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The Weekly Roomer: Current Events II
Friday, 13 July 2007
Tax funded child abuse by Government, therefore by We The People!

Jr. ROTC Forces Districts To Abandon Local Control Of Curriculum and Staff

High School ROTC is a military program run by the military in public and private high schools. The military retains control of the curriculum and must approve any and all instructors. This completely violates the principle of local control. Some local officials may say differently, but they have no power to change the national regulations.

Because women make up only 13% of officer ranks and a lower percentage of NCO ranks, this pool, even before screening by the certification board, is disproportionately male. To create the final list, the certification board then screens out any gay/lesbian/bi or disabled potential applicants. This pre-approved hiring is a flagrant violation of non-discrimination codes.

Additionally, none of these retired officers have to have any educational training or academic teaching certification. The NCOs are not even required to have a college degree.

The military career academies cede even more control to the military. The final section of the regulations for Army Career Academies, states: "DoD retains coordinating authority for the overall Junior ROTC Career Academy Program, including the direction and control of the individual academies."

The Military Dictates the Curriculum

"... the governing authorities of this school agree as follows: a. To provide a course of military instruction prescribed by the Army..."

  • from Application and Contract: Establishment of a Junior Reserve Officers' Training Corps Unit

"The complete course of JROTC/NDCC instruction at any school participating in these programs will be prescribed by DA (ed. note: Department of the Army) (para 5-2c). JROTC/NDCC units will not be established or maintained at schools that do not administer the prescribed course of instruction."

  • from AR 145-2 Section 5-12.a

"The School must enter into an agreement with CNET per Appendix 2, and agree to: a. Provide a program of instruction prescribed by CNET of either a 3-year, or 4-year course at secondary schools (9th-12th grades)." (In article 502.a CNET mandates 48 hours of Military drill per year).

  • from CNET 1553, article 202

The Military Must Approve All Instructors

"Only instructors authorized by this regulation will conduct JROTC/NDCC programs. ... Only instructors whose qualifications and subsequent performance are approved by the region commander will be authorized. Application by the individual or by the school for this approval will be considered to constitute a de facto agreement to the conditions prescribed in this regulation. Continued association with the JROTC/NDCC program is contingent upon the individual meeting these conditions." from AR 145-2, Section 6-3

"To employ a minimum per unit of one retired officer as the Naval Science Instructor (NSI) and one retired officer or enlisted person as the Associate Naval Science Instructor (ANSI) whose qualifications are approved by the Chief of Naval Education and Training to administer and instruct the NJROTC program of instruction." from CNET 1553, Appendix 2, section 2.b.

Schools Are bound by the Contract and the Regulations

"A school that desires to establish a JROTC unit must agree to the terms of the contract in appendix A (DA Form 3126, Application and Agreement for Establishment of a Junior Reserve Officers' Training Corps Unit) and conditions prescribed by this regulation." from AR 145-2 Section 2-5

"The JROTC and NDCC are national programs authorized by laws enacted by Congress and conducted by the Department of the Army in cooperation with educational institutions." from AR 145-2 Section 1-2.

Unless otherwise stated, all quotations are from Army Regulation AR 145-2, or Chief of Naval Education and Training (CNET) Instruction 1533.9H, the federal regulations governing Army and Navy High School ROTC programs.

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Posted by hotelbravo.org at 3:10 PM CDT
Updated: Friday, 13 July 2007 3:12 PM CDT
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Dog finally off Wash. state voter rolls

Thu Jul 12, 12:26 AM ET

SEATTLE - Duncan M. McDonald is finally off the voter rolls after the Australian shepherd-terrier mix was sent absentee ballots for three elections.

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King County Elections Director Sherril Huff said she canceled the voter registration Tuesday for the dog owned by Jane K. Balogh, 66, who registered her pet to protest a change in the law that she said made it too easy for non-citizens to cast ballots.

Balogh put her phone bill in the dog's name, then used that as identification when she mailed in the registration form in April 2006. In November, she wrote "VOID" across Duncan's ballot and returned it with an image of a paw print on the signature line.

She admitted the ruse when an election official called, but the dog was still sent absentee ballots for school bond elections in February and May.

"Quite frankly, the process did take too long, and it should have been addressed after the November election," said Bobbie Egan, an elections office spokeswoman.

County election procedures are being reviewed to provide speedier action against voting fraud, Egan said.

The removal came three weeks after Balogh was charged in King County Superior Court with making a false or misleading statement to a public servant, a misdemeanor. She pleaded not guilty to the charge in June.

A sheriff's investigator wrote that she admitted registering the dog under false pretenses "to make a point that anyone could vote, even an animal."

A preliminary court hearing was pending.


Posted by hotelbravo.org at 2:13 PM CDT
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Embarrassed Lawyer blames Borders for his own inadequate CRITICAL ability to explain CONTEXT.

Borders stores in UK shelve Tintin book

By RAPHAEL G. SATTER, Associated Press Writer Thu Jul 12, 9:16 PM ET

LONDON - Borders is removing "Tintin in the Congo" from the children's section of its British stores, after a customer complained the comic work was racist, the company said Thursday.

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David Enright, a London-based human-rights lawyer, was shopping at Borders with his family when he came upon the book, first published in 1931, and opened it to find what he characterized as racist abuse.

"The material suggests to (children) that Africans are subhuman, that they are imbeciles, that they're half savage," Enright said in a telephone interview.

"My black wife, who actually comes from Africa originally, is sitting there with my boys and I'm about to hand this book to them.... What message am I sending to them? That my wife is a monkey, that they are monkeys?"

The book is the second in a series of 23 tracing the adventures of Tintin, an intrepid reporter, and his dog, Snowy. The series has sold 220 million copies worldwide and been translated in 77 languages.

But "Tintin in the Congo" has been widely criticized as racist by fans and critics alike.

In it, Belgian cartoonist Georges Remi depicts the white hero's adventures in the Congo against the backdrop of an idiotic, chimpanzee-like native population that eventually comes to worship Tintin — and his dog — as gods.

Remi later said he was embarrassed by the book, and some editions have had the more objectionable content removed. When an unexpurgated edition was brought out in Britain in 2005, it came wrapped with a warning and was written with a forward explaining the work's colonial context.

Enright, who said he first complained to Borders and Britain's Commission for Racial Equality about a month ago, argued such a warning was not enough.

"Whether it's got a piece of flimsy paper around it or not, it's irrelevant, it's in the children's section," he said, adding that he felt the book should be treated like pornography or anti-Semitic literature and not displayed in mainstream bookstores at all.

Borders agreed to move the book to its adult graphic novels section, but said in a statement it would continue to sell it.

The Commission for Racial Equality backed Enright, saying in a statement Thursday that the book was full of "hideous racial prejudice."

"The only place that it might be acceptable for this to be displayed would be in a museum, with a big sign saying `old fashioned, racist claptrap.'"

 


Posted by hotelbravo.org at 1:28 PM CDT
Updated: Friday, 13 July 2007 1:53 PM CDT
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"Sicko"
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Posted by hotelbravo.org at 6:42 AM CDT
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http://rawstory.com/news/2007/DC_madam_lawyer_Cheney_isnt_not_0523.html

The RAW Story:

 

  
 

'DC madam' lawyer: Cheney isn't not on phone records
Ron Brynaert
Published: Wednesday May 23, 2007


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Although ABC News claimed that an examination of Deborah Jeane Palfrey's phone records revealed that there weren't any more prominent ex-clients of the DC madam, that hasn't stopped the guessing games and rumour mills from working overtime.

"Vice President Cheney isn’t not on the phone records of the alleged D.C. Madam, who is accused of running a high-price call-girl ring in Washington, the accused madam’s lawyer said on Tuesday," Emily Heil reports for Roll Call. "But then again, the veep isn’t on the list, he said — not necessarily."

Heil continues, "What’s that? Montgomery Blair Sibley, lawyer to alleged madam Deborah Jeane Palfrey, tossed out the age-old 'can neither confirm nor deny' teaser line while appearing with his client at Nathan’s in Georgetown for one of the restaurant’s Q&A Café chatting sessions. But clearly, the headline-hyping Sibley was eager to fan the flames of the bizarre Cheney escort-service rumor, which has popped up in some far corners of the blogosphere."

“'We are investigating some numbers in the McLean area ... and if that turns something up, he might be called as a witness,' Sibley said, referring to the Virginia neighborhood that the vice president once called home," Roll Call reports.

A few weeks ago, DC gossip blog Wonkette gave "[t]hanks to the 700 people who sent in the latest 'anything’s possible' rumor from angry local blogger Wayne Madsen."

"ABC News all but dropped the story when Cheney threatened to jam that prop phone three feet up the ass of Brian Ross," Wonkette mocked. "That’s why the formerly explosive scandal story instead got seven minutes at the end of whatever ABC News show Friday night."

According to Roll Call, "Palfrey and Sibley expressed disappointment, too, over the shortage of boldfaced names in ABC’s reporting on the phone records."

At his website, Madsen mentioned that CBS late night host David Letterman referred to the Cheney rumour.

"Here's a story we're working on now," Letterman said, according to Madsen's account. "Apparently, there are rumors coming out of Washington that Vice President Dick Cheney, when he was the CEO of Halliburton, used to go visit prostitutes. This could explain why one girl was paid two billion dollars. I mean, I was thinking about this and Cheney ... I mean, going to a prostitute, that's ... I mean, I can't believe a good-looking guy like that would ever have to pay for sex, you know what I'm saying?"

Wonkette explained why its staffers were "underwhelmed by this rumor."

"Because even if it’s a fact, which it probably is, there’s no way it would have any impact on Cheney’s 'career,'" Wonkette continued. "This is a draft-dodging half-human war criminal with a pregnant lesbian daughter who tells senators to fuck themselves and shoots his own friends in the face. Ordering an outcall hooker is positively innocent compared to the well-known things Cheney does every day."

FULL ROLL CALL ARTICLE CAN BE READ AT THIS LINK


50 Comments

 


Posted by hotelbravo.org at 4:40 AM CDT
Updated: Friday, 13 July 2007 4:42 AM CDT
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Wednesday, 11 July 2007
Memoir should be a widely accepted review of thirty years of pop music...

Paul Shaffer working on his memoir

Wed Jul 11, 4:28 PM ET

NEW YORK - David Letterman's longtime sidekick, Paul Shaffer, is stepping into the spotlight with a memoir about his show business career.

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"These anecdotes have been accumulating in my mind for the past three-plus decades; it's been a nutty ride, and I felt it imperative to finally commit my reflections to the page ... at least Volume One," Shaffer, 57, said in a statement issued Wednesday by Flying Dolphin Press, an imprint of Random House, Inc.'s Doubleday Broadway Publishing Group.

The book, currently untitled, is scheduled to come out in 2009. Shaffer will work on it with David Ritz, who has collaborated on memoirs by Marvin Gaye and Ray Charles among others.

Shaffer was a musician and performer during the early years of "Saturday Night Live," perhaps best remembered as the piano playing foil for Bill Murray's Nick the Lounge Singer. He was musical director for John Belushi's and Dan Aykroyd's "Blues Brothers" act and is known to "Spinal Tap" fans as radio promoter Artie Fufkin.

Since 1982, Shaffer has worked alongside Letterman, heading up "The World's Most Dangerous Band." He has also played and recorded with countless musicians, including Bob Dylan, B.B. King and Warren Zevon, and co-wrote the 1980s dance classic, "It's Raining Men."


Posted by hotelbravo.org at 6:38 PM CDT
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Thompson not always at GOP core

As a senator, he had a maverick streak that sometimes infuriated activists and colleagues.
By Janet Hook, LA Times Staff Writer
July 10, 2007

WASHINGTON — At the pinnacle of Fred D. Thompson's career in the Senate, a conservative activist was so disappointed in him that he put the Tennessee Republican on a "wanted" poster. Trent Lott of Mississippi, the GOP leader of the Senate, was fuming at him. Republican colleagues were steamed when Thompson threw his weight behind a campaign finance bill that conservatives loathed.

"Has Fred Thompson Blown It?" blared a headline in a conservative magazine, accusing him of squandering an opportunity to use a set of 1997 hearings to nail Democrats for illegal fundraising.

A decade later, as Thompson prepares to formally announce his bid for the 2008 presidential nomination, he is being promoted as a godsend for conservatives dissatisfied with the established field of Republican candidates.

But during his eight-year Senate career, his only stint in elected office, Thompson was far from a champion of the party's conservative core. In fact, in the two enterprises where he made his biggest mark — the fundraising hearings of 1997 and the successful drive for campaign finance overhaul — Thompson infuriated conservatives.

While he compiled a largely conservative voting record, he also carved out a maverick profile akin to that of Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), with whom he co-sponsored a landmark campaign finance measure along with Sen. Russell D. Feingold (D-Wis.).

Ironically, in the 2008 campaign, conservatives are looking to Thompson as an alternative to McCain and other GOP candidates whom they consider unreliable allies on key issues.

An actor, lawyer and lobbyist, Thompson seems to have earned more forgiveness than McCain for breaking with conservative dogma, in part because his maverick streak was tempered by an easygoing manner and a willingness to stick with the GOP on most issues. But it may also be because conservatives who back him now know less about Thompson's Senate record than they do about his performance as a district attorney in the television hit "Law & Order."

"He carries the same baggage that McCain carries," said James Bopp Jr., an antiabortion activist who is backing former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney for the GOP nomination. "Time does dim memories, and people need to be reminded of his support for McCain-Feingold."

"Thompson had a chance to show leadership and did not," said Larry Klayman, the conservative lawyer who issued the "wanted" poster to criticize Thompson for not running more aggressive hearings on President Clinton's fundraising.

"I would not vote for him for president."

That statement underscores one of the biggest questions confronting Thompson: Will conservatives continue to be attracted to him once they know more about his record?

Campaign finance was not the only issue that put Thompson at odds with conservatives during his Senate years.

When the Senate voted in 1998 on impeaching Clinton on charges arising from his affair with an intern, Thompson was one of 10 Republicans who voted against conviction on one of the two counts.

And Thompson, a former trial lawyer, opposed elements of a GOP effort to curb lawsuits.

Also, though he voted with conservatives on many social issues, he did not put those issues front and center.

Abortion may prove to be an unexpectedly touchy area. He built a consistent antiabortion voting record in the Senate, but he also opposed a constitutional amendment to ban abortion.

And questions about his commitment to the antiabortion cause have arisen from claims by a family-planning group and others, reported in Saturday's Los Angeles Times, that Thompson took a paid assignment in 1991 to lobby the administration of President George H. W. Bush to loosen an abortion restriction.

Lately, Thompson has been backpedaling on his support for the McCain-Feingold measure — which sought to limit the influence of big campaign donors in politics — saying that some parts of the law were not working as he hoped.

But Sen. Thompson was a central architect, not a casual supporter, of the measure. Republican leaders and conservative activist groups bitterly opposed the measure, which they believed would disproportionately hurt the GOP and its allies.

Thompson's focus on government overhaul was a logical outgrowth of his first run for the Senate, in 1994. Though he had spent years as a lobbyist and was a senior Senate aide in the 1970s, Thompson ran as a reformoriented outsider railing against the Washington establishment. He was not seen as a hard-line conservative but as more moderate in style and politics, in the mold of his Tennessee mentor Sen. Howard H. Baker Jr.



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Posted by hotelbravo.org at 6:29 PM CDT
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Sometimes one is well served to trust in rumors...

New questions about Jim Morrison's death

By ANGELA DOLAND, Associated Press Writer Wed Jul 11, 2:32 PM ET

PARIS - The official story goes like this: On the last night of Jim Morrison's life, the rocker went to a movie in Paris, listened to records, fell ill and died of heart failure in his bathtub at the age of 27.

But rumors have always swirled around the death of The Doors frontman and, 36 years later, a former Paris nightclub manager is telling a different story. In a new book, Sam Bernett says that Morrison died in a toilet stall of his club after what he believes was a heroin overdose.

He writes of his shock on finding Morrison's body: "The flamboyant singer of 'The Doors,' the beautiful California boy, had become an inert lump crumpled in the toilet of a nightclub." Bernett, whose French-language book is called "The End: Jim Morrison," says he believes two drug dealers brought Morrison's body back to his apartment.

Bernett, who was in his early 20s when Morrison died in 1971, went on to become a prominent radio personality, rock biographer and a vice president of Disneyland Paris. Though he was pestered for years by reporters investigating Morrison's death, he kept his story quiet until his wife suggested writing a book last year.

"For me it's a very bad (memory)," Bernett told The Associated Press.

Rumors have long suggested that Morrison died of an overdose and that he had fallen ill at the nightclub, but witnesses did not come forward.

Patrick Chauvel, a noted war photographer and writer, sometimes helped run the bar at the club. He recalls giving a hand to men who were carrying Morrison in a staircase there.

"I think he was already dead," said Chauvel, who considered putting the episode in a 2005 book before his publisher cautioned against it. Chauvel said he thought an ambulance would have been called if Morrison were still alive.

"I don't know," he said. "It was a long time ago, and we weren't drinking only water."

An official at the Paris prosecutor's office said it was very unlikely the case on Morrison's death would be reopened or that anybody could be prosecuted in the affair, because the statute of limitations — the time limit on legal proceedings — had run out.

Stephen Davis, the author of "Jim Morrison: Life, Death, Legend," says he would not rewrite history because of the new book. Based on his reporting, he believes Morrison did overdose at the club, but that it was shortly before his death — not the same night — and that he survived the experience.

"It just seems likely that if he died in the toilet of a nightclub, it would have come out before now," Davis said.

Morrison came to Paris in March 1971 at a troubled time in his life. At a 1969 concert in Florida, he was accused of exposing his genitals to the audience. He was convicted of indecent exposure and profanity, and the episode led to promoters canceling concerts and earned the band a stream of negative publicity.

Morrison left for Paris with his appeal pending. There, he lived in a Right Bank apartment with his girlfriend, Pamela Courson, and he wandered the streets, sightseeing and toting around a plastic bag containing his writings. In Paris, he gained so much weight as to become almost unrecognizable, and his health suffered.

He also partied. Morrison spent "practically every night" at the Rock and Roll Circus, the hip Left Bank nightclub that Bernett managed, where stars like Roman Polanski and Marianne Faithfull were regulars, Bernett said.

At around 1 a.m. on July 3, 1971, Morrison went to the club and was joined by two men — drug dealers who sold him heroin for Courson, Bernett said. At one point, Bernett noticed that Morrison had disappeared. Later, the bouncer broke down the door of a locked toilet stall, and they discovered Morrison unresponsive, Bernett said.

Bernett says he asked a doctor, a club customer, to examine the singer.

"When we found him dead, he had a little foam on his nose, and some blood too, and the doctor said, 'That must be an overdose of heroin,'" Bernett said. Bernett added that he did not see Morrison take any heroin that night but said the singer was known to sniff the drug because he was afraid of needles.

Bernett says the two drug dealers insisted Morrison was just unconscious and carried him out of the club. Though Bernett says he wanted to call the paramedics and authorities, the club's owner ordered him to keep quiet to avert a scandal.

Bernett believes the dealers brought Morrison's body home and dropped it into the bathtub, a last attempt to revive him.

Morrison's girlfriend, who died three years later of an overdose, told police an entirely different story.

Courson said the couple went to the movies and out for dinner that night, listened to records and fell asleep. According to her testimony in police records, Morrison awoke in the night feeling ill and took a hot bath. Courson said she found him dead in the tub.

Morrison was buried in Pere Lachaise cemetery, in a small ceremony without fanfare, on July 7, 1971. No autopsy was ever performed.

__

Associated Press Writer Verena von Derschau in Paris contributed to this report.


Posted by hotelbravo.org at 6:19 PM CDT
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Tuesday, 10 July 2007
Quiet revolution...

Peace Activist's Son Discovers Pain of War

Aaron Glantz, OneWorld US Tue Jul 10, 11:41 AM ET

SAN FRANCISCO, Jul 10 (OneWorld) - The U.S. military has expelled the son of a leading peace activist for going AWOL after returning from a year tour in Iraq.

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Specialist Shaun Manuel, whose father Michael McPhearson directs the organization Veterans for Peace, was given a bad-conduct discharge last month after failing to report for training for a second tour.

When Manuel signed up for the Army in December 2003, his father, Michael McPherson, tried to talk him out of it. A veteran of the first Gulf War, McPherson was a vociferous opponent of the second.

But Manuel wouldn't listen to his father's admonitions. He was assigned to the 101 Airborne Division and in September 2005 deployed for a year-long tour running convoys and warehouse operations in Tikrit.

As he dealt with the daily danger of mortar rounds and roadside bombs, Manuel said, he began to share his father's perspective.

"It was like I was over there for no reason," he said. "We weren't accomplishing anything. It was like we were doing the same thing every day and they wouldn't tell us nothing about what was going on at the Pentagon."

Manuel said he repeatedly asked his chain of command, "Why am I over here?" but they didn't provide him with an answer.

It was "like they were ready to come home too," he said. "What I was thinking -- it was on their face."

While Manuel was in Iraq, his wife gave birth to their third son, Jeremiah. But the joyous occasion turned sour when Jeremiah was diagnosed with a genetic disease called Muscular Spinal Atrophy and died in January of this year.

Manuel said the situation was made even more painful when his superiors ordered him to begin training for a second tour in Iraq.

"My son passed away," he said. "You gonna' send an emotionally distressed soldier to Iraq -- who knows what he's going to do? I'm ready to just blow the whole world up because I didn't see my son being born and then he just passed away on me with no warning."

Manuel never filed paperwork to medically excuse him from the deployment. Instead, he withdrew and buried himself in alcohol. He estimates he drank three fifths of liquor a day. At one point, his wife had to call the police during a domestic disturbance.

In response, the Army threw him in a local county jail and kicked him out of the military with a bad-conduct discharge, which will deny him medical benefits he might have been able to use to get his life back together again.

It's a common story.

In the first four years of the Iraq war, for example, 1,019 Marines were dismissed with less-than-honorable discharges for misconduct committed after overseas deployments.

Navy Capt. William Nash, who coordinates the Marines' combat stress program, told USA Today last week that at least 326 of the discharged Marines showed evidence of mental health problems, possibly from combat stress.

Nash told the paper he hoped that "any Marine or sailor who commits particularly uncharacteristic misconduct following deployment...be aggressively screened for stress disorders and treated."

"If a Marine who was previously a good, solid Marine -- never got in trouble -- commits misconduct after deployment and turns out they have PTSD {Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder), and because of justice they lose their benefits, that may not be justice," Nash said.

David Walker is a Vietnam veteran and police chaplain who's been helping returning soldiers work their way through military bureaucracy. He notes that most American soldiers are only being given six months in the United States between deployments -- five months of which is generally spent training for the next tour.

Cases like Shaun Manuel's, he said, are increasingly common.

"It'd be like sending out your first-string football team and there's no defense, no offense, there's no kickoff team, there's no punt return team -- everybody that's on that line is on the line for the duration of the game," Walker said. "When it's over with, you get an hour break and you play another team with the same string of guys."

"It's burning people out," he said.

Like many soldiers who have returned from Iraq, Manuel has never seen a military psychiatrist. He never asked to see one and now that he's been chaptered out of the Army he won't be able to see one in the future.

His father, Veterans for Peace Director Michael McPhearson, is helping Manuel file an appeal to regain his medical benefits.

In the meantime, McPhearson sees the glass as half full.

"I feel relief," he told OneWorld. "I was so concerned about him going into the military in the first place. Then he goes to Iraq, so there was a year of me saying 'Oh my God, is my son going to come back? How guilty am I going to feel if something happens to him?' Now I'm through all that. The worst thing that could happen now is that he does what many young people do, which is not to follow a good path in life."

"But he's not going to be killed in Iraq," McPhearson said. "I know that. So I've just got be a good father and help him as best I can."

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Tuesday, 3 July 2007
New York Times Op-Ed...Al Gore
Op-Ed Contributor

Moving Beyond Kyoto

Published: July 1, 2007

Nashville

WE — the human species — have arrived at a moment of decision. It is unprecedented and even laughable for us to imagine that we could actually make a conscious choice as a species, but that is nevertheless the challenge that is before us.

Our home — Earth — is in danger. What is at risk of being destroyed is not the planet itself, but the conditions that have made it hospitable for human beings.

Without realizing the consequences of our actions, we have begun to put so much carbon dioxide into the thin shell of air surrounding our world that we have literally changed the heat balance between Earth and the Sun. If we don’t stop doing this pretty quickly, the average temperature will increase to levels humans have never known and put an end to the favorable climate balance on which our civilization depends.

In the last 150 years, in an accelerating frenzy, we have been removing increasing quantities of carbon from the ground — mainly in the form of coal and oil — and burning it in ways that dump 70 million tons of CO2 every 24 hours into the Earth’s atmosphere.

The concentrations of CO2 — having never risen above 300 parts per million for at least a million years — have been driven from 280 parts per million at the beginning of the coal boom to 383 parts per million this year.

As a direct result, many scientists are now warning that we are moving closer to several “tipping points” that could — within 10 years — make it impossible for us to avoid irretrievable damage to the planet’s habitability for human civilization.

Just in the last few months, new studies have shown that the north polar ice cap — which helps the planet cool itself — is melting nearly three times faster than the most pessimistic computer models predicted. Unless we take action, summer ice could be completely gone in as little as 35 years. Similarly, at the other end of the planet, near the South Pole, scientists have found new evidence of snow melting in West Antarctica across an area as large as California.

This is not a political issue. This is a moral issue, one that affects the survival of human civilization. It is not a question of left versus right; it is a question of right versus wrong. Put simply, it is wrong to destroy the habitability of our planet and ruin the prospects of every generation that follows ours.

On Sept. 21, 1987, President Ronald Reagan said, “In our obsession with antagonisms of the moment, we often forget how much unites all the members of humanity. Perhaps we need some outside, universal threat to recognize this common bond. I occasionally think how quickly our differences would vanish if we were facing an alien threat from outside this world.”

We — all of us — now face a universal threat. Though it is not from outside this world, it is nevertheless cosmic in scale.

Consider this tale of two planets. Earth and Venus are almost exactly the same size, and have almost exactly the same amount of carbon. The difference is that most of the carbon on Earth is in the ground — having been deposited there by various forms of life over the last 600 million years — and most of the carbon on Venus is in the atmosphere.

As a result, while the average temperature on Earth is a pleasant 59 degrees, the average temperature on Venus is 867 degrees. True, Venus is closer to the Sun than we are, but the fault is not in our star; Venus is three times hotter on average than Mercury, which is right next to the Sun. It’s the carbon dioxide.

This threat also requires us, in Reagan’s phrase, to unite in recognition of our common bond.

Next Saturday, on all seven continents, the Live Earth concert will ask for the attention of humankind to begin a three-year campaign to make everyone on our planet aware of how we can solve the climate crisis in time to avoid catastrophe. Individuals must be a part of the solution. In the words of Buckminster Fuller, “If the success or failure of this planet, and of human beings, depended on how I am and what I do, how would I be? What would I do?”

Live Earth will offer an answer to this question by asking everyone who attends or listens to the concerts to sign a personal pledge to take specific steps to combat climate change. (More details about the pledge are available at algore.com.)

But individual action will also have to shape and drive government action. Here Americans have a special responsibility. Throughout most of our short history, the United States and the American people have provided moral leadership for the world. Establishing the Bill of Rights, framing democracy in the Constitution, defeating fascism in World War II, toppling Communism and landing on the moon — all were the result of American leadership.

Once again, Americans must come together and direct our government to take on a global challenge. American leadership is a precondition for success.

Al Gore, vice president from 1993 to 2001, is the chairman of the Alliance for Climate Protection. He is the author, most recently, of “The Assault on Reason.”


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Monday, 2 July 2007
More than at first meets the eye...

China's terracotta tomb site hides mystery building

Sun Jul 1, 1:44 AM ET

BEIJING (Reuters) - The tomb of China's first emperor, guarded for more than 2,000 years by 8,000 terracotta warriors and horses, has yielded up another archaeological secret.

After five years of research, archaeologists have confirmed that a 30-meter-high building is buried in the vast mausoleum of Emperor Qinshihuang near the former capital, Xian, in the northwestern province of Shaanxi, Xinhua news agency said on Sunday.

Duan Qingbo, a researcher with Shaanxi Institute of Archaeology, said the building might have been constructed for the soul of the emperor to depart.

Archaeologists have been using remote sensing technology since 2002 to study the internal structure of the unexcavated mausoleum.

They concluded that the building, buried above the main tomb, had four surrounding stair-like walls with nine steps each, Xinhua said.

Qinshihuang unified China in 221 BC.

The life-size terracotta army, buried in pits near the mausoleum to guard the emperor in the afterlife, was accidentally unearthed in 1974 by farmers who were digging a well.


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Disaster good for those willing to work hard!

Katrina brought a wave of Hispanics

By JOHN MORENO GONZALES, Associated Press Writer Mon Jul 2, 3:02 PM ET

NEW ORLEANS - For proof that Hurricane Katrina is transforming the ethnic flavor of New Orleans — and creating altogether new tensions — look no further than the taco trucks.

Lunch trucks serving Latin American fare are appearing around New Orleans, catering to the immigrant laborers who streamed into the city in search of work after Katrina turned much of the place into a construction zone.

The trucks are a common sight in barrios from Los Angeles to New York, but controversial in a city still adapting to a threefold increase in Hispanics since Katrina.

Officials in suburban Jefferson Parish recently banned the trucks as eyesores and health hazards. New Orleans officials said they welcome the new business, but promised to make sure the number of vehicles does not exceed the municipal limit.

The mobile luncheonettes are operated mostly by Mexican and Central American families.

"I'm looking for an opportunity. That's why I left my country, and that's what led me here," said Maria Fuentes, 55, who came to the United States from Mexico a decade ago and settled in New Orleans after the storm. "This is the first time I've owned my own business and my dream is to have traditional restaurants, not trucks, all over this town."

The six-wheel vans have Spanish names emblazoned on their sides like "La Texanita" and "Taqueria Buen Gusto," and, like street vendors in Latin America, serve such dishes as carne asada, or grilled steak, pork and chicken, garnished with sliced radishes and diced cilantro.

Beverages include tamarind- and guava-flavored drinks, often in the old-time bottles that require an opener, just as in Latin America.

The trucks usually park on street corners in areas with heavy construction activity, attracting laborers and native New Orleanians alike.

"It's better than Taco Bell. I can tell you that," said Michael Gould, 53, who lined up at Fuentes' truck during a recent lunch hour.

Still, the Jefferson Parish councilman who restricted the trucks characterized them as unwanted residue from the hurricane.

"We've been trying to handle blighted housing, FEMA trailers, abandoned housing," said Louis Congemi, whose zoning ordinance takes effect this weekend and is expected to clear the parish of taco trucks. "This is just one more thing we're trying to get under control to make sure we bring our parish back to normalcy."

Congemi added: "You have to be concerned about the cleanliness of these vehicles."

Louisiana state records show licenses for about 40 taco trucks in Jefferson and Orleans parishes. They are inspected annually, like all street vendors.

"They're up to speed with their licensing," department spokesman Bob Johannessen said. "We haven't received any sort of complaint about food quality, anything that would indicate a public health concern."

New Orleans officials said that because of the Jefferson Parish ban, they will watch the number of trucks that move to their city and will enforce rules limiting the number of food vehicles to 100 on non-festival days.

Nevertheless, "I'm more than sure it is welcome in the city," said David Robinson-Morris, a spokesman for Mayor Ray Nagin. "It is providing a service, and it is a part of our sales tax revenue."

New Orleans has seen its Hispanic population rise from 15,000 before the storm to an estimated 50,000 now, according to the city. The city's overall population has dropped from about 450,000 before the storm to about 250,000 now.

In the months after Katrina, the mayor created a furor when he was quoted as saying: "Businesses are concerned with making sure we are not overrun by Mexican workers." In his subsequent re-election campaign, however, he praised Hispanics for their work ethic.

Fuentes operates her truck with daughters Karina, 31, Carolina, 20, and business partner Pedro Reyes, 57. They said they rise every morning at 4 a.m. for prep work, then set up shop at the corner of Canal and Robert E. Lee boulevards by 8 a.m.

Their workday ends at 6 p.m., after they have cleaned up the mobile kitchen for the next day.

It took $52,000 in savings to start the business, including $25,000 for the used van. Fuentes said the start-up costs have recently been paid off, and now the family is saving for their first restaurant without wheels.

"That's what they call the American Dream, isn't it?" she said. "I really like the people here in New Orleans and we want to live here and have our business here."


Posted by hotelbravo.org at 10:24 PM CDT
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Want to buy a castle?

For sale: Dracula's Castle in Romania

By ALEXANDRU ALEXE, Associated Press Writer Mon Jul 2, 2:51 PM ET

BUCHAREST, Romania - Romania's former royal family put "Dracula's Castle" in Transylvania up for sale Monday, hoping to secure a buyer who will respect "the property and its history," a U.S.-based investment company said.

The Bran Castle, perched on a cliff near Brasov in mountainous central Romania, is a top tourist attraction because of its ties to Prince Vlad the Impaler, the warlord whose cruelty inspired Bram Stoker's 1897 novel, "Dracula."

Legend has it that Vlad, who earned his nickname because of the way he tortured his enemies, spent one night in the 1400s at the castle.

Bran Castle was built in the 14th century to serve as a fortress to protect against the invading Ottoman Turks. The royal family moved into the castle in the 1920s, living there until the communist regime confiscated it from Princess Ileana in 1948.

After being restored in the late 1980s and following the end of communist rule in Romania, it gained popularity as a tourist attraction known as "Dracula's Castle."

In May 2006, the castle was returned to Princess Ileana's son, Archduke Dominic Habsburg.

Habsburg, a 69-year-old New York architect, pledged to keep it open as a museum until 2009 and offered to sell the castle last year to local authorities for $80 million, but the offer was rejected.

On Monday, he put the castle up for sale "to the right purchaser under the right circumstances," said Michael Gardner, chief executive of Baytree Capital, the company representing Habsburg. "The Habsburgs are not in the business of managing a museum."

No price was announced, though Gardner predicted the castle would sell for more than $135 million. He added that Habsburg will only sell it to a buyer "who will treat the property and its history with appropriate respect."

Habsburg said in a statement: "Aside from the castle's connection to one of the most famous novels ever written, Bran Castle is steeped in critical events of European history dating from the 14th century to the present."

According to a contract signed when the castle was returned, the government pays rent to Habsburg to run the castle as a museum for three years, charging admission. After 2009, Habsburg will have full control of the castle, Gardner said.

The government has priority as a buyer if it can match the best offer for the castle, he said.

Opposition lawmakers have claimed the government's decision to return the castle to Habsburg was illegal because of procedural errors.

In recent years, the castle — complete with occasional glimpses of bats flying around its ramparts at twilight — has attracted filmmakers looking for a dramatic backdrop for films about Dracula and other horror movies.

Some 450,000 people visit the castle every year, Gardner said.

___

On the Net:

http://www.brancastlemuseum.ro


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Never ending; never ending; never ending corruption from the TOP DOWN!

Bush spares Libby from prison

By Andy Sullivan and Tabassum Zakaria 2 hours, 1 minute ago

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President George W. Bush on Monday spared former White House aide Lewis "Scooter" Libby from prison, enraging Democrats who accused Bush of abusing power in a case that has fueled debate over the Iraq war.

Stalwart conservatives in Bush's Republican party had pressured him to pardon Libby -- Vice President Dick Cheney's former chief of staff -- and saw him as the victim of an overly zealous prosecutor. He was sentenced last month to 2-1/2 years in prison for obstructing a CIA leak probe and his imprisonment was imminent.

Democrats swiftly condemned Bush's decision. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada called it "disgraceful" and Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy of Vermont said it was "emblematic of a White House that sees itself as being above the law."

Bush stopped short of an outright pardon, leaving intact a $250,000 fine and Libby's two-years' probation. Libby still plans to appeal the conviction, his lawyer William Jeffress said.

"I respect the jury's verdict," Bush said in a statement. "But I have concluded that the prison sentence given to Mr. Libby is excessive. Therefore, I am commuting the portion of Mr. Libby's sentence that required him to spend 30 months in prison."

"HISTORY WILL JUDGE HIM HARSHLY"

Conservatives, who lately have been at odds with Bush over his support for an immigration overhaul they called an amnesty for illegal immigrants, applauded Bush's decision.

"While for a long time I have urged a pardon for Scooter, I respect the president's decision. This will allow a good a man who has done a lot for his country to resume his life," said former Tennessee Republican Sen. Fred Thompson, a likely 2008 presidential candidate who helped raise money for Libby's defense.

Libby, 56, was convicted in March of lying and obstructing an investigation into who blew the cover of a CIA officer, Valerie Plame, whose husband, former Ambassador Joseph Wilson, had criticized the Iraq war.

Libby was not convicted of leaking Plame's identity to the media. But Plame said the unmasking destroyed her career and was retaliation after her husband accused the Bush administration of manipulating intelligence to build its case for the Iraq war which most Americans now oppose.

Democrats who have launched several investigations into the Bush administration were livid at the scrapping of Libby's prison sentence.

"The Constitution gives President Bush the power to commute sentences, but history will judge him harshly for using that power to benefit his own vice president's chief of staff who was convicted of such a serious violation of law," Reid said.

Delaware Democratic Sen. Joe Biden, running for his party's presidential nomination, called on Americans "to flood the White House with phone calls tomorrow expressing their outrage over this blatant disregard for the rule of law."

"George Bush and his cronies think they are above the law and the rest of us live with the consequences. The cause of equal justice in America took a serious blow today," said former North Carolina Sen. John Edwards, a Democrat running for president.

But a senior Republican in the House of Representatives, Roy Blunt of Missouri, applauded Bush.

"The prison sentence was overly harsh and the punishment did not fit the crime. The sentence was based on charges that had nothing to do with the leak of the identity of a CIA operative," Blunt said.

The announcement about Libby came at the start of the Independence Day holiday week with Congress in recess and at the end of a day in which the news was dominated by Bush's talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Bush, who has granted few pardons as president, issued a lengthy statement defending his move as an attempt to split the difference between critics who thought the punishment did not fit the crime and those who felt Libby deserved what he got because he lied under oath.

A legal expert said Bush gave Libby special treatment.

"This is a complete departure from the usual procedures for pardons. Scooter Libby is getting something that prisoners would die for," legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin told CNN.


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Sunday, 1 July 2007
New Mexico's Governor MUST BE ELECTED PRESIDENT!

Law requires N.M. to grow its own pot

By DEBORAH BAKER, Associated Press Writer Sat Jun 30, 7:52 AM ET

SANTA FE, N.M. - New Mexico has a new medical marijuana law with a twist: It requires the state to grow its own.


The law, effective Sunday, not only protects medical marijuana users from prosecution — as 11 other states do — but requires New Mexico to oversee a production and distribution system for the drug.

"The long-term goal is that the patients will have a safe, secure supply that doesn't mean drug dealers, that doesn't mean growing their own," said Reena Szczepanski, director of Drug Policy Alliance New Mexico.

The state Department of Health must issue rules by Oct. 1 for the licensing of marijuana producers and in-state, secured facilities, and for developing a distribution system.

The law was passed in March and signed by Gov. Bill Richardson, who is running for the Democratic presidential nomination.

Other states with medical marijuana laws are Alaska, California, Colorado, Hawaii, Maine, Montana, Nevada, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont and Washington. Maryland's law doesn't protect patients from arrest, but it keeps defendants out of jail if they can convince judges they needed marijuana for medical reasons.

Connecticut's governor vetoed a medical marijuana bill recently.

The distribution and use of marijuana are illegal under federal law, and the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 2005 in a California case that medical marijuana users can be prosecuted.

Faced with that dilemma, the health department has asked state Attorney General Gary King whether its employees could be federally prosecuted for running the medical marijuana registry and identification card program, and whether the agency can license marijuana producers and facilities.

"The production part is unprecedented. ... No other state law does that," said Dr. Steve Jenison, who is running the program for the health department. "So we're trying to be very thoughtful in how we proceed."

In the meantime, however, patients must obtain their own supplies.

The state will immediately begin taking applications from patients whose doctors certify they are eligible for the program.

Within weeks, approved patients — or their approved primary caregivers — would receive temporary certificates allowing them to possess up to six ounces of marijuana, four mature plants and three immature seedlings. That's enough for three months, the department says.

The law allows the use of marijuana for specified conditions including cancer, glaucoma, multiple sclerosis, epilepsy and HIV-AIDS, as well as by some patients in hospice care.

An eight-member advisory board of doctors could recommend that other conditions be added to the list.

Martin Walker was diagnosed four years ago as HIV positive and uses marijuana to combat nausea and depression. He said he looks forward to being able to obtain the drug legally.

"If there's a system in place that's going to allow me to do this treatment without having to break the law ... I'll just be able to sleep better at night," said Walker, who runs HIV prevention and other outdoor-based adult health programs for the Santa Fe Mountain Center.


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