Eeyores news and view

This one will make one year of posts, that is what i had planned to do, so we are complete with this one (373 post's in 365 days). I think the blog will continue, it will just take on a new look and go a new way. Maybe one article a day and with a little more commentary (or views). It might not be everyday also, we shall see.

Thank you to the people who have checked it out in the past.

Here is a list of frequency of each of my topics, interesting, i think. Knowing me (or at least i thought i did) i would have predicted different emphasis, but how does the old saying go? "figures never lie, but liars figure".

2nd Admendment (53)
4th of July (1)
5th Columnists (11)
9-11-2001 (1)
Abortion (11)
Abstinence (1)
Airplane car (1)
Alternative Currencies (3)
Alternative Energy (14)
American Culture (80)
American Terrorist (5)
Animals (6)
april fools day (1)
Aqua Car (1)
Archaeology (6)
Attack of Stupid (36)
Being a Man (1)
Bible (1)
Biking (1)
bl (1)
Blinding Obvious (2)
Borders (37)
Canada (2)
CCD (5)
Chemical weapons (2)
Chickens (2)
Children Abuse (6)
China (22)
China Abuse (6)
Christmas Poem (1)
Church (2)
Civics (1)
Cloning (1)
CME (2)
Coal (1)
Computer Virus Warning (4)
Cooking (1)
Creationism (1)
Crime (3)
Cuba (7)
Culture (1)
Deficit (1)
Depression (1)
Depression Stories (10)
Devotional (50)
Drawing Lots (1)
Drought (1)
E. V. Hill (1)
Earthquakes (5)
Ebooks (4)
Economy (164)
EMP (2)
England (5)
Europe Tensions (7)
Europes Economy (7)
evironmental issues (2)
Evolution (2)
Fake Email (4)
False gods (1)
Father-in-law graduated yesterday (1)
FDA bans (1)
Fireworks (3)
Food (28)
Food Storage (4)
Fraud (2)
Gangs (1)
Gardening (5)
Gas Saving Tip (5)
Germany (1)
Getting out of Debt (1)
Glimpse into our future (1)
Global Currency (2)
Global Economy (1)
Global Government (14)
Good Men (1)
Government Abuses (105)
Government that works (9)
government waste (1)
Great Idea (3)
Ham Radio (2)
Health Hepatitis-C (1)
Health News (27)
Health Risks - Mumps (1)
Health Risks- West Nile Virus (4)
Health Risks- Whooping Cough (1)
Health Risks-Bird Flu (19)
Health Risks-E coli (1)
Health Risks-Ebola (4)
Health Risks-HIV (1)
Health Risks-Malaria (1)
Health Risks-MRSA (1)
Health Risks-Salmonella (13)
Health Risks-Virus (3)
Herbal (1)
History Lesson (9)
Holiday (1)
Home School info (5)
Honduras (1)
Housing (1)
How to projects (1)
Hunting (1)
Hurricane update (5)
Identity Theft (4)
Indian Abuse (1)
Infastructure (1)
Iran (32)
Iraq (4)
Israel (4)
Judicial Activism (14)
Judicial Restraint (8)
land (1)
Left wing Terrorism (4)
Lightening (1)
Lighting (1)
livestock (2)
Lore and Stories (1)
Makes me want to cuss (1)
Mark of the Beast? (1)
Mask (1)
Medical news (2)
Memorial Day (1)
Merry Christmas (1)
Metals (1)
Mexico (2)
Missions (1)
Money Saving Tips (5)
Muslim Culture (28)
Nais (1)
National Security (1)
Natural Disasters (4)
NEO (3)
Noah's Ark (1)
North Korea (18)
Nuclear Material (15)
Pakistan (7)
Patriot Bible (1)
Patriotic (1)
Pensions (2)
Pet Flu (1)
Pet Meds (1)
Pirates (15)
Plague (3)
Political Correctness (10)
politics (55)
Possible Natural Disasters (1)
Prayer (2)
Precious Metals (9)
Prep Talk (4)
Prep Talks (25)
Presidental Watch (1)
Prisons (1)
Privacy Rights (14)
Projects (1)
Puppies (1)
Rainwater catchment (2)
Recalls (1)
Russian (17)
Russian Expansionism (26)
Science (11)
Secert Societies (1)
Shelter (1)
Shooting (1)
SIDS (2)
Skills (1)
Social Security (2)
Solar Flare (2)
solar oven (1)
Sovereignty Movement (1)
States Rights (2)
Stories - Bad Times Coming (1)
Stories - Bug Home pt1 (1)
Stories - Bug Home pt2 (1)
Stories - Bug Out (1)
Stories - Bug Out - Volcano (1)
Stories - Don't Bug Me (1)
Stories - Frisco Lessons (part 1) (1)
Stories - Frisco Lessons (part two) (1)
Stories - I’ll Have A Beer (1)
Stories - Man It is Cold Outside pt1 (1)
Stories - Man It is Cold Outside pt2 (1)
Stories - Man It is Cold Outside pt3 (1)
Stories - Missouri Rafter (1)
Stories - Missy (1)
Stories - One man Alone (1)
Stories - Over The Edge (1)
Stories - The Liddy Scenario (pt1) (1)
Stories - The Liddy Scenario (pt2) (1)
Stories - Ultra Light (1)
Stories - What Is The Password? (1)
Swine flu (32)
taxes (1)
Tea Party (1)
Technology News (5)
Technology Warning (34)
Terrorism (16)
Thailand (2)
Thanks For Asking (1)
Thanksgiving (5)
The People Win (1)
Tin Foil Hat (2)
Toilet Paper (1)
Tower of Babel (1)
Trailer Life (1)
Transportation (2)
Travel (1)
UFO (5)
Ukraine (1)
UN (4)
Universal Health Care (1)
Unrest (1)
Useful Website (16)
usless info (2)
Venezuela (24)
Volcano (3)
Voting (1)
Wasteful Culture (2)
Water (6)
Weather Disaters (1)
Weird Stuff (4)
White Throne Judement (1)
WMD (1)
World Economy (73)

Groups demand that jail stop censoring religion
Civil and religious rights organizations are demanding that a Virginia jail stop removing Bible passages and other religious material from letters written to inmates.
Anna Williams, whose son was detained at the Rappahannock County Regional Jail, says officials cut out entire sections of letters she sent to her son that contained Bible verses or religious material. She says the jail cited prohibitions on Internet material and religious material sent from home. John Whitehead, founder of The Rutherford Institute, represents Williams. His organization is challenging censorship of the mail. "She's a devout Christian, and her son's in jail there and she's been trying to send him letters with Bible passages and whatever -- and the jail has actually been going through snipping out portions of letters," the attorney explains. "[S]ome of the letters are full of Bible verses, so what her son is getting is absolutely at the end of the letter where she says goodbye, I love you, and those kinds of things." According to Whitehead, the situation is not an isolated case. "Various Christian organizations are trying to give Bibles to prisoners...and prisons and local jails are actually prohibiting [that], saying such materials could be dangerous -- and they're actually stopping them," he laments. "So this is a nationwide thing that we're seeing, and [it's] one reason why we're trying to get involved in this case and stop it and nip it in the bud." Whitehead tells OneNewsNow that courts have ruled there must be a compelling reason for censoring inmate mail -- and Bible verses, he says, hardly represent a compelling reason. Prison Fellowship, the ACLU, the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty and other groups sent a letter to Rappahannock Regional Jail Superintendent Joseph Higgs, Jr., calling the policy illegal. Higgs issued a statement saying the groups' letter prompted him to launch an internal investigation.
http://www.onenewsnow.com/Legal/Default.aspx?id=598800
additional info can be had at
http://fredericksburg.com/News/FLS/2009/072009/07102009/478761

Globalize of the world is what it is about, the currency the borders and government and laws. Socialism and Communism.
Gore: U.S. Climate Bill Will Help Bring About 'Global Governance'
Former Vice President Al Gore declared that the Congressional climate bill will help bring about “global governance.”
“I bring you good news from the U.S., “Gore said on July 7, 2009 in Oxford at the Smith School World Forum on Enterprise and the Environment, sponsored by UK Times.
“Just two weeks ago, the House of Representatives passed the Waxman-Markey climate bill,” Gore said, noting it was “very much a step in the right direction.” President Obama has pushed for the passage of the bill in the Senate and attended a G8 summit this week where he agreed to attempt to keep the Earth's temperatures from rising more than 2 degrees C.
Gore touted the Congressional climate bill, claiming it “will dramatically increase the prospects for success” in combating what he sees as the “crisis” of man-made global warming.
“But it is the awareness itself that will drive the change and one of the ways it will drive the change is through global governance and global agreements.” (Editor's Note: Gore makes the “global governance” comment at the 1min. 10 sec. mark in this UK Times video.)
Gore's call for “global governance” echoes former French President Jacques Chirac's call in 2000.
On November 20, 2000, then French President Chirac said during a speech at The Hague that the UN's Kyoto Protocol represented "the first component of an authentic global governance."
“For the first time, humanity is instituting a genuine instrument of global governance,” Chirac explained. “From the very earliest age, we should make environmental awareness a major theme of education and a major theme of political debate, until respect for the environment comes to be as fundamental as safeguarding our rights and freedoms. By acting together, by building this unprecedented instrument, the first component of an authentic global governance, we are working for dialogue and peace,” Chirac added.
Former EU Environment Minister Margot Wallstrom said, "Kyoto is about the economy, about leveling the playing field for big businesses worldwide." Canadian Prime Minster Stephen Harper once dismissed UN's Kyoto Protocol as a “socialist scheme.”
'Global Carbon Tax' Urged at UN Meeting
In addition, calls for a global carbon tax have been urged at recent UN global warming conferences. In December 2007, the UN climate conference in Bali, urged the adoption of a global carbon tax that would represent “a global burden sharing system, fair, with solidarity, and legally binding to all nations.”
“Finally someone will pay for these [climate related] costs,” Othmar Schwank, a global tax advocate, said at the 2007 UN conference after a panel titled “A Global CO2 Tax.”
Schwank noted that wealthy nations like the U.S. would bear the biggest burden based on the “polluters pay principle.” The U.S. and other wealthy nations need to “contribute significantly more to this global fund,” Schwank explained. He also added, “It is very essential to tax coal.”
The 2007 UN conference was presented with a report from the Swiss Federal Office for the Environment titled “Global Solidarity in Financing Adaptation.” The report stated there was an “urgent need” for a global tax in order for “damages [from climate change] to be kept from growing to truly catastrophic levels, especially in vulnerable countries of the developing world.”
The tens of billions of dollars per year generated by a global tax would “flow into a global Multilateral Adaptation Fund” to help nations cope with global warming, according to the report.
Schwank said a global carbon dioxide tax is an idea long overdue that is urgently needed to establish “a funding scheme which generates the resources required to address the dimension of challenge with regard to climate change costs.”
'Redistribution of wealth'
The environmental group Friends of the Earth advocated the transfer of money from rich to poor nations during the 2007 UN climate conference.
"A climate change response must have at its heart a redistribution of wealth and resources,” said Emma Brindal, a climate justice campaigner coordinator for Friends of the Earth.
http://www.climatedepot.com/a/1893/Gore-US-Climate-Bill-Will-Help-Bring-About-Global-Governance.

For many, a simpler life is better
Shrinking paychecks and rising environmental concerns are prompting Americans to pare back their lifestyles.
"Perhaps the silver lining (of the recession) is that people are coming to realize they can live with less and their lives are richer for it," says Michael Maniates, professor of political and environmental science at Allegheny College in Meadville, Pa.
A third, 32%, say they have been spending less and intend to make that their "new, normal" pattern; 27% say they are saving more and plan to continue, according to a Gallup Poll in April.
Nearly half of consumers, 47%, say they already have what they need, up from 34% in November 2006, according to the 2009 MetLife Study of the American Dream.
"People are feeling forced and inspired to get back to what is core to them," says Julie Morgenstern, author of Shed Your Stuff, Change Your Life. She says they're valuing objects less and experiences and people more.
Eric Dykstra, pastor of Crossing Church in Elk River, Minn., read Morgenstern's book, then ran across a blog by Dave Bruno of San Diego. Bruno launched a "100 Thing Challenge" in November and says he pared his own possessions to fewer than that.
Dykstra began encouraging members to reduce their personal possessions to 100 items. They took on the challenge — although some counted treasures such as a shoe collection as one item.
"People have really taken this to heart," Dykstra says. They donated so much to charity — boats, furniture, snowblowers — they filled a warehouse.
"The purpose was to break the hold of materialism," he says. He went from five suits to one, from a dozen ties to two. "It was very freeing."
Other signs of change:
• Enrollment in "voluntary simplicity" courses promoted by the non-profit Northwest Earth Institute in Portland, Ore., is up 50% in the past year.
"It was a perfect time to show people they're really not giving anything up" by buying less or eating at home, says acupuncturist Deborah Waddell, who hosted a course in February in Long Valley, N.J.
• Hundreds of schools have shown a 20-minute film, The Story of Stuff, on the environmental costs of consumerism, and more than 6.6 million people have viewed it online since December 2007, according to the Tides Foundation in San Francisco.
. Websites on living close to nature are getting more traffic. The Thoreau Society, devoted to naturalist Henry Thoreau, got 400 members in its first two months this year. The non-profit Simple Living Institute in Orlando has seen online hits double in the past year, says founding member Shirley Silvasy.
Bruno says, "The recession is like a wake-up call."
http://www.usatoday.com/life/lifestyle/2009-07-12-simplicity_N.htm

Is Tougher Airport Screening Going Too Far?
The Transportation Security Administration has moved beyond just checking for weapons and explosives. It’s now training airport screeners to spot anything suspicious, and then honoring them when searches lead to arrests for crimes like drug possession and credit-card fraud.
But two court cases in the past month question whether TSA searches—which the agency says have broadened to allow screeners to use more judgment—have been going too far.
A federal judge in June threw out seizure of three fake passports from a traveler, saying that TSA screeners violated his Fourth Amendment rights against unreasonable search and seizure. Congress authorizes TSA to search travelers for weapons and explosives; beyond that, the agency is overstepping its bounds, U.S. District Court Judge Algenon L. Marbley said.
Two recent court cases question whether TSA searches have been going too far.
.“The extent of the search went beyond the permissible purpose of detecting weapons and explosives and was instead motivated by a desire to uncover contraband evidencing ordinary criminal wrongdoing,” Judge Marbley wrote.
In the second case, Steven Bierfeldt, treasurer for the Campaign for Liberty, a political organization launched from Ron Paul’s presidential run, was detained at the St. Louis airport because he was carrying $4,700 in a lock box from the sale of tickets, T-shirts, bumper stickers and campaign paraphernalia. TSA screeners quizzed him about the cash, his employment and the purpose of his trip to St. Louis, then summoned local police and threatened him with arrest because he responded to their questions with a question of his own: What were his rights and could TSA legally require him to answer?
Mr. Bierfeldt recorded the encounter on his iPhone and the American Civil Liberties Union filed suit in June against Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, claiming in part that Mr. Bierfeldt’s experience at the airport was not an anomaly.
“Whether as a matter of formal policy or widespread practice, TSA now operates on the belief that airport security screening provides a convenient opportunity to fish for evidence of criminal conduct far removed from the agency’s mandate of ensuring flight safety,” the ACLU said in its suit.
‘Mission Creep’?
TSA said in a statement on the Bierfeldt incident that travelers are required to cooperate with screeners, and while it is legal to carry any amount of money when flying domestically, the agency believes cooperation includes answering questions about property. As a result of the recording, however, TSA determined that “the tone and language used by the TSA employee was inappropriate and proper disciplinary action was taken.”
The cases will likely inflame TSA critics and frequent travelers who believe screeners take a heavy-handed approach and worsen the hassle of getting through airports with layers of rules and sometimes inconsistent policies between different cities.
“TSA agents don’t get to play cops,” says Ben Wizner, an attorney who filed Mr. Bierfeldt’s suit. The ACLU has heard an increasing number of reports of TSA agents involved in what he called “mission creep,” he says.
TSA spokesman Greg Soule says airport screeners are trained to “look for threats to aviation security” and discrepancies in a passenger’s identity. TSA says verifying someone’s identity, or exposing false identity, is a security issue so that names can be checked against terrorism watch lists. Large amounts of cash can be evidence of criminal activity, Mr. Soule says, and so screeners look at the “quantity, packaging, circumstances of discovery or method by which the cash is carried.”
Questioning travelers is part of TSA’s standard procedures, and the agency gives its employees discretion. “TSA security officers are trained to ask questions and assess passenger reactions,” Mr. Soule says. “TSA security officers may use their professional judgment and experience to determine what questions to ask passengers during screening.”
No one questions arrests made after TSA runs into evidence of drugs or other crimes during weapons searches. A bulge in baggy pants can be investigated, for example, because it might be an explosive. If it turns out to be cocaine, TSA is expected to report it to police or Drug Enforcement Agency officials.
.But once TSA has determined that someone doesn’t have weapons or explosives, agents sometimes keep searching—leading some legal experts to wonder whether questioning people about how much cash they’re carrying, the number of credit cards they have and even prescription drugs in their bags stretches the intent of airport security law.
Congress charged TSA with protecting passengers and property on an aircraft “against an act of criminal violence or aircraft piracy” and prohibited individuals from carrying a “weapon, explosive or incendiary” onto an airplane. Without search warrants, courts have held that airport security checks are considered reasonable if the search is “no more extensive or intensive than necessary” to detect weapons or explosives.
In testimony to Congress last month, Gale D. Rossides, acting TSA administrator, said the agency had moved past simply trying to intercept guns, knives and razor blades to “physical and behavioral screening to counter constantly changing threats.”
Every screener has completed a 16-hour retraining that “provides the latest information on intelligence, explosives detection and human factors affecting security,” she said. “We have revised our checkpoint Standard Operating Procedures to enable officers to use their judgment appropriately in achieving sensible security results.”
In the fake passport case, a man named Fode Amadou Fofana used a valid driver’s license with his real name at a Columbus, Ohio, TSA checkpoint. Because he had purchased his ticket for a flight at the airport just before departure, he was flagged for secondary screening. He didn’t set off metal detectors and TSA’s X-ray equipment didn’t see anything suspicious, according to court testimony. The bags were swabbed for explosive residue and did not trigger any alarms. TSA agents opened the bags and searched inside because he was selected for extra screening.
According to the judge’s ruling, the TSA agent involved testified that she had been instructed to search for suspicious items beyond weapons and explosives and to “be alert for anything that might be unlawful for him to possess, such as credit cards belonging to other people, illegal drugs or counterfeit money.”
The agent found envelopes with cash, which she considered suspicious. Three other envelopes had something more rigid than dollar bills. She testified she didn’t believe there were weapons inside, but opened them looking for “contraband” and found three fake passports.
Limiting Searches
Judge Marbley said the TSA had no authority to open the envelopes. In his ruling, he said prior cases clearly established that airport security searches should be aimed only at detecting weapons or explosives.
“A checkpoint search tainted by ‘general law enforcement objectives’ such as uncovering contraband evidencing general criminal activity is improper,” the judge wrote.The U.S. Attorney’s Office in Columbus has filed notice that it will appeal the judge’s order.
Mr. Bierfeldt’s suit, filed in U.S. District Court in the District of Columbia, seeks to bar TSA from “conducting suspicion-less pre-flight searches of passengers or their belongings for items other than weapons or explosives.”
Mr. Bierfeldt, who was released by TSA after an official in plain clothes saw political materials in his bag and asked if the cash was campaign contributions, said he just wants to save others from harassment by TSA. “It’s the principle of the matter,” he said. “I didn’t break any laws and was no threat.”
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204556804574261940842372518.html

Amendment to Allow Guns in Public Housing Thursday, July 9, 2009
A House panel voted to add an amendment allowing guns in public housing. This is a huge policy shift - the Clinton administration made a big deal out of barring guns for Section 8 residents, along with requiring them to submit to warrantless searches and such. It's enough to make you think that the gun control was somehow linked to people control generally...
Carolyn McCarthy , D-N.Y., a longtime gun control advocate, said opponents of the Price amendment would try to remove the language from the bill at a later point
in the legislative process, without subjecting the issue to a recorded vote.
“What we’re trying to do will not involve votes,” McCarthy said.
Wow. Democrats are crossing the aisle to vote for this, and all she can do is hope to kill it procedurally.
Not only are we winning, we are crushing them.
http://defensivehandgun.blogspot.com/2009/07/amendment-to-allow-guns-in-public.html

Eeyores news and view

Patriots wage war on Obama socialism
States line up to 'opt out' of government health care
Citizen protest movements against taxes, deficit spending and wildly escalating federal social welfare programs under President Obama are gaining momentum, despite attempts by the administration and their supporters to ridicule such movements, Jerome Corsi's Red Alert reports.
With a new round of tea party tax protests held during the Independence Day holiday, Arizona has added a new dimension to the revolt against Obama's policies by passing a law designed to opt the state out of any universal health care insurance plan the administration manages to get passed through Congress.
Republican Nancy Barto, state representative in Arizona, has been responsible for advancing though the Arizona legislature a bill that would amend the state constitution so that no resident would be required to participate in any public health care program.
"HCR2014 is proactive and will protect patients' fundamental rights," Barto told the Examiner. "We are a front-line battle state to stop momentum of this powerful government takeover of your health care decisions. Health care by lobbyists thwarts your rights and can be stopped here."
Known as "Arizona's Heath Care Freedom Act," the initiative will be on the 2010 Arizona ballot.
Indiana, Minnesota, New Mexico, North Dakota and Wyoming are all considering similar legislation to opt out of "Obamacare," the current effort by the administration to pass a government-funded universal health care insurance bill.
Meanwhile, tea party organizers are fighting back against Obama administration supporters who derisively used "tea bagging" in reference to certain homosexual practices.
Organizers of the Texas Tea Party invited actress Janeane Garofolo to join them in Texas on July 4 and posted a video of their invitation on YouTube.
Garofalo, an actress on Fox television's drama "24," called tea partiers "a bunch of tea-bagging rednecks," adding "this is about hating a black man in the White House. This is racism straight up."
According to the Tenth Amendment Center, at least 70 percent of the states have launched provisions to exert state sovereignty based on the 10th Amendment to the Constitution, which stipulates that "powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited to it by the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people."
"What we are trying to do is to get the U.S. Congress out of the state's businesses," said Oklahoma Republican State Sen. Randy Brogdon, lead sponsor of the Oklahoma version of the sovereignty bill.
Brogdon is currently running for governor in Oklahoma in 2010.
WND's June 2009 issue of the Whistleblower magazine, entitled "Don't Tread on Me: Rebellion in America's Heartland," also covers the move by several states to exempt guns from federal regulation.
The state of Montana has drawn a land in the sand, challenging the federal government to decide whether guns and ammo made, sold and used in Montana require federal registration.
Following Montana's lead, Utah Rep. Carl Wimmer has prepared a bill that would gain new protections for gun owners by asserting the state's sovereignty under the Ninth and 10th amendments.
WND has reported that Wimmer intends his legislation to exempt from federal gun regulations any Utah resident seeking to own a firearm made in Utah.
"What is clear is that millions of Americans are getting increasingly turned off by the Obama administration's move to increase dramatically the size and control of the federal government," Corsi wrote. "With no end of trillion dollar deficits anywhere in sight under President Obama, average Americans are saying 'no more' to escalating taxes and programs such as 'Obamacare.'"
In writing "The Obama Nation: Leftist Politics and the Cult of Personality," Corsi predicted that Barack Obama was a Saul Alinsky radical who would rule from the far left, not from the political center.
"With President Obama's rating dropping and the global recession deepening, this is the time we need to fight back by returning to the principles of limited government espoused by our founders," Corsi wrote. "Now is the time to defeat the Obama administration cap-and-trade bill in the Senate and to fight the Obama health care plan in the House."
Before 2009 is over, the Obama administration plans to introduce to Congress yet another version of the "shamnesty" bill, euphemistically packaged as "comprehensive immigration reform," says Corsi.
Having twice defeated the Kennedy-McCain version of that bill, Red Alert believes American patriots will once again reject "guest worker programs" and "pathways to citizenship" on the call to secure U.S. borders and enforce our existing immigration laws.
"The time to save America from Obama socialism is running short," Corsi noted, "but the battle has only just begun."
Red Alert's author, whose books "The Obama Nation" and "Unfit for Command" have topped the New York Times best-sellers list, received his Ph.D. from Harvard University in political science in 1972. For nearly 25 years, beginning in 1981, he worked with banks throughout the U.S. and around the world to develop financial services marketing companies to assist banks in establishing broker/dealers and insurance subsidiaries to provide financial planning products and services to their retail customers. In this career, Corsi developed three different third-party financial services marketing firms that reached gross sales levels of $1 billion in annuities and equal volume in mutual funds. In 1999, he began developing Internet-based financial marketing firms, also adapted to work in conjunction with banks.
In his 25-year financial services career, Corsi has been a noted financial services speaker and writer, publishing three books and numerous articles in professional financial services journals and magazines.
For financial guidance during difficult times, read Jerome Corsi's Red Alert, the premium, online intelligence news source by the WND staff writer, columnist and author of the New York Times No. 1 best-seller, "The Obama Nation."
http://www.worldnetdaily.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=103208

Social Security number code cracked, study claims
WASHINGTON (AP) — For all the concern about identity theft, researchers say there's a surprisingly easy way for the technology-savvy to figure out the precious nine digits of Americans' Social Security numbers.
"It's good that we found it before the bad guys," Alessandro Acquisti of Carnegie-Mellon University in Pittsburgh said of the method for predicting the numbers.
Acquisti and Ralph Gross report in Tuesday's edition of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences that they were able to make the predictions using data available in public records as well as information such as birthdates cheerfully provided on social networks such as Facebook.
For people born after 1988 — when the government began issuing numbers at birth — the researchers were able to identify, in a single attempt, the first five Social Security digits for 44 percent of individuals. And they got all nine digits for 8.5 percent of those people in fewer than 1,000 attempts.
For smaller states their accuracy was considerably higher than in larger ones.
Acquisti said in a telephone interview that he has sent the findings to the Social Security Administration and other government agencies with a suggestion they adopt a more random system for assigning numbers.
Social Security spokesman Mark Lassiter said the public should not be alarmed by the report "because there is no foolproof method for predicting a person's Social Security number."
"The suggestion that Mr. Acquisti has cracked a code for predicting an SSN is a dramatic exaggeration," Lassiter said via e-mail.
However, he added: "For reasons unrelated to this report, the agency has been developing a system to randomly assign SSNs. This system will be in place next year."
The researchers say their report omits some details to make sure they aren't providing criminals a blueprint for obtaining the numbers.
The predictability of the numbers increases the risk of identity theft, which cost Americans almost $50 billion in 2007 alone, Acquisti said.
A problem in the battle against identity thieves is that many businesses use Social Security numbers as passwords or for other forms of authentication, something that was not anticipated when Social Security was devised in the 1930s. The Social Security Administration has long cautioned educational, financial and health care institutions against using the numbers as personal identifiers.
"In a world of wired consumers, it is possible to combine information from multiple sources to infer data that is more personal and sensitive than any single piece of original information alone," he said, warning against providing too much data on social network sites.
Acquisti, who researches the economics of privacy, said he got interested in what could be learned from easily available by looking at social networks, which he termed "a great experiment in self-revelation."
People were willing to include their date of birth and hometown, he said, and he already knew that was part of the information used in issuing Social Security numbers.
So the researchers turned to the SSA's "Death Master File," which lists the numbers of people who have died. The purpose of making that file public is to prevent impostors from assuming the Social Security numbers of deceased people.
But by plotting the data for people listed on the file between 1973 and 2003 the researchers were able to develop patterns for number issuance.
"I was surprised by the accuracy of certain predictions," Acquisti said.
The system can produce a range of possibilities for the last four numbers, making it easier for a computer to test the possibilities until the correct number is found for an individual, Acquisti explained.
In addition, "attackers can exploit various public- and private-sector online services, such as online "instant" credit approval sites, to test subsets of variations to verify which number corresponds to an individual with a given birth date.
While it was well known that the numbers have a geographic component, past studies have used the patterns plus other data to estimate when and where a specific number may have been issued.
"Our work focuses on the inverse, harder, and much more consequential inference: it shows that it is possible to exploit the presumptive time and location of SSN issuance to estimate, quite reliably, unknown SSNs," Acquisti said.
The research was supported by the National Science Foundation, the U.S. Army Research Office, Carnegie-Mellon University and the Pittsburgh Supercomputing Center.
___
On the Net:
PNAS: http://www.pnas.org
http://newsok.com/social-security-number-code-cracked-study-claims/article/feed/55257?custom_click=rss

This is part of the why the NAACP whats to declare martial law
15-year-old girl becomes fifth victim
GAFFNEY — A teenage girl on Saturday became the fifth victim of a suspected serial killer terrorizing this small S.C. town, further darkening a day planned for celebrations.
Abby Tyler, 15, died about 11:15 a.m. at a Spartanburg hospital after fighting for her life for two days, Cherokee County Coroner Dennis Fowler said.
She was wounded and her father was killed Thursday as they worked to close the family’s furniture and appliance store near downtown Gaffney.
Abby Tyler, 15, died about 11:15 a.m. at a Spartanburg hospital after fighting for her life for two days, Cherokee County Coroner Dennis Fowler said. Photo provided by the Gaffney Ledger.
Gallery: Gaffney memorial services 07.05.09
“A lot of (people) are bad scared. They’re keeping their doors locked,” said Ed Bolton, who sells fireworks from a trailer on S.C. 11 near Gaffney.
He said customers are subdued and more consumed with talk of the killings — and the killer at-large — than they were with July 4th festivities.
Investigators released few new details about the case Saturday, readying for a long night of responding to calls from people who mistake fireworks for the sound of gunshots.
Authorities told The Associated Press they can’t afford to let any lead in the case slip by.
“Every tip that comes in, we are sending out investigators and following any lead,” Gaffney Police Chief Rick Turner said at a news conference Saturday.
In addition to the Tylers, an 83-year-old mother and her daughter were shot to death Wednesday, and a 63-year-old peach farmer was found dead at his home a week ago.
County Sheriff Bill Blanton said investigators believe the killings are linked, and the search is on for a man is in his 40s, with salt and pepper hair, about 6-foot-2, and roughly 200 pounds.
Blanton said all the victims were shot, but he would not say how the deaths were linked. The shootings all occurred within about 10 miles of each other.
On Saturday, police cruisers filled the streets, as officers from across the state descended on the rural county of 54,000 people set amid peach orchards and farms.
Police set up checkpoints throughout the county and stopped any vehicle that looked remotely like the silver 1991 to 1994 model Ford Explorer that authorities believe the killer is driving.
Hundreds of officers are on the case, working as hard as they can even though they are physically drained, Turner told the AP.
"Some have been out here for well over 24, 48 hours, maybe even longer than that, with very little cat naps here and there,” Turner said.
Some residents canceled Independence Day holiday plans, and some were arming themselves. The sheriff has warned door-to-door salesmen to stop knocking and anyone who breaks down on the county’s rural roads to wait instead of walking to a house for help because he worries “people are going to start shooting at shadows.”
Wendy Phillips was afraid to go to work Saturday at Hardees, where she works the counter. When she got there, she was greeted by a poster on the door with a sketch of the killer, offering a reward.
“When I came to work I was a nervous wreck. I was shaking,” said Phillips, 33, who had been an elementary school student of Gena Parker, one of the killer’s victim.
Phillips wondered if she had served the man food — and worried that she still might.
The killings began a week ago Saturday when the wife of 63-year-old peach farmer Kline Cash found him dead in their home. Then last Wednesday, relatives found 83-year-old Hazel Linder and her 50-year-old daughter, Gena Linder Parker, bound and shot to death in a separate shooting at Linder’s home.
Dozens of local, state and federal investigators were assigned to the case. But a day later, the killer struck again, less than a half-mile from the sheriff’s office serving as the headquarters for the investigation, killing 48-year-old Stephen Tyler and mortally wounding his daughter.
Abby Tyler’s death heightened the mourning in Cherokee County. She would have been a junior at Gaffney High School.
Friends and relatives gathered Saturday at the Tylers’ home, a brick ranch in an affluent section east of Gaffney.
“The family is hurting,” said Ashley Wilson, 20, an acquaintance of Abby’s.
She described Abby as a nice girl: “She went to church and everything. She had a good life.”
The killings have also sparked anger. One man said he had a surprise for the killer: “It’s got a bang but it’s not a firecracker.”
Mostly though, people just want the killer caught.
“We’re knee-deep in the investigation,” Blanton said. “There’s fear and concern here and there should be concern.”
http://www.thestate.com/local/story/852063.html

Residents say Internet down in Xinjiang riot city
BEIJING, July 6 (Reuters) - Internet users have not been able to go online in Urumqi, the northwestern Chinese city hit by ethnic violence that killed at least 140 people, residents said on Monday.
Locals took to the streets on Sunday, some burning and smashing vehicles and confronting ranks of anti-riot police. Over 800 people were injured and police have arrested "several hundred" participants, the official Xinhua news agency said. [ID:nSP491283]
"Since yesterday evening I haven't been able to get online," store owner Han Zhenyu told Reuters by telephone.
"No Internet here, friends said they cannot log on, either," said a mobile phone seller who gave only his surname, Zhang.
News of the apparent outage was also spread by messages on social networking services like Twitter and its Chinese competitors.
"The incident has largely subsided, but armoured cars were still in town this morning. Internet in Urumqi is still down, someone said it would last for 48 hours," one user, who said he was in Urumqi, wrote on domestic site fanfou.com.
China has previously shut down communications in parts of Tibet where ethnic unrest had erupted or was feared.
http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/PEK335819.htm

Eeyores news and view

Your Guide to Avoiding a Terrorist Attack
NYPD publishes handbook for landlords, security personnel
Warning that New York's skyscrapers remain a top terrorist target, the NYPD released a detailed guide today to making them safer.
World Trade Center: Before & After 9/11
View SlideshowSee photos of the World Trade Center before the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001, and the pit known as Ground Zero in the aftermath.
Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly touted a 100-page report "Engineering Security" as an ideal safety roadmap for property owners.
"We have also provided in the publication and online the tools to calculate the risk to your building," Kelly told a group of owners gathered at One Police Plaza.
Police used the example of how a truck bomb filled with explosives can be loaded and driven to a target to illustrate the continuing terrorist threat. The report urged property owners to improve perimeter security, design buildings that can better withstand a blast, step up screening of visitors, design emergency evacuation plans and safeguard air systems in the event of a chemical attack.
These are not just lessons from 9-11, police said. The NYPD outlined more then 10 terrorist plots in past past years with the city in the cross-hairs of al Qaeda as well as homegrown groups. These included plans to attack the Citicorp Center and other landmarks, as well as plots on trains and transportation hubs.
"Terrorist intention to attack New York city's people, building or critical infrastructures is unambiguous," said David Cohen, Deputy Commissioner of the NYPD's Intelligence Division.
Officials said the report was designed to help existing buildings as well as future ones. The NYPD has given its opinion on plans for ground zero and the building of the New Yankee Stadium and Citifield. Real Estate Groups and the city's building commissioner welcomed the report.
"It will also act as an important tool for property owners to identify how to protect their buildings in the design phase," said Buildings Commissioner Robert LiMandri.
Other suggestions include using hard, fire-resistant substances to build walls and floors and posing glass facades "away from [higher-risk] buildings," and installing X-ray machines to scan packages.
"We understand that the threat of terrorism will remain a serious concern for the foreseeable future – and we continue to do everything possible to prevent another attack and mitigate the harmful effects one might cause," said Mayor Michael Bloomberg. "At the same time, we know that enhanced security does not need to come at the expense of aesthetic appeal, functionality, and environmental sustainability."
The FDNY, Department of Buildings and Department of City Planning and various professional organizations also lent insight into the final project.
http://www.nbcnewyork.com/news/local/Your-Guide-to-Avoiding-a-Terrorist-Attack-.html

Feds could seize Calif. parks if closed by budget
SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) - The California governor's office says federal officials are threatening to seize six state parks if they are closed to help balance the state's budget.
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has proposed closing 220 state parks.
But the National Park Service warned in a letter to Schwarzenegger that six of those parks are on former federal land that could revert to the U.S. government if they are not kept open as parks.
State officials say they're trying to work with federal authorities to forestall a possible seizure. The state could also lose federal park funds.
The parks are Angel Island and Mount Diablo near San Francisco; Point Sur in Big Sur; and beaches at Fort Ord Dunes near Monterey, Point Mugu near Malibu; and Border Fields along the Mexican border.
http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=D995Q9I00&show_article=1

Fuel tax could be replaced with by-the-mile road tax
The year is 2020 and the gasoline tax is history. In its place you get a monthly tax bill based on each mile you drove — tracked by a Global Positioning System device in your car and uploaded to a billing center.
What once was science fiction is being field-tested by the University of Iowa to iron out the wrinkles should a by-the-mile road tax ever be enacted.

Besides the technological advances making such a tax possible, the idea is getting a hard push from a growing number of transportation experts and officials. That is because the traditional by-the-gallon fuel tax, struggling to keep up with road building and maintenance demands, could fall even farther behind as vehicles' gas mileage rises and more alternative-fuel vehicles come on line.
The idea of shifting to a by-the-mile tax has been discussed for years, but it now appears to be getting more serious attention. A federal commission, after a two-year study, concluded earlier this year that the road tax was the "best path forward" to keep revenues flowing to highway and transportation projects, and could be an important new tool to help manage traffic and relieve congestion.
The decision by the 15-member National Surface Transportation Infrastructure Financing Commission was unanimous, which surprised Robert Atkinson, the group's chairman. But he said it became clear as the commission's work progressed that a road tax on miles traveled was the best option.
"If you're committed to the system being improved then it was a no-brainer," he said.
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/nation/story/71078.html

The Dog Flu Virus: Are You or Your Pet at Risk?
In today’s Science Times, health reporter Donald McNeil writes about a new flu virus circulating in dogs. Mr. McNeil writes:
While fears of a flu pandemic among humans have shifted from the lethal H5N1 avian flu to the relatively mild H1N1 swine flu, the H3N8 canine flu has been a quiet undercurrent in the United States, rarely discussed except among veterinarians and dog owners in the few areas where it has struck hard: Florida, New York City’s northern suburbs, Philadelphia and Denver.
Dr. Cynda Crawford, co-discoverer of the dog flu virus.This week, Dr. Cynda Crawford, one of the discoverers of the virus and a veterinarian at the University of Florida veterinary school, joins the Consults blog to answers readers’ questions about the dog flu and the first vaccine approved for it.
Do you have a question about canine flu? Post your questions for Dr. Crawford in the “Add your comments” box below. We will be posting Dr. Crawford’s responses in the coming week. Check back for regular updates.
http://consults.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/06/29/the-dog-flu-virus-are-you-or-your-pet-at-risk/?hp

Eeyores news and view

I should start a blog label called "you must be stupid to think this is a good thing" Nais is a very dangereous thing for any one that lives in this country. I guess i will just use the standard label of "abuse of government" for these first two articles. They think they are smarter but like Enstien, they are so smart they become stupid about things of common sence.
Rebellion on the Range Over a Cattle ID Plan
HORSE SPRINGS, N.M. — Wranglers at the Platt ranch were marking calves the old-fashioned way last week, roping them from horseback and burning a brand onto their haunches.
The Platt ranch covers 22,000 acres in western New Mexico.
What they were emphatically not doing, said Jay Platt, the third-generation proprietor of the ranch, was abiding by a federally recommended livestock identification plan, intended to speed the tracing of animal diseases, that has caused an uproar among ranchers. They were not attaching the recommended tags with microchips that would allow the computerized recording of livestock movements from birth to the slaughterhouse.
“This plan is expensive, it’s intrusive, and there’s no need for it,” Mr. Platt said.
Mr. Platt said he already did all he could to fight epidemics. He does not bring any outside animals into his herds, and he happily staples on metal tags that identify animals to help with brucellosis control. But as he drove his pickup from grasslands into dense thickets of piñon pine on this highland desert that requires 100 acres per cow, he explained why he thought the federal plan was wrongheaded.
Mr. Platt called the extra $2 cost of the electronic tags an onerous burden for a teetering industry and said he often moved horses and some of his 1,000 head of cattle among three ranches here and in Arizona. Small groups of cattle are often rounded up in distant spots and herded into a truck by a single person, who could not simultaneously wield the hand-held scanner needed to record individual animal identities, Mr. Platt said. And there is no Internet connection on the ranch for filing to a regional database.
Looking over the 22,000 acres that his cattle share with elk, pronghorns and mountain lions and where animals can easily disappear, Mr. Platt scoffed at the idea of reporting every death, as animal health officials prefer.
“They can’t comprehend the vastness of a ranch like this,” he said of federal officials. “They don’t appreciate what is involved logistically.”
Ranchers like Mr. Platt have been joined by small-scale family farmers and other agrarian advocates to oppose the national animal identification system, a plan first broached five years ago by the Bush administration. It has created more visceral opposition than officials expected.
The plan, which is still being ironed out, might have seemed simple enough. With the ever-present threat of animal epidemics, why not modernize the system for identifying livestock? Why not keep computer records of movements so that when a cow is discovered with bovine tuberculosis or mad cow disease, its prior contacts can be swiftly traced? The disease source and the herds needing to be quarantined can be determined faster, officials said.
“Now, when there’s an outbreak, we can’t trace prior movements quickly, and we end up testing a lot more animals than necessary,” said Neil Hammerschmidt, director of the identification program for the federal Agriculture Department. “We want to put in place the infrastructure prior an outbreak.”
Mr. Platt expresses his opposition in more measured terms than many. Web sites analyze every official statement with suspicion, and angry farmers have packed the “listening sessions” held around the country this spring by the Obama administration’s new agriculture secretary.
Rumors have swirled, and farmers are asking whether the government will really require tags on every baby chick and catfish fingerling or a computer report when a pet pony trots onto a neighbor’s land.
Underlying the opposition is the fragile economics of ranches and small farms, which are already disappearing. The extra cost of radio tags, scanners and filing reports when animals change premises would be crushing, some smaller producers say.
“My main beef is that these proposed rules were developed by people sitting in their offices with no real knowledge of animal husbandry and small farms,” said Genell Pridgen, an owner of Rainbow Meadow Farms in Snow Hill, N.C., which rotates sheep, cattle, pigs, turkeys and chickens among three properties and sells directly to consumers and co-ops.
“I feel these rgulations are draconian,” Ms. Pridgen said, “and that lobbyists from corporate mega-agribusiness designed this program to destroy traditional small sustainable agriculture.”
Paul Hamby, owner of Hamby Dairy Supply in Maysville, Mo., and a vocal opponent of the plan, said, “It is very much an economic and class warfare issue.”
“Fifty years ago,” Mr. Hamby said, “hundreds of thousands of farms raised hogs, and now very few players have control of the market. I believe one of the reasons for this plan is to consolidate the cattle industry.”
Jay Platt, the third-generation proprietor of the ranch, said the methods now in use were enough to fight the spread of disease.
The notion of centralized data banks, even for animals, has also set off alarms among libertarians, drawing former supporters of the Ron Paul presidential campaign like Mr. Hamby into the fray. One group has issued a bumper sticker that reads, “Tracking cattle now, tracking you soon.”
Among all the different types of livestock, cattle have the most pressing need for improved records, said Mr. Hammerschmidt, who added that some opponents were misinformed.
“It’s never been our intent to implant chickens, especially chicks,” he said. “People out there are saying that they have to microchip every chicken, and if that chicken crosses the road they’ll have to report that event to the government. That has really stirred the pot.”
Nor do officials want every small producer to buy a $1,000 scanner, Mr. Hammerschmidt said. “The tag could be read at the market or feedlot, where they are more likely to have a reader,” he said, suggesting looser monitoring than many ranchers fear.
Mr. Hammerschmidt pointed out that Michigan and Wisconsin, to strengthen the fight against bovine tuberculosis, now require radio tags for cattle. But he emphasized that the federal government had not mandated the tags, instead hoping it could prod states and individuals to join in.
“At the end of the day,” he said, “we need the ability to trace an animal where there’s a disease issue.”
Mr. Platt, the rancher, said he believed that the authorities already had ample information to pounce on diseases.
Though he is one of the larger independent ranchers, the business is precarious, Mr. Platt said, sustained by land trades and sales. “Any new expense will mean a loss for us,” he said.
Mr. Platt watched with pride as one of his adult sons worked a cutting horse in a timeless ritual, hiving off calves from the herd in the branding corral. “We do this because we just enjoy it,” he said.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/28/us/28livestock.html?_r=4&partner=rss&emc=rss

FDA may put restrictions on Tylenol
ADELPHI, Md. – The makers of Tylenol, Excedrin and other medications are trying to dissuade regulators from placing new restrictions on their popular painkillers, including possibly removing some of them from store shelves.
The Food and Drug Administration has assembled more than 35 experts to discuss ways to prevent overdose with acetaminophen – the pain-relieving, fever-reducing ingredient in Tylenol and dozens of other prescription and over-the-counter medications.
Despite years of educational campaigns and other federal actions, acetaminophen is the leading cause of liver failure in the U.S., sending 56,000 people to the emergency room annually, according to the FDA.
The agency today asked its experts to consider a range of options: adding a "black box" warning label to the products, lowering the drug dosage in some products, or pulling certain types of medications off the market.
The drugs that could be pulled off shelves are combination medications, such as Procter & Gamble's NyQuil or Novartis' Theraflu, which combine acetaminophen with other ingredients that treat cough and runny nose.
The FDA says patients often pair them with a pure acetaminophen medication, like Tylenol, exposing themselves to unsafe levels of the drug.
But the industry group that represents Johnson & Johnson, Wyeth and other companies defended the products today, saying they pose a relatively small risk to patients.
Only 10 percent of deaths linked to acetaminophen medications involved over-the-counter combination cold medications, according to the Consumer Healthcare Products Association.
The majority of deaths were caused by either single-ingredient drugs or prescription strength combination drugs like Percocet, which combines oxycodone and acetaminophen.
"We believe there is a clear health benefit of over-the-counter combination products containing acetaminophen," said Linda Suydam, the group's president.
The FDA is not required to follow the advice of its panels, though it usually does. The panel vote is scheduled for Tuesday afternoon.
Manufacturers could lose hundreds of millions of dollars in sales if combination drugs are pulled from the market. Total sales of all acetaminophen drugs reached $2.6 billion last year, with 80 percent of the market comprised of over-the-counter products.
Tylenol-maker Johnson & Johnson also pushed back against a proposal to lower the maximum daily dose of acetaminophen, which is currently 4 grams daily, or eight pills of a medication like Extra Strength Tylenol.
While taking more than 4 grams per day can cause liver injury, J&J argued that taking the exact dose is proven to treat osteoarthritis pain.
J&J also warned panelists that any new restrictions on acetaminophen would force patients to switch to nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs, which carry risks of gastrointestinal bleeding and sometimes fatal kidney injury.
"When switching occurs, the risk of death increases," said Dr. Kenneth Rothman, a consultant for J&J. According to figures from Rothman, a 30 percent switch away from acetaminophen would result in an additional 5,000 deaths per year.
Top-sellers in the anti-inflammatory drug market include Bayer AG's aspirin and Wyeth's Advil.
Executives from Wyeth scheduled a series of media briefings last week, arguing there's no evidence that the reduced use of acetaminophen would cause more negative side effects with their drug.
"There are major flaws in their arguments that are not born out in real world experience," said Dr. Paul Desjardins, a vice president with Wyeth.
Desjardins pointed out that the U.K. has put tighter safety measures in place for acetaminophen without causing increased problems with Advil and other nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs.
For its part, the FDA has made clear it will not play king-maker in the market for over-the-counter medications. The agency says its only goal is to reduce liver injury, "not to decrease appropriate acetaminophen use or to drive people to use NSAIDS instead.''
http://www.healthzone.ca/health/article/658416

White House announces new lighting standards
WASHINGTON -- Aiming to keep the focus on climate change legislation, President Barack Obama put a plug in for administration efforts to make lamps and lighting equipment use less energy.
"I know light bulbs may not seem sexy, but this simple action holds enormous promise because 7 percent of all the energy consumed in America is used to light our homes and businesses," the president said, standing alongside Energy Secretary Steven Chu at the White House.
Obama said the new efficiency standards he was announcing for lamps would result in substantial savings between 2012 and 2042, saving consumers up to $4 billion annually, conserving enough energy to power every U.S. home for 10 months, reducing emissions equal to the amount produced by 166 million cars a year, and eliminating the need for as many as 14 coal-fired power plants.
The president also said he was speeding the delivery of $346 million in economic stimulus money to help improve energy efficiency in new and existing commercial buildings.
Republicans took issue with Obama's pitch.
"Conservation is only half the equation. Even as we use less energy, we need to produce more of our own," said Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky. "We have to admit there's a gap between the clean, renewable fuel we want and the reliable energy we need."
The White House added the event to the president's schedule at the last minute, just three days after the House narrowly approved the first energy legislation designed to curb global warming following furious lobbying by White House advisers and personal pressure by the president himself.
White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said Monday that in phone calls to reluctant Democrats in endangered districts, Obama "affirmed his commitment to support the policy position that they were taking in helping to explain to their constituents and to the American public the great benefit of this bill."
The measure's fate is less certain in the Senate, where Democrats lack the 60 votes needed to block a certain filibuster.
Still, in an interview with a small group of reporters, Obama energy adviser Carol Browner said: "I am confident that comprehensive energy legislation will pass the Senate." But she repeatedly refused to say exactly when the White House expected the Senate to pass the measure, and she wouldn't speculate on whether Obama would have legislation sent to his desk by year's end.
The White House is working to keep energy in the spotlight even as Congress takes a break this week for the July 4 holiday. Obama has spent the past few days pressuring the Senate to follow the House while also seeking to show that the administration is making quick, clear progress on energy reform without legislation.
In February, the president directed the Energy Department to update its energy conservation standards for everyday household appliances such as dishwashers, lamps and microwave ovens. Laws on the books already required new efficiency standards for household and commercial appliances. But they have been backlogged in a tangle of missed deadlines, bureaucratic disputes and litigation.
The administration already had released new standards on commercial refrigeration. Lamps were next.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/06/29/AR2009062902499_pf.html

Sen. Inhofe Calls for Inquiry Into 'Suppressed' Climate Change Report
Republicans are raising questions about why the EPA apparently dismissed an analyst's report questioning the science behind global warming.
A top Republican senator has ordered an investigation into the Environmental Protection Agency's alleged suppression of a report that questioned the science behind global warming.
The 98-page report, co-authored by EPA analyst Alan Carlin, pushed back on the prospect of regulating gases like carbon dioxide as a way to reduce global warming. Carlin's report argued that the information the EPA was using was out of date, and that even as atmospheric carbon dioxide levels have increased, global temperatures have declined.
"He came out with the truth. They don't want the truth at the EPA," Sen. James Inhofe, R-Okla., a global warming skeptic, told FOX News, saying he's ordered an investigation. "We're going to expose it."
The controversy comes after the House of Representatives passed a landmark bill to regulate greenhouse gas emissions, one that Inhofe said will be "dead on arrival" in the Senate despite President Obama's energy adviser voicing confidence in the measure.
According to internal e-mails that have been made public by the Competitive Enterprise Institute, Carlin's boss told him in March that his material would not be incorporated into a broader EPA finding and ordered Carlin to stop working on the climate change issue. The draft EPA finding released in April lists six greenhouse gases, including carbon dioxide, that the EPA says threaten public health and welfare.
An EPA official told FOXNews.com on Monday that Carlin, who is an economist -- not a scientist -- included "no original research" in his report. The official said that Carlin "has not been muzzled in the agency at all," but stressed that his report was entirely "unsolicited."
"It was something that he did on his own," the official said. "Though he was not qualified, his manager indulged him and allowed him on agency time to draft up ... a set of comments."
Despite the EPA official's remarks, Carlin told FOXNews.com on Monday that his boss, National Center for Environmental Economics Director Al McGartland, appeared to be pressured into reassigning him.
Carlin said he doesn't know whether the White House intervened to suppress his report but claimed it's clear "they would not be happy about it if they knew about it," and that McGartland seemed to be feeling pressure from somewhere up the chain of command.
Carlin said McGartland told him he had to pull him off the climate change issue.
"It was reassigning you or losing my job, and I didn't want to lose my job," Carlin said, paraphrasing what he claimed were McGartland's comments to him. "My inference (was) that he was receiving some sort of higher-level pressure."
Carlin said he personally does not think there is a need to regulate carbon dioxide, since "global temperatures are going down." He said his report expressed a "good bit of doubt" on the connection between the two.
Specifically, the report noted that global temperatures were on a downward trend over the past 11 years, that scientists do not necessarily believe that storms will become more frequent or more intense due to global warming, and that the theory that temperatures will cause Greenland ice to rapidly melt has been "greatly diminished."
Carlin, in a March 16 e-mail, argued that his comments are "valid, significant" and would be critical to the EPA finding.
McGartland, though, wrote back the next day saying he had decided not to forward his comments.
"The administrator and the administration has decided to move forward on endangerment, and your comments do not help the legal or policy case for this decision," he wrote, according to the e-mails released by CEI. "I can only see one impact of your comments given where we are in the process, and that would be a very negative impact on our office."
He later wrote an e-mail urging Carlin to "move on to other issues and subjects."
"I don't want you to spend any additional EPA time on climate change. No papers, no research, etc., at least until we see what EPA is going to do with climate," McGartland wrote.
The EPA said in a written statement that Carlin's opinions were in fact considered, and that he was not even part of the working group dealing with climate change in the first place.
"Claims that this individual's opinions were not considered or studied are entirely false. This administration and this EPA administrator are fully committed to openness, transparency and science-based decision making," the statement said. "The individual in question is not a scientist and was not part of the working group dealing with this issue. Nevertheless the document he submitted was reviewed by his peers and agency scientists, and information from that report was submitted by his manager to those responsible for developing the proposed endangerment finding. In fact, some ideas from that document are included and addressed in the endangerment finding."
The e-mail exchanges and suggestions of political interference sparked a backlash from Republicans in Congress.
Reps. James Sensenbrenner, R-Wis., and Darrell Issa, R-Calif., also wrote a letter last week to EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson urging the agency to reopen its comment period on the finding. The EPA has since denied the request.
Citing the internal e-mails, the Republican congressmen wrote that the EPA was exhibiting an "agency culture set in a predetermined course."
"It documents at least one instance in which the public was denied access to significant scientific literature and raises substantial questions about what additional evidence may have been suppressed," they wrote.
In a written statement, Issa said the administration is "actively seeking to withhold new data in order to justify a political conclusion."
"I'm sure it was very inconvenient for the EPA to consider a study that contradicted the findings it wanted to reach," Sensenbrenner said in a statement, adding that the "repression" of Carlin's report casts doubt on the entire finding.
Carlin said he's concerned that he's seeing "science being decided at the presidential level."
"Now Mr. Obama is in effect directly or indirectly saying that CO2 causes global temperatures to rise and that we have to do something about it. ... That's normally a scientific judgment and he's in effect judging what the science says," he said. "We need to look at it harder."
The controversy is similar to one under the Bush administration -- only the administration was taking the opposite stance. In that case, scientist James Hansen claimed the administration was trying to keep him from speaking out and calling for reductions in greenhouse gases.
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2009/06/29/gop-senator-calls-inquiry-supressed-climate-change-report/

Bath in diluted bleach relieves kids' eczema
Though most people reserve bleach for removing stains from clothing, a study in the journal Pediatrics says it also may offer relief to children who have the skin disease eczema.
The study, out last month from Northwestern University's Feinberg School of Medicine, found that giving children with moderate or severe eczema diluted bleach baths reduced the severity of the disease.
Eczema can often cause itching, rash, crusting and other forms of irritation, the National Eczema Association says.
"This is a study that was based on the fact that we've known for many years that diluted solutions of bleach can be antibacterial," says Amy Paller, professor and chair of dermatology at the medical school and the senior investigator of the study.
Eczema patients often develop colonies of the bacteria, Staphylococcus aureus, on their skin as a result of the itching and scratching caused by the disease, she says. The bacteria can exacerbate symptoms of the disease, so when eliminated by the bleach, patients usually feel some relief.
The 31 participants were split randomly into two groups. One received a bottle of bleach, the other a bleach bottle filled with water. Doctors did not know which group was using bleach, and participants were instructed not to tell researchers which group they were in.
Patients were told to use about a half-cup of bleach for a full standard tub and to soak for five to 10 minutes twice a week. After a month, researchers saw "a significant decrease" in the severity of the symptoms of the group using the bleach.
Robert Brodell, a professor of internal medicine and dermatology at Northeastern Ohio Universities College of Medicine, says dermatologists have been using the treatment for about 20 years, but this is the first scientific study on the topic.
"Many dermatologists wait until there's evidence that something really works because there are a thousand things out there that people do and when they're subjected to scientific study they don't work," he says.
Brodell describes the baths as an "adjunctive treatment," to be used in conjunction with moisturizers, antibiotics and other treatments.
"It is a component that helps a bit, but it's not God's gift to eczema patients," he says.
Paller adds that patients should consult with a physician before starting the treatment and cautions them never to put non-diluted bleach directly on the skin.
Julie Block, vice president for programs at the National Eczema Association, says the study will "help people learn options that they can do at home to empower themselves."
http://www.usatoday.com/news/health/2009-06-29-eczema-bleach_N.htm

Eeyores news and view

Sign of the times, in which we are living in

Government Land-Grab Moves Forward
The nation took a step closer to the largest federal land grab in the nation’s history last week, according to the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association (NCBA).
That’s thanks to passage of the Clean Water Restoration Act (CWRA) by the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee.
In basic terms the CRWA (S. 787) would grant the federal government authority of all water – both navigable, which it now presides over, as well as non-navigable.
Without defining and confining federal authority to navigable waters, an NCBA spokesman said, “…the CWRA would expand federal regulatory control to unprecedented levels – essentially putting stock tanks, drainage ditches, any puddle or water feature found on family farms and ranches – potentially even ground water – under the regulatory strong-arm of the federal government.”
Though the bill was amended last week, NCBA officials explain, “The amendment is a smoke screen that allegedly takes care of agricultural concerns by exempting prior-converted croplands from federal jurisdiction. Cattle are generally not grazed on prior-converted croplands, so this amendment does nothing to mitigate the potential damage to livestock production from this legislation. The amendment is a diversion from the real issue, which is the removal of the word ‘navigable’ from the definition of waters.”
NCBA and Public Lands Council oppose the legislation because it obviously infringes on private property rights, but also because it limits the state partnerships and flexibility that have made the current Clean Water Act successful.
http://beefmagazine.com/beefstockertrends/0623-government-land-grab-moves-forward/

On Nixon Tapes, Ambivalence Over Abortion, Not Watergate
WASHINGTON — On Jan. 23, 1973, when the Supreme Court struck down laws criminalizing abortion in Roe v. Wade, President Richard M. Nixon made no public statement. But privately, newly released tapes reveal, he expressed ambivalence.
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Nixon worried that greater access to abortions would foster “permissiveness,” and said that “it breaks the family.” But he also saw a need for abortion in some cases — like interracial pregnancies, he said.
“There are times when an abortion is necessary. I know that. When you have a black and a white,” he told an aide, before adding, “Or a rape.”
Nine months later, Nixon forced the firing of the special prosecutor looking into the Watergate affair, Archibald Cox, and prompted the resignations of Attorney General Elliot L. Richardson and Deputy Attorney General William D. Ruckelshaus. The next day, Ronald Reagan, who was then governor of California and would later be president, told the White House that he approved. Reagan said the action, which would become known as the “Saturday Night Massacre,” was “probably the best thing that ever happened — none of them belong where they were,” according to a Nixon aide’s notes of the private conversation.
Those disclosures were among the revelations in more than 150 hours of tape and 30,000 pages of documents made public on Tuesday by the Nixon Presidential Library, a part of the National Archives. The audio files were posted online, as were a sampling of the documents.
The tapes were recorded by the secret microphones in the Oval Office from January and February 1973. They shed new light on an intense moment in American history, including Nixon’s second inauguration, the Vietnam War cease-fire, and the trial of seven men over the break-in at the Democrats’ headquarters at the Watergate complex amid mounting revelations about their ties to the White House.
The tapes also capture more mundane details of life in the White House — conversations about what to pack for a trip, when to schedule a trip to the barber, whether the president’s wife would enjoy going to Trader Vic’s for dinner.
Most segments of the tapes relating to the Watergate scandal, which would lead to Nixon’s resignation 20 months later, have already been released. But there are some new materials that were previously held back because the audio quality was so poor that archives officials could not be certain whether they contained discussion of any classified topics. Improvements in audio technology have allowed archives staff to clear additional ones.
They include a Jan. 5, 1973, conversation between Nixon and his aide Charles W. Colson in which they discussed the possibility of granting clemency to E. Howard Hunt Jr., one of the Watergate conspirators, according to a log compiled by archives staff. Scholars say the same topic was addressed in several other tapes that were previously made public.
The documents also include nine pages of handwritten notes by a domestic policy aide about plans for what the White House would say about the dismissal of the Watergate special prosecutor, Mr. Cox.
The tapes also provide new material about the circumstances surrounding the Paris treaty to end the United States’ military involvement in Vietnam.
A call between Nixon and Mr. Colson just after midnight on Jan. 20 showed that Nixon anticipated, when the treaty was announced, that he would be vindicated for continuing to bomb North Vietnam. He especially relished the hit that he believed members of Congress who opposed the war — whose public statements he pronounced “treasonable” — would suffer.
Several conversations center on the pressure Nixon placed on South Vietnam’s president, Nguyen Van Thieu, to accept the cease-fire agreement. Ken Hughes, a Nixon scholar and research fellow at the Presidential Recordings Project at the University of Virginia, said he was struck by listening on one of the new tapes to Nixon’s telling his national security adviser, Henry A. Kissinger, that to get Thieu to sign the treaty, he would “cut off his head if necessary.”
Mr. Hughes said the conversation bolstered his view that Nixon, Thieu and Mr. Kissinger knew at the time that the cease-fire could not endure, and that it was not “peace with honor,” as Nixon described it, so much as a face-saving way for the United States to get out of the war. In 1975, North Vietnam would violate the cease-fire and conquer South Vietnam.
The tapes also include a phone call from February 1973 between Nixon and the evangelist Billy Graham, during which Mr. Graham complained that Jewish-American leaders were opposing efforts to promote evangelical Christianity, like Campus Crusade. The two men agreed that the Jewish leaders risked setting off anti-Semitic sentiment.
“What I really think is deep down in this country, there is a lot of anti-Semitism, and all this is going to do is stir it up,” Nixon said.
At another point he said: “It may be they have a death wish. You know that’s been the problem with our Jewish friends for centuries.”
The documents also include three newly declassified pages from a National Security Council brief discussing secret Israeli efforts to build a nuclear weapon.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/24/us/politics/24nixon.html?_r=1

Md. officials announce swine flu-related death
June 23, 2009 - 2:30pm
BALTIMORE - Maryland health officials are announcing the state's first confirmed swine-flu related death.
The Department of Health and Mental Hygiene said Tuesday that an elderly Baltimore-area resident with a swine flu infection and serious underlying medical conditions has died.
Health officials say that swine flu was a contributing factor in the death, but they will not release personal details about the case, including specific underlying health conditions.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports that 87 people who contracted swine flu have died.
Maryland officials have confirmed 370 swine flu cases, but say it is likely a fraction of the total cases statewide as many people are not tested and recover within a week.
http://wtop.com/?nid=25&sid=1702853

NKorea threatens US; world anticipates missile
SEOUL, South Korea – North Korea threatened Wednesday to wipe the United States off the map as Washington and its allies watched for signs the regime will launch a series of missiles in the coming days.
Off China's coast, a U.S. destroyer was tailing a North Korean ship suspected of transporting illicit weapons to Myanmar in what could be the first test of U.N. sanctions passed to punish the nation for an underground nuclear test last month.
The Kang Nam left the North Korean port of Nampo a week ago with the USS John S. McCain close behind. The ship, accused of transporting banned goods in the past, is believed bound for Myanmar, according to South Korean and U.S. officials.
The new U.N. Security Council resolution requires member states to seek permission to inspect suspicious cargo. North Korea has said it would consider interception a declaration of war and on Wednesday accused the U.S. of seeking to provoke another Korean War.
"If the U.S. imperialists start another war, the army and people of Korea will ... wipe out the aggressors on the globe once and for all," the official Korean Central News Agency said.
The warning came on the eve of the 59th anniversary of the start of the three-year Korean War, which ended in a truce in 1953, not a peace treaty, leaving the peninsula in state of war.
The U.S. has 28,500 troops in South Korea to protect against an outbreak of hostilities.
Tensions have been high since North Korea launched a long-range rocket in April and then conducted its second underground atomic test on May 25.
Reacting to U.N. condemnation of that test, North Korea walked away from nuclear disarmament talks and warned it would fire a long-range missile.
North Korea has banned ships from the waters off its east coast starting Thursday through July 10 for military exercises, Japan's Coast Guard said.
South Korea's Yonhap news agency reported Wednesday that the North may fire a Scud missile with a range of up to 310 miles (500 kilometers) or a short-range ground-to-ship missile with a range of 100 miles (160 kilometers) during the no-sail period.
A senior South Korean government official said the no-sail ban is believed connected to North Korean plans to fire short- or mid-range missiles. He spoke on condition of anonymity, citing department policy.
U.S. defense and counterproliferation officials in Washington said they also expected the North to launch short- to medium-range missiles. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive intelligence.
South Korea will expedite the introduction of high-tech unmanned aerial surveillance systems and "bunker-buster" bombs in response to North Korea's provocations, the Chosun Ilbo newspaper said, citing unidentified ruling party members.
Meanwhile, a flurry of diplomatic efforts were under way to try getting North Korea to return to disarmament talks.
Russia's top nuclear envoy, Alexei Borodavkin, said after meeting with his South Korean counterpart that Moscow is open to other formats for discussion since Pyongyang has pulled out of formal six-nation negotiations.
In Beijing, top U.S. and Chinese defense officials also discussed North Korea. U.S. Defense Undersecretary Michele Flournoy was heading next to Tokyo and Seoul for talks.
South Korea has proposed high-level "consultations" to discuss North Korea with the U.S., Russia, China and Japan.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090624/ap_on_re_as/as_koreas_nuclear_91

Eeyores news and view

I do this occasionally when the events in a day over run the amount i limit myself to for this blog.
So today you get a second edition of the blog, It is a shame that the government both local and federal are so quick to limit the rights of the honest hard working crowd in this great country. They trample the God given rights with out a second thought and then are not willing to correct the problem.
So today you get a second edition, of just Government Abuses. If i were truly diligent i could fill a blog daily about just abuses, but then, it would not really mean anything. The blog was designed to try and highlight trends and post up the important news of the day. It will end sometime after the fourth of July, after a little more then a year. I hope some of you all found it helpful.

Men Face Charges After Police Raid Wrong House
MURFREESBORO, Tenn. - A father and son are furious after surviving a terrifying experience. They face criminal charges after police responded to their home by mistake.
Murfreesboro officers responded to a 911 emergency call and somehow ended up at the wrong apartment.
Roger and Justin Chilton woke to a pounding on their door at 3 a.m. Sunday. Justin - a decorated military policeman who had just returned from Iraq - answered the door holding his gun.
The officers then arrested Justin and his father.
"They held us at gunpoint, slammed us to the ground, stomped my hands and butted me in the back of the head with a shotgun," said Justin.
The officers charged the Chilton's with resisting arrest and aggravated assault for the incident.
Police did not drop the charges even after learning they responded to the wrong house.
Murfreesboro police chief Glenn Chrisman has opened an internal investigation.
http://www.newschannel5.com/Global/story.asp?S=9915358

How a Heartwarming, "Great" Father's Day Photo Shoot Ended Up Face Down in Handcuffs on the Addison Airport Tarmac
Saturday afternoon, friend of the show Danny Hurley sent word that they were offering quite the Father's Day gift out at Addison Airport -- flights on a B-24 Liberator, where everyone calls shotgun. (Pretty cool too, as only two Liberators are still flying). Danny wanted to go out and shoot some photos of the circa-'44 bomber and the men who ponied up for the ride; I told him sure, go 'head, sounds great -- very heartwarming. And, sure enough, he got some awfully nice shots and stories to go with them, as among those taking part yesterday were two men treating their terminally ill stepfather, a Vietnam vet, to a spin in the sky that might just be his last. Danny was collecting several such tales.
But when he sent along his pictures -- which you can see in this terrific slide show -- he noted that, well, he sure wishes he could've come back with more, "but my day was cut short." How so? Well, his version of the day's events follow after the jump. But I''ll provide this small hint: the Department of Homeland Security. Which, if you've ever met Danny, is hilarious. To everyone except Danny.
So, anyway. Danny had been out shooting all morning with the plane's owners and pilot's permission when he suffered a horrible case of photographicus interruptus:
I got an early Father's Day surprise from Homeland Security. It seems the public is not allowed on the tarmac. I thought the tarmac was the cement runway, but it's actually a hundred yards or so on each side.
Waiting for the plane to take off, I was surprised by the Addison police. An officer unholstered his gun, then handcuffed and held me until Homeland Security cleared my name.
I was not arrested, but according to Officer Pierce, I did break federal law and a report would be sent to Homeland Security. I will be hearing from them. I apologized to every one involved. The pilot told me the airport was shut down for a short while.
But according to one of the crew, they had ID'd me as one of theirs, and the tower knew and tried to call it off. But once the wheels were set in motion, it could not be stopped. The pilots were pretty much cool and laughed at me and were even willing to escort me to take more shots. One old-timer gruffed under his breath, "It's the U.S.A., not U.S.S.R. -- I didn't fight to protect this shit." One even offered me his seat on a ride.
However, the officer had asked me to leave, so I did. The police were professional, and I consider myself lucky.
http://blogs.dallasobserver.com/unfairpark/2009/06/how_a_heartwarming_kick-ass_fa.php

Here is an update on the TSA heavy handed handling of the Ron Paul supporter i mention a couple of days ago.
Passenger says TSA agents harassed him
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Steve Bierfeldt says the Transportation Security Administration pulled him aside for extra questioning in March. He was carrying a pocket edition of the U.S. Constitution and an iPhone capable of making audio recordings. And he used them.
Steve Bierfeldt is accusing the Transportation Security Administration of "harassing interrogation."
On a recording a TSA agent can be heard berating Bierfeldt. One sample: "You want to play smartass, and I'm not going to play your f**king game."
Bierfeldt is director of development for the Campaign for Liberty, an outgrowth of the Ron Paul presidential campaign. He was returning from a regional conference March 29 when TSA screeners at Lambert-St. Louis (Missouri) International Airport saw a metal cash box in his carry-on bag. Inside was more than $4,700 dollars in cash -- proceeds from the sale of political merchandise like T-shirts and books.
There are no restrictions on carrying large sums of cash on flights within the United States, but the TSA allegedly took Bierfeldt to a windowless room and, along with other law enforcement agencies, questioned him for almost half an hour about the money.
The American Civil Liberties Union has taken up Bierfeldt's cause and is suing Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano, whose department includes the TSA. Their complaint alleges that Bierfeldt was "subjected to harassing interrogation, and unlawfully detained."
Larry Schwartztol of the ACLU said the TSA is suffering from mission creep.
"We think what happened to Mr. Bierfeldt is a reflection that TSA believes passenger screening is an opportunity to engage in freewheeling law enforcement investigations that have no link to flight safety," he said.
Schwartztol believes many other passengers have been subjected to the same kind of treatment, which he claims violates constitutional protections against unlawful searches.

The TSA wouldn't comment on the lawsuit, but said in a statement that the movement of large amounts of cash through a checkpoint may be investigated "if suspicious activity is suspected."
Unbeknownst to the TSA agents, Bierfieldt had activated the record application on his phone and slipped it into his pocket. It captured the entire conversation.
An excerpt:
Officer: Why do you have this money? That's the question, that's the major question.
Bierfeldt: Yes, sir, and I'm asking whether I'm legally required to answer that question.
Officer: Answer that question first, why do you have this money.
Bierfeldt: Am I legally required to answer that question?
Officer: So you refuse to answer that question?
Bierfeldt: No, sir, I am not refusing.
Officer: Well, you're not answering.
Bierfeldt: I'm simply asking my rights under the law.
The officers can be heard saying they will involve the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Drug Enforcement Administration, and appear to threaten arrest, saying they are going to transport Bierfeldt to the local police station, in handcuffs if necessary.
Bierfeldt told CNN he believes their behavior was inappropriate.
"You're in a locked room with no windows. You've got TSA agent. You've got police officers with loaded guns. They're in your face. A few of them were swearing at me."
But the officers did not follow through on their threats. Near the end of the recording an additional officer enters the situation and realizes the origins of the money.
Officer: So these are campaign contributions for Ron Paul?
Bierfeldt: Yes, sir.
Officer: You're free to go.
According to the TSA, "Passengers are required to cooperate with the screening process. Cooperation may involve answering questions about their property. A passenger who refuses to answer questions may be referred to appropriate authorities for further inquiry"
Bierfeldt contends he never refused to answer a question, he only sought to clarify his constitutional rights.
"I asked them, 'Am I required by law to tell you what you're asking me? Am I required to tell you where I am working? Am I required to tell you how I got the cash? Nothing I've done is suspicious. I'm not breaking any laws. I just want to go to my flight. Please advise me as to my rights.' And they didn't."
The TSA says disciplinary action has been taken against one of its employees for inappropriate tone and language.
http://www.cnn.com/2009/US/06/20/tsa.lawsuit/index.html#cnnSTCText

Bid to expand knife ban doesn't cut it with critics
CBP rule would redefine switchblades
Hunters, whittlers and Boy Scouts, beware - your knives may soon be on the government's chopping block.
The Obama administration wants to expand the 50-year-old ban on importing "switchblades" to include folding knives that can be opened with one hand, stirring fears the government may on the path to outlawing most pocket knives.
Critics, including U.S. knife manufacturers and collectors, the National Rifle Association, sportsmen's groups and a bipartisan group of lawmakers on Capitol Hill, say the rule change proposed by Customs and Border Protection (CBP) would rewrite U.S. law defining what constitutes a switchblade and potentially make de facto criminals of the estimated 35 million Americans who use folding knives.
"Boy Scout knives, Swiss Army knives - the most basic of knives can be opened one-handed if you know what you are doing," said Doug Ritter, executive director of Knife Rights, an advocacy group fighting to defeat the measure.
"The outrage is gaining steam," he said.
Customs officials dismiss fears that the new language will outlaw ordinary pocket knives, saying the change was issued to clear up conflicting guidelines for border agents about what constitutes an illegal switchblade that cannot be imported into the United States. The rule could be imposed within 30 days if not blocked.
A review of case law and "in consideration of the health and public safety concerns raised by such importations" prompted the agency to revoke the ruling that allowed the importing of knives with spring- and release-assisted opening mechanisms, CBP spokeswoman Jenny L. Burke said.
Customs officials argue the rule deals only with imported merchandise, and thus does not affect knives already in the country or that are manufactured domestically.
The rule change would affect the interpretation of the Switchblade Knife Act of 1958, which defined a "switchblade" as any knife having a blade that opens automatically by hand pressure applied to a button or other device in the handle, or by operation of inertia or gravity.
The new definition would include any spring-assisted or one-handed-opening knife.
The 1958 law bans the possession of switchblades on federal lands and prohibits the mailing or sale of switchblades across state lines. It does not mandate prohibition within states and localities, though a number of states, including Maryland, have passed their own statutes banning or limiting the possession and carrying of switchblades.
Possession of switchblades is legal in Virginia if not intended for sale.
Critics of the rule say that broadening the definition of switchblades in federal law would instantly make previously permitted knives illegal in states that have adopted the ban. Hunters and hikers who cross state lines with their knives in tow may find themselves guilty of a federal felony, they warn.
The bipartisan Congressional Sportsmen's Caucus, boasting one of the largest memberships on Capitol Hill, last week sent a letter to Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, who oversees CBP, urging her to quash the proposed rule change. The letter was signed by 61 Republican and 18 Democratic lawmakers.
"This classification could render millions of law-abiding knife owners in violation of the law and expose major market retailers, manufacturers, dealers and importers to possible federal felony charges, and could drive domestic manufacturers and importers out of business, potentially costing thousands of jobs," said caucus member Rep. Robert E. Latta, Ohio Republican.
In much the same way that gun rights issues have cut across the partisan divide in Congress, the threat of a government knife grab has especially rankled members from Western and Southern states, regardless of their party.
Miss Napolitano has not responded, according to congressional staffers.
The knife lobby does not believe the agency's assurances that the rule has only a narrow application.
"The language used ... is so broad and uses virtually every term ever applied to any knife that opens with one hand. We fear that they are attempting to bypass the will of Congress and that once they succeed in getting assisted-openers defined as switchblades, they could move against all folding knives," said the American Knife and Tool Institute, which represents knife manufacturers, distributors, retailers and custom-knife artisans.
Boy Scouts of America spokesman Deron Smith said he did not want to comment because he was not familiar with the details of the proposed rule. But he said the Boy Scout Handbook does include many references to pocket knives.
"Knives are a part of the scouting program," Mr. Smith said. "We primarily stress safe knife usage and maintenance of knives. ... We will just continue to stick to what's in the handbook."
The relatively quick pace of the rule-making process - a 30-day comment period that ended Monday, followed by a 30-day implementation schedule - has opponents looking to head off the measure in Congress.
Mr. Latta and Rep. Walt Minnick, Idaho Democrat, introduced legislation Tuesday that would block CBP from broadening the definition of switchblades.
The legislation was offered as an amendment to the appropriations bill for the Homeland Security Department, which is expected to come to the House floor soon.
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2009/jun/24/bid-to-expand-knife-ban-doesnt-cut-it-with-critics/



Report: NKorea ship suspected of carrying missiles
SEOUL, South Korea – A U.S. Navy destroyer is tailing a North Korean ship suspected of carrying illicit weapons toward Myanmar in what could be the first test of new U.N. sanctions against the North over its recent nuclear test, a leading TV network said Sunday.
The South Korean news network YTN, citing an unidentified intelligence source in the South, said the U.S. suspects the cargo ship Kang Nam is carrying missiles and related parts. Myanmar's military government, which faces an arms embargo from the United States and the European Union, has reportedly bought weapons from North Korea.
YTN said the U.S. has deployed a destroyer and is using satellites to track the ship, which was expected to travel to Myanmar via Singapore.
South Korea's Defense Ministry, Unification Ministry and National Intelligence Service said they could not confirm the report. Calls to the U.S. military command in Seoul were not answered late Sunday.
The ship is reportedly the first North Korean vessel to be tracked under the new U.N. sanctions.
Two U.S. officials said Thursday that the U.S. military had begun tracking the ship, which left a North Korean port Wednesday and was traveling off the coast of China.
One of the officials said it was uncertain what the Kang Nam was carrying, but that it had been involved in weapons proliferation before. Both spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss intelligence.
Tensions on the Korean peninsula have spiked since North Korea defiantly conducted its second nuclear explosion on May 25. It later declared it would expand its atomic bomb program and threatened war to protest the U.N. sanctions imposed in response to its nuclear test.
The sanctions toughen an earlier arms embargo against North Korea and authorize ship searches in an attempt to thwart its nuclear and ballistic missile programs.
The Security Council resolution calls on all 192 U.N. member states to inspect vessels on the high seas "if they have information that provides reasonable grounds to believe that the cargo" contains banned weapons or material to make them, and if approval is given by the country whose flag the ship sails under.
If the country refuses to give approval, it must direct the vessel "to an appropriate and convenient port for the required inspection by the local authorities."
A senior U.S. military official told The Associated Press on Friday that a Navy ship, the USS John S. McCain, is relatively close to the North Korean vessel but had no orders to intercept it under the Security Council resolution and had not requested that authority. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitive issue of ship movements.
The Navy ship, a guided missile destroyer, is named after the grandfather and father of former U.S. presidential candidate Sen. John McCain. Both were admirals.
McCain said Sunday that the U.S. should board the Kang Nam even without North Korean permission if hard evidence shows it is carrying missiles or other cargo in violation of U.N. resolutions.
"I think we should board it. It's going to contribute to the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction to rogue nations that pose a direct threat to the United States," he said on CBS' "Face the Nation."
President Barack Obama said the U.N. sanctions would be aggressively enforced after talks Tuesday with South Korean President Lee Myung-bak in Washington. Obama also reaffirmed the U.S. security commitment to South Korea, including nuclear protection.
In its first response to the summit, North Korea's government-run weekly Tongil Sinbo said Obama's comments revealed a U.S. plot to invade the North with nuclear weapons.
"It's not a coincidence at all for the U.S. to have brought numerous nuclear weapons into South Korea and other adjacent sites, staging various massive war drills opposing North Korea every day and watching for a chance for an invasion," it said in a commentary published Saturday.
North Korea says its nuclear program is a deterrent against the U.S., which it routinely accuses of plotting to topple its communist regime. The U.S., which has 28,500 troops in South Korea, has repeatedly said it has no such intention and has no nuclear weapons there.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090621/ap_on_re_as/as_koreas_nuclear_45

And i have a bridge for sale
White House to Abandon Spy-Satellite Program
WASHINGTON -- The Obama administration plans to kill a controversial Bush administration spy satellite program at the Department of Homeland Security, according to officials familiar with the decision.
The program came under fire from its inception two years ago. Democratic lawmakers said it would lead to domestic spying.
The program would have provided federal, state and local officials with extensive access to spy-satellite imagery — but no eavesdropping capabilities— to assist with emergency response and other domestic-security needs, such as identifying where ports or border areas are vulnerable to terrorism.
It would have expanded an Interior Department satellite program, which will continue to be used to assist in natural disasters and for other limited security purposes such as photographing sporting events. The Wall Street Journal first revealed the plans to establish the program, known as the National Applications Office, in 2007.
"It's being shut down," said a homeland security official.
The Bush administration had taken preliminary steps to launch the office, such as acquiring office space and beginning to hire staff.
The plans to shutter the office signal Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano's decision to refocus the department's intelligence on ensuring that state and local officials get the threat information they need, the official said. She also wants to make the department the central point in the government for receiving and analyzing terrorism tips from around the country, the official added.
Lawmakers alerted Ms. Napolitano of their concerns about the program-that the program would violate the Fourth amendment right to be protected from unreasonable searches-before her confirmation hearing.
Once she assumed her post, Ms. Napolitano ordered a review of the program and concluded the program wasn't worth pursuing, the homeland official said. Department spokeswoman Amy Kudwa declined to speak about the results of the review but said they would be announced shortly.
The lawmakers were most concerned about plans to provide satellite imagery to state and local law enforcement, so department officials asked state and local officials how useful that information would be to them. The answer: not very useful.
"In our view, the NAO is not an issue of urgency," Los Angeles Police Chief William Bratton, wrote to Ms. Napolitano on June 21.
Writing on behalf of the Major Cities Chiefs Association, Chief Bratton said that were the program to go forward, the police chiefs would be concerned about privacy protections and whether using military satellites for domestic purposes would violate the Posse Comitatus law, which bars the use of the military for law enforcement in the U.S.
Rep. Jane Harman (D., Calif.), who oversees the House Homeland Security subcommittee on intelligence, said she was alarmed when she recently saw that the Obama administration requested money for the program in a classified 2010 budget proposal. She introduced two bills that would terminate the program.
"It's a good decision," Ms. Harman said in an interview. "This will remove a distraction and let the intelligence function at [the department] truly serve the community that needs it, which is local law enforcement."
Supporters of the program lamented what they said was the loss of an important new terrorism-fighting tool for natural disasters and terrorist attacks, as well as border security.
"After numerous congressional briefings on the importance of the NAO and its solid legal footing, politics beat out good government," said Andrew Levy, who was deputy general counsel at the department in the Bush administration.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124572555214540265.html

Ohio governor backs plan for livestock standards
June 23, 2009 - 4:25am By TERRY KINNEY Associated Press Writer
CINCINNATI (AP) - Ohio should have a state board to set guidelines for livestock care, Gov. Ted Strickland said Monday, adding to the debate between farm interests and the nation's biggest animal welfare organization.
The head of the Washington-based Humane Society of the United States said such a board would give farmers too much leeway and wouldn't guarantee a ban of crates that are used to confine breeding sows or cages that are too small for laying hens.
"It provokes us to do a ballot initiative," said society president Wayne Pacelle, who has guided successful initiatives and legislation in several states. "It almost forces our hand to seek a measure for November 2010 on confinement practices."
The constitutional amendment backed by Strickland, who didn't cite any current standards for the care of farm animals, would create a 13-member Ohio Livestock Care Standards Board. If approved by the Legislature, which planned to take it up Wednesday, the plan would go before voters this year.
"The board," Strickland said in a statement, "will ensure that Ohioans continue to have access to a safe and affordable local food supply and will make our state a national leader in the level of animal care and responsibility."
He didn't say who would be on the board.
Pacelle called the council "a transparent attempt by agribusiness interests" to thwart a ballot initiative on animal confinement.
"It would create an industry-dominated council that would seek to embrace the status quo in Ohio agriculture," he said.
State Rep. John Domenick, who heads the House agriculture committee, said even though he was named the Humane Society's Ohio legislator of the year for his bill last year that would have made cockfighting a felony, he doesn't necessarily agree with all of the society's ambitions.
"It's important that we stand up for our rights as agriculture people," Domenick said. "We're a farming state. We don't need a downturn in farming at this point to affect us even more."
The 11 million-member Humane Society already had targeted Ohio for its next comprehensive action on a range of issues from livestock confinement to puppy mills. On Monday it released a survey it said shows Ohio is ripe for the taking, with 67 percent public support for a ballot initiative in November 2010.
Domenick, noting that the Humane Society waged a $10 million campaign to win in California, said, "If it makes it to the ballot, the Humane Society is going to win."
Pacelle has said that Illinois, Massachusetts and Washington state also are in the group's sights.
One farm group, the Ohio Farm Bureau, is bracing for a fight. Another, the Ohio Farmers Union, says a fight is pointless, expensive and unwinnable.
"We've come to the conclusion that a negotiated settlement is the best way to go," said Roger Wise, a third-generation farmer and president of the Ohio Farmers Union. "It's misguided to draw a line in the sand and say it's us versus them."
He said a fight would result in acrimony, vitriol and "ugly images on television to portray extremes as the norm to drive a wedge between producers and consumers."
The Farm Bureau is going the other way, saying it doesn't want debate on the issue to be driven by one point of view. It has created a Center for Food and Animal Issues to address all farm animal, family pet, zoo and research issues.
"It's very easy for the public not to have all the facts," spokesman Joe Cornely said. "We hope to bring a lot of voices to the discussion and not lose out in the public policy area because we didn't show up."
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RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) _ North Carolina agriculture leaders urged farmers Monday to have their wheat tested after officials found high levels of a toxin in wheat samples from parts of the state.
Agriculture Commissioner Steve Troxler said vomitoxin has been found in samples from central and northeastern North Carolina. The toxin is a byproduct of a fungus often caused by wet weather during the early April pollination stage.
Troxler said testing is urgent because farmers harvesting their wheat now may not know the fungus is on their crop, so he warned it may continue contaminating wheat as it moves storage bins. He said the state would provide free testing.
Dan Weathington of the North Carolina Small Grain Growers Association said he's confident there are enough protections in place to prevent harmful grain from entering the food supply.
North Carolina wheat brought in more than $100 million in 2007, according to state statistics. http://wtop.com/?nid=111&sid=1680226

GAO Cites Gun Sales to Those on Watch List
People named on the government's terrorism watch list have successfully purchased firearms hundreds of times since 2004, government investigators reported yesterday. In one case, a known or suspected terrorist was able to obtain an explosives license, the Government Accountability Office reported.
U.S. lawmakers requested the audit to show how people on the watch list can be stopped from boarding airplanes but not from buying guns. Under federal law, licensed firearms dealers must request an FBI background check for each buyer but cannot legally stop a purchase solely because someone is on the watch list. The study found that people on the list purchased firearms 865 times in 963 attempts over a five-year period ending in February.
Those who were denied gun purchases were disqualified for other reasons, such as a felony conviction, a drug violation or being an illegal immigrant.
Citing a "terror gap," Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-N.J.) and Reps. John Conyers Jr. (D-Mich.) and Robert C. Scott (D-Va.) released the study, and Lautenberg introduced legislation yesterday to give the U.S. attorney general authority to stop the sale of guns or explosives to terrorists.
"The special interest gun lobby has so twisted our nation's laws that the rights of terrorists are placed above the safety of everyday Americans," Lautenberg said in a written statement. "The current law simply defies common sense."
Chris W. Cox, the National Rifle Association's chief lobbyist, said that his group opposes terrorists having access to firearms but that many people are placed on the watch list erroneously. The NRA cited a Justice Department inspector general's report in March that found that about 24,000 of 400,000 people on the list -- or about 6 percent -- were named based on outdated or irrelevant information in FBI files, sometimes after their cases had been closed.
"Law-abiding Americans should not be treated like terrorists," Cox said in a written statement. "To deny law-abiding people due process and their Second Amendment rights based on a secret list is not how we do things in America."
In 2005, the GAO reported that people on the watch list were able to buy weapons in 35 of 44 attempts between February and June 2004.
Justice Department spokesman Dean Boyd said the department had no comment on the GAO audit, which was first reported by the New York Times. Boyd added: "We're reviewing the [Lautenberg] bill."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/06/22/AR2009062201766.html?hpid=topnews