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4/15/2013
Boston Bombing: BBC already suggesting homegrown right-wing terrorist narrative There are rumours within intelligence agencies that the boston bombing may not have been perpetrated by islamic extremists but a homegrown "right wing" terrorists...
CNN National Security Analyst Warns Of 'Right-Wing Extremists' Behind Boston Bombings Mark Mardell chatter (BBC)
Boston Marathon explosion: University of Mobile coach offers first-hand reports from scene Alastair Stevenson is thankful he was able to finish the Boston Marathon in the time he did.
Had he not, the tragic circumstances unfolding in downtown Boston might have personally affected him. - While there is no confirmation yet on whether the blasts were the result of a terrorist attack, Stevenson said something he saw before the race was unusual.
"At the starting line this morning, they had bomb sniffing dogs and the bomb squad out there," he said. "They kept announcing to runners not to be alarmed, that they were running a training exercise."
He added, "I've run a lot of races like this one, but I never saw bomb dogs at the starting line of any running event. It led me to believe that something like (a bomb detonation) might have happened." (AL.com)
Boston Marathon explosions kill at least three -- in pictures At least three people – including an eight-year-old – were killed and 144 more injured, 30 critically, in a pair of explosions at the finish line of the Boston Marathon on Monday. The explosions occurred at 2.50pm ET, just feet away from the finishing line, where hundreds of runners were still arriving as the world's oldest annual marathon was in full flow (London Guardian)
Boston Marathon: Boston Globe Tweet Spurs Confusion The Boston Marathon explosion story is one of horrific proportions but there is one tweet floating around on the internet that is raising a few eyebrows. Why did the official Boston Globe Twitter account announce that there would be an explosion across from the library?
While many people think that this is a conspiracy, as seems to always be the case after a horrific attack, there's nothing to worry about here.
Though it all seems a bit confusing, the tweet, which was posted at 3:53 PM an hour after the explosions, talked of a "controlled explosion opposite the library." A screenshot showing a time stamp of 12:53 PM caused people to take this message to mean that the Globe knew about the blasts before they happened, but that isn't the case. It was actually an issue with time zones. The 12:53 tweet was from someone on the West Coast, who may or may not have wanted to cause confusion and panic by making it look like the tweet was posted before the blasts. (Gather)
Boston Police Confirm Explosions along the Marathon Route in the area of Boylston Street The Following Information is Preliminary:
• At about 2:50pm, on Monday, April 15, 2013, Boston Police responded to two large explosions along the Boston Marathon route in the area of 673 Boylston Street.
• The Boston Police Department is confirming two fatalities and over twenty injuries.
• At about 4:12pm, the Boston Police Department responded to a 3nd explosion or fire in the area of the JFK Library in Dorchester. Officials are working to determine the nature of the incident. There are no injuries to report in connection to that incident.
• At present, a multi-agency response including state and federal law enforcement agencies has been activated and is investigating the cause of the explosions. At this point, it is uncertain if the explosions are connected. (Boston Police Department)
CNN ANALYST: 'RIGHT-WING EXTREMISTS' COULD BE BEHIND BOSTON MARATHON BOMBING Less than two hours after the horrific bombing at the Boston Marathon, CNN national security analyst Peter Bergen was already speculating that "right-wing extremists" could be behind the attack. He told CNN anchor Jake Tapper:
I'm reminded of Oklahoma City, which was a bombing, which was initially treated as a gas explosion. First reports are often erroneous. (Breitbart)
UM Coach: Bomb Sniffing Dogs, Spotters on Roofs Before Explosions University of Mobile’s Cross Country Coach, who was near the finish line of the Boston Marathon when a series of explosions went off, said he thought it was odd there were bomb sniffing dogs at the start and finish lines.
"They kept making announcements to the participants do not worry, it's just a training exercise," Coach Ali Stevenson told Local 15.
Stevenson said he saw law enforcement spotters on the roofs at the start of the race. He's been in plenty of marathons in Chicago, D.C., Chicago, London and other major metropolitan areas but has never seen that level of security before.
"Evidently, I don't believe they were just having a training exercise," Stevenson said. "I think they must have had some sort of threat or suspicion called in." (NBC)
What Happened The Last Time We Saw Gold Drop Like This? The rapidity of gold's drop is impressive, concerning, and disorderly. We have seen two other such instances of disorderly 'hurried' selling in the last five years. In July 2008, gold quickly dropped 21% - seemingly pre-empting the Lehman debacle and the collapse of the western banking system. In September 2011, gold fell 20% in a short period - as Europe's risks exploded and stocks slumped prompting a globally co-ordinated central bank intervention the likes of which we have not seen before. Given the almost-record-breaking drop in gold in the last few days, we wonder what is coming? (Zero Hedge)
WITH ABSOLUTELY NO EVIDENCE, ALEX JONES CALLS BOSTON MARATHON EXPLOSIONS A 'FALSE FLAG' OPERATION CONDUCTED BY THE GOV'T As authorities scramble to determine who is behind the horrific Boston Marathon explosions, conspiracy theorist Alex Jones already has a theory: It was a “false flag” operation conducted by the United States government.
No, he doesn’t have legitimate evidence to back up his claim, however, he points out that the Boston bomb squad was also conducting a bomb drill on Monday. It should be noted that it certainly wouldn’t be strange for the Boston bomb squad to be training with bombs on any given day. They are the bomb squad. (The Blaze)
California Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom calls for legalizing pot Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom called for the legalization of marijuana on Saturday.
“It’s time to decriminalize, tax and regulate marijuana,” he told delegates at the California Democratic Party convention. “It’s time we own up to the fact that our drug laws have done far more harm than good. The war on drugs is an abject failure.”
Newsom, who is known to have an eye on higher office, poked fun at the fact that he is the state’s acting governor because Gov. Jerry Brown is in China on a trade mission. (Los Angeles Times)
Feds' Marijuana Fishing Expedition Called Off in Mendocino County Well, here's some superficially good news.
The feds' precedent-setting fishing expedition into Mendocino County's legal medical marijuana growers' program has been significantly narrowed in scope. No personal identifying information from the County's famed 9.31 program will be released to U.S. Attorney Melinda Haag and her office. It sounds like some good news for Emerald Triangle growers who had come out of the cold to be a part of the Sheriff's Office program - which permitted medical marijuana gardens of up to 99 plants with registration, inspection and fees.
A Northern California marijuana garden
Back in October Haag's office sent out a chilling subpoena to the County demanding pretty much everything on 9.31: names and locations of pot gardeners, county bank records, "any and all" legal correspondence, etc. The grand jury subpoena stepped all over medical record privacy laws, and the attorney client privilege, lawyers in the case noted.
Instead of rolling over on its growers, the County stood tall in December, retaining a San Francisco lawyer to fight the subpoena. The county's counsel made a motion to quash the subpoena, but a hearing on that motion never occurred as both parties talked it out in private.
Tuesday, Mendocino Supervisor John McCowen wrote to a group of affected parties that the county had reached an agreement with the rogue U.S. Attorney.
"An agreement has been reached which voids the need for further court action," he wrote. "No personal identifying information will be reported to the U.S. Attorney." (East Bay Express)
California NDAA Nullification Bill Passes Assembly Committee Unanimously Today, the California Public Safety Committee voted unanimously in favor of Assembly Bill 351 (AB351), the California Liberty Preservation Act.
Introduced by Republican Assemblymember Tim Donnelly, AB351 is a strong stand against “indefinite detention” as supposedly authorized by the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) of 2012. It declares such federal power to be unconstitutional and also requires the entire state to refuse to enforce or assist its implementation. A broad coalition officially supported the legislation and moved the normally partisan, and strongly democratic committee to support the republican-introduced legislation. AB351 was supported by the ACLU, Tenth Amendment Center, San Francisco 99% coalition, San Francisco Board of Supervisors, the Libertarian Party of California – and many others.
AB351 establishes the proper constitutional role by first citing the 10th Amendment as limiting the power of the federal government as to that which has been delegated to it and nothing more.
The Tenth Amendment to the United States Constitution authorizes the United States federal government to exercise only those powers specifically delegated to it in the United States Constitution.
It then declares the indefinite detention powers under NDAA to be unconstitutional:
Sections 1021 and 1022 of the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2012 (NDAA) codifies indefinite military detention without charge or trial of civilians captured far from any battlefield, violating the United States Constitution and corroding our nation’s commitment to the rule of law (Tenth Amendment Center)
Rehtaeh Parsons Rape Case Solved By Anonymous in Less Than 2 Hours Despite "No Evidence" When I was in the 9th grade, I held a knife to my jugular and gave serious thought to cutting it. I was 15 and had been the victim of relentless racial bullying for the better part of four years, and by the time I held that knife to my throat, I was desperate enough for it to end that my life meant nothing to me. The thought of my family and my grandfather in particular stopped me.
This isn't a story I regularly share for obvious reasons, and to be honest it's one I try to forget. Anytime I hear a story like Rehtaeh Parsons's, though, I can't help but think back to that day and wonder if the same things I thought went through her mind as well. The story of Rehtaeh is sadly typical these days; she went to a party, drank, was gang- raped by four boys, and then bullied so cruelly that she hung herself. The full story can be read in that link. My focus is on what happened after: How after a year of investigation, the police deduced that there wasn't enough evidence to charge any of the four assailants, and how Anonymous proved them wrong in two hours.
No, you didn't read that wrong. It only took two hours for the vigilante hacker group to show the world just how useless the RCMP (Who led the investigation) are. Rehtaeh's story stirred the so-called "Internet Hate Machine" into action, but it didn't take any kind of hacking to get down to the bones of the case and build the prosecution that the RCMP bungled in a show of failure and incompetence that would make the Three Stooges shake their heads in embarrassment. Once Anonymous made their rage and intent clear, they were flooded with witness testimony, and from there built the case of the RCMP’s incompetence on three points: that dozens of teens and adults had heard the rapists brag about taking part in the gang rape, that the photo taken of the rape was reportedly so widely circulated it's unlikely the authorities ever bothered to try and find it so they might look at the EXIF data, and that Parsons's school did nothing, despite the fact that child pornography was going viral in their hallways. (Policy Mic)
As marijuana goes legit, investors rush in Pot entrepreneurs have high expectations for a future market in legalized marijuana. - Medicinal marijuana markets:
For the first time, a majority of Americans now support legalizing marijuana. Commercial marijuana sales are estimated at $1.5 billion today which could quadruple by 2018. Eighteen states and the District of Columbia currently allow its medical use. - Brendan Kennedy and Michael Blue are nice boys. Really. They're bankers. Yale MBA classmates. Wearers of ties.
And, if luck and changing laws cooperate, they'll be drug barons of a certain kind.
Kennedy, 40, and Blue, 34, are in the vanguard springing up to seize the market for legal marijuana, which is accelerating with last fall's legalization of most personal pot consumption in Colorado and Washington state. They're running a Seattle private-equity fund, Privateer Holdings, designed to buy up the smaller marijuana-related businesses to create one bigfat one.
After Washington and Colorado, the pot business is, if not mainstream, at least ready to push toward it. Advocates hope to legalize personal use in another 14 states by 2017, mostly among the 16 states besides Washington and Colorado where medical pot is legal (it's also legal in Washington, D.C.). Industry estimates say today's $1.5 billion legal market could quadruple by 2018.
The public is trending toward legalization. In a Pew Research Center poll released Thursday, a majority of Americans (52%) favored legalization, the first time that threshold has been reached since polling on the issue began in 1969. (USA Today)
First magic mushroom depression trial hits stumbling block The world's first clinical trial designed to explore using a hallucinogen from magic mushrooms to treat people with depression has stalled because of British and European rules on the use of illegal drugs in research.
David Nutt, president of the British Neuroscience Association and professor of neuropsychopharmacology at Imperial College London, said he had been granted an ethical green light and funding for the trial, but regulations were blocking it.
"We live in a world of insanity in terms of regulating drugs," he told a neuroscience conference in London on Sunday.
He has previously conducted small experiments on healthy volunteers and found that psilocybin, the psychedelic ingredient in magic mushrooms, has the potential to alleviate severe forms of depression in people who don't respond to other treatments.
Following these promising early results he was awarded a 550,000 pounds ($844,000) grant from the UK's Medical Research Council to conduct a full clinical trial in patients. (Reuters)
Conspiracy Theory Poll Results On our national poll this week we took the opportunity to poll 20 widespread and/or infamous conspiracy theories. Many of these theories are well known to the public, others perhaps to just the darker corners of the internet. Here’s what we found:
- 37% of voters believe global warming is a hoax, 51% do not. Republicans say global warming is a hoax by a 58-25 margin, Democrats disagree 11-77, and Independents are more split at 41-51. 61% of Romney voters believe global warming is a hoax
- 6% of voters believe Osama bin Laden is still alive
- 21% of voters say a UFO crashed in Roswell, NM in 1947 and the US government covered it up. More Romney voters (27%) than Obama voters (16%) believe in a UFO coverup
- 28% of voters believe secretive power elite with a globalist agenda is conspiring to eventually rule the world through an authoritarian world government, or New World Order. A plurality of Romney voters (38%) believe in the New World Order compared to 35% who don’t
- 28% of voters believe Saddam Hussein was involved in the 9/11 attacks. 36% of Romney voters believe Saddam Hussein was involved in 9/11, 41% do not (Public Policy Polling)
Sandy Hook truthers are not giving up ~ Meet Brendan Hunt, a 20-something NYC resident with a video camera. He and his movement are on a mission Brendan Hunt is nothing like the other Sandy Hook conspiracy theorists we’ve encountered. Yes, he thinks the December shooting was a kind of hoax to help the government seize power. But he’s not some right-wing “gun nut.” He’s not a militia member. And he’s not middle-aged and living in the middle of the country.
Hunt is in his 20s and lives in New York City, where he is an “actor, musician, artist and independent journalist.” He’s starred in Shakespeare plays and independent films and written books and news reports. His roots aren’t in the radical-right or libertarian movements, but on the left side of the political spectrum, where he’s aligned himself with Occupy Wall Street and says he’s produced segments for WBAI, a well-known public radio station in New York affiliated with the proudly “radical” left-wing Pacifica network.
Social scientists have used the term “fusion paranoia” to describe the merging of the radical left and right into a common concern about the government and centralized power to a point where they are almost indistinguishable on many issues. A British study released last year found that many conspiracy theories are pushed by core groups of people who are prone to believe in conspiracies of all kind — even contradictory ones.
And this isn’t Hunt’s first conspiracy rodeo. He has an e-book positing that Nirvana lead singer Kurt Cobain did not commit suicide, but was in fact murdered, and a movie about the Illuminati. (Salon)
Living With Less. A Lot Less. I LIVE in a 420-square-foot studio. I sleep in a bed that folds down from the wall. I have six dress shirts. I have 10 shallow bowls that I use for salads and main dishes. When people come over for dinner, I pull out my extendable dining room table. I don’t have a single CD or DVD and I have 10 percent of the books I once did.
I have come a long way from the life I had in the late ’90s, when, flush with cash from an Internet start-up sale, I had a giant house crammed with stuff — electronics and cars and appliances and gadgets.
Somehow this stuff ended up running my life, or a lot of it; the things I consumed ended up consuming me. My circumstances are unusual (not everyone gets an Internet windfall before turning 30), but my relationship with material things isn’t.
We live in a world of surfeit stuff, of big-box stores and 24-hour online shopping opportunities. Members of every socioeconomic bracket can and do deluge themselves with products.
There isn’t any indication that any of these things makes anyone any happier; in fact it seems the reverse may be true.
For me, it took 15 years, a great love and a lot of travel to get rid of all the inessential things I had collected and live a bigger, better, richer life with less. (New York Times)
Maryland Medical Marijuana: O'Malley Administration Withdraws Opposition To Bill Gov. Martin O'Malley's administration withdrew its opposition to legislation allowing doctors and nurses to dispense medical marijuana to patients through academic medical centers, raising prospects for passage this year.
Dr. Joshua M. Sharfstein, the state secretary of health and mental hygiene, said Friday that the administration could support the bill but only if it gave the governor the "flexibility" to suspend the program if the federal government threatened legal action over what it still classifies as an illegal drug.
"If it's clear it's not something that's going to bring prosecution on state employees, we can go forward," Sharfstein told members of the House Government Operations and Judiciary committees, who held a joint hearing on the issue.
Under what Sharfstein called a "yellow-light approach" to medical marijuana, the bill would allow dispensing the drug to patients with cancer, intractable pain and other conditions.
O'Malley had threatened to veto medical marijuana legislation last year, saying that U.S. attorneys in Delaware and Washington had warned that those states' employees would not be immune from prosecution and that possession or distribution of marijuana remained illegal under federal law, regardless of what state laws say. Maryland Attorney General Douglas F. Gansler also expressed concerns. (The Baltimore Sun)
Would you call for help if your friend overdosed? One evening, a student at Ithaca College overdosed on heroin. His friend immediately called for help, and paramedics arrived just in time to save the student’s life.
Would you have made that call?
For many years, calling 911 or campus safety hotlines in a drug or alcohol overdose situation could result in disciplinary action for the student in trouble, the student who called and other students in the group. However, Students for a Sensible Drug Policy (SSDP), an organization gaining ground on campuses across the United States, is fighting to change that. (USA Today)
Cuddle therapy may have health benefits Scientific research shows that a good hug can be a great benefit and it may not make any difference whether the hug comes from a friend or a stranger.
"We are not here just to do this for just one another. We're here to learn how to do this with anyone," said Travis Sigley.
Sigley runs Cuddle Therapy -- a service specializing in private and group cuddling sessions, which he started four years ago.
"A hug can do a world of difference if you're just feeling terrible. Giving a big hug, or laying down and cuddling with someone for a while I think will just totally change how you feel," said Sigley.
The rules are clear: no nudity and no sex. Cuddlers must respect one another's boundaries and communicate any discomfort or unwanted advances. The workshops start with a discussion about why people are in the cuddle class. Then participants pair up and cuddle. (ABC)
'Marijuana cannon' used to fire drugs over US border seized in Mexico Compressed-air gun mounted on truck could throw 13-kilo packets over fence into California • US drugs prosecutors switch sides to defend accused Colombian traffickers - Police in the border city of Mexicali say they have recovered a powerful improvised cannon used to hurl packets of marijuana across a border fence into California. (London Guardian)
Uzbeks Sentenced For Fundamentalism A court in Uzbekistan has handed prison sentences to people deemed to have been members of an Islamic fundamentalist group.
A law-enforcement official said on February 27 that 11 members of the organization known as Jihadism received prison terms of between five and 12 years.
The group was operating in the country's eastern region of Namangan in the restive Ferghana Valley, which is shared with neighboring Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan.
Uzbek officials say the Jihadism group has been spreading radical Islam in the region since the early 1990s. (Radio Free Europe)
AKEL wastes no time in slamming PfP proposal COMMUNIST AKEL yesterday censured President-elect Nicos Anastasiades for his stated intent to apply for Cypriot membership of the NATO-affiliated Partnership for Peace.
A party spokesman warned such a move would backfire on the divided island.
It was the first skirmish between the soon-to-be opposition AKEL and the Anastasiades government which takes power in a few days.
In announcing plans to join the Partnership for Peace (PfP), Anastasiades has manifested a major foreign policy shift from the outgoing administration of President Christofias.
AKEL is strongly opposed to any links with NATO, holding it responsible for what it says was a conspiracy to split the island in 1974.
Through its spokesman, AKEL reiterated yesterday that joining PfP would constitute a major strategic and diplomatic blunder.
The move would cast doubt on the Greek Cypriot side’s commitment to demilitarising the island subsequent to a political settlement, Giorgos Loucaides said.
In addition to undermining Cyprus’ credibility, he said, the move would play into the hands of Turkish diplomacy by taking the spotlight off Ankara. (Cyprus Mail)
After 6 years, University of Maryland finally approves Good Samaritan policy for all drugs ~ Four generations of SSDP activists' work results in victory Yesterday, I returned to the University of Maryland, my alma mater, to attend a University Senate (the governing body comprised of 90% faculty and staff, and 10% students) meeting where members voted 81-2-1 in favor of an important life-saving overdose prevention policy. The Diamondback reports:
After proposing a measure nearly six years ago that would protect dangerously drunk students or students on drugs from university sanctions if they call 911 for themselves or a friend, the University Senate voted overwhelmingly yesterday to approve an all-inclusive Good Samaritan policy.
The policy first passed the senate in 2011, when it was amended to only include alcohol. But activists quickly mobilized to push for a policy that included all drugs, leading former undergraduate senator Brandon Levey to propose all-inclusive legislation more than a year ago. Now, after the senate’s 81-2 vote with one abstention, the measure will go to university President Wallace Loh for his signature. (Students for Sensible Drug Policy)
Crystal Varkalis testifies at University of Maryland Senate on Call 911 Good Samaritan Policy The University Senate voted yesterday to approve an all-inclusive Good Samaritan policy, which would protect students from university sanctions if they called 911 in the event of a drug or alcohol overdose. Four generations of Students for Sensible Drug Policy activists enjoy finally achieving their goal!
David Cosner testifies for SB297 in Maryland Senate Judiciary Proceedings Entitled: Criminal Law ~ Possession of Marijuana ~ De Minimis Quantity
Sponsored by: Senator Zirkin ~Status: In the House - Hearing 3/28 at 1:00 p.m. ~ Synopsis: Altering the penalty for use or possession of less than 10 grams of marijuana; making the violation a civil offense punishable by a fine not exceeding $100; etc.
Future Radioheads Few subjects manage to pull our critique trigger as handsomely as Western celebrities on an Africa related mission. But when a rock star gets it right and decides to do some awesome stuff during his first-ever visit to the continent and proves deserving of praise, we’re the first one to crack the nod. So when Radiohead’s Colin Greenwood went on a 10-day radio tour in South Africa in January and recorded some audio in studios across the country, we were all ears.
As it turns out, he spent the lion’s share of his tour in the studio. But instead of his usual companions Thom Yorke, Philip Selway, Ed O’Brien and Jonny Greenwood, he shared the space with children. He wasn’t there to record tracks with them, nor did he flood them with ideas or insights about rockstardom, music or politics. Instead, he was there to listen and learn from his young hosts, who, as trained reporters, showed him how they produce their weekly talk radio shows for their community radio stations. (Africa is a Country)
NASA Satellites Find Freshwater Losses in Middle East A new study using data from a pair of gravity-measuring NASA satellites finds that large parts of the arid Middle East region lost freshwater reserves rapidly during the past decade.
Scientists at the University of California, Irvine; NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md.; and the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colo., found during a seven-year period beginning in 2003 that parts of Turkey, Syria, Iraq and Iran along the Tigris and Euphrates river basins lost 117 million acre feet (144 cubic kilometers) of total stored freshwater. That is almost the amount of water in the Dead Sea. The researchers attribute about 60 percent of the loss to pumping of groundwater from underground reservoirs.
The findings, to be published Friday, Feb. 15, in the journal Water Resources Research, are the result of one of the first comprehensive hydrological assessments of the entire Tigris-Euphrates-Western Iran region. Because obtaining ground-based data in the area is difficult, satellite data, such as those from NASA's twin Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) satellites, are essential. GRACE is providing a global picture of water storage trends and is invaluable when hydrologic observations are not routinely collected or shared beyond political boundaries.
"GRACE data show an alarming rate of decrease in total water storage in the Tigris and Euphrates river basins, which currently have the second fastest rate of groundwater storage loss on Earth, after India," said Jay Famiglietti, principal investigator of the study and a hydrologist and professor at UC Irvine. "The rate was especially striking after the 2007 drought. Meanwhile, demand for freshwater continues to rise, and the region does not coordinate its water management because of different interpretations of international laws." (National Aeronautics And Space Administration)
Christopher Dorner Manhunt: Police Search For Ex-Los Angeles Officer In Alleged Murder, Cop Killing A fired police officer who threatened to bring "warfare" to the Los Angeles Police Department went on a shooting rampage that left a policeman and two others dead and set off an extraordinary manhunt that had three states and Mexico on alert for much of Thursday.
The search for Christopher Dorner led hair-trigger officers to mistakenly shoot at innocent citizens and forced police to guard their own.
But the focus of police efforts shifted Thursday afternoon to the snowy mountains around Big Bear Lake, about 80 miles east of Los Angeles, where police found Dorner's burned-out pickup truck and tracks leading away from the vehicle.
San Bernardino County Sheriff John McMahon said 125 officers were going door to door and attempting to track the suspect, and that a SWAT team was providing added security to those in the community. Schools were put on lockdown while investigators examined the vehicle and spread out across the area. (Huffington Post)
LAPD Sgt. Confirms Dorner's Accusations of Racism, Tells Dorner to Call Media Before Surrendering An African-American LAPD officer who is still on the force has reached out to ex-LAPD cop Chris Dorner, confirming some of Dorner’s accusations of racism, and guiding Dorner on how best to turn himself in without being harmed.
Sgt. Wayne K. Guillary posted a message on the website of Earl Ofari Hutchinson in which he details how being outspoken has negatively impacted his time in the force:
… There’s still much work to be done … Some may say that nothing has changed with the leadership in the LAPD. … Trust me I have been in the fight with the organization regarding social and racial injustice within the LAPD. Currently, I am the only out spoken African American within the organization that possesses the moral courage to confront and ask questions unflinchingly about race, racism and discrimination in the LAPD. Yet still, I have paid a humiliating price inside the LAPD for preserving and believing in the importance of “I have a Dream.” (Your Black World)
Op-ed: A Chuck Hagel for Our Time -- The nation’s first openly gay ambassador, James Hormel, explains why he now supports the Senate confirmation of a man who helped block his own confirmation. In 1997, when Chuck Hagel took his seat as a newly elected member of the United States Senate, our country was a less friendly place.
The U.S. Supreme Court ruling in Bowers v. Hardwick, which held that private, consensual homosexual acts violated sodomy laws, was still in effect. The malevolent "don't ask, don't tell" military regulations had been in force for three years. The so-called Defense of Marriage Act, a 20th-century variation on the Dred Scott case, had just been enacted by Congress and signed by President Clinton. Many states still applied criminal laws to homosexual acts.
What a difference 16 years can make! In 2003, Lawrence v. Texas overturned the Hardwick ruling and invalidated all state sodomy statutes. That same year, the Massachusetts Supreme Court acknowledged the right of same-sex couples to marry. In 2011, "don't ask, don't tell" was repealed. (Advocate.com)
Quantum biology: Do weird physics effects abound in nature? Disappearing in one place and reappearing in another. Being in two places at once. Communicating information seemingly faster than the speed of light.
This kind of weird behaviour is commonplace in dark, still laboratories studying the branch of physics called quantum mechanics, but what might it have to do with fresh flowers, migrating birds, and the smell of rotten eggs?
Welcome to the frontier of what is called quantum biology.
It is still a tentative, even speculative discipline, but what scientists are learning from it might just spark revolutions in the development of new drugs, computers and perfumes - or even help in the fight against cancer.
Until recently, the delicate states of matter predicted by quantum mechanics have only been accessed with the most careful experiments: isolated particles at blisteringly low temperatures or pressures approaching that of deep space. (BBC)
Burning Man Vs. Superstorm Sandy Union Beach, New Jersey, like much of the state, is a mess thanks to Superstorm Sandy. Its residents who are sticking it out and hoping to rebuild have to figure out a way to clear their lots of debris and condemned structures. Regular relief groups don’t provide aid for this kind of work, and contractors aren’t going to cut a break for flood victims. It has left an altruistic void, one that has been filled by a bunch of people who are stereotypically known for heading out every year to the middle of a desert in Nevada to do a bunch of drugs, dress up like gay aliens, and light a bunch of shit on fire.
Yes, a small group of Burning Man enthusiasts have formed what appears to be an extremely efficient charitable organization that helps people in ways more bureaucratic organizations can’t.
Just because the typical view of Burners is that they're computer programmers who fantasize all year about wearing furry purple pants while tripping on 2CT7 and convulsing to dubstep, it doesn’t mean they don’t know their way around a construction site. These same people spend months and even years constructing elaborate psychedelic mutant robo-vehicles atop of which they party for a week like the world is going to end. And they really love demolition. “Going to Burning Man is like boot camp for disaster relief,” said Tom Price, one of several cofounders. "Dealing with food, water, and shelter in a harsh environment and building a community from scratch isn't a challenge, it's what we do for vacation." (Vice)
Scientists to resume work with lab-bred bird flu International scientists who last year halted controversial research with the deadly bird flu say they are resuming their work as countries adopt new rules to ensure safety.
The outcry erupted when two labs — in the Netherlands and the U.S. — reported they had created easier-to-spread versions of bird flu. Amid fierce debate about the oversight of such research and whether it might aid terrorists, those scientists voluntarily halted further work last January — and more than three dozen of the world's leading flu researchers signed on as well.
On Wednesday, those scientists announced they were ending their moratorium because their pause in study worked: It gave the U.S. government and other world health authorities time to determine how they would oversee high-stakes research involving dangerous germs. (Associated Press)
'Naked' airport scans could undergo revamp Canadian airports are still using the so-called naked full body scan images being removed from airports in the United States because the three-dimensional images are considered too revealing.
But that could eventually change, said Canadian Air Transport Security Authority (CATSA) spokesman Mathieu Larocque.
CATSA is currently testing automated target recognition software on the scanners, he said.
"It essentially generates just a stick man image … that will highlight an area of the body that could need more inspection, like the ankle, for example, or the elbow," said Larocque, who is based in Ottawa.
"We don't have a specific timeline for potential deployment, but this is something that we’re looking at," he said. (CBC)
'Privacy visor blocks facial recognition software' A pair of glasses dubbed a "privacy visor" has been developed to thwart hidden cameras using facial-recognition software.
The prototype spectacles have been designed by scientists at Tokyo's National Institute of Informatics.
The glasses are equipped with a near-infrared light source, which confuses the software without affecting vision.
Law enforcers, shops and social networks are increasingly using facial-recognition software.
Prof Isao Echizen said: "As a result of developments in facial recognition technology in Google images, Facebook et cetera and the popularisation of portable terminals that append photos with photographic information [geotags]... essential measures for preventing the invasion of privacy caused by photographs taken in secret and unintentional capture in camera images is now required." (BBC)
End the self-destructive war on drugs Congratulations to Bob Ehrlich for pointing out that the United States, the supposed "land of the free," is now the largest jailer nation in the world ("Obama's unpardonable neglect of clemency," Jan. 13). This country is using its own legal system to tear itself apart, and for what? It's a word no one dares use, but it's what we have here in America — prohibition, also known as the "war on drugs." And I applaud Mr. Ehrlich for pointing in the right direction, but tinkering with parole and pardons is little more than arranging the deck chairs on the Titanic. (Baltimore Sun)
Insight: Evidence grows for narcolepsy link to GSK swine flu shot Emelie is plagued by hallucinations and nightmares. When she wakes up, she's often paralyzed, unable to breathe properly or call for help. During the day she can barely stay awake, and often misses school or having fun with friends. She is only 14, but at times she has wondered if her life is worth living.
Emelie is one of around 800 children in Sweden and elsewhere in Europe who developed narcolepsy, an incurable sleep disorder, after being immunized with the Pandemrix H1N1 swine flu vaccine made by British drugmaker GlaxoSmithKline in 2009.
Finland, Norway, Ireland and France have seen spikes in narcolepsy cases, too, and people familiar with the results of a soon-to-be-published study in Britain have told Reuters it will show a similar pattern in children there.
Their fate, coping with an illness that all but destroys normal life, is developing into what the health official who coordinated Sweden's vaccination campaign calls a "medical tragedy" that will demand rising scientific and medical attention. (Reuters)
Marijuana Class I Appeal Rejected By Federal Court, Still Dangerous With No Accepted Medical Use A federal appeals court Tuesday rejected a petition to reclassify marijuana from its current federal status as a dangerous drug with no accepted medical use.
The appeals court panel denied the bid from three medical marijuana groups, including Americans for Safe Access, and several individuals. In 2011, the Drug Enforcement Administration had rejected a petition by medical marijuana advocates to change the classification.
In his majority opinion Tuesday, Judge Harry T. Edwards wrote that the question wasn't whether marijuana could have some medical benefits, but rather whether the DEA's decision was "arbitrary and capricious." The court concluded that the DEA action survived a review under that standard. (Associated Press)
The War on Drugs Is a "Miserable Failure" A large crowd packed the pews of the historic Shiloh Baptist Church in Washington, D.C. on Saturday. After a deacon introduced such VIP guests as Representatives Maxine Waters (D-Calif.) and John Lewis (D-Georgia), the Reverend Jeremiah Wright, and actor Danny Glover, Pastor Wallace Charles Smith set the stage for the afternoon's program.
"One of the biggest problems facing this nation and much of the world is the drug epidemic," said Smith. "It doesn't seem like this nation has made it a real priority. As long as there is the demand there will be someone who will supply it."
Filmmaker Eugene Jarecki (Why We Fight, Freakonomics) told the crowd that he considers the War on Drugs a "primary human rights issue." On hand to screen an abridged version of his 2012 film The House I Live In (which took the Documentary Grand Jury Prize at Sundance), Jarecki said the day’s program was "bookended by two momentous occasions, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.'s birthday and Barack Obama's inauguration, which includes a swearing in on Dr. King’s bible."
Jarecki added, "I consider [the War on Drugs] the unfinished work of the Civil Rights Movement."
"Amens" rang out from the crowd.
"The Drug War and its extraordinary injustice to people of color must end," said Jarecki. "I don’t just want it on the radar, I want it flashing defcon red. The War on Drugs as we know it has failed so miserably that who can defend it?" (National Geographic)
TSA removes body scanners from airports ~ The TSA has finally abandoned the controversial practice of making passengers go through full-body X-rays The Transportation Security Administration will remove all X-ray body scanners from airports, Bloomberg News reports. The reason: Software couldn’t be developed by a congressionally mandated deadline to automatically detect suspicious items on the body. Instead, TSA officers viewed images of passengers’ naked bodies to see if they were carrying weapons or other contraband, a process that privacy advocates have dubbed a “virtual strip search.”
Privacy had not been the only concern dogging the scanners. A ProPublica investigation found that the TSA had glossed over the small cancer risk posed by even the low doses of radiation emitted by X-ray scanners. The stories also showed that the United States was almost alone in the world in X-raying passengers and that the Food and Drug Administration had gone against its own advisory panel, which recommended the agency set a federal safety standard for security X-rays. In addition, ProPublica reported that, outside airports, other security agencies are exposing people to radiation in more settings and in increasing doses. (Salon)
End The Fed, Or Celebrate Its Existence? Reflections On Our Central Bank's 100th Anniversary (Op/Ed) This year marks the 100th anniversary of the Federal Reserve System. There will be many events commemorating the signing of the Federal Reserve Act in December 1913. Many of those events will be occasions for celebrations by Fed officials and staff, but should the public celebrate a century of central banking?
At the annual meeting of the American Economic Association in San Diego earlier this month, Harvard economist Kenneth Rogoff told a large audience that the Fed has been a "remarkably successful institution." During Q & A, Mark Skousen, author of The Making of Modern Economics, asked why the Fed failed to predict the financial crisis and the Great Recession—but Rogoff failed to answer. Later in that session, Donald Kohn, former vice chairman of the Fed, acknowledged that the Fed had made mistakes and should exercise humility. Yet, he is a firm believer in discretion rather than rules.
In another session, Allan H. Meltzer, the world's leading authority on the Federal Reserve, and a long-time proponent of a rules-based approach to monetary policy, was highly critical of the Fed's expansion of its power since 2007 under Ben Bernanke. "No group," said Meltzer, "should have unrestrained power that the Fed has taken for itself." (Forbes)
Montana's Proposed 2014 Ballot Issues Ballot Issue #1 (Status current as of 1/19/2013)
Subject: Establish a right for adults to purchase, produce and consume marijuana without criminal penalties.
Contact Person: Chris Lindsey
Sponsor: Barb Trego
Type: Constitutional amendment by initiative
Received by SOS: November 16, 2012
Status: Reviewed by Legislative Services Division.
Next Step: Sponsor has the opportunity to respond to Legislative Services. (State of Montana)
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