Since the early days of DOS (and even with the Mac OS), there has been a slow shift within the operating-system concept from increased functionality to increased featurism, neither of which are needed.

This has resulted in a strange situation where the monoculture of Microsoft Windows and the subcultures of Linux and Mac OS X have made the computing scene both stagnant and dangerous.

Unless the computer is re-architected from scratch, which will not happen in the next 100 years, we are set on a path of never-ending misery. Windows Vista proves it.

Let’s begin with the way things should have gone.

It began with DOS, which was a clone of CP/M before that. Each time a new version came out, it was for one reason only: to add the functionality of newer peripherals, disk drives, ports and more.

A new device would emerge from the labs, and it would be accommodated by an OS upgrade. At first the device would be accommodated by clever patches, and then the patch would be incorporated into a release of the OS.

If you were interested in weird new features, such as a GUI [graphical user interface], these would be separate programs that ran under the OS (not on top of the OS).

Until Windows came along, the OS — whether CP/M, MS-DOS, or anything else, for that matter — was constantly criticized by the big-iron mainframe builders (IBM et al.) as not being a true operating system.

This critique was the beginning of the end, and a key to understanding what went wrong.

Nobody running small desktop machines from 1975 to 1990 knew or cared that the OS was merely a file loader. In fact, nobody actually knew what that meant.

Why did you need a complex OS on a microprocessor-based machine running Lotus 1-2-3 anyway? You didn’t, but that “it’s just a file loader” complaint never ended.

So, IBM — which had been in bed for years with Microsoft’s file loader — took a dislike to the situation and convinced Microsoft and itself that something more substantial should be developed.

This happened just as various iterations of Unix began to crop up on small machines. Unix was a real operating system, and, golly, it was neat to use. Instead of running practical programs and actually getting jobs done, you could toy with the innards of the machine with the OS. What fun!

Anyway, IBM began to develop OS/2, and Microsoft figured it had a better idea with Windows, both of which were more than file loaders (although not much more).

Over time, the features of these new OSs became more important than the system’s performance or anything else. They would have glowing icons, transparent pop-ups, smooth scrolling and all the things that used to be utilities sold by third parties.

Within no time, Microsoft decided that everything should be part of the OS, although these features had nothing to do with the OS.

The company went to court to argue that the browser was part of the OS. Media players were part of the OS.

One assumes that Microsoft would have argued that the word processor was part of the OS if it didn’t have a near-monopoly on word processing already.

In ways nobody could have predicted, what was once an efficient file loader evolved into a clumsy monstrosity that required massive amounts of memory just to run. But did it ever become a genuine OS, or just a file loader with benefits?

It became a clunker, in fact, with a pretty face and a high price tag like a Park Avenue hooker using too much makeup to hide the fact that she’s old.

Now we have Vista. It turns out to be nothing like what was promised. What a shock. It has a few new features, but I’d question if it’s actually more functional than what we’ve had before.

As an aside, I’m fascinated by the fact that Mac users all think Vista is great. These are folks who have long since bought into the Steve Jobs notion that the sizzle is more important than the steak.

PC users have traditionally preferred the steak over the sizzle. So what happens now?

We start by playing with Vista and listening to the inevitable complaints and praises. But this OS is not designed to be a good candidate for upgrading older systems. This is something of a new phenomenon.

Thus, people about to phase out old machines might be a little more experimental. And that means trying Linux.

This transition period will not be like all the others. There will be more orphan machines than ever before. It might take years before Vista can achieve even 50 percent market share.

Anything can happen. I’ll be watching. Now, let the reviews begin!

Go off-topic with John C. Dvorak.

Tweet This Post 

No tags for this post.

Warning: array_keys() [function.array-keys]: The first argument should be an array in /u/www/sites/brokencountry.com/www/wordpress/wp-content/plugins/simple-tags/inc/client.php on line 1310

Warning: shuffle() expects parameter 1 to be array, null given in /u/www/sites/brokencountry.com/www/wordpress/wp-content/plugins/simple-tags/inc/client.php on line 1311

Warning: Invalid argument supplied for foreach() in /u/www/sites/brokencountry.com/www/wordpress/wp-content/plugins/simple-tags/inc/client.php on line 1312

Air America failed because it was based on hearsay, ad homonym attacks and innuendo. Al Franken has proven beyond a shadow of a doubt that he is a blithering idiot. You can’t get on the radio day in, day out and base your entire show on attacking people. You have to attack their ideas. Good riddance. JD

Air America Radio, a liberal talk radio network, said Monday that it had reached a tentative agreement to be sold to the founder of a New York area real estate company. The network also said that Al Franken, its longtime headline personality, would depart next month.

The agreement with Stephen Green, the founder and chairman of SL Green Realty Corp., appears to rescue the struggling network, which has been seeking a buyer since last fall, when it filed for bankruptcy reorganization after reaching an impasse with one of its creditors.

Green is the brother of Mark Green, a longtime New York politician who has also appeared frequently as a guest on Air America Radio.

The network said in a statement that Franken’s last day on the air would be Feb. 14 and that his noon-to-3 p.m. time slot would be taken over by Portland, Ore.-based talk show host Thom Hartmann.

The network didn’t specify why Franken was leaving, but Franken said earlier this month that he had contacted Minnesota lawmakers to seek advice about a possible run for the Senate.

Tweet This Post 

No tags for this post.

Warning: array_keys() [function.array-keys]: The first argument should be an array in /u/www/sites/brokencountry.com/www/wordpress/wp-content/plugins/simple-tags/inc/client.php on line 1310

Warning: shuffle() expects parameter 1 to be array, null given in /u/www/sites/brokencountry.com/www/wordpress/wp-content/plugins/simple-tags/inc/client.php on line 1311

Warning: Invalid argument supplied for foreach() in /u/www/sites/brokencountry.com/www/wordpress/wp-content/plugins/simple-tags/inc/client.php on line 1312

By John Ridley

Click Mr. Ridley’s picture for a Wiki link to his bio. JD

It was a fairly horrific scene. Long Beach, California: On a public street, in the dark of night on Halloween, a gang of about thirty youths beat three girls ages nineteen and twenty one. One of the girls was battered so severely she will require ongoing surgery to repair multiple fractures around her face and to reposition one of her eyes.
That there were taunts alluding to the girls’ race and gender made the beating fall under the special circumstances of a crime motivated by hate.

The perpetrators were caught. The cops ID’ed nine of them as worthy of prosecution. Kids all. Thirteen to seventeen years of age when the crime was committed.

This past Friday eight of the nine were convicted, their sentences yet to be determined.

This story, beyond being sad for both the savagery of the crime and the youth of the offenders, also has a certain “through the looking glass” quality. In this hate crime the perps were black and the victims were white.

The far right soldiers of the Retro Guard will have you believe that the liberal concept of “hate crime” means that when people of color are the perpetrators the law overlooks the very concept of racial motivation.

Clearly that is not the case.

But the fact that blacks have been convicted for violence against whites is no cause in particular for documentation and certainly not celebration of this crime. Violence, and especially violence motivated by hatred of race or gender or religion or sexual orientation or merely the fact that the vic is “different” is deplorable.

Equally deplorable are those who pretend to stand for equality but who hypocritically allow such an injustice to pass without taking a stand against it.

So in the aftermath of this whole mess there is one thing that stands out to me: the conspicuous absence from the scene of Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton. How is it that these two men, these two supposed champions of racial justice who went into a fit of histrionics when Michael Richards went on his “nigger” rant, were nowhere to be found when actual racial hatred manifest itself.

The simple fact is, and this is no revelation but rather confirmation of what has been painfully obvious going on decades, neither Jesse nor Al are truly committed to any ideal higher than raising their own profile. To a degree, as with any public advocate, that’s to be expected. It is a profile that gives one a platform from which to advance an agenda.

But somewhere along the way Jesse and Al lost sight of an agenda based on true justice. Assuming they ever had one.

Jesse, for example, rushed up to offer to pay the college tuition of the accuser in the Duke “rape” case. When it was pointed out to him that it had yet to be determined if the accuser had in fact been assaulted (and we’re starting to get a pretty good idea of the reality of that) Jesse was asked if he would still pay the tuition if it turned out the woman was making false accusations. Jesse said that he would. Essentially he was offering to reward a woman for lying, for ruining young men’s lives. Is that the message we want to send our young sisters; lie for your supper? If the accused in the Duke case been black and the accuser white, if the horrid specter of the Scottsboro Boys or Emmett Till had been infused in the case would Jesse have been as eager to throw money at the accuser?

Doubtful.

For his part the Reverend Al has got Tawana Brawley to live down. And for his role in that fiasco he’s never once manned up to giving an apology.

For either man, using the “Halloween hate crime” as an opportunity to prove their true commitment to racial justice would have been a welcome reversal to the years of descent into self-parody in which they have been sliding.

The case in Long Beach is not over. It will be reexamined and appealed, and to an extent it should be. Though there is strong physical evidence linking the convicted with the crime, there are questions about their initial identifications. And in particular, because the convicted are so young, the system has an obligation to make absolutely certain the correct individuals are held accountable for their actions.

It is such accountability our “leaders” should also demonstrate.

If the likes of Al and Jesse are not willing to stand against all hate crimes, then they cannot truly stand for equality and civil rights. And merely because there was no “donation” or “consulting fee” offered is no excuse not to show solidarity with victims who became so merely because of their race.

Tweet This Post 

No tags for this post.

Warning: array_keys() [function.array-keys]: The first argument should be an array in /u/www/sites/brokencountry.com/www/wordpress/wp-content/plugins/simple-tags/inc/client.php on line 1310

Warning: shuffle() expects parameter 1 to be array, null given in /u/www/sites/brokencountry.com/www/wordpress/wp-content/plugins/simple-tags/inc/client.php on line 1311

Warning: Invalid argument supplied for foreach() in /u/www/sites/brokencountry.com/www/wordpress/wp-content/plugins/simple-tags/inc/client.php on line 1312

New, 3 p.m. Witnesses to Halloween mob melee said several of those in crowd that attacked three white women yelled racial slurs. A 12-year-old girl is cleared.
By Tracy Manzer
Staff Writer

A juvenile court judge today convicted nine of 10 local black youths accused in the hate crime beating of three young white women during a mob melee on Halloween.

Long Beach Superior Court Judge Gibson Lee also handed down “true findings,” the equivalent of guilty verdicts in juvenile proceedings, on hate crime charges against eight of the youths. The one minor who was cleared of the charges was a 12-year-old girl.

Lee announced the verdicts this afternoon, finding the petition, or charge, against nine of the 10 accused minors was true.

Some of the defendants hugged before the verdicts were read and some cried after hearing the decisions.

All 10 minors, nine girls and one boy ages 12 to 18, were charged with felony assault for the beating, which took place around 9 p.m. in the 3800 block of Linden Avenue, an affluent section of Bixby Knolls popular with trick-or-treaters for its lavish displays.

A hate crime enhancement was added to eight minors’ charges, stemming from victim and witness statements that several youths within a crowd of 20 to 40 people yelled racial slurs as the victims were pelted with newspapers, fruit and pumpkins, then beat to the ground with fists, feet, a skateboard and tree branches.

A second enhancement — that the accused personally inflicted great bodily injury on the victims — was filed against nine of the defendants, said Jane Robeson, a spokeswoman for the county District Attorney’s Office. Five of those nine — youths age 13 to 18 — were found guilty of that charge.

Those enhancements can significantly increase the sentences, Robeson said. Sentencing guidelines for crimes in Juvenile Court are the same as in adult court, but the authority of the California Youth Authority ends once the minors turn 25.

Sentencing is expected to occur within the next few weeks, following the recommendations of the county Probation Department. Victims and families of the accused will also be given an opportunity to address the court before Lee issues the sentences.

Tweet This Post 

No tags for this post.

Warning: array_keys() [function.array-keys]: The first argument should be an array in /u/www/sites/brokencountry.com/www/wordpress/wp-content/plugins/simple-tags/inc/client.php on line 1310

Warning: shuffle() expects parameter 1 to be array, null given in /u/www/sites/brokencountry.com/www/wordpress/wp-content/plugins/simple-tags/inc/client.php on line 1311

Warning: Invalid argument supplied for foreach() in /u/www/sites/brokencountry.com/www/wordpress/wp-content/plugins/simple-tags/inc/client.php on line 1312

Again the media is making the assumtion that black people can’t possibly be racist. It’s amazing.

As the judge received the Long Beach hate-crime case Monday, two of the victims held an emotional news conference to discuss their beatings Halloween night and the rancor the racially charged case has inspired.

Judge Gibson Lee, who will decide the case, said he would try to have a verdict by Friday afternoon.

Ten black youths, ages 12 to 18, are charged with assault with intent to cause great bodily harm in the attack on three young white women. Eight of them face a hate-crime sentencing enhancement if they are found guilty. Juvenile courts do not have juries.

During the news conference, Michelle Smith, 19, choked up as she described seeing her friend, Laura Schneider, lying on the ground. Smith said she thought Schneider was dead.

“I looked down on the ground and saw a guy kicking her head in,” she said, crying. “What would you think?”

Neither Schneider, 19, who also attended the conference, nor Smith testified in the case. According to police reports, Schneider told officers she recognized three of the minors as having taken part in the attack. Smith could not identify any of them, the reports said.

But in the news conference, both said they were certain that all 10 were guilty because they had all been identified by an eyewitness or by the third victim, Loren Hyman, 21.

Schneider said she would attend the verdict and hoped for the “harshest punishment possible.”

“They’re not babies,” Smith said. “They know what they did.”

“They’re denying they did anything,” Schneider said. “If that were my child, I would want her to take responsibility and learn from something like this.”

Smith said she is worried about retaliation, but doesn’t like the implication that she is on a side in a racial rift.

“Two of my best friends are black; how can this be about race?”

Schneider said she has dropped out of school because she doesn’t feel comfortable in public any more. She said she has “slurred speech and trouble remembering things.”

In court, a physician testified that Schneider may have suffered a concussion from getting hit in the head with a skateboard. Hyman suffered a broken nose and fractures to three delicate bones around her eye.

There was no evidence presented of injuries to Smith.

The two women downplayed testimony that Hyman was fighting back that night. “I think self-defense is different than fighting,” Schneider said.

In their closing arguments, defense attorneys seized on many such inconsistencies.

But primarily, they assailed the police procedure by which the youths were identified while detained in a Ralphs parking lot within 20 minutes of the beating.

On Monday, attorney Frank Williams Jr. charged that the police were “criminally negligent” by not asking the witnesses for a description of the attackers and by telling them, “We caught ‘em,” just before showing them the 10 minors.

Williams noted that the prosecution’s key witness, Kiana Alford, was able to identify eight of the 10 minors that night, but unable to describe or identify any other suspects, even though she testified that up to 30 boys and girls were involved.

Williams said the transcript of a police interview with Alford showed how officers tried to “inseminate” details into her mind, such as whether the suspects were wearing a gang color.

According to the transcript, obtained by The Times, the officer said, “Were they displaying red?”

Alford answered: “Um-hmm.”

Officer: “Besides the red cars?”

Alford: “Um-hmm.”

Officer: “They have red flags on … or…. ”

Alford: “No, they didn’t have any rags or nothing…. ”

Officer: “Red shirts?”

None of the 10 minors on trial was wearing red.

Deputy Dist. Atty. Andrea Bouas, in her rebuttal, emphasized that Hyman’s cellphone — knocked from her hand during the melee — was found with the minors.

Tweet This Post 

No tags for this post.

Warning: array_keys() [function.array-keys]: The first argument should be an array in /u/www/sites/brokencountry.com/www/wordpress/wp-content/plugins/simple-tags/inc/client.php on line 1310

Warning: shuffle() expects parameter 1 to be array, null given in /u/www/sites/brokencountry.com/www/wordpress/wp-content/plugins/simple-tags/inc/client.php on line 1311

Warning: Invalid argument supplied for foreach() in /u/www/sites/brokencountry.com/www/wordpress/wp-content/plugins/simple-tags/inc/client.php on line 1312

One would think that U.S. corporations would know by now not to invest in these third world shitbox countries south of the border. Ask Unocal. They spent millions setting up refineries and oil wells in Mexico and as soon as they began producing a product, the Mexican government ( if that’s what you want to call it) nationalized the oil industry and kicked Unocal out of the country. Now Verizon is getting reemed in Venezuela. Geez …. JD

Chavez orders takeover of Verizon property without prior compensation

SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) – Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez moved Sunday to take over Compania Anonima Nacional Telefonos de Venezuela, known as CANTV, without first compensating its U.S. owner, Verizon Communications Inc., and said the government won’t pay market price for the telecom, according to media reports.
Chavez’s move may hint at growing economic problems in Venezuela caused by declining global crude-oil prices, The Wall Street Journal reported in its online edition. See Wall Street Journal story (subscription required).
On Friday, the price of the Venezuelan mix of crudes was down to about $46.87, about $15 below highs of around $60 last yea, according to the Journal.
Venezuela, an OPEC member, is a major world oil producer and its government is heavily dependent on revenue from oil sales and production royalties. It is the fourth-largest supplier of crude to the U.S., according to the most recent figures from the U.S. Department of Energy’s Energy Information Administration.
Chavez’s announcement Sunday threw further doubt on whether Verizon would receive fair compensation for its stake in CANTV.
Earlier in January, Chavez announced that Venezuela would nationalize CANTV as well as the country’s private power companies by the end of the years, and government officials said the companies would receive fair compensation, according to The Journal. The companies are worth an estimated $4 billion, and Venezuela has sufficient money in its reserves to buy them, The Journal said.
But delaying the payment to CANTV shareholders would produce a cash gain for the Chavez government from the start, and probably drive down the ultimate price it would pay, according to the report.
Chavez was quoted in media reports Sunday as saying, CANTV “was given away” in 1991, when state-owned company was privatized.
“So I don’t want to hear stories about how I have to pay at such and such price, at the international price, no, no, no, CANTV was given away,” Chavez was quoted as saying.
Chavez said after his government decides what it’s willing to pay for CANTV, it will subtract the value of pensions owed to about 4,000 former employees, according to media reports
CANTV’s stock has fallen more than 30 percent in the U.S. and 19% in Venezuela since the nationalization plan was revealed on Jan.8.
CANTV’s U.S.-traded shares closed Friday at $123.49, up 0.07%. Verizon shares closed at $37.25, down 0.85%.

Tweet This Post 

No tags for this post.

Warning: array_keys() [function.array-keys]: The first argument should be an array in /u/www/sites/brokencountry.com/www/wordpress/wp-content/plugins/simple-tags/inc/client.php on line 1310

Warning: shuffle() expects parameter 1 to be array, null given in /u/www/sites/brokencountry.com/www/wordpress/wp-content/plugins/simple-tags/inc/client.php on line 1311

Warning: Invalid argument supplied for foreach() in /u/www/sites/brokencountry.com/www/wordpress/wp-content/plugins/simple-tags/inc/client.php on line 1312

This is yet another reason I believe that democrats are among the dumbest humans on earth. I could go on forever, but I will make this short. In a time when parents and teachers were allowed to disipline children there was no gang violence. There were no pregnant 13 year olds. There were no school children running amuck. There were no kids telling their parents how things were going to be. Teen suicide was almost unheard of. There were no kids that shot up schools and killed classmates. Ever since these liberal idiots got a foothold back in the sixties this country has gone right in the fucking toilet and it continues to get worse. Just a little something to think about.

JD

When 41-year-old Tiersa Brown, a Redding mother of three boys ages 6 months to 15 years, was told about a proposed law that would make it illegal for a parent to spank young children, she at first seemed incredulous.

Then she laughed.

“One or two swats to the butt or a smack to the hand is not child abuse,” Brown said while pushing a stroller with a friend on Friday at the Northpoint shopping center on Lake Boulevard.

But California parents could face jail and a fine for spanking their young children under legislation a San Francisco Bay area lawmaker has promised to introduce next week, The Associated Press reported.

Assemblywoman Sally Lieber, D-Mountain View, said such a law is needed because spanking victimizes helpless children and breeds violence in society.

“I think it’s pretty hard to argue you need to beat a child,” Lieber said. “Is it OK to whip a 1-year-old or a 6-month-old or a newborn?”

Lieber said her proposal would make spanking, hitting and slapping a child younger than 4 years old a misdemeanor. Adults could face up to a year in jail and a $1,000 fine.

Aides to the assemblywoman said they are still working on a definition for spanking.

North state Republican lawmakers, including Richvale Assemblyman Doug LaMalfa and Grass Valley state Sen. Sam Aanestad, called the would-be bill “nanny state legislation.”

“I don’t think that even a majority of Democrats are going to pass this,” LaMalfa said. “Nothing quite surprises me (in the Capitol) anymore, but I don’t see this getting off our floor.”

Aanestad’s response to the proposed bill was a bit more biting.

“This is possibly the dumbest thing I have ever heard of,” he said.

But Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger said he may be receptive to it even though he has concerns about how the ban would be enforced, according to AP.

STORY TOOLS

* E-mail story
* Comments
* iPod friendly
* Printer friendly
* News alerts

related linksMore Local News

* Kohl’s could anchor site
* Riverside ritual
* Home to the highest bidder

The governor said he and his wife, Maria Shriver, did not spank their four children and used alternative methods of discipline. For example, Schwarzenegger said they found it more effective to threaten to take away their children’s play time if they didn’t do school work.

“They hate that much more than getting spanked,” he told reporters Friday in Los Angeles.

California law permits spanking by parents unless the degree of force is excessive or not appropriate for the child’s age.

The San Francisco Chronicle reported that California would be the first state in the nation to pass an anti-spanking bill, although 15 countries — mostly in Europe — have similar laws.

Betty Futrell, executive director of the Child Abuse Prevention Coordinating Council of Shasta County, said she would not comment on the proposed bill because her agency is a nonprofit group and it won’t “get into politics.”

She said spanking is a punishment that many parents choose because it works for them; however, her office often suggests alternative forms of discipline.

Futrell said studies show that hitting a child to get him or her to stop hitting other children sends exactly the opposite message.

Brandon Miller, a 27-year-old Redding resident, said he’s grateful his mother spanked him occasionally.

“The only time I got the message was when my mom smacked my butt,” Miller said.

Tweet This Post 

No tags for this post.

Warning: array_keys() [function.array-keys]: The first argument should be an array in /u/www/sites/brokencountry.com/www/wordpress/wp-content/plugins/simple-tags/inc/client.php on line 1310

Warning: shuffle() expects parameter 1 to be array, null given in /u/www/sites/brokencountry.com/www/wordpress/wp-content/plugins/simple-tags/inc/client.php on line 1311

Warning: Invalid argument supplied for foreach() in /u/www/sites/brokencountry.com/www/wordpress/wp-content/plugins/simple-tags/inc/client.php on line 1312

This kind of stuff really pisses me off. This is where you can clearly see a delineating line between the way the courts of the United States of America treat men and women. If a man took his small children and threw them into the briny deep he would get the death penalty. But because she’s a woman, well she must be insane. As if by default, women have a higher level of “love” for their children. No dopey man can understand that level of “love.” The courts seem to believe that when it comes to children women don’t have malice or aforethought. It’s ridiculous. This bitch killed her children! These children were also another persons children! Why then should she not be punished?

Remember that woman that drove her mini van into the lake with her four small kids inside? Insane. Remember the dad who drenched his son in gasoline at a motel room and lit him off? LIFE IN PRISON!!! About a year ago a man tossed his four kids off of the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco. DEATH PENALTY!!! Whats the difference??? They were men!!! JD

SAN FRANCISCO

A young mother who claimed she tossed her three young sons in San Francisco Bay to send them to heaven was declared criminally insane Wednesday by a judge, sparing her a possible life sentence.

The rare ruling came a day after jurors found Lashuan Harris, 24, guilty of second-degree murder in the drownings of her three boys Oct. 19, 2005.

The decision will void the jury verdicts and Harris will be sent to a mental hospital indefinitely instead of state prison. She can be released if doctors find her legally sane.

“Yesterday there was no justice,” said defense attorney Teresa Caffese. “Yesterday it was about the law. Today there was justice.”

Caffese argued that Harris was schizophrenic and borderline mentally retarded and that she was convinced she was acting on orders from God when she plunged 6-year-old Trayshawn Harris, 2-year-old Taronta Greely Jr. and 16-month-old Joshua Greely into the bay.

Judge Ksenia Tsenin agreed with the defense, saying Harris “was incapable of knowing or understanding the quality of her acts.”

Six jurors discharged after Tuesday’s verdict attended the hearing and said they agreed Harris deserved treatment.

“We want this woman to get the help she needs,” said juror Chuck O’Grady.

Harris’ mother Avis Harris smiled and cried as the judge announced the decision.

“I’m just numb,” she said.

The decision nullifies the jury’s guilty verdicts on three counts each of second-degree murder and assault of a child causing death. She would have faced at least 25 years in prison for those crimes.

Harris waived her right to continue the sanity phase of the trial in front of the jury and instead chose to have her case argued to Tsenin. A majority of insanity defenses fail because the defendant has to prove they didn’t know what they were doing was wrong.

In her videotaped confession, Harris described how she struggled with two of her boys as she stripped them and plunged them from Pier 7 in an area where tourists stroll along the waterfront. Her youngest boy laughed, thinking it was a game.

One of the bodies was recovered, but the others were never found.

Harris was placed in a psychiatric hospital six times between February 2004 and August 2005 and her mother warned a social worker that she would hurt her children the day they died. But the social worker didn’t believe her, defense lawyer Teresa Caffese said.

San Francisco Police Officer Michael White, among the first on the scene, testified during the trial that Harris appeared “very calm” as she walked away from the pier with a stroller filled with her children’s clothes.

“It seemed like nothing was bothering her,” White said. “She was in a different place.”

The jury deliberated more than nine days before reaching all verdicts.

San Francisco District Attorney Kamala Harris said in a statement that the case “was tragic for all involved.”

Harris will return to court on Feb. 7 for a hearing that will determine where she’ll be sent.

Published: Wednesday, January 17, 2007 13:25 PST

Tweet This Post 

No tags for this post.

Warning: array_keys() [function.array-keys]: The first argument should be an array in /u/www/sites/brokencountry.com/www/wordpress/wp-content/plugins/simple-tags/inc/client.php on line 1310

Warning: shuffle() expects parameter 1 to be array, null given in /u/www/sites/brokencountry.com/www/wordpress/wp-content/plugins/simple-tags/inc/client.php on line 1311

Warning: Invalid argument supplied for foreach() in /u/www/sites/brokencountry.com/www/wordpress/wp-content/plugins/simple-tags/inc/client.php on line 1312

By Arthur Weinreb

Monday, January 15, 2007

Last Friday and Saturday, the National Post wrote about a woman with a potentially fatal heart condition. The 67-year-old woman will die if she doesn’t undergo surgery to repair her aortic valve. But the unnamed woman is an illegal immigrant from St. Lucia and as such she has no access to government funded medical care. And she can’t afford the $20,000-$50,000 that the surgery to correct the defect would cost.

The publicizing of the woman’s plight has reignited the debate that arises from time to time about whether or not our publicly funded health care system should cover those who are residing in Canada illegally. Currently, hospitals must treat those in emergency situations but her condition is not in the same category as someone who has just collapsed from a stroke or has been hit by a car. If some people had their way, everyone who is physically present in Canada would have the same access to the full range of services that our medical system provides as do citizens and legal residents.

In the past, governments have always rejected the notion that our universal system of health care should be extended to those who are living in Canada without status. It’s not that universal. And they should do so again.

The woman always has the option to return to the country of her citizenship. That will not guarantee that she will recover from her condition but it will put her in the same position as her fellow citizens of St. Lucia except for the fact that the vast majority of them haven’t broken Canada’s immigration laws. As unfortunate as it is, our health care system was never designed for or intended to be able to save the entire world from any and all medical conditions that they might have. If we are going to allow illegal immigrants to access our health care system that we are constantly being told is what defines us as Canadians, we might as well just abolish the notions of citizenship and permanent residency and simply treat everyone who is in the country equally. Citizenship cards could be handed out at a port of entry to anyone who wanted one. No doubt this would have great appeal for the “No one is illegal” crowd, but it will see Canada give up all control over who comes here and who doesn’t and finish Canada off as a sovereign country.

The difference between a foreign national in Canada being a visitor or an immigrant has to do with the intention of that person, not the length of time that the person spends in the country although immigrant status may be inferred from a person being in the country for a long period of time. There is nothing to prevent a person entering Canada as a visitor, going to an immigration office and announcing they want to live here permanently (putting them in the category of an illegal immigrant) and then going to a hospital to have their necessary surgery performed for free before heading back home after they have recovered. Putting illegals under our health care system merely opens it up to abuse.

There is also an argument to be made that surgery should not be performed on this woman even if she has the ability to pay for it. We are constantly being told by politicians (not surprisingly by those who happen to be in opposition) that our health care system is under funded, under staffed and overcrowded. Allowing illegals and those who reside in other countries to access our system by paying cash will drain Canada’s already overcrowded system. There are thousands of wealthy people who live in third world countries where they have been diagnosed as being terminal but who could live a long and normal life if they could just come to Canada and have a two-hour operation. And who will the overcrowded hospitals give priority to — the person with a trunk full of cash or the one with a plastic card? We all know the answer.

Anyone who has at least a bit of compassion naturally feels sorry for this woman from St. Lucia who is facing an early death that she would not be facing were she a Canadian citizen or legal resident. But we can’t go down the road of making those who break our laws de facto citizens. And we can’t save the world.

Tweet This Post 

No tags for this post.

Warning: array_keys() [function.array-keys]: The first argument should be an array in /u/www/sites/brokencountry.com/www/wordpress/wp-content/plugins/simple-tags/inc/client.php on line 1310

Warning: shuffle() expects parameter 1 to be array, null given in /u/www/sites/brokencountry.com/www/wordpress/wp-content/plugins/simple-tags/inc/client.php on line 1311

Warning: Invalid argument supplied for foreach() in /u/www/sites/brokencountry.com/www/wordpress/wp-content/plugins/simple-tags/inc/client.php on line 1312

RICHWOODS, Mo. — The parents of Shawn Hornbeck say hope and sheer obsession with finding their son helped them endure the more than four years after the boy was abducted while riding his bike.

The family turned its grief into a crusade, telling anyone who’d listen about what happened to their son and the dangers of strangers. Their work was rewarded Friday with the improbable return of the boy, now a shaggy-haired 15-year-old, and another boy who vanished Monday.

Craig Akers, Hornbeck’s stepfather, said he never gave up hope. But even in his wildest daydreams, Akers never imagined he would be the parent reunited with his child.

“I’ve never put myself in this place, in my mind,” Akers said as he stood next to his wife, Pamela, at a news conference Saturday morning in Richwoods, a small town 50 miles southwest of St. Louis.

Between the parents was Hornbeck himself, miraculously recovered Friday after police searched the suburban St. Louis apartment of Michael Devlin, now charged with kidnapping and jailed on $1 million bond. Ben Ownby, a 13-year-old seventh-grader from another rural Missouri community, Beaufort, was also found at the home.

Both boys appeared healthy. Police weren’t divulging details of their captivity or any other information about the investigation.

“Obviously, this is probably the best day of our lives,” Craig Akers said. “It’s hard to even come up with words to describe it.”

For years, the couple stood on the sidelines during moments like this, watching as other families put their fears to rest when their missing children were recovered.

“I remember when I got a phone call when Elizabeth Smart was found,” Akers said, referring to the 14-year-old Utah girl kidnapped in 2002 and held captive for nine months. “I remember how much that raised our hopes, how much fuel that gave us to keep going.”

Elizabeth’s father, Ed Smart, said expressed relief Saturday over the outcome of the Missouri case.

“There are so many parents out there that have children who are missing and everyone I talk to say (the worry) never leaves you,” said Smart, who was attending Saturday’s announcement of a new Utah child abduction team that will complement that state’s Amber Alert system. “It’s there with you every waking minute and too many times it’s there when you are asleep.

“You worry about what they are going through, are they even being cared for, it’s the nightmare that won’t go away, until you find out, one way or another.”

Hornbeck was abducted the same year as Elizabeth Smart. Long after the volunteer search parties disbanded, the Akers kept the search alive.

Along the way, they did all they could to help others in a similar situation, founding the Shawn Hornbeck Foundation to assist in the search and recovery of missing kids. Every time there was an abduction in eastern Missouri, it was a safe bet the Akers would show up to offer help.

The search and the foundation consumed the Akers. Craig quit his job as a software designer, and the couple depleted their savings and borrowed against their retirement to keep the search and foundation going. They even talked to psychics.

Eventually, the couple returned to work because of the financial strain.

“They were constantly thinking of someone else. I guess that’s how they got through this,” said Richwoods resident Donna Miley. “Every time there would be a different (abduction) situation, you would see Pamela and Craig.”

Even in the hours after their reunion with Hornbeck, the Akers were thinking of other families who weren’t so lucky. Craig Akers said they wanted to appear in public to show that miracles do happen.

Many Richwoods residents showed up at the news conference to see Shawn for themselves. He walked in quietly between his mother and father, smiling often as he passed through a cluster of people trying to see the boy who they last remembered as an 11-year-old.

“It looks just like him. Around the eyes, it looks just like him,” said Peggy Reichardt. The cook at Richwoods Elementary School, she fed Hornbeck twice a day before he disappeared.

Hornbeck did not speak to the media but talked quietly into his mother’s ear and smiled often during the news conference. His parents said he wasn’t yet prepared to speak publicly.

Craig Akers said Hornbeck hasn’t been in school during his time away. He asked his parents if he could play video games and ride an ATV now that he’s home.

Pointing to his stepson, Akers said the Shawn Hornbeck Foundation had just found its newest member.

The boy rolled his eyes and laughed.

Tweet This Post 

No tags for this post.

Warning: array_keys() [function.array-keys]: The first argument should be an array in /u/www/sites/brokencountry.com/www/wordpress/wp-content/plugins/simple-tags/inc/client.php on line 1310

Warning: shuffle() expects parameter 1 to be array, null given in /u/www/sites/brokencountry.com/www/wordpress/wp-content/plugins/simple-tags/inc/client.php on line 1311

Warning: Invalid argument supplied for foreach() in /u/www/sites/brokencountry.com/www/wordpress/wp-content/plugins/simple-tags/inc/client.php on line 1312

(1/12/07 – ST. PAUL, MN) – A school bus driver let Rachel Armstrong’s three children board the bus Monday morning, but he warned them that he wouldn’t give them a ride home that afternoon, nor could they ever ride his route again.

The problem, according to Armstrong: her 10-year-old twin girls and 8-year-old son speak English. She says school administrators told her the route had been designated for non-English speakers only.

Armstrong says she had to leave work early on Wednesday to pick up her stranded kids from Phalen Lake Elementary School.

St. Paul schools spokeswoman Dayna Kennedy acknowledged Thursday that school officials handled the situation poorly, but said language had nothing to do with the incident. The reason Armstrong’s children were ineligible to ride the bus was that they lived outside the school’s attendance area, she said.

“It is our responsibility to ensure the safety of these kids, and we made a mistake,” Kennedy said. “The kids should have gotten home that day.”

The bus route was meant to serve a language academy at Phalen Lake for children learning English.

The Armstrongs said they learned that when they moved last year, they landed outside of Phalen’s attendance area.

Tweet This Post 

No tags for this post.

Warning: array_keys() [function.array-keys]: The first argument should be an array in /u/www/sites/brokencountry.com/www/wordpress/wp-content/plugins/simple-tags/inc/client.php on line 1310

Warning: shuffle() expects parameter 1 to be array, null given in /u/www/sites/brokencountry.com/www/wordpress/wp-content/plugins/simple-tags/inc/client.php on line 1311

Warning: Invalid argument supplied for foreach() in /u/www/sites/brokencountry.com/www/wordpress/wp-content/plugins/simple-tags/inc/client.php on line 1312

The immigration debate sometimes reminds me of a Louis Armstrong and Ella Fitzgerald duet: You say illegal alien, I say undocumented worker. Let’s call the whole thing off. Talk Back on immigration: Beyond Borders Blog

If King of English for a day, I’d invent a neutral term for those who unlawfully enter the United States. My subjects could eat cake, forget semantics and focus on the best way to fix our immigration policies.

In reality, the Modern Language Association is the body that issues decrees about the English language. Its delegate assembly, composed mostly of English professors, last week urged “that the phrase undocumented workers be used in place of the abusive term illegal aliens.”

I’m tempted to defer to an august body of scholars who’ve spent years studying the English language. As Billy Shakespeare once wrote, “What’s in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet.”

It occurs to me,

however, that “undocumented workers” is a strange substitute for “illegal aliens” since those who come here unlawfully aren’t exclusively workers. Surely it doesn’t make sense to call a 3-year-old child carried across the Rio Grande in her mother’s arms an “undocumented worker.”

Does the Modern Language Association really want me to call an unemployed gang member, an 85-year-old retiree and a federal prison inmate “undocumented workers” if they happen to be in the country illegally?

The term isn’t even a good one for those who enter the country illegally and find jobs. Yes, they lack documents to work in the United States, and they’re workers, but the same can be said for a factory worker in Mumbai, the president of Mexico and a guy born in Kansas City who lost his Social Security card. They’re all “undocumented workers,” though none are remotely relevant to the immigration debate.

The fact is that people who enter the country illegally are controversial because they came to the United States without permission, violating immigration laws in the process. Whether you think that’s relatively unimportant, or that it justifies their immediate deportation, you can’t escape the fact that their illegality is central to the immigration debate.

I object when they are simply called “illegals.” It’s dehumanizing to drop the noun, as though they aren’t people. But it is appropriate and relevant to use “illegal” as an adjective to describe them.
So what about “illegal alien”?

The term is accurate, though I find it flawed. “Alien” seems to me overly legalistic, like calling someone a “legal guardian” rather than a “father.” It isn’t a word that seems suited to everyday usage, save when we refer to its other meaning, a creature from outer space.

That’s why this column uses the term “illegal immigrant.” It isn’t without flaw. “Immigrant” typically refers to someone who comes to a country to take up permanent residence, whereas many who come to the United States illegally work for a while and return to their home country. But it seems to me the least imperfect term.

Unlike the Modern Language Association, I don’t think “illegal alien” or “illegal immigrant” are inherently abusive terms. Sure, some people pronounce those words as epithets. But that’s because they hate people who come here illegally, whatever they are called.

If the Modern Language Association got its way, and we all started using the term “undocumented worker,” some people would begin pronouncing those words as epithets. New terms cannot make ugly sentiments disappear.

This column also uses a few other terms that readers are welcome to challenge. A border “fence” seems to me a flimsy locution for a 700-mile, double-layered behemoth. I call it a wall.

Though the term “wetback” was once common, this column regards it as an epithet unworthy of civilized conversation, and reprints it only to argue against its usage. It is undeniable that the term is offensive to many people, and I can’t think of any argument for keeping it around.

I’m also reluctant to refer to those who favor amnesty for illegal immigrants, bilingual education and multiculturalism as “immigrant advocates.” I don’t doubt these people intend to help immigrants. On the other hand, there are plenty of immigrants who oppose illegal immigration, want their children taught in English and prefer a melting pot society to a multicultural one.

I haven’t settled on a term better than “immigrant advocate.” Any suggestions?

Tweet This Post 

No tags for this post.

Warning: array_keys() [function.array-keys]: The first argument should be an array in /u/www/sites/brokencountry.com/www/wordpress/wp-content/plugins/simple-tags/inc/client.php on line 1310

Warning: shuffle() expects parameter 1 to be array, null given in /u/www/sites/brokencountry.com/www/wordpress/wp-content/plugins/simple-tags/inc/client.php on line 1311

Warning: Invalid argument supplied for foreach() in /u/www/sites/brokencountry.com/www/wordpress/wp-content/plugins/simple-tags/inc/client.php on line 1312

This Donnelly guy is right. The democrats don’t seem to understand that they were not elected into the majority because people are more liberal than conservative. They were elected as a way to punish the republicans for not listening to the concerns of the people. I was doing something I rarely do yesterday. Watching the talking heads on their Sunday morning brainwashing sessions … er … talk shows. All the democrats being interviewed were talking about taking the country in a new direction. Oh, and once again in typical liberal fashion, virtually everything is a crisis. Let me ask you something. Beside the war in Iraq, the economy is strong. Unemployment is at a record low and has been since the Clinton administration. Homelessness is down. People are living better today than they were 10 years ago. What other direction should we go in? I don’t get it. Stay the course you liberal retards. Where ever your tail goes your ass will follow.

JD

By William Roberts

Jan. 9 (Bloomberg) — Representative Joe Donnelly, a freshman Democrat from Indiana, has a blunt message for House Speaker Nancy Pelosi: Stick to a “middle-of-the-road agenda” or their party’s control of Congress may last just two years.

If Pelosi “goes too far one way or another, we’re not coming back,” Donnelly says. He sees his party’s victory in the November elections as less an endorsement of its agenda than a rejection of Republican rule: “People just got real tired of this bunch, and they fired them.”

Donnelly’s view reflects those of many of the 30 House Democrats elected in districts previously held by Republicans. Their fragile hold on their seats means they’ll be pushing their new speaker, who represents heavily Democratic San Francisco, to limit confrontations with President George W. Bush and the Republicans over taxes, the war in Iraq, stem-cell research and abortion.

“Pelosi needs to show she can govern,” says James Thurber, a professor at American University in Washington who specializes on Congress and the presidency. To pass her agenda, Pelosi must build coalitions with lawmakers, “especially those from moderate districts” such as Donnelly’s, he says.

Democrats hold 233 seats in the House, while Republicans have 202. In the Senate, Democrats hold only 51 of the 100 seats — and one Democrat, Tim Johnson of South Dakota, remains hospitalized after brain surgery.

Medicare and Minimum Wage

Donnelly, 51, says he likes most of the legislation Pelosi is trying to push through in the first 100 hours of Democratic control of the House, including an increase in the minimum wage and a plan to allow Medicare to negotiate the cost of drugs with pharmaceutical companies, both scheduled for votes this week.

It may be more difficult for him to support other parts of the party’s agenda. Donnelly, a practicing Catholic, opposes abortion and is also against federal funding stem-cell research that uses human embryos, which most Democrats back.

He also may clash with the Democratic leadership over how to handle the war in Iraq. While he describes the war as a “disaster,” he says he doesn’t support the fixed timetable for withdrawal proposed by Pennsylvania Democrat John Murtha that Pelosi, 66, has endorsed. Instead, like Bush, he opposes any withdrawal until Iraq is “stabilized.”

“My goal is to help the president,” he said in an interview. “I am not going to rip him to shreds. If he does a better job, then our soldiers can be more successful, Iraq can be stabilized and our troops can come home.”

First Test

A first test may come this week when Bush announces a change in strategy in Iraq, which may include a plan to send more troops. Last week, Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada said in a letter to Bush that they oppose a troop increase.

Donnelly, a lawyer, represents an industrial district that backed Bush in the 2000 and 2004 presidential elections. He lost his first bid for Congress in 2004; in November, he defeated his opponent, two-term incumbent Chris Chocola, with 54 percent of the vote — an upset Donnelly says was largely due to the national wave of voter dissatisfaction with Republican mismanagement of Congress and Bush’s policies.

Next year’s elections may be more difficult for Donnelly and other Democrats who won in Republican-leaning districts, says Michael Genovese, chairman of the Institute for Leadership Studies at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles. An attractive Republican presidential candidate in 2008 might draw back some of the Republican voters who switched in 2006, he says: “That’s what the Democrats fear and the Republicans hope.”

Preparing for 2008

Democratic leaders have already taken steps to help lawmakers from these districts prepare for 2008. Almost immediately after the Nov. 7 elections — and before the freshmen lawmakers had even arrived in Washington — the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee established a re- election program for new members. The program includes coaching on fund-raising and constituent outreach, says the DCCC’s chairman, Representative Chris Van Hollen of Maryland.

“We fully recognize that in districts where Republican presidential candidates have won majorities in the past, the Republicans will try to target our members,” Van Hollen says.

Tom Gallagher, a senior managing director at the International Strategy & Investment Group Inc. in Washington, says 60 House Democrats represent districts carried by Bush in 2004, while only eight Republicans represent districts carried by Massachusetts Senator John Kerry, the Democratic presidential nominee.

High-Profile Committees

To increase their re-election chances, some freshmen have been given seats on high-profile committees, positions that increase a lawmaker’s appeal to donors.

Donnelly, for example, will serve on the Financial Services Committee, which regulates commercial banks, insurance companies and securities and investment firms. In the 2006 election cycle, committee members received an average of about $180,000 in campaign contributions from the financial-services industry, according to the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics, a Washington-based group that tracks campaign giving.

Watching Pelosi take the Speaker’s gavel on Thursday was a jubilant moment for Donnelly. Sitting with his fellow freshmen congressmen in the chamber, Donnelly noticed actor Richard Gere and singer Carole King sitting together in the gallery and waved to his son Joe Jr., also in the gallery, to point them out.

Donnelly cast his first vote on Jan. 4 to elect Pelosi as House speaker. He then supported rules changes to ban gifts from lobbyists and identify lawmakers who originate requests for pet spending projects, known as “earmarks.”

With the House in session only two days, Donnelly has a 100 percent record of voting with his party. Still, the lawmaker says, he is determined to try to find common ground with Republicans.

Last week, he signed up with the “Blue Dog” Democrats, a group of 44 self-described conservative lawmakers who support balanced budgets and less business regulation and are open to accommodation with moderate Republicans.

“I want to represent Democrats and Republicans,” he says. “I am going to hit the ball down the middle.”

Tweet This Post 

No tags for this post.

Warning: array_keys() [function.array-keys]: The first argument should be an array in /u/www/sites/brokencountry.com/www/wordpress/wp-content/plugins/simple-tags/inc/client.php on line 1310

Warning: shuffle() expects parameter 1 to be array, null given in /u/www/sites/brokencountry.com/www/wordpress/wp-content/plugins/simple-tags/inc/client.php on line 1311

Warning: Invalid argument supplied for foreach() in /u/www/sites/brokencountry.com/www/wordpress/wp-content/plugins/simple-tags/inc/client.php on line 1312

I did some research on the “Met Office” in Exeter U.K. as far as I can tell this is just a couple of environmental nutbags with a website. I put this up to show you how the national media looks for these obscure stories and puts them out there as fact. Asking an environmentalist about the environment is like asking Exxon about gas prices. This was the TOP STORY on Google News this morning. By the way, Exxon would tell you that gas is cheap. JD

Jan. 4 (Bloomberg) — The world is likely to experience its warmest recorded year in 2007 because of the effects of the El Nino weather pattern and global warming, the U.K. government’s weather forecasting division said.

There is a 60 percent chance that this year will be hotter than 1998, the current warmest year, the Met Office, based in Exeter, southwest England, said in a statement posted today on its Web site. The main factor behind the prediction is the onset last year of El Nino, a warming of the eastern Pacific’s equatorial waters that occurs every two to seven years.

“The most important factor that determines one year relative to the next is El Nino, which started in the middle of 2006,” David Parker, a climate research scientist at the Met Office, said in a telephone interview from Godalming, southern England. “The forecast also takes into account the increase in the amount of greenhouse gases from human activities.”

The forecast reinforces the need for world leaders to act to stem emissions of gases such as carbon dioxide that many scientists say cause global warming, Keith Allott, head of the climate change program at WWF UK, said in a telephone interview.

“It’s another important addition to the ever-increasing body of evidence that climate change is real, it’s happening now, and it’s getting worse,” Allott said. “This year is a critical year for world leaders to deliver momentum for the next phase of the Kyoto Protocol,” a treaty which sets emissions targets that end in 2012. WWF, an environmental charity, is known as the World Wildlife Fund in the U.S.

Ten Warmest Years

This year, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, a body set up by the United Nations in 1988, will publish its fourth assessment on changing weather patterns, and the first since 2001. The report’s authors will examine evidence from thousands of scientists around the world.

Worldwide, the 10 warmest years since 1850 all occurred in the past 12 years. Using preliminary data, the Met Office said last month that 2006 would likely be the warmest year ever for the U.K. and the sixth-warmest worldwide, at 0.42 degrees centigrade above the 14.0-degree (57.2 Fahrenheit) average for the 1961-1990 period.

In 1998, global temperatures were 0.52 degrees above the long-term average, and this year, the Met Office’s central forecast is for them to be 0.54 degrees above the mean. Over the past seven years the Met Office forecast for global temperatures has had a mean error of 0.06 degrees, it said.

El Nino Effect

The current El Nino effect — warming parts of the Pacific by between 1 and 3 degrees — isn’t as strong as the 1997-1998 pattern when the ocean warmed in parts by as much as 4 degrees, according to Parker. Even so, the intervening increase in greenhouse gases in the atmosphere is likely to make 2007 warmer than 1998, he said.

“In the long-term, it has a big effect,” Parker said, referring to greenhouse gases. “From one year to the next, it has a very slight effect of a couple of hundredths of a degree.”

Scientists including those at the Met Office say that carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases remain in the Earth’s atmosphere, where they trap the sun’s energy that is reflected from the Earth’s surface. Statesmen including former UN Secretary General Kofi Annan have said that global warming caused by man- made emissions is one of the greatest threats faced by the planet.

“We can expect worse droughts in many parts of the world, more severe storms, more severe flooding and rainfall events,” Allott said. “We know that the steady warming of the world will lead to redistribution of climatic patterns.”

Tweet This Post 

No tags for this post.

Warning: array_keys() [function.array-keys]: The first argument should be an array in /u/www/sites/brokencountry.com/www/wordpress/wp-content/plugins/simple-tags/inc/client.php on line 1310

Warning: shuffle() expects parameter 1 to be array, null given in /u/www/sites/brokencountry.com/www/wordpress/wp-content/plugins/simple-tags/inc/client.php on line 1311

Warning: Invalid argument supplied for foreach() in /u/www/sites/brokencountry.com/www/wordpress/wp-content/plugins/simple-tags/inc/client.php on line 1312

This is probably a fabricated story. Trust me when I say this; The Iraqis as well as the White House wanted the world to see that sick fucker swinging from a rope. This guy will be convicted and disappear. He will resurface 25 years from now as Robert Mankind of Poughkipsee New York. He will be a multi-millionaire at the expense of he U.S. taxpayer. He will write a tell all book that no one will believe and it will be a best seller. : ) JD

BAGHDAD, Iraq – An Iraqi official announced on Wednesday the arrest of a witness to Saddam Hussein’s hanging who allegedly recorded the event on a cell phone camera, while an adviser to the prime minister said two guards present were in custody. A U.S. military spokesman, meanwhile, said the tumultuous execution would have gone differently had the Americans been in charge.

Maj. Gen. William B. Caldwell also said that Saddam had been dignified and courteous to his American jailers to the moment when he was handed over to the Iraqis outside the execution chamber. The spokesman said no Americans were present for the hanging.

The leaked and unauthorized cell phone video, in which some of those present can be heard to taunt Saddam in the final moments of his life, set off an uproar both inside and outside Iraq.

The storm of criticism prompted the U.S. to publicly distance itself and Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki to launch the investigation that led to Wednesday’s detentions.

“In the past few hours, the government has arrested the person who videotaped Saddam’s execution. He was an official who supervised the execution and now he is under investigation,” said a key al-Maliki adviser, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to release the information.

Sami al-Askeri, a Shiite lawmaker who also advises al-Maliki, said two “Justice Ministry guards were being questioned. The investigation committee is interrogating the men. If it is found that any official was involved he will face legal measures.”

Joining Caldwell in his criticism of the hanging, State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said U.S. officials had questioned conducting the execution on a Muslim festival day and as well as some procedures.

U.S. Embassy spokesman Lou Fintor said Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad and his diplomatic team “did engage the government of Iraq on issues relating to procedures involved in the timing of the execution (of Saddam), given the upcoming holy days. While the government of Iraq gave consideration to U.S. concerns, all decisions made regarding the execution were Iraqi decisions based on their own considerations.”

Also Wednesday, Iraqi and Arab media and a government official said preparations were under way to hang two of Saddam Hussein’s co-defendants in the next few days, but the details still have to be worked out with the American military.

A Cabinet official, speaking anonymously because of the sensitivity of the information, said the two men would hang “at the beginning of next week.”

Caldwell said those executions, like Saddam’s, were the responsibility of the Iraqi government. “It’s a sovereign nation. It’s their system. They make those decisions.”

Saddam’s half brother Barzan Ibrahim, a former intelligence chief, and Awad Hamed al-Bandar, the former chief justice of the Revolutionary Court, were originally scheduled to hang with Saddam. But their execution was delayed until after Islam’s Eid al-Adha holiday, which ended Wednesday for Iraq’s majority Shiites.

In Washington, a lawyer for Bandar asked Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts to block the U.S. military from transferring custody of the condemned man to Iraqi authorities. U.S. courts have so far declined to intervene.

U.N.’s human rights chief Louise Arbour appealed to Iraqi President Jalal Talabani to prevent the execution of Ibrahim and al-Bandar, saying she was concerned with “the fairness and impartiality” of their trials.

As the hanging video swirled, Mowaffak al-Rubaie, the Iraqi national security adviser and a close ally of al-Maliki, hotly denied that he was involved in taking video of the execution. He spoke to CNN after the announcement of the arrest of the unnamed official in connection with the case.

The New York Times reported Wednesday, citing a prosecutor in the Saddam trial present at the execution, that al-Rubaie had recorded the execution with a cell phone.

Al-Rubaie said neither he nor any other Iraqi official had shot and leaked the video to Al-Jazeera television and Web sites. Instead, he suggested Sunni insurgents infiltrated the guard force and took the pictures.

According to the Times, Munqith al-Faroon, the prosecutor, told the newspaper “one of two men he had seen holding a cell phone camera aloft to make a video of Mr. Hussein’s last moments up to and past the point where he fell through the trapdoor was Mowaffak al-Rubaie, Mr. Maliki’s national security adviser.”

But Al-Faroon, in an interview with The Associated Press, denied the report. “I am not accusing Mowaffak al-Rubaie, and I did not see him taking pictures,” he said.

“But I saw two of the government officials who were…present during the execution taking all the video of the execution, using the lights that were there for the official taping of the execution,” he added in a phone interview. “They used mobile phone cameras. I do not know their names, but I would remember their faces.”

On its Web site, the Times later noted denials by al-Rubaie and al-Faroon.

As the storm over the handling of the execution gained strength, Caldwell was among several U.S. officials who suggested displeasure with the conduct of the execution.

“If you are asking me: ‘Would we have done things differently?’ Yes, we would have. But that’s not our decision. That’s the government of Iraq’s decision,” Caldwell said.

Saddam, Ibrahim and al-Bandar were sentenced to death for the 1982 killings of 148 Shiite Muslims in the town of Dujail, north of Baghdad, after a failed assassination plot against Saddam. They were convicted on Nov. 5, and the verdict was upheld by an appeals court on Dec. 26.

Saddam was hanged in Baghdad’s Shiite neighborhood of Kazamiyah. During his regime, Saddam had numerous dissidents and opponents executed in the facility, located in a neighborhood that is home to the Iraqi capital’s most important Shiite shrine – the Imam Kazim shrine.

As he faced his own death on the gallows, Caldwell said, Saddam “was courteous, as he always had been, to his U.S. military police guards.”

The spokesman said Saddam’s demeanor changed “at the prison facility when the Iraqi guards were assuming control of him, but he was still dignified toward us.

“He spoke very well to our military police, as he always had. And when getting off there at the prison site, he said farewell to his interpreter.

“He thanked the military police squad, the lieutenant, the squad leader, the medical doctor we had present, and the colonel that was on site.”

Tweet This Post 

No tags for this post.