Peru Government may have killed 100's of indigenous civilians
Mood:  don't ask
Now Playing: Peru polarised after deadly clashes
Topic: HUMANITY

 

By Dan Collyns
BBC News, Bagua Chica, Peru June 10 2009

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/8093729.stm

The removal by Peruvian riot police of thousands of native Amazonian protesters from a road they were blocking was the worst violence the country had seen in a decade.

.Com or what? Coming soon all new dot com address's
Mood:  bright
Now Playing: new rules change how Internet website can use "their names" instead of dot com or dot org
Topic: MEDIA

You seen it hear first Z3 Readers....

I can just see my new address ....

www.JoeAnybody.joe-anybody ^<example>

 

---

 http://www.reuters.com/article/technologyNews/idUSTRE5576DM20090609?feedType=nl&feedName=ustechnology

By Paul Sandle

LONDON (Reuters) - Two thirds of businesses are unaware they will be able to use their own name in place of domain extensions such as .com, .org, or .net when Internet domains are liberalized next year, according to a survey.

The change would let the likes of Nike or Microsoft control their own domain and better exploit their brands, and also counter cyber-squatters who use variations of brands on the 280 or so existing domain extensions.

"If you have '.nike', for example, you can create real and specific branded Websites, like 'running.nike' or 'runlondon.nike'," Joe White, chief operating officer of domain registrar Gandi.net, told Reuters in an interview.

The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), which oversees domain names, is expected to start taking applications for new top-level domains early next year, said Future Laboratory, which conducted the research.

But the move is not on the radar of a majority of companies, the survey for Gandi.net found.

"(Companies) are generally completely unaware of this change coming down the line," said White. "This change has not yet permeated into the mainstream for businesses or consumers."

"However, those businesses which are aware actually see the prospect as being quite exciting," he said.

The price of $185,000 will initially limit applications to the largest corporations and organizations, said Tom Savigar, Strategy and Insight Director at The Future Laboratory.

ICANN is expecting 300-500 applications when it opens its doors in the first quarter of next year, he said.

"You'll see the big global corporations getting there early to own more of their online space," he said.

"(Owning their domain) could secure a higher level of credibility and recognition."

Smaller businesses will be able to use more specific extensions to match their business sector or geography such as ".london" or ".paris," he said.

The Future Laboratory surveyed 100 e-commerce managers; 50 from high-street companies and 50 from small and medium businesses online.

(Editing by Dan Lalor)

The handheld puke ray gun is ready (yuck)
Mood:  down
Now Playing: I FEEL LIKE PUKING
Topic: TECHNOLOGY

6.2.09.... Hello Family Friends and faithful readers of the Z3 Report this article will make you sick to your stomach ... well the technology that is discussed will.  But I myself find this type of weaponry to be uncalled for and is Pandora's box of potential tools to be used on innocent people by the authorities.  Nasty toys in the hands of nasty people is not going to be of any service to our society.  Z3 Readers this type of technology (sic) is leading us down the slippery slope:

---

US firm says

handheld puke ray is ready to go

 

Pistol style chunder-gat

and

torch/vom-sabre models http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/06/01/laser_energetics_puke_ray/  By Lewis Page • Get more from this authorPosted in Biology, 1st June 2009 11:39 GMTA US industrial laser company says it has developed a functional puke-ray system, ideal for use by cops or military personnel wishing to take down their opponents without shooting them. The firm proposes to issue the "non lethal light fighting technology" in two form factors - light-sabre/torch and blaster-pistol.The so-called Dazer Laser™ technology comes from Laser Energetics Inc, of New Jersey, which has been supplying more conventional laser equipment since 1991. Now, however, the company is pleased to announce its new Defender™ and Guardian™ chunder-beam weapons. According to Laser Energetics' statement:These non-lethal weapons have the ability to control the threat at ranges of 1 meter to 2400 meters (model dependent). The Dazer Laser™ - Light Fighting Technologies - emit a green “eye safe” laser beam, that is shaped into approximately a 1 foot to 8 foot Dazer Zone™ (model dependent) which when focused on the threats eyes, the threats vision is temporarily impaired, their balance is effected, and they become affected by nausea. This controls the threat making it difficult for them to manoeuver. The Ultimate Non – Lethal Weapon."This life saving non-lethal weapon will help all branches of the military, law enforcement, correctional facilities, security, border patrol, piracy control, homeland security, airport security and much more," says Laser Energetics CEO Robert Battis.Battis says that his regurge-ray weapons are better than the well-known Taser electrojolt stungun as they have a longer effective range and aren't single-shot. If an embattled cop, soldier etc. misses the target at first he can simply swing the dazzle-beam onto his opponent's face and leave him slipping and stumbling helplessly in a self-generated chunky puddle.The Defender™ is the ray-pistol model, perhaps effective to 2400m; the Guardian™ is the cylindrical job which emits its belly-scrambling dazer rays from one end like a torch. The Guardian™ will work out to 100m, according to the Laser Energetics pdf brochure. Both models also have a "searchlight" illumination mode - presumably without the nauseating special sauce. There's no word yet on price.It seems that there may be countermeasures that would have some effect against Dazer™-toting government goons. The company specifies that both models "can control the threat with the threat's eyes shut, making it difficult for them to manoeuvre". No mention is made of tactical possibilities involving mirrors, reflective sunglasses etc.One question does spring to mind here. Do the rival puke-ray programmes at the Department of Homeland Security and the US Navy know about this?

 

Tiananmen Square prepared to crush any desenters
Mood:  don't ask
Now Playing: anniversary of Tiananmen Square "killing spree" from 1989
Topic: PROTEST!

origanal article is here

http://tinyurl.com/pe9mgm 

BEIJING 2009 — In Tiananmen Square, police were ready to pounce at the first sign of protest. In Hong Kong, a sea of candles flickered in the hands of tens of thousands who vented their grief and anger.

Two starkly contrasting faces of China were on display Thursday, the 20th anniversary of the military's bloody crackdown on pro-democracy demonstrators — from Beijing's rigid control in suppressing any dissent, to freewheeling Hong Kong, which enjoys freedoms all but absent on the mainland.

Tiananmen Square was blanketed by uniformed and plainclothes security officers who were ready to silence any potential demonstration, and there were few hints that the vast plaza was the epicenter of a student-led movement that was crushed on June 3-4, 1989, shocking the world.

Police barred foreign journalists from entering the square and threatened them with violence, even barring them from covering the daily raising of China's national flag.

Chinese and foreign tourists were allowed in Tiananmen as usual, although security officials appeared to outnumber visitors.

Dissidents and families of victims were confined to their homes or forced to leave Beijing, part of sweeping government efforts to prevent online debate or organized commemorations of the anniversary.

But in Hong Kong's Victoria Park, a crowd chanted slogans calling for Beijing to own up to the crackdown and release political dissidents. Organizers estimated its size at 150,000, while police put the number at 62,800.

"It is the dream of all Chinese people to have democracy!" the throng sang.

Hong Kong is one of the few places in China where the events of June 1989 are not off-limits, because the territory — returned by the British 12 years ago — operates under a separate political system that promises freedom of speech and other Western-style civil liberties.

"Hong Kong is China's conscience," Hong Kong pro-democracy lawmaker Cheung Man Kwong told the demonstration.

In the candlelight, speakers recalled the terrifying events in Tiananmen, where a military assault killed hundreds who had gathered for weeks in the square to demonstrate for freedom and even erect a makeshift statue of liberty. Those killed were eulogized as heroes in the struggle for a democratic China, their names read aloud before the crowd observed a minute of silence.

"Hong Kong is the only place where we can commemorate, and we have to repeat this every year so our younger generations don't forget," said Annie Chu, 36, a Hong Kong tourism worker who says she has attended every vigil for the last 20 years.

Earlier in the day, the central government ignored calls from U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and even Taiwan's China-friendly president for Beijing to face up to the 1989 violence.

The extraordinary security in Beijing came after government censors shut down social networking and image-sharing Web sites such as Twitter and Flickr and blacked out CNN and other foreign news channels each time they showed stories about Tiananmen.

"We've been under 24-hour surveillance for a week and aren't able to leave home to mourn. It's totally inhuman," said Xu Jue, whose son was 22 when he was shot in the chest by soldiers and bled to death on June 4, 1989.

Police were also stationed outside the home of Wang Yannan, the daughter of Zhao Ziyang, the Communist Party leader deposed for sympathizing with the pro-democracy protesters, according to the Hong Kong-based Information Center for Human Rights and Democracy. Wang has never been politically active.

But Zhou was celebrated in Hong Kong. Tape recordings of Zhou recalling Tiananmen, used for his recently released posthumous memoir, were played over loudspeakers next to his portrait. One former student leader, Xiong Yan, stirred the crowd with predictions that "democracy will arrive in China."

Another student leader from 1989, Wu'er Kaixi, was forced to return to Taiwan on Thursday after flying to the Chinese territory of Macau the day before in an attempt to return home.

In Washington, Clinton said Wednesday that China, as an emerging global power, "should examine openly the darker events of its past and provide a public accounting of those killed, detained or missing, both to learn and to heal."

Taiwanese President Ma Ying-jeou urged China to lift the taboo on discussing the crackdown. "This painful chapter in history must be faced. Pretending it never happened is not an option," Ma said in a statement.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Qin Gang attacked Clinton's comments as a "gross interference in China's internal affairs."

"We urge the U.S. to put aside its political prejudice and correct its wrongdoing and refrain from disrupting or undermining bilateral relations," Qin said in response to a question at a regularly scheduled news briefing.

Qin refused to comment on the security measures — or even acknowledge them.

"Today is like any other day, stable," he said.

Beijing has never allowed an independent investigation into the crushing of the protests in 1989, in which possibly thousands of students, activists and ordinary citizens were killed. In one famous moment of resistance, a lone man holding shopping bags defiantly stood in front of a column of tanks on a street near the square.

Young mainland Chinese know little about the events, having grown up in a generation that has largely eschewed politics in favor of raw nationalism, wealth acquisition and individual pursuits.

But the issue still resonates with Hong Kong's younger generations.

"It's time for China to take responsibility for the killings," said Kin Cheung, a 17-year-old Hong Kong student who attended the yearly vigil for the first time Thursday. "They need to tell the truth."

___

Bodeen reported from Beijing, Marquez from Hong Kong. AP Writers Min Lee and Dikky Sinn in Hong Kong contributed to this report.

Money going up in smoke? Just tax it, and save the damn economy
Mood:  energetic
Now Playing: taxing marijuana - lets get real
Topic: BIG MONEY PLAYERS

Hey there  Z3Readers...  

You knew it was coming...you smelled the smoke before the fire.... hell I have been saying this or "years" .... sit back relax ...get mellow and read this three part article on "Leagalize It"

By John Dyer, MSN Money

^{http://articles.moneycentral.msn.com/Investing/StockInvestingTrading/a-budget-cure-marijuana-taxes.aspx#pageTopAchor}

(click link for origan article and a video)

---

Definitive figures on the size of the untapped marijuana market don't exist. It's a gray market, after all. But there are plenty of studies indicating we are not talking about chump change.

In a 2007 study, Jon Gettman, a senior fellow at George Mason University's School of Public Policy, valued the American marijuana trade at $113 billion annually. Between drug enforcement and potential taxes, the federal government and the states were losing almost $42 billion a year by keeping marijuana illegal, the study indicated. Gettman is a former staff member of NORML, the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws, a nonprofit that lobbies on Capitol Hill for marijuana legalization.

"It's a very large, significant economic phenomenon, and it is diverting an incredible amount of money from the taxable economy," Gettman said.

Miron says he is interested in the topic as a libertarian who believes the government shouldn't ban any drugs. He offers more-conservative numbers, estimating that federal and state treasuries would gain more than $6 billion annually if marijuana were taxed like alcohol or tobacco. At the same time, relaxing laws against use of marijuana would save nearly $8 billion in legal costs, he says.

The Obama administration seems to be inching toward a more permissive stance on marijuana. Last month, U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder announced he would end raids on clubs like Stein's, fulfilling a pledge Obama had made on the campaign trail.

"It's a major break from the 'just say no' mentality," said Allen St. Pierre, the executive director of NORML, referring to Holder's announcement.

Stein is somewhat relieved. The raids had been wreaking havoc on California's budding marijuana industry, he says. Two years ago he was forced to move one of his clubs, The Higher Path, to a new location on Sunset Boulevard in Los Angeles, after the Drug Enforcement Administration sent his landlord a letter saying agents could seize the building.

"Medical marijuana is very, very satisfying, but it's very nerve-racking and dangerous," Stein said.

 St. Pierre says 13 states have adopted laws to allow medical marijuana, while an additional handful have decriminalized possession, meaning the penalties associated with marijuana are negligible.

Of course, critics of decriminalization are also vocal. Calvina Fay, the executive director of the Drug Free America Foundation, says Gettman, Miron and others fail to account for marijuana's adverse side effects, from lethargy to impaired driving to tendencies among weed smokers to try more-serious drugs. "Those who are using drugs are less productive than those who aren't," Fay said.

A spokesman for the drug policy office declined to comment, saying the office wanted to wait until the Senate has confirmed Obama's drug czar nominee, Seattle Police Chief Gil Kerlikowske.

 

---

 

But according to the FBI's most recent data, approximately 870,000 people nationwide were arrested on marijuana violations in 2007. Nearly 15 million Americans use marijuana on a monthly basis, according to the latest National Survey on Drug Use and Health. The same study found that more than 100 million Americans had tried marijuana at least once in their lives. Advocates of decriminalization say those statistics argue against the vision of mass lassitude put forward by their opponents.

"Most people either did the drug themselves or their friends did," Miron said. "They know those extremes are not right."

California has come closest to outright legalization of the marijuana industry. Sacramento already collects around $18 million in sales taxes a year from $200 million worth of medical-marijuana purchases, according to data supplied by California's State Board of Equalization. Now Assemblyman Tom Ammiano, a San Francisco Democrat, is sponsoring new legislation that would legalize marijuana completely -- and tax it. The state estimates the proposal could generate $1.3 billion a year.

"The war on drugs has failed," Ammiano said. "It seems to me there is across both aisles that assessment, and California is in an egregious economic abyss. The economic situation makes (legalization) viable."

The pro-marijuana lobby argues that U.S. agriculture could expand significantly if farmers were allowed to openly cultivate weed. In a 2006 study, Gettman calculated that marijuana was one of the biggest cash crops in the U.S., with 56 million plants worth almost $36 billion.

In the United Kingdom, where restrictions on marijuana research are less onerous than in the U.S., companies such as GW Pharmaceuticals are moving quickly to develop other drugs from the plant. In the company's 2008 annual report, GW executives said they had received approval to market Sativex, a cannabis-derived painkiller, in Canada. The report said the company is seeking approval of the drug from European regulators and is working with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration as well.

A spokesman for the company, John Dineen of the London public-relations firm Financial Dynamics, says executives would prefer not to be quoted in a story about the economic consequences of marijuana legalization.

David Goldman, a patron of the Green Cross, a medical-marijuana dispensary in San Francisco, had no such compunctions. To Goldman, medical marijuana looks like a godsend that should be studied and expanded. After groin surgery a few years ago, he found he had troubling reactions to other painkillers, and he turned to marijuana.

"The constant pain is something I need to accept and is something for which cannabis has been invaluable," he said. "Why should we cede medical cannabis research to the U.K. when some of the best minds in medicine are in this country?"

Produced by Elizabeth Daza

Published April 30, 2009

GM - Cars - CEO and the American healthcare robbery by Big Banks
Mood:  chatty
Now Playing: Greg Pallast - crimes being allowed by Obama's Car Czar
Topic: FAILURE by the GOVERNMENT

Hey my friendly Z3 Readers... this was an email from Greg Pallast...he is spot on ...and reporting what isn't in your local Corporate News.... read on my friends, this is sickening!

Screw the autoworkers.

They may be crying about General Motors' bankruptcy today. But dumping 40,000 of the last 60,000 union jobs into a mass grave won't spoil Jamie Dimon's day.

Dimon is the CEO of JP Morgan Chase bank. While GM workers are losing their retirement health benefits, their jobs, their life savings; while shareholders are getting zilch and many creditors getting hosed, a few privileged GM lenders - led by Morgan and Citibank - expect to get back 100% of their loans to GM, a stunning $6 billion.

The way these banks are getting their $6 billion bonanza is stone cold illegal.

I smell a rat.

Stevie the Rat, to be precise. Steven Rattner, Barack Obama's 'Car Czar' - the man who essentially ordered GM into bankruptcy this morning.

When a company goes bankrupt, everyone takes a hit: fair or not, workers lose some contract wages, stockholders get wiped out and creditors get fragments of what's left. That's the law. What workers don't lose are their pensions (including old-age health funds) already taken from their wages and held in their name.

But not this time. Stevie the Rat has a different plan for GM: grab the pension funds to pay off Morgan and Citi.

Here's the scheme: Rattner is demanding the bankruptcy court simply wipe away the money GM owes workers for their retirement health insurance. Cash in the insurance fund would be replace by GM stock. The percentage may be 17% of GM's stock - or 25%. Whatever, 17% or 25% is worth, well ... just try paying for your dialysis with 50 shares of bankrupt auto stock.

Yet Citibank and Morgan, says Rattner, should get their whole enchilada - $6 billion right now and in cash - from a company that can't pay for auto parts or worker eye exams.

Preventive Detention for Pensions

So what's wrong with seizing workers' pension fund money in a bankruptcy? The answer, Mr. Obama, Mr. Law Professor, is that it's illegal.

 

In 1974, after a series of scandalous take-downs of pension and retirement funds during the Nixon era, Congress passed the Employee Retirement Income Security Act. ERISA says you can't seize workers' pension funds (whether monthly payments or health insurance) any more than you can seize their private bank accounts. And that's because they are the same thing: workers give up wages in return for retirement benefits.

The law is darn explicit that grabbing pension money is a no-no. Company executives must hold these retirement funds as "fiduciaries." Here's the law, Professor Obama, as described on the government's own web site under the heading, "Health Plans and Benefits."

"The primary responsibility of fiduciaries is to run the plan solely in the interest of participants and beneficiaries and for the exclusive purpose of providing benefits."

Every business in America that runs short of cash would love to dip into retirement kitties, but it's not their money any more than a banker can seize your account when the bank's a little short. A plan's assets are for the plan's members only, not for Mr. Dimon nor Mr. Rubin.

Yet, in effect, the Obama Administration is demanding that money for an elderly auto worker's spleen should be siphoned off to feed the TARP babies. Workers go without lung transplants so Dimon and Rubin can pimp out their ride. This is another "Guantanamo" moment for the Obama Administration - channeling Nixon to endorse the preventive detention of retiree health insurance.

Filching GM's pension assets doesn't become legal because the cash due the fund is replaced with GM stock. Congress saw through that switch-a-roo by requiring that companies, as fiduciaries, must

"...act prudently and must diversify the plan's investments in order to minimize the risk of large losses."

By "diversify" for safety, the law does not mean put 100% of worker funds into a single busted company's stock.

This is dangerous business: The Rattner plan opens the floodgate to every politically-connected or down-on-their-luck company seeking to drain health care retirement funds.

House of Rubin

Pensions are wiped away and two connected banks don't even get a haircut? How come Citi and Morgan aren't asked, like workers and other creditors, to take stock in GM?

As Butch said to Sundance, who ARE these guys? You remember Morgan and Citi. These are the corporate Welfare Queens who've already sucked up over a third of a trillion dollars in aid from the US Treasury and Federal Reserve. Not coincidentally, Citi, the big winner, has paid over $100 million to Robert Rubin, the former US Treasury Secretary. Rubin was Obama's point-man in winning banks' endorsement and campaign donations (by far, his largest source of his corporate funding).

With GM's last dying dimes about to fall into one pocket, and the Obama Treasury in his other pocket, Morgan's Jamie Dimon is correct in saying that the last twelve months will prove to be the bank's "finest year ever."

Which leaves us to ask the question: is the forced bankruptcy of GM, the elimination of tens of thousands of jobs, just a collection action for favored financiers?

And it's been a good year for Señor Rattner. While the Obama Administration made a big deal out of Rattner's youth spent working for the Steelworkers Union, they tried to sweep under the chassis that Rattner was one of the privileged, select group of investors in Cerberus Capital, the owners of Chrysler. "Owning" is a loose term. Cerberus "owned" Chrysler the way a cannibal "hosts" you for dinner. Cerberus paid nothing for Chrysler - indeed, they were paid billions by Germany's Daimler Corporation to haul it away. Cerberus kept the cash, then dumped Chrysler's bankrupt corpse on the US taxpayer.

("Cerberus," by the way, named itself after the Roman's mythical three-headed dog guarding the gates Hell. Subtle these guys are not.)

While Stevie the Rat sold his interest in the Dog from Hell when he became Car Czar, he never relinquished his post at the shop of vultures called Quadrangle Hedge Fund. Rattner's personal net worth stands at roughly half a billion dollars. This is Obama's working class hero.

If you ran a business and played fast and loose with your workers' funds, you could land in prison. Stevie the Rat's plan is nothing less than Grand Theft Auto Pension.

It doesn't make it any less of a crime if the President drives the getaway car.

******

Economist and journalist Greg Palast, a former trade union contract negotiator, is author of the New York Times bestsellers The Best Democracy Money Can Buy and Armed Madhouse. He is a GM bondholder and card-carrying member of United Automobile Workers Local 1981.

Palast's latest reports for BBC Television and Democracy Now! are collected on the newly released DVD, "Palast Investigates: from 8-Mile to the Amazon - on the trail of the financial marauders." Watch the trailer here.

How Long Does It TAke Me to Make A One Hour Video
Mood:  energetic
Now Playing: Time estimates for shooting a hour video to the final completed video on the Internet
Topic: MEDIA

task for one full hour tape		hours		additional
Filming event for one hour		1
Uploading complete tape to computer		1
Basic: cleanup, slight edit, titles		1
Standard: extra editing, music, texts				1
Deluxe: splices, inserting, elaborate mixes				1+
Review all edits- watch in full entirity		1
corrections, additions, fixes, review fixes		0.5
save final version to computer		2
watch review, check before distrubution		1
Upload to Web Server		2
Review quality of upload to server (light scan)		0.5
Write/Promote/share in text format about video		1+
Post embedded video on websites, blogs, Internet		1+
		12 hours		13 -14 hours

GITMO will be closing, so says Obama
Mood:  caffeinated
Now Playing: Closing Guantanamo - Obama sticks to his word
Topic: TORTURE

Obama says:

 US prisons tough enough for detainees

President Barack Obama delivers an address on national security, terrorism, and the closin...

By STEVEN R. HURST, AP
Thu May 21, 12:32 PM EDT

President Barack Obama forcefully defended his plans to close the Guantanamo detention camp Thursday and said some of the terror suspects held there would be brought to top-security prisons in the United States despite fierce opposition in Congress.

He spoke one day after the Senate voted resoundingly to deny him money to close the prison, and he decried "fear-mongering" that he said had led to such opposition.

He insisted the transfer would not endanger Americans and promised to work with lawmakers to develop a system for holding detainees who can't be tried and can't be turned loose from the Navy-run prison in Cuba.

"There are no neat or easy answers here," Obama said in a speech in which he pledged anew to clean up what he said was "quite simply a mess" at Guantanamo that he had inherited from the Bush administration.

Moments after Obama concluded, former Vice President Dick Cheney delivered his own address across town defending the decisions of the Bush administration in dealing with terrorism. Expressing no remorse for the actions the Bush White House had ordered, Cheney said under the same circumstances he would make the same decisions "without hesitation."

Obama noted that roughly 500 detainees already had been released by the Bush administration. There are 240 at Guantanamo now. The president said that 50 of those had been cleared to be sent to other countries — although he did not identify which countries might be willing to take them.

Obama conceded that some Guantanamo detainees would end up in U.S. prisons and said those facilities were tough enough to house even the most dangerous inmates.

Obama decried arguments used against his plans.

"We will be ill-served by the fear-mongering that emerges whenever we discuss this issue," he declared.

Speaking at the National Archives, Obama said he wouldn't do anything to endanger the American people.

He said opening and continuing the military prison "set back the moral authority that is America's strongest currency in the world."

Obama spoke in front of a copy of the Constitution, to members of the Judge Advocate General's Corps, diplomatic, policy and development officials and representatives of civil liberties groups.

"I can tell you that the wrong answer is to pretend like this problem will go away if we maintain an unsustainable status quo," Obama said. "As president, I refuse to allow this problem to fester. Our security interests won't permit it. Our courts won't allow it. And neither should our conscience."

Obama said his administration was in the process of studying each of the remaining Guantanamo detainees "to determine the appropriate policies for dealing with them."

"Nobody has ever escaped from one of our `supermax' prisons which hold hundreds of convicted terrorists," Obama said.

Obama used the speech as an effort to try to retake the initiative on the matter. He spoke a day after the Senate, led by majority Democrats, followed the lead of the House and voted decisively to deny his request for $80 million to close the prison. Lawmakers said they would block the funds until he gave a more detailed accounting of what would happen to the detainees.

He provided some details in his speech but stopped short of offering specifics on what to do with detainees who won't be tried for war crimes but are likely to be held indefinitely.

He described this group as those "who cannot be prosecuted yet who pose a clear danger to the American people."

"I want to be honest: This is the toughest issue we will face," Obama said.

He said his administration would "exhaust every avenue that we have" to prosecute detainees but there would still be some left "who cannot be prosecuted for past crimes" yet remain a threat.

Among these, he said, are prisoners who have expressed allegiance to Osama bin Laden "or otherwise made it clear they want to kill Americans."

"So going forward, my administration will work with Congress to develop an appropriate legal regime" to handle such detainees "so that our efforts are consistent with our values and our Constitution."

Obama criticized what he said was an effort to politicize the issue.

"I know that the politics in Congress will be difficult. These issues are fodder for 30-second commercials and direct mail pieces that are designed to frighten. I get it. But if we continue to make decisions from within a climate of fear, we will make more mistakes," he said.

Obama said he had no intention of looking back and "relitigating the policies" of the Bush administration.

But at the same time, he strongly criticized former President George W. Bush's actions. "Our government made decisions based upon fear rather than foresight and all too often trimmed facts and evidence to fit ideological predispositions," he said.

"In other words, we went off course."

The president again rejected the idea of an independent commission that would investigate the whole range of national security issues under the Bush administration.

"I recognize that many still have a strong desire to focus on the past. When it comes to the actions of the last eight years, some Americans are angry; others want to re-fight debates that have been settled, most clearly at the ballot box in November," Obama said.

"I know that these debates lead directly to a call for a fuller accounting, perhaps through an independent commission," he said. But he insisted that "our existing democratic institutions are strong enough to deliver accountability."

He also defended his decision to try to block the court-ordered release of detainee abuse photos. "Release would inflame anti-American opinion" and threaten American soldiers serving in Iraq and Afghanistan, Obama said. His decision against releasing the photos has been criticized by human-rights groups.

Obama had first suggested he would allow the photos to be released, but changed his mind after listening to advice from the military and intelligence advisers.

On another recent controversy, he defended his decision to release CIA interrogation memos, saying there was "no overriding reason to protect them." He said the interrogation methods, which included waterboarding, were already known — and that he had banned them.

Cheney praised Obama for two "wise" decisions — his handling of the war in Afghanistan and his decision to try to block the court-ordered release of detainee-abuse photos. "He deserves our support" for such actions, Cheney said.

But, the former vice president said, the current administration's actions on Guantanamo and other steps in the war against terrorism "should not be based on slogans and campaign rhetoric, but on a truthful telling of history."

Cheney has become the most outspoken high-ranking Bush official in criticizing the Obama team, suggesting steps the new president has taken have made the country less safe.

Cheney denounced Obama's announcement on his second day in office that he would close Guantanamo. He said the decision came with "little deliberation and no plan."

"Now, the president says some of these terrorists should be brought to American soil for trial in our court system. Others, he says, will be shipped to third countries. But so far, the United States has had little luck getting other countries to take hardened terrorists."

Cheney spoke at the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative think tank.

911 Truth sign holders hassled / arrested. Free Speech Issue
Mood:  irritated
Now Playing: The Truth Hurts - Police Jail those who public desent
Topic: 911 TRUTH
Saturday, May 16 2009   -   Truth Movement News
By JOE HARRIS
May 12, 2009
Courthouse News Service

ST. LOUIS (CN) - Two 9-11 conspiracy theorists say St. Louis used an unconstitutional ordinance to violate their right to free speech. Donald Stahl and William Demsar say city police arrested them on Feb. 6 for carrying a banner that stated, "911 Was An Inside Job!"

In their federal claim, the men say it was a peaceful protest calling for a new, independent investigation into the federal government's involvement into the events of September 11, 2001. The men say they were not blocking pedestrian or vehicular traffic.

They say police arrested them and destroyed their sign based on an ordinance that states: "No person shall sell or offer for sale any goods or merchandise, display any sign or pictures, participate in or conduct an exhibition or demonstration, talk, sing or play music on any street or abutting premises, or alley in consequences of which there is such a gathering of persons or stopping of vehicles as to impede either pedestrians or vehicular traffic."

Stahl and Demsar say the law is vague and overbroad, fails to provide alternatives for speech and lends itself to arbitrary enforcement. They want the city enjoined from enforcing it. They are represented by Anthony Rothert with the American Civil Liberties Union.

Full text of COMPLAINT FOR DECLARATORY JUDGMENT AND INJUNCTIVE RELIEF

RELATED:

9-11 Conspiracy Theorists Sue St. Louis City
By Chad Garrison in News
May 14, 2009
Riverfront Times Blog

Two 9-11 conspiracy theorists are suing St. Louis City over an ordinance they say is unconstitutional.

Donald Stahl and William Demsar were arrested on February 6 for holding a sign reading "9-11 Was an Inside Job" from a pedestrian bridge over Interstate 55 just south of downtown.

According to their complaint filed in federal court, the two were approached by a police officer and told to leave the bridge. When they refused, they were arrested and the sign and frame allegedly destroyed.

ACLU attorney Anthony Rothert is representing Stahl and Demsar in the suit which contends that a city ordinance that prohibits the selling of goods, diplaying of signs, talking, singing or playing music near any street so as to impede traffic is unconstitutional under the First Amendment guaranteeing free speech.

The plaintiffs are seeking that the law be repealed and that they be rewarded for their court costs.

History tells us the answer - Are we too dumb to understand it?
Mood:  accident prone
Now Playing: IT WILL NEVER HAPPEN - Give Up The Occupation of Afghanistan
Topic: WAR

The Mother of All War Zones

 

By Nikki Gloudeman | Wed May 6, 2009 1:07 PM PSThttp://www.motherjones.com/print/23373 328 BC—Alexander the Great forms Hellenistic state in portions of what is now Afghanistan.400 AD—White Huns invade region, dominate for two centuries.642—After sacking Persia, Arab armies invade and attempt to introduce Islam.870—Dawn of the Saffarid dynasty, whose expansive empire competes with two others for control of the wider region.998—Turkic dynasty cements Islamic era.1219—Genghis Khan leads Mongol invasion.Late 14th century—Tamerlane, Khan's descendent, brings Afghanistan into his Asian empire.1738—Nadir Shah and his Iranian army take Kandahar and Kabul.1747—After Shah is assassinated, Afghans convene a loya jirga—grand council of factions—and name a king, Ahmad Shah Durrani. The new king embarks on an imperialist rampage, eventually conquering all of modern-day Afghanistan and parts of Iran and India.1772—His empire waning, Durrani dies and turf battles ensue; by 1818 his inept successors control little more than Kabul.1839—First Anglo-Afghan War: British forces invade to prop up a Durrani successor. Upon retreat, they are massacred.1878—Second Anglo-Afghan War: Brits take over and install a chieftain they can deal with.1919—Third Anglo-Afghan War ends in Treaty of Rawalpindi; Brits recognize Afghan independence.1933—Mohammad Zahir Shah takes the throne. Although he doesn't rule the country in practice, his relatively peaceful 40-year reign earns him the title "father of the nation" in the current constitution.1934—US recognizes Afghanistan.1947—Partition: British colonial turf divided, leading to bad blood between Afghanistan and its newly created neighbor, Pakistan, as well as a Pakistan-India military rivalry.1966—Afghanistan signs the Convention on the Political Rights of Women, ensuring a woman's right to vote and hold public office.1973—King Zahir Shah's disgruntled cousin, Sardar Mohammad Daoud, stages a coup while the king is overseas. Daoud declares Afghanistan a republic with himself as president.1978—The People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan (PDPA), an Afghan communist faction, seizes power and slaughters Daoud and his family. Led by communist president Nur Muhammad Taraki, the new government signs a friendship treaty with Moscow.1979—Former prime minister Hafizullah Amin snatches the reins, executes Taraki, and begins slaughtering PDPA members. Three months later, Soviet forces roll into Kabul, execute Amin, and install a new prime minister.1980—Regional factions in Afghanistan and Pakistan team up to resist the Soviets. They call themselves mujahideen, "those who engage in jihad."March 21, 1982—President Ronald Reagan proclaims the date Afghanistan Day and lauds mujahideen as "freedom fighters…defending principles of independence and freedom that form the basis of global security and stability."1984—US begins funneling billions of dollars, plus weapons and training, to the mujahideen. The biggest beneficiary is Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, a religious zealot whom one former professor called a "psychopath" due to his acid attacks and beatings of female students at Kabul University.1986—Mohammad Najibullah, former head of the secret police, becomes president.1987—In Bond flick The Living Daylights, heroic Afghan freedom fighters help 007 defeat the Evil Empire.1988—Anti-Soviet jihadist Osama bin Laden joins with fellow Islamic hardliners to form Al Qaeda. Pakistan, Afghanistan, America, Soviet Union sign Geneva peace accords, guaranteeing Afghan independence and withdrawal of 100,000 Soviet troops.April 1992—After Najibullah is ousted by the Afghan military, mujahideen take over Kabul and impose strict laws—including a ban on booze.June 1992—Tajik leader Burhanuddin Rabbani becomes interim president, but mujahideen infighting disintegrates into civil war, prompting Kabul residents to flee en masse.1993—Fighting among the warlord factions leaves tens of thousands of civilians dead or wounded.1994—During his brief stint as prime minister, the US-funded Hekmatyar orders shelling of Kabul, reportedly killing more than 25,000. With backing from ISI, Pakistan's military-intelligence branch, Islamic theological students form fundamentalist Taliban militia.1995—Taliban on the rise across the country. Relieved for a bit of peace, Afghans welcome the militants.September 1996—Taliban takes over Kabul and promptly crack down on the arts and public participation by women. A strict new dress code mandates burkas; men must wear beards. Violators are flogged.1998—A vengeful god? Earthquakes in February and May leave more than 6,000 Afghans dead. In June, severe flooding kills another 6,000. A four-year nationwide drought ensues, saddling poppy farmers with salaam debt, which obliges them to sell future opium harvests to their creditors at bargain-basement prices.October 1999—UN orders Taliban to turn over bin Laden. Taliban Foreign Minister Mohammed Hassan Akhund responds, "No proof came from anyone, especially America, that Osama was involved in terrorist activities."March 2001—Taliban destroys ancient cliff Buddhas at Bamiyan, provoking international outrage.May 2001—Taliban orders Hindus to wear tags identifying themselves as non-Muslims.September 9, 2001—Taliban militants posing as TV reporters detonate camera bomb, assassinating Northern Alliance chief Ahmad Shah Massoud.September 11, 2001—The horror. Pentagon soon embarks on war plans for Afghanistan—and Iraq.October 2, 2001—President Bush orders the Taliban to surrender bin Laden. Taliban ambassador Abdul Salam Zaeef demurs, "Where is the evidence? Where is the proof?"October 7, 2001—US launches Afghan bombing campaign with support from Australia, Canada, England, France, Germany, Italy, and New Zealand.December 2001—UN brokers Bonn Agreement to establish a new government and convene an emergency loya jirga. US and British forces swarm the mountains of Tora Bora after radio intercepts indicate bin Laden is hiding there. Some 200 Qaeda and Taliban fighters die, but no bin Laden. Mullah Mohammed Omar, leader of the Taliban, is also AWOL.January 2002—Bush State of the Union: Iraq, Iran, North Korea = Axis of Evil.March 2003—US and British forces invade Iraq.January 2004—Bush State of the Union: "The men and women of Afghanistan are building a nation that is free and proud and fighting terror—and America is honored to be their friend."September 2004—In the preceding six months, reports the Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission, at least 123 women set themselves on fire to escape forced marriages and domestic violence—13 lived.October 2004—Roughly 8.2 million Afghans vote in country's first presidential election. America's favorite, Hamid Karzai, wins by a landslide.June 2005—Sher Mohammed Akhundzada is removed as governor of Helmand province after 9,000 kilos of opium are found at his offices.December 2005—President Karzai appoints Akhundzada to serve in the Afghan senate.Late 2005—CIA unit dedicated to hunting bin Laden shuts down.October 2006—In "Germany's Abu Ghraib," photos surface of that nation's soldiers kissing, posing with, and making pyramids out of skulls and bones in Afghanistan.November 2006—Government Accountability Office estimates that putting a dent in Afghan poppy cultivation and drug trafficking will take at least a decade.January 2007—Taliban announces new schools to teach Islam to boys.Spring 2007—Afghan poppy farmers reap record harvest: 8.2 million kilos of raw opium, enough to satisfy 93 percent of the illicit global market.September 2007—More than 100,000 textbooks traveling from Kabul to Kandahar and Nooristan provinces are seized and burned by anti-government forces.December 2007—Year's toll: 751 US soldiers wounded (an 87 percent jump) and 117 dead. Back home, moviegoers flock to see Tom Hanks and Julia Roberts in Charlie Wilson's War, dramatizing America's covert support of mujahideen.May 2008—Monthly US fatalities in Afghanistan surpass those in Iraq—even though America has nearly five times fewer troops in Afghanistan.July 2008—Faulty US air strike demolishes wedding in Nangarhar mountains, leaving around 50 dead. Four months later, in Kandahar, US bombs ruin another wedding party.September 2008—Lamenting America's paltry development aid to Afghanistan, Joint Chiefs chairman Admiral Michael Mullen complains to the House Armed Services Committee, "We can't kill our way to victory."October 2008—Sarah Palin name-drops "our neighboring country of Afghanistan" at a San Francisco fundraiser.November 2008—Taliban militants embarrass coalition forces by driving around in American Humvees stolen from more than a dozen hijacked supply trucks; Karzai appears before the UN Security Council, seeking a timeline for coalition withdrawal.January 2009—Karzai: Mounting civilian casualties "strengthening the terrorists."February 2009—BBC/ABC poll: Karzai's popularity waning, and 73 percent of Afghans oppose any increase in foreign troops. CNN poll: 63 percent of Americans support Obama's plan to send in 17,000 more soldiers.March 2009—Glimpses of Obama's strategy: In addition to the 17,000 troops, he'll provide 4,000 new trainers to get Afghan cops and soldiers up to speed, meaningful funding for aid and diplomacy, a regional approach that involves friends and foes (perhaps even Taliban elements), and $7.5 billion in development assistance to win hearts and minds in Pakistan's nettlesome tribal areas. The approach is praised by Karzai and Pakistani president Asif Ali Zardari.April 2009—Pakistan's Zardari, hoping to quell his country's own Taliban insurgency, signs a bill that puts six districts, including the former resort area of Swat Valley, under Shariah law—a strict Islamic interpretation that denies the rights of women and often metes out punishments Westerners consider barbaric.Nikki Gloudeman is a senior fellow at Mother Jones.http://www.motherjones.com/print/23373