The Chicago Stink
Four Bangladeshi infants have appeared in court in their parents' arms accused of looting and causing criminal damage.
The four - whose ages range from three months to two years - were released on bail after a brief hearing.
The magistrate in the southern city of Chittagong said the case did not appear to be genuine - but the truth would emerge in a police report.
Anyone can file criminal cases in Bangladesh, and the procedure is frequently used to harass people.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/4308597.stm
Two Turkish prison inmates who drilled a nine-centimetre (3.6-inch) aperture between their cells enabling them to have sexual relations in prison that produced a child, received four-month sentences for damaging public property.
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=1516&ncid=1516&e=11&u=/afp/20050227/od_afp/turkeyprisonjusticeoffbeat_050227154210
[I wonder what having a rado emitting cell phone strapped to you ear all day does for you.]
A colony of 38 water voles in Norfolk have been seriously affected by hi-tech radio collars fitted to help monitor their movements, a study has found.
The Wildlife Conservation Research Unit at Oxford has been studying the size of populations in Norfolk and Wiltshire.
Dr Tom Moorhouse and Professor David Macdonald noticed a 48% decline in females born at the Norfolk site.
The study found that the shift in the sex ratio could be caused by the stress of wearing the collars.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/norfolk/4302051.stm
[Evil on the evening news.]
Man has always tinkered with the thought, "What if?"
What if science could create what science fiction writers could only imagine? A chimera: a creature that's part beast, part man.
Well, as CBS News Correspondent Byron Pitts reports, here it is. Look into the eyes of an animal that's part sheep, part human.
...
"It's time to say to the scientist and the corporations doing this research, 'You know you don't have a blank check to do whatever you want to the human race.'
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2005/02/24/eveningnews/main676424.shtml
[People are up in arms and want to raise $32M for a bad tv show. How about raising some money for something that is actualy good and/or useful.]
UPN's decision to cancel "Star Trek: Enterprise" at season's end has some Trekkies hot under their pointy ears.
So much so, they're trying to raise to raise $32 million to keep the show going.
http://www.nydailynews.com/entertainment/story/281879p-241553c.html
[If it was toxic, I bet they wouldn’t tell you anyway.]
Hundreds of people reported a mysterious and unpleasant odor in the air throughout Chicago Sunday. Calls came from the South Side to the North Side of Chicago and beyond.
http://abclocal.go.com/wls/news/022705_ns_strange_smell.html
[Too bad the Americans can’t get into space anymore. Going to be kind of hard to dominate outer space and keep it frome veryone else if we can’t get there ourselves.]
Wealthy Chinese citizens may soon embark on private space flights, with the first group of adventurous millionaires starting astronaut training as early as May, state media reported Monday.
The possibility of following in the footsteps of Yang Liwei, who became China's first man in space in 2003, has opened up with the entry of US tour operator Space Adventures into the Chinese market, the Beijing News said.
http://www.spacedaily.com/2005/050228060737.vytckl0s.html
[This is interesting. It doesn’t literally make things look invisible, just very very small.]
Alú and Engheta investigated experimental plasmonic covers that incorporated metals, such as gold and silver, to hide visible light.
When light strikes a metallic material, waves of electrons, called plasmons, are generated. The engineers found that when the frequency of the light striking the material matched the frequency of the plasmons, the two frequencies act to cancel each other out.
Under such conditions, the metallic object scattered only negligible amounts of light.
The researchers' studies show that spherical and cylindrical objects coated with plasmonic shielding material produce very little light scattering. These objects, when hit by the right wavelength of light, were seen to become so small that they were almost invisible.
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2005/02/0228_050228_invisibility.html
[What happens if a in the way of the microwave ray gun?]
The idea of a powerful ray gun has been a staple of science-fiction writing for decades. But a "weapon" that shoots invisible beams of energy could be making its way into law-enforcement hands soon.
The technology isn't exactly something that would replace a police officer's handgun. In fact, the system being developed by Eureka Aerospace in Pasadena, Calif., couldn't even be crammed into a standard pistol holster.
http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/FutureTech/story?id=538452&page=1
[Howeve,r we will probably have 10 new drugs to treat impotence.]
The world may run out of effective antibiotics by the end of this decade and faces a gap of at least five years before new drugs can be developed to combat superbugs, according to one of the worldís most influential scientists.
http://www.rense.com/general63/surg.htm
[Remember when they had those stupid torture game shows on American TV briefly? LIke a guy would be getting hit in the face with a fire hose and Andre Agassi or someone would ask him what was the capital of Zimbabwe or something like that? And there were two shows on different networks at the same time, and both of them sucked, and then both of them randomly disappeared after a few episodes?
And then next thing you we had these reports of torture from Guantanamo bay and Iraq and Afghanistan.
Coincidence?]
Earlier this year, in an anonymous building in east London, Channel 4 set up its latest reality show house. This one did not require a hot tub or chickens, but the spirit of the original, Orwellian, Big Brother hovered around it. No-one was voted out, but three of its seven voluntary inhabitants left before the 48-hour shoot was over.
In that time, the volunteers, all men, were, to varying degrees, lightly tortured: stripped, slapped, subjected to extremes of temperature, screamed at, touched, blindfolded, shackled, forced to soil themselves, deprived of food, disoriented, isolated, intimidated, humiliated, threatened, deprived of sleep, and then put through it all again.
The first to leave was taken out after 10 hours, suffering stress and hypothermia. The last, one of the first to vomit, finally asked to be let out because he couldn't take what was being done to him anymore. Earlier, he had become so distracted he'd failed to notice his handcuffs had cut off the blood to his hands. Interviewed later, he seemed shocked numb.
What to make of The Guantanamo Guidebook? This one-off, which recreates inside a Hackney warehouse procedures used at the US prison camp in Cuba, where "enemy combatants" have been detained without charge since 2002, is the centrepiece of Channel 4's week-long Torture strand.
...
Indeed, the original adverts for volunteers asked prospective entrants how "hard" they were. It unwittingly runs the risk of introducing the idea that light torture might not be so bad. But it is grim, genuinely unsettling watching, and maybe constructive. If all The Guantanamo Guidebook manages is to force us to glimpse the tip of the iceberg, then wonder more about what enormities lie beneath, it's worthwhile.
http://www.rense.com/general63/tt.htm
[I’ll tell you what’s [one thing] wrong with this picture. Everything I have read says that serial killers are almost a uniquely American phenomenon. What are the chances of getting one or possibly two on the same tv show in a short period of time? It took 20 years to get this serial killer out in the midwest, this BTK guy.]
If there were any doubts the New World Order is galloping along towards the fulfillment of the fascist dystopia warned against for so long, today's tidbits from Iyad Allawi's Iraq should dispel them entirely.
Iyad Allawi's occupational government has launched a new TV show, sort of an Iraqi version of reality television. "Terrorists in the Hands of Justice" runs several times a day in Iraq and features the confessions of beaten up "insurgents" who admit to terrible crimes, for instance serial murder.
"One man said he stalked 10 college girls who were translators for the U.S. Army, then raped and murdered them. Another said he beheaded 10 people after first practicing on animals," reports NBC News.
It is said the show is "wildly popular" but obviously this claim has to be taken with a grain of salt. Most Iraqis are desperately poor and it is fair to say many do not own televisions and even if they did much of the time there is no electricity.
http://www.rense.com/general63/tttv.htm
[I believe sneaking into the US is also illegal under US law, why isn’t the Mexican gov. doing anything about that?]
Mexico will pursue legal action against plans by a U.S. citizens' group to patrol the U.S.-Mexican border in search of illegal immigrants, the country's foreign minister said on Monday.
Luis Ernesto Derbez said he asked lawyers in Los Angeles to draw up a legal strategy to fight the Arizona-based initiative called "the MinuteMan Project" that has signed up hundreds of volunteers for border patrols.
"We are going to attack by all legal means," Derbez told a news conference. "We are presenting the reasons why we consider this action to be incorrect and illegal from the point of view not only of our government but also under U.S. law."
Derbez said he would discuss the issue with Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice when she visits Mexico on March 10.
http://www.rense.com/general63/boird.htm
Two new retroviruses - the type of virus which causes AIDS - have jumped from non-human primates to people, a new study reveals.
The study of blood samples from nearly a thousand bushmeat hunters or handlers in Cameroon showed that at least six viruses had crossed from monkeys to the people who were exposed to freshly caught bushmeat. And two of these viruses have never been seen before in humans.
The newly discovered human T-cell lymphotropic virus 3 (HTLV-3) and HTLV-4 are closely related to the known viruses, HTLV-1 and HTLV-2. These are implicated in cancers like leukaemia and can cause inflammatory or neurological diseases.
http://www.rense.com/general63/newret.htm
Human rights organizations are attempting to take accountability for the U.S. military's alleged use of torture to a place government officials have so far failed to go — the top of the chain of command.
In a case that raises significant moral as well as legal questions about the Bush administration's conduct of the war on terror, a coalition of human rights groups, aided by former military officials, is suing to pin blame for the interrogation abuses in Iraq, Afghanistan, and elsewhere at the highest level of government.
http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2005-03-01-CSM-torture_x.htm
A California high school teacher was arraigned on Monday at a Sacramento court accused of having sex with a student in a car as her two-year child was strapped into the back seat.
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=583&ncid=583&e=1&u=/nm/20050301/od_nm/odd_sex_teacher_dc
Britain is facing a massive influx of heroin because Afghanistan has produced its largest crop of opium since the overthrow of the Taliban.
Cracking the Code-...' warrior Patrick Mooney has just received a complete refund of EVERYTHING withheld from him by the federal government during 2004-- Social Security, Medicare, and all. The evidence of his success in upholding the law can be seen at www.losthorizons.com/tax/MoreVictories.htm
http://www.lewisnews.com/article.asp?ID=97584
http://www.losthorizons.com/tax/MoreVictories.htm
Pete Hendrickson claims the exact opposite is true. As the Supreme Court has always upheld, the Revenue Laws, as enacted, are entirely constitutional. Where Hendrickson scores the absolute, total victory is in emphasizing that the Federal Government, because of our Constitution, has a very limited scope of power.
This truth has always been on the books, but a great deal of suspicious and immoral activity has occurred over the years to hide this very powerful understanding. Indeed, the shock of the Great Depression and World War II provided ample opportunity for the wolves in society to debauch the law and carefully corrupt the common understanding of it within the flock-at-large. The fleecing that has gone on since that time has helped to create a lawless power that today threatens the world with extinction.
Cutting to the chase, the truth is simply this; a private sector worker's earnings are not legally subject to the federal tax on income. They never have been, and as long as we still have a Constitution, they never will be.
Why then, you ask, have you been paying income taxes on your earnings all these years? The answer is harsh, so take a deep breath before you read on.
Answer:
You have been lied to. You have been misled. You are ignorant. You are scared. You are weak.
http://www.unlearning.org/editor60.htm
The IRS has deployed an annoying, but highly instructive, delaying tactic in response to a claim for refund filed by one of my correspondents, who used a 1040X to correct a previously filed return on which he had endorsed payer-created evidence that he now understands to be erroneous. This tactic involves the sending of an “appealable disallowance of claim” notice instead of the refund, because, “you based your claim on your view that wages and salaries do not constitute taxable income” . The notice goes on to declare that ‘view’ to be erroneous, and therefore not a legitimate basis for a claim. (Click here to view the notice.)
The notice, which bears the designation of LTR 105C, is the proper type used for those claim disallowances as are provided for by law, such as disallowing a refund claimed after the expiration of the statute of limitations. When legitimate, such notices will contain some citation of the statute(s) or regulation(s) pertinent to their subject. The one being used in this cheap little misdirection ploy has none. This may be due to the fact that there IS no statutory or regulatory authority for a “disallowance” of an overpayment refund of the sort to which this notice pretends. There is a structure for reducing (disallowing) all or part of a timely-claimed refund, but only by diverting it to one or more of four specific alternatives: The satisfaction of an outstanding internal revenue tax liability arising elsewhere (26 USC 6402(a)); the satisfaction of a court-ordered obligation of past-due child support (26 USC 6402 (c)); the satisfaction of a “past-due legally enforceable debt” to a federal agency (26 USC 6402(d)); or the satisfaction of a “past-due, legally enforceable State income tax obligation” (26 USC 6402(e)). That’s it. There is no authority provided under the law for the IRS, or anybody else, to simply decide that a timely refund claim lacks merit; is improperly based; or is for any other reason “disallowed”.
http://www.losthorizons.com/tax/TheEmpireWhiffsBack.htm
An interagency criminal task force investigating former lobbyist Jack Abramoff has subpoenaed a Republican group founded by Interior Secretary Gale Norton and now run by her former aides, sources with knowledge of the investigation say.
The subpoena was issued to the Council of Republicans for Environmental Advocacy (CREA), a nonprofit group created in 1997 by Norton and Grover Norquist, president of Americans for Tax Reform, and long denounced by environmental organizations as a front group for industry interests.
http://www.thehill.com/thehill/export/TheHill/News/Frontpage/030105/DOJ.html
[So this guy was giving off enough radiation to set off a radiation detector just by driving by it. What was happening tot he person sittin gnext to him in the car?]
A man who had recently received radiation treatment for a medical condition set off the radiological alarm of a Rancho Santa Fe fire engine Tuesday and ended up being pulled over by police in Escondido as a result.
The incident occurred shortly after 4 p.m. Tuesday when Escondido police received a call that a car which had set off the fire engine's alarm was headed toward Escondido, authorities said.
http://www.nctimes.com/articles/2005/03/02/news/inland/escondido/23_49_453_1_05.txt
The girlfriend of the man who fatally shot aspiring actress Nicole duFresne on the Lower East Side said she initiated the attack, in part because she was mad that duFresne and her fiance looked happy, according to a statement released yesterday.
"The next person I see, I'm going to just hit them," Ashley Evans, 18, said she told the group of seven who she was on the prowl with Jan. 27, after the boys commented on how she and 14-year-old Tatiana McDonald "didn't fight or do anything."
"We then seen Nicole, her fiance and the other couple," Evans said in the statement to police. "They were extremely happy, so that made me even angrier.
http://www.nynewsday.com/news/local/crime/nyc-slay0302,0,4059748.story?coll=nyc-homepage-breaking2
I am writing this because I am shocked at how troops coming home from leave or returning to theater are being subjected to a full on search by the Transportation Security Administration.
I understand that due to force protection and security issues, random checks need to be performed but isnít there some form of exemption for military personnel traveling with orders and in uniform? I was a victim of such security screening. I not only felt like a criminal but was embarrassed as civilians walking by stared in wonder at a serviceman in uniform being searched by the TSA as if I was a card-carrying member of al Qaeda.
[Hello, wake up. This is what you are fighting for.]
Having spent nearly six months in-country dodging sniper fire, IEDs, mortars etc., to come home and be treated like this was really aggravating, to say the least.
http://www.sftt.org/cgi-bin/csNews/csNews.cgi?database=Your%20Feedback%202004.db&command=viewone&op=t&id=496&rnd=472.85898448398273
The State Department's annual human rights report released yesterday criticized countries for a range of interrogation practices it labeled as torture, including sleep deprivation for detainees, confining prisoners in contorted positions, stripping and blindfolding them and threatening them with dogs -- methods similar to those approved at times by the Bush administration for use on detainees in U.S. custody.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A60540-2005Feb28?language=printer
[What in the world is “national greatness conservatism”? It sounds like the translation of some weirdo Communist Chinese propaganda slogan.]
The Business section of today's Washington Post has an article about Iraq War veterans who came home missing arms and legs but who are nevetheless "in high demand" by government contractors. Next to pictures of legless veterans doing push-ups and sit-ups is an article about how military contractors are hiring the disabled veterans to assist in the building of National Greatness Conservativism in Iraq -- and to help in the manufacture of more deadly weapons.
"[E]ven if you're missing a limb, that doesn't mean you're incapable of supporting the military through a company," says the head of a military retirees association.
In other words, military contractors are hiring maimed and disfigured veterans so that the war -- and the occupation -- can continue indefinitely. This will lead to even more maimed and mangled bodies of young Americans, who will also be hired up by military contractors to assure that the war and occupation last even longer yet, which will in turn cause more maiming and disfiguring, and the cycle is repeated with no end in sight.
Finally, a clear defninition of what Billy Kristol means by "national greatness conservativism."
http://blog.lewrockwell.com/lewrw/archives/007534.html#more
The senior citizens' lobby does not support the privatization of Social Security, and so clearly incurs the wrath of all God-fearing, true-believing, highly paid Republican public relations firms. But I have to confess, even I did not see this one coming.
You may not believe it, but I swear it is true: USA Next's first salvo was to accuse the geezer lobby of being against our troops in Iraq and in favor of homosexual marriage.
No joke, what journalist-blogger Josh Marshall calls "the fogey-bund" stands accused of being anti-soldier and pro-gay-knot-tying. A charming Internet ad shows a muscular hero of the desert in combat fatigues with a big X across his picture, and on the other side are two guys in tuxedos getting hitched with a big check across their picture. Under these two pictures, it says, "The REAL AARP Agenda."
I haven't laughed so hard since President Bush informed us that we have had a close and enduring friendship with Japan for the past 150 years.
Being old enough myself to join the AARP -- not a member, but well into Wrinkly City -- I find this the most deliciously zany, mortifyingly awful moment since the time a speaker of the Texas House called on a bunch of people in wheelchairs to stand and be recognized.
http://www.freepress.org/columns/display/1/2005/1079
John Gilmore's splendid isolation began July 4, 2002, when, with defiance aforethought, he strolled to the Southwest Airlines counter at Oakland Airport and presented his ticket.
Dennis Roddy, Post-Gazette
John Gilmore, beside a graffiti-covered wall, has his morning coffee at a shop that's one block from his San Francisco home. The Bradford native doesn't drive and has other travel restrictions, thanks to his challenge of a law that the government won't allow him to see.
Click photo for larger image.
The gate agent asked for his ID.
Gilmore asked her why.
It is the law, she said.
Gilmore asked to see the law.
Nobody could produce a copy. To date, nobody has. The regulation that mandates ID at airports is "Sensitive Security Information." The law, as it turns out, is unavailable for inspection.
What started out as a weekend trip to Washington became a crawl through the courts in search of an answer to Gilmore's question: Why?
In post 9/11 America, asking "Why?" when someone from an airline asks for identification can start some interesting arguments. Gilmore, who learned to argue on the debate team in his hometown of Bradford, McKean County, has started an argument that, should it reach its intended target, the U.S. Supreme Court, would turn the rules of national security on end, reach deep into the tug-of-war between private rights and public safety, and play havoc with the Department of Homeland Security.
At the heart of Gilmore's stubbornness is the worry about the thin line between safety and tyranny.
"Are they just basically saying we just can't travel without identity papers? If that's true, then I'd rather see us go through a real debate that says we want to introduce required identity papers in our society rather than trying to legislate it through the back door through regulations that say there's not any other way to get around," Gilmore said. "Basically what they want is a show of obedience."
http://www.postgazette.com/pg/05058/462446.stm
BRITAIN’S Counter-Terrorism Minister warned the Muslim community last night that it must face the reality of being targeted by the police because of the threat from an extreme form of Islam.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2-1507174,00.html
The four - whose ages range from three months to two years - were released on bail after a brief hearing.
The magistrate in the southern city of Chittagong said the case did not appear to be genuine - but the truth would emerge in a police report.
Anyone can file criminal cases in Bangladesh, and the procedure is frequently used to harass people.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/4308597.stm
Two Turkish prison inmates who drilled a nine-centimetre (3.6-inch) aperture between their cells enabling them to have sexual relations in prison that produced a child, received four-month sentences for damaging public property.
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=1516&ncid=1516&e=11&u=/afp/20050227/od_afp/turkeyprisonjusticeoffbeat_050227154210
[I wonder what having a rado emitting cell phone strapped to you ear all day does for you.]
A colony of 38 water voles in Norfolk have been seriously affected by hi-tech radio collars fitted to help monitor their movements, a study has found.
The Wildlife Conservation Research Unit at Oxford has been studying the size of populations in Norfolk and Wiltshire.
Dr Tom Moorhouse and Professor David Macdonald noticed a 48% decline in females born at the Norfolk site.
The study found that the shift in the sex ratio could be caused by the stress of wearing the collars.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/norfolk/4302051.stm
[Evil on the evening news.]
Man has always tinkered with the thought, "What if?"
What if science could create what science fiction writers could only imagine? A chimera: a creature that's part beast, part man.
Well, as CBS News Correspondent Byron Pitts reports, here it is. Look into the eyes of an animal that's part sheep, part human.
...
"It's time to say to the scientist and the corporations doing this research, 'You know you don't have a blank check to do whatever you want to the human race.'
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2005/02/24/eveningnews/main676424.shtml
[People are up in arms and want to raise $32M for a bad tv show. How about raising some money for something that is actualy good and/or useful.]
UPN's decision to cancel "Star Trek: Enterprise" at season's end has some Trekkies hot under their pointy ears.
So much so, they're trying to raise to raise $32 million to keep the show going.
http://www.nydailynews.com/entertainment/story/281879p-241553c.html
[If it was toxic, I bet they wouldn’t tell you anyway.]
Hundreds of people reported a mysterious and unpleasant odor in the air throughout Chicago Sunday. Calls came from the South Side to the North Side of Chicago and beyond.
http://abclocal.go.com/wls/news/022705_ns_strange_smell.html
[Too bad the Americans can’t get into space anymore. Going to be kind of hard to dominate outer space and keep it frome veryone else if we can’t get there ourselves.]
Wealthy Chinese citizens may soon embark on private space flights, with the first group of adventurous millionaires starting astronaut training as early as May, state media reported Monday.
The possibility of following in the footsteps of Yang Liwei, who became China's first man in space in 2003, has opened up with the entry of US tour operator Space Adventures into the Chinese market, the Beijing News said.
http://www.spacedaily.com/2005/050228060737.vytckl0s.html
[This is interesting. It doesn’t literally make things look invisible, just very very small.]
Alú and Engheta investigated experimental plasmonic covers that incorporated metals, such as gold and silver, to hide visible light.
When light strikes a metallic material, waves of electrons, called plasmons, are generated. The engineers found that when the frequency of the light striking the material matched the frequency of the plasmons, the two frequencies act to cancel each other out.
Under such conditions, the metallic object scattered only negligible amounts of light.
The researchers' studies show that spherical and cylindrical objects coated with plasmonic shielding material produce very little light scattering. These objects, when hit by the right wavelength of light, were seen to become so small that they were almost invisible.
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2005/02/0228_050228_invisibility.html
[What happens if a in the way of the microwave ray gun?]
The idea of a powerful ray gun has been a staple of science-fiction writing for decades. But a "weapon" that shoots invisible beams of energy could be making its way into law-enforcement hands soon.
The technology isn't exactly something that would replace a police officer's handgun. In fact, the system being developed by Eureka Aerospace in Pasadena, Calif., couldn't even be crammed into a standard pistol holster.
http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/FutureTech/story?id=538452&page=1
[Howeve,r we will probably have 10 new drugs to treat impotence.]
The world may run out of effective antibiotics by the end of this decade and faces a gap of at least five years before new drugs can be developed to combat superbugs, according to one of the worldís most influential scientists.
http://www.rense.com/general63/surg.htm
[Remember when they had those stupid torture game shows on American TV briefly? LIke a guy would be getting hit in the face with a fire hose and Andre Agassi or someone would ask him what was the capital of Zimbabwe or something like that? And there were two shows on different networks at the same time, and both of them sucked, and then both of them randomly disappeared after a few episodes?
And then next thing you we had these reports of torture from Guantanamo bay and Iraq and Afghanistan.
Coincidence?]
Earlier this year, in an anonymous building in east London, Channel 4 set up its latest reality show house. This one did not require a hot tub or chickens, but the spirit of the original, Orwellian, Big Brother hovered around it. No-one was voted out, but three of its seven voluntary inhabitants left before the 48-hour shoot was over.
In that time, the volunteers, all men, were, to varying degrees, lightly tortured: stripped, slapped, subjected to extremes of temperature, screamed at, touched, blindfolded, shackled, forced to soil themselves, deprived of food, disoriented, isolated, intimidated, humiliated, threatened, deprived of sleep, and then put through it all again.
The first to leave was taken out after 10 hours, suffering stress and hypothermia. The last, one of the first to vomit, finally asked to be let out because he couldn't take what was being done to him anymore. Earlier, he had become so distracted he'd failed to notice his handcuffs had cut off the blood to his hands. Interviewed later, he seemed shocked numb.
What to make of The Guantanamo Guidebook? This one-off, which recreates inside a Hackney warehouse procedures used at the US prison camp in Cuba, where "enemy combatants" have been detained without charge since 2002, is the centrepiece of Channel 4's week-long Torture strand.
...
Indeed, the original adverts for volunteers asked prospective entrants how "hard" they were. It unwittingly runs the risk of introducing the idea that light torture might not be so bad. But it is grim, genuinely unsettling watching, and maybe constructive. If all The Guantanamo Guidebook manages is to force us to glimpse the tip of the iceberg, then wonder more about what enormities lie beneath, it's worthwhile.
http://www.rense.com/general63/tt.htm
[I’ll tell you what’s [one thing] wrong with this picture. Everything I have read says that serial killers are almost a uniquely American phenomenon. What are the chances of getting one or possibly two on the same tv show in a short period of time? It took 20 years to get this serial killer out in the midwest, this BTK guy.]
If there were any doubts the New World Order is galloping along towards the fulfillment of the fascist dystopia warned against for so long, today's tidbits from Iyad Allawi's Iraq should dispel them entirely.
Iyad Allawi's occupational government has launched a new TV show, sort of an Iraqi version of reality television. "Terrorists in the Hands of Justice" runs several times a day in Iraq and features the confessions of beaten up "insurgents" who admit to terrible crimes, for instance serial murder.
"One man said he stalked 10 college girls who were translators for the U.S. Army, then raped and murdered them. Another said he beheaded 10 people after first practicing on animals," reports NBC News.
It is said the show is "wildly popular" but obviously this claim has to be taken with a grain of salt. Most Iraqis are desperately poor and it is fair to say many do not own televisions and even if they did much of the time there is no electricity.
http://www.rense.com/general63/tttv.htm
[I believe sneaking into the US is also illegal under US law, why isn’t the Mexican gov. doing anything about that?]
Mexico will pursue legal action against plans by a U.S. citizens' group to patrol the U.S.-Mexican border in search of illegal immigrants, the country's foreign minister said on Monday.
Luis Ernesto Derbez said he asked lawyers in Los Angeles to draw up a legal strategy to fight the Arizona-based initiative called "the MinuteMan Project" that has signed up hundreds of volunteers for border patrols.
"We are going to attack by all legal means," Derbez told a news conference. "We are presenting the reasons why we consider this action to be incorrect and illegal from the point of view not only of our government but also under U.S. law."
Derbez said he would discuss the issue with Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice when she visits Mexico on March 10.
http://www.rense.com/general63/boird.htm
Two new retroviruses - the type of virus which causes AIDS - have jumped from non-human primates to people, a new study reveals.
The study of blood samples from nearly a thousand bushmeat hunters or handlers in Cameroon showed that at least six viruses had crossed from monkeys to the people who were exposed to freshly caught bushmeat. And two of these viruses have never been seen before in humans.
The newly discovered human T-cell lymphotropic virus 3 (HTLV-3) and HTLV-4 are closely related to the known viruses, HTLV-1 and HTLV-2. These are implicated in cancers like leukaemia and can cause inflammatory or neurological diseases.
http://www.rense.com/general63/newret.htm
Human rights organizations are attempting to take accountability for the U.S. military's alleged use of torture to a place government officials have so far failed to go — the top of the chain of command.
In a case that raises significant moral as well as legal questions about the Bush administration's conduct of the war on terror, a coalition of human rights groups, aided by former military officials, is suing to pin blame for the interrogation abuses in Iraq, Afghanistan, and elsewhere at the highest level of government.
http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2005-03-01-CSM-torture_x.htm
A California high school teacher was arraigned on Monday at a Sacramento court accused of having sex with a student in a car as her two-year child was strapped into the back seat.
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=583&ncid=583&e=1&u=/nm/20050301/od_nm/odd_sex_teacher_dc
Britain is facing a massive influx of heroin because Afghanistan has produced its largest crop of opium since the overthrow of the Taliban.
Cracking the Code-...' warrior Patrick Mooney has just received a complete refund of EVERYTHING withheld from him by the federal government during 2004-- Social Security, Medicare, and all. The evidence of his success in upholding the law can be seen at www.losthorizons.com/tax/MoreVictories.htm
http://www.lewisnews.com/article.asp?ID=97584
http://www.losthorizons.com/tax/MoreVictories.htm
Pete Hendrickson claims the exact opposite is true. As the Supreme Court has always upheld, the Revenue Laws, as enacted, are entirely constitutional. Where Hendrickson scores the absolute, total victory is in emphasizing that the Federal Government, because of our Constitution, has a very limited scope of power.
This truth has always been on the books, but a great deal of suspicious and immoral activity has occurred over the years to hide this very powerful understanding. Indeed, the shock of the Great Depression and World War II provided ample opportunity for the wolves in society to debauch the law and carefully corrupt the common understanding of it within the flock-at-large. The fleecing that has gone on since that time has helped to create a lawless power that today threatens the world with extinction.
Cutting to the chase, the truth is simply this; a private sector worker's earnings are not legally subject to the federal tax on income. They never have been, and as long as we still have a Constitution, they never will be.
Why then, you ask, have you been paying income taxes on your earnings all these years? The answer is harsh, so take a deep breath before you read on.
Answer:
You have been lied to. You have been misled. You are ignorant. You are scared. You are weak.
http://www.unlearning.org/editor60.htm
The IRS has deployed an annoying, but highly instructive, delaying tactic in response to a claim for refund filed by one of my correspondents, who used a 1040X to correct a previously filed return on which he had endorsed payer-created evidence that he now understands to be erroneous. This tactic involves the sending of an “appealable disallowance of claim” notice instead of the refund, because, “you based your claim on your view that wages and salaries do not constitute taxable income” . The notice goes on to declare that ‘view’ to be erroneous, and therefore not a legitimate basis for a claim. (Click here to view the notice.)
The notice, which bears the designation of LTR 105C, is the proper type used for those claim disallowances as are provided for by law, such as disallowing a refund claimed after the expiration of the statute of limitations. When legitimate, such notices will contain some citation of the statute(s) or regulation(s) pertinent to their subject. The one being used in this cheap little misdirection ploy has none. This may be due to the fact that there IS no statutory or regulatory authority for a “disallowance” of an overpayment refund of the sort to which this notice pretends. There is a structure for reducing (disallowing) all or part of a timely-claimed refund, but only by diverting it to one or more of four specific alternatives: The satisfaction of an outstanding internal revenue tax liability arising elsewhere (26 USC 6402(a)); the satisfaction of a court-ordered obligation of past-due child support (26 USC 6402 (c)); the satisfaction of a “past-due legally enforceable debt” to a federal agency (26 USC 6402(d)); or the satisfaction of a “past-due, legally enforceable State income tax obligation” (26 USC 6402(e)). That’s it. There is no authority provided under the law for the IRS, or anybody else, to simply decide that a timely refund claim lacks merit; is improperly based; or is for any other reason “disallowed”.
http://www.losthorizons.com/tax/TheEmpireWhiffsBack.htm
An interagency criminal task force investigating former lobbyist Jack Abramoff has subpoenaed a Republican group founded by Interior Secretary Gale Norton and now run by her former aides, sources with knowledge of the investigation say.
The subpoena was issued to the Council of Republicans for Environmental Advocacy (CREA), a nonprofit group created in 1997 by Norton and Grover Norquist, president of Americans for Tax Reform, and long denounced by environmental organizations as a front group for industry interests.
http://www.thehill.com/thehill/export/TheHill/News/Frontpage/030105/DOJ.html
[So this guy was giving off enough radiation to set off a radiation detector just by driving by it. What was happening tot he person sittin gnext to him in the car?]
A man who had recently received radiation treatment for a medical condition set off the radiological alarm of a Rancho Santa Fe fire engine Tuesday and ended up being pulled over by police in Escondido as a result.
The incident occurred shortly after 4 p.m. Tuesday when Escondido police received a call that a car which had set off the fire engine's alarm was headed toward Escondido, authorities said.
http://www.nctimes.com/articles/2005/03/02/news/inland/escondido/23_49_453_1_05.txt
The girlfriend of the man who fatally shot aspiring actress Nicole duFresne on the Lower East Side said she initiated the attack, in part because she was mad that duFresne and her fiance looked happy, according to a statement released yesterday.
"The next person I see, I'm going to just hit them," Ashley Evans, 18, said she told the group of seven who she was on the prowl with Jan. 27, after the boys commented on how she and 14-year-old Tatiana McDonald "didn't fight or do anything."
"We then seen Nicole, her fiance and the other couple," Evans said in the statement to police. "They were extremely happy, so that made me even angrier.
http://www.nynewsday.com/news/local/crime/nyc-slay0302,0,4059748.story?coll=nyc-homepage-breaking2
I am writing this because I am shocked at how troops coming home from leave or returning to theater are being subjected to a full on search by the Transportation Security Administration.
I understand that due to force protection and security issues, random checks need to be performed but isnít there some form of exemption for military personnel traveling with orders and in uniform? I was a victim of such security screening. I not only felt like a criminal but was embarrassed as civilians walking by stared in wonder at a serviceman in uniform being searched by the TSA as if I was a card-carrying member of al Qaeda.
[Hello, wake up. This is what you are fighting for.]
Having spent nearly six months in-country dodging sniper fire, IEDs, mortars etc., to come home and be treated like this was really aggravating, to say the least.
http://www.sftt.org/cgi-bin/csNews/csNews.cgi?database=Your%20Feedback%202004.db&command=viewone&op=t&id=496&rnd=472.85898448398273
The State Department's annual human rights report released yesterday criticized countries for a range of interrogation practices it labeled as torture, including sleep deprivation for detainees, confining prisoners in contorted positions, stripping and blindfolding them and threatening them with dogs -- methods similar to those approved at times by the Bush administration for use on detainees in U.S. custody.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A60540-2005Feb28?language=printer
[What in the world is “national greatness conservatism”? It sounds like the translation of some weirdo Communist Chinese propaganda slogan.]
The Business section of today's Washington Post has an article about Iraq War veterans who came home missing arms and legs but who are nevetheless "in high demand" by government contractors. Next to pictures of legless veterans doing push-ups and sit-ups is an article about how military contractors are hiring the disabled veterans to assist in the building of National Greatness Conservativism in Iraq -- and to help in the manufacture of more deadly weapons.
"[E]ven if you're missing a limb, that doesn't mean you're incapable of supporting the military through a company," says the head of a military retirees association.
In other words, military contractors are hiring maimed and disfigured veterans so that the war -- and the occupation -- can continue indefinitely. This will lead to even more maimed and mangled bodies of young Americans, who will also be hired up by military contractors to assure that the war and occupation last even longer yet, which will in turn cause more maiming and disfiguring, and the cycle is repeated with no end in sight.
Finally, a clear defninition of what Billy Kristol means by "national greatness conservativism."
http://blog.lewrockwell.com/lewrw/archives/007534.html#more
The senior citizens' lobby does not support the privatization of Social Security, and so clearly incurs the wrath of all God-fearing, true-believing, highly paid Republican public relations firms. But I have to confess, even I did not see this one coming.
You may not believe it, but I swear it is true: USA Next's first salvo was to accuse the geezer lobby of being against our troops in Iraq and in favor of homosexual marriage.
No joke, what journalist-blogger Josh Marshall calls "the fogey-bund" stands accused of being anti-soldier and pro-gay-knot-tying. A charming Internet ad shows a muscular hero of the desert in combat fatigues with a big X across his picture, and on the other side are two guys in tuxedos getting hitched with a big check across their picture. Under these two pictures, it says, "The REAL AARP Agenda."
I haven't laughed so hard since President Bush informed us that we have had a close and enduring friendship with Japan for the past 150 years.
Being old enough myself to join the AARP -- not a member, but well into Wrinkly City -- I find this the most deliciously zany, mortifyingly awful moment since the time a speaker of the Texas House called on a bunch of people in wheelchairs to stand and be recognized.
http://www.freepress.org/columns/display/1/2005/1079
John Gilmore's splendid isolation began July 4, 2002, when, with defiance aforethought, he strolled to the Southwest Airlines counter at Oakland Airport and presented his ticket.
Dennis Roddy, Post-Gazette
John Gilmore, beside a graffiti-covered wall, has his morning coffee at a shop that's one block from his San Francisco home. The Bradford native doesn't drive and has other travel restrictions, thanks to his challenge of a law that the government won't allow him to see.
Click photo for larger image.
The gate agent asked for his ID.
Gilmore asked her why.
It is the law, she said.
Gilmore asked to see the law.
Nobody could produce a copy. To date, nobody has. The regulation that mandates ID at airports is "Sensitive Security Information." The law, as it turns out, is unavailable for inspection.
What started out as a weekend trip to Washington became a crawl through the courts in search of an answer to Gilmore's question: Why?
In post 9/11 America, asking "Why?" when someone from an airline asks for identification can start some interesting arguments. Gilmore, who learned to argue on the debate team in his hometown of Bradford, McKean County, has started an argument that, should it reach its intended target, the U.S. Supreme Court, would turn the rules of national security on end, reach deep into the tug-of-war between private rights and public safety, and play havoc with the Department of Homeland Security.
At the heart of Gilmore's stubbornness is the worry about the thin line between safety and tyranny.
"Are they just basically saying we just can't travel without identity papers? If that's true, then I'd rather see us go through a real debate that says we want to introduce required identity papers in our society rather than trying to legislate it through the back door through regulations that say there's not any other way to get around," Gilmore said. "Basically what they want is a show of obedience."
http://www.postgazette.com/pg/05058/462446.stm
BRITAIN’S Counter-Terrorism Minister warned the Muslim community last night that it must face the reality of being targeted by the police because of the threat from an extreme form of Islam.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2-1507174,00.html
posted by abu nakba at 3/03/2005 06:45:00 AM
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