By Jonathan Petre, Religion Correspondent
Last Updated: 2:03am BST 27/06/2007
Human-animal hybrid embryos conceived in the laboratory - so-called “chimeras” - should be regarded as human and their mothers should be allowed to give birth to them, the Roman Catholic Church said yesterday.
Under draft Government legislation to be debated by Parliament later this year, scientists will be given permission for the first time to create such embryos for research as long as they destroy them within two weeks.
But the Catholic bishops of England and Wales, in a submission to the Parliamentary joint committee scrutinising the draft legislation, said that the genetic mothers of “chimeras” should be able to raise them as their own children if they wished.
The bishops said that they did not see why these “interspecies” embryos should be treated any differently than others.
The wide-ranging draft Human Tissue and Embryo Bill, which aims to overhaul the laws on fertility treatment, will include sections on test tube babies, embryo research and abortion. Ministers say that the creation of animal-human embryos - created by injecting animal cells or DNA into human embryos or human cells into animal eggs - will be heavily regulated.
They insist that it will be against the law to implant “chimeras” - named after the mythical creature that was half man and half animal - into a woman’s womb.
The bishops, who believe that life begins at conception, said that they opposed the creation of any embryo solely for research, but they were also anxious to limit the destruction of such life once it had been brought into existence.
In their submission to the committee, they said: “At the very least, embryos with a preponderance of human genes should be assumed to be embryonic human beings, and should be treated accordingly.
“In particular, it should not be a crime to transfer them, or other human embryos, to the body of the woman providing the ovum, in cases where a human ovum has been used to create them.
“Such a woman is the genetic mother, or partial mother, of the embryo; should she have a change of heart and wish to carry her child to term, she should not be prevented from doing so.”
The draft Bill will also allow the screening of embryos for genetic or chromosomal abnormalities that might lead to serious medical conditions, disabilities, or miscarriage. It will permit doctors to check whether an embryo could provide a suitable tissue match for a sibling suffering from a life-threatening illness.
The Bill would abolish the requirement for fertility clinics to consider the need for a father when deciding on treatment. This means clinics will no longer be able to deny treatment to lesbians and single mothers.
The Catholic bishops said that most of the procedures covered by the Bill “should not be licensed under any circumstances”, principally on the grounds that they violate human rights.
Friday, June 29, 2007
Half Human - Half Animal embryo Experiments to be debated by Parliament this Year.
Thursday, June 28, 2007
Tuesday, June 26, 2007
Off Duty Police Beating up a Female Bartender
See this Chicago police officer beat a female bartender becuase she refused to serve him more alcohol.
Correctional officers caught on tape beating inmates in California
Six correctional officers were caught on surveillance cameras hitting two young wards in Stockton's N.A. Chaderjian Youth Correctional Facility.
The tape shows a young man on the ground with his hands behind his back and a guard kneeling on him, hitting him in the face 28 times.
A second guard kicked another youth in the stomach while four other correctional officers watched. Another employee sprays the wards with Mace.
The guards, supported by the correctional officers union, appealed the California Youth Authority's decision to fire them and received a judge's recommendation to get their jobs back.
A video was released , due in part to state Sen. Gloria Romero's push for more transparency in the correctional system.
"I am very disappointed with the decision today," said Romero, D-Los Angeles. "But we won't be deterred by this in our efforts to eradicate the code of silence and excessive use of force in the system."
The youth system was given a failing grade from the state's Office of the Inspector General.
The Stockton facility, commonly known as Chad, lost its high school accreditation, and its superintendent was fired for using excessive force against a ward.
An OIG report stated that counselors only spent 10 percent of their time counseling because they are "busy with security functions."
Handcuffed suspect being tasered by officer in holding cell
04-12-2007
Police from Denver released a tape today of one of it's officers using a taser on a handcuffed suspect.
Denver's police monitor called the accident an example of unnecessary and excessive force.
LAPD Beating
The man in the white shirt on the left walks towards police and is clubbed. Others are also clubbed, and a person in wheelchair is knocked over. Screams of "he's mentally retarded" can be heard. An officer on a bike deliberately smashes into two people taping the incident. Other cops club them, even after they're on the ground. After several seconds of them not moving, a cop clubs them again and is pushed back by another cop.
News Report of LAX Police TASERing Unarmed Senior Citizen
This video shows the TASER marks on the victim, as well as his age and an indication of his relative strength. Do you really think three 20-something policemen couldn't handle this guy without a taser?
Cops Indicted for Murder
Cops Indicted for Murder
Reported by: Elaine Reyes
Web Editor: Tracey Christensen
Last Modified: 4/26/2007 1:26:30 PM
A grand jury returned murder indictments against two Atlanta police officers for the botched drug raid that ended in the death of a 92-year-old woman last November. A third officer was indicted on lesser charges of making false statements, false imprisonment and violating his oath of office.
The grand jury issued the indictments Wednesday but they were not read until a court hearing Thursday morning (read the charges). The two officers indicted on felony murder charges -- Jason R. Smith and recently retired officer Gregg Junnier -- were due in court to enter their pleas in the case early Thursday afternoon. The third officer who does not face murder charges, Arthur Tesler, will try to get bond.
Both Smith and Junnier are reportedly working on plea deals. Tesler, who maintains that he was in the back of the house when Kathryn Johnston was shot to death, refused to make a deal and was indicted on the least serious charges.
"There were some mistakes made, but Officer Tesler was the low man on the totem poll. He was the junior officer and he was following the instructions of his senior officers," said his attorney, Bill McKenny.
Tesler had been on the force just eight months when the drug raid took place after the undercover narcotics officers obtained a no-knock warrant. When they stormed Johnston's Neal Street home searching for cocaine, she opened fire with a gun she kept for protection. The officers returned fire, killing Johnston.
Tesler was one of two officers to make a statement to the grand jury as they considered the case Wednesday. His attorney said he believes that statement is the reason the grand jury indicted his client on lesser charges.
"I guess you know his wife is pregnant. They cried, they hugged and they're just trying to calm down now. Again, the pressure's gonna build up because obviously there's an indictment but the big pressure has been released a little bit," said McKenny.
Officer Smith was indicted on 13 charges -- the most of all three officers. The charges include four felony murder counts, violation of his oath of office, false statements, burglary, and perjury.
Junnier was indicted on nine charges, including three felony murder counts, violation of his oath of office, false statements and burglary.
Speaking for Johnston's family, the Rev. Markel Hutchins said the woman's closest relatives are pleased with the indictments. Hutchins said Johnston should be viewed as a hero for exposing corruption in the police department.
"This was a time bomb waiting to explode. It exploded and ended in the death of Kathryn Johnston and this community, in fact this nation, owes a great debt of gratitude to Kathryn Johnston so one of the things that we're going to continue to call for is that the city of Atlanta will honor her because she really is, she really is a hero, even in death," said Rev. Hutchins.
Hutchins want a memorial to Johnston expanded into a park for children in her neighborhood to play.
School Officer Pulls Gun On Student Twice...
AP] - GREENWOOD, Miss.-- A videotaped scuffle between a black teenager and a white police officer who twice pulled his gun in a crowded high school hall has prompted a $1 million lawsuit, accusations of racism and calls for the officer's dismissal.
The Dec. 6 school surveillance tapes that show the officer pointing his gun at the back of the unarmed teenager's head were released Jan. 5 as part of discovery in student James Marshall's lawsuit.
Marshall, an 18-year-old senior at Greenwood High School, said that during the scuffle Officer Casey Wiggins "was cursing, saying he was going to kill me."
But the officer's attorney, Mitchell Creel, says the student was "acting up."
"It's clear from the videos my client was doing his job and conducting himself as any security officer would under similar circumstances," Creel said. "It clearly shows Officer Wiggins has done no wrong - absolutely no wrong."
Marshall and his family have filed a criminal affidavit against Wiggins for assault and battery and a civil complaint in state court against the city seeking $1 million in damages. Carlos Moore, the student's attorney, also wants Wiggins fired.
Wiggins must work under the direct control of a certified police officer because he is still a trainee, said Robert Davis, director of Law Enforcement Standards and Training for the Department of Public Safety. In Mississippi, police officers can serve for up to two years as trainees before they get their state certification.
There were no other police officers visible in the video of the scuffle.
Assistant Chief Huntley Nevels confirmed Thursday that Wiggins is still on the force, but referred all other questions to the city attorney, who declined to comment.
Wiggins' police report says he saw Marshall and two other students standing in a circle, "looking at something the suspect was holding." The officer claims that when he approached, Marshall became "hostile" and began to struggle.
"I then fell to the ground, he was still grabbing me so I reached and pulled my firearm," Wiggins' report says.
Marshall says he was just showing off his new tattoo - his name on his left forearm - when the officer accosted him.
Wiggins arrested the student for simple assault, but police never filed charges.
Moore said the officer is a "loose cannon" and that race "played a part in the aftermath because the officer was not punished for what he did."
Cop Shot an unarmed man & gets promoted!!!!
Officer Alvin Weems shot an unarmed man point-blank in full view of CTA security cameras. Investigators recommended that he be fired, but Phil Cline promoted him instead.
2 Ladies Arrested Becasue of a Kiss!!!!
I'm not sure of the relationship here, but there is only a few posibilities. It could be her father, brother, a family relative, or boyfrind. All this for a kiss Goodbye.....You be the judge.
Partial Ban on Bottled Water in SF
SEE VIDEO HERE
Nightly News with Brian Williams
June 24: Americans spend millions of dollars each year on bottled water. But San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom says the cost to his city -- and the environment -- is too high. So he's proposing a partial ban. Is tap water the wave of the future? NBC's Michael Okwu reports.
OBM: A ban is not needed, what is needed is to improve our public water systems. To do this all we need is to take a fraction of the money people spend on bottled water, buy raising everyone's water bill, and invest it into new filtration systems for the public water providers. That way everyone will get bottled water quality water in their homes, the cost to each person would be cheaper, the systems & money would be monitored and regulated, we would no longer be increasing our use of oil (plastic bottles), and would not have to deal with the waste all thoes plastic bottles create. That said....here are five reasons I support the goals of a bottled water ban:
1. COST $$$$ - Take, for instance, Pepsi's Aquafina or Coca-Cola's Dasani bottled water. Both are sold in 20 ounce sizes and can be purchased from vending machines alongside soft drinks -- and at the same price. Assuming you can find a $1 machine, that works out to 5 cents an ounce. These two brands are essentially filtered tap water, bottled close to their distribution point. Most municipal water costs less than one cent per gallon.
Now consider another widely-sold liquid: gasoline. It has to be pumped out of the ground in the form of crude oil, shipped to a refinery (often halfway across the world), and shipped again to your local filling station.
In the U.S., the average price per gallon is hovering around $3. There are 128 ounces in a gallon, which puts the current price of gasoline at fraction over 2 cents an ounce.
And that's why there's no shortage of companies which want to get into the business. In terms of price versus production cost, bottled water puts Big Oil to shame.
2. PUBLIC WATER CAN BE IMPROVED: Many people drink bottled water because they don't like the taste of their local tap water, or because they question its safety.
This is like running around with a slow leak in your tire, topping it off every few days rather than taking it to be patched. Only the very affluent can afford to switch their water consumption to bottled sources. Once distanced from public systems, these consumers have little incentive to support bond issues and other methods of upgrading municipal water treatment.
There's plenty of need. In California, for example, the American Society of Civil Engineers estimated the requirement of $17.5 billion in improvements to the state's drinking water infrastructure as recently as 2005. In the same year, the state lost 222 million gallons of drinkable water to leaky pipes.
3. THE CORPRATIZATION OF WATER: In the documentary film Thirst, authors Alan Snitow and Deborah Kaufman demonstrated the rapid worldwide privatization of municipal water supplies, and the effect these purchases are having on local economies.
Water is being called the "Blue Gold" of the 21st century. Thanks to increasing urbanization and population, shifting climates, and industrial pollution, fresh water is becoming humanity's most precious resource.
Multinational corporations are stepping in to purchase groundwater and distribution rights wherever they can, and the bottled water industry is an important component in their drive to commoditize what many feel is a basic human right: the access to safe and affordable water.
4. NO HEALTIER THAN TAP WATER: In theory, bottled water in the United States falls under the regulatory authority of the Food and Drug Administration. In practice, about 70 percent of bottled water never crosses state lines for sale, making it exempt from FDA oversight.
On the other hand, water systems in the developed world are well-regulated. In the U.S., for instance, municipal water falls under the purview of the Environmental Protection Agency, and is regularly inspected for bacteria and toxic chemicals. Want to know how your community scores? Check out the Environmental Working Group's National Tap Water Database.
While public safety groups correctly point out that many municipal water systems are aging and there remain hundreds of chemical contaminants for which no standards have been established, there's very little empirical evidence which suggests bottled water is any cleaner or better for you than its tap equivalent.
5. Bottled water means garbage: Bottled water produces up to 1.5 million tons of plastic waste per year. According to Food and Water Watch [ http://www.foodandwaterwatch.org/water/bottled ], that plastic requires up to 47 million gallons of oil per year to produce. And while the plastic used to bottle beverages is of high quality and in demand by recyclers, over 80 percent of plastic bottles are simply thrown away.
That assumes empty bottles actually make it to a garbage can. Plastic waste is now at such a volume that vast eddies of current-bound plastic trash now spin endlessly in the world's major oceans. This represents a great risk to marine life, killing birds and fish which mistake our garbage for food.
Thanks to its slow decay rate, the vast majority of all plastics ever produced still exist ... somewhere.
What can you do? There's a simple alternative to bottled water: buy a stainless steel thermos, and use it. Don't like the way your local tap water tastes? Inexpensive carbon filters will turn most tap water sparking fresh at a fraction of bottled water's cost.
Monday, June 25, 2007
How America Went Gay
by Charles W. Socarides, M.D.
Charles W. Socarides, M.D., is clinical professor of psychiatry at Albert Einstein College of Medicine/Montefiore Medical Center in New York. He is president of the National Association for Research and Therapy of Homosexuality, and author of Homosexuality: A Freedom Too Far (Adam Margrave Books, Phoenix, Arizona).
For more than 20 years, I and a few of my colleagues in the field of psychoanalysis have felt like an embattled minority, because we have continued to insist, against today's conventional wisdom, that gays aren't born that way. We know that obligatory homosexuals are caught up in unconscious adaptations to early childhood abuse and neglect and that, with insight into their earliest beginnings, they can change. This "adaptation" I speak of is a polite term for men going through the motions of mating not with the opposite sex but with one another.
For most of this century, most of us in the helping professions considered this behavior aberrant. Not only was it "off the track"; the people caught up in it were suffering, which is why we called it a pathology. We had patients, early in their therapy, who would seek out one sex partner after another-total strangers-on a single night, then come limping into our offices the next day to tell us how they were hurting themselves. Since we were in the business of helping people learn how not to keep hurting themselves, many of us thought we were quietly doing God's work.
Now, in the opinion of those who make up the so-called cultural elite, our view is "out of date." The elite say we hurt people more than we help them, and that we belong in one of the century's dustbins. They have managed to sell this idea to a great many Americans, thereby making homosexuality fashionable and raising formerly aberrant behavior to the status of an "alternate lifestyle."
You see this view expressed in some places you would least expect. The Pope says same-sex sex is wrong, but a good many of his own priests in this country (some of whom are gay themselves) say the Pope is wrong. Indeed, in much of academe and in many secondary school classrooms gays are said to lead a new vanguard, the wave of the future in a world that will be more demographically secure when it has fewer "breeders" (which is what some gay activists call heterosexuals these days).
How did this change come about? Well, the revolution did not just happen. It has been orchestrated by a small band of very bright men and women-most of them gays and lesbians-in a cultural campaign that has been going on since a few intellectuals laid down the ideological underpinnings for the entire tie-dyed, try-anything-sexual Woodstock generation. In various ways, Theodore Reich, Alfred Kinsey, Fritz Perls, Norman O. Brown, Herbert Marcuse and Paul Goodman preached a new countercultural gospel: "If it feels good, do it."
It was all part of a plan, as one gay publication put it, "to make the whole world gay." I am not making this up. You can read an account of the campaign in Dennis Altman's The Homosexualization of America. In 1982 Altman, himself gay, reported with an air of elation that more and more Americans were thinking like gays and acting like gays. There were engaged, that is, "in numbers of short-lived sexual adventures either in place of or alongside long-term relationships." Altman cited the heterosexual equivalents of gay saunas and the emergence of the swinging singles scene as proofs that "promiscuity and 'impersonal sex' are determined more by social possibilities than by inherent differences between homosexuals and heterosexuals, or even between men and women."
Heady stuff. Gays said they could "reinvent human nature, reinvent themselves." To do this, these reinventors had to clear away one major obstacle. No, they didn't go after the nation's clergy. They targeted the members of a worldly priesthood, the psychiatric community, and neutralized them with a radical redefinition of homosexuality itself. In 1972 and 1973 they co-opted the leadership of the American Psychiatric Association and, through a series of political maneuvers, lies and outright flim-flams, they "cured" homosexuality overnight-by fiat. They got the A.P.A. to say that same-sex sex was "not a disorder." It was merely "a condition"-as neutral as lefthandedness.
This amounted to a full approval of homosexuality. Those of us who did not go along with the political redefinition were soon silenced at our own professional meetings. Our lectures were canceled inside academe and our research papers turned down in the learned journals. Worse things followed in the culture at large. Television and movie producers began to do stories promoting homosexuality as a legitimate lifestyle. A gay review board told Hollywood how it should deal or not deal with homosexuality. Mainstream publishers turned down books that objected to the gay revolution. Gays and lesbians influenced sex education in our nation's schools, and gay and lesbian libbers seized wide control of faculty committees in our nations' colleges. State legislatures nullified laws against sodomy.
If the print media paid any attention at all, they tended to hail the gay revolution, possibly because many of the reporters on gay issues were themselves gay and open advocates for the movement. And those reporters who were not gay seemed too intimidated by groupthink to expose what was going on in their own newsrooms.
And now, what happens to those of us who stand up and object? Gay activists have already anticipated that. They have created a kind of conventional wisdom: that we suffer from homophobia, a disease that has actually been invented by gays projecting their own fear on society. And we are bigots besides, because, they say, we fail to deal with gays compassionately. Gays are now no different than people born black or Hispanic or physically challenged. Since gays are born that way and have no choice about their sexual orientation, anyone who calls same-sex sex an aberration is now a bigot. Un-American, too. Astoundingly now, college freshmen come home for their first Thanksgiving to announce, "Hey, Mom! Hey, Dad! We've taken the high moral ground. We've joined the gay revolution."
My wife, Clare, who has an unerring aptitude for getting to the heart of things, said one day recently in passing, "I think everybody's being brainwashed." That gave me a start. I know "brainwashing" is a term that has been used and overused. But my wife's casual observation only reminded me of a brilliant tract I had read several years ago and then forgotten. It was called After the Ball: How America Will Conquer its Fear and Hatred of Gays in the 1990's, by Marshall Kirk and Hunter Madsen.
That book turned out to be the blueprint gay activists would use in their campaign to normalize the abnormal through a variety of brainwashing techniques once catalogued by Robert Jay Lifton in his seminal work, Thought Reform and the Psychology of Totalism: A Study of Brainwashing in China.
In their book Kirk and Madsen urged that gay activists adopt the very strategies that helped change the political face of the largest nation on earth. The authors knew the techniques had worked in China. All they needed was enough media-and enough money-to put them to work in the United States. And they did. These activists got the media and the money to radicalize America-by processes known as desensitization, jamming and conversion.
They would desensitize the public by selling the notion that gays were "just like everyone else." This would make the engine of prejudice run out of steam, i.e., lull straights into an attitude of indifference.
They would jam the public by shaming them into a kind of guilt at their own "bigotry." Kirk and Madsen wrote:
All normal persons feel shame when they perceive that they are not thinking, feeling, or acting like one of the pack....The trick is to get the bigot into the position of feeling a conflicting twinge of shame...when his homohatred surfaces. Thus, propagandistic advertisement can depict homophobic and homohating bigots as crude loudmouths....It can show them being criticized, hated, shunned. It can depict gays experiencing horrific suffering as the direct result of homohatred-suffering of which even most bigots would be ashamed to be the cause.The best thing about this technique, according to Kirk and Madsen: The bigot did not even have to believe he was a loathsome creature:
Rather, our effect is achieved without reference to facts, logic, or proof. Just as the bigot became such, without any say in the matter, through repeated infralogical emotional conditioning, his bigotry can be alloyed in exactly the same way, whether he is conscious of the attack or not. In short, jamming succeeds insofar as it inserts even a slight frisson of doubt and shame into the previously unalloyed, self-righteous pleasure. The approach can be quite useful and effective-if our message can get the massive exposure upon which all else depends.Finally-this was the process they called conversion-Kirk and Madsen predicted a mass public change of heart would follow, even among bigots, "if we can actually make them like us." They wrote, "Conversion aims at just this...conversion of the average American's emotions, mind, and will, through a planned psychological attack, in the form of propaganda fed to the nation via the media."
In the movie "Philadelphia" we see the shaming technique and the conversion process working at the highest media level. We saw Tom Hank's character suffering (because he was gay and had AIDS) at the hands of bigots in his Philadelphia law firm. Not only were we ashamed of the homophobic behavior of the villainous straight lawyers in the firm; we felt nothing but sympathy for the suffering Hanks. (Members of the Motion Picture Academy felt so much sympathy they gave Hanks an Oscar.) Our feelings helped fulfill Kirk and Madsen's strategy: "to make Americans hold us in warm regard, whether they like it or not."
Few dared speak out against "Philadelphia" as an example of the kind of propaganda Kirk and Madsen had called for. By then, four years after the publication of the Kirk-Madsen blueprint, the American public had already been programmed. Homosexuality was now simply "an alternate lifestyle." Best of all, because of the persuaders embedded in thousands of media messages, society's acceptance of homosexuality seemed one of those spontaneous, historic turnings in time-yes, a kind of conversion. Nobody quite knew how it happened, but the nation had changed. We had become more sophisticated, more loving toward all, even toward those "afflicted" with the malady-excuse me, condition.
By 1992 the President of the United States said it was time that people who were openly gay and lesbian should not be ousted from the nation's armed forces. In 1993 the nation's media celebrated a huge outpouring of gay pride in Washington, D.C. Television viewers chanted along with half a million marchers, "Two, four, six, eight! Being gay is really great." We felt good about ourselves. We were patriotic Americans. We had abolished one more form of discrimination, wiped out one of society's most enduring afflictions: homophobia. Best of all, we knew now that gay was good, gay was free.
Excuse me. Gay is not good. Gay is not decidedly free. How do I know this? For more than 40 years, I have been in solidarity with hundreds of homosexuals, my patients, and I have spent most of my professional life engaged in exercising a kind of "pastoral care" on their behalf. But I do not help them by telling them they are O.K. when they are not O.K. Nor do I endorse their "new claim to self-definition and self-respect." Tell me: Have we dumped the idea that a man's self-esteem comes from something inside himself (sometimes called character) and from having a good education, a good job and a good family-and replaced that notion with this, that he has an affinity to love (and have sex with) other men?
In point of fact, many of my patients had character; they had an education; they were respected ad men and actuaries and actors. But they were still in pain-for one reason and one reason alone. They were caught up in this mysterious compulsion to have sex with other men. They were not free. They were not happy. And they wanted to see if they could change.
Over the years, I found that those of my patients who really wanted to change could do so, by attaining the insight that comes with a good psychoanalysis. Others found other therapies that helped them get to the bottom of their compulsions, all of which involved high motivation and hard work. Difficult as their therapeutic trips were, hundreds and thousands of homosexuals changed their ways. Many of my own formerly homosexual patients-about a third of them-are married today and happily so, with children. One-third may not sound like a very good average. But it is just about the same success rate you will find at the best treatment centers for alcoholics, like Hazelden in Minnesota and the Betty Ford Clinic in California.
Another third of my patients remain homosexual but not part of the gay scene. Now, after therapy, they still have same-sex sex, but they have more control over their impulses because now they understand the roots of their need for same-sex sex. Some of these are even beginning to turn on to the opposite sex. I add this third to my own success rate-so that I can tell people in all honesty that my batting average is .667 out of more than a thousand "at bats."
Of course, I could bat .997 if I told all my patients in pain that their homosexuality was "a special call" and "a liberation." That would endear me to everyone, but it would not help them. It would be a lie-despite recent pieces of pseudo-science bolstering the fantasy that gays are "born that way." The media put its immediate blessing on this "research," but we were oversold. Now we are getting reports, even in such gay publications as The Journal of Homosexuality, that the gay-gene studies and the gay-brain studies do not stand up to critical analysis. (The author of one so-called "gay-gene theory" is under investigation by the National Institutes of Health for scientific fraud.)
I was not surprised to hear this. My long clinical experience and a sizable body of psychoanalysis research dating all the way back to Freud tell me that most men caught up in same-sex sex are reacting, at an unconscious level, to something amiss with their earliest upbringing- overcontrolling mothers and abdicating fathers. Through long observation I have also learned that the supposedly liberated homosexual is never really free. In his multiple, same-sex adventures, even the most effeminate gay was looking to incorporate the manhood of others, because he was in a compulsive, never-ending search for the masculinity that was never allowed to build and grow in early childhood.
When I tried to explain these dynamics to the writer who helped me put together a kind of popular catechism on homosexuality, I found he had a hard time understanding what this "incorporation" meant. He said, "Your patient would be more manly if he took in the penis of another man? Sounds a little dumb. Would I run faster if I ate the flesh of a deer?"
I told him, "You have to understand that we are talking about feelings that come from deep in the unconscious mind. They are very primitive. In fact, if you have ever read any Indian lore, you may remember that Indians would, in fact, eat the flesh of a deer in order to become faster afoot. To us, that is a very primitive idea. But it had a mythic significance for a young Iroquois brave. And Madison Avenue still makes use of such mythic meanings. The ad people sell us things based on the notion that we will become what we eat or drink or possess." The point I was making was this: We do not understand same-sex sex until we realize that the dynamics involved are unconscious.
This is one reason why psychoanalysis is the tool that gets us to the heart of everything. Once my patients have achieved an insight into these dynamics-and realized there is no moral fault involved in their longtime and mysterious need-they have moved rather quickly on the road to recovery. Their consequent gratitude to me is overwhelming. And why shouldn't it be? They were formerly caught up in compulsions they could not understand, compulsions they could not control. Now they are in charge of their own lives.
Their former promiscuity may have looked a lot like "liberation." But it was not true freedom. It was a kind of slavery. And it was not a lifestyle. With the onset of AIDS, as the playwright and gay militant Larry Kramer said in a 1993 interview, it turned out to be a death style. I have had some patients tell me, "Doctor, if I weren't in therapy, I'd be dead."
Testimonials from my recovered patients make me feel my work is worthwhile-despite regular demands from the gay rights community for my silence. What would they have me do? Pack my bags, find a new profession, lock up a lifetime of research and analysis, hide my truth under a bushel? It is not my psychoanalytic duty to tell people they are marvelous when they are out of control, much less ask disingenuous rhetorical questions like, "What kind of God would afflict people with an 'objective disorder' in the disposition of their hearts?"
Giving God the credit for their gayness is a persistent refrain in much gay literature today, and I am saddened to see people of evident good will become unwitting parties to the blasphemy. Gays ascribe their condition to God, but he should not have to take that rap, any more than he should be blamed for the existence of other man-made maladies-like war, for instance, which has proven to be very unhealthy for humans and for all other living things. God does not make war. Men do.
And, when homosexuality takes on all the aspects of a political movement, it, too, becomes a war, the kind of war in which the first casualty is truth, and the spoils turn out to be our own children. An exaggeration? Well, what are we to think when militant homosexuals seek to lower the age of consensual sexual intercourse between homosexual men and young boys to the age of 14 (as they did in Hawaii in 1993) or 16 (as they tried to do in England in 1994)? In the Washington March for Gay Pride in 1993, they chanted, "We're here. We're queer. And we're coming after your children."
What more do we need to know?
[This article first appeared in America (November 18, 1995). Used by permission of the author.]
Video: How Lobbyists Have Come to Rule the Country
Although there are distinct limits to what they can achieve, lobbyists are the crucial conduit through which pariah regimes advance their interests in Washington.
This is how regimes like Angola and Azerbaijan, Nigeria and Equatorial Guinea, the serial abrogator of 'human dignity,' can make and keep their wealthy American friends.
SEE VIDEO HERE
NYC Police Brutalize Human Rights Attorney
NYPD Brutalize Human Rights Attorney
By Amadi Ajamu
A human rights attorney known for handling cases of police brutality became a victim of police abuse last Thursday evening in Brooklyn. Attorney Michael Tarif Warren and his wife Evelyn, who is also an attorney, were driving along Vanderbilt Ave around 6:00 pm, when they witnessed NYPD officers "kicking and stomping" a handcuffed young black man. The Warrens pulled over to help.
Warren, a high profile attorney who has been practicing law for 28 years, said "We saw a young kid being chased by a horde of policemen across a McDonald's parking lot. They tackled him and immediately put handcuffs on him. Then Sergeant Talvy, who appeared to be in charge, began kicking him in the head and ribs, and stomping him on the neck." The other police officers followed suit. "They literally gave this kid a beating which was unconscionable."
"Not only as people of conscience and moral decency, but as lawyers, we said this is outrageous." They arrived and stood "more than ten feet away," he said. Mr. Warren told Sergeant Talvy they were lawyers, and told him to stop and just take the young man to the precinct. In response he said, "Talvy shouted, I don't give a f**k who you are, get the f**k back in your car!"
They returned to their car, and Mr. Warren began to write down the license plate numbers of the police vehicles as they watched them put the bleeding young man in a car. "Then Talvy comes to my car and viciously attacks me, repeatedly punching me through the window. Shouting, 'Get out of the car!' He dragged me out of the car, ripping my shirt and pants. My wife, very upset, asked him why are you doing this? He then punched her in the face." Both were arrested and taken to the 77th precinct charged with obstruction, disorderly conduct, and resisting arrest.
Michael Tarif Warren, has handled many police misconduct cases in the black community, including the shocking police murder of graffiti artist Michael Stewart, and Yvonne Smallwood, who was beaten to death by police in the Bronx. He also handled the case exonerating the five young black teenagers falsely convicted of raping the white bank executive "Central Park Jogger."
Quickly, word of the Warrens arrest spread, and several hundred people descended on the 77th Precinct demanding his release. Organizations including the December 12th Movement, 100 Blacks in Law Enforcement Who Care, Malcolm X Grassroots, International Action Center, CEMOTAP, the Muslim community, the Haitian community and many others were present and several media outlets were on hand.
NYC Councilman Charles Barron, Attorneys Roger Wareham, Reginald Haley, and Marisa Benton began negotiating their release with Brooklyn's top brass, including Community Affairs Chief Douglas Zeigler, Brooklyn Borough Commander Chief Gerald Nelson, and 77th Precinct Executive Officer Michael Marino. At approximately 10:30 PM Evelyn Warren was released with a DAT (desk appearance ticket), Michael Warren was released with a DAT at 11:30 PM.
Councilman Barron and other community activists are demanding Talvy be fired and that Brooklyn District Attorney Charles Hines "drop the charges (against the Warrens) and charge the police."
Barron further criticized recent NYPD policy of making cops who kill or assault people take Breathalyzer tests for alcohol. "We need to stop the killing. Police who murder and assault us must be charge with crimes and put in jail. That is the only deterrent."
Evelyn Warren added, "We are professionals, if they do this to us in broad daylight on a crowded street, what do they do in the dark when no one is around? That's what I'm concerned about. Officer Talvy must go and Police Commissioner Kelly must go, because his policy allows this behavior to continue."
If charges against them are not dropped, Michael and Evelyn Warren vow to take the case to trial and use it as a community mobilizing and educating tool to fight police brutality.
Friday, June 22, 2007
Congressman John Conyers Slams Gonzales’ Deputy Over Voter Caging
Congressman John Conyers, Chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, (LEFT PICTURE) grilled Deputy Attorney General Paul McNulty (RIGHT PICTURE) on voter caging. Conyers forced McNulty to reveal that he had, in his original briefing papers, an article by Greg Palast about the attack on Black voters yet did nothing about it.
LISTEN HERE
SEE THE LIST HERE
CAGING SCAM EXPLANIED: The RNC mailed these voters letters in envelopes marked, “Do not forward”, to be returned to the sender. These letters were mailed to servicemen and women, some stationed overseas, to their US home addresses.
The letters then returned to the Bush-Cheney campaign as “undeliverable.”The lists of soldiers of “undeliverable” letters were transmitted from state headquarters, in this case Florida, to the RNC in Washington. The party could then challenge the voters’ registration and thereby prevent their absentee ballots being counted.
Thursday, June 21, 2007
Ron Paul Mops Floor With The 'War On Terror'
Congressman Ron Paul (R-TX) stood his ground and joined the twenty-or-so other Republicans that have decided to vote with the House Democrats in favor of a non-binding Iraq resolution that condemns President Bush's troop surge.
Speaking of Bush, Congressman Paul was very straight-forward in his displeasure for Bush's "demented philosophy of conquest." Here is a portion of his floor speech:
RON PAUL: "In recent decades, our policies have been driven by neoconservative empire radicalism; profiteering in the military industrial complex; misplaced do-good internationalism; mercantilistic notions regarding the need to control natural resources; and blind loyalty to various governments in the Middle East."
You can add Ron Paul's name to the small list of the few level-headed Republicans left in Congress. (more)
Wednesday, June 20, 2007
Bayer Knowingly Sold AIDS-Laced Drugs - 1,000s Died
Company put aids virus in its medicine.
This is so illegal and un moral.
Monday, June 18, 2007
China shocked by footage of child slaves being beaten and whipped
By Clifford Coonan in Beijing
Published: 16 June 2007
It has made for horrifying viewing on Chinese state television - hundreds of child slaves beaten with shovels, whipped by thug overseers, guarded in concentration camp-like conditions by vicious dogs, sores festering on their bodies as they toiled without end in a brick factory in China's dusty heartland.
The TV footage shows hollow-eyed teenage boys, many of them kidnapped from their homes around China, sleeping on beds of brick in hellish dormitories, the doors tied shut with wire and the windows barred.
As evidence of official neglect accumulated, the fate of the children prompted President Hu Jintao to demand an investigation into what happened in the brick kilns of Shanxi province.
But for now, the sympathies are with the slave workers. "We wanted to run but we couldn't. I tried once and was beaten," said one inmate, clearly traumatised from his experience.
It is a familiar refrain, and an increasingly common one in central China. Recent days have seen a number of slave factories uncovered by police cracking down on slave labour, the dark underbelly of China's burgeoning economic growth. According to the official Xinhua news agency, around 35,000 police rescued 468 people after checking 7,500 kilns. They made up to 120 arrests.
Yang Aizhi, 46, has been looking for her 16-year-old son, who went missing on 8 March. After hearing he may have been kidnapped to work in the kilns, she went to more than 100 brick kilns in Shanxi and Henan and said that "most kilns were forcing children to do hard labour" and whipping them when they were too tired to work. Some of the child slaves were still wearing their school uniforms, she said. Ms Yang has yet to find her son.
Chinese viewers have been transfixed by the horrific images emerging from Shanxi and Henan provinces. Many of the workers were mentally disabled, but were still forced to work 16 hours a day and given just 15 minutes to eat their food.
"Our conservative estimate is that at least 1,000 minors from Henan have been trapped and cheated into back-breaking work in these Shanxi brick kilns," said one journalist who has been covering the scandal.
Significantly, the main official newspaper, the People's Daily, put at least part of the blame on corrupt local officials. "At present, some grassroots governments are grappling with huge debts, so they are sluggish in administration and even gain incomes illegally, causing instability in rural areas," the newspaper said.
Three weeks ago, 31 people were freed by police from slave labour at a brick kiln in Hongtong, a county about 240km (150 miles) south of Taiyuan, the provincial capital of Shanxi.
Friday, June 15, 2007
Twenty Things You Should Know About Corporate Crime
corporatecrimereporter.com
21 Corporate Crime Reporter 25, June 12, 2007
Twenty years ago, Corporate Crime Reporter, a weekly print newsletter, was launched. From the beginning, the most popular feature of Corporate Crime Reporter has been a question/answer format interview. Over the years, we’ve interviewed hundreds of prosecutors, defense attorneys, law school professors, reporters, and activists.
Our first interview, which appeared in Volume One, Number One on April 13, 1987 was with the premier corporate crime prosecutor of his day. That was Rudolph Giuliani, then U.S. Attorney in the Southern District of New York. At the time, he was prosecuting the likes of Michael Milken, Ivan Boesky and Marc Rich. President Clinton later pardoned Marc Rich. Apparently Marc Rich’s wife was dumping big cash into the Clinton library.
Rudy is now solidly in the hands of the corporate crime lobby. He prosecuted corporate crime as a way to achieve higher office. Then he learned one of the key lessons of corporate crime prosecution. You can achieve higher office by prosecuting corporate crime. But as you move up the ladder, you have to make nice with the corporate powers that be. And so you turn your attention and rhetoric to various forms of street crime. Now, Rudy is ready to be President.
So, corporate crime lesson number one – prosecute corporate crime to achieve higher office, then prosecute street crime to protect your political position. Or to simplify it, corporate crime is all about power politics. And the corporate crime game is a bi-partisan affair – it is played the same by Democrats and Republicans alike.
Eliot Spitzer, the former Attorney General of New York, prosecuted corporate crime to achieve higher office. And now as Governor of New York, Spitzer is making nice with Wall Street.
To celebrate the 20th anniversary of Corporate Crime Reporter, I present to you the Top 20 Things You Should Know About Corporate Crime. With a tip of the hat to David Letterman, let us proceed.
Number 20
Corporate crime inflicts far more damage on society than all street crime combined.
Whether in bodies or injuries or dollars lost, corporate crime and violence wins by a landslide.
The FBI estimates, for example, that burglary and robbery – street crimes – costs the nation $3.8 billion a year.
The losses from a handful of major corporate frauds – Tyco, Adelphia, Worldcom, Enron – swamp the losses from all street robberies and burglaries combined.
Health care fraud alone costs Americans $100 billion to $400 billion a year.
The savings and loan fraud – which former Attorney General Dick Thornburgh called "the biggest white collar swindle in history" – cost us anywhere from $300 billion to $500 billion.
And then you have your lesser frauds: auto repair fraud, $40 billion a year, securities fraud, $15 billion a year – and on down the list.
Number 19
Corporate crime is often violent crime.
Recite this list of corporate frauds and people will immediately say to you: but you can't compare street crime and corporate crime – corporate crime is not violent crime.
Not true.
Corporate crime is often violent crime.
The FBI estimates that, 16,000 Americans are murdered every year.
Compare this to the 56,000 Americans who die every year on the job or from occupational diseases such as black lung and asbestosis and the tens of thousands of other Americans who fall victim to the silent violence of pollution, contaminated foods, hazardous consumer products, and hospital malpractice.
These deaths are often the result of criminal recklessness. Yet, they are rarely prosecuted as homicides or as criminal violations of federal laws.
Number 18
Corporate criminals are the only criminal class in the United States that have the power to define the laws under which they live.
The mafia, no.
The gangstas, no.
The street thugs, no.
But the corporate criminal lobby, yes. They have marinated Washington – from the White House to the Congress to K Street – with their largesse. And out the other end come the laws they can live with. They still violate their own rules with impunity. But they make sure the laws are kept within reasonable bounds.
Exhibit A – the automobile industry.
Over the past 30 years, the industry has worked its will on Congress to block legislation that would impose criminal sanctions on knowing and willful violations of the federal auto safety laws. Today, with very narrow exceptions, if an auto company is caught violating the law, only a civil fine is imposed.
Number 17
Corporate crime is underprosecuted by a factor of say – 100. And the flip side of that – corporate crime prosecutors are underfunded by a factor of say – 100.
Big companies that are criminally prosecuted represent only the tip of a very large iceberg of corporate wrongdoing.
For every company convicted of health care fraud, there are hundreds of others who get away with ripping off Medicare and Medicaid, or face only mild slap-on-the-wrist fines and civil penalties when caught.
For every company convicted of polluting the nation's waterways, there are many others who are not prosecuted because their corporate defense lawyers are able to offer up a low-level employee to go to jail in exchange for a promise from prosecutors not to touch the company or high-level executives.
For every corporation convicted of bribery or of giving money directly to a public official in violation of federal law, there are thousands who give money legally through political action committees to candidates and political parties. They profit from a system that effectively has legalized bribery.
For every corporation convicted of selling illegal pesticides, there are hundreds more who are not prosecuted because their lobbyists have worked their way in Washington to ensure that dangerous pesticides remain legal.
For every corporation convicted of reckless homicide in the death of a worker, there are hundreds of others that don't even get investigated for reckless homicide when a worker is killed on the job. Only a few district attorneys across the country have historically investigated workplace deaths as homicides.
Corporate crime prosecutors are underfunded by a factor of say – 100.
White collar crime defense attorneys regularly admit that if more prosecutors had more resources, the number of corporate crime prosecutions would increase dramatically. A large number of serious corporate and white collar crime cases are now left on the table for lack of resources.
Number 16
Beware of consumer groups or other public interest groups who make nice with corporations.
There are now probably more fake public interest groups than actual ones in America today. And many formerly legitimate public interest groups have been taken over or compromised by big corporations. Our favorite example is the National Consumer League. It’s the oldest consumer group in the country. It was created to eradicate child labor.
But in the last ten years or so, it has been taken over by large corporations. It now gets the majority of its budget from big corporations such as Pfizer, Bank of America, Pharmacia & Upjohn, Kaiser Permanente, Wyeth-Ayerst, and Verizon.
Number 15
It used to be when a corporation committed a crime, they pled guilty to a crime.
So, for example, so many large corporations were pleading guilty to crimes in the 1990s, that in 2000, we put out a report titled The Top 100 Corporate Criminals of the 1990s. We went back through all of the Corporate Crime Reporters for that decade, pulled out all of the big corporations that had been convicted, ranked the corporate criminals by the amount of their criminal fines, and cut it off at 100.
So, you have your Fortune 500, your Forbes 400, and your Corporate Crime Reporter 100.
Number 14
Now, corporate criminals don’t have to worry about pleading guilty to crimes.
Three new loopholes have developed over the past five years – the deferred prosecution agreement, the non prosecution agreement, and pleading guilty a closet entity or a defunct entity that has nothing to lose.
Number 13
Corporations love deferred prosecution agreements.
In the 1990s, if prosecutors had evidence of a crime, they would bring a criminal charge against the corporation and sometimes against the individual executives. And the company would end up pleading guilty.
Then, about three years ago, the Justice Department said – hey, there is this thing called a deferred prosecution agreement.
We can bring a criminal charge against the company. And we will tell the company – if you are a good company and do not violate the law for the next two years, we will drop the charges. No harm, no foul. This is called a deferred prosecution agreement.
And most major corporate crime prosecutions are brought this way now. The company pays a fine. The company is charged with a crime. But there is no conviction. And after two or three years, depending on the term of the agreement, the charges are dropped.
Number 12
Corporations love non prosecution agreements even more.
One Friday evening last July, I was sitting my office in the National Press Building. And into my e-mail box came a press release from the Justice Department.
The press release announced that Boeing will pay a $50 million criminal penalty and $615 million in civil penalties to resolve federal claims relating to the company's hiring of the former Air Force acquisitions chief Darleen A. Druyun, by its then CFO, Michael Sears – and stealing sensitive procurement information.
So, the company pays a criminal penalty. And I figure, okay if they paid a criminal penalty, they must have pled guilty.
No, they did not plead guilty.
Okay, they must have been charged with a crime and had the prosecution deferred.
No, they were not charged with a crime and did not have the prosecution deferred.
About a week later, after pounding the Justice Department for an answer as to what happened to Boeing, they sent over something called a non prosecution agreement.
That is where the Justice Department says – we’re going to fine you criminally, but hey, we don’t want to cost you any government business, so sign this agreement. It says we won’t prosecute you if you pay the fine and change your ways.
Corporate criminals love non prosecution agreements. No criminal charge. No criminal record. No guilty plea. Just pay the fine and leave.
Number 11
In health fraud cases, find an empty closet or defunct entity to plead guilty.
The government has a mandatory exclusion rule for health care corporations that are convicted of ripping off Medicare.
Such an exclusion is the equivalent of the death penalty. If a major drug company can’t do business with Medicare, it loses a big chunk of its business. There have been many criminal prosecutions of major health care corporations for ripping off Medicare. And many of these companies have pled guilty. But not one major health care company has been excluded from Medicare.
Why not?
Because when you read in the newspaper that a major health care company pled guilty, it’s not the parent company that pleads guilty. The prosecutor will allow a unit of the corporation that has no assets – or even a defunct entity – to plead guilty. And therefore that unit will be excluded from Medicare – which doesn’t bother the parent corporation, because the unit had no business with Medicare to begin with.
Earlier, Dr. Sidney Wolfe was here and talked about the criminal prosecution of Purdue Pharma, the Stamford, Connecticut-based maker of OxyContin.
Dr. Wolfe said that the company pled guilty to pushing OxyContin by making claims that it is less addictive and less subject to abuse than other pain medications and that it continued to do so despite warnings to the contrary from doctors, the media, and members of its own sales force.
Well, Purdue Pharma – the company that makes and markets the drug – didn’t plead guilty. A different company – Purdue Frederick pled guilty. Purdue Pharma actually got a non-prosecution agreement. Purdue Frederick had nothing to lose, so it pled guilty.
Number 10
Corporate criminals don’t like to be put on probation.
Very rarely, a corporation convicted of a crime will be placed on probation. Many years ago, Consolidated Edison in New York was convicted of an environmental crime. A probation official was assigned. Employees would call him with wrongdoing. He would write reports for the judge. The company changed its ways. There was actual change within the corporation.
Corporations hate this. They hate being under the supervision of some public official, like a judge.
We need more corporate probation.
Number 9
Corporate criminals don’t like to be charged with homicide.
Street murders occur every day in America. And they are prosecuted every day in America. Corporate homicides occur every day in America. But they are rarely prosecuted.
The last homicide prosecution brought against a major American corporation was in 1980, when a Republican Indiana prosecutor charged Ford Motor Co. with homicide for the deaths of three teenaged girls who died when their Ford Pinto caught on fire after being rear-ended in northern Indiana.
The prosecutor alleged that Ford knew that it was marketing a defective product, with a gas tank that crushed when rear ended, spilling fuel.
In the Indiana case, the girls were incinerated to death.
But Ford brought in a hot shot criminal defense lawyer who in turn hired the best friend of the judge as local counsel, and who, as a result, secured a not guilty verdict after persuading the judge to keep key evidence out of the jury room.
It’s time to crank up the corporate homicide prosecutions.
Number 8
There are very few career prosecutors of corporate crime.
Patrick Fitzgerald is one that comes to mind. He’s the U.S. Attorney in Chicago. He put away Scooter Libby. And he’s now prosecuting the Canadian media baron Conrad Black.
Number 7
Most corporate crime prosecutors see their jobs as a stepping stone to greater things.
Spitzer and Giuliani prosecuted corporate crime as a way to move up the political ladder. But most young prosecutors prosecute corporate crime to move into the lucrative corporate crime defense bar.
Number 6
Most corporate criminals turn themselves into the authorities.
The vast majority of corporate criminal prosecutions are now driven by the corporations themselves. If they find something wrong, they know they can trust the prosecutor to do the right thing. They will be forced to pay a fine, maybe agree to make some internal changes.
But in this day and age, in all likelihood, they will not be forced to plead guilty.
So, better to be up front with the prosecutor and put the matter behind them. To save the hide of the corporation, they will cooperate with federal prosecutors against individual executives within the company. Individuals will be charged, the corporation will not.
Number 5
The market doesn’t take most modern corporate criminal prosecutions seriously.
Almost universally, when a corporate crime case is settled, the stock of the company involved goes up.
Why? Because a cloud has been cleared and there is no serious consequence to the company. No structural changes in how the company does business. No monitor. No probation. Preserving corporate reputation is the name of the game.
Number 4
The Justice Department needs to start publishing an annual Corporate Crime in the United States report.
Every year, the Justice Department puts out an annual report titled "Crime in the United States."
But by "Crime in the United States," the Justice Department means "street crime in the United States."
In the "Crime in the United States" annual report, you can read about burglary, robbery and theft.
There is little or nothing about price-fixing, corporate fraud, pollution, or public corruption.
A yearly Justice Department report on Corporate Crime in the United States is long overdue.
Number 3
We must start asking – which side are you on – with the corporate criminals or against?
Most professionals in Washington work for, are paid by, or are under the control of the corporate crime lobby. Young lawyers come to town, fresh out of law school, 25 years old, and their starting salary is $160,000 a year. And they’re working for the corporate criminals.
Young lawyers graduating from the top law schools have all kinds of excuses for working for the corporate criminals – huge debt, just going to stay a couple of years for the experience.
But the reality is, they are working for the corporate criminals.
What kind of respect should we give them? Especially since they have many options other than working for the corporate criminals.
Time to dust off that age-old question – which side are you on? (For young lawyers out there considering other options, check out Alan Morrison’s new book – Beyond the Big Firm: Profiles of Lawyers Who Want Something More.)
Number 2
We need a 911 number for the American people to dial to report corporate crime and violence.
If you want to report street crime and violence, call 911.
But what number do you call if you want to report corporate crime and violence?
We propose 611.
Call 611 to report corporate crime and violence.
We need a national number where people can pick up the phone and report the corporate criminals in our midst.
What triggered this thought?
We attended the press conference at the Justice Department the other day announcing the indictment of Congressman William Jefferson (D-Louisiana).
Jefferson was the first U.S. official charged with violating the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act.
Federal officials alleged that Jefferson was both on the giving and receiving ends of bribe payments.
On the receiving end, he took $100,000 in cash – $90,000 of it was stuffed into his freezer in Washington, D.C.
The $90,000 was separated in $10,000 increments, wrapped in aluminum foil, and concealed inside various frozen food containers.
At the press conference announcing the indictment, after various federal officials made their case before the cameras, up to the mike came Joe Persichini, assistant director of the Washington field office of the FBI.
“To the American people, I ask you, take time,” Persichini said. “Read this charging document line by line, scheme by scheme, count by count. This case is about greed, power and arrogance.”
“Everyone is entitled to honest and ethical public service,” Persichini continued. “We as leaders standing here today cannot do it alone. We need the public's help. The amount of corruption is dependent on what the public with allow.
Again, the amount of corruption is dependent on what the public will allow.”
“If you have knowledge of, if you've been confronted with or you are participating, I ask that you contact your local FBI office or you call the Washington Field Office of the FBI at 202.278.2000. Thank you very much.”
Shorten the number – make it 611.
Number one.
And the number one thing you should know about corporate crime?
Everyone is deserving of justice. So, question, debate, strategize, yes.
But if God-forbid you too are victimized by a corporate criminal, you too will demand justice.
We need a more beefed up, more effective justice system to deal with the corporate criminals in our midst.
Thank you.
Thursday, June 14, 2007
Parrents Beware: Deadly $2 heroin targets teens
From Tracy Sabo
CNN. com
DALLAS, Texas (CNN) -- A cheap, highly addictive drug known as "cheese heroin" has killed 21 teenagers in the Dallas area over the past two years, and authorities say they are hoping they can stop the fad before it spreads across the nation.
"Cheese heroin" is a blend of so-called black tar Mexican heroin and crushed over-the-counter medications that contain the antihistamine diphenhydramine, found in products such as Tylenol PM, police say. The sedative effects of the heroin and the nighttime sleep aids make for a deadly brew.
"A double whammy -- you're getting two downers at once," says Dallas police detective Monty Moncibais. "If you take the body and you start slowing everything down, everything inside your body, eventually you're going to slow down the heart until it stops and, when it stops, you're dead."
Steve Robertson, a special agent with the Drug Enforcement Administration in Washington, says authorities are closely monitoring the use of "cheese" in Dallas.
Trying to keep the drug from spreading to other cities, the DEA is working with Dallas officials to raise public awareness about the problem. Authorities also are trying to identify the traffickers, Robertson says.
"We are concerned about any drug trend that is new because we want to stop it," he says.
Why should a parent outside Dallas care about what's happening there?
Robertson says it's simple: The ease of communication via the Internet and cell phones allows a drug trend to spread rapidly across the country.
"A parent in New York should be very concerned about a drug trend in Dallas, a drug trend in Kansas City, a drug trend anywhere throughout the United States," he says.
Middle schoolers acknowledge 'cheese'
"Cheese" is not only dangerous. It's cheap. About $2 for a single hit and as little as $10 per gram. The drug can be snorted with a straw or through a ballpoint pen, authorities say. It causes drowsiness and lethargy, as well as euphoria, excessive thirst and disorientation. That is, if the user survives. (Interactive: What is "cheese"? )
Authorities aren't exactly sure how the drug got its name "cheese." It's most likely because the ground-up, tan substance looks like Parmesan cheese. The other theory is it's shorthand for the Spanish word "chiva," which is street slang for heroin.
By using the name "cheese," drug dealers are marketing the low-grade heroin to a younger crowd -- many of them middle schoolers -- unaware of its potential dangers, authorities say.
"These are street dealers, dope dealers," Moncibais recently warned students at Sam Tasby Middle School. "They give you a lethal dose. What do they care?"
Moncibais then asked how many students knew a "cheese" user. Just about everyone in the auditorium raised a hand. At one point, when he mentioned that the United States has the highest rate of drug users in the world, the middle schoolers cheered. (Watch middle schoolers raise hands, admit they know drug users)
"You know, I know being No. 1 is important, but being the No. 1 dopeheads in the world, I don't know whether [that] bears applause," Moncibais shot back.
Authorities say the number of arrests involving possession of "cheese" in the Dallas area this school year was 146, up from about 90 the year before. School is out for the summer, and authorities fear that the students, with more time on their hands, could turn to the drug.
'Cheese' as common a problem as pot
School officials and police have been holding assemblies, professional lectures, PTA meetings and classroom discussions to get the word out about the drug. A public service announcement made by Dallas students is airing on local TV, and a hotline number has been created for those seeking assistance.
Drug treatment centers in Dallas say teen "cheese" addicts are now as common as those seeking help for a marijuana addiction. "It is the first drug to have even come close in my experience here," says Michelle Hemm, director of Phoenix House in Dallas.
From September 2005 to September 2006, Phoenix House received 69 "cheese" referral calls from parents. Hemm says that in the last eight months alone, that number has nearly doubled to 136. The message from the parents is always, "My kid is using 'cheese,' " she says.
Phoenix House refers them to detoxification units first, but Hemm says at least 62 teens have received additional treatment at her facility since last September.
Fernando Cortez Sr. knows all too well how devastating cheese heroin can be. A reformed drug user who has spent time in prison, Cortez had spoken to his children about the pitfalls of drug use. He thought his 15-year-old son was on the right track.
But on March 31, his boy, Fernando "Nando" Cortez Jr., was found dead after using cheese heroin.
"I should have had a better talk with him," he says. "All it takes is once. You get high once and you die, and that's what happened to my son."
He knows it's too late for his son. Now, he is using his son's story to help others.
"All I can do is try to help people now. Help the kids, help the parents."
Wednesday, June 13, 2007
Man Gets $1,000 Fine for Putting Biodiesel Bumper Sticker on His Vehicle
www.charlotte.com
Posted on Sat, Jun. 09, 2007
BRUCE HENDERSON
Bob Teixeira decided it was time to take a stand against U.S. dependence on foreign oil. So last fall the Charlotte musician and guitar instructor spent $1,200 to convert his 1981 diesel Mercedes to run on vegetable oil. He bought soybean oil in 5-gallon jugs at Costco, spending about 30 percent more than diesel would cost.
His reward, from a state that heavily promotes alternative fuels: a $1,000 fine last month for not paying motor fuel taxes.
He's been told to expect another $1,000 fine from the federal government.
And to legally use veggie oil, state officials told him, he would have to first post a $2,500 bond.
Teixeira is one of a growing number of fuel-it-yourselfers -- backyard brewers who recycle restaurant grease or make moonshine for their car tanks. They do it to save money, reduce pollution or thumb their noses at oil sheiks.
They're also caught in a web of little-known state laws that can stifle energy independence.
State Sen. Stan Bingham, R-Davidson, is known around Raleigh for his diesel Volkswagen fueled by used soybean oil. The car sports a "Goodbye, OPEC" sign.
"If somebody was going to go to this much trouble to drive around in a car that uses soybean oil, they ought to be exempt" from state taxes, he said.
The N.C. Department of Revenue, which fined Teixeira, has asked legislators to waive the $2,500 bond for small fuel users. The department also told Teixeira, after the Observer asked about his case this week, that it will compromise on his fine.
But officials say they'll keep pursuing taxes on all fuels used in highway vehicles. With its 29.9-cent a gallon gas tax, the state collects $1.2 billion each year to pay for road construction.
"With the high cost of fuel right now, the department does recognize that a lot of people are looking for relief," said Reggie Little, assistant director of the motor fuel taxes division. "We're not here to hurt the small guy, we're just trying to make sure that the playing field is level."
Use promoted, little regulation
State policies firmly endorse alternative fuels.In 2005 legislators directed state agencies to replace 20 percent of their annual petroleum use with alternatives by 2010. About 6,000 of the state's 8,500 vehicles are equipped to use ethanol. The state fleet also includes about 135 gas-electric hybrids.
Few states, however, are prepared to regulate the new fuels, says the National VegOil Board, which promotes vegetable oil fuel.
"State offices do not have the forms to appropriately and fairly deal with VegOil, nor the staff to enforce the non-existent forms," said director Cynthia Shelton. "So either they tell people inquiring about compliance to get lost, or they make them jump through a bunch of arbitrary hoops."
Outraged Illinois legislators this spring quickly waived that state's $2,500 bond requirement when an elderly man was nabbed for using waste vegetable oil.
In the mountain district of state Sen. John Snow, D-Cherokee, home-brewed ethanol was once known as moonshine. But a couple of constituents who made it for fuel have been fined for the same tax violation that got Teixeira in trouble.
Snow has introduced several bills to promote biodiesel, which under state law includes vegetable oil.
"One of the biggest problems in the state is a real lack of information for people who want to use alternative fuels," said Snow's research assistant, Jonathan Ducote. "It's just now appearing on (regulators') radar."
Done in by bumper sticker
Teixeira's story began near Lowe's Motor Speedway on May 14. As recreational vehicles streamed in for race week, revenue investigators were checking fuel tanks of diesel RVs for illegal fuel.
The investigators quickly spotted Teixeira's passing bumper sticker: "Powered by 100% vegetable oil."
"It was like some twist of fate that put me there," he said. "It was like I was asking for them to stop me."
Teixeira says revenue officials are just doing their jobs. But he thinks it's unfair that he was lumped with people who purposely try to avoid fuel taxes.
"Individuals who are trying to do the right thing environmentally cannot and should not continue to take this kind of financial hit," he wrote Gov. Mike Easley.
Teixeira says he'll pay the state fine and apply for a state fuel license. But pumping regular diesel again "broke my heart."
"I'm ready to get myself legal," he said, "and start using vegetable oil again."
Alternative Fuel Vehicles*
North CarolinaDiesel 118,479
Flex fuel 121,547
(ethanol capable)
Hybrid 11,758
Total 251,784
South Carolina
Diesel 54,786
Flex fuel 68,303
Hybrid 3,264
Total 126,353
*Registered as of July 2006
SOURCE: Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers
Iraqi Freedom Hero Soldier Beaten/Tased By Las Vegas Police At McCarran Airport!!
Operation Iraqi Freedom Hero Solider being beaten and tased by 2 officers at Las Vegas Metro Police Dept. while another Las Vegas Metro Police Officer stands back and watches with his hands in his pockets thru glass doors, then laughs and makes a little skip as he makes fun of the Soldier's fall from the first of THREE tasings with a buddy TSA employee. This Soldier did NOTHING wrong and NO charges were filed against him~ Watch the ongoing investigation on ABC Las Vegas with Ben Deci reporting or on www.ktnv.com
Sunday, June 10, 2007
Thursday, June 07, 2007
Drug giant sued over child deaths
CNN.COM
POSTED: 5:31 a.m. EDT, June 5, 2007
ABUJA, Nigeria (Reuters) -- Nigeria filed new charges against Pfizer Monday, seeking $6.95 billion in damages over the deaths of children who received an unapproved drug during a meningitis epidemic.
The suit came after a separate court delayed until July two cases in which Pfizer is accused by the northern state of Kano of harming Nigerian children by testing them with the antibiotic Trovan in 1996.
Although the Kano state government case has been running for more than two years, Monday was the first time the federal government filed its own charges.
Nigeria alleged in papers filed at a Federal High Court in the capital Abuja that Pfizer, the world's biggest drugmaker, did not obtain approval from the relevant regulatory agencies and acted unethically when it tested the antibiotic in Kano.
"The plaintiff contends that the defendant never obtained approval of the relevant regulatory agencies ..., nor did the defendant seek or receive approval to conduct any clinical trial at any time before their illegal conduct," Nigeria said in court papers obtained by Reuters.
After taking preliminary arguments from counsels to both parties, Justice Babs Kuewumi adjourned the case to June 26 for further hearing.
Pfizer denies the allegations.
A Pfizer spokesman in New York, Bryant Haskins, reiterated comments the company had already made, that its clinical trial of Trovan was conducted with the full knowledge of the Nigerian government and in a responsible and ethical way.
"These allegations against Pfizer, which are not new, are highly inflammatory and not based on all the facts," he said.
"We continue to maintain, in the strongest terms, that the Nigerian government was fully informed in advance of the clinical trial; that the trial was conducted appropriately, ethically and with the best interests of patients in mind; and that it helped save lives."
Kano state government has filed criminal charges and a civil lawsuit seeking $2.075 billion in damages from Pfizer over the tests which it alleges caused the deaths of some children and permanent health problems for others.
Nigeria is seeking $500 million for what the government says it has spent on treatment, compensation and support for the Trovan victims and their families, and $450 million for public education to erase social misgivings that arose from the ill-fated tests.
The government says it spent $1 billion on a health program that failed because of the misgivings caused by the Trovan tests, while it is claiming $5 billion in general damages.
The cases in Kano were due to come up for hearing on Monday at a state high court but no representative of Pfizer was present in court. The judge adjourned the civil case to July 4 and the criminal case to July 9.
Haskins said company lawyers did not attend the hearing because Pfizer had not been served notice of the proceeding -- and that the cases were postponed for that reason.
The legal dispute has been going on for years. A U.S. federal judge in 2005 dismissed a lawsuit that accused Pfizer of not properly warning Nigerian families about the risk of Trovan, saying it should be heard in a Nigerian court.
Pfizer has said the clinical trial was conducted "in a responsible and ethical way consistent with the company's abiding commitment to patient safety."
The company said that at the time of the meningitis outbreak, Trovan was in late-stage development and had been evaluated in 5,000 patients.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration cleared Trovan for adult use in 1997 but did not approve the drug for use by American children.
Wednesday, June 06, 2007
Monday, June 04, 2007
Superman in "Jungle Drums" w/Special Guest - Hitler
yes...even Superman....notice how superman is discribed & how the africans are depicted.
TV Is For Women
The Cleaver.blogspot.com
In a world where television encourages women to deny their femininity and act like men, we see the continued erosion of the family unit, petty power struggles, astonishing selfishness and deep identity crises. Perhaps worst of all, there is a dark amnesia obscuring the centuries of warm, happy, loving relationships between men and women.
Over the last five decades, television has resolutely pursued woman as the ideal, self-perpetuating consumer unit. It has hunted her down, cornered her and force fed a poison that once inside the system, gradually calcifies the creative third eye, sealing it over and instead pinning back the eyelids for uncut trash TV carpet-bombing. In the resultant state of psychic anxiety and emotional dissatisfaction, the consumer impulse is at its strongest. However, it is the increased state of suggestibility that the television induces (using methods outlined in the previous article) that we will look at here.
TV scheduling is dominated by programming that debases and trivializes women. The system uses soap operas, dramas, movies, pop videos, docusoaps and comedies to construct a deliberately ambiguous moral, ethical and intellectual framework. Even factual programmes can be filmed and edited to put forward a very specific message, regardless of their seemingly pragmatic content. But it is undoubtedly fiction that has the deepest influence over the unconscious mind. If Desperate Housewives/Ugly Betty portray the amusing side of sleeping around, it becomes manifest. If Coronation Street/Eastenders depict credit card debt as part and parcel of modern life, it becomes manifest. If Lost/24 portray aggression and treachery as an inherent aspect of humankind, it becomes manifest. Although viewers may claim to see through the superficial proclamations and fantasy narratives of these shows, the truth is that the subconscious mind does not differentiate between fantasy and reality. Once the unconscious gateway swings open, the ideas and suggestions of these grim TV hallucinations hardwire themselves into the brain’s neural net for all time. Everything is stored forever. Subsequent reflection, decisions and deeds may therefore be based on a cynically contrived fantasy, as a pose to one's own personal reality.
Thumb through the listings, and here in the UK at least, it’s all cooking, reality tv, house renovation, celebrity gossip, singing and dancing contests, nannies, cleaning, melodramas, shopping, family experiments and partner swapping, public humiliation of contestants in aggressive arenas, pop music, trivia. I’m sure it’s similar in America, Canada, Western Europe and elsewhere. Of course, there’s sport, cop shows and action movies for the average male out there, but they’re just crumbs from the table. And besides, it’s pretty easy to placate a man with a six pack of Corona and a Steven Seagal movie. It works for me. For women, it has to be more sophisticated.
The system seeks out the most vulnerable women first. The lower/working class who have minimal resources, rudimentary education and are not required to critically analyze anything in their day-to-day activities. And even financial limitations need not prevent regular recreational expenditure in the 21st century. Within this demographic, the compulsion to seek distraction and avoidance can be heavily exploited. An escape route is unveiled that leads the viewer away from the primitive sludge of their soul crushing, spoon-fed existence and into a secret garden of glamour, celebrity and excitement. Programming on this level can be easily detected. For those higher up the social strata, better educated and with a certain amount of expendable income, the television programming is shrewdly designed to appeal to their most ignoble instincts: fear, envy, lust and self-loathing. Basic con tricks about ageing, beauty, romance and materialism. Things that undermine feminine creativity and the very identity of womanhood itself. Within the inevitable anxiety that this creates, the system implants the powerful (but erroneous) perception of social Darwinism; a survival of the fittest mindset which dismantles the intelligence, charm and dignity of women. The Feminist movement (entirely fuelled, funded and directed by the Rockefeller family) applauds this, believing it to represent a certain equanimity in the masculine-feminine dynamic.
The desired effects on the viewers, from the smartest to the dumbest, from the most content to the most despondent, are all fairly similar: emotional frailty, social seclusion, material craving and intellectual stupefaction. Each felt at varying levels and at different concentrations, depending on the social trends and factors operating at the time. In Summer for example, the intensity is always ramped up. Natural solar cycles, political events, wars and social movements are all reflected, counterbalanced, amplified or muted within the closely controlled programming. The attention to detail is staggering.
Summary
Look around and you will see that many of the women in your life are getting routinely indoctrinated by the television; and to a much greater degree than the average male. It’s happening everywhere I look. Any man I talk to reports a similar experience.
The controllers understand that by disconnecting the potent natural energies of womanhood and family, they can (a) tax and sell to a larger portion of the population, (b) disassemble the ethical structures of the collective female psyche, and (c) destroy quality relationships between men and women. Images of Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four spring to mind. In the novel, “The Party” imposes antisexualism on its members, since sexual attachments might diminish exclusive loyalty to the Party. In part III of the book, O'Brien tells Winston that their neurologists are working on removing the orgasm from humans - Orwell supposed that the sufficient mental energy for prolonged worship requires the repression of a vital instinct, such as the sex instinct. This possibly alludes to the restrictions on sexuality imposed by authorities (civil, political, religious or otherwise, such as in the German National Socialism), be it consciously or by selective pressures on doctrine.
In a world where television encourages women to deny their femininity and act like men, we see the continued erosion of the family unit, petty power struggles, astonishing selfishness and deep identity crises. Perhaps worst of all, there is a dark amnesia obscuring the centuries of warm, happy, loving relationships between men and women. So what’s the solution? How do you limit the influence of the TV? Simple… pull the fucking plug.
