| WASHINGTON (IWR Satire) - After three special Congressional election losses in a row, Interior Secretary "Dirty" Dirk Kempthorne announced that he was placing all Republicans on the Endangered Species List. Kempthorne also started a series of legal actions to prevent any more Special elections from being held that could possibly lower the GOP numbers any further. "The president really doesn't give a rat's ass about the environment, global warming or some damn bird like the bald eagle, but when his crony buddies are in danger of extinction, all bets are off," said an enraged Kempthorne to reporters. - more -
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By Annalee Newitz And yet the Maker Faire takes place against a backdrop of increasing constraints on our freedom to innovate with technology, as Oxford University researcher Jonathan Zittrain points out in his latest book, The Future of the Internet and How to Stop It (Yale University Press). After spending several years investigating the social and political rules that govern the Internet -- and spearheading the Net censorship tracking project OpenNet Initiative -- Zittrain looks back on the Net's development and predicts a dystopian future. What's chilling is that his dystopia is already coming to pass. - more -
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After her daughter, Sarah, took a fatal overdose in prison, Pauline Campbell, who died yesterday, became a tireless campaigner against the deaths of women in custody. Julie Bindel pays tribute to a woman who was driven by a passion for justice 
Pauline Campbell: a tireless campaigner. Photograph: Graham Turner
Pauline Campbell, who was found dead yesterday morning, put the deaths of women in prison on the map. A formidable and tireless campaigner, she had personal experience of deaths in custody. Just over five years ago, her much-loved daughter Sarah, 18, died of a drug overdose at Styal prison. Campbell's body was discovered close to her daughter's grave in Oakhills cemetery in Malpas, Cheshire. As we went to press, it was not clear whether she had killed herself or died of other causes, but it looks bleak. Sarah died after swallowing 100 sleeping tablets at HMP Styal, on the first night of her three-year sentence. She was Campbell's only child; indeed, her only family member. Sarah's life had been beset by problems, just like the vast majority of women in prison. When she was four, her father walked out, leaving her with what Campbell described to me as "an intense feeling of loss". Much of Sarah's childhood was blighted by sexual abuse, at the hands of a distant relative. After being raped when she was 15, Sarah became clinically depressed, and turned to heroin to numb the pain. It was when trying to harass a man in the street for money to buy drugs that the course of Sarah's life took an even worse turn. The elderly man suffered a heart attack and died on the spot. Sarah was convicted of manslaughter. - more -
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If we really want to explore space, maybe we should sell it off to the highest bidders By Drake Bennett  IF THE PAST few years have taught us anything, it is to not underestimate the intoxicating allure of property. Real estate, it turns out, brings out the adventurer in all of us.
It's unsurprising, then, that a few enterprising thinkers are hoping to harness that power in a more exotic neighborhood: space. No one, of course, owns space - not even the relatively tiny portion of it within humankind's reach. While the space race may have been kicked off by Cold War politics, its rhetoric has always been fastidiously communal, eschewing talk of ownership. "We set sail on this new sea because there is new knowledge to be gained and new rights to be won, and they must be won and used for the progress of all people," President Kennedy intoned in a famous 1962 speech laying out the rationale for putting a man on the moon. In other words, while exploring space has been a race, a mission, and an adventure, it has never been a business. Recently, however, there's been growing interest in changing that. In the small community of people who think seriously about space exploration, a few are arguing that exporting the idea of private property into space is exactly what we need to do to launch a bold new space race. - more -
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Only 15 percent of state's firms using E-Verify system BY SHERYL KORNMAN
Tucson Citizen Fewer than 15 percent of Arizona employers - about 20,000 - have signed up to use the federal government's E-Verify system to check whether a new employee's name matches the employee's Social Security number, according to the Immigration Policy Center. The center is a division of the American Immigration Law Foundation in Washington, D.C. The new Arizona law went into effect Jan. 1 and it punishes employers who knowingly hire workers who are not authorized by the federal government to work in the United States. Violators can have their business license suspended or revoked under the law. A report just released by the policy center said that "given the small number, it's not yet possible to make definitive statements about the impact that E-Verify will have on employers in general." However, it says "innocent" Arizona workers have "limited opportunities" to clear up problems with their records because of the location and business hours of government offices, which close at 4 p.m. It points out there is one U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services office in Tucson. It does not accept walk-ins and appointments must be made online. Because of errors in the computerized E-Verify system, which uses a Social Security Administration database, "approximately 10 percent of naturalized U.S. citizens are told they are not authorized to work." The report asserts that Arizona could lose "as much as $10 billion" because "there are not enough workers in Arizona to take the jobs abandoned by immigrant workers." - more -
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by Daniel B. Young There are many examples throughout history of authorities attempting to detect deception. One of my favorites is that of certain priests in India circa 1500 B.C. A donkey's tail was covered with carbon residue from an oil lamp and placed in a dark room. The suspects were sent into the room and told that pulling the "magic" donkey's tail would reveal the liar. When the suspects came out, the priests examined their hands. Those with clean hands had not touched the donkey's tail. It was assumed that this was due to their fear of their guilt being discovered, proving they were liars. A nice theory with some psychological validity, but what if the guilty man had grabbed the donkey's tail to keep from falling in the dark or an innocent man simply couldn't find the tail in the dark? This probably would not have saved the innocent man – the test was just too convenient for the authorities. In 1915 a Harvard professor named William Moulton Marston developed an instrument he termed a lie detector; it was a prototype polygraph based on blood pressure measurement alone. Four other men, John Larson, Leonarde Keeler, John Reid, and Fred Inbau, over decades, further developed the polygraph machine and the accompanying interrogation techniques into the modern polygraph test. Mr. Marston is not well known for his part in the development of the polygraph. But he did achieve fame in another area. He was the creator of the comic book character Wonder Woman who had a magic lasso that, when wound around a person, would force him to tell only the truth. As you will see there have been times when the magic lasso would have been preferable to the polygraph machine. - more -
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by Henry K. Lee, Chronicle Staff Writer (05-16) 11:07 PDT FRESNO -- Two Modesto men are facing mandatory 20-year prison sentences after being convicted of running a medical-marijuana operation that federal prosecutors labeled a criminal enterprise, authorities said today. Luke Anthony Scarmazzo, 28, and Ricardo Ruiz Montes, 28, were convicted by a federal jury Fresno on Thursday of conducting a continuing criminal enterprise, growing marijuana and possessing marijuana with the intent to distribute. The conviction for running a criminal enterprise carries a mandatory sentence of at least 20 years. U.S. District Judge Oliver Wanger is to sentence both men Aug. 4. Federal officials said the case sends a message to marijuana growers and dealers who believe they are shielded from prosecution under the California law legalizing medical marijuana use. - more -
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By Richard C Cook  This article contains several forecasts, including the possible start of a major war with unforeseeable consequences, if the U.S. should happen to attack Iran . Of course it is in the nature of forecasts to be speculative. There are also forecasts that are intended to serve as warnings and thereby contribute to preventing the events under analysis from ever taking place.
The world's financial elite, long having made their homes in the metropolises of Western Europe, also with a major branch in New York City , may be the party that is really behind what could be an attempt to start World War III by pitting the U.S. against the Asiatic land powers, most notably Russia
The elite have long viewed control of the vast resource-rich Asian continent as the key to control of the world, with the fulcrum of domination being the oil-rich Middle East . Such a war could begin if the U.S. and Britain follow through by attacking Iran on the heels of the Afghan and Iraq wars and recent military deployments to the Persian Gulf region.
The attack may be nuclear, egged on by neocon extremists in the U.S. and their counterparts in Israel , who may simultaneously carry the attack to Lebanon and Syria . (See Mahdi Darius Nazemroaya, "Beating the Drums of a Broader Middle East War," Global Research, May 7, 2008.) These events are closely tied to the U.S. economic recession now underway and the 2008 presidential election.
What is unique about this analysis is the author's contention that the U.S. is being used unwittingly by the European-based financial powers for their own purposes. They know that the U.S. economy is bankrupt, because they have made it so through a quarter century of financial manipulations that have destroyed our manufacturing base and left us horrendously in debt.
Now they have suckered us into the last thing we need—a major Asian land war that threatens to bring Russia and perhaps China into the fray. But that's all right, because once we have exhausted ourselves and courted nuclear retaliation, Europe, which is uniting under the European Union, will likely be left standing, as will Israel .
Note that Israel was created by and owes its primary allegiance to the European financiers, especially those in London , even though the U.S. has been its primary arms supplier and enabler since the assassination of President John F. Kennedy in 1963. If the financiers, aided by Israel , can instigate a major war to get rid of Russia , along with the U.S. , as world powers, they will have accomplished their aim.
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by Philippe Sands Over the past five years the name Mohammed Al-Qahtani - Detainee 063 at Guantanamo - has been indelibly associated with the Bush Administration's efforts to justify extreme measures in the 'war on terror.' This Saudi national was apprehended in Afghanistan in late 2001 and taken to Guantanamo in early 2002, included in a group labelled as the "worst of the worst." His identity got a full airing in June 2004, as the Administration struggled to contain the fallout from the Abu Ghraib pictures. Alleged to be the 20th hijacker, the Administration pinned on this man its justification for the abandonment of a longstanding prohibition on the use of cruelty by the military. On June 22nd 2004, two of the Administration's most senior lawyers - White House Counsel Alberto Gonzales and Defense Department General Counsel Jim Haynes - stood before the world's media and laid out the official story to explain the move to aggressive interrogation: it occurred as a result of a bottom-up request from an aggressive combatant commander at Guantanamo; it was implemented within the law and on the basis of careful legal advice; and it produced useful and important results. Al Qahtani was living proof that coercion worked. Gonzales and Haynes stood alongside Daniel Dell'Orto (who has recently been appointed as Acting General Counsel at DoD, following Haynes' move to Chevron, where he now works as lawyer) as he introduced Al Qahtani as the man who explained the move to abuse: a person in whom the Pentagon had "a considerable interest," who had "been trained to resist our interrogation techniques" and, most significantly, who gave up important information when subjected to new techniques authorised by Rumsfeld on December 2nd 2002. This included information on Jose Padilla (the alleged "dirty bomber") and Richard Reid (the shoe bomber). The message was unambiguous: Al Qahtani was a bad man, aggressive interrogation works. A few weeks later, the 9/11 Commission Report described Al Qahtani as a "candidate hijacker," explaining the circumstances in which he was denied entry to the US in August 2001. The narrative persisted, and Al Qahtani's name was frequently wheeled out in defence of the Administration's actions. In his efforts to secure appointment to the federal bench, in July 2006 Jim Haynes relied on him to fend off attacks - unsuccessfully, as it turned out - to justify his role in recommending to Secretary Rumsfeld techniques of interrogation that violated Common Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions. He was "the 20th hijacker," Haynes told the Senate Judiciary Committee and a man who had shown "considerable skill in resisting established techniques". Further, he had provided "significant additional information" as a result of the abusive interrogation. No ambiguity there. A few weeks ago, on February 11th 2008, the Department of Defense announced that Al Qahtani would join five others in facing a military commission on various criminal charges, including murder, attacking civilians and terrorism. The death penalty would be sought. The allegations were thin on detail and - strikingly - made no reference to any information obtained after the new techniques were used. The announcement was consistent with what, by then, I had already been told: the abusive interrogation of Al Qahtani produced nothing of value. The Administration raised the stakes on Al Qahtani. He was presented as the kind of uniquely dangerous person for whom the programme of detention and interrogation was designed, proof that the established rules were quaint and obsolete, that new rules and techniques were needed, and that they worked. Then, earlier this week, the Administration dropped a jaw-dropping bombshell: the charges against Al Qahtani were dropped. Proceedings against five other would continue, but the Pentagon official in charge of war crimes cases declined to authorise charges against Al Qahtani. What happened? - more -
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| Digital Prayer Rug | | IslamOnline.net & Newspapers | |  |  | | Aboulsaadat hopes to work on the invention so that people of all faiths could use it in their religious activities. (Toronto Star Photo) | CAIRO — Using modern technology to serve Muslims better perform their religious rituals, a fourth-year PhD computer science student has designed a high-tech prayer rug equipped with sensors, lights and a Qur'an display screen. "It will increase their understanding of the scriptures and the quality of the prayer," inventor Wael Aboulsaadat told the Toronto Star on Thursday, May 15. Aboulsaadat, studying for his PhD at the University of Toronto's computer science department, has designed a prayer rug with built-in sensors that can detect the worshipper's posture. If the user makes an error, such as missing or adding a step in the prayer sequence, the sensors will vibrate in alert. Aboulsaadat says the vibration is a subtle way to help correct the error without breaking the performer's concentration. "It's important not to interrupt flow, because that interrupts the focus of prayer." Muslims pray five times a day, with each prayer made of a series of postures and movements, each set of which is called a rak'ah. The eRug also has a notification mode that alerts the user to next prayer times and important religious holidays. - more - |
 Dear Mr. Bush, Your speech on the Knesset floor today was not only a disgrace; it was nothing short of treachery. Worse still, your exploitation of the Holocaust in a country carved out of the wounds of that very crime, in order to strike a low blow at American citizens whose politics differs from your own is unforgivable and unpardonable. Let me remind you, Mr. Bush, of your words today: "Some seem to believe we should negotiate with terrorists and radicals, as if some ingenious argument will persuade them they have been wrong all along," Bush said at Israel's 60th anniversary celebration in Jerusalem.
"We have heard this foolish delusion before," Bush said in remarks to Israel's parliament, the Knesset. "As Nazi tanks crossed into Poland in 1939, an American senator declared: 'Lord, if only I could have talked to Hitler, all of this might have been avoided.' We have an obligation to call this what it is -- the false comfort of appeasement, which has been repeatedly discredited by history."
Well Mr. Bush, the only thing this comment lacked was a mirror and some historical facts. You want to discuss the crimes of Nazis against my family and millions of other families in Europe during World War II? Let me revive a favorite phrase of yours: Bring. It. On! The All-American Nazi Your family's fortune is built on the bones of the very people butchered by the Nazis, my family and the families of those in the Knesset who applauded you today: WASHINGTON -- President Bush's grandfather was a director of a bank seized by the federal government because of its ties to a German industrialist who helped bankroll Adolf Hitler's rise to power, government documents show. Prescott Bush was one of seven directors of Union Banking Corp. (search), a New York investment bank owned by a bank controlled by the Thyssen family, according to recently declassified National Archives documents reviewed by The Associated Press. Fritz Thyssen was an early financial supporter of Hitler, whose Nazi party Thyssen believed was preferable to communism. --snip-- Both Harrimans and Bush were partners in the New York investment firm of Brown Brothers, Harriman and Co., which handled the financial transactions of the bank as well as other financial dealings with several other companies linked to Bank voor Handel that were confiscated by the U.S. government during World War II. Union Banking was seized by the government in October 1942 under the Trading with the Enemy Act. Oh, but there is much more too: The two Holocaust survivors suing the US government and the Bush family for a total of $40bn in compensation claim both materially benefited from Auschwitz slave labour during the second world war, Kurt Julius Goldstein, 87, and Peter Gingold, 85, began a class action in America in 2001, but the case was thrown out by Judge Rosemary Collier on the grounds that the government cannot be held liable under the principle of "state sovereignty". I cannot think of one Democrat who can boast this kind of lineage. Can you? No, I don't think so. But you can lie brazenly and attack a sitting US Senator on foreign soil by comparing him to Nazi sympathizers? Let us continue down memory lane to help those who applaud you understand just what it is they are celebrating. - more -
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American Public Media recently launched Budget Hero—our newest interactive game that lets people explore the major issues of the election by changing the federal budget to match their stands on issues and their values 
Actually, I'll let you read the press release first and then we'll decide if 'religious leaders' and the damn hippies know something we don't ;)
ROCK PORT, Missouri (Reuters) - At 265 feet tall, four gleaming 
When NBC's Richard Engel interviewed President George W. Bush in Egypt during his largely unproductive Mid-East tour, Bush for the most part confined his remarks to repeating well-established positions on Iran and the Middle East. 
William Kristol began his illustrious tenure at the New York Times last winter by getting his facts wrong in his very first column when he cited the wrong source for a quote. Since then he has managed to demonstrate his flair for the error in both perception and fact, and 
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. 
If you haven't experienced the magic that is Flight of the Conchords, I suggest you utilize a search engine pronto. This New Zealand-based duo (Bret McKenzie and Jemaine Clement) are hilarious and catchy with their comedy/music styling, which has garnered them 
A couple of weeks ago I went to the annual Maker Faire in San Mateo, an event where people from all over the world gather for a giant DIY technology show-and-tell extravaganza. There are robots, kinetic sculptures, rockets, remote-controlled battleship contests, music-controlled light shows, home electronics kits, ill-advised science experiments (like the Mentos-Diet Coke explosions), and even a barn full of people who make their own clothing, pillows, bags, and more. Basically, it's a weekend celebration of how human freedom combined with technology creates a pleasing but cacophonous symphony of coolness.
