The man who trades freedom for security does not deserve nor will he ever receive either. – Benjamin Franklin
OAKWOOD, Texas (AP) — The chief of a small Central Texas town’s police department has been fired and jailed for allegedly using a Taser gun on his wife.
Former Oakwood police chief Oly Ivy is in Leon County Jail in Centerville on Wednesday, charged with aggravated assault. Bond is $100,000.
Ivy, 30, was arrested near Palestine on Monday. The city council fired him that night.
And how many were abused since the dark ages? This report did not shock me at all. Such behavior can be considered “normal” within the Catholic Church.
The Catholic Church also killed millions of innocent people in the name of Christ.
DUBLIN – The Archbishop of Dublin said Thursday that an upcoming report on child sexual abuse involving Catholic priests will likely reveal that thousands of youngsters were abused from 1975 to 2004.
The report “will shock us all,” said Diarmuid Martin, during Mass at Dublin’s Pro-Cathedral.
The archbishop said the report, compiled by the Dublin Archdiocese Commission of Investigation, is expected to show that “thousands of children or young people across Ireland were abused by priests in the period under investigation and the horror of that abuse was not recognized for what it is.”
The government-appointed commission was set up to investigate abuses within the Dublin archdiocese in 2006, the same year the diocese admitted that up to 102 of its priests were suspected of abusing children. The report is studying how complaints of child sexual abuse were handled.
The commission has also now begun an investigation into the Diocese of Cloyne, in County Cork. Commission member Ita Mangan said that could potentially delay the publication of the Dublin report which had been planned for this summer.
Two hundred schoolchildren in Britain, some as young as 13, have been identified as potential terrorists by a police scheme that aims to spot youngsters who are “vulnerable” to Islamic radicalisation.
The number was revealed to The Independent by Sir Norman Bettison, the chief constable of West Yorkshire Police and Britain’s most senior officer in charge of terror prevention.
He said the “Channel project” had intervened in the cases of at least 200 children who were thought to be at risk of extremism, since it began 18 months ago. The number has leapt from 10 children identified by June 2008.
Read morePolice identify 200 children as potential terrorists
Chris Knight, the professor of anthropology at the University of east London Photo: JANE MINGAY
Mr Knight, the professor of anthropology at the University of east London who is organising protests under the banner G20 Meltdown, told BBC Radio 4’s PM on Wednesday: “We are going to be hanging a lot of people like Fred the Shred from lampposts on April Fool’s Day and I can only say let’s hope they are just effigies.
“To be honest, if he winds us up any more I’m afraid there will be real bankers hanging from lampposts and let’s hope that that doesn’t actually have to happen.
“They should realise the amount of fury and hatred there is for them and act quickly, because quite honestly if it isn’t humour it is going to be anger.
“I am trying to keep it humorous and let the anger come up in a creative and hopefully productive and peaceful way.
“If the other people don’t join in the fun – I’m talking about the bankers and those rather pompous ministers – and come over and surrender their power obviously it’s going to get us even more wound up and things could get nasty. Let’s hope it doesn’t.”
Read moreG20 Summit: university professor suspended over bankers ‘hanging from lampposts’ comment
Army soldiers arrive to patrol Ciudad Juarez, Mexico Photo: AP
The new addition to the world’s most bloodthirsty gangs are sicaritos, or child assassins.
As guerrilla forces have discovered in Africa, 13 and 14-year-old children on the margins of society make fearless killers. In Juarez, now Mexico’s drug addict capital, they are almost certain to be high on crack cocaine.
Around 80 per cent of the 2,000 people killed in the past 14 months in this border city have been aged under 25.
The city of 1.8 million people, separated by just a bridge over the Rio Grande from El Paso in Texas, sits on a major drug route and has been the epicentre of the brutal drug violence gripping Mexico and increasingly creeping over the border into the United States.
Related article: FBI deployed by US to fight Mexican drug lords (Guardian)
In a city now empty of the Americans who used to flock here for the lively bars and flea markets, taxi drivers can instead offer visitors a macabre tour of the many murder spots as well as streets where drug deals can be seen being conducted within yards of the local police.
In one street alone, home to a strip of non-descript, cartel-owned bars, 16 people have been killed in the past two months.
Usually, the gunmen – teenagers among them – will saunter in and spray indiscriminately with AK-47 assault rifles, hitting both their targets and innocent bystanders. Few suspects are ever arrested as the local police are often working for the same cartels.
Sir Fred Goodwin is just a small pawn in the chess game of money, power and control.
In an email sent to local newspapers, the group called for bank bosses to be jailed and warned: “This is just the beginning”.
The attack saw the windows of Sir Fred’s home, in Edinburgh’s upmarket Morningside area, smashed, along with those of a dark-coloured Mercedes S600 saloon parked in the driveway.
Read moreSir Fred Goodwin attack: Bank Bosses Are Criminals group claims responsbility
“Britain is now the most invasive surveillance state and the worst at protecting privacy of any western democracy.”
A man has his fingerprint scanned on a new biometric check at Heathrow. Photograph: Peter Macdiarmid/Getty Images
A quarter of all the largest public-sector database projects, including the ID cards register, are fundamentally flawed and clearly breach European data protection and rights laws, according to a report published today.
Claiming to be the most comprehensive map so far of Britain’s “database state”, the report says that 11 of the 46 biggest schemes, including the national DNA database and the Contactpoint index of all children in England, should be given a “red light” and immediately scrapped or redesigned.
The report, Database State (PDF) by the Joseph Rowntree Reform Trust, says that more than half of Whitehall’s 46 databases and systems have significant problems with privacy or effectiveness, and could fall foul of a legal challenge.
Read moreRight to privacy broken by a quarter of UK’s public databases, says report
Sean Hodgson, who spent 27 years in jail for a crime he did not commit, has been given just £46 by the government with which to restart his life.
The Prison Service has awarded the mentally ill former prisoner the equivalent of £1.70 for every year he was wrongly imprisoned.
The payout, a resettlement grant to help ease the victim of one of Britain’s gravest miscarriages of justice back into society, was condemned as “the final insult” last night.
Julian Young, Hodgson’s solicitor, said: “I am absolutely astounded. I find it quite unbelievable, it is scandalous that, in these exceptional circumstances, additional funds could not be found. He has served 27 years for something he didn’t do and this is just insulting.”
Be warned that is the original video and not the Telegraph’s version:
Added: March 21, 2009
Source: YouTube
Video footage from Tibet is extremely rare. The film, which shows violent scenes from the March 2008 riots, is the clearest evidence yet that Tibetans were subject to police brutality as China struggled for control in Lhasa.
In the seven-minute film, exerpts of which are shown above, Chinese police kick and beat apparently defenceless Tibetan protesters and monks after they have been handcuffed and are lying on the ground.
The Tibetan government-in-exile, which is based in Dharamsala in India, said the treatment of the captives violated international norms and amounted to torture.
Until now, the only video evidence of the riots in March was shot from long-distance and showed clashes in the streets of Lhasa but not evidence of torture.
“This is the first footage which visibly proves the use of brutal and excessive force against Tibetan protesters. It clearly challenges official Chinese statements that disproportionate force was not used on unarmed protesters,” said Stephanie Brigden, the director of the international campaign group Free Tibet.
The second half of the video, which is too graphic to show here, documents a serious set of injuries allegedly sustained by a Tibetan worker after he intervened in the beating of a monk.
According to the Tibetan government-in-exile, Chinese police shot at the man, who was named as Tendar, and then stubbed cigarettes out on his body, forced a nail through his right foot and beat him with an electric baton.
He was initially taken to a military hospital but, according to the video, his wounds were merely wrapped in cling film, which allowed them to rot. He subsequently died of his injuries in June 2008.
Read moreNew video of torture exposes Chinese brutality in Tibet (03/20/09)
Israel’s war crimes in Gaza:
Ehud Barak, Israel’s Defence Minister, said: “I say to you that from the chief of staff down to the last soldier, the most moral army in the world stands ready to take orders from the government of Israel.”
Picture Gallery
Source: Israeli Army T-Shirts Mock Gaza Killings (Sky News)
Related article: Racist and sexist Israeli military shirts show the mindset that led to war crimes in Gaza
“You are either with us or you are with the patriots, er, terrorists.”
The Department of Homeland Security and police forces label anyone who they disagree with – or who disagrees with government policies – as “terrorists”.
Don’t believe me?
Well, according to a law school professor, pursuant to the Military Commissions Act, “Anyone who … speaks out against the government’s policies could be declared an ‘unlawful enemy combatant’ and imprisoned indefinitely. That includes American citizens.”
And according to an FBI memo, peace protesters are being labeled as “terrorists”. Indeed, police have been terrorizing children, little old ladies and other “dangerous” people who attempted to peacefully protest.
And a 2003 FBI memo describes protesters’ use of videotaping as an “intimidation” technique, even though – as the ACLU points out – “Most mainstream demonstrators often use videotape during protests to document law enforcement activity and, more importantly, deter police from acting outside the law.” The FBI appears to be objecting to the use of cameras to document unlawful behavior by law enforcement itself.
And the Internet has been labeled as a breeding ground for terrorists, with anyone who questions the government’s versions of history being especially equated with terrorists.
Now, the state of Missouri has labeled as terrorists current Congressman Ron Paul and his supporters, former Congressman Bob Barr, libertarians in general, anyone who holds gold, and a host of other people.
In other words, anyone who disagrees with the “acceptable” way of looking at things is a terrorist.
How is this different from Stalin or Mao’s use of labels such as “enemy of the state”?
Friday, March 20, 2009
Source: George Washington’s Blog
Continental employees burn tyres during a demonstration in Compiègne, north of Paris Photograph: Michel Spingler/AP
More than a million angry French workers took to the streets Thursday in a nationwide strike to force President Nicolas Sarkozy to boost wages and protect jobs as the economic crisis deepens.
“Sarkozy has to take from the billionaires and give a bit back to the poor,” said teacher Jean-Baptiste Voltuain, echoing mounting calls for the right-wing government to boost social spending by hiking taxes on the rich.
Voltuain was one of the marchers at a rally in Paris which was fronted by the leaders of France’s eight main unions as it snaked its way through the east of the city in warm spring sunshine.
The CGT union said three million people took part in protests across the country, but police put the number at 1.2 million.
Related articles:
– France braced for huge street protests over economic crisis (Guardian)
– Sarkozy warned of ‘class war’ (Financial Times)
A million civil servants went on strike, officials said, while protestors from both public and private sectors marched in the capital and in Marseille, Lyon, Strasbourg and around 200 other towns.
Riot police used tear gas to disperse about 200 youths who threw stones and other objects and lit fires in the street as the Paris march came to an end at Place de la Nation.
In Toulouse, police used batons and flashballs to disperse around 200 protestors who threw bottles and set fire to rubbish bins in the southwestern city. One officer was slightly injured.
Protestors smashed windows at the MEDEF employers’ federation in Rouen in the north.
But mostly the one-day strike, which polls say had the support of nearly 80 percent of the French, was peaceful.
Coming to your neighborhood soon.
MadWorld has already caused controversy abroad, being banned in Germany, while parent groups in the US have also called for a ban
Players in MadWorld use chainsaws, spiked clubs, daggers and spears to execute victims
Players in MadWorld use chainsaws, spiked clubs, daggers and spears to execute victims.
They can impale their enemies on road signs, fry them on electrical sockets and rip out their hearts.
The game’s ‘bloodbath challenges’ see characters mown down by trains, crushed in the back of refuse collection vehicles and blown up as ‘human fireworks’.
A challenge called ‘human darts’ sees players pick up Madworld citizens and hurl them onto giant spiked dartboard.
Sega, publishers of the game, said it is “tipped to be the most violent video game in history”.
Read moreMadWorld: Most violent computer game ever launched on Nintendo Wii
Human beings do not respect themselves, others and also not their home planet. This is a recipe for disaster. All human beings are equal. A caste system looks like stone-age consciousness to any evolved being.
An appeal court judge in Jammu and Kashmir decided that all Indians were worthy of respect and entitled to a good reputation regardless of their wealth or social status.
The ruling amounts to a direct challenge to India’s caste-focused society in which attacks on ‘untouchables’ or dalits because of their ‘polluting presence’ are common.
There are cases of dalits killed for daring to drink water from the same well as their caste ‘superiors’ or to complain when their daughters are raped.
Against this background, the ruling has been hailed as revolutionary.
MONTAGUE, Texas – For months, perhaps longer, the Montague County Jail was “Animal House” meets Mayberry. Inside the small brick building across from the courthouse, inmates had the run of the place, having sex with their jailer girlfriends, bringing in recliners, taking drugs and chatting on cell phones supplied by friends or guards, according to authorities. They also disabled some of the surveillance cameras and made weapons out of nails.
The doors to two groups of cells didn’t lock, but apparently no one tried to escape — perhaps because they had everything they needed inside.
9/24/2007
Source: YouTube
“This economic crisis is very serious and it will end with the next war.”
Source: YouTube
See also: Ron Paul: Obama Foreign Policy Identical To Bush
1:51:21 – 12.03.2009
Source: Google Video
MEXICO CITY, Mexico (CNN) — What do software mogul Bill Gates and banking investor Warren Buffett have in common with wanted Mexican drug lord Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman Loera?
Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman Loera, pictured in 1993, ranks 701st on Forbes’ yearly report on billionaires.
They are all featured in Forbes magazine’s world’s billionaires report as “self-made” billionaires.
Guzman Loera, whose nickname means Shorty, escaped from a Mexican prison in 2001. He heads the powerful Sinaloa cartel, investigators say. Authorities on both sides of the U.S.-Mexico border blame the Sinaloa and other cartels for a surge in violence in the region.
He ranked 701st on Forbes’ yearly report, with an estimated fortune of $1 billion.
This is about taking away ‘real’ food from your table, so that you are left with ‘food’ or better GM trash that is loaded with poisons. More change coming!
5. März 2009
Source: YouTube
Campaign For Liberty
HR 875 http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/F?c111:1:./temp/~c1112RD9bb:e11439:
This bill is sitting in committee and I am not sure when it is going to hit the floor. One thing I do know is that very few of the Representatives have read it. As usual they will vote on this based on what someone else is saying. Urge your members to read the legislation and ask for opposition to this devastating legislation. Devastating for everyday folks but great for factory farming ops like Monsanto, ADM, Sodexo and Tyson to name a few.
I have no doubt that this legislation was heavily influenced by lobbyists from huge food producers. This legislation is so broad based that technically someone with a little backyard garden could get fined and have their property seized. It will effect anyone who produces food even if they do not sell but only consume it. It will literally put all independent farmers and food producers out of business due to the huge amounts of money it will take to conform to factory farming methods. If people choose to farm without industry standards such as chemical pesticides and fertilizers they will be subject to a vareity of harassment from this completely new agency that has never before existed. That’s right, a whole new government agency is being created just to police food, for our own protection of course.
DO NOT TAKE MY WORD FOR IT, READ THIS LEGISLATION FOR YOURSELF. The more people who read this legislation the more insight we are going to get and be able to share. Post your observations and insights below. Urge your members to read this legislation and to oppose the passage of this legislation.
Pay special attention to
Red flags I found and I am sure there are more………..
Didn’t Stalin nationalize farming methods that enabled his administration to gain control over the food supply? Didn’t Stalin use the food to control the people?
Last word…… Legislate religion and enforce gag orders on ministers on what can and can’t be said in the pulpit, instituting regulations forcing people to rely solely on the government, control the money and the food. What is that called? It is on the tip of my tongue……….
George Galloway: A security official said that during a power cut, which is a frequent occurrence in the town, children had pelted the convoy with stones Photo: PA
The convoy, which set out from London last month carrying relief supplies valued at £1 million ($1.4 million), was in El-Arish, a border staging post about 28 miles from the Rafah passage to Gaza.
“It’s an absolute disgrace,” said the organiser of the aid shipment, Yvonne Ridley. “The power was cut. During cover of darkness members of our convoy were attacked with stones.
“Vandals also wrote dirty words and anti-Hamas slogans,” she said. “Several people in the convoy were injured in the attack.”
A security official said that during a power cut, which is a frequent occurrence in the town, children had pelted the convoy with stones.
“It’s odd that this drive towards fingerprinting children coincides with the government’s keenness to expand the national DNA database – we already have one of the largest in the world – with more than four million people on file, including nearly 1.1 million children.”
“Odd too that VeriCool is reported to be part of Anteon, an American company that is responsible for the training of interrogators at Guantánamo and Abu Ghraib.”
As voters express concern about surveillance technology, is it becoming second nature to the Facebook generation – used to publishing intimate details of their private lives on the worldwide web – who, in later life, may be less vociferous in their opposition to such schemes?
An increasing number of today’s schoolchildren are forgoing the humiliating daily name call of registration, and are instead having to “fingerswipe” in and out of class, or to give it its proper name: biometric registration. According to campaign group LeaveThemKidsAlone, schools have fingerprinted more than two million children this way, sometimes even without their parents’ consent. A statement on its website claims: “It’s part of an enormous softening-up exercise, targeting society’s most impressionable, so they’ll accept cradle-to-grave state snooping and control.”
Although taking part in the monitoring sessions is voluntary, headteachers say they expect the majority of their staff to participate Photo: GETTY
Four schools in Salford, Greater Manchester, have installed cameras and microphones in special training classrooms.
The 360-degree cameras are so powerful that observers can see what children are writing.
 Tunnel of laughs: Gary Sanders was pulled over for giggling in the Mersey tunnel |
When Gary Sanders was pulled over by police he was sure he had done nothing wrong.
The company director was obeying the speed limit and not driving dangerously.
But to his astonishment he was told he had been stopped for excessive laughing.
Mr Sanders had been talking on a hands-free kit and was chuckling at what his friend had said.
But the officer who ordered him to stop at the exit to the Mersey Tunnel told him: ‘Laughing while driving a car can be an offence.’
If that had been the end of the matter then Mr Sanders, 47, would probably have laughed the whole thing off.
But he subjected him to a 35-minute grilling, with questions about everything from his ethnic group to details of distinguishing scars on his body.
And despite not being charged with an offence, he still had to waste a further 90 minutes of his time producing his driving licence and other documents at a police station.
Read moreMotorist pulled over and quizzed… for LAUGHING at the wheel