Website and automated forms processes, Copyright
2007, Matthew August LeFande.
All
rights reserved. No claim to original government forms
Website and automated forms processes, Copyright
2007, Matthew August LeFande.
All
rights reserved. No claim to original government forms
Judge: Bay City Can't Force Pedestrian Alcohol Tests
It is illegal for police to enforce a municipal ordinance requiring pedestrians under age 21 to take a test for alcohol use or face a $100 fine, a federal judge has ruled.
The American Civil Liberties Union sued to stop Bay City police from forcing underage pedestrians to submit to a Breathalyzer test or pay the fine.
The suit was filed Oct. 31 in U.S. District Court in Detroit, saying the law violates the U.S. Constitution by authorizing unwarranted searches of a person.
"The right to be left alone in public places ranks high on the hierarchy of entitlements that citizens in a free society have come to expect at least in the context of citizen-police encounters," Judge David M. Lawson concluded in a written ruling Thursday.
http://www.clickondetroit.com/news/2667202/detail.html
posted by Matthew LeFande 6:56 PM
matt@lefande.com
Armed Citizen of the Week
There is new information about the events that led to the capture of double murder supsect Scott Eizember. Eizember is in a Texas hospital recovering from four gunshot wounds that came from a gun concealed by one of his alleged kidnapping victims.
Authorities with the Angelina County Sheriff's Department say they received a 911 call at about 7:30 p.m. Sunday night. The caller said a man and woman, now identified as Dr. Samuel Peebles and his wife Suzanne, came to his residence bleeding and needing help. The couple told the man they had stopped to help a stranded motorist in Arkansas and that he had displayed a gun and forced them to drive south.
The Peebles did not know the man was Eizember.
While driving through Angelina County, the Peebles convinced Eizember to allow them to use the restroom. That's when an altercation ensued between Dr. Peebles and Eizember at which point Eizember was shot four times. Dr. Peebles had been able to recover a handgun that was concealed in the minivan.
Eizember assaulted both Samuel and Suzanne Peebles before taking off in their van. He attempted to get help for his wounds at a grocery store, but an employee of the store called the Corrigan, Texas police department to report a man with gunshot wounds and carrying a weapon inside the store.
Authorities from Corrigan and Polk County were able to get a description of the minivan and eventually stopped Eizember, who told them he had been shot by an unknown assailant while his vehicle was stopped along the road.
Officers contacted paramedics, who treated Eizember at the scene. A pistol discovered by police was confiscated.
Eizember was transported to Memorial Hospital in Lufkin where he was treated for his wounds. It was at this point that it was learned of Eizember's identity and what had really happened.
http://www.ktul.com/news/stories/1103/111537.html
posted by Matthew LeFande 9:14 AM
matt@lefande.com
Anti-Terrorism Funds Buy Wide Array of Pet Projects
Two years after Congress approved a massive infusion of cash to help gird the Washington area against terrorism, much of the $324 million remains unspent or is funding projects with questionable connections to homeland security.
Max Brown, who from 1995 to 2000 served as Mayor Anthony Williams's legal counsel and then deputy chief of staff, was paid $130,000 as a subcontractor to a team hired to run emergency preparedness seminars. District officials said they knew of Brown's involvement with Kroll Government Services, a consulting firm, when the company won the bid. In its proposal, the company touted Brown's involvement, saying its team included members who "speak with a local accent."
Brown's firm, Group 360, also received a noncompetitive $15,000 contract to help the city lobby for changes in federal communications policy. Documents show that Brown initially was paid out of emergency funds, but the city repaid the money after The Post inquired about the contract.
Another Williams supporter, former District mayor Sharon Pratt, was awarded a no-bid bioterrorism consulting contract worth $236,000. Pratt successfully lobbied the city to give another no-bid contract worth $15,880 to a company on whose board she sat. According to e-mail records, the larger contract was made at the explicit urging of Williams's chief of staff, Kelvin J. Robinson.
Leslie Hotaling, director of the District's Department of Public Works spent more than $55,000 on basic employee training courses such as "map reading" and "handling problem employees."
In October, D.C. Council members questioned the use of homeland security dollars to pay for sanitation supervisors to attend a "Dale Carnegie" management course with no disaster preparedness instruction. City officials later relabeled the course on their documents by removing the management guru's name. The routine training helps employees better handle an emergency, Hotaling said.
Her agency used an additional $300,000 to help pay for a computerized car towing system that the mayor had promised for three years to help combat fraud by private towing companies.
Another District agency directed $100,000 to the mayor's politically popular summer jobs program, documents show. Forty low-income young adults were trained in first aid and other emergency skills, then paid to rap and dance about emergency preparedness as part of outreach efforts. The program was nationally recognized and a "brilliant" use of money, said Deputy Mayor Margret Nedelkoff Kellems, who oversaw spending.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A6311-2003Nov22_3.html
posted by Matthew LeFande 7:42 AM
matt@lefande.com
Vigils Held Worldwide for Wacko Jacko
Michael Jackson fans held candlelight vigils around the world Saturday to support the pop megastar as he faces allegations of child molestation.
In Paris, about 60 fans gathered on the Champs Elysees and marched through crowds of shoppers to the Arc de Triomphe. They held candles and banners with slogans of support and sang "We Are the World."
"It's really hard for us," said Pascale Hatot, a 37-year-old fan from the suburbs of Paris. "I haven't been able to sleep or eat for three days."
http://apnews.myway.com/article/20031122/D7UVVB5G0.html
posted by Matthew LeFande 7:26 PM
matt@lefande.com
(Improvised) Armed Citizen of the Week
A beer went right to a Long Island stickup man's head - when he was clocked with a 12-ounce bottle of brew by a hero customer, who disarmed the bad guy and held him for the cops.
Humberto Pineda, 25, was inside a Uniondale food store at 8:20 Wednesday night, with a tall, cool bottle of Modelo Especial in his hand, when a gunman entered and announced a robbery, Nassau County cops said yesterday.
"Gimme your money," said the crook, whom cops identified as Prince Johnson, 16, of Uniondale, as he allegedly pointed the .380 automatic at Pineda's chest.
He relieved him of his wallet before moving on to other customers, police said.
José Galdamez, 25, who just bought the store at 604 Jerusalem Ave. two weeks ago, told The Post he "thought the robber was kidding at first, the gun was so small. But then he started pointing the gun at people and taking their money and cell phones."
When Johnson allegedly tried to get the cash from the register, Pineda swung away, striking the teen in the back of the head and breaking the bottle, spraying beer all over. The gunman was stunned, and Pineda grabbed him.
"I thought somebody was going to get hurt, so I hit him on the head with the bottle," Pineda said. "I feel great that nothing got damaged, nobody got shot and that it worked out OK."
http://www.nypost.com/news/regionalnews/11467.htm
posted by Matthew LeFande 10:30 AM
matt@lefande.com
Pan Am 103 convict's cell called plush
Families of Pan Am flight 103 victims are expressing outrage over reports that a former Libyan intelligence officer who was convicted in the 1988 Pan Am bombing is serving his prison sentence in luxury.
State Department spokesman Adam Ereli acknowledged Thursday that the department has been contacted about the circumstances of the Libyan's incarceration.
"We have passed along these concerns to the appropriate officials in the United Kingdom for a response," he said.
A Scottish court convicted Abdel Basset Ali al-Megrahi of the bombing in 2001 and sentenced him to life imprisonment. A second Libyan was acquitted.
Pictures of Megrahi's surroundings at the Glasgow prison have appeared in the British media.
News of the World said the facilities rival those of a four-star hotel.
"They include his own kitchen and shower room, a sitting room and bedroom with en-suite toilet," the newspaper said.
The Daily Mail wrote that the conditions are in contrast to those experienced by the rest of the prisoners.
"Obviously, this is not justice or punishment, this is just part of a deal," said Dan Cohen, of Cape May Courthouse, New Jersey Cohen is the father of Theodora Cohen, one of the 270 persons who died in the December 21, 1988, explosion over Lockerbie, Scotland.
http://www.cnn.com/2003/US/11/20/panam103.ap/index.html
Pictures
http://www.newsoftheworld.co.uk/story_pages/news/news2.shtml
Nelson Mandela say Megrahi is unfairly treated.
http://iafrica.com/news/sa/975516.htm
posted by Matthew LeFande 4:22 PM
matt@lefande.com
U.S. government's secret memo detailing cooperation between Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden
Osama Bin Laden and Saddam Hussein had an operational relationship from the early 1990s to 2003 that involved training in explosives and weapons of mass destruction, logistical support for terrorist attacks, al Qaeda training camps and safe haven in Iraq, and Iraqi financial support for al Qaeda--perhaps even for Mohamed Atta--according to a top secret U.S. government memorandum.
The memo, dated October 27, 2003, was sent from Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Douglas J. Feith to Senators Pat Roberts and Jay Rockefeller, the chairman and vice chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee. It was written in response to a request from the committee as part of its investigation into prewar intelligence claims made by the administration. Intelligence reporting included in the 16-page memo comes from a variety of domestic and foreign agencies, including the FBI, the Defense Intelligence Agency, the Central Intelligence Agency, and the National Security Agency. Much of the evidence is detailed, conclusive, and corroborated by multiple sources. Some of it is new information obtained in custodial interviews with high-level al Qaeda terrorists and Iraqi officials, and some of it is more than a decade old. The picture that emerges is one of a history of collaboration between two of America's most determined and dangerous enemies.
According to the memo--which lays out the intelligence in 50 numbered points--Iraq-al Qaeda contacts began in 1990 and continued through mid-March 2003, days before the Iraq War began. Most of the numbered passages contain straight, fact-based intelligence reporting, which in some cases includes an evaluation of the credibility of the source. This reporting is often followed by commentary and analysis.
The relationship began shortly before the first Gulf War. According to reporting in the memo, bin Laden sent "emissaries to Jordan in 1990 to meet with Iraqi government officials." At some unspecified point in 1991, according to a CIA analysis, "Iraq sought Sudan's assistance to establish links to al Qaeda." The outreach went in both directions. According to 1993 CIA reporting cited in the memo, "bin Laden wanted to expand his organization's capabilities through ties with Iraq."
The primary go-between throughout these early stages was Sudanese strongman Hassan al-Turabi, a leader of the al Qaeda-affiliated National Islamic Front. Numerous sources have confirmed this. One defector reported that "al-Turabi was instrumental in arranging the Iraqi-al Qaeda relationship. The defector said Iraq sought al Qaeda influence through its connections with Afghanistan, to facilitate the transshipment of proscribed weapons and equipment to Iraq. In return, Iraq provided al Qaeda with training and instructors."
In addition to the contacts in the mid-1990s, intelligence reports detail a flurry of activities in early 1998 and again in December 1998. A "former senior Iraqi intelligence officer" reported that "the Iraqi intelligence service station in Pakistan was Baghdad's point of contact with al Qaeda. He also said bin Laden visited Baghdad in Jan. 1998 and met with Tariq Aziz."
That visit came as the Iraqis intensified their defiance of the U.N. inspection regime, known as UNSCOM, created by the cease-fire agreement following the Gulf War. UNSCOM demanded access to Saddam's presidential palaces that he refused to provide. As the tensions mounted, President Bill Clinton went to the Pentagon on February 18, 1998, and prepared the nation for war. He warned of "an unholy axis of terrorists, drug traffickers, and organized international criminals" and said "there is no more clear example of this threat than Saddam Hussein."
The day after this speech, according to documents unearthed in April 2003 in the Iraqi Intelligence headquarters by journalists Mitch Potter and Inigo Gilmore, Hussein's intelligence service wrote a memo detailing coming meetings with a bin Laden representative traveling to Baghdad. Each reference to bin Laden had been covered by liquid paper that, when revealed, exposed a plan to increase cooperation between Iraq and al Qaeda. According to that memo, the IIS agreed to pay for "all the travel and hotel costs inside Iraq to gain the knowledge of the message from bin Laden and to convey to his envoy an oral message from us to bin Laden." The document set as the goal for the meeting a discussion of "the future of our relationship with him, bin Laden, and to achieve a direct meeting with him." The al Qaeda representative, the document went on to suggest, might provide "a way to maintain contacts with bin Laden."
Four days later, on February 23, 1998, bin Laden issued his now-famous fatwa on the plight of Iraq, published in the Arabic-language daily, al Quds al-Arabi: "For over seven years the United States has been occupying the lands of Islam in the holiest of places, the Arabian Peninsula, plundering its riches, dictating to its rulers, humiliating its people, terrorizing its neighbors, and turning its bases in the Peninsula into a spearhead through which to fight the neighboring Muslim peoples." Bin Laden urged his followers to act: "The ruling to kill all Americans and their allies--civilians and military--is an individual duty for every Muslim who can do it in any country in which it is possible to do it."
Although war was temporarily averted by a last-minute deal brokered by U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan, tensions soon rose again. The standoff with Iraq came to a head in December 1998, when President Clinton launched Operation Desert Fox, a 70-hour bombing campaign that began on December 16 and ended three days later, on December 19, 1998.
According to press reports at the time, Faruq Hijazi, deputy director of Iraqi Intelligence, met with bin Laden in Afghanistan on December 21, 1998, to offer bin Laden safe haven in Iraq. CIA reporting in the memo to the Senate Intelligence Committee seems to confirm this meeting and relates two others.
Information about connections between al Qaeda and Iraq was so widespread by early 1999 that it made its way into the mainstream press. A January 11, 1999, Newsweek story ran under this headline: "Saddam + Bin Laden?" The story cited an "Arab intelligence source" with knowledge of contacts between Iraq and al Qaeda. "According to this source, Saddam expected last month's American and British bombing campaign to go on much longer than it did. The dictator believed that as the attacks continued, indignation would grow in the Muslim world, making his terrorism offensive both harder to trace and more effective. With acts of terror contributing to chaos in the region, Turkey, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, and Kuwait might feel less inclined to support Washington. Saddam's long-term strategy, according to several sources, is to bully or cajole Muslim countries into breaking the embargo against Iraq, without waiting for the United Nations to lift if formally."
Intelligence reports about the nature of the relationship between Iraq and al Qaeda from mid-1999 through 2003 are conflicting. One senior Iraqi intelligence officer in U.S. custody, Khalil Ibrahim Abdallah, "said that the last contact between the IIS and al Qaeda was in July 1999. Bin Laden wanted to meet with Saddam, he said. The guidance sent back from Saddam's office reportedly ordered Iraqi intelligence to refrain from any further contact with bin Laden and al Qaeda. The source opined that Saddam wanted to distance himself from al Qaeda."
The bulk of reporting on the relationship contradicts this claim. One report states that "in late 1999" al Qaeda set up a training camp in northern Iraq that "was operational as of 1999." Other reports suggest that the Iraqi regime contemplated several offers of safe haven to bin Laden throughout 1999.
The Czech counterintelligence service reported that the Sept. 11 hijacker [Mohamed] Atta met with the former Iraqi intelligence chief in Prague, [Ahmed Khalil Ibrahim Samir] al Ani, on several occasions. During one of these meetings, al Ani ordered the IIS finance officer to issue Atta funds from IIS financial holdings in the Prague office.
The CIA can confirm two Atta visits to Prague--in Dec. 1994 and in June 2000; data surrounding the other two--on 26 Oct 1999 and 9 April 2001--is complicated and sometimes contradictory and CIA and FBI cannot confirm Atta met with the IIS. Czech Interior Minister Stanislav Gross continues to stand by his information.
http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/003/378fmxyz.asp
posted by Matthew LeFande 10:08 AM
matt@lefande.com
D.C. Arrests More on Disorderly Charge, Report Says
D.C. police make far more arrests per capita for the offense of "disorderly conduct" than police in other large cities, according to a city watchdog agency that said officers in Washington sometimes use the charge improperly.
The Citizen Complaint Review Board issued a report yesterday that found that people in Washington are sometimes arrested simply for being profane or rude to the police.
"I don't see evidence that there is more disorderly conduct in D.C.," said Philip K. Eure, executive director of the Office of Citizen Complaint Review, an arm of the board. "We do see evidence here that officers do not understand or are ignoring the disorderly conduct law."
Under District law, the charge "disorderly conduct" can apply to a wide variety of actions that may start a disturbance or annoy other citizens, including making loud noises at night and blocking a public street. The report showed that in 2000, D.C. police made 1,853 arrests for disorderly conduct per 100,000 residents. That was compared with an average of 303 in cities with populations over 250,000.
But police downplayed the problem yesterday, saying that the comparisons made with other cities were unfair, in that behavior that counts as disorderly in Washington may be classified under another offense category in other cities, skewing the totals.
Assistant Chief Peter Newsham said police will review the report. But he said that many D.C. citizens want police to make more arrests for petty crimes, not to cut back.
"We obviously make a lot of disorderly arrests," Newsham said. But, he said, "if you go to these community meetings, they're asking our officers to make more arrests for quality-of-life crimes."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A63824-2003Nov19.html
posted by Matthew LeFande 7:52 AM
matt@lefande.com
FBI Disables OnStar To Conduct Surveillance On Owner.
The operator of an on-board communication system in a motor vehicle may be compelled to assist law enforcement in monitoring conversations within the vehicle, but only within certain limitations, the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled yesterday.
On-board systems combine cellular telephone and global positioning satellite technology to put subscribers in touch with company staffers at a command center. As Judge Marsha Berzon explained it for the Ninth Circuit, such systems “assist drivers in activities from the mundane—such as navigating an unfamiliar neighborhood or finding a nearby Chinese restaurant—to the more vital—such as responding to emergencies or obtaining roadside assistance.”
The feature at issue in yesterday’s ruling, the judge went on to say, allows the operator to open a cellular connection to a vehicle and listen to oral communications within the car. When activated at the owner’s request, this feature enables the operator to communicate with emergency personnel, or to overhear the thieves if the car has been stolen.
But the same technology permits eavesdropping, the judge noted, and has thus caught the interest of the FBI, leading to yesterday’s review of a series of orders by U.S. District Judge Lloyd D. George of the District of Nevada. George approved a series of four 30-day “roving” wiretap orders requiring the system operator to assist in the investigation by permitting the FBI to monitor conversations within the vehicle.
The Ninth Circuit panel held that operators of on-board systems come under the wiretap provisions of Title III of the Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act of 1968, as amended.
The act permits “duly authorized law enforcement officers” to engage in electronic surveillance and to obtain court orders requiring the assistance of a “provider of wire or electronic communication service, landlord, custodian, or other person...to accomplish the interception unobtrusively and with a minimum of interference with the services” being provided to the target of the surveillance.
Berzon agreed with the district judge that the operator of an on-board system is a “provider” of a communications service, and is the type of entity whose assistance Congress intended to require. But the orders granted by George went too far, Berzon wrote, because they permit more than “a minimum amount of interference” with the company’s service.
“In this case, FBI surveillance completely disabled the monitored car’s System. The only function that worked in some form was the emergency button or automatic emergency response signal. These emergency features, however, were severely hampered by the surveillance: Pressing the emergency button and activation of the car’s airbags, instead of automatically contacting the Company, would simply emit a tone over the already open phone line. No one at the Company was likely to be monitoring the call at such a time, as the call was transferred to the FBI once received.”
Since the FBI is prohibited by Title III from listening in on conversations unrelated to its investigation, Berzon elaborated, an emergency call would likely have gone unheeded. Besides, she wrote, “the FBI, however well-intentioned, is not in the business of providing emergency road services, and might well have better things to do when listening in than respond with such services to the electronic signal sent over the line.”
http://www.metnews.com/articles/comp111903.htm
posted by Matthew LeFande 7:46 AM
matt@lefande.com
Designer of the AK47 says he gets ample rest
IZHEVSK, Russia -- The first snow of the season was pelting his country cottage -- too cold and wet for hunting -- so the dapper little general had retreated to the warmth of his kitchen. There was a wheel of Camembert on the table, some dark bread and sliced pears, and a bottle of Armenian brandy. He swirled some of the brandy in a snifter and tried to explain about all the blood and tears of the past half-century.
"A lot of people ask me how I sleep, because of all the people who've been killed with my guns," said Mikhail Kalashnikov, 84, designer of the renowned AK47 assault rifle.
His light, inexpensive, virtually indestructible guns -- "they're like my children," he said recently -- long have been the weapons of choice for armies from Vietnam to China and from Angola to Cuba. They've also been used by terrorists, freedom fighters, guerrillas and gangsters.
The Kalashnikov has been the primary weapon -- often for both sides -- in most of the 40-odd wars of the past decade. Military historians say there are 100 million AKs in the world today.
"But it's not the designer's fault or the weapon's fault when terrible things happen; it's the politicians'," said Kalashnikov, a former major general. "It's because the politicians are unable to reach peaceful agreements. I must say I sleep quite soundly."
http://www.freep.com/news/nw/ak19_20031119.htm
posted by Matthew LeFande 3:27 PM
matt@lefande.com
Seattle Police Trick Gets Judge's Approval
A judge has upheld a ploy by Seattle police detectives to get a slaying suspect to send his DNA to them -- leading to a first-degree murder charge in a 20-year-old case.
King County Superior Court Judge Sharon Armstrong ruled that police did not violate John Athan's privacy or other rights by sending the New Jersey man a phony letter saying he was eligible for money in a class-action lawsuit over parking tickets. Athan responded to the letter -- and licked an envelope, leaving saliva that provided his DNA.
That DNA was matched to evidence from the 1982 killing of 13-year-old Kristen Sumstad, whose body was found dumped in a box behind a Seattle store.
Athan's attorney had asked the judge to either throw out the DNA evidence or dismiss the case. Armstrong refused. She agreed that the police broke the law by pretending to be lawyers, but said police are allowed to do that to catch criminals.
The judge also found that while people may expect their letters to be private, that expectation doesn't apply to the envelope they use.
http://www.komotv.com/stories/28382.htm
posted by Matthew LeFande 7:53 AM
matt@lefande.com
Saudis' strict Islam called a 'threat'
Saudi Arabia continues to fund and export its Wahhabi brand of Islam, making it a "strategic threat" to the United States in the worldwide war on terror, the chairman of the U.S. government commission on religious freedom said yesterday.
"It is an ideology that is incompatible with the war on terrorism," said Michael Young, chairman of the State Department's Commission on International Religious Freedom.
The commission, established by Congress during the Clinton administration as a State Department body charged with monitoring religious rights, held a hearing yesterday titled: "Is Saudi Arabia a Strategic Threat: The Global Propagation of Intolerance."
Wahhabism is a puritanical form of Islam that teaches intolerance of anyone who does not conform to its worldview — Muslims and non-Muslims alike.
It is taught in Saudi schools and preached in tens of thousands of government-supported mosques.
Several panelists said considering this type of education, it was no accident that 15 of the 19 September 11 hijackers were Saudis.
"The Saudi royal family has shown it has no inclination for real reform," said Mai Yamani, a Saudi academic who has been threatened with arrest if she returns to her country.
"Not only has the state embraced the hard-liners, the hard-liners are the state, deeply embedded in the structure. The state gives [fundamentalist clerics] power and money in return for religious legitimacy," she told the hearing.
http://www.washingtontimes.com/world/20031118-113127-4259r.htm
posted by Matthew LeFande 7:40 AM
matt@lefande.com
French Wine Industry Urges Drinking and Driving
PARIS -- France's wine industry wants drivers to know: It's OK to have a drink for the road. Or three. The $18 billion-a-year wine industry is fighting back against a government campaign to discourage drunken driving.
It claims the government is scaring people away from ordering a glass when they go out and points to a 15 percent drop in wine sales at restaurants.
"People are so afraid of the police these days that they're not drinking any wine at all," Pascal Bobillier-Monnot, director of CNAOC national wine producers' association, said Friday.
Wine makers have always promoted moderate drinking to comply with the country's blood-alcohol limit of .05. But they say the government is overreacting when it tells drivers that the safest way to stay out of trouble is not to drink at all.
"We believe the government has a duty of providing information which it has failed," said Pascal Rousseaux, director of Afivin, an umbrella group for wine producers, distributors and retailers.
Diners should know they can enjoy "two or three glasses" with their meal and still be fit to drive, Rousseaux said.
http://www.newsday.com/news/nationworld/wire/sns-ap-france-wine-and-driving,0,2208029.story?
posted by Matthew LeFande 8:31 AM
matt@lefande.com
War critics are 'miserable creatures'
'War," wrote John Stuart Mill, one of the 19th century's greatest thinkers, "is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things. The decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks that nothing is worth war is much worse."
"The person who has nothing for which he is willing to fight," Mill continued, "is a miserable creature and has no chance of being free unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself."
That brings to mind the anti-war crowd – those stumping for the Democratic presidential nomination, those opining on the nation's liberal editorial pages, and those protesting on the streets of the nation's capital and other cities throughout the fair land.
They are, in Mill's words, miserable creatures. They think nothing is worth war, not even the mass murder of nearly 3,000 of their fellow countrymen (and women and children) on Sept. 11, 2001.
They have nothing for which they are willing to fight, not even to prevent a madman like Saddam Hussein from developing or acquiring chemical, biological or nuclear weapons with which he could one day threaten the United States or her allies.
Those in the anti-war crowd perfunctorily profess their support for American military personnel fighting on their unworthy behalf in Iraq. Yet, they derive a certain perverse satisfaction, it seems, with every fresh news report of a truck bombing, a helicopter crash, a suicide attack. To their minds, those setbacks vindicate their opposition to the war before, during and after the fall of Hussein's regime. They see it as the realization of their dire predictions that the war in Iraq would become a quagmire of Vietnam-like proportions.
Of course, the comparisons are absurd.
For one thing, the United States never managed to turn the Communists out of power in Vietnam, whereas Saddam's regime has been ousted in Iraq, most of its high-ranking officials either killed or apprehended.
And the United States suffered more than 58,000 fatalities in Vietnam, some 47,369 of which were combat-related. That's nearly 1,500 percent more fatalities than the United States has suffered in Iraq.
That's not to diminish in any way the loss of the nearly 400 heroic American servicemen and women who have fought and died in Iraq. But the numbers ought to be put into perspective. For the reality is, more Americans have been killed in Los Angeles alone this year than have been killed in Iraq.
The opposition to the war in Iraq is less about principle – on the parts of the Democratic presidential hopefuls, the liberal opinion page writers, the anti-war street protesters – than it is about politics.
For the politicos and journalistas and activists who were bitter about the outcome of the 2000 presidential election, who have never stopped hating George W. Bush, are the same miserable creatures who are so loudly decrying the postwar campaign in Iraq.
They almost don't care if the postwar reconstruction in Iraq fails, if Saddam returns to power, if the Iraqi people are once again subject to his genocidal rule, so long as they can play the Iraq card against Bush.
Indeed, just last week, a secret strategy memo, prepared by Democratic staff on the supposedly nonpartisan Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, suggested that Democrats ought to launch an investigation of the White House next year to have maximum impact on the presidential election.
Even some Democrats, those who support their country and their president during time of war, were outraged. "If what has happened here is not treason," said Sen. Zell Miller, D-Ga., "it is its first cousin."
Then there are the Bush-hating opinion writers – and they know who they are – who insinuate that the commander in chief has somehow lost the peace in Iraq because he supposedly neglected to consider an "exit strategy."
Of course, the exit strategy those journalistas have in mind is to have the United States cut and run in Iraq, after only nine months on the ground, turning over postwar reconstruction to the feckless United Nations.
That would be viewed as a victory by Saddam loyalists, by al-Qaeda and other terrorist operatives in Iraq, who continue to mount their guerrilla attacks against U.S. and coalition targets, anticipating that the attacks will lead to the very calls we hear now from liberal, Bush-bashing opinion writers that U.S. troops be withdrawn.
Finally, there are the rank-and-file anti-war protesters, the "useful idiots" as Lenin famously referred to them. Some 10,000 of them marched through the streets of Washington, D.C., last month, carrying such banners as "End the Occupation of Iraq."
The anti-war protest was co-sponsored by a far-left outfit that calls itself ANSWER, Act Now to Stop War and End Racism. ANSWER is a front group for the Workers World Party, which promotes socialist revolution.
When ANSWER activists are not busy advocating United States surrender to Saddam loyalists and al-Qaeda terrorists, they are raising funds for their campaign to impeach President Bush.
The opponents of the Iraq war, the knee-jerk critics of the postwar reconstruction, reveal the decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling of which Mill wrote nearly two centuries ago.
Their opposition, their criticism is fueled not so much by reason, but by hatred – toward their president or toward their country.
http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/op-ed/perkins/20031114-9999_mz1e14perkin.html
posted by Matthew LeFande 8:11 AM
matt@lefande.com
Cyclist's strange DUI-manslaughter trial opens today
Laura Roberts had taken three prescription pills and drunk a number of beers before riding her bike in the dark along U.S. 19 on the night of Feb. 27, 2000, prosecutors contend. They say that chemical combination caused her to unsteadily ride into the southbound lanes of U.S. 19 in Hudson, near Puffin Lane, into the path of William Anderson and his Chevrolet Monte Carlo.
Anderson swerved sharply to avoid her, crossed the median and slammed into a northbound Nissan truck. Anderson's wife and mother were killed in the crash.
The State Attorney's Office charged Roberts, then 41, with driving under the influence with manslaughter. She had a blood alcohol level of .07, just under the legal limit of .08.
The case is set for trial Monday, attracting the attention of Court TV. Prosecutors had planned to bring Roberts to trial in spring 2002 but she skipped bail.
She was brought back to Florida after being arrested in Nassau County, New York - on a drunken driving charge.
Her case is notable not only for the odd circumstances, but because of some odd twists of DUI law.
Roberts' attorney, Fredrick Susaneck of West Palm Beach, says the Florida Highway Patrol troopers who arrived at the accident scene illegally obtained blood and urine samples from his client. Under the state's implied consent law, drivers, by getting behind the wheel, give their consent to submit to breath, blood or urine tests if they are suspected of driving under the influence.
Any driver who refuses to submit to a sobriety test can have their license suspended for 12 months, or 18 months if they have refused the test before.
The police can mandatorily test any driver involved in a collision that results in severe injury or death.
The catch in Robert's case, according to Susaneck?
Although a bicycle is defined as a vehicle under Florida law, the implied consent law applies to "motor vehicles." In a motion to suppress all evidence before Circuit Judge Michael Andrews, Susaneck argued that the troopers could not use implied consent to get the blood and urine samples from Roberts.
"As Florida law excludes bicycles from the definition of motor vehicles, the arrest of the defendant was illegal, any evidence gathered was unlawfully obtained and is fruit of the poisonous tree," he wrote in his motion.
Andrews denied the motion. During an October hearing, Andrews questioned whether the Legislature had really intended to exclude bicycles from the implied consent law.
Assistant State Attorney Debra Tuomey argued successfully that even if the implied consent law doesn't apply because Roberts was riding a bicycle, other laws allowed the troopers to take the blood and urine samples.
http://www.sptimes.com/2003/11/16/Pasco/Cyclist_s_strange_DUI.shtml
posted by Matthew LeFande 3:35 PM
matt@lefande.com
Armed (?) citizen of the week
Portsmouth police say they have three robbery suspects in custody, after the owner of a clothing store they were attempting to rob decided to take matters into his own hands.
According to police, it was around 1:30pm Thursday when the three entered the Playaz Gear store in the Victory Corner Shopping Center in the 4000 block of Victory Boulevard. One of the suspects was armed with a gun.
Authorities say the three robbed the clerk on duty, Sam Ziad Isnail - who also happened to be the owner - and took clothing from the store.
At some point, police say, Isnail decided he had had enough.
Police say he chased the three out of the store, and eventually got into a physical confrontation with the suspects.
Isnail then managed to take the gun away from one of the suspects and began using it as a blunt object to hit the three.
Police say the three got into their vehicle to drive away. As they were leaving, Isnail beat the gun against the back window with enough force to break it.
Officials say Isnail never fired the weapon.
The three drove to Alexander's Corner in the 3900 block of Portsmouth Boulevard, where police say they abandoned their vehicle and fled on foot.
The three were later apprehended by Portsmouth police.
http://www.wavy.com/Global/story.asp?S=1523964&nav=23iiJ6TU
posted by Matthew LeFande 5:42 PM
matt@lefande.com
Officers Followed Police Pursuit Policy Before Fatal Collision
Oakland police say their officers did everything by the book while pursuing an alleged drunk driver on city streets. That car eventually ran a red light and killed two people.
KCBS reporter Doug Sovern in Oakland says officers spotted the suspect Sunday night while conducting a DUI checkpoint on 30th and International Boulevard.
Officer Danielle Ashford said a squad car began chasing the suspect, but only for about 25 seconds.
"The officers then decided to pull back, because the risk to public safety was just too great," she said. "Unfortunately, the driver continued at his high speeds and blew through a red light."
Ashford told KCBS the driver of the Dodge Neon was going about 70 miles per hour when he plowed into another Dodge Neon at 42nd Avenue, killing two adults from Modesto in the second car and seriously injuring a seven-year-old boy in the back seat.
Investigators have already determined that the cops followed the department's pursuit policy to the letter and are not to blame for the driver's deadly crash.
"In this case, the officers did a good job in being able to step back," Ashford said. "The officer speeds never went over 40 miles per hour."
"This person was already under the influence and already driving recklessly before we intervened. It's our obligation to do the best that we can to get that person from behind the steering wheel," she said. "Eventually, he would have run into someone or something, whether we had decided to intervene or not."
http://kcbs.com/pages/kcbs/news/news_story.nsp?story_id=43538019
posted by Matthew LeFande 8:58 AM
matt@lefande.com
Residents Livid as D.C. Burglar Avoids Prison Time
A Northwest Washington man tied by police to 29 burglaries has been sentenced to 90 days in drug treatment by a judge who rejected prosecutors' calls that he receive significant prison time.
Friday's decision by D.C. Superior Court Judge Susan R. Winfield has outraged community activists, who say the burglar plagued neighborhoods for four months until his arrest in July. Police said he stole thousands of dollars' worth of computers, jewelry and other items.
Gregory E. Scarborough Jr., 25, whom police dubbed the "Second-Story Man," confessed to scaling brick walls and breaking into the second and third stories of apartments and homes throughout the Logan Circle, Adams Morgan and Columbia Heights neighborhoods, police said. Authorities said that Scarborough admitted to 11 burglaries and that evidence tied him to 18 others.
"The Logan Circle community is horrified," said Mary Brown, a member of that community association's board. "He terrified people here. . . . To put him back on the street after he conducted this one-man crime wave doesn't respect the needs of the citizens to have a safe place to live."
Winfield initially gave Scarborough an 18-year prison term but suspended that sentence and ordered that he instead undergo a 90-day drug treatment program and then be released on probation.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A24332-2003Nov10.html
posted by Matthew LeFande 7:33 AM
matt@lefande.com
Learn How to Use Frequent Flyer Miles to Support Our Troops
In September 2003, the Pentagon started giving soldiers stationed in Iraq two-week leaves in the largest R & R program since the Vietnam War. Soldiers on R & R or Emergency Leave are flown by the military to Germany or three airports in the United States, Baltimore/Washington, (BWI), Dallas/FortWorth, (DFW), or Atlanta, (ATL ) for free.
The soldiers have been responsible for flights the rest of the way in the U.S. to their destinations, until Congress provided funding for this purpose on November 3, 2003. However, this funding is not yet available and may not be sufficient for all the troops or troops on "Emergency Leave".
More than 470 soldiers a day are arriving in the U.S. Until the Department of Defense can authorize payment for their connecting flights under the new law, many soldiers often have to purchase high-priced, last minute tickets to get home to their families. The new law does not help soldiers on "Emergency Leave" who still must pay for their domestic travel to get home for the death, illness or birth of a family member.
Americans have donated their unused frequent flyer miles to the Department of Defense to help troops travel home and spend quality time with their loved ones, without worrying about how much it will cost.
Your extra miles today can help our soldiers to get home to their families tomorrow.
http://www.heromiles.org/donate.html
posted by Matthew LeFande 8:27 AM
matt@lefande.com
Troopers Stop Car, Find Body
Maryland state police are investigating the discovery of what appear to be human remains in a car that was stopped for a traffic violation on Interstate-95 near Elkton.
Police spokesman Major Greg Shipley says a trooper had stopped the northbound car for speeding and making an unsafe lane change about 11 a-m near Exit 109.
Shipley says the two occupants consented to a search and that's when the trooper found the apparent remains in the trunk.
Shipley says the two people in the car have been taken into custody and the car is being taken to the North East barracks for a thorough search.
Shipley would not say if it was known where the people are from or where they were headed.
http://stories.wbal.com/stories/t/news.asp?articleid=13328&zoneid=1
posted by Matthew LeFande 5:29 PM
matt@lefande.com
Police in TN to stop citing drivers who flash lights
Police Chief Jackie Moore said Franklin officers should discontinue the practice of issuing citations to people who flash their headlights to warn other motorists about a speed trap.
Moore's decision came yesterday shortly after a Williamson County judge dismissed the city of Franklin's case against a man who flashed a warning and was charged and found guilty of interfering with a police officer's performance of duty. He appealed.
Judge Russ Heldman dismissed the city's ruling that Harlie ''Bill'' Walker, 75, violated a Franklin ordinance Aug. 14, when he flashed his lights at oncoming traffic to let drivers know there was a police car ahead.
''It's my constitutional right to blink my lights, and the city of Franklin overturned that right,'' Walker said. ''I'm overjoyed this (hearing) ended in my favor.''
Joe Baugh, Walker's attorney, argued that by flashing his lights, Walker assisted in slowing down oncoming traffic.
''People should be free to express that kind of communication,'' Baugh said. ''Police have to err on the side of letting citizens communicate.''
http://www.tennessean.com/local/archives/03/10/41877517.shtml?Element_ID=41877517
posted by Matthew LeFande 7:25 AM
matt@lefande.com
Driver plays a name game with officers
When Independence police officers arrived at an accident on U.S. 24 Saturday night, they had no idea it might cost them $500,000 to write down the offending driver's name.
But when they asked Daniel Smith, 45, the driver of the striking vehicle, for his driver's license, he told them his name was copyrighted. Instead of handing them his license, he gave them a piece of paper he had generated on a computer saying that anyone who duplicated his name in any fashion would be subject to a lawsuit.
According to police reports, he then told the officers that he would not turn over his license unless he was given a receipt. When the officers informed him that he would be getting his license back, he refused and demanded a receipt.
The officers then called in for a supervisor. After he arrived, he was immediately added to the list of people being sued.
When the supervisor explained that Smith would need to contact the city's Law Department, he said each time his name appears on any document it was a $500,000 action and if it was not paid within 10 days, it goes to $1.5 million.
Failing that, Smith said judgments would be entered against all parties involved and their property.
After the officers wrote tickets to Smith for expired tags, careless driving and improper registration, he refused to take back his license until given a receipt.
According to the police, when asked why he did not want his license back, he said the more times his name was written, the more money he would get.
He was offered a field receipt and sent on his way.
And by the way, although a person can legally copyright their name, under fair use laws, anyone can write down that name so long as they are not making money from it.
http://examiner.net/stories/110403/new_110403010.shtml
posted by Matthew LeFande 5:52 PM
matt@lefande.com
Armed Citizen of the Week
Police: Bar Owner Kills Two Robbers With Single Shot
Two suspected robbers are dead after a former police officer and owner of a Detroit bar fired a single shot, Local 4 reported.
Police say the 49-year-old woman who owned the restaurant -- a retired Detroit cop who was a former member of Mayor Coleman Young's security team -- tried to hold the suspects in the parking lot until police arrived. But when the two men attempted to speed away, and nearly ran over one of her employees, she fired a single shot that apparently struck both men, according to police.
"We've had some robberies in that area. We have some evidence now that may indicate that someone was robbed there and assaulted there. There attempted to be another assault against one of the employees, before the owner of this establishment fired one shot in an attempt to stop a fleeing felon," said Detroit police Inspector Marilyn Hall-Beard.
The two men -- Dorian Gordillo, 22, and Rosalio Becera, 33 -- were later found dead from a bullet wound in a car parked on the Interstate 75 service drive, according to police.
One of the men was reportedly still holding a beer in his hand.
http://www.clickondetroit.com//news/2608035/detail.html
posted by Matthew LeFande 11:22 AM
matt@lefande.com
The £100 car that clocked 480 mph
CAREFUL driver Joanna James was clocked speeding in her ageing Austin Maestro - at an amazing 480 miles an hour.
Joanna, 28, was stunned to be hit with the supersonic speeding ticket in her 14-year-old runaround car bought for just £100.
The 480mph speed in the G-reg Maestro was faster than supercars such as Ferraris and Lamborghinis - and twice the take-off speed of a Boeing 737 jet.
Mother-of-three Joanna said, "I couldn't believe my eyes when I saw the ticket said I was doing 480mph.
"I can barely reach 48 miles an hour in my old car never mind that sort of speed.
"The ticket even said they had photographic evidence of me on a speed camera - but I would have been just a blur like a bullet flying past."
Joanna bought the run-around silver Maestro with 70,000 miles on the clock for just £100 four months ago.
She was clocked on speed camera on a 30mph road in Bridgend, South Wales.
http://icwales.icnetwork.co.uk
posted by Matthew LeFande 7:49 AM
matt@lefande.com
Pave the planet
posted by Matthew LeFande 3:04 PM
matt@lefande.com
