Swearing at police is criticism, not crime / Appeals court overturns 2 convictions Swearing at police is criticism, not crime

Appeals court overturns 2 convictions

Swearing at a police officer may be disrespectful, but it's not criminal. So said a federal appeals court yesterday in a pair of rulings overturning disorderly conduct convictions arising from unrelated incidents at Yosemite National Park.
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Now you can give the cops your HONEST opinion of them the next time you get caught up in one of those speed traps! It's great to be an American!!

Salon.com News | Let Wen Ho Lee speak! Let Wen Ho Lee speak!
After being falsely accused of spying, the Los Alamos scientist is trying to defend himself but being muzzled by the government.
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I hope Wen gets his justice in the media. He certainly didn't get it in the courts.

Why Bush is popular: Talk speaks louder than action This looks to me like a replay of the Reagan years, when the policy was "Borrow and spend, borrow and spend -- and blame it on the Democrats."
Under Bill Clinton, we were making pretty good progress at paying off Reagan's extravagances, but now, under the popular George W. Bush, we're starting to go into the hole again.
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Hoping I'm not the only one who notices the similarity to the Reagan calamity.

Jail guards accused of urinating on several inmates through metal grate in roof Jail guards accused of urinating on several inmates through metal grate in roof

(08-01) 12:19 PDT SPRINGFIELD, Mo. (AP) -- Authorities are investigating allegations that two jail guards urinated on inmates playing basketball in an indoor recreational area. Greene County Sheriff Jack Merritt said the case would be handed over to the county prosecutor's office on Wednesday. He would not release the names of the guards.
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Let's just hope that they RELEASE the guards from further employment. This type of brutish behavior has no place in professional law enforcement.

Senate panel derails Bush nominee Senate panel derails Bush nominee

By Jennifer Loven, The Associated Press

WASHINGTON -- The Senate Commerce Committee today voted against President Bush's choice to head the Consumer Product Safety Commission, dealing the new administration its first nomination setback.
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Looks like the pendulum is starting to swing back to the middle (at least a little). Hope springs eternal.

Salon.com News | The rigged missile defense test The rigged missile defense test
The target destroyed in the "successful" defense shield test contained a global positioning satellite beacon that made it easier to detect. Why has the media mostly ignored the story?
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Exactly what I've been wondering all along, not to mention the LACK OF NEED for such an expensive, useless piece of military junk.

Salon.com News | Another bone to big business And just how charitable is it, really, when it turns out that Philip Morris actually donates less to worthy causes than it spends patting itself on the back for those donations? Last year, the company spent $142 million on corporate image advertising while doling out a total of $125 million to charity.
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Reprehensible to me, even though I smoke!

theSpleen - Shrub Declares War on Public Information Shrub Declares War on Public Information

Last week, as Megawati Sukarnoputri was installed as the new leader of Indonesia, the Bush administration attempted to recall a State Department book detailing the United States' role in the deaths of thousands of Indonesians in the 1960s in order to topple Sukarno -- Megawati's father.
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Yet another attack on free speech by the folks we elected(?) to protect it!! We've got another Nixon administration here folks. Fasten your seat belts and hold on.

M.I.T. Physicist Says Pentagon Is Trying to Silence Him M.I.T. Physicist Says Pentagon Is Trying to Silence Him

By JAMES DAO

WASHINGTON, July 26 - A leading critic of the military's missile defense testing program has accused the Pentagon of trying to silence him and intimidate his employer, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, by investigating him for disseminating classified documents.
The case has raised questions about whether a document can be considered secret if it is widely available to the public. And it has touched off a dispute between the critic, Theodore A. Postol, and M.I.T. over how to balance academic freedom with the university's obligations to cooperate with Pentagon investigators.
At issue is correspondence between Dr. Postol, a physicist, and the General Accounting Office, an investigative branch of Congress, in which he accused the Pentagon of using doctored data to defend missile defense technology.
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What ever happened to the RHETORIC that Bush was going to bring honesty back to the White House? Looks like a policy of harrassing and pursuing honest scientists in what I hope will ultimately be a failed attempt to resurrect Star Wars while simultaneously pissing off the Russians by breaking YET another treaty!! Is it any wonder that the rest of the world doesn't trust US?

Salon.com People | DWI program coordinator arrested for DWI DWI program coordinator arrested for DWI

July 27, 2001 | LAS CRUCES, N.M. (AP) --
The coordinator of Dona Ana County's drunken-driving prevention program has been arrested on a charge of driving while intoxicated at a DWI awareness picnic.
Police arrested Linda M. Harris, 53, on Wednesday in the parking lot of the park where the event was held.
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The irony of it all.

Salon.com Life | Big Brother in Toledo Big Brother in Toledo
A cop in a bus station threatened and harassed my innocent young employee. His crime? Reading Esquire.
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This is the ultimate result of our neo-fascist state. And I wonder why my German Mother-in-Law is so down on Amerika?

CPSC Choice Provokes Controversy (washingtonpost.com) In a letter sent to Congress yesterday, Consumers Union, the Children's Defense Fund and the U.S. Public Interest Research Group said that under Gall's leadership, the CPSC will "abdicate its responsibility to protect children."
Noting that Gall (R) was the lone vote against a new safety standard for baby walkers, bunk beds and crib slats, the letter said, "Gall has repeatedly refused to act when faced with evidence of deaths and injuries to children from dangerous products, often blaming the parents, not the products." Gall also initially voted against regulating baby bath seats but reversed her position after being nominated.
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Why am I not surprised? When will this nonsense end? 2004!!!

Breast Removal Prevents Cancer - Study Breast Removal Prevents Cancer - Study
By Gene Emery
BOSTON (Reuters) - Surgery to remove healthy breasts prevents breast cancer in women whose cells harbor certain tumor-causing genes, Dutch researchers report in Thursday's New England Journal of Medicine (news - web sites).
The study, the first to follow women who have chosen to have their healthy breasts removed ``provides useful information for clinicians counseling women with a high risk of breast cancer,'' according to Journal editors. The women have the genes BRCA1 or BRCA2.
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Yeah, and penis removal successfully removes all chance of you getting penis cancer, but I'm not about to invest in an IPO for penis removal clinics any time soon.

Salon.com People | Not enough nuts? Only once did the company have a complaint about his prizes. In the late '40s, some adults thought his plastic sea captain looked like Joseph Stalin. According to Jaramillo, "Rabid anti-Communists ... believed Cracker Jack was being used to propagandize the youth of America." The company withdrew the figure from circulation. Of course Joyce owns a sea captain, worth about $20.
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Rabid anti-communist nuts never die, they just look for a new demon to vilify. I think this example underlines the state of paranoia that existed (and is trying to be recreated with China) at the time.

Commentary, July 13, 2001 — Space Ship Sails, AP's ESP, Weakened Water, Sylvia Still Silent, Dilution Delusion, Calling Cleo, Chasing Chandra, Screening Scribbling, and More Matches.... Now witness the remarkable — though imperfect — precognitive powers of the Associated Press News Service: more than six hours before VP Dick Cheney actually arrived at the White House on his first day back at work following his recent medical procedure, AP ran an Internet story that detailed his morning activities, in the past tense. This might be an indication of how the White House — with the co-operation of the media — can conjure up news. Cheney's spokesperson Juleanna Glover Weiss was quoted as having said of his return, at 1:20 a.m. the night before, "It's a typical day."
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Media collusion at it's finest.

Ten Commandments' Sponsor Finds Demons Chasing Him The distance between adultery and the implication of murder is enormous. Condit's spokespersons are right that the media feeding frenzy is fueling expectations of the worst kind. But his alleged simultaneous liaisons with a 25-year-old intern and a flight attendant would suggest that we have yet another dreary example that the most self-righteous of our politicians might have the most to hide.
Clearly Condit was declaiming against his own demons when he co-sponsored legislation calling for displaying the Ten Commandments in public buildings. How easy it is to forget the admonishment against adultery when it is not prominently posted at every turn in the Capitol.
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AMEN to that!!

Red Tide Rising Whoops. No sooner had Mr. Bush signed that tax cut into law than those same officials began admitting that the budget outlook wasn't that rosy after all. In fact, revenue is dropping like a stone. A suspicious man might wonder about the timing: isn't it strange that the bad news on revenue came to light only after the tax cut had passed?
In any case, get ready for more bad news. When the Budget Office updates its projections next month, it is certain to mark them down, not up — and that will be just the beginning of a dismal trend. Forget about those budget surpluses as far as the eye can see; from now on the prospect is for chronic budget shortfalls.

Two Retailers Recall Corn Chips for StarLink Trace The Food and Drug Administration (news - web sites) tested the product eaten by the man and found it contained tiny amounts of StarLink, a gene-altered yellow corn that is permitted only in livestock feed. Last autumn, StarLink was found in a variety of snack foods and flour containing yellow corn, which prompted widespread recalls.
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So safe that folks have allergic reactions to it that cause the company to get caught using it!! These biotech fools need to be reigned in QUICKLY.

Depends on who kills and who gets killed as to whether you even face justice.


Top Stories - Reuters The FBI sharpshooter who killed the wife of white separatist Randy Weaver in the 1992 Ruby Ridge standoff will not go on trial, an Idaho prosecutor said on Thursday in a decision that likely marks an end to the closely watched case.

I must comment on the demise of the country's most infamous Tim. Now that McVeigh is dead and the hoopla dog and pony show is over, it’s time to review the death penalty. I'm against it. Didn't always feel that way, and my knee-jerk reaction to the infamous criminals still makes me want to dispense frontier justice. Too bad we can't have our cake and eat it too. The problem with the death penalty isn't that it's wrong in the McVeigh case specifically, it’s just wrong. History shows us the folly in giving the state the right to kill its citizens. It inevitably leads to abuse. From an historical standpoint, Christians should remember that it was the state that killed Christ. And a little further back it was Socrates, although he was given the poison and like McVeigh gladly accepted his fate. Socrates was formally charged with the religious crime of impiety, and Christ, a similar charge, so it would behoove us all to reexamine our blood lust in light of history. Unfortunately, many more contemporary examples are easy to document. We've actually gotten to the point in our society that it isn't even necessary to be CHARGED with a crime to be executed. Don't believe me? What do you think happened in the case of the missionary plane shot down in Peru? Mother and child killed for SUSPECTED crimes with the consent and approval of the US military. Internal corruption in the judicial process is also rampant. Look at the abuses of the FBI just in the last few years. Waco, Ruby Ridge, Richard Jewel, and Wo Hen Lee come immediately to mind. And these are the high profile cases we are all privy to. How many poor suckers slipped under the media radar during that same time frame? Too many. Just too dangerous to give the state that much power. Conservatives who constantly preach less government and less regulation, (because they don't trust the state), seem reluctant to join with their liberal counterparts to protect our society in the long run against tyrants who will inevitably arise and abuse this power. The Europeans have a longer history with abuses of power and tyrannical leaders, so they’ve banned capital punishment. We shouldn't let a false pride that our system is so much superior to theirs lull us into thinking we've somehow overcome the basic nature of power to corrupt. Nor should we foolishly think we are too advanced to make the same mistakes that our ancestors made time and again. The English outlawed slavery thirty or forty years ahead of the United States. Maybe we should follow their lead on this matter as well.