More Evidence of the Amerikkkan Police State

Posted on July 10, 2008 by RagBlog


The FBI’s plan to “profile” Muslims
By Juan Cole / July 10, 2008

It’s unconstitutional, un-American — and it might hurt, rather than help, the FBI’s effort to stop real acts of terror.

The U.S. Justice Department is considering a change in the grounds on which the FBI can investigate citizens and legal residents of the United States. Till now, DOJ guidelines have required the FBI to have some evidence of wrongdoing before it opens an investigation. The impending new rules, which would be implemented later this summer, allow bureau agents to establish a terrorist profile or pattern of behavior and attributes and, on the basis of that profile, start investigating an individual or group. Agents would be permitted to ask “open-ended questions” concerning the activities of Muslim Americans and Arab-Americans. A person’s travel and occupation, as well as race or ethnicity, could be grounds for opening a national security investigation.

The rumored changes have provoked protests from Muslim American and Arab-American groups. The Council on American Islamic Relations, among the more effective lobbies for Muslim Americans’ civil liberties, immediately denounced the plan, as did James Zogby, the president of the Arab-American Institute. Said Zogby, “There are millions of Americans who, under the reported new parameters, could become subject to arbitrary and subjective ethnic and religious profiling.” Zogby, who noted that the Bush administration’s history with profiling is not reassuring, warned that all Americans would suffer from a weakening of civil liberties.

In fact, Zogby’s statement only begins to touch on the many problems with these proposed rules. The new guidelines would lead to many bogus prosecutions, but they would also prove counterproductive in the effort to disrupt real terror plots. And then there’s Attorney General Michael Mukasey’s rationale for revising the rules in the first place. “It’s necessary,” he explained in a June news conference, “to put in place regulations that will allow the FBI to transform itself as it is transforming itself into an intelligence-gathering organization.” When did Congress, or we as a nation, have a debate about whether we want to authorize the establishment of a domestic intelligence agency? Indeed, late last month Congress signaled its discomfort with the concept by denying the FBI’s $11 million funding request for its data-mining center.

Establishing a profile that would aid in identifying suspects is not in and of itself illegal, though the practice generally makes civil libertarians nervous. When looking for drug couriers, Drug Enforcement Agency agents were permitted by the Supreme Court in United States v. Sokolow (1989) to use indicators such as the use of an alias, nervous or evasive behavior, cash payments for tickets, brief trips to major drug-trafficking cities, type of clothing, and the lack of checked luggage. This technique, however, specifically excluded the use of skin color or other racial features in building the profile.

In contrast, using race and ethnicity as the — or even a — primary factor in deciding whom to stop and search, despite being widespread among police forces, is illegal. Just this spring, the Maryland State Police settled out of court with the ACLU and an African-American man after having been sued for the practice of stopping black and Latino men and searching them for drugs. New Jersey police also got into trouble over stopping people on the grounds of race.

The New Jersey Supreme Court ruled last year in State v. Calvin Lee that a defendant’s plausible allegation that the arrest was initiated primarily because of race would be grounds for discovery: The defense attorney could then request relevant documents from the prosecution that might show discriminatory attitudes and actions on the part of the police. Because racial profiling is most often felt by juries to be inappropriate, its use could backfire on the FBI. Suspects charged on the basis of an investigation primarily triggered by their race could end up being acquitted as victims of government discrimination.

If the aim is to identify al-Qaida operatives or close sympathizers in the United States, racial profiling is counterproductive. Such tiny, cultlike terror organizations are multinational. Richard Reid, the shoe bomber, is a Briton whose father hailed from Jamaica, and no racial profile of him would have predicted his al-Qaida ties. Adam Gadahn, an al-Qaida spokesman, is from a mixed Jewish and Christian heritage and hails from suburban Orange County, Calif. When I broached the topic of FBI profiling to some Muslim American friends on Facebook, a scientist in San Francisco replied, “Profiling Muslims or Arabs will just make al-Qaida look outside Islam for its bombers. There are many other disgruntled groups aside from those that worship Allah.”

It is a mystery why the Department of Justice has not learned the lesson that terrorists are best tracked down through good police work brought to bear on specific illegal acts, rather than by vast fishing expeditions. After Sept. 11, the DOJ called thousands of Muslim men in the United States for what it termed voluntary interviews. Not a single terrorist was identified in this manner, though a handful of the interviewees ended up being deported for minor visa offenses. Once it became clear that the interviews might eventuate in arbitrary actions against them, the willingness of American Muslims to cooperate declined rapidly, and so the whole operation badly backfired.

Read all of it here. / Salon

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Assurances Economists Gave Made No Sense

Posted on July 10, 2008 by RagBlog


A Work Force Betrayed: Watching Greed Murder the Economy
By Paul Craig Roberts / July 9, 2008

The collapse of world socialism, the rise of the high speed Internet, a bought-and-paid-for US government, and a million dollar cap on executive pay that is not performance related are permitting greedy and disloyal corporate executives, Wall Street, and large retailers to dismantle the ladders of upward mobility that made America an “opportunity society.” In the 21st century the US economy has been able to create net new jobs only in nontradable domestic services, such as waitresses, bartenders, government workers, hospital orderlies, and retail clerks. (Nontradable services are “hands on” services that cannot be sold as exports, such as haircuts, waiting a table, fixing a drink.)

Corporations can boost their bottom lines, shareholder returns, and executive performance bonuses by arbitraging labor across national boundaries. High value- added jobs in manufacturing and in tradable services can be relocated from developed countries to developing countries where wages and salaries are much lower. In the United States, the high value-added jobs that remain are increasingly filled by lower paid foreigners brought in on work visas.

When manufacturing jobs began leaving the US, no-think economists gave their assurances that this was a good thing. Grimy jobs that required little education would be replaced with new high tech service jobs requiring university degrees. The American work force would be elevated. The US would do the innovating, design, engineering, financing and marketing, and poor countries such as China would manufacture the goods that Americans invented. High-tech services were touted as the new source of value-added that would keep the American economy preeminent in the world.

The assurances that economists gave made no sense. If it pays corporations to ship out high value-added manufacturing jobs, it pays them to ship out high value-added service jobs. And that is exactly what US corporations have done.

Automobile magazine (August 2008) reports that last March Chrysler closed its Pacifica Advance Product Design Center in Southern California. Pacifica’s demise followed closings and downsizings of Southern California design studios by Italdesign, ASC, Porsche, Nissan, and Volvo. Only three of GM’s eleven design studios remain in the US.

According to Eric Noble, president of The Car Lab, an automotive consultancy, “Advanced studios want to be where the new frontier is. So in China, studios are popping up like rabbits.”

The idea is nonsensical that the US can remain the font of research, innovation, design, and engineering while the country ceases to make things. Research and product development invariably follow manufacturing. Now even business schools that were cheerleaders for offshoring of US jobs are beginning to wise up. In a recent report, “Next Generation Offshoring: The Globalization of Innovation,” Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business finds that product development is moving to China to support the manufacturing operations that have located there.

The study, reported in Manufacturing & Technology News, acknowledges that “labor arbitrage strategies continue to be key drivers of offshoring,” a conclusion that I reached a number of years ago. Moreover, the study concludes, jobs offshoring is no longer mainly associated with locating IT services and call centers in low wage countries. Jobs offshoring has reached maturity, “and now the growth is centered around product and process innovation.”

According to the Fuqua School of Business report, in just one year, from 2005 to 2006, offshoring of product development jobs increased from an already significant base by 40 to 50 percent. Over the next one and one-half to three years, “growth in offshoring of product development projects is forecast to increase by 65 percent for R&D and by more than 80 percent for engineering services and product design-projects.”

More than half of US companies are now engaged in jobs offshoring, and the practice is no longer confined to large corporations. Small companies have discovered that “offshoring of innovation projects can significantly leverage limited investment dollars.”

It turns out that product development, which was to be America’s replacement for manufacturing jobs, is the second largest business function that is offshored.

According to the report, the offshoring of finance, accounting, and human resource jobs is increasing at a 35 percent annual rate. The study observes that “the high growth rates for the offshoring of core functions of value creation is a remarkable development.”

In brief, the United States is losing its economy. However, a business school cannot go so far as to admit that, because its financing is dependent on outside sources that engage in offshoring. Instead, the study claims, absurdly, that the massive movement of jobs abroad that the study reports are causing no job loss in the US: “Contrary to various claims, fears about loss of high-skill jobs in engineering and science are unfounded.” The study then contradicts this claim by reporting that as more scientists and engineers are hired abroad, “fewer jobs are being eliminated onshore.” Since 2005, the study reports, there has been a 48 percent drop in the onshore jobs losses caused by offshore projects.

One wonders at the competence of the Fuqua School of Business. If a 40-50 percent increase in offshored product development jobs, a 65 percent increase in offshored R&D jobs, and a more than 80 percent increase in offshored engineering services and product design-projects jobs do not constitute US job loss, what does?

Academia’s lack of independent financing means that its researchers can only tell the facts by denying them.

The study adds more cover for corporate America’s rear end by repeating the false assertion that US firms are moving jobs offshore because of a shortage of scientists and engineers in America. A correct statement would be that the offshoring of science, engineering and professional service jobs is causing fewer American students to pursue these occupations, which formerly comprised broad ladders of upward mobility. The Bureau of Labor Statistics’ nonfarm payroll jobs statistics show no sign of job growth in these careers. The best that can be surmised is that there are replacement jobs as people retire.

The offshoring of the US economy is destroying the dollar’s role as reserve currency, a role that is the source of American power and influence. The US trade deficit resulting from offshored US goods and services is too massive to be sustainable. Already the once all-mighty dollar has lost enormous purchasing power against oil, gold, and other currencies. In the 21st century, the American people have been placed on a path that can only end in a substantial reduction in US living standards for every American except the corporate elite, who earn tens of millions of dollars in bonuses by excluding Americans from the production of the goods and services that they consume.

What can be done? The US economy has been seriously undermined by offshoring. The damage might not be reparable. Possibly, the American market and living standards could be rescued by tariffs that offset the lower labor and compliance costs abroad.

Another alternative, suggested by Ralph Gomory, would be to tax US corporations on the basis of the percentage of their value added that occurs in the US. The greater the value added to a company’s product in America, the lower the tax rate on the profits.

These sensible suggestions will be demonized by ideological “free market” economists and opposed by the offshoring corporations, whose swollen profits allow them to hire “free market” economists as shills and to elect representatives to serve their interests.

The current recession with its layoffs will mask the continuing deterioration in employment and career outlooks for American university graduates. The highly skilled US work force is being gradually transformed into the domestic service workforce characteristic of third world economies.

Source / Information Clearing House

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Among the Topics That Cannot Be Discussed

Posted on July 10, 2008 by RagBlog


It’s the Oil, stupid!
By Noam Chomsky / July 8, 2008

The deal just taking shape between Iraq’s Oil Ministry and four Western oil companies raises critical questions about the nature of the US invasion and occupation of Iraq — questions that should certainly be addressed by presidential candidates and seriously discussed in the United States, and of course in occupied Iraq, where it appears that the population has little if any role in determining the future of their country.

Negotiations are under way for Exxon Mobil, Shell, Total and BP — the original partners decades ago in the Iraq Petroleum Company, now joined by Chevron and other smaller oil companies — to renew the oil concession they lost to nationalisation during the years when the oil producers took over their own resources. The no-bid contracts, apparently written by the oil corporations with the help of U.S. officials, prevailed over offers from more than 40 other companies, including companies in China, India and Russia.

“There was suspicion among many in the Arab world and among parts of the American public that the United States had gone to war in Iraq precisely to secure the oil wealth these contracts seek to extract,” Andrew E. Kramer wrote in The New York Times.

Kramer’s reference to “suspicion” is an understatement. Furthermore, it is highly likely that the military occupation has taken the initiative in restoring the hated Iraq Petroleum Company, which, as Seamus Milne writes in the London Guardian, was imposed under British rule to “dine off Iraq’s wealth in a famously exploitative deal.”

Later reports speak of delays in the bidding. Much is happening in secrecy, and it would be no surprise if new scandals emerge.

The demand could hardly be more intense. Iraq contains perhaps the second largest oil reserves in the world, which are, furthermore, very cheap to extract: no permafrost or tar sands or deep sea drilling. For US planners, it is imperative that Iraq remain under U.S. control, to the extent possible, as an obedient client state that will also house major U.S. military bases, right at the heart of the world’s major energy reserves.

That these were the primary goals of the invasion was always clear enough through the haze of successive pretexts: weapons of mass destruction, Saddam’s links with Al-Qaeda, democracy promotion and the war against terrorism, which, as predicted, sharply increased as a result of the invasion.

Last November, the guiding concerns were made explicit when President Bush and Iraq’s Prime Minister Nouri Al Maliki signed a “Declaration of Principles,” ignoring the U.S. Congress and Iraqi parliament, and the populations of the two countries.

The Declaration left open the possibility of an indefinite long-term U.S. military presence in Iraq that would presumably include the huge air bases now being built around the country, and the “embassy” in Baghdad, a city within a city, unlike any embassy in the world. These are not being constructed to be abandoned.

The Declaration also had a remarkably brazen statement about exploiting the resources of Iraq. It said that the economy of Iraq, which means its oil resources, must be open to foreign investment, “especially American investments.” That comes close to a pronouncement that we invaded you so that we can control your country and have privileged access to your resources.

The seriousness of this commitment was underscored in January, when President Bush issued a “signing statement” declaring that he would reject any congressional legislation that restricted funding “to establish any military installation or base for the purpose of providing for the permanent stationing of United States Armed Forces in Iraq” or “to exercise United States control of the oil resources of Iraq.”

Extensive resort to “signing statements” to expand executive power is yet another Bush innovation, condemned by the American Bar Association as “contrary to the rule of law and our constitutional separation of powers.” To no avail.

Not surprisingly, the Declaration aroused immediate objections in Iraq, among others from Iraqi unions, which survive even under the harsh anti-labour laws that Saddam instituted and the occupation preserves.

In Washington propaganda, the spoiler to US domination in Iraq is Iran. U.S. problems in Iraq are blamed on Iran. US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice sees a simple solution: “foreign forces” and “foreign arms” should be withdrawn from Iraq — Iran’s, not ours.

The confrontation over Iran’s nuclear programme heightens the tensions. The Bush administration’s “regime change” policy toward Iran comes with ominous threats of force (there Bush is joined by both US presidential candidates). The policy also is reported to include terrorism within Iran — again legitimate, for the world rulers. A majority of the American people favours diplomacy and oppose the use of force. But public opinion is largely irrelevant to policy formation, not just in this case.

An irony is that Iraq is turning into a US-Iranian condominium. The Maliki government is the sector of Iraqi society most supported by Iran. The so-called Iraqi army — just another militia — is largely based on the Badr brigade, which was trained in Iran, and fought on the Iranian side during the Iran-Iraq war.

Nir Rosen, one of the most astute and knowledgeable correspondents in the region, observes that the main target of the US-Maliki military operations, Moktada Al Sadr, is disliked by Iran as well: He’s independent and has popular support, therefore dangerous.

Iran “clearly supported Prime Minister Maliki and the Iraqi government against what they described as ‘illegal armed groups’ (of Moktada’s Mahdi army) in the recent conflict in Basra,” Rosen writes, “which is not surprising given that their main proxy in Iraq, the Supreme Iraqi Islamic Council dominates the Iraqi state and is Maliki’s main backer.”

“There is no proxy war in Iraq,” Rosen concludes, “because the U.S. and Iran share the same proxy.”

Teheran is presumably pleased to see the United States institute and sustain a government in Iraq that’s receptive to their influence. For the Iraqi people, however, that government continues to be a disaster, very likely with worse to come.

In Foreign Affairs, Steven Simon points out that current US counterinsurgency strategy is “stoking the three forces that have traditionally threatened the stability of Middle Eastern states: tribalism, warlordism and sectarianism.” The outcome might be “a strong, centralised state ruled by a military junta that would resemble” Saddam’s regime.

If Washington achieves its goals, then its actions are justified. Reactions are quite different when Vladimir Putin succeeds in pacifying Chechnya, to an extent well beyond what Gen. David Petraeus has achieved in Iraq. But that is THEM, and this is US. Criteria are therefore entirely different.

In the US, the Democrats are silenced now because of the supposed success of the US military surge in Iraq. Their silence reflects the fact that there are no principled criticisms of the war. In this way of regarding the world, if you’re achieving your goals, the war and occupation are justified. The sweetheart oil deals come with the territory.

In fact, the whole invasion is a war crime — indeed the supreme international crime, differing from other war crimes in that it encompasses all the evil that follows, in the terms of the Nuremberg judgment. This is among the topics that can’t be discussed, in the presidential campaign or elsewhere. Why are we in Iraq? What do we owe Iraqis for destroying their country? The majority of the American people favour US withdrawal from Iraq. Do their voices matter?

Noam Chomsky’s writings on linguistics and politics have just been collected in “The Essential Noam Chomsky,” edited by Anthony Arnove, from the New Press. Chomsky is emeritus professor of linguistics and philosophy at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, Mass.

Source / Khaleej Times

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Run Up the Flag, Boys…

Posted on July 9, 2008 by Thorne Dreyer

Congress passed the FISA Bill

The Rag Blog / Posted July 9, 2008

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You Tube and the Hagee Videos

Posted on July 9, 2008 by Thorne Dreyer


Pastor Hagee’s Desperate News Suppression Campaign Backfires
By Max Blumenthal / July 9, 2008

See video below.

During the week of July 1, lawyers representing far-right Pastor John Hagee demanded that YouTube remove scores of videos supposedly infringing on the copyright of John Hagee Ministries. YouTube acceded to Hagee’s attorneys without even a cursory review of their claims. As the Huffington Post’s Sam Stein reported, the maneuver resulted in the immediate disappearance of over 120 videos from YouTube — almost all of which depicted the preacher in a negative light.

Among the videos removed by YouTube was my mini-documentary, “Rapture Ready: The Christians United For Israel Tour.” Considering that my piece contained no copyrighted material whatsoever, it became apparent to me that Hagee’s minions were guided by ulterior political motives. Instead of guarding their copyrights, they sought to stifle legitimate reporting on Hagee’s far-out End Times ideology.

See the video Pastor John Hagee doesn’t want you to see.

Rapture Ready: The Unauthorized Christians United for Israel Tour from huffpost on Vimeo.

After a series of contentious calls to Hagee’s top PR flack, Juda Engelmeyer, who initially accused me of “conspiratorial” motives for daring to ask if Hagee’s people were behind the video removals, I finally confirmed the obvious: The Hagee video slaughter was a naked exercise in news suppression orchestrated by high-level operatives from the preacher’s headquarters in San Antonio, Texas.

Video has proven a particularly effective medium for generating mainstream media coverage of Hagee’s political agenda. In the past, reporters from the national press corps generally ignored print exposes of Hagee by progressive reporters (including me). But when presented with explicit visual evidence, these reporters found it difficult to dispute the notion that he sought to advance a radical End Times agenda for America and the world.

When I published “Rapture Ready” here on the Huffington Post in July 2007, I was immediately beseeched with interview requests from outlets including the Forward and Hagee’s hometown paper, the San Antonio Express-News. This year, when progressive bloggers turned John McCain’s endorsement by Hagee into a national controversy, the YouTube edition of my “Rapture Ready” video became one of their most effective tools. Thanks to widespread online dissemination, its hit count spiked from just over 20,000 hits to close to nearly 150,000 in less than a week (its Vimeo version had already been viewed by hundreds of thousands).

Then, after a video produced by progressive blogger Bruce Wilson prompted McCain to discard Hagee’s endorsement, members of Hagee’s political team concocted a desperate strategy to stanch their public relations disaster. They trolled YouTube for hours, identifying videos that seemed critical of Hagee, then demanded that YouTube remove them one by one on the grounds of copyright infringement. Besides my documentary, Hagee’s minions flagged videos by Bruce Wilson and People For The American Way which reproduced some of the preacher’s most hysterical sermons. (In one PFAW video, Hagee is seen predicting that Jesus will one day punish the ACLU “with a rod of iron;” a video by Wilson contains an audio clip of Hagee calling the Holocaust the will of God.)

Hagee’s operatives correctly assumed that YouTube would approve their copyright infringement claims without even reviewing them. They were also keenly aware that once YouTube removed the videos, users like me would be limited to only one means of recourse: filing a counter-claim that would take at least two weeks to process.

Hagee’s YouTube slaughter was carefully timed to provide PR cover for his Christians United for Israel Washington-Israel Summit, which convenes in Washington on July 21. By the time the Summit begins, YouTube will still not have been able to process counter-claims by me and others whose videos were scrubbed. Thus, “Rapture Ready” will remain off YouTube’s server until Hagee’s summit is over.

But Hagee’s news suppression campaign will do little to reverse the damage he has already done to himself. Candidates seeking a broad-based national constituency now recognize his endorsement as the political equivalent of a malignant cancer. He is simply too toxic to participate in mainstream American life. Among high-profile lawmakers, only Joseph Lieberman is still willing to share a stage with him, though that may eventually change as well.

The end may be nigh for Hagee’s Armageddon-based agenda.

Source. / The Huffington Post

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FOX News Smears Michelle Obama

Posted on July 9, 2008 by Thorne Dreyer

Sorry FOX, We Won’t Let You Trash Michelle Obama
By Robert Greenwald / July 9, 2008

You’re not going to believe what FOX is up to now—we could hardly believe it ourselves. Not only are they smearing Michelle Obama with racist stereotypes, but then they offer a feeble apology that they believe gives them the right to slander her again. That’s what happened when FOX called Michelle and Barack Obama’s fist bump a “terrorist fist jab,” apologized, and then less than a week later referred to Michelle Obama as Barack’s “Baby Mama.”

FOX’s long history of racism is nothing new, but it has been particularly egregious when it comes to their coverage of the Obamas. Racism and fearmongering have no place in our country or its politics, despite what FOX would have you believe. That’s why we put together this video, FOX Attacks Michelle Obama.

We cannot allow FOX’s heinous smears and scare tactics to continue. Sign our petition and stop FOX from injecting racism, prejudice, and fear into our political dialogue. Then, send it to all your friends and family members for them to sign as well. And spread it on sites like Digg to create an uproar.

We cannot allow FOX to make politics about stereotypes, misinformation, and flat-out dishonesty. Not now. Not ever.

Source. / Brave New Films

Thanks to Jeff Jones / The Rag Blog

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Raleigh : State Employee Defies Directive to Honor Jesse Helms

Posted on July 9, 2008 by Thorne Dreyer

L. F. Eason III, left, with Dr. Richard Davis of the International Bureau of Weights and Measures, standing in front of the French National Measurement Institute.

Jesse Helms was buried here yesterday.

A white state employee of 21 years refused to lower the flag to half-mast because, he said, Helms was a racist. The poor man was forced to retire.

I was inspired by the man’s defiance.

Dick J. Reavis / The Rag Blog / July 9, 2008

He quit rather than lower flag for Helms
Ryan Teague Beckwith / July 9, 2008

RALEIGH – L.F. Eason III gave up the only job he’d ever had rather than lower a flag to honor former U.S. Sen. Jesse Helms.

Eason, a 29-year veteran of the state Department of Agriculture, instructed his staff at a small Raleigh lab not to fly the U.S. or North Carolina flags at half-staff Monday, as called for in a directive to all state agencies by Gov. Mike Easley.

When a superior ordered the lab to follow the directive, Eason decided to retire rather than pay tribute to Helms. After several hours’ delay, one of Eason’s employees hung the flags at half-staff.

The brouhaha began late Sunday night, when Eason e-mailed eight of his employees in the state standards lab, which calibrates measuring equipment used on things as widely varied as gasoline and hamburgers.

“Regardless of any executive proclamation, I do not want the flags at the North Carolina Standards Laboratory flown at half staff to honor Jesse Helms any time this week,” Eason wrote just after midnight, according to e-mail messages released in response to a public records request.

He told his staff that he did not think it was appropriate to honor Helms because of his “doctrine of negativity, hate, and prejudice” and his opposition to civil rights bills and the federal Martin Luther King Jr. holiday.

Eason said in an interview Tuesday that he did not typically lower the flag himself, but that, as head of the lab, he supervised the technician who did. He also trained new employees on proper flag etiquette, including a one-person folding technique he learned in Boy Scouts.

When the lab opened Monday morning, the flags were not out at all. An employee called Eason’s boss, Stephen Benjamin, who worked in another building in Raleigh. About 10:45 a.m., Benjamin told one of Eason’s co-workers to put the flags at half-staff.

Another of Eason’s superiors later drove by the lab to make sure the flags were up properly.

No one in the Governor’s Office was aware of any time in recent memory when a state employee refused to lower a flag. Brian Long, a spokesman for the Agriculture Department, said Eason’s refusal was unexpected.

“We’ve never had any conversations like that,” he said.

An ultimatum

In a string of e-mail messages with his superiors, Eason was told he could either lower the flags or retire effective immediately.

Though he’s only 51, Eason chose to retire, although he pleaded several times to be allowed to stay at the lab. Eason, who had worked for the Agriculture Department since graduating from college, was paid $65,235 a year as the laboratory manager.

Several people, including his wife, argued to Eason that the flags belonged to the state, as did the lab. But Eason said he felt a strong sense of ownership.

Eason and a previous boss had sketched out the building’s rough design on a napkin at the Atlanta airport in 1984 after attending a national conference on weights and measures.

He then worked to get funding for it in the state budget, and he recently helped snag state money to study building another lab.

“I designed and built that lab,” he said. “Even though technically the bricks and mortar belong to the state of North Carolina, I feel very strongly that everything that comes out of there is my responsibility.”

It was not the first time Eason felt uneasy about lowering the flag.

A registered Democrat who frequently votes a split ticket, he said he had no problems lowering the flag for former Sen. Terry Sanford or President Reagan. But he remembers wondering whether he would be willing to lower the flag after President Nixon’s death.

He never had to make that decision, since it rained both days.

Monday was sunny. And Eason was out of a job.

Source. / Raleigh News & Observer

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Breaking the Beast : The abuse of Circus Animals

Posted on July 9, 2008 by Thorne Dreyer

PETA members, like the one pictured here, have led the way in terms of exposing and educating people about circus animal cruelty.

The circus is coming to town…
by Andrea Afra / July 07, 2008

The circus is coming to town.

“Tear that foot off! Sink it in the foot! Tear it off! Make ’em scream!”

“When I say rip his head off, rip his fucking foot off…it’s very important that you do it.”

In 1999, Tim Frisco, a Carson & Barnes circus elephant trainer was caught on video by an undercover PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) cameraman during a training demonstration for new employees. As he screams, curses, and stabs at the elephant students he is ‘training’ with bullhooks and electrically charged prods, his goal is to evoke cries of pain and fear from the giant beasts.

“When you hear that screaming, then you know you got their attention.”

Frisco learned his techniques from his father, Joe Frisco Sr., a former trainer for the Ringling Brothers and Barnum and Bailey Circus. Owned by Feld Entertainment, Inc., the same company that puts on other family shows like Disney on Ice, the Ringling Bros. Red Tour is coming to Houston’s Reliant Stadium in July and they’ll do anything to hide what takes place behind the scenes…

“Right here in the barn, you can’t do it on the road…I’m not gonna touch her in front of a thousand people…she’s gonna fucking do what I want and that’s just fucking the way it is…I am the boss, I will kick your fucking ass…I’ll kick the shit out of you, you little prick.”

Austin, July 2006: Closer to home

Ringling Bros. is caught on video as elephants are being paraded through a neighborhood. An elephant named Tonka is being made to hold onto another elephant’s tail but she lets go and the person guiding her has a bullhook behind her left ear. He yanks on it eliciting several of the most horrific panting cries, like someone trying to breath heavily through a trumpet. A close up shot of the back of her ear shows a bleeding wound where the hook has ripped into her flesh. Austin police illegally confiscated the tape from PETA.

Animal rights groups such as PETA have been documenting circus animal abuse for over two decades. As a result the Ringling Bros. FAQ link on their website leads to a seven page, poorly written rebuttal, every single entry a defensive response against accusations made against the circus. For example, they claim their animals get ample exercise and care and have a better, longer life than those in the wild. This could be true if in the wild they enjoyed activites such as riding in cramped box cars for up to seventy hours without a break, fifty weeks a year, being chained with shackles long enough to leave deep gashes on their ankles, and learning stupid pet tricks under the force and threat of violence.

In retaliation for whistleblowers like PETA and other animal rights groups such as PAWS and The Elephant Alliance, Feld Entertainment, Inc., hired none other than former CIA Covert Operations Director Claire George to oversee an undercover operation to infiltrate those organizations that were most deemed to be a threat to ticket sales. Worse than Ringling’s spy games are its treatment of animals. In 1998 USDA formally charged Ringling in the death of Kenny, a baby elephant who was forced to perform while ill. They settled out of court for $20,000. In 1999, the USDA cited Ringling for the injuries of two baby elephants that had suffered severe rope burns during the separation from their mothers. After consulting with experts and in opposition to Ringling’s denial that the separation process was ethical, the USDA stated “there is sufficient evidence that the handling of these animals caused unnecessary trauma, behavioral stress, physical harm, and discomfort to these two elephants.”

This incident took at the Ringling Bros. and Barnum and Bailey Center for Elephant Conservation in central Florida, which is nothing more than a pachyoderm farm for future circus animal acts. Video footage revealed the birthing process that takes place there. Shirley, the seven year old under-age mother elephant, stands shackled to a fence as her newborn baby slips from her body and falls to the concrete floor. She is frightened and as the keepers try to pull the baby away she accidentally kicks it. She is then yanked away as she tries to reach out with a searching trunk to feel and smell her baby, which they named Riccardo. He was euthanized 8 months later when he fell off a circus pedestal during a training exercise and fractured both of his hind legs. Many ex-employees of Ringling have spoken out as witnesses to the daily violence that takes place out of the ring.

Several companies and cities and countries have gotten wise to the mistreatment of circus animals and have stopped collaborating with Ringling. Yet in 2000, when Seattle tried to pass a bill against allowing circus animal acts, Feld Entertainment, Inc. threatened to pull all of their productions from the city forever. The Seattle City Council thought life without Disney on Ice would be unbearable so they nixed the bill that would have set an honorable example for the rest of us.

There are many ways that people can take action against acts that use animals. You can boycott and picket such circuses and attend shows that use live people instead. Cirque du Soleil is much more impressive than any live animal act. Also, if you find a business that offer free tickets don’t be afraid to tell them to do a little research before continuing to associate with the circus. For the true guerilla, if you see free tickets left out on a display, pocket them all and throw them away. Yet the most effective way to help these animals is to tell their story to a kid. Circuses like Ringling Bros. cling to the hope that there will be several more generations that are brainwashed by tradition and lies, the old notion that since we went to the circus we should take our kids too. If kids knew how the animals are treated, they will tell their friends and so on and attendance numbers would drop significantly. Children shouldn’t be made spectators of these broken wild animals and if given the choice and told the truth, their generation will be the death of this tradition.

Circus Glossary

Ankus/Bullhook: A device used to inflict painful reinforcement on circus elephants. A long metal prod with an inconspicuously sharp steel hook and tip, nearly identical to a fireplace poker. Some of these are equipped with electric prongs.

Wonder Dust: A blood coagulant used to stop bleeding and conceal flesh wound caused by bullhooks.

Free Tickets: Sneak attack! If you see a stack of tickets being given away, take them all and then throw them away (recycle, of course).

Spanky the Clown: Thomas Allen Riccio, former Ringling clown known as “Spanky” was charged with 10 counts of child sexual exploitation

Sacha Houcke: Ringling’s ringmaster was charged after witnesses saw Houcke choke his daughter, push her to the ground and punch her in the face in a park in Pennsylvania.

Source. / Free Press Houston / Houston Indymedia

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Kucinich : OK, Let’s Just Impeach Him on Iraq

Posted on July 9, 2008 by Thorne Dreyer


Kucinich to bring single article of impeachment for misleading US into war
By Nick Juliano / July 8, 2008

Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-OH) is sticking to his drive to impeach President Bush.

Few in the House of Representatives have any intention of doing anything with the last 35 articles of impeachment Kucinich set before them last month, so the former presidential candidate appears to be lightening the load. Kucinich sent a letter to colleagues Tuesday asking them to support a single article of impeachment, to be introduced Thursday, which accuses President Bush of leading the country to war based on lies.

“There can be no greater offense of a Commander in Chief than to misrepresent a cause of war and to send our brave men and women into harm’s way based on those misrepresentations,” Kucinich wrote in the “Dear Colleague” letter.

“There has been a breach of faith between the Commander in Chief and the troops. Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11 or with Al Qaeda’s role in 9/11. Iraq had neither the intention nor the capability of attacking the United States,” he continued. “Iraq did not have weapons of Mass of Destruction. Yet George W. Bush took our troops to war under all of these false assumptions. Given the profound and irreversible consequences to our troops, if his decision was the result of a mistake, he must be impeached. Since his decision was based on lies, impeachment as a remedy falls short, but represents at least some effort on our part to demonstrate our concern about the sacrifices our troops have made.”

Last month, Kucinich presented 35 articles of impeachment. Those have since been referred to the Judiciary Committee, where they are expected to die. Kucinich threatened to double the number of impeachment articles if the Judiciary Committee did not act…

To read Kucinich’s letter to his colleagues, go here.

Source. / the raw story / Democratic Underground

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POETRY : Five by Shane

Posted on July 9, 2008 by Thorne Dreyer

“Charles Gandy”

You were nothing but a parable to me.
Your sad, short story was the basis for my novel;
my accidental life contrasting with your accidental death.
Looking back, I see there was more to you than a nonsensical ending.
So now I’m gathering up the pages that you left behind.

“Katrina I”

beneath my street clothes

logo emblazoned on chest,

no one the wiser

“Katrina II”

serve others in need

and ask nothing in return,

is its own reward

“Katrina III”

I am overwhelmed

having lost my home and car,

you flood me with hope

“Katrina IV”

the house is gone now

your foundation still standing,

ask her to sit down

Shane O’Neal

The Rag Blog / July 9, 2008

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Introducing : Sonic Ray and Killer Goo!

Posted on July 9, 2008 by Thorne Dreyer


‘Science fiction like’ weapons on tap for political conventions
By David Edwards and Stephen C. Webster / July 7, 2008

See video below.

The political parties are arming themselves, in preparation for their respective conventions

Congress has approved $100 million to pay for security expenses at this summer’s presidential nominating conventions, with $50 million dedicated to each party.

CNN’s Ed Lavendera reports that Denver and St. Paul officials have said that the types of weapons being purchased are “top secret.”

Apart from the traditional pepper spray and rubber bullets employed by police for controlling large protests, Denver, Colorado and St. Paul, Minnesota officials may be spending large sums on weapons CNN calls ‘science fiction like’.

Weapons such as the sonic ray gun, which emits a head-splitting frequency and deafens large groups of people. Also rumored for the conventions is the goo gun — which shoots a gel that can coat and wrap people whole, or stop a moving vehicle in its path — and a microwave pulse emitter — a radio frequency device that makes one’s skin feel it is on fire, previously deployed in the streets of Baghdad, Iraq.

The ACLU is suing both cities to disclose how security money is being spent, with hopes as to determine what specific weapons may be deployed against Americans. However, officials say it is important they be secretive about the technologies employed by their security forces, lest the crowds which will inevitably surround the conventions gain the upper hand.

This video is from CNN’s American Morning, broadcast July 7, 2008.

CNN: ‘Top secret’ weapons to be used at political conventions

Source. / the raw story

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Carcinogens Found in Gulf Coast Trout, Catfish

Posted on July 9, 2008 by Thorne Dreyer

Catfish, like this one caught Tuesday by Mark Arnett of Alvarado, are now on the state’s consumption warning list. Photo by Julio Cortez / Houston Chronicle

Texas issues health warning on some Galveston Bay fish
By Allan Turner and Rosanna Ruiz / July 9, 2008

See Video Below.

Texas health officials Tuesday issued a stern warning against unlimited consumption of speckled trout and catfish from Galveston Bay, saying that high levels of industrial pollutants found in their fatty tissue have been linked to learning difficulties in newborns and cancer.

The advisory marked the first time that the Texas Department of State Health Services warned against eating fish caught in any portion of the bay. Earlier warnings dating to 1990 had addressed concerns about fish or crabs taken from the Houston Ship Channel or the bay’s upper reaches.

Adults should eat no more than eight ounces of the fish per month, said health department spokeswoman Emily Palmer. Children, nursing mothers and women who are pregnant or might become pregnant should not eat the fish at all.

Texas speckled trout are considered non-commercial gamefish, which means they aren’t sold in retail establishments. Farm-raised catfish dominate the retail market.

A two-year study of fish caught at 10 sites in the bay found significant levels of PCBs (polychlorinated biphenyls) and dioxins in the fish. Flounder, red drum and black drum were found to be safe. Swimming in most of the bay isn’t considered dangerous.

Fishing guides expressed concern that the warning will harm the bay’s sport fishing industry, which, one said, is heavily dependent on people who intend to eat their catch. Galveston Bay attracts about half the money spent for recreational fishing in Texas.

“This will have a tremendous impact on the whole area — fishing guides, restaurants, motels,” said longtime fishing guide Bob Leonard. “People come down here to Galveston and Kemah to go fishing.”

All of his clients, most of whom live with a 100-mile radius of Houston, fish for food.

“There’s no catch and release,” he said. “It’s 100 percent catch and chew.”

Leonard said he’s eaten the fish for 50 years and is “healthy as a horse.”

“I think certain people are just more susceptible,” he said. “It’s certain you’ll get sick if you eat too many grapes, too many oranges. A scare like this … could be the economic downfall of the whole coast.”

Fishing guide Lynn Waddell said many of his customers are trophy fishermen, who release their catch.

“I’m going to wait and see what happens,” he said of the new warning, adding that, as a matter of policy, he warns clients about eating fish from the upper portions of the bay. “I never let them keep those fish. I’ve caught some pretty strange fish up there.”

Health authorities are worried about the impact of eating contaminated fish on those who routinely supplement their diets by fishing — a group estimated at 10 percent of licensed fishermen.

“It’s not a matter of one meal is going to make you sick,” said Kirk Wiles, manager of the health department’s Seafood and Aquatic Life Group. “The concern is for eating large amounts over a long period of time.”

Generally older, larger fish tend to be more heavily contaminated. The recent study found some younger, smaller fish that were significantly contaminated. Contaminated fish were found in all sections of the bay, a phenomenon Wiles said suggests fish migrate freely throughout the bay.

PCBs were commonly used as coolants and lubricants in electrical equipment. Although the Environmental Protection Agency banned PCBs in 1979, equipment containing them was not recalled. The chemicals have been linked to cancer and reproductive, immune system, developmental and liver problems.

Dioxins, unwanted byproducts of a number of chemical processes, have been linked to skin rashes, liver or reproductive damage and cancer.

Both contaminants degrade slowly in the environment.

Despite the pollution, Helen Drummond, director of the Galveston Bay Estuary Program, said the quality of Galveston Bay’s water is “generally good.” The estuary program is a consortium of conservation groups, government agencies, scientists and businesses administered by the state.

“We found most of the contamination in the tributaries and specific areas,” Drummond said. Forceful currents flush the bay of pollutants, she said, although bay sediments may contain problematic chemicals.

Tuesday’s warning was an extension of earlier advisories that urged limited consumption of crabs and certain types of fish from the upper bay, Houston Ship Channel and portions of Clear Creek.

Anglers seemed to take the warning in stride.

“We don’t eat any of the fish. We fish for sport only,” said Evelia Fernandez, who was among those lining the Texas City dike Tuesday.

And at Curl’s, a bait shop in the 1400 block of Dike Road, employees had not heard about the warning. Clerk Mary Hernandez said she frequently dines on bay catfish.

“I’m still alive,” she said. “I’m still here.”

Copyright 2008 Houston Chronicle

Source. / Houston Chronicle

Carcinogenic chemicals found in fish

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