Posts from — June 2009

While everyone is probably aware of Dr. Tiller and now the murder of Stephan T. Johns at the Holocaust Memorial in Washington, many are not aware of the many other deaths associated with other rightwing terrorists.

Locally there was was the murder of two Chileans and the wounding of three more by Danny Baker in February of this year. Mr. Baker didn’t like non-whites.

Then there was the murder of two of our deputy sheriffs by Joshua Cartwright in April. Mr. Cartwright was concerned with having his guns taken away. This occurred just after the ambush of three Pittsburgh police officers.

The death toll is much higher than people are being led to believe.

The 2003 case of William Krar with a store house of weapons, including a poison gas bomb should have alerted people to the problem of ignoring the domestic terrorists, but it didn’t.

They are out there, and they are becoming active. Ignoring warnings, like the DHS report on rightwing terrorists, doesn’t make them disappear, or any of us safer.

Once again – there are no gun bills currently active in the US Congress, so there is no reason for these people to claim that the current administration is coming to get their guns. The rumors about this are irresponsible attempts at funding raising by certain groups.

The ABC reports that WHO declares swine flu pandemic

The World Health Organisation has declared its first influenza pandemic in 40 years after an emergency meeting of scientific experts on the swine flu outbreak which has hit 74 countries.

The declaration comes amid growing evidence that the virus, which originated in Mexico two months ago, is now being widely transmitted between humans in Asia and Europe as well as the Americas.

Under WHO guidelines, one key criteria for declaring a pandemic is established community spread in a country outside the first region the disease was reported.

WHO chief Margaret Chan says the pandemic is in its early stages.

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Does anyone else remember this charming bit of government logic in a December 2, 2004 CNN report:

In a surprise move, [U.S. District Judge Joyce Hens] Greene greeted the government attorneys with a series of penetrating hypothetical questions to test the limits of the administration policy on designating enemy combatants.

“If a little old lady in Switzerland gave money to a charity for an Afghan orphanage, and the money was passed to al Qaeda, could she be held as an enemy combatant?” the judge asked.

Boyle indicated that might fit within the definition of enemy combatant and stressed the need to give the executive branch of government wide latitude during a time of war.

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I have a new header that is replacing the dolphins. It features the Preamble to the Constitution of the United States. The Constitution isn’t that long, but it is rather obvious that beyond taking an oath to support and defend the Constitution, the government of the United States can’t be bothered about doing what it tells them they must do, nor not doing what they are told they cannot do.

The guys who wrote that document had very clear opinions about a number of issues.

They didn’t like corporations. As Thom Hartmann pointed out: “the real Boston Tea Party was against the Wal-Mart of the 1770s”, the British East India Company. The government of Britain handed the company rather generous tax breaks that broke the back of competitors.

Their view on banks wasn’t quite as blanket, but even the supporters saw them as a necessary evil, that was never fully trusted and they were right. Did you ever wonder why all of your credit cards seem to come from Delaware or South Dakota? Because those states don’t have usury laws which allows the banks to charge whatever they want.

The Treasury has apparently been terrified that Wall Street would go Galt if they weren’t given everything they wanted. Galt? The slimy scum went Gekko years ago and had no intention of giving up any of their perquisites just to be bailed out by the taxpayers. If bankruptcy was good enough for Thomas Jefferson and General Motors, it is good enough for Citicorp. They aren’t lending; they aren’t dealing with foreclosures; they aren’t dealing with their toxic assets – just let the FDIC deal with it. Only the government of the United States is “too big to fail”.

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Apparently a commercial fisherman was out in the Gulf to catch grouper and ended up with a Sidewinder on his longline.

The St. Petersburg Times has the story.

MADEIRA BEACH — Commercial fisherman Rodney Salomon ensnared an 8-foot-long missile in his longline while out in the Gulf of Mexico near Panama City late last month.

Salomon tied the missile to the top of his boat, the Bold Venture, and kept it there for the rest of the 14-day fishing trip. He brought the missile ashore Monday evening along with his 5,000 pounds of grouper.

Rodney figured the missile was inert, and he’d keep it as a souvenir.

Only one problem: It was live.

The AIM-9 Sidewinder is a short-range heat-seeking missile normally used in dogfighting. If the warhead had detonated it would definitely have ruined that guy’s day and it’s a long way to shore from where you fish for grouper. The test area is marked on the navigation charts, and there is no point in using inert weapons over the Gulf. If it is used on the Gulf range, it is supposed to go boom.

Well the local faux pirate thing is over, and this year they apparently did not have fireworks because of money problems. I would imagine having so many local movers and shakers needing to pay defense attorneys would really hit the fund raising.

Other pirates were a bit more successful, especially the Swedish Pirate Party which the CBC notes won entry to the European Parliament.

The Pirate Party is amazingly the third largest party in Sweden and is focused on copyright issues. This is what happens when Swedish geeks have had it with RIAA bullying, and all of the annoying things that have happened with copyright issues. They go further than I would, but that is what you have to do if you hope for a reasonable compromise.

The BBC covers the results of elections in Europe and the Middle East.

European Parliament elections: Voters steer Europe to the right

Centre-right parties have done well in elections to the European Parliament at the expense of the left.

Far-right and anti-immigration parties also made gains, as turnout figures plunged to 43% – the lowest since direct elections began 30 years ago.

The UK Labour Party, Germany’s Social Democrats and France’s Socialist Party were heading for historic defeats.

The centre-right European People’s Party (EPP) looks set to continue to hold power in the parliament.

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The ABC has the picture: Air France tail fin recovered

The Brazilian navy has recovered a large tail section of the Air France flight that crashed off Brazil’s north-east coast a week ago.

The tail fin is one of the biggest pieces of debris to have been recovered and could prove to be one of the most significant.

The aircraft’s black box flight recorders were reportedly mounted in the tail section of the plane and the discovery of the fin could help investigators narrow the underwater search for the devices.

CBS notes that as of today a total of 24 bodies have been recovered.

The US is sending some specialized equipment that is designed to locate the signals sent out by the data recorders. These probes have been used to locate them in deep water in the past. The search area can also be reduced based on the large collection of debris located and the charts of the currents in the area.

The vertical stabilizer appears to have been ripped whole off the fuselage. There are ways to determined how it came off with good confidence based on the changes of the materials where it was detached from the aircraft.

Given what is going on in this country you really should read The Grapes of Wrath. There is a great movie made from the book, but it only covers half of the book. In the actual book the story of the Joad family is interspersed with the story of the Depression. You read a chapter about the Joads, then you read about the conditions around them.

People will complain that the book is a real “downer”, but they should be aware that Steinbeck softened the truth, as he has admitted. The actual conditions were worse than what is presented in the book. Steinbeck visited the migrant camps, and decided to “improve” the conditions for fear that the truth would obscure the story of the book.

Some people are talking about seeing “green shoots” in the jobs report, because not as many jobs were lost as in previous reports since the beginning of the year. There are millions of fewer jobs to lose now and the unemployment rate is still rising. Those aren’t green shoots; they are a demonstration that Wall Street’s golden bull is actually brass, and it is beginning to show the tarnish.

I keep hearing about we can’t afford this or that, but no real numbers to back up those statements, just references to the deficit.

Let me tell about some costs of the current system.

My Mother manages some apartments, and in the last decade there have been three tenants who moved in because of “medical divorces”. A medical divorce is when parents have to get a divorce so they can get Medicaid for a sick child; they had no other choice. Two people who love each other have to separate to get the medical attention that a child needs. That is a real cost of the current system.

Of course some people pay the ultimate price for our health care system. Jim Capozzola and Melanie Mattson are just two of them. Two intelligent, witty people who died because they could not afford the health care they needed.

How many more families must be broken up, how many more people must die, before the United States decides to provide the same access to health care as the rest of the developed world? Are the profits of insurance companies really more important than the lives of people?

Single-payer is the answer, and everyone with a brain and a heart knows it.

McClatchy says that Lebanese elections could shift balance of power, and the BBC reports that Lebanese vote in key parliamentary election.

All we have heard in the run up to this election is the neocon drumbeat that Hezbollah is going to control Lebanon and sell it to Iran. Excuse me, but Lebanon has a 128 seat parliament and Hezbollah has 14 seats, which it is expected to retain.

The government of Lebanon is allocated to the various religious sects, with the President always a Christian, and the Prime Minister a Sunni Muslim. Hezbollah represents Shi’ia Muslims, which is why they can’t get more than 14 seats.

The one thing that won’t happen, no matter who wins the election, is a census. If there is a census, there is no way of avoiding the reality that the largest religious sect in Lebanon are the Shi’ia Muslims, who would be entitled in finally getting a real voice in the government of their country.

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The BBC reported that Bodies ‘found’ from missing plane

“We confirm the recovery from the water of debris and bodies from the Air France plane,” Col Amaral said at a news conference in the northern city of Recife.

He later added that two male bodies had been found, as well as objects linked to passengers known to be on the flight, including a suitcase with a plane ticket and a backpack with a computer inside.

The earlier report of finding wreckage had to be withdrawn when it was identified as probable trash from passing ships.

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The Miami Herald writes about the wonderful world of Florida’s privatized services: Prison vendor sues state over secret deal

The lawsuit was filed by MHM Correctional Services, which wants to extend its 2 ½ year contract to provide mental health care to more than 15,000 inmates in a dozen South Florida prisons.

In an effort to save money, the state privatized prison health care several years ago, but a legislative watchdog agency said in a report last January that the change has yielded “mixed results.”

The Department of Corrections wants to fire MHM and replace it with a rival, Correctional Medical Services of St. Louis, even though CMS would charge the state $5.5 million more for the same service over a five-year period.
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This is the 65^th anniversary of the D-Day landings on the beaches of Normandy, the last major step in the ending of World War II in Europe.

The BBC, as always, has in depth coverage with an animated map of the landings, three panoramic views of important sites, and a Q&A: D-Day piece covering major points.

The CBC covers the participation of Canadian forces, as well as the general history.

Even MSNBC managed to provide some coverage.

There was a lot of fighting left to do, but the circle was finally closing, with pressure coming from the West, as well as the Soviets in the East, and the Allied armies in Italy.