been confiscated," U.N. World Food Program spokesman Paul Risley said. "For the time being, we have no choice but to end further efforts to bring critical needed food aid into Myanmar at this time." ...
I have a question.
Has any military government in the known history of humanity been sane?
4 hours ago
YANGON, Myanmar (AP) -- Myanmar's junta seized U.N. aid shipments headed for hungry and homeless survivors of last week's devastating cyclone, prompting the world body to suspend further help on Friday.
The U.N. said the aid included 38 tons of high-energy biscuits and arrived in Myanmar on Friday on two flights from Bangladesh and the United Arab Emirates.
"All of the food aid and equipment that we managed to get in has been confiscated," U.N. World Food Program spokesman Paul Risley said. "For the time being, we have no choice but to end further efforts to bring critical needed food aid into Myanmar at this time." ...
I have a question.
Has any military government in the known history of humanity been sane?
My son did not have to be shot, says barrister's father
By Jonathan Brown
Friday, 9 May 2008
The father of a barrister shot dead during an armed siege in Chelsea has insisted his son posed no threat to the public, despite being armed with a licensed shotgun. ...
... Mr Saunders said: "Put it this way, he didn't endanger anyone at all to my knowledge and we can only surmise what might have happened before the whole thing started," he said, describing him as "a warm, caring and loving son". ...
I'm sorry, but I don't know what planet you're from, Mr Saunders. Here on my planet when someone's firing a shotgun out their windows, we consider that person a threat, and not a 'warm, caring and loving' individual.
By Jonathan Brown
Friday, 9 May 2008
The father of a barrister shot dead during an armed siege in Chelsea has insisted his son posed no threat to the public, despite being armed with a licensed shotgun. ...
... Mr Saunders said: "Put it this way, he didn't endanger anyone at all to my knowledge and we can only surmise what might have happened before the whole thing started," he said, describing him as "a warm, caring and loving son". ...
I'm sorry, but I don't know what planet you're from, Mr Saunders. Here on my planet when someone's firing a shotgun out their windows, we consider that person a threat, and not a 'warm, caring and loving' individual.
Woman fired for giving 16-cent treat to toddler
by Claire Sibonney
Thu May 8, 2008
TORONTO (Reuters) - An attendant at a Canadian restaurant who was sacked for giving a bite-sized doughnut, worth 16 cents, to an agitated toddler was given her job back on Thursday after the case received wide media attention.
Nicole Lilliman, a single mother, said she was dismissed from a London, Ontario, outlet of the Tim Hortons coffee and doughnut chain after video cameras captured the 27-year-old giving a Timbit to a toddler.
"It was just out of my heart, she (the toddler) was pointing and going 'ah, ah...' I should have gone to my purse and got the change, but it was busy," Lilliman told the Toronto Star newspaper.
Tim Hortons said on Thursday that the firing was a mistake.
"It was the unfortunate action of one manager who unfortunately made an overzealous decision, and thankfully we were able to rectify the situation," said company spokeswoman Rachel Douglas.
Douglas said the company, a Canadian icon with stores on virtually every high street across the country, told Lilliman that she could have her job back, and Lilliman had accepted. ...
It is my sincerest hope that "manager who unfortunately made an overzealous decision" lost its job and won't be asked back.
by Claire Sibonney
Thu May 8, 2008
TORONTO (Reuters) - An attendant at a Canadian restaurant who was sacked for giving a bite-sized doughnut, worth 16 cents, to an agitated toddler was given her job back on Thursday after the case received wide media attention.
Nicole Lilliman, a single mother, said she was dismissed from a London, Ontario, outlet of the Tim Hortons coffee and doughnut chain after video cameras captured the 27-year-old giving a Timbit to a toddler.
"It was just out of my heart, she (the toddler) was pointing and going 'ah, ah...' I should have gone to my purse and got the change, but it was busy," Lilliman told the Toronto Star newspaper.
Tim Hortons said on Thursday that the firing was a mistake.
"It was the unfortunate action of one manager who unfortunately made an overzealous decision, and thankfully we were able to rectify the situation," said company spokeswoman Rachel Douglas.
Douglas said the company, a Canadian icon with stores on virtually every high street across the country, told Lilliman that she could have her job back, and Lilliman had accepted. ...
It is my sincerest hope that "manager who unfortunately made an overzealous decision" lost its job and won't be asked back.
Thumbs up for awareness only.
Air marshals' names tagged on 'no-fly' list
By Audrey Hudson
April 29, 2008
Some federal air marshals have been denied entry to flights they are assigned to protect when their names matched those on the terrorist no-fly list, and the agency says it's now taking steps to make sure their agents are allowed to board in the future.
The problem with federal air marshals (FAM) names matching those of suspected terrorists on the no-fly list has persisted for years, say air marshals familiar with the situation.
One air marshal said it has been "a major problem, where guys are denied boarding by the airline." ...
K. That's it. I want my money back.
By Audrey Hudson
April 29, 2008
Some federal air marshals have been denied entry to flights they are assigned to protect when their names matched those on the terrorist no-fly list, and the agency says it's now taking steps to make sure their agents are allowed to board in the future.
The problem with federal air marshals (FAM) names matching those of suspected terrorists on the no-fly list has persisted for years, say air marshals familiar with the situation.
One air marshal said it has been "a major problem, where guys are denied boarding by the airline." ...
K. That's it. I want my money back.
White House undermines EPA on cancer risks, GAO says
By H. JOSEF HEBERT
28 Apr 2008
WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Bush administration is undermining the Environmental Protection Agency's ability to determine health dangers of toxic chemicals by letting nonscientists have a bigger -- often secret -- say, congressional investigators say in a report obtained by The Associated Press.
The administration's decision to give the Defense Department and other agencies an early role in the process adds to years of delay in acting on harmful chemicals and jeopardizes the program's credibility, the Government Accountability Office concluded.
At issue is the EPA's screening of chemicals used in everything from household products to rocket fuel to determine if they pose serious risk of cancer or other illnesses.
A new review process begun by the White House in 2004 is adding more speed bumps for EPA scientists, the GAO said in its report, which will be the subject of a Senate Environment Committee hearing Tuesday. A formal policy effectively doubling the number of steps was adopted two weeks ago.
Cancer risk assessments for nearly a dozen major chemicals are now years overdue, the GAO said, blaming the new multiagency reviews for some of the delay. The EPA, for example, had promised to prepare assessments on 10 major toxic chemicals for external peer review by the end of 2007, but only two reached that stage.
GAO investigators said extensive involvement by EPA managers, White House budget officials and other agencies has eroded the independence of EPA scientists charged with determining the health risks posed by chemicals.
The Pentagon, the Energy Department, NASA and other agencies -- all of which could be severely affected by EPA risk findings -- are being allowed to participate "at almost every step in the assessment process," said the GAO. ...
By H. JOSEF HEBERT
28 Apr 2008
WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Bush administration is undermining the Environmental Protection Agency's ability to determine health dangers of toxic chemicals by letting nonscientists have a bigger -- often secret -- say, congressional investigators say in a report obtained by The Associated Press.
The administration's decision to give the Defense Department and other agencies an early role in the process adds to years of delay in acting on harmful chemicals and jeopardizes the program's credibility, the Government Accountability Office concluded.
At issue is the EPA's screening of chemicals used in everything from household products to rocket fuel to determine if they pose serious risk of cancer or other illnesses.
A new review process begun by the White House in 2004 is adding more speed bumps for EPA scientists, the GAO said in its report, which will be the subject of a Senate Environment Committee hearing Tuesday. A formal policy effectively doubling the number of steps was adopted two weeks ago.
Cancer risk assessments for nearly a dozen major chemicals are now years overdue, the GAO said, blaming the new multiagency reviews for some of the delay. The EPA, for example, had promised to prepare assessments on 10 major toxic chemicals for external peer review by the end of 2007, but only two reached that stage.
GAO investigators said extensive involvement by EPA managers, White House budget officials and other agencies has eroded the independence of EPA scientists charged with determining the health risks posed by chemicals.
The Pentagon, the Energy Department, NASA and other agencies -- all of which could be severely affected by EPA risk findings -- are being allowed to participate "at almost every step in the assessment process," said the GAO. ...
Um, it's the 21st century, people. Get a grip.
New Mexico police remove 4 children from church compound
Apr 30 2008
By MATT MYGATT
Associated Press Writer
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP) - State police have removed four children from an apocalyptic church whose leader claims to be the Messiah and acknowledges having sex with some of his followers.
The three girls and one boy--all under the age of 18--were taken from the northeastern New Mexico compound following an April 22 investigation, Romaine Serna, spokeswoman for the state Children, Youth and Families Department spokeswoman, said Wednesday.
The children were taken into state custody because of allegations of inappropriate contact between minors and the adult leader of The Lord Our Righteousness Church, Serna said.
"I understand that it was very calm and they (state police) did not meet with any resistance," she said. Serna said she wasn't aware of any other youths at the compound.
Serna declined to elaborate because of the ongoing investigation by state police and the district attorney's office. No charges had been filed, she said. ...
Apr 30 2008
By MATT MYGATT
Associated Press Writer
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP) - State police have removed four children from an apocalyptic church whose leader claims to be the Messiah and acknowledges having sex with some of his followers.
The three girls and one boy--all under the age of 18--were taken from the northeastern New Mexico compound following an April 22 investigation, Romaine Serna, spokeswoman for the state Children, Youth and Families Department spokeswoman, said Wednesday.
The children were taken into state custody because of allegations of inappropriate contact between minors and the adult leader of The Lord Our Righteousness Church, Serna said.
"I understand that it was very calm and they (state police) did not meet with any resistance," she said. Serna said she wasn't aware of any other youths at the compound.
Serna declined to elaborate because of the ongoing investigation by state police and the district attorney's office. No charges had been filed, she said. ...
Sect teen gives birth with state standing by
Of 53 girls ages 14-17, 31 have children or are pregnant, Texas officials say
Tues., April. 29, 2008
SAN MARCOS, Texas (AP) - One of the hundreds of young polygamist-sect members taken into state custody gave birth Tuesday to a healthy boy while child welfare officials, state troopers and fellow sect members stood watch outside the maternity ward.
... State officials raided the FLDS's Yearning For Zion Ranch in Eldorado on April 3. They took custody of 463 children on the belief that the sect's practice of underage and polygamous spiritual marriages endangered the children.
A number of girls first listed as adults were reclassified as minors as Child Protective Services, a division of Family and Protective Services, moved the children last week from a mass shelter in San Angelo to foster care facilities around the state, including some near San Marcos, in central Texas.
On Monday, CPS announced that almost 60 percent of the underage girls living on the Eldorado ranch either have children or are pregnant.
Of the 53 girls between the ages of 14 and 17 who are in state custody, 31 either have given birth or are expecting, Azar said.
"It shows you a pretty distinct pattern, that it was pretty pervasive," he said.
Under Texas law, children under the age of 17 generally cannot consent to sex with an adult. A girl can get married with parental permission at 16, but none of these girls is believed to have a legal marriage under state law.
Church officials have denied that any children were abused at the ranch and say the state's actions are a form of religious persecution.
Civil-liberties groups and lawyers for the children have criticized the state for sweeping all the children, from nursing infants to teen boys, into foster care when only teen girls are alleged to have been sexually abused. ...
Of 53 girls ages 14-17, 31 have children or are pregnant, Texas officials say
Tues., April. 29, 2008
SAN MARCOS, Texas (AP) - One of the hundreds of young polygamist-sect members taken into state custody gave birth Tuesday to a healthy boy while child welfare officials, state troopers and fellow sect members stood watch outside the maternity ward.
... State officials raided the FLDS's Yearning For Zion Ranch in Eldorado on April 3. They took custody of 463 children on the belief that the sect's practice of underage and polygamous spiritual marriages endangered the children.
A number of girls first listed as adults were reclassified as minors as Child Protective Services, a division of Family and Protective Services, moved the children last week from a mass shelter in San Angelo to foster care facilities around the state, including some near San Marcos, in central Texas.
On Monday, CPS announced that almost 60 percent of the underage girls living on the Eldorado ranch either have children or are pregnant.
Of the 53 girls between the ages of 14 and 17 who are in state custody, 31 either have given birth or are expecting, Azar said.
"It shows you a pretty distinct pattern, that it was pretty pervasive," he said.
Under Texas law, children under the age of 17 generally cannot consent to sex with an adult. A girl can get married with parental permission at 16, but none of these girls is believed to have a legal marriage under state law.
Church officials have denied that any children were abused at the ranch and say the state's actions are a form of religious persecution.
Civil-liberties groups and lawyers for the children have criticized the state for sweeping all the children, from nursing infants to teen boys, into foster care when only teen girls are alleged to have been sexually abused. ...
The leader of Australia's Liberal party ("the opposition"), Troy Buswell, likes his staffer ladies. First, in late 2005, he "crawled around on his hands and knees in front of a former Liberal staffer before she left the job." Then earlier this year he snapped open another staffer's bra. But hey, you work in the Australian parliament, you know what you're getting into! Yet there is no real excuse for Buswell's coup de grace: sniffing some staffer gal's chair, for its lady scent.
According to a Sunday Times piece over the weekend, Buswell "lifted [the staffer's] chair and started sniffing it after she had sat in it in his parliamentary office," in 2005. Buswell refused to deny these allegations yesterday. And if you refuse to deny SNIFFING A GIRL'S CHAIR FOR HER VAGINA ODOR, then you probably did it.
He held another press conference today and admitted that he had lifted the chair to get a few good whiffs of this staffer's ever-lingering snatch. Of course, he cried like a little baby today because ha ha ha, how completely embarrassing! What a clown! A sniffy sniffy vagina clown! ...
According to a Sunday Times piece over the weekend, Buswell "lifted [the staffer's] chair and started sniffing it after she had sat in it in his parliamentary office," in 2005. Buswell refused to deny these allegations yesterday. And if you refuse to deny SNIFFING A GIRL'S CHAIR FOR HER VAGINA ODOR, then you probably did it.
He held another press conference today and admitted that he had lifted the chair to get a few good whiffs of this staffer's ever-lingering snatch. Of course, he cried like a little baby today because ha ha ha, how completely embarrassing! What a clown! A sniffy sniffy vagina clown! ...
Iran official sees "destructive" Barbie influence
Mon Apr 28, 2008
TEHRAN (Reuters) - Imports of Barbie dolls and other Western toys will have destructive cultural and social consequences in Iran, the Islamic Republic's top prosecutor was quoted as saying on Monday.
Iran's conservative clerical establishment often rails against the perceived dangers of U.S.-inspired culture and consumerism, branding it "Westoxication."
But young Iranians are often keen consumers of such music, films and other goods from the West. Iconic toy brands can be bought in children's shops in the capital Tehran and elsewhere.
"The appearance of personalities such as Barbie, Batman, Spiderman and Harry Potter and ... computer games and movies are all a danger warning to the officials in the cultural arena," said Prosecutor General Ghorban Ali Dori Najafabadi in a letter to Vice President Parviz Davoudi published in the Mardom Salari daily. ...
Destructive indeed. Children might start asking why Barbie doesn't wear a mask, but Spiderman and Batman do.
Edited to add: saudi Barbie actually does wear a mask.
Mon Apr 28, 2008
TEHRAN (Reuters) - Imports of Barbie dolls and other Western toys will have destructive cultural and social consequences in Iran, the Islamic Republic's top prosecutor was quoted as saying on Monday.
Iran's conservative clerical establishment often rails against the perceived dangers of U.S.-inspired culture and consumerism, branding it "Westoxication."
But young Iranians are often keen consumers of such music, films and other goods from the West. Iconic toy brands can be bought in children's shops in the capital Tehran and elsewhere.
"The appearance of personalities such as Barbie, Batman, Spiderman and Harry Potter and ... computer games and movies are all a danger warning to the officials in the cultural arena," said Prosecutor General Ghorban Ali Dori Najafabadi in a letter to Vice President Parviz Davoudi published in the Mardom Salari daily. ...
Destructive indeed. Children might start asking why Barbie doesn't wear a mask, but Spiderman and Batman do.
Edited to add: saudi Barbie actually does wear a mask.
[Mister Rogers]Can you say, "Miscarriage of Justice?"
I knew you could.[/Mister Rogers]
I knew you could.[/Mister Rogers]
Family Stuck With House Possibly Built On Dump
Massachusetts Family Demands Answers From Town, Builder
April 23, 2008
MANCHESTER-BY-THE-SEA, Mass. -- A Massachusetts homeowner said she cannot live or sell her new $850,000 home because it may have been built on an old dump.
Julie Gesner and her family did not know about the land's history until they tried to sell the Manchester-By-The-Sea home last year and potential buyers walked away just before making an offer on the property.
"They walked away the day that they were going to put in the offer, saying, 'We heard a rumor that your house was built on the old town dump,'" Julie Gesner said. "I was horrified."
That is when the Gesners had the soil tested.
"The lead, at least, is six times the prescribed limit from the (Department of Environmental Protection) for pregnancy and children. There are other things out in the yard -- mercury and arsenic, chromium," Gesner said.
Two weeks away from having a baby, the family immediately moved out.
They began investigating the property and found a letter from November 2000 from the Board of Health to the builder, ordering him to cease and desist construction of the home. There was no follow-up.
"Do we think there was something there? I think it was probably there, but I can't prove what it was," town administrator Wayne Melville said. "So, it is a big step to shut down a project. You are going to cost people money."
Melville said he was unaware of the Board of Health letter until Tuesday. He maintains there is no hard evidence that the land was a dump or landfill. ...
melville and the builder should have to clean up that place themselves before starting their new jobs - bussing tables down the local.
Massachusetts Family Demands Answers From Town, Builder
April 23, 2008
MANCHESTER-BY-THE-SEA, Mass. -- A Massachusetts homeowner said she cannot live or sell her new $850,000 home because it may have been built on an old dump.
Julie Gesner and her family did not know about the land's history until they tried to sell the Manchester-By-The-Sea home last year and potential buyers walked away just before making an offer on the property.
"They walked away the day that they were going to put in the offer, saying, 'We heard a rumor that your house was built on the old town dump,'" Julie Gesner said. "I was horrified."
That is when the Gesners had the soil tested.
"The lead, at least, is six times the prescribed limit from the (Department of Environmental Protection) for pregnancy and children. There are other things out in the yard -- mercury and arsenic, chromium," Gesner said.
Two weeks away from having a baby, the family immediately moved out.
They began investigating the property and found a letter from November 2000 from the Board of Health to the builder, ordering him to cease and desist construction of the home. There was no follow-up.
"Do we think there was something there? I think it was probably there, but I can't prove what it was," town administrator Wayne Melville said. "So, it is a big step to shut down a project. You are going to cost people money."
Melville said he was unaware of the Board of Health letter until Tuesday. He maintains there is no hard evidence that the land was a dump or landfill. ...
melville and the builder should have to clean up that place themselves before starting their new jobs - bussing tables down the local.
Accuracy of Detroit police crime lab is questioned
All firearms investigations temporarily suspended
BY ERIC D. LAWRENCE and BEN SCHMITT
FREE PRESS STAFF WRITERS
April 26, 2008
The Wayne County Prosecutor's Office plans to review a year's worth of Detroit criminal cases involving firearms amid concerns raised about the accuracy of police ballistics testing.
The case that caused the review is the May 27 shooting deaths of two men sitting in a car on Detroit's east side.
The Detroit Police Department's crime lab tests showed 42 shell casings were fired by the same weapon, while two other tests showed that the casings came from at least two weapons, Chief Ella Bully-Cummings said at a Friday news conference.
Now, Detroit attorney Marvin Barnett, who first discovered the error, said thousands of appeals could be forthcoming in criminal cases. ...
... A source told the Free Press Friday that federal authorities would be called in if any evidence of criminality is turned up....the problem appears to have resulted from sloppy work performed by a former employee, the source said. ...
... Barnett said he initially asked Detroit police to retest the casings, and they refused. He then tested the equipment with his own investigator. Barnett said he has found discrepancies in three other cases involving firearms and one drug case.
The State Police crime lab's findings confirmed Barnett's tests, Miller said. ...
All firearms investigations temporarily suspended
BY ERIC D. LAWRENCE and BEN SCHMITT
FREE PRESS STAFF WRITERS
April 26, 2008
The Wayne County Prosecutor's Office plans to review a year's worth of Detroit criminal cases involving firearms amid concerns raised about the accuracy of police ballistics testing.
The case that caused the review is the May 27 shooting deaths of two men sitting in a car on Detroit's east side.
The Detroit Police Department's crime lab tests showed 42 shell casings were fired by the same weapon, while two other tests showed that the casings came from at least two weapons, Chief Ella Bully-Cummings said at a Friday news conference.
Now, Detroit attorney Marvin Barnett, who first discovered the error, said thousands of appeals could be forthcoming in criminal cases. ...
... A source told the Free Press Friday that federal authorities would be called in if any evidence of criminality is turned up....the problem appears to have resulted from sloppy work performed by a former employee, the source said. ...
... Barnett said he initially asked Detroit police to retest the casings, and they refused. He then tested the equipment with his own investigator. Barnett said he has found discrepancies in three other cases involving firearms and one drug case.
The State Police crime lab's findings confirmed Barnett's tests, Miller said. ...
Screw you, mccain.
Where's his Blairfare? How our millionaire former prime minister got a free train ride after boarding without cash or cards
By BETH HALE - 23rd April 2008
Since leaving Number Ten, Tony Blair has earned 500,000 on the speaking circuit as well as racking up consultancy positions worth millions of pounds.
So you would expect him to have enough money for a 24.50 train fare.
Yet when a ticket inspector asked him to pay up on the Heathrow Express the former prime minister was forced to admit he had no cash or cards. ...
... The spokesman was not however able to resolve whether Mr Blair, like the Queen, carries no cash. ...
Thumbs up only for awareness. Scum.
By BETH HALE - 23rd April 2008
Since leaving Number Ten, Tony Blair has earned 500,000 on the speaking circuit as well as racking up consultancy positions worth millions of pounds.
So you would expect him to have enough money for a 24.50 train fare.
Yet when a ticket inspector asked him to pay up on the Heathrow Express the former prime minister was forced to admit he had no cash or cards. ...
... The spokesman was not however able to resolve whether Mr Blair, like the Queen, carries no cash. ...
Thumbs up only for awareness. Scum.
Oklahoma sheriff charged with using inmates as sex slaves
By JUSTIN JUOZAPAVICIUS - 5 days ago
ARAPAHO, Okla. (AP) -- Authorities have charged a western Oklahoma sheriff with coercing and bribing female inmates so he could use them in a sex-slave operation run out of his jail.
Custer County Sheriff Mike Burgess resigned Wednesday just as state prosecutors filed 35 felony charges against him, including 14 counts of second-degree rape, seven counts of forcible oral sodomy and five counts of bribery by a public official.
Burgess, the top officer in the county of 26,000 since 1994, appeared in court Wednesday was released after posting $50,000 bail. ...
Why is this sick bastard out on bail, and why such low bail?
By JUSTIN JUOZAPAVICIUS - 5 days ago
ARAPAHO, Okla. (AP) -- Authorities have charged a western Oklahoma sheriff with coercing and bribing female inmates so he could use them in a sex-slave operation run out of his jail.
Custer County Sheriff Mike Burgess resigned Wednesday just as state prosecutors filed 35 felony charges against him, including 14 counts of second-degree rape, seven counts of forcible oral sodomy and five counts of bribery by a public official.
Burgess, the top officer in the county of 26,000 since 1994, appeared in court Wednesday was released after posting $50,000 bail. ...
Why is this sick bastard out on bail, and why such low bail?
Lynchings in Congo as penis theft panic hits capital
Tue Apr 22, 2008
By Joe Bavier
KINSHASA (Reuters) - Police in Congo have arrested 13 suspected sorcerers accused of using black magic to steal or shrink men's penises after a wave of panic and attempted lynchings triggered by the alleged witchcraft.
Reports of so-called penis snatching are not uncommon in West Africa, where belief in traditional religions and witchcraft remains widespread, and where ritual killings to obtain blood or body parts still occur.
Rumours of penis theft began circulating last week in Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of Congo's sprawling capital of some 8 million inhabitants. They quickly dominated radio call-in shows, with listeners advised to beware of fellow passengers in communal taxis wearing gold rings.
Purported victims, 14 of whom were also detained by police, claimed that sorcerers simply touched them to make their genitals shrink or disappear, in what some residents said was an attempt to extort cash with the promise of a cure.
"You just have to be accused of that, and people come after you. We've had a number of attempted lynchings. ... You see them covered in marks after being beaten," Kinshasa's police chief, Jean-Dieudonne Oleko, told Reuters on Tuesday.
Police arrested the accused sorcerers and their victims in an effort to avoid the sort of bloodshed seen in Ghana a decade ago, when 12 suspected penis snatchers were beaten to death by angry mobs. The 27 men have since been released.
"I'm tempted to say it's one huge joke," Oleko said.
"But when you try to tell the victims that their penises are still there, they tell you that it's become tiny or that they've become impotent. To that I tell them, 'How do you know if you haven't gone home and tried it'," he said. ...
Now, what was I just typing about entering the modren world?
Men who believe in penis-theft by witchcraft probably also believe that screwing a virgin cures STDs, and that pulling out prevents pregnancy.
Tue Apr 22, 2008
By Joe Bavier
KINSHASA (Reuters) - Police in Congo have arrested 13 suspected sorcerers accused of using black magic to steal or shrink men's penises after a wave of panic and attempted lynchings triggered by the alleged witchcraft.
Reports of so-called penis snatching are not uncommon in West Africa, where belief in traditional religions and witchcraft remains widespread, and where ritual killings to obtain blood or body parts still occur.
Rumours of penis theft began circulating last week in Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of Congo's sprawling capital of some 8 million inhabitants. They quickly dominated radio call-in shows, with listeners advised to beware of fellow passengers in communal taxis wearing gold rings.
Purported victims, 14 of whom were also detained by police, claimed that sorcerers simply touched them to make their genitals shrink or disappear, in what some residents said was an attempt to extort cash with the promise of a cure.
"You just have to be accused of that, and people come after you. We've had a number of attempted lynchings. ... You see them covered in marks after being beaten," Kinshasa's police chief, Jean-Dieudonne Oleko, told Reuters on Tuesday.
Police arrested the accused sorcerers and their victims in an effort to avoid the sort of bloodshed seen in Ghana a decade ago, when 12 suspected penis snatchers were beaten to death by angry mobs. The 27 men have since been released.
"I'm tempted to say it's one huge joke," Oleko said.
"But when you try to tell the victims that their penises are still there, they tell you that it's become tiny or that they've become impotent. To that I tell them, 'How do you know if you haven't gone home and tried it'," he said. ...
Now, what was I just typing about entering the modren world?
Men who believe in penis-theft by witchcraft probably also believe that screwing a virgin cures STDs, and that pulling out prevents pregnancy.
Dogs "rescue" girl abandoned by Indian mother
by Bappa Majumdar
Tue Apr 22, 2008
PATNA, India (Reuters) - Hundreds of villagers have flocked to a remote Indian village to see a baby girl who was saved by stray dogs after she was abandoned in a mound of mud by her mother, officials said on Tuesday.
Villagers in the eastern state of Bihar saved the newborn on the weekend after they saw three dogs barking near a baby covered with mud.
"The dogs removed the soil around and began to bark and the baby started crying which drew attention of the local villagers," Ram Narayan Sahani, a senior government official, said on Tuesday from Bihar's Samastipur district.
"The girl is crying but is safe in the lap of a childless couple who have adopted her."
Police said they were looking for the girl's mother, who they think had left the girl to die.
Female foeticide, though illegal in India, is widespread as boys are traditionally preferred to girls as breadwinners, and families have to pay huge dowries to marry off their daughters. ...
Why not enter the modren world even further by banning %^&*%$#! dowries? Huh?
by Bappa Majumdar
Tue Apr 22, 2008
PATNA, India (Reuters) - Hundreds of villagers have flocked to a remote Indian village to see a baby girl who was saved by stray dogs after she was abandoned in a mound of mud by her mother, officials said on Tuesday.
Villagers in the eastern state of Bihar saved the newborn on the weekend after they saw three dogs barking near a baby covered with mud.
"The dogs removed the soil around and began to bark and the baby started crying which drew attention of the local villagers," Ram Narayan Sahani, a senior government official, said on Tuesday from Bihar's Samastipur district.
"The girl is crying but is safe in the lap of a childless couple who have adopted her."
Police said they were looking for the girl's mother, who they think had left the girl to die.
Female foeticide, though illegal in India, is widespread as boys are traditionally preferred to girls as breadwinners, and families have to pay huge dowries to marry off their daughters. ...
Why not enter the modren world even further by banning %^&*%$#! dowries? Huh?
Get your pets fixed - and if you're not clever enough to do that then take the babies to a shelter, goddamit!
This creep should be neutered sans l'anesthsique.
This creep should be neutered sans l'anesthsique.
Screw you, washington dc.
Court terminates 8-year-old girl's marriage
Reporting by Mohamed Sudam; writing by Inal Ersan
Tue Apr 15, 2008
SANAA (Reuters) - A Yemeni court ordered the marriage of an eight-year-old girl terminated on Tuesday because she had not reached puberty.
The court also ordered the child's family to pay about $250 in compensation to the 30-year-old ex-husband.
The girl's lawyer and human rights activist Shatha Nasser said the minor had filed a suit in April asking for divorce and told the court that her husband had been physically abusing her and forcing her to have "sex with him after hitting her."
One of the people attending the trial volunteered to pay the compensation, the lawyer said, but did not explain the reason why the court ordered the compensation.
The ruling terminated the marriage instead of granting a divorce to prevent the husband from seeking to reinstate the marriage, according to the lawyer. ...
Reporting by Mohamed Sudam; writing by Inal Ersan
Tue Apr 15, 2008
SANAA (Reuters) - A Yemeni court ordered the marriage of an eight-year-old girl terminated on Tuesday because she had not reached puberty.
The court also ordered the child's family to pay about $250 in compensation to the 30-year-old ex-husband.
The girl's lawyer and human rights activist Shatha Nasser said the minor had filed a suit in April asking for divorce and told the court that her husband had been physically abusing her and forcing her to have "sex with him after hitting her."
One of the people attending the trial volunteered to pay the compensation, the lawyer said, but did not explain the reason why the court ordered the compensation.
The ruling terminated the marriage instead of granting a divorce to prevent the husband from seeking to reinstate the marriage, according to the lawyer. ...
berkett's berkish allright.
It should have always been called the political-military-industrial complex, and other non-g-rated words.
It's not possible for me to improve upon what dear Marielaem has already written.
China says firearms found in Tibetan temple
Mon Apr 14, 2008
By Ben Blanchard
BEIJING, April 14 (Reuters) - Chinese forces found firearms hidden throughout a Tibetan temple in an ethnic Tibetan area of southwestern China which has been the scene of anti-Chinese riots in recent weeks, state television said. ...
Any firearms found in that temple were planted.
Mon Apr 14, 2008
By Ben Blanchard
BEIJING, April 14 (Reuters) - Chinese forces found firearms hidden throughout a Tibetan temple in an ethnic Tibetan area of southwestern China which has been the scene of anti-Chinese riots in recent weeks, state television said. ...
Any firearms found in that temple were planted.
Bernardino and Jamie Gomez should be neutered and spayed, respectively, and sans l'anesthsique.
No, no, no, 300 million times no. Shove your spy crap up yr urethra, washington dc!
Thumbs up only to increase awareness of this utter fuckwittery.
Thumbs up only to increase awareness of this utter fuckwittery.
What was that I said about 6th-century "thinking"?
Wikileaks Rocks. Share this site with every politically-minded and -aware friend you've got.
Afghans Hold Secret Trials for Men That U.S. Detained
By TIM GOLDEN and DAVID ROHDE
The New York Times
Published: April 10, 2008
KABUL, Afghanistan -- Dozens of Afghan men who were previously held by the United States at Bagram Air Base and Guantnamo Bay, Cuba, are now being tried here in secretive Afghan criminal proceedings based mainly on allegations forwarded by the American military.
The prisoners are being convicted and sentenced to as much as 20 years' confinement in trials that typically run between half an hour and an hour, said human rights investigators who have observed them. One early trial was reported to have lasted barely 10 minutes, an investigator said.
The prosecutions are based in part on a security law promulgated in 1987, during the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan. Witnesses do not appear in court and cannot be cross-examined. There are no sworn statements of their testimony. ...
...the United States "Report of Investigation" recounts that the Afghan prisoner Rais Mohammed Khan was detained by the police as he and a friend tried to cross the Afghan border in the eastern department of Khost on May 1, 2006. The report, which misidentifies Mr. Khan by a name his father used, Matelky, notes that he and his injured friend were suspected of having planned a suicide bombing that went awry.
"Their stories are conflicting, and the Khost Police Force believe they are directly tied to suicide attacks that were taking place during the Independence Day Parade in Khost," the report reads. It notes that Mr. Khan appeared to lie on a polygraph examination when he denied involvement in suicide bombing. But it adds:
"Confessions/Admissions/Incriminating Statements: None"
"Witnesses: None"
"Physical Evidence: None"
"Photographs: None"
Also in his Afghan court file was a one-page summary of the recommendation from the United States military panel that reviewed his case at Bagram. It describes him as a low threat to American and coalition forces and him as "low prosecution value."
He was convicted under the 1987 Afghan security law and [received an eight year prison sentence].
The Good Doctor (Dr-Duke) hipped me to the NY Times story, but I post all NYT stories on vox because their own site is so jacked.
PS: Sorry, but I don't use fox 'news.'
By TIM GOLDEN and DAVID ROHDE
The New York Times
Published: April 10, 2008
KABUL, Afghanistan -- Dozens of Afghan men who were previously held by the United States at Bagram Air Base and Guantnamo Bay, Cuba, are now being tried here in secretive Afghan criminal proceedings based mainly on allegations forwarded by the American military.
The prisoners are being convicted and sentenced to as much as 20 years' confinement in trials that typically run between half an hour and an hour, said human rights investigators who have observed them. One early trial was reported to have lasted barely 10 minutes, an investigator said.
The prosecutions are based in part on a security law promulgated in 1987, during the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan. Witnesses do not appear in court and cannot be cross-examined. There are no sworn statements of their testimony. ...
...the United States "Report of Investigation" recounts that the Afghan prisoner Rais Mohammed Khan was detained by the police as he and a friend tried to cross the Afghan border in the eastern department of Khost on May 1, 2006. The report, which misidentifies Mr. Khan by a name his father used, Matelky, notes that he and his injured friend were suspected of having planned a suicide bombing that went awry.
"Their stories are conflicting, and the Khost Police Force believe they are directly tied to suicide attacks that were taking place during the Independence Day Parade in Khost," the report reads. It notes that Mr. Khan appeared to lie on a polygraph examination when he denied involvement in suicide bombing. But it adds:
"Confessions/Admissions/Incriminating Statements: None"
"Witnesses: None"
"Physical Evidence: None"
"Photographs: None"
Also in his Afghan court file was a one-page summary of the recommendation from the United States military panel that reviewed his case at Bagram. It describes him as a low threat to American and coalition forces and him as "low prosecution value."
He was convicted under the 1987 Afghan security law and [received an eight year prison sentence].
The Good Doctor (Dr-Duke) hipped me to the NY Times story, but I post all NYT stories on vox because their own site is so jacked.
PS: Sorry, but I don't use fox 'news.'
The UN must oversee all Yankistani elections.
Saudi woman killed for chatting on Facebook
By Damien McElroy Foreign Affairs Correspondent
01/04/2008
A young Saudi Arabian woman was murdered by her father for chatting on the social network site Facebook, it has emerged.
The unnamed woman from Riyadh was beaten and shot after she was discovered in the middle of an online conversation with a man, the al-Arabiya website reported.
The case was reported on a Saudi Arabian news site as an example of the "strife" the social networking site is causing in the Islamic nation. ...
No, you've got it wrong and you ended that sentence with a prepositional phrase, you wanker. facebook isn't causing any damn strife: saudi arabia's 6th-century mode of "thinking" and refusal to become part of the modren world is causing strife.
By Damien McElroy Foreign Affairs Correspondent
01/04/2008
A young Saudi Arabian woman was murdered by her father for chatting on the social network site Facebook, it has emerged.
The unnamed woman from Riyadh was beaten and shot after she was discovered in the middle of an online conversation with a man, the al-Arabiya website reported.
The case was reported on a Saudi Arabian news site as an example of the "strife" the social networking site is causing in the Islamic nation. ...
No, you've got it wrong and you ended that sentence with a prepositional phrase, you wanker. facebook isn't causing any damn strife: saudi arabia's 6th-century mode of "thinking" and refusal to become part of the modren world is causing strife.
China denounces European parliament over Tibet
Fri Apr 11, 2008 11:38pm
By Simon Rabinovitch
BEIJING (Reuters) - China has denounced the European Parliament's call to boycott the opening ceremony of the Summer Olympics if Beijing does not start talks with the Dalai Lama about Tibet.
The denunciation was China's latest unyielding response to foreign criticism after unrest in Tibet, and used language very similar to Beijing's condemnation a day earlier of a resolution by U.S. lawmakers that urged an end to a crackdown in Tibet.
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Jiang Yu said the European parliamentarians had "rudely interfered in China's internal affairs", "seriously hurt the feelings of the Chinese people" and "confounded black and white", Xinhua news agency reported on Saturday. ...
Fri Apr 11, 2008 11:38pm
By Simon Rabinovitch
BEIJING (Reuters) - China has denounced the European Parliament's call to boycott the opening ceremony of the Summer Olympics if Beijing does not start talks with the Dalai Lama about Tibet.
The denunciation was China's latest unyielding response to foreign criticism after unrest in Tibet, and used language very similar to Beijing's condemnation a day earlier of a resolution by U.S. lawmakers that urged an end to a crackdown in Tibet.
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Jiang Yu said the European parliamentarians had "rudely interfered in China's internal affairs", "seriously hurt the feelings of the Chinese people" and "confounded black and white", Xinhua news agency reported on Saturday. ...
Is Texas group a religious sect or clear-cut cult?
Opinions differ on how to characterize alleged polygamists
By Jeanna Bryner
April 9, 2008
... While the media and some sociologists call the group a religious sect, other experts see it as a clear-cut cult, defined by charismatic leadership and abuse. According to news accounts of the FLDS, pubescent girls were forced into "spiritual marriages" to older men. Inside the compound's walls, researchers say, a new reality was born, with members indoctrinated so fully they had no concept of reality outside the walls.
"In the case of the FLDS, we're talking about basically believing that women are there to be baby factories, and you have extreme patriarchal control of that group," said Janja Lalich, a sociologist at California State University, Chico.
Lalich told LiveScience she definitely thinks the Texas compound should be called a cult. "If you've got a group that's abusing hundreds and hundreds of women and children, let's call it what it is," she said.
Another scientist weighed in on the cult-or-not question. "From what I can understand of this movement in Texas and other places, is that it would probably fall under new religious movement or cult movement," said John Barnshaw of the University of Delaware, who studies collective behaviors such as social movements and cultish behaviors. ...
Opinions differ on how to characterize alleged polygamists
By Jeanna Bryner
April 9, 2008
... While the media and some sociologists call the group a religious sect, other experts see it as a clear-cut cult, defined by charismatic leadership and abuse. According to news accounts of the FLDS, pubescent girls were forced into "spiritual marriages" to older men. Inside the compound's walls, researchers say, a new reality was born, with members indoctrinated so fully they had no concept of reality outside the walls.
"In the case of the FLDS, we're talking about basically believing that women are there to be baby factories, and you have extreme patriarchal control of that group," said Janja Lalich, a sociologist at California State University, Chico.
Lalich told LiveScience she definitely thinks the Texas compound should be called a cult. "If you've got a group that's abusing hundreds and hundreds of women and children, let's call it what it is," she said.
Another scientist weighed in on the cult-or-not question. "From what I can understand of this movement in Texas and other places, is that it would probably fall under new religious movement or cult movement," said John Barnshaw of the University of Delaware, who studies collective behaviors such as social movements and cultish behaviors. ...
Late-Night Call Revealed Secret World
Sect Had Moved to Compound After Fleeing Utah, Colorado
By Sylvia Moreno and Adam Kilgore
Washington Post Staff Writers
Wednesday, April 9, 2008
SAN ANGELO, Tex., April 8 -- The cry for help came late at night -- at 11:32 p.m. -- and it came in a whisper.
Speaking in a low voice to avoid being overheard, the 16-year-old girl -- mother of an 8-month-old baby and pregnant with a second child -- sketched out chilling tales. She spoke of teenage girls, some as young as 13, being forced to have sex with older men for the purpose of bearing their children. She said she was the seventh "spiritual" wife of a 49-year-old man. She described beatings by him as so vicious that one time several of her ribs had been broken.
The March 29 phone call, and one the next day from the compound run by an insular and secretive splinter sect of the Mormon Church, prompted raids by authorities; they took 416 children into protective custody, the largest child removal in Texas history. The children, mostly girls, ranged in age from infants to 17. Several have babies or are pregnant.
The girl's harrowing tale and the subsequent investigation provided for the first time a glimpse of life inside the compound. It was an existence so removed from mainstream society that many female inhabitants did not know how to spell their last name and many children could not state their birth date. ...
Sect Had Moved to Compound After Fleeing Utah, Colorado
By Sylvia Moreno and Adam Kilgore
Washington Post Staff Writers
Wednesday, April 9, 2008
SAN ANGELO, Tex., April 8 -- The cry for help came late at night -- at 11:32 p.m. -- and it came in a whisper.
Speaking in a low voice to avoid being overheard, the 16-year-old girl -- mother of an 8-month-old baby and pregnant with a second child -- sketched out chilling tales. She spoke of teenage girls, some as young as 13, being forced to have sex with older men for the purpose of bearing their children. She said she was the seventh "spiritual" wife of a 49-year-old man. She described beatings by him as so vicious that one time several of her ribs had been broken.
The March 29 phone call, and one the next day from the compound run by an insular and secretive splinter sect of the Mormon Church, prompted raids by authorities; they took 416 children into protective custody, the largest child removal in Texas history. The children, mostly girls, ranged in age from infants to 17. Several have babies or are pregnant.
The girl's harrowing tale and the subsequent investigation provided for the first time a glimpse of life inside the compound. It was an existence so removed from mainstream society that many female inhabitants did not know how to spell their last name and many children could not state their birth date. ...
Losing a Best Friend Along With the House
By Steve Hendrix
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, April 9, 2008
The families started coming in during the winter, parents and kids gathered in the cramped lobby of the Montgomery County Humane Society shelter to hand over their pets. It's a largely hidden consequence of the housing meltdown: a spike in the number of animals being turned in or abandoned as families are forced from their homes.
"We get give-ups all the time, but typically it's someone with allergies or a young animal with behavior issues," said Kathy Dillon, the facility's operations coordinator. "Now every week we're seeing whole families come in to say good-bye to a longtime pet because they have to move. We've had a lot of children in tears." ...
Go to a shelter if you want a pet! These poor beasties need loving homes.
By Steve Hendrix
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, April 9, 2008
The families started coming in during the winter, parents and kids gathered in the cramped lobby of the Montgomery County Humane Society shelter to hand over their pets. It's a largely hidden consequence of the housing meltdown: a spike in the number of animals being turned in or abandoned as families are forced from their homes.
"We get give-ups all the time, but typically it's someone with allergies or a young animal with behavior issues," said Kathy Dillon, the facility's operations coordinator. "Now every week we're seeing whole families come in to say good-bye to a longtime pet because they have to move. We've had a lot of children in tears." ...
Go to a shelter if you want a pet! These poor beasties need loving homes.
Court Files Detail Claims of Sect's `Pattern' of Abuse
By GRETEL C. KOVACH
The New York Times
Published: April 9, 2008
SAN ANGELO, Tex. -- Texas authorities released court documents on Tuesday detailing accusations of a "widespread pattern" of physical and sexual abuse of children by a polygamous sect. ...
... An affidavit released on Tuesday says the 16-year-old repeatedly called a local family violence shelter asking for help to leave the ranch. She said that she had been taken to the ranch three years before by her parents and that when she was 15 she was forced into a marriage with a man who was then about 49, becoming his seventh wife.
The girl said the abuse began shortly after she moved to the ranch, the court papers say. She added that the man would force her to have sex with him and beat her when he became angry. The last time he beat her was on Easter, she said in the papers.
The girl, whispering into someone else's cellphone, told the authorities that she thought she was several weeks pregnant, the papers say. She said that she was not allowed to leave the ranch other than to receive medical care, but that the man had left the ranch for a while to go to "the outsiders' world." ...
By GRETEL C. KOVACH
The New York Times
Published: April 9, 2008
SAN ANGELO, Tex. -- Texas authorities released court documents on Tuesday detailing accusations of a "widespread pattern" of physical and sexual abuse of children by a polygamous sect. ...
... An affidavit released on Tuesday says the 16-year-old repeatedly called a local family violence shelter asking for help to leave the ranch. She said that she had been taken to the ranch three years before by her parents and that when she was 15 she was forced into a marriage with a man who was then about 49, becoming his seventh wife.
The girl said the abuse began shortly after she moved to the ranch, the court papers say. She added that the man would force her to have sex with him and beat her when he became angry. The last time he beat her was on Easter, she said in the papers.
The girl, whispering into someone else's cellphone, told the authorities that she thought she was several weeks pregnant, the papers say. She said that she was not allowed to leave the ranch other than to receive medical care, but that the man had left the ranch for a while to go to "the outsiders' world." ...
Documents: Sect Married Girls at Puberty
By MICHELLE ROBERTS - 2 hours ago
ELDORADO, Texas (AP) -- A polygamist compound with hundreds of children was rife with sexual abuse, child welfare officials allege in court documents, with girls spiritually married to much older men as soon as they reached puberty and boys groomed to perpetuate the cycle.
The documents released Tuesday also gave details about the hushed phone calls that triggered the raid, by a 16-year-old girl at the West Texas ranch who said her 50-year-old husband beat and raped her. Days after raiding the compound, officials still aren't sure where the girl is.
Officials have completed removing all 416 children from the ranch and have won custody of all of them, Child Protective Services spokeswoman Marleigh Meisner told reporters in San Angelo, about 40 miles from the compound in Eldorado.
Court documents said a number of teen girls at the 1,700-acre compound were pregnant, and that all the children were removed on the grounds that they were in danger of "emotional, physical, and/or sexual abuse." Another 139 women left on their own.
"Investigators determined that there is a widespread pattern and practice of the YFZ (Yearning for Zion) Ranch in which young, minor female residents are conditioned to expect and accept sexual activity with adult men at the ranch upon being spiritually married to them," read the affidavit signed by Lynn McFadden, a Department of Family and Protective Services investigative supervisor.
McFadden said the girls were spiritually married to the men as soon as they reached puberty and were required to produce children. ...
By MICHELLE ROBERTS - 2 hours ago
ELDORADO, Texas (AP) -- A polygamist compound with hundreds of children was rife with sexual abuse, child welfare officials allege in court documents, with girls spiritually married to much older men as soon as they reached puberty and boys groomed to perpetuate the cycle.
The documents released Tuesday also gave details about the hushed phone calls that triggered the raid, by a 16-year-old girl at the West Texas ranch who said her 50-year-old husband beat and raped her. Days after raiding the compound, officials still aren't sure where the girl is.
Officials have completed removing all 416 children from the ranch and have won custody of all of them, Child Protective Services spokeswoman Marleigh Meisner told reporters in San Angelo, about 40 miles from the compound in Eldorado.
Court documents said a number of teen girls at the 1,700-acre compound were pregnant, and that all the children were removed on the grounds that they were in danger of "emotional, physical, and/or sexual abuse." Another 139 women left on their own.
"Investigators determined that there is a widespread pattern and practice of the YFZ (Yearning for Zion) Ranch in which young, minor female residents are conditioned to expect and accept sexual activity with adult men at the ranch upon being spiritually married to them," read the affidavit signed by Lynn McFadden, a Department of Family and Protective Services investigative supervisor.
McFadden said the girls were spiritually married to the men as soon as they reached puberty and were required to produce children. ...
... Five officers forced BBC Radio Stoke's Max Khan to his knees and held him face down in Stoke-on-Trent on Monday.
He was wearing a backpack with protruding wires and aerials. Staffordshire Police have apologised.
Earlier this year armed police tackled a man in the city after fearing his MP3 player was a gun.
Mr Khan said he was targeted after police were told an "Arabic-looking man was acting suspiciously" outside the Potteries Shopping Centre in Hanley.
He was on his way back from a story about the recently-moved Post Office and carrying a backpack containing equipment that is regularly used to allow reporters to broadcast from locations around the city centre.
He said the officers came at him from several directions at about 1100 BST and shouted for him to "get down on the floor". ...
Lovely how innocents get thrown to the ground and frisked due to stupidity, overreaction and racism.
He was wearing a backpack with protruding wires and aerials. Staffordshire Police have apologised.
Earlier this year armed police tackled a man in the city after fearing his MP3 player was a gun.
Mr Khan said he was targeted after police were told an "Arabic-looking man was acting suspiciously" outside the Potteries Shopping Centre in Hanley.
He was on his way back from a story about the recently-moved Post Office and carrying a backpack containing equipment that is regularly used to allow reporters to broadcast from locations around the city centre.
He said the officers came at him from several directions at about 1100 BST and shouted for him to "get down on the floor". ...
Lovely how innocents get thrown to the ground and frisked due to stupidity, overreaction and racism.
I nicked this from Patoloco and begged him to help me find the good guys.
My God, are there any?
Thumbs up for increasing awareness only.
My God, are there any?
Thumbs up for increasing awareness only.
Rogge: Beijing Smog May Affect Athletes
By GILLIAN WONG
The Associated Press
Saturday, April 5, 2008
SINGAPORE -- Beijing's heavy pollution may hurt the performances of athletes in this summer's Olympic Games, although it will not endanger their health, International Olympic Committee President Jacques Rogge said Saturday.
The IOC in recent months has acknowledged the possibility that athletes' performances may be affected by China's pollution. But Chinese leaders have made repeated assurances that Beijing's notorious smog will be solved before the Olympic Games begin. [Ed. Note: "Solved"? WTF?!]
"The health of the athletes is absolutely not in any danger," Rogge said Saturday. "It might be that some will have to have a slightly reduced performance, but nothing will harm the health of the athletes. The IOC will take care of that." ...
How? Will they give them gas masks or scuba tanks?
By GILLIAN WONG
The Associated Press
Saturday, April 5, 2008
SINGAPORE -- Beijing's heavy pollution may hurt the performances of athletes in this summer's Olympic Games, although it will not endanger their health, International Olympic Committee President Jacques Rogge said Saturday.
The IOC in recent months has acknowledged the possibility that athletes' performances may be affected by China's pollution. But Chinese leaders have made repeated assurances that Beijing's notorious smog will be solved before the Olympic Games begin. [Ed. Note: "Solved"? WTF?!]
"The health of the athletes is absolutely not in any danger," Rogge said Saturday. "It might be that some will have to have a slightly reduced performance, but nothing will harm the health of the athletes. The IOC will take care of that." ...
How? Will they give them gas masks or scuba tanks?
Closed Detroit school gets boarded up
April 5, 2008
A day after a Free Press report revealed equipment and student records with personal information remained inside a[n abandoned] school amidst stunning vandalism, Detroit Board of Education employees began boarding up the building. In the 10 months since Joy Middle School was closed, vandals destroyed walls and ceilings in search of metals to sell. Neighbors said they fear for the safety of children.
A school official said supplies and records left inside may stay until the school is tested for contaminants....
April 5, 2008
A day after a Free Press report revealed equipment and student records with personal information remained inside a[n abandoned] school amidst stunning vandalism, Detroit Board of Education employees began boarding up the building. In the 10 months since Joy Middle School was closed, vandals destroyed walls and ceilings in search of metals to sell. Neighbors said they fear for the safety of children.
A school official said supplies and records left inside may stay until the school is tested for contaminants....
There are many evil, multi-death corporations but mons(ter)anto's one of the all-time worst.
Lovestruck guard helped inmates escape
WICHITA, Kansas (AP) -- A former prison guard romantically involved with one of the two inmates she helped escape pleaded guilty Friday to a federal firearms charge, telling relatives she now realizes she was used.
"She also feels like one of the world's greatest fools," her mother, Laurie Ann Nutter, said. "She realizes now there wasn't anything real in the relationship. She feels so extremely foolish, she is angry about it." ...
... In a written statement filed as part of the plea deal, Goff wrote that she received a cell phone call from Ford the evening of the escape. She said she used bolt cutters to cut through the padlock securing an outer gate and drove onto the grounds.
"I approached the outermost wire perimeter fence on foot and used bolt cutters to cut through this fence in order to assist Ford and Bell in their escape from the El Dorado Correctional facility," Goff wrote.
Goff's family said she had a romantic relationship with Ford before the escape.
Many thanks, dear Darkspoon; and well found, dear FinestKind! You're both Goddesses.
WICHITA, Kansas (AP) -- A former prison guard romantically involved with one of the two inmates she helped escape pleaded guilty Friday to a federal firearms charge, telling relatives she now realizes she was used.
"She also feels like one of the world's greatest fools," her mother, Laurie Ann Nutter, said. "She realizes now there wasn't anything real in the relationship. She feels so extremely foolish, she is angry about it." ...
... In a written statement filed as part of the plea deal, Goff wrote that she received a cell phone call from Ford the evening of the escape. She said she used bolt cutters to cut through the padlock securing an outer gate and drove onto the grounds.
"I approached the outermost wire perimeter fence on foot and used bolt cutters to cut through this fence in order to assist Ford and Bell in their escape from the El Dorado Correctional facility," Goff wrote.
Goff's family said she had a romantic relationship with Ford before the escape.
Many thanks, dear Darkspoon; and well found, dear FinestKind! You're both Goddesses.
My stomach's churning, and it's really hard to type with clenched fists, but thumbs up so awareness increases.
WTF, Michigan?!
WTF, Michigan?!
Holy hell! They want to poison San Francisco!
Md. Boy, 12, Kills Man Attacking Mother
Officials Undecided On Filing Charges
By Avis Thomas-Lester and Hamil R. Harris
Washington Post Staff Writers
Wednesday, April 2, 2008
The 12-year-old boy had finished his homework and was playing a video game when he heard his mother cry out. Rushing to her aid, he found her on the kitchen floor, straddled by a fellow resident of their Prince George's County boarding house, the man's hands wrapped tightly around her neck, the boy said yesterday.
"I kept saying, 'Stop! Stop! Stop!'" the boy said, describing the events of Monday night. "But he just ignored me. He didn't stop. He just kept hurting her."
The boy said he grabbed a knife and swung, slashing 64-year-old Salomon Noubissie across the neck and opening an artery. Noubissie was fatally wounded. ...
The theory round these parts is Noubissie was on some vile, vile drug(s) and th' ambulance folk probably let him die.
Officials Undecided On Filing Charges
By Avis Thomas-Lester and Hamil R. Harris
Washington Post Staff Writers
Wednesday, April 2, 2008
The 12-year-old boy had finished his homework and was playing a video game when he heard his mother cry out. Rushing to her aid, he found her on the kitchen floor, straddled by a fellow resident of their Prince George's County boarding house, the man's hands wrapped tightly around her neck, the boy said yesterday.
"I kept saying, 'Stop! Stop! Stop!'" the boy said, describing the events of Monday night. "But he just ignored me. He didn't stop. He just kept hurting her."
The boy said he grabbed a knife and swung, slashing 64-year-old Salomon Noubissie across the neck and opening an artery. Noubissie was fatally wounded. ...
The theory round these parts is Noubissie was on some vile, vile drug(s) and th' ambulance folk probably let him die.
Airline Maintenance on Fliers' Minds
By DAN CATERINICCHIA - 2 hours ago
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Before boarding an American Airlines flight to Dallas this week, Jody Johnson took an unusual pre-travel precaution: she checked to see whether the aircraft was among those recently grounded because of safety concerns.
She was relieved to learn it was not the same type of plane grounded last week by American Airlines and Delta Air Lines for inspections of wiring along the wheel wells.
"It's the airlines' responsibility to us as consumers to offer service that's safe," said Johnson, a student from San Juan Capistrano, Calif.
Well-publicized equipment problems at American, Southwest and other large carriers is making travelers jittery and adding another headache to the ordeal of air travel.
There are also questions about the outsourcing of maintenance work to overseas facilities and allegations of a too-cozy relationship between airlines and the Federal Aviation Administration. ...
My fave bit was when the congressthing said it is "bordering on corruption." Which border is he looking at?
I want a matter transmitter. Modren "travel" has increasingly become more like its original source-word, "travail."
By DAN CATERINICCHIA - 2 hours ago
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Before boarding an American Airlines flight to Dallas this week, Jody Johnson took an unusual pre-travel precaution: she checked to see whether the aircraft was among those recently grounded because of safety concerns.
She was relieved to learn it was not the same type of plane grounded last week by American Airlines and Delta Air Lines for inspections of wiring along the wheel wells.
"It's the airlines' responsibility to us as consumers to offer service that's safe," said Johnson, a student from San Juan Capistrano, Calif.
Well-publicized equipment problems at American, Southwest and other large carriers is making travelers jittery and adding another headache to the ordeal of air travel.
There are also questions about the outsourcing of maintenance work to overseas facilities and allegations of a too-cozy relationship between airlines and the Federal Aviation Administration. ...
My fave bit was when the congressthing said it is "bordering on corruption." Which border is he looking at?
I want a matter transmitter. Modren "travel" has increasingly become more like its original source-word, "travail."
Memo: Laws Didn't Apply to Interrogators
Justice Dept. Official in 2003 Said President's Wartime Authority Trumped Many Statutes
By Dan Eggen and Josh White
Washington Post Staff Writers
Wednesday, April 2, 2008
The Justice Department sent a legal memorandum to the Pentagon in 2003 asserting that federal laws prohibiting assault, maiming and other crimes did not apply to military interrogators who questioned al-Qaeda captives because the president's ultimate authority as commander in chief overrode such statutes.
The 81-page memo, which was declassified and released publicly yesterday, argues that poking, slapping or shoving detainees would not give rise to criminal liability. The document also appears to defend the use of mind-altering drugs that do not produce "an extreme effect" calculated to "cause a profound disruption of the senses or personality."
Although the existence of the memo has long been known, its contents had not been previously disclosed.
Nine months after it was issued, Justice Department officials told the Defense Department to stop relying on it. But its reasoning provided the legal foundation for the Defense Department's use of aggressive interrogation practices at a crucial time, as captives poured into military jails from Afghanistan and U.S. forces prepared to invade Iraq.
Sent to the Pentagon's general counsel on March 14, 2003, by John C. Yoo, then a deputy in the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel, the memo provides an expansive argument for nearly unfettered presidential power in a time of war. It contends that numerous laws and treaties forbidding torture or cruel treatment should not apply to U.S. interrogations in foreign lands because of the president's inherent wartime powers. ...
Justice Dept. Official in 2003 Said President's Wartime Authority Trumped Many Statutes
By Dan Eggen and Josh White
Washington Post Staff Writers
Wednesday, April 2, 2008
The Justice Department sent a legal memorandum to the Pentagon in 2003 asserting that federal laws prohibiting assault, maiming and other crimes did not apply to military interrogators who questioned al-Qaeda captives because the president's ultimate authority as commander in chief overrode such statutes.
The 81-page memo, which was declassified and released publicly yesterday, argues that poking, slapping or shoving detainees would not give rise to criminal liability. The document also appears to defend the use of mind-altering drugs that do not produce "an extreme effect" calculated to "cause a profound disruption of the senses or personality."
Although the existence of the memo has long been known, its contents had not been previously disclosed.
Nine months after it was issued, Justice Department officials told the Defense Department to stop relying on it. But its reasoning provided the legal foundation for the Defense Department's use of aggressive interrogation practices at a crucial time, as captives poured into military jails from Afghanistan and U.S. forces prepared to invade Iraq.
Sent to the Pentagon's general counsel on March 14, 2003, by John C. Yoo, then a deputy in the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel, the memo provides an expansive argument for nearly unfettered presidential power in a time of war. It contends that numerous laws and treaties forbidding torture or cruel treatment should not apply to U.S. interrogations in foreign lands because of the president's inherent wartime powers. ...
Salmonella Spreads In Town's Water Supply
Colorado Town To Flush Water System With Chlorine
March 24, 2008
ALAMOSA, Colo. (AP) -- More cases of suspected salmonella have been reported in the southern Colorado city of Alamosa.
Jefferson County official Jim Shires said the number reached 216 on Sunday. He said nine people have required hospital treatment.
Health officials believe the outbreak may be caused by Alamosa's municipal water system. Residents have been told to stop drinking and cooking with tap water. ...
Colorado Town To Flush Water System With Chlorine
March 24, 2008
ALAMOSA, Colo. (AP) -- More cases of suspected salmonella have been reported in the southern Colorado city of Alamosa.
Jefferson County official Jim Shires said the number reached 216 on Sunday. He said nine people have required hospital treatment.
Health officials believe the outbreak may be caused by Alamosa's municipal water system. Residents have been told to stop drinking and cooking with tap water. ...
Kinell! WTF is next? A date-rape game for boys? I'd love to make my opinions known to the creators of this game with my baseball bat.
Classy.
Idiots.
Bastards.
Idiots.
Bastards.
China Orders Video Web Sites to Close
By MIN LEE
The Associated Press
Friday, March 21, 2008
HONG KONG -- China will shut down or punish dozens of video-sharing Web sites for carrying content deemed pornographic, violent or a threat to national security under rules that tighten Internet controls, a regulator said Friday.
The announcement came as Chinese Web surfers were blocked from seeing foreign sites with video about protests in Tibet. The new order did not mention the anti-government demonstrations or China's resulting crackdown. ...
By MIN LEE
The Associated Press
Friday, March 21, 2008
HONG KONG -- China will shut down or punish dozens of video-sharing Web sites for carrying content deemed pornographic, violent or a threat to national security under rules that tighten Internet controls, a regulator said Friday.
The announcement came as Chinese Web surfers were blocked from seeing foreign sites with video about protests in Tibet. The new order did not mention the anti-government demonstrations or China's resulting crackdown. ...
Screw you, washington dc.
Admiring stalin's arse requires psychopathy, rootin' tootin' vladimir putin.
Last Foreign Reporters Forced From Tibet
By LILY HINDY
The Associated Press
Thursday, March 20, 2008
NEW YORK -- China forced the last remaining foreign journalists out of Tibet on Thursday, and stepped up restrictions on Internet and radio reports from people within the country, a media watchdog said.
Georg Blume, a correspondent for German newspapers Die Zeit and taz, and Kristin Kupfer of the German EPD news agency, left Thursday after being confronted by an official who threatened to cancel their Chinese visas, Reporters Without Borders said.
Earlier this week, Economist correspondent James Miles and a group of 15 Hong Kong reporters also were forced out.
"If they don't have anything to hide, then why are they making foreign journalists leave? It's clear that they don't want any witnesses," said Vincent Brossel, who heads Reporters Without Borders' Asia desk. ...
By LILY HINDY
The Associated Press
Thursday, March 20, 2008
NEW YORK -- China forced the last remaining foreign journalists out of Tibet on Thursday, and stepped up restrictions on Internet and radio reports from people within the country, a media watchdog said.
Georg Blume, a correspondent for German newspapers Die Zeit and taz, and Kristin Kupfer of the German EPD news agency, left Thursday after being confronted by an official who threatened to cancel their Chinese visas, Reporters Without Borders said.
Earlier this week, Economist correspondent James Miles and a group of 15 Hong Kong reporters also were forced out.
"If they don't have anything to hide, then why are they making foreign journalists leave? It's clear that they don't want any witnesses," said Vincent Brossel, who heads Reporters Without Borders' Asia desk. ...
Nobel Laureates Condemn China on Tibet
By CARLEY PETESCH
The Associated Press
Thursday, March 20, 2008
NEW YORK -- Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel and 25 other Nobel laureates on Thursday condemned the Chinese government's violent crackdown on Tibetan protesters and called on Beijing to exercise restraint.
"We protest the unwarranted campaign waged by the Chinese government against our fellow Nobel laureate, His Holiness the Dalai Lama," the group said in a statement released by Wiesel.
Wiesel told The Associated Press that the group wanted renewed negotiations between China and the Dalai Lama, who won the 1989 Nobel Peace Prize.
"The latest events are dramatic and the main thing is to stop the present oppression, persecution and violence," Wiesel said. ...
By CARLEY PETESCH
The Associated Press
Thursday, March 20, 2008
NEW YORK -- Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel and 25 other Nobel laureates on Thursday condemned the Chinese government's violent crackdown on Tibetan protesters and called on Beijing to exercise restraint.
"We protest the unwarranted campaign waged by the Chinese government against our fellow Nobel laureate, His Holiness the Dalai Lama," the group said in a statement released by Wiesel.
Wiesel told The Associated Press that the group wanted renewed negotiations between China and the Dalai Lama, who won the 1989 Nobel Peace Prize.
"The latest events are dramatic and the main thing is to stop the present oppression, persecution and violence," Wiesel said. ...
State has 2,236 more people unemployed in week
By MARTIN CRUTSINGER
ASSOCIATED PRESS
March 20, 2008
WASHINGTON -- The number of newly laid-off workers filing for unemployment benefits rose last week to the highest level in nearly two months, providing more evidence that the weak economy is having an adverse impact on the labor market.
The Labor Department said Thursday that applications for jobless benefits totaled 378,000 last week. That was an increase of 22,000 from the previous week and was a far bigger jump than had been expected.
The four-week average for new claims rose to 365,250, which was the highest level since a flood of claims caused by the 2005 Gulf Coast hurricanes.
The current economic slowdown, which many economists believe has already turned into a full-blown recession, is starting to show up in the labor market in terms of higher layoffs and weaker hiring numbers. ...
By MARTIN CRUTSINGER
ASSOCIATED PRESS
March 20, 2008
WASHINGTON -- The number of newly laid-off workers filing for unemployment benefits rose last week to the highest level in nearly two months, providing more evidence that the weak economy is having an adverse impact on the labor market.
The Labor Department said Thursday that applications for jobless benefits totaled 378,000 last week. That was an increase of 22,000 from the previous week and was a far bigger jump than had been expected.
The four-week average for new claims rose to 365,250, which was the highest level since a flood of claims caused by the 2005 Gulf Coast hurricanes.
The current economic slowdown, which many economists believe has already turned into a full-blown recession, is starting to show up in the labor market in terms of higher layoffs and weaker hiring numbers. ...
Yup, zillions of years of Russistan's long, cold, dark, vodka-fuelled Winters have made her people mad.
edited to add:
ShagrathX has a brilliant point! The Yankistanis are quite as mad. Cheap, inexpensive, nasty beer and dry counties; long, hot Summers and/or long, cold Winters; (too-)lenient gun laws. All of the above and we talk (speak) The World's Most Insane Language Evar! [N.B.: Yankistani, that is, not English. Vide Saki (psued. of HH Munro, 1870-1916) in the short story Adrian; The Chronicles of Clovis, 1911: "I love Americans, but not when they try to talk French. What a blessing it is that they never try to talk English." ]
edited to add:
ShagrathX has a brilliant point! The Yankistanis are quite as mad. Cheap, inexpensive, nasty beer and dry counties; long, hot Summers and/or long, cold Winters; (too-)lenient gun laws. All of the above and we talk (speak) The World's Most Insane Language Evar! [N.B.: Yankistani, that is, not English. Vide Saki (psued. of HH Munro, 1870-1916) in the short story Adrian; The Chronicles of Clovis, 1911: "I love Americans, but not when they try to talk French. What a blessing it is that they never try to talk English." ]
(Claude Rains' voice)I am shocked! shocked!(/Claude Rains' voice) Why hasn't peta shut down this degrading monkey act?
Screw you, washington dc.
AP Water Probe Prompts Senate Hearings
By MARTHA MENDOZA
The Associated Press
Monday, March 10, 2008
Two veteran U.S. senators said Monday they plan to hold hearings in response to an Associated Press investigation into the presence of trace amounts of pharmaceuticals in the drinking water supplies of at least 41 million Americans.
Also, U.S. Rep. Allyson Schwartz, D-Pa., has asked the EPA to establish a national task force to investigate the issue and make recommendations to Congress on any legislative actions needed.
Sen. Barbara Boxer, who heads the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, and Sen. Frank Lautenberg, chairman of the Transportation, Safety, Infrastructure Security and Water Quality Subcommittee, said the oversight hearings would likely be held in April. ...
By MARTHA MENDOZA
The Associated Press
Monday, March 10, 2008
Two veteran U.S. senators said Monday they plan to hold hearings in response to an Associated Press investigation into the presence of trace amounts of pharmaceuticals in the drinking water supplies of at least 41 million Americans.
Also, U.S. Rep. Allyson Schwartz, D-Pa., has asked the EPA to establish a national task force to investigate the issue and make recommendations to Congress on any legislative actions needed.
Sen. Barbara Boxer, who heads the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, and Sen. Frank Lautenberg, chairman of the Transportation, Safety, Infrastructure Security and Water Quality Subcommittee, said the oversight hearings would likely be held in April. ...
Are they still being exploited if they're getting paid $5500/hr?
This is one of those times I find myself absolutely disgusted by my own species, horrified, too.
Smaller Burgs Don't Test Water for Drugs
By The Associated Press - 4 hours ago
9 March 2008
The Associated Press surveyed 52 small water providers that serve communities with populations generally around 25,000 -- one in each state, and two in Missouri and Texas.
All but one said their drinking water had not been screened for pharmaceuticals; officials in that community, Emporia, Kan., refused to answer AP's questions, citing post-9/11 security concerns. ...
Click the link to see the list: I ain't postin' such a long list here.
Also: How screwed up is Emporia, Kansas? Must be all the sunflowers and lousy drivers.
By The Associated Press - 4 hours ago
9 March 2008
The Associated Press surveyed 52 small water providers that serve communities with populations generally around 25,000 -- one in each state, and two in Missouri and Texas.
All but one said their drinking water had not been screened for pharmaceuticals; officials in that community, Emporia, Kan., refused to answer AP's questions, citing post-9/11 security concerns. ...
Click the link to see the list: I ain't postin' such a long list here.
Also: How screwed up is Emporia, Kansas? Must be all the sunflowers and lousy drivers.
AP Probe Finds Drugs in Drinking Water
By JEFF DONN, MARTHA MENDOZA and JUSTIN PRITCHARD - 4 hours ago
9 March 2008
A vast array of pharmaceuticals -- including antibiotics, anti-convulsants, mood stabilizers and sex hormones -- have been found in the drinking water supplies of at least 41 million Americans, an Associated Press investigation shows.
To be sure, the concentrations of these pharmaceuticals are tiny, measured in quantities of parts per billion or trillion, far below the levels of a medical dose. Also, utilities insist their water is safe.
But the presence of so many prescription drugs -- and over-the-counter medicines like acetaminophen and ibuprofen -- in so much of our drinking water is heightening worries among scientists of long-term consequences to human health.
In the course of a five-month inquiry, the AP discovered that drugs have been detected in the drinking water supplies of 24 major metropolitan areas -- from Southern California to Northern New Jersey, from Detroit to Louisville, Ky.
Water providers rarely disclose results of pharmaceutical screenings, unless pressed, the AP found. For example, the head of a group representing major California suppliers said the public "doesn't know how to interpret the information" and might be unduly alarmed. [NB: That's right, Gentle Stumbler - he thinks you're stupid.]
How do the drugs get into the water?
People take pills. Their bodies absorb some of the medication, but the rest of it passes through and is flushed down the toilet. The wastewater is treated before it is discharged into reservoirs, rivers or lakes. Then, some of the water is cleansed again at drinking water treatment plants and piped to consumers. But most treatments do not remove all drug residue.
And while researchers do not yet understand the exact risks from decades of persistent exposure to random combinations of low levels of pharmaceuticals, recent studies -- which have gone virtually unnoticed by the general public -- have found alarming effects on human cells and wildlife.
"We recognize it is a growing concern and we're taking it very seriously," said Benjamin H. Grumbles, assistant administrator for water at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. ...
You're evidently not taking it seriously enough - the epa (NB: Acronym for evil polluters' advocate) water administrator isn't talking to the AP, his flunky is!
By JEFF DONN, MARTHA MENDOZA and JUSTIN PRITCHARD - 4 hours ago
9 March 2008
A vast array of pharmaceuticals -- including antibiotics, anti-convulsants, mood stabilizers and sex hormones -- have been found in the drinking water supplies of at least 41 million Americans, an Associated Press investigation shows.
To be sure, the concentrations of these pharmaceuticals are tiny, measured in quantities of parts per billion or trillion, far below the levels of a medical dose. Also, utilities insist their water is safe.
But the presence of so many prescription drugs -- and over-the-counter medicines like acetaminophen and ibuprofen -- in so much of our drinking water is heightening worries among scientists of long-term consequences to human health.
In the course of a five-month inquiry, the AP discovered that drugs have been detected in the drinking water supplies of 24 major metropolitan areas -- from Southern California to Northern New Jersey, from Detroit to Louisville, Ky.
Water providers rarely disclose results of pharmaceutical screenings, unless pressed, the AP found. For example, the head of a group representing major California suppliers said the public "doesn't know how to interpret the information" and might be unduly alarmed. [NB: That's right, Gentle Stumbler - he thinks you're stupid.]
How do the drugs get into the water?
People take pills. Their bodies absorb some of the medication, but the rest of it passes through and is flushed down the toilet. The wastewater is treated before it is discharged into reservoirs, rivers or lakes. Then, some of the water is cleansed again at drinking water treatment plants and piped to consumers. But most treatments do not remove all drug residue.
And while researchers do not yet understand the exact risks from decades of persistent exposure to random combinations of low levels of pharmaceuticals, recent studies -- which have gone virtually unnoticed by the general public -- have found alarming effects on human cells and wildlife.
"We recognize it is a growing concern and we're taking it very seriously," said Benjamin H. Grumbles, assistant administrator for water at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. ...
You're evidently not taking it seriously enough - the epa (NB: Acronym for evil polluters' advocate) water administrator isn't talking to the AP, his flunky is!
Dead rodent stops op
Fri Mar 7, 2008
LONDON (Reuters) - A patient was told there was no reason why he couldn't have surgery in a hospital, despite the smell caused by a dead rodent trapped in the building's ceiling. ...
... Cowper, 19, told the Sun newspaper he had waited 11 months for the operation, and the doctor told him he could go ahead despite the stench.
"He said the smell didn't represent a health risk, but I was appalled," Cowper said. "I asked him: 'If you were me, would you have the operation?' He looked at me and said 'no', so I decided there and then I wasn't going to go ahead."
I never thought I would implore Judi (Dench) to leave a theatre; 2000 points if you're a Yankistani and know what I mean.
Fri Mar 7, 2008
LONDON (Reuters) - A patient was told there was no reason why he couldn't have surgery in a hospital, despite the smell caused by a dead rodent trapped in the building's ceiling. ...
... Cowper, 19, told the Sun newspaper he had waited 11 months for the operation, and the doctor told him he could go ahead despite the stench.
"He said the smell didn't represent a health risk, but I was appalled," Cowper said. "I asked him: 'If you were me, would you have the operation?' He looked at me and said 'no', so I decided there and then I wasn't going to go ahead."
I never thought I would implore Judi (Dench) to leave a theatre; 2000 points if you're a Yankistani and know what I mean.
Drunken Federal Judge Arrested In Drag
Poor Judge Robert Somma's night of harmless dressup fun came to an abrupt and embarrassing end when he got arrested for drunk driving. Last week the Boston-based judge's wife was out of town, so he put on his most glamorous cocktail dress, slipped on some fishnets and a pair of heels, grabbed his purse, and drove up to New Hampshire for an alleged "two gin and tonics." Several hours later he rear-ended a pickup with his Mercedes sedan and the rest is humiliating history.
Police said he "had a difficult time locating his license in his purse," couldn't stand up straight, and blew an impressive .12 on the breath test at the police station. He has since pled no contest to a first-offense misdemeanor driving while intoxicated charge.
The First Circuit Court bankruptcy judge was appointed in 2004, and according to a spokesperson has "no history of problems." ...
Poor Judge Robert Somma's night of harmless dressup fun came to an abrupt and embarrassing end when he got arrested for drunk driving. Last week the Boston-based judge's wife was out of town, so he put on his most glamorous cocktail dress, slipped on some fishnets and a pair of heels, grabbed his purse, and drove up to New Hampshire for an alleged "two gin and tonics." Several hours later he rear-ended a pickup with his Mercedes sedan and the rest is humiliating history.
Police said he "had a difficult time locating his license in his purse," couldn't stand up straight, and blew an impressive .12 on the breath test at the police station. He has since pled no contest to a first-offense misdemeanor driving while intoxicated charge.
The First Circuit Court bankruptcy judge was appointed in 2004, and according to a spokesperson has "no history of problems." ...
Sad Drag Queen Judge Steps Down
Robert Somma, the poor humiliated Bush-appointed bankruptcy judge who was recently arrested in a cocktail dress, fishnets, and stylish pumps after crashing his Mercedes into a pickup while allegedly drunk, announced this weekend that he would resign from his post.
He held his position on Boston's First Federal Circuit for three wonderful years. Gary Wenta, a circuit executive for the First Circuit, said "He was serving a 14-year appointment. This will leave him without a pension."
The tragically pensionless judge will probably just have to go back to lawyering in order to bring home whatever six-figure pittance he can. On the plus side, private practices tend to have a less stringent dress code. ...
Robert Somma, the poor humiliated Bush-appointed bankruptcy judge who was recently arrested in a cocktail dress, fishnets, and stylish pumps after crashing his Mercedes into a pickup while allegedly drunk, announced this weekend that he would resign from his post.
He held his position on Boston's First Federal Circuit for three wonderful years. Gary Wenta, a circuit executive for the First Circuit, said "He was serving a 14-year appointment. This will leave him without a pension."
The tragically pensionless judge will probably just have to go back to lawyering in order to bring home whatever six-figure pittance he can. On the plus side, private practices tend to have a less stringent dress code. ...
This shite is so absolutely effing horrible it's embarassing. It also partly explains why punk happened, girls and boys: for a number of years the radio sounded exactly the way this crrrrap looks.
Why do I hope he'll post more? Is it a case of Cultural Masochism?
Why do I hope he'll post more? Is it a case of Cultural Masochism?
Employers Slash Jobs by Most in 5 Years
By JEANNINE AVERSA
March 7, 2008
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Employers slashed jobs by 63,000 in February, the most in five years, the starkest sign yet the country is heading dangerously toward recession or is in one already.
The Labor Department's report, released Friday, also showed that the nation's unemployment rate dipped to 4.8 percent as hundreds of thousands of people -- perhaps discouraged by their prospects -- left the civilian labor force. The jobless rate was 4.9 percent in January.
Job losses were widespread, with hefty cuts coming from construction, manufacturing, retailing, financial services and a variety of professional and business services. Those losses swamped gains elsewhere including education and health care, leisure and hospitality, and the government.
The latest snapshot of the nation's employment climate underscored the heavy toll of the housing and credit crises on companies, jobseekers and the overall economy. ...
By JEANNINE AVERSA
March 7, 2008
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Employers slashed jobs by 63,000 in February, the most in five years, the starkest sign yet the country is heading dangerously toward recession or is in one already.
The Labor Department's report, released Friday, also showed that the nation's unemployment rate dipped to 4.8 percent as hundreds of thousands of people -- perhaps discouraged by their prospects -- left the civilian labor force. The jobless rate was 4.9 percent in January.
Job losses were widespread, with hefty cuts coming from construction, manufacturing, retailing, financial services and a variety of professional and business services. Those losses swamped gains elsewhere including education and health care, leisure and hospitality, and the government.
The latest snapshot of the nation's employment climate underscored the heavy toll of the housing and credit crises on companies, jobseekers and the overall economy. ...
Economy Lost 63,000 Jobs in February
By MICHAEL M. GRYNBAUM
Published: March 7, 2008
The economy unexpectedly shed 63,000 jobs in February, the government said on Friday, fueling fears of a recession as manufacturers and construction companies cut their work forces amid the continuing housing crisis.
It was the fastest fall-off in the labor market in five years, and the report raised anticipation on Wall Street that the Federal Reserve will lower interest rates again later this month. Some investors are now predicting a more drastic cut of a full percentage point. ...
Thanks a lot, shrub.
By MICHAEL M. GRYNBAUM
Published: March 7, 2008
The economy unexpectedly shed 63,000 jobs in February, the government said on Friday, fueling fears of a recession as manufacturers and construction companies cut their work forces amid the continuing housing crisis.
It was the fastest fall-off in the labor market in five years, and the report raised anticipation on Wall Street that the Federal Reserve will lower interest rates again later this month. Some investors are now predicting a more drastic cut of a full percentage point. ...
Thanks a lot, shrub.
My oldest friend would tell complaint remover, "Go Die!"
Bless her little cotton socks.
Bless her little cotton socks.
Screw you, washington dc.
Screw you, washington dc. WTF will be next? Government-installed cameras in our homes' bedrooms and bathrooms?
Ex-Official, Jailed in Md., Found With Handcuff Key
By Ruben Castaneda
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, March 5, 2008
Former Prince George's County homeland security official Keith A. Washington, jailed awaiting sentencing for fatally shooting a furniture deliveryman and wounding another, was found last week with a handcuff key and had a "clear intention of escaping," according to court papers filed by prosecutors.
A Prince George's jail spokeswoman said yesterday that officials were investigating how Washington, who is also a former police officer, obtained the key. Law enforcement officials said that handcuff keys are generally universal and that the key probably could have opened any handcuffs.
According to the court papers, correctional officers discovered the key in the pocket of Washington's jail shirt Thursday, three days after he was convicted of involuntary manslaughter and other crimes. Washington, 46, resisted being strip-searched before being taken to the Calvert County jail, where he was being transferred for his safety, according to the papers.
"The shirt was 'pulled' from the defendant's grip and the handcuff key was found in the pocket of the defendant's jail shirt," prosecutors wrote. "Defendant stated that he found the handcuff key approximately two hours earlier and placed same in his pocket." ...
... State's Attorney Glenn F. Ivey said yesterday he was "shocked" to learn that Washington had a key. "I thought this kind of thing only happened on shows like 'Prison Break' -- evidently not." ...
By Ruben Castaneda
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, March 5, 2008
Former Prince George's County homeland security official Keith A. Washington, jailed awaiting sentencing for fatally shooting a furniture deliveryman and wounding another, was found last week with a handcuff key and had a "clear intention of escaping," according to court papers filed by prosecutors.
A Prince George's jail spokeswoman said yesterday that officials were investigating how Washington, who is also a former police officer, obtained the key. Law enforcement officials said that handcuff keys are generally universal and that the key probably could have opened any handcuffs.
According to the court papers, correctional officers discovered the key in the pocket of Washington's jail shirt Thursday, three days after he was convicted of involuntary manslaughter and other crimes. Washington, 46, resisted being strip-searched before being taken to the Calvert County jail, where he was being transferred for his safety, according to the papers.
"The shirt was 'pulled' from the defendant's grip and the handcuff key was found in the pocket of the defendant's jail shirt," prosecutors wrote. "Defendant stated that he found the handcuff key approximately two hours earlier and placed same in his pocket." ...
... State's Attorney Glenn F. Ivey said yesterday he was "shocked" to learn that Washington had a key. "I thought this kind of thing only happened on shows like 'Prison Break' -- evidently not." ...
Want Health Insurance? Try The Lottery
Oregon Program To Enroll People Who Can't Get Medicaid
March 4, 2008
PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) -- It's a one-of-a-kind lottery -- the prize is health insurance.
Oregon will start drawing names this week for a chance to enroll in a state program geared toward people who aren't poor enough for Medicaid but are too strapped for cash to buy their own insurance.
More than 80,000 people have signed up for a chance, but only a few thousand will be chosen. ...
This is horrifying.
Oregon Program To Enroll People Who Can't Get Medicaid
March 4, 2008
PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) -- It's a one-of-a-kind lottery -- the prize is health insurance.
Oregon will start drawing names this week for a chance to enroll in a state program geared toward people who aren't poor enough for Medicaid but are too strapped for cash to buy their own insurance.
More than 80,000 people have signed up for a chance, but only a few thousand will be chosen. ...
This is horrifying.
Authorities bust global online child porn ring
22 arrests, more than 400,000 pieces of porn seized
By LARA JAKES JORDAN
ASSOCIATED PRESS
March 5, 2008
WASHINGTON -- After James Freeman was vetted and approved for membership in what police describe as a highly sophisticated child porn network, he expressed his appreciation by posting two folders online: one labeled "mild," the other "wild."
"All I can say is that they are worth the download," wrote Freeman, 47, known in the global porn ring as "Mystikal," according to court documents. "My thanks to you and all the others that together make this the greatest group of pedos ever to gather in one place."
Freeman, of Santa Rosa Beach, Fla., was one of 12 Americans indicted last week in a worldwide investigation that ultimately charged 22 people with participating in the porn ring -- and intentionally blocking police from investigating it.
In all, more than 400,000 pictures, video files and other images showing children engaged in sexual behavior were produced, advertised, traded and distributed globally in the online pornography ring, according to U.S. and international authorities. The sting, which started in Australia, also netted accused pornographers in England, Canada and Germany. ...
The Yankistani bastards are:
Michael Berger, 33, of Mechanicsville, Va.
James Freeman, 47, of Santa Rosa Beach, Fla.
Ruble Keys, 55, of Medford, Ore.
Gary Lakey, 54, of Anderson, Ind.
Marvin Lambert, 33, of Indianapolis.
Neville McGarity, 40, of Medina, Texas.
John Mosman, 46, of Waterbury, Conn.
Warren Mumpower, 63, of Spokane, Wash.
Raymond Roy, 54, of San Juan Capistrano, Calif.
Erik Wayerski, 46, of Round Rock, Texas.
Warren Weber, 56, of Boise, Idaho.
Ronald White, 59, of Burlington, N.C.
22 arrests, more than 400,000 pieces of porn seized
By LARA JAKES JORDAN
ASSOCIATED PRESS
March 5, 2008
WASHINGTON -- After James Freeman was vetted and approved for membership in what police describe as a highly sophisticated child porn network, he expressed his appreciation by posting two folders online: one labeled "mild," the other "wild."
"All I can say is that they are worth the download," wrote Freeman, 47, known in the global porn ring as "Mystikal," according to court documents. "My thanks to you and all the others that together make this the greatest group of pedos ever to gather in one place."
Freeman, of Santa Rosa Beach, Fla., was one of 12 Americans indicted last week in a worldwide investigation that ultimately charged 22 people with participating in the porn ring -- and intentionally blocking police from investigating it.
In all, more than 400,000 pictures, video files and other images showing children engaged in sexual behavior were produced, advertised, traded and distributed globally in the online pornography ring, according to U.S. and international authorities. The sting, which started in Australia, also netted accused pornographers in England, Canada and Germany. ...
The Yankistani bastards are:
Michael Berger, 33, of Mechanicsville, Va.
James Freeman, 47, of Santa Rosa Beach, Fla.
Ruble Keys, 55, of Medford, Ore.
Gary Lakey, 54, of Anderson, Ind.
Marvin Lambert, 33, of Indianapolis.
Neville McGarity, 40, of Medina, Texas.
John Mosman, 46, of Waterbury, Conn.
Warren Mumpower, 63, of Spokane, Wash.
Raymond Roy, 54, of San Juan Capistrano, Calif.
Erik Wayerski, 46, of Round Rock, Texas.
Warren Weber, 56, of Boise, Idaho.
Ronald White, 59, of Burlington, N.C.
FBI chief: Report shows improper use of subpoenas in terror cases
Wed March 5, 2008
WASHINGTON (AP) -- The FBI improperly used national security letters in 2006 to obtain personal data on Americans during terror and spy investigations, Director Robert Mueller said Wednesday.
Mueller told the Senate Judiciary Committee that the privacy breach by FBI agents and lawyers occurred a year before the bureau enacted sweeping new reforms to prevent future lapses.
Details on the abuses will be outlined in the coming days in a report by the Justice Department's inspector general.
The report is a follow-up to an audit by the inspector general a year ago that found the FBI demanded personal data on people from banks, telephone and Internet providers and credit bureaus without official authorization and in non-emergency circumstances between 2003 and 2005.
Mueller, noting senators' concerns about Americans' civil and privacy rights, said the new report "will identify issues similar to those in the report issued last March." The similarities, he said, are because the time period of the two studies "predates the reforms we now have in place."
He added: "We are committed to ensuring that we not only get this right, but maintain the vital trust of the American people." ...
Um, "maintain" is a poor word choice mr fbi boss, as is "regain." Try "gain" instead, that word works.
Wed March 5, 2008
WASHINGTON (AP) -- The FBI improperly used national security letters in 2006 to obtain personal data on Americans during terror and spy investigations, Director Robert Mueller said Wednesday.
Mueller told the Senate Judiciary Committee that the privacy breach by FBI agents and lawyers occurred a year before the bureau enacted sweeping new reforms to prevent future lapses.
Details on the abuses will be outlined in the coming days in a report by the Justice Department's inspector general.
The report is a follow-up to an audit by the inspector general a year ago that found the FBI demanded personal data on people from banks, telephone and Internet providers and credit bureaus without official authorization and in non-emergency circumstances between 2003 and 2005.
Mueller, noting senators' concerns about Americans' civil and privacy rights, said the new report "will identify issues similar to those in the report issued last March." The similarities, he said, are because the time period of the two studies "predates the reforms we now have in place."
He added: "We are committed to ensuring that we not only get this right, but maintain the vital trust of the American people." ...
Um, "maintain" is a poor word choice mr fbi boss, as is "regain." Try "gain" instead, that word works.
George W. Bush is so callous. Not only is he having a War and all those other things we don't like about him (we've forgotten because of the election!), but now he is taking oxygen away from old people with his precious "budget cuts."
A letter from the Agriculture Department to lawmakers on March 2 suggests it may cut oxygen from Medicare from 36 months of eligibility to 13:
'The Bush administration has suggested to Congress that it cut Medicare home oxygen reimbursements by $6.8 billion over 10 years to help fund the annual Farm Bill...'
As House Agricultural Committee Chair Collin Peterson notes, us critics would say this, almost exactly:
"Some of our critics would probably have a field day if we are taking payments away from people on oxygen and they would say we are giving it to wealthy farmers, probably," Peterson said.
No, we are saying you would take life from old humans and give it to wealthy Hollywood Jews. But you're on the right track....
A letter from the Agriculture Department to lawmakers on March 2 suggests it may cut oxygen from Medicare from 36 months of eligibility to 13:
'The Bush administration has suggested to Congress that it cut Medicare home oxygen reimbursements by $6.8 billion over 10 years to help fund the annual Farm Bill...'
As House Agricultural Committee Chair Collin Peterson notes, us critics would say this, almost exactly:
"Some of our critics would probably have a field day if we are taking payments away from people on oxygen and they would say we are giving it to wealthy farmers, probably," Peterson said.
No, we are saying you would take life from old humans and give it to wealthy Hollywood Jews. But you're on the right track....
Officials: Several Shot at Fla. Wendy's
Mar 3, 2008
WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. (AP) -- Officials say several people have been shot at Wendy's restaurant near West Palm Beach.
A Palm Beach County sheriff's spokesman says the gunman may have shot himself.
The gunfire broke out around lunchtime.
No other information was immediately available.
I just saw this on CNN, and there's a billboard next to that Wendy's advertising a gun show.
Mar 3, 2008
WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. (AP) -- Officials say several people have been shot at Wendy's restaurant near West Palm Beach.
A Palm Beach County sheriff's spokesman says the gunman may have shot himself.
The gunfire broke out around lunchtime.
No other information was immediately available.
I just saw this on CNN, and there's a billboard next to that Wendy's advertising a gun show.
Neuter this breeder. Sans l'anesthsique.
Ohio School Suspends Boy Over Mohawk
February 27, 2008
PARMA, Ohio (AP) -- A kindergarten student with a freshly spiked Mohawk has been suspended from school.
Michelle Barile, the mother of 6-year-old Bryan Ruda, said nothing in the Parma Community School handbook prohibits the haircut, characterized by closely shaved sides with a strip of prominent hair on top. The school said the hair was a distraction for other students.
"I understand they have a dress code. I understand he has a uniform. But this is total discrimination," she said. "They can't tell me how I can cut his hair." ...
Punk's not dead.
PARMA!
February 27, 2008
PARMA, Ohio (AP) -- A kindergarten student with a freshly spiked Mohawk has been suspended from school.
Michelle Barile, the mother of 6-year-old Bryan Ruda, said nothing in the Parma Community School handbook prohibits the haircut, characterized by closely shaved sides with a strip of prominent hair on top. The school said the hair was a distraction for other students.
"I understand they have a dress code. I understand he has a uniform. But this is total discrimination," she said. "They can't tell me how I can cut his hair." ...
Punk's not dead.
PARMA!
Professor caught stealing panties from dorm
by Melanie Lee
Mon Feb 25, 2008
SINGAPORE (Reuters) - A Singaporean professor who nicked bras and panties has pleaded guilty to stealing women's underwear from a university dormitory, a local newspaper reported on Saturday.
The 39-year old man -- an associate professor in a Chinese university -- was charged for taking women's underwear from a university hostel's clothes-line last December, the Straits Times reported. ...
... A lawyer for the professor was reported as saying his client suffers from a psychiatric disorder and has been taking women's underwear since he was 14.
The lawyer also said that his client was an honourable and kind person who had no intention of causing annoyance to the underwear owners.
That's right: he just wanted to make them feel really creepy and kinda violated.
by Melanie Lee
Mon Feb 25, 2008
SINGAPORE (Reuters) - A Singaporean professor who nicked bras and panties has pleaded guilty to stealing women's underwear from a university dormitory, a local newspaper reported on Saturday.
The 39-year old man -- an associate professor in a Chinese university -- was charged for taking women's underwear from a university hostel's clothes-line last December, the Straits Times reported. ...
... A lawyer for the professor was reported as saying his client suffers from a psychiatric disorder and has been taking women's underwear since he was 14.
The lawyer also said that his client was an honourable and kind person who had no intention of causing annoyance to the underwear owners.
That's right: he just wanted to make them feel really creepy and kinda violated.
China Notes Pollution at Three Gorges Dam
By KEITH BRADSHER
Published: February 20, 2008
HONG KONG -- China's State Environmental Protection Administration said on Tuesday that water quality is barely improving in the main body of water behind the Three Gorges Dam and in the upper reaches of the Yangtze River, although the water does meet Chinese national standards for drinking, fisheries and swimming.
Water quality is actually worsening in several branches of the Yangtze River that drain into the main reservoir, the agency said in a water management plan, echoing previous government documents. ...
(Claude Rains in Casablanca)I'm shocked, shocked!(/Claude Rains in Casablanca)
By KEITH BRADSHER
Published: February 20, 2008
HONG KONG -- China's State Environmental Protection Administration said on Tuesday that water quality is barely improving in the main body of water behind the Three Gorges Dam and in the upper reaches of the Yangtze River, although the water does meet Chinese national standards for drinking, fisheries and swimming.
Water quality is actually worsening in several branches of the Yangtze River that drain into the main reservoir, the agency said in a water management plan, echoing previous government documents. ...
(Claude Rains in Casablanca)I'm shocked, shocked!(/Claude Rains in Casablanca)
'chinastan' - it's another way to spell 'evil.'
Deputy Dumps Disabled Man From Wheelchair
Four Deputies Suspended
February 13, 2008
TAMPA, Fla. (AP) -- Four sheriff's deputies have been suspended after a paralyzed man was tipped out of his wheelchair at a Florida jail.
Jail surveillance footage from Jan. 29 shows a veteran deputy dumping Brian Sterner out of his wheelchair and searching him on the floor after he was brought in on a warrant after a traffic violation. ...
Four Deputies Suspended
February 13, 2008
TAMPA, Fla. (AP) -- Four sheriff's deputies have been suspended after a paralyzed man was tipped out of his wheelchair at a Florida jail.
Jail surveillance footage from Jan. 29 shows a veteran deputy dumping Brian Sterner out of his wheelchair and searching him on the floor after he was brought in on a warrant after a traffic violation. ...
China Denies Poison at Dumpling Factory
Wednesday, February 13, 2008
BEIJING (AP) -- China's top quality watchdog on Wednesday dismissed reports that factory workers could have deliberately poisoned dumplings blamed for sickening at least 10 people in Japan.
Investigations by the agency and police have found nothing unusual at the Tianyang Food Processing Ltd. dumpling factory in Hebei province, said Wei Chuanzhong, deputy head of the General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection, and Quarantine.
"There is almost no possibility anyone could disrupt the environment at that factory for production, processing and transport for export," he said at a news conference. ...
Of course they deny it. We know better.
Wednesday, February 13, 2008
BEIJING (AP) -- China's top quality watchdog on Wednesday dismissed reports that factory workers could have deliberately poisoned dumplings blamed for sickening at least 10 people in Japan.
Investigations by the agency and police have found nothing unusual at the Tianyang Food Processing Ltd. dumpling factory in Hebei province, said Wei Chuanzhong, deputy head of the General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection, and Quarantine.
"There is almost no possibility anyone could disrupt the environment at that factory for production, processing and transport for export," he said at a news conference. ...
Of course they deny it. We know better.
It's impossible to express my delight in being surrounded by and experiencing Yankistan's marvellous, intelligent, enlightened culture.
Deputy: Driver Straps In Beer, Not Toddler
Woman Faces DUI, Other Charges
February 5, 2008
ST. AUGUSTINE, Fla. -- A St. Augustine woman pulled over when a deputy saw her run a red light had a case of beer belted in her front seat, but a young child unrestrained in the back, according to the arrest report.
The deputy who pulled over Tina Williams Sunday reported smelling a strong odor of alcohol coming from the car. When he asked Williams for a driver's license, she replied, "I never had one," Jacksonville television station WJXT reported. ...
Woman Faces DUI, Other Charges
February 5, 2008
ST. AUGUSTINE, Fla. -- A St. Augustine woman pulled over when a deputy saw her run a red light had a case of beer belted in her front seat, but a young child unrestrained in the back, according to the arrest report.
The deputy who pulled over Tina Williams Sunday reported smelling a strong odor of alcohol coming from the car. When he asked Williams for a driver's license, she replied, "I never had one," Jacksonville television station WJXT reported. ...
Tainted Pills Hit U.S. Mainland
By MICHAEL MELIA
The Associated Press
Tuesday, February 5, 2008
SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico -- The first warning sign came when a sharp-eyed worker sorting pills noticed that the odd blue flecks dotting the finished drug capsules matched the paint on the factory doors.
After the flecks were spotted again on the capsules, a blood-pressure medication called Diltiazem, the plant began placing covers over drugs in carts in its manufacturing areas.
But the factory owner, Canadian drug maker Biovail Corp., never tried to find out whether past shipments of the drug were contaminated - or prevent future contamination, according to U.S. regulators.
Thirteen of the 20 best-selling drugs in the United States come from plants on this island. But an investigation by The Associated Press has found dozens of examples over four years of lapses in quality control in the Puerto Rican pharmaceutical industry, which churns out $35 billion of drugs each year, most of it for sale as part of the $300 billion market in the U.S.
An AP review of 100 pages of Food and Drug Administration reports shows even modern drug plants here under the watch of U.S. regulators have failed to keep laboratories sterile and have exported tainted pills.
"People would be shocked to find this whole variety of contamination," said Dr. Sidney Wolfe of the Washington watchdog group Public Citizen. "The common denominator of all these is there's really poor quality control."
FDA officials say the problems in Puerto Rico are proportionate with the large number of pharmaceutical plants here and generally no worse than those on the U.S. mainland. ...
Wow, that last paragraph is so comforting.
By MICHAEL MELIA
The Associated Press
Tuesday, February 5, 2008
SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico -- The first warning sign came when a sharp-eyed worker sorting pills noticed that the odd blue flecks dotting the finished drug capsules matched the paint on the factory doors.
After the flecks were spotted again on the capsules, a blood-pressure medication called Diltiazem, the plant began placing covers over drugs in carts in its manufacturing areas.
But the factory owner, Canadian drug maker Biovail Corp., never tried to find out whether past shipments of the drug were contaminated - or prevent future contamination, according to U.S. regulators.
Thirteen of the 20 best-selling drugs in the United States come from plants on this island. But an investigation by The Associated Press has found dozens of examples over four years of lapses in quality control in the Puerto Rican pharmaceutical industry, which churns out $35 billion of drugs each year, most of it for sale as part of the $300 billion market in the U.S.
An AP review of 100 pages of Food and Drug Administration reports shows even modern drug plants here under the watch of U.S. regulators have failed to keep laboratories sterile and have exported tainted pills.
"People would be shocked to find this whole variety of contamination," said Dr. Sidney Wolfe of the Washington watchdog group Public Citizen. "The common denominator of all these is there's really poor quality control."
FDA officials say the problems in Puerto Rico are proportionate with the large number of pharmaceutical plants here and generally no worse than those on the U.S. mainland. ...
Wow, that last paragraph is so comforting.
The RIAA always claims that its looking out for the livelihood of artists when it sues the hell out of alleged pirates, but in reality it's really fighting to keep record industry executives rich by defending an outdated and unsustainable business model. While before the PR team at least made an attempt to make it seem like artists were priority #1, they seem to have given up: the RIAA is now trying to cut down artists' royalties on digital downloads.
Yes, the RIAA doesn't think the record companies are making enough and that musicians are clearly making too much. I mean, they get 13% now. Like they deserve 13% for writing and creating the music that people are paying for. Hogwash! Someone had to, you know, encode it. That's worth at least 40%. And hey, these shoes don't shine themselves! So they're pushing to get that rate cut down to a shameful 9%, giving artists even less of a slice of the pie than before.
Of course, Apple, Napster and other large online retailers make the RIAA look like a charity in comparison, with Apple pushing to cut the royalty rate down to an insulting 4%. Yes, Apple wants artists to get a 4% of wholesale royalty rate. Really looking out for those artists, aren't you Steve? ...
Yes, the RIAA doesn't think the record companies are making enough and that musicians are clearly making too much. I mean, they get 13% now. Like they deserve 13% for writing and creating the music that people are paying for. Hogwash! Someone had to, you know, encode it. That's worth at least 40%. And hey, these shoes don't shine themselves! So they're pushing to get that rate cut down to a shameful 9%, giving artists even less of a slice of the pie than before.
Of course, Apple, Napster and other large online retailers make the RIAA look like a charity in comparison, with Apple pushing to cut the royalty rate down to an insulting 4%. Yes, Apple wants artists to get a 4% of wholesale royalty rate. Really looking out for those artists, aren't you Steve? ...
EU: Clean Up Naples Within a Month
Thursday, January 31, 2008
BRUSSELS, Belgium (AP) -- The EU ordered Italy on Thursday to clean up Naples within a month - or face legal action.
Talks this week with Italian authorities failed to show they were adhering to EU waste management laws to resolve a festering garbage collection crisis in the southern Italian city, EU spokeswoman Barbara Helfferich said.
The European Commission said it has demanded "speedy compliance" with EU law and proof within a month that officials are taking steps to clear the trash, she told reporters.
Some 250,000 tons of backlogged trash has been piling up on the streets of Naples since collection came to a near halt in December.
Collectors have stopped picking up garbage in Naples and the Campania region because there is no more room for the trash at dumps. ...
WTF, Italistan?
Thursday, January 31, 2008
BRUSSELS, Belgium (AP) -- The EU ordered Italy on Thursday to clean up Naples within a month - or face legal action.
Talks this week with Italian authorities failed to show they were adhering to EU waste management laws to resolve a festering garbage collection crisis in the southern Italian city, EU spokeswoman Barbara Helfferich said.
The European Commission said it has demanded "speedy compliance" with EU law and proof within a month that officials are taking steps to clear the trash, she told reporters.
Some 250,000 tons of backlogged trash has been piling up on the streets of Naples since collection came to a near halt in December.
Collectors have stopped picking up garbage in Naples and the Campania region because there is no more room for the trash at dumps. ...
WTF, Italistan?
Tornado Victim Billed for Cable Devices
Thursday, January 31, 2008
WHEATLAND, Wis. (AP) -- Having a tornado demolish her home was bad enough. But when Ann Beam received a $2,000 cable bill a few weeks later, she was floored. "I just couldn't believe it," Beam said. "I was like, 'What are they thinking?'"
Time Warner Cable billed a number of Wheatland residents for equipment destroyed in the Jan. 7 twister that struck the southeast corner of the state. Beam's bill covered five cable boxes and five remote controls.
She immediately called the cable company, but a man who identified himself as a manager said there was nothing the company could do.
"They said I would have to take the bill and turn it in to my insurance company," Beam said.
But her cable equipment was nine years old, and the insurance company would pay only a depreciated value that wouldn't cover her bill, she said. ...
Is there a cable/scatterlight company that doesn't suck?
Thursday, January 31, 2008
WHEATLAND, Wis. (AP) -- Having a tornado demolish her home was bad enough. But when Ann Beam received a $2,000 cable bill a few weeks later, she was floored. "I just couldn't believe it," Beam said. "I was like, 'What are they thinking?'"
Time Warner Cable billed a number of Wheatland residents for equipment destroyed in the Jan. 7 twister that struck the southeast corner of the state. Beam's bill covered five cable boxes and five remote controls.
She immediately called the cable company, but a man who identified himself as a manager said there was nothing the company could do.
"They said I would have to take the bill and turn it in to my insurance company," Beam said.
But her cable equipment was nine years old, and the insurance company would pay only a depreciated value that wouldn't cover her bill, she said. ...
Is there a cable/scatterlight company that doesn't suck?
May all those who "think" this way reach complete and total enlightenment, and on all levels. They're an embarassment to the species.
China Looking Into Tainted Dumplings
January 31, 2008
BEIJING -- Chinese export safety authorities said Thursday they were investigating a company that made insecticide-tainted dumplings that sickened 10 people in Japan.
The frozen dumplings made by Tianyang Food Processing were contaminated with traces of an organic phosphorus insecticide called methamidophos, which caused severe abdominal pains, vomiting and diarrhea, Japanese officials said.
China's General Administration for Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine, which oversees export safety, said it had heard the news and was "paying great attention to it." ...
I feel so much better now just knowing that.
January 31, 2008
BEIJING -- Chinese export safety authorities said Thursday they were investigating a company that made insecticide-tainted dumplings that sickened 10 people in Japan.
The frozen dumplings made by Tianyang Food Processing were contaminated with traces of an organic phosphorus insecticide called methamidophos, which caused severe abdominal pains, vomiting and diarrhea, Japanese officials said.
China's General Administration for Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine, which oversees export safety, said it had heard the news and was "paying great attention to it." ...
I feel so much better now just knowing that.
Mukasey Refuses to Judge Waterboarding
By Dan Eggen
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, January 30, 2008
Attorney General Michael B. Mukasey told skeptical senators today that it is "not an easy question' to determine whether waterboarding constitutes illegal torture under U.S. law, but he said there is no need to provide a clear answer because the tactic is no longer employed by the CIA. ...
Well, glad that's sorted and everything's allright now. I mean, the attorney general of Yankistan wouldn't lie - he's The King Of All Lawyers.
By Dan Eggen
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, January 30, 2008
Attorney General Michael B. Mukasey told skeptical senators today that it is "not an easy question' to determine whether waterboarding constitutes illegal torture under U.S. law, but he said there is no need to provide a clear answer because the tactic is no longer employed by the CIA. ...
Well, glad that's sorted and everything's allright now. I mean, the attorney general of Yankistan wouldn't lie - he's The King Of All Lawyers.
I see you met Kevin.
Polish man struggles to return from the dead
Tue Jan 29, 2008
WARSAW (Reuters) - Red tape is preventing a Polish man from returning from the dead.
Piotr Kucy, 38 and from the city of Polkowice in southwest Poland, was wrongly identified by authorities last August as a drowned man, only to show up a few days after his own funeral.
Despite pointing out the fact that he was alive to government officials, Kucy still remains dead in official records, stopping him from working and paying social insurance.
But on the bright side, a local newspaper reported on Tuesday, he no longer needs to pay taxes. ...
I'm not dead yet! I don't want to go in the cart!
Tue Jan 29, 2008
WARSAW (Reuters) - Red tape is preventing a Polish man from returning from the dead.
Piotr Kucy, 38 and from the city of Polkowice in southwest Poland, was wrongly identified by authorities last August as a drowned man, only to show up a few days after his own funeral.
Despite pointing out the fact that he was alive to government officials, Kucy still remains dead in official records, stopping him from working and paying social insurance.
But on the bright side, a local newspaper reported on Tuesday, he no longer needs to pay taxes. ...
I'm not dead yet! I don't want to go in the cart!
shrub is such a dick; and obviously a very tiny one.
U.S. Spy Satellite Is Said to Be Falling From Orbit
Published: January 26, 2008
Filed at 9:55 p.m. ET
WASHINGTON (AP) -- A large U.S. spy satellite has lost power and could hit the Earth in late February or early March, government officials said Saturday.
The satellite, which no longer can be controlled, could contain hazardous materials, and it is unknown where on the planet it might come down, they said. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because the information is classified as secret. It was not clear how long ago the satellite lost power, or under what circumstances.
"Appropriate government agencies are monitoring the situation," said Gordon Johndroe, a spokesman for the National Security Council, when asked about the situation after it was disclosed by other officials. "Numerous satellites over the years have come out of orbit and fallen harmlessly. We are looking at potential options to mitigate any possible damage this satellite may cause."
He would not comment on whether it is possible for the satellite to perhaps be shot down by a missile. He said it would be inappropriate to discuss any specifics at this time.
A senior government official said that lawmakers and other nations are being kept apprised of the situation.
The spacecraft contains hydrazine -- which is rocket fuel -- according to a government official who was not authorized to speak publicly but spoke on condition of anonymity. Hydrazine, a colorless liquid with an ammonia-like odor, is a toxic chemical and can cause harm to anyone who contacts it. ...
Published: January 26, 2008
Filed at 9:55 p.m. ET
WASHINGTON (AP) -- A large U.S. spy satellite has lost power and could hit the Earth in late February or early March, government officials said Saturday.
The satellite, which no longer can be controlled, could contain hazardous materials, and it is unknown where on the planet it might come down, they said. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because the information is classified as secret. It was not clear how long ago the satellite lost power, or under what circumstances.
"Appropriate government agencies are monitoring the situation," said Gordon Johndroe, a spokesman for the National Security Council, when asked about the situation after it was disclosed by other officials. "Numerous satellites over the years have come out of orbit and fallen harmlessly. We are looking at potential options to mitigate any possible damage this satellite may cause."
He would not comment on whether it is possible for the satellite to perhaps be shot down by a missile. He said it would be inappropriate to discuss any specifics at this time.
A senior government official said that lawmakers and other nations are being kept apprised of the situation.
The spacecraft contains hydrazine -- which is rocket fuel -- according to a government official who was not authorized to speak publicly but spoke on condition of anonymity. Hydrazine, a colorless liquid with an ammonia-like odor, is a toxic chemical and can cause harm to anyone who contacts it. ...
I think along the same lines as Lorax. If some Jews, or Buddhists, or Wiccans, or Hairy Fishnuts showed up, these narrow-minded gits would jump right outta their skins.
It's precisely the way any cult of narrow-minded gits reacts.
It's precisely the way any cult of narrow-minded gits reacts.
No "systematic" abuse by UK troops in Iraq
Fri Jan 25, 2008
By Luke Baker
LONDON (Reuters) - The military has concluded that the killing and abuse of civilians by British troops in Iraq was not widespread but the fault of a few rogue soldiers. ...
Well, that's sorted then. They wouldn't lie.
Fri Jan 25, 2008
By Luke Baker
LONDON (Reuters) - The military has concluded that the killing and abuse of civilians by British troops in Iraq was not widespread but the fault of a few rogue soldiers. ...
Well, that's sorted then. They wouldn't lie.
Tanker Owner: Korea Spill Not My Fault
Thursday January 24, 2008
By DIKKY SINN
Associated Press Writer
robert "Not My Fault" bishop. Would you buy a used oil tanker - or car! - from this bloke, or believe a word he says?
HONG KONG - The owner and operators of the tanker involved in South Korea's worst oil spill denied any wrongdoing Thursday and offered sympathy to locals affected by the environmental fallout.
The Dec. 7 accident occurred after a barge owned by South Korean conglomerate Samsung Group slammed into Hong Kong-registered tanker Hebei Spirit, which leaked 78,920 barrels of oil into western coastal waters.
The owner of Hebei Spirit, Hebei Spirit Shipping Co., and its operator, V. Ships, both denied wrongdoing at a press conference in Hong Kong on Thursday.
"The master and crew of the vessel did their utmost to firstly avoid any collision, and secondly, made all possible effort to minimize any oil spill," Hebei Spirit Shipping Co. director Liu Shibao said.
The accident jeopardized the ecosystem and the livelihood of residents in the area, home to some of the country's most scenic beaches.
Earlier this week, South Korean prosecutors said they charged crew members on both vessels, including the three South Korean captains of the barge and its two tugboats, along with two Indians who operated Hebei Spirit, accusing them of polluting the ocean and professional negligence.
V. Ships chief executive Robert Bishop said he was confident the two Indian operators would be exonerated. ...
Samsung's thang hit the tanker, and both are at fault. Samsung's pilots are at fault because they hit 'em, and the tanker pilots are at fault because they let Samsung's thang hit her!
FFS, you're supposed to be paying attention to and communicating with other traffic!!
Thursday January 24, 2008
By DIKKY SINN
Associated Press Writer
robert "Not My Fault" bishop. Would you buy a used oil tanker - or car! - from this bloke, or believe a word he says?
HONG KONG - The owner and operators of the tanker involved in South Korea's worst oil spill denied any wrongdoing Thursday and offered sympathy to locals affected by the environmental fallout.
The Dec. 7 accident occurred after a barge owned by South Korean conglomerate Samsung Group slammed into Hong Kong-registered tanker Hebei Spirit, which leaked 78,920 barrels of oil into western coastal waters.
The owner of Hebei Spirit, Hebei Spirit Shipping Co., and its operator, V. Ships, both denied wrongdoing at a press conference in Hong Kong on Thursday.
"The master and crew of the vessel did their utmost to firstly avoid any collision, and secondly, made all possible effort to minimize any oil spill," Hebei Spirit Shipping Co. director Liu Shibao said.
The accident jeopardized the ecosystem and the livelihood of residents in the area, home to some of the country's most scenic beaches.
Earlier this week, South Korean prosecutors said they charged crew members on both vessels, including the three South Korean captains of the barge and its two tugboats, along with two Indians who operated Hebei Spirit, accusing them of polluting the ocean and professional negligence.
V. Ships chief executive Robert Bishop said he was confident the two Indian operators would be exonerated. ...
Samsung's thang hit the tanker, and both are at fault. Samsung's pilots are at fault because they hit 'em, and the tanker pilots are at fault because they let Samsung's thang hit her!
FFS, you're supposed to be paying attention to and communicating with other traffic!!
shrub has the IQ of a shrub.
Edit: Dear Marielaem pointed out I have insulted shrubs with such a comparison, and she's right.
I am contrite.
Edit: Dear Marielaem pointed out I have insulted shrubs with such a comparison, and she's right.
I am contrite.
Bill Would Ban Swearing in Bars
Tuesday, January 8, 2008
ST. CHARLES, Mo. (AP) -- What the ...? A St. Louis-area town is considering a bill that would ban swearing in bars, along with table-dancing, drinking contests and profane music.
City officials contend the bill is needed to keep rowdy crowds under control because the historic downtown area gets a little too lively on some nights.
City Councilman Richard Veit said he was prompted to propose the bill after complaints about bad bar behavior. He says it will give police some rules to enforce when things get too rowdy.
But some bar owners worry the bill is too vague and restrictive, saying it may be a violation of their civil rights. ...
mr veit, I cordially invite you to perform a physically impossible act.
Tuesday, January 8, 2008
ST. CHARLES, Mo. (AP) -- What the ...? A St. Louis-area town is considering a bill that would ban swearing in bars, along with table-dancing, drinking contests and profane music.
City officials contend the bill is needed to keep rowdy crowds under control because the historic downtown area gets a little too lively on some nights.
City Councilman Richard Veit said he was prompted to propose the bill after complaints about bad bar behavior. He says it will give police some rules to enforce when things get too rowdy.
But some bar owners worry the bill is too vague and restrictive, saying it may be a violation of their civil rights. ...
mr veit, I cordially invite you to perform a physically impossible act.
Oh, boy, do I have a curse for this author's ignorant, evil arse:
May you reincarnate as a woman until all beings in all Universes have reached complete enlightenment.
May you learn what it is like to be assumed stupid based only on your plumbing.
May you learn what it is like to be assumed thoroughly inferior, based only on your plumbing.
May you learn what it is like to be assumed obsessed with your own looks based only on your plumbing.
May you learn what it is like to be assumed physically and otherwise weak, based only on your plumbing.
May you learn what it is like to be assumed hysterical when what you truly are is opinionated, based only on your plumbing.
May you learn the importance of birth control, and that it should not be only the woman's responsibility.
May you learn what it is like to have your ideas discounted based only on your plumbing.
May you learn what it is to be assumed a slut, when you are simply out on the town with friends.
May you come back at least a few times as a Black woman, so you can learn all this and that skin colo/ur is merely a surface.
May you learn that the truly inferior are those who assume others are inferior based solely on their plumbing/skin colour/income.
May you learn that the truly weak are those who abuse those physically smaller and weaker than themselves.
I've learned all this, and more. WTF is the author's problem?
Oh, well. They say the insane are under the protection of Allah, so our author must be mighty safe.
May you reincarnate as a woman until all beings in all Universes have reached complete enlightenment.
May you learn what it is like to be assumed stupid based only on your plumbing.
May you learn what it is like to be assumed thoroughly inferior, based only on your plumbing.
May you learn what it is like to be assumed obsessed with your own looks based only on your plumbing.
May you learn what it is like to be assumed physically and otherwise weak, based only on your plumbing.
May you learn what it is like to be assumed hysterical when what you truly are is opinionated, based only on your plumbing.
May you learn the importance of birth control, and that it should not be only the woman's responsibility.
May you learn what it is like to have your ideas discounted based only on your plumbing.
May you learn what it is to be assumed a slut, when you are simply out on the town with friends.
May you come back at least a few times as a Black woman, so you can learn all this and that skin colo/ur is merely a surface.
May you learn that the truly inferior are those who assume others are inferior based solely on their plumbing/skin colour/income.
May you learn that the truly weak are those who abuse those physically smaller and weaker than themselves.
I've learned all this, and more. WTF is the author's problem?
Oh, well. They say the insane are under the protection of Allah, so our author must be mighty safe.
Iraqi soldier shot dead two U.S. servicemen
Sat Jan 5, 2008
By Mussab Al-Khairalla and Ross Colvin
BAGHDAD (Reuters) - An Iraqi soldier opened fire on U.S. troops during a joint patrol on December 26, killing two and wounding three others along with a civilian interpreter, Iraqi and U.S. officials said on Saturday.
The U.S. military said it was not clear why the Iraqi soldier had opened fire in the northern city of Mosul, but two Iraqi generals told Reuters the attacker had links to Sunni Arab insurgent groups. ...
Sat Jan 5, 2008
By Mussab Al-Khairalla and Ross Colvin
BAGHDAD (Reuters) - An Iraqi soldier opened fire on U.S. troops during a joint patrol on December 26, killing two and wounding three others along with a civilian interpreter, Iraqi and U.S. officials said on Saturday.
The U.S. military said it was not clear why the Iraqi soldier had opened fire in the northern city of Mosul, but two Iraqi generals told Reuters the attacker had links to Sunni Arab insurgent groups. ...
BEAUTY IN BOYFRIEND KIDNAP RAP
By DAREH GREGORIAN
January 1, 2008 -- Little Miss Sunshine, she ain't - an Arizona beauty queen has been indicted for allegedly kidnapping, torturing, taunting and biting her former boyfriend.
Kumari Fulbright, a law student and Miss Pima County 2005, and three henchmen tied up her ex with duct tape and plastic cable and held him captive for more than 10 hours while Fulbright threatened him at knife and gunpoint, the Arizona Star reported today. ...
It's out on bond, believe it or else, and this story has more info: http://www.forbes.com/feeds/ap/2008/01/02/ap4488549.html
A very promising law student indeed.
Before:
Miss May in a subguns dot com calendar
After:
Mug shot
Is that a blanket or a Bellevue Ballgown our "beauty's" sportin'?
By DAREH GREGORIAN
January 1, 2008 -- Little Miss Sunshine, she ain't - an Arizona beauty queen has been indicted for allegedly kidnapping, torturing, taunting and biting her former boyfriend.
Kumari Fulbright, a law student and Miss Pima County 2005, and three henchmen tied up her ex with duct tape and plastic cable and held him captive for more than 10 hours while Fulbright threatened him at knife and gunpoint, the Arizona Star reported today. ...
It's out on bond, believe it or else, and this story has more info: http://www.forbes.com/feeds/ap/2008/01/02/ap4488549.html
A very promising law student indeed.
Before:
Miss May in a subguns dot com calendar
After:
Mug shot
Is that a blanket or a Bellevue Ballgown our "beauty's" sportin'?
Employee Says She Didn't Know She Was Pregnant
I wonder if she knows who the mother is.
I wonder if she knows who the mother is.
Five From Md. Family Dead in Ohio Crash
By David P. Marino-Nachison
washingtonpost.com Staff Writer
Monday, December 31, 2007
Five people, including three members of a Maryland family, died late yesterday when their minivan was hit head-on by a pickup truck going the wrong way on a Toledo, Ohio-area interstate, according to the Toledo Blade. ...
Don't drive like an arse/asshole anytime, anywhere. This includes drunken/otherwise impaired driving.
My other thoughts are even less fit for family reading.
Hungary jails people who drive with a blood alcohol level of more than 0%.
By David P. Marino-Nachison
washingtonpost.com Staff Writer
Monday, December 31, 2007
Five people, including three members of a Maryland family, died late yesterday when their minivan was hit head-on by a pickup truck going the wrong way on a Toledo, Ohio-area interstate, according to the Toledo Blade. ...
Don't drive like an arse/asshole anytime, anywhere. This includes drunken/otherwise impaired driving.
My other thoughts are even less fit for family reading.
Hungary jails people who drive with a blood alcohol level of more than 0%.
Record Data Breaches in 2007, Groups Say
By MARK JEWELL
The Associated Press
Monday, December 31, 2007
BOSTON -- The loss or theft of personal data such as credit card and Social Security numbers soared to unprecedented levels in 2007, and the trend isn't expected to turn around anytime soon as hackers stay a step ahead of security and laptops disappear with sensitive information.
And while companies, government agencies, schools and other institutions are spending more to protect ever-increasing volumes of data with more sophisticated firewalls and encryption, the investment often is too little too late.
"More of them are experiencing data breaches, and they're responding to them in a reactive way, rather than proactively looking at the company's security and seeing where the holes might be," said Linda Foley, who founded the San Diego-based Identity Theft Resource Center after becoming an identity theft victim herself.
Foley's group lists more than 79 million records reported compromised in the United States through Dec. 18. That's a nearly fourfold increase from the nearly 20 million records reported in all of 2006. ...
Emphasiseses mine.
I'm so glad that positive steps have been taken to protect folks' private and financial inf-, um... never mind.
By MARK JEWELL
The Associated Press
Monday, December 31, 2007
BOSTON -- The loss or theft of personal data such as credit card and Social Security numbers soared to unprecedented levels in 2007, and the trend isn't expected to turn around anytime soon as hackers stay a step ahead of security and laptops disappear with sensitive information.
And while companies, government agencies, schools and other institutions are spending more to protect ever-increasing volumes of data with more sophisticated firewalls and encryption, the investment often is too little too late.
"More of them are experiencing data breaches, and they're responding to them in a reactive way, rather than proactively looking at the company's security and seeing where the holes might be," said Linda Foley, who founded the San Diego-based Identity Theft Resource Center after becoming an identity theft victim herself.
Foley's group lists more than 79 million records reported compromised in the United States through Dec. 18. That's a nearly fourfold increase from the nearly 20 million records reported in all of 2006. ...
Emphasiseses mine.
I'm so glad that positive steps have been taken to protect folks' private and financial inf-, um... never mind.
The Earth has lost another strong and beautiful soul.
My God/dess, I hope this woman's next set of parents are old friends rather than enemies!
May she have great and fortunate rebirths, and receive all the healing she needs.
May men's tyranny over women - in all forms - come to a swift end, and may all sexist morons reach complete and total enlightenment on all levels.
"Eat steel, sexist pig!"
Girlfriend here'll help you along your path of learning.
May she have great and fortunate rebirths, and receive all the healing she needs.
May men's tyranny over women - in all forms - come to a swift end, and may all sexist morons reach complete and total enlightenment on all levels.
"Eat steel, sexist pig!"
Girlfriend here'll help you along your path of learning.
Child Shot Protecting Mom Hailed a Hero
By COREY WILLIAMS
The Associated Press
Tuesday, December 18, 2007
DETROIT -- As the gunman was about to open fire, 7-year-old Alexis Goggins lunged from the back seat of the SUV and threw herself across her mom, crying, "Don't hurt my mother!"
Six bullets from the 9 mm handgun slammed into Alexis, one piercing her right eye. Two slugs hit her mother.
Alexis' mother pulled through. But two weeks later, Alexis lies in critical condition, blind in one eye. And to her classmates and many people in this city so depressingly familiar with violence, the little girl is a hero. ...
By COREY WILLIAMS
The Associated Press
Tuesday, December 18, 2007
DETROIT -- As the gunman was about to open fire, 7-year-old Alexis Goggins lunged from the back seat of the SUV and threw herself across her mom, crying, "Don't hurt my mother!"
Six bullets from the 9 mm handgun slammed into Alexis, one piercing her right eye. Two slugs hit her mother.
Alexis' mother pulled through. But two weeks later, Alexis lies in critical condition, blind in one eye. And to her classmates and many people in this city so depressingly familiar with violence, the little girl is a hero. ...
Study finds captives traded for oil in former East Germany
Fri Dec 14, 2007
By Sylvia Westall
BERLIN (Reuters) - Political prisoners in former East Germany were traded for oil, copper and silver in the 30 years before reunification and human trade with the West formed a lucrative economic linchpin, the author of a new study said.
From 1963-1990, the West German government paid a total of 3.44 billion Deutsche Marks, roughly 1.8 billion euros ($2.62 billion), in goods for the release of nearly 32,000 prisoners and 2,000 children from the communist East.
German historian Matthias Judt, who spent months scouring records of state bank accounts, has discovered that the goods were traded on international commodity markets with profits mainly used to service debt in the stricken East German economy.
"It was a very safe and secure business for them," Judt, at the Potsdam Centre for Research on Contemporary History, told Reuters. "It is a deal where you are selling a person and getting money out of it. And no one talked about it." ...
Fri Dec 14, 2007
By Sylvia Westall
BERLIN (Reuters) - Political prisoners in former East Germany were traded for oil, copper and silver in the 30 years before reunification and human trade with the West formed a lucrative economic linchpin, the author of a new study said.
From 1963-1990, the West German government paid a total of 3.44 billion Deutsche Marks, roughly 1.8 billion euros ($2.62 billion), in goods for the release of nearly 32,000 prisoners and 2,000 children from the communist East.
German historian Matthias Judt, who spent months scouring records of state bank accounts, has discovered that the goods were traded on international commodity markets with profits mainly used to service debt in the stricken East German economy.
"It was a very safe and secure business for them," Judt, at the Potsdam Centre for Research on Contemporary History, told Reuters. "It is a deal where you are selling a person and getting money out of it. And no one talked about it." ...
Popular Childhood Vaccine Recalled by Merck
Last Update: 12/12/2007
ATLANTA (AP) - Merck & Co. is recalling about a million doses of a childhood vaccine, after testing showed a sterilization problem in a Pennsylvania factory.
The company is not aware of any harm to children who received the vaccine, known as Hib, which prevents meningitis and pneumonia. It is a three-dose shot recommended for all children under 5 and is usually given to infants starting at two months old. ...
Last Update: 12/12/2007
ATLANTA (AP) - Merck & Co. is recalling about a million doses of a childhood vaccine, after testing showed a sterilization problem in a Pennsylvania factory.
The company is not aware of any harm to children who received the vaccine, known as Hib, which prevents meningitis and pneumonia. It is a three-dose shot recommended for all children under 5 and is usually given to infants starting at two months old. ...
Virus Starts Like a Cold But Can Turn Into a Killer
By Rob Stein
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, December 11, 2007
Infectious-disease expert David N. Gilbert was making rounds at the Providence Portland Medical Center in Oregon in April when he realized that an unusual number of patients, including young, vigorous adults, were being hit by a frightening pneumonia.
"What was so striking was to see patients who were otherwise healthy be just devastated," Gilbert said. Within a day or two of developing a cough and high fever, some were so sick they would arrive at the emergency room gasping for air.
"They couldn't breathe," Gilbert said. "They were going to die if we didn't get more oxygen into them."
Gilbert alerted state health officials, a decision that led investigators to realize that a new, apparently more virulent form of a virus that usually causes nothing worse than a nasty cold was circulating around the United States. At least 1,035 Americans in four states have been infected so far this year by the virus, known as an adenovirus. Dozens have been hospitalized, many requiring intensive care, and at least 10 have died. ...
By Rob Stein
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, December 11, 2007
Infectious-disease expert David N. Gilbert was making rounds at the Providence Portland Medical Center in Oregon in April when he realized that an unusual number of patients, including young, vigorous adults, were being hit by a frightening pneumonia.
"What was so striking was to see patients who were otherwise healthy be just devastated," Gilbert said. Within a day or two of developing a cough and high fever, some were so sick they would arrive at the emergency room gasping for air.
"They couldn't breathe," Gilbert said. "They were going to die if we didn't get more oxygen into them."
Gilbert alerted state health officials, a decision that led investigators to realize that a new, apparently more virulent form of a virus that usually causes nothing worse than a nasty cold was circulating around the United States. At least 1,035 Americans in four states have been infected so far this year by the virus, known as an adenovirus. Dozens have been hospitalized, many requiring intensive care, and at least 10 have died. ...
CIA Was Urged to Keep Interrogation Videotapes
By MARK MAZZETTI
Published: December 8, 2007
WASHINGTON, Dec. 7 -- White House and Justice Department officials, along with senior members of Congress, advised the Central Intelligence Agency in 2003 against a plan to destroy hundreds of hours of videotapes showing the interrogations of two operatives of Al Qaeda, government officials said Friday.
The chief of the agency's clandestine service nevertheless ordered their destruction in November 2005, taking the step without notifying even the C.I.A.'s own top lawyer, John A. Rizzo, who was angry at the decision, the officials said.
The disclosures provide new details about what Gen. Michael V. Hayden, the C.I.A. director, has said was a decision "made within C.I.A. itself" to destroy the videotapes. In interviews, members of Congress and former intelligence officials also questioned some aspects of the account General Hayden provided Thursday about when Congress was notified that the tapes had been destroyed. ...
By MARK MAZZETTI
Published: December 8, 2007
WASHINGTON, Dec. 7 -- White House and Justice Department officials, along with senior members of Congress, advised the Central Intelligence Agency in 2003 against a plan to destroy hundreds of hours of videotapes showing the interrogations of two operatives of Al Qaeda, government officials said Friday.
The chief of the agency's clandestine service nevertheless ordered their destruction in November 2005, taking the step without notifying even the C.I.A.'s own top lawyer, John A. Rizzo, who was angry at the decision, the officials said.
The disclosures provide new details about what Gen. Michael V. Hayden, the C.I.A. director, has said was a decision "made within C.I.A. itself" to destroy the videotapes. In interviews, members of Congress and former intelligence officials also questioned some aspects of the account General Hayden provided Thursday about when Congress was notified that the tapes had been destroyed. ...
Huckabee Wanted to Isolate AIDS Patients
By ANDREW DeMILLO
The Associated Press
Saturday, December 8, 2007
LITTLE ROCK, Ark. -- Mike Huckabee once advocated isolating AIDS patients from the general public, opposed increased federal funding in the search for a cure and said homosexuality could "pose a dangerous public health risk."
As a candidate for a U.S. Senate seat in 1992, Huckabee answered 229 questions submitted to him by The Associated Press. Besides a quarantine, Huckabee suggested that Hollywood celebrities fund AIDS research from their own pockets, rather than federal health agencies.
"If the federal government is truly serious about doing something with the AIDS virus, we need to take steps that would isolate the carriers of this plague," Huckabee wrote.
"It is difficult to understand the public policy towards AIDS. It is the first time in the history of civilization in which the carriers of a genuine plague have not been isolated from the general population, and in which this deadly disease for which there is no cure is being treated as a civil rights issue instead of the true health crisis it represents." ...
... When asked about AIDS research in 1992, Huckabee complained that AIDS research received an unfair share of federal dollars when compared to cancer, diabetes and heart disease. ...
... Since becoming a presidential candidate this year, Huckabee has supported increased federal funding for AIDS research through the National Institutes of Health.
"My administration will be the first to have an overarching strategy for dealing with HIV and AIDS here in the United States, with a partnership between the public and private sectors that will provide necessary financing and a realistic path toward our goals,"...
Also in the wide-ranging AP questionnaire in 1992, Huckabee said, "I feel homosexuality is an aberrant, unnatural, and sinful lifestyle, and we now know it can pose a dangerous public health risk." ...
My thoughts about mr huckabee are not fit for family reading.
By ANDREW DeMILLO
The Associated Press
Saturday, December 8, 2007
LITTLE ROCK, Ark. -- Mike Huckabee once advocated isolating AIDS patients from the general public, opposed increased federal funding in the search for a cure and said homosexuality could "pose a dangerous public health risk."
As a candidate for a U.S. Senate seat in 1992, Huckabee answered 229 questions submitted to him by The Associated Press. Besides a quarantine, Huckabee suggested that Hollywood celebrities fund AIDS research from their own pockets, rather than federal health agencies.
"If the federal government is truly serious about doing something with the AIDS virus, we need to take steps that would isolate the carriers of this plague," Huckabee wrote.
"It is difficult to understand the public policy towards AIDS. It is the first time in the history of civilization in which the carriers of a genuine plague have not been isolated from the general population, and in which this deadly disease for which there is no cure is being treated as a civil rights issue instead of the true health crisis it represents." ...
... When asked about AIDS research in 1992, Huckabee complained that AIDS research received an unfair share of federal dollars when compared to cancer, diabetes and heart disease. ...
... Since becoming a presidential candidate this year, Huckabee has supported increased federal funding for AIDS research through the National Institutes of Health.
"My administration will be the first to have an overarching strategy for dealing with HIV and AIDS here in the United States, with a partnership between the public and private sectors that will provide necessary financing and a realistic path toward our goals,"...
Also in the wide-ranging AP questionnaire in 1992, Huckabee said, "I feel homosexuality is an aberrant, unnatural, and sinful lifestyle, and we now know it can pose a dangerous public health risk." ...
My thoughts about mr huckabee are not fit for family reading.
Oil Spill Reaches South Korea Shoreline
By JAE-SOON CHANG
The Associated Press
Saturday, December 8, 2007
SEOUL, South Korea -- Oil from a damaged supertanker has reached an ecologically sensitive shoreline on South Korea's western coast, a Coast Guard official said Saturday.
About four miles of coastline near Mallipo beach, approximately 95 miles southwest of Seoul, has been affected, said Jung Se-hi, a spokesman at the Coast Guard headquarters in Incheon. The region is popular for its scenic beaches and is also the site of fish farms, a national maritime park and an important rest stop for migrating birds.
Some 2.7 million gallons of oil gushed Friday from a 146,000-ton Hong Kong-registered supertanker after a barge carrying a crane slammed into it about seven miles off Mallipo beach. The spill was the country's largest, involving twice as much oil as a [1995 spill]. ...
D'you suppose the captains/pilots of one or both vessels were drunk?
By JAE-SOON CHANG
The Associated Press
Saturday, December 8, 2007
SEOUL, South Korea -- Oil from a damaged supertanker has reached an ecologically sensitive shoreline on South Korea's western coast, a Coast Guard official said Saturday.
About four miles of coastline near Mallipo beach, approximately 95 miles southwest of Seoul, has been affected, said Jung Se-hi, a spokesman at the Coast Guard headquarters in Incheon. The region is popular for its scenic beaches and is also the site of fish farms, a national maritime park and an important rest stop for migrating birds.
Some 2.7 million gallons of oil gushed Friday from a 146,000-ton Hong Kong-registered supertanker after a barge carrying a crane slammed into it about seven miles off Mallipo beach. The spill was the country's largest, involving twice as much oil as a [1995 spill]. ...
D'you suppose the captains/pilots of one or both vessels were drunk?
Bush Does Not Recall Learning of Destroyed CIA Tapes
Senate's Second-Ranking Democrat Calls for Justice Dept. Probe
By William Branigin, Dan Eggen and Joby Warrick
Washington Post Staff Writers
Friday, December 7, 2007
President Bush does not recall being informed before yesterday morning about the existence or subsequent destruction of video recordings showing harsh CIA interrogations of terrorism suspects, the White House said today. ...
Senate's Second-Ranking Democrat Calls for Justice Dept. Probe
By William Branigin, Dan Eggen and Joby Warrick
Washington Post Staff Writers
Friday, December 7, 2007
President Bush does not recall being informed before yesterday morning about the existence or subsequent destruction of video recordings showing harsh CIA interrogations of terrorism suspects, the White House said today. ...
Oh, Boy!
BREAKING NEWS! GOP operative going to prison for sex crimes
By R. SCOTT MOXLEY
Tuesday, December 4, 2007
Jeffrey Ray Nielsen -- the well-connected Orange County conservative activist who claimed the so-called liberal media, specifically the Weekly, was out to get him by publishing a series of exposs on his pedophile activities--finally admitted on Dec. 5 that he used two boys for sex since the early 1990s.
In open court, a somber Nielsen, who has extensive personal ties to Congressman Dana Rohrabacher and Orange County Republican Party boss Scott Baugh, gave Superior Court Judge David Thompson signed guilty pleas acknowledging two felonies: committing lewd acts on a 12-year-old Virginia boy and 14-year-old Orange County boy.
In exchange, Nielsen, 37, received a three-year prison sentence, which is relatively mild considering he faced more than a decade in state prison if convicted of the 16 charged crimes. On Jan. 14, Nielsen must enter Del Amo, a Los Angeles County sex-offender facility, for a maximum of 12 weeks. Shortly after he completes that program, he will be transferred to an unknown state prison. State law requires that he complete at least 80 percent of his sentence before being released back into society. He must also register as a sex offender for life. ...
BREAKING NEWS! GOP operative going to prison for sex crimes
By R. SCOTT MOXLEY
Tuesday, December 4, 2007
Jeffrey Ray Nielsen -- the well-connected Orange County conservative activist who claimed the so-called liberal media, specifically the Weekly, was out to get him by publishing a series of exposs on his pedophile activities--finally admitted on Dec. 5 that he used two boys for sex since the early 1990s.
In open court, a somber Nielsen, who has extensive personal ties to Congressman Dana Rohrabacher and Orange County Republican Party boss Scott Baugh, gave Superior Court Judge David Thompson signed guilty pleas acknowledging two felonies: committing lewd acts on a 12-year-old Virginia boy and 14-year-old Orange County boy.
In exchange, Nielsen, 37, received a three-year prison sentence, which is relatively mild considering he faced more than a decade in state prison if convicted of the 16 charged crimes. On Jan. 14, Nielsen must enter Del Amo, a Los Angeles County sex-offender facility, for a maximum of 12 weeks. Shortly after he completes that program, he will be transferred to an unknown state prison. State law requires that he complete at least 80 percent of his sentence before being released back into society. He must also register as a sex offender for life. ...
HIV Patient Finds No Disease After 9 Years
Woman Sues Doctor Over Treatment
December 5, 2007
A Massachusetts woman treated with powerful AIDS drugs for nearly nine years is suing her doctor and a clinic. It turns out 45-year-old Audrey Serrano never had the virus.
Serrano testified the treatments caused depression, weight loss, fatigue and intestinal problems.
Dr. Kwan Lai testified that she based her diagnosis on what the patient said, claiming Serrano told her she'd was a prostitute and that her ex-boyfriend had AIDS.
The initial diagnosis came in 1994 after Serrano went to a clinic for an HIV test.
Serrano denies ever being a prostitute....
Woman Sues Doctor Over Treatment
December 5, 2007
A Massachusetts woman treated with powerful AIDS drugs for nearly nine years is suing her doctor and a clinic. It turns out 45-year-old Audrey Serrano never had the virus.
Serrano testified the treatments caused depression, weight loss, fatigue and intestinal problems.
Dr. Kwan Lai testified that she based her diagnosis on what the patient said, claiming Serrano told her she'd was a prostitute and that her ex-boyfriend had AIDS.
The initial diagnosis came in 1994 after Serrano went to a clinic for an HIV test.
Serrano denies ever being a prostitute....
CIA Destroyed Videos Showing Interrogations
Harsh Techniques Seen in 2002 Tapes
By Dan Eggen and Joby Warrick
Washington Post Staff Writers
Friday, December 7, 2007
The CIA made videotapes in 2002 of its officers administering harsh interrogation techniques to two al-Qaeda suspects but destroyed the tapes three years later, CIA Director Michael V. Hayden said yesterday.
Captured on tape were interrogations of Abu Zubaydah, a close associate of Osama bin Laden, and a second high-level al-Qaeda member who was not identified, according to two intelligence officials. Zubaydah has been identified by U.S. officials familiar with the interrogations as one of three al-Qaeda suspects who were subjected to "waterboarding," a technique that simulates drowning, while in CIA custody.
All the tapes were destroyed in November 2005 on the order of Jose A. Rodriguez Jr., then the CIA's director of clandestine operations, officials said. The destruction came after the Justice Department had told a federal judge in the case of al-Qaeda operative Zacarias Moussaoui that the CIA did not possess videotapes of a specific set of interrogations sought by his attorneys. A CIA spokesman said yesterday that the request would not have covered the destroyed tapes.
The tapes also were not provided to the Sept. 11 commission, the independent panel that investigated the 2001 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, which demanded a wide array of material and relied heavily on classified interrogation transcripts in piecing together its narrative of events. ...
Harsh Techniques Seen in 2002 Tapes
By Dan Eggen and Joby Warrick
Washington Post Staff Writers
Friday, December 7, 2007
The CIA made videotapes in 2002 of its officers administering harsh interrogation techniques to two al-Qaeda suspects but destroyed the tapes three years later, CIA Director Michael V. Hayden said yesterday.
Captured on tape were interrogations of Abu Zubaydah, a close associate of Osama bin Laden, and a second high-level al-Qaeda member who was not identified, according to two intelligence officials. Zubaydah has been identified by U.S. officials familiar with the interrogations as one of three al-Qaeda suspects who were subjected to "waterboarding," a technique that simulates drowning, while in CIA custody.
All the tapes were destroyed in November 2005 on the order of Jose A. Rodriguez Jr., then the CIA's director of clandestine operations, officials said. The destruction came after the Justice Department had told a federal judge in the case of al-Qaeda operative Zacarias Moussaoui that the CIA did not possess videotapes of a specific set of interrogations sought by his attorneys. A CIA spokesman said yesterday that the request would not have covered the destroyed tapes.
The tapes also were not provided to the Sept. 11 commission, the independent panel that investigated the 2001 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, which demanded a wide array of material and relied heavily on classified interrogation transcripts in piecing together its narrative of events. ...
"Freedom requires religion just as religion requires freedom. Freedom opens the windows of the soul so that man can discover his most profound beliefs and commune with God. Freedom and religion endure together, or perish alone."
- mitt romney
Piss off. I'll think and believe as I please, you ignorant witling.
- mitt romney
Piss off. I'll think and believe as I please, you ignorant witling.
German hairdresser finds Bundesbank plans in bin
Thu Dec 6, 2007
BERLIN (Reuters) - A Berlin hairdresser discovered top-secret plans for a safety vault at the Bundesbank's Berlin branch in a bin, the German central bank said on Thursday.
Only four weeks ago, the bank's building in western Berlin was officially opened after renovation work which cost about €150 million (£108 million).
The hairdresser found detailed drawings of the safety arrangements at the bank, including the location of people detectors, stairwells, grilled gates and measurements with the depth of the vault's floor, reported top-selling newspaper Bild.
"I wanted to throw away my rubbish and I noticed the plastic bag with the building sketches," Bild quoted the 26-year-old male hairdresser as saying. The bin was in a backyard in central Berlin.
A Bundesbank spokeswoman confirmed the Bild report, adding the bank was looking into how the plans could have ended up in a bin. ...
Thu Dec 6, 2007
BERLIN (Reuters) - A Berlin hairdresser discovered top-secret plans for a safety vault at the Bundesbank's Berlin branch in a bin, the German central bank said on Thursday.
Only four weeks ago, the bank's building in western Berlin was officially opened after renovation work which cost about €150 million (£108 million).
The hairdresser found detailed drawings of the safety arrangements at the bank, including the location of people detectors, stairwells, grilled gates and measurements with the depth of the vault's floor, reported top-selling newspaper Bild.
"I wanted to throw away my rubbish and I noticed the plastic bag with the building sketches," Bild quoted the 26-year-old male hairdresser as saying. The bin was in a backyard in central Berlin.
A Bundesbank spokeswoman confirmed the Bild report, adding the bank was looking into how the plans could have ended up in a bin. ...
Man Sentenced in Bizarre Diagnosing Scam
Wednesday, December 5, 2007
MONROE, La. (AP) -- A man was sentenced to more than four years in prison for bilking friends and family out of more than $800,000 by convincing them that his wife was a government agent who could arrange to have their medical problems diagnosed by satellite imaging.
Brent Eric Finley, 38, of Rayville, was sentenced in federal court in Monroe to serve 51 months in prison followed by three years of supervised release. His wife, Stacey Finley, was sentenced in August to spend 63 months in prison and both are ordered to jointly pay restitution in the amount of $873,786.94. ...
... U.S. Attorney Donald W. Washington said in a news release following Monday's sentencing of Brent Finley that the couple convinced numerous people that Stacey Finley was a CIA agent and with her contacts she could schedule a medical scan of the victims' bodies by satellite imaging that would detect any hidden medical problems.
The Finleys convinced their victims that, if any medical problems were found, secret agents would administer medicine to them as they slept in exchange for payment, according to a bill of information filed when the Finleys were charged in May.
"These audacious criminals should remind all of us that scam artists will go to great lengths to take our life's savings," Washington said.
It should also remind all of us how stupid some people can be.
Wednesday, December 5, 2007
MONROE, La. (AP) -- A man was sentenced to more than four years in prison for bilking friends and family out of more than $800,000 by convincing them that his wife was a government agent who could arrange to have their medical problems diagnosed by satellite imaging.
Brent Eric Finley, 38, of Rayville, was sentenced in federal court in Monroe to serve 51 months in prison followed by three years of supervised release. His wife, Stacey Finley, was sentenced in August to spend 63 months in prison and both are ordered to jointly pay restitution in the amount of $873,786.94. ...
... U.S. Attorney Donald W. Washington said in a news release following Monday's sentencing of Brent Finley that the couple convinced numerous people that Stacey Finley was a CIA agent and with her contacts she could schedule a medical scan of the victims' bodies by satellite imaging that would detect any hidden medical problems.
The Finleys convinced their victims that, if any medical problems were found, secret agents would administer medicine to them as they slept in exchange for payment, according to a bill of information filed when the Finleys were charged in May.
"These audacious criminals should remind all of us that scam artists will go to great lengths to take our life's savings," Washington said.
It should also remind all of us how stupid some people can be.
Pet Products May Contain High Lead Levels
November 29, 2007
Children's toys made in China have been recalled for fear they could contain high amounts of lead. But what about toys and necessities for your pet?
Using a lead surface do-it-yourself test kit, Target 7 tested various pet supplies and toys.
A yellow dog ball did not show any lead levels, but a green ceramic pet bowl did test positive for lead. A white ceramic pet bowl that came with a warning ("the materials used as decorations on the exterior of this product contain lead") yielded a stronger positive result, as did a bird cage. ...
November 29, 2007
Children's toys made in China have been recalled for fear they could contain high amounts of lead. But what about toys and necessities for your pet?
Using a lead surface do-it-yourself test kit, Target 7 tested various pet supplies and toys.
A yellow dog ball did not show any lead levels, but a green ceramic pet bowl did test positive for lead. A white ceramic pet bowl that came with a warning ("the materials used as decorations on the exterior of this product contain lead") yielded a stronger positive result, as did a bird cage. ...
The USDA's Losing Effort
Costly Program for Rural Businesses Yields Dubious Results
By Gilbert M. Gaul
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, December 5, 2007
Under a program to create jobs in rural America, the U.S. Department of Agriculture guaranteed $1.6 million in loans to Aztec Environmental Inc., an asbestos-removal company in Panama City, Fla.
Aztec did create jobs -- for hundreds of workers from Guatemala. "Locals didn't want the work," said Debbie Livingston, one of the owners.
Three years later, in February, Aztec went out of business after a federal investigation into allegations of environmental abuses and the hiring of illegal immigrants. Now, the USDA could lose hundreds of thousands of dollars on the loan.
The Aztec case is one graphic example of the scores of troubled loans that the USDA has backed in a little-known part of the agency's vast system of farm subsidies. Since the 1970s, the loan program has endured nearly $1.5 billion in losses while backing almost $14 billion in guarantees to private banks, a Washington Post investigation found. ...
Meanwhile, the usda does very little to keep our food safe. Thanks, guys!
Costly Program for Rural Businesses Yields Dubious Results
By Gilbert M. Gaul
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, December 5, 2007
Under a program to create jobs in rural America, the U.S. Department of Agriculture guaranteed $1.6 million in loans to Aztec Environmental Inc., an asbestos-removal company in Panama City, Fla.
Aztec did create jobs -- for hundreds of workers from Guatemala. "Locals didn't want the work," said Debbie Livingston, one of the owners.
Three years later, in February, Aztec went out of business after a federal investigation into allegations of environmental abuses and the hiring of illegal immigrants. Now, the USDA could lose hundreds of thousands of dollars on the loan.
The Aztec case is one graphic example of the scores of troubled loans that the USDA has backed in a little-known part of the agency's vast system of farm subsidies. Since the 1970s, the loan program has endured nearly $1.5 billion in losses while backing almost $14 billion in guarantees to private banks, a Washington Post investigation found. ...
Meanwhile, the usda does very little to keep our food safe. Thanks, guys!
Teddy teacher leaves Sudan after pardon
Mon Dec 3, 2007
By Opheera McDoom
KHARTOUM (Reuters) - A British teacher jailed in Sudan for letting her students name a teddy bear Mohammad left Khartoum for Britain on Monday after winning a pardon.
Gillian Gibbons, sentenced on Thursday to 15 days in jail followed by deportation for insulting Islam, was pardoned after an appeal by two prominent British Muslims to Sudan's president for her early release.
They accompanied her as she left Khartoum airport, heavy with security after hundreds protested on Friday, demanding she be killed. ...
Mon Dec 3, 2007
By Opheera McDoom
KHARTOUM (Reuters) - A British teacher jailed in Sudan for letting her students name a teddy bear Mohammad left Khartoum for Britain on Monday after winning a pardon.
Gillian Gibbons, sentenced on Thursday to 15 days in jail followed by deportation for insulting Islam, was pardoned after an appeal by two prominent British Muslims to Sudan's president for her early release.
They accompanied her as she left Khartoum airport, heavy with security after hundreds protested on Friday, demanding she be killed. ...
Landscapers Unearth 30 WWII-Era Shells
Saturday, December 1, 2007
KEY WEST, Fla. (AP) -- A landscaping crew about to grind a tree stump discovered 30 World War II mortar shells buried on property once owned by the Navy.
A worker hit and broke one of the shells Friday, but it did not detonate. The mortars could have done serious damage had they exploded, Sgt. Bobby Randolph of the Monroe County Sheriff's office said. [Ed. Note: Well, duh!]
As a precaution, about a dozen homes were evacuated and cars were cleared from the area while a bomb squad removed the explosives. ...
Saturday, December 1, 2007
KEY WEST, Fla. (AP) -- A landscaping crew about to grind a tree stump discovered 30 World War II mortar shells buried on property once owned by the Navy.
A worker hit and broke one of the shells Friday, but it did not detonate. The mortars could have done serious damage had they exploded, Sgt. Bobby Randolph of the Monroe County Sheriff's office said. [Ed. Note: Well, duh!]
As a precaution, about a dozen homes were evacuated and cars were cleared from the area while a bomb squad removed the explosives. ...
Saudi Rape Ruling Puts Govt on Defensive
By NADIA ABOU EL-MAGD
The Associated Press
Saturday, December 1, 2007
CAIRO, Egypt -- Saudi Arabia is bristling at international criticism over the sentencing of a rape victim to prison and 200 lashes, insisting the West should stay out of its legal system. But the case could empower voices for change in the kingdom's Islamic courts. ...
Separation of church and state has rarely been a bad idea; and treating women like human beings is always a good idea.
By NADIA ABOU EL-MAGD
The Associated Press
Saturday, December 1, 2007
CAIRO, Egypt -- Saudi Arabia is bristling at international criticism over the sentencing of a rape victim to prison and 200 lashes, insisting the West should stay out of its legal system. But the case could empower voices for change in the kingdom's Islamic courts. ...
Separation of church and state has rarely been a bad idea; and treating women like human beings is always a good idea.
Teen suicide spurs war on child prostitution
Wed Nov 28, 2007
By Mickey Goodman
ATLANTA (Reuters) - At the age of 15, Samantha Walker was lured into prostitution on the streets of Toledo, Ohio, then taken against her will to Atlanta.
What makes her story different from thousands of others is that she testified against one of the men who paid for sex with her, helping to send him to prison.
But just weeks after the trial she took an overdose of drugs she was taking for depression and died at the age of 18.
More than 300,000 children are being sexually exploited in the United States, according to a study by the University of Pennsylvania. ...
As long as men are willing to pay to screw little girls and boys, child prostitution will exist. Simple as.
Wed Nov 28, 2007
By Mickey Goodman
ATLANTA (Reuters) - At the age of 15, Samantha Walker was lured into prostitution on the streets of Toledo, Ohio, then taken against her will to Atlanta.
What makes her story different from thousands of others is that she testified against one of the men who paid for sex with her, helping to send him to prison.
But just weeks after the trial she took an overdose of drugs she was taking for depression and died at the age of 18.
More than 300,000 children are being sexually exploited in the United States, according to a study by the University of Pennsylvania. ...
As long as men are willing to pay to screw little girls and boys, child prostitution will exist. Simple as.
Poll finds more Americans believe in devil than Darwin
Thu Nov 29, 2007
Should you be an intelligent Yankistani, you now know why it's damn near impossible to find people with whom you may intelligently converse.
You also know why I am single.
Thu Nov 29, 2007
Should you be an intelligent Yankistani, you now know why it's damn near impossible to find people with whom you may intelligently converse.
You also know why I am single.
Police arrest hostage-taker after N.H. standoff
Fri Nov 30, 2007
By Dan Gorenstein
ROCHESTER, New Hampshire (Reuters) - Police arrested a man who seized several hostages at Democratic presidential contender Hillary Clinton's New Hampshire campaign office on Friday after a tense six-hour standoff.
Live television showed a man emerging from Clinton's campaign office in Rochester, New Hampshire in white shirt and red tie with duct tape wrapped around his waist over what he had earlier told police were explosives.
The man, identified by media as Leeland Eisenberg, was arrested after unwrapping the tape and putting his hands in the air. ...
Fri Nov 30, 2007
By Dan Gorenstein
ROCHESTER, New Hampshire (Reuters) - Police arrested a man who seized several hostages at Democratic presidential contender Hillary Clinton's New Hampshire campaign office on Friday after a tense six-hour standoff.
Live television showed a man emerging from Clinton's campaign office in Rochester, New Hampshire in white shirt and red tie with duct tape wrapped around his waist over what he had earlier told police were explosives.
The man, identified by media as Leeland Eisenberg, was arrested after unwrapping the tape and putting his hands in the air. ...
I stole this image and the quotation from TheSobSister, the dear thing.
"To answer your first question: no, she's his wife.
To answer your second question: a twenty-four-year difference.
To answer your third question: no, he'd already been divorced eleven years."
I have three more questions.
4th question: Did they meet in Detroit near the corner of 3rd Ave and Mack?
5th question: Why does she still look like she's got change for a $5?
6th question: Is it just me, or do you also think thompson must have neck and chest gills la Innsmouth?
"To answer your first question: no, she's his wife.
To answer your second question: a twenty-four-year difference.
To answer your third question: no, he'd already been divorced eleven years."
I have three more questions.
4th question: Did they meet in Detroit near the corner of 3rd Ave and Mack?
5th question: Why does she still look like she's got change for a $5?
6th question: Is it just me, or do you also think thompson must have neck and chest gills la Innsmouth?
Drink water.
Or tea.
Or tea.
Headless Body Found In Manhole
November 27, 2007
DETROIT -- The Wayne County Sheriff's Department is investigating the discovery of a decapitated man's body found inside a manhole on Monday morning.
The Wayne County Water Department told Local 4 they found the headless body in a manhole in an alley near Kercheval and Montclair streets on Detroit's eastside.
The water department said it was called to the area to investigate reports of backed up sewage. ...
Damn, the Lower East Side just keeps gettin' scarier and scarier. Glad I don't live there anymore.
PS Always pay your drug dealers, kids, or you may wind up like Hapless Headless here.
Update: Around Noon I heard on the news it was a woman's body they'd found.
November 27, 2007
DETROIT -- The Wayne County Sheriff's Department is investigating the discovery of a decapitated man's body found inside a manhole on Monday morning.
The Wayne County Water Department told Local 4 they found the headless body in a manhole in an alley near Kercheval and Montclair streets on Detroit's eastside.
The water department said it was called to the area to investigate reports of backed up sewage. ...
Damn, the Lower East Side just keeps gettin' scarier and scarier. Glad I don't live there anymore.
PS Always pay your drug dealers, kids, or you may wind up like Hapless Headless here.
Update: Around Noon I heard on the news it was a woman's body they'd found.
Insurers Shift Cost Burdens to Homeowners
By JOSEPH B. TREASTER
Published: November 23, 2007
PALMETTO BAY, Fla. -- Charles R. Williams stood near the glass sliding doors in his home south of Miami and pointed out parts of the ceiling and walls that had crumpled after Hurricane Andrew ripped open the roof 15 years ago.
The visible damage from that storm, one of the worst of the century, has largely disappeared. But Mr. Williams and homeowners nationwide are still feeling its effect in their pocketbooks.
The storm stunned insurance companies and, after paying out more than $22 billion in claims in inflation-adjusted dollars, they began rewriting policies to protect themselves as much as homeowners. They also developed computer programs intended to limit payouts on claims.
As a result, American homeowners are having to make do with much less coverage at steadily rising prices. In Miami and other places along the coast, insurance prices have skyrocketed, deepening the national slowdown in home sales. ...
Permalink: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/23/business/23insure.html?ex=1353474000&en=de9a6215bac1bae6&ei=5124&partner=permalink&exprod=permalink (SU's acting like no one's ever given this page th' thumbs up.)
By JOSEPH B. TREASTER
Published: November 23, 2007
PALMETTO BAY, Fla. -- Charles R. Williams stood near the glass sliding doors in his home south of Miami and pointed out parts of the ceiling and walls that had crumpled after Hurricane Andrew ripped open the roof 15 years ago.
The visible damage from that storm, one of the worst of the century, has largely disappeared. But Mr. Williams and homeowners nationwide are still feeling its effect in their pocketbooks.
The storm stunned insurance companies and, after paying out more than $22 billion in claims in inflation-adjusted dollars, they began rewriting policies to protect themselves as much as homeowners. They also developed computer programs intended to limit payouts on claims.
As a result, American homeowners are having to make do with much less coverage at steadily rising prices. In Miami and other places along the coast, insurance prices have skyrocketed, deepening the national slowdown in home sales. ...
Permalink: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/23/business/23insure.html?ex=1353474000&en=de9a6215bac1bae6&ei=5124&partner=permalink&exprod=permalink (SU's acting like no one's ever given this page th' thumbs up.)
Stricken Ship Evacuated Off Antarctica
By BILL CORMIER
Friday, November 23, 2007
BUENOS AIRES, Argentina (AP) -- A Canadian cruise ship struck submerged ice off Antarctica and began taking on water, but all 154 passengers and crew took to lifeboats and were rescued safely Friday by a passing Norwegian liner, officials said.
On calm seas, the Explorer passengers and crew were safely moved from rubber boats in subfreezing temperatures to the Nordnorge, a Norwegian cruise ship that was nearby and responded to the distress call, said Susan Hayes of G.A.P. Adventures of Toronto, which owns the stricken vessel. ...
Cruises: Just Say No.
By BILL CORMIER
Friday, November 23, 2007
BUENOS AIRES, Argentina (AP) -- A Canadian cruise ship struck submerged ice off Antarctica and began taking on water, but all 154 passengers and crew took to lifeboats and were rescued safely Friday by a passing Norwegian liner, officials said.
On calm seas, the Explorer passengers and crew were safely moved from rubber boats in subfreezing temperatures to the Nordnorge, a Norwegian cruise ship that was nearby and responded to the distress call, said Susan Hayes of G.A.P. Adventures of Toronto, which owns the stricken vessel. ...
Cruises: Just Say No.
PM to Britain: Your Data is in the Mail
By Neel Shah
11/21/07
British Prime Minister Gordon Brown apologized today for a mail snafu that has put half the country's population at risk of identity theft. Last month, it seems, a private shipping company lost track of two discs containing the names, addresses, and national insurance numbers of 25 million Brits, including everyone under the age of 16. Kind of like how you lost track of your car keys this morning!...
By Neel Shah
11/21/07
British Prime Minister Gordon Brown apologized today for a mail snafu that has put half the country's population at risk of identity theft. Last month, it seems, a private shipping company lost track of two discs containing the names, addresses, and national insurance numbers of 25 million Brits, including everyone under the age of 16. Kind of like how you lost track of your car keys this morning!...
Socialize medicine in Yankistan by all means, but tell ya what - let's not base it on the nhs, okay?
CAR OF THE YEAR
Cadillac CTS wins raves
November 20, 2007
Motor Trend magazine has named the new Cadillac CTS its 2008 car of the year, saying it is proof that Detroit can build a world-class sedan. ...
Motor Trend, I have a bridge in Brooklyn you may be interested in purchasing....
Cadillac CTS wins raves
November 20, 2007
Motor Trend magazine has named the new Cadillac CTS its 2008 car of the year, saying it is proof that Detroit can build a world-class sedan. ...
Motor Trend, I have a bridge in Brooklyn you may be interested in purchasing....
A Troubling Case of Readers' Block
Citing Decline Among Older Kids, NEA Report Warns of Dire Effects
By Bob Thompson
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, November 19, 2007
Americans are reading less and their reading proficiency is declining at troubling rates, according to a report that the National Endowment for the Arts will issue today. The trend is particularly strong among older teens and young adults, and if it is not reversed, the NEA report suggests, it will have a profound negative effect on the nation's economic and civic future.
"This is really alarming data," said NEA Chairman Dana Gioia. "Luckily, we still have an opportunity to address it, but if we wait 10, 20 years, I think it may be too late." ...
Citing Decline Among Older Kids, NEA Report Warns of Dire Effects
By Bob Thompson
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, November 19, 2007
Americans are reading less and their reading proficiency is declining at troubling rates, according to a report that the National Endowment for the Arts will issue today. The trend is particularly strong among older teens and young adults, and if it is not reversed, the NEA report suggests, it will have a profound negative effect on the nation's economic and civic future.
"This is really alarming data," said NEA Chairman Dana Gioia. "Luckily, we still have an opportunity to address it, but if we wait 10, 20 years, I think it may be too late." ...
'No Child' Data on Violence Skewed
Each State Defines 'Dangerous School'
By Nelson Hernandez
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, November 18, 2007
A little-publicized provision of the No Child Left Behind Act requiring states to identify "persistently dangerous schools" is hampered by widespread underreporting of violent incidents and by major differences among the states in defining unsafe campuses, several audits say. Out of about 94,000 schools in the United States, only 46 were designated as persistently dangerous in the past school year. ...
... One high school in Los Angeles had 289 cases of battery, two assaults with a deadly weapon, a robbery and two sex offenses in one school year, according to an audit by the U.S. Department of Education's inspector general. It did not meet the state's definition of a persistently dangerous school, or PDS. None of California's roughly 9,000 schools has. ...
Each State Defines 'Dangerous School'
By Nelson Hernandez
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, November 18, 2007
A little-publicized provision of the No Child Left Behind Act requiring states to identify "persistently dangerous schools" is hampered by widespread underreporting of violent incidents and by major differences among the states in defining unsafe campuses, several audits say. Out of about 94,000 schools in the United States, only 46 were designated as persistently dangerous in the past school year. ...
... One high school in Los Angeles had 289 cases of battery, two assaults with a deadly weapon, a robbery and two sex offenses in one school year, according to an audit by the U.S. Department of Education's inspector general. It did not meet the state's definition of a persistently dangerous school, or PDS. None of California's roughly 9,000 schools has. ...
Report: Court Sentences Rape Victim
Friday, November 16, 2007
RIYADH, Saudi Arabia (AP) -- A Saudi court sentenced a woman who had been gang raped to six months in jail and 200 lashes - more than doubling her initial penalty for being in the car of a man who was not a relative, a newspaper reported Thursday. ...
This bullshit must end. When in hell are these people going to realize that women are human beings?
Friday, November 16, 2007
RIYADH, Saudi Arabia (AP) -- A Saudi court sentenced a woman who had been gang raped to six months in jail and 200 lashes - more than doubling her initial penalty for being in the car of a man who was not a relative, a newspaper reported Thursday. ...
This bullshit must end. When in hell are these people going to realize that women are human beings?
Consumers unwittingly eating GMO food
Fri Nov 16, 2007
LONDON (Reuters) - Consumers are unwittingly eating food produced from genetically modified crops with nearly all milk, dairy products and pork produced from GMO-fed animals, the country's largest organic certification body said on Friday.
The Soil Association, which opposes GMO crops, said that a survey estimated about 60 percent of maize and 30 percent of soya fed to dairy cattle and pigs is genetically modified.
"Biotechnology companies have clearly used imported animal feed as a Trojan Horse to introduce GM into the UK food chain," Soil Association director Patrick Holden said in a statement.
There has been significant opposition to GMO crops among British consumers. ...
Fuck frankenfood!
Fri Nov 16, 2007
LONDON (Reuters) - Consumers are unwittingly eating food produced from genetically modified crops with nearly all milk, dairy products and pork produced from GMO-fed animals, the country's largest organic certification body said on Friday.
The Soil Association, which opposes GMO crops, said that a survey estimated about 60 percent of maize and 30 percent of soya fed to dairy cattle and pigs is genetically modified.
"Biotechnology companies have clearly used imported animal feed as a Trojan Horse to introduce GM into the UK food chain," Soil Association director Patrick Holden said in a statement.
There has been significant opposition to GMO crops among British consumers. ...
Fuck frankenfood!
Runner Dies During Marathon Trials in NY
By RACHEL COHEN
The Associated Press
Saturday, November 3, 2007
NEW YORK -- Top distance runner Ryan Shay died during the U.S. men's Olympic marathon trials Saturday after collapsing about 5 1/2 miles into the race. He was 28.
Shay was taken to Lenox Hill Hospital and was pronounced dead at 8:46 a.m., New York Road Runners president Mary Wittenberg said. ...
Um, stop running marathons, since people are dying?
By RACHEL COHEN
The Associated Press
Saturday, November 3, 2007
NEW YORK -- Top distance runner Ryan Shay died during the U.S. men's Olympic marathon trials Saturday after collapsing about 5 1/2 miles into the race. He was 28.
Shay was taken to Lenox Hill Hospital and was pronounced dead at 8:46 a.m., New York Road Runners president Mary Wittenberg said. ...
Um, stop running marathons, since people are dying?
Restaurant Closed After Deer Carcass Found
Business Reopens On Probation After Two-Day Closure
October 30, 2007
GREENCASTLE, Ind. -- A Mexican restaurant in Greencastle, Ind., was closed for nearly two days after a health inspector noticed a deer carcass had been butchered on the kitchen floor, officials said. ...
Business Reopens On Probation After Two-Day Closure
October 30, 2007
GREENCASTLE, Ind. -- A Mexican restaurant in Greencastle, Ind., was closed for nearly two days after a health inspector noticed a deer carcass had been butchered on the kitchen floor, officials said. ...
Bowling Ball Hits Windshield, Misses Driver
Ball Bounces Into Back Seat
October 30, 2007
CINCINNATI -- A bizarre incident on Interstate 74 involving a flying bowling ball left a woman shaken and her car damaged early Tuesday morning.
Cincinnati police said the woman was driving west on the interstate just after 5 a.m. when a bowling ball crashed through the middle of her windshield, WLWT-TV in Cincinnati reported. ...
Ball Bounces Into Back Seat
October 30, 2007
CINCINNATI -- A bizarre incident on Interstate 74 involving a flying bowling ball left a woman shaken and her car damaged early Tuesday morning.
Cincinnati police said the woman was driving west on the interstate just after 5 a.m. when a bowling ball crashed through the middle of her windshield, WLWT-TV in Cincinnati reported. ...
Center Treats Wrong Side Of Patient's Brain
Patient Treated At Cancer Center
October 30, 2007
DETROIT -- A patient undergoing treatment at the Karmanos Cancer Institute in Detroit received a dose of radiation on the wrong side of the brain, according to a report filed with the United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission. ...
Patient Treated At Cancer Center
October 30, 2007
DETROIT -- A patient undergoing treatment at the Karmanos Cancer Institute in Detroit received a dose of radiation on the wrong side of the brain, according to a report filed with the United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission. ...
Sorry - the clever kids left you lot behind long ago.
May y'all reach complete and total enlightenment and on all levels.
May y'all reach complete and total enlightenment and on all levels.
Now Auntie Beeb is claiming to have far less funding and is making many folks redundant, or slashing their pay.
Way to go: imitating Yankistani automakers.
Way to go: imitating Yankistani automakers.
... Frank Kakopa has been paid 7,500 after the Immigration Service wrongly held him in prison for two days.
Mr Kakopa, originally from Zimbabwe, was on a short break with his wife and young children in 2005, when he was stopped at Belfast City Airport.
He had proof he lives in England but was still strip-searched and jailed.
His work manager had also confirmed both his legal residency and employment position.
Eileen Lavery from the Equality Commission said she had concerns over why Mr Kakopa was singled out and held in Maghaberry Prison near Lisburn, as he had "an enormous amount of documentation".
"Why pick on him? Other than I think because he is black," she said. ...
This man should have got a fuckload more than 7 and a half grand!
Mr Kakopa, originally from Zimbabwe, was on a short break with his wife and young children in 2005, when he was stopped at Belfast City Airport.
He had proof he lives in England but was still strip-searched and jailed.
His work manager had also confirmed both his legal residency and employment position.
Eileen Lavery from the Equality Commission said she had concerns over why Mr Kakopa was singled out and held in Maghaberry Prison near Lisburn, as he had "an enormous amount of documentation".
"Why pick on him? Other than I think because he is black," she said. ...
This man should have got a fuckload more than 7 and a half grand!
Woman Charged in 'Internet Revenge' Case
Friday, October 26, 2007
WATERFORD, Conn. (AP) -- A 34-year-old woman has been charged with using the Internet to try to get revenge on an old boyfriend by breaking up his marriage. Pilar Stofega has been charged with second-degree harassment and breach of peace and released on $2,500 bond.
Waterford police say she created phony profiles of the former boyfriend's current wife on some adult Web sites that included the wife's home and work phone numbers and high school yearbook picture. ...
Stupid, evil, vindictive cow!
Friday, October 26, 2007
WATERFORD, Conn. (AP) -- A 34-year-old woman has been charged with using the Internet to try to get revenge on an old boyfriend by breaking up his marriage. Pilar Stofega has been charged with second-degree harassment and breach of peace and released on $2,500 bond.
Waterford police say she created phony profiles of the former boyfriend's current wife on some adult Web sites that included the wife's home and work phone numbers and high school yearbook picture. ...
Stupid, evil, vindictive cow!
Violin Case Music to Boy's Safety
Thursday, October 25, 2007
LANCASTER, Pa. (AP) -- Now there's at least one 10-year-old boy who doesn't mind taking violin lessons. Police said the boy was walking to school holding his violin case when a vehicle sped through a crosswalk and hit him.
Witnesses said the case took most of the impact, and officer Mark Worthing said the boy suffered only cuts and bruises after the accident.
Police said the car raced around traffic stopped by a crossing guard, hit the boy, and then sped away at speeds up to 70 mph.
Worthing said he's sure if it were not for the violin case, "that kid would be seriously hurt." The boy's name was not released. ...
Thursday, October 25, 2007
LANCASTER, Pa. (AP) -- Now there's at least one 10-year-old boy who doesn't mind taking violin lessons. Police said the boy was walking to school holding his violin case when a vehicle sped through a crosswalk and hit him.
Witnesses said the case took most of the impact, and officer Mark Worthing said the boy suffered only cuts and bruises after the accident.
Police said the car raced around traffic stopped by a crossing guard, hit the boy, and then sped away at speeds up to 70 mph.
Worthing said he's sure if it were not for the violin case, "that kid would be seriously hurt." The boy's name was not released. ...
... The soil presented by Stephen Etsitty, director of the Navajo Nation Environmental Protection Agency, contained radiation 30 times that of normal levels -- and it wasn't even the most contaminated soil on the land, Etsitty said. ...
Anyone who calls nuke power "green" should have to live on nuke-infested Navajo land with their families.
Anyone who calls nuke power "green" should have to live on nuke-infested Navajo land with their families.
Our current "administration" is thoroughly corrupt and thoroughly evil.
Man Kidnaps Woman Who Rejected Proposal
Monday, October 22, 2007
KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia (AP) -- A 60-year-old farmer was so determined to marry a 28-year-old estate worker in Malaysia he kidnapped her when she turned down his proposal, police said Monday.
The farmer forced the woman into his car while she was walking home from work in eastern Terengganu state, said K. Manoharan, deputy head of the state's criminal investigations department. ...
Um, fellas? I have a suggestion: Acting like a psychotic asshole is not the way to win hearts, especially after she's already turned you down.
Monday, October 22, 2007
KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia (AP) -- A 60-year-old farmer was so determined to marry a 28-year-old estate worker in Malaysia he kidnapped her when she turned down his proposal, police said Monday.
The farmer forced the woman into his car while she was walking home from work in eastern Terengganu state, said K. Manoharan, deputy head of the state's criminal investigations department. ...
Um, fellas? I have a suggestion: Acting like a psychotic asshole is not the way to win hearts, especially after she's already turned you down.
FDA, industry insiders derail approval of new cancer treatments
By Evelyn Pringle
Online Journal Contributing Writer
Oct 10, 2007
George W Bush's Food and Drug Administration (FDA), stacked with insiders from the industry that literally carried him to Washington, has stooped to a new low to protect the obscene profits of the multi-billion dollar cancer industry by blocking the approval of a new class of immunotherapies that can extend the lives of dying cancer patients with minimal side effects.
In the May 14 Wall Street Journal, a former medical officer in the FDA Office of Oncology Products, Dr. Mark Thornton, denounced the FDA's decisions, and stated, "May 9, 2007, should be cited in the annals of cancer immunotherapy as Black Wednesday."
"Within an eight-hour period that day," he wrote, "the FDA succeeded in killing not one but two safe, promising therapies designed and developed to act by stimulating a patient's immune system against cancer."
Experts say the new immunotherapies hold promise for many forms of cancer. "FDA's hubris will affect the lives and possibly the life spans of cancer patients from nearly every demographic, from elderly men with prostate cancer to young children with the rarest of bone cancers," according to Dr. Thornton.
With the approval of the new therapies, the profits, along with the horrendous side effects of the only treatments now available, could become a thing of the past. "One day current treatment approaches such as surgery, radiation and chemotherapy, which often kill most but not all of a cancer, could be made obsolete by a potent immune response that eradicates the cancer cells and provides subsequent protection against return and relapse," Dr. Thornton wrote.
As such, the new therapies pose a grave threat to the cancer industry as a whole, and the lost profits would not be limited to the sale of products. ...
By Evelyn Pringle
Online Journal Contributing Writer
Oct 10, 2007
George W Bush's Food and Drug Administration (FDA), stacked with insiders from the industry that literally carried him to Washington, has stooped to a new low to protect the obscene profits of the multi-billion dollar cancer industry by blocking the approval of a new class of immunotherapies that can extend the lives of dying cancer patients with minimal side effects.
In the May 14 Wall Street Journal, a former medical officer in the FDA Office of Oncology Products, Dr. Mark Thornton, denounced the FDA's decisions, and stated, "May 9, 2007, should be cited in the annals of cancer immunotherapy as Black Wednesday."
"Within an eight-hour period that day," he wrote, "the FDA succeeded in killing not one but two safe, promising therapies designed and developed to act by stimulating a patient's immune system against cancer."
Experts say the new immunotherapies hold promise for many forms of cancer. "FDA's hubris will affect the lives and possibly the life spans of cancer patients from nearly every demographic, from elderly men with prostate cancer to young children with the rarest of bone cancers," according to Dr. Thornton.
With the approval of the new therapies, the profits, along with the horrendous side effects of the only treatments now available, could become a thing of the past. "One day current treatment approaches such as surgery, radiation and chemotherapy, which often kill most but not all of a cancer, could be made obsolete by a potent immune response that eradicates the cancer cells and provides subsequent protection against return and relapse," Dr. Thornton wrote.
As such, the new therapies pose a grave threat to the cancer industry as a whole, and the lost profits would not be limited to the sale of products. ...
Suit: Chemo drug led to miscarriage
Bloomberg News
October 19, 2007
Walgreen Co. has been sued by a Missouri woman and her husband who claim she had a miscarriage after a prescription for prenatal vitamins was filled with a chemotherapy drug carrying a similar brand name. ...
... Givens received a prescription for Materna, a prenatal vitamin, on March 6. The pharmacist at her local Walgreens instead gave her Matulane, used to treat Hodgkin's disease. The drug is designed to interfere with the growth of cells by blocking their ability to split and reproduce, the complaint states.
Bloomberg News
October 19, 2007
Walgreen Co. has been sued by a Missouri woman and her husband who claim she had a miscarriage after a prescription for prenatal vitamins was filled with a chemotherapy drug carrying a similar brand name. ...
... Givens received a prescription for Materna, a prenatal vitamin, on March 6. The pharmacist at her local Walgreens instead gave her Matulane, used to treat Hodgkin's disease. The drug is designed to interfere with the growth of cells by blocking their ability to split and reproduce, the complaint states.
Police Allegedly Hang Quadriplegic Man
Thursday, October 18, 2007
LOS ANGELES (AP) -- Jurors ruled the city of Pasadena must pay $80,000 to a quadriplegic man who sued because police officers allegedly jerked him out of his wheelchair and hung him upside down to search him.
Cornell Greathouse sued the city and four police officers for assault, battery, false arrest, false imprisonment, excessive force, intentional infliction of emotional distress, invasion of privacy and negligence.
A Superior Court jury decided Wednesday the officers weren't culpable, but they ruled Pasadena must pay $78,939.12 for failing to train officers on how to deal with a quadriplegic. ...
Thursday, October 18, 2007
LOS ANGELES (AP) -- Jurors ruled the city of Pasadena must pay $80,000 to a quadriplegic man who sued because police officers allegedly jerked him out of his wheelchair and hung him upside down to search him.
Cornell Greathouse sued the city and four police officers for assault, battery, false arrest, false imprisonment, excessive force, intentional infliction of emotional distress, invasion of privacy and negligence.
A Superior Court jury decided Wednesday the officers weren't culpable, but they ruled Pasadena must pay $78,939.12 for failing to train officers on how to deal with a quadriplegic. ...
Famed Scientist Apologizes for Quoted Racial Remarks
By CORNELIA DEAN
Published: October 19, 2007
James D. Watson, who shared the 1962 Nobel prize for deciphering the double-helix of DNA, apologized "unreservedly" today for comments reported this week suggesting that black people, over all, are not as intelligent as whites.
In an interview published Sunday in The Times of London, Dr. Watson is quoted as saying that while "there are many people of color who are very talented," he is "inherently gloomy about the prospect of Africa."
"All our social policies are based on the fact that their intelligence is the same as ours -- whereas all the testing says not really," the newspaper quoted him as saying.
"I cannot understand how I could have said what I am quoted as having said," Dr. Watson said in a statement given to The Associated Press. "There is no scientific basis for such a belief." ...
Ain't that no shit, girls and boys.
Top Scientist Channels kkk; Cold Spring Harbor Lab Suspends His Ignorant Arse: http://uk.reuters.com/article/topNews/idUKN1844930820071019
By CORNELIA DEAN
Published: October 19, 2007
James D. Watson, who shared the 1962 Nobel prize for deciphering the double-helix of DNA, apologized "unreservedly" today for comments reported this week suggesting that black people, over all, are not as intelligent as whites.
In an interview published Sunday in The Times of London, Dr. Watson is quoted as saying that while "there are many people of color who are very talented," he is "inherently gloomy about the prospect of Africa."
"All our social policies are based on the fact that their intelligence is the same as ours -- whereas all the testing says not really," the newspaper quoted him as saying.
"I cannot understand how I could have said what I am quoted as having said," Dr. Watson said in a statement given to The Associated Press. "There is no scientific basis for such a belief." ...
Ain't that no shit, girls and boys.
Top Scientist Channels kkk; Cold Spring Harbor Lab Suspends His Ignorant Arse: http://uk.reuters.com/article/topNews/idUKN1844930820071019
Don't taze me, bro!
Former CEO Says U.S. Punished Phone Firm
Qwest Feared NSA Plan Was Illegal, Filing Says
By Ellen Nakashima and Dan Eggen
Washington Post Staff Writers
Saturday, October 13, 2007
A former Qwest Communications International executive, appealing a conviction for insider trading, has alleged that the government withdrew opportunities for contracts worth hundreds of millions of dollars after Qwest refused to participate in an unidentified National Security Agency program that the company thought might be illegal.
Former chief executive Joseph P. Nacchio, convicted in April of 19 counts of insider trading, said the NSA approached Qwest more than six months before the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks according to court documents unsealed in Denver this week. ...
Qwest Feared NSA Plan Was Illegal, Filing Says
By Ellen Nakashima and Dan Eggen
Washington Post Staff Writers
Saturday, October 13, 2007
A former Qwest Communications International executive, appealing a conviction for insider trading, has alleged that the government withdrew opportunities for contracts worth hundreds of millions of dollars after Qwest refused to participate in an unidentified National Security Agency program that the company thought might be illegal.
Former chief executive Joseph P. Nacchio, convicted in April of 19 counts of insider trading, said the NSA approached Qwest more than six months before the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks according to court documents unsealed in Denver this week. ...
Tough Punishment Expected for Warhead Errors
Officers May Lose Commands After Nuclear Missiles Were Flown on Bomber
By Thomas E. Ricks and Joby Warrick
Washington Post Staff Writers and Washington Post Staff Writers
Thursday, October 18, 2007
The Air Force has decided to relieve at least five of its officers of command and is considering filing criminal charges in connection with the Aug. 29 "Bent Spear" incident in which nuclear-armed cruise missiles were mistakenly flown from North Dakota to Louisiana, two senior Air Force officials said yesterday.
Although senior Defense Department officials have not been fully briefed on the results of an Air Force probe of the incident, the sources said that at least one colonel is expected to lose his position and that several enlisted personnel will also be punished as part disciplinary actions that could be among the toughest meted out by the Air Force in years. ...
One would hope so: this is the worst fuck-up in years.
Officers May Lose Commands After Nuclear Missiles Were Flown on Bomber
By Thomas E. Ricks and Joby Warrick
Washington Post Staff Writers and Washington Post Staff Writers
Thursday, October 18, 2007
The Air Force has decided to relieve at least five of its officers of command and is considering filing criminal charges in connection with the Aug. 29 "Bent Spear" incident in which nuclear-armed cruise missiles were mistakenly flown from North Dakota to Louisiana, two senior Air Force officials said yesterday.
Although senior Defense Department officials have not been fully briefed on the results of an Air Force probe of the incident, the sources said that at least one colonel is expected to lose his position and that several enlisted personnel will also be punished as part disciplinary actions that could be among the toughest meted out by the Air Force in years. ...
One would hope so: this is the worst fuck-up in years.
Gossip more powerful than truth, researchers say
Mon Oct 15, 2007
By Michael Kahn
LONDON (Reuters) - Gossip is more powerful than truth, a study showed on Monday, suggesting people believe what they hear through the grapevine even if they have evidence to the contrary.
Researchers, testing students using a computer game, also found gossip played an important role when people make decisions, said Ralf Sommerfeld, an evolutionary biologist at the Max Planck Institute in Germany, who led the study.
"We show that gossip has a strong influence... even when participants have access to the original information as well as gossip about the same information," the researchers wrote in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
"Thus, it is evident that gossip has a strong manipulative potential." ...
Well, that explains the continued existence of fox "news."
Mon Oct 15, 2007
By Michael Kahn
LONDON (Reuters) - Gossip is more powerful than truth, a study showed on Monday, suggesting people believe what they hear through the grapevine even if they have evidence to the contrary.
Researchers, testing students using a computer game, also found gossip played an important role when people make decisions, said Ralf Sommerfeld, an evolutionary biologist at the Max Planck Institute in Germany, who led the study.
"We show that gossip has a strong influence... even when participants have access to the original information as well as gossip about the same information," the researchers wrote in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
"Thus, it is evident that gossip has a strong manipulative potential." ...
Well, that explains the continued existence of fox "news."
Dentist Claims Breast Rubs Appropriate
Friday, October 12, 2007
WOODLAND, Calif. -- A dentist accused of fondling the breasts of 27 female patients is trying to keep his dental license by arguing that chest massages are an appropriate procedure in certain cases. Mark Anderson's lawyer says dental journals discuss the need to massage the pectoral muscles to treat a common jaw problem. ...
His massaging chests (and how many male patients' chests did he massage?) isn't nearly as appropriate as my knee's meeting his face.
Friday, October 12, 2007
WOODLAND, Calif. -- A dentist accused of fondling the breasts of 27 female patients is trying to keep his dental license by arguing that chest massages are an appropriate procedure in certain cases. Mark Anderson's lawyer says dental journals discuss the need to massage the pectoral muscles to treat a common jaw problem. ...
His massaging chests (and how many male patients' chests did he massage?) isn't nearly as appropriate as my knee's meeting his face.
Rescue of Miniature Horses at Kansas Farm
by Rebecca Gannon
More than a hundred miniature horses, all crammed into a pasture with no grass to eat, and filled with scrap metal.
Uniontown in Bourbon County is now on the minds of horse lovers across the nation. Ronni Folden is one of those horse lovers.
"Some of them even have pasture rot all over their backs," she said, "some of them are there was one little one that was bleeding. This last time I went out, one of them was missing an eye. It's pitiful."
The mini horses' owner, Vernon Trembly says he loves his animals. "I've had them for so many years, they're part of me. it's that simple." But at 71, a herd of a hundred is too much to handle.
That's where Victor McMullen man comes in. He runs a horse rescue farm in Wellington, and he's now the coordinator for the nationwide rescue mission.
"We're working with horse clubs from all over the United States, trying to get these horses out of of there, and into homes," he said. "People are offering money, they're offering feed, they're offering transportation, and that's what we're looking for. Those four things." ...
Folks who truly love their animals properly care for them.
Many thanks to dear Slipped
by Rebecca Gannon
More than a hundred miniature horses, all crammed into a pasture with no grass to eat, and filled with scrap metal.
Uniontown in Bourbon County is now on the minds of horse lovers across the nation. Ronni Folden is one of those horse lovers.
"Some of them even have pasture rot all over their backs," she said, "some of them are there was one little one that was bleeding. This last time I went out, one of them was missing an eye. It's pitiful."
The mini horses' owner, Vernon Trembly says he loves his animals. "I've had them for so many years, they're part of me. it's that simple." But at 71, a herd of a hundred is too much to handle.
That's where Victor McMullen man comes in. He runs a horse rescue farm in Wellington, and he's now the coordinator for the nationwide rescue mission.
"We're working with horse clubs from all over the United States, trying to get these horses out of of there, and into homes," he said. "People are offering money, they're offering feed, they're offering transportation, and that's what we're looking for. Those four things." ...
Folks who truly love their animals properly care for them.
Many thanks to dear Slipped
Off-Duty Wis. Deputy Sheriff Kills 6
By ROBERT IMRIE
The Associated Press
Monday, October 8, 2007
CRANDON, Wis. -- An off-duty sheriff's deputy went on a shooting rampage early Sunday at a home where seven young people had gathered for pizza and movies, killing six and critically injuring the other before authorities fatally shot him, officials said.
The gunman, Tyler Peterson, was 20 years old and worked full-time as a Forest County deputy sheriff and part-time as a Crandon police officer, said Police Chief John Dennee. ...
By ROBERT IMRIE
The Associated Press
Monday, October 8, 2007
CRANDON, Wis. -- An off-duty sheriff's deputy went on a shooting rampage early Sunday at a home where seven young people had gathered for pizza and movies, killing six and critically injuring the other before authorities fatally shot him, officials said.
The gunman, Tyler Peterson, was 20 years old and worked full-time as a Forest County deputy sheriff and part-time as a Crandon police officer, said Police Chief John Dennee. ...
Teacher arrested for public intoxication
October 4, 2007
VALPARAISO, Ind. (AP) -- A first-grade teacher from Valparaiso is free on bond after she was arrested at school for public intoxication. Police say 49-year-old Sharon Duerring had two cans of beer in her purse at the time of her arrest.
Officials at Cooks Corners Elementary School removed Duerring from the classroom and called police when they suspected she was drunk. A portable breath test showed her blood alcohol concentration to be 0.20 percent, more than twice the legal limit of 0.08 percent. ...
October 4, 2007
VALPARAISO, Ind. (AP) -- A first-grade teacher from Valparaiso is free on bond after she was arrested at school for public intoxication. Police say 49-year-old Sharon Duerring had two cans of beer in her purse at the time of her arrest.
Officials at Cooks Corners Elementary School removed Duerring from the classroom and called police when they suspected she was drunk. A portable breath test showed her blood alcohol concentration to be 0.20 percent, more than twice the legal limit of 0.08 percent. ...
Woman told to ditch bra to enter court
October 4, 2007
COEUR D'ALENE, Idaho (AP) -- Security guards refused to allow a woman into a federal courthouse until she removed a bra that triggered a metal detector.
Lori Plato said she and her husband, Owen Plato, were stunned when U.S. Marshals Service employees asked her to remove her bra after the underwire supports set off the alarm.
"I asked if I could go into the bathroom because they didn't have a privacy screen and no women security officers were available," Plato said Wednesday. "They said, 'No.' ...
Okay, let me get this straight.
Our male-idiot-dominated "culture" demands that women have perky tits. Nothing is worse than saggy ones. To this end, we have been given male-designed bras to wear, most of which these days have something called underwire in them, a feature which supposedly helps our breasteses maintain their perkitude.
Now we are being told by metal-detector-wielding security guards in airports, courtrooms, city and county buildings, and even some office buildings that we can't wear bras with underwires because they may be ter'ist weapons.
Strange weaponry indeed.
October 4, 2007
COEUR D'ALENE, Idaho (AP) -- Security guards refused to allow a woman into a federal courthouse until she removed a bra that triggered a metal detector.
Lori Plato said she and her husband, Owen Plato, were stunned when U.S. Marshals Service employees asked her to remove her bra after the underwire supports set off the alarm.
"I asked if I could go into the bathroom because they didn't have a privacy screen and no women security officers were available," Plato said Wednesday. "They said, 'No.' ...
Okay, let me get this straight.
Our male-idiot-dominated "culture" demands that women have perky tits. Nothing is worse than saggy ones. To this end, we have been given male-designed bras to wear, most of which these days have something called underwire in them, a feature which supposedly helps our breasteses maintain their perkitude.
Now we are being told by metal-detector-wielding security guards in airports, courtrooms, city and county buildings, and even some office buildings that we can't wear bras with underwires because they may be ter'ist weapons.
Strange weaponry indeed.
About 2,700 Safe From S.Africa Mine
By MICHELLE FAUL
The Associated Press
Thursday, October 4, 2007
CARLETONVILLE, South Africa -- Some 2,700 gold miners - some singing, some swearing, but most looking dazed - were hauled from deep underground Thursday as efforts continued to bring hundreds more to the surface after an accident crippled an elevator.
There were no casualties when a pressurized air pipe snapped at the mine near Johannesburg and tumbled down a shaft Wednesday, causing extensive damage to an elevator and stranding more than 3,000 miners more than a mile underground. ...
By MICHELLE FAUL
The Associated Press
Thursday, October 4, 2007
CARLETONVILLE, South Africa -- Some 2,700 gold miners - some singing, some swearing, but most looking dazed - were hauled from deep underground Thursday as efforts continued to bring hundreds more to the surface after an accident crippled an elevator.
There were no casualties when a pressurized air pipe snapped at the mine near Johannesburg and tumbled down a shaft Wednesday, causing extensive damage to an elevator and stranding more than 3,000 miners more than a mile underground. ...
Secret U.S. Endorsement of Severe Interrogations
By SCOTT SHANE, DAVID JOHNSTON and JAMES RISEN
Published: October 4, 2007
WASHINGTON, Oct. 3 -- When the Justice Department publicly declared torture "abhorrent" in a legal opinion in December 2004, the Bush administration appeared to have abandoned its assertion of nearly unlimited presidential authority to order brutal interrogations.
But soon after Alberto R. Gonzales's arrival as attorney general in February 2005, the Justice Department issued another opinion, this one in secret. It was a very different document, according to officials briefed on it, an expansive endorsement of the harshest interrogation techniques ever used by the Central Intelligence Agency.
The new opinion, the officials said, for the first time provided explicit authorization to barrage terror suspects with a combination of painful physical and psychological tactics, including head-slapping, simulated drowning and frigid temperatures.
Mr. Gonzales approved the legal memorandum on "combined effects" over the objections of James B. Comey, the deputy attorney general, who was leaving his job after bruising clashes with the White House. Disagreeing with what he viewed as the opinion's overreaching legal reasoning, Mr. Comey told colleagues at the department that they would all be "ashamed" when the world eventually learned of it. ...
By SCOTT SHANE, DAVID JOHNSTON and JAMES RISEN
Published: October 4, 2007
WASHINGTON, Oct. 3 -- When the Justice Department publicly declared torture "abhorrent" in a legal opinion in December 2004, the Bush administration appeared to have abandoned its assertion of nearly unlimited presidential authority to order brutal interrogations.
But soon after Alberto R. Gonzales's arrival as attorney general in February 2005, the Justice Department issued another opinion, this one in secret. It was a very different document, according to officials briefed on it, an expansive endorsement of the harshest interrogation techniques ever used by the Central Intelligence Agency.
The new opinion, the officials said, for the first time provided explicit authorization to barrage terror suspects with a combination of painful physical and psychological tactics, including head-slapping, simulated drowning and frigid temperatures.
Mr. Gonzales approved the legal memorandum on "combined effects" over the objections of James B. Comey, the deputy attorney general, who was leaving his job after bruising clashes with the White House. Disagreeing with what he viewed as the opinion's overreaching legal reasoning, Mr. Comey told colleagues at the department that they would all be "ashamed" when the world eventually learned of it. ...
Security Bulletin Problem Creates Message Flood
By ERIC LIPTON
Published: October 4, 2007
WASHINGTON, Oct. 3 -- It started off early Wednesday as an innocuous request from a North Carolina businessman to the Homeland Security Department. He was responding to a daily antiterrorism bulletin by asking that it be sent to another e-mail address.
But by afternoon, a programming flaw involving the "reply" function transformed that e-mail message into a flood of more than 2.2 million messages nationwide that clogged the e-mail accounts of government and private experts on domestic security, including the operators of an Illinois nuclear power station.
Along the way, dozens of the recipients including federal employees, security officers and local officials exchanged lighthearted remarks about random topics like astrological signs and wine preferences.
"It's good here in D.C.," Bill Miller wrote from the Office of Emergency Programs in the Treasury Department. "Just a bit muggy!"
Such accidental mass e-mail exchanges often occur in the corporate world. But because this occurred in a network of government and private officials dedicated to preventing and responding to terrorist attacks, it generated disbelief and even anger. ...
... The report is a summary, largely based on news reports, on domestic security, like a report Wednesday on an Ethiopian who told an AirTran employee at Logan International Airport in Boston that he had explosives and was a member of Al Qaeda.
Anytime anyone simply clicked on "reply" to the e-mail message that delivered the report, the new message was sent back to the department and then to all 7,500 list subscribers, resulting in the more than 2.2 million messages. ...
Dunno about you, but I feel really safe knowing these folks are in charge.
More:
http://computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&articleId=9040878&pageNumber=1
http://www.computerworld.com/blogs/node/6304
By ERIC LIPTON
Published: October 4, 2007
WASHINGTON, Oct. 3 -- It started off early Wednesday as an innocuous request from a North Carolina businessman to the Homeland Security Department. He was responding to a daily antiterrorism bulletin by asking that it be sent to another e-mail address.
But by afternoon, a programming flaw involving the "reply" function transformed that e-mail message into a flood of more than 2.2 million messages nationwide that clogged the e-mail accounts of government and private experts on domestic security, including the operators of an Illinois nuclear power station.
Along the way, dozens of the recipients including federal employees, security officers and local officials exchanged lighthearted remarks about random topics like astrological signs and wine preferences.
"It's good here in D.C.," Bill Miller wrote from the Office of Emergency Programs in the Treasury Department. "Just a bit muggy!"
Such accidental mass e-mail exchanges often occur in the corporate world. But because this occurred in a network of government and private officials dedicated to preventing and responding to terrorist attacks, it generated disbelief and even anger. ...
... The report is a summary, largely based on news reports, on domestic security, like a report Wednesday on an Ethiopian who told an AirTran employee at Logan International Airport in Boston that he had explosives and was a member of Al Qaeda.
Anytime anyone simply clicked on "reply" to the e-mail message that delivered the report, the new message was sent back to the department and then to all 7,500 list subscribers, resulting in the more than 2.2 million messages. ...
Dunno about you, but I feel really safe knowing these folks are in charge.
More:
http://computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&articleId=9040878&pageNumber=1
http://www.computerworld.com/blogs/node/6304
"We have 1,000 guys out in the field. People make mistakes, they do stupid things sometimes."
- ERIK D. PRINCE, chief executive of Blackwater USA, which is under scrutiny for shootings by its employees in Iraq.
- ERIK D. PRINCE, chief executive of Blackwater USA, which is under scrutiny for shootings by its employees in Iraq.
Town's Fire Department Fails To Respond
Department All Volunteer
October 2, 2007
CARLISLE, Ohio -- When a house fire reached two alarms Monday morning in Carlisle, five neighboring departments came to help, but Carlisle's fire department wasn't one of them, WLWT-TV in Cincinnati reported.
"On the way here, I saw the big plume of smoke and asked the dispatcher what units were responding, and they said just myself and my engine," said Capt. Tony Abston of the nearby Franklin Fire Department.
The volunteer department did not send any trucks to the fire, which caused tens of thousands of dollars in damage, the television station reported.
Abston said Carlisle's all-volunteer department often sits out fires within its city limits.
"If they're here, they're here; if they're not, they're not -- we're here to do a job," Abston said.
The situation frustrated homeowner Anita Walters, who said her living room could have been saved if Carlisle firefighters had shown up, because their department is only a mile from her house. ...
Department All Volunteer
October 2, 2007
CARLISLE, Ohio -- When a house fire reached two alarms Monday morning in Carlisle, five neighboring departments came to help, but Carlisle's fire department wasn't one of them, WLWT-TV in Cincinnati reported.
"On the way here, I saw the big plume of smoke and asked the dispatcher what units were responding, and they said just myself and my engine," said Capt. Tony Abston of the nearby Franklin Fire Department.
The volunteer department did not send any trucks to the fire, which caused tens of thousands of dollars in damage, the television station reported.
Abston said Carlisle's all-volunteer department often sits out fires within its city limits.
"If they're here, they're here; if they're not, they're not -- we're here to do a job," Abston said.
The situation frustrated homeowner Anita Walters, who said her living room could have been saved if Carlisle firefighters had shown up, because their department is only a mile from her house. ...
Bleurgh.
I need a barf bag.
I need a barf bag.
"Cocaine's a helluva drug."
"Childrens do learn," Bush tells school kids
Wed Sep 26, 2007
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Offering a grammar lesson guaranteed to make any English teacher cringe, President George W. Bush told a group of New York school kids on Wednesday: "Childrens do learn."
Bush made his latest grammatical slip-up at a made-for-TV event where he urged Congress to reauthorize the No Child Left Behind Act, the centrepiece of his education policy, as he touted a new national report card on improved test scores.
The event drew New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, Education Secretary Margaret Spellings plus teachers and about 20 fourth and fifth graders from P.S. 76.
On Wednesday, Bush seemed to answer his own question with the same kind of grammatical twist.
"As yesterday's positive report card shows, childrens do learn when standards are high and results are measured," he said. ...
Damn. He can't even 'talk American,' let alone speak English.
Wed Sep 26, 2007
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Offering a grammar lesson guaranteed to make any English teacher cringe, President George W. Bush told a group of New York school kids on Wednesday: "Childrens do learn."
Bush made his latest grammatical slip-up at a made-for-TV event where he urged Congress to reauthorize the No Child Left Behind Act, the centrepiece of his education policy, as he touted a new national report card on improved test scores.
The event drew New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, Education Secretary Margaret Spellings plus teachers and about 20 fourth and fifth graders from P.S. 76.
On Wednesday, Bush seemed to answer his own question with the same kind of grammatical twist.
"As yesterday's positive report card shows, childrens do learn when standards are high and results are measured," he said. ...
Damn. He can't even 'talk American,' let alone speak English.
I used to be really into baseball; both on playing and scholarly levels.
Obscenely high paychecks and ticket prices, the forced retirement of one of the greats, and rampant steroid use turned me right off.
Crap like this only reinforces that and other opinions.
The yankees are pigs, and I'm insulting The Magical Animal by such a comparison.
Take any player, stick him in a yank uniform, and immediately he spits and grabs his crotch eight times as often as he did before the uniform change. You'll also notice his nose is in the air like never before.
I do wish I could attribute these quotations to the geniuses who uttered them:
"Rooting for the yankees is like rooting for US Steel."
"Your first look at the fans in yankee stadium makes you think you're in a Brazilian jail."
Yeah, I dug the Red Sox. My favorite player ever is Carlton Fisk.
I also love the Dodgers.
Brooklyn, that is.
Obscenely high paychecks and ticket prices, the forced retirement of one of the greats, and rampant steroid use turned me right off.
Crap like this only reinforces that and other opinions.
The yankees are pigs, and I'm insulting The Magical Animal by such a comparison.
Take any player, stick him in a yank uniform, and immediately he spits and grabs his crotch eight times as often as he did before the uniform change. You'll also notice his nose is in the air like never before.
I do wish I could attribute these quotations to the geniuses who uttered them:
"Rooting for the yankees is like rooting for US Steel."
"Your first look at the fans in yankee stadium makes you think you're in a Brazilian jail."
Yeah, I dug the Red Sox. My favorite player ever is Carlton Fisk.
I also love the Dodgers.
Brooklyn, that is.
How can anyone be so dim?
Will this moron be charged with littering?
When words get in the way, Bush goes phonetic
Wed Sep 26, 2007
By Matt Spetalnick
NEW YORK (Reuters) - How do you keep a leader as verbally gaffe-prone as U.S. President George W. Bush from making even more slips of the tongue?
When Bush addressed the U.N. General Assembly on Tuesday, the White House inadvertently showed exactly how -- with a phonetic pronunciation guide on the teleprompter to get him past troublesome names of countries and world leaders.
The White House was left scrambling to explain after a marked-up draft of Bush's speech popped up briefly on the U.N. Web site as he delivered his remarks, giving a rare glimpse of the special guidance he gets for major addresses.
It included phonetic spellings for French President Nicolas Sarkozy (sar-KO-zee), a friend, and Zimbabwe leader Robert Mugabe (moo-GAH-bee), a target of U.S. human rights criticism.
Pronunciations were also provided for Kyrgyzstan (KEYR-geez-stan), Mauritania (moor-EH-tain-ee-a) and the Zimbabwe capital Harare (hah-RAR-ray).
White House spokeswoman Dana Perino said the draft, labelled the 20th version and complete with typos and speechwriters' cellphone numbers, had been turned over in advance to help U.N. interpreters who must simultaneously translate leaders' speeches into several languages. ...
I am ahem Speechless.
Wed Sep 26, 2007
By Matt Spetalnick
NEW YORK (Reuters) - How do you keep a leader as verbally gaffe-prone as U.S. President George W. Bush from making even more slips of the tongue?
When Bush addressed the U.N. General Assembly on Tuesday, the White House inadvertently showed exactly how -- with a phonetic pronunciation guide on the teleprompter to get him past troublesome names of countries and world leaders.
The White House was left scrambling to explain after a marked-up draft of Bush's speech popped up briefly on the U.N. Web site as he delivered his remarks, giving a rare glimpse of the special guidance he gets for major addresses.
It included phonetic spellings for French President Nicolas Sarkozy (sar-KO-zee), a friend, and Zimbabwe leader Robert Mugabe (moo-GAH-bee), a target of U.S. human rights criticism.
Pronunciations were also provided for Kyrgyzstan (KEYR-geez-stan), Mauritania (moor-EH-tain-ee-a) and the Zimbabwe capital Harare (hah-RAR-ray).
White House spokeswoman Dana Perino said the draft, labelled the 20th version and complete with typos and speechwriters' cellphone numbers, had been turned over in advance to help U.N. interpreters who must simultaneously translate leaders' speeches into several languages. ...
I am ahem Speechless.
Romney Withholds Comment on Killings
By GLEN JOHNSON
The Associated Press
Tuesday, September 25, 2007
SANTA CLARA, Calif. -- Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney said Monday he was troubled that private security guards working in Iraq for his top counterterrorism adviser have been accused of killing civilians.
But he said he would wait for the results of an investigation before deciding on a response.
Cofer Black, who joined the campaign in April as senior adviser on counterterrorism and national security, also is vice chairman of Blackwater USA, whose workers have been accused of killing up to 11 Iraqi civilians during a Sept. 16 firefight in central Baghdad square.
"I think the allegations are very serious indeed and that there is an investigation which is under way," Romney told reporters in his first public comment on the case. "I don't want to prejudge what will happen from the investigation, but if the investigations go through in a legitimate and appropriate way, then I would expect an appropriate response." ...
By GLEN JOHNSON
The Associated Press
Tuesday, September 25, 2007
SANTA CLARA, Calif. -- Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney said Monday he was troubled that private security guards working in Iraq for his top counterterrorism adviser have been accused of killing civilians.
But he said he would wait for the results of an investigation before deciding on a response.
Cofer Black, who joined the campaign in April as senior adviser on counterterrorism and national security, also is vice chairman of Blackwater USA, whose workers have been accused of killing up to 11 Iraqi civilians during a Sept. 16 firefight in central Baghdad square.
"I think the allegations are very serious indeed and that there is an investigation which is under way," Romney told reporters in his first public comment on the case. "I don't want to prejudge what will happen from the investigation, but if the investigations go through in a legitimate and appropriate way, then I would expect an appropriate response." ...
French PM Fillon tells farmers 'France is broke'
By Henry Samuel in Paris
Last Updated: 1:44am BST 25/09/2007
France is bankrupt and can no longer afford to pay its workers generous salaries and subsidies, its prime minister has declared.
Francois Fillon made the undiplomatic outburst during a trip to the French island of Corsica, where farmers were demanding more government money.
"I am at the head of a state that is in a position of bankruptcy," he said.
"I am at the head of a state that for 15 years has been in chronic deficit. I am at the head of a state that has not once passed a balanced budget in 25 years. This can't go on."
Mr Fillon's government is due to announce the 2008 budget this week with a deficit of 41.5billion (29billion).
But his remarks drew immediate fire, both from within his own ranks and from the opposition.
Francois Bayrou, the head of the centrist Modem party, said Mr Fillon seemed to forget that both he and Nicolas Sarkozy, who was finance minister before becoming president, had been in government since 2002 without improving the situation.
He added that Mr Sarkozy's decision to spend up to 15billion (10.5billion) on a package of tax cuts had only made things worse....
By Henry Samuel in Paris
Last Updated: 1:44am BST 25/09/2007
France is bankrupt and can no longer afford to pay its workers generous salaries and subsidies, its prime minister has declared.
Francois Fillon made the undiplomatic outburst during a trip to the French island of Corsica, where farmers were demanding more government money.
"I am at the head of a state that is in a position of bankruptcy," he said.
"I am at the head of a state that for 15 years has been in chronic deficit. I am at the head of a state that has not once passed a balanced budget in 25 years. This can't go on."
Mr Fillon's government is due to announce the 2008 budget this week with a deficit of 41.5billion (29billion).
But his remarks drew immediate fire, both from within his own ranks and from the opposition.
Francois Bayrou, the head of the centrist Modem party, said Mr Fillon seemed to forget that both he and Nicolas Sarkozy, who was finance minister before becoming president, had been in government since 2002 without improving the situation.
He added that Mr Sarkozy's decision to spend up to 15billion (10.5billion) on a package of tax cuts had only made things worse....
George Bush the Texan is 'scared of horses'
By Alex Spillius in Washington
Last Updated: 3:55am BST 21/09/2007
President Bush may like to be seen as a swaggering tough guy with a penchant for manly outdoor pursuits, but in a new book one of his closest allies has said he is afraid of horses.
Vicente Fox, the former president of Mexico, derided his political friend as a "windshield cowboy" - a cowboy who prefers to drive - and "the cockiest guy I have ever met in my life".
He recalled a meeting in Mexico shortly after both men had been elected when Mr Fox offered Mr Bush a ride on a "big palomino" horse.
Mr Fox, who left office in December, recalled Mr Bush "backing away" from the animal.
''A horse lover can always tell when others don't share our passion," he said, according to the Washington Post.
Mr Bush has spoken of his fondness for shooting doves and cutting brush on his Crawford ranch in Texas, which he bought in 1999.
The property reportedly has no horses and only five cattle. ...
Y'all ever heard the phrase, "All hat, no cattle?" Now y'all know what it means.
By Alex Spillius in Washington
Last Updated: 3:55am BST 21/09/2007
President Bush may like to be seen as a swaggering tough guy with a penchant for manly outdoor pursuits, but in a new book one of his closest allies has said he is afraid of horses.
Vicente Fox, the former president of Mexico, derided his political friend as a "windshield cowboy" - a cowboy who prefers to drive - and "the cockiest guy I have ever met in my life".
He recalled a meeting in Mexico shortly after both men had been elected when Mr Fox offered Mr Bush a ride on a "big palomino" horse.
Mr Fox, who left office in December, recalled Mr Bush "backing away" from the animal.
''A horse lover can always tell when others don't share our passion," he said, according to the Washington Post.
Mr Bush has spoken of his fondness for shooting doves and cutting brush on his Crawford ranch in Texas, which he bought in 1999.
The property reportedly has no horses and only five cattle. ...
Y'all ever heard the phrase, "All hat, no cattle?" Now y'all know what it means.
Iraq aims to end immunity of security firms
Fri Sep 21, 2007
By Mussab Al-Khairalla and Paul Tait
BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Iraq wants to tighten control over security contractors after a deadly shooting incident involving the U.S. firm Blackwater, ending their long immunity from Iraqi prosecution, the Interior Ministry said on Friday. ...
... Interior Ministry spokesman Maj. Gen. Abdul-Kareem Khalaf said the ministry had drafted legislation giving it wider powers over the contractors and calling for "severe punishment for those who fail to adhere to the ... guidelines."
Iraq has said it would review the status of all security firms after what it called a flagrant assault by Blackwater contractors in which 11 people were killed while the firm was escorting a U.S. Embassy convoy through Baghdad on Sunday.
Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki suggested the U.S. Embassy should stop using Blackwater...
Wait - there's more!
US investigates Blackwater arms smuggling - report
Sat Sep 22, 2007
WASHINGTON, Sept 22 (Reuters) - Federal prosecutors are looking into whether private U.S. security contractor Blackwater USA has shipped unlicensed automatic weapons and military goods into Iraq, a newspaper reported on Saturday.
Two former Blackwater employees have pleaded guilty in Greenville, North Carolina, to weapons charges and are cooperating with the investigation, The News & Observer of Raleigh, North Carolina reported.
Federal prosecutors in North Carolina are handling the case, the News & Observer reported.
Blackwater, based in Moyock, North Carolina, employs around 1,000 contractors to protect the U.S. mission in Iraq and its diplomats from attack.
The newspaper quoted two unnamed sources as saying prosecutors are probing whether Blackwater was shipping weapons, night-vision scopes, armor, gun kits and other military goods to Iraq without the required permits. ...
Feds Target Blackwater in Weapons Probe
By MATTHEW LEE
The Associated Press
Saturday, September 22, 2007
WASHINGTON -- Federal prosecutors are investigating whether employees of the private security firm Blackwater USA illegally smuggled into Iraq weapons that may have been sold on the black market and ended up in the hands of a U.S.-designated terrorist organization, officials said Friday.
The U.S. Attorney's Office in Raleigh, N.C., is handling the investigation with help from Pentagon and State Department auditors, who have concluded there is enough evidence to file charges, the officials told The Associated Press....
Blackwater denies making illegal weapons exports
Sat Sep 22, 2007
By James Vicini and Will Dunham
WASHINGTON, Sept 22 (Reuters) - Private U.S. security contractor Blackwater USA denied on Saturday it was involved in illegally shipping automatic weapons and military goods to Iraq.
The statement by the company, whose contractors were accused by the Iraqi government of killing 11 people in Baghdad this week, came after a newspaper report that federal officials are investigating whether Blackwater exported unlicensed military hardware into Iraq.
"Allegations that Blackwater was in any way associated or complicit in unlawful arms activities are baseless. The company has no knowledge of any employee improperly exporting weapons," the company said in a statement.
"This issue is completely unrelated" to Blackwater's U.S. government programs in Iraq, said the company...
Fri Sep 21, 2007
By Mussab Al-Khairalla and Paul Tait
BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Iraq wants to tighten control over security contractors after a deadly shooting incident involving the U.S. firm Blackwater, ending their long immunity from Iraqi prosecution, the Interior Ministry said on Friday. ...
... Interior Ministry spokesman Maj. Gen. Abdul-Kareem Khalaf said the ministry had drafted legislation giving it wider powers over the contractors and calling for "severe punishment for those who fail to adhere to the ... guidelines."
Iraq has said it would review the status of all security firms after what it called a flagrant assault by Blackwater contractors in which 11 people were killed while the firm was escorting a U.S. Embassy convoy through Baghdad on Sunday.
Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki suggested the U.S. Embassy should stop using Blackwater...
Wait - there's more!
US investigates Blackwater arms smuggling - report
Sat Sep 22, 2007
WASHINGTON, Sept 22 (Reuters) - Federal prosecutors are looking into whether private U.S. security contractor Blackwater USA has shipped unlicensed automatic weapons and military goods into Iraq, a newspaper reported on Saturday.
Two former Blackwater employees have pleaded guilty in Greenville, North Carolina, to weapons charges and are cooperating with the investigation, The News & Observer of Raleigh, North Carolina reported.
Federal prosecutors in North Carolina are handling the case, the News & Observer reported.
Blackwater, based in Moyock, North Carolina, employs around 1,000 contractors to protect the U.S. mission in Iraq and its diplomats from attack.
The newspaper quoted two unnamed sources as saying prosecutors are probing whether Blackwater was shipping weapons, night-vision scopes, armor, gun kits and other military goods to Iraq without the required permits. ...
Feds Target Blackwater in Weapons Probe
By MATTHEW LEE
The Associated Press
Saturday, September 22, 2007
WASHINGTON -- Federal prosecutors are investigating whether employees of the private security firm Blackwater USA illegally smuggled into Iraq weapons that may have been sold on the black market and ended up in the hands of a U.S.-designated terrorist organization, officials said Friday.
The U.S. Attorney's Office in Raleigh, N.C., is handling the investigation with help from Pentagon and State Department auditors, who have concluded there is enough evidence to file charges, the officials told The Associated Press....
Blackwater denies making illegal weapons exports
Sat Sep 22, 2007
By James Vicini and Will Dunham
WASHINGTON, Sept 22 (Reuters) - Private U.S. security contractor Blackwater USA denied on Saturday it was involved in illegally shipping automatic weapons and military goods to Iraq.
The statement by the company, whose contractors were accused by the Iraqi government of killing 11 people in Baghdad this week, came after a newspaper report that federal officials are investigating whether Blackwater exported unlicensed military hardware into Iraq.
"Allegations that Blackwater was in any way associated or complicit in unlawful arms activities are baseless. The company has no knowledge of any employee improperly exporting weapons," the company said in a statement.
"This issue is completely unrelated" to Blackwater's U.S. government programs in Iraq, said the company...
Iraq Probe of U.S. Security Firm Grows
Blackwater, Accused of Killing 11 on Sunday, Cited in Earlier Deaths
By Joshua Partlow and Sudarsan Raghavan
Washington Post Foreign Service
Saturday, September 22, 2007
BAGHDAD, Sept. 21 -- Iraq's probe into a deadly shooting by Blackwater USA in Baghdad last weekend has expanded to include allegations about the security firm's involvement in six other violent episodes this year that left at least 10 Iraqis dead.
The incidents include the killing of three guards at a state-run media complex and the shooting death of an Iraqi journalist outside the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, said Brig. Gen. Abdul-Karim Khalaf, chief spokesman for the Interior Ministry. ...
Iraq: Blackwater Guards Fired Unprovoked
By ROBERT H. REID
The Associated Press
Saturday, September 22, 2007
BAGHDAD -- Iraqi investigators have a videotape that shows Blackwater USA guards opened fire against civilians without provocation in a shooting last week that left 11 people dead, a senior Iraqi official said Saturday. He said the case was referred to the Iraqi judiciary.
Iraq's president, meanwhile, demanded that the Americans release an Iranian arrested this week on suspicion of smuggling weapons to Shiite militias. The demand adds new strains to U.S.-Iraqi relations only days before a meeting between President Bush and Iraq's Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki.
Interior Ministry spokesman Maj. Gen. Abdul-Karim Khalaf said Iraqi authorities had completed an investigation into the Sept. 16 shooting in Nisoor Square in western Baghdad and concluded that Blackwater guards were responsible for the deaths. ...
Blackwater, Accused of Killing 11 on Sunday, Cited in Earlier Deaths
By Joshua Partlow and Sudarsan Raghavan
Washington Post Foreign Service
Saturday, September 22, 2007
BAGHDAD, Sept. 21 -- Iraq's probe into a deadly shooting by Blackwater USA in Baghdad last weekend has expanded to include allegations about the security firm's involvement in six other violent episodes this year that left at least 10 Iraqis dead.
The incidents include the killing of three guards at a state-run media complex and the shooting death of an Iraqi journalist outside the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, said Brig. Gen. Abdul-Karim Khalaf, chief spokesman for the Interior Ministry. ...
Iraq: Blackwater Guards Fired Unprovoked
By ROBERT H. REID
The Associated Press
Saturday, September 22, 2007
BAGHDAD -- Iraqi investigators have a videotape that shows Blackwater USA guards opened fire against civilians without provocation in a shooting last week that left 11 people dead, a senior Iraqi official said Saturday. He said the case was referred to the Iraqi judiciary.
Iraq's president, meanwhile, demanded that the Americans release an Iranian arrested this week on suspicion of smuggling weapons to Shiite militias. The demand adds new strains to U.S.-Iraqi relations only days before a meeting between President Bush and Iraq's Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki.
Interior Ministry spokesman Maj. Gen. Abdul-Karim Khalaf said Iraqi authorities had completed an investigation into the Sept. 16 shooting in Nisoor Square in western Baghdad and concluded that Blackwater guards were responsible for the deaths. ...
Collecting of Details on Travelers Documented
U.S. Effort More Extensive Than Previously Known
By Ellen Nakashima
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, September 22, 2007
The U.S. government is collecting electronic records on the travel habits of millions of Americans who fly, drive or take cruises abroad, retaining data on the persons with whom they travel or plan to stay, the personal items they carry during their journeys, and even the books that travelers have carried, according to documents obtained by a group of civil liberties advocates and statements by government officials.
The personal travel records are meant to be stored for as long as 15 years, as part of the Department of Homeland Security's effort to assess the security threat posed by all travelers entering the country. Officials say the records, which are analyzed by the department's Automated Targeting System, help border officials distinguish potential terrorists from innocent people entering the country. ...
Give these bastards a millimeter and they take a goddam light year. We should give them eight-by-eight rooms with roommates who have names like Bubba, Slasher, and Killer.
U.S. Effort More Extensive Than Previously Known
By Ellen Nakashima
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, September 22, 2007
The U.S. government is collecting electronic records on the travel habits of millions of Americans who fly, drive or take cruises abroad, retaining data on the persons with whom they travel or plan to stay, the personal items they carry during their journeys, and even the books that travelers have carried, according to documents obtained by a group of civil liberties advocates and statements by government officials.
The personal travel records are meant to be stored for as long as 15 years, as part of the Department of Homeland Security's effort to assess the security threat posed by all travelers entering the country. Officials say the records, which are analyzed by the department's Automated Targeting System, help border officials distinguish potential terrorists from innocent people entering the country. ...
Give these bastards a millimeter and they take a goddam light year. We should give them eight-by-eight rooms with roommates who have names like Bubba, Slasher, and Killer.
Baby Cribs Recalled After Three Deaths
By ANN SANNER
Friday, September 21, 2007
WASHINGTON (AP) -- About 1 million Simplicity and Graco cribs are being recalled after three children became entrapped in their cribs and died of suffocation, the Consumer Product Safety Commission said Friday.
Two infants, a 6-month-old and a 9-month-old, died in the recalled cribs, which were sold through May 2007. A 1-year-old child died in a newer model of the cribs, which has not been recalled but is being investigated by the safety agency, CPSC officials said. ...
By ANN SANNER
Friday, September 21, 2007
WASHINGTON (AP) -- About 1 million Simplicity and Graco cribs are being recalled after three children became entrapped in their cribs and died of suffocation, the Consumer Product Safety Commission said Friday.
Two infants, a 6-month-old and a 9-month-old, died in the recalled cribs, which were sold through May 2007. A 1-year-old child died in a newer model of the cribs, which has not been recalled but is being investigated by the safety agency, CPSC officials said. ...
NEW RECALL: Bravo! Recalls Select Poultry Products For Cats And Dogs
Posted on Wednesday, September 19th, 2007
... The recalled products are distributed nationwide to distributors, retail stores, internet sales and directly to consumers, and they can be identified by the batch ID code located on the hang tag attached to the bottom of the plastic film tubes. The recalled products should not be sold or fed to pets. Pet owners should return unopened frozen tubes of food to the store where purchased for a full refund. Pet owners should dispose of opened tubes of product in a safe manner (example, a securely covered trash receptacle) and return the washed plastic batch ID tag to the store where purchased for a full refund.
Recalled Pet Food:
Product: Bravo Original Formula Chicken Blend frozen raw food
Product Numbers: 21-102, 21-105, 21-110
Sizes: 2 pound, 5 pound and 10 pound tubes
Batch ID code (on hang tag): 236
Reason for Recall: Salmonella, Listeria
Product: Bravo Original Formula Turkey Blend frozen raw food
Product Numbers: 31-102, 31-105, 31-110
Sizes: 2 pound, 5 pound and 10 pound tubes
Batch ID code (on hang tag): 236
Reason for Recall: Listeria
Product: Bravo Basic Formula Finely Ground Chicken frozen raw food
Product Number: 21-212
Size: 2 pound tube
Batch ID Code (on hang tag): 226
Reason for Recall: Salmonella, Listeria
Other Batch IDs for these same products are not involved in the recall. ....
Posted on Wednesday, September 19th, 2007
... The recalled products are distributed nationwide to distributors, retail stores, internet sales and directly to consumers, and they can be identified by the batch ID code located on the hang tag attached to the bottom of the plastic film tubes. The recalled products should not be sold or fed to pets. Pet owners should return unopened frozen tubes of food to the store where purchased for a full refund. Pet owners should dispose of opened tubes of product in a safe manner (example, a securely covered trash receptacle) and return the washed plastic batch ID tag to the store where purchased for a full refund.
Recalled Pet Food:
Product: Bravo Original Formula Chicken Blend frozen raw food
Product Numbers: 21-102, 21-105, 21-110
Sizes: 2 pound, 5 pound and 10 pound tubes
Batch ID code (on hang tag): 236
Reason for Recall: Salmonella, Listeria
Product: Bravo Original Formula Turkey Blend frozen raw food
Product Numbers: 31-102, 31-105, 31-110
Sizes: 2 pound, 5 pound and 10 pound tubes
Batch ID code (on hang tag): 236
Reason for Recall: Listeria
Product: Bravo Basic Formula Finely Ground Chicken frozen raw food
Product Number: 21-212
Size: 2 pound tube
Batch ID Code (on hang tag): 226
Reason for Recall: Salmonella, Listeria
Other Batch IDs for these same products are not involved in the recall. ....
In Egypt, a Rising Push Against Genital Cutting
By MICHAEL SLACKMAN
Published: September 20, 2007
KAFR AL MANSHI ABOU HAMAR, Egypt -- The men in this poor farming community were seething. A 13-year-old girl was brought to a doctor's office to have her clitoris removed, a surgery considered necessary here to preserve chastity and honor.
The girl died, but that was not the source of the outrage. After her death, the government shut down the clinic, and that got everyone stirred up.
"They will not stop us," shouted Saad Yehia, a tea shop owner along the main street. "We support circumcision!" he shouted over and over.
"Even if the state doesn't like it, we will circumcise the girls," shouted Fahmy Ezzeddin Shaweesh, an elder in the village. ...
You'll notice it's men shouting their approval of such brutality. Let's cut off their tenderest bits and find out if their opinion changes. Let's try the same with anyone who suggests stopping it interferes with cultural expression.
By MICHAEL SLACKMAN
Published: September 20, 2007
KAFR AL MANSHI ABOU HAMAR, Egypt -- The men in this poor farming community were seething. A 13-year-old girl was brought to a doctor's office to have her clitoris removed, a surgery considered necessary here to preserve chastity and honor.
The girl died, but that was not the source of the outrage. After her death, the government shut down the clinic, and that got everyone stirred up.
"They will not stop us," shouted Saad Yehia, a tea shop owner along the main street. "We support circumcision!" he shouted over and over.
"Even if the state doesn't like it, we will circumcise the girls," shouted Fahmy Ezzeddin Shaweesh, an elder in the village. ...
You'll notice it's men shouting their approval of such brutality. Let's cut off their tenderest bits and find out if their opinion changes. Let's try the same with anyone who suggests stopping it interferes with cultural expression.
A telephone call for you, Mr Wilkinson; a Mr Darwin calling.
What a dumb sonofabitch. How much you wanna bet he also doesn't wash his hands after he uses the bathroom?
What a dumb sonofabitch. How much you wanna bet he also doesn't wash his hands after he uses the bathroom?
Men Need To Step Up To Sink, Docs Say
12 Percent Of Women Don't Wash Hands After Using Toilet
September 17, 2007
CHICAGO (AP) -- The "hand-washing police" say more guys need to step up to the sink.
The researchers who spy on people in public restrooms reported that one-third of men didn't bother to wash after using the bathroom, compared with 12 percent of women.
The latest study was based on observations last month of more than 6,000 people in four cities. ...
Wow - that means 45% of our population is incredibly stupid! Whaddya wanna bet they don't believe in evolution as well as germ theory?
12 Percent Of Women Don't Wash Hands After Using Toilet
September 17, 2007
CHICAGO (AP) -- The "hand-washing police" say more guys need to step up to the sink.
The researchers who spy on people in public restrooms reported that one-third of men didn't bother to wash after using the bathroom, compared with 12 percent of women.
The latest study was based on observations last month of more than 6,000 people in four cities. ...
Wow - that means 45% of our population is incredibly stupid! Whaddya wanna bet they don't believe in evolution as well as germ theory?
Police taser man with chicken in car
September 18, 2007
SHEBOYGAN, Wis. (AP) --A man faces a number of charges, including drug possession, after a traffic stop in which he was stunned several times with a Taser and police found a live chicken. ...
September 18, 2007
SHEBOYGAN, Wis. (AP) --A man faces a number of charges, including drug possession, after a traffic stop in which he was stunned several times with a Taser and police found a live chicken. ...
Smokehouse Brand Dog Treats Pulled From PetSmart Shelves
Posted on Friday, September 14th, 2007
[T]his morning, PetSmart pulled various Smokehouse Brand dog treats off their shelves. There have been reports of pets becoming ill after eating the treats, and as a precaution, PetSmart has removed the products. There has been no formal recall as of yet. ...
... Here is the SKU list of the Smokehouse Brand dog treats that have been pulled off PetSmart shelves:
7856525052 5108696 Chicken Chips 1lb.
7856525053 5108692 Chicken Chips 8oz.
7856525092 5108693 Chicken Poppers 8oz.
7856525093 5108698 Chicken Poppers 1lb.
7856525134 5108691 Chicken Tenders 8oz.
7856525137 5126536 Chicken Breast Tender Snacks 1lb.
7856525138 5126535 Chicken Tenders 2lb.
7856584255 5126702 Duck Breast Tenders 8oz.
7856584256 5126534 Duck Breast Tenders 1lb.
7856584257 5126532 Duck Chips 1lb.
7856584258 5126531 Duck and Sweet Potato 1lb.
7856585808 5108695 Chicken Tenders 1lb.
Posted on Friday, September 14th, 2007
[T]his morning, PetSmart pulled various Smokehouse Brand dog treats off their shelves. There have been reports of pets becoming ill after eating the treats, and as a precaution, PetSmart has removed the products. There has been no formal recall as of yet. ...
... Here is the SKU list of the Smokehouse Brand dog treats that have been pulled off PetSmart shelves:
7856525052 5108696 Chicken Chips 1lb.
7856525053 5108692 Chicken Chips 8oz.
7856525092 5108693 Chicken Poppers 8oz.
7856525093 5108698 Chicken Poppers 1lb.
7856525134 5108691 Chicken Tenders 8oz.
7856525137 5126536 Chicken Breast Tender Snacks 1lb.
7856525138 5126535 Chicken Tenders 2lb.
7856584255 5126702 Duck Breast Tenders 8oz.
7856584256 5126534 Duck Breast Tenders 1lb.
7856584257 5126532 Duck Chips 1lb.
7856584258 5126531 Duck and Sweet Potato 1lb.
7856585808 5108695 Chicken Tenders 1lb.
UPDATE: Severed Head Still Unidentified
Last Update: 9/14/2007 2:18 pm
There's no connection between a severed head found on a Detroit porch in June and body parts discovered Thursday behind a Detroit apartment building.
Detroit police believed the body parts found in a trash bag were human and there was speculation the discovery might help solve the case of a severed head found on a nearby porch this summer.
But police tell WXYZ.com that after closer examination by the medical examiner, it's been determined the remains are those of an animal.
Last Update: 9/14/2007 2:18 pm
There's no connection between a severed head found on a Detroit porch in June and body parts discovered Thursday behind a Detroit apartment building.
Detroit police believed the body parts found in a trash bag were human and there was speculation the discovery might help solve the case of a severed head found on a nearby porch this summer.
But police tell WXYZ.com that after closer examination by the medical examiner, it's been determined the remains are those of an animal.
UPDATE: Head May Be Connected to Torso
Last Update: 9/14/2007 3:50 pm
Detroit police are investigating whether a head found on a porch in June is related to the gruesome discovery of a torso behind an apartment building.
Previous AP coverage..
DETROIT (AP) - A tipster told Detroit police where to find a headless, armless torso and legs in the garbage.
Police found the decomposed body parts in a bag inside a large, round outdoor trash container behind a home on the city's west side.
Authorities say they're working to identify the body.
A deeply frightening story with a really funny headline.
Last Update: 9/14/2007 3:50 pm
Detroit police are investigating whether a head found on a porch in June is related to the gruesome discovery of a torso behind an apartment building.
Previous AP coverage..
DETROIT (AP) - A tipster told Detroit police where to find a headless, armless torso and legs in the garbage.
Police found the decomposed body parts in a bag inside a large, round outdoor trash container behind a home on the city's west side.
Authorities say they're working to identify the body.
A deeply frightening story with a really funny headline.
September 14, 2007
DEARBORN, MI: Student held on weapons charge
A Dearborn man faces a Sept. 21 preliminary exam on charges he carried a loaded AK47 in public.
Houssein Zorkot, 26, a medical student at Wayne State University, was arraigned before Judge Mark Somers in 19th District Court.
According to a city news release, Zorkot was charged with carrying a dangerous weapon with unlawful intent, possession of a loaded firearm in a motor vehicle and one count of felony firearm.
Police were called to Hemlock Park on Saturday night after reports of a man carrying an AK47.
The man, dressed in all black with his face painted black, tried to leave in a black SUV, but officers used their cars to prevent him from fleeing.
Zorkot is being held in the Wayne County Jail in lieu of a $1-million bond.
DEARBORN, MI: Student held on weapons charge
A Dearborn man faces a Sept. 21 preliminary exam on charges he carried a loaded AK47 in public.
Houssein Zorkot, 26, a medical student at Wayne State University, was arraigned before Judge Mark Somers in 19th District Court.
According to a city news release, Zorkot was charged with carrying a dangerous weapon with unlawful intent, possession of a loaded firearm in a motor vehicle and one count of felony firearm.
Police were called to Hemlock Park on Saturday night after reports of a man carrying an AK47.
The man, dressed in all black with his face painted black, tried to leave in a black SUV, but officers used their cars to prevent him from fleeing.
Zorkot is being held in the Wayne County Jail in lieu of a $1-million bond.
OMFG.
Mr Wizard, get me the hell out of here!
Mr Wizard, get me the hell out of here!
Cops: Nude Driver's Conduct Distracting
Tuesday, September 4, 2007
ANGOLA, Ind. (AP) -- A naked man driving along the Indiana Toll Road was arrested and charged because his lewd conduct distracted other motorists, police said.
The 37-year-old Chicago man was traveling east to Ohio to visit his mother, police said. He was nude and had petroleum jelly on his hands when a state trooper pulled him over about 10 miles from the Ohio line Wednesday, police said. ...
Tuesday, September 4, 2007
ANGOLA, Ind. (AP) -- A naked man driving along the Indiana Toll Road was arrested and charged because his lewd conduct distracted other motorists, police said.
The 37-year-old Chicago man was traveling east to Ohio to visit his mother, police said. He was nude and had petroleum jelly on his hands when a state trooper pulled him over about 10 miles from the Ohio line Wednesday, police said. ...
Wis. bargoer learns to keep his pants on
September 1, 2007
WAUKESHA, Wis. (AP) -- It was embarrassing enough that Mark Stahnke woke up in a neighbor's yard without his pants. Then he remembered they contained a cashier's check for $41,093, meant for his son, and several hundred dollars in cash.
But he got it all back Friday, including the pants, thanks to a man and his dog. ...
September 1, 2007
WAUKESHA, Wis. (AP) -- It was embarrassing enough that Mark Stahnke woke up in a neighbor's yard without his pants. Then he remembered they contained a cashier's check for $41,093, meant for his son, and several hundred dollars in cash.
But he got it all back Friday, including the pants, thanks to a man and his dog. ...
U.S. Weapons, Given to Iraqis, Move to Turkey
By DAVID S. CLOUD and ERIC SCHMITT
Published: August 30, 2007
WASHINGTON, Aug. 29 -- Weapons that were originally given to Iraqi security forces by the American military have been recovered over the past year by the authorities in Turkey after being used in violent crimes in that country, Pentagon officials said Wednesday.
The discovery that serial numbers on pistols and other weapons recovered in Turkey matched those distributed to Iraqi police units has prompted growing concern by Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates that controls on weapons being provided to Iraqis are inadequate. It was also a factor in the decision to dispatch the department's inspector general to Iraq next week to investigate the problem, the officials said. ...
By DAVID S. CLOUD and ERIC SCHMITT
Published: August 30, 2007
WASHINGTON, Aug. 29 -- Weapons that were originally given to Iraqi security forces by the American military have been recovered over the past year by the authorities in Turkey after being used in violent crimes in that country, Pentagon officials said Wednesday.
The discovery that serial numbers on pistols and other weapons recovered in Turkey matched those distributed to Iraqi police units has prompted growing concern by Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates that controls on weapons being provided to Iraqis are inadequate. It was also a factor in the decision to dispatch the department's inspector general to Iraq next week to investigate the problem, the officials said. ...
Every rethuglican needs a hooker every, um, once in a while, yeah. Gotta keep that repressed, puritanical pervert, warped, self-hatred and sleaze thang going. God forbid they - or anyone else! - be comfortable in their bodies and their sexuality, 'cause that's nasty and wrong.
File under "WTF Were They Thinking?"
Sing it with me, Fall fans!
Do you know what you look like
Before you go out
You gotta know what you look like
Before you go out...
Sing it with me, Fall fans!
Do you know what you look like
Before you go out
You gotta know what you look like
Before you go out...
Serbia to Return Lipizzaner Horses
Tuesday, August 28, 2007
BELGRADE, Serbia -- A herd of famed Lipizzaner horses, who were brought to Serbia during the Balkan wars and allegedly faced neglect here, will return to Croatia, officials said Tuesday.
Agriculture Ministers Slobodan Milosavljevic of Serbia and Petar Cobankovic of Croatia said they agreed to form a joint team to arrange for the horses' return to their home country.
Both officials met at a private farm outside Novi Sad, about 40 miles northwest of Belgrade, where the horses ended up years after they were brought from Croatia in 1991.
Serbian media and animal rights group have reported that the animals faced neglect and starvation at the farm, urging Croatia and Serbia to solve a years-long dispute over ownership and compensation.
Last month, Milosavljevic brought a team of vets who examined 74 horses and said they were in good condition. It was not immediately clear how many horses will eventually return to Croatia.
The farm's owner, Todor Bukinac, said he would demand compensation for looking after the horses. ...
I demand that he get charges of neglect instead of a check.
No sane/non-corrupt vet would pronounce either of these horses as fit and healthy, which is obvious to anyone, even non-horsefolk. The hoof on his near fore is ragged, too; it's been much too long since a farrier has seen to them.
It certainly doesn't take a genius to notice the debris-filled "paddock" and flimsy fencing either.
Tuesday, August 28, 2007
BELGRADE, Serbia -- A herd of famed Lipizzaner horses, who were brought to Serbia during the Balkan wars and allegedly faced neglect here, will return to Croatia, officials said Tuesday.
Agriculture Ministers Slobodan Milosavljevic of Serbia and Petar Cobankovic of Croatia said they agreed to form a joint team to arrange for the horses' return to their home country.
Both officials met at a private farm outside Novi Sad, about 40 miles northwest of Belgrade, where the horses ended up years after they were brought from Croatia in 1991.
Serbian media and animal rights group have reported that the animals faced neglect and starvation at the farm, urging Croatia and Serbia to solve a years-long dispute over ownership and compensation.
Last month, Milosavljevic brought a team of vets who examined 74 horses and said they were in good condition. It was not immediately clear how many horses will eventually return to Croatia.
The farm's owner, Todor Bukinac, said he would demand compensation for looking after the horses. ...
I demand that he get charges of neglect instead of a check.
No sane/non-corrupt vet would pronounce either of these horses as fit and healthy, which is obvious to anyone, even non-horsefolk. The hoof on his near fore is ragged, too; it's been much too long since a farrier has seen to them.
It certainly doesn't take a genius to notice the debris-filled "paddock" and flimsy fencing either.
The head of the catholic church in Detroit has a retarded sister who's been institutionalized her entire life. She's been locked away in a cheap group home for many years.
How'd I learn this? An ex-boyfriend of mine worked in group homes; usually the same one, but he'd be sent anywhere they were short-staffed, and that's how he met her. He asked his boss about her the next day, since the woman's surname is so prominent in these parts, and she told him and made him swear secrecy.
That was more than ten years ago.
How'd I learn this? An ex-boyfriend of mine worked in group homes; usually the same one, but he'd be sent anywhere they were short-staffed, and that's how he met her. He asked his boss about her the next day, since the woman's surname is so prominent in these parts, and she told him and made him swear secrecy.
That was more than ten years ago.
Crocodiles chase man up a tree for a week
Tue Aug 14, 2007
SYDNEY (Reuters) - An Australian man tumbled into a bed of crocodiles and was forced to scurry up a tree where he stayed for seven days before being rescued by a military helicopter.
"Every night, I was stalked by two crocs who would sit at the bottom of the tree staring up at me," David George, 53, an outback cattle farmer told Reuters. "All I could see was two sets of red eyes about six metres away from the tree."
George said he survived on two sandwiches and tied himself to the tree so he wouldn't fall out while sleeping.
Eventually, he said he built a bed between two branches out of leaves, where he spent much of the time dozing, writing a letter to his son and praying to Aboriginal spirits before an Australian army helicopter eventually plucked him to safety. ...
Tue Aug 14, 2007
SYDNEY (Reuters) - An Australian man tumbled into a bed of crocodiles and was forced to scurry up a tree where he stayed for seven days before being rescued by a military helicopter.
"Every night, I was stalked by two crocs who would sit at the bottom of the tree staring up at me," David George, 53, an outback cattle farmer told Reuters. "All I could see was two sets of red eyes about six metres away from the tree."
George said he survived on two sandwiches and tied himself to the tree so he wouldn't fall out while sleeping.
Eventually, he said he built a bed between two branches out of leaves, where he spent much of the time dozing, writing a letter to his son and praying to Aboriginal spirits before an Australian army helicopter eventually plucked him to safety. ...
Ill. Woman's Death in Drug Study Probed
By CARLA K. JOHNSON
The Associated Press
Saturday, August 11, 2007
CHICAGO -- A woman whose death in a gene therapy study shut it down and prompted a review of the safety of 28 other studies was experiencing multiple organ failure when she got to the hospital, a spokesman said.
Jolee Mohr, 36, died July 24, 22 days after receiving her second injection of an experimental drug made of genetically engineered viruses she hoped would help her arthritis.
Robb Mohr said he believes his wife thought the drug would help her, even though the research was to determine the drug's safety, rather than its effectiveness. The University of Chicago Medical Center, where Jolee Mohr died, is investigating the cause of death. ...
... "She wasn't going to risk her life for science or medicine or the profits of some company," Milstein told The Associated Press on Saturday. "She had mild rheumatoid arthritis." ...
By CARLA K. JOHNSON
The Associated Press
Saturday, August 11, 2007
CHICAGO -- A woman whose death in a gene therapy study shut it down and prompted a review of the safety of 28 other studies was experiencing multiple organ failure when she got to the hospital, a spokesman said.
Jolee Mohr, 36, died July 24, 22 days after receiving her second injection of an experimental drug made of genetically engineered viruses she hoped would help her arthritis.
Robb Mohr said he believes his wife thought the drug would help her, even though the research was to determine the drug's safety, rather than its effectiveness. The University of Chicago Medical Center, where Jolee Mohr died, is investigating the cause of death. ...
... "She wasn't going to risk her life for science or medicine or the profits of some company," Milstein told The Associated Press on Saturday. "She had mild rheumatoid arthritis." ...
Suspect Charged In Connection With Silver Spring Meth Lab
August 9, 2007
SILVER SPRING, Md. -- A man has been charged in connection with a Silver Spring methamphetamine lab, according to police.
At about 4:30 p.m. on June 4, Montgomery County police, the DEA, the fire department and the fire marshal's office went to the 11400 block of Cherry Hill Road to investigate a report of a suspected meth lab. Authorities said that when they went to the apartment, they saw evidence of drug use and a man throwing things around.
Police said the man threatened officers with a weapon, so he was subdued, taken into custody and taken to an area hospital for an emergency evaluation.
A further search of the apartment yielded items consistent with those of a meth lab, authorities said. ...
Obviously doing far too much meth and nowhere near enough pot. Actually, thorazine may be just the ticket here.
August 9, 2007
SILVER SPRING, Md. -- A man has been charged in connection with a Silver Spring methamphetamine lab, according to police.
At about 4:30 p.m. on June 4, Montgomery County police, the DEA, the fire department and the fire marshal's office went to the 11400 block of Cherry Hill Road to investigate a report of a suspected meth lab. Authorities said that when they went to the apartment, they saw evidence of drug use and a man throwing things around.
Police said the man threatened officers with a weapon, so he was subdued, taken into custody and taken to an area hospital for an emergency evaluation.
A further search of the apartment yielded items consistent with those of a meth lab, authorities said. ...
Obviously doing far too much meth and nowhere near enough pot. Actually, thorazine may be just the ticket here.
grrrrrrrrrrr
Pants plaintiff doesn't want to pay fees
August 10, 2007
WASHINGTON (AP) -- A judge who lost a $54 million lawsuit against his former dry cleaner is fighting the cleaners' attempts to collect attorney fees from him.
Roy L. Pearson filed an opposition to the defendants' motion for attorneys' fees Friday, saying he shouldn't have to pay the $82,907.50 that the Chung family owes to defend themselves against his 2005 lawsuit.
His opposition "is yet another example of his irrational crusade against the Chungs. His arguments are meritless," defense attorney Chris Manning wrote in an e-mail.
Pearson did not immediately reply to an e-mail requesting comment. ...
I wish they'd hurry up and disbar this psycho bastard. pearson is pants.
August 10, 2007
WASHINGTON (AP) -- A judge who lost a $54 million lawsuit against his former dry cleaner is fighting the cleaners' attempts to collect attorney fees from him.
Roy L. Pearson filed an opposition to the defendants' motion for attorneys' fees Friday, saying he shouldn't have to pay the $82,907.50 that the Chung family owes to defend themselves against his 2005 lawsuit.
His opposition "is yet another example of his irrational crusade against the Chungs. His arguments are meritless," defense attorney Chris Manning wrote in an e-mail.
Pearson did not immediately reply to an e-mail requesting comment. ...
I wish they'd hurry up and disbar this psycho bastard. pearson is pants.
Third case of foot and mouth suspected
Thu Aug 9, 2007
By Sylvia Westall and Adrian Croft
LONDON (Reuters) - Animal health officials said on Wednesday a third suspected outbreak of foot and mouth disease had been found in southern England, but a ban on sending animals to slaughter was lifted in most of the country.
The European Union decided after an emergency meeting of veterinary experts in Brussels to maintain a ban on all British fresh meat, milk and live animal exports because of the foot and mouth outbreak. They will review the ban again on August 23.
Britain's farming union warned members not to drop their guard despite the easing of restrictions on animal movement.
Government inspectors have said there is a "strong probability" the disease originated in two research laboratories near the infected farms in Surrey, southern England, and are carrying out further tests to try to confirm the theory.
Britain's chief veterinary officer said she had ordered livestock to be destroyed on suspicion of foot and mouth disease on a third farm in the area. ...
Thu Aug 9, 2007
By Sylvia Westall and Adrian Croft
LONDON (Reuters) - Animal health officials said on Wednesday a third suspected outbreak of foot and mouth disease had been found in southern England, but a ban on sending animals to slaughter was lifted in most of the country.
The European Union decided after an emergency meeting of veterinary experts in Brussels to maintain a ban on all British fresh meat, milk and live animal exports because of the foot and mouth outbreak. They will review the ban again on August 23.
Britain's farming union warned members not to drop their guard despite the easing of restrictions on animal movement.
Government inspectors have said there is a "strong probability" the disease originated in two research laboratories near the infected farms in Surrey, southern England, and are carrying out further tests to try to confirm the theory.
Britain's chief veterinary officer said she had ordered livestock to be destroyed on suspicion of foot and mouth disease on a third farm in the area. ...
Army Corps Dumps Old Bombs, Charges Town
Sunday, August 5, 2007
SURF CITY, N.J. (AP) -- The Army Corps of Engineers, which accidentally dumped sand filled with old military ordnance on Surf City's beach, now wants the town to help pay to remove it.
Local officials are angered by the suggestion that they should help foot the bill for a federal goof that already has cost the town an unknown amount of tourism business.
"If they're talking about getting any money out of Surf City to pay for their mistakes, they can forget about it," Mayor Leonard T. Connors told The Philadelphia Inquirer. ...
You tell those fubar'd eejits, Mayor Connors!
Sunday, August 5, 2007
SURF CITY, N.J. (AP) -- The Army Corps of Engineers, which accidentally dumped sand filled with old military ordnance on Surf City's beach, now wants the town to help pay to remove it.
Local officials are angered by the suggestion that they should help foot the bill for a federal goof that already has cost the town an unknown amount of tourism business.
"If they're talking about getting any money out of Surf City to pay for their mistakes, they can forget about it," Mayor Leonard T. Connors told The Philadelphia Inquirer. ...
You tell those fubar'd eejits, Mayor Connors!
Weapons Given to Iraq Are Missing
GAO Estimates 30% of Arms Are Unaccounted For
By Glenn Kessler
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, August 6, 2007
The Pentagon has lost track of about 190,000 AK-47 assault rifles and pistols given to Iraqi security forces in 2004 and 2005, according to a new government report, raising fears that some of those weapons have fallen into the hands of insurgents fighting U.S. forces in Iraq.
The author of the report from the Government Accountability Office says U.S. military officials do not know what happened to 30 percent of the weapons the United States distributed to Iraqi forces from 2004 through early this year as part of an effort to train and equip the troops. The highest previous estimate of unaccounted-for weapons was 14,000, in a report issued last year by the inspector general for Iraq reconstruction. ...
shrub and co just keep going from strength to strength innit.
GAO Estimates 30% of Arms Are Unaccounted For
By Glenn Kessler
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, August 6, 2007
The Pentagon has lost track of about 190,000 AK-47 assault rifles and pistols given to Iraqi security forces in 2004 and 2005, according to a new government report, raising fears that some of those weapons have fallen into the hands of insurgents fighting U.S. forces in Iraq.
The author of the report from the Government Accountability Office says U.S. military officials do not know what happened to 30 percent of the weapons the United States distributed to Iraqi forces from 2004 through early this year as part of an effort to train and equip the troops. The highest previous estimate of unaccounted-for weapons was 14,000, in a report issued last year by the inspector general for Iraq reconstruction. ...
shrub and co just keep going from strength to strength innit.
Foot and mouth disease found in cattle on farm
Fri Aug 3, 2007
LONDON (Reuters) - Foot and mouth disease has been found in cattle on a Surrey farm, the government said on Friday as it banned livestock movements to prevent a repeat of a 2001 outbreak that blighted farming and rural tourism.
Infected livestock were found on a farm near Guildford, close to London, and all cattle on the farm were being culled, the agriculture department Defra said. ...
Fri Aug 3, 2007
LONDON (Reuters) - Foot and mouth disease has been found in cattle on a Surrey farm, the government said on Friday as it banned livestock movements to prevent a repeat of a 2001 outbreak that blighted farming and rural tourism.
Infected livestock were found on a farm near Guildford, close to London, and all cattle on the farm were being culled, the agriculture department Defra said. ...
U.S. issues new botulism warning for green beans
Fri Aug 3, 2007
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Consumers should not eat certain brands of French-cut green beans because of concerns they could be tainted with the toxin that causes botulism, U.S. health officials warned on Friday.
The green beans were manufactured by Lakeside Foods Inc. of Manitowoc, Wisconsin, and packaged in 14.5-ounce cans, the Food and Drug Administration said.
The FDA said the beans may not have been processed adequately to eliminate the potential for botulinum toxin, which can cause a life-threatening illness. ...
Fri Aug 3, 2007
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Consumers should not eat certain brands of French-cut green beans because of concerns they could be tainted with the toxin that causes botulism, U.S. health officials warned on Friday.
The green beans were manufactured by Lakeside Foods Inc. of Manitowoc, Wisconsin, and packaged in 14.5-ounce cans, the Food and Drug Administration said.
The FDA said the beans may not have been processed adequately to eliminate the potential for botulinum toxin, which can cause a life-threatening illness. ...
Bridge Collapse in Minneapolis Kills at Least 7
By LIBBY SANDER and SUSAN SAULNY
Published: August 2, 2007
An Interstate highway bridge in downtown Minneapolis loaded with rush-hour traffic dropped more than 60 feet into the Mississippi River last night, sending at least 50 vehicles and passengers into the water. ...
This is what happens when elections are stolen by 'people' for whom maintaining the country's infrastructure is unimportant.
By LIBBY SANDER and SUSAN SAULNY
Published: August 2, 2007
An Interstate highway bridge in downtown Minneapolis loaded with rush-hour traffic dropped more than 60 feet into the Mississippi River last night, sending at least 50 vehicles and passengers into the water. ...
This is what happens when elections are stolen by 'people' for whom maintaining the country's infrastructure is unimportant.
Boy drowns at Bible camp
Heather Polischuk, The Leader-Post
Published: Wednesday, August 01, 2007
Staff and participants in an area Bible camp are in shock after a 10-year-old boy from the Carry the Kettle First Nation drowned at Good Spirit Lake on Monday evening. ...
...RCMP said the boy, whose name has not yet been released, was attending a summer camp at the lake when he was found floating face down at about 7 p.m. at the lake's main beach area. He had not been seen for about an hour before that and resuscitation efforts were unsuccessful. While the death is not considered suspicious, an autopsy is being done to determine exactly what caused the drowning. ...
... The cause of the drowning is so far a mystery to him, especially since the water at the beach is quite shallow and there are always trained camp personnel with the kids; in fact, police have said supervision was not an issue.
"There's always lifeguards there and there's counsellors," Grabke said. "No child is allowed to go to the water without a counsellor and lifeguard. Those are very strict rules. And the counsellors are in the water, not on the beach.
"You can't even imagine that a drowning could take place ...," he added, referring to the shallowness of the lake at the main beach. "It's a pretty safe lake."...
This child hadn't been seen by anyone for an hour before he was found floating in the lake, so it's safe to say supervision was indeed an issue. Why does the idiot running the camp insist that kids aren't allowed in the water without a lifeguard and counsel/lor when the kid was found floating in the water all alone? Is he saying he knows that one of the lifeguards or counsel/lors drowned the poor kid?
Heather Polischuk, The Leader-Post
Published: Wednesday, August 01, 2007
Staff and participants in an area Bible camp are in shock after a 10-year-old boy from the Carry the Kettle First Nation drowned at Good Spirit Lake on Monday evening. ...
...RCMP said the boy, whose name has not yet been released, was attending a summer camp at the lake when he was found floating face down at about 7 p.m. at the lake's main beach area. He had not been seen for about an hour before that and resuscitation efforts were unsuccessful. While the death is not considered suspicious, an autopsy is being done to determine exactly what caused the drowning. ...
... The cause of the drowning is so far a mystery to him, especially since the water at the beach is quite shallow and there are always trained camp personnel with the kids; in fact, police have said supervision was not an issue.
"There's always lifeguards there and there's counsellors," Grabke said. "No child is allowed to go to the water without a counsellor and lifeguard. Those are very strict rules. And the counsellors are in the water, not on the beach.
"You can't even imagine that a drowning could take place ...," he added, referring to the shallowness of the lake at the main beach. "It's a pretty safe lake."...
This child hadn't been seen by anyone for an hour before he was found floating in the lake, so it's safe to say supervision was indeed an issue. Why does the idiot running the camp insist that kids aren't allowed in the water without a lifeguard and counsel/lor when the kid was found floating in the water all alone? Is he saying he knows that one of the lifeguards or counsel/lors drowned the poor kid?
China's Local Censors Muffle an Explosion
Media Forbidden To Probe Deaths At Popular Bar
By Edward Cody
Washington Post Foreign Service
Wednesday, August 1, 2007
TIAN SHIFU, China -- ... The party's vast propaganda and censorship bureaucracy, although best known for curbing national media, has long exercised its most drastic controls in the newsrooms of China's provincial papers and television stations, such as those that serve the people of Tian Shifu. Unfavorable news -- information that could put local leaders in a bad light in Beijing -- is routinely suppressed by multiple layers of party propaganda officials in towns, counties, cities and provinces.
As a result, Chinese who live in towns or in the countryside -- the majority of China's 1.3 billion inhabitants -- have grown used to living largely in ignorance of what goes on around them, settling for half-truths and daring not to ask for more. This tight control of information has long been an effective tool for the Communist Party to maintain its monopoly on power. It has become even more important in the last two decades as corruption has spread through the party hierarchy, with many city, county and provincial officials eager to hide their association with local entrepreneurs.
"We ordinary people don't know what happened," said a woman who works at Tian Shifu's outdoor food market just behind the destroyed Tianying entertainment complex. "They haven't told us."
In Beijing, officials in the central government of President Hu Jintao have suggested repeatedly that a more open attitude is necessary in the age of cellphones and the Internet. Wang Guoqing, vice minister of the government's national Information Office, told China Central Television last month that local attempts to block coverage of negative news are "naive" given the new technology.
Whether Wang was sincere or not in his call for more openness, the message has not gotten through in China's provincial propaganda offices. At those levels, senior propaganda officials often are on close terms with local newspaper and television editors; they attend the same party meetings and follow similar career paths. Coverage of Tian Shifu's explosion was a case in point.
"The Liaoning Propaganda Department director knows how to control the media," a local reporter said. "He is a former newspaper editor." ...
WTF, Chinastan?
Media Forbidden To Probe Deaths At Popular Bar
By Edward Cody
Washington Post Foreign Service
Wednesday, August 1, 2007
TIAN SHIFU, China -- ... The party's vast propaganda and censorship bureaucracy, although best known for curbing national media, has long exercised its most drastic controls in the newsrooms of China's provincial papers and television stations, such as those that serve the people of Tian Shifu. Unfavorable news -- information that could put local leaders in a bad light in Beijing -- is routinely suppressed by multiple layers of party propaganda officials in towns, counties, cities and provinces.
As a result, Chinese who live in towns or in the countryside -- the majority of China's 1.3 billion inhabitants -- have grown used to living largely in ignorance of what goes on around them, settling for half-truths and daring not to ask for more. This tight control of information has long been an effective tool for the Communist Party to maintain its monopoly on power. It has become even more important in the last two decades as corruption has spread through the party hierarchy, with many city, county and provincial officials eager to hide their association with local entrepreneurs.
"We ordinary people don't know what happened," said a woman who works at Tian Shifu's outdoor food market just behind the destroyed Tianying entertainment complex. "They haven't told us."
In Beijing, officials in the central government of President Hu Jintao have suggested repeatedly that a more open attitude is necessary in the age of cellphones and the Internet. Wang Guoqing, vice minister of the government's national Information Office, told China Central Television last month that local attempts to block coverage of negative news are "naive" given the new technology.
Whether Wang was sincere or not in his call for more openness, the message has not gotten through in China's provincial propaganda offices. At those levels, senior propaganda officials often are on close terms with local newspaper and television editors; they attend the same party meetings and follow similar career paths. Coverage of Tian Shifu's explosion was a case in point.
"The Liaoning Propaganda Department director knows how to control the media," a local reporter said. "He is a former newspaper editor." ...
WTF, Chinastan?
CIA 'coup' just a coo or two
July 30, 2007
Newly opened archives tell of a spy agency too incompetent for words, Tim Shipman reports.
THE CIA thought it had an intelligence coup in 1994.
Its friends in the Guatemalan military were bugging the bedroom of American ambassador Marilyn McAfee, whom they regarded as suspect for fighting human rights abuses by the regime.
Eavesdroppers heard her whispering sweet nothings to someone whom they took to be her secretary -- and the CIA set out to undermine Mrs McAfee by spreading rumours that she was a lesbian.
There was just one problem. The happily married ambassador was not having an affair. The microphones had instead recorded her "cooing endearments" to Murphy, her poodle.
The bungling by the CIA is chronicled in a history of the agency by Pulitzer prize-winning Tim Weiner, who has covered intelligence matters for The New York Times for two decades.
His book draws on 50,000 documents in CIA archives and more than 300 interviews with staff, past and present, including 10 former directors.
Weiner concludes that "the most powerful nation in the history of Western civilisation has failed to create a first-rate spy service", a failure, he argues, that is a danger to American security.
He paints a portrait of a rogue agency that failed to predict every big international event from the outbreak of the Korean War to the fall of the Berlin Wall and September 11.
The book, Legacy of Ashes, details how the CIA relied from the outset on low-level sources and ill-trained officers. In 1953, its first officer in Moscow was so inept that he was seduced by his Russian housemaid -- really a KGB colonel -- and blackmailed.
Almost every agent parachuted into eastern Europe early in the Cold War was captured and killed.
During the Korean War, the CIA station chief concluded that nearly every Korean agent either "invented his reports or worked in secret for the communists".
When Iraq invaded Kuwait in 1990, Robert Gates, then the agency's head and now the Defence Secretary, was at a family picnic.
A friend asked: "What are you doing here?" Mr Gates said: "What are you talking about?" She replied: "The invasion." Mr Gates responded: "What invasion?"
Weiner lays the blame on the CIA's leaders, including some senior officials who have since been revealed as alcoholics, and others who became mentally ill. ...
July 30, 2007
Newly opened archives tell of a spy agency too incompetent for words, Tim Shipman reports.
THE CIA thought it had an intelligence coup in 1994.
Its friends in the Guatemalan military were bugging the bedroom of American ambassador Marilyn McAfee, whom they regarded as suspect for fighting human rights abuses by the regime.
Eavesdroppers heard her whispering sweet nothings to someone whom they took to be her secretary -- and the CIA set out to undermine Mrs McAfee by spreading rumours that she was a lesbian.
There was just one problem. The happily married ambassador was not having an affair. The microphones had instead recorded her "cooing endearments" to Murphy, her poodle.
The bungling by the CIA is chronicled in a history of the agency by Pulitzer prize-winning Tim Weiner, who has covered intelligence matters for The New York Times for two decades.
His book draws on 50,000 documents in CIA archives and more than 300 interviews with staff, past and present, including 10 former directors.
Weiner concludes that "the most powerful nation in the history of Western civilisation has failed to create a first-rate spy service", a failure, he argues, that is a danger to American security.
He paints a portrait of a rogue agency that failed to predict every big international event from the outbreak of the Korean War to the fall of the Berlin Wall and September 11.
The book, Legacy of Ashes, details how the CIA relied from the outset on low-level sources and ill-trained officers. In 1953, its first officer in Moscow was so inept that he was seduced by his Russian housemaid -- really a KGB colonel -- and blackmailed.
Almost every agent parachuted into eastern Europe early in the Cold War was captured and killed.
During the Korean War, the CIA station chief concluded that nearly every Korean agent either "invented his reports or worked in secret for the communists".
When Iraq invaded Kuwait in 1990, Robert Gates, then the agency's head and now the Defence Secretary, was at a family picnic.
A friend asked: "What are you doing here?" Mr Gates said: "What are you talking about?" She replied: "The invasion." Mr Gates responded: "What invasion?"
Weiner lays the blame on the CIA's leaders, including some senior officials who have since been revealed as alcoholics, and others who became mentally ill. ...
Report details US refusals of foreign aid after Katrina
Nick Juliano
Published: Friday July 27, 2007
A new report reveals the US government turned down offers of help from across the globe in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, telling one diplomat "human assistance of any kind is not on our priorities list."
The report from Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington relies on a review of 25,000 documents obtained from the State Department. The report reveals the US was interested mostly in cash assistance and materials, rather than direct aid from foreign relief workers and doctors, after Katrina ravaged the Gulf Coast in 2005.
"A review of the State Department documents reveals distressing ineptitude," CREW's executive director Melanie Sloan said in a prepared statement. "Countries were trying to donate desperately needed goods and services, but as a result of bureaucratic bungling and indifference, those most in need of these generous offers and of aid never received it." ...
Compassionate conservatism at its finest, girls and boys.
Nick Juliano
Published: Friday July 27, 2007
A new report reveals the US government turned down offers of help from across the globe in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, telling one diplomat "human assistance of any kind is not on our priorities list."
The report from Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington relies on a review of 25,000 documents obtained from the State Department. The report reveals the US was interested mostly in cash assistance and materials, rather than direct aid from foreign relief workers and doctors, after Katrina ravaged the Gulf Coast in 2005.
"A review of the State Department documents reveals distressing ineptitude," CREW's executive director Melanie Sloan said in a prepared statement. "Countries were trying to donate desperately needed goods and services, but as a result of bureaucratic bungling and indifference, those most in need of these generous offers and of aid never received it." ...
Compassionate conservatism at its finest, girls and boys.
Patriot missile found in scrapyard
A Patriot surface-to-air missile has been found in a Florida scrapyard. ...
What could I possibly add to that, no matter how clever I may ever feel?
Oh, yes. I can think of something.
Mr Wizard, get me the hell out of here!
A Patriot surface-to-air missile has been found in a Florida scrapyard. ...
What could I possibly add to that, no matter how clever I may ever feel?
Oh, yes. I can think of something.
Mr Wizard, get me the hell out of here!
FDA says food recall is urgent health threat
Mon Jul 23, 2007
By Will Dunham
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A recall of canned meat products and dog food made at a Georgia plant due to botulism fears could involve tens of millions of cans that pose an urgent public health threat, U.S. officials said on Monday.
U.S. food regulators appealed to consumers and retailers to find and dispose of the cans.
Two people in Texas and two others in Indiana remain seriously ill and hospitalized with botulism poisoning associated with eating Castleberry's Hot Dog Chili Sauce, officials said.
"This is a very big recall," David Elder of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration's office of regulatory affairs told reporters, deeming it an "urgent public health matter."
"These products can hurt people. And they have to be off the store shelves. And consumers have to discard any that they have at home," Elder added.
U.S. officials said an outbreak of botulism due to a commercially canned food is extremely rare and has not occurred in the United States in more than three decades.
Castleberry's Food Co. said on Saturday it had voluntarily expanded a recall of hot dog chili sauce and canned meat products originally announced on July 18 due to a risk of botulinum toxin, a bacterium that can cause botulism. ...
... Consumers with any questions are urged to view Castleberry's Web site www.castleberrys.com. A toll-free hotline is also available at 1-800-203-4412 or 1-888-203-8446.
Mon Jul 23, 2007
By Will Dunham
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A recall of canned meat products and dog food made at a Georgia plant due to botulism fears could involve tens of millions of cans that pose an urgent public health threat, U.S. officials said on Monday.
U.S. food regulators appealed to consumers and retailers to find and dispose of the cans.
Two people in Texas and two others in Indiana remain seriously ill and hospitalized with botulism poisoning associated with eating Castleberry's Hot Dog Chili Sauce, officials said.
"This is a very big recall," David Elder of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration's office of regulatory affairs told reporters, deeming it an "urgent public health matter."
"These products can hurt people. And they have to be off the store shelves. And consumers have to discard any that they have at home," Elder added.
U.S. officials said an outbreak of botulism due to a commercially canned food is extremely rare and has not occurred in the United States in more than three decades.
Castleberry's Food Co. said on Saturday it had voluntarily expanded a recall of hot dog chili sauce and canned meat products originally announced on July 18 due to a risk of botulinum toxin, a bacterium that can cause botulism. ...
... Consumers with any questions are urged to view Castleberry's Web site www.castleberrys.com. A toll-free hotline is also available at 1-800-203-4412 or 1-888-203-8446.
This is an absolutely necessary website; I wish to hell it weren't.
Purebred horses that were successfully bred for brains, beauty, skill and/or usefulness can be found languishing/suffering in barns, pastures, auction yards, kill pens. Finding horses of your desired breed/type/bloodlines through horse rescue is not impossible.
The same is certainly true of grade horses, who are either purebreds without papers or mutts. It's far easier to find grade horses who need rescuing - their numbers are legion.
All but a very few rescued horses are willing partners in their rehabilitation, and they eventually become trusted and trusting, appreciated and appreciative mounts and/or companions.
The offspring of horses who are bred merely for colo/ur and/or despite obvious physical flaws run a much higher risk of neglect and abuse. Horses with good homes usually have (or had) the ability to perform certain physical activities - ranch or farm work, showing, racing, lessons, trail rides, etc. Even horses used strictly for breeding are exercised.
Pity the deformed, ill-bred beasties who can't do anything because of their breeders' ignorance or stupidity. Not every horse who is fit only to be an ugly pasture ornament is lucky enough to be a pasture ornament; bless the ones who are, and God help the ones who aren't.
Purebred horses that were successfully bred for brains, beauty, skill and/or usefulness can be found languishing/suffering in barns, pastures, auction yards, kill pens. Finding horses of your desired breed/type/bloodlines through horse rescue is not impossible.
The same is certainly true of grade horses, who are either purebreds without papers or mutts. It's far easier to find grade horses who need rescuing - their numbers are legion.
All but a very few rescued horses are willing partners in their rehabilitation, and they eventually become trusted and trusting, appreciated and appreciative mounts and/or companions.
The offspring of horses who are bred merely for colo/ur and/or despite obvious physical flaws run a much higher risk of neglect and abuse. Horses with good homes usually have (or had) the ability to perform certain physical activities - ranch or farm work, showing, racing, lessons, trail rides, etc. Even horses used strictly for breeding are exercised.
Pity the deformed, ill-bred beasties who can't do anything because of their breeders' ignorance or stupidity. Not every horse who is fit only to be an ugly pasture ornament is lucky enough to be a pasture ornament; bless the ones who are, and God help the ones who aren't.
Bush: No Deal On Children's Health Plan
President Says He Objects On Philosophical Grounds
By Christopher Lee
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, July 19, 2007
President Bush yesterday rejected entreaties by his Republican allies that he compromise with Democrats on legislation to renew a popular program that provides health coverage to poor children, saying that expanding the program would enlarge the role of the federal government at the expense of private insurance.
The president said he objects on philosophical grounds to a bipartisan Senate proposal to boost the State Children's Health Insurance Program by $35 billion over five years. Bush has proposed $5 billion in increased funding and has threatened to veto the Senate compromise and a more costly expansion being contemplated in the House.
"I support the initial intent of the program," Bush said in an interview with The Washington Post after a factory tour and a discussion on health care with small-business owners in Landover. "My concern is that when you expand eligibility . . . you're really beginning to open up an avenue for people to switch from private insurance to the government." ...
Hey, poor kids! unca shrub likes the Yankistani Insurance Racket a lot more than he likes you, and he doesn't give a rat's ass that your parent(s) can't afford health insurance.
President Says He Objects On Philosophical Grounds
By Christopher Lee
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, July 19, 2007
President Bush yesterday rejected entreaties by his Republican allies that he compromise with Democrats on legislation to renew a popular program that provides health coverage to poor children, saying that expanding the program would enlarge the role of the federal government at the expense of private insurance.
The president said he objects on philosophical grounds to a bipartisan Senate proposal to boost the State Children's Health Insurance Program by $35 billion over five years. Bush has proposed $5 billion in increased funding and has threatened to veto the Senate compromise and a more costly expansion being contemplated in the House.
"I support the initial intent of the program," Bush said in an interview with The Washington Post after a factory tour and a discussion on health care with small-business owners in Landover. "My concern is that when you expand eligibility . . . you're really beginning to open up an avenue for people to switch from private insurance to the government." ...
Hey, poor kids! unca shrub likes the Yankistani Insurance Racket a lot more than he likes you, and he doesn't give a rat's ass that your parent(s) can't afford health insurance.
Classified Material Stolen From Nuke Lab
By LARA JAKES JORDAN
The Associated Press
Thursday, July 19, 2007
WASHINGTON -- A contract employee at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory was arrested Thursday on charges of stealing classified data about enriching uranium used in nuclear weapons, a law enforcement official said.
The man, who was not immediately identified, does not appear to have any links to terrorists or criminal groups, according to the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the arrest had not yet been publicly announced. The man was arrested after selling the stolen data to FBI agents working undercover in Tennessee, the official said. ...
By LARA JAKES JORDAN
The Associated Press
Thursday, July 19, 2007
WASHINGTON -- A contract employee at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory was arrested Thursday on charges of stealing classified data about enriching uranium used in nuclear weapons, a law enforcement official said.
The man, who was not immediately identified, does not appear to have any links to terrorists or criminal groups, according to the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the arrest had not yet been publicly announced. The man was arrested after selling the stolen data to FBI agents working undercover in Tennessee, the official said. ...
FEMA Suppressed Health Warnings for Workers, Katrina Victims
Agency Rejected Environmental Testing on Formaldehyde Gas Levels
By Spencer S. Hsu
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, July 19, 2007
The Federal Emergency Management Agency has suppressed warnings from its own Gulf coast field workers since the middle of 2006 about suspected health problems that may be linked to elevated levels of formaldehyde gas released in FEMA-provided trailers, lawmakers said today.
At a hearing this morning of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, investigators released internal e-mails indicating that FEMA lawyers rejected environmental testing out of fear that the agency would then become legally liable if health problems emerged among as many as 120,000 families displaced by Hurricane Katrina who lived in trailers.
FEMA's Office of General Counsel "has advised that we do not do testing," because this "would imply FEMA's ownership of this issue," wrote a FEMA logistics specialist on June 16, 2006, three months after news reports surfaced about the possible effects of the invisible cancer-causing compound and one month after the agency was sued.
Another FEMA attorney on June 15 advised, "[d]o not initiate any testing until we give the OK. . . . Once you get results and should they indicate some problem, the clock is running on our duty to respond to them." ...
Agency Rejected Environmental Testing on Formaldehyde Gas Levels
By Spencer S. Hsu
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, July 19, 2007
The Federal Emergency Management Agency has suppressed warnings from its own Gulf coast field workers since the middle of 2006 about suspected health problems that may be linked to elevated levels of formaldehyde gas released in FEMA-provided trailers, lawmakers said today.
At a hearing this morning of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, investigators released internal e-mails indicating that FEMA lawyers rejected environmental testing out of fear that the agency would then become legally liable if health problems emerged among as many as 120,000 families displaced by Hurricane Katrina who lived in trailers.
FEMA's Office of General Counsel "has advised that we do not do testing," because this "would imply FEMA's ownership of this issue," wrote a FEMA logistics specialist on June 16, 2006, three months after news reports surfaced about the possible effects of the invisible cancer-causing compound and one month after the agency was sued.
Another FEMA attorney on June 15 advised, "[d]o not initiate any testing until we give the OK. . . . Once you get results and should they indicate some problem, the clock is running on our duty to respond to them." ...
$2K a month average for Manhattan studio
By Verena Dobnik, Associated Press Writer
July 13, 2007
NEW YORK -- If you're looking for a Manhattan apartment, be prepared to shell out about $2,000 a month -- unless, of course, you'd like a bedroom to go with it.
Studio apartments in New York's most expensive borough went for an average of $1,995 a month last year, according to an analysis released Friday by Citi Habitats, a Manhattan rental brokerage firm. That's up from $1,659 in 2002.
The average rent for a one-bedroom apartment shot up to $2,737, compared to $2,227 in 2002, and two-bedroom apartments climbed to $3,893, from $3,198 in 2002. Three-bedroom apartments saw the largest percentage increase: more than 36 percent, from $4,059 in 2002 to $5,534 last year. ...
Obscene, absolutely obscene.
By Verena Dobnik, Associated Press Writer
July 13, 2007
NEW YORK -- If you're looking for a Manhattan apartment, be prepared to shell out about $2,000 a month -- unless, of course, you'd like a bedroom to go with it.
Studio apartments in New York's most expensive borough went for an average of $1,995 a month last year, according to an analysis released Friday by Citi Habitats, a Manhattan rental brokerage firm. That's up from $1,659 in 2002.
The average rent for a one-bedroom apartment shot up to $2,737, compared to $2,227 in 2002, and two-bedroom apartments climbed to $3,893, from $3,198 in 2002. Three-bedroom apartments saw the largest percentage increase: more than 36 percent, from $4,059 in 2002 to $5,534 last year. ...
Obscene, absolutely obscene.
Ohio: Stolen Device Contains 859,800 IDs
By MATT LEINGANG
Thursday, July 12, 2007
COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) -- A stolen computer storage device contained more than twice the number of taxpayers' identifications than had been previously reported, Gov. Ted Strickland said Wednesday, but he emphasized there is still no indication the data have been compromised.
The names and Social Security numbers of 561,126 people who had not cashed state income refund checks were on the device, as well as 14,874 people who did business with the state, according to an ongoing review of the information it held. That brings the total number of taxpayers affected to 859,800, Strickland said. ...
I wonder who did the addition for him this time.
By MATT LEINGANG
Thursday, July 12, 2007
COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) -- A stolen computer storage device contained more than twice the number of taxpayers' identifications than had been previously reported, Gov. Ted Strickland said Wednesday, but he emphasized there is still no indication the data have been compromised.
The names and Social Security numbers of 561,126 people who had not cashed state income refund checks were on the device, as well as 14,874 people who did business with the state, according to an ongoing review of the information it held. That brings the total number of taxpayers affected to 859,800, Strickland said. ...
I wonder who did the addition for him this time.
http://www.boston.com/business/technology/articles/2007/07/12/military_files_left_unprotected_online
Military files left unprotected online
By Mike Baker, Associated Press Writer
July 12, 2007
GREENSBORO, N.C. --Detailed schematics of a military detainee holding facility in southern Iraq. Geographical surveys and aerial photographs of two military airfields outside Baghdad. Plans for a new fuel farm at Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan.
The military calls it "need-to-know" information that would pose a direct threat to U.S. troops if it were to fall into the hands of terrorists. It's material so sensitive that officials refused to release the documents when asked.
But it's already out there, posted carelessly to file servers by government agencies and contractors, accessible to anyone with an Internet connection.
In a survey of servers run by agencies or companies involved with the military and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, The Associated Press found dozens of documents that officials refused to release when asked directly, citing troop security. ...
Clueless or deliberate?
By Mike Baker, Associated Press Writer
July 12, 2007
GREENSBORO, N.C. --Detailed schematics of a military detainee holding facility in southern Iraq. Geographical surveys and aerial photographs of two military airfields outside Baghdad. Plans for a new fuel farm at Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan.
The military calls it "need-to-know" information that would pose a direct threat to U.S. troops if it were to fall into the hands of terrorists. It's material so sensitive that officials refused to release the documents when asked.
But it's already out there, posted carelessly to file servers by government agencies and contractors, accessible to anyone with an Internet connection.
In a survey of servers run by agencies or companies involved with the military and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, The Associated Press found dozens of documents that officials refused to release when asked directly, citing troop security. ...
Clueless or deliberate?
WTF, Chinastan?
Woman jailed for 'neglected' lawn
8 July 2007
A 70-year-old US woman has been left bruised and bloody after an unexpected clash with police who came to arrest her because her lawn was dry and brown.
Trouble flared when Utah pensioner Betty Perry, 70, refused to give her name to an officer trying to caution her for not watering her lawn.
She says the officer hit her with handcuffs, cutting her nose, although police insist she slipped and fell.
Ms Perry said she was "distraught" after the incident.
She denied that she was resisting arrest, maintaining that she turned to go inside to call her son to fix the confusing dispute.
"I tried to sit down and get away from him," she told Utah newspaper the Daily Herald.
"I don't know what he's doing. I said: 'What are you doing?' And he hit me with those handcuffs in my face," she said.
"He's just trying to cover his tracks, as far as I'm concerned." ...
Why did the asshole have handcuffs out if all he was going to do was give her a 'caution?' Why is the asshole going unnamed? His name should be shouted from the rooftops.
How much you wanna bet that pig is a mor(m)on and Ms Perry isn't?
8 July 2007
A 70-year-old US woman has been left bruised and bloody after an unexpected clash with police who came to arrest her because her lawn was dry and brown.
Trouble flared when Utah pensioner Betty Perry, 70, refused to give her name to an officer trying to caution her for not watering her lawn.
She says the officer hit her with handcuffs, cutting her nose, although police insist she slipped and fell.
Ms Perry said she was "distraught" after the incident.
She denied that she was resisting arrest, maintaining that she turned to go inside to call her son to fix the confusing dispute.
"I tried to sit down and get away from him," she told Utah newspaper the Daily Herald.
"I don't know what he's doing. I said: 'What are you doing?' And he hit me with those handcuffs in my face," she said.
"He's just trying to cover his tracks, as far as I'm concerned." ...
Why did the asshole have handcuffs out if all he was going to do was give her a 'caution?' Why is the asshole going unnamed? His name should be shouted from the rooftops.
How much you wanna bet that pig is a mor(m)on and Ms Perry isn't?
Gaza's female journalists targeted.
Last Modified: 04 Jun 2007
By: Helene Cacace
An Islamist group in Gaza has threatened to behead female news reporters who don't wear full Islamic head covering. ...
How in hell are the people watching them on tv s'posed to be able to hear what swaddled-up women are saying? Hello?!
If living in the modern world is so difficult and horrifying for your narrow, ignorant 'minds' then just check out on your own. Why in hell do you want to send others ahead to th' afterlife or take them along with your suicide bombs?
PS: Why do you hateful perverts hate women so much, anyway? Don't you realize every last one of you came out of a woman? You didn't pop outta your Pop, nor are you sui generis.
Last Modified: 04 Jun 2007
By: Helene Cacace
An Islamist group in Gaza has threatened to behead female news reporters who don't wear full Islamic head covering. ...
How in hell are the people watching them on tv s'posed to be able to hear what swaddled-up women are saying? Hello?!
If living in the modern world is so difficult and horrifying for your narrow, ignorant 'minds' then just check out on your own. Why in hell do you want to send others ahead to th' afterlife or take them along with your suicide bombs?
PS: Why do you hateful perverts hate women so much, anyway? Don't you realize every last one of you came out of a woman? You didn't pop outta your Pop, nor are you sui generis.
Explosives-Packed Car Defused in London
By DAVID STRINGER
The Associated Press
Friday, June 29, 2007
LONDON -- Police in London's bustling nightclub and theater district on Friday defused a bomb that could have killed hundreds after an ambulance crew spotted smoke coming from a Mercedes filled with a lethal mix of gasoline, propane and nails, authorities said.
The bomb near Piccadilly Circus was powerful enough to have caused "significant injury or loss of life" - possibly killing hundreds, British anti-terror police chief Peter Clarke said. ...
By DAVID STRINGER
The Associated Press
Friday, June 29, 2007
LONDON -- Police in London's bustling nightclub and theater district on Friday defused a bomb that could have killed hundreds after an ambulance crew spotted smoke coming from a Mercedes filled with a lethal mix of gasoline, propane and nails, authorities said.
The bomb near Piccadilly Circus was powerful enough to have caused "significant injury or loss of life" - possibly killing hundreds, British anti-terror police chief Peter Clarke said. ...
As more toys are recalled in U.S., the trail ends in China
By Eric S. Lipton and David Barboza
Published: June 18, 2007
WASHINGTON: China manufactured every one of the 24 kinds of toys recalled for safety reasons in the United States so far this year, including the enormously popular Thomas & Friends wooden train sets, a record that is causing alarm among consumer advocates, parents and regulators.
The latest recall, announced last week, involves 1.5 million Thomas & Friends trains and rail components -- about 4 percent of all those sold in the United States over the last two years by RC2 Corporation of Oak Brook, Illinois The toys were coated at a factory in China with lead paint, which can damage brain cells, especially in children.
Just in the last month, a ghoulish fake eyeball toy made in China was recalled after it was found to be filled with kerosene. Sets of toy drums and a toy bear were also recalled because of lead paint, and an infant wrist rattle was recalled because of a choking hazard.
Over all, the number of products made in China that are being recalled in the United States by the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission has doubled in the last five years, driving the total number of recalls in the country to 467 last year, an annual record.
It also means that China today is responsible for about 60 percent of all product recalls, compared with 36 percent in 2000. ...
Many thanks to dear Glenn321
By Eric S. Lipton and David Barboza
Published: June 18, 2007
WASHINGTON: China manufactured every one of the 24 kinds of toys recalled for safety reasons in the United States so far this year, including the enormously popular Thomas & Friends wooden train sets, a record that is causing alarm among consumer advocates, parents and regulators.
The latest recall, announced last week, involves 1.5 million Thomas & Friends trains and rail components -- about 4 percent of all those sold in the United States over the last two years by RC2 Corporation of Oak Brook, Illinois The toys were coated at a factory in China with lead paint, which can damage brain cells, especially in children.
Just in the last month, a ghoulish fake eyeball toy made in China was recalled after it was found to be filled with kerosene. Sets of toy drums and a toy bear were also recalled because of lead paint, and an infant wrist rattle was recalled because of a choking hazard.
Over all, the number of products made in China that are being recalled in the United States by the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission has doubled in the last five years, driving the total number of recalls in the country to 467 last year, an annual record.
It also means that China today is responsible for about 60 percent of all product recalls, compared with 36 percent in 2000. ...
Many thanks to dear Glenn321
CIA to release details on decades of secrets
Fri Jun 22, 2007
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Central Intelligence Agency is declassifying hundreds of pages of documents on secret operations from over three decades ago, CIA Director Michael Hayden said.
The so-called "Family Jewels" document overseas assassination attempts, domestic spying, kidnapping and infiltration of leftist groups from the 1950s to the 1970s, according to a summary posted on the Web site of the National Security Archive at George Washington University.
The documents to be released next week also include accounts of break-ins and theft, surveillance of U.S. journalists, the agency's opening of private mail to and from China and the Soviet Union, and "behavior modification" experiments on "unwitting" U.S. civilians.
"Much of it has been in the press before, and most of it is unflattering, but it's the CIA's history," Hayden said in a speech on Thursday to the American Foreign Relations Conference.
"This is about telling the American people what we have done in their name," Hayden said.
The CIA chief said the documents provide a glimpse of "a very different time and a very difference [sic] agency." ...
I see very little difference.
Fri Jun 22, 2007
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Central Intelligence Agency is declassifying hundreds of pages of documents on secret operations from over three decades ago, CIA Director Michael Hayden said.
The so-called "Family Jewels" document overseas assassination attempts, domestic spying, kidnapping and infiltration of leftist groups from the 1950s to the 1970s, according to a summary posted on the Web site of the National Security Archive at George Washington University.
The documents to be released next week also include accounts of break-ins and theft, surveillance of U.S. journalists, the agency's opening of private mail to and from China and the Soviet Union, and "behavior modification" experiments on "unwitting" U.S. civilians.
"Much of it has been in the press before, and most of it is unflattering, but it's the CIA's history," Hayden said in a speech on Thursday to the American Foreign Relations Conference.
"This is about telling the American people what we have done in their name," Hayden said.
The CIA chief said the documents provide a glimpse of "a very different time and a very difference [sic] agency." ...
I see very little difference.
University Accused of Lying to Hide Killing
Eastern Michigan Official Apologizes
By Kari Lydersen
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, June 21, 2007
CHICAGO -- A janitor found Laura Dickinson dead in her Eastern Michigan University dorm room in December, naked below the waist, a pillow over her face. The door was locked, and her keys were gone.
No foul play was suspected, the university announced. As the campus mourned and Dickinson's family gathered to bury the 22-year-old rower, police opened an investigation. But school authorities stuck to their story for more than two months -- even after they learned that the medical examiner had found semen on her body and even as police questioned other students and faculty and took DNA samples -- until the arrest of a fellow student on rape and homicide charges.
Now, an independent report contends university officials covered up the likelihood that a crime had been committed and the killer was still at large. The 568-page document, commissioned by the university's board of regents, says that school authorities withheld information, deceived the public and potentially violated a federal law designed to warn students of campus safety threats. ...
Eastern Michigan Official Apologizes
By Kari Lydersen
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, June 21, 2007
CHICAGO -- A janitor found Laura Dickinson dead in her Eastern Michigan University dorm room in December, naked below the waist, a pillow over her face. The door was locked, and her keys were gone.
No foul play was suspected, the university announced. As the campus mourned and Dickinson's family gathered to bury the 22-year-old rower, police opened an investigation. But school authorities stuck to their story for more than two months -- even after they learned that the medical examiner had found semen on her body and even as police questioned other students and faculty and took DNA samples -- until the arrest of a fellow student on rape and homicide charges.
Now, an independent report contends university officials covered up the likelihood that a crime had been committed and the killer was still at large. The 568-page document, commissioned by the university's board of regents, says that school authorities withheld information, deceived the public and potentially violated a federal law designed to warn students of campus safety threats. ...
2 Girls Kicked Off Ore. Bus for Kissing
By WILLIAM McCALL
Wednesday, June 20, 2007
PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) -- A transit agency chief apologized Wednesday to two teenage girls who were kicked off a city bus for kissing each other.
The girls, both 14, said the driver called them "sickos" after a female passenger complained about their kiss. The driver then stopped the bus along the street and forced them off.
"Removing the girls from the bus was not consistent with our policy," said TriMet General Manager Fred Hansen. "I want to reiterate that we welcome all riders on our system." ...
I just love puritans.
By WILLIAM McCALL
Wednesday, June 20, 2007
PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) -- A transit agency chief apologized Wednesday to two teenage girls who were kicked off a city bus for kissing each other.
The girls, both 14, said the driver called them "sickos" after a female passenger complained about their kiss. The driver then stopped the bus along the street and forced them off.
"Removing the girls from the bus was not consistent with our policy," said TriMet General Manager Fred Hansen. "I want to reiterate that we welcome all riders on our system." ...
I just love puritans.
Triumph of the Swill: White-pride poster boy J.T. Ready rocks the rabble at Saturday's anti-immigrant fest.
Mon Jun 18, 2007
... Like you needed more proof that Arizona's nativist movement is riddled with racists, rednecks, and raving wing-nuts, the anti-immigrant protest at the state capitol this Saturday (6/16) featured a rabble-rousing speech by none other than the Ernst Roehm of the East Valley, the Martin Bormann of Mesa, everyone's favorite fat-boy fascist, J.T. Ready.
Yep, despite the fact that Ready's been outed by the Anti-Defamation League, and my print cohort The Bird as a white supremacist who's kept a page on the neo-Nazi Web site Newsaxon.com (now Newsaxon.org), a racist MySpace "for whites by whites"; despite the fact that Ready reportedly attended last year's Winterfest event in Phoenix hosted by the neo-Nazi National Vanguard; and though Ready's posted white supremacist messages on my blog and others; he was welcomed, cheered and embraced Saturday by a crowd of 300 or so on the capitol lawn, a crowd angered whenever the term "racist" was raised in regards to their movement. ...
Remember, kids: They invariably pronounce 'supremacist' "supremist."
Mon Jun 18, 2007
... Like you needed more proof that Arizona's nativist movement is riddled with racists, rednecks, and raving wing-nuts, the anti-immigrant protest at the state capitol this Saturday (6/16) featured a rabble-rousing speech by none other than the Ernst Roehm of the East Valley, the Martin Bormann of Mesa, everyone's favorite fat-boy fascist, J.T. Ready.
Yep, despite the fact that Ready's been outed by the Anti-Defamation League, and my print cohort The Bird as a white supremacist who's kept a page on the neo-Nazi Web site Newsaxon.com (now Newsaxon.org), a racist MySpace "for whites by whites"; despite the fact that Ready reportedly attended last year's Winterfest event in Phoenix hosted by the neo-Nazi National Vanguard; and though Ready's posted white supremacist messages on my blog and others; he was welcomed, cheered and embraced Saturday by a crowd of 300 or so on the capitol lawn, a crowd angered whenever the term "racist" was raised in regards to their movement. ...
Remember, kids: They invariably pronounce 'supremacist' "supremist."
Continental Airlines had a cold-blooded killer on board but refused law enforcement's pleas to land
By Paul Rubin
Published: June 14, 2007
Continental Airlines Flight 82 departed from Newark, New Jersey, on the evening of March 30, bound for New Delhi, India.
One of the 300-plus passengers on the Boeing 777 jetliner attracted little attention as he boarded and settled quietly into a window seat in an emergency-exit row.
He was 32-year-old Avtar Grewal, known as Raju, a slender native of India who had been living near Vancouver, British Columbia.
As the big bird soared to its cruising altitude, a veteran Phoenix police sergeant sitting in a van on a street in suburban Ahwatukee was making a series of urgent cell phone calls.
Sergeant Mike Palombo has a cool-under-pressure reputation (he was a key supervisor on the Baseline Killer case), but the escalating situation was testing his patience.
"I began to express my concerns to Continental about [its] lack of cooperation with us," Palombo tells New Times. "I said I did not think it was a big deal for [the airline] to turn a plane around and get a homicidal and suicidal lunatic into custody."
The "lunatic" to whom the sergeant was referring was Raju Grewal.
Inside a two-story home on East Redwood Lane [in Phoenix, AZ], the battered body of a clothed woman was face-down in a bathtub filled with bloody water.
She was 30-year-old Navneet Kaur, Grewal's wife of two years...
... Airline officials allegedly wanted to know who was going to pay for thousands of dollars of fuel that Flight 82 would have had to jettison to return safely to Newark or another nearby airport so soon after departure.
A Continental representative declined repeated requests to answer specific questions about this disturbing and previously unreported clash between law enforcement and the nation's fourth-largest airline. ...
By Paul Rubin
Published: June 14, 2007
Continental Airlines Flight 82 departed from Newark, New Jersey, on the evening of March 30, bound for New Delhi, India.
One of the 300-plus passengers on the Boeing 777 jetliner attracted little attention as he boarded and settled quietly into a window seat in an emergency-exit row.
He was 32-year-old Avtar Grewal, known as Raju, a slender native of India who had been living near Vancouver, British Columbia.
As the big bird soared to its cruising altitude, a veteran Phoenix police sergeant sitting in a van on a street in suburban Ahwatukee was making a series of urgent cell phone calls.
Sergeant Mike Palombo has a cool-under-pressure reputation (he was a key supervisor on the Baseline Killer case), but the escalating situation was testing his patience.
"I began to express my concerns to Continental about [its] lack of cooperation with us," Palombo tells New Times. "I said I did not think it was a big deal for [the airline] to turn a plane around and get a homicidal and suicidal lunatic into custody."
The "lunatic" to whom the sergeant was referring was Raju Grewal.
Inside a two-story home on East Redwood Lane [in Phoenix, AZ], the battered body of a clothed woman was face-down in a bathtub filled with bloody water.
She was 30-year-old Navneet Kaur, Grewal's wife of two years...
... Airline officials allegedly wanted to know who was going to pay for thousands of dollars of fuel that Flight 82 would have had to jettison to return safely to Newark or another nearby airport so soon after departure.
A Continental representative declined repeated requests to answer specific questions about this disturbing and previously unreported clash between law enforcement and the nation's fourth-largest airline. ...
Inbreeding among polygamists along the Arizona-Utah border is producing a caste of severely retarded and deformed children
By John Dougherty
Article Published Dec 29, 2005
... Nearly everyone in Colorado City, Arizona, and the adjacent town of Hildale, Utah, is a member of a fundamentalist Mormon sect that practices polygamy and had long encouraged multiple marriages between close relatives.
By the late 1990s, Tarby and his team had discovered fumarase deficiency was occurring in the greatest concentration in the world among the fundamentalist Mormon polygamists of northern Arizona and southern Utah.
Of even greater concern was the fact that the recessive gene that triggers the disease was rapidly spreading to thousands of individuals living in the community because of decades of inbreeding. ...
... For more than 70 years, all marriages in the isolated towns have been arranged by the leader of the FLDS, a breakaway sect of the Salt Lake City-based Mormon Church.
Marriages among first and second cousins have been common for decades in the community, where religious doctrine requires men to have at least three wives to gain eternal salvation. Only the FLDS prophet can arrange and perform polygamous marriages, and those marriages are taking place in a community in which almost everybody is related.
The current FLDS prophet is 50-year-old Warren Jeffs, who has not been seen publicly since August 2003. Last June, Jeffs was charged with seven felonies by Mohave County, Arizona, in connection with his performance of "spiritual" marriages of three underage girls to already married men. He was placed on the FBI's most wanted list last August. Eight other Colorado City polygamists have been indicted by a Mohave County grand jury for having unlawful sex with underage girls who were their plural wives.
The indictments have come amid a three-year investigation by New Times of the FLDS community. That probe has uncovered widespread sexual abuse of young girls forced into polygamous marriages that, until recently, was downplayed by Arizona political leaders and law enforcement.
The state not only ignored the crimes for decades, it helped facilitate them by allowing the FLDS polygamists to set up a town government, a public school district and a police department that have received tens of millions of dollars in taxpayer funds despite the fact that polygamy violates Arizona's Constitution. The FLDS has had an iron grip on the local governments, because it has been impossible to get elected or hired to a taxpayer-funded post without the church's blessing.
The fundamentalist community has also benefited immensely from state health-care services for the poor and indigent by receiving more than $12 million a year in state assistance in Arizona to pay for health-insurance premiums.
It turns out that taxpayers also have been footing the bill for the fumarase deficiency children born to polygamists who insist that plural marriage involving close relatives is their divine right.
There is no doubt in the mind of any expert interviewed by New Times that the practice of polygamy combined with inbreeding has fostered the spread of fumarase deficiency. ...
By John Dougherty
Article Published Dec 29, 2005
... Nearly everyone in Colorado City, Arizona, and the adjacent town of Hildale, Utah, is a member of a fundamentalist Mormon sect that practices polygamy and had long encouraged multiple marriages between close relatives.
By the late 1990s, Tarby and his team had discovered fumarase deficiency was occurring in the greatest concentration in the world among the fundamentalist Mormon polygamists of northern Arizona and southern Utah.
Of even greater concern was the fact that the recessive gene that triggers the disease was rapidly spreading to thousands of individuals living in the community because of decades of inbreeding. ...
... For more than 70 years, all marriages in the isolated towns have been arranged by the leader of the FLDS, a breakaway sect of the Salt Lake City-based Mormon Church.
Marriages among first and second cousins have been common for decades in the community, where religious doctrine requires men to have at least three wives to gain eternal salvation. Only the FLDS prophet can arrange and perform polygamous marriages, and those marriages are taking place in a community in which almost everybody is related.
The current FLDS prophet is 50-year-old Warren Jeffs, who has not been seen publicly since August 2003. Last June, Jeffs was charged with seven felonies by Mohave County, Arizona, in connection with his performance of "spiritual" marriages of three underage girls to already married men. He was placed on the FBI's most wanted list last August. Eight other Colorado City polygamists have been indicted by a Mohave County grand jury for having unlawful sex with underage girls who were their plural wives.
The indictments have come amid a three-year investigation by New Times of the FLDS community. That probe has uncovered widespread sexual abuse of young girls forced into polygamous marriages that, until recently, was downplayed by Arizona political leaders and law enforcement.
The state not only ignored the crimes for decades, it helped facilitate them by allowing the FLDS polygamists to set up a town government, a public school district and a police department that have received tens of millions of dollars in taxpayer funds despite the fact that polygamy violates Arizona's Constitution. The FLDS has had an iron grip on the local governments, because it has been impossible to get elected or hired to a taxpayer-funded post without the church's blessing.
The fundamentalist community has also benefited immensely from state health-care services for the poor and indigent by receiving more than $12 million a year in state assistance in Arizona to pay for health-insurance premiums.
It turns out that taxpayers also have been footing the bill for the fumarase deficiency children born to polygamists who insist that plural marriage involving close relatives is their divine right.
There is no doubt in the mind of any expert interviewed by New Times that the practice of polygamy combined with inbreeding has fostered the spread of fumarase deficiency. ...
It's about time Big Media finally decided to mention this story.
This story: http://www.phoenixnewtimes.com/2005-12-29/news/forbidden-fruit/full was published December 29, 2005, and I originally blogged it September 2006. What took Big Media and all its resources so long?
Is this being pressed now because the presidential game show features a mormon contestant?
Those poor kids! They don't deserve such lives!
What are these people thinking? Are they thinking? Why are our tax dollars supporting them while they continue to break the law?
The story also inspires a potentially great Lovecraft pastiche, innit.
Rabidly-inbreeding, kiddy-fiddling fundamentalist cousin-marrying mor(m)on polygamist weirdos in Yankistani Southwest = "HP Lovecraft in the Desert," anyone?
/me dashes off to see whether there's an Arkham, Arizona/Utah
Update two minutes later: No such animal.
This story: http://www.phoenixnewtimes.com/2005-12-29/news/forbidden-fruit/full was published December 29, 2005, and I originally blogged it September 2006. What took Big Media and all its resources so long?
Is this being pressed now because the presidential game show features a mormon contestant?
Those poor kids! They don't deserve such lives!
What are these people thinking? Are they thinking? Why are our tax dollars supporting them while they continue to break the law?
The story also inspires a potentially great Lovecraft pastiche, innit.
Rabidly-inbreeding, kiddy-fiddling fundamentalist cousin-marrying mor(m)on polygamist weirdos in Yankistani Southwest = "HP Lovecraft in the Desert," anyone?
/me dashes off to see whether there's an Arkham, Arizona/Utah
Update two minutes later: No such animal.
"Da Vinci Code" under investigation in Italy
Tue Jun 19, 2007
By Eric J. Lyman
TAORMINA, Italy (Hollywood Reporter) - More than a year after its premiere, "The Da Vinci Code" is being investigated by Italian state attorneys on the grounds that it is "obscene" from a religious perspective.
Earlier this year, a complaint against the film was filed by a group of clergy near the Italian village of Civitavecchia, where the state prosecutor's office said it would open a criminal investigation into the film. The complaint says the film violates Article 528 of Italy's Penal Code.
The complaint names 10 people, including director Ron Howard and author Dan Brown.
The investigation means the case will have its day in court in the seaside port village about 40 miles north of Rome, though a judge could elect to throw out the charges. But it is significant that the state prosecutor agreed to investigate it.
It is unclear what the unnamed complainants -- reported by the state prosecutor to be Catholic clergy from the area -- are seeking.
Under the terms of Article 528 of the Penal Code, if found guilty the defendants will have a criminal record in Italy and would each face jail time of at least three months and fines of at least 103 euros (70 pounds). Jail time is capped at three years, but there is no upward limit on the fines, legal experts said. The defendants cannot be extradited for the charges, but they can be apprehended if they are already on Italian soil. ...
Get over it! It's a movie that's based on a novel! Are you so insecure you don't want people to think for themselves or explore other ideas, including fictional ones?
Whenever religion no longer counsels, but issues orders instead, it's no longer religion - it's politics.
Tue Jun 19, 2007
By Eric J. Lyman
TAORMINA, Italy (Hollywood Reporter) - More than a year after its premiere, "The Da Vinci Code" is being investigated by Italian state attorneys on the grounds that it is "obscene" from a religious perspective.
Earlier this year, a complaint against the film was filed by a group of clergy near the Italian village of Civitavecchia, where the state prosecutor's office said it would open a criminal investigation into the film. The complaint says the film violates Article 528 of Italy's Penal Code.
The complaint names 10 people, including director Ron Howard and author Dan Brown.
The investigation means the case will have its day in court in the seaside port village about 40 miles north of Rome, though a judge could elect to throw out the charges. But it is significant that the state prosecutor agreed to investigate it.
It is unclear what the unnamed complainants -- reported by the state prosecutor to be Catholic clergy from the area -- are seeking.
Under the terms of Article 528 of the Penal Code, if found guilty the defendants will have a criminal record in Italy and would each face jail time of at least three months and fines of at least 103 euros (70 pounds). Jail time is capped at three years, but there is no upward limit on the fines, legal experts said. The defendants cannot be extradited for the charges, but they can be apprehended if they are already on Italian soil. ...
Get over it! It's a movie that's based on a novel! Are you so insecure you don't want people to think for themselves or explore other ideas, including fictional ones?
Whenever religion no longer counsels, but issues orders instead, it's no longer religion - it's politics.
Russia witnesses 'yet another' attempt on a journalist's life
By Anne Penketh, Diplomatic Editor
Published: 18 June 2007
A Russian investigative journalist is convinced he was the target of an assassination attempt after he was wounded by a man in a baseball cap who fired at him.
Moscow police said yesterday they were looking into the report that Andrei Kalitin, a journalist working for the Special Investigation programme on a state-owned television channel, had been shot in the hand.
Yevgeny Gildeyev, a spokesman for Moscow city police said the attacker apparently used rubber bullets. Mr Kalitin told the Kommersant daily newspaper the attack could be connected to his work on a book about alleged Mafia involvement in Russia's lucrative aluminium industry, which is to be published in August.
Mr Kalitin said he saw the man aiming a pistol at him at the last moment as he hurried away from his apartment towards a metro station on Wednesday evening. His attacker, wearing a white shirt and black trousers, had his face obscured by the baseball cap pulled down over the eyes, he said.
"I was thrown back for about one metre, to the ground. I don't know what kind of a weapon that one was, but I can say for sure there was a silencer as there was a characteristic plop and it was not loud. In the evening, there were no people in the yard and when I got up he had already disappeared, " he told the private Russian television station Ren TV. ...
By Anne Penketh, Diplomatic Editor
Published: 18 June 2007
A Russian investigative journalist is convinced he was the target of an assassination attempt after he was wounded by a man in a baseball cap who fired at him.
Moscow police said yesterday they were looking into the report that Andrei Kalitin, a journalist working for the Special Investigation programme on a state-owned television channel, had been shot in the hand.
Yevgeny Gildeyev, a spokesman for Moscow city police said the attacker apparently used rubber bullets. Mr Kalitin told the Kommersant daily newspaper the attack could be connected to his work on a book about alleged Mafia involvement in Russia's lucrative aluminium industry, which is to be published in August.
Mr Kalitin said he saw the man aiming a pistol at him at the last moment as he hurried away from his apartment towards a metro station on Wednesday evening. His attacker, wearing a white shirt and black trousers, had his face obscured by the baseball cap pulled down over the eyes, he said.
"I was thrown back for about one metre, to the ground. I don't know what kind of a weapon that one was, but I can say for sure there was a silencer as there was a characteristic plop and it was not loud. In the evening, there were no people in the yard and when I got up he had already disappeared, " he told the private Russian television station Ren TV. ...
Ex-German MP sentenced in VW corruption scandal
Fri Jun 15, 2007
WOLFSBURG, Germany (Reuters) - A former Volkswagen labour leader and Social Democrat member of parliament was found guilty on Thursday of perjury by denying he paid for prostitutes with company funds.
Hans-Juergen Uhl confessed to the prosecutor's charges and was found guilty on five counts of perjury and two counts of aiding and abetting fraud. He must pay € 39,200 (£26,483; $52,387) in fines, the court in VW's home town of Wolfsburg ruled.
His case was one of several involving high-ranking VW managers and labour leaders accused of conspiring to bilk the company of funds to pay for elaborate sex trips as part of a institutionalised system of bribery put in place under VW's former personnel boss, Peter Hartz. ...
Fri Jun 15, 2007
WOLFSBURG, Germany (Reuters) - A former Volkswagen labour leader and Social Democrat member of parliament was found guilty on Thursday of perjury by denying he paid for prostitutes with company funds.
Hans-Juergen Uhl confessed to the prosecutor's charges and was found guilty on five counts of perjury and two counts of aiding and abetting fraud. He must pay € 39,200 (£26,483; $52,387) in fines, the court in VW's home town of Wolfsburg ruled.
His case was one of several involving high-ranking VW managers and labour leaders accused of conspiring to bilk the company of funds to pay for elaborate sex trips as part of a institutionalised system of bribery put in place under VW's former personnel boss, Peter Hartz. ...
LA Hospital Faces New Threat of Closure
L.A. Hospital Faces New Threat of Closure After 911 Tapes Reveal Dying Woman Denied Help
By ROBERT JABLON Associated Press Writer
LOS ANGELES Jun 13, 2007
An inner-city hospital struggled to survive Wednesday amid a new report of breakdowns in patient care, the replacement of its chief medical officer and an ultimatum to correct long-running problems or close.
Newly released tapes of 911 calls reveal that a woman who lay bleeding on the floor of the emergency room died last month after dispatchers refused to contact paramedics or an ambulance to take her to another facility.
The woman's treatment was "callous, it was a horrible thing," Los Angeles County Supervisor Yvonne Burke said Wednesday.
Earlier this week, the county Board of Supervisors grilled health officials about conditions at Martin Luther King Jr.-Harbor Hospital. It ordered them to return in two weeks with a plan to deal with a hospital shutdown if it is unable to correct deficiencies laid out in a federal inspection that concluded emergency room patients were in "immediate jeopardy."
The federal review was based, in part, on a report that a man with a brain tumor waited four days in the emergency room when he needed to be transferred to another facility for lifesaving brain surgery. ...
More:
911 Dispatch Ignores Dying Woman
Edith Rodriguez Had Been to the E.R. on Several Occasions
L.A. Hospital Faces New Threat of Closure After 911 Tapes Reveal Dying Woman Denied Help
By ROBERT JABLON Associated Press Writer
LOS ANGELES Jun 13, 2007
An inner-city hospital struggled to survive Wednesday amid a new report of breakdowns in patient care, the replacement of its chief medical officer and an ultimatum to correct long-running problems or close.
Newly released tapes of 911 calls reveal that a woman who lay bleeding on the floor of the emergency room died last month after dispatchers refused to contact paramedics or an ambulance to take her to another facility.
The woman's treatment was "callous, it was a horrible thing," Los Angeles County Supervisor Yvonne Burke said Wednesday.
Earlier this week, the county Board of Supervisors grilled health officials about conditions at Martin Luther King Jr.-Harbor Hospital. It ordered them to return in two weeks with a plan to deal with a hospital shutdown if it is unable to correct deficiencies laid out in a federal inspection that concluded emergency room patients were in "immediate jeopardy."
The federal review was based, in part, on a report that a man with a brain tumor waited four days in the emergency room when he needed to be transferred to another facility for lifesaving brain surgery. ...
More:
911 Dispatch Ignores Dying Woman
Edith Rodriguez Had Been to the E.R. on Several Occasions
Pentagon arms its enemy's enemies in Iraq
[Ed. Note: /sound of needle scratching across record into silence
Um, can I see that again?]
Pentagon arms its enemy's enemies in Iraq
[Ed. Note: Okay. I just wanted to make sure; thought I mighta read that the wrong way.
Thanks. Do go on.]
Ewen MacAskill in Washington
Monday June 11, 2007
Guardian Unlimited
The US military has embarked on a new and risky strategy in Iraq by arming Sunni insurgents in the hope that they will tackle al-Qaida operatives in Iraq.
The US high command this month gave permission to its officers on the ground to negotiate arms deals with tribal elders and other local leaders. Arms, ammunition, body armour and other equipment, as well as cash, pickup trucks and fuel, have already been handed over in return for promises to turn on al-Qaida and not attack US troops.
The US military in Baghdad is trying to portray the move as arming disenchanted Sunnis rising up in their neighbourhoods against their former allies, al-Qaida and its foreign fighters. But the reality on the ground is more complex, with little sign that the US will be able to control the weapons once they are handed over.
The danger in the US strategy is that the insurgents could eventually use these weapons against American troops or in the civil war against Shia Muslims. Similar efforts by the US in other wars have often backfired, the most spectacular being the arming of guerrillas against the Soviets in Afghanistan. ...
Oh, well, then! No wonder they're doing it again: it worked so well before.
Witlings.
Many thanks to Bob, er dear Strictlychemical
[Ed. Note: /sound of needle scratching across record into silence
Um, can I see that again?]
Pentagon arms its enemy's enemies in Iraq
[Ed. Note: Okay. I just wanted to make sure; thought I mighta read that the wrong way.
Thanks. Do go on.]
Ewen MacAskill in Washington
Monday June 11, 2007
Guardian Unlimited
The US military has embarked on a new and risky strategy in Iraq by arming Sunni insurgents in the hope that they will tackle al-Qaida operatives in Iraq.
The US high command this month gave permission to its officers on the ground to negotiate arms deals with tribal elders and other local leaders. Arms, ammunition, body armour and other equipment, as well as cash, pickup trucks and fuel, have already been handed over in return for promises to turn on al-Qaida and not attack US troops.
The US military in Baghdad is trying to portray the move as arming disenchanted Sunnis rising up in their neighbourhoods against their former allies, al-Qaida and its foreign fighters. But the reality on the ground is more complex, with little sign that the US will be able to control the weapons once they are handed over.
The danger in the US strategy is that the insurgents could eventually use these weapons against American troops or in the civil war against Shia Muslims. Similar efforts by the US in other wars have often backfired, the most spectacular being the arming of guerrillas against the Soviets in Afghanistan. ...
Oh, well, then! No wonder they're doing it again: it worked so well before.
Witlings.
Many thanks to Bob, er dear Strictlychemical
Once again I am ashamed of my species.
No jobs for US citizens without Homeland Security approval
Submitted by Canada IFP on Sat, 2007-05-26
US citizens who apply for a job will need prior approval from Department of Homeland Security under the terms immigration bill passed by the Senate this week.
American Civil Liberties Union pointed out that the DHS's Employment Eligibility Verification System (EEVS) is error plagued and if the department makes a mistake in determining work eligibility, there will be virtually no way to challenge the error or recover lost wages due to the bill's prohibitions on judicial review.
Even current employees will need to obtain eligibility approval from the DHS Within 60 days of the Immigration Reform Act of 2006 becoming law. ...
You fucking assholes, give me my country back!
Submitted by Canada IFP on Sat, 2007-05-26
US citizens who apply for a job will need prior approval from Department of Homeland Security under the terms immigration bill passed by the Senate this week.
American Civil Liberties Union pointed out that the DHS's Employment Eligibility Verification System (EEVS) is error plagued and if the department makes a mistake in determining work eligibility, there will be virtually no way to challenge the error or recover lost wages due to the bill's prohibitions on judicial review.
Even current employees will need to obtain eligibility approval from the DHS Within 60 days of the Immigration Reform Act of 2006 becoming law. ...
You fucking assholes, give me my country back!
1872 - Burghardt's Bakery was established by Anton Burghardt.
Anton was a baker's apprentice in his native Germany. In 1872 he saw his chance to succeed in the land of opportunity and opened his own one-room bakery on St. Antoine Street in Detroit, Michigan. Using his simple formula for making bread, Anton Burghardt began a Detroit area legacy. ...
Some of the finest bread - German sourdough rye - that ever breathed.
Rules 'hiding' trillions in debt
Liability $516,348 per U.S. household
By Dennis Cauchon
USA TODAY
The federal government recorded a $1.3 trillion loss last year -- far more than the official $248 billion deficit -- when corporate-style accounting standards are used, a USA TODAY analysis shows.
The loss reflects a continued deterioration in the finances of Social Security and government retirement programs for civil servants and military personnel. The loss -- equal to $11,434 per household -- is more than Americans paid in income taxes in 2006.
"We're on an unsustainable path and doing a great disservice to future generations," says Chris Chocola, a former Republican member of Congress from Indiana and corporate chief executive who is pushing for more accurate federal accounting.
Modern accounting requires that corporations, state governments and local governments count expenses immediately when a transaction occurs, even if the payment will be made later.
The federal government does not follow the rule, so promises for Social Security and Medicare don't show up when the government reports its financial condition.
Bottom line: Taxpayers are now on the hook for a record $59.1 trillion in liabilities, a 2.3% increase from 2006. That amount is equal to $516,348 for every U.S. household. By comparison, U.S. households owe an average of $112,043 for mortgages, car loans, credit cards and all other debt combined.
Unfunded promises made for Medicare, Social Security and federal retirement programs account for 85% of taxpayer liabilities. State and local government retirement plans account for much of the rest.
This hidden debt is the amount taxpayers would have to pay immediately to cover government's financial obligations. Like a mortgage, it will cost more to repay the debt over time. Every U.S. household would have to pay about $31,000 a year to do so in 75 years. ...
Many thanks to dear Leiaxe
Liability $516,348 per U.S. household
By Dennis Cauchon
USA TODAY
The federal government recorded a $1.3 trillion loss last year -- far more than the official $248 billion deficit -- when corporate-style accounting standards are used, a USA TODAY analysis shows.
The loss reflects a continued deterioration in the finances of Social Security and government retirement programs for civil servants and military personnel. The loss -- equal to $11,434 per household -- is more than Americans paid in income taxes in 2006.
"We're on an unsustainable path and doing a great disservice to future generations," says Chris Chocola, a former Republican member of Congress from Indiana and corporate chief executive who is pushing for more accurate federal accounting.
Modern accounting requires that corporations, state governments and local governments count expenses immediately when a transaction occurs, even if the payment will be made later.
The federal government does not follow the rule, so promises for Social Security and Medicare don't show up when the government reports its financial condition.
Bottom line: Taxpayers are now on the hook for a record $59.1 trillion in liabilities, a 2.3% increase from 2006. That amount is equal to $516,348 for every U.S. household. By comparison, U.S. households owe an average of $112,043 for mortgages, car loans, credit cards and all other debt combined.
Unfunded promises made for Medicare, Social Security and federal retirement programs account for 85% of taxpayer liabilities. State and local government retirement plans account for much of the rest.
This hidden debt is the amount taxpayers would have to pay immediately to cover government's financial obligations. Like a mortgage, it will cost more to repay the debt over time. Every U.S. household would have to pay about $31,000 a year to do so in 75 years. ...
Many thanks to dear Leiaxe
10-Month-Old Issued Legal Gun Permit
Permit Shows Up With Baby Photo On It
May 16, 2007
CHICAGO (AP) -- It will probably be quite a while before Bubba Ludwig gets to use his Firearm Owner's Identification Card.
Bubba, whose given name is Howard David Ludwig, is just 10 months old but has been issued the official State of Illinois gun ID. The application was filled out by his father, newspaper columnist Howard Ludwig.
The ID card arrived, complete with Bubba's toothless baby picture. The card lists the baby's height (2 feet, 3 inches), weight (20 pounds) and has a scribble where the signature should be. Ludwig said he never thought the gun permit would be approved.
The ID card program is administered by Illinois State Police. A spokesman for the department said there are no restrictions under the law regarding the age of applicants. ...
Permit Shows Up With Baby Photo On It
May 16, 2007
CHICAGO (AP) -- It will probably be quite a while before Bubba Ludwig gets to use his Firearm Owner's Identification Card.
Bubba, whose given name is Howard David Ludwig, is just 10 months old but has been issued the official State of Illinois gun ID. The application was filled out by his father, newspaper columnist Howard Ludwig.
The ID card arrived, complete with Bubba's toothless baby picture. The card lists the baby's height (2 feet, 3 inches), weight (20 pounds) and has a scribble where the signature should be. Ludwig said he never thought the gun permit would be approved.
The ID card program is administered by Illinois State Police. A spokesman for the department said there are no restrictions under the law regarding the age of applicants. ...
China acts on food safety after pet poisonings
Wed May 9, 2007
By Niu Shuping and Nao Nakanishi
BEIJING/HONG KONG (Reuters) - China will launch a food industry clean up after exports of a contaminated ingredient in pet food drew global attention to its insufficient controls.
It will prioritize inspecting fertilizer and pesticide use in vegetable planting as well as animal medicines and additives in livestock feed, according to a notice from the State Council, China's cabinet.
China's rush into capitalism [Ed. note: Capitalism? In China? mao must be spinning in his grave] has created a rash of unregulated companies, operating on thin margins, whose temptation to cut corners has sometimes led to deaths from dangerous food additives.
That's increasingly raising concern in countries that import food, or food ingredients, from China. ...
China acknowledged on Tuesday [Ed. note: WTF took 'em so long to 'fess up?] that two Chinese companies illegally exported wheat gluten and rice protein that contained melamine scrap, a chemical product that artificially inflates protein levels. It was mixed into pet food along with another compound, causing a spate of animal deaths in the United States. ...
... Washington has considered a ban on imports of wheat gluten and rice protein from China, officials have said. ...
Wed May 9, 2007
By Niu Shuping and Nao Nakanishi
BEIJING/HONG KONG (Reuters) - China will launch a food industry clean up after exports of a contaminated ingredient in pet food drew global attention to its insufficient controls.
It will prioritize inspecting fertilizer and pesticide use in vegetable planting as well as animal medicines and additives in livestock feed, according to a notice from the State Council, China's cabinet.
China's rush into capitalism [Ed. note: Capitalism? In China? mao must be spinning in his grave] has created a rash of unregulated companies, operating on thin margins, whose temptation to cut corners has sometimes led to deaths from dangerous food additives.
That's increasingly raising concern in countries that import food, or food ingredients, from China. ...
China acknowledged on Tuesday [Ed. note: WTF took 'em so long to 'fess up?] that two Chinese companies illegally exported wheat gluten and rice protein that contained melamine scrap, a chemical product that artificially inflates protein levels. It was mixed into pet food along with another compound, causing a spate of animal deaths in the United States. ...
... Washington has considered a ban on imports of wheat gluten and rice protein from China, officials have said. ...
FDA urges young adult warning on antidepressants
Wed May 2, 2007
By Lisa Richwine
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Warnings on antidepressant drugs should be expanded to say the risks of suicidal thoughts and behavior extend to adults ages 18 to 24, U.S. health officials said on Wednesday.
The danger decreases, however, for adults 65 and older when they take the medicines, the Food and Drug Administration said. New warning labels should note that finding and stress that depression and some other psychiatric disorders are themselves a major causes of suicide, officials said.
The drugs already come with strong warnings that taking them may increase the chances of suicidal thoughts or actions in children and teenagers. Many psychiatrists have criticized the warnings, saying they scare people away from effective treatment and may have contributed to an increase in suicide in recent years. ...
Why in hell is anyone selling suicidal-thought-producing so-called anti-depressants?! Isn't that a bit too much like the old joke about the anti-seasickness pills which had 'nausea' listed among the side-effects?
Wed May 2, 2007
By Lisa Richwine
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Warnings on antidepressant drugs should be expanded to say the risks of suicidal thoughts and behavior extend to adults ages 18 to 24, U.S. health officials said on Wednesday.
The danger decreases, however, for adults 65 and older when they take the medicines, the Food and Drug Administration said. New warning labels should note that finding and stress that depression and some other psychiatric disorders are themselves a major causes of suicide, officials said.
The drugs already come with strong warnings that taking them may increase the chances of suicidal thoughts or actions in children and teenagers. Many psychiatrists have criticized the warnings, saying they scare people away from effective treatment and may have contributed to an increase in suicide in recent years. ...
Why in hell is anyone selling suicidal-thought-producing so-called anti-depressants?! Isn't that a bit too much like the old joke about the anti-seasickness pills which had 'nausea' listed among the side-effects?
May 3, 2007
Storm Over Immigration Protest in L.A.
By Mike Nizza
The Los Angeles Police Department is facing public outrage over its officers' use of batons and nonlethal rubber bullets to disperse an immigrant-rights rally on Tuesday.
So far, 10 people have reported receiving minor injuries, including seven journalists, The Los Angeles Times reported. Some journalists say they may sue the city.
A local cameraman was forced to his knees during the sweep. (Photo: Telemundo via AP)
On a CBS News program this morning, William J. Bratton, the head of the department, called the incident "one of the more disturbing and troubling in my 37-year career."
That career includes a particularly shocking 2004 police shooting that was captured by local TV crews. He's also led departments in Boston and New York.
"I'm not seeking to defend it all," he told CBS. "That's why we're having investigations." ...
Ah, yes, the LAPD. They'll treat you like a King.
Rodney, that is.
Storm Over Immigration Protest in L.A.
By Mike Nizza
The Los Angeles Police Department is facing public outrage over its officers' use of batons and nonlethal rubber bullets to disperse an immigrant-rights rally on Tuesday.
So far, 10 people have reported receiving minor injuries, including seven journalists, The Los Angeles Times reported. Some journalists say they may sue the city.
A local cameraman was forced to his knees during the sweep. (Photo: Telemundo via AP)
On a CBS News program this morning, William J. Bratton, the head of the department, called the incident "one of the more disturbing and troubling in my 37-year career."
That career includes a particularly shocking 2004 police shooting that was captured by local TV crews. He's also led departments in Boston and New York.
"I'm not seeking to defend it all," he told CBS. "That's why we're having investigations." ...
Ah, yes, the LAPD. They'll treat you like a King.
Rodney, that is.
Yes, you read that correctly. The Iraqi parliament - who our brave young men and women are fighting to protect and preserve - is planning on taking a two month vacation during the months of July and August. This is wrong on so many levels. Exactly what are we fighting for again? This doesn't seem like a government committed to getting things done, despite our huge investment and sacrifice. Absolutely shameful. And we thought the 109th Congress was the "do-nothing" champion. It should come as no surprise that Secretary Rice's top priority is the having the Iraqis finish up the oil laws. ...
Senator Levin weighs in:
"The committee considering amendments to the Iraqi Constitution appears to be as far from completing its work as it has always been. Meanwhile, the Assembly is apparently planning to go on a two month recess at the end of June. Let me repeat that since it is so unbelievable - the Iraqi Council of Representatives is apparently planning to go on a two month recess at the end of June. And incredibly, Hasan Suneid, a lawmaker and adviser to Prime Minister Maliki, was quoted in the paper the other day as saying that "time is irrelevant." Well time is plenty relevant to us, our troops and their families."
"Time is irrelevant," huh? Tell me again why we should let Bush continue his open-ended, no accountability policy...
WT bloody F? Where in hell are they going to spend their two month vacation? Flarida?
Many thanks to dear Leiaxe
Senator Levin weighs in:
"The committee considering amendments to the Iraqi Constitution appears to be as far from completing its work as it has always been. Meanwhile, the Assembly is apparently planning to go on a two month recess at the end of June. Let me repeat that since it is so unbelievable - the Iraqi Council of Representatives is apparently planning to go on a two month recess at the end of June. And incredibly, Hasan Suneid, a lawmaker and adviser to Prime Minister Maliki, was quoted in the paper the other day as saying that "time is irrelevant." Well time is plenty relevant to us, our troops and their families."
"Time is irrelevant," huh? Tell me again why we should let Bush continue his open-ended, no accountability policy...
WT bloody F? Where in hell are they going to spend their two month vacation? Flarida?
Many thanks to dear Leiaxe
Colombian Prosecutor Probing U.S. Firms
By TOBY MUSE
The Associated Press
Monday, April 30, 2007
BOGOTA, Colombia -- ... President Alvaro Uribe, a firm U.S. ally, has cracked down hard on the left-wing guerrillas, while negotiating a peace pact with the paramilitaries in 2003. Ex-paramilitary fighters seeking to benefit from reduced sentences under a government amnesty have led authorities to clandestine graves in vast areas they once controlled.
With thousands of victims still to be unearthed, Iguaran is now going after the businesses that he alleges helped pay the bills.
Fruit giant Chiquita agreed in March to pay $25 million to settle with the U.S. Department of Justice after acknowledging that its Colombian subsidiary, Banadex, secretly funneled $1.7 million to the death squads operating in zones where it had banana plantations.
In 2001, a Banadex ship was used to unload 3,000 rifles and thousands of rounds of ammunition for the paramilitaries. At the time, the paramilitaries were consolidating control of the Uraba banana region through massacres and assassinations. Chiquita later sold Banadex but still buys Colombian bananas. ...
By TOBY MUSE
The Associated Press
Monday, April 30, 2007
BOGOTA, Colombia -- ... President Alvaro Uribe, a firm U.S. ally, has cracked down hard on the left-wing guerrillas, while negotiating a peace pact with the paramilitaries in 2003. Ex-paramilitary fighters seeking to benefit from reduced sentences under a government amnesty have led authorities to clandestine graves in vast areas they once controlled.
With thousands of victims still to be unearthed, Iguaran is now going after the businesses that he alleges helped pay the bills.
Fruit giant Chiquita agreed in March to pay $25 million to settle with the U.S. Department of Justice after acknowledging that its Colombian subsidiary, Banadex, secretly funneled $1.7 million to the death squads operating in zones where it had banana plantations.
In 2001, a Banadex ship was used to unload 3,000 rifles and thousands of rounds of ammunition for the paramilitaries. At the time, the paramilitaries were consolidating control of the Uraba banana region through massacres and assassinations. Chiquita later sold Banadex but still buys Colombian bananas. ...
Filler in Animal Feed Is Open Secret in China
By DAVID BARBOZA and ALEXEI BARRIONUEVO
Published: April 30, 2007
ZHANGQIU, China, April 28 -- As American food safety regulators head to China to investigate how a chemical made from coal found its way into pet food that killed dogs and cats in the United States, workers in this heavily polluted northern city openly admit that the substance is routinely added to animal feed as a fake protein.
For years, producers of animal feed all over China have secretly supplemented their feed with the substance, called melamine, a cheap additive that looks like protein in tests, even though it does not provide any nutritional benefits, according to melamine scrap traders and agricultural workers here.
"Many companies buy melamine scrap to make animal feed, such as fish feed," said Ji Denghui, general manager of the Fujian Sanming Dinghui Chemical Company, which sells melamine. "I don't know if there's a regulation on it. Probably not. No law or regulation says `don't do it,' so everyone's doing it. The laws in China are like that, aren't they? If there's no accident, there won't be any regulation."
Melamine is at the center of a recall of 60 million packages of pet food, after the chemical was found in wheat gluten linked this month to the deaths of at least 16 pets and the illness of possibly thousands of pets in the United States.
No one knows exactly how melamine (which is not believed to be particularly toxic) became so fatal in pet food, but its presence in any form of American food is illegal.
The link to China has set off concerns among critics of the Food and Drug Administration that ingredients in pet food as well as human food, which are increasingly coming from abroad, are not being adequately screened.
"They have fewer people inspecting product at the ports than ever before," says Caroline Smith DeWaal, the director of food safety for the Center for Science in the Public Interest in Washington. "Until China gets programs in place to verify the safety of their products, they need to be inspected by U.S. inspectors. This open-door policy on food ingredients is an open invitation for an attack on the food supply, either intentional or unintentional." ...
WTF, China?!
By DAVID BARBOZA and ALEXEI BARRIONUEVO
Published: April 30, 2007
ZHANGQIU, China, April 28 -- As American food safety regulators head to China to investigate how a chemical made from coal found its way into pet food that killed dogs and cats in the United States, workers in this heavily polluted northern city openly admit that the substance is routinely added to animal feed as a fake protein.
For years, producers of animal feed all over China have secretly supplemented their feed with the substance, called melamine, a cheap additive that looks like protein in tests, even though it does not provide any nutritional benefits, according to melamine scrap traders and agricultural workers here.
"Many companies buy melamine scrap to make animal feed, such as fish feed," said Ji Denghui, general manager of the Fujian Sanming Dinghui Chemical Company, which sells melamine. "I don't know if there's a regulation on it. Probably not. No law or regulation says `don't do it,' so everyone's doing it. The laws in China are like that, aren't they? If there's no accident, there won't be any regulation."
Melamine is at the center of a recall of 60 million packages of pet food, after the chemical was found in wheat gluten linked this month to the deaths of at least 16 pets and the illness of possibly thousands of pets in the United States.
No one knows exactly how melamine (which is not believed to be particularly toxic) became so fatal in pet food, but its presence in any form of American food is illegal.
The link to China has set off concerns among critics of the Food and Drug Administration that ingredients in pet food as well as human food, which are increasingly coming from abroad, are not being adequately screened.
"They have fewer people inspecting product at the ports than ever before," says Caroline Smith DeWaal, the director of food safety for the Center for Science in the Public Interest in Washington. "Until China gets programs in place to verify the safety of their products, they need to be inspected by U.S. inspectors. This open-door policy on food ingredients is an open invitation for an attack on the food supply, either intentional or unintentional." ...
WTF, China?!
Lawmakers seek probe of private contractors in Iraq
By Barbara Barrett
McClatchy Newspapers
Apr. 27, 2007
WASHINGTON - Four years after the invasion of Iraq, Congress still has been unable to grasp the scope of armed security contractors working in that country.
This week, House Armed Services Committee Chairman Ike Skelton of Missouri and Rep. David Price of North Carolina, both Democrats, asked the Government Accountability Office to provide details on the use of private security contractors in Iraq.
Skelton and Price want to know how many such contractors are working there, for what purpose and under what legal authority. There has been little oversight over cost and operations so far, but many questions.
According to earlier GAO reports, contractors often move into battle zones without the military's knowledge, and the military in turn has done little training for troops on how to deal with private contractors. There are estimated to be as many as 100,000 security contractors working in the country.
"We've said all along that even a good description in this area has been very hard to come by," said Price. ...
By Barbara Barrett
McClatchy Newspapers
Apr. 27, 2007
WASHINGTON - Four years after the invasion of Iraq, Congress still has been unable to grasp the scope of armed security contractors working in that country.
This week, House Armed Services Committee Chairman Ike Skelton of Missouri and Rep. David Price of North Carolina, both Democrats, asked the Government Accountability Office to provide details on the use of private security contractors in Iraq.
Skelton and Price want to know how many such contractors are working there, for what purpose and under what legal authority. There has been little oversight over cost and operations so far, but many questions.
According to earlier GAO reports, contractors often move into battle zones without the military's knowledge, and the military in turn has done little training for troops on how to deal with private contractors. There are estimated to be as many as 100,000 security contractors working in the country.
"We've said all along that even a good description in this area has been very hard to come by," said Price. ...
Most Katrina Aid From Overseas Went Unclaimed
By John Solomon and Spencer S. Hsu
Washington Post Staff Writers
Sunday, April 29, 2007
As the winds and water of Hurricane Katrina were receding, presidential confidante Karen Hughes sent a cable from her State Department office to U.S. ambassadors worldwide.
Titled "Echo-Chamber Message" -- a public relations term for talking points designed to be repeated again and again -- the Sept. 7, 2005, directive was unmistakable: Assure the scores of countries that had pledged or donated aid at the height of the disaster that their largesse had provided Americans "practical help and moral support" and "highlight the concrete benefits hurricane victims are receiving."
Many of the U.S. diplomats who received the message, however, were beginning to witness a more embarrassing reality. They knew the U.S. government was turning down many allies' offers of manpower, supplies and expertise worth untold millions of dollars. Eventually the United States also would fail to collect most of the unprecedented outpouring of international cash assistance for Katrina's victims.
Allies offered $854 million in cash and in oil that was to be sold for cash. But only $40 million has been used so far for disaster victims or reconstruction, according to U.S. officials and contractors. Most of the aid went uncollected, including $400 million worth of oil. Some offers were withdrawn or redirected to private groups such as the Red Cross. The rest has been delayed by red tape and bureaucratic limits on how it can be spent. ...
By John Solomon and Spencer S. Hsu
Washington Post Staff Writers
Sunday, April 29, 2007
As the winds and water of Hurricane Katrina were receding, presidential confidante Karen Hughes sent a cable from her State Department office to U.S. ambassadors worldwide.
Titled "Echo-Chamber Message" -- a public relations term for talking points designed to be repeated again and again -- the Sept. 7, 2005, directive was unmistakable: Assure the scores of countries that had pledged or donated aid at the height of the disaster that their largesse had provided Americans "practical help and moral support" and "highlight the concrete benefits hurricane victims are receiving."
Many of the U.S. diplomats who received the message, however, were beginning to witness a more embarrassing reality. They knew the U.S. government was turning down many allies' offers of manpower, supplies and expertise worth untold millions of dollars. Eventually the United States also would fail to collect most of the unprecedented outpouring of international cash assistance for Katrina's victims.
Allies offered $854 million in cash and in oil that was to be sold for cash. But only $40 million has been used so far for disaster victims or reconstruction, according to U.S. officials and contractors. Most of the aid went uncollected, including $400 million worth of oil. Some offers were withdrawn or redirected to private groups such as the Red Cross. The rest has been delayed by red tape and bureaucratic limits on how it can be spent. ...
82 Inmates Cleared but Still Held at Guantanamo
U.S. Cites Difficulty Deporting Detainees
By Craig Whitlock
Washington Post Foreign Service
Sunday, April 29, 2007
LONDON -- More than a fifth of the approximately 385 prisoners at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, have been cleared for release but may have to wait months or years for their freedom because U.S. officials are finding it increasingly difficult to line up places to send them, according to Bush administration officials and defense lawyers.
Since February, the Pentagon has notified about 85 inmates or their attorneys that they are eligible to leave after being cleared by military review panels. But only a handful have gone home, including a Moroccan and an Afghan who were released Tuesday. Eighty-two remain at Guantanamo and face indefinite waits as U.S. officials struggle to figure out when and where to deport them, and under what conditions. ...
U.S. Cites Difficulty Deporting Detainees
By Craig Whitlock
Washington Post Foreign Service
Sunday, April 29, 2007
LONDON -- More than a fifth of the approximately 385 prisoners at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, have been cleared for release but may have to wait months or years for their freedom because U.S. officials are finding it increasingly difficult to line up places to send them, according to Bush administration officials and defense lawyers.
Since February, the Pentagon has notified about 85 inmates or their attorneys that they are eligible to leave after being cleared by military review panels. But only a handful have gone home, including a Moroccan and an Afghan who were released Tuesday. Eighty-two remain at Guantanamo and face indefinite waits as U.S. officials struggle to figure out when and where to deport them, and under what conditions. ...
Va. Tech Killer's Motives Pursued
Some Actions During Rampage Still a Mystery
By Jerry Markon and Sari Horwitz
Washington Post Staff Writers
Thursday, April 26, 2007
BLACKSBURG, Va., April 25 -- ... They said they have read reams of e-mail and cellphone records and interviewed hundreds of witnesses but have found no explanation for Cho's actions. In fact, they said, they may never know why Cho started at the dorm, waited more than two hours and then killed 30 more people at Norris Hall. ...
Hello?! He was insane! The only people who can understand someone who's that crazy - and their actions - are those who are equally crazy.
I suggest they ask westboro baptist church, shrub, or pat robertson what they think.
Some Actions During Rampage Still a Mystery
By Jerry Markon and Sari Horwitz
Washington Post Staff Writers
Thursday, April 26, 2007
BLACKSBURG, Va., April 25 -- ... They said they have read reams of e-mail and cellphone records and interviewed hundreds of witnesses but have found no explanation for Cho's actions. In fact, they said, they may never know why Cho started at the dorm, waited more than two hours and then killed 30 more people at Norris Hall. ...
Hello?! He was insane! The only people who can understand someone who's that crazy - and their actions - are those who are equally crazy.
I suggest they ask westboro baptist church, shrub, or pat robertson what they think.
N.C. Hog Farm Quarantined
April 25, 2007
RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) -- A farm in western North Carolina has been quarantined after a chemical blamed for more than a dozen pet deaths was found in its hogs, state officials said Wednesday. None of the hogs have entered the food supply.
The farm received a shipment of contaminated feed last week, said Mary Ann McBride, assistant state veterinarian for the North Carolina Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services. It was the only farm in the state that received the feed. ...
... Officials were trying to determine whether hogs in New York, South Carolina, Utah and Ohio also may have eaten the tainted food.
Many thanks to dear Anneliese
April 25, 2007
RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) -- A farm in western North Carolina has been quarantined after a chemical blamed for more than a dozen pet deaths was found in its hogs, state officials said Wednesday. None of the hogs have entered the food supply.
The farm received a shipment of contaminated feed last week, said Mary Ann McBride, assistant state veterinarian for the North Carolina Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services. It was the only farm in the state that received the feed. ...
... Officials were trying to determine whether hogs in New York, South Carolina, Utah and Ohio also may have eaten the tainted food.
Many thanks to dear Anneliese
Doctor Dressed As Super Hero Accused Of Sex Assault
April 24, 2007
A Central Florida doctor is accused of sexually assaulting a woman during a costume party while he was dressed as the super hero Captain America.
Raymond Adamcik was arrested Saturday night at the On Tape Caf and Lounge and booked at the Melbourne Police Department while still wearing blue tights and a Captain America head gear.
"It was just a group of doctors that were traveling throughout the city going from bar to bar," Melbourne police representative Jill Fredricksen said.
Authorities said Adamcik was in possession of a large burrito and drugs. [Ed. note: LMFAO]
"While in the restroom, he attempted to flush a bag of marijuana as well as a joint down the toilet," Fredrickson said.
Police said they were able to recover a joint from the toilet but the bag was flushed, the report said. ...
Kinell!
Many thanks to dear Marielaem, who also provided a pithy comment
April 24, 2007
A Central Florida doctor is accused of sexually assaulting a woman during a costume party while he was dressed as the super hero Captain America.
Raymond Adamcik was arrested Saturday night at the On Tape Caf and Lounge and booked at the Melbourne Police Department while still wearing blue tights and a Captain America head gear.
"It was just a group of doctors that were traveling throughout the city going from bar to bar," Melbourne police representative Jill Fredricksen said.
Authorities said Adamcik was in possession of a large burrito and drugs. [Ed. note: LMFAO]
"While in the restroom, he attempted to flush a bag of marijuana as well as a joint down the toilet," Fredrickson said.
Police said they were able to recover a joint from the toilet but the bag was flushed, the report said. ...
Kinell!
Many thanks to dear Marielaem, who also provided a pithy comment
Ranger Alleges Cover-Up in Tillman Case
By ERICA WERNER
The Associated Press
Tuesday, April 24, 2007
WASHINGTON -- An Army Ranger who was with Pat Tillman when the former football star was cut down by friendly fire in Afghanistan said Tuesday a commanding officer had ordered him to keep quiet about what happened.
The military at first portrayed Tillman's death as the result of heroic combat with the enemy. Army Spc. Bryan O'Neal told a congressional hearing that when he got the chance to talk to Tillman's brother, who had been in a nearby convoy on the fateful day, "I was ordered not to tell him what happened."
"You were ordered not to tell him?" repeated Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform.
"Roger that, Sir," replied O'Neal, dressed in his Army uniform. ...
By ERICA WERNER
The Associated Press
Tuesday, April 24, 2007
WASHINGTON -- An Army Ranger who was with Pat Tillman when the former football star was cut down by friendly fire in Afghanistan said Tuesday a commanding officer had ordered him to keep quiet about what happened.
The military at first portrayed Tillman's death as the result of heroic combat with the enemy. Army Spc. Bryan O'Neal told a congressional hearing that when he got the chance to talk to Tillman's brother, who had been in a nearby convoy on the fateful day, "I was ordered not to tell him what happened."
"You were ordered not to tell him?" repeated Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform.
"Roger that, Sir," replied O'Neal, dressed in his Army uniform. ...
Rape fears lead women soldiers to suicide, death
NEW YORK -- U.S. female soldiers in Iraq were assaulted or raped by male soldiers in the women's latrines, and an alarming number committed suicide, Col. Janis Karpinski reportedly testified before an international human rights commission of inquiry last month.
"Because the women were in fear of getting up in the darkness [to go to the latrine], they were not drinking liquids after 3 or 4 in the afternoon," Karpinski testified, according to a report on Truthout.org. "In the 100 degree heat, they were dying of dehydration in their sleep."
Karpinski's testimony was reported by Margorie Cohn, a professor at Thomas Jefferson School of Law and president-elect of the National Lawyers Guild who writes a weekly column for the website. ...
I remember when this story broke. It broke like a balloon: one minute it was there, the next it was gone, and no follow-up.
NEW YORK -- U.S. female soldiers in Iraq were assaulted or raped by male soldiers in the women's latrines, and an alarming number committed suicide, Col. Janis Karpinski reportedly testified before an international human rights commission of inquiry last month.
"Because the women were in fear of getting up in the darkness [to go to the latrine], they were not drinking liquids after 3 or 4 in the afternoon," Karpinski testified, according to a report on Truthout.org. "In the 100 degree heat, they were dying of dehydration in their sleep."
Karpinski's testimony was reported by Margorie Cohn, a professor at Thomas Jefferson School of Law and president-elect of the National Lawyers Guild who writes a weekly column for the website. ...
I remember when this story broke. It broke like a balloon: one minute it was there, the next it was gone, and no follow-up.
FDA Was Aware of Dangers To Food
Outbreaks Were Not Preventable, Officials Say
By Elizabeth Williamson
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, April 23, 2007
The Food and Drug Administration has known for years about contamination problems at a Georgia peanut butter plant and on California spinach farms that led to disease outbreaks that killed three people, sickened hundreds, and forced one of the biggest product recalls in U.S. history, documents and interviews show.
Overwhelmed by huge growth in the number of food processors and imports, however, the agency took only limited steps to address the problems and relied on producers to police themselves, according to agency documents. ...
Outbreaks Were Not Preventable, Officials Say
By Elizabeth Williamson
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, April 23, 2007
The Food and Drug Administration has known for years about contamination problems at a Georgia peanut butter plant and on California spinach farms that led to disease outbreaks that killed three people, sickened hundreds, and forced one of the biggest product recalls in U.S. history, documents and interviews show.
Overwhelmed by huge growth in the number of food processors and imports, however, the agency took only limited steps to address the problems and relied on producers to police themselves, according to agency documents. ...
U.S. Rules Made Killer Ineligible to Purchase Gun
The idiots here sold him two guns anyway
By MICHAEL LUO
Published: April 21, 2007
WASHINGTON, April 20 -- Under federal law, the Virginia Tech gunman Seung-Hui Cho should have been prohibited from buying a gun after a Virginia court declared him to be a danger to himself in late 2005 and sent him for psychiatric treatment, a state official and several legal experts said Friday.
Federal law prohibits anyone who has been "adjudicated as a mental defective," as well as those who have been involuntarily committed to a mental health facility, from buying a gun.
The special justice's order in late 2005 that directed Mr. Cho to seek outpatient treatment and declared him to be mentally ill and an imminent danger to himself fits the federal criteria and should have immediately disqualified him, said Richard J. Bonnie, chairman of the Supreme Court of Virginia's Commission on Mental Health Law Reform.
A spokesman for the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives also said that if Mr. Cho had been found mentally defective by a court, he should have been denied the right to purchase a gun.
The federal law defines adjudication as a mental defective to include "determination by a court, board, commission or other lawful authority" that as a result of mental illness, the person is a "danger to himself or others."
Mr. Cho's ability to buy two guns despite his history has brought new attention to the adequacy of background checks that scrutinize potential gun buyers. And since federal gun laws depend on states for enforcement, the failure of Virginia to flag Mr. Cho highlights the often incomplete information provided by states to federal authorities.
Currently, only 22 states submit any mental health records to the federal National Instant Criminal Background Check System, the Federal Bureau of Investigation said in a statement on Thursday. Virginia is the leading state in reporting disqualifications based on mental health criteria for the federal check system, the statement said.
Virginia state law on mental health disqualifications to firearms purchases, however, is worded slightly differently from the federal statute. So the form that Virginia courts use to notify state police about a mental health disqualification addresses only the state criteria, which list two potential categories that would warrant notification to the state police: someone who was "involuntarily committed" or ruled mentally "incapacitated." ...
The idiots here sold him two guns anyway
By MICHAEL LUO
Published: April 21, 2007
WASHINGTON, April 20 -- Under federal law, the Virginia Tech gunman Seung-Hui Cho should have been prohibited from buying a gun after a Virginia court declared him to be a danger to himself in late 2005 and sent him for psychiatric treatment, a state official and several legal experts said Friday.
Federal law prohibits anyone who has been "adjudicated as a mental defective," as well as those who have been involuntarily committed to a mental health facility, from buying a gun.
The special justice's order in late 2005 that directed Mr. Cho to seek outpatient treatment and declared him to be mentally ill and an imminent danger to himself fits the federal criteria and should have immediately disqualified him, said Richard J. Bonnie, chairman of the Supreme Court of Virginia's Commission on Mental Health Law Reform.
A spokesman for the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives also said that if Mr. Cho had been found mentally defective by a court, he should have been denied the right to purchase a gun.
The federal law defines adjudication as a mental defective to include "determination by a court, board, commission or other lawful authority" that as a result of mental illness, the person is a "danger to himself or others."
Mr. Cho's ability to buy two guns despite his history has brought new attention to the adequacy of background checks that scrutinize potential gun buyers. And since federal gun laws depend on states for enforcement, the failure of Virginia to flag Mr. Cho highlights the often incomplete information provided by states to federal authorities.
Currently, only 22 states submit any mental health records to the federal National Instant Criminal Background Check System, the Federal Bureau of Investigation said in a statement on Thursday. Virginia is the leading state in reporting disqualifications based on mental health criteria for the federal check system, the statement said.
Virginia state law on mental health disqualifications to firearms purchases, however, is worded slightly differently from the federal statute. So the form that Virginia courts use to notify state police about a mental health disqualification addresses only the state criteria, which list two potential categories that would warrant notification to the state police: someone who was "involuntarily committed" or ruled mentally "incapacitated." ...
Iran Dam Said to Threaten Ancient Sites
By ALI AKBAR DAREINI
The Associated Press
Thursday, April 19, 2007
TEHRAN, Iran -- Iranian engineers began filling a new dam Thursday as archaeologists warned that its reservoir will flood newly discovered antiquities and could damage Iran's grandest site, the ancient Persian capital of Persepolis.
At the inauguration ceremony, attended by Energy Ministry officials, pipes were opened for water to start flowing into an artificial lake created by the dam spanning the Sivand River, 520 miles south of the capital, Tehran. The lake's waters will be used to irrigate the area's farms. ...
... Archaeologist Parviz Varjavand said "irreplaceable human heritage" will be lost.
"This ruling establishment gives no value to Iran's cultural heritage. It is an act of stupidity and obstinacy," he said.
Where in f*ck did they get such a goddamned stupid idea? China?
By ALI AKBAR DAREINI
The Associated Press
Thursday, April 19, 2007
TEHRAN, Iran -- Iranian engineers began filling a new dam Thursday as archaeologists warned that its reservoir will flood newly discovered antiquities and could damage Iran's grandest site, the ancient Persian capital of Persepolis.
At the inauguration ceremony, attended by Energy Ministry officials, pipes were opened for water to start flowing into an artificial lake created by the dam spanning the Sivand River, 520 miles south of the capital, Tehran. The lake's waters will be used to irrigate the area's farms. ...
... Archaeologist Parviz Varjavand said "irreplaceable human heritage" will be lost.
"This ruling establishment gives no value to Iran's cultural heritage. It is an act of stupidity and obstinacy," he said.
Where in f*ck did they get such a goddamned stupid idea? China?
Woman Registers a .47 on Breath Tester
Wednesday, April 18, 2007
REDMOND, Wash. (AP)-- A Woodinville woman arrested following two car crashes last week registered a .47 blood-alcohol content on a breath test - nearly six times the legal intoxication threshold and possibly a state record.
Deana F. Jarrett, 54, was taken to Evergreen Hospital as a precaution following her arrest April 11, the Washington State Patrol said Wednesday. No one was injured in the accidents.
Jarrett blew the .47 on a portable breath tester after she collided with two other vehicles in quick succession, the patrol said. A check of all 356,000 breath tests administered since 1998 in Washington turned up only 35 above .40 - and none of those was higher than .45.
The legal intoxication threshold in Washington is .08. ...
Wednesday, April 18, 2007
REDMOND, Wash. (AP)-- A Woodinville woman arrested following two car crashes last week registered a .47 blood-alcohol content on a breath test - nearly six times the legal intoxication threshold and possibly a state record.
Deana F. Jarrett, 54, was taken to Evergreen Hospital as a precaution following her arrest April 11, the Washington State Patrol said Wednesday. No one was injured in the accidents.
Jarrett blew the .47 on a portable breath tester after she collided with two other vehicles in quick succession, the patrol said. A check of all 356,000 breath tests administered since 1998 in Washington turned up only 35 above .40 - and none of those was higher than .45.
The legal intoxication threshold in Washington is .08. ...
Pet Food Recall Expanded on New Finding
By ANDREW BRIDGES
The Associated Press
Wednesday, April 18, 2007
WASHINGTON -- An industrial chemical that led to a nationwide recall of more than 100 brands of cat and dog foods has been found to contaminate a second pet food ingredient, expanding the recall further.
The chemical, melamine, is believed to have contaminated rice protein concentrate used to make a variety of Natural Balance Pet Foods products for both dogs and cats, the Food and Drug Administration said Wednesday. Previously, the chemical was found to contaminate another ingredient, wheat gluten, used by at least six other pet food and treat manufacturers.
Natural Balance said it was recalling all its Venison and Brown Rice canned and bagged dog foods, its Venison and Brown Rice dog treats and its Venison and Green Pea dry cat food.
The Pacoima, Calif., company said recent laboratory tests showed the products contain melamine. It believes the source of the contaminant was rice protein concentrate, which the company recently added to the dry venison formulas. Natural Balance does not use wheat gluten, which was associated with the previous melamine contamination, it said. ...
By ANDREW BRIDGES
The Associated Press
Wednesday, April 18, 2007
WASHINGTON -- An industrial chemical that led to a nationwide recall of more than 100 brands of cat and dog foods has been found to contaminate a second pet food ingredient, expanding the recall further.
The chemical, melamine, is believed to have contaminated rice protein concentrate used to make a variety of Natural Balance Pet Foods products for both dogs and cats, the Food and Drug Administration said Wednesday. Previously, the chemical was found to contaminate another ingredient, wheat gluten, used by at least six other pet food and treat manufacturers.
Natural Balance said it was recalling all its Venison and Brown Rice canned and bagged dog foods, its Venison and Brown Rice dog treats and its Venison and Green Pea dry cat food.
The Pacoima, Calif., company said recent laboratory tests showed the products contain melamine. It believes the source of the contaminant was rice protein concentrate, which the company recently added to the dry venison formulas. Natural Balance does not use wheat gluten, which was associated with the previous melamine contamination, it said. ...
More Cat Food Recalled; U.S. Warns Retailers to Pull Products
By Steven Reinberg
HealthDay Reporter
Thursday, April 12, 2007
THURSDAY, April 12 (HealthDay News) -- A Canadian pet food manufacturer widened its recall of contaminated pet food one more time as U.S. health officials warned consumers Thursday that some of the recalled products may still be on store shelves.
Menu Foods, of Streetsville, Ontario, has now added a variety of canned cat food made at its home plant to what appears to have become the largest pet food recall in U.S. history.
The company, in a statement late Tuesday, said it had pulled the latest products after finding that contaminated wheat gluten, used to make pet food gravy, had been shipped to one of its Canadian plants.
Up until that point, the recall of millions of cans and pouches of moist tainted food had involved more than 100 brand names made only at the company's Kansas and New Jersey plants.
But the U.S. Food and Drug Administration found traces of the contaminant, the chemical melamine, in sample tests at the company's Streetsville plant on Tuesday. And, the agency said in a prepared statement, Menu Foods informed FDA officials that "it had shipped some of the wheat gluten from its Emporia, Kansas plant to its plant in Streetsville."
The FDA, meanwhile, is urging U.S. retailers to remove all products associated with the pet food recall, which began March 16.
The agency said it had conducted approximately 400 checks of retail stores across the country and "believes most companies have removed the recalled product; however, some have not." ...
... The new varieties of cat food in the recall include selected products under the brand names: Nutro, Pet Pride, America's Choice, Winn Dixie, Publix and Price Chopper.
A full list of all the recalled products is available on the FDA Web site. The list will be updated with any new recall information when announced, the FDA said. ...
By Steven Reinberg
HealthDay Reporter
Thursday, April 12, 2007
THURSDAY, April 12 (HealthDay News) -- A Canadian pet food manufacturer widened its recall of contaminated pet food one more time as U.S. health officials warned consumers Thursday that some of the recalled products may still be on store shelves.
Menu Foods, of Streetsville, Ontario, has now added a variety of canned cat food made at its home plant to what appears to have become the largest pet food recall in U.S. history.
The company, in a statement late Tuesday, said it had pulled the latest products after finding that contaminated wheat gluten, used to make pet food gravy, had been shipped to one of its Canadian plants.
Up until that point, the recall of millions of cans and pouches of moist tainted food had involved more than 100 brand names made only at the company's Kansas and New Jersey plants.
But the U.S. Food and Drug Administration found traces of the contaminant, the chemical melamine, in sample tests at the company's Streetsville plant on Tuesday. And, the agency said in a prepared statement, Menu Foods informed FDA officials that "it had shipped some of the wheat gluten from its Emporia, Kansas plant to its plant in Streetsville."
The FDA, meanwhile, is urging U.S. retailers to remove all products associated with the pet food recall, which began March 16.
The agency said it had conducted approximately 400 checks of retail stores across the country and "believes most companies have removed the recalled product; however, some have not." ...
... The new varieties of cat food in the recall include selected products under the brand names: Nutro, Pet Pride, America's Choice, Winn Dixie, Publix and Price Chopper.
A full list of all the recalled products is available on the FDA Web site. The list will be updated with any new recall information when announced, the FDA said. ...
Canadian Pet Food Added to Recall List
Tuesday, April 10, 2007
WASHINGTON (AP) -- The pet food recall expanded further Tuesday to include products made at a Canadian factory recently found to have used an ingredient tainted by an industrial chemical.
Menu Foods previously had recalled only cat and dog food made at its plants in New Jersey and Kansas, saying they were its only facilities to have taken delivery of imported wheat gluten later found contaminated with melamine.
However, Menu Foods discovered Monday that some of the tainted wheat gluten had made it to Canada. It was prompted to account for the ingredient by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, which told the company that tests had detected the chemical in pet foods made at its Streetsville, Ontario, plant.
Menu spokesman Sam Bornstein said the amount accounted for just 1 percent of the adulterated Chinese wheat gluten purchased by Menu Foods. It was used in pet foods made in December and January.
Among the products covered by the expanded recall is Royal Canin Canada's Medi-Cal Feline Dissolution Formula canned diet, made by Menu Foods and sold only through veterinarians. A single production lot contained the contaminated wheat gluten, the company said.
"After being repeatedly reassured by Menu Foods, as reinforced by FDA public statements, that none of the contaminated wheat gluten had made its way to Canada, we were completely shocked to learn yesterday that this was not the case," Xavier Unkovic, Royal Canin Canada's chief executive officer, said in a statement.
Menu Foods was the first of at least six companies to recall pet food and treats made with the tainted Chinese wheat gluten. It alone has recalled 100 brands of pet foods, sold throughout North America under its private and major labels. It posted Tuesday an updated list of recalled products on its Web site, http://menufoods.com/recall/. ...
Tuesday, April 10, 2007
WASHINGTON (AP) -- The pet food recall expanded further Tuesday to include products made at a Canadian factory recently found to have used an ingredient tainted by an industrial chemical.
Menu Foods previously had recalled only cat and dog food made at its plants in New Jersey and Kansas, saying they were its only facilities to have taken delivery of imported wheat gluten later found contaminated with melamine.
However, Menu Foods discovered Monday that some of the tainted wheat gluten had made it to Canada. It was prompted to account for the ingredient by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, which told the company that tests had detected the chemical in pet foods made at its Streetsville, Ontario, plant.
Menu spokesman Sam Bornstein said the amount accounted for just 1 percent of the adulterated Chinese wheat gluten purchased by Menu Foods. It was used in pet foods made in December and January.
Among the products covered by the expanded recall is Royal Canin Canada's Medi-Cal Feline Dissolution Formula canned diet, made by Menu Foods and sold only through veterinarians. A single production lot contained the contaminated wheat gluten, the company said.
"After being repeatedly reassured by Menu Foods, as reinforced by FDA public statements, that none of the contaminated wheat gluten had made its way to Canada, we were completely shocked to learn yesterday that this was not the case," Xavier Unkovic, Royal Canin Canada's chief executive officer, said in a statement.
Menu Foods was the first of at least six companies to recall pet food and treats made with the tainted Chinese wheat gluten. It alone has recalled 100 brands of pet foods, sold throughout North America under its private and major labels. It posted Tuesday an updated list of recalled products on its Web site, http://menufoods.com/recall/. ...
Police: Cho Questioned in 2005 After Students Complained
By Debbi Wilgoren and Howard Schneider
Washington Post Staff Writers
Wednesday, April 18, 2007
The Centreville man who killed 32 people at Virginia Tech Monday was questioned by campus police twice in late 2005 after female students complained he was harassing them and was hospitalized after he was reported to be suicidal, police said this morning.
Cho Seung Hui, 23, was not charged with a criminal violation in either incident involving his contact with female students in November and December of 2005, campus police chief Wendell Flinchum said. ...
... In 2005, two female students complained separately to the campus police department about contacts Cho was having with them in person and on the telephone, Flinchum said. ...
... Cho was admitted to Carilion St. Albans Psychiatric Hospital in nearby Radford, Va., on Dec. 13, 2005. Officials said they believe Cho entered the hospital voluntarily. They would not say how much time he spent there, citing privacy rules. ...
Privacy rules apply to a dead psycho who's just slaughtered 32 people? Why?
By Debbi Wilgoren and Howard Schneider
Washington Post Staff Writers
Wednesday, April 18, 2007
The Centreville man who killed 32 people at Virginia Tech Monday was questioned by campus police twice in late 2005 after female students complained he was harassing them and was hospitalized after he was reported to be suicidal, police said this morning.
Cho Seung Hui, 23, was not charged with a criminal violation in either incident involving his contact with female students in November and December of 2005, campus police chief Wendell Flinchum said. ...
... In 2005, two female students complained separately to the campus police department about contacts Cho was having with them in person and on the telephone, Flinchum said. ...
... Cho was admitted to Carilion St. Albans Psychiatric Hospital in nearby Radford, Va., on Dec. 13, 2005. Officials said they believe Cho entered the hospital voluntarily. They would not say how much time he spent there, citing privacy rules. ...
Privacy rules apply to a dead psycho who's just slaughtered 32 people? Why?
2-Hour Gap Leaves Room For Questions
By Alec MacGillis and Adam Kilgore
Washington Post Staff Writers
Tuesday, April 17, 2007
A single question stood out yesterday at Virginia Tech: Would more students be alive if the university had stopped them from going to class after a shooting occurred in a campus dorm?
The first shooting was reported at 7:15 a.m. in a dormitory, West Ambler Johnston Hall, where police found two people fatally wounded. But the first e-mail message from the Virginia Tech administration to students did not go out until more than two hours later, at 9:26 a.m., stating that a shooting had occurred but with no mention of staying indoors or staying off campus or canceling classes. ...
I guess it's assuming too much, thinking the folks running colleges are intelligent people who care about their students.
By Alec MacGillis and Adam Kilgore
Washington Post Staff Writers
Tuesday, April 17, 2007
A single question stood out yesterday at Virginia Tech: Would more students be alive if the university had stopped them from going to class after a shooting occurred in a campus dorm?
The first shooting was reported at 7:15 a.m. in a dormitory, West Ambler Johnston Hall, where police found two people fatally wounded. But the first e-mail message from the Virginia Tech administration to students did not go out until more than two hours later, at 9:26 a.m., stating that a shooting had occurred but with no mention of staying indoors or staying off campus or canceling classes. ...
I guess it's assuming too much, thinking the folks running colleges are intelligent people who care about their students.
My boss told me to do the washing up, says female banker
by OLINKA KOSTER
16th April 2007
A senior woman banker suing her employers for 1.35million was told by her boss to do the washing up before leaving a company dinner, a tribunal heard.
Katharina Tofeji was also told it would be a good idea to "get a little bit closer" to a client over a candlelit dinner, while another colleague said he could imagine her in a tiny bikini.
The 38-year-old, who says she was denied a four- day working week after the birth of her 23-month-old daughter Maria, took her case to an employment tribunal after feeling she felt "pushed out of the team".
The high-flying sales dealer is claiming sex discrimination, constructive unfair dismissal and breach of maternity leave and flexible working regulations against leading European bank BNP Paribas.
Miss Tofeji, who earned 70,000 a year plus bonuses, said that prior to her maternity leave she was told there was 'no point' in applying for a more senior position because she was female. ...
Sexism in our societies is as dead as racism.
by OLINKA KOSTER
16th April 2007
A senior woman banker suing her employers for 1.35million was told by her boss to do the washing up before leaving a company dinner, a tribunal heard.
Katharina Tofeji was also told it would be a good idea to "get a little bit closer" to a client over a candlelit dinner, while another colleague said he could imagine her in a tiny bikini.
The 38-year-old, who says she was denied a four- day working week after the birth of her 23-month-old daughter Maria, took her case to an employment tribunal after feeling she felt "pushed out of the team".
The high-flying sales dealer is claiming sex discrimination, constructive unfair dismissal and breach of maternity leave and flexible working regulations against leading European bank BNP Paribas.
Miss Tofeji, who earned 70,000 a year plus bonuses, said that prior to her maternity leave she was told there was 'no point' in applying for a more senior position because she was female. ...
Sexism in our societies is as dead as racism.
Attack Linked to Macedonian Official
By MIKE CORDER
Monday, April 16, 2007
THE HAGUE, Netherlands (AP) -- Macedonia's interior minister watched from a distance as police under his control rampaged through a village in 2001, killing seven ethnic Albanian men and torching and blowing up houses, U.N. prosecutors said Monday.
A video played on the opening day of the war crimes trial of former Interior Minister Ljube Boskovski and a top police official showed what prosecutors described as Boskovski witnessing the attack on the village of Ljuboten from several hundred yards away. ...
By MIKE CORDER
Monday, April 16, 2007
THE HAGUE, Netherlands (AP) -- Macedonia's interior minister watched from a distance as police under his control rampaged through a village in 2001, killing seven ethnic Albanian men and torching and blowing up houses, U.N. prosecutors said Monday.
A video played on the opening day of the war crimes trial of former Interior Minister Ljube Boskovski and a top police official showed what prosecutors described as Boskovski witnessing the attack on the village of Ljuboten from several hundred yards away. ...
33 Dead in Virginia Tech Shootings, At Least 24 Injured
By Robert E. Pierre, Sari Horwitz and Jackie Spinner
Washington Post Staff Writers
Monday, April 16, 2007
Thirty-three people were killed and at least 30 injured during a shooting rampage this morning at Virginia Tech, making it the deadliest mass shooting in U.S. history.
The unidentified shooter was among the dead. Law enforcement authorities, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the shooter used two 9mm pistols. They also said that the shooter was not carrying identification and his head wounds were so severe that authorities could not immediately identify him. ...
By Robert E. Pierre, Sari Horwitz and Jackie Spinner
Washington Post Staff Writers
Monday, April 16, 2007
Thirty-three people were killed and at least 30 injured during a shooting rampage this morning at Virginia Tech, making it the deadliest mass shooting in U.S. history.
The unidentified shooter was among the dead. Law enforcement authorities, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the shooter used two 9mm pistols. They also said that the shooter was not carrying identification and his head wounds were so severe that authorities could not immediately identify him. ...
Drunken German emerges unscathed from under train
Mon Apr 16, 2007
BERLIN (Reuters) - A drunken man who fell under a train after being jolted out of a nap at a railway station emerged unscathed from beneath the locomotive.
The 19-year-old had fallen asleep on the station platform in Cologne but was startled by the incoming train. Losing his balance, he fell in front of the locomotive, police said.
"According to the man he fell exactly between the two tracks and just felt a light knock on the head," Cologne police said in a statement.
The shocked train driver pulled the emergency brakes only to see the man emerge unaided from under the engine....
Just think! He's only Nineteen! What other magnificent things will he do?
Mon Apr 16, 2007
BERLIN (Reuters) - A drunken man who fell under a train after being jolted out of a nap at a railway station emerged unscathed from beneath the locomotive.
The 19-year-old had fallen asleep on the station platform in Cologne but was startled by the incoming train. Losing his balance, he fell in front of the locomotive, police said.
"According to the man he fell exactly between the two tracks and just felt a light knock on the head," Cologne police said in a statement.
The shocked train driver pulled the emergency brakes only to see the man emerge unaided from under the engine....
Just think! He's only Nineteen! What other magnificent things will he do?
Outrage at army training video
Kate Connolly in Berlin
Monday April 16, 2007
The Guardian
A video depicting a German army trainer telling a soldier to imagine he was firing on three black men in the Bronx has provoked outrage in the New York district and led to calls in Germany for an investigation.
The 90-second video, which was posted on the website myvideo.de, shows the trainer standing next to the soldier, who is poised with a machine gun.
The trainer tells him: "You are in the Bronx. A black van is stopping in front of you. Three African-Americans are getting out and they are insulting your mother in the worst of ways."
The soldier is heard to snigger, before the trainer continues: "Before each shot I want to hear a loud 'motherf*cker'." The soldier sniggers again, and after the order to "act" fires his machine gun and shouts "motherf*cker".
The trainer tells him to repeat the action and to speak up. The soldier responds by firing several more rounds and repeating the obscenity.
New York City officials were quick to condemn the video. "It really saddens me," said Adolfo Carrion Jr, the Bronx borough president. "The German government obviously has work to do to correct something that is insidious ... clearly these folks don't know anything about African Americans or the Bronx." ...
Let's get all the violent religious freaks, neocons and nazis, white 'supremists' and racists of all stripes, sexists, animal and child abusers shipped to Antartica.
Middle of August, say, and equip them with Bermuda shorts and coors light.
Kate Connolly in Berlin
Monday April 16, 2007
The Guardian
A video depicting a German army trainer telling a soldier to imagine he was firing on three black men in the Bronx has provoked outrage in the New York district and led to calls in Germany for an investigation.
The 90-second video, which was posted on the website myvideo.de, shows the trainer standing next to the soldier, who is poised with a machine gun.
The trainer tells him: "You are in the Bronx. A black van is stopping in front of you. Three African-Americans are getting out and they are insulting your mother in the worst of ways."
The soldier is heard to snigger, before the trainer continues: "Before each shot I want to hear a loud 'motherf*cker'." The soldier sniggers again, and after the order to "act" fires his machine gun and shouts "motherf*cker".
The trainer tells him to repeat the action and to speak up. The soldier responds by firing several more rounds and repeating the obscenity.
New York City officials were quick to condemn the video. "It really saddens me," said Adolfo Carrion Jr, the Bronx borough president. "The German government obviously has work to do to correct something that is insidious ... clearly these folks don't know anything about African Americans or the Bronx." ...
Let's get all the violent religious freaks, neocons and nazis, white 'supremists' and racists of all stripes, sexists, animal and child abusers shipped to Antartica.
Middle of August, say, and equip them with Bermuda shorts and coors light.
Tainted Pet Food Linked to Sharp Increase in Kidney Cases in Cats, Study Shows
Apr 10, 2007
By ANDREW BRIDGES
WASHINGTON (AP)-- Cases of kidney failure among cats rose by 30 percent during the three months that pet food contaminated with an industrial chemical was sold, one of the nation's largest chains of veterinary hospitals reported Monday.
Banfield, The Pet Hospital, said an analysis of its database, compiled from records collected by its more than 615 veterinary hospitals, suggests that three out of every 10,000 cats and dogs seen in its clinics developed kidney failure during the time the melamine-contaminated pet food was on the market. There are an estimated 60 million dogs and 70 million cats in the United States, according to the American Veterinary Medical Association. ...
Apr 10, 2007
By ANDREW BRIDGES
WASHINGTON (AP)-- Cases of kidney failure among cats rose by 30 percent during the three months that pet food contaminated with an industrial chemical was sold, one of the nation's largest chains of veterinary hospitals reported Monday.
Banfield, The Pet Hospital, said an analysis of its database, compiled from records collected by its more than 615 veterinary hospitals, suggests that three out of every 10,000 cats and dogs seen in its clinics developed kidney failure during the time the melamine-contaminated pet food was on the market. There are an estimated 60 million dogs and 70 million cats in the United States, according to the American Veterinary Medical Association. ...
Wife Sues After Man Dies In Airplane Restroom
Man Found Hours After Death In Plane's Bathroom
April 12, 2007
INDIANAPOLIS -- An Indianapolis woman has filed a federal lawsuit over the death of her husband aboard an American Airlines trans-Pacific flight.
The lawsuit said 66-year-old Taisuke Matsuo died in the restroom during a Tokyo-to-Chicago flight in 2005. It said his body wasn't found until the cleaning crew boarded the plane two hours after it landed. ...
Man Found Hours After Death In Plane's Bathroom
April 12, 2007
INDIANAPOLIS -- An Indianapolis woman has filed a federal lawsuit over the death of her husband aboard an American Airlines trans-Pacific flight.
The lawsuit said 66-year-old Taisuke Matsuo died in the restroom during a Tokyo-to-Chicago flight in 2005. It said his body wasn't found until the cleaning crew boarded the plane two hours after it landed. ...
Contaminated Pet Food May Still Be Out There
FDA Refuses To Give All-Clear
April 12, 2007
WASHINGTON -- The Food and Drug Administration is warning pet owners that some recalled pet food could still be on the market.
The head of the FDA's Center for Veterinary Medicine told Congress Thursday that the vast majority of the tainted food is no longer for sale, but that the discovery of more of it can't be ruled out. Retailers are being urged to double check their inventories.
There's debate on whether to expand regulations on pet food. A veterinarian who testified today said pet food labels should not be able to make safety claims without rigorous ingredient testing.
But the Pet Food Institute says pet food is already governed by the FDA and the Agriculture Department, as well as authorities in all 50 states.
FDA Refuses To Give All-Clear
April 12, 2007
WASHINGTON -- The Food and Drug Administration is warning pet owners that some recalled pet food could still be on the market.
The head of the FDA's Center for Veterinary Medicine told Congress Thursday that the vast majority of the tainted food is no longer for sale, but that the discovery of more of it can't be ruled out. Retailers are being urged to double check their inventories.
There's debate on whether to expand regulations on pet food. A veterinarian who testified today said pet food labels should not be able to make safety claims without rigorous ingredient testing.
But the Pet Food Institute says pet food is already governed by the FDA and the Agriculture Department, as well as authorities in all 50 states.
Why are futurists always sadistic bastards who apparently want to tie up and beat everyone?
Delayed Benefits Frustrate Veterans
Hundreds of Thousands of Disability Claims Pending at VA; Current Wars Likely to Strain System Further
By Christopher Lee
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, April 8, 2007
In his last years, World War II veteran Seymour D. Lewis would stand at the door of his home in Savannah, Ga., waiting for a letter that never arrived.
The family of the former Army private, who lost the hearing in his right ear to a grenade explosion in basic training in 1944, spent years wrestling with the federal bureaucracy for his disability benefits, at one point waiting more than a year just to be told to fill out more forms.
In 2001, the Department of Veterans Affairs started sending Lewis a monthly check for $200, an amount he appealed as too little and too late for the lasting physical sacrifice he made for his country, his family said. The appeal was still pending when Lewis died last year at age 80.
"Every time I would call, they would send me a new form to fill out, with exactly the same information that they already had," said his son Frank A. Lewis, 61, a Navy veteran. "They run you around. They keep you dangling. . . . My father was elderly. He would wait at the front door for the mailman, waiting for something from the VA. When he would get a letter, he would anxiously open it, and when it said nothing, the depression he would go into was unreal. I have a feeling they were just waiting for my father to drop dead so they wouldn't have to pay any money. It's been one big nightmare." ...
... Nearly 400,000 disability claims were pending as of February, including 135,741 that exceeded VA's 160-day goal for processing them. The department takes six months, on average, to process a claim, and the waiting time for appeals averages nearly two years. ...
The phrase "Support our troops," especially in Washington DC, has so many shades of meaning.
Hundreds of Thousands of Disability Claims Pending at VA; Current Wars Likely to Strain System Further
By Christopher Lee
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, April 8, 2007
In his last years, World War II veteran Seymour D. Lewis would stand at the door of his home in Savannah, Ga., waiting for a letter that never arrived.
The family of the former Army private, who lost the hearing in his right ear to a grenade explosion in basic training in 1944, spent years wrestling with the federal bureaucracy for his disability benefits, at one point waiting more than a year just to be told to fill out more forms.
In 2001, the Department of Veterans Affairs started sending Lewis a monthly check for $200, an amount he appealed as too little and too late for the lasting physical sacrifice he made for his country, his family said. The appeal was still pending when Lewis died last year at age 80.
"Every time I would call, they would send me a new form to fill out, with exactly the same information that they already had," said his son Frank A. Lewis, 61, a Navy veteran. "They run you around. They keep you dangling. . . . My father was elderly. He would wait at the front door for the mailman, waiting for something from the VA. When he would get a letter, he would anxiously open it, and when it said nothing, the depression he would go into was unreal. I have a feeling they were just waiting for my father to drop dead so they wouldn't have to pay any money. It's been one big nightmare." ...
... Nearly 400,000 disability claims were pending as of February, including 135,741 that exceeded VA's 160-day goal for processing them. The department takes six months, on average, to process a claim, and the waiting time for appeals averages nearly two years. ...
The phrase "Support our troops," especially in Washington DC, has so many shades of meaning.
Canada to remove mistake-ridden WWI exhibit
Fri Apr 6, 2007
OTTAWA (Reuters) - Canada will remove the French-language exhibit at a major military memorial after a reporter discovered it was riddled with grammatical errors, Veterans Affairs Minister Greg Thompson said on Thursday.
Public broadcaster Radio-Canada found numerous mistakes in interpretive panels at Vimy Ridge in France, where more than 10,000 Canadian soldiers were killed or wounded in April 1917 during World War One.
"I have just been made aware of this situation and it is totally unacceptable. As soon as the errors were confirmed, it was obvious the only solution was to remove the panels," Thompson said in a statement. The panels will be replaced.
The issue is an embarrassment for Ottawa, since Canada has been officially bilingual for 40 years and millions of French-speakers are very sensitive about their fate in a country where most people speak English. ...
Fri Apr 6, 2007
OTTAWA (Reuters) - Canada will remove the French-language exhibit at a major military memorial after a reporter discovered it was riddled with grammatical errors, Veterans Affairs Minister Greg Thompson said on Thursday.
Public broadcaster Radio-Canada found numerous mistakes in interpretive panels at Vimy Ridge in France, where more than 10,000 Canadian soldiers were killed or wounded in April 1917 during World War One.
"I have just been made aware of this situation and it is totally unacceptable. As soon as the errors were confirmed, it was obvious the only solution was to remove the panels," Thompson said in a statement. The panels will be replaced.
The issue is an embarrassment for Ottawa, since Canada has been officially bilingual for 40 years and millions of French-speakers are very sensitive about their fate in a country where most people speak English. ...
VA Patient Has Wrong Testicle Removed
Wednesday, April 4, 2007; 11:43 PM
LOS ANGELES (AP) -- An Air Force veteran has filed a federal claim after an operation at a Veterans Administration hospital in which a healthy testicle was removed instead of a potentially cancerous one.
...doctors mistakenly removed the right testicle, according to medical records and the claim, which seeks $200,000 for future care and unspecified damages. He still hasn't had the other testicle removed.
"At first I thought it was a joke," Houghton told the Los Angeles Times. "Then I was shocked. I told them, 'What do I do now?'" ...
Wednesday, April 4, 2007; 11:43 PM
LOS ANGELES (AP) -- An Air Force veteran has filed a federal claim after an operation at a Veterans Administration hospital in which a healthy testicle was removed instead of a potentially cancerous one.
...doctors mistakenly removed the right testicle, according to medical records and the claim, which seeks $200,000 for future care and unspecified damages. He still hasn't had the other testicle removed.
"At first I thought it was a joke," Houghton told the Los Angeles Times. "Then I was shocked. I told them, 'What do I do now?'" ...
FBI Agent Possibly Killed by Colleague
By DAVID PORTER
Thursday, April 5, 2007
READINGTON, N.J. (AP) -- An FBI agent who was killed Thursday when a stakeout team opened fire on three armed bank robbery suspects might have been shot accidentally by another agent, the FBI said.
Agent Barry Lee Bush, 52, assigned to the Newark office, died after agents confronted three men suspected in a series of armed bank robberies. Two of the men were captured.
"Preliminarily, information suggests the agent may have been fatally wounded as a result of the accidental discharge of another agent's weapon during a dynamic arrest situation," the FBI said in a statement Thursday night.
Pedro Ruiz, an agent in charge of the Newark office, said the suspects did not fire their weapons, which included two assault rifles and a handgun. He said he did not know how many shots were fired and declined to elaborate about what led the agents to shoot. ...
Yeah, I bet he declined!
By DAVID PORTER
Thursday, April 5, 2007
READINGTON, N.J. (AP) -- An FBI agent who was killed Thursday when a stakeout team opened fire on three armed bank robbery suspects might have been shot accidentally by another agent, the FBI said.
Agent Barry Lee Bush, 52, assigned to the Newark office, died after agents confronted three men suspected in a series of armed bank robberies. Two of the men were captured.
"Preliminarily, information suggests the agent may have been fatally wounded as a result of the accidental discharge of another agent's weapon during a dynamic arrest situation," the FBI said in a statement Thursday night.
Pedro Ruiz, an agent in charge of the Newark office, said the suspects did not fire their weapons, which included two assault rifles and a handgun. He said he did not know how many shots were fired and declined to elaborate about what led the agents to shoot. ...
Yeah, I bet he declined!
Bigger than you think: The story behind the pet food recall
By Christie Keith, Special to SF Gate
Tuesday, April 3, 2007
...the timeline of the recall raised a number of concerns. Although there have been some media reports that Menu Foods started getting complaints as early as December 2006, FDA records state the company received their first report of a food-related pet death on February 20.
One week later, on February 27, Menu started testing the suspect foods. Three days later, on March 3, the first cat in the trial died of acute kidney failure. Three days after that, Menu switched wheat gluten suppliers, and 10 days later, on March 16, recalled the 91 products that contained gluten from their previous source.
Nearly one month passed from the date Menu got its first report of a death to the date it issued the recall. During that time, no veterinarians were warned to be on the lookout for unusual numbers of kidney failure in their patients. No pet owners were warned to watch their pets for its symptoms. And thousands and thousands of pet owners kept buying those foods and giving them to their dogs and cats.
At that point, Menu had seen a 35 percent death rate in their test-lab cats, with another 45 percent suffering kidney damage. The overall death rate for animals in Menu's tests was around 20 percent. How many pets, eating those recalled foods, had died, become ill or suffered kidney damage in the time leading up to the recall and in the days since? The answer to that hasn't changed since the day the recall was issued: We don't know.
We at Pet Connection knew the 10-15 deaths being reported by the media did not reflect an accurate count. We wanted to get an idea of the real scope of the problem, so we started a database for people to report their dead or sick pets. On March 21, two days after opening the database, we had over 600 reported cases and more than 200 reported deaths. As of March 31, the number of deaths alone was at 2,797.
There are all kinds of problems with self-reported cases, and while we did correct for a couple of them, our numbers are not considered "confirmed." But USA Today reported on March 25 that data from Banfield, a nationwide chain of over 600 veterinary hospitals, "suggests [the number of cases of kidney failure] is as high as hundreds a week during the three months the food was on the market." ...
Many thanks to dear Anneliese
By Christie Keith, Special to SF Gate
Tuesday, April 3, 2007
...the timeline of the recall raised a number of concerns. Although there have been some media reports that Menu Foods started getting complaints as early as December 2006, FDA records state the company received their first report of a food-related pet death on February 20.
One week later, on February 27, Menu started testing the suspect foods. Three days later, on March 3, the first cat in the trial died of acute kidney failure. Three days after that, Menu switched wheat gluten suppliers, and 10 days later, on March 16, recalled the 91 products that contained gluten from their previous source.
Nearly one month passed from the date Menu got its first report of a death to the date it issued the recall. During that time, no veterinarians were warned to be on the lookout for unusual numbers of kidney failure in their patients. No pet owners were warned to watch their pets for its symptoms. And thousands and thousands of pet owners kept buying those foods and giving them to their dogs and cats.
At that point, Menu had seen a 35 percent death rate in their test-lab cats, with another 45 percent suffering kidney damage. The overall death rate for animals in Menu's tests was around 20 percent. How many pets, eating those recalled foods, had died, become ill or suffered kidney damage in the time leading up to the recall and in the days since? The answer to that hasn't changed since the day the recall was issued: We don't know.
We at Pet Connection knew the 10-15 deaths being reported by the media did not reflect an accurate count. We wanted to get an idea of the real scope of the problem, so we started a database for people to report their dead or sick pets. On March 21, two days after opening the database, we had over 600 reported cases and more than 200 reported deaths. As of March 31, the number of deaths alone was at 2,797.
There are all kinds of problems with self-reported cases, and while we did correct for a couple of them, our numbers are not considered "confirmed." But USA Today reported on March 25 that data from Banfield, a nationwide chain of over 600 veterinary hospitals, "suggests [the number of cases of kidney failure] is as high as hundreds a week during the three months the food was on the market." ...
Many thanks to dear Anneliese
April 4, 2007
Buffalo: 15,000 rupees. Child: 500
by Ashling O'Connor in Bombay
It is cheaper to buy a child than a buffalo in India, according to activists who marched on a summit of South Asian nations in Delhi yesterday to protest against human trafficking.
Most end up in bonded labour or working as prostitutes, the leaders of Bachpan Bachao Andolan (Save the Childhood Movement) said as they escorted more than 200 children to the gates of the Indian Parliament to call for changes to legislation.
"While buffaloes may cost up to 15,000 rupees (177), children are sold at prices between 500 and 2,000 rupees," Bhuvan Ribhu, who conducted a study to be released later this year, said.
Their demonstration coincided with the two-day annual meeting of the South Asian Association of Regional Cooperation attended by the heads of government for Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka.
Police prevented the demonstrators from reaching the meeting hall but allowed them to present a petition to the office of Manmohan Singh, the Prime Minister.
Activists maintain that the association's convention for preventing trafficking in women and children has failed to stem the problem because its definitions cover prostitution but not forced labour.
They claim that more than 50,000 Nepalese children and 40,000 Bangladeshi children are bought and sold across the border every year by scouts rounding up workers for farms, carpet factories, quarries and brothels.
Desperately poor parents frequently exchange their children for money, often as little as $5. Some falsely believe that their children are being taken to work as domestic servants and will send money home. Few ever return. Others trade their sons and daughters to pay money lenders. Up to 15 million children in India, most of them from low-caste families, could be enslaved to work off someone else's debt, according to a Save the Children report published last month on the 200th anniversary of the abolition of slavery by Britain. The report also said that children account for a fifth of India's workforce in sandstone quarries and nearly a third of sex workers. ...
Buffalo: 15,000 rupees. Child: 500
by Ashling O'Connor in Bombay
It is cheaper to buy a child than a buffalo in India, according to activists who marched on a summit of South Asian nations in Delhi yesterday to protest against human trafficking.
Most end up in bonded labour or working as prostitutes, the leaders of Bachpan Bachao Andolan (Save the Childhood Movement) said as they escorted more than 200 children to the gates of the Indian Parliament to call for changes to legislation.
"While buffaloes may cost up to 15,000 rupees (177), children are sold at prices between 500 and 2,000 rupees," Bhuvan Ribhu, who conducted a study to be released later this year, said.
Their demonstration coincided with the two-day annual meeting of the South Asian Association of Regional Cooperation attended by the heads of government for Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka.
Police prevented the demonstrators from reaching the meeting hall but allowed them to present a petition to the office of Manmohan Singh, the Prime Minister.
Activists maintain that the association's convention for preventing trafficking in women and children has failed to stem the problem because its definitions cover prostitution but not forced labour.
They claim that more than 50,000 Nepalese children and 40,000 Bangladeshi children are bought and sold across the border every year by scouts rounding up workers for farms, carpet factories, quarries and brothels.
Desperately poor parents frequently exchange their children for money, often as little as $5. Some falsely believe that their children are being taken to work as domestic servants and will send money home. Few ever return. Others trade their sons and daughters to pay money lenders. Up to 15 million children in India, most of them from low-caste families, could be enslaved to work off someone else's debt, according to a Save the Children report published last month on the 200th anniversary of the abolition of slavery by Britain. The report also said that children account for a fifth of India's workforce in sandstone quarries and nearly a third of sex workers. ...
Ala. Woman on Horseback Charged With DUI
Tuesday, April 3, 2007
SYLVANIA, Ala. (AP) -- A woman who went for a horseback ride through town at midnight and allegedly used the horse to ram a police car was charged with driving under the influence and drug offenses, police said Tuesday.
"Cars were passing by having to avoid it, and almost hitting the horse," said Police Chief Brad Gregg.
He said DUI charges can apply even when the vehicle has four legs instead of wheels.
Police in the northeast Alabama town received a call around midnight Saturday about someone riding a horse on a city street, Gregg said.
Officer John Seals found Melissa Byrum York, 40, of Henagar on horseback on a nearby road and attempted to stop her. Seals asked the woman repeatedly to get off the horse, but she kept trying to kick the animal to make it run, the chief said. ...
... York was charged with DUI for allegedly riding the horse under the influence of a controlled substance. She was also charged with drug possession, possession of drug paraphernalia, resisting arrest, assault, attempting to elude police and cruelty to animals. ...
Meth is bad, m'kay?
Tuesday, April 3, 2007
SYLVANIA, Ala. (AP) -- A woman who went for a horseback ride through town at midnight and allegedly used the horse to ram a police car was charged with driving under the influence and drug offenses, police said Tuesday.
"Cars were passing by having to avoid it, and almost hitting the horse," said Police Chief Brad Gregg.
He said DUI charges can apply even when the vehicle has four legs instead of wheels.
Police in the northeast Alabama town received a call around midnight Saturday about someone riding a horse on a city street, Gregg said.
Officer John Seals found Melissa Byrum York, 40, of Henagar on horseback on a nearby road and attempted to stop her. Seals asked the woman repeatedly to get off the horse, but she kept trying to kick the animal to make it run, the chief said. ...
... York was charged with DUI for allegedly riding the horse under the influence of a controlled substance. She was also charged with drug possession, possession of drug paraphernalia, resisting arrest, assault, attempting to elude police and cruelty to animals. ...
Meth is bad, m'kay?
Well, she's certainly holding it the right way.
Betcha could throw some wicked Googlies with it.
Pet Food Recall Expanding, More Brands
Mar 31, 2007
WASHINGTON - The recall of wet and dry pet foods contaminated with a chemical found in plastics and pesticides expanded Saturday to include a new brand even as investigators were puzzled why the substance would kill dogs and cats.
Nestle Purina PetCare Co. said it was recalling all sizes and varieties of its Alpo Prime Cuts in Gravy wet dog food with specific date codes. Purina said a limited amount of the food contained a contaminated wheat gluten from China.
The same U.S. supplier also provided wheat gluten, a protein source, to a Canadian company, Menu Foods, which this month recalled 60 million containers of wet dog and cat food it produces for sale under nearly 100 brand labels.
Menu Foods and the Food and Drug Administration, which regulates the pet food industry, have refused to identify the company that supplied the contaminated wheat gluten.
Hill's Pet Nutrition said late Friday that its Prescription Diet m/d Feline dry cat food included the tainted wheat gluten. The FDA said the source was the same unidentified company. Hill's, a division of Colgate-Palmolive Co., is so far the only company to recall any dry pet food.
Federal testing of some recalled pet foods and the wheat gluten used in their production turned up the chemical melamine. Melamine is used to make kitchenware and other plastics. It is both a contaminant and byproduct of several pesticides, including cyromazine, according to the Environmental Protection Agency. ...
http://www.fda.gov/oc/opacom/hottopics/petfood.html
www.purina.com
www.hillspet.com
www.menufoods.com/recall
Mar 31, 2007
WASHINGTON - The recall of wet and dry pet foods contaminated with a chemical found in plastics and pesticides expanded Saturday to include a new brand even as investigators were puzzled why the substance would kill dogs and cats.
Nestle Purina PetCare Co. said it was recalling all sizes and varieties of its Alpo Prime Cuts in Gravy wet dog food with specific date codes. Purina said a limited amount of the food contained a contaminated wheat gluten from China.
The same U.S. supplier also provided wheat gluten, a protein source, to a Canadian company, Menu Foods, which this month recalled 60 million containers of wet dog and cat food it produces for sale under nearly 100 brand labels.
Menu Foods and the Food and Drug Administration, which regulates the pet food industry, have refused to identify the company that supplied the contaminated wheat gluten.
Hill's Pet Nutrition said late Friday that its Prescription Diet m/d Feline dry cat food included the tainted wheat gluten. The FDA said the source was the same unidentified company. Hill's, a division of Colgate-Palmolive Co., is so far the only company to recall any dry pet food.
Federal testing of some recalled pet foods and the wheat gluten used in their production turned up the chemical melamine. Melamine is used to make kitchenware and other plastics. It is both a contaminant and byproduct of several pesticides, including cyromazine, according to the Environmental Protection Agency. ...
http://www.fda.gov/oc/opacom/hottopics/petfood.html
www.purina.com
www.hillspet.com
www.menufoods.com/recall
A prophet no more? Jeffs called himself a 'sinner' in jailhouse conversation
March 27, 2007
By Ben Winslow
ST. GEORGE -- Warren Jeffs has reportedly renounced his title as "prophet" of the Fundamentalist LDS Church in a jailhouse conversation with one of his brothers.
"He said he is the greatest of all sinners and, in so many words, worked his way to be the leader and prophet when he knew he wasn't called of God to be a prophet," a law enforcement source familiar with the conversation told the Deseret Morning News.
Jeffs, 51, made the comments during a January conversation with his brother, Nephi Jeffs, who has visited him in the Purgatory Jail in Hurricane. The conversation was recorded by jail officials, who monitor most of the FLDS leader's phone calls and visits.
A tape is reportedly in the hands of the Washington County attorney, who is prosecuting Jeffs on charges of rape as an accomplice, a first-degree felony. He is accused of performing a marriage between a 14-year-old girl and her older cousin. ...
March 27, 2007
By Ben Winslow
ST. GEORGE -- Warren Jeffs has reportedly renounced his title as "prophet" of the Fundamentalist LDS Church in a jailhouse conversation with one of his brothers.
"He said he is the greatest of all sinners and, in so many words, worked his way to be the leader and prophet when he knew he wasn't called of God to be a prophet," a law enforcement source familiar with the conversation told the Deseret Morning News.
Jeffs, 51, made the comments during a January conversation with his brother, Nephi Jeffs, who has visited him in the Purgatory Jail in Hurricane. The conversation was recorded by jail officials, who monitor most of the FLDS leader's phone calls and visits.
A tape is reportedly in the hands of the Washington County attorney, who is prosecuting Jeffs on charges of rape as an accomplice, a first-degree felony. He is accused of performing a marriage between a 14-year-old girl and her older cousin. ...
Spanish man held after rescue from Niagara Falls
Mon Mar 26, 2007
By Jennifer Kwan
TORONTO (Reuters) - A man is in custody on an immigration-related charge after being rescued from Niagara Falls near the U.S. border over the weekend, claiming to have fallen asleep on an inflatable mattress, authorities said on Monday.
"Canada Border Services Agency is alleging that he is inadmissible to Canada," said Charles Hawkins, spokesman for the Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada, the country's largest independent administrative tribunal.
Hawkins said the 42-year-old man, a Spanish citizen, was detained as he was considered "a flight risk."
He was rescued from a chunk of ice 1.5 kilometres upstream from Niagara Falls near the U.S. border.
Security personnel at an Ontario Power Generation station had heard the man screaming for help around 4:30 a.m. Saturday close to the OPG's water-tunnel intake near Chippawa, Ont.
"He claimed he was going to lie down on the mattress to relax and he fell asleep, and the next thing he knew he was on the river," said Hawkins, recounting information from the man's detention hearing on Monday morning. ...
Mon Mar 26, 2007
By Jennifer Kwan
TORONTO (Reuters) - A man is in custody on an immigration-related charge after being rescued from Niagara Falls near the U.S. border over the weekend, claiming to have fallen asleep on an inflatable mattress, authorities said on Monday.
"Canada Border Services Agency is alleging that he is inadmissible to Canada," said Charles Hawkins, spokesman for the Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada, the country's largest independent administrative tribunal.
Hawkins said the 42-year-old man, a Spanish citizen, was detained as he was considered "a flight risk."
He was rescued from a chunk of ice 1.5 kilometres upstream from Niagara Falls near the U.S. border.
Security personnel at an Ontario Power Generation station had heard the man screaming for help around 4:30 a.m. Saturday close to the OPG's water-tunnel intake near Chippawa, Ont.
"He claimed he was going to lie down on the mattress to relax and he fell asleep, and the next thing he knew he was on the river," said Hawkins, recounting information from the man's detention hearing on Monday morning. ...
Pay up to prove you live:Romania tells state worker
Mon Mar 26, 2007
BUCHAREST (Reuters) - A cashier for Romania's state-owned railway has been asked to pay a month's worth of wages to receive government confirmation that she is alive.
Filoftea Popescu discovered when she applied for a passport that the Romania's People Registration Service had mistakenly declared her dead in November 2005, stripping her of all her rights as a citizen.
"I went to the police ... and I found out that I have no rights in the Romanian state because I died in 2005," the 55-year-old Popescu was quoted on Monday by daily Evenimentul Zilei as saying.
Romania is struggling to cut through vast red tape and complicated legislation to improve a bloated and ineffective administration in order to benefit from new membership in the European Union.
"A lawyer told me it costs me 500 lei (to obtain a court order). Why should I pay to prove I am alive?" Popescu said. ...
Mon Mar 26, 2007
BUCHAREST (Reuters) - A cashier for Romania's state-owned railway has been asked to pay a month's worth of wages to receive government confirmation that she is alive.
Filoftea Popescu discovered when she applied for a passport that the Romania's People Registration Service had mistakenly declared her dead in November 2005, stripping her of all her rights as a citizen.
"I went to the police ... and I found out that I have no rights in the Romanian state because I died in 2005," the 55-year-old Popescu was quoted on Monday by daily Evenimentul Zilei as saying.
Romania is struggling to cut through vast red tape and complicated legislation to improve a bloated and ineffective administration in order to benefit from new membership in the European Union.
"A lawyer told me it costs me 500 lei (to obtain a court order). Why should I pay to prove I am alive?" Popescu said. ...
Tree man back down to earth
Monday 22nd March 2007
A Serb man who lived in a tree in his garden for two years after squatters stole his home has finally come down.
A court has ruled Stevan Graovac can move back into his home which he fled in 1995 because of the war.
As he came down from his tree house for the last time, Mr Graovac said: "I'm happy it's all over. I thought I would have to live in a tree for the rest of my life. But I will keep the tree house as it is to show my children."
Stevan Graovac left his home in Smilcic, near the Adriatic port of Zadar, and moved to America but when he returned, a decade later, he found someone else living there.
A Croatian family fleeing fighting in Bosnia had moved into his deserted home, and refused to leave.
Officials agreed he was entitled to have his home back under Croatian law but until they could find another home for the current occupants, he would have to find somewhere else. ...
Monday 22nd March 2007
A Serb man who lived in a tree in his garden for two years after squatters stole his home has finally come down.
A court has ruled Stevan Graovac can move back into his home which he fled in 1995 because of the war.
As he came down from his tree house for the last time, Mr Graovac said: "I'm happy it's all over. I thought I would have to live in a tree for the rest of my life. But I will keep the tree house as it is to show my children."
Stevan Graovac left his home in Smilcic, near the Adriatic port of Zadar, and moved to America but when he returned, a decade later, he found someone else living there.
A Croatian family fleeing fighting in Bosnia had moved into his deserted home, and refused to leave.
Officials agreed he was entitled to have his home back under Croatian law but until they could find another home for the current occupants, he would have to find somewhere else. ...
Man loses wife at poker
A Russian man lost his wife in a game of cards after putting her up as a stake instead of cash.
Andrei Karpov, from Murmansk, had run out of money in a game of poker and offered his opponent his wife instead of cash to stay in the game.
When he lost the game and his opponent Sergey Brodov turned up to claim his winnings his wife Tatiana was so angry she decided to divorce her husband and started a relationship with Brodov.
She has since married Brodov, and said she does not regret leaving her first husband. ...
A Russian man lost his wife in a game of cards after putting her up as a stake instead of cash.
Andrei Karpov, from Murmansk, had run out of money in a game of poker and offered his opponent his wife instead of cash to stay in the game.
When he lost the game and his opponent Sergey Brodov turned up to claim his winnings his wife Tatiana was so angry she decided to divorce her husband and started a relationship with Brodov.
She has since married Brodov, and said she does not regret leaving her first husband. ...
Housewife convicted of frying husband
March 24, 2007
By STAN LEHMAN
SAO PAULO, Brazil (AP) -- A Brazilian housewife was convicted and sentenced to 19 years in prison Friday for killing her husband, chopping his body into small pieces and frying it. Rosanita Nery dos Santos, 52, drugged her husband in his sleep, then stabbed him to death two years ago in Salvador, about 900 miles northeast of Sao Paulo, said police spokesman Idmar Bonfim.
She then hacked Jose Raimundo Soares dos Santos' body into more than 100 pieces, which she boiled and fried before hiding in plastic bags beneath a staircase in her house, Bonfim said. He said police discovered the body parts after receiving an anonymous phone call.
Bonfim said the killing was either part of a black magic ritual or an attempt by the wife to collect life insurance worth about $34,000.
Citing testimony from the woman's relatives, he said she may also have committed the crime "to avenge many years of humiliation from her husband." He did not provide further details. ...
March 24, 2007
By STAN LEHMAN
SAO PAULO, Brazil (AP) -- A Brazilian housewife was convicted and sentenced to 19 years in prison Friday for killing her husband, chopping his body into small pieces and frying it. Rosanita Nery dos Santos, 52, drugged her husband in his sleep, then stabbed him to death two years ago in Salvador, about 900 miles northeast of Sao Paulo, said police spokesman Idmar Bonfim.
She then hacked Jose Raimundo Soares dos Santos' body into more than 100 pieces, which she boiled and fried before hiding in plastic bags beneath a staircase in her house, Bonfim said. He said police discovered the body parts after receiving an anonymous phone call.
Bonfim said the killing was either part of a black magic ritual or an attempt by the wife to collect life insurance worth about $34,000.
Citing testimony from the woman's relatives, he said she may also have committed the crime "to avenge many years of humiliation from her husband." He did not provide further details. ...
Man, 78, charged with ax attack on wife
Friday, March 23, 2007
SANTA ANA, Calif. (AP) -- Police have charged an elderly man with attempted murder after he allegedly attacked his wife with an ax as she prayed. Abdel Herbawi, 78, is being held at Orange County Jail on $1 million bail. If convicted of the charges that include torture, domestic battery and aggravated assault, he could face life in prison, Deputy District Attorney Dawn Vargas said.
Herbawi's 68-year-old wife, who name was withheld, was treated at a local hospital for multiple stab wounds, a severed finger and a fractured skull. ...
Friday, March 23, 2007
SANTA ANA, Calif. (AP) -- Police have charged an elderly man with attempted murder after he allegedly attacked his wife with an ax as she prayed. Abdel Herbawi, 78, is being held at Orange County Jail on $1 million bail. If convicted of the charges that include torture, domestic battery and aggravated assault, he could face life in prison, Deputy District Attorney Dawn Vargas said.
Herbawi's 68-year-old wife, who name was withheld, was treated at a local hospital for multiple stab wounds, a severed finger and a fractured skull. ...
Rat Poison Found in Tainted Pet Food
By KATIE ZEZIMA
Published: March 23, 2007
A toxic chemical used in some countries as a rat poison has been found in tainted pet food that has been linked to the deaths of at least 14 pets, the New York State Departmention [sic] Agriculture announced today.
The chemical, identified in samples of pet food tested at Cornell University, is aminopterin, a derivative of folic acid, the department said. The substance is not approved for use in the United States. ...
... Spokeswomen for the department and the university would not comment on how aminopterin may have gotten into the pet food.
The discovery comes nearly a week after Menu Foods, a pet food manufacturer based in Streetsville, Ontario, recalled more than 60 million cans and pouches of wet pet food sold under a host of brand names because of reports that the food had made animals ill.
The reports from pet owners began to reach the company Feb. 20, and the company started testing animals Feb. 27, according to the Food and Drug Administration, which has been investigating the tainted food for the past week.
The agency said it was focusing on wheat gluten, a filler ingredient that gives the "cuts and gravy" style of wet dog food, the kind that was recalled, its consistency. Menu Foods has said that the reports of pet illnesses started after its plants in Kansas and New Jersey began using gluten from a new supplier. ...
... Aminopterin, which has also been studied as a chemotherapy drug for treating leukemia and other cancers, is not used as a rodenticide in the United States because exposure to it is associated with serious birth defects. It is known to cause kidney failure in dogs and cats.
While fewer than 20 cases related to the recalled food have so far been confirmed, thousands of people around the country say their pets were stricken with kidney failure, fatally in many cases, after eating the food. ...
Also available at the Washington Post
By KATIE ZEZIMA
Published: March 23, 2007
A toxic chemical used in some countries as a rat poison has been found in tainted pet food that has been linked to the deaths of at least 14 pets, the New York State Departmention [sic] Agriculture announced today.
The chemical, identified in samples of pet food tested at Cornell University, is aminopterin, a derivative of folic acid, the department said. The substance is not approved for use in the United States. ...
... Spokeswomen for the department and the university would not comment on how aminopterin may have gotten into the pet food.
The discovery comes nearly a week after Menu Foods, a pet food manufacturer based in Streetsville, Ontario, recalled more than 60 million cans and pouches of wet pet food sold under a host of brand names because of reports that the food had made animals ill.
The reports from pet owners began to reach the company Feb. 20, and the company started testing animals Feb. 27, according to the Food and Drug Administration, which has been investigating the tainted food for the past week.
The agency said it was focusing on wheat gluten, a filler ingredient that gives the "cuts and gravy" style of wet dog food, the kind that was recalled, its consistency. Menu Foods has said that the reports of pet illnesses started after its plants in Kansas and New Jersey began using gluten from a new supplier. ...
... Aminopterin, which has also been studied as a chemotherapy drug for treating leukemia and other cancers, is not used as a rodenticide in the United States because exposure to it is associated with serious birth defects. It is known to cause kidney failure in dogs and cats.
While fewer than 20 cases related to the recalled food have so far been confirmed, thousands of people around the country say their pets were stricken with kidney failure, fatally in many cases, after eating the food. ...
Also available at the Washington Post
Man dies after being pricked by crab he was preparing for dinner
dpa German Press Agency
Published: Wednesday March 21, 2007
Singapore- A man pricked by a live crab he was preparing for dinner died 48 hours later in a rare case of flesh-eating bacteria infection from seafood, a news report said Thursday.
Tan Boon Hock, 83, put a bandage on the small cut but began vomiting and suffering diarrhoea hours later. He was rushed to the Accident and Emergency Department of the National University Hospital.
"The doctors told us that he had been infected by a rare flesh-eating bacteria called Vibrio, and ... it was most likely that the crab spread the bacteria to him," The Straits Times quoted son Tan Aik Cheng as saying.
In a bid to prevent the virulent bacteria from spreading throughout his body, doctors amputated the patient's arm, but it was too late.
"The doctors called me on the morning of February 24 to tell me that my father had been given the maximum dosage of antibiotics, but he was not getting any better," Tan told the newspaper.
His father died that day, 48 hours after he was infected. ...
... Cooking destroys the bacteria, making the seafood safe for consumption.
Doctors advised people preparing meals to use tongs or gloves when handling live crabs....
Many thanks to dear Edosan
dpa German Press Agency
Published: Wednesday March 21, 2007
Singapore- A man pricked by a live crab he was preparing for dinner died 48 hours later in a rare case of flesh-eating bacteria infection from seafood, a news report said Thursday.
Tan Boon Hock, 83, put a bandage on the small cut but began vomiting and suffering diarrhoea hours later. He was rushed to the Accident and Emergency Department of the National University Hospital.
"The doctors told us that he had been infected by a rare flesh-eating bacteria called Vibrio, and ... it was most likely that the crab spread the bacteria to him," The Straits Times quoted son Tan Aik Cheng as saying.
In a bid to prevent the virulent bacteria from spreading throughout his body, doctors amputated the patient's arm, but it was too late.
"The doctors called me on the morning of February 24 to tell me that my father had been given the maximum dosage of antibiotics, but he was not getting any better," Tan told the newspaper.
His father died that day, 48 hours after he was infected. ...
... Cooking destroys the bacteria, making the seafood safe for consumption.
Doctors advised people preparing meals to use tongs or gloves when handling live crabs....
Many thanks to dear Edosan
Iran captures British forces in Iraqi waters
Fri 23 Mar 2007
WILL SPRINGER
FIFTEEN British Armed Forces personnel were taken into custody by the Iranian military within Iraqi waters, the Ministry of Defence said today.
The Ministry said members of the Royal Navy and Royal Marines assigned to the frigate HMS Cornwall were conducting "routine boarding operations of merchant shipping in Iraqi territorial waters" when the 15 personnel were stopped by Iranian naval vessels and taken into custody.
"The boarding party had completed a successful inspection of a merchant ship when they and their two boats were surrounded and escorted by Iranian vessels into Iranian territorial waters," the Ministry said in a statement.
The incident occurred at 10.30am local time (7.30am GMT), the Ministry said. It is believed to have taken place in disputed waters near the mouth of the Shatt al-Arab waterway that divides Iraq from Iran. A 1975 treaty gave the waters to Iraq, however Iran is said to dispute the jurisdiction.
The British forces are reported safe but their exact whereabouts remain unknown. Britain is demanding their immediate release.
Iran's ambassador to the UK was summoned this morning to the Foreign Office in London, the Ministry said. There was no immediate comment from Iranian officials, and Iran is in the midst of its New Year holiday when most government offices are shut. ...
How handy!
Psycho bastards...
Fri 23 Mar 2007
WILL SPRINGER
FIFTEEN British Armed Forces personnel were taken into custody by the Iranian military within Iraqi waters, the Ministry of Defence said today.
The Ministry said members of the Royal Navy and Royal Marines assigned to the frigate HMS Cornwall were conducting "routine boarding operations of merchant shipping in Iraqi territorial waters" when the 15 personnel were stopped by Iranian naval vessels and taken into custody.
"The boarding party had completed a successful inspection of a merchant ship when they and their two boats were surrounded and escorted by Iranian vessels into Iranian territorial waters," the Ministry said in a statement.
The incident occurred at 10.30am local time (7.30am GMT), the Ministry said. It is believed to have taken place in disputed waters near the mouth of the Shatt al-Arab waterway that divides Iraq from Iran. A 1975 treaty gave the waters to Iraq, however Iran is said to dispute the jurisdiction.
The British forces are reported safe but their exact whereabouts remain unknown. Britain is demanding their immediate release.
Iran's ambassador to the UK was summoned this morning to the Foreign Office in London, the Ministry said. There was no immediate comment from Iranian officials, and Iran is in the midst of its New Year holiday when most government offices are shut. ...
How handy!
Psycho bastards...
This site is available!
Dad Says 2-Year-Old Son Shot Him in Arm
Wednesday, March 21, 2007
MINNEAPOLIS (AP) -- Minneapolis police are trying to find out how a 2-year-old boy allegedly ended up with a gun and shot his father. The 24-year-old man walked into Abbott Northwestern Hospital last Saturday with a gunshot wound to his arm. The man told police that his 2-year-old son had taken the gun from his mother's purse and fired it at him. ...
... Huffman said the incident underscores the importance of safety when a gun is in a household. "If you keep a firearm, keep it locked up," she said.
Dad Says 2-Year-Old Son Shot Him in Arm
Wednesday, March 21, 2007
MINNEAPOLIS (AP) -- Minneapolis police are trying to find out how a 2-year-old boy allegedly ended up with a gun and shot his father. The 24-year-old man walked into Abbott Northwestern Hospital last Saturday with a gunshot wound to his arm. The man told police that his 2-year-old son had taken the gun from his mother's purse and fired it at him. ...
... Huffman said the incident underscores the importance of safety when a gun is in a household. "If you keep a firearm, keep it locked up," she said.
This site is available!
Pentagon Is Probing Veterans Home
Increased Deaths, Grim Conditions Reported by GAO
By Steve Vogel and Michael E. Ruane
Washington Post Staff Writers
Thursday, March 22, 2007; Page A01
Reports of a rising death rate and rooms spattered with blood, urine and feces at the Armed Forces Retirement Home prompted the Pentagon yesterday to begin investigating conditions at the veterans facility in Northwest Washington.
The Government Accountability Office warned the Pentagon this week that residents of the home "may be at risk" in light of allegations of severe health-care problems. Residents have been admitted to Walter Reed Army Medical Center with "the most serious type of pressure sores" and, in one case, with maggots in a wound, according to a GAO letter sent to the Defense Department. ...
Pentagon Is Probing Veterans Home
Increased Deaths, Grim Conditions Reported by GAO
By Steve Vogel and Michael E. Ruane
Washington Post Staff Writers
Thursday, March 22, 2007; Page A01
Reports of a rising death rate and rooms spattered with blood, urine and feces at the Armed Forces Retirement Home prompted the Pentagon yesterday to begin investigating conditions at the veterans facility in Northwest Washington.
The Government Accountability Office warned the Pentagon this week that residents of the home "may be at risk" in light of allegations of severe health-care problems. Residents have been admitted to Walter Reed Army Medical Center with "the most serious type of pressure sores" and, in one case, with maggots in a wound, according to a GAO letter sent to the Defense Department. ...
FBI Violations May Number 3,000, Official Says
By R. Jeffrey Smith
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, March 21, 2007
The Justice Department's inspector general told a committee of angry House members yesterday that the FBI may have violated the law or government policies as many as 3,000 times since 2003 as agents secretly collected the telephone, bank and credit card records of U.S. citizens and foreign nationals residing here.
Inspector General Glenn A. Fine said that according to the FBI's own estimate, as many as 600 of these violations could be "cases of serious misconduct" involving the improper use of "national security letters" to compel telephone companies, banks and credit institutions to produce records. ...
Many thanks to dear Leiaxe
By R. Jeffrey Smith
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, March 21, 2007
The Justice Department's inspector general told a committee of angry House members yesterday that the FBI may have violated the law or government policies as many as 3,000 times since 2003 as agents secretly collected the telephone, bank and credit card records of U.S. citizens and foreign nationals residing here.
Inspector General Glenn A. Fine said that according to the FBI's own estimate, as many as 600 of these violations could be "cases of serious misconduct" involving the improper use of "national security letters" to compel telephone companies, banks and credit institutions to produce records. ...
Many thanks to dear Leiaxe
Corpse may be linked to drug cash
Roommate kept death quiet for money, cops say
BY ZACHARY GORCHOW
FREE PRESS STAFF WRITER
March 9, 2007
Jon Thomas sat in his Canton Township apartment Thursday appalled that one of his neighbors had kept her dead roommate's body inside her apartment for three weeks so, police say, she could scam the dead woman's father out of money to pay for her drug habit.
"What I don't understand is how you could live in that apartment for three weeks with a decomposing body," said Thomas, 19.
Canton police said the roommate did not report the death of Ashley Ann Pierce, 19, so she could impersonate Pierce over the phone to Pierce's father and request money, which he sent.
"This girl took advantage of the situation to get money from the father," Canton Police Sgt. Rick Pomorski said.
Thomas said the two women were reclusive. He said he tried to offer a friendly greeting to the roommate shortly after they moved in about two months ago but got a dirty look he said reeked of "who the hell are you?"
After receiving an anonymous tip Tuesday night, police went to the Heathmoore Apartments near Ford and Haggerty roads about 11:30 p.m. and found Pierce's 28-year-old roommate continuing to live in the dwelling with Pierce's body on the floor.
They also found a small quantity of suspected heroin, police said. ...
Roommate kept death quiet for money, cops say
BY ZACHARY GORCHOW
FREE PRESS STAFF WRITER
March 9, 2007
Jon Thomas sat in his Canton Township apartment Thursday appalled that one of his neighbors had kept her dead roommate's body inside her apartment for three weeks so, police say, she could scam the dead woman's father out of money to pay for her drug habit.
"What I don't understand is how you could live in that apartment for three weeks with a decomposing body," said Thomas, 19.
Canton police said the roommate did not report the death of Ashley Ann Pierce, 19, so she could impersonate Pierce over the phone to Pierce's father and request money, which he sent.
"This girl took advantage of the situation to get money from the father," Canton Police Sgt. Rick Pomorski said.
Thomas said the two women were reclusive. He said he tried to offer a friendly greeting to the roommate shortly after they moved in about two months ago but got a dirty look he said reeked of "who the hell are you?"
After receiving an anonymous tip Tuesday night, police went to the Heathmoore Apartments near Ford and Haggerty roads about 11:30 p.m. and found Pierce's 28-year-old roommate continuing to live in the dwelling with Pierce's body on the floor.
They also found a small quantity of suspected heroin, police said. ...
Canton PD: Woman Kept Roommate's Corpse to Get Money
March 8, 2007
CANTON TOWNSHIP, Mich. (AP) -- A woman kept the body of her roommate in their apartment for three weeks so she could get money from her dead roommate's parents, police said.
Drugs could have been a factor in the death of Ashley Ann Pierce, according to the Wayne County medical examiner's office and information police obtained from Pierce's family and witnesses. Foul play doesn't appear to be involved in the 19-year-old's death, but autopsy results likely will be completed next week, Canton Township police Sgt. Rick Pomorski told the Detroit Free Press in a story published on its Web site Thursday.
Pomorski said the roommate pretended to be Pierce so she could get money from Pierce's father. Money was sent, but Pomorski declined to say how much.
Police received an anonymous tip Tuesday night and found Pierce's body covered by items of clothing on the living-room floor of the apartment in Canton Township, west of Detroit. ...
March 8, 2007
CANTON TOWNSHIP, Mich. (AP) -- A woman kept the body of her roommate in their apartment for three weeks so she could get money from her dead roommate's parents, police said.
Drugs could have been a factor in the death of Ashley Ann Pierce, according to the Wayne County medical examiner's office and information police obtained from Pierce's family and witnesses. Foul play doesn't appear to be involved in the 19-year-old's death, but autopsy results likely will be completed next week, Canton Township police Sgt. Rick Pomorski told the Detroit Free Press in a story published on its Web site Thursday.
Pomorski said the roommate pretended to be Pierce so she could get money from Pierce's father. Money was sent, but Pomorski declined to say how much.
Police received an anonymous tip Tuesday night and found Pierce's body covered by items of clothing on the living-room floor of the apartment in Canton Township, west of Detroit. ...
This site is available!
Frequent Errors In FBI's Secret Records Requests
Audit Finds Possible Rule Violations
By John Solomon and Barton Gellman
Washington Post Staff Writers
Friday, March 9, 2007
A Justice Department investigation has found pervasive errors in the FBI's use of its power to secretly demand telephone, e-mail and financial records in national security cases, officials with access to the report said yesterday.
The inspector general's audit found 22 possible breaches of internal FBI and Justice Department regulations -- some of which were potential violations of law -- in a sampling of 293 "national security letters." The letters were used by the FBI to obtain the personal records of U.S. residents or visitors between 2003 and 2005. The FBI identified 26 potential violations in other cases. ...
Frequent Errors In FBI's Secret Records Requests
Audit Finds Possible Rule Violations
By John Solomon and Barton Gellman
Washington Post Staff Writers
Friday, March 9, 2007
A Justice Department investigation has found pervasive errors in the FBI's use of its power to secretly demand telephone, e-mail and financial records in national security cases, officials with access to the report said yesterday.
The inspector general's audit found 22 possible breaches of internal FBI and Justice Department regulations -- some of which were potential violations of law -- in a sampling of 293 "national security letters." The letters were used by the FBI to obtain the personal records of U.S. residents or visitors between 2003 and 2005. The FBI identified 26 potential violations in other cases. ...
Woman lived with corpse for three weeks, cops say
March 7, 2007
BY ZACHARY GORCHOW
FREE PRESS STAFF WRITER
Canton Township police are investigating what they are calling the suspicious death of a 19-year-old resident, whose roommate lived with her decomposing body for two to three weeks without reporting the death.
When police arrived at the house, the roommate opened the door and the officers were hit with the smell of a decomposing human body, said Canton police Sgt. Rick Pomorski.
Police are awaiting results of an autopsy, which likely will take place Thursday...
A lotta weird corpse stories lately, and not all of them celebrity-related.
March 7, 2007
BY ZACHARY GORCHOW
FREE PRESS STAFF WRITER
Canton Township police are investigating what they are calling the suspicious death of a 19-year-old resident, whose roommate lived with her decomposing body for two to three weeks without reporting the death.
When police arrived at the house, the roommate opened the door and the officers were hit with the smell of a decomposing human body, said Canton police Sgt. Rick Pomorski.
Police are awaiting results of an autopsy, which likely will take place Thursday...
A lotta weird corpse stories lately, and not all of them celebrity-related.
Memos Tell Officials How to Discuss Climate
By ANDREW C. REVKIN
Published: March 8, 2007
Internal memorandums circulated in the Alaskan division of the Federal Fish and Wildlife Service appear to require government biologists or other employees traveling in countries around the Arctic not to discuss climate change, polar bears or sea ice if they are not designated to do so.
Over the past week, biologists and wildlife officials received a cover note and two sample memorandums to be used as a guide in preparing travel requests. Under the heading "Foreign Travel -- New Requirement -- Please Review and Comply, Importance: High," the cover note said:
"Please be advised that all foreign travel requests (SF 1175 requests) and any future travel requests involving or potentially involving climate change, sea ice and/or polar bears will also require a memorandum from the regional director to the director indicating who'll be the official spokesman on the trip and the one responding to questions on these issues, particularly polar bears."
The sample memorandums, described as to be used in writing travel requests, indicate that the employee seeking permission to travel "understands the administration's position on climate change, polar bears, and sea ice and will not be speaking on or responding to these issues."
"This sure sounds like a Soviet-style directive to me," Ms. Williams said. ...
By ANDREW C. REVKIN
Published: March 8, 2007
Internal memorandums circulated in the Alaskan division of the Federal Fish and Wildlife Service appear to require government biologists or other employees traveling in countries around the Arctic not to discuss climate change, polar bears or sea ice if they are not designated to do so.
Over the past week, biologists and wildlife officials received a cover note and two sample memorandums to be used as a guide in preparing travel requests. Under the heading "Foreign Travel -- New Requirement -- Please Review and Comply, Importance: High," the cover note said:
"Please be advised that all foreign travel requests (SF 1175 requests) and any future travel requests involving or potentially involving climate change, sea ice and/or polar bears will also require a memorandum from the regional director to the director indicating who'll be the official spokesman on the trip and the one responding to questions on these issues, particularly polar bears."
The sample memorandums, described as to be used in writing travel requests, indicate that the employee seeking permission to travel "understands the administration's position on climate change, polar bears, and sea ice and will not be speaking on or responding to these issues."
"This sure sounds like a Soviet-style directive to me," Ms. Williams said. ...
Man wanted for trying to revive father's corpse
Mon Mar 5, 2007
KARACHI (Reuters) - Pakistani police are hunting a man who dug up his father's two-year old corpse and took it home in a hijacked ambulance to try to bring him back to life.
Abdul Rehman's family say he is mentally ill and has never been able to cope with his father's death, police said on Saturday.
"He dug up the corpse on Thursday night after he had hijacked an ambulance and its driver at gunpoint and took it to his home," Ghulam Murtaza, a duty officer at Ferozabad police station in the southern city of Karachi, told Reuters.
Police raided the house on Friday after a complaint from the trust that owned the ambulance and from Rehman's brother. ...
Mon Mar 5, 2007
KARACHI (Reuters) - Pakistani police are hunting a man who dug up his father's two-year old corpse and took it home in a hijacked ambulance to try to bring him back to life.
Abdul Rehman's family say he is mentally ill and has never been able to cope with his father's death, police said on Saturday.
"He dug up the corpse on Thursday night after he had hijacked an ambulance and its driver at gunpoint and took it to his home," Ghulam Murtaza, a duty officer at Ferozabad police station in the southern city of Karachi, told Reuters.
Police raided the house on Friday after a complaint from the trust that owned the ambulance and from Rehman's brother. ...
This site is available!
Lawmaker Looks Beyond Walter Reed Fix
By JOHN HEILPRIN
Monday, March 5, 2007
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Substandard living conditions found at the Army's flagship veterans hospital likely exist throughout the military health care system, the head of a House panel investigating Walter Reed Army Medical Center said Monday.
"We need a sustained focus here, and much more needs to be done," Rep. John Tierney said of a scandal enveloping Walter Reed. Charges of bureaucratic delays and poor treatment there have produced calls in Congress for quick reform.
Tierney said he is afraid "these problems go well beyond the walls of Walter Reed," adding that "as we send more and more troops into Iraq and Afghanistan, these problems are only going to get worse, not better."
A House Oversight and Government Reform subcommittee hearing Monday at the hospital brought a wide range of apologies from top-level Army officers and the Army's No. 2 civilian. "We have let some soldiers down," said Peter Geren, the undersecretary of the Army. ...
You let all our soldiers down, pal. Don't kid yrself.
Lawmaker Looks Beyond Walter Reed Fix
By JOHN HEILPRIN
Monday, March 5, 2007
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Substandard living conditions found at the Army's flagship veterans hospital likely exist throughout the military health care system, the head of a House panel investigating Walter Reed Army Medical Center said Monday.
"We need a sustained focus here, and much more needs to be done," Rep. John Tierney said of a scandal enveloping Walter Reed. Charges of bureaucratic delays and poor treatment there have produced calls in Congress for quick reform.
Tierney said he is afraid "these problems go well beyond the walls of Walter Reed," adding that "as we send more and more troops into Iraq and Afghanistan, these problems are only going to get worse, not better."
A House Oversight and Government Reform subcommittee hearing Monday at the hospital brought a wide range of apologies from top-level Army officers and the Army's No. 2 civilian. "We have let some soldiers down," said Peter Geren, the undersecretary of the Army. ...
You let all our soldiers down, pal. Don't kid yrself.
High Court Questions Challenge to Bush Faith-Based Initiative
By Greg Stohr
Feb. 28 (Bloomberg) -- U.S. Supreme Court justices questioned whether a group of taxpayers can sue to challenge President George W. Bush's efforts to help religious groups compete for federal social-service funding.
Hearing arguments in Washington today, several members of the court suggested the taxpayers shouldn't be able to challenge a series of conferences sponsored by the White House's Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives. The challengers say the sessions promoted religious organizations over secular ones, violating the U.S. Constitution.
"We would be supervising the White House and what it could say, who it could talk to," Justice Anthony Kennedy said. He said that type of oversight would be "quite intrusive." ...
Aren't warrantless wiretaps and reading folks' email "quite intrusive," you muu altsaasan yanhan?!
Many thanks to dear Redway420
By Greg Stohr
Feb. 28 (Bloomberg) -- U.S. Supreme Court justices questioned whether a group of taxpayers can sue to challenge President George W. Bush's efforts to help religious groups compete for federal social-service funding.
Hearing arguments in Washington today, several members of the court suggested the taxpayers shouldn't be able to challenge a series of conferences sponsored by the White House's Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives. The challengers say the sessions promoted religious organizations over secular ones, violating the U.S. Constitution.
"We would be supervising the White House and what it could say, who it could talk to," Justice Anthony Kennedy said. He said that type of oversight would be "quite intrusive." ...
Aren't warrantless wiretaps and reading folks' email "quite intrusive," you muu altsaasan yanhan?!
Many thanks to dear Redway420
Girl lost in poker game pleads for help
Mon Feb 26, 2007
HYDERABAD (Reuters) - A teenage girl in southern Pakistan, whose late father lost her in a poker game when she was 2 years old, has asked authorities to save her from being handed over to a middle-aged relative.
Rasheeda, 17, said she has filed applications with the police and a local councillor asking them to prevent Lal Haider, 45, from taking her to his home.
Her mother, Nooran said her husband racked up a debt of 10,000 rupees ($151) to Haider playing cards.
"My husband didn't have money to pay, and instead he told Lal Haider that he could take Rasheeda when she grows up," she said.
Despite being paid his money last year, she said Haider still insisted the girl should be given to him because of tribal customs. ...
Absolutely fucking disgusting, no two ways about it.
Mon Feb 26, 2007
HYDERABAD (Reuters) - A teenage girl in southern Pakistan, whose late father lost her in a poker game when she was 2 years old, has asked authorities to save her from being handed over to a middle-aged relative.
Rasheeda, 17, said she has filed applications with the police and a local councillor asking them to prevent Lal Haider, 45, from taking her to his home.
Her mother, Nooran said her husband racked up a debt of 10,000 rupees ($151) to Haider playing cards.
"My husband didn't have money to pay, and instead he told Lal Haider that he could take Rasheeda when she grows up," she said.
Despite being paid his money last year, she said Haider still insisted the girl should be given to him because of tribal customs. ...
Absolutely fucking disgusting, no two ways about it.
Gay Marriage Critic Tried on Lewdness
Friday February 23, 2007
By JEFF LATZKE
OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) - The lawyer for a former Baptist church leader who had spoken out against homosexuality said Thursday the minister has a constitutional right to solicit sex from an undercover policeman.
The Rev. Lonnie W. Latham had supported a resolution calling on gays and lesbians to reject their "sinful, destructive lifestyle" before his Jan. 3, 2006, arrest outside the Habana Inn in Oklahoma City.
Authorities say he asked the undercover policeman to come up to his hotel for oral sex.
His attorney, Mack Martin, filed a motion to have the misdemeanor lewdness charge thrown out, saying the Supreme Court ruled in the 2003 decision Lawrence v. Texas that it was not illegal for consenting adults to engage in private homosexual acts.
"Now, my client's being prosecuted basically for having offered to engage in such an act, which basically makes it a crime to ask someone to do something that's legal," Martin said. ...
Yup. It's getting weirder in here allright.
Friday February 23, 2007
By JEFF LATZKE
OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) - The lawyer for a former Baptist church leader who had spoken out against homosexuality said Thursday the minister has a constitutional right to solicit sex from an undercover policeman.
The Rev. Lonnie W. Latham had supported a resolution calling on gays and lesbians to reject their "sinful, destructive lifestyle" before his Jan. 3, 2006, arrest outside the Habana Inn in Oklahoma City.
Authorities say he asked the undercover policeman to come up to his hotel for oral sex.
His attorney, Mack Martin, filed a motion to have the misdemeanor lewdness charge thrown out, saying the Supreme Court ruled in the 2003 decision Lawrence v. Texas that it was not illegal for consenting adults to engage in private homosexual acts.
"Now, my client's being prosecuted basically for having offered to engage in such an act, which basically makes it a crime to ask someone to do something that's legal," Martin said. ...
Yup. It's getting weirder in here allright.
This website is available!
Rats Run Wild in KFC-Taco Bell in N.Y.
By VERENA DOBNIK
Friday, February 23, 2007
NEW YORK (AP) -- New Yorkers are used to seeing rats where they catch their trains - not where they buy their burritos. About a dozen rats were having a grand party Friday in a locked KFC/Taco Bell restaurant, scampering around the floor, playing with each other and sniffing for food as they dashed around tables and children's high chairs.
Onlookers could not keep their eyes away from the jaw-dropping sight - a gang of urban vermin invading a restaurant that had been taking people's chicken and taco orders just a day earlier. Video of the rats was seen around the world, disseminated on TV stations and the Internet. ...
Rats Run Wild in KFC-Taco Bell in N.Y.
By VERENA DOBNIK
Friday, February 23, 2007
NEW YORK (AP) -- New Yorkers are used to seeing rats where they catch their trains - not where they buy their burritos. About a dozen rats were having a grand party Friday in a locked KFC/Taco Bell restaurant, scampering around the floor, playing with each other and sniffing for food as they dashed around tables and children's high chairs.
Onlookers could not keep their eyes away from the jaw-dropping sight - a gang of urban vermin invading a restaurant that had been taking people's chicken and taco orders just a day earlier. Video of the rats was seen around the world, disseminated on TV stations and the Internet. ...
This site is available!
Activists Blast Saudi Arabia Beheadings
By JAMES CALDERWOOD
Thursday, February 22, 2007
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) -- A human rights group said Thursday that Saudi Arabia violated international law when it ordered the beheadings earlier this week of four Sri Lankan robbers and then left their headless bodies on public display in the capital of Riyadh.
Human Rights Watch said the four men had no lawyers during their trial and sentencing, and were denied other basic legal rights. The group called on Saudi Arabia to halt all pending executions and retry those remaining on death row.
"The execution of these four migrants, who had been badly beaten and locked up for years without access to lawyers, is a travesty of justice," Sarah Leah Whitson, the Middle East and North Africa director at Human Rights Watch, said in a report. ...
Barbaric.
Activists Blast Saudi Arabia Beheadings
By JAMES CALDERWOOD
Thursday, February 22, 2007
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) -- A human rights group said Thursday that Saudi Arabia violated international law when it ordered the beheadings earlier this week of four Sri Lankan robbers and then left their headless bodies on public display in the capital of Riyadh.
Human Rights Watch said the four men had no lawyers during their trial and sentencing, and were denied other basic legal rights. The group called on Saudi Arabia to halt all pending executions and retry those remaining on death row.
"The execution of these four migrants, who had been badly beaten and locked up for years without access to lawyers, is a travesty of justice," Sarah Leah Whitson, the Middle East and North Africa director at Human Rights Watch, said in a report. ...
Barbaric.
Compassionate conservatism at its finest, girls and boys.
This site is available, btw.
This site is available, btw.
This site is functioning!
Neb. Woman Accused of Window Smashing
Tuesday, February 20, 2007
LINCOLN, Neb. (AP) -- Lincoln police said a 50-year-old woman was charged Tuesday with child abuse and criminal mischief after having her 12-year-old granddaughter drive her to her niece's house, where the grandma broke five windows.
A neighbor told police that Vickie Britton picked up a chair from the front yard of a duplex Monday night and used it to smash five windows, causing about $400 in damage, said Lincoln Police spokeswoman Katherine Finnell.
Finnell said police arrested Britton when she came back to the neighborhood more than an hour later. Police found Britton drunk and belligerent in the car with the 12-year-old behind the wheel, Finnell said. ...
Neb. Woman Accused of Window Smashing
Tuesday, February 20, 2007
LINCOLN, Neb. (AP) -- Lincoln police said a 50-year-old woman was charged Tuesday with child abuse and criminal mischief after having her 12-year-old granddaughter drive her to her niece's house, where the grandma broke five windows.
A neighbor told police that Vickie Britton picked up a chair from the front yard of a duplex Monday night and used it to smash five windows, causing about $400 in damage, said Lincoln Police spokeswoman Katherine Finnell.
Finnell said police arrested Britton when she came back to the neighborhood more than an hour later. Police found Britton drunk and belligerent in the car with the 12-year-old behind the wheel, Finnell said. ...
Islamic spies to snoop on lovers
Tue Feb 20, 2007
KUALA LUMPUR (Reuters) - A Malaysian state plans to recruit "spies" from the public to snoop on unmarried lovers and report them to Islamic religious authorities, a newspaper said Tuesday.
The Terengganu state government plans to enlist the part-time spies to look out for un-Islamic behavior, such as unmarried couples kissing or holding hands, the Star daily said.
"Some of these 'spies' could be waitresses or even janitors at hotels acting as auxiliary undercover agents for our religious department," the head of the state government's Islamic and welfare committee, Rosol Wahid, was quoted as saying.
"Accurate details are required for the enforcement officers to act, otherwise they could be pouncing on married couples." ...
Tue Feb 20, 2007
KUALA LUMPUR (Reuters) - A Malaysian state plans to recruit "spies" from the public to snoop on unmarried lovers and report them to Islamic religious authorities, a newspaper said Tuesday.
The Terengganu state government plans to enlist the part-time spies to look out for un-Islamic behavior, such as unmarried couples kissing or holding hands, the Star daily said.
"Some of these 'spies' could be waitresses or even janitors at hotels acting as auxiliary undercover agents for our religious department," the head of the state government's Islamic and welfare committee, Rosol Wahid, was quoted as saying.
"Accurate details are required for the enforcement officers to act, otherwise they could be pouncing on married couples." ...
Police Say Man Died Of Natural Causes
February 17, 2007
HAMPTON BAYS, N.Y. -- A man's body was found in his home more than a year after his death, with the television still on and his features preserved by dry conditions.
Vincenzo Ricardo, 70, apparently died of natural causes, according to Dr. Stuart Dawson, Suffolk County's deputy chief medical examiner. Southampton Town police found Ricardo's body this week when they responded to a report of burst pipes.
He was found in a chair in front of the television set, as though he were watching it. Ricardo's wife died years ago, and he lived alone.
The coroner said he hadn't been heard from in over a year, and nobody sounded the alarm. ...
February 17, 2007
HAMPTON BAYS, N.Y. -- A man's body was found in his home more than a year after his death, with the television still on and his features preserved by dry conditions.
Vincenzo Ricardo, 70, apparently died of natural causes, according to Dr. Stuart Dawson, Suffolk County's deputy chief medical examiner. Southampton Town police found Ricardo's body this week when they responded to a report of burst pipes.
He was found in a chair in front of the television set, as though he were watching it. Ricardo's wife died years ago, and he lived alone.
The coroner said he hadn't been heard from in over a year, and nobody sounded the alarm. ...
Australian Man Catches Shark With Bare Hands, Blames Feat on Vodka
Feb 15, 2007
SYDNEY, Australia
(AP)-- A man who caught a 4-foot shark with his bare hands off an Australian beach said on Friday he only tried the feat because he was drunk on vodka.
Phillip Kerkhof was fishing off a jetty at Louth Bay, a town on South Australia state's Eyre Peninsula 870 miles west of Sydney, when he spotted the bronze whaler shark swimming in the shallows, the Australian Broadcasting Corp. reported.
"I just snuck up behind him, and eventually I went for the big grab and I fluked it and got him," Kerkhof said.
"He was just thrashing around in the water ... starting to turn around and try to bite me and I thought 'well, it's amazing what vodka does'," Kerkhof said.
The shark bit a hole in Kerkhof's jeans, but he was uninjured.
"It's not something I'd recommend to do. When I sobered up I thought about it and I said, 'I'm a bit of an idiot for doing it'," Kerkhof said. ...
"A bit"? "A bit"?
Feb 15, 2007
SYDNEY, Australia
(AP)-- A man who caught a 4-foot shark with his bare hands off an Australian beach said on Friday he only tried the feat because he was drunk on vodka.
Phillip Kerkhof was fishing off a jetty at Louth Bay, a town on South Australia state's Eyre Peninsula 870 miles west of Sydney, when he spotted the bronze whaler shark swimming in the shallows, the Australian Broadcasting Corp. reported.
"I just snuck up behind him, and eventually I went for the big grab and I fluked it and got him," Kerkhof said.
"He was just thrashing around in the water ... starting to turn around and try to bite me and I thought 'well, it's amazing what vodka does'," Kerkhof said.
The shark bit a hole in Kerkhof's jeans, but he was uninjured.
"It's not something I'd recommend to do. When I sobered up I thought about it and I said, 'I'm a bit of an idiot for doing it'," Kerkhof said. ...
"A bit"? "A bit"?
Seven China players sent home amid brawl media storm
Fri Feb 9, 2007
By Nick Mulvenney
BEIJING (Reuters) - Seven China under-21 internationals have been sent home early from the Chelsea training centre as the mass brawl with Queens Park Rangers players dominated Chinese media on Friday.
Defender Zheng Tao ended up in hospital with a fractured jaw after Wednesday's melee, which caused the friendly between China's Olympic team for next year's Beijing Games and English second division club to be abandoned.
Despite apologies from the visiting party on Thursday, the majority view in the Chinese media was that both parties were to blame for the fight.
"Equal brutality," read the banner headline in the People's Daily, Beijing News had "Olympic team purging, Gao expelled", while the Beijing Times put the blame on the CFA with their "The father should be blamed for the son's fault".
Beijing Youth Daily's "Fight in Europe" is a play on words in Chinese.
Shanghai Shenhua striker Gao Lin, whose attack on an opponent at the west London club's training ground sparked off the trouble, will be joined on the plane by six other players from Shenhua, Dalian Shide and Shandong Luneng, Sina.com reported. ...
Some friendly, what what?
Fri Feb 9, 2007
By Nick Mulvenney
BEIJING (Reuters) - Seven China under-21 internationals have been sent home early from the Chelsea training centre as the mass brawl with Queens Park Rangers players dominated Chinese media on Friday.
Defender Zheng Tao ended up in hospital with a fractured jaw after Wednesday's melee, which caused the friendly between China's Olympic team for next year's Beijing Games and English second division club to be abandoned.
Despite apologies from the visiting party on Thursday, the majority view in the Chinese media was that both parties were to blame for the fight.
"Equal brutality," read the banner headline in the People's Daily, Beijing News had "Olympic team purging, Gao expelled", while the Beijing Times put the blame on the CFA with their "The father should be blamed for the son's fault".
Beijing Youth Daily's "Fight in Europe" is a play on words in Chinese.
Shanghai Shenhua striker Gao Lin, whose attack on an opponent at the west London club's training ground sparked off the trouble, will be joined on the plane by six other players from Shenhua, Dalian Shide and Shandong Luneng, Sina.com reported. ...
Some friendly, what what?
Man frees grandson from anaconda death grip
Fri Feb 9, 2007
SAO PAULO (Reuters) - A 66-year-old Brazilian man wrestled with a 15-foot (5-meter) anaconda for nearly half an hour to free his grandson from the snake's crushing death grip, a newspaper reported Friday.
Matheus Pereira de Araujo, 8, would likely be dead inside the belly of the 80 pound (35 kg) anaconda if his grandfather had not heard his screams for help, zoologists said.
Anacondas, the biggest snakes in the world, are nonvenomous and kill prey by asphyxiation.
Araujo was playing with friends near a creek on his grandfather's farm in Cosmorama, 310 miles west of Sao Paulo, Wednesday when the snake attacked him.
"It was very fast. I didn't have time to do anything," the Folha de S. Paulo newspaper quoted Araujo as saying by. "My grandfather is a hero -- I was so afraid of dying." ...
Fri Feb 9, 2007
SAO PAULO (Reuters) - A 66-year-old Brazilian man wrestled with a 15-foot (5-meter) anaconda for nearly half an hour to free his grandson from the snake's crushing death grip, a newspaper reported Friday.
Matheus Pereira de Araujo, 8, would likely be dead inside the belly of the 80 pound (35 kg) anaconda if his grandfather had not heard his screams for help, zoologists said.
Anacondas, the biggest snakes in the world, are nonvenomous and kill prey by asphyxiation.
Araujo was playing with friends near a creek on his grandfather's farm in Cosmorama, 310 miles west of Sao Paulo, Wednesday when the snake attacked him.
"It was very fast. I didn't have time to do anything," the Folha de S. Paulo newspaper quoted Araujo as saying by. "My grandfather is a hero -- I was so afraid of dying." ...
Man finds fingertip in chocolate bar in Germany
Wed Feb 7, 2007
FRANKFURT (Reuters) - A man in Germany was put off his Italian chocolate treat when he noticed that a bump in the bar was not a nut but part of a human finger.
"He found a fingertip, complete with fingernail, right in the middle of the bar," said a police spokesman in the town of Mainz, close to Frankfurt.
"I suppose it went unnoticed because there were nuts in the chocolate and it was hard to tell the difference," the police spokesman said, adding the fingertip was being examined by forensic experts.
The 28-year-old man was in shock when he took the bar to police after a family doctor confirmed its contents.
Police declined to name the brand of the chocolate.
Idiots - now no one in Krautistan will buy any Italian choccies!
Wed Feb 7, 2007
FRANKFURT (Reuters) - A man in Germany was put off his Italian chocolate treat when he noticed that a bump in the bar was not a nut but part of a human finger.
"He found a fingertip, complete with fingernail, right in the middle of the bar," said a police spokesman in the town of Mainz, close to Frankfurt.
"I suppose it went unnoticed because there were nuts in the chocolate and it was hard to tell the difference," the police spokesman said, adding the fingertip was being examined by forensic experts.
The 28-year-old man was in shock when he took the bar to police after a family doctor confirmed its contents.
Police declined to name the brand of the chocolate.
Idiots - now no one in Krautistan will buy any Italian choccies!
Fuck off! Not everyone who marries intends to breed, even if they are able. What about old folks who marry each other? Will they have to file a 'proof of procreation' thing?
This is the most stomach-turning/churning political item I've ever come across, and I lived through NIXON, kids.
This is the most stomach-turning/churning political item I've ever come across, and I lived through NIXON, kids.
By JO KNOWSLEY and ELEANOR MAYNE
3rd February 2007
A huge operation to kill 160,000 turkeys at a Bernard Matthews farm in Suffolk was underway after it was confirmed as having the first mass outbreak of the deadly H5N1 strain of bird flu in Britain.
The birds were being placed in crates, then loaded by forklift truck into mobile gas chambers.
Villagers in the picturesque village of Holton watched as the site was taped off by police who closed roads and enforced a three kilometre protection zone and a 10 kilometre surveillance zone to keep poultry away from any wild birds.
And one, Lillian Foreman, 43, voiced the fears of many of them by saying: "If turkeys started dying on the Tuesday why weren't the authorities notified then? They should have been notified sooner. I am worried for people who work at the factory. What will happen to them?"
Meanwhile the bodies of many of the 2,617 birds killed in the outbreak could be seen being shovelled into an open-topped container. They were then covered with a tarpaulin and taken away for incineration. Tests carried out by the Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs and the EC yesterday confirmed it was the H5N1 strain which killed the birds - the same strain which has led to the death of 164 people worldwide since 2003.
The first warning at the Bernard Matthews farm came last Tuesday when 55 turkey chicks died and 16 had to be culled because they were ill. The birds represented one per cent of the 7,000 birds under eight weeks old in the shed.
A further 186 died the following day. But it was on Thursday that the death rate escalated dramatically with 860 more fatalities, and a farm manager reported it to Defra.
Vets visited the farm and it was sealed off immediately while urgent tests began with samples of the dead birds - all under eight weeks old - being examined at the Veterinary Laboratories Agency in Weybridge, Surrey.
Another 1,500 birds died the next day. ...
3rd February 2007
A huge operation to kill 160,000 turkeys at a Bernard Matthews farm in Suffolk was underway after it was confirmed as having the first mass outbreak of the deadly H5N1 strain of bird flu in Britain.
The birds were being placed in crates, then loaded by forklift truck into mobile gas chambers.
Villagers in the picturesque village of Holton watched as the site was taped off by police who closed roads and enforced a three kilometre protection zone and a 10 kilometre surveillance zone to keep poultry away from any wild birds.
And one, Lillian Foreman, 43, voiced the fears of many of them by saying: "If turkeys started dying on the Tuesday why weren't the authorities notified then? They should have been notified sooner. I am worried for people who work at the factory. What will happen to them?"
Meanwhile the bodies of many of the 2,617 birds killed in the outbreak could be seen being shovelled into an open-topped container. They were then covered with a tarpaulin and taken away for incineration. Tests carried out by the Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs and the EC yesterday confirmed it was the H5N1 strain which killed the birds - the same strain which has led to the death of 164 people worldwide since 2003.
The first warning at the Bernard Matthews farm came last Tuesday when 55 turkey chicks died and 16 had to be culled because they were ill. The birds represented one per cent of the 7,000 birds under eight weeks old in the shed.
A further 186 died the following day. But it was on Thursday that the death rate escalated dramatically with 860 more fatalities, and a farm manager reported it to Defra.
Vets visited the farm and it was sealed off immediately while urgent tests began with samples of the dead birds - all under eight weeks old - being examined at the Veterinary Laboratories Agency in Weybridge, Surrey.
Another 1,500 birds died the next day. ...
Tests show bird flu outbreak is H5N1
Sat Feb 3, 2007
By Luke MacGregor
HOLTON (Reuters) - Official scrambled to contain its first outbreak of the highly pathogenic H5N1 strain of bird flu in domestic poultry on Saturday after the virus was found at a farm run by Europe's biggest turkey producer.
Some 2,500 turkeys have died since Thursday at the Bernard Matthews farm near Lowestoft. The Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) said all 159,000 birds there would be culled over the next few days.
"We're in new territory," National Farmers' Union Poultry Board chairman Charles Bourns told Reuters. "We've every confidence in Defra but, until we know how this disease arrived, this is a very apprehensive time for all poultry farmers."
Defra said the virus was the same pathogenic Asian strain found last month in Hungary where an outbreak among geese on a farm prompted the slaughter of thousands of birds.
That outbreak followed a relative lull in cases of H5N1 among European poultry since hundreds of turkeys died at a farm in east France about a year ago.
The strain tends to be transmitted to poultry by infected migrating wildfowl. ...
Sat Feb 3, 2007
By Luke MacGregor
HOLTON (Reuters) - Official scrambled to contain its first outbreak of the highly pathogenic H5N1 strain of bird flu in domestic poultry on Saturday after the virus was found at a farm run by Europe's biggest turkey producer.
Some 2,500 turkeys have died since Thursday at the Bernard Matthews farm near Lowestoft. The Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) said all 159,000 birds there would be culled over the next few days.
"We're in new territory," National Farmers' Union Poultry Board chairman Charles Bourns told Reuters. "We've every confidence in Defra but, until we know how this disease arrived, this is a very apprehensive time for all poultry farmers."
Defra said the virus was the same pathogenic Asian strain found last month in Hungary where an outbreak among geese on a farm prompted the slaughter of thousands of birds.
That outbreak followed a relative lull in cases of H5N1 among European poultry since hundreds of turkeys died at a farm in east France about a year ago.
The strain tends to be transmitted to poultry by infected migrating wildfowl. ...
Italian league halted by violence
2 February 2007
The Italian Football Federation (FIGC) has suspended all matches indefinitely after a policeman was killed at a Serie A match between Catania and Palermo.
Officer Filippo Raciti died as violence flared during the Sicilian derby.
The FIGC has called off all this weekend's professional and amateur games, and also cancelled Italy's friendly with Romania on Wednesday.
Commissioner Luca Pancalli said: "What we're witnessing has nothing to do with soccer, so Italian soccer is stopping."
According to reports, 38-year-old Raciti was struck in the face by a small explosive while attempting to deal with fighting outside the stadium.
He was taken to hospital but died from his injuries. ...
Uh, guys? Gimme a break, huh?
Many thanks to dear Pattenicus
2 February 2007
The Italian Football Federation (FIGC) has suspended all matches indefinitely after a policeman was killed at a Serie A match between Catania and Palermo.
Officer Filippo Raciti died as violence flared during the Sicilian derby.
The FIGC has called off all this weekend's professional and amateur games, and also cancelled Italy's friendly with Romania on Wednesday.
Commissioner Luca Pancalli said: "What we're witnessing has nothing to do with soccer, so Italian soccer is stopping."
According to reports, 38-year-old Raciti was struck in the face by a small explosive while attempting to deal with fighting outside the stadium.
He was taken to hospital but died from his injuries. ...
Uh, guys? Gimme a break, huh?
Many thanks to dear Pattenicus
Mystery illness kills 1,000 birds
Friday, 2 February 2007
Government vets are investigating an outbreak of an illness which has killed 1,000 turkeys on a farm in Suffolk.
The birds are being tested for a number of diseases, including avian flu, at a farm believed to be owned by Bernard Matthews at Holton near Halesworth.
But officials have stressed it would be premature to say they are looking at a suspected case of avian flu.
The results of preliminary tests by government vets should be known late on Friday night or on Saturday. ...
...reports from the farm were received late on Thursday night and the premises were immediately placed under restrictions.
"A full investigation began at 0900 GMT this (Friday) morning, with samples being sent to Veterinary Laboratories Agency, Weybridge, for testing,"...
...Sources at Defra have told the BBC that the alarm was raised by the farmer after he noticed "significant mortality" among his flock.
About 80% to 90% of the turkeys in the shed were showing signs of illness - going off their food and general malaise which are among the symptoms of avian flu.
However scientists said the flock had not died as quickly as they would have expected if the deaths were due to the illness. ...
Thanks to dear Pattenicus for worrying hell outta me
Friday, 2 February 2007
Government vets are investigating an outbreak of an illness which has killed 1,000 turkeys on a farm in Suffolk.
The birds are being tested for a number of diseases, including avian flu, at a farm believed to be owned by Bernard Matthews at Holton near Halesworth.
But officials have stressed it would be premature to say they are looking at a suspected case of avian flu.
The results of preliminary tests by government vets should be known late on Friday night or on Saturday. ...
...reports from the farm were received late on Thursday night and the premises were immediately placed under restrictions.
"A full investigation began at 0900 GMT this (Friday) morning, with samples being sent to Veterinary Laboratories Agency, Weybridge, for testing,"...
...Sources at Defra have told the BBC that the alarm was raised by the farmer after he noticed "significant mortality" among his flock.
About 80% to 90% of the turkeys in the shed were showing signs of illness - going off their food and general malaise which are among the symptoms of avian flu.
However scientists said the flock had not died as quickly as they would have expected if the deaths were due to the illness. ...
Thanks to dear Pattenicus for worrying hell outta me
Cops Punished For Pregnant Woman Arrest
Kansas City Officers Denied Request To Go To Hospital, She Had Miscarriage Following Day
Feb. 2, 2007
KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) - Two police officers were suspended indefinitely with pay Thursday as an investigation continued into their arrest of a pregnant woman who had a miscarriage a day after she was thrown in jail.
The suspensions came two days after police released a videotape showing Sofia Salva telling officers during her arrest last year that she was three months pregnant, bleeding and needed to go to a hospital. The tape shows officers ignoring her pleas.
After the ninth request, the tape shows, a female officer asked: "How is that my problem?" ...
Kansas City Officers Denied Request To Go To Hospital, She Had Miscarriage Following Day
Feb. 2, 2007
KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) - Two police officers were suspended indefinitely with pay Thursday as an investigation continued into their arrest of a pregnant woman who had a miscarriage a day after she was thrown in jail.
The suspensions came two days after police released a videotape showing Sofia Salva telling officers during her arrest last year that she was three months pregnant, bleeding and needed to go to a hospital. The tape shows officers ignoring her pleas.
After the ninth request, the tape shows, a female officer asked: "How is that my problem?" ...
Psychologist makes patient wear dog collar
Tue Jan 30, 2007
SYDNEY, Jan 30 (Reuters Life!) - An Australian psychologist charged with indecently assaulting a patient told a court on Tuesday that forcing his female patient to wear a dog collar and call him master was within a psychologist's ethical guidelines.
Psychologist Bruce Beaton, 64, pleaded not guilty in the Western Australia District Court to four charges of indecently assaulting a 22-year-old woman in 2005, local media reported.
Beaton was arrested when police, who had been secretly video recording the session with the woman, heard whipping sounds, reported Australian Associated Press from the court.
Beaton told the court he resorted to master-servant treatment with his bulimic patient because other methods had failed. He said he thought forcing the woman to wear a dog collar and call him master would build a more trusting relationship.
He said such treatment was allowed by the Australian Psychological Society. "It is right within the ethical guidelines," Beaton told the court.
"I am not saying it would be all right if I hit her. I did not hit her,"...
Tue Jan 30, 2007
SYDNEY, Jan 30 (Reuters Life!) - An Australian psychologist charged with indecently assaulting a patient told a court on Tuesday that forcing his female patient to wear a dog collar and call him master was within a psychologist's ethical guidelines.
Psychologist Bruce Beaton, 64, pleaded not guilty in the Western Australia District Court to four charges of indecently assaulting a 22-year-old woman in 2005, local media reported.
Beaton was arrested when police, who had been secretly video recording the session with the woman, heard whipping sounds, reported Australian Associated Press from the court.
Beaton told the court he resorted to master-servant treatment with his bulimic patient because other methods had failed. He said he thought forcing the woman to wear a dog collar and call him master would build a more trusting relationship.
He said such treatment was allowed by the Australian Psychological Society. "It is right within the ethical guidelines," Beaton told the court.
"I am not saying it would be all right if I hit her. I did not hit her,"...
This story is a perfect example of why I will never trust cops or religious freaks.
Another thought: how can someone be so 'religious' they refuse emergency birth control to a rape victim, but have no problem at all with keeping their fellow humans under lock and key? Wanna bet that so-called person can't spell 'hypocrisy'?
Another thought: how can someone be so 'religious' they refuse emergency birth control to a rape victim, but have no problem at all with keeping their fellow humans under lock and key? Wanna bet that so-called person can't spell 'hypocrisy'?
Barclays' millions help to prop up Mugabe regime
Three British firms provide key finance, allowing the Zimbabwe leader to defy world condemnation
Antony Barnett and Christopher Thompson
Sunday January 28, 2007
The Observer
Barclays bank is helping to bankroll President Robert Mugabe's regime in Zimbabwe, providing millions of pounds of support for his vilified land reforms, The Observer can reveal. Mugabe's opponents describe the bank's activities as a 'disgrace' and an 'insult' to the millions who have suffered human rights abuses.
Barclays is the most high-profile of three British-based financial institutions, which, in total, have provided more than $1bn in direct and indirect funding to Mugabe's administration. The other two companies are Standard Chartered Bank and the insurance firm Old Mutual. According to influential newsletter Africa Confidential, that first disclosed the Barclays' loans, the British organisations provide an economic lifeline keeping Mugabe's regime afloat.
Article continues
A spokesman for Zimbabwe's main opposition party, the Movement for Democratic Change, likened the bank's actions to its support of South Africa's apartheid regime and urged a boycott. ...
Wow - mighty ethical folks are runnin' Barclays!
Many thanks to dear Zilcho
Three British firms provide key finance, allowing the Zimbabwe leader to defy world condemnation
Antony Barnett and Christopher Thompson
Sunday January 28, 2007
The Observer
Barclays bank is helping to bankroll President Robert Mugabe's regime in Zimbabwe, providing millions of pounds of support for his vilified land reforms, The Observer can reveal. Mugabe's opponents describe the bank's activities as a 'disgrace' and an 'insult' to the millions who have suffered human rights abuses.
Barclays is the most high-profile of three British-based financial institutions, which, in total, have provided more than $1bn in direct and indirect funding to Mugabe's administration. The other two companies are Standard Chartered Bank and the insurance firm Old Mutual. According to influential newsletter Africa Confidential, that first disclosed the Barclays' loans, the British organisations provide an economic lifeline keeping Mugabe's regime afloat.
Article continues
A spokesman for Zimbabwe's main opposition party, the Movement for Democratic Change, likened the bank's actions to its support of South Africa's apartheid regime and urged a boycott. ...
Wow - mighty ethical folks are runnin' Barclays!
Many thanks to dear Zilcho
Government's proposed Olympic site is 'radioactive'
By MARK NICOL
27th January 2007
The Government's proposed site for the Olympic village which will house athletes at the 2012 London Games is contaminated by potentially dangerous levels of radioactive waste.
A report commissioned 14 years ago revealed that quantities of radium and uranium uncovered on land where the showpiece complex will be built are three times higher than recommended safety guidelines.
But the London Development Authority (LDA), which is preparing the land on which the venues will be built, received the document only last year.
The disclosure is a further embarrassment for Labour, which has been hit by a string of controversies since London won the bid in 2005 to host the Games.
Last year Jack Lemley, the US engineer hired to run the building scheme, quit after claiming the Government had ignored the high levels of radiation on the sites.
A report on the Clays Lane site in Stratford, carried out by engineers WS Atkins in 1993, stated: "During a search of archive information from the London boroughs of Hackney and Waltham Forest, records indicated that a quantity of radioactive material was deposited in the late Fifties in a disused cesspool." ...
By MARK NICOL
27th January 2007
The Government's proposed site for the Olympic village which will house athletes at the 2012 London Games is contaminated by potentially dangerous levels of radioactive waste.
A report commissioned 14 years ago revealed that quantities of radium and uranium uncovered on land where the showpiece complex will be built are three times higher than recommended safety guidelines.
But the London Development Authority (LDA), which is preparing the land on which the venues will be built, received the document only last year.
The disclosure is a further embarrassment for Labour, which has been hit by a string of controversies since London won the bid in 2005 to host the Games.
Last year Jack Lemley, the US engineer hired to run the building scheme, quit after claiming the Government had ignored the high levels of radiation on the sites.
A report on the Clays Lane site in Stratford, carried out by engineers WS Atkins in 1993, stated: "During a search of archive information from the London boroughs of Hackney and Waltham Forest, records indicated that a quantity of radioactive material was deposited in the late Fifties in a disused cesspool." ...
Australian diver says partly swallowed by shark
Tue Jan 23, 2007
By Michael Perry
SYDNEY (Reuters) - An Australian abalone diver told rescuers he was partly swallowed head-first by a Great White Shark on Tuesday but managed to fight his way free, suffering a broken nose and bite marks around the chest.
Diver Eric Nerhus, 41, was underwater with his 25-year-old son and other divers off Cape Howe, near Eden on Australia's southeast coast, when the 3 metre (10 foot) shark attacked.
"He stated that he was head-first into the shark," a spokeswoman for Snowy Hydro SouthCare rescue service told Reuters after airlifting the diver to hospital.
"When he came to us he was conscious and alert but had a broken nose and lacerations to both sides of his torso and chest -- bite marks all the way around," the spokeswoman said.
Nerhus told fellow divers he didn't see the shark coming as the water was so dirty that visibility was severely limited. ...
Tue Jan 23, 2007
By Michael Perry
SYDNEY (Reuters) - An Australian abalone diver told rescuers he was partly swallowed head-first by a Great White Shark on Tuesday but managed to fight his way free, suffering a broken nose and bite marks around the chest.
Diver Eric Nerhus, 41, was underwater with his 25-year-old son and other divers off Cape Howe, near Eden on Australia's southeast coast, when the 3 metre (10 foot) shark attacked.
"He stated that he was head-first into the shark," a spokeswoman for Snowy Hydro SouthCare rescue service told Reuters after airlifting the diver to hospital.
"When he came to us he was conscious and alert but had a broken nose and lacerations to both sides of his torso and chest -- bite marks all the way around," the spokeswoman said.
Nerhus told fellow divers he didn't see the shark coming as the water was so dirty that visibility was severely limited. ...
The abuses heaped on the sweet and biddable Tennessee Walker are absolutely mindblowing.
People who take proper care of their dogs (which includes training, duh) have dogs without 'issues.'
These morons don't need Jeebus, they need the Dog Whisperer!
These morons don't need Jeebus, they need the Dog Whisperer!
Some at Guantanamo Mark 5 Years in Limbo
Big Questions About Low-Profile Inmates
By Carol D. Leonnig and Julie Tate
Washington Post Staff Writers
Tuesday, January 16, 2007
Shackled at the wrists and blinded by special goggles, the first captives from the U.S. war in Afghanistan were ushered to makeshift prison cells thousands of miles from the battle, at the U.S. naval station at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, five years ago last week.
Gholam Ruhani was among them, the prison's third official inmate, flown in by cargo plane with the first group of 20 men. The 23-year-old Afghan shopkeeper, who spoke a little English, was seized near his hometown of Ghazni when he agreed to translate for a Taliban government official seeking a meeting with a U.S. soldier. ...
Big Questions About Low-Profile Inmates
By Carol D. Leonnig and Julie Tate
Washington Post Staff Writers
Tuesday, January 16, 2007
Shackled at the wrists and blinded by special goggles, the first captives from the U.S. war in Afghanistan were ushered to makeshift prison cells thousands of miles from the battle, at the U.S. naval station at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, five years ago last week.
Gholam Ruhani was among them, the prison's third official inmate, flown in by cargo plane with the first group of 20 men. The 23-year-old Afghan shopkeeper, who spoke a little English, was seized near his hometown of Ghazni when he agreed to translate for a Taliban government official seeking a meeting with a U.S. soldier. ...
Oregon Man Reunited With His Tubby Tabby
Thursday, January 11, 2007; 8:21 PM
PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) -- Here, KITTY KITTY KITTY. Goliath, a 20-pound stray whose girth got him stuck in a pet door while trying to plunder some dog food, is back with his owner.
His name isn't really Goliath, but it's close. It's Hercules, says owner Geoff Ernest, who was reunited with his tubby tabby Thursday at the Oregon Humane Society.
Gresham resident Jadwiga Drozdek found the feline stuck in the dog door of her home a few days ago, helped free him and gave him a plate of food on her patio.
Ernest said he had a house-sitter when he went to Seattle for a lung transplant six months ago, and Hercules departed.
While at the Humane Society, Hercules was diagnosed with Feline Immunodeficiency Virus, similar to HIV in humans.
The society says cats can live years with the virus and still make good pets, but owners should keep them indoors to keep it from spreading. ...
Thursday, January 11, 2007; 8:21 PM
PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) -- Here, KITTY KITTY KITTY. Goliath, a 20-pound stray whose girth got him stuck in a pet door while trying to plunder some dog food, is back with his owner.
His name isn't really Goliath, but it's close. It's Hercules, says owner Geoff Ernest, who was reunited with his tubby tabby Thursday at the Oregon Humane Society.
Gresham resident Jadwiga Drozdek found the feline stuck in the dog door of her home a few days ago, helped free him and gave him a plate of food on her patio.
Ernest said he had a house-sitter when he went to Seattle for a lung transplant six months ago, and Hercules departed.
While at the Humane Society, Hercules was diagnosed with Feline Immunodeficiency Virus, similar to HIV in humans.
The society says cats can live years with the virus and still make good pets, but owners should keep them indoors to keep it from spreading. ...
Couple confesses to killing noisy neighbors
Thu Jan 11, 2007
LECCO, Italy (Reuters) - An Italian couple have confessed to killing four neighbors including a toddler after a long feud over noise, a prosecutor said Thursday, resolving a gruesome murder case that has held the country in thrall.
Thirty-year-old Raffaella Castagna, her two-year-old son, her mother and a neighbor were found with their throats slit on December 11 in Castagna's apartment in the wealthy northern town of Erba. Their home had been set on fire. ...
...earlier this week police arrested Olindo Romano and Rosa Bazzi, an apparently respectable middle-aged couple with no criminal record living in the same building. They confessed in a 10-hour interrogation and Bazzi said she killed the two-year-old, investigators said. ...
Thu Jan 11, 2007
LECCO, Italy (Reuters) - An Italian couple have confessed to killing four neighbors including a toddler after a long feud over noise, a prosecutor said Thursday, resolving a gruesome murder case that has held the country in thrall.
Thirty-year-old Raffaella Castagna, her two-year-old son, her mother and a neighbor were found with their throats slit on December 11 in Castagna's apartment in the wealthy northern town of Erba. Their home had been set on fire. ...
...earlier this week police arrested Olindo Romano and Rosa Bazzi, an apparently respectable middle-aged couple with no criminal record living in the same building. They confessed in a 10-hour interrogation and Bazzi said she killed the two-year-old, investigators said. ...
January 11, 2007
Police letter alerted ministers to British offenders months ago
Stewart Tendler, Richard Ford and Philip Webster
- Three officers to handle 27,000 files
- Request for extra funds was refused
Two Home Office ministers were fighting for their careers last night after it emerged that senior police had alerted them to problems over Britons convicted abroad.
Chief constables wrote to Tony McNulty, the Police Minister, three months ago and the letter was then passed to Joan Ryan, a junior minister. The letter advised Mr McNulty that, given earlier problems over foreign national prisoners, it might be wise for the Home Secretary to be briefed on the issue -- a suggestion that should have rung alarm bells with the two ministers.
Ms Ryan signed a letter acknowledging receipt of the alert on December 6, the Association of Chief Police Officers confirmed last night.
The letter to Mr McNulty was sent in October, when the Home Office turned down a request from the association for cash to trace hundreds of dangerous convicted offenders.
The disclosure increases the pressure on John Reid and his ministerial team over the fiasco surrounding thousands of Britons convicted abroad whose records were left lying in the Home Office. ...
Police letter alerted ministers to British offenders months ago
Stewart Tendler, Richard Ford and Philip Webster
- Three officers to handle 27,000 files
- Request for extra funds was refused
Two Home Office ministers were fighting for their careers last night after it emerged that senior police had alerted them to problems over Britons convicted abroad.
Chief constables wrote to Tony McNulty, the Police Minister, three months ago and the letter was then passed to Joan Ryan, a junior minister. The letter advised Mr McNulty that, given earlier problems over foreign national prisoners, it might be wise for the Home Secretary to be briefed on the issue -- a suggestion that should have rung alarm bells with the two ministers.
Ms Ryan signed a letter acknowledging receipt of the alert on December 6, the Association of Chief Police Officers confirmed last night.
The letter to Mr McNulty was sent in October, when the Home Office turned down a request from the association for cash to trace hundreds of dangerous convicted offenders.
The disclosure increases the pressure on John Reid and his ministerial team over the fiasco surrounding thousands of Britons convicted abroad whose records were left lying in the Home Office. ...
Student faces child porn charges
By:Gregg M. Miliote, Herald News Staff Reporter
12/30/2006
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FALL RIVER - A college student who mistakenly submitted a compact disc loaded with child pornography images to his professor last week is now facing felony kiddie porn possession charges.
Andrew Erickson, 18, of 57 Lee's River Ave., Swansea, was arrested by Fall River and Swansea police late last week. He has pleaded not guilty to the charge and was released after a family member posted his $500 cash bail. ...
Why in hell did this bastard get out on $500 bail? WTF is wrong with that community?
By:Gregg M. Miliote, Herald News Staff Reporter
12/30/2006
email this storyEmail to a friendpost a commentPost a Commentprinter friendlyPrinter-friendly
FALL RIVER - A college student who mistakenly submitted a compact disc loaded with child pornography images to his professor last week is now facing felony kiddie porn possession charges.
Andrew Erickson, 18, of 57 Lee's River Ave., Swansea, was arrested by Fall River and Swansea police late last week. He has pleaded not guilty to the charge and was released after a family member posted his $500 cash bail. ...
Why in hell did this bastard get out on $500 bail? WTF is wrong with that community?
Friday, 15 December 2006
Family convicted for bully deaths
A teenage bully has been convicted of manslaughter after the parents of a girl she taunted in the playground were killed in an arson attack.
Natalie Connor, 18, and her parents Michael and Jane, both 40, plotted to pour petrol through the letterbox of Lucy Cochrane's house in Manchester.
Her father set the home alight, killing Maureen and Alex Cochrane and severely injuring their daughter.
Mrs Cochrane died in the fire and her husband, Alex, died in hospital. Lucy survived the arson attack despite suffering severe burns. She now lives with an uncle in London, the court heard.
Connor and his wife were both convicted of murder at Manchester Crown Court.
Their daughter was cleared of murder, but was also convicted of causing grievous bodily harm with intent and arson.
They will be sentenced at Manchester Crown Court on 20 December.
Family branded "evil scum"
Michael and Jane Connor were both cleared of the attempted murder of Lucy Cochrane - a special needs pupil at Newall Green High School, who was 16 at the time of the attack.
The deaths of Maureen Cochrane, 45, and her 54-year-old husband, Alex, were described in court as a "tragedy of epic proportions" motivated by "such a trivial and nonsensical cause".
The jury heard the Connors had carried out an 18-month "campaign of harassment" on the Cochranes. ...
Family convicted for bully deaths
A teenage bully has been convicted of manslaughter after the parents of a girl she taunted in the playground were killed in an arson attack.
Natalie Connor, 18, and her parents Michael and Jane, both 40, plotted to pour petrol through the letterbox of Lucy Cochrane's house in Manchester.
Her father set the home alight, killing Maureen and Alex Cochrane and severely injuring their daughter.
Mrs Cochrane died in the fire and her husband, Alex, died in hospital. Lucy survived the arson attack despite suffering severe burns. She now lives with an uncle in London, the court heard.
Connor and his wife were both convicted of murder at Manchester Crown Court.
Their daughter was cleared of murder, but was also convicted of causing grievous bodily harm with intent and arson.
They will be sentenced at Manchester Crown Court on 20 December.
Family branded "evil scum"
Michael and Jane Connor were both cleared of the attempted murder of Lucy Cochrane - a special needs pupil at Newall Green High School, who was 16 at the time of the attack.
The deaths of Maureen Cochrane, 45, and her 54-year-old husband, Alex, were described in court as a "tragedy of epic proportions" motivated by "such a trivial and nonsensical cause".
The jury heard the Connors had carried out an 18-month "campaign of harassment" on the Cochranes. ...
3 Million Bees Removed From Kitchen Of Couple's Apartment
UPDATED: 6:32 pm EST December 12, 2006
MIAMI BEACH, Fla. -- A south Florida couple was happy to not be sharing their home with millions of bees. Jesus Molina said he and his girlfriend were ready to buzz off after a swarm of bees invaded the kitchen wall of their Miami Beach apartment.
Molina said the bees were there for at least two and a half years. The couple finally had enough and called in the professionals.
"So we're trying to, like, get rid of most of them, but without professional help we can't. So now we almost ... They're biting me!'" Molina screamed, running from the home during an interview with reporters.
Beekeepers removed more than 3 million bees from the apartment. They also extracted nearly 60 pounds of honey.
Beekeepers said the insects got in through a small hole and built a home in the kitchen cabinet.
Many thanks to dear MSiegel
UPDATED: 6:32 pm EST December 12, 2006
MIAMI BEACH, Fla. -- A south Florida couple was happy to not be sharing their home with millions of bees. Jesus Molina said he and his girlfriend were ready to buzz off after a swarm of bees invaded the kitchen wall of their Miami Beach apartment.
Molina said the bees were there for at least two and a half years. The couple finally had enough and called in the professionals.
"So we're trying to, like, get rid of most of them, but without professional help we can't. So now we almost ... They're biting me!'" Molina screamed, running from the home during an interview with reporters.
Beekeepers removed more than 3 million bees from the apartment. They also extracted nearly 60 pounds of honey.
Beekeepers said the insects got in through a small hole and built a home in the kitchen cabinet.
Many thanks to dear MSiegel
Brooklyn sidewalk caves in, swallows woman
December 5, 2006
NEW YORK (AP) -- A woman out walking Monday was swallowed by the sidewalk when it caved in under her.
The woman, 64, fell into a sinkhole about 5 feet by 2 feet wide and about 5 feet deep in front of a house in the Canarsie section of Brooklyn.
Firefighters rushed to the woman's aid, using metal hooks to pull concrete chunks off her before strapping her to a stretcher and removing her from the hole.
The woman, who had just picked up her two grandchildren from a nearby dance school and gone to a grocery store, was taken to a hospital Monday evening and was expected to be OK, firefighters said....
December 5, 2006
NEW YORK (AP) -- A woman out walking Monday was swallowed by the sidewalk when it caved in under her.
The woman, 64, fell into a sinkhole about 5 feet by 2 feet wide and about 5 feet deep in front of a house in the Canarsie section of Brooklyn.
Firefighters rushed to the woman's aid, using metal hooks to pull concrete chunks off her before strapping her to a stretcher and removing her from the hole.
The woman, who had just picked up her two grandchildren from a nearby dance school and gone to a grocery store, was taken to a hospital Monday evening and was expected to be OK, firefighters said....
It could be Greater with a road right about here
Tue Dec 5, 2006
BEIJING (Reuters) - A Chinese company that had sought to build a highway through the Great Wall paid a fine for damaging the structure Sunday, days after new penalties were enacted to protect China's most famous tourist attraction, state media reported.
Hongji Landbridge Investment Development Inc. paid 500,000 yuan ($63,800) in penalties for deliberately damaging a section of the Great Wall in Inner Mongolia as part of an unauthorized road project, the official Xinhua news agency reported.
The company ignored warnings from officials and suggestions on how it could complete the project without damaging the wall, including digging tunnels and building overpasses, Xinhua cited unnamed cultural heritage officials as saying.
Instead, it demolished large sections of the Great Wall along with three ancient villages that were under government protection...
Tue Dec 5, 2006
BEIJING (Reuters) - A Chinese company that had sought to build a highway through the Great Wall paid a fine for damaging the structure Sunday, days after new penalties were enacted to protect China's most famous tourist attraction, state media reported.
Hongji Landbridge Investment Development Inc. paid 500,000 yuan ($63,800) in penalties for deliberately damaging a section of the Great Wall in Inner Mongolia as part of an unauthorized road project, the official Xinhua news agency reported.
The company ignored warnings from officials and suggestions on how it could complete the project without damaging the wall, including digging tunnels and building overpasses, Xinhua cited unnamed cultural heritage officials as saying.
Instead, it demolished large sections of the Great Wall along with three ancient villages that were under government protection...
And the bride wore a dirty black ..
Mon Dec 4, 2006
BEIJING (Reuters) - A Chinese coal mine has made the news for a reason other than the grim series of accidents nationwide -- it is claiming a world record for the highest number of simultaneous weddings held underground.
The Datong Coal Group in Shanxi province held weddings for 10 miners on Saturday 300 metres (1,000 ft) down the pitshaft, the People's Daily said on Monday.
"The weddings were unprecedented nationwide, even worldwide," mine manager Liu Suisheng told the newspaper. "We're going to apply to Guinness World Records."
China has the world's deadliest coal mining industry with fatal accidents occurring almost daily as safety regulations are ignored and production is pushed beyond safe limits in the rush for profit.
The weddings aim to "lessen the depressing impression" of the mining industry, Liu told the newspaper. ...
Mon Dec 4, 2006
BEIJING (Reuters) - A Chinese coal mine has made the news for a reason other than the grim series of accidents nationwide -- it is claiming a world record for the highest number of simultaneous weddings held underground.
The Datong Coal Group in Shanxi province held weddings for 10 miners on Saturday 300 metres (1,000 ft) down the pitshaft, the People's Daily said on Monday.
"The weddings were unprecedented nationwide, even worldwide," mine manager Liu Suisheng told the newspaper. "We're going to apply to Guinness World Records."
China has the world's deadliest coal mining industry with fatal accidents occurring almost daily as safety regulations are ignored and production is pushed beyond safe limits in the rush for profit.
The weddings aim to "lessen the depressing impression" of the mining industry, Liu told the newspaper. ...
Russian ex-PM has mystery illness
Thursday, 30 November 2006
Former Russian Prime Minister Yegor Gaidar is being treated in a Moscow hospital after falling violently ill on a trip to Ireland on 24 November.
Speculation is rife that he may have been poisoned. He fell ill a day after former Russian spy Alexander Litvinenko died of radiation poisoning in London.
Mr Gaidar's daughter Maria said "doctors incline towards the view that his symptoms... indicate poisoning".
Mr Gaidar was rushed to intensive care in Dublin, then flown to Moscow.
Mr Gaidar, 50, suffered from a nose bleed and vomiting before fainting in Dublin last Friday, during a visit to promote his book The Death of Empire: Lessons for Contemporary Russia. ...
Thursday, 30 November 2006
Former Russian Prime Minister Yegor Gaidar is being treated in a Moscow hospital after falling violently ill on a trip to Ireland on 24 November.
Speculation is rife that he may have been poisoned. He fell ill a day after former Russian spy Alexander Litvinenko died of radiation poisoning in London.
Mr Gaidar's daughter Maria said "doctors incline towards the view that his symptoms... indicate poisoning".
Mr Gaidar was rushed to intensive care in Dublin, then flown to Moscow.
Mr Gaidar, 50, suffered from a nose bleed and vomiting before fainting in Dublin last Friday, during a visit to promote his book The Death of Empire: Lessons for Contemporary Russia. ...
Informant in shooting says he never bought drugs at house
Says he was asked to lie
By SAEED AHMED
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Published on: 11/27/06
The confidential informant on whose word Atlanta police raided the house of an 88-year-old woman is now saying he never purchased drugs from her house and was told by police to lie and say he did.
Chief Richard Pennington, in a press conference Monday evening, said his department learned two days ago that the informant -- who has been used reliably in the past by the narcotics unit -- denied providing information to officers about a drug deal at 933 Neal Street in northwest Atlanta.
"The informant said he had no knowledge of going into that house and purchasing drugs," Pennington said. "We don't know if he's telling the truth."
The search warrant used by Atlanta police to raid the house says that a confidential informant had bought crack cocaine at the residence, using $50 in city funds, several hours before the raid.
In the document, officers said that the informant told them the house had surveillance cameras that the suspected drug dealer, called "Sam," monitored.
Pennington on Monday evening said the informant told the Internal Affairs Unit that he did not tell officers that the house had surveillance equipment, and that he was asked to lie.
The Chief still maintained that "Sam," the alleged drug dealer, "actually exists." ...
... Kathryn Johnston was killed Tuesday night when she fired at officers seeking to serve a warrant. They had broken down the front door and exchanged gunfire with Johnston.
Police later claimed a man named "Sam" had sold drugs from inside the house to an informant, prompting the officers to seek a "no-knock" warrant. Such warrants are frequently issued so police can get inside a home before suspects can destroy or flush drugs.
Johnston --- described by neighbors and family as a frightened woman who had burglar bars on her windows and door and rarely let friends and neighbors into her home --- had lived at the one-story brick home near the Georgia Dome for 17 years. ...
...The officers were not wearing uniforms but had on bulletproof vests with "Police" emblazoned across the front and back. And they identified themselves as they burst through the doors, police said. ...
... The three officers were released from the hospital the next day. They are on leave with pay. ...
Says he was asked to lie
By SAEED AHMED
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Published on: 11/27/06
The confidential informant on whose word Atlanta police raided the house of an 88-year-old woman is now saying he never purchased drugs from her house and was told by police to lie and say he did.
Chief Richard Pennington, in a press conference Monday evening, said his department learned two days ago that the informant -- who has been used reliably in the past by the narcotics unit -- denied providing information to officers about a drug deal at 933 Neal Street in northwest Atlanta.
"The informant said he had no knowledge of going into that house and purchasing drugs," Pennington said. "We don't know if he's telling the truth."
The search warrant used by Atlanta police to raid the house says that a confidential informant had bought crack cocaine at the residence, using $50 in city funds, several hours before the raid.
In the document, officers said that the informant told them the house had surveillance cameras that the suspected drug dealer, called "Sam," monitored.
Pennington on Monday evening said the informant told the Internal Affairs Unit that he did not tell officers that the house had surveillance equipment, and that he was asked to lie.
The Chief still maintained that "Sam," the alleged drug dealer, "actually exists." ...
... Kathryn Johnston was killed Tuesday night when she fired at officers seeking to serve a warrant. They had broken down the front door and exchanged gunfire with Johnston.
Police later claimed a man named "Sam" had sold drugs from inside the house to an informant, prompting the officers to seek a "no-knock" warrant. Such warrants are frequently issued so police can get inside a home before suspects can destroy or flush drugs.
Johnston --- described by neighbors and family as a frightened woman who had burglar bars on her windows and door and rarely let friends and neighbors into her home --- had lived at the one-story brick home near the Georgia Dome for 17 years. ...
...The officers were not wearing uniforms but had on bulletproof vests with "Police" emblazoned across the front and back. And they identified themselves as they burst through the doors, police said. ...
... The three officers were released from the hospital the next day. They are on leave with pay. ...
10 Dead in Mo. Group Home Fire
By MARCUS KABEL
Monday, November 27, 2006
ANDERSON, Mo. (AP) -- A fire gutted a group home for the mentally ill in southwest Missouri early Monday, killing 10 people and injuring 24, authorities said.
Firefighters brought the blaze at the Anderson Guest House under control just before daylight, but blackened cinderblock walls were all that remained standing.
The home had 32 residents and two employees inside when the fire was reported around 1 a.m., Highway Patrol spokesman Kent Casey said.
The dead ranged in age from early 20s to the elderly, he said. ...
We Yankistanis take such great care of our disabled, elderly and mentally ill. Our compassion, wisdom and preparation know no bounds.
By MARCUS KABEL
Monday, November 27, 2006
ANDERSON, Mo. (AP) -- A fire gutted a group home for the mentally ill in southwest Missouri early Monday, killing 10 people and injuring 24, authorities said.
Firefighters brought the blaze at the Anderson Guest House under control just before daylight, but blackened cinderblock walls were all that remained standing.
The home had 32 residents and two employees inside when the fire was reported around 1 a.m., Highway Patrol spokesman Kent Casey said.
The dead ranged in age from early 20s to the elderly, he said. ...
We Yankistanis take such great care of our disabled, elderly and mentally ill. Our compassion, wisdom and preparation know no bounds.
Canadian man on trial for putting baby in freezer
Fri Nov 24, 2006
OTTAWA (Reuters) - A Canadian man who could not figure out how to deal with his girlfriend's feverish 10-month-old daughter put the baby into a freezer to cool her down, a local newspaper reported on Friday.
Derrick Hardy faces charges of criminal negligence and assaulting the infant, who was rescued when her mother came home, the Charlottetown Guardian said.
The Canadian Broadcasting Corp. said the mother found the girl crammed into the freezer alongside ice cubes and hamburger meat. Hardy said he had left the door ajar but the mother said it had been closed when she returned.
He told a court in the eastern province of Prince Edward Island on Thursday the child had only been in the freezer for about 40 seconds.
Hardy, 21, who admitted to police that he had no real parenting skills to deal with a sick child [Ed. Note: Well, duh!]...
... A local doctor said the mother had described her baby as "crying, sobbing and terrified." The child spent several days in hospital to recover from first- and second-degree freezer burns on her head and torso. ...
Ladies, do the entire world a favo/ur: use effective birth control without exception if your taste in men is at all questionable.
Parents, do your children a favo/ur: don't let stupid gits babysit yr offspring.
Fri Nov 24, 2006
OTTAWA (Reuters) - A Canadian man who could not figure out how to deal with his girlfriend's feverish 10-month-old daughter put the baby into a freezer to cool her down, a local newspaper reported on Friday.
Derrick Hardy faces charges of criminal negligence and assaulting the infant, who was rescued when her mother came home, the Charlottetown Guardian said.
The Canadian Broadcasting Corp. said the mother found the girl crammed into the freezer alongside ice cubes and hamburger meat. Hardy said he had left the door ajar but the mother said it had been closed when she returned.
He told a court in the eastern province of Prince Edward Island on Thursday the child had only been in the freezer for about 40 seconds.
Hardy, 21, who admitted to police that he had no real parenting skills to deal with a sick child [Ed. Note: Well, duh!]...
... A local doctor said the mother had described her baby as "crying, sobbing and terrified." The child spent several days in hospital to recover from first- and second-degree freezer burns on her head and torso. ...
Ladies, do the entire world a favo/ur: use effective birth control without exception if your taste in men is at all questionable.
Parents, do your children a favo/ur: don't let stupid gits babysit yr offspring.
Woman, 92, Slain in Shootout With Police
Wednesday, November 22, 2006
ATLANTA (AP) -- The niece of a 92-year-old woman shot to death by police said her aunt likely had reason to shoot three narcotics investigators as they stormed her house.
Police insisted the officers did everything right before entering the home Tuesday evening, despite suggestions from the woman's neighbors and relatives that it was a case of mistaken identity.
The woman, Kathryn Johnston, was the only resident in the house at the time and had lived there for about 17 years, Assistant Chief Alan Dreher said. The officers had a legal warrant, "knocked and announced" before they forced open the door and were justified in shooting once fired upon, he said.
Sarah Dozier, the niece, told WAGA-TV that there were never drugs at the house.
"My aunt was in good health. I'm sure she panicked when they kicked that door down," Dozier said. "There was no reason they had to go in there and shoot her down like a dog."
As the plainclothes Atlanta police officers approached the house about 7 p.m., a woman inside started shooting, striking each of them, said Officer Joe Cobb, a police spokesman.
One was hit in the arm, another in a thigh and the third in a shoulder. The officers were taken to a hospital for treatment, and all three were conscious and alert, police said.
Rev. Markel Hutchins, a civil rights leader, said Johnston's family deserves an apology.
"Of the police brutality cases we've had, this is the most egregious because of the woman's age," Hutchins said.
Hutchins said he would try to meet with Atlanta Police Chief Richard Pennington and would also meet with lawyers.
Her family is owed plenty more than an apology, pal.
Wednesday, November 22, 2006
ATLANTA (AP) -- The niece of a 92-year-old woman shot to death by police said her aunt likely had reason to shoot three narcotics investigators as they stormed her house.
Police insisted the officers did everything right before entering the home Tuesday evening, despite suggestions from the woman's neighbors and relatives that it was a case of mistaken identity.
The woman, Kathryn Johnston, was the only resident in the house at the time and had lived there for about 17 years, Assistant Chief Alan Dreher said. The officers had a legal warrant, "knocked and announced" before they forced open the door and were justified in shooting once fired upon, he said.
Sarah Dozier, the niece, told WAGA-TV that there were never drugs at the house.
"My aunt was in good health. I'm sure she panicked when they kicked that door down," Dozier said. "There was no reason they had to go in there and shoot her down like a dog."
As the plainclothes Atlanta police officers approached the house about 7 p.m., a woman inside started shooting, striking each of them, said Officer Joe Cobb, a police spokesman.
One was hit in the arm, another in a thigh and the third in a shoulder. The officers were taken to a hospital for treatment, and all three were conscious and alert, police said.
Rev. Markel Hutchins, a civil rights leader, said Johnston's family deserves an apology.
"Of the police brutality cases we've had, this is the most egregious because of the woman's age," Hutchins said.
Hutchins said he would try to meet with Atlanta Police Chief Richard Pennington and would also meet with lawyers.
Her family is owed plenty more than an apology, pal.
Cop Shootout Kills Elderly Woman
Reported By: Duffie Dixon, Keith Whitney
11/22/2006
Three Atlanta narcotics officers were wounded in a Tuesday evening shootout with a 92-year-old woman in northwest Atlanta. She was shot and killed.
This was supposed to be the routine serving of a search warrant, but things went very wrong, very fast.
Once the gunfire ended, three APD narcotics officers had been shot: one with a graze-wound to the face, and another hit dead-on, center of mass in the bulletproof vest.
They were all transported to Grady Memorial Hospital with non-life threatening injuries.
A 92-year-old woman -- Kathryn Johnston -- lived in the home where the officers tried to execute the warrant. She was killed in the gun battle.
"The female victim shot and wounded all three of them (the officers)," said deputy police chief Allen Dreher. "The investigation is going to be ongoing -- I'd say it would be all wrapped up in a period of time, but as we have it, she opened fire on the officers. The officers returned fire, struck and killed her."
Johnston's relatives arrived at the scene of the shootout, distraught and upset. The warrant was served at Johnston's home at 933 Neal Street. The victim's family says they are convinced the police made a mistake and went to the wrong house.
"They done the wrong house," said Johnston's niece, Sarah Dozier. "And they killed her! This lady lived to be 92. She lived to be 92 and in good health. They went in there and she was scared to death."
According to family members, Johnston lived alone. Dozier says that Johnston did have a firearm. She says she took her aunt to get a permit for that firearm, for her own protection.
Community activist Markel Hutchins has said that he will be in contact with the family to provide support, and to talk to officials to try to find out why this happened.
With all the kiddy-fiddlers, rapists, and murderers in the world, these f*cking cops burst in on and kill a 92-year-old woman who was doubtless not the drug dealer for whom their dumb asses were looking.
Reported By: Duffie Dixon, Keith Whitney
11/22/2006
Three Atlanta narcotics officers were wounded in a Tuesday evening shootout with a 92-year-old woman in northwest Atlanta. She was shot and killed.
This was supposed to be the routine serving of a search warrant, but things went very wrong, very fast.
Once the gunfire ended, three APD narcotics officers had been shot: one with a graze-wound to the face, and another hit dead-on, center of mass in the bulletproof vest.
They were all transported to Grady Memorial Hospital with non-life threatening injuries.
A 92-year-old woman -- Kathryn Johnston -- lived in the home where the officers tried to execute the warrant. She was killed in the gun battle.
"The female victim shot and wounded all three of them (the officers)," said deputy police chief Allen Dreher. "The investigation is going to be ongoing -- I'd say it would be all wrapped up in a period of time, but as we have it, she opened fire on the officers. The officers returned fire, struck and killed her."
Johnston's relatives arrived at the scene of the shootout, distraught and upset. The warrant was served at Johnston's home at 933 Neal Street. The victim's family says they are convinced the police made a mistake and went to the wrong house.
"They done the wrong house," said Johnston's niece, Sarah Dozier. "And they killed her! This lady lived to be 92. She lived to be 92 and in good health. They went in there and she was scared to death."
According to family members, Johnston lived alone. Dozier says that Johnston did have a firearm. She says she took her aunt to get a permit for that firearm, for her own protection.
Community activist Markel Hutchins has said that he will be in contact with the family to provide support, and to talk to officials to try to find out why this happened.
With all the kiddy-fiddlers, rapists, and murderers in the world, these f*cking cops burst in on and kill a 92-year-old woman who was doubtless not the drug dealer for whom their dumb asses were looking.
7bn fusion pact aims to harness sun's power
By Steve Connor, Science Editor
Published: 22 November 2006
The dream of unlimited clean energy came a step closer yesterday with the signing of an international agreement to build the world's biggest nuclear fusion reactor which aims to harness the same energy that powers the Sun.
Unlimited, clean energy, huh?
Well, let's see.
The Sun is expected to be around for a few billion more years. What's wrong with solar power?
Wind blows everywhere, and isn't expected to stop anytime soon...especially near politicos' gatherings. What's wrong with wind power?
By Steve Connor, Science Editor
Published: 22 November 2006
The dream of unlimited clean energy came a step closer yesterday with the signing of an international agreement to build the world's biggest nuclear fusion reactor which aims to harness the same energy that powers the Sun.
Unlimited, clean energy, huh?
Well, let's see.
The Sun is expected to be around for a few billion more years. What's wrong with solar power?
Wind blows everywhere, and isn't expected to stop anytime soon...especially near politicos' gatherings. What's wrong with wind power?
November 21, 2006
Crash kills son; mom walks home
Woman was drinking before wreck, police say
By TRACY JOHNSON
A crash that went undiscovered for hours left a man dead and police puzzled over why his mother -- who'd allegedly been driving -- simply crawled out of the overturned car and walked home.
Debra Whalawitsa, a Snoqualmie city official, soon could face criminal charges for the Sunday-morning accident that threw her son, Calijah, 29, from her Ford Taurus.
Police say Whalawitsa left her son either dead or dying on the bank of the Snoqualmie River, walked a half-mile to her house and didn't go back to the crash site for at least seven hours.
There, police say, she acknowledged she was the driver and had been drinking at a wedding.
"She didn't give us any explanation about why she left the scene," State Patrol Trooper Jeff Merrill said. "She didn't call the police. She didn't call anybody. She just left."
Merrill said he'd never seen a similar situation and called it "absolutely unfathomable -- as a law-enforcement officer and a parent." ...
It's not unfathomable to a politician - seems they do shite like this all the time.
Crash kills son; mom walks home
Woman was drinking before wreck, police say
By TRACY JOHNSON
A crash that went undiscovered for hours left a man dead and police puzzled over why his mother -- who'd allegedly been driving -- simply crawled out of the overturned car and walked home.
Debra Whalawitsa, a Snoqualmie city official, soon could face criminal charges for the Sunday-morning accident that threw her son, Calijah, 29, from her Ford Taurus.
Police say Whalawitsa left her son either dead or dying on the bank of the Snoqualmie River, walked a half-mile to her house and didn't go back to the crash site for at least seven hours.
There, police say, she acknowledged she was the driver and had been drinking at a wedding.
"She didn't give us any explanation about why she left the scene," State Patrol Trooper Jeff Merrill said. "She didn't call the police. She didn't call anybody. She just left."
Merrill said he'd never seen a similar situation and called it "absolutely unfathomable -- as a law-enforcement officer and a parent." ...
It's not unfathomable to a politician - seems they do shite like this all the time.
October 2, 2006
Man questioned and misses flight for speaking Tamil
By BRAD WONG
A 32-year-old man speaking Tamil and some English about a sporting rivalry was questioned at Sea-Tac Airport and missed his flight Saturday because at least one person thought he was suspicious.
The Port of Seattle dispatched its police officers to investigate the case, which occurred Saturday around noon, said Bob Parker, airport spokesman. The Chicago man was preparing to board an American Airlines flight to Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport.
The man was speaking Tamil, a language largely used in India, Sri Lanka and Singapore, on his cell phone at the departure gate and on the aircraft. An off-duty airline employee heard the conversation and informed the flight crew.
The man also apparently said something in English about a sporting rivalry at his alma mater.
"It's a big misunderstanding," said Parker. "He had a perfectly innocent explanation that all added up." ...
... But Parker had no explanation as to why a man speaking Tamil, which is spoken worldwide, would be considered suspicious. The person who contacted airport officials could give an answer to that question, he added.
Parker said the man was cooperative and boarded a later flight to Texas. He told officials that he would not speak in a foreign language on his cell phone at an airport in the future.
God forbid anyone speak in a foreign language in an airport.
Man questioned and misses flight for speaking Tamil
By BRAD WONG
A 32-year-old man speaking Tamil and some English about a sporting rivalry was questioned at Sea-Tac Airport and missed his flight Saturday because at least one person thought he was suspicious.
The Port of Seattle dispatched its police officers to investigate the case, which occurred Saturday around noon, said Bob Parker, airport spokesman. The Chicago man was preparing to board an American Airlines flight to Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport.
The man was speaking Tamil, a language largely used in India, Sri Lanka and Singapore, on his cell phone at the departure gate and on the aircraft. An off-duty airline employee heard the conversation and informed the flight crew.
The man also apparently said something in English about a sporting rivalry at his alma mater.
"It's a big misunderstanding," said Parker. "He had a perfectly innocent explanation that all added up." ...
... But Parker had no explanation as to why a man speaking Tamil, which is spoken worldwide, would be considered suspicious. The person who contacted airport officials could give an answer to that question, he added.
Parker said the man was cooperative and boarded a later flight to Texas. He told officials that he would not speak in a foreign language on his cell phone at an airport in the future.
God forbid anyone speak in a foreign language in an airport.
Low-caste Indian woman sold to highest bidder
Sun Nov 19, 2006
MUMBAI (Reuters) - A low-caste woman, the president of a village council in southern India, was auctioned off to a high-caste landlord for $4,810 (£2,206), a report said on Sunday.
Winning the bid for the illiterate farm worker, Balamani Veeman, meant that the landlord could take commissions on the village contracts that only she could approve, the Indian Express newspaper said, quoting villagers who attended the auction.
Veeman had protested, "but the (village) elders did not listen", the paper quoted her husband as saying.
While there is no formal relationship between them, the fact that the woman is of low caste and the winning bidder a member of the upper-caste Thevar community means that she will agree to his demands on the question of commissions. ...
Sun Nov 19, 2006
MUMBAI (Reuters) - A low-caste woman, the president of a village council in southern India, was auctioned off to a high-caste landlord for $4,810 (£2,206), a report said on Sunday.
Winning the bid for the illiterate farm worker, Balamani Veeman, meant that the landlord could take commissions on the village contracts that only she could approve, the Indian Express newspaper said, quoting villagers who attended the auction.
Veeman had protested, "but the (village) elders did not listen", the paper quoted her husband as saying.
While there is no formal relationship between them, the fact that the woman is of low caste and the winning bidder a member of the upper-caste Thevar community means that she will agree to his demands on the question of commissions. ...
Shootout Wounds 3 in Mall's Food Court
By Clarence Williams and Martin Weil
Washington Post Staff Writers
Sunday, November 19, 2006
At least three people, including an off-duty Secret Service agent, were wounded last night in a gun battle that broke out amid panicked diners in the food court of the Annapolis mall, according to police and witnesses. ...
...According to preliminary accounts, as the agent entered the food court about 7:15 p.m., he saw one young man being attacked by a group of young men. The agent tried to intervene, and one member of the group drew a handgun and opened fire, wounding the agent.
The agent then shot the gunman, said Officer Sara Schriver, an Anne Arundel County police spokeswoman. A third person was also hit by gunfire. ...
..."It was a pretty chaotic scene," a food court employee said.
At first, he said, he heard what sounded like one or two shots, not much louder than a balloon popping. A dozen more followed. ...
Another reason to avoid the maul.
By Clarence Williams and Martin Weil
Washington Post Staff Writers
Sunday, November 19, 2006
At least three people, including an off-duty Secret Service agent, were wounded last night in a gun battle that broke out amid panicked diners in the food court of the Annapolis mall, according to police and witnesses. ...
...According to preliminary accounts, as the agent entered the food court about 7:15 p.m., he saw one young man being attacked by a group of young men. The agent tried to intervene, and one member of the group drew a handgun and opened fire, wounding the agent.
The agent then shot the gunman, said Officer Sara Schriver, an Anne Arundel County police spokeswoman. A third person was also hit by gunfire. ...
..."It was a pretty chaotic scene," a food court employee said.
At first, he said, he heard what sounded like one or two shots, not much louder than a balloon popping. A dozen more followed. ...
Another reason to avoid the maul.
Girl Dismissed From Lifting Class Sues
Friday, November 17, 2006
KNOXVILLE, Tenn. -- An Anderson County teenager has filed a lawsuit over her temporary dismissal from a weightlifting class by a principal who feared male students might try to rape her.
Anderson County High School has asked a federal magistrate to dismiss the $1 million sex discrimination suit by student Ambrea Phillips and her father.
"There's no dispute she was removed," school attorney Arthur F. Knight said at a hearing Thursday. He contended Phillips was reinstated within days and suffered "no academic detriment whatsoever."
Phillips' attorney, Roger L. Ridenour, said stress from the incident caused the student to become physically ill. He said the handling of the situation by then-principal Bob McCracken is part of a pattern of mishandled sex issues at the high school.
Phillips was an honor student and a track team member when she signed up for the class, where she eventually earned an A. She has since graduated and is in college. ...
Friday, November 17, 2006
KNOXVILLE, Tenn. -- An Anderson County teenager has filed a lawsuit over her temporary dismissal from a weightlifting class by a principal who feared male students might try to rape her.
Anderson County High School has asked a federal magistrate to dismiss the $1 million sex discrimination suit by student Ambrea Phillips and her father.
"There's no dispute she was removed," school attorney Arthur F. Knight said at a hearing Thursday. He contended Phillips was reinstated within days and suffered "no academic detriment whatsoever."
Phillips' attorney, Roger L. Ridenour, said stress from the incident caused the student to become physically ill. He said the handling of the situation by then-principal Bob McCracken is part of a pattern of mishandled sex issues at the high school.
Phillips was an honor student and a track team member when she signed up for the class, where she eventually earned an A. She has since graduated and is in college. ...
2 Accused of Putting Staples in Ketchup
Friday, November 17, 2006
WINFIELD, Kan. (AP) -- Two students are accused of putting staples in ketchup at the Winfield high school and middle schools - an incident that has school officials reviewing their kitchen-access policy.
Officials were alerted after two students eating lunch found the staples in their food Wednesday. Food service workers found more staples in the bottom of ketchup bins being used in the lunch lines. They quickly removed hamburgers from the menu and called police. ...
Friday, November 17, 2006
WINFIELD, Kan. (AP) -- Two students are accused of putting staples in ketchup at the Winfield high school and middle schools - an incident that has school officials reviewing their kitchen-access policy.
Officials were alerted after two students eating lunch found the staples in their food Wednesday. Food service workers found more staples in the bottom of ketchup bins being used in the lunch lines. They quickly removed hamburgers from the menu and called police. ...
1 Shot in Conn. Playstation Waiting Line
By STEVE FEICA
The Associated Press
Friday, November 17, 2006; 12:02 PM
HARTFORD, Conn. -- Two armed thugs tried to rob a line of people waiting for the new Playstation 3 game system to go on sale early Friday and shot a man who refused to give up his money, authorities said.
In other states, customers pushed and shoved their way to the shelves to get at the limited supply, and in Kentucky, four people were grazed by BBs fired from a passing vehicle as they waited for a Best Buy store to open.
The two gunman in the northeast Connecticut town of Putnam confronted 15 to 20 people standing outside a Wal-Mart store shortly after 3 a.m. and demanded money, said State Police Lt. J. Paul Vance.
"One of the patrons resisted. That patron was shot," Vance said. ...
... In Palmdale, Calif., authorities shut down a Super Wal-Mart after some shoppers got rowdy late Wednesday. In West Bend, Wis., a 19-year-old man was injured when he ran into a pole racing with 50 others for one of 10 spots outside a Wal-Mart.
In Lexington, Ky., someone fired BB pellets from a passing vehicle at people waiting outside a Best Buy store, according to WKYT, whose own reporter said she was among four people grazed while she interviewed buyers in line.
A Best Buy in Boston, aware it had only 140 of the consoles, got smart about the big sale - its employees gave out tickets to the first 140 people in line so everyone could go home until the store opened.
I'm so proud of my fellow Yankistanis.
Thanks (i think) to dear FinestKind for hippin' me to this.
By STEVE FEICA
The Associated Press
Friday, November 17, 2006; 12:02 PM
HARTFORD, Conn. -- Two armed thugs tried to rob a line of people waiting for the new Playstation 3 game system to go on sale early Friday and shot a man who refused to give up his money, authorities said.
In other states, customers pushed and shoved their way to the shelves to get at the limited supply, and in Kentucky, four people were grazed by BBs fired from a passing vehicle as they waited for a Best Buy store to open.
The two gunman in the northeast Connecticut town of Putnam confronted 15 to 20 people standing outside a Wal-Mart store shortly after 3 a.m. and demanded money, said State Police Lt. J. Paul Vance.
"One of the patrons resisted. That patron was shot," Vance said. ...
... In Palmdale, Calif., authorities shut down a Super Wal-Mart after some shoppers got rowdy late Wednesday. In West Bend, Wis., a 19-year-old man was injured when he ran into a pole racing with 50 others for one of 10 spots outside a Wal-Mart.
In Lexington, Ky., someone fired BB pellets from a passing vehicle at people waiting outside a Best Buy store, according to WKYT, whose own reporter said she was among four people grazed while she interviewed buyers in line.
A Best Buy in Boston, aware it had only 140 of the consoles, got smart about the big sale - its employees gave out tickets to the first 140 people in line so everyone could go home until the store opened.
I'm so proud of my fellow Yankistanis.
Thanks (i think) to dear FinestKind for hippin' me to this.
Bottle babies grow up weird and do f*cked up stuff - like kicking breastfeeding moms off planes in states where breastfeeding in public is legal.
Regulator queries safety of anti-flu drug
Tuesday November 14, 2006
... "We want to alert the clinician/patient/patient's guardian to closely monitor the patient in order to abort any attempt at unsafe behavior (i.e. suicide attempts)."
The FDA's comments and urge for caution come after reviewers evaluated 103 reports of delirium, suicidal behaviour and other mental problems between August 2005 and July 2006. Three cases were fatal. Nearly all of the cases - 95 out of 103 - came from Japan.
The agency's review found that of the 12 deaths there was one suicide, four cases of sudden death and four cases of cardiac arrest.
It was also concerned about 32 reports of psychiatric "events" among children, including hallucinations and abnormal behaviour. There were two cases where a 12-year-old and 13-year-old had jumped out of second-floor windows of their homes after taking the medication. ...
Kindly note none of the Yankistani news sites I visited (and I went to a lot of them) even mention suicide.
Tuesday November 14, 2006
... "We want to alert the clinician/patient/patient's guardian to closely monitor the patient in order to abort any attempt at unsafe behavior (i.e. suicide attempts)."
The FDA's comments and urge for caution come after reviewers evaluated 103 reports of delirium, suicidal behaviour and other mental problems between August 2005 and July 2006. Three cases were fatal. Nearly all of the cases - 95 out of 103 - came from Japan.
The agency's review found that of the 12 deaths there was one suicide, four cases of sudden death and four cases of cardiac arrest.
It was also concerned about 32 reports of psychiatric "events" among children, including hallucinations and abnormal behaviour. There were two cases where a 12-year-old and 13-year-old had jumped out of second-floor windows of their homes after taking the medication. ...
Kindly note none of the Yankistani news sites I visited (and I went to a lot of them) even mention suicide.
The Castagana Correspondence: Right What You Know
Surprise! Nancy Pelosi's powder pal doesn't just think Katherine Harris is a "remarkable lady" -- as we reported after perusing what appear to be his Free Republic posts -- he puts his money where his mouth is.
According to an FBI affidavit obtained by Radar, Chad Conrad Castagana, who was arrested Monday on suspicion of sending powder-filled envelopes to Keith Olbermann, Jon Stewart, Sumner Redstone, David Letterman, Pelosi, and New York Senator Charles Schumer, purchased a $15 money order made out to "Friends of Katherine Harris" last September at a Woodland Hills, Calif., post office while he was picking up the envelopes and stamps he employed to terrorize the liberal elite. ...
Surprise! Nancy Pelosi's powder pal doesn't just think Katherine Harris is a "remarkable lady" -- as we reported after perusing what appear to be his Free Republic posts -- he puts his money where his mouth is.
According to an FBI affidavit obtained by Radar, Chad Conrad Castagana, who was arrested Monday on suspicion of sending powder-filled envelopes to Keith Olbermann, Jon Stewart, Sumner Redstone, David Letterman, Pelosi, and New York Senator Charles Schumer, purchased a $15 money order made out to "Friends of Katherine Harris" last September at a Woodland Hills, Calif., post office while he was picking up the envelopes and stamps he employed to terrorize the liberal elite. ...
Police: Pedestrian Fires Machine Gun
Monday, November 13, 2006; 11:39 PM
NEW YORK (AP) -- A man fired a machine gun into the air Monday as he walked along streets in a commercial area and was shot by police after he wouldn't drop the weapon, witnesses said. No other injuries were reported.
"It was just pow, pow, pow, pow, pow," said Vincent Ho, who was at a dentist's office and said he heard at least seven shots.
Shoppers and commuters on the busy strip in the Jamaica section of the borough of Queens scrambled for cover. ...
Hamlet (Pow Pow Pow) by The Birthday Party
Monday, November 13, 2006; 11:39 PM
NEW YORK (AP) -- A man fired a machine gun into the air Monday as he walked along streets in a commercial area and was shot by police after he wouldn't drop the weapon, witnesses said. No other injuries were reported.
"It was just pow, pow, pow, pow, pow," said Vincent Ho, who was at a dentist's office and said he heard at least seven shots.
Shoppers and commuters on the busy strip in the Jamaica section of the borough of Queens scrambled for cover. ...
Hamlet (Pow Pow Pow) by The Birthday Party
Perrigo recalls 11 million bottles of acetaminophen
Thu Nov 9, 2006
By Lisa Richwine
NEW YORK, Nov 9 (Reuters) - Generic drugmaker Perrigo Co. is recalling 11 million bottles of over-the-counter, store-brand acetaminophen caplets after finding metal fragments in some batches, U.S. health officials said on Thursday.
The 500-milligram pills may have been sent to dozens of stores around the country, including some outlets of Wal-Mart, Safeway, CVS, and Food Lion, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration said.
No injuries or illness had been linked to the products, the manufacturer and the FDA said. ...
My tag says it all, really.
Thu Nov 9, 2006
By Lisa Richwine
NEW YORK, Nov 9 (Reuters) - Generic drugmaker Perrigo Co. is recalling 11 million bottles of over-the-counter, store-brand acetaminophen caplets after finding metal fragments in some batches, U.S. health officials said on Thursday.
The 500-milligram pills may have been sent to dozens of stores around the country, including some outlets of Wal-Mart, Safeway, CVS, and Food Lion, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration said.
No injuries or illness had been linked to the products, the manufacturer and the FDA said. ...
My tag says it all, really.
JHVH-1 = Thug gangster which ain't my God, thanks very much; and the bib-lee ain't my book either.
Many thanks to dear ModernTimes
Meat products recalled after syringe discovery at Ont. plant
Last Updated: Tuesday, November 7, 2006
Maple Leaf Foods is recalling some of its ham and turkey products amid fears that they may have been tampered with at a southwestern Ontario meat packing plant.
Employees of the company's plant in Kitchener, Ont., discovered empty plastic syringe casings in the plant on three separate occasions over the past three weeks.
The first two empty casings were found on processing tables on Oct. 24 and Nov. 2, with the latest one found "slightly embedded" in a ham on Nov. 3, Lynda Kuhn, a Maple Leaf Foods spokeswoman, told CBC.
The discovery was made public early Tuesday in a joint statement issued by the company and the Canadian Food Inspection Agency.
Laboratory tests conducted on the casings by an outside company showed they contained trace amounts of a saline-based solution, Kuhn said.
Waterloo Regional Police have been called in to investigate how and why the casings got into the plant. ...
Last Updated: Tuesday, November 7, 2006
Maple Leaf Foods is recalling some of its ham and turkey products amid fears that they may have been tampered with at a southwestern Ontario meat packing plant.
Employees of the company's plant in Kitchener, Ont., discovered empty plastic syringe casings in the plant on three separate occasions over the past three weeks.
The first two empty casings were found on processing tables on Oct. 24 and Nov. 2, with the latest one found "slightly embedded" in a ham on Nov. 3, Lynda Kuhn, a Maple Leaf Foods spokeswoman, told CBC.
The discovery was made public early Tuesday in a joint statement issued by the company and the Canadian Food Inspection Agency.
Laboratory tests conducted on the casings by an outside company showed they contained trace amounts of a saline-based solution, Kuhn said.
Waterloo Regional Police have been called in to investigate how and why the casings got into the plant. ...
... Tales of votes being cast from the grave are part of elections lore. Last year, at least two dead voters were counted in a Tennessee state senate race that was decided by fewer than 20 votes.
As a result of that and other irregularities, seven poll workers were fired, an entire precinct was dissolved and the election results were voided by the state Senate, forcing the removal of the presumed winner. Three elections workers were indicted for faking the votes.
In 1997, a judge declared a Miami mayoral election invalid because of widespread fraud, including dead voters.
In one of the more notorious examples, inspectors estimated as many as 1 in 10 ballots cast in Chicago during the 1982 Illinois gubernatorial election were fraudulent for various reasons, including votes by the dead.
In one reported case, a dead man's signature was clearly spelled out on voting records even though he could only mark an "X" because he had no fingers or thumbs.
In most cases, instances of dead voters can be attributed to database mismatches and clerical errors. For instance, the Social Security Administration admits there are people in its master death index who are not dead.
They include Wappingers Falls resident Hilde Stafford, an 85-year-old native of Germany. The master index lists her date of death as June 15, 1997.
"I'm still alive," she said. "I still vote." ...
Many thanks to dear Leiaxe
As a result of that and other irregularities, seven poll workers were fired, an entire precinct was dissolved and the election results were voided by the state Senate, forcing the removal of the presumed winner. Three elections workers were indicted for faking the votes.
In 1997, a judge declared a Miami mayoral election invalid because of widespread fraud, including dead voters.
In one of the more notorious examples, inspectors estimated as many as 1 in 10 ballots cast in Chicago during the 1982 Illinois gubernatorial election were fraudulent for various reasons, including votes by the dead.
In one reported case, a dead man's signature was clearly spelled out on voting records even though he could only mark an "X" because he had no fingers or thumbs.
In most cases, instances of dead voters can be attributed to database mismatches and clerical errors. For instance, the Social Security Administration admits there are people in its master death index who are not dead.
They include Wappingers Falls resident Hilde Stafford, an 85-year-old native of Germany. The master index lists her date of death as June 15, 1997.
"I'm still alive," she said. "I still vote." ...
Many thanks to dear Leiaxe
Lawyer Pleads Guilty to Stealing $800K
Monday, November 6, 2006
ATLANTA (AP) -- A North Georgia lawyer on Monday pleaded guilty to federal charges that he stole $800,000 from clients to pay his bills, make home repairs and cover his girlfriend's rent and utilities.
According to the U.S. Attorney's Northern District Office, Charles Femery Peebles of Flowery Branch specialized in construction litigation and represented clients who suffered physical injury and property damage resulting from mold infestations in their homes.
Federal prosecutors said Peebles, 56, would settle the cases without telling his clients, then forge his clients' signatures on the settlement checks and use the money to pay his own expenses. The settlements were intended to pay for the clients' home repairs and for medical treatment related to inhaling mold fibers. ...
Whaddya wanna bet this creep comes back as a cockroach - again?
Monday, November 6, 2006
ATLANTA (AP) -- A North Georgia lawyer on Monday pleaded guilty to federal charges that he stole $800,000 from clients to pay his bills, make home repairs and cover his girlfriend's rent and utilities.
According to the U.S. Attorney's Northern District Office, Charles Femery Peebles of Flowery Branch specialized in construction litigation and represented clients who suffered physical injury and property damage resulting from mold infestations in their homes.
Federal prosecutors said Peebles, 56, would settle the cases without telling his clients, then forge his clients' signatures on the settlement checks and use the money to pay his own expenses. The settlements were intended to pay for the clients' home repairs and for medical treatment related to inhaling mold fibers. ...
Whaddya wanna bet this creep comes back as a cockroach - again?
U.S. Analysts Had Flagged Atomic Data on Web Site
By WILLIAM J. BROAD
Published: November 4, 2006
Two weeks before the government shut down a Web site holding an archive of Iraqi documents captured during the war, scientists at an American weapons laboratory complained that papers on the site contained sensitive nuclear information, federal officials said yesterday. Two documents were quickly removed.
The Bush administration set up the Web site last March at the urging of Congressional Republicans, who said giving public access to materials from the 48,000 boxes of documents found in Iraq could increase the understanding of the danger posed by Saddam Hussein.
But among the documents posted were roughly a dozen that nuclear weapons experts said constituted a basic guide to building an atom bomb. They were accounts of Mr. Hussein's nuclear program, which United Nations inspectors dismantled after the 1991 Persian Gulf war.
The site was shut down on Thursday night after The New York Times asked questions about the disclosure of nuclear information and complaints that experts had raised. Yesterday, federal officials said they were conducting a review to understand better how and when the warnings had originated and how the bureaucracy had responded. ...
By WILLIAM J. BROAD
Published: November 4, 2006
Two weeks before the government shut down a Web site holding an archive of Iraqi documents captured during the war, scientists at an American weapons laboratory complained that papers on the site contained sensitive nuclear information, federal officials said yesterday. Two documents were quickly removed.
The Bush administration set up the Web site last March at the urging of Congressional Republicans, who said giving public access to materials from the 48,000 boxes of documents found in Iraq could increase the understanding of the danger posed by Saddam Hussein.
But among the documents posted were roughly a dozen that nuclear weapons experts said constituted a basic guide to building an atom bomb. They were accounts of Mr. Hussein's nuclear program, which United Nations inspectors dismantled after the 1991 Persian Gulf war.
The site was shut down on Thursday night after The New York Times asked questions about the disclosure of nuclear information and complaints that experts had raised. Yesterday, federal officials said they were conducting a review to understand better how and when the warnings had originated and how the bureaucracy had responded. ...
The father who's leading this crusade against Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451 is clearly someone without much experience reading full stop.
I am so proud of my c(o)untry.
I am so proud of my c(o)untry.
November 03, 2006
It is supposed to spot enemy fighters - not zap the electrics of passing cars
By David Brown
Something odd was happening on the winding coastal road between Mundesley and Cromer in Norfolk.
Cars were going haywire -- engines cutting out, electric windows jamming and alarms blaring -- as they passed the Second World War radar station outside the pretty seaside village of Trimingham.
After a year of conspiracy theories that would have filled an episode of The X-Files, the Ministry of Defence finally admitted responsibility for the strange goings on yesterday.
Defence chiefs said that faulty high-powered radar was shooting pulses of microwave radiation on to the road, which is used by thousands of commuters and holidaymakers each day. ...
...lodged an official complaint in February, but the MoD insisted that there was nothing wrong with the high-frequency radar, which was installed in 1997.
The RAF admitted yesterday that there had been a fault radar between November last year and February [sic]. It insisted there was no danger to the public or its personnel. However, it is already considering 15 claims for compensation and expects more.
The culprit was a Type 93 radar which is designed to track aircraft up to 200 miles away over the North Sea with pulses that can be as powerful as the radiation from a million mobile telephones. ...
..."These 1.1 megawatt radars have sufficient energy to cause significant electrical interference to nearby electronic systems, as found in passing cars, especially when all the energy is confined to a pencil-shaped beam. More serious could be the potential hazard to humans." ...
You don't say!
Pinched from dear CharlesHB via Da Buzzzzzzzzzzzz
It is supposed to spot enemy fighters - not zap the electrics of passing cars
By David Brown
Something odd was happening on the winding coastal road between Mundesley and Cromer in Norfolk.
Cars were going haywire -- engines cutting out, electric windows jamming and alarms blaring -- as they passed the Second World War radar station outside the pretty seaside village of Trimingham.
After a year of conspiracy theories that would have filled an episode of The X-Files, the Ministry of Defence finally admitted responsibility for the strange goings on yesterday.
Defence chiefs said that faulty high-powered radar was shooting pulses of microwave radiation on to the road, which is used by thousands of commuters and holidaymakers each day. ...
...lodged an official complaint in February, but the MoD insisted that there was nothing wrong with the high-frequency radar, which was installed in 1997.
The RAF admitted yesterday that there had been a fault radar between November last year and February [sic]. It insisted there was no danger to the public or its personnel. However, it is already considering 15 claims for compensation and expects more.
The culprit was a Type 93 radar which is designed to track aircraft up to 200 miles away over the North Sea with pulses that can be as powerful as the radiation from a million mobile telephones. ...
..."These 1.1 megawatt radars have sufficient energy to cause significant electrical interference to nearby electronic systems, as found in passing cars, especially when all the energy is confined to a pencil-shaped beam. More serious could be the potential hazard to humans." ...
You don't say!
Pinched from dear CharlesHB via Da Buzzzzzzzzzzzz
Austrian man separates from wife and ring finger
Wed Oct 25, 2006
VIENNA (Reuters) - A Viennese man cut off his ring finger and presented the digit, still holding his wedding band, to his ex-wife after an acrimonious divorce, Austrian news agency APA reported Tuesday.
Charged with dangerous harassment and assault for the act, he told a preliminary hearing he did not regret having cut off the finger and had chosen deliberately not to reattach it. ...
Bitter? Nah, not he.
Wed Oct 25, 2006
VIENNA (Reuters) - A Viennese man cut off his ring finger and presented the digit, still holding his wedding band, to his ex-wife after an acrimonious divorce, Austrian news agency APA reported Tuesday.
Charged with dangerous harassment and assault for the act, he told a preliminary hearing he did not regret having cut off the finger and had chosen deliberately not to reattach it. ...
Bitter? Nah, not he.
OTTAWA (Reuters) - The Canadian government said on Tuesday it was most unhappy that a U.S. judge had sentenced a sex offender to a three-year term of "exile" in Canada rather than a jail sentence at home.
The New York state judge accepted a proposal from former teacher Malcolm Watson, 35 -- convicted of having sex with a 15-year-old girl -- that he be allowed to live in Canada on probation and not spend time in a U.S. jail.
Watson, a U.S. citizen, lives in the town of Fort Erie, Ontario, with his wife and children. He had commuted to work at a girls' school in nearby Buffalo, New York.
The U.S. judge ruled Watson can return to the United States only to report to his parole officer.
"I was infuriated to see an American court decision deporting an American citizen back to my constituency," said government minister Rob Nicholson, who represents the electoral district in southern Ontario near Niagara Falls where Fort Erie is located.
Canadian officials are looking into whether they can deport Watson, who has permission to live and work in Canada. ...
The New York state judge accepted a proposal from former teacher Malcolm Watson, 35 -- convicted of having sex with a 15-year-old girl -- that he be allowed to live in Canada on probation and not spend time in a U.S. jail.
Watson, a U.S. citizen, lives in the town of Fort Erie, Ontario, with his wife and children. He had commuted to work at a girls' school in nearby Buffalo, New York.
The U.S. judge ruled Watson can return to the United States only to report to his parole officer.
"I was infuriated to see an American court decision deporting an American citizen back to my constituency," said government minister Rob Nicholson, who represents the electoral district in southern Ontario near Niagara Falls where Fort Erie is located.
Canadian officials are looking into whether they can deport Watson, who has permission to live and work in Canada. ...
LA police probe homeless dumping on skid row
Tue Oct 24, 2006
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Los Angeles police have launched a criminal investigation into the dumping of homeless people on a rundown area in the city after ambulances were spotted dropping off discharged hospital patients there.
The practice had long been suspected but police say they now have evidence, releasing pictures and video to the media on Tuesday of five hospital patients being left in the downtown area commonly known as skid row.
"We cannot allow the dumping of the most needy ... into that environment, and shame on those who do," Los Angeles Police Chief William Bratton told reporters on Tuesday.
Police said the five people they documented -- all on Sunday -- were left on skid row against their will. One 62-year-old man, released from the hospital after treatment on his knee, told police he had asked to be taken to his son's home.
"Our supervisors gave that guy a ride back to his house. His family was outraged. Not only did they not know he had been discharged but the fact he had been brought to skid row instead of back home was a further outrage," Sgt. Greg McManus told reporters.
Los Angeles Metropolitan hospital, which was involved in all five cases, denied leaving the patients outside a skid row rescue center against their will, saying they had asked to go there. ...
Tue Oct 24, 2006
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Los Angeles police have launched a criminal investigation into the dumping of homeless people on a rundown area in the city after ambulances were spotted dropping off discharged hospital patients there.
The practice had long been suspected but police say they now have evidence, releasing pictures and video to the media on Tuesday of five hospital patients being left in the downtown area commonly known as skid row.
"We cannot allow the dumping of the most needy ... into that environment, and shame on those who do," Los Angeles Police Chief William Bratton told reporters on Tuesday.
Police said the five people they documented -- all on Sunday -- were left on skid row against their will. One 62-year-old man, released from the hospital after treatment on his knee, told police he had asked to be taken to his son's home.
"Our supervisors gave that guy a ride back to his house. His family was outraged. Not only did they not know he had been discharged but the fact he had been brought to skid row instead of back home was a further outrage," Sgt. Greg McManus told reporters.
Los Angeles Metropolitan hospital, which was involved in all five cases, denied leaving the patients outside a skid row rescue center against their will, saying they had asked to go there. ...
Five punished for China banquet binge death
Tue Oct 24, 2006
BEIJING, Oct 24 (Reuters Life!) - Five Chinese power bureau officials have been dismissed or demoted after an auditor died from a series of banquet binges, the Shanghai Daily reported on Tuesday.
The death of Zhang Hongtao, 25, who worked with the Yanshan County Audit Office in northern Hebei province, was blamed on alcohol after banquets provided in April for auditors by the Yanshan Power Supply Co., the newspaper said.
Instead of working, Zhang did little else but eat, drink, play cards and enjoy massages, the official China Daily said. ...
Tue Oct 24, 2006
BEIJING, Oct 24 (Reuters Life!) - Five Chinese power bureau officials have been dismissed or demoted after an auditor died from a series of banquet binges, the Shanghai Daily reported on Tuesday.
The death of Zhang Hongtao, 25, who worked with the Yanshan County Audit Office in northern Hebei province, was blamed on alcohol after banquets provided in April for auditors by the Yanshan Power Supply Co., the newspaper said.
Instead of working, Zhang did little else but eat, drink, play cards and enjoy massages, the official China Daily said. ...
Upset U.S. dad pulls gun on son's football coach
Tue Oct 24, 2006
PHILADELPHIA (Reuters) - The father of a young football player pulled a gun on his son's coach because he didn't think the boy was getting enough playing time, Philadelphia police said on Monday.
Wayne Derkotch, 40, was charged with aggravated assault after getting in a fight with the coach over the amount of time the boy was getting on the field at a game for 6- and 7-year-olds on Sunday morning, said police spokesman Officer Raul Malveiro.
"There was a physical altercation about what child should play or not play and then he pulled the gun," Malveiro said.
There were no injuries and Derkotch fled before being arrested after a complaint was made by the coach, whose name was not released, Malveiro said.
Parental behavior at children's sports events has come under scrutiny from groups such as the Citizenship Through Sports Alliance. The group's study gave parents a D grade for their conduct and involvement at kids' games. ...
He looks such a kind, warm-hearted intelligent man. I don't believe a word of it.
Tue Oct 24, 2006
PHILADELPHIA (Reuters) - The father of a young football player pulled a gun on his son's coach because he didn't think the boy was getting enough playing time, Philadelphia police said on Monday.
Wayne Derkotch, 40, was charged with aggravated assault after getting in a fight with the coach over the amount of time the boy was getting on the field at a game for 6- and 7-year-olds on Sunday morning, said police spokesman Officer Raul Malveiro.
"There was a physical altercation about what child should play or not play and then he pulled the gun," Malveiro said.
There were no injuries and Derkotch fled before being arrested after a complaint was made by the coach, whose name was not released, Malveiro said.
Parental behavior at children's sports events has come under scrutiny from groups such as the Citizenship Through Sports Alliance. The group's study gave parents a D grade for their conduct and involvement at kids' games. ...
He looks such a kind, warm-hearted intelligent man. I don't believe a word of it.
1,500 cruise ship passengers without toilets for 'three days'
Last updated at 21:38pm on 23rd October 2006
Around 1,450 passengers on a luxury cruise ship have been left without toilets for three days, according to people on board.
A series of blockages in the plumbing system is said to have led to "mayhem" on board Thomson's Destiny cruise ship.
Tour operator Thomson admitted that there have been problems with the vacuum system of the toilets, but said it was bringing in a team of "super-technicians" to fix the system overnight. ...
...Destiny had been without toilets for three days and hot water for at least 24 hours.
...there was "mayhem" on board the ship, which is full, and a protest meeting was being held by passengers. ...
... Destiny is the largest ship in the Thomson fleet, with two swimming pools, two restaurants and three bars.
Cruises? Just say no.
Last updated at 21:38pm on 23rd October 2006
Around 1,450 passengers on a luxury cruise ship have been left without toilets for three days, according to people on board.
A series of blockages in the plumbing system is said to have led to "mayhem" on board Thomson's Destiny cruise ship.
Tour operator Thomson admitted that there have been problems with the vacuum system of the toilets, but said it was bringing in a team of "super-technicians" to fix the system overnight. ...
...Destiny had been without toilets for three days and hot water for at least 24 hours.
...there was "mayhem" on board the ship, which is full, and a protest meeting was being held by passengers. ...
... Destiny is the largest ship in the Thomson fleet, with two swimming pools, two restaurants and three bars.
Cruises? Just say no.
Elderly woman forced to drag herself up steps into her own home
Last updated at 22:00pm on 23rd October 2006
A frail 82-year-old woman was forced to shuffle up a set of steps on her bum after paramedics refused to help because of health and safety regulations.
Ambulance bosses are to carry out an investigation after Ellen Summers claimed she was forced to pull herself backwards up steps and along a corridor to get into her house. ...
...Mrs Summers is 5ft and weighs just nine stone. (or 57k; 126 lbs) ...
... The paramedics used a trolley to get Mrs Summers out of the ambulance but when they reached the steps up to the front door they told her she would have to get off and go it alone.
Mrs Summers said: "They said they could not put me in the chair because I could not bend my leg and it might hit them in the face so they put me down on the second step and I inched up on my bottom while they stood watching.
"They even said they were amazed I had done it. I was out of breath because I have a bad heart and my hands were full of pebbles."
Mrs Summers is now so nervous of travelling by ambulance that when she has to attend hospital she calls a taxi with wheelchair access.
"I will only use an ambulance again if I am unconscious," she said.
John Darley, Yorkshire Ambulance Service operations director said: "We are sorry that the patient and their family do not feel they received an appropriate level of care from Yorkshire Ambulance Service as we endeavour to provide the best possible care to all of our patients.
"We are taking the family's concerns very seriously and have been in contact with them directly.
"We are currently carrying out a full investigation and will keep the family fully informed of our findings.
"We would like to reassure patients across Yorkshire that their safety and welfare is our up most [sic] priority."
Speechless!
Last updated at 22:00pm on 23rd October 2006
A frail 82-year-old woman was forced to shuffle up a set of steps on her bum after paramedics refused to help because of health and safety regulations.
Ambulance bosses are to carry out an investigation after Ellen Summers claimed she was forced to pull herself backwards up steps and along a corridor to get into her house. ...
...Mrs Summers is 5ft and weighs just nine stone. (or 57k; 126 lbs) ...
... The paramedics used a trolley to get Mrs Summers out of the ambulance but when they reached the steps up to the front door they told her she would have to get off and go it alone.
Mrs Summers said: "They said they could not put me in the chair because I could not bend my leg and it might hit them in the face so they put me down on the second step and I inched up on my bottom while they stood watching.
"They even said they were amazed I had done it. I was out of breath because I have a bad heart and my hands were full of pebbles."
Mrs Summers is now so nervous of travelling by ambulance that when she has to attend hospital she calls a taxi with wheelchair access.
"I will only use an ambulance again if I am unconscious," she said.
John Darley, Yorkshire Ambulance Service operations director said: "We are sorry that the patient and their family do not feel they received an appropriate level of care from Yorkshire Ambulance Service as we endeavour to provide the best possible care to all of our patients.
"We are taking the family's concerns very seriously and have been in contact with them directly.
"We are currently carrying out a full investigation and will keep the family fully informed of our findings.
"We would like to reassure patients across Yorkshire that their safety and welfare is our up most [sic] priority."
Speechless!
Invisibility Cloak Demonstrated!
A team led by scientists at Duke University's Pratt School of Engineering has demonstrated the first working "invisibility cloak". The cloak deflects microwave beams so they flow around a "hidden" object inside with little distortion, making it appear almost as if nothing were there at all. Cloaks that render objects essentially invisible to microwaves could have a variety of wireless communications or radar applications, according to the researchers.
The team reported its findings on Thursday, Oct. 19, in Science Express, the advance online publication of the journal Science. The research was funded by the Intelligence Community Postdoctoral Fellowship Program. The researchers manufactured the cloak using "metamaterials" precisely arranged in a series of concentric circles that confer specific electromagnetic properties. Metamaterials are artificial composites that can be made to interact with electromagnetic waves in ways that natural materials cannot reproduce. ...
I was sent this image and an accompanying story by a fellow stumbler months ago!
A team led by scientists at Duke University's Pratt School of Engineering has demonstrated the first working "invisibility cloak". The cloak deflects microwave beams so they flow around a "hidden" object inside with little distortion, making it appear almost as if nothing were there at all. Cloaks that render objects essentially invisible to microwaves could have a variety of wireless communications or radar applications, according to the researchers.
The team reported its findings on Thursday, Oct. 19, in Science Express, the advance online publication of the journal Science. The research was funded by the Intelligence Community Postdoctoral Fellowship Program. The researchers manufactured the cloak using "metamaterials" precisely arranged in a series of concentric circles that confer specific electromagnetic properties. Metamaterials are artificial composites that can be made to interact with electromagnetic waves in ways that natural materials cannot reproduce. ...
I was sent this image and an accompanying story by a fellow stumbler months ago!
Friday, 20 October 2006
Drug-induced labour 'more risky'
Pregnant women undergoing drug-induced labour are at greater risk of a rare, but potentially fatal syndrome, a study published in the Lancet has suggested.
The condition, where amniotic-fluid leaks into the blood, was almost twice as common in such women.
The scientists said doctors and women should be aware of the small risk if they choose to have an induced birth.
But a UK expert said inducing a birth could avoid the risks of an emergency Caesarean section.
An amniotic-fluid embolism arises where tears cause amniotic fluid to escape into the mother's circulatory system.
Among the 180 cases of the condition, called amniotic-fluid embolism, studied by researchers from McGill University in Montreal, 24 were fatal.
The study also showed that in every 100,000 women induced, there were up to five embolism cases with up to two of those resulting in death. ...
Drug-induced labour 'more risky'
Pregnant women undergoing drug-induced labour are at greater risk of a rare, but potentially fatal syndrome, a study published in the Lancet has suggested.
The condition, where amniotic-fluid leaks into the blood, was almost twice as common in such women.
The scientists said doctors and women should be aware of the small risk if they choose to have an induced birth.
But a UK expert said inducing a birth could avoid the risks of an emergency Caesarean section.
An amniotic-fluid embolism arises where tears cause amniotic fluid to escape into the mother's circulatory system.
Among the 180 cases of the condition, called amniotic-fluid embolism, studied by researchers from McGill University in Montreal, 24 were fatal.
The study also showed that in every 100,000 women induced, there were up to five embolism cases with up to two of those resulting in death. ...
Source: Accuser in Jeffs Case Was 14
Fri Oct 20, 2006 10:13 PM EDT
Jennifer Dobner, AP Writer
SALT LAKE CITY -- The woman at the center of a criminal case involving polygamist sect leader Warren Jeffs was 14 when forced into a marriage with her first cousin, a source close to the case said Friday.
At Jeffs' direction, she was married despite her objections in 2001 to the cousin, who was older than 18, the source told The Associated Press on condition of anonymity to protect the woman's identity.
The marriage was not polygamous, the source said.
"It was child abuse, plain and simple," the source said.
Jeffs, 50, is the leader of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, a southern Utah-based church. The sect broke away from the Mormon church more than a century ago and has been disavowed by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. ...
Many thanks to dear Redway420
Fri Oct 20, 2006 10:13 PM EDT
Jennifer Dobner, AP Writer
SALT LAKE CITY -- The woman at the center of a criminal case involving polygamist sect leader Warren Jeffs was 14 when forced into a marriage with her first cousin, a source close to the case said Friday.
At Jeffs' direction, she was married despite her objections in 2001 to the cousin, who was older than 18, the source told The Associated Press on condition of anonymity to protect the woman's identity.
The marriage was not polygamous, the source said.
"It was child abuse, plain and simple," the source said.
Jeffs, 50, is the leader of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, a southern Utah-based church. The sect broke away from the Mormon church more than a century ago and has been disavowed by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. ...
Many thanks to dear Redway420
Feds Net 125 Nationwide in Kid-Porn Case
Thursday October 19, 2006 4:16 AM
By WAYNE PARRY
Associated Press Writer
NEWARK, N.J. (AP) - A Bible camp counselor and a Boy Scout leader were among 125 people arrested nationwide in an Internet child pornography case in which subscribers purchased photos and videos of children engaged in sex acts with adults, federal authorities said Wednesday.
The case originated in New Jersey, but quickly spread to 22 states. The defendants were charged with either possession or receipt of child pornography. Additional arrests are expected. ...
You don't want to read the rest of this. Just be glad they're caught, and hope all like them are, too.
Thursday October 19, 2006 4:16 AM
By WAYNE PARRY
Associated Press Writer
NEWARK, N.J. (AP) - A Bible camp counselor and a Boy Scout leader were among 125 people arrested nationwide in an Internet child pornography case in which subscribers purchased photos and videos of children engaged in sex acts with adults, federal authorities said Wednesday.
The case originated in New Jersey, but quickly spread to 22 states. The defendants were charged with either possession or receipt of child pornography. Additional arrests are expected. ...
You don't want to read the rest of this. Just be glad they're caught, and hope all like them are, too.
N.Y. funeral homes plead guilty to body part theft
Thu Oct 19, 2006
By Matthew Verrinder
NEW YORK (Reuters) - At least four funeral homes stole human body parts from thousands of corpses to sell for use in transplants in a scheme in which seven funeral directors have pleaded guilty, New York prosecutors said on Wednesday.
The plot's suspected ringleader, Michael Mastromarino, a former New Jersey oral surgeon who ran a Fort Lee, New Jersey, company that sold human tissue for medical implants, pleaded not guilty on Wednesday along with three others to new charges in the case, including body stealing and opening graves.
The prosecutor said the case raised concerns that some tissue provided for possible use in transplants could have been tainted.
"These ghoulish thieves thought they could pull off the crime of the century, stealing bones from the dead, without any thoughts of their victims' families or the transplant recipients who would receive possibly tainted bone and tissue grafts," Brooklyn District Attorney Charles Hynes said in a statement.
One of the bodies possibly harvested was that of famed British broadcaster Alistair Cooke, longtime host of the U.S. TV program "Masterpiece Theater," who died in 2004. Prosecutors said the suspects changed documents to show Cooke died at age 85 of a heart attack, not at age 95 from cancer. ...
Thu Oct 19, 2006
By Matthew Verrinder
NEW YORK (Reuters) - At least four funeral homes stole human body parts from thousands of corpses to sell for use in transplants in a scheme in which seven funeral directors have pleaded guilty, New York prosecutors said on Wednesday.
The plot's suspected ringleader, Michael Mastromarino, a former New Jersey oral surgeon who ran a Fort Lee, New Jersey, company that sold human tissue for medical implants, pleaded not guilty on Wednesday along with three others to new charges in the case, including body stealing and opening graves.
The prosecutor said the case raised concerns that some tissue provided for possible use in transplants could have been tainted.
"These ghoulish thieves thought they could pull off the crime of the century, stealing bones from the dead, without any thoughts of their victims' families or the transplant recipients who would receive possibly tainted bone and tissue grafts," Brooklyn District Attorney Charles Hynes said in a statement.
One of the bodies possibly harvested was that of famed British broadcaster Alistair Cooke, longtime host of the U.S. TV program "Masterpiece Theater," who died in 2004. Prosecutors said the suspects changed documents to show Cooke died at age 85 of a heart attack, not at age 95 from cancer. ...
Man Allegedly Fires Crossbow at Motorist
The Associated Press
Tuesday, October 17, 2006
LITTLE ROCK -- A Little Rock man whose SUV was cut off in traffic was arrested after he allegedly shot at a motorist with a crossbow following a brief chase. "It was a drive-by crossbow shooting," said Steve Gilgenbach, a pitcher for the University of Arkansas at Little Rock baseball team who said he was the man's intended target. ...
The Associated Press
Tuesday, October 17, 2006
LITTLE ROCK -- A Little Rock man whose SUV was cut off in traffic was arrested after he allegedly shot at a motorist with a crossbow following a brief chase. "It was a drive-by crossbow shooting," said Steve Gilgenbach, a pitcher for the University of Arkansas at Little Rock baseball team who said he was the man's intended target. ...
One dead, up to 110 hurt in Rome metro crash
Tue Oct 17, 2006
By Massimiliano Di Giorgio
ROME (Reuters) - A train on Rome's underground metro system rammed into the back of another at high speed on Tuesday, killing at least one person and injuring 110 others, five seriously, authorities said. ...
... "About one quarter of the first carriage of the train I was on was totally crushed," one passenger said. ...
Tue Oct 17, 2006
By Massimiliano Di Giorgio
ROME (Reuters) - A train on Rome's underground metro system rammed into the back of another at high speed on Tuesday, killing at least one person and injuring 110 others, five seriously, authorities said. ...
... "About one quarter of the first carriage of the train I was on was totally crushed," one passenger said. ...
Four die in armed brawl over a pothole
Tue Oct 10, 2006
MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - Four Mexicans were killed when a dispute between two Tzotzil Indian families over a pothole in the street escalated into a full-blown shootout.
One of the families closed off the cracked concrete and mud road in the town of Banelos in the poor southern state of Chiapas to fill in a hole left by heavy rain.
That angered a family with a transport business who needed to get their truck through, the Mexican daily Reforma said on Tuesday.
Insults led to blows and finally the two families shot at each other using various caliber guns and a hefty AR-15 rifle, Reforma said. Shootings are not uncommon in Mexico's little-policed indigenous regions, where many take the law into their own hands.
A photo showed somber-looking locals standing in two groups on either side of the pothole -- now filled in with rubble and fit to be driven over again.
How many lives does it take to fix roads in your area, hmmmmm?
Tue Oct 10, 2006
MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - Four Mexicans were killed when a dispute between two Tzotzil Indian families over a pothole in the street escalated into a full-blown shootout.
One of the families closed off the cracked concrete and mud road in the town of Banelos in the poor southern state of Chiapas to fill in a hole left by heavy rain.
That angered a family with a transport business who needed to get their truck through, the Mexican daily Reforma said on Tuesday.
Insults led to blows and finally the two families shot at each other using various caliber guns and a hefty AR-15 rifle, Reforma said. Shootings are not uncommon in Mexico's little-policed indigenous regions, where many take the law into their own hands.
A photo showed somber-looking locals standing in two groups on either side of the pothole -- now filled in with rubble and fit to be driven over again.
How many lives does it take to fix roads in your area, hmmmmm?
Gunman Said He Molested Girls Long Ago
By MARK SCOLFORO
Tuesday, October 3, 2006; 5:23 PM
QUARRYVILLE, Pa. (AP) -- The gunman who killed five girls in an Amish schoolroom confided to his wife during the siege that he molested two relatives 20 years ago when he was [a] boy and was tormented by dreams of doing it again, authorities said Tuesday. ...
By MARK SCOLFORO
Tuesday, October 3, 2006; 5:23 PM
QUARRYVILLE, Pa. (AP) -- The gunman who killed five girls in an Amish schoolroom confided to his wife during the siege that he molested two relatives 20 years ago when he was [a] boy and was tormented by dreams of doing it again, authorities said Tuesday. ...
Milk Man Kills Girls at Pa. Amish School
Monday October 2, 2006 8:01 PM
By MARK SCOLFORO
Associated Press Writer
NICKEL MINES, Pa. (AP) - A 32-year-old milk truck driver took about a dozen girls hostage in a one-room Amish schoolhouse Monday, barricaded the doors with boards and shot several people, killing at least three of the girls and apparently himself, authorities said.
It was the nation's third deadly school shooting in less than a week, and similar to an attack just days earlier at [a] school in Colorado.
Lancaster County Coroner G. Gary Kirchner initially said six people were killed, but later said he wasn't certain. Police said they found four people, including the gunman, dead when they got inside.
Nice place we got here, huh?
Update: 3 Oct
Fifth girl dead after Amish school shooting
That is the psycho responsible for this incomprehensible tragedy
Monday October 2, 2006 8:01 PM
By MARK SCOLFORO
Associated Press Writer
NICKEL MINES, Pa. (AP) - A 32-year-old milk truck driver took about a dozen girls hostage in a one-room Amish schoolhouse Monday, barricaded the doors with boards and shot several people, killing at least three of the girls and apparently himself, authorities said.
It was the nation's third deadly school shooting in less than a week, and similar to an attack just days earlier at [a] school in Colorado.
Lancaster County Coroner G. Gary Kirchner initially said six people were killed, but later said he wasn't certain. Police said they found four people, including the gunman, dead when they got inside.
Nice place we got here, huh?
Update: 3 Oct
Fifth girl dead after Amish school shooting
That is the psycho responsible for this incomprehensible tragedy
Naked Peeper Made to Pay Neighbors $13K
Friday, September 29, 2006; 9:55 PM
DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) -- A man has been ordered to pay more than $13,000 to his former neighbors who[m] he spied upon while sitting naked in his house.
A jury Thursday ordered William Andrianse, 59, of Des Moines, to pay damages to Julie Weissinger, 40, who said she and her family were so upset they had to move away. ...
Friday, September 29, 2006; 9:55 PM
DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) -- A man has been ordered to pay more than $13,000 to his former neighbors who[m] he spied upon while sitting naked in his house.
A jury Thursday ordered William Andrianse, 59, of Des Moines, to pay damages to Julie Weissinger, 40, who said she and her family were so upset they had to move away. ...
Man Allegedly Seeks Revenge Over Glasses
Thursday, September 28, 2006; 11:41 PM
HAMMOND, Ind. (AP) -- A man upset that his neighbor's children helped break his wife's eyeglasses is accused of trying to bomb the neighbor's house in retaliation. David Michielsen, 27, of Hammond is charged with detonating a destructive device with intent to intimidate or destroy and manufacturing a destructive device. He faces 58 years in prison if convicted on both counts.
The neighbor told police she was visiting Michielsen's wife Sunday when her children and Michielsen's broke the glasses. Michielsen ordered her and her children to leave, a probable cause affidavit said.
Later that night, he called the neighbor and asked for a pair of glasses he could use to fix his wife's broken ones. The neighbor told police she complied, but Michielsen threw the glasses into her house about 10 minutes later, saying they wouldn't work.
About an hour later, the woman heard a noise and looked outside. She saw Michielsen running away and spotted an item on her air conditioner that turned out to be a canister with a lighted green wick, the affidavit states. She extinguished the wick and called police. ...
Thursday, September 28, 2006; 11:41 PM
HAMMOND, Ind. (AP) -- A man upset that his neighbor's children helped break his wife's eyeglasses is accused of trying to bomb the neighbor's house in retaliation. David Michielsen, 27, of Hammond is charged with detonating a destructive device with intent to intimidate or destroy and manufacturing a destructive device. He faces 58 years in prison if convicted on both counts.
The neighbor told police she was visiting Michielsen's wife Sunday when her children and Michielsen's broke the glasses. Michielsen ordered her and her children to leave, a probable cause affidavit said.
Later that night, he called the neighbor and asked for a pair of glasses he could use to fix his wife's broken ones. The neighbor told police she complied, but Michielsen threw the glasses into her house about 10 minutes later, saying they wouldn't work.
About an hour later, the woman heard a noise and looked outside. She saw Michielsen running away and spotted an item on her air conditioner that turned out to be a canister with a lighted green wick, the affidavit states. She extinguished the wick and called police. ...
http://go.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=oddlyEnoughNews&storyID=13615969&src=eDialog/GetContent
New Yorkers 'stalk' victims in city-wide game
Wed Sep 27, 2006
Crap like this strengthens my sense of being an exile in my own land.
Wed Sep 27, 2006
Crap like this strengthens my sense of being an exile in my own land.
Amazing road rage brawl captured on mobile phone camera
Last updated at 23:16pm on 22nd September 2006
This is the face of road rage in Britain today. These pictures were captured on a mobile phone by a local businesswoman who witnessed the terrifying scene as she drove to work.
The incident happened as the woman drew up to the traffic lights at Atherleigh Way's junction with Newton Road, Leigh, in Lancashire.
One man leapt out of his car, snatched open the door of another vehicle and dragged out the driver on the busy junction.
A fight broke out and escalated until the plucky lady intervened. Now the 54-year-old woman, who has asked not to be named for fear of reprisals, is urging people to lock their doors when they are travelling to avoid finding themselves in the same situation. ...
Last updated at 23:16pm on 22nd September 2006
This is the face of road rage in Britain today. These pictures were captured on a mobile phone by a local businesswoman who witnessed the terrifying scene as she drove to work.
The incident happened as the woman drew up to the traffic lights at Atherleigh Way's junction with Newton Road, Leigh, in Lancashire.
One man leapt out of his car, snatched open the door of another vehicle and dragged out the driver on the busy junction.
A fight broke out and escalated until the plucky lady intervened. Now the 54-year-old woman, who has asked not to be named for fear of reprisals, is urging people to lock their doors when they are travelling to avoid finding themselves in the same situation. ...
Prosecutors say despondent Wisconsin teens planned attack
By TODD RICHMOND
Published September 22, 2006, 7:18 AM CDT
GREEN BAY, Wis. (AP) -- Despairing their failures with girls, two high school seniors agreed to put a Columbine-style end to their lives, according to a criminal complaint.
William Cornell and Shawn Sturtz, both 17, planned the attack on East High School for two years and amassed a small arsenal of guns and bombs, investigators said. They were joined by recent graduate Bradley Netwal, 18, police said.
Prosecutors charged the three teens Thursday with conspiracy to commit first-degree intentional homicide, punishable by up to 60 years in prison, and conspiracy to commit damage of property by use of explosives, which carries up to 40 years in prison and $100,000 in fines.
Cornell also was charged with possessing explosives and a short-barreled shotgun, a charge that carries up to 18 years in prison and $35,000 in fines. ...
I can't imagine why such pleasant lads would be unable to get dates.
Blaming women is the oldest and least intelligent one in the book.
By TODD RICHMOND
Published September 22, 2006, 7:18 AM CDT
GREEN BAY, Wis. (AP) -- Despairing their failures with girls, two high school seniors agreed to put a Columbine-style end to their lives, according to a criminal complaint.
William Cornell and Shawn Sturtz, both 17, planned the attack on East High School for two years and amassed a small arsenal of guns and bombs, investigators said. They were joined by recent graduate Bradley Netwal, 18, police said.
Prosecutors charged the three teens Thursday with conspiracy to commit first-degree intentional homicide, punishable by up to 60 years in prison, and conspiracy to commit damage of property by use of explosives, which carries up to 40 years in prison and $100,000 in fines.
Cornell also was charged with possessing explosives and a short-barreled shotgun, a charge that carries up to 18 years in prison and $35,000 in fines. ...
I can't imagine why such pleasant lads would be unable to get dates.
Blaming women is the oldest and least intelligent one in the book.
Village elders order trial by boiling oil
Mon Sep 18, 2006
NEW DELHI (Reuters) - The leaders of a village in the Indian state of Rajasthan ordered 150 men to dip their hands into boiling oil to prove their innocence after food was stolen from a local school, a newspaper reported Sunday.
In late August the school's principal informed police that rice and wheat had disappeared but no action was taken, the Sunday Express said.
The council, or panchayat, of Ranpur village, 340 km (210 miles) south of state capital Jaipur, then decided to take the law into its own hands.
After 10 days spent trying to identify those responsible, it issued what the paper called the "medieval diktat."
The 150 men from Ranpur and two neighboring hamlets were told to pick a copper ring from a cauldron of boiling oil. The council elders then announced that the 50 who refused the order must be behind the crime. Many are now nursing their burns. ...
Mon Sep 18, 2006
NEW DELHI (Reuters) - The leaders of a village in the Indian state of Rajasthan ordered 150 men to dip their hands into boiling oil to prove their innocence after food was stolen from a local school, a newspaper reported Sunday.
In late August the school's principal informed police that rice and wheat had disappeared but no action was taken, the Sunday Express said.
The council, or panchayat, of Ranpur village, 340 km (210 miles) south of state capital Jaipur, then decided to take the law into its own hands.
After 10 days spent trying to identify those responsible, it issued what the paper called the "medieval diktat."
The 150 men from Ranpur and two neighboring hamlets were told to pick a copper ring from a cauldron of boiling oil. The council elders then announced that the 50 who refused the order must be behind the crime. Many are now nursing their burns. ...
Friday, September 8, 2006
It's not a terribly uncommon event - someone leaves something in the oven, it gets a bit burny, and the next thing you know, a large part of their house is a smouldering ruin.
A Michigan man recently did just that, reducing his garage to ashes. The unusual part of the story is that he was trying to roast a bear.
It is not known exactly why Joe Gorzynski had decided to roast the bear. But doing so cost him his garage, his oven, his fishing equipment, his tools and a collection of animal heads mounted on the wall.
The bear also did not survive the conflagration.
The fire raged so strongly (bears are clearly a good fuel source) that it melted vinyl shutters and the siding of his neighbour's property. ...
I'm so glad bear hunting is legal in my state - from the Darwin Award standpoint of course.
Many thanks to dear Gracey
It's not a terribly uncommon event - someone leaves something in the oven, it gets a bit burny, and the next thing you know, a large part of their house is a smouldering ruin.
A Michigan man recently did just that, reducing his garage to ashes. The unusual part of the story is that he was trying to roast a bear.
It is not known exactly why Joe Gorzynski had decided to roast the bear. But doing so cost him his garage, his oven, his fishing equipment, his tools and a collection of animal heads mounted on the wall.
The bear also did not survive the conflagration.
The fire raged so strongly (bears are clearly a good fuel source) that it melted vinyl shutters and the siding of his neighbour's property. ...
I'm so glad bear hunting is legal in my state - from the Darwin Award standpoint of course.
Many thanks to dear Gracey
Murder suspect: Goat turned into corpse
September 15, 2006
LAGOS, Nigeria --A Nigerian murder suspect accused of killing his brother with an axe told police investigators he actually attacked a goat, which was only later magically transformed into his sibling's corpse, officials said Thursday.
The man, whose name wasn't released, offered police his explanation after his arrest on Tuesday in the death of his brother the previous day at Isseluku village in southern Nigeria.
"He said that the goats were on his farm and he tried to chase them away. When one wouldn't move, he attacked it with an axe. He said it then turned into his brother," Police Commissioner Udom Ekpoudom told the Associated Press.
Murder suspects in Nigeria, where many people believe in black magic, sometimes claim spirits tricked them into killing. In 2001, eight people were burned to death after one person in their group was accused of making a bystander's penis magically disappear.
Oh-kaaaaaaayyy................Anyway! Moving right along.....
September 15, 2006
LAGOS, Nigeria --A Nigerian murder suspect accused of killing his brother with an axe told police investigators he actually attacked a goat, which was only later magically transformed into his sibling's corpse, officials said Thursday.
The man, whose name wasn't released, offered police his explanation after his arrest on Tuesday in the death of his brother the previous day at Isseluku village in southern Nigeria.
"He said that the goats were on his farm and he tried to chase them away. When one wouldn't move, he attacked it with an axe. He said it then turned into his brother," Police Commissioner Udom Ekpoudom told the Associated Press.
Murder suspects in Nigeria, where many people believe in black magic, sometimes claim spirits tricked them into killing. In 2001, eight people were burned to death after one person in their group was accused of making a bystander's penis magically disappear.
Oh-kaaaaaaayyy................Anyway! Moving right along.....
Electric Man Electrocuted
By Emil Steiner | September 12, 2006
Huynh Van Hung, of Vietnam, made a name for himself sticking his fingers in electric sockets and licking live wires without getting shocked. But the 44-year-old, known to fans as "Hung Electric" may have pushed his luck one time too many when he tried to repair a generator without first cutting off the power supply. On Tuesday, officials announced that he had died from electrocution in Tay Ninh province near the Cambodian boarder. Hung, who shocked national audiences on "Strange Stories of Vietnam" had recently fallen on hard times and taken up residence in a pagoda adopting the Buddhist lifestyle. Many in his commune believe it was that vegetarian diet which caused him to lose his resistance to electricity.
By Emil Steiner | September 12, 2006
Huynh Van Hung, of Vietnam, made a name for himself sticking his fingers in electric sockets and licking live wires without getting shocked. But the 44-year-old, known to fans as "Hung Electric" may have pushed his luck one time too many when he tried to repair a generator without first cutting off the power supply. On Tuesday, officials announced that he had died from electrocution in Tay Ninh province near the Cambodian boarder. Hung, who shocked national audiences on "Strange Stories of Vietnam" had recently fallen on hard times and taken up residence in a pagoda adopting the Buddhist lifestyle. Many in his commune believe it was that vegetarian diet which caused him to lose his resistance to electricity.
Gunmen Toss 5 Human Heads on Dance Floor
Thursday September 7, 2006 1:46 AM
By JULIE WATSON
Associated Press Writer
MEXICO CITY (AP) - In a horrifying show of brutality, gunmen barged into a bar in central Mexico early Wednesday and tossed five human heads on the dance floor, after covering patrons with their weapons, officials said.
Heavily armed men fired their guns in the air as they entered the bar in Uruapan in the central state of Michoacan, said Magdalena Guzman, spokeswoman for the state prosecutor's office. The gunmen ordered patrons to the ground before tossing the heads. ...
Thursday September 7, 2006 1:46 AM
By JULIE WATSON
Associated Press Writer
MEXICO CITY (AP) - In a horrifying show of brutality, gunmen barged into a bar in central Mexico early Wednesday and tossed five human heads on the dance floor, after covering patrons with their weapons, officials said.
Heavily armed men fired their guns in the air as they entered the bar in Uruapan in the central state of Michoacan, said Magdalena Guzman, spokeswoman for the state prosecutor's office. The gunmen ordered patrons to the ground before tossing the heads. ...
Inbreeding among polygamists along the Arizona-Utah border is producing a caste of severely retarded and deformed children
By John Dougherty
Article Published Dec 29, 2005
... Nearly everyone in Colorado City, Arizona, and the adjacent town of Hildale, Utah, is a member of a fundamentalist Mormon sect that practices polygamy and had long encouraged multiple marriages between close relatives.
By the late 1990s, Tarby and his team had discovered fumarase deficiency was occurring in the greatest concentration in the world among the fundamentalist Mormon polygamists of northern Arizona and southern Utah.
Of even greater concern was the fact that the recessive gene that triggers the disease was rapidly spreading to thousands of individuals living in the community because of decades of inbreeding. ...
... For more than 70 years, all marriages in the isolated towns have been arranged by the leader of the FLDS, a breakaway sect of the Salt Lake City-based Mormon Church.
Marriages among first and second cousins have been common for decades in the community, where religious doctrine requires men to have at least three wives to gain eternal salvation. Only the FLDS prophet can arrange and perform polygamous marriages, and those marriages are taking place in a community in which almost everybody is related.
The current FLDS prophet is 50-year-old Warren Jeffs, who has not been seen publicly since August 2003. Last June, Jeffs was charged with seven felonies by Mohave County, Arizona, in connection with his performance of "spiritual" marriages of three underage girls to already married men. He was placed on the FBI's most wanted list last August. Eight other Colorado City polygamists have been indicted by a Mohave County grand jury for having unlawful sex with underage girls who were their plural wives.
The indictments have come amid a three-year investigation by New Times of the FLDS community. That probe has uncovered widespread sexual abuse of young girls forced into polygamous marriages that, until recently, was downplayed by Arizona political leaders and law enforcement.
The state not only ignored the crimes for decades, it helped facilitate them by allowing the FLDS polygamists to set up a town government, a public school district and a police department that have received tens of millions of dollars in taxpayer funds despite the fact that polygamy violates Arizona's Constitution. The FLDS has had an iron grip on the local governments, because it has been impossible to get elected or hired to a taxpayer-funded post without the church's blessing.
The fundamentalist community has also benefited immensely from state health-care services for the poor and indigent by receiving more than $12 million a year in state assistance in Arizona to pay for health-insurance premiums.
It turns out that taxpayers also have been footing the bill for the fumarase deficiency children born to polygamists who insist that plural marriage involving close relatives is their divine right.
There is no doubt in the mind of any expert interviewed by New Times that the practice of polygamy combined with inbreeding has fostered the spread of fumarase deficiency. ...
By John Dougherty
Article Published Dec 29, 2005
... Nearly everyone in Colorado City, Arizona, and the adjacent town of Hildale, Utah, is a member of a fundamentalist Mormon sect that practices polygamy and had long encouraged multiple marriages between close relatives.
By the late 1990s, Tarby and his team had discovered fumarase deficiency was occurring in the greatest concentration in the world among the fundamentalist Mormon polygamists of northern Arizona and southern Utah.
Of even greater concern was the fact that the recessive gene that triggers the disease was rapidly spreading to thousands of individuals living in the community because of decades of inbreeding. ...
... For more than 70 years, all marriages in the isolated towns have been arranged by the leader of the FLDS, a breakaway sect of the Salt Lake City-based Mormon Church.
Marriages among first and second cousins have been common for decades in the community, where religious doctrine requires men to have at least three wives to gain eternal salvation. Only the FLDS prophet can arrange and perform polygamous marriages, and those marriages are taking place in a community in which almost everybody is related.
The current FLDS prophet is 50-year-old Warren Jeffs, who has not been seen publicly since August 2003. Last June, Jeffs was charged with seven felonies by Mohave County, Arizona, in connection with his performance of "spiritual" marriages of three underage girls to already married men. He was placed on the FBI's most wanted list last August. Eight other Colorado City polygamists have been indicted by a Mohave County grand jury for having unlawful sex with underage girls who were their plural wives.
The indictments have come amid a three-year investigation by New Times of the FLDS community. That probe has uncovered widespread sexual abuse of young girls forced into polygamous marriages that, until recently, was downplayed by Arizona political leaders and law enforcement.
The state not only ignored the crimes for decades, it helped facilitate them by allowing the FLDS polygamists to set up a town government, a public school district and a police department that have received tens of millions of dollars in taxpayer funds despite the fact that polygamy violates Arizona's Constitution. The FLDS has had an iron grip on the local governments, because it has been impossible to get elected or hired to a taxpayer-funded post without the church's blessing.
The fundamentalist community has also benefited immensely from state health-care services for the poor and indigent by receiving more than $12 million a year in state assistance in Arizona to pay for health-insurance premiums.
It turns out that taxpayers also have been footing the bill for the fumarase deficiency children born to polygamists who insist that plural marriage involving close relatives is their divine right.
There is no doubt in the mind of any expert interviewed by New Times that the practice of polygamy combined with inbreeding has fostered the spread of fumarase deficiency. ...
It's getting too crowded six feet under...
Tue Aug 29, 2006 9:05am ET
TIRANA (Reuters) - Tirana residents are trying to put off dying until the government and city officials end their row over space shortages in the Albanian capital's graveyards.
Tirana municipality has shut down one of the city's two cemeteries and said the other has space for only one more week. It blames the government for holding up the expropriation of nearby land that would add space for two years' worth of graves.
"Death rites for a cemetery" and "Now starts the trading of the graves" ran the headlines in Albanian dailies alongside pictures of new graves dug in the lanes between old ones.
The Democratic Party government has had many run-ins with Tirana municipality, controlled by the opposition Socialists, including both the graveyard problem and the municipality's refusal to issue birth and death certificates because it has not received the proper forms.
"Albanians nowadays are facing a wondrous dilemma: they can't prove they're alive, and they don't dare die," Korrieri daily's editor, Elton Metaj, wrote in a commentary. ...
Here's a thought: cremation.
Tue Aug 29, 2006 9:05am ET
TIRANA (Reuters) - Tirana residents are trying to put off dying until the government and city officials end their row over space shortages in the Albanian capital's graveyards.
Tirana municipality has shut down one of the city's two cemeteries and said the other has space for only one more week. It blames the government for holding up the expropriation of nearby land that would add space for two years' worth of graves.
"Death rites for a cemetery" and "Now starts the trading of the graves" ran the headlines in Albanian dailies alongside pictures of new graves dug in the lanes between old ones.
The Democratic Party government has had many run-ins with Tirana municipality, controlled by the opposition Socialists, including both the graveyard problem and the municipality's refusal to issue birth and death certificates because it has not received the proper forms.
"Albanians nowadays are facing a wondrous dilemma: they can't prove they're alive, and they don't dare die," Korrieri daily's editor, Elton Metaj, wrote in a commentary. ...
Here's a thought: cremation.
Thu 24 Aug 2006
Under fire, Indian eatery drops Hitler from name
MUMBAI (Reuters) - A restaurant in India's financial hub has agreed to change its name from "Hitler's Cross" following strong protests by the country's tiny Jewish community and pressure from Israel.
"Hitler's Cross", which opened a week ago using posters of the Fuehrer and Nazi swastikas for publicity, initially refused to change its name, but relented on Thursday and covered its signboards with white cloth.
The restaurant's name and its marketing gimmick had infuriated India's Jewish population, which had said it would fight any attempts at "rehabilitating Hitler".
Germany and Israel joined the protests with the Israeli consul-general in Mumbai writing to city authorities urging them to take steps to get the restaurant's name changed. ...
Dunno what possessed the owner to give it that name anyway!
Under fire, Indian eatery drops Hitler from name
MUMBAI (Reuters) - A restaurant in India's financial hub has agreed to change its name from "Hitler's Cross" following strong protests by the country's tiny Jewish community and pressure from Israel.
"Hitler's Cross", which opened a week ago using posters of the Fuehrer and Nazi swastikas for publicity, initially refused to change its name, but relented on Thursday and covered its signboards with white cloth.
The restaurant's name and its marketing gimmick had infuriated India's Jewish population, which had said it would fight any attempts at "rehabilitating Hitler".
Germany and Israel joined the protests with the Israeli consul-general in Mumbai writing to city authorities urging them to take steps to get the restaurant's name changed. ...
Dunno what possessed the owner to give it that name anyway!
Bat, Trimmer, Hammer Used in Lawn Brawl
The Associated Press
Thursday, August 24, 2006; 6:08 PM
FRUIT COVE, Fla. -- The supervisor went for a bat. The employee whipped out a weed trimmer. Another worker used a hammer to break up the fight.
That's the scene St. Johns County authorities described Tuesday after a lawn service supervisor criticized one of his worker's grass-cutting skills, The Florida Times-Union reported.
Lance Tywan Wamley, 26, of Hollywood, Fla., is charged with threatening several men with a 34-inch baseball bat and then hitting one man in the chest. The worker, Eric J. Torres, 23, defended himself with a weed trimmer, authorities said.
Another worker, armed with a hammer, broke up the scuffle, authorities said. ...
Think you've got a crummy boss?
"Cocaine's a helluva drug!" to quote Rick James.
The Associated Press
Thursday, August 24, 2006; 6:08 PM
FRUIT COVE, Fla. -- The supervisor went for a bat. The employee whipped out a weed trimmer. Another worker used a hammer to break up the fight.
That's the scene St. Johns County authorities described Tuesday after a lawn service supervisor criticized one of his worker's grass-cutting skills, The Florida Times-Union reported.
Lance Tywan Wamley, 26, of Hollywood, Fla., is charged with threatening several men with a 34-inch baseball bat and then hitting one man in the chest. The worker, Eric J. Torres, 23, defended himself with a weed trimmer, authorities said.
Another worker, armed with a hammer, broke up the scuffle, authorities said. ...
Think you've got a crummy boss?
"Cocaine's a helluva drug!" to quote Rick James.
Shredded euro confetti scandalizes town
Wed Aug 2, 2006 8:18am ET
PARIS (Reuters) - A lavish wedding where newlyweds were sprinkled with shredded euro-note confetti has provoked outrage in a French town, a newspaper reported Tuesday. Liberation said angry locals in the southern town of Sete scrambled on the ground to scrape up the bits of 5, 10, 20 and 50 euro notes scattered at the July 8 nuptials.
"People chucking money away in the street for everyone to see, when there are so many struggling to get by!" said Frederic, a resident quoted by the newspaper. ...
"Let them eat cake," huh? Sleazy ostentatious bastards. Was the term "Eurotrash" invented to apply to these, these creatures in particular?
Wed Aug 2, 2006 8:18am ET
PARIS (Reuters) - A lavish wedding where newlyweds were sprinkled with shredded euro-note confetti has provoked outrage in a French town, a newspaper reported Tuesday. Liberation said angry locals in the southern town of Sete scrambled on the ground to scrape up the bits of 5, 10, 20 and 50 euro notes scattered at the July 8 nuptials.
"People chucking money away in the street for everyone to see, when there are so many struggling to get by!" said Frederic, a resident quoted by the newspaper. ...
"Let them eat cake," huh? Sleazy ostentatious bastards. Was the term "Eurotrash" invented to apply to these, these creatures in particular?
Deacon's stay in jail extended
published: Saturday | July 29, 2006
Daraine Luton, Staff Reporter
Donovan Jones, the former Dayton Avenue church deacon, who is at the centre of the sexual molestation offence against a 14-year-old Corporate Area schoolgirl, yesterday had his stay in jail extended until September 8.
Mr. Jones, 46, was ordered remanded by Resident Magistrate Desiree Alleyne, when he appeared in the Corporate Area Resident Magistrate's Court. His co-accused, 18-year-old James Rodgers, was granted bail in the sum of $500, 000 with two sureties.
Ring of four
Both men are part of a ring of four charged with molesting the schoolgirl. Jones was entrusted with the responsibility of taking her home from school.
Earlier this month, the other accused, the 18-year-old Shamar Morgan and a 15-year-old youth, both pleaded guilty to four counts of indecent assault. They will be sentenced on the day Mr. Jones and Mr. Rodgers return to court. ...
published: Saturday | July 29, 2006
Daraine Luton, Staff Reporter
Donovan Jones, the former Dayton Avenue church deacon, who is at the centre of the sexual molestation offence against a 14-year-old Corporate Area schoolgirl, yesterday had his stay in jail extended until September 8.
Mr. Jones, 46, was ordered remanded by Resident Magistrate Desiree Alleyne, when he appeared in the Corporate Area Resident Magistrate's Court. His co-accused, 18-year-old James Rodgers, was granted bail in the sum of $500, 000 with two sureties.
Ring of four
Both men are part of a ring of four charged with molesting the schoolgirl. Jones was entrusted with the responsibility of taking her home from school.
Earlier this month, the other accused, the 18-year-old Shamar Morgan and a 15-year-old youth, both pleaded guilty to four counts of indecent assault. They will be sentenced on the day Mr. Jones and Mr. Rodgers return to court. ...
Deacon's defence attorney absent
published: Friday | July 28, 2006
The absence of a defence attorney yesterday means former Church Dayton Diamond Ridge deacon, 46-year-old Donovan Jones, and his co-accused James Rodgers, 18, are to return to court today for the fourth time this week.
Defence attorney Paul Beswick, who is representing the two, was absent from the bail hearing at the Half-Way Tree Resident Magistrate's Court. A representative from the defence team informed the court that Mr. Beswick had run into difficulties at his office and was unable to attend the hearing.
Bail hearing rescheduled
On Wednesday, the bail application hearing was rescheduled for Thursday afternoon when Mr. Beswick told the court he needed time to summarise the information gleaned for the hearing.
Jones, 46, is alleged to have stood by and done nothing while a 13-year-old girl was sexually molested by boys in a van he was driving. Rodgers is accused of videotaping the incident. Both men have been in jail since July 5.
published: Friday | July 28, 2006
The absence of a defence attorney yesterday means former Church Dayton Diamond Ridge deacon, 46-year-old Donovan Jones, and his co-accused James Rodgers, 18, are to return to court today for the fourth time this week.
Defence attorney Paul Beswick, who is representing the two, was absent from the bail hearing at the Half-Way Tree Resident Magistrate's Court. A representative from the defence team informed the court that Mr. Beswick had run into difficulties at his office and was unable to attend the hearing.
Bail hearing rescheduled
On Wednesday, the bail application hearing was rescheduled for Thursday afternoon when Mr. Beswick told the court he needed time to summarise the information gleaned for the hearing.
Jones, 46, is alleged to have stood by and done nothing while a 13-year-old girl was sexually molested by boys in a van he was driving. Rodgers is accused of videotaping the incident. Both men have been in jail since July 5.
Wed 26 Jul 2006
Red-faced spellcheck firm corrects own spelling
TORONTO (Reuters) - A company that sells software to correct irritating Internet spelling mistakes has reissued its latest news release to correct a minor snafu.
TextTrust, which says it focuses on "eliminating the negative text impressions on Web sites," re-released a Tuesday news release to correct a mistake that listed the most common spelling errors on "the 16 million we (sic) pages it has spell checked over the past year."
It said commonly misspelled words included independent, accommodation and definitely, which were spelled independant, accomodation and definately.
"It's very embarrassing," said Pat Brink, PR consultant for the Toronto-based company. "I made the mistake, not TextTrust -- they do a much better job, It's certainly egg on the face of this public relations person." ...
My thoughts on this are not fit for family reading, and so I will keep them to myself.
/me snaps fan open irritatedly and fans self
Red-faced spellcheck firm corrects own spelling
TORONTO (Reuters) - A company that sells software to correct irritating Internet spelling mistakes has reissued its latest news release to correct a minor snafu.
TextTrust, which says it focuses on "eliminating the negative text impressions on Web sites," re-released a Tuesday news release to correct a mistake that listed the most common spelling errors on "the 16 million we (sic) pages it has spell checked over the past year."
It said commonly misspelled words included independent, accommodation and definitely, which were spelled independant, accomodation and definately.
"It's very embarrassing," said Pat Brink, PR consultant for the Toronto-based company. "I made the mistake, not TextTrust -- they do a much better job, It's certainly egg on the face of this public relations person." ...
My thoughts on this are not fit for family reading, and so I will keep them to myself.
/me snaps fan open irritatedly and fans self
They'll be bottling tears in Medoc
Wine-growers are fighting a huge new road scheme, says margaret rand
The world-renowned vineyards of Bordeaux's Medoc region are some of France's proudest assets. So why is the French government proposing to drive a six-lane motorway - plus a TGV railway line - through some of its great wine estates?
The road is intended to take a wide sweep to the west of Bordeaux, joining the A10 and A63 autoroutes; along with the new railway line, it will improve the journey between northern Europe and Spain.
There are several proposed routes. One would wipe Chateau Cantemerle off the map. Another goes straight through the world-famous appellation of Margaux. ...
WTF, Frogistan?!
Wine-growers are fighting a huge new road scheme, says margaret rand
The world-renowned vineyards of Bordeaux's Medoc region are some of France's proudest assets. So why is the French government proposing to drive a six-lane motorway - plus a TGV railway line - through some of its great wine estates?
The road is intended to take a wide sweep to the west of Bordeaux, joining the A10 and A63 autoroutes; along with the new railway line, it will improve the journey between northern Europe and Spain.
There are several proposed routes. One would wipe Chateau Cantemerle off the map. Another goes straight through the world-famous appellation of Margaux. ...
WTF, Frogistan?!
Dog-cooking, tree-taking school-burner may lose job
Fri Jul 21, 2006 8:37am ET163
BEIJING (Reuters) - A Chinese headmaster, who tried to buy off colleagues by cooking dog meat for them after secretly selling off trees around the school, ended up setting fire to classrooms when the meal burst into flames, a Chinese newspaper said Friday.
Ten classrooms containing televisions, computers, printers and textbooks burned down, leaving nearly 100 children unable to go to school, the Beijing Youth Daily said.
The headmaster, in the northeastern province of Heilongjiang, sold off a 1,000-tree arboretum surrounding the school on the sly, the newspaper said.
"In order to get the teachers not to tell anyone what he had done, on the afternoon of May 16, headmaster Meng got friends to obtain two dogs, which they proceeded to kill on the school grounds," the report said.
"He then told the teachers they would have dog meat to eat that afternoon," it added. ...
In Vietnam anyway, it's only Christians who eat dog meat. Your "Christian" "neighbo/urs" are likely to steal your beloved pet round Xmastime (if it's big and juicy-looking enough) for their Xmas dinner.
Fri Jul 21, 2006 8:37am ET163
BEIJING (Reuters) - A Chinese headmaster, who tried to buy off colleagues by cooking dog meat for them after secretly selling off trees around the school, ended up setting fire to classrooms when the meal burst into flames, a Chinese newspaper said Friday.
Ten classrooms containing televisions, computers, printers and textbooks burned down, leaving nearly 100 children unable to go to school, the Beijing Youth Daily said.
The headmaster, in the northeastern province of Heilongjiang, sold off a 1,000-tree arboretum surrounding the school on the sly, the newspaper said.
"In order to get the teachers not to tell anyone what he had done, on the afternoon of May 16, headmaster Meng got friends to obtain two dogs, which they proceeded to kill on the school grounds," the report said.
"He then told the teachers they would have dog meat to eat that afternoon," it added. ...
In Vietnam anyway, it's only Christians who eat dog meat. Your "Christian" "neighbo/urs" are likely to steal your beloved pet round Xmastime (if it's big and juicy-looking enough) for their Xmas dinner.
Breaching the 'informa fi dead' culture
published: Sunday | July 16, 2006
Keisha Hill, Gleaner Reporter
THREATS BY Ruby Kelly, founder of the Church of Dayton Diamond Ridge in St. Andrew, against members who leaked to the media the alleged involvement of a deacon in the sexual molestation of a 13-year-old school girl have left many perturbed and angry.
Ms. Kelly, last Sunday, lashed the 'whistle-blowers' in her congregation for bringing the matter to the attention of the media. "I know every one of them, and I will deal with them," she said. Ms. Kelly also warned the congregation to "prepare you(r) black" - meaning get ready to mourn.
ISSUES OF VIOLENCE
Carolyn Gomes, executive director of Jamaicans for Justice, at last Monday's protest in front of the Dayton Avenue church said such statements by a church leader speaks to issues of violence within the society.
Ms. Gomes said, "The church congregation is failing us when it is condemning those who speak the truth and speak out, who are considered to be breaching the 'informa fi dead' culture."
"We are horrified that the congregation should be endorsing this sentiment of cursing those who speak the truth," added Dr. Gomes.
Meanwhile, Desmond Richards, president of the Press Association of Jamaica said, "For the Church to cover up such a criminal assault on a child is disgraceful."
Mr. Richards questioned the morality of the members of the church. "While we must not be quick to condemn, we must question the morality of those members of the church who became aware of the attack on the child and did nothing," said Richards. "Such an occurrence is worrying."
The church's founder, Ms. Kelly, had also lashed out at the media during last Sunday's sermon, describing one journalist as a "demon of darkness." ...
Damn, bitch! You suffer from more projection than a movie theatre!
published: Sunday | July 16, 2006
Keisha Hill, Gleaner Reporter
THREATS BY Ruby Kelly, founder of the Church of Dayton Diamond Ridge in St. Andrew, against members who leaked to the media the alleged involvement of a deacon in the sexual molestation of a 13-year-old school girl have left many perturbed and angry.
Ms. Kelly, last Sunday, lashed the 'whistle-blowers' in her congregation for bringing the matter to the attention of the media. "I know every one of them, and I will deal with them," she said. Ms. Kelly also warned the congregation to "prepare you(r) black" - meaning get ready to mourn.
ISSUES OF VIOLENCE
Carolyn Gomes, executive director of Jamaicans for Justice, at last Monday's protest in front of the Dayton Avenue church said such statements by a church leader speaks to issues of violence within the society.
Ms. Gomes said, "The church congregation is failing us when it is condemning those who speak the truth and speak out, who are considered to be breaching the 'informa fi dead' culture."
"We are horrified that the congregation should be endorsing this sentiment of cursing those who speak the truth," added Dr. Gomes.
Meanwhile, Desmond Richards, president of the Press Association of Jamaica said, "For the Church to cover up such a criminal assault on a child is disgraceful."
Mr. Richards questioned the morality of the members of the church. "While we must not be quick to condemn, we must question the morality of those members of the church who became aware of the attack on the child and did nothing," said Richards. "Such an occurrence is worrying."
The church's founder, Ms. Kelly, had also lashed out at the media during last Sunday's sermon, describing one journalist as a "demon of darkness." ...
Damn, bitch! You suffer from more projection than a movie theatre!
Church under attack - Groups lash deacon for involvement in gang-rape of 14-y-o
published: Sunday | July 9, 2006
Daraine Luton & Keisha Hill, Gleaner Writers
INCIDENTS LIKE the one involving the Dayton Avenue Church of God deacon who stood by and did nothing while a 14-year-old schoolgirl was being gang-raped in a van he was driving, can turn people's mind away from the Church, according to Rev. Devon Dick, pastor of the Boulevard Baptist Church in St. Andrew.
He believes the Church runs the danger of seeing an exodus of young people if such unwelcome behaviour becomes a trend. Rev. Dick has expressed outrage at the act which he calls "premeditated and dastardly."
The Gleaner-Bill Johnson poll that was conducted on May 13 and 14 in 84 communities across the island's 14 parishes found that people had a problem with the Church because of clerics' unconventional sexual conduct worldwide.
A whopping 66 per cent of those polled said recurring stories of Roman Catholic priests in other parts of the world molesting and having sex with youngsters, especially young boys, was a problem.*
Pastor of the Dayton Avenue Church of God, where the deacon worships, retired High Court judge Justice Martin Wright said he was aware of the incident when The Sunday Gleaner spoke to him last week. Despite this, it was the newspaper that called in the police.
Children's Advocate Mary Clarke expressed shock and noted that there was an immense time-lapse between when the incident happened and when it was reported.
Justice Wright knew of the incident 10 days before the police. ...
*I'd like to know what on Earth is wrong with the other 34%!!
Not to mention the deacon and those disgusting boys, the idiot ex-judge who broke the law, and the bloody stupid cow that defended the deacon...
published: Sunday | July 9, 2006
Daraine Luton & Keisha Hill, Gleaner Writers
INCIDENTS LIKE the one involving the Dayton Avenue Church of God deacon who stood by and did nothing while a 14-year-old schoolgirl was being gang-raped in a van he was driving, can turn people's mind away from the Church, according to Rev. Devon Dick, pastor of the Boulevard Baptist Church in St. Andrew.
He believes the Church runs the danger of seeing an exodus of young people if such unwelcome behaviour becomes a trend. Rev. Dick has expressed outrage at the act which he calls "premeditated and dastardly."
The Gleaner-Bill Johnson poll that was conducted on May 13 and 14 in 84 communities across the island's 14 parishes found that people had a problem with the Church because of clerics' unconventional sexual conduct worldwide.
A whopping 66 per cent of those polled said recurring stories of Roman Catholic priests in other parts of the world molesting and having sex with youngsters, especially young boys, was a problem.*
Pastor of the Dayton Avenue Church of God, where the deacon worships, retired High Court judge Justice Martin Wright said he was aware of the incident when The Sunday Gleaner spoke to him last week. Despite this, it was the newspaper that called in the police.
Children's Advocate Mary Clarke expressed shock and noted that there was an immense time-lapse between when the incident happened and when it was reported.
Justice Wright knew of the incident 10 days before the police. ...
*I'd like to know what on Earth is wrong with the other 34%!!
Not to mention the deacon and those disgusting boys, the idiot ex-judge who broke the law, and the bloody stupid cow that defended the deacon...
No bail for deacon
published: Thursday | July 13, 2006
Daraine Luton & Keisha Hill, Gleaner Reporters
FORMER DEACON of the Church of Dayton Diamond Ridge, Donovan Jones, and the three teenage boys implicated in the sexual molestation case of a 13-year-old girl, will spend the next eight days in jail.
Resident Magistrate Georgiana Fraser yesterday denied the four bail after viewing a DVD containing scenes of the young girl's assault. The accused will return to court on July 21.
The hearing took place in camera at the Half-Way Tree Resident Magistrate Court. RM Fraser spent more than two hours hearing bail applications after which she requested to see a copy of the offending tape before making a decision. ...
published: Thursday | July 13, 2006
Daraine Luton & Keisha Hill, Gleaner Reporters
FORMER DEACON of the Church of Dayton Diamond Ridge, Donovan Jones, and the three teenage boys implicated in the sexual molestation case of a 13-year-old girl, will spend the next eight days in jail.
Resident Magistrate Georgiana Fraser yesterday denied the four bail after viewing a DVD containing scenes of the young girl's assault. The accused will return to court on July 21.
The hearing took place in camera at the Half-Way Tree Resident Magistrate Court. RM Fraser spent more than two hours hearing bail applications after which she requested to see a copy of the offending tape before making a decision. ...
Deacon, teens face court today
published: Wednesday | July 12, 2006
Glenroy Sinclair and Keisha Hill, Gleaner Reporters
A CHURCH deacon and three teenage boys, who are at the centre of a sexual molestation case, are expected to appear in the Corporate Area Criminal Court today.
The deacon, Donovan James, 47, James Rogers, 18, a 15-year-old youth and another teenage boy were last night slapped with charges ranging from cruelty to child, assault with intent to rape, conspiracy, aiding and abbeting, and indecent assault.
James, otherwise known as 'Uncle Jimmy', will face four charges.
While the police have confirmed that the deacon, who is affiliated with the Church Dayton Diamond Ridge, and the teenagers will be in court this morning.
Meanwhile, several groups and individuals, including the Attorney-General and Minister of Justice, A.J. Nicholson, have commented on the incident which has outraged the society.
"I have noted, with increasing concern, the reports in the media concerning the alleged sexual assault on a young girl, which was videotaped, apparently for commercial purposes," said Mr. Nicholson. "Both as Minister of Justice and as a father, I am horrified at the reports regarding what was done to this child, and worse, at the actions of the adults involved. Of course, we do not seek to pre-judge or to arrive at hasty conclusions.
"However, these are not 'internal' matters, as some persons have been quoted as saying, but serious offences punishable under the law. Persons have been taken into custody and investigations are under way. It should be kept in mind that it may amount to obstruction of justice to try to persuade persons not to cooperate with the police in these investigations."
In a statement issued last night, the Dayton Avenue church apologised for the deacon's involvement in the assault, saying, "We stand ready to do whatever is in our power to bring healing and restoration, including access to counselling."
Who on Earth would want 'counselling' from bastards like these?
published: Wednesday | July 12, 2006
Glenroy Sinclair and Keisha Hill, Gleaner Reporters
A CHURCH deacon and three teenage boys, who are at the centre of a sexual molestation case, are expected to appear in the Corporate Area Criminal Court today.
The deacon, Donovan James, 47, James Rogers, 18, a 15-year-old youth and another teenage boy were last night slapped with charges ranging from cruelty to child, assault with intent to rape, conspiracy, aiding and abbeting, and indecent assault.
James, otherwise known as 'Uncle Jimmy', will face four charges.
While the police have confirmed that the deacon, who is affiliated with the Church Dayton Diamond Ridge, and the teenagers will be in court this morning.
Meanwhile, several groups and individuals, including the Attorney-General and Minister of Justice, A.J. Nicholson, have commented on the incident which has outraged the society.
"I have noted, with increasing concern, the reports in the media concerning the alleged sexual assault on a young girl, which was videotaped, apparently for commercial purposes," said Mr. Nicholson. "Both as Minister of Justice and as a father, I am horrified at the reports regarding what was done to this child, and worse, at the actions of the adults involved. Of course, we do not seek to pre-judge or to arrive at hasty conclusions.
"However, these are not 'internal' matters, as some persons have been quoted as saying, but serious offences punishable under the law. Persons have been taken into custody and investigations are under way. It should be kept in mind that it may amount to obstruction of justice to try to persuade persons not to cooperate with the police in these investigations."
In a statement issued last night, the Dayton Avenue church apologised for the deacon's involvement in the assault, saying, "We stand ready to do whatever is in our power to bring healing and restoration, including access to counselling."
Who on Earth would want 'counselling' from bastards like these?
Dayton Avenue church responds to girl's violation
published: Wednesday | July 12, 2006
IT IS necessary to correct a number of inaccuracies that have been carried in the press surrounding the violation of a schoolgirl in a vehicle driven by a deacon.
The Church Dayton has at no time during its 43 years existence condoned or promoted immorality or any illicit sexual conduct. On the contrary, the church has consistently taught its membership, including many young persons, the principles of purity and sanctity of the body as the temple of God.
The violation of a minor has, therefore, been of grave concern and we stand ready to do whatever is in our power to bring healing and restoration including access to counselling. We unreservedly apologise that one of our officers witnessed a young girl encountering such an ordeal without intervening to protect her.
The church's response has to take into account both the laws of the land as well as the principles of Christian love and discipline.
The deacon when confronted with the material contained in the tape expressed deep regret at what transpired and stated that as an adult he accepted responsibility and felt impelled to step down from his office even before this disciplinary measure could be meted out by the church. He was also strongly rebuked by the leaders for not acting in a manner befitting Christian character and his position as a church officer. ...
published: Wednesday | July 12, 2006
IT IS necessary to correct a number of inaccuracies that have been carried in the press surrounding the violation of a schoolgirl in a vehicle driven by a deacon.
The Church Dayton has at no time during its 43 years existence condoned or promoted immorality or any illicit sexual conduct. On the contrary, the church has consistently taught its membership, including many young persons, the principles of purity and sanctity of the body as the temple of God.
The violation of a minor has, therefore, been of grave concern and we stand ready to do whatever is in our power to bring healing and restoration including access to counselling. We unreservedly apologise that one of our officers witnessed a young girl encountering such an ordeal without intervening to protect her.
The church's response has to take into account both the laws of the land as well as the principles of Christian love and discipline.
The deacon when confronted with the material contained in the tape expressed deep regret at what transpired and stated that as an adult he accepted responsibility and felt impelled to step down from his office even before this disciplinary measure could be meted out by the church. He was also strongly rebuked by the leaders for not acting in a manner befitting Christian character and his position as a church officer. ...
Protesters slam church for defending deacon
published: Tuesday | July 11, 2006
Placard-bearing protesters express their disgust outside the Dayton Avenue Church of God, St. Andrew, yesterday. - WINSTON SILL/FREELANCE PHOTOGRAPHER
MEMBERS OF civil society yesterday staged a peaceful demonstration in front of the Dayton Avenue Church of God, the worship centre of the deacon at the heart of the sexual assault case involving a teenage girl.
Bearing placards laced with stinging messages - one of which read 'Suffer the little children does not mean sexual abuse' - the more than 50 people who turned up for the demonstration voiced their anger at the church's reaction to and handling of the crime.
Many were incensed at comments from church founder Ruby Kelly, who in a Sunday service, chastised the whistle blowers in her congregation and suggested they would be punished by God.
Hillary Nicholson, of chief organisers Women's Media Watch, said the demonstration was staged in order to send a message that sexual offences should not be tolerated.
"We are not only demonstrating in relation to this particular case. Sexual offences are just not treated seriously enough," Ms. Nicholson said. "We are calling not just for legislative reform in relation to the actual sexual offences, we want the Government to put in place the registry of child abusers. We want mandatory reporting of sexual offences, we want the Government to implement a nationwide massive public education campaign so that people will know what the Child Care and Protection Act is about." ...
published: Tuesday | July 11, 2006
Placard-bearing protesters express their disgust outside the Dayton Avenue Church of God, St. Andrew, yesterday. - WINSTON SILL/FREELANCE PHOTOGRAPHER
MEMBERS OF civil society yesterday staged a peaceful demonstration in front of the Dayton Avenue Church of God, the worship centre of the deacon at the heart of the sexual assault case involving a teenage girl.
Bearing placards laced with stinging messages - one of which read 'Suffer the little children does not mean sexual abuse' - the more than 50 people who turned up for the demonstration voiced their anger at the church's reaction to and handling of the crime.
Many were incensed at comments from church founder Ruby Kelly, who in a Sunday service, chastised the whistle blowers in her congregation and suggested they would be punished by God.
Hillary Nicholson, of chief organisers Women's Media Watch, said the demonstration was staged in order to send a message that sexual offences should not be tolerated.
"We are not only demonstrating in relation to this particular case. Sexual offences are just not treated seriously enough," Ms. Nicholson said. "We are calling not just for legislative reform in relation to the actual sexual offences, we want the Government to put in place the registry of child abusers. We want mandatory reporting of sexual offences, we want the Government to implement a nationwide massive public education campaign so that people will know what the Child Care and Protection Act is about." ...
Football Players Accused of Raping an 11-year-old
As Many as 10 Men Allegedly Attacked the Girl
By ALEX STONE
LOS ANGELES, July 10, 2006 -- In a crime that the police chief in Fresno, Calif., calls "disturbing," as many as 10 men, most of whom are community college football players, are accused of raping an 11-year-old girl.
Detectives have two of the men in custody and say they have evidence to prove the involvement of the others. The girl, a runaway from a group home, claims she was raped multiple times by the men on Saturday night at a Fresno apartment complex.
She told police she was at the complex to visit an acquaintance. After the rape she said she fled the apartment and asked a couple on the street to call police.
Investigators have concluded that many of the suspects are football players at Fresno City College and Reedley College. ...
WTF, men?
As Many as 10 Men Allegedly Attacked the Girl
By ALEX STONE
LOS ANGELES, July 10, 2006 -- In a crime that the police chief in Fresno, Calif., calls "disturbing," as many as 10 men, most of whom are community college football players, are accused of raping an 11-year-old girl.
Detectives have two of the men in custody and say they have evidence to prove the involvement of the others. The girl, a runaway from a group home, claims she was raped multiple times by the men on Saturday night at a Fresno apartment complex.
She told police she was at the complex to visit an acquaintance. After the rape she said she fled the apartment and asked a couple on the street to call police.
Investigators have concluded that many of the suspects are football players at Fresno City College and Reedley College. ...
WTF, men?
Cops raid deacon's home, confiscate sex tape
published: Saturday | July 8, 2006
Daraine Luton & Keisha Hill, Gleaner Writers
POLICE INVESTIGATORS yesterday confirmed that the church deacon, who was present during the sexual assault of a schoolgirl, had a copy of the X-rated videotape of the incident at his Waltham Park Road, St. Andrew, house.
Senior Superintendent George Quallo, head of the St. Andrew Central Police Division, said the authorities recovered the tape after raiding the deacon's house. They also recovered several other CDs and DVDs, but were yet to find out if their content is X-rated.
Up to last night the deacon, who has been in police custody since Wednesday, was yet to be charged. Also still to be charged are the two teenage boys picked up by the police. ...
It is understood in JA that cops have free rein before a person is charged. No one gets to see them until after the bruises go away, you know.
I wonder whether they will use that loose rein to take the bit in their collective teeth and bolt with these creatures.
published: Saturday | July 8, 2006
Daraine Luton & Keisha Hill, Gleaner Writers
POLICE INVESTIGATORS yesterday confirmed that the church deacon, who was present during the sexual assault of a schoolgirl, had a copy of the X-rated videotape of the incident at his Waltham Park Road, St. Andrew, house.
Senior Superintendent George Quallo, head of the St. Andrew Central Police Division, said the authorities recovered the tape after raiding the deacon's house. They also recovered several other CDs and DVDs, but were yet to find out if their content is X-rated.
Up to last night the deacon, who has been in police custody since Wednesday, was yet to be charged. Also still to be charged are the two teenage boys picked up by the police. ...
It is understood in JA that cops have free rein before a person is charged. No one gets to see them until after the bruises go away, you know.
I wonder whether they will use that loose rein to take the bit in their collective teeth and bolt with these creatures.
Church under probe - Schoolgirl allegedly gang-raped while deacon watched
published: Thursday | July 6, 2006
Daraine Luton and Keisha Hill, Gleaner Writers
A SENIOR member of a church run by retired Appeal Court judge, Martin Wright, stood by and did nothing while schoolboys in a van he was driving gang-raped a teenage girl and video-recorded the act.
Justice Wright, pastor of the Dayton Avenue Church of God, confirmed that he knew of the incident, but rejected suggestions of a cover-up, saying that there was no evidence a deacon had participated in the act.
"He [the deacon] was present, but we don't have any evidence of him molesting the child," Justice Wright told The Gleaner.
The Gleaner obtained a copy of the 35-minute amateur recording, with its graphic details of the assault, from sources dissatisfied with how the incident had been handled by the management of Justice Wright's Dayton Avenue Church of God, in St. Andrew. At least one of the boys may have had a connection with the church.
The church is reported to have taken disciplinary action against the deacon but Justice Wright declined to explain what this meant, saying it was internal church business.
The retired judge said he has attempted to find the girl to offer counselling but has so far been unable to find her. ...
"Counselling"? That's a new euphemism on me.
Sick bastard, defending the deacon!
published: Thursday | July 6, 2006
Daraine Luton and Keisha Hill, Gleaner Writers
A SENIOR member of a church run by retired Appeal Court judge, Martin Wright, stood by and did nothing while schoolboys in a van he was driving gang-raped a teenage girl and video-recorded the act.
Justice Wright, pastor of the Dayton Avenue Church of God, confirmed that he knew of the incident, but rejected suggestions of a cover-up, saying that there was no evidence a deacon had participated in the act.
"He [the deacon] was present, but we don't have any evidence of him molesting the child," Justice Wright told The Gleaner.
The Gleaner obtained a copy of the 35-minute amateur recording, with its graphic details of the assault, from sources dissatisfied with how the incident had been handled by the management of Justice Wright's Dayton Avenue Church of God, in St. Andrew. At least one of the boys may have had a connection with the church.
The church is reported to have taken disciplinary action against the deacon but Justice Wright declined to explain what this meant, saying it was internal church business.
The retired judge said he has attempted to find the girl to offer counselling but has so far been unable to find her. ...
"Counselling"? That's a new euphemism on me.
Sick bastard, defending the deacon!
Cops quiz deacon - Two teenagers detained in child abuse case
published: Friday | July 7, 2006
Daraine Luton and Keisha Hill, Gleaner Writers
POLICE YESTERDAY detained at least one of the boys involved in sexually molesting a schoolgirl, which was captured on tape in the presence of a church deacon who allegedly stood by and did nothing.
This brings to three the number of persons taken in for questioning as the police investigate the incident. The senior church official and the boy who captured the ordeal on video were picked up Wednesday night.
The latest police action comes less than 24 hours after The Gleaner broke the chilling story which has left parents and teachers in shock.
Police also impounded the van in which the incident took place and seized a laptop computer and cellular phones from the deacon's Dayton Avenue Church of God. ...
Can someone tell me where it says in the bib-lee that children are sex objects, and that's it's okay to abuse them?
Letters to the Gleaner's Editor regarding this case and an Editorial
published: Friday | July 7, 2006
Daraine Luton and Keisha Hill, Gleaner Writers
POLICE YESTERDAY detained at least one of the boys involved in sexually molesting a schoolgirl, which was captured on tape in the presence of a church deacon who allegedly stood by and did nothing.
This brings to three the number of persons taken in for questioning as the police investigate the incident. The senior church official and the boy who captured the ordeal on video were picked up Wednesday night.
The latest police action comes less than 24 hours after The Gleaner broke the chilling story which has left parents and teachers in shock.
Police also impounded the van in which the incident took place and seized a laptop computer and cellular phones from the deacon's Dayton Avenue Church of God. ...
Can someone tell me where it says in the bib-lee that children are sex objects, and that's it's okay to abuse them?
Letters to the Gleaner's Editor regarding this case and an Editorial
Teen's Name Changed After Years of Mockery
Vietnamese Father Agrees to Change Son's Odd Name After Lifetime of Ridicule
HANOI, Vietnam Jul 7, 2006 (AP)-- After nearly two decades of ridicule, a father has agreed to change his son's name from "Fined Six Thousand and Five Hundred" the amount he was forced to pay in local currency for ignoring Vietnam's two-child policy.
Angry he was being fined for having a fifth child, Mai Xuan Can named his son Mai Phat Sau Nghin Ruoi after the amount he was forced to pay 6,500 dong (50 cents), said Dai Cuong village chief Nguyen Huy Thuong.
In 1999, local government officials tried to persuade Can to change the name because the boy was constantly being teased by classmates at school. But Can, a former People's Committee official, refused to back down, Thuong said. They appealed to him again recently, and this time it worked.
"I told him that as his son is growing up, he should have another name not that weird name and he finally agreed," Thuong said.
The son, now 19, finally got a new name: Mai Hoang Long, which means golden dragon.
Wow - it must be so cool to have such an intelligent, kind, understanding, compassionate, thoroughly non-vindictive father. Kid oughta change his surname as well!
Vietnamese Father Agrees to Change Son's Odd Name After Lifetime of Ridicule
HANOI, Vietnam Jul 7, 2006 (AP)-- After nearly two decades of ridicule, a father has agreed to change his son's name from "Fined Six Thousand and Five Hundred" the amount he was forced to pay in local currency for ignoring Vietnam's two-child policy.
Angry he was being fined for having a fifth child, Mai Xuan Can named his son Mai Phat Sau Nghin Ruoi after the amount he was forced to pay 6,500 dong (50 cents), said Dai Cuong village chief Nguyen Huy Thuong.
In 1999, local government officials tried to persuade Can to change the name because the boy was constantly being teased by classmates at school. But Can, a former People's Committee official, refused to back down, Thuong said. They appealed to him again recently, and this time it worked.
"I told him that as his son is growing up, he should have another name not that weird name and he finally agreed," Thuong said.
The son, now 19, finally got a new name: Mai Hoang Long, which means golden dragon.
Wow - it must be so cool to have such an intelligent, kind, understanding, compassionate, thoroughly non-vindictive father. Kid oughta change his surname as well!
Jailed Italian Mafia boss to have in-vitro baby
(Reuters)
7 July 2006
ROME - An Italian judge has ruled that a Mafia boss serving a life sentence for murder should be allowed to father a baby through artificial insemination -- and the public health service should pay for it. ...
Absurd, and obscene that tax money will pay for it!
(Reuters)
7 July 2006
ROME - An Italian judge has ruled that a Mafia boss serving a life sentence for murder should be allowed to father a baby through artificial insemination -- and the public health service should pay for it. ...
Absurd, and obscene that tax money will pay for it!
"The beautiful game" ends in fight, bus wreck...
Thu Jul 6, 2006 7:32am ET165
BERLIN (Reuters) - A Berlin bus driver crashed into a parked car after being hit in the head with a beer bottle by a passenger who had disputed his views over Germany's defeat by Italy in their World Cup semi-final, police said Wednesday.
The passenger and the driver were alone in the bus traveling through southwest Berlin not far from the team hotel at about 2 a.m. and were discussing the match Germany had lost 2-0 just a few hours earlier, police said.
"When the driver commented that the 'German players just weren't good enough', the passenger started insulting him," a police spokesman said. "He then suddenly hit the driver in the head with a beer bottle."
The driver temporarily lost control of the bus and rammed a parked Mercedes -- although the bus was only going at 30 kph (18 mph) at the time. The passenger opened an emergency exit and fled. ...
Articles like this serve to remind me that there are really classy people in every country in the world, not only here in Yankistan. See, this way I get to be embarassed for my entire species, not merely my fellow Yankistanis.
Thu Jul 6, 2006 7:32am ET165
BERLIN (Reuters) - A Berlin bus driver crashed into a parked car after being hit in the head with a beer bottle by a passenger who had disputed his views over Germany's defeat by Italy in their World Cup semi-final, police said Wednesday.
The passenger and the driver were alone in the bus traveling through southwest Berlin not far from the team hotel at about 2 a.m. and were discussing the match Germany had lost 2-0 just a few hours earlier, police said.
"When the driver commented that the 'German players just weren't good enough', the passenger started insulting him," a police spokesman said. "He then suddenly hit the driver in the head with a beer bottle."
The driver temporarily lost control of the bus and rammed a parked Mercedes -- although the bus was only going at 30 kph (18 mph) at the time. The passenger opened an emergency exit and fled. ...
Articles like this serve to remind me that there are really classy people in every country in the world, not only here in Yankistan. See, this way I get to be embarassed for my entire species, not merely my fellow Yankistanis.
Argument Over Last Beer Ends With One Drinker Robbing the Other
SYRACUSE, N.Y. Jul 6, 2006 (AP)-- A man ended an argument over who drank the last beer by robbing the man he was fighting with early Thursday, Syracuse police said.
Ronald Zimmerman was charged with first-degree robbery, second-degree criminal possession of a weapon and first-degree criminal use of a firearm.
Terell Martin, 20, was drinking with Zimmerman at about 3 a.m. when the two men began to argue about the last beer.
Zimmerman pulled a handgun on Martin and went through his pockets, taking cash and a cell phone, police said. Martin claims that Zimmerman then struck him on the ear with the handgun, causing the gun to fire. ...
Classy folks we got here.
SYRACUSE, N.Y. Jul 6, 2006 (AP)-- A man ended an argument over who drank the last beer by robbing the man he was fighting with early Thursday, Syracuse police said.
Ronald Zimmerman was charged with first-degree robbery, second-degree criminal possession of a weapon and first-degree criminal use of a firearm.
Terell Martin, 20, was drinking with Zimmerman at about 3 a.m. when the two men began to argue about the last beer.
Zimmerman pulled a handgun on Martin and went through his pockets, taking cash and a cell phone, police said. Martin claims that Zimmerman then struck him on the ear with the handgun, causing the gun to fire. ...
Classy folks we got here.
07/04/2006 10:42 PM ET
MAGNOLIA, Del.- A Magnolia man sustained burns to his hand and face after using gunpowder to light to up his barbecue grill Monday night.
The Delaware State Fire Marshal's Office says the incident was reported just before 11:30 p.m. in the 100 block of Graves Lane, Meadowbrook Acres Trailer Park. Paramedics responded to the home after a man called 911 and complained of burns to his hand and face.
State fire investigators were called to the scene and are investigating the incident. Investigators say the 50-year-old man was burned when he intentionally poured gunpowder in a charcoal grill and ignited the powder causing a flash fire....
...Investigators believe alcohol played a part in this incident. ...
The important bits are emphasis/zed.
One more reason to love being a Yankistani.
Remember, girls and boys: if you're really stupid, lotsa alcohol just makes it more obvious.
Thanks, dear Leiaxe
MAGNOLIA, Del.- A Magnolia man sustained burns to his hand and face after using gunpowder to light to up his barbecue grill Monday night.
The Delaware State Fire Marshal's Office says the incident was reported just before 11:30 p.m. in the 100 block of Graves Lane, Meadowbrook Acres Trailer Park. Paramedics responded to the home after a man called 911 and complained of burns to his hand and face.
State fire investigators were called to the scene and are investigating the incident. Investigators say the 50-year-old man was burned when he intentionally poured gunpowder in a charcoal grill and ignited the powder causing a flash fire....
...Investigators believe alcohol played a part in this incident. ...
The important bits are emphasis/zed.
One more reason to love being a Yankistani.
Remember, girls and boys: if you're really stupid, lotsa alcohol just makes it more obvious.
Thanks, dear Leiaxe
Woman gets note, finger in the mail
Police seek ex-boyfriend, who has moved to Spring
By adriana garza Caller-Times
June 27, 2006
A man believed to have mailed his severed finger to an ex-girlfriend in Corpus Christi has yet to be located by authorities.
A 32-year-old woman received the package containing the human finger and a letter from her ex-boyfriend at her apartment Friday.
Corpus Christi Police Capt. John Houston said the 34-year-old ex-boyfriend moved from Corpus Christi to Spring last week.
Police said authorities in Spring have been notified of the situation and provided with an address for the man, but have not been able to find him.
Authorities in Spring could not confirm the status of the search.
Police did not release the suspect's identity Monday.
Houston said an entire finger was severed, and police have been unable to identify which finger it is.
It isn't clear how the man severed the digit.
"It was a clean cut," Houston said. "It wasn't mangled." ...
Police seek ex-boyfriend, who has moved to Spring
By adriana garza Caller-Times
June 27, 2006
A man believed to have mailed his severed finger to an ex-girlfriend in Corpus Christi has yet to be located by authorities.
A 32-year-old woman received the package containing the human finger and a letter from her ex-boyfriend at her apartment Friday.
Corpus Christi Police Capt. John Houston said the 34-year-old ex-boyfriend moved from Corpus Christi to Spring last week.
Police said authorities in Spring have been notified of the situation and provided with an address for the man, but have not been able to find him.
Authorities in Spring could not confirm the status of the search.
Police did not release the suspect's identity Monday.
Houston said an entire finger was severed, and police have been unable to identify which finger it is.
It isn't clear how the man severed the digit.
"It was a clean cut," Houston said. "It wasn't mangled." ...
Awkward moments abound in penis pump trial
By SHAUN SCHAFER, Associated Press Writer Wed Jun 28, 2:32 PM ET
BRISTOW, Okla. - Serving on the jury in an indecent-exposure trial unfolding in this conservative Oklahoma town has been a giggle-inducing experience.
Former Judge Donald D. Thompson, a veteran of 23 years on the bench, is on trial on charges he used a penis pump on himself in the courtroom while sitting in judgment of others.
Over the past few days, the jurors have watched a defense attorney and a prosecutor pantomime masturbation. A doctor has lectured on the lengths the defendant was willing to go to enhance his sexual performance. ...
...Thompson, 59, is charged with four counts of indecent exposure, each punishable by up to 10 years in prison. If convicted, he would also have to register as a sex offender, and his $7,489.91-a-month pension would be in jeopardy.
Thompson's former court reporter, Lisa Foster, wiped away tears as she described tracing an unfamiliar "sh-sh" in the courtroom to her boss. She testified that between 2001 and 2003 she saw Thompson expose himself at least 15 times.
"I was really shocked and I was kind of scared because it was so bizarre," said Foster.
She testified that during a trial in 2002, she heard the pump during the emotional testimony of a murdered toddler's grandfather.
The grandfather "was getting real teary-eyed, and the judge was up there pumping on that pump," she said. "It was sickening." ...
Justice? What's that?
By SHAUN SCHAFER, Associated Press Writer Wed Jun 28, 2:32 PM ET
BRISTOW, Okla. - Serving on the jury in an indecent-exposure trial unfolding in this conservative Oklahoma town has been a giggle-inducing experience.
Former Judge Donald D. Thompson, a veteran of 23 years on the bench, is on trial on charges he used a penis pump on himself in the courtroom while sitting in judgment of others.
Over the past few days, the jurors have watched a defense attorney and a prosecutor pantomime masturbation. A doctor has lectured on the lengths the defendant was willing to go to enhance his sexual performance. ...
...Thompson, 59, is charged with four counts of indecent exposure, each punishable by up to 10 years in prison. If convicted, he would also have to register as a sex offender, and his $7,489.91-a-month pension would be in jeopardy.
Thompson's former court reporter, Lisa Foster, wiped away tears as she described tracing an unfamiliar "sh-sh" in the courtroom to her boss. She testified that between 2001 and 2003 she saw Thompson expose himself at least 15 times.
"I was really shocked and I was kind of scared because it was so bizarre," said Foster.
She testified that during a trial in 2002, she heard the pump during the emotional testimony of a murdered toddler's grandfather.
The grandfather "was getting real teary-eyed, and the judge was up there pumping on that pump," she said. "It was sickening." ...
Justice? What's that?
Dell says investigating exploding laptop incident
Tue Jun 27, 2006 6:08pm ET15
NEW YORK (Reuters) - The Dell laptop computer seen bursting into flames in photographs on the Internet was being examined as part of the company's probe of the incident, Dell Inc. (DELL.O: Quote, Profile, Research) said on Tuesday.
"We have captured the notebook and have begun investigating the event," Dell spokeswoman Anne Camden said, confirming the computer was made by Dell but declining to specify the model. No one was hurt in the incident, she said.
The report of an exploding laptop at a conference in Osaka, Japan, accompanied by digital photos, was first published on technology industry news Web site The Inquirer last week.
Dell in December 2005 issued a battery recall for some of the batteries in its laptop due to overheating issues, according to the company's Web site. ...
Tue Jun 27, 2006 6:08pm ET15
NEW YORK (Reuters) - The Dell laptop computer seen bursting into flames in photographs on the Internet was being examined as part of the company's probe of the incident, Dell Inc. (DELL.O: Quote, Profile, Research) said on Tuesday.
"We have captured the notebook and have begun investigating the event," Dell spokeswoman Anne Camden said, confirming the computer was made by Dell but declining to specify the model. No one was hurt in the incident, she said.
The report of an exploding laptop at a conference in Osaka, Japan, accompanied by digital photos, was first published on technology industry news Web site The Inquirer last week.
Dell in December 2005 issued a battery recall for some of the batteries in its laptop due to overheating issues, according to the company's Web site. ...
Halt! Or I'll shoot you with my pawn shop ticket!
Wed Jun 28, 2006 9:33am ET7
MANILA (Reuters) - Six police officers may lose their jobs for pawning their guns in the southern Philippines, where underfunded and poorly paid security forces are fighting Muslim and communist insurgencies.
German Doria, police chief of the central region of Mindanao island, said Wednesday the incidents of government-issued guns being pawned came to light when the National Bureau of Investigation raided shops selling stolen goods in Tupi town. ...
Wed Jun 28, 2006 9:33am ET7
MANILA (Reuters) - Six police officers may lose their jobs for pawning their guns in the southern Philippines, where underfunded and poorly paid security forces are fighting Muslim and communist insurgencies.
German Doria, police chief of the central region of Mindanao island, said Wednesday the incidents of government-issued guns being pawned came to light when the National Bureau of Investigation raided shops selling stolen goods in Tupi town. ...
Two Killed in Severed Head Crash in Idaho
By JESSE HARLAN ALDERMAN
The Associated Press
Friday, June 16, 2006; 2:26 AM
BOISE, Idaho -- The severed head of a man's wife flew from his pickup truck Thursday when he crashed into an oncoming car, killing the driver and her child, police said.
The investigation of the deadly wreck and the head, which was tossed onto the roadway by the impact, led police to the decapitated body of 47-year-old Theresa N. Time in the garage of the home she shared with her husband, Alofa Time, said Nampa police Lt. LeRoy Forsman. ...
He begged the cops to kill him.
By JESSE HARLAN ALDERMAN
The Associated Press
Friday, June 16, 2006; 2:26 AM
BOISE, Idaho -- The severed head of a man's wife flew from his pickup truck Thursday when he crashed into an oncoming car, killing the driver and her child, police said.
The investigation of the deadly wreck and the head, which was tossed onto the roadway by the impact, led police to the decapitated body of 47-year-old Theresa N. Time in the garage of the home she shared with her husband, Alofa Time, said Nampa police Lt. LeRoy Forsman. ...
He begged the cops to kill him.
Woman Seeking License Sends Car Into Canal
The Associated Press
Wednesday, June 21, 2006; 6:50 PM
POMPANO BEACH, Fla. -- A 19-year-old woman may have to practice a little more after driving a borrowed taxi into a canal just before she was scheduled to take her driver's license test Wednesday, authorities said. ...
Okay, this pedal makes it go, this pedal makes it stop. Turn the wheel left, the car goes left; turn it to the right and it goes right.
The Associated Press
Wednesday, June 21, 2006; 6:50 PM
POMPANO BEACH, Fla. -- A 19-year-old woman may have to practice a little more after driving a borrowed taxi into a canal just before she was scheduled to take her driver's license test Wednesday, authorities said. ...
Okay, this pedal makes it go, this pedal makes it stop. Turn the wheel left, the car goes left; turn it to the right and it goes right.
Slumbering English Soccer Fans Block Road
The Associated Press
Sunday, June 18, 2006; 1:04 PM
... In another incident involving a drunken Briton, Munich police said a Scottish resident was arrested Saturday at a fan festival in the city's Olympic Park after raising his kilt and exposing himself to passers-by - including a police officer.
The man was taken to a police cell, where he tried to bite an officer's arm, a police statement said. He was released from detention after sobering up.
Brit fans were deported from Germany for wearing swastikas. Seven Brit fans were arrested in Germany t'other day.
It's not just the Yankistanis who are ugly these days.
The Associated Press
Sunday, June 18, 2006; 1:04 PM
... In another incident involving a drunken Briton, Munich police said a Scottish resident was arrested Saturday at a fan festival in the city's Olympic Park after raising his kilt and exposing himself to passers-by - including a police officer.
The man was taken to a police cell, where he tried to bite an officer's arm, a police statement said. He was released from detention after sobering up.
Brit fans were deported from Germany for wearing swastikas. Seven Brit fans were arrested in Germany t'other day.
It's not just the Yankistanis who are ugly these days.
BOSTON (Reuters) - A former teacher who faked stomach cancer in Massachusetts and went on a spending spree with some $37,000 (20,000 pounds) in donations from friends and family was sentenced on Thursday to two years in prison.
Heather Faria, 27, was found guilty in April of duping friends into holding a fund-raiser for her medical treatments and then spending the money on a vacation, a wide-screen television and jewellery, the Bristol District Attorney's office said. ...
Classy dame.
Heather Faria, 27, was found guilty in April of duping friends into holding a fund-raiser for her medical treatments and then spending the money on a vacation, a wide-screen television and jewellery, the Bristol District Attorney's office said. ...
Classy dame.
It should be simple: a woman walks into a pharmacy with her prescription and walks out with her medicine. Right? If only it were that easy.
Rogue anti-choice pharmacists across the country are refusing to fill safe, legal prescriptions for birth control. Some pharmacists lecture women, humiliate them in public, and refuse to hand back the prescription even after they refuse to fill it. This is outrageous - and it must be stopped.
Please take action today to support the bipartisan Access to Legal Pharmaceuticals Act.
Rogue anti-choice pharmacists across the country are refusing to fill safe, legal prescriptions for birth control. Some pharmacists lecture women, humiliate them in public, and refuse to hand back the prescription even after they refuse to fill it. This is outrageous - and it must be stopped.
Please take action today to support the bipartisan Access to Legal Pharmaceuticals Act.
Created: 02.06.2006 14:20 MSK (GMT +3), Updated: 14:20 MSK
A former Russian MP, a local education chief, has been jailed for embezzlement and abuse of authority -- he made his subordinates study scientology and used budget money to pay for their studies.
Boris Shalimov of the Skovorodinsk region in Russia's Far East has been sentenced to two years in prison for embezzlement and abuse of authority, the website of Russia's Prosecutor General's Office reports. ...
A former Russian MP, a local education chief, has been jailed for embezzlement and abuse of authority -- he made his subordinates study scientology and used budget money to pay for their studies.
Boris Shalimov of the Skovorodinsk region in Russia's Far East has been sentenced to two years in prison for embezzlement and abuse of authority, the website of Russia's Prosecutor General's Office reports. ...
Friday June 2, 2006 2:46 AM
HURST, Texas (AP) - A teenager accused of spiking a fellow theater student's drink with bleach because she wanted the lead role in a school play surrendered to authorities.
Katherine A. Smith, 18, turned herself in Wednesday, more than a week after a warrant was issued for her arrest. She was charged with tampering with a consumer product, a felony punishable by up to 20 years in prison, and was released on $2,500 bail.
A message left Thursday at Smith's home seeking comment was not immediately returned.
Smith is accused of putting bleach in Mountain Dew and then handing the drink to a 15-year-old in February, a day after the opening of L.D. Bell High School's production of "Ha!" - a trio of one-act comedies. Test results confirmed that the drink contained components of bleach, according to police reports. ...
HURST, Texas (AP) - A teenager accused of spiking a fellow theater student's drink with bleach because she wanted the lead role in a school play surrendered to authorities.
Katherine A. Smith, 18, turned herself in Wednesday, more than a week after a warrant was issued for her arrest. She was charged with tampering with a consumer product, a felony punishable by up to 20 years in prison, and was released on $2,500 bail.
A message left Thursday at Smith's home seeking comment was not immediately returned.
Smith is accused of putting bleach in Mountain Dew and then handing the drink to a 15-year-old in February, a day after the opening of L.D. Bell High School's production of "Ha!" - a trio of one-act comedies. Test results confirmed that the drink contained components of bleach, according to police reports. ...
People with full-time jobs who don't kill people cannot get needed surgery in this country - that is cruel and far from unusual punishment. Why should this creep - with us footing the bill?
Don't you be makin' no already angry God even madder - those brownies better be fresh.
Goodness gracious: Great Balls o' Fire!
Nicked shamelessly from the divine Italian-Scallion via Buzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
Goodness gracious: Great Balls o' Fire!
Nicked shamelessly from the divine Italian-Scallion via Buzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
Tue May 30, 2006 11:16 AM BST163
AMSTERDAM (Reuters) - Dutch paedophiles are launching a political party to push for a cut in the legal age for sexual relations to 12 from 16 and the legalisation of child pornography and sex with animals. ...
... "A ban just makes children curious," Ad van den Berg, one of the party's founders, told the Algemeen Dagblad (AD) newspaper. ...
..."They make out as if they want more rights for children. But their position that children should be allowed sexual contact from age 12 is of course just in their own interest," anti-paedophile campaigner Ireen van Engelen told the daily.
The party said private possession of child pornography should be allowed...The broadcast of pornography should be allowed on daytime television, with only violent pornography limited to the late evening...
Toddlers should be given sex education and youths aged 16 and up should be allowed to appear in pornographic films and prostitute themselves. Sex with animals should be allowed although abuse of animals should remain illegal...
The party also said everybody should be allowed to go naked in public.
The party's programme also includes ideas for other areas of public policy including legalising all soft and hard drugs and free train travel for all.
AMSTERDAM (Reuters) - Dutch paedophiles are launching a political party to push for a cut in the legal age for sexual relations to 12 from 16 and the legalisation of child pornography and sex with animals. ...
... "A ban just makes children curious," Ad van den Berg, one of the party's founders, told the Algemeen Dagblad (AD) newspaper. ...
..."They make out as if they want more rights for children. But their position that children should be allowed sexual contact from age 12 is of course just in their own interest," anti-paedophile campaigner Ireen van Engelen told the daily.
The party said private possession of child pornography should be allowed...The broadcast of pornography should be allowed on daytime television, with only violent pornography limited to the late evening...
Toddlers should be given sex education and youths aged 16 and up should be allowed to appear in pornographic films and prostitute themselves. Sex with animals should be allowed although abuse of animals should remain illegal...
The party also said everybody should be allowed to go naked in public.
The party's programme also includes ideas for other areas of public policy including legalising all soft and hard drugs and free train travel for all.
by Tony Collins
Tuesday 16 May 2006
A Home Office department is fingerprinting under-fives, and may include babies, in a biometrics ID scheme. The trial ends the department's technological taboo on enrolling very young children in identity checks. ...
... The UK could be one of the first countries to fingerprint under-fives - and possibly the first. When Malaysian police last year proposed fingerprinting of babies there were strong protests from civil liberties groups in the country.
If the trial is successful, it could encourage the government to consider gathering fingerprints from very young children for passport applications. The legal framework exists for this to happen.
Very young children have in the past been considered unsuitable for fingerprinting because their newly-formed fingers stretch too quickly for a one-off capture of data to yield a reliable historical record.
But the internal Home Office report refers to developing algorithms to enhance the performance of systems for under-fives. ...
Look for 'fucking disgusting' in any illustrated dictionary and you'll find a pic of the demon-worshipper who came up with this idea.
Many thanks to dear Mu-Tiger
Tuesday 16 May 2006
A Home Office department is fingerprinting under-fives, and may include babies, in a biometrics ID scheme. The trial ends the department's technological taboo on enrolling very young children in identity checks. ...
... The UK could be one of the first countries to fingerprint under-fives - and possibly the first. When Malaysian police last year proposed fingerprinting of babies there were strong protests from civil liberties groups in the country.
If the trial is successful, it could encourage the government to consider gathering fingerprints from very young children for passport applications. The legal framework exists for this to happen.
Very young children have in the past been considered unsuitable for fingerprinting because their newly-formed fingers stretch too quickly for a one-off capture of data to yield a reliable historical record.
But the internal Home Office report refers to developing algorithms to enhance the performance of systems for under-fives. ...
Look for 'fucking disgusting' in any illustrated dictionary and you'll find a pic of the demon-worshipper who came up with this idea.
Many thanks to dear Mu-Tiger
By LIUDAS DAPKUS, Associated Press Writer
Tuesday, May 23, 2006
(05-23) 05:42 PDT VILNIUS, Lithuania (AP) --
Lithuanian police were so astonished when they pulled over a truck driver and his breathalyzer test registered 18 times the legal alcohol limit, they thought their testing device must be broken. It wasn't.
Police said Tuesday 41-year-old Vidmantas Sungaila registered 7.27 grams per liter of alcohol in his blood repeatedly on different devices when he was pulled over for driving his truck down the center of a two-lane highway 60 miles from the capital, Vilnius on Saturday.
Lithuania's legal limit is 0.4 grams per liter.
"This guy should have been lying dead, but he was still driving. It must be an unofficial national record," Saulius Skvernelis, the director of the national police traffic control service, told the AP. "He was of high spirits and grinning the whole time he was questioned."
Medical experts say anything above 3.5 grams per liter of alcohol in the blood is lethal for most people. ...
Apols dear friends for reviewing and sending this as an inaccessible subscriber-only article from the El Lay Times.
Tuesday, May 23, 2006
(05-23) 05:42 PDT VILNIUS, Lithuania (AP) --
Lithuanian police were so astonished when they pulled over a truck driver and his breathalyzer test registered 18 times the legal alcohol limit, they thought their testing device must be broken. It wasn't.
Police said Tuesday 41-year-old Vidmantas Sungaila registered 7.27 grams per liter of alcohol in his blood repeatedly on different devices when he was pulled over for driving his truck down the center of a two-lane highway 60 miles from the capital, Vilnius on Saturday.
Lithuania's legal limit is 0.4 grams per liter.
"This guy should have been lying dead, but he was still driving. It must be an unofficial national record," Saulius Skvernelis, the director of the national police traffic control service, told the AP. "He was of high spirits and grinning the whole time he was questioned."
Medical experts say anything above 3.5 grams per liter of alcohol in the blood is lethal for most people. ...
Apols dear friends for reviewing and sending this as an inaccessible subscriber-only article from the El Lay Times.
Saudi Arabia delays barring male salespeople from lingerie shops
Sun May 14, 2006 4:32pm ET10
RIYADH (Reuters) - Saudi Arabia has postponed plans to replace male sales assistants in lingerie shops, saying it wants to give outlets more time to prepare for the move which has irritated the influential religious circles.
The government, which wants more women to work as part of its efforts to reduce reliance on foreign labor, took the decision last June and businesses were given a year to prepare for implementation.
"Based on pleas by shop owners ... that they were unable to comply with the deadline, the ministry's decision is postponed until all the required preparations are finalized," state news agency SPA quoted the Labor Ministry as saying.
While women in Saudi Arabia are forbidden from mixing with men outside their immediate family in public, they have little [sic] alternative to buying their most intimate items of clothing from men.
Many clerics and Islamists in Saudi Arabia, the birthplace of Islam which imposes a strict version of Sunni Islam, have opposed the idea as the start of reform process promoted by King Abdullah that they fear will liberalize the stringent system.
A Western diplomat said the move had irritated some of the most influential clerics in kingdom, where are not allowed to drive and face employment restrictions because of the need to segregate sexes. ...
A female writer would not have chosen the phrase "the need to segregate sexes."
Just thought I'd mention that.
Sun May 14, 2006 4:32pm ET10
RIYADH (Reuters) - Saudi Arabia has postponed plans to replace male sales assistants in lingerie shops, saying it wants to give outlets more time to prepare for the move which has irritated the influential religious circles.
The government, which wants more women to work as part of its efforts to reduce reliance on foreign labor, took the decision last June and businesses were given a year to prepare for implementation.
"Based on pleas by shop owners ... that they were unable to comply with the deadline, the ministry's decision is postponed until all the required preparations are finalized," state news agency SPA quoted the Labor Ministry as saying.
While women in Saudi Arabia are forbidden from mixing with men outside their immediate family in public, they have little [sic] alternative to buying their most intimate items of clothing from men.
Many clerics and Islamists in Saudi Arabia, the birthplace of Islam which imposes a strict version of Sunni Islam, have opposed the idea as the start of reform process promoted by King Abdullah that they fear will liberalize the stringent system.
A Western diplomat said the move had irritated some of the most influential clerics in kingdom, where are not allowed to drive and face employment restrictions because of the need to segregate sexes. ...
A female writer would not have chosen the phrase "the need to segregate sexes."
Just thought I'd mention that.
May 11, 2006
By George P. Hassett
$31,535 in cash was mistakenly thrown out by Somerville Police Monday, said Acting Police Chief Robert Bradley today. The money had been seized by police in various criminal investigations. Evidence and other seized property was also inadvertently disposed [of - sic], said Bradley.
"Everyone in the Department - myself most of all - understands the severity of this error," said Bradley. "Everything we know now points to human error rather than any deliberate misdeed, but it's still a very bad mistake. Because we're talking in some instances about seized property rather than actual evidence, this may not end up affecting many cases, but that doesn't excuse what happened."
Bradley said the cash and evidence was disposed of as part of cleaning the evidence room in anticipation of installing a new, federally funded automated record-keeping system.
The seized property and evidence items, including the $31,000 in cash, had been temporarily stored in the drawer of a detached portion of a metal desk located in a secure room that formed part of the evidence storage area at police headquarters in the Public Safety Building on Washington Street. The broken drawer unit was not in an office area and was leaning on its side when it was mistakenly identified last Monday as junked furniture and tossed into a dumpster for disposal. ...
By George P. Hassett
$31,535 in cash was mistakenly thrown out by Somerville Police Monday, said Acting Police Chief Robert Bradley today. The money had been seized by police in various criminal investigations. Evidence and other seized property was also inadvertently disposed [of - sic], said Bradley.
"Everyone in the Department - myself most of all - understands the severity of this error," said Bradley. "Everything we know now points to human error rather than any deliberate misdeed, but it's still a very bad mistake. Because we're talking in some instances about seized property rather than actual evidence, this may not end up affecting many cases, but that doesn't excuse what happened."
Bradley said the cash and evidence was disposed of as part of cleaning the evidence room in anticipation of installing a new, federally funded automated record-keeping system.
The seized property and evidence items, including the $31,000 in cash, had been temporarily stored in the drawer of a detached portion of a metal desk located in a secure room that formed part of the evidence storage area at police headquarters in the Public Safety Building on Washington Street. The broken drawer unit was not in an office area and was leaning on its side when it was mistakenly identified last Monday as junked furniture and tossed into a dumpster for disposal. ...
L.A. woman faces fraud charge over lawsuits
Friday, May 12, 2006
REUTERS
LOS ANGELES -- A wheelchair-bound Los Angeles woman, who has repeatedly filed lawsuits over access for the disabled, got up and ran after police arrested her for fraud, authorities said yesterday.
...Medley, who claimed to have been paralyzed in a drunken driving accident, was tracked to Las Vegas where police took her into custody and then, when she complained of medical issues, to a local hospital, Long Beach prosecutor Belinda Mayes said.
"She gets to the hospital and while she's waiting for an examination, she gets up from the chair and runs," Mayes said. "Somebody remarked, 'That's where the great miracle occurred.'" ...
Friday, May 12, 2006
REUTERS
LOS ANGELES -- A wheelchair-bound Los Angeles woman, who has repeatedly filed lawsuits over access for the disabled, got up and ran after police arrested her for fraud, authorities said yesterday.
...Medley, who claimed to have been paralyzed in a drunken driving accident, was tracked to Las Vegas where police took her into custody and then, when she complained of medical issues, to a local hospital, Long Beach prosecutor Belinda Mayes said.
"She gets to the hospital and while she's waiting for an examination, she gets up from the chair and runs," Mayes said. "Somebody remarked, 'That's where the great miracle occurred.'" ...
http://www.thetimesonline.com/articles/2006/05/09/news/top_news/335e834eee40620786257169001aad69.txt
Teen asks pal to run him over
CHESTERTON: Stunt ends with one badly injured, one arrested
BY KEN KOSKY
This story ran on nwitimes.com on Tuesday, May 9, 2006 12:28 AM CDT
CHESTERTON | A teenage driver who told police he ran over his buddy because his buddy is an adrenaline junkie and "gets off on this kind of thing" was arrested after the stunt went awry and sent his friend to the hospital with serious injuries.
Stephen Domonkos, 18, of 371 Greendale Drive, South Haven, was arrested on a felony charge of criminal reckless causing serious bodily injury.
His friend, Michael Morris, 17, a junior at Chesterton High School, suffered a broken leg, a broken arm and road rash. He remained in fair condition Monday at Porter Valparaiso Hospital Campus.
Morris, confirmed Monday that he had his friend strike him. He also said he's learned a lesson.
"I won't do this no more," Morris told The Times. ...
Mayhap the time he used to spend getting hit by cars can be spent learning how to speak the English language.
Just a thought...
CHESTERTON: Stunt ends with one badly injured, one arrested
BY KEN KOSKY
This story ran on nwitimes.com on Tuesday, May 9, 2006 12:28 AM CDT
CHESTERTON | A teenage driver who told police he ran over his buddy because his buddy is an adrenaline junkie and "gets off on this kind of thing" was arrested after the stunt went awry and sent his friend to the hospital with serious injuries.
Stephen Domonkos, 18, of 371 Greendale Drive, South Haven, was arrested on a felony charge of criminal reckless causing serious bodily injury.
His friend, Michael Morris, 17, a junior at Chesterton High School, suffered a broken leg, a broken arm and road rash. He remained in fair condition Monday at Porter Valparaiso Hospital Campus.
Morris, confirmed Monday that he had his friend strike him. He also said he's learned a lesson.
"I won't do this no more," Morris told The Times. ...
Mayhap the time he used to spend getting hit by cars can be spent learning how to speak the English language.
Just a thought...
Gator Bites Man Who Jumps on Its Back
May 4, 11:15 AM (ET)
LABELLE, Fla. (AP) - A real estate tycoon who owns a nature preserve tried to show off for visitors by jumping on an alligator's back for a ride, but the reptile bit his hand and dragged him into 15 feet of water.
The 8-foot alligator let go of Ronald Bergeron after witnesses pulled its tail. Bergeron, 62, suffered a shattered pinky, a broken ring finger and puncture wounds in his palm.
The multimillionaire developer tried the stunt Sunday while giving a tour of his 5,000-plus-acre preserve to weekend guests who had made large donations to the Boys & Girls Club. ...
May 4, 11:15 AM (ET)
LABELLE, Fla. (AP) - A real estate tycoon who owns a nature preserve tried to show off for visitors by jumping on an alligator's back for a ride, but the reptile bit his hand and dragged him into 15 feet of water.
The 8-foot alligator let go of Ronald Bergeron after witnesses pulled its tail. Bergeron, 62, suffered a shattered pinky, a broken ring finger and puncture wounds in his palm.
The multimillionaire developer tried the stunt Sunday while giving a tour of his 5,000-plus-acre preserve to weekend guests who had made large donations to the Boys & Girls Club. ...
...The ingredients of the story are a barrel containing 300 liters of Jamaican rum, a house on the outskirts of Szeged in sore need of renovation, a team of slow workmen in sore need of drink, and a dead ex-husband. As Zsaru tells it, the builders happened on the man-sized hordó of liquor (left) in the derelict property they were renovating, and helped themselves to it over the months it took to complete the renovation. But the tale really begins after the barrel ran dry.
When the workmen tried to move the "empty" barrel, they discovered it was not empty at all. Curious, they broke open the cask and, to their horror, found the naked and slightly shriveled corpse of a man.
A little detective work by the cops revealed that the property had belonged to an old widower who had once lived in the Caribbean with her husband, a diplomat. Apparently the man had died in Jamaica, and his widow, discouraged by the cost and paperwork of returning his corpse to Hungary through official channels, instead tossed his carcass into a vat of rum and shipped it home via slow boat. ...
When the workmen tried to move the "empty" barrel, they discovered it was not empty at all. Curious, they broke open the cask and, to their horror, found the naked and slightly shriveled corpse of a man.
A little detective work by the cops revealed that the property had belonged to an old widower who had once lived in the Caribbean with her husband, a diplomat. Apparently the man had died in Jamaica, and his widow, discouraged by the cost and paperwork of returning his corpse to Hungary through official channels, instead tossed his carcass into a vat of rum and shipped it home via slow boat. ...
Second person glued to toilet
By Kim Mitchell
Staff Writer
SALISBURY -- It wasn't the Saturday bomb threat at North Salisbury Wal-Mart that had people talking Monday morning.
It was, however, a sticky situation.
A 20-year-old Salisbury man was taken to Peninsula Regional Medical Center late Sunday night after a Wal-Mart employee found the man glued to his bathroom seat, said Lt. Cheryl Rantz of the Salisbury Police Department.
"The man had gone into the bathroom and sat down," she said. "He was banging on the wall when the employee came in."
The employee called 911 and emergency medical services arrived. Police say the man was not in the bathroom for more than five minutes.
The man was treated at PRMC and released.
"We're grateful that he was not seriously injured," said Sharon Weber, store spokeswoman.
Wal-Mart is conducting an internal investigation into the incident and handling it just like any other, she said. ...
Thank you for shopping at wally world, and have a nice day.
By Kim Mitchell
Staff Writer
SALISBURY -- It wasn't the Saturday bomb threat at North Salisbury Wal-Mart that had people talking Monday morning.
It was, however, a sticky situation.
A 20-year-old Salisbury man was taken to Peninsula Regional Medical Center late Sunday night after a Wal-Mart employee found the man glued to his bathroom seat, said Lt. Cheryl Rantz of the Salisbury Police Department.
"The man had gone into the bathroom and sat down," she said. "He was banging on the wall when the employee came in."
The employee called 911 and emergency medical services arrived. Police say the man was not in the bathroom for more than five minutes.
The man was treated at PRMC and released.
"We're grateful that he was not seriously injured," said Sharon Weber, store spokeswoman.
Wal-Mart is conducting an internal investigation into the incident and handling it just like any other, she said. ...
Thank you for shopping at wally world, and have a nice day.
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- After more than three years of combat and nearly 2,400 U.S. military deaths in Iraq, nearly two-thirds of Americans aged 18 to 24 still cannot find Iraq on a map, a study released Tuesday showed.
The study found that less than six months after Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans and the Gulf Coast, 33 percent could not point out Louisiana on a U.S. map.
The National Geographic-Roper Public Affairs 2006 Geographic Literacy Study paints a dismal picture of the geographic knowledge of the most recent graduates of the U.S. education system.
"Taken together, these results suggest that young people in the United States ... are unprepared for an increasingly global future," said the study's final report.
"Far too many lack even the most basic skills for navigating the international economy or understanding the relationships among people and places that provide critical context for world events."
The study, which surveyed 510 young Americans from December 17 to January 20, showed that 88 percent of those questioned could not find Afghanistan on a map of Asia despite widespread coverage of the U.S.-led overthrow of the Taliban in 2001 and the political rebirth of the country.
In the Middle East, 63 percent could not find Iraq or Saudi Arabia on a map, and 75 percent could not point out Iran or Israel. Forty-four percent couldn't find any one of those four countries.
Inside the United States, "half or fewer of young men and women 18-24 can identify the states of New York or Ohio on a map [50 percent and 43 percent, respectively]," the study said. ...
Kids, this is why I quickly inform folks from other countries that I can find their and my own country on a map.
This is why they are surprised and delighted when they find it's true.
The study found that less than six months after Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans and the Gulf Coast, 33 percent could not point out Louisiana on a U.S. map.
The National Geographic-Roper Public Affairs 2006 Geographic Literacy Study paints a dismal picture of the geographic knowledge of the most recent graduates of the U.S. education system.
"Taken together, these results suggest that young people in the United States ... are unprepared for an increasingly global future," said the study's final report.
"Far too many lack even the most basic skills for navigating the international economy or understanding the relationships among people and places that provide critical context for world events."
The study, which surveyed 510 young Americans from December 17 to January 20, showed that 88 percent of those questioned could not find Afghanistan on a map of Asia despite widespread coverage of the U.S.-led overthrow of the Taliban in 2001 and the political rebirth of the country.
In the Middle East, 63 percent could not find Iraq or Saudi Arabia on a map, and 75 percent could not point out Iran or Israel. Forty-four percent couldn't find any one of those four countries.
Inside the United States, "half or fewer of young men and women 18-24 can identify the states of New York or Ohio on a map [50 percent and 43 percent, respectively]," the study said. ...
Kids, this is why I quickly inform folks from other countries that I can find their and my own country on a map.
This is why they are surprised and delighted when they find it's true.
Pakistan couple, jailed for falling in love, go free
May 1, 8:51 AM (ET)
HYDERABAD, Pakistan (Reuters) - A Pakistani couple were released Saturday after serving five years in jail for adultery, their only crime having been to fall in love and get married.
Sodi, 23, and her husband, Abdul Hakeem Kashkeli, 26, appeared in court in the southern city of Hyderabad where the judge ordered their release.
"I am overjoyed. We have got justice at last," Sodi, 23, told reporters waiting outside. "The judgment shows we have done nothing wrong and it is no crime to marry the man you love."
The court heard a statement from the maulvi, or Muslim preacher, who had conducted the marriage and dismissed the adultery case, defense lawyer Khuda Baksh Leghari told Reuters.
Every year, hundreds of Pakistani women become victims of so-called honor killings for marrying without their families' consent, especially in conservative rural areas.
Others end up in jail after relatives file adultery cases.
Sodi and her husband were arrested in October 2001 on adultery charges and held in separate jails after the woman's father accused the man of abducting his daughter.
May 1, 8:51 AM (ET)
HYDERABAD, Pakistan (Reuters) - A Pakistani couple were released Saturday after serving five years in jail for adultery, their only crime having been to fall in love and get married.
Sodi, 23, and her husband, Abdul Hakeem Kashkeli, 26, appeared in court in the southern city of Hyderabad where the judge ordered their release.
"I am overjoyed. We have got justice at last," Sodi, 23, told reporters waiting outside. "The judgment shows we have done nothing wrong and it is no crime to marry the man you love."
The court heard a statement from the maulvi, or Muslim preacher, who had conducted the marriage and dismissed the adultery case, defense lawyer Khuda Baksh Leghari told Reuters.
Every year, hundreds of Pakistani women become victims of so-called honor killings for marrying without their families' consent, especially in conservative rural areas.
Others end up in jail after relatives file adultery cases.
Sodi and her husband were arrested in October 2001 on adultery charges and held in separate jails after the woman's father accused the man of abducting his daughter.
From the page:
by Jon Clarke in Malaga
THE archeologists could barely hide their excitement. Beneath the main square of Ecija, a small town in southern Spain, they had unearthed an astounding treasure trove of Roman history.
They discovered a well-preserved Roman forum, bath house, gymnasium and temple as well as dozens of private homes and hundreds of mosaics and statues - one of them considered to be among the finest found.
But now the bulldozers have moved in. The last vestiges of the lost city known as Colonia Augusta Firma Astigi - one of the great cities of the Roman world - have been destroyed to build an underground municipal car park.
Dr Sonia Zakrzewski, a senior lecturer in archeology at Southampton University who has worked on the site, said: "It is a real shock when things like this happen. I am surprised it has gone ahead. There is no doubt this site is of fundamental importance to archeology."
Much of the site has been hurriedly concreted over: the only minor concession to archeologists and historians, is to leave a tiny section on show for tourists. The rest will be space for 299 cars.
The Roman city has proved to be one of the biggest in the ancient world. Its estimated 30,000 citizens dominated the olive oil industry. Terracotta urns from Ecija have been discovered as far away as Britain and Rome. ...
I know: let's pour concrete over the mayor's house until it's completely covered, except for a small patch for tourists.
Many thanks to dear CharlesHB
by Jon Clarke in Malaga
THE archeologists could barely hide their excitement. Beneath the main square of Ecija, a small town in southern Spain, they had unearthed an astounding treasure trove of Roman history.
They discovered a well-preserved Roman forum, bath house, gymnasium and temple as well as dozens of private homes and hundreds of mosaics and statues - one of them considered to be among the finest found.
But now the bulldozers have moved in. The last vestiges of the lost city known as Colonia Augusta Firma Astigi - one of the great cities of the Roman world - have been destroyed to build an underground municipal car park.
Dr Sonia Zakrzewski, a senior lecturer in archeology at Southampton University who has worked on the site, said: "It is a real shock when things like this happen. I am surprised it has gone ahead. There is no doubt this site is of fundamental importance to archeology."
Much of the site has been hurriedly concreted over: the only minor concession to archeologists and historians, is to leave a tiny section on show for tourists. The rest will be space for 299 cars.
The Roman city has proved to be one of the biggest in the ancient world. Its estimated 30,000 citizens dominated the olive oil industry. Terracotta urns from Ecija have been discovered as far away as Britain and Rome. ...
I know: let's pour concrete over the mayor's house until it's completely covered, except for a small patch for tourists.
Many thanks to dear CharlesHB
Body mutilated at funeral home
$10,000 offered for return of remains
Apr. 27, 2006. 01:00 AM
SEAN GORDON
QUEBEC BUREAU CHIEF
MONTREAL - The family of a dead Montreal woman is making an unusual public plea to solve a macabre mystery: they want to know who decapitated their relative's corpse and what they did with the head.
Thieves mutilated Cécile Lemay's remains and made off with the head last summer as the body lay in a casket in a funeral home in Montreal's South Shore.
Horrified family members learned of the gruesome theft on the day they were supposed to hold Lemay's funeral, and yesterday her surviving relatives announced they will pay a $10,000 reward for information on the whereabouts of the missing body part. ...
$10,000 offered for return of remains
Apr. 27, 2006. 01:00 AM
SEAN GORDON
QUEBEC BUREAU CHIEF
MONTREAL - The family of a dead Montreal woman is making an unusual public plea to solve a macabre mystery: they want to know who decapitated their relative's corpse and what they did with the head.
Thieves mutilated Cécile Lemay's remains and made off with the head last summer as the body lay in a casket in a funeral home in Montreal's South Shore.
Horrified family members learned of the gruesome theft on the day they were supposed to hold Lemay's funeral, and yesterday her surviving relatives announced they will pay a $10,000 reward for information on the whereabouts of the missing body part. ...
FTP: An Indian teenager has become famous for his ability to take in milk through his nose and to squirt it out of his eyes.
Praveen Kumar Sehrawat sucks milk up his nostrils and squirts it up to 12ft through his tear ducts, reports Asian News International.
The feat has earned him a place in the Limca Book of Records, India's version of the Guinness Book of World Records
The 16-year-old wrestler, from Dariyapur Kalan, near Delhi, also holds the national record for eating 170 green chillies in 5 minutes 7 seconds.
And he says he can hammer a nail into his nose without discomfort.
His brother Ashok Kumar said: "He is an inspiration for many around the village." ...
Many thanks to dear Leiaxe
Praveen Kumar Sehrawat sucks milk up his nostrils and squirts it up to 12ft through his tear ducts, reports Asian News International.
The feat has earned him a place in the Limca Book of Records, India's version of the Guinness Book of World Records
The 16-year-old wrestler, from Dariyapur Kalan, near Delhi, also holds the national record for eating 170 green chillies in 5 minutes 7 seconds.
And he says he can hammer a nail into his nose without discomfort.
His brother Ashok Kumar said: "He is an inspiration for many around the village." ...
Many thanks to dear Leiaxe
JULIANA BARBASSA
Associated Press
FRESNO, Calif. - A saleswoman who was spanked in front of her co-workers as part of what her employer said was a camaraderie-building exercise sat quietly in a courtroom Wednesday as lawyers gave closing arguments at her civil trial.
Janet Orlando, 53, is seeking at least $1.2 million in damages for the embarrassment she said she suffered at the hands of her employer, Alarm One Inc. during the spankings. She quit her job in Fresno and sued in 2004, alleging discrimination, assault, battery and infliction of emotional distress.
"No reasonable middle-aged woman would want to be put up there before a group of young men, turned around to show her buttocks, get spanked and called abusive names, and told it was to increase sales and motivate employees," said her lawyer, Nicholas "Butch" Wagner.
Lawyers for Alarm One, an Anaheim-based 300-employee security alarm system company, said the spankings were part of a voluntary program to build employee camaraderie and were not discriminatory because they were given to both male and female workers.
"This is being done for one reason and one reason only - money," said K. Poncho Baker, the company's lawyer.
The paddlings using competitors' yard signs began as a contest that pitted sales teams against each other, with winners poking fun at the losers, according to court documents. The conduct included throwing pies at the losers, feeding them baby food, making them wear diapers and swatting their buttocks.
Alarm One officials ceased the practice in the same year Orlando sued after another employee complained of being injured, according to court records.
OMFG³
Associated Press
FRESNO, Calif. - A saleswoman who was spanked in front of her co-workers as part of what her employer said was a camaraderie-building exercise sat quietly in a courtroom Wednesday as lawyers gave closing arguments at her civil trial.
Janet Orlando, 53, is seeking at least $1.2 million in damages for the embarrassment she said she suffered at the hands of her employer, Alarm One Inc. during the spankings. She quit her job in Fresno and sued in 2004, alleging discrimination, assault, battery and infliction of emotional distress.
"No reasonable middle-aged woman would want to be put up there before a group of young men, turned around to show her buttocks, get spanked and called abusive names, and told it was to increase sales and motivate employees," said her lawyer, Nicholas "Butch" Wagner.
Lawyers for Alarm One, an Anaheim-based 300-employee security alarm system company, said the spankings were part of a voluntary program to build employee camaraderie and were not discriminatory because they were given to both male and female workers.
"This is being done for one reason and one reason only - money," said K. Poncho Baker, the company's lawyer.
The paddlings using competitors' yard signs began as a contest that pitted sales teams against each other, with winners poking fun at the losers, according to court documents. The conduct included throwing pies at the losers, feeding them baby food, making them wear diapers and swatting their buttocks.
Alarm One officials ceased the practice in the same year Orlando sued after another employee complained of being injured, according to court records.
OMFG³
Man Accused of Repeated Flashing Arrested
Apr 18, 6:48 PM (ET)
HORATIO, Ark. (AP) - A man accused of repeatedly exposing himself to the same woman has been arrested after the woman took a picture of him naked standing on a highway and called police.
The man had exposed himself five times in the last six months to the woman as she traveled on Arkansas 41 for work. She did not know the man, police said.
"I think he had singled her out, and she was loaded and ready for bear the next time she saw him," Arkansas State Police Cpl. Ray Gentry said. "She slowed down in her car to about 40 mph and got a picture of him."
Robert Ernest Vallee, 37, of Lockesburg was arrested in Sevier County on two counts of indecent exposure stemming from incidents Thursday and Jan. 19 and one count of harassment. All are misdemeanors.
"He admitted he was the suspect in question and he had exposed himself to her. He admitted he was nude except for a shirt covering his face," Gentry said.
The woman said she didn't want to press charges.
Authorities also had gotten a complaint from a 17-year-old female of a man exposing himself. He reportedly would stand on the side of the highway next to his car.
Vallee was arrested Thursday after the woman called a dispatcher, saying a man in a silver Dodge Neon had exposed himself to her, according to a Sevier County Sheriff's Department report. The woman said the vehicle turned onto Arkansas 24 East and she waited for an officer at a Horatio convenience store. ...
[mr rogers]Can you say "therapy?" I knew you could.[/mr rogers]
Apr 18, 6:48 PM (ET)
HORATIO, Ark. (AP) - A man accused of repeatedly exposing himself to the same woman has been arrested after the woman took a picture of him naked standing on a highway and called police.
The man had exposed himself five times in the last six months to the woman as she traveled on Arkansas 41 for work. She did not know the man, police said.
"I think he had singled her out, and she was loaded and ready for bear the next time she saw him," Arkansas State Police Cpl. Ray Gentry said. "She slowed down in her car to about 40 mph and got a picture of him."
Robert Ernest Vallee, 37, of Lockesburg was arrested in Sevier County on two counts of indecent exposure stemming from incidents Thursday and Jan. 19 and one count of harassment. All are misdemeanors.
"He admitted he was the suspect in question and he had exposed himself to her. He admitted he was nude except for a shirt covering his face," Gentry said.
The woman said she didn't want to press charges.
Authorities also had gotten a complaint from a 17-year-old female of a man exposing himself. He reportedly would stand on the side of the highway next to his car.
Vallee was arrested Thursday after the woman called a dispatcher, saying a man in a silver Dodge Neon had exposed himself to her, according to a Sevier County Sheriff's Department report. The woman said the vehicle turned onto Arkansas 24 East and she waited for an officer at a Horatio convenience store. ...
[mr rogers]Can you say "therapy?" I knew you could.[/mr rogers]
By SHAILA DEWAN
Published: April 18, 2006
Families displaced by Hurricane Katrina are suffering from mental disorders and chronic conditions like asthma and from a lack of prescription medication and health insurance at rates that are much higher than average, a new study has found. ...
The tag says it all, kids.
Published: April 18, 2006
Families displaced by Hurricane Katrina are suffering from mental disorders and chronic conditions like asthma and from a lack of prescription medication and health insurance at rates that are much higher than average, a new study has found. ...
The tag says it all, kids.
FTP: ... Q. If you were making a bet, where would you say the next New Orleans will be?
A. I'd say the Sacramento area. The common denominator is concentrated urban development in the shadow of flooding and levees.
You have around 400,000 people at risk from flooding, and the number will grow in the next few years because of intense development.
The city's main problem is that it is situated between the American and the Sacramento Rivers and at the base of the 12,000 foot Sierra Nevada range. Both rivers are prone to flooding. Additionally, powerful storms come in from the Pacific, slam against the mountains and dump heavy precipitation that ends up very quickly in the rivers.
Yet, around Sacramento -- the capital of the seventh largest economy in the world -- there's intense building on the flood plains.
Twenty miles downstream is the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta, a maze of leveed islands and channels that flow into San Francisco Bay. Because of past agricultural practices, the delta is sinking. Parts are 20 feet below sea level, lower than anything in New Orleans. Still, there are proposals to put up 130,000 new homes in the delta.
Q. Why is there so much development in risky places?
A. Because the new gold rush in California is real estate. Moreover, local governments are often reluctant to exert controls over developers because of the tax revolution.
Do you remember Proposition 13 in 1978, which limited increases in property taxes on existing homes? It decimated the ability of localities to fund services. So money for basic services that people expect is now raised through growth.
Many municipalities have become very aggressive about development. I heard a Northern California county supervisor say that his county needed development on its flood plain to fund flood control projects.
Q. New Orleans was inundated after its levee system was breached by floodwaters. How strong are the levees around Sacramento?
A. They offer a very low level of flood protection, probably the lowest for any major metropolitan area in the country. That assessment comes from the Army Corps of Engineers.
The New Orleans levees were rated as having a 200-year level of flood protection. That's a 1 in 200 chance that the levees will be overwhelmed in a given year. Sacramento's levees are rated at less than half of that. ...
A. I'd say the Sacramento area. The common denominator is concentrated urban development in the shadow of flooding and levees.
You have around 400,000 people at risk from flooding, and the number will grow in the next few years because of intense development.
The city's main problem is that it is situated between the American and the Sacramento Rivers and at the base of the 12,000 foot Sierra Nevada range. Both rivers are prone to flooding. Additionally, powerful storms come in from the Pacific, slam against the mountains and dump heavy precipitation that ends up very quickly in the rivers.
Yet, around Sacramento -- the capital of the seventh largest economy in the world -- there's intense building on the flood plains.
Twenty miles downstream is the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta, a maze of leveed islands and channels that flow into San Francisco Bay. Because of past agricultural practices, the delta is sinking. Parts are 20 feet below sea level, lower than anything in New Orleans. Still, there are proposals to put up 130,000 new homes in the delta.
Q. Why is there so much development in risky places?
A. Because the new gold rush in California is real estate. Moreover, local governments are often reluctant to exert controls over developers because of the tax revolution.
Do you remember Proposition 13 in 1978, which limited increases in property taxes on existing homes? It decimated the ability of localities to fund services. So money for basic services that people expect is now raised through growth.
Many municipalities have become very aggressive about development. I heard a Northern California county supervisor say that his county needed development on its flood plain to fund flood control projects.
Q. New Orleans was inundated after its levee system was breached by floodwaters. How strong are the levees around Sacramento?
A. They offer a very low level of flood protection, probably the lowest for any major metropolitan area in the country. That assessment comes from the Army Corps of Engineers.
The New Orleans levees were rated as having a 200-year level of flood protection. That's a 1 in 200 chance that the levees will be overwhelmed in a given year. Sacramento's levees are rated at less than half of that. ...
FTP: School Makes Kids Use Buckets for Toilets
Apr 17, 11:35 AM (ET)
INGLEWOOD, Calif. (AP) - A principal trying to prevent walkouts during immigration rallies inadvertently introduced a lockdown so strict that children weren't allowed to go to the bathroom, and instead had to use buckets in the classroom, an official said.
Worthington Elementary School Principal Angie Marquez imposed the lockdown March 27 as nearly 40,000 students across Southern California left classes that morning to attend immigrants' rights demonstrations. The lockdown continued into the following morning.
Marquez apparently misread the district handbook and ordered a lockdown designed for nuclear attacks.
Tim Brown, the district's director of operations, confirmed some students used buckets but said the principal's order to impose the most severe type of lockdown was an "honest mistake."
"When there's a nuclear attack, that's when buckets are used," Brown told the Los Angeles Times. The principal "followed procedure. She made a decision to follow the handbook. She just misread it."
In some cases teachers escorted classmates to regular restroom facilities, students said.
A message left by The Associated Press for the principal at the school before business hours Monday was not immediately returned, and Marquez did not return telephone calls from the Times.
Appalled parents have complained to the school board. Brown said the school district planned to update its emergency preparedness instructions to give more explicit directions.
Parents and community activists asked the school board at its April 5 meeting to explain the principal's decision. They also sought promises that the lockdown wouldn't be repeated.
"There was no violence at the protests, so this was based on what?" activist Diane Sambrano asked. "It was unsanitary, unnecessary and absolutely unacceptable."
Dunno about you, but I think school principals should be able to read.
Apr 17, 11:35 AM (ET)
INGLEWOOD, Calif. (AP) - A principal trying to prevent walkouts during immigration rallies inadvertently introduced a lockdown so strict that children weren't allowed to go to the bathroom, and instead had to use buckets in the classroom, an official said.
Worthington Elementary School Principal Angie Marquez imposed the lockdown March 27 as nearly 40,000 students across Southern California left classes that morning to attend immigrants' rights demonstrations. The lockdown continued into the following morning.
Marquez apparently misread the district handbook and ordered a lockdown designed for nuclear attacks.
Tim Brown, the district's director of operations, confirmed some students used buckets but said the principal's order to impose the most severe type of lockdown was an "honest mistake."
"When there's a nuclear attack, that's when buckets are used," Brown told the Los Angeles Times. The principal "followed procedure. She made a decision to follow the handbook. She just misread it."
In some cases teachers escorted classmates to regular restroom facilities, students said.
A message left by The Associated Press for the principal at the school before business hours Monday was not immediately returned, and Marquez did not return telephone calls from the Times.
Appalled parents have complained to the school board. Brown said the school district planned to update its emergency preparedness instructions to give more explicit directions.
Parents and community activists asked the school board at its April 5 meeting to explain the principal's decision. They also sought promises that the lockdown wouldn't be repeated.
"There was no violence at the protests, so this was based on what?" activist Diane Sambrano asked. "It was unsanitary, unnecessary and absolutely unacceptable."
Dunno about you, but I think school principals should be able to read.
It's a Man's World at Wal-Mart
Wal-Mart infamously refused to sell T-shirts that bore the slogan "Someday a Woman Will be President!," citing complaints that the mere idea was offensive. Ann Moliver Ruben, the 70-year-old psychologist who designed the shirt, said Sharon Higginbotham, a buyer for women's clothes at Wal-Mart's national office in Bentonville, Ark., told her the store would not carry the shirt nationwide because the message "goes against Wal-Mart's family values."
[See below for their "family values"]
Have a Family? Leave!
When it comes to the federal Family Medical Leave Act, Wal-Mart has a long history of noncompliance. While the Act requires employers to allow employees to take up to 12 weeks of unpaid leave to care for themselves or a loved one without losing their jobs, there are countless cases of Wal-Mart's failing to follow the law and reinstate employees. In one case in 2005, the California Fair Employment and Housing Commission fined Wal-Mart $188,000 for refusing to reinstate an employee of six years after she finished her maternity leave.
Bet she didn't make $188,000 in the six years she'd wasted working at wallyworld.
Shamelessly stolen from abbynormal92243
Wal-Mart infamously refused to sell T-shirts that bore the slogan "Someday a Woman Will be President!," citing complaints that the mere idea was offensive. Ann Moliver Ruben, the 70-year-old psychologist who designed the shirt, said Sharon Higginbotham, a buyer for women's clothes at Wal-Mart's national office in Bentonville, Ark., told her the store would not carry the shirt nationwide because the message "goes against Wal-Mart's family values."
[See below for their "family values"]
Have a Family? Leave!
When it comes to the federal Family Medical Leave Act, Wal-Mart has a long history of noncompliance. While the Act requires employers to allow employees to take up to 12 weeks of unpaid leave to care for themselves or a loved one without losing their jobs, there are countless cases of Wal-Mart's failing to follow the law and reinstate employees. In one case in 2005, the California Fair Employment and Housing Commission fined Wal-Mart $188,000 for refusing to reinstate an employee of six years after she finished her maternity leave.
Bet she didn't make $188,000 in the six years she'd wasted working at wallyworld.
Shamelessly stolen from abbynormal92243
FTP: Friday, 14th April 2006
A BRITISH journalist and presenter today broke down in tears after backing out of being crucified as part of a journey to rediscover his faith.
Dominik Diamond had travelled to the Philippines to join a ritual where committed Christians* mark Easter by re-enacting the Passion of Christ.
The Scot was among a number of pilgrims who carried crosses in the ceremony at San Fernando city, about 45 miles north of the capital Manila.
But Diamond, 36, backed out when the time came for the nails to pierce his flesh, weeping as he pressed his head to the cross and prayed.
Hundreds of people watched as at least seven Filipino devotees were nailed to crosses at the ritual** in San Pedro Cutud village.
Daily Star columnist Diamond had been due to undergo the ordeal as part of a struggle to find his spiritual identity.
His personal journey is being filmed by Ginger TV for a documentary, titled Crucify Me, that will air on Five later this year.
Diamond, a Roman Catholic from Arbroath, Angus who travelled to the Philippines from Scotland via Italy, recently told the Press Gazette world events and personal incidents had left him questioning his faith.
He said: "My religion was central to my life until five years ago, when a combination of public and private events made me question my beliefs.
"I'm hopeful that this journey will help resolve my crisis of faith.
"I've been making a living in the media now for 15 years, I'm in my mid-thirties and I've got three kids.
"It's about time I did something that didn't involve cheap gags.
"So if you're going to make the first serious programme you've ever done, you might as well aim high. So I thought I'd try to find God."
As part of the journey, Diamond visited the Vatican and an austere Jesuit retreat in Italy to decide whether his faith was restored enough to undertake the crucifixion ritual in the Philippines. ...
Demanding you be crucified increases faith in what? The strength of locally acquired two-by-fours? That nails will hold stuff to wood?
FFS. Guess it never occurs to these people that acting more like Christ in everyday life might far better improve their "life condition".
It's never made any sense to me that inflicting pain brings one closer to one's favorite imaginary friend. To my mind the universe is made of/by love, so deliberate pain and fear is the opposite.
They evidently figure it's the kinkiest masochists that get to go to heaven.
Stolen from dear FunkyCaucasian
*Methinks that would read better as "Christians who should be committed," but that's just yr humble's opinion.
**Maybe they'd stop doing such stupid/crazy stuff if they didn't get all that attention.
A BRITISH journalist and presenter today broke down in tears after backing out of being crucified as part of a journey to rediscover his faith.
Dominik Diamond had travelled to the Philippines to join a ritual where committed Christians* mark Easter by re-enacting the Passion of Christ.
The Scot was among a number of pilgrims who carried crosses in the ceremony at San Fernando city, about 45 miles north of the capital Manila.
But Diamond, 36, backed out when the time came for the nails to pierce his flesh, weeping as he pressed his head to the cross and prayed.
Hundreds of people watched as at least seven Filipino devotees were nailed to crosses at the ritual** in San Pedro Cutud village.
Daily Star columnist Diamond had been due to undergo the ordeal as part of a struggle to find his spiritual identity.
His personal journey is being filmed by Ginger TV for a documentary, titled Crucify Me, that will air on Five later this year.
Diamond, a Roman Catholic from Arbroath, Angus who travelled to the Philippines from Scotland via Italy, recently told the Press Gazette world events and personal incidents had left him questioning his faith.
He said: "My religion was central to my life until five years ago, when a combination of public and private events made me question my beliefs.
"I'm hopeful that this journey will help resolve my crisis of faith.
"I've been making a living in the media now for 15 years, I'm in my mid-thirties and I've got three kids.
"It's about time I did something that didn't involve cheap gags.
"So if you're going to make the first serious programme you've ever done, you might as well aim high. So I thought I'd try to find God."
As part of the journey, Diamond visited the Vatican and an austere Jesuit retreat in Italy to decide whether his faith was restored enough to undertake the crucifixion ritual in the Philippines. ...
Demanding you be crucified increases faith in what? The strength of locally acquired two-by-fours? That nails will hold stuff to wood?
FFS. Guess it never occurs to these people that acting more like Christ in everyday life might far better improve their "life condition".
It's never made any sense to me that inflicting pain brings one closer to one's favorite imaginary friend. To my mind the universe is made of/by love, so deliberate pain and fear is the opposite.
They evidently figure it's the kinkiest masochists that get to go to heaven.
Stolen from dear FunkyCaucasian
*Methinks that would read better as "Christians who should be committed," but that's just yr humble's opinion.
**Maybe they'd stop doing such stupid/crazy stuff if they didn't get all that attention.
FTP: Boy Sets Self on Fire in Alleged Gas Theft
Apr 12, 10:15 PM (ET)
GILLETTE, Wyo. (AP) - A teenage boy accidentally set himself on fire early Wednesday morning after allegedly trying to siphon gas from a firefighter's car.
Police first learned of the injury after a 17-year-old boy and a 16-year-old boy claimed that someone had thrown gasoline on the 17-year-old at the Common Cents service station and lit him on fire, said Lt. Rod Hauge.
The boy was taken to the hospital with second- and third-degree burns on his legs. Police were called to the hospital to investigate the incident and later learned that the 17-year-old spilled gas on his pants while siphoning gas. He then used a lighter to try to determine how wet his pants were and set himself on fire, Hague said. ...
Apr 12, 10:15 PM (ET)
GILLETTE, Wyo. (AP) - A teenage boy accidentally set himself on fire early Wednesday morning after allegedly trying to siphon gas from a firefighter's car.
Police first learned of the injury after a 17-year-old boy and a 16-year-old boy claimed that someone had thrown gasoline on the 17-year-old at the Common Cents service station and lit him on fire, said Lt. Rod Hauge.
The boy was taken to the hospital with second- and third-degree burns on his legs. Police were called to the hospital to investigate the incident and later learned that the 17-year-old spilled gas on his pants while siphoning gas. He then used a lighter to try to determine how wet his pants were and set himself on fire, Hague said. ...
Apr 08 5:14 PM US/Eastern
LONDON
A 300-year-old book that appears to be bound in human skin has been found in northern England, police said Saturday.
The macabre discovery was made on a central street in Leeds, and officers said the ledger may have been dumped following a burglary.
Detectives were trying to trace its rightful owner and believe it may have been taken from a dwelling in the area.
Much of the text is in French, and it was not uncommon around the time of the French Revolution for books to be covered in human skin.
The practice, known as anthropodermic bibliopegy, was sometimes used in the 18th and 19th centuries when accounts of murder trials were bound in the killer's skin.
Anatomy books also were sometimes bound in the skin of a dissected cadaver. In World War II, Nazis were accused of using the skin from Holocaust victims to bind books. ...
Shades of Lovecraft.
/me shudders and makes incoherent noises of disgust
LONDON
A 300-year-old book that appears to be bound in human skin has been found in northern England, police said Saturday.
The macabre discovery was made on a central street in Leeds, and officers said the ledger may have been dumped following a burglary.
Detectives were trying to trace its rightful owner and believe it may have been taken from a dwelling in the area.
Much of the text is in French, and it was not uncommon around the time of the French Revolution for books to be covered in human skin.
The practice, known as anthropodermic bibliopegy, was sometimes used in the 18th and 19th centuries when accounts of murder trials were bound in the killer's skin.
Anatomy books also were sometimes bound in the skin of a dissected cadaver. In World War II, Nazis were accused of using the skin from Holocaust victims to bind books. ...
Shades of Lovecraft.
/me shudders and makes incoherent noises of disgust
Four women sought in bingo hall death
Man beaten, robbed of his winnings
Apr. 9, 2006. 01:00 AM
RAJU MUDHAR
STAFF REPORTER
Yousif Youkhana walked out of the Finch Bingo Country hall $1,000 richer on Friday night. He never got the chance to enjoy his winnings.
Police say four female bingo-hall regulars who wanted his jackpot mugged and killed Youkhana, 58, of Brampton, in the parking lot of the Islington-and-Finch area parlour.
As he walked to his vehicle around 10 p.m., he was approached by four women who demanded his winnings. He refused, and an attack occurred that left him badly beaten.
Despite being repeatedly punched and kicked, he managed to escape back into the hall where he collapsed, mortally wounded.
He is Toronto's 16th homicide of the year.
"He's a regular player in the Finch Bingo Country hall who played about three to four times a week. He was a good man," says Lucy Szinegh, hall manager for Finch Bingo Country.
"Unfortunately, I didn't see anything. I arrived just as the ambulance took him away. I'm told by employees that there was some confusion ....
"I'm not too sure what happened outside of the bingo hall, but he ended up back inside where we did our best to take care of him, but it wasn't enough."
An autopsy was scheduled for today.
The $1,000 that Youkhana won was not recovered and the four suspects are believed to have fled on foot. None of the four women has been arrested.
The suspects are described as: a woman 5'7", 250 lbs, with short black hair; another woman, 5 foot, 150 lbs, with straight black hair in a pony tail; a third woman, 150 lbs, black baseball hat, with hair hanging out of the back of her hat.
Police don't have a detailed description of the fourth woman. ...
Stupid, evil, greedy bitches. They'd do well in Yankistani politics.
Thanks, dear AngelClare
Man beaten, robbed of his winnings
Apr. 9, 2006. 01:00 AM
RAJU MUDHAR
STAFF REPORTER
Yousif Youkhana walked out of the Finch Bingo Country hall $1,000 richer on Friday night. He never got the chance to enjoy his winnings.
Police say four female bingo-hall regulars who wanted his jackpot mugged and killed Youkhana, 58, of Brampton, in the parking lot of the Islington-and-Finch area parlour.
As he walked to his vehicle around 10 p.m., he was approached by four women who demanded his winnings. He refused, and an attack occurred that left him badly beaten.
Despite being repeatedly punched and kicked, he managed to escape back into the hall where he collapsed, mortally wounded.
He is Toronto's 16th homicide of the year.
"He's a regular player in the Finch Bingo Country hall who played about three to four times a week. He was a good man," says Lucy Szinegh, hall manager for Finch Bingo Country.
"Unfortunately, I didn't see anything. I arrived just as the ambulance took him away. I'm told by employees that there was some confusion ....
"I'm not too sure what happened outside of the bingo hall, but he ended up back inside where we did our best to take care of him, but it wasn't enough."
An autopsy was scheduled for today.
The $1,000 that Youkhana won was not recovered and the four suspects are believed to have fled on foot. None of the four women has been arrested.
The suspects are described as: a woman 5'7", 250 lbs, with short black hair; another woman, 5 foot, 150 lbs, with straight black hair in a pony tail; a third woman, 150 lbs, black baseball hat, with hair hanging out of the back of her hat.
Police don't have a detailed description of the fourth woman. ...
Stupid, evil, greedy bitches. They'd do well in Yankistani politics.
Thanks, dear AngelClare
Recently Jamaica got its first female PM.
Unfortunately, she's utterly mad.
... Mrs. Simpson Miller caused quite a stir at the Rehoboth Apostolic Church when she walked into the well-decorated building.
A female church member was at the microphone reading the announcements for the week, when the Prime Minister stepped in.
All heaven broke loose as the congregation started cheering wildly, with some overzealous church members reaching out to touch the country's leader. Mrs. Simpson Miller blew kisses in the air and the congregation got even more excited.
When called upon to speak, Mrs. Simpson Miller insisted that it was God who appointed her as Prime Minister. She noted that in light of this, Christians have a responsibility to support her.
"If I am appointed by the Almighty to be Prime Minister, then all of you Christians must give support to the appointment of the Lord. If it is not done, the whip will not be drawn against me, because I am going to be carrying out His will," Mrs. Simpson Miller said. ...
So, PJ Patterson is God, huh? No wonder the world's in such a mess.
Unfortunately, she's utterly mad.
... Mrs. Simpson Miller caused quite a stir at the Rehoboth Apostolic Church when she walked into the well-decorated building.
A female church member was at the microphone reading the announcements for the week, when the Prime Minister stepped in.
All heaven broke loose as the congregation started cheering wildly, with some overzealous church members reaching out to touch the country's leader. Mrs. Simpson Miller blew kisses in the air and the congregation got even more excited.
When called upon to speak, Mrs. Simpson Miller insisted that it was God who appointed her as Prime Minister. She noted that in light of this, Christians have a responsibility to support her.
"If I am appointed by the Almighty to be Prime Minister, then all of you Christians must give support to the appointment of the Lord. If it is not done, the whip will not be drawn against me, because I am going to be carrying out His will," Mrs. Simpson Miller said. ...
So, PJ Patterson is God, huh? No wonder the world's in such a mess.
Keep your kisses short in Tangerang
Apr 7, 8:40 AM (ET)
JAKARTA (Reuters) - Unrelated people who kiss each other on the lips for more than five minutes at public places in the Indonesian city of Tangerang will face arrest, local media said Friday.
The government in Tangerang, a suburb west of Jakarta, defended the regulation as a practical guideline for its officers to follow up on tough and heavily criticized anti-prostitution laws passed by the city council last year.
"Please do not dramatize this. We will not arrest people at will as we are not oppressors," Ahmad Lutfi, head of the city's public order department, told the Koran Tempo newspaper.
Lutfi declined to comment on whether officers would be armed with stopwatches, Tempo reported.
It was not clear if the guideline referred to an uninterrupted five-minute kiss.
Kissing in public is generally frowned upon in Indonesia, especially in rural, predominantly Muslim areas, but giving a time limit for such behavior is unheard of. ...
Me go a gaol fi sure dere, mon. The most disturbing thing about this story was highlighted in bold by yr humble narrator.
Apr 7, 8:40 AM (ET)
JAKARTA (Reuters) - Unrelated people who kiss each other on the lips for more than five minutes at public places in the Indonesian city of Tangerang will face arrest, local media said Friday.
The government in Tangerang, a suburb west of Jakarta, defended the regulation as a practical guideline for its officers to follow up on tough and heavily criticized anti-prostitution laws passed by the city council last year.
"Please do not dramatize this. We will not arrest people at will as we are not oppressors," Ahmad Lutfi, head of the city's public order department, told the Koran Tempo newspaper.
Lutfi declined to comment on whether officers would be armed with stopwatches, Tempo reported.
It was not clear if the guideline referred to an uninterrupted five-minute kiss.
Kissing in public is generally frowned upon in Indonesia, especially in rural, predominantly Muslim areas, but giving a time limit for such behavior is unheard of. ...
Me go a gaol fi sure dere, mon. The most disturbing thing about this story was highlighted in bold by yr humble narrator.
Papers: Cheney Aide Says Bush OK'd Leak
Apr 6, 4:22 PM (ET)
By PETE YOST
WASHINGTON (AP) - Vice President Dick Cheney's former top aide told prosecutors that President Bush authorized a leak of sensitive intelligence information about Iraq, according to court papers filed by prosecutors in the CIA leak case.
The filing by Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald also describes Cheney involvement in I. Lewis Libby's communications with the press.
There was no indication in the filing that either Bush or Cheney authorized Libby to disclose Valerie Plame's CIA identity. But it points to Cheney as one of the originators of the idea that Plame could be used to discredit her husband, Bush administration critic Joseph Wilson.
Before his indictment, Libby testified to the grand jury investigating the CIA leak that Cheney told him to pass on prewar intelligence on Iraq and that it was Bush who authorized the disclosure, the court papers say. According to the documents, the authorization led to the July 8, 2003, conversation between Libby and New York Times reporter Judith Miller. In that meeting, Libby made reference to the fact that Wilson's wife worked for the CIA.
According to Fitzgerald's court filing, Cheney, in conversation with Libby, raised the question of whether a CIA-sponsored trip by Wilson "was legitimate or whether it was in effect a junket set up by Mr. Wilson's wife."
The disclosure in documents filed Wednesday means that the president and the vice president put Libby in play as a secret provider of information to reporters about prewar intelligence on Iraq.
Presidential spokesman Scott McClellan said Thursday the White House would have no comment on the ongoing investigation. At a congressional hearing, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales said the president has the "inherent authority to decide who should have classified information." ...
Is gonzales an Hispanic aristocrat or something?
Apr 6, 4:22 PM (ET)
By PETE YOST
WASHINGTON (AP) - Vice President Dick Cheney's former top aide told prosecutors that President Bush authorized a leak of sensitive intelligence information about Iraq, according to court papers filed by prosecutors in the CIA leak case.
The filing by Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald also describes Cheney involvement in I. Lewis Libby's communications with the press.
There was no indication in the filing that either Bush or Cheney authorized Libby to disclose Valerie Plame's CIA identity. But it points to Cheney as one of the originators of the idea that Plame could be used to discredit her husband, Bush administration critic Joseph Wilson.
Before his indictment, Libby testified to the grand jury investigating the CIA leak that Cheney told him to pass on prewar intelligence on Iraq and that it was Bush who authorized the disclosure, the court papers say. According to the documents, the authorization led to the July 8, 2003, conversation between Libby and New York Times reporter Judith Miller. In that meeting, Libby made reference to the fact that Wilson's wife worked for the CIA.
According to Fitzgerald's court filing, Cheney, in conversation with Libby, raised the question of whether a CIA-sponsored trip by Wilson "was legitimate or whether it was in effect a junket set up by Mr. Wilson's wife."
The disclosure in documents filed Wednesday means that the president and the vice president put Libby in play as a secret provider of information to reporters about prewar intelligence on Iraq.
Presidential spokesman Scott McClellan said Thursday the White House would have no comment on the ongoing investigation. At a congressional hearing, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales said the president has the "inherent authority to decide who should have classified information." ...
Is gonzales an Hispanic aristocrat or something?
How would you like to meet these guys?
Apr 5, 9:22 AM (ET)
COPENHAGEN (Reuters) - A Danish security firm said Tuesday it had fired three of its guards for stealing toys and DVDs from critically ill children at Copenhagen's main hospital.
The guards were caught on video tape after managers became suspicious when toys intended for the children -- many of whom have cancer or need heart transplants -- started to disappear.
"I feel terrible, and we are deeply sorry about this," said Falck Securitas's managing director, Peter Boye Larsen.
Apr 5, 9:22 AM (ET)
COPENHAGEN (Reuters) - A Danish security firm said Tuesday it had fired three of its guards for stealing toys and DVDs from critically ill children at Copenhagen's main hospital.
The guards were caught on video tape after managers became suspicious when toys intended for the children -- many of whom have cancer or need heart transplants -- started to disappear.
"I feel terrible, and we are deeply sorry about this," said Falck Securitas's managing director, Peter Boye Larsen.
FTP: Man held as terrorism suspect over punk song
Apr 5, 9:15 AM (ET)
LONDON (Reuters) - British anti-terrorism detectives escorted a man from a plane after a taxi driver had earlier become suspicious when he started singing along to a track by punk band The Clash, police said Wednesday.
Detectives halted the London-bound flight at Durham Tees Valley Airport in northern England and Harraj Mann, 24, was taken off.
The taxi driver had become worried on the way to the airport because Mann had been singing along to The Clash's 1979 anthem "London Calling," which features the lyrics "Now war is declared -- and battle come down" while other lines warn of a "meltdown expected."
Mann told British newspapers the taxi had been fitted with a music system which allowed him to plug in his MP3 player and he had been playing The Clash, Procol Harum, Led Zeppelin and the Beatles to the driver.
"He didn't like Led Zeppelin or The Clash but I don't think there was any need to tell the police," Mann told the Daily Mirror.
A Durham police spokeswoman said Mann had been released after questioning -- but had missed his flight.
"The report was made with the best of intentions and we wouldn't want to discourage people from contacting us with genuine concerns," she said.
What a shame Joe missed this.........or is it?
Best not be singing along with any gangsta rap either, hmmmmmm?
Apr 5, 9:15 AM (ET)
LONDON (Reuters) - British anti-terrorism detectives escorted a man from a plane after a taxi driver had earlier become suspicious when he started singing along to a track by punk band The Clash, police said Wednesday.
Detectives halted the London-bound flight at Durham Tees Valley Airport in northern England and Harraj Mann, 24, was taken off.
The taxi driver had become worried on the way to the airport because Mann had been singing along to The Clash's 1979 anthem "London Calling," which features the lyrics "Now war is declared -- and battle come down" while other lines warn of a "meltdown expected."
Mann told British newspapers the taxi had been fitted with a music system which allowed him to plug in his MP3 player and he had been playing The Clash, Procol Harum, Led Zeppelin and the Beatles to the driver.
"He didn't like Led Zeppelin or The Clash but I don't think there was any need to tell the police," Mann told the Daily Mirror.
A Durham police spokeswoman said Mann had been released after questioning -- but had missed his flight.
"The report was made with the best of intentions and we wouldn't want to discourage people from contacting us with genuine concerns," she said.
What a shame Joe missed this.........or is it?
Best not be singing along with any gangsta rap either, hmmmmmm?
Homeland Deputy Arrested in Seduction Case
Apr 5, 12:43 AM (ET)
By MICHELLE SPITZER
MIAMI (AP) - The deputy press secretary for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security was arrested Tuesday for using the Internet to seduce what he thought was a teenage girl, authorities said.
Brian J. Doyle, 55, was arrested at his residence in Maryland on charges of use of a computer to seduce a child and transmission of harmful material to a minor. The charges were issued out of Polk County, Fla.
Doyle, of Silver Spring, Md., had a sexually explicit conversation with what he believed was a 14-year-old girl whose profile he saw on the Internet on March 14, the Polk County Sheriff's Office said in a statement.
The girl was really an undercover Polk County Sheriff's Computer Crimes detective, the sheriff's office said.
Doyle sent pornographic movie clips and had sexually explicit conversations via the Internet, the statement said.
During other online conversations, Doyle revealed his name, that he worked for the Homeland Security Department, and offered his office and government issued cell phone numbers, the sheriff's office said.
Doyle also sent photos of himself that were not sexually explicit, authorities said. One photo, which authorities released to the news media, shows Doyle in what appears to be homeland security headquarters. He is wearing a homeland security pin on his lapel and a lanyard that says "TSA."
The Transportation Security Administration is part of the Homeland Security Department.
On several occasions, Doyle instructed the girl to perform a sexual act while thinking of him and described explicit activities he wanted to have with her, investigators said.
Doyle later had a telephone conversation with an undercover deputy posing as the teenager and encouraged her to purchase a Web camera to send graphic images of herself to him, the sheriff's office said. ...
Nuke plant gets new locks after keys lost
Apr 4, 8:49 AM (ET)
BERLIN (Reuters) - German authorities are changing 150 locks at a nuclear power plant after its owner said they had lost keys to a security area, a ministry spokesman in the south western state of Baden-Wuerttemberg said Monday.
Plant operator EnBW said that in spite of intensive searches and questioning it had not been able to recover 12 keys for its Philippsburg plant after discovering they were lost in March.
The environment ministry said EnBW informed it the keys were missing and the operator had put extra safety measures in place to control access to the secure area.
"This has never happened anywhere in Germany before," the ministry spokesman said. "The keys have simply disappeared."
Prosecutors have launched an investigation for theft.
D'OH!
Dunno how one says "D'oh!" auf Deutsch.
Apr 4, 8:49 AM (ET)
BERLIN (Reuters) - German authorities are changing 150 locks at a nuclear power plant after its owner said they had lost keys to a security area, a ministry spokesman in the south western state of Baden-Wuerttemberg said Monday.
Plant operator EnBW said that in spite of intensive searches and questioning it had not been able to recover 12 keys for its Philippsburg plant after discovering they were lost in March.
The environment ministry said EnBW informed it the keys were missing and the operator had put extra safety measures in place to control access to the secure area.
"This has never happened anywhere in Germany before," the ministry spokesman said. "The keys have simply disappeared."
Prosecutors have launched an investigation for theft.
D'OH!Dunno how one says "D'oh!" auf Deutsch.
"Loyal" donkeys better than wives, says textbook
Apr 4, 8:51 AM (ET)
NEW DELHI (Reuters) - A textbook used at schools in the Indian state of Rajasthan compares housewives to donkeys, and suggests the animals make better companions as they complain less and are more loyal to their "masters," The Times of India reported Tuesday.
"A donkey is like a housewife ... In fact, the donkey is a shade better, for while the housewife may sometimes complain and walk off to her parents' home, you'll never catch the donkey being disloyal to his master," the newspaper reported, quoting a Hindi-language primer meant for 14-year-olds.
The book was approved by the state's Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party government but has sparked protests from the party's women's wing.
State education officials in Rajasthan, a western state known for its conservative attitude toward women, said people should not be upset by the comparison, the paper said.
"The comparison was made in good humor," state education official A.R. Khan was quoted as saying. "However, protests have been taken note of and the board is in the process of removing it (the reference)."
Didn't I just say something about how sexists should have to pay for sex their entire lives?
Apr 4, 8:51 AM (ET)
NEW DELHI (Reuters) - A textbook used at schools in the Indian state of Rajasthan compares housewives to donkeys, and suggests the animals make better companions as they complain less and are more loyal to their "masters," The Times of India reported Tuesday.
"A donkey is like a housewife ... In fact, the donkey is a shade better, for while the housewife may sometimes complain and walk off to her parents' home, you'll never catch the donkey being disloyal to his master," the newspaper reported, quoting a Hindi-language primer meant for 14-year-olds.
The book was approved by the state's Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party government but has sparked protests from the party's women's wing.
State education officials in Rajasthan, a western state known for its conservative attitude toward women, said people should not be upset by the comparison, the paper said.
"The comparison was made in good humor," state education official A.R. Khan was quoted as saying. "However, protests have been taken note of and the board is in the process of removing it (the reference)."
Didn't I just say something about how sexists should have to pay for sex their entire lives?
Why do people dress their children like whores? No one looked like that at any birthday parties I attended.
Stolen from TheSobSister, who is simply divine.
FTP: Top Scientist Advocates Mass Culling 90% Of Human Population
Fellow professors and scientists applause and roar approval at elite's twisted and genocidal population control agenda
Paul Joseph Watson & Alex Jones/Prison Planet.com | April 3 2006
A top scientist gave a speech to the Texas Academy of Science last month in which he advocated the need to exterminate 90% of the population through the airborne ebola virus. Dr. Eric R. Pianka's chilling comments, and their enthusiastic reception again underscore the elite's agenda to enact horrifying measures of population control.
Pianka's speech was ordered to be kept off the record before it began as cameras were turned away and hundreds of students, scientists and professors sat in attendance.
Saying the public was not ready to hear the information presented, Pianka began by exclaiming, "We're no better than bacteria!", as he jumped into a doomsday malthusian rant about overpopulation destroying the earth.
Standing in front of a slide of human skulls, Pianka gleefully advocated airborne ebola as his preferred method of exterminating the necessary 90% of humans, choosing it over AIDS because of its faster kill period. Ebola victims suffer the most tortuous deaths imaginable as the virus kills by liquefying the internal organs. The body literally dissolves as the victim writhes in pain bleeding from every orifice. ...
Birth control I can understand. Genocide? Nuh uh, dickface.
BTW, you couldn't pay me enough to go to Texas.
Many thanks to dear I-Am-Wolfman
Fellow professors and scientists applause and roar approval at elite's twisted and genocidal population control agenda
Paul Joseph Watson & Alex Jones/Prison Planet.com | April 3 2006
A top scientist gave a speech to the Texas Academy of Science last month in which he advocated the need to exterminate 90% of the population through the airborne ebola virus. Dr. Eric R. Pianka's chilling comments, and their enthusiastic reception again underscore the elite's agenda to enact horrifying measures of population control.
Pianka's speech was ordered to be kept off the record before it began as cameras were turned away and hundreds of students, scientists and professors sat in attendance.
Saying the public was not ready to hear the information presented, Pianka began by exclaiming, "We're no better than bacteria!", as he jumped into a doomsday malthusian rant about overpopulation destroying the earth.
Standing in front of a slide of human skulls, Pianka gleefully advocated airborne ebola as his preferred method of exterminating the necessary 90% of humans, choosing it over AIDS because of its faster kill period. Ebola victims suffer the most tortuous deaths imaginable as the virus kills by liquefying the internal organs. The body literally dissolves as the victim writhes in pain bleeding from every orifice. ...
Birth control I can understand. Genocide? Nuh uh, dickface.
BTW, you couldn't pay me enough to go to Texas.
Many thanks to dear I-Am-Wolfman
Spider-hunting nudist ends with ring of fire
Apr 3, 11:05 AM (ET)
SYDNEY (Reuters) - A red-faced Australian nudist who tried to set fire to what he thought was a deadly funnel web spider's nest ended up with badly burned buttocks, emergency officials said Monday.
The 56-year-old man was at a nudist colony near Bowral, about 60 miles southwest of Sydney, Sunday when he spotted what he believed to be a funnel web spider hole.
Ambulance workers, including a helicopter crew, were called to the scene after the man poured petrol down the hole and then lit a match in an attempt to kill the offending arachnid.
"The exploding gasoline fumes left the man with burns to 18 percent of his body, on the upper leg and buttocks," the NRMA Careflight helicopter rescue service said in a statement.
It said the man's lack of clothing probably contributed to the extent of his burns. ...
D'OH!
Apr 3, 11:05 AM (ET)
SYDNEY (Reuters) - A red-faced Australian nudist who tried to set fire to what he thought was a deadly funnel web spider's nest ended up with badly burned buttocks, emergency officials said Monday.
The 56-year-old man was at a nudist colony near Bowral, about 60 miles southwest of Sydney, Sunday when he spotted what he believed to be a funnel web spider hole.
Ambulance workers, including a helicopter crew, were called to the scene after the man poured petrol down the hole and then lit a match in an attempt to kill the offending arachnid.
"The exploding gasoline fumes left the man with burns to 18 percent of his body, on the upper leg and buttocks," the NRMA Careflight helicopter rescue service said in a statement.
It said the man's lack of clothing probably contributed to the extent of his burns. ...
D'OH!
Meatpacker sues feds for the right to test its own herd for mad cow disease
by Libby Quaid, Associated Press
March 22, 2006
WASHINGTON -- A Kansas meatpacker has sparked an industry fight by proposing testing all the company's cattle for mad cow disease.
Creekstone Farms Premium Beef wants to look for the disease in every animal it processes. The Agriculture Department has said no. Creekstone says it intends to sue the department.
"Our customers, particularly our Asian customers, have requested it over and over again," chief executive John Stewart said in an interview Wednesday. "We feel strongly that if customers are asking for tested beef, we should be allowed to provide that."
Creekstone planned a news conference Thursday in Washington to discuss the lawsuit.
The department and larger meat companies oppose comprehensive testing, saying it cannot assure food safety. Testing rarely detects the disease in younger animals, the source of most meat.
"There isn't any nation in the world that requires 100 percent testing," department spokesman Ed Loyd said Wednesday.
Larger companies worry that Japanese buyers would insist on costly testing and that a suspect result might scare consumers away from eating beef.
Japan was the most lucrative foreign market for American beef until the first U.S. case of mad cow disease prompted a ban in 2003. The ban cost Creekstone nearly one-third of its sales and led the company to slash production and lay off about 150 people, Stewart said. ...
Thanks to dear Redway420
by Libby Quaid, Associated Press
March 22, 2006
WASHINGTON -- A Kansas meatpacker has sparked an industry fight by proposing testing all the company's cattle for mad cow disease.
Creekstone Farms Premium Beef wants to look for the disease in every animal it processes. The Agriculture Department has said no. Creekstone says it intends to sue the department.
"Our customers, particularly our Asian customers, have requested it over and over again," chief executive John Stewart said in an interview Wednesday. "We feel strongly that if customers are asking for tested beef, we should be allowed to provide that."
Creekstone planned a news conference Thursday in Washington to discuss the lawsuit.
The department and larger meat companies oppose comprehensive testing, saying it cannot assure food safety. Testing rarely detects the disease in younger animals, the source of most meat.
"There isn't any nation in the world that requires 100 percent testing," department spokesman Ed Loyd said Wednesday.
Larger companies worry that Japanese buyers would insist on costly testing and that a suspect result might scare consumers away from eating beef.
Japan was the most lucrative foreign market for American beef until the first U.S. case of mad cow disease prompted a ban in 2003. The ban cost Creekstone nearly one-third of its sales and led the company to slash production and lay off about 150 people, Stewart said. ...
Thanks to dear Redway420
FTP: Monday, March 20, 2006
This Essay Breaks the Law By Michael Crichton
Here is a very interesting and amusing essay at the current state of Patents in the US:
* The Earth revolves around the Sun.
* The speed of light is a constant.
* Apples fall to earth because of gravity.
* Elevated blood sugar is linked to diabetes.
* Elevated uric acid is linked to gout.
* Elevated homocysteine is linked to heart disease.
* Elevated homocysteine is linked to B-12 deficiency, so doctors should test homocysteine levels to see whether the patient needs vitamins.
Actually, I can't make that last statement. A corporation has patented that fact, and demands a royalty for its use. Anyone who makes the fact public and encourages doctors to test for the condition and treat it can be sued for royalty fees. Any doctor who reads a patient's test results and even thinks of vitamin deficiency infringes the patent. A federal circuit court held that mere thinking violates the patent.
All this may sound absurd, but it is the heart of a case that will be argued before the Supreme Court on Tuesday. In 1986 researchers filed a patent application for a method of testing the levels of homocysteine, an amino acid, in the blood. They went one step further and asked for a patent on the basic biological relationship between homocysteine and vitamin deficiency. A patent was granted that covered both the test and the scientific fact. Eventually, a company called Metabolite took over the license for the patent. ...
Many thanks to dear Grayem
This Essay Breaks the Law By Michael Crichton
Here is a very interesting and amusing essay at the current state of Patents in the US:
* The Earth revolves around the Sun.
* The speed of light is a constant.
* Apples fall to earth because of gravity.
* Elevated blood sugar is linked to diabetes.
* Elevated uric acid is linked to gout.
* Elevated homocysteine is linked to heart disease.
* Elevated homocysteine is linked to B-12 deficiency, so doctors should test homocysteine levels to see whether the patient needs vitamins.
Actually, I can't make that last statement. A corporation has patented that fact, and demands a royalty for its use. Anyone who makes the fact public and encourages doctors to test for the condition and treat it can be sued for royalty fees. Any doctor who reads a patient's test results and even thinks of vitamin deficiency infringes the patent. A federal circuit court held that mere thinking violates the patent.
All this may sound absurd, but it is the heart of a case that will be argued before the Supreme Court on Tuesday. In 1986 researchers filed a patent application for a method of testing the levels of homocysteine, an amino acid, in the blood. They went one step further and asked for a patent on the basic biological relationship between homocysteine and vitamin deficiency. A patent was granted that covered both the test and the scientific fact. Eventually, a company called Metabolite took over the license for the patent. ...
Many thanks to dear Grayem
Next, he should try finding the Great Wall
Mar 29, 9:05 AM (ET)
CANBERRA (Reuters) - A drunk driver just 100 yards from Australia's iconic giant monolith once known as Ayers Rock stopped police to ask the way to the 1,100-foot-high rock.
The headlights of the man's car were actually shining on Uluru, which has a 5.8-mile circumference, Northern Territory police said.
The 44-year-old man, whose car was also towing an aluminum boat, has been charged with drunk[en] driving and unlicensed driving.
D'OH!
Mar 29, 9:05 AM (ET)
CANBERRA (Reuters) - A drunk driver just 100 yards from Australia's iconic giant monolith once known as Ayers Rock stopped police to ask the way to the 1,100-foot-high rock.
The headlights of the man's car were actually shining on Uluru, which has a 5.8-mile circumference, Northern Territory police said.
The 44-year-old man, whose car was also towing an aluminum boat, has been charged with drunk[en] driving and unlicensed driving.
D'OH!
Look who's more likely to have risky sex
Mar 27, 10:23 AM (ET)
By Anne Harding
NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Young men who feel good about their looks are more likely than their peers with a less positive body image to engage in risky sexual behavior, a new study of college students shows.
The men who were most satisfied with their appearance, and the most appearance-oriented -- meaning they were highly invested in their looks and considered appearance to be important -- were also the most likely to have sex without condoms and to have sex with multiple partners, Dr. Eva S. Lefkowitz of Pennsylvania State University in University Park and colleagues report.
"There's kind of a general belief that a positive view of your body is a good thing," Lefkowitz said in an interview with Reuters Health. "We're not saying that's not true, but we do think in the case of young men there could be potential negative ramifications of a positive view of one's body."
Among young women, in contrast, those with a more positive body image were less likely to engage in risky sexual behavior, Lefkowitz and her team found. ...
See, I have plenty of good reasons for refusing to sleep with men who spend more time in front of a mirror than I.
Mar 27, 10:23 AM (ET)
By Anne Harding
NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Young men who feel good about their looks are more likely than their peers with a less positive body image to engage in risky sexual behavior, a new study of college students shows.
The men who were most satisfied with their appearance, and the most appearance-oriented -- meaning they were highly invested in their looks and considered appearance to be important -- were also the most likely to have sex without condoms and to have sex with multiple partners, Dr. Eva S. Lefkowitz of Pennsylvania State University in University Park and colleagues report.
"There's kind of a general belief that a positive view of your body is a good thing," Lefkowitz said in an interview with Reuters Health. "We're not saying that's not true, but we do think in the case of young men there could be potential negative ramifications of a positive view of one's body."
Among young women, in contrast, those with a more positive body image were less likely to engage in risky sexual behavior, Lefkowitz and her team found. ...
See, I have plenty of good reasons for refusing to sleep with men who spend more time in front of a mirror than I.
Merci à chere ModernTimes - from whom I've pinched that brilliant tag
FTP: Atheists identified as America's most distrusted minority, according to new U of M study
What: U of M study reveals America's distrust of atheism
Who: Penny Edgell, associate professor of sociology
Contact: Nina Shepherd, sociology media relations, (612) 599-1148
Mark Cassutt University News Service, (612) 624-8038
MINNEAPOLIS / ST. PAUL (3/20/2006) -- American's increasing acceptance of religious diversity doesn't extend to those who don't believe in a god, according to a national survey by researchers in the University of Minnesota's department of sociology.
From a telephone sampling of more than 2,000 households, university researchers found that Americans rate atheists below Muslims, recent immigrants, gays and lesbians and other minority groups in "sharing their vision of American society." Atheists are also the minority group most Americans are least willing to allow their children to marry.
Even though atheists are few in number, not formally organized and relatively hard to publicly identify, they are seen as a threat to the American way of life by a large portion of the American public. "Atheists, who account for about 3 percent of the U.S. population, offer a glaring exception to the rule of increasing social tolerance over the last 30 years," says Penny Edgell, associate sociology professor and the study's lead researcher.
Edgell also argues that today's atheists play the role that Catholics, Jews and communists have played in the past--they offer a symbolic moral boundary to membership in American society. "It seems most Americans believe that diversity is fine, as long as every one shares a common `core' of values that make them trustworthy--and in America, that `core' has historically been religious," says Edgell. Many of the study's respondents associated atheism with an array of moral indiscretions ranging from criminal behavior to rampant materialism and cultural elitism. ...
This is as funny and sensible as that 'news' story claiming women are responsible for impotence &c.
Criminal behavio/ur? Guess no one else notices all the priestly kiddy-fiddling in the news. Great.
Rampant materialism? Guess no one else knows the catholic church is the world's largest landowner. Terrific.
Elitism, eh? Guess no one else notices all them preachers saying, "Join our club and be just like us or go to hell."
Hmmmm....
FTP: Atheists identified as America's most distrusted minority, according to new U of M study
What: U of M study reveals America's distrust of atheism
Who: Penny Edgell, associate professor of sociology
Contact: Nina Shepherd, sociology media relations, (612) 599-1148
Mark Cassutt University News Service, (612) 624-8038
MINNEAPOLIS / ST. PAUL (3/20/2006) -- American's increasing acceptance of religious diversity doesn't extend to those who don't believe in a god, according to a national survey by researchers in the University of Minnesota's department of sociology.
From a telephone sampling of more than 2,000 households, university researchers found that Americans rate atheists below Muslims, recent immigrants, gays and lesbians and other minority groups in "sharing their vision of American society." Atheists are also the minority group most Americans are least willing to allow their children to marry.
Even though atheists are few in number, not formally organized and relatively hard to publicly identify, they are seen as a threat to the American way of life by a large portion of the American public. "Atheists, who account for about 3 percent of the U.S. population, offer a glaring exception to the rule of increasing social tolerance over the last 30 years," says Penny Edgell, associate sociology professor and the study's lead researcher.
Edgell also argues that today's atheists play the role that Catholics, Jews and communists have played in the past--they offer a symbolic moral boundary to membership in American society. "It seems most Americans believe that diversity is fine, as long as every one shares a common `core' of values that make them trustworthy--and in America, that `core' has historically been religious," says Edgell. Many of the study's respondents associated atheism with an array of moral indiscretions ranging from criminal behavior to rampant materialism and cultural elitism. ...
This is as funny and sensible as that 'news' story claiming women are responsible for impotence &c.
Criminal behavio/ur? Guess no one else notices all the priestly kiddy-fiddling in the news. Great.
Rampant materialism? Guess no one else knows the catholic church is the world's largest landowner. Terrific.
Elitism, eh? Guess no one else notices all them preachers saying, "Join our club and be just like us or go to hell."
Hmmmm....
FTP: 'We usually give one person a small dose. Then weeks later we give another volunteer an equally small dose,' she said. That precaution was clearly not enforced last week.
Within minutes of the last volunteer getting his TGN1412, the first injected recruit had begun to complain of a severe headache, backache, fever and pain. He tore his shirt off and yelled he was burning. 'An Asian guy next to me started screaming and his breathing went haywire as though he was having a terrible panic attack,' said one of the volunteers, Raste Khan, who had been given a placebo.
'They put an oxygen mask on him but he kept tearing it off. He was shouting "Doctor, doctor, please help me!" He started convulsing, shouting that he was getting shooting pains in his back. People were fainting and coming back to consciousness. It was terrifying. I kept expecting it to happen to me at any moment. But I felt fine and didn't know why.'
Within minutes of the last volunteer getting his TGN1412, the first injected recruit had begun to complain of a severe headache, backache, fever and pain. He tore his shirt off and yelled he was burning. 'An Asian guy next to me started screaming and his breathing went haywire as though he was having a terrible panic attack,' said one of the volunteers, Raste Khan, who had been given a placebo.
'They put an oxygen mask on him but he kept tearing it off. He was shouting "Doctor, doctor, please help me!" He started convulsing, shouting that he was getting shooting pains in his back. People were fainting and coming back to consciousness. It was terrifying. I kept expecting it to happen to me at any moment. But I felt fine and didn't know why.'
FTP: "If personal boundaries are crossed then it is negative but if the lines crossed are those set by old-fashioned gender role patterns it is only positive. Men are used to being hunters and feel uncomfortable about suddenly being prey. But it can be a lot of fun," Benestad told Dagsavisen.
Andrologist Ken Purvis has many patients who are struggling with their self-confidence because they cannot live up to their partner's demands on plenty of sex and serial orgasms.
Purvis agrees that women have become more aggressive and demanding, and writes this off to cultural rather than biological factors.
"For hundreds of years all men have been able to live in the belief that they are super lovers because sex wasn't discussed. Now demands are being posed that are so great that men are becoming impotent," Purvis said.
Same old same old since Eve. Blame the woman again - this time because the man can't satisfy her.
What in hell is next? Blaming women for premature ejaculation?
"I came too soon because you are too attractive/turn me on too much/make me fantasize about Marilyn Monroe (who was never satisfied due to premature ejaculation) and she's so sexy!"
Piss off.
Andrologist Ken Purvis has many patients who are struggling with their self-confidence because they cannot live up to their partner's demands on plenty of sex and serial orgasms.
Purvis agrees that women have become more aggressive and demanding, and writes this off to cultural rather than biological factors.
"For hundreds of years all men have been able to live in the belief that they are super lovers because sex wasn't discussed. Now demands are being posed that are so great that men are becoming impotent," Purvis said.
Same old same old since Eve. Blame the woman again - this time because the man can't satisfy her.
What in hell is next? Blaming women for premature ejaculation?
"I came too soon because you are too attractive/turn me on too much/make me fantasize about Marilyn Monroe (who was never satisfied due to premature ejaculation) and she's so sexy!"
Piss off.
Man Says Stripper Delivered a Rob-O-Gram
Mar 10, 7:42 PM (ET)
By The Associated Press
ATASCADERO, Calif. (AP) - A retired salesman alleged a stripper and her friend beat and robbed him in his home. John Skinner, 54, said he was on his way to Bible study on Jan. 23 when exotic dancer Maureen Murphy, 25, knocked on his door and offered him a free strip-o-gram.
Murphy said a friend had already paid for the show, police said.
When Skinner agreed to let her perform, knife wielding Richard Adam, 23, allegedly forced his way inside and told Skinner he owed Murphy, owner of Bikini Assassins, and another woman money for earlier services.
Skinner said he owed Talbert money for sex one time but not for a previous time when he said she fell asleep before they could have sex.
Adam allegedly tied up Skinner and hit him in the face. Investigators said Murphy went upstairs to find valuables and returned with thong underwear and medication for erectile dysfunction.
The pair allegedly tried to take Skinner's car, but it was out of gas.
Speechless.........
Mar 10, 7:42 PM (ET)
By The Associated Press
ATASCADERO, Calif. (AP) - A retired salesman alleged a stripper and her friend beat and robbed him in his home. John Skinner, 54, said he was on his way to Bible study on Jan. 23 when exotic dancer Maureen Murphy, 25, knocked on his door and offered him a free strip-o-gram.
Murphy said a friend had already paid for the show, police said.
When Skinner agreed to let her perform, knife wielding Richard Adam, 23, allegedly forced his way inside and told Skinner he owed Murphy, owner of Bikini Assassins, and another woman money for earlier services.
Skinner said he owed Talbert money for sex one time but not for a previous time when he said she fell asleep before they could have sex.
Adam allegedly tied up Skinner and hit him in the face. Investigators said Murphy went upstairs to find valuables and returned with thong underwear and medication for erectile dysfunction.
The pair allegedly tried to take Skinner's car, but it was out of gas.
Speechless.........
Woman Sells Ad Rights to Pregnancy on eBay
Mar 11, 3:20 AM (ET)
ST. LOUIS (AP) - If the human body is the last frontier for advertising space, then St. Louis resident Asia Francis is helping chart new territory - the big, pregnant belly.
Francis, 21, auctioned off the advertising rights to her pregnancy on eBay. The winning bid of $1,000 went to a California Internet company, giving it exclusive rights to temporarily tattoo its brand-name on Francis's belly and broadcast the birth of her daughter live on the Internet. The baby is due any day.
Only in Yankistan, girls and boys.
Mar 11, 3:20 AM (ET)
ST. LOUIS (AP) - If the human body is the last frontier for advertising space, then St. Louis resident Asia Francis is helping chart new territory - the big, pregnant belly.
Francis, 21, auctioned off the advertising rights to her pregnancy on eBay. The winning bid of $1,000 went to a California Internet company, giving it exclusive rights to temporarily tattoo its brand-name on Francis's belly and broadcast the birth of her daughter live on the Internet. The baby is due any day.
Only in Yankistan, girls and boys.
The Dire Problem of Dildos in Tennessee
Lawmakers (R) Seek to Outlaw Dildos
Apparently, lawmakers in this impoverished red state can't find enough serious problems to address, so they've turned their minds to sex, specifically sex toys.
For unknown reasons, State Senator Charlotte Burks (DINO) and State Rep. Eric Swafford (R) have been thinking a lot about the activities going on your bedroom. They have come to the conclusion that Tennessee will be a better place to live if the state regulates your bedroom by outlawing dildos.
Dildos today, mandatory missionary position tomorrow. We think it's high time the Republican party considers a name change. We suggest the Victorian Party, along with a campaign slogan of: Vote for a Victorian, and Say Hello to the Peeping Tom State in Your Bedroom.
It's true that Burks calls herself a Democrat, but in this state the Democratic party is over-run with Republicans.
If the Victorians have their way, it will soon become a crime to sell, advertise, publish, or exhibit dildos in this red state. Presumably "exhibit" is what happens when more than one person is caught in the vicinity of a dildo. The lawmakers are willing to permit some exceptions, such as the study of dildos by college students and professors. Were you looking for a subject for your Master's thesis? Interviewing lawmakers on this touchy subject could prove highly stimulating.
This is a nation founded by puritans so uptight the Britainistanis kicked them out. How anyone can be surprised (disgusted, repelled, yes) by this is beyond me.
Here in the untied states (not a typo) sex and the human body are looked at the way frat rats look through peepholes into the girls' locker room. The men in charge here are overweight, old, "need" viagra, and are so repressed the only way they can get off is through profound perversion. Since they are also ignorant, they assume everyone else is as perverse as they. Wonder what thoughts run through the "minds" of these lawmakers when they see a dildo. Mayhap they'll get even more turned on by their own dildos if owning them is made illegal.
Thanks to dear Redway420
Lawmakers (R) Seek to Outlaw Dildos
Apparently, lawmakers in this impoverished red state can't find enough serious problems to address, so they've turned their minds to sex, specifically sex toys.
For unknown reasons, State Senator Charlotte Burks (DINO) and State Rep. Eric Swafford (R) have been thinking a lot about the activities going on your bedroom. They have come to the conclusion that Tennessee will be a better place to live if the state regulates your bedroom by outlawing dildos.
Dildos today, mandatory missionary position tomorrow. We think it's high time the Republican party considers a name change. We suggest the Victorian Party, along with a campaign slogan of: Vote for a Victorian, and Say Hello to the Peeping Tom State in Your Bedroom.
It's true that Burks calls herself a Democrat, but in this state the Democratic party is over-run with Republicans.
If the Victorians have their way, it will soon become a crime to sell, advertise, publish, or exhibit dildos in this red state. Presumably "exhibit" is what happens when more than one person is caught in the vicinity of a dildo. The lawmakers are willing to permit some exceptions, such as the study of dildos by college students and professors. Were you looking for a subject for your Master's thesis? Interviewing lawmakers on this touchy subject could prove highly stimulating.
This is a nation founded by puritans so uptight the Britainistanis kicked them out. How anyone can be surprised (disgusted, repelled, yes) by this is beyond me.
Here in the untied states (not a typo) sex and the human body are looked at the way frat rats look through peepholes into the girls' locker room. The men in charge here are overweight, old, "need" viagra, and are so repressed the only way they can get off is through profound perversion. Since they are also ignorant, they assume everyone else is as perverse as they. Wonder what thoughts run through the "minds" of these lawmakers when they see a dildo. Mayhap they'll get even more turned on by their own dildos if owning them is made illegal.
Thanks to dear Redway420
FTP: Prosthetic legs returned
Mar 6, 9:58 AM (ET)
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Two prosthetic legs stolen from a 16-year-old California girl have mysteriously turned up in her mother's van, the second time in three months that an artificial limb belonging to the teen has been taken and then returned, police said on Friday.
Los Angeles County Sheriff's Sgt. David Austin said investigators dusted the slightly damaged limbs for fingerprints and had interviewed a "laundry list" of people but were baffled by the thefts.
"We're treating this as a crime," Austin said. "We have a residential burglary to deal with. This is grand theft and burglary and if we find out who's responsible we'll take appropriate action."
The two legs, which were taken from Melissa Huff's bedroom in February, were found on Wednesday in the back of her mother's van, Austin said.
"Mrs. Huff had the van at Arcadia High School (for about two hours) and when she drove away she heard some rattling and ultimately found the two legs that had just recently been stolen had been placed in the back of the van," Austin said.
There are some seriously f*cked up people on this planet, girls and boys.
Mar 6, 9:58 AM (ET)
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Two prosthetic legs stolen from a 16-year-old California girl have mysteriously turned up in her mother's van, the second time in three months that an artificial limb belonging to the teen has been taken and then returned, police said on Friday.
Los Angeles County Sheriff's Sgt. David Austin said investigators dusted the slightly damaged limbs for fingerprints and had interviewed a "laundry list" of people but were baffled by the thefts.
"We're treating this as a crime," Austin said. "We have a residential burglary to deal with. This is grand theft and burglary and if we find out who's responsible we'll take appropriate action."
The two legs, which were taken from Melissa Huff's bedroom in February, were found on Wednesday in the back of her mother's van, Austin said.
"Mrs. Huff had the van at Arcadia High School (for about two hours) and when she drove away she heard some rattling and ultimately found the two legs that had just recently been stolen had been placed in the back of the van," Austin said.
There are some seriously f*cked up people on this planet, girls and boys.
Four charged over US bones theft
US authorities have charged four men with looting bones and body parts from more than 1,000 corpses and selling them for medical transplants.
Brooklyn District Attorney Charles Hynes said the scam was "like something out of a cheap horror movie".
The body of BBC broadcaster Alistair Cooke, who died aged 95 in 2004, was among those used in the racket.
The lawyer for one of the suspects, former dentist Michael Mastromarino, said his client denied the charges.
The indictment also names two of Mr Mastromarino's employers - Lee Crucetta and Christopher Aldorasi - as well as funeral home operator Joseph Nicelli as participants in the scheme.
'Bones replaced'
Prosecutors say the defendants made millions of dollars from selling body parts harvested from corpses obtained from Mr Nicelli's funeral home.
Bones, organs and tissue were allegedly sold by Mr Mastromarino's Biomedical Tissue Services Ltd to unwitting clients for implants.
Death certificates and consent forms are alleged to have been doctored to make it appear the donations were legitimate.
Stolen parts from Alistair Cooke, who died from cancer, were allegedly shown to have come from a healthy 85-year-old who died from a heart attack.
Prosecutors said the men discarded gloves, aprons and other items inside the stripped corpses before sewing them up.
They are also alleged to have replaced stolen bones with PVC piping.
"The amount of callousness here is incalculable," said Mr Hynes.
"What happened here... is like something out of a cheap horror movie."
Stolen from dear Gaz-W
Maybe it's just me, but I can't help thinking of the great HP Lovecraft's The Case of Charles Dexter Ward: " 'Certainely there was Nothing butt ye liveliest Awfullness in That which H. rais'd upp from What he cou'd gather onlie a Part of.' "
US authorities have charged four men with looting bones and body parts from more than 1,000 corpses and selling them for medical transplants.
Brooklyn District Attorney Charles Hynes said the scam was "like something out of a cheap horror movie".
The body of BBC broadcaster Alistair Cooke, who died aged 95 in 2004, was among those used in the racket.
The lawyer for one of the suspects, former dentist Michael Mastromarino, said his client denied the charges.
The indictment also names two of Mr Mastromarino's employers - Lee Crucetta and Christopher Aldorasi - as well as funeral home operator Joseph Nicelli as participants in the scheme.
'Bones replaced'
Prosecutors say the defendants made millions of dollars from selling body parts harvested from corpses obtained from Mr Nicelli's funeral home.
Bones, organs and tissue were allegedly sold by Mr Mastromarino's Biomedical Tissue Services Ltd to unwitting clients for implants.
Death certificates and consent forms are alleged to have been doctored to make it appear the donations were legitimate.
Stolen parts from Alistair Cooke, who died from cancer, were allegedly shown to have come from a healthy 85-year-old who died from a heart attack.
Prosecutors said the men discarded gloves, aprons and other items inside the stripped corpses before sewing them up.
They are also alleged to have replaced stolen bones with PVC piping.
"The amount of callousness here is incalculable," said Mr Hynes.
"What happened here... is like something out of a cheap horror movie."
Stolen from dear Gaz-W
Maybe it's just me, but I can't help thinking of the great HP Lovecraft's The Case of Charles Dexter Ward: " 'Certainely there was Nothing butt ye liveliest Awfullness in That which H. rais'd upp from What he cou'd gather onlie a Part of.' "
FTP: Girl of 11 collapsed at school after taking heroin
By Genevive Roberts
Published: 30 January 2006
An 11-year-old girl who collapsed at her primary school was being treated for the effects of heroin yesterday.
The girl, from Glasgow, was the youngest person confirmed to have suffered from the effects of the drug, other than babies who suffer withdrawal symptoms from a mother's addiction.
The girl, who has not been named, told doctors she had been smoking the drug for more than two months.
Social services and police have launched an investigation as reports said that the child admitted buying 10 bags of the class-A drug from a female dealer based at a shopping centre.
The authorities were alerted when the girl appeared to fall asleep in the classroom last week and could not be roused.
A source close to the case told the Sunday Mail: "Initially the teachers thought that she had unwittingly taken drugs somehow. It turned out to be far from the truth - she has been using the drug regularly for weeks. It seems this girl is a product of her own environment - she didn't believe that she was doing anything that was out of the ordinary."
Alistair Ramsay, director of Scotland Against Drugs, said: "There has been a lot of anecdotal evidence suggesting that there are children of this age taking heroin, but this is the first incident that has been officially confirmed."
Wonder who's making all the money importing the shit into Scotland?
By Genevive Roberts
Published: 30 January 2006
An 11-year-old girl who collapsed at her primary school was being treated for the effects of heroin yesterday.
The girl, from Glasgow, was the youngest person confirmed to have suffered from the effects of the drug, other than babies who suffer withdrawal symptoms from a mother's addiction.
The girl, who has not been named, told doctors she had been smoking the drug for more than two months.
Social services and police have launched an investigation as reports said that the child admitted buying 10 bags of the class-A drug from a female dealer based at a shopping centre.
The authorities were alerted when the girl appeared to fall asleep in the classroom last week and could not be roused.
A source close to the case told the Sunday Mail: "Initially the teachers thought that she had unwittingly taken drugs somehow. It turned out to be far from the truth - she has been using the drug regularly for weeks. It seems this girl is a product of her own environment - she didn't believe that she was doing anything that was out of the ordinary."
Alistair Ramsay, director of Scotland Against Drugs, said: "There has been a lot of anecdotal evidence suggesting that there are children of this age taking heroin, but this is the first incident that has been officially confirmed."
Wonder who's making all the money importing the shit into Scotland?
FTP: The state Division of Elections has refused to turn over its electronic voting files to the Democrats, arguing that the data format belongs to a private company and can't be made public.
The Alaska Democratic Party says the information is a public record essential for verifying the accuracy of the 2004 general election and must be provided.
The official vote results from the last general election are riddled with discrepancies and impossible for the public to make sense of, the Democrats said Monday. A detailed analysis of the underlying data could answer lingering questions about an election many thought was over more than a year ago, they say.
"Basically what they say is they want to give us a printout from the (electronic) file. They don't want to give us the file itself. It doesn't enable us to get to the bottom of what we need to know," said Kay Brown, spokeswoman for the party.
Die, die, diebold!
Thanks, mu-tiger
The Alaska Democratic Party says the information is a public record essential for verifying the accuracy of the 2004 general election and must be provided.
The official vote results from the last general election are riddled with discrepancies and impossible for the public to make sense of, the Democrats said Monday. A detailed analysis of the underlying data could answer lingering questions about an election many thought was over more than a year ago, they say.
"Basically what they say is they want to give us a printout from the (electronic) file. They don't want to give us the file itself. It doesn't enable us to get to the bottom of what we need to know," said Kay Brown, spokeswoman for the party.
Die, die, diebold!
Thanks, mu-tiger
FTP: An alumni group is offering students up to $100 per class to supply tapes and notes exposing University of California, Los Angeles professors who allegedly express extreme left-wing political views.
The year-old Bruin Alumni Association on its Web site says it is concerned about professors who use lecture time to press positions against President Bush, the military and multinational corporations, among other things.
The site includes a list of what the group calls the college's 30 most radical professors.
"We're just trying to get people back on a professional level of things," said the group's president and founder, Andrew Jones, a 2003 UCLA graduate and former chairman of the student Bruin Republicans.
"Having been a student myself up until 2003, and then watching what other students like myself have gone through, I'm very concerned about the level of professional teaching at UCLA."
OMFG
The year-old Bruin Alumni Association on its Web site says it is concerned about professors who use lecture time to press positions against President Bush, the military and multinational corporations, among other things.
The site includes a list of what the group calls the college's 30 most radical professors.
"We're just trying to get people back on a professional level of things," said the group's president and founder, Andrew Jones, a 2003 UCLA graduate and former chairman of the student Bruin Republicans.
"Having been a student myself up until 2003, and then watching what other students like myself have gone through, I'm very concerned about the level of professional teaching at UCLA."
OMFG
From the page: "The National Election Data Archive (NEDA) is the first mathematical team to release a valid scientific analysis of the precinct-level 2004 Ohio presidential exit poll data. NEDA's analysis provides virtually irrefutable evidence of vote miscount.
(PRWEB) January 17, 2006 -- There is significant controversy about whether the 2004 presidential election was conducted fairly and its votes counted correctly. According to results of the major national election exit poll conducted for the National Election Pool by Edison/Mitofsky (E/M), Kerry won Ohio's pivotal vote, though the official tally gave the state, and thus the presidency, to Bush. The conduct of Ohio's election was formally debated by Congress in January 2005.
The National Election Data Archive (NEDA) is the first mathematical team to release a valid scientific analysis of the precinct-level 2004 Ohio presidential exit poll data "The Gun is Smoking: 2004 Ohio Precinct-level Exit Poll Data Show Virtually Irrefutable Evidence of Vote Miscount" available at http://electionarchive.org/ucvAnalysis/OH/Ohio-Exit-Polls-2004.pdf. NEDA's analysis provides significant evidence of an outcome-altering vote miscount.
The analysis is based on the most accurate statistical method yet devised for determining whether exit poll error, random variations, or vote count manipulation cause the discrepancies between exit polls and official vote tallies. This analysis method was made public recently by NEDA in "Vote Miscounts or Exit Poll Error? New Mathematical Function for Analyzing Exit Poll Discrepancy" available at http://electionarchive.org/ucvAnalysis/US/Exit-Poll-Analysis.pdf"
Thanks, Voyyaghar
(PRWEB) January 17, 2006 -- There is significant controversy about whether the 2004 presidential election was conducted fairly and its votes counted correctly. According to results of the major national election exit poll conducted for the National Election Pool by Edison/Mitofsky (E/M), Kerry won Ohio's pivotal vote, though the official tally gave the state, and thus the presidency, to Bush. The conduct of Ohio's election was formally debated by Congress in January 2005.
The National Election Data Archive (NEDA) is the first mathematical team to release a valid scientific analysis of the precinct-level 2004 Ohio presidential exit poll data "The Gun is Smoking: 2004 Ohio Precinct-level Exit Poll Data Show Virtually Irrefutable Evidence of Vote Miscount" available at http://electionarchive.org/ucvAnalysis/OH/Ohio-Exit-Polls-2004.pdf. NEDA's analysis provides significant evidence of an outcome-altering vote miscount.
The analysis is based on the most accurate statistical method yet devised for determining whether exit poll error, random variations, or vote count manipulation cause the discrepancies between exit polls and official vote tallies. This analysis method was made public recently by NEDA in "Vote Miscounts or Exit Poll Error? New Mathematical Function for Analyzing Exit Poll Discrepancy" available at http://electionarchive.org/ucvAnalysis/US/Exit-Poll-Analysis.pdf"
Thanks, Voyyaghar
FTP: "Remember Afghanistan? Insurgents bring suicide terror to country
A suicide bomber yesterday rode into town, killing at least 20 in the deadliest insurgent attack since the US invasion. More than 1,600 were killed in 2005, and the murder rate is rising. The rule of law has collapsed. The government is trapped in its own fortified compound in the capital. Soon, Britain will commit another 3,500 troops to a dangerous mission with no clear goals or exit strategy...
By Kim Sengupta
Published: 17 January 2006
At least 20 people died in a suicide attack in Afghanistan when a motorcyclist detonated his explosives-packed vest. In a separate strike, five Afghan soldiers were killed when a 15-year-old suicide bomber threw himself in front of their convoy. On Sunday, a Canadian diplomat was among three victims of a similar blast.
It was the bloodiest 48 hours in what is turning into the most violent month in Afghanistan since the country was "liberated" during the US-led invasion in October 2001. And it is into this increasingly savage insurgency that up to 3,500 more British troops will be sent from March."
Interesting way the Yankistanis and Chinese use the word "liberate."
Thanks to dear Grayem
A suicide bomber yesterday rode into town, killing at least 20 in the deadliest insurgent attack since the US invasion. More than 1,600 were killed in 2005, and the murder rate is rising. The rule of law has collapsed. The government is trapped in its own fortified compound in the capital. Soon, Britain will commit another 3,500 troops to a dangerous mission with no clear goals or exit strategy...
By Kim Sengupta
Published: 17 January 2006
At least 20 people died in a suicide attack in Afghanistan when a motorcyclist detonated his explosives-packed vest. In a separate strike, five Afghan soldiers were killed when a 15-year-old suicide bomber threw himself in front of their convoy. On Sunday, a Canadian diplomat was among three victims of a similar blast.
It was the bloodiest 48 hours in what is turning into the most violent month in Afghanistan since the country was "liberated" during the US-led invasion in October 2001. And it is into this increasingly savage insurgency that up to 3,500 more British troops will be sent from March."
Interesting way the Yankistanis and Chinese use the word "liberate."
Thanks to dear Grayem
From the page: "TIKRIT, Iraq, Jan. 14, 2006
"The responsibility of the commander is to figure out what we need to respond to this evolving threat. The easiest, the fastest and most appropriate answer is add additional armor." -- Col. Michael Steele
commander, U.S. Army 101st Airborne Division's 3rd Brigade
(AP) Soldiers exposed to Iraq's increasingly lethal roadside bombs, which can rip through armored Humvees, are drawing on wartime experience and stateside expertise to protect their vehicles with stronger armor and thermal detection cameras.
The upgrades are being done by individual soldiers and units as the Pentagon decides how Humvees should be changed, and follow public criticism of the Bush administration for not armoring all Humvees ahead of the war.
Nearly three years after rolling into Iraq in trucks covered in many instances only by canvas roofs, the 101st Airborne Division's 3rd Brigade is adding extra layers of armor to its Humvees.
Col. Michael Steele, the brigade's commander, said he ordered the improvements because the insurgents' roadside bombs, known to the military as "improvised explosive devices," have become bigger and harder to detect."
OMFG
Thanks to dear Redway420
"The responsibility of the commander is to figure out what we need to respond to this evolving threat. The easiest, the fastest and most appropriate answer is add additional armor." -- Col. Michael Steele
commander, U.S. Army 101st Airborne Division's 3rd Brigade
(AP) Soldiers exposed to Iraq's increasingly lethal roadside bombs, which can rip through armored Humvees, are drawing on wartime experience and stateside expertise to protect their vehicles with stronger armor and thermal detection cameras.
The upgrades are being done by individual soldiers and units as the Pentagon decides how Humvees should be changed, and follow public criticism of the Bush administration for not armoring all Humvees ahead of the war.
Nearly three years after rolling into Iraq in trucks covered in many instances only by canvas roofs, the 101st Airborne Division's 3rd Brigade is adding extra layers of armor to its Humvees.
Col. Michael Steele, the brigade's commander, said he ordered the improvements because the insurgents' roadside bombs, known to the military as "improvised explosive devices," have become bigger and harder to detect."
OMFG
Thanks to dear Redway420
FTP: "Clinton Fein, a San Francisco resident who runs the Annoy.com site, says a feature permitting visitors to send obnoxious and profane postcards through e-mail could be imperiled.
"Who decides what's annoying? That's the ultimate question," Fein said. He added: "If you send an annoying message via the United States Post Office, do you have to reveal your identity?"
Fein once sued to overturn part of the Communications Decency Act that outlawed transmitting indecent material "with intent to annoy." But the courts ruled the law applied only to obscene material, so Annoy.com didn't have to worry.
"I'm certainly not going to close the site down," Fein said on Friday. "I would fight it on First Amendment grounds."
He's right. Our esteemed politicians can't seem to grasp this simple point, but the First Amendment protects our right to write something that annoys someone else.
It even shields our right to do it anonymously. U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas defended this principle magnificently in a 1995 case involving an Ohio woman who was punished for distributing anonymous political pamphlets.
If President Bush truly believed in the principle of limited government (it is in his official bio), he'd realize that the law he signed cannot be squared with the Constitution he swore to uphold."
Umkhii novsh.
Thanks, Voyyaghar
"Who decides what's annoying? That's the ultimate question," Fein said. He added: "If you send an annoying message via the United States Post Office, do you have to reveal your identity?"
Fein once sued to overturn part of the Communications Decency Act that outlawed transmitting indecent material "with intent to annoy." But the courts ruled the law applied only to obscene material, so Annoy.com didn't have to worry.
"I'm certainly not going to close the site down," Fein said on Friday. "I would fight it on First Amendment grounds."
He's right. Our esteemed politicians can't seem to grasp this simple point, but the First Amendment protects our right to write something that annoys someone else.
It even shields our right to do it anonymously. U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas defended this principle magnificently in a 1995 case involving an Ohio woman who was punished for distributing anonymous political pamphlets.
If President Bush truly believed in the principle of limited government (it is in his official bio), he'd realize that the law he signed cannot be squared with the Constitution he swore to uphold."
Umkhii novsh.
Thanks, Voyyaghar
FTP: "Clark said legal remedies are needed to stop companies from selling telephone records.
"When I learned today that my phone records were purchased for less than a hundred dollars I joined millions of Americans who worry about the invasion of their privacy that seems to be the growing price of technology," Clark said. "People should be able to trust that their privacy is being respected and protected by everyone from the government to our internet and mobile phone service providers. Clearly, this is not the case."
Clark urged consumers to contact their senators to urge passage of a law to order the Federal Trade Commission to "restore integrity to the system and give people back a reasonable degree of privacy.""
OMFG
Thanks to dear ProgressiveMe
"When I learned today that my phone records were purchased for less than a hundred dollars I joined millions of Americans who worry about the invasion of their privacy that seems to be the growing price of technology," Clark said. "People should be able to trust that their privacy is being respected and protected by everyone from the government to our internet and mobile phone service providers. Clearly, this is not the case."
Clark urged consumers to contact their senators to urge passage of a law to order the Federal Trade Commission to "restore integrity to the system and give people back a reasonable degree of privacy.""
OMFG
Thanks to dear ProgressiveMe
FTP: "Scientists in Taiwan say they have bred three pigs that glow in the dark.
They claim that while other researchers have bred partly fluorescent pigs, theirs are the only pigs in the world which are green through and through.
The pigs are transgenic, created by adding genetic material from jellyfish into a normal pig embryo.
The researchers hope the pigs will boost the island's stem cell research, as well as helping with the study of human disease."
moderntimes does have a point about late-night snacking; but if Nero Wolfe wouldn't want to eat it, neither would I.
Green eggs next - film at eleven.
They claim that while other researchers have bred partly fluorescent pigs, theirs are the only pigs in the world which are green through and through.
The pigs are transgenic, created by adding genetic material from jellyfish into a normal pig embryo.
The researchers hope the pigs will boost the island's stem cell research, as well as helping with the study of human disease."
moderntimes does have a point about late-night snacking; but if Nero Wolfe wouldn't want to eat it, neither would I.
Green eggs next - film at eleven.
Monsanto files patent for new invention: the pig
Greenpeace researcher uncovers chilling patent plans
02 August 2005
Geneva, Switzerland -- It's official. Monsanto Corporation is out to own the world's food supply, the dangers of genetic engineering and reduced biodiversity notwithstanding, as they pig-headedly set about hog-tying farmers with their monopoly plans. We've discovered chilling new evidence of this in recent patents that seek to establish ownership rights over pigs and their offspring.
In the crop department, Monsanto is well on their way to dictating what consumers will eat, what farmers will grow, and how much Monsanto will get paid for seeds. In some cases those seeds are designed not to reproduce sowable offspring. In others, a flock of lawyers stand ready to swoop down on farmers who illegally, or even unknowingly, end up with Monsanto's private property growing in their fields.
One way or another, Monsanto wants to make sure no food is grown that they don't own -- and the record shows they don't care if it's safe for the environment or not. Monsanto has aggressively set out to bulldoze environmental concerns about its genetically engineered (GE) seeds at every regulatory level.
monsanto helped the untied states build nukes, and they're obviously still worshipping the debbil.
Thanks, Grayem
Greenpeace researcher uncovers chilling patent plans
02 August 2005
Geneva, Switzerland -- It's official. Monsanto Corporation is out to own the world's food supply, the dangers of genetic engineering and reduced biodiversity notwithstanding, as they pig-headedly set about hog-tying farmers with their monopoly plans. We've discovered chilling new evidence of this in recent patents that seek to establish ownership rights over pigs and their offspring.
In the crop department, Monsanto is well on their way to dictating what consumers will eat, what farmers will grow, and how much Monsanto will get paid for seeds. In some cases those seeds are designed not to reproduce sowable offspring. In others, a flock of lawyers stand ready to swoop down on farmers who illegally, or even unknowingly, end up with Monsanto's private property growing in their fields.
One way or another, Monsanto wants to make sure no food is grown that they don't own -- and the record shows they don't care if it's safe for the environment or not. Monsanto has aggressively set out to bulldoze environmental concerns about its genetically engineered (GE) seeds at every regulatory level.
monsanto helped the untied states build nukes, and they're obviously still worshipping the debbil.
Thanks, Grayem
FTP: "James Moore is an Emmy-winning former television news correspondent and the co-author of the bestselling, Bush's Brain: How Karl Rove Made George W. Bush Presidential. He has been writing and reporting from Texas for the past 25 years on the rise of Rove and Bush and has traveled extensively on every presidential campaign since 1976.
This author was placed on the no fly list. Two points: there's nothing you or I can do to help him but make this public, and two - we are all targets here."
Shudder to think.
Thanks, Grayem
This author was placed on the no fly list. Two points: there's nothing you or I can do to help him but make this public, and two - we are all targets here."
Shudder to think.
Thanks, Grayem
This is just so goldang twisted.
Many thanks to the delightful moderntimes who is an actual, non-creepy gem.
Many thanks to the delightful moderntimes who is an actual, non-creepy gem.
FTP: "Bush announces radical shift in foreign policy; No U.S. media report it
David Sirota
January 6, 2006
In case you thought the Bush administration's dangerous, and national-security-weakening unilateralism was just a one-time deal in Iraq, think again. Buried in the UK's Financial Times - and as far as I can tell, not reported anywhere else - are the details of a State Department briefing this week in which the Bush administration very publicly said it is essentially scrapping U.S. support for NATO and the United Nations. No joke.
Here's the key excerpt:
"The Bush administration says it wants to be able to form 'coalitions of the willing' more efficiently for dealing with future conflicts rather than turning to existing but unreliable institutional alliances such as Nato. 'We ad hoc our way through coalitions of the willing. That's the future,' a senior State Department official said in a briefing this week."
NATO and the U.N. are by no means perfect, and America should continue to reserve its right to defend itself. Nonetheless, this declaration by the administration represents a radical shift in U.S. policy (at least its publicly-stated policy). And one that begs a very simple question: how could anyone - even the Bush administration - look at the Iraq "coalition of the willing" model as anything but an incredible failure? It has left American troops isolated in Iraq, and American taxpayers largely footing the entire bill for reconstruction."
OMFG
Thanks, angelclare
David Sirota
January 6, 2006
In case you thought the Bush administration's dangerous, and national-security-weakening unilateralism was just a one-time deal in Iraq, think again. Buried in the UK's Financial Times - and as far as I can tell, not reported anywhere else - are the details of a State Department briefing this week in which the Bush administration very publicly said it is essentially scrapping U.S. support for NATO and the United Nations. No joke.
Here's the key excerpt:
"The Bush administration says it wants to be able to form 'coalitions of the willing' more efficiently for dealing with future conflicts rather than turning to existing but unreliable institutional alliances such as Nato. 'We ad hoc our way through coalitions of the willing. That's the future,' a senior State Department official said in a briefing this week."
NATO and the U.N. are by no means perfect, and America should continue to reserve its right to defend itself. Nonetheless, this declaration by the administration represents a radical shift in U.S. policy (at least its publicly-stated policy). And one that begs a very simple question: how could anyone - even the Bush administration - look at the Iraq "coalition of the willing" model as anything but an incredible failure? It has left American troops isolated in Iraq, and American taxpayers largely footing the entire bill for reconstruction."
OMFG
Thanks, angelclare
Sign in to read: The lie detector youll never know is there - tech - 05 January 2006 - New Scientist
The lie detector you'll never know is there
05 January 2006
From New Scientist Print Edition
Paul Marks
THE US Department of Defense has revealed plans to develop a lie detector that can be used without the subject knowing they are being assessed. The Remote Personnel Assessment (RPA) device will also be used to pinpoint fighters hiding in a combat zone, or even to spot signs of stress that might mark someone out as a terrorist or suicide bomber.
In a call for proposals on a DoD website, contractors are being given until 13 January to suggest ways to develop the RPA, which will use microwave or laser beams reflected off a subject's skin to assess various physiological parameters without the need for wires or skin contacts. The device will train a beam on "moving and non-cooperative subjects", the DoD proposal says, and use the reflected signal to calculate their pulse, respiration rate and changes in electrical conductance, known as the "galvanic skin response". "Active combatants will in general have heart, respiratory and galvanic skin responses that are outside the norm," the website says.
Because these parameters are the same as those assessed by a polygraph lie detector, the DoD claims the RPA will also indicate the subject's psychological state: if they are agitated or stressed because they are lying, for example. So it will be used as a "remote or concealed lie detector during prisoner interrogation".
Ah, the good ol' DoD DooDs are working on another torture toy. How very special.
Thanks, Grayem
05 January 2006
From New Scientist Print Edition
Paul Marks
THE US Department of Defense has revealed plans to develop a lie detector that can be used without the subject knowing they are being assessed. The Remote Personnel Assessment (RPA) device will also be used to pinpoint fighters hiding in a combat zone, or even to spot signs of stress that might mark someone out as a terrorist or suicide bomber.
In a call for proposals on a DoD website, contractors are being given until 13 January to suggest ways to develop the RPA, which will use microwave or laser beams reflected off a subject's skin to assess various physiological parameters without the need for wires or skin contacts. The device will train a beam on "moving and non-cooperative subjects", the DoD proposal says, and use the reflected signal to calculate their pulse, respiration rate and changes in electrical conductance, known as the "galvanic skin response". "Active combatants will in general have heart, respiratory and galvanic skin responses that are outside the norm," the website says.
Because these parameters are the same as those assessed by a polygraph lie detector, the DoD claims the RPA will also indicate the subject's psychological state: if they are agitated or stressed because they are lying, for example. So it will be used as a "remote or concealed lie detector during prisoner interrogation".
Ah, the good ol' DoD DooDs are working on another torture toy. How very special.
Thanks, Grayem
Calif. Husband, Wife Leave Sons Home Alone
Jan 5, 12:03 AM (ET)
By JULIANA BARBASSA
MANTECA, Calif. (AP) - A married couple who got a dog sitter for their puppies but left the man's young children home alone while they vacationed in Las Vegas were arrested Wednesday, police said.
Jacob Calero, 39, and Michelle De La Vega, 32, were taken into custody as they arrived home on a flight to Oakland. They had left town Friday to celebrate the new year, authorities said.
The couple apparently told 9-year-old Joshua to look after his 5-year-brother, Jason, who is autistic. The children spent one night alone before police found them.
The grandmother, Libbey Holden, said she called police because she had suspected the couple left the children at home in San Ramon, about 35 miles east of San Francisco.
"I had big concerns," Holden said. "These kids are helpless."
Joshua said his father and stepmother got each other puppies for Christmas, which they brought to De La Vega's mother to care for before leaving town.
"I thought they loved them more than us," Joshua told The Associated Press during an interview at his maternal grandmother's apartment. The children's mother died in 2003.
Sounds like Josh is right. Some people just shouldn't have children.
Thanks, Zaxy
Jan 5, 12:03 AM (ET)
By JULIANA BARBASSA
MANTECA, Calif. (AP) - A married couple who got a dog sitter for their puppies but left the man's young children home alone while they vacationed in Las Vegas were arrested Wednesday, police said.
Jacob Calero, 39, and Michelle De La Vega, 32, were taken into custody as they arrived home on a flight to Oakland. They had left town Friday to celebrate the new year, authorities said.
The couple apparently told 9-year-old Joshua to look after his 5-year-brother, Jason, who is autistic. The children spent one night alone before police found them.
The grandmother, Libbey Holden, said she called police because she had suspected the couple left the children at home in San Ramon, about 35 miles east of San Francisco.
"I had big concerns," Holden said. "These kids are helpless."
Joshua said his father and stepmother got each other puppies for Christmas, which they brought to De La Vega's mother to care for before leaving town.
"I thought they loved them more than us," Joshua told The Associated Press during an interview at his maternal grandmother's apartment. The children's mother died in 2003.
Sounds like Josh is right. Some people just shouldn't have children.
Thanks, Zaxy
Teenagers in Washington state schools are being given the below item, which is completely unrelated to their studies.
"Considering the fact that this paper is a complete one off in that it is not part of any standard curriculum, we must question the motivations behind it.
Is the paper a means of gauging the level of obedience to the state amongst American teenagers?
We have covered several examples before where the government identifies a target group in society and canvasses their views on the nature of power and when that power goes too far. For example, in the 90's, American marines and national guard were occasionally asked if they would be willing to fire on American citizens in a time of crisis.
We are by no means against patriotism when it means love of country. Unfortunately however, the new brand of so-called patriotism translates as worship of government, and that definition is something that the founding fathers never intended."
Thanks, Voyyaghar!
"Considering the fact that this paper is a complete one off in that it is not part of any standard curriculum, we must question the motivations behind it.
Is the paper a means of gauging the level of obedience to the state amongst American teenagers?
We have covered several examples before where the government identifies a target group in society and canvasses their views on the nature of power and when that power goes too far. For example, in the 90's, American marines and national guard were occasionally asked if they would be willing to fire on American citizens in a time of crisis.
We are by no means against patriotism when it means love of country. Unfortunately however, the new brand of so-called patriotism translates as worship of government, and that definition is something that the founding fathers never intended."
Thanks, Voyyaghar!
FTP: "Clockwork Orange killers set woman on fire for fun
From Graham Keeley in Barcelona
THREE Spanish teenagers fascinated by the film Clockwork Orange burnt a homeless woman to death for kicks.
Mara Rosario Endrinal Petite, 50, who had been sleeping in a Barcelona doorway, was attacked and set on fire with solvent. She died in hospital. It is believed to be the culmination of months of attacks on homeless people by the gang, who had become obsessed with the Stanley Kubrick film and with violent video games.
The case has cast a shadow over Barcelona, seen by Britons as a highly fashionable and relatively crime-free city."
OMFG
Thanks (I think) to keago
From Graham Keeley in Barcelona
THREE Spanish teenagers fascinated by the film Clockwork Orange burnt a homeless woman to death for kicks.
Mara Rosario Endrinal Petite, 50, who had been sleeping in a Barcelona doorway, was attacked and set on fire with solvent. She died in hospital. It is believed to be the culmination of months of attacks on homeless people by the gang, who had become obsessed with the Stanley Kubrick film and with violent video games.
The case has cast a shadow over Barcelona, seen by Britons as a highly fashionable and relatively crime-free city."
OMFG
Thanks (I think) to keago
Judge Commits 8 Over Exorcism Killings
Dec 16, 1:27 AM (ET)
By MARK STEVENSON
MEXICO CITY (AP) - A judge committed eight relatives to the psychiatric ward of a prison Thursday for the ritualistic slayings of two young family members that shocked Mexico with their brutality.
Officials said the parents, grandparents and aunts of a 7-month-old and 13-year-old hacked the baby to death and fatally stoned the teenager earlier this month after they became convinced the girls were demons or possessed by the devil.
Judge Ana Maria Raya Razo, who committed each family member for 40 years, told The Associated Press they had acknowledged killing the girls to save themselves from demons. The slayings were accompanied by prayers, candle-lighting and the sacrifice of farm animals, officials said.
Dec 16, 1:27 AM (ET)
By MARK STEVENSON
MEXICO CITY (AP) - A judge committed eight relatives to the psychiatric ward of a prison Thursday for the ritualistic slayings of two young family members that shocked Mexico with their brutality.
Officials said the parents, grandparents and aunts of a 7-month-old and 13-year-old hacked the baby to death and fatally stoned the teenager earlier this month after they became convinced the girls were demons or possessed by the devil.
Judge Ana Maria Raya Razo, who committed each family member for 40 years, told The Associated Press they had acknowledged killing the girls to save themselves from demons. The slayings were accompanied by prayers, candle-lighting and the sacrifice of farm animals, officials said.
FTP: "Man goes wrong way on highway for 11 miles
Dec 12, 12:26 PM (ET)
STRASBOURG, France (Reuters) - A Frenchman drove up a motorway in the wrong direction for 11 miles, crashing into five other vehicles and killing one person and injuring three others including two children, police said.
The 66-year-old man continued driving after his first two collisions Sunday in the hope of finding an exit off the A35 in eastern France, a police spokesman in the city of Strasbourg said.
No one was injured in the first collision with two vehicles, but one person was seriously hurt in a second accident with two other vehicles."
If this idiot was willing to drive all that way facing the wrong way and hit people into the bargain, couldn't he have turned around? And, um, aren't you supposed to stop after an accident, even if you're French?
Dec 12, 12:26 PM (ET)
STRASBOURG, France (Reuters) - A Frenchman drove up a motorway in the wrong direction for 11 miles, crashing into five other vehicles and killing one person and injuring three others including two children, police said.
The 66-year-old man continued driving after his first two collisions Sunday in the hope of finding an exit off the A35 in eastern France, a police spokesman in the city of Strasbourg said.
No one was injured in the first collision with two vehicles, but one person was seriously hurt in a second accident with two other vehicles."
If this idiot was willing to drive all that way facing the wrong way and hit people into the bargain, couldn't he have turned around? And, um, aren't you supposed to stop after an accident, even if you're French?
(CBS 5) SAN FRANCISCO A parody video that features uniformed and plainclothes San Francisco police officers and racist and sexist stereotypes has led to the suspension of at least 20 police officers.
In a press conference Wednesday evening with Police Chief Heather Fong, Mayor Gavin Newsom described the video as a series of skits showing situations demeaning to Asians, African-Americans, homosexuals and transsexuals. Police Chief Heather Fong called the videos "egregious, shameful and despicable."
Police officer Andrew Cohen, who produced the video vignettes and was among those suspended, told CBS 5 the video was made for the Bayview police station's Christmas party and displayed on his web site. The tape has since been taken off the site.
The statement on Cohen's web site reads: "For many years I have devoted much of my time in making videos to increase positive public opinion of out officers as well as to raise the moral [sic] of our officers. I believe this was accomplished, however, I think that this is where the road ends."
Video Shocker: Pigs are Pigs - Film at Eleven
Can't spell its way out of a wet paper bag either.
Stolen from InfinityGuy via Buzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
In a press conference Wednesday evening with Police Chief Heather Fong, Mayor Gavin Newsom described the video as a series of skits showing situations demeaning to Asians, African-Americans, homosexuals and transsexuals. Police Chief Heather Fong called the videos "egregious, shameful and despicable."
Police officer Andrew Cohen, who produced the video vignettes and was among those suspended, told CBS 5 the video was made for the Bayview police station's Christmas party and displayed on his web site. The tape has since been taken off the site.
The statement on Cohen's web site reads: "For many years I have devoted much of my time in making videos to increase positive public opinion of out officers as well as to raise the moral [sic] of our officers. I believe this was accomplished, however, I think that this is where the road ends."
Video Shocker: Pigs are Pigs - Film at Eleven
Can't spell its way out of a wet paper bag either.
Stolen from InfinityGuy via Buzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
FTP: "'Trophy' video exposes private security contractors shooting up Iraqi drivers
By Sean Rayment, Defence Correspondent
(Filed: 27/11/2005)
A "trophy" video appearing to show security guards in Baghdad randomly shooting Iraqi civilians has sparked two investigations after it was posted on the internet, the Sunday Telegraph can reveal.
The video has sparked concern that private security companies, which are not subject to any form of regulation either in Britain or in Iraq, could be responsible for the deaths of hundreds of innocent Iraqis.
The video, which first appeared on a website that has been linked unofficially to Aegis Defence Services, contained four separate clips, in which security guards open fire with automatic rifles at civilian cars. All of the shooting incidents apparently took place on "route Irish", a road that links the airport to Baghdad.
The road has acquired the dubious distinction of being the most dangerous in the world because of the number of suicide attacks and ambushes carried out by insurgents against coalition troops. In one four-month period earlier this year it was the scene of 150 attacks.
In one of the videoed attacks, a Mercedes is fired on at a distance of several hundred yards before it crashes in to a civilian taxi. In the last clip, a white civilian car is raked with machine gun fire as it approaches an unidentified security company vehicle. Bullets can be seen hitting the vehicle before it comes to a slow stop.
There are no clues as to the shooter but either a Scottish or Irish accent can be heard in at least one of the clips above Elvis Presley's Mystery Train, the music which accompanies the video."
Shamelessly stolen from dear strictlychemical and sent on to zillions.
By Sean Rayment, Defence Correspondent
(Filed: 27/11/2005)
A "trophy" video appearing to show security guards in Baghdad randomly shooting Iraqi civilians has sparked two investigations after it was posted on the internet, the Sunday Telegraph can reveal.
The video has sparked concern that private security companies, which are not subject to any form of regulation either in Britain or in Iraq, could be responsible for the deaths of hundreds of innocent Iraqis.
The video, which first appeared on a website that has been linked unofficially to Aegis Defence Services, contained four separate clips, in which security guards open fire with automatic rifles at civilian cars. All of the shooting incidents apparently took place on "route Irish", a road that links the airport to Baghdad.
The road has acquired the dubious distinction of being the most dangerous in the world because of the number of suicide attacks and ambushes carried out by insurgents against coalition troops. In one four-month period earlier this year it was the scene of 150 attacks.
In one of the videoed attacks, a Mercedes is fired on at a distance of several hundred yards before it crashes in to a civilian taxi. In the last clip, a white civilian car is raked with machine gun fire as it approaches an unidentified security company vehicle. Bullets can be seen hitting the vehicle before it comes to a slow stop.
There are no clues as to the shooter but either a Scottish or Irish accent can be heard in at least one of the clips above Elvis Presley's Mystery Train, the music which accompanies the video."
Shamelessly stolen from dear strictlychemical and sent on to zillions.
FTP: "Police Hit Grandmother With Taser Gun Five Times
Officer Said Woman Resisted Arrest
POSTED: 1:30 pm EST December 8, 2005
UPDATED: 1:51 pm EST December 8, 2005
FRANKLIN, Ohio -- A 68-year-old woman was hit with a Taser gun by police in an Ohio city five times.
The police officer in the case, a lieutenant with the Franklin Police Department, claimed that he is the victim in the case, Columbus, Ohio, television station WCMH reported.
Beverly Kidwell, 68, was in the waiting room of the police department in suburban Dayton when the incident occurred. According to police, she came into the station to be arrested for hitting her granddaughter.
Kidwell said she waited a long time in the lobby and, when she got up to leave, the officer hit her with the Taser gun.
"I don't know if he thought I was going to get up and leave or what, but he pulled his gun. I thought it was a gun. I'd never seen a Taser gun in my life and I thought, 'Oh my God. He's going to shoot me. He's going to kill me,'" Kidwell said.
The police lieutenant said she was resisting arrest, WCMH reported.
Kidwell said she was in a fetal position and unable to move when the lieutenant ordered her to get up and continued to shock her. The woman survived five jolts and had to be taken to an area hospital."
She better sue the f*ck outta that bastard and the police department and live like a king the rest of her life!
Nicked from dear IrishYankee
{I had to bump this to coincide with the 'non-lethal weapons' story}
Officer Said Woman Resisted Arrest
POSTED: 1:30 pm EST December 8, 2005
UPDATED: 1:51 pm EST December 8, 2005
FRANKLIN, Ohio -- A 68-year-old woman was hit with a Taser gun by police in an Ohio city five times.
The police officer in the case, a lieutenant with the Franklin Police Department, claimed that he is the victim in the case, Columbus, Ohio, television station WCMH reported.
Beverly Kidwell, 68, was in the waiting room of the police department in suburban Dayton when the incident occurred. According to police, she came into the station to be arrested for hitting her granddaughter.
Kidwell said she waited a long time in the lobby and, when she got up to leave, the officer hit her with the Taser gun.
"I don't know if he thought I was going to get up and leave or what, but he pulled his gun. I thought it was a gun. I'd never seen a Taser gun in my life and I thought, 'Oh my God. He's going to shoot me. He's going to kill me,'" Kidwell said.
The police lieutenant said she was resisting arrest, WCMH reported.
Kidwell said she was in a fetal position and unable to move when the lieutenant ordered her to get up and continued to shock her. The woman survived five jolts and had to be taken to an area hospital."
She better sue the f*ck outta that bastard and the police department and live like a king the rest of her life!
Nicked from dear IrishYankee
{I had to bump this to coincide with the 'non-lethal weapons' story}
FTP: "One chagrinned Repuke said "Could you please refrain from calling it a Concentration Camp", to which eveacuee Leah Hodges exclaimed "No I will not! They separated children from families, did not feed us or give us water, they let people die, a woman lost her baby. And all the while trucks are going past--with no supplies--just full of soldiers with M-16s. It was like Hitler."
(There is no transcript up yet so I'm trying to remember)
IT WAS FANTASTIC AND CYNTHIA MCKINNEY AND WILLIAM JEFFERSON WERE THERE. THE REPUBS TRIED TO DEFEND THE RACISM AND ETHNIC CLEANSING CHARGE BY SCOFFING AT THEM.
WASHINGTON --Black survivors of Hurricane Katrina said Tuesday that racism contributed to the slow disaster response, at times likening themselves in emotional congressional testimony to victims of genocide and the Holocaust.
The comparison is inappropriate, according to Rep. Jeff Miller, R-Fla.
"Not a single person was marched into a gas chamber and killed," Miller told the survivors.
"They died from abject neglect," retorted community activist Leah Hodges. "We left body bags behind."
Angry evacuees described being trapped in temporary shelters where one New Orleans resident said she was "one sunrise from being consumed by maggots and flies." Another woman said military troops focused machine gun laser targets on her granddaughter's forehead. Others said their families were called racial epithets by police.
"No one is going to tell me it wasn't a race issue," said New Orleans evacuee Patricia Thompson, 53, who is now living in College Station, Texas. "Yes, it was an issue of race. Because of one thing: when the city had pretty much been evacuated, the people that were left there mostly was black."
Not all lawmakers seemed persuaded.
"I don't want to be offensive when you've gone though such incredible challenges," said Rep. Christopher Shays, R-Conn. But referring to some of the victims' charges, like the gun pointed at the girl, Shays said: "I just don't frankly believe it."
"You believe what you want," Thompson said.
The hearing was held by a special House committee, chaired by Rep. Tom Davis, R-Va., investigating the government's preparations and response to Katrina. It was requested by Rep. Cynthia McKinney, D-Ga., a member of the Congressional Black Caucus.
"Racism is something we don't like to talk about, but we have to acknowledge it," McKinney said. "And the world saw the effects of American-style racism in the drama as it was outplayed by the Katrina survivors."
The five white and two black lawmakers who attended the hearing mostly sat quietly during two and a half hours of testimony. But tempers flared when evacuees were asked by Rep. Jeff Miller, R-Fla., to not compare shelter conditions to a concentration camp.
"I'm going to call it what it is," said Hodges. "That is the only thing I could compare what we went through to."
Of five black evacuees who testified, only one said he believed the sluggish response was the product of bad government planning for poor residents -- not racism.
There are numerous witnesses to the explosion sound and divers have found a 30-foot crater at the bottom of the 17th St. Levee that flooded the 9th Ward, said the panel. In addition, they said historically, towns have blown levees upstream to prevent their own town from flooding, so blowing up levees was nothing new for Louisiana.
Don't know if the Levee Bomb is true or not, but they all swore to God it was the truth. All the rest of the Ethnic Cleansing charges certainly appear to be true to me, especially the shuttering of the housing projects that NEVER GOT FLOODED."
Goddess! You tell those mad rich fux, Mama D!
Many thanks to ProgressiveMe!
(There is no transcript up yet so I'm trying to remember)
IT WAS FANTASTIC AND CYNTHIA MCKINNEY AND WILLIAM JEFFERSON WERE THERE. THE REPUBS TRIED TO DEFEND THE RACISM AND ETHNIC CLEANSING CHARGE BY SCOFFING AT THEM.
WASHINGTON --Black survivors of Hurricane Katrina said Tuesday that racism contributed to the slow disaster response, at times likening themselves in emotional congressional testimony to victims of genocide and the Holocaust.
The comparison is inappropriate, according to Rep. Jeff Miller, R-Fla.
"Not a single person was marched into a gas chamber and killed," Miller told the survivors.
"They died from abject neglect," retorted community activist Leah Hodges. "We left body bags behind."
Angry evacuees described being trapped in temporary shelters where one New Orleans resident said she was "one sunrise from being consumed by maggots and flies." Another woman said military troops focused machine gun laser targets on her granddaughter's forehead. Others said their families were called racial epithets by police.
"No one is going to tell me it wasn't a race issue," said New Orleans evacuee Patricia Thompson, 53, who is now living in College Station, Texas. "Yes, it was an issue of race. Because of one thing: when the city had pretty much been evacuated, the people that were left there mostly was black."
Not all lawmakers seemed persuaded.
"I don't want to be offensive when you've gone though such incredible challenges," said Rep. Christopher Shays, R-Conn. But referring to some of the victims' charges, like the gun pointed at the girl, Shays said: "I just don't frankly believe it."
"You believe what you want," Thompson said.
The hearing was held by a special House committee, chaired by Rep. Tom Davis, R-Va., investigating the government's preparations and response to Katrina. It was requested by Rep. Cynthia McKinney, D-Ga., a member of the Congressional Black Caucus.
"Racism is something we don't like to talk about, but we have to acknowledge it," McKinney said. "And the world saw the effects of American-style racism in the drama as it was outplayed by the Katrina survivors."
The five white and two black lawmakers who attended the hearing mostly sat quietly during two and a half hours of testimony. But tempers flared when evacuees were asked by Rep. Jeff Miller, R-Fla., to not compare shelter conditions to a concentration camp.
"I'm going to call it what it is," said Hodges. "That is the only thing I could compare what we went through to."
Of five black evacuees who testified, only one said he believed the sluggish response was the product of bad government planning for poor residents -- not racism.
There are numerous witnesses to the explosion sound and divers have found a 30-foot crater at the bottom of the 17th St. Levee that flooded the 9th Ward, said the panel. In addition, they said historically, towns have blown levees upstream to prevent their own town from flooding, so blowing up levees was nothing new for Louisiana.
Don't know if the Levee Bomb is true or not, but they all swore to God it was the truth. All the rest of the Ethnic Cleansing charges certainly appear to be true to me, especially the shuttering of the housing projects that NEVER GOT FLOODED."
Goddess! You tell those mad rich fux, Mama D!
Many thanks to ProgressiveMe!