| Progressive breakfast club headlines 12/13/08 DAMN YOU, DABBAGH, WHY DID YOU HAVE TO GO AND SAY THAT? Iraqi PM Nouri al Maliki "sold" Iraqi Parliament on the Status of Forces Agreement with the U.S. which that body approved by assurances that (absent a new agreement) all U.S. forces in Iraq would by out by 2011. Iraqi's spokesman in D.C. Ali al Dabbagh, rattles officials in Baghdad by saying that Iraq might very likely be needing U.S. presence in the country for another 10 years. With a referendum on SOFA coming up early next year, hopes for its passage dim after the Dabbagh remark. http://www.mcclatchydc.com/251/story/57707.html AFRI-COM: A COMMAND IN SEARCH OF A MISSION. A New York Times reporter files his report "live" from a "remote" corner of West Africa, Mali, where American Green Berets in this country and 9 surrounding ones are engaged in a multi-country exercise to help Mali and other countries to stave off a supposedly growing Islamic militancy in these countries, on the rationale that the U.S. avoids fighting Al Qaeda in America by opposing it in Africa. The State Department's A.I.D. program kicks in by setting up radio towers for the transmission of anti-terrorist "information" and another program to encourage Muslim teachers to avoid promoting jihad as well as job training for young Muslim men and small business opportunites for Muslim women. A Green Beret colonel admits about the program that "This is crawl, walk, run, and right now, we're still in the crawl phase." http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/13/world/africa/13mali.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1&th&emc=th SOME ARAB COUNTRIES SEE DEPLOYMENT OF FOREIGN ANTI-PIRACY NAVIES OFF THE COAST OF SOMALIA AS A TROJAN HORSE THREATENING ARAB NATIONAL SECURITY. At a Cairo meeting, countries in the Red Sea area plan their own anti-piracy measures, while concern is expressed that U.S., Indian and other foreign vessels operating in the area may be there as a pretext to assert foreign dominance over Arab affairs. http://ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=44897 BARACK OBAMA'S AIDES "MISSPEAK" ABOUT HIS RELATIONSHIP WITH ROD BLAGOJEVICH. David Axelrod first said that Obama had spoken with the Illinois Governor about a replacement for himself as U.S. Senator. Rahm Emanuel first said that he and Obama, along with David Wilhelm, were the principle architects of Blagojevich's successful campaign for Governor in 2002. Both Axelrod and Emanuel later say they "misspoke" in making these statements. http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalpunch/2008/12/questions-arise.html SOME FOLKS IN THE PALM BEACH FL COUNTRY CLUB NOT VERY HAPPY TODAY. Wall Street invester Bernard Madoff, a part-time ($9.3 million mansion) resident of Palm Beach, is arrested on charges that he conducted a Ponzi scheme that may have lost as much as $50 billion for his unfortunate investers, including many wealthy fellow members of the PBCC. As one Club member says: "Everyone is in shock." They're embarrassed. They don't want to believe they got taken."http://www.palmbeachpost.com/localnews/content/local_news/epaper/2008/12/12/1212madoff.html Quote of the day: "What we're really up against here is a vicious, rabid laissez faire corporate capitalism that yields more riches for the rich international robber barons that worship money and don't give one fat F... about ordinary human life and the life of the planet itself. It's all based on TAKING. "Oh, there's oil under that Ecuadorean tribal village. Well, they don't matter."..."Oh, what's wrong with cutting off the tops of mountains and dumping the debris in the river and streams? The coal miners will have work and can feed their families. View? What view? Wildlife? Well, they're just animals." "Oh, huge, new gold deposits were found recently in the Congo. ... Gee, wonder why it's erupting over there and people are killing each other again. Look at all those weapons those rebels and the government has too. Where'd they come from? Gee." Comment posted 6:22 A.M. 12/13/08 on a Common Dreams article by Rose Ann De Moro advocating that Obama and Daschle make single-payer insurance the cornerstone of their "health reform" program, expressing this pessimism about passage under prevailing political culture. |
2008/12/13
Progresssive breakfast club headlines 12/13/08 56
The Taser Myth: How Does a 'Non-Lethal Weapon' Kill 400 People?
The Taser Myth: How Does a 'Non-Lethal Weapon' Kill 400 People?
By Liliana Segura, AlterNet
Posted on December 13, 2008
http://www.alternet.org/story/112403/
On Sept. 24, in Brooklyn, N.Y., a 35-year-old man named Iman Morales fell to his death after a 22-minute standoff with New York Police. Morales, who was described as "emotionally disturbed," had climbed onto the fire escape of a building in Bedford-Stuyvesant, naked and waving a metal pole. Unable to talk him down, one officer, under order from his lieutenant, shot Morales with a Taser gun, at which point he fell to the sidewalk, head-first.
He was taken to the hospital, where he was declared dead.
One week later, the officer who gave the order, Lt. Michael W. Pigott, drove to Brooklyn's Floyd Bennett Field, a former air base used by the NYPD, took a 9mm Glock from a locker room, and shot himself in the head.
It's hard to know which are more ubiquitous at this point: stories of accidental death by Tasers, or stories of police brutality involving bullets. Just this week, in New York, a Bronx man was shot and killed after he allegedly waved a baseball bat at police officers who entered his home. In theory, these sorts of confrontations are the reason such "non-lethal" weapons as Tasers exist. But news reports tell a different tale. In the United States and Canada, more than 400 people have died after being Tasered since 2001.
Apart from his suicide, what sets Pigott apart from most police officers who kill people using Tasers is that he must have realized that the order to Taser Morales could deal a fatal blow. Why he decided to do it anyway will remain unanswered. And it's impossible to know whether remorse over Morales' death was the driving factor behind his decision to take his life, or whether it was the stripping of his badge after over 20 years on the force -- or something else.
Regardless, for people who carry a Taser as an alternative to a gun, the realization that they are actually deadly weapons must deal a hard blow.
Despite the rather old news that Tasers can kill, the news media continue to be littered with reports of trigger-happy Taserers, many of whom should be relieved that their victims lived. This week in Oklahoma, police Tasered a man who had gone into diabetic shock while driving, which caused him to spin out of control on the road. (The officers felt "extremely bad" upon realizing that he was not drunk or high but rather in need of medical attention.) In another report, last month, undercover cops in North Carolina Tasered a man acting as a pallbearer at his father's funeral. (The local sheriff apologized for the deputies' behavior. "Family, friends, relatives. … That was a bad decision.")
Appalling social behavior aside, it doesn't seem hard to unearth the psychology behind excessive Taser use. It must be easy to be quick on the draw when toting a weapon that is like a pretend firearm. Like guns, Tasers are about much more than self-defense. For civilians (and cops), the sense of power that comes from carrying a weapon is a central part of the appeal. Taser International, Inc. has capitalized on this -- a trio of new C2 Taser models, which have been aggressively marketed toward women, come in leopard print and two styles of camouflage. ("Who says safety can't be stylish?" reads the marketing tag on the Taser Web site.) Tasers fulfill a powerful, violent fantasy: the ability to shoot someone without deadly consequences.
Taser's marketing coup has been to convince consumers that there is such a thing as a gun that won't kill. The number of deaths caused by Tasers cuts through this myth.
Recently, a new study discovered that the most common model of Taser used by police officers are far more hazardous than the company claims, capable of firing dangerous levels of electricity that can raise the risk of heart attack by as much as 50 percent. Shortly after the release of the findings, Canadian police departments pulled Tasers from their forces. ("Police departments in the United States, however, appear to have taken no similar action," reported the Arizona Republic.)
Pierre Savard, a biomedical engineer at the University of Montreal, led the study, which Taser International claims is composed of "false allegations based on scientifically flawed data". Last year, he also examined the high-profile death of Robert Dziekanski, a Polish immigrant who died after being Tasered by police at Vancouver International Airport.
"At first, I thought (Taser) was a great product," Savard told the Arizona Republic. "My point of view is that police officers already carry firearms, which are definitely more dangerous. So the Taser is much less dangerous to start with. But it should be used in a cautious manner.
"As a scientist … the risk is not zero."
Liliana Segura is an AlterNet staff writer.
© 2008 Independent Media Institute. All rights reserved.
View this story online at: http://www.alternet.org/story/112403/
2008/12/12
Weekend Meteor Shower and largest Full Moon tonight
http://spaceweather.com
WEEKEND METEORS: Earth is entering a stream of debris from extinct comet 3200 Phaethon, and this is causing the annual Geminid meteor shower. The shower is expected to peak on Dec. 13th and 14th. Normally, as many as 100 meteors per hour shoot out of the constellation Gemini, but this year a bright Moon will interfere with the display, reducing hourly counts to only 20 or so. That's could still be a nice show. For best results, watch the sky from 10 pm local time on Saturday night (Dec 13th) until dawn on Sunday morning (Dec. 14th).
BIGGEST FULL MOON OF THE YEAR: The Moon that's causing trouble for the Geminid display happens to be biggest full Moon of 2008, as much as 14% wider and 30% brighter than lesser Moons we've seen earlier this year. An astronomer would say this is a "perigee Moon" because it occurs at perigee, the side of the Moon's elliptical orbit closest to Earth. Go outside tonight and take a look. The meteor rate may be low, but the lunar beauty index is off the charts.
Check http://spaceweather.com for updates and more information.
BONUS: The Dec. 1st Great Conjunction Photo Gallery continues to grow with daily additions from around the world. Start browsing here: http://spaceweather.com/conjunctions/gallery_01dec08_page6.htm
Schoenman Goes Where Chomsky Fears to Tread...9/11
The Power of "Labels"
It may be no coincidence that a person labeled a "conspiracy theorist" might just as well be called "anti-semitic". These labels are too frequently used by jingoists as Ad hominem devices to stifle open debate...HWS
Schoenman Goes Where Chomsky Fears to Tread...9/11
Long active in political life, Ralph Schoenman and Mya Shone have been involved in international resistance to imperialism and active in the workers' movement in the United States. More: http://takingaimradio.com/about.html
The Politics of 9/11 - a one hour lecture
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=2692828401552537865&ei=8WpBSdXcD5LsqAP-m7jMCA&q=Ralph+Schoenman
The Hidden History of Zionism by Ralph Schoenman
This book is Online : http://www.marxists.de/middleast/schoenman/
The Hidden History of Zionism by Ralph Schoenman
This book is Online : http://www.marxists.de/middleast/schoenman/
2008/12/11
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2008/12/10
9/11 Apathy will lead to another 9/11 event
Professor, David Ray Griffin discusses the implications of apathy now that Obama will replace the neo-con regime.
Nothing could be further from the truth.
Proof beyond a reasonable doubt...and then some.
Evidence of controlled demolition gets stronger all the time but public apathy makes it more likely they will try another
false flag event as a pretext for more war and less protection of the Constitution and Bill of Rights.
GAO weighs in on the "Bail-Out"
Testimony
1. Troubled Asset Relief Program: Additional Actions Needed to Better Ensure Integrity, Accountability, and Transparency, by Gene L. Dodaro, acting comptroller general, before the House Committee on Financial Services. GAO-09-266T, December 10.
http://www.gao.gov/cgi-bin/getrpt?GAO-09-266T
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