Thursday, May 31, 2007

Witnesses To Alleged De Anza Rape Speak Out - News Story - KTVU San Francisco

Witnesses To Alleged De Anza Rape Speak Out - News Story - KTVU San Francisco: "'When I looked in, I saw about ten pairs of legs surrounding a girl, lying on the mattress on the floor and a guy on top of her with his pants down and his hips thrusting on top of her,' recall Chief Elk. 'And when I saw that I knew immediately something wasn't right. It just didn't look right.'

'I saw that this young girl did not want to be in there, and that's when we just went 'We're getting this girl out of there,'' says Grolle.

April and Lauren -- along with a third soccer player named Lauren Breayans -- broke down the door and were shocked with what they found.

'This poor girl was not moving. She had vomit dribbling down her face. We had to scoop vomit out of her mouth [and] lift her up. Her pants were completely off her body,' says Chief Elk. 'She had her one shoe one, her jeans were wrapped around one of her ankles and her underwear was left around her ankles. To the left of the bed there was some condom thrown on the ground.'

'When they lifted her head up, her eyes moved and she said 'I'm sorry,'' says Grolle. 'One of the guys who was in the room said 'This is her fault. She got drunk and she did this to herself.''

Lauren Chief Elk didn't believe him: 'You have to be conscious to consent to something, andthat was not the case at all."

The three girls were the only ones at the party to take the alleged victim to the hospital and have spent the last ten weeks telling their story to authorities. They were shocked when the district attorney said there would be no charges. That is why they are telling their disturbing story."What we saw was rape. It was a crime," says Grolle. "It was assault against a 17 year girl. I will forever know in my heart that is what happened."

Oh Joss, why?

Female action pics need heroes of their own - Yahoo! News: "The other problem, according to many writers and executives, is that there hasn't been that knockout feature script starring a female action hero. If 'Buffy' creator Joss Whedon is let go for not being able to nail a 'Wonder Woman' script, what hope do lesser mortals have?"

The crazies are in the house!

Inside the Creation Museum | Salon News: "At the ribbon cutting, Ken Ham, the rugged-faced CEO and president of Answers in Genesis, the nonprofit ministry that built the museum, tells an enthusiastic crowd that the Creation Museum will undo the damage done 82 years ago when Clarence Darrow put William Jennings Bryan on the stand in the famous Scopes trial in Dayton, Tenn. 'It was the first time the Bible was ridiculed by the media in America, and that was a downward turning point for Christendom,' Ham says. 'We are going to undo all of that here at the Creation Museum. We are going to answer the questions Bryan wasn't prepared to, and show that belief in every word of the Bible can be defended by modern science.'

The Book of Genesis, that famous first chapter of the Bible, which Ham's group has interpreted to claim that the universe was created in six 24-hour days a mere 6,000 years ago, serves as the blueprint for the museum. Astronomy, geology and evolution, as they are commonly understood in mainstream science, have no place here. As Ham later tells me, the conclusions of modern science are not to be trusted, as they are biased by the fickle reasoning of man and a modern antagonism toward faith. On the other hand, he says, the Book of Genesis is true 'from the first word to the last.'"

Wednesday, May 30, 2007

Justice, 'tied at hip' to White House, hurts respect for law - Yahoo! News

Justice, 'tied at hip' to White House, hurts respect for law - Yahoo! News: "Daniel Metcalfe worked at the Justice Department for more than three decades - through seven presidents, Democratic and Republican, liberal and conservative. But he recently told Legal Times that Alberto Gonzales did something no other attorney general had managed during Metcalfe's long career: In just two years, Gonzales 'shattered' the department's 'strong tradition of independence' and left it 'artificially tied at the hip' to the White House."

Friday, May 25, 2007

FEMA Concentration Camps

FEMA Concentration Camps: "MASSACHUSETTS

Fort Devens - New prison a factory facilities and reservoir that have been built around the camp. It was constructed last year and the railroad had to reconstruct tracks into the prison from Canada and from Boston. Livingston"

Daily Kos: How I learned to stop being angry

Daily Kos: How I learned to stop being angry: "It's today that I realized that we are, indeed, a one-party state in this country. Oh, we have two official parties, but that's just for show. The reality is that they all work for the same people. Sure, there are different factions and personalities within this all-encompassing group, and granted there might be a few people here and there who doggedly fight the system and actually work for us, but they are VASTLY outnumbered, and more importantly, not taken seriously by the rest of the members of this theatrical group known as the U.S. two-party system.

It's a real relief, to realize this. I no longer have to be angry, and I no longer have to wonder how these people can be so SPINELESS and STUPID. They're neither. They simply work for people other than us.

So the reality is that the Democrats have done us a favor today.

The Democratic Party conceded today that they have absolutely no ability at all to do anything in this country, not even against The Worst President In History.

They've shown us that this country is officially under One Party Rule, not by either party in particular, but by the Corporatocracy itself that actually runs things.

It's the old 'Golden Rule'. You know, 'the guy with the gold makes the rules'. "

Thursday, May 24, 2007

I went to Hooter's

I'm in Oklahoma for work and I got roped into going to Hooter's. I swore I would never go to a place like that. So I went and I was fascinated. Totally fascinated. Wouldn't go again or anything, but it was fascinating.

Monday, May 21, 2007

Extremely drug-resistant TB spreading in India - Yahoo! News

Extremely drug-resistant TB spreading in India - Yahoo! News: "He said the death rate among the XDR-TB patients was an 'alarmingly high' 42 percent.

'An important finding was that the majority of patients with XDR-TB were of younger age group (averaging 30 years old), thus posing a major threat to our economically productive population,' Jain said.

He said it was impossible to determine the prevalence of XDR-TB in India, since most of its labs are not equipped to perform drug susceptibility tests, and that treatment of the disease was compounded by its huge cost.

'Serious efforts are needed to tackle this deadly disease which may become a global emergency,' Jain said."

Sunday, May 20, 2007

Long time No write

I haven't written anything in awhile. There has been a generalized funk about my world for no real specific reason, other than the aforementioned sense of foreboding.

LONDON (AFP) - Internet censorship is growing worldwide, with 26 out of 40 countries blocking or filtering political or social content, a study reported Friday.


No updates on the bees. The FDA is a mess, thus you now have to afraid of the food you eat and Bush is more nuts than ever. I watched Children of Men , not the best idea I've ever had, but such is my funk that it didn't do much to move me. My new job is less new, but not really less confusing. It's a very opaque corporate dynamic and my efforts so far to understand its currents have been largely fruitless. So I'm just going on as one does when you don't really know where you are going.

Tuesday, May 15, 2007

Print Story: French workers biggest whiners, Irish happiest: study on Yahoo! News

Print Story: French workers biggest whiners, Irish happiest: study on Yahoo! News: "French workers are the world's biggest whiners, according to a study published Monday which said the Irish complain least about their lot.

Britons come second to their Gallic cousins in the moaning stakes, followed by Sweden, the United States and Australia. Japanese workers have the lowest morale, but don't complain so much.

The lowest levels of whining were found in the Netherlands, Thailand and Ireland, according to the study by the FDS research group.

'It is interesting to note that after France, Britain and Sweden, the world's biggest workplace whingers are Americans, despite their having by far the highest levels of income,' said FDS chief Charlotte Cornish."

Monday, May 14, 2007

Spying in the Death Star: The AT&T Whistle-Blower Tells His Story -

Spying in the Death Star: The AT&T Whistle-Blower Tells His Story -: "Those documents are under seal, but Wired News independently acquired and published a significant portion of them last year. They show that AT&T built a network-monitoring facility in a nondescript room at an internet switching hub in San Francisco, at 611 Folsom St. Diagrams in the document show that AT&T technicians split fiber-optic cables handling AT&T's WorldNet internet service -- as well as traffic to and from other major ISPs -- diverting copies of the traffic into the room, which was packed with internet-monitoring equipment.

In this rare interview, Klein supplies details of how he first learned about the secret room even before being transferred to the Folsom Street office. He also lashes out at Congress for failing to hold hearings, and says he won't be satisfied until he can visit the AT&T building and see that the room has been dismantled."

Tuesday, May 08, 2007

U.S. hospitals charge uninsured more, study says - Yahoo! News

U.S. hospitals charge uninsured more, study says - Yahoo! News: "In 2004, the most recent year for which data was available, hospital patients without health insurance and others who pay for medical care out of their own pockets were charged an average 2.57 times more than those with health insurance, according to the study published in the May-June issue of the journal Health Affairs.

That number has been rising steadily since 1984, but has jumped more quickly since 2000, the analysis of government data said."

Monday, May 07, 2007

Vile at I Blame The Patriarchy

Vile at I Blame The Patriarchy: " All things are subject to interpretation; whichever interpretation prevails at a given time is a function of power and not truth. — that putz Nietzsche

It is with curled lip and bloodshot eye that I anticipate a total lack of surprise at the news that last month a 17-year-old Iraqi girl was stoned to death in an “honor killing” — words I cannot type without overloading my Oxymoronitron. I expect abhorrence, yes. Disgust, yes. A crushing sense of the futility of it all, yes. Surprise, no."

Warning, the video is disturbing.

George Tenet cashes in on Iraq | Salon News

George Tenet cashes in on Iraq | Salon News: "When Tenet hit the talk-show circuit last week to defend his stewardship of the CIA and his role in the run-up to the war, he did not mention that he is a director and advisor to four corporations that earn millions of dollars in revenue from contracts with U.S. intelligence agencies and the Department of Defense. Nor is it ever mentioned in his book. But according to public records, Tenet has received at least $2.3 million from those corporations in stock and other compensation. Meanwhile, one of the CIA's largest contractors gave Tenet access to a highly secured room where he could work on classified material for his book."

Wednesday, May 02, 2007

Funny and Sad.

John & Belle Have A Blog: Anatramy: "To learn about this peculiar organ [the extraordinarily long phallus found in some species of ducks], Dr. Brennan decided she would have to make careful dissections of male tinamous. In 2005 she traveled to the University of Sheffield to learn the art of bird dissection from [otherwise apparently intelligent] Tim Birkhead, an evolutionary biologist. Dr. Birkhead had her practice on some male ducks from a local farm.

Gazing at the enormous organs, she asked herself a question that apparently no one had asked before [because they were semiliterate morons who weren't aware of sexual dimorphism].

“So what does the female look like?” she said. “Obviously you can’t have something like that without some place to put it in. You need a garage to park the car.”

The lower oviduct (the equivalent of the vagina in birds) is typically a simple tube. But when Dr. Brennan dissected some female ducks, she discovered they had a radically different anatomy. “There were all these weird structures, these pockets and spirals,” she said.

Somehow, generations of biologists had never noticed this anatomy before, [probably because they were afraid they would suffer the fate of Nicholas Schooenhoek, who perished of a severe case of the cooties in 1712, in the first reported case of bird-to-human transmission]. Pondering it, Dr. Brennan came to doubt the conventional explanation for how duck phalluses evolved. [The conventional theory, first expressed in a Nature article from 1954, was that "ducks with, like, huge dicks, totally kick ASS."]

Corn up nearly 700 percent in Zimbabwe - Yahoo! News

Corn up nearly 700 percent in Zimbabwe - Yahoo! News: "The price of an 11-pound bag of corn meal — which provides an average family of six one meal a day for about five days — now will sell for $1.45, up from 21 cents.

'Sadza is part of our way of life. Things are terrible all around, but it (the price increase) makes it worse,' said Bridget Mhkizwe of Harare.

She said her husband, a delivery man, earns about half the official poverty-level salary of $92 a month for a family of five"

Tuesday, May 01, 2007

See? Spooky.

Arctic ice cap melting 30 years ahead of forecast - Yahoo! News: "WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Arctic ice cap is melting much faster than expected and is now about 30 years ahead of predictions made by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, a U.S. ice expert said on Tuesday.

This means the ocean at the top of the world could be free or nearly free of summer ice by 2020, three decades sooner than the global panel's gloomiest forecast of 2050."

ABC News: The New Immigrant Backlash: KKK Targets Mexicans

ABC News: The New Immigrant Backlash: KKK Targets Mexicans: "Take David Ritcheson, 16, a Mexican-American football star born in Houston. He was beaten nearly to death by two skinheads at a teen party. They poured bleach on him and beat him mercilessly. Ritcheson was in a coma for days, and suffered massive internal injuries, internal bleeding and a shattered cheekbone. He is now deaf in one ear.

'I just didn't expect my race to become a situation,' Ritcheson told ABC News senior Law & Justice correspondent Jim Avila.

Ritcheson testified before a congressional committee last month about the need for stronger hate crime legislation.

'I don't think there's any question at all that hate crimes against Hispanics and anyone really perceived to be an immigrant are very much on the rise,' said Mark Potok of the Southern Poverty Law Center."