The 2012 Apocalypse — And How to Stop It

http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2009/04/2012storms

The 2012 Apocalypse — And How to Stop It
By Brandon Keim
April 17, 2009

For scary speculation about the end of civilization in 2012, people usually turn to followers of cryptic Mayan prophecy, not scientists. But that’s exactly what a group of NASA-assembled researchers described in a chilling report issued earlier this year on the destructive potential of solar storms.

Entitled "Severe Space Weather Events — Understanding Societal and Economic Impacts," it describes the consequences of solar flares unleashing waves of energy that could disrupt Earth’s magnetic field, overwhelming high-voltage transformers with vast electrical currents and short-circuiting energy grids. Such a catastrophe would cost the United States "$1 trillion to $2 trillion in the first year," concluded the panel, and "full recovery could take 4 to 10 years." That would, of course, be just a fraction of global damages.

Good-bye, civilization.

Worse yet, the next period of intense solar activity is expected in 2012, and coincides with the presence of an unusually large hole in Earth’s geomagnetic shield. But the report received relatively little attention, perhaps because of 2012’s supernatural connotations. Mayan astronomers supposedly predicted that 2012 would mark the calamitous "birth of a new era."

Whether the Mayans were on to something, or this is all just a chilling coincidence, won’t be known for several years. But according to Lawrence Joseph, author of "Apocalypse 2012: A Scientific Investigation into Civilization’s End," "I’ve been following this topic for almost five years, and it wasn’t until the report came out that this really began to freak me out."

Wired.com talked to Joseph and John Kappenman, CEO of electromagnetic damage consulting company MetaTech, about the possibility of geomagnetic apocalypse — and how to stop it.

Wired.com: What’s the problem?

John Kappenman: We’ve got a big, interconnected grid that spans across the country. Over the years, higher and higher operating voltages have been added to it. This has escalated our vulnerability to geomagnetic storms. These are not a new thing. They’ve probably been occurring for as long as the sun has been around. It’s just that we’ve been unknowingly building an infrastructure that’s acting more and more like an antenna for geomagnetic storms.

Wired.com: What do you mean by antenna?

Kappenman: Large currents circulate in the network, coming up from the earth through ground connections at large transformers. We need these for safety reasons, but ground connections provide entry paths for charges that could disrupt the grid.

Wired.com: What’s your solution?

Kappenman: What we’re proposing is to add some fairly small and inexpensive resistors in the transformers’ ground onnections. The addition of that little bit of resistance would significantly reduce the amount of the geomagnetically induced currents that flow into the grid.

Wired.com: What does it look like?

Kappenman: In its simplest form, it’s something that might be made out of cast iron or stainless steel, about the size of a washing machine.

Wired.com: How much would it cost?

Kappenman: We’re still at the conceptual design phase, but we think it’s do-able for $40,000 or less per resistor. That’s less than what you pay for insurance for a transformer.

Wired.com: And less than what you’d willingly pay for insurance on civilization.

Kappenman: If you’re talking about the United States, there are about 5,000 transformers to consider this for. The Electromagnetic Pulse Commission recommended it in a report they sent to Congress last year. We’re talking about $150 million or so. It’s pretty small in the grand scheme of things.

Big power lines and substations can withstand all the other known environmental challenges. The problem with geomagnetic storms is that we never really understood them as a vulnerability, and had a design code that took them into account.

Wired.com: Can it be done in time?

Kappenman: I’m not in the camp that’s certain a big storm will occur in 2012. But given time, a big storm is certain to occur in the future. They have in the past, and they will again. They’re about one-in-400-year events. That doesn’t mean it will be 2012. It’s just as likely that it could occur next week.
Wired.com: Do you think it’s coincidence that the Mayans predicted apocalypse on the exact date when astronomers say the sun will next reach a period of maximum turbulence?

Lawrence Joseph: I have enormous respect for Mayan astronomers. It disinclines me to dismiss this as a coincidence. But I recommend people verify that the Mayans prophesied what people say they did. I went to Guatemala and spent a week with two Mayan shamans who spent 20 years talking to other shamans about the prophecies. They confirmed that the Maya do see 2012 as a great turning point. Not the end of the world, not the great off-switch in the sky, but the birth of the fifth age.

Wired.com: Isn’t a great off-switch in the sky exactly what’s described in the report?

Joseph: The chair of the NASA workshop was Dan Baker at the Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics. Some of his comments, and the comments he approved in the report, are very strong about the potential connection between coronal mass ejections and power grids here on Earth. There’s a direct relationship between how technologically sophisticated a society is and how badly it could be hurt. That’s the meta-message of the report.

I had the good fortune last week to meet with John Kappenman at MetaTech. He took me through a meticulous two-hour presentation about just how vulnerable the power grid is, and how it becomes more vulnerable as higher voltages are sent across it. He sees it as a big antenna for space weather outbursts.

Wired.com: Why is it so vulnerable?

Joseph: Ultra-high voltage transformers become more finicky as energy demands are greater. Around 50 percent already can’t handle the current they’re designed for. A little extra current coming in at odd times can slip them over the edge.

The ultra-high voltage transformers, the 500,000- and 700,000-kilovolt transformers, are particularly vulnerable. The United States uses more of these than anyone else. China is trying to implement some million-kilovolt transformers, but I’m not sure they’re online yet.

Kappenman also points out that when the transformers blow, they can’t be fixed in the field. They often can’t be fixed at all. Right now there’s a one- to three-year lag time between placing an order and getting a new one.

According to Kappenman, there’s an as-yet-untested plan for inserting ground resistors into the power grid. It makes the handling a little more complicated, but apparently isn’t anything the operators can’t handle. I’m not sure he’d say these could be in place by 2012, as it’s difficult to establish standards, and utilities are generally regulated on a state-by-state basis. You’d have quite a legal thicket. But it still might be possible to get some measure of protection in by the next solar climax.

Wired.com: Why can’t we just shut down the grid when we see a storm coming, and start it up again afterwards?

Joseph: Power grid operators now rely on one satellite called ACE, which sits about a million miles out from Earth in what’s called the gravity well, the balancing point between sun and earth. It was designed to run for five years. It’s 11 years old, is losing steam, and there are no plans to replace it.

ACE provides about 15 to 45 minutes of heads-up to power plant operators if something’s coming in. They can shunt loads, or shut different parts of the grid. But to just shut the grid off and restart it is a $10 billion proposition, and there is lots of resistance to doing so. Many times these storms hit at the north pole, and don’t move south far enough to hit us. It’s a difficult call to make, and false alarms really piss people off. Lots of money is lost and damage incurred. But in Kappenman’s view, and in lots of others, this time burnt could really mean burnt.

Wired.com: Do you live your life differently now?

Joseph: I’ve been following this topic for almost five years. It wasn’t until the report came out that it began to freak me out.

Up until this point, I firmly believed that the possibility of 2012 being catastrophic in some way was worth investigating. The report made it a little too real. That document can’t be ignored. And it was even written before the THEMIS satellite discovered a gigantic hole in Earth’s magnetic shield. Ten or twenty times more particles are coming through this crack than expected. And astronomers predict that the way the sun’s polarity will flip in 2012 will make it point exactly the way we don’t want it to in terms of evading Earth’s magnetic field. It’s an astonoshingly bad set of coincidences.

Wired.com: If Barack Obama said, "Lets’ prepare," and there weren’t any bureaucratic hurdles, could we still be ready in time?

Joseph: I believe so. I’d ask the President to slipstream behind stimulus package funds already appropriated for smart grids, which are supposed to improve grid efficiency and help transfer high energies at peak times. There’s a framework there. Working within that, you could carve out some money for the ground resistors program, if those tests work, and have the initial momentum for cutting through the red tape. It’d be a place to start.

The Judgment on Vaccines Is In???

Robalini's Note: Though this piece by Jim Carrey preceeds the Swine Flu story by a few days, it's as timely in ever in making people stop and ask questions before jumping into a forced vaccination hysteria...

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jim-carrey/the-judgment-on-vaccines_b_189777.html

Jim Carrey, Actor
April 22, 2009
The Judgment on Vaccines Is In???

Recently, I was amazed to hear a commentary by CNN's Campbell Brown on the controversial vaccine issue. After a ruling by the 'special vaccine court' saying the Measles, Mumps, Rubella shot wasn't found to be responsible for the plaintiffs' autism, she and others in the media began making assertions that the judgment was in, and vaccines had been proven safe. No one would be more relieved than Jenny and I if that were true. But with all due respect to Ms. Brown, a ruling against causation in three cases out of more than 5000 hardly proves that other children won't be adversely affected by the MMR, let alone that all vaccines are safe. This is a huge leap of logic by anyone's standards. Not everyone gets cancer from smoking, but cigarettes do cause cancer. After 100 years and many rulings in favor of the tobacco companies, we finally figured that out.

The truth is that no one without a vested interest in the profitability of vaccines has studied all 36 of them in depth. There are more than 100 vaccines in development, and no tests for cumulative effect or vaccine interaction of all 36 vaccines in the current schedule have ever been done. If I'm mistaken, I challenge those who are making such grand pronouncements about vaccine safety to produce those studies.

If we are to believe that the ruling of the 'vaccine court' in these cases mean that all vaccines are safe, then we must also consider the rulings of that same court in the Hannah Polling and Bailey Banks cases, which ruled vaccines were the cause of autism and therefore assume that all vaccines are unsafe. Clearly both are irresponsible assumptions, and neither option is prudent.

In this growing crisis, we cannot afford to blindly trumpet the agenda of the CDC, the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) or vaccine makers. Now more than ever, we must resist the urge to close this book before it's been written. The anecdotal evidence of millions of parents who've seen their totally normal kids regress into sickness and mental isolation after a trip to the pediatrician's office must be seriously considered. The legitimate concern they and many in the scientific community have that environmental toxins, including those found in vaccines, may be causing autism and other disorders (Aspergers, ADD, ADHD), cannot be dissuaded by a show of sympathy and a friendly invitation to look for the 'real' cause of autism anywhere but within the lucrative vaccine program.

With vaccines being the fastest growing division of the pharmaceutical industry, isn't it possible that profits may play a part in the decision-making? That the vaccine program is becoming more of a profit engine than a means of prevention? In a world left reeling from the catastrophic effects of greed, mismanagement and corporate insensitivity, is it so absurd for us to wonder why American children are being given twice as many vaccines on average, compared to the top 30 first world countries?

Paul Offit, the vaccine advocate and profiteer, who helped invent a Rotavirus vaccine is said to have paved the way for his own multi-million dollar windfall while serving on the very council that eventually voted his Rotavirus vaccine onto our children's schedule. On August 21, 2000 a congressional investigation's report titled, "Conflicts in Vaccine Policy," stated:

It has become clear over the course of this investigation that the VRBPAC and the ACIP [the two main advisory boards that determine the vaccine schedule] are dominated by individuals with close working relationships with the vaccine producers. This was never the intent of the Federal Advisory Committee Act, which requires that a diversity of views be represented on advisory committees.

Isn't that enough to raise questions about the process of choosing the vaccine schedule?

With many states like Minnesota now reporting the number at 1 in 80 children affected with autism, can we afford to trust those who serve two masters or their logic that tells us "one size fits all" when it comes to vaccines? Can we afford to ignore vaccines as a possible cause of these rising numbers when they are one of the fastest growing elements in our children's environment? With all the doubt that's left hanging on this topic, how can anyone in the media or medical profession, boldly demand that all parents march out and give their kids 36 of these shots, six at a time in dosage levels equal to that given a 200 pound man? This is a bias of the most dangerous kind.

I've also heard it said that no evidence of a link between vaccines and autism has ever been found. That statement is only true for the CDC, the AAP and the vaccine makers who've been ignoring mountains of scientific information and testimony. There's no evidence of the Lincoln Memorial if you look the other way and refuse to turn around. But if you care to look, it's really quite impressive. For a sample of vaccine injury evidence go to www.generationrescue.org/lincolnmemorial.html.

We have never argued that people shouldn't be immunized for the most serious threats including measles and polio, but surely there's a limit as to how many viruses and toxins can be introduced into the body of a small child. Veterinarians found out years ago that in many cases they were over-immunizing our pets, a syndrome they call Vaccinosis. It overwhelmed the immune system of the animals, causing myriad physical and neurological disorders. Sound familiar? If you can over-immunize a dog, is it so far out to assume that you can over-immunize a child? These forward thinking vets also decided to remove thimerosal from animal vaccines in 1992, and yet this substance, which is 49% mercury, is still in human vaccines. Don't our children deserve as much consideration as our pets?

I think I'd rather listen to the more sensible voice of Dr. Bernadine Healy, former head of the National Institute of Health, who says:

Listen to the patients and the patients will teach...I think there is an inexcusable issue, and that's the lack of research that's been done here...A parent can legitimately question giving a one-day old baby, or a two-day old baby [the] Hepatitis B vaccine that has no risk for it [and] the mother has no risk for it. That's a heavy-duty vaccine given on day two [of life]. I think those are legitimate questions.

Dr. Healy is also calling for a long overdue study of vaccinated vs. unvaccinated. Dr. Frank Engly, a researcher and microbiologist who served on the boards of the CDC, FDA and EPA during the 70s and 80s, warned:

The CDC cannot afford to admit thimerosal is toxic because they have been promoting it for several years...If they would have followed through with our 1982 report, vaccines would have been freed of thimerosal and all this autism as they tell me would not have occurred. But as it is, it all occurred.

In all likelihood the truth about vaccines is that they are both good and bad. While ingredients like aluminum, mercury, ether, formaldehyde and anti-freeze may help preserve and enhance vaccines, they can be toxic as well. The assortment of viruses delivered by multiple immunizations may also be a hazard. I agree with the growing number of voices within the medical and scientific community who believe that vaccines, like every other drug, have risks as well as benefits and that for the sake of profit, American children are being given too many, too soon. One thing is certain. We don't know enough to announce that all vaccines are safe!

If the CDC, the AAP and Ms. Brown insist that our children take twice as many shots as the rest of the western world, we need more independent vaccine research not done by the drug companies selling the vaccines or by organizations under their influence. Studies that cannot be internally suppressed. Answers parents can trust. Perhaps this is what Campbell Brown should be demanding and how the power of the press could better serve the public in the future.

WHO: Swine Flu Could Trigger Global Pandemic

http://www.prisonplanet.com/who-swine-flu-could-trigger-global-pandemic.html

WHO: Swine Flu Could Trigger Global Pandemic
Unheard of new strain is hybrid resulting from a combination of four different viruses
Steve Watson
Infowars.net
Friday, April 24, 2009

The World Health Organization has warned that a new form of influenza that may have spread from Mexico into the U.S. could develop into a pandemic-type virus.

Hundreds of people in Mexico have been infected and 60 have died from suspected swine flu, while seven human cases have been confirmed in the United States, a World Health Organisation spokeswoman has said.

U.S. labs are still running tests on the Mexican strain of the virus, results of which will be released by the will be released later today by the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta.

At this point it is not yet clear whether the two strains are the same. Some media reports have failed to make this clear, while the Drudge report has jumped in head first declaring an “OUTBREAK” with a giant frothing red headline.

Five of the U.S. cases were recorded in California with a further two in Texas. The first two cases in Southern California appeared almost simultaneously, 100 miles apart, indicating that the virus can silently spread. Neither case was due to contact with swine, and family members had symptoms before and after the confirmed cases, indicating that the H1N1 swine flu is being efficiently transmitted human to human.

Most of the Mexican cases were found in healthy young adults with no known record of prior illness, according to reports.

Schools in Mexico City and the surrounding areas have been temporarily closed and people with flu symptoms have been advised to stay home from work. The Mexican government has launched a huge vaccination campaign.

The WHO has also pointed out that pigs have been implicated in the emergence of new influenza viruses responsible for two of the previous century’s influenza pandemics, including the 1918 pandemic strain which spread to nearly every part of the world killing an estimated 2.5 to 5% of the human population - somewhere in the region of 50 million to 100 million people.

The European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control has reiterated the WHO comments, writing on it’s website:

“The infection of humans with a novel influenza A virus infection of animal origins as has happened here is of concern because of the risk, albeit small, that this could represent the appearance of viruses with pandemic potential.”

According to scientists at the CDC, genetic analysis indicates that the virus is “highly unusual”:

“It is a hybrid that resulted from a combination of four different viruses — one that typically infects people, one that originated in North American birds and two from pigs in Europe and Asia,” Anne Schuchat, director of the CDC’s National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, told the Washington Post.

“The good news is all seven of these patients have recovered,” she said. The virus appears to be resistant to two drugs normally used to treat the flu, but two others appear to be effective against it.

“This combination has not been recognized before in the U.S. or elsewhere,” Schuchat said.

Other scientists have warned that if a pig is simultaneously infected with a human and an avian influenza virus, it can serve as a “mixing vessel” for the two viruses that could combine to create a new more virulent strain.

Though this story has broken in the mainstream media today, authorities have been tracking it for some time. One week ago, the Public Health Agency of Canada contacted health and quarantine services to inform them that Mexican health authorities had advised Canada to be on alert for possible infections.

Flu Is Deadly Mix Of Never-Before-Seen Viruses

http://www.prisonplanet.com/medical-director-swine-flu-was-cultured-in-a-laboratory.html

Swine Flu Is Deadly Mix Of Never-Before-Seen Viruses
Alarm spreads as human to human infection confirmed, bug is an intercontinental mix of never-before-seen human, avian and pig viruses, top globalists stand to benefit from Tamiflu stockpiling
Paul Joseph Watson
Prison Planet.com
Saturday, April 25, 2009

Swine flu panic is spreading in Mexico and soldiers are patrolling the streets after it was confirmed that human to human transmission is occurring and that the virus is a brand new strain which is seemingly affecting young, healthy people the worst, and that the bug is a never-before-seen intercontinental mixture of human, avian and pig viruses from America, Europe and Asia.

Clues that the virus may be a synthetic creation are already manifesting.

According to reports, the virus is a “never-before-seen form of the flu that combines pig, bird and human viruses” which consists of an intercontinental mix of viruses from North America, Europe and Asia.

“CDC officials detected a virus with a unique combination of gene segments that have not been seen in people or pigs before,” according to an Associated Press report.

“This strain of swine influenza that’s been cultured in a laboratory is something that’s not been seen anywhere actually in the United States and the world, so this is actually a new strain of influenza that’s been identified,” said Dr. John Carlo, Dallas Co. Medical Director (video clip here).

Alarming reports are now filtering in about people catching the illness who have had no contact with pigs whatsoever. These include a man and his daughter in San Diego County, a 41-year-old woman in Imperial County and two teenagers in San Antonio, Texas. In fact, in all U.S. cases, the victims had no contact with any pigs.

Dr. Wilma Wooten, San Diego County’s public health officer, told KPBS “We have had person-to-person spread with the father and the daughter,” says Wooten, “And also with the two teenagers in Texas, they were in the same school. So that also indicates person-to-person transfer.”

“Dr. Wooten says it’s unclear how people were exposed to swine flu. She says none of the patients have had any contact with pigs,” according to the report.

Although the situation in the U.S. looks under control, panic is spreading in Mexico, where 800 cases of pneumonia in the capital alone are suspected to be related to the swine flu and the virus has hit young and healthy people, which is very rare with an flu outbreak. Despite the danger of a pandemic, the U.S. border with Mexico remains open.

“Mexico has shut schools and museums and canceled hundreds of public events in its sprawling, overcrowded capital of 20 million people to try to prevent further infections,” reports Reuters.

“My level of concern is significant,” said Dr. Martin Fenstersheib, the health officer for Santa Clara County. “We have a novel virus, a brand-new strain that’s spreading human to human, and we are also seeing a virulent strain in Mexico that seems to be related. We certainly have concerns for this escalating.”

The WHO insists that the outbreak has “pandemic potential” and has been stockpiling supplies of Tamiflu, known generically as oseltamivir, a pill that can both treat flu and prevent infection, according to officials.

As we previously highlighted, those that have a stake in the Tamiflu vaccine include top globalists and BIlderberg members like George Shultz, Lodewijk J.R. de Vink and former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld.

Indeed, Rumsfeld himself played a key role in hyping an outbreak of swine flu back in the 1976 when he urged the entire country to get vaccinated. Many batches of the vaccine were contaminated, resulting in hundreds of sick people and 52 fatalities.

The fact that the properties of the strain are completely new, that the virus is spreading from people to people, and that the young and healthy are being hit worst, has disturbing parallels to the deadly 1918 pandemic that killed millions.

It is unclear as to why, if the virus is a brand new strain, that public health officials are so confident programs of mass vaccination, which are already being prepared, would necessarily be effective.

It certainly wouldn’t be the first time that deadly flu viruses have been concocted in labs and then dispatched with the intention of creating a pandemic.

When the story first broke last month, Czech newspapers questioned if the shocking discovery of vaccines contaminated with the deadly avian flu virus which were distributed to 18 countries by the American company Baxter were part of a conspiracy to provoke a pandemic.

Since the probability of mixing a live virus biological weapon with vaccine material by accident is virtually impossible, this leaves no other explanation than that the contamination was a deliberate attempt to weaponize the H5N1 virus to its most potent extreme and distribute it via conventional flu vaccines to the population who would then infect others to a devastating degree as the disease went airborne.

However, this is not the first time that vaccine companies have been caught distributing vaccines contaminated with deadly viruses.

In 2006 it was revealed that Bayer Corporation had discovered that their injection drug, which was used by hemophiliacs, was contaminated with the HIV virus. Internal documents prove that after they positively knew that the drug was contaminated, they took it off the U.S. market only to dump it on the European, Asian and Latin American markets, knowingly exposing thousands, most of them children, to the live HIV virus. Government officials in France went to prison for allowing the drug to be distributed. The documents show that the FDA colluded with Bayer to cover-up the scandal and allowed the deadly drug to be distributed globally. No Bayer executives ever faced arrest or prosecution in the United States.

In the UK, a 2007 outbreak of foot and mouth disease that put Britain on high alert has been originated from a government laboratory which is shared with an American pharmaceutical company, mirroring the deadly outbreak of 2001, which was also deliberately released.

As we reported yesterday, last time there was a significant outbreak of a new form of swine flu in the U.S. it originated at the army base at Fort Dix, New Jersey.

Previous Swine Flu Outbreak Originated At Fort Dix

http://www.prisonplanet.com/previous-swine-flu-outbreak-came-from-fort-dix.html

Previous Swine Flu Outbreak Originated At Fort Dix
Mass vaccination program was halted after hundreds contracted debilitating nerve disease
Steve Watson
Infowars.net
Friday, April 24, 2009

Given the reports of the possibility of a swine flu epidemic, is interesting to note that last time there was a significant outbreak of a new form of swine flu in the U.S. it originated at the army base at Fort Dix, New Jersey.

Hundreds of soldiers on the base, mostly recruits, were infected without becoming ill in 1976.

President Gerald Ford immediately ordered a nationwide vaccination program.

More than 40 million people were vaccinated. However, the program was stopped short after over 500 cases of Guillain-Barre syndrome, a severe paralyzing nerve disease, were reported. 30 people died as a direct result of the vaccinations.

Unanswered questions regarding the outbreak remain to this day. According to a CDC investigation, It is not known why the virus did not extend beyond basic trainees or beyond the military base. The source of the virus, the exact time of its introduction into Fort Dix, and factors limiting its spread and duration remain unknown.

Previous reports of attempts to use influenza as a bio weapon, should also have us asking concerned questions.

Swine flu fears prompt quarantine plans, pork bans

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090426/ap_on_re_au_an/swine_flu_world_28

Swine flu fears prompt quarantine plans, pork bans
Frank Jordans, Associated Press WriterApr 26, 2009

GENEVA – Countries planned quarantines, tightened rules on pork imports and tested airline passengers for fevers as global health officials tried Sunday to come up with uniform ways to battle a deadly strain of swine flu. Nations from New Zealand to France reported new suspected cases and some warned citizens against travel to North America.

World Health Organization Director-General Margaret Chan held teleconferences with staff and flu experts around the world but stopped short of recommending specific measures to halt the disease beyond urging governments to step up their surveillance of suspicious outbreaks.

Governments including China, Russia and Taiwan began planning to put anyone with symptoms of the deadly virus under quarantine.

Others were increasing their screening of pigs and pork imports from the Americas or banning them outright despite health officials' reassurances that it was safe to eat thoroughly cooked pork.

Some nations issued travel warnings for Mexico and the United States.

Chan called the outbreak a public health emergency of "pandemic potential" because the virus can pass from human to human.

Her agency was considering whether to issue nonbinding recommendations on travel and trade restrictions, and even border closures. It is up to governments to decide whether to follow the advice.

"Countries are encouraged to do anything that they feel would be a precautionary measure," WHO spokeswoman Aphaluck Bhatiasevi said. "All countries need to enhance their monitoring."

New Zealand said that 10 students who took a school trip to Mexico "likely" had swine flu. Israel said a man who had recently visited Mexico had been hospitalized while authorities try to determine whether he had the disease. French Health Ministry officials said four possible cases of swine flu are currently under investigation, including a family of three in the northern Nord region and a woman in the Paris region. The four recently returned from Mexico. Tests on two separate cases of suspected swine flu proved negative, they said.

Spain's Health Ministry said three people who just returned from Mexico were under observation in hospitals in the northern Basque region, in southeastern Albacete and the Mediterranean port city of Valencia.

Mexico closed schools, museums, libraries and theaters in a bid to contain the outbreak after hundreds were sickened there. In the U.S., there have been at least 11 confirmed cases of swine flu in California, Texas and Kansas. Patients have ranged in age from 9 to over 50. At least two were hospitalized. All recovered or are recovering.

New York health officials said more than 100 students at the St. Francis Preparatory School, in Queens, recently began suffering a fever, sore throat and aches and pains. Some of their relatives also have been ill.

Some St. Francis students had recently traveled to Mexico, The New York Times and New York Post reported Sunday.

Preliminary tests of samples taken from sick students' noses and throats confirmed that at least eight had a non-human strain of influenza type A, indicating probable cases of swine flu, city health officials said. The exact subtypes were still unknown, and the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention was conducting further tests.

Hong Kong and Taiwan said visitors who came back from flu-affected areas with fevers would be quarantined. China said anyone experiencing flu-like symptoms within two weeks of arrival an affected area had to report to authorities. A Russian health agency said any passenger from North America running a fever would be quarantined until cause of the fever is determined.

Tokyo's Narita airport installed a device to test the temperatures of passengers arriving from Mexico.

Indonesia increased surveillance at all entry points for travelers with flu-like symptoms — using devices at airports that were put in place years ago to monitor for severe acute respiratory syndrome, or SARS, and bird flu. It said it was ready to quarantine suspected victims if necessary.

Hong Kong and South Korea warned against travel to the Mexican capital and three affected provinces. Italy, Poland and Venezuela also advised their citizens to postpone travel to affected areas of Mexico and the United States.

Symptoms of the flu-like illness include a fever of more than 100 degrees Fahrenheit (37.8 degrees Celsius), body aches, coughing, a sore throat, respiratory congestion and, in some cases, vomiting and diarrhea.

At least 81 people have died from severe pneumonia caused by the disease in Mexico, according to the WHO.

The virus is usually contracted through direct contact with pigs, but Joseph Domenech, chief of animal health service at U.N. Food and Agriculture Agency in Rome, said all indications were that the virus is being spread through human-to-human transmission.

No vaccine specifically protects against swine flu, and it is unclear how much protection current human flu vaccines might offer.

Russia banned the import of meat products from Mexico, California, Texans and Kansas. South Korea said it would increase the number of its influenza virus checks on pork products from Mexico and the U.S.

Serbia on Saturday banned all imports of pork from North America, despite reassurances from the FAO that pigs appear not to be the immediate source of infection.

Italy's agriculture lobby, Coldiretti, warned against panic reaction, noting that farmers lost hundreds of millions of euros (dollars) because of consumers boycotts during the 2001 mad cow scare and the 2005 bird flu outbreak.

Japanese Agriculture Minister Shigeru Ishiba appeared on TV to calm consumers, saying it was safe to eat pork.

In Egypt, health authorities were examining about 350,000 pigs being raised in Cairo and other provinces for swine flu.

The WHO's pandemic alert level is currently at to phase 3. The organization said the level could be raised to phase 4 if the virus shows sustained ability to pass from human to human.

Phase 5 would be reached if the virus is found in at least two countries in the same region.

"The declaration of phase 5 is a strong signal that a pandemic is imminent and that the time to finalize the organization, communication, and implementation of the planned mitigation measures is short," WHO said.

Phase 6 would indicate a full-scale global pandemic.
____
Associated Press writers around the world contributed to this report.
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On the Net:

WHO swine flu page: http://www.who.int/csr/disease/swineflu/en/index.html

Administration declares 'emergency'

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0409/21710.html

Administration declares 'emergency'
By MIKE ALLEN & CARRIE BUDOFF BROWN
4/26/09

In an unusual Sunday briefing at the White House, administration officials said a “public health emergency” is being declared in the United States in order to mobilize maximum resources to combat fears of a global swine-flu pandemic.

The term "sounds more severe than it really is," said Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, who called the measure "standard operating procedure," adding, “I wish we could call it a declaration of emergency preparedness.” The same measures, she said, were taken for the inauguration and in cases of flood and hurricane.

Acting CDC Director Richard Besser said that health officials have reported 20 U.S. cases across five states – California, Kansas, New York, Ohio, and Texas – and expect the numbers to rise as doctors perform more tests to detect the illness, and warned that "more severe" cases are likely to surface here.

While the disease, which appears to have originated in Mexico, has killed more than 80 there and infected over 1,300, there have been no fatal American infections so far.

The government said it will release 25 percent of its stockpiles of the flu-fighting drugs Tamiflu and Relenza. Texas governor Rick Perry had previously requested 37,430 doses of Tamiflu be sent to his state from the Strategic National Stockpile.

White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs dismissed any suggestion that administration's response would be hampered by the lack of confirmed appointees at the Department of Health and Human Services, the last Cabinet post to receive a secretary, or the yet to be filled post of surgeon general.

Gesturing to Napolitano, Brennan, and acting CDC Director Richard Besser, he said “There is a team in place, the team is standing behind me.”

Gibbs said "the president's health was never in any danger," when asked about reports that Obama's host on a museum tour in Mexico City died the next day, and had flu-like symptoms. The flu has a 24-48 hour incubation period, he said and Obama left Mexico nine days ago and has not shown symptoms of the flu nor has he been seen by a doctor or received preventative treatment.

Asked if the president’s decision to golf Sunday at Andrews Air Force Base was part of a White House strategy to reassure people, Gibbs chuckled and replied: “I'm not sure I'd draw a DIRECT conclusion.”

John Brennan, White House homeland-security adviser, said there is “no evidence whatsoever” of bioterrorism.

Napalitano said briefings will continue daily for awhile. The CDC is to brief reporters by teleconference at 3 p.m. ET.

“We’re preparing in an environment where we really don’t know," she said, "ultimately what the size or seriousness of this outbreak is going to be.”

Swine flu death toll in Mexico rises to 103

http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/N26489254.htm

Swine flu death toll in Mexico rises to 103

MEXICO CITY, April 26 (Reuters) - The death toll in Mexico from an outbreak of a new type of swine flu has risen to 103 people, Health Minister Jose Angel Cordova said on Sunday.

Cordova told Mexican television that around 400 people were in hospital out of a total of around 1,600 suspected cases.

The outbreak of a new strain of flu in Mexico in the last few days has stoked fears of a global epidemic as new cases cropped up in the United States and Canada. Possible infections are also being checked in Europe, Israel and New Zealand.

"The most recent reports we have are of 1,614 cases, with 103 deaths, and we still have around 400 patients in hospital," Cordova told the Televisa network, explaining that around two-thirds of the sick patients had recovered.

Millions of Mexicans stayed indoors at the weekend or ventured out wearing surgical masks, especially in Mexico City where the government stopped public events and shut museums, bars and stadiums closed to try and contain the virus.

(Reporting by Miguel Angel Gutierrez)

U.S. Declares Public Health Emergency

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/27/world/27flu.html

U.S. Declares Public Health Emergency Over Swine Flu
By DONALD G. McNEIL Jr.
April 26, 2009

Responding to what some health officials feared could be the leading edge of a global pandemic emerging from Mexico, American health officials declared a public health emergency on Sunday as 20 cases of swine flu were confirmed in this country, including eight in New York City.

Other nations imposed travel bans or made plans to quarantine air travelers as confirmed cases also appeared in Mexico and Canada and suspect cases emerged elsewhere.

Top global flu experts struggled to predict how dangerous the new A (H1N1) swine flu strain would be as it became clear that they had too little information about Mexico’s outbreak — in particular how many cases had occurred in what is thought to be a month before the outbreak was detected, and whether the virus was mutating to be more lethal, or less.

“We’re in a period in which the picture is evolving,” said Dr. Keiji Fukuda, deputy director general of the World Health Organization. “We need to know the extent to which it causes mild and serious infections.”

Without that knowledge — which is unlikely to emerge soon because only two laboratories, in Atlanta and Winnipeg, Canada, can confirm a case — his agency’s panel of experts was unwilling to raise the global pandemic alert level, even though it officially saw the outbreak as a public health emergency and opened its emergency response center.

As a news conference in Washington, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano called the emergency declaration “standard operating procedure,” and said she would rather call it a “declaration of emergency preparedness.”

“It’s like declaring one for a hurricane,” she said. “It means we can release funds and take other measures. The hurricane may not actually hit.”

American investigators said they expected more cases here, but noted that virtually all so far had been mild and urged Americans not to panic.

The speed and the scope of the world’s response showed the value of preparations made because of the avian flu and SARS scares, public health experts said.

The emergency declaration in the United States lets the government free more money for antiviral drugs and give some previously unapproved tests and drugs to children. One-quarter of the national stockpile of 50 million courses of antiflu drugs will be released.

Border patrols and airport security officers are to begin asking travelers if they have had the flu or a fever; those who appear ill will be stopped, taken aside and given masks while they arrange for medical care.

“This is moving fast and we expect to see more cases,” Dr. Richard Besser, acting director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said at the news conference with Ms. Napolitano. “But we view this as a marathon.”

He advised Americans to wash their hands frequently, to cover coughs and sneezes and to stay home if they felt ill; but he stopped short of advice now given in Mexico to wear masks and not kiss or touch anyone. He praised decisions to close individual schools in New York and Texas but did not call for more widespread closings.

Besides the eight New York cases, officials said they had confirmed seven in California, two in Kansas, two in Texas and one in Ohio. The virus looked identical to the one in Mexico believed to have killed 103 people — including 22 people whose deaths were confirmed to be from swine flu — and sickened about 1,600. As of Sunday night, there were no swine flu deaths in the United States, and one hospitalization.

Other governments tried to contain the infection amid reports of potential new cases including in New Zealand, Hong Kong and Spain.

Dr. Fukuda of the W.H.O. said his agency would decide Tuesday whether to raise the pandemic alert level to 4. Such a move would prompt more travel bans, and the agency has been reluctant historically to take actions that hurt member nations.

Canada confirmed six cases, at opposite ends of the country: four in Nova Scotia and two in British Columbia. Canadian health officials said the victims had only mild symptoms and had either recently traveled to Mexico or been in contact with someone who had.

Other governments issued advisories urging citizens not to visit Mexico. China, Japan, Hong Kong and others set up quarantines for anyone possibly infected. Russia and other countries banned pork imports from Mexico, though people cannot get the flu from eating pork.

In the United States, the C.D.C. confirmed that eight students at St. Francis Preparatory School in Fresh Meadows, Queens, had been infected with the new swine flu. At a news conference on Sunday, Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg said that all those cases had been mild and that city hospitals had not seen a surge in severe lung infections.

On the streets of New York, people seemed relatively unconcerned, in sharp contrast to Mexico City, where soldiers handed out masks.

Hong Kong, shaped by lasting scars as an epicenter of the SARS outbreak, announced very tough measures. Officials there urged travelers to avoid Mexico and ordered the immediate detention of anyone arriving with a fever higher than 100.4 degrees Fahrenheit after traveling through any city with a confirmed case, which would include New York.

Everyone stopped will be sent to a hospital for a flu test and held until it is negative. Since Hong Kong has Asia’s busiest airport hub, the policy could severely disrupt international travel.

The central question is how many mild cases Mexico has had, Dr. Martin S. Cetron, director of global migration and quarantine for the Centers for Disease Control, said in an interview.

“We may just be looking at the tip of the iceberg, which would give you a skewed initial estimate of the case fatality rate,” he said, meaning that there might have been tens of thousands of mild infections around the 1,300 cases of serious disease and 80 or more deaths. If that is true, as the flu spreads, it would not be surprising if most cases were mild.

Even in 1918, according to the C.D.C., the virus infected at least 500 million of the world’s 1.5 billion people to kill 50 million. Many would have been saved if antiflu drugs, antibiotics and mechanical ventilators had existed.

Another hypothesis, Dr. Cetron said, is that some other factor in Mexico increased lethality, like co-infection with another microbe or an unwittingly dangerous treatment.

Flu experts would also like to know whether current flu shots give any protection because it will be months before a new vaccine can be made.

There is an H1N1 human strain in this year’s shot, and all H1N1 flus are descendants of the 1918 pandemic strain. But flus pick up many mutations, and there will be no proof of protection until the C.D.C. can test stored blood serum containing flu shot antibodies against the new virus. Those tests are under way, said an expert who sent the C.D.C. his blood samples.

Reporting was contributed by Sheryl Gay Stolberg from Washington, Jack Healy from New York, Keith Bradsher from Hong Kong and Ian Austen from Ottawa.

A version of this article appeared in print on April 27, 2009, on page A1 of the New York edition.

Mexico City becomes 'strange zombie city'

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/healthnews/5225712/Swine-flu-Mexico-City-becomes-strange-zombie-city-as-residents-hide-behind-doors.html

Swine flu: Mexico City becomes 'strange zombie city' as residents hide behind doors
The normally bustling streets of Mexico City were virtually empty yesterday, with millions preferring to stay in their houses rather than risk contagion from the killer swine flu.
By Ioan Grillo in Mexico City
26 Apr 2009

A mixture of fear, suspicion and frustration set in across the country as the death toll from swine flu rose and the government took an increasingly tough position to stop it spreading.

Many of those who did venture out wore the blue face masks that were being handed out by soldiers at check points along the main avenues.

New Zealand students 'highly likely' to have swine flu "It's like we're in a strange zombie movie or something," said Gerardo Garcia, a 23 year old student, hurriedly stocking up with groceries.

"You don't know who could be carrying this plague so it is best to just keep behind closed doors as much as possible."

A shutdown of all schools, universities, museums and theatres was extended to bars and discos, which the government decreed they could forcibly close if they did not shutter their doors voluntarily.

Sunday Masses normally celebrated by millions in this strongly Roman Catholic country were also cancelled - the first such closure since Mexico's religious wars of the 1920s.

Health workers on the ground were overwhelmed with people reporting the key symptoms of the epidemic such as coughs, aching muscles and diarrhoea - although many may have had traditional forms of flu.

In total, 1,300 people were fighting the virus in hospital beds across Mexico with as many as 81 people dying of the disease.

Feelings of anxiety also swept through the 1,000 strong British expatriate community in the city.

Bar owner Umair Khan, 35, of Wembley, London, said he was getting increasingly worried seeing how events were developing.

"Originally, I wasn't in a major panic. But now that everything is shutting down it shows how serious it is," Khan said. "I have been here for 11 years and I have never seen anything like this."

Mr Khan said he shut his business - A British-style pub called the Black Horse - on Saturday after the government decree.

"It's a loss of money but you can't be angry about it," he said. "The last thing I would want is for someone to die after getting sick in my bar."

School teacher Gavin Judd, 38, from Birmingham has also been given a holiday from work.

"My plans are to avoid to going out as much as possible," he said. "If this is serious enough for the government to shut my school then I think it is a very real threat."

Mr Judd said he had no immediate plans to leave Mexico City, but said he will go if the government continues the school shut down until the end of the summer.

However, some others were taking the threat less seriously.

Hugh Carroll, a 56 year old investment broker from Glasgow, said he was unconcerned about the virus.

"I'm not worried in the slightest. It's probably been over exaggerated," he said. "Most people here don't trust what the Mexican government say and I don't believe them either."

Mr Carroll said he had not heard the declarations from the World Health Organization. He planned to go out and meet friends as usual.

Some Mexicans shared this disbelief, alleging it could be some kind of government conspiracy.

"It's probably all just made up to keep our minds off the global recession," said Roberto Santino, a 60-year-old building site foremen.

"Our government has been using these tactics for years."

Mr Santino claimed new government powers to fight the virus - including the power to search suspects and houses - were just an excuse to trample on people's rights.

Another conspiracy theory was that warring drug cartels, who killed eight civilians in a grenade attack in September, could be behind the misery.

"Who knows what is going on. Are the narco cartels using a secret weapon?" asked Lionel Trujillo, a 42-year old salesman, nervously fingering a surgical mask covering his mouth and nose.

Those at health centres showed more frantic worry.

At the Santiago Acahualtepec public clinic in Mexico City's working class Iztapalapa neighbourhood, a queue of patients, mostly clad in face masks, packed out the waiting room and stretched into the street.

"My daughter started showing signs of the sickness overnight - her temperature has shot up and she has been in a lot of pain," said Maria Angeles Garcia, a 33-year old teacher, waiting anxiously to be seen. "I am just praying that she does not have this plague."

New U.S. swine flu cases spread pandemic fears

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/30398682

New U.S. swine flu cases spread pandemic fears
2 cases found in Kansas and 8 more likely in NYC
April 25, 2009

At least two cases of the human swine influenza have been confirmed in Kansas and one more in California, bringing the U.S. total to 11 and stoking fears that the virus could trigger a pandemic.

At least eight students at a New York City high school probably have swine flu, but health officials said Saturday they don’t know whether they have the same strain of the virus that has killed scores of people in Mexico.

A strain of the flu has killed as many as 81 people and sickened more than 1,300 across Mexico. The World Health Organization chief said Saturday the strain has “pandemic potential” and it may be too late to contain a sudden outbreak.

Kansas health officials said Saturday they had confirmed swine flu in a married couple living in the central part of the state after the husband visited Mexico. The couple, who live in Dickinson County, were not hospitalized, and the state described their illnesses as mild.

Dr. Jason Eberhart-Phillips, the state health officer, said, “Fortunately, the man and woman understand the gravity of the situation and are very willing to isolate themselves.”

The man traveled to Mexico last week for a professional conference and became ill after he returned home. His wife became ill later. Their doctor suspected swine flu, but it wasn’t confirmed until flu specimens were flown to the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta.

NBC News has also learned there are suspected cases in Minnesota.

Puzzling differences across border

Swine flu is a respiratory disease of pigs caused by type A flu viruses. Human cases of swine flu are uncommon but can happen in people who are around pigs and can be spread from person to person. Symptoms of the flu include a fever of more than 100 degrees, body aches, coughing, a sore throat, respiratory congestion and, in some cases, vomiting and diarrhea.

Health officials are puzzled over why the swine flu engulfing Mexico been deadly there, but not in the United States?

Nearly all those who died in Mexico were between 20 and 40 years old, and they died of severe pneumonia from a flu-like illness believed caused by a unique swine flu virus.

The 11 U.S. victims cover a wider age range, as young as 9 to over 50. All those people either recovered or are recovering; at least two were hospitalized.

"So far we have been quite fortunate," said Dr. Anne Schuchat of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Saturday, just hours before three new U.S. cases were confirmed.

Still, it may be too late to contain the sudden outbreak, warned the CDC, which has stepped up surveillance across the United States. "We are worried," Schuchat said.

“We don’t think we can contain the spread of this virus,” said Schuchat, interim deputy director for the Science and Public Health Program. “We are likely to find it in many other places.”

Health experts worry about a flu that kills healthy young adults — a hallmark of the worst global flu epidemics. Deaths from most ordinary flu outbreaks occur among the very young and very old.

They are also concerned because people appear to have no immunity to the virus, a combination of bird, swine and human influenzas. Also, the virus presents itself like other swine flus, but none of the U.S. cases appears to involve direct contact with pigs, said Eberhart-Phillips, who called the strain “a completely novel virus.”

“It appears to be able to transmit easily between humans,” Eberhart-Phillips said. “It’s something that could potentially become very big, and we’re only seeing, potentially, the very beginning of a widespread outbreak.”

Specialty drug maker Baxter International Inc. is working with the World Health Organization to develop a vaccine.

New York health officials said more than 100 students at the private St. Francis Preparatory School, in Queens, had come down with a fever, sore throat and other aches and pains in the past few days. Some of their relatives also have been ill.

New York City Health Commissioner Thomas Frieden said nose and throat swabs had confirmed that eight students had a non-human strain of influenza type A, indicating probable cases of swine flu, but the exact subtypes were still unknown.

Samples had been sent to the CDC for more testing. Results were expected Sunday.

Parent Elaine Caporaso’s 18-year-old son Eddie, a senior at the school, had a fever and cough and went to a hospital where a screening center had been set up.

“I don’t know if there is an incubation period, if I am contaminated,” Caporaso told the Daily News. “I don’t want my family to get sick, and I don’t want to get anybody else sick.”

The symptoms in the New York cases have all been mild, Frieden said, but the illnesses have caused concern because of the deadly outbreak in Mexico.

Frieden said that if the CDC confirms that the students have swine flu, he will likely recommend that St. Francis Preparatory remain closed on Monday “out of an abundance of caution.”

“You could say, 'All you’ve got is a lot of kids with mild illness. Why close a school?”’ Frieden said.

One factor, he said, is that the illness appears to be moving efficiently from person to person, affecting as many as 100 to 200 people in a student body of 2,700.

“We’re very concerned about what may happen,” he said, although he noted that the pattern of illness appeared different from in Mexico, where much larger groups of people have become much sicker. Overall, flu cases have been declining in the city in recent weeks, he said.

“If we were to see, as they have in Mexico City, a large number of people becoming seriously ill with flu, that would be a very different situation from what we have now,” he said.

New York Gov. David Paterson on Saturday directed the state Department of Health to mobilize its infectious-diseases, epidemiology and disaster preparedness workers to monitor and respond to possible cases of the flu. He said 1,500 treatment courses of the antiviral drug Tamiflu had been sent to New York City.

The city health department has asked doctors to be extra vigilant in the coming days and test any patients who have flu-like symptoms and have traveled recently to California, Texas or Mexico.

Investigators also were testing children who fell ill at a day care center in the Bronx, Frieden said. And two families in Manhattan had contacted the city, saying they had recently returned ill from Mexico with flu-like symptoms.

Frieden said New Yorkers having trouble breathing due to an undiagnosed respiratory illness should seek treatment but shouldn’t become overly alarmed. Medical facilities in the part of Queens near St. Francis Prep, he said, had already been flooded with people overreacting to the outbreak.

Texas school closing

The Texas health department announced Saturday that Byron Steele High School in Cibolo, near San Antonio, will temporarily close as local health and school officials work to keep the virus from spreading.

Swine flu was confirmed earlier this month in two students from the school, and a third student is listed as a probable case with confirmatory lab test results pending. The original two have recovered, and the third is recovering.

"The purpose is to reduce the risk to students, staff and the community," said Sandra Guerra, M.D., the public health authority for Guadalupe County, Texas.

Past flu pandemics

1918:

The Spanish flu pandemic that started in 1918 was possibly the deadliest outbreak of all time. It was first identified in the U.S., but became known as the Spanish flu because it received more media attention in Spain than in other countries, which were censoring the press during World War I. The 1918 flu was an H1N1 strain — different from the one currently affecting Mexico and the U.S. — and struck mostly healthy young adults. Experts estimate it killed about 40 to 50 million people worldwide.

1957:

The 1957 pandemic was known as the Asian flu. It was sparked by an H2N2 strain and was first identified in China. There were two waves of illness during this pandemic; the first wave mostly hit children while the second mostly affected the elderly. It caused about 2 million deaths globally.

1957:

The most recent pandemic, known as the Hong Kong flu, was the mildest of the three pandemics this century. It was first spotted in Hong Kong in 1968 and it spread globally over the next two years. The people most susceptible to the virus were the elderly. About 1 million people are estimated to have been killed by this pandemic, an H3N2 flu strain.

Health Officials Say 8 NYC Students Had Swine Flu

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/04/25/AR2009042502404.html

Health Officials Say 8 NYC Students Had Swine Flu
By Rob Stein
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, April 25, 2009

New York City Health officials reported today that at least eight students at a private high school had "probable" swine flu.

About 200 of the 2,700 students attending St. Francis Preparatory High School in the Queens borough of the city missed school earlier in the week due to fever, sore throats and other flu-like symptoms, prompting school officials to notify the health department.

Investigators interviewed more than 100 students and their family members. All had mild symptoms and none were hospitalized, but some family members had developed similar symptoms, indicating their illness had spread in the family, according to Health Commissioner Thomas Frieden.

A preliminary analysis of viral samples obtained from nose and throat swabs from nine affected students found that eight tested positive for influenza A. Because none matched the known H1 and H3 subtypes of human flu, they were considered "probable cases of swine flu," Frieden said. The samples have been sent to the CDC for further analysis. Those results were expected on Sunday. If the tests come back positive, officials plan to ask that the school remain closed on Monday, Frieden said.

"We're concerned," Frieden said. "When we see the serious cases in Mexico, and we see it spreading fairly rapid in one school. It's a situation that has to be monitored very carefully."

The health department had sent out an alert to all doctors and hospitals throughout the city to be on the look-out for more cases, and were monitoring a citywide surveillance system for any alarming increase in respiratory illnesses, Frieden said. So far no increase had occurred, but officials were continuing to monitor the situation. Officials were also investigating a cluster of illness at a daycare center in the Bronx, he said.

"We're just going to have to take this hour by hour and day by day and see what develops as we go forward," he said.

The St. Francis students had just returned from spring break, during which time some may have traveled to Mexico, he said.

Health officials advised anyone who developed similar symptoms to stay home and seek treatment, and residents to take precautions such as washing their hands and avoiding close contact with sick people.

Texas family quarantined

http://www.cnn.com/2009/HEALTH/04/25/swine.flu.family/index.html

Sat April 25, 2009
Texas family quarantined after son contracts swine flu

Story Highlights
Texas teen is one of eight in U.S. diagnosed with swine flu
Teen's family ordered to stay away from public
Dozens in Mexico have died from same strain of swine flu found in U.S.
Officials say new strain has resisted some antiviral drugs

(CNN) -- As Hayden Henshaw was being rushed to the doctor's office after becoming ill, his father heard that his son's classmates had been struck with the deadly swine flu virus like the one sweeping through Mexico.

Swine flu commonly affects pigs and occasionally infects people in contact with pigs.

Patrick Henshaw called his wife immediately to have Hayden checked for it. Later, they received the bad news.

Hayden had become the third confirmed case of swine flu at his Texas high school. It is a virus that has killed 68 people in Mexico and infected at least eight people in the United States.

Health officials arrived at the Henshaws' house Friday and drew blood from the whole family, then told them to stay inside and away from the public, Henshaw told CNN.

The whole family is quarantined indefinitely, according to CNN-affiliate KABB. Henshaw said his family was shocked when they got the news about their son.

"Stunned. My wife was having a panic attack," Henshaw told the affiliate.

U.S. health officials have expressed concern about U.S. cases of a swine flu virus that has similar characteristics to the fatal virus in Mexico.

More than 1,000 people have fallen ill in Mexico City in a short period of time, U.S. health experts said.

"This situation has been developing quickly," Richard Besser, acting director of the Atlanta, Georgia-based Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), said Friday. "This is something we are worried about."

Besser said all of the eight U.S. patients have recovered. Watch for more on the U.S. cases »

New York health officials said Friday they were testing about 75 students at a school in New York City for swine flu after the students exhibited flu-like symptoms this week.

A team of state health department doctors and staff went to the St. Francis Preparatory School in the borough of Queens on Thursday after the students reported cough, fever, sore throat, aches and pains.

Test results are expected as early as Saturday.

The new virus has genes from North American swine influenza, avian influenza, human influenza and a form of swine influenza normally found in Asia and Europe, said Nancy Cox, chief of the CDC's Influenza Division.

Swine flu is caused by a virus similar to a type of flu virus that infects people every year but is a strain typically found only in pigs -- or in people who have direct contact with pigs.

There have, however, been cases of person-to-person transmission of swine flu, the CDC said.

CNN's David Alsup contributed to this report.

Swine Flu Outbreak Caused By Old Bug

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=avEHg48g1qUg

Swine Flu Outbreak Caused By New Variant of Old Bug
By John Lauerman and Jason Gale

April 26 (Bloomberg) -- International health officials are wrestling with how to respond to a swine flu from Mexico that’s infecting people, causing a range of illnesses, and even death.

The World Health Organization called the outbreak a “public health emergency of international concern” yesterday, and as many as 81 deaths in Mexico were linked to the virus, normally transmitted among pigs. Eleven cases in California, Kansas and Texas, all of them mild, have been connected as well. At least eight students in New York are being tested for whether they match the Mexico strain, while 10 students in New Zealand are “highly likely” to have swine flu, officials said.

Fears of a lethal pandemic lie in the nature of flu germs, which mutate readily and can become virulent by exchanging genes with related influenza viruses. While the H5N1 bird virus that spread across Asia in the last few years, killing millions of fowl and several hundred people, never gained genes to spread easily among humans, the Mexican swine flu already has, said Malik Peiris, a microbiologist from the University of Hong Kong.

“The concern is that this virus has the ability to transmit from humans to humans because a number of the cases who got infection have had no direct exposure to swine,” said Peiris, who has studied the SARS and avian flu viruses. “That is certainly a cause for concern.”

Health officials said they are trying to determine how the virus gained its ability to infect and spread among humans.

Swine-Flu Emergency

Mexican President Felipe Calderon declared a swine-flu emergency, giving him powers to order quarantines and suspend public events in the nation, where 1,324 patients are hospitalized with flu-like symptoms.

Authorities closed schools until May 6 in Mexico City and the states of Mexico and San Luis Potosi, where infections have been concentrated, and canceled most public and official activities.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, an Atlanta-based agency, is leading the search for more cases than the 11 it has confirmed as of yesterday.

The latest U.S. tally includes two adults residing at the same address in Dickinson County, Kansas. Neither of the patients was hospitalized, the state’s health department said in a statement on its Web site yesterday. One is still ill and being treated, and one is recovering, it said. One of the patients had recently traveled to Mexico, flying in and out of Wichita, according to the statement.

New Zealand Students

Ten New Zealand high school students who returned from Mexico are “highly likely” to have swine flu, Health Minister Tony Ryall said today in a phone interview.

The students don’t have “severe” symptoms and most already appear to be recovering, Ryall said. The students and their families are being isolated in their homes, and the families are being treated with Roche Holding AG’s Tamiflu, Ryall said.

Japan began screening for fever in travelers returning from Mexico fevers, the country’s health ministry said in a statement yesterday. A British Airways Plc crewmember was hospitalized in north London with suspected swine flu after arriving yesterday on a flight from Mexico City. Tests showed he doesn’t have the bug, Agence France-Presse said, citing a hospital spokesman.

France is investigating two suspected cases of swine flu in travelers recently returned from Mexico, AFP said, citing a senior health official. A spokeswoman for the Health Ministry declined to comment when contacted by Bloomberg News.

Pandemic Threat

Outbreaks in Mexico and the U.S. warrant an urgent assessment of its potential to spark the first influenza pandemic in 41 years, the WHO said yesterday. The Geneva-based United Nations agency held an emergency meeting and found that more evidence is needed to determine whether the level of pandemic alert should be increased, it said.

The WHO’s pandemic threat level, a six-stage measure, is currently at 3. Evidence of increased human-to-human spread of a new virus would move it to level 4, according to the WHO Web site.

Health officials in the U.S. are asking both doctors and patients to be on the lookout for suspicious cases of flu. The lung virus normally causes symptoms such as coughing and sneezing, and can also bring on muscle and joint aches, headaches, and even diarrhea and vomiting, according to the CDC.

At a time when scientists can tailor drugs to match a patient’s genetic profile and people live longer than ever, the flu, first described by Hippocrates 2,400 years ago, still has the power to make millions bed-bound for a week and kill the very young, the elderly and those weakened by chronic disease.

The CDC estimates the germ is linked to more than 30,000 U.S. deaths annually.

New Viruses

In most cases, adults can resist succumbing to flu viruses that are identical or very similar to those they’ve been exposed to before. “New” viruses that the human immune system hasn’t seen earlier are the most dangerous, because they can overwhelm the body’s defenses.

Flu germs are classified by two proteins, one known by the letter H, for hemagglutinin, and the other N, for neuraminidase. The Mexican swine flu is an H1N1 flu, the same subtype that caused the pandemic of 1918. Many less-dangerous descendants of that virus are seasonal H1N1 viruses circulating worldwide today, scientists said.

The dominant form of flu circulating in the U.S. in the most recent flu season was an H1N1, said Frederick Hayden, professor of clinical virology at the University of Virginia Health Sciences Center in Charlottesville. That suggests that people who got this year’s flu vaccine, which gave protection against the H1N1 virus, might also have some protection against the swine flu, he said.

1976 Swine Flu

“We need to take the (blood) of individuals who got last season’s vaccine and see whether there’s any evidence of cross- reactivity for this new strain,” he said in a telephone interview. “We need to do the same thing with patients who have had recent infection with the human H1N1 strain.”

The CDC is conducting studies now that might show whether seasonal vaccination might protect people against swine flu. It’s also possible that people who were vaccinated in the 1976 swine flu outbreak, which many flu experts believed was the beginning of a pandemic at the time, are protected, he said.

Vaccine makers are taking the initial steps toward making shots against swine flu. Baxter International Inc., a maker of both seasonal and pandemic vaccines, has requested samples of the swine virus for laboratory testing, said Christopher Bona, a spokesman for Deerfield, Illinois-based Baxter. GlaxoSmithKline Plc, based in London, has had conversations with WHO’s flu division that’s responsible for distributing flu virus samples to drugmakers, said Deborah Alspach, a spokeswoman.

Other companies that make flu vaccine include Novartis AG, of Basel, Switzerland, and Sanofi-Aventis SA, of Paris.

Roche’s Tamiflu

Roche Holding AG, of Basel, has an ample supply of Tamiflu, which can reduce the symptoms of swine flu. Roche has donated a “Rapid Response Stockpile” of 5 million treatment courses to the WHO that’s on 24-hour stand-by to be sent around the world, said Terence Hurley, a spokesman for the company. No request has been made to deploy the stockpile, he said in an email.

Glaxo also has ample supplies of its inhaled Relenza antiviral, which also appears to be effective against the swine flu in CDC tests, Alspach said.

The virus has already evaded the first line of defense that health officials had hoped to use against a pandemic. International flu experts preparing for a pandemic had planned to contain the initial outbreak of a new, lethal strain of flu. The swine flu virus has already spread so far in Mexico and the U.S. that the containment strategy is out of the question, said Anne Schuchat, interim deputy director for science and public health programs at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Atlanta-based U.S. agency.

“We don’t think we can contain the spread of this virus,” she said yesterday in a conference call with reporters.

To contact the reporter on this story: John Lauerman in Boston at jlauerman@bloomberg.net; Jason Gale in Singapore at j.gale@bloomberg.net

As watchdog warns of bailout fraud

http://wsws.org/articles/2009/apr2009/obam-a24.shtml

As watchdog warns of bailout fraud
Obama meets with bank, credit card executives
By Barry Grey
24 April 2009

President Barack Obama met Thursday at the White House with executives of major banks and credit card companies amidst growing public anger over sudden increases in interest rates and fees, in many cases by companies that have received billions of dollars in taxpayer bailout money.

Obama, who pledged during his presidential campaign to curb abuses by credit card firms, was silent on the issue until last week, when media reports emerged detailing how firms were doubling and tripling their charges to customers, including those with good credit who had remained current on their payments.

These reports coincide with others showing that banks that have received cash, cheap loans and debt guarantees from the $700 billion Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) and other government programs are ramping up home foreclosures while continuing to reduce lending. First the Bush and now the Obama administration have defended the transfer of public funds to Wall Street as the only means of ending the credit crunch and resulting recession.

Trillions have been pumped into the banks, but the recession has deepened, unemployment has soared and millions of people have been thrown into poverty and homelessness. The banks have used the bailout money to bolster their balance sheets and generate profits by speculating on turbulent financial markets and by finding ways to cash in on the collapse in home prices. They have intensified their assault on the working class, slashing hundreds of thousands of jobs, driving people out of their homes and raising the cost of credit upon which most Americans depend to pay their bills.

They adamantly oppose even the most modest restrictions on their activities, including certain limits on executive compensation, enhanced power of bankruptcy courts to alter mortgage terms for distressed homeowners, and laws that would restrict their ability to arbitrarily increase charges on credit card holders.

Obama’s White House meeting was typical of his public relations efforts to placate public opposition while taking no serious measures to rein in the banks. Participants, besides Obama and his top economic aides, included executives from Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase, Citigroup, Wells Fargo, US Bancorp, Visa, Mastercard, Capitol One Financial, American Express, Discover Financial Services and several other firms. Also present was the president of the American Bankers Association, which is lobbying against congressional bills that would curb abuses by credit card issuers.

Following the closed-door meeting, Obama told reporters, “We’re confident we can arrive at something that is commonsensical.” Seeking to reassure the bankers, he added, “We want to preserve the credit card market but we also want to do so in a way that eliminates some of the abuses and some of the problems that a lot of people are familiar with.” He did not say which abuses would be allowed to continue.

One indication of the seriousness of the administration’s effort was provided by Lawrence Summers, the director of the White House’s National Economic Council. According to reporters, he dozed off during Obama’s brief remarks to the press.

Executives leaving the meeting said it was “constructive.” They are confident that they will succeed in blocking passage of a bill, dubbed the “Credit Cardholders’ Bill of Rights,” that is moving through Congress. On Wednesday the bill was approved by the House Financial Services Committee, but a Senate version is opposed by Republicans on a party-line basis and by some Democrats, all but insuring its defeat.

The banks and credit card companies maintain that legislation is not necessary since the Federal Reserve has already announced restrictions on interest charges and fees. However, those regulations are not slated to take effect until July of 2010, giving the banks ample time to ramp up charges in advance of the new rules.

Earlier on Thursday, the special inspector general appointed to monitor the TARP program testified before the Joint Economic Committee of Congress and indicated that the bailout program is rife with conflicts of interest and fraud.

Neil Barofsky, a former prosecutor, told the panel that he had already initiated 20 criminal investigations into securities fraud, insider trading, collusion, price-fixing, money laundering and other illegal activities in relation to the government bailout. He suggested that there would be many more probes.

On Monday, Barofsky released a 250-page report to Congress on the TARP program in which he decried the refusal of the Treasury Department, despite his repeated urgings, to require firms that receive taxpayer handouts to report on how they are using the government money. He noted that the Obama administration has signed off on another $30 billion for the insurance giant American International Group (AIG), which had already received some $150 billion, without any requirement that the company explain what it has done with its bailout money.

The TARP program, he wrote, which began as a $700 billion plan to purchase toxic assets from the banks, has morphed into twelve separate programs involving more than $3 trillion in government cash, loans and loan guarantees—an amount roughly equal to the annual federal budget.

In his report and in his congressional testimony, Barofsky focused on the new bailout program detailed on March 24 by Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner. He warned that the “Public-Private Investment Program” (PPIP), under which Wall Street investment firms will be given low-cost government loans and guarantees against losses to purchase toxic assets from the banks at inflated prices, was “inherently vulnerable to fraud, waste and abuse.”

He said that the program, which is to be run by the private firms, with between two-thirds and 92.5 percent of the funding provided by the government, had “significant issues relating to conflicts of interest facing fund managers, collusion between participants, and vulnerabilities to money laundering.” He urged that the program not go forward without the addition of serious safeguards against fraud.

In his testimony before the Joint Economic Committee, Barofsky said that the program was designed so as to allow the private fund managers to set the price for the securities purchased from the banks. “This is a lot of economic power given to a small number of fund managers,” he said. He pointed out that fund managers would likely be buying the same mortgage-backed securities they had in other accounts, giving them an incentive to pay inflated prices and thereby increase the value of their previous investments, which they could subsequently unload at a huge profit.

“The banks will also make a huge profit,” he said. “And when the securities go back to their real market price, the taxpayer will pay the loss.”

He also warned that the incorporation of the Federal Reserve’s Term Asset-Backed Securities Loan Facility (TALF) into the Public-Private Investment Program added another level of potential fraud. Investment firms running Public-Private funds would be able to borrow additional money under the TALF program.

That program, using $80 billion in TARP funds to leverage $1 trillion in Fed loans, was initially designed to subsidize the issuing of new securities backed by consumer loans. Now it is to be used to subsidize the purchase of existing toxic asset-backed securities on the banks’ books.

He decried the fact that the Federal Reserve was relying on credit rating agencies to rate the toxic assets to be purchased under TALF and the PPIP, noting that the same agencies had contributed to the financial collapse by giving dubious mortgage-backed securities their highest rating.

In effect, he suggested, the program would enable the banks to offload the worst of their bad debts, generating massive profits for Wall Street and huge taxpayer losses.

Asked at the hearing whether there were any provisions in the TARP bill passed last October that required banks to report on their use of bailout money, he said, “No.” Without fundamental changes in the structure and management of the bailout programs, he said, there would be “potentially catastrophic taxpayer losses.”

Barofsky was asked about a report published that morning by the Wall Street Journal citing testimony by Bank of America CEO Kenneth Lewis that Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke and then-Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson pressured him to conceal the dire financial position of Merrill Lynch last September, when the Bush administration engineered the takeover of the investment bank by Bank of America. Merrill Lynch lost more than $15 billion in the fourth quarter of 2008, liabilities that led to a government bailout of Bank of America last December.

Barofsky said that his office was investigating the Bank of America takeover of Merrill. He listed six audits he was conducting, including, besides the Bank of America deal, the use of bailout funds, compliance with executive compensation limits, external influences, AIG executive bonuses, and AIG counterparty payments.

The latter concerns the fact that AIG has used its government bailout funds to pay off banks and other firms that had entered into credit default swaps with the insurance giant at 100 percent of the face value of the deals, rather than forcing its counterparties to accept reduced payments.

One such deal that is ripe for criminal investigation involves Goldman Sachs, former Treasury Secretary Paulson and the current CEO of AIG, Edward Liddy. It has emerged that Paulson, who was CEO of Goldman before becoming treasury secretary under Bush, designed the AIG rescue so as to allow AIG to funnel $13 billion in bailout money to his former bank. He picked Liddy, a former board member of Goldman, to become the new CEO of AIG. Liddy, meanwhile, retains an investment of more than $3 million in Goldman Sachs.

Obama’s treasury secretary, Geithner, was president of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York at the time and played a critical role in designing and implementing the TARP program and the bailout of AIG. That neither he, nor Obama, nor the Democratic-controlled Congress has any intention of implementing the changes proposed by Barofsky was underscored by Geithner’s testimony Tuesday before the Congressional Oversight Committee for TARP.

Although Geithner’s appearance occurred the day after Barofsky released his report to Congress and the day it was released to the public, none of the committee members raised it. Geithner, for his part, announced that the “vast majority” of banks were more than adequately capitalized, stressed that banks shown to need more capital by government “stress tests” would have many options for raising money, in addition to government purchases of their stock, and warned Congress against placing new requirements on bailed out firms.

His testimony was taken as a pledge that the Obama administration would continue to run interference for Wall Street and shield the wealth of the financial elite. It sparked a 127.8 point rise in the Dow, with bank stocks recording double-digit gains for the day.

From 'Wrestler' to 'Warrior'

http://content.usatoday.com/communities/gamehunters/post/2009/04/66064167/1

Apr 27, 2009
From 'Wrestler' to 'Warrior': Bethesda lands Mickey Rourke for 'Rogue Warrior'

Oscar-nominated actor Mickey Rourke will lend his vocal talents to Bethesda Softworks as the lead character in upcoming first-person shooter Rogue Warrior, says the publisher in a statement.

The game -- based on a series of books by former Navy SEAL Richard "Demo Dick" Marcinko -- is slated for release this fall.

Rourke will voice the role of Marcinko, the leader of an elite Navy SEAL unit who must disrupt a suspected ballistic missile program in North Korea.

On the game's official Web page, Bethesda says Rogue Warrior will differentiate itself in the crowded FPS arena by introducing a freeform battlefield, where players can freely complete missions any way they choose, " rather than heavily scripted events and tightly contained spaces traditionally used in this genre." Bethesda also says the game will include a Brutal Kill system with 25 fatal attacks.

The game will be available on PC, PlayStation 3 and the Xbox 360.

Top Democrats Complicit In Torture Cover-Up

http://www.prisonplanet.com/top-democrats-complicit-in-torture-cover-up.html

Top Democrats Complicit In Torture Cover-Up
The Obama administration is resisting an independent inquiry into the Bush torture program because top Democrats like Pelosi were complicit in approving illegal methods
Paul Joseph Watson
Prison Planet.com
Friday, April 24, 2009

We now know why top Democrats are protecting Bush administration officials from facing an inquiry into the illegal torture program - because several of them were actually complicit in giving their approval for such methods to be used.

The White House stressed again yesterday that it would not be pursuing an investigation of key Bush administration officials, despite the manifestly provable fact that the order to torture came from the very top, which was re-affirmed with the recent release of the Senate Armed Services Committee report.

White House spokesman Robert Gibbs stated yesterday, “I think the last few days might well be evidence of why something like this would likely just become a political back and forth.”

“By (definition), an independent commission would probably not be something that I would weigh in on if Congress were to create one of those,” he told reporters, according to AFP.

Democratic Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid also said he opposed an independent torture probe, stating, “I think it would be very unwise, from my perspective, to start having commissions, boards, tribunals, until we find out what the facts are.”

In addition, upon the recent release of the torture memos, Obama’s right-hand man, chief of staff Rahm Emanuel, told ABC News that top Bush administration officials “should not be prosecuted either and that’s not the place that we go.” Obama’s statement that accompanied the release of the torture memos stated, “In releasing these memos, it is our intention to assure those who carried out their duties relying in good faith upon legal advice from the Department of Justice that they will not be subject to prosecution.”

Why are top Democrats so vehemently opposed to an independent inquiry into the blatantly illegal Bush torture program? This goes further than the crony self-interests of the two party monopoly - it turns out that top Democrats had foreknowledge of the torture and actually provided their unmitigated approval for the methods when presented with them by the CIA.

Despite Nancy Pelosi’s denial that Congress was informed that the CIA was illegally waterboarding detainees, the Senate committee report discovered that in 2002 Pelosi and three other members of Congress (one other Democrat and two Republicans) were given a virtual tour by the CIA of overseas detention sites and the torture tactics employed to try and make detainees talk. This was reported by the Washington Post in December 2007.

Democrats Rep. Jane Harman (D-Calif.) and Sens. Bob Graham (D-Fla.) and John D. Rockefeller IV (D-W.Va.), all held oversight roles during this period. The Post reports that the lawmakers raised “no objections” to the interrogation methods demonstrated by the CIA and that in fact, “at least two lawmakers in the room asked the CIA to push harder.”

So in summary, at least four top Democrats were aware as far back as 2002 that the CIA was using torture tactics which were illegal under the Geneva Conventions on detainees. They gave their approval for such measures and, along with Republicans, advised that even harsher torture methods be employed.

Any independent investigation into the torture scandal will most probably uncover the fact that top Democrats like Pelosi, Harman, Graham and Rockefeller were complicit in approving the torture methods used by the CIA, which would also likely make them culpable to charges on the basis of knowingly covering up the fact that illegal actions which violate both the Geneva Conventions and the U.S. Constitution were taking place.

This is why Obama, Pelosi and the rest of the Democratic elite are so resistant to prosecuting Bush officials for devising the torture program - and have made every effort to protect them - because they were in on the fun and any truly independent inquiry would expose the fact that this whole debacle was a bipartisan cover-up from the very beginning.

Food Freedom is under Assault

http://www.naturalnews.com/026114.html

Food Freedom is under Assault, H.R. 759 Worse than H.R. 875
Friday, April 24, 2009
Ethan Huff, citizen journalist
Key concepts: Food, Food safety and Freedom

(NaturalNews) Salmonella outbreaks, food contamination, and other regulatory deficiencies over the nation's food supply during the past several years have led to a barrage of proposed legislation aimed at improving food safety. H.R. 875, H.R. 759, and H.R. 1332, are three major bills that have been proposed in recent months to address food safety issues, all of which have been tailored to benefit large, industrial food processors at the expense of small, family farms. Watchdog groups, including the Cornucopia Institute, are warning that H.R. 759, expected to be voted upon before Memorial Day, is the bill most likely to make it out of committee to Congress for a vote. Various portions of H.R. 875 and H.R. 1332 are expected to be implemented within the final version of H.R. 759.

Authored and introduced by Rep. John Dingell (D-MI) on January 28, 2009, H.R. 759, The FDA Globalization Act, would do the very thing its name implies; it would grant full authority to the FDA to set minimum, "science-based" standards for what it deems the safe production and harvesting of produce in the "global market".

According to the Cornucopia Institute, all "food processing facilities", or farms, would be required to register with the FDA and pay annual registration fees for program compliance, as well as other requirements including hazard evaluation, preventive hazard control, and copious record-keeping stipulations, regardless of the farm's size, organic certification, or already-existing safety guidelines.

Similar to H.R. 875, H.R 759 makes no differentiation between "food processing facilities", lumping everything from a small, certified-organic family produce farm to a large, conventional factory farm in its "one-size-fits-all" classification system. In other words, the same regulations placed on large agribusiness would be placed on farmers providing fresh vegetables at the local farmers market. There is also no differentiation in the bill between organic farms, which are already highly regulated and have extremely high standards, and their pesticide-ridden conventional counterparts.

Rather than logically evaluating the root causes of food contamination, which are almost always caused by filthy food processors not maintaining proper standards, these "food safety" bills seem to economically disparage family farms in favor of factory farms and transfer ever-more control over food to the FDA, an odious federal bureaucracy that is unable to enforce the food safety guidelines that are already established.

With the exception of H.R. 875, the food safety bills that have been proposed fail to identify and examine the real causes of food contamination and, instead, tack excessive burdens onto farmers, thus putting many small farms out of business. Even H.R. 875, while mentioning the importance of "identifying and evaluating the sources of potentially hazardous contamination," represents an enormous shift in power from the individual to the state, representing ominous implications for food freedom.

Since foods such as spinach, peppers, almonds, peanuts, and others for which there have been recent contamination outbreaks are not inherently dangerous, it is vital for any food safety legislation to seek to identify the root causes of contamination and deal with them accordingly. Whether it is the filthy animal feedlot up the road that has contaminated with salmonella the water used by the nearby spinach farm, or the improper cleaning of peanut-processing equipment by the industrial peanut processor, the contamination source is virtually never the farm itself, but some other link in the food processing chain. Yet H.R. 759 targets farms with more regulation, particularly disadvantaging small farms. Thus it is important to make Congress aware of the facts and to urge a redirection of food safety efforts towards the real culprits rather than the farmers.

Since H.R. 759 has been referred to, and remains in, the House Energy and Commerce committee, it is important to act now and en masse to oppose it and any food safety legislation that would harm organic and family farms, increase FDA power over the nation's food supply, and bolster Big Agribusiness by squelching competition with one-size-fits-all regulations aimed at putting out of business small farms.

Additionally, any true food safety legislation should require independent analysis into the root causes of food contamination rather than penalize the "food processors" (farms) with overbearing regulatory burdens while allowing the real perpetrators to continue their unacceptable practices.

Henry Waxman (D-CA), Chairman of the Committee on Energy and Commerce, can be contacted at (202) 225-2927. Congress can also be contacted by calling the Capitol Switchboard at (202) 224-3121.

The Cornucopia Institute also provides a sample letter that can be downloaded, modified, and sent to one's elected officials.

Now is the time to speak out against illegitimate "food safety" bills in order to protect access to clean, healthy, local food, not to mention the freedom to grow it, sell it, and buy it.

Barely Scratching the Surface of the Jesus Story?

Thanks to Rense.com for the following...

http://www.ears-to-hear.com

What if We're Barely Scratching the Surface of the Jesus Story?

There just aren't enough answers. There are too many holes in the story. There are too many stories that don't speak of a God of love. Jesus doesn't make sense.

Is this you? Do you have more questions than answers? Are you struggling to believe?

Or are you a believer who can't make the ends meet?

Ears to Hear is the book that is finally telling the whole story. From perfect Adam, to fallen Adam, to perfect Jesus, and the end of time. Pastor's son, Matt Cooper, takes you on the journey of a lifetime in this masterpiece new book, which explains everything - even the impossible and irrational things like the Lake of Fire, Hell, and Demons. This book was born in years of struggle between Christianity and deep depression because of this immovable faith, and written after the author found a way out of this "rock and a hard place".

This book encompasses all the hidden nuggets of truth, even the not-so-hidden ones found in some well-known verses of the Bible, and explains with great passion the undying love of God for humanity. What began as a quest for the truth behind it all, ended with finding out that nothing was as it seemed.

This philosophical epic is no book to fall asleep to! Its easy-breezy style brings reason and logic to the Christian tradition in easy-to-understand language which makes the concepts accessible to people from every walk of life.

Ears to Hear is the book that is opening eyes and CHANGING LIVES!

All the Answers You Need:

How can hell be created by a God who claims to be love?

Was there more than one "Fall" of Adam?

What gender is your spirit? How old is your spirit?

Was Eve meant to be?

Is "the devil" really so obsessed with my life?

What does the Bible say about what demons actually are?

Is "sin" what we think it is?

What is the purpose of human life?

What is baptism really all about?

How is the "lake of fire" an expression of God's love?

What is the truth about "the beast" and the "anti-Christ"?

Is lawlessness actually part of God's plan for the world?

Why is there so much talk about money in churches?

Is the church relying on a new form of "illiteracy" to accomplish its purposes?

What does it mean when it says "many are called but few are chosen"?

Are we really saved when we say the "sinner's prayer"?

Is salvation actually conditional?

Is prayer necessary?

And hundreds of other things they never told you....

What Readers are Saying

"I read the entire book last night, and couldn't stop crying."
Janice M.

"Simple and profound. I haven't read anything like this before!"
Stephen G.

"Finally, it all makes sense!"
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For a Limited Time...

Hurry!

Ears to Hear is being offered for a limited time as an Ebook! As soon as it hits bookstores, we will no longer be able to offer it on the internet and at such a discount!

Reputed Hitler watercolors sell at English auction

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090423/ap_on_re_eu/eu_britain_hitler_watercolors

Reputed Hitler watercolors sell at English auction
By MARTIN BENEDYK, Associated Press Writer Martin Benedyk, Associated Press Writer
Thu Apr 23, 2009

LUDLOW, England – What a British auction house claims are a set of paintings and sketches by a young Adolf Hitler sold at auction Thursday for 97,672 pounds ($143,358).

Among the 15 pictures is a portrait of solitary figure dressed in brown peering into wine-colored waters. The date is 1910, the signature reads "A. Hitler" and scribbled just over the mysterious figure are the letters: "A.H."

So is this a portrait of the Fuehrer as a young man?

"I don't think they're fakes," said Richard Westwood-Brookes, historical documents expert at auction house Mullocks that carried out the sale. He said he did not believe anyone would have the nerve to fake the pictures, given the global publicity they have received.

The portrait itself sold for about 10,000 pounds ($14,600). The buyer John Ratledge, 46, said he planned to hang it at home or in his office.

Westwood-Brookes said the paintings were sold to the current vendor, who is not identified, by a soldier serving with Britain's Royal Manchester Regiment in 1945, when it was stationed in the German city of Essen.

Best known as the genocidal dictator who butchered millions in his quest to unite Europe under German rule, Hitler also had a largely unsuccessful career as an artist in his early years. He is believed to have painted hundreds of pieces, although most art critics have been unmoved.

Westwood-Brookes acknowledged that the pieces were "hardly Picasso," but — concerns over authenticity aside — Hitler's works had a track record of attracting high bids. In 2006 watercolors and sketches attributed to the Nazi leader raised more than 100,000 pounds at an auction in the small town of Lostwithiel in southwestern England. Another batch of purported Hitler paintings is due to come up for auction in the German city of Nuremberg later this month.

Even if it were proven genuine beyond a doubt, the Hitler watercolor would not be the first self-portrait of the Nazi dictator discovered.

In 1987 the late historian Werner Maser said he had unearthed an oil portrait of Hitler executed in 1925. Maser, who wrote several Hitler biographies, told the AP at the time that the painting showed Hitler in traditional Bavarian dress with short trousers and long white socks.
___
Associated Press Writer Raphael G. Satter in London contributed to this report.

We Are America! We Do Not Fucking Torture!

http://www.newshounds.us/2009/04/22/shepard_smith_tells_fox_host_we_are_america_we_do_not_fucking_torture.php

Shepard Smith Tells Fox Host: We Are America! We Do Not Fucking Torture!
Reported by Ellen - April 22, 2009

I hope you will all join me in giving Fox News host Shepard Smith a virtual standing ovation for his emphatic, no-holds-barred stance against torture. We've been sent two YouTube videos of Smith. One on his own show, Studio B, where he much less excitedly told his guests, “We are America. We don't torture. And the moment that is not the case, I want off the train.” On The Strategy Room, an online show, Smith pounded on the table and said vehemently, “We are America! I don't give a rat's ass if it helps! We do not fucking torture!” With video.

On Studio B, Smith's guest Judith Miller, the disgraced former New York Times reporter, said, “Enhanced interrogation techniques, it's Orwellian. It's Orwellian for torture.” She pointed out that Israel, “which knows a little something about dealing with terrorists in ticking bomb situations,” outlawed waterboarding a long time ago.

After some back and forth with Miller and the other guest, the “enhanced interrogations” supporter Cliff May, Smith said, “We are America. We don't torture. And the moment that is not the case, I want off the train. This government is of, by and for the people. That means it's mine.”

On The Strategy Room (I'm guessing this was a later appearance but it's an all day show and there's no time stamp), Smith lost it when his colleague, Fox News' Trace Gallagher said, “This stuff helped.”

Smith pounded on the table, “We are America! I don't give a rat's ass if it helps! We are America! We do not fucking torture! We don't do it.”

If you'd like to send some props to Smith, you can email his show at studiob@foxnews.com.

Red Ice Creations with Kenn Thomas

http://www.megavideo.com/?d=YZ7XQRZV

ANCIENT MYSTERIES CONFERENCE

WORLD EXPLORERS CLUB
ADVENTURES UNLIMITED PRESS
PRESENTS
ANCIENT MYSTERIES CONFERENCE
Satuday, May 16th, 2009
A 2 Day Event in Kempton Illinois

Guest Speakers

David Hatcher Childress: Mysteries of Lemuria & the Pacific, Christopher Dunn: Evidence of Ancient Machining, Kenn Thomas: The NASA-Nazi-JFK Link, Joseph P. Farrell: Nazi International & the Bell, Jerry E. Smith: HAARP and Weather Warfare, Plus special guest Mars Expert John Brandenburg

The Venue

The conference will be hosted by Adventures Unlimited and the World Explorers Club in beautiful, downtown Kempton, Illinois. The One Adventure Place building houses the Adventures Unlimited Bookstore as well as the catalog sales division. Across the street is Sgt. Pepper’s Bar & Grill. Kempton is located in northern Illinois about 75 miles from Chicago’s major airports. It is 30 miles west of Kankakee, south of Chicago.

Conference Costs
$60 for complete conference before April 30.
$65 thereafter. The conference includes lunch.
$25 per any session (excluding lunch).
Drinks and tipping are extra. The bar is a cash bar.

Accommodations
Accommodations are not included in the conference fee. Accommodations can be found at several bed and breakfast establishments in Kempton and Stelle (an “intentional community” five miles from Kempton). Motels are located in Dwight, Kankakee and other nearby towns (about 15 to 25 minutes away). Call 1-815-253-9000 to book a room at the B&B’s (they fill up early).

Registration
Visa, MasterCard, American Express, or Discover cardholders can register by phone, fax or the Internet.
To register by phone:
Call Toll Free at 1-800-718-4514
(Foreign call 1-815-253-6390).
To register by fax:
Fax your registration details to 1-815-253-6300.
To register Online:
Email your registration to: auphq@frontiernet.net
To register by mail or courier:
Make check payable to Adventures Unlimited
Mail to:
Adventures Unlimited Conference
One Adventure Place, Box 74
Kempton, Illinois 60946, USA

Schedule of Events

Day 1 FRIDAY May 15
Welcome to Kempton, Adventures Unlimited and The World Explorers Club!

5:00 pm-10:00 pm: Conference Cocktail Party at the Adventures Unlimited Bookstore, 301 Main Street (One Adventure Place). Free drinks & hors d’oeuvres.

Day 2 SATURDAY May 16
9:45 am: Gather at the American Legion Hall (one block from the bookstore) for announcements and presentations.

10:00-11:00: HAARP and Weather Warfare
Presented by Jerry E. Smith

11:05-12:15: Nazi International & the Bell
Presented by Joseph P. Farrell

12:15-1:15: Conference Luncheon (Drinks not included)

1:15-2:30: Mysteries of Lemuria & the Pacific
Presented by David Hatcher Childress

2:30-3:30: The NASA-Nazi-JFK Link
Presented by Kenn Thomas

3:45-5:00 Evidence of Ancient Machining
Presented by Christopher Dunn

Conference Ends

Dinner can be had at Sgt. Pepper’s (Not Included)

5:00-8:00: Bookstore will be open.

Day 3 SUNDAY May 17
10:00-4:00: Open House at the Adventures Unlimited Bookstore.
All visitors Welcome. Authors will be signing books, etc.

More Information
For more information on the conference or on accommodations, call WEX at 815-253-9000, or Adventures Unlimited at 815-253-6390 Mon.-Sat., 9:00 a.m.-5:00 p.m. Central Standard Time.

Obama filling administration with RIAA insiders

http://macdailynews.com/index.php/weblog/comments/20875/

Copyright Alliance urges Obama to continue filling administration with RIAA insiders
Wednesday, April 22, 2009

"The content industry, including the Recording Industry Association of America and the Motion Picture Association of America, are applauding President Barack Obama's appointments of at least five RIAA lawyers to the Justice Department," David Kravets reports for Wired.

"They urged him to continue the trend... [via a] letter [which] comes as the United States negotiates a global intellectual property treaty and as the president mulls whom to choose as the nation's first copyright czar," Kravets reports.

"The communication was also in response to a letter the copyleft, represented by about two dozen public interest groups, sent Obama three weeks ago. That missive urged the president to stop tapping RIAA insiders to his administration," Kravets reports.

"That letter by the Electronic Frontier Foundation, Public Knowledge and others fell on deaf ears. Last week, Obama tapped his fifth RIAA lawyer to the Justice Department. The department just wrote in a peer-to-peer music file sharing case that the administration supports monetary damages of up to $150,000 per copyright infringement," Kravets reports.

Declan McCullagh reports for CNET, "Vice President Joe Biden lauded Hollywood at a gala dinner in Washington, D.C. on Tuesday evening, assailed movie piracy, and promised film executives that the Obama administration would pick 'the right person' as its copyright czar."

"An unspoken reason for the MPAA event--which included a symposium earlier in the day with remarks from top House Democrats and Commerce Secretary Gary Locke--was the loss of $246 million in tax breaks when the Senate revised the economic stimulus bill earlier this year. An MPAA report released Tuesday appears designed to avoid a repeat of that setback, listing the number of movies being filmed in each state," McCullagh reports.

"On copyright, President Obama has signaled a more pro-industry approach than his predecessor, which has alarmed advocates of less restrictive laws," McCullagh reports.

"The president chose as top Justice Department officials the music industry attorney who pulled the plug on Grokster and another longtime Recording Industry Association of America ligitator. The Obama administration recently sided with the RIAA in a file-sharing suit, and Biden was a staunch RIAA and MPAA ally as a U.S. senator," McCullagh reports.

A Pinstriped Patriot Act

http://www.thenation.com/doc/20090504/zirin2

A Pinstriped Patriot Act
By Dave Zirin

One fine day last August, Bradley Campeau-Laurion just wanted to leave his seat and use the bathroom at the old Yankee Stadium. The 30-year-old New York resident had no idea that nature's call would lead him down a road to perdition where he would be accused of challenging God, country, and the joys of compulsory patriotism at the ballpark.

Under the thirty-six-year watch of George Steinbrenner--and now his offspring--the New York Yankees have always wrapped their fans, like it or not, in red, white and blue bombast. This is the team that so loves God and country that it mandates the singing of two national anthems--Francis Scott Key's 1814 epic, "The Star-Spangled Banner" and Irving Berlin's 1918 anthem, "God Bless America."

For a while after 9/11, "God Bless America" was standard fare in major league ballparks. But while most ball clubs have let the practice slide, the super-patriotic Steinbrenners have ramped up the flag-waving, extending the seventh-inning stretch to include "God Bless America" along with the traditional "Take Me Out to the Ballgame." Sometimes "God Bless..." is performed live by Irish tenor Ronan Tynan, but most often the tune is delivered over stadium loudspeakers via a scratchy vintage recording by the operatic warbler Kate Smith, who first popularized the song in 1938. But no matter who's singing, the Yankees have been known to cordon off the aisles and put off-duty police officers in place to ensure the multitudes stand at respectful attention. (Fans of the world unite! You have nothing to lose but a long-dead singer and the chains on your bleachers!)

Not only do the Yankees expect fans to stand during the singing of patriotic songs, but during the Bush era they virtually mandated fan support for the Iraq War, all the while extorting tax breaks and other public subsidies from city, state and federal governments to build their new $1 .5 billion cathedral of baseball. (Separation of sports and state anyone?) For the Steinbrenners and the high-rollers who occupy Yankee Stadium's $2,500 top-shelf seats, this kind of power patriotism wedded to corporate welfare must be sweet as champagne.

But as the global economic meltdown has proven, there ultimately comes a time to put the brakes on corporate execs--to say nothing of mindless patriotism. And while some Yankees fans have grumbled and a few intrepid sports bloggers, like former Deadspin Editor Will Leitch, have raised concerns, it took one man's full bladder to hoist the Yankees organization with its own petard.

All Campeau-Laurion did was try to go to the men's room during the seventh-inning stretch. In swooped two New York Police Department officers working security detail, who reportedly roughed him up and threw him out of the ballpark. Now Campeau-Laurion has filed a civil suit against the the city, the cops and the team for violating his rights.

"New York's finest have no business arresting someone for trying to go to the bathroom at a politically incorrect moment," said Donna Lieberman, executive director of the New York Civil Liberties Union, which is representing Campeau-Laurion in the lawsuit. According to the complaint, Campeau-Laurion drank two beers and took the seventh-inning stretch to mean he could actually go stretch.

"As he walked toward the tunnel leading to the concourse, a uniformed New York City police officer put up his hands and mumbled something to Mr. Campeau-Laurion, " according to the complaint, blocking his way to the bathroom during the singing of "God Bless America."
As Campeau-Laurion tried to move past the officer, the policeman grabbed his arm and said, "He's out" to another officer, who twisted his left arm behind his back, hustling him down the ramp and out of the stadium.

The NYPD tells a different story.

"The officers observed a male standing on his seat, cursing, using inappropriate language and acting in a disorderly manner while reeking of alcohol and decided to eject him rather than subject others to his offensive behavior," NYPD spokesman Paul Browne said in an e-mail reply to my query. This account strains credulity. If it were standard procedure for the NYPD to kick out every drunken fan from Yankee Stadium, the place would be emptier than a John Ashcroft concert at the Apollo Theatre.

Campeau-Laurion disputes the NYPD account. "Not a word of that is true," he told Bloomberg News. "The whole incident didn't occur at my seat. It occurred at my section when I went to use the restroom."

"I don't care about 'God Bless America.' I don't believe that's grounds constitutionally for being dragged out of a baseball game... I simply don't have any religious beliefs... It devalues patriotism as a whole when you force people to participate in patriotic acts," he continued. "It devalues the freedom we fought for in the first place."

This ugly incident raises a series of inconvenient questions: why does America feel compelled to bind sports to patriotic ritual? Why are publicly funded facilities like stadiums used to promote private religious or political beliefs? And given the putrid start of the Yankees's season, shouldn't management be more concerned with what's happening with the players than with the fans? All should stand with Campeau-Laurion until we get some answers.

[Dave Zirin is the author of “A People’s History of Sports in the United States” (The New Press) Receive his column every week by emailing dave@edgeofsports.com. Contact him at edgeofsports@gmail.com]

'I'm Just Very Disappointed' NSA Wiretapped Me

http://thinkprogress.org/2009/04/21/harman-wiretapping-disappointed

Harman: 'I'm Just Very Disappointed' NSA Wiretapped Me, After I Voted To Allow Them To

On Sunday, CQ reported that the NSA had wiretapped Rep. Jane Harman (D-CA), listening in on a call in which she apparently offered a quid pro quo to a lobbyist group. Harman has vigorously denied the reports. Today, she appeared on MSNBC to express her shock and outrage that her phone calls were listened to, saying she was "disappointed" that the U.S. could have allowed such "a gross abuse of power":

HARMAN: I'm just very disappointed that my country -- I'm an American citizen just like you are -- could have permitted what I think is a gross abuse of power in recent years. I'm one member of Congress who may be caught up in it, but I have a bully pulpit and I can fight back. I'm thinking about others who have no bully pulpit and may not be aware, as I was not, that right now somewhere, someone's listening in on their conversations, and they're innocent Americans.

Harman's anger seems a bit disingenuous, considering that she was one of the earliest supporters of Bush's warrantless wiretapping program. When the practice was revealed by the New York Times in 2005, she defended it as "essential," though admitted she was "concerned" about its scope:

"I have been briefed since 2003 on a highly classified NSA foreign collection program that targeted Al Qaeda. I believe the program is essential to U.S. national security and that its disclosure has damaged critical intelligence capabilities," Harman said. "Like many Americans, I am deeply concerned by reports that this program in fact goes far beyond the measures to target Al Qaeda about which I was briefed."

In fact, in 2004 she "urged that The [New York] Times not publish the article" revealing Bush's program.

Indeed, she issued a press release in 2007 specifically highlighting that the updated FISA bill she approved of would fully allow warrantless wiretapping:

This bill does a good job -- a far better job than the bill reported last month by the Senate Intelligence Committee. ... This legislation arms our intelligence professionals with the ability to listen to foreign targets -- without a warrant -- to uncover plots that threaten US national security. The bill also protects the Constitutional rights of Americans by requiring the FISA court, an Article III Court, to approve procedures to ensure that Americans are not targeted for warrantless surveillance.

To her credit, Harman warned against "a slippery legal slope to potential unprecedented abuse of innocent Americans' privacy" and stated her opposition to granting telecommunications companies retroactive immunity. Perhaps her outrage at being a target of wiretapping herself will force her to realize that the program she deemed "essential" invaded the privacy of untold millions of Americans.

FBI Spied On Tea Party Protesters Nationwide

http://www.prisonplanet.com/source-fbi-spied-on-tea-party-protesters-nationwide.html

Source: FBI Spied On Tea Party Protesters Nationwide
COINTELPRO tactics in force as federal government intensifies Bushist police state under Obama administration
Paul Joseph Watson
Prison Planet.com
Monday, April 20, 2009

The FBI were spying on Tea Party protesters nationwide during last week’s demonstrations as part of a covert program conducted without the knowledge of local law enforcement, according to a source named as a current FBI agent.

The Northeast Intelligence Network reports that a concerned unnamed FBI agent risked his career in blowing the whistle on the fact that Tea Party protesters were subject to covert surveillance.

The FBI agent allegedly told Doug Haggman, “The Department of Homeland Security Intelligence Assessment that is receiving so much attention is just the tip of the proverbial iceberg, and the true patriotic citizens of this country are on the Titanic. This is what bothers me. But is goes far beyond that assessment. There have been very significant changes made over the last few years that redirect the focus and assets of the intelligence community internally. These changes have greatly accelerated under this administration, and the threats have been redefined to include those who used to be patriots. It’s not only chilling but absolutely insulting to God-fearing Americans.”

The source claims that a single page FBI directive was dispatched from FBI headquarters in Washington DC on March 23 requesting that Special Agents in Charge (SACs) “verify the date, time and location of each TEA Party within their region and supply that information to FBI headquarters in Washington.”

Agents were then instructed to compile information on the organizers of the different protests and also send the information back to FBI headquarters. On April 6, they were subsequently asked to conduct covert surveillance and data collection of the protesters attending the Tea Party demonstrations. Surveillance was to be performed from “discreet fixed or mobile positions” and was to be performed “independently and outside of the purview of local law enforcement,” according to the source.

Although the level of detail collected from each operation is unclear, the information was reportedly submitted to Washington, where, “at the level of the National Security Branch (NSB), this information was to “include the office of the Directorate of Intelligence (DI), and integrated with a restricted access database, one that reportedly is accessible to only two agencies” [of the 14 agencies that comprise the U.S. intelligence community, according to the source.

“The implications to the citizens of the U.S. are ominous. It seems that there is a hostile political agenda coming from Washington that characterizes the supporters of our constitutional freedoms as threats to our domestic security, which is totally absurd. The redirection, the refocusing of domestic threats from al Qaeda cells to ‘flag waving right-wingers’ is something that has gone from a murmur a few years ago to a roar today.”

The notion that the FBI would be conducting covert surveillance and building databases on attendants of the Tea Party protests is thoroughly disturbing if not unsurprising. Indeed, before any major political event the FBI prosecutes aggressive surveillance of political groups to the point of harassment and beyond. Before the 2004 Republican Convention, the FBI initiated a nationwide campaign to track down leaders of protest groups and interrogate them, as “part of a national effort to chill dissent in this country,” according to William Dobbs, the spokesman for United for Peace and Justice.

Not long after 9/11, the FBI returned to tactics that were first made infamous during the days of J. Edgar Hoover, by collecting extensive information on anti-war and other protest groups. To highlight the non-partisan threat of the police state, the FBI is now treating so-called “right-wingers” and conservatives with the same disdain. Basically anyone who seeks to exercise their constitutional rights to peaceably assemble and express free speech is considered a threat and even a potential terrorist, as a recent Homeland Security directive implied.

From 1956 to 1971, the FBI’s COINTELPRO program worked to monitor and disrupt protest movements across America as part of an effort to stifle dissent. FBI Director Hoover ordered FBI agents to “expose, disrupt, misdirect, discredit, or otherwise neutralize” the activities of these movements and their leaders. The final report of the Church Committee, which was tasked with investigating the legality of the program, concluded that the FBI had performed “unsavory and vicious tactics” in undertaking “secret surveillance of citizens on the basis of their political beliefs, even when those beliefs posed no threat of violence or illegal acts on behalf of a hostile foreign power.”

As we reported last week, The Maryland National Guard was put on alert in anticipation of the nationwide Tea Party protests, while a Homeland Security spokesman refused to deny that protesters would be under surveillance from the DHS.

The Maryland National Guard issued a Force Protection Advisory on April 11 which warned the National Guard to be on alert during the Tea Party protests because Guardsmen and Guard facilities might become “targets of opportunity.” The contact point for the document was listed as the Antiterrorism Program Coordinator.

The advisory was almost exactly the same as a United States Army Reserve Command Force Protection Advisory that was issued last November before the nationwide End the Fed protests, warning that protesters were congregating across the country to demonstrate against the private Federal Reserve.

During an interview on the Roger Hedgecock Show before last week’s demonstrations, Sean Smith, Assistant Secretary of DHS for Public Affairs, refused to deny that Homeland Security officials would be spying on Tea Party protesters when pressed by Hedgecock.

“Is the department sending people to video or record in any way the Tea Parties?” asked Hedgecock during the interview.

“Um, I can’t speak to sort of things that are law enforcement sensitive. Um, so I can’t speak to any current law enforcement operations,” responded Smith.

FBI surveillance of Tea Party protesters highlights the fact that the architecture of the police state, which was massively expanded under George W. Bush, has not been dismantled or relaxed by an Obama administration that promised “change,” and if anything has only grown bigger.

The Obama administration’s announcement that the illegal warrantless surveillance of American citizens, a program initiated under Bush, will continue and in fact intensify under Obama, is another shining example of the fact that - no matter who is in power and no matter the political persuasion of those being watched - all Americans who have the temerity to exercise constitutional rights are considered dangerous and worthy of being targeted by the federal government with surveillance tools supposedly introduced to fight terrorists.

Public Enemy Warn Of “The Obama Deception”

http://www.prisonplanet.com/rap-group-public-enemy-warn-of-the-obama-deception.html

Rap Group Public Enemy Warn Of “The Obama Deception”
Seminal hip-hop outfit educates audience at huge California music festival
Paul Joseph Watson
Prison Planet.com
Tuesday, April 21, 2009

Public Enemy - one of the most influential rap groups in music history - took an opportunity at the Coachella 2009 festival to warn their audience about “The Obama Deception,” in reference to Alex Jones’ recently released underground blockbuster documentary.

The L.A. Times reports that Public Enemy member Professor Griff, who himself appears in the film, made repeated references to the “Obama deception,” during the concert in California at which Paul McCartney, Morrissey, the Cure and Leonard Cohen also performed.

Public Enemy’s 2005 album was entitled “New Whirl Order” and included tracks such as “66.6 Strikes Again,” “What A Fool Believes,” and “Revolution”. The band were at their peak in the late 80’s. Their 1988 album It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back peaked at #42 on the Billboard 200, and at #1 on the Billboard R&B/Hip hop Album charts and is routinely ranked in the top 50 albums of all time, being regarded as one of the most influential and groundbreaking records in history.

Public Enemy, along with N.W.A., were two of the seminal acts in the organic explosion of hip-hop during the latter 1980’s, when the grassroots of the genre was all about black people becoming informed, empowered and strong and breaking free from stereotypical associations with poverty and drugs.

As soon as hip-hop became a vehicle for political and personal awakening, it was seized and devoured by corporate America and MTV, before being gradually deformed into what we see on television today - where black icons rap not about fighting the man or standing up to the system, but about how much money and sex they have while girls with giant buttocks wiggle around behind them.

We continually hear about huge music stars using their gargantuan public platforms to educate the public about the new world order at concerts and gigs.

At the internationally renowned Reading festival In August 2006, Muse front man Matt Bellamy donned a T-shirt emblazoned with the words “Terrorstorm,” wearing it for the band’s headline performance which was watched collectively by tens of millions of people worldwide.

George Will Hates Blue Jeans

George Will Hates Blue Jeans

Here's the article that cements as fact what has long been pretty much known: George Will is a dorkish dweeb who hates the common man...

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/04/15/AR2009041502861.html

Demon Denim
By George F. Will
Thursday, April 16, 2009

On any American street, or in any airport or mall, you see the same sad tableau: A 10-year-old boy is walking with his father, whose development was evidently arrested when he was that age, judging by his clothes. Father and son are dressed identically -- running shoes, T-shirts. And jeans, always jeans. If mother is there, she, too, is draped in denim.

Writer Daniel Akst has noticed and has had a constructive conniption. He should be given the Presidential Medal of Freedom. He has earned it by identifying an obnoxious misuse of freedom. Writing in the Wall Street Journal, he has denounced denim, summoning Americans to soul-searching and repentance about the plague of that ubiquitous fabric, which is symptomatic of deep disorders in the national psyche.

It is, he says, a manifestation of "the modern trend toward undifferentiated dressing, in which we all strive to look equally shabby." Denim reflects "our most nostalgic and destructive agrarian longings -- the ones that prompted all those exurban McMansions now sliding off their manicured lawns and into foreclosure." Jeans come prewashed and acid-treated to make them look like what they are not -- authentic work clothes for horny-handed sons of toil and the soil. Denim on the bourgeoisie is, Akst says, the wardrobe equivalent of driving a Hummer to a Whole Foods store -- discordant.

Long ago, when James Dean and Marlon Brando wore it, denim was, Akst says, "a symbol of youthful defiance." Today, Silicon Valley billionaires are rebels without causes beyond poses, wearing jeans when introducing new products. Akst's summa contra denim is grand as far as it goes, but it only scratches the surface of this blight on Americans' surfaces. Denim is the infantile uniform of a nation in which entertainment frequently features childlike adults ("Seinfeld," "Two and a Half Men") and cartoons for adults ("King of the Hill"). Seventy-five percent of American "gamers" -- people who play video games -- are older than 18 and nevertheless are allowed to vote. In their undifferentiated dress, children and their childish parents become undifferentiated audiences for juvenilized movies (the six -- so far -- "Batman" adventures and "Indiana Jones and the Credit-Default Swaps," coming soon to a cineplex near you). Denim is the clerical vestment for the priesthood of all believers in democracy's catechism of leveling -- thou shalt not dress better than society's most slovenly. To do so would be to commit the sin of lookism -- of believing that appearance matters. That heresy leads to denying the universal appropriateness of everything, and then to the elitist assertion that there is good and bad taste.

Denim is the carefully calculated costume of people eager to communicate indifference to appearances. But the appearances that people choose to present in public are cues from which we make inferences about their maturity and respect for those to whom they are presenting themselves.

Do not blame Levi Strauss for the misuse of Levi's. When the Gold Rush began, Strauss moved to San Francisco planning to sell strong fabric for the 49ers' tents and wagon covers. Eventually, however, he made tough pants, reinforced by copper rivets, for the tough men who knelt on the muddy, stony banks of Northern California creeks, panning for gold. Today it is silly for Americans whose closest approximation of physical labor consists of loading their bags of clubs into golf carts to go around in public dressed for driving steers up the Chisholm Trail to the railhead in Abilene.

This is not complicated. For men, sartorial good taste can be reduced to one rule: If Fred Astaire would not have worn it, don't wear it. For women, substitute Grace Kelly.

Edmund Burke -- what he would have thought of the denimization of America can be inferred from his lament that the French Revolution assaulted "the decent drapery of life"; it is a straight line from the fall of the Bastille to the rise of denim -- said: "To make us love our country, our country ought to be lovely." Ours would be much more so if supposed grown-ups would heed St. Paul's first letter to the Corinthians, and St. Barack's inaugural sermon to the Americans, by putting away childish things, starting with denim.

(A confession: The author owns one pair of jeans. Wore them once. Had to. Such was the dress code for former senator Jack Danforth's 70th birthday party, where Jerry Jeff Walker sang his classic "Up Against the Wall, Redneck Mother." Music for a jeans-wearing crowd.)

georgewill@washpost.com

Drudge: 'I Do Not Love Sex With Men'

http://gawker.com/5200009/drudge-i-do-not-love-sex-with-men

Drudge: 'I Do Not Love Sex With Men'
By Ryan Tate
Mon Apr 6 2009

For years, internet publisher Matt Drudge has responded to questions about his reported homosexuality by obfuscating and dodging. It would appear he's still at it.

Witness his email interview with Chris Rovzar of New York, who elicited (GASP!) a reaction from the tight-lipped protoblogger to an item in Out that said the Drudge Report proprietor "happens to love Chaka Khan, The Young and the Restless, and sex with men" but is homophobic and anti-abortion-rights. Drudge:

"False. False. False. I do not love sex with men. My site is not anti-gay. I present both sides of the anti-choice-life issue... I liked Chaka in the eighties, and have not watched Young and the Restless in twenty years! But I do watch Judge Judy!"

The bit about not loving gay sex is a red herring: Drudge has never been said to particularly relish his homosexuality or embrace it; in fact his gay romantic/sexual side has been described (when alleged) as conflicted and awkward.

David Brock, the former right-wing writer, wrote in his memoir Blinded by the Right about a "scary" date in which Drudge, after bringing Brock flowers and navigating the Santa Monica gay strip "like a pro," stepped on a competing suitor's foot "really hard" (in Drudge's purported words) in a nightclub to scare him away from Brock. He also reproduced an overly blunt email in which Drudge wrote, "Laura [Ingraham] spreading stuff about you and me being fuck buddies. I should be so lucky."

Alec Baldwin stated that Drudge made an advance on him in an ABC Studios hallway, a proposition that had "kind of a creepy quality to it."

Given his purported bumbling of the matter, it's entirely conceivable that Matt Drudge has gay sex without "loving" it, at least on a level he can admit to himself, or furtive gay relationships that stop well short of that sort of intimacy.

For his part, Drudge has historically sought to blur the issue of his sexuality, tending to portray himself in ambiguous or asexual terms. He once said on his radio show, "There is no secret life here. It is found literally on the website, because this is all I've been doing." Drudge denied he was gay to the Miami New Times in 2001, even as he launched into a disquisition on (as the New Times put it) "the reigning DJ king of gay circuit parties" and summarized his nightlife thusly: "I go to straight bars, I go to gay bars." That clears that right up.

Drudge has offered more straightforward denials. He once told the Times of London "I'm not gay — I was nearly married a few years ago." But he refused to discuss his personal life further, leaving people looking for details to find stories dished out by the likes of Brock and Baldwin.

None of which is to say Drudge's statement to Rovzar isn't useful: At the very least it shows that the troubled kid treated "like shit" in high school is decidedly unhappy and uncomfortable being placed on a list of gay people, powerful though they may be. Drudge may traffic (quite well) in labels, but "gay" is one he just can't stand. At least not for himself.

Review: 50 Reasons Not to Vote for Bush

From The Vault - Via GayWired.com:

Review: 50 Reasons Not to Vote for Bush

50 Reasons To Get Very Angry
by L. A. Vess

For some reason, my readers don't seem to like it when I rant about politics. I can understand. Politics is far less interesting than sex (though often dirtier), or relationship issues, or humorous happenings of gay life. Political rants, by their nature, tend to offend and annoy people. So unless you are a so-called 'political columnist' - it is usually best to just ignore the subject. Until, that is, you go stark-raving mad and just can't keep your mouth shut any longer...
I'm stark-raving mad.

This isn't to say that I've gone insane. No, I'm just so pissed off that I'm seriously in danger of having my own head spontaneously combust. I'm angry for so many reasons, and at so many people, that I feel like I'm flying to pieces in a zillion different directions. Mostly, however, I am angry at one person in particular - myself. I am mad as hell at my ignorant, complacent, turn-the-other-cheek, somebody-else's-problem American self.

In the past two weeks, my smug self-assurance that I was one of those Americans who was actually "educated" about politics has all come crashing down. There are three particular things that have sparked my near-incoherent rage at my own lack of political education. First, of course, Michael Moore and Fahrenheit 9/11. Second, the wide, wide world of Blogs. And last, and most notably, a very provocative book entitled 50 Reasons Not To Vote For Bush.

Considering the wide spread media coverage of Moore's epic documentary on George Bush and all things Bush related - I won't go into detail on Fahrenheit 9/11. I will simply say that watching this film was one of the most disturbing experiences of my life. Hell, I'm a born and bred Democrat and I still found it difficult to believe that Moore wasn't making some of this shit up. I hate the Shrub with a personal passion I have never felt toward any human before in my life. Just hearing some of the words that came directly out of his mouth in clips from the film was enough to make me want to run to the bathroom to be sick. THIS man is our President? The President of the United States, land of the free, home of the brave and all that? This man, who sat frozen in inaction and idiocy, reading a book to a bunch of kids for almost ten minutes after being told that the World Trade Center had been hit by terrorists? This man is the leader of the free world???

Regardless of my gut reactions to the horrors of what I saw in the film, it wasn't until I actually did some heavy research - and found all the documented, hardcore evidence from multiple sources backing him up - that I really believed Moore wasn't just blowing things out of proportion. Once I figured out that this rather loony guy was telling the truth, even if in rather a one-sided manner, I got quietly angry.

While researching Moore's documentary, I found a number of new political-oriented blogs that I had not yet come across. Some of these were recommended to me as research sites by a friend of mine in Europe. One is http://www.cosmiciguana.com - a strange name for one of the most fear-provoking web blogs I've ever read. Reading the simple posts and related news stories that grace the pages of this site daily is enough to put terror into the heart of any freedom loving American. Then there is http://www.counterpunch.org/, which is kind of an online magazine/blog filled full of facts, figures and powerful stories of the "real" America - and the real people who run it. After spending a week running around these blogs, even taking everything with a heaping spoon of salt, I went from being quietly angry to loudly angry - very, very fast.

Then I received a copy of 50 Reasons Not To Vote For Bush, a book with a rather humorous cover all about why George Bush and pretty much the entire Bush administration are, well, quite simply evil bastards. After reading only a few pages, I transitioned straight to screaming mad. In fact, my partner had to excuse herself to run to Starbucks several times just to escape my full-volume tirades that exploded uncontrollably from my mouth every few pages. Moore's Fahrenheit 9/11 is more boldly provocative than any book, of course, and there is certainly nothing like the in-your-face realness of film. However, there is just something about having 201 pages full of documented information on the Bush administration’s greed, corruption and complete disregard for humanity that makes your blood boil like nothing else.

This very informative tell-all book by Robert Sterling of http://www.konformist.com/. Sterling's site is a mixture of humor and horror, conspiracy theories and shocking truths. Hell, most of Konformist's conspiracy theories probably are shocking truths. Sterling's book, however, is just cold, hard reasons to be very angry at the state of this country - and the Shrub's contribution to it. Fifty of them, laid out in a nice, neat and easily referenced format. Each and every "reason" he lists in this book why you should NOT vote for Bush - is also a reason why you should be extremely angry that Bush managed to get into the White House in the first place. But it isn't Bush that you should be angry at. You should be, like I am, stark-raving mad at yourself.

We should all be angry at ourselves for allowing this travesty to take place. We have a president in office who did not get elected. We have a president (and Vice-President) who uses his governmental office to gift his 'buddies' with seats of power and millions in blood money. We have a president who doesn't give a f*ck about any American who makes less than half a million a year - or less than a million if they don't contribute directly to his campaign fund. We have a President who took us to war over a commodity - and against the will of the United Nations. And we put him there. Those who voted for him are most guilty, those who voted for Nader have their own circle of shame, and even those who voted for Gore are guilty of not making sure their ELECTED PRESIDENT actually made it to Washington. We just sat back and let the founding Democratic process of our nation - the ability to elect the leader of this country - become nothing more than a pathetic mockery.

We marched on Washington for civil rights. We marched on Washington for gay rights. We marched on Washington for women's rights. But when the most basic of our rights as citizens was trodden underfoot like so much garbage - we stayed at home, threw up our hands and said "oh well, that's just how it is."

I say it is time we took the first step forward on that march that we should have had back in 2000. It is not enough just to say you'll vote against Bush in November. It isn't even enough to have John Kerry win that election (if that is even possible considering that our votes mean practically nothing to a rigged, Republican owned electronic voting machine). John Kerry may not be George Bush, but he is a similar creature. Yale bred, Skull & Bones raised, with money flowing through his veins - there is little that is better about John Kerry as President other than that he is not George Bush. If George Bush is the color red (appropriate I would say), then John Kerry is just a pale blush.

John Kerry is not the solution, he is merely a temporary stop-gap figurehead to slow this country from its swift demise into a capitalist dictatorship. Even if he is elected, little real change will happen during his reign. He is just too much like Bush, and too much like every modern president in the last century. Until this country can put real Americans - honest, hard-working, blue collar people in offices of power - no real change can happen. We have to take this country out of the hands of corporate money and put it back into the hands of the American people. As the now lamented former presidential candidate Howard Dean said - it is time to take our country back.

Freddie Mac acting CFO found dead

http://www.marketwatch.com/news/story/Freddie-Mac-acting-CFO-dead/story.aspx

Freddie Mac acting CFO found dead in apparent suicide
U.S. officials express condolences to Kellermann's family and colleagues
By Sam Mamudi & Ronald D. Orol, MarketWatch
April 22, 2009

NEW YORK (MarketWatch) -- The acting chief financial officer of Freddie Mac was found dead at his home Wednesday morning in an apparent suicide.

David Kellermann, acting chief financial officer at the government-controlled mortgage company, was found dead at his home in Fairfax County, Va.

Kellermann was named acting CFO in late September, three weeks after the government took charge of Freddie Mac. He had previously been senior vice president and corporate controller there.

His death came as staff from the Securities and Exchange Commission and Justice Department were probing the home-finance company about issues including possible accounting violations.

Freddie disclosed the investigation in a March 11 filing, and the firm said it was "cooperating fully in these matters."

According to the SEC filing, Freddie said it received a federal grand jury subpoena Sept. 26 from the U.S. attorney's office for the southern district of New York. The subpoena sought documents related to accounting, disclosure and corporate-governance matters, according to the filing.

But that subpoena was later withdrawn and the investigation was taken over by the U.S. attorney for the eastern district of Virginia.

According to the filing, on Oct. 21, Freddie said the SEC had begun its own investigation, asking Freddie for documents. Specifically, on Jan. 23, Jan. 30 and Feb. 25, the SEC issued subpoenas for documents. The agency also began its own interviews of company employees, Freddie said in the filing.

In addition to the investigation, Freddie Mac received a request from the House Committee on Oversight and Investigations on Oct. 20 seeking documents for a hearing it held on Dec. 9.

Freddie Mac has received more than $30 billion in government support as the mortgage and credit crisis intensified.

Kellermann's apparent suicide surprised some key regulators in Washington, who expressed their condolences.

"On behalf of the Treasury family, we are deeply saddened by the news this morning of David Kellermann's death," said Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner in a statement. "Our deepest sympathies are with his family and his colleagues at Freddie Mac during this difficult time."

The Federal Housing Finance Agency issued this statement: "For many years, we have known David as a person of the utmost ethical standards who was hardworking and knowledgeable in his field. As the Acting Chief Financial Officer of Freddie Mac during particularly challenging times, David was an inspiration to his staff and many others who were privileged to work with him. We extend our condolences to his family, friends and colleagues."

Kellermann's apparent suicide would be the latest of several putatively motivated by the financial crisis. French financier Rene-Thierry Magon de la Villehuchet killed himself in December after losing roughly $1 billion of his own and clients' money to the Ponzi scheme orchestrated by Bernard Madoff.

Seventy-four-year-old German billionaire Adolf Merckle in January committed suicide after the conglomerate he controlled, with investments in pharmaceuticals, cement and other sectors, experienced problems related to the global financial crisis.

In 2002, J. Clifford Baxter, a former Enron Corp. vice chairman, was found dead in his car in Houston, in an apparent suicide, after the company collapsed in a massive corruption scandal and bankruptcy filing.

Ronald D. Orol is a MarketWatch reporter, based in Washington.

CONSPIRACY CON

http://www.conspiracycon.com/

Greetings to all truth-seekers and freedom-fighters! Thank you for visiting the official website for CONSPIRACY CON. This annual conference is a bold and serious approach to serious issues, dedicated to providing a forum for those who say what few are willing to say and facilitated in an atmosphere of goodwill, integrity and fun. Each year several of the most controversial speakers in the world gather to share their knowledge of many different issues (rarely or never addressed by our controlled media), which profoundly affect us all. Just some of the subjects covered are: Mind Control, Secret Societies, Shadow Government, The Federal Reserve, 9-11, Occult Technologies, Suppressed Knowledge, New World Order, etc. This can even include looking to the manipulation of humanity by non-human intelligences... be they alien, inter-dimensional, demonic, satanic... whatever consciousness it is, operating on (and in) this planet, that looks upon humankind as sheep and cattle to be herded and slaughtered at will.

The primary goals of CONSPIRACY CON are to directly expose and analyze the "real" problems and the "real" problem-makers of yesterday, today and tomorrow, as well as to provide courses of action and potential solutions to the challenges that are placed upon humankind by these forces, which (for the moment) may seem invisible, perpetual and insurmountable.

I submit to each and every one of you reading this that the conspiratorial view of history is far closer to the truth than any other version of history. And, what backs this statement up... history. The so-called "conspiracy theorists" are proven time and time again to be right far more often than not. God bless the "conspiracy theorists" of today. For tomorrow they will be called "hero."

It is time for all of humankind to grow up quickly and take a look at some disturbing things. I, though, will be the first to tell you that this can be an extremely difficult undertaking for most card-carrying earthlings. This is due to the fact that those same masses are nothing more than products of years, if not decades, of programming and indoctrination (by design)... and not real knowledge that is truly self-empowering. Case in point: Look at the word "graduation." Etymolically it is derived from two words... "gradual" and "indoctrination"... "gradu-ation." Furthermore, why do you think it's called television "programming?" Perhaps the all-seeing "eye" network can answer that one. It's the one with show titles like "Martial Law" and "Big Brother."

It is said "Seek the truth... and the truth shall set you free." A wonderful statement and ideal, but it is incomplete. There is a bumper sticker out there that sums up the "waking-up" process on this planet perfectly... "The truth shall set you free, but first it'll piss you off!" And, I for one am pissed off. If you aren't, then you're either dangerously ignorant as to the way this world is truly run and controlled; you're in complete denial about this reality; or you are a willing pawn in this global game of chess played by the worst of tyrants.

If you fall under that last category, I feel compelled to quote a line to you from the TV miniseries "V" in which a rebel declares, "Congratulations on selling out your race to a bunch of night crawlers." If you fall under the first two categories, and think you can "handle the truth," then look no further. To be forewarned is to be forearmed. Join us each year and gain the knowledge that will truly set you free…

Brian William Hall ™
Executive Producer
CONSPIRACY CON

Typeface Inspired by Comic Books

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123992364819927171.html

APRIL 17, 2009
Typeface Inspired by Comic Books Has Become a Font of Ill Will
By EMILY STEEL
Vincent Connare designed the ubiquitous, bubbly Comic Sans typeface, but he sympathizes with the world-wide movement to ban it.

Mr. Connare has looked on, alternately amused and mortified, as Comic Sans has spread from a software project at Microsoft Corp. 15 years ago to grade-school fliers and holiday newsletters, Disney ads and Beanie Baby tags, business emails, street signs, Bibles, porn sites, gravestones and hospital posters about bowel cancer.

The font, a casual script designed to look like comic-book lettering, is the bane of graphic designers, other aesthetes and Internet geeks. It is a punch line: "Comic Sans walks into a bar, bartender says, 'We don't serve your type.'" On social-messaging site Twitter, complaints about the font pop up every minute or two. An online comic strip shows a gang kicking and swearing at Mr. Connare.

The jolly typeface has spawned the Ban Comic Sans movement, nearly a decade old but stronger now than ever, thanks to the Web. The mission: "to eradicate this font" and the "evil of typographical ignorance."

"If you love it, you don't know much about typography," Mr. Connare says. But, he adds, "if you hate it, you really don't know much about typography, either, and you should get another hobby."

Love It or Hate It

Typefaces convey meaning, typographers say. Helvetica is an industry standard, plain and reliable. Times New Roman is classic. Depending on your point of view, Comic Sans is fun, breezy, silly or vulgar and lazy. It can be "analogous to showing up for a black-tie event in a clown costume," warns the Ban Comic Sans movement's manifesto. The font's original name was Comic Book, but Mr. Connare thought that didn't sound like a font name. He used Sans (short for sans-serif) because most of the lettering, except for the uppercase I, doesn't have serifs, the small features at the end of strokes.

Mr. Connare, 48 years old, now works at Dalton Maag, a typography studio in London, and finds his favorite creation -- a sophisticated typeface called Magpie -- eclipsed by Comic Sans. He cringes at the most improbable manifestations of his Frankenstein's monster font and rarely uses it himself, but he says he tries to be polite when he meets people excited to be in the presence of the creator. Googling himself, he once found a Black Sabbath band fan site that used Comic Sans. The site's creators even credited him. "You can't regulate bad taste," he says.

Still, he is tickled by -- and trades on -- his reputation. A picture signed by Mickey Mouse that was sent to Mr. Connare to thank him after Disney used the font in ads hangs in his house. His wife, Sue Rider, introduces him at parties as the father of Comic Sans. A friend of his claims to know someone who broke up with her boyfriend in a letter written in Comic Sans to soften the blow. But there certainly hasn't been much money in it for Mr. Connare since Microsoft owns the font.

Of course, there would be no movement to ban Comic Sans if it weren't so popular. "We've been using that font for years," says Peter Phyo, a manager at O'Neals' restaurant across the street from Lincoln Center in Manhattan. "That is just the procedure. I wouldn't know the exact reasoning. It also looks nice on the menu." Mr. Phyo says he hasn't had any complaints.

The proliferation of Comic Sans is something of a fluke. In 1994, Mr. Connare was working on a team at Microsoft creating software that consumers eventually would use on home PCs. His designer's sensibilities were shocked, he says, when, one afternoon, he opened a test version of a program called Microsoft Bob for children and new computer users. The welcome screen showed a cartoon dog named Rover speaking in a text bubble. The message appeared in the ever-so-sedate Times New Roman font.

Mr. Connare says he pulled out the two comic books he had in his office, "The Dark Knight Returns" and "Watchmen," and got to work, inspired by the lettering and using his mouse to draw on a computer screen. Within a week, he had designed his legacy.

A product manager recognized the font's appeal and included it as a standard typeface in the operating system for Microsoft Windows. As home computers became widespread, Comic Sans took on a goofy life of its own.

Out to crush that goofy life is Ban Comic Sans, whose weapons include disapproving stickers, to be slapped on inappropriate uses of the font wherever they are found.

The 'Ban Comic Sans' group slaps its stickers on uses of the ubiquitous font, such as a retirement-benefits document.
Ban Comic Sans was conceived in the fall of 1999, when Holly Sliger was a senior at the Herron School of Art and Design in Indianapolis, studying typography and graphic design. Designing a museum gallery guide for a children's hands-on artifact exhibit, Ms. Sliger says she was horrified when her bosses told her to use Comic Sans. She told them it was a cliché, and printed out a list of other typefaces she thought better suited the project. They insisted on Comic Sans.

"It was like hell for me," she says. "It was everywhere, like an epidemic."

In the midst of the project, she met her future husband, Dave Combs, at synagogue one Saturday. He was a recent college graduate working as a graphic designer, and she knew he would sympathize. "This is horrible," he remembers saying. She says, "That's when I knew he's the guy I would marry." The couple did wed a year later and continued to gripe about the font.

Mr. Connare says he first realized that the tide had turned against Comic Sans in January 2003, while studying for his master's degree in type design at the University of Reading in Berkshire, England. He got an email from Mr. Combs asking for permission to use his photo for stickers, T-shirts and coffee mugs to promote "typography awareness" for the movement to ban Comic Sans that he and his wife had founded. Busy and distracted, Mr. Connare said OK.

"It sounded a bit silly," he says. He didn't think it would amount to much.

But the Combses had global ambitions. A map hangs in their daughter's bedroom, marked with little red flags to show the dozens of locations around the world from which people have requested their stickers. "They're like parking tickets," Mr. Combs says. As the movement grew, Mr. Connare's image became the logo for Comic Sans bashing.

Mr. Connare eventually, in February 2004, asked the Combses to stop using his picture, and they did.

Today, Mr. Connare sometimes speaks at Internet conferences, using 41-page PowerPoint presentations written in you-know-what. He talks with the Combses about creating an "I Love/I Hate Comic Sans" picture book together.

The font has become so popular that it's approaching retro chic. Design shop Veer is selling a T-shirt with a picture of human heart on it made entirely of tiny Comic Sans characters. Veer's text: "Love it, love to hate it, or hate that you love it."

Write to Emily Steel at emily.steel@wsj.com

Printed in The Wall Street Journal, page A1

Willpower: A Game Of Strategy

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=102728123&ft=1&f=1007

Willpower: A Game Of Strategy
by Alix Spiegel
Walter Mischel tested the willpower of hundreds of 4-year-olds by putting each of them in a room, one by one, with a marshmallow or cookie on the table in front of them.
Morning Edition, April 6, 2009

Mike Harmon cannot tell you how he lost his willpower, but he is certain that it is gone. On a recent Thursday night, sitting in a grungy recliner at the Stop Smoking Hypnosis Clinic of Baltimore County, the middle-aged man shrugs his shoulders. "I don't have it anymore," he says. "It's gone."

Neecy Riley, a woman sitting next to him, also could not locate her willpower. "I need something beyond me," she said. "My willpower isn't doing it." Riley went on to say that she knew that willpower came from "within," then stopped. She wasn't sure exactly where "within" the willpower was. Another woman in the group, however, seemed pretty clear on this point. "The pit of the stomach," she said with certainty.

The Marshmallow Tests

Willpower is a very familiar phrase, but what is it really and where does it come from? What happens in the mind when you resist your impulses in the face of temptation?

One person who has looked at this question in detail is a psychology professor at Columbia University named Walter Mischel. Mischel, who is sometimes referred to as the grandfather of self-regulation research, designed a series of very famous experiments in the 1960s now popularly known as the marshmallow tests.

To do the experiments, he put hundreds of 4-year-olds in a room, one by one, with a marshmallow or cookie on the table in front of each. He told them he was going to leave the room and that the child could either eat the treat immediately or, if they could wait until he got back, and have two instead.

Some of these kids could hardly last a minute. Others waited as long as 20. And Mischel believes you can learn much of what you need to know about the process of exerting willpower from the strategies employed by these children.

The Good News About Distraction

Watch Mischel's video of the children in the marshmallow studies and you will see a familiar set of behaviors. There is kicking of tables, there is singing of songs, there is counting of numbers and twirling of hair and many other variations on this theme. What the children are doing, says Mischel, is distracting themselves. Distraction, says Mischel, is actually a perfectly respectable away of exerting willpower. You simply shift your attention away whenever temptation crops up.

Think Cold, Think Cognitive

The second strategy used by the mind to resist an impulse, says Mischel, is a little more complicated. It involves not distracting yourself, but actively changing the way that you think about the object of desire. "The pre-wired way that a 4-year-old thinks about a marshmallow if she allows herself to think about it," says Mischel, "is how yummy and chewy they're going to taste."

People tend to focus on the immediate pleasure of the experience. They will think of the temptation, Mischel likes to say, in a "hot" or emotional way that makes it hard to resist. The same can be said of an adult smoker or alcoholic. But if you do want to resist, says Mischel, what you need to do is think about the object you desire in a cold or cognitive way.

So, for example, to help the children resist the treat, before leaving the room Mischel told the kids to imagine the treat in front of them differently. "I told them to think about those marshmallows as if they were just cotton puffs, or clouds. Those instructions to the 4-year-old had a dramatic effect on her ability to wait for the thing that she couldn't wait for before."

And the dynamic is identical in adults, he says. By refocusing thinking on, for example, the long-term consequences of giving in, it becomes easier to resist an impulse. Of course willpower is not all there is to resisting temptation. Motivation plays a role, as does physical addiction, and whether or not the object of desire can be avoided or not.

And obviously, consistently using these strategies is one of those things easier said than done. Which is why the Stop Smoking Hypnosis Clinic of Baltimore County will always have paying customers.

MadWorld, Chinatown Wars showing poor sales

http://www.neoseeker.com/news/10482-madworld-chinatown-wars-showing-poor-sales/

MadWorld, Chinatown Wars showing poor sales
Sean Ridgeley
Friday, April 17th, 2009

Nintendo's adult audience not worth the trouble?

A criticism from many gamers of Nintendo is how tame they've been in what content they allow on their platforms, particularly the DS and Wii.

As with its predecessors, though, Nintendo has been willing to sneak at least a minority of "adult" titles in there, this being a particularly popular trend lately with the likes of high profile titles Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars and MadWorld seeing release, and to great reviews.

Many gamers, especially with analyst predictions, have been hopeful sales would prove robust and "show Nintendo the light", so to speak, but unfortunately this has not been the case (at least not in the U.S.), with poor sales for both those titles -- House of the Dead, published along with MadWorld by Sega, suffered a similar fate at 45,000 first-month sales -- and the usual first-party "tame" releases still dominating the charts, an exception being Pokemon Platinum (great game, but doesn't help).

MadWorld came in with 66,000 units, having debuted March 10. Chinatown Wars, on the other end, reported 89,000 units (a significant difference from the estimated 200,000 - 450,000), and released March 17. Sega apparently is happy with both their titles, however, as we see from a recent interview with their vice president of marketing Sean Ratcliffe on VentureBeat:

"House of the Dead has done very well and has absolutely met our expectations. The first set of data for Mad World is very encouraging, as well.

If [MadWorld] resonates with the audience [...] we absolutely want to make that into a franchise. I think it’s unique, and there are many aspects of that game which are sort of pushing boundaries. And it’s just great fun."

Going by the Entertainment Software Rating Board's (ESRB) data, the DS currently hosts seven M-rated games out of over 1,000, with the Wii at 26 out of just under 1,000.

Are Nintendo's consoles best left to the younger generation?

Time Warner Backs Away from Pricing Change

http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/apr2009/tc20090416_696468.htm

Internet April 16, 2009
Time Warner Cable Backs Away from Pricing Change
Amid widespread consumer outrage, the No. 2 U.S. cable provider is putting on hold plans to change the way it charges for Internet access
By Tom Lowry

Time Warner Cable caved—for now. In the face of widespread consumer outrage over its plan to change its pricing for Internet access, the company said it will shelve plans to implement the new price formula in several new markets.

The about-face comes just two weeks after BusinessWeek.com first reported that Time Warner Cable (TWC) would roll out usage-based pricing to four cities. The No. 2 U.S. cable operator hoped to begin charging high-speed data subscribers for the amount of bandwidth they used in Rochester, N.Y., Austin and San Antonio, Tex., and Greensboro, N.C.

Time Warner Cable CEO Glenn Britt said the consumption-based model was needed to maintain an expensive, burdened broadband network, citing other countries that for years have had broadband-metering models, including Canada. But the plan unleashed a firestorm among the public and politicians who say the new method is discriminatory and would stifle innovation. Some politicians called for congressional hearings.

Surprised by Backlash

Britt and his executive team appear to have been unprepared for the pushback from consumers and are putting the plan on ice. On Apr. 16, Britt issued a statement saying: "It is clear from the public response over the last two weeks that there is a great deal of misunderstanding about our plans to roll out additional tests on consumption-based billing." Time Warner won't broaden its testing of the plan "until further consultation with our customers and other interested parties, ensuring that community needs are being met," Britt said.

What's more, Time Warner Cable said it would be working to make measurement tools available as soon as possible so consumers can learn just how much bandwidth they consume on average. For Britt, the episode was not exactly an auspicious start at the helm of a newly independent Time Warner Cable, fully spun off from parent Time Warner on Mar. 30. Shares of the company rose 2.7% to 29.58 on Apr. 16.

From the moment the news broke on Mar. 31, the blogosphere was filled with vitriolic posts and e-mails from Internet users slamming Time Warner Cable's plans. Within days, hearings were being held in Rochester and Austin. Rochester Congressman Eric Massa threatened to introduce legislation aimed at bringing more broadband competition to his home city. Massa also said he wouldn't rule out imposing price limits on Time Warner Cable, which he called a "functioning monopoly."

On Apr. 16, U.S. Senator Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) and founders of a Web site called Stop The Cap! stood on the steps of Time Warner's Rochester offices to celebrate the company's decision to abandon broadband metering for now. Among the rally cries posted on Stop The Cap! over the past two weeks: "Caps are for bottles, not broadband, in the United States of America."

Lowry is a senior writer for BusinessWeek in New York.

Victory Over The Pirate Bay Will Be Short-Lived

http://www.pcworld.com/article/163366/hollywoods_victory_over_the_pirate_bay_will_be_shortlived.html

Hollywood's Victory Over The Pirate Bay Will Be Short-Lived
Daniel Ionescu, PC World
Apr 18, 2009

From Sweden to London to Hollywood, protectors of copyrights are celebrating the conviction of the four men behind the world's most popular torrent tracker The Pirate Bay. The four convicted men behind The Pirate Bay -- Frederik Neij, Gottfrid Svartholm Warg, Peter Sunde, and Carl Lundstrom -- say they can't and won't pay the $3.6 million in damages and promised the site will continue running. So much for Hollywood's sweet victory and happy ending.

Hollywood may have won a battle, but the war against piracy is far from over. Unauthorized file-sharing will continue (and likely intensify), if not through The Pirate Bay, then through dozens of other near-identical swashbuckling Web sites.

Of course, The Pirate Bay's case is nothing new. Eight years ago Napster was shut down after getting sued. It tried a few legal business models, but never managed to even get close to the popularity it had when it was operating illegally. The shutdown of Napster turned its creator, Shawn Fanning, and Napster into a into heroes and martyrs, inspiring others to develop new ways to pirate music.The Pirate Bay site itself is still up and running while the case is appealed.

What Hollywood needs to remember is that sites like The Pirate Bay are like weeds. When you try to kill one, they grow back even stronger. In this case, The Pirate Bay already moved most of its servers to the Netherlands, a change that could keep the site running even if The Pirate Bay loses its appeal.

The bad news for copyright-holders is there is obviously a market demand for this type of content distribution model. And while the entertainment industry seeks compensation via lawsuits, other similar services (which I do not endorse) such as Mininova, Demonoid and Torrentbox to name a few, will continue to thrive. That is, of course, until they get sued into oblivion as well. And then there are always new technologies on the horizon. Hollywood might want to start looking at a budding new peer-to-peer tool called OneSwarm that aims to let file-swappers preserve their privacy by cloaking their IP address.

The Pirate Bay verdict: guilty, with jail time

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2009/04/the-pirate-bay-verdict-guilty-with-jail-time.ars

The Pirate Bay verdict: guilty, with jail time
A Swedish district court has ended The Pirate Bay's "spectrial" with a guilty verdict. The defendants split a 30 million kronor fine and will each spend a year in jail, though one already says he would rather burn all the money he owns than pay up.
By Nate Anderson
April 17, 2009

The Pirate Bay "spectrial" has ended in a guilty verdict, prison sentences for the defendants, and a shared 30 million kronor ($3.5 million) fine. According to the Swedish district court, the operators of the site were guilty of assisting copyright infringement even though The Pirate Bay hosted none of the files in question and even though other search engines like Google also provide direct access to illegal .torrent files.

These two points formed the basis of The Pirate Bay's defense, but the court found them ultimately unpersuasive in its 107 page verdict. "By providing a site with, as the district court found, sophisticated search functions, easy upload and storage, and a website linked to the tracker," the defendants were guilty of assistant copyright infringement, the court said.

In an Internet press conference this morning, defendant Peter Sunde Kolmisoppi compared the whole trial to (of all things) The Karate Kid, a movie in which the good guy is roughed up by bullies, goes through a long training process, learns to "wax on, wax off," encounters his bully again in the final round of a karate tournament, and kicks him in the face with his "crane technique." Kolmisoppi sees parallels. In the end, he insists, "we'll kick their ass."

This might seem a strange position coming from someone facing a year in prison, but The Pirate Bay defendants say that this is only the first round in a lengthy process. An appeal will be filed, and the spirited rhetoric will continue. (Speaking of paying the fine, Sunde said that he "would rather burn everything I own and not even give them the dust from the burning" than pay up, even if he had the money to do so.)

The 30 million kronor judgment is reduced from the 117 million kronor fine initially sought by content owners, but it remains a significant sum. The prosecutor insisted throughout the case that the three Pirate Bay admins had grown fat on ad revenues, though the men always denied that the site was anything more than a hobby in which most of the money went to pay hosting and equipment bills.

Fourth defendant Carl Lundström, an heir to the Wasabröd cracker fortune and alleged supporter of right-wing political groups, appears to be good for the money, though his interest in The Pirate Bay was more tangential—he used his telecom company to help the site with hosting and Internet access.

International music trade group IFPI was suitably thrilled by today's news. CEO John Kennedy, who appeared as a witness during the trial, said that the case "was about defending the rights of creators, confirming the illegality of the service and creating a fair environment for legal music services that respect the rights of the creative community. Today’s verdict is the right outcome on all three counts."

The verdict itself was leaked yesterday, with the defendants first learning their fate from a journalist. "Really, it's a bit LOL," Kolmisoppi wrote on Twitter. "It used to be only movies, now even verdicts are out before the official release."

It was a fitting end to this spectacle of a trial, which opened with The Pirate Bay driving a city bus up from Belgrade to Stockholm, saw the prosecutor dismiss half the charges on the first day, and featured the astonishing claim that 80 percent of the material on the site was legal.

Despite schooling Big Content on public relations throughout the trial, the defendants could not prevail in court. In comments today, Kolmisoppi argues that the whole trial was political in nature, even going so far as to call the district court a "dice court" because its verdicts are so random.

No word yet on the ultimate fate of The Pirate Bay, which at the moment remains active.

I Gotta Chill

http://checkingforelves.blogspot.com/2009/04/i-gotta-chill.html

I Gotta Chill
Herbert Barry Woodrose
Saturday, April 18, 2009

The country's wetting itself over dead teenagers in Somalia, and not asking how the fuck that all started. The AP is cheerleading a feel good campaign that most of State Media is joining in - Time, ABC, CNN, all of 'em are lining up - I heard that whacko that Jon Stewart nearly beat to death, that whacko from CNBC, declared the Depression over -

All of them are starting to get real stern about whether we really need Unions or whether we have to entertain the oligarchs for just a little longer and hope they meant what they said all those years: that we didn't need Roosevelt to create Minimum Wage, we really could've trusted the corporate Masters to take care of us. The Af-Pak war is burning brightly, banks are being encouraged to lie (again) in order to calm down the public. Mike Albert over at Z Mag had a plan for fair economics, and no one in this country is listening - he does decent business around the world it seems, but here he might as well be speaking in binary. Or Economics, for that matter, for all anyone seems to know about that subject.

I gotta chill. I'm gonna burn the hell out and there's no point to that.

Don't Fall For the Old Divide And Conquer Trick

http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2009/04/dont-fall-for-old-divide-and-conquer.html

Wednesday, April 15, 2009
Don't Fall For the Old Divide And Conquer Trick

The powers-that-be are trying to distract us from the looting of our wallets by the big banks by creating a left-versus-right, us-versus-them drama.

You know, the old divide-and-conquer schtick.

Americans from across the political spectrum are furious at the financial elite who have robbed us blind, and their enablers in government.

While at the moment, conservatives are getting more press, those on the left are just as angry. For example, leading progressive Glenn Greenwald wrote an essay entitled "The virtues of public anger and the need for more" cheering the fact that Americans are starting to get in touch with their righteous anger at being ripped off.

Liberals have launched their own version of the tea party protests calling for the big banks to be broken up.

And many leading economists and policy experts have thunderously railed against Obama's continuation of Bush's cover-up-the-truth, too-big-to-fail, stick-it-to-the-taxpayers approach to the economic crisis.

On the conservative side of the aisle, Ron Paul's media coordinator said that the mainstream Republican party has tried to hijack the tea party movement and has "co-opted" its message. He warns against letting the movement be diverted:

It's important the people at the grassroots level stick to our guns and say no when they try to co-opt our message....

Bringing in someone like Gingrich takes away from the message. Newt Gingrich enabled George W. Bush, he enabled the big spending...

And as Michael Rivero has written:

Beware this "left wing versus right wing" dichotomy. This is an attempt to trick us into arguing with each other instead of uniting against the common cause of our problems...

The only real divide is the one mentioned at the very top of this article. The one percent that owns it all against the 99% of us being driven into poverty. The poor against the oligarchs.

To my friends on both the left and the right, I urge you to remember that folks on the other side of the aisle are not the problem. As honest people on both the left and the right agree, the real problems are:

Lack of honest disclosure about the shenanigans of the financial giants
Failing to prosecute the criminal actions of those companies and their big wigs
Failing to break up zombie insolvent companies
Slipping trillions of dollars into the hands of the richest and most powerful companies under the table
Gaming the numbers
And continuing to pursue failed economic policies even after they've been proven counterproductive

If we fall for the divide and conquer strategy, where idiots on both sides try to focus our anger on the "other team" instead of the real culprits, we will get distracted, lose direction, and thus became easy to ignore and control. Then the powers-that-be will be able to continue pickpocketing us for years to come.

Gonzales blocked prosecution of Democrat...

http://rawstory.com/08/blog/2009/04/20/gonzales-blocked-prosecution-of-democrat-who-helped-keep-lid-on-wiretapping-story/

Gonzales ‘blocked prosecution of Democrat who helped keep lid on wiretapping story’
By John Byrne
April 20, 2009

A powerful California congresswoman was allegedly caught by an NSA wiretap in 2005 pledging to intervene in an espionage case involving Israeli lobbyists, Congressional Quarterly's Jeff Stein revealed Sunday.

Quoting former senior Bush Administration officials, the article also alleges that Attorney General Alberto Gonzales conspired to drop criminal action against the then-ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, Jane Harman (D-CA), because he needed her help when a firestorm of criticism erupted in December 2005 after the New York Times published details about the NSA’s warrantless wiretapping program.

According to two officials privy to the events, Gonzales said he “needed Jane” to help support the administration’s warrantless wiretapping program, which was about to be exposed by the New York Times.

Harman, he told Goss, had helped persuade the newspaper to hold the wiretap story before, on the eve of the 2004 elections. And although it was too late to stop the Times from publishing now, she could be counted on again to help defend the program.

He was right.

On Dec. 21, 2005, in the midst of a firestorm of criticism about the wiretaps, Harman issued a statement defending the operation and slamming the Times, saying, “I believe it essential to U.S. national security, and that its disclosure has damaged critical intelligence capabilities.”

According to a purported NSA transcript of the call between Harman and a suspected Israeli agent — which the article says was tapped legally under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court and not part of the warrantless wiretapping program itself — Harman “was recorded saying she would “waddle into” the AIPAC case “if you think it’ll make a difference.”

“In exchange for Harman’s help, the sources said, the suspected Israeli agent pledged to help lobby Nancy Pelosi , D-Calif., then-House minority leader, to appoint Harman chair of the Intelligence Committee after the 2006 elections, which the Democrats were heavily favored to win,” Stein added.

Harman allegedly hung up after saying, “This conversation doesn’t exist.”

Harman was not chosen to lead Intelligence. Instead, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi tapped Rep. Silvestre Reyes.

The AIPAC case involved two lobbyists — Keith Weissman and Steven Rosen — who were charged with trying to obtain classified reports on US policy and sharing them with reporters and foreign diplomats.

A Harman spokesman vehemently denied the allegations.

“These claims are an outrageous and recycled canard, and have no basis in fact,” Harman said in a statement to CQ. “I never engaged in any such activity. Those who are peddling these false accusations should be ashamed of themselves.”

In 2006, Time revealed that the FBI was investigating Harman for supposedly trying to intervene in the AIPAC case. Later reports indicated, however, that the FBI had dropped the case for “lack of evidence.”

A source “with first-hand knowledge” of the taps told Stein the “no evidence” line was “bullshit.”

“I read those transcripts,” the source is quoted as saying.

However, Ron Kampeas, the Washington, DC bureau chief of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, charges that “the Harman leaks smell to high heaven.” He suggests that the leaking of the story now may have more to do with the upcoming trial of the two former AIPAC lobbyists — and the weakness of the case against them — than with any past events.

Kampeas notes in particular that “the selected quotes from the alleged transcript do not necessarily add up to a quid pro quo.” He points out that the wiretapped conversation between Harman and the Israeli agent “took place in the summer or fall of 2005? and supposedly involved a promise to have Nancy Pelosi appoint Harman as chair of the Intel Committee if the Democrats took control of the House following the 2006 elections. However, those elections were then well over a year away, and Democratic victory was by no means assured.

Greg Sargent’s The Plum Line blog carries denials from NY Times editor Bill Keller that “Harmanhad any role in persuading him to hold its big warrantless wiretapping expose until after the 2004 elections, a controversial decision that may have altered the election’s outcome and changed history.”

“Ms. Harman did not influence my decision,” Keller stated in a quote relayed to Sargent by Times spokesperson Catherine Mathis. “I don’t recall that she even spoke to me.”

Sargent writes, “If this is right, this deals the story a blow. CQ reports that Harman’s alleged efforts to get the story spiked in 2004 was a key rationale for one of the story’s most explosive charges: That Gonzales knew he could count on Harman’s support for warrantless wiretapping in 2005, and hence got a separate FBI probe against Harman dropped.”

Keller’s December 16, 2005 statement on why the paper held back the wiretaps story only mentioned “the Administration” and “[o]fficials.”

“A year ago, when this information first became known to Times reporters, the Administration argued strongly that writing about this eavesdropping program would give terrorists clues about the vulnerability of their communications and would deprive the government of an effective tool for the protection of the country’s security.

“Officials also assured senior editors of The Times that a variety of legal checks had been imposed that satisfied everyone involved that the program raised no legal questions.

“As we have done before in rare instances when faced with a convincing national security argument, we agreed not to publish at that time.

NSA spied on member of Congress

http://rawstory.com/news/2008/NSA_spied_on_member_of_Congress_0416.html

NSA spied on member of Congress and broke new laws, report says
RAW STORY
Thursday April 16, 2009

An article in The New York Times detailing new violations of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act reports that in recent months the National Security Agency has been intercepting the communications of Americans on a scale going well beyond the broad legal limits established last year by Congress.

Even more shocking, the paper reveals that under the Bush administration the NSA spied on a member of Congress and sought to wiretap the lawmaker without a warrant.

Reports the Times:

And in one previously undisclosed episode, the N.S.A. tried to wiretap a member of Congress without a warrant, an intelligence official with direct knowledge of the matter said.

The agency believed that the congressman, whose identity could not be determined, was in contact — as part of a Congressional delegation to the Middle East in 2005 or 2006 — with an extremist who had possible terrorist ties and was already under surveillance, the official said. The agency then sought to eavesdrop on the congressman’s conversations, the official said.

The official said the plan was ultimately blocked because of concerns from some intelligence officials about using the N.S.A., without court oversight, to spy on a member of Congress.
According to the Times, the NSA unintentionally spies on many Americans because it can't distinguish between American and non-American calls as "it uses its access to American telecommunications companies’ fiber-optic lines and its own spy satellites to intercept millions of calls and e-mail messages."

The NSA's operational problems have "come under scrutiny from the Obama administration, Congressional intelligence committees and a secret national security court," and officials are concerned that the controversy "could damage the credibility of legitimate intelligence-gathering efforts."

The Justice Department has already issued a statement confirming the problems but insisting that it has taken "comprehensive steps to correct the situation and bring the program into compliance."

However, constitutional lawyer Glenn Greenwald suggests that "these widespread eavesdropping abuses enabled by the 2008 FISA bill -- a bill passed with the support of Barack Obama along with the entire top Democratic leadership in the House, including Nancy Pelosi and Steny Hoyer, and substantial numbers of Democratic Senators -- aren't a bug in that bill, but rather, were one of the central features of it."

"Everyone knew that the FISA bill which Congressional Democrats passed -- and which George Bush and Dick Cheney celebrated -- would enable these surveillance abuses," Greenwald continues. "That was the purpose of the law: to gut the safeguards in place since the 1978 passage of FISA, destroy the crux of the oversight regime over executive surveillance of Americans, and enable and empower unchecked government spying activities. This was not an unintended and unforeseeable consequence of that bill. To the contrary, it was crystal clear that by gutting FISA's safeguards, the Democratic Congress was making these abuses inevitable."

"There are exceedingly few specifics in [the Times] story detailing exactly what the abuses were," Greenwald says in conclusion "In other words, most of the information about the NSA's abuses remain concealed. We have learned only a small fraction of what took place."

Black President Defeats U.S. Antiwar Movement

http://www.blackagendareport.com/?q=content/first-black-president-defeats-us-antiwar-movement

First Black President Defeats U.S. Antiwar Movement
Glen Ford
Wed, 04/15/2009
A Black Agenda Radio commentary by Glen Ford

The arrival of the Obama administration has crippled the U.S. anti-war movement, which has neither the fortitude nor political depth to confront imperialism with a Black face. The Out of Iraq caucus on Capitol Hill might as well call itself the Out of Action caucus, since it can’t figure out a way to respond to President Obama’s expanding military budgets and wars. National anti-war organizations cling to the fiction that Obama is really seeking a military withdrawal from Iraq. “The anti-war movement has hit rock-bottom because of its failure to challenge this particular president, an imperialist with charm, a warmonger with a winning smile.

“Obama pretends he wants peace, and anti-war members of Congress pretend to believe him.”

In the streets, on the 2009 campuses and on Capitol Hill, the anti-war movement is no longer moving anywhere. It has been crippled by the Obama Effect, the deep and wide delusion that imperialism with a Black face is somehow – something else. When a movement disbands itself without coming even close to achieving its objective, that is a defeat. We can now definitively state that, for the time being, the U.S. anti-war movement has been defeated – not by Republicans, but by Barack Obama’s Democratic Party.

A recent article in The Hill, a newspaper that covers Congress, relates a meeting among staffers for Out of Iraq caucus leaders Barbara Lee, Maxine Waters and Lynn Woolsey. They were supposed to come up with a response to President Obama’s announcement that he would immediately send 4,000 additional troops to Afghanistan, with lots more to come. Obama is determined to leave at least 50,000 troops in Iraq for an open-ended period of time under the guise of “training” the Iraqis, and is rapidly merging Afghanistan and Pakistan into one theater of war, called Af-Pak. Clearly, the Obama administration is expanding its war in Af-Pak, and has no intention of ending the U.S. military presence in Iraq – ever. The staffers for the Out of Iraq caucus leaders spent two hours trying to come up with a position. They failed.

For all intents and purposes, the Out of Iraq caucus has ceased to function. Black Congresswomen Barbara Lee and Maxine Waters have at times shown great courage in the face of stupendous odds. But they will not confront Barack Obama, even when he expands the arenas of war, claims that combat soldiers are merely trainers and advisers, and pushes through a war budget that is bigger than any of George Bush’s war budgets. Obama pretends he wants peace, and anti-war members of Congress pretend to believe him.

“The anti-war movement has hit rock-bottom because of its failure to challenge this particular president.”

Another Capitol Hill publication, the Congressional Quarterly, recently ran an article on the low demonstration turn-out and money woes of the anti-war movement. A March 21st rally at the Pentagon drew pitiful numbers of demonstrators, only 3,000 according to police. Organizers claim they can’t raise money these days, and have been forced to cut staff. A spokesperson for ANSWER, the Act Now to Stop War and End Racism Coalition, said the peace movement is seeing the impact of the “promises the Obama campaign made.” Outgoing United for Peace and Justice leader Leslie Cagan says her money people aren’t giving because “It’s enough for many of them that Obama has a plan to end the war and that things are moving in the right direction.”

But Obama has no plans or intention to end his wars except on imperialism’s own terms – which means never-ending war, just like under Bush – a basic truth that United for Peace and Justice refuses to recognize or admit. ANSWER organizers also fail to confront the Obama White House head-on. The Congressional Quarterly article concludes that the anti-war movement is suffering from the results of “its own success.” That’s absolute nonsense. The anti-war movement has hit rock-bottom because of its failure to challenge this particular president, an imperialist with charm, a warmonger with a winning smile. Obama has whipped them, but good. And they will stay whipped, until they stand up like men, like women, like leaders. For Black Agenda Radio, I’m Glen Ford. On the web, go to www.BlackAgendaReport.com.

BAR executive editor Glen Ford can be contacted at Glen.Ford@BlackAgendaReport.com.

Obama exempts CIA 'torture' staff

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/8003537.stm

Friday, 17 April 2009
Obama exempts CIA 'torture' staff
Critics say the methods approved in the memos amount to torture

US President Barack Obama says CIA agents who used harsh interrogation techniques on terrorism suspects during the Bush era will not be prosecuted.

Mr Obama banned the use of methods such as sleep deprivation and simulated drowning in his first week in office.

He has now released four memos detailing techniques the CIA was able to use under the Bush administration.

Rights groups have criticised his decision to protect CIA agents involved in the interrogation procedures.

Amnesty International said the Department of Justice appeared to be offering a "get-out-of-jail-free card" to individuals who were involved in acts of torture.

The Centre for Constitutional Rights, which has championed the legal rights of the "war on terror" detainees, also expressed its disappointment.

"It is one of the deepest disappointments of this administration that it appears unwilling to uphold the law where crimes have been committed by former officials," it said in a statement.

The administration did not say that protection would extend to CIA agents who acted outside the boundaries laid out in the memos, or to those non-CIA staff involved in approving the interrogation limits.

That leaves open the possibility that those lawyers who crafted the legal opinions authorising the techniques, one of whom is now a federal judge, could yet face legal action.

But the BBC's North America editor Justin Webb, in Washington, says it seems that the Obama administration does not want any prosecutions and would like the matter closed.

Harsh techniques

The Obama administration said the move reiterated its previously-stated commitment to end the use of torture by its officers, and would protect those who acted within the limits set out by a previous legal opinion.

Announcing the release of the four memos, Attorney General Eric Holder said the US was being "consistent with our commitment to the rule of law".

"The president has halted the use of the interrogation techniques described in these opinions, and this administration has made clear from day one that it will not condone torture," he said.

The four secret memos detail the legal justification for the Bush-era CIA interrogation programme, whose methods critics say amounted to torture.

Mr Obama gave an assurance that "those who carried out their duties relying in good faith upon legal advice from the Department of Justice... will not be subject to prosecution".

One of the documents contained legal authorisation for a list of specific harsh interrogation techniques, including pushing detainees against a wall, facial slaps, cramped confinement, stress positions and sleep deprivation.

The memo also authorises the use of "waterboarding", or simulated drowning, and the placing of a detainee into a confined space with an insect.

'Orwellian'

Critics of the Bush-era interrogation programme say the newly-released memos provide evidence that many of the methods amount to torture under US and international law.

"Bottom line here is you've had crimes committed," Amnesty International analyst Tom Parker told the BBC.

"These are criminal acts. Torture is illegal under American law, it's illegal under international law. America has an international obligation to prosecute the individuals who carry out these kind of acts."

Mr Parker said the decision to allow the use of insects in interrogation was reminiscent of the Room 101 nightmare described by George Orwell in his seminal novel, 1984.

The approved tactic - to place al-Qaeda suspect Abu Zubaydah, who is afraid of insects, inside a box filled with caterpillars but to tell him they were stinging insects - was never used.

Despite that, the memo was "incredibly depressing reading if you're somebody who loves America", Mr Parker said.

During his first week in office, President Obama issued an executive order officially outlawing the use of harsh interrogation techniques by the CIA, and forcing the agency to adhere to standards laid out in the US Army Field Manual.

The release of the memos stems from a request by civil rights group the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU).

BUSH-ERA INTERROGATION

Waterboarding: Aimed at simulating sensation of drowning. Used on alleged 9/11 planner Khalid Sheikh Mohammed

Insect: Harmless insect to be placed with suspect in 'confinement box', suspect to be told the insect would sting. Approved for Abu Zubaydah, but not used

Walling: Detainee slammed repeatedly into false wall to create sound and shock

Sleep deprivation: Detainee shackled stading up. Used often, once for 180 hours

Obama’s First 100 Days

http://www.prisonplanet.com/obamas-first-100-days-worse-than-even-we-predicted.html

Obama’s First 100 Days: Worse Than Even We Predicted
From protecting Bush officials who ordered torture from prosecution, to maintaining and expanding the American empire, to warrantless wiretapping of American citizens, all have remained and intensified under Obama
Paul Joseph Watson
Prison Planet.com
Monday, April 20, 2009

As President Barack Obama approaches his first 100 days in office, the corporate media prepares a new round of fawning idolatry about the Obama administration’s “achievements,” yet a summary glance at what Obama has actually done in that short time with regard to expanding the Bush police state and the Neo-Con empire is worse than even we predicted.

The day after Barack Obama was elected the 44th President of the United States in November last year, we challenged Obama supporters and the administration itself to follow through on the rhetoric of “change” by starting to dismantle the architecture of the Bush police state and beginning to roll back the unwieldy morass of the American empire. Obama has done neither, and in fact his every action has been about ensuring the Bush police state remains in place, that the people who put it in place are protected from prosecution, and that the empire continues to expand.

We presented Obama and his supporters with a series of issues on which to make progress. While we did not expect Obama to accomplish much in his first few months in office, we at least challenged the new President to take the first steps in reversing eight years of what was a de facto dictatorship and plotting the course for the “change” that was so consistently promised.

We asked the following questions of an Obama presidency;

- Will Obama support Dennis Kucinich’s efforts to bring war crimes charges against Bush, Cheney and others for deceiving the country into a war or will he protect them against such charges like Nancy Pelosi has done?

In April 2008, Obama promised that as President he would ask his Attorney General to “immediately review” potential war crimes that occurred under the Bush White House. Obama or his Attorney General have done no such thing, and every noise they have made suggests that top Neo-Cons will be protected from deceiving America into a war.

Similarly we asked;

- Will Obama bring war crimes charges against Bush, Cheney and others for authorizing torture and will the torture of suspects under U.S. detention, a complete violation of both the Constitution and the Geneva Conventions, cease under an Obama administration?

As we found out last week, the answer was a resounding NO. Upon the release of the torture memos, Obama’s right-hand man, chief of staff Rahm Emanuel, told ABC News that top Bush administration officials “should not be prosecuted either and that’s not the place that we go.” In addition, Obama’s statement that accompanied the release of the torture memos stated, “In releasing these memos, it is our intention to assure those who carried out their duties relying in good faith upon legal advice from the Department of Justice that they will not be subject to prosecution.”

So no retribution for the people who ordered the torture, and no retribution to the people who carried it out, thus setting the precedent that future administrations are free to order torture - safe in the knowledge that they will face no consequences whatsoever.

- Will Obama withdraw American troops from Iraq and Afghanistan without sending them away again to bomb another broken-backed third world country?

The answer again is a resounding NO. Upon taking office, Obama announced that he would be sending another 17,000, and eventually perhaps as many as 30,000, extra troops to Afghanistan.

Regarding Iraq, after the “withdrawal” of U.S. troops in 19 months, a timescale that has since been put back again, “Mr. Obama plans to leave behind a “residual force” of tens of thousands of troops to continue training Iraqi security forces, hunt down foreign terrorist cells and guard American institutions,” reported the New York Times.

In terms of bombing another broken-backed third world country, Obama has beefed the U.S. military role in Pakistan beyond that pursued by the Bush administration and “expanded the covert war run by the Central Intelligence Agency inside Pakistan,” according to the New York TImes, with an increase in missile attacks by drone aircraft.

Meanwhile, Obama’s war chest demands came to a total of around $800 billion in war funds and subsidiary costs just to cover the rest of 2009.

Does any of this sound like a move towards bringing the troops home and rolling back the American empire, as Obama promised before he was elected?

- Will Obama end the warrantless secret surveillance and phone-taps of American citizens?

You’ll be shocked the learn that the answer was a resounding NO. Earlier this month, “The Obama administration formally adopted the Bush administration’s position that the courts cannot judge the legality of the National Security Agency’s (NSA’s) warrantless wiretapping program,” reported the Electronic Frontier Foundation.

“President Obama promised the American people a new era of transparency, accountability, and respect for civil liberties,” said EFF Senior Staff Attorney Kevin Bankston. “But with the Obama Justice Department continuing the Bush administration’s cover-up of the National Security Agency’s dragnet surveillance of millions of Americans, and insisting that the much-publicized warrantless wiretapping program is still a ’secret’ that cannot be reviewed by the courts, it feels like deja vu all over again.”

- Will Obama cease his support for the Bush-administration backed banker bailouts, hated by the majority of Americans, and target the real cause of the problem - the Federal Reserve - or will he continue to give taxpayers’ money to banks who are merely hoarding it all for themselves?

Obama’s zealous push for more bailouts, along with increased power for the Federal Reserve and the implementation of global regulations that will effectively end any notion of a free market was perhaps the defining issue of his first 100 days as President. Obama has vigorously promoted the same financial policies that were introduced by the Bush administration in its final few months.

- Will Obama repeal Patriot Acts I and II as well as reversing Bush’s signing statement and acknowledging the repeal of the John Warner Defense Authorization Act? Will Obama seek to continue the militarization of America and preparations for martial law through Northcom and the secret government or will he dismantle the police state that has been constructed over the last eight years by the Bush administration?

Despite initial rhetoric about reversing Bush’s infamous signing statements, Obama himself stated that he will continue to use signing statements. The Patriot Act and its additions as well as the John Warner Defense Authorization Act, both core planks of the Bush police state, remain firmly in place, with no sign of any reversal.

Regarding militarization through Northcom, weeks after Obama’s election victory it was announced that, “The U.S. military expects to have 20,000 uniformed troops inside the United States by 2011 trained to help state and local officials respond to a nuclear terrorist attack or other domestic catastrophe, according to Pentagon officials.” Militarization of law enforcement and troops being used domestically in preparation for martial law is continuing apace under the Obama administration.

- Will Obama follow through on his rhetorical support for the second amendment or will he seek to ban guns as he did in Illinois?

Despite Obama promising that he was not interested in going after the second amendment before his election, one of his first actions was to appoint the rabidly anti-gun Eric Holder as his Attorney General. Obama has also falsely blamed the drug war crisis in Mexico on American gun shops. The leaked Obama gun ban list would make millions of Americans criminals for owning weapons such certain types of rifles or pistols. Anti-gun legislation has found its way into stimulus and other unrelated bills as pork barrel. The first steps of the Obama administration with regard to gun control have resulted in record firearm and ammunition purchases across the country.

Upon Obama’s election we made a cynical but unfortunately accurate prediction of how the much vaunted promise of “change” would actually manifest itself. The fact is that the “change” began and ended on the day Obama won the election.

- Illegal warrantless surveillance and wiretapping of American citizens will continue under Obama.

- Top Bush administration officials who ordered torture and those that carried it out will be protected from prosecution under Obama.

- Top Bush administration officials who deceived America into a war will be protected from prosecution under Obama.

- The expansion of the military empire through continued occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan and further military incursions into Pakistan will continue and expand under Obama.

- Banker bailouts, reckless spending, inflation of currency through overprinting and global regulations stifling the free market, all of which were initiated under Bush, will continue under Obama.

- The militarization of the United States and the architecture of the police state that was set up under Bush will be preserved and expanded under Obama.

- The attack on the second amendment right to bear arms will continue under Obama.

“The egregious spending will continue, government will balloon in size, American soldiers will be used as cannon fodder for more interventionist wars of the military-industrial complex, U.S. citizens will continue to have their phone calls tapped and their rights curtailed,” we forecast last year, “and the Federal Reserve will continue to rule the financial system with an iron fist while the middle class is squeezed out of existence.”

Who can deny that all those things have only intensified under the Obama administration?

The honeymoon is over - Barack Obama has proven himself to be nothing more than we predicted all along - another stooge for the global banking syndicate that has controlled every U.S. president since JFK, and nothing more than a black face on the new world order - sworn to continue and intensify the same agenda that the Bush-Clinton-Bush dynasty advanced before him.

Steroids fueled spectacular rise and fall

http://sports.espn.go.com/nfl/news/story?id=4073575

April 17, 2009
Steroids fueled spectacular rise and fall
By Kory Kozak
ESPN
The Story Of Tony Mandarich
Tony Mandarich discusses his steroid-fueled rise to top NFL prospect and his status as one of the biggest draft busts of all time

How could he not be great in the NFL? How could Tony Mandarich possibly be a bust?

I saw what might have been in 1988. I was an 18-year-old freshman defensive end at Rutgers. At that point, the Rutgers football slogan was "On the Rise" because we were always mediocre in those days. Our first game that season was against Michigan State, the 15th-ranked team in the country and defending Rose Bowl champ. They had an All-America tackle -- Tony Mandarich -- who was humiliating players every week.

He was 6-foot-6, 320 pounds. He was huge. He was a mutant. He was all-natural? Impossible.

I was all-natural, tipping the scales at about 230 and having already lost about 10 precious pounds in training camp.

Not a great matchup. You can imagine how that would have turned out. But it never happened. I was redshirted and wasn't going to see the field unless the seven or eight players in front of me were maimed.

And Mandarich, ultimately, was suspended. He sat out the first three games of the season after applying for the NFL draft.

During training camp, we studied Michigan State's offensive line on film. Watching the Rose Bowl, we saw Mandarich pancaking Tim Ryan from USC on one play, driving him out of the film frame on the next. It wasn't as if Ryan was terrible; the guy was a first-round pick of the Bears a year later.

Our reaction? Laughter. Not because Ryan was getting destroyed, but because we weren't. That wasn't going to be us because he wasn't playing.

We watched more film, and it wasn't only Ryan. We saw an All-America defensive end pinned to the ground by Mandarich, a linebacker from Wisconsin on skates 10 yards downfield, a defensive tackle from Ohio State curled up in the fetal position. The worst was the Iowa team captain who went for the trifecta: on skates for 10 yards, pinned to the ground and then curled up in the fetal position.

It didn't stop there.

Mandarich punched an Ohio State player during the coin toss and told him he "was going to die today." He drove a Northwestern player into the end zone, pancaked him and then told the player to "stay there."

Sometimes he was blocking two players at a time. Who does that? It was a no-brainer that Mandarich was the most dominant college offensive lineman ever. Maybe not the best, but definitely the most dominant.

How could he not make it in the NFL?

The Unnatural

Well, for starters, he was cheating.

He was chemically enhanced to the nth degree. He was the Six Million Dollar Man of steroids.

"I was taking Winstrol V, equipoise, Anadrol 50s, testosterone, Anavar, Dianabol," he told me dispassionately in an ESPN interview last month at the W Hotel, near his home in Scottsdale, Ariz.

Mandarich says he started using steroids in 1984, and was able to beat NCAA testing at the Rose and Gator bowls.
Twenty years after he was the second player taken in the 1989 NFL draft, Mandarich is 42 years old. He looks like a cross between Judas Priest's Rob Halford and "Stone Cold" Steve Austin. He's still huge and looks as if he could still play. He told me he had been taking steroids since May 1984.

His older brother, John, who was playing at Kent State, turned Mandarich onto them. His usage escalated during his time at Michigan State. The rumors of steroids started to surface, but schools were not testing for steroids yet, and the NCAA tested only at bowl games. Mandarich kept beating the system. He cheated on the tests for the Rose and Gator bowls.

"I basically strapped something to my back a little -- it was actually a little doggie toy," Mandarich said in an interview that stretched longer than 2½ hours. "Hooked up a little hose to it … ran a tube underneath and put a piece of gum to cap the tube."

As a player, his legend was growing. So was his ego.

"You're not supposed to be as strong as I am. You're not supposed to be as fast as I am. You're not supposed to be as good as I am," Mandarich said in the midst of his steroid haze in 1989.

He dropped out of Michigan State after the Gator Bowl and moved to Los Angeles. It was where he wanted to be -- a big city with big-city media. He had big plans. He wanted to play football for six or seven years in the NFL, win Mr. Universe and then move on to the movies. He wanted to be the next Arnold Schwarzenegger. He was hanging out with Guns N' Roses, and he had the tattoos to prove it.

All the while, against the general rules of nature, Tony kept getting bigger, stronger and faster. He hosted his own combine at Michigan State that spring. The numbers were staggering:

Weight: 308 pounds
Bench press: 39 repetitions at 225 pounds
40-yard dash: 4.69 seconds.

The hype machine was at full throttle.

Sports Illustrated, memorably, put him on the cover, shirtless and massive. It called him "the best offensive line prospect ever." It bragged of his insane 15,000-calorie diet and his love for Axl Rose.

I put that SI cover on my dorm wall. Every lineman -- high school or college -- probably did the same. He was what all of us aspired to be: huge, cut and nasty on the football field. He was supposed to change offensive linemen forever. He was the anti-Reggie White, the guy who was built to block men like White and maybe even dominate them.

Before the 1989 draft, Sports Illustrated put Mandarich on the cover, shirtless and massive. They called him "the best offensive line prospect ever."

As the 1989 draft approached, Mandarich was the highest-rated player on the board. Higher than Troy Aikman. Higher than Barry Sanders. Higher than Deion Sanders and Derrick Thomas. It was on. He had serious clout. Mandarich could call his own shot. Everyone had bought in. Almost everyone.

The Kansas City Chiefs were courting Mandarich because they had one of the top five picks in the draft. General manager Carl Peterson and coach Marty Schottenheimer took him out to dinner. They asked him whether he was on steroids, Mandarich says. Fair question. Mandarich said he had never failed a drug test. Not exactly what the coach wanted to hear.

According to Mandarich, Schottenheimer looked him square in the eye and said, "I think you're lying."

"If you think I am lying," Mandarich said coolly, "then don't draft me."

His arrogance with NFL teams did not stop there.

"I had said even before the draft that I did not want to get drafted by the Packers," Mandarich said. "I didn't want to play in a small market. I called Green Bay a village. Some of the stuff I said, when I look back now, is just embarrassing."

Saying it, he truly sounds embarrassed, maybe even disgusted.

Needless to say, the Packers took Mandarich second overall, after the Cowboys took Aikman. Some experts thought Dallas was crazy for not taking Mandarich.

The Packers weren't planning to pay him the $1.1 million per year that he was demanding. So, Mandarich cranked up the hype again. He held out of Packers camp. Then he appeared on "Late Night with David Letterman."

Mandarich: "I want to fight Tyson."

Letterman: "Oh, geez … what kind of a guy does it take to sit here and say that?"

The Packers might lose Mandarich to boxing? They had to ante up. And they did.

A mythical monster

Green Bay had no idea what it was getting for its $4.4 million; Mandarich was the first offensive lineman to make seven figures a season.

Mandarich missed the entire training camp. He wasn't ready to play in the NFL's pass-first game. Michigan State threw the ball maybe 10 times a game in those days, and pass blocking was not Mandarich's strong suit.

But something else was happening, and it wasn't just steroids.

Mandarich had stopped taking steroids just before the combine for fear of getting caught by the NFL drug-testers. Those guys actually watch you fill the cup from point-blank range. No dog toys to save him there.

Mandarich was an utter disappointment in Green Bay, and he never made it on the field in the final season of a four-year, $4.4 million deal.

The bigger issue, according to Mandarich, was an addiction to painkillers. He was a junkie. By the time he arrived in Green Bay, he was hooked. As he ended his steroid usage, he started taking painkillers to get rid of the aches and pains from his intense weight training.

He wasn't messing around, either. He was main-lining them. Straight into the vein. Six or seven times a day. Even during practice.

"I was getting really paranoid about people finding out, so what I would do with that bottle and a syringe, I would put it in my jock strap," Mandarich said. "I'd say 'Hey, I've got to go to the bathroom,' lock myself in the bathroom, take a shot, and then come back out to practice and get ready for one-on-one pass drills with the defensive line, and I'm half in the bag."

He did this every day. Stadol, Fiorinal #3, Valium, Percodan, Percocet, Vicodin. The shots eventually became pills because they were easier to come by, and sometimes the pills were replaced by booze.

Mandarich created a monster built on lies. It was all torn down in a few months. He was the bust to end all busts. He never got on the field for the last year of his contract, 1992, and Mike Holmgren's new Green Bay regime elected to not re-sign him.

"I spent four years in Green Bay and never [had] a sober day," Mandarich said. "Every day I was ever in Green Bay I was not sober."

Mandarich went to his home in Traverse City, Mich., and became a full-time junkie -- and hid. His full-time job was to find ways to get more drugs by conning another doctor or faking another illness.

More lies.

Things got worse. Mandarich's older brother, John, was dying of cancer. John was his hero, having played for Kent State and then the Edmonton Eskimos in the Canadian Football League. On the day John died in 1993, his little brother was in his truck, driving 400 miles to Green Bay from Traverse City to get more painkillers.

At that point, the drugs were more important to him than anything.

This was the time that Mandarich was supposed be in the prime of his career, taking on Reggie White and Bruce Smith on his way to the Hall of Fame, with yearly visits to Hawaii along the way. Instead, he was chasing down painkillers to get by until the next day. He was down to 260 pounds, pale, and looking nothing like the shirtless guy who was on the cover of SI.

"Fifty, 60, 70 painkillers a day," Mandarich said. "I would just drink more because it's easier to get alcohol. A lot of self-loathing … absolutely hated myself. I hated everything about me."

He could never live up to that monster he created.

Tony Mandarich, now 42, says he doesn't regret the mistakes he made because they "forced me to make corrections -- it was either make corrections or die for me."

Making it right

Rock bottom. He was there.

In March 1995, Mandarich checked himself into the Brighton Hospital Chemical Dependency and Mental Health Treatment Center in Brighton, Mich. Twelve steps. Time to pay the price for all those lies.

"How in the world do you make amends for the disaster you created in the NFL?" he said, sounding contrite. "And that you had wronged the fans, you had wronged the Packers, you embarrassed the sport. How do you right that wrong?"

Mandarich's way was to try to come back to the NFL, but this time do it right. Clean. Sober. No outrageous comments. Be happy to be there.

In 1996, Mandarich made it back to the NFL, playing three seasons with the Colts -- without the aid of steroids, he says.

Miraculously, Mandarich made it back to the NFL in 1996, playing for the Indianapolis Colts. He was huge once again, weighing in at around 320. But this time, he says, it was natural. No juice. For three more years, he was good, not great -- not pinning guys on their backs, not keeping stats of pancakes and guys he drove off the screen.

But he says he was clean. And Mandarich insists he has remained clean since.

Today he keeps a low profile in Arizona, with his wife and business partner, Char. They run an Internet marketing company and do photography and video work. In their home, there are few mementos from his football days. In one small room, his Michigan State Rose Bowl jersey and his Colts jersey hang on the wall.

Nothing from his years with the Packers. No other trophies. A few years ago, Mandarich took all the trophies he had from Michigan State and burned them.

"Got tired of them sitting in boxes," he explained.

That might have been as symbolic as anything he did. Clearly, that time in his life is well behind him.

He is promoting a new book, "My Dirty Little Secrets," published by Modern History Press. He said he wants to speak to NFL players about the dangers of steroid abuse and painkillers, another step in the 12-step circle of making amends.

He has become -- sincerely, it seems -- reflective.

"I don't regret any of the pills I took, or I don't regret the steroids I took," he said. "I don't regret the whiskey I drank, and I don't regret the mistakes I made, because all of those things coupled together tore me down and made me forced me to look at myself and forced me to make corrections -- it was either make corrections or die for me."

There is one eye-catching remnant of his chemically enhanced life. The infamous Sports Illustrated cover, the one that proclaimed him "The Incredible Bulk." He has a blown-up version in his garage.

It hangs just above a garbage can.

Kory Kozak is a producer for ESPN.

10 Literary one-hit wonders

http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/books/article5925834.ece

March 17, 2009
10 Literary one-hit wonders
Luke Leitch looks at those authors for whom one novel proved quite enough

Harper Lee - To Kill a Mockingbird

“I never expected any sort of success with [To Kill a] Mockingbird. I was hoping for a quick and merciful death at the hands of reviewers, but at the same time I hoped that maybe someone would like it enough to give me encouragement - public encouragement. I got rather a whole lot, and in some ways this was just about as frightening as the quick, merciful death I'd expected.”


Margaret Mitchell - Gone With the Wind

Margaret Mitchell wrote Gone With The Wind in secret and gave it to an editor only after a colleague laughed at the idea of her writing a novel. It won a Pulitzer, inspired that film and sold tens of millions of copies. She died in 1949 in a car accident, on the way to the cinema.


Emily Bronte - Wuthering Heights

Wuthering Heights is suddenly popular among French teenagers who have discovered Le Yorkshire thanks to the 21st-century vampire novels of Stephenie Meyer, which reference Bronte. Emily died of TB, the year after the publication of her only novel in 1847.


J.D.Salinger - Catcher in the Rye

Salinger is a member of the one-hit-wonder club only if you consider Franny and Zooey, published in 1961, as a novella. Salinger's last published work, a short story, appeared in The New Yorker in 1965.

Oscar Wilde - The Picture of Dorian Gray

“Every portrait that is painted with feeling is a portrait of the artist, not of the sitter.” Three of the characters in Wilde's only novel The Picture of Dorian Gray were based on Wilde himself. It was a little too racy for the critics of the times, and Wilde stuck with plays, poetry and short stories until his death a decade later.

John Kennedy Toole - A Confederacy of Dunces

The author committed suicide in 1969, having given up hope of seeing his comic masterpiece in print. Eventually it was published in 1980. A "second novel", The Neon Bible, followed in 1989 - but this was actually written by Toole as a teenager and, as an adult, rejected as juvenilia.

Sylvia Plath - The Bell Jar

Published under a pseudonym, The Bell Jar's protagonist, Esther Greenwood, suffers a psychological breakdown while working as in an intern for a New York fashion magazine. She attempts suicide, receives therapy and steps back towards stability. Plath committed suicide in 1963, the year of the book's publication.



Anna Sewell - Black Beauty

Anna Sewell's mother was a children's author but Sewell began her first novel aged 51. Black Beauty took six years to write and was intended, Sewell said, to encourage humane treatment of horses. She died in 1878, five months after its publication.

Boris Pasternak - Dr Zhivago

The manuscript of Dr Zhivago was smuggled out of Soviet Russia, published in Italy, and won Pasternak the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1958. He accepted but was then pressured to decline the prize. He died of lung cancer in 1960.

Arundhati Roy - The God of Small Things

After her debut novel The God of Small Things won the Booker Prize, the Indian writer turned to nonfiction writing and political activism. In 2007 she announced that she was returning to fiction. After a ten-year hiatus, the stakes will be higher than ever before - if Roy ever finishes her sophomore effort, it will be a triumph of will over the dreaded Second Novel Syndrome.

Dan Brown Novel Now Due in September

http://artsbeat.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/04/20/long-delayed-dan-brown-novel-now-due-in-september/

April 20, 2009
Long-Delayed Dan Brown Novel Now Due in September
By Motoko Rich

Dan Brown, the author of the mega-bestselling novel “The Da Vinci Code,” has finally delivered his long-awaited new novel, “The Lost Symbol,” and it will be published Sept. 15. The Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group said on Monday that it was planning a first print run of 5 million copies, a number that dwarfs most other books. “The Da Vinci Code,” which was made into a movie starring Tom Hanks, was a worldwide publishing phenomenon, with 81 million hardcover copies in print. Fans and the publisher have been waiting a long time for Mr. Brown to finish the new book. It was originally scheduled for a 2005 delivery. “The Lost Symbol” will again feature Robert Langdon, the protagonist of “The Da Vinci Code.” According to Jason Kaufman, executive editor at Doubleday, the novel takes place over the course of 12 hours and will “follow Robert Langdon through a masterful and unexpected new landscape.” In a statement, Mr. Brown said he had spent five years on research for the book. “Robert Langdon’s life clearly moves a lot faster than mine,” he said.

The publisher remained cryptic about the plot or subject of the new novel, but in an author’s FAQ on Mr. Brown’s Web site, he answers the question “What are you working on now?” by saying that the work in progress finds Langdon “embroiled in a mystery on U.S. soil. The new novel explores the hidden history of our nation’s capital.” And on another page on the Web site, he notes that “the next Robert Langdon novel” is “set deep within the oldest fraternity in history … the enigmatic brotherhood of the Masons.”

B-Movie of the Month: Evilspeak

http://www.cinema-nocturna.com/evilspeak_review.htm

Evilspeak
(1981)
Review by David Zuzelo
Directed by Eric Weston
Starring Clint Howard
Anchor Bay DVD (Region 1 and 2)

"Far fuckin’ out…"

Evilspeak may not be a particularly great film but it is one of the most distinctly of the time features, and contains one of the best revenge reels in 80’s splatstory. Seriously, we have evil piggies of carnivorous doom devouring beautiful women, flying nerds with swords doing a fantastic impersonation of Conan the Barbarian in head splitting excess and great performances that put character into this tale of a sadsack gone satanic. With a computer… a really cheap computer that knows how to put together a black mass.

Really.

A simple tale of one put upon nerd named Coopersmith (a perfectly cast Clint Howard) that just can’t get a break from life. Oddly, and most non-nebbish as well, our man wants to play sports more than anything, even if he isn’t so great. This makes his moronic teammates hate him as only the rich and disowned can do. They taunt him using the name Cooperdick, which is funny to me in that at one point as the lead boy brags about his prowess and is put in his place by a girl and they like to strip off Clint’s pants for fun no less. Hmmm…. Anyway, out of the subtext, back to the splat.

Coopersmith just happens to get punishment duty in his private schools chapel basement-which ties into an opening sequence which showed a defrocked priest named Esteban (Richard Moll) decapitating topless women… luckily, the big bad satanic maniac left behind all the tools for a black mass to ensure his return. The battered Coopersmith is the perfect fleshy instrument to open the door to hell of course, and aided by a computer that somehow monitors the black mass process (and even requests blood at one point!)— The Geek Riseth with the powers of a demon, and control over some murderous pigs!

Boobs, blood, more blood, humiliation, the great R.G. Armstrong as a vile janitor that wants to show our man how he "turns a little boy into a little girl" and then more breasts and blood. Yeah, ya gotta have more blood.

A true staple of cable television, Evilspeak is not exactly forgettable to fans of the times when horror films and tax shelters went hand and hand, striding across the cinematic landscape and titillating and shocking viewers with new gory fun every week. While some elements have not aged well, especially the computer angle those same things are charming now. Amidst the gore effects and classic trod upon nerd plotline, Evilspeak has a sense of true nastiness mixed with the skill of making you root for the underdog and cheer each kick to the pricks that keep him down. Considering it’s relatively difficult to find status for years, it’s ripe for re-discovery and enjoyment.

The pacing is a bit casual, but it’s worth waiting for the payoff. Also, there are several elements that were strong to begin with, and now that the bulk of the 80’s horror boom can be evaluated with some hindsight-Evilspeak appears even stronger and more assured. Solid performances from Clint Howard, Joseph Cortese ("assume the position boy"), Richard Moll and R.G. Armstrong are all engaging and involving. The bombastic score cuts the scenes to the (sword) hilt, the nudity is prominent and properly presented (lewdly) and the gore. Oh my… The prosthetics and horror with mirror tricks on show is a great reminder of why the good old fashioned syrup and latex methods worked so well, and still do. No need for geysers of post-production blood, the real fake stuff gushes great.

Gruesome fun for the fans of the film, or anyone who missed out the first time through-you’ll be seeking bloody sacraments to pass around to your friends at the behest of your ColecoVision if you aren’t careful. Watch for the wiggling fetus, that’s one of my favorite moments of the 80’s, brrr…..

The DVD from Anchor Bay US is very sharp in both the picture and sound departments and includes a commentary track with Clint Howard and Eric Weston as well as some nice stills and photos to poke through. The commentary isn’t exactly earth shaking, but appreciative of just what was accomplished with Evilspeak from its creator and principal’s perspective with the occasional funny anecdote. The story of the priest who thought his church was restored was both sad and hilarious at the same time… they fixed it all up and then burnt it back down!

While the Anchor Bay US disc is affordable and nice, the UK edition goes one large extra better-- expanding to two discs to include a pre-release cut of the film, with several sequences restored, though via a lesser print source. While it is mostly dialogue (and an expanded version of "Ms. Heavy Artillery" even)-the footage is not without merit. Some transitions are smoothed over, and Clint Howard’s performance takes on a great bit of shading that isn’t evident in the regular cut of the film. Also, look for one very weird moment with The Sarge that had me shaking (and scratching) my head for an hour! As a bonus some trailers (including Undead and Jim Van Bebber’s Manson Family) are included. The extra money is well spent for splatterhounds on the UK edition.

Exploitation and gore, computers and pigs—Evilspeak speaks volumes about it’s time, and deserves to be elevated into the top tier of classicks from the age of the gore film. Add it to your Halloween shopping list in either flavor, but be sure to pack a baggie of bacon and a barfbag and let loose a cry of Banzai, buckaroos!

FILM 3 Pounds of Killer Bacon
PICTURE: 4 Pounds of Killer Bacon (3 for UK Edition)
SOUND: 3 Pounds of Killer Bacon
EXTRAS: 3 Pounds of Killer Bacon
OVERALL: 3 Pounds of Killer Bacon

'Empire of the Sun' author J.G. Ballard dies at 78

http://news-briefs.ew.com/2009/04/empire-of-the-s.html

'Empire of the Sun' author J.G. Ballard dies at 78
Apr 19, 2009
by Josh Rottenberg

Author J.G. Ballard, whose best-known work, the autobiographical novel Empire of the Sun, was adapted for the big screen by Steven Spielberg in 1987, died on Sunday at his home in London. He was 78 years old and had suffered from prostate cancer. In a career that spanned half a century, Ballard wrote many acclaimed dystopian, often sci-fi-inflected short stories and novels, including The Drowned World, Cocaine Nights, and Crash, a disturbing tale of car-accident fetishism that was adapted into a controversial 1996 film by director David Cronenberg. Empire of the Sun, which drew upon his own childhood experiences in a Shanghai internment camp during World War II, became the basis for Spielberg's sweeping film, which earned six Oscar nomations and launched the career of its young star, Christian Bale.

Force is strong for Jedi police

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/scotland/glasgow_and_west/8003067.stm

Thursday, 16 April 2009
Force is strong for Jedi police

Eight police officers serving with Scotland's largest force listed their official religion as Jedi in voluntary diversity forms, it has emerged.

Strathclyde Police said the officers and two of its civilian staff claimed to follow the faith, which features in the Star Wars movies.

The details were obtained in a Freedom of Information request by Jane's Police Review.

Strathclyde was the only force in the UK to admit it had Jedi officers.

In the Star Wars films, Jedi Knights such as Luke Skywalker, Obi-Wan Kenobi and Yoda use the Force to battle the evil Darth Vader, who has strayed to the dark side.

Jane's Police Review editor Chris Herbert, who requested the information, said: "The Force appears to be strong in Strathclyde Police with their Jedi police officers and staff.

"Far from living a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away, some members of the noble Jedi order have now chosen Glasgow and its surrounding streets as their home."

Provided voluntarily

A spokeswoman for Strathclyde Police confirmed: "At the time of the request, 10 (eight police officers and two police staff) had recorded their religion as Jedi."

She added that the force monitored "six strands of diversity" - age, disability, gender, race religion and belief, and sexual orientation.

The force said the information was provided voluntarily and securely stored.

About 390,000 people listed their religion as Jedi in the 2001 Census for England and Wales. In Scotland the figure was a reported 14,000.

The Office for National Statistics did not recognise it as a separate category, and incorporated followers of Jedi with atheists.

Last year, brothers Barney and Daniel Jones founded the UK Church of the Jedi - which offered sermons on the Force, light sabre training, and meditation techniques.

Strathclyde Police employs 8,200 police officers and 2,800 civilian staff.

Shuttin' Detroit Down Lyrics

John Anderson & John Rich

Well, my daddy taught me in this country, everyone's the same
You work hard for your dollar and you never pass the blame
When it don't go your way
Now I see all these big shots whinin' on my evenin' news
About how they're losin' billions and it's up to me and you
To come runnin' to the rescue
Well, pardon me if I don't shed a tear
'Cause they're sellin' make-believe and we don't buy that here

'Cause in the real world, they're shuttin' Detroit down
While the boss man takes his bonus pay and jets on out of town
And D.C.'s bailin' out them bankers as the farmers auction ground
Yeah, while they're livin' it up on Wall Street in that New York City town
Here in the real world, they're shuttin' Detroit down
Here in the real world, they're shuttin' Detroit down

Well, that old man's been workin' in that plant most all his life
Now his pension plan's been cut in half and he can't afford to die
And it's a cryin' shame, 'cause he ain't the one to blame
When I look down and see his calloused hands
Well, let me tell you, friend, it gets me fightin' mad

'Cause in the real world, they're shuttin' Detroit down
While the boss man takes his bonus pay and jets on out of town
And D.C.'s bailin' out them bankers as the farmers auction ground
Yeah, while they're livin' it up on Wall Street in that New York City town
Here in the real world, they're shuttin' Detroit down

Yeah, while they're livin' it up on Wall Street in that New York City town
Here in the real world, they're shuttin' Detroit down
Here in the real world, they're shuttin' Detroit down
In the real world, they're shuttin' Detroit down

They're shuttin' Detroit down

Why Susan Boyle inspires us

http://www.usatoday.com/life/people/2009-04-19-susan-boyle_N.htm

Why Susan Boyle inspires us: A story like 'a Disney movie'
By Maria Puente, USA TODAY
4-19-9

After a week of unabashed hysteria about Scottish chanteuse Susan Boyle, it's time to pause and ask: What's that all about?

A psychological boost for a world battered by economic calamity? A spiritual moment for millions in search of transcendence? Maybe it's about rooting for the underdog. Or maybe it's just a new reminder of an old truism: You can't judge a book by its cover.

"Susan Boyle is a Disney movie waiting to happen," says church worker Janelle Gregory, 34, of Olathe, Kan.

Boyle, for those who have been unconscious lately, is the middle-aged woman with frizzy hair who has been all over TV and computer screens for days, singing a Broadway show tune while millions wept and shouted and applauded wildly.

Ten days ago, Boyle — 47, unglamorous, unfashionable, unknown — faced down a sneering British audience and panel of judges on Britain's Got Talent, including the ever-sneery Simon Cowell. Then, in an instant, she turned jeers to cheers with her rendition of one of the weepier numbers from Les Misérables. Almost as instantly, Boyle went viral: A clip on YouTube garnered millions of hits (almost 30 million so far, not counting millions more on thousands of other versions on YouTube).

FIND MORE STORIES IN: California White House Atlanta Ohio Phoenix Kansas American Idol Salt Lake City YouTube Broadway Disney Scottish Cinderella Simon Cowell Guardian Edinburgh Entertainment Weekly Olathe Huffington Post Got Talent English-speaking Hemet Massillon Les Mis Paul Potts Ken Tucker Lynn Johnson
"All of us reveled in the fact that even in our image-managed world, we could still have the tables turned on us," says Terry Christopher, 40, a computer developer in Phoenix.

For the English-speaking media, still breathless from covering the introduction of Bo the White House puppy, Boyle is cable catnip. Last week, she was on TV from early morning to late night, telling her Cinderella back story (youngest of nine, learning-disabled and bullied as a child, caretaker for her dying mother, never been kissed, singer in the choir, possessor of big dreams) to all who trekked in person or by satellite to her Scottish village outside Edinburgh.

The common refrain in comments about Boyle: I watched her over and over, and I cried and cried. "Every time I watched it, I felt emotional," says Julie Carrigan, 47, a mother of five in Hemet, Calif.

But why?

• It's the vindication. "When they were making fun of her, I was getting annoyed," Carrigan says. "And inside I'm thinking, 'I hope she blows them away.' I was so happy when she just let them have it."

• It's the surprise. "If you have expectations of someone, you need to be prepared to be surprised by them," says Paul Potts, the chunky former cellphone salesman who was the Susan Boyle of Britain's Got Talent in 2007 and has since sold millions of records as an opera-and-standards singer. His second album, Passione, arrives in the USA May 5. "It's part of human nature to make judgments based on first impressions, but sometimes we allow ourselves to be misguided by first impressions."

• It's the guilt. Why the surprise? There's no correlation between appearance and talent, says Scott Grantham, 35, a financial analyst in Atlanta. "If she didn't look the way she did, would there be the same reaction? I don't think so," he says. "We make snap judgments based on appearance, and when we see those judgments were premature, we overcompensate by going so far in the other direction."

• It's the shame. Boyle forced people to recognize how often they dismiss or ignore people because of their looks. "Is Susan Boyle ugly? Or are we?" asked essayist Tanya Gold in Britain's The Guardian.

• It's the psychology. "There's an emotional state called elevation, characterized by a warm, glowing feeling, that we get when someone transcends our expectations," says Lynn Johnson, a psychologist in Salt Lake City. Boyle is "an elevator — we want to believe in something higher, that there's meaning in life and that the ugly duckling can become the beautiful swan."

• It's the hope. "She has truly touched my heart and soul and lifted my spirits," says Anne Jolley of San Jose, who describes herself as 47, unemployed, frumpy and "disheartened, disenfranchised, disillusioned and dis-just-about-everything-else in these bleak times." The messages of Boyle, she says, are that "there is hope still in this world; that dreams really can come true; that cynical people can be turned around; that maybe my best years are not behind me after all."

• It's the distraction. With everything going on in the world, "our economy in the tank, my husband and I worried that we will lose our jobs — this was a feel-good/underdog story, and I ate it up," says Lisa Sweetnich, 40, a CPA in Massillon, Ohio.

• It's empowerment. "What are we all crying about?" asked writer Letty Cottin Pogrebin, founding editor of Ms. magazine, in her Huffington Post blog. "Partly, I think it's that a woman closing in on 50 had the courage to compete with the kids — and blew them out of the water."

• It's the authenticity. Unlike most of the contestants on, say, American Idol, Boyle clearly has not been groomed to be a pop star, so she is perceived as the real deal, says Ken Tucker, editor at large of Entertainment Weekly. "People want their idols to be authentic."

• It's the spiritual solace. "We're responding to someone who does not have the packaging expected of us, especially women, and in that moment of recognition, people got in touch with something so soulful and spiritual," says Laurie Sue Brockway, inspiration and family editor of Beliefnet.com. "People felt blessed by that."

For many, it all comes down to ancient wisdom. Rahn Hasbargen, an accountant in St. Paul, cites John 7:24: "Do not judge according to appearance, but judge with righteous judgment."

"Never has that verse been explained more dramatically than in the case of Susan Boyle," Hasbargen says.

Klassic Komic Strip of the Month

Klassic Komic Strip of the Month: Gahan Wilson's Nuts

From Wikipedia.org:

(Gahan Wilson's) comic strip Nuts, which appeared in National Lampoon, was a reaction against what he saw as the saccharine view of childhood in strips like Peanuts. His hero The Kid sees the world as a dark, dangerous and unfair place, but just occasionally a fun one too.

From Amazon.com:

Paperback
Publisher: R. Marek (1979)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0399900624
ISBN-13: 978-0399900624

Beautifully-Drawn, Warm, Funny Comic Strip Kid Adventures
April 11, 2000
By Paul C. Tumey (Seattle, WA)

This is one of my favorite books! Gahan Wilson has a wonderful drawing style, and is well-known for his imaginative, slightly macabre sense of humor. But when you see his one panel cartoons and illustrations, you always want more. Well, here's more! This is a dense collection of wonderful comic strip stories Wilson did in the 70's. They are about a pre-teen "Kid," and capture boyhood better than just about anything else I've ever read. The Kid is an only child, growing up in a big city. There is great honesty here, with the kid saying (to himself) swear words and imagining those horrible things we all imagined when we were small and easily terrified. Neither condescending nor obnoxious, these strips are gentle, warm and genuinely funny. And, course, they are beautifully drawn. The Kid reads comics, gets sick, build model planes, goes to a relative's funeral, visits the scene of a recent murder, goes to the matinee, and generally has a great set of universal adventures. Especially for this volume Wilson has drawn full pages like "The Sick Bed," 'Mr. Schultz's Cigar Store." I can't believe this book is out of print. A smart publisher could bring this back and do well with it. Will appeal to fans of LYNDA BARRY.

DHS Document Created During Bush Administration

http://www.prisonplanet.com/dhs-%e2%80%9crightwing-extremism%e2%80%9d-document-created-during-bush-administration.html

DHS “Rightwing Extremism” Document Created During Bush Administration
Kurt Nimmo
Prison Planet.com
Friday, April 17, 2009

After the Department of Homeland Security’s report on “rightwing extremism” was leaked and posted on Infowars and other alternative news sites, so-called conservatives wasted little time blaming the Obama administration for the report.

However, recent evidence reveals the report has nothing to with the supposed “Marxist” (as Michael Savage and others would have it) persuasion of the Obama administration. It is a product created by a government not interested in the artificial divides of the right-left paradigm and concentrates on one primary objective – to demonize and criminalize all effective opposition.

The “Rightwing Extremism: Current Economic and Political Climate Fueling Resurgence in Radicalization and Recruitment” document was produced during the Bush administration, as a quick check of the PDF document’s properties reveals. It was created on January 23, 2007.

In other words, the document is not a reflection of the supposed sinister political coloration of the Obama administration, said by many “conservatives” to be socialist or Marxist. It is a document produced specifically as part of a larger effort to demonize and eliminate all opposition regardless of political persuasion.

An earlier report produced by the Strategic Analysis Group, Homeland Environment and Threat Analysis Division of the DHS concentrated on “leftwing extremism” ( Leftwing Extremists Likely to Increase Use of Cyber Attacks over the Coming Decade), again demonstrating the government does not hold an ideological bias when it comes demonizing groups and individuals opposed to the government.

The latest DHS report is designed to portray anti-government groups as dangerous and potentially violent terrorists and thus scare off and balkanize supporters. It also provides the corporate media with an excuse to polarize important issues and dismiss supporters as either misled or as deluded and violent conspiracy theorists.

In particular, some observers claim the report was released and hyped by the corporate media in order to deligitimize Tea Party demonstrations against government spending and taxes held around the country. For instance, the Huffington Post reports: “If you think the conservative ‘Tea Party’ movement is daunting, take a look at a new report issued by the Department of Homeland Security that says right-wing extremism is on the rise throughout the country.”

As another example of this dismissal of the Tea Party movement by the corporate media, consider the rather disgusting and juvenile effort by CNN’s Anderson Cooper (the Yalie of Vanderbilt lineage who interned for the CIA and may thus be considered a Mockingbird asset). Appearing with David Gergen, a member of the Trilateral Commission and Bilderberg Group (who has romped at Bohemian Grove), Cooper said it is difficult for Republicans to find their voice when they are “teabagging.” The Urban Dictionary defines a “teabagger” as “a person who is unaware that they have said or done something foolish, childlike, noobish, lame, or inconvenient.” It is also used to define a pornographic act.

Around the same time the Bush administration’s DHS produced the “rightwing extremism” document, the FBI received a request to work on a similar report. “Fox News’s Catherine Herridge revealed that the report, along with an earlier report on radicalized left-wing groups, was actually ‘requested by the Bush administration’ but not completed until recently,” Think Progress reported on April 15.

The report, entitled “White Supremacist Recruitment of Military Personnel since 9/11,” begins with an “intelligence assessment” claiming “white supremacist extremist groups have attempted to increase their recruitment of current and former US military personnel.” According to the FBI, these “[p]ost-9/11 activities by current or former military personnel involved in the extremist movement span the range of activities engaged in by their extremist compatriots who lack military experience, and include weapons violations, physical violence, paramilitary training, intelligence collection, drug violations, fraud, threats, and arson,” that is to say all manner of evil and criminal activity.

It is no mistake this “disgruntled military veteran” appears in the DHS document. It is also no mistake the report claims “white supremacist and violent antigrovernment groups” present an ominous threat to Obama, primarily due to his race. The lines separating racist nationalism (a marginal threat at best) and opposition to the government are blurred in the document.

The Council on Foreign Relations reiterated the parameters of the DHS and FBI documents on April 21, 2008. A CFR “bakckgrounder” entitled “Militant Extremists in the United States” touches on both “rightwing” and “leftwing” extremism covered in the DHS and FBI reports. The CFR report states:

The September 11, 2001, attacks in New York and Washington were the most destructive ever on U.S. soil. But law-enforcement officials have also long struggled with a range of U.S.-based terrorist groups. Domestic extremists include hate groups motivated by ultra-conservative ideals that are often anti-Semitic and racially motivated; ecoterrorists who use violence to campaign for greater environmental responsibility; and socialist groups who oppose the World Trade Organization. While homegrown Muslim extremists have proven more lethal in Europe than in the United States, U.S. authorities continue to worry about the prospect of attacks by militant Muslims who are American citizens.

The SPLC and the ADL work closely with the DHS, FBI, and apparently the CFR. The CFR cites materials provided by the Southern Poverty Law Center in its report.

Prior to the CFR “backgrounder,” the Southern Poverty Law Center’s Intelligence Project issued a report claiming in “the 10 years since the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing killed 168 people, roughly 60 right-wing terrorist plots have been uncovered in the United States,” according to U.S.News & World Report. “The plots demonstrate that the Department of Homeland Security still needs to closely monitor right-wing groups, says Heidi Beirich, with the Intelligence Project.”

On March 26, after Alex Jones exposed the MIAC document, the Americans for Legal Immigration PAC (ALIPAC) issued a national advisory to all local, state, and federal law enforcement agencies and officers, along with all DHS Fusion Centers, warning against “any reliance upon faulty and politicized research issued by the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) and Anti Defamation League (ADL).”

ALIPAC would like to advise all media sources, law enforcement officers and agencies, that the ADL and SPLC are political organizations, with stated political goals and agendas which are contrary to the candidates, political parties, and millions of Americans besmirched by the MIAC documents.

While both the ADL and SPLC actively market themselves and seek roles as advisers to law enforcement and the media, both groups regularly engage in political tactics like those observed in the now withdrawn Missouri Documents. Materials from one or both organizations contributed to this scandal.

The ADL and SPLC are notorious for targeting “rightwing” groups and individuals while the FBI has a long track record of going after “leftwing” groups, as evinced by COINTELPRO (the CIA also participated in this effort under its Operation CHAOS). The FBI also sponsored so-called “right-wing vigilantes,” who were given “funds and information, so long as they confined their attacks to COINTELPRO targets,” consisting mostly of anti-war and Black, American Indian, and Chicano “liberation” groups. (see Brian Glick, COINTELPRO Revisited: Spying & Disruption)

The FBI considered the putative “Militia movement” so threatening (primarily due to its constitutional underpinnings) it orchestrated the bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City in 1995 in order to demonize and criminalize the movement (and scare off support).

A declaration from alleged Timothy McVeigh co-conspirator Terry Nichols, filed in U.S. District Court in Salt Lake City in 2007, reveals McVeigh was taking orders from Larry Potts, a top FBI official. “Potts was no stranger to anti-government confrontations, having been the lead FBI agent at Ruby Ridge in 1992, which led to the shooting death of Vicki Weaver, the wife of separatist Randy Weaver. Potts also was reportedly involved in the 51-day siege of the Branch Davidian compound in Waco, Texas in 1993, which resulted in a fire that killed 81 Branch Davidian followers,” the Desert Morning News reported on February 22, 2007.

The DHS, FBI, and we can assume military intelligence and the CIA (along with other intelligence agencies), are intimately involved in a highly orchestrated effort to demonize and criminalize activists opposed to the government, in particular the patriot movement.

In the corporate media realm – a corporate media long in the orbit of intelligence agencies – this process is limited to propaganda designed to make constitutionalists and patriots look either absurd or dangerous. The fact the latest document was leaked a few days before the Tea Party demonstrations held around the country is probably not coincidental.

Demonizing and criminalizing the patriot movement – characterizing them as “rightwing extremists” and white supremacists with the help of SPLC and ADL propaganda – is a last ditch effort on the part of the globalists and international bankers in control of the government. Our rulers realize the threat posed by a large grassroots movement – especially one including veterans – demanding less government intrusion in our lives and a return to a constitutionally limited Republic.

Morales links US to alleged assassination attempt

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/apr/20/evo-morales-bolivia-us-embassy

Bolivian president Morales links US embassy to alleged assassination attempt
Rory Carroll, Latin America correspondent guardian.co.uk
Monday 20 April 2009

President Evo Morales has said that an alleged assassination plot against him by Balkan mercenaries and an Irishman may have been backed by the US embassy in the Bolivian capital La Paz.

Police commandos shot dead three men last week in a hotel room in the eastern city of Santa Cruz, which was said to be the base for a conspiracy to wipe out government leaders and stage a coup.

Irish authorities are attempting to repatriate the body of Michael Dwyer, 24, one of the trio whose bullet-ridden bodies were displayed in photographs published in Bolivian newspapers.

Two survivors of the group, reported to be a Croatian and a Hungarian, were moved to a jail in La Paz over the weekend, while diplomats, politicians and law enforcement officials tried to ascertain the full picture. Opposition leaders accused the government of jumping to conclusions and manipulating the incident to suit its own purposes.

Morales, Bolivia's first indigenous president and an outspoken critic of the US, elaborated on the alleged conspiracy while attending a regional summit in Trinidad and Tobago. He told a news ­conference that he had asked Barack Obama, in a closed session with 12 South American leaders, to repudiate the plot, which Morales said might be linked to previous US-backed efforts to unseat him.

If the US president did not repudiate the alleged conspiracy, "I might think it was organized through the [US] embassy", said Morales. "I don't want meddling in my country." Obama replied that he was unfamiliar with the incident but assured Morales that his administration was not involved, said a US official at the summit.

Interpol offered to help the police investigation in Bolivia. The mystery began last Thursday when police said that an attempt to arrest a gang of mercenaries led to a gun battle in a hotel room, leaving three dead and a pile of intercepted weapons. No police officers were injured, and it was unclear if the suspects, who were killed in their underwear, had opened fire.

Officials said the group probably had been responsible for a recent dynamite attack on the residence of a Catholic ­cardinal, Julio ­Terrazas, and that it had plotted to go on to mount a "spiral of ­violence" by killing Morales, his vice president, and his chief of staff, as well as opposition leaders.

"The terrorist group had a strategy, and part of the strategy was to attack the cardinal and [take] other actions, not only against the president or vice president, but other authorities as well," said the deputy interior minister, Marcos Farfan.

In Ireland, Dwyer's family in Tipperary said they were shocked, and appealed for privacy. Dwyer was a student at the Galway-Mayo Institute of Technology, but on the Facebook website he had posted photos of himself in military gear and holding fake weapons. Some Irish commentators describe him as a fantasist.

The other dead were named as Eduardo Rozsa Flores, 49, a Bolivian-Hungarian who reportedly fought in the former Yugoslavia, and Magyarosi Arpak, a Romanian who was said to be a sniper.

The two detained were named as Mario Francisco Tadik Astorga, 58, reportedly a Bolivian-Croatian who also fought in the Balkans, and Elot Toazo, a Hungarian and a computer expert.

Dog-fighting videos at heart of Supreme Court case

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-pit-bulls21-2009apr21,0,693454.story

Dog-fighting videos at heart of Supreme Court case
The court will consider a law that bans the sale or possession of photos or videos of animals being harmed or mutilating one another. Free speech and animal cruelty are issues at stake in the case.
By David G. Savage
April 20, 2009

Reporting from Washington -- The Supreme Court agreed today to take up an unusual free-speech case to decide whether the government can make it a crime to sell or own videos portraying dog fighting or other acts of animal cruelty.

All 50 states have laws against animal cruelty, and a decade ago, Congress made it illegal to sell or possess photos or videos of animals being maimed, mutilated, tortured, wounded or killed. The aim was to combat an underground trade in videos that showed dogs fighting or mauling other animals.

The law included exceptions for depictions with serious religious, scientific or artistic value.

Last year, however, a federal appeals court in Philadelphia declared the rarely used law unconstitutional on 1st Amendment grounds. The judges said the protection for free speech includes depictions of even illegal activity.

There are only a few exceptions to this rule, the judges noted. One is child pornography. It is always illegal to sell or own pornography that features children. The appeals court said it was unwilling to create a new category of expression that is unprotected by the 1st Amendment.


The ruling overturned the conviction and three-year prison term of Robert J. Stevens, a Virginia man who sold several videos of pit bulls fighting and viciously attacking other animals. One gruesome scene portrayed the dogs ripping off the jaw of a pig. Stevens had advertised his pit-bull videos in Sporting Dog Journal, which the government described as an underground journal that reports on illegal dog fights.

Stevens sold the videos to federal agents in Pittsburgh in 2003, and he was prosecuted there. He was the first person convicted under the law that made it a crime to sell dog-fighting and other such videos.

Government lawyers appealed to the Supreme Court and urged the justices to revive the law. "Graphic depictions of torture and maiming of animals . . . have little or no expressive content or redeeming societal value, and Congress has compelling reasons for prohibiting them," the lawyers said in their appeal. Animal cruelty has "no place in a civilized society," and the law should punish those who profit from it, they said.

The high court voted to hear the government's appeal, which will be argued in the fall.

david.savage@latimes.com

Chávez, the New Oprah, Makes Another Bestseller

http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/04/20/chavez-the-new-oprah-makes-another-bestseller/

April 20, 2009
Chávez, the New Oprah, Makes Another Bestseller
By Robert Mackey

Demonstrating a heretofore unknown capacity for speed-reading, Americans rushed to Amazon.com over the weekend to post new reviews of the 317-page book — Eduardo Galeano’s “Open Veins of Latin America: Five Centuries of the Pillage of a Continent” — President Hugo Chávez of Venezuela gave to President Obama at the Summit of the Americas on Saturday. As one of the readers engaged in the discussion of what is now the second most popular book on Amazon’s Web site noted:

Who would have believed that so many people could order the book, get it delivered, and read it overnight! Who says Americans have become a nation of illiterates?!?

Then again, as some other reviewers of the reviewers on Amazon have suggested, it just might be that some of the people flooding Amazon with negative evaluations of the book saved time by not actually reading it before speed-writing their responses to it. There is no doubt that people have been ordering the book from Amazon — the BBC reports on Monday that it was Amazon’s 54,295th most popular title on Friday but had shot up to number two on the company’s bestseller list by Monday morning — but, given that the online bookseller estimates that it takes one to three weeks after an order is placed for this book to be shipped, it seems unlikely that any of the newest reviews were based on careful evaluations of the arguments put forth by the Uruguayan author.

The book’s new popularity has even spawned a separate discussion thread on Amazon headlined: “What’s With All The New Reviews? Did A Bunch Of People Read It In The Past Couple Of Days??” One of the book’s haters responded there by arguing that it was unnecessary to read the book to form an opinion about it:

Basically, it sounds like another ‘All evil comes from European-descendant white people’ and Latin America would be a paradise if we’d never arrived (never mind the human sacrifices going on at the time of the Spanish arrival and the massive corruption that is currently ongoing in utopias like Venezuala). I haven’t read it, though; why read Karl Marx through another ethnic lens when I have the original source on the bookshelf, along with a few other filtered versions?

On the other side of the argument, a reader identified as one of Amazon’s top 500 reviewers wrote on Sunday that while he thinks “Chavez is a boor and a buffoon, and it could be taken as a gesture of supreme condescension that he gave the well-educated American president one of the standard texts of Latin American studies,” he still hopes that Mr. Obama will read an English translation of the book since “Even English readers who will dismiss his analysis as ‘economic determinism’ should be ready to meet Galeano, on his own terms, as a vivid example of the Latin American world-view.”

President Hugo Chavez showed a book by John Kenneth Galbraith to Venezuelan business leaders in Caracas in June, 2008.This is not the first time that an endorsement from Mr. Chávez has had this sort of effect on a book’s fortunes. In 2006, as Motoko Rich reported in The Times, days after Mr. Chávez held up a Spanish translation of Noam Chomsky’s “Hegemony or Survival: America’s Quest for Global Dominance,” during a speech to the United Nations General Assembly, the English version “hit No. 1 on Amazon’s best-seller list” in the United States.

North American readers may be less aware of the fact that Mr. Chávez apparently likes giving and getting books from other world leaders, and has also been photographed exchanging reading material with the presidents of Yemen, Russia, Cuba and Colombia in recent years.

While “The Open Veins of Latin America” itself is not available to read online, Isabel Allende’s introduction, which accompanies the English translation and was written in the 1990s, is on the Web, and that may give a better sense of what the book means to its proponents is about beyond the simple “anti-capitalist” handle that has been attached to it in the last few days.

You can also see and hear the Uruguayan writer speak for himself in a long interview with Mr. Galeano conducted by Amy Goodman and Juan Golnzalez in 2006, which is available in both video and audio versions on the Web site of the program “Democracy Now.”

Not having read it myself, I am unable to offer readers any better review of this work by Eduardo Galeano — although his book about the game that dominates many lives in Latin America, “Soccer in Sun and Shadow,” is a great read. Samples of that book’s English translation are available online, in Google Book Search. One version of a chapter of that book published in an academic journal gives a sense of how Mr. Galeano writes, and sees the world:

The history of soccer is a sad voyage from beauty to duty. When the sport became an industry, the beauty that blossoms from the joy of play got torn out by its very roots. In this fin-de-siecle world, professional soccer condemns all that is useless, and useless means not profitable. Nobody earns a thing from that crazy feeling that for a moment turns a man into a child playing with a balloon, like a cat with a ball of yarn, a ballet dancer who romps with a ball as light as a balloon or a ball of yarn, playing without even knowing he’s playing, with no purpose or clock or referee.

Play has become spectacle, with few protagonists and many spectators, soccer for watching. And that spectacle has become one of the most profitable businesses in the world, organized not for play but rather to impede it. The technocracy of professional sport has managed to impose a soccer of lightning speed and brute strength, a soccer that negates joy, kills fantasy and outlaws daring.

Luckily, on the field you can still see, even if only once in a long while, some insolent rascal who sets aside the script and commits the blunder of dribbling past the entire opposing side, the referee and the crowd in the stands, all for the carnal delight of embracing the forbidden adventure of freedom.

Yankees New Stadium

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/17/sports/baseball/17rhoden.html

Sports of The Times
With New Stadium, Yankees Replicate Charm, but Lose Advantage
By WILLIAM C. RHODEN
April 16, 2009

By the middle of the seventh inning Thursday, the Yankees’ highly anticipated home opener had officially been declared a disaster. The Yankees opened a new season and christened a new stadium in the eerie shadow of the old.

The home team trailed, 10-1, after a nine-run seventh by the Cleveland Indians on the way to a 10-2 loss. And Yankees players were showered with boos in the new $1.6 billion stadium.

For most major league baseball teams, the home opener is the essence of the clean slate, the fresh start. For the Yankees, the idea of starting with a clean slate is daunting, like climbing Mount Everest. After they were pasted Thursday, the incline became a lot steeper.

This was much more than a simple home opener: This was the opening of a lavish new Yankee Stadium, built by a franchise with baseball’s highest payroll, despite the economic collapse around it — a franchise accustomed to winning championships, although it hasn’t won a World Series title since 2000. Old Yankee Stadium represented one of the greatest, or at least one of the most storied, home-field advantages in North American sports. Visiting players routinely gushed about walking into the Stadium and soaking in its history.

With a simple move across the street, that part of the Yankees’ legacy is gone and the franchise, payroll aside, is now on a level playing field with the competition.

After Thursday’s game, pitcher C. C. Sabathia was asked whether the new Stadium, with its amenities, felt as special as the one he used to visit when he was a member of the Indians.

“It still has that feel because the park still looks kind of like the old Stadium,” Sabathia said. “But it’s a weird feeling, too, going out with a clean slate and us starting a new era of Yankee baseball.”

The focus on the Yankees’ mystique tends to be baseball-centric, but what gave the old Yankee Stadium its luster were classic championship moments that cut across sports. The old Stadium was a veritable museum of American sports history:

¶ Knute Rockne’s famous “Win one for the Gipper” speech delivered at halftime of Notre Dame’s 1928 victory over Army.

¶ Joe Louis’s 1938 victory over Max Schmeling in a heavyweight title bout.

¶ The Baltimore Colts’ sudden-death victory over the Giants in 1958 in the Greatest Game Ever Played.

¶ The string of World Series appearances through the 1920s, ’30s, ’40s, ’50s, ’60s and ’70s, then from 1996 to 2003.

Before Thursday’s game, Derek Jeter, asked about the recent losses in Tampa Bay, including a 15-5 pummeling, said that a six-month baseball season was hardly over in April. Indeed, a month from now, the embarrassment in the home opener may well be a footnote.

Manager Joe Girardi said that Thursday’s game was “hard to watch,” but he added that the Yankees’ fate and the legacy of the new Stadium wouldn’t be decided on the first day.

True enough, though Thursday’s rout, three days after the rout against Tampa Bay, raises questions about how long it will take these Yankees to fill a new stadium with the sort of championship moments that made the old Stadium so special.

Soon? Longer? Never?

Before Jeter’s first plate appearance Thursday, a bat was placed across home plate. The bat, we were told, was used by Babe Ruth on opening day 1923, for the opening of the old Yankee Stadium. Ruth homered that day and the Yankees swept the opening four-game series against the Red Sox, then cruised to the pennant and the World Series title.

On Thursday, Jeter flied out and the Yankees were pummeled.

Asked what he would miss about the old Stadium, Jeter said, “You’re going to miss everything about it.”

On its own merits, the new Stadium is a gem. Every effort was made to duplicate and, in many instances extend, the charm of the old Stadium. The signature frieze at the top of the stadium bowl is back, the manually operated auxiliary scoreboard is replicated, and a gap between the bleachers and right field allows us to get a peek at the No. 4 elevated train.

But some crucial things did not make the trip across the street — and they never will.

Mystiques are created by championships and championship moments: title fights, football classics and World Series victories. The old mystique is gone. You can argue that the mystique began to fade seasons ago.

What will that legacy be? Who will be the first group to win a championship in the new Yankee Stadium?

How the Yankees transfer that mystique from the old building, now gray and dark and awaiting its demise, to the new is Girardi’s challenge.

The questions may not be answered for years.

The architects and the Yankee organization did a great job of moving as much memory as they could into the new Stadium.

Sadly for these Yankees, some spirits just don’t travel that well.

E-mail: wcr@nytimes.com

A version of this article appeared in print on April 17, 2009, on page B15 of the New York edition.

A Black President Doesn’t Mean Racism is gone

By Peter Phillips

Racial inequality remains problematic in the US. People of color continue to experience disproportionately high rates of poverty, unemployment, police profiling, repressive incarceration and school segregation.

According to a new Civil Rights report, “Reviving the Goal of an Integrated Society: A 21st Century Challenge,” by Gary Orfield, schools in the US are currently 44% non-white, and minorities are rapidly emerging as the majority of public school students. Latinos and Blacks are the two largest minority groups. However, Black and Latino students attend schools more segregated today than during the civil rights era. Over fifty years after the US Supreme Court case: Brown VS Board of Education, schools remain separate and not equal. Orfield’s study shows that public schools is in the Western states, including California, suffer from the most severe segregation in the US, rather than schools in the southern states as many people believe.

This new form of segregation is primarily based on how urban areas are geographically organized—as Cornel West so passionately describes— into vanilla suburbs and chocolate cities.

Schools remain highly unequal, both in terms of money, and qualified teachers and curriculum. Unequal education leads to diminished access to colleges and future jobs. Non-white schools are segregated by poverty as well as race. These “chocolate” low-income public schools are where most of the nation’s drop-outs occur, leading to large numbers of virtually unemployable young people of color struggling to survive in a troubled economy.

Diminished opportunity for students of color invariably creates greater privileges for whites. White privilege is a concept that is challenging for many whites to accept. Whites like to think of themselves as hard working individuals whose achievements are due to deserved personal efforts. In many cases this is partly true; hard work in college often pays off in many ways. Nonetheless many whites find it difficult to accept that geographically and structurally based racism remains a significant barrier for many students of color. Whites often say racism is in the past, and we need not think about it today. Yet, inequality stares at us daily from the barrios, ghettos, and from behind prisons walls. Inequality continues in privileged universities as well.

An example of white privilege is how Sonoma State University (SSU) has recently achieved the status of having the whitest and likely richest student population of any public university in the California. Research shows, that beginning in the early 1990s, the SSU administration specifically sought to market the campus as a public ivy institution—offering an Ivy-League experience at a state college price. Part of this public ivy packaging was to advertise SSU as being in a destination wine country location with high physical and cultural amenities. These marketing efforts were principally designed to attract upper-income students to a Falcon Crest-like campus.

To achieve the desired outcome of becoming a wine-country public ivy, SSU’s administration implemented special admissions screening processes that used higher SAT-GPA indexes than the rest of the California State University (CSU) system. According to Lani Guinier and Gerald Torres in The Miner’s Canary, high SAT scores correlate directly to both race and income with little relationship to actual success in college.

SSU also conducted recruitment at predominately white upper-income public and private high schools throughout the west coast and Hawaii. Consequently, SSU freshmen students with family incomes over $150,000 have increased by 59 percent since 1994 and freshmen students from families with incomes below $50,000 declined by 21 percent (2007 dollars). The campus remained over three-quarters white during this fifteen-year period, while the rest of the CSU campuses significantly increased ethnic diversity.

We are at a time in society when a majority of the population has elected a black President of the United States. This presidency is a hugely symbolic achievement for race relations in the US. We must not, however, ignore the continuing disadvantages for people of color and the resulting advantages gained by whites. Institutional policies and de facto segregation contribute to continuing inequalities that require ongoing review, discussion and redress. Efforts against racism must continue if we are to truly attain the civil rights goal of equal opportunity for all.

Peter Phillips is a Professor of Sociology at Sonoma State University. His recent research study Building a Public Ivy: Sonoma State University: 1994-2007, is on line at:

http://www.projectcensored.org/articles/story/building-a-public-ivy/

Batman Upstages Bugs Bunny on Giant Mural

http://carpetbagger.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/04/08/batman-replaces-bugs-bunny-on-giant-mural-at-warner-brothers-burbank-studio-lot/

April 8, 2009
Batman Upstages Bugs Bunny on Giant Mural at Warner’s Burbank Studio Lot
By Brooks Barnes

Every studio has them: giant posters (usually of upcoming movies) prominently displayed next to the front gates that serve to stroke the egos of powerful producers, directors or stars. It’s a big deal to get one, particularly at a studio like Warner Brothers, which churns out dozens of films and television shows every year.

So Warner understandably stirred up discussion a couple months ago when it took down the giant vanity billboard dedicated to its animation department and DC Comics. The sign, a three-dimensional version of Mount Rushmore with Bugs Bunny and pals as the presidents, had been in place for 15 years on the north side of Stage 3. Workers began erecting a new one (behind a scrim) around the time that the studio laid off several hundred people, prompting some more talk: If Warner needs to cut costs by laying off the rank and file, why is it spending money re-doing a billboard?

The answer came last night. The studio unveiled a new billboard – officially a “mural” – that primarily showcases super heroes from DC Comics against the Hall of Justice from the series “Super Friends.” Batman (go figure) looms largest, with Wonder Woman and the Green Lantern (both getting feature films in coming years) also appearing. Making cameos: Scooby Doo, Tweety Bird, Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck. At night, black lights reveal villains like Catwoman and Two-Face in the background.

The mural – Warner’s not saying how much it cost – was planned back when the studio was still hot on making a tentpole movie featuring multiple heroes called “Justice League.” A Warner statement said it was time for an update after 15 years, particularly as the studio’s animation strategy has shifted (repeatedly) over that time.

Over 500 people attended the unveiling. Warner served mini-cupcakes and popcorn, handed out free DVDs and rolled out the Mystery Machine and Batmobile for attendees to admire. Some fans came dressed as characters, and Peter Roth, president of Warner Brothers Television, gave a short speech. Bizarrely, Mario Lopez hosted the “festival,” which featured a performance by an all-girl dance team from the 2009 edition of the MTV show “Randy Jackson Presents America’s Best Dance Crew.”

NASA Names Space Station Treadmill After Colbert

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=103119972

NASA Names Space Station Treadmill After Colbert
Morning Edition, April 15, 2009

The space agency solved its latest public relations problem. NASA invited people to send choices to name a node in the international space station. TV comedian Stephen Colbert got his viewers to offer his last name, and they won.

An astronaut told Colbert the agency compromised by re-naming a treadmill. They gave it an acronym: Combined Operational Load Bearing External Resistance Treadmill — that's C-O-L-B-E-R-T.

The treadmill is set to arrive at the space station in August. It will be installed after the node, named Tranquilty, arrives at the station next year.

Nazi Origins of Adidas and Puma Tennis Shoes

http://alexconstantine.blogspot.com/2009/03/nazi-origins-of-adidas-and-puma-tennis.html

Thursday, March 12, 2009
Nazi Origins of Adidas and Puma Tennis Shoes

Sneakers, Nazis, and a Family Feud
Two German brothers—and their communities—battled each other to build the Puma and Adidas empires
Review of Sneaker Wars: The Enemy Brothers Who Founded Adidas and Puma and the Family Feud that Forever Changed the Business of Sport
By Barbara Smit
Business Week (Repost)
Ecco; 384pp; $26.95

The term "sibling rivalry" doesn't quite do justice to the relationship between German shoemaking brothers Adolf and Rudolf Dassler, proprietors of the German athletic-shoe enterprise known as Dassler Brothers. During World War II, Rudolf was convinced that Adolf, better known as "Adi," contrived to have him sent to serve with German forces in Poland. After the German surrender, Rudolf retaliated by denouncing Adi to the Allies for allegedly assisting the Nazi war effort.

Bizarrely, the bickering brothers continued to share a villa, with their wives and children, in the Bavarian town of Herzogenaurach until 1948, when Rudolf and employees loyal to him formed a rival shoe company called Puma. Adi renamed his outfit Adidas (ADDYY). So great was the animosity between the brothers that the whole town became embroiled. Residents declared their loyalty to either Adidas or Puma according to the shoes they wore and sometimes refused to speak to members of the other side.

The epic feud shaped not only the shoe industry but also the relationship between sports and business. Both brothers and, later, their sons, realized that getting star athletes to wear their shoes was crucial to sales. Flouting Olympic rules, they showered potential medalists with cash and swag. The Dasslers can take much of the credit, or blame, for turning the Olympics into the marketing circus it is today.

It's a great story, unevenly told in Sneaker Wars: The Enemy Brothers Who Founded Adidas and Puma and the Family Feud that Forever Changed the Business of Sport by Dutch journalist Barbara Smit. The book eventually finds its footing, but the early chapters are poorly paced and full of loose ends. Recounting Rudolf's war years, for example, Smit first seems to accept his postwar assertion that he was arrested by the Gestapo for suspected desertion in the final weeks of the war. Then later she raises the possibility that he was in fact working for the Gestapo. A better writer would have handled the contradictory evidence more gracefully.

Certainly, neither brother was a saint. Both joined the Nazi Party soon after Hitler took power, although their first allegiance seems to have been to the shoe business. (Adi worked hard to get star athlete Jesse Owens to wear his spikes at the 1936 Olympics in Berlin, even though the Nazis reviled the black American.) After Adi and Rudolf split, they and their successors stopped at nothing to undermine each other. At the 1968 Olympics in Mexico City, Adidas managers contrived to get Puma shoes impounded by Mexican customs and may even have arranged for a Puma rep to be arrested and jailed.

As if the Puma-Adidas rivalry weren't enough, Rudolf and Adi couldn't even get along with their own offspring. Adi's estranged son, Horst, established a parallel company in France, using the Adidas name but offering a separate product line, competing for orders, and even spying on the Herzogenaurach faction.

Despite all the internal conflicts, Adidas and Puma rode the postwar sports boom to riches. They saw the potential of the U.S. market and signed athletes such as Joe Namath, the quarterback for the New York Jets who wore dazzling white Puma boots on the field.

The Adidas-Puma rivalry may even have fired the brothers' competitive spirit and contributed to their success. But their preoccupation with each other also seems to have left them exposed to newcomer Nike (NKE) in the 1970s. Nike's rise drove Adidas from a 60% market share in the U.S. to only 2.5% at the beginning of the '90s. The heirs of Adi and Rudolf eventually lost control of both Adidas and Puma.

Luckily for Smit, the owners and managers who followed were no less colorful. Smit's narrative improves considerably as the book proceeds, possibly because there are more living witnesses to provide the lively detail lacking in early chapters.

Smit is not one to draw business-case lessons from her tale. But a reader may come away with a new appreciation for the MBA-style professionalism at the top of Adidas and Puma today. Current Adidas CEO Herbert Hainer and Puma CEO Jochen Zeitz are both marketing professionals who have delivered stability and growth—even if they don't make such juicy copy as their companies' founders.

Photo of the Month: Smile

‘CHECK IT OUT, MAN’

http://www.usps.com/communications/newsroom/2009/pr09_033a.htm

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
April 9, 2009 Media Contact: Mark Saunders
(O) 202-268-6524
(C) 202-320-0782
mark.r.saunders@usps.gov
usps.com/news

Release No. 09-033
Non-media contact: 1-800-ASK-USPS

FOX: Cynthia Pascoe
(O) 310-369-2492
cynthia.pascoe@fox.com

Brian Reinert
(O) 212-689-6360
brian_reinert@bhimpact.com

‘CHECK IT OUT, MAN’
The United States Postal Service® Previews Simpsons® Stamps
Promotes ‘Ballot Stuffing’ in Online Simpsons Stamp Vote

WASHINGTON — “Woo-Hoo!” At 8 a.m. ET today, the Postal Service™ revealed what The Simpsons stamps will look like when they are released nationwide on May 7. Americans are being encouraged to vote for their favorite Simpsons character when viewing the images.

Vote Early and Often: It’s the American Way

Voting takes place at www.usps.com/simpsons beginning April 9 at 8 a.m. ET and concludes May 14. Results will be announced shortly thereafter.

Pre-order The Simpsons Stamps and Stamped Postal Cards Now

The 44-cent First-Class Mail® stamps, available in booklets of 20 and stamped postal cards in packs of 20, can be pre-ordered online and will be mailed to customers on May 7. To see all Simpsons related products, visit this link: www.usps.com/simpsons

Matt Groening Signed Poster Sweepstakes

Visitors to the site over 18 years of age have the opportunity to register for a sweepstakes to be one of 25 winners of a limited-edition Simpsons poster to be signed by Simpsons creator and executive producer Matt Groening. Winners will be notified the week of May 18 - 22, 2009.

The Simpsons, currently in its 20th year as a regularly scheduled half-hour series, is the longest-running comedy in television history. The show is a cultural phenomenon, recognizable throughout the world.

“We are excited to celebrate The Simpsons on postage stamps,” said U.S. Postal Service Executive Director of Stamp Services David Failor. “Eyebrow-raising to say the least, this witty, well-written pop icon continues to irreverently satire its parody of a middle-class family as it lampoons American culture. The Simpsons stamps, which includes known philatelists Bart Simpson, will serve as a great opportunity to interest youngsters into stamp collecting.”

“This is the biggest and most adhesive honor The Simpsons has ever received,” said Matt Groening, creator and executive producer of The Simpsons.

“We are emotionally moved by the Postal Service selecting us rather than making the lazy choice of someone who has benefited society,” said James L. Brooks, executive producer of The Simpsons.

Simpsons Beat the Odds

The U.S. Postal Service receives approximately 50,000 suggestions for stamp subjects each year, yet only about 20 topics are selected for postage. The Simpsons is the only television show to be featured as the sole subject of a stamp set while still in primetime production.

First-Day-of-Issue Dedication Ceremony

The Simpsons creator and executive producer, Matt Groening, who created the original artwork for the stamps, is scheduled to participate in the dedication ceremony, along with executive producer James L. Brooks and several of the actors, at Fox Studios in Los Angeles at 11:15 a.m. PT on Thursday, May 7.

A limited number of seats are available to the public on a first-call, first-reserved basis. Those interested in attending can call 1-866-268-3243 beginning Friday, April 10 between noon and 5 p.m. ET, and 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. ET Monday through Friday thereafter. Due to the expected demand, only one reservation will be accepted per requester per call. When calling, speak slowly and spell your name. Be sure to leave a phone number to receive a callback confirmation. There is a fee for parking. Calls made prior to noon ET on April 10 will not be accepted. Individuals attending the event are asked to provide a driver’s license or another form of government photo identification.

Stamp Selection Process

How does the Postal Service sort through 50,000 stamp subject suggestions annually to reach a final cut of approximately 20 topics selected for circulation? To help in this selection process, the Postmaster General established the Citizens’ Stamp Advisory Committee 50 years ago. Members are appointed to the Committee by the Postmaster General. They reflect a wide range of educational, artistic, historical and professional expertise. For additional information, visit this link:
http://www.usps.com/communications/organization/csac.htm
# # #
Please Note: For broadcast quality video and audio, photo stills and other media resources, visit the USPS Newsroom at www.usps.com/news.

An independent federal agency, the U.S. Postal Service is the only delivery service that reaches every address in the nation, 149 million residences, businesses and Post Office Boxes, six days a week. It has 34,000 retail locations and relies on the sale of postage, products and services, not tax dollars, to pay for operating expenses. Named the Most Trusted Government Agency five consecutive years by the Ponemon Institute, the Postal Service has annual revenue of $75 billion and delivers nearly half the world’s mail.

ABOUT THE SIMPSONS:

The Simpsons, which airs Sundays (8:00-8:30 PM ET/PT), is the longest running primetime sitcom in television history. The Simpsons exploded into a cultural phenomenon in 1990 and has remained one of the most groundbreaking and innovative entertainment franchises, recognizable throughout the world. Cartoonist Matt Groening created the infamous Simpson family: Homer, Marge, Bart, Lisa and Maggie Simpson — all now identifiable by their silhouettes alone.

ABOUT TWENTIETH CENTURY FOX LICENSING & MERCHANDISING

A recognized industry leader, Twentieth Century Fox Licensing and Merchandising licenses and markets properties worldwide on behalf of Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation, Twentieth Television and Fox Broadcasting Company, as well as third party lines. The division is aligned with Twentieth Century Fox Television, one of the top suppliers of primetime entertainment programming to the broadcast networks.

John Madden retires from broadcasting

http://www.mercurynews.com/raidersheadlines/ci_12156141

John Madden retires from broadcasting
By Lisa Fernandez
Mercury News
04/16/2009

John Madden, an NFL Hall of Fame coach and one of the most popular broadcasters of the sport, has retired from television broadcasting.

In a statement posted on the nbcsports,msnbc.com Web Site, Madden said: "It's time. I'm 73 years old. My 50th wedding anniversary is this fall. I have two great sons and their families and my five grandchildren are at an age now when they know when I'm home and, more importantly, when I'm not..."

Madden, a former coach of the Oakland Raiders, lives in the East Bay.

In his regular daily 8:15 a.m. interview with KCBS radio — which he left up in the air whether he would continue — Madden said that this was a "big day. A big day.''

"I decided to retire,'' Madden said on the air. "I can't even say it. It's tough. Not because I'm not sure it's the right time. But I'm going to miss everything about it because I loved it so much.'' He has been working for the past three seasons on NBC's Sunday night NFL game. His last telecast was the Super Bowl between Arizona and Pittsburgh.

Madden, who, in his typical self-deprecating style referred to himself a young "doofus'' from Daly City, said when he reached the age of 70, he knew he'd have to hang up his hat at some point. He said he's been thinking about retiring for the last three years, but wasn't ready to stop broadcasting NFL football games until just recently. He said each time he's thought about retiring, he'd spend two months mulling it over.

"I vacillated,'' Madden said. "Finally, I was up against it. Two months was running out. The NFL schedule was coming out. This is what I'm going to do.''

In his emotion-laden remarks, Madden noted that the upcoming football season will be the first he won't participate in since his freshman year in high school.

Since he retired from coaching in 1979, Madden has worked as an analyst for all four broadcast networks. His "Madden NFL Football" is the top-selling sports video game of all time.

Madden is reluctant to fly and traveled to games in a specially equipped bus. He told KCBS listeners that he wouldn't stop traveling, "doing things'' and checking out odd restaurants, like "Chewy's,'' as he's known for telling tales about life in general, in addition to talking sports.

Madden mentioned his family as a big reason for stepping down.

His 50th wedding anniversary is coming up in December — prime football season when he'd typically be on the road. And his grandchildren —his oldest, Sam is 8 — are now old enough to know "when I'm not around,'' Madden said.

"You add up everything and it's the right time,'' he said. "There is nothing wrong with me. Nothing. But at some point, you know you've got to do this. The thing that makes it so hard is that I enjoyed it so damn much. That's why it took me so long.''

Padma Lakshmi, Eliza Dushku Strip Down

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,515075,00.html

Padma Lakshmi, Eliza Dushku Strip Down for Allure Magazine's 'Naked Truth' Issue
Monday, April 13, 2009

Padma Lakshmi clearly isn't shy these days.

Let’s face it, very, very few people would really be comfortable stripping down to their birthday suits for the world to see.

But maybe if we looked like Padma Lakshmi, Eliza Dushku, Chelsea Handler, Sharon Leal or Lynn Collins, that would be no big deal.

The five sexy stars stripped off their skivvies and posed nude for Allure magazine’s Naked Truth feature, available on newsstands April 21. But it wasn’t just about baring their bodies, these beauties shared a few of their sexy secrets as well.

“I’m a sensual-leaning woman. You have to use the word ‘leaning’ or it sounds like I’m boasting,” says Lakshmi, host of "Top Chef."

And stripping was no biggie for Dushku either.

“I’ll strip down to my underwear and my Ugg boots when I eat lunch in my trailer,” says the "Dollhouse" star.

'The Last Supper' parody turning heads in Old Town

Thanks to CartoonBrew.com for forwarding the following...

http://www3.signonsandiego.com/stories/2009/apr/02/1m2bell23844-last-supper-parody-turning-heads-old-/?zIndex=76261

'The Last Supper' parody turning heads in Old Town
By Diane Bell
Union-Tribune Columnist
April 2, 2009

Dallas artist Glen Tarnowski substituted Bugs Bunny for Jesus and other cartoon characters for disciples in his parody of "The Last Supper," which he called "The Gathering."

Never has a painting in the Chuck Jones Gallery window attracted so much attention.

It has stopped Old Town pedestrians midstep, eliciting smiles and thoughtful looks from some; frowns, angry telephone calls and unfriendly notes demanding its removal from others.

Two weeks ago, the gallery put on display an oil painting parody of Leonardo da Vinci's “The Last Supper.” Named “The Gathering,” it substitutes Looney Tunes and other cartoon characters for disciples and Bugs Bunny for Jesus.

“We never intended to offend anyone,” said Mike Dicken, national sales director for the gallery at 2501 San Diego Ave. “Most people think it's fun and amusing, but 5 percent are pulling their hair out.”

The anonymous complaints came in – 10 to 12 a day by phone – and a few notes, unsigned or signed “A concerned citizen.” So the gallery added a biography of Dallas artist Glen Tarnowski, explaining his intent and his background as a devout Christian and an alumnus of California Lutheran University.

Craig Kausen, the Irvine-based gallery chain's CEO and grandson of late Warner Bros. cartoonist and artist Chuck Jones, said he even consulted a local priest who, while he hadn't seen the artwork, was not upset by the concept.

“There is nothing irreverent about it whatsoever,” Kausen said.

Tarnowski defends portraying Wile E. Coyote, Daffy Duck, Elmer Fudd, Porky Pig, Pepe Le Pew, the Road Runner and other characters as disciples, saying God loves people so much that even if we all were cartoon characters, he would have come to us, perhaps in the form of Bugs Bunny.

“Chuck Jones was the absolute master in using cartoon characters to communicate the issues we deal with in life,” Tarnowski said. “We all resonate with these characters.”

Two customers expressed interest in buying the artwork but, at $20,000, it's not in the average budget, Dicken said. So, for now, it is still in the window, and employees are happy to let Dicken answer the phone.

Obama's Afghan Plan Could be His 'Fatal Mistake'

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Ralph Bernardo
Phone: 212-342-7393
Email: books@disinfo.com

Obama's Afghan Plan Could be His 'Fatal Mistake'

NEW YORK (APRIL 9) — In his first major speech in the U.S. since visiting Iraq multiple times as an unembedded observer, former German parliamentarian and Islamic expert Dr. Jürgen Todenhöfer said the Obama administration is on the verge of making a "fatal mistake" in Afghanistan.

Todenhöfer delivered his remarks at New York University Wednesday night.

"Should Barrack Obama believe that he can win the fight against global terrorism by defeating Al Qaida copycats and the Taliban in Afghanistan and Pakistan, he would commit a fatal mistake," argued Todenhöfer.

"I hope President Barack Obama won't repeat the terrible mistakes of George W. Bush. Terrorism arises from injustice. Thus it can only be overcome by justice and not by unjust wars," he added. As such, he urges a just and fair peace in Afghanistan and Iraq.

The Western media is still glossing over the difficulties being faced by Iraqis. War is not truly over for its citizens.

His frequent visits to Iraq have convinced Todenhöfer that former President George W. Bush should face war crime charges before an international court. Now entering its seventh year, for the average Iraqi, there is less security than before the war, less jobs, less electricity, less potable water and less medical care.

"The sad reality is that the Iraq of 2009 is still in a state of emergency," he argues. Iraq has the highest number of concrete walls in the world, the highest number of heavily-armed checkpoints, the highest number of bombed and shattered houses and the highest number of widows and orphans in the world."

Todenhöfer believes one way to help Western leaders create new policies: Make them serve on the frontlines in this "war" — starting with the frontlines of Afghanistan.

Politicians who claim that this is the price for freedom and that it was worth paying, have neither a heart nor any common sense — and they would never be willing to pay this price themselves, argued Todenhöfer.

"All Western politicians who vote in favor of wars are sent to the frontlines for at least one month. This would mean European politicians sent on reconnaissance missions to Kabul and U.S. politicians on patrols to Bagdad, Mossul and to the mountains of the Hindukush," said Todenhöfer.

Ordering them to visit the frontlines would force them to "look once into the eyes of the people about whose lives they decide so patriotically and pathetically," Todenhöfer argues, "so that they know, what they do. So that they understand that their horizon is not the end of the world."

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Dr. Jürgen Todenhöfer

Dr. Jürgen Todenhöfer has been an executive at a major European media group for more than 20 years. Before that he was a member of the German parliament for 18 years and spokesman for the CDU/CSU on development aid and arms control. He has written two bestsellers about the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, and has traveled extensively in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq, and Palestine and is considered an international expert on the tensions between the Muslim world and the West. The author will donate all royalties from sales of this book to finance medical aid for Iraqi refugee children and an Israeli-Palestinian reconciliation project in the Middle East.

ABOUT THE BOOK: Why Do You Kill?

Why Do You Kill? The Untold Story of the Iraqi Resistance
Author: Jürgen Todenhöfer Foreword by Anthony Arnove
Category: Political Science / Current Affairs
ISBN: 978-1-934708-14-9
5.5 in. x 8.25 in. 216 pages + 15 color photos $14.95 (U.S.)
Trade Paperback
PUB DATE: April 2009
Publisher: The Disinformation Company (http://www.disinfo.com/)

Harry Kalas, voice of NFL Films, dies at 73

http://blogs.usatoday.com/thehuddle/2009/04/harry-kalas-voice-of-nfl-films-dies-at-73.html

Harry Kalas, voice of NFL Films, dies at 73
Sean Leahy
April 13, 2009

Broadcaster Harry Kalas died today in Washington after passing out in the radio booth before the game between the Philles and Nationals. Kalas, in addition to broadcasting Phillies games since 1971, was the voice of NFL Films.

Kalas was 73.

NFL Films president Steve Sabol released this statement after news of Kalas' death broke:

"In the 46 years of NFL Films, we have worked with two of the greatest voiceover talents in television history. John Facenda was the 'Voice of God' and Harry Kalas was the 'Voice of the People.'

"His substance was his style. There was no shtick, just a steady blend of crisp articulation and resonance.

"In many ways, Harry is the narrator of our memories. His voice lives on not only on film, but inside the heads of everyone who has watched and listened to NFL Films."

Football fans will recognize his voice from NFL Films material and more recently from video game commercials.

Kalas passing hits close to home

http://mlb.mlb.com/news/article.jsp?ymd=20090413&content_id=4253630

Kalas passing hits close to home
Rays' thoughts are with Todd, son of late broadcaster
By Bill Chastain / MLB.com
04/13/09

ST. PETERSBURG -- Philadelphia lost an icon when Harry Kalas died shortly after collapsing inside the Phillies' broadcast booth in Washington on Monday afternoon at age 73, while Todd Kalas, who is part of the Rays' broadcast team, lost a father.

Harry Kalas was inducted into the broadcaster's wing of the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum in 2002, having won the Ford C. Frick Award, which is presented to broadcasters who've made major contributions to baseball. He had been a broadcaster for 43 years, the previous 38 with the Phillies, where he began working in 1971.

Kalas was found unconscious in the team's broadcast booth around 12:30 p.m. ET, and he was taken to George Washington University Medical Center. Team officials quickly cleared the clubhouse to talk to the players, coaches and staff.

The cause of the death is unknown, but Kalas missed the beginning of Spring Training after having an undisclosed medical procedure. He was in good spirits when he arrived in Clearwater, Fla., eager to follow the Phillies for another season.

Todd was not at Tropicana Field for the Rays' home opener against the Yankees on Monday night, but he was on the minds of members of the Rays family.

"For Todd and his family, it's just an awful moment and we send our sympathies, and I can't wait to visit with Todd in person," Rays manager Joe Maddon said.

Maddon hails from Hazleton, Pa., so he understands the magnitude of Kalas' passing.

"He was definitely a part of the culture, not only in Major League Baseball, but sports in general and definitely in that part of the world," Maddon said. "I remember listening to him growing up. And I know that people back there are going to take it very hard."

Rays play-by-play voice Dewayne Staats said Todd called him earlier on Monday to tell him his father had passed and that Todd seemed to be taking it as well as he could.

"Harry was the personification of taking his gift and doing what you're supposed to do with it," Staats said. "He enjoyed it. It's a great gift. And he made sure that he took full advantage of that, and as he transitions from this life into the next one, what better place to do it than at the ballpark, in the booth? And if Harry could have written it his way, that's exactly the way he would have written it."

Staats said he felt like he had known Harry Kalas since 1965, when Kalas called Houston Astros games.

"I was a little kid listening to him broadcast Jimmy Wynn home runs at the Astrodome," Staats said. "And his home run call was, 'And that ball is in Astros orbit.' So I feel like I've known him for a long time. And then in the mid '70s, '76 or '77, I got to know him when I joined the Astros full-time."

Staats remembered Kalas as being quick to help nurture a young broadcaster, such as himself when he first got into the business.

"Harry as a veteran broadcaster was nothing but gracious," Staats said. "He was really kind to a young broadcaster trying to feel his way. And I've always had just great warm feelings for him. So when Todd became part of our crew in the beginning, doing what he's doing, it was like, 'Yeah, that's right, that's what he should be.'"

Longtime baseball man Don Zimmer knew Kalas for many years and said simply, "He was a great man."

"I've known him as long as he's been announcing," Zimmer said. "I always saw him at ballparks, and we always kidded with each other. I saw him at restaurants, just a great guy, classy individual.

"When I walked in here and heard that news today, I couldn't believe it. My god, 73 years old, he's young. He was a great man. Everybody loved him. And I loved listening to him. I heard him call many games. It's a sad story."

Dave Wills, who is part of Tampa Bay's radio broadcast, spoke of seeing Kalas when the Rays played the Phillies in Philadelphia for their final two games of the spring.

"Obviously, he looked a little frail from having some of the issues that he suffered through during the spring," Wills said. "But I don't think anybody thought he wasn't going to be among us in a couple of weeks. It's tough. I feel for Todd and his family. And I feel for the city of Philadelphia. He was their voice. The voice of a generation and one of the great voices of this game and is going to be sorely missed."

Andy Freed, who shares the radio booth with Wills, called the situation weird.

"We're so used to thinking about everything in terms of baseball," Freed said. "But I'm thinking of Todd today as I would my own father. It's just horribly sad. I think of it as a family member would, losing your own dad and not being able to share things with him anymore."

The Phillies, who postponed their scheduled visit on Tuesday to the White House, said funeral arrangements are pending. In addition to Todd, Harry Kalas is survived by his wife, Eileen, and his other two sons, Brad and Kane.

Bill Chastain is a reporter for MLB.com. Todd Zolecki contributed to this report. This story was not subject to the approval of Major League Baseball or its clubs.

Three decades later, the Bird's flight still dazzles

http://www.sportingnews.com/yourturn/viewtopic.php?t=538421

Stan McNeal
Three decades later, the Bird's flight still dazzles
April 13, 2009

I was watching the MLB Network the other day and on came an ABC Monday night game from 1976 between the Tigers and Yankees. A game worth watching for one reason: Mark Fidrych was pitching for the Tigers.

Two days later, I'm at my desk watching MLB Network and on comes news that Mark Fidrych has died. First Nick Adenhart, then Harry Kalas and Fidrych. As Todd Jones often reminds us, what happens in baseball mirrors what happens in real life. We have found out in the past week how true that is.

I lived in Lakeland, Fla., in 1977, and when driving around town that spring training would be on the lookout for Fidrych sightings. Honk and he would wave. I remember seeing him cross Memorial Boulevard one evening, and sure enough, he waved. The Bird and his teammates also could be found fairly regularly at Zimmerman's bar on Florida Avenue. A regular guy, except he was on top of the baseball world at the time.

He went 19-9 with a 2.34 ERA in 1976, started the All-Star Game as a 21-year-old rookie, won the AL Rookie of the Year award and finished second in the AL Cy Young voting. He pitched 250 1/3 innings that season, including 24 complete games in 29 starts.

His pitching was great, but what made him the Bird was the way he was. He was tall and gangly with long, straggly hair. When he finished an inning, he was the first one back in the dugout. He patted the rubber. If a teammate made an error, Fidrych sometimes would saunter over on the spot and pat him on the back.

He talked to the baseball, often pointing to where he wanted it to go. If someone today acted like the Bird did 33 years ago, they would be accused of trying to show up the opposition.

But Fidrych got away with it. He was as popular as any player in the game that magical summer. The Tigers averaged 18,224 in attendance but more than doubled that for most of Fidrych's starts. There were 47,000-plus at Tiger Stadium for the Monday night game against the Yankees that MLB Network just aired. (Fidrych beat New York, 5-1, on a seven-hitter.)

As a 22-year-old rookie first baseman for the Tigers, Jason Thompson had better than a front-row seat for the Bird's performance. Thompson, known as Roof Top for hitting balls over the roof of Tiger Stadium, played in Detroit for all five of Fidrych's seasons, then played six more seasons in the majors, mostly with the Pirates. He was a three-time All-Star with two 30-homer, 100-RBI seasons. Ask him his favorite season and he doesn't hesitate.

"For me, 1976 was the most fun I ever had playing baseball, and it wasn't even close. What made it so special was that he wasn't an act," Thompson said. "He was so genuine. We used to be out there just watching him. We enjoyed watching him just like you guys."

Thompson likens traveling with Fidrych that summer to being with a rock band. "He had to fly into places before the team to do all the media," Thompson said. "We weren't any good that year and we didn't draw but when he pitched, every place was rocking. I remember going to the old park in Minneapolis and the place was shaking so much I thought it was going to fall down."

After games, the young Tigers would hang out together. "We were all just kids playing baseball, not making a lot of money. We'd all hang out after games."

Thompson had played in the instructional league with Fidrych the previous fall and remembers him being good but "nobody thought he was going to be the next Roger Clemens or anything." Fidrych made the Tigers as a non-roster player in spring training but didn't get his first start until May 15. He beat the Indians, 2-1, with a two-hitter. The show was on.

Unfortunately, the show didn't last but that one season because injuries derailed Fidrych's career in 1977. He started only 27 games over the next four years before his big-league days were done. He soon would make it back to his Massachusetts home, seemingly content to work on his farm in Northborough.

"I've seen him a few times over the years," Thompson said. "He would come to Detroit a time or two a year, and I saw him at Tiger fantasy camps. He seemed happy, a family guy who stayed on his farm."

Thompson operates a baseball academy in the Detroit area and was giving a hitting lesson when his wife came out to tell him that Fidrych had died.

"I said, 'You've got to be kidding me,'" Thompson said. "This is big Tiger country. I talk to people every day about Mark Fidrych. Everybody knows who he is. It hasn't even hit how big a loss this is."

Stan McNeal is a staff writer for Sporting News. E-mail him at smcneal@sportingnews.com.

Porn star Marilyn Chambers dies at 56

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/04/13/BAQ7171NB7.DTL

Porn star Marilyn Chambers dies at 56
Sam Whiting, Chronicle Staff Writer
Tuesday, April 14, 2009

Adult film actress Marilyn Chambers, the onetime Ivory Snow model who gained greater fame as the star of the X-rated "Behind the Green Door," was found dead Sunday by her teenage daughter at her home in Southern California. She was 56.

Authorities have not released a cause of death.

Ms. Chambers, given name Marilyn Briggs, was central to the erotic empire built by the late Mitchell brothers - Jim and Artie - at their Mitchell Brothers O'Farrell Theatre, now in its 40th year.

Ten years ago, San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown proclaimed a "Marilyn Chambers Day," praising the porn queen for her "artistic presence," her "vision" and her "energy."

"That wasn't from any personal knowledge. That was all part of the allure of San Francisco," Brown said Monday. "At the time that she was doing what she was doing, it created an interest nationally if not internationally in our city. And people would come here to see if Marilyn Chambers was really dressed in snowflakes."

The snowflakes reference goes back to her debut as a teenage model for Ivory Snow, which featured her on a laundry detergent box as a young mother cuddling a laughing baby. According to journalist Warren Hinckle, chronicler of the Mitchell Brothers era, she grew up in Connecticut as the daughter of an ad executive. "She went to all the right schools and was doing all the right things," Hinckle said.

At age 18, she had made her way to San Francisco and answered an ad placed by the Mitchells, who were making films to show in their movie theater. "Behind the Green Door," released in 1972, was one of the first adult movies with a plot, of sorts. In their promotions, the Mitchells didn't mind that their star had a previous affiliation with the cleansing powers of soap.

"Without this Ivory Snow thing, they might have stayed with these small-time performers," said Rita Benton, marketing director for the Mitchell Brothers O'Farrell Theatre. "It hit all the major news media in 1973. Then they promoted the movie as 'starring Marilyn Chambers, 99.44% pure.' That's what the Ivory Snow line used to be."

Made for $50,000, "Behind the Green Door" has made millions, Benton said, and still sells on DVD, as does her second movie, "Resurrection of Eve," made in 1973.

Ms. Chambers never lived full time in the Bay Area and was never a regular performer in the Mitchell Brothers O'Farrell Theatre, which started live shows in 1976. She would come back for guest performances over the years. Most famously was during the administration of Mayor Dianne Feinstein, who seemed to have it in for the Mitchells. In what some described as a publicity stunt, the brothers invited Ms. Chambers, then 32, to travel north from her home and help raise morale.

Ms. Chambers did as she was asked on a February night in 1985, undressing and taking an "undulating stroll through an appreciative audience," according to a Chronicle report, an audience that included five undercover police officers. In all, it took 13 officers to make the arrest. "The force ... that took me to jail was appalling," said Ms. Chambers, who then expressed concern that she wouldn't know how to tell her mother she had been detained. "She just got over the X-rated films," she said.

A few years ago, Ms. Chambers made her last appearance at the Mitchell theater during a tribute to her. The place was packed, recalled Hinckle, who was there and got a photo of Ms. Chambers with his basset hound, Melman.

Ms. Chambers also appeared in theatrical features, including David Cronenberg's thriller "Rabid" in 1977.

She was married and divorced three times, according to the Associated Press, and is survived by her daughter, McKenna Marie Taylor; her brother, Bill Briggs; and her sister, Jann Smith.

E-mail Sam Whiting at swhiting@schronicle.com.

This article appeared on page B - 4 of the San Francisco Chronicle

Marilyn Chambers, the Ivory Snow Porn Star

http://www.time.com/time/arts/article/0,8599,1891127,00.html

Marilyn Chambers, the Ivory Snow Porn Star, Dead at 56
By Richard Corliss
Monday, Apr. 13, 2009

People in the '70s knew two things about Marilyn Chambers: that she had appeared as a model on an Ivory Snow box, fondly holding an infant under the corporate slogan "99 and 44/100% Pure"; and that she starred in Behind the Green Door, one of the first, weirdest and most popular hard-core movies in that brief period of the '70s known as Porno Chic. These two factettes, with their colliding irony, made the blond, willowy Chambers the pin-up princess of XXX cinema, a notoriety she parlayed into a career in soft- and hard-core sex films that lasted from 1972 until... yesterday.

The sad news is that Chambers, to quote the title from a 1974 movie she did not appear in, is 99 and 44/100% dead. The actress was discovered last night in her mobile home in Santa Clarita, near Los Angeles, by her teenage daughter McKenna Taylor, from the last of Chambers' three marriages. An autopsy will be performed; foul play is not suspected.

Chambers wasn't the first person to take the route from modeling and acting to hard-core, from commercials to pervertials. Eric Edwards, whose porn career spanned nearly four decades, had appeared in ads for Gillette razors and Close-Up toothpaste. But of all the shadow stars that emerged in the early porn sensation — Linda Lovelace and Harry Reems of Deep Throat, Georgina Spelvin of Devil in Miss Jones — Chambers was unusual in her WASPy good looks, her girl-next-door appeal and her use of her own name at a time when other actors resorted to jokey pseudonyms. If the Ivory Snow Girl could go into porn unashamed, then the genre was maybe not so sooty. She was different, and smart, in another way: when director Jim and Artie Mitchell asked her to star in Green Door, she demanded $25,000 (an astronomical sum in this pinchpenny industry) and a percentage of the gross. And she got it.

Turned out the Mitchells, and the customers, got their money's worth. The special kick of Green Door, for the millions of young marrieds and college kids who make it a smash, was the image of a nice young lady submitting to, or demanding, some extravagant sexual attention. The minimal plot has Chambers inducted into a secret sex society, where she is put in a truss and suffers the pleasures of many gentlemen, including one of the first African-American sex-film stars, Johnnie Keyes. The plot could have been a metaphor for the incursion of a sex-film industry, once the entertainment of bordellos and stag parties, into the middle-class movie consciousness.

Green Door had just a little more going for it than notoriety. The Mitchell brothers shared the artistic ambitions or pretensions of the era's porn-auteurs. Except for a narrative framing device, the film has almost no dialogue. Chambers' mass seduction scene is accompanied only by the sounds of heavy breathing, moans and the occasional audible wince. One of the film's money shots gets an instant replay in slo-mo, then in super slo-mo and finally in psychedelic greens and pinks. The last two minutes are extraordinary for a porn film: one extended closeup of a man's and a woman's faces as they kiss (and have sex). It was as if the Mitchells understood Ingmar Bergman's dictum that "Film begins with the human face."

Cue Chambers' 15 mins. of white-hot celebrity. She did the TV talk shows. Warner Books published her autobiography, Marilyn Chambers: My Story. At the New School for Social Research she was a guest speaker at the first session of its new course, "Pornography Uncovered, Eroticism Exposed." She had done a tiny role in the 1970 Barbra Streisand comedy The Owl and the Pussycat; now, with her manager-husband, Chuck Trayner (who had earlier promoted, married and misused Lovelace), she planned her next big step: breaking into mainstream films.

She landed in a Canadian backwater with