Thanks, AtLast.

Just to clarify...

What I meant to say is that CNN last night indicated that to the Amish having their beard cut is a violation that cuts to their very core, in the same way that a severe trauma (such as rape), does for people. That wasn't a direct quote from an Amish person, however.

I believe that in the link John Shaft posted an Amish man was quoted as saying that he would rather be beaten black and blue than have his beard cut.

Being aware of the above is why this case has created some anger in me and a lot of empathy for the victims.

I see- and what you were thinking.

WTF?
 

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

Black Friday mayhem: Shootings, pepper spray

I made the mistake of trying to do this "Black Friday" thing. Never again. People were in some sort of shopping frenzie. I did make it from the line outside into the store, then stood in another two separate lines inside the store.

I watched people cutting lines, sending other members of their posse, crew to strategic areas of the store using cell phones and some just literally yelling across the aisles. One family was using the old "Marco, Pollo" yell. That was the tame stuff.

To those who have the grit for Black Friday, happy hunting. Next year, I will stay in a nice warm place and continue to eat left overs and hang out with the TV, books and loved ones.

P.S. I finally told myself, Why are you here? Is it worth it? NO. I left the store with nothing.

Yeah, ATLast, wtf indeed. Today is my -

http://previous.presstv.ir/photo/201...4224355590.jpg


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

Black Friday mayhem: Shootings, pepper spray[/QUOTE]

I had never been a Black Friday shopper. Over the last 6 or so years I have done it, I would guess, 3 times (for partner's kids electronics). I enjoyed it. All of those times it was for only a few specific items and I never had a problem in any of the stores (Kmart one year, Best Buy one year, and Target another year...this was before Target did their donation bullshit). Anyway, each time it was kind of fun to stand outside in the cold and talk with people. I was bummed last year when my girlfriend's son did want a large ticket item, so there was no reason to go (same thing this year and she is away, anyway).

My experience was a relatively orderly crowd. People walked quickly, but no one jumped link and/or pushed past each other going into the store. Two of those times the stores handed out numbers for the big items, so you were assured the item prior to going into the store, so that probably helped. On the other hand, not everyone was there for those items, yet people were still calm. Guess I have been lucky.

Dapper, thanks for telling us about your experience. I was at a Target Store. I went to try and purchase a T.V. Not one of the TV's that is big enough to cover an entire wall. I was looking for a 32 - 40 inch.

There were two people in the final line in front of me that were very decent. They were also first time Black Friday folks. All of us ended up leaving. There were people who had the Tickets to buy big screen TVs and they were going up and down the line trying to sell the tickets.

I guess it is a mixed bag. It just felt very tense. There were two police cars parked out in front with their lights on, people who came late were blocked off from even being able to get into the line that was wrapped around the store.

Here in the SF East Bay in another city there was an attempted robbery of a family walking back to their car with their purchase made at a Walmart. One person was seriously injured, he was shot, one suspect got away, another did not. Maybe it seemed more crazy because of the economic times we now live in.

One more story, not Black Friday stuff but over this holiday weekend. Julie and I went to Trader Joe's to buy some groceries on Saturday. That store is usally a zoo but people are civil. Anyway, outside of the a few feet away stood a woman holding a sign that she had children and needed to feed them. The woman could not speak very good english and one of her daughters, about 8 years old stood there with her. It was heart breaking to see. I was heartened to see many people giving her money in a respectful way and showing human compassion and kindness.

Interesting experiences, Greyson. I'm sure it does feel tense now as we sift through these times of former expectations and present realities.

I hope you and Julie had a good holiday. SNH

http://www.enn.com/agriculture/article/43617

Mexican farmers suffer worst drought in 70 years

http://www.enn.com/image_for_article...7-1.jpg/medium

Photo shows the sun setting over a dry patch of land in Parras de La Fuente in the state of Coahuila November 24, 2011. Credit: REUTERS/Stringer

Mexico is being battered its worst drought in seven decades, which has devastated farm life and is expected to continue into next year. The lack of rainfall has affected almost 70 percent of the country and northern states like Coahuila, San Luis Potosi, Sonora, Tamaulipas and Zacatecas have suffered the most acute water shortage.

Due to the drought and a cold snap at the start of the year, the government has cut its forecast for corn production two times in 2011. It now expects a harvest of 20 million tonnes compared to a previous estimate of 23 million. Crops that cover tens of thousands of acres have been lost this year and roughly 450,000 cattle have died in arid pastures. Crucial dams, typically full at this time of year, are at 30 to 40 percent of capacity.

"This is very serious," Ignacio Rivera, an official at the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, told Reuters. "Statistics on precipitation in the country show us that this year has been the driest in the last 70 years." The country has total arable land of 22 million hectares (54.4 million acres) that can be tilled over two planting seasons while the national cattle herd last year was just over 32.6 million.

Mexico is one of the world's five top corn producers and the government expects output to recover to 25 million tonnes in 2012, aided by reorganization of the cultivated areas. Rivera said that of the 8.1 million hectares of farmland insured by the government against natural disaster, some 600,000 claims have been lodged to recover losses on 3.8 million hectares. The Mexican government has so far set aside some 1.6 billion pesos ($113 million) to cover the losses.

Forecasts do not signal any near-term relief, but rather more losses ahead as the winter season brings damaging frost. "It's a troubling situation, and is more worrisome because the rainy season is over... the hope is that by June it starts to rain," said Felipe Arreguin, deputy director of the National Water Commission (Conagua).



Article continues: http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/...7AO18Q20111126

Makes me sick.
 

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2011/11/22/1039016/-Penn-State-victim-bullied-out-of-school
Tue Nov 22, 2011 at 07:32 AM PST.


Penn State victim bullied out of school
Penn State football needs to go. Maybe all college football needs to go. I like a good football game, but there comes a point where we have to draw the line. According to Pennlive.com, Alleged Jerry Sandusky victim leaves school because of bullying, counselor says:

Victim One, the first known alleged victim of abuse by former Penn State coach Jerry Sandusky, had to leave his school in the middle of his senior year because of bullying, his counselor said Sunday.
Officials at Central Mountain High School in Clinton County weren’t providing guidance for fellow students, who were reacting badly about Joe Paterno’s firing and blaming the 17-year-old, said Mike Gillum, the psychologist helping his family. Those officials were unavailable for comment this weekend.

The name-calling and verbal threats were just too much, he said.

The mighty Penn State football program apparently requires the bullying of children to keep its sacred coach in place. Oh, I know, neither Penn State nor the high school sent out a memo, but there was no need. This shit happens because the high school tolerates it and because the weak leadership at Penn State has either done nothing or at least not enough, in the way as working with the high schools of the victims, to help repair the damage caused by their cover up and enabling of the Sandusky crimes.

Anyone who has ever been bullied as a child knows what kind of fear is involved in this situation. The only choice for this child was to withdraw from the school.

I should point out that there was evidence in the grand jury report that witnesses were subjected to what appeared to be pressure and tampering (phone calls by the Sandusky family at odd times, patrolling by Jerry Sandusky in a parking lot, apparently looking for a janitor who'd seen him abusing a child).

A wretched performance by the "adults" in this situation, who are far more concerned about a few wealthy old men and their posts than they are about the children of the commonwealth.


.

Just so wrong.
 

Atlast, have you seen the news on Bernie Fine, assistant basketball coach at Syracuse?

http://espn.go.com/new-york/story/_/...on-allegations

Barney Frank, one of the most prominent out gay politicians, announced his intentions to retire.


http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-kWpe7CFpkx...arneyfrank.jpg


http://mobile.nytimes.com/article?a=873342&f=e

BOSTON - Representative Barney Frank, the liberal firebrand who has served in the House of Representatives for 30 years, has decided not to seek re-election in 2012.

Mr. Frank, 71, will hold a news conference at 1 p.m. in Newton, Mass., to discuss the decision, according to his office.

Mr. Frank faced his most competitive re-election contest in decades last year, when Sean Bielat, a Republican and former Marine, put him on the defensive. But Mr. Frank still won a 16th term by about 10 percentage points.

His Fourth District falls mostly in southern Massachusetts but also includes the famously liberal Boston suburbs of Newton and Brookline. Under a new redistricting plan that Gov. Deval Patrick, a fellow Democrat, signed into law last week, Mr. Frank's district would have lost the heavily Democratic city of New Bedford and gained some more conservative towns.

In February, Mr. Frank announced that he would seek re-election in 2012.

Mr. Frank served as chairman of the House Financial Services Committee until Republicans won control of the chamber this year; he remains the ranking Democrat. He co-wrote the Dodd-Frank law overhauling financial regulation; the other author, Christopher J. Dodd, Democrat of Connecticut, left the Senate last year.

Possible Democratic contenders for Mr. Frank's seat include Setti Warren, the mayor of Newton, and Alan Khazei, who lives in Brookline and co-founded a national service program. Both men dropped out of the Democratic primary race for the United States Senate this fall after Elizabeth Warren, the Harvard professor and consumer advocate, joined the field.

Although Mr. Frank's district is perceived as heavily Democratic, Senator Scott P. Brown, a Republican, narrowly carried the district in the January 2010 special election for Edward M. Kennedy's longtime seat.

Thank you Judge Jed S. Rakoff
 

--------------------------------------------------------------------------
NY Times
November 28, 2011

Judge Blocks Citigroup Settlement With S.E.C.By EDWARD WYATT

WASHINGTON — A federal judge in New York on Monday threw out a settlement between the Securities and Exchange Commission and Citigroup over a 2007 mortgage derivatives deal, saying that the S.E.C.’s policy of settling cases by allowing a company to neither admit nor deny the agency’s allegations did not satisfy the law.

The judge, Jed S. Rakoff of United States District Court in Manhattan, ruled that the S.E.C.’s $285 million settlement, announced last month, is “neither fair, nor reasonable, nor adequate, nor in the public interest” because it does not provide the court with evidence on which to judge the settlement.

The ruling could throw the S.E.C.’s enforcement efforts into chaos, because a majority of the fraud cases and other actions that the agency brings against Wall Street firms are settled out of court, most often with a condition that the defendant does not admit that it violated the law while also promising not to deny it.

That condition gives a company or individual an advantage in subsequent civil litigation for damages, because cases in which no facts are established cannot be used in evidence in other cases, like shareholder lawsuits seeking recovery of losses or damages. The S.E.C.’s policy — “hallowed by history, but not by reason,” Judge Rakoff wrote — creates substantial potential for abuse, the judge said, because “it asks the court to employ its power and assert its authority when it does not know the facts.”

The S.E.C. did not respond immediately to a request for comment on the judge’s decision, which was released Monday morning. A Citigroup spokesman said the company was studying the decision and had no immediate comment.

Citigroup was charged with negligence in its selling to customers a billion-dollar mortgage securities fund, known as Class V Funding III. The S.E.C. alleged that Citigroup picked the securities to be included in the fund without telling investors, claiming that the securities were being chosen by an independent entity. Citigroup then bet against the investments because it believed that they would lose value, the S.E.C. said.

Investors lost $700 million in the fund, according to the S.E.C., while Citigroup gained about $160 million in profits.

The settlement established none of those allegations as fact, thereby making it impossible for the court to properly judge whether the settlement meets the required standard of being fair, adequate and in the public interest.

“An application of judicial power that does not rest on facts is worse than mindless, it is inherently dangerous,” Judge Rakoff wrote in the case, S.E.C. v. Citigroup Global Markets. “In any case like this that touches on the transparency of financial markets whose gyrations have so depressed our economy and debilitated our lives, there is an overriding public interest in knowing the truth.”

The S.E.C. in particular, he added, “has a duty, inherent in its statutory mission, to see that the truth emerges.”

http://http://www.nytimes.com/2011/1...ml?_r=1&emc=na

Right on that's awesome. Hooray for small victories!

There needs to be a BIG clean-up of college sports programs. I think we are going to see many more cases about many schools. Look at the statistics about child sexual abuse and these specific kinds of abusers. These programs and the money and politics in them are fertile grounds for this abuse. The abuser has a double layer of protection with others not wanting to take a program down.

And what the hell is wrong with Fine's wife? Although, more of this kind of keeping quiet will be exposed, I think, including administrations of these schools.

JUSTIA.COM: CA Supreme Court and Prop 8
 

POSTED IN Civil Rights Law (portion of analysis posted here)
November 28, 2011 written by VIKRAM DAVID AMAR AND ALAN E. BROWNSTEIN

The California Supreme Court Rules that Prop. 8’s Proponents Have Standing to Defend the Initiative: What Does That Mean in the Ninth Circuit and U.S. Supreme Court?

The week before last, the California Supreme court held that the official sponsors/proponents of Proposition 8 (Prop. 8) have the authority to defend the initiative in state court on behalf of the voters who passed Prop. 8, now that elected representatives have declined to defend the measure against challenge.

This ruling makes it considerably more likely that the same-sex-marriage controversy will end up in the U.S. Supreme Court sooner rather than later. If the California case does reach the high Court, however, it is still quite unclear, as we explain below, whether the Court will rule on the merits—or instead dismiss the appeal on procedural grounds.

A Summary of the Prop. 8 Litigation Thus Far
Prop. 8, an initiative amending California’s constitution to ban gay/lesbian marriage, was enacted in 2008. In 2009, same-sex couples who sought marriage licenses filed suit in federal court in San Francisco against California officials, alleging that Prop. 8 violated privacy and equality rights under the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

After trial, Judge Walker struck down Prop. 8, ruling that it does indeed violate the federal Constitution. The proponents of Prop. 8 (but not the Governor or the Attorney General) then appealed to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. At that point, the Ninth Circuit posed a question that had not been adequately analyzed theretofore: Does the dispute present a real “case or controversy” that federal courts are permitted to resolve, given that the only defenders of the measure in court are unelected private proponents? In legal terms, the question is whether the initiative proponents have “standing” under the federal Constitution to defend in federal court.

To decide this question, the Ninth Circuit asked for input from the California Supreme court. Using a process known as “certification,” the Ninth Circuit asked the California Justices whether, at least as a matter of California law, initiative proponents enjoy some special capacity to represent the state’s electorate when public officials decline to defend a law adopted through direct democracy.

On November 17, the California Supreme court unanimously said “yes”—for Prop. 8 and for all other initiatives, proponents can defend when public officials won’t. The essential reasoning was straightforward; it would not make sense for elected officials to have the power to let an initiative die for lack of a defense, when the initiative device itself is supposed to be a check on elected officials. Because elected officials may resent an initiative that has circumvented their roles or limited their power, voters have a “legitimate concern” that such officials will sometime fail to undertake a legal defense of initiatives “with vigor” or with “the objectives and interests of [] voters paramount in mind.”

In addition to answering this state-law question, the court—in a somewhat unusual and ambitious move—also rendered its view that proponents should have standing to defend initiatives in federal court (where the Prop. 8 litigation is taking place) as well as state court. The California Justices acknowledged that standing in federal court is a matter not of state law, but rather federal law, and thus one for the federal courts ultimately to decide.
But the California court offered its own reading of U.S. Supreme Court precedents, and indicated its belief that to the extent the U.S. Supreme Court has been skeptical of initiative-proponent standing in federal court in the past, that was only (or largely) because, in the states involved in prior cases, state law did not authorize proponents to represent the state, whereas in California proponents are authorized to do so.

With this input, the Ninth Circuit will now decide whether the Prop. 8 proponents enjoy standing in federal court. It is likely the Ninth Circuit will answer that question in the affirmative, given the signals it sent in crafting the questions it certified. That means the Ninth Circuit panel will likely address Prop. 8 on the merits.

Then if—as is very possible, given the ideological makeup of the three-judge Ninth Circuit panel—the panel affirms Judge Walker’s ruling and strikes down Prop. 8 (holding that there is a federal constitutional right to same-sex marriage), and if the Ninth Circuit does not revisit the case as a whole (en banc), the U.S. Supreme Court may have no choice but to take up the dispute.

After all, under such a scenario, same-sex marriage would be a federal constitutional right West of the Rockies, but nowhere else. Lack of uniformity as to the scope of such a major federal right could not be tolerated for long.

In this regard, it is worth noting that many analysts believe that the Justices in DC use manipulable standing rules to regulate their docket and avoid tackling substantive issues when they want matters to percolate more in the lower courts—and in society—before a final resolution is reached.

We won’t know how any of this will play out for quite a while. The Ninth Circuit could be expected to issue its ruling sometime in 2012, but it’s hard to see the Supreme Court getting involved until late 2012 or (more likely) 2013, at the earliest.

Cain "denies an affair, but not a relationship."
 

I agree with the notion that reporting on our private life as long as it is between consentual adults is out of bounds. I also can understand why such stories get media attention. If most of these hypocrites did not go around discussing and making laws to criminalize the lives of others, maybe there would not be such a backlash when they are exposed in some of their sexual and romantic liaisons.
__________________________________________________ _____________



Woman Claims She Had 13-Year Affair With Herman Cain
Campaign lawyer says the report is out of bounds, Cain won't comment.

By Josh Voorhees | Posted Monday, Nov. 28, 2011, at 5:36 PM ET

An Atlanta woman is claiming that she had a 13-year-long extramarital affair with Herman Cain.

"It was pretty simple," the woman, Ginger White, told Atlanta's FOX 5 in an exclusive interview that is set to be broadcast Monday evening. "It wasn't complicated. I was aware that he was married. And I was also aware I was involved in a very inappropriate situation, relationship."


FOX 5 published excerpts of the interview shortly after 5 p.m. The full story is set to air on the station's 6 p.m. broadcast.

The reporter who conducted the interview, Dale Russell, began promoting his scoop on his Facebook page Monday afternoon, claiming in the online promo that Cain "denies an affair, but not a relationship." In a statement to the news channel later, however, Cain's lawyer did not deny that alleged affair occurred, instead suggesting that the issue was a private matter and that it was out of bounds in terms of what the media should be focused on.


"No individual, whether a private citizen, a candidate for public office or a public official, should be questioned about his or her private sexual life," Cain lawyer Lin Wood said in a statement to FOX 5. "The public's right to know and the media's right to report has boundaries and most certainly those boundaries end outside of one's bedroom door."


Wood added that Cain "has no obligation" to discuss the latest accusations publicly and that "he will not do so even if his principled position is viewed unfavorably by members of the media."

Wood's response to the latest story that threatens to derail Cain's already embattled White House bid is markedly different from the campaign's handling of the previous allegations of sexual harassment against Cain that surfaced at the end of October. Cain's team initially denied that entire story before later offering an evolving response that eventually conceded that the details of the original Politico report were correct.

Here is Wood's full statement to FOX 5:

"Mr. Cain has been informed today that your television station plans to broadcast a story this evening in which a female will make an accusation that she engaged in a 13-year long physical relationship with Mr. Cain. This is not an accusation of harassment in the workplace – this is not an accusation of an assault - which are subject matters of legitimate inquiry to a political candidate. "Rather, this appears to be an accusation of private, alleged consensual conduct between adults - a subject matter which is not a proper subject of inquiry by the media or the public. No individual, whether a private citizen, a candidate for public office or a public official, should be questioned about his or her private sexual life. The public's right to know and the media's right to report has boundaries and most certainly those boundaries end outside of one's bedroom door.

"Mr. Cain has alerted his wife to this new accusation and discussed it with her. He has no obligation to discuss these types of accusations publicly with the media and he will not do so even if his principled position is viewed unfavorably by members of the media."


http://http://slatest.slate.com/post...letter_slatest

http://www.prisonplanet.com/senate-m...out-trial.html

So much for the Constitution.

we lost the Bill of Rights with 'The Patriot Act'. More nails in the coffin

MADISON, Wis. (AP) — Soviet dictator Josef Stalin's daughter, whose defection to the West during the Cold War embarrassed the ruling communists and made her a best-selling author, has died. She was 85.

Lana Peters — who was known internationally by her previous name, Svetlana Alliluyeva — died of colon cancer Nov. 22 in Wisconsin, where she lived off and on after becoming a U.S. citizen, Richland County Coroner Mary Turner said Monday.

Her defection in 1967 — which she said was partly motivated by the poor treatment of her late husband, Brijesh Singh, by Soviet authorities — caused an international furor and was a public relations coup for the U.S. But Peters, who left behind two children, said her identity involved more than just switching from one side to the other in the Cold War. She even moved back to the Soviet Union in the 1980s, only to return to the U.S. more than a year later.

When she left the Soviet Union in 1966 for India, she planned to leave the ashes of her late third husband, an Indian citizen, and return. Instead, she walked unannounced into the U.S. embassy in New Delhi and asked for political asylum. After a brief stay in Switzerland, she flew to the U.S.

Peters carried with her a memoir she had written in 1963 about her life in Russia. "Twenty Letters to a Friend" was published within months of her arrival in the U.S. and became a best-seller.

Upon her arrival in New York City in 1967, the 41-year-old said: "I have come here to seek the self-expression that has been denied me for so long in Russia." She said she had come to doubt the communism she was taught growing up and believed there weren't capitalists or communists, just good and bad human beings. She had also found religion and believed "it was impossible to exist without God in one's heart."

In the book, she recalled her father, who died in 1953 after ruling the nation for 29 years, as a distant and paranoid man.

"He was a very simple man. Very rude. Very cruel," Peters told the Wisconsin State Journal in a rare interview in 2010. "There was nothing in him that was complicated. He was very simple with us. He loved me and he wanted me to be with him and become an educated Marxist."

Soviet Premier Alexei Kosygin denounced Peters as a "morally unstable" and "sick person."

"I switched camps from the Marxists to the capitalists," she recalled in a 2007 interview for the documentary "Svetlana About Svetlana." But she said her identity was far more complex than that and never completely understood.

"People say, 'Stalin's daughter, Stalin's daughter,' meaning I'm supposed to walk around with a rifle and shoot the Americans. Or they say, 'No, she came here. She is an American citizen.' That means I'm with a bomb against the others. No, I'm neither one. I'm somewhere in between. That 'somewhere in between' they can't understand."

Peters' defection came at a high personal cost. She left two children behind in Russia — Josef and Yekaterina — from previous marriages. Both were upset by her departure, and she was never close to either again.

Raised by a nanny with whom she grew close after her mother's death in 1932, Peters was Stalin's only daughter. She had two brothers, Vasili and Jacob. Jacob was captured by the Nazis in 1941 and died in a concentration camp. Vasili died an alcoholic at age 40.

Peters graduated from Moscow University in 1949, worked as a teacher and translator and traveled in Moscow's literary circles before leaving the Soviet Union. She was married four times — the last time to William Wesley Peters, an apprentice of Frank Lloyd Wright. They were married from 1970 to 1973 and had one daughter.

Peters wrote three more books, including "Only One Year," an autobiography published in 1969.

Her father's legacy appeared to haunt her throughout her life, though she tried to live outside of the shadow of her father. She denounced his policies, which included sending millions into labor camps, but often said other Communist Party leaders shared the blame.

"I wish people could see what I've seen," Lana Parshina, who interviewed Peters for "Svetlana About Svetlana," said Monday. "She was very gracious and she was a great hostess. She was sensitive and could quote poetry and talk about various subjects. She was interested in what was going on in the world."

Charles E. Townsend, who was on faculty at Princeton University's Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures when Peters arrived in Princeton in 1967, said she wasn't very politically active.

"She was very pleasant," Townsend said. "Unassuming would be the word for her."

After living in Britain for two years, Peters returned to the Soviet Union with Olga in 1984 at age 58, saying she wanted to be reunited with her children. Her Soviet citizenship was restored, and she denounced her time in the U.S. and Britain, saying she never really had freedom. But more than a year later, she asked for and was given permission to leave after feuding with relatives. She returned to the U.S. and vowed never to go back to Russia.

She went into seclusion in the last decades of her life. Her survivors include her daughter Olga, who now goes by Chrese Evans and lives in Portland, Ore. A son, Josef, died in 2008 at age 63 in Moscow, according to media reports in Russia. Yekaterina (born in 1950), who goes by Katya, is a scientist who studies an active volcano in eastern Siberia.

Evans said in an email that her mother died at a Richland Center nursing home surrounded by loved ones, but she declined to comment further. "Please respect my privacy during this sad time," she said.

Tom Stafford, owner of the funeral home in Richland Center, Wis., handling the arrangements, said no services were planned at this time, though one might be scheduled later.

___

Associated Press writer Ryan J. Foley, in Iowa City, Iowa, and Geoff Mulvihill in Philadelphia contributed to this report.

Posted by Chris Anders, Washington Legislative Office at 10:46am 11/23/11
DETENTION
Senators Demand the Military Lock Up American Citizens in a “Battlefield” They Define as Being Right Outside Your Window

While nearly all Americans head to family and friends to celebrate Thanksgiving, the Senate is gearing up for a vote on Monday or Tuesday that goes to the very heart of who we are as Americans. The Senate will be voting on a bill that will direct American military resources not at an enemy shooting at our military in a war zone, but at American citizens and other civilians far from any battlefield — even people in the United States itself.

Senators need to hear from you, on whether you think your front yard is part of a “battlefield” and if any president can send the military anywhere in the world to imprison civilians without charge or trial.

The Senate is going to vote on whether Congress will give this president—and every future president — the power to order the military to pick up and imprison without charge or trial civilians anywhere in the world. Even Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas) raised his concerns about the NDAA detention provisions during last night’s Republican debate. The power is so broad that even U.S. citizens could be swept up by the military and the military could be used far from any battlefield, even within the United States itself.

The worldwide indefinite detention without charge or trial provision is in S. 1867, the National Defense Authorization Act bill, which will be on the Senate floor on Monday. The bill was drafted in secret by Sens. Carl Levin (D-Mich.) and John McCain (R-Ariz.) and passed in a closed-door committee meeting, without even a single hearing.

I know it sounds incredible. New powers to use the military worldwide, even within the United States? Hasn’t anyone told the Senate that Osama bin Laden is dead, that the president is pulling all of the combat troops out of Iraq and trying to figure out how to get combat troops out of Afghanistan too? And American citizens and people picked up on American or Canadian or British streets being sent to military prisons indefinitely without even being charged with a crime. Really? Does anyone think this is a good idea? And why now?

The answer on why now is nothing more than election season politics. The White House, the Secretary of Defense, and the Attorney General have all said that the indefinite detention provisions in the National Defense Authorization Act are harmful and counterproductive. The White House has even threatened a veto. But Senate politics has propelled this bad legislation to the Senate floor.

But there is a way to stop this dangerous legislation. Sen. Mark Udall (D-Colo.) is offering the Udall Amendment that will delete the harmful provisions and replace them with a requirement for an orderly Congressional review of detention power. The Udall Amendment will make sure that the bill matches up with American values.

In support of this harmful bill, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) explained that the bill will “basically say in law for the first time that the homeland is part of the battlefield” and people can be imprisoned without charge or trial “American citizen or not.” Another supporter, Sen. Kelly Ayotte (R-N.H.) also declared that the bill is needed because “America is part of the battlefield.”

The solution is the Udall Amendment; a way for the Senate to say no to indefinite detention without charge or trial anywhere in the world where any president decides to use the military. Instead of simply going along with a bill that was drafted in secret and is being jammed through the Senate, the Udall Amendment deletes the provisions and sets up an orderly review of detention power. It tries to take the politics out and put American values back in.

In response to proponents of the indefinite detention legislation who contend that the bill “applies to American citizens and designates the world as the battlefield,” and that the “heart of the issue is whether or not the United States is part of the battlefield,” Sen. Udall disagrees, and says that we can win this fight without worldwide war and worldwide indefinite detention.

The senators pushing the indefinite detention proposal have made their goals very clear that they want an okay for a worldwide military battlefield, that even extends to your hometown. That is an extreme position that will forever change our country.

Now is the time to stop this bad idea. Please urge your senators to vote YES on the Udall Amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act.

UPDATE: Don’t be confused by anyone claiming that the indefinite detention legislation does not apply to American citizens. It does. There is an exemption for American citizens from the mandatory detention requirement (section 1032 of the bill), but no exemption for American citizens from the authorization to use the military to indefinitely detain people without charge or trial (section 1013 of the bill). So, the result is that, under the bill, the military has the power to indefinitely imprison American citizens, but it does not have to use its power unless ordered to do so.

But you don’t have to believe us. Instead, read what one of the bill’s sponsors, Sen. Lindsey Graham said about it on the Senate floor: “1031, the statement of authority to detain, does apply to American citizens and it designates the world as the battlefield, including the homeland.”

There you have it — indefinite military detention of American citizens without charge or trial. And the Senate is likely to vote on it Monday or Tuesday 11/29/11!
****************************************
DETENTION
Tags: Carl Levin, detention, indefinite detention, John McCain, Kelly Ayotte, Lindsay Graham, Mark Udall, National Defense Authorization Act, national security, NDAA, Ron Paul

Fantastic!

<--- big fan of index investing for a reason...many reasons, actually

This is just insane!!! WRITE, CALL, FAX!!

It is the hypocracy that makes me angry. All of the family values BS and they are having extra-marital affairs. But, I'm sure like, Newt, Herman has received forgiveness by God..... ARGH!!

principled position ??? Really.

The problem for this woman is that she wants to counsel students in school (I am assuming, as the article states it is a school counseling degree).

She should consider getting a Master's in Counseling/Master's in Divinity at a Christian college and then do outpatient "Christian Counseling". Her dilemma would then be solved. How she thought that she could go to a secular school and have the school not see this as being an issue is beyond me. Clearly she did though, or she would have hidden her feelings.

Thank God she did, too. Otherwise, she would have fucked up a lot of kids.

Atrazine in US Drinking Water Found Widespread

Atrazine is a widely used herbicide. Its use is controversial due to widespread contamination in drinking water and its associations with birth defects and menstrual problems when consumed by humans at concentrations below government standards. Although it has been banned in the European Union, it is still one of the most widely used herbicides in the world. An international team of researchers has reviewed the evidence linking exposure to atrazine — an herbicide widely used in the U.S. and more than 60 other nations — to reproductive problems in animals. The team found consistent patterns of reproductive dysfunction in amphibians, fish, reptiles and mammals exposed to the chemical. The researchers looked at studies linking atrazine exposure to abnormal androgen (male hormone) levels in fish, amphibians, reptiles and mammals and studies that found a common association between exposure to the herbicide and the feminization of male gonads in many animals.

Atrazine is used to stop pre- and post-emergence broadleaf and grassy weeds in major crops. The compound is both effective and inexpensive, and thus is well-suited to production systems with very narrow profit margins, as is often the case with maize.

http://www.enn.com/image_for_article...2-1.jpg/medium

Its effect on yields has been estimated from 6% to 1%, with 3-4% being the conclusion of one review. In another study looking at combined data from 236 university corn field trials from 1986—2005, atrazine treatments showed an average of 5.7 bushels more per acre than alternative herbicide treatments.

Atrazine was banned in the European Union in 2004 because of its persistent groundwater contamination. In the United States, however, atrazine is one of the most widely used herbicides, with 76 million pounds of it applied each year, in spite of the restriction that used to be imposed. Its endocrine disruptor effects, possible carcinogenic effect, and epidemiological connection to low sperm levels in men has led several researchers to call for banning it in the US.

Beasley’s lab was one of the first to find that male frogs exposed to atrazine in the wild were more likely to have both male and female gonadal tissue than frogs living in an atrazine-free environment. And in a 2010 study, Tyrone Hayes, a professor of integrative biology at the University of California at Berkeley and lead author of the review, reported in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences that atrazine exposure in frogs was associated with genetic males becoming females and functioning as females, Beasley said.

The new review describes the disruptions of hormone function and sexual development reported in studies of mammals, frogs, fish, reptiles and human cells exposed to the herbicide. The studies found that atrazine exposure can change the expression of genes involved in hormone signaling, interfere with metamorphosis, inhibit key enzymes that control estrogen and androgen production, skew the sex ratio of wild and laboratory animals (toward female) and otherwise disrupt the normal reproductive development and functioning of males and females.

"One of the things that became clear in writing this paper is that atrazine works through a number of different mechanisms," Hayes said. "It’s been shown that it increases production of (the stress hormone) cortisol. It’s been shown that it inhibits key enzymes in steroid hormone production while increasing others. It’s been shown that it somehow prevents androgen from binding to its receptor."

There also are studies that show no effects — or different effects — in animals exposed to atrazine, Beasley said. "But the studies are not all the same. There are different species, different times of exposure, different stages of development and different strains within a species." All in all, he said, the evidence that atrazine harms animals, particularly amphibians and other creatures that encounter it in the water, is compelling.

For further information: http://news.illinois.edu/news/11/112...alBeasley.html

Photo: http://www.nmenv.state.nm.us/dwb/contaminants/SOCs.htm

200 Pound 3rd Grader Put In Foster Care

Maybe I'm an asshole, but I agree with this 100%. 20 months is a long time, that's nearly 2 years. If in 20 months of working with social workers the family wasn't able to get a handle on this - they never were going to. And apparently since going in to foster care (in October) the kid HAS lost some weight.

For a frame of reference to make clear how big of a deal it is for a 3rd Grade child to weigh 200 pounds: I am 34 years old, a grown woman. I also happen to be considered "obese". And I don't even weigh as much as that 8 year old does. Think about that. If fat Brandy the adult weighs less than 200 pounds - just how much medical trouble IS this 200 pound child in?

When I read this initially I also thought that this was a good thing. But then I thought more about it and I'm on the fence. Imagine what this kind of thing will be like. Fat kids around the country can now, in addition to all the other bull shit they have to deal with, add worrying about losing their family. I can't imagine there really is a plethora of foster parents that are going to take in one child so the fat kid will end up in some kind of group home with a few to a bunch of other kids. Nice experience I'm sure. I can hear the other kids now. Your so fat even your own parents don't want you.

Parents of chubby kids can use this as a threat as well. You better stop eating or the state will come and take you and put you in fat jail. I can't even imagine how many eating disorders overweight kids will face as adults as a direct result of this kind of fear.

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As horrible as this bill sounds, given the strife in the world, it makes sense as a preemptive control strategy. Economics and political bullcrap have lead to rioting and disruptive behavior worldwide. It's only a matter of time before it hits the states with a passion.

Amazing how those in control manage to find ways to guard that control, even if it means going against our very constitution.

George Orwell was just a few decades off eh?

Orwell was a few decades off, if that. And by the way, we're doing it to ourselves and focusing as usual on the sensationalized effects and not the real causes - causes like our dependence on the use of chemicals and herbicdes like Bisphenol A and atrazine - two things I have posted about here.

It makes sense only until they are knocking-breaking down- my door and hauling my ass to Gitmo or some equivalent, for being a lesbian or whatever else that makes me different; the next time a Republican is in power.

They won't need a reason with this bill...

Two Lesbians Raised A Baby



http://front.moveon.org/two-lesbians...Fvcmz.facebook

World Aids Day - Wow...30 years of AIDS
 

I'm taking a moment today to think of the beautiful souls I've known and lost. I'm grateful for their presence in my life and grateful to the activists, researchers, families and fighters who never forgot and never stopped fighting.

30 years ago the Task Force hired the first lobbyist in the nation to focus on AIDS issues. The Task Force ran the first toll-free AIDS hotline in the world early in the epidemic. In 1984, we secured the first federal funding for community-based AIDS service organizations. Today, the Task Force continues to push the federal government as we have for 30 years to ensure that community AIDS service organizations have the funding they so desperately need. We are pleased that the CDC recently granted 34 community organizations $55 million to be spent over the next five years to increase HIV prevention services for those most at risk, including young men of color, transgender youth, and their partners.

But that is not nearly enough. We must also put an end to the discrimination against people with HIV/AIDS, who are disproportionately transgender women, gay and bisexual men, and people of color.

Results from our National Transgender Discrimination Survey showed that transgender individuals have a rate of HIV/AIDS that is more than FOUR times higher than the general population. And, tragically, the survey also found that 1 in 4 transgender African Americans live with HIV/AIDS.

Discrimination and lack of education is the reason for this tragedy.

You can help to end discrimination against people living with HIV by urging your member of Congress to co-sponsor the REPEAL HIV Discrimination Act which addresses the unfair use of criminal and civil laws against those who test positive for HIV. Today, 34 states have laws that criminalize transmission of HIV. It’s time to repeal these harmful laws that demonize people with HIV. Call 202-684-2468 today and tell your representative that this bill needs their support.

We honor and stand with those who have dedicated their lives to the fight against HIV/AIDS. We mourn everyone we have lost in the past three decades and we vow to continue working toward the end of HIV/AIDS. This World AIDS Day, join us in supporting the REPEAL HIV Discrimination Act to reduce the stigma and fear of living with HIV. Take action now – call 202.684.2468.

The federal Food and Drug Administration and a leading doctor are refuting claims by television show host Dr. Mehmet Oz that trace amounts of arsenic in many apple juice products pose a health risk.
Oz said on his show on Tuesday that testing by a New Jersey lab has found what he claims are concerning levels of arsenic in many juices.
However, the FDA says the lab methods were not appropriate and that its own tests show much lower arsenic levels. The agency warned the show's producers in advance that their testing was misleading.
Dr. Richard Besser, former acting head of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, also scolded Oz Thursday on ABC's Good Morning America show for scaring consumers with what Besser called an "extremely irresponsible" report.


I don't understand why the manufacturers don't have a machine to remove the core of the apples prior to processing. This would solve the issue totally. I am assuming that the arsenic is all from the seeds, yes?

Two initiatives filed against teaching of GLBT history in schools
 

The November 17 Capitol Alert issued by the Sacramento Bee reports that one initiative would "repeal Senate Bill 48 mandating Gay Lesbian Bisexual & Transexual history, leaving in place new requirements that students learn about the role of disabled individuals and members of different cultural and ethnic groups."

The other would let parents opt out of GLBT presentations.

http://front.moveon.org/two-lesbians...3Tujw.facebook


if this was my kid i would be soooo damn proud!!!

Please sign the petitions...