Category: News

Experts say eruption of Mount Saint Helens is imminent. Terrorism has not been ruled out.

August 25, 2004

Google News headlines are getting a bit strange:

Paraguay mourns shop fire victims as over 300 people are dead in a supermarket fire yesterday. BBC World News was reporting last night in an interview with the British ambassador to Paraguay that the market locked the doors when the explosions began. This was apparently due to people looting on a large scale. However, as of last night, it was just conjecture. Today, it seems, it’s not conjecture any longer. Eyewitnesses state that the store did indeed bar and lock the doors. The owners of the building have been detained for questioning but, they deny the allegations.

Apparently LP gas canisters in a kitchen area exploded setting off a chain-reaction of other explosions. This led to the blaze and the eventual collapse of the floor into the parking garage.

Minnesota high school under lockdown; 1 in custody after someone took a gun into the school.

See? They’re not all in Flint.

“…we are so hungry we are eating people.”

A UK judge questions imbalance in father’s rights and Metafilter doesn’t, apparently, like it. “Yeah, yeah men get the shaft. Bla, bla, bla…. can we please move on.” Sadly, this generally sums up society’s view as well.

What is the answer? Let me say it, yet again.

1. A pill for men
2. Abolish “no-fault” divorce
3. Eliminate family court “guidelines” and enact standardized federal family court laws
4. Parents held equally accountable

1. A pill for men: It’s long overdue time to establish a means for birth control for men besides condoms, a vasectomy or, “just keep your pants on.” We hold women in no similar contempt.

2. Abolish “no-fault” divorce: Divorce rates rose 50% almost instantly when states adopted “no-fault” divorce standards. 40 of the 50 states don’t require both parties consent. Marriage isn’t a trap for domestic slave women anymore, it’s become one for men… only now it’s women who are left with the escape hatch. It plainly and simply would lower divorce rates as men and women will be judged equally by their actions in marriage. The American male is the most undervalued asset in our economy right now. There is virtually no incentive to find and keep a good one. Especially as long as unscrupulous women can exploit a system designed to reward them.

3. Eliminate family court “guidelines” and enact standardized federal family court laws: Currently, there is no such animal as “family law”. There are only guidelines. Each state has some laws that mainly govern parental conduct and support/visitation enforcement. However, within each state, the counties are responsible for trials and executing what little laws there are. That leaves 3086 independent jurisdictions, with multiple courts, making decisions about families independently… good decision and bad decisions alike. It’s time to take randomness and subjectivity out of the hands of the judges, state enforcement agencies, friends of the courts and family Independence agencies. There must be a way to author standard family laws that can still leave room for judicial interpretation and deviation in decision-making when needed. The focus has been too long upon making divorce easier for women. It needs to be focused upon making it harder for parents to get a divorce and easier for children when they do get a divorce.

4. Parents held equally accountable: Parental roles have changed irreversibly, women are no longer completely financially dependent upon men. Just as men are no longer completely dependent upon women as caregivers. It’s time for lawyers, friends of the court, family independence agencies and particularly judges to stop automatically “awarding” child custody to females by default. This is slowly changing, still the male is always listed as “Defendant” on court proceedings, even if he is the custodial parent. That is exactly the kind of thinking that must change. However, since financial matters are almost always top priority in these courts, then reform should move there next. For example, it’s long overdue time force to mothers to pay back state welfare “grants” using the same guidelines as fathers who must pay child support to the prospective states. Additionally, mothers who earn more money than fathers should receive a proportionate amount of support. Support guidelines are, quite frankly appallingly out of date, inaccurate, and discriminatory. To compound matters, judicial interpretation of those guidelines is the final bit of randomness and subjectivity that leads to complete disaster time and again in family court. Simply put, parental obligation does not end with financial duties with men, it’s due time that it is expected of women too.

Finally, women who defy court rulings should be jailed as quickly as men, pure and simple. Currently, family court is the only court under the constitution where a person can be arrested, charged, convicted, sentenced and jailed without an attorney present at any point of the process. How is that for discrimination?

Maestro is a publicly available version of the software used by scientists to plan daily activities for the 2004 Mars Exploration Rover missions.

With Maestro, you can view pictures taken by the rovers Spirit and Opportunity. You can also select driving destinations and points of interest where you want to take your own pictures.

It is not surprising that the U.S. has mad cow disease given our flaunting of World Health Organization recommendations.[1] What is surprising, however, is that we actually found a case given the inadequacy of our surveillance program, a level of testing that Nobel laureate Stanley Prusiner, probably the world’s leading expert on these diseases, calls simply “appalling.”[2] Europe and Japan follow World Health Organization guidelines[3] and test every downer cow for mad cow disease[4]; the U.S. has tested less than 2% of downers over the last decade.[5] Most of the U.S. downer cows, too sick or injured to even walk, end up on our dinner plates.[6]

Read on:

U.S. says mad cow animal imported from Canada

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. Agriculture Department says it believes the dairy cow infected with mad cow disease was imported from Canada in 2001.

The USDA said meat linked to the infected cow was sold in four western states — Washington, Oregon, California and Nevada

Origin of the BSE infection aside, they FDA has some real questions to answer. As we watch the cattle industry in this country collapse, it’s doubtful that they will be able to deflect blame by pointing to Canada but, nothing suprises me anymore.

Regardless, this has just barely begun. Perhaps we should get acquainted with Canadian and Mexican beef.

Why is everyone so excited about the Medicare shell game?

Again, the very poorest of the poor are forced to abandon their better Medicaid benefits, county administered prescription gap benefits, as well as other supplemental prescription benefits and go to Medicaid… for drugs they’ll never be able to afford.

Meanwhile, the drug companies benefit a huge amount… naturally. We won’t feel the impact of this particlar brand of foolishness for a while yet.

Hopefully many of the older people will be frozen dead stiff in their chairs for non-payment of their ever rising utilities. Or, perhaps they’ll be scared or, shot to death by BATF agents for bringing in illegal constipation medicine from Mexico?

Today, is World AIDS Day, in case you weren’t aware of that. It’s not difficult to imagine that people are not aware of World AIDS Day as it seems many people are barely aware of AIDS at all. However, the problem seems to have less to do with awareness and more to do with denial.
According to a recent study, one of three homosexuals have not been tested for HIV. Thank that is alarming? Compare that to six out ot ten for heterosexuals.

This is becoming more of an epidemic, not just in China and Africa, in this country…. right here. AIDS has become the leading killer of African American people from 18-45. It’s second among hispanics, soon to become number one. Many people are suffering dying without ever having been diagnosed with AIDS. Just like they are in Africa and Asia…

Yet, for some reason, we feel that AIDS is not as significant as a problem as it once was. People are actually comfortable with the belief that AIDS is no longer a serious problem in this country. The fact of the matter is that it’s not only getting worse, the people in power have decided that it’s not an epidemic here. Despite demographic data that suggest a new epidemic, right here in this country.

Finally, A Day Without Blogs or, Link and Think made USATODAY.com. Nice.

What? You mean it isn’t a place to buy a Wall? She’s consistently provocative, intelligent and dead on relevant. I could say it any better myself.

I mean crazy.

Gun-wielding cops conduct drug sweep at school. Watch the video from Stratford High School in Goose Creek, South Carolina. You’ll see white administrators justifying their “shock and awe” tactics of using armed white police officers against black school kids. All in the name of justice. Or, are they merely performing their brand of vocational training by preparing them for their upcoming prison sentences?

By equipping schools with armed security guards, dogs, metal detectors, random searches and seizures, and holding cells they are preparing them for their life of profiling and readying them for their inevitable incarcerations.

Good kids, your good kids included.

ShortWoman’s article Melting Money does a superb job of explaining the meaning, impact, and future ramifications of the latest adventures in high-finance antics of the mutual fund market. Again we have to ask, where are ethics? Or, does ethics only count, like remorse, when you get caught?

At first the story read: House building on Capitol Hill evacuated as armed gunman rushes past security checkpoints.

But, then news agencies quickly began changing the headlines to read: Toy gun shuts down U.S. House office building.

And now finally, we have: Hour long ordeal starts with staffers entering with Halloween costume.

They called in SWAT teams, they locked down the building, the later evacuated the building, they shut down the roads, hell… they shut down the government. Because of a toy gun on the day before Halloween. Terrorism awareness gone wild…

I will propose the Howdy Doody Law that will make it an act of terrorism to posses a simulated firearm, even on Halloween. Political action groups and committees will form shortly. I’ll keep you posted

Great gods, it just occurred ot me that the plastic meat cleaver that is a part of my youngest son’s Grim Reaper costume (he lost the scythe he had) could probably incur an ATF raid as he’s trick-or-treating tomorrow. I’d better turn him in to the Dept. Of Homeland Security now.

Boy, 9, Arrested For Having Toy Gun

…The boy’s mother, Tamyka Saunders said her son told police the gun was a toy. An officer aimed his gun at the boy’s head, ordered him to the ground, handcuffed him and arrested him on a charge of juvenile delinquency by reason of inducing panic, according to the police report.

Saunders was charged with obstructing official business and resisting arrest after she pleaded with police not to arrest her son and instead give him a warning, according to the report…

“Toy guns don’t kill people! People with real guns…” ah… no wait… “People should have the right to carry toy guns!” ummm… hang on a sec… “It is the cheaply made and easily found toy guns on the streets” oooops… nope… er, “K-ame-apart and Wall-to-Wallmart should stop selling toy guns to,” oh… ummmm… “Large department stores should stop selling the amunition for toy guns” Crap! that won’t work either…

Gimmie a second, I’ll find the rationale that will explain pointing a real gun at the head of a 9 year old boy who is playing with a toy one. I’ll get back to you on this one. Anyway, good thing he didn’t have one of those new toy “Assault” guns that shoots the “Cop Killer” foam rubber darts, that would have gotten him and his mother shot. I guess it really could have been worse, he could have been playing with a box cutter.
(more…)

This guy is arguably, the most hated person in Chicago right now.

Teen faces expulsion and felony charges for loaning girlfriend medicine.

Boyfriend and girlfriend, 15 Brandon Kizi and Andra Ferguson both suffer from asthma, both attend Caney Creek High School and both use the same asthma medicine. Andra began to suffer an asthma attack:

“I couldn’t breathe, and I was just very short of breath,” recalled Andra. “My chest was tightened up and it was hurting.”

Brandon described the incident. “Her face was turning a little reddish-pink and she looked pale, as far as I could see. I loaned her my inhaler. I walked her to the nurse’s office and loaned her my inhaler.”

The school nurse, instead of calling 9-1-1 or, an ambulance, called the police… as she is mandated to do by state zero-tolerance drug enforcement laws. Despite the fact that neither of the young people’s parents think anything wrong has been done. Despite the fact that the young man’s “dangerous drugs” could have saved the young woman’s life, he still faces mandatory expulsion, and criminal charges in juvenile court.

Principal Greg Poole: “It’s hard, it’s difficult. We certainly don’t look forward to expelling any kid. But then you have to consider a kid takes the medication and has an allergic reaction, and then we have to deal with that issue. So, yes, there is no discretion at this stage.”

Which is probably a good thing in this case. Since it is obvious that principal Poole, the school nurse or, the arresting officers are capable of discression, since they all decided to allow “the system” to take decision from their hands and eliminate themselves from any culpability, responsibility, or liability. Instead, they have elected to allow the system make the decision to punish true heroics in action. Therefore, protecting themselves by sacrificing a young man’s future.

Which, in my humble opinion, is true cowardice in action.

Tommy Chong was sentenced to 9 months in federal prison, a $20,000.00 fine and forfeiture of $103,000.00 in his business accounts as well as his domains www.chongglass.com and www.tommychong.com. The article states that he will likely serve out his time within five weeks at a prison near his home in Pacific Palisades, California. The actor asked for community service by using his celebrity for anti-drug awareness. The federal judge didn’t agree.

In case you’ve forgotten, Tommy Chongs arrest was the orgasmic climax in an Ashcroftian justice fantasy know as “Operation Pipe Dreams.” The sweep targeted businesses, particularly websites known to sell drug paraphernalia and was executed from Pittsburgh to Phoenix to southern California.

While other countries relax and eliminate their drug laws, seeing no benefit in persecuting their citizens any longer, the US has made dramatic increases and innovations in criminalizing casual drug use even further. Under Ashcroft, the DEA thugs have exploited fear by linking drug use to terrorism, provided even stiffer penalties to incarcerate even more citizens for casual use and are discovering new and exciting ways to force us all to become DEA agents by having children turn against parents and parents turn against children by becoming informants.

“People selling drug paraphernalia are in essence no different than drug dealers,” said John Brown, acting DEA chief. “They are as much a part of drug trafficking as silencers are a part of criminal homicide.”

I wonder if there are any plans to raid Walmarts across the country? Because the materials for making silencers as well as drug paraphernalia are widely available there, as well. Talk about a huge DEA win, imagine them seizing Walmart’s assets? With that kind of money backing their “The War On America,” we’ll soon become supplicant wards of Ashcroft’s frightening totalitarian state. Well, I’m sure he will get us there, one small victory at a time.

Voice of phone messages silenced. Jane Barbe’s voice is possibly one of the most recognizable voices in the world. She is the recorded voice of most of the intercept recordings. She recorded time, temperature, weather, and many announcements and greetings (listen – 1.3 MB Realaudio sample). It’s quite possible that she was the personification of “Ma Bell” or, at least she was in the last 40 years. Before that, someone elses mother actually handled things.