Archive for April, 2005
Bob Morris @ Apr 30th 2005 07:59 - Category: Unfiled ;
ANSWER and National Council of Arab Americans sue
New York City’s free speech battle and its national impact;
City’s attempt to stealthily enact new regulations restricting protest exposed.
In New York, the City is now trying a new tactic - they are attempting to take away the very ground on which we stand to voice our opinions when we come together in mass assembly. They are trying to take away what is traditionally a public forum for free speech activities - Central Park. The attempt to banish mass assembly protest from Manhattan and exile it into the outer boroughs of New York is a prototype for what is being attempted in cities throughout the country. If they can succeed in New York City, a historic center for the progressive and union movement, the government and Corporate America feel they will be able to succeed elsewhere.
So, let’s stop them!
The National Council of Arab Americans and the A.N.S.W.E.R. Coalition are currently in Federal District Court with a lawsuit brought by the Partnership for Civil Justice and the National Lawyers Guild Mass Defense Committee to stop the city in its tracks and protect free speech rights.
The Central Park litigation, the Complaint and Memorandum of Law, are available at www.JusticeOnline.org, the website of our attorneys at the Partnership for Civil Justice.
Bob Morris @ Apr 30th 2005 07:57 - Category: Unfiled ;
Bob Morris @ Apr 30th 2005 07:57 - Category: Unfiled ;
Premier Silvio Berlusconi indicated he would speak to US President George W. Bush about the death of an Italian intelligence agent in Iraq, reports said Saturday, a day after the Italian government announced it was not signing off on a US reconstruction of events in the killing.
Bob Morris @ Apr 30th 2005 07:56 - Category: Unfiled ;
Scientists using deep-sea diving robots have found the heat exchange between Earth and space is seriously out of balance - a “smoking gun” discovery that allegedly validates forecasts of global warming.
The NASA scientists believe the findings confirm that computer models of climate change are on target and global temperatures will rise 0.6C this century, even if greenhouse gases were capped tomorrow.
Global warming has now been independently discovered and validated by hundreds, if not thousands, of researchers.
Bob Morris @ Apr 29th 2005 08:10 - Category: Unfiled ;
Unborn baby ornament - US troop model
Protect our troops - from the womb to the war. What if the fetus you were going to abort would grow up to be a soldier bringing democracy to a godless dictatorship?
Show that you support the “culture of life” by buying and proudly displaying one of these patriotic unborn Americans.
Available from Miss Poppy “Spend your true Christian dollars at Miss Poppy where even your money is saved.”
How could I make this up?
Here’s another headline I couldn’t make up…
Incoming cloud forces Bush into safe bunker
Bob Morris @ Apr 29th 2005 08:05 - Category: Unfiled ;
Bob Morris @ Apr 29th 2005 08:05 - Category: Unfiled ;
CPC, KMT reportedly to end hostilities
The Communist Party of China (CPC) and the Kuomintang (KMT) Party, whose leader Lian Chan has just arrived in Beijing today in a historial visit, are reportedly to end decades of hostilities at a meeting between their leaders on Friday, Reuters reported.
China has been making major moves these past few weeks. They oppose Japan wanting to be a permanent member of the UN Security Council and have forced the Japanese P.M. to apologize for wartime agression. Plus the U.S. badly needs China to devalue their currency and not peg it to the dollar. These may be just the opening moves from a resurgent China.
Bob Morris @ Apr 29th 2005 08:02 - Category: Unfiled ;
Confidential letter reveals Ratzinger ordered bishops to keep allegations secret.
Bob Morris @ Apr 29th 2005 08:01 - Category: Unfiled ;
Telephone callers at Venezuela’s oil ministry are getting the low-down on the country’s oil strategy direct from President Hugo Chavez.
“What is the reason for the imperialist aggression against our country? Venezuela is the world’s top oil reserve and the world’s oil is running out,” the short, repeated recording of a recent Chavez speech tells phoners as their call is put on hold.
Bob Morris @ Apr 29th 2005 07:59 - Category: Unfiled ;
Schwarzenegger says group’s patrols against illegal immigrants have been effective. One critic calls remarks ‘nothing short of base racism.’
Rather than attempt to revive his collapsing governorship, Arnold instead, attacks the powerless.
Bob Morris @ Apr 28th 2005 08:46 - Category: Unfiled ;
As reliably reported in multiple mainstream newspapers
Visitors to parks in the German city of Hamburg were warned yesterday to watch out for exploding toads.
Several thousand have so far mysteriously and spontaneously blown up, sending entrails and body parts over a wide area.
Bob Morris @ Apr 28th 2005 08:44 - Category: Unfiled ;
From Sue, who is a CPA.
How it works (or doesn’t work):
The Rigas family returns $1.5 billion (95% of its assets) to Adelphia. This means they keep 5% or roughly $79 million. Perhaps they need this money for attorneys fees and court costs, and side lawsuits we haven’t heard about. Or maybe they get to keep the paltry $79 million, poor things. (sniff)
Adelphia gets the $1.5 billion, which is added to the bankruptcy pot. Debts are restructured and partially satisfied. At the end of bankruptcy, the company gives $715 million to compensate its shareholder victims.
Let’s see … $79 million to one family … versus $715 million to thousands of shareholders and their class-action attorneys. Not bad for a Rigas family member’s day’s work.
Bob Morris @ Apr 28th 2005 08:42 - Category: Unfiled ;
Schwarzenegger has now broken virtually all his campaign pledges, a key member of his administration, Dick Riordan, is resigning, and the wheels are falling off. Once the Hollywood glitz bully boy exterior fell apart, well, there’s just not much there. He appears to have little actual interest in politics and no political skills at all beyond winning through intimidation. And that ploy isn’t working any more.
Gov. relents on sped-up remapping
Schwarzenegger drops a demand that political districts be redrawn by next year.
Deal on cheaper medicines unravels. Senate panel rejects governor’s plan
Critics said the plan would have relied on drug companies to voluntarily discount prices for low-income people without penalizing firms that refused.
After reneging on his promise to schools, Schwarzenegger’s marks slip
Riordan quitting as Education Secretary
Bob Morris @ Apr 28th 2005 08:38 - Category: Unfiled ;
Hunter telephoned me on Feb. 19, the night before his death. He sounded scared. It wasn’t always easy to understand what he said, particularly over the phone, he mumbled, yet when there was something he really wanted you to understand, you did. He’d been working on a story about the World Trade Center attacks and had stumbled across what he felt was hard evidence showing the towers had been brought down not by the airplanes that flew into them but by explosive charges set off in their foundations. Now he thought someone was out to stop him publishing it: “They’re gonna make it look like suicide,” he said. “I know how these bastards think . . .”
Child sex rings and the murder of Hunter S Thompson.
Bob Morris @ Apr 28th 2005 08:36 - Category: Unfiled ;
It’s this simple: the problem is NOT a dearth of smart women bloggers… or talented minority bloggers. There are plenty of them.
The problem (if you agree there is one) is that the MSM (mainstream media) primarily points to A-list white male bloggers when they’re talking about the blogosphere. Why? It’s an unconscious bias. It’s what MSM reporters (who tend to be white males) “see” when they scan the blogosphere.
Bob Morris @ Apr 27th 2005 08:13 - Category: Unfiled ;
There are more than 2.1 million US citizens in jail - more than in any other country, the Bureau of Justice Statistics says.
US: 726 people per 100,000
UK: 142
China: 118
France: 91
Japan: 58
Nigeria: 31
12.6% of black males in their late 20s are in prison, compared to 3.6% of Hispanics and about 1.7% of whites.
All this while the crime rate in the U.S. has been dropping.
Bob Morris @ Apr 27th 2005 08:10 - Category: Unfiled ;
Elaine Brown, the only woman to lead the Black Panther Party, is running for Mayor of Brunswick, Georgia, as a Green.
“I’m trying to win this seat to create a base of economic power for Brunswick’s majority black and poor population through redistribution of the massive revenues of the city’s powerful port”
“At the top of my agenda is economic and political power for the black residents of Brunswick, and forestalling a development plan that would displace Brunswick’s black population”
Thanks to Lisa of Los Angeles Greens for the tip who also reports they just hosted a talk by Rex Wyler, co-founder of Greenpeace.
Rex told really good stories about little boats up against big boats and talked about how you have to create stories so compelling the press can’t ignore you, which Greenpeace did, of course.
They have two KPFK interviews with Wyler online, 15 min. each.
Bob Morris @ Apr 27th 2005 08:06 - Category: Unfiled ;
From Rainforest Action Network, who won the victory
After months of grassroots activism, including thousands of letters written, hundreds of Chase and Bank One branches visited across the country, and the largest Global Finance Campaign Day of Action in years, JPMorgan Chase has adopted a comprehensive environmental policy that takes significant steps forward on climate change, forest protection, and indigenous rights.
The adoption of this policy represents progress in transforming the financial power of banks into real structural changes in the marketplace on issues like climate change.
Thus, one of the largest banks in the world is now actively working to end global warming while the oil profiteers in D.C. continue to deny eveything.
Bob Morris @ Apr 27th 2005 08:04 - Category: Unfiled ;
From an LA Times article on detectives tracking down those who make hard core kiddie porn
All but one of the offenders they have arrested in the last four years was a hard-core Trekkie.
Det. Constable Warren Bulmer slips on a Klingon sash and shield they confiscated in a recent raid. “It has something to do with a fantasy world where mutants and monsters have power and where the usual rules don’t apply,” Bulmer reflects. “But beyond that, I can’t really explain it.”
Bob Morris @ Apr 27th 2005 08:00 - Category: Unfiled ;
Everyone, and mean everyone, is saying CounterSpy is currently the best anti spyware program. $19.95 a year.
Seasoned experts like the pros at Windows Secrets recommended it recently in their newsletter. They also advise running multiple programs, not just one. The notebook this blog lives on runs CounterSpy, the highly regarded and free Microsoft anti spyware program, as well as Zone Alarm Pro.
That’s right, I run three programs. And whenever I install new software I get popup screens everywhere asking if I really want to install it because it might be a new perilous program. Sigh. Actually, the Microsoft program does identify most known software installs as legit and just gives an informational message, something that ZoneAlarm is not as good at.
Still, as one who almost had to reformat a computer after malware took out access to the Internet, yes, you really do need to run such programs.
Bob Morris @ Apr 27th 2005 07:51 - Category: Podcasts ;
San Francisco’s 1550 KYCY, an AM station, is becoming KYOURadio and will be the first podcast-based station in the world. The Infinity Broadcasting station is inviting podcasters to submit content for broadcasting.
The station plans to get all its programming from podcasts. The station will be broadcast in the San Francisco area on 1550 KYCY-AM, and streamed worldwide via KYOURADIO.COM.
“We envision KYOURADIO as a station for the people. We think you have something to say and we want to hear it,” notes the announcement at the site. “You’re out there creating, riffing, ranting and raving and Infinity is going to give voice to your vision.”
Bob Morris @ Apr 26th 2005 07:45 - Category: Unfiled ;
U.S. prison population soars in 2003, ‘04
While the crime rate has fallen over the past decade, the number of people in prison and jail is outpacing the number of inmates released.
Politicians get elected by screaming “let’s git tough on crime.” Plus there’s big money to be made in building and maintaining prisons - and let’s not forget that construction is notorious for being a swell way to make clean money vanish and dirty money get laundered. That’s at least one reason politicians are always howling for big construction projects to happen.
The convicts. Oh yeah, them. Well, let’s pass some barbaric sentencing laws, then lock them up and keep them there. We got a sweet little gravy train going on, and we need lots of convicts to keep it happening.
The prison-industrial system is rotten to the core, corrupt too.
Bob Morris @ Apr 26th 2005 07:43 - Category: Unfiled ;
That’s what Ike first called it.
The penultimate draft of the address in which Republican President of the United States (and former General of the Army) Dwight D. Eisenhower coined the term referred to the military-industrial-congressional complex, but it is said that Eisenhower chose to strike the word congressional in order to avoid offending members of legislative branch of the federal government.
“In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.”
Bob Morris @ Apr 26th 2005 07:42 - Category: Unfiled ;
On Adam Curry’s Daily Source Code podcast a few days back, Curry, a political conservative who rarely mentions politics, he said he grew up in the States where police and military are respected and has found the opposite to be true in the ‘mostly socialist’ European countries that he’s lived in for years. He says the military and police in these countries are seen as being part of the war machine and mistrusted. My reaction upon hearing this was, I didn’t know such wondrous countries existed.
Bob Morris @ Apr 26th 2005 07:41 - Category: Unfiled ;
US Teenagers abuse prescription drugs, OTC medications to get high
18 percent of teenagers abused Vicodin and 10 percent OxyContin - both are prescription painkillers. 10 percent tried the prescription stimulants Ritalin or Adderall without a doctor’s prescription. 9 percent of the teens abused OTC cough medications containing the active component dextromethorphan solely to get high.
Um, so why is so much OxyContin and Ritalin making it onto the black market? Must have fallen off the back of a truck or something.
Taking cough medicine to get high has been around since at least the 60’s, as is taking prescription drugs - back then it was amphetamines and barbituates - without a prescription. These drug alerts pop up every few years in the mainstream media as they “discover” a new menace that never went away in the first place.
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