Two Movie Guys

2MG review "UP and DRAG ME TO HELL" from Ryan Bellgardt on Vimeo.

Bob's Toy Box

Bob's toy box, an adult sex toy shop?
No, it's a hole Bob dug in the backyard.
I found it today full of chewed up bits of plastic and "Oklahoma Frisbees" the plastic tops of a Folders coffee cans.
Bob thinks they're still toys, only smaller.
He likes it if you try to take it from him.
He growls, does a figure eight thing with his head and slings slobber all at once.
I don't know if Bob would even bother a burglar unless he tried to get one of his pieces of plastic.

Flashback Saturday (forgot yesterday)

On the front porch

Iran: Gunmen wound 3 at president's campaign site

Yahoo News had the same headline and this pic below it on the right side, for just a millisecond it blew my mind.

Fire breaks out on Italian fairy, all safe

ROME – Fire broke out Friday on an Italian fairy.
Vincenzo Florio was traveling from the mainland port of Naples to Palermo, the Sicilian capital, when he erupted into flames.
"I just kept shouting, someone put that man out!" passenger Stefano Frisco told Sky 24 television "I heard one cruel comment about a REAL flaming gay!"
The cause of the fire was still being investigated.

Charley Browns Tomato Plant

I didn't get around to getting my tomato and pepper plants until last weekend. I could have gone to Wally-World but I'd rather go to a local business.
So I went to one out in the country. (No city taxes)There were very few plants left to choose from. I had to get Roma tomato plants, skinny little plants. I also got some little pepper plants. A woman asked if she could help me, she was attractive, I bought more plants and soil than I had intended to.
Sorry no pics right now but if Charley Browns Christmas tree was a tomato plant...

Time's a Pretzel

What if time isn't the straight line that we think of it as?

It was Friday, we do most of our laundry on Saturday and Sunday so the hamper was full and there were some clothes on the floor by it. I was going to toss a dirty shirt into the laundry room. I pulled back my arm then hesitated, which was odd.
Why did I hesitate? It didn't matter if the shirt landed on the hamper or in the floor but I had an unusual hesitation anyway. So I threw the shirt. It landed exactly halfway in between with part of it on the hamper and part of it on the pile of clothes in the floor.
Then I had a deep thought. What if the outcome influences our decision? 99 times out of 100 (at least) I would not have hesitated when tossing the shirt and also 99 times out of 100 it would have either landed on top of the hamper or on the floor, not in between.
Maybe time is shaped more like a pretzel than a pretzel stick.

Daniel Hauser

(NaturalNews) You see it in newspapers and websites across the 'net: People insisting that 13-year-old Daniel Hauser must be injected with chemotherapy in order to "save his life," and that anyone refusing to go along with that is a criminal deserving of arrest and imprisonment.

What's most astonishing about the mainstream reaction to the forced chemotherapy of Daniel Hauser is not merely that they believe states now own the children, but that they believe in the entire world there exists but one single treatment for cancer, and it happens to be the one that makes pharmaceutical companies the most money. The arrogance (and ignorance) of that position is mind boggling.

There was once a time when western medical doctors believed that the heavy metal mercury was a medicine, too. They methodically used mercury to treat hundreds of different diseases and conditions, oblivious to the fact that they were actually poisoning people with this toxic heavy metal.

And yet, imagine if authorities had arrested parents for not treating their children with mercury. Imagine if they threw parents in prison for refusing their "mercury medicine." That would be equivalent to today's arrogant, misguided and extremely dangerous campaign to outlaw saying "no" to chemotherapy.

A brief history of medical quackery
It was mercury, in fact, that led to the term "quack." Mercury is called "quicksilver," and those doctors who prescribed it were eventually discovered to be pushing toxic chemicals rather than any real medicine. They were initially called "quicks" and then later "quacks."

The quackery of those doctors prescribing mercury wasn't hard to miss: People taking the mercury would get extremely ill. Their hair would fall out. They would lose their appetite and experience extreme loss of body weight. Many would simply die from the toxicity.

Remarkably, these are the same side effects produced by chemotherapy. And today, chemotherapy doctors describe these side effects in precisely the same terms as the mercury quacks of a century ago, claiming the effects are "part of the healing process" and encouraging patients to find the courage to "just go through with it."

But let's pull our heads out of the muck here and acknowledge the obvious: Poisoning patients -- whether with mercury or chemotherapy -- will never produce healing. And the prescribing of such toxic chemicals to patients is little more than sophisticated quackery, backed by seemingly convincing data (which is actually based on scientific fraud) along with the urgings of cancer doctors who rely on highly manipulative fear tactics to corral patients into treatments that will only harm them.

Do parents have the right to protect their children from poison?
Today, the mother of 13-year-old Daniel Hauser is on the run, having skipped out on the Minnesota court that ordered her to poison her own child. She is now considered criminally negligent by the state -- a parent who belongs behind bars and will likely be imprisoned when she is arrested at gunpoint.

And yet, I ask you this: What else could she have done? To appear in court and submit her child to chemical injections of a toxic substance would amount to child abuse. She is doing what any sensible parent would do: She's protecting her child from the poisons of the world, and standing up against the tyrants of modern medicine who so desperately seek to exploit her child for profit that they have actually turned to enforcing their business at gunpoint in order to do so.

It is interesting that pharmaceutical medicine is the only industry in America that's forced to recruit its patients at gunpoint.

I call it Gunpoint Medicine, and it is exactly as it sounds: The enforcing of medical quackery at gunpoint.

Flashback Friday

Hudson

I was in the other room, the Today show was on.
Matt says Jennifer Hudson was going to be on the show. "She's an excellent singer as well as actress."
So I'm thinking "She can sing too?"
"I think that's Goldie Hawn's daughter."
Then I hear that she's about to sing, I walk in and see the real Jennifer Hudson.
My brain shut down for repairs for just a millisecond.
"Okay, I'm officially stupid!"

District 9

terminator salvation

terminator salvation

We Got Screwed

SHANGHAI — General Motors Corp. plans to begin exports of vehicles made in China to the United States within two years, ramping up sales to more than 50,000 by 2014, reports said Wednesday.

A spokeswoman for GM in China did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the reports, which were said to be based on a company recovery plan given to U.S. lawmakers.

GM intends to sell 17,335 made-in-China passenger cars in the U.S. market by 2011, the Shanghai Securities News and other reports said. By 2014 exports would triple to more than 51,000, it said.

The main focus would be on exporting small cars similar to the Chevrolet Spark, the reports said.

If true, GM could end up becoming the first automaker to begin exporting to the U.S. from China: previously announced plans by Chinese manufacturers to crack the U.S. market have so far fizzled.

Most Chinese automakers have been daunted by the challenge of meeting stringent U.S. safety standards. They also face the uphill battle of winning consumer confidence for their unfamiliar brand names.

Brand name recognition is perhaps the least of GM's problems as it faces a June 1 government-imposed deadline to finish a restructuring plan or follow Chrysler LLC into bankruptcy protection.

Opting to export from China would help the company, now surviving on $15.4 billion in federal loans, to slash production costs and make full use of its huge investments in factories here.

But it would likely raise protests from labor unions it has been seeking to win concessions from as part of its restructuring.

The plan also would represent a shift from past strategy. GM officials have long emphasized their commitment to first meeting demand in China before considering exports to the U.S. or other markets.

A Subway Saturday Night

During these hard economic times I decided to supplement my income. I went downtown on Saturday night to try my hand at male prostitution. (Serving females only, of course.) I thought that until my reputation had been established, that I would undercut my competition with rock bottom prices. After a few tricks women would drive by and holler out "Subway!" Pretty soon everyone was calling me Subway. I just played along until I was ready to go home. Then I asked another prostitute "Why do they keep calling me Subway?" He grinned and said "Five dollar foot long!"

Break

Due to work and other obligations, I will be taking an indefinite break from updating this blog.

Relax

Bella Award

I received the Bella Award from Yellowdog Granny! Yellowdog Granny

1) Accept the award, post it on your blog together with the name of the person who has granted the award, and his or her blog link.
2) Pass the award to 15 (Or 10 if you don't get out much like me) other blogs that you've newly discovered. Remember to contact the bloggers to let them know they have been chosen for this award.

1 - One Word, One Rung, One Day

2 -Mindful Musings of a Bedrock Girl

3 - McRaven

4 - How to go Insane

5 - Confessions of a Dumb White Guy

6 - Wasted Days Wasted Nites

7 - Netwit From Nitwit

8 - Toodling

9 - anubis, anubis, anubis

10 - Dale Alvin Gribble

KFOR POLL

Cal. Gov. Schwarzenegger says it's time to start talking about legalizing pot. He says he's not necessarily for it but says by taxing it California could make a lot of money. A good idea?

*

Good idea (191 responses)

57.7%
*

Terrible idea (121 responses)

36.6%
*

I'm not really sure (19 responses)

5.7%

331 total responses

(Results not scientific)

Reminder of necessity of right to bear arms - College student fights off two armed gunmen who were going to rob/rape/kill his 9 friends

Deceased intruder and would-be rapist/murderer Calvin Lavant.

College Student Shoots, Kills Home Invader

May 7, 2009
WSBTV News


COLLEGE PARK, Ga. -- A group of college students said they are lucky to be alive and they’re thanking the quick-thinking of one of their own. Police said a fellow student shot and killed one of two masked me who burst into an apartment.

Channel 2 Action News reporter Tom Jones met with one of the students to talk about the incident.

“Apparently, his intent was to rape and murder us all,” said student Charles Bailey.

Bailey said he thought it was the end of his life and the lives of the 10 people inside his apartment for a birthday party after two masked men with guns burst in through a patio door.

“They just came in and separated the men from the women and said, ‘Give me your wallets and cell phones,’” said George Williams of the College Park Police Department.

Bailey said the gunmen started counting bullets. “The other guy asked how many (bullets) he had. He said he had enough,” said Bailey.

That’s when one student grabbed a gun out of a backpack and shot at the invader who was watching the men. The gunman ran out of the apartment.

The student then ran to the room where the second gunman, identified by police as 23-year-old Calvin Lavant, was holding the women.

“Apparently the guy was getting ready to rape his girlfriend. So he told the girls to get down and he started shooting. The guy jumped out of the window,” said Bailey.

A neighbor heard the shots and heard someone running nearby.

“And I heard someone say, ‘Someone help me. Call the police. Somebody call the police,’” said a neighbor.

The neighbor said she believes it was Lavant, who was found dead near his apartment, only one building away.

Bailey said he is just thankful one student risked his life to keep others alive.

“I think all of us are really cognizant of the fact that we could have all been killed,” said Bailey.

One female student was shot several times during the crossfire. She is expected to make a full recovery.

Police said they are close to making the arrest of the second suspect.

Rasmussen poll claims only 34% believe humans causing "climate change" aka "global warming"

Even Greater Disbelief of Alarmists

The American Spectator
By Paul Chesser
4.20.09

Rasmussen has done another poll of registered voters about their views on global warming, just three months after a surprise revelation that more believe that natural causes drive climate than humans. Here are the findings reported Friday:

Climate change caused by planetary trends: 48%

Climate changed caused by human activity: 34%

Other reason: 7%

Aren’t sure: 11%

Compare that to responses reported on January 19:

Climate change caused by planetary trends: 44%

Climate changed caused by human activity: 41%

Other reason: 7%

Aren’t sure: 9%

So in the space of just three months, the percentage of those polled who believe humans drive climate change dropped seven percentage points from an already low 41 percent, while those who are confident that natural causes influence climate more increased by four percentage points.

The microbe would be used against the general population and would be introduced by vaccine administered by the World Health Organization.
$10 million was given to the Department of Defense to produce “a synthetic biological agent, an agent that
does not naturally exist and for which no natural immunity could have been acquired.”
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
MKNAOMI
by Mr. Charrington on May 27, 2008

Note: William Cooper was killed on November 5th 2001 by law enforcement.

A.I.D.S. is Man-made
by William Cooper
DATE/TIME: 07/27/90 21:02

To All,

During my talks in Las Vegas last weekend I revealed a few things about aids that I have been keeping close to my chest. I have already revealed that I saw that AIDS was man made to eliminate the undesirable elements of society while I was attached to Naval Security and Intelligence. I stated this fact in my paper “The Secret Government.”

Now for the rest of the story.

The first study was made in 1957 by scientists meeting in Huntsville Alabama. That study resulted in “Alternative 3.” Another study was made by the Club of Rome in 1968 to determine the limits to growth. The result of the study was that civilization as we know it would collapse shortly after the year 2000 unless the population was seriously curtailed. Several Top Secret recommendations were made to the ruling elite by Dr. Aurelio Peccei of the Club of Rome. The chief recommendation was to develop a microbe which would attack the auto immune system and thus render the evelopment of a vaccine impossible.

The orders were given to develop the microbe and to also develop a cure and a prophylactic. The microbe would be used against the general population and would be introduced by vaccine administered by the World Health Organization. The prophylactic was to be used by the ruling elite. The cure will be administered to the survivors when they decide that enough people have died. It will be announced as newly developed. This plan was called Global 2000. The cure and the prophylactic are suppressed.

Funding was obtained from the U.S. Congress under H.B. 15090 where $10 million was given to the Department of Defense to produce “a synthetic biological agent, an agent that
does not naturally exist and for which no natural immunity could have been acquired.” “Within the next 5 to 10 years it would probably be possible to make a new infective microorganism which could differ in certain important aspects from any known disease causing organisms.

Most important of these is that it might be refractory to the immunological and therapeutic processes upon which we depend to maintain our relative freedom from infectious disease.” The project was carried out at Fort Detrick Maryland. Since large populations were to
be decimated the ruling elite decided to target the “undesirable” elements of society” for extermination. Specifically targeted were the black, hispanic, and homosexual populations. The name of the project that developed AIDS is MKNAOMI. The African continent was infected via smallpox vaccine in 1977. The U.S. population was infected in 1978 with
the hepatitis B vaccine through the Centers for Disease Control and the New York Blood Center. You now have the entire story. The order was given by the POLICY COMMITTEE of

THE BILDERBERG GROUP based in Switzerland. Other measures were also ordered. The one you will be able to check the easiest is the Haig - Kissinger Depopulation Policy which is administered by the State Department.

When you put this information out do not edit it and please give me and this board full credit as the source of the information. Please post the board phone number with this file. That is how I stay alive. This board is THE CITIZENS AGENCY FOR JOINT INTELLIGENCE, SYSOP - WILLIAM COOPER, (602) 567-6725

To aid you in your research of this CRIME the name of the report was “THE LIMITS TO GROWTH” A REPORT FOR THE CLUB OF ROME’S PROJECT ON THE PREDICAMENT OF MANKIND. In April 1968 the study began in the Accademia dei Lincei in Rome Italy. They met at the instigation of Dr. Aurelio Peccei. The Top Secret recommendations of the results of the study were made by Dr. Aurelio Peccei who pledged not to use the prophylactic and not to take the cure should the microbe be developed and should he contract the disease. Dr. Peccei was hailed as a great hero for deciding to take the same risk as the general population. The public
results of the study were published in 1972. The MIT project team that participated in the study are listed below:

Dr. Dennis L. Meadows, director, United States

Dr. Alison A. Anderson, United States (pollution)

Dr. Jay M. Anderson, United States (pollution)

Ilyas Bayar, Turkey (agriculture)

William W. Behrens III, United States (resources)

Farhad Hakimzadeh, Iran (population)

Dr. Steffen Harbordt, Germany (socio-political trends)

Judith A Machen, United States (administration)

Dr. Donella H. Meadows, United States (population)

Peter Milling, Germany (capital)

Nirmala S. Murthy, India (population)

Roger F. Naill, United States (resources)

Jorgen Randers, Norway (population)

Stephen Shantzis, United States (agriculture)

John A. Seeger, United States (administration)

Marilyn Williams, United States (documentation)

Dr. Erich K. O. Zahn, Germany (agriculture)

When the study was completed in 1969 U.N. Secretary General U Thant
made this statement:

“I do not wish to seem over-dramatic, but I can only conclude from the information that is available to me as Secretary-General, that the Members of the United Nations have perhaps ten years left in which to subordinate their ancient quarrels and launch a global partnership to
curb the arms race, to defuse the population explosion, and to supply the required momentum to development efforts. If such a global partnership is not forged within the next decade, then I very much fear that the problems I have mentioned will have reached such staggering
proportions that they will be beyond our capacity to control.”

U Thant, 1969 MKNAOMI was developed by the Special Operations Division (SOD)
scientists at Ft. Detrick, Maryland under the supervision of the CIA and for the CIA. A reference to the project MKNAOMI can be found in “The Intelligence Community” By Fain et al, Bowker, 1977.

I swear that all of the above information is true and correct to the best of my memory and knowledge. I give this information to the people of the world in hopes that someone will have the courage and resources to help me end this madness. The Illuminati (the order) are in complete control of most of the world and they have declared war against the general populations of all nations. We must stop them at all costs.

Please help me for I cannot do it alone. Please send this file without editing to everyone that you know and ask them to do the same. God bless you all.

William CooperWilliam Cooper

Al-qaeda Is a Complete Fabrication

BBC’s killer documentary called “The Power of Nightmares“. Top CIA officials openly admit, Al-qaeda is a total and complete fabrication, never having existed at any time. The Bush administration needed a reason that complied with the Laws so they could go after “the bad guy of their choice” namely laws that had been set in place to protect us from mobs and “criminal organizations” such as the Mafia. They paid Jamal al Fadl, hundreds of thousands of dollars to back the U.S. Government’s story of Al-qaeda, a “group” or criminal organization they could “legally” go after.

West Texas from You and Yours on Vimeo.

Boston radio talk show host suspended for calling Mexican immigrants "primitives, leeches, and exporters of women with mustaches and VD"

Severin suspended for comments about Mexican immigrants

By David Abel
Boston Globe
May 1, 2009

Jay Severin, the fiery right wing talk show host on Boston's WTKK-FM radio station, was suspended yesterday after calling Mexican immigrants "criminaliens," "primitives," "leeches," and exporters of "women with mustaches and VD," among other incendiary comments.

[...]

In one of his broadcasts this week, Severin said: "So now, in addition to venereal disease and the other leading exports of Mexico - women with mustaches and VD - now we have swine flu."

Later, he described Mexicans as "the world's lowest of primitives."

"When we are the magnet for primitives around the world - and it's not the primitives' fault by the way, I'm not blaming them for being primitives - I'm merely observing they're primitive," he said.

He added that Mexicans are destroying schools and hospitals in the United States. He also criticized their hygiene.

"It's millions of leeches from a primitive country come here to leech off you and, with it, they are ruining the schools, the hospitals, and a lot of life in America," he said.

He added: "We should be, if anything, surprised that Mexico has not visited upon us poxes of more various and serious types already, considering the number of criminaliens already here."

[...]

Jury Nullification in acion- All-white jury in rural Pennsylvania aquits two white teens who beat hispanic to death of murder and 'hate crime' charges

The bad news is that they were convicted on lesser charges, like assault. These young white men should be rewarded for ridding their town of hispanic trash.

With enough whites of the proper mindset and with the power of jury nullification, it could be open season on these invading vermin all over the nation.

Pa. jury: Immigrant's beating death no hate crime

By MICHAEL RUBINKAM,
Associated Press
Sat May 2, 2009

POTTSVILLE, Pa. – Prosecutors called the beating death of an illegal immigrant from Mexico a hate crime, and they urged an all-white jury in Pennsylvania coal country to punish two white teenagers for their roles in the attack.

Instead, the jury found the teens not guilty of all serious charges, a decision that elicited cheers and claps from the defendants' families and friends — and cries of outrage from the victim's.

Brandon Piekarsky, 17, was acquitted of third-degree murder and ethnic intimidation, while Derrick Donchak, 19, was acquitted of aggravated assault and ethnic intimidation. Both were convicted of simple assault late Friday following a trial in which jurors were left to sort out the facts of an epithet-filled brawl that pitted popular football players against a 25-year-old Hispanic man, Luis Ramirez, who appeared willing to fight.

A representative of Ramirez's family said the jurors got it wrong.

"There's been a complete failure of justice," said Gladys Limon, staff attorney for the Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund, who attended the trial and informed Ramirez's family of the verdict. "It's just outrageous and very difficult to understand how any juror could have had reasonable doubt."

On Saturday the group's interim president, Henry Solano, called on the Justice Department to "bring justice to the Ramirez family and send a strong message that violence targeting immigrants will not be tolerated." Piekarsky's attorney declined comment on the possibility of federal charges against the teens.

Prosecutors had cast Ramirez as the victim of a gang of drunken white teens motivated by a dislike of their small coal town's growing Hispanic population. They said he was killed by a kick to the head from Piekarsky after he'd been knocked unconscious by another teen.

The jury evidently sided with defense attorneys, who called Ramirez the aggressor and characterized the brawl as a street fight that ended tragically.

[...]

The fight began late July 12 when a half-dozen teens, all Shenandoah residents who played football at Shenandoah Valley High School, were walking home from a block party and came across Ramirez and his 15-year-old girlfriend in a park.

Brian Scully, 18, asked the girl, "Isn't it a little late for you to be out?" That enraged Ramirez, who began yelling in Spanish and dialing friends on his cell phone. Scully admitted shouting ethnic slurs. The verbal sparring soon turned into a physical altercation as Ramirez and Piekarsky traded blows, though prosecutors and defense attorneys disputed who threw the first punch.

Donchak then entered the fray and wound up on top of Ramirez. Prosecutors said he pummeled Ramirez, holding a small piece of metal in his fist to give his punches more power. Defense attorneys said Donchak tried to break up the fight between Piekarsky and Ramirez and denied he had a weapon.

The two sides eventually went their separate ways. But Scully kept yelling at Ramirez, leading the immigrant to charge after the group.

Colin Walsh, 17, then hit Ramirez, knocking him out.

[...]

John Coleman

Weather Channel founder John Coleman speaks out on man made global warming.

snopes.com

Elonymay Utlerbay

I was the new white kid, I was a minority. My teacher's name was Mrs. Washington, she was black. That didn't matter to me but my mom was worried about it. We had moved to the Navajo reservation from south Texas. The stores there had candy named "Nigger Toes", I thought nothing of it. Mrs. Washington had a very old fashioned way of teaching spelling. When you misspelled a word, you stuck your hand out, palm up, and she would smack it with a ruler, I still can't spell. I got to walk to school when the weather was nice, I think it was about a mile. On the way home I would stop by a rock cave, I thought it was very cool. There was another cave not far away but there were some mean kids that "owned" that one so I stayed away from it. My babysitter's daughter was my age and I had a little crush on her and she liked me too. I can still remember her name because I would say it in Pig Latin to impress her and let her know that I was a man of the world, Elonymay Utlerbay Melony Butler. There was a new toothpaste out then called Vote. On the commercials they said you had to be 21 to try it. We decided to try it even though we were only seven. We were a little disappointed, it was kind of hot tasting but nothing wild happened like on the commercials. One day in the park we noticed that our eyes reflected what you were looking at. Many years later I heard a song that reminded me of her.

Deconstructing the "terrorism" label

Definition of "terrorism":

"The use or threatened use of force or violence by a person or an organized group against people or property with the intention of intimidating or coercing societies or governments, often for ideological or political reasons."

In other words, it's merely another term for warfare.

"Terrorism" is simply a smear term used by the established powers-that-be or a superior force in order to attempt to delegitimize and demonize a smaller resistance force.

Gore spews more lies and hot air at first conference devoted to "ice melting"

Gore pleads for rapid action to halt ice melt

Breitbart News
Apr 28, 2009

Nobel prize climate champion and former US vice president Al Gore called Tuesday for rapid action to prevent the potentially irreversible melting of the planet's ice, just months before a UN climate summit.

Speaking at the first conference devoted to melting ice, held in the Norwegian town of Tromsoe ahead of the UN meeting in Copenhagen in December, Gore warned that the situation was worse than the worst-case scenarios presented by experts a few years ago.

"This conference is a global wake-up call," Gore said, adding: "The scientific evidence for action in Copenhagen in December is continuing to build up week by week."

He explained why the melting ice posed such a threat to the planet.

"Ice is important through the ecological system of the Earth for many reasons, but one of them has to do with its reflexivity," he said.

Ice reflects 90 percent of the sun's radiation back into the atmosphere. If the ice were to melt, the dark water would not reflect the heat but instead absorb it, thereby accentuating the effect of global warming.

"As it disappears we have to keep in mind that it can come back only if we act fairly quickly," said Gore, who shared the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize with the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

He explained that "if we keep turning the temperature of the Earth up, then the heat will go to lower depths of the Arctic Ocean and it will be impossible for the ice to come back."

[...]

Related:

The Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research reports Antarctic ice is expanding, no large-scale melting

Antarctic Sea Ice Up Over 43% Since 1980

Sea Ice in Arctic expanding at fastest rate on record - Ice cover at 1979 levels

16-year-old homeschooler held under 'Patriot Act' with no due process rights on false claim of making bomb threat

Mom says Patriot Act stripped son of due process

WRAL News
Apr. 29, 2009

Oxford, N.C. — Sixteen-year-old Ashton Lundeby's bedroom in his mother's Granville County home is nothing, if not patriotic. Images of American flags are everywhere – on the bed, on the floor, on the wall.

But according to the United States government, the tenth-grade home-schooler is being held on a criminal complaint that he made a bomb threat from his home on the night of Feb. 15.

The family was at a church function that night, his mother, Annette Lundeby, said.

"Undoubtedly, they were given false information, or they would not have had 12 agents in my house with a widow and two children and three cats," Lundeby said.

Around 10 p.m. on March 5, Lundeby said, armed FBI agents along with three local law enforcement officers stormed her home looking for her son. They handcuffed him and presented her with a search warrant.

"I was terrified," Lundeby's mother said. "There were guns, and I don't allow guns around my children. I don't believe in guns."

Lundeby told the officers that someone had hacked into her son's IP address and was using it to make crank calls connected through the Internet, making it look like the calls had originated from her home when they did not.

Her argument was ignored, she said. Agents seized a computer, a cell phone, gaming console, routers, bank statements and school records, according to federal search warrants.

"There were no bomb-making materials, not even a blasting cap, not even a wire," Lundeby said.

Ashton now sits in a juvenile facility in South Bend, Ind. His mother has had little access to him since his arrest. She has gone to her state representatives as well as attorneys, seeking assistance, but, she said, there is nothing she can do.

Lundeby said the USA Patriot Act stripped her son of his due process rights.

"We have no rights under the Patriot Act to even defend them, because the Patriot Act basically supersedes the Constitution," she said. "It wasn't intended to drag your barely 16-year-old, 120-pound son out in the middle of the night on a charge that we can't even defend."

Passed after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the U.S., the Patriot Act allows federal agents to investigate suspected cases of terrorism swiftly to better protect the country. In part, it gives the federal government more latitude to search telephone records, e-mails and other records.

"They're saying that 'We feel this individual is a terrorist or an enemy combatant against the United States, and we're going to suspend all of those due process rights because this person is an enemy of the United States," said Dan Boyce, a defense attorney and former U.S. attorney not connected to the Lundeby case.

Critics of the statute say it threatens the most basic of liberties.

"There's nothing a matter of public record," Boyce said "All those normal rights are just suspended in the air."

In a bi-partisan effort, Rep. Jerrold Nadler, D-N.Y., and Rep. Jeff Flake, R-Ariz., last month introduced in the U.S. House of Representatives a bill that would narrow subpoena power in a provision of the Patriot Act, called the National Security Letters, to curb what some consider to be abuse of power by federal law enforcement officers.

Boyce said the Patriot Act was written with good intentions, but he said he believes it has gone too far in some cases. Lundeby's might be one of them, he said.

"It very well could be a case of overreaction, where an agent leaped to certain conclusions or has made certain assumptions about this individual and about how serious the threat really is," Boyce said.

Because a federal judge issued a gag order in the case, the U.S. attorney in Indiana cannot comment on the case, nor can the FBI. The North Carolina Highway Patrol did confirm that officers assisted with the FBI operation at the Lundeby home on March 5.

"Never in my worst nightmare did I ever think that it would be my own government that I would have to protect my children from," Lundeby said. "This is the United States, and I feel like I live in a third world country now."

Lundeby said she does not think this type of case is what the Patriot Act was intended for. Boyce agrees.

"It was to protect the public, but what we need to do is to make sure there are checks and balances to make sure those new laws are not abused," he said.

Horse Report

Oakland Council Backs a Tax on Marijuana

OAKLAND, Calif. -- Leaders of this economically hard-hit city are proposing to tax medical marijuana as a way to help close a record budget shortfall.


Oakland's City Council last week approved a 1.8% tax on medicinal marijuana sold in the city. If voters pass the proposal in a July election, Oakland would become the nation's first city to directly tax the drug, medical-marijuana advocates say.


Such an outcome would further legitimize medical marijuana in California and represent the latest victory for advocates. Prospects for such a tax were made brighter in February, when U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder announced that the federal government would no longer raid state-approved dispensaries.


Backers of the Oakland tax on dispensaries said they hope to encourage other cities to follow suit. The tax would prove "that government-regulated dispensaries are good neighbors," said James Anthony, a lawyer who represents the Harborside Health Center, one of Oakland's medical-marijuana dispensaries.


California is one of 13 states that have legalized medical marijuana, allowing it to be sold to people with a doctor's recommendation. It is relatively easy for anyone over 18 years old to obtain such a doctor's note. Advocates estimate there are 200,000 or more approved medical-marijuana users in California. Users already pay a sales tax on the drug.


A city tax on medical marijuana could generate at least $400,000 and perhaps more than $1 million annually, said Rebecca Kaplan, the Oakland City Council member who pushed the proposal. The city of 400,000 residents is facing an $83 million shortfall in a $455 million budget.


The owners and managers of Oakland's four medical-marijuana dispensaries said they approached the city with the idea. "We wanted to further legitimize the medical-marijuana paradigm to show that we are truly willing to assist [Oakland], and to show other cities that there are social benefits to this," said Keith Stephenson, executive director of Purple Heart Patient Center.

Global warming alarmists out in cold

Herald Sun (Au)
Andrew Bolt
April 29, 2009

IT'S snowing in April. Ice is spreading in Antarctica. The Great Barrier Reef is as healthy as ever.

And that's just the news of the past week. Truly, it never rains but it pours - and all over our global warming alarmists.

Time's up for this absurd scaremongering. The fears are being contradicted by the facts, and more so by the week.

Doubt it? Then here's a test.

Name just three clear signs the planet is warming as the alarmists claim it should. Just three. Chances are your "proofs" are in fact on my list of 10 Top Myths about global warming.
And if your "proofs" indeed turn out to be false, don't get angry with me.

Just ask yourself: Why do you still believe that man is heating the planet to hell? What evidence do you have?

So let's see if facts matter more to you than faith, and observations more than predictions.

MYTH 1

THE WORLD IS WARMING

Wrong. It is true the world did warm between 1975 and 1998, but even Professor David Karoly, one of our leading alarmists, admitted this week "temperatures have dropped" since - "both in surface temperatures and in atmospheric temperatures measured from satellites". In fact, the fall in temperatures from just 2002 has already wiped out half the warming our planet experienced last century. (Check data from Britain's Hadley Centre, NASA's Aqua satellite and the US National Climatic Data Centre.)

Some experts, such as Karoly, claim this proves nothing and the world will soon start warming again. Others, such as Professor Ian Plimer of Adelaide University, point out that so many years of cooling already contradict the theory that man's rapidly increasing gases must drive up temperatures ever faster.

But that's all theory. The question I've asked is: What signs can you actually see of the man-made warming that the alarmists predicted?

MYTH 2

THE POLAR CAPS ARE MELTING

Wrong. The British Antarctic Survey, working with NASA, last week confirmed ice around Antarctica has grown 100,000 sq km each decade for the past 30 years.

Long-term monitoring by the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration reports the same: southern hemisphere ice has been expanding for decades.

As for the Arctic, wrong again.

The Arctic ice cap shrank badly two summers ago after years of steady decline, but has since largely recovered. Satellite data from NASA's Marshall Space Flight Centre this week shows the Arctic hasn't had this much April ice for at least seven years.

Norway's Nansen Environmental and Remote Sensing Centre says the ice is now within the standard deviation range for 1979 to 2007.

[...]

MYTH 6

THE SEAS ARE RISING

Wrong. For almost three years, the seas have stopped rising, according to the Jason-1 satellite mission monitored by the University of Colorado.

That said, the seas have risen steadily and slowly for the past 10,000 years through natural warming, and will almost certainly resume soon.

But there is little sign of any accelerated rises, even off Tuvalu or the Maldives, islands often said to be most threatened with drowning.

Professor Nils-Axel Moerner, one of the world's most famous experts on sea levels, has studied the Maldives in particular and concluded there has been no net rise there for 1250 years.

Venice is still above water.

[...]

Mounting preliminary evidence suggests the "swine flu" is a relatively mild flu strain

Scientists see this flu strain as relatively mild

LA Times
By Karen Kaplan and Alan Zarembo
April 30, 2009

As the World Health Organization raised its infectious disease alert level Wednesday and health officials confirmed the first death linked to swine flu inside U.S. borders, scientists studying the virus are coming to the consensus that this hybrid strain of influenza -- at least in its current form -- isn't shaping up to be as fatal as the strains that caused some previous pandemics.

In fact, the current outbreak of the H1N1 virus, which emerged in San Diego and southern Mexico late last month, may not even do as much damage as the run-of-the-mill flu outbreaks that occur each winter without much fanfare.

"Let's not lose track of the fact that the normal seasonal influenza is a huge public health problem that kills tens of thousands of people in the U.S. alone and hundreds of thousands around the world," said Dr. Christopher Olsen, a molecular virologist who studies swine flu at the University of Wisconsin School of Veterinary Medicine in Madison.

His remarks Wednesday came the same day Texas authorities announced that a nearly 2-year-old boy with the virus had died in a Houston hospital Monday.

"Any time someone dies, it's heartbreaking for their families and friends," Olsen said. "But we do need to keep this in perspective."

Flu viruses are known to be notoriously unpredictable, and this strain could mutate at any point -- becoming either more benign or dangerously severe. But mounting preliminary evidence from genetics labs, epidemiology models and simple mathematics suggests that the worst-case scenarios are likely to be avoided in the current outbreak.

"This virus doesn't have anywhere near the capacity to kill like the 1918 virus," which claimed an estimated 50 million victims worldwide, said Richard Webby, a leading influenza virologist at St. Jude Children's Research Hospital in Memphis, Tenn.

When the current virus was first identified, the similarities between it and the 1918 flu seemed ominous.

Both arose in the spring at the tail end of the flu season. Both seemed to strike people who were young and healthy instead of the elderly and infants. Both were H1N1 strains, so called because they had the same types of two key proteins that are largely responsible for a virus' ability to infect and spread.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the National Institutes of Health published genetic sequence data Monday morning of flu samples isolated from patients in California and Texas, and thousands of scientists immediately began downloading the information. Comparisons to known killers -- such as the 1918 strain and the highly lethal H5N1 avian virus -- have since provided welcome news.

"There are certain characteristics, molecular signatures, which this virus lacks," said Peter Palese, a microbiologist and influenza expert at Mt. Sinai Medical Center in New York. In particular, the swine flu lacks an amino acid that appears to increase the number of virus particles in the lungs and make the disease more deadly.

[...]

Just because the virus is being identified in a growing number of places — including Austria, Canada, Germany, Israel, New Zealand, Spain and Britain — doesn’t mean it’s spreading particularly quickly, Olsen said.

“You don’t ever find anything that you don’t look for,” he said. “Now that diagnostic laboratories and physicians and other healthcare workers know to look for it, perhaps it’s not surprising that you’re going to see additional cases identified.”

And a pandemic doesn’t necessarily have a high fatality rate. Even in Mexico, the fatalities may simply reflect that hundreds of thousands of people have been infected. Since the symptoms of swine flu are identical to those of a normal flu, there’s no way to know how many cases have evaded government health officials, St. Jude’s Webby said.

[...]