"...believing in something because you're afraid of the consequences, is no reason to believe in anything at all..." - Fear based religions are not the product of an all loving God.
Creator of the universe and blah, blah, blah...you know the story.
What I do want to state about who I am is the fact that none of you are special to me. I feel the same for one of you that I do for the rest of you. There is no holy land also. The entire planet is the holy land.
What else do you want to know? I don't condemn. I don't judge. I offer love and to Me, you are my ultimate creations!
I only want you to stop hurting each other and judging so superficially. I want you to love and not live in fear. I gave you free will though. I gave you free will to experience the world and become who you really are.
Many of you believe I wrote the bible. That I dictated absolute truth to Moses and the prophets. Yes, I did inspire these individuals. Inspiration is much different than dictation though. I no more inspired them to the creation of this book, than I inspire you to create in your own life. My inspiration alone is not enough to lay a foundation for absolute truth. Free will is a gift to every man and woman on this planet and it is not my place to dictate this gift. The bible was written by men with free will who were inspired by Me.
Did you know that many books were left out of the Holy Bible when it was created? Did you know there are many other ancient scriptures speaking of Christ and events during his life. The Nag Hammadi Library are thought to be primarily Gnostic in origin, while the Apocrypha are the books that did not make the Council of Nicea's cut for the final edit of the Bible when Rome adopted Christianity for it's own faith.
All I ask is that before you decide that one book is My absolute truth, please read all the other holy books and scriptures. Then decide on your truth. Knowledge is power.
I want you to have a better understanding of who I am. I want you to know that what you have learned should be questioned. You have that right. I think no less of you no matter what you believe.
If truth is what you seek, then truth is what you shall find.
God
Wednesday, October 07, 2009
Tuesday, October 06, 2009
Mandating Health Insurance?
The American people are about to be scammed for the medical insurance industry. If they mandate insurance for all Americans, it will be the law that you buy insurance. How in a "free" society can they mandate that you pay a company for a service?
This is nothing more than a scam to make the insurance companies money. Imagine all the new clients they will get that are being forced to pay them. They will be even richer than they are now! And you will still be even more poorer than you are now.
If the environment we lived in was not part of what makes us ill, I could maybe understand this law. But it is not like that. Many get sick from cancers and other diseases b/c it is all around us. So they make us sick then expect us to pay for our care. It is a fuckin' scam. Like any of us can control getting cancer.
And do not think they know what makes us sick. For years they said there was no virus that could cause cancer and in the last 5 years we learned this is just not true. So they do not know. Modern medicine is not advanced. It still is very barbaric even though we have made many accomplishments in medicine.
It truly is becoming a country where only those with money will have an existence and life worth even living. And that is the top 1 percent in this country. 1 percent control the rest of the population and we allow it to continue?
When a few control a countries wealth, this creates poverty.....when a countries rich distribute the wealth, this is prosperity for the people of that country.
This is what capitalism breeds and creates. Greed that will hurt millions so that a select few can wear 24k gold bathrobes and shit in a diamond toilet.
Any system in any country that oppresses a people and controls them, even with money, is not a true free society...................................
They already took money for bailouts for the richest companies in the world. ow they will want even more money.
And if a company is too big to fail, this means they are a monopoly.
How anyone still believes them, Wall Street or any corporation, amazes me......
Wake up America. It is not a conspiracy to take control of the world with Free Masons to create a New World Order. It is about making the richest people richer. That is it....no big conspiracy. They want slaves and have them. And we as Americans, allow it.
This is nothing more than a scam to make the insurance companies money. Imagine all the new clients they will get that are being forced to pay them. They will be even richer than they are now! And you will still be even more poorer than you are now.
If the environment we lived in was not part of what makes us ill, I could maybe understand this law. But it is not like that. Many get sick from cancers and other diseases b/c it is all around us. So they make us sick then expect us to pay for our care. It is a fuckin' scam. Like any of us can control getting cancer.
And do not think they know what makes us sick. For years they said there was no virus that could cause cancer and in the last 5 years we learned this is just not true. So they do not know. Modern medicine is not advanced. It still is very barbaric even though we have made many accomplishments in medicine.
It truly is becoming a country where only those with money will have an existence and life worth even living. And that is the top 1 percent in this country. 1 percent control the rest of the population and we allow it to continue?
When a few control a countries wealth, this creates poverty.....when a countries rich distribute the wealth, this is prosperity for the people of that country.
This is what capitalism breeds and creates. Greed that will hurt millions so that a select few can wear 24k gold bathrobes and shit in a diamond toilet.
Any system in any country that oppresses a people and controls them, even with money, is not a true free society...................................
They already took money for bailouts for the richest companies in the world. ow they will want even more money.
And if a company is too big to fail, this means they are a monopoly.
How anyone still believes them, Wall Street or any corporation, amazes me......
Wake up America. It is not a conspiracy to take control of the world with Free Masons to create a New World Order. It is about making the richest people richer. That is it....no big conspiracy. They want slaves and have them. And we as Americans, allow it.
Monday, October 05, 2009
Sunday, October 04, 2009
Mexico Decriminalizes Small-Scale Drug Possession
MEXICO CITY — Mexico decriminalized small amounts of marijuana, cocaine and heroin on Friday — a move that prosecutors say makes sense even in the midst of the government's grueling battle against drug traffickers.
Prosecutors said the new law sets clear limits that keep Mexico's corruption-prone police from shaking down casual users and offers addicts free treatment to keep growing domestic drug use in check.
"This is not legalization, this is regulating the issue and giving citizens greater legal certainty," said Bernardo Espino del Castillo of the attorney general's office.
The new law sets out maximum "personal use" amounts for drugs, also including LSD and methamphetamine. People detained with those quantities no longer face criminal prosecution.
Espino del Castillo says, in practice, small users almost never did face charges anyway. Under the previous law, the possession of any amount of drugs was punishable by stiff jail sentences, but there was leeway for addicts caught with smaller amounts.
"We couldn't charge somebody who was in possession of a dose of a drug, there was no way ... because the person would claim they were an addict," he said.
Despite the provisions, police sometimes hauled in suspects and demanded bribes, threatening long jail sentences if people did not pay.
"The bad thing was that it was left up to the discretion of the detective, and it could open the door to corruption or extortion," Espino del Castillo said.
Anyone caught with drug amounts under the new personal-use limit will be encouraged to seek treatment, and for those caught a third time treatment is mandatory.
The maximum amount of marijuana for "personal use" under the new law is 5 grams — the equivalent of about four joints. The limit is a half gram for cocaine, the equivalent of about 4 "lines." For other drugs, the limits are 50 milligrams of heroin, 40 milligrams for methamphetamine and 0.015 milligrams for LSD.
Mexico has emphasized the need to differentiate drug addicts and casual users from the violent traffickers whose turf battles have contributed to the deaths of more than 11,000 people since President Felipe Calderon took office in late 2006.
But one expert saw potential for conflict under the new law.
Javier Oliva, a political scientist at Mexico's National Autonomous University, said the new law posed "a serious contradiction" for the Calderon administration.
"If they decriminalize drugs it could lead the army, which has been given the task of combating this, to say 'What are we doing'?" he said.
Officials said the legal changes could help the government focus more on big-time traffickers.
Espino del Castillo said since Calderon took office, there have been over 15,000 police searches related to small-scale drug dealing or possession, with 95,000 people detained — but only 12 to 15 percent of whom were ever charged with anything.
Prosecutors said the new law sets clear limits that keep Mexico's corruption-prone police from shaking down casual users and offers addicts free treatment to keep growing domestic drug use in check.
"This is not legalization, this is regulating the issue and giving citizens greater legal certainty," said Bernardo Espino del Castillo of the attorney general's office.
The new law sets out maximum "personal use" amounts for drugs, also including LSD and methamphetamine. People detained with those quantities no longer face criminal prosecution.
Espino del Castillo says, in practice, small users almost never did face charges anyway. Under the previous law, the possession of any amount of drugs was punishable by stiff jail sentences, but there was leeway for addicts caught with smaller amounts.
"We couldn't charge somebody who was in possession of a dose of a drug, there was no way ... because the person would claim they were an addict," he said.
Despite the provisions, police sometimes hauled in suspects and demanded bribes, threatening long jail sentences if people did not pay.
"The bad thing was that it was left up to the discretion of the detective, and it could open the door to corruption or extortion," Espino del Castillo said.
Anyone caught with drug amounts under the new personal-use limit will be encouraged to seek treatment, and for those caught a third time treatment is mandatory.
The maximum amount of marijuana for "personal use" under the new law is 5 grams — the equivalent of about four joints. The limit is a half gram for cocaine, the equivalent of about 4 "lines." For other drugs, the limits are 50 milligrams of heroin, 40 milligrams for methamphetamine and 0.015 milligrams for LSD.
Mexico has emphasized the need to differentiate drug addicts and casual users from the violent traffickers whose turf battles have contributed to the deaths of more than 11,000 people since President Felipe Calderon took office in late 2006.
But one expert saw potential for conflict under the new law.
Javier Oliva, a political scientist at Mexico's National Autonomous University, said the new law posed "a serious contradiction" for the Calderon administration.
"If they decriminalize drugs it could lead the army, which has been given the task of combating this, to say 'What are we doing'?" he said.
Officials said the legal changes could help the government focus more on big-time traffickers.
Espino del Castillo said since Calderon took office, there have been over 15,000 police searches related to small-scale drug dealing or possession, with 95,000 people detained — but only 12 to 15 percent of whom were ever charged with anything.
Sunday, August 30, 2009
Big Tropical Storms in Atlantic Hit 1,000-Year High
The people of U.S. Gulf Coast have felt unusually battered by big storms during the past few years. Now, it turns out their instincts are right.
More PhotosA new report in the scientific journal Nature indicates that the last decade has seen, on average, more frequent hurricanes than any time in the last 1,000 years. The last period of similar activity occurred during the Medieval Warm Period.
The study is not definitive, but it is a unique piece of work that combines an analysis of sediment cores from inland lakes and tidal marshes with computer modeling and finds a "striking consistency" between the two, the authors suggest.
The use of sediment cores to place and date ancient storms -- called "paeleotempestology" -- is becoming an increasingly useful tool in the broader effort to try to reconstruct the history of hurricane activity in order to better predict a future potentially influenced by climate change.
More PhotosA new report in the scientific journal Nature indicates that the last decade has seen, on average, more frequent hurricanes than any time in the last 1,000 years. The last period of similar activity occurred during the Medieval Warm Period.
The study is not definitive, but it is a unique piece of work that combines an analysis of sediment cores from inland lakes and tidal marshes with computer modeling and finds a "striking consistency" between the two, the authors suggest.
The use of sediment cores to place and date ancient storms -- called "paeleotempestology" -- is becoming an increasingly useful tool in the broader effort to try to reconstruct the history of hurricane activity in order to better predict a future potentially influenced by climate change.
Saturday, August 29, 2009
Friday, August 28, 2009
Healthcare Around the World
Notice that Americans spend more and die earlier...........
United States - Private System
Private sector funded, with more than half from private sources. Private health insurance available through employer, government or private schemes.
15.3% of population (45.7 million people) do not have health insurance.
Federal government is largest health care insurer - involved in two main schemes, Medicaid and Medicare, each covering about 13% of population.
Medicaid - joint funded federal-state programme for certain low income and needy groups - eg children, disabled.
Medicare - for people 65 years old and above and some younger disabled people and those with permanent kidney failure undergoing dialysis or transplant.
Most doctors are in private practice and paid through combination of charges, discounted fees paid by private health plans, public programmes, and direct patient fees.
In-patient care is provided in public and private hospitals. Hospitals are paid through a combination of charges, per admission, and capitation.
United Kingdom - Universal, Tax-funded System
Public sector funded by taxation and some national insurance contributions.
About 11% have private health insurance. Private GP services very small.
Health care free at point of delivery but charges for prescription drugs, ophthalmic services and dental services unless exempt.
Exemptions include children, elderly, and unemployed. About 85% of prescriptions are exempt.
Most walk-in care provided by GP practices but also some walk-in clinics and 24-hour NHS telephone helpline. Free ambulance service and access to accident and emergency. In patient care through GP referral and followcontractual arrangements between health authorities, Primary Care Trusts and the hospital.
Hospitals are semi-autonomous self-governing public trusts.
France - Social Insurance System
All legal residents covered by public health insurance funded by compulsory social health insurance contributions from employers and employees with no option to opt out.
Most people have extra private insurance to cover areas that are not eligible for reimbursement by the public health insurance system and many make out of pocket payments to see a doctor.
Patients pay doctor's bills and are reimbursed by sickness insurance funds.
Government regulates contribution rates paid to sickness funds, sets global budgets and salaries for public hospitals.
In-patient care is provided in public and private hospitals (not-for-profit and for-profit). Doctors in public hospitals are salaried whilst those in private hospitals are paid on a fee-for-service basis. Some public hospital doctors are allowed to treat private patients in the hospital. A percentage of the private fee is payable to the hospital.
Most out-patient care is delivered by doctors, dentists and medical auxiliaries working in their own practices.
Singapore - Dual System
Dual system funded by private and public sectors. Public sector provides 80% of hospital care 20% primary care.
Financed by combination of taxes, employee medical benefits, compulsory savings in the form of Medisave, insurance and out-of-pocket payments.
Patients expected to pay part of their medical expenses and to pay more for higher level of service. Government subsidises basic healthcare.
Public sector health services cater for lower income groups who cannot afford private sector charges. In private hospitals and outpatient clinics, patients pay the amount charged by the hospitals and doctors on a fee-for-service basis.
United States - Private System
Private sector funded, with more than half from private sources. Private health insurance available through employer, government or private schemes.
15.3% of population (45.7 million people) do not have health insurance.
Federal government is largest health care insurer - involved in two main schemes, Medicaid and Medicare, each covering about 13% of population.
Medicaid - joint funded federal-state programme for certain low income and needy groups - eg children, disabled.
Medicare - for people 65 years old and above and some younger disabled people and those with permanent kidney failure undergoing dialysis or transplant.
Most doctors are in private practice and paid through combination of charges, discounted fees paid by private health plans, public programmes, and direct patient fees.
In-patient care is provided in public and private hospitals. Hospitals are paid through a combination of charges, per admission, and capitation.
United Kingdom - Universal, Tax-funded System
Public sector funded by taxation and some national insurance contributions.
About 11% have private health insurance. Private GP services very small.
Health care free at point of delivery but charges for prescription drugs, ophthalmic services and dental services unless exempt.
Exemptions include children, elderly, and unemployed. About 85% of prescriptions are exempt.
Most walk-in care provided by GP practices but also some walk-in clinics and 24-hour NHS telephone helpline. Free ambulance service and access to accident and emergency. In patient care through GP referral and followcontractual arrangements between health authorities, Primary Care Trusts and the hospital.
Hospitals are semi-autonomous self-governing public trusts.
France - Social Insurance System
All legal residents covered by public health insurance funded by compulsory social health insurance contributions from employers and employees with no option to opt out.
Most people have extra private insurance to cover areas that are not eligible for reimbursement by the public health insurance system and many make out of pocket payments to see a doctor.
Patients pay doctor's bills and are reimbursed by sickness insurance funds.
Government regulates contribution rates paid to sickness funds, sets global budgets and salaries for public hospitals.
In-patient care is provided in public and private hospitals (not-for-profit and for-profit). Doctors in public hospitals are salaried whilst those in private hospitals are paid on a fee-for-service basis. Some public hospital doctors are allowed to treat private patients in the hospital. A percentage of the private fee is payable to the hospital.
Most out-patient care is delivered by doctors, dentists and medical auxiliaries working in their own practices.
Singapore - Dual System
Dual system funded by private and public sectors. Public sector provides 80% of hospital care 20% primary care.
Financed by combination of taxes, employee medical benefits, compulsory savings in the form of Medisave, insurance and out-of-pocket payments.
Patients expected to pay part of their medical expenses and to pay more for higher level of service. Government subsidises basic healthcare.
Public sector health services cater for lower income groups who cannot afford private sector charges. In private hospitals and outpatient clinics, patients pay the amount charged by the hospitals and doctors on a fee-for-service basis.
Thursday, August 27, 2009
Wednesday, August 26, 2009
Comin' for Rush Next?
Blogger's Case Could Test the Limits of Political Speech
New Jersey Man Was Arrested After Writing That 3 Judges 'Deserve to Be Killed'
CHICAGO -- Internet radio host Hal Turner disliked how three federal judges rejected the National Rifle Association's attempt to overturn a pair of handgun bans.
"Let me be the first to say this plainly: These Judges deserve to be killed," Turner wrote on his blog on June 2, according to the FBI. "Their blood will replenish the tree of liberty. A small price to pay to assure freedom for millions."
The next day, Turner posted photographs of the appellate judges and a map showing the Chicago courthouse where they work, noting the placement of "anti-truck bomb barriers." When an FBI agent appeared at the door of his New Jersey home, Turner said he meant no harm.
He is now behind bars awaiting trial, accused of threatening the judges and deemed by a U.S. magistrate as too dangerous to be free.
Turner's case is likely to test the limits of political speech at a time when incendiary talk is proliferating on broadcast outlets and the Internet, from the microphones of well-known commentators to the keyboards of anonymous netizens. President Obama has been depicted as a Nazi and slain Kansas abortion doctor George Tiller as "Tiller the killer." On guns and abortion, war and torture, taxes and now health care, the commentary feeds off pools of anger that ebb and flow with the zeitgeist.
Mark Potok, an editor at the Southern Poverty Law Center who tracks extremists and hate speech, says he thinks "political speech has gotten rougher in the last six months."
While federal authorities moved swiftly to stop Turner, scholars note that the line between free speech and criminality is a fine one.
Turner's attorney said the prosecutors overreacted.
"He gave an opinion. He did not say go out and kill," defense attorney Michael Orozco said last week after unsuccessfully seeking bail. "This is political hyperbole, nothing more. He's a shock jock."
That is not how U.S. Attorney Patrick J. Fitzgerald and his prosecutors see the case. They charged Turner, a blogger admired by white supremacists, with threatening the lives of three judges on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit: Frank Easterbrook, Richard Posner and William Bauer.
Threats against federal judges are taken particularly seriously here: The husband and mother of U.S. District Judge Joan H. Lefkow were slain in February 2005 by a disgruntled plaintiff. He hid in a closet in Lefkow's home, waiting for the judge to return home, but her husband found him first.
Turner, 47, was first charged in June by Connecticut's Capitol Police with inciting injury after he urged residents to "take up arms" against two state legislators and an ethics official when the lawmakers introduced a bill to give lay members of Roman Catholic churches more control over their parishes' finances.
New Jersey Man Was Arrested After Writing That 3 Judges 'Deserve to Be Killed'
CHICAGO -- Internet radio host Hal Turner disliked how three federal judges rejected the National Rifle Association's attempt to overturn a pair of handgun bans.
"Let me be the first to say this plainly: These Judges deserve to be killed," Turner wrote on his blog on June 2, according to the FBI. "Their blood will replenish the tree of liberty. A small price to pay to assure freedom for millions."
The next day, Turner posted photographs of the appellate judges and a map showing the Chicago courthouse where they work, noting the placement of "anti-truck bomb barriers." When an FBI agent appeared at the door of his New Jersey home, Turner said he meant no harm.
He is now behind bars awaiting trial, accused of threatening the judges and deemed by a U.S. magistrate as too dangerous to be free.
Turner's case is likely to test the limits of political speech at a time when incendiary talk is proliferating on broadcast outlets and the Internet, from the microphones of well-known commentators to the keyboards of anonymous netizens. President Obama has been depicted as a Nazi and slain Kansas abortion doctor George Tiller as "Tiller the killer." On guns and abortion, war and torture, taxes and now health care, the commentary feeds off pools of anger that ebb and flow with the zeitgeist.
Mark Potok, an editor at the Southern Poverty Law Center who tracks extremists and hate speech, says he thinks "political speech has gotten rougher in the last six months."
While federal authorities moved swiftly to stop Turner, scholars note that the line between free speech and criminality is a fine one.
Turner's attorney said the prosecutors overreacted.
"He gave an opinion. He did not say go out and kill," defense attorney Michael Orozco said last week after unsuccessfully seeking bail. "This is political hyperbole, nothing more. He's a shock jock."
That is not how U.S. Attorney Patrick J. Fitzgerald and his prosecutors see the case. They charged Turner, a blogger admired by white supremacists, with threatening the lives of three judges on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit: Frank Easterbrook, Richard Posner and William Bauer.
Threats against federal judges are taken particularly seriously here: The husband and mother of U.S. District Judge Joan H. Lefkow were slain in February 2005 by a disgruntled plaintiff. He hid in a closet in Lefkow's home, waiting for the judge to return home, but her husband found him first.
Turner, 47, was first charged in June by Connecticut's Capitol Police with inciting injury after he urged residents to "take up arms" against two state legislators and an ethics official when the lawmakers introduced a bill to give lay members of Roman Catholic churches more control over their parishes' finances.
Tuesday, August 25, 2009
Most Dollars in DC Contain Cocaine Traces
The US capital has the highest level of banknotes that have traces of cocaine. The largest study of banknotes has found that 95% of dollar bills in Washington DC bear traces of the illegal drug cocaine.
The figure for the US capital is up 20% over two years.
Researchers at the University of Massachusetts in Dartmouth tested notes from more than 30 cities worldwide.
They say the rise observed in the US may be due to increased drug use caused by higher stress levels linked to the global economic downturn.
Bank notes can pick up traces of cocaine directly from users snorting it through rolled up bills or when cash is stacked together.
Stress factor?
Besides Washington, other big US cities such as Baltimore, Boston and Detroit had the highest average cocaine levels on their dollar bills.
Dr Yuegang Zuo, who led the research, said: "To my surprise, we're finding more and more cocaine in banknotes.
"I'm not sure why we've seen this apparent increase, but it could be related to the economic downturn, with stressed people turning to cocaine."
Other countries where notes were tested were Canada, Brazil, China and Japan.
China had the lowest rates, with only 12% of its bills contaminated.
In the US the cleanest bills were collected from Salt Lake City, home of the religious group, the Mormons.
The figure for the US capital is up 20% over two years.
Researchers at the University of Massachusetts in Dartmouth tested notes from more than 30 cities worldwide.
They say the rise observed in the US may be due to increased drug use caused by higher stress levels linked to the global economic downturn.
Bank notes can pick up traces of cocaine directly from users snorting it through rolled up bills or when cash is stacked together.
Stress factor?
Besides Washington, other big US cities such as Baltimore, Boston and Detroit had the highest average cocaine levels on their dollar bills.
Dr Yuegang Zuo, who led the research, said: "To my surprise, we're finding more and more cocaine in banknotes.
"I'm not sure why we've seen this apparent increase, but it could be related to the economic downturn, with stressed people turning to cocaine."
Other countries where notes were tested were Canada, Brazil, China and Japan.
China had the lowest rates, with only 12% of its bills contaminated.
In the US the cleanest bills were collected from Salt Lake City, home of the religious group, the Mormons.
Monday, August 24, 2009
Sunday, August 23, 2009
Top Five Health Care Reform Lies
Lie #1: President Obama wants to euthanize your grandma!!!
The truth: These accusations—of "death panels" and forced euthanasia—are, of course, flatly untrue. As an article from the Associated Press puts it: "No 'death panel' in health care bill."1 What's the real deal? Reform legislation includes a provision, supported by the AARP, to offer senior citizens access to a professional medical counselor who will provide them with information on preparing a living will and other issues facing older Americans.2
The truth: These accusations—of "death panels" and forced euthanasia—are, of course, flatly untrue. As an article from the Associated Press puts it: "No 'death panel' in health care bill."1 What's the real deal? Reform legislation includes a provision, supported by the AARP, to offer senior citizens access to a professional medical counselor who will provide them with information on preparing a living will and other issues facing older Americans.2
Lie #2: Democrats are going to outlaw private insurance and force you into a government plan!!!
The truth: With reform, choices will increase, not decrease. Obama's reform plans will create a health insurance exchange, a one-stop shopping marketplace for affordable, high-quality insurance options.3 Included in the exchange is the public health insurance option—a nationwide plan with a broad network of providers—that will operate alongside private insurance companies, injecting competition into the market to drive quality up and costs down.4 If you're happy with your coverage and doctors, you can keep them.5 But the new public plan will expand choices to millions of businesses or individuals who choose to opt into it, including many who simply can't afford health care now.
Lie #3: President Obama wants to implement Soviet-style rationing!!!
The truth: Health care reform will expand access to high-quality health insurance, and give individuals, families, and businesses more choices for coverage. Right now, big corporations decide whether to give you coverage, what doctors you get to see, and whether a particular procedure or medicine is covered—that is rationed care. And a big part of reform is to stop that.
Health care reform will do away with some of the most nefarious aspects of this rationing: discrimination for pre-existing conditions, insurers that cancel coverage when you get sick, gender discrimination, and lifetime and yearly limits on coverage.6 And outside of that, as noted above, reform will increase insurance options, not force anyone into a rationed situation.
Lie #4: Obama is secretly plotting to cut senior citizens' Medicare benefits!!!
The truth: Health care reform plans will not reduce Medicare benefits.7 Reform includes savings from Medicare that are unrelated to patient care—in fact, the savings comes from cutting billions of dollars in overpayments to insurance companies and eliminating waste, fraud, and abuse.8
Lie #5: Obama's health care plan will bankrupt America!!!
The truth: We need health care reform now in order to prevent bankruptcy—to control spiraling costs that affect individuals, families, small businesses, and the American economy. Right now, we spend more than $2 trillion dollars a year on health care.9 The average family premium is projected to rise to over $22,000 in the next decade10—and each year, nearly a million people face bankruptcy because of medical expenses.11 Reform, with an affordable, high-quality public option that can spur competition, is necessary to bring down skyrocketing costs. Also, President Obama's reform plans would be fully paid for over 10 years and not add a penny to the deficit.12
P.S. Want more? Check out this great new White House "Reality Check" website: http://www.whitehouse.gov/realitycheck/
Lie #3: President Obama wants to implement Soviet-style rationing!!!
The truth: Health care reform will expand access to high-quality health insurance, and give individuals, families, and businesses more choices for coverage. Right now, big corporations decide whether to give you coverage, what doctors you get to see, and whether a particular procedure or medicine is covered—that is rationed care. And a big part of reform is to stop that.
Health care reform will do away with some of the most nefarious aspects of this rationing: discrimination for pre-existing conditions, insurers that cancel coverage when you get sick, gender discrimination, and lifetime and yearly limits on coverage.6 And outside of that, as noted above, reform will increase insurance options, not force anyone into a rationed situation.
Lie #4: Obama is secretly plotting to cut senior citizens' Medicare benefits!!!
The truth: Health care reform plans will not reduce Medicare benefits.7 Reform includes savings from Medicare that are unrelated to patient care—in fact, the savings comes from cutting billions of dollars in overpayments to insurance companies and eliminating waste, fraud, and abuse.8
Lie #5: Obama's health care plan will bankrupt America!!!
The truth: We need health care reform now in order to prevent bankruptcy—to control spiraling costs that affect individuals, families, small businesses, and the American economy. Right now, we spend more than $2 trillion dollars a year on health care.9 The average family premium is projected to rise to over $22,000 in the next decade10—and each year, nearly a million people face bankruptcy because of medical expenses.11 Reform, with an affordable, high-quality public option that can spur competition, is necessary to bring down skyrocketing costs. Also, President Obama's reform plans would be fully paid for over 10 years and not add a penny to the deficit.12
P.S. Want more? Check out this great new White House "Reality Check" website: http://www.whitehouse.gov/realitycheck/
Now some of the most outrageous lies: http://www.moveon.org/r?r=51729
Sources:
1. "No 'death panel' in health care bill," Associated Press, August 10, 2009.
Sources:
1. "No 'death panel' in health care bill," Associated Press, August 10, 2009.
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=51747
2. "Stop Distorting the Truth about End of Life Care," Huffington Post, July 24, 2009.
2. "Stop Distorting the Truth about End of Life Care," Huffington Post, July 24, 2009.
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=51730
3. "Reality Check FAQs," WhiteHouse.gov, accessed August 11, 2009.
3. "Reality Check FAQs," WhiteHouse.gov, accessed August 11, 2009.
http://www.whitehouse.gov/realitycheck/faq#i1
4. "Why We Need a Public Health-Care Plan," Wall Street Journal, June 24, 2009.
4. "Why We Need a Public Health-Care Plan," Wall Street Journal, June 24, 2009.
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=51737
5. "Obama: 'If You Like Your Doctor, You Can Keep Your Doctor,'" Wall Street Journal, 15, 2009.
5. "Obama: 'If You Like Your Doctor, You Can Keep Your Doctor,'" Wall Street Journal, 15, 2009.
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=51736
6. "Reality Check FAQs," WhiteHouse.gov, accessed August 10, 2009.
6. "Reality Check FAQs," WhiteHouse.gov, accessed August 10, 2009.
http://www.whitehouse.gov/realitycheck/faq#r1
7. "Obama: No reduced Medicare benefits in health care reform," CNN, July 28, 2009.
7. "Obama: No reduced Medicare benefits in health care reform," CNN, July 28, 2009.
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=51748
8. "Reality Check FAQs," WhiteHouse.gov, accessed August 10, 2009.
8. "Reality Check FAQs," WhiteHouse.gov, accessed August 10, 2009.
http://www.whitehouse.gov/realitycheck/faq#s1
9. "Reality Check FAQs," WhiteHouse.gov, accessed August 10, 2009.
9. "Reality Check FAQs," WhiteHouse.gov, accessed August 10, 2009.
http://www.whitehouse.gov/realitycheck/faq#c1
10. "Premiums Run Amok," Center for American Progress, July 24, 2009.
10. "Premiums Run Amok," Center for American Progress, July 24, 2009.
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=51667
11. "Medical bills prompt more than 60 percent of U.S. bankruptcies," CNN, June 5, 2009.
11. "Medical bills prompt more than 60 percent of U.S. bankruptcies," CNN, June 5, 2009.
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=51735
12. "Reality Check FAQs," WhiteHouse.gov, accessed August 10, 2009.
12. "Reality Check FAQs," WhiteHouse.gov, accessed August 10, 2009.
http://www.whitehouse.gov/realitycheck/faq#c1
Sources for the Five Lies:
#1: "A euthanasia mandate," The Washington Times, July 29, 2009.
Sources for the Five Lies:
#1: "A euthanasia mandate," The Washington Times, July 29, 2009.
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=51732
#2: "It's Not An Option," Investor's Business Daily, July 15, 2009.
#2: "It's Not An Option," Investor's Business Daily, July 15, 2009.
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=51743
#3: "Rationing Health Care," The Washington Times, April 21, 2009.
#3: "Rationing Health Care," The Washington Times, April 21, 2009.
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=51742
#4: "60 Plus Ad Is Chock Full Of Misinformation," Media Matters for America, August 8, 2009.
#4: "60 Plus Ad Is Chock Full Of Misinformation," Media Matters for America, August 8, 2009.
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=51734
#5: "Obama's 'Public' Health Plan Will Bankrupt the Nation," The National Review, May 13,
#5: "Obama's 'Public' Health Plan Will Bankrupt the Nation," The National Review, May 13,
Saturday, August 22, 2009
Daily Show Austan Goolsbee Extended Interview
| The Daily Show With Jon Stewart | Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c | |||
| Exclusive - Austan Goolsbee Extended Interview Pt. 1 | ||||
| ||||
Friday, August 21, 2009
Man Holding 'Death to Obama' Sign Arrested
The Secret Service is investigating a man who authorities said held a sign reading "Death to Obama" outside a town hall meeting on health-care reform in western Maryland.
The sign also read, "Death to Michelle and her two stupid kids," referring to the first name of President Barack Obama's wife, said Washington County Sheriff's Capt. Peter Lazich.
Lazich said deputies detained the unidentified, 51-year-old man near the entrance to Hagerstown Community College about 1 p.m. Wednesday after getting calls from a number of people attending the meeting held by Sen. Ben Cardin, D-Md. Obama was not at the meeting.
The sheriff's office turned the man over to the Secret Service, Lazich said.
Barbara Golden, special agent in charge of the agency's Baltimore field office, said Thursday that an investigation is ongoing but declined further comment. A spokesman at the agency's Washington headquarters also declined to discuss the investigation.
Police said there were no other arrests among the nearly 1,000 people, some carrying protest signs, who came to the college for the meeting or demonstrated off-campus.
Cardin's national communications director, Sue Walitsky, called the incident "unfortunate." She said she was unaware of it until Thursday morning.
The sign also read, "Death to Michelle and her two stupid kids," referring to the first name of President Barack Obama's wife, said Washington County Sheriff's Capt. Peter Lazich.
Lazich said deputies detained the unidentified, 51-year-old man near the entrance to Hagerstown Community College about 1 p.m. Wednesday after getting calls from a number of people attending the meeting held by Sen. Ben Cardin, D-Md. Obama was not at the meeting.
The sheriff's office turned the man over to the Secret Service, Lazich said.
Barbara Golden, special agent in charge of the agency's Baltimore field office, said Thursday that an investigation is ongoing but declined further comment. A spokesman at the agency's Washington headquarters also declined to discuss the investigation.
Police said there were no other arrests among the nearly 1,000 people, some carrying protest signs, who came to the college for the meeting or demonstrated off-campus.
Cardin's national communications director, Sue Walitsky, called the incident "unfortunate." She said she was unaware of it until Thursday morning.
Thursday, August 20, 2009
Did You Know?
Did you know in Afghanistan, if a woman withholds sex, it is legal for the husband to starve the wife till she gives in to his sexual needs?
Real law!
The current president who we helped get into office there is the one who made the bill law.
Is that the freedom we are spreading? Oppression? Makes ya feel all Patriotic, huh? Knowing your hard earned tax dollars are helping men in another country basically rape women when ever they want or they punish the women by not feeding them. That is so much of a better use of our tax dollars than healthcare....
In America they will lock you up if you dont feed your dog!
Think about it.................
Real law!
The current president who we helped get into office there is the one who made the bill law.
Is that the freedom we are spreading? Oppression? Makes ya feel all Patriotic, huh? Knowing your hard earned tax dollars are helping men in another country basically rape women when ever they want or they punish the women by not feeding them. That is so much of a better use of our tax dollars than healthcare....
In America they will lock you up if you dont feed your dog!
Think about it.................
Friday, August 14, 2009
Thursday, August 13, 2009
Americans Working Much Harder for Less Pay
Feel like you’re working a lot harder these days, putting in longer hours for the same pay — or even less? The latest round of government data on worker productivity indicates that you probably are.
The Labor Department said Tuesday that the American work force produced, at an annual rate, 6.4 percent more of the goods they made and services they provided in the second quarter of this year compared to a year ago. At the same time, “unit labor costs” — the amount employers paid for all that extra work — fell by 5.8 percent. The jump in productivity was higher than expected; the cut in labor costs more than double expectations.
That is, despite the deep job cuts of the past year, workers who remain on the payroll are filling in and making up the work that had been done by their departed colleagues. In some cases, that extra work came with a smaller paycheck.
The higher worker output and lower labor costs have been good news for companies struggling through the worst recession since World War II. So far, some 70 percent of companies in the S&P 500 have turned in better-than-expected profits for the latest quarter.
But wage cuts and lost paychecks could seriously jeopardize the recovery of a U.S. economy that still relies on consumer spending for two-thirds of its power.
“You have a very severely harmed, injured consumer in terms of income slow down, job uncertainly, job loss, wealth loss, inadequate savings, high debt levels,” said Laura Tyson, an Obama advisor who headed the Council of Economic Advisors in the Clinton administration. “The consumer, I don’t see powering us out of this recession.”
Many economists believe the current recession is on the verge of ending. And if, as many expect, the economy begins expanding again in the second half of this year, companies may begin adding more shifts and re-hiring workers as demand for their products increases.
That improving trend — a slowdown in the pace of the downturn — was confirmed in this month’s Adversity Index from msnbc.com and Moody's Economy.com, which measures the economic health of 381 metro areas and all 50 states. The index includes four components —employment, housing starts, housing prices and industrial production — and classifies each as being in recession, at risk, recovering or expanding.
So far, none of the areas is in the “recovery” stage. But according to the index, 85 metro areas are now in a "moderating recession" – up from 23 the month before.
“A lot of these places were contracting at a much faster pace in the first quarter than they are now,” said Andrew Gledhill, an economist at Moody's Economy.com, which prepares the index.
With job cuts slowing, corporate profits improving and the housing market showing signs of a bottom, many analysts are forecasting that U.S. Gross Domestic Product will turn positive again this quarter after a sharp over the past year.
The Labor Department said Tuesday that the American work force produced, at an annual rate, 6.4 percent more of the goods they made and services they provided in the second quarter of this year compared to a year ago. At the same time, “unit labor costs” — the amount employers paid for all that extra work — fell by 5.8 percent. The jump in productivity was higher than expected; the cut in labor costs more than double expectations.
That is, despite the deep job cuts of the past year, workers who remain on the payroll are filling in and making up the work that had been done by their departed colleagues. In some cases, that extra work came with a smaller paycheck.
The higher worker output and lower labor costs have been good news for companies struggling through the worst recession since World War II. So far, some 70 percent of companies in the S&P 500 have turned in better-than-expected profits for the latest quarter.
But wage cuts and lost paychecks could seriously jeopardize the recovery of a U.S. economy that still relies on consumer spending for two-thirds of its power.
“You have a very severely harmed, injured consumer in terms of income slow down, job uncertainly, job loss, wealth loss, inadequate savings, high debt levels,” said Laura Tyson, an Obama advisor who headed the Council of Economic Advisors in the Clinton administration. “The consumer, I don’t see powering us out of this recession.”
Many economists believe the current recession is on the verge of ending. And if, as many expect, the economy begins expanding again in the second half of this year, companies may begin adding more shifts and re-hiring workers as demand for their products increases.
That improving trend — a slowdown in the pace of the downturn — was confirmed in this month’s Adversity Index from msnbc.com and Moody's Economy.com, which measures the economic health of 381 metro areas and all 50 states. The index includes four components —employment, housing starts, housing prices and industrial production — and classifies each as being in recession, at risk, recovering or expanding.
So far, none of the areas is in the “recovery” stage. But according to the index, 85 metro areas are now in a "moderating recession" – up from 23 the month before.
“A lot of these places were contracting at a much faster pace in the first quarter than they are now,” said Andrew Gledhill, an economist at Moody's Economy.com, which prepares the index.
With job cuts slowing, corporate profits improving and the housing market showing signs of a bottom, many analysts are forecasting that U.S. Gross Domestic Product will turn positive again this quarter after a sharp over the past year.
Pentagon Wants Authority to Post 400,000 Military Personnel in U.S.
The Pentagon has approached Congress to grant the Secretary of Defense the authority to post almost 400,000 military personnel throughout the United States in times of emergency or a major disaster.
This request has already occasioned a dispute with the nation’s governors. And it raises the prospect of U.S. military personnel patrolling the streets of the United States, in conflict with the Posse Comitatus Act of 1878.
In June, the U.S. Northern Command distributed a “Congressional Fact Sheet” entitled “Legislative Proposal for Activation of Federal Reserve Forces for Disasters.” That proposal would amend current law, thereby “authorizing the Secretary of Defense to order any unit or member of the Army Reserve, Air Force Reserve, Navy Reserve, and the Marine Corps Reserve, to active duty for a major disaster or emergency.”
Taken together, these reserve units would amount to “more than 379,000 military personnel in thousands of communities across the United States,” explained Paul Stockton, Assistant Secretary of Defense for Homeland Defense and America’s Security Affairs, in a letter to the National Governors Association, dated July 20.
This request has already occasioned a dispute with the nation’s governors. And it raises the prospect of U.S. military personnel patrolling the streets of the United States, in conflict with the Posse Comitatus Act of 1878.
In June, the U.S. Northern Command distributed a “Congressional Fact Sheet” entitled “Legislative Proposal for Activation of Federal Reserve Forces for Disasters.” That proposal would amend current law, thereby “authorizing the Secretary of Defense to order any unit or member of the Army Reserve, Air Force Reserve, Navy Reserve, and the Marine Corps Reserve, to active duty for a major disaster or emergency.”
Taken together, these reserve units would amount to “more than 379,000 military personnel in thousands of communities across the United States,” explained Paul Stockton, Assistant Secretary of Defense for Homeland Defense and America’s Security Affairs, in a letter to the National Governors Association, dated July 20.
Sunday, August 02, 2009
Obama Signs Bill That Could Prohibit Flavored Blunts & Wraps
Some readers have stated concerns that the language quoted only references “cigarettes” specifically and not blunts or wraps. I have found that the specific context of this section does only target cigarettes, however the bill does give the FDA power to apply similar restrictions to any tobacco product. This most likely means that flavored blunts and wraps are not a priority under the bill and will not be disappearing from stores immediately.
President Obama signed the “Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act” into law which is aimed to give the FDA more control over what tobacco companies can put into their products and how the products can be marketed. One important part of the new law was aimed at restricting flavored tobacco that anti-smoking groups say target kids. These flavored tobacco products include blunts and wraps which are used by many marijuana smokers to roll marijuana filled cigars. The part of the bill that limits these flavors reads:
Tobacco companies like Philly and Swisher have no doubt profited for years from the illegal marijuana industry. Marijuana users commonly purchase legal cigars to empty the tobacco and refill with marijuana. Many other tobacco companies produce “blunt wraps” which do not contain any tobacco making the rolling process easier. The “unflavored” types of these products are still legal under the new law, however the various flavors are usually preferred by most marijuana users.
It is unclear if marijuana smokers were specifically targeted under this bill or when these popular products will be pulled from stores. It is also unclear if the thousands or millions of marijuana users effected will be stocking up on these products because of the tendency for blunts to become stale after long periods of storage.
President Obama signed the “Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act” into law which is aimed to give the FDA more control over what tobacco companies can put into their products and how the products can be marketed. One important part of the new law was aimed at restricting flavored tobacco that anti-smoking groups say target kids. These flavored tobacco products include blunts and wraps which are used by many marijuana smokers to roll marijuana filled cigars. The part of the bill that limits these flavors reads:
“A cigarette or any of its component parts (including the tobacco, filter, or
paper) shall not contain, as a constituent (including a smoke constituent) or
additive, an artificial or natural flavor (other than tobacco or menthol) or an
herb or spice, including strawberry, grape, orange, clove, cinnamon, pineapple,
vanilla, coconut, licorice, cocoa, chocolate, cherry, or coffee, that is a
characterizing flavor of the tobacco product or tobacco smoke.”
Tobacco companies like Philly and Swisher have no doubt profited for years from the illegal marijuana industry. Marijuana users commonly purchase legal cigars to empty the tobacco and refill with marijuana. Many other tobacco companies produce “blunt wraps” which do not contain any tobacco making the rolling process easier. The “unflavored” types of these products are still legal under the new law, however the various flavors are usually preferred by most marijuana users.
It is unclear if marijuana smokers were specifically targeted under this bill or when these popular products will be pulled from stores. It is also unclear if the thousands or millions of marijuana users effected will be stocking up on these products because of the tendency for blunts to become stale after long periods of storage.
Wednesday, May 20, 2009
Choice vs Poison
I am proud that the mother chose to not let the state poison her son. They want to punp radiation into his body. Actual poison. It is barbarric and should be a choice of the patient. You will not force me to take your poison. That is all I know.
A Minnesota judge issued an arrest warrant Tuesday for the mother of Daniel Hauser, a 13-year-old boy who is refusing treatment for his cancer, after neither she nor the boy showed up for a court appearance.
1 of 2 "It is imperative that Daniel receive the attention of an oncologist as soon as possible," wrote Brown County District Judge John R. Rodenberg in an order to "apprehend and detain."
"His best interests require it," Rodenberg wrote.
The judge had scheduled the hearing to review an X-ray ordered by the court to assess whether Daniel's Hodgkin's lymphoma was worsening.
The boy's father, Anthony Hauser, did appear at Tuesday's hearing, where he testified that he last saw the mother, Colleen Hauser, at the family's farm on Monday night, when she told him she was going to leave "for a time."
He said he did not know where they had gone.
During the hearing, Dr. James Joyce testified he saw the boy and his mother on Monday at his office. He said the boy had "an enlarged lymph node" near his right clavicle and that the X-ray showed "significant worsening" of a mass in his chest. In addition, the boy complained of "extreme pain" at the site where a port had been inserted to deliver an initial round of chemotherapy. The pain was "most likely caused by the tumor or mass pressing on the port," testified Joyce, who called the X-ray "fairly dramatic" evidence that the cancer was worsening.
Rodenberg ordered custody of the boy transferred to Brown County Family Services and issued a contempt order for the mother.
A call to the family's home in Sleepy Eye, Minnesota, was not immediately returned.
Philip Elbert, Daniel's court-appointed attorney, said he considers his client to have a "diminished capacity" for reasons of his age and the illness and that he believes Daniel should be treated by a cancer specialist.
Elbert added that he does not believe Daniel -- who, according to court papers, cannot read -- has enough information to make an informed decision regarding his treatment.
Daniel's symptoms of persistent cough, fatigue and swollen lymph nodes were diagnosed in January as Hodgkins lymphoma. In February, the cancer responded well to an initial round of chemotherapy, but the treatment's side effects concerned the boy's parents, who then opted not to pursue further chemo and instead sought other medical opinions.
Court documents show that the doctors estimated the boy's chance of 5-year remission with more chemotherapy and possibly radiation at 80 percent to 95 percent.
But the family opted for a holistic medical treatment based upon Native American healing practices called Nemenhah and rejected further treatment.
In a written statement issued last week, an attorney for the parents said they "believe that the injection of chemotherapy into Danny Hauser amounts to an assault upon his body, and torture when it occurs over a long period of time."
Medical ethicists say parents generally have a legal right to make decisions for their children, but there is a limit.
"You have a right, but not an open-ended right," Arthur Caplan, director of the center for bioethics at the University of Pennsylvania, said last week. "You can't compromise the life of your child."
A Minnesota judge issued an arrest warrant Tuesday for the mother of Daniel Hauser, a 13-year-old boy who is refusing treatment for his cancer, after neither she nor the boy showed up for a court appearance.
1 of 2 "It is imperative that Daniel receive the attention of an oncologist as soon as possible," wrote Brown County District Judge John R. Rodenberg in an order to "apprehend and detain."
"His best interests require it," Rodenberg wrote.
The judge had scheduled the hearing to review an X-ray ordered by the court to assess whether Daniel's Hodgkin's lymphoma was worsening.
The boy's father, Anthony Hauser, did appear at Tuesday's hearing, where he testified that he last saw the mother, Colleen Hauser, at the family's farm on Monday night, when she told him she was going to leave "for a time."
He said he did not know where they had gone.
During the hearing, Dr. James Joyce testified he saw the boy and his mother on Monday at his office. He said the boy had "an enlarged lymph node" near his right clavicle and that the X-ray showed "significant worsening" of a mass in his chest. In addition, the boy complained of "extreme pain" at the site where a port had been inserted to deliver an initial round of chemotherapy. The pain was "most likely caused by the tumor or mass pressing on the port," testified Joyce, who called the X-ray "fairly dramatic" evidence that the cancer was worsening.
Rodenberg ordered custody of the boy transferred to Brown County Family Services and issued a contempt order for the mother.
A call to the family's home in Sleepy Eye, Minnesota, was not immediately returned.
Philip Elbert, Daniel's court-appointed attorney, said he considers his client to have a "diminished capacity" for reasons of his age and the illness and that he believes Daniel should be treated by a cancer specialist.
Elbert added that he does not believe Daniel -- who, according to court papers, cannot read -- has enough information to make an informed decision regarding his treatment.
Daniel's symptoms of persistent cough, fatigue and swollen lymph nodes were diagnosed in January as Hodgkins lymphoma. In February, the cancer responded well to an initial round of chemotherapy, but the treatment's side effects concerned the boy's parents, who then opted not to pursue further chemo and instead sought other medical opinions.
Court documents show that the doctors estimated the boy's chance of 5-year remission with more chemotherapy and possibly radiation at 80 percent to 95 percent.
But the family opted for a holistic medical treatment based upon Native American healing practices called Nemenhah and rejected further treatment.
In a written statement issued last week, an attorney for the parents said they "believe that the injection of chemotherapy into Danny Hauser amounts to an assault upon his body, and torture when it occurs over a long period of time."
Medical ethicists say parents generally have a legal right to make decisions for their children, but there is a limit.
"You have a right, but not an open-ended right," Arthur Caplan, director of the center for bioethics at the University of Pennsylvania, said last week. "You can't compromise the life of your child."
Friday, May 15, 2009
Administration Canning 'War on Drugs'?
Word Play
The Obama administration continues to change the way it describes some of the nation's toughest problems. The latest phrase to go: "the war on drugs."
The Wall Street Journal says drug czar Gil Kerlikowske feels it is a barrier to dealing with the nation's drug issues: "Regardless of how you try to explain to people it's a 'war on drugs' or a 'war on a product,' people see a war as a war on them. We're not at war with people in this country."
Kerlikowske says the administration is likely to deal with drugs as a matter of public health rather than criminal justice alone — favoring treatment over incarceration.
The president has already shelved the phrase "global War on Terror." And we reported back in March on Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano's avoidance of the word "terrorism" — in favor of "man-caused disasters."
The Obama administration continues to change the way it describes some of the nation's toughest problems. The latest phrase to go: "the war on drugs."
The Wall Street Journal says drug czar Gil Kerlikowske feels it is a barrier to dealing with the nation's drug issues: "Regardless of how you try to explain to people it's a 'war on drugs' or a 'war on a product,' people see a war as a war on them. We're not at war with people in this country."
Kerlikowske says the administration is likely to deal with drugs as a matter of public health rather than criminal justice alone — favoring treatment over incarceration.
The president has already shelved the phrase "global War on Terror." And we reported back in March on Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano's avoidance of the word "terrorism" — in favor of "man-caused disasters."
Tuesday, May 12, 2009
Soda Tax Weighed to Pay for Health Care
Senate leaders are considering new federal taxes on soda and other sugary drinks to help pay for an overhaul of the nation's health-care system.
The taxes would pay for only a fraction of the cost to expand health-insurance coverage to all Americans and would face strong opposition from the beverage industry. They also could spark a backlash from consumers who would have to pay several cents more for a soft drink.
On Tuesday, the Senate Finance Committee is set to hear proposals from about a dozen experts about how to pay for the comprehensive health-care overhaul that President Barack Obama wants to enact this year. Early estimates put the cost of the plan at around $1.2 trillion. The administration has so far only earmarked funds for about half of that amount.
The Center for Science in the Public Interest, a Washington-based watchdog group that pressures food companies to make healthier products, plans to propose a federal excise tax on soda, certain fruit drinks, energy drinks, sports drinks and ready-to-drink teas. It would not include most diet beverages. Excise taxes are levied on goods and manufacturers typically pass them on to consumers.
Senior staff members for some Democratic senators at the center of the effort to craft health-care legislation are weighing the idea behind closed doors, Senate aides said.
The Congressional Budget Office, which is providing lawmakers with cost estimates for each potential change in the health overhaul, included the option in a broad report on health-system financing in December. The office estimated that adding a tax of three cents per 12-ounce serving to these types of sweetened drinks would generate $24 billion over the next four years. So far, lawmakers have not indicated how big a tax they are considering.
Proponents of the tax cite research showing that consuming sugar-sweetened drinks can lead to obesity, diabetes and other ailments. They say the tax would lower consumption, reduce health problems and save medical costs. At least a dozen states already have some type of taxes on sugary beverages, said Michael Jacobson, executive director of the Center for Science in the Public Interest.
"Soda is clearly one of the most harmful products in the food supply, and it's something government should discourage the consumption of," Mr. Jacobson said.
The main beverage lobby that represents Coca-Cola Co., PepsiCo Inc., Kraft Foods Inc. and other companies said such a tax would unfairly hit lower-income Americans and wouldn't deter consumption.
"Taxes are not going to teach our children how to have a healthy lifestyle," said Susan Neely, president of the American Beverage Association. Instead, the association says it's backing programs that limit sugary beverage consumption in schools.
Some recent state proposals along the same lines have met stiff opposition. New York Gov. David Paterson recently agreed to drop a proposal for an 18% tax on sugary drinks after facing an outcry from the beverage industry and New Yorkers.
The beverage-tax proposal would apply to drinks that many Americans don't consider unhealthy -- such as PepsiCo's Gatorade and Kraft's Capri Sun -- based on their calorie content.
Health advocates are floating other so-called sin tax proposals and food regulations as part of the government's health-care overhaul. Mr. Jacobson also plans to propose Tuesday that the government sharply raise taxes on alcohol, move to largely eliminate artificial trans fat from food and move to reduce the sodium content in packaged and restaurant food.
The beverage tax is just one of hundreds of ideas that lawmakers are weighing to finance the health-care plans. They're expected to narrow the list in coming weeks.
The White House, meanwhile, is pulling together private health groups to identify cost savings that will help fund the health overhaul. Mr. Obama on Monday held a White House meeting with groups that represent doctors, hospitals, insurers, pharmaceutical companies and medical-device makers. They pledged to help restrain cost increases in the health-care system in an effort to save $2 trillion over the next decade.
"When it comes to health-care spending, we are on an unsustainable course that threatens the financial stability of families, businesses and government itself," Mr. Obama told reporters.
The taxes would pay for only a fraction of the cost to expand health-insurance coverage to all Americans and would face strong opposition from the beverage industry. They also could spark a backlash from consumers who would have to pay several cents more for a soft drink.
On Tuesday, the Senate Finance Committee is set to hear proposals from about a dozen experts about how to pay for the comprehensive health-care overhaul that President Barack Obama wants to enact this year. Early estimates put the cost of the plan at around $1.2 trillion. The administration has so far only earmarked funds for about half of that amount.
The Center for Science in the Public Interest, a Washington-based watchdog group that pressures food companies to make healthier products, plans to propose a federal excise tax on soda, certain fruit drinks, energy drinks, sports drinks and ready-to-drink teas. It would not include most diet beverages. Excise taxes are levied on goods and manufacturers typically pass them on to consumers.
Senior staff members for some Democratic senators at the center of the effort to craft health-care legislation are weighing the idea behind closed doors, Senate aides said.
The Congressional Budget Office, which is providing lawmakers with cost estimates for each potential change in the health overhaul, included the option in a broad report on health-system financing in December. The office estimated that adding a tax of three cents per 12-ounce serving to these types of sweetened drinks would generate $24 billion over the next four years. So far, lawmakers have not indicated how big a tax they are considering.
Proponents of the tax cite research showing that consuming sugar-sweetened drinks can lead to obesity, diabetes and other ailments. They say the tax would lower consumption, reduce health problems and save medical costs. At least a dozen states already have some type of taxes on sugary beverages, said Michael Jacobson, executive director of the Center for Science in the Public Interest.
"Soda is clearly one of the most harmful products in the food supply, and it's something government should discourage the consumption of," Mr. Jacobson said.
The main beverage lobby that represents Coca-Cola Co., PepsiCo Inc., Kraft Foods Inc. and other companies said such a tax would unfairly hit lower-income Americans and wouldn't deter consumption.
"Taxes are not going to teach our children how to have a healthy lifestyle," said Susan Neely, president of the American Beverage Association. Instead, the association says it's backing programs that limit sugary beverage consumption in schools.
Some recent state proposals along the same lines have met stiff opposition. New York Gov. David Paterson recently agreed to drop a proposal for an 18% tax on sugary drinks after facing an outcry from the beverage industry and New Yorkers.
The beverage-tax proposal would apply to drinks that many Americans don't consider unhealthy -- such as PepsiCo's Gatorade and Kraft's Capri Sun -- based on their calorie content.
Health advocates are floating other so-called sin tax proposals and food regulations as part of the government's health-care overhaul. Mr. Jacobson also plans to propose Tuesday that the government sharply raise taxes on alcohol, move to largely eliminate artificial trans fat from food and move to reduce the sodium content in packaged and restaurant food.
The beverage tax is just one of hundreds of ideas that lawmakers are weighing to finance the health-care plans. They're expected to narrow the list in coming weeks.
The White House, meanwhile, is pulling together private health groups to identify cost savings that will help fund the health overhaul. Mr. Obama on Monday held a White House meeting with groups that represent doctors, hospitals, insurers, pharmaceutical companies and medical-device makers. They pledged to help restrain cost increases in the health-care system in an effort to save $2 trillion over the next decade.
"When it comes to health-care spending, we are on an unsustainable course that threatens the financial stability of families, businesses and government itself," Mr. Obama told reporters.
Monday, May 11, 2009
Facebook’s E-mail Censorship is Legally Dubious, Experts Say
When The Pirate Bay released new Facebook features last month, the popular social networking site took evasive action, blocking its members from distributing file-sharing links through its service.
Now legal experts say Facebook may have gone too far, blocking not only links to torrents published publicly on member profile pages, but also examining private messages that might contain them, and blocking those as well.
“This raises serious questions about whether Facebook is in compliance with federal wiretapping law,” said Kevin Bankston, a lawyer with the Electronic Frontier Foundation, responding to questions from a reporter about the little-noticed policy that was first reported by TorrentFreak.
Facebook private messages are governed by the Electronic Communications Privacy Act, which forbids communications providers from intercepting user messages, barring limited exceptions for security and valid legal orders.
While the sniffing of e-mails is not unknown — it’s how Google serves up targeted ads in Gmail and how Yahoo filters out viruses, for example — the notion that a legitimate e-mail would be not be delivered based on its content is extraordinary.
Facebook chief privacy officer Chris Kelly acknowledged that the site censors user messages based on links. But he insisted that Facebook has the legal right to do so, because it tells users they cannot “disseminate spammy, illegal, threatening or harassing content.”
“Just as many e-mail services do scanning to divert or block spam, prevent fraudulent, unlawful or abusive use of the service — or in the case of some services, to deliver targeted advertising — Facebook has automated systems that have the capability to block links,” Kelly said in an e-mail. “ECPA expressly allows Facebook to operate these systems.”
“The same automated system that blocks these links may also be deployed where there is a demonstrated disregard for intellectual property rights,” he added.
Facebook declined to answer questions about whether it similarly searched private messages for references to illegal drugs, underage drinking or shoplifting.
EFF lawyers suggested that the legality of Facebook’s censorship turns on Facebook’s Terms of Service, how and when the blocking takes place, and whether the messaging system affects interstate commerce (thus giving the federal government jurisdiction).
It’s not clear, however, how links to torrents are spammy, harassing or illegal. Torrents themselves are not copyright-infringing, nor would Facebook be liable for their users’ communications under federal law even if the files were infringing.
Wired.com confirmed Facebook is blocking private messages by sending a link to a Pirate Bay torrent feed of a book in the public domain. Such content is freely available to everyone, as all copyrights have expired. Nevertheless, the message bounced twice, returning the following failure notice: “This Message Contains Blocked Content. Some content in this message has been reported as abusive by Facebook users.” (Facebook’s link-censoring system is may be just tilting at windmills, however, because removing a single vowel from the domain name lets the URL go through.)
In the case of Wired.com’s test, there were only two Facebook users who should have been aware of the content — Wired.com editor John C. Abell and his message’s intended recipient, who was sitting five feet from him — and neither had the slightest objection to it whatsoever.
The EFF’s Bankston suggests that the real answer to the legal confusion over what providers can and cannot do with users’ online communications needs to come from federal lawmakers, who authored the statutes about e-mail privacy in the 1980s when the technology was much different.
“It is often unclear whether or how these Web 2.0 companies are covered by federal electronic privacy statutes, and that’s why Congress needs to update and revisit the law,” he said.
Wednesday, May 06, 2009
Governator Asks: What If Pot's Legal and Taxed?
As California struggles to find cash, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger said Tuesday it's time to study whether to legalize and tax marijuana for recreational use.
The Republican governor did not support legalization – and the federal government still bans marijuana use – but advocates hailed the fact that Schwarzenegger endorsed studying a once-taboo political subject.
"Well, I think it's not time for (legalization), but I think it's time for a debate," Schwarzenegger said. "I think all of those ideas of creating extra revenues, I'm always for an open debate on it. And I think we ought to study very carefully what other countries are doing that have legalized marijuana and other drugs, what effect did it have on those countries?"
Schwarzenegger was at a fire safety event in Davis when he answered a question about a recent Field Poll showing 56 percent of registered voters support legalizing and taxing marijuana to raise revenue for cash-strapped California. Voters in 1996 authorized marijuana for medical purposes.
Assemblyman Tom Ammiano, D-San Francisco, has written legislation to allow the legal sale of marijuana to adults 21 years and older for recreational use. His Assembly Bill 390 would charge cannabis wholesalers initial and annual flat fees, while retailers would pay $50 per ounce to the state.
The proposal would ban cannabis near schools and prohibit smoking marijuana in public places.
Marijuana legalization would raise an estimated $1.34 billion annually in tax revenue, according to a February estimate by the Board of Equalization. That amount could be offset by a reduction in cigarette or alcohol sales if consumers use marijuana as a substitute.
Besides raising additional tax revenue, the state could save money on law enforcement costs, Ammiano believes. But he shelved the bill until next year because it remains controversial in the Capitol, according to his spokesman, Quintin Mecke.
"We're certainly in full agreement with the governor," Mecke said. "I think it's a great opportunity. I think he's also being very realistic about understanding sort of the overall context, not only economically but otherwise."
Schwarzenegger previously has shown a casual attitude toward marijuana. He was filmed smoking a joint in the 1977 film, "Pumping Iron." And he told the British version of GQ in 2007, "That is not a drug. It's a leaf." Spokesman Aaron McLear downplayed the governor's comment as a joke at the time.
Even if California were to legalize marijuana, the state would hit a roadblock with the federal government, which prohibits its use. Ammiano hopes for a shift in federal policy, but President Barack Obama said in March he doesn't think legalization is a good strategy.
Any study would find plenty of arguments, judging by responses Tuesday.
Assemblyman Chuck DeVore, R-Irvine, said he's open to a study, but he remains opposed to legalization. He warned that society could bear significant burdens. He downplayed enforcement and incarceration savings because he believes drug courts are already effective in removing low-level offenders from the system.
"Studies have shown there is impairment with marijuana use," DeVore said. "People can get paranoid, can lose some of their initiative to work, and we don't live in some idealized libertarian society where every person is responsible completely to himself. We live in a society where the cost of your poor decisions are borne by your fellow taxpayers."
But Bruce Mirken of the Marijuana Policy Project said studies show alcohol has worse effects on users than marijuana in terms of addiction and long-term effects. His group believes marijuana should be regulated and taxed just like alcoholic beverages.
"There are reams of scientific data that show marijuana is less harmful than alcohol," Mirken said. "Just look at the brain of an alcoholic. In an autopsy, you wouldn't need a microscope to see the damage. Marijuana doesn't do anything like that."
Schwarzenegger said he would like to see results from Europe as part of a study.
The Austrian parliament last year authorized cultivation of medical marijuana. But Schwarzenegger talked with a police officer in his hometown of Graz and found the liberalization was not fully supported, McLear said.
"It could very well be that everyone is happy with that decision and then we could move to that," Schwarzenegger said. "If not, we shouldn't do it. But just because of raising revenues … we have to be careful not to make mistakes at the same time."
The Republican governor did not support legalization – and the federal government still bans marijuana use – but advocates hailed the fact that Schwarzenegger endorsed studying a once-taboo political subject.
"Well, I think it's not time for (legalization), but I think it's time for a debate," Schwarzenegger said. "I think all of those ideas of creating extra revenues, I'm always for an open debate on it. And I think we ought to study very carefully what other countries are doing that have legalized marijuana and other drugs, what effect did it have on those countries?"
Schwarzenegger was at a fire safety event in Davis when he answered a question about a recent Field Poll showing 56 percent of registered voters support legalizing and taxing marijuana to raise revenue for cash-strapped California. Voters in 1996 authorized marijuana for medical purposes.
Assemblyman Tom Ammiano, D-San Francisco, has written legislation to allow the legal sale of marijuana to adults 21 years and older for recreational use. His Assembly Bill 390 would charge cannabis wholesalers initial and annual flat fees, while retailers would pay $50 per ounce to the state.
The proposal would ban cannabis near schools and prohibit smoking marijuana in public places.
Marijuana legalization would raise an estimated $1.34 billion annually in tax revenue, according to a February estimate by the Board of Equalization. That amount could be offset by a reduction in cigarette or alcohol sales if consumers use marijuana as a substitute.
Besides raising additional tax revenue, the state could save money on law enforcement costs, Ammiano believes. But he shelved the bill until next year because it remains controversial in the Capitol, according to his spokesman, Quintin Mecke.
"We're certainly in full agreement with the governor," Mecke said. "I think it's a great opportunity. I think he's also being very realistic about understanding sort of the overall context, not only economically but otherwise."
Schwarzenegger previously has shown a casual attitude toward marijuana. He was filmed smoking a joint in the 1977 film, "Pumping Iron." And he told the British version of GQ in 2007, "That is not a drug. It's a leaf." Spokesman Aaron McLear downplayed the governor's comment as a joke at the time.
Even if California were to legalize marijuana, the state would hit a roadblock with the federal government, which prohibits its use. Ammiano hopes for a shift in federal policy, but President Barack Obama said in March he doesn't think legalization is a good strategy.
Any study would find plenty of arguments, judging by responses Tuesday.
Assemblyman Chuck DeVore, R-Irvine, said he's open to a study, but he remains opposed to legalization. He warned that society could bear significant burdens. He downplayed enforcement and incarceration savings because he believes drug courts are already effective in removing low-level offenders from the system.
"Studies have shown there is impairment with marijuana use," DeVore said. "People can get paranoid, can lose some of their initiative to work, and we don't live in some idealized libertarian society where every person is responsible completely to himself. We live in a society where the cost of your poor decisions are borne by your fellow taxpayers."
But Bruce Mirken of the Marijuana Policy Project said studies show alcohol has worse effects on users than marijuana in terms of addiction and long-term effects. His group believes marijuana should be regulated and taxed just like alcoholic beverages.
"There are reams of scientific data that show marijuana is less harmful than alcohol," Mirken said. "Just look at the brain of an alcoholic. In an autopsy, you wouldn't need a microscope to see the damage. Marijuana doesn't do anything like that."
Schwarzenegger said he would like to see results from Europe as part of a study.
The Austrian parliament last year authorized cultivation of medical marijuana. But Schwarzenegger talked with a police officer in his hometown of Graz and found the liberalization was not fully supported, McLear said.
"It could very well be that everyone is happy with that decision and then we could move to that," Schwarzenegger said. "If not, we shouldn't do it. But just because of raising revenues … we have to be careful not to make mistakes at the same time."
Oklahoma’s Claim to Sovereignty from the Federal Government
Although Gov. Brad Henry vetoed similar legislation 10 days earlier, House members Monday again approved a resolution claiming Oklahoma’s sovereignty.
Unlike House Joint Resolution 1003, House Concurrent Resolution 1028 does not need the governor’s approval.
The House passed the measure 73-22. It now goes to the Senate.
"We’re going to get it done one way or the other,” said the resolutions’ author, Rep. Charles Key, R-Oklahoma City.
"I think our governor is out of step.”
House Democrats objected, saying the issue already had been taken up and had been vetoed, but House Speaker Pro Tempore Kris Steele, R-Shawnee, ruled the veto is not final action.
Key said he expects HCR 1028 will pass in the Senate. HJR 1003 earlier passed the House 83-18 and won approval in the Senate 29-18.
Henry vetoed HJR 1003 because he said it suggested, among other things, that Oklahoma should return federal tax dollars.
Key said HCR 1028, which, if passed, would be sent to Democratic President Barack Obama and the Democratic-controlled Congress, would not jeopardize federal funds but would tell Congress to "get back into their proper constitutional role.” The resolution states the federal government should "cease and desist” mandates that are beyond the scope of its powers.
Key said many federal laws violate the 10th Amendment, which says powers not delegated to the U.S. government "are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people.” The Constitution lists about 20 duties required of the U.S. government, he said.
Congress should not be providing bailouts to financial institutions and automakers, he said.
"We give all this money to all these different entities, including automakers, and now they’re talking about, ‘Well maybe it’s better to let them go bankrupt,’” Key said. "Well, maybe we should have let them go bankrupt before we gave them the money..”
Unlike House Joint Resolution 1003, House Concurrent Resolution 1028 does not need the governor’s approval.
The House passed the measure 73-22. It now goes to the Senate.
"We’re going to get it done one way or the other,” said the resolutions’ author, Rep. Charles Key, R-Oklahoma City.
"I think our governor is out of step.”
House Democrats objected, saying the issue already had been taken up and had been vetoed, but House Speaker Pro Tempore Kris Steele, R-Shawnee, ruled the veto is not final action.
Key said he expects HCR 1028 will pass in the Senate. HJR 1003 earlier passed the House 83-18 and won approval in the Senate 29-18.
Henry vetoed HJR 1003 because he said it suggested, among other things, that Oklahoma should return federal tax dollars.
Key said HCR 1028, which, if passed, would be sent to Democratic President Barack Obama and the Democratic-controlled Congress, would not jeopardize federal funds but would tell Congress to "get back into their proper constitutional role.” The resolution states the federal government should "cease and desist” mandates that are beyond the scope of its powers.
Key said many federal laws violate the 10th Amendment, which says powers not delegated to the U.S. government "are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people.” The Constitution lists about 20 duties required of the U.S. government, he said.
Congress should not be providing bailouts to financial institutions and automakers, he said.
"We give all this money to all these different entities, including automakers, and now they’re talking about, ‘Well maybe it’s better to let them go bankrupt,’” Key said. "Well, maybe we should have let them go bankrupt before we gave them the money..”
It's a Shake Down
TENAHA, Texas (CNN) -- Roderick Daniels was traveling through East Texas in October 2007 when, he says, he was the victim of a highway robbery.
The Tennessee man says he was ordered to pull his car over and surrender his jewelry and $8,500 in cash that he had with him to buy a new car.
But Daniels couldn't go to the police to report the incident.
The men who stopped him were the police.
Daniels was stopped on U.S. Highway 59 outside Tenaha, near the Louisiana state line. Police said he was driving 37 mph in a 35 mph zone. They hauled him off to jail and threatened him with money-laundering charges -- but offered to release him if he signed papers forfeiting his property.
"I actually thought this was a joke," Daniels told CNN.
But he signed.
"To be honest, I was five, six hundred miles from home," he said. "I was petrified." Watch CNN's Gary Tuchman try to question officials »
Now Daniels and other motorists who have been stopped by Tenaha police are part of a lawsuit seeking to end what plaintiff's lawyer David Guillory calls a systematic fleecing of drivers passing through the town of about 1,000.
"I believe it is a shakedown. I believe it's a piracy operation," Guillory said.
George Bowers, Tenaha's longtime mayor, says his police follow the law. And through her lawyers, Shelby County District Attorney Lynda Russell denied any impropriety.
Texas law allows police to confiscate drug money and other personal property they believe are used in the commission of a crime. If no charges are filed or the person is acquitted, the property has to be returned. But Guillory's lawsuit states that Tenaha and surrounding Shelby County don't bother to return much of what they confiscate.
Jennifer Boatright and Ron Henderson said they agreed to forfeit their property after Russell threatened to have their children taken away.
Like Daniels, the couple says they were carrying a large amount of cash --- about $6,000 -- to buy a car. When they were stopped in Tenaha in 2007, Boatright said, Russell came to the Tenaha police station to berate her and threaten to separate the family.
"I said, 'If it's the money you want, you can take it, if that's what it takes to keep my children with me and not separate them from us. Take the money,' " she said.
The document Henderson signed, which bears Russell's signature, states that in exchange for forfeiting the cash, "no criminal charges shall be filed ... and our children shall not be turned over" to the state's child protective services agency.
Maryland resident Amanee Busbee said she also was threatened with losing custody of her child after being stopped in Tenaha with her fiancé and his business partner. They were headed to Houston with $50,000 to complete the purchase of a restaurant, she said.
"The police officer would say things to me like, 'Your son is going to child protective services because you are not saying what we need to hear,' " Busbee said.
Guillory, who practices in nearby Nacogdoches, Texas, estimates authorities in Tenaha seized $3 million between 2006 and 2008, and in about 150 cases -- virtually all of which involved African-American or Latino motorists -- the seizures were improper.
"They are disproportionately going after racial minorities," he said. "My take on the matter is that the police in Tenaha, Texas, were picking on and preying on people that were least likely to fight back."
Daniels told CNN that one of the officers who stopped him tried on some of his jewelry in front of him.
"They asked me, 'What you are doing with this ring on?' I said I had bought that ring. I paid good money for that ring," Daniels said. "He took the ring off my finger and put it on his finger and told me how did it look. He put on my jewelry."
Texas law states that the proceeds of any seizures can be used only for "official purposes" of district attorney offices and "for law-enforcement purposes" by police departments. According to public records obtained by CNN using open-records laws, an account funded by property forfeitures in Russell's office included $524 for a popcorn machine, $195 for candy for a poultry festival, and $400 for catering.
In addition, Russell donated money to the local chamber of commerce and a youth baseball league. A local Baptist church received two checks totaling $6,000.
And one check for $10,000 went to Barry Washington, a Tenaha police officer whose name has come up in several complaints by stopped motorists. The money was paid for "investigative costs," the records state.
Washington would not comment for this report but has denied all allegations in his answer to Guillory's lawsuit.
"This is under litigation. This is a lawsuit," he told CNN.
Russell refused requests for interviews at her office and at a fundraiser for a volunteer fire department in a nearby town, where she also sang. But in a written statement, her lawyers said she "has denied and continues to deny all substantive allegations set forth."
Russell "has used and continues to use prosecutorial discretion ... and is in compliance with Texas law, the Texas constitution, and the United States Constitution," the statement said.
Bowers, who has been Tenaha's mayor for 54 years, is also named in the lawsuit. But he said his employees "will follow the law."
"We try to hire the very best, best-trained, and we keep them up to date on the training," he said.
The attention paid to Tenaha has led to an effort by Texas lawmakers to tighten the state's forfeiture laws. A bill sponsored by state Sen. John Whitmire, D-Houston, would bar authorities from using the kind of waivers Daniels, Henderson and Busbee were told to sign.
"To have law enforcement and the district attorney essentially be crooks, in my judgment, should infuriate and does infuriate everyone," Whitmire said. His bill has passed the Senate, where he is the longest-serving member, and is currently before the House of Representatives.
Busbee, Boatright and Henderson were able to reclaim their property after hiring lawyers. But Daniels is still out his $8,500.
"To this day, I don't understand why they took my belongings off me," he said.
The Tennessee man says he was ordered to pull his car over and surrender his jewelry and $8,500 in cash that he had with him to buy a new car.
But Daniels couldn't go to the police to report the incident.
The men who stopped him were the police.
Daniels was stopped on U.S. Highway 59 outside Tenaha, near the Louisiana state line. Police said he was driving 37 mph in a 35 mph zone. They hauled him off to jail and threatened him with money-laundering charges -- but offered to release him if he signed papers forfeiting his property.
"I actually thought this was a joke," Daniels told CNN.
But he signed.
"To be honest, I was five, six hundred miles from home," he said. "I was petrified." Watch CNN's Gary Tuchman try to question officials »
Now Daniels and other motorists who have been stopped by Tenaha police are part of a lawsuit seeking to end what plaintiff's lawyer David Guillory calls a systematic fleecing of drivers passing through the town of about 1,000.
"I believe it is a shakedown. I believe it's a piracy operation," Guillory said.
George Bowers, Tenaha's longtime mayor, says his police follow the law. And through her lawyers, Shelby County District Attorney Lynda Russell denied any impropriety.
Texas law allows police to confiscate drug money and other personal property they believe are used in the commission of a crime. If no charges are filed or the person is acquitted, the property has to be returned. But Guillory's lawsuit states that Tenaha and surrounding Shelby County don't bother to return much of what they confiscate.
Jennifer Boatright and Ron Henderson said they agreed to forfeit their property after Russell threatened to have their children taken away.
Like Daniels, the couple says they were carrying a large amount of cash --- about $6,000 -- to buy a car. When they were stopped in Tenaha in 2007, Boatright said, Russell came to the Tenaha police station to berate her and threaten to separate the family.
"I said, 'If it's the money you want, you can take it, if that's what it takes to keep my children with me and not separate them from us. Take the money,' " she said.
The document Henderson signed, which bears Russell's signature, states that in exchange for forfeiting the cash, "no criminal charges shall be filed ... and our children shall not be turned over" to the state's child protective services agency.
Maryland resident Amanee Busbee said she also was threatened with losing custody of her child after being stopped in Tenaha with her fiancé and his business partner. They were headed to Houston with $50,000 to complete the purchase of a restaurant, she said.
"The police officer would say things to me like, 'Your son is going to child protective services because you are not saying what we need to hear,' " Busbee said.
Guillory, who practices in nearby Nacogdoches, Texas, estimates authorities in Tenaha seized $3 million between 2006 and 2008, and in about 150 cases -- virtually all of which involved African-American or Latino motorists -- the seizures were improper.
"They are disproportionately going after racial minorities," he said. "My take on the matter is that the police in Tenaha, Texas, were picking on and preying on people that were least likely to fight back."
Daniels told CNN that one of the officers who stopped him tried on some of his jewelry in front of him.
"They asked me, 'What you are doing with this ring on?' I said I had bought that ring. I paid good money for that ring," Daniels said. "He took the ring off my finger and put it on his finger and told me how did it look. He put on my jewelry."
Texas law states that the proceeds of any seizures can be used only for "official purposes" of district attorney offices and "for law-enforcement purposes" by police departments. According to public records obtained by CNN using open-records laws, an account funded by property forfeitures in Russell's office included $524 for a popcorn machine, $195 for candy for a poultry festival, and $400 for catering.
In addition, Russell donated money to the local chamber of commerce and a youth baseball league. A local Baptist church received two checks totaling $6,000.
And one check for $10,000 went to Barry Washington, a Tenaha police officer whose name has come up in several complaints by stopped motorists. The money was paid for "investigative costs," the records state.
Washington would not comment for this report but has denied all allegations in his answer to Guillory's lawsuit.
"This is under litigation. This is a lawsuit," he told CNN.
Russell refused requests for interviews at her office and at a fundraiser for a volunteer fire department in a nearby town, where she also sang. But in a written statement, her lawyers said she "has denied and continues to deny all substantive allegations set forth."
Russell "has used and continues to use prosecutorial discretion ... and is in compliance with Texas law, the Texas constitution, and the United States Constitution," the statement said.
Bowers, who has been Tenaha's mayor for 54 years, is also named in the lawsuit. But he said his employees "will follow the law."
"We try to hire the very best, best-trained, and we keep them up to date on the training," he said.
The attention paid to Tenaha has led to an effort by Texas lawmakers to tighten the state's forfeiture laws. A bill sponsored by state Sen. John Whitmire, D-Houston, would bar authorities from using the kind of waivers Daniels, Henderson and Busbee were told to sign.
"To have law enforcement and the district attorney essentially be crooks, in my judgment, should infuriate and does infuriate everyone," Whitmire said. His bill has passed the Senate, where he is the longest-serving member, and is currently before the House of Representatives.
Busbee, Boatright and Henderson were able to reclaim their property after hiring lawyers. But Daniels is still out his $8,500.
"To this day, I don't understand why they took my belongings off me," he said.
Wednesday, April 29, 2009
Believe the Hype If You Want!
in the last swine flu scare, 25 people died. Not from the virus but from the vaccine that the government made............
I cannot believe ANYTHING the government says. A government that sells its own citizens drugs at extremely high prices b/c they are addictive, is not a government you can trust. Your welfare is not on their mind at all! More like control of your welfare!
You can keep believing them, but like Carlin said, they will take it all from us.....
I cannot believe ANYTHING the government says. A government that sells its own citizens drugs at extremely high prices b/c they are addictive, is not a government you can trust. Your welfare is not on their mind at all! More like control of your welfare!
You can keep believing them, but like Carlin said, they will take it all from us.....
Monday, April 27, 2009
Sunday, April 26, 2009
China Calls for Reform of Global Monetary System
China called Sunday for reform of the global currency system, dominated by the dollar, which it said is the root cause of the global financial crisis.
"We should attach great importance to reform of the international monetary system," Chinese Vice Finance Minister Li Yong told the spring IMF/World Bank Development Committee meeting in Washington.
A "flawed international monetary system is the institutional root cause of the crisis and a major defect in the current international economic governance structure," Li said, according to a statement.
"Accordingly, we should improve the regulatory mechanism for reserve currency issuance, maintain the relative stability of exchange rates of major reserve currencies and promote a diverse and sound international currency system."
As the world's main reserve currency, US dollars account for most governments' foreign exchange reserves and are used to set international market prices for oil, gold and other currencies.
As the issuer of the key reserve currency, the United States also pays less for products and can borrow more easily.
Li did not name the dollar but in late March the People's Bank of China Governor Zhou Xiaochuan said he wanted to replace the US unit which has served as the world's reserve currency since World War II.
"The outbreak of the crisis and its spillover to the entire world reflected the inherent vulnerabilities and systemic risks in the existing international monetary system," Zhou said, suggesting the International Monetary Fund could play a greater role.
Zhou's remarks sparked uproar and concern since China has the world's largest forex reserves at 1.9 trillion dollars. China became the world's top holder of US Treasury bonds last September, and currently holds around 800 billion dollars, according to official US data.
Beijing has voiced increasing concern over its massive exposure to the US dollar as the global crisis has steadily deepened but after some tense exchanges, the issue appears to have eased in recent weeks.
The role of the dollar gets caught up in Washington's own complaints that China unfairly keeps the value of its own currency undervalued so as to promote its exports.
The resulting massive US trade deficit with China is one of the main global imbalances which the US government says has to be removed to set the world economy back on a more sustainable growth track.
"We should attach great importance to reform of the international monetary system," Chinese Vice Finance Minister Li Yong told the spring IMF/World Bank Development Committee meeting in Washington.
A "flawed international monetary system is the institutional root cause of the crisis and a major defect in the current international economic governance structure," Li said, according to a statement.
"Accordingly, we should improve the regulatory mechanism for reserve currency issuance, maintain the relative stability of exchange rates of major reserve currencies and promote a diverse and sound international currency system."
As the world's main reserve currency, US dollars account for most governments' foreign exchange reserves and are used to set international market prices for oil, gold and other currencies.
As the issuer of the key reserve currency, the United States also pays less for products and can borrow more easily.
Li did not name the dollar but in late March the People's Bank of China Governor Zhou Xiaochuan said he wanted to replace the US unit which has served as the world's reserve currency since World War II.
"The outbreak of the crisis and its spillover to the entire world reflected the inherent vulnerabilities and systemic risks in the existing international monetary system," Zhou said, suggesting the International Monetary Fund could play a greater role.
Zhou's remarks sparked uproar and concern since China has the world's largest forex reserves at 1.9 trillion dollars. China became the world's top holder of US Treasury bonds last September, and currently holds around 800 billion dollars, according to official US data.
Beijing has voiced increasing concern over its massive exposure to the US dollar as the global crisis has steadily deepened but after some tense exchanges, the issue appears to have eased in recent weeks.
The role of the dollar gets caught up in Washington's own complaints that China unfairly keeps the value of its own currency undervalued so as to promote its exports.
The resulting massive US trade deficit with China is one of the main global imbalances which the US government says has to be removed to set the world economy back on a more sustainable growth track.
Sunday, April 19, 2009
News Corp. Says MySpace Founder DeWolfe to Step Down
MySpace co-founder Chris DeWolfe will step down as chief executive officer of the social- networking Web site after falling behind rival Facebook Inc.
A replacement wasn’t named. DeWolfe will remain an adviser, Jonathan Miller, the top digital officer for parent News Corp., said today in a statement. MySpace President Tom Anderson is in talks with Miller about a new role.
DeWolfe co-founded MySpace with Anderson in 2003 and ran the ad-supported company for almost four years under Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp. Former Facebook Chief Operating Officer Owen Van Natta is likely to replace DeWolfe, the Wall Street Journal’s All Things D Web site reported today. Facebook passed MySpace as the top social-networking site last year.
“I don’t think advertising growth has reached their initial expectations,” said Michael Morris, a New York-based analyst with UBS AG. He rates News Corp. stock “neutral” and doesn’t own it. “The initial hopes of the business probably haven’t been realized.”
A new management structure will be announced in the “near future,” Miller said in the statement.
News Corp. rose 2 cents to $7.78 in New York Stock Exchange composite trading. The shares have fallen 14 percent this year.
Murdoch hired Miller, a former AOL executive, to oversee News Corp.’s digital business. The April 1 appointment was part of a reorganization to prepare for the departure of President Peter Chernin, the company’s second-in-command.
A replacement wasn’t named. DeWolfe will remain an adviser, Jonathan Miller, the top digital officer for parent News Corp., said today in a statement. MySpace President Tom Anderson is in talks with Miller about a new role.
DeWolfe co-founded MySpace with Anderson in 2003 and ran the ad-supported company for almost four years under Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp. Former Facebook Chief Operating Officer Owen Van Natta is likely to replace DeWolfe, the Wall Street Journal’s All Things D Web site reported today. Facebook passed MySpace as the top social-networking site last year.
“I don’t think advertising growth has reached their initial expectations,” said Michael Morris, a New York-based analyst with UBS AG. He rates News Corp. stock “neutral” and doesn’t own it. “The initial hopes of the business probably haven’t been realized.”
A new management structure will be announced in the “near future,” Miller said in the statement.
News Corp. rose 2 cents to $7.78 in New York Stock Exchange composite trading. The shares have fallen 14 percent this year.
Murdoch hired Miller, a former AOL executive, to oversee News Corp.’s digital business. The April 1 appointment was part of a reorganization to prepare for the departure of President Peter Chernin, the company’s second-in-command.
Friday, April 17, 2009
Thursday, April 16, 2009
They Are Watching Us
In the land of the free, they are watching & listening to us.
N.S.A.’s Intercepts Exceed Limits Set by Congress
The National Security Agency intercepted private e-mail messages and phone calls of Americans in recent months on a scale that went beyond the broad legal limits established by Congress last year, government officials said in recent interviews.
Several intelligence officials, as well as lawyers briefed about the matter, said the N.S.A. had been engaged in “overcollection” of domestic communications of Americans. They described the practice as significant and systemic, although one official said it was believed to have been unintentional.
The legal and operational problems surrounding the N.S.A.’s surveillance activities have come under scrutiny from the Obama administration, Congressional intelligence committees and a secret national security court, said the intelligence officials, who spoke only on the condition of anonymity because N.S.A. activities are classified. Classified government briefings have been held in recent weeks in response to a brewing controversy that some officials worry could damage the credibility of legitimate intelligence-gathering efforts.
N.S.A.’s Intercepts Exceed Limits Set by Congress
The National Security Agency intercepted private e-mail messages and phone calls of Americans in recent months on a scale that went beyond the broad legal limits established by Congress last year, government officials said in recent interviews.
Several intelligence officials, as well as lawyers briefed about the matter, said the N.S.A. had been engaged in “overcollection” of domestic communications of Americans. They described the practice as significant and systemic, although one official said it was believed to have been unintentional.
The legal and operational problems surrounding the N.S.A.’s surveillance activities have come under scrutiny from the Obama administration, Congressional intelligence committees and a secret national security court, said the intelligence officials, who spoke only on the condition of anonymity because N.S.A. activities are classified. Classified government briefings have been held in recent weeks in response to a brewing controversy that some officials worry could damage the credibility of legitimate intelligence-gathering efforts.
Wednesday, April 15, 2009
Media Split on "Tea Parties"
I think that the media is stirring the pot on purpose. A modern day revolution would be big news for them!
The Media Stirs the Pot
CNN correspondent Susan Roesgen could barely get through her live shot at the Chicago tea party this afternoon. Over shouts of, "You're not a reporter," Roesgen quickly wrapped up an interview with an attendee, then said, "I think you get the general tenor of this. It's anti-government, anti-CNN since this is highly promoted by the right-wing conservative network Fox."
And It Begins to Crumble
Governor Perry Says Texas Can Leave the Union
Speaking with reporters after a tea party rally in Austin today, Gov. Rick Perry said Texas can leave the union if it wants to.
"Texas is a unique place. When we came into the union in 1845, one of the issues was that we would be able to leave if we decided to do that," Perry said. "My hope is that America and Washington in particular pays attention. We've got a great union. There's absolutely no reason to dissolve it. But if Washington continues to thumb their nose at the American people, who knows what may come of that."
I posted the above audio so you can hear Perry for yourself. The audio changes because I missed the first part of his quote and got another reporter to replay that portion for me on their recorder.
Perry also was asked whether the tea party anti-tax rallies are part of a growing national movement.
"I have never seen the power of the grassroots as antimated and as focused and as coordinated...It is a very powerful moment in American history.
"I would suggest that members of congress who are filing for election or re-election in eight months are listening."
"They're hearing everyday working folks saying, 'Listen, it's out of control. We're trying to live our lives and you're strangling us with your spending and your taxation."
Just FYI, on Perry's 1845 statement, Texas came into the union with the ability to divide into five states, not withdraw. After seceding during the Civil War, Texas was allowed to re-enter the union after ratifying the 13th Amendment. The 13th Amendment banned slavery in the United States and any territory subject to its jurisdiction.
Texas v White, a U.S. Supreme Court case decided in 1869, said Texas cannot secede.
Which means no state can break away from the union without a fight. Which also means that this is why states independent rights are over looked by the feds. We see in California all the time with raids. I had always thought individual states should have their rights respected. I guess I was wrong.
You Are Being Lied to About Pirates
Who imagined that in 2009, the world's governments would be declaring a new War on Pirates? As you read this, the British Royal Navy - backed by the ships of more than two dozen nations, from the US to China - is sailing into Somalian waters to take on men we still picture as parrot-on-the-shoulder pantomime villains. They will soon be fighting Somalian ships and even chasing the pirates onto land, into one of the most broken countries on earth. But behind the arrr-me-hearties oddness of this tale, there is an untold scandal. The people our governments are labeling as "one of the great menace of our times" have an extraordinary story to tell -- and some justice on their side.
Pirates have never been quite who we think they are. In the "golden age of piracy" - from 1650 to 1730 - the idea of the pirate as the senseless, savage thief that lingers today was created by the British government in a great propaganda-heave. Many ordinary people believed it was false: pirates were often rescued from the gallows by supportive crowds. Why? What did they see that we can't? In his book Villains of All nations, the historian Marcus Rediker pores through the evidence to find out. If you became a merchant or navy sailor then - plucked from the docks of London's East End, young and hungry - you ended up in a floating wooden Hell. You worked all hours on a cramped, half-starved ship, and if you slacked off for a second, the all-powerful captain would whip you with the Cat O' Nine Tails. If you slacked consistently, you could be thrown overboard. And at the end of months or years of this, you were often cheated of your wages.
Pirates were the first people to rebel against this world. They mutinied against their tyrannical captains - and created a different way of working on the seas. Once they had a ship, the pirates elected their captains, and made all their decisions collectively. They shared their bounty out in what Rediker calls "one of the most egalitarian plans for the disposition of resources to be found anywhere in the eighteenth century." They even took in escaped African slaves and lived with them as equals. The pirates showed "quite clearly - and subversively - that ships did not have to be run in the brutal and oppressive ways of the merchant service and the Royal navy." This is why they were popular, despite being unproductive thieves.
The words of one pirate from that lost age - a young British man called William Scott - should echo into this new age of piracy. Just before he was hanged in Charleston, South Carolina, he said: "What I did was to keep me from perishing. I was forced to go a-pirating to live." In 1991, the government of Somalia - in the Horn of Africa - collapsed. Its nine million people have been teetering on starvation ever since - and many of the ugliest forces in the Western world have seen this as a great opportunity to steal the country's food supply and dump our nuclear waste in their seas.
Yes: nuclear waste. As soon as the government was gone, mysterious European ships started appearing off the coast of Somalia, dumping vast barrels into the ocean. The coastal population began to sicken. At first they suffered strange rashes, nausea and malformed babies. Then, after the 2005 tsunami, hundreds of the dumped and leaking barrels washed up on shore. People began to suffer from radiation sickness, and more than 300 died. Ahmedou Ould-Abdallah, the UN envoy to Somalia, tells me: "Somebody is dumping nuclear material here. There is also lead, and heavy metals such as cadmium and mercury - you name it." Much of it can be traced back to European hospitals and factories, who seem to be passing it on to the Italian mafia to "dispose" of cheaply. When I asked Ould-Abdallah what European governments were doing about it, he said with a sigh: "Nothing. There has been no clean-up, no compensation, and no prevention."
At the same time, other European ships have been looting Somalia's seas of their greatest resource: seafood. We have destroyed our own fish-stocks by over-exploitation - and now we have moved on to theirs. More than $300m worth of tuna, shrimp, lobster and other sea-life is being stolen every year by vast trawlers illegally sailing into Somalia's unprotected seas. The local fishermen have suddenly lost their livelihoods, and they are starving. Mohammed Hussein, a fisherman in the town of Marka 100km south of Mogadishu, told Reuters: "If nothing is done, there soon won't be much fish left in our coastal waters."
This is the context in which the men we are calling "pirates" have emerged. Everyone agrees they were ordinary Somalian fishermen who at first took speedboats to try to dissuade the dumpers and trawlers, or at least wage a 'tax' on them. They call themselves the Volunteer Coastguard of Somalia - and it's not hard to see why. In a surreal telephone interview, one of the pirate leaders, Sugule Ali, said their motive was "to stop illegal fishing and dumping in our waters... We don't consider ourselves sea bandits. We consider sea bandits [to be] those who illegally fish and dump in our seas and dump waste in our seas and carry weapons in our seas." William Scott would understand those words.
No, this doesn't make hostage-taking justifiable, and yes, some are clearly just gangsters - especially those who have held up World Food Programme supplies. But the "pirates" have the overwhelming support of the local population for a reason. The independent Somalian news-site WardherNews conducted the best research we have into what ordinary Somalis are thinking - and it found 70 percent "strongly supported the piracy as a form of national defence of the country's territorial waters." During the revolutionary war in America, George Washington and America's founding fathers paid pirates to protect America's territorial waters, because they had no navy or coastguard of their own. Most Americans supported them. Is this so different?
Did we expect starving Somalians to stand passively on their beaches, paddling in our nuclear waste, and watch us snatch their fish to eat in restaurants in London and Paris and Rome? We didn't act on those crimes - but when some of the fishermen responded by disrupting the transit-corridor for 20 percent of the world's oil supply, we begin to shriek about "evil." If we really want to deal with piracy, we need to stop its root cause - our crimes - before we send in the gun-boats to root out Somalia's criminals.
The story of the 2009 war on piracy was best summarised by another pirate, who lived and died in the fourth century BC. He was captured and brought to Alexander the Great, who demanded to know "what he meant by keeping possession of the sea." The pirate smiled, and responded: "What you mean by seizing the whole earth; but because I do it with a petty ship, I am called a robber, while you, who do it with a great fleet, are called emperor." Once again, our great imperial fleets sail in today - but who is the robber?
Pirates have never been quite who we think they are. In the "golden age of piracy" - from 1650 to 1730 - the idea of the pirate as the senseless, savage thief that lingers today was created by the British government in a great propaganda-heave. Many ordinary people believed it was false: pirates were often rescued from the gallows by supportive crowds. Why? What did they see that we can't? In his book Villains of All nations, the historian Marcus Rediker pores through the evidence to find out. If you became a merchant or navy sailor then - plucked from the docks of London's East End, young and hungry - you ended up in a floating wooden Hell. You worked all hours on a cramped, half-starved ship, and if you slacked off for a second, the all-powerful captain would whip you with the Cat O' Nine Tails. If you slacked consistently, you could be thrown overboard. And at the end of months or years of this, you were often cheated of your wages.
Pirates were the first people to rebel against this world. They mutinied against their tyrannical captains - and created a different way of working on the seas. Once they had a ship, the pirates elected their captains, and made all their decisions collectively. They shared their bounty out in what Rediker calls "one of the most egalitarian plans for the disposition of resources to be found anywhere in the eighteenth century." They even took in escaped African slaves and lived with them as equals. The pirates showed "quite clearly - and subversively - that ships did not have to be run in the brutal and oppressive ways of the merchant service and the Royal navy." This is why they were popular, despite being unproductive thieves.
The words of one pirate from that lost age - a young British man called William Scott - should echo into this new age of piracy. Just before he was hanged in Charleston, South Carolina, he said: "What I did was to keep me from perishing. I was forced to go a-pirating to live." In 1991, the government of Somalia - in the Horn of Africa - collapsed. Its nine million people have been teetering on starvation ever since - and many of the ugliest forces in the Western world have seen this as a great opportunity to steal the country's food supply and dump our nuclear waste in their seas.
Yes: nuclear waste. As soon as the government was gone, mysterious European ships started appearing off the coast of Somalia, dumping vast barrels into the ocean. The coastal population began to sicken. At first they suffered strange rashes, nausea and malformed babies. Then, after the 2005 tsunami, hundreds of the dumped and leaking barrels washed up on shore. People began to suffer from radiation sickness, and more than 300 died. Ahmedou Ould-Abdallah, the UN envoy to Somalia, tells me: "Somebody is dumping nuclear material here. There is also lead, and heavy metals such as cadmium and mercury - you name it." Much of it can be traced back to European hospitals and factories, who seem to be passing it on to the Italian mafia to "dispose" of cheaply. When I asked Ould-Abdallah what European governments were doing about it, he said with a sigh: "Nothing. There has been no clean-up, no compensation, and no prevention."
At the same time, other European ships have been looting Somalia's seas of their greatest resource: seafood. We have destroyed our own fish-stocks by over-exploitation - and now we have moved on to theirs. More than $300m worth of tuna, shrimp, lobster and other sea-life is being stolen every year by vast trawlers illegally sailing into Somalia's unprotected seas. The local fishermen have suddenly lost their livelihoods, and they are starving. Mohammed Hussein, a fisherman in the town of Marka 100km south of Mogadishu, told Reuters: "If nothing is done, there soon won't be much fish left in our coastal waters."
This is the context in which the men we are calling "pirates" have emerged. Everyone agrees they were ordinary Somalian fishermen who at first took speedboats to try to dissuade the dumpers and trawlers, or at least wage a 'tax' on them. They call themselves the Volunteer Coastguard of Somalia - and it's not hard to see why. In a surreal telephone interview, one of the pirate leaders, Sugule Ali, said their motive was "to stop illegal fishing and dumping in our waters... We don't consider ourselves sea bandits. We consider sea bandits [to be] those who illegally fish and dump in our seas and dump waste in our seas and carry weapons in our seas." William Scott would understand those words.
No, this doesn't make hostage-taking justifiable, and yes, some are clearly just gangsters - especially those who have held up World Food Programme supplies. But the "pirates" have the overwhelming support of the local population for a reason. The independent Somalian news-site WardherNews conducted the best research we have into what ordinary Somalis are thinking - and it found 70 percent "strongly supported the piracy as a form of national defence of the country's territorial waters." During the revolutionary war in America, George Washington and America's founding fathers paid pirates to protect America's territorial waters, because they had no navy or coastguard of their own. Most Americans supported them. Is this so different?
Did we expect starving Somalians to stand passively on their beaches, paddling in our nuclear waste, and watch us snatch their fish to eat in restaurants in London and Paris and Rome? We didn't act on those crimes - but when some of the fishermen responded by disrupting the transit-corridor for 20 percent of the world's oil supply, we begin to shriek about "evil." If we really want to deal with piracy, we need to stop its root cause - our crimes - before we send in the gun-boats to root out Somalia's criminals.
The story of the 2009 war on piracy was best summarised by another pirate, who lived and died in the fourth century BC. He was captured and brought to Alexander the Great, who demanded to know "what he meant by keeping possession of the sea." The pirate smiled, and responded: "What you mean by seizing the whole earth; but because I do it with a petty ship, I am called a robber, while you, who do it with a great fleet, are called emperor." Once again, our great imperial fleets sail in today - but who is the robber?
"Why?" is My Favorite Question...
When something happens, I want to know why it is happening. I love knowing "why" about everything.
It is attached to everything that happens. There is always a "why". No matter how ridiculous or logical the reasoning may be of this "why" varies, but EVERYTHING has a "why"................
It is attached to everything that happens. There is always a "why". No matter how ridiculous or logical the reasoning may be of this "why" varies, but EVERYTHING has a "why"................
Friday, April 10, 2009
Russia Test Fires Intercontinental Missile
Russia successfully test-fired a Topol intercontinental ballistic missile on Friday as part of checks needed to extend its service life for up to 22 years, Russian media reported.
The Topol was fired from the Plesetsk cosmodrome, nestled among the forests of northern Russia, and successfully hit the test site on Russia's Pacific peninsula of Kamchatka, 6,000 km (3,700 miles) to the east.
"This launch confirmed the time extension for the Topol group of missiles for up to 22 years," Itar-Tass news agency quoted Colonel Alexander Vovk of the Russian Strategic Rocket Forces as saying.
Test launches of new missiles have become routine in recent years, and the Kremlin says the financial crisis will not discourage it from spending as much money as needed on defense. The Topol, which entered service in 1985, was last test-fired last October.
Russia has extended the highly mobile Topol's use way past the 10-year guaranteed operational life set by the manufacturer. It is designed to pierce anti-missile defense systems such as those that the United States has said it wants to build in Eastern Europe.
The RS-12M Topol, called the SS-25 Sickle by NATO, has a maximum range of 10,000 km (6,125 miles) and can carry one 550-kiloton warhead.
The Topol was fired from the Plesetsk cosmodrome, nestled among the forests of northern Russia, and successfully hit the test site on Russia's Pacific peninsula of Kamchatka, 6,000 km (3,700 miles) to the east.
"This launch confirmed the time extension for the Topol group of missiles for up to 22 years," Itar-Tass news agency quoted Colonel Alexander Vovk of the Russian Strategic Rocket Forces as saying.
Test launches of new missiles have become routine in recent years, and the Kremlin says the financial crisis will not discourage it from spending as much money as needed on defense. The Topol, which entered service in 1985, was last test-fired last October.
Russia has extended the highly mobile Topol's use way past the 10-year guaranteed operational life set by the manufacturer. It is designed to pierce anti-missile defense systems such as those that the United States has said it wants to build in Eastern Europe.
The RS-12M Topol, called the SS-25 Sickle by NATO, has a maximum range of 10,000 km (6,125 miles) and can carry one 550-kiloton warhead.
Thursday, April 09, 2009
French Lawmakers Reject Internet Piracy Bill
French legislators on Thursday rejected legislation to permit cutting off the Internet connections of people who illegally download music and films. But a stubborn government plans to resurrect the bill for another vote this month.
Backers of the bill -- record labels, film companies and law-and-order parliamentarians -- couldn't rally the needed support during in a near empty lower chamber ahead of the Easter holiday. Lawmakers voted 21 to 15 against it.
The measure would have created a government agency to track and punish those who pirate music and film on the Internet. Analysts said the law would have helped boost ever-shrinking profits in the entertainment industry, which has struggled with the advent of online file-sharing that lets people swap music files without paying.
The government, intent on gaining the upper hand in piracy, managed to slip the measure into an April 28 special session devoted to initiatives by President Nicolas Sarkozy's conservative UMP party.
The president's office reaffirmed Sarkozy's wish to get the law passed "as quickly as possible."
He "does not plan to renounce this whatever the maneuvers" to try to stop the bill's passage, a statement said.
Music labels, film distributors and artists -- who have seen CD and DVD sales in France plummet 60 percent in the past six years -- almost universally supported the measure, hailing it as a decisive step toward eliminating online piracy and an example to other governments. Artists' groups in France have said the future of the country's music and film industries depends on cracking down on illegal downloads, and the legislation received industry support from around the world.
"It is disappointing that the law was not confirmed today," said London-based John Kennedy, Chairman and CEO of the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry, which represents the recording industry worldwide and supported the bill.
Legislators and activists who opposed the legislation said it would represent a Big Brother intrusion on civil liberties -- they called it "liberticide" -- while the European Parliament last month adopted a nonbinding resolution that defines Internet access as an untouchable "fundamental freedom."
Opponents also pointed out that users downloading from public WiFi hotspots or using masked IP addresses might be impossible to trace. Others called its proposed monitoring structures unrealistic.
"It is a bad response to a false problem," said Jeremie Zimmerman, coordinator of the Quadrature du Net, a Paris-based Internet activist group that opposed the bill, calling it "completely impossible to apply."
He said the bill's rejection is proof of a widespread sense that it was a draconian approach.
Under the legislation, users would receive e-mail warnings for their first two identified offenses, a certified letter for the next, and would have their Web connection severed, for as long as one year, for any subsequent illegal downloads.
French Culture Minister Christine Albanel had said the bill did not aim to "completely eradicate" illegal downloads but rather to "contribute to a raising of consciousness" among offenders.
"There needs to be an experiment," said Pierre-Yves Gautier, an Internet law expert at the University of Paris, noting the plummeting profits of the entertainment industry. "Frankly, it's worth it."
Backers of the bill -- record labels, film companies and law-and-order parliamentarians -- couldn't rally the needed support during in a near empty lower chamber ahead of the Easter holiday. Lawmakers voted 21 to 15 against it.
The measure would have created a government agency to track and punish those who pirate music and film on the Internet. Analysts said the law would have helped boost ever-shrinking profits in the entertainment industry, which has struggled with the advent of online file-sharing that lets people swap music files without paying.
The government, intent on gaining the upper hand in piracy, managed to slip the measure into an April 28 special session devoted to initiatives by President Nicolas Sarkozy's conservative UMP party.
The president's office reaffirmed Sarkozy's wish to get the law passed "as quickly as possible."
He "does not plan to renounce this whatever the maneuvers" to try to stop the bill's passage, a statement said.
Music labels, film distributors and artists -- who have seen CD and DVD sales in France plummet 60 percent in the past six years -- almost universally supported the measure, hailing it as a decisive step toward eliminating online piracy and an example to other governments. Artists' groups in France have said the future of the country's music and film industries depends on cracking down on illegal downloads, and the legislation received industry support from around the world.
"It is disappointing that the law was not confirmed today," said London-based John Kennedy, Chairman and CEO of the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry, which represents the recording industry worldwide and supported the bill.
Legislators and activists who opposed the legislation said it would represent a Big Brother intrusion on civil liberties -- they called it "liberticide" -- while the European Parliament last month adopted a nonbinding resolution that defines Internet access as an untouchable "fundamental freedom."
Opponents also pointed out that users downloading from public WiFi hotspots or using masked IP addresses might be impossible to trace. Others called its proposed monitoring structures unrealistic.
"It is a bad response to a false problem," said Jeremie Zimmerman, coordinator of the Quadrature du Net, a Paris-based Internet activist group that opposed the bill, calling it "completely impossible to apply."
He said the bill's rejection is proof of a widespread sense that it was a draconian approach.
Under the legislation, users would receive e-mail warnings for their first two identified offenses, a certified letter for the next, and would have their Web connection severed, for as long as one year, for any subsequent illegal downloads.
French Culture Minister Christine Albanel had said the bill did not aim to "completely eradicate" illegal downloads but rather to "contribute to a raising of consciousness" among offenders.
"There needs to be an experiment," said Pierre-Yves Gautier, an Internet law expert at the University of Paris, noting the plummeting profits of the entertainment industry. "Frankly, it's worth it."
Wednesday, April 08, 2009
Gays vs Pot Heads
I am not one to judge another group of people. So please do not take this post wrong. I do not agree with the gay life style. I think it is gross, but that is my opinion. It gives me no right to tell homosexuals how to live though. I believe they deserve equal rights like everyone else.
Now what I find disturbing though is state after state is legalizing same sex marriages, but marijuana is still illegal. What is the message there? It is ok to take a dick in your ass but not smoke weed?
I hear so much about morals about the legalization issue and the message we would send to our children. I just feel that there is plenty of messages we send to our children that we never ever think twice about.
I never understood how in a free country, we pick and choose just like Christians do from the bible on what we feel is politically correct at that given time.
Now what I find disturbing though is state after state is legalizing same sex marriages, but marijuana is still illegal. What is the message there? It is ok to take a dick in your ass but not smoke weed?
I hear so much about morals about the legalization issue and the message we would send to our children. I just feel that there is plenty of messages we send to our children that we never ever think twice about.
I never understood how in a free country, we pick and choose just like Christians do from the bible on what we feel is politically correct at that given time.
Electricity Grid in U.S. Penetrated By Spies
Not terrorists, but spies from Russia and China........
Cyberspies have penetrated the U.S. electrical grid and left behind software programs that could be used to disrupt the system, according to current and former national-security officials.
The spies came from China, Russia and other countries, these officials said, and were believed to be on a mission to navigate the U.S. electrical system and its controls. The intruders haven't sought to damage the power grid or other key infrastructure, but officials warned they could try during a crisis or war.
"The Chinese have attempted to map our infrastructure, such as the electrical grid," said a senior intelligence official. "So have the Russians."
The espionage appeared pervasive across the U.S. and doesn't target a particular company or region, said a former Department of Homeland Security official. "There are intrusions, and they are growing," the former official said, referring to electrical systems. "There were a lot last year."
Cyberspies have penetrated the U.S. electrical grid and left behind software programs that could be used to disrupt the system, according to current and former national-security officials.
The spies came from China, Russia and other countries, these officials said, and were believed to be on a mission to navigate the U.S. electrical system and its controls. The intruders haven't sought to damage the power grid or other key infrastructure, but officials warned they could try during a crisis or war.
"The Chinese have attempted to map our infrastructure, such as the electrical grid," said a senior intelligence official. "So have the Russians."
The espionage appeared pervasive across the U.S. and doesn't target a particular company or region, said a former Department of Homeland Security official. "There are intrusions, and they are growing," the former official said, referring to electrical systems. "There were a lot last year."
Tuesday, April 07, 2009
Communities Print Their Own Currency
A small but growing number of cash-strapped communities are printing their own money.
Borrowing from a Depression-era idea, they are aiming to help consumers make ends meet and support struggling local businesses.
The systems generally work like this: Businesses and individuals form a network to print currency. Shoppers buy it at a discount — say, 95 cents for $1 value — and spend the full value at stores that accept the currency.
Workers with dwindling wages are paying for groceries, yoga classes and fuel with Detroit Cheers, Ithaca Hours in New York, Plenty in North Carolina or BerkShares in Massachusetts.
Ed Collom, a University of Southern Maine sociologist who has studied local currencies, says they encourage people to buy locally. Merchants, hurting because customers have cut back on spending, benefit as consumers spend the local cash.
"We wanted to make new options available," says Jackie Smith of South Bend, Ind., who is working to launch a local currency. "It reinforces the message that having more control of the economy in local hands can help you cushion yourself from the blows of the marketplace."
About a dozen communities have local currencies, says Susan Witt, founder of BerkShares in the Berkshires region of western Massachusetts. She expects more to do it.
Under the BerkShares system, a buyer goes to one of 12 banks and pays $95 for $100 worth of BerkShares, which can be spent in 370 local businesses. Since its start in 2006, the system, the largest of its kind in the country, has circulated $2.3 million worth of BerkShares. In Detroit, three business owners are printing $4,500 worth of Detroit Cheers, which they are handing out to customers to spend in one of 12 shops.
During the Depression, local governments, businesses and individuals issued currency, known as scrip, to keep commerce flowing when bank closings led to a cash shortage.
By law, local money may not resemble federal bills or be promoted as legal tender of the United States, says Claudia Dickens of the Bureau of Engraving and Printing.
"We print the real thing," she says.
The IRS gets its share. When someone pays for goods or services with local money, the income to the business is taxable, says Tom Ochsenschlager of the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants. "It's not a way to avoid income taxes, or we'd all be paying in Detroit dollars," he says.
Pittsboro, N.C., is reviving the Plenty, a defunct local currency created in 2002. It is being printed in denominations of $1, $5, $20 and $50. A local bank will exchange $9 for $10 worth of Plenty.
"We're a wiped-out small town in America," says Lyle Estill, president of Piedmont Biofuels, which accepts the Plenty. "This will strengthen the local economy. ... The nice thing about the Plenty is that it can't leave here."
Borrowing from a Depression-era idea, they are aiming to help consumers make ends meet and support struggling local businesses.
The systems generally work like this: Businesses and individuals form a network to print currency. Shoppers buy it at a discount — say, 95 cents for $1 value — and spend the full value at stores that accept the currency.
Workers with dwindling wages are paying for groceries, yoga classes and fuel with Detroit Cheers, Ithaca Hours in New York, Plenty in North Carolina or BerkShares in Massachusetts.
Ed Collom, a University of Southern Maine sociologist who has studied local currencies, says they encourage people to buy locally. Merchants, hurting because customers have cut back on spending, benefit as consumers spend the local cash.
"We wanted to make new options available," says Jackie Smith of South Bend, Ind., who is working to launch a local currency. "It reinforces the message that having more control of the economy in local hands can help you cushion yourself from the blows of the marketplace."
About a dozen communities have local currencies, says Susan Witt, founder of BerkShares in the Berkshires region of western Massachusetts. She expects more to do it.
Under the BerkShares system, a buyer goes to one of 12 banks and pays $95 for $100 worth of BerkShares, which can be spent in 370 local businesses. Since its start in 2006, the system, the largest of its kind in the country, has circulated $2.3 million worth of BerkShares. In Detroit, three business owners are printing $4,500 worth of Detroit Cheers, which they are handing out to customers to spend in one of 12 shops.
During the Depression, local governments, businesses and individuals issued currency, known as scrip, to keep commerce flowing when bank closings led to a cash shortage.
By law, local money may not resemble federal bills or be promoted as legal tender of the United States, says Claudia Dickens of the Bureau of Engraving and Printing.
"We print the real thing," she says.
The IRS gets its share. When someone pays for goods or services with local money, the income to the business is taxable, says Tom Ochsenschlager of the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants. "It's not a way to avoid income taxes, or we'd all be paying in Detroit dollars," he says.
Pittsboro, N.C., is reviving the Plenty, a defunct local currency created in 2002. It is being printed in denominations of $1, $5, $20 and $50. A local bank will exchange $9 for $10 worth of Plenty.
"We're a wiped-out small town in America," says Lyle Estill, president of Piedmont Biofuels, which accepts the Plenty. "This will strengthen the local economy. ... The nice thing about the Plenty is that it can't leave here."
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